Heresy 216 The Return of the Crow

[Tucu]

5 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

He is speaking about skinchangers and not wildlings in general, but it does seem to hint at something more. 

There is a reread thread for this topic if you're interested.

I didn't realise that that topic was still active. I will repost there later.

I am thinking that the persecution and extermination was extended to the families of the skinchangers as the gift seems to skip generations. In Bran chapters we get the legends of the skinchangers as evil demons from Jojen and Old Nan:

Quote

“Warg,” said Jojen Reed.

Bran looked at him, his eyes wide. “What?”

“Warg. Demon. Shapechanger. Beastling. That is what they will call you, if they should ever hear of your wolf dreams.”

The names made him afraid again. “Who will call me?”

“Your own folk. In fear. Some will hate you if they know what you are. Some will even try to kill you.”

Old Nan told scary stories of beastlings and shapechangers sometimes. In the stories they were always evil. “I’m not like that,” Bran said. “I’m not. It’s only dreams.”

This is another dark legend similar to the one told about the WW. Quite strange considering that many of the First Men houses seem to have been skinchangers in the past. Why would the Starks have children's tales about evil wargs? Was there an internal purge?

[Janneyc1]

So related to the Others question, I have been perusing the world books and had a theory come up: We have numerous places that have magical imortance in Westeros, and a few over in Essos. I think that these places, such as Winterfell, Storm's End and the Other Fused black stone places were created by utilizing Dragon fire to build a solid redoubt against the Others. In doing so, These dragons may have died and gave up their power to fuel the magic of these areas. Thoughts? 

[Melifeather]

28 minutes ago, Tucu said:

I didn't realise that that topic was still active. I will repost there later.

I am thinking that the persecution and extermination was extended to the families of the skinchangers as the gift seems to skip generations. In Bran chapters we get the legends of the skinchangers as evil demons from Jojen and Old Nan:

This is another dark legend similar to the one told about the WW. Quite strange considering that many of the First Men houses seem to have been skinchangers in the past. Why would the Starks have children's tales about evil wargs? Was there an internal purge?

It does seem as if there was a campaign to rid the south of skinchangers, except for the Starks, but they got rid of their direwolves instead. However I think that the wildlings are also First Men that refused to kneel to a Lord of Winterfell. It's something they stress on more than one occasion, so I think it's important. We've discussed many times in the past that the First Men as a group appeared to split with some staying close to the Children, and other aligning themselves with the new Andal invaders. Of course that would make either the Wall newer than believed, or the Andals have been in Westeros longer than the historical record suggests.

[Janneyc1]

17 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

It does seem as if there was a campaign to rid the south of skinchangers, except for the Starks, but they got rid of their direwolves instead. However I think that the wildlings are also First Men that refused to kneel to a Lord of Winterfell. It's something they stress on more than one occasion, so I think it's important. We've discussed many times in the past that the First Men as a group appeared to split with some staying close to the Children, and other aligning themselves with the new Andal invaders. Of course that would make either the Wall newer than believed, or the Andals have been in Westeros longer than the historical record suggests.

Perhaps there was a group of Andals that came across earlier than we think? I would assume that the concept of Castles and the like would be more of an Andalosi tradition. In addition, there would need to be some sort of key to understanding the First Man runes that were translated. That's how we got most of the lore regarding the Dawn and Hero's ages. 

 

I would wager that the Andals sent over some folks a few centuries before the main group came over. Those guys caused the divide, then everyone forgot about the Andals until they came back. 

 

Your point also lends to my thought that the Ironborn started as political prisoners of the Storm Kings of old. The biggest part of that theory is the Storm God and the similarities between him and Storm's End. 

[asongofheresy]

Thanks to @Lady Rhodes tidbit thread I had a chance to read about Faceless Men and Braavos and I had ended up changing my ideas about the Titan of Braavos - I was thinking the Titan symbolizes the Giants that will wake from the Earth with Joramun's horn but the fact he is wearing bronze armor and has green hair with broken sword made me think if the Titan is the Last Hero searching for the Children of the Forest? Is there a Gulliver situation where humans look like giants to CotF while they look like dwarfs to giants themselves? 

[alienarea]

Many, many heresies ago I suggested that the Others are something like frozen jellyfish, would need to look it up.

Anyway, thinking again about Haggon lingering on: when a skinchanger is slain in the North he may decide not to linger on in a human or animal but in fogs and mists? That would make the question do the Others bring the cold or does the cold bring the Others pointless as the Others are the cold. Would explain why they shatter from Valyrian steel and dragonglass.

