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Shade of the evening.


Impbread

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16 hours ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

That does not make Dany a sacrifice, It made her a resource that the undying wanted. They wanted her magic, life and dragons. The undying are not gods. And even if they were, and dany is a sacrifice to them, there is still no reason to think that the shade trees require a sacrifice to extract their magic properties. So, as to the OP, no, there are no sacrifices to the evening shade tree

 

I think those who drink shade of the evening may be giving a part of themselves up without knowing it. I think something must be given up in exchange for these gifts of foresight.

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15 hours ago, Lollygag said:

Yeah, I didn't say it was certain. Only that it's possible. Repeatedly now so not sure why you keep portraying certainty as my argument. It's possible, especially as it fits the overall connection between weirwoods and bizarro weirwoods. Are you actually maintaining that it's absolutely impossible?

 

You've not explained how "resource that is harvested" is mutually exclusive to a sacrifice. Was Jojen "harvested" but not sacrificed? Other executions under weirwoods "harvested" but not sacrificed? These sorts of things are often tied to together both in ASOIAF and real life ancient sacrifice cultures. Actually, they often go hand-in-hand in the view of the cultures who practice this. Blood sacrifice = literal harvest. The Aztecs believed their blood sacrifices nourished their gods. GRRM uses a similar structure. 

The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Garth Greenhand

A few of the very oldest tales of Garth Greenhand present us with a considerably darker deity, one who demanded blood sacrifice from his worshippers to ensure a bountiful harvest. In some stories the green god dies every autumn when the trees lose their leaves, only to be reborn with the coming of spring. This version of Garth is largely forgotten.

https://www.ancient.eu/Aztec_Sacrifice/

 

This. The warlocks were trying to sacrifice Dany in my opinion. Guess we can add this to the list that never ends of things we have to wait for another book learn more about.

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7 hours ago, Lollygag said:

Dany sees Pyat step out from under the trees and asks if he's been there all along. It likens Pyat to BR, Bran, etc. Dany asking this is a prompt to the reader to ask this same question in a more serious way. Maybe he really is there all of the time. 

ACOK Daenerys IV

"Queen Daenerys must enter alone, or not at all." The warlock Pyat Pree stepped out from under the trees. Has he been there all along? Dany wondered. "Should she turn away now, the doors of wisdom shall be closed to her forevermore."

Pyat has blue lips and is implied to live under the trees permanently but is also present in a more real way, though not always so real as a normal person. The Undying are much bluer than Pyat and seem unable to leave, and don't function like Pyat. The Undying strike me as what Pyat will become like Bran will become like BR and the rest. Does the varying blueness indicate the level of connection to the trees like the thoroughness of connection to the roots? Only Pyat's mouth is blue, mouth as a gateway to the trees. But the Undying are all blue as BR is thoroughly run through by roots. Are they actually the trees as BR is nearly so just with a different connection type? 

ADWD Bran III

"Most of him has gone into the tree," explained the singer Meera called Leaf. "He has lived beyond his mortal span, and yet he lingers. For us, for you, for the realms of men. Only a little strength remains in his flesh. He has a thousand eyes and one, but there is much to watch. One day you will know."

Dany sees Pyat under the trees, she then walks under the trees again (it's dark) to the door/mouth of the Palace of Dust. Implied is the undergroundness that we see with BR and Bran. She compares it to a face like we see in a weirwood tree. White tree cast its sacrifices into the mouth. The imagery says Dany herself is going into the trees where the Undying live. Dany burns the Palace of Dust but Pyat, outside, burns too. He's always under the trees, and also in the Palace of Dust with the Undying? Looks like a weirnet-type connection outside the roots themselves. 

I wonder at the presence of sorcery and why the trees look different and sorcery being used to by-pass the physical connection requirement for a psychic one or something (lots of psychic connections in the series: wargs, skinchangers, Others' control over the wights) would be a means to create a different connection which is less of a handicap, at least for a while. 

Sorcery being used for a not-physical connection to the trees would explain their being black and blue, like a bruise. It would also explain the weirdness of Dany's visions compared to Bran's. Are they sick trees? Wrong trees? Sorcery is known to warp in this world. Practitioners are often describes as squat, short, hinting at a worsening appearance over time. Cersei makes a more literal connection. The Palace of Dust is hardly a picture of strength. 

