Heresy 174

[Tucu]

I'm on the road now, but I may have to rethink this. Can you point me to the chapter in Clash? I don't trust the wiki LOL

The first line is from ACoK Theon IV when they are searching from Bran and Rickon. The second is from GoT Catelyn VIII when they are in Moat Cailin. I have a Kindle compilation so can't give you real page numbers.

[Voice]

Hmmm the COTF along with their wise men forge a "pact" on the isle of faces. The particulars are as follows.Let's forget that one side got the short end of the stick.
 
1.The COTF give up most of their land except for the Deep Forests which was to remain their domain.
 
2.The first men agree not to cut down any weirwood anywhere nor put fire to them
 
 
Q. Were these conditions met Voice of the first men?
 
My issue with Voice's take 
 
Homogenous labeling of the COTF- We know at one point cooperation between "some" COTF and greenseers and "some" humans happened.Thus, It is incorrect to generalize the relationship between "men" and the "Children".
 
 
There is evidence that Men broke the pact.Do the Deep forest belong to the COTF only or are Men still there in one form or the other?
 
Did Weirwoods continually get get cut down and burned?
 
You say "cooperation' overall i say "non interferance".
 
When the wws and the dead swept over the land where was this alliance? There was none,there was no "help"
When the Andals came where was this alliance? According to the main text there was none.The WB cites one or two instances of Children allying with some humans...That's it.

Yes, the conditions were met, until the Andals came of course. And, yes, per the text, the cotf aided the last hero against the Others.

[Tucu]

I see the CoTF/Weirwoods trying to setup new borders and later being force to retreat.

-First they populated all Westeros, then came the First Men and the war.

-After the first Hammer hit and the Pact they retreated to the deep forests.

-A second hammer hit at the Neck. Have they retreated to the North but they are still friends with some First Men?

-Then the Long Night arrives and the Last Hero spend years looking for them. Have they retreated even further into the North?

-The Long Night ends and a Wall is built.

-in 297 AC they can only be found beyond-the-Wall and 50000 wildlings live there

[Summer Is Coming!]

One aspect of the Pact that seems stranger after looking at the "histories" of the First Man kingdoms and the World Book's discussion of the Children is that if there were hundreds of kingdoms and potentially different tribes of Children did all of them participate in the Pact?  I feel like this might be part of understanding the Others, the original Long Night, and the current events in Westeros.

 

For example, with all of the Children slaughtered in their wars with the First Men, were there entire tribes that had been wiped out?  If there were pockets of Children that did not like the Pact would those involved have joined the First Men in eradicating them?  This same idea can point towards the First Men.  If there were kingdoms that refused the Pact, were they destroyed?

 

Understanding the initial interactions subsequent to the Pact, the first times it was tested, could be crucial to interpreting the current interactions.

[Summer Is Coming!]

(unless the crannogmen forged an alliance with the CoTF before the Pact...a prePact?)

 

The descriptions of the crannogmen, First Men Starks and other northern families, and the Children make it seem like the crannogmen are descended from both the First Men and the Children.  If so, I wonder if they would consider themselves more human/First Men or Children.  The Reeds seem to identify as First Men, but they also have their special oath in ACOK.  If there had been an alliance before the Pact, would they have been considered by the others as representative of the Children or the First Men?  

[Voice]

The first line is from ACoK Theon IV when they are searching from Bran and Rickon. The second is from GoT Catelyn VIII when they are in Moat Cailin. I have a Kindle compilation so can't give you real page numbers.

 

Ok I'll dig around...

[Tucu]

One aspect of the Pact that seems stranger after looking at the "histories" of the First Man kingdoms and the World Book's discussion of the Children is that if there were hundreds of kingdoms and potentially different tribes of Children did all of them participate in the Pact?  I feel like this might be part of understanding the Others, the original Long Night, and the current events in Westeros.

 

For example, with all of the Children slaughtered in their wars with the First Men, were there entire tribes that had been wiped out?  If there were pockets of Children that did not like the Pact would those involved have joined the First Men in eradicating them?  This same idea can point towards the First Men.  If there were kingdoms that refused the Pact, were they destroyed?

 

Understanding the initial interactions subsequent to the Pact, the first times it was tested, could be crucial to interpreting the current interactions.

My view is that the CoTF/Weirnet reach consensus before big decisions. The hammer hits, the Pact, reforging the alliance with the Last Hero and the Wall. Maybe even the Long Night :devil:

[Summer Is Coming!]

My view is that the CoTF/Weirnet reach consensus before big decisions. The hammer hits, the Pact, reforging the alliance with the Last Hero and the Wall. Maybe even the Long Night :devil:

 

Would you seen any actions taken against a group of Children or greenseers who were not agreeing to a consensus in order to preserve the decision of the others?

