Heresy 209 Of Ice and of Fire

[Black Crow]

As I said above Beric is consumed by his orders to bring justice, a process which while laudable in itself was slowly but surely destroying him. Catelyn is consumed by revenge which will eventually destroy her. Coldhands by contrast isn't consumed but is preserved.

[Melifeather]

4 hours ago, Black Crow said:

As I said above Beric is consumed by his orders to bring justice, a process which while laudable in itself was slowly but surely destroying him. Catelyn is consumed by revenge which will eventually destroy her. Coldhands by contrast isn't consumed but is preserved.

I get the “consumed” analogy of Beric’s compulsion to enforce King Robert’s justice, and Lady Stoneheart’s burning desire for revenge, but weren’t Coldhand’s actions against the “bad” Watchmen a desire for justice like Beric’s?

I do acknowledge that Coldhands preserved lives by helping Sam, Gilly, Bran, Hodor, Meera, and Jojen, but in all three undead characters I was expecting the consuming and preserving to be manifested upon them physically.

Your definition of consuming and preserving may not bode well for Jon if Coldhands and Beric are the “noble” examples leaving Lady Stoneheart as Jon’s pairing parallel. Jon’s last thoughts were to rescue his sister and remove the current Lord of Winterfell. Who knows what lengths he’ll go to to preserve the life of his sister.

[Brad Stark]

I don't think the Others have blue eyes.   I think they ARE blue eyes.  We've heard them referred to as mist, and seem to be able to materialize from thin air.  They either follow extreme cold or vice versa.  We know they can do extraordinary things with ice.  I don't think they are beings with slender beautiful bodies, but rather are without bodies and make human like physical forms from ice.  They have the ability to warg into dead bodies,  many at once, and those bodies have the same blue glow as the ice bodies they create. 

I do think the Children created them, probably from sacrificed humans, but not with a dagger in the heart animating a transformed human.  Do you think Crasters sons are dead newborn babies crawling around with daggers in their hearts?  This is a silly idea either made up for the show,  or borrowed from a completely different GRRM story we will learn about later.

[SirArthur]

3 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

I do think the Children created them, probably from sacrificed humans, but not with a dagger in the heart animating a transformed human.  Do you think Crasters sons are dead newborn babies crawling around with daggers in their hearts?  This is a silly idea either made up for the show,  or borrowed from a completely different GRRM story we will learn about later.

From a mirror perspective ... they are like shadows ... only this time dreamed (like Stannis did to control the shadow that killed Renly) by some unknown consciousness, most likely children in their trees. It is rather telling that Asshai by the shadows is to prominent and we know from an interview by GRRM, that the place will (most likely) be explored in memories. This can only mean, it is relevant for the story. 

The show can't do that, as the medium film lacks so many abilities books have. 

On a speculative part: From the description of the shadow that killed Renly and the Others that killed Royce in the prologue: is there any difference when it comes to difficulty of seeing them ? They behave different when it comes to language and abilities, but from the form alone, are they different ?

[Black Crow]

13 minutes ago, SirArthur said:

From a mirror perspective ... they are like shadows ... only this time dreamed (like Stannis did to control the shadow that killed Renly) by some unknown consciousness, most likely children in their trees. It is rather telling that Asshai by the shadows is to prominent and we know from an interview by GRRM, that the place will (most likely) be explored in memories. This can only mean, it is relevant for the story. 

The show can't do that, as the medium film lacks so many abilities books have. 

On a speculative part: From the description of the shadow that killed Renly and the Others that killed Royce in the prologue: is there any difference when it comes to difficulty of seeing them ? They behave different when it comes to language and abilities, but from the form alone, are they different ?

I'd tend to agree and they are in fact referred to a couple of times as shadows or white shadows. Where I think they are different to Mel's Shadows comes back to this business of Fire consuming. Mel drew out a part of Stannis life force to create a black smoke-like shadow which was soon consumed. The white shadows are different in that they may be a means of preserving that life force. While Stannis is still with us, albeit weakened by the drawing out of his life-force, I suspect that the physical bodies of the progenitors of the white shadows may be long dead, but that they live on as shadows.

[Black Crow]

As to Coldhands I think that there may be a simple explanation, in that in life he may have been a skin-changer/warg and when raised by the cold winds [as distinct from fiery breath] was able to retain/regain his consciousness unlike ordinary wights. Hence, once again a foreshadowing of Jon's fate.

[Black Crow]

7 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

I get the “consumed” analogy of Beric’s compulsion to enforce King Robert’s justice, and Lady Stoneheart’s burning desire for revenge, but weren’t Coldhand’s actions against the “bad” Watchmen a desire for justice like Beric’s?

