The Plutionian Others

[The Fattest Leech]

@sweetsunray That furniture quote says it all! I love that quote and it comes in handy sometimes.

[sweetsunray]

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

I don't understand the level of vitriol you continually direct towards me whenever you counter one of my posts. Do you want an objective discussion of your ideas or do you only want flattery and compliments? You say you don't care what I think, what my opinion is, or even how my brain works. That was very rude and unnecessary for you to say. What exactly have I done to have offended you so? Disagree with you?

You're not giving me an objective discussion of our ideas.

1. You admitted you skimmed through sections of the OP, confirming what I suspected from the very beginning you posted in this thread: that you skimmed through it. You cannot discuss the ideas objectively when you haven't thoroughly read them.
2. You are not objective by your admittance of what you believe in. So, set in these beliefs you couldn't even make yourself read the "offending" sections thoroughly.
3. You are barely discussing our ideas or the OP, but mostly posting to promote your own.
4. You criticise not the OP for what is there, but for what it does not contain: no ice magic, no Ais Sedai.
5. You reframe my beliefs and the OP in a narrow straw man to knock it down, not allowing for something far more subtle, nor even inquiring with me what I actually believe about George's story and writing.

All of this just makes me think: Feather Crystal, perhaps it's time you write your own OP. And I do not appreciate 3-5 by you. Can't help 1 and 2. That is your choice, but don't make it my problem to defend myself against straw man framing.

No, I don't want praise. I welcome people pointing out issues with logic and such. And I'm perfectly fine with people not buying everything, or only taking it symbolically, etc. None of us are dead set convinced of the nitty gritty chemical elements stuff, but regard it as an enticing speculation. That said, I will counter-argument regardless, as actual debate as @The Sleeper raised on a subject proves whether the section in the OP needs reworking or not. He made an adequate criticism.

But such debate is not really possible between us. We already rejected the notion that Others are humans-turned-Others. That is one of the first things the OP sets out to establish and was the actual motivation for writing on them. We've read plenty of those theories for the past several years

Spoiler

and watched the show

And it's what sparked a private discussion between ourselves that eventually led to: we should write an essay on them. So, in that regard, any further debate between you, FC, and myself is moot.

As for the tone I chose to reply with: I was intentionally dismissive of the beliefs you expressed in your prior post, as much as I dismiss anyone else's beliefs who insist on sticking to the furniture, of 'real fantasy', and who would post in here to argue that Others are humans. I still do, and I do regard further discussion on tWoT and Ais Sedai in here as derailing the thread. It has nothing to do with the OP. 

That said, I do not expect people to care much about my beliefs, opinions in the same vein. Everyone has an opinion on something. I respect the right for people to have an opinion, but I'm not obliged to respect that opinion itself or to take it into consideration. And I do not expect others to respect my opinion, let alone accept it, without me having done some thorough backing of research. And even then I do not expect people to respect let alone accept it, as long as they respect the effort I put into it. And if I have an issue with your posts in this thread it is that you showed little to no basic respect to the work that was put into the OP, which you admitted to when you said you only skimmed through parts. You don't have to believe the same things as I do, don't have to agree with the OP, but when you cannot actually give an OP the courtesy of read the OP in full instead of skimming through it and then have the audacity to tell me what I believe based on that superficial reading (which is rude where I come from), don't expect me to care one jot about what you believe.

[The Fattest Leech]

I keep meaning to add this, but time, time, time... and works.

I think it is rather plausible that what George is doing here is that line-fudging of furniture. There is no doubt that man likes his own themes and re-purposes what he wants (as he says in Dreamsongs). As far as this "race" of Others, well, in ASOIAF (as well as other stories of his) he has introduced the teaser of there being a third race (second or origin race in other stories) and there are often transplants from other places that are having a real ecological (magical?) impact on their new terrain, etc. And as far as the aforementioned story This Tower of Ashes, well the known builders of the tower are unknown or lost to time. The dream-spiders are not native to the islands, either. Leave no stone unturned. History is incomplete and the more a maester tries to make you look the other way, the more deeply we should be exploring behind the curtain.

• The World of Ice and Fire - Ancient History: The Dawn Age

  The beasts of the woods and the giants were eventually joined by other, greater dangers, however.

