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Glass Candles - Questions


Legitimate_Bastard

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2 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I share the same inquisitiveness with you regarding the colors.

 

Hold on, let me get this straight. You have Patsy as an avatar and don't think that the green ones are to put in martinis and the black ones to put on pizza? Well, now you have my attention! :P

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29 minutes ago, Three-Fingered Pete said:

 

Hold on, let me get this straight. You have Patsy as an avatar and don't think that the green ones are to put in martinis and the black ones to put on pizza? Well, now you have my attention! :P

Who says that’s just an avatar? :smoking:

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On 2/1/2019 at 7:20 AM, Legitimate_Bastard said:

Quaithe must have one too - right?

Quaithe having access to a glass candle would be consistent with how she communicated to Dany after Dany left Qarth. 

On 2/1/2019 at 7:20 AM, Legitimate_Bastard said:

Are there more than 4 out there, other than the 4 previously mentioned?

 Of course. This is a fantasy novel. 

On 2/1/2019 at 7:20 AM, Legitimate_Bastard said:

Could the person who de-bollocked Varys have used a Glass Candle also?

Nope. If it was relevant to the plot it would be mentioned in the way Quaithe and Marwyn and Pate talk about them. 

On 2/1/2019 at 7:20 AM, Legitimate_Bastard said:

Also, does the person being watched/viewed through the Glass Candle also have to have one near by? I am not sure how they saw Sam without Sam having one...

No, Dany makes no mention of a glass candle.  Truly though we are not told the extent of Quaithe's powers 

On 2/1/2019 at 7:20 AM, Legitimate_Bastard said:

Idk if this indicates one can see with just one, but that to communicate takes two.

If this is how quaithe is talking to Dany then no, you only need one 

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On 2/2/2019 at 11:18 AM, The Fattest Leech said:

Just stopping by quickly before I have to run out, but I share the same inquisitiveness with you regarding the colors. I have been super curious for a long time about the different colors of obsidian as well. Alas, I do not have any theories that I feel has legs to stand on, but I do wonder if the colors have different capabilities/powers as well. Or, are they just different because mineral deposits make rocks look different? <--- super boring answer :ack:

A Storm of Swords - Samwell V

"Dragonglass." The red woman's laugh was music. "Frozen fire, in the tongue of old Valyria. Small wonder it is anathema to these cold children of the Other."
"On Dragonstone, where I had my seat, there is much of this obsidian to be seen in the old tunnels beneath the mountain," the king told Sam. "Chunks of it, boulders, ledges. The great part of it was black, as I recall, but there was some green as well, some red, even purple. I have sent word to Ser Rolland my castellan to begin mining it. I will not hold Dragonstone for very much longer, I fear, but perhaps the Lord of Light shall grant us enough frozen fire to arm ourselves against these creatures, before the castle falls."
Sam cleared his throat. "S-sire. The dagger . . . the dragonglass only shattered when I tried to stab a wight."
 
And with this, I always wondered just what was going on under the mountain and if it is anyway associated with the obsidian and candles and colors? I will add that a minor crackpot I used to have was that Mel's necklace wasn't an actual ruby, but a chunk of ruby-colored (red) obsidian, giving her that direct connection to the "red god" (or whatever) controlling her. But that is neither here nor there and on topic :)

A Storm of Swords - Davos II

Davos shook his head. "I will be fine. Tell me, Salla, I must know. No one but Melisandre?"
The Lyseni gave him a long doubtful look, and continued reluctantly. "The guards keep all others away, even his queen and his little daughter. Servants bring meals that no one eats." He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "Queer talking I have heard, of hungry fires within the mountain, and how Stannis and the red woman go down together to watch the flames. There are shafts, they say, and secret stairs down into the mountain's heart, into hot places where only she may walk unburned. It is enough and more to give an old man such terrors that sometimes he can scarcely find the strength to eat."
Melisandre. Davos shivered. "The red woman did this to him," he said. "She sent the fire to consume us, to punish Stannis for setting her aside, to teach him that he could not hope to win without her sorceries."
 
This, or I need to stop for more coffee when I go out :cheers:
 

Nice catch.

