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Astronomy of Planetos: Children of the Dawn, Part One


LmL

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Very interesting question. Maybe the Stark "handbook" is actually the weir wood. It's just that only the greenseer Starks can access it. Dawn itself might contain memories of the Dayne family. It's clearly a special object, and we don't know what all properties it has. Tarth, due to being far from any POV character currently, could have more accessible family history. Brienne just hasn't been told yet.

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Brienne represents the good potential of the sapphire demigod. The love and loyalty instead of the greed and ambition. The sapphire demigod chose to follow his darker instincts and became evil, but there was potential for another way. By moving from Morne to Evenfall, Tarth culture was trying to reject the dark and embrace this good side of the sapphire nature.

In this explanation perhaps lies the answer to Cercei's emerald connection. As a monarch she could have been generous and fruitful, making the kingdom a better place, like Garth. Instead she let her bitterness and paranoia rule her, becoming incestuous and generally making things worse. Joffrey was the "fruit" of this dark side of the emerald nature.

This logic isn't working for me. You can't have Stannis and Brienne both playing the role of this 'sapphire emperor.' That doesn't really make sense. Stannis is not from Tarth, nor connected to it. If anything, I would see Selwyn's rejection of Stannis as fitting with Stannis being Azor Ahai. But you really can't say Stannis and Brienne are both the same person in that scene... at least it doesn't seem to make any sense to me.

I also cannot see your connection between Cersei and Garth, that seems like a bit of a reach (no pun intended). Cersei doesn't plant or sew or make anything ripen. It seems like you are trying to attach emeralds to Garth, but it doesn't really fit. If George intended for this connection to be made, he would leave a couple hints. One of his children would have emerald something...you know? The only thing you have here is the color green, and that's way too vague.

I don't think you can link everything to the GEotD. There needs to be other players in the story. Plus, Sarnor and the Rhoynar existed pre-LN, and so did the Summer Islanders in all likelihood. I don't think it makes sense for the GEotD to be the source of EVERYTHING. If anyone is, it would likely be the cotf, who may have been involved with the GEoTD via Leng and the Old Ones. I said this before, and I will say it again: anyone who came to Westeros by land cannot be considered to be "from" the GEotD, for all intents and purposes. That's a land migration of thousands of miles which would have taken centuries. Everyone who came over the land bridge is a "First Men." The whole mystery of the GEotD is the idea that they arrived in Westeros first, by ship, and disappeared without leaving many traces. Trying to make the First Men GEotD people would undermine this idea, it seems to me. Plus, I think the role of Earth is a thing unto itself. Garth represents the flowering of the earth, the manifestation of nature itself. Thus I don't see him tied to a fire empire or any other external precedent. He's an unprecedented figure, perhaps the first man who ever lived.

I sometimes wonder if it wasn't the cotf who seeded all the races. There's much debate in anthropology about what caused the "great leap forward" in consciousness. Mankind had brains as large as we have now but was stuck making stone tools for a million years or more with basically no progress... until... something changed, all of the sudden, and culture exploded. This change was symbolic, or abstract thinking, which is necessary for language, religion, creativity, and many other defining elements of human existence. What was the catalyst? All the straight-laced scientists are stumped on this one - seriously, the hypothesis lack any evidence at all - and I actually find terrence McKenna's theories in this regard to make a lot of sense. That's referred to as "Stone Ape Theory," which is basically the idea that it was hallucinogens, likely one of the 200 species of psychedelic mushrooms that exists in the world, and this is what expanded the consciousness of mankind. Many ancient cultures have this "food of the gods" myth, including.. Christianty! The Egyptians had the blue lotus, and other cultures their preferred "food of the gods," but it's the same story. So now.. the weirwood paste. Was this how cotf created mankind from the hairy men? Or perhaps just un-evolved man, physically modern but waiting for the spark of intelligence?

