Heresy 194 Underworld

[Black Crow]

48 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

If I'm not mistaken, it's just within the last year that GRRM confirmed that Dany's memories of the House with the Red Door, and its lemon trees, might have a little more to them than meets the eye

Do tell, I must have missed that one

[Matthew.]

18 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Do tell, I must have missed that one

http://i.imgur.com/EXN26tk.png

It was in an email response, which Elio has said is legit, though Elio himself thinks it's just a typical GRRM non-answer.

I'll grant, it is pretty vague, but the flipside is that he isn't going "No, you idiots, stop overthinking this thing with the lemon tree. A rich person in Braavos could have a lemon tree in a pot!" I mean, he's rarely that dismissive in general, but we do see it on occasion, such as when he told someone that this isn't all building up to a conflict between warring gods of ice and fire, even though that's a semi-common interpretation.

 

[Black Crow]

11 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

http://i.imgur.com/EXN26tk.png

It was in an email response, which Elio has said is legit, though Elio himself thinks it's just a typical GRRM non-answer.

I'll grant, it is pretty vague, but the flipside is that he isn't going "No, you idiots, stop overthinking this thing with the lemon tree. A rich person in Braavos could have a lemon tree in a pot!" I mean, he's rarely that dismissive in general, but we do see it on occasion, such as when he told someone that this isn't all building up to a conflict between warring gods of ice and fire, even though that's a semi-common interpretation.

 

Thanks, it could be something or it could be nothing. On the whole though I think I'm with Elio and might go so far as to detect a hint of sarcasm, but we'll see.

[Matthew.]

17 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Thanks, it could be something or it could be nothing. On the whole though I think I'm with Elio and might go so far as to detect a hint of sarcasm, but we'll see.

I don't disagree, and I'm not especially familiar with all of the Dany theories out there, other than having some broad awareness that there are people that believe the house with the red door was actually in Dorne, rather than Braavos.

[Brad Stark]

Grrm has admitted mistakes before,  I think Danny's past is not what we were told. 

[Black Crow]

6 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

I don't disagree, and I'm not especially familiar with all of the Dany theories out there, other than having some broad awareness that there are people that believe the house with the red door was actually in Dorne, rather than Braavos.

No, I don't particularly follow them myself either. I've heard the suggestion about Dorne, but while I suppose an argument might be made for it my biggest problem is seeing where it might lead to. As you alluded earlier there are of course theories that the Lannister twins or Tyrion [or all three] might be Targaryen bastards. I doubt that myself, but if it was true then such a revelation it would offer certain consequences. On the other hand if Danaerys is not who she's believed to be, then what? Given that she's identified in the 1993 synopsis as the last of the dragonlords and that she unquestionably hatches and bonds with her dragons, there seems no doubt at all that she really is a Targaryen, so what's the point of a Dornish connection?

[Brad Stark]

My theory is Danny is really the daughter of Rheagar and Ashara Dayne,  and swapped with a stillborn child of Eli.

[Voice]

1 hour ago, Cowboy Dan said:

@Voice Are you some sort of god to give me such possibilites? No, I can't get sucked into that rabbithole. Not now. But I'll definitely look into those for potential discussions.

Ok. I won't answer then.  lol

 

1 hour ago, Cowboy Dan said:

Dude, you JUST linked that to me. I know you've gotta push your wares but come on! 

LOL! I know, didn't mean the link in that way.  

I was only trying to show you that your perspective wouldn't be seen as a crackpot at the Hearth. It would have many friendly-neighbors. (And of those wares, you will note, mine is but one of six.) 

 

1 hour ago, Cowboy Dan said:

Oh god that's good. Oddly enough I can get why that came about, there's a cluster of symbolism around Daario, Arthur Dayne, and Qhorin Halfhand (hence the AD>QH theories). So I can totally see how someone would put it that way. Funny stuff!

Don't get me wrong though, that theory is bananas! 

