The Long Night's Watch - the Undead Companions of the Last Hero

[Pain killer Jane]

19 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

That is the true meaning of 'going into the trees' -- the way the poet (and GRRM) seeks to become eternal -- and succeeds, every time we commune with them, even in the relative privacy of our minds!

That is a beautiful interpretation. 

[ravenous reader]

1 minute ago, Pain killer Jane said:

That is a beautiful interpretation. 

Yes, I think it's ultimately about an author celebrating his sacred gift -- Words -- and contemplating his own mortality.  While he wonders what he's unleashed (i.e. us nutters carrying on here...) 

[LmL]

25 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

That is the true meaning of 'going into the trees' -- the way the poet (and GRRM) seeks to become eternal -- and succeeds, every time we commune with them, even in the relative privacy of our minds!

Ah, because books are made of paper and paper comes from trees... going into the trees = reading. Ha, never thought of it that way. 

[ravenous reader]

12 minutes ago, LmL said:

@ravenous reader, it occurred to me that monsters form the sea are really monsters from the id, in the context of everything in the sea being a metaphor for the see. Makes them scarier, and reminds of Lovecraft, where the monsters invade your mind and come from other dimensions. 

Hey elemel...give me a sec...(I almost wrote 'sex'...good grief)...I'm trying to find a specific convo for you...

[ravenous reader]

2 minutes ago, LmL said:

Ah, because books are made of paper and paper comes from trees... going into the trees = reading. Ha, never thought of it that way. 

Yeah, exactly.  And, by the way, this is one thought I had before you...

[LmL]

Just now, ravenous reader said:

Hey elemel...give me a sec...(I almost wrote 'sex'...good grief)...I'm trying to find a specific convo for you...

FREUDIAN!! FREUDIAN!!

[ravenous reader]

Just now, LmL said:

FREUDIAN!! FREUDIAN!!

Actually, I'm a Jungian!

But, yeah...I actually had to edit it!  It's your fault...I defer to the projection defense (this is by the way Trump's classic recourse)

[LmL]

1 minute ago, ravenous reader said:

Actually, I'm a Jungian!

But, yeah...I actually had to edit it!  It's your fault...I defer to the projection defense (this is by the way Trump's classic recourse)

I'm sure you're well-Jungian. 

[ravenous reader]

42 minutes ago, LmL said:

@ravenous reader, it occurred to me that monsters form the sea are really monsters from the id, in the context of everything in the sea being a metaphor for the see. Makes them scarier, and reminds of Lovecraft, where the monsters invade your mind and come from other dimensions. 

 

29 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

..I'm trying to find a specific convo for you...

OK.  I found it -- by @Frey family reunion. It's also one of the most poetic posts/conversations I've read (read the conversation around it as well).  You and @Pain killer Jane also contributed valuable insights, as you may recall.

He relates 'Forbidden Planet' and the 'monster of the Id' to GRRM; and mentions Carl Jung and his conception of the Shadow, while we're on Jungian:

[LmL]

35 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

 

OK.  I found it -- by @Frey family reunion. It's also one of the most poetic posts/conversations I've read (read the conversation around it as well).  You and @Pain killer Jane also contributed valuable insights, as you may recall.

He relates 'Forbidden Planet' and the 'monster of the Id' to GRRM; and mentions Carl Jung and his conception of the Shadow, while we're on Jungian:

Ok, yes that's a good example of me having so many conversations and ideas in my head that I forget what I talked about with whom and when. Thanks so much for pulling that. 

So yeah - we are talking about the same thing as we were last time. We're talking about the weirwoodnet as a kind of very large and old "id," with the Others being the monsters from this id. And yes, as a couple of people clarified, we would be talking about the company consciousness of the old greenseers in the net. I talked about this idea in the green zombies part 3 (remember that?) When I speculated about how it was that people first entered the weirwoodnet, and if that might be related to the Moon meteor impacts. Also the idea of the weirs as traps that caught greenseers and imprisoned them. The Others would be these greenseers escaping. 

[ravenous reader]

2 minutes ago, LmL said:

I talked about this idea in the green zombies part 3 (remember that?) When I speculated about how it was that people first entered the weirwood net, and if that might be related to the Moon meteor impacts.