I do acknowledge that Coldhands preserved lives by helping Sam, Gilly, Bran, Hodor, Meera, and Jojen, but in all three undead characters I was expecting the consuming and preserving to be manifested upon them physically.

Your definition of consuming and preserving may not bode well for Jon if Coldhands and Beric are the “noble” examples leaving Lady Stoneheart as Jon’s pairing parallel. Jon’s last thoughts were to rescue his sister and remove the current Lord of Winterfell. Who knows what lengths he’ll go to to preserve the life of his sister.

No I just think Coldhands was being ruthless in doing what had to be done in convoying the Scooby Gang to the cave.

As to parallels I don't believe we need to be so exact as you propose. Coldhands, not Stoneheart, foreshadows Jon, although I certainly think that its going to be no more Mr Nice Guy when he wakens

[SirArthur]

1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

I'd tend to agree and they are in fact referred to a couple of times as shadows or white shadows. Where I think they are different to Mel's Shadows comes back to this business of Fire consuming. Mel drew out a part of Stannis life force to create a black smoke-like shadow which was soon consumed. The white shadows are different in that they may be a means of preserving that life force. While Stannis is still with us, albeit weakened by the drawing out of his life-force, I suspect that the physical bodies of the progenitors of the white shadows may be long dead, but that they live on as shadows.

So ... Stannis has lost his fire and cannot be resurrected like Catelyn or Beric ? 

[LynnS]

9 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

I don't think the Others have blue eyes.   I think they ARE blue eyes.  We've heard them referred to as mist, and seem to be able to materialize from thin air.  They either follow extreme cold or vice versa.  We know they can do extraordinary things with ice.  I don't think they are beings with slender beautiful bodies, but rather are without bodies and make human like physical forms from ice.  They have the ability to warg into dead bodies,  many at once, and those bodies have the same blue glow as the ice bodies they create. 

I do think the Children created them, probably from sacrificed humans, but not with a dagger in the heart animating a transformed human.  Do you think Crasters sons are dead newborn babies crawling around with daggers in their hearts?  This is a silly idea either made up for the show,  or borrowed from a completely different GRRM story we will learn about later.

We have GRRM's statement that Sam broke the spell when he used dragonglass on the WW which melted and disolved in a mist.  So I'm not sure that it is actually 'dead' but returned to a disembodied state. 

[Melifeather]

12 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

I don't think the Others have blue eyes.   I think they ARE blue eyes.  We've heard them referred to as mist, and seem to be able to materialize from thin air.  They either follow extreme cold or vice versa.  We know they can do extraordinary things with ice.  I don't think they are beings with slender beautiful bodies, but rather are without bodies and make human like physical forms from ice.  They have the ability to warg into dead bodies,  many at once, and those bodies have the same blue glow as the ice bodies they create. 

I do think the Children created them, probably from sacrificed humans, but not with a dagger in the heart animating a transformed human.  Do you think Crasters sons are dead newborn babies crawling around with daggers in their hearts?  This is a silly idea either made up for the show,  or borrowed from a completely different GRRM story we will learn about later.

IMO Craster's sons are a red herring. Oh, he's definitely leaving them to die of exposure, and the bodies consumed by scavengers....maybe even Children of the Forest - they would be meat after they're dead after all, and there are tiny skulls and bones in the caves...but I digress. GRRM wants us to think Craster's sons are the sacrifice to create white walkers, but I think it's a red herring...we've talked about Craster's kippers before. Snowfyre presented a pretty good argument for this here.

8 hours ago, Black Crow said:

No I just think Coldhands was being ruthless in doing what had to be done in convoying the Scooby Gang to the cave.

As to parallels I don't believe we need to be so exact as you propose. Coldhands, not Stoneheart, foreshadows Jon, although I certainly think that its going to be no more Mr Nice Guy when he wakens

I think we're close to the same page on this topic, just looking at it slightly different.

Beric's consuming is "noble" in that he wants to continue King Robert's justice. After seven resurrections he passes the "gift" onto Catelyn, who's consuming is "ignoble", because all she desires is revenge.

Coldhands' preserving is "noble" in that his actions are dictated by the desire to preserve the lives of "good" humans, but is willing to kill "bad" humans. He seems to be a parallel to Beric, who is also motivated to do "good". The pattern then implies that Jon's preserving motivations will be "ignoble" and fueled to be "bad" like Lady Stoneheart. Gone will be the voice of duty, and he will be more inclined to fulfill selfish desires.

7 hours ago, SirArthur said:

So ... Stannis has lost his fire and cannot be resurrected like Catelyn or Beric ? 

Interesting observation. Theoretically there would be less of him to resurrect.

[Matthew.]

