Heresy 200 The bicentennial edition

[LynnS]

59 minutes ago, wolfmaid7 said:

As for intelligence of the Wights.I pointed this out as part of my greater The Cold entity theory.In instances where wights were close and personal we get a telling description about some of their eyes "They see" as if someone was behind them looking.

I agree.  I've wondered what of who the thing  is that Varamyr sees.
 

Quote

 

A Dance with Dragons - Prologue

True death came suddenly; he felt a shock of cold, as if he had been plunged into the icy waters of a frozen lake. Then he found himself rushing over moonlit snows with his packmates close behind him. Half the world was dark. One Eye, he knew. He bayed, and Sly and Stalker gave echo.

When they reached the crest the wolves paused. Thistle, he remembered, and a part of him grieved for what he had lost and another part for what he'd done. Below, the world had turned to ice. Fingers of frost crept slowly up the weirwood, reaching out for each other. The empty village was no longer empty. Blue-eyed shadows walked amongst the mounds of snow. Some wore brown and some wore black and some were naked, their flesh gone white as snow. A wind was sighing through the hills, heavy with their scents: dead flesh, dry blood, skins that stank of mold and rot and urine. Sly gave a growl and bared her teeth, her ruff bristling. Not men. Not prey. Not these.

The things below moved, but did not live. One by one, they raised their heads toward the three wolves on the hill. The last to look was the thing that had been Thistle. She wore wool and fur and leather, and over that she wore a coat of hoarfrost that crackled when she moved and glistened in the moonlight. Pale pink icicles hung from her fingertips, ten long knives of frozen blood. And in the pits where her eyes had been, a pale blue light was flickering, lending her coarse features an eerie beauty they had never known in life.

She sees me.

 

I've wondered if Varamyr with his power to warg if he can see the true form of what lies beneath the thing that was thistle.  Recalling that while Jon is warged to Ghost; he can see Bran in his form of a tree. Is Varamyr able to do the same with Thistle?   Perhaps the cold entity is female given the reference to a pale blue light or the pale blue roses of Ned's dreams. 

This might fit with @PrettyPigtheory that the crown of roses was made of blackthorne flowers given it's association with the Morrigan.

 

[Black Crow]

18 hours ago, Matthew. said:

This is exactly right, which is why I keep repeatedly raising the challenge for someone to articulate why the show Others are behaving "more evilly" than the book Others.
 

I think that with respect you are confusing two quite different issues. The others/white walkers as depicted by the mummers may or may not be more evil that those in the book, but the issue isn't evil per se but rather the appearance of a dark lord known as the Nights King who does not exist in the book - a apparent leader or director of said others/white walkers.

Aside from the problems with GRRM's repeated assertions that he is striving to avoid the Dark Lord trope, the big problem is that the mummers have intruded a third party where the King of Winter may stand. 

[PrettyPig]

26 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Perhaps the cold entity is female given the reference to a pale blue light or the pale blue roses of Ned's dreams

YES.  Winter has no king.  It has a Queen.

I am going to try and finish the Trees essay this weekend...it supports this idea/your statement 100%.

 

[Matthew.]

1 hour ago, MaesterSam said:

Maybe they are herding the wildlings south to save them from the winter, etc. Sure, they seem evil in both versions, but IMO the books are a bit more ambiguous than the mummer's version.

The problem I see with this is the fate of the wildlings that were lead to Hardhome:

Melisandre I, ADWD:
 

Quote

Snowflakes swirled from a dark sky and ashes rose to meet them, the grey and the white whirling around each other as flaming arrows arced above a wooden wall and dead things shambled silent through the cold, beneath a great grey cliff where fires burned inside a hundred caves. Then the wind rose and the white mist came sweeping in, impossibly cold, and one by one the fires went out. Afterward only the skulls remained.

The bolded, IMO, is specifically meant to imply the presence of white walkers.