It was actually very well argued! As a Dayne-o-phile, I found myself wanting to believe... but nah. But, that raises the question... Do I only feel that way because Daario is such a douche? 

Yet another quandary. 

[JNR]

8 hours ago, Matthew. said:

it seems that the lesson that some people have taken away from RLJ is not that it was a mistake to be condescending, but that it was a mistake to be condescending in service of the wrong theory.

Ah, so basically -- "Don't be a hypocrite?" 

Well, that's a reasonable thing to say.  And in general, I think Heresy has been remarkably open-minded and tolerant, don't you?  Black Crow's rule about "great good humor" has, by and large, been followed.

For instance, consider the various people backing the various non-RLJ theories.  I don't recall any time when the Robert + Lyanna people explained to the Ned + Ashara people that they were Holocaust deniers, etc. 

Nobody has described his or her pet theory as "unwritten canon" that if you don't believe it, must mean you are a Scientologist, etc. They all just seem to coexist, collectively humble enough to know they might be wrong.

There have been times, I suppose, when individuals like ATS got knocked around for espousing unusual views of various kinds.  (Personally, I remember him as one of the first to point out how thoroughly GRRM works unreliable narration to achieve impressive effects, though I didn't agree with all his theories either. ATS, if you're reading this: Well done.) 

And I can think of a more recent example, in which a guy came to Heresy to talk up a theory that has generally gone over better outside it than inside it. 

So you're probably right that Heresy could be a still more courteous place than it is, though I think re openmindedness, in general, it better approaches the ideal than any other thread on this site, and that's been true for years and years.

[Frey family reunion]

4 hours ago, Black Crow said:

No, I don't particularly follow them myself either. I've heard the suggestion about Dorne, but while I suppose an argument might be made for it my biggest problem is seeing where it might lead to. As you alluded earlier there are of course theories that the Lannister twins or Tyrion [or all three] might be Targaryen bastards. I doubt that myself, but if it was true then such a revelation it would offer certain consequences. On the other hand if Danaerys is not who she's believed to be, then what? Given that she's identified in the 1993 synopsis as the last of the dragonlords and that she unquestionably hatches and bonds with her dragons, there seems no doubt at all that she really is a Targaryen, so what's the point of a Dornish connection?

Now we're talking one of my three favorite theories.

I won't go full crackpot here (because you should never go full crackpot), but basically, Dany only hatched her dragons because she wasn't a full Targaryen (at least as the Targaryen bloodline stood at the time of House Targaryen's destruction).  House Targaryen went from the pureblooded Aegon the conqueror, whose incestuous relations kept their dragon riding bloodline pure, to a line descended from Viserys I who was unable to become a dragonrider, and the daughter of a Lysenean banker.  In the meantime the dragonriding line split in various directions.  It went into House Plumm, House Velaryon, and bastard lines like Blackfyre and Longwaters.

So my conclusion is Dany's birth brought several of these bloodlines back together, which made her the perfect conduit (along with all the other mumbo jumbo) to bring the dragons back from extinction.  Which also means that Dany couldn't be the daughter of Aerys and Rahella.  With the hints of a Dornish origin, my belief is if we can eliminate only one of these two, I'd eliminate Rahella as her parent.  

Which means, that Viserys lied to Dany about her origin.  In reality, Viserys didn't have a sister when he arrived in  Braavos, the problem is Viserys needed a bargaining chip to obtain an army.  Enter Oberyn who came to Braavos and signed a marriage pact with Willem Darry.  My guess is he arrived with a Dornish girl that could pass as a Targaryen princess.  (Perhaps pluched from the Water Gardens, where Doran noted to Arianne that a lesson is to be learned as the children played in the pools, you can't distinguish the rich from poor).  If you go back and look at the desription of the House boats that Arianne and company arrive at nestled in the Greenblood, it fits Dany's memory of her House with the Red Door.  Lemon orchards, brightly painted houseboats with carved wood.  