[Voice]

The first line is from ACoK Theon IV when they are searching from Bran and Rickon. The second is from GoT Catelyn VIII when they are in Moat Cailin. I have a Kindle compilation so can't give you real page numbers.

 

Looks like it's from Reek II ADWD:

 

If he closed his eyes, he could see the banners in his mind’s eye, snapping bravely in a brisk north wind. All gone now, all fallen. The wind on his cheeks was blowing from the south, and the only banners flying above the remains of Moat Cailin displayed a golden kraken on a field of black.

He was being watched. He could feel the eyes. When he looked up, he caught a glimpse of pale faces peering from behind the battlements of the Gatehouse Tower and through the broken masonry that crowned the Children’s Tower, where legend said the children of the forest had once called down the hammer of the waters to break the lands of Westeros in two.

The only dry road through the Neck was the causeway, and the towers of Moat Cailin plugged its northern end like a cork in a bottle. The road was narrow, the ruins so positioned that any enemy coming up from the south must pass beneath and between them. To assault any of the three towers, an attacker must expose his back to arrows from the other two, whilst climbing damp stone walls festooned with streamers of slimy white ghostskin. The swampy ground beyond the causeway was impassable, an endless morass of suckholes, quicksands, and glistening green swards that looked solid to the unwary eye but turned to water the instant you trod upon them, the whole of it infested with venomous serpents and poisonous flowers and monstrous lizard lions with teeth like daggers. Just as dangerous were its people, seldom seen but always lurking, the swamp-dwellers, the frog-eaters, the mud-men. Fenn and Reed, Peat and Boggs, Cray and Quagg, Greengood and Blackmyre, those were the sorts of names they gave themselves. The ironborn called them all bog devils.

 

I don't see where it says this occurred after the Pact, though...

 

 

 

 

EDIT:

 

 

The 2nd hammer hit was after the Pact:

-"The histories say that the crannogmen grew close to the children of the forest in the days when the greenseers tried to bring the hammer of the waters down upon the Neck"

-"And the Tall, slender Children's Tower, were legend said the children of the forest had once called upon their nameless gods to send the hammer of the waters"

 

(unless the crannogmen forged an alliance with the CoTF before the Pact...a prePact?)

 

Okay, I found them both. No mention of this occurring after the Pact.

 

A Game of Thrones - Catelyn VIII

 

Just beyond, through the mists, she glimpsed the walls and towers of Moat Cailin … or what remained of them. Immense blocks of black basalt, each as large as a crofter's cottage, lay scattered and tumbled like a child's wooden blocks, half-sunk in the soft boggy soil. Nothing else remained of a curtain wall that had once stood as high as Winterfell's. The wooden keep was gone entirely, rotted away a thousand years past, with not so much as a timber to mark where it had stood. All that was left of the great stronghold of the First Men were three towers … three where there had once been twenty, if the taletellers could be believed.

 

The Gatehouse Tower looked sound enough, and even boasted a few feet of standing wall to either side of it. The Drunkard's Tower, off in the bog where the south and west walls had once met, leaned like a man about to spew a bellyful of wine into the gutter. And the tall, slender Children's Tower, where legend said the children of the forest had once called upon their nameless gods to send the hammer of the waters, had lost half its crown. It looked as if some great beast had taken a bite out of the crenellations along the tower top, and spit the rubble across the bog. All three towers were green with moss. A tree was growing out between the stones on the north side of the Gatehouse Tower, its gnarled limbs festooned with ropy white blankets of ghostskin.

 

"Gods have mercy," Ser Brynden exclaimed when he saw what lay before them. "This is Moat Cailin? It's no more than a—"

[Tucu]

 

Looks like it's from Reek II ADWD:

 

If he closed his eyes, he could see the banners in his mind’s eye, snapping bravely in a brisk north wind. All gone now, all fallen. The wind on his cheeks was blowing from the south, and the only banners flying above the remains of Moat Cailin displayed a golden kraken on a field of black.

He was being watched. He could feel the eyes. When he looked up, he caught a glimpse of pale faces peering from behind the battlements of the Gatehouse Tower and through the broken masonry that crowned the Children’s Tower, where legend said the children of the forest had once called down the hammer of the waters to break the lands of Westeros in two.

The only dry road through the Neck was the causeway, and the towers of Moat Cailin plugged its northern end like a cork in a bottle. The road was narrow, the ruins so positioned that any enemy coming up from the south must pass beneath and between them. To assault any of the three towers, an attacker must expose his back to arrows from the other two, whilst climbing damp stone walls festooned with streamers of slimy white ghostskin. The swampy ground beyond the causeway was impassable, an endless morass of suckholes, quicksands, and glistening green swards that looked solid to the unwary eye but turned to water the instant you trod upon them, the whole of it infested with venomous serpents and poisonous flowers and monstrous lizard lions with teeth like daggers. Just as dangerous were its people, seldom seen but always lurking, the swamp-dwellers, the frog-eaters, the mud-men. Fenn and Reed, Peat and Boggs, Cray and Quagg, Greengood and Blackmyre, those were the sorts of names they gave themselves. The ironborn called them all bog devils.

