Seastone Chair, Weirwoods, & "Seven Times Never Kill Man"

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

SPOILERS ALL for GRRM's 1975 short story (well, novelette really) "And Seven Times Never Kill Man" --it's included in his Dreamsongs collection and there is a bootleg audio copy on YouTube if you want to go catch up with that before continuing.

 

Anyway...when I first read the story, I thought it was creepy af but the immediate relevance to ASOIAF didn't jump out at me. But yesterday I was re-reading Aeron Greyjoy's first chapter in Feast and the connection really clicked. I'll put the summary of the story in a block quote.
 

Quote

 

In 7xNKM, the premise is that there is 1) a hyper-violent military/religious order, the Steel Angels, that has just set up shop on a new planet and they are destroying 2) the peaceful but strangely uniform population of furry creatures--Jaenshi--that have been living there and worshiping a peculiar type of stone that tells them what to do.

A pair of human space traders, appalled at the slaughter of Jaenshi children, decide to intervene. Arik will stay on the planet and work on getting the Jaenshi to organize while Ryther takes her ship and goes to get backup or at least a bunch of guns.

But while Ryther is gone a lot of weird shit happens. It turns out the Jaenshi and their religion is a lot more ominous than it seems. Their communities are each built around one of these strange stones, and Steel Angels are destroying the stones. Jaenshi forced away from their stones basically go nuts, revert to an almost animal state. Arik takes in some of them over the winter and trains them to use weapons. But even after they learn the space equivalent of the common tongue, they are unable to tell him anything about their religion or the stones. Also their eyes turn a different color.

The nearby intact community, meanwhile, refuses Arik's efforts to get them to organize and fight. The priest consults with the stone and says everything will be ok. Spring comes, Steel Angels attack various Jaenshi communities as they expand their territory. But then the stone starts acting really wierd, showing the SA's images of their own deity (Bakkalon the Pale Child--yes I found out about this story by googling Bakkalon, lol). Finally one stone completely transforms into a huge statue of Bakkalon, and the SA's take it into their citadel.

By the time Ryther returns, the SA's have begun killing their own children and burning their own food stores. It's unclear whether the strange stone is compelling them to completely destroy themselves or just cull their numbers (one of the remarkable things about the Jaenshi was that they reproduced at the perfect rate so as not to overwhelm their natural resources)--but one of those two things is definitely happening.

 

 

So as I was reading the first Aeron chapter, going over his maniac thoughts and the way he gives himself to the sea, asking it to tell him what to do...plus the hyper-violent similarities between Steel Angel and Ironborn culture (and both being named after metals) made me wonder if this motif of mind-control stone is being reincarnated in ASOIAF. The Seastone Chair has been the seat of Ironborn rulers for thousands of years, and as Aeron tells us over and over, only a "godly man" can sit on it.

Mind control stone would explain how remarkably consistent Ironborn culture has remained despite extensive contact with the "Green Lands." And the maniacally expansionist attitude of the Ironborn really mirrors that of the Steel Angels. And the Ironborn find the Seastone Chair there waiting for them, like the Steel Angels find the strange-stone statue of Bakkalon.

 

Of course once you make that connection, two more things crop up immediately:

1) If the Seastone Chair has mind-control properties, is this also true of other oily stone? Are people in Asshai being mind controlled by some force*? Toad Isle? Do the stones of Yeen tell everyone to kill themselves?

2) The Children of the Forest are culturally quite similar to the Jaenshi. Do weirwoods have this similar mind-control effect, regulating their numbers and keeping them in harmony with nature? Are Greenseers like the Jaenshi priests who commune with the stone? Are weirwoods actually some kind of magical living stone, and that's why they petrify so readily?

 

*Now a disturbing thought:

- There are no children in Asshai, a place made of oily stone that is possibly the same material as the Seastone Chair.

- GRRM has said that Aeron's next chapter includes something really "twisted."

- TBH the description of the Steel Angels hanging their own children in 7xNKM is one of the most twisted things I've ever read. By the reaction of the Ryther character, it was very much meant to come across that way.

