Heresy 175

[Direwolf Blitzer]

Crow, Armstark, Voice; 

 

Rather than fumble with the quote feature I'll just address you three. Speaking of "changelings," and comparing the Undying to the red priests to the Others has always struck me as missing something. Whatever the Undying are, they seem to have been human once. Ditto Mel and Moqorro. They all speak the common tongue, and they all have human forms. In the case of the Undying, they're really old, gross, purple human forms. And in the case of the red priests, they're probably crispy human forms. But whatever has happened to their bodies, their essence, their spirit, appears to remain the same. 

 

The Others, on the.. uh, Other hand, while human-shaped, seem distinctly unhuman. ("Think, oh... the Sidhe made of ice.") They don't speak the common tongue. They very probably can turn into mist and condense at will, or at least do some kind of magical hiding tricks. Mel, Moqorro, and the Undying strike me as humans who have done some extreme body modification. The Others are full-on transhuman.

[Voice]

Crow, Armstark, Voice; 
 
Rather than fumble with the quote feature I'll just address you three. Speaking of "changelings," and comparing the Undying to the red priests to the Others has always struck me as missing something. Whatever the Undying are, they seem to have been human once. Ditto Mel and Moqorro. They all speak the common tongue, and they all have human forms. In the case of the Undying, they're really old, gross, purple human forms. And in the case of the red priests, they're probably crispy human forms. But whatever has happened to their bodies, their essence, their spirit, appears to remain the same. 
 
The Others, on the.. uh, Other hand, while human-shaped, seem distinctly unhuman. ("Think, oh... the Sidhe made of ice.") They don't speak the common tongue. They very probably can turn into mist and condense at will, or at least do some kind of magical hiding tricks. Mel, Moqorro, and the Undying strike me as humans who have done some extreme body modification. The Others are full-on transhuman.

I completely agree. 100%.

[Voice]

 
Only as long gone and half-forgotten. There's no getting away from their not being identified [by that name] in the synopsis.

It sounds desperate BC. You've been blasting the three-fingered sidhe made of flesh for creating the Others all this time, so I know you're vested. But... all they have done is warn and aid these past 10000 years. Warn and aid, never subvert, and, without protest.

[TheMiddleHero]

As a Native American, let me tell you, there is no such thing as a singular native perspective. And, as someone who has studied Native American history in some depth, let me just say that native populations did indeed have it within their power to exterminate the immigrants, but didn't.

Why?

We aren't programmed that way.

Like FM, we hold the laws of hospitality to be sacred (George borrowed that from us). Rather than make enemies, we'd rather make babies, so that's what we did. LOL

 

Part Susquehanna myself, though  knowing how things eventually worked out, they might have given another thought to extermination. These days, those chances are extensively slim.

 

As you said, it is no singular mind, or programming.

[Black Crow]

It sounds desperate BC. You've been blasting the three-fingered sidhe made of flesh for creating the Others all this time, so I know you're vested. But... all they have done is warn and aid these past 10000 years. Warn and aid, never subvert, and, without protest.

 

Not in the least. I do have both synopsis and text on my side   :commie:  :commie:  :commie:

[Black Crow]

 They very probably can turn into mist and condense at will, or at least do some kind of magical hiding tricks. 

 

You mean glamours?  :cool4:

[Tucu]

We have not seen how Mel and Moqorro look under the glamours, but we have seen Victarion's hand. Mel probably looks like extra crispy bacon, ashes and embers.

[Black Crow]

Smokin...

[Prince of Ghost]

 
Craster's sons didn't feature at all in JNR's theory. It was me who proposed the combination of the theories. Which of course is only possible if you go with my interpretation of the sons (= they provide the life-force to form ice-bodies for older souls/spirits/shadows) as opposed to BC's interpretation (= the sons get magically changed into Others, they are the Others).
 
 
Regarding the whole argument over the pact and whether it was broken or not: I think both sides have merits and we simply can't say for certain because we don't know the specifics of the pact and of the history we are presented with. What I have been wondering lately is why the dragons in Westeros are not featured at all in Westerosi history lessons. We know for a fact that dragons were in Westeros long before the Targaryens and the only legends/stories we got are Serwyn of the mirror shield and Hightower as a dragon lair. Did the dragons play no role at all in the conflicts between FM, Andals and CoF? Or is this another case of Maester censorship as they seem to hate the dragons with a passion?

Ah my apologies, thank you for letting me know! :)

[Tucu]

The Others, on the.. uh, Other hand, while human-shaped, seem distinctly unhuman. ("Think, oh... the Sidhe made of ice.") They don't speak the common tongue. They very probably can turn into mist and condense at will, or at least do some kind of magical hiding tricks. Mel, Moqorro, and the Undying strike me as humans who have done some extreme body modification. The Others are full-on transhuman.

The Other that Sam "killed" seems to be a product of magic. A prick with an obsidian blade and it melted into normal water. They might be the equivalent to one of Mel's shadows.

We have probably not seen a proper Other yet.

[Voice]

 
Part Susquehanna myself, though  knowing how things eventually worked out, they might have given another thought to extermination. These days, those chances are extensively slim.
 
As you said, it is no singular mind, or programming.

If you study Susquehanna culture/language, I have a hunch you will find no word or concept for genocide or extermination. It simply isn't an idea that can be reconciled with indigenous belief systems, let alone religions, laws, and governmental structures.

Might I ask what "slim chances" you are referencing?

