FIRE AND BLOOD EXCERPT

[Free Northman Reborn]

10 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

I like number one.  But the Others do still seem to have that connection once the wights are brought across (or am I wrong?).  Also, it seems to me that if the Others and wights can't cross, it should be both the dragon-riding Valyrians and their dragons that can't cross.

I would postulate that Bloodraven was the one who revived the wights in Castle Black. His motive is obvious- to raise awareness of the threat and to accelerate Jon’s rise through he ranks, just like he interfered with Jon’s election by skinchanging into Mormont’s raven.

We know there are ancient tales of greenseers being necromancers - Morgon Banefort comes to mind. We know Bloodraven has animated the dead in the form of Coldhands.

And we know that Bloodraven is able to breach the Wall with his powers, through the weirnet.

We also know that he is fully knowledgeable of the nature of the Others and their magic.

Bloodraven had much to gain from animating those two corpses, while the Others had almost nothing to gain by doing so.

I can’t prove it of course, but it certainly has logic to support it. The alternative is that the Wall cannot stop the Others necromantic powers, which would kind of defeat its very purpose for existing.

[Ran]

I don't think that is the right "alternative". The wights were "dead" during the day... and then the Watch themselves brought them through the Wall to the other side, a thing the wights could not do on their own during the night when they were animated. This means the Wall remains useful even if it isn't a magical barrier that prevents wights from even being able to exist south of its boundaries. Presently, the only way the Others can assert their magic south of the Wall is if humans are tricked into bringing their works through the Wall.

[Free Northman Reborn]

50 minutes ago, Ran said:

I don't think that is the right "alternative". The wights were "dead" during the day... and then the Watch themselves brought them through the Wall to the other side, a thing the wights could not do on their own during the night when they were animated. This means the Wall remains useful even if it isn't a magical barrier that prevents wights from even being able to exist south of its boundaries. Presently, the only way the Others can assert their magic south of the Wall is if humans are tricked into bringing their works through the Wall.

I guess the key issue there is whether the wights’ animation requires active, constant intervention and control by an Other (the Myrdraall model followed by the Show) which is similar to the constant bond required in skinchanger magic, or whether it is a one time spell which remains active in the wight irrespective of the presence or ongoing contact with the Other?

If the former, then the Wall would still break the link between the Other and the wight South of the Wall. If the latter, then the wight is “once raised, always raised”, able to rise, even if no Others exist to raise it again each night.

The latter seems kind of unlikely to me, given the presence of intense cold each time a wight rises, implying the external application of Other magic each time to animate them again.

[Ran]

The latter seems right to me, in fact. The Others change the bodies, for lack of a better word, and they are now magical.

It's also why Jon's dead bodies are not rising right now, because he has them inside the Wall in its ice cells, not realizing they need to be brought out from under the Wall to rise so that he can try to study them.

[Free Northman Reborn]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

The latter seems right to me, in fact. The Others change the bodies, for lack of a better word, and they are now magical.

It's also why Jon's dead bodies are not rising right now, because he has them inside the Wall in its ice cells, not realizing they need to be brought out from under the Wall to rise so that he can try to study them.

How does the wight cause the temperature of the surrounding area to drop then? It has no magic of its own. The magic of the Others “changed it”, to be able to animate, in this scenario. If there is no further external magic involved, why are there external effects manifesting to create the conditions for it to rise, in the absence of any Other involvement each time?

[Ran]

Inherent magic seems straight forward, no? Darkness comes, their power goes out of hibernation to animate them, the air gets colder around them as a consequence or perhaps even a part of the process of reanimating them. It doesn't need anything other than them to do it, so far as I can see.

 

 

[Back door hodor]

Enjoyed the excerpt and good discussion....one but takeaway I have is how involved Alysanna was in the affairs of the realm and the way she acts and behaves while doing so, one wonders if this was the norm back than, and how widespread this practice was among the early Targaryens.