And, think about the title of the saga: A Song of Ice and Fire. Usually, water is considered as the opposite element to fire. Ice is in another aggregate state than water.

Basically, what I'm aiming at: are the Others in a different aggregate state than humans (CotF, giants, ...)? Maybe that is why they are called the Others?

[Tucu]

At the moment I am betting that the WW are a product of mixing the white cold with spirits/ghost/shadows; they might be controlled by someone with shadowbinder powers or just do their own thing. In Cat's chapter we get a legend that sounds similar to this but in warmer weather:

Quote

 The nightfires had burned low, and as the east began to lighten the immense mass of Storm's End emerged like a dream of stone while wisps of pale mist raced across the field, flying from the sun on wings of wind. Morning ghosts, she had heard Old Nan call them once, spirits returning to their graves. And Renly one of them now, gone like his brother Robert, like her own dear Ned.

We have seen Varamyr spirit being carried by the wind. Cat's description is similar to the description of the WW used by Tormund:

Quote

A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up … how do you fight a mist, crow? Shadows with teeth … air so cold it hurts to breathe, like a knife inside your chest … you do not know, you cannot know … can your sword cut cold?"

 

[alienarea]

8 minutes ago, Tucu said:

At the moment I am betting that the WW are a product of mixing the white cold with spirits/ghost/shadows; they might be controlled by someone with shadowbinder powers or just do their own thing. In Cat's chapter we get a legend that sounds similar to this but in warmer weather:

We have seen Varamyr spirit being carried by the wind. Cat's description is similar to the description of the WW used by Tormund:

 

And then there's the ill-fated "Eye of the Zombie" record by John Fogerty from 1986. I guess GRRM would have been fine with the grim lyrics. Tracks include "Change in the Weather" (!) and the title track has a line "... you can't fight a shadow, you can kill a dead man ..."

[Tucu]

16 minutes ago, alienarea said:

And then there's the ill-fated "Eye of the Zombie" record by John Fogerty from 1986. I guess GRRM would have been fine with the grim lyrics. Tracks include "Change in the Weather" (!) and the title track has a line "... you can't fight a shadow, you can kill a dead man ..."

Just did a quick search and GRRM posted on his blog that he is a big fan of Credence (Fogerty's old band). It was in a response of this entry about the Grateful Dead:

https://grrm.livejournal.com/431639.html

Fun fact: some of the Grateful Dead members later formed a band named The Other Ones that then changed the name to The Dead.

[Janneyc1]

1 hour ago, Tucu said:

At the moment I am betting that the WW are a product of mixing the white cold with spirits/ghost/shadows; they might be controlled by someone with shadowbinder powers or just do their own thing. In Cat's chapter we get a legend that sounds similar to this but in warmer weather:

That could set Melisandre up to become the Great Other. I could see GRRM setting that up. It would be an interesting conflict for her to deal with. 

 

Previously, we've discussed that Dalla and Val might be part of a religous caste that only occurs North of the Wall. We have also predicted that the Wildlings are controlling the Others. Putting those thoughts plus the Others being controlled by a shadow binder could mean that Val has the ability to control shadows. 

[asongofheresy]

I agree with @Tucu that Others could be mixture of mist and ghosts but I also think whights themselves are more than mindless zombies as both Thistle and Catelyn are called "the thing that was" and Old Nan has a story about Nightfort and the thing that came at night. (Is there a heresy thread for Old Nan identity and her stories?) 

[Tucu]

3 hours ago, Janneyc1 said:

That could set Melisandre up to become the Great Other. I could see GRRM setting that up. It would be an interesting conflict for her to deal with. 

 

Previously, we've discussed that Dalla and Val might be part of a religous caste that only occurs North of the Wall. We have also predicted that the Wildlings are controlling the Others. Putting those thoughts plus the Others being controlled by a shadow binder could mean that Val has the ability to control shadows. 

Val and Mel have Night's Queen characteristics so we need to keep an eye on them for hints of icy shadowbinding.

The legends of the Nightfort might be giving us hints that there was shadowbinding involved in the NW/WW. In several chapters the NW brothers are described as black shadows and we have two legends that describe bound NW brothers:

Quote

He brought her back to the Nightfort and proclaimed her a queen and himself her king, and with strange sorceries he bound his Sworn Brothers to his will. For thirteen years they had ruled, Night's King and his corpse queen, till finally the Stark of Winterfell and Joramun of the wildlings had joined to free the Watch from bondage. After his fall, when it was found he had been sacrificing to the Others, all records of Night's King had been destroyed, his very name forbidden.

