The Grey King was a greenseer, and Nagga’s ribs were his weirwood throne.

[The Fattest Leech]

21 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

From the OP...

The Drowned Man, Feast 19

I have to wonder whether those tapestries of silver seaweed might have been entrails, and given what we will learn about sacrifice, I suspect the bounty the Grey King’s warriors feasted on at the starfish table might have been like the feast the Skagossons had on Skane...

Samwell II, Feast 15.

Perhaps we will see another similar feast in Winds or Spring...

Jon X, Dance 49

Davos IV, Dance 29

 

Aah, yes. Sorry, that was a duh moment by me (and I needed to eat!)

21 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

 

Here we see that the First Men made offerings to the Old Gods, by hanging entrails in the weirwoods.

/\ This is what I thought of after that.

[The Fattest Leech]

2 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

I just added this to the OP...

Prologue, Clash

Poor Shireen. Does anyone doubt that she will be sacrificed? 

Kinda like when Dacey Mormont says this:

"This is an evil rain," she [Catelyn} said instead.

Dacey Mormont looked up at the sky. "I would sooner have water raining down on me than arrows."

[The Fattest Leech]

34 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Perhaps we will see another similar feast in Winds or Spring...

 

Here we see that the First Men made offerings to the Old Gods, by hanging entrails in the weirwoods.

Perhaps this?

I'm spit-balling a little because I am dying to get back on the subject of TWOW.

Spoiler

When they pulled him up the steps through the light, he felt its warmth upon his face, and tears rolled down his cheeks. The sea. I can smell the sea. The Drowned God has not abandoned me. The sea will make me whole again! That which is dead can never die, but rises again harder and stronger…

“Take me to the water,” he commanded, as if he were still back on the Iron Islands surrounded by his drowned men, but the mutes were his brother’s creatures and they paid him no heed.

 

They dragged him up more steps, down a torchlit gallery, and into a bleak stone hall where a dozen bodies were hanging from the rafters, turning and swaying. A dozen of Euron’s captains were gathered in the hall, drinking wine beneath the corpses. Left­-Hand Lucas Codd sat in the place of honor, wearing a heavy silken tapestry as a cloak. Beside him was the Red Oarsman, and further down Pinchface Jon Myre, Stonehand, and Rogin Salt­-Beard.

 

“Who are these dead?” Aeron commanded. His tongue was so thick the words came out in a rusty whisper, faint as a mouse breaking wind.

 

“The lord that held this castle, with his kin.” The voice belonged to Torwold Browntooth, one of his brother’s captains, a creature near as vile as the Crow’s Eye himself.

“Pigs,” said another vile creature, the one they called the Red Oarsman. “This was their isle. A rock, just off the Arbor. They dared oink threats at us. Redwyne, oink. Hightower, oink. Tyrell, oink oink oink! So we sent them squealing down to hell.”

 

The Arbor.

 

[Lost Melnibonean]

Hmm...

Quote

 

The Mother in their songs is not our Mother, but Mother Rhoyne, whose waters nourished them from the dawn of days."

"I'd heard the Rhoynar had some turtle god," said Ser Arys.

"The Old Man of the River is a lesser god," said Garin. "He was born from Mother River too, and fought the Crab King to win dominion over all who dwell beneath the flowing waters."

The Mother in their songs is not our Mother, but Mother Rhoyne, whose waters nourished them from the dawn of days."

"I'd heard the Rhoynar had some turtle god," said Ser Arys.

"The Old Man of the River is a lesser god," said Garin. "He was born from Mother River too, and fought the Crab King to win dominion over all who dwell beneath the flowing waters."

 

 

The Queenmaker, Feast 21

Quote

 

"This is Ny Sar, where the Mother gathers in her Wild Daughter, Noyne," said Yandry, "but she will not reach her widest point until she meets her other daughters. At Dagger Lake the Qhoyne comes rushing in, the Darkling Daughter, full of gold and amber from the Axe and pine-cones from the Forest of Qohor. South of there the Mother meets Lhorulu, the Smiling Daughter from the Golden Fields. Where they join once stood Chroyane, the festival city, where the streets were made of water and the houses made of gold. Then south and east again for long leagues, until at last comes creeping in Selhoru, the Shy Daughter who hides her course in reeds and writhes. There Mother Rhoyne waxes so wide that a man upon a boat in the center of the stream cannot see a shore to either side. You shall see, my little friend."