  A possibility arises for a third race to have inhabited the Seven Kingdoms in the Dawn Age, but it is so speculative that it need only be dealt with briefly. Among the ironborn, it is said that the first of the First Men to come to the Iron Isles found the famous Seastone Chair on Old Wyk, but that the isles were uninhabited. If true, the nature and origins of the chair's makers are a mystery. Maester Kirth in his collection of ironborn legends, Songs the Drowned Men Sing, has suggested that the chair was left by visitors from across the Sunset Sea, but there is no evidence for this, only speculation.--> maesters, amirite?

 

As far as a chemical make-up... yeah, he has teased that as well. I won't give away any other spoilers here, but this is from Nightflyers. Not an exact 1:1, but enough that we know ideas like this are in Martin's mind:

Spoiler

 

“Jupiter,” the xenotech announced loudly, “is a gas giant in the same solar system as Old Earth. Didn’t know that, did you?”

“I’ve got more important things to occupy my mind than such trivia, Alys,” Lindran said.

Alys Northwind smiled down smugly. “Listen, I’m talking to you. They were on the verge of exploring this Jupiter when the stardrive was discovered, oh, way back. After that, course, no one bothered with gas giants. Just slip into drive and find the habitable worlds, settle them, ignore the comets and the rocks and the gas giants—there’s another star just a few light years away, and it has more habitable planets. But there were people who thought those Jupiters might have life, you know. Do you see?”

“I see that you’re blind drunk,” Lindran said.

Christopheris looked annoyed. “If there is intelligent life on the gas giants, it shows no interest in leaving them,” he snapped. “All of the sentient species we have met up to now have originated on worlds similar to Earth, and most of them are oxygen breathers. Unless you’re suggesting that the volcryn are from a gas giant?”

The xenotech pushed herself up to a sitting position and smiled conspiratorially. “Not the volcryn,” she said. “Royd Eris. Crack that forward bulkhead in the lounge, and watch the methane and ammonia come smoking out.” Her hand made a sensuous waving motion through the air, and she convulsed with giddy laughter.

 

 

[It_spelt_Magalhaes]

 Sorry in advance for the mini rant or the pseudo unfit placement of it, but I'm putting it out there.

I like my horror, fantasy, 'weird stuff' (ha! that's such a dad thing to say), not 'in your face', so to speak. Even as a kid, the notion that you could be following a story that's more a romance novel or an historical account if it wasn't for that splinter under your fingernail that's nagging 'something's not right'? It made reading even very upfront assumedly scifi like Verne more enjoyable. Sure, we're all for the sciency bits, but it's the story that keeps you ready for more development. My earliest Stephen King reads did it for me because it was like 'that one detail is tilting this crap sideways' and the characters had to deal with the extraordinary just like they're your neighbour or cousin. 

As to GRRM'S awesome furniture comparison, round the countryside here we're for food analogies. Country of hearty foods and all, and the first thought I got to translate it mentality has always been 'the rest is salad'. No offense to vegans anywhere, it's a cultural thing. Once you get passed the meat and starch, the leafage is just dressing the plate. Might be good for your health and make everything neat, but it's not what's really 'feeding you'.

And whoopsie?, writing this on a forum dedicated to the works of someone who uses 'gardening' as an analogy to story building...

[sweetsunray]

@The Fattest Leech

Yes, he fudges the lines.

He incorporates horror throughout aSoIaF. Dany's scene with the Undying about to being eaten is a horror element. Arya's whole arc reads like a gothic horror show as does Bran's, involving ghostly visitations and dreams. It's not just the war, torture, rape and cannibal elements, but the combination of a fairytale tone and it being steeped in factions that attempt to recruit them. Euron is a horror, a Sauron in becoming. The creepy Nightfort could have featured in a Lovecraft short story. Brienne's quest is a nightmarish horror tale. And the Others are clearly set up to be part of the horror equation. But horror can come in all sorts of manifestations and each horror has a different role in the story arc.

There's the constant callous human horror inflicted by narcissistic and psychopathic and/or sadistic human characters. None of them are invulnerable or immortal and have little to no magical means to defend themselves. These are Tywin, Lorch, Vargo Hoat, the slavemasters of Slaver's Bay, Joffrey, Cersei, Walder Frey, Roose and Ramsay, Varys, Littlefinger, .... They can be dispatched at a fingersnap if someone put their mind to it, and they inevitably end up killing each other when opportunity strikes. It's just that there are so many of those around every generation, and they have a tendency to seek and gain power without scruples in order to abuse it. It's a mundane issue that can only be temporarily fixed, but an ever present danger for any society. They're our "trolls".

