Heresy 223 and where we go from here

[Brad Stark]

1 hour ago, Lady Rhodes said:

Can you honestly see Stannis searching for a red priestess/sorcerer/ shadowbinder, especially while Robert is still alive? Now, I could see Selyse doing it, but not Stannis.

Selyse may be more likely, especially if the prologue is wrong about Melisandre converting her.  But I don't see Robert being alive as an obstacle to Stannis seeking a shadowbinder.   If Stannis reached out to Melisandre, it wasn't for religious reasons or to take the throne, he would have had to have some other need for her power. 

[Melifeather]

I suspect one of the important details that lead to the mutiny of the Nights King was that he broke his vows - he was an oathbreaker.

[JNR]

10 hours ago, Matthew. said:

It might indeed mean that the Prequel will tell a different story that is more accurate to Martin's ideas of the Others--but it might just as easily mean it'll be a different story because Jane Goldman has largely had to chart her own path

Whether the Long Night show's version will be the same as GRRM's remains to be seen, of course. 

But the point is that GOT is extremely doubtful source material for any form of speculation about future books.

10 hours ago, Matthew. said:

It might also mean nothing at all, being a corporate press release hyping a show that hadn't (at that point) even begun filming.

Well, there would really be no reason to make such a dishonest statement, given the literally limitless other ways HBO might have hyped such a project.  If any hype were even needed.  GOT was the most hyped franchise in HBO history, and if there has been a more broadly hyped show worldwide, in the last half-decade, I don't know what it was. 

Offhand, I also can't think of any time that any Hollywood project has ever, for marketing purposes, disavowed a major revelation from a previous iteration in the same franchise.

For instance, I don't recall the sixth Star Wars movie being hyped before release as offering "the true father of Luke Skywalker."

And if it had, and people had concluded that Luke's true father wasn't Darth Vader, I think that would have been quite a reasonable conclusion.

10 hours ago, Matthew. said:

Like everything else that he hasn't actually written, it sounds like the underlying ideas are vague and highly flexible, open to gardening.

Oh, it sounds to me like he's just being his usual evasive self. 

7 hours ago, Matthew. said:

For clarity, the "first WW made before the Pact" timeline doesn't come from the press release about the prequel show, it comes from the Histories and Lore DVD extras.

There was certainly never any such concept of a pre_Pact Popsicle in the DVD extras from the first three seasons...

...which as we know, were the ones in which canon was the guiding principle, as opposed to witless caprice.  

Which season do you have in mind?  1-3, or... ?  I'm sure I can find contrary quotes from the early seasons.

 

[JNR]

8 hours ago, Lady Rhodes said:

So, if he has been Lord of Dragonstone for approximately 14 years, why has she only recently arrived?

There's actually an interesting and fairly recent (2012) SSM on that:

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Why did Melisandre seek out Stannis? Did she see him in her flames and decided to seek him out on her own, or is she on a mission on behalf of the red priests? It doesn't seem at any point as if the latter is the case, when you compare to Moqorro who has been sent out by the priesthood.

You're right. Melisandre has gone to Stannis entirely on her own, and has her own agenda.

 

Now this, of course, isn't as specific as we might prefer.

I'm sure Matthew will interpret it to mean GRRM really has no idea about that, and is just leaving himself room to garden.

I think GRRM has quite a good idea, though; I think this is a thing he's known for more than twenty years.

[Black Crow]

7 hours ago, Lady Rhodes said:

I can’t see Thoros and Selyse being fast friends but if she was converted to the faith, she was probably easily won over by Melisandre when she appeared. 

The first reference suggests that she was recently arrived.

Selyse' conversion sounds as if it was earlier, but Thoros seems unlikely

Reverting to my earlier suggestion, perhaps Mel tooled up and converted Selyse. Then Trouserless Bob popped his clogs and we get a bit on angst on Dragonstone about the succession. Selyse suggests Stannis should be king and urges the Azor Ahai possibility, Mel helpfully points out that she's not just a priestess but a shadow-binder...

[Black Crow]

3 hours ago, JNR said:

Whether the Long Night show's version will be the same as GRRM's remains to be seen, of course. 

But the point is that GOT is extremely doubtful source material for any form of speculation about future books...

There was certainly never any such concept of a pre-Pact Popsicle in the DVD extras from the first three seasons...