It's all blurring into one...tell me more!  

[LmL]

46 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

It's all blurring into one...tell me more!  

It was that little bonus section at the very very end:

So, I’ve mentioned the idea of undead greenseers a few times, but what exactly does that mean?  How would that work?  We’ve talked extensively about the idea of resurrected skinchangers and the process by which you make one: the human spirit is stored in the animal, the human body is resurrected by some means, and the either the human spirit or the merged human – animal spirit is somehow put back in the resurrected body.  But what happens if you swap out the skinchanger in this process for a greenseer… and swap out an animal for a weirwood?

It would look like this.  A greenseer who is wedded to the trees is somehow killed, and his spirit goes into his home weirwood, or perhaps just into the weirwoodnet as a whole. But before his spirit could completely dissolve into the green godhood, someone comes along and resurrects the greenseer’s corpse.  Is there a way for the greenseer spirit lurking in weirwood to take possession of his old body again?  Now consider the skinchanger example, where the skinchanger’s spirit merges with his animal and the combined spirits are put back into the resurrected corpse… and again swap in a weirwood tree for the animal.  What if some part of the tree, some piece of the weirwoodnet intelligence, came along with the greenseer spirit when it was put back into the reanimated corpse?

This would be like trees bodysnatching people, in a sense.  Pretty freaky, right?  Instead of a wolfman zombie, it would be a treeman zombie.  That would actually be a more perfect incarnation of the wicker man King of Winter.  Best of all, because Ghost the direwolf has the same blood and bone coloring of the weirwoods, which Jon remarks upon multiple times, Jon’s resurrection process using Ghost’s body as a storage vessel basically symbolizes the weirwood process I am talking about.  Jon won’t be a weirwood zombie, but he is symbolizing one, which makes us wonder about the original last hero or King of Winter… or maybe the Night’s King or Azor Ahai… I’d throw the Grey King and his weirwood throne in there too…  And what about Bran?  Could his boy’s flesh die, only to have his spirit go into the weirwoodnet… and then, I dunno, bodysnatch Hodor for good and all?  Or Hodor’s corpse, if Hodor dies and George doesn’t want to make Bran quite such an evil bodysnatcher?

There are countless examples of trees being personified as human.  Take a look at the prologue from AGOT for example, which is stuffed full of trees having clutching fingers or human emotions.  It goes through every book – we have burning, drowned, and frozen trees, all acting like people, again and again.  My favorite example of this comes when Asha is fighting the Moutain Clans, who dressed up in tree camouflage, at Deepwood Motte – she recalls to herself the stories she’s heard about the children fighting the First Men, and how they “turned trees into warriors.”  I don’t think George is going to give us Tree Ents, like Lord of the Rings, but trees bodysnatching people might be his macabre version of it.

There’s a great clue about making soldiers form trees in ADWD, actually, and I will just read this one myself.  Dany is speaking with Xaro Xhoan Daxos, discussing the evils of slavery, and she asks Xaro if he knows how unsullied are made.  He says “Cruelly, I have no doubt.  When a smith makes a sword, he thrusts the blade into the fire, beats on it with a hammer, then plunges it into iced water to temper the steel.  If you would savor the sweet taste of the fruit, you must water the tree.”  To which Dany says, “this tree has been watered with blood,” and Xaro replies, “how else, to grow a soldier?” There are obvious parallels between the Unsullied and zombies – they have had their personalities almost completely destroyed and erased and turned into basically mindless zombies who do whatever they are told by their master.  Here we learn that to make soldiers like this, you must water trees with blood.  That’s exactly what people did with heart trees in the distant past, and the occasionally not-so-distant past, and I have already suggested ways in which blood sacrifice to trees might create zombie soldiers.  The meaning of this passage, therefore it may be that the idea of the children “turning the trees into warriors” might mean making undead greenseer tree-man zombies.

