Heresy 182

[Black Crow]

5 hours ago, Mace Cooterian said:

MwD....thanks for sharing the scene in follow up to BC's earlier comment.  This is the same scene I remembered as well.  IMHO it tells us that young Bran will be taking trips at least backwards in time with the help of the deadman in the wierwood.  I can't help but wonder if that is the direction that GRRM is taking in TWoW with Bran.  Hmmm???

I think I can cheerfully agree openly that this sequence is no more than the mummers' version of Bran's weirwood visions.

 remember that because its pitched at viewers who may not have read the books the mummers do have to simplify these things and using Bloodraven as a spirit guide is going to be a lot easier in explaining what's happening

[Black Crow]

9 hours ago, Matthew. said:

Quite possibly, and if I'm not mistaken there has been discussion (though not in this thread) about how certain aspects of Dany's encounter with the Undying may actually apply to all three heads of the dragon; e.g., they cited examples of other characters fulfilling the "Three Fires you Must Light," "Three betrayals you will know" and so forth.

I wouldn't be surprised if at least three characters experience some variation of the "rebirth by fire" motif, and I think that could be interpreted more than one way; maybe the three heads of the dragon are literally the three dragon riders, or maybe the three heads will be three rivals. If we keep in mind that a lot of aCoK was written before the series grew completely out of hand, GRRM may have intended it to be his second arc of the story, with the "Dance of the Dragons 2.0" not just being Dany's arrival, or Dany vs "Aegon VI," but perhaps a war between the three heads of the dragon.

I'm not sure how this will actually work out or who, beyond Danaerys the Dragonlord, might be involved, but I'd very much agree that interpreting the three heads of the dragon as three dragon-riders flying in close formation is altogether far too simplistic.

[Meanders with Daggers]

11 hours ago, Matthew. said:

Quite possibly, and if I'm not mistaken there has been discussion (though not in this thread) about how certain aspects of Dany's encounter with the Undying may actually apply to all three heads of the dragon; e.g., they cited examples of other characters fulfilling the "Three Fires you Must Light," "Three betrayals you will know" and so forth.

I wouldn't be surprised if at least three characters experience some variation of the "rebirth by fire" motif, and I think that could be interpreted more than one way; maybe the three heads of the dragon are literally the three dragon riders, or maybe the three heads will be three rivals. If we keep in mind that a lot of aCoK was written before the series grew completely out of hand, GRRM may have intended it to be his second arc of the story, with the "Dance of the Dragons 2.0" not just being Dany's arrival, or Dany vs "Aegon VI," but perhaps a war between the three heads of the dragon.

There certainly are a lot of 3's in ASOIAF!

For the rivals, if Euron's horn blowing did indeed bind him to a dragon, that would put him up against Dany, and there could very well be another battle between dragons, the fire-breathing kind. I can't see Dany siding with Euron. 

[Meanders with Daggers]

2 hours ago, Black Crow said:

I think I can cheerfully agree openly that this sequence is no more than the mummers' version of Bran's weirwood visions.

 

Hidden Content

 

I don't have a reliable source, but I read on reddit that GRRM is planning on having Howland Reed in TWOW? I can see how the show's B&BR visions may be an interpretation of both Reed filling us in, as well as Brans tree visions. 

[Black Crow]

Not necessarily in WoW; but he has confirmed that Howland Reed will appear at some point but is currently being held back because he knows too much about the "central mystery". This is usually interpreted as his knowing the secret of R+L=J, but may actually relate to his time on the Isle of Faces.

[Matthew.]

12 hours ago, Mace Cooterian said:

....and we obviously look forward to your reasoning on how Howland Reed might by conjuring up White Walkers.

I don't have any formal theory, just a bit of crackpot inspiration I took from a post by The Butcher Crow in one of the previous threads.

For anyone who wants an in depth version of his theory they can go to Heresy 180, but the gist of it was a series of observations about how the Feast at Harrenhal was a variation of the Beltane festival, with Martin taking inspiration from Celtic mythology. The specific point of interest here is that he equates Howland Reed with the Green Man/embodiment of summer; during the Beltane festival, the Green Man will initially appear in his costume as the King of Winter, before that costume is removed to reveal the Green Man beneath, thus transitioning from winter to summer.

