The Valkyrie of the FM - theory about the First and the First Reborn

[sweetsunray]

sweetsunray, this is magnificent.  Others have already stated it far better than I but...wow!  Truly well researched and presented.  Please tell me you save this somewhere in preparation for the system upgrade, whenever that might be, as this must be preserved.  Really well done.

 

The announcement was made 2 days ago I think that a new contentual back up will be made half august before the upgrade. And I have my own back-up just in case :) And thank you!

[The Jon]

Super interesting post! Arya's journey is one that I'm most interested in following, can't wait to see how things end up. I know a lot of people see her dying towards the end, and GRRM has said the ending is bittersweet, so if it does happen I hope she her actions have a lasting impression and big influence in the eventual destiny of Westeros.

[The Green King]

Yes i came to a similar conclusion... and it reaches up until Bloodraven. Jaqen hgar = strongly linked to one of the identities of Odin. The Many Faced and the One with Many Names, it fits Odin like a glove, certainly because he was the god of death who ruled over the Big Hall of Valhalla. However... Another identity of Odin we can find back in Bloodraven, the one who is seated under Ygdrassil. No wonder that the dors of the house of black and white has special wooden doors ;)

[sweetsunray]

Super interesting post! Arya's journey is one that I'm most interested in following, can't wait to see how things end up. I know a lot of people see her dying towards the end, and GRRM has said the ending is bittersweet, so if it does happen I hope she her actions have a lasting impression and big influence in the eventual destiny of Westeros.

 

Thank you :) I know a lot of people do expect that to happen, and yes GRRM has said the ending is bittersweet. But there are other foreshadowings and hints of Arya as a survivor (like the acorn dress and looking like an oak tree), even if she herself is on what seems to many a self-destructive identity path (tearing up the acorn dress). Some see that as she'll live the remainder of her live in Nym, but if she does that she'll be more 'no one' than she is at the HoBaW. It's possible of course and "bittersweet", but there are many other "bittersweet" possible endings, where she is one of the few survivors as well.

 

Regardless, I do think her FM arc goes deeper than "which character will she kill", "which face will she wear", or "revenge-dark-angel". Many people expected her training at the HoBaW to be straight up assassin training, with sword and blade tricks, which would have been action-nice. But it clearly isn't. She's not being turned into a Lara Croft. Some find that boring - her chapters used to be the most action packed, and now they have become almost spiritual. Whomever had expected the FM to perform assisted suicide? That it actually is their primary mission and root of existence? The FM are not what LF made them out to be. Some conclude the whole spiritual, religious cult stuff is the red herring, a sham to hide that in fact they're just a money grabbing assassin organisation. But then that is the weirdest sham - presenting yourself as a money grabbing assassin organisation to the rest of the world (LF's opinion), but as a spiritual, religious cult to the few insiders who are initiated? A sham-image is meant for outsiders, not insiders.

 

The whole Alchemist stuff and the spiritual, religious side of the FM is an indication that they are covertly playing chyvasse, like Bloodraven does. They're doing something important and beyond just assassinating anyone for money.They're an end-game faction, and if Arya ends up with them, then this is for end-game reasons.

 

Yes i came to a similar conclusion... and it reaches up until Bloodraven. Jaqen hgar = strongly linked to one of the identities of Odin. The Many Faced and the One with Many Names, it fits Odin like a glove, certainly because he was the god of death who ruled over the Big Hall of Valhalla. However... Another identity of Odin we can find back in Bloodraven, the one who is seated under Ygdrassil. No wonder that the dors of the house of black and white has special wooden doors ;)

 

Yes, Jaqen very much has this aura of some god in disguise, trying to influence and impact a character. The chapters at HH, especially the weasel soup chapter reads like some mythical tale, with 3 wishes, an extortion for the last wish. It's one of my favorite chapters, because it reads like an Odyseus chapter, or any other classi mytholoigcal legend. Odin often appears in disguise to put characters on their path of destiny, for example by planting a sword in a tree and having men compete to fetch the sword. Odin's the old beggar on the road you give your last food to, and he'll grant you some magical item for it, or tell you which road to take. Jaqen certainly does that in Arya's arc, but here portrayed as a dangerous criminal in chains in a cage, giving her 3 wishes and a coin for her non-judgmental kindness to him (the exact opposite of what the Hound is trying to teach her). While Sandor believed himself to be the one who needed to teach Arya about the world, I think Arya was the actual teacher for Sandor.

 

You know I associate the Riverlands with Niflheim and Hollow Hill with Hel, and that while the BwB believe they're guided by R'hllor, they are in fact doing Odin stuff - the consulting with GoHH, resurrection, hanging, the weirwood roots, and Odin is a god of death. Braavos is also associated to Niflheim. Most of the time it's hidden in fogs and mist (Niflheim = "misty lands"). It may not have actual rivers, but it's full of canals... man-made rivers. On the way to the HoBaW in the row boat, she passes underneath a bridge of "thousand eyes". The FM uses actual faces to disguise themselves, just like Odin. The name they use for the god is a perfect way to describe Odin - a god of many faces and names.  The hall of faces can be seen as a type of Walhalla where the slain are preserved to make their re-appearance. In a way the faces are a type of resurrection, because the face is more than skin. It seems to have memories and personality.

 

While Bran gets lured to the cave with the "well of knowledge" in the frost lands where an Odin like Bloodraven waits for him, Arya journeys and ends up in both misty worlds - Riverlands and Braavos, both associated with death and resurrection - working for a god called the Many Faced God (a literary reference to Odin). Both have an arc where they end up being initiated in behind the scenes mechanisations. So, both Arya and Bran must have an important behind the scene role. Bran's the greenseer - the one who can see past and present and the future perhaps. He can communicate, through ravens and hearttrees, making other characters think the gods are speaking to them (Theon for example). Arya isn't a greenseer, though she's a skinchanger and warg. So, she must have some other function, one that's related to death as well as female. The FM only have her function as a girl. She never is disguised as a boy with them. So, you end up with Odin's Valkyries.

 

If you know that Odin the god has 4 animals by his side - 2 ravens and 2 wolves, then Bran and Arya are Odin's two wolves... Freki and Greki. Their names are "ravenous" and "greedy", both related to an immmense hunger. Bran's arc often mentions hunger and the warning that Summer eating only fills Summer's stomach, not Bran's. Arya eats almost anything - insects, apples from trees with worms inside, the kindly man's worm of his skull. "Are you hungry child," he asks her afterwards. "Yes", she says, but not for food, she thinks.  

[Avlonnic]

I did a search but did not see this posted anywhere.  I have been unsuccessful in making sense of one of the minor characters in the books and you may have illuminated this person's motivation for me.  I suggest Hildy might be a literary tribute to another Valkyrie - Hildr.

