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Hey y'all, I made a Mythical Astronomy video


LmL

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Oh and I agree there is probably some link between the dragonbond and greenseers magic, and I am hoping we get some more clues about how that works. 

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On 7/15/2017 at 0:49 PM, ravenous reader said:

When dawn broke over the city, the dark red blooms of dragon's breath surrounded the girls where they lay. "I dreamed of Bran," Sansa had whispered to him. "I saw him smiling."

"He was going to be a knight," Arya was saying now. "A knight of the Kingsguard. Can he still be a knight?"

I think they are creating a visual metaphor of the weirwood. After all they are laying in front of an oaken heart tree. Their bodies are the trunks and dark red blooms the leaves. Sansa has "dream", as if it were greenseer remote viewing like Bloodraven.

I'm not certain of Arya's question, but given her Stranger/MFG role, I wonder if she's asking about Bran being a knight in the Others' army, a la Ragnarok army of the dead stuff. The Kingsguard are white, so Bran was going to be a white knight (wight knight?)if he died, but he survived the fall. Or maybe the "white knight" symbolizes a weirwood. The sounds "night" and "King" are also close together. Either way, I get the impression it's tied up in those associated symbols and Bran's role as a strong force in them. 


So I would guess that the scene is a sort of Greenseer thing.


I would also assume that Sansa and Arya represent fundamentally opposed arcehtypes, in which case it makes further sense that Arya may be on death's side. 

The visual metaphor - a child laying surrounded by "dark red blooms" - also looks like a baby laying in a "bed of blood", which lines up really nicely with the other procreation metaphors in the Lightbringer myth. 

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On 7/25/2017 at 9:53 PM, cgrav said:

I think they are creating a visual metaphor of the weirwood. After all they are laying in front of an oaken heart tree. Their bodies are the trunks and dark red blooms the leaves. Sansa has "dream", as if it were greenseer remote viewing like Bloodraven.

I'm not certain of Arya's question, but given her Stranger/MFG role, I wonder if she's asking about Bran being a knight in the Others' army, a la Ragnarok army of the dead stuff. The Kingsguard are white, so Bran was going to be a white knight (wight knight?)if he died, but he survived the fall. Or maybe the "white knight" symbolizes a weirwood. The sounds "night" and "King" are also close together. Either way, I get the impression it's tied up in those associated symbols and Bran's role as a strong force in them. 


So I would guess that the scene is a sort of Greenseer thing.


I would also assume that Sansa and Arya represent fundamentally opposed arcehtypes, in which case it makes further sense that Arya may be on death's side. 

The visual metaphor - a child laying surrounded by "dark red blooms" - also looks like a baby laying in a "bed of blood", which lines up really nicely with the other procreation metaphors in the Lightbringer myth. 

Good observations here. This scene I tricky simply because there are so many symbols so close together. I think the reference to Bran wanting to be a knight and smiling makes him a smiling knight, perhaps, a moon character who wanted Arthur Dayne's sword, saying " it's that white sword of yours I want," with Arthur saying, "then you shall have it, sir." The smiling night was bleeding from a dozen wounds when Arthur gave him the 13th killing wound with Dawn, so perhaps there is Last Hero math happening here. 

As for Sansa and Arya being as different as the sun and moon, this has always been a line which has vexed me, because both of them are moon maidens. They follow different trajectories, to be certain, but neither one of them is a solar figure. Arya does do AA things like when she threw the blood orange and messed up Sansa's ivory silk moon dress, or when she beats hot pie with a stick, but she also has a lot of Nissa Nissa action as well. Sansa is all moon maiden all the time, but switches to an icy sort after arriving at the Vale. So I really am not sure about this line and what it means, which is obviously frustrating since it has "sun and moon' right in there. 

Taking it a different direction, the comet is called dragonsbreath twice, so maybe we are seeing the sun and moon kids inside the comet, depicting the comet as a reborn AA who is a merged sun and moon character. You kind of have the 3 main ingredients - sun, moon, comet. 

 

Or perhaps the dragonsbreath is blood and fire, and we are being shown a depiction of children being sacrificed, both to the dragon and the heart tree. Or maybe it's simpler, showing the dragonsbreath as dragonglass, roasting the heart tree and setting it ablaze like the thunderbolt myth. 

I just don't have clarity, which is why I haven't written about this scene yet.

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Hi @cgrav (it's nice to 'see' you around these haunts again :)) -- Thanks for assisting with that memorable passage; I just know there's something important there, although I'm not quite sure what it is!  Particularly, what fascinates me is that the 'dragon's breath' rather counterintuitively refrains from harming the girls; on the contrary, the dragon's breath seems to be enveloping the girls in a protective embrace emanating from the heart tree, so by extension this paradoxically benign 'dragon's breath' is associated with Bran, especially given Sansa's mention of the dream in which Bran appeared (no doubt on the 'third-eye plane') to her, smiling beneficently!  How do you understand the idea of the benevolent dragon fire emanating from Bran -- or did you not get that same impression from the passage?  @LmL seems to think the dragonfire is roasting the children along with the tree!  There's also that reference to 'smokeberry vines', one of GRRM's neologisms (there are no such things in nature -- believe me, @Blue Tiger and I have investigated all manner of different kinds of berries, both in English and in Polish!  :P)  To add to all the dragon imagery associated with the heart tree, the image of a 'smoke berry' inevitably has fire associations, blood red and smoke grey, Bloodraven's colors perhaps.  