Where I break with TBC's theory and begin roving off into speculative, crackpot territory is the fact that the Feast at Harrenhal was not heralding the beginning of summer at all; instead, it fell upon the Year of the False Spring, and was subsequently followed by brutal winter storms. This immediately put into my head the image of Howland Reed following a sort of reverse course--instead of his winter costume being removed to reveal the green man costume, the green man costume is removed to reveal the "winter" beneath.

Again, I have no specific theory as to why this would be the case, I was just struck by that image, as well as some of the random information we have about Howland Reed:
-He already "knew all the magic of the crannogs" before he went to the Isle of Faces, where he spent a winter
-"He could breathe mud and run on leaves, change earth to water and water to earth with no more than whispered word"
-Present at Harrenhal, present when Eddard goes to recover Lyanna

Besides the associations with sorcery and the Isle of Faces, Howland Reed is beginning to look conspicuous in his absence; he was one of Eddard's closest allies, yet he didn't personally show up with Robb called the banners, nor when he's declared King in the North. Instead, it's his son and daughter who pledge service, and eventually lead Bran north of the Wall. Is the business of running Greywater Watch so important than it cannot be trusted to anyone else for even a brief period, or is Howland not showing up because he's distracted by more important matters--is he, perhaps, not even south of the Wall anymore?

In addition to all of that, there's the timing of what's happening north of the Wall. Why now? Is this the first time in 8,000 years where such sorcery was possible? Have "the Others" been biding their time, twiddling their thumbs for thousands of years? Or is there some other reason--are the WWs back, leading their host of the dead, as a direct consequence of recent history?
___________________

Having thrown all of that out there, if I'm being honest, I still think he's one of the less likely candidates for whoever/whatever is raising new WWs north of the Wall. Nonetheless, I do think there's some value in going down such speculative roads, since I believe the reader has more reason to care if the 'face' of the WW threat is familiar, rather than a figure from ancient legend, or some relentless force of death and winter.

[Black Crow]

I think that this theory needs more work [in a positive sense] but otherwise I agree that its a more fruitful line of speculation than casting him simply as a witness who will one day appear with no more positive role than to wave an affydavy deponing that Jon Snow is the son, lawful or otherwise, of the late Prince Rhaegar.

To put it bluntly any fool who might be written into the story as having been there there would serve for that; if the point of the revelation is to establish Jon as a lost Targaryen, why pick a Green Man whose children are to all intents and purposes being sacrificed by him in order to deliver Bran to the old gods?

[Lady Dyanna]

14 hours ago, Matthew. said:

Where I break with TBC's theory and begin roving off into speculative, crackpot territory is the fact that the Feast at Harrenhal was not heralding the beginning of summer at all; instead, it fell upon the Year of the False Spring, and was subsequently followed by brutal winter storms. This immediately put into my head the image of Howland Reed following a sort of reverse course--instead of his winter costume being removed to reveal the green man costume, the green man costume is removed to reveal the "winter" beneath.

I wish that it was possible to just like a post, because I really don't have much to add. But I do want to say that this makes quite a bit of sense. Especially since during the tournament, Howland went from staying on the Isle of Faces with the Green Men to staying in a tent with Ned Stark. And what are the Starks associated with, if not winter?

14 hours ago, Matthew. said:

Present at Harrenhal, present when Eddard goes to recover Lyanna

And that account is nothing if not unusual. Which is black, the rose petals or Lyanna's hands? Why does Ned not remember much of what happened after Lyanna dies?

14 hours ago, Matthew. said:

Besides the associations with sorcery and the Isle of Faces, Howland Reed is beginning to look conspicuous in his absence; he was one of Eddard's closest allies, yet he didn't personally show up with Robb called the banners, nor when he's declared King in the North. Instead, it's his son and daughter who pledge service, and eventually lead Bran north of the Wall. Is the business of running Greywater Watch so important than it cannot be trusted to anyone else for even a brief period, or is Howland not showing up because he's distracted by more important matters--is he, perhaps, not even south of the Wall anymore?

This is a really good point. I think this is why people try turning him into the High Sparrow. This idea, however, seems to make much more sense. From what we know of Howland, a magical reason seems much more likely than a sudden conversion to the Faith of the Seven.

14 hours ago, Matthew. said:

In addition to all of that, there's the timing of what's happening north of the Wall. Why now? Is this the first time in 8,000 years where such sorcery was possible? Have "the Others" been biding their time, twiddling their thumbs for thousands of years? Or is there some other reason--are the WWs back, leading their host of the dead, as a direct consequence of recent history?

