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Its Always Summer Under The Sea


ScaledBird

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After hearing Shireen sing Its Always Summer Under the Sea, based on some of Patchface's possibly prophetic rantings, I realised even though it uses similar words it is very different.  I believe when Patchface refereed to under the sea he meant in death and fish and undersea animals are the Others and wights, but Shireen's song seems to be about dragons. Here is the song if you do not remember it...

It’s always summer, under the sea

I know, I know, oh, oh, oh

The birds have scales, and the fish take wing

I know, I know, oh, oh, oh

The rain is dry, and the snow falls up

I know, I know, oh, oh, oh

 

The stones crack open, the water burns

The shadows come to dance, my love

The shadows come to play

The shadows come to dance, my love

The shadows come to stay

 

This is what I think it might mean...

 

It’s always summer (either the Others will be defeated or Fire will beat Ice and Westeros will burn- Ice and Fire need to be balanced),

Under the sea (When Fire meets Ice we get water (the sea) Fire winning could mean a giant flood or just death)

The birds have scales (dragons)

And the fish take wing (fish could be people or just dragon riders)

The rain is dry (Dragon fire raining down as Dany attacks the Others)

And the snow falls up (Either ash  blowing up in the wind after the fight or possibly Jon Snow falls (dies) and gets up (as a Wight))

The stones crack open (Dragon eggs were considered stone so wither Dany’s eggs or more Dragons are coming. The stone could also be from castles as Dany invades Westeros)

The water burns (A battle by the sea with the Dragons?)

The shadows come to dance, my love (Drogon is the shadow, there will be a dance of dragons i.e a battle with dragons)

The shadows come to play (The Dragons come to fight?)

The shadows come to stay (The Dragons will survive and be a major problem if the side of Fire wins)

 

 

Let me know what you think.

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Shireen's song is from the show. Shireen's fool and friend, Patchface, was cut from the show and these are his little songs/rhymes/prophecies:

"Under the sea it is always summer" and "the shadows have come to dance, my lord" are all things that Patchface has literally said.

There are also a few things that the writers of the show changed a little bit, like "The birds have scales, and the fish take wing" is "under the sea, the birds have scales for feathers" and "The rain is dry, and the snow falls up" is "under the sea it snows up, and rain is as dry as bone".

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2 minutes ago, Vaedys Targaryen said:

Shireen's song is from the show. Shireen's fool and friend, Patchface, was cut from the show and these are his little songs/rhymes/prophecies:

"Under the sea it is always summer" and "the shadows have come to dance, my lord" are all things that Patchface has literally said.

There are also a few things that the writers of the show changed a little bit, like "The birds have scales, and the fish take wing" is "under the sea, the birds have scales for feathers" and "The rain is dry, and the snow falls up" is "under the sea it snows up, and rain is as dry as bone".

I see.  I thought for a moment that I had missed something from the books.  D&D's homage to Patchface.  Yes, Shireen's song primarily reflects what the show has portrayed but the bits and pieces of Patchface jingles are out of context for the book. 

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Patches' songs have been colored by his several days in the water, wherein he may actually have died. The experience seems to have given him some prophetic abilities, which apparently only the reader and possibly Melisandre is capable of noticing. Everything gets put into the frame of having been underwater for a long time, which suggests that he actually did die there. What brought him back remains unknown.

Melisandre is afraid of Patchface, having had frightening visions of him. It could well be that he was reanimated by what she thinks of as the shadow, the darkness that opposes her lord of light. This further suggests that Patchface might become acclaimed, at some point, as a spiritual leader, in spite of his apparent detachment from reality and simplemindedness. (It wouldn't be noticed in the United States these days, nor commented upon by journalists - and Westeros only has word of mouth and an even more credulous, undereducated population!)

It would be beyond interesting if Patchface ended up as an advocate for the Others. Possibly, he might even be a conduit for finally talking and negotiating with them.

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If "under the sea" means death/afterlife, then the summer always there, is a description of Heaven. Because it's always summer in Heaven, and in garden of Eden.