 

We have heard quite a bit in these books about the age-old feud between Brackens and Blackwoods.  The families have warred off and on beyond memory.  At times they have agreed to peace and even intermarried, but the peace never holds and they go to battle with one another again.  In ADWD, Jaime travels to the riverlands to negotiate with the Brackens who are laying siege to the Blackwood castle.  Jaime enters Bracken's tent to find the man in a compromising position with a woman (Hildy) who Jaime assumes is a whore.  Bracken explains that he took the woman as a "prize of war" after killing a Blackwood man. Bracken's tent flies a flag with his sigil, a stallion, outside the Blackwood's castle of Raventree...where countless ravens return to roost every night.

 

In several Nordic versions, Hildr was the Valkyrie at the heart of an eternal conflict between two families or nations.  It was believed that Hildr went to the battlefield each night and used spells to conjure up the dead; the warriors returned to fighting and the battle was doomed to continue endlessly every day until Ragnarok.  Wikipedia states that Valkyrie were often associated with swans, ravens, and horses. 

 

Hildy is memorable to me because she exhibits a considerable amount of contradictory behavior in her brief appearance.  Initially, she seems shy, modest, and subservient.  She tries to cover her nakedness, "her hand fluttering nervously."  She chides Jaime for looking at her body and tells him she is not for sale.  She says "m'lord" and does a curtsy.  But then - she turns brazen.  She asks Lord Bracken for her shoe and goads him about his 'praying' wife.  And she becomes openly suggestive with Jaime and even grabs his crotch. 

 

Jaime finds Hildy oddly attractive but he is mystified by it because he thinks she is hairy enough to be Bracken's kin.  Bracken is described as a strongly built, hairy man.  In some stories Hildr is described as the daughter of a strongly built chieftain.  Hildy banters with Jaime about the differences between a daughter and a woman.  In some of the stories Hildr is the daughter of a king who fights to get her back after she is taken.  Fortunately for Jaime, he kept to his vows and ignored Hildy's 'invitation' to take her.  Also, Bracken drew naked steel upon Jaime but did not kill him.  In some of the stories, Hildr's father unsheathes his magical sword which cannot be put away without killing someone.  (His unblooded sword might not bode well for Bracken.)

 

Of course, Martin's work typically has multiple layers of meanings.  Hildy and her 'naked teats' may be an allusion to "The Teats", the mountains that the Blackwoods and Brackens fight over.  It is also possible that Hildy is working with the Brotherhood Without Banners to spy upon the riverlands.  I think there was at least one woman working with them and Lady Stoneheart might be interested in knowing Jaime's dealings.

 

I welcome your thoughts and thank you for a terrific topic. 

[sweetsunray]

snip

 

Very interesting observations. Yes, the Brackens and Blackwoods do seem to have some of that eternal fighting, and yes Hildy might be a ref to Hildr. Maybe she's one of Tytos' nieces or cousins of a lower branch.

 

I do think though that indeed she's also a camp follower (she might be a Blackwood blood related camp follower), and I liked Radio Westeros' observation that 3 times BwB captures precede an interaction with a camp follower. Petyr Pimple was said to be involvede with a camp follower before he was caught by the BwB and hanged. Ryman is abed with a camp follower wearing Robb's crown. Later Ryman and his men (a party of 15) are captured and hanged, and we know from Brienne's last chapter in Feast that LS has the crown. And then Jaime meets Hildy, rides back from Raventree hall to return to RR and Brienne shows up to lure him away, and Jaime's been missing since, according to Kevan. As much as is made of a Northern Conspiracy, I think there's also a Riverlands conspiracy. Vance, Paege, Piper, Blackwood, Mallister and even Bracken do seem to be intent on only bending the knee for temporary purposes, but still work towards a restoration of Tulys and certainly work against Freys and Lannisters covertly. They certainly don't seem to make much work of hunting BwB outlwas either. Did the Blackwoods and Brackens put up a show of still being in a feud for the Lannisters and Freys? With the Blackwoods acting the ones still loyal to Edmure and the North, and the Brackens appearing to have sided with the Lannisters? Is this a tactic to have the Freys and Lannisters trust the Brackens, so they can get inside the Twins and Riverrun... kindof like Manderlys end up in WF?

 

There's probably some shabby Frey force/guard that will leave the Twins with Greatjon and other hostages still kept at the Twins soon. There's Edmure and Jeyne Westerling leaving for the Westerlands from Riverrun, while Tom and two of Jaime's squires (Piper and Paege) had a moment alone to confer with Edmure before he talked his uncle the Blackfish into surrendering Riverrun, who swam away. There's Jaime's light garison where he disappeared. A faction of Freys and Lannister men like to hang out and drink at Darry with "opengate" Amy. Riverrun is manned with only 200 men, and Tom is inside, playing the minstrel.

 

The RR garrison surrendered their arms, and only 2 took the black to go North (most likely to pass on info to Manderly, the North and/or Jon). The rest disappeared into the woods. And Jaime observes that for a hostage sent to CR to end his days there as a prisoner stripped from his seat, Edmure looks rather pleased. A lot of bodies of Robb's host are unnaccounted for. He went to the Twins with 3500 men, only a 1000 were counted by the Freys. Sure, some fled and died anyway, like the Piper man Sandor and Arya find. What happened to the rest of them? Roose left 600 men at the ford of the Trident. As many died as drowned by the Mountain, but many more fled. Where did they disappear to? A supernatural Undead Catelyn Tully is leading the outlaws. The BwB get their arms from the men they kill, and have Gendry do the repairs or even the making of arms. Oh and we have Nym's pack hanging on the wall for use. I think we're gonna see a lot of long-awaited payback in the Riverlands. :drool:

[Avlonnic]

<snip>

I do think though that indeed she's also a camp follower (she might be a Blackwood blood related camp follower), and I liked Radio Westeros' observation that 3 times BwB captures precede an interaction with a camp follower.

 

Oh, I also thought the other two women must be working for BWB.  I've not heard Radio Westeros' observations on this so I was not aware others were discussing it.  I wonder if the other two women might fit into a Valkyrie or norn profile.  I appreciate the insights you provided regarding Arya and the Valkyrie. 

 

Also, thanks to you I learned the word flyting - a ritual, poetic exchange of insults practiced mainly between the 5th and 16th centuries. The root is the Old English word flītan meaning quarrel (from Old Norse word flyta meaning provocation).   Who knew that rap battles originated so long ago?! 

[sweetsunray]

 

Oh, I also thought the other two women must be working for BWB.  I've not heard Radio Westeros' observations on this so I was not aware others were discussing it.  I wonder if the other two women might fit into a Valkyrie or norn profile.  I appreciate the insights you provided regarding Arya and the Valkyrie. 