In addition, from Jon XII:

Quote

At Hardhome, with six ships. Wild seas. Blackbird lost with all hands, two Lyseni ships driven aground on Skane, Talon taking water. Very bad here. Wildlings eating their own dead. Dead things in the woods. Braavosi captains will only take women, children on their ships. Witch women call us slavers. Attempt to take Storm Crow defeated, six crew dead, many wildlings. Eight ravens left. Dead things in the water. Send help by land, seas wracked by storms. From Talon, by hand of Maester Harmune.

 

[LynnS]

20 hours ago, MaesterSam said:

Don't forget the hidden prince (a sub-category of the protagonist hero). This character starts out as the apparently lowborn misfit with a mysterious/unknown backstory. He unwillingly gets involved in a plan to save the world, usually bringing his friends along, and it later it turns out he was the rightful king all along.

Hah! I can see this a well, especially if Jaime ends up leading the Brotherwood without Banners and goes off north with his 11 companions and one 'dog' to find the 'children' as @kissdbyfire speculates. 

[LynnS]

22 minutes ago, PrettyPig said:

YES.  Winter has no king.  It has a Queen.

I am going to try and finish the Trees essay this weekend...it supports this idea/your statement 100%.

 

I'll be anxious to read it.  No pressure.  LOL!

[Matthew.]

30 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

I think that with respect you are confusing two quite different issues. The others/white walkers as depicted by the mummers may or may not be more evil that those in the book, but the issue isn't evil per se but rather the appearance of a dark lord known as the Nights King who does not exist in the book - a apparent leader or director of said others/white walkers.

I have addressed both issued repeatedly--and what you seem to be reiterating is that the issue is that the Others become cliche if they have a hierarchy, but are otherwise behaving identically to the way they do in the books; to me, this is an odd notion, because it suggests that a story with moral evil is acceptable so long as that moral evil is practiced by a group, rather than an individual.

A leader is not inherently a "dark lord," that's a matter of motive; in this case, you have given the NK a motive (conquer the world) that is not even stated, or even necessarily implied. 'Reading' the show, the NK is sorcery without a hilt, a hostage who was turned into a weapon with a singular focus: ensure the weirwood is 'undisturbed,' conditions under which it will live forever, as per Leaf.

As a possible book parallel, it may be that some variation of Wolfmaid's "winter greenseer" would apply: what leads the WWs is an extension of weirnet, following a moral code and philosophy that is at odds with humanity, but not necessarily "evil;" whether or not such an antagonist is so inhuman that they qualify as a 'dark lord' would be a matter of subjective preference.

 

40 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Aside from the problems with GRRM's repeated assertions that he is striving to avoid the Dark Lord trope, the big problem is that the mummers have intruded a third party where the King of Winter may stand. 

This is the more honest criticism. The "big problem" for you with the show's NK isn't that some parallel character can't exist in the books, it's that if such a character existed, that would be at odds with your specific theories.

A long time reader of these threads might point out that there's another Heretic, Voice, who doesn't believe this is 'third party intrusion' at all--"Night's King" and "King of Winter" are one and the same. Even if one doesn't agree with his theory for the NK's identity, possibilities beyond someone from antiquity exist--it may be that the current Other crisis is unfolding because a new KoW has been chosen among the Wildlings (we might further suggest that Val serves this figure), or that Benjen could be a candidate for KoW, or perhaps some other conspicuously absent character has taken up the job.

One should keep in mind that statements from Osha such as "winter has no king" and "Mance means to fight the white walkers as though they were no more than rangers" might be meant to be ironic upon a reread.

[wolfmaid7]

1 hour ago, LynnS said:

I agree.  I've wondered what of who the thing  is that Varamyr sees.
 

I've wondered if Varamyr with his power to warg if he can see the true form of what lies beneath the thing that was thistle.  Recalling that while Jon is warged to Ghost; he can see Bran in his form of a tree. Is Varamyr able to do the same with Thistle?   Perhaps the cold entity is female given the reference to a pale blue light or the pale blue roses of Ned's dreams. 