AFFC Cersei VIII

The old woman's eyes were yellow, and crusted all about with something vile. In Lannisport it was said that she had been young and beautiful when her husband had brought her back from the east with a load of spices, but age and evil had left their marks on her. She was short, squat, and warty, with pebbly greenish jowls. Her teeth were gone and her dugs hung down to her knees. You could smell sickness on her if you stood too close, and when she spoke her breath was strange and strong and foul. "Begone," she told the girls, in a croaking whisper.

 TWOW Spoiler

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This would explain the value of Pyat and shade of the evening to Euron. He's suspected of being a BR flunky. Getting lost in the weirnet is likened to losing oneself like to a drug. Shade of the evening might connect Euron back to the trees as he's suspected to have been before. It would just be a different set of trees and one which allows him freedom from the weirwood's caves and roots. 

I like all of your arguments. Seems too early to know for sure if they receive sacrifice, but i think it makes sense. They undying did seem like the singers and BR who are one with the trees now.

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Pyat and the Undying didn't have good intentions towards Dany. I initially thought the worm-like Pyat meant to ensure she was lost, but now I'm not so sure. This Pyat tries to guide Dany away right before she encounters the trap. 

ACOK Daenerys IV

When she stopped, she found herself in yet another dank stone chamber . . . but this time the door opposite was round, shaped like an open mouth, and Pyat Pree stood outside in the grass beneath the trees. "Can it be that the Undying are done with you so soon?" he asked in disbelief when he saw her.

"So soon?" she said, confused. "I've walked for hours, and still not found them."

"You have taken a wrong turning. Come, I will lead you." Pyat Pree held out his hand.

Dany hesitated. There was a door to her right, still closed . . .

"That's not the way," Pyat Pree said firmly, his blue lips prim with disapproval. "The Undying Ones will not wait forever."

"Our little lives are no more than a flicker of a moth's wing to them," Dany said, remembering.

"Stubborn child. You will be lost, and never found."

She walked away from him, to the door on the right.

"No," Pyat screeched. "No, to me, come to me, to meeeeeee." His face crumbled inward, changing to something pale and wormlike.

Dany left him behind, entering a stairwell. She began to climb. Before long her legs were aching. She recalled that the House of the Undying Ones had seemed to have no towers.

Dany left him behind, entering a stairwell. She began to climb. Before long her legs were aching. She recalled that the House of the Undying Ones had seemed to have no towers.

Finally the stair opened. To her right, a set of wide wooden doors had been thrown open. They were fashioned of ebony and weirwood, the black and white grains swirling and twisting in strange interwoven patterns. They were very beautiful, yet somehow frightening. The blood of the dragon must not be afraid. Dany said a quick prayer, begging the Warrior for courage and the Dothraki horse god for strength. She made herself walk forward.

 

 

ADWD Bran II

The child went in front with the torch in hand, her cloak of leaves whispering behind her, but the passage turned so much that Bran soon lost sight of her. Then the only light was what was reflected off the passage walls. After they had gone down a little, the cave divided, but the left branch was dark as pitch, so even Hodor knew to follow the moving torch to the right.

The way the shadows shifted made it seem as if the walls were moving too. Bran saw great white snakes slithering in and out of the earth around him, and his heart thumped in fear. He wondered if they had blundered into a nest of milk snakes or giant grave worms, soft and pale and squishy. Grave worms have teeth.

 

ADWD Bran III

The sight of him still frightened Bran—the weirwood roots snaking in and out of his withered flesh, the mushrooms sprouting from his cheeks, the white wooden worm that grew from the socket where one eye had been. He liked it better when the torches were put out. In the dark he could pretend that it was the three-eyed crow who whispered to him and not some grisly talking corpse.

 

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Dany's path in the Palace of Dust makes a lot more sense if she's actually inside a tree. Right after worm Pyat fades away...

(Sorry for repeating myself in quotes, I'm pointing out different points in the same passages)

Always taking the door of one side leads one in a circle, a circle which goes up. Also when one is in a tower or tree, left side doors and right side doors become very significant depending on which way you're going. 

"When you enter, you will find yourself in a room with four doors: the one you have come through and three others. Take the door to your right. Each time, the door to your right. If you should come upon a stairwell, climb. Never go down, and never take any door but the first door to your right."

"The door to my right," Dany repeated. "I understand. And when I leave, the opposite?"

"By no means," Pyat Pree said. "Leaving and coming, it is the same. Always up. Always the door to your right. Other doors may open to you. Within, you will see many things that disturb you. Visions of loveliness and visions of horror, wonders and terrors. Sights and sounds of days gone by and days to come and days that never were. Dwellers and servitors may speak to you as you go. Answer or ignore them as you choose, but enter no room until you reach the audience chamber."

