Lord Aegon The Compromiser Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 7 hours ago, redriver said: That would be such a pleasing denoument-Winterfell reverts to its original owners,the Thenns.I think every right minded fan is secretly clamouring for this,already sewing the banners and drinking secret toasts. Not. But if your inverted mirror is pointing that way,who are we to argue?Perhaps if you tilted it at 45 degrees instead of 180 we'd get a different outcome? I'd imagine Thenns are descended from a House/kingdom that was north of the Wall when it went up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LynnS Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 53 minutes ago, sweetsunray said: Not sure about the blue eyes. Perhaps because of the fluid hydrogen for blood? It certainly would make for inhuman blue. I don't get the impression that it's the same blue as the swords. It's odd, at one point I wonder if there was a monstrous giant ice crystal spider beyond the curtain of light in Bran's vision. That this creature was causing the light refraction and curtain of light. Something that is so immense it can't actually move. Then there is this: Quote A Dance with Dragons - Prologue The things below moved, but did not live. One by one, they raised their heads toward the three wolves on the hill. The last to look was the thing that had been Thistle. She wore wool and fur and leather, and over that she wore a coat of hoarfrost that crackled when she moved and glistened in the moonlight. Pale pink icicles hung from her fingertips, ten long knives of frozen blood. And in the pits where her eyes had been, a pale blue light was flickering, lending her coarse features an eerie beauty they had never known in life. She sees me. I wondered at the time whether Varamyr meant Thistle or something else. How do you account for the pale blue light? Is the Wall meant to stop the Others or just the wights? This reference to the Sidhe, Baen Sidhe or Banshee seems connected to their screaming swords. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Aegon The Compromiser Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 49 minutes ago, sweetsunray said: I rather got the impression it might be a character he killed before tWoW If he took her advice, we may see the introduction of a brand new character he created to fix his problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetsunray Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 5 minutes ago, LynnS said: It's odd, at one point I wonder if there was a monstrous giant ice crystal spider beyond the curtain of light in Bran's vision. That this creature was causing the light refraction and curtain of light. Something that is so immense it can't actually move. Then there is this: I wondered at the time whether Varamyr meant Thistle or something else. How do you account for the pale blue light? Is the Wall meant to stop the Others or just the wights? Yeah! Bran was spooked by whatever he saw at the Heart of Winter. I really don't think icy-humanoids with blue eyes would do that. George explicitly left it unsaid what Bran saw. But given his fascination for horror tales, that's where my mind goes: he saw something that any child would scare the bejeebus out of them and something big. A monstrous giant ice spider laying eggs or something would do the trick imho. Yes, that "she sees me" and even in Waymar's eyes "seeing" has this double feel: not just the wight seeing them, but something far more chilling and frightening beyond the wight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LynnS Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 55 minutes ago, sweetsunray said: I rather got the impression it might be a character he killed before tWoW A character for which he can't use Sherlock Hotah as a substitute? Oberyn Martell perhaps? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LynnS Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 20 minutes ago, sweetsunray said: Yeah! Bran was spooked by whatever he saw at the Heart of Winter. I really don't think icy-humanoids with blue eyes would do that. George explicitly left it unsaid what Bran saw. But given his fascination for horror tales, that's where my mind goes: he saw something that any child would scare the bejeebus out of them and something big. A monstrous giant ice spider laying eggs or something would do the trick imho. Yes, that "she sees me" and even in Waymar's eyes "seeing" has this double feel: not just the wight seeing them, but something far more chilling and frightening beyond the wight. I wonder if the curtain of light is connected in some way to the pale blue flickering light in the eyes of wights. Quote A Game of Thrones - Bran III Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him. And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks. Now you know, the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder. Now you know why you must live. We're not actually told the color of the curtain. I just assumed it was like the aurora. Maybe not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetsunray Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 25 minutes ago, LynnS said: A character for which he can't use Sherlock Hotah as a substitute? Oberyn Martell perhaps? Oberyn