The other thing that occurred to me, in conjunction with my developing musings on the 'killing word' (which, let's bear in mind, can also be a healing word) is that the 'dragon's breath' could refer to the 'breath' or 'voice' of the greenseer -- remember our discussion about how the greenseer is able to magically create wind on a windless night, which is equivalent to breathing without breath, in a kind of telepathic communication (please feel free to pipe in, @40 Thousand Skeletons!)  Just as Bran was able to move the leaves of the heart tree in a feat of telekinesis (Theon in TWOW explicitly confirms that the leaves were not only audibly rustling but visibly moving as well, proving the wind originated from the tree and not the ambient elements, provided one rules out Theon hallucinating), why shouldn't he be able to move the heavenly bodies around?  Like his namesake Brandon the Builder, he's making progress in his 'linguistic studies' using 'the song of the wind' and harnessing it to his will; if he masters the 'song of stones', the sky's the limit, as I've suggested before! 

If the comet represents the dragon's breath, that's not necessarily the same as the comet representing the dragon itself (although both are possible -- we're reading GRRM...the King of Equivocation).  So we might interpet the comet as something which has been called into existence by a greenseer, or less radically summoned from its path and steered in a feat of cosmic skinchanging perhaps.  In that scenario, the greenseer/skinchanger would be the dragon, with the comet as his dragon's breath -- the answer to his calling, as it were -- with the implication, again against all expectation, that Bran is a kind of dragon!  What I'm suggesting is that 'dragonfire', the 'fire of the gods,' is the greenseer's wind -- and the greenseer's wind is words.  Dragonfire is a magical word.  Indeed it is: 'Dracarys!'

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A Clash of Kings - Daenerys IV

She took a step forward. But then Drogon leapt from her shoulder. He flew to the top of the ebony-and-weirwood door, perched there, and began to bite at the carved wood.

"A willful beast," laughed a handsome young man. "Shall we teach you the secret speech of dragonkind? Come, come."

Doubt seized her. The great door was so heavy it took all of Dany's strength to budge it, but finally it began to move. Behind was another door, hidden. It was old grey wood, splintery and plain . . . but it stood to the right of the door through which she'd entered. The wizards were beckoning her with voices sweeter than song. She ran from them, Drogon flying back down to her. Through the narrow door she passed, into a chamber awash in gloom.

 

A Dance with Dragons - Victarion I

He hoped in vain. Clad in black from head to heel, with a mask of red-and-orange flames tattooed across his face, the priest appeared more sinister than ever. The crew shunned him when he walked the deck, and men would spit if his shadow chanced to fall upon them. Even the Vole, who had fished the red priest from the sea, had urged Victarion to give him to the Drowned God.

But Moqorro knew these strange shores in ways the ironborn did not, and secrets of the dragonkind as well. The Crow's Eye keeps wizards, why shouldn't I? His black sorcerer was more puissant than all of Euron's three, even if you threw them in a pot and boiled them down to one. The Damphair might disapprove, but Aeron and his pieties were far away.

So Victarion closed his burned hand into a mighty fist, and said, "Ghiscari Dawn is no fit name for a ship of the Iron Fleet. For you, wizard, I shall rename her Red God's Wroth."

 

 

On 7/26/2017 at 0:53 AM, cgrav said:

I think they are creating a visual metaphor of the weirwood. After all they are laying in front of an oaken heart tree. Their bodies are the trunks and dark red blooms the leaves. Sansa has "dream", as if it were greenseer remote viewing like Bloodraven.

Yeah, but I think this is more likely to be both Bran and Bloodraven, given that Ned and the girls are there to give thanks for Bran awakening from his coma, which we know signifies the awakening of Bran's third eye, a spiritual connection which in turn seems to be transmitted here to Sansa.  She's lost her wolf, so perhaps she's the one who needs healing?  Similarly, the 'gnarled hand' of Jon's dream evoking a tree visitation might be either Bloodraven and/or Bran.

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I'm not certain of Arya's question, but given her Stranger/MFG role, I wonder if she's asking about Bran being a knight in the Others' army, a la Ragnarok army of the dead stuff. The Kingsguard are white, so Bran was going to be a white knight (wight knight?)if he died, but he survived the fall. Or maybe the "white knight" symbolizes a weirwood. The sounds "night" and "King" are also close together. Either way, I get the impression it's tied up in those associated symbols and Bran's role as a strong force in them. 

Yes, wonderful associations!  At the least, it seems to signify Bran dying to bring the day back, in line with @LmL's analogy of the 'smiling (k)night' given 'Dawn' by 'Day(ne).'  

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So I would guess that the scene is a sort of Greenseer thing.


I would also assume that Sansa and Arya represent fundamentally opposed arcehtypes, in which case it makes further sense that Arya may be on death's side. 

Yes.  In turn, this Jungian archetypal opposition is reflected on the forum on a 'meta-' level by the corresponding fervor of 'Sansa fans' pitted against 'Arya fans'!  

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The visual metaphor - a child laying surrounded by "dark red blooms" - also looks like a baby laying in a "bed of blood", which lines up really nicely with the other procreation metaphors in the Lightbringer myth. 

Brilliant observation!  So, maybe again, that's like Bran's blood spilled for the good of his siblings?  Dragon's breath as sacrifice.

I'm hating the idea of someone killing Bran (TyrionT has even suggested Jon will kill him) -- I'd much prefer Bran to die in an act of self-sacrifice.

6 hours ago, LmL said:

Good observations here. This scene I tricky simply because there are so many symbols so close together. I think the reference to Bran wanting to be a knight and smiling makes him a smiling knight, perhaps, a moon character

I'm getting a 'cheshire cat' moon feel from that passage, with the smiling knight imagery and sacrificial overtones (cheshire cat smile as the 'red smile ear to ear' of which you spoke, as well as evoking the sickle moon or sickle used in human sacrifice to the weirwood).