 ...

It seemed as though she walked for another hour before the long hall finally ended in a steep stone stair, descending into darkness. Every door, open or closed, had been to her left. Dany looked back behind her. The torches were going out, she realized with a start of fear. Perhaps twenty still burned. Thirty at most. One more guttered out even as she watched, and the darkness came a little farther down the hall, creeping toward her. And as she listened it seemed as if she heard something else coming, shuffling and dragging itself slowly along the faded carpet. Terror filled her. She could not go back and she was afraid to stay here, but how could she go on? There was no door on her right, and the steps went down, not up.

Yet another torch went out as she stood pondering, and the sounds grew faintly louder. Drogon's long neck snaked out and he opened his mouth to scream, steam rising from between his teeth. He hears it too. Dany turned to the blank wall once more, but there was nothing. Could there be a secret door, a door I cannot see? Another torch went out. Another. The first door on the right, he said, always the first door on the right. The first door on the right . . .

It came to her suddenly. . . . is the last door on the left!

She flung herself through. Beyond was another small room with four doors. To the right she went, and to the right, and to the right, and to the right, and to the right, and to the right, and to the right, until she was dizzy and out of breath once more.

When she stopped, she found herself in yet another dank stone chamber . . . but this time the door opposite was round, shaped like an open mouth, and Pyat Pree stood outside in the grass beneath the trees. "Can it be that the Undying are done with you so soon?" he asked in disbelief when he saw her.

...

Dany left him behind, entering a stairwell. She began to climb. Before long her legs were aching. She recalled that the House of the Undying Ones had seemed to have no towers.

Finally the stair opened. To her right, a set of wide wooden doors had been thrown open. They were fashioned of ebony and weirwood, the black and white grains swirling and twisting in strange interwoven patterns. They were very beautiful, yet somehow frightening. The blood of the dragon must not be afraid. Dany said a quick prayer, begging the Warrior for courage and the Dothraki horse god for strength. She made herself walk forward.

 

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On 2/1/2019 at 12:13 PM, Impbread said:

Do the tress that make shade of the evening receive sacrifices like the weirwood trees of westeros? What does everyone think? Honestly i have no idea but i would guess so. How else could you see the future without some sort of sacrifice.

My guess is they do.  But that's just a low confidence guess.  Sunlight is plentiful in Essos and the trees have access to photosynthesis.  That's a whole different situation from a weirwood having to survive in the absence of light.  Maybe these black trees do not require it.  

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22 hours ago, Lollygag said:

I initially thought the worm-like Pyat meant to ensure she was lost, but now I'm not so sure. This Pyat tries to guide Dany away right before she encounters the trap.  

It's weird, right?    He breaks up our concentration, making sure we don't know what to expect.   Maybe that's his reason for being, so we don't instantly fly to the conclusion that it's a trap only.   

Maybe their idea was to keep her wandering the grounds forever in a loop (maximum exposure to their mind altering environment) so the feeding could take place without the Undying even needing to risk a direct confrontation with a dragon?   

And now the flights of fancy.....

There was no door on the right.  She defeated the trick by going through the door deepest in.   Which isn't a super hard solution to find, actually.  Wouldn' t most of us have tried that after there was no way to stay true to Pyat's instructions anymore?  So, that sort of lends credence to the idea of them being inside a tree, i.e. they couldn't devise a trickier path for Dany because they were limited to using the shape of their true home and deploying illusions within that.  Which means a big assed tree (the tower) had made itself invisible as one of those illusions??

 

Or maybe the darkweir is unhappy with how the Undying have found a way to immortality by blending white weir and darkweir powers to create a niche for themselves that shouldn't rightly exist--from the point of view of the dark tree consciousness Pyat serves?   So he wanted to aid Danny past the roach motel traps so she could strike at the Undying, really acting as Pyat's assassin recruit.  If so, he was her advocate in truth, because he saw the Undying as a perversion of the darkweir purity.   The real Pyat gave her the good advice, and then the Undying made an illusion of him to lead her astray.

Perhaps the Faceless Men would also then be an abomination from the perspective of both magical trees, due to how the servants of the Many Faced God have found a way to combine both kinds of tree magic to lift themselves above the fray and have come to possess more precision than humans 'should.'   For them, it really does pay to serve all gods, then, is why I think this works.  Explains why they believe their philosophy so deeply, and why Jaqen didn't want to get on the bad side of Rahloo- - because the Faceless depend on not offending either weir too much, like they're walking a tightrope of magical politics because they really are rubbing up against Consciousnesses when they do their magics, and it's important to vibe correctly with Them.

