Heresy 211 Eight Cairns

[Tucu]

22 minutes ago, St Daga said:

That is an interesting interpretation. The First Men did follow the old gods but also adopted the weirwoods as their own, as part of the Pact, I think, I always wondered why the men of the north prayed before the weirwoods, but perhaps they think they are message carriers or understand the weirwoods hold history in them?

They seem to think that godswoods (and specially the ones with wierwoods) are places were the Old Gods can listen/linger/answer. This is from Ned in KL:

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How long he waited in the quiet of the godswood, he could not say. It was peaceful here. The thick walls shut out the clamor of the castle, and he could hear birds singing, the murmur of crickets, leaves rustling in a gentle wind. The heart tree was an oak, brown and faceless, yet Ned Stark still felt the presence of his gods. His leg did not seem to hurt so much.

And this is Sam praying before he was "rescued" by Coldhands. He asked the Old Gods for help and the wights and Coldhands showed up :-)

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"Old gods, hear my prayer. The Seven were my father's gods but I said my words to you when I joined the Watch. Help us now. I fear we might be lost. We're hungry too, and so cold. I don't know what gods I believe in now, but . . . please, if you're there, help us. Gilly has a little son." That was all that he could think to say. The dusk was deepening, the leaves of the weirwood rustling softly, waving like a thousand blood-red hands. Whether Jon's gods had heard him or not he could not say.

In both cases they are not worshipping the trees, but the Old Gods while being next a tree.

[St Daga]

Able to take a better look at The Cairn on the Headland and there is certainly more interesting text that I had previously realized. Here are a few quotes:

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But who knows what shapes of horror have-had birth in the darkness, the cold gloom; and the whistling black gulfs of the North? In the southern lands the sun shines and flowers bloom; under the soft skies men laugh at demons. But in the North, who can say what elemental spirits of evil dwell in the fierce storms and the darkness? Well may it be that from such fiends of the night men evolved the worship of the grim ones, Odin and Thor, and their terrible kin."

The age old war between dark and light, north and south, darkness and sun...

 

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"A holy man gave a it to me long ago," she answered. "I hid it in my bosom--long it lay in my bosom. But now I give it to you; I have come from a far country to give it to you, for there are monstrous happenings in the wind, and it is sword and shield against the people of the night. An ancient evil stirs in its prison, which blind hands of folly may break open; but stronger than any evil is the cross of Saint Brandon, which has gathered power and strength through the long, long ages since that forgotten evil fell to the earth."

A sword and shield against the people of the night. Ancient evil stirs.

 

Quote

I venture to say that a stranger blackmail was never levied. I had no money then; Ortali was gambling on my future, for he was assured of my abilities...  I received rich prizes and awards for researches of various difficult natures, and of these Ortali took the lion's share--in money at least. I seemed to have the Midas touch. Yet of the wine of my success I tasted only the dregs.

Reminds me of Ned's comments in the black cells about drinking the dregs of the wine that Varys brought him.

 

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On the plain I saw, as in a mist, a mighty battle. Serried ranks rolled backward and forward, steel flashed like a sunlit sea, and men fell like ripe wheat beneath the blades. I saw men in wolfskins, wild and shock-headed, wielding dripping axes, and tall men in horned helmets, and glittering mail, whose eyes were cold and blue as the sea.

A vision of the past, where men in wolf skins faced men whose eyes were as cold and blue as the sea.

 

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Nauseated with fear, I gathered boulders and heaped them for a rude couch, and on it, shaking with horror, I lifted the body of the Norse god. And as the sun set and the stars came silently out, I was working with fierce energy, piling huge rocks above the corpse. Other tribesmen came up and I told them of what I was sealing up--I hoped forever. And they, shivering with horror, fell to aiding me. No sprig of magic holly should be laid on Odin's terrible bosom. Beneath these rude stones the Northern demon should slumber until the thunder of Judgment Day, forgotten by the world which had once cried out beneath his iron heel. 

Panicked but knowing a terrible deity captive in a human body must be covered until the judgement day. A north demon slumbers ...

 

And is then awoke ...