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Then, as he watched, a bearded man forced a captive down onto his knees before the heart tree. A white-haired woman stepped toward them through a drift of dark red leaves, a bronze sickle in her hand.  (ADWD - Bran III)

 

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who wanted Arthur Dayne's sword, saying " it's that white sword of yours I want," with Arthur saying, "then you shall have it, sir." The smiling night was bleeding from a dozen wounds when Arthur gave him the 13th killing wound with Dawn, so perhaps there is Last Hero math happening here.  

As for Sansa and Arya being as different as the sun and moon, this has always been a line which has vexed me, because both of them are moon maidens. They follow different trajectories, to be certain, but neither one of them is a solar figure.

Maybe Sansa is the solar figure-- she likes the domesticated life, spending her time in the 'solar' as the lady of the castle (or the queen of the realm)!  She's also been cut off from the night realm with the execution of her wolf -- akin to the spell being broken on a werewolf -- vs. Arya who as 'the night wolf' definitely is a shadowy creature of the night.  I do expect Sansa to be the last Stark standing, you know, and a monarch is traditionally configured as the sun, around which the court with its courtiers revolve like the planets and moons of her or his own solar system (this was a common motif in Renaissance and Restoration poetry and literature).  I believe, with her red hair and multiple other similarities which I can detail for you if you're particularly interested, that she represents Queen Elizabeth I the 'Virgin Queen' in GRRM's mind, even if subconsciously (btw, QEI also had a 'Sweet Peter' and was involved in a scandalous rumored relationship with an older married man, not sweet peter, another...LOL, if you're in any doubt as to the potential validity of the analogy...)!

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Arya does do AA things like when she threw the blood orange and messed up Sansa's ivory silk moon dress, or when she beats hot pie with a stick, but she also has a lot of Nissa Nissa action as well. Sansa is all moon maiden all the time, but switches to an icy sort after arriving at the Vale. So I really am not sure about this line and what it means, which is obviously frustrating since it has "sun and moon' right in there. 

Taking it a different direction, the comet is called dragonsbreath twice, so maybe we are seeing the sun and moon kids inside the comet, depicting the comet as a reborn AA who is a merged sun and moon character. You kind of have the 3 main ingredients - sun, moon, comet. 

 

'The dragon has three heads' -- sun, moon, and comet?  Sansa, Arya and Bran?  Drogo, Dany and Bran?

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Or perhaps the dragonsbreath is blood and fire, and we are being shown a depiction of children being sacrificed, both to the dragon and the heart tree. Or maybe it's simpler, showing the dragonsbreath as dragonglass, roasting the heart tree and setting it ablaze like the thunderbolt myth. 

I just don't have clarity, which is why I haven't written about this scene yet.

It could very well represent a sacrificial tableau, with the heart tree as the altar.  The 'smokeberry vines' overgrowing the tree evoke flames licking at the tree and grey smoke rising, as well as the sacrificial wine of communion  ('Cup of Crimson Wonder' stuff).  The Starks overnight ('Long Night') with Ned performing a vigil in thanksgiving for Bran's life, so the ritual aspect is present to the scene.  Usually in giving thanks, someone is sacrificed in recompense.  Perhaps as a result of Lady being sacrificed, Bran could wake up (don't those chapters follow contiguously, or am I confusing with the show's cinematography?).  Maybe that's why Bran appears to Sansa smiling, giving thanks for her sacrifice, although this was inadvertent?  Perhaps later on in their arcs Bran will pay back the life granted him on loan really, by sacrificing himself for Sansa, or another?

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@ravenous reader @LmL Yes, it's good to have the time for this again! Between my day job and my music job, I've had hardly a minute to spare the last 6 months. 
 

Anyway, this is one of those scenes that I look at as sort of a symbolic exposition. The events add little to the surface-level plot, other than to provide a final moment of familial togetherness before all the shit goes down.

As an exposition, I like to picture it as if it were some cheesy old movie scene in which the Greek pantheon sit around being omniscient and talking about what's happening, in case the viewer has lost track. In that sense, I don't consider any of it to have literal meaning. That is, I don't think there's any actual greenseeing or magic stuff happening. It's all symbolism, in my opinion. Sansa had a dream, some flowers bloomed, and everyone was happy for like 2 seconds.

Being purely symbolic, we can look at this as a conversation between two god-archetypes who are discussing a third. Sansa is the moon maiden of course, and I've always considered Arya the Trickster. She carries Needle, a symbol of the a comet/meteor that brings death, and her plot has her acting as death's agent. When she asks if Bran can still be a knight of the Kingsguard, she's referring to such a role within the Godhood or weirnet or Valhalla or whatever. It could be a sly reference to an Odin-type warrior who commands an army of the dead at Ragnarok. And someone like Arya who fights on the side of death would indeed be concerned that the living have a champion as powerful as Bran. 

So one interpretation is that this is two opposing god-archetypes awakening into existence (hence the "bloody bed" visual metaphor) and conversing. The one representing the cycle of life is happy that Bran lived. The one representing ultimate death is a bit more ambivalent. Or on a less metaphorical level, two greenseers.

This is also a great a Garden of Eden scene, with two innocent humans appearing to born into the garden, blissfully unaware of the terrible knowledge they are about to consume. Sansa "eats the apple" when she unwittingly assents Ned's charge of treason. 

I also agree that the sacrificial imagery is another valid interpretation. In either birth or death, you pass through a "bloody gate", usually screaming.

And did you guys realize that fire and blood are both red because they're both forms of oxidation? They're not so different in real life, either.

