Nominations and Ranking Thread 2016 (with results)

[sweetsunray]

On 14-12-2016 at 11:26 PM, HoodedCrow said:

I am not savvy enough on this board to nominate, however, I would enjoy reading posts suggested by those who write complex theories, and I request posters such as sunsweetray to also nominate their personal favorite of their own authorship! Many thanks to those who post for the rest of us.

Well since you ask: my personal favourite thread that I OPd this year is actually Craster's Black Blooded Curse (or WTF happened to Benjen). Though it seems to answer mysteries such as "what happened to Benjen?" and "who murdered Othor and Jafer?" I must admit I'm not totally convinced of the scenarios I proposed as answers in the OP, but I'm pretty sure I managed in making people consider that the answers to Othor and Jafer murder is not straightforward, that there are parallels and pointers to the Othor-Jafer-find chapter and the first visit at Craster's, the MO of wights when they attack a living person, but most of all the dark side of foodstuff allusions in the books.

I would also like to nominate @LmL Skinchanger Zombies thread, both for the OP's essays and the many wonderful contributions of forum members in that thread, especially if you're a mythology fan as I am. Each post is something to ponder on and euhm sets my brain on fire. Admittedly I'm a bit envious because in some ways LML beat me to a subject I'm aiming to work towards with my bear and chthonic essays.

 

[LmL]

4 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Well since you ask: my personal favourite thread that I OPd this year is actually Craster's Black Blooded Curse (or WTF happened to Benjen). Though it seems to answer mysteries such as "what happened to Benjen?" and "who murdered Othor and Jafer?" I must admit I'm not totally convinced of the scenarios I proposed as answers in the OP, but I'm pretty sure I managed in making people consider that the answers to Othor and Jafer murder is not straightforward, that there are parallels and pointers to the Othor-Jafer-find chapter and the first visit at Craster's, the MO of wights when they attack a living person, but most of all the dark side of foodstuff allusions in the books.

I particularly enjoyed your angle on cannibalism in general, whether or not the 'theory' part of this essay is true or not. You definitely have a hold on a valid line of symbolism... and there I think about it, eating the flesh of the wights may well have been the only way to survive during the LN. It makes a lot of damn sense. 

4 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

I would also like to nominate @LmL Skinchanger Zombies thread, both for the OP's essays and the many wonderful contributions of forum members in that thread, especially if you're a mythology fan as I am. Each post is something to ponder on and euhm sets my brain on fire. Admittedly I'm a bit envious because in some ways LML beat me to a subject I'm aiming to work towards with my bear and chthonic essays.

 

Ok well now that is high praise indeed, and of course I am sure you will have plenty to say on these topics which I did not cover. Quite frankly, I think I linked to your chthonic essays at least three times in this series, because your analysis of Ned as Hades and the crypts as an underworld is in many ways foundational to some of the ideas in my green zombie series. I've told my listeners that your essays are basically "required reading" for understanding my own, I feel like they compliment each other in many ways. That's also true for some of the stuff @Evolett has written (that's why the two of you have prominent links on my frontpage), and she has also helped me develop several of my own ideas. 

Anyways thanks for nominating my thread and I would have already nominated your cthonic cycle if someone had not beat me to it. My two favorites of the year as of right now (Without having gone back and read all the nominations yet) are your Chthonic series and @Wizz-The-Smith's Hollow Hills essay, which is an idea I was trying to get to myself, much in the way you said a moment ago. Of course I had only an inkling of the topic, and Wizz did a fantastic job and took it much further. I have a companion topic I hope to write about my concept of greenseer kings in the Dawn Age, and I'll be referring to Wizz's theory when I do so. You know it's an awesome theory because the concept has quickly been adopted into everyone's lexicon around here.

Cheers!

[The Fattest Leech]

On 12/10/2016 at 10:44 PM, sweetsunray said:

It's nearly that time of the year again, where lists are being piled together and voted for. Before we can vote on anything, we should collect nominations which is the purpose of this thread.

So, please post your nominees in here.

In order for the nomination to be valid these are the guidelines:

• The OP of the thread was posted in 2016 (in general, reread, or tWoIaF).
• The thread contains an original theory proposal or analysis on plot, mystery, character, or world. (It's ok if the poster of the nominated thread has also published it somewhere else, as long as a discussion thread was created on westeros.org as well)
• Post a link to the thread and give a short summary in this thread before 18 december 24:00 GMT. the turn of the year.

NOTE: this thread is not meant to discuss the content of the threads, let alone the posters. Anyone is free to nominate a thread that fits the above guidelines.

FOR YOUR HELP: threads with an OP posted in January 2016  in General start from page 135. You can jump to that page, by clicking on the small triangle beside page 1 at the bottom of general, which gives you the option to go to a specific page.