I shall, the dwarf was thinking, when he spied a rippling ahead not six yards from the boat. He was about to point it out to Lemore when it came to the surface with a wash of water that rocked the Shy Maid sideways. It was another turtle, a horned turtle of enormous size, its dark green shell mottled with brown and overgrown with water moss and crusty black river molluscs. It raised its head and bellowed, a deep-throated thrumming roar louder than any warhorn that Tyrion had ever heard. "We are blessed,"

Ysilla was crying loudly, as tears streamed down her face. "We are blessed, we are blessed."

Duck was hooting, and Young Griff too. Haldon came out on deck to learn the cause of the commotion … but too late. The giant turtle had vanished below the water once again. "What was the cause of all that noise?" the Halfmaester asked.

"A turtle," said Tyrion. "A turtle bigger than this boat."

"It was him, " cried Yandry. "The Old Man of the River."

And why not? Tyrion grinned. Gods and wonders always appear, to attend the birth of kings.

 

Tyrion IV, Dance 14

Quote

 

"Enough, " said Griff. "Be quiet, all of you."

Septa Lemore sucked in her breath. "What was that? "

"Where?" Tyrion saw nothing but the fog. "Something moved. I saw the water rippling."

"A turtle," the prince announced cheerfully. "A big 'snapper, that's all it was." He thrust his pole out ahead of them and pushed them away from a towering green obelisk.

 

Tyrion V, Dance 18, Just before the weird rewind at the Bridge of Dream. 

I am thinking this is related. Doesn’t “the Old Man of the River” at least echo what we know of the last greenseer? And he apparently fought against the “Crab King,” who is the bad guy, right?

Is there any suggestion that the Rhoynar sacrifice, or have sacrificed, to the Old Man of the River?

ETA

And consider the decor of the Rhoynish pole boats...

Quote

All but the poorest orphan boats were wonderfully carved and painted. This one was done in shades of green, with a curved wooden tiller shaped like a mermaid, and fish faces peering through her rails. 

The Queenmaker, Feast 21

[Lost Melnibonean]

In the OP, I suggested that the foundation of the Hightower could be related to the Seastone Chair and the Deep Ones. Well, perhaps those are all related to the knoll on which the House f Black and White stands...

Quote

The fused black stone of which it is made suggests Valyria, but the plain, unadorned style of architecture does not, for the dragonlords loved little more than twisting stone into strange, fanciful, and ornate shapes. Within, the narrow, twisting, windowless passages strike many as being tunnels rather than halls; it is very easy to get lost amongst their turnings. Mayhaps this is no more than a defensive measure designed to confound attackers, but it too is singularly un-Valyrian. The labyrinthine nature of its interior architecture has led Archmaester Quillion to suggest that the fortress might have been the work of the mazemakers, a mysterious people who left remnants of their vanished civilization upon Lorath in the Shivering Sea. The notion is intriguing but raises more questions than it answers.

The World of Ice and Fire, The Reach: Oldtown

Quote

The knoll on which the temple stood was honeycombed with passageways hewn from the rock. The priests and acolytes had their sleeping cells on the first level, Arya and the servants on the second. The lowest level was forbidden to all save the priests. That was where the holy sanctum lay.

Arya II, Feast 22

Quote

Twenty-two more steps and they were at the subcellar. The tunnels here were cramped and crooked, black wormholes twisting through the heart of the great rock.

The Ugly Little Girl, Dance 63

And maybe The Whispers too...

Quote

"Best we keep a watch tonight, m'lady," Crabb told her, as she was struggling to get a driftwood fire lit. "A place like this, there might be squishers."

"Squishers?" Brienne gave him a suspicious look.

"Monsters," Nimble Dick said, with relish. "They look like men till you get close, but their heads is too big, and they got scales where a proper man's got hair. Fish-belly white they are, with webs between their fingers. They're always damp and fishy-smelling, but behind these blubbery lips they got rows of green teeth sharp as needles. Some say the First Men killed them all, but don't you believe it. They come by night and steal bad little children, padding along on them webbed feet with a little squish-squish sound. The girls they keep to breed with, but the boys they eat, tearing at them with those sharp green teeth." He grinned at Podrick. "They'd eat you, boy. They'd eat you raw."

...

"The Whispers," said Nimble Dick. "Have a listen. You can hear the heads."

Podrick's mouth gaped open. "I hear them."