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From a lesser horror I turned squarely to a greater, and ran swiftly toward the headland which loomed dimly against the stars toward the sea.

As I crossed the ridge I saw, in the starlight, the cairn, and the figure that toiled gnome-like above it... An unholy radiance rose from the cairn, and I saw, in the north, the aurora came up suddenly with terrible beauty, paling the starlight. All about the cairn pulsed a weird light, turning the rough stones to a cold shimmering silver... I saw the inhuman terror and beauty of that awesome carven face, in which was neither human weakness, pity nor mercy. I saw the soul-freezing glitter of the one eye, which stared wide open in a fearful semblance of life. All up and down the tall mailed figure shimmered and sparkled cold darts arid gleams of icy light; like the northern lights that blazed in the shuddering skies. 

Some of this imagery, radiance, aurora, weird light, northern lights blazing in the shuddering skies rather brings to mind some elements of Ned's toj fever dream.

 

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Out of the cairn he rose, and the northern lights played terribly about him. And the Grey Man changed ad altered in horrific transmutation. The human features faded like a fading mask; the armour fell from his body and crumbled to dust as it fell; and the fiendish spirit of ice and frost and darkness that the sons of the North deified as Odin, stood nakedly and terribly, in the stars. About his grisly head played lightnings and the shuddering gleams of the aurora. His towering anthropomorphic form was dark as shadow and gleaming as ice; his horrible crest reared colossally against the vaulting arch of the sky.

The slavering monster that had slain him lumbered now toward me, shadowy, tentacle-like arms outspread, the pale starlight making a luminous pool of his great inhuman eye, his frightful talons dripping with I know not what elemental forces to blast the bodies and souls of men.

Some of the imagery I had mentioned up thread, the fiendish spirit of ice and frost and darkness, dark shadow and gleaming as ice, slavering monster, tentacle-like arms, pale starlight illuminating a great inhuman eye. Sounds like something not very pleasant, something perhaps hinted at in our story.

I certainly see some interesting similarities that hint at ASOIAF, although to be honest with myself, perhaps I am seeing what I chose to see. 

[SirArthur]

51 minutes ago, Obscured by Klowds said:

This has me going round in circles lately. 

I originally excused Bran's obsession with climbing as a child going through a stage of rebellion.  I see kids climbing with wreckless abandon all the time, so it's pretty typical (at least in the far north).  Drives me nuts though.  Setting all of that aside, I looked again at what happened in GoT with new skepticism.  Ned and Cat were really struggling with Bran's behavior.  They couldn't stop him.  But this is exactly the kind of thing that GRRM does brilliantly, hide things in plain sight.  Bran would wake in the night and sneak out to climb, then in a fit of guilt confess what he did.  They found him sleeping in the sentinel while being punished for climbing, despite having guards watching over him.  It is pretty outrageous.  What was Ned doing with that punishment?  Is he trying to desensitize Bran to cure the phobia?  Where did Bran get this compulsion?  Does it have anything to do with Waymar ordering Will up into the Sentinel to witness the horrors?  Bran's transition from avoidance to embracing the weirwoods seems very important to his arc.  There has been a tremendous amount of work done on figuring out the weirwoods, but the sentinels seem somewhat overlooked.  Especially when you consider the number of mentions throughout the series and the pivotal role in the GoT prologue.

Welcome to heresy 

I always interpreted climbing just as Bran's thing. And in my mind it was a clever way to get Bran pushed out of the window without too many questions asked. It had to look natural. 

[PrettyPig]

41 minutes ago, St Daga said:

Some of this imagery, radiance, aurora, weird light, northern lights blazing in the shuddering skies rather brings to mind some elements of Ned's toj fever dream.

Also this:

Quote

 

Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him. And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks.

Now you know, the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder. Now you know why you must live.

 

 

[PrettyPig]

1 hour ago, St Daga said:

Some of the imagery I had mentioned up thread, the fiendish spirit of ice and frost and darkness, dark shadow and gleaming as ice, slavering monster, tentacle-like arms, pale starlight illuminating a great inhuman eye. Sounds like something not very pleasant, something perhaps hinted at in our story.

