Heresy 182

[WitteRaaf]

9 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

I see what you are saying regarding Catelyn and Beric, but I think your hopes for Jon are SOL (shit outta luck). We learned by Varamyr's example that once your body dies the soul/spirit of a warg/skinchanger is severed and he didn't have control over where it went. Luckily he still had a connection to One Eye and so was drawn into that host. If Jon's body dies, he will likely go into Ghost, but he cannot leave again. At least not of his own volition. He'll become part of Ghost. If Melisandre is able to draw Jon's soul/spirit out of Ghost and back into his dead body, then this would challenge what you and BC are saying about Beric and Lady Stoneheart.

I can only hope that Mel has nothing to do with any attempt to bring back Jon.  I think Mel and her god are bad news. (More on this later)

beric and cat served the new gods 

jon does not.  Hopefully that means something. 

If jon returns fully I would prefer it to be through Val or some other northern conduit

[Matthew.]

36 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

 We learned by Varamyr's example that once your body dies the soul/spirit of a warg/skinchanger is severed and he didn't have control over where it went. Luckily he still had a connection to One Eye and so was drawn into that host. If Jon's body dies, he will likely go into Ghost, but he cannot leave again. At least not of his own volition.

Maybe, but for the sake of simplicity, I'd always assumed that if the skinchanger's body were brought back - and wasn't enthralled, as the wights are - that the mind would naturally seek to return to its body, and since its the body that contains the gift, and with its return the gift is reactivated. Nonetheless, if GRRM really feels like it needs to be more complicated, perhaps he could return to his body (or another) with an 'assist' from Bran.

That said, I did read a theory I sort of liked that's related to the present discussion. If I'm not mistaken, the way it went was that Jon would be resurrected relatively early in WoW by Melisandre, and continue to be a presence throughout the book, but not as a POV character; then, at the end, we'd get a Jon-in-Ghost epilogue and discover that the "real" Jon has been in Ghost since his death, and that whatever is shambling around in Westeros is someone/something else entirely.

[Melifeather]

4 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

Maybe, but for the sake of simplicity, I'd always assumed that if the skinchanger's body were brought back - and wasn't enthralled, as the wights are - that the mind would naturally seek to return to its body, and since its the body that contains the gift, and with its return the gift is reactivated.

 

Sounds like CPR. lol

[Matthew.]

9 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Or to put it another way, while it amuses us to try and create that hierarchy of greater and lesser demons, is it one which GRRM would recognise?

I don't know about a hierarchy, it's more like the significance of such distinctions is that I don't view wights as "ice zombies;" which is to say, I don't think they're a horde that's just acting on some base drive or instinct. Indeed, rather than viewing Othor and Jaffer as aberations, I think they're proof that the wights with the burning blue eyes are being micromanaged and directed, acting in accordance with someone's intent and purpose, rather than just wandering aimlessly.

[Melifeather]

10 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

I don't know about a hierarchy, it's more like the significance of such distinctions is that I don't view wights as "ice zombies;" which is to say, I don't think they're a horde that's just acting on some base drive or instinct. Indeed, rather than viewing Othor and Jaffer as aberations, I think they're proof that the wights with the burning blue eyes are being micromanaged and directed, acting in accordance with someone's intent and purpose, rather than just wandering aimlessly.

I would agree with this. I do believe the wights are under control. Their bones have some memory of their previous life, but they obviously don't get to dictate where they go since they seem to stay in a group. IMO the white walkers control the wights.

[Black Crow]

4 hours ago, aDanceWithFlagons said:

I agree. Most likely we are putting more thought into it than GRRM is.

Coldhands seems unique. He looks like a wight but does not quack like a wight.  It could be that he and Beric and Stoneheart are all similar undead beings although Coldhands seems to have been around a long, long time.

So, setting Coldhands to the side for the moment, the undead Beric and Catelyn operate similarly to the other undead. The necromancy does not need to come directly from the original source. The priest gives the kiss of life to Beric. Beric passes it on to Cat.  This is no exactly the same way the wights operate yet it is very similar in the way wights can create more wights.  And that's what I take from it. The original provider does not need to be present for the necromancy to work.