This might fit with @PrettyPigtheory that the crown of roses was made of blackthorne flowers given it's association with the Morrigan.

 

 

26 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

The problem I see with this is the fate of the wildlings that were lead to Hardhome:

Melisandre I, ADWD:
 

The bolded, IMO, is specifically meant to imply the presence of white walkers.

In addition, from Jon XII:

 

Ok all I am going to beat this dead horse again lol so forgive me...

In every Wight attack every Wight attack no white walker has ever been seen leading them.The white walkers have not been seen leading them or having anything to do with them except riding a dead horse which probably anyone could do if it was already animated.

The white walkers only purpose as far as I can see is to hide who is really behind the wights.

They show up make sure they are seen.Make sure someone sees "them specifically" then run back.

They are basically  Ben Kingsly to Guy Pierce in Iron man as The Mandarin.

People see wights and "think" Others who they call White walkers.

[PrettyPig]

3 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

A leader is not inherently a "dark lord," that's a matter of motive; in this case, you have given the NK a motive (conquer the world) that is not even stated, or even necessarily implied. 

I brought up the parallel of the Others to the Nazgul upthread- and even though the Witch King was the de facto "leader" of the Nazgul, I don't know that he qualifies for full fledged Dark Lord status...especially given that someone else fills that bill.  The Night King - show and books - probably fills that same space.

[wolfmaid7]

13 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

I have addressed both issued repeatedly--and what you seem to be reiterating is that the issue is that the Others become cliche if they have a hierarchy, but are otherwise behaving identically to the way they do in the books; to me, this is an odd notion, because it suggests that a story with moral evil is acceptable so long as that moral evil is practiced by a group, rather than an individual.

A leader is not inherently a "dark lord," that's a matter of motive; in this case, you have given the NK a motive (conquer the world) that is not even stated, or even necessarily implied. 'Reading' the show, the NK is sorcery without a hilt, a hostage who was turned into a weapon with a singular focus: ensure the weirwood is 'undisturbed,' conditions under which it will live forever, as per Leaf.

As a possible book parallel, it may be that some variation of Wolfmaid's "winter greenseer" would apply: what leads the WWs is an extension of weirnet, following a moral code and philosophy that is at odds with humanity, but not necessarily "evil;" whether or not such an antagonist is so inhuman that they qualify as a 'dark lord' would be a matter of subjective preference.

 

This is the more honest criticism. The "big problem" for you with the show's NK isn't that some parallel character can't exist in the books, it's that if such a character existed, that would be at odds with your specific theories.

A long time reader of these threads might point out that there's another Heretic, Voice, who doesn't believe this is 'third party intrusion' at all--"Night's King" and "King of Winter" are one and the same. Even if one doesn't agree with his theory for the NK's identity, possibilities beyond someone from antiquity exist--it may be that the current Other crisis is unfolding because a new KoW has been chosen among the Wildlings (we might further suggest that Val serves this figure), or that Benjen could be a candidate for KoW, or perhaps some other conspicuously absent character has taken up the job.

One should keep in mind that statements from Osha such as "winter has no king" and "Mance means to fight the white walkers as though they were no more than rangers" might be meant to be ironic upon a reread.

Agree with this 100% though I believe the kow was, is and yet to be a "green" seer .....Jon Snowstorm

And I want to reiterate a point we both have made.This "Dark lord" theme per the show.This at least for me is not what GRRM will do by revealing "someone" behind the wights and white walkers.

 

[JNR]

2 hours ago, MaesterSam said:

He is also given the typical physically inferior but smart and loyal sidekick

...who is even named Sam.  

2 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

What were they going to use had Jon not found Obsidian which Sam could use later...Harsh language?

How do you forget a thing like that.