 

 

 

I just saw the updated date!

I hadn't added many more because I thought I was too late! Better get back to searchin' and postin'.

I am already happy to see that so many threads I had in mind are already mentioned

[sweetsunray]

Had to extend it, because the number of nominations was too low to make it into categories and people need time to read the nominations anyway.

[Curled Finger]

Ah very good @sweetsunray--now I understand the categories.   But I still don't know how to link a topic.   There are some great conversations about so many topics.   Are we able to nominate in multiple categories?   How do we vote?   Are there other categories that just haven't yet come up?   Is there a way to tally up topics to determine what was most discussed? I'd love to see how many times the Swords came up or Asshai or The North as related to the Underworld--so many interesting things we talk about as a result of this amazing work.   I'm not trying to make 237 nominations, but I could if there were enough categories.     

[sweetsunray]

@Curled Finger

To link a topic: go to a thread. Either copy the url and just paste it (it will automatically end up looking like it does in this thread) or click on the light shadowy < in the right top corner of that post, which gives you the option to "share the post".

You can make multiple nominations. And I'm not limiting the number of threads can be nominated. But do try to make a selection.  

I'll organize the voting in January, but I would suggest you can select a winner and a runner-up per category created. I'll make categories depending on what I have, or split them. I'm trying to get 3-5 nominations a category. Thus if I have 10 nominations for "characters", I'll see whether I can split that up in what's available.

If you want to tally popular topics of discussion, you're free to do that, but with hundreds of threads, sorry I'm not going to do that. You'll have to do searches for that I guess and tally manually.

[Curled Finger]

1 minute ago, sweetsunray said:

@Curled Finger

To link a topic: go to a thread. Either copy the url and just paste it (it will automatically end up looking like it does in this thread) or click on the light shadowy < in the right top corner of that post, which gives you the option to "share the post".

You can make multiple nominations. And I'm not limiting the number of threads can be nominated. But do try to make a selection.  

I'll organize the voting in January, but I would suggest you can select a winner and a runner-up per category created. I'll make categories depending on what I have, or split them. I'm trying to get 3-5 nominations a category. Thus if I have 10 nominations for "characters", I'll see whether I can split that up in what's available.

If you want to tally popular topics of discussion, you're free to do that, but with hundreds of threads, sorry I'm not going to do that. You'll have to do searches for that I guess and tally manually.

Right On!   I will get to searching and linking.   Thank you!   

[sweetsunray]

I'm also nominating Corn as a foreshadowing thread of the re-read subforum, because it expands on popcorn, what toppings go with it, deep frying them.

Quite a recent thread but a subject I haven't come across often yet that I find very intruiging: an obscure Valyrian prophecy foretold or foretells that the gold of Casterly Rock would destroy Valyria or Valyrian lords. It tries to make sense of that.

And then another thread  in the world subforum that tries to figure out the reference to "wood dancers" and finding links and allusions to Pinochio, the obstinate wooden dancing puppet who's led astray, and his nose that grows when he lies.

 

[ravenous reader]

1)  @Seams: Puns and wordplay.  A master at work, commenting on a master.  Opened my eyes -- and that's saying something!

2)  @LmL: The Grey King and greenseers:  he put the fire in the tree; and unified ice and fire -- how can you argue with that?

3)  @Wizz-The-Smith: The Hollow Hills: sometimes simple is profound -- and eternal.

4)  @sweetsunray:  Them Bones (with assistance by Daendrew):  'Riverrun' and the 'vicious recirculations.'  Nailed it.

[sweetsunray]

@ravenous reader

There are actually two Grey King threads.

This one by @LmL

And then there's this one by @Lost Melnibonean

Both threads and OPs point at similar source material and come to similar basic conclusions, except that in the latter the title matches what you proposed. Is it possible that you remembered both threads and conflated them into one? 

Do you wish to nominate one or both?

[ravenous reader]

5 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Both threads and OPs point at similar source material and come to similar basic conclusions, except that in the latter the title matches what you proposed. Is it possible that you remembered both threads and conflated them into one? 

Do you wish to nominate one or both?

@LmL's. I am not conflating, for once .  The fire is the important thing -- the element I overlooked. 

[sweetsunray]

Ok and I agree that @LmL managed to unite water, fire and greenseeing.

The temporary list is now kept and updated in the OP, and I've added a category of greenseeing (as I was getting a lot of character threads) and I made a category for mythological and literary links as some nominated threads take that angle.

Another recent thread that I found an interesting read was The Wex Pyke Problem

 

[Cridefea]

Great idea! I'd like to mention tons of threads, even if I've been here only since August. I'll make a selection and I'll post the links soon.