Good question. In my mind, at least for right now, it all goes back into the death of Lyanna. She is the only Stark that we hear about that doesn't have a sword guarding her tomb. Nor do we have any idea of what happened in the time period that Ned is unable to remember.

 

14 hours ago, Matthew. said:

Having thrown all of that out there, if I'm being honest, I still think he's one of the less likely candidates for whoever/whatever is raising new WWs north of the Wall. Nonetheless, I do think there's some value in going down such speculative roads, since I believe the reader has more reason to care if the 'face' of the WW threat is familiar, rather than a figure from ancient legend, or some relentless force of death and winter.

It might just be that he's not the ONLY one doing or involved in this. I'm starting to sense that there are several different factions of WW. Seems like there are three of everything else.

[Lady Dyanna]

13 hours ago, Black Crow said:

I think that this theory needs more work [in a positive sense] but otherwise I agree that its a more fruitful line of speculation than casting him simply as a witness who will one day appear with no more positive role than to wave an affydavy deponing that Jon Snow is the son, lawful or otherwise, of the late Prince Rhaegar.

To put it bluntly any fool who might be written into the story as having been there there would serve for that; if the point of the revelation is to establish Jon as a lost Targaryen, why pick a Green Man whose children are to all intents and purposes being sacrificed by him in order to deliver Bran to the old gods?

[Lady Dyanna]

Sorry. The above is a formatting error that I can't seem to fix.  Just wanted to say that I agree.  Howland Reed has the potential to be so much more than the local delivery man of mouldy birth certificates, marriage licenses and wills. He's not the local notary public for Pete's sake.

[Black Crow]

26 minutes ago, Lady Dyanna said:

It might just be that he's not the ONLY one doing or involved in this. I'm starting to sense that there are several different factions of WW. Seems like there are three of everything else.

It's a popular theory that there are kindly elves and bad elves and perhaps indifferent elves to make three, but I've not really seen anything of different factions in the text. However the Three-fingered tree-huggers+Craster's boys+wights do of course = three 

[Black Crow]

Conversely I do believe that we are looking at dualities here; the most obvious being Ice and Fire. The Reed's oath pairs earth and water and then bronze and iron before uniting them through Ice and Fire, and there's also that later reference to unity in the land being one.

In this context its worth bearing in mind with reference to the green man parallel that the mediaeval Welsh word glas can mean according to context green or grey.The green man with his face of leaves obviously represents life and fertility, but the green knight [as in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight] is actually the grey knight - death.

The question then becomes whether the various dualities; whether Ice and Fire or Black and White; life and death are sufficient in themselves to ensure the land is one as I suspect to be the case. Arguably a third "head of the dragon" might impose a balance on that dichotomy, which ultimately is the supposed point of R+L=J representing both Ice and Fire. On the whole I'm perhaps more inclined to see three rather than two upsetting the balance.

[Meanders with Daggers]

20 hours ago, Matthew. said:

In addition to all of that, there's the timing of what's happening north of the Wall. Why now? Is this the first time in 8,000 years where such sorcery was possible? Have "the Others" been biding their time, twiddling their thumbs for thousands of years? Or is there some other reason--are the WWs back, leading their host of the dead, as a direct consequence of recent history?
 

Why now - the million dollar question! Did it start with the Andals? The Doom? Or because of Roberts Rebellion? We know they started stirring before aGoT. I really like your HR analysis. 

5 hours ago, Black Crow said:

The question then becomes whether the various dualities; whether Ice and Fire or Black and White; life and death are sufficient in themselves to ensure the land is one as I suspect to be the case. Arguably a third "head of the dragon" might impose a balance on that dichotomy, which ultimately is the supposed point of R+L=J representing both Ice and Fire. On the whole I'm perhaps more inclined to see three rather than two upsetting the balance.

What if we looked at the religions? There's magic in this story - maybe there's gods behind the opposing forces? Fire - R'hollr; Ice - The Great Other. And then there's the Seven. Has the Seven faith been tweaking the balance between the Ice and Fire gods or have they been trying to silence them (e.g., via the conclave archmaester grey-sheep)? We know that both sides of the Ice/Fire magic has been increasing. There must have been a catalyst to start the up-rise, I can't put my finger on a singular event, as the cause is probably a series of events.