...so I wonder if the "twisted" thing coming up has to do with Aeron harming or killing children, or his young acolytes, at the command of the Drowned God? Drowning children as sacrifice perhaps? (And by the same token, is this why there are no children in Asshai--oily black stone tells people to kill them?)

There is a mention in Aeron's first chapter of how scornful he feels towards the infant faux-drowning custom of the Ironborn, i.e. quickly dipping them in seawater. He thinks of this as pointless and reflects that such weak practices are what has led to the Ironborn's decline. So Aeron trying to revive greatness in the Ironborn and fight against Euron's godless ways by actually drowning infants...well it doesn't seem like an impossibly out of character thing for him.

And then if the infants do actually revive somehow. or are transformed in some way, that might tie into whatever was happening with Craster's sons. But whether they stay dead or come back, drowning babies would definitely count as "twisted" in my book.

 

Sorry this is such a meandering post...in sum, I think GRRM's short story "And Seven Times Never Kill Man" (7xNKM) might give us them and motif clues towards what is going on with the Ironborn, Aeron's next chapter, weirwoods, CotF, and oily black stone in general.

[hiemal]

I think you are definitely on to something.

1. I believe that Oily Black Stone almost always warps and mutates but if the Seastone Chair has mind control powers (and like you I suspect it does, or something like it) they are either not inherent in the material itself or not always manifested.

2. I think the weirwoods are the physical embodiment of the elements of earth and and chthonic, generative darkness; fossilized wood is a very good embodiment. The soul cycle that Bran sees in his vision and is described elsewhere by others (I think Varamyr has some interesting ones) is one the humans who have bought into fit into imperfectly, unlike the CotF who seem to natural incarnations of that order, like ravens and giants.

 

As for the IB and infanticide; we have the theme of child sacrifice ongoing with the element of ice at Craster's and fire of darkness (or both) at Qohor so it wouldn't surprise me. Yuck.

[The Prince of Magpies]

Ooh, I like this theory (it's also made me want to track down And Seven Times Never Kill Man). I'm unsure of how large a role the black, oily stone will play, given that it was introduced via ancillary material (tWoIaF) and it's potential significance has probably gone completely unnoticed by most readers. So there's the possibility that it would seem like a deus-ex-machina of sorts if it 'suddenly' became pivotal to the plot in the final two books. However, after reading your post I do think there's the distinct possibility that the properties of the stone and weirwoods you've outlined could be hinted at quite strongly, acting as an Easter Egg of sorts for dedicated fans, while not confusing more casual readers (who could plausibly rationalise Aeron's motivations as common or garden religious fanaticism).

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

14 hours ago, hiemal said:

I think you are definitely on to something.

1. I believe that Oily Black Stone almost always warps and mutates but if the Seastone Chair has mind control powers (and like you I suspect it does, or something like it) they are either not inherent in the material itself or not always manifested.

The short story leaves the exact nature of the strange stone very ambiguous. However, it definitely reacts differently in different circumstances, and gives different orders to different peoples--Jaenshi are never told to kill their children, for example; in fact it seems like the stone is compelling them to take very good care of their children b/c many children are abandoned when stone pyramids are destroyed.

So my impression was that it's not so much the stone controlling people as the stone is a means for some other intelligence to control people. If there is some sort of under-sea being or race that uses the oily stone to control people, it's quite likely the interest and power of this being/race waxes and wanes over time. And it may be a different being or tribe in different places. So I guess "mind control stone" is overly simplistic, more like "stone that can allow some other intelligence to control your mind."  If there is no one on the other end, so to speak, or if that someone is weak or disinterested you get a very different result. Like Asshai might be fairly dormant while Seastone chair is reactivating in some way.

 

14 hours ago, hiemal said:

2. I think the weirwoods are the physical embodiment of the elements of earth and and chthonic, generative darkness; fossilized wood is a very good embodiment. The soul cycle that Bran sees in his vision and is described elsewhere by others (I think Varamyr has some interesting ones) is one the humans who have bought into fit into imperfectly, unlike the CotF who seem to natural incarnations of that order, like ravens and giants.

