Season 8: News, Spoilers And Leaks

[longest night]

Just now, sweetsunray said:

Ravens are carrion eaters. So is Summer. Both eat wights, animated dead. So, it's not all bad. And nope, that is not evidence that Jojen is paste. He could be. Maybe he's stew. Maybe he had an accident in the caves. Or maybe he left to return home.

I added the Jojen paste scene.

“It had a bitter taste, though not so bitter as acorn paste. The first spoonful was the hardest to get down. He almost retched it right back up. The second tasted better. The third was almost sweet. The rest he spooned up eagerly. Why had he thought that it was bitter?”

[sweetsunray]

6 minutes ago, longest night said:

I added the Jojen paste scene.

“It had a bitter taste, though not so bitter as acorn paste. The first spoonful was the hardest to get down. He almost retched it right back up. The second tasted better. The third was almost sweet. The rest he spooned up eagerly. Why had he thought that it was bitter?”

So? Bran didn't retch when he ate the long pork in a chapter before. (that was actually flesh of the mutineers that Coldhands killed).

It is bittersweet. As I said, he may have had an accident for all we know. Meera and him went exploring a lot. Waste not, want not, when there is little else to be had. Cycle of nature. Do you consider "death EVUL"? Do you consider worms and maggots EVUL? But it might also be bittersweet for other reasons - because Bran's wed to a tree now, instead of Meera.

[longest night]

Just now, sweetsunray said:

So? Bran didn't retch when he ate the long pork in a chapter before. (that was actually flesh of the mutineers that Coldhands killed)

You know how symbolism works, right? This is Bran starting to savor the taste of blood just as Aemon described how he feared ravens savored the taste. It's to distinguish the two types of ravens. Those that eat the flesh and those that eat grain. Eating the flesh gives them strength, but there are those that resist it. Bran's three-eyed crow and the children of the forest there are evil.

[sweetsunray]

8 minutes ago, longest night said:

You know how symbolism works, right? This is Bran starting to savor the taste of blood just as Aemon described how he feared ravens savored the taste. It's to distinguish the two types of ravens. Those that eat the flesh and those that eat grain. Eating the flesh gives them strength, but there are those that resist it. Bran's three-eyed crow and the children of the forest there are evil.

No, they're not evil. Are we EVUL because we eat meat? No.

And yes I know how symbolism works... got a whole series of essays on the symbolism of the North as an underworld, where Starks are the rulers of the underworld. Your response to these elements is that like Catelyn with her southron prejudices, or people thinking Hades was an evil god. He wasn't evil, though it's understandable he was feared. Ned Stark fully incorporates all the characteristics of the mythological Hades. Meanwhile Bran is steeped in Horus symbolism, especially that of Horus the good. Bloodraven's cave has references to the cave of the Greek god of dreams, which is also part of the underworld.

[longest night]

1 minute ago, sweetsunray said:

No, they're not evil. Are we EVUL because we eat meat? No.

And yes I know how symbolism works... got a whole series of essays on the symbolism of the North as an underworld, where Starks are the rulers of the underworld. Your response to these elements is that like Catelyn with her southron prejudices, or people thinking Hades was an evil god. He wasn't evil, though it's understandable he was feared. Ned Stark fully incorporates all the characteristics of the mythological Hades.

Do you consider cannibalism as good?

[sweetsunray]

19 minutes ago, longest night said:

Do you consider cannibalism as good?

It all depends on the situation. If you kill people to eat them, no I do not consider it good. Craster is heavily hinted as having done that: kill rangers, turn them into blood sausages in his secret larder. Benjen became Craster's bacon imo, which is why it was important that Jon refused the bacon at Craster's. It certainly was not because of being boudn to guest right, since they all left, and Jon never even returned to the place. What Craster did is evil. (Strange how there's no weirwood in sight, huh?) (https://sweeticeandfiresunray.com/2016/08/30/crasters-black-blooded-curse/)

But people who have little to no survival resources and end up eating someone who died of an accident or natural causes? No, I do not condemn these people as evil. Is is advizable to do this on a cultural level even when there is plenty of alternatives? No, because the risk of getting certain diseases or brain detoriative diseases increases.

Martinworld depicts the potential spectrum in vague terms, without ever saying it outright, but he depicts cannibalism also as survival and a means to get rid of wights, an enemy, something completely unnatural (a living dead) without starving. If we think of the Long Night and what the world becomes like north of the wall, deprived of living game, then eating the dead is one of the ways to make sure they don't become your enemy and that you survive. It is not wise to send your old men out to die in the cold during a Long Night, because they'd only return as wights to kill you. And as for Children of the Forest eating humans... that can't be called cannibalism, since they're not even the same species. People hunt monkeys (including quite intelligent ones) for bush meat. We call it evil now, because of wanting to protect the bit of wildlife still left in this world. But theoretically I don't consider eating a monkey more evil than a cow.