This is actually pretty funny, because it certainly seems as though George found his perfect meld of Lovecraft, Norse myth, and Marvel comics in this one story.   

I mentioned somewhere upthread that Bran parallels Marvel’s Dr. Strange from the 60s and 70s...and wouldn’t you know that one of Strange’s major arcs has him psychically battling a Lovecraftian demon, an “Old One” known as Shuma  Gorath.  Ol’ Shuma just so happens to be a giant human-like eyeball (red iris, fwiw) with huge tentacles sprouting from it...eight of them, if memory serves.    Shuma was imprisoned in an alternate dimension of darkness for thousands of years, but someone accidentally-on-purpose set him free, and now this great other wishes to destroy all of mankind....and the only way for Dr. Strange to defeat the demon is to destroy himself with his own powers. 

Its a super fun arc if anyone is interested...  I even put strips from the original comic in to demonstrate the eerie similarities!

Oh, George... caught plot-swiping again...

[Melifeather]

Has anyone drawn any parallels between ASOIAF and the practice of meditation? I have a feeling this is where the seven and three come from. I'm going to condense my fledgling understanding as best as I can. I've only recently taken up a daily mediation practice since March, so I'm still learning.

The people that meditate have certain beliefs that include the number seven. It is significant, because it represents the seven rays of life (god). "God" is basically the lifeforce and energy that vibrates inside every living thing.

There are seven continents, seven races, seven days in a week, seven tones of an octave, seven chakras in the body, and seven refracted rays of light in a spectrum. People who meditate believe these physical and invisible manifestations of "sevens" are divine imprints.

The seven rays of god are: 1) free will and love, 2) wisdom, 3) active intelligence and collective communication (holy spirit), 4) harmony through conflict (aka "the beauty"), 5) concrete science and knowledge (revelation), 6) devotion and idealism (religion), and 7) creation. 

Everybody has a co-creative relationship with an ongoing immortal godhead. Once we die our spirit-self returns to the godhead. Meditation is a tool to communicate with the godhead while still alive on earth. 

The last thing to tie this all together is the belief that we are all planetary beings, solar beings and cosmic beings. We are not just one, we are all three. 

[St Daga]

19 hours ago, Obscured by Klowds said:

21 hours ago, St Daga said:

Not sure where I am going with this, but when Bran was a child, they found him sleeping in the branches of a sentinel tree (he obviously is comfortable there) while as a young child, Bran tells us he was a afraid of the weirwood.

This has me going round in circles lately. 

I originally excused Bran's obsession with climbing as a child going through a stage of rebellion.  I see kids climbing with wreckless abandon all the time, so it's pretty typical (at least in the far north).  Drives me nuts though.  Setting all of that aside, I looked again at what happened in GoT with new skepticism.  Ned and Cat were really struggling with Bran's behavior.  They couldn't stop him.  But this is exactly the kind of thing that GRRM does brilliantly, hide things in plain sight.  Bran would wake in the night and sneak out to climb, then in a fit of guilt confess what he did.  They found him sleeping in the sentinel while being punished for climbing, despite having guards watching over him.  It is pretty outrageous.  What was Ned doing with that punishment?  Is he trying to desensitize Bran to cure the phobia?  Where did Bran get this compulsion?  Does it have anything to do with Waymar ordering Will up into the Sentinel to witness the horrors?  Bran's transition from avoidance to embracing the weirwoods seems very important to his arc.  There has been a tremendous amount of work done on figuring out the weirwoods, but the sentinels seem somewhat overlooked.  Especially when you consider the number of mentions throughout the series and the pivotal role in the GoT prologue.

Hi, I must say I have never associated Will's climb with Bran's climb, but they certainly both have a sentinel tree playing an important part of their climbing.