CotF do seem to fit into the weirwood system better than men, that's for sure. Weirwoods may be a mind control device, but used by CotF to control other CotF in a symbiotic way (keeping them in harmony with nature, etc.) rather than a scary Ironborn/Seastone Chair way. Or weirwoods may be a different kettle of fish all together.

14 hours ago, hiemal said:

As for the IB and infanticide; we have the theme of child sacrifice ongoing with the element of ice at Craster's and fire of darkness (or both) at Qohor so it wouldn't surprise me. Yuck.

Yeah. Not looking forward to that chapter.

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

9 hours ago, The Prince of Magpies said:

Ooh, I like this theory (it's also made me want to track down And Seven Times Never Kill Man). I'm unsure of how large a role the black, oily stone will play, given that it was introduced via ancillary material (tWoIaF) and it's potential significance has probably gone completely unnoticed by most readers. So there's the possibility that it would seem like a deus-ex-machina of sorts if it 'suddenly' became pivotal to the plot in the final two books. However, after reading your post I do think there's the distinct possibility that the properties of the stone and weirwoods you've outlined could be hinted at quite strongly, acting as an Easter Egg of sorts for dedicated fans, while not confusing more casual readers (who could plausibly rationalise Aeron's motivations as common or garden religious fanaticism).

I think it's pretty clear from Theon's first chapter in Clash and in all Ironborn chapters after that, that something quite weird is going on with the Iron Isles. They are exceptionally crazy. With Aeron and Euron escalating their conflict with sorcery and even more Drowned God craziness I think it would not come across as deux-ex-machina that *something* on the Iron Isles is affecting them. A slow reveal that the Seastone Chair has a long-term mental effect on people would not feel out of the blue even to casual readers, I wouldn't think. But then I'm not a very casual reader so I could be mistaken.

I don't think Isle of Toads or Lorath will play large roles in the main story. But Asshai and the Seastone Chair have been with us since Book 1; finding out they are even more creepy than they seem wouldn't be too jarring I don't think.

[hiemal]

6 hours ago, Blind Beth the Cat Lady said:

The short story leaves the exact nature of the strange stone very ambiguous. However, it definitely reacts differently in different circumstances, and gives different orders to different peoples--Jaenshi are never told to kill their children, for example; in fact it seems like the stone is compelling them to take very good care of their children b/c many children are abandoned when stone pyramids are destroyed.

So my impression was that it's not so much the stone controlling people as the stone is a means for some other intelligence to control people. If there is some sort of under-sea being or race that uses the oily stone to control people, it's quite likely the interest and power of this being/race waxes and wanes over time. And it may be a different being or tribe in different places. So I guess "mind control stone" is overly simplistic, more like "stone that can allow some other intelligence to control your mind."  If there is no one on the other end, so to speak, or if that someone is weak or disinterested you get a very different result. Like Asshai might be fairly dormant while Seastone chair is reactivating in some way.

My guess is that the OBS is a soul/magic-reactive substance equivalent to the weirwoods, dragonglass/dragonsteel, and whatever possibly celestial material Dawn is made of.

[The Dragon has three heads]

I'm currently about half way through all of the stories known to be set in the Thousand Worlds and my understanding and thoughts on ASOIF has been fundamentally changed.

7TKM is one example. There are many.  He's been re working his ideas and plots(they remain basically the same) since his first published thousand worlds story  "The Hero".

I would highly recommend checking them all out. 

You'll never look at ASOIF the same though, be warned, in fact, you might just start to believe in the interregnum theory...

 

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

Yes, I've been reading through Dreamsongs...The thousand world stories are very insightful, but I also have very different thoughts about Boltons and Faceless men after reading Skin Trade.

I agree he's been reworking the same themes throughout his career. I think my fave so far is A Song for Lya. I just finished Bitterblooms. (And I have to take a break because boy is that one a downer, lol.)

ETA: There is also a story online called A Night at the Tarn House that I think might give insight on Martin's attitude towards heavy magic use and its consequences. Plus it's just a fabulous story. :-)

Im not familiar with the interregnum theory, what is that?

[Roddy Darwin]

Pretty sure he means Preston Jacobs' theory that Planetos is a part of the Thousand Worlds, where some kind of major incident pushed people back to a medieval-ish age and cut them off from the rest of mankind's settlements.

