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Greenseers in Valyria


Alabastur

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The Old Gods. The children of the forest. The singers of the song of earth. Greenseers.

The beliefs they espouse are strikingly similar to those of Boash the Blind God, a religion that originated in Valyria.

Here is what the worshippers of Boash believe:

Their eunuch priests wore eyeless hoods in honor of their god; only in darkness, they believed, would their third eye open, allowing them to see the "higher truths" of creation that lay concealed behind the world's illusions.

Third eyes opening in darkness are only mentioned in Bran chapters:

Bran looked at the crow on his shoulder, and the crow looked back. It had three eyes, and the third eye was full of a terrible knowledge.

When he was alone, Bran tried to open his third eye, but he didn't know how.

He closed his third eye and opened the other two, the old two, the blind two. In the dark place all men were blind.

Here in the chill damp darkness of the tomb his third eye had finally opened. He could reach Summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon.

"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 . . ."

Bran even thinks that, in the dark place all men are blind. Boash is called the Blind God, and all his followers wear eyeless hoods because they believe only in darkness their third eye can open.


The similarities do not stop there. What Jojen says:

"No," said Jojen, "only a boy who dreams. The greenseers were more than that. They were wargs as well, as you are, and the greatest of them could wear the skins of any beast that flies or swims or crawls, and could look through the eyes of the weirwoods as well, and see the truth that lies beneath the world.

Greenseers could see the truth that lies beneath the world. What the followers of Boash believe:

Their eunuch priests wore eyeless hoods in honor of their god; only in darkness, they believed, would their third eye open, allowing them to see the "higher truths" of creation that lay concealed behind the world's illusions.


Again, doesn't stop there. Jojen again:

"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."

What the followers of Boash believe:

An essential part of their doctrine was an extreme abnegation of self; only by freeing themselves of human vanity could men hope to become one with the godhood. Accordingly, the Boash'i put aside even their own names, and spoke of themselves as "a man" or "a woman" rather than say "I" or "me" or "mine."


Even then, the Boash believe that all life does not end, it is eternal, like the children who live on in the trees:

The worshippers of Boash believed that all life was sacred and eternal; that men and women were equal; that lords and peasants, rich and poor, slave and master, man and beast were all alike, all equally worthy, all creatures of god.

Jojen again, on the children of the forest and their eternal lives:

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.

As I said before, the followers of Boash came from Valyria. It doesn't explictly say that the religion originated there, but they are mentioned coming from nowhere else.

Either way, Boash seems to be inspired by the old gods of the children of the forest, meaning the dead children who live on in the trees and the earth. If that is the case, then the children of the forest had a presence of sorts in Valyria.

But what do you all think? Just a coincidence that this religion from Valyria espouses the same beliefs that are actual realities to the children of the forest?

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16 hours ago, Moiraine Sedai said:

The Valyrians had Dreamers.  The FM and the CotF had greenseers.  Both have the same abilities but use different tools.  The common link is dreaming.  

Actually very wrong. Dreamers just receive visions in dreams, greenseers come into people's dreams but choose to see the past or future through weirwoods: 

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"I have been many things, Bran. Now I am as you see me, and now you will understand why I could not come to you … except in dreams. 

 

If you want to compare abilities, you compare those who wielded glass candles and greenseers: 

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This is not to say that the greenseers did not know lost arts that belong to the higher mysteries, such as seeing events at a great distance or communicating across half a realm (as the Valyrians, who came long after them, did).

- The World of Ice and Fire

 

The book literally compares greenseers with those who wielded glass candles right there, as this is what is said of glass candles: 

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Marwyn seated himself upon a stool. "All Valyrian sorcery was rooted in blood or fire. The sorcerers of the Freehold could see across mountains, seas, and deserts with one of these glass candles. They could enter a man's dreams and give him visions, and speak to one another half a world apart, seated before their candles. 

Dreamers just receive, greenseers and glass candle users send.  

Even then, you're gonna have to explain the coincidence of these Boash followers believing in third eyes opening in darkness like greenseers, and believing in becoming "one with godhood" like the children going into the trees becoming one with the old gods. 

Actually, you're also gonna have to put forth an argument that these Boash followers had any sort of dreamers... which there seems to be no evidence of.  Even then, if they were dreamers, they should have been higher integrated into the upper echelons of Valyrian society if they were their revered version of greenseers. Yet they left Valyria for Lorath.

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And the FM in Braavos induce blindness as part of their training. The FM who started out in Valyria.

Greenseeing is earth-based. The Valyrian version would be redseeing and based in fire. Remember what Mel said about shadows being impossible without light. Fire and light are the same thing, and just as the wights can be killed with fire, the Others never appear in daylight.  Ice/Blue and Fire/Red are extremes, and Earth/Green is in the middle.

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