[Voice]

 
Not in the least. I do have both synopsis and text on my side   :commie:  :commie:  :commie:

Citation? LOL

[Voice]

We have probably not seen a proper Other yet.

Quite true [emoji317]

[TheMiddleHero]

If you study Susquehanna culture/language, I have a hunch you will find no word or concept for genocide or extermination. It simply isn't an idea that can be reconciled with indigenous belief systems, let alone religions, laws, and governmental structures.

Might I ask what "slim chances" you are referencing?

 

Just meant slim chances of NA nowadays vs. the number or europeans and other cultures here, greatly outnumbered.

 

Haven't studied it extensively much, plus they threw a bunch of Kraut, Pollack, Commie and Leprechaun in me, but did tribes never go to war? One tribe never wiped out another?

[Tucu]

Quite true [emoji317]

In the meantime I would not mess with those creepy trees toying with humanity with "earth and water", "bronze and iron" and "ice and fire"

[Matthew.]

The CotF don't seem to be as forgotten or misunderstood as the Others. At the least, some knowledge of their culture, their gods, their tools, etc. remains, while men don't seem to have even the most basic knowledge of what the Others are, or how to combat them (eg, obsidian). In particular, the CotF as "demons of legend" seems ill fitting.

I think it might be worthwhile to quote the synopsis from advance review copies of A Game of Thrones, before the term Neverborn was abandoned. 
 

 

Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom's protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens.

 

 Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.

 

Synopsis:
 

The kingdom of the royal Stark family faces its ultimate challenge in the onset of a generation-long winter, the poisonous plots of the rival Lannisters, the emergence of the Neverborn demons, and the arrival of barbarian hordes

[Voice]

Just meant slim chances of NA nowadays vs. the number or europeans and other cultures here, greatly outnumbered.

 

Haven't studied it extensively much, plus they threw a bunch of Kraut, Pollack, Commie and Leprechaun in me, but did tribes never go to war? One tribe never wiped out another?

 

I hear ya. Such a desire to exterminate Europeans now would seem even more barbarous however, from an indigenous perspective, considering we are now mixed and intermarried with Europeans. That would be killing our own family. 

 

If you are interested in the subject, you should begin with the works of Vine Deloria, particularly Red Earth, White Lies. The concept of war, for the sake of war/territory/conquest, also came with Europeans. This should be fairly obvious, as it is not a sustainable way to coexist, and sustainable coexistence is really the name of the game when it comes to native culture.

 

While there had always been conflicts in native North and South America, there were not exterminations. A cursory look at a language map will demonstrate this. The Western Hemisphere was one of the most linguistically diverse areas in all the world. I'm a linguist by trade, and work on many languages. It is a necessity in my area, because it bears more linguistic diversity than all of Western Europe.

 

Native battles were more like football games. They were competitions, and rarely ended in bloodshed. There are exceptions, but even when violence was necessary, it was considered more honorable to subdue your foe than to kill him.

 

Far more common was the act of making relatives. When problems emerged, tribes would often bind their interests through arranged marriages (nodal kinship systems). This kept things relatively peaceful. Hollywood prefers the red savage stereotype, or at least used to, but the truth on the ground was far different. Europeans were welcomed. And still are.

 

It is they who turned to violence. We responded of course, LOL (I have Yellow Boy, a 30-30 lever action that was fired at Armstrong Custer hanging on my wall). But things like genocide and extermination are not reconcilable with native practices.

[Lord Ravenstark]

Crow, Armstark, Voice; 
 
Rather than fumble with the quote feature I'll just address you three. Speaking of "changelings," and comparing the Undying to the red priests to the Others has always struck me as missing something. Whatever the Undying are, they seem to have been human once. Ditto Mel and Moqorro. They all speak the common tongue, and they all have human forms. In the case of the Undying, they're really old, gross, purple human forms. And in the case of the red priests, they're probably crispy human forms. But whatever has happened to their bodies, their essence, their spirit, appears to remain the same. 
 
The Others, on the.. uh, Other hand, while human-shaped, seem distinctly unhuman. ("Think, oh... the Sidhe made of ice.") They don't speak the common tongue. They very probably can turn into mist and condense at will, or at least do some kind of magical hiding tricks. Mel, Moqorro, and the Undying strike me as humans who have done some extreme body modification. The Others are full-on transhuman.

To me, CH is closer to Mel than Puddles.

[Voice]

The CotF don't seem to be as forgotten or misunderstood as the Others. At the least, some knowledge of their culture, their gods, their tools, etc. remains, while men don't seem to have even the most basic knowledge of what the Others are, or how to combat them (eg, obsidian). In particular, the CotF as "demons of legend" seems ill fitting.

I think it might be worthwhile to quote the synopsis from advance review copies of A Game of Thrones, before the term Neverborn was abandoned. 
 
 

Yup

[wolfmaid7]

I'm going to post this sage piece of advice from GRRM via Littlefinger because i think it has merit here even when speaking of the "netherfolk" I don't think Black Crow called the COTF "demons of legends"did he, which again is negated by the fact that the wws who Stannis was talking about with his 'demons of snow talk' reveals something we know that Westeros didn't and still doesn't know........The wws are boogey men,they aren't running the show.There's another power wielding them. Westeros sees them and think they are the cause,we know that not to be the case.

 

 

"Always keep your foes confused. If they are never certain who you are or what you want, they cannot know what you are like to do next. Sometimes the best way to baffle them is to make moves that have no purpose, or even seem to work against you. Remember that, Sansa, when you come to play the game.”

“What . . . what game?”

“The only game. The game of thrones.”