Next up are the "big sorcerer" villains. These are still human characters, but they do have magical means. The Undying, Euron, Cersei with her wildfire, Robert Strong and Qyburn and likely in an antihero Elric of Melnibone sense so are Dany with dragons and Stannis with Mel. They're a lvl up of the prior "mundane" horror. They can't just be dispatched at a fingersnap. You have to catch them unawares with their pants down and their magical tools out of reach, or you have to get better magical equipment or allies on your side. Some of these are the big villains in the making for the end stage of the story. The good thing is that there aren't that many of such power around, and if you dispatch them, you don't have to fear there being a new one like that waiting around the corner.

And then you have the Locevraftian timeless immortal bad. George does mention several of these, but in a manner that they are 'dormant' in the present timeline and will not affect the story: the Deep Ones, Squishers, Merlings, something dark at Sothoryos. And then there is the age-old rivalry of Rh'llor and the Great Other, and the serpent god versus the spider goddess. With the Others we are explicitly told that they have been a threat 8000 years ago (twice), that they were defeated, but now they're back and planning to be back in full force. Lovecraftian horror is very very rare and only rises up its ugly head every thousand years or so. But when it does it is apocalyptic style danger that aims to enslave all of humanity and there's no actual "fix". It can only be pushed back. It makes absolute sense to identify Others as a Lovecraftian horror.  Even if we compare them to ecological / climate issues of our world, we know that even if we manage to come together and dampen and turn around CO2 production and prevent the 2050-2060 doom scenario, generations after will have to be ever vigilant to prevent such a thing again.

As to the chemical make-up: what is noticeable is that in his sci-fi furniture he plays around with these things (and with evolution and intelligence and sentience), he also doesn't go to deep into it. The walking-web is a sillicone stony floating spider-monster. Your example. Obviously he's not going to go into an Asimov detailed debate into it, not even in his sci-fi furniture stories, because he isn't a biochemist and he knows that if he goes in too much detail about it, he'll open himself up to people debating over it. So, he "fudges" on that.

I suspect readers of the OP who squint at the science section maybe interprete it as me assuming George went through a similar reasoning process, and therefore balk at it as "too much science" for George in a fantasy furniture story. That's not really how I believe George goes about it. He has his sci-fi experience, he has his "how to write" books, he has his mythological knowledge, he has his symbolical goal he wants to achieve and his physical goal to achieve. We also know he didn't want to include "trolls" and he liked MST. One of the things that MST does really well is use the idea of elves and dwarves, but he has those as "evolved". Tad Williams wrote his own "creatures": they don't look classical (except for the Sithi and the one featured dragon). I think that inspired him to do something similar: let's borrow from folklore, but make them my own invention. He clearly does this with the Children of the Forest and the giants. Giants being bearlike is novel. They aren't "frost giants" of Norse legend. Children of the Forest with dappled skin, black claws and cat eyes are also novel. One of the reasons I'm sure we'll never see a squisher in the novels is because they are not novel, but a reference to merman and the frogfeet monsters of that 40s-50s (?) movie that come on shore. But the Others are a major plot point. So, him outright copying norns (cold sithi who can survive in the north pole) is out of the question imo. So, once he decided they were ice beings instead, he decided on a fudgy chemical make-up based on his experience that makes mythological and symbolical sense: hence Plutonian elements. But then he also needed to decide on their blood, and he fudges with hemolymph... and now he has a tie to the toys he loved to play with: spiders with human heads. Once he had decided on that, all he needs to do is sprinkle some hints to this concept here and there. Since it's fantasy furniture, he's in luck that he doesn't have to explain it, nor have characters chemically dissect them. He can just make it so. But we readers have to reverse-engineer this concept, and so we stumble over those sprinkled hints and some of us are scientists and our mind goes "huh?" and I can't help but consider some sciency background and check whether that holds up if not physically at least symbolically and mythologically. And in the OP the readers of the essay can read that reverse-engineer process. That doesn't really portray George's thinking process, but my own. That is why I wanted to keep the helium section. That element just does not hold up symbolically at all. It most definitely is not the answer. By keeping it, I am being intellectually honest and stress this is a portrayal of my reverse-engineering thinking process.

