Skinchanger Zombies: Jon, the Last Hero, and Coldhands

[LmL]

11 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

This is all very good.  So, where did the two swords fall respectively, Starfall and Winterfell?  How did the white sword end up in Dayne possession if we're speculating it's the original Ice, i.e. Stark sword?

Two swords -- two Lightbringers -- two Lightsabers...and we're back to Star Wars!

Oh it is absolutely IS star wars. Lightbringer = the red lightsaber of Darth Vader. As for where... dude, ten foot pole. All we can do is apply reasoned speculation, because all the places which symbolize the fire moon show meteor explosion symbolism. Asshai, Valyria, Harrenhall, the Dragonpit, Dragonstone, the Iron Islands, Sunspear - where did it land? I don't know.If I were to guess because my sweet friend @ravenous reader wanted me too, then I'd have to say I think the Dawn meteor fell int he north, yes. Wintefell? Maybe, but WF is all hilly, not a basin like a crater would leave. I was thinking father in the north, like way north. But I cannot be certain.

What I do know is that Ned's journey to the ToJ is a very likely candidate for a parallel. Ned comes down from the North, then takes Dawn to Starfall, and returns with a baby. That is very like the King of Winter bring his original Ice down south, and leaving it there, returning with a symbol of black ice instead (Jon Snow). The game is to use fire against ice as a check, and vise versa. So it makes sense for a fire sword to go north, and an ice sword to go south. The ToJ may be showing us that exact swap. 

[LmL]

And we have lots of dragon people and dragon swords going north, on the flip side. My favorite is probably King Vorian Dayne, the Sword of the Evening, being sent to the Wall in golden fetters by Nymeria (a clear female Morningstar figure). I mean, that's it - the black version of the SOTM, going north to the Wall. We have Bloodraven and Aemon, Jon, Stannis, Melisandre (being Bloodraven's daughter, imo), and soon Daenerys. Well not SOON soon, but you know. In twelve years. 

In similar fashion, we have dark AA parallels invading Oldtown a lot - Samwell Dayne the Starfire, Dalton Greyjoy the Red Kracken, owner of V steel sword Nightfall, and now Euron, with all his BSE symbolism. These would be the ancient pirates from Asshai. 

[ravenous reader]

10 minutes ago, LmL said:

I talked about this one in my Tyrion Targaryen episode actually. Yes, the gargoyles seem like obvious meteors - fiery stone monsters that essentially come down from the moon, which is placed at the top of the tower where it belongs (symbolically, the tops of towers = the heavens). Bran is the boy who climbed to high, the stealer of the fire of the gods. He's climbing the tower of babel, so to speak. He overhears thing he shouldn't - the fire of the gods is not meant for man, perhaps - and this forbidden knowledge his doom... or near doom. The whispers of the stone meteor beasts are the starry wisdom whispers, again representing the forbidden knowledge. That's the same, more or less, as the whispering of the trees. During the wight attack on Sam and Gilly, when Coldhands rides to the rescue, we get this:

He heard the dark red leaves of the weirwood rustling, whispering to one another in a tongue he did not know.  The starlight itself seemed to stir, and all around them the trees groaned and creaked.  Sam tarly turned the color of curdled milk, and his eyes went wide as plates.  Ravens!  They were in the weirwood, hundreds of them, thousands of them, perched on the bone white branches, peering between the leaves.  He saw their beaks open as they screamed, saw them spread their black wings.  Shrieking, flapping, they descended on the wights in angry clouds.  They swarmed round Chett's face and pecked at his blue eyes, they covered the Sisterman like flies, they plucked gobbets from inside Hake's shattered head.  There were so many that when Sam looked up, he could not see the moon.

Lots going on here, but the point is that the whispering of the stars and the whispering of the leaves is presented in tandem, and both whisperings are the sources of wisdom. This is the stuff which summoned clouds of black meteors which blotted out the moon and everything else in the sky. 

The song of the earth is the song of stone, leaf and water.  So, stone would include the stone above, just as the stone below.  The implication is that singing the True Tongue one can manipulate celestial bodies.

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The World of Ice and Fire - Ancient History: The Dawn Age

Their song and music was said to be as beautiful as they were, but what they sang of is not remembered save in small fragments handed down from ancient days. Maester Childer's Winter's Kings, or the Legends and Lineages of the Starks of Winterfell contains a part of a ballad alleged to tell of the time Brandonthe Builder sought the aid of the children while raising the Wall. He was taken to a secret place to meet with them, but could not at first understand their speech, which was described as sounding like the song of stones in a brook, or the wind through leaves, or the rain upon the water. The manner in which Brandon learned to comprehend the speech of the children is a tale in itself, and not worth repeating here. But it seems clear that their speech originated, or drew inspiration from, the sounds they heard every day.

The gods the children worshipped were the nameless ones that would one day become the gods of the First Men—the innumerable gods of the streams and forests and stones. 

If clouds of ravens are likened to clouds of meteors, it's interesting that you've identified a 'fluid' quality to the description of meteors 'meteor shower,' 'bleeding stars,' etc. which is also evident here, in the description of 'a cloud of ravens pouring from the cave':

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A Dance with Dragons - Bran II

Summer was snarling and snapping as he danced around the closest, a great ruin of a man wreathed in swirling flame. He shouldn't get so close, what is he doing? Then he saw himself, sprawled facedown in the snow. Summer was trying to drive the thing away from him. What will happen if it kills me? the boy wondered. Will I be Hodor for good or all? Will I go back into Summer's skin? Or will I just be dead?

