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longest summer in living memory


Wolfkin

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"This one came to tell us that the Conclave has met, considered the reports and measurements made by maesters all over the realm, and declared this great summer done at last. Ten years, two turns, and sixteen days it lasted, the longest summer in living memory." 

I can't find it at the moment, but there was a section where Old Nan told a story of the old, the weak men would 'go hunting' and not return in those long winter years so their families would have one less mouth to feed - basically sacrifice themselves to Winter, but maybe there is something they know? Winter needs a certain # of sacrifices before it fades into Spring?

So if Winter hasn't had any sacrifices in 10 years, 2 turns, and 16 days -- It is coming, with vengeance, for it's due?

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42 minutes ago, Wolfkin said:

I can't find it at the moment, but there was a section where Old Nan told a story of the old, the weak men would 'go hunting' and not return in those long winter years so their families would have one less mouth to feed - basically sacrifice themselves to Winter.

There are quite a lot of it in Jon chapters in ADWD (check the dialogue with Alys Karstark). The mountain clans mindset, etc.

 

42 minutes ago, Wolfkin said:

I always felt that was lame on the part of the men leaving their families to fend for themselves, but maybe there is something they know?

Oh, sweet summer child. It is not the able men nor the heads of the families who go "hunting", it is typical the old men who had a life behind who do that, so the newer generations could survive.

This kind of things have also happened in real life during war or famine. Sometimes the grandmother or grandfather just go to sleep and refuse to eat so the grandchildren can enjoy a little bit more of food.

 

42 minutes ago, Wolfkin said:

Winter needs a certain # of sacrifices before it fades into Spring?

No

 

42 minutes ago, Wolfkin said:

So if Winter hasn't had any sacrifices in 10 years, 2 turns, and 16 days -- It is coming, with vengeance, for it's due?

No. Winter is clearly supernatural and the ones who are actually sacrificing to Winter (like Craster) are actually helping it to get stronger.

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37 minutes ago, Wolfkin said:

 the old, the weak men would 'go hunting' and not return in those long winter years so their families would have one less mouth to feed - basically sacrifice themselves to Winter. I always felt that was lame on the part of the men leaving their families to fend for themselves

It's not that they leave their families to fend for themselves. Is that they have been farming or hunting to the best of their abilities during summer, in order to stock food for their families, but once winter has started there is nothing else they can do and sacrificing themselves so that there's one mouth less to feed could even be a necessity.

37 minutes ago, Wolfkin said:

 Winter needs a certain # of sacrifices before it fades into Spring?

So if Winter hasn't had any sacrifices in 10 years, 2 turns, and 16 days -- It is coming, with vengeance, for it's due?

It doesn't seem to work that way. There hasn't been a succession of short winters without sacrifices, n no invasion of the others for millennia.

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53 minutes ago, Wolfkin said:

Lame was the nicest word I could come up with.

if you add one word and mix the sentence up a bit you have:
Their families starve because these men are sacrificing themselves.

Sorry, but I have a personal experience with a father who 'went for a pack of smokes' and never returned. They just gave up on their families. I'm sorry we don't see the sentence the same way. I just think families should stick together, and fight together and grow stronger - relying on one another through the hard times. A burdened shared is easier to carry.

These old men, who are probably going to die soon anyway either of old age or the cold, are going out to die so that their families wont starve to death due to limited food and an inability to get more food. If these men don't go out to die then then would probably still die along with more of their family members. They are being practical. 

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1 hour ago, Wolfkin said:

Lame was the nicest word I could come up with.

if you add one word and mix the sentence up a bit you have:
 Their families starve because these men are sacrificing themselves.

 Sorry, but I have a personal experience with a father who 'went for a pack of smokes' and never returned. They just gave up on their families. I'm sorry we don't see the sentence the same way. I just think families should stick together, and fight together and grow stronger - relying on one another through the hard times. A burdened shared is easier to carry.