 

Shizz, if "tree.net/"  magic can project images of people like Pree nearby, the only thing that makes Quaithe's glass candle magic better is its distance multiplier?   Is the 'Glass' petrified weirwood?  That would place a weir 'nearby' both candle users, to allow mental manifestations like when Dany was in House of the Undying, cuz the trees use weirnet to speak from a distance and they never die, including the candles.    How Quaithe is beaming directly to Dany's brain despite Dany having no candle is a mystery, but I think I've subconsciously solved this in the past by calling the dragons magic wifi hotspots.  .....all of which makes me eyeball Quaithe again.  Who owns whom?  The shadowbinders or the darkweir?   Speaking of Asshai.....

20 hours ago, Gabbie Roxas said:

 Sunlight is plentiful in Essos and the trees have access to photosynthesis.  That's a whole different situation from a weirwood having to survive in the absence of light.  Maybe these black trees do not require it.  

The black barked trees are Shadowborn?  Equipped to thrive in a lightless environment because the Shadow is the source of the Long Night and they grew / adapted / magically mutated under its umbra.     Or, in a world of shadow binders..... are they shadowbound weirs?  Sexy.

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23 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

Maybe their idea was to keep her wandering the grounds forever in a loop (maximum exposure to their mind altering environment) so the feeding could take place without the Undying even needing to risk a direct confrontation with a dragon?   

I'm thinking along these lines, too. BR's cave has small dragon skeletons and that it looks like the trees are feeding off the greenseers. Feeding is all I can think of. On the side - did the CotF at one point have a dragon-hatching nursery or something? Interesting that the Palace of Dust was falling apart and the Undying were positively starving. Maybe they're weakening? 

23 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

There was no door on the right.  She defeated the trick by going through the door deepest in.   Which isn't a super hard solution to find, actually.  Wouldn' t most of us have tried that after there was no way to stay true to Pyat's instructions anymore?  So, that sort of lends credence to the idea of them being inside a tree, i.e. they couldn't devise a trickier path for Dany because they were limited to using the shape of their true home and deploying illusions within that.  Which means a big assed tree (the tower) had made itself invisible as one of those illusions??

Maybe an Alice in Wonderland, going to Narnia through a wardrobe, Harry Potter fantasy-type stuff? Possible intellectual laziness on my part as thinking about how the tree/visions work out in too much detail is pretzeling my brain and it hurts. 

23 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

Or maybe the darkweir is unhappy with how the Undying have found a way to immortality by blending white weir and darkweir powers to create a niche for themselves that shouldn't rightly exist--from the point of view of the dark tree consciousness Pyat serves?   So he wanted to aid Danny past the roach motel traps so she could strike at the Undying, really acting as Pyat's assassin recruit.  If so, he was her advocate in truth, because he saw the Undying as a perversion of the darkweir purity.   The real Pyat gave her the good advice, and then the Undying made an illusion of him to lead her astray.

ACOK Daenerys IV


Outside a long dim passageway stretched serpentine before her, lit by the flickering orange glare from behind. Dany ran, searching for a door, a door to her right, a door to her left, any door, but there was nothing, only twisty stone walls, and a floor that seemed to move slowly under her feet, writhing as if to trip her. She kept her feet and ran faster, and suddenly the door was there ahead of her, a door like an open mouth.

When she spilled out into the sun, the bright light made her stumble. Pyat Pree was gibbering in some unknown tongue and hopping from one foot to the other. When Dany looked behind her, she saw thin tendrils of smoke forcing their way through cracks in the ancient stone walls of the Palace of Dust, and rising from between the black tiles of the roof.

Howling curses, Pyat Pree drew a knife and danced toward her, but Drogon flew at his face. Then she heard the crack of Jhogo's whip, and never was a sound so sweet. The knife went flying, and an instant later Rakharo was slamming Pyat to the ground. Ser Jorah Mormont knelt beside Dany in the cool green grass and put his arm around her shoulder.