There's a lot more happening at the Citadel than GRRM has filled us in on. He's told us the wonky seasons are because of magic, and we know the archmaesters frown upon any talk of dragons/magic, with poison in your porridge as the consequence for investing interest. I've tried searching the almighty google and haven't been able to find anything on when the citadel started (but I'd imagine it coincides with the Andals somehow hence their support for the Seven faith); maybe their start-up is related to this catalyst that has been slowly increasing the magic across the world. 

 

Edit. It just dawned on me that the catalyst was probably after the events in the Dunk/Eggs stories, so maybe something around the time of Robert's Rebellion? 

[Black Crow]

I've always tended to see the Faith as being Westeros' version of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church in which GRRM grew up, because like the latter its success appears to lie in its not appearing ab initio but rather through absorbing other religions and deities and therefore gaining acceptance through familiarity especially amongst the common people in continuing to worship their old gods under different names. Therefore in looking at the Andal conquest I'm inclined to see the focus on burning out an slaughtering the three-fingered tree huggers as slightly misleading.

Its evident from the World Book in particular that the Andal conquest was not achieved in the manner of a Dothraki horde overrunning the land through sheer weight of numbers and slaughtering or enslaving anything in their path, but rather was achieved by defeating or marrying into the local aristocracy and in some cases taking on their names. Afterwards the common people, by and large were still the same common people who worked the land before the Andals tooled up.

Because then you see we have this business of the Pact and the First Men taking up the Old Gods. Was this truly the case or was it the Lords of the First Men who agreed the Pact and bowed to the Old Gods, and did the commons support and assist the Andals in their iconoclastic burning of the weirwoods and the slaughter of the children because they themselves had worshipped them only because their lords demanded it and resented the sacrifices?

After all the original wars between men and tree-huggers originated in the hewing down and burning of the weirwoods. Perhaps to the commons the Andals appeared as liberators who held to the old ways, hence the ready conversion to the Seven

[Meanders with Daggers]

The ready conversion to the Seven makes sense. The respective Ice and Fire religion (for lack of a better word) is, well, scary. By following the Ice/Fire gods, even if a commoner follows their beliefs there's still the unknown that their loved ones, or loved way of life, may have to be sacrificed to appease the deity. The commons being liberated to the Seven gives more power to the commons in that there's less blood sacrificing, and there's clear, written 'laws' to follow that are for the most part, more fair.   

As it's written in the Song, power resides where the people believe it resides, making all that 'belief power' focused to a new, better way of life in the Seven. Let's assume for a moment that these Ice/Fire deities do/did have power, whether it's magical or more tangible, when the commons converted, perhaps that blew out the candle, angered the gods, but sent them away powerless. That in turn suppressed the Ice/Fire deities power and life for the people became more livable. Somewhere along the way, something 'sparked the candle' and the Ice/Fire deities began to gain more power, hence the rise in the Ice/Fire magic in recent times. 

All said, this is just a thought. It's so much fun to speculate

[Black Crow]

3 minutes ago, Meanders with Daggers said:

All said, this is just a thought. It's so much fun to speculate

Twas ever thus 

[Black Crow]

As to that thought I'm less inclined to seeing gods, deities or whatever actually possessing powers, but rather its a matter of belief and of magic imperfectly worked in their name. As I said earlier I don't think that the three-fingered tree huggers can control the weather at all and that all their magicks did was unleash forces beyond their control.

[Black Crow]

8 minutes ago, Meanders with Daggers said:

Somewhere along the way, something 'sparked the candle' and the Ice/Fire deities began to gain more power, hence the rise in the Ice/Fire magic in recent times. 

What kicked this off is certainly a long-standing matter of speculation, but one thing that I don't think has been considered is the possibility that as the higher reaches of the Faith grew more corrupt and faithless this may have had some bearing on the matter.

[Melifeather]

Snowfyre has brought up some interesting points about horns that I hadn't thought of or read about anywhere else. I think I brought up the howling of the direwolves being similar to blowing horns earlier, and how howling is the horn that wakes the sleeping wargs, causing them to open their (third) eyes, and become giants among mankind.

Read Snowfyre's  Theory in Progress: Joruman and the Horn of Winter

[Black Crow]

Indeed, its an interesting one, but if you want to take up discussion on it over here it will have to come in the next thread for this one has run its course and its time to close it down.

See you all on Heresy 183, opening now.