And LmL - forgive me if it's in one of the essays, I can't remember all the details, but have you explored the Stannis/Renly events as a Blood Betrayal reenactment? 

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@LmL I watched the whole video, well done. :D Great job with both the content and the production, not an easy task!

@ravenous reader I have a couple thoughts off the top of my head regarding dragon breath.

First off, I don't think anyone mentioned it yet, but we do have one example of actual dragon breath literally enveloping someone:

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And then a hot wind buffeted him and he heard the sound of leathern wings and the air was full of ash and cinders and a monstrous roar went echoing off the scorched and blackened bricks and he could hear his friends shouting wildly. Gerris was calling out his name, over and over, and the big man was bellowing, "Behind you, behind you, behind you!"

Quentyn turned and threw his left arm across his face to shield his eyes from the furnace wind. Rhaegal, he reminded himself, the green one is Rhaegal.

When he raised his whip, he saw that the lash was burning. His hand as well. All of him, all of him was burning.

The implication seems to be that Rhaegal simply hit Quentyn with some hot dragon breath, aka "furnace wind", and not full on dragon fire. Most people think Quentyn died from this, but I fully subscribe to the PJ theory that the oil in his whip simply ignited, and Quentyn should be badly burned but alive and hiding somewhere in Meereen. So, the dragon breath in this case didn't kill Quentyn, but it also didn't protect him and it indirectly caused him severe injury. We also have the important symbolism of a burning lash, like the one Dany saw used to hatch the dragons.

More importantly, regarding Bran and dragon's breath and stuff. I do think Bran will eventually skinchange a dragon. There is of course the famous BR line, "You will never walk again, Bran, but you will fly." And in the same way that Targaryens are described as "dragons", perhaps the same will be applicable to Bran. And I don't Bran will skinchange a "fire" dragon, but either an ice dragon or a dead dragon. I would say a dead dragon is more likely, but GRRM did write a story called The Ice Dragon with an ice dragon fighting three fire dragons, so IDK. I do think that, just like Rhaenys' dragon was killed in the Conquest, at least one of Dany's dragons will be killed in her eventual conquest. And then Bran could take that one.

If my grand theory is correct, we have an instance of greenseer breath mentioned in the beginning of AGOT, when Ned and Robert descend into the WF crypts:

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"I trust you enjoyed the journey, Your Grace?"

Robert snorted. "Bogs and forests and fields, and scarcely a decent inn north of the Neck. I've never seen such a vast emptiness. Where are all your people?"

"Likely they were too shy to come out," Ned jested. He could feel the chill coming up the stairs, a cold breath from deep within the earth. "Kings are a rare sight in the north."

This line really doesn't make sense to me without a greenseer present in the crypts to be breathing (her) cold breath. WF is built on natural hot springs. So hot and large that they are used to heat the Great Keep and Cat's baths are always "steaming" hot. We don't know the exact layout of WF in relation to the hot springs, but I would expect the crypts to be warmer than the outside air, not colder.

Make of that what you will :D 

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2 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

This line really doesn't make sense to me without a greenseer present in the crypts to be breathing (her) cold breath.

Death is depicted as cold in a number places. Renly says "Cold" as he dies, Jon feels "only the cold" when he dies, Varamyr feels like he plunged into a frozen lake, Catelyn feels the cold of the blade. And walking death resides in the furthest north. It's also sometimes anthropomorphized, as in Bran's coma dream, "Death reached for him, screaming".

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10 minutes ago, cgrav said:

Death is depicted as cold in a number places. Renly says "Cold" as he dies, Jon feels "only the cold" when he dies, Varamyr feels like he plunged into a frozen lake. And walking death resides in the furthest north. It's also anthropomorphized, as in Bran's coma dream, "Death reached for him, screaming".

Yes, but those people were all dying. Ned is not (yet :P). It should be warm in the crypts and for some reason it is cold. I think it warrants more of an explanation than simply, there are dead bodies there. 

Mayhaps it is simply the spirits of the numerous dead Starks making it feel cold and not a living greenseer hooked up to the WF heart tree, Bloodraven-style, but that is my best guess based on... many things. The word "breath" alludes to something being alive in the crypts.

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1 hour ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

The word "breath" alludes to something being alive in the crypts.

Death is, in a way, a living force here. The "magic" in the series is essentially a sort of bleeding over of the realm of gods and such into the real world. Hence my quoting Bran's dream, which is a very early presentation of the concept of death having a will of its own. The same concept is at play with The Stranger and the Many Faced God. And of course the army of the undead who un-thrive on bone chilling cold. 

The cold in the crypts is a reference to death itself being cold, and likely also to the idea that Winterfell itself is a point of access to the realm of death (maybe all crypts are?). Ned's role in the mythical symbolism of the story is like mythical characters such as Charon and Hel who both govern passage into the realm of death. There are actually a handful of scenes in which Ned is shown hearing people's final words and sending off into death, such as Lyanna, Jory Cassel, Gared, and direwolf Lady. 

So to answer the implied question more directly, no, I don't think this is about a thing or person literally pushing cold air into the crypt (though there's speculation that the lowest level connects to the caves north of the Wall). It's about the crypt being a sort of crossover point where the terrors of the netherworld can get into the "real" one. Maybe it's like the Black Gate.

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On 7/27/2017 at 3:24 PM, LmL said:

makes him a smiling knight, perhaps, a moon character who wanted Arthur Dayne's sword, saying " it's that white sword of yours I want," with Arthur saying, "then you shall have it, sir." The smiling night was bleeding from a dozen wounds when Arthur gave him the 13th killing wound with Dawn, so perhaps there is Last Hero math happening here. 