...which as we know, were the ones in which canon was the guiding principle, as opposed to witless caprice.  

"Guiding principle" yes, but even then, as I recall all we got was a rather jazzed-up version of Old Nan's tale which didn't gell with some of the things GRRM said either in text or in SSM.

Its also worth emphasising that in the text when Bran sees backwards in time a man is sacrificed by other men, and an old woman in front of the Winterfell tree, and Bran being in the tree tastes the blood. 

At no point are the three-fingered tree-huggers involved, far less engaged in transforming the sacrifice

This is where the Mummers version gets dangerous

[Black Crow]

As to the Nights King, as GRRM points out he was a long time ago and doesn't feature in the book other than in that scary story by Old Nan. She suggests that he was a Stark and that it was his Stark brother who brought him down. The white lady... well I think its quite wrong to interpret her as a white walker. Yes GRRM does say that his ones are beautiful, like the Sidhe made of ice, rather than the warmed over corpses paraded by the mummers, but being made of ice presents certain "difficulties" in forming a relationship with warm blooded humans. In any case, after he was overthrown it was found that he and his men had been sacrificing to the Others, which suggests doing a Craster.

[Lord Aegon The Compromiser]

On 6/4/2019 at 1:28 PM, Black Crow said:

In fact, given certain outcomes revealed by GRRM to the Mummers I do have to question whether Jon merits the status accorded him by so many readers. In other words, while he's an important major character, he's also a dead one and NOT the central one.

He may very well be central (and probably our central POV) in the Ice side of the story. GRRM has said magic will play a larger role in the books going forward.

[Brad Stark]

4 hours ago, Black Crow said:

"Its also worth emphasising that in the text when Bran sees backwards in time a man is sacrificed by other men, and an old woman in front of the Winterfell tree, and Bran being in the tree tastes the blood. 

At no point are the three-fingered tree-huggers involved, far less engaged in transforming the sacrifice

This is where the Mummers version gets dangerous

I assumed these were 2 different sacrifices.  The man in the book either dies or becomes the wierwood,  his throat is cut by a sickle.   We don't know if the white haired woman is old, she could have hair similar to Targaryens.

The show's version is completely different.  Both start with a bound man and a wierwood.   But here the wierwood is destroyed (so it can't be Winterfell), the man becomes an Other, his throat is not slit, and as you said, it is Children working the ritual. 

[Lord Aegon The Compromiser]

On 6/4/2019 at 5:20 PM, Feather Crystal said:

It would appear that there is some overlapping between Westeros and Essos. Jon very clearly seems to be the Nights King reborn while having dreams that he’s Azor Ahai. Meanwhile Mance is hanging in a cage like Garin the Great while his “curse” is coming down upon Westeros from the north.

Daenerys is a reborn dragonlord, but who will she be going against? We need a repeat of the Last Hero with 12 friends leaving on an expedition to go out and kill her. Sort of like having the Nights King killing his queen with a sword of ice. Maybe Hizdar will kill her? Do we know of anyone else in Essos capable of forging a sword of ice? The only character associated with forging anything is Gendry, but we’ve had no inkling that he plans on going to Essos anytime soon.

Is Tobo Mott confirmed dead?

[Melifeather]

2 hours ago, Lord Aegon The Compromiser said:

Is Tobo Mott confirmed dead?

As far as we know Tobho Mott is alive. He is presented as a master armor maker and knows how to work Valyrian steel, but would he have reason to travel to Essos? Probably not. Right now I’m leaning towards the belief that Dany won’t come to Westeros and will be killed in Essos.

[Mychel_Redfort]

13 hours ago, JNR said:

There's actually an interesting and fairly recent (2012) SSM on that:

This quote supports this SSM :

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ASOS, Davos III

325-029   "The war," she affirmed. "There are two, Onion Knight. Not seven, not one, not a hundred or a thousand. Two! Do you think I crossed half the world to put yet another vain king on yet another empty throne? The war has been waged since time began, and before it is done, all men must choose where they will stand. On one side is R'hllor, the Lord of Light, the Heart of Fire, the God of Flame and Shadow. Against him stands the Great Other whose name may not be spoken, the Lord of Darkness, the Soul of Ice, the God of Night and Terror. Ours is not a choice between Baratheon and Lannister, between Greyjoy and Stark. It is death we choose, or life. Darkness, or light."