I'm not sure that its a entirely a matter of putting more thought into it than GRRM, in the sense of his being careless, but rather that we may sometimes be guilty of trying to impose an unnecessary order upon a deliberate chaos, by which I mean that in declining to set out rules of magic GRRM intends it to be unpredictable. Jon, if dead, may rise again as something like Beric/Catelyn, or he may rise as another Coldhands, but rather than speculate as to which of those models is more likely, I would suggest that we'll see something quite different.

In trying to impose some order on the walking dead its worth bearing in mind that if we move above the the level of the very dead zombies who stormed the Fist, the sentient ones are all unique. There is but one Coldhands who is quite different from Beric/Stoneheart and both [or all three if you want to be pedantic] are different from Victarion.

I'd suggest therefore that if there is any classification of the living dead then it is at a very basic level in distinguishing between the truly dead wights, and the sentient dead whose personal condition is at once unique and unpredictable.

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

I see what you are saying regarding Catelyn and Beric, but I think your hopes for Jon are SOL (shit outta luck). We learned by Varamyr's example that once your body dies the soul/spirit of a warg/skinchanger is severed and he didn't have control over where it went. 

Perfectly true, but on the other hand having declined to set out rules of magic, I'd be wary of expecting the story-line to stick rigidly to the rules set out by Varamyr. Instead we're dealing with unpredictable magic which does what GRRM wants it to do.

[Voice of the First Men]

Or to put it another way, while it amuses us to try and create that hierarchy of greater and lesser demons, is it one which GRRM would recognise?

The watchers moved forward together, as if some signal had been given.

Did someone mention a hierarchy?

Lol hi folks.

[Black Crow]

Greetings stranger, is that a dagger I see behind thy back... 

Ah well when it comes to those particular demons I don't account them amongst the undead or rather those raised from the dead, but see them as transformed to Ice made flesh while living, just as Mel and very likely Moqorro were transformed to fire made flesh while living [?]

[Black Crow]

I had a not entirely unrelated thought earlier, regarding Craster's boys. As I've said before GRRM's statement confirming that when Ser Puddles was pinked by Sam the dragonglass broke the spell holding him together, also confirms the walkers are not a race but are created by magic. That of course begs the question of who is creating or rather transforming them. In the mummers' version we quite unequivocally see a figure identified as the Nights King effect both the transformation and the raising of the dead as wights.

There is a problem here though in the GRRM has quite firmly said that the Nights King is just a figure from Westerosi mythology. I forget the exact words but as I recall he was specifically denying the appearance or reappearance of the Nights King in the book. So what gives?

The easy answer might be that the mummers' version is going its own way, yet this seems something quite fundamental to the core story around which their version is based and I suggest therefore that what we're actually seeing here is the creation of a smoke screen to avoid revealing a big spoiler. Craster's sons have to be transformed and the dead have to be raised by somebody, but if that somebody was, just for the sake of argument Benjen Stark, its hardly the sort of thing that anybody would want to reveal early. OK the timing has to be off for Benjen, but it does suggest once again that whoever is behind the blue-eyed lot isn't some outsider but is much closer to home and perhaps much closer to the Starks.

[Matthew.]

20 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

There is a problem here though in the GRRM has quite firmly said that the Nights King is just a figure from Westerosi mythology. I forget the exact words but as I recall he was specifically denying the appearance or reappearance of the Nights King in the book. So what gives?

 

He didn't deny it, he gave a typically ambiguous GRRM answer, saying that the Night's King is "no more likely to still be alive than Bran the Builder or Lann the Clever." Which, of course, in a world where Bloodraven, the Undying, and possibly Melisandre have lived well beyond mortal spans, doesn't necessarily mean that the Night's King - or the figure his myth is based upon - couldn't be alive.

You brought up Benjen, and I actually think his odds of being the figure responsible for what's happening isn't outside the realm of possibility. If we assume that whoever/or whatever is creating the White Walkers has always borne his current appearance, then no, the timing doesn't work for Benjen. On the other hand, if we speculate that there might be a price to be paid for using such magic - such as the Undying turning to blue husks, Bloodraven merging with his tree, etc. - then perhaps we're seeing the physical toll taken on Benjen, which also conveniently hides his identity in the show.

Alternately, just because we've only seen the show's "Nights's King" creating white walkers, that doesn't mean he's the only one capable of doing so; perhaps the army was already there, building itself on Craster's sacrifices, awaiting an appropriate king, in much the same way that Bran is seemingly being groomed to inherit BR's position as Last Greenseer.