"Snow falls up" - Jon Snow flying on a dragon.

"The stones crack open" - either Dany's dragons hatching from stone eggs, or people of 7K mining dragonglass from Dragonstone mountain, or the fall of Lannister's castle Casterly Rock, or a feud between Lannisters.

"The fish take wing" - Brynden the Blackfish Tully dying, became an angel, thus took a wing.

"The birds have scales" - members of House Swann from Dornish Marches are Blackfyres, Black dragons.

Spoiler

I have a crazy theory that House Swann are secret Blackfyres. On their sigil there are two swans, black and white. As far as I remember, there's no black swans in Planetos, thus black swan on that sigil isn't real. The real one is the white swan. And the black swan is it's reflection, like reflection in a mirror.

The mirror shows truth. There's also a saying "The eyes are the mirror of the soul and reflect everything that seems to be hidden". If someone cast a spell, and people are deceived by illusion, they can look in a mirror and see what is real, and what is a lie. Vampires don't have reflection because they have no soul, thus mirrors in their place show emptines.

So the meaning of Swann's sigil is that they are Swanns, but at heart they are Blacks (Blackfyres, Black dragons).

Barristan Selmy is also could be a Blackfyre. And fAegon is his son, born by Jeyne Swann.

"The water burns" - could be about wilfire burning Stannis' fleet during Blackwater Bay Battle. Or Aurane Waters is a secret Blackfyre, or Black's supporter. 

"The rain is dry" - something about The Rains of Castamere, about Reynes that were killed by Tywin Lannister. House Reyne became extinct - dry. Or it's about Red Wedding, and also Tullys.

"

A Storm of Swords

"The Rains of Castamere" is featured most prominently during the events of the infamous Red Wedding. The song is the signal for the forces of House Frey and House Bolton to turn on the Starks and Tullys and slaughter them. Lady Catelyn Stark is the only one present who recognizes the tune, but by the time she realizes what is happening, it is already far too late; as the song starts, so does the bloodbath that ends the life of King Robb Stark and the rebellions of the north and the riverlands to the Iron Throne.[3]

The song is played numerous times at the wedding feast of King Joffrey I Baratheon and Queen Margaery Tyrell.

A Feast for Crows

Ser Jaime Lannister has Tom of Sevenstreams play the song to the captive Lord Edmure Tully to remind him what would happen to his family if he does not surrender Riverrun."

 

Or not :)

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15 hours ago, zandru said:

Also, we try not to mix the show and the books in these discussions. Not a criticism; just sayin'!

Which I find somewhat unfortunate. Imho there could be a lot of fun to be had comparing and contrasting the two. Certainly more fun than the Xst "I don't wanna believe that Jon is Rhaegars son!!!!" "Lemontrees in Bravos" and "What do you think of Robert/Rhaegar/Lyanna, please validate my favourite character and bash the others!" thread.

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1 hour ago, Orphalesion said:

Which I find somewhat unfortunate.

You're certainly right there. But them's the rules, unfortunately! Other places encourage comparisons and discussions, as well as having fewer of the repetitive rants -er, discussion threads.

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When i first saw the name of this post. I was hoping it was comparing people to characters on Sunny in Philly like.

Cersi = Sweet D

Jamie = Dennis

Tywin = Franki

Tryion = Charlie

Loras = Mac

The kettlebacks = The McPoole's

I could keep going but maybe other people have noticed similarities.

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11 hours ago, Orphalesion said:

Which I find somewhat unfortunate. Imho there could be a lot of fun to be had comparing and contrasting the two. Certainly more fun than the Xst "I don't wanna believe that Jon is Rhaegars son!!!!" "Lemontrees in Bravos" and "What do you think of Robert/Rhaegar/Lyanna, please validate my favourite character and bash the others!" thread.

 

10 hours ago, zandru said:

You're certainly right there. But them's the rules, unfortunately! Other places encourage comparisons and discussions, as well as having fewer of the repetitive rants -er, discussion threads.

