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Heresy 204; of cabbages, prophecies and kings


Black Crow

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1 hour ago, JNR said:

Yes, if the narrative was false, it's virtually beyond doubt to me that Rhaegar did allow that narrative to go unchecked.  

Because if he had denied it, that denial could only have happened in the relatively short time between his return "from the south," and his death at the Trident.  

So Selmy -- who was also in King's Landing then and in the same circles as Rhaegar, as a Kingsguard -- surely would have heard.  And we would not find him thinking what he does in ADWD on this subject, with no qualifications or doubts in his mind.

Well, we know, for sure, that GRRM has incorporated certain planned mysteries, and their planned revelations, because he's said this outright many times in many interviews and SSMs.  

For instance, in stating in 2013 that he had a revelation planned for book six, and that one or two people as far back in the nineties had guessed it.

He's backed up this kind of thinking up in slightly subtler ways with remarks like this:

Those hints and that foreshadowing don't design and write themselves.  They must be planned and deliberately incorporated into the canon.

So there is really zero doubt to me that there are fixed solutions to specific mysteries and it makes perfect sense to try to work them out in advance.  It's only a question of which mysteries they are.  The fans often focus on things that may never be revealed, or really may not even be mysteries at all.

Jon's parentage is, we know, one such planned mystery with a planned revelation.  We know this because it's not known to Jon right now and yet GRRM said in a Barnes & Noble interview that Jon would eventually learn who his parents (plural) were.

I think there are several others of comparable complexity and sophistication, and greater importance to the plot, and these have gone woefully underanalyzed by the fans.  But I also have no particular reason to think revelations are coming in the next book; we'll see.

Hopefully this won't get me banned for referring to the mummer's show, but I found this interview from those two HBO hacks interesting:

Spoiler

Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss recently told Entertainment Weekly that during a 2013 meeting with Martin, they learned about “three holy shmoments” the Song of Ice and Fire author intended to include in his series — two of which have already happened.

The first took place in the ninth episode of season five, when Stannis agreed to allow Melisandre to burn his daughter Shireen. The second was, of course, the revelation in Sunday’s episode that Bran Stark was the cause of both Hodor’s condition and death. And the third? Well, the third, “is from the very end,” Benioff told EW.

Spoiler

interesting that they refer to the third holy shit moment to occur at the very end, when supposedly reveal Jon's parentage in the penultimate season as opposed to the very end.

 

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4 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

Hopefully this won't get me banned for referring to the mummer's show, but I found this interview from those two HBO hacks interesting:

  Hide contents

Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss recently told Entertainment Weekly that during a 2013 meeting with Martin, they learned about “three holy shmoments” the Song of Ice and Fire author intended to include in his series — two of which have already happened.

The first took place in the ninth episode of season five, when Stannis agreed to allow Melisandre to burn his daughter Shireen. The second was, of course, the revelation in Sunday’s episode that Bran Stark was the cause of both Hodor’s condition and death. And the third? Well, the third, “is from the very end,” Benioff told EW.

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interesting that they refer to the third holy shit moment to occur at the very end, when supposedly reveal Jon's parentage in the penultimate season as opposed to the very end.

 

It may be the reason they skipped 2018 also. Can we hope against hope it's to give the author more time?

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25 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

Hopefully this won't get me banned for referring to the mummer's show, but I found this interview from those two HBO hacks interesting:

  Hide contents

Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss recently told Entertainment Weekly that during a 2013 meeting with Martin, they learned about “three holy shmoments” the Song of Ice and Fire author intended to include in his series — two of which have already happened.

The first took place in the ninth episode of season five, when Stannis agreed to allow Melisandre to burn his daughter Shireen. The second was, of course, the revelation in Sunday’s episode that Bran Stark was the cause of both Hodor’s condition and death. And the third? Well, the third, “is from the very end,” Benioff told EW.

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interesting that they refer to the third holy shit moment to occur at the very end, when supposedly reveal Jon's parentage in the penultimate season as opposed to the very end.

 

I'm guessing the third holy shit moment is the death and possible resurrection of a dragon.  LOL  Because to be a holy shit moment, it has to be something that nobody is expecting.  That reveal came at the last scene of the last S7 episode.  Victarion and Moqorro plan to steal a dragon.  It makes sense that they would kill the other one because the whole Night's King story is complete baloney.  RLJ just isn't a holy shit moment.