 

Also, thanks to you I learned the word flyting - a ritual, poetic exchange of insults practiced mainly between the 5th and 16th centuries. The root is the Old English word flītan meaning quarrel (from Old Norse word flyta meaning provocation).   Who knew that rap battles originated so long ago?! 

 

E6 on Radio Westeros is about the BwB. The hints for a Riverlands conspiracy are discussed towards the end. But there's also an essay accompanying it by Ghwyn which gives the textual hitns for it.

 

Yeah, it's funny huh how that used to be part of the Germanic culture. We kindof lost that practice in European culture, while it's often still practiced by mainly youngsters of Northern African descent ("Your mother ..." "Oh, yeah? Well your sister....!") and of course the modern day rap battles.

[Lady Barbrey]

You need to take crackpot off your thread title, sweetsunray! Fabulous post. I have long seen Arya as one of the Stark triple threat based on Loki's children: Bran the Fenris wolf, Jon the serpent dragon and Arya Queen of Hel. The coin to pay the ferryman to carry her to the house of the dead (fun that Martin makes it an actual house) was an easy one. The relationship to our real world history's cult of assassins that was a religion first and foremost I also was interested in. The Barrow King line in the Starks connect them also in some mysterious way to power over death, and I've seen Arya as the main inheritor of that. But it never occurred to me that this Valkyrie relationship was there, or so strongly there. You've managed to deepen and contextualize Arya's relationship to death with really 'dead on' examples of her Valkyrie referents. Thank you!

I also thank you for at least a vague glimmering of where Sansa's role in this might be.

So, a challenge, or two: how do you think Arya's Valkyrie role might play out in battle with the necromantic Others; and do you think there is any FM relationship - alliance or opposite - with the House of the Undying?

[sweetsunray]

You need to take crackpot off your thread title, sweetsunray! Fabulous post. I have long seen Arya as one of the Stark triple threat based on Loki's children: Bran the Fenris wolf, Jon the serpent dragon and Arya Queen of Hel. The coin to pay the ferryman to carry her to the house of the dead (fun that Martin makes it an actual house) was an easy one. The relationship to our real world history's cult of assassins that was a religion first and foremost I also was interested in. The Barrow King line in the Starks connect them also in some mysterious way to power over death, and I've seen Arya as the main inheritor of that. But it never occurred to me that this Valkyrie relationship was there, or so strongly there. You've managed to deepen and contextualize Arya's relationship to death with really 'dead on' examples of her Valkyrie referents. Thank you!

I also thank you for at least a vague glimmering of where Sansa's role in this might be.

So, a challenge, or two: how do you think Arya's Valkyrie role might play out in battle with the necromantic Others; and do you think there is any FM relationship - alliance or opposite - with the House of the Undying?

 

Hel the person is half a corpse (black/blue) and half pink flesh, fierce looking, stone cold. She became the ruler of Niflheim after she was thrown into one of the 9 rivers of the Niflheim by the gods. Who was thrown into one of the 9 main rivers of the Riverlands? Who looks like a corpse, and yet still with human flesh? Who's the ruler of the underground faction in the Riverlands with their seat in an underworld-like cave (chtonic) with weirwoods growing? The "well of knowledge" is beneath the first root of Yggdrasyl, in the land of the frost giants. That's Bloodraven's cave. Hel in Nifleim is beneath the second root of Yggdrasyl. That's Hollow Hill in the Riverlands. The third root is either said to end in the realm of the gods or that of men and related to justice. I think this is represented in the books as WF, with the crypts and the kings of old and their swords possibly a reference to Walhalla. Lady Stoneheart is Hel, the Queen of the Underworld (Note: I say LS, not Catelyn Stark-Tully). And with the whole showdown in the Riverlands we can expect in WoW, per the Riverlands conspiracy, it's logical why GRRM was disappointed they left LS out of the series. Loki never went to the well of knowledge, never sacrificed an eye for knowledge, never drank the mead of poetry. Loki doesn't make use of ravens. Loki for me is GRRM himself, and LF by extension. Fenrir and the serpent are huge creatures, and their prophesied impact is more that of causing cataclystic disasters - earthquakes, earth splitting open, and so on. So, I think we're going to see them in the books as cataclysms, not as characters, although they may occur for example in the "hour of the wolf". When it comes to Arya and Bran as wolves, I see them as Freki and Greki instead. 

 

Nice catch of "paying for the crossing". Even if in essence, Arya travels from one underworld to another.

 

I'll think on your challenges :)

[Lady Barbrey]

Well gosh I think you caught me out - I've always hated the Lady Stoneheart storyline (why, George, why?) so tended to ignore it, certainly skipped over bits of it. Now you've provided me with a reason it's there I will have to go back to look at it. Brilliant!

Don't the House of the Undying display those same colours as Hel? What does it all mean?!!!

[Lady Barbrey]

Also, any thoughts on Quentyn Martell's purpose in the books from a mythological perspective? I hated that storyline more than Lady Stoneheart and have yet to see more than the most meagre of reasons for including it.

[sweetsunray]

Also, any thoughts on Quentyn Martell's purpose in the books from a mythological perspective? I hated that storyline more than Lady Stoneheart and have yet to see more than the most meagre of reasons for including it.

 

Well, Quentyn approaches the dragon aspiring to controlling one, rather than killing one, but very reminiscint of the typical hero tales of dragonslayers. In one way GRRM shows us, "When they say fire breathing animals are deadly, then those stories of knights challenging a dragon with shield and sword is bull." It's a trope-breaking: that's what happens when you face a dragon. On the other hand it also serves as an alt universe of what most likely would have happened if Young Griff had gone to Mereen instead of Westeros. And we had a POV about the Tattered Prince, and it was the plot-aid to free the dragons.

 

Personally I think that all of Doran's plans and his children will end up dead. Areo Hotah's chapter about Doran at the gardens has three blood oranges drop the ground and splatter. Not only are his plans overripe, but one of those plans also already cost him one son's life.

[Lady Barbrey]

Yes, that's what I've heard before about Quentyn. I'd almost prefer George had used a tell not show narrative there or just something brief. "Oh look who's that?" "Quentyn Martell? I'd love to hear a few words about your journey - no wait, don't do that!" Splat. Sizzle. "Oh dear, what will I tell his father?"😏

Well maybe there will be a pay-off later but I'm like you. I have no confidence in Doran's plans. Loved the over-ripe oranges symbolism.

[Lady Barbrey]

This is off-topic sweetsunray but I wonder if you know anything about the Celtic gods most associated with human sacrifice. I looked this up a few years ago under human sacrifice wanting to see if there were perhaps antecedents to the main gods of Westeros and was rather astonished to find a triad of them that corresponded, at least in the sacrificial elements, to Rhllor, The Drowned Gid and The Old Ones. They are Esus, likely a god of vegetation, whose victims were flailed and hung from trees; Taranis, whose victims were immolated; and Teutates, whose victims were drowned. If I had found one here, one there, I wouldn't have been as surprised but usually (though some dispute this) they are mentioned as an actual triad. I had never heard of these gods before. Knowing you love myth too, I thought I'd mention them to you in case you didn't know about them either. They are sometimes associated with Odin, Thor and Freyr. Just an interesting find.

