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A Burning Brandon (Mythical Astronomy of Ice and Fire)


LmL

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18 minutes ago, LmL said:

Oh yes, there are way too many for me to get them all. Some I have not had room for, some I am saving for specific topics, and others I haven't found yet. My favorite scene might be the one where Benerro explains my theory to the followers of R'hllor, and this is from my first essay:

 

That's one of my favorites. I think the one that really sealed the deal for me, after listening to the podcasts, was this one with Barristan fighting:
 

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but as he lifted his arakh, its tip grazed one of the wall hangings and hung. That was all the chance Ser Barristan required. He slashed open the pit fighter's belly, parried the arakh as it wrenched free, then finished Khrazz with a quick thrust to the heart as the pit fighter's entrails came sliding out like a nest of greasy eels.

Blood and viscera stained the king's silk carpets. Selmy took a step back. The longsword in his hand was red for half its length. Here and there the carpets had begun to smolder where some of the scattered coals had fallen. 

In short, a sickle-moon shaped blade hangs still, and then the ground below is covered with blood, snake-like shapes, and burning coals. 

There's also a great Dany/Drogo post-heart eating scene that you recapped, though I'm not sure the specific line was mentioned: 

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The moon floated on the still black waters, shattering and re-forming as her ripples washed over it.

@Luddagain basically if you keep the broad symbolism in mind as you read, you start to see these kinds of things everywhere.

Bonus symbol-based speculation: I suspect that the fate of the Wall  is foretold by what happened to baby Aegon... a baby's little bald head being smashed into a wall... or is it a meteor's fate? Corroborated by a scene in which Jon's deviled eggs (Aegs?) go flying into the wall of his chamber.

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15 minutes ago, cgrav said:

That's one of my favorites. I think the one that really sealed the deal for me, after listening to the podcasts, was this one with Barristan fighting:
 

In short, a sickle-moon shaped blade hangs still, and then the ground below is covered with blood, snake-like shapes, and burning coals.

 

Don't forget that right after Barristan turns his sword red, the dragons are loosed. It's the last line of the chapter. ;)

15 minutes ago, cgrav said:

 

 

There's also a great Dany/Drogo post-heart eating scene that you recapped, though I'm not sure the specific line was mentioned: 

I am saving that for the next episode actually, when I talk about the Stallion Who Mounts!

15 minutes ago, cgrav said:

@Luddagain basically if you keep the broad symbolism in mind as you read, you start to see these kinds of things everywhere.
 

Eggs-actly.

15 minutes ago, cgrav said:



Bonus symbol-based speculation: I suspect that the fate of the Wall  is foretold by what happened to baby Aegon... a baby's little bald head being smashed into a wall... or is it a meteor's fate? Corroborated by a scene in which Jon's deviled eggs (Aegs?) go flying into the wall of his chamber.

Jon also throws his feather pillow at the wall of his room, and it explodes in a "flurry" of feathers. This after his dream of the moon promising snow in the voice of the raven. 

"One day the Other moon will kiss the sun too and the dragons will return."

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@LmL Just throwing this out there, since the Grey King is in this series of essays: have you considered doing any systematic look at Davos's symbolism as a Grey King or otherwise undead figure? The guy is basically straddling the line between life and death constantly.
 

- His name is reference to a place in diplomatically neutral Switzerland, famous for international summits
- He has one moon-hand with fingers and one without 

- The "rotten onion" conversation with Mel
- His frequent symbolic and literal journeys through the underworld (Blackwater, Manderly's "prison")

- Davos's first chapter in Dance features a bunch of lightning

Stop me if this is in the current podcast, I'm only halfway through it!

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I'm late to the party here and posting from a phone, so excuse any formatting trouble! @LmL Your idea of a fiery origin for the NQ is at least alluded to in Dany's dream of Hizdahr giving her the icy manhood. I would also argue that Melisandre's attempts to seduce Jon count when you consider his position. Also, in reference to PKJ's bee-autiful observation about Melesa Florent, the same applies to Melisandre, and she most definitely has the poisonous gift thing going on.