So Dany is brought to Viserys and Viserys raises her as his trueborn sister, so when she comes of age he can sell her to whoever is willing to give him an army.  Dany is told from a very young age that she was born on Dragonstone, and she is too young to remembe differently.  Except in the back of her head she has these memories from a very very young age of a house that doesn't jive with the cover story that Viserys has convinced her of.    Ironically, the bastard (black dragon) girl, scared of her own shadow, is actually the true blood of the dragon, in that her bloodline is closer to Aegon the Conqeror then her trueborn brother.

[Brad Stark]

We are all here because of a lack of  ASOIAF reading material.  No matter how crazy, far fetched or even plain stupid a post is, it is a little more to read and think about while we wait, and I appreciate it. 

[Frey family reunion]

12 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

We are all here because of a lack of  ASOIAF reading material.  No matter how crazy, far fetched or even plain stupid a post is, it is a little more to read and think about while we wait, and I appreciate it. 

Heyyy.  I put a lot of thought into that one.  If you really want plain stupid you should hear my theory that Oberyn is kind of/sort of the father of Tyrion (he impregnated Joanna either shortly before or after Tywin also impregnated her), resulting in the genetic chimera that is Tyrion.  And btw,   Oberyn is also the bastard child of the Princess of Dorne and King Aerys.  Making Tyrion, part dragon, part scorpion, part snake, and part lion, the manticore of the story.  Now that theory is pretty stupid.

[LynnS]

21 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

We are all here because of a lack of  ASOIAF reading material.  No matter how crazy, far fetched or even plain stupid a post is, it is a little more to read and think about while we wait, and I appreciate it. 

I hear ya.  I'm actually more content to read other people's thoughts than I am to weigh in at this point .  Especially since I got my new glasses and I can actually read again without straining my eyes. You would think that we had squeezed every last ounce of good stuff out of the books by now.  Not so.  There are still new insights and revelations coming out of the minds of brilliant people.  That's a great pleasure to me. (That means you, Frey Family Reunion).  

[Frey family reunion]

5 minutes ago, LynnS said:

I hear ya.  I'm actually more content to read other people's thoughts than I am to weigh in at this point .  Especially since I got my new glasses and I can actually read again without straining my eyes. You would think that we had squeezed every last ounce of good stuff out of the books by now.  Not so.  There are still new insights and revelations coming out of the minds of brilliant people.  That's a great pleasure to me. (That means you, Frey Family Reunion).  

Heh, it's getting to a point that I feel like I'm reading a whole different story than everyone else.  I call it the story being written between the lines.    But it's a wonderful world, where Howland Reed is a behind the scene manipulator on a massive scale, who fathered Jon Snow, where snow knights are being passed of as "Others".  Where the true others are white skinned amphibious creatures whose invasion is yet to begin, and where Illyrio is secretly plotting to take down the ruling parties in Volantis.  It's there, trust me, you just have to squint really, really, hard.

[LmL]

18 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

Now we're talking one of my three favorite theories.

I won't go full crackpot here (because you should never go full crackpot), but basically, Dany only hatched her dragons because she wasn't a full Targaryen (at least as the Targaryen bloodline stood at the time of House Targaryen's destruction).  House Targaryen went from the pureblooded Aegon the conqueror, whose incestuous relations kept their dragon riding bloodline pure, to a line descended from Viserys I who was unable to become a dragonrider, and the daughter of a Lysenean banker.  In the meantime the dragonriding line split in various directions.  It went into House Plumm, House Velaryon, and bastard lines like Blackfyre and Longwaters.

So my conclusion is Dany's birth brought several of these bloodlines back together, which made her the perfect conduit (along with all the other mumbo jumbo) to bring the dragons back from extinction.  Which also means that Dany couldn't be the daughter of Aerys and Rahella.  With the hints of a Dornish origin, my belief is if we can eliminate only one of these two, I'd eliminate Rahella as her parent.  