A great unanswered mystery GRRM may never address.  The North remembers?  The hell it does.  Looks to me like the North has no idea where it put its car keys, and runs around in a panic every morning before work.

I'm torn between thinking I just haven't figured out some subtle mystery there, and thinking "Nah, there's just no way Westeros could have myths about obsidian killing Popsicles because that would get in the way of Sam making the discovery... which GRRM wanted because he loves Sam to itsy bitsy pieces."

[JNR]

1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

Aside from the problems with GRRM's repeated assertions that he is striving to avoid the Dark Lord trope, the big problem is that the mummers have intruded a third party where the King of Winter may stand. 

That's a good way of putting it.  

I'm not sure that Ice and Fire (whatever that means...) will have champions when all is said and done.  

But the concept of a character taking on a larger percentage of morally ambiguous or dark elements -- such as Bran, for instance, or a resurrected Jon -- doesn't seem cliched or Dark Lordy to me.  I can easily imagine GRRM going down that path.

In fact, it seems like what Feather might call a logical inversion of someone like Jaime, who starts out so very dark, yet gradually morphs into a Brienne-inspired character with redemptive motives who, as he himself realizes reading the White Book, can write his own future in a different and better way.

19 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

what you seem to be reiterating is that the issue is that the Others become cliche if they have a hierarchy, but are otherwise behaving identically to the way they do in the books; to me, this is an odd notion, because it suggests that a story with moral evil is acceptable so long as that moral evil is practiced by a group, rather than an individual

Well, it's certainly possible to have a hierarchy without a Dark Lord.  Though many forget it, the US government for instance has no single individual with all the power; the president sits atop the executive branch, but cannot make laws, cannot rule on their Constitutionality, and cannot hire or fire anyone who works in the other two branches of government.

In ASOIAF, we have places that work via a more primitive version of the same basic idea, such as Volantis, where elected triarchs who represent political parties share power.

What the Popsicles do remains to be seen.  But there certainly hasn't been a King Popsicle in the canon to date, and I haven't forgotten that GRRM, when asked about their culture, said he didn't know if they had a culture.  

That doesn't suggest to me that he knew they did have a culture... and that it was complete with a governmental hierarchy at the top of which one entity sat, with an icy crown on his head, complete authority over all Popsicles and wights below him, and an evil Saurony agenda in his heart.

[LordBlakeney]

3 hours ago, JNR said:

17 hours ago, LordBlakeney said:

A story with no protagonists, no antagonists

You've just described history pretty aptly, which is to say, GRRM's primary inspiration.  Well done.

I disagree entirely. History is entirely a story of protagonists and antagonists, it just depends on who's telling the story. You yourself agree when you say:

3 hours ago, JNR said:

When he says things in interviews like "We're all the heroes of our own stories" this is what he has in mind

It just depends on who's telling the story, but the fact that it is a story doesn't change. On top of that not only are these books fiction, they are fantasy fiction. Not to get too deep into literary criticism, but what you're pulling for isn't a story, and won't take place in a series of popular fantasy novels. From every interview I've read with GRRM, it sounds like you are widely misjudging his motives. He doesn't want to dismantle every trope; he wants characters to earn their tropes. From what I've read his beef isn't that the tropes themselves are bad, but that fantasy writers indulge them lazily, greatly lessening their potential emotional impact.

If ASOIAF is a story with no protagonists or antagonists, as you say, then it is a narrative with lackluster emotional impact and therefore no better than the cheap fantasy GRRM derides. It would be a garbage story.

2 hours ago, MaesterSam said:

We all disagree from time to time, but describing another's ideas as "garbage" is not really appropriate.

As I said, the story would be garbage if @JNR's ideas are true. I'm sure JNR has a rational explanation in his obstinate mind for why he believes a narrative with no protagonists or antagonists isn't garbage, and he's welcome to share them. 

2 hours ago, MaesterSam said:

No disrespect, but the title makes it clear that this is a place to consider/discuss non-typical outcomes and ideas.