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

 

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4 minutes ago, cgrav said:

@LmL Just throwing this out there, since the Grey King is in this series of essays: have you considered doing any systematic look at Davos's symbolism as a Grey King or otherwise undead figure? The guy is basically straddling the line between life and death constantly.
 

- His name is reference to a place in diplomatically neutral Switzerland, famous for international summits
- He has one moon-hand with fingers and one without 

- The "rotten onion" conversation with Mel
- His frequent symbolic and literal journeys through the underworld (Blackwater, Manderly's "prison")

- Davos's first chapter in Dance features a bunch of lightning

Stop me if this is in the current podcast, I'm only halfway through it!

In the inversion re-read thread of the named chapters, I likened Aeron and Davos to each other but it could be that they both are paralleling the Grey King. 

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1 minute ago, Pain killer Jane said:

In the inversion re-read thread of the named chapters, I likened Aeron and Davos to each other but it could be that they both are paralleling the Grey King. 

I'd have to re-read Aeron to comment specifically, but I think GRRM frequently uses setting and other details to obscure parallel themes and symbols, as well as thematic "echoes" introduced by one character but developed by another. Of course we'd expect Aeron to possess elements of the gods and myths he believes, but when Davos embodies the same qualities, it's not nearly as obvious. It forces you to step back and find the broader ideas guiding each character's development.

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3 minutes ago, thereticent said:

And speaking of Orpheus and inversion, Dany plays her own Orpheus after visiting the underworld of MMD's tent, escaping, and continually thinking that if she looks back she is lost.

Which is exemplified by Quaithe and her fucked up directions. 

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23 minutes ago, thereticent said:

Also, in reference to PKJ's bee-autiful observation about Melesa Florent, the same applies to Melisandre, and she most definitely has the poisonous gift this going on.

The second part of her name (Sandre) and the fact that most of us in the fandom know that her interpretations are wrong and we tend not to believe her would mean that she is akin to Cassandra, given the gift of prophecy by Apollo (in another version snakes whispered in her ears) but cursed to never be believe. During the Trojan war, she was taken by Ajax the lesser and raped in the temple of Athena then taken as a concubine by Agemenon and murdered along with him by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover in revenge for the her daughter being sacrificed.  

The punishment for Ajax is super interesting because Ajax's people had to send two maidens every year to Troy to serve as slaves in the temple of Athena in order to pay for Ajax's sacrilege, the catch here was if on the way to the temple they were caught by the Trojans then the maidens would be executed.  

thank you on pun.

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23 hours ago, LmL said:

We are eclipse brothers. His is a regular moon eclipse; mine is a dragon moon eclipse. :devil:

Great work on spotting the specific Icarus parallels and inverse parallels! I would do a word search on "wax" and see if there any other allusions to the story. Perhaps around Euron, too, as he speaks of "how do we know if we can fly unless we leap from some tall tower?"

Hey LmL, great episode again.

 

I wanted to ask you a question, but I will get to it in a minute.  This Icarus thing has me thinking.  At the top of the tower is a solar figure Jaime that casts Bran down, and at the bottom is the labyrinth of Winterfell.  That makes me think an awful lot of Hightower with its beacon on top and the fused stone labyrinth at the bottom.  That wouldn't make for a poor 'tall tower' for Euron to fly from and hes gotta attack there soon to give us a battle that echoes the battle that gave 'Battle Isle' it's name, right?  I have thought for a while that he would wind up being the stone beast from Dany's HotU vision and that thing does take flight from a tower.

 

Anyway, I wanted to ask about the black leviathan that emerges from the sea.  Maybe I missed it, or it went over my head, but what do you think that represents in reality?  How does the moon meteor emerge from the ocean for the ironborn to make soul-drinking black weapons with?  We do have someone going swimming to retrieve dark sister, but doesn't seem practical here.  They could wash up on shore piece by piece, but then they are pieces and not really a leviathan rising.  Maybe a volcanic island rising at the impact site?  I like that one, but I am just throwing stuff at the wall right now.  Can you elaborate on that yet?         