[longest night]

1 minute ago, sweetsunray said:

It all depends on the situation. If you kill people to eat them, no I do not consider it good. Craster is heavily hinted as having done that: kill rangers, turn them into blood sausages in his secret larder. Benjen became Craster's bacon imo, which is why it was important that Jon refused the bacon at Craster's. It certainly was not because of being boudn to guest right, since they all left, and Jon never even returned to the place. What Craster did is evil. (Strange how there's no weirwood in sight, huh?) (https://sweeticeandfiresunray.com/2016/08/30/crasters-black-blooded-curse/)

But people who have little to no survival resources and end up eating someone who died of an accident or natural causes? No, I do not condemn these people as evil. Is is advizable to do this on a cultural level even when there is plenty of alternatives? No, because the risk of getting certain diseases or brain detoriative diseases increases.

Martinworld depicts the potential spectrum in vague terms, without ever saying it outright, but he depicts cannibalism also as survival and a means to get rid of wights, an enemy, something completely unnatural (a living dead) without starving. If we think of the Long Night and what the world becomes like north of the wall, deprived of living game, then eating the dead is one of the ways to make sure they don't become your enemy and that you survive. It is not wise to send your old men out to die in the cold during a Long Night, because they'd only return as wights to kill you.

They killed Jojen and fed him to Bran for him to gain power in that weirwood tree.

[sweetsunray]

2 minutes ago, longest night said:

They killed Jojen and fed him to Bran for him to gain power in that weirwood tree.

Do you have any evidence they killed Jojen? No. All we have is that Leaf warned both Meera and Jojen against exploring the caves too deep, for they are dangerous. And then we witness Meera and Jojen explore caves, with Bran skinchanging Hodor. As I said, Jojen may have met with an accident.

[sweetsunray]

And here's what the bittersweet may refer to:

 

Quote

 

"Your blood makes you a greenseer," said Lord Brynden. "This will help awaken your gifts and wed you to the trees."

Bran did not want to be married to a tree … but who else would wed a broken boy like him? A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. A greenseer.

He ate. (aDwD, Bran III)

 

 

[longest night]

14 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Do you have any evidence they killed Jojen? No.

All of the textual evidence points to that. 

 

[sweetsunray]

I know Lost Melnibonean's essay, yes. But no, it's not all the textual evidence points at. The suggestion of accidental death combined with ending up as food is made earlier on in the chapter.

Quote

Under the hill they still had food to eat. A hundred kinds of mushrooms grew down here. Blind white fish swam in the black river, but they tasted just as good as fish with eyes once you cooked them up. They had cheese and milk from the goats that shared the caves with the singers, even some oats and barleycorn and dried fruit laid by during the long summer. And almost every day they ate blood stew, thickened with barley and onions and chunks of meat. Jojen thought it might be squirrel meat, and Meera said that it was rat. Bran did not care. It was meat and it was good. The stewing made it tender.

The caves were timeless, vast, silent. They were home to more than three score living singers and the bones of thousands dead, and extended far below the hollow hill. "Men should not go wandering in this place," Leaf warned them. "The river you hear is swift and black, and flows down and down to a sunless sea. And there are passages that go even deeper, bottomless pits and sudden shafts, forgotten ways that lead to the very center of the earth. Even my people have not explored them all, and we have lived here for a thousand thousand of your man-years."

[...]

One day Meera and Jojen decided to go see the river, despite Leaf's cautions. "I want to come too," Bran said.

Meera gave him a mournful look. The river was six hundred feet below, down steep slopes and twisty passages, she explained, and the last part required climbing down a rope. "Hodor could never make the climb with you on his back. I'm sorry, Bran."

[...] But after they were gone, he slipped inside Hodor's skin and followed them. [...] In the end, the Reeds were glad he came. Jojen made it down the rope easily enough, but after Meera caught a blind white fish with her frog spear and it was time to climb back up, his arms began to tremble and he could not make it to the top, so they had to tie the rope around him and let Hodor haul him up. "Hodor," he grunted every time he gave a pull. "Hodor, hodor, hodor." (aDwD, Bran III)

So, we get an allusion to a stew made out of "squirrel" (people), followed with Leaf's warning not to wander. A river is what Leaf first warned against. Deeper passages with bottomless pits and sudden shafts is the second thing she warns them about. Despite her cautions, Meera and Jojen still go to the river, and Jojen does not have the strength to pull himself up via the rope alone. So, that almost went wrong. If Bran had not come along as Hodor, Jojen would have died there. What we are missing in this chapter is the even more dangerous exploration, the one that leads to sudden shafts and pits.