All of that rambling aside, I still think the show's NK could very well be the 13th LC, or my go-to crackpot candidate for some of the unresolved mysteries of the North: Howland Reed.

 

[Black Crow]

All sorts of possibilities are out there, but I still suspect that "the Nights King" is no more than a working title aimed at concealing some kind of Stark connection for as long as possible - and no, while there are obvious difficulties, I wouldn't actually rule out Benjen myself either.

[Voice of the First Men]

All sorts of possibilities are out there, but I still suspect that "the Nights King" is no more than a working title

I agree. He was a magnar. A demigod.

[Voice of the First Men]

Greetings stranger, is that a dagger I see behind thy back... [emoji3]

Ah well when it comes to those particular demons I don't account them amongst the undead or rather those raised from the dead, but see them as transformed to Ice made flesh while living, just as Mel and very likely Moqorro were transformed to fire made flesh while living [?]

No daggers for you old friend, only a pint.

[Black Crow]

9 minutes ago, Voice of the First Men said:

I agree. He was a magnar. A demigod.

Nah, if that was the case they could have called him Rumpelstiltskin. In both series and especially the first when they redacted the Nights King title from the credits they were very coy about him, as if they're hiding something, which is why I think its just a handy working title not for a magnar, a demi-god or any other random character we don't yet know of in either version of the story, but for someone closer to home whose real identity would be a major spoiler. 

[WitteRaaf]

On 2/2/2016 at 3:54 PM, shizett said:

(Friedrich Nietzsche)-Whoever has overthrown an existing law of custom has hitherto always first been accounted a bad man: but when, as did happen, the law could not afterwards be reinstated and this fact was accepted, the predicate gradually changed; - history treats almost exclusively of these bad men who subsequently became good men! (daybreak)

With liberal paraphrasing we can arrive at:  History is written by the victors

The night is:  dark and full of terrors, it is black, it brings ice,(because it is an absence of the suns warmth),it is winter,  it is hate, it is bitter (jealousy), it is (enjoys and utilizes) pain, it is evil and it is death, it is masculine. The Lion of Night.

The day is:   bright and beautiful and full of hope, it is white, it brings fire,(nurturing warmth), it is summer, it is love, it is sweet (gentle and forgiving), it is pleasure (peaceful), it is good and it is life and it is female.   The Maiden made of Light. 

The first 4 or 5 pages of this thread really set my gears to grinding.  I wondered about the use of magic and about the nature of Beric and Cats resurrection.  Specifically, I wondered:  If they both remained focused and or bound to the duty/mental/emotional state they were in when they died, what would this mean for Jon if he is rezzed.  Before I got around to determining anything about Jons duty/mental/emotional state upon his death, I wondered/wandered further.   The BWB were always a bit confusing to me in that they seemed to change over time and I was thinking maybe Berics mental state each time he died may have altered some.  So I went searching and noticed something I thought was odd.   Thoros, when speaking about his "god", used a capital G.   Whats so strange about that you ask?   not much/everything  it depends on who you ask.  My parents made it a point when I was young, and studying such things as mythology, to tell me to always capitalize THE God and never to give the others that honor, so to me it stood out.   GRRM has been described as a lapsed catholic so I wondered if maybe he had heard the same and whether or not it affected his use of the capital G in his writing.  off to ASOIAF i went.

If ASOIAF can be trusted the word god(s) is used 1317 times.  This is just in the 5 complete "core" books of the series.   Thats a lot! How to whittle that down?   Exclamations (gods its hot) I threw out. Lower case gods I threw out.  Place names as proper nouns are capitalized (gods eye, isle of the gods, gate of the gods)...I threw them out.  Proper writing technique (capitalizing the first letter in a sentence) I threw out.  What remained was surprising.  In the interest of conserving space I have edited some of these, but the heart of what was said remains.

In AGOT out of 232 uses of the word god(s) only one remained. 

Qotho stepped close to Mirri Maz Duur. "Know this, wife of the Lamb God. Harm the khal and you suffer the same." He drew his skinning knife and showed her the blade.