Brienne heard them too. A faint, soft murmuring that seemed to be coming from the ground as much as from the castle. The sound grew louder as she neared the cliffs. It was the sea, she realized suddenly. The waves had eaten holes in the cliffs below and were rumbling through caves and tunnels beneath the earth. "There are no heads," she said. "It's the waves you hear whispering."

"Waves don't whisper. It's heads."

Brienne IV, Feast 20

[Lost Melnibonean]

I wonder... Could firewyrms have been involved in the shaping of those honeycombed formations?

Quote

 

"Firewyrms. Some say they are akin to dragons, for wyrms breathe fire too. Instead of soaring through the sky, they bore through stone and soil. If the old tales can be believed, there were wyrms amongst the Fourteen Flames even before the dragons came. The young ones are no larger than that skinny arm of yours, but they can grow to monstrous size and have no love for men."

"Did they kill the slaves?"

"Burnt and blackened corpses were oft found in shafts where the rocks were cracked or full of holes. Yet still the mines drove deeper. ...”

 

Arya II, Feast 22

[Lost Melnibonean]

Here's another feast of human flesh...

Quote

He found himself remembering tales he had first heard as a child at Casterly Rock, of mad Lady Lothston who bathed in tubs of blood and presided over feasts of human flesh within these very walls.

Jaime III, Feast 27

Is there any relationship between Harrenhal and the old gods? Yes...

Quote

“Harrenhal.” Every child of the Trident knew the tales told of Harrenhal, the vast fortress that King Harren the Black had raised beside the waters of Gods Eye three hundred years past, when the Seven Kingdoms had been seven kingdoms, and the riverlands were ruled by the ironmen from the islands. In his pride, Harren had desired the highest hall and tallest towers in all Westeros. Forty years it had taken, rising like a great shadow on the shore of the lake while Harren’s armies plundered his neighbors for stone, lumber, gold, and workers. Thousands of captives died in his quarries, chained to his sledges, or laboring on his five colossal towers. Men froze by winter and sweltered in summer. Weirwoods that had stood three thousand years were cut down for beams and rafters. Harren had beggared the riverlands and the Iron Islands alike to ornament his dream. And when at last Harrenhal stood complete, on the very day King Harren took up residence, Aegon the Conqueror had come ashore at King’s Landing.

Catelyn, Clash 7

Maybe that is the source of the curse of Harrenhal? And note that Jaime’s recollection of mad Lady Lothson was the cannibalism of Gregor’s men in Harrenhal, which indirectly led to Wyman's Frey pies. 

[Mat92]

On 22/10/2016 at 4:19 PM, Guest said:

Skin color of the Grey King also associates me with a greyscale, especially since the deceased of greyscale lose their minds in the end. 

This is what comes to mind for me as well. Plus it fit's into the quote about the ribs being turned to stone:

"She fed on krakens and leviathans and drowned whole islands in her wrath, yet the Grey King had slain her and the Drowned God had changed her bones to stone so that men might never cease to wonder at the courage of the first of kings."

[Isobel Harper]

15 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Here's another feast of human flesh...

Jaime III, Feast 27

Is there any relationship between Harrenhal and the old gods? Yes...

Catelyn, Clash 7

Maybe that is the source of the curse of Harrenhal? And note that Jaime’s recollection of mad Lady Lothson was the cannibalism of Gregor’s men in Harrenhal, which indirectly led to Wyman's Frey pies. 

Oh, I agree that the Old Gods have a lot to do with the Curse, but I think the Curse stems from Gargon Qoherys, not Harren Hoare.  

When Harrenhal burned, Harren and his family were cooked within its walls.  The bones remember, and yet Harren's bones were destroyed.  

House Qoherys was granted Harrenhal soon thereafter.  Gargon Qoherys was the second and last Lord Qoherys to hold it.  Here's how he died:

After the Conqueror's death, it did not take long before challenges to the Targaryen rule emerged. The first of these was the bandit and outlaw named Harren the Red, who claimed to be a grandson of Harren the Black. With the help of a castle servant, Harren the Red seized both Harrenhal and its current ruler, the infamous Lord Gargon (remembered as Gargon the Guest for his custom of attending every wedding in his domain to exercise his right to First Night). Lord Gargon was gelded in the castle's godswood and left to bleed to death while Red Harren proclaimed himself Lord of Harrenhal and King of the Rivers.

We know from Bran's weirwood vision that a blood sacrifice is needed to awaken a weirwood.  Gargon's blood sacrifice had a similar effect, the weirwood consuming his blood (and likely his soul and consciousness as well) to awaken the Curse.  And Harrenhal was built with "[w]eirwoods that had stood three thousand years ... for beams and rafters."  The power of the Old Gods is within the walls, not just the godswood.  This Curse is powerful indeed. 