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28 minutes ago, Unchained said:

Hey LmL, great episode again.

Hey there Unchained, thanks a lot and great comments here. 

28 minutes ago, Unchained said:

I wanted to ask you a question, but I will get to it in a minute.  This Icarus thing has me thinking.  At the top of the tower is a solar figure Jaime that casts Bran down, and at the bottom is the labyrinth of Winterfell.  That makes me think an awful lot of Hightower with its beacon on top and the fused stone labyrinth at the bottom.  

That's a good catch; when you think in terms of Icarus and the sun being in the sky and labyrinth below, it does make sense. The fire at the top of the tower smacks of Sauron's Eye to me, and makes us think Sauroman with his palantir eye atop his white tower. The palantir maps nicely on to the moon eye, at the top of the tower. There's also a line about supposedly you can see the Wall from the top of the Hightower, and of course we have a sorcerer lord locked away up there. It's a good match, a very direct connection to WF. 

28 minutes ago, Unchained said:

That wouldn't make for a poor 'tall tower' for Euron to fly from and hes gotta attack there soon to give us a battle that echoes the battle that gave 'Battle Isle' it's name, right?  I have thought for a while that he would wind up being the stone beast from Dany's HotU vision and that thing does take flight from a tower.

Yes, I also see Euron's destiny being at Oldtown in the near future. I have always thought thatthe Bloodstone E originally invaded there because of the name "Battle Isle" where the fused stone fortress is found, so I expect to see reenactments of that - like when Samwell Starfire Dayne sacked and burned Oldtown, for example. I could see Dany landing there possibly. But in the immediate future, we have Euron about to attack. Tons of wild cards left to turn over there with Leyton and the Mad Maid and hidden knowledge or even artifacts at the Citadel. Anything could happen. 

The stone beats taking wing from the burning tower, in Mythical Astronomy terms, is simply the stone dragon hatching from the burning moon, so that basic idea matches any number of people. How do you see Euron as a stone beast, I wonder?

28 minutes ago, Unchained said:

Anyway, I wanted to ask about the black leviathan that emerges from the sea.  Maybe I missed it, or it went over my head, but what do you think that represents in reality?  How does the moon meteor emerge from the ocean for the ironborn to make soul-drinking black weapons with?  We do have someone going swimming to retrieve dark sister, but doesn't seem practical here.  They could wash up on shore piece by piece, but then they are pieces and not really a leviathan rising.  Maybe a volcanic island rising at the impact site?  I like that one, but I am just throwing stuff at the wall right now.  Can you elaborate on that yet?         

Great questions. So, the seastone chair. Where did it come from? I have a feeling that it specifically a meteorite, and if so, it's a very large one. Even if it's not a meteorite, we are stuck with the question of where it came from. I agree it's hard to figure out how ancient people's could recover something from under the water so heavy. Our speculation has to turn towards the magical here, and imagine Deep Ones bringing it up or something totally freaky like that.

I think that ultimately the most important meaning of the Ironborn carrying fire out of the sea is the more metaphorical one where the sea is really the see, the realm of the greenseers aka the weirwoodnet. AA being reborn in the sea is really reborn in the see. All these drowned people who emerge form the sea with fire... these are the AA people reborn in the green see, emerging as some sort of ghastly undead greenseer like Beric is showing us. 

It probably also refers to GEotD people coming from the sea as in coming to Westeros on boats from Asshai. They may have brought the oily stone from Asshai, and thus they came form the sea with black weapons, etc. The Ironborn DO have an actual drowning ritual, and so now all of their religious ideas about the sea are interpreted that way, but really the Grey King came from the sea in boats and was reborn in the see.  Deep Ones scuba teams are probably unlikely, but not impossible either. Yeen reeks of Deep Ones, as does Toad Isle. Asshai is built on the coast. And we do have fishy people in the books, so we know aquatic humans are eminently plausible if not probable... but involving them in any theory turns it to instant tinfoil, so... 