[Equilibrium]

This is really good, but for the first FM I must side with Lady Blizzardborn, her explanation operates on much tighter logic.

[sweetsunray]

This is really good, but for the first FM I must side with Lady Blizzardborn, her explanation operates on much tighter logic.

 

Not necessarily tighter logic, but Billzardborn's fits better in a literary way on the book religions we do know:  an Andal religion with 7 aspects, with a faceless, genderless Stranger ~ Many Faced God of death. The gender switch has an appeal. It's ironic then that the Stranger is one of those statues people rarely pray to in the HoBaW.

 

(this is also an answer to the HotU challenge) However, the FM associate themselves with the Moonsingers. 3 times we see houses with the black/white doors.

• There's Tobho Mott's doors - weirwood and ebony + hunting scene.
• There's the HoBaW doors - weirwood and ebony + inverted colored half/half moon.
• And then there's the HotU doors - weirwood and yronwood, no sign.

The doors signify - "magic is practiced inside this place". The sign on the doors though specify, which kind of magic or the origin, and what rules they abide by.

• Tobho's hunting scene : Qohor => Valyrian Steel
• HoBaW's moon face: Moonsingers
• HotU: nothing => their own magic.

We know that the Moonsingers are healers, priestesses and judge into one. But the moonsingers are normally women. Now that does not exclude the first of being a male, because men can be moonsingers, if they dress, act and have their hair like a woman.The moonsingers are also the biggest indication that the FM would have a prophecy about the Long Night and a First Returned. As for within Valkyrie logic: there are no male Valkyries. A male Valkyrie makes no mythological sense, but GRRM is of course free to invert it. He does invert and swap male/female mythological plotlines sometimes, such as Rhaegar taking an Arthur role with Elia as his Gwynyfere, but in that sense Arhur doing the running off. Or, Arya's personal growing-up arc follows the story of the Ugly Duckling, step by step (and also with surprising references to Anderson's story side characters in certain scenes). The Ugly Duckling however is originally a male swan, and not a female - though we do associate the "doesn't fit in with looks" as more of a female issue in our society. But in 19th century men were judged on their appearances in dress and handsomeness as much as women, because of the beliefs that looks were a physical sign of the inside of a person (think of the cranology stuff).

 

But when he uses mythological archetypes, he usually stays on the gender track. Swan maidens are female characters, not male ones. The same counts for Valkyries imo.

 

I regard GRRM's use of mythology as a type of framework to establish some rules regarding magic for himself and the reader. When you write work this epic involving magic then you better set up some rules for yourself as a writer and the story. And we know that especially GRRM thinks of magic as needing to have some rules and price. Of course an author can make up his own rules and then is required to explain them in the story between characters so to inform the reader what goes and what doesn't. On the other hand he can also borrow rules from other sources, and mythology is usually the best source for this. People are bound to pick up the references and think "oh yeah, then so and so applies". That way the author does not have to go into an explanation of the rules within the text, but references to it through mythological symbolism and we can decipher it on our own. GRRM could have Arya still be a Valkyrie in his mind, but without her list, without the cupbearing element and the explicit dedication of the battle within HH, we as readers would have a hard time picking up on it. This way he establishes rules for Arya's role from the start. If and when the FM reveal a prophecy of a First-reborn GRRM will doubtfully dub the prophesied Valkyrie-FM as "Valkyiria" or something (that would be a bit to straight forward). He might use a bastardized name of one of the listed Valkyries though. 

 

Why do I say he uses mythology as a rule-framework? There are other examples.

 

My sig says "There's always a bear". GRRM uses a lot of bears. There are many taboos about bears in subarctic pre-Christian folklore, including strict rules on how to hunt them and treat them even when dead. One of the remaining myths about a bear involve an evil king who captures and manhandles a bear for his own greed and he does not follow the rules (Wayland the Smith). The evil king extorts the man (who's a bear character) for his personal gain, preferably forever. It ends with the bear-figure exterminating the evil king's male bloodline, impregnating the princess and force the king into agreeing his child with the princess will be the heir. GRRM uses the concept of bear-abuse/extortion in relation to revenge in the books.

 

• Harrenhal's curse: Harren loved bear baiting and built the bear-pit => every house ruling it has gone extinct
• Vargo's bear => Vargo ends up being eaten, including by himself
• Theon mentions bear bating and wishing for a bear in the forest shorlty after noticing bear-claw marks on a tree (bears understand human language) => chop, chop
• Craster's hunted a bear (bear skull at the post) and extorts Jeor => axed, and he sacrificed all his sons
• ... and so on (too numerous to recount here)

But one tiny observation about the meta-level bear-revenge framework GRRM uses to signal bloody revenge is ultimately coming: Dacey Mormont gets axed in the belly on the RW. Dacey's a she-bear and she was symbolically axed in the fertility area. It is therefore safe to predict that even with as many as they are, the Frey male bloodline will get axed. It's GRRMs bear-revenge rule. The Twins will fall into the hands of another family.

 

Something similar he does with regards to resurrections. There are only two actual resurrections of characters we've seen, and both happened in the Riverlands: Beric and UnCat. Outside of the Riverlands we may have seen healing attempts, botched up (Drogo) or succesfully (Vic), birthing events (dragons), but no resurrections. I don't count the wights, because that's something entirely different. Wights are animated corpses. Coldhands may be in control of his faculties it seems, but his body is still dead, and the blood congealed in the extremities. Beric and UnCat are not animated corpses of dead flesh. I'm quite certain that we will not see any type of resurrection as Beric's and UnCat's outside of the Riverlands. It may be fire-magic, but there is a meta-level framework for it to work in the Riverlands. The Riverlands--Niflheim analogy establishes the Riverlands as being the meta-levelled "underworld" . In the underworld the dead can dwell. Someone visiting the mythological underworld can talk and interact with resurrected dead as if they are persons still, but their bodies will show the injuries that killed them, and with time they forget what it was like to be alive. And even then GRRM makes it an exception by having Beric fade from the lightning lord in life towards a man looking more and more like Odin (god of death), and having Catelyn become Hel-like.

 

Because of this, I do not believe that Jon will be resurrected at the Wall using the Last Kiss. GRRM has set up a meta-level framework for it to be logical that resurrection works in the Riverlands - the dead dwell in the underworld - but nowhere else. On top of that GRRM has shown even then not every dead person in RL gets to be resurrected, because the two who were become the godlike reference. Either he's healed, gets a second life in Ghost, or he becomes a Coldhands 2.0. I think he'll be healed.