The Hoares are not the source of the Curse, but the red herring.  House Hoare didn't truly die out until Gargon was sacrificed, and the last heir to die was a pun on red herring: Harren the Red/Red Harren/red herring. 

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this, but @LmL has a podcast on the same subject as the OP.  The Grey King series only has one part at the moment, but I think he's planning on adding more.  

Side note: There's something sketchy af about Danelle Lothston and her supposed madness.  Her mad acts sound very similar to Rohanne Webber's and Daenerys', which we know aren't true.  Mad Danelle is meant to parallel the real life Elizabeth Bathory, whose madness was also faked according to some historians.  Those who testified against Bathory were questioned harshly or even tortured, and Bathory's execution conveniently excused the Crown of the 7 millions in debt that it owed her. 

[Lost Melnibonean]

2 hours ago, Isobel Harper said:

Oh, I agree that the Old Gods have a lot to do with the Curse, but I think the Curse stems from Gargon Qoherys, not Harren Hoare.  

When Harrenhal burned, Harren and his family were cooked within its walls.  The bones remember, and yet Harren's bones were destroyed.  

House Qoherys was granted Harrenhal soon thereafter.  Gargon Qoherys was the second and last Lord Qoherys to hold it.  Here's how he died:

After the Conqueror's death, it did not take long before challenges to the Targaryen rule emerged. The first of these was the bandit and outlaw named Harren the Red, who claimed to be a grandson of Harren the Black. With the help of a castle servant, Harren the Red seized both Harrenhal and its current ruler, the infamous Lord Gargon (remembered as Gargon the Guest for his custom of attending every wedding in his domain to exercise his right to First Night). Lord Gargon was gelded in the castle's godswood and left to bleed to death while Red Harren proclaimed himself Lord of Harrenhal and King of the Rivers.

We know from Bran's weirwood vision that a blood sacrifice is needed to awaken a weirwood.  Gargon's blood sacrifice had a similar effect, the weirwood consuming his blood (and likely his soul and consciousness as well) to awaken the Curse.  And Harrenhal was built with "[w]eirwoods that had stood three thousand years ... for beams and rafters."  The power of the Old Gods is within the walls, not just the godswood.  This Curse is powerful indeed. 

The Hoares are not the source of the Curse, but the red herring.  House Hoare didn't truly die out until Gargon was sacrificed, and the last heir to die was a pun on red herring: Harren the Red/Red Harren/red herring. 

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this, but @LmL has a podcast on the same subject as the OP.  The Grey King series only has one part at the moment, but I think he's planning on adding more.  

Side note: There's something sketchy af about Danelle Lothston and her supposed madness.  Her mad acts sound very similar to Rohanne Webber's and Daenerys', which we know aren't true.  Mad Danelle is meant to parallel the real life Elizabeth Bathory, whose madness was also faked according to some historians.  Those who testified against Bathory were questioned harshly or even tortured, and Bathory's execution conveniently excused the Crown of the 7 millions in debt that it owed her. 

Cool. The bones remember, right? Well, aren't the bones of Harrenhal the weirwood? Like Nagga's ribs!

I don't think a blood sacrifice is required to awaken a weirwood, but to enhance the power of the greenseer using the weirwood. 

[One-eyed Misbehavin]

On October 21, 2016 at 1:22 PM, Lost Melnibonean said:

The Grey King was a greenseer, and Nagga’s ribs were his weirwood throne.

Theon II, Clash 24

The Seastone Chair preexisted the First Men on the Iron Islands.

The Prophet, Feast 1

Was this a dream? Were the Old Gods calling to Aeron? Were they calling him to the Grey King’s Hall?

The Kraken’s Daughter, Feast 11

Were the Old Gods hungry?

The Iron Captain, Feast 18

The passage above is introduced with a north wind. The ribs of Nagga are described as trunks of great white trees. The site was sacred and magical.