As for rising from the sea, again this is a metaphor about the see, but I do think it could refer to a volcano as well. Meteor impacts can absolutely trigger earthquakes and volcanoes - there are multiple ways they can do this, actually. A meteor strike on an ice sheet can vaporize so much water and ice and run it into the ocean that the earth's crust has a rebound effect from being relieved of so much weight so sudden;y, and this triggers earthquakes. Old Wyk looks exactly like a caldera island - I mean, exactly like one - and the name Old Wyk suggests a place that caught on fire once. But it would have had to have happened before Grey King turned his giant weirwood boat upside down and made a longhall, because if he did that before the big eruption, it would not be there. So yeah, the sea dragon could be a dragon meteor that lands in the sea and then "rises" from the sea as a volcano triggered by the impact. 

It cannot be just a volcano though, because of the first Theon chapter in ACOK where he sees Pyke, a point of land which thrust into the bowels of the sea ages past, all the rest. A meteor DID land here...but I suspect a volcano eruption might well have accompanied it. 

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Also, I am sad nobody has commented on my many musical puns and 90's references. No love for my Simpsons joke? Any NIN fans out there, the love hate of god?  REM? No? 

I am jamming pretty hate machine right now. What a great album.

Azor Ahai = head like a hole. Black oily steel Lightbringer = pretty hate machine, lol

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On 2/20/2017 at 11:13 PM, LmL said:

 I wonder if George might have hidden another Icarus clue during one of the many scenes with melting wax?

 

Quentyn is also an Icarus parallel.  However, unlike Icarus, he never gets a chance to gain (dragon) wings and goes straight to "melting."  

Marillion as well.  Sweetrobin (Robin, a feathered creature) wants to "make him fly," and LF sticks him in the Eyrie's dungeon, which Tyrion describes as "honeycombing" the side of a mountain in Game: He was a bee in a stone honeycomb, and someone had torn off his wings. The feather and wax imagery is there, only a little more jumbled.

On 2/20/2017 at 11:13 PM, LmL said:

On a basic level, the Qarthine myth is similar to Icarus: one day a moon wandered too close to the sun and cracked form the heat. 

Cool!   I hadn't thought of that. 

On 2/20/2017 at 11:16 PM, LmL said:

Great work on spotting the specific Icarus parallels and inverse parallels! I would do a word search on "wax" and see if there any other allusions to the story. Perhaps around Euron, too, as he speaks of "how do we know if we can fly unless we leap from some tall tower?"

Yes, definitely.  As others have pointed out up thread, Waxley is one candidate.  Their sigil even has candles on it.

Over on my Bat and Wolf thread, we've been discussing "Alayne" and her role as a death/dormant version of a (soon to be) reborn Sansa.  Sansa being brought to the Vale parallels Idunn's kidnapping by Thjazi. In this myth, Idunn gets transformed into a nut so that she can be carried back to Asgard.  Idunn goes from goddess to nut to goddess again.  It's a death/rebirth cycle similar to Persephone, without Idunn actually dying. 

Sansa has been changed to Alayne STONE and has chestnut hair.  Stone is synonymous to "pit" of a fruit, and chestnut is a type of nut.  Both stone and nut are a seed that holds the potential to sprout and begin new life.  The term "chestnut" could also be wordplay.  A "chest nut."  The rebirth that Sansa undergoes will be a reawakening of her skinchanging abilities, so "chest nut" is a potential (re)awakening in her "chest"/heart. 

The snow castle chapter foreshadows such a reawakening.  The dawn brings color (greens and lighter greys) to the absolute colors (white, grey, black) to the Eyrie godswood.  Symbolically, Sansa is going from "under the sea" to above it.  The colors are even grey and green, the most common colors that describe the sea.  You're already familiar with the green sea/greensee wordplay. 

