Heresy 190

[Black Crow]

9 hours ago, Frundsberg said:

I think that this a hommage to H.P. Lovecraft, there are several hints to Lovecrafts Mythos in ASOIAF.

But I don't Think that he really plans to turn his story into a Mythos story.

 

Oh, and hi Heretics, first post, long time watcher

Neither do I, I think its just part of his own mythos. Its in the background but not likely to take over the story. The third and greatest threat to Westeros comes from the Others, not the squidgers.

And welcome to heresy, now you've broken your duck please post again

[Tucu]

In one of Arianne's chapter in TWOW, they enter an abandoned CoTF cavern in the Rainwood that looks very different than the ones we have seen so far.

Spoiler

And all at once she found herself in another cavern, five times as big as the last one, surrounded by a forest of stone columns. Daemon Sand moved to her side and raised his torch. “Look how the stone’s been shaped,” he said. “Those columns, and the wall there. See them?”

“Faces,” said Arianne. So many sad eyes, staring.

“This place belonged to the children of the forest.”

Are these petrified greenseers (too many?), CoTF sculptures or maybe some evidence of the legend that the CoTF sacrificed thousands of their own to call the Hammer of the Water?

[Black Crow]

I suppose that they may in fact be weirwood roots. The sad faces hearken back to something we discussed some time ago when looking at the weirwood grove near Castle Black. The faces there are all different; some smiling, some looking grave, some screaming and so on, which suggested that the faces were not carved at all but that the weirwoods assumed the faces of those sacrificed to them. 

[Tucu]

If they are faces in the roots from sacrifices, the number of faces and the proximity to the Stepstones might be pointing to the Hammer.

It many ways it reminds me of the room of faces in the House of Black and White.

[Black Crow]

Another way of looking at it I suppose is that those sacrificed deserve to be remembered for their sacrifice by displaying their faces.

Something also worth bringing into this particular line is the tree found by Asha Greyjoy and the Mormont girl which had a different face on it - a three-fingered tree-hugger - implying that all the other trees we encounter, including those north of the wall have human faces.

[ravenous reader]

On 9/1/2016 at 0:31 PM, Tucu said:

The water flowed into his boots, ankle deep and bitterly cold. Beware the water, he told himself. There may be creatures living in it, hidden deeps . . .

Weird idea to be afraid of water that is only ankle deep

Symbolically, water represents the undifferentiated unconscious elements of someone's identity.  Given that Jaime might be a 'secret Targ,' I speculated a while ago that Jaime might be a 'Waters' not a Lannister, after all, making the unknown beast lurking beneath the waters none other than Jaime, a dragon-hybrid, himself!  I had this idea after Jaime's descension into the Red Keep dungeons looking for Varys (another dragon?), after his brother's escaped (another dragon?), looking for answers -- only to find yet more dragons (the dragon brazier, the three-headed dragon mosaic which addresses him personally as if it 'knows' him, and Rennifer Longwaters the longwinded gaoler who can't get enough of regaling Jaime about his royal blood!)

I'm not sure where GRRM is going with this, but @Feather Crystal is correct in pointing out the symbolic dissolution of the North, so that, in the language at least, it appears to be 'underwater.'  For example, this Jon passage, and certain Asha passages:

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Jon IV

"Stop acting the boy," he told himself. Clambering atop the piled rocks, Jon gazed off toward the setting sun. He could see the light shimmering like hammered gold off the surface of the Milkwater as it curved away to the south. Upriver the land was more rugged, the dense forest giving way to a series of bare stony hills that rose high and wild to the north and west. On the horizon stood the mountains like a great shadow, range on range of them receding into the blue-grey distance, their jagged peaks sheathed eternally in snow. Even from afar they looked vast and cold and inhospitable.

Closer at hand, it was the trees that ruled. To south and east the wood went on as far as Jon could see, a vast tangle of root and limb painted in a thousand shades of green, with here and there a patch of red where a weirwood shouldered through the pines and sentinels, or a blush of yellow where some broadleafs had begun to turn. When the wind blew, he could hear the creak and groan of branches older than he was. A thousand leaves fluttered, and for a moment the forest seemed a deep green sea, storm-tossed and heaving, eternal and unknowable.

Ghost was not like to be alone down there, he thought. Anything could be moving under that sea, creeping toward the ringfort through the dark of the wood, concealed beneath those trees. Anything. How would they ever know? He stood there for a long time, until the sun vanished behind the saw-toothed mountains and darkness began to creep through the forest.

 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - The Wayward Bride

No, Asha thought, I am no queen, nor shall I ever be. "Go back to sleep." She kissed his cheek, padded across Galbart Glover's bedchamber, and threw the shutters open. The moon was almost full, the night so clear that she could see the mountains, their peaks crowned with snow. Cold and bleak and inhospitable, but beautiful in the moonlight. Their summits glimmered pale and jagged as a row of sharpened teeth. The foothills and the smaller peaks were lost in shadow.