But that's what goes on on the show forum. Right? 

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9 hours ago, Daemon Blackfyre IV said:

I think in the show Bloodraven also says something about under the sea but I forget I'm drunk atm

They also called BR the three-eyed raven instead of the three-eyed crow for some reason.  A difference only book readers would notice.  Basically it's a way to acknowledge that their version of BR is not the same in Martin's story.  But I'm not sure what difference it would make to anyone who didn't know the difference.  Does he even call himself Bloodraven in the show?  Perhaps it's too confusing to then say he's the three-eyed crow.  

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Honestly, I think that entire line is a reference to 'The Little Mermaid'. I assume you recall the song of the crab from that movie?

George points towards that movie in the witch Ursula Upcliff in TWoIaF.

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Honestly, I think that entire line is a reference to 'The Little Mermaid'. I assume you recall the song of the crab from that movie?

George points towards that movie in the witch Ursula Upcliff in TWoIaF.

I didn't know the song was sung by a crab; perhaps it's in homage to the song that the singer Patchface has a crablike sideways gait?

Quote

Behind her, shuffling and hopping in that queer sideways walk of his, came her fool. On his head was a mock helm fashioned from an old tin bucket, with a rack of deer antlers strapped to the crown and hung with cowbells. With his every lurching step, the bells rang, each with a different voice, clang-a-dang bong-dong ring-a-ling clong clong clong.

ACOK -- Prologue

In turn, the song sung to Ariel the mermaid is a reference to 'Ariel's Song' from Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' (you may even recognize hints of Patchface's doomsday bells a-clang-a-langing...):

 

Full fathom five thy father lies; 
              Of his bones are coral made; 
    Those are pearls that were his eyes: 
              Nothing of him that doth fade, 
    But doth suffer a sea-change 
    Into something rich and strange. 
    Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: 
                              Ding-dong. 

    Hark! now I hear them—Ding-dong, bell.

 

Here, Ariel is singing about Ferdinand's father in the underworld, after he is presumed to have drowned due to a shipwreck.  Unbeknownst to the assembled party at that point, he is not actually dead, having survived the shipwreck and only 'suffered a sea-change.'  Likewise, the greenseers Bloodraven and Bran who are both presumed to be dead are not actually dead, or perhaps linger in a nebulous region between life and death, having only 'suffered the sea see-change' of greenseer transformation.  We can then think of the realm north of the magical boundary of the Wall as being 'under the sea', and all of Patchface's ditties as prophetic utterances, given the insinuation that he has tapped into the weirnet, i.e. 'under the sea', in order to glimpse this 'terrible knowledge'.

 

12 hours ago, Daemon Blackfyre IV said:

I think in the show Bloodraven also says something about under the sea

Great catch!  Sometimes D&D do actually 'get' GRRM's symbolism.  Significantly, the quote you mention is in the 'Home' episode which sets the stage for the beautiful 'Hold The Door' episode, which the D's left to their own devices could never have written by themselves, so I'm assuming GRRM let them in on a few trade secrets. 

In a nutshell, what one has to grasp is this:

GREEN SEA = GREEN SEE

He says: 'It is beautiful beneath the sea, but if you stay too long you'll drown...' referring to lingering too long in the weirnet. 

2:28...

Spoiler

 

 

'Summer under the sea' is about overindulging virtual fantasies without sufficiently checking back with and securely tethering oneself to 'reality.'  When Bran skinchanges Summer, it's literally and figuratively 'Summer under the sea'.  Repeatedly, he has to be called back by his mentors from 'drowning' in the experience.  Likewise, getting lost in a 'greenseeing trip' -- a 'sea/see voyage' which is essentially skinchanging a tree (bark/barque) -- is equally hazardous:

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ASOS -- Bran I

Prince. The man-sound came into his head suddenly, yet he could feel the rightness of it. Prince of the green, prince of the wolfswood. He was strong and swift and fierce, and all that lived in the good green world went in fear of him.