There's House Waxley and House Waynwood in the Vale, a wordplay on wax and wane, the cycle of the tides and of the moon.  This reinforces the dormant/rebirth symbolism.  When the moon turns black, it's called a "new moon," even though it symbolically dies. (The moon cycle could surely be connected to lots of "death and rebirth" symbolism.  The crescent moon is connected to imagery of a sickle and of sacrifice.  But a crescent moon can be the last light before a new moon OR the beginning of new cycle of an eventual full moon.  Sacrifice ends a life, but can also begin new life, as seen in Bran's vision of the weirwood sacrifice which kills the man but awakens the Winterfell weirwood tree.  Lyanna supposedly gave birth under a crescent moon, ending her life but beginning Jon's.)

Anywho, if Sansa is to be an Icarus figure, then House Waxley could somehow play the role of "wax" for her "feathers"/skinchanging ability.  How, I don't know yet. 

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5 hours ago, LmL said:

Also, I am sad nobody has commented on my many musical puns and 90's references. No love for my Simpsons joke? Any NIN fans out there, the love hate of god?  REM? No? 

I am jamming pretty hate machine right now. What a great album.

Azor Ahai = head like a hole. Black oily steel Lightbringer = pretty hate machine, lol

I lol'd at the Simpsons joke, if that helps. 

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4 hours ago, Isobel Harper said:

Anywho, if Sansa is to be an Icarus figure, then House Waxley could somehow play the role of "wax" for her "feathers"/skinchanging ability.  How, I don't know yet. 

I think Sansa at the Eyrie can be construed as the dual-moon idea. She's definitely a lunar symbol, as her ascent/descent resembles a lunar cycle, while the adoption and eventual "destruction" of the Alayne Stone  also follows the double moon mythology. Her intended wedding to Harry the Heir and simultaneous unveiling as Sansa Stark would thus represent a Lightbringer forging, with one of the moon's identities being destroyed by a procreative act.

Bolstering this interpretation would be Corbray's unsheathing of Lady Forlorn within feet of Sansa, and her thought of how much it resembles the LB symbol Ice. 

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9 minutes ago, cgrav said:

I think Sansa at the Eyrie can be construed as the dual-moon idea. She's definitely a lunar symbol, as her ascent/descent resembles a lunar cycle, while the adoption and eventual "destruction" of the Alayne Stone  also follows the double moon mythology. Her intended wedding to Harry the Heir and simultaneous unveiling as Sansa Stark would thus represent a Lightbringer forging, with one of the moon's identities being destroyed by a procreative act.

And if Alayne Stone is revealed to be Sansa, The She-Wolves of House Stark, this'd sound a bit like the Moon-snatching/swallowing wolves of the Norse Mythology, to quote my useless-till-now blog, The Amber Compendium:

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As we see, House Wynch represents the idea of ‘killing’ the Moon Maiden and pulling down the moon.
 
Their seat’s name is also connected to those concepts – holt is a wood, fores or grove. So ‘Iron Holt’ literaly means ‘Ironwood’.
 
It turns out that place called Iron-wood exists in the Norse Mythology – Járnviðr is located east of Midgard. A troll woman who gave birth to giantesses and giant wolves lives there.
 
In the east sat an old woman in Iron-woodand nurtured there offspring of Fenrira certain one of them in monstrous formwill be the snatcher of the moon
Völuspá
This moon-snatching wolf is Hati, brother of Sköll. It is foretold that when Ragnarok comes, the wolves will devour sun and moon.
 
House Wynch is connected to the very same idea (destroying the moon), so we can safely assume that GRRM is referencing this myth here.
 
A witch dwells to the east of Midgard, in the forest called Ironwood: in that wood dwell the troll-women, who are known as Ironwood-Women [járnviðjur]. The old witch bears many giants for sons, and all in the shape of wolves; and from this source are these wolves sprung. The saying runs thus: from this race shall come one that shall be mightiest of all, he that is named Moon-Hound [Mánagarmr]; he shall be filled with the flesh of all those men that die, and he shall swallow the moon
Gylfaginning
(Encyclopedia of Myth in ASOIAF: House Wynch of Iron Holt)

Oh... and if The Hound turns out to be the one who helps Sansa 'swallow' Alayne Stone and revela herself, he'd play the Moon-Hound role...