This could have happened in multiple places, especially if the Old Ones are some kind of cotf or cotf opposite. The Ifequevron forests are just north of the Silver Sea (where it would have been) and the remaining womb of the world. The "First Man" came from the womb, say the Dothraki, riding a horse. The centaur stuff seems like a clue that Dothraki used to be horse skinchangers, which I tend to find plausible. The Fisher Queens were another golden age civilization, and right next to the Ifequevron...

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I've always felt that George tried to avoid situations in Ned's POV where any of his ancient family history is at the forefront of his mind. Like In The godswood - it's Catelyn's POV, so we're told by Catelyn to assume he's thinking of the man he just killed (which he may have been, I'm just using it as an example, but he could have been thinking about why he cleans his sword in the pond by the heart tree). And of the three oldest children, Jon (the odd one out) is the only one who has a POV in Winterfell. What are the chances George is trying to hide something from us that Robb and/or Sansa know about their home? It's always seemed like GRRM is hiding something in Sansa, of the Starks who get a POV, she's the only one that doesn't have one in Winterfell.

On topic: I love these essays! I don't have much to contribute, cause honestly most of it goes over my head while I'm reading! But I've been following them all and find them fascinating! All the contributions are fantastic! These are great threads, where everyone gets along, disagrees amicably, uses full sentences when responding! I love it! Thanks, all of you, for the great reads!

That's high praise indeed! We have very high standards here... complete sentences are a must. *chuckles* In all honesty, tyne sheer length of my OP's scare away trolls. Poor grammar and short attention spans go hand-in-hand, it seems. Muah ha ha ha! Long-windedness wins again!

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This logic isn't working for me. You can't have Stannis and Brienne both playing the role of this 'sapphire emperor.' That doesn't really make sense. Stannis is not from Tarth, nor connected to it. If anything, I would see Selwyn's rejection of Stannis as fitting with Stannis being Azor Ahai. But you really can't say Stannis and Brienne are both the same person in that scene... at least it doesn't seem to make any sense to me.

I also cannot see your connection between Cersei and Garth, that seems like a bit of a reach (no pun intended). Cersei doesn't plant or sew or make anything ripen. It seems like you are trying to attach emeralds to Garth, but it doesn't really fit. If George intended for this connection to be made, he would leave a couple hints. One of his children would have emerald something...you know? The only thing you have here is the color green, and that's way too vague.

I don't think you can link everything to the GEotD. There needs to be other players in the story. Plus, Sarnor and the Rhoynar existed pre-LN, and so did the Summer Islanders in all likelihood. I don't think it makes sense for the GEotD to be the source of EVERYTHING. If anyone is, it would likely be the cotf, who may have been involved with the GEoTD via Leng and the Old Ones. I said this before, and I will say it again: anyone who came to Westeros by land cannot be considered to be "from" the GEotD, for all intents and purposes. That's a land migration of thousands of miles which would have taken centuries. Everyone who came over the land bridge is a "First Men." The whole mystery of the GEotD is the idea that they arrived in Westeros first, by ship, and disappeared without leaving many traces. Trying to make the First Men GEotD people would undermine this idea, it seems to me. Plus, I think the role of Earth is a thing unto itself. Garth represents the flowering of the earth, the manifestation of nature itself. Thus I don't see him tied to a fire empire or any other external precedent. He's an unprecedented figure, perhaps the first man who ever lived.

I sometimes wonder if it wasn't the cotf who seeded all the races. There's much debate in anthropology about what caused the "great leap forward" in consciousness. Mankind had brains as large as we have now but was stuck making stone tools for a million years or more with basically no progress... until... something changed, all of the sudden, and culture exploded. This change was symbolic, or abstract thinking, which is necessary for language, religion, creativity, and many other defining elements of human existence. What was the catalyst? All the straight-laced scientists are stumped on this one - seriously, the hypothesis lack any evidence at all - and I actually find terrence McKenna's theories in this regard to make a lot of sense. That's referred to as "Stone Ape Theory," which is basically the idea that it was hallucinogens, likely one of the 200 species of psychedelic mushrooms that exists in the world, and this is what expanded the consciousness of mankind. Many ancient cultures have this "food of the gods" myth, including.. Christianty! The Egyptians had the blue lotus, and other cultures their preferred "food of the gods," but it's the same story. So now.. the weirwood paste. Was this how cotf created mankind from the hairy men? Or perhaps just un-evolved man, physically modern but waiting for the spark of intelligence?