has crossed my mind. It's gotta be someone with knowledge of the past, and HR, LF, Varys, Roose, Catelyn, Cersei, Jaime, Stannis, Jorah, Selmy, Tyrion, Marwyn, Doran, Hotah, Vic, Euron, Gerold Dayne, JonCon, Quaithe, Mel, BR and Bran greenseeing, Leaf, Olenna, Willas, Mace and Tarly, Thoros and Lem don't serve. And I'm inclined to think it has to do with ToJ stuff, and potentially Dayne related. Can't be Dragonstone flight. Any midwife could be invented easily to explain stuff. Who with potential information got killed off: Pycelle Kevan Tywin Mandon Moore Preston (KG) Oberyn (he certainly knew stuff, had contacts) Myles Toyne Ashara Dayne, and her father Beric Dondarrion Ned Stark Cerstain men on Robb's forces Maester Ameon Dontos Hollard Arthur Dayne, Oswal Whent, Gerold Hightower, Lewyn Martell, Elia Hell, the Mountain Ser Hugh Jon Arryn Lysa Tully and her singer Joffrey Quentyn The list is looooooooooooooooong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetsunray Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 53 minutes ago, LynnS said: I wonder if the curtain of light is connected in some way to the pale blue flickering light in the eyes of wights. We're not actually told the color of the curtain. I just assumed it was like the aurora. Maybe not. I take it that beyond the curtain of light everything else is darkness and shadow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Crow Posted July 13, 2019 Author Share Posted July 13, 2019 I've always felt that what Bran saw was the future Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetsunray Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 @LynnS thanks for the video on the screeching sound. Yes, I've been wondering about that screeching sound in contact with metal in the prologue (and in Sam's chapter there's a screeching sound with the torch too). I suspect it's related to difference in density and kinetic energy because of temperation. Sound has different speeds depending on the medium it travels through, which could alter the pitch/frequency of a soundwave. A wave makes particles vibrate, but the denser the material is the faster it will travel. That's why laying your ear on the ground will make you detect trampling horses earlier than when you just rely on sound traveling through air. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LynnS Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 43 minutes ago, Black Crow said: I've always felt that what Bran saw was the future That's also on the table for me as well as the Musgrave Ritual and Stark skinchangers making ice bodies. Plutonian Others is one other explanation. I'm not throwing anything out. LOL The reason that I think that could be a future vision is that it fits with my interpretation of Bran's coma dream, starting with Jon Snow sleeping at the Wall where the memory of warmth flees his body. That's a euphemism for death, and it's used a number of times, by characters in the book, to describe death. That's followed by Bran vision moving northward to the heart of winter. Jon's death doesn't occur until well into the future at the end of DWD. Just before Borroq tells him that 'they are coming' and the cold slams into the Wall. Jojen tells Bran that he can only find his third eye using his heart; so if his third eye is open, can he see what is in someone else's heart. You can't lie to the old gods. In other words, they see into your heart. It's what he sees in the heart of winter that is so frightening. Edit: Jojen also tells Bran that he should be afraid of the past, future and the truth. I'm assuming it's the truth about the Starks, in the past and why Ned dreams about the frozen hell reserved for Starks. Why does Bran have to be afraid of the truth? What truth did he see in the heart of winter? The question is how does the heart of darkness physically manifest itself. Is there something North and North and North, beyond the curtain of light? What is the curtain of light? Does it have anything to do with the blue eyes of the wights? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melifeather Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 4 hours ago, Matthew. said: I guess this goes toward personal taste, as the Lannisters are my favorite part of the story by far, with Jaime and Tyrion being my favorite POVs; with the Starks, OTOH, I consider Bran to be among the least enjoyable POVs, I didn't care for Jon's arc until ADWD (when he was actually put into a position to make interesting choices), and I'm lukewarm on Sansa--Arya's chapters are good though, or they were, until Braavos. I 100% agree about Dany, though. She really stands out as an outlier, right from the beginning, as we're introduced to most of the other principal characters at Winterfell--meanwhile, Dany is experiencing her own side story half a world away, trapped in a state of perpetual wheel spinning and filler arcs until the rest of the narrative is 'ready' for her invasion arc to begin; however, far from getting closer to Westeros, we instead have several characters of Westeros moving eastward, getting sucked into the black hole of her filler stories. I still doubt that Daenerys will even come to Westeros, and I don’t blame people for thinking her arc was a total waste of time, but I do think her story was necessary to demonstrate history being “un-done”. When Daenerys did hold court and rule she referred to it as putting her “floppy ears on”. I fear the day to day duties of ruling are simply too tedious and boring for her. Why would winning the Iron Throne prove any different? 4 hours ago, Lord Aegon The Compromiser said: That's interesting. Is this saying he killed a character in TWOW? It could be just about anyone from any book. I do lean towards someone that he may have killed off early in Winds. The story is a big fat bushy tree. He’s going to have to do some heavy pruning and kill off a bunch of characters so that he has less individual arcs to write. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
