Heresy 185

[Mace Cooterian]

4 hours ago, Harlan said:

I know we aren't supposed to discuss the show, but as the component of the show appears to come more or less directly from GRRM and it is relevant to the theory I'm about to propose, oh well... Spoilers

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At this point, I'm sure we have all seen how Hodor came to be on the TV show. We can recall that Bran was able to do some weird warging/greenseeing stuff resulting in Hodor's mind being broken in the past as a result of Brans actions in the present. What is important to note here is that even though bran affected the past, he did not change the past. Hodor was already mentally broken before bran affected the past. This means that the world effectively proceeds on a single timeline, and any changes to the past that bran is going to make, for all intents and purposes, have already been made and are affecting the time line as we see it now.

So, given the events described above, does anyone think its possible that there never was a long night? That the reason the timeline of the books is a bit screwy is because of Bran. What if Bran simply went into the past and gave people the stories about the long night in the hopes of preparing everyone for the winter that we are about to see unfold in the books. What if the Winds of Winter isn't about the Long Night 2, but is actually the only Long Night there has ever been or will ever be. What if Azor Ahai is simply a legend Bran spread in the past? Thoughts?

Spoiler

What intrigues me to remain interested in this epic is not about the concept's of time travel..whether it influences or changes the past nor present.  I hope it doesn't.  Based upon what I perceive thus far...I'm hoping for answers that involve blood magic (a.k.a. sacrifices) or quite simply dumb luck.

 

[Phillip Frye]

I suppose that, on reflection, the thing that strikes me most about The Forsaken is that although it is ostensibly written by a lapsed Catholic, the chapter is awash in religious imagery.  We have visions, a test of faith (that Aeron passes), metaphysical discussions inside a dungeon, and a tempter--all in about twenty pages.

[Phillip Frye]

Another interesting thing is the treatment that Euron bestows upon his sacrifices.  He treats Aeron the best relative to the others.  He offers to raise his brother up to be his priest if he would renounce The Drowned God.  He has his "salt wife" personally feed him porridge with honey.  He tries (and succeeds) in showing him visions of the future with Shade of the Evening.  In contrast, the three Septons seem to get "the usual" from Euron--he has their tongues cut out.  As for the Eastern religions, those practitioners fare the worst, and Euron reserves the worst (albeit shortest) torture reserved for the Red Priest, who must have failed to be the eligibility criteria for a sacrificial victim.

Euron seems to take care to treat his brother differently from his prow mates.  I think that Euron wanted something from Aeron, specifically that Euron was sincere in wanting Aeron to renounce The Drowned God and preach to the Ironborn on Euron's behalf.  If Euron  could swing Aeron to his side, he could persuade the Ironborn to follow him unreservedly.

Also, note that Euron offered Victarion Shade of the Evening, but he didn't press the issue when Victarion declined.  Pearls before swine, I guess.  However, Euron forced the Shade of the Evening down Aeron's throat.  Perhaps, Aeron was the only sibling that Euron thought would have any realistic chance to see the things that Euron saw and appreciate what Euron was trying to do.  However, all that Aeron saw was fit for Hieronymous Bosch, causing him to reject Euron and be lashed to the prow of the Silence.

[Phillip Frye]

Another interesting thing about this chapter is how it foreshadows how Euron may later interact with the Red Temple and Moqorro.  Euron doesn't seem to have much appreciation for priests of the Red God.  He turned the first one that he encountered into barbeque, I suppose that Euron did this to test the Red Priest's flammability.  He might get a different chemical reaction from Melisandre, Moqorro, or even his brother.

What seems really tangled up at the moment is Euron's quest to bring his bride to Westeros.  He has sent his disloyal brother, who may no longer be human, along with a magic horn that ostensibly binds dragons, and that brother is now accompanied by a Red Priest, who sees Euron in the fires as a "a tall and twisted thing, with one black eye and ten long arms, sailing in a sea of blood."  Sounds like Moqorro and Euron are destined to be buddies!

Euron's problem is that Victarion and Moqorro are destined to reach Meereen (and probably Daenerys) first, and while Moqorro might stab Victarion in the back, at this point, it doesn't seem likely that the Red Temple is working on behalf of Euron's best interests.  Once Daenerys finishes her Essos tour a few more books from now and meets Euron, she seems likely to be allied with the Red Temple, not Euron, so there may be more bloodletting prior to Euron taking Daenerys to Westeros.