 

Valkyries are exceptional mythological immortal women with exceptional abilties and powers and a singular purpose. They may be lord's daughters, king's daughters, swan maidens, lovers, some even married with children, but they're all female.

 

Lady Barbrey: to come back on necromancing of the Others and the Undying of the HotU... I think the FM find it unnatural and an abomination. Valar Morghulis are their words: everyone must die.

[The Green King]

 

Not necessarily tighter logic, but Billzardborn's fits better in a literary way on the book religions we do know:  an Andal religion with 7 aspects, with a faceless, genderless Stranger ~ Many Faced God of death. The gender switch has an appeal. It's ironic then that the Stranger is one of those statues people rarely pray to in the HoBaW.

 

(this is also an answer to the HotU challenge) However, the FM associate themselves with the Moonsingers. 3 times we see houses with the black/white doors.

• There's Tobho Mott's doors - weirwood and ebony + hunting scene.
• There's the HoBaW doors - weirwood and ebony + inverted colored half/half moon.
• And then there's the HotU doors - weirwood and yronwood, no sign.

The doors signify - "magic is practiced inside this place". The sign on the doors though specify, which kind of magic or the origin, and what rules they abide by.

• Tobho's hunting scene : Qohor => Valyrian Steel
• HoBaW's moon face: Moonsingers
• HotU: nothing => their own magic.

We know that the Moonsingers are healers, priestesses and judge into one. But the moonsingers are normally women. Now that does not exclude the first of being a male, because men can be moonsingers, if they dress, act and have their hair like a woman.The moonsingers are also the biggest indication that the FM would have a prophecy about the Long Night and a First Returned. As for within Valkyrie logic: there are no male Valkyries. A male Valkyrie makes no mythological sense, but GRRM is of course free to invert it. He does invert and swap male/female mythological plotlines sometimes, such as Rhaegar taking an Arthur role with Elia as his Gwynyfere, but in that sense Arhur doing the running off. Or, Arya's personal growing-up arc follows the story of the Ugly Duckling, step by step (and also with surprising references to Anderson's story side characters in certain scenes). The Ugly Duckling however is originally a male swan, and not a female - though we do associate the "doesn't fit in with looks" as more of a female issue in our society. But in 19th century men were judged on their appearances in dress and handsomeness as much as women, because of the beliefs that looks were a physical sign of the inside of a person (think of the cranology stuff).

 

But when he uses mythological archetypes, he usually stays on the gender track. Swan maidens are female characters, not male ones. The same counts for Valkyries imo.

 

I regard GRRM's use of mythology as a type of framework to establish some rules regarding magic for himself and the reader. When you write work this epic involving magic then you better set up some rules for yourself as a writer and the story. And we know that especially GRRM thinks of magic as needing to have some rules and price. Of course an author can make up his own rules and then is required to explain them in the story between characters so to inform the reader what goes and what doesn't. On the other hand he can also borrow rules from other sources, and mythology is usually the best source for this. People are bound to pick up the references and think "oh yeah, then so and so applies". That way the author does not have to go into an explanation of the rules within the text, but references to it through mythological symbolism and we can decipher it on our own. GRRM could have Arya still be a Valkyrie in his mind, but without her list, without the cupbearing element and the explicit dedication of the battle within HH, we as readers would have a hard time picking up on it. This way he establishes rules for Arya's role from the start. If and when the FM reveal a prophecy of a First-reborn GRRM will doubtfully dub the prophesied Valkyrie-FM as "Valkyiria" or something (that would be a bit to straight forward). He might use a bastardized name of one of the listed Valkyries though. 

 

Why do I say he uses mythology as a rule-framework? There are other examples.

 

My sig says "There's always a bear". GRRM uses a lot of bears. There are many taboos about bears in subarctic pre-Christian folklore, including strict rules on how to hunt them and treat them even when dead. One of the remaining myths about a bear involve an evil king who captures and manhandles a bear for his own greed and he does not follow the rules (Wayland the Smith). The evil king extorts the man (who's a bear character) for his personal gain, preferably forever. It ends with the bear-figure exterminating the evil king's male bloodline, impregnating the princess and force the king into agreeing his child with the princess will be the heir. GRRM uses the concept of bear-abuse/extortion in relation to revenge in the books.

 

• Harrenhal's curse: Harren loved bear baiting and built the bear-pit => every house ruling it has gone extinct
• Vargo's bear => Vargo ends up being eaten, including by himself
• Theon mentions bear bating and wishing for a bear in the forest shorlty after noticing bear-claw marks on a tree (bears understand human language) => chop, chop
• Craster's hunted a bear (bear skull at the post) and extorts Jeor => axed, and he sacrificed all his sons
• ... and so on (too numerous to recount here)

But one tiny observation about the meta-level bear-revenge framework GRRM uses to signal bloody revenge is ultimately coming: Dacey Mormont gets axed in the belly on the RW. Dacey's a she-bear and she was symbolically axed in the fertility area. It is therefore safe to predict that even with as many as they are, the Frey male bloodline will get axed. It's GRRMs bear-revenge rule. The Twins will fall into the hands of another family.

 

Something similar he does with regards to resurrections. There are only two actual resurrections of characters we've seen, and both happened in the Riverlands: Beric and UnCat. Outside of the Riverlands we may have seen healing attempts, botched up (Drogo) or succesfully (Vic), birthing events (dragons), but no resurrections. I don't count the wights, because that's something entirely different. Wights are animated corpses. Coldhands may be in control of his faculties it seems, but his body is still dead, and the blood congealed in the extremities. Beric and UnCat are not animated corpses of dead flesh. I'm quite certain that we will not see any type of resurrection as Beric's and UnCat's outside of the Riverlands. It may be fire-magic, but there is a meta-level framework for it to work in the Riverlands. The Riverlands--Niflheim analogy establishes the Riverlands as being the meta-levelled "underworld" . In the underworld the dead can dwell. Someone visiting the mythological underworld can talk and interact with resurrected dead as if they are persons still, but their bodies will show the injuries that killed them, and with time they forget what it was like to be alive. And even then GRRM makes it an exception by having Beric fade from the lightning lord in life towards a man looking more and more like Odin (god of death), and having Catelyn become Hel-like.

 

Because of this, I do not believe that Jon will be resurrected at the Wall using the Last Kiss. GRRM has set up a meta-level framework for it to be logical that resurrection works in the Riverlands - the dead dwell in the underworld - but nowhere else. On top of that GRRM has shown even then not every dead person in RL gets to be resurrected, because the two who were become the godlike reference. Either he's healed, gets a second life in Ghost, or he becomes a Coldhands 2.0. I think he'll be healed.