 

Based on this, it looks like the Undying and real Pyat were on the same page, but I'm not sure about the advise he gave her when she first went in. Maybe Dany was right to take the opposite doors out and Pyat wanted to keep her lost inside so he told her the same way in was the same way out? I'm wondering if the white weirwood (worm Pyat) was like you say - angry at the Undying and not wanting her to make them stronger. Also mulling that it might have been BR of the white worm. He wouldn't want Dany and her dragons trapped in there. As worm Pyat faded, he sounded pretty desperate, and weirdly, he was saying "to me" which is what the Stark kids say to their wolves. :dunno:

23 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

Perhaps the Faceless Men would also then be an abomination from the perspective of both magical trees, due to how the servants of the Many Faced God have found a way to combine both kinds of tree magic to lift themselves above the fray and have come to possess more precision than humans 'should.'   For them, it really does pay to serve all gods, then, is why I think this works.  Explains why they believe their philosophy so deeply, and why Jaqen didn't want to get on the bad side of Rahloo- - because the Faceless depend on not offending either weir too much, like they're walking a tightrope of magical politics because they really are rubbing up against Consciousnesses when they do their magics, and it's important to vibe correctly with Them.

I can see this. And what they do is combine water magic (Arya's water dancing), water takes the shape of it's container which is what happens when she wears a face. But it also includes blood sacrifice and Qyburn says the most powerful sorcery is blood magic and Mirri connects blood magic to fire. Like an oil-and-water forcing of fire and water magic. The other time we see the weirwood/ebony doors is Tobho Mott's place in KL. He's Qohoric and used sorcery for the VS swords - so all 3 times we see this, there's sorcery about. 

23 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

Shizz, if "tree.net/"  magic can project images of people like Pree nearby, the only thing that makes Quaithe's glass candle magic better is its distance multiplier?   Is the 'Glass' petrified weirwood?  That would place a weir 'nearby' both candle users, to allow mental manifestations like when Dany was in House of the Undying, cuz the trees use weirnet to speak from a distance and they never die, including the candles.    How Quaithe is beaming directly to Dany's brain despite Dany having no candle is a mystery, but I think I've subconsciously solved this in the past by calling the dragons magic wifi hotspots.  .....all of which makes me eyeball Quaithe again.  Who owns whom?  The shadowbinders or the darkweir?   Speaking of Asshai.....

Huh. The descriptions of the glass candles are very like trees being tall, narrow and twisted. Petrified wood is glass-like. There's a green candle, though, but it gets different treatment, so maybe it's something a bit different? Jade? Jade Compendium? Qarth is by the Jade Sea? We're told that the glass candles have suddenly started burning in Dany's next chapter after the HOTU. Did the candles maybe go out as the dragons faded and Dany and her dragons juiced them up again? Kinda goes along with the "bat" skeletons found in BR's cave. 

AFFC Prologue

Pate knew about the glass candles, though he had never seen one burn. They were the worst-kept secret of the Citadel. It was said that they had been brought to Oldtown from Valyria a thousand years before the Doom. He had heard there were four; one was green and three were black, and all were tall and twisted.

ACOK Daenerys V

Xaro looked troubled. "And so it was, then. But now? I am less certain. It is said that the glass candles are burning in the house of Urrathon Night-Walker, that have not burned in a hundred years. Ghost grass grows in the Garden of Gehane, phantom tortoises have been seen carrying messages between the windowless houses on Warlock's Way, and all the rats in the city are chewing off their tails. The wife of Mathos Mallarawan, who once mocked a warlock's drab moth-eaten robe, has gone mad and will wear no clothes at all. Even fresh-washed silks make her feel as though a thousand insects were crawling on her skin. And Blind Sybassion the Eater of Eyes can see again, or so his slaves do swear. A man must wonder." He sighed. "These are strange times in Qarth. And strange times are bad for trade. It grieves me to say so, yet it might be best if you left Qarth entirely, and sooner rather than later." Xaro stroked her fingers reassuringly. "You need not go alone, though. You have seen dark visions in the Palace of Dust, but Xaro has dreamed brighter dreams. I see you happily abed, with our child at your breast. Sail with me around the Jade Sea, and we can yet make it so! It is not too late. Give me a son, my sweet song of joy!"

The World of Ice and Fire - The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II

Frustrated, Aerys turned to the Wisdoms of the ancient Guild of Alchemists, who knew the secret of producing the volatile jade green substance known as wildfire, said to be a close cousin to dragonflame.

 

 

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56 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

ACOK Daenerys IV
Outside a long dim passageway stretched serpentine before her, lit by the flickering orange glare from behind. Dany ran, searching for a door, a door to her right, a door to her left, any door, but there was nothing, only twisty stone walls, and a floor that seemed to move slowly under her feet, writhing as if to trip her. She kept her feet and ran faster, and suddenly the door was there ahead of her, a door like an open mouth.