Or how about this – what if it’s not really the weirwood consciousness trying to bodysnatch people, what if there is some old greenseer stuck in the weirwoodnet, trying to get out?  Is there some old green man in the weirwoodnet, like Job from the Lawnmower Man? (a great movie everyone should watch they haven’t already) The word weir refers to a wooden fish trap set up on a river or stream, remember, so are the weirwoods in some sense a trap?  They do store consciousness, the souls of the deceased greenseers, so that lines up, but is the implication that someone is stuck in there against their will?  Since a fishing weir is also a fishgarth, might the weirwood be some kind of trap for garth people?

Let’s set aside the idea of the weirwood trapping people against the will and just think about trap as in repository.  We are told all of the trees on the Isle of Faces were gives faces to witness the Pact, and it is somewhat implied that blood sacrifice might be a part of “giving a heart tree a face” and “opening the tree’s eyes” so greenseers can look through them.  My guess is that if human sacrifice is involved, it might be the greenseer who wants to enter the tree who is sacrificed.  When we are told of the trees in the Isle of Faces being given faces – and separately told about blood magic sacrifice of either humans or children the forest, on the Isle of Faces, as I mentioned – what we might really be hearing about is the story of green men being sacrificed so they can enter the trees and give them faces and eyes.  It might have been the initial entry on mankind (or green man kind) into the weirwoodnet, or even the creation of the weirwoodnet in the sense that we know it.   It may also be that these sacrificed green men might have been made into tree-man zombies, using the process I just described.

There’s something unpleasant about the weirwoods – perhaps it’s the fact that are always screaming or angry looking, weeping blood, or maybe it’s the bloody mouth and leaves like bloody hands.  These trees do not look happy – are they being tortured?  Are they being skinchanged against their will?  It’s a question I have always wondered about.  I mean, do they like having bloody faces carved in them, and do they like humans and children of the forest and green man wearing their skins?  Or are they perhaps performing some kind of awful sacrifice for the good of mankind, with their suffering etched on their faces to remind us?  Did they trap evil garths, or did they allow their skins to be shared so that mankind might survive or achieve some important goal?

Is their face the face of Garth and his green men, making their garth-trees for real?  That is my guess, as of right now.  I’ve thrown out a lot of questions and speculation here at the end, so as to provide some food for thought.  I like to confine my speculation to the things we have seen in the book, and the whitings which can be logically deduced from adapting what we have seen in the book.  The skinchanger resurrection process is laid out pretty clearly, so swapping a tree for an animal is simply logical deduction.  If a skinchanger’s animal can be used as a temporary storage vessel, then a tree should work too, perhaps even better.  We’ve been shown all manner of tree-people and people trees – that’s what the wields are, on a most basic level, trees with hands and faces – and here, using the magic we have been shown in the books and a little logic, we can see a way in which a tree consciousness can inhabit a person, or an undead corpse… or maybe a golem body made of ice, who knows.  The world is full of possibilities when people can bodysnatch animals, people, corpses, and trees.  If the trees can bodysnatch back, well… that’s what I call dark fantasy.  Part of me thinks that having created all the mechanisms needed for this to occur, George might be unable to resist.  We’ll have to wait and see what kind of zombies we get.  One thing is for sure – the Winds of Winter are sure to bring us plenty of walking corpses.

[Lady Fishbiscuit]

Heart tree is a very interesting term. Is it ever made clear that only a godswood weirwood is a heart tree or are all weirwoods with faces heart trees? I'm asking as it could just refer to the heart (i.e. central focus) of a godswood or, alternatively, it could have a more sacrificial connotation or be a reference to the tree containing someone's heart (soul).  We know entrails have been hung in them but what about giving them actual hearts?  

If Bloodraven's weirwood has grown through his body, it has probably grown through his heart, merging his living blood with the weirwood sap.  It would be certain death for any greenseer in this state if they tried to leave their tree and eventually they are too tired to move anyway, so this seems a good way for the weirwoods to 'imprison' them and slowly consume them while they are distracted by being logged in to weirnet visions for long periods of time.  

The heart represents life force or soul in many cultures and religions and also represents the third eye of transcendent wisdom in Hinduism. And here, through the merging of greenseer and weirwood (heart tree), the greenseer gains their third eye knowledge as the weirwood takes over their life force.  However, as you theorised @LmL, I don't think the greenseers realise their half of the deal! Naughty weirwoods! Also made me think of the dothraki custom where Dany consumes the horse's heart to make her unborn son strong, swift and fearless.