St Daga Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 14 hours ago, sweetsunray said: Interesting you mentioned meat packing: carbon monoxide is used to redden meat before it showing it in stores. The skin is not cherry-red, the blood is. So, the skin would appear "healthy" on patients (rather than skin looking cherry-red), and the dead more lifelike that the pale-yellow/grey tinge corpses have. Both carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide are used in combination with nitrogen and oxygen for meat preservation as well as to preserve coloration. I think which is used varies based on country as well as how long the food is being prepped for. As to carbon monoxide poisoning that leads to death, the most common physical indicator is called "cherry red lividity". This affects all tissues, including the skin, so people who have high levels of carboxyhemoglobin (the result of CO poisoning) have cherry red skin in death. People who asphyxiate from cyanide gas poisoning also have red skin, although it's usually darker than "cherry red". Both of these look much different than livor mortis, which is common in most bodies after death, with a bluish-purple discoloration settling into dependent areas of the body. Not just the hands and feet, as GRRM seems to use with his wights. This might be affected by how quickly they are wighted after death, rising and moving about, making the hands and feet/legs the dependent part of the body. As to the color of blood, the more oxygen a red blood cell carries, the brighter, lighter red it is, while red blood cells lacking in oxygen, such as you describe in carbon monoxide poisoning, are actually a darker color. When drawing blood, oxygenated, arterial blood is much brighter than de-oxygenated, venous blood, especially blood that has carboxyhemoglobin binding to the red blood cells. I am not a lab tech by any means, but my understanding of blood is that is involved with carbon monoxide poisoning, it is the blood plasma that is cherry-red, based on the red blood cells becoming hemolyzed, or breaking down or even destroyed, which then causes the plasma to change color once it's spun in a centrifuge. I will need to ask a lab tech friend about this, because I find contradictory information on the internet. The color of normal blood plasma is a lightish golden color and is called "liquid gold" in the blood administration world. This makes me think if Waymar's blood that is dripping is bright red, than it is arterial blood, not venous blood, and I think you would not be able to tell the level of carbon monoxide in the whole blood product. It needs to be separated first. However, this is a fantasy and GRRM's world can make anything happen, so the idea of bright, "red as fire" blood might be a clue from GRRM about what is going on with the Other's! Now, this concept of "liquid gold" plasma is different than the idea you presented in your essay about "golden blood" types, or Rh-null. Honestly, I had never heard of this and find it quite interesting. Worth it's weight in gold blood! That comment in Dany's POV is the only time that phrase is ever used and I must admit it was not something that ever stood out to me. Perhaps that is the reason for their incest, but there is no way they would have understood such complexities of blood. 14 hours ago, sweetsunray said: Well, I think the armor at least is an exoskeleton, not sure about the "flesh", but yeah something like that. And the blue blood is the "cooling fluid" on the inside of the body. I'm not so sure they "don't have faces". Will does at some point say "faceless", but I find that ambiguous. In any case, Will says they look twins to each other, and at least I think their faces are expressionless. But good idea: might be masks. Would fit nicely with those 6 Brazen Locusts in Meereen that I tend to see as a reverse parallel. Not sure about the blue eyes. Perhaps because of the fluid hydrogen for blood? It certainly would make for inhuman blue. I don't get the impression that it's the same blue as the swords. I have been thinking about this "faceless" concept in the story since I realized that the heart tree at the Red Keep is faceless. Why is that? What makes it a heart tree, then? And what does it have to do with the nameless, faceless Old Gods's of the first men, which is how Catelyn refers to them in her first POV, and what that might have to do with the Faceless Men, as well as the idea of the Stranger having no face, but usually eyes. How is this different that the tree's that have faces? I think this