When she spilled out into the sun, the bright light made her stumble. Pyat Pree was gibbering in some unknown tongue and hopping from one foot to the other. When Dany looked behind her, she saw thin tendrils of smoke forcing their way through cracks in the ancient stone walls of the Palace of Dust, and rising from between the black tiles of the roof.

Howling curses, Pyat Pree drew a knife and danced toward her, but Drogon flew at his face.

She's not inside a tree; she is inside a dragon. The word "serpentine" is used in the books only in connection with the serpentine steps in the Red Keep and the neck of a dragon. I couldn't figure out the use of the word for this one hallway in the HotU but it makes sense if she is inside of a (figurative) dragon. The fire behind her is pushing her out of the dragon's mouth - the only door.

The mention of orange and of keeping her feet is meaningful. Oranges and feet are associated with each other and with Targaryen rulers. (Maybe the orange "glare" is even a hint about Dany being "regal".)

Maybe this is an attempted Dance of the Dragons. Pyat Pree might be working for a different Targaryen faction (or hopping from one faction to another) and was hoping Dany would be consumed by the "dragon" on the HotU team. Instead, Dany's Drogon defeats the whole set-up. I have suspected that the creepy figures in the HotU are ancient Targaryens / books about Targ history. They wanted to turn Dany into history before she had finished making history as a new conqueror of Westeros.

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19 minutes ago, Seams said:

She's not inside a tree; she is inside a dragon. The word "serpentine" is used in the books only in connection with the serpentine steps in the Red Keep and the neck of a dragon. I couldn't figure out the use of the word for this one hallway in the HotU but it makes sense if she is inside of a (figurative) dragon. The fire behind her is pushing her out of the dragon's mouth - the only door.

The mention of orange and of keeping her feet is meaningful. Oranges and feet are associated with each other and with Targaryen rulers. (Maybe the orange "glare" is even a hint about Dany being "regal".)

Maybe this is an attempted Dance of the Dragons. Pyat Pree might be working for a different Targaryen faction (or hopping from one faction to another) and was hoping Dany would be consumed by the "dragon" on the HotU team. Instead, Dany's Drogon defeats the whole set-up. I have suspected that the creepy figures in the HotU are ancient Targaryens / books about Targ history. They wanted to turn Dany into history before she had finished making history as a new conqueror of Westeros.

 

That might be. Or maybe the source of the dragon magic? All of the dragons faded at once. Maybe there's a dragon-net or source from where they get their power, and they weakened as it drained.

There’s a weird connection with the dragons and trees popping up. It makes sense given weirwoods are the colors of fire and light, linked to blood (blood/fire) and seem opposed to the Others. The Northerners worship the trees seemingly opposed to winter and give blood sacrifice. The guy Davos talks to strongly implies that sacrifice to the trees has to do with keeping Winter at bay. Trees are normally seen as opposed to fire for obvious reasons. Mel burns trees to destroy them. But weirwoods do look like fire trees. Or maybe dragon trees.

I don’t see these as opposed at this point at all. Bran equates the weirwood branches to snakes and worms as is the case with dragons. One of the wildling clans in the Vale is called the Milk Snakes which made no sense to me until just now. 

ADWD Bran II

The way the shadows shifted made it seem as if the walls were moving too. Bran saw great white snakes slithering in and out of the earth around him, and his heart thumped in fear. He wondered if they had blundered into a nest of milk snakes or giant grave worms, soft and pale and squishy. Grave worms have teeth.

 

ACOK Bran VIII

Yet as one smell drew them onward, others warned them back. He sniffed at the drifting smoke. Men, many men, many horses, and fire, fire, fire. No smell was more dangerous, not even the hard cold smell of iron, the stuff of man-claws and hardskin. The smoke and ash clouded his eyes, and in the sky he saw a great winged snake whose roar was a river of flame. He bared his teeth, but then the snake was gone. Behind the cliffs tall fires were eating up the stars.

 

 

 

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5 hours ago, Lollygag said:

Interesting that the Palace of Dust was falling apart and the Undying were positively starving. Maybe they're weakening? 

If simplest is best, magic had just returned to the world so Danny was the first magic meal to fall into their trap in a long time.

George's homage to Hotel California.

4 hours ago, Seams said:

She's not inside a tree; she is inside a dragon.