The Drowned Man, Feast 19

The number 44 seems to have a sacred connotation. A septry in the Riverlands maintained 44 brothers before the War of the Five Kings. Arya VII, Storm 39. The Eldest Brother counted 44 namedays. Brienne VI, Feast 31. Hugor of the Hill was given 44 sons with the girl brought forth by the Maid. Tyrion II, Dance 5. The legend of the Grey King slaying Nagga masks, or explains, how the weirwoods petrified into stone. The Grey King is said to have reigned from the ribs of Nagga for a thousand years and seven. We will learn that greenseers live extended, fading lives once they wed the weirwoods, and the author will associate “a thousand” with Bloodraven, the last greenseer. Note that the Grey King took a mermaid wife. We will see further suggestion of interbreeding between First Men and a humanoid race from the sea called the Deep Ones. Note that the Grey King fought the Storm God. This echoes Bloodraven’s fight against the Others and the Lord of Light’s eternal struggle with the Great Other. And note that the Grey King wore a crown of weirwood branches. We will recall this when we first meet Bloodraven.

The Drowned Man, Feast 19

Note that the hall had been warmed by Nagga’s living fire, and the Grey King used that fire, presumably to fight the Storm God, which drowned Nagga’s fire after the Grey King died. This blends the religion of the Drowned God and the Lord of Light with what we actually learn to be the struggle between the greenseers and the Others. I have to wonder whether those tapestries of silver seaweed might have been entrails, and given what we will learn about sacrifice, I suspect the bounty the Grey King’s warriors feasted on at the starfish table might have been like the feast the Skagossons had on Skane...

Samwell II, Feast 15.

Perhaps we will see another similar feast in Winds or Spring...

Jon X, Dance 49

And check this out! ...

Prologue, Clash

Poor Shireen. Does anyone doubt that she will be sacrificed? 

The Drowned Man, Feast 19

This, of course, relates the skinchanging we see in the North, which is apparently related to the power of the greenseers, to a similar power on the Iron Islands.

Davos I, Dance 9

Here we have evidence, or at least a strong suggestion, of interbreeding between First Men and a humanoid race from the sea called the Deep Ones.

Bran II, Dance 13

Here, as we see Bloodraven sitting in a weirwood throne, we recall that the Grey King wore a weirwood crown.

Davos IV, Dance 29

Here we see that the First Men made offerings to the Old Gods, by hanging entrails in the weirwoods.

Bran III, Dance 34

There is very little doubt in my mind that the red veins were Jojen’s blood. But even if you don’t subscribe to the Jojen paste theory, you see at the end of the quote above that the greenseers and/or old gods feed on sacrificed blood.

Jaime, Dance 48

Here, we see that weirwoods never rot, but that it petrifies into pale stone, like Nagga’s ribs.

The Iron Islands, TWOIAF

Legends are often based on a kernel of truth, especially in ASOIAF. We see the belief that the Ironmen rose from the sea, but we also see that Ironmen descend from the First Men. Although the First Men were not a seafaring people, there is sufficient reason to suspect that the Iron Isles may have been connected, or least much closer to the mainland of Westeros...

Theon I, Clash 11

And there is the example of the Broken Arm of Dorne, which at one time was land bridge used by the First Men to cross from Essos to Westeros.

The Iron Islands, TWOIAF

Here we can see how Haereg’s notion could blend with the belief that the Ironmen rose from the sea. Perhaps those first inhabitants really did rise from the sea.

Driftwood Crowns, TWOIAF

Was his crown driftwood or weirwood? In any event, we see further suggestion of the interbreeding between First Men and a humanoid race from the sea called the Deep Ones.

Ygg is most obviously a weirwood, and clearly, the original Ironmen practiced human sacrifice to the Grey King, just like the First Men did in the North. Ygg is surely an allusion to Yggdrasil. From Wikipedia... “The cosmology of Norse mythology has "nine homeworlds" or "nine realms", unified by the world tree Yggdrasil. ... The Norse creation myth tells how everything came into existence in the gap between fire and ice, and how the gods shaped the homeworld of humans.”

Driftwood Crowns, TWOIAF

Not a dragon, but a weirwood throne room!

Oldtown, TWOIAF

And here we see that Theron’s fanciful possibility can help us begin to tie it all together.

Amazing analysis really, I could never get all these quotes together for such a strong argument. 

And to the bolder part.... Isn't it only (heavily) implied that the Kings of Winter sacrificed to heart trees? Maybe they (wrongfully) thought that was what their gods wanted. In any case I find it hard to say all of them sacrificed to weirwoods based off (at this point)  circumstantial evidence and one of Bran's visions 

[Lost Melnibonean]

On 12/18/2016 at 10:29 AM, One-eyed Misbehavin said:

Amazing analysis really, I could never get all these quotes together for such a strong argument. 