 

I don't see where it says this occurred after the Pact, though...

That is a third mention of what happened at the Neck. I didn't search ADWD before (separate kindle book).

The quote from ACOK is the one that mentions the CoTF and the crannogmen being close at the time.

GRRM is really "hammering" into our minds that the CoTF tried to sink the Neck :-)

[Voice]

That is a third mention of what happened at the Neck. I didn't search ADWD before (separate kindle book).

The quote from ACOK is the one that mentions the CoTF and the crannogmen being close at the time.

GRRM is really "hammering" into our minds that the CoTF tried to sink the Neck :-)

 

Sure, I get that. But where is the mention of this occurring after the Pact?

[Black Crow]

As I recall the World Book spoke of the hammer of the waters being a single event. The fact that there is confusion over this in the text and the attribution of one of the towers at Moat Caillin being the place where it happened is, simply, I think part of GRRM's world building:

 

 Oh, and he did mention that he put lots of legends into the books such as Bran the Builder. Bran the builder is supposed to have built the Wall, Winterfell, and Storms End. GRRM mentioned that he has become a legend so that people will look at a structure and say "wow, it must have been built by Bran the Builder" when it actually was not. This is GRRM's attempt on creating a world with myths and legends so if at some point you see, "They say it was built by Bran the Builder or Lann the Clever" realize that its part of the mythos.

 

I'd be inclined to suggest that at best, in this case Moat Caillin was where it happened, but long before the castle was built and that the naming of a particular tower is just part of the mythos.

[Tucu]

 

Sure, I get that. But where is the mention of this occurring after the Pact?

Not directly, but the crannogmen were already allies of the CotF at this point. I am assuming that they became allies after the Pact.

 

As I recall the World Book spoke of the hammer of the waters being a single event. The fact that there is confusion over this in the text and the attribution of one of the towers at Moat Caillin being the place where it happened is, simply, I think part of GRRM's world building:

 

 Oh, and he did mention that he put lots of legends into the books such as Bran the Builder. Bran the builder is supposed to have built the Wall, Winterfell, and Storms End. GRRM mentioned that he has become a legend so that people will look at a structure and say "wow, it must have been built by Bran the Builder" when it actually was not. This is GRRM's attempt on creating a world with myths and legends so if at some point you see, "They say it was built by Bran the Builder or Lann the Clever" realize that its part of the mythos.

 

I'd be inclined to suggest that at best, in this case Moat Caillin was where it happened, but long before the castle was built and that the naming of a particular tower is just part of the mythos.

According to the legends the CoTF used the hammer twice. First to shatter the Arm of Dorne then in a failed attempt to do the same at the Neck.

But yes, most of what we know about the CoTF are legends and could be just fantasies, including the Pact.

[Black Crow]

But yes, most of what we know about the CoTF are legends and could be just fantasies, including the Pact.

 

I'm sticking with the World Book here. GRRM has also said in text [through young Hoster Blackwood] :

 

Only no one knows when the Andals crossed the narrow sea. The True History says four thousand years have passed since then, but some masters claim that it was only two. Past a certain point, all the dates grow hazy and confused, and the clarity of history becomes the fog of legend.

 

In that fog I think it would probably be fair to say that legends of the Pact are bathed in a somewhat roseate light

[Tucu]

 

I'm sticking with the World Book here. GRRM has also said in text [through young Hoster Blackwood] :

 

Only no one knows when the Andals crossed the narrow sea. The True History says four thousand years have passed since then, but some masters claim that it was only two. Past a certain point, all the dates grow hazy and confused, and the clarity of history becomes the fog of legend.

 

In that fog I think it would probably be fair to say that legends of the Pact are bathed in a somewhat roseate light

Isn't the World Book even less reliable than local legends? Written by a contemporary maester to entertain and praise Robert and his successors?

 

I agree that the fog is there and will probably not be lifted even after the last book

[Matthew.]

Two separate events makes sense if one is inclined (like I am) to believe that the CotF weren't dealing with groups of pioneers gradually stealing their land in dribs and drabs, but rather, were facing total annihilation against a relentless, organized enemy that had arrived in their thousands. First they try to cut off the enemy at the Arm, and fail, then they try to cut them off at the Neck, and it's still not enough.

Why bother severing the Arm if the enemy has already been settling the land for a couple generations? I think the events leading up to the Pact happened a lot more rapidly than the 2,000 year time frame in Luwin's tale.