Which means, that Viserys lied to Dany about her origin.  In reality, Viserys didn't have a sister when he arrived in  Braavos, the problem is Viserys needed a bargaining chip to obtain an army.  Enter Oberyn who came to Braavos and signed a marriage pact with Willem Darry.  My guess is he arrived with a Dornish girl that could pass as a Targaryen princess.  (Perhaps pluched from the Water Gardens, where Doran noted to Arianne that a lesson is to be learned as the children played in the pools, you can't distinguish the rich from poor).  If you go back and look at the desription of the House boats that Arianne and company arrive at nestled in the Greenblood, it fits Dany's memory of her House with the Red Door.  Lemon orchards, brightly painted houseboats with carved wood.  

So Dany is brought to Viserys and Viserys raises her as his trueborn sister, so when she comes of age he can sell her to whoever is willing to give him an army.  Dany is told from a very young age that she was born on Dragonstone, and she is too young to remembe differently.  Except in the back of her head she has these memories from a very very young age of a house that doesn't jive with the cover story that Viserys has convinced her of.    Ironically, the bastard (black dragon) girl, scared of her own shadow, is actually the true blood of the dragon, in that her bloodline is closer to Aegon the Conqeror then her trueborn brother.

Just a quick point about Dany's bloodline - because Maekar married Dyanna Dayne and Egg married Black Betha Blackwood, and becasue this was followed by three generations of brother-sister incest, if Dany's parents are who we think the are, she is approximately 25% Dayne and 50% Blackwood (or 25% Blackwood and 25% of whomever Betha Blackwood's non-Blackwood parent was). Now, genetics doesn't work that way - each child can get a range of traits from either parent - but the point remains that Dany has a significant portion of Blackwood and Dayne blood, either of which could be the basis for a hypothesis about why Dany was able to hatch dragons.  The Daynes could well be descended of the original dragonriding civilization (which predated Valyria which I identify with Asshai and the Great Empire of the Dawn), and so an infusion of Dayne blood - OG dragonrider blood - might have made a difference. As for the Blackwood side, some have theorized that dragonbonding and skinchanging are related (I tend to think so - I'd guess dragonbonding is derivative of greenseer magic, probably altered / mutated), so the infusion of greenseer blood from the Blackwoods might have factored in also. 

Bottom line, Dayne and Blackwood are no insignificant houses. It's hard to imagine Dany's having them both is meaningless. 

I tend to buy the theory that Melisandre is the child of Bloodraven and Shierra Seastar, which would make her also the recipient of skinchanger and dragon bloodlines. Of course I also buy RLJ, which would make Jon a merger of skinchanger and dragonbloodlines, just as Bloodraven is, and just as Dany is. This is actually the important blood mixture which people have been missing, I believe, because people are thinking about ice and fire and perceive the Starks as ice and so RLJ = ice and fire.  But IF RLJ is true - let' just say, hypothetically - then what Jon is is what Bloodraven is - a dragonblooded skinchanger / greenseer. I believe there is something important about that mixture, and that is why Jon and Dany both have it (again, IF RLJ).  

What this goes back to is the Azor Ahai / the last hero figure - or as I am increasingly coming to suspect, a group of figures - who was / were dragonblooded greenseers / skinchangers.  That's what I have been writing about lately, and I think there is a ton of evidence for it. I won't go into all that, but just consider the two people that we see wielding flaming swords, Stannis and Beric.  Beric is doing a damn fine Bloodraven impression, with his Odin eye, weirwood throne in a weirwood cave, being called the lord of corpses where BR is the corpse lord, and so on. He isn't a greenseer, but he is showing us the symbolism of a greenseer... and he worships a fire god, has magical blood that can light a sword on fire, and he has that sword on fire.  That is more or less who I think AA was at this point - an undead, flaming-sword wielding greenseer. 

