Heresy 195 and the Mists of Time

[Black Crow]

9 hours ago, JNR said:

 

If I understand you, your premise is that the people in the vision (1) used to have bronze... but (2) then they got iron and steel... making this (3) a relatively modern, not ancient vision... and yet (4) they continued to use antique bronze sickles for hypothetical rituals not mentioned in canon, (5) of which Bran's vision is an example of said rituals involving bronze sickles (6) instead of the more plausible and typical bronze knives such as the one that MMD uses.  And therefore, based on these six assumptions, we're supposed to believe that the timeline is short.  

This all seems a tad complicated compared to the simple idea that Sam is right: "thousands of years" went by between the Long Night and the coming of the Andals, at which time myths about the Long Night were set down.

Not complicated at all.

What we see in the vision is obviously a ritual murder or sacrifice. That's straightforward. What I'm pointing out is that the Celts on whom the First Men are based are known to have used bronze sickles for ritual purposes long after they were using iron and steel for more practical purposes - hence the undoubted use of a sickle rather than a knife.Its not an anachronism, far less a mystery.

I did say in the earlier post was that we readers are intended to see this as an early vision, but I'm also pointing out that using a Celtic-style ritual sickle wouldn't be in any way incompatible with using iron and steel weapons against the blue-eyed lot.

[Black Crow]

10 hours ago, JNR said:

If Sam is right, he's clearly pointing to a long timeline, such as the traditional one, in which roughly two thousand years went by between those events alone, followed by more thousands of years until the present day.  Which I can't say would surprise me, because Sam also seems to think the six hundred seventy-four LCs on his oldest list are worth thinking and calculating about instead of dismissing outright (as he did the notion that Craster's babies became the Popsicles).  He's a bright kid and likely to go far.

On the contrary, as I said earlier, Sam most certainly does not think those 674 names on the list "are worth thinking and calculating about instead of dismissing outright", because that's exactly what he does do in that passage, which GRRM thought worth pushing at us twice.

He starts off by saying that Jon is reckoned to be the 998th Lord Commander, then launches into a series of reasons why he's sceptical. All that we know before the Andal septons started writing stuff down is a collection of unreliable and anachronistic legends. The reason why he cites those 674 names is not to think about them but rather the calculation as to when it was written, which Jon shuts up by saying "long ago". The problem which Sam recognises but Jon doesn't is that "long ago" isn't long enough. The list is as legendary as Bob the Builder, the guy with the mirror shield and all those other knights when there were no knights.

As to Sam "dismissing outright" the fate of Craster's sons; text please.

[aDanceWithFlagons]

On 1/27/2017 at 0:31 PM, Brad Stark said:

The sickle is a ritual object,  and material is not poorly suited at all.  Stonger, sharper metal would not work any better.  Wood or stone would work just as well.  I also keep thinking it is connected to the way GRRM described the moon in this chapter and the previous Bran chapter. 

In real life, 1 culture defeating another in battle due to the metal they used actually did happen.  However good Bronze was superior to inferior iron at many points in history.  The art of alloying steel really didn't become science until near modern times.   I can't help thinking this was GRRM's inspiration for Valyrian steel and Dawn being forged from a meteorite.   Good steel could be found,  used and reforged by people who didn't know how to make it , and meteorites could have been a real source of it.

 

Yeah, even if  the time between First Men arrival on Westeros and the Long Night is not 12000 and 8000 years past, there should still be a considerable gap between those two occurrences. I see no reason why these original first men would not have progressed in metalworking over the span of "4000" years or less. And meteor metals Dawn was forged from is a great example of randomness. Overall, while the metals used by the general population can give us the general sequence of events we should factor in the random discoveries of metals (and obsidian - mayhaps dragon bone too) into the histories of Westeros.  Swords like Dawn, the original Ice and the 'last action hero's' sword are special, imo, and most likely represent Westeros across the board. People like Azor Ahai worked through a new process of sword smithing in 180 days so why can't a few other people have done the same to stay ahead curve?

17 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

I theorize that the Ironborn got their name from the manner of their rebirth. Earlier upthread I mentioned my explanation for the crown of the King of Winter as being symbolic of iron warding bronze. IMO the First Men that became the Ironborn were warded from the mainland by severing the islands from the mainland via the hammer of waters. That separation kept them warded like iron wards bronze until they built boats and began raiding the mainland. They became raiders and thus "reborn" since they were able to breach the ward

 

This is a good example. Many of us readers agree the Iron Islands were once part of the mainland; perhaps a peninsula. (A parallel or inversion to Valyria's fiery cleansing) As BC  has pointed out, Lord Harlow tells us all the years and dates for such&such are up for debate. So when did the Ironborn truly take the Islands for their own? At what time did the Grey King rule and fight a water dragon? Well, the Islanders power is based on the sea and iron, but only iron is still found on the islands in abundance. The trees are gone. Why would a seafaring people setup homebase on an island cluster which can't provide the lumber for ships?