[Black Crow]

Why bother severing the Arm if the enemy has already been settling the land for a couple generations? I think the events leading up to the Pact happened a lot more rapidly than the 2,000 year time frame in Luwin's tale.

 

I think the point is that all through the main text - written mark you over a period of 20 years - we're presented with myths, legends and contradictions, some deliberate others not and latterly there's been some retconning on the dates or rather a shortening of the dating as seen in the near simultaneous discussions on the coming of the Andals by Rodrik the Reader and Hoster Blackwood. The World Book therefore, particularly as far as the pre-Targaryen stuff appears to be a consolidation of this, where just for example the Long Night was been brought forward to 6,000 years ago rather than 8,000 years as we were first told - and if we didn't have that business in text of the Andals only turning up about 1,000 years ago then we would have the Long Night occurring simultaneously with the first arrival of the Andals!

 

Therefore I'm inclined to take the World Book as GRRM setting things straight

[Matthew.]

 

Therefore I'm inclined to take the World Book as GRRM setting things straight

This sort of aligns with what I'm saying though, as it's the WB that has inspired me toward that line of thinking in the first place. Quoth the WB:

____
According to the most well-regarded accounts from the Citadel, anywhere from eight thousand to twelve thousand years ago, in the southernmost reaches of Westeros, a new people crossed the strip of land that bridged the narrow sea and connected the eastern lands with the land in which the children and giants lived. It was here that the First Men came into Dorne via the Broken Arm, which was not yet broken. Why these people left their homelands is lost to all knowing, but when they came, they came in force. Thousands entered and began to settle the lands, and as the decades passed, they pushed farther and farther north. Such tales as we have of those migratory days are not to be trusted, for they suggest that, within a few short years, the First Men had moved beyond the Neck and into the North. Yet, in truth, it would have taken decades, even centuries, for this to occur.
____

In truth, it would have taken decades, even centuries for this to occur...if the men arrived as pioneering settlers, rather than invaders. IMHO, the Arm was broken in response to an active, aggressive threat.

[Voice]

Not directly, but the crannogmen were already allies of the CotF at this point. I am assuming that they became allies after the Pact.

 

Ah, well in that case, it certainly sounds far more like an interpretation, rather than canon (albeit a very astute and interesting interpretation).

 

I know it may not seem like it sometimes, but I have a completely open mind about all of this stuff, including my own pet theories. I'm always ready to look at things from another person's perspective. Until recently, I typically favored RLJ as the solution of Jon's parentage. Now, after a more forensic reread, and clearly separating canon from fanon in my mind, I can no longer accept RLJ as the most likely answer to that secret.

 

I am ready to look at this Pact quandary from your perspective, and will :cheers: ...but per the text currently available, my original point stands, and we have numerous accounts of conflict before the Pact and only tales of collaboration between FM and cotf, afterward.

 

 

Two separate events makes sense if one is inclined (like I am) to believe that the CotF weren't dealing with groups of pioneers gradually stealing their land in dribs and drabs, but rather, were facing total annihilation against a relentless, organized enemy that had arrived in their thousands. First they try to cut off the enemy at the Arm, and fail, then they try to cut them off at the Neck, and it's still not enough.

Why bother severing the Arm if the enemy has already been settling the land for a couple generations? I think the events leading up to the Pact happened a lot more rapidly than the 2,000 year time frame in Luwin's tale.

 

I don't mind looking at them as two separate events, but it certainly appears both predate the Pact. And that's of great import, to me at least.

 

I would agree they likely occurred relatively close together, during the wave of immigration (if indeed the cotf did cause the Hammers in the first place), but I would not dismiss the notion of crannogmen befriending cotf long before other First Men immigrants.

 

I'd all but guarantee such a relationship existed, and I would go so far as to say the greenmen, if indeed Men, are more closely related to crannogmen than they are Starks... and, that when the wiser of the two races prevailed, and forged the Pact, that it was the crannogmen bridging the divide.

[wolfmaid7]

Yes, the conditions were met, until the Andals came of course. And, yes, per the text, the cotf aided the last hero against the Others.

According to the text and Westrosi account of 'their history' yes the connotation of the text doesn't back that up.What the text implies is non interference.You keep to X while i keep to Y.

 

It isn't logical that during The Age of Heroes where Kingdoms rose and fell on account wars and battles which according to the WB there were some alligences with COTF and some FM that trees weren't burn and put to the axe.We have accounts of Greenseers and COTF getting killed even during the age of heroes so logically if we have to take to WB with the main text

 

1. Lumping all men and the outlanders is a bad idea

2. Given the climate there's no way one single weirwood wasn't hacked down during that time.There's no way the Deep forest remained only to the COTF hell the NW has been ranging in the deep forest for how many thousands of years.

3. Tell ourselves the relationship with COTF and men were clan to clan.It doesn't apply to all of them.