The books are very explicit that they're not talking about the fathers of young children abandoning their families, so a personal experience like that has no bearing on what is being described in the books. With hard winters, every person is simply a mouth that needs to be fed, and there are more than enough hands to do whatever work is left to do in those times. Every possible action the older men could take would be to leave their families - even the euphemism of hunting requires them to go out and brave the elements, even if they were serious about finding something to hunt. Not to mention that the most vulnerable members of their families get sent off to Winterfell in Autumn anyway, so its not like 'daddy's gone away now' but more like 'while you were away, grandpa didn't make it.'

If its still not quite clear, use a different but analogous setting: 6 people, a family, are trapped in a cave-in. Rescue is on the way, but it will not come in time to save them, because they only have enough food to keep 5 people alive for that time, barely. There are no clever ideas to save them sooner, the math is the math. There is nothing the family can do, they have no mining equipment, no drills, there's no other way out the cave, there's no inspirational clever idea to come up with in the nick of time. Grandpa has lived a long full life, and does not want to watch the people he loves most in life starve to death in front of him.

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quotes for context:

"Winter is almost upon us, boy. And winter is death. I would sooner my men die fighting for the Ned's little girl than alone and hungry in the snow, weeping tears that freeze upon their cheeks. No one sings songs of men who die like that. As for me, I am old. This will be my last winter. Let me bathe in Bolton blood before I die. I want to feel it spatter across my face when my axe bites deep into a Bolton skull. I want to lick it off my lips and die with the taste of it on my tongue."

The King's Prize, ADWD

 

"My lady, how do things stand at Karhold with your food stores?"

"Not well." Alys sighed. "My father took so many of our men south with him that only the women and young boys were left to bring the harvest in. Them, and the men too old or crippled to go off to war. Crops withered in the fields or were pounded into the mud by autumn rains. And now the snows are come. This winter will be hard. Few of the old people will survive it, and many children will perish as well."

It was a tale that any northmen knew well. "My father's grandmother was a Flint of the mountains, on his mother's side," Jon told her. "The First Flints, they call themselves. They say the other Flints are the blood of younger sons, who had to leave the mountains to find food and land and wives. It has always been a harsh life up there. When the snows fall and food grows scarce, their young must travel to the winter town or take service at one castle or the other. The old men gather up what strength remains in them and announce that they are going hunting. Some are found come spring. More are never seen again."

Jon X, ADWD

 

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The old men who go out into the winter to die are committing a noble act.  It's nothing like a father in our modern society going "out for a pack of smokes" during his productive years and turning his back on his responsibilities to provide for his young family.  These old men have already given all the best years of their lives to raising and providing for their families.  But in Westeros winters can last for years and even if a family or a village or a keep had worked very hard all through the long summer storing grain, drying fish, curing meat and so on, the long winter would eventually cause them to use up all of their resources.  These old men were making a sacrifice but not to the gods.  Their sacrifice was personal and heroic, an act committed for the good of their families that reduced their collective drain on very limited resources and enabled the rest of their family to live longer.

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On 1/23/2019 at 6:31 AM, Wolfkin said:

"This one came to tell us that the Conclave has met, considered the reports and measurements made by maesters all over the realm, and declared this great summer done at last. Ten years, two turns, and sixteen days it lasted, the longest summer in living memory." 

I can't find it at the moment, but there was a section where Old Nan told a story of the old, the weak men would 'go hunting' and not return in those long winter years so their families would have one less mouth to feed - basically sacrifice themselves to Winter. I always felt that was lame on the part of the men leaving their families to fend for themselves, but maybe there is something they know? Winter needs a certain # of sacrifices before it fades into Spring?

So if Winter hasn't had any sacrifices in 10 years, 2 turns, and 16 days -- It is coming, with vengeance, for it's due?

We know Ned didn't slaughter humans to feed the tree but maybe Rickard and those before him did.  

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On 1/23/2019 at 6:31 AM, Wolfkin said:

"This one came to tell us that the Conclave has met, considered the reports and measurements made by maesters all over the realm, and declared this great summer done at last. Ten years, two turns, and sixteen days it lasted, the longest summer in living memory." 

