Hardhome theories?

[Curled Finger]

@By Odin's Beard Hot Damn I got it to work!   

Esoteric meaning the arcane magic of the weirwood and celestial anomaly.   That's all.  Not here to bash anyone for anything.   Just having a fun discussion.   There have been far too few really fun discussions in the past couple of years.  I'm sorry you didn't connect with LML, but I see you have been interested in his ideas and they really are fun neat ideas.   I don't know how anyone cannot enjoy PJ and his love of ASOIAF.   Take or leave his ideas, I just enjoy them.  GRRM said the problem of the seasons will be solved with magic, not astronomy, gods or science.   Magic.   Seasons.   I don't know if seasons are tied to geological events or not but I think the weirwood root system is pretty much fact.  I am not aware of any evidence for some explosive factor to the weirwood, but I still can't understand why Ned took time he didn't have to return Dawn, too.   There is room for many ideas.  You've obviously got yours, but what do you think of some of the other ideas that have already popped up in this brand new little topic?   Have you read anything else that could be plausible? 

[Curled Finger]

7 minutes ago, Legitimate_Bastard said:

I'm totally down with the Wyrm idea.

I have 2 alternate/additional ideas.

So they bred dragons through Wyrm hybrids etc. Could they have been experimenting with some new variation of creature Wyrm/Wyvern/Dragon hybrid? Did whatever they were trying to create get out of hand so they had to do some containment and wipe the whole place out? IDK

Second idea was actually Harpies. So Valyria defeated Ghis. Is it possible that Harpies escaped and fled to where they thought the Dragons would be least effective against them but still had a source of food, the land of the cold. Did the Valyrians hunt for those Harpies until they tracked them down to beyond the wall? Madness and bollocks tinfoil probably but so much fun to discuss. Could a bat not be as similar to a Harpy as a Dragon? To me it isn't that outrageous.

Dude.   Bitchen.   Let's look into harpies.   A whole new direction!   

[Legitimate_Bastard]

6 minutes ago, Curled Finger said:

Dude.   Bitchen.   Let's look into harpies.   A whole new direction!   

Ya know it might explain why those skeletons are skeletons and not still alive. With enough Dragons and fire mages the Valyrians could have said ok flamethrower time and had a bunch of dragons breathe fire into the caves at Hardhome knowing it would fry whatever those skeletons were in their underground refuge. That fire had to be BIG, and that could be one explanation for the fire and the skeletons?

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

3 minutes ago, Curled Finger said:

GRRM said the problem of the seasons will be solved with magic, not astronomy, gods or science. 

The weirwoods using telekinesis to pull on the black planet and/or the moon would be "magic"

Quote

It looked as if the tree was trying to catch the moon and drag it down into the well. Old gods,

The tree was slender compared to other weirwoods he had seen, no more than a sapling, yet it was growing as he watched, its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky.

weirwood reaching for the moon.

Add to that Skyreach in Dorne, is where the Fowlers are, Fowler means "bird catcher."

 

As for tunnels, I think they were mining operations of the Great Empire, and the wyrms were genetically engineered to tunnel.  In In the House of the Worm they have engineered digger worms with metal teeth that create endless tunnels.

 

[Ckram]

5 hours ago, Stormking902 said:

Whats your best theory on Hardhome?

I was about to start a thread about it.

The first time Hardhome appears on the map is in ASOS, but is only mentioned in text in ADWD.. Storrold's Point is depicted as a peninsula with no forest so far as ADWD (both on Richard Geiger's and Jeffrey L. Ward's maps). I always thought that this was not intentional and had to do with creating space in the paper to insert the names of the peninsula and the ruin.

However, I had a big surprise when TLOIAF illustrator, Jonathan Roberts, stated that he had to make changes in his Beyond-the-Wall map to justify the wights attacking on Hardhome:

"One small inconsistency between this and the original maps in the books is that the forest reaches out along Storrold’s Point all the way to Hardhome. This was changed to be consistent with the army of the dead pouring out of the Haunted Forest to assault Hardhome"

So it seems to me that Storrold's Point was specially designed to be a place where the wildlings would be cornered by the dead hordes from the beginning. 

