Heresy 224 Whitey Snow and the Winter Hill Gang

[Brad Stark]

13 hours ago, Lord Aegon The Compromiser said:

There's as much proof Rhaegar died on the Trident as there is that RLJ is true...ZERO.

The unreliable narrator means there is zero absolute proof of anything.   But Rhaegar's death is as close to certain as we can get.  Thousands of people saw him die and as heir, many people would confirm he was really dead.  And from a literary perspective,  GRRM would not be able to reintroduce Rhaegar as being alive without losing all credibility with his audience. 

[LynnS]

It has been proposed in the past that the WW are glamored.  Is that still true or is it possible that their armor is made of highly reflective ice?
 

Quote

 

A Storm of Swords - Samwell I

The lower branches of the great green sentinel shed their burden of snow with a soft wet plop. Grenn spun, thrusting out his torch. "Who goes there?" A horse's head emerged from the darkness. Sam felt a moment's relief, until he saw the horse. Hoarfrost covered it like a sheen of frozen sweat, and a nest of stiff black entrails dragged from its open belly. On its back was a rider pale as ice. Sam made a whimpery sound deep in his throat. He was so scared he might have pissed himself all over again, but the cold was in him, a cold so savage that his bladder felt frozen solid. The Other slid gracefully from the saddle to stand upon the snow. Sword-slim it was, and milky white. Its armor rippled and shifted as it moved, and its feet did not break the crust of the new-fallen snow.

Small Paul unslung the long-hafted axe strapped across his back. "Why'd you hurt that horse? That was Mawney's horse."

Sam groped for the hilt of his sword, but the scabbard was empty. He had lost it on the Fist, he remembered too late.

A Storm of Swords - Samwell I

Do it now. Stop crying and fight, you baby. Fight, craven. It was his father he heard, it was Alliser Thorne, it was his brother Dickon and the boy Rast. Craven, craven, craven. He giggled hysterically, wondering if they would make a wight of him, a huge fat white wight always tripping over its own dead feet. Do it, Sam. Was that Jon, now? Jon was dead. You can do it, you can, just do it. And then he was stumbling forward, falling more than running, really, closing his eyes and shoving the dagger blindly out before him with both hands. He heard a crack, like the sound ice makes when it breaks beneath a man's foot, and then a screech so shrill and sharp that he went staggering backward with his hands over his muffled ears, and fell hard on his arse.

When he opened his eyes the Other's armor was running down its legs in rivulets as pale blue blood hissed and steamed around the black dragonglass dagger in its throat. It reached down with two bone-white hands to pull out the knife, but where its fingers touched the obsidian they smoked.

 

 

[JNR]

12 hours ago, Black Crow said:

all that was intended to do according to the synopsis was get him inside Arya's knickers

It's a related concept in the summary, but there's no suggestion there that that's all it was about. 

11 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

Whatever the "central mystery" is, Howland "knows too much", and it sounds like GRRM plans to reveal details about the Harrenhal tourney in a Dunk and Egg novella - or am I reading that wrong?

I wouldn't say "wrong," but that's not actually GRRM talking; it's a fan. 

And due to RLJ zealotry, fans often misremember reality in a way that aligns better with RLJ.  For instance, many fans are convinced GRRM asked D&D who Jon's parents were, instead of Jon's mother.

In the scenario you mention, it might have been GRRM saying something like "he knows too much about an unrevealed topic" and the fan adding a little extra RLJ sauce on top by making it the central mystery.

[JNR]

11 hours ago, The Snowfyre Chorus said:

How'd she get so brainwashed, anyway?

Most likely she read the Melisandre threads over in General...

[Black Crow]

2 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

The unreliable narrator means there is zero absolute proof of anything.   But Rhaegar's death is as close to certain as we can get.  Thousands of people saw him die and as heir, many people would confirm he was really dead.  And from a literary perspective,  GRRM would not be able to reintroduce Rhaegar as being alive without losing all credibility with his audience. 

I have a recollection of GRRM being asked what happened to Rhaegar's body and responding that it was cremated in line with Targaryen tradition

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, JNR said:

It's a related concept in the summary, but there's no suggestion there that that's all it was about. 

Well other than identifying him as "Jon, the bastard" its his only reference to the mystery of Jon's parentage 

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, JNR said:

And due to RLJ zealotry, fans often misremember reality in a way that aligns better with RLJ.  For instance, many fans are convinced GRRM asked D&D who Jon's parents were, instead of Jon's mother.

In the scenario you mention, it might have been GRRM saying something like "he knows too much about an unrevealed topic" and the fan adding a little extra RLJ sauce on top by making it the central mystery.

Quite. As it happens its possible and I would argue more plausible to distance this reported remark from R+L=J and look at an entirely different mystery, which is far more central to the story.

This story is about the Starks and their own version of the Musgrave Ritual, ie; what's the deal with the crypts, the sword called Ice, the house words and generally speaking what's the connection to Winter?

Howland Reed certainly knows at least some of the answers to this. He sent his children to drop a couple of hints and then lead Bran into the Heart of Darkness, and GRRM has also said that the Green Men have a role to play 

[Melifeather]

9 hours ago, LynnS said:

It has been proposed in the past that the WW are glamored.  Is that still true or is it possible that their armor is made of highly reflective ice?