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Very great stuff ! I don't suscribe all, but I enjoy a lot the whole analysis

 

As we are evoking Icarus and the escape from the Labyrinth before the fall, this myth is linked in greek mythology to the imagery of the Phoenix (but the greeks have taken the phoenix mythology to orientals mythology - probably egyptian - and adapted to their own culture). 

I'll do shortly : the Phoenix represents (in greek mythology) the two extremes where we find gods, but where ordinary humans can't stay (or they die as human) : 

- the very high level = the air, the fire, the sun, the light, the warmth, the thyme, aso

- the very low level = the underworld (under the earth), the water, the moon, the darkness, the cold, the mint, aso

The phoenix dies in the fire, and after he resurrect throw ashes as a worm or an egg, before he gains wings to fly and quit the earth = he has the 2 natures, as all gods can have the both (see Persephone for example)

Icarus in the Labyrinth is in the very low level, prey of a horned beast - the Minotaurus. The Minotaurus is himself a "bastard", the son of a queen who was punished by the god Poseidon because his husband (the king) didn't sacrified the white bull he had promised after he received the crown. So, the queen falled in love with a white bull and had this child.

Icarus as a prey may recall also Adonis's story, who was the prey of a boar during a hunt and died. In some versions, his lover Aphrodite hide him under mint, but he doesn't escape to the boar. Note that Adonis is also a bastard, son of Myrrha and her king father (Myrrha was transformed as a tree after the incest and the baby Adonis was found in the tree by a boar during a hunt). 

 

Now I wonder if the lemon in the saga (and perhaps the oranges too), as a fruit associated with the warm south, doesn't play the part of the thyme (the Phoenix's pyre cannot burn whithout thyme or myrrha  - in greek especially, the word "thyme" is formed with the same root than the greek word who means "burn"). Mint is the opposite of the thyme in this mythology : she grows in darkness, wet and enough cold atmosphere, where thyme needs a lot of sun. 

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2 hours ago, Blue Tiger said:

And if Alayne Stone is revealed to be Sansa, The She-Wolves of House Stark, this'd sound a bit like the Moon-snatching/swallowing wolves of the Norse Mythology, to quote my useless-till-now blog, The Amber Compendium:

Oh... and if The Hound turns out to be the one who helps Sansa 'swallow' Alayne Stone and revela herself, he'd play the Moon-Hound role...

Great comments here, and actually, this symbolism already happened once, although that doesn't mean it can't happen again of course. When Sansa left Kings Landing, particularly with her scenes atop the tower where she burns the sheets soaked with her moon-blood, she is showing us the original combustion of the second moon. She flies from this scene and becomes a stone, that's the meteor flying from the Moon explosion. And the Hound was right there in all of these scenes. Santa herself was swallowed by the hounds dark green cloak as a matter of fact. When Sansa Burns her moon-blood sheets, she fills the room with smoke, and Cersei makes a remark about between Santa and Stannis, all she can taste is smoke and Ash, because Stannis is attacking King's Landing, setting the Kingswood on fire, and filling the air with so much smoke that the stars and moon are hidden. The hellhound who swallows the Moon is obviously a part of the identity of AA, so we have Stannis and the Hound teaming up to depict this at that scene. 

Santa, a fiery moonstone, is now lodged in the ice of the Vale. She is therefore a parallel to the Giants Lance, a mountain of dark stone which is embedded in the ice and snow of the vale. When she is broken free of that ice, it will be a foreshadowing of an event which has not happened yet. This will be some sort of disaster involving the ice Moon, and I expect more moonstones will be liberated, just as Sansa will come out of the icy vale reborn. At this point she will be tracking closer to John's symbolism as a child of the ice moon, and she will also parallel the nights queen, as she does in the snow castle scene.

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