Hardhome's background seems to have been created to emphasize that in a recent era (recent enough for NW to have reliable records), the wildlings thought they had the perfect plan to thrive, and became to confident. But not only were they surprised by an attack by land, but especially never expected to be surrounded also by sea.

The large-scale forest fire seems to me to demonstrate how desperate the inhabitants of Hardhome were when they were completelly surrounded, on all sides, which in the end must have made the fire turned against themselves.

In short, Hardhome's story strikes me as a cautionary tale. "Always expect the WW, even from the sea".

[AlaskanSandman]

5 hours ago, Stormking902 said:

Whats your best theory on Hardhome?

Was it a Valaryian outpost thousands of years ago? 

Are there dragons present? 

Why was it abandoned?

Could it be a future seat of house Giants Bane? 

ETC......

valyrian-activity-in-the-north/

1-kingdom-1-curse-1-wall/

My guess is that Hard home breaks the Pact established years ago, so Valyria burned it to the ground. My problem is, that the Wolf's Den was raised possibly against the Valyrians. Meaning Valyria had a more active presence in Westeros prior to Hardhome. The same year Hardhome is burned, Valyria took Dragonstone with House Mormont getting Bear Island and Long Claw (Maege Mormont has Valyrian in her.) 

[Alexis-something-Rose]

13 minutes ago, Curled Finger said:

Ah Lady I KNEW you would know dates.    I am glad to see I wasn't that far off.   Why do you think the Starks brought on the Cataclysm at Hardhome? 

The wildlings who are settled at Hardhome, in a city that will only keep growing would represent a tangible threat to the north, I think. Over a period of time, we are told that whenever the wildlings managed to organize behind a leader, they tried to breach the Wall and invade the north. We have a bunch of examples of Starks fighting wildling kings, dying at the hands of wildling kings. If I'm a Stark, I would see the growth of Hardhome as a potential problem, especially when we factor in that the reason the Wall was built in the first place was forgotten.

I do want to throw something in about the fire that consumed Hardhome. What if it was wildfire? Wildfire destroyed Summerhall. And we have seen how it was used during the Battle of Blackwater. 

[AlaskanSandman]

1 minute ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

The wildlings who are settled at Hardhome, in a city that will only keep growing would represent a tangible threat to the north, I think. Over a period of time, we are told that whenever the wildlings managed to organize behind a leader, they tried to breach the Wall and invade the north. We have a bunch of examples of Starks fighting wildling kings, dying at the hands of wildling kings. If I'm a Stark, I would see the growth of Hardhome as a potential problem, especially when we factor in that the reason the Wall was built in the first place was forgotten.

I do want to throw something in about the fire that consumed Hardhome. What if it was wildfire? Wildfire destroyed Summerhall. And we have seen how it was used during the Battle of Blackwater. 

That is an interesting idea, but i would think the green glow would stand out and not look like the sun was rising in the North.

[Legitimate_Bastard]

3 minutes ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

I do want to throw something in about the fire that consumed Hardhome. What if it was wildfire? Wildfire destroyed Summerhall. And we have seen how it was used during the Battle of Blackwater. 

I had not considered this. Although would someone not have noted the green color? There are almost always mentions of the green coloration when wildfire is described from what I can tell. But that could have been omitted? Or would the distance have dulled the color?

[Curled Finger]

1 minute ago, Legitimate_Bastard said:

Ya know it might explain why those skeletons are skeletons and not still alive. With enough Dragons and fire mages the Valyrians could have said ok flamethrower time and had a bunch of dragons breathe fire into the caves at Hardhome knowing it would fry whatever those skeletons were in their underground refuge. That fire had to be BIG, and that could be one explanation for the fire and the skeletons?

