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R+L=J v.139


BearQueen87

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Holy crap! If Beric Dondarrion has Targaryen blood, then Jon Snow - or any other Targaryen-blooded hero - could actually set his or her sword afire with the right spell. Stannis could do this, too. Mel most likely just hasn't thought about it yet. Burning swords may be trinkets in comparison to what the real magical heroes might be able to pull off.



Drogo's spirit obviously recognizes Dany in AGoT when he hatches the eggs. In death, his personality is restored, the pyre set him free, etc. That is all there, arguing against that makes little sense.



And, yes, no snippet of prophecy we have read so far suggests that the reborn Azor Ahai has to make a new Lightbringer or recover the old. All we know is that the historical Azor Ahai supposedly bore such a sword, and that he forged it in the third attempt by sacrificing his beloved wife. Whether the promised prince or the reborn Azor Ahai has to repeat that feature is not clear. I'd argue that Dany has done something similar with the dragons which could be a big hint - especially since all the other promised prince candidates have gotten nothing magical (neither dragon nor magic swords) in return for their 'sacrifices' or losses.



As to Azor Ahai as a whole:



My take on that guy is that he may not even have existed at all. TWoIaF tells us that there are plenty of stories about saviors during the Long Night - Yin Tar, Eldric Shadowchaser, Hyrkoon the Hero, etc. - who apparently have merged into one hero. But whether there ever was one hero or whether every culture retroactively attributed the ending of the Long Night to their own cultural hero is not clear. If this is the case then the 'one hero belief' in the East may be nothing but a later construction - 'Hell, you guys also believe that one guy saved us all?! Man, that must have been the same guy from our stories'.



The idea that the Azor Ahai stories are based on the Last Hero of Westeros - who most likely was the actual One Hero who actually fought against the Others who seem to be living only in Westeros and thus ended the Long Night - make little sense in my opinion as Colloquo Votar's Jade Compendium does not tell stories that suggest that Azor Ahai fought against the Others/ice demons. Surely that important detail would have been deleted from the stories about him had they originated in Westeros to spread all over the world.


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The idea that the Azor Ahai stories are based on the Last Hero of Westeros - who most likely was the actual One Hero who actually fought against the Others who seem to be living only in Westeros and thus ended the Long Night - make little sense in my opinion as Colloquo Votar's Jade Compendium does not tell stories that suggest that Azor Ahai fought against the Others/ice demons. Surely that important detail would have been deleted from the stories about him had they originated in Westeros to spread all over the world.

Lol, it makes perfect sense IMO. If there were no ice demons in Essos, how can their local heroes fight those non-existing enemies?

One thing we learn from both Jhogos Nai and the Dothraki is that they seem to foresee an apocalyptic end that will kill the nature and in return, they expect the khal of khals (or the jhattar) to lead them to better places. I guess this was the main function of their cultural heroes back in the day. The LN in Essos meant darkness, starvation, plagues, famine and whatnot. Their heroes led them to better places for survival which caused great mass migrations and wars between humans for diminishing resources.

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Lyanna was . . . fond of flowers.

Personally, I find the pause peculiar - as if Ned felt he had to be careful about the choice of words, perhaps leaving out something more emotionally charged.

I was going to say two sings and now I can only remember the one, sorry for that: Ned's ellipsis follows one from Robert (although I put not so much effort into finding out, what Robert might have thought), I think this is a small arc opening and closing from the first to the second:

"She was more beautiful than that," the king said after a silence. His eyes lingered on Lyanna's face, as if he could will her back to life. Finally he rose, made awkward by his weight. "Ah, damn it, Ned, did you have to bury her in a place like this?" His voice was hoarse with remembered grief. "She deserved more than darkness . . . "

"She was a Stark of Winterfell," Ned said quietly. "This is her place."

"She should be on a hill somewhere, under a fruit tree, with the sun and clouds above her and the rain to wash her clean."

"I was with her when she died," Ned reminded the king. "She wanted to come home, to rest beside Brandon and Father." He could hear her still at times. Promise me, she had cried, in a room that smelled of blood and roses. Promise me, Ned. The fever had taken her strength and her voice had been faint as a whisper, but when he gave her his word, the fear had gone out of his sister's eyes. Ned remembered the way she had smiled then, how tightly her fingers had clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling from her palm, dead and black. After that he remembered nothing. They had found him still holding her body, silent with grief. The little crannogman, Howland Reed, had taken her hand from his. Ned could recall none of it. "I bring her flowers when I can," he said. "Lyanna was . . . fond of flowers."

Ned seems to barge into Roberts reminiscing. He argues in favor of the place - the Winterfell crypts - and in favor of the darkness. What darkness? The "forgetting"? What else?

Obviously, he want's to get rid of the talk about Lyanna. Cut the discussion and the feelings short. A brave man.

PS: unrelated to the above, if you know some German language and culture, there is a feature by German magazine Brigitte on the show - all magazine covers - Brigitte in Westeros.

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The prophecy about the Stallion Who Mounts the World is a future prophecy. Nothing suggests that there were Dothraki back during the Long Night, or that they had a prophecy about a super leader back then.



