From Death to Dawn #2: Jon's Nightmare Battle and the King of Winter

[DarkSister1001]

On ‎4‎/‎3‎/‎2016 at 2:49 PM, LmL said:

What I wonder about is a connection between Starks and fire people. So much points to AA becoming the NK or LH, who should be Starks. Meanwhile, Starks live in an outpost of heat and keep fiery hellhounds. We've talked about this before I think - the Starks are the kings OVER winter, which they defeat with dark and strong metals like iron, which we know the Others do not like. The NW and Starks are synergistic, both fighting the denizens from beyond the Wall, and with many Starks as LC of the NW... and the NW are fire associated as well.  

Just wanted to throw something in an see your take on it.  In Cressen's Prologue chapter it opens with him standing between 2 gargoyles.  A hellhound (wolf) and a wyren (dragon).

 

[Sly Wren]

On April 4, 2016 at 8:21 PM, Morrigan's Raven said:

While you're into trees, I'd like to remind you about the sentinel trees, with needles. Sentinels are guards & lookouts. I believe in the GoT prologue there is "far eyes" wildling in a sentinal tree. Qhorin's message is "The trees have eyes again" and we assume weirwoods but why only them? Finally, we have Arya, with her hidden needle, who is being taught to watch and learn.

One other thing on the trees. When Theon and company are invading, Summer and Shaggy are trying to get out. And they hear a voice (I'm assuming it's Bran). Telling him to go to the sentinel tree.

He ran toward the sound, his brother racing beside him. The stone dens rose before them, walls slick and wet. He bared his teeth, but the man-rock took no notice. A gate loomed up, a black iron snake coiled tight about bar and post. When he crashed against it, the gate shuddered and the snake clanked and slithered and held. Through the bars he could look down the long stone burrow that ran between the walls to the stony field beyond, but there was no way through. He could force his muzzle between the bars, but no more. Many a time his brother had tried to crack the black bones of the gate between his teeth, but they would not break. They had tried to dig under, but there were great flat stones beneath, half-covered by earth and blown leaves. 
Snarling, he paced back and forth in front of the gate, then threw himself at it once more. It moved a little and slammed him back. Locked, something whispered. Chained. The voice he did not hear, the scent without a smell. The other ways were closed as well. Where doors opened in the walls of man-rock, the wood was thick and strong. There was no way out.
There is, the whisper came, and it seemed as if he could see the shadow of a great tree covered in needles, slanting up out of the black earth to ten times the height of a man. Yet when he looked about, it was not there. The other side of the godswood, the sentinel, hurry, hurry… 
Through the gloom of night came a muffled shout, cut short. 
Swiftly, swiftly, he whirled and bounded back into the trees, wet leaves rustling beneath his paws, branches whipping at him as he rushed past. He could hear his brother following close. They plunged under the heart tree and around the cold pool, through the blackberry bushes, under a tangle of oaks and ash and hawthorn scrub, to the far side of the wood… and there it was, the shadow he’d glimpsed without seeing, the slanting tree pointing at the rooftops. Sentinel, came the thought. 
He remembered how it was to climb it then. The needles everywhere, scratching at his bare face and falling down the back of his neck, the sticky sap on his hands, the sharp piney smell of it. It was an easy tree for a boy to climb, leaning as it did, crooked, the branches so close together they almost made a ladder, slanting right up to the roof. 
Growling, he sniffed around the base of the tree, lifted a leg and marked it with a stream of urine. A low branch brushed his face, and he snapped at it, twisting and pulling until the wood cracked and tore. His mouth was full of needles and the bitter taste of the sap. He shook his head and snarled. 
His brother sat back on his haunches and lifted his voice in a ululating howl, his song black with mourning. The way was no way. They were not squirrels, nor the cubs of men, they could not wriggle up the trunks of trees, clinging with soft pink paws and clumsy feet. They were runners, hunters, prowlers. 

Sounds like sentinel=safety and escape--for people, not direwolves. But safety. Like Arya's Needle.

[Sly Wren]

On April 4, 2016 at 0:01 AM, LmL said:

I believe we see the trees blotting out the stars and scratching at the face of the moon on two occasions is because George is showing us greenseers calling down the hammer of the waters by cracking the moon, which was the cause of the Long Night. Remember the Nightfort scene where the weirwood was trying to pull the tree down into the well?

Possible--but the question might be if the trees and the stars are always at odds. We've got the song of the earth. Song of the sea. And direwolves who sing to the stars. Competing songs, or any chance for their being copacetic?

On April 4, 2016 at 0:01 AM, LmL said:

I thought there was a conflict between the idea of the greenseers calling down the hammer and AA cracking the moon, but then I started seeing clues that AA = greenseer, so there is no conflict, potentially. 

True--but the BSE would be a particular kind of greenseer, I think. Seems like their are variants within that genre. So, there may be a conflict between the intent and purpose of them.