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5 minutes ago, LynnS said:

I'm guessing the third holy shit moment is the death and possible resurrection of a dragon.  LOL  Because to be a holy shit moment, it has to be something that nobody is expecting.  That reveal came at the last scene of the last S7 episode.  Victarion and Moqorro plan to steal a dragon.  It makes sense that they would kill the other one because the whole Night's King story is complete baloney.  RLJ just isn't a holy shit moment.

 

I guess that's debatable if RLJ turns out to not be true and that it would not be considered "holy shit" by D & D , but we've already seen the ice dragon already and there's a whole season left.  Maybe the promised "bittersweet" ending is the "holy shit"?

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9 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

 

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I guess that's debatable if RLJ turns out to not be true and that it would not be considered "holy shit" by D & D , but we've already seen the ice dragon already and there's a whole season left.  Maybe the promised "bittersweet" ending is the "holy shit"?

 

 

Spoiler

I don't think we're talking about an ice dragon.  I just finished watching S7 and I take D&D comment that the holy shit moment happens at the very end to literally mean the very last scene. There would be no surprise to RLJ.  But once again RLJ distracts from the real holy shit moment.  Nobody was expecting a dragon to die.  Most readers still don't think a dragon will die and there will be 3 dragons riders.  If D&D know anything about it at all, they are likely to change the character from Victarion to the Night King; just as they have done with several other characters; including the three-eyed raven.  You know these things aren't going to go down the same way in the books.  RLJ is a that's what the fans want to see moment, they've been talking about it for years, let's use their fan fiction including the marriage annulment, call him Aegon Targaryen and put Lyanna in the tower of joy giving birth to Jon.  It would only be a holy shit moment for the fans who came up with the fan fiction.

 

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22 minutes ago, LynnS said:

...  RLJ just isn't a holy shit moment.

I think that's been true for a long time, in fact from the very beginning. GRRM alludes to the mystery of Jon Snow's parentage in the synopsis of course, but it reads as a very low key moment. Whether or not he ever gets inside Arya's knickers [or Sansa's for that matter], that was the only import in the synopsis. Resolution of this mess was to be achieved by the Starks and the Lannisters working together, not by the revelation of a lost King.

Exactly what the last revelation might be remains to be seen, although clearly its not R+L=J, but something quite different

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What I would also suggest, is that GRRM far from trolling his readers has been wide open about this. He has consistently spoken of avoiding the cliched old tropes, and he has very explicitly warned both in text and SSMs of the unreliability of prophecy

So what happens in the books? First we're told Lyanna was kidnapped and raped by Rhaegar; then we're presented both with an alternative version and some fragmentary prophecies of a hero who will arise. Both are immediately seized upon and conjoined to create R+L=Azor Ahai, a champion embodying both Ice and Fire. Hurrah! Except the return of the king trope and literal fulfillment of prophecy are exactly what GRRM has publically disavowed.

As it happens, I'm comfortable these days with the theory that R+L=J may be true, but that we aren't going to get the hero of prophecy

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2 hours ago, JNR said:

So there is really zero doubt to me that there are fixed solutions to specific mysteries and it makes perfect sense to try to work them out in advance.

I don't doubt this, and I would also designate Jon's parentage as something that is extraordinarily unlikely to change.

Nonetheless, I don't have a great deal of confidence in GRRM's restraint, and I don't believe that there is anything, from his perspective, that is too big to change--only things that are too well-established to change; he won't contradict himself, and he won't write something if he feels it does not follow organically on what has come before, but I do think he has some wiggle room on some of the big mysteries.

That's not especially worrying as relates to solving the mysteries, its worrying in terms of his sluggish writing progress--using TWOW as an example, if he has already written a revelation and its fallout, and suddenly has the inspiration that he wants to do an altered 'take' (the way it is revealed, its place in the chronology, even the content if he thinks he can get away with it, etc.) on said revelation, he might re-write wide swathes of the book to accommodate his latest whimsy. I believe that Ty said as much about GRRM's process from his time as GRRM's assistant; what's killing the pace isn't writer's block, but endless rewrites.