Personally, I just think GRRM is describing their appearance. If they are entirely encased in ice and yet are able to move gracefully, that's pretty spectacular, and I can imagine their clear polished ice with all the facets reflecting the moon light. They are flesh made ice, but they are light, because there's no mass - no weight to them - either that or they float, which brings to mind Varamyr's spirit floating with the breeze. It makes sense to me that the icy form is a "house" for the spirit to reside.

[Melifeather]

The Musgrave ritual refers to Sherlock Holme's first case where the butler follows instructions on an old piece of paper to find a treasure chest with a crown and some jewels. The Musgraves were "kings men" and had hidden the crown for a dead king's son. Do I have the right of it? So BC - do you believe the Starks were "kings men" and have saved evidence proving Jon is Rhaegar's son?

[The Snowfyre Chorus]

10 hours ago, JNR said:

Most likely she read the Melisandre threads over in General...

Rubes and rubies, then?  Or rubies and newbies?

(Mysterious are the ways of R’hllor.)

[JNR]

8 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Well other than identifying him as "Jon, the bastard" its his only reference to the mystery of Jon's parentage

Well, Jon plainly isn't romantically involved with Arya, so it's peculiar you would make this case.

In any case, I don't believe any serious writer would go to the extraordinary lengths GRRM has in developing this puzzle just for that purpose. 

It has other ramifications for the ending, albeit not the ones so frequently cited in another place.

8 hours ago, Black Crow said:

This story is about the Starks and their own version of the Musgrave Ritual, ie; what's the deal with the crypts, the sword called Ice, the house words and generally speaking what's the connection to Winter?

I agree that's baked into the primary conflict of the series, yes.  And clearly, that stuff is not about being a Targ.

Which is one reason the show failed so miserably.  Not even an attempt at a solution to the above -- I'm not sure D&D even realized it was a puzzle to solve. 

They were looking at a Rubik's Cube and thought it was a brick.

8 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Howland Reed certainly knows at least some of the answers to this. He sent his children to drop a couple of hints and then lead Bran into the Heart of Darkness

This I'm not so sure of.  As Jojen says,

Quote

so much is forgotten, and so much we never knew

 

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

Personally, I just think GRRM is describing their appearance. If they are entirely encased in ice and yet are able to move gracefully, that's pretty spectacular, and I can imagine their clear polished ice with all the facets reflecting the moon light. They are flesh made ice, but they are light, because there's no mass - no weight to them - either that or they float, which brings to mind Varamyr's spirit floating with the breeze. It makes sense to me that the icy form is a "house" for the spirit to reside.

Nice!

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, JNR said:

In any case, I don't believe any serious writer would go to the extraordinary lengths GRRM has in developing this puzzle just for that purpose. 

 

I was recently told that everything GRRM has done is forewshadowed in some way and this leads to certain answers that are cast in stone and there for all to see, if you're not too stupid to see it. The red wedding and RLJ were cited as proof that this is so.  And that GRRM doesn't construct his puzzles as gotcha moments so he can giggle about putting one over on the fans later.   Apparently there is nothing nuanced or subtle about GRRM.

[Melifeather]

13 minutes ago, LynnS said:

I was recently told that everything GRRM has done is forewshadowed in some way and this leads to certain answers that are cast in stone and there for all to see, if you're not too stupid to see it. The red wedding and RLJ were cited as proof that this is so.  And that GRRM doesn't construct his puzzles as gotcha moments so he can giggle about putting one over on the fans later.   Apparently there is nothing nuanced or subtle about GRRM.

He's a magician and very practiced at his sleight of hand. While you're busy watching one thing he's slipping the truth out of sight so that you wonder how the heck did he do that? He isn't constructing his puzzles just so he can say "gotcha", but he has inserted paths that lead nowhere in order to camouflage the correct path through the maze.

[JNR]

45 minutes ago, LynnS said:

I was recently told that everything GRRM has done is forewshadowed in some way and this leads to certain answers that are cast in stone and there for all to see, if you're not too stupid to see it.

That seems a bit off to me.  He's made up a hell of a lot of the story as he went, for obvious and public reasons... the most blatant example being everything he made up in the last two books, for other characters to do while Dany sat on her ass in Meereen.  Definitely not foreshadowed, because GRRM never had a sweet clue in the nineties he was going to have to deal with a Meereenese Knot.

But what we in Heresy might call the major puzzles are another matter.

The nature and origin of the Others, the ancient truths of the North and the Long Night, the weather, certain aspects of the First Men not remembered today, and of course, Jon's parentage... among others.  I do think GRRM had all that when he wrote the first book and has been steadily dropping clues about all of it ever since.

45 minutes ago, LynnS said:

And that GRRM doesn't construct his puzzles as gotcha moments so he can giggle about putting one over on the fans later.   Apparently there is nothing nuanced or subtle about GRRM.

Ahahaha.   This sounds like someone who has close to zero understanding of GRRM as a writer.