 

[Melifeather]

5 minutes ago, Mychel_Redfort said:

This quote supports this SSM :

 

The way Melisandre phrases her words it sounds like she's been fooled before and put a vain king on an empty throne..

[Melifeather]

I think a lot of readers would like to see Stannis the mannis win his battles and sit the Iron Throne even if the author said this:

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“Robert was the true steel. Stannis is pure iron, black and hard and strong, yes, but brittle, the way iron gets. He'll break before he bends. And Renly, that one, he's copper, bright and shiny, pretty to look at but not worth all that much at the end of the day.”

 

Who cares if Robert was the true steel. He was lazy and only wanted the fun parts of being king. Stannis is hard and strong and he cares more about duty and what is right than making friends. If it's true that Stannis sought out Melisandre, maybe he did so, because he was looking for some type of advantage?

[SirArthur]

10 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Selyse' conversion sounds as if it was earlier, but Thoros seems unlikely

Just to underline this

"Your god can keep his grace," said Lord Stannis, who did not share his wife's fervent new faith. "It's swords I need, not blessings. Do you have an army hidden somewhere that you've not told me of?" There was no affection in his tone. Stannis had always been uncomfortable around women, even his own wife. When he had gone to King's Landing to sit on Robert's council, he had left Selyse on Dragonstone with their daughter. His letters had been few, his visits fewer; he did his duty in the marriage bed once or twice a year, but took no joy in it, and the sons he had once hoped for had never come.

[Black Crow]

5 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

I assumed these were 2 different sacrifices.  The man in the book either dies or becomes the wierwood,  his throat is cut by a sickle.   We don't know if the white haired woman is old, she could have hair similar to Targaryens.

The show's version is completely different.  Both start with a bound man and a wierwood.   But here the wierwood is destroyed (so it can't be Winterfell), the man becomes an Other, his throat is not slit, and as you said, it is Children working the ritual. 

Exactly so and I think that its dangerous to confuse the two or at least up to a point, that is the old heresy that there's a connection between the tree-huggers and the white walkers, but the connection I think is the Starks. One of the biggest weaknesses of the Mummers' version was that GRRM provided the outcomes for Bran and Jon, but obviously never told them anything anent how those outcomes were arrived at. 

This remains the joy of Heresy. While the disciples of R+L=J are left frustrated and bewildered by the collapse of their predictions we are still able to to theorise and discuss the massive gap between where we are now in book terms and those outcomes - which don't seem too far away from what we miserable heretics have been discussing all along

 

[smug... moi?]

[Matthew.]

23 hours ago, JNR said:

Offhand, I also can't think of any time that any Hollywood project has ever, for marketing purposes, disavowed a major revelation from a previous iteration in the same franchise.

Right, it would be highly unusual for a corporation to throw shade at their most successful show months before its final season, which is why such an interpretation of that press release seems questionable to me--its possible, but it might be proposing a subtext that isn't actually intended, particularly when we don't actually know that the Prequel will be any closer to the books than GoT.

To reiterate, "it's not the story you think you know" might not just be drawing a contrast between two shows, but between the Prequel and GOT and the books. Old Nan's tales don't add up to a cohesive narrative with an ensemble cast, so crafting something that functions as episodic television must have necessarily included taking certain liberties--either treating the legends as a grab bag to draw characters from, even if those characters didn't live at the same time, or inventing characters and arcs that never existed in the first place.

When I say "true origins of the white walkers" might be nebulous hype, I don't mean that they're lying, I mean that they might also be hyping things that are unaddressed, under-addressed, compressed, or simplified with composite figures, as opposed to outright "false." There's a difference between "GoT suggests the CotF created the Others, but the circumstances were far more complex," and "GoT suggests the CotF created the Others, and that's incorrect." Even under the former scenario, we haven't gotten the "true story," because we didn't get a story at all--we got a brief visual scene and a line or two of hand waving exposition.

I'm not advocating for a particular conclusion, but the very opposite--I'm saying that a press release tells us nothing in particular about future books, nor about the relationship between either GOT or the Prequel and the books (eg, that one or the other is "closer" to GRRM's ideas for the Others' origins).
 

23 hours ago, JNR said:

Oh, it sounds to me like he's just being his usual evasive self. 

"She had to come up with the setting and characters" and "we bounced ideas off each other" is not evasion, it's a straightforward description of process.