What do we know about Mirri? She spent a great deal of time studying with various peoples, spent some time in Asshai....not much. but remember that she said only death can pay for life. There are other instances where a god is only mentioned once and we arent told much about them. (the drunken god for example) I threw them out, I included this one because of Mirris comment.

in ACOK out of 330 uses only 17 remained.   I wanted to keep only those that had something substantial to offer about their respective gods, I wanted the ones that told us something about them or what they had to offer. I threw out repetitious references.  Only seven remained.

Melisandre of Asshai, sorceress, shadowbinder, and priestess to R'hllor, the Lord of Light, the Heart of Fire, the God of Flame and Shadow. 

"The Drowned God makes men, but it's men who make crowns."

The Drowned God had made them to reave and rape, to carve out kingdoms and write their names in fire and blood and song.

green and grey and blue, the swirling colors of the Drowned God. 

A burning brand it is, It is the flame the Drowned God brought from the sea, and it proclaims a rising tide.

Note the fire and blood of the drowned god

"The Red God has his due, sweet girl, and only death may pay for life.

this one took me by surprise, I didnt remember it.  This was Jaquen talking to Arya (you took one you owe three)he serves the HOBAW. They serve the stranger, the lion of night, and yet he names him red.

The Seven Gods who made us all, are listening if we should call. 

Using the parameters I detailed above, this is the only listing for the seven in all five books.   I know I saw at least one more, but it came at the start of a sentence and so I threw it out.  I wanted only intentional uses of the capital G, not ones that could be explained as "being proper".

in ASOS out of 234 uses only 4 remain

He had gone so far as to put the fiery heart on his banners, the fiery heart of R'hllor, Lord of Light and God of Flame and Shadow. 

On one side is R'hllor, the Lord of Light, the Heart of Fire, the God of Flame and Shadow. Against him stands the Great Other whose name may not be spoken, the Lord of Darkness, the Soul of Ice, the God of Night and Terror.

"His name may not be spoken," Melisandre added softly. "He is the God of Night and Terror, Jon Snow, and these shapes in the snow are his creatures."

I counted that second one twice as it refers to rhllor and the other, I have a real strong suspicion that whatever name he goes by, rhllor is not the lord of light, that he IS the god of night and terror. 

in AFFC out of 210 only 50 remain....no, Im not going to list them all.  19 survived my criteria.

The Drowned God gives every man a gift,

The Drowned God plays savage japes upon us all,

the Drowned God wills... [who]... should sit the Seastone Chair

the Drowned God planned his wars against the Storm God. 

The Drowned God shaped [man] to stand steel-clad with an axe red and dripping in his hand, dealing death with every blow.

The drowned god was by far the one most likely to have the capital G (and also the most likely to see my editing/paraphrasing)

For a thousand thousand years sea and sky had been at war. From the sea had come the ironborn.

storms brought only woe and grief.

I think I may have deleted parts of these last two.??

ravens were creatures of the Storm God

Ravens are creatures of the storm god? Interesting if nothing else

Storm God has a  cloudy hall.(sky god)

The Storm God drowned Nagga's fire after the Grey King's death

This was the first time the storm god survived my search criteria, he shows up twice in ADOD but we learn nothing new.

That is where you will find the . . . the Many-Faced God."

What was he about to say here?

"Death is not the worst thing, It is His gift to us. 

Many-Faced God sends each of us a dark angel to walk through life beside us. 
the angel takes us by the hand to lead us to the nightlands, where the stars burn ever bright.

"The gift of the Many-Faced God takes myriad forms," the kindly man told her, "but here it is always gentle."

Many have served Him of Many Faces through the centuries, but only a few of His servants have been women. Women bring the gift of life, We bring the gift of death. No one can do both."

the Many-Faced God will take your ears, your nose, your tongue. He will take your eyes. He will take your hands, your feet, your arms and legs, your private parts. He will take your hopes and dreams, your loves and hates. Those who enter His service must give up all that makes them who they are.

Beric?  Catelyn?.......dare I say it?   Jon?

"The Many-Faced God took two-thirds of your father's wealth, not all." 

in ADOD out of 311 only 7 remain after my "whittling"

the seas are ruled by the Drowned God."

Drowned God is a demon," no more than a thrall of the Other, the dark god whose name must not be spoken."

what was there to say that the servants of the Many-Faced God could not change their voices as easily as they did their faces?