Preston, as he does, then spins some pretty crazy but really cool ideas off of that. It's been a while, but there are disturbing similarities between the Children of the Forest and the H'raggans(sp?) or whatever that evil race that went to total war with mankind was. It explains a bunch of weird stuff with Planetos, such as all the strangely advanced underground systems (mazemakers and all?), as these could have been some kind of nuclear-proof bunkers that allowed humans to survive the cataclysm, and the reduced gene pools from different communities also explains why some parts of mankind on Planetos developped special abilities, like skinchanging.

[Ser Frasier of House Crane]

I really love the idea that the oily black stone has some sort of mentally radioactive properties, and it would certainly explain why most who sit the Seastone Chair make very rash, short-sighted decisions.

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

2 hours ago, Roddy Darwin said:

Pretty sure he means Preston Jacobs' theory that Planetos is a part of the Thousand Worlds, where some kind of major incident pushed people back to a medieval-ish age and cut them off from the rest of mankind's settlements.

Preston, as he does, then spins some pretty crazy but really cool ideas off of that. It's been a while, but there are disturbing similarities between the Children of the Forest and the H'raggans(sp?) or whatever that evil race that went to total war with mankind was. It explains a bunch of weird stuff with Planetos, such as all the strangely advanced underground systems (mazemakers and all?), as these could have been some kind of nuclear-proof bunkers that allowed humans to survive the cataclysm, and the reduced gene pools from different communities also explains why some parts of mankind on Planetos developped special abilities, like skinchanging.

Oh, that.

I don't see myself really believing that, however many shorts I read. I think GRRM has done something similar to Ursula K. LeGuin, i.e. building a sort of "sci fi sandbox" (Thousand Worlds for GRRM, Ecumen Space for UKG) and also a "fantasy sandbox" (Planetos for GRRM, Earthsea for UKG) where they explore the same themes and even semi-recycle character archetypes, but it's still different sandboxes.

[LmL]

 Great job Blind Beth!

While I believe Martin when he says ASOIAF is not in the 1,000 worlds, it is clear that he has been developing many of the ideas in ASOIAF in all of his previous work. I've read a few, and every time I see something new about ASOIAF. 

I haven't read 7Times, but just from your capsule I can see that I must. That's some terrifying shit. The idea that the strange stone is actually keeping nature in balance by occasional horrific means definitely seems like it could fit the cotf, or the weirnet consciousness acting through the cotf, as it may be. 

As for the stone... there's a Lovecraftian baddie named Yig, the Father of Serpents, who like many Lovecraftian monsters, reaches through other dimensions and uses mind control to make people do horrible things. I think he is mixing this Yig with the more well known Yggdrasil lore to create some kind of fiery greenseer people - greenseers who became the first dragonlords, something like that. Everyone has noticed the frequent mingling of Old Gods magic and fire magic - Beric's cave, Jon Snow, Bloodraven, Mel (if she is BR's daughter), Ghost's affinity for Mel, and there are others - and I think what it's about, in a general way, is the creation of the "blood of the dragon" or dragonbonding or whatever, which I think came from a mutation of greenseer magic.

Anyway, point is, he loves Norse myth and Lovecraft, and I think he's done something clever by combing attributes of "Yig" and "Yggdrasil." You'll notice the Storm God's thunderbolt set fire to the demon tree "Ygg." Surely that's a reference to weirwoods, which are based on Yggdrasil, but think about the symbolism of a flaming tree, and a flaming tree which represents the stealing of the fire of the gods no less. The Grey King also stole Nagga's fire.. but the real Sea Dragon was the moon meteor which drowns whole Islands, while the "ribs" of Nagga seem to be petrified weirwood. So again, a mix of fire magic (the black moon meteors which drank the sun's fire and from which Lightbringer was made, according to me) and weirwood ideas. Grey King stole fire from the gods via a moon meteor - sounds like we are talking about the BSE Azor Ahai here - but also from a burning tree. The burning trees we see in a few places are symbolic of fiery greenseers, I believe. So, the way I make sense of all this is that Azor Ahai was a greenseer who transformed via "fire magic," aka the magic of the black meteor. He then became the "father of serpents." 