I'm not implying that gardening means an absence of ideas, but rather, a multitude--and whichever idea he prefers appears to have a certain amount of flexibility, with GRRM assessing how he feels about things as he writes (and endlessly rewrites). For example, if he has a new idea for Azor Ahai that he likes, and if he can introduce the new idea without explicitly contradicting the established facts of the world (easy to do with the Age of Heroes, which is mostly dubious oral history), then the new idea will replace whatever prior 'head canon' he was inclined toward.

The 1993 letter, nearly every interview that GRRM has ever given about his writing process, and the basic pace at which he has released books should make this uncontroversial--if a plot point is not published, then it's not final, and open to gardening, though obviously some things are more 'open' to gardening than others. The Age of Heroes offers far more flexibility than, say, Robert's Rebellion.
 

23 hours ago, JNR said:

There was certainly never any such concept of a pre_Pact Popsicle in the DVD extras from the first three seasons...

...which as we know, were the ones in which canon was the guiding principle, as opposed to witless caprice.  

Which season do you have in mind?  1-3, or... ?  I'm sure I can find contrary quotes from the early seasons.

"Children of the Forest vs. the First Men," narrated by Max von Sydow.

I don't know what precisely you're arguing against here. I didn't say that's the "canon chronology," I said it's Show World chronology, and under the conceit of the History and Lore format (which uses biased narrators), that particular iteration is to be understood as the 3EC's version of events.

[Matthew.]

12 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Reverting to my earlier suggestion, perhaps Mel tooled up and converted Selyse. Then Trouserless Bob popped his clogs and we get a bit on angst on Dragonstone about the succession. Selyse suggests Stannis should be king and urges the Azor Ahai possibility, Mel helpfully points out that she's not just a priestess but a shadow-binder...

I'd always assumed that the flow of events went roughly like this:

- Melisandre is in Asshai, and she already has all of the lore and portents relating to AAR at her disposal, based on both Red Priesthood doctrine, and texts available in Asshai; eg, she already believes that Dragonstone might be important, but that doesn't necessarily mean that she could go to Dragonstone at any given time and find AAR

- She sees something in her flames that convinces her the end is nigh, and accordingly, this also must be an era in which AA will return

- She heads west, and based on the information she has, she thinks Stannis is the best fit because he's the Lord of Dragonstone, he has a touch of dragon blood, and he's the "rightful" heir under the current regime; in reality, across the Narrow Sea, a different figure is also technically the Lady of Dragonstone, was born at Dragonstone, and will soon wake dragons from stone beneath the red comet, but Melisandre doesn't know this, so she continues to double down on Stannis and try to make him fit the AAR role

[Black Crow]

15 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

I'd always assumed that the flow of events went roughly like this:

- Melisandre is in Asshai, and she already has all of the lore and portents relating to AAR at her disposal, based on both Red Priesthood doctrine, and texts available in Asshai; eg, she already believes that Dragonstone might be important, but that doesn't necessarily mean that she could go to Dragonstone at any given time and find AAR

- She sees something in her flames that convinces her the end is nigh, and accordingly, this also must be an era in which AA will return

- She heads west, and based on the information she has, she thinks Stannis is the best fit because he's the Lord of Dragonstone, he has a touch of dragon blood, and he's the "rightful" heir under the current regime; in reality, across the Narrow Sea, a different figure is also technically the Lady of Dragonstone, was born at Dragonstone, and will soon wake dragons from stone beneath the red comet, but Melisandre doesn't know this, so she continues to double down on Stannis and try to make him fit the AAR role

As usual I don't think we're too far apart on this. Mel was certainly travelling hopefully. As I recall her POV hints at a certain tension with the people at head office and a desire to prove to them that she's right. How much she knew of Dragonstone and of Stannis beforehand we just don't know at this stage but given his total [and almost hostile] lack of interest in her I'm pretty sure that Selyse is the one who first linked him to Azor Ahai, persuaded Mel that he was indeed the one, and then persuaded Stannis to embrace it all.

[MaesterSam]

On 6/4/2019 at 2:46 PM, Feather Crystal said:

She doesn't know what Westwatch-by-the-Bridge looks like nor realize that it too is adjacent to a large body of water - the Bay of Ice - so when somebody suggests Eastwatch she assumes it must be that tower, because it's adjacent to water.