This could have happened in multiple places, especially if the Old Ones are some kind of cotf or cotf opposite. The Ifequevron forests are just north of the Silver Sea (where it would have been) and the remaining womb of the world. The "First Man" came from the womb, say the Dothraki, riding a horse. The centaur stuff seems like a clue that Dothraki used to be horse skinchangers, which I tend to find plausible. The Fisher Queens were another golden age civilization, and right next to the Ifequevron...

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This.

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I don't think you can link everything to the GEotD. There needs to be other players in the story. Plus, Sarnor and the Rhoynar existed pre-LN, and so did the Summer Islanders in all likelihood. I don't think it makes sense for the GEotD to be the source of EVERYTHING. If anyone is, it would likely be the cotf, who may have been involved with the GEoTD via Leng and the Old Ones. I said this before, and I will say it again: anyone who came to Westeros by land cannot be considered to be "from" the GEotD, for all intents and purposes. That's a land migration of thousands of miles which would have taken centuries. Everyone who came over the land bridge is a "First Men." The whole mystery of the GEotD is the idea that they arrived in Westeros first, by ship, and disappeared without leaving many traces. Trying to make the First Men GEotD people would undermine this idea, it seems to me. Plus, I think the role of Earth is a thing unto itself. Garth represents the flowering of the earth, the manifestation of nature itself. Thus I don't see him tied to a fire empire or any other external precedent. He's an unprecedented figure, perhaps the first man who ever lived.

I tend to agree with this. This group comes up with a lot of great material, but I think sometimes in doing so there is a hyper pattern recognition mode that kicks in that starts seeing faces in tree bark. (Okay, maybe that's not the right metaphore. Animal shapes in clouds.) I tend not to say it too often, because I think it is too easy to say, and we see so many trolls say it without giving careful consideration to the arguements being made, first.

Some characters just have blue eys, because there are limited number of standard eye color available. This is comming from someone who literally looked up every reference to the color blue in the books when writing my Red God, Blue God essay.

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Actually…I think I’m just having a massive explain-fail with this gemstone stuff. I need to back up and show my work, so to speak, in connecting emeralds, Garth, Renly, and Cercei. They are connected, I’m sure, but it’s complicated and needs its own post. Then another separate one connecting all the sapphire figures.


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Actually…I think I’m just having a massive explain-fail with this gemstone stuff. I need to back up and show my work, so to speak, in connecting emeralds, Garth, Renly, and Cercei. They are connected, I’m sure, but it’s complicated and needs its own post. Then another separate one connecting all the sapphire figures.

Yes, take your time, that's my advice. I have notes for like 10 essays, with all kinds of wild ideas, but I have tried to take each idea one at a time and corroborate as well as i can, so I am only on essay #4 in 4 months (you should see my first draft... absolutely insane. ALL the subjects... ) It seems to be an approach that has worked for me. Take your time and lead people up to the place that you are in now.

Beth I think you have a lot of good ideas, and I am pretty sure you are on to some specific mysteries here. Even the things I tend to disagree with, I cannot rule out as I have not investigated them thoroughly (Garth and the Others, specifically). I think you should absolutely keep pursuing all of them and see where it goes. I would encourage you to take each idea and try to support it as much as humanly possible with as much text as you can find. Word searches are good, so are character re-reads (every scene with Renly in it, for example, or all the Brienne chapters). Once you have a new set of ideas such you do with the color trinity and Illyrio, it's good to do an entire re-read, because your ears will be tuned in on certain ideas and you will definitely catch things you would not find any other way - you can't word search a metaphor, you have to read it in context.