What are gods for if not to sit in judgment over men? The Many-Faced God does not weigh men's souls 

He gives his gift to the best of men as he gives it to the worst. Elsewise the good would live forever." 

May those deaths be long in coming. Jon Snow sank to one knee in the snow. Gods of my fathers, protect these men. And Arya too, my little sister, wherever she might be. I pray you, let Mance find her and bring her safe to me.

Gods of the wood, grant me the strength to do the same, Jon Snow prayed silently. Give me the wisdom to know what must be done and the courage to do it.

These last two were the only references to the old gods in the whole series to survive my "search"

reading them together like this, the drowned god, red rhllor, and the many faced god all seem the same.  of all the magic weve seen so far, I think it has all been derived from the lion of night.   

Feather Crystal says: ....... (quotes GRRM) ....we have two sources of magic descending on westeros.

Descending is a sneaky word, but accurate. The sources of magic are godly, and therefore magic descends....from the gods.

                      ....weve also seen life force drawn from living people like stannis to create shadows                           
 

could this be the dark angels of the manyfaced god?

Armstark says: ..... this is not a story of evil vs good....
                      ..... there will be no great evil stranger who fights the white knight, rather i suspect in the end the reader will be confused as to who the good guys really are.
                       .....as i said we have seen no healing magic and very little protective magic......what we see instead is armies of the dead, taking over peoples bodies against their will, soul/lifeforce stealing and various forms of deciet (glamours etc)
                        ....the point is that magic is not all powerful but rather tilts heavily to the evil side with good things like healing being impossible

I suspect that the drowned god has played his great jape, I think the readers and the characters are confused as to who the good gods really are, and I think in the end the white knight may be fighting for the stranger unknowingly.   Magic tilts to the evil side because it originates from evil

                             
Black Crow says: ......  but yet we get so much of the black and white, including the black rangers and the white rangers that there is no doubting that a [balanced] conflict is going on.....
                            ..... its not a question of a conflict of good and evil per se, but rather that there is a conflict which is spiraling out of control. it was made pretty clear from the outset that the ice is a force to be feared. but as the story has gone on weve come to realise that the fire, far from being the saviour also promises its horrors- and that both sides are more enigmatic than at first appears........
                             ...... im not so sure about supposedly inanimate objects [or magic] not being evil. ygritte certainly believed that of the wall and i dont see why when were dealing with magic, the evil which goes into the creation of something, be it a sword or a great wall of ice, should not remain within it.......
                              ..... the magic weve seen so far is evil in that it subverts nature........

 Iagree with all of this with two modifications:    1) if Im right about this the balance shifts, never static, always changing like the seasons.    2)it is a conflict of good and evil as men would define it , not necessarily as the gods would define it themselves

Matthew says:..... if anything what may be misleading is melisandres world view, which necessarily equates fire with goodness/holiness and ice with evil, forces destined to do battle, when the actual relationship may be something else entirely. perhaps something more in line with jojens the land is one philosophy........
                    ...... stannis's sword= light without heat......

I agree completely, and as for Stannis's sword, the lord of light being the lion of night, he is light without heat. Or light but no warmth, no natural affection, no nurturing caring love embodied by the mother goddess.....the Maiden made of Light

Shizett says: ...... how can magic be evil? it is a force. what sentient beings do to other sentient beings can be evil......
                    ..... i wouldnt call magic evil because it would diminish the responsibility of those who wield it........
                    ......  they are not creating magic out of nowhere it already exists, they are tapping into its power ......

How can magic be evil?  When its source is evil.    YES! most definetly call it  evil, fail to do so and you remove culpability.
No, they are not creating magic, it does already exist and they are tapping into its power.

A few last quotes:

"And many names," the kindly man had said. "In Qohor he is the Black Goat, in Yi Ti the Lion of Night, in Westeros the Stranger. All men must bow to him in the end, no matter if they worship the Seven or the Lord of Light, the Moon Mother or the Drowned God or the Great Shepherd. All mankind belongs to him . . . else somewhere in the world would be a folk who lived forever. Do you know of any folk who live forever?"

What mad cruel god would give a man eyes and tell him he must forever keep them shut, and never look at all the beauty in the world? Only a monster god, a demon of the darkness." 

R'hllor was a jealous deity, ever hungry. So the new god devoured the corpse of the old, and cast gigantic shadows of Stannis and Melisandre upon the Wall, black against the ruddy red reflections on the ice.