Silverwing and the Wall is definitely the most interesting, as it definitely shows that the walls magic does more than just block the others

Also...up thread someone said they thought Lord Alaric had the hots for the queen, definitely agree and also agree that this could lead to other interesting implications, for example, the world book states the Jahaeres and Alysanne quarlled more than once, to the point of living separately, one wonders whether we may be seeing such a time with our own eyes so to speak....or not haha

[Free Northman Reborn]

10 minutes ago, Back door hodor said:

Enjoyed the excerpt and good discussion....one but takeaway I have is how involved Alysanna was in the affairs of the realm and the way she acts and behaves while doing so, one wonders if this was the norm back than, and how widespread this practice was among the early Targaryens.

Silverwing and the Wall is definitely the most interesting, as it definitely shows that the walls magic does more than just block the others

Also...up thread someone said they thought Lord Alaric had the hots for the queen, definitely agree and also agree that this could lead to other interesting implications, for example, the world book states the Jahaeres and Alysanne quarlled more than once, to the point of living separately, one wonders whether we may be seeing such a time with our own eyes so to speak....or not haha

Any good vibes between Alaric and Allysane  must have been extinguished by the subsequent theft of the New Gift and its donation to the Watch. According to history books the Starks were mightily upset by that.

We can already see the groundwork for it being laid with the Watch apologizing to the Queen for their lack of resources and her obvious - if misplaced - sympathy for them. And I say misplaced because clearly their poverty was not as a result of a lack of sufficient land, but rather due to a lack of men being sent to them from the rest of Westeros. The theft of the New Gift did bugger all to solve that, and in fact just depopulated another 25 leagues of Northern territory, with no commensurate benefit to anyone.

 

[Lord Varys]

6 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I would postulate that Bloodraven was the one who revived the wights in Castle Black. His motive is obvious- to raise awareness of the threat and to accelerate Jon’s rise through he ranks, just like he interfered with Jon’s election by skinchanging into Mormont’s raven.

That makes literally no sense at all. For one, Bloodraven is a former Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. Do we believe he wanted to kill the leadership of his own order? That would be the ultimate betrayal. And if he didn't want to do that - why on earth did kill the wights important leaders of the Watch or try to do so?

One can assume that Ghost had a strong connection to Bloodraven, causing him to find the wights and sense the threat they posed in the night. But the idea Bloodraven wanted to be the NW be as stupid as they were when they brought to the wights to CB.

Not to mention - if Bloodraven could raise/control the wights then the wights of the Others (and the Others as such) would not be a problem to anyone. More importantly - why on earth have Bran, the Reeds, and Leaf have to risk their lives fighting the wights in front of the cave if Bloodraven actually can control them?

The idea that Coldhands was actually raised by Bloodraven is actually not implied by the story. Leaf makes it clear that the guy was killed by the wights a long time ago, making it very likely he was raised by the Others and somehow regained control of his corpse body. The best explanation for this is that Coldhands was a skinchanger ranger who started his second life in an animal after his body became a wight, and then was somehow able to regain control of his dead body, breaking the control by the Others which is symbolized by the blue eyes and gaining some sort of 'zombie immortality' in the process of it.

Coldhands works for Bloodraven but there is no indication that he is his puppet or directly controlled by him.

6 hours ago, Ran said:

I don't think that is the right "alternative". The wights were "dead" during the day... and then the Watch themselves brought them through the Wall to the other side, a thing the wights could not do on their own during the night when they were animated. This means the Wall remains useful even if it isn't a magical barrier that prevents wights from even being able to exist south of its boundaries. Presently, the only way the Others can assert their magic south of the Wall is if humans are tricked into bringing their works through the Wall.

There is a lot to that, but were the wights *really dead* or inactive during the day? They did have blue eyes. Visible signs of the magic were there.

And then there is the question of how the wights' desire to put down the officers of the Watch is to be explained? Can they still think properly in this zombie-state? Did they make the decision to target their former leaders? Were they executing commands given to them by the Other(s) who revived them and put them close to the weirwood grove? Or were they remote-controlled by the Others?

If the latter were the case the Wall would not act as magical barrier for the spell of the Others.

Which I think makes a certain sense in the overall context. If the long and cruel winters are made by the Others, too, then the Wall is not stopping those, either.