[Kingmonkey]

12 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

4)  @sweetsunray:  Them Bones (with assistance by Daendrew):  'Riverrun' and the 'vicious recirculations.'  Nailed it.

Oho? I did a little bit on Riverrun and vicious -- or rather Viconian -- recirculations a couple of weeks back in the Heresy Wheel of Time thread. Damn, another thread I have to go and read. 

This thread is becoming quite a time-killer.

 

[ravenous reader]

7 minutes ago, Kingmonkey said:

Oho? I did a little bit on Riverrun and vicious -- or rather Viconian -- recirculations a couple of weeks back in the Heresy Wheel of Time thread. Damn, another thread I have to go and read. 

This thread is becoming quite a time-killer.

Yes, I saw that.  Great essay, by the way-- as is your writing in general, in terms of content, quality and quantity!    Did you see I quoted it recently?  I'm not sure whose idea that was originally -- yours, @sweetsunray or @Daendrew? -- but you're all brilliant to identify and apply Joyce to this central theme of GRRM's as well.

[sweetsunray]

52 minutes ago, Kingmonkey said:

Oho? I did a little bit on Riverrun and vicious -- or rather Viconian -- recirculations a couple of weeks back in the Heresy Wheel of Time thread. Damn, another thread I have to go and read. 

This thread is becoming quite a time-killer.

 

I just went and read your post in the heresy 192 - wheel of time post. Btw, I allow Heresy thread nominations as well.

58 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

 I'm not sure whose idea that was originally -- yours, @sweetsunray or @Daendrew? -- but you're all brilliant to identify and apply Joyce to this central theme of GRRM's as well.

@Daendrew dropped the Riverrun - Finnegans Wake reference in spring in reply to my Isis of Winterfell with the Golden Blade essay of the Chtonic Cycle, that originally contained a part of the Bones idea. In the fall I went back to the idea I hadn't pursued earlier on (alternative route for Hallis), and the Joyce reference became fully clear in that context.

[Kingmonkey]

14 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Yes, I saw that.  Great essay, by the way-- as is your writing in general, in terms of content, quality and quantity!    Did you see I quoted it recently?  I'm not sure whose idea that was originally -- yours, @sweetsunray or @Daendrew? -- but you're all brilliant to identify and apply Joyce to this central theme of GRRM's as well.

@Daendrew  earned the shiny rosette for first place as far as I can see, though the three of us probably ran our own ways to similar conclusions.

I'd say it's one of those things that you just can't miss if you've paid much attention to Joyce. "Riverrun" is just too well known in that context, and it sticks out like a sore thumb. The conclusions follow along very naturally though -- if you're looking for cycles of time in a book that makes you think of Finnegan's Wake, there's really only one way to go!

[Daendrew]

7 hours ago, Kingmonkey said:

@Daendrew  earned the shiny rosette for first place as far as I can see, though the three of us probably ran our own ways to similar conclusions.

I'd say it's one of those things that you just can't miss if you've paid much attention to Joyce. "Riverrun" is just too well known in that context, and it sticks out like a sore thumb. The conclusions follow along very naturally though -- if you're looking for cycles of time in a book that makes you think of Finnegan's Wake, there's really only one way to go!

 

Aww thank you. I've never won anything before. 

[ravenous reader]

7 hours ago, Kingmonkey said:

I'd say it's one of those things that you just can't miss

I did miss it -- I must have been too busy viciously recirculating in the viscous inertia of my commodiusness 

[Wizz-The-Smith]

On ‎29‎/‎12‎/‎2016 at 0:54 AM, LmL said:

Anyways thanks for nominating my thread and I would have already nominated your cthonic cycle if someone had not beat me to it. My two favorites of the year as of right now (Without having gone back and read all the nominations yet) are your Chthonic series and @Wizz-The-Smith's Hollow Hills essay, which is an idea I was trying to get to myself, much in the way you said a moment ago. Of course I had only an inkling of the topic, and Wizz did a fantastic job and took it much further. I have a companion topic I hope to write about my concept of greenseer kings in the Dawn Age, and I'll be referring to Wizz's theory when I do so. You know it's an awesome theory because the concept has quickly been adopted into everyone's lexicon around here.

Hey LML, and thanks.  Also thank you to those who nominated/supported nomination of my thread, very much appreciated. 

I too would have nominated @sweetsunray's 'The Cthonic Cycle - Part 1-4' if not for someone else getting there first.  Similarly I would also have nominated your 'The Grey King and Sea Dragon' thread, great essays both, plus your Grey King essay agreed with what I was finding so I suppose I'm biased.    Thirdly, and again already nominated, @Seams's 'Puns and Wordplay' thread is a joy to read.  Thank you all for your hard work.