I have always felt like Bran climbed because he liked it, something in him reached for a view from far above. that heights might be his destiny. Even as a rather young child (since he's only 7 at the start of our story) Bran wants to climb. It seems like Catelyn and Luwin want him to stop. And so he promises his mother that he will stop, but he can't, and one day climbs out of his tower window. Bran confesses to Ned and his punishment from Ned is to stay in the godswood to cleanse himself overnight, and the next morning he his in the sentinel tree. But Ned doesn't punish him, he laughs, calls Bran a squirrel (which seems to related back to the CotF) and tells him not to let Catelyn find out, if he can.

As to a punishment, I don't know if it's meant to toughen Bran up or not, or even to frighten him.

Ned might recognize danger for his children, but I don't think he feels he should hold back their natural instincts. I think it's very similar to Arya and Needle. Probably Ned should have taken that sword and implored her to act more like Sansa, but he doesn't. He lets her keep the sword and finds her an instructor. Eventually that sword saves her life and helps her escape the Red Keep. I think we haven't seen the payoff for Bran's climbing yet.

With both Bran and Arya, I think Ned is letting them being how they are made to be, if that makes sense.

What is interesting to me, in Game-Bran II, Bran tells us he avoids the black pool and the heart tree, because tree's should not have hands and eyes. It is only after his fall he seems to connect to the heart tree. A sentinels job is to keep watch. But it's the weirwoods with the faces that are supposed to be watching, so what part does the sentinel play?

[St Daga]

20 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

George is self-professed Dead Head.  My personal thought is that the red comet is going to make another pass around planetos and make landfall this next time around, probably striking the glacier in the Heart of Winter.  Now strike up the band:

Quote

Dark star crashes, pouring its light into ashes.
Reason tatters, the forces tear loose from the axis.
Searchlight casting for faults in the clouds of delusion.
Shall we go, you and I while we can

Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds?
Mirror shatters in formless reflections of matter.
Glass hand dissolving to ice petal flowers revolving.
Lady in velvet recedes in the nights of goodbye.

 

 

I think there could be a connection with that song. I love the line about clouds of delusion, because I think that has some importance in the story. Delusion, illusion, allusion!

Dark star I see you in the morning
Dark star a' sleeping next to me
Dark star let the memory of the evening
Be the first thing that you think of
When you open up your smile and see me dark star

A Dark Star, a person, I think, who is connected to morning and the memory of evening. We certainly have hints of morning and evening being connected to people who are associated with star's falling. The Dayne's are important and so is the idea of a morning star and an evening star, and perhaps this star is the same star, but I think the star could be a person.  A person who is sleeping, waiting ...

I do like the hints of Dark Star by the Grateful Dead. I think we might have discussed this once before, on a different board. Mirror shatter's hints perhaps at all the confused or crooked echoes we have in the story. Ice petal flowers seems to hint at the pale, blue as frost Winter rose. Searchlight brings to mind the Hightower or even the toj. I see a lot in these song lyrics to think GRRM might have connected to. It's probably a much better bet than the Crosby Stills and Nash song. 

However, CS&Nhave a fabulous song, Southern Cross, which kind of hints to me of the Dawn sword. The Southern Cross is a constellation used for navigational purposes in the southern hemisphere. The SotM constellation seems a direct reference to a cross-like constellation in the southron sky, to which Jon thinks "The Sword of the Morning still hung in the south". Of course, this could be an indirect reference to Jon being the SotM, and the sword he is meant to wield is still waiting for him in the south.  

Quote

 

Think about
Think about how many times I have fallen
Spirits are using me, larger voices callin'
What Heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten

...

When you see the Southern Cross for the first time
You understand… 

 

 

"Spirits using me, larger voices calling" hints to me of the dreams that certain people have, dreams that guide their actions. "How many times I have fallen" hints at Bran's fall, and how it needed to happen, and if we are in a time loop, how many times it has happened. "When you see the Southern Cross for the first time", when you see Dawn for the first time makes me wonder about Ned's memory if Dawn "alive with light" and if this was the first time Eddard Stark had ever laid his eyes on this milk glass, razor sharp sword? The rest of the song just makes a damn fine song for Jimmy Buffet to cover!!!