One of the glaring issues for me with the Others as otherized humans is that they're not like orcs. Orcs are a threat and dangerous, and weird, but they aren't sorcerers. Only those who made them are sorcerers. The same line of thinking is true for dragons. They are magical beings, because they breathe fire without being harmed themselves by it, but dragons are not sorcerers. Even if there is some Great Other above them, the Others we have seen on page are sorcerers on their own. When George talked about the crystal ice swords, he said "they can do things with ice we cannot imagine". Even if they are soldiers of the Great Other or Spider Goddess or Corpse Queen, they are sorcerer-soldiers who can do stuff with ice we cannot imagine, and they potentially can control or wightify humans all on their own as well. The equivalent of ice-engineers so to speak.

Some have tried to explain this by speculating they're greenseers that are Otherized. But then you have the issue with Craster's sons and how not every child will turn out to be a greenseer. If they are greenseers turned Other, then how in the hell does Craster manage to father sons that are all greenseers? The incestuous Targs have not been able to produce dragonbirthers with such a high success rate. THE greenseer species, the CotF do not produce greenseers at this rate. And with humans the prevalence is supposed to be even less. Bran is 1 in a million, though all his siblings are wargs. And how greenseeing - a combo of warging and greendreaming - could give someone automatically the ability to be an ice sorcerer once Otherized is beyond me. Furthermore this conflicts with Coldhands. It's speculated he's a wighted greenseer. I can get behind that. But he's a wight who can still skinchange his elk, not an Other with ice sorcerer abilities. So, this theory leads to one giant mess, aside from an ice baby nursery with Others changing diapers. And if this is what George is going for, which I am 90% sure he won't, then imo he's cheating on the greenseer explanations and rules he set up. I expect a twist of him, not a cheat like that.

Ice sorcery seems an inherent ability to the Others as species, and I don't think they're spewing ice like dragons breathe fire.

I imagine people would question spiders having such magical inherent abilities, but spiders weave... Weaving is an interesting concept: threads can be woven, so can spells. And both male and female spiders can weave. It's something they're inherently born with. If they are an intelligent species in a magical area (and it must be an important magical source spot, as the heart of the lands of always winter is always behind the light curtain), they adapated their weaving abilities.

[sweetsunray]

2 hours ago, It_spelt_Magalhaes said:

 Sorry in advance for the mini rant or the pseudo unfit placement of it, but I'm putting it out there.

I like my horror, fantasy, 'weird stuff' (ha! that's such a dad thing to say), not 'in your face', so to speak. Even as a kid, the notion that you could be following a story that's more a romance novel or an historical account if it wasn't for that splinter under your fingernail that's nagging 'something's not right'? It made reading even very upfront assumedly scifi like Verne more enjoyable. Sure, we're all for the sciency bits, but it's the story that keeps you ready for more development. My earliest Stephen King reads did it for me because it was like 'that one detail is tilting this crap sideways' and the characters had to deal with the extraordinary just like they're your neighbour or cousin. 

As to GRRM'S awesome furniture comparison, round the countryside here we're for food analogies. Country of hearty foods and all, and the first thought I got to translate it mentality has always been 'the rest is salad'. No offense to vegans anywhere, it's a cultural thing. Once you get passed the meat and starch, the leafage is just dressing the plate. Might be good for your health and make everything neat, but it's not what's really 'feeding you'.

And whoopsie?, writing this on a forum dedicated to the works of someone who uses 'gardening' as an analogy to story building...

My favourite Stephen King book is Cujo for that very reason. I also loved IT, though I did not like the space spider reveal at the end of it, ironically enough...  For me that came out of nowhere, and well I'm not actually afraid of spiders, personally. But Cujo! A giant saint bernard going rabid and the mother with her son trapped in the car  I am btw scared of big dogs. Got bitten thrice as a child. My heart stops whenever I have to pass a large strange dog on the street.

And yeah my dad too mumbles about me being into "weird stuff"... He did love Slaughterhouse 5 though

[sweetsunray]

Unfortunately I lost my Ice Magic - Armor draft that was nearly finished (was overwritten by an old draft when I opened it in the app instead of laptop), and reassembling the quotes, when I noticed this.

Quote

"Khaleesi, we saw him strike you. Would you see the color of his blood?" (aCoK, Dany V)

What a curious expression is that!

[Lady Dacey]

On 6/14/2019 at 6:51 PM, sweetsunray said:

I regard scientific subjects as much as a potential source for symblism than mythology or wordplay. It's just that a lot of people either want to go too literal with it, or the opposite shy away from it, and say "Fantasy!"