The sea was closer, only five leagues north, but Asha could not see it. Too many hills stood in the way. And trees, so many trees. The wolfswood, the northmen named the forest. Most nights you could hear the wolves, calling to each other through the dark. An ocean of leaves. Would it were an ocean of water.

Deepwood might be closer to the sea than Winterfell, but it was still too far for her taste. 

 

21 minutes ago, Tucu said:

It many ways it reminds me of the room of faces in the House of Black and White.

Yes, @DutchArya and I were having a similar discussion recently, in recognition of the similarities between the magic of the children and the faceless ones, particularly regarding how the masks in the HOBAW seem to retain the memories and personalities of the ones to whom they were formerly attached, and are able to transmit this knowledge in some form to the wearer, as Arya is cautioned.

11 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Something also worth bringing into this particular line is the tree found by Asha Greyjoy and the Mormont girl which had a different face on it - a three-fingered tree-hugger - implying that all the other trees we encounter, including those north of the wall have human faces.

Could you provide a reference please?  I don't recall this and it seems significant.

[Tucu]

Interesting quotes on the North "underwater". It seems the water references point to something more elemental than just invaders from the sea.

I think this is the quote about the tree with a CoTF face (notice the slitted-eyes). This is also the tree where Theon may be sacrificed.

From one such island rose a weirwood gnarled and ancient, its bole and branches white as the surrounding snows. Eight days ago Asha had walked out with Aly Mormont to have a closer look at its slitted red eyes and bloody mouth.

The faces of the Faceless Men seem to have a remainder of the spirit in the same way that animals that have been skinchanged retain part of the skinchanger. It is possible that it is a more advanced form of skinchanging and it would explain why the Faceless Men were interested in Arya. They need candidates with the capacity to open their third eye. It could also link to the Bolton's cargo-cultish custom of wearing the skin of their victims.

[Black Crow]

18 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Could you provide a reference please?  I don't recall this and it seems significant.

Ninja'd by Tucu; its at the beginning of the last Asha chapter in ADwD

[Black Crow]

On 9/2/2016 at 9:50 PM, Tucu said:

I

  Reveal hidden contents

And all at once she found herself in another cavern, five times as big as the last one, surrounded by a forest of stone columns. Daemon Sand moved to her side and raised his torch. “Look how the stone’s been shaped,” he said. “Those columns, and the wall there. See them?”

“Faces,” said Arianne. So many sad eyes, staring.

“This place belonged to the children of the forest.”

Are these petrified greenseers (too many?), CoTF sculptures or maybe some evidence of the legend that the CoTF sacrificed thousands of their own to call the Hammer of the Water?

Reverting to this one briefly, I think that once again we have to remember that greenseers [as distinct from skinchangers] are very few and far between, which is why I'm so disinclined to look for greenseers [and human ones at that] everywhere. They are very rare and precious things and don't go stravaighing abut the land - or sea - working their magic. I think that they do represent sacrifices; but of ordinary tree-huggers not greenseers.

[Black Crow]

OK... as this one seems to have died we might as well move on to Heresy 191 and the first essay in the bicentennial series. See you over there.

 

[Voice]

On September 6, 2016 at 11:24 PM, Black Crow said:

OK... as this one seems to have died we might as well move on to Heresy 191 and the first essay in the bicentennial series. See you over there.

 

 

What is dead may never die!!!

A bump for H190! LOL

[Lord Carion of the Crow]

On 8/4/2016 at 10:31 AM, Black Crow said:

That's precisely what we've been discussing, hence the overturning of the one in a thousand.

I'll actually go a little further. Although much is made of blood I don't think the substance itself is so significant as the heredity; and in this case heredity of what?

Are we to believe that way back in the dim and distant a Stark ancestor mated with something inhuman to produce a long line of wargs, who haven't shown themselves until the present generation? Or is the answer that the Stark in question was warged, and his sons warged so that over the years the connection became imprinted in their genetic material because they had been ridden before; and thus it was all the easier for the direwolves [and not necessarily consciously and with intent] were able to fasten themselves on to the children of Winterfell?

I'm a scientist and I have studied genetics in some detail. Epigentics or "the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself" is extremely interesting. 

Environmental factors can effect genetic expression in ways we never realized even ten years ago. WHat if this is what we have going on here. The presence of dire wolves and their actual interaction with the Stark children has modified "warging" gene expression I said them. Thus activating genes that have been suppressed due to the lack of the actual presence of dire wolves...

im not sure if I'm getting too scientific but it seems like a possibility. 

[Black Crow]

37 minutes ago, Lord Carion of the Crow said:

I'm a scientist and I have studied genetics in some detail. Epigentics or "the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself" is extremely interesting. 

Environmental factors can effect genetic expression in ways we never realized even ten years ago. WHat if this is what we have going on here. The presence of dire wolves and their actual interaction with the Stark children has modified "warging" gene expression I said them. Thus activating genes that have been suppressed due to the lack of the actual presence of dire wolves...

im not sure if I'm getting too scientific but it seems like a possibility. 