 

Valkyries are exceptional mythological immortal women with exceptional abilties and powers and a singular purpose. They may be lord's daughters, king's daughters, swan maidens, lovers, some even married with children, but they're all female.

 

Lady Barbrey: to come back on necromancing of the Others and the Undying of the HotU... I think the FM find it unnatural and an abomination. Valar Morghulis are their words: everyone must die.

 

I strongly tend to disagree that it's all about the Riverlands, unless you would refer to the 'Isle of Faces'. It's essential to see that the R'hllorists and Others are from a quite differrent  perspective. The R'hollist undead are people socalled brought back to life. They appear to have some kind of conciousness and can still talk... however, the question is how much of them really 'remains'.  They also try to claim power and provoke unrest. However, the Others are simply the spirits of  the dead. The Land of Always Winter, simply is Tir Na nOg/ The Afterlife. That is why the lliving cannot understand them. Also.. among the Others you will find a lot of them who have... cut off faces. The Others are coming because they are the Ban Sidhe (Banshee). restless souls... Ragnarok isn't coming... The Others, The Banshee, The dead  are coming because they are going on The Wild Hunt. Odin, and the valkyries take part in it. Odin is said to lead lead the Wild Hunt, but also Cernunnos was given credit to do so, even King Arthur lead the Wild Hunt... meaning that if the Faceless Men believe in the Moonsingers, and in a prophecy of the first FM reborn... this rather implies a 'rebirth'  of a person to lead the pack (of wolves and dead) or  in others words a reincarnation of the first FM , the 'leader' of the Wild Hunt

 

You might want to check out the myghtological backgound of the Wild Hunt, and it's References to Odin, but also to Cernunnos (Celtic deity, also known under the name of Herne the Hunter)  as well as King Arthur.

 

Ever made the connection between 'Moon singing'  and the howling of 'wolves'? And from there the cennection between Wolves and the 'Hounds of Annwn'? 

 

Also Something about Bears and Dragons... During winter there are 3 main star constellations that are very visible in the Northern Skies, especially because it's so dark... Ursa Major, Ursa Minor and Draco

 

Ursa Major=  AKA... The Big She-Bear, and Druids used to refer to it as Arthur's Plough, it often was seen as a constellation that reffered to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.  King Arthur, who was often regarded as a sun deity. Arthur seems to have been associated in the minds of the Druids with the exercise of the sun's greatest force in dispelling darkness and its destructive agents in the physical world during his journey up the ecliptic. (King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table also are credited to not only collect restless souls but also to hunt down wrongdoers till they are vanquished)

 

Ursa Minor= AKA... The Little She-Bear, but it also used to be known as a constellation referring to a dog or hound. 

Especially during winter this was an even more important constallation because at the end of it's taill you find 'Polaris' aka the 'North Star' or 'Pole Star'. This is the quintessential  star that was used for navigation. 

 

Draco= The Greeks believed this constellation was a dragon killed by the goddess Minerva and tossed into the sky upon his defeat. The dragon was one of the Gigantes, who battled the Olympic gods for ten years. As Minerva threw the dragon, it became twisted on itself and froze at the cold North Celestial Pole before it could right itself. 

[sweetsunray]

 

I strongly tend to dissagree that it's all about the Riverlands. It's essential to see that the R'hllorists and Others are from a quite differrent  perspective. The R'hollist undead are people socalled brought back to life. They appear to have some kind of conciousness and can still talk... however, the question is how much of them really 'remains'.  However, the Others are simple the spirits of  the dead. The Land of Always Winter, simply is Hel/ Tir Na nOg. That is why we living cannot understand them. Also.. among the Others you will find a lot of them who have... cut off faces. The Others are coming because they are the Ban Sidhe (Banshee). restless souls... Ragnarok isn't coming... The Others, The Banshee, The dead  are coming because they are going on The Wild Hunt. 

 

You might want to check out the myghtological backgound of the Wild Hunt, and it's References to Odin, but also to Cernunnos (Celtic deity, also known under the name of Herne the Hunter)  as well as King Arthur. 

 

There are many similarities between Beric and Bloodraven, but also very interesting differences.

 

Similarities

• Beric and Bloodraven sit entangled in weirwood roots
• Both have lost an eye
• Both their former identies are fading, even physically (from their clothing identity to the facial one)
• Beric looks like a scarecrow, BR as a corpse and is called the 3-eyed-crow
• Thoros can't bring back a headless Eddard, BR can't make Bran walk
• Hollow Hill and BR's cave are full of weirwood roots (indicating a weirwood grove growing above)

Differences

• Beric has died 7 times, with only the 7th being final, Bloodraven has never died so far
• Beric watches the cave, Bloodraven dreams
• Beric was hanged, Bloodraven is becoming part tree
• Beric is about justice, Bloodraven is about knowledge
• Beric consults with the GoHH, a woman who completely matches the seeress that Odin resurrects twice in the underworld to tell him news and prophecy. BR uses the weirnet and ravens instead.
• Beric is in a cave in the Riverlands, Bloodraven is in a cave in the frost lands
• Hollow Hill has no river, BR's cave has an underground river

Meeting Beric in Hollow Hill

A huge firepit had been dug in the center of the earthen floor, and its flames rose swirling and crackling toward the smoke-stained ceiling. The walls were equal parts stone and soil, with huge white roots twisting through them like a thousand slow pale snakes. People were emerging from between those roots as she watched; edging out from the shadows for a look at the captives, stepping from the mouths of pitch-black tunnels, popping out of crannies and crevices on all sides. In one place on the far side of the fire, the roots formed a kind of stairway up to a hollow in the earth where a man sat almost lost in the tangle of weirwood.

...

"When we left King's Landing we were men of Winterfell and men of Darry and men of Blackhaven, Mallery men and Wylde men. We were knights and squires and men-at-arms, lords and commoners, bound together only by our purpose." The voice came from the man seated amongst the weirwood roots halfway up the wall. "Six score of us set out to bring the king's justice to your brother." The speaker was descending the tangle of steps toward the floor. "Six score brave men and true, led by a fool in a starry cloak." A scarecrow of a man, he wore a ragged black cloak speckled with stars and an iron breastplate dinted by a hundred battles. A thicket of red-gold hair hid most of his face, save for a bald spot above his left ear where his head had been smashed in. "More than eighty of our company are dead now, but others have taken up the swords that fell from their hands." When he reached the floor, the outlaws moved aside to let him pass. One of his eyes was gone, Arya saw, the flesh about the socket scarred and puckered, and he had a dark black ring all around his neck.

...

Dondarrion? Beric Dondarrion had been handsome; Sansa's friend Jeyne had fallen in love with him. Even Jeyne Poole was not so blind as to think this man was fair. Yet when Arya looked at him again, she saw it; the remains of a forked purple lightning bolt on the cracked enamel of his breastplate.

...