I've always found discussion to be pointless when everyone is in agreement. There's a lot of brilliance in this thread (even some from @JNR from time to time) so I enjoy following. 

[LordBlakeney]

34 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

This is the more honest criticism. The "big problem" for you with the show's NK isn't that some parallel character can't exist in the books, it's that if such a character existed, that would be at odds with your specific theories.

Bingo.

 

[JNR]

4 minutes ago, LordBlakeney said:

From every interview I've read with GRRM, it sounds like you are widely misjudging his motives.

Well, let's take a particular case and consider matters from that standpoint.  Here, for instance, is what GRRM explicitly said:

Quote

We don't need any more Dark Lords.

Here's my acknowledgement of what GRRM said:

Quote

The books simply do not have such a figure except in the imagination of Melisandre and other red-faith zealots.  This is not, IMO, something that's likely to change

Here's your interpretation of what GRRM said:

Quote

I just wish I could see @JNR's face when GRRM publishes Jon Targaryen slaying the dark lord the Night King

Uh huh.  I wish you could have seen my face when I read that sentence.  

It's not every day someone writes a line capable of making me laugh out loud.  Even in inadvertent cases, it's an achievement of sorts.

[LynnS]

31 minutes ago, wolfmaid7 said:

Agree with this 100% though I believe the kow was, is and yet to be a "green" seer .....Jon Snowstorm

And I want to reiterate a point we both have made.This "Dark lord" theme per the show.This at least for me is not what GRRM will do by revealing "someone" behind the wights and white walkers.

 

I'm waiting for this too.  Although something more specific to leading the White Walkers rather than the wights, involving the broken horn.

On a potentially related topic:  the dragon with three heads....

If the sphinx is the riddle, and the answer is the ages of man; given that the sphinx in this story is a dragon with the head of a man or woman... then the dragon with three heads is the one who can see past, present and future.

[Black Crow]

47 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

 

This is the more honest criticism. The "big problem" for you with the show's NK isn't that some parallel character can't exist in the books, it's that if such a character existed, that would be at odds with your specific theories.
 

Not at all, the problem is that as I have said there is no Nights King [at least not walking] in the book and no suggestion that there will be and consequently the conflict is likely to involve a properly rounded figure within the story, rather than an effectively anonymous third party

[wolfmaid7]

1 hour ago, JNR said:

 

What the Popsicles do remains to be seen.  But there certainly hasn't been a King Popsicle in the canon to date, and I haven't forgotten that GRRM, when asked about their culture, said he didn't know if they had a culture.  

That doesn't suggest to me that he knew they did have a culture... and that it was complete with a governmental hierarchy at the top of which one entity sat, with an icy crown on his head, complete authority over all Popsicles and wights below him, and an evil Saurony agenda in his heart.

Well I think we have to look closely by GRRM' s use of "per se" 

On the surface might the fact of their attire,combat style and crackling language indicate culture?

I am reminded of a line from Jeepers Creepers.

"It dresses like a man,acts like a man only to hide that it's not."

This is ultimately what think the wws are.Someone wants people to believe they are responsible.

55 minutes ago, LynnS said:

I'm waiting for this too.  Although something more specific to leading the White Walkers rather than the wights, involving the broken horn.

On a potentially related topic:  the dragon with three heads....

If the sphinx is the riddle, and the answer is the ages of man; given that the sphinx in this story is a dragon with the head of a man or woman... then the dragon with three heads is the one who can see past, present and future.

we have a couple of people who fit this as well.Including Jon.

[Matthew.]

1 hour ago, PrettyPig said:

I brought up the parallel of the Others to the Nazgul upthread- and even though the Witch King was the de facto "leader" of the Nazgul, I don't know that he qualifies for full fledged Dark Lord status...especially given that someone else fills that bill.  The Night King - show and books - probably fills that same space.