The world moved dizzily around him. White trees, black sky, red flames, everything was whirling, shifting, spinning. He felt himself stumbling. He could hear Hodor screaming, "Hodor hodor hodor hodor. Hodor hodor hodor hodor. Hodor hodor hodor hodor hodor." A cloud of ravens was pouring from the cave, and he saw a little girl with a torch in hand, darting this way and that. For a moment Bran thought it was his sister Arya … madly, for he knew his little sister was a thousand leagues away, or dead. And yet there she was, whirling, a scrawny thing, ragged, wild, her hair atangle. Tears filled Hodor's eyes and froze there.

Everything turned inside out and upside down, and Bran found himself back inside his own skin, half-buried in the snow. The burning wight loomed over him, etched tall against the trees in their snowy shrouds. It was one of the naked ones, Bran saw, in the instant before the nearest tree shook off the snow that covered it and dropped it all down upon his head.

 

5 minutes ago, LmL said:

WF is all hilly, not a basin like a crater would leave

The crypt/hollow hill complex goes very deep -- it's like a crater.  Additional evidence is that Winterfell is built on a rift tectonically, with heightened subterranean volcanic activity, possibly triggered by the original impact.

7 minutes ago, LmL said:

What I do know is that Ned's journey to the ToJ is a very likely candidate for a parallel. Ned comes down from the North, then takes Dawn to Starfall, and returns with a baby. That is very like the King of Winter bring his original Ice down south, and leaving it there, returning with a symbol of black ice instead (Jon Snow). The game is to use fire against ice as a check, and vise versa. So it makes sense for a fire sword to go north, and an ice sword to go south. The ToJ may be showing us that exact swap. 

Nice.

26 minutes ago, LmL said:

figuratively the "heart of the ice moon" - the original heart. When the black meteor hit the ice moon, it was a heart transplant.

GRRM told us it was, following Faulkner, about the 'human heart in conflict with itself.'

Between the humans and the moons, there are a lot of broken hearts all round!

Thanks for the chat.  Don't you ever get tired?  I will retire before my prose devolves in spectacular fashion... 

[ravenous reader]

5 minutes ago, LmL said:

the black version of the SOTM, going north to the Wall. We have Bloodraven and Aemon, Jon, Stannis, Melisandre (being Bloodraven's daughter, imo), and soon Daenerys. Well not SOON soon, but you know. In twelve years. 

In similar fashion, we have dark AA parallels invading Oldtown a lot - Samwell Dayne the Starfire, Dalton Greyjoy the Red Kracken, owner of V steel sword Nightfall, and now Euron, with all his BSE symbolism. These would be the ancient pirates from Asshai. 

What about Aurane Waters?  How does he fit in?  What about the Littlefingerish grey-green eyes?

Chat later then!

[LmL]

8 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

What about Aurane Waters?  How does he fit in?  What about the Littlefingerish grey-green eyes?

Chat later then!

Yes, i was thinking of him yesterday when you mentioned his grey green eyes. That makes like the Velaryons, essentially - sea dragon people. He's a Targ looking dude named waters with grey green eyes. He becomes a pirate lord of the narrow sea, where there are islands called Bloodstone and Grey Gallows (Odin's Gallows horse, Grey King). Daemon Targaryen also became King of the Narrow Sea and took Bloodstone for his seat, mimicking the bloodstone meteor (sunspear) landing on the arm of dorne. That is the other location I am fairly confident in as far as impacts. 

10 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

The song of the earth is the song of stone, leaf and water.  So, stone would include the stone above, just as the stone below.  The implication is that singing the True Tongue one can manipulate celestial bodies.

Nice catch - I missed the song of stone part. I did pick up on the gong into the ricks and trees and earth stuff as including stone, but the song of stone is even better. And of course if ravens are meteors, the idea of skinchanging meteors is vaguely implied, or could be. That would be more like steering than skinchanging, but you know. As you say. 

10 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

If clouds of ravens are likened to clouds of meteors, it's interesting that you've identified a 'fluid' quality to the description of meteors 'meteor shower,' 'bleeding stars,' etc. which is also evident here, in the description of 'a cloud of ravens pouring from the cave':

Yes, that's a great one. Bleeding stars, burning blood, blood and fire. The best example is Ned's Ice turned into Oathkeeper and Widow's Wail, with it's "waves of night and blood." waves of darkness and bleeding stars, essentially. The ravens are like the waves of darkness part, the clouds that blot out the heavenly lights. 

10 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

The crypt/hollow hill complex goes very deep -- it's like a crater.  Additional evidence is that Winterfell is built on a rift tectonically, with heightened subterranean volcanic activity, possibly triggered by the original impact.

I prefer the idea that Dawn was forged at Winterfell, perhaps tempered in that black pond or something. I'm open to anything, it's all just fun speculation. It could have been the God's Eye too for that matter. 

The thing about the Daynes legend of following the falling star... that could have easily been aligned form the GEotD that came with the Daynes, relocated tot heir new home over time. That happens in real world mythology when people migrate. 

10 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Nice.

GRRM told us it was, following Faulkner, about the 'human heart in conflict with itself.'

Between the humans and the moons, there are a lot of broken hearts all round!

Ha ha. Thats's a good one, turning that bloody over-used Faulkner quote back into mythical astronomy... I love you. 

10 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Thanks for the chat.  Don't you ever get tired?  I will retire before my prose devolves in spectacular fashion... 