Interesting, although GRRM of course started writing this over twenty years ago, when knowledge of genetics and the factors affecting them were very different from now. Ultimately, I fear, science doresn't really come into it. Things happen because GRRM needs them to happen - but he does have a certain internal consistency and a method to his madness. 

[LynnS]

53 minutes ago, Lord Carion of the Crow said:

I'm a scientist and I have studied genetics in some detail. Epigentics or "the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself" is extremely interesting. 

 

I just have a simple about genetics maybe you can answer.  When it comes to appearance, hair color, eye color etc and  dominant physical characteristics passed on from mother or father; how is it that Robert Baratheon always produced offspring with black hair and blue from different mothers?  Is this because the mothers carry the allele DNA for black hair and blue eyes?  Because it seems to be implied that Robert can never produce offspring without those characteristics.  IE "The seed is strong" which I also interpret as verility.

[Lord Carion of the Crow]

1 hour ago, LynnS said:

I just have a simple about genetics maybe you can answer.  When it comes to appearance, hair color, eye color etc and  dominant physical characteristics passed on from mother or father; how is it that Robert Baratheon always produced offspring with black hair and blue from different mothers?  Is this because the mothers carry the allele DNA for black hair and blue eyes?  Because it seems to be implied that Robert can never produce offspring without those characteristics.  IE "The seed is strong" which I also interpret as verility.

It just may be that Robert has several homozygous dominant traits (AA instead of heterozygous Aa). Therefore, he only has one allele to pass down, say brown hair or blue eyes. So he is always passing down a dominant allele no matter what the mother has. The brown hair or blue eyes will trump the other traits. Therefore, any of his bastard children may have children with different characteristics than Robert because they can be made heterozygous depending on what allele their mother contributes to their genetic makeup. But his children will look like him  

.

[LynnS]

4 minutes ago, Lord Carion of the Crow said:

It just may be that Robert has several homozygous dominant traits (AA instead of heterozygous Aa). Therefore, he only has one allele to pass down, say brown hair or blue eyes. So he is always passing down a dominant allele no matter what the mother has. The brown hair or blue eyes will trump the other traits. Therefore, any of his bastard children may have children with different characteristics than Robert because they can be made heterozygous depending on what allele their mother contributes to their genetic makeup. But his children will look like him  

.

That's interesting, so hair color or eye color but not both; unless the mother carries a recessive gene for that hair or eye color as well?   Most children look like a mixture of both parents in facial characteristics etc. including temperment? 

[ravenous reader]

4 hours ago, Lord Carion of the Crow said:

I'm a scientist and I have studied genetics in some detail. Epigenetics or "the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself" is extremely interesting. 

Environmental factors can effect genetic expression in ways we never realized even ten years ago. WHat if this is what we have going on here. The presence of dire wolves and their actual interaction with the Stark children has modified "warging" gene expression I said them. Thus activating genes that have been suppressed due to the lack of the actual presence of dire wolves...

im not sure if I'm getting too scientific but it seems like a possibility. 

That might be one way of explaining the variable penetrance in gene expression of the magical abilities like skinchanging and greenseeing we're observing.  The text is obviously describing an explosion in magical activity to which those such as @Black Crow and @Voice will always counter with the assertion that it's impossible since 'greenseeing [and the like] is exceedingly rare,' the latter even going so far as to calculate genetic frequencies based on the numbers we're given by Leaf/Bloodraven (LOL...GRRM always uses the number '1000' regardless of context, so I wonder just how reliable those statistics really are!)

[Lord Carion of the Crow]

4 hours ago, LynnS said:

That's interesting, so hair color or eye color but not both; unless the mother carries a recessive gene for that hair or eye color as well?   Most children look like a mixture of both parents in facial characteristics etc. including temperment? 

Well. It actually can refer to both. Each allele, one for hair color and one for eye color are located on different chromosomes. When genetic recombination happens (when the sperm and egg combine) the chromosomes separate (one set from mom and one set from dad inside the giant cell that forms when the sperm and egg combine). Then they recombine based on the sequences contained with in them with one allele from mom and one from dad. In these cases, Robert is giving alleles with dominant traits. One for hair color and one for eye color. So both blue eyes and dark black hair is inherited by his offspring. 

Today, there are very rare cases of one parent having homozygous alleles for genes. However, from a scientific perspective. I feel like this is what must be happening in regards to Robert and his bastard offspring. 

 

Let me me know if you have any more questions. 

[LynnS]

Thanks for clearing that up.

[ravenous reader]

3 hours ago, Lord Carion of the Crow said:

both blue eyes and dark black hair is inherited by his offspring. 

Except in nature, blue eyes is not a dominant trait.  That all Robert's offspring have the blue eyes is GRRM's poetic license.  It's probably best not to learn genetics from ASOIAF @LynnS.