I imagine Hyrkoon the Hero was a local hero and fire mage who founded the Patrimony of Hyrkoon - which eventually declined and became an unnatural fiery desolation possibly due to Hyrkoon's descendants not being able to control the magics and spells they used (they were also very much into sacrificing people).



Hyrkoon's fire magics could easily have helped his people during the Long Night without ever touching at its core causes - which would be connected to the Others in Westeros influencing the world as a whole with their magics.


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I was going to say two sings and now I can only remember the one, sorry for that: Ned's ellipsis follows one from Robert (although I put not so much effort into finding out, what Robert might have thought), I think this is a small arc opening and closing from the first to the second:

Ned seems to barge into Roberts reminiscing. He argues in favor of the place - the Winterfell crypts - and in favor of the darkness. What darkness? The "forgetting"? What else?

Obviously, he want's to get rid of the talk about Lyanna. Cut the discussion and the feelings short. A brave man.

PS: unrelated to the above, if you know some German language and culture, there is a feature by German magazine Brigitte on the show - all magazine covers - Brigitte in Westeros.

An ellipsis may omit things being said, but it is generally not used to change the meaning of what was said. It can also be used to add a sense of melancholy or longing, which I always read as the case here, as it ties into both mens feelings very accurately.

People should be careful not to over read into punctuation or to ignore the emotion of any character in a given scene. Both Ned and Robert are experiencing storng emotions of what one could call melancholy or longing in that moment which is very evident and the subject is difficult for both to talk about. I wold say for Robert this leads to feelings of anger and resentment, and Ned becomes more pensive on the matter. Ned often shows signs of melancholy on the matter, curse of Rhaegar.

If there is a clue I would say the ellipsis is used to show melancholy and that is a word Martin heavily associated with Rhaegar. Martin will often beat a reader over the head with little things like this. Just as he does with Daario's golden tooth. Heavy repitition of an item, word, thought "where do whores go" are almost always a clue about something. He does not repeat these things over and over because he is lazy, he wants you to remember them and to understand them. They are generally connected to something, a theme and idea, a symbol etc... Sometimes it's big and sometimes it is small. I think where do whores go appears 13 times in Dance, when his editor asked Martin to remove some of them, he refused. That is because it is there for a reason.

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@Ser Creighton: You may be right, or rather you might, and I may be too blind to see after 2 years of R+L=J.

Though I cannot help myself thinking that this may actually and equally well be there for a reason,
and it is at least a hint to the reader that Ned's thoughts are being censored. Maybe no way of resolving this.

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@Ser Creighton: You may be right, or rather you might, and I may be too blind to see after 2 years of R+L=J.

Though I cannot help myself thinking that this may actually and equally well be there for a reason,

and it is at least a hint to the reader that Ned's thoughts are being censored. Maybe no way of resolving this.

Probably not any real way to resolve, that is why I prefer bigger clues rather than a bit of punctuation, besides is that ellipsis going to change the story? Every know and then someone gets into a piece of punctuation and you get these debates about this period or comma that the entire story hinges on from someones perspective.

The author gave us a blue rose growing from a wall of ice, and many and more clues, I can work with those clues, those are nice big fat clues. I don't really need to get to into punctuation.

R+L=j can be tough at times, depends what is going on in the thread though sometimes I feel like there is this over focus on Rhaegar and Lyanna, like this is their story. It's not, it's part of Jon' story, they are dead and gone, it's not their story anymore, they had their story. The characters we follow now, it's their story and while the past can provide clues and impact, they are clues for the characters now.

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An ellipsis may omit things being said, but it is generally not used to change the meaning of what was said. It can also be used to add a sense of melancholy or longing, which I always read as the case here, as it ties into both mens feelings very accurately.

People should be careful not to over read into punctuation or to ignore the emotion of any character in a given scene. Both Ned and Robert are experiencing storng emotions of what one could call melancholy or longing in that moment which is very evident and the subject is difficult for both to talk about. I wold say for Robert this leads to feelings of anger and resentment, and Ned becomes more pensive on the matter. Ned often shows signs of melancholy on the matter, curse of Rhaegar.

If there is a clue I would say the ellipsis is used to show melancholy and that is a word Martin heavily associated with Rhaegar. Martin will often beat a reader over the head with little things like this. Just as he does with Daario's golden tooth. Heavy repitition of an item, word, thought "where do whores go" are almost always a clue about something. He does not repeat these things over and over because he is lazy, he wants you to remember them and to understand them. They are generally connected to something, a theme and idea, a symbol etc... Sometimes it's big and sometimes it is small. I think where do whores go appears 13 times in Dance, when his editor asked Martin to remove some of them, he refused. That is because it is there for a reason.

Come back to the real world...

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"Fond" from the Elia example suggested that Rhaegar, while he liked Elia, did not love her. If the "fond" Of the Lyanna example is taken the same way, does that mean that Lyanna, despite not really liking flowers, clung to these roses because they were from Rhaegar, or does it go further, and does it suggest that, whime she liked Rhaegar, she was not in love with him?

Lyanna was... fond of flowers.

Personally, I find the pause peculiar - as if Ned felt he had to be careful about the choice of words, perhaps leaving out something more emotionally charged.