I'm so with you--I just want to know why the Valyrians would target this tiny little place so far from their empire?  Surely a 1st strike for conquest would occur elsewhere in Westeros?  Old Town most likely, right?   Let's assume this isn't part of a conquest.   What is it?  A strike between the magics?   You are doing a remarkably imaginative job with this, so let the line out.  Why?  If these wyrms and wyverns (that we honestly don't know were ever in Westeros) were the target of the Valyrians is that counter-intuitive to their magic? I've got a full on visual of fire raining down directed at the underground at Hardhome.   But my understanding of the Valyrians lends itself more to wanting to take these creatures than eliminate them.   Remember that island they mated the most unholy creatures with human slaves?   Let's try Occam's Razor without hurting ourselves.   If they weren't there to destroy creatures they likely valued, could they have been there to infiltrate a strange and exotic magic system they hadn't mastered?   I may be bleeding with that one, but I'm thinking fire versus ice rather than fire and ice in Hardhome.   If any of that made any sense at all? 

So perhaps this is plausible, but we have to be able to explain it.   Is it possible that Valyria infiltrated the magic of Westeros with Dragons or Harpies or Wyvern or Wyrms which may have overloaded the underground root systems of the weirwood and caused this Cataclysm?  Something else?  

I think I just combined a bunch of posters' comments in that.    I gotta get some real stuff done, but will check back to see how you unraveled all this.   Harpies--gotta love it.   

[Curled Finger]

6 hours ago, Stormking902 said:

Whats your best theory on Hardhome?

Was it a Valaryian outpost thousands of years ago? 

Are there dragons present? 

Why was it abandoned?

Could it be a future seat of house Giants Bane? 

ETC......

I take it back.  This really is great.   I see you hit "Hot" in topic replies and good on you.   Congratulations on a really good discussion with some very willing participants.    Back later to see what other really clever and/or disturbing ideas everyone has come up with.   

[Alexis-something-Rose]

17 minutes ago, Legitimate_Bastard said:

I had not considered this. Although would someone not have noted the green color? There are almost always mentions of the green coloration when wildfire is described from what I can tell. But that could have been omitted? Or would the distance have dulled the color?

Yes, it does, but outside of dragons flying in which the men of the Night's Watch may have seen, or a volcanic explosion which the men at Eastwatch would have felt, the only thing that would level that kind of destruction on a town is wildfire. Or perhaps a proto-wildfire type substance.

The Battle of Blackwater is a nightmare with the explosions and fire that no one can escape because it burns through everything. 

[AlaskanSandman]

23 minutes ago, Curled Finger said:

I'm so with you--I just want to know why the Valyrians would target this tiny little place so far from their empire?  Surely a 1st strike for conquest would occur elsewhere in Westeros?  Old Town most likely, right?   Let's assume this isn't part of a conquest.   What is it?  A strike between the magics?   You are doing a remarkably imaginative job with this, so let the line out.  Why?  If these wyrms and wyverns (that we honestly don't know were ever in Westeros) were the target of the Valyrians is that counter-intuitive to their magic? I've got a full on visual of fire raining down directed at the underground at Hardhome.   But my understanding of the Valyrians lends itself more to wanting to take these creatures than eliminate them.   Remember that island they mated the most unholy creatures with human slaves?   Let's try Occam's Razor without hurting ourselves.   If they weren't there to destroy creatures they likely valued, could they have been there to infiltrate a strange and exotic magic system they hadn't mastered?   I may be bleeding with that one, but I'm thinking fire versus ice rather than fire and ice in Hardhome.   If any of that made any sense at all? 

So perhaps this is plausible, but we have to be able to explain it.   Is it possible that Valyria infiltrated the magic of Westeros with Dragons or Harpies or Wyvern or Wyrms which may have overloaded the underground root systems of the weirwood and caused this Cataclysm?  Something else?  

I think I just combined a bunch of posters' comments in that.    I gotta get some real stuff done, but will check back to see how you unraveled all this.   Harpies--gotta love it.   

Im digging at this too. Bael is a Valyrian name by spelling and the Stark King calls him craven and is hunting him long before Bael ever became King Beyond the Wall. 