And to the bolder part.... Isn't it only (heavily) implied that the Kings of Winter sacrificed to heart trees? Maybe they (wrongfully) thought that was what their gods wanted. In any case I find it hard to say all of them sacrificed to weirwoods based off (at this point)  circumstantial evidence and one of Bran's visions 

What about the scene described by Bartimus in Davos IV, Dance...

Quote

"Then a long cruel winter fell," said Ser Bartimus. "The White Knife froze hard, and even the firth was icing up. The winds came howling from the north and drove them slavers inside to huddle round their fires, and whilst they warmed themselves the new king come down on them. Brandon Stark this was, Edrick Snowbeard's great-grandson, him that men called Ice Eyes. He took the Wolf's Den back, stripped the slavers naked, and gave them to the slaves he'd found chained up in the dungeons. It's said they hung their entrails in the branches of the heart tree, as an offering to the gods. The old gods, not these new ones from the south. Your Seven don't know winter, and winter don't know them."

 

[One-eyed Misbehavin]

4 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

What about the scene described by Bartimus in Davos IV, Dance...

 

I was wondering if you thought it was "common" as in every winter King.

Do you believe it stopped when Stark's were demoted to Paramount?

I really like your thread I'm just curious 

[Lost Melnibonean]

4 minutes ago, One-eyed Misbehavin said:

I was wondering if you thought it was "common" as in every winter King.

Do you believe it stopped when Stark's were demoted to Paramount?

I really like your thread I'm just curious 

I expect it faded over time, like the Watch forgetting the real danger. It likely came to be viewed as a savage custom and fell out of fashion. Or, as you suggest, perhaps some leader banned it. If so, though, I would think it was early than when Torrhen knelt. Otherwise, it might have come up. The intances we have of such sacrifices seem to be pretty ancient, no? 

[Lost Melnibonean]

Consider this...

Quote

In the apple tree beside the water, a nightingale began to sing. It was a sweet sound, a welcome respite from the harsh screams and endless quorking of the ravens he had tended all day long. The white ravens knew his name, and would mutter it to each other whenever they caught sight of him, “Pate, Pate, Pate,” until he wanted to scream. The big white birds were Archmaester Walgrave’s pride. He wanted them to eat him when he died, but Pate half suspected that they meant to eat him too.

Prologue, Feast

Now consider this...

Quote

"Someone else was in the raven," he told Lord Brynden, once he had returned to his own skin. "Some girl. I felt her."

"A woman, of those who sing the song of earth," his teacher said. "Long dead, yet a part of her remains, just as a part of you would remain in Summer if your boy's flesh were to die upon the morrow. A shadow on the soul. She will not harm you."

"Do all the birds have singers in them?"

"All," Lord Brynden said. "It was the singers who taught the First Men to send messages by raven … but in those days, the birds would speak the words. The trees remember, but men forget, and so now they write the messages on parchment and tie them round the feet of birds who have never shared their skin."

Old Nan had told him the same story once, Bran remembered, but when he asked Robb if it was true, his brother laughed and asked him if he believed in grumkins too.

Bran III, Dance 34

[Leo of House Cartel]

Badass Thread OP,  ample evidence building up to support the theory.

I wonder what The Grey Kings ablities would have been as he sat on Old Wyk overlooking the waves. Would he be able to skinchange? I would assume so. If so would his abilities take more of an underwater theme? Brynden Rivers is known for his use of ravens, could the Grey King perhaps find more use in skinchanging say a large school of Silverfin Tuna? Or a mega-pod of Orca?

As the Varamyrr Sixskins prologue tells us, extended skinchanging of one animal can lead to the skinchanger developing elements of the animals character (The bird skinchangers will often spent long periods of time "gazing up" etc). Imagine how the Grey King may approach a war with a rival army after he had spent sufficient time in the mind of a Tiger Shark! or perhaps a Westerosi Megaladon. How about a Kraken?

Maybe this could be where House Farwynd of The Lonely Light gained those rumored skinchanging abilities. If some theories regarding the GEOTD are to be belived, wouldn't the Grey King have to sail past the rocks that would become the Lonely Light to reach the Iron Isles? During his Kingsmoot speech, Lord Farwynd is noted to have peculiar eyes - "His eyes Aeron saw, were now grey, now blue, as changeable as the seas"  perhaps similiar to how the COTF describe eye varying eye colour.

[Damon_Tor]

It seems more likely to me the Grey King was a null, a psychic blank, characterized by immunity to psychic contact. The myth of the Grey King's defeat of the "demon tree" is a warped retelling of his (and his heirs') resistance to the corrupting influence of the Children of the Forest.