5 hours ago, Ran said:

The latter seems right to me, in fact. The Others change the bodies, for lack of a better word, and they are now magical.

It's also why Jon's dead bodies are not rising right now, because he has them inside the Wall in its ice cells, not realizing they need to be brought out from under the Wall to rise so that he can try to study them.

But were those bodies actually ever *touched* by the Others? Didn't they die south of the Wall and would thus most likely never rise, anyway? At this point no corpses south of the Wall that are not already wights have risen...

If they were touched by them I'd agree that putting them into the Wall is not going to help them with the rising process, though.

If we credit the Wall with preventing Silverwing from flying across it then this would have interesting repercussions for the Others, too. One should then assume that neither wights nor Others nor ice spiders should be able climb over the Wall - which would undo a rather interesting action scene.

But then, perhaps the Wall will fall it steps. The Others could first undo the magic in the Wall (perhaps by destroying the Black Gate?), allowing them to climb it, and only use the Horn of Joramun to remove the physical obstacle some time later. 

2 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Any good vibes between Alaric and Allysane  must have been extinguished by the subsequent theft of the New Gift and its donation to the Watch. According to history books the Starks were mightily upset by that.

Well, I just don't see that after they bonded the way they did. Could be that other Starks were upset by that - those sons Lord Alaric had, or some others - but this guy is not going to offer much resistance if Alysanne asks him to part with some land at the far end of his domains. I mean, he even approached her dragon. How much closer can he get... ;-)?

But then - who knows, perhaps one of Alaric's successors is the 'New Gift guy'? We don't know.

[Ran]

Per Coldhands, the wights were no danger during daylight, and it was nightfall when matters became urgent. 

[Lord Varys]

9 minutes ago, Ran said:

Per Coldhands, the wights were no danger during daylight, and it was nightfall when matters became urgent. 

That is true, and we only see them stumbling around in the night at this point. Which is why the whole 'Long Night' aspect is likely going to become rather important in winter. The Others won't have that much success if their army cannot move half of the day.

But one really wonders whether it makes sense that a wight doesn't react (or at least the magic in a wight) when it gets close to the Wall or is carried through it.

But as I've said - perhaps the Watch destroyed the spell/magic of the Wall where the tunnels are? Then it makes sense that the wights could be carried through there.

[direpupy]

58 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, I just don't see that after they bonded the way they did. Could be that other Starks were upset by that - those sons Lord Alaric had, or some others - but this guy is not going to offer much resistance if Alysanne asks him to part with some land at the far end of his domains. I mean, he even approached her dragon. How much closer can he get... ;-)?

But then - who knows, perhaps one of Alaric's successors is the 'New Gift guy'? We don't know.

According to TWoIaF it was the Lord Starks brother that who sought legal council from the citadel to avoid having to give up the New Gift.

The World of Ice and Fire - The North: The Lords of Winterfell

 Letters from Lord Stark's brother to the Citadel, asking the maesters to provide precedents against the forced donation of property, made it plain that the Starks were not eager to do as King Jaehaerys bid.

We do not hear of Lord Alaric having a brother (which does not mean he can not have one) but he does have two sons so that seems to hint at the New Gift being created after Lord Alaric died.

[Free Northman Reborn]

5 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That is true, and we only see them stumbling around in the night at this point. Which is why the whole 'Long Night' aspect is likely going to become rather important in winter. The Others won't have that much success if their army cannot move half of the day.

But one really wonders whether it makes sense that a wight doesn't react (or at least the magic in a wight) when it gets close to the Wall or is carried through it.

But as I've said - perhaps the Watch destroyed the spell/magic of the Wall where the tunnels are? Then it makes sense that the wights could be carried through there.

The important thing about the threat of the Others is not the lethality of their wights. These are not “fast zombies”. These are slow, lumbering zombies. And yes, they lie motionless all day and are only able to animate at night. So unlike in the travesty that shall not be named, the Others won’t represent an overwhelming wave of death the moment the Wall falls.