Yes, I am getting a bit tired... but I am on the West Coast, so it's not that late. I was just looking at the page length of this thread and thinking to myself that it looks like the thread is really popular, but half of it is you and I brain waving here and chewing pixels. It's been really fun though! I am currently working on these ideas so it is very helpful to have folks to develop the ideas with. I feel like we have made real progress the last couple of days.

[Bluetiger]

I really like the idea of Heart of Winter being made of fire.

I think we got a hint in TWOIAF:

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It has long been accepted amongst the wise that our world is round. If this is true, it ought to be possible to sail over the top of the world and down its far side, and there discover lands and seas undreamed of. Over the centuries, many a bold mariner has sought to find a way through the ice to whatever lies beyond. Most, alas, have perished in the attempt, or returned south again half-frozen and much chastened. Whilst it is true that the White Waste recedes during summer and expands again in winter, its very shorelines ever changing, no seafarer has succeeded in finding this fabled northern passage, nor the warm summer sea that Maester Heriston of White Harbor once suggested might lie hidden and entombed behind the icy cliffs of the far north.

Sailors, by nature a gullible and superstitious lot, as fond of their fancies as singers, tell many tales of these frigid northern waters. They speak of queer lights shimmering in the sky, where the demon mother of the ice giants dances eternally through the night, seeking to lure men northward to their doom. They whisper of Cannibal Bay, where ships enter at their peril only to find themselves trapped forever when the sea freezes hard behind them.

They tell of pale blue mists that move across the waters, mists so cold that any ship they pass over is frozen instantly; of drowned spirits who rise at night to drag the living down into the grey-green depths; of mermaids pale of flesh with black-scaled tails, far more malign than their sisters of the south.

What is Heart of Summer than? Stygai? Asshai? Yeen? Lands of Always Summer? Smoking ruins of Valyria? 

Or maybe both Hearts are made of fire?

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Let me tell you something about wolves, child. When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. Summer is the time for squabbles. In winter, we must protect one another, keep each other warm, share our strengths. So if you must hate, Arya, hate those who would truly do us harm. Septa Mordane is a good woman, and Sansa … Sansa is your sister. You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts. You need her, as she needs you … and I need both of you, gods help me."

 

[Melifeather]

@ravenous reader thank you for the link. Yes, I had read that theory before: the one-two punch that took out the dinosaurs. I was once on "team-meteor" not that long ago, and I do like the idea of Winterfell and Starfall being shields for their respective ends of the realm. A fiery sword in the north and an icy one in the south to defend from opposing magics. The Starks themselves may be transplants if the Last Hero migrated north to find the Children, he may have been transformed by fire, but can such people propagate? Is that why the Starks have warg blood? SomePig has a compelling theory based on the Marvel Black Knight comics.

@LmL don't comets follow a trajectory? Like Halley's comet that comes near enough for us to see on Earth every 75-76 years, wouldn't the red comet of Westeros be something that people would see once, maybe twice during a lifetime? There's no danger that Halley's comet will change direction and hit the Earth, so why do you think the red comet would hit Westeros? A regularly seen comet like the red comet would not pose any danger. It would take an unknown asteroid or comet on a collision course crossing an orbit that would pose the danger of an impact.

The size of asteroids has to be taken into consideration too. How large would a moon have to be in order to remain in orbit? Then how large would an asteroid need to be in order to make it explode? How big would those pieces be? Are there any real life studies or theories regarding whole moons breaking apart? It doesn't seem likely. What does seem likely is something like our own moon, pock-marked from thousands of impacts, but still there up in the sky.

I'm not saying Westeros couldn't have been hit by asteroids. It would be unrealistic to say that it never has. I just don't think there was another moon in the sky that has disappeared. That kind of an explosion should have destroyed planetos too.

[Bluetiger]

6 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

@ravenous reader thank you for the link. Yes, I had read that theory before: the one-two punch that took out the dinosaurs. I was once on "team-meteor" not that long ago, and I do like the idea of Winterfell and Starfall being shields for their respective ends of the realm. A fiery sword in the north and an icy one in the south to defend from opposing magics. The Starks themselves may be transplants if the Last Hero migrated north to find the Children, he may have been transformed by fire, but can such people propagate? Is that why the Starks have warg blood? SomePig has a compelling theory based on the Marvel Black Knight comics.

@LmL don't comets follow a trajectory? Like Halley's comet that comes near enough for us to see on Earth every 75-76 years, wouldn't the red comet of Westeros be something that people would see once, maybe twice during a lifetime? There's no danger that Halley's comet will change direction and hit the Earth, so why do you think the red comet would hit Westeros? A regularly seen comet like the red comet would not pose any danger. It would take an unknown asteroid or comet on a collision course crossing an orbit that would pose the danger of an impact.

The size of asteroids has to be taken into consideration too. How large would a moon have to be in order to remain in orbit? Then how large would an asteroid need to be in order to make it explode? How big would those pieces be? Are there any real life studies or theories regarding whole moons breaking apart? It doesn't seem likely. What does seem likely is something like our own moon, pock-marked from thousands of impacts, but still there up in the sky.

I'm not saying Westeros couldn't have been hit by asteroids. It would be unrealistic to say that it never has. I just don't think there was another moon in the sky that has disappeared. That kind of an explosion should have destroyed planetos too.

I don't think that small moon's explosion would have power to destroy Planetos... After all Earth is still there... And according to some scientists, it used to have two moons... our modern moon is result of bigger stealing smaller's mass... Here it is

This is extremly interesting... 