 I also think that men moved into these lands used by the Singers to reap the forests and caves for wood and iron. Then they got drowned. It's all basically there in the tale of the Grey King, the Season chair and Nagga. And Men were there screwing around with iron, among other things, before the Hammer. 

(Still not buying Nagga's ribs as weirwoods though)

[JNR]

7 hours ago, Black Crow said:

What we see in the vision is obviously a ritual murder or sacrifice. That's straightforward.

My goodness, such an assumption. 

Anyone from five thousand years in Westeros' future, looking at a vision of the events in chapter one, book one, might make the same wild assumption. 

"Well, you have this man being killed. Obviously a ritual murder or sacrifice." 

And then go on to build more false assumptions on that basis.  "We see that the man being killed has been specially dressed in faded black garments -- worn by no one else present -- to indicate his bleak fate.  The man killing him must have been a local priest.  He bears a huge rippled sword and since we know this is a sacrificial ritual that is regularly carried out, such swords must have been commonplace all over Westeros at that time.  And the local religion must have involved children being forced to watch decapitations."

But all these assumptions would be wrong, because it simply isn't a ritual, religious or otherwise.  It's a special event that comes as a consequence of a Night's Watchman violating his oath, not something regularly carried out.  It was seen by those of the time as a form of justice served, rightly or wrongly, and is no more a ritual than it it is when Ned himself is decapitated later in the same book (wrongly, in my view).

So it may be that what we see in Bran's vision is a ritual.  But we cannot know, because there simply isn't enough context

7 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Sam most certainly does not think those 674 names on the list "are worth thinking and calculating about instead of dismissing outright", because that's exactly what he does do in that passage, which GRRM thought worth pushing at us twice.

He certainly does not; we never hear his conclusion at all, because Jon cuts him off. 

If he thought, as you apparently do, that the list of 674 LCs was simply made up out of people's imaginations and written down for no apparent reason, he certainly never said that.  

Instead, he is trying to calculate when it was written.  This he could only do by assuming a certain age of the Watch and the Wall, such as eight thousand years, and thus determining the average tenure of an LC, such as eight years.

Without such numbers, no calculation would be possible at all.  And if he thought that those numbers had no value at all, like you think the LC list has, he wouldn't even bother bringing any of this up in the first place with Jon, and wasting his own LC's time.  

There would be simply no point.  He would skip it completely.... which is exactly what he does with the silly notion of Craster's wife on the left that her sons are being turned into Popsicles.   Having been commanded by Jon to learn all he could on the Popsicles, and report, he didn't mention what she'd said to Jon at all -- a total dismissal.

7 hours ago, Black Crow said:

All that we know before the Andal septons started writing stuff down is a collection of unreliable and anachronistic legends.

Which he says were written down by septons thousands of years after they occurred.

Which clearly means he thinks thousands of years went by between the Long Night and the Andal invasion.

Which clearly points to a long timeline.

[JNR]

Really, BC, I'm surprised you struggle so much with a long timeline. 

After all, you and I have been arguing about all this for at least seven thousand years. 

[Black Crow]

4 hours ago, JNR said:

Really, BC, I'm surprised you struggle so much with a long timeline. 

After all, you and I have been arguing about all this for at least seven thousand years. 

And I'm disappointed by such tendentious arguements. I expect much better of you.

[Black Crow]

4 hours ago, JNR said:

My goodness, such an assumption. 

Anyone from five thousand years in Westeros' future, looking at a vision of the events in chapter one, book one, might make the same wild assumption. 

"Well, you have this man being killed. Obviously a ritual murder or sacrifice." 

A reasonable conclusion given that an unarmed captive is dragged before the Winterfell heart tree where he is murdered by a white-haired old woman with a bronze sickle, and his blood is fed to the roots.

The execution of Gared, whilst obviously ritualistic is in a different character altogether.

4 hours ago, JNR said:

 

Instead, he [Sam] is trying to calculate when it was written.  This he could only do by assuming a certain age of the Watch and the Wall, such as eight thousand years, and thus determining the average tenure of an LC, such as eight years.

 

We don't know whether he was making any such arithmetical calculation, What bothers him is not that the list is old, but quite the opposite, that the oldest one he can find already has 674 names on it and therefore is of comparatively recent date. What he does tell us is that the old histories and by implication this list, are mince. And just to reinforce the point GRRM tells us this not once but twice.

 

[Brad Stark]

If the list is 998 long, and the oldest is 674, thats 324 commanders ago.  An 8 year average means 2592 years ago.  I don't think that fits the context of the passage at all.  How could you expect an older list, written on paper (none of which survived that long in our world) when that is about when people started writing on paper about that time,  and started in the South?  