In particular, nobody has solved the mystery of Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, Symeon Star Eyes, or the general Tarth stuff (evenstar, their sigil, etc), and you have some good ideas there. I'm excited to see where that line of inquiry leads.

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^^I second that Blind Beth! Your essays have been pretty good reads so far too! I've only finished the Illyrio one so far, and I'm looking forward to it and any others you produce!

ETA: Mithras squished in there - I'm agreeing with LmL's post. Haven't read Mithras' comment yet!

ETA2: yay! Another theory! I'm loving these forums, but my laundry pile's getting huge!

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I tend to agree with this. This group comes up with a lot of great material, but I think sometimes in doing so there is a hyper pattern recognition mode that kicks in that starts seeing faces in tree bark. (Okay, maybe that's not the right metaphore. Animal shapes in clouds.) I tend not to say it too often, because I think it is too easy to say, and we see so many trolls say it without giving careful consideration to the arguements being made, first.

Some characters just have blue eys, because there are limited number of standard eye color available. This is comming from someone who literally looked up every reference to the color blue in the books when writing my Red God, Blue God essay.

I really try hard to stick to the text. I do have creative hypothesis from time to time, but I smash them against the text repeatedly before I get attached to them as being possible or probable. I find that under scrutiny, connections that are actually random noise tend to fall apart, whereas the patterns George really is hiding will tend to rise again, harder and stronger, in many places throughout the text. Like, for example, I don't have the exact number, but I am losing count of the number of times a sun thing kills a moon thing in the text. It's everywhere, in every book. Think of the reoccurring motifs - one eyed things, broken swords, childbirth death, resurrection, dualism, people as moons or suns, weeping blood, fish people, burning trees, shadows and light, etc etc. The things are reinforced all over the place. Even things like secret theories are referred to again and again. How many king references are around Jon Snow? The first one you notice, you might think, "thats weird," but after while.. there must be something to it.

The point is, if your hunch or hypothesis is right, the text will corroborate it. SO any theory that is short on text support... is either wrong, or simply needs more research to strengthen it. I do not agree with the "we cannot now" crowd. Those people are basically to ally missing the point, imo. George wants us to know, wants us to search. That seems really, really damn obvious to me.

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Yes, take your time, that's my advice. I have notes for like 10 essays, with all kinds of wild ideas, but I have tried to take each idea one at a time and corroborate as well as i can, so I am only on essay #4 in 4 months (you should see my first draft... absolutely insane. ALL the subjects... ) It seems to be an approach that has worked for me. Take your time and lead people up to the place that you are in now.

Beth I think you have a lot of good ideas, and I am pretty sure you are on to some specific mysteries here. Even the things I tend to disagree with, I cannot rule out as I have not investigated them thoroughly (Garth and the Others, specifically). I think you should absolutely keep pursuing all of them and see where it goes. I would encourage you to take each idea and try to support it as much as humanly possible with as much text as you can find. Word searches are good, so are character re-reads (every scene with Renly in it, for example, or all the Brienne chapters). Once you have a new set of ideas such you do with the color trinity and Illyrio, it's good to do an entire re-read, because your ears will be tuned in on certain ideas and you will definitely catch things you would not find any other way - you can't word search a metaphor, you have to read it in context.

In particular, nobody has solved the mystery of Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, Symeon Star Eyes, or the general Tarth stuff (evenstar, their sigil, etc), and you have some good ideas there. I'm excited to see where that line of inquiry leads.

Thanks! This is turning into a larger project than I anticipated, but very fun. Starting a Clash re-read this weekend for sure.

a must-read from tze here.

Cool, thanks, I will check that out.

^^I second that Blind Beth! Your essays have been pretty good reads so far too! I've only finished the Illyrio one so far, and I'm looking forward to it and any others you produce!

ETA: Mithras squished in there - I'm agreeing with LmL's post. Haven't read Mithras' comment yet!

ETA2: yay! Another theory! I'm loving these forums, but my laundry pile's getting huge!