 

And while the song lyrics are fun, I am often poor at song interpretation and lyric interpretation. One of my favorite Queen songs is "'39" and how I loved it from the first time I heard it, but was really, really off on what the song was about! So perhaps my best guess at interpretation isn't worth betting on! 

 

[St Daga]

19 hours ago, PrettyPig said:

Its a super fun arc if anyone is interested...  I even put strips from the original comic in to demonstrate the eerie similarities!

Sounds interesting. I am interested in what you have put together. 

19 hours ago, PrettyPig said:

Oh, George... caught plot-swiping again...

Some parts of this story do seem overtly similar to concepts of ASOIAF. However, I suppose I am looking at it in hopes of comparison, and not contrast, and maybe that alters my impression?

[St Daga]

19 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

The seven rays of god are: 1) free will and love, 2) wisdom, 3) active intelligence and collective communication (holy spirit), 4) harmony through conflict (aka "the beauty"), 5) concrete science and knowledge (revelation), 6) devotion and idealism (religion), and 7) creation. 

The last thing to tie this all together is the belief that we are all planetary beings, solar beings and cosmic beings. We are not just one, we are all three. 

Well, I certainly think the numbers are important, and would not surprise me if GRRM did have some knowledge or experience with mediation. I think it's something he would play with in his story.

[St Daga]

20 hours ago, Tucu said:

They seem to think that godswoods (and specially the ones with wierwoods) are places were the Old Gods can listen/linger/answer.

My impression is that the old gods might listen, but they don't do a damn thing about what you ask for, not even a twisted little bit of help. But perhaps I am a bit cynical... Perhaps I need to look at these instances of prayer again and see if there is a payoff.

[PrettyPig]

1 hour ago, St Daga said:

I do like the hints of Dark Star by the Grateful Dead. I think we might have discussed this once before, on a different board. Mirror shatter's hints perhaps at all the confused or crooked echoes we have in the story. Ice petal flowers seems to hint at the pale, blue as frost Winter rose.

I was thinking last night about Dark Stars and all the references we have in the books about darkness, shadow, night, etc.    That led me to the idea of eclipses and other celestial-type events that can block out light, particularly for long periods of time.   I know a lot of people are on board with the comet-striking-moon idea, but I'm not sold...something about that doesn't seem right to me.   Anyway, musing on some of the legend in the story - the moon wandering too close to the sun (which of course is a star) and cracking open, the Long Night lasting for generations, black stones falling from the sky, the Long Night brought on by the Bloodstone Emperor slaying his older sister the Amethyst Empress which results in the Maiden-made-of-light turning her back on the world and the Lion of Night roaring forth, then finally what seem to be multiple Last Hero/Azor Ahai types blazing forth in the darkness...    

Then there's Bran looking beyond "the curtain of light at the end of the world" (the aurora borealis) and deep into the heart of winter, which is basically space.  So Bran is seeing something in space that is horrifying beyond all belief, and it isn't the red comet - it's winter, and winter is coming.   Tying this into the Dark Star idea, there are a couple of things that could possibly qualify:   1)  a Dark Star in the astronomical sense that has its own light-trapping gravitational pull, and could be a pseudo black hole or dark matter, or 2)  a very large planetary body - such as the dwarf planet Ceres, a literal ice planet almost 600 miles in diameter .   Ceres is large enough to have its own gravitational pull, and this pull has resulted in it becoming spherical in shape, all of these things qualifying it for dwarf planet classification.  However, Ceres is actually not a planet, but an extremely large asteroid - a term that means "star-like", fwiw.    When Ceres was first spotted inside the asteroid belt in 1801, it was initially thought to be a comet.     (Fun fact:  Ceres is currently being orbited by the NASA research spacecraft Dawn. )

All of these allusions to space and stars and darkness have me wondering about some kind of massive eclipse event or possibly a flyby of something substantially larger than a comet - something that could pass between Planetos and the sun and stay there for a while.   I don't know, I'm no physicist, but weirder things have happened in sci-fi land, I guess.  