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27 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

I think that's been true for a long time, in fact from the very beginning. GRRM alludes to the mystery of Jon Snow's parentage in the synopsis of course, but it reads as a very low key moment. Whether or not he ever gets inside Arya's knickers [or Sansa's for that matter], that was the only import in the synopsis. Resolution of this mess was to be achieved by the Starks and the Lannisters working together, not by the revelation of a lost King.

Exactly what the last revelation might be remains to be seen, although clearly its not R+L=J, but something quite different

I think the holy shit moment for D&D amounts to their cliffhanger moment; the dragon is resurrected and breaches the Wall.  But that is specifically where they are taking the dead dragon story.  Also didn't GRRM say that someone figured out that Hodor meant hold the door in 2013?

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1 hour ago, Matthew. said:

That's not especially worrying as relates to solving the mysteries, its worrying in terms of his sluggish writing progress--using TWOW as an example, if he has already written a revelation and its fallout, and suddenly has the inspiration that he wants to do an altered 'take' (the way it is revealed, its place in the chronology, even the content if he thinks he can get away with it, etc.) on said revelation, he might re-write wide swathes of the book to accommodate his latest whimsy. I believe that Ty said as much about GRRM's process from his time as GRRM's assistant; what's killing the pace isn't writer's block, but endless rewrites.

I agree.  I can see GRRM doing rewrite after rewrite and changing things up.  I can also see the story getting too big for him again.

"I don't consider A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE a series either; it's one single story, being published in (we hope) seven volumes."

https://grrm.livejournal.com/

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1 hour ago, LynnS said:

I agree.  I can see GRRM doing rewrite after rewrite and changing things up.  I can also see the story getting too big for him again.

"I don't consider A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE a series either; it's one single story, being published in (we hope) seven volumes."

https://grrm.livejournal.com/

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Month/2005/10

He delayed publishing to make 5 year gap work.

 

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2 hours ago, LynnS said:

I think the holy shit moment for D&D amounts to their cliffhanger moment

At this point given what they've done with the plot, the only acceptable "holy shit" moment for me will be the complete obliteration of the continent of Westeros by a sudden eruption of a massive supervolcano.  

"All hail King Jon and Queen Daenerys Targaryen, First of their Names, rightful rulers of Meereen and the North, the Andals and the Rhoynar and the Fir....."

*rumble* *rumble*  *BOOM*

 

 

This expectation goes double should what they've done with the plot turns out to hold true to the books, too.    If that is the case, all of Westeros must sink into the sea in cataclysmic fiery doom.

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Something caught my eye when I was rereading the Prologue of DwD.  There seems to be a difference between Varamyr's warg experience  and Jon's wolf dreams as well as Bran's experience warging Summer.  In Jon's wolf dreams he is a passive participant. Bran is less passive but warging only one animal.  All three experience the world through the thought processes and senses of the wolves; except that Varamyr also looks through the eyes of his pack mates and commands the wolf with a small voice separate from within.  He sees through the eyes of his pack mates but doesn't skinchange them or control them.  They follow the pack leader.

Quote

 

A Dance with Dragons - Prologue

The night was rank with the smell of man.

The warg stopped beneath a tree and sniffed, his grey-brown fur dappled by shadow. A sigh of piney wind brought the man-scent to him, over fainter smells that spoke of fox and hare, seal and stag, even wolf. Those were man-smells too, the warg knew; the stink of old skins, dead and sour, near drowned beneath the stronger scents of smoke and blood and rot. Only man stripped the skins from other beasts and wore their hides and hair.

Wargs have no fear of man, as wolves do. Hate and hunger coiled in his belly, and he gave a low growl, calling to his one-eyed brother, to his small sly sister. As he raced through the trees, his packmates followed hard on his heels. They had caught the scent as well. As he ran, he saw through their eyes too and glimpsed himself ahead. The breath of the pack puffed warm and white from long grey jaws. Ice had frozen between their paws, hard as stone, but the hunt was on now, the prey ahead. Flesh, the warg thought, meat.