...

<snip>

...

He was very hungry now, and the prey was his.

"Hodor."

The sudden sound made him stop and snarl. The wolves regarded him with green and yellow eyes, bright with the last light of day. None of them had heard it. It was a queer wind that blew only in his ears. He buried his jaws in the deer's belly and tore off a mouthful of flesh.

"Hodor, hodor."

No, he thought. No, I won't. It was a boy's thought, not a direwolf's. The woods were darkening all about him, until only the shadows of the trees remained, and the glow of his cousins' eyes. And through those and behind those eyes, he saw a big man's grinning face, and a stone vault whose walls were spotted with niter. The rich warm taste of blood faded on his tongue. No, don't, don't, I want to eat, I want to, I want . . .

"Hodor, hodor, hodor, hodor, hodor," Hodor chanted as he shook him softly by the shoulders, back and forth and back and forth. He was trying to be gentle, he always tried, but Hodor was seven feet tall and stronger than he knew, and his huge hands rattled Bran's teeth together. "NO!" he shouted angrily. "Hodor, leave off, I'm here, I'm here."

Hodor stopped, looking abashed. "Hodor?"

The woods and wolves were gone. Bran was back again, down in the damp vault of some ancient watchtower that must have been abandoned thousands of years before. It wasn't much of a tower now. Even the tumbled stones were so overgrown with moss and ivy that you could hardly see them until you were right on top of them. "Tumbledown Tower", Bran had named the place; it was Meera who found the way down into the vault, however.

"You were gone too long." Jojen Reed was thirteen, only four years older than Bran. Jojen wasn't much bigger either, no more than two inches or maybe three, but he had a solemn way of talking that made him seem older and wiser than he really was. At Winterfell, Old Nan had dubbed him "little grandfather."

Bran frowned at him. "I wanted to eat."

"Meera will be back soon with supper."

"I'm sick of frogs." Meera was a frogeater from the Neck, so Bran couldn't really blame her for catching so many frogs, he supposed, but even so . . . "I wanted to eat the deer." For a moment he remembered the taste of it, the blood and the raw rich meat, and his mouth watered. I won the fight for it. I won.

"Did you mark the trees?"

Bran flushed. Jojen was always telling him to do things when he opened his third eye and put on Summer's skin. To claw the bark of a tree, to catch a rabbit and bring it back in his jaws uneaten, to push some rocks in a line. Stupid things. "I forgot," he said.

"You always forget."

It was true. He meant to do the things that Jojen asked, but once he was a wolf they never seemed important. There were always things to see and things to smell, a whole green world to hunt. And he could run! There was nothing better than running, unless it was running after prey. "I was a prince, Jojen," he told the older boy. "I was the prince of the woods."

"You are a prince," Jojen reminded him softly. "You remember, don't you? Tell me who you are."

"You know." Jojen was his friend and his teacher, but sometimes Bran just wanted to hit him.

"I want you to say the words. Tell me who you are."

"Bran," he said sullenly. Bran the Broken. "Brandon Stark." The cripple boy. "The Prince of Winterfell." Of Winterfell burned and tumbled, its people scattered and slain. The glass gardens were smashed, and hot water gushed from the cracked walls to steam beneath the sun. How can you be the prince of someplace you might never see again?

"And who is Summer?" Jojen prompted.

"My direwolf." He smiled. "Prince of the green."

"Bran the boy and Summer the wolf. You are two, then?"

"Two," he sighed, "and one." He hated Jojen when he got stupid like this. At Winterfell he wanted me to dream my wolf dreams, and now that I know how he's always calling me back.

"Remember that, Bran. Remember yourself, or the wolf will consume you.

 

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Bran I

Even when he went outside they could hear him through the walls, bellowing "HODOR!" as he cut and slashed at his tree. Thankfully the wolfswood was huge, and there was not like to be anyone else around to hear.