might all be connected to what we know of the Other's. I don't think it's an accident that GRRM has Will tell us the Other's are faceless. The Other's might have faces behind those ice masks, but they might be too horrible to face? The blue eyes are interesting. Sometimes it's described as bright, sometimes deep, sometimes blue as stars. And perhaps that is a chemical composition of it's body shinning through the ice suit they wear. But then why do the wights also acquire these blue eyes? Perhaps it just a connection that GRRM wanted to make between the Other's and their slaves, without much more thought put into it than that. 14 hours ago, sweetsunray said: Yeah, that's rather weird of Coldhands. And actually in the second chapter, when he orders them to go for the cave and directs them to a certain area to cross, that's exactly where they were ambushed. That's also the first time they encounter wights. Did he want to prove a point? Maybe a part of him can't help it? That is a good question. Perhaps he knew they were faltering in their desire to continue with him and so he needed to pressure them. But it also seems like even before this, he is trying to represent a distorted sense of location. Are they as far north as they think they are? I am not sure about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Stark Posted July 14, 2019 Share Posted July 14, 2019 On 7/12/2019 at 3:41 PM, Black Crow said: My, its moved on a bit since I last looked in. I really can't get behind the notion that the pack of walkers who scragged Ser Waymar were actually looking for Jon Snow. The timing is way off. Leaving aside my suggested connection between the six white walkers and the six direwolf pups, the fact of the matter is that Ser Waymar got his somewhere beyond the Wall before Gared and the direwolf tooled up near Winterfell. You then need to add another period of time after that to allow for the direwolves to grow up into young dogs before Jon even talks about coming north. Moved fast. We can't ignore the Others killed Royce and the wildlings in very different ways, and likely chose not to kill Gared. Why treat people so differently if they are indiscriminate killers with no motives beyond hatred of warm blood? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Stark Posted July 14, 2019 Share Posted July 14, 2019 My take on the Royce family is they are fake. They might even be Andals, not First Men, and like showing off shiny fancy runes recently made up. Another way GRRM can express a sense of irony and an interest in the heraldry system. The runes might even be something along the line of the urban legend about Americans walking around with Chinese writing tattooed on their bodies they don't realize says "Wanton Soup" or "Fortune Cookie" or "Stupid American" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Stark Posted July 14, 2019 Share Posted July 14, 2019 My take on the character GRRM killed that he needed was a POV he needed to witness something. The character and what they do is irrelevant but he needed a POV in a geographical location only reachable by traveling at speeds only possible in the mummers version. Which character it was is irrelevant to the story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetsunray Posted July 14, 2019 Share Posted July 14, 2019 8 hours ago, St Daga said: But it also seems like even before this, he is trying to represent a distorted sense of location. Are they as far north as they think they are? I am not sure about that. That may be it. If those mutineers from Craster were close, it musn't have been too far away from the Wall, but near the haunted forest. And there's the glimpse cameo of them in Varamyr's prologue, after Varamyr fled from the Wall. And it didn't seem to me as if Coldhands told them to cross the lake, simply go along the shoreline. The elk took them across the ice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Crow Posted July 14, 2019 Author Share Posted July 14, 2019 11 hours ago, LynnS said: The reason that I think that could be a future vision is that it fits with my interpretation of Bran's coma dream, starting with Jon Snow sleeping at the Wall where the memory of warmth flees his body. That's a euphemism for death, and it's used a number of times, by characters in the book, to describe death. That's followed by Bran vision moving northward to the heart of winter. Jon's death doesn't occur until well into the future at the end of DWD. Just before Borroq tells him that 'they are coming' and the cold slams into the Wall. Jojen tells Bran that he can only find his third eye using his heart; so if his third eye is open, can he see what is in someone else's heart. You can't lie to the old gods. In other words, they see into your heart. It's what he sees in the heart of winter that is so frightening. Edit: Jojen also tells Bran that he should be afraid of the past, future and the truth. I'm assuming it's the truth about the Starks, in the past and why Ned dreams about the frozen hell reserved for Starks. Why does Bran have to be afraid of the truth? What truth did he see in the heart of winter? The question is how does the heart of darkness physically manifest itself. Is there something North and North and North, beyond the curtain of light? What is the