A man alone was a feeble thing. Big and strong, with good sharp eyes, but dull of ear and deaf to smells. Deer and elk and even hares were faster, bears and boars fiercer in a fight. But men in packs were dangerous. As the wolves closed on the prey, the warg heard the wailing of a pup, the crust of last night's snow breaking under clumsy man-paws, the rattle of hardskins and the long grey claws men carried.

Swords, a voice inside him whispered, spears.

The trees had grown icy teeth, snarling down from the bare brown branches. One Eye ripped through the undergrowth, spraying snow. His packmates followed. Up a hill and down the slope beyond, until the wood opened before them and the men were there. One was female. The fur-wrapped bundle she clutched was her pup. Leave her for last, the voice whispered, the males are the danger. They were roaring at each other as men did, but the warg could smell their terror. One had a wooden tooth as tall as he was. He flung it, but his hand was shaking and the tooth sailed high.

It seems that Varamyr's experience as a warg/wolf is dominant; another part of himself directs the wolf separately.  He can see through the  eyes of his pack mates; they follow the pack leader without the need to be controlled through skinchanging.  The wolves are drawn to the smell of blood.

I wonder if we are being shown something about the wights and how they are controlled.  Perhaps even how Othor and Jafr were controlled.

If only one in a thousand can be a skinchanger/warg and of those one in a thousand are greenseers; how many pairs of eyes can a greenseer see through and how many skins can be controlled at one time?

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

"I thought the greenseers were the wizards of the children," Bran said. "The singers, I mean."

"In a sense. Those you call the children of the forest have eyes as golden as the sun, but once in a great while one is born amongst them with eyes as red as blood, or green as the moss on a tree in the heart of the forest. By these signs do the gods mark those they have chosen to receive the gift. The chosen ones are not robust, and their quick years upon the earth are few, for every song must have its balance. But once inside the wood they linger long indeed. A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. Greenseers."

 

 

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24 minutes ago, PrettyPig said:

At this point given what they've done with the plot, the only acceptable "holy shit" moment for me will be the complete obliteration of the continent of Westeros by a sudden eruption of a massive supervolcano.  

"All hail King Jon and Queen Daenerys Targaryen, First of their Names, rightful rulers of Meereen and the North, the Andals and the Rhoynar and the Fir....."

*rumble* *rumble*  *BOOM*

This expectation goes double should what they've done with the plot turns out to hold true to the books, too.    If that is the case, all of Westeros must sink into the sea in cataclysmic fiery doom.

LOL!  They'd have to run as fast as Gendry to get away in time.

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4 hours ago, LynnS said:

I'm guessing the third holy shit moment is the death and possible resurrection of a dragon.

I think this is pretty close, actually. That is... I'm pretty sure

Spoiler

Dany dies

Though I also think this doesn't happen the same way in the books at all.  Just like the other two supposed "revelations."

3 hours ago, Black Crow said:

What I would also suggest, is that GRRM far from trolling his readers has been wide open about this.

:agree:

23 minutes ago, PrettyPig said:

the only acceptable "holy shit" moment for me will be the complete obliteration of the continent of Westeros by a sudden eruption of a massive supervolcano

Well, of course I fell in love with that immediately... but I would also settle for 

1) The continent of Westeros being consumed by a giant whirlpool... then the camera pulls back, and you realize the show is being literally flushed down a cosmic toilet, which carries certain implications for its quality in recent years

2) The continent of Westeros is flattened under the stamp of a cosmic shoe... then the camera pulls back, and you realize the shoe is on the end of the leg of a cosmic being -- a vast man with a white beard who is wearing suspenders and a cap and a smirk

3) Klingons! Dinosaurs!  Cowboys!  Homer Simpson!  ...because why not, at this point.

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11 minutes ago, JNR said:

2) The continent of Westeros is flattened under the stamp of a cosmic shoe... then the camera pulls back, and you realize the shoe is on the end of the leg of a cosmic being -- a vast man with a white beard who is wearing suspenders and a cap and a smirk

It's been done.

 

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5 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

Hopefully this won't get me banned for referring to the mummer's show, but I found this interview from those two HBO hacks interesting:

  Hide contents

Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss recently told Entertainment Weekly that during a 2013 meeting with Martin, they learned about “three holy shmoments” the Song of Ice and Fire author intended to include in his series — two of which have already happened.