18 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

I get the “consumed” analogy of Beric’s compulsion to enforce King Robert’s justice, and Lady Stoneheart’s burning desire for revenge, but weren’t Coldhand’s actions against the “bad” Watchmen a desire for justice like Beric’s?

I agree that Coldhands was dishing out justice to the mutineers, and not just removing threats to Bran; however, I don't believe that this reflects that Coldhands has been consumed/distilled in the manner of Stoneheart, I think it reflects the man that Coldhands probably was in life, that he still considers himself to be fulfilling the duties of the Watch. Similarly, I think Coldhands is expressing legitimate frustration and hostility toward the Others and wights in the lead up to the ambush outside BR's cave.

I think a moment that potentially demonstrates that Coldhands is more intact (mentally) than the fire wights is this:
 

Quote

Meera's gloved hand tightened around the shaft of her frog spear. "Who sent you? Who is this three-eyed crow?"

"A friend. Dreamer, wizard, call him what you will. The last greenseer."

Stoneheart doesn't have friends--she only has purpose, and people that can help her fulfill that purpose. My personal suspicion is that Coldhands is one of the Raven's Teeth that joined the Watch with Bloodraven, and that BR is indeed a friend, and not just an ally.

 

[Black Crow]

5 hours ago, LynnS said:

We have GRRM's statement that Sam broke the spell when he used dragonglass on the WW which melted and disolved in a mist.  So I'm not sure that it is actually 'dead' but returned to a disembodied state. 

Again I would very much agree with this one. GRRM's description clearly identifies Ser Puddles' "body" as something that had been created by magic and quite different from a wight. I suspect that the walkers are skinchangers who can exist without a host body - unless they require to create one out of ice

[Black Crow]

12 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

 

Stoneheart doesn't have friends--she only has purpose, and people that can help her fulfill that purpose. My personal suspicion is that Coldhands is one of the Raven's Teeth that joined the Watch with Bloodraven, and that BR is indeed a friend, and not just an ally.

 

Not sure if we have enough to identify him as one of the Raven's Teeth. The Russian after all had no prior connection to Kurtz, but I do think that the speech you refer to rules out his beingBenjen Stark

[SirArthur]

5 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

Interesting observation. Theoretically there would be less of him to resurrect.

Lady S. is the example of "less to resurrect". I don't know what that means for Stannis. I am very sure however, it will work different, if at all.

[Black Crow]

He'll be a shadow of his former self...

[Melifeather]

4 hours ago, Matthew. said:

I agree that Coldhands was dishing out justice to the mutineers, and not just removing threats to Bran; however, I don't believe that this reflects that Coldhands has been consumed/distilled in the manner of Stoneheart, I think it reflects the man that Coldhands probably was in life, that he still considers himself to be fulfilling the duties of the Watch. Similarly, I think Coldhands is expressing legitimate frustration and hostility toward the Others and wights in the lead up to the ambush outside BR's cave.

I think a moment that potentially demonstrates that Coldhands is more intact (mentally) than the fire wights is this:
 

Stoneheart doesn't have friends--she only has purpose, and people that can help her fulfill that purpose. My personal suspicion is that Coldhands is one of the Raven's Teeth that joined the Watch with Bloodraven, and that BR is indeed a friend, and not just an ally.

 

I would agree that Coldhands isn't being "consumed", but I do question the manner of his resurrection. It could've been fire. We really don't know, because he just popped up in the story with no back history. Now that he's in the north the cold would "preserve" him just as it preserved Aemon Targaryen, who I might point out is technically on the "fire-side" . Once Aemon left the Wall with Sam he (fairly) quickly succumbed and died. He was very old, but the cold seems to be credited with preserving him to such an old age.

As for Coldhands being one of Bloodraven's men...this is an interesting theory, and not without evidence. When Aemon went to the Wall Bloodraven was among 200 men and prisoners sent as an escort. The wiki states many of the prisoners were of the Raven's Teeth, and the World Book states that Bloodraven went missing while out on a ranging. 

[Matthew.]

3 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

I would agree that Coldhands isn't being "consumed", but I do question the manner of his resurrection. It could've been fire. We really don't know, because he just popped up in the story with no back history. Now that he's in the north the cold would "preserve" him just as it preserved Aemon Targaryen, who I might point out is technically on the "fire-side" . Once Aemon left the Wall with Sam he (fairly) quickly succumbed and died. He was very old, but the cold seems to be credited with preserving him to such an old age.

I also wonder how he became undead, and there's three broad theories I've been inclined toward:

-He was a skinchanger, and began his second life in his bond animal; the Others resurrected his body, and his consciousness was able to reclaim it

-He died, was raised by the Others, and was freed from wight bondage by either BR or the CotF

-He was resurrected by Bloodraven. I'm thinking here of Leaf telling Bran that he should not seek to call back Eddard from the dead--is calling back the dead something that a greenseer cannot do, or should not do?