curtain of light? Does it have anything to do with the blue eyes of the wights? The Heart of Darkness per Conrad [which GRRM plagiarised to bring Bran Stark and Bran "Kurz" Blackwood together] is both within the unknown and at the same time within the human heart. But going back to Bran's vision, yes on one level its about the future and future events, and at the same time its looking into what lies within and the the truth. To close with his vision of Jon, its not just a prediction of his death per se, but about him becoming "a cold dead thing" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetsunray Posted July 14, 2019 Share Posted July 14, 2019 12 hours ago, St Daga said: have been thinking about this "faceless" concept in the story since I realized that the heart tree at the Red Keep is faceless. Why is that? What makes it a heart tree, then? And what does it have to do with the nameless, faceless Old Gods's of the first men, which is how Catelyn refers to them in her first POV, and what that might have to do with the Faceless Men, as well as the idea of the Stranger having no face, but usually eyes. How is this different that the tree's that have faces? I think this might all be connected to what we know of the Other's. I don't think it's an accident that GRRM has Will tell us the Other's are faceless. The Other's might have faces behind those ice masks, but they might be too horrible to face? The blue eyes are interesting. Sometimes it's described as bright, sometimes deep, sometimes blue as stars. And perhaps that is a chemical composition of it's body shinning through the ice suit they wear. But then why do the wights also acquire these blue eyes? Perhaps it just a connection that GRRM wanted to make between the Other's and their slaves, without much more thought put into it than that. I have read the "faceless" of Will about the Others as "expressionless" in the Plutionion Others. And especially when humanoids look each other's twin, expressions and how one uses its features then there being no difference, not even in expression, that face is nothing more than a puppet mask really. Like that manticore with its humanoid face being featured, but no doubt, it being nothing more than like looking at some accidental blob of paint and calling that a face. To make a "face" is making an expression. The faces on weirwood trees and that wildlings carve on the other trees once they get south hae an "expression". Godswoods became a tradition that Andals adopted but without weirwood trees and not for praying: a garden to relax in. And instead another big tree was at the heart of if, which was still referred to as a heart tree. In the wildling villages you don't have a garden, but a weirwood in the heart of the village. The faceles men, have faces (their own) and that of another, but also no identity, and we do ten to connect identity with a facial expression. The blue eyes are often likened to "cold stars", and the face of the stranger that Cat sees in the sept when she prays for peace between Renly and Stannis is also likened to stars IIRC. If the Others are inherently a completely different species, with little to no emotion, then making mask faces to look humanoid would rather fail to be faces with an expression. That they have some type of mouth and nose seems indicated with Will not being surprised they speak or make sound, and rather surprising they can move in unison without using speech and/or outward signals. And Sam would have remarked it if they had no noses or mouths during his encounter. But I agree the remark of "faceless" by Will wasn't there by accident. It was deliberate. It's the meaning here that is very ambiguous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LynnS Posted July 14, 2019 Share Posted July 14, 2019 4 hours ago, Black Crow said: To close with his vision of Jon, its not just a prediction of his death per se, but about him becoming "a cold dead thing" Yes, Bran must live and Jon must die. I've always been struck by these two passages: Quote A Game of Thrones - Bran III Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him. And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks. Quote A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI She turned that way, and saw only the city, streets and alleys and hills and bottoms and more streets and more alleys and the stone of distant walls. Yet she knew that beyond them was open country, farms and fields and forests, and beyond that, north and north and north again, stood Winterfell. Why has this been repeated with Sansa? Is it only to stress the distance? Is it possible that what Bran sees beyond the curtain of light is simulacrum of Winterfell in ice? Is this the true frozen hell reserved to Starks? Is this why there must always be a living Stark in Winterfell, because they are their own wardens of the dead? It doesn't answer the question of the WW that we've seen thus far. But what is the Stark curse? In any case, I think we'll find out more about the nature of the WW fairly early on in the next book if they were running on the heels of the Wildlings. When GRRM said they were another form of life; I don't think the reader had been informed about second life at that point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.