I also believe the Grey King of the Iron Islands was the last Grey Emperor of Yi Ti. The family name of the Grey Emperors was "Har" which became "Hoare" over time.

But further, I believe that with breeding and with an amplification device, this null effect could be spread over a large area, shutting down psychic phenomena over a large area. I believe the seastone chair is one such amplifier, what the Grey King originally used to shut down the weirnet on the Iron Islands and free its people from the Children's enthrallment.

I believe that for the past millennia the Citadel has been orchestrating the breeding of stronger and stronger nulls, a program which culminated in Harren Hoare. I believe that the final stage of their plan was to build a massive amplifier, one that would allow the null field to cover, potentially, the entire planet. That amplifier was Harrenhall. That's why it was built with such proximity to the God's Eye, to most effectively shut down the psychic abilities of the Children and the Weirnet.

Harrenhall was badly damaged, and perhaps it doesn't work at 100% anymore, leaving the far East outside its area of effect. And of course it only works at all while one of Harren's descendants is ruling there: I believe the Lothstons were Hoare descendants, and the Whents after them, and via because of her Whent mother, Catlyn Stark and all her children.

Consider the timeline of dragon hatching: many have proposed convoluted genetic explanations for it dealing with the various Targaryens and their intermarriages, but what if that's wrong? When there is a Hoare, a Lothston or a Whent in Harrenhall, dragons stop hatching. As soon as there are none of those families in Harrenhall, dragons begin hatching again. The return of magic to the world also coincides with the ouster of the Whents from Harrenhall.

The return of the Others may be a side effect of this: There must always be a Stark in Winterfell... I believe because the the Starks are uniquely in-tune with the Children telepathically, allowing the Children to influence the Starks via dreams, giving the Children a "seat at the table" of human politics. The Others were on a dead-man-switch tied to this provision of the treaty between the First Men and the Children: if they lose that psychic contact their Doomsday weapon reactivates.

But the current generation of Starks are nulls: they are resistant to psychic contact, which means as far as the CotF are concerned, none of them are "Starks"... except Jon Snow. (A note: Obviously Bran isn't immune to psychic contact: his near-death experience dropped his null field and let in Bloodraven. This is the same reason the Drowned Men drown themselves: Iron Islanders are resistant to psychic contact, so to make any kind of psychic contact they need to have a NDE).

All this seems convoluted. How will this be explained to us? Where is this going?

Most of this will likely be discovered by Sam at Oldtown: the Citadel was behind the null breeding and Harrenhall. I believe this is the last peice of the House of the Undying prophecy to be deciphered properly: "From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire." The smoking tower is Harrenhall. The "Stone beast" taking "wing" is house Hoare taking on the identity of house Lothston (Lothstone means "hateful stone" and their sigil is a bat, a winged beast). Breathing shadow fire? House Lothston is responsible for the Blackfyre rebellion: Lucas Lothston's actions were intended to yield exactly the result they got. Shadow Fire = Blackfyre.

How is it relevant? The Stark line isn't entirely corrupted by the null genes: Jon Snow isn't tainted, and neither will be any children he has with Daenerys (it's very difficult to interpret the HotU prophecy as predicting anything except a relationship between the two of them, sorry if you don't care for it.) As such Daenerys will likely have to put her child on the Throne of Winter to make the Others recede, and she'll probably have to dethrone someone else to do it, likely a Stannis-controlled Rickon. As such the nature of Rickon's Hoare blood (and why it matters) will have to come to be known for her to gain the support she needs.

[Lost Melnibonean]

Is Mother Mole just a woods witch? Or is she a greenseer?

Quote

One day, as they fled, a rider came galloping through the woods on a gaunt white horse, shouting that they all should make for the Milkwater, that the Weeper was gathering warriors to cross the Bridge of Skulls and take the Shadow Tower. Many followed him; more did not. Later, a dour warrior in fur and amber went from cookfire to cookfire, urging all the survivors to head north and take refuge in the valley of the Thenns. Why he thought they would be safe there when the Thenns themselves had fled the place Varamyr never learned, but hundreds followed him. Hundreds more went off with the woods witch who'd had a vision of a fleet of ships coming to carry the freefolk south. "We must seek the sea," cried Mother Mole, and her followers turned east.

Prologue, Dance

Quote

Jon ignored him. "We have been questioning the wildlings we brought back from the grove. Several of them told an interesting tale, of a woods witch called Mother Mole."