 

[Phillip Frye]

I am trying to work out the temptations that Euron offers to Aeron to break him, specifically food, deliverance from harm, and dominion as his priest if Aeron would worship Euron.  I wonder if these temptations intentionally correspond to the temptations of Jesus Christ:  specifically stones into bread, casting himself from the pinnacle of the Temple, and dominion over the Earth if Jesus would worship Satan.

I would again note that Martin is bringing some pretty heavy religious imagery in this chapter.  Maybe he has flashbacks to confirmation class from time to time.

[House Cambodia]

6 hours ago, Harlan said:

I know we aren't supposed to discuss the show, but as the component of the show appears to come more or less directly from GRRM and it is relevant to the theory I'm about to propose, oh well... Spoilers

  Reveal hidden contents

At this point, I'm sure we have all seen how Hodor came to be on the TV show. We can recall that Bran was able to do some weird warging/greenseeing stuff resulting in Hodor's mind being broken in the past as a result of Brans actions in the present. What is important to note here is that even though bran affected the past, he did not change the past. Hodor was already mentally broken before bran affected the past. This means that the world effectively proceeds on a single timeline, and any changes to the past that bran is going to make, for all intents and purposes, have already been made and are affecting the time line as we see it now.

So, given the events described above, does anyone think its possible that there never was a long night? That the reason the timeline of the books is a bit screwy is because of Bran. What if Bran simply went into the past and gave people the stories about the long night in the hopes of preparing everyone for the winter that we are about to see unfold in the books. What if the Winds of Winter isn't about the Long Night 2, but is actually the only Long Night there has ever been or will ever be. What if Azor Ahai is simply a legend Bran spread in the past? Thoughts?

I don't buy it, but I love your thinking - heresy par excellence!

[Phillip Frye]

I wonder if anyone has noticed this before?  In re-reading Moqorro's description of Euron, I see that Moqorro describes Euron as a "tall and twisted thing," which is an odd way to describe a pirate.

Here is our introduction to a working glass candle towards the end of A Feast for Crows:  Aside from that, the only light came from a TALL black candle in the center of the room.  The candle was unpleasantly bright.  There was something queer about it.  The flame did not flicker, even when Archmaester Marwyn closed the door so hard that papers blew off a nearby table.  The light did something strange to colors too.  Whites were bright as fresh-fallen snow, yellow shone like gold, reds turned to flame, but the shadows were so black that they looked like holes in the world.  Sam found himself staring.  The candle itself was three feet TALL and slender as a sword, ridged and TWISTED, glittering black."

So, glass candles are tall and twisted, just like Euron Greyjoy in Moqorro's flames.  I think that another one of Euron's Valyrian treasures in his sack of goodies is a glass candle.

This would explain how Euron and his captains know so much about the fleet movements of Paxter Redwyne and Leyton Hightower prior to the coming battle.  It is also probably how Euron is keeping tabs on Victarion as well as why Euron was so willing to order Victarion to take his poisoned gift halfway around the world and seek his bride.

Edited to add:  Why would Moqorro see Euron in the flames as a glass candle?  Moqorro probably detected Euron watching him with the candle, much like Melisandre could see Bloodraven and Bran looking back to her in the flames at Castle Black.

[House Cambodia]

15 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

Well the factions that wanted to eradicate humans would have had to also have the greenseers on their side in order to work magic and carry out the punishment.

I'm not in the 'factions' camp, but I do wish to contribute an observation re. the Children's use of magic.

The earliest prehistoric legends have the human Essosi practising fire/blood magic, which in my view was instrumental in developing civilization in Old Ghis or earlier. Civilization was build on militarism, slavery and exploitation of the environment. In short, magic and violence went hand-in-hand in Essos.

At the same time in Westeros the Children and their greenseers were using earth magic to sustain a harmony with nature and thereby never developed 'civilization'. Even if, in some sense, fire and earth magic have equivalent power, the children simply had no experience in using their magic for violent purposes. In the face of being slaughtered by the genocidal Essosi First Men, and seeing the destructiveness of their fire magic and the weapons fire magic created (as it would have seemed to them), the Children may in desperation have attempted to use their magic in a way they'd never done before. Small wonder the result turned out to be unforeseen and unpredictable. The result was ice magic; the Breaking of the Arm appears to have been a one-off in their struggle with the First Men. Subsequently, some two millennia later when even more vicious Essosi arrived with even darker fire magic, the Children's allies the human greenseers (being the Starks) were driven into even more desperate experiments with ice magic which might have had some success in the short term, but in the long term (by weirwood standards) are turning out to have even worse, darker implications.

[Black Crow]

3 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

 

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Walder was turned into Hodor because Bran travelled into the past. That's a pretty big change in Hodor's world, but I think it was done in order to change the future so that Hodor would be there to protect Bran.