Hey there LmL, haven't seen you around in a while.  

I am am thinking about some things for a topic, and the kingswood brotherhood is one example I think shows it well due to its many similarities to the ToJ fight.  Allow me to play the devils or your advocate for a moment.  

The smiling knight is not a moon character, I think.  There are two things I see with him.  First, the Kingswood brotherhood represents a malignant force in the trees.  Arthur goes to remove it.  In order to gain admittance, he has to win the loyalty of the locals.  Jaime calls them the 'forest folk'.  They represent the CotF.  They help Arthur get into the trees like the CotF helped the last hero.  There seems to be an inversion because a white cloaked person should represent the enemy of the last hero, but George has to make it fit the story and not give us the pure version all in one place so we can forgive that.  Once Arthur gets into the weirnet, we get a battle between a white cloak wearer and someone whose sword breaks and has has hero math wounds making the smiling knight the last hero fighting the Others played by Arthur.  Does that sound right to you?  Also, if you are the children, how do you put someone in the weirnet?  You have to kill them.  The children killed the last hero to send him into the cold dead lands, maybe.  Arya represents a CotF and is a killer.  There was a great thread I read a long while ago about Arya as a Valkyrie.  They are choosers of the dead and cupbearers, both of which Arya is.  When last hero Jon dies, we get a thought of 'stick them with the pointy end'.  That is connecting Arya's killing with sending soldiers to the land of the dead.  The dead warriors Valkyries choose serve in Odin's army at Ragnarok, so it all fits, I think.  See, some of us share our ideas on Arya on the forums instead of hiding them and not telling anyone they exist haha.  

 

The second thing is that the smiling knight, rather than a moon, is a sacrificial fool.  He is a fearless madman who wants a magic sword, symbolizing great power. Fools are ignorant optomists diving into a journey they know nothing about and consequences he damned.  Arthur says he will have it, then kills him.  The magic sword is akin to the burning crown motif of the king of the ashes.  When you get it, you die.  Viserys is called a fool by Jorah right before he gets his burning crown that kills him.  Sacrificial fools are comet people.  They are the person who dies and enters the tree or moon.  That is the Morningstar sun usurper.  He impregnates the sun's wife, ironically giving horns to the already horned solar Garth King, and then his children drink the sun's power like tricky greenseer Lann's do.  Sneaky impregnating is Lann's speciality and also the method by which the Morningstar usurps the sun.  

 

Any of that sound right to you?  

 

By the way, I am trying to write a series of long OPs right now and it is a damn chore.  I don't know how you do it.  I am a month in and I don't think I am even very close to being done with the first one.  

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On 7/28/2017 at 9:33 PM, Unchained said:

Hey there LmL, haven't seen you around in a while.  

I am am thinking about some things for a topic, and the kingswood brotherhood is one example I think shows it well due to its many similarities to the ToJ fight.  Allow me to play the devils or your advocate for a moment.  

The smiling knight is not a moon character, I think.  There are two things I see with him.  First, the Kingswood brotherhood represents a malignant force in the trees.  Arthur goes to remove it.  In order to gain admittance, he has to win the loyalty of the locals.  Jaime calls them the 'forest folk'.  They represent the CotF.  They help Arthur get into the trees like the CotF helped the last hero.  There seems to be an inversion because a white cloaked person should represent the enemy of the last hero, but George has to make it fit the story and not give us the pure version all in one place so we can forgive that.  Once Arthur gets into the weirnet, we get a battle between a white cloak wearer and someone whose sword breaks and has has hero math wounds making the smiling knight the last hero fighting the Others played by Arthur.  Does that sound right to you?  Also, if you are the children, how do you put someone in the weirnet?  You have to kill them.  The children killed the last hero to send him into the cold dead lands, maybe.  Arya represents a CotF and is a killer.  There was a great thread I read a long while ago about Arya as a Valkyrie.  They are choosers of the dead and cupbearers, both of which Arya is.  When last hero Jon dies, we get a thought of 'stick them with the pointy end'.  That is connecting Arya's killing with sending soldiers to the land of the dead.  The dead warriors Valkyries choose serve in Odin's army at Ragnarok, so it all fits, I think.  See, some of us share our ideas on Arya on the forums instead of hiding them and not telling anyone they exist haha.  

 

The second thing is that the smiling knight, rather than a moon, is a sacrificial fool.  He is a fearless madman who wants a magic sword, symbolizing great power. Fools are ignorant optomists diving into a journey they know nothing about and consequences he damned.  Arthur says he will have it, then kills him.  The magic sword is akin to the burning crown motif of the king of the ashes.  When you get it, you die.  Viserys is called a fool by Jorah right before he gets his burning crown that kills him.  Sacrificial fools are comet people.  They are the person who dies and enters the tree or moon.  That is the Morningstar sun usurper.  He impregnates the sun's wife, ironically giving horns to the already horned solar Garth King, and then his children drink the sun's power like tricky greenseer Lann's do.  Sneaky impregnating is Lann's speciality and also the method by which the Morningstar usurps the sun.  

 

Any of that sound right to you?  

 

By the way, I am trying to write a series of long OPs right now and it is a damn chore.  I don't know how you do it.  I am a month in and I don't think I am even very close to being done with the first one.  

Yeah actually a lot of that sounds right. Smiling Knight and Bran are both the naughty greenseer reaching to high character... makes sense. 

What is tricky is that sometimes the comet is merely the sword arm of the solar figure, and sometimes it's that trickster / wife stealer. But that is kind of the whole idea - Martin is taking one basic series of events and spinning it into different mini-dramas.