[Dorian Martell's son]

6 hours ago, Stormking902 said:

Whats your best theory on Hardhome?

No theory. It will be the last stand of the living north of the wall. It is known. 

6 hours ago, Stormking902 said:

Was it a Valaryian outpost thousands of years ago? 

Nope. If it was, it would be known and raided for salvage and artifacts. We know it was the closest thing to a town north of the wall. It had structure and resources. If it was an outpost of the freehold, it would be known. 

6 hours ago, Stormking902 said:

Why was it abandoned?

A volcano destroyed a large part of it. It is known. 

6 hours ago, Stormking902 said:

Are there dragons present? 

Nope. Those died out years before the books. 

6 hours ago, Stormking902 said:

Could it be a future seat of house Giants Bane? 

If the threat of the others is eliminated and the wall is no longer needed. Sure, fan fic away. 

[Legitimate_Bastard]

37 minutes ago, Curled Finger said:

I'm so with you--I just want to know why the Valyrians would target this tiny little place so far from their empire?  Surely a 1st strike for conquest would occur elsewhere in Westeros?  Old Town most likely, right?   Let's assume this isn't part of a conquest.   What is it?  A strike between the magics?   You are doing a remarkably imaginative job with this, so let the line out.  Why?  If these wyrms and wyverns (that we honestly don't know were ever in Westeros) were the target of the Valyrians is that counter-intuitive to their magic? I've got a full on visual of fire raining down directed at the underground at Hardhome.   But my understanding of the Valyrians lends itself more to wanting to take these creatures than eliminate them.   Remember that island they mated the most unholy creatures with human slaves?   Let's try Occam's Razor without hurting ourselves.   If they weren't there to destroy creatures they likely valued, could they have been there to infiltrate a strange and exotic magic system they hadn't mastered?   I may be bleeding with that one, but I'm thinking fire versus ice rather than fire and ice in Hardhome.   If any of that made any sense at all? 

So perhaps this is plausible, but we have to be able to explain it.   Is it possible that Valyria infiltrated the magic of Westeros with Dragons or Harpies or Wyvern or Wyrms which may have overloaded the underground root systems of the weirwood and caused this Cataclysm?  Something else?  

I think I just combined a bunch of posters' comments in that.    I gotta get some real stuff done, but will check back to see how you unraveled all this.   Harpies--gotta love it.   

So I have been looking for other things that happened 600 years ago - there is quite a bit. Braavos was founded 400BC-1436BC. If we go with 400BC that is rougly 700 years ago. Is it possible that another group of slaves fled to Hardhome and tried to set up shop, but unlike Braavos it got discovered?

Also the commanders of the Snowgate and the Nightfort went to war, killing the LC with the Stark of Winterfell having to step in. Not sure how this would interact and may not be pertinent.

6 minutes ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

A volcano destroyed a large part of it. It is known. 

Can you point me to where I can find that in the books? Or is that based on the ash raining down for half a year?

[AlaskanSandman]

16 minutes ago, Legitimate_Bastard said:

So I have been looking for other things that happened 600 years ago - there is quite a bit. Braavos was founded 400BC-1436BC. If we go with 400BC that is rougly 700 years ago. Is it possible that another group of slaves fled to Hardhome and tried to set up shop, but unlike Braavos it got discovered?

Also the commanders of the Snowgate and the Nightfort went to war, killing the LC with the Stark of Winterfell having to step in. Not sure how this would interact and may not be pertinent.

Can you point me to where I can find that in the books? Or is that based on the ash raining down for half a year?

The Mountain did it. It is known. The Valyrian were holding back the fire of the mountain with magic. Once the people presumable holding it back were murdered, the Volcano erupted.

Osric Stark started as L.C. the century before and died sometime near Hardhome presumable. 

I question House Bolton and Braavos and the FM. The skinning first of all and hall of skins. Check my Valyrian Northern activity thread. Bael should be around this time too, and possibly Brandon the Burner. 