Sam speculating the list is 2592 years doesn't give me anything.   Lets put the math and estimates aside,  and lets suppose Sam somehow speculated the list was only 259 years old (or any number less than 1000).  Now the whole passage makes sense, and it completely changes everything.

[Black Crow]

2 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

If the list is 998 long, and the oldest is 674, thats 324 commanders ago.  An 8 year average means 2592 years ago.  I don't think that fits the context of the passage at all.  How could you expect an older list, written on paper (none of which survived that long in our world) when that is about when people started writing on paper about that time,  and started in the South?  

Sam speculating the list is 2592 years doesn't give me anything.   Lets put the math and estimates aside,  and lets suppose Sam somehow speculated the list was only 259 years old (or any number less than 1000).  Now the whole passage makes sense, and it completely changes everything.

Quite honestly it wouldn't surprise me if the list in Sam's hand was a lot more recent than 2,500 years old - there is a reference somewhere to some of the documents being copies of lost older ones [ie; septon X transcribed a list written hundreds of years earlier by Septon Y on account of the original starting to crumble and fall apart] although I think I'd draw the line at the original being post-Aegon's Conquest. I'll settle for 1000 years or less.

Nevertheless, the central point first raised and then re-iterated by GRRM through Sam is that the belief that the Watch goes back through 997 previous lord commanders is a matter of misty legend on a par with Bob the Builder - not history.

[LynnS]

4 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Quite honestly it wouldn't surprise me if the list in Sam's hand was a lot more recent than 2,500 years old - there is a reference somewhere to some of the documents being copies of lost older ones [ie; septon X transcribed a list written hundreds of years earlier by Septon Y on account of the original starting to crumble and fall apart] although I think I'd draw the line at the original being post-Aegon's Conquest. I'll settle for 1000 years or less.

Nevertheless, the central point first raised and then re-iterated by GRRM through Sam is that the belief that the Watch goes back through 997 previous lord commanders is a matter of misty legend on a par with Bob the Builder - not history.

How did you come up with the average of 8 years per LC?  That seems on the low end for an average given that the Watch is a commitment for life.  Why isn't the average 20 years or 30 years?

[Brad Stark]

If there is a list of 998 names, and not just a number next to some names,  where did it come from?  

There could have been a list written in runes.  But if that was the tradition, why stop?  If your predecessors carved their names in a rock for 7000 years,  you wouldn't want to be the first to break that tradition and have the list put on paper.  And then there world be this sacred rock with a list of names everyone knows about. 

We are also given the impression no one cares much except Sam.  Of course,  traditions can and do change,  and even 300 years ago, the recording of Jon's name in the book of Lord Commanders could have been very important. 

[Brad Stark]

2 minutes ago, LynnS said:

How did you come up with the average of 8 years per LC?  That seems on the low end for an average given that the Watch is a commitment for life.  Why isn't the average 20 years or 30 years?

The 8000 years the watch has been around / 1000 Lord Commanders = 8 year average.   Look at our world,  the average Papacy is 7.3 years.  Some Popes serve much longer,  but a few don't make it a year, bringing the average down. 

[Brad Stark]

If you disregard either that there really were 998 Lord Commanders,  or the Watch started 8000 years ago, the 8 year average goes away and we could have a different number.  I still don't see the average being much longer than our Popes,  Lord Commanders die violently much more often than Popes.

[aDanceWithFlagons]

It could be that the OG LCs did not serve for life. Maybe they served for a year and a day or retired when they were no longer fit for the position. 

The life sentence on the Wall for the criminals makes sense but not for volunteers. It might be that the original Watch served differently. Which could pack 998 LCs into a fewer amount of years. Say, 6000ish years.

[Black Crow]

5 hours ago, LynnS said:

How did you come up with the average of 8 years per LC?  That seems on the low end for an average given that the Watch is a commitment for life.  Why isn't the average 20 years or 30 years?

This is one of the problems. As Brad Stark says it can be a simple arithmetical exercise relating the near 1,000 lord commanders to the 8,000 years of the Watch. There's no doubting at all that the Watch themselves sincerely believe they have been around 8,000 years, but we know now from the world book that the Long Night as actually "only" 6,000 years ago so that screws up the arithmetic right away.

[Black Crow]

Its probably worth at this point doing a recap.

In the beginning we were told that the Long Night happened 8,000 years ago.

The Andals were a little uncertain from the beginning with their supposedly appearing in the Vale of Arryn 6,000 years ago, but otherwise 4,000 years ago was quoted. 

That gives us a whole 4,000 year gap between the Long Night and the coming of the Andals.

Now we're being given new, and frankly more plausible dates with the world book citing 6,000 years ago for the Long Night.