The reason I'm bringing all this up is because Lovecraft's Yig uses mind control. And George (if I am correct) is using these ideas with the oily black stone. So yeah - mind control or some kind of metal warping affect seems very plausible. I was already suspecting as much as it is, as it seems the OBS has some kind of magical toxicity. There's a line in a Damphair chapter about how much Balon has aged in only a few years of sitting on the chair, and of course the Grey King story has him living a thousand years and growing corpse like - so maybe there's some funky magic going on. If there's any kind of intention behind the hypothetical mental warping effects... sinister. Likely he won't tell us for sure, but who knows. Maybe we'll meet some fucked up  green men on the Isle of faces using their big black meteorite to work dark magic on people remotely or something. 

Thing is, the weirwood face on the Black Gate is described as a man who lived a thousand years, very like the Grey King - the descriptions seem to match (don't have the quotes handy).  And the Grey King sat on a throne of Nagga's fangs, and again, if Nagga's ribs are petrified weirwood, then we have the idea of Grey King sitting on a weirwood throne. So what I am seeing is a greenseer who called down the fire of the gods - which took the form of the moon meteors, which were the Hammer of the Waters, the Sea Dragon, and the Storm God's Thunderbolt - and transformed himself, possessing that fire of the gods. He was the father of serpents, or dragon people, more likely. Or one kind of dragon people. Something like that. 

Hopefully some of that is interesting / useful. Great post.

[LmL]

On January 27, 2016 at 3:13 AM, The Prince of Magpies said:

Ooh, I like this theory (it's also made me want to track down And Seven Times Never Kill Man). I'm unsure of how large a role the black, oily stone will play, given that it was introduced via ancillary material (tWoIaF) and it's potential significance has probably gone completely unnoticed by most readers. So there's the possibility that it would seem like a deus-ex-machina of sorts if it 'suddenly' became pivotal to the plot in the final two books. However, after reading your post I do think there's the distinct possibility that the properties of the stone and weirwoods you've outlined could be hinted at quite strongly, acting as an Easter Egg of sorts for dedicated fans, while not confusing more casual readers (who could plausibly rationalise Aeron's motivations as common or garden religious fanaticism).

Nah, Seastone Chair is called "an oily black stone" in the beginning of ACOK. Moat Cailin's black stone blocks appear to be "coated in a fine black oil" in ADWD. 

[The Dragon has three heads]

Yeah look for me it's just as possible he's taken the 1000 worlds premise and smooched it Into 1000 cultures for planetos and reused some of his major themes and ideas. (Celestial bodies causing increases in birth defects/advancements, unnatural season length, feudal type societies forming after a civilisation ending event  etc.)

 

h'rangans aren't evil.  We attacked them/encroached on their empire, if I recall correctly.  Plus there was also the war against another race called the fyndii these two wars collectively are the Double War which lasted at least 1000 years.

Given the inaccuracy of time through out planetos' history it's possible planetos was settled in the first flower of human expansion into h'rangan space(most likely the golden empire of the dawn were the first travellers IMO)they set up their empire before their own civil war and the the long night that directly followed.  

Now they say the long night went on for at least a generation but could have been much, much longer, no way to tell.  Then after the last hero and the defeat of the 'others' we see the rise of valyria basically out of no where, which again doesn't smell right to me.

especially given story called The Glass Flower which shows us a genetically engineered human that looks EXACTLY like valyrians.  

Anyway, the coincidences are many and varied and I highly doubt it hasn't been done on purpose.

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

12 hours ago, The Dragon has three heads said:

Yeah look for me it's just as possible he's taken the 1000 worlds premise and smooched it Into 1000 cultures for planetos and reused some of his major themes and ideas. (Celestial bodies causing increases in birth defects/advancements, unnatural season length, feudal type societies forming after a civilisation ending event  etc.)

 

h'rangans aren't evil.  We attacked them/encroached on their empire, if I recall correctly.  Plus there was also the war against another race called the fyndii these two wars collectively are the Double War which lasted at least 1000 years.