They're battling with her psyche, and her identity is the dragon, so if the mental illusion battleground building they're in takes on dragon traits that could mean Danny is winning the mind wrestling match and the HOTU is manifesting as her totem spirit now, and roasting the fools within a smokehouse dragon interior.  Alternately, they're hitting her with a smokehouse full of hallucinagen magic to show her all the visions, but the joint is overloading and melting down.

one last tree house idea:  the Undying are ethereal, right?  Ghosts.  Well, the tower they dwell in could be the non-physical ghost tree that remains where a great weir once stood and got choked out by parasitic darkweirs.  Okay, stopping now.

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On 2/22/2019 at 2:52 PM, Lollygag said:

There’s a weird connection with the dragons and trees popping up. ...

I don’t see these as opposed at this point at all. Bran equates the weirwood branches to snakes and worms as is the case with dragons.

This is something I noted in another thread:

On 5/3/2018 at 9:24 PM, Seams said:

Snakes and Sacrifices

Baelor the Blessed put his life at risk rescuing his brother from a cage suspended over vipers. He was bitten but managed to free his brother before being taken unconscious from the viper pit. And this is linked to Pennytree:

Between a duck pond and a blacksmith's forge, he came upon the tree that gave the place its name, an oak ancient and tall. Its gnarled roots twisted in an out of the earth like a nest of slow brown serpents, and hundreds of old copper pennies had been nailed to its huge trunk.

(ADwD, Chapter 48, Jaime I)

The other thread is a lengthy literary analysis which I know is not everyone's cup of tea. The main point of that line of thinking is that the place called Pennytree is a gate to an Otherworld where Westeros history and magic can be accessed. So maybe dragons and trees can have this gateway quality.

On 2/18/2019 at 6:42 AM, Lollygag said:

"Queen Daenerys must enter alone, or not at all." ... "Should she turn away now, the doors of wisdom shall be closed to her forevermore."

It sounds as if the major catch is that only certain people can enter certain of these magical gateways, and they are open for limited moments in time. 

Lollygag, you were part of the discussion of steps and stairs that led to the insight about the board game called Chutes and Ladders in the U.S. (Snakes and Ladders in other countries.) In addition to chutes, ladders, steps and snakes (dragons, worms, etc.), trees may be part of the network of paths that allow a character to move around the game board in the Game of Thrones:

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Springwatch mentioned in an early comment on this thread that the "Game of Thrones" may be played out on these steps and in choosing the right door at the House of the Undying. I think these scenes and their details confirm that notion. In the U.S., there is a children's board game called "Chutes and Ladders." I suspect GRRM was having a little fun with that when Tyrion climbed the ladder to Tywin's chamber and found his father sitting at the top of a (privy) chute. In one of the last serpentine references, Cersei "left the Grand Maester on the serpentine steps. . . ." and then proceeded with Qyburn to cross "over the spiked moat that girded Maegor’s Holdfast.” It's as if she has stopped playing the game that Pycelle knew how to play and has started an entirely new game with Qyburn. Of course, she has already demolished the Tower of the Hand - the place where her father played his game - and all the ladders, tunnels and steps in it. 

Dany / Drogon burning the House of the Undying and Cersei burning the Tower of the Hand are probably linked, parallel events. (There are other parallels in their arcs involving losing all their hair and clothing before making a journey, killing their husbands, the deaths of their royal sons, consulting Maegi.) Both women seem to want to play the Game of Thrones on their own terms, destroying the old game boards.

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Ooh.    Taking fate into their own hands by burning the houses of fate that tried to script their lives.   The vision of the ancient kings she walked right past are then either examples of greatness she could join or exceed, or are they examples of leaders who got waylayed before they reached the finish line.   Stormy is trying to reset her regime into something new and better, and the world is trying to pull down on that dream to turn her into just another despot.  Will she become a ghost eyed king with unfinished business, or solve the great puzzle before her.

For dragons and trees,

there's the norse Nidhogg serpent who 'Guards' the world tree on one of the nine realms by knawing away at it until he'll ultimately succeed in bringing it crashing down during the end times.  But for ASOIAF,  a dragon caught on a freezing tundra might see the weirwoods as a magic oasis and dig underneath them to hibernate or make a nest in the roots to incubate eggs since it'd probably be a tough or pointless task to build a huge nest above ground since nothing could support all their weight, except maybe the rare exception like....the Eyrie.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 2/21/2019 at 2:33 PM, The Mother of The Others said:

 

The black barked trees are Shadowborn?  Equipped to thrive in a lightless environment because the Shadow is the source of the Long Night and they grew / adapted / magically mutated under its umbra.     Or, in a world of shadow binders..... are they shadowbound weirs?  Sexy.