Bael Stark King called him a craven and was hunting him years before Bael (Valyrian name) became king beyond the wall. Harlon Stark which should be somewhere's near them too laid siege to the Dread Fort. There's more but im not sure what to make of it all yet, still digging up weird stuff.

[Curled Finger]

2 hours ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

The wildlings who are settled at Hardhome, in a city that will only keep growing would represent a tangible threat to the north, I think. Over a period of time, we are told that whenever the wildlings managed to organize behind a leader, they tried to breach the Wall and invade the north. We have a bunch of examples of Starks fighting wildling kings, dying at the hands of wildling kings. If I'm a Stark, I would see the growth of Hardhome as a potential problem, especially when we factor in that the reason the Wall was built in the first place was forgotten.

I do want to throw something in about the fire that consumed Hardhome. What if it was wildfire? Wildfire destroyed Summerhall. And we have seen how it was used during the Battle of Blackwater. 

Aha!  Now I see what threat this little place could present to the established rule of the North.   Wildfyre!  Very clever, Lady.   

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

4 hours ago, Legitimate_Bastard said:

Is it possible that another group of slaves fled to Hardhome and tried to set up shop, but unlike Braavos it got discovered?

The weirwood hides important locations from its enemies, Braavos ("secret city") was hidden by the mist, and the Isle of Faces is protected by the winds and birds that push boats off course, Greywater is a floating castle that cannot be found.

I was reading the section on Naath, and they are protected by black and white butterflies which are incredibly deadly to foreigners, I think this is what the harpies began as.  As the threats got bigger, and arms race began and they responded and produced bigger more horrible butterflies until they had a true monster.  That is the exact plot of Guardians from Tuf Voyaging.

 

4 hours ago, Curled Finger said:

Back later to see what other really clever and/or disturbing ideas everyone has come up with.    

While on Greywater I forgot to mention the Greywater fungus from Men of Greywater Station, in that story was likely extraterrestrial, spores of the fungus are carried on stellar wind and move from planet to planet.

Also, in the Color out of Space by Lovecraft, a meteor carrying a bizarre alien lifeform lands on Earth, lives in a well, and poisons the land around it, and drives people insane.  At the end of the story it launches itself back into space.

Also, in the Willows by Algernon Blackwood, the willows are an alien life form that eats humans, and lives outside of the human concept of time.

There is a lot to support the weirwood is an alien life form. 

Also, Doran means "stranger" in Irish?  The weirwood is the Stranger, god of death, him of many faces.

 

3 hours ago, AlaskanSandman said:

The Valyrian were holding back the fire of the mountain with magic. Once the people presumable holding it back were murdered, the Volcano erupted.

Give me a quote pull that suggests that.  If they dug a million tunnels under Valyria that would have decreased volcanic pressure, making it less likely to blow, not more.  The quotes I pulled earlier describe the Valyrian doom in the same terms as the Breaking of the Arm of Dorne and the Flooding of the Neck, both weirwood/CoTF blood sacrifice earthquake events. 

When Arya is learning about the first Faceless Man:

"The slaves were not crying out to a hundred different gods, as it seemed, but to one god with a hundred different faces" that is, the Weirwood, the god of death.  Who do we normally find in tunnels?  The CoTF.  The slaves must have engaged in a mass human sacrifice and woke the giants from the Earth.

[Legitimate_Bastard]

3 minutes ago, By Odin's Beard said:

The weirwood hides important locations from its enemies, Braavos ("secret city") was hidden by the mist, and the Isle of Faces is protected by the winds and birds that push boats off course, Greywater is a floating castle that cannot be found.

I was reading the section on Naath, and they are protected by black and white butterflies which are incredibly deadly to foreigners, I think this is what the harpies began as.  As the threats got bigger, and arms race began and they responded and produced bigger more horrible butterflies until they had a true monster.  That is the exact plot of Guardians from Tuf Voyaging.

 

While on Greywater I forgot to mention the Greywater fungus from Men of Greywater Station, in that story was likely extraterrestrial, spores of the fungus are carried on stellar wind and move from planet to planet.