Aw, thanks!

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My pet theory about the lemurs is that Qohor maintained its independence from Valyria because the priests of the Black Goat turned all of the Valyrians who came there into lemurs.

But your idea makes more actual sense. It fits really well with the warg notion of second life and the CotF concept of spirits of dead wargs and greenseers inhabiting weirwoods and ravens.

This is kind of what I was getting at, yeah.

1. Yes, I also noted the Latin meaning of Lemurs during my research. In addition to that they are basal primates that evolved in isolation on Madagascar, eventually diverging into several related species found no where else. In connection with the Valyrians, my take on this is that the spirits of the dead might be a nod at the ancestors of the Valyrians - those that descended from the Opal Emperor later from the BSE.

2. Flying horses as dragons – entirely possible. The Dothraki are a relatively young people compared to others in Essos and their Stallion that mounts the world prophecy involves a hero who will unite all Dothraki into one single khalassar. To what end we don’t really know. MMD seemed to see this Stallion as a great threat to mankind and from what we know of the Dothraki, her opinion isn’t far-fetched. Nevertheless, it seems the prophecy is related to the other legends of heros such as Azor Ahai etc. The Dothraki then probably have a collective subconscious memory of the Long Night along with their own version of an expected ‘saviour’. That they have a memory of this event is supported by some traditions: Dothraki practice cremation, a process which not only releases their spirits and transforms them into flying horses, but is also an effective way of preventing being risen as a wight. They additionally behead the dead and dying after a battle – a curious practice but one which can be seen as a further measure to ensure no rising after death (I believe the wights are controlled via their star eyes – corpses with no head cannot be controlled). We see that the Dothraki are deeply troubled by the idea of not being able to perform the cremation rites for their dead. My view on the spirits is thus different. By becoming stars, the spirits take control and if horses represent dragons – what better weapon to eliminate wights than to bathe them in fire from above?

3. The idea of the spirits of dead dragonlords is compelling, after all we have the spirits of dead CotF inhabiting ravens but if this is the reason for bonding, then it’s more likely that this happens at some later stage, after the dragon is hatched and may be the means by which dragonlords are able to control their personal dragons. It does not really explain why all attempts to hatch dragon eggs after the Dance failed for instance. There must be some aspect to the Targaryens that induces hatching in the first place, imo. The World Book provides many examples of dragons which hatch when placed in the cradle of a new born but we also find out that eggs do not hatch for all children. Why don’t eggs hatch for all Targaryen children? Did the dragon embryos not contain dragonlord spirits? I think there’s another explanation to this, one connected to the ‘blood of the dragon’, essentially a genetic feature which some but not all Targaryens are born with.

4. Both Aerys and Aerion try to wake or transform into dragons using wildfire. I think these were simply misguided interpretations of the belief that dragons are ‘fire made flesh’.

1. That's a good idea, too.

2. I agree on the "collective subconscious memory" idea. There's something there. If nothing else, there are certainly hints to be found in these in-universe mythologies. GRRM leaves so much background info out, that it makes sense to pay close attention when he puts something in.

3. LmL raised this issue when I first posted this in his earlier thread. I don't know exactly why it's not necessary to do this every time, but it's obviously not. Yet, it also seems like it is other times. I guessed that maybe once you've shadow-binded a person's shade to a dragon, that the dragon's offspring retains some of that, making them something like cousins with future generations of those dragon riders. That's assuming the person sacrificed and shadow-binded to the dragon was a blood relative of the dragon riders, which I'm not sure is always true. It doesn't appear to be the case with Dany's dragons, where it seems like Drogo and possibly MMD's spirits could be inhabiting two of her dragons. In that case, I would assume that some kind of bond between the dragon rider and the person sacrificed substitutes for blood relation.