When he was a boy, the septons had taught Davos to pray to the Crone for wisdom, to the Warrior for courage, to the Smith for strength. But it was the Mother he prayed to now, to keep his sweet son Devan safe from the red woman's demon god.

I apologize for my unorthodox method of quoting you guys, this was just easier. They are not full quotes, and taken out of context may not represent you, your thoughts or your words accurately.   If so, my mistake. 

There was a war in "heaven", or for the heavens, thats something Mel got right.   I think all weve seen thus far is the dark side.
The others, the white walkers, the wights. may be the "light side army" and they are only now gearing up

crap?   maybe....I didnt pick up the first book til 5 yrs ago so im newer to the series than a lot of you and newer to the forum as well, If you guys have been over all this before......oh!, i didnt know.
 

 

 

 

 

[Voice]

I agree. He was a magnar. A demigod.

Nah, if that was the case they could have called him Rumpelstiltskin. In both series and especially the first when they redacted the Nights King title from the credits they were very coy about him, as if they're hiding something, which is why I think its just a handy working title not for a magnar, a demi-god or any other random character we don't yet know of in either version of the story, but for someone closer to home whose real identity would be a major spoiler. 

Brandon the Builder, Night's Magnar beyond the Wall, first mason of Winterfell.

[Voice]

Apparently the site can't handle tapatalk replies?! What's up with that?

[aDanceWithFlagons]

4 hours ago, WitteRaaf said:

"And many names," the kindly man had said. "In Qohor he is the Black Goat, in Yi Ti the Lion of Night, in Westeros the Stranger. All men must bow to him in the end, no matter if they worship the Seven or the Lord of Light, the Moon Mother or the Drowned God or the Great Shepherd. All mankind belongs to him . . . else somewhere in the world would be a folk who lived forever. Do you know of any folk who live forever?"

There are those who try to live forever and are even succeeding. So far.  I think that the escape of death, the attempt to prolong life is the heart of the magic we see. The second lives of the skinchangers. The greenseers who prolong their lives through the weirwoods and live a second life as part of the tree. A tree that will live forever if unmolested.  The Undying Ones with their blue heart. Melisandre, Lord Beric. The Others.

The mystical side of the story is all about death and the attempt to escape it. When I said that magic is created, this is where I was coming from. The dire wolf is not magic. The fire that Thoros or Mel stare into is not magic. Even the weirwoods are not magic. (so I am coming to believe) The cotf found that the acorns of the forever tree could be used to bond with the tree and so used this to give life a second chance, among other things. 

It is the actions that are magical. And those actions are prolonging life in some manner by sacrifice. Either the sacrifice of others or oneself. It may even something from the past that is still in effect like the bond between dragon and rider or wolf and First Man. 

To keep the soul or spirit or animus, or whatever you want to call it, sustained is the ultimate goal of magical actions.

 

[WitteRaaf]

5 hours ago, aDanceWithFlagons said:

There are those who try to live forever and are even succeeding. So far.  I think that the escape of death, the attempt to prolong life is the heart of the magic we see. The second lives of the skinchangers. The greenseers who prolong their lives through the weirwoods and live a second life as part of the tree. A tree that will live forever if unmolested.  The Undying Ones with their blue heart. Melisandre, Lord Beric. The Others.

The mystical side of the story is all about death and the attempt to escape it. When I said that magic is created, this is where I was coming from. The dire wolf is not magic. The fire that Thoros or Mel stare into is not magic. Even the weirwoods are not magic. (so I am coming to believe) The cotf found that the acorns of the forever tree could be used to bond with the tree and so used this to give life a second chance, among other things. 

It is the actions that are magical. And those actions are prolonging life in some manner by sacrifice. Either the sacrifice of others or oneself. It may even something from the past that is still in effect like the bond between dragon and rider or wolf and First Man. 

To keep the soul or spirit or animus, or whatever you want to call it, sustained is the ultimate goal of magical actions.

 

I can't argue with this.  With the talk of inversions I wondered if the lion and maiden were the ultimate inversion.  As the saying goes " not everything is black and white"  maybe this is not a tale of the gods, GRRM is also described as atheist. given the tale from yi ti of the god on earth and the gemstone emperors living lengthy lives I can see where you are coming from.