We are on the same page then  The natural world is a brilliant and endless source of symbolism I believe, and science is nothing more then we making some sense of the natural world. The element conections you made enhanced my asoiaf experience, and I don't think they could be disregarded as coincidental. The melting and evaporating and the colors, it all makes sense.   

On 6/14/2019 at 6:51 PM, sweetsunray said:

Could you give a link to denaturation of hemocyanin at these -200 °C temps? I regard denaturation as heat-relevant. Egg whites become solid and white because of adding heat for examples.

Denaturation is merely how we describe the process of a protein losing its tridimentional structure, meaning its quaternary and tertiary forms. This can happen due to a myriad of reasons, for proteins are very sensitive. Each individual protein has a temperature and pH range in which it will thrive, but anything higher or lower will cause denaturation. Ovabulmin in eggwhites will denaturate when exposed to heat, is true, but also when exposed to an acidic pH of 2 and temperatures below -10°C for exemple. I don't think there is any record of a oxygen transporting protein (or any protein at all actually) capable of mantaining its form in extreme temperature such as those you propose. That would break mollecular bonds to undo any organic structure.  

But I truly don't think any of this is revelant at all, and I really like the "blue blood" conections you make throughout your essay. All I'm saying is that I don't think the Others in the ASOAIF universe actually have hemocyanin in their blood. 

[sweetsunray]

3 minutes ago, Lady Dacey said:

We are on the same page then  The natural world is a brilliant and endless source of symbolism I believe, and science is nothing more then we making some sense of the natural world. The element conections you made enhanced my asoiaf experience, and I don't think they could be disregarded as coincidental. The melting and evaporating and the colors, it all makes sense.   

Denaturation is merely how we describe the process of a protein losing its tridimentional structure, meaning its quaternary and tertiary forms. This can happen due to a myriad of reasons, for proteins are very sensitive. Each individual protein has a temperature and pH range in which it will thrive, but anything higher or lower will cause denaturation. Ovabulmin in eggwhites will denaturate when exposed to heat, is true, but also when exposed to an acidic pH of 2 and temperatures below -10°C for exemple. I don't think there is any record of a oxygen transporting protein (or any protein at all actually) capable of mantaining its form in extreme temperature such as those you propose. That would break mollecular bonds to undo any organic structure.  

But I truly don't think any of this is revelant at all, and I really like the "blue blood" conections you make throughout your essay. All I'm saying is that I don't think the Others in the ASOAIF universe actually have hemocyanin in their blood. 

Thanks for explaining. Yeah, could be something else that is relatable to it. Even if it was, it can't be floating in normal hemolymph either, as the water would freeze solid at their temperature. But others have proposed potential solutions for that.

And as you say, that's ultimately not as relevant as George repeatedly pointing to this blue blood type of spiders over and over, and he wouldn't do that if it didn't serve some meaning.

It started out as initially just listing the most clear items to say "they're another special species, not just magically otherized humans". But I also always find it important to try and provide a conceptual alternative. It's easier to say "It's not this!" than to actually provide a literary reasonable alternative. And we see these Plutonian Others with Ice Spider blue blood as a concept model that George is vaguely suggesting. 

[sweetsunray]

On 6/11/2019 at 12:43 PM, It_spelt_Magalhaes said:

Now it's summer and we're using a water reservoir as a pool. It's surrounded by grass and trees, lots of bugs and yummy stuff. 

Have you ever seen spiders run on water? At your face? When the water's height is about your nose? Close enough you can count all their eyes and watch the twitching mouthpieces?

Cripes. To this day I can pick up a spider on a dust pan to put it outside, but I still do it completely chicken skinned and shivering.

Sure thing the 'Spider Others' would walk on ice. It's just too bad we have yet to see them skitter across water calm as you please. Not the wights, the Others themselves.

But then that would just give up the game, yeah?

@The Sleeper's issue and your post here and that description of the walking web I gave may converge into a solution. And it would give the "webbed FEET" of the Borrels (we never see it, but we're told it can also affect their feet) more of a hint meaning.

So, that silicone rock-like spider attached to a web that walks but is so thin at the ends it is invisible (but still leaves tiny holes in the walls) made me think whether the Others may be walking on a type of webbing that is invisible but would serve them like bear-paws serve the humans in not leaving tracks in snow. It would distribute their weight, just like a spider on its eight legs distributes its weight.