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Astronomer and physicist Neil F. Comins delves into this thought experiment, and suggests some very interesting consequences.  Our Earth-Moon system is unique in the solar system. The Moon is 1/81 the mass of Earth while most moons are only about 3/10,000 the mass of their planet. The size of the Moon is a major contributing factor to complex life on Earth. It is responsible for the high tides that stirred up the primordial soup of the early Earth, it’s the reason our day is 24 hours long, it gives light for the variety of life forms that live and hunt during the night, and it keeps our planet’s axis tilted at the same angle to give us a constant cycle of seasons. A second moon would change that. For his two-mooned Earth thought experiment, Comins proposes that our Earth-Moon system formed as it did — he needs the same early conditions that allowed life to form — before capturing a third body. This moon, which I will call Luna, sits halfway between the Earth and the Moon. Luna’s arrival would wreak havoc on Earth. Its gravity would tug on the planet causing absolutely massive tsunamis, earthquakes, and increased volcanic activity. The ash and chemicals raining down would cause a mass extinction on Earth. But after a few weeks, things would start to settle. Luna would adjust to its new position between the Earth and the Moon. The pull from both bodies would cause land tides and volcanic activity on the new moon; it would develop activity akin to Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io. The constant volcanic activity would make Luna smooth and uniform, as well as a beautiful fixture in the night sky. The Earth would also adjust to its two moons, giving life a chance to arise. But life on a two-mooned Earth would be different. The combined light from the Moon and Luna would make for much brighter nights, and their different orbital periods will mean the Earth would have fewer fully dark nights. This will lead to different kinds of nocturnal beings; nighttime hunters would have an easier time seeing their prey, but the prey would develop better camouflage mechanisms. The need to survive could lead to more cunning and intelligent breeds of nocturnal animals. Humans would have to adapt to the challenges of this two-mooned Earth. The higher tides created by Luna would make shoreline living almost impossible — the difference between high and low tides would be measured in thousands of feet. Proximity to the water is a necessity for sewage draining and transport of goods, but with higher tides and stronger erosion, humans would have to develop different ways of using the oceans for transfer and travel. The habitable area of Earth, then, would be much smaller. The measurement of time would also be different. Our months would be irrelevant. Instead, a system of full and partials months would be necessary to account for the movement of two moons. Eventually, the Moon and Luna would collide; like the Moon is now, both moons would be receding from Earth. Their eventual collision would send debris raining through Earth’s atmosphere and lead to another mass extinction. The end result would be one moon orbiting the Earth, and life another era of life would be primed to start

I imagine that comet impact would cause less damage to the planet than two moon colliding... The second moon, as LML said, was much smaller (note that Earth's moon is extremly massive compared to  moons of other planets - 1/81th of planet's mass while average is 3/10 000). So I think that explosion + remaining moon's hijacking of material would cause Planetos life to survive... still... large parts of the Planet became wasteland, Shadowlands seem to have been the most affected region, while Westeros only got things like smashed Arm of Dorne, seaside areas sunk and shattered, impact craters that became lakes etc. - Doom of Valyria might have been triggered by gravitional change - 8 000 years is not so long in terms of geology...

It seems that Asshai, Stygai and Shadowlands are the most affected - they have darkness to this day, so it seems that for some weird reason most of the debris and dust remains over them... I remember that someone speculated that we won't ever see POV chapter from Asshai as the second moon's 'corpse' is still over there... but I think it makes more sense if it got completly destroyed.

Another cool article, about asteroid collision with moon: Here it is

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The asteroid which may have wiped out the dinosaurs was probably somewhere between 2 and 10km in size. An asteroid that large striking the Moon would release a large amount of energy and it probably would eject some of the moon rock into space, however I would guess that the bits would be quite small, so if they happened to be going in the right direction to hit the Earth they wouldn't cause too much damage. Around 15 meteorites found on Earth have been identified as originating on the Moon, so it obviously is possible for ejecta from the Moon to reach the Earth, however this is a tiny amount relative to the total number of meteorites found on the Earth.

 

[Melifeather]

1 hour ago, Blue Tiger said:

I don't think that small moon's explosion would have power to destroy Planetos... After all Earth is still there... And according to some scientists, it used to have two moons... our modern moon is result of bigger stealing smaller's mass... Here it is

This is extremly interesting... 

I imagine that comet impact would cause less damage to the planet than two moon colliding... The second moon, as LML said, was much smaller (note that Earth's moon is extremly massive compared to  moons of other planets - 1/81th of planet's mass while average is 3/10 000). So I think that explosion + remaining moon's hijacking of material would cause Planetos life to survive... still... large parts of the Planet became wasteland, Shadowlands seem to have been the most affected region, while Westeros only got things like smashed Arm of Dorne, seaside areas sunk and shattered, impact craters that became lakes etc. - Doom of Valyria might have been triggered by gravitional change - 8 000 years is not so long in terms of geology...

It seems that Asshai, Stygai and Shadowlands are the most affected - they have darkness to this day, so it seems that for some weird reason most of the debris and dust remains over it... I remember that someone speculated that we won't ever see POV chapter from Asshai as the second moon's 'corpse' is still over there... but I think it makes more sense if it got completly destroyed.

Another cool article, about asteroid collision with moon: Here it is

 

That's what I love about discussing GOT with people here and elsewhere, we all love this nerdy stuff! This is all very interesting, and I especially liked how the two moons could explain our lopsided moon. Really cool! OK, ok, ok...can't rule out the two moon theory!