The black barked trees are black as an adaptation to sunlight.  It's like dark skin pigmentation is an adaptation to the sun's harsh rays.  The source of the long night is in the north of Westeros, where the evil lives.  The warlocks are evil too but so far as the ones who want to bring on this long night, the evil is in the north of Westeros.  

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I think the idea is worth mentioning that the shade of the evening trees are what remains of the Essosi weirwoods after being mutated by either deliberate contamination with Oily Black Stone or by the inadvertent release of OBS dust into the atmosphere during the Long Night Catastrophe. It would not surprise me at all if there is some form of sacrifice associated with them:

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"...If you would savor the sweet taste of the fruit, you must water the tree."
"This tree has been watered with blood."
"How else, to grow a soldier?...."
ADWD

Spitball:

The little dwarves are the mutant form of the CotF, the mobile "fruit" stage of the weirwood lifecycle- human sacrifice comes from the CotF using their bodies (which contain the seeds) to grow new trees or make the paste needed for greenseer integration....

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1 hour ago, hiemal said:

I think the idea is worth mentioning that the shade of the evening trees are what remains of the Essosi weirwoods after being mutated by either deliberate contamination with Oily Black Stone or by the inadvertent release of OBS dust into the atmosphere during the Long Night Catastrophe. It would not surprise me at all if there is some form of sacrifice associated with them:

Spitball:

The little dwarves are the mutant form of the CotF, the mobile "fruit" stage of the weirwood lifecycle- human sacrifice comes from the CotF using their bodies (which contain the seeds) to grow new trees or make the paste needed for greenseer integration....

I suspect the little dwarves are piglets - there is a reference to their snout-like noses when Dany enters the HotU. If so, what Dany perceives as the dwarves tearing at the breasts might actually be suckling. The pig motif runs throughout the books and is probably related to the boars who are present at key moments such at the death of Robert, Joffrey (Groat rides Pretty Pig) and of Jon Snow (Borroq's boar). I think we also see piglets running around a well when Brienne thinks she has taken a wrong turn into a blind alley in Duskendale. I suspect wells are are magical entrances, very similar to the entrance Dany is seeing for the first time at the HotU. Isn't there also a wagon or cart with a load of piglets in Arya's arc?

If the dwarves are really piglets, this gives us another clue about Tyrion's connection to the pig motif. He has a snout after his nose is cut off in battle. He rides Pretty Pig. He feeds acorns to Pretty Pig and cleans up the pig's poop in Penny's room on the ship.

There does seem to be a sacrifice associated with pigs, as Tyrion seems to accept that Pretty Pig will have been killed and eaten after he and Penny and Ser Jorah escape from Yezzan zo Qaggaz and join the Second Sons. Only pork rinds can pay for life.

(There is also an early scene at Winterfell, where Cersei is discussing Bran's fall and coma with Myrcella and Tommen, where Tyrion crunches a piece of bacon. I don't know what the significance is of this early reference to Crunch and Pretty Pig, but I know breaking a fast by eating breakfast has significance in ASOIAF.)

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3 hours ago, Gabbie Roxas said:

The source of the long night is in the north of Westeros, where the evil lives.  

Uhhh, we'd have long night all the time if the Others were in charge of bringing the darkness, cuz they reeely benefit from it.    But we don't have night all the time, which makes it look like the Others aren't in control of it and they have to wait for the long night to come.  I'm sticking with the known continent of magical darkness, Essos, as the source of magical darkness that sometimes covers the globe.

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hiemal said- - - The little dwarves are the mutant form of the CotF, the mobile "fruit" stage of the weirwood lifecycle- 

This dwarf thing is so hot.    So now we have a pattern of midgetry.  They're found associated with the magic trees on both sides of the sea.  And the trees are at least 51% in control of the long term relationship with bipeds.  Is it a motif like... the dwarfs and elves are husks of their former selves after spending an eon in service to soul sucking trees that steal your vitality like a vampire?   Or no.  Is it more like a deep species-wide drug dependence upon the weir paste and evening shade, which was an evolutionary "advantage" at some point for the dwarfs and elves slaved to their respective trees, so these bipeds reduced in stature because they no longer needed to be robust (the trees now gave them all they needed).  Their growth was stunted so the trees could grow tall, and they lived on while all the rest of their original (unaltered) biped species died out.  

Love your idea about the seeds being carried close to their hearts.   They're the heart of the forest.   

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