In any case, I lean toward Coldhands not being a fire wight because of his physical characteristics. His blood has pooled and hardened, like the other ice wights, while Beric can set his own sword alight with his blood; more speculatively (since her exact nature is unclear), Mel's blood is black, smokey, and still capable of 'running,' and she also claims to be resistant to the northern cold while she's strolling the Wall. 

That said, I would agree that there's no reason a fire wight couldn't be serving BR and the CotF in the North - Stoneheart, for example, has no factional loyalty to the R'hllorists, or Dany, or "Fire" - it's just that, for the aforementioned reasons, I still read Coldhands as an ice wight (presumably, Sam's name for him was apt). 

I would relate his lack of burning blue eyes to the Varamyr prologue:
 

Quote

The last to look was the thing that had been Thistle. She wore wool and fur and leather, and over that she wore a coat of hoarfrost that crackled when she moved and glistened in the moonlight. Pale pink icicles hung from her fingertips, ten long knives of frozen blood. And in the pits where her eyes had been, a pale blue light was flickering, lending her coarse features an eerie beauty they had never known in life.

She sees me.

These are the final lines of the prologue, after Varamyr has taken up residence in One Eye; my interpretation of this passage is that Varamyr means that the consciousness that has raised and enslaved Thistle (one of the Others, or their master) is "seeing" Varamyr's consciousness in One Eye.

With that in mind, while an unnatural cold and blackened extremities are what I take to be the sights of an ice wight, I believe that the additional presence of the burning blue eyes implicates their enslavement to the Others--with the absence, correspondingly, reflecting autonomy.

[LynnS]

11 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

These are the final lines of the prologue, after Varamyr has taken up residence in One Eye; my interpretation of this passage is that Varamyr means that the consciousness that has raised and enslaved Thistle (one of the Others, or their master) is "seeing" Varamyr's consciousness in One Eye. 

I very much agree with you!  She sees me.  If he can see the consciousness within Thistle, he may also be identifying the gender quite apart from Thistle.

[Matthew.]

As an addition to my post above, Coldhands is also said to have the "cold smell:"

Bran I, ADWD

Quote

Summer growled at him, his fur bristling. The direwolf did not like the way that Coldhands smelled. Dead meat, dry blood, a faint whiff of rot. And cold. Cold over all.

Which I would relate to the other passages in which the so called cold smell is raised.

Jon VII AGOT, when he's fighting Othor:

Quote

Jon had no time to be afraid. He threw himself forward, shouting, bringing down the longsword with all his weight behind it. Steel sheared through sleeve and skin and bone, yet the sound was wrong somehow. The smell that engulfed him was so queer and cold he almost gagged

Small Paul, as a wight:
 

Quote

He moved slowly, but Small Paul had never been quick even when he'd been alive. Behind him, Gilly murmured to calm the garron and tried to urge it toward the door. But the horse must have caught a whiff of the wight's queer cold scent. Suddenly she balked, rearing, her hooves lashing at the frosty air. Paul swung toward the sound, and seemed to lose all interest in Sam.

The Fist of the First Men:

Quote

"What is it you smell, Dywen?" asked Grenn.

The forester sucked on his spoon a moment. He had taken out his teeth. His face was leathery and wrinkled, his hands gnarled as old roots. "Seems to me like it smells . . . well . . . cold."

"Your head's as wooden as your teeth," Hake told him. "There's no smell to cold."

There is, thought Jon, remembering the night in the Lord Commander's chambers. It smells like death. Suddenly he was not hungry anymore. He gave his stew to Grenn, who looked in need of an extra supper to warm him against the night.

Craster:

Quote

So long as he gives us a hot meal and a chance to dry our clothes, I'll be happy. Dywen said Craster was a kinslayer, liar, raper, and craven, and hinted that he trafficked with slavers and demons. "And worse," the old forester would add, clacking his wooden teeth. "There's a cold smell to that one, there is."

With the latter two, I might suggest that these respective locations stink of the Others' magic (or, more straightforwardly, it's just a foreshadowing device); either way, I think it suggests a relationship between the magic that animates CH and the magic that animates the wights.

[Brad Stark]

"A friend. Dreamer, wizard, call him what you will. The last greenseer."

I don't think this is Bloodraven.   Bran is the last greenseer, Bran is the dreamer, and Bran is the only answer that has reason to dodge the question. 

If Coldhands was one of the Raven's teeth, why would he hide his face?  Is there anyone from that time or earlier that Bran and crew might recognize?