"Jojen, what did you mean about a teacher?" Bran asked. "You're my teacher. I know I never marked the tree, but I will the next time. My third eye is open like you wanted . . ."

"So wide open that I fear you may fall through it, and live all the rest of your days as a wolf of the woods."

'Falling through the third eye' reminds me of drowning in a well!

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A Dance with Dragons - Prologue

"Some skins you never want to wear, boy. You won't like what you'd become." Birds were the worst, to hear him tell it. "Men were not meant to leave the earth. Spend too much time in the clouds and you never want to come back down again. I know skinchangers who've tried hawks, owls, ravens. Even in their own skins, they sit moony, staring up at the bloody blue."

The 'bloody blue' could equally refer to a sea as well as a sky.

Remaining 'under the sea' without resurfacing timeously (i.e. 'drowning', figuratively) is about what happens when you 'hold the door' open too long; in other words, what ensues when your 'third eye' stays open for a prolonged time.  

Despite the risks, the sea or 'see' of the weirwood net is very attractive, providing an escape from everyday life and a refuge from inconveniences like death.  With it's highs and lows and altered consciousness, entering the 'net' is a bit like drug addiction -- hence GRRM's copious references to mind-altering substances 'opening the doors of perception', to quote Aldous Huxley, including dubious concoctions such as the weirwood bowl/bole, shade of the evening, the 100 species of mushrooms ;) under the hill, and 'silver seaweed' ('see-weed,' get it?!).  In this vein, GRRM also refers to opioids by directly quoting a line from Coleridge's poem 'Kubla Khan,' famously written while the poet was still under the influence of what GRRM would call 'milk of the poppy' -- 'down to a sunless sea' (which, however, is no longer 'sunless' nor indeed 'son-less,' now that Bran the son of Winterfell, sunny summer child with Summer wolf, is down there).  Thus, 'summer under the sea' refers to the immortality afforded by the weirwood collective, a place where winter cannot touch you and therefore where death has no dominion.  Winter fell, because the greenseers of Winterfell felled it!   

Importantly, the realm of 'summer under the sea,' as is the case with all drug addictions, is not only an 'abomination', it's a delusion (by reason of 'valar morghulis', etc.).  By the end of the novels, I expect Bran to grow up and dismantle this delusion, i.e. he will destroy the weirnet, and himself along with it, given that he is inextricably tied to it.  (Actually -- what I really expect is that GRRM will never finish these novels, because he abhors tying up loose ends and secretly enjoys living in -- and reciprocally leaving us in -- a state of perpetual 'under the sea'...This state of equivocal unknowingness of course leaves us 'all at sea,' but that's just the way he rolls, folks! :P)

Quote

A Feast for Crows - The Drowned Man

Aeron knew some Farwynds, a queer folk who held lands on the westernmost shores of Great Wyk and the scattered isles beyond, rocks so small that most could support but a single household. Of those, the Lonely Light was the most distant, eight days' sail to the northwest amongst rookeries of seals and sea lions and the boundless grey oceans. The Farwynds there were even queerer than the rest. Some said they were skinchangers, unholy creatures who could take on the forms of sea lions, walruses, even spotted whales, the wolves of the wild sea.

Lord Gylbert began to speak. He told of a wondrous land beyond the Sunset Sea, a land without winter or want, where death had no dominion. "Make me your king, and I shall lead you there," he cried. "We will build ten thousand ships as Nymeria once did and take sail with all our people to the land beyond the sunset. There every man shall be a king and every wife a queen."

His eyes, Aeron saw, were now grey, now blue, as changeable as the seas. Mad eyes, he thought, fool's eyes. The vision he spoke of was doubtless a snare set by the Storm God to lure the ironborn to destruction. 

 

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A Dance with Dragons - Bran II

"Looks," the ranger muttered darkly. "Can you feel the cold? There's something here. Where are they?"

"Inside the cave?" suggested Meera.

"The cave is warded. They cannot pass." The ranger used his sword to point. "You can see the entrance there. Halfway up, between the weirwoods, that cleft in the rock."