As for writing long essays... I don't know what to say except that I am the most productive when I have long stretches of time to lock in and work. You have to kind of upload the entire essay thought flow into your short term memory to write in context, so sometimes I listen back to what I have written suing the computer at certain points to check on the cohesion. I find that I do not set out to write long essays, or essays or any particular length... they just sort of come out the way they come out. You have to limit the number of ideas that can go in, and you have to try to find the scenes that go together and the thoughts that go together. Otherwise it will be disjointed. 

I'd like to think I have improved over time, and holding a lot of abstract ideas i my head at once is probably the thing I am best at. You have to stretch your brain to try to grok martin's symbolic landscape, that is for sure. Sometimes I don't come around here for a couple weeks because I just have too much uploaded in my mind and cannot handle any new conversations or topics until I finish my current script and offload it. That, and the forums are so glitchy lately it's just not worth the hassle. 

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On 7/15/2017 at 1:13 AM, LmL said:

...and here it is! 

Wow. Is this like the Preston Jacobs videos people tell me about? I tried watching some from the Order of the Greenhand, but I was not real happy with the results.

Thanks.

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5 hours ago, Sea Dragon said:

Wow. Is this like the Preston Jacobs videos people tell me about? I tried watching some from the Order of the Greenhand, but I was not real happy with the results.

Thanks.

Well, you know...  everyone has their different way of analyzing ASOIAF. I am not sure I am like either of those two, but who knows. I am mainly a podcaster and essay writer, and this video is supposed to be an intro to what I do. The people you are talking about make a ton of videos, and that's the main thing they do. My main thing is just too long to make videos for, so I am experimenting with making shorter vids that capture the essence of various ideas I write about. If you liked this video, then check out the podast / essay series. They match, so you can read or listen as you like. https://lucifermeanslightbringer.com

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  • 2 weeks later...

@LmL  I was listening to your video ('ideas of ice and fire') discussing the explanation of the cave symbols:  

'A pupil is a black hole which drinks the light...'  :cheers:

The spiral is a common formation in nature, 'above and below'.  In fact, certain spirals are related to the 'phi' symbol (the circle bisected longitudinally) via the 'golden ratio' governing growth patterns in nature.  Lots of things are spiral: the milky way galaxy, the double helix of the DNA molecule, the umbilical cord, a sunflower, a pinecone, a tornado, a fingerprint, a horn, a nautilus sea shell, and the cochlea of the inner ear (Ancient Greek: κοχλίας, kōhlias, meaning spiral or snail shell is the auditory portion of the inner ear. It is a spiral-shaped cavity in the bony labyrinth, in humans making 2.5 turns around its axis, the modiolus), etc.  

So, considering the importance of magical 'songs' in 'a song of ice and fire' which I've examined on the 'killing word' thread, it's interesting that the organ allowing us to perceive those sound waves translating as those songs very literally is a spiral named for a snail shell!  Apropos, notice that GRRM uses the curious word 'winkle,' which is also a sea snail with a spiral shell, to describe the trick of accessing knowledge, frequently using ingenious and devious means, e.g. Ned wishes Lann could help him 'winkle the truth out of this damnable book':  

Quote

He opened to the section on House Lannister once more, and turned the pages slowly, hoping against hope that something would leap out at him. The Lannisters were an old family, tracing their descent back to Lann the Clever, a trickster from the Age of Heroes who was no doubt as legendary as Bran the Builder, though far more beloved of singers and taletellers. In the songs, Lann was the fellow who winkled the Casterlys out of Casterly Rock with no weapon but his wits, and stole gold from the sun to brighten his curly hair. Ned wished he were here now, to winkle the truth out of this damnable book.

(AGOT - Eddard VI)

In general, the spiral is associated with magic and the acquisition of arcane and often forbidden knowledge.  Accordingly, both our prinicipal magical protagonists-antagonists, namely the weirwood roots and the dragons, are said to 'coil,' a synonym for spiral.  A while back if I recall correctly, @Blue Tiger was involved in a detailed discussion with someone about spirals and 'whorls' (basically another synonym for spiral) -- perhaps he could tell us more.  Notably, such motifs are found in the house of the undying and the dragon eggs.  So perhaps hatching a dragon from stone is another way of winkling truth out of a damnable book?  A sea/see dragon hatches from a sea/seeshell, no?

Tying in to the celestial 'spiral over the weirwood' you mentioned in the podcast is the fiery serpentine staircase via which the greenseer ascends to heaven in order to steal the fire of the gods, unlocking the secrets of 'starry wisdom'.  Recall that the staircase of the Winterfell library which I've identified as a prominent symbol of the weirwood and greenseer knowledge is spiral -- described as a 'corkscrew' perhaps hinting that it's a tool to unlock the 'green fountain'!  Fittingly, this selfsame library was later set on fire signifying 'an ignition of understanding' or acquisition of 'terrible knowledge' (when Bran catches a glimpse of this terrible knowledge in the 'coma dream,' it burns on his cheeks).  So the burning library, tree or serpentine steps is a twisted, coiling spiral figure, signifying the penetration of matter by energy (think of 'kundalini' or the ouroboros twining between Sleipnir's legs as Odin rides the world tree, as depicted in the famous Tjängvide runestone).  So, long story short, the burning tree celestial world axis is configured as a spiral.  Similarly, as I mentioned to you before, if Dany 'always takes the door to the right', as advised in the HOTU, she is probably walking in a spiral formation, navigating the virtual realm of that serpentine building.  @Pain killer Jane might be able to add further insights, given her interest in the symbolism of spiral staircases.