On another note, there is also a Marvel comic character from the 1970s named Darkstar.   Her biggest romantic admirer was X-Men member Iceman.   LOL

 

 

[Tucu]

3 hours ago, St Daga said:

My impression is that the old gods might listen, but they don't do a damn thing about what you ask for, not even a twisted little bit of help. But perhaps I am a bit cynical... Perhaps I need to look at these instances of prayer again and see if there is a payoff.

In some cases the Old Gods respond.

Waymar challenged the Old Gods and he got WWs:

Quote

“Gods!” he heard behind him. A sword slashed at a branch as Ser Waymar Royce gained the ridge. He stood there beside the sentinel, longsword in hand, his cloak billowing behind him as the wind came up, outlined nobly against the stars for all to see.

...

Down below, the lordling called out suddenly, “Who goes there?” Will heard uncertainty in the challenge. He stopped climbing; he listened; he watched.

The woods gave answer: the rustle of leaves, the icy rush of the stream, a distant hoot of a snow owl.

The Others made no sound.

Sam asked for a safe return and he got a few wights and Coldhands:

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Clumsily, Sam sank to his knees. "Old gods, hear my prayer. The Seven were my father's gods but I said my words to you when I joined the Watch. Help us now. I fear we might be lost. We're hungry too, and so cold. I don't know what gods I believe in now, but . . . please, if you're there, help us. Gilly has a little son." That was all that he could think to say. The dusk was deepening, the leaves of the weirwood rustling softly, waving like a thousand blood-red hands. Whether Jon's gods had heard him or not he could not say.

Arya asked for guidance:

Quote

In the godswood she found her broomstick sword where she had left it, and carried it to the heart tree. There she knelt. Red leaves rustled. Red eyes peered inside her. The eyes of the gods. "Tell me what to do, you gods," she prayed.

For a long moment there was no sound but the wind and the water and the creak of leaf and limb. And then, far far off, beyond the godswood and the haunted towers and the immense stone walls of Harrenhal, from somewhere out in the world, came the long lonely howl of a wolf. Gooseprickles rose on Arya's skin, and for an instant she felt dizzy. Then, so faintly, it seemed as if she heard her father's voice. "When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives," he said.

"But there is no pack," she whispered to the weirwood. Bran and Rickon were dead, the Lannisters had Sansa, Jon had gone to the Wall. "I'm not even me now, I'm Nan."

"You are Arya of Winterfell, daughter of the north. You told me you could be strong. You have the wolf blood in you."

"The wolf blood." Arya remembered now. "I'll be as strong as Robb. I said I would." She took a deep breath, then lifted the broomstick in both hands and brought it down across her knee. It broke with a loud crack, and she threw the pieces aside. I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth.

Bran asked the Old Gods to protect Robb, they answered and Osha "translated":

Quote

"If Robb has to go, watch over him," Bran entreated the old gods, as they watched him with the heart tree's red eyes, "and watch over his men, Hal and Quent and the rest, and Lord Umber and Lady Mormont and the other lords. And Theon too, I suppose. Watch them and keep them safe, if it please you, gods. Help them defeat the Lannisters and save Father and bring them home."

A faint wind sighed through the godswood and the red leaves stirred and whispered. Summer bared his teeth. "You hear them, boy?" a voice asked.

"No, stay," Bran commanded her. "Tell me what you meant, about hearing the gods."

Osha studied him. "You asked them and they're answering. Open your ears, listen, you'll hear."

Bran listened. "It's only the wind," he said after a moment, uncertain. "The leaves are rustling."

"Who do you think sends the wind, if not the gods?" She seated herself across the pool from him, clinking faintly as she moved. Mikken had fixed iron manacles to her ankles, with a heavy chain between them; she could walk, so long as she kept her strides small, but there was no way for her to run, or climb, or mount a horse. "They see you, boy. They hear you talking. That rustling, that's them talking back."

"What are they saying?"

"They're sad. Your lord brother will get no help from them, not where he's going. The old gods have no power in the south. The weirwoods there were all cut down, thousands of years ago. How can they watch your brother when they have no eyes?"