Ah! I was tempted earlier to say that the Night King can't possibly be a dark lord, because he isn't the Sauron of the story--he's the Witch King; weirnet is the Sauron of the story.

I would suggest that only half-jokingly.

39 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Not at all, the problem is that as I have said there is no Nights King [at least not walking] in the book and no suggestion that there will be and consequently the conflict is likely to involve a properly rounded figure within the story, rather than an effectively anonymous third party

The Others have appeared to us only twice in five books, and we know nearly nothing about them. To say "X can't appear, because X hasn't yet appeared" is flawed from the outset, as applied to the Others.

Furthermore, this seems the same flawed argument made earlier about the NK wanting to conquer the world, in that you are arguing against the existence of a white walker leader by first defining that leader as "not properly rounded," or "an anonymous third party," when it is not necessarily so. You are not imagining the abstract premise with the degree of creativity and open-mindedness with which you would imagine your own theories--you are purposely crafting narrow interpretations.

There is a difference between plot and story, and there are instances where the show tells a wildly different story that still hits many of the same plot beats as in the books, as seen with Tyrion's ADWD arc--in both, Tyrion's ultimate destination is Meereen, and along the way he sees a red priest preach that Dany is the messiah in Volantis, he runs afoul of the stone men, and he's taken as a slave. The two mediums tell that story in wildly different ways, but they are parallel plots.

The Night King, reduced to abstract plot, is "human being is made into a white walker to defend the weirwood, and toward that end, can create other white walkers and raise the dead." There are many different ways that story could be told, including your own--which, for all intents and purposes, suggests that Jon Snow must become a new NK to reign in the 'winter' that is running amok.

Voice offers a different variation of the same idea, and as Brad noted, the show's NK could be a composite of several WW leaders that could have theoretically existed in the text--the ancient Kings of Winter that watch Eddard with "eyes of ice" in his crypt dreams, the Last Hero after 'crying pax' to the CotF, the 13th LC.

To approach it from a different angle, why is it so easy to imagine the inhuman CotF (who are themselves latecomers to the present narrative) as being masters of the Others with well-rounded motives, but impossible to imagine the inhuman Others as masters of themselves, with their own well-rounded motives--not the least of which being a legitimate grievance against those that made them, then cast them aside.

[LynnS]

I've always thought this passage was a bit of foreshadowing; something a little more nuanced than Old Nan's story's of the Night's King; the one whose name was stricken from the records:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Jon IX

Tyrion Lannister had claimed that most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it, but Jon was done with denials. He was who he was; Jon Snow, bastard and oathbreaker, motherless, friendless, and damned. For the rest of his life—however long that might be—he would be condemned to be an outsider, the silent man standing in the shadows who dares not speak his true name. Wherever he might go throughout the Seven Kingdoms, he would need to live a lie, lest every man's hand be raised against him. But it made no matter, so long as he lived long enough to take his place by his brother's side and help avenge his father.

 

Crows are all liars:

Quote

 

A Clash of Kings - Jon I

"I've always known that Robb would be Lord of Winterfell."

Mormont gave a whistle, and the bird flew to him again and settled on his arm. "A lord's one thing, a king's another." He offered the raven a handful of corn from his pocket. "They will garb your brother Robb in silks, satins, and velvets of a hundred different colors, while you live and die in black ringmail. He will wed some beautiful princess and father sons on her. You'll have no wife, nor will you ever hold a child of your own blood in your arms. Robb will rule, you will serve. Men will call you a crow. Him they'll call Your Grace. Singers will praise every little thing he does, while your greatest deeds all go unsung. Tell me that none of this troubles you, Jon . . . and I'll name you a liar, and know I have the truth of it."

A Game of Thrones - Bran IV

"It was just a lie," he said bitterly, remembering the crow from his dream. "I can't fly. I can't even run."

"Crows are all liars," Old Nan agreed, from the chair where she sat doing her needlework. "I know a story about a crow."