I can't find it at the moment, but there was a section where Old Nan told a story of the old, the weak men would 'go hunting' and not return in those long winter years so their families would have one less mouth to feed - basically sacrifice themselves to Winter. I always felt that was lame on the part of the men leaving their families to fend for themselves, but maybe there is something they know? Winter needs a certain # of sacrifices before it fades into Spring?

So if Winter hasn't had any sacrifices in 10 years, 2 turns, and 16 days -- It is coming, with vengeance, for it's due?

Here's an idea.  This is way out there.  I do not buy into it myself but it is an interesting idea.  They were not walking out on their families.  They were doing the unmentionable.  Something everybody knew but never acknowledge.  Cannibalism.  They were sacrificing themselves in the literal sense of the word to keep their families from starving.

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On 1/23/2019 at 6:31 AM, Wolfkin said:

I can't find it at the moment, but there was a section where Old Nan told a story of the old, the weak men would 'go hunting' and not return in those long winter years so their families would have one less mouth to feed - basically sacrifice themselves to Winter.

Have you or anyone found it yet? There a bunches of words available and iffin' a person don't know the the correct key word bunches of pages to sift through.

 

On 1/23/2019 at 8:46 AM, Wolfkin said:

Lame was the nicest word I could come up with.

Clearly you ain't old enough to know the repercussions of the aches and pains of physical labor nor the mental anguish of feeling useless.

Ohhhhhhhh yes there are english words to describe the condition --- senicide or geronticide.

Old Nan's story. Is this the one you like child? Or is it another?

A Game of Thrones - Bran IV     Old Nan nodded. "In that darkness, the Others came for the first time," she said as her needles went click click click. "They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins. They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding their pale dead horses and leading hosts of the slain. All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes found no pity in them. They hunted the maids through frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children."/

Are you perchance mixing up ole Nan's story's with the manspeak that was transpiring in an DwD Asha chapter?

A Dance with Dragons - The Kings Prize    Ser Corliss Penny gave the clan chief an incredulous look. "Do you want to die, Wull?"
That seemed to amuse the northman. "I want to live forever in a land where summer lasts a thousand years. I want a castle in the clouds where I can look down over the world. I want to be six-and-twenty again. When I was six-and-twenty I could fight all day and fuck all night. What men want does not matter.      "Winter is almost upon us, boy. And winter is death. I would sooner my men die fighting for the Ned's little girl than alone and hungry in the snow, weeping tears that freeze upon their cheeks. No one sings songs of men who die like that. As for me, I am old. This will be my last winter. Let me bathe in Bolton blood before I die. I want to feel it spatter across my face when my axe bites deep into a Bolton skull. I want to lick it off my lips and die with the taste of it on my tongue."/

 

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On ‎1‎/‎23‎/‎2019 at 9:25 AM, rotting sea cow said:

It was a tale that any northmen knew well. "My father's grandmother was a Flint of the mountains, on his mother's side," Jon told her. "The First Flints, they call themselves. They say the other Flints are the blood of younger sons, who had to leave the mountains to find food and land and wives. It has always been a harsh life up there. When the snows fall and food grows scarce, their young must travel to the winter town or take service at one castle or the other. The old men gather up what strength remains in them and announce that they are going hunting. Some are found come spring. More are never seen again."

Jon X, ADWD

That was the quote I was referring to. Thank you for posting. I was wrong thinking it was in one of Old Nan's stories.

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  • 1 month later...
On 1/23/2019 at 9:31 AM, Wolfkin said:

basically sacrifice themselves to Winter, but maybe there is something they know?

In the Age of Dawn/Heroes, those old men would join the westerosi version of the wild hunt, led by the Others during the regular winters. However, something happened some time after the pact with the Children of the Forest. The wild hunt and winter stayed longer, and the dead were not carried away, but wandered the realms of men (Long Night). Then, after the Others were confined to the Lands of Always Winter, the tradition remained but lost its true meaning. However, beyond the Wall, the Other's wild hunt still happens. Just ask Craster and the folks on Frozen Shore.

Textual evidence? Pff...

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