 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

After the bone-grinding cold of the lands beyond the Wall, the caves were blessedly warm, and when the chill crept out of the rock the singers would light fires to drive it off again. Down here there was no wind, no snow, no ice, no dead things reaching out to grab you, only dreams and rushlight and the kisses of the ravens. And the whisperer in darkness.

 

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Prologue

The young knight turned back to his grizzled man-at-arms. Frost-fallen leaves whispered past them, and Royce's destrier moved restlessly. "What do you think might have killed these men, Gared?" Ser Waymar asked casually. He adjusted the drape of his long sable cloak.

"It was the cold," Gared said with iron certainty. "I saw men freeze last winter, and the one before, when I was half a boy. Everyone talks about snows forty foot deep, and how the ice wind comes howling out of the north, but the real enemy is the cold. It steals up on you quieter than Will, and at first you shiver and your teeth chatter and you stamp your feet and dream of mulled wine and nice hot fires. It burns, it does. Nothing burns like the cold. But only for a while. Then it gets inside you and starts to fill you up, and after a while you don't have the strength to fight it. It's easier just to sit down or go to sleep. They say you don't feel any pain toward the end. First you go weak and drowsy, and everything starts to fade, and then it's like sinking into a sea of warm milk. Peaceful, like."

"Such eloquence, Gared," Ser Waymar observed. "I never suspected you had it in you."

 

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A Clash of Kings - Catelyn II

They are still unblooded, Catelyn thought as she watched Lord Bryce goad Ser Robar into juggling a brace of daggers. It is all a game to them still, a tourney writ large, and all they see is the chance for glory and honor and spoils. They are boys drunk on song and story, and like all boys, they think themselves immortal.

"War will make them old," Catelyn said, "as it did us." She had been a girl when Robert and Ned and Jon Arryn raised their banners against Aerys Targaryen, a woman by the time the fighting was done. "I pity them."

"Why?" Lord Rowan asked her. "Look at them. They're young and strong, full of life and laughter. And lust, aye, more lust than they know what to do with. There will be many a bastard bred this night, I promise you. Why pity?"

"Because it will not last," Catelyn answered, sadly. "Because they are the knights of summer, and winter is coming."

"Lady Catelyn, you are wrong." Brienne regarded her with eyes as blue as her armor. "Winter will never come for the likes of us. Should we die in battle, they will surely sing of us, and it's always summer in the songs. In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining."

Winter comes for all of us, Catelyn thought. For me, it came when Ned died. It will come for you too, child, and sooner than you like. She did not have the heart to say it.

'It's always summer in the songs' is an echo of 'It's always summer under the sea'.  The 'songs' of the weirnet, sung by the sirens as it were, lull the greenseer into a false sense of complacency:

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

"Some books. I like the fighting stories. My sister Sansa likes the kissing stories, but those are stupid."

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies," said Jojen. "The man who never reads lives only one. The singers of the forest had no books. No ink, no parchment, no written language. Instead they had the trees, and the weirwoods above all. When they died, they went into the wood, into leaf and limb and root, and the trees remembered. All their songs and spells, their histories and prayers, everything they knew about this world. Maesters will tell you that the weirwoods are sacred to the old gods. The singers believe they are the old gods. When singers die they become part of that godhood."

Bran's eyes widened. "They're going to kill me?"

 

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ADWD -- Bran III

That was just another silly dream, though. Some days Bran wondered if all of this wasn't just some dream. Maybe he had fallen asleep out in the snows and dreamed himself a safe, warm place. You have to wake, he would tell himself, you have to wake right now, or you'll go dreaming into death. Once or twice he pinched his arm with his fingers, really hard, but the only thing that did was make his arm hurt. In the beginning he had tried to count the days by making note of when he woke and slept, but down here sleeping and waking had a way of melting into one another. Dreams became lessons, lessons became dreams, things happened all at once or not at all. Had he done that or only dreamed it?

 

The sleeper must awaken...

 

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