Instead it is their slow relentlessnes that makes them so dangerous. They will keep coming for years or decades until Winter ends. And as the kingdoms of men grow weakerfrom hunger and attrition, the Others will just keep pushing, slowly advancing over many years until they achieve victory.

So I expect wights to be destroyed in their thousands where they lie motionless during day time. And humans to win many more battles than they lose, from behind strong fortress walls, wielding arrows of fire, burning oil and other weapons as the wights mill around clumsily at the bottom of castle walls.

And in daytime, men will ride forth and burn every wight for miles around.

But each time they will lose a few men. And adding that up over a decade of Winter, men will be slowly but surely overwhelmed. Unless they have magic to defeat the Others once and for all.

I say the above to counter your assertion that wights that can only rise at night are not much of a threat. Yes, they are less of a threat than the fast zombies of some stories. And yes, this will allow humans to fight the war on a much more level footing. But the Others have time and Winter on their side. And that is why they bring Armageddon in the long run. Unless defeated by magic.

[Lord Varys]

@Free Northman Reborn

Days are already growing shorter in Bran's last chapter. The Long Night is not just a fancy name. The sun is not going to rise in the winter that comes, just as it didn't rise back in the day. Even if they get a few hours of sunlight each day it shouldn't enable them to do a lot.

If they still have daylight, then the dragons could just toast the unmoving wights. They can hide in the haunted forest rather easily, but the North and the other Seven Kingdoms don't have all that many thick forests left.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

On 9/28/2018 at 2:32 AM, Lord Varys said:

Additional stuff from the sketchy finished family tree from the video:

I see Androw Farman as Rhaena's third husband, as mentioned above already.

But we also get Laena Velaryon (II) as daughter of Alyn Velaryon and Baela Targaryen.

Guess they started it early to get to that 'issue' we learned about in the TWoIaF family tree.

Surprised that this tree seems to have quite a number of additional compared to the family tree that was released in July. Neither Androw nor Laena (II) were on there.

Which makes me wonder if there are any other additions?

[The Grey Wolf]

49 minutes ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

Which makes me wonder if there are any other additions?

Me too. Darn video quality!

[Lord Varys]

If you watch it on youtube and use a big screen you can read everything just fine.

[ravenous reader]

On 9/27/2018 at 11:51 PM, Lord Varys said:

Bran also sees and speaks through the Winterfell weirwood, so he, too, can reach through the Wall. And at this point he doesn't have any visible roots.

From this observation, one may conclude that the magical connection bypassing the ward across the Wall involves harnessing that provided by the subterranean shortcut of @Wizz-The-Smith's hollow hills, independent of trees, as he's radically suggested. Bloodraven himself hints as much, when he refers to Bran learning to see 'beyond the trees' themselves.

Recall that Brandon the Builder -- who is suggested to have been a greenseer -- commanded at least three of the four elemental magics, namely of earth (stone), water, and air (wind). Thus, trees are not needed. They are a gateway, but not essential to magic per se.

Quote

Brandon the Builder sought the aid of the children while raising the Wall. He was taken to a secret place to meet with them, but could not at first understand their speech, which was described as sounding like the song of stones in a brook, or the wind through leaves, or the rain upon the water. The manner in which Brandon learned to comprehend the speech of the children is a tale in itself, and not worth repeating here. But it seems clear that their speech originated, or drew inspiration from, the sounds they heard every day.

In case it's not obvious, 'song' is a euphemism for magic. I've referred to this faculty as 'the killing word,' in an homage to 'Dune.'

Quote

Also, if Bloodraven talks through Mormont's raven and had it involve itself in Jon's election - not to mention the entire direwolf-and-stag charade early on in AGoT - then apparently greenseers can make use of their skinchanging powers beyond the Wall while non-greenseeing-skinchangers can't.

This makes sense. To this I'd add, that only greenseers located underground can circumvent the ward. 

Quote

Also, what about Jon's dream from Bran back in ACoK when he was north of the Wall and Bran still south of the Wall?

To date, I have not yet read a convincing account of what exactly happened there, though there have been oh-so-many threads claiming to deal with the subject!