Lit from below, his face was a death mask, his missing eye a red and angry wound. (aSoS, Arya VI)

 

Meeting BR in the cave

Before them a pale lord in ebon finery sat dreaming in a tangled nest of roots, a woven weirwood throne that embraced his withered limbs as a mother does a child.

His body was so skeletal and his clothes so rotted that at first Bran took him for another corpse, a dead man propped up so long that the roots had grown over him, under him, and through him. What skin the corpse lord showed was white, save for a bloody blotch that crept up his neck onto his cheek. His white hair was fine and thin as root hair and long enough to brush against the earthen floor. Roots coiled around his legs like wooden serpents. One burrowed through his breeches into the desiccated flesh of his thigh, to emerge again from his shoulder. A spray of dark red leaves sprouted from his skull, and grey mushrooms spotted his brow. A little skin remained, stretched across his face, tight and hard as white leather, but even that was fraying, and here and there the brown and yellow bone beneath was poking through.

"Are you the three-eyed crow?" Bran heard himself say. A three-eyed crow should have three eyes. He has only one, and that one red. Bran could feel the eye staring at him, shining like a pool of blood in the torchlight. Where his other eye should have been, a thin white root grew from an empty socket, down his cheek, and into his neck. (aDwD, Bran II)

 

The similarities between the two men are uncanny in that they both depict Odin. But they also differ fundamentally. While BR is sacrificing himself to a tree, he has nothing to do with resurrection. Beric is resurrected 6 times. The clue of the hanging sign around Beric's neck refers to Odin's resurrection rune.

 

I know a twelfth one if I see,
up in a tree,
a dangling corpse in a noose,
I can so carve and colour the runes,
that the man walks
And talks with me. (Poetic Edda, Havamal)

 

Now the GoHH's anology to Odin's seeress is another clue to resurrection and linking it to the underworld. Twice Odin seeks out a seeress (or at least there are two separate poems of two separate visits). The seeress is dead and sleeps the sleep of death in the underworld. Odin resurrects her from her grave (in the underworld). She shares what she knows, the "news", with Odin and finally ends with "prophecy", in exchange for "gifts". In the end of the exchange she requires to be left alone again so she can back to her death's sleep. Twice the BwB visit the ancient GoHH, who sees everything in her "sleep". She gives them news and prophecy, in exchange for gifts.

 

It's important that the resurrection Odin performs, both of the hanged men and the seeress, only in the underworld. They do not occur in the living world of the gods or men, only where the dead sleep/hang/dwell.

 

Now let's compare the two locations with the two locations of Norse mythology

 

NIflheim-Riverlands with Hel-Hollow Hill

• both have 9 rivers
• mists
• the ruling seat is a specific location with treeroots
• the dead can be resurrected, talked and walked with in the underworld, still showing their injuries, but otherwise still mentally functioning as people (even if fragmented and fading)
• Hel gets thrown in one of the rivers and become ruler of Niflheim; Catelyn gets thrown in one of the rivers and becomes ruler of BwB territory

Does BR's cave fit with Niflheim?

• Only 5 rivers
• No mist
• Necromancy, animation of corpses instead of resurrection
• Nobody gets throw in the river and becomes a ruler

 

Mimirswell and BR's cave

• the well/underground river is beneath treeroots
• knowledge related
• land of giants and frost

Meanwhile Hollow Hill does not fit the description of Mimirswell at all.

 

31. Three roots there are | that three ways run
'Neath the ash-tree Yggdrasil;
'Neath the first lives Hel, | 'neath the second the frost-giants,
'Neath the last are the lands of men. (Poetic Edda, Grminismol - the Ballad of Grimnir)

 

Then said Jafnhárr: "The Ash is greatest of all trees and best: its limbs spread out over all the world and stand above heaven. Three roots of the tree uphold it and stand exceeding broad: one is among the Æsir; another among the Rime-Giants, in that place where aforetime was the Yawning Void; the third stands over Niflheim, and under that root is Hvergelmir, and Nídhöggr gnaws the root from below. But under that root which turns toward the Rime-Giants is Mímir's Well, wherein wisdom and understanding are stored; and he is called Mímir, who keeps the well. He is full of ancient lore, since he drinks of the well from the Gjallar-Horn. Thither came Allfather and craved one drink of the well; but he got it not until he had laid his eye in pledge. So says Völuspá: (Proze Edda, Gylfaginning)

 

The underground river in BRs cave, and in fact Bran's throne is placed above the abyss where the river flows underneath.

 

The last part of their dark journey was the steepest. Hodor made the final descent on his arse, bumping and sliding downward in a clatter of broken bones, loose dirt, and pebbles. The girl child was waiting for them, standing on one end of a natural bridge above a yawning chasm. Down below in the darkness, Bran heard the sound of rushing water. An underground river. (aDwD, Bran II)

 

While Beric is not resurrected in Hollow Hill the first time, he is resurrected in an ash grove, the tree that became associated with Yggdrasil in the proze edda.

 

"Can I dwell on what I scarce remember? I held a castle on the Marches once, and there was a woman I was pledged to marry, but I could not find that castle today, nor tell you the color of that woman's hair. Who knighted me, old friend? What were my favorite foods? It all fades. Sometimes I think I was born on the bloody grass in that grove of ash, with the taste of fire in my mouth and a hole in my chest. Are you my mother, Thoros?"

 

When Arya escapes from HH and until being captured by the BwB, the days are misty and grey without a sun. Only after they're captured by the BwB do they get to see the sun. The weather's fine until her last chapter with the BwB where she ends up running outside and is taken by the Hound. These mark Arya's passage into and out of the underworld.

 

Hot Pie opened his mouth and closed it. He did not fall off his horse. The rain began again a short time later. They still had not seen so much as a glimpse of the sun. It was growing colder, and pale white mists were threading between the pines and blowing across the bare burned fields. (aSoS, Arya I)

 

Then this is the info on Hel the being.

 

Yet more children had Loki. Angrboda was the name of a certain giantess in Jötunheim, with whom Loki gat three children: one was Fenris-Wolf, the second Jörmungandr--that is the Midgard Serpent,--the third is Hel. But when the gods learned that this kindred was nourished in Jötunheim, and when the gods perceived by prophecy that from this kindred great misfortune should befall them; and since it seemed to all that there was great prospect of ill--(first from the mother's blood, and yet worse from the father's)-then Allfather sent gods thither to take the children and bring them to him...[cutout]...Hel he cast into Niflheim, and gave to her power over nine worlds, to apportion all abodes among those that were sent to her: that is, men dead of sickness or of old age. She has great possessions there; her walls are exceeding high and her gates great. Her hall is called Sleet-Cold; her dish, Hunger; Famine is her knife; Idler, her thrall; Sloven, her maidservant; Pit of Stumbling, her threshold, by which one enters; Disease, her bed; Gleaming Bale, her bed-hangings. She is half blue-black and half flesh-color (by which she is easily recognized), and very lowering and fierce. (Prose Edda, Gylfaginning, p 42)

 

Now let's examine the BwB as R'hllorist.
 