The first took place in the ninth episode of season five, when Stannis agreed to allow Melisandre to burn his daughter Shireen. The second was, of course, the revelation in Sunday’s episode that Bran Stark was the cause of both Hodor’s condition and death. And the third? Well, the third, “is from the very end,” Benioff told EW.

  Hide contents

interesting that they refer to the third holy shit moment to occur at the very end, when supposedly reveal Jon's parentage in the penultimate season as opposed to the very end.

 

GRRM has talked about Gandalf coming back from the dead, and how wrong it was he was unchanged.   He's hinted Lady Stoneheart is foreshadowing.   An important character is going to die and come back, and I think the third holy-shit moment is when people realize they aren't Gandalf the White.  

I am convinced D&D believe L+R=J and the mummers version loses something if they try to back track.  That doesn't GRRM isn't planning a twist, just that the twist isn't central to the mummers version and like so many other things, simplified to fit the plot in 6 more episodes.  

A twist on L+R=J isn't a holy shit moment.  If it looks obvious in a murder mystery that the Butler is the killer, and we know the time will come when we find out if he is or not, we expect that, so neither answer can be that big a surprise.  If anything, the obvious mystery is there to focus on while the author sets up the big surprise with something else.

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2 hours ago, LynnS said:

Something caught my eye when I was rereading the Prologue of DwD.  There seems to be a difference between Varamyr's warg experience  and Jon's wolf dreams as well as Bran's experience warging Summer.  In Jon's wolf dreams he is a passive participant. Bran is less passive but warging only one animal.  All three experience the world through the thought processes and senses of the wolves; except that Varamyr also looks through the eyes of his pack mates and commands the wolf with a small voice separate from within.  He sees through the eyes of his pack mates but doesn't skinchange them or control them.  They follow the pack leader.

It seems that Varamyr's experience as a warg/wolf is dominant; another part of himself directs the wolf separately.  He can see through the  eyes of his pack mates; they follow the pack leader without the need to be controlled through skinchanging.  The wolves are drawn to the smell of blood.

I wonder if we are being shown something about the wights and how they are controlled.  Perhaps even how Othor and Jafr were controlled.

If only one in a thousand can be a skinchanger/warg and of those one in a thousand are greenseers; how many pairs of eyes can a greenseer see through and how many skins can be controlled at one time?

 

 

Unless I misunderstand what you're asking - the answer is Varamyr's third eye is open. He can open his third eye at will while none of the Starks, other than Bran, have figured out to do that. Bran learns how to open his third eye while in the crypts hiding from Theon. It is the difference between passive and active skinchanging. 

When Varamyr's spirit goes inside One Eye, he is now experiencing what One Eye sees and does. Perhaps One Eye is warging the pack and that is why Varamyr experiences it all?

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5 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

When Varamyr's spirit goes inside One Eye, he is now experiencing what One Eye sees and does. Perhaps One Eye is warging the pack and that is why Varamyr experiences it all?

The text is from the very beginning before Varamyr is killed and goes into One Eye.  He's warging One-Eye while Thistle is caring for him and the pack attacks another group of wildlings in another place.  He's isn't warging the other wolves or bending them to his will; but he can see through their eyes.  They follow One-Eye because he is the pack leader on a blood trail.

Varamyr's experience as a warg is described in much the same way as you would expect in Jon or Bran's wolf dreams except for the small voice that tells the warg/wolf what to do rather than follow it's own instincts.

So I wonder if the blue-eyed lot is controlled in a similar manner, acting like a pack on a blood trail following a leader who directs the wights in the same manner as the small voice directs One-Eye.  Something that can also see through the eyes of the pack at the same time.

The wights seem to be mindless responding only to the smell of hot blood and yet Othor and Jafr were on a mission.

At the end of Varamyr's chapter; he watches as the dead are turned to wights and they all turn and look at One-Eye.  His last thought is 'she sees me'.  He's referrring to Thistle, but I wonder if he is referring to whatever is controlling the wights.  If the wights are warged/skinchanged and a skinchanger can recognize another skinchanger inside their host familiar; then is the presence inside Thistle a female?

      

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