"Mother Mole?" said Bowen Marsh. "An unlikely name."

"Supposedly she made her home in a burrow beneath a hollow tree. Whatever the truth of that, she had a vision of a fleet of ships arriving to carry the free folk to safety across the narrow sea. Thousands of those who fled the battle were desperate enough to believe her. Mother Mole has led them all to Hardhome, there to pray and await salvation from across the sea."

Othell Yarwyck scowled. "I'm no ranger, but … Hardhome is an un-holy place, it's said. Cursed. Even your uncle used to say as much, Lord Snow. Why would they go there?"

Jon had a map before him on the table. He turned it so they could see. “Hardhome sits on a sheltered bay and has a natural harbor deep enough for the biggest ships afloat. Wood and stone are plentiful near there. The waters teem with fish, and there are colonies of seals and sea cows close at hand."

"All that's true, I don't doubt," said Yarwyck, "but it's not a place I'd want to spend a night. You know the tale."

He did. Hardhome had been halfway toward becoming a town, the only true town north of the Wall, until the night six hundred years ago when hell had swallowed it. Its people had been carried off into slavery or slaughtered for meat, depending on which version of the tale you believed, their homes and halls consumed in a conflagration that burned so hot that watchers on the Wall far to the south had thought the sun was rising in the north. Afterward ashes rained down on haunted forest and Shivering Sea alike for almost half a year. Traders reported finding only nightmarish devastation where Hardhome had stood, a landscape of charred trees and burned bones, waters choked with swollen corpses, blood-chilling shrieks echoing from the cave mouths that pocked the great cliff that loomed above the settlement.

Six centuries had come and gone since that night, but Hardhome was still shunned. The wild had reclaimed the site, Jon had been told, but rangers claimed that the overgrown ruins were haunted by ghouls and demons and burning ghosts with an unhealthy taste for blood. "It is not the sort of refuge I'd chose either," Jon said, "but Mother Mole was heard to preach that the free folk would find salvation where once they found damnation."

Septon Cellador pursed his lips. "Salvation can be found only through the Seven. This witch has doomed them all."

"And saved the Wall, mayhaps," said Bowen Marsh. "These are enemies we speak of. Let them pray amongst the ruins, and if their gods send ships to carry them off to a better world, well and good. In this world I have no food to feed them."

Jon flexed the fingers of his sword hand. "Cotter Pyke's galleys sail past Hardhome from time to time. He tells me there is no shelter there but the caves. The screaming caves, his men call them. Mother Mole and those who followed her will perish there, of cold and starvation. Hundreds of them. Thousands."

Jon VIII, Dance 39

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At Hardhome, with six ships. Wild seas. Blackbird lost with all hands, two Lyseni ships driven aground on Skane, Talon taking water. Very bad here. Wildlings eating their own dead. Dead things in the woods. Braavosi captains will only take women, children on their ships. Witch women call us slavers. Attempt to take Storm Crow defeated, six crew dead, many wildlings. Eight ravens left. Dead things in the water. Send help by land, seas wracked by storms. From Talon, by hand of Maester Harmune.

Jon XII, Dance 58

And do those caves remind you of the foundation of Hightower and the Whispers?

[The Fattest Leech]

Well, since you are asking me personally and all, I think she is a loose cannon woods witch that is the modern day reincarnation/parallel of Druselka to the modern day Nymeria migration we have going on up north. But that is just me

[Lost Melnibonean]

So, we have Walgrave...

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The big white birds were Archmaester Walgrave’s pride. He wanted them to eat him when he died, but Pate half suspected that they meant to eat him too.

Prologue, Feast

And Varamyr...

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My brothers. My pack. Many a cold night he had slept with his wolves, their shaggy bodies piled up around him to help keep him warm. When I die they will feast upon my flesh and leave only bones to greet the thaw come spring. The thought was queerly comforting. His wolves had often foraged for him as they roamed; it seemed only fitting that he should feed them in the end. He might well begin his second life tearing at the warm dead flesh of his own corpse.

Prologue, Dance

And Mormont...

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That bird is too clever by half. It had been the Old Bear's companion for long years, but that had not stopped it from eating Mormont's face once he died.That bird is too clever by half. It had been the Old Bear's companion for long years, but that had not stopped it from eating Mormont's face once he died.

Jon I, Dance 3

Mormont may not have been a skinchanger, but there is some kinda weird cannibalistic thing going on here.