I'm pretty sure this vision has nothing to do with Jon or the Wall. Many of the images in this vision are related to events in the south, and I believe the towers are as well. 

Let's start with Mel's vision:

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Surely R’hllor would vouchsafe her a glimpse of what awaited him. Show me Stannis, Lord, she prayed. Show me your king, your instrument.
Visions danced before her, gold and scarlet, flickering, forming and melting and dissolving into one another, shapes strange and terrifying and seductive. She saw the eyeless faces again, staring out at her from sockets weeping blood. Then the towers by the sea, crumbling as the dark tide came sweeping over them, rising from the depths. Shadows in the shape of skulls, skulls that turned to mist, bodies locked together in lust, writhing and rolling and clawing. Through curtains of fire great winged shadows wheeled against a hard blue sky.

A few things stand out here. Mel asks to see R'hllor's king, his instrument. While she thinks it's Stannis, the visions that immediately follow have nothing to do with Stannis and even less to do with Jon.

The towers are specifically said to be by the sea, not just some body of water. This is relevant because the rest of the vision brings up some major Euron imagery. The dark tide rising up is reminiscent of Bran's dream when the sea came to Winterfell, as well as Moqorro's warning of Euron "sailing on a sea of blood". 

In another part of her POV chapter, Mel specifically refers to a bloody tide:

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“Some may.” Could the skulls in her vision have signified this bridge? Somehow Melisandre did not think so. “If it comes, that attack will be no more than a diversion. I saw towers by the sea, submerged beneath a black and bloody tide. That is where the heaviest blow will fall.”
“Eastwatch?”
Was it? Melisandre had seen Eastwatch-by-the-Sea with King Stannis.

Shadows in the shape of skulls: Aeron's vision included Euron on a pile of skulls before he transitioned to the IT.

Bodies locked together in lust: dwarves capering for Euron's amusement.

And of course, dragons.

Here is the passage from The Forsaken:

When he laughed his face sloughed off and the priest saw that it was not Urri but Euron, the smiling eye hidden. He showed the world his blood eye now, dark and terrible. Clad head to heel in scale as dark as onyx, he sat upon a mound of blackened skulls as dwarfs capered round his feet and a forest burned behind him.

“The bleeding star bespoke the end,” he said to Aeron. “These are the last days, when the world shall be broken and remade. A new god shall be born from the graves and charnel pits.” Then Euron lifted a great horn to his lips and blew, and dragons and krakens and sphinxes came at his command and bowed before him. “Kneel, brother,” the Crow’s Eye commanded. “I am your king, I am your god. Worship me, and I will raise you up to be my priest.”

Here is Aeron's second vision:

The dreams were even worse the second time. He saw the longships of the Ironborn adrift and burning on a boiling blood-red sea. He saw his brother on the Iron Throne again, but Euron was no longer human. He seemed more squid than man, a monster fathered by a kraken of the deep, his face a mass of writhing tentacles. Beside him stood a shadow in woman’s form, long and tall and terrible, her hands alive with pale white fire. Dwarves capered for their amusement, male and female, naked and misshapen, locked in carnal embrace, biting and tearing at each other as Euron and his mate laughed and laughed and laughed …

It seems pretty clear to me that Aeron and Mel are having some overlapping visions. Both feature a red/bloody sea, lots of skulls, "bodies locked together in lust", and dragons. I think we have discussed before that some big events will show up in everyone's visions around the time they occur, such as the red wedding being shown to Dany in Qarth but also the GOHH in the Riverlands. Apparently, Euron taking power, forcing Tyrion & Penny into sex slavery (I imagine this is how he gets Cersei to be his mate), and successfully using the hellhorn to get dragons are going to leave major ripples in the vision-net of Planetos...

But back to the towers by the sea. IMHO, we should be looking at castles/cities  that are on the Southeastern coast of Westeros, since that's where Euron is, and whose fall would have some meaning to the story. There is really only one that fits and is specifically said to have towers:

The castle Three Towers is located at the entrance to the Whispering Sound which leads to Oldtown, at the northern end of the Redwyne Straits. It is the seat of House Costayne. We have had foreshadowing that Euron is planning a trap for his enemies, making them think they can trap him in the straits but then using the holy blood from his collection of priests to summon krakens. Hence the "sea of blood" that Mel, Aeron and Moqorro all saw will be literal, and located immediately in front of the Three Towers castle. 

What do you think?