The Andals however, if we refer to Hoster Blackwood and Rodrik Harlaw, themselves citing Maesters of the Citadel, give us uncertainty as to when the Andals tooled up but vary between only 2,000 years ago and as recently as 1,000 years ago. That shunts history forward but yet the former date preserves the original 4,000 year gap between the Long Night and the coming of the Andals.

How reliable is that gap?

Should it too be foreshortened, or is it genuine - and if its genuine a date of 1,000 years ago for the Andals brings the Long Night forward to 5,000 years ago. The point here being that its putting the Long Night into much closer proximity to the Dragons and the rise of Valyria.

[Matthew.]

The WB does not authoritatively assert the LN as being 6,000 years ago, it acknowledges that there's some disagreement over the dates:
 

Quote

According to the most well-regarded accounts from the Citadel, anywhere from eight thousand to twelve thousand years ago, in the southernmost reaches of Westeros, a new people crossed the strip of land that bridged the narrow sea and connected the eastern lands with the land in which the children and giants lived.

 

...

Thanks to the children, the first men of the Night's Watch banded together and were able to fight—and win—the Battle for the Dawn: the last battle that broke the endless winter and sent the Others fleeing to the icy north. Now, six thousand years later (or eight thousand as True History puts forward), the Wall made to defend the realms of men is still manned by the sworn brothers of the Night's Watch, and neither the Others nor the children have been seen in many centuries.

 

I myself lean more toward 6,000 years ago, if only because I'm more inclined to believe that the founding of Valyria shortly followed (or even coincided with) the era of the Long Night.

That said, True History gives us a somewhat interesting timeline, as it agrees with the North and the Watch that the LN was 8,000 years ago, while favoring the idea that the Andals came 4,000 years ago, rather than 6,000, as well as suggesting that the CotF had been cleared out of the Riverlands and High Heart well before the coming of the Andals--the latter is (to me) an interesting is assertion, as I think it's an interpretation that better fits with an assumption that the Others were created as a last ditch effort to halt the advances of the First Men.

[Black Crow]

36 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

The WB does not authoritatively assert the LN as being 6,000 years ago, it acknowledges that there's some disagreement over the dates:
 

I myself lean more toward 6,000 years ago, if only because I'm more inclined to believe that the founding of Valyria shortly followed (or even coincided with) the era of the Long Night.

That said, True History gives us a somewhat interesting timeline, as it agrees with the North and the Watch that the LN was 8,000 years ago, while favoring the idea that the Andals came 4,000 years ago, rather than 6,000, as well as suggesting that the CotF had been cleared out of the Riverlands and High Heart well before the coming of the Andals--the latter is (to me) an interesting is assertion, as I think it's an interpretation that better fits with an assumption that the Others were created as a last ditch effort to halt the advances of the First Men.

There's certainly still some ambiguity, but aside from the excellent reasons you g to give I'm still inclined to opt for the "younger" dates because the whole thrust of these revised dates which we're being fed both in text and in the world book is that history is more recent than we were led to believe in the beginning.

At this stage I'm inclined to think there may be two possible reasons; there's the tin-foilly one which wraps up all the anomalies in a false history which in reality goes back no more than 1,000 years ago, and then there's the far more straightforward one; that GRRM hadn't fully thought all of this through when he started out and now he's retconning dates and events in order to bring about a convergence of Ice and Fire to link the dragons and the rise of Valyria with the ending of the Long Night

[Brad Stark]

1 hour ago, Matthew. said:

The WB does not authoritatively assert the LN as being 6,000 years ago, it acknowledges that there's some disagreement over the dates:
 

I myself lean more toward 6,000 years ago, if only because I'm more inclined to believe that the founding of Valyria shortly followed (or even coincided with) the era of the Long Night.

That said, True History gives us a somewhat interesting timeline, as it agrees with the North and the Watch that the LN was 8,000 years ago, while favoring the idea that the Andals came 4,000 years ago, rather than 6,000, as well as suggesting that the CotF had been cleared out of the Riverlands and High Heart well before the coming of the Andals--the latter is (to me) an interesting is assertion, as I think it's an interpretation that better fits with an assumption that the Others were created as a last ditch effort to halt the advances of the First Men.

I am inclined to believe the Wall itself is a last ditch effort to halt the advances of the First Men.  It is in the right place to protect the Haunted Forest, more than it would be to protect against the Others, who came from a more Western direction.

[Black Crow]

20 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

I am inclined to believe the Wall itself is a last ditch effort to halt the advances of the First Men.  It is in the right place to protect the Haunted Forest, more than it would be to protect against the Others, who came from a more Western direction.

I'm not going to argue with the proposition that the Wall may actually have been raised by the other lot.. but where to you get the idea that the white shadows came from a more westerly direction?