Given the inaccuracy of time through out planetos' history it's possible planetos was settled in the first flower of human expansion into h'rangan space(most likely the golden empire of the dawn were the first travellers IMO)they set up their empire before their own civil war and the the long night that directly followed.  

Now they say the long night went on for at least a generation but could have been much, much longer, no way to tell.  Then after the last hero and the defeat of the 'others' we see the rise of valyria basically out of no where, which again doesn't smell right to me.

especially given story called The Glass Flower which shows us a genetically engineered human that looks EXACTLY like valyrians.  

Anyway, the coincidences are many and varied and I highly doubt it hasn't been done on purpose.

So, actually thinking about it more, I do see one way Planetos might fit into the 1000 worlds, but not as an interregnum world and not in Hrangan space.

We see an interregnum world rather similar to Planetos in Bitterblooms. But despite the similarities it's clear that the underlying power in this story is science and technology, not magic. Ditto everything set in Hrangan space (to my knowledge, haven't read everything).

But there is another story, called The Stone City, set in the opposite direction of Hrangan space--toward the interior of the galaxy, into and past Fyndii (sp?) space. It's on a barren world called the crossworld that only has one population center, a port city built near a mysterious super-ancient stone city with mystical properties. The characters in the story are basically stuck on this world because once they arrived the technology of their ship more or less stopped working. The main character says several times "the rules are different here" and variations on that phrase. And from what we see it very much seems to be the case. 

So if a premise of the 1000 worlds is that the "rules," i.e. the rules of physics, mechanics, and reality, change as you travel in towards the center of the galaxy...maybe Planetos is what you end up with in the middle. 

From "The Stone City":

Quote

But still there were usually a few men on every port he touched, and he even began to hear rumors of a second human empire some five hundred years in toward the core, settled by a wandering generation ship and ruled from a glittering world called Prester. On Prester the cities floated on clouds, one withered Vessman told him. Holt believed that for a time until another crewmate said that Prester was really a single world-spanning city, kept alive by fleets of food freighters greater than anything the Federal Empire had built in the wars before the Collapse. The same man said it had not been a generation ship that had settled her at all—he proved that by showing how far a slow-light ship could get from Old Earth since the dawn of the interstellar age—but rather a squadron of Earth Imperials fleeing a Hrangan Mind. Holt stayed skeptical this time. When a woman from a grounded Cathadayn freighter insisted that Prester had been founded by Tomo and Walberg, and that Walberg ruled it still, he gave up on the whole idea.

 

So, not saying Planetos = Prester, but *if* Planetos is part of the Thousand Worlds I think it's far in toward the mysterious core where "manworld" technology wouldn't work and the humans who landed would have to figure out a whole different set of "rules" for how reality works. I.e. magic. 

(Although it would be hilarious if the God-on-Earth was really named Walberg.)

[LmL]

The Wall + Iceburg = Wallberg. 

*drops mic*

[Jak Scaletongue]

3 hours ago, LmL said:

The Wall + Iceburg = Wallberg. 

*drops mic*

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

3 hours ago, LmL said:

The Wall + Iceburg = Wallberg. 

*drops mic*

It is known. :-P

 

(PS I'll have a response to your longer comment this evening.)

[LmL]

2 hours ago, Blind Beth the Cat Lady said:

It is known. :-P

 

(PS I'll have a response to your longer comment this evening.)

Taking this one step further, it becomes clear that Mark Walberg is the Great Other, and his next movie might unleash the Long Night. 

Blind Beth & Three Heads has the Dragon, I wouldn't mind hearing more about the glass flower and these people that look like Valyrians. There could be a clue about the origin of "Blood of the Dragon" in there somewhere. 

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

40 minutes ago, LmL said:

Taking this one step further, it becomes clear that Mark Walberg is the Great Other, and his next movie might unleash the Long Night. 

Blind Beth & Three Heads has the Dragon, I wouldn't mind hearing more about the glass flower and these people that look like Valyrians. There could be a clue about the origin of "Blood of the Dragon" in there somewhere. 

Obviously...Ted 2 certainly felt like it lasted for a generation.

 

I haven't read The Glass Flower yet, or anything about Valyrian-looking people or genetic modification. But I'm blasting through Dreamsongs very quickly and should get there soon.