On April 4, 2016 at 0:01 AM, LmL said:

No, because we have the fused stone in Oldtown and the Five Forts, and both sites and pretty solidly dated to before the Long Night. This means dragons existed before the Long Night, and were tamed enough to be used to create fortresses. That's why I am speculating about a method of controlling dragons without human sacrifice, because that does seem to be what the BSE / AA brought into the mix.

Possible. 

On April 4, 2016 at 0:01 AM, LmL said:

It's so mysterious - the cotf could be fairly benign, or fairly sinister, and we just don't know. I think it's relevant to point out that all the blood sacrifice we've seen is by humans, not cotf (unless Jojen paste is true in some form). It's at least possible they don't do it. 

Agreed. But the dragons we've actually seen in the novels took blood sacrifice. And Ygritte's heard somewhere that the Wall is made of blood. And the Others (ice dragons) and Crasters' boys have some connection. 

We have only seen humans sacrifice each other so far. Same with Bran in his history lectures. But given how the children in their cave have some clear similarities to the Undying in their real form, seems like we should be wary for now at least.

On April 4, 2016 at 0:01 AM, LmL said:

Actually, according to yin and yang (which is what I think George is working off of in many respects), every single thing has a yin and yang side which must be reconciled with each other in some form. They are supposedly indivisible. They reflect balance, and many more nuanced concepts I cannot accurately explain. But you see the point - it's the same as the idea of combining ice and fire to save the day in some way. Balance of opposites is what drives the cycles of day and night and of the seasons. The Long Night jus evil because it broke the seasons (the comet slew the seasons, ha ha). The Others are an abomination because they represent a winter and a night without end. The R'hllorists want summer without end - just as bad. All the people clinging on too long to life are probably abominations too. Necromancy is the perfect abomination to nature. 

A balance, yes. But I keep going back to the song of the earth--the life cycles and lack of extremes. Vs. the Others and the Dragons--which end the life cycles. The cold the Others come into has mothers smothering their children. And Dany's vision of the dragon has it setting the entire world on fire. 

Balancing that. . . seems more like get back to the earth and life. Away from the extremes. Because the extremes produce the same misery--indivisible in their incompatibility with life.

On April 4, 2016 at 0:01 AM, LmL said:

She doesn't choose dragons over Drogo. She chooses Drogo and then by virtue of that choice, the dragons, darkness, and death come. On Dany and Drogo's wedding night, she undid the bells in his hair and it spread out like an oily black river of darkness. That's when they first did the sex. When Drogo burns, more greasy dark smoke. It's all part of the process. 

Oh, I agree. My point is: she basks in her sun and stars. She claims her sun and stars in front of the whole khalassar. But when she loses him, she seeks the stars to try to bring him back. When it fails and all she hears is darkness, she wakes the dragon. Even though she sees in that vision that in doing so, the stars in the daylight sky (sun and stars) disappear. So--a process, yes. But also a choice.

On April 4, 2016 at 0:01 AM, LmL said:

I know Voice's theory about Alysanne, but of course it's only a theory and I am not at all sold on it. Seems possible, but it's very speculative, of course. It fills in a lot of blanks. What I am interested in is the interaction of old gods / earth magic and fire magic / dragon people. Jenny and her woodswitch (GOHH) who helped steer the lineage of the targaryens leading up to Rhaegar and Dany and Jon with her prophecy about the PTWP.

Yes--though I'm also wondering why the Targs came west when they don't belong. And why the Yronwoods and Hightowers have family words which sound like they are all guarding or watching for the same thing. The ancient families in Westeros--Starks, Yronwoods, Hightowers, etc.--are all waiting for an event. The Targs have chosen--Fire and Blood. But Dany's vision of the dragon does NOT make that look helpful.

So, what about the watchers IN Westeros? What do they know? How do the south and north unite?

On April 4, 2016 at 0:05 AM, LmL said:

In this context, it's kinda fucked up that Jon is always dreaming of his father's sword. Robb wants his father's sword too, for that matter. 

Sorry for that, everyone. 

Well, at least it can be seen as metaphorical. So. . . still less creepy than Cersei and Jaime?

[Sly Wren]

On April 5, 2016 at 0:01 PM, Shuvuuia said:

Thanks! I personally think Beric-Catelyn ressurection doesn't have that much of the Night King's story as it seems to me more focused on the "mother" figure so to speak (like Sandor asks Beric if the realm is his mother or his whore or something like that, then Beric goes all "are you my mommy" on Thoros and then promices Arya to return her to her mother).

Yes--and the raising of Cat comes as a direct result. The Abominable Snow Mum.

But the binding of a group to him because of his magics. Losing himself. The result is a woman running things who really is a problem. So, not a direct parallel, but an echo.

But I'm now imagining Beric wandering through the picture book of "Are You My Mother?" Not sure if that's disturbing or sad.

On April 5, 2016 at 0:01 PM, Shuvuuia said:

Although i guess it can be seen as reversal of NK giving his seed to his Queen (Freud would've been happy).

HA! All of these novels would make Freud happy. But yes--fire life force instead of "seed."