As for the Children, it is in this same chapter, after Leaf's warning that George describes the appearances of the Children: with their cat eyes and three fingers with dark claws. So, George depicts them physically as omnivorous potential predators. Not as murderers though, but as a species that is comparable to a big cat. Lions and tigers aren't 'evil' or 'murderers'. George specifically aims to portray them as natural, which is the opposite of Craster.

 

[House Cambodia]

1 hour ago, sweetsunray said:

And yes I know how symbolism works... got a whole series of essays on the symbolism of the North as an underworld, where Starks are the rulers of the underworld.

I'm interested in this - do you have a link?

[sweetsunray]

1 minute ago, House Cambodia said:

I'm interested in this - do you have a link?

https://sweeticeandfiresunray.com/the-chthonic-cycle/

[House Cambodia]

9 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

https://sweeticeandfiresunray.com/the-chthonic-cycle/

Thanks Sweet, I'll get dug into that today 

 

UPDATE: There's days-worth of reading in her brilliant articles. I'll have to take my time over them and continue to enjoy them long after the naff TV show is over. Sometime this year when I find the time I'll re-read the entire ASOIAF canon and look out for all these allusions. I particularly enjoy how the Starks and the North are steeped in Norse mythology. This is why I don't really mind that GRRM takes years over his books - he fills them with so many complex connections and deep mythological allusions that only 1% of readers will appreciate. I need bloggers and youtube fans to help me too - without them, I'd be as lost as I am reading Joyce or TS Eliot. 

[Lord_Ravenstone]

13 hours ago, longest night said:

They killed Jojen and fed him to Bran for him to gain power in that weirwood tree.

That’s just a theory not confirmed truth.

[bloodsteel bitterraven]

I am also convinced that Bran is eating Jojenpaste, but I don't think they killed him.  My guess is that he probably died.  The show didn't show that of course, but he did die immediately once they reached the tree.

The next book (if George ever manages to finish it) is going to be really dark.  Bran eating Jojenpaste, Shireen being sacrificed (my guess is that she will be sacrificed to resurrect Jon Snow, not for the stupid reasons we saw on the show, and the wildlings will probably be involved), Jon Snow being a fire wight like Beric and Catelyn (on the show he came back from the dead and he was still the same person), all that sick Euron stuff, and who knows what else.

[bloodsteel bitterraven]

By the way, I still have some problems with the ending that has leaked.

First of all, Bronn becoming Lord of Highgarden, simply doesn't make sense.  Cersei had appointed Randyll Tarly as Lord of the Reach, which would make his daughter his heir.  Wouldn't Sam object to an immoral sellsword taking his sister's position?

Second, Sam becoming Grand Maester makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.  Maesters first of all are not allowed to marry, and Sam is with Gilly and expecting a child.  And finally he has barely done any training to be a Maester.  How is he qualified for this position?  

It would make a lot more sense IMO, if once the Night's Watch is dissolved, Sam is released from his oath, and becomes his father's heir, and Lord of the Reach and Warden of the South.  Sure, Bronn can get his castle (Highgarden didn't even look that impressive on the show), but don't give him the Reach!

And we don't know anything about what happens to the Riverlands.  Did they forget Edmure is in a dungeon at the Twins?  Is he dead?  Are they annexed by the North?  The Vale?  The Iron Islands?  Do D&D even care?

 

[Mystical]

9 minutes ago, bloodsteel bitterraven said:

First of all, Bronn becoming Lord of Highgarden, simply doesn't make sense.  Cersei had appointed Randyll Tarly as Lord of the Reach, which would make his daughter his heir.  Wouldn't Sam object to an immoral sellsword taking his sister's position?

Second, Sam becoming Grand Maester makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.  Maesters first of all are not allowed to marry, and Sam is with Gilly and expecting a child.  And finally he has barely done any training to be a Maester.  How is he qualified for this position?

You say that doesn't make any sense? As if we haven't watched for Seasons now as a grandmother became ruler of Highgarden, a lover became ruler of Dorne, a bastard with no lands/titles/legitimization became King in the North and a woman sat the throne after blowing up the Vatican. And things like king- and kinslaying don't matter to anyone anymore either. The list is endless about how much the show makes NO sense. There are no in-verse rules anymore. It's just random. It's almost like if the writers want it to happen, it will. Making sense is not part of the writing process.

[The Bard of Banefort]

Something that none of the leaks have mentioned yet is what happens to Brienne. I’m guessing she stays with Sansa, but I hope they give her some kind of conclusion.

[divica]

https://pastebin.com/uSKei53v

Amazing how I prefer these stupid fleaks to the actual leaks...