Now look at Stannis. He's a stag-man, from a house of stag men - obvious Cerrunos / horned god allusions there. Famously, Robert is called a "horned god" in AGOT when he wears his antlered helm. Yet Stannis too wields a flaming sword, and Stannis is often referred to as "half a corpse" whose lords gather round him "like flies to a corpse." This is done to imply an undead Azor Ahai, and the horns identify him with the green men, horned gods, and greenseers.

Jon Snow, if RLJ is true, is a skinchanger and dragon blooded person, and of course he dreams of wielding a flaming red sword while doing Azor Ahai things like killing his love with said flaming red sword, and also doing last hero things like fighting the cold forces of the north by himself.  And he too will soon be undead. It's a pattern, in other words, and there are more examples... like "resurrected Renly" at the Blackwater - he wore green armor and antlers like a green man, but his golden antlers ran with flame and his armor took on a ghostly cast. There are two quotes about resurrected Renly, justtake a look:

They plunged through Stannis like a lance through a pumpkin, every man of them howling like some demon in steel. And do you know who led the vanguard? Do you? Do you? Do you? ”

“Robb?” It was too much to be hoped, but …

“It was Lord Renly! Lord Renly in his green armor, with the fires shimmering off his golden antlers! Lord Renly with his tall spear in his hand! They say he killed Ser Guyard Morrigen himself in single combat, and a dozen other great knights as well. It was Renly, it was Renly, it was Renly! Oh! the banners, darling Sansa! Oh! to be a knight!”

Army of demons, just saying.  This is a fiery undead horned god figure.

“The Lannisters had taken him from the flank, and his fickle bannermen had abandoned him by the hundreds in the hour of his greatest need. “King Renly’s shade was seen as well,” the captain said, “slaying right and left as he led the lion lord’s van. It’s said his green armor took a ghostly glow from the wildfire, and his antlers ran with golden flames.” 

SO I know - not everyone here buys RLJ. But since we are emphasizing open-mindedness, perhaps consider the idea that I am proposing - greenseer blood + dragon blood = a thing, and also that Azor Ahai = resurrected greenseer.

That is how it makes sense, btw, that the Hammer of the Waters was a moon meteor impact, as I claim, and also have it still be true that the greenseers dropped the hammer. That is why we see that weirwood reaching for the moon to pull it down the well in the Nightfort, because the greenseers dropped the Hammer by pulling down the moon. But it wasn't the little elves who did that, of course - this is the Adam and Eve type original sin, and mankind can be the only ones responsible. That's why George is using Prometheus and Lucifer and Odin mythology around Azor Ahai and his derivative characters, and around the greenseers.  From Bran as "the bad little boy who climbed too high and was struck by lightning" to the Grey King stealing the fire of the gods from the the burning tree and storm god's thunderbolt to Azor Ahai cracking the moon when he forged Lightbringer to Durran stealing the daughter of the gods, we are being shown a story about mankind reaching for the fire of the gods and causing predictable catastrophe. Not only catastrophe, necessarily, but certainly all magic comes with a price, and this is emphasized in ASOIAF.

Point being, that's what all of these old myths are about, on a certain level, the stealing of the fire of the gods... taking a bite of the apple...  and all the fallout and consequences that came with it.  

[LmL]

20 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

Heh, it's getting to a point that I feel like I'm reading a whole different story than everyone else.  I call it the story being written between the lines.    But it's a wonderful world, where Howland Reed is a behind the scene manipulator on a massive scale, who fathered Jon Snow, where snow knights are being passed of as "Others".  Where the true others are white skinned amphibious creatures whose invasion is yet to begin, and where Illyrio is secretly plotting to take down the ruling parties in Volantis.  It's there, trust me, you just have to squint really, really, hard.

Hey, at least your speculation sounds like an interesting story

[Matthew.]

3 hours ago, JNR said:

So you're probably right that Heresy could be a still more courteous place than it is, though I think re openmindedness, in general, it better approaches the ideal than any other thread on this site, and that's been true for years and years.