[It_spelt_Magalhaes]

25 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

@The Sleeper's issue and your post here and that description of the walking web I gave may converge into a solution. And it would give the "webbed FEET" of the Borrels (we never see it, but we're told it can also affect their feet) more of a hint meaning.

So, that silicone rock-like spider attached to a web that walks but is so thin at the ends it is invisible (but still leaves tiny holes in the walls) made me think whether the Others may be walking on a type of webbing that is invisible but would serve them like bear-paws serve the humans in not leaving tracks in snow. It would distribute their weight, just like a spider on its eight legs distributes its weight.

Yep. I did think about it while reading your comparison with the silicone rock-spider. They must be heavy indeed, as they are dense enough for impact and touch and combat, but what if there’s something our pov persperctive simply doesn't 'see' carrying them as they move? 

And as to @Lady Dacey's information about the impossibility of protein maintaining it's 3d structure at such extreme temperatures and also hemolymph not being viable due to crystal formation? Could something in the Others' makeup act as a natural antifreeze? There's all sorts of products used even on food industry that 'delay' cristal formation to much lower temperatures, or good old car service products based on propylene glicol. Which, awesomely enough, are many times sold in the form of a cristaline, bright blue liquid?

[sweetsunray]

7 minutes ago, It_spelt_Magalhaes said:

Yep. I did think about it while reading your comparison with the silicone rock-spider. They must be heavy indeed, as they are dense enough for impact and touch and combat, but what if there’s something our pov persperctive simply doesn't 'see' carrying them as they move? 

Exactly. If George had written the Plague Star in 2005 instead of 1985 he would have used a nanoreference, no? We don't see certain stuff with the naked eye, because it's just too tiny. Doesn't mean it isn't there. We don't see germs either. They're still there, nevertheless. And a nice point about silicone rock-appearing spiders that MUST be heavy and somehow appear to be floating and those very thin webs are able to keep them up.

7 minutes ago, It_spelt_Magalhaes said:

And as to @Lady Dacey's information about the impossibility of protein maintaining it's 3d structure at such extreme temperatures and also hemolymph not being viable due to crystal formation? Could something in the Others' makeup act as a natural antifreeze? There's all sorts of products used even on food industry that 'delay' cristal formation to much lower temperatures, or good old car service products based on propylene glicol. Which, awesomely enough, are many times sold in the form of a cristaline, bright blue liquid?

My ad-hoc chemistry knowledge isn't that vast enough to come up with something. So, I'm joining your query: Lady Dacey?

[It_spelt_Magalhaes]

Oh boy. Cujo? Yikes about your bad history.

Betrayal of 'cultural formatting' so to speak, for me. As in, St..Bernards are supposed to be cuddly, teddy bear cuties, yeah?

Randomising? I used to watch a cartoon bee, Maya. And then my three year old self saw a real one and went and grabbed it. It was a wasp, actually. My tiny, three year old fist was twice the size of the other one.

Nature's a beautiful, vengeful hag when you stop paying attention. Summer children, the lot of us.

[Lady Dacey]

On 6/20/2019 at 12:45 PM, Feather Crystal said:

 simply people who are alien or different and have been "otherized" in order to justify violence against them and for keeping them contained behind the Wall. 

Those would be the wildlings. Otherization of the wildlings (as per old Nan's stories) is certainly something with many parellels in the real world of which GRRM is very critical of. But I really don't see that applied to the Others... I don't think their name alone justifies such a belief

Edited to add:

Quote

The propaganda stories about the wildlings are just fanciful scary stories with exaggerated claims with the sole purpose of dehumanizing them. 

I agree with that and truly hope that it's common sense. But are the Others wildlings? I mean, the wildlings themselves are afraid of the Others and fleeing their land because of their threat (or so I assume). 

[sweetsunray]

6 hours ago, It_spelt_Magalhaes said:

Oh boy. Cujo? Yikes about your bad history.

Betrayal of 'cultural formatting' so to speak, for me. As in, St..Bernards are supposed to be cuddly, teddy bear cuties, yeah?

Randomising? I used to watch a cartoon bee, Maya. And then my three year old self saw a real one and went and grabbed it. It was a wasp, actually. My tiny, three year old fist was twice the size of the other one.

Nature's a beautiful, vengeful hag when you stop paying attention. Summer children, the lot of us.