Also, in the Color out of Space by Lovecraft, a meteor carrying a bizarre alien lifeform lands on Earth, lives in a well, and poisons the land around it, and drives people insane.

Also, in the Willows by Algernon Blackwood, the willows are an alien life form that eats humans, and lives outside of the human concept of time.

There is a lot to support the weirwood is an alien life form. 

Also, Doran means "stranger" in Irish?  The weirwood is the Stranger, god of death, him of many faces.

 

Give me a quote pull that suggests that.  If they dug a million tunnels under Valyria that would have decreased volcanic pressure, making it less likely to blow, not more.  The quotes I pulled earlier describe the Valyrian doom in the same terms as the Breaking of the Arm of Dorne and the Flooding of the Neck, both weirwood/CoTF blood sacrifice earthquake events. 

When Arya is learning about the first Faceless Man:

"The slaves were not crying out to a hundred different gods, as it seemed, but to one god with a hundred different faces" that is, the Weirwood, the god of death.  Who do we normally find in tunnels?  The CoTF.  The slaves must have engaged in a mass human sacrifice and woke the giants from the Earth.

It would make sense, Ned washes the blood off of Ice into the black pool by the weirwoods. Blood sacrifice?

[AlaskanSandman]

3 minutes ago, By Odin's Beard said:

The weirwood hides important locations from its enemies, Braavos ("secret city") was hidden by the mist, and the Isle of Faces is protected by the winds and birds that push boats off course, Greywater is a floating castle that cannot be found.

I was reading the section on Naath, and they are protected by black and white butterflies which are incredibly deadly to foreigners, I think this is what the harpies began as.  As the threats got bigger, and arms race began and they responded and produced bigger more horrible butterflies until they had a true monster.  That is the exact plot of Guardians from Tuf Voyaging.

 

While on Greywater I forgot to mention the Greywater fungus from Men of Greywater Station, in that story was likely extraterrestrial, spores of the fungus are carried on stellar wind and move from planet to planet.

Also, in the Color out of Space by Lovecraft, a meteor carrying a bizarre alien lifeform lands on Earth, lives in a well, and poisons the land around it, and drives people insane.

Also, in the Willows by Algernon Blackwood, the willows are an alien life form that eats humans, and lives outside of the human concept of time.

There is a lot to support the weirwood is an alien life form. 

Also, Doran means "stranger" in Irish?  The weirwood is the Stranger, god of death, him of many faces.

 

Give me a quote pull that suggests that.  If they dug a million tunnels under Valyria that would have decreased volcanic pressure, making it less likely to blow, not more.  The quotes I pulled earlier describe the Valyrian doom in the same terms as the Breaking of the Arm of Dorne and the Flooding of the Neck, both weirwood/CoTF blood sacrifice earthquake events. 

When Arya is learning about the first Faceless Man:

"The slaves were not crying out to a hundred different gods, as it seemed, but to one god with a hundred different faces" that is, the Weirwood, the god of death.  Who do we normally find in tunnels?  The CoTF.  The slaves must have engaged in a mass human sacrifice and woke the giants from the Earth.

The World of Ice and Fire - Ancient History: The Doom of Valyria

And then, unexpected to all (save perhaps Aenar Targaryen and his maiden daughter Daenys the Dreamer), the Doom came to Valyria.

To this day, no one knows what caused the Doom. Most say that it was a natural cataclysm—a catastrophic explosion caused by the eruption of all Fourteen Flames together. Some septons, less wise, claim that the Valyrians brought the disaster on themselves for their promiscuous belief in a hundred gods and more, and in their godlessness they delved too deep and unleashed the fires of the Seven hells on the Freehold. A handful of maesters, influenced by fragments of the work of Septon Barth, hold that Valyria had used spells to tame the Fourteen Flames for thousands of years, that their ceaseless hunger for slaves and wealth was as much to sustain these spells as to expand their power, and that when at last those spells faltered, the cataclysm became inevitable.