It's not about "putting one over on the fans."  It's about this:

Quote

I hate predictable fiction as a reader, I don’t want to write predictable fiction. I want to surprise and delight my reader and take them in directions they didn’t see coming.

This is why he went far out of his way to create puzzles that would be hard to solve, yet possible to solve if he played fair.

And really, at the time he created ASOIAF, nothing in the fantasy world -- nothing at all -- could have been as trivially easy to see coming as a downtrodden male teenager, such as poor bastard Jon, turning out to be the secret king of the medieval realm.  Give me a break.

So what GRRM did was to make it easy for people to jump to that super-obvious outcome, while actually providing the subtle and ambiguous clues for another and far more interesting outcome.  Which brings us back to Parris McBride's famous remark, uttered while doubting R+L=J:

Quote

George doesn't do obvious.

 

[Black Crow]

2 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

The Musgrave ritual refers to Sherlock Holme's first case where the butler follows instructions on an old piece of paper to find a treasure chest with a crown and some jewels. The Musgraves were "kings men" and had hidden the crown for a dead king's son. Do I have the right of it? So BC - do you believe the Starks were "kings men" and have saved evidence proving Jon is Rhaegar's son?

Gods Blood no.

I'm referencing the central premise of the story, which relates to a family custom; in this case a catechism which must be performed when the heir comes of age. Its purpose has long been forgotten and no-one now knows what it means, but they still memorise and recite the words.

In the end the butler did indeed figure it out, at the cost of his life, as Sherlock Holmes discovred when he too worked it out.

Its relevance here is not what was hidden in the crypts but that the finding of it depended on working out the long forgotten meaning meaning of the words and the other clues.

[Melifeather]

46 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Gods Blood no.

I'm referencing the central premise of the story, which relates to a family custom; in this case a catechism which must be performed when the heir comes of age. Its purpose has long been forgotten and no-one now knows what it means, but they still memorise and recite the words.

In the end the butler did indeed figure it out, at the cost of his life, as Sherlock Holmes discovred when he too worked it out.

Its relevance here is not what was hidden in the crypts but that the finding of it depended on working out the long forgotten meaning meaning of the words and the other clues.

So, more about the process of working out the riddle rather than where the riddle takes the puzzler? I agree Winterfell has forgotten "something", but that accusation has been thrown at the Nights Watch as well, so I'm expecting that what Winterfell has forgotten is that the wildlings are the Others and that the Stark ancestors put them there, because they wouldn't obey and kneel. That, and that annoying business practicing magic.

[Brad Stark]

2 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Gods Blood no.

I'm referencing the central premise of the story, which relates to a family custom; in this case a catechism which must be performed when the heir comes of age. Its purpose has long been forgotten and no-one now knows what it means, but they still memorise and recite the words.

In the end the butler did indeed figure it out, at the cost of his life, as Sherlock Holmes discovred when he too worked it out.

Its relevance here is not what was hidden in the crypts but that the finding of it depended on working out the long forgotten meaning meaning of the words and the other clues.

I want to believe this, as the mystery of the ancient Starks and Others are far more appealing than another cliche Shakespearen love story with a hidden heir to the throne who is a hero prophesied about.  But I can't see GRRM doing a central conflict between unfeeling mindless monsters and characters we know and love.  GRRM needs to give us a war with characters we love and hate on both sides.   And the Others are lacking that so far.

[Mullocose]

"I hate predictable fiction as a reader, I don’t want to write predictable fiction. I want to surprise and delight my reader and take them in directions they didn’t see coming."

This is why Jon Snow will be the Night's King...

[Matthew.]

1 hour ago, Brad Stark said:

But I can't see GRRM doing a central conflict between unfeeling mindless monsters and characters we know and love.  GRRM needs to give us a war with characters we love and hate on both sides.   And the Others are lacking that so far.

On the bolded, I believe that theories of certain characters (Jon, Bran, or Stannis) eventually commanding the Others are an attempt to fix what has been a perpetual problem for the overall narrative--in a series that has been so driven by "gray" characters and their arcs, the Others stand out as lacking in nuance, an intentional lack of nuance that is meant to protect the mystery surrounding them.

For my tastes, there's really no fixing this, and I feel that the Others have suffered the narrative consequences of a gimmicky mystery being dragged out overlong, especially with the story "growing in the telling."

Reveals and twists are a fleeting sugar high, and once the high is over, we're left with the substance of what has been on the page all along, and what's actually on the page, for more than five books, is that the central threat of the final arc has only appeared "on screen" twice, and have never behaved in a way that outwardly distinguishes them from a generic high fantasy evil army--they slaughter, and they raise the dead.

So we wait one book, two books, three books, four books, and then five... (and we're still waiting), all while the Evil Army never operates in a way that matches the complexity of the human antagonists, all for the moment where the author shouts "Surprise! The Others were secretly interesting all along!"

Meanwhile, characters like Tywin Lannister and Joffrey Baratheon don't need some Shyamalan-style last minute twist to retroactively fix their character arcs--they are, from the very outset, interesting characters. The more that time passes, the more that I get the sinking feeling that the series peaked with the Wo5K.