The BwB call themselves R'hllorists because they think the fire magic only can come from R'hllor. We don't even know such a god exists. Meanwhile we had a fundamentalist Moqorro time and time telling Vic he should sacrifice people for R'hllor, and not the Great Other's thrall the "Drowned God". And fundamentalist Mel burning people alive in fires, burning weirwoods, etc. The BwB doesn't do any of those things. No, instead we see justice through combat (something of the 7) and LS hanging men (that's Odin's way). They are completely unconnected from the other R'hllorist. Neither Moqorro nor Mel even know about the resurrections in the RL. If they are in fact all three led by R'hllor, then why don't Moqorro or Mel learn of it when they gaze in the fires? And Mel regards "dreams" as being sent from the Great Other, and yet BwB consult both the flames (Thoros) as well as dreams (GoHH) for news.

 

The mistake being made is to ascribe the fire magic to R'hllor alone. We know that Leaf uses fire to kill the wights attacking Bran & co. So, CotF are not afraid of fire, or against using it.

 

Meera led the way back up the hill, jabbing at the wights when they came near. The things could not be hurt, but they were slow and clumsy. "Hodor," Hodor said with every step. "Hodor, hodor." He wondered what Meera would think if he should suddenly tell her that he loved her.

Up above them, flaming figures were dancing in the snow.

The wights, Bran realized. Someone set the wights on fire.

Summer was snarling and snapping as he danced around the closest, a great ruin of a man wreathed in swirling flame. He shouldn't get so close, what is he doing? Then he saw himself, sprawled facedown in the snow. Summer was trying to drive the thing away from him. What will happen if it kills me? the boy wondered. Will I be Hodor for good or all? Will I go back into Summer's skin? Or will I just be dead?

The world moved dizzily around him. White trees, black sky, red flames, everything was whirling, shifting, spinning. He felt himself stumbling. He could hear Hodor screaming, "Hodor hodor hodor hodor. Hodor hodor hodor hodor. Hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor." A cloud of ravens was pouring from the cave, and he saw a little girl with a torch in hand, darting this way and that. For a moment Bran thought it was his sister Arya … madly, for he knew his little sister was a thousand leagues away, or dead. And yet there she was, whirling, a scrawny thing, ragged, wild, her hair atangle. Tears filled Hodor's eyes and froze there.(aDwD, Bran II)

 

And then in the next chapter the following happens...

 

 

Watching the flames, Bran decided he would stay awake till Meera came back. Jojen would be unhappy, he knew, but Meera would be glad for him, He did not remember closing his eyes.

… but then somehow he was back at Winterfell again, in the godswood looking down upon his father. Lord Eddard seemed much younger this time. His hair was brown, with no hint of grey in it, his head bowed. "… let them grow up close as brothers, with only love between them," he prayed, "and let my lady wife find it in her heart to forgive …" (aDwD, Bran III)

 

Meanwhile Melisandre sees BR and Bran, looking right back at her through the flames

 

 

A face took shape within the hearth. Stannis? she thought, for just a moment … but no, these were not his features. A wooden face, corpse white. Was this the enemy? A thousand red eyes floated in the rising flames. He sees me. Beside him, a boy with a wolf's face threw back his head and howled.

The red priestess shuddered. Blood trickled down her thigh, black and smoking. The fire was inside her, an agony, an ecstasy, filling her, searing her, transforming her. (aDwD, Melisandre)

 

It seems that BR and Bran are perfectly able to use fire magic to look in the flames as well.

 

As for BR using wights and necromancy... The cave's being attacked by wights, once human as well as animals. Even when Bran's inside and learning, wighted animals attempt to attack the warded entrance. It doesn't seem Others and BR and thus Odin are joining forces. Just as Odin visits Mimirswell in 'enemy country', so does BR and Bran.

 

As for the Wild Hunt: in some accounts it are gods, in other spectres, or faeries. When I mention the 'underworld' I'm talking about 'the place where the dead dwell'. Gods and faeries aren't undead or dead. They may have been banished by Christianity to the underworld, but mythologically speaking their origin is not the Underworld. Also, even if the Wild Hunt is performed by spectres (undead or people who should be in the underworld), the Wild Hunt is not performed 'in' the underworld, but in the realm of men (air or ground).

 

Sure, wights are dead, animated corpses, and the attack on the Fist is like a Wild Hunt, so is Ser Amory attacking the holdfast at night, and other night pack attack/raids we witness performed by both wolves, monstrous people, and wights. But the Wild Hunt occurs in the realm of the living. When Arya flees from HH she passes a specific misty day, through hilss and valleys, there is Nym's pack in the valley hunting. She dreams of the wolves hunting the Bloody Mummers that are hunting her. So, while Arya is entering the 'underworld' the pack of wolves hunting wildly on wild hunters outside of the 'underworld'.

 

Also the Wild Hunt may end up as a blessing or a precursor warning of war or plague, aka disaster. We see this in the example of the Bloody Mummers and Nym's pack. Bloody Mummers - Wild Hunt of war. Nym's pack - Wild Hunt of protection. Nor is the Wild Hunt the apocalypse itself. Do we have such Wild Hunt forewarnings in the books?

- aGoT - The Mountain and his men raiding, burning and pillaging folk in the Riverlands => human war to come

- aCoK - Ser Amory attacking the holdfast at the Gods Eye, described as razing across the countryside as if they'd burn the lake if they could => more human war

- aSoS - The Fist of the wights on the NW => war to come with wights and Others; in aDwD it expands with the attack of Hardhome

- but also Nym's pack => protection and revenge... the hunters become hunted.

- aFfC - Remaining Bloody Mummers razing Saltpans

- but also BwB => they're becoming more organized hunting troups... again the hunters hunt the hunters

 

So, yes we see a lot of Wild Hunt passages, but they cannot be ascribed to one party alone, and the location of a wild hunt does not indicate the location of the underworld. The Others and their wights, nor lands of always winter make an underworld. If GRRM had used a different type of symbology and function of BR's cave, I'd agree. But he separates BR's cave physically and functionally from Beric's cave.

[Joan Jett]

@sweetsunray
About this quote, "The evil king extorts the man (who's a bear character) for his personal gain, preferably forever. It ends with the bear-figure exterminating the evil king's male bloodline, impregnating the princess and force the king into agreeing his child with the princess will be the heir. GRRM uses the concept of bear-abuse/extortion in relation to revenge in the books."
That really really reminds me of the Bael the Bard story of how he stole the Stark daughter and impregnated her, but there were no more other Stark branches so her child was the only heir.