I see one of two scenarios being plausible:

1)  Either Bran contacted Jon in real time from ACOK in the crypts, using the subterranean route to magically bypass the ward across the Wall...

2) Or Bran contacted Jon from the future (i.e. Bran's ADWD to Jon's ACOK), when they would've both been on the same side of the Wall.

Personally, I favor the latter, though I realize time hijinks are not everyone's cup of tea. The clue for this interpretation lies in the insertion by GRRM of the weirwood in the vision growing in rapid fast-forward before Jon's eyes, which is a marker of time passing in the forward direction with respect to the viewer; analogous to the trees Bran saw in his greenseeing vision,  shrinking and dwindling into death, the further he went into the past.

Quote

Or the wights targeting the important leaders in the Watch? Surely it must be the Others/magic in them that directed them to targeting them.

And how is that one can carry a wight through the Wall but not fly a dragon across the Wall? Shouldn't the wight react the way Silverwing there and actively try to get not through the Wall, like Silverwing didn't want to follow her rider's directions?

Great observation. To my knowledge, no one has yet answered this question!

Perhaps, again, the answer lies in that the dragons were controlled by their rider above the Wall (dragonriding/bonding as metaphor for skinchanging), whereas the wights may have been animated by a force, likely greenseers, operating from underground.

Quote

You mean like the Harmund II did with the Drowned God? Never thought about, but it doesn't seem to be likely that stuff like that happened.

To me it seems the First Men practices are a very different form of religion, one that didn't care much about prayers and the like. They have no priests, no caste to observe degrees of piety. With them no longer sacrificing, even devoted followers of the old gods don't seem to be doing much with their religion aside from assembling in the godswood for certain rituals.

Well, they could always fly around the Wall. But it really puts things into perspective. If the wanted to fly to the Heart of Winter for an air attack it would most likely not work by flying above the Wall.

Not sure what you want your point there is?

Lord Alaric isn't cold. He just pretends he is. He is like Ned aside from the fact that his facial expression froze one winter while he was playing the lord.

I recommend everyone read @Voice's excellent thread, in which he posits that Orell's/Varamyr's eagle was zapped by the magic ward in the Wall, and not by Melisandre at all. This might be analogous to what would happen to a dragon bonded to a rider flying over the Wall (without being granted permission to cross by the Black Gate, who it would seem is the authority tasked with controlling the magical-mundane border crossing -- think of it as a toll gate --across the hinge)!

http://thelasthearth.com/thread/1556/wall-melisandre-orells-eagle

[AlaskanSandman]

18 hours ago, Ran said:

I don't think that is the right "alternative". The wights were "dead" during the day... and then the Watch themselves brought them through the Wall to the other side, a thing the wights could not do on their own during the night when they were animated. This means the Wall remains useful even if it isn't a magical barrier that prevents wights from even being able to exist south of its boundaries. Presently, the only way the Others can assert their magic south of the Wall is if humans are tricked into bringing their works through the Wall.

So we'll say Lady Stone Heart, what's the difference? Or is there any?

Not sure if Beric and Lady Stone Heart only rise at night, i dont recall enough info on that, but shouldn't they be blocked from the wall too? Or is that the trick?

[Curled Finger]

On 9/28/2018 at 7:32 AM, Frey family reunion said:

I'd say that this scenario is the most likely way that a Targaryen bloodline got introduced into House Stark.  While we don't know Alysanne's full adventure up north yet, I wouldn't be surprised that she was apart from Jahaerys long enough to give birth to a bastard up north, that had to be left up north for obvious reasons.  And the area that seems the most invested in Alysanne is the area where the Queen's Crown tower is located.  Which might also be the area controlled by House Flint. 

And perhaps this explains part of the significance of a maternal bloodline of House Flint coming into House Stark, and continuing a maternal bloodline all the way until Lyanna Stark.

Now if you look at sigil of House Flint, Widow's Watch, you get two blue eyes looking out over the Narrow Sea.  Could these eyes be the blue eyes of Alysanne?

Hrm so this is really a thing?  One of the best *love stories*--Jaehaerys and Alysanne--of the series and she gets to be a cheat?