Theon also prayed to the Old Gods:

Quote

And in the heart of the wood the weirwood waited with its knowing red eyes. Theon stopped by the edge of the pool and bowed his head before its carved red face. Even here he could hear the drumming, boom DOOM boom DOOM boom DOOM boom DOOM. Like distant thunder, the sound seemed to come from everywhere at once.

The night was windless, the snow drifting straight down out of a cold black sky, yet the leaves of the heart tree were rustling his name. "Theon," they seemed to whisper, "Theon."

The old gods, he thought. They know me. They know my name. I was Theon of House Greyjoy. I was a ward of Eddard Stark, a friend and brother to his children. "Please." He fell to his knees. "A sword, that's all I ask. Let me die as Theon, not as Reek." Tears trickled down his cheeks, impossibly warm. "I was ironborn. A son … a son of Pyke, of the islands."

He didn't get a sword (yet) but he is ready to be sacrificed as Theon.

[SirArthur]

regarding the british cairns: GRRM linked stonehenge with religion and astronomy, http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Measuring_Time/

the comet:

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Category/C91/P45

I did not have Hastings in mind especially, but I suppose there might have been some subconscious influence. The comet was actually more drawn from the Bard's in JULIUS CAESAR, as well as the ones actually in the sky as I was writing.

 

[PrettyPig]

4 hours ago, St Daga said:

What is interesting to me, in Game-Bran II, Bran tells us he avoids the black pool and the heart tree, because tree's should not have hands and eyes. It is only after his fall he seems to connect to the heart tree. A sentinels job is to keep watch. But it's the weirwoods with the faces that are supposed to be watching, so what part does the sentinel play?

Who watches the Watchmen?

[Obscured by Klowds]

5 hours ago, St Daga said:

Hi, I must say I have never associated Will's climb with Bran's climb, but they certainly both have a sentinel tree playing an important part of their climbing.

I have always felt like Bran climbed because he liked it, something in him reached for a view from far above. that heights might be his destiny. Even as a rather young child (since he's only 7 at the start of our story) Bran wants to climb. It seems like Catelyn and Luwin want him to stop. And so he promises his mother that he will stop, but he can't, and one day climbs out of his tower window. Bran confesses to Ned and his punishment from Ned is to stay in the godswood to cleanse himself overnight, and the next morning he his in the sentinel tree. But Ned doesn't punish him, he laughs, calls Bran a squirrel (which seems to related back to the CotF) and tells him not to let Catelyn find out, if he can.

As to a punishment, I don't know if it's meant to toughen Bran up or not, or even to frighten him.

Ned might recognize danger for his children, but I don't think he feels he should hold back their natural instincts. I think it's very similar to Arya and Needle. Probably Ned should have taken that sword and implored her to act more like Sansa, but he doesn't. He lets her keep the sword and finds her an instructor. Eventually that sword saves her life and helps her escape the Red Keep. I think we haven't seen the payoff for Bran's climbing yet.

With both Bran and Arya, I think Ned is letting them being how they are made to be, if that makes sense.

What is interesting to me, in Game-Bran II, Bran tells us he avoids the black pool and the heart tree, because tree's should not have hands and eyes. It is only after his fall he seems to connect to the heart tree. A sentinels job is to keep watch. But it's the weirwoods with the faces that are supposed to be watching, so what part does the sentinel play? 

Really like the way that you laid this out.  Also, I love some of the other commentary in this thread about Dark Star <3 and answering prayers to the Old Gods.

Just to clarify, I think there may be more to Bran's compulsion to climb that eludes explanation and is hidden from a casual read.  The consequence that Ned gave to Bran for his confessed compulsive nighttime climb seems to be an opportunity to clean himself spiritually by communing with the godswood.  Perhaps Ned is applying a punishment that has meaning or purpose from long ago.  Maybe it is the exposure that Bran needed to overcome his fear of the Old Gods. 

Several overlapping systems of surveilance penetrate the story and this species of tree might just be a passive way that we are continually reminded of the more targeted and active systems.  Is the squirrel in the tree (Bran and/or CoTF) a canary in the coal mine?  Sentinel is often interpreted as 'watcher', but there are other ways that we might look at it.  Sentinel species are animals that people watch to determine the spread of diseases or hazardous conditions.  Crows have been used to monitor West Nile, for example.  Sentinel surveilance in medicine is a targeted way to monitor disease.  Sentinel surveilance is one of three forms of surveilance, active and passive being the other two. 