4. The idea here is that GRRM could be hiding nuggets of truth in the insane actions of two well-known psychos. Since these actions are so obviously dragon-shit insane, and the characters are both demonstrably crazy, these nuggets of truth are easily dismissed. And any argument based on "But Aerys and Aerion thought so!" would carry no credibility. Yet, the idea may not be completely far fetched. In either case, their actions were certainly misguided.

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I'm behind, and falling further behind as real life gets in the way... but here are a few things I wanted to chime in on...






I wonder if skinchanging dragons is an ability that was lost at some point. Leaving dragon riding as something separate or split from skinchanging. Imagine if you could combine a line of skinchangers with a line of dragon riders. You might be able to (re)forge that ability sword. :)





Just imagine how the connection might've been different in the days when Valyrian dragon eggs were hatched in the cradle along with their masters...



I'd imagine it would look a lot more like the Starks and their pups.



But yes, love the idea of reforging that particular sword ;)






FWIW I am in the VoFM camp on this debate.





:cheers:



Moonlight, Starlight, these are the only forms of light the Others wish upon the world.



And also, the Fire-side does not have a monopoly on dark black shadows:



Prologue AGOT



A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as new-fallen snow, there black as shadow, everywhere dappled with the deep grey-green of the trees. The patterns ran like moonlight on water with every step it took.





snip




Hopefully some of you can take a look at this chapter analysis here and have some insight.






Nice! Looks like I found it LmL... I'll write more when I have more time...


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I really try hard to stick to the text. I do have creative hypothesis from time to time, but I smash them against the text repeatedly before I get attached to them as being possible or probable. I find that under scrutiny, connections that are actually random noise tend to fall apart, whereas the patterns George really is hiding will tend to rise again, harder and stronger, in many places throughout the text. Like, for example, I don't have the exact number, but I am losing count of the number of times a sun thing kills a moon thing in the text. It's everywhere, in every book. Think of the reoccurring motifs - one eyed things, broken swords, childbirth death, resurrection, dualism, people as moons or suns, weeping blood, fish people, burning trees, shadows and light, etc etc. The things are reinforced all over the place. E

Just want to say how awesome your threads and analyses are LmL.

Your OP convinced me, but then I picked up one of the books (ADwD I think it was), read two chapters, and immediately found references to the moon all over the place. I could only wonder how I'd never realized that before. But I guess we're so used to seeing the moon and sun everywhere and in literary descriptions, that it's easy to miss when there is symbolism behind it.

Now I want to do a complete re-read, but I don't have the time these days. :bawl:

Keep up the great work.

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Awsome work. Gratz!

My one impression is that Stygai might be the first capital of GEotD. One huge meteor from the Moon caused his destruction and Asshai is made from exactly that black stone by the Bloodstone Emperor. He worshiped black stone due it represents death of Amethyst Empress and her death represents begining of his reign.

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So Asshai is Bloodstone Emperor's town, a symbol of his dominion. Stygai's now dead city, nobody ever returns from there, even shadowbinders fear to approach. Presume that shadowbinders were always servants of Blood Emperor, who is evidently evil. That means Asshai's place of darkness as you said. It says that Stygai's a place were dead and demons and other monsters walk - and who sais that? Asshaiis? yea, right, pork pie. :-)

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Awsome work. Gratz!

My one impression is that Stygai might be the first capital of GEotD. One huge meteor from the Moon caused his destruction and Asshai is made from exactly that black stone by the Bloodstone Emperor. He worshiped black stone due it represents death of Amethyst Empress and her death represents begining of his reign.

Thanks for honoring my thread with your first post on the forum! Welcome! That's an interesting idea about Stygai. I haven't thought too much about it, really. The only thing about that is my general argument that such a large city as Asshai makes more sense to be built by an old, rich civilization that is thriving, as opposed to black sorcerers during an apocalypse. If Asshai was like, a small fortress city, or like Yeen, I'd say "yeah, maybe the black sorcerers built it," but it's so offing huge... I think it was transformed. I hitnk the corruption flows from the heart of shadow and poisons everything on the whole peninsula. But I'll keep your idea in mind as I go. :cheers:

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