[LmL]

Haha, it's back to the future. this threat now resembles the conversation on my very first theory ever, LOL. What's even funnier is that this Zombie series contains no astronomy whatsoever. I chose to do it that way because the zombie topic doesn't really need astronomy to explain it.. And here we are talking about the guts of the astronomy theory. Well, as far as it goes, I have a couple of brief things to say. The first is that I definitely think of the Moon that died as being similar to IO which is pretty much the most well-known have a certain type of moon - a molten moon, a fire moon. I would also expect that it was smaller, and possibly even further away - although I enjoyed the hypothetical example of Earth capturing a second moon as shared above. The second thing I would point out is that there is a happy medium between complete fantasy that has no rational way to be understood, and they completely rational Syfy type of explanation. I think that the moon disaster idea has a rational core to it - a comet struck the moon, there was an explosion, and the smoke blotted out the Sun. A completely irrational explanation would be something along the lines of "through magic, someone simply made the sun turn dark." I am suggesting an underlying mechanism which can be understood with the rational mind. However, this IS fantasy and we do need magic. We are certainly bending the laws of physics here. Comets don't explode moons comma and if anything large enough to be a moon exploded close to the Earth, I think it is overwhelmingly likely that the meteor that struck the Earth would be so big that they would be dinosaur killers, and probably even worse. Anything larger than about 5 miles across will pretty much wipe out all life on Earth. The big exception would be if the Comet or meteor struck and ice cap.  interesting Lee, this is exactly what scientists now think happened about twelve thousand years ago to kick off the younger dryas,  a 1200 year cold snap that came in the middle of a very long warming pattern. they now think a comet broke up into multiple large fragments and struck in many places along the North American and European ice sheets, causing massive collapse of the ice sheets...  which led to all the monstrous floods remembered in legends around the world. There's no crater comma because it landed on the ice sheet. It's hard to know how big the meteor might have been.  The same may be true for an oceanic impact, although I haven't done that much research into that. 

Essentially, what I am saying is that the reason the moon exploded when it was struck, as opposed to just winning itself a nice new crater, is magic.  I am not suggesting the long night is purely a result of physical processes - the meteor throwing up dust and ash to cloud the sky. What I have observed is that Martin likes to take physical processes - like the volcanic eruption that was the Doom - and then pump them up with magic.  I always like to say that the Doom was a volcanic explosion on magical steroids, and that's exactly how I see this moon disaster.  because it is fantasy, I do not think we are supposed to sit around trying to figure out exactly how big is a meteor could have been, and exactly how big the moon would have been. It's fun to speculate about that stuff, but I think that's where the line is between fantasy and sci-fi. There was some kind of celestial moon explosion, and meteors came from it. I think that's really what we need to understand. The rest of it is pretty much all of more symbolic and thematic importance.

[LmL]

@Blue Tiger, as far as the opposite of the heart of Winter, I definitely think it is a she and the Heart of Shadow or Heart of Darkness. I'll be doing a whole write-up about this idea, but the basic thing is that I believe Asshai and the shadowlands parallel the fire Moon, and I believe the heart of Winter and the wall parallel the ice Moon. Asshai shows us what the fireman is like - it's burned, blackened, corrupted, and shadowed. The heart of Winter, on the other hand, is possessed by weird cold fire magic. Using reverse logic, you can speculate that the fire Moon wasn't so shadowed and blighted before it was destroyed and transformed. I suspect the same was true of the shadowlands - that's what I was talking about in the great Empire of the Dawn episode. All the indicators are that used to be a prosperous place to live, the kind of place that would spawn a massive Empire. So I suspect that what it used to be was something more like a heart of Summer, a clean source of Fire magic perhaps. But now the state of the two hearts reflect the two moons - the fire moon was destroyed and turned into black rocks, as I said, and the ice Moon seems to have been struck by one of these black meteors. That's why the others look like they have swallowed Starfire and turned it cold. That's why nothing burns like the cold. And so on.

[Melifeather]

Yes "because magic" is a valid argument, however so is "reasonably plausible". GRRM has used magic relatively sparingly for a fantasy story, as a result his world also seems fairly realistic otherwise. So to me it has to also seem reasonably plausible for me to accept it. I'd rather the natural disaster stuff be "natural" and then have the Children accept the blame for it. You know what I mean? It's kind of like the stories made up about the stars. Do they have a basis in actual fact, or was ancient man merely entertaining themselves?

[LmL]

45 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

Yes "because magic" is a valid argument, however so is "reasonably plausible". GRRM has used magic relatively sparingly for a fantasy story, as a result his world also seems fairly realistic otherwise. So to me it has to also seem reasonably plausible for me to accept it. I'd rather the natural disaster stuff be "natural" and then have the Children accept the blame for it. You know what I mean? It's kind of like the stories made up about the stars. Do they have a basis in actual fact, or was ancient man merely entertaining themselves?

I would refer you to my above comment about stealing the fire of the Gods, and about the Garden of Eden. Thematically, I think there's a very clear message being sent, and it's one of original sin. I completely agree that it will not turn out to be the fault of the children of the forest, because they are not the protagonist of the story. The protagonist is mankind comma so it seems to me that mankind has to be the ones responsible for the disaster. I would actually prefer a story where the disasters are just natural, perhaps with a magical fall out, and the humans simply have to respond to it. But personal preference doesn't really enter into it; it's really about the story that George is writing. Again, I would compare it to the Doom - the Doom is a volcanic explosion, but trumped up by Magic. And it didn't just happeneed,  it was the result of hubris on the part of mankind.