Quote

Outside, Tyrion swallowed a lungful of the cold morning air and began his laborious descent of the steep stone steps that corkscrewed around the exterior of the library tower. It was slow going; the steps were cut high and narrow, while his legs were short and twisted. The rising sun had not yet cleared the walls of Winterfell, but the men were already hard at it in the yard below. Sandor Clegane's rasping voice drifted up to him. "The boy is a long time dying. I wish he would be quicker about it."

Tyrion glanced down and saw the Hound standing with young Joffrey as squires swarmed around them. "At least he dies quietly," the prince replied. "It's the wolf that makes the noise. I could scarce sleep last night."

Clegane cast a long shadow across the hard-packed earth as his squire lowered the black helm over his head. "I could silence the creature, if it please you," he said through his open visor. His boy placed a longsword in his hand. He tested the weight of it, slicing at the cold morning air. Behind him, the yard rang to the clangor of steel on steel.

The notion seemed to delight the prince. "Send a dog to kill a dog!" he exclaimed. "Winterfell is so infested with wolves, the Starks would never miss one."

Tyrion hopped off the last step onto the yard. "I beg to differ, nephew," he said. "The Starks can count past six. Unlike some princes I might name."

Joffrey had the grace at least to blush.

"A voice from nowhere," Sandor said. He peered through his helm, looking this way and that. "Spirits of the air!"

 

(AGOT - Tyrion I)

So the 'voice from nowhere' or the 'spirits of the air' are transmitted via the tortuous descending and ascending pathway of the serpentine steps  (btw, how did 'silencing the creature' work out for the Hound? -- he ended up on the 'Quiet Isle' himself, LOL, with Bran articulating himself louder than ever in the godswood...).   See -- the 'killing word' is a spiral tool; in fact it's a 'corkscrew' of sorts:

Quote

Melisandre touched the ruby at her neck and spoke a word.

The sound echoed queerly from the corners of the room and twisted like a worm inside their ears. The wildling heard one word, the crow another. Neither was the word that left her lips. The ruby on the wildling's wrist darkened, and the wisps of light and shadow around him writhed and faded.

(ADWD - Melisandre I)

 

Quote

Perhaps it was only wind blowing against the rock, or the sound of the sea on the shore, but for an instant Davos Seaworth heard her answer. "You called the fire," she whispered, her voice as faint as the sound of waves in a seashell, sad and soft. "You burned us . . . burned us . . . burrrrned usssssss."

"It was her!" Davos cried. "Mother, don't forsake us. It was her who burned you, the red woman, Melisandre, her!" He could see her; the heart-shaped face, the red eyes, the long coppery hair, her red gowns moving like flames as she walked, a swirl of silk and satin. She had come from Asshai in the east, she had come to Dragonstone and won Selsye and her queen's men for her alien god, and then the king, Stannis Baratheon himself. He had gone so far as to put the fiery heart on his banners, the fiery heart of R'hllor, Lord of Light and God of Flame and Shadow. At Melisandre's urging, he had dragged the Seven from their sept at Dragonstone and burned them before the castle gates, and later he had burned the godswood at Storm's End as well, even the heart tree, a huge white weirwood with a solemn face.

(ASOS - Davos I)

 

 

(P.S. You know who I think the lone man swimming in the sea of stars is...;))

 

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2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

 @Pain killer Jane might be able to add further insights, given her interest in the symbolism of spiral staircases.

long time no see! I missed you. :wub: Sorry, I have been absent and I hope you aren't too mad at me. 

I have been walking the spiral staircase, its relation to PHI and the Fibonacci sequence, for a long time and I am glad people are starting to get a bit of an inkling of it. the staircase is extremely esoteric so I will do my best to explain how I see the spiral staircase. 

The spiral staircase basically boils down to blood. @LmL like you said yesterday bleeding stars are produced from the puncture of the god's eye but also should be considered a blossom of blood. One thing about the PHI and the Fibonacci sequence is that rose petals spiral out of the center on average according to Phi. And that is also why there are many instances of blood blossoming or being considered blossoms throughout the novels. Now the reason why I consider the staircase to be blood is that of the classic molecular arrangement of DNA as a spiral ladder.

In relation to the burning of the spiral staircase, burning sacrificed blood is the basic component to a magical spell. Just look at Sansa burning the blossomed moonblood from her red flower on the mattress to prevent her marriage to Joffrey. The burning of the library is also an acting of burning blood since living history is written in blood per Rodrik the Reader and the inky pages of the books in that library were at one time living history so they should be considered history books of dried blood. 

There is also another reference in the episode that many do not realize is a reference to this and it is Bran's words to Littlefinger; "Choas is a ladder". When something is "spiraling out of control" it is in chaos. And Bran did climb and didn't cause chaos but exposed it. 

And RR you are corrected on Dany spiraling and in that scene was spiral downward into a pit of darkness with the Undying. 

EDT: I also suspect that Martin's taking of eyes, teeth, scalps with hair, fingers, skin, bones, ears, is connected to the physical loss of identity, or the loss of someone's DNA. All of those things are used to identify people. And why they are sacrificed. I also suspect it is a nod to Ten Thousand Leagues under the sea. Captain Nemo aka Captain "I give what is due" in Latin and Captain No One, whose ship is the Nautilus. 

P.S. the reason why 'no one' collects what is due to the Many Faced God is because it is a nod towards Nemo. 

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2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

@LmL  I was listening to your video ('ideas of ice and fire') discussing the explanation of the cave symbols:  

Cool! Glad you caught it (and @Pain killer Jane too!). I am going to do a more organized presentation of these ideas with History of Westeros on Sunday afternoon at 3:00 est, on their YouTube channel. 