If I were forced to guess right now, I would theorize that GRRM is setting up either a contrast or a reciprocity between the crystals of the Faith of the Seven and the obsidian that is Valyrian "frozen fire". This might explain why obsidian is so compatible with Melisandre's goals - her R'hllor religion needs gems and obsidian and fire instead of the crystals and sunlight of the Faith of the Seven. The crystals in the faith cast rainbows that are part of the religious experience and "seven in one" symbolism. We don't yet know enough about the colors in the obsidian, and why they are significant. I wonder whether the goal might be to assemble all of the colors of obsidian, similar to the way that crystals "contain" all colors when they connect with sunlight.

Hmm. This is starting to add up in my mind. After trying to analyze the meaning of colors, I couldn't reconcile the way GRRM uses black as a symbol in the books. But black is the presence of all wavelengths of light, isn't it? Essentially, all colors are present in black while all colors are reflected by white. Maybe GRRM is setting up these two forces in opposition, but without labeling one as good and one as bad.

A length of frayed rope bound the bundle together. Jon unsheathed his dagger and cut it, groped for the edges of the cloth, and pulled. The bundle turned, and its contents spilled out onto the ground, glittering dark and bright. He saw a dozen knives, leaf-shaped spearheads, numerous arrowheads. Jon picked up a dagger blade, featherlight and shiny black, hiltless. Torchlight ran along its edge, a thin orange line that spoke of razor sharpness. Dragonglass. What the maesters call obsidian. Had Ghost uncovered some ancient cache of the children of the forest, buried here for thousands of years? The Fist of the First Men was an old place, only . . . (ACoK, Jon IV)

The passages you cite are setting me off on a few lines of thinking:

1) The shafts with secret stairs are so like Varys and Tyrion escaping through the tunnels in Maegor's Holdfast, with Tyrion climbing a ladder to Tywin's chamber. Remember how there is a mosaic dragon on the floor of one of the secret chambers in the depths of the holdfast? There are a thousand small hints that have put me solidly in the camp of the "Tyrion = secret Targ" believers. This comparison of the frozen fire caves under Dragonstone with the ability of Tyrion and Varys to navigate through the tunnels of Maegor's Holdfast seems like one more clue. (And it makes me think that we are supposed to compare the Quentyn Martell adventures in freeing the dragons to the Tyrion/Varys passage as well as the Stannis/ Melisandre excerpt.) These passages might also imply that Varys and Melisandre are "dragons" that can thrive in these environments.

2) I am struck by the use of the phrase, "'Frozen fire,' in the tongue of old Valyria." I have been trying to pay attention to the tongues that have been cut out and references to people's tongues. This phrase might tell us something important about the connection among tongues, blades of daggers and swords, and dragon fire. Jon Snow finds obsidian blades. Sam Tarly uses an obsidian blade to kill a wight. Obsidian blades are frozen fire. Dragon fire is a weapon. Therefore, tongues are weapons. (Gives me a new appreciation for Missandei, the girl who speaks many tongues. Maybe Kraznys gave Dany a "dragon" at the same time Dany pretended to exchange a dragon for the army of the Unsullied.) I bet glass candles are also weapons.

3) There is an intriguing interlude with Qhorin Halfhand when he is alone with Jon and (we find out later) contemplating his own imminent death:

The moon was rising behind one mountain and the sun sinking behind another as Jon struck sparks from flint and dagger, until finally a wisp of smoke appeared. Qhorin came and stood over him as the first flame rose up flickering from he shavings of bark and dead dry pine needles. "As shy as a maid on her wedding night," the big ranger said in a soft voice, "and near as fair. Sometimes a man forgets how pretty a fire can be."

He was not a man you'd expect to speak of maids and wedding nights. So far as Jon knew, Qhorin had spend his whole life in the Watch. Did he ever love a maid or have a wedding? He could not ask. Instead he fanned the fire. When the blaze was all acrackle, he peeled off his stiff gloves to warm his hands, and sighed, wondering if ever a kiss had felt as good. The warmth spread through his fingers like melting butter.

...

"Is your sword sharp, Jon Snow?" asked Qhorin Halfhand across the flickering fire.

"My sword is Valyrian steel. The Old Bear gave it to me."

"Do you remember the words of your vow?"

"Yes." They were not words a man was like to forget. Once said, they could never be unsaid. They changed your life forever.

"Say them again with me, Jon Snow."

"If you like." Their voices blended as one beneath the rising moon . . . .

Jon opened and closed his burnt fingers, holding tight to the words in his mind, praying that his father's gods would give him the strength to die bravely when his hour came. . . .