 

 

 

[Brad Stark]

GRRM said there won't be any dark lords, that no one wakes up and says they will be evil today.  Then he gives us Darkstar, almost exactly a character who wakes up and says that he will be evil.  But will he redeem himself or become a real villain?  Because both seem pretty cheesy and I don't see any good direction to go with the character. 

[Obscured by Klowds]

Okay, Ima take one more crack at this.  ;)  Climbing the sentinel- we go from Waymar compelling Will to do it, to Bran being compelled to do it, to Bran compelling Summer to do it.  At the point where Bran compells Summer to climb the sentinel in Winterfell's godswood, he has a dramatic breakthrough in telepathy.  He makes the switch from passive warging to active.  Somehow it seems important that Bran overheard Will tell his story even though he can't recall much of it.  I think that the trauma from watching Will receive justice led young Bran to become obsessed with climbing, and that the things that Bran can't recall have greater influence on him than the things he can.  Did something about Will’s terrifying experience pass on to Bran?  How are stories like diseases?

 

[Matthew.]

5 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

GRRM said there won't be any dark lords, that no one wakes up and says they will be evil today.  Then he gives us Darkstar, almost exactly a character who wakes up and says that he will be evil.  But will he redeem himself or become a real villain?  Because both seem pretty cheesy and I don't see any good direction to go with the character. 

I suspect Darkstar is going through the Westerosi equivalent of a goth phase ("oh, I can't be Sword of the Morning? Fine, then I'll be of the night!") and isn't to be viewed as a dark lord type, but yes, he is an irredeemably corny character--ditto for Euron, IMO.

[St Daga]

12 hours ago, PrettyPig said:

All of these allusions to space and stars and darkness have me wondering about some kind of massive eclipse event or possibly a flyby of something substantially larger than a comet - something that could pass between Planetos and the sun and stay there for a while.   I don't know, I'm no physicist, but weirder things have happened in sci-fi land, I guess.  

I like this. It brings to mind Dying of the Light. In that case it was a rogue planet that moved closer to a star system and then eventually away from it, but what if when Warlorn traveled on it's path, it severely blocked the light from one planet while absorbing all that life and light for itself? I could see something like this happening in GRRM's world, except instead of looking at Warlorn, we are looking at the other planet. I could see this being possible with a comet or rogue planet. Heck, it's fantasy with a scifi glamour, so anything is possible.

 

12 hours ago, PrettyPig said:

On another note, there is also a Marvel comic character from the 1970s named Darkstar.   Her biggest romantic admirer was X-Men member Iceman.   LOL

I don't know comic's very well, but I did a quick google search and seen that Darkstar (Laynia has a hint of Lyanna about it, doesn't it) had a twin brother called Nickolai (Vanguard). I am reminded that Ned led Robert's vanguard, at least from the Trident to Kings Landing. If Lyanna and Ned would have been twins, this would be an interesting parallel, and siblings could still work. Also noted that both Laynia and Nickolai died and were resurrected, at least for a time. Perhaps that happens often in the comic world, I don't know.

 

11 hours ago, PrettyPig said:

16 hours ago, St Daga said:

What is interesting to me, in Game-Bran II, Bran tells us he avoids the black pool and the heart tree, because tree's should not have hands and eyes. It is only after his fall he seems to connect to the heart tree. A sentinels job is to keep watch. But it's the weirwoods with the faces that are supposed to be watching, so what part does the sentinel play?

Who watches the Watchmen?

So we have the face carved "watching weirwoods", the sentinel tree's and soldier pines that are  mentioned quite often. We also have many other tree's, such as iron woods, oaks, willow, elms, etc, but they don't get quite as many mentions, or at least they don't stand out to me. I have no doubt GRRM is trying to make some point with these tree's, at least the weirwoods, the sentinel's and the soldier pines.