 

I have been promoting the idea that the Long Night wasn't necessarily called that because of the weather, but rather that it was more like "an age" or a time when the Children were in dispair over the evilness of mankind.

 

Here we're not only straying into the mummers' version but proposing a theory that rests on that rather than the text - and since when did the three-fingered tree-huggers use doors? 

The explanation of Hodor has been around for a while on the web, and as I recall the experience which triggered it in the book was supposed to be his encountering something in the Winterfell crypts.

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, Phillip Frye said:

I suppose that, on reflection, the thing that strikes me most about The Forsaken is that although it is ostensibly written by a lapsed Catholic, the chapter is awash in religious imagery.  We have visions, a test of faith (that Aeron passes), metaphysical discussions inside a dungeon, and a tempter--all in about twenty pages.

True, but then again the same might be said of the whole series.

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, Phillip Frye said:

Euron doesn't seem to have much appreciation for priests of the Red God.

 

Euron doesn't seem to have much appreciation for priests 

[Arry'sFleas]

2 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Euron doesn't seem to have much appreciation for priests 

right on; GRRM is both anti-clerical, and anti-militarist.

I can't wait for Euron to come across the High Sparrow!

[House Cambodia]

39 minutes ago, Arry'sFleas said:

right on; GRRM is both anti-clerical, and anti-militarist.

I can't wait for Euron to come across the High Sparrow!

I think the HS will be long dead. To me, the High Sparrow is anti-clerical. He's done away with the hierarchy and hypocrisy of the ruling class of the Faith and empowered the masses.

To P. Frye - I see absolutely no contradiction between GRRM being a lapsed Catholic and his writings being infused with religious imagery. The latter will be a major part of his mental framework - it can't be simply moved to the recycling bin!

[Arry'sFleas]

41 minutes ago, House Cambodia said:

To me, the High Sparrow is anti-clerical

he does have an 'army of clerics'

[House Cambodia]

3 minutes ago, Arry'sFleas said:

he does have an 'army of clerics'

meh, they're just lickle sparrows (with very sharp beaks)

[Melifeather]

5 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Here we're not only straying into the mummers' version but proposing a theory that rests on that rather than the text - and since when did the three-fingered tree-huggers use doors? 

The explanation of Hodor has been around for a while on the web, and as I recall the experience which triggered it in the book was supposed to be his encountering something in the Winterfell crypts.

I don't expect the books to describe Walder's Hodoring in such a simplistic manner. And I'm not referring to "doors" as being physical structures. I imagine something invisible and warded with spells.

[House Cambodia]

5 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

 

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I don't expect the books to describe Walder's Hodoring in such a simplistic manner. And I'm not referring to "doors" as being physical structures. I imagine something invisible and warded with spells.

 

 

Me too, although I'm looking towards the Night Fort.

[Melifeather]

Because I believe there is a wheel of time at play in the books and that it is currently rolling in reverse, I am expecting to see opposites. Daenerys is the source of dragons...the Mother of Dragons. Who was said to have found the dragons in the past? The Faceless Men claim their founders did in the mines of Valyria. They used the dragons to defeat the masters and free their people from slavery, but it appears they also left the dragons behind. Or am I misremembering?

Aegon the Conqueror brought his dragons to Westeros to seize and unite the Seven Kingdoms...well, technically he united six out of seven, but Dorne eventually joined. If Euron succeeds in obtaining dragons, he'll sever the Seven Kingdoms into seven pieces again as the text already symbolically suggested when he cut Baelor Blacktyde into seven pieces.

[Melifeather]

A poster named Neffaria on a different thread here on the W had an interesting observation about the missing tongues. Thistle bit her own tongue off when Varamyr tried entering her body, so Neffaria posited that it might mean that Euron has also skinchanged everyone that is missing a tongue, and that the missing tongues are so they can't tell anyone about it.

[PrettyPig]

8 hours ago, Phillip Frye said:

I suppose that, on reflection, the thing that strikes me most about The Forsaken is that although it is ostensibly written by a lapsed Catholic, the chapter is awash in religious imagery.  We have visions, a test of faith (that Aeron passes), metaphysical discussions inside a dungeon, and a tempter--all in about twenty pages.

I have said here many, many times that while I'm reading the series, I can almost physically see materializing in front of me a young, chubby little Joisey boy down on his knees staring up at the 8ft crucifixion and daydreaming about demons and bloody crowns to take the edge off a pair of itchy wool short pants.    I bet half the concept of the novels was born during a particularly boring part of Mass.