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

'A pupil is a black hole which drinks the light...'  :cheers:

I think my dumb ass said "iris" when I meant pupil at one point, but hopefully people get the idea. The moon is a black hole eye, it is known. 

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

The spiral is a common formation in nature, 'above and below'.  In fact, certain spirals are related to the 'phi' symbol (the circle bisected longitudinally) via the 'golden ratio' governing growth patterns in nature.  Lots of things are spiral: the milky way galaxy, the double helix of the DNA molecule, the umbilical cord, a sunflower, a pinecone, a tornado, a fingerprint, a horn, a nautilus sea shell, and the cochlea of the inner ear (Ancient Greek: κοχλίας, kōhlias, meaning spiral or snail shell is the auditory portion of the inner ear. It is a spiral-shaped cavity in the bony labyrinth, in humans making 2.5 turns around its axis, the modiolus), etc.  

So, considering the importance of magical 'songs' in 'a song of ice and fire' which I've examined on the 'killing word' thread, it's interesting that the organ allowing us to perceive those sound waves translating as those songs very literally is a spiral named for a snail shell!  Apropos, notice that GRRM uses the curious word 'winkle,' which is also a sea snail with a spiral shell, to describe the trick of accessing knowledge, frequently using ingenious and devious means, e.g. Ned wishes Lann could help him 'winkle the truth out of this damnable book':  

In general, the spiral is associated with magic and the acquisition of arcane and often forbidden knowledge.  Accordingly, both our prinicipal magical protagonists-antagonists, namely the weirwood roots and the dragons, are said to 'coil,' a synonym for spiral.  A while back if I recall correctly, @Blue Tiger was involved in a detailed discussion with someone about spirals and 'whorls' (basically another synonym for spiral) -- perhaps he could tell us more.  Notably, such motifs are found in the house of the undying and the dragon eggs.  So perhaps hatching a dragon from stone is another way of winkling truth out of a damnable book?  A sea/see dragon hatches from a sea/seeshell, no?

Tying in to the celestial 'spiral over the weirwood' you mentioned in the podcast is the fiery serpentine staircase via which the greenseer ascends to heaven in order to steal the fire of the gods, unlocking the secrets of 'starry wisdom'.  Recall that the staircase of the Winterfell library which I've identified as a prominent symbol of the weirwood and greenseer knowledge is spiral -- described as a 'corkscrew' perhaps hinting that it's a tool to unlock the 'green fountain'!  Fittingly, this selfsame library was later set on fire signifying 'an ignition of understanding' or acquisition of 'terrible knowledge' (when Bran catches a glimpse of this terrible knowledge in the 'coma dream,' it burns on his cheeks).  So the burning library, tree or serpentine steps is a twisted, coiling spiral figure, signifying the penetration of matter by energy (think of 'kundalini' or the ouroboros twining between Sleipnir's legs as Odin rides the world tree, as depicted in the famous Tjängvide runestone).  So, long story short, the burning tree celestial world axis is configured as a spiral.  Similarly, as I mentioned to you before, if Dany 'always takes the door to the right', as advised in the HOTU, she is probably walking in a spiral formation, navigating the virtual realm of that serpentine building.  @Pain killer Jane might be able to add further insights, given her interest in the symbolism of spiral staircases.

So the 'voice from nowhere' or the 'spirits of the air' are transmitted via the tortuous descending and ascending pathway of the serpentine steps  (btw, how did 'silencing the creature' work out for the Hound? -- he ended up on the 'Quiet Isle' himself, LOL, with Bran articulating himself louder than ever in the godswood...).   See -- the 'killing word' is a spiral tool; in fact it's a 'corkscrew' of sorts:

 

That's all fantastic, thank you - we've discussed some of these ideas before but kind of scattered about. Great to take a look at all the spiral and stair associations (thanks to @Pain killer Jane too!) in one place. So let me ask, given everything you said, how do you interpret the spirals being both over the sun and the tree?

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

 

(P.S. You know who I think the lone man swimming in the sea of stars is...;))

 

But of course. I thought of you as soon as I saw that picture! Astro-Bran!

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35 minutes ago, LmL said:

@Pain killer Jane, can you explain how "no one" comes into the finding Nemo story? 

That I have no answer to. Captain Nemo from Ten Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, was named as a reference to Odysseus. Odysseus used the name when he killed a cannibal cyclops. The cyclops wanted to know the name of the man who killed him so he could call down a curse on him. Odysseus said his name was Nemo, Greek for no one. However, in the Latin transliteration of Nemo it is meant as "I give what is due". Basically saying that the cyclops was due its death for eating the washed up sailors and hoarding the sheep. Btw Odysseus is also the one to come up with the Trojan Horse, a wooden gift horse that was filled with betrayal and poison.  

Edt: I think I do have an answer. Nemo was named for Captain Nemo in the sense of no one but as in a no one is an anybody type of philosophy. The movie wanted to pass on a feel good message about family and by naming Nemo, Nemo they were saying hey this can be anybody's kid. And since fairy tales were meant to be life lessons there you go. 

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27 minutes ago, LmL said:

Great to take a look at all the spiral and stair associations (thanks to @Pain killer Jane too!) in one place. So let me ask, given everything you said, how do you interpret the spirals being both over the sun and the tree?

Well, the way I interpret it is that it is penny tree. The tree is piercing the ground and red leaves is blood blossoming from it. As to the sun, I would say it is sun rays but in the context of sacrifice and the acquisition of secret knowledge, it is Lann's stealing of fire to paint his hair blond which would make it the same as the tree. Does that make sense? 

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