I was 6 when a bee landed on my cheek and I slapped it, and that stung! Which reminds me of the Black Mirror episode with the artificial bees, "Hated in the Nation" and this awesome haunting song:

 

[It_spelt_Magalhaes]

Still on topic with the low hanging fruit at the expense of His Skeevyness the Leech Lord.

I had a weird thought about the leeching and it's effects on red blood cell prodution and for damn all, my brain made the sideways jumpstart into 'this guy's not an over botoxed news caster saying a baby whale was saved and then a bus full of people fell into a river and everyone died with the same flat face, he's Lance Armstrong!'. But wouldn't that make him more iron and red blood packed? The whole scandal was due to Epo use and/or own blood transfusions (autologous? Iirc, that's the term)

Don't bother trying to puzzle out my reasoning,  because, as it turns out, it was wrong. Even surface online research about blood donation and the less noble bits show that, despite training or more correctly, triggering, your body to produce more red blood cells, you can easily go over out of bounds and create a bad anemic condition.

If, say an adult male donates more than a unit every 12 weeks, stuff might be a bit sketchy, as far as the Portuguese Red Cross indicates. In your transcribed bit about Roose Bolton's session we read they 'clung to the insides of his arms and legs' and 'dotted his pallid chest', that sounds like a bunch of them. If each one can gorge 10-15mls per feeding and the 'unit' for blood is 450ml? He was directly making himself anemic, not just in removing the blood in each session, but by creating a sustained iron deficiency in his system. 

And then you add the ancient, and also modern medicine, reputation of leeches curing or at least treating things like rheumatism, hearing loss and other maladies we associate with aging. Or the euphoria and 'rejuvenating' feeling described by patients who are leeched on.

No wonder the Pale Wonder looked good for his age. And omfg, man did hate the iron stuff.

As an aside? Ramsay's blotchy complexion, the red blood pushed to the surface of his skin? I always considered it to be eczema, or something like it, and it does get worse in the winter in many. You can treat it with leeches, apparently.

[sweetsunray]

58 minutes ago, It_spelt_Magalhaes said:

No wonder the Pale Wonder looked good for his age. And omfg, man did hate the iron stuff.

Thanks for that info. And yes, that man hates the iron and his red blood production. It's like he wants it out of his body ASAP. It's weird how you end up with those parallels. Do a search on "spider" in a search of ice and fire, and then have Jaime remark on the spidersoft voice. But then I wonder why is he "spiderlike" according to George? Sure, he sets a trap, but is that all? And then you find the blood links. It is those things that make me be in awe of George. How, he manages to use the same theme in such diverse ways. And suddenly the weird guy who's addicted to being leeched makes more meta-sense. And then I researched the clothing, and suddenly you realize: OMG he's hiding behind a BLUE curtain. 

George loves his color-coding BTW.

58 minutes ago, It_spelt_Magalhaes said:

As an aside? Ramsay's blotchy complexion, the red blood pushed to the surface of his skin?

When I first read about Jaime's spidersoft voice remark about Roose, I had not yet even considered Ramsay as a "fire-iron" guy much (despite the fact he burned WF down). He's a nasty guy, and he's the "skinner", more than Roose. I guess Roose isn't fond of flaying, because that's too bloody likely. He might end up splattered or covered with red blood. But Ramsay revels in it.

Anyway, I had totally forgotten about Ramsay being blotchy. There may be various medical causes for it:

https://hellomrdoctor.com/red-blotchy-skin/

I've gathered the most interesting quotes

Quote

Redness of skin is caused by the blood flow to that area. Our body has capacity to heal itself. So, if any damage is caused to a particular area in the body due to any reasons, our body increases that blood flow in that area to speed up the healing process.

[...]

Weather

Too cold or too warm weather can also cause red patches in the skin of a person. Heat during summers or even hot water can lead to minor burns in the skin. This, in turn, leads to the redness in the places where skin has been burnt. Cold weather and dry winds are also responsible for red patches forming on the exposed area, especially neck and nose since these are the most exposed areas.

[...]

Lupus

Lupus is a condition in which the body’s own immune system starts attacking its own cells in the body. The common symptom of lupus is the formation of a red butterfly-shaped rash on the area near the nose, neck, and face. This is like a rash that keeps coming and going with time. Lupus gets even worse if the skin is exposed to the sunlight. The other symptoms of lupus are fever, cold sores, hair loss, joint pains etc.

Polycythemia Vera

This is a blood disorder that takes place in men more than women in the age group above 40. Polycythemia Vera is a disease in which the bone marrow makes blood cells more than required. These can lead to formation of blotches on the skin. This disease can be deadly if not treated on time.