I am seeing a very clear pattern with the relationship between Magic and rationality in A Song of Ice and Fire. All of the magic seems to be a personification of nature, a personification of the forces of the universe. Obsidian has magical qualities relating to Fire magic because it is literally cooled and hardened magma. The others are very like a personification of the worst parts of winter. The dragons are something like flying volcanoes. The Doom is a magical disaster built on the back of a natural disaster. George seems to base his magic on natural ideas, as opposed to just pulling his magic out of thin air. My theory about the moon disaster is consistent with that - the basics of it can be understood rationally. Meteor impacts do throw up smoke and Ash which can block out the Sun for several years. But we know it wasn't purely natural, because the long night was a magical event, and George has said that the reason why the seasons are all messed up has to do with magic as well. So again, we are left to find the balance between rational explanation and magical explanation. I don't even think it's that cryptic, really - I think he's being very, very consistent.

[Melifeather]

5 minutes ago, LmL said:

George has said that the reason why the seasons are all messed up has to do with magic as well.

IMO the seasons are messed up because whatever magic was used was suppressed and warded, but a ward has been removed: there is no Stark in Winterfell, and I think this explains why a blizzard seems to be emanating out of Winterfell. The Wall is reversing...it's beginning to whirl away and it's exiting out of the underground tunnels where there is an opening in the ward.

[Bluetiger]

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Song and story tell us that the Starks of Winterfell have ruled large portions of the lands beyond the Neck for eight thousand years, styling themselves the Kings of Winter (the more ancient usage) and (in more recent centuries) the Kings in the North. Their rule was not an uncontested one. Many were the wars in which the Starks expanded their rule or were forced to win back lands that rebels had carved away. The Kings of Winter were hard men in hard times.

Ancient ballads, amongst the oldest to be found in the archives of the Citadel of Oldtown, tell of how one King of Winter drove the giants from the North, whilst another felled the skinchanger Gaven Greywolf and his kin in "the savage War of the Wolves," but we have only the word of singers that such kings and such battles ever existed.

More historical proof exists for the war between the Kings of Winter and the Barrow Kings to their south, who styled themselves the Kings of the First Men and claimed supremacy over all First Men everywhere, even the Starks themselves. Runic records suggest that their struggle, dubbed the Thousand Years War by the singers, was actually a series of wars that lasted closer to two hundred years than a thousand, ending when the last Barrow King bent his knee to the King of Winter, and gave him the hand of his daughter in marriage.

Here we get another skinchangers/wargs = Green Men - Sir Gawain was famous for his encounter with Green Knight:

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In English folklore and literature, green has traditionally been used to symbolize nature and its embodied attributes, namely those of fertility and rebirth. Oftentimes it is used to embody the supernatural or spiritual other world. In British folklore, the devil was sometimes toned green which may or may not play into the concept of the Green Man/ Wild Man dichotomy of the Green Knight.Stories of the medieval period also portray the colour as representing love and the amorous in life, and the base, natural desires of man. Green is also known to have signified witchcraft, devilry and evil for its association with the fairies and spirits of early English folklore and for its association with decay and toxicity. The colour, when combined with gold, is sometimes seen as representing the fading of youth.In the Celtic tradition, green was avoided in clothing for its superstitious association with misfortune and death. Green can be seen in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as signifying a transformation from good to evil and back again; displaying both the spoiling and regenerative connotations of the colour. Given these varied and even contradictory interpretations of the colour green, its precise meaning in the poem remains ambiguous.

 

Of the many characters similar to him, the Green Knight of Sir Gawain is the first to be green. Because of his strange colour, some scholars believe him to be a manifestation of the Green Man figure common in medieval art, or as a representation of both the vitality and fearful unpredictability of nature. That he carries a green holly branch, and the comparison of his beard to a bush, has guided many scholars in this direction. The gold entwined in the cloth wrapped around his axe, combined with the green, gives him both a wild and an aristocratic air.Others see him as being an incarnation of the Devil. In one interpretation, it is thought that the Green Knight, as the "Lord of Hades", has come to challenge the noble knights of King Arthur's court. Sir Gawain, the bravest of the knights, therefore proves himself equal to Hercules in challenging the Knight, tying the story to ancient Greek mythology. Another possible interpretation of the Green Knight views him as combining elements from the Greek Hades and the Christian Messiah, at once representing both good and evil and life and death as self-proliferating cycles. (...)

C.S. Lewis declared the Green Knight "as vivid and concrete as any image in literature" and further described him as:

a living coincidentia oppositorum; half giant, yet wholly a "lovely" knight"; as full of demoniac energy as old Karamazov, yet in his own house, as jolly as a Dickensian Christmas host; now exhibiting a ferocity so gleeful that it is almost genial, and now a geniality so outrageous that it borders on the ferocious; half boy or buffoon in his shouts and laughter and jumpings; yet at the end judging Gawain with the tranquil superiority of an angelic being.

The Green Knight could also be interpreted as a blend of two traditional figures in romance and medieval narratives, namely, "the literary green man" and the "literary wild man. "The literary green man" signifies "youth, natural vitality, and love," whereas the "literary wild man" represents the "hostility to knighthood," "the demonic" and "death." The Knight's green skin connects the green of the costume to the green of the hair and beard, thus connecting the green man's pleasant manners and significance into the wild man's grotesque qualities.