(ACoK, Chap. 68, Jon VIII)

I've always wondered about Qhorin's fascination with this fire, and the wedding imagery. I think it might come back to the obsidian candles. Notice that Jon creates this fire by striking a blade against a stone (flint). There is razor / Azor imagery ("shavings" of bark and the sharp blade). I believe the pine needles allude to the shattered blade of Ser Waymar (as well as Arya's sword, Needle). Jon is loving the "kiss" of this fire and he will soon love a maid (sort of a maid - Ygritte) who has been kissed by fire. Jon's hand was badly burned in a fire, but now he is enjoying the feeling of the fire warming his fingers. (I suspect the earlier burn was a sort of inoculation, like Achille's heel except Jon's exposure to fire was enough to give him "immunity".) We don't have a direct reference to tongues, but the combination of words and Jon's sharp blade over the flame is, I think, an allusion to the tongues / blades / frozen fire combination in the passages you cited. The word "forget" may be a hint that we are seeing a "forge" at work here - Qhorin is the smith, producing a new weapon with fire, Valyrian steel, words (the vow), the rising moon and Jon Snow's unique bloodline. Don't you know, Qhorin and Jon become one in this ceremony. (Maybe Jon is the pretty fire maid on his wedding night?) Jon emerges from the ceremony "holding words" like a weapon - the weapon that Qhorin made with him. And Jon will soon pass through a tunnel, following Qhorin's lead, much like Tyrion following Varys in Maegor's Holdfast and Stannis with Melisandre under Dragonstone.

I realize this has gone way beyond the analysis of the glass candles, but you set off my radar. (Radar Targaryen - that would have been a good username for this forum.) I think the obsidian is a weapon that has been sort of sleeping, like the unhatched dragons or the direwolves that had not been seen below the Wall for generations. Qhorin may or may not have buried the obsidian cache at the Fist of the First Men, but I think we are seeing him forging a weapon for Jon, perhaps turning Jon into a weapon, in this scene.

Dany may have woken the dragon, but Qhorin is waking the dragonglass.

 

 

 

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21 minutes ago, Seams said:

I realize this has gone way beyond the analysis of the glass candles, but you set off my radar. (Radar Targaryen - that would have been a good username for this forum.) I think the obsidian is a weapon that has been sort of sleeping, like the unhatched dragons or the direwolves that had not been seen below the Wall for generations. Qhorin may or may not have buried the obsidian cache at the Fist of the First Men, but I think we are seeing him forging a weapon for Jon, perhaps turning Jon into a weapon, in this scene.

I tend to not over analyze things (don't take it badly, because it's not intended as that) and I don't necessarily agree, but I think it is spelled out clearly what Jon is and there's also the line about him not being Valyrian steel.

King Stannis gazed off north again, his gold cloak streaming from his shoulders. "It may be that I am mistaken in you, Jon Snow. We both know the things that are said of bastards. You may lack your father's honor, or your brother's skill in arms. But you are the weapon the Lord has given me. I have found you here, as you found the cache of dragonglass beneath the Fist, and I mean to make use of you. Even Azor Ahai did not win his war alone. (Jon XI, ASOS 76)

 

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On 2/1/2019 at 9:22 PM, Rufus Snow said:

 

As to what the Hightowers can see, we'll probably not discover unless Leyton comes down and tells us ...

I think it's very possible Sam could physically enter the Hightower in Winds, considering who he is and where he came from. If we do meet Lord Leyton I think it is most likely at the top of the Hightower.

As to the glass candles I definitely think there are more that 4 that still exist. If you need two for communication, which we don't know, than it would stand to reason that glass candles would exist in several of the Free Cities as well, having been used to communicate with the Freehold before the Doom, Volantis is most likely to have some in my opinion.

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7 hours ago, Back door hodor said:

I think it's very possible Sam could physically enter the Hightower in Winds, considering who he is and where he came from. If we do meet Lord Leyton I think it is most likely at the top of the Hightower.

D'ya really think Sam could climb all them stairs? Far as we've seen, there's no winch at the Hightower :D

But yeah, I don't disagree with your point; I think Sam would be a very welcome guest there :cheers:

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8 hours ago, Back door hodor said:

I think it's very possible Sam could physically enter the Hightower in Winds, considering who he is and where he came from. If we do meet Lord Leyton I think it is most likely at the top of the Hightower.

I'm sure he will. Leyton is his uncle by marriage. Both his mother's siblings are there. His chapters are ones I'm really looking forward to.

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