Quote

maybe it was the thing that came in the night. The 'prentice boys all saw it, Old Nan said, but afterward when they told their Lord Commander every description had been different. And three died within the year, and the fourth went mad, and a hundred years later when the thing had come again, the 'prentice boys were seen shambling along behind it, all in chains.

 

[Janneyc1]

24 minutes ago, Tucu said:

Val and Mel have Night's Queen characteristics so we need to keep an eye on them for hints of icy shadowbinding.

The legends of the Nightfort might be giving us hints that there was shadowbinding involved in the NW/WW. In several chapters the NW brothers are described as black shadows and we have two legends that describe bound NW brothers:

I wonder about the various legends of the Nightfort. Can we draw any parallels to other places? Maybe Maegors Holdfast in terms of the secrecy and weird things that go on there. 

[Tucu]

12 minutes ago, Janneyc1 said:

I wonder about the various legends of the Nightfort. Can we draw any parallels to other places? Maybe Maegors Holdfast in terms of the secrecy and weird things that go on there. 

Harrenhal is associated with legends of ghosts and curses. Also each of the 5 towers have names associated with death or ghosts: Tower of Dread, Widow's Tower, Wailing Tower, Tower of Ghosts, Kingspyre Tower.

Like The Wall, the walls of Harrenhal are said to have been made with blood (as mortar in this case)

[Janneyc1]

1 minute ago, Tucu said:

Harrenhal is associated with legends of ghosts and curses. Also each of the 5 towers have names associated with death or ghosts: Tower of Dread, Widow's Tower, Wailing Tower, Tower of Ghosts, Kingspyre Tower.

I forgot about Harrenhall. I don't recall anything in AWOIAF about any explanations behind the ghosts and such of Harrenhall, (aside from "Weasel"). 

[Tucu]

16 minutes ago, Janneyc1 said:

I forgot about Harrenhall. I don't recall anything in AWOIAF about any explanations behind the ghosts and such of Harrenhall, (aside from "Weasel"). 

We don't have a lot of details but we have multiple characters talking about the ghosts and the curse. Harren using blood and weirwoods to build it might be an explanation. From a later date we have the tales of Danelle Lothson using black arts, capturing children with her giant bats, bathing in blood and feasting in human flesh.

Weird thought: Harrenhal will be the place where the new Wall will be raised to mark the End of the World for men after ADoS.

[Black Crow]

20 hours ago, alienarea said:

Many, many heresies ago I suggested that the Others are something like frozen jellyfish, would need to look it up.

Anyway, thinking again about Haggon lingering on: when a skinchanger is slain in the North he may decide not to linger on in a human or animal but in fogs and mists? That would make the question do the Others bring the cold or does the cold bring the Others pointless as the Others are the cold. Would explain why they shatter from Valyrian steel and dragonglass.

And, think about the title of the saga: A Song of Ice and Fire. Usually, water is considered as the opposite element to fire. Ice is in another aggregate state than water.

Basically, what I'm aiming at: are the Others in a different aggregate state than humans (CotF, giants, ...)? Maybe that is why they are called the Others?

I agree entirely. GRRM after all described them as a different kind of life and I have argued before that they are in effect ghosts [of old Stark lords] and can "assemble" a body at need from the ice crystals in the air, and in general see them as akin to the Nazgul.

[Brad Stark]

6 hours ago, Tucu said:

Just did a quick search and GRRM posted on his blog that he is a big fan of Credence (Fogerty's old band). It was in a response of this entry about the Grateful Dead:

https://grrm.livejournal.com/431639.html

Fun fact: some of the Grateful Dead members later formed a band named The Other Ones that then changed the name to The Dead.

The timing is wrong, AGOT published in 97 and the band used that name in 98.  But if it were the other way around, it would be an interesting theory. 

[Tucu]

1 hour ago, Brad Stark said:

The timing is wrong, AGOT published in 97 and the band used that name in 98.  But if it were the other way around, it would be an interesting theory. 

Does it count that the second band was named after their 1968 song That's It For the Other One ? :-)

Mountains of the Moon, Dark Star and Dire Wolf seems to be some of their songs with ties to ASOIAF.

[Brad Stark]

5 hours ago, Tucu said:

Does it count that the second band was named after their 1968 song That's It For the Other One ? :-)

Mountains of the Moon, Dark Star and Dire Wolf seems to be some of their songs with ties to ASOIAF.

The other day they waited, the sky was dark and faded,
Solemnly they stated, "He has to die, you know he has to die." 
All the children learnin', from books that they were burnin',
Every leaf was turnin', to watch him die, you know he had to die.

The summer sun looked down on him,
His mother could but frown on him,
And all the other sound on him,
He had to die, you know he had to die.

 

Maybe