 

The Green Knight is also compared to the English holiday figure Jack in the green. Jack is part of a May Day holiday tradition in some parts of England, but his connection to the Knight is found mainly in the Derbyshire tradition of Castleton Garland. In this tradition, a kind of Jack in the green known as the Garland King is led through the town on a horse, wearing a bell-shaped garland of flowers that covers his entire upper body, and followed by young girls dressed in white, who dance at various points along the route (formerly the town's bellringers, who still make the garland, also performed this role). On the top of the King's garland is the "queen", a posy of bright flowers. The King is also accompanied by his elegantly dressed female consort (nowadays, confusingly, also known as the Queen); played by a woman in recent times, until 1956 "the Woman" was always a man in woman's clothing. At the end of the ceremony, the queen posy is taken off the garland, to be placed on the town's war memorial. The Garland King then rides to the foot of the church tower where the garland is hauled up the side of the tower and impaled upon a pinnacle.Due to the nature imagery associated with the Green Knight, the ceremony has been interpreted as possibly deriving from his famous beheading in the Gawain poem. In this case, the posy's removal would symbolise the loss of the knight's head.

Similar character appears in Sir Thomas Malory's (GRRM referenced him by creating House Mallery) Le mort d'Arthur, and Howard Pyle (GRRM named House Pyle of the Reach after him - Ser Howard Pyle appears at Ashford Tourney) once illustrated this tale.

 

Also:

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Especially when it concerned the free folk, where their disapproval went bone deep. When Jon settled Stonedoor on Soren Shieldbreaker, Yarwyck complained that it was too isolated. How could they know what mischief Soren might get up to, off in those hills? When he conferred Oakenshield on Tormund Giantsbane and Queensgate on Morna White Mask, Marsh pointed out that Castle Black would now have foes on either side who could easily cut them off from the rest of the Wall. As for Borroq, Othell Yarwyck claimed the woods north of Stonedoor were full of wild boars. Who was to say the skinchanger would not make his own pig army?

Hoarfrost Hill and Rimegate still lacked garrisons, so Jon had asked their views on which of the remaining wildling chiefs and war lords might be best suited to hold them. "We have Brogg, Gavin the Trader, the Great Walrus … Howd Wanderer walks alone, Tormund says, but there's still Harle the Huntsman, Harle the Handsome, Blind Doss … Ygon Oldfather commands a following, but most are his owns sons and grandsons. He has eighteen wives, half of them stolen on raids. Which of these …"

"None," Bowen Marsh had said. "I know all these men by their deeds. We should be fitting them for nooses, not giving them our castles."

So here we get Herle the Huntsman & Yggdrasil references... and Soren means 'Severus'... I never was a great fan of HP, but GRRM references it few times in ASOIAF. Or i might be reference to St.Severin of Cologne who opposed Arianism.

Btw, when Jon is assasinated, one of the men stabbing him is Wick Whittlestick:

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Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun howled again and gave Ser Patrek's other arm a twist and pull. It tore loose from his shoulder with a spray of bright red blood. Like a child pulling petals off a daisy, thought Jon. "Leathers, talk to him, calm him. The Old Tongue, he understands the Old Tongue. Keep back, the rest of you. Put away your steel, we're scaring him." Couldn't they see the giant had been cut? Jon had to put an end to this or more men would die. They had no idea of Wun Wun's strength. A horn, I need a horn. He saw the glint of steel, turned toward it. "No blades!" he screamed. "Wick, put that knife …"

… away, he meant to say. When Wick Whittlestick slashed at his throat, the word turned into a grunt. Jon twisted from the knife, just enough so it barely grazed his skin. He cut me. When he put his hand to the side of his neck, blood welled between his fingers. "Why?"

"For the Watch." Wick slashed at him again. This time Jon caught his wrist and bent his arm back until he dropped the dagger. The gangling steward backed away, his hands upraised as if to say, Not me, it was not me. Men were screaming. Jon reached for Longclaw, but his fingers had grown stiff and clumsy. Somehow he could not seem to get the sword free of its scabbard.

Do you think this means anything?

[LmL]

36 minutes ago, Blue Tiger said:

Here we get another skinchangers/wargs = Green Men - Sir Gawain was famous for his encounter with Green Knight:

Similar character appears in Sir Thomas Malory's (GRRM referenced him by creating House Mallery) Le mort d'Arthur, and Howard Pyle (GRRM named House Pyle of the Reach after him - Ser Howard Pyle appears at Ashford Tourney) once illustrated this tale.

 

Also:

So here we get Herle the Huntsman & Yggdrasil references... and Soren means 'Severus'... I never was a great fan of HP, but GRRM references it few times in ASOIAF. Or i might be reference to St.Severin of Cologne who opposed Arianism.

Btw, when Jon is assasinated, one of the men stabbing him is Wick Whittlestick:

Do you think this means anything?

Alright, so I've read a little bit about the Green Knight - but what you've provided here makes a little more sense than what I read, at least in terms of relating to A Song of Ice and Fire. all of that pretty much fits in with how I am seeing the resurrected Green Man figures like resurrected really, a combination of devilish characteristics and Green Man characteristics. It really seems like George is just tapping into all of this mythology related to these two ideas.

As for Wick Whittlestick, I actually bring him up in part three. His name gives us tree symbolism as well as fire symbolism- it's the burning tree symbolism.

Great finds on the wildling Chieftains there. Harle the Huntsman is very close to Harlan the Huntsman, one of the two children of Garth who founded house Tarly. Ygon, lol.

[Pain killer Jane]

36 minutes ago, LmL said:

Alright, so I've read a little bit about the Green Knight - but what you've provided here makes a little more sense than what I read, at least in terms of relating to A Song of Ice and Fire.

Totally off base on the current discussion which I am following. We talk a lot about green men, black brothers, white cloaked brothers, grey sheep, red priests but what do we make of the brown brothers? Because I don't think we can lump them into green man symbolism. Green man symbolism often leads to the dark, wild and deep forest but the brown brothers and their symbolism seems different both before the High Sparrow and after.  