[Bluetiger]

Here it is, a brand new thread to discuss Norse myth stuff - The Amber Compendium

[Pain killer Jane]

3 hours ago, Blue Tiger said:

Here it is, a brand new thread to discuss Norse myth stuff - The Amber Compendium

Thank You!!!!

[Pain killer Jane]

4 hours ago, Lady Fishbiscuit said:

Is it ever made clear that only a godswood weirwood is a heart tree or are all weirwoods with faces heart trees?

The red keep's heart tree is an oak. Its where Ned takes the girls to pray and give thanks when they get the raven saying Bran woke up. 
The Harrenhal heart tree is also an oak. 

[LmL]

1 hour ago, Pain killer Jane said:

The red keep's heart tree is an oak. Its where Ned takes the girls to pray and give thanks when they get the raven saying Bran woke up. 
The Harrenhal heart tree is also an oak. 

Garth's throne of living oak strongly suggests oak trees can be used by greenseers. I believe the weirwood is essentially occupying the Holly  tree / tree of the winter king role, with the oak playing the role of summer tree / summer tree. That's why I like that scene with the ranger giant making a castle out of the dead oak. Symbolically,  dead oak is akin to a winter tree, dead summer tree, etc. 

[Lady Fishbiscuit]

1 hour ago, Pain killer Jane said:

The red keep's heart tree is an oak. Its where Ned takes the girls to pray and give thanks when they get the raven saying Bran woke up. 
The Harrenhal heart tree is also an oak. 

Oh yes, I'd forgotten that!

 

8 minutes ago, LmL said:

Garth's throne of living oak strongly suggests oak trees can be used by greenseers. I believe the weirwood is essentially occupying the Holly  tree / tree of the winter king role, with the oak playing the role of summer tree / summer tree. That's why I like that scene with the ranger giant making a castle out of the dead oak. Symbolically,  dead oak is akin to a winter tree, dead summer tree, etc. 

So, could be something similar (but maybe less sinister?)

[LmL]

6 minutes ago, Lady Fishbiscuit said:

Oh yes, I'd forgotten that!

 

So, could be something similar (but maybe less sinister?)

That's one possibility - we've been talking a lot about the idea that the weirwoods might not care for being skinned changed by humans and little Forest elves. It could definitely be an unhealthy relationship. That ain't no happy tree hugger shit now is it? Perhaps the bond between ancient humans or green men and oak trees was a little less bloody and macabre and creepy.

[Pain killer Jane]

1 hour ago, LmL said:

Garth's throne of living oak strongly suggests oak trees can be used by greenseers. I believe the weirwood is essentially occupying the Holly  tree / tree of the winter king role, with the oak playing the role of summer tree / summer tree. That's why I like that scene with the ranger giant making a castle out of the dead oak. Symbolically,  dead oak is akin to a winter tree, dead summer tree, etc. 

So I was reading the other day and I ran across this

And Joshua adjured them at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before the LORD, that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho: he shall lay the foundation thereof in his firstborn, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it.

- Joshua 6:26

Jericho's etymology either means 'fragrant' or 'moon'. And we have had younger sons taking possession of the Gates of the Moon; first the Blackfish and now the seat of Nestor Royce (whose name can't be a coincidence since Nestor the Argonaut, was the son of Chloris whose equivalent in Roman mythology was Flora.)  

ETA: And since we are talking about the Vale, if the first born was a giant, then it makes sense that the Eyrie's foundation figuratively in the Shadow of the Giant's Lance (since that is where Artys Arryn was born and raised) and literally has foundations in the Giant's Lance.  

ETA: Waynwood interests me since its etymology is wagon and we have the sigil of a broken wheel of a cart. But the wane homophone also alludes to this sigil as well since in woodworking the term wane means a round off edge that is missing wood. Wane is also used in reference to the moon when it starts turning from a full moon into a dark moon. Or is it wain the corruption of gwain meaning sheath or vagina. Are we missing something about the Waynwoods?