Basically what Ygrain says. Both Barristan and Ned were being careful with their words. Perhaps the key takeaway is Dany thinking that the word spoke volumes. The same is true of Ned's use of the word as well.

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Holy crap! If Beric Dondarrion has Targaryen blood, then Jon Snow - or any other Targaryen-blooded hero - could actually set his or her sword afire with the right spell. Stannis could do this, too. Mel most likely just hasn't thought about it yet. Burning swords may be trinkets in comparison to what the real magical heroes might be able to pull off.

Drogo's spirit obviously recognizes Dany in AGoT when he hatches the eggs. In death, his personality is restored, the pyre set him free, etc. That is all there, arguing against that makes little sense.

And, yes, no snippet of prophecy we have read so far suggests that the reborn Azor Ahai has to make a new Lightbringer or recover the old. All we know is that the historical Azor Ahai supposedly bore such a sword, and that he forged it in the third attempt by sacrificing his beloved wife. Whether the promised prince or the reborn Azor Ahai has to repeat that feature is not clear. I'd argue that Dany has done something similar with the dragons which could be a big hint - especially since all the other promised prince candidates have gotten nothing magical (neither dragon nor magic swords) in return for their 'sacrifices' or losses.

As to Azor Ahai as a whole:

My take on that guy is that he may not even have existed at all. TWoIaF tells us that there are plenty of stories about saviors during the Long Night - Yin Tar, Eldric Shadowchaser, Hyrkoon the Hero, etc. - who apparently have merged into one hero. But whether there ever was one hero or whether every culture retroactively attributed the ending of the Long Night to their own cultural hero is not clear. If this is the case then the 'one hero belief' in the East may be nothing but a later construction - 'Hell, you guys also believe that one guy saved us all?! Man, that must have been the same guy from our stories'.

The idea that the Azor Ahai stories are based on the Last Hero of Westeros - who most likely was the actual One Hero who actually fought against the Others who seem to be living only in Westeros and thus ended the Long Night - make little sense in my opinion as Colloquo Votar's Jade Compendium does not tell stories that suggest that Azor Ahai fought against the Others/ice demons. Surely that important detail would have been deleted from the stories about him had they originated in Westeros to spread all over the world.

But nothing in TWOIAF matters, the novels stand alone... If it is not in the Novels than it does not matter...

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Basically what Ygrain says. Both Barristan and Ned were being careful with their words. Perhaps the key takeaway is Dany thinking that the word spoke volumes. The same is true of Ned's use of the word as well.

Ah, so you both meant that Ned was trying to make less of Lyanna's feelings on the topic, than they actually were? I understand.. :) Thanks!

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Ah, so you both meant that Ned was trying to make less of Lyanna's feelings on the topic, than they actually were? I understand.. :) Thanks!

You're welcome. The evidence that Ned is holding back might be right in the wording; "flowers" instead of "roses." If Ned said that Lyanna was fond of roses, that would get awkward in a hurry.

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You're welcome. The evidence that Ned is holding back might be right in the wording; "flowers" instead of "roses." If Ned said that Lyanna was fond of roses, that would get awkward in a hurry.

Yeah, Robert could associate (rightly so) to the crown of roses she received from Rhaegar.

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I think only Beric's Blood & now Lady Stoneheart's blood can cause a sword to burn... those who cary that flame/ritual thingy that Thoros used to bring Beric back from the dead...

I disagree. Your version requires Thoros and company to have been traveling with a supply of wildfire this whole time. Given what we know of the volatility of the substance that seems unlikely. It's also hard to imagine why Thoros would be able to revive the dead but not be able to ignite his sword. Furthermore I think that once Thoros saw the true power of the red god (reviving Beric and allowing Beric to ignite his sword with his blood and a prayer) he wouldn't want to keep faking it. All indications are that Thoros became true believer after he revived Beric.

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But nothing in TWOIAF matters, the novels stand alone... If it is not in the Novels than it does not matter...

I hope you delete this, because the owner of this forum, who worked on the world book would think otherwise.... I would be surprise if does not remove you from this forum after your nonsensical comment.

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If Ned is speaking the truth -and I think he was- and Lyanna indeed wanted him to bring her back to rest next to Brandon and their father, I wonder how the whole conversation about them went.



Also... did Rickard have a body to rest next to after he was burned by Aerys? :S How they got their bodies in first place?


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If Ned is speaking the truth -and I think he was- and Lyanna indeed wanted him to bring her back to rest next to Brandon and their father, I wonder how the whole conversation about them went.

Also... did Rickard have a body to rest next to after he was burned by Aerys? :S How they got their bodies in first place?

Did Jon Arryn and Robert return Brandon and Rickon's body/ashes to Ned to take home to WF?

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Did Jon Arryn and Robert return Brandon and Rickon's body/ashes to Ned to take home to WF?

It took a year for them to reach KL after they died. And I doubt Aerys treated their bodies with any kind of deserving honour.

Now, it's possible they took Brandon's body to be sent to Winterfell. But Rickard's ashes? I somehow imagine, dunno, Gerold Hightower with a broom trying to recover the most he can :(

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