Edit: I think it is significant to think about the brown brothers as potentially a hellhound has become one. (Sandor = Gravedigger theory is true)

[LmL]

It's hard to see associating brown with anything other than mud and Earth. We've got mud men living in the neck, and they are of course related to the children of the forest... But with a little bit more of an aquatic feel, a frog type thing going on. Are there any legends about making people from mud? I believe there are. Do any of them have anything to do with birds? Or are sparrows simply a stand-in for anything which is very common, and which there are a lot of.

There's also John the Fiddler, who falls into the mud while jousting and is re-nicknamed the brown dragon.

[Melifeather]

1 hour ago, Blue Tiger said:

Runic records suggest that their struggle, dubbed the Thousand Years War by the singers, was actually a series of wars that lasted closer to two hundred years than a thousand, ending when the last Barrow King bent his knee to the King of Winter, and gave him the hand of his daughter in marriage.

I'm actually more interested in this bit above....200 years instead of a thousand. That's quite an exaggeration on the part of the singers. Maybe 8000 years is also an exaggeration? (Stark/Winterfell/Others)

[Bluetiger]

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Another thing I've revently noticed:

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Cressen looked over the knights and captains and lords sitting silent. Lord Celtigar, aged and sour, wore a mantle patterned with red crabs picked out in garnets. Handsome Lord Velaryon chose sea-green silk, the white gold seahorse at his throat matching his long fair hair. Lord Bar Emmon, that plump boy of fourteen, was swathed in purple velvet trimmed with white seal, Ser Axell Florent remained homely even in russet and fox fur, pious Lord Sunglass wore moonstones at throat and wrist and finger, and the Lysene captain Salladhor Saan was a sunburst of scarlet satin, gold, and jewels. Only Ser Davos dressed simply, in brown doublet and green wool mantle, and only Ser Davos met his gaze, with pity in his eyes.

Of course, Lord Sunglass is later burned by Melisandre... And what lead to his dead?

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Dragonstone's sept had been where Aegon the Conqueror knelt to pray the night before he sailed. That had not saved it from the queen's men. They had overturned the altars, pulled down the statues, and smashed the stained glass with warhammers. Septon Barre could only curse them, but Ser Hubard Rambton led his three sons to the sept to defend their gods. The Rambtons had slain four of the queen's men before the others overwhelmed them. Afterward Guncer Sunglass, mildest and most pious of lords, told Stannis he could no longer support his claim. Now he shared a sweltering cell with the septon and Ser Hubard's two surviving sons. The other lords had not been slow to take the lesson.

Actions of his Rambton bannermen... And their sigil is ram's head with golden horns...

Btw, sunglass probably = Libyan desert glass or Tektite

And here: 

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The torches along the walls were burning bright, and so was he, blue lips, blue eye, and all. "What the kraken grasps it does not loose. These isles were once ours, and now they are again . . . but we need strong men to hold them. So rise, Ser Harras Harlaw, Lord of Greyshield." The Knight stood, one hand upon Nightfall's moonstone pommel. "Rise, Andrik the Unsmiling, Lord of Southshield." Andrik shoved away his women and lurched to his feet, like a mountain rising sudden from the sea. "Rise, Maron Volmark, Lord of Greenshield." A beardless boy of six-and-ten years, Volmark stood hesitantly, looking like the lord of rabbits. "And rise, Nute the Barber, Lord of Oakenshield."

We have a sword called Nightfall with moonstone.

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Across the tent, Rhaegal unfolded green wings to flap and flutter a half foot before thumping to the carpet. When he landed, his tail lashed back and forth in fury, and he raised his head and screamed. If I had wings, I would want to fly too, Dany thought. The Targaryens of old had ridden upon dragonback when they went to war. She tried to imagine what it would feel like, to straddle a dragon's neck and soar high into the air. It would be like standing on a mountaintop, only better. The whole world would be spread out below. If I flew high enough, I could even see the Seven Kingdoms, and reach up and touch the comet

This seems to foreshadow dragons vs comet fight.

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Salladhor the Beggar, that's what your king has made me," Salladhor Saan complained to Davos, as the remnants of his fleet limped across the Bite. "Salladhor the Smashed. Where are my ships? And my gold, where is all the gold that I was promised?" When Davos had tried to assure him that he would have his payment, Salla had erupted. "When, when? On the morrow, on the new moon, when the red comet comes again? He is promising me gold and gems, always promising, but this gold I have not seen. I have his word, he is saying, oh yes, his royal word, he writes it down. Can Salladhor Saan eat the king's word? Can he quench his thirst with parchments and waxy seals? Can he tumble promises into a feather bed and fuck them till they squeal?"

If we look back at Saan's first scene, we can assume he symbolises the remaining moon - he survives both Mel's purge (probably by informing on Davos) and Battle of Blackwater where Sunglass' galleys are burned. Now the comet returns to deal with him.

I wonder how many red comets there are...

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That night he ate every bite Sam put before him. "No one ever looked for a girl," he said. "It was a prince that was promised, not a princess. Rhaegar, I thought . . . the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King's Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it." Just talking of her seemed to make him stronger. "I must go to her. I must. Would that I was even ten years younger."

There are two of them? I thought it split, but one was destroyed... but this one was only seen at night from what Aemon told us, so maybe some really small fragment of the Moonkiller Comet survived and heralds the coming of the Red Comet we see in ASOIAF?

Or there is only one comet, but it has some weird orbit? It's strange that no one else mentions that KL red comet...