I don't disagree with this at all; there is a reason that this is the only thread on these forums that I read, and it's for all the qualities that you cited. I didn't intend for my comments to be a criticism of Heresy, but the very opposite--that my expectations for the thread are so high that it's disappointing when the spirit of the thread is violated. This isn't even meant as a criticism targeted at anyone in particular, as I occasionally find myself (with some hindsight embarrassment) being the asshole that isn't giving someone else's ideas a fair shake, or just offering up skepticism instead of constructive criticism.

I'll admit that I'm probably just being overly sensitive to what I perceive as an overcorrection for the Targaryen obsession that the rest of the forums have--that, perhaps, some people have moved so far in the other direction that they're a little close-minded when it comes to discussing things like the dragons, Dany, Azor Ahai and so forth.

[Matthew.]

1 hour ago, Frey family reunion said:

Heh, it's getting to a point that I feel like I'm reading a whole different story than everyone else.  I call it the story being written between the lines.    But it's a wonderful world, where Howland Reed is a behind the scene manipulator on a massive scale, who fathered Jon Snow, where snow knights are being passed of as "Others".  Where the true others are white skinned amphibious creatures whose invasion is yet to begin, and where Illyrio is secretly plotting to take down the ruling parties in Volantis.  It's there, trust me, you just have to squint really, really, hard.

Well, I'm definitely with you on Howland Reed as a major behind-the-scenes manipulator. It's something that I'll admit I cannot prove with the text, it's just something that feels true to me. I am very suspicious of his absence, and his connection to significant events: Harrenhal, Ned's journey south, the Reeds 'collecting' Bran and helping to bring him to the 3EC... and that time he spent on the Isle of Faces.

[Black Crow]

3 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

We are all here because of a lack of  ASOIAF reading material.  No matter how crazy, far fetched or even plain stupid a post is, it is a little more to read and think about while we wait, and I appreciate it. 

 

3 hours ago, LynnS said:

 You would think that we had squeezed every last ounce of good stuff out of the books by now.  Not so.  There are still new insights and revelations coming out of the minds of brilliant people.  That's a great pleasure to me.

Both true up to a point, but I'd qualify it with a couple of observations. As I've mentioned I'm in the middle of a complete re-read and apart from the sheer enjoyment of the exercise what strikes me is how much we forget of the story in overall terms. Yes there are all sorts of ways for finding particular quotes and incidents but search engines lack context and they miss things that you don't ask for but are very relevant to what you want. The story is not always the one which you think you know. And then there are the suggestions and theories by others which alter your perceptions of those things which you think that you do know, not only in themselves but in leading you to other stuff which you may have passed over. And then there are better understandings of things, of references and allusions and ultimately questions as to their significance or otherwise - without descending into particulars is the use of a certain name a clue or merely a borrowing?

Its all good stuff which helps us towards a better understanding and a better appreciation of the story and when it comes to open-mindedness, yes that's very important but conversely, so long as we adhere to the basic rule of respecting the opinions of others there is nothing wrong with formulating and dogmatically or otherwise pursuing a particular theory. I plead guilty of course on the centrality of Jon Snow being a son of Winterfell. You know my views and I'm sticking to them  - thus far. I'm open to other arguments, I just aint been convinced yet and there's nothing wrong with that so long as that basic rule [and the great good humour] are observed.

All of which is a rather long-winded way of saying that Heresy has a long way to go before we need resort to chewing our own toenails 

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, Matthew. said:

Well, I'm definitely with you on Howland Reed as a major behind-the-scenes manipulator. It's something that I'll admit I cannot prove with the text, it's just something that feels true to me. I am very suspicious of his absence, and his connection to significant events: Harrenhal, Ned's journey south, the Reeds 'collecting' Bran and helping to bring him to the 3EC... and that time he spent on the Isle of Faces.

Don't necessarily know about manipulating, but GRRM has certainly said that he's absent because he knows too much and that the Green Men will feature at some point.