 

[It_spelt_Magalhaes]

Found an abstract to an 1980 article mentioning spiders and other arthropoda who have antifreeze in their blood. It referrences temperatures of -6 or -7C, but it's still well below what would otherwise freeze them solid or crystalize in hemolymph and cause cell wall destruction and death. Because Science!, and inside the spider the temperature is exactly the same as outside. 

And these critters are not sluggish and sleepy, as if they had an antifreeze like etylene glycol (found the right one, they used to use the stuff to stabilize soft drinks and the like, yikes). No, these spiders are walking around, hunting, calm as you please with their 'blue blood' at below freezing temp. 

Even in that article, it's already thought that protein based antifreeze, the same that present day soft serve ice cream and yogurt industry use to give us crystal free products, are the key to their success.

(It's my day off and I'm amateur sleuthing osteoporosis being responsible for the negative correlation between age of the deceased and the amount of bone ash a human produces post cremation and weird stuff like crocodile icefish and the FDA's approval of AFPs. We shall build a temple to GRRM. We aren't worthy.)

Edit: in 1985 there was an incident due to contamination of australian wine with diethylene glycol, one of many mass poisonings caused by DEG.

It's actually carboxymethyl cellulose that's more popular in the food industry.  AFPs seem to be more prevalent in medical technology applications.

[sweetsunray]

15 hours ago, It_spelt_Magalhaes said:

Found an abstract to an 1980 article mentioning spiders and other arthropoda who have antifreeze in their blood. It referrences temperatures of -6 or -7C, but it's still well below what would otherwise freeze them solid or crystalize in hemolymph and cause cell wall destruction and death. Because Science!, and inside the spider the temperature is exactly the same as outside. 

And these critters are not sluggish and sleepy, as if they had an antifreeze like etylene glycol (found the right one, they used to use the stuff to stabilize soft drinks and the like, yikes). No, these spiders are walking around, hunting, calm as you please with their 'blue blood' at below freezing temp. 

Even in that article, it's already thought that protein based antifreeze, the same that present day soft serve ice cream and yogurt industry use to give us crystal free products, are the key to their success.

Wow! Nice find!

15 hours ago, It_spelt_Magalhaes said:

(It's my day off and I'm amateur sleuthing osteoporosis being responsible for the negative correlation between age of the deceased and the amount of bone ash a human produces post cremation and weird stuff like crocodile icefish and the FDA's approval of AFPs. We shall build a temple to GRRM. We aren't worthy.)

Lol! The things we learn. My friends who aren't into the books (much) already know to avoid the topic when they think they had some "deep" insight, or I'll be talking an hour on some minor detail and what that might mean. And then they go, "Wow, never picked up on those red stallions." 

[Lady Dacey]

On 6/24/2019 at 5:20 PM, sweetsunray said:

My ad-hoc chemistry knowledge isn't that vast enough to come up with something. So, I'm joining your query: Lady Dacey?

Sorry, I missed this! I'm not very versed in chemistry myself, my field is closer to human biology. 

18 hours ago, It_spelt_Magalhaes said:

Found an abstract to an 1980 article mentioning spiders and other arthropoda who have antifreeze in their blood. It referrences temperatures of -6 or -7C, but it's still well below what would otherwise freeze them solid or crystalize in hemolymph and cause cell wall destruction and death. Because Science!, and inside the spider the temperature is exactly the same as outside. 

I guess my fellow portuguese speaking poster got a cool answer for your inquires. 

My problem with the Others having hemocyanin in their "blood" is that I can't see any organic material in the elemental body you described, which I loved, and we agree is sort of held together by magic. While the elements can melt and evaporate and sublime, organic compounds don't desintegrate and will always leave residue behind, which se don't see when Sam slays one of them. The other problem I see os that oxygen transport proteins exist in the lifeforms we are aware of in order to diatribute oxygen needed for complex redox reactions inside mitochondrea. Because the flesh and bones of the Others is not made of regular cellullar tissue, why would they need to transport oxygen through their bodies? I think the spider and the blue blood connections still stands, and you haver convinced me that Martin, who is a very intentional writer, meant for us to compare the Others to spiders, and that the blue blood is one of the parallels that hints at that. But in my mind, I think the Others are a completely inorganic form of "life" whose structure in mantained by magical forces.