Heresy 224 Whitey Snow and the Winter Hill Gang

[LynnS]

5 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

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. 

In the Lovecraftian scenario; we're not talking about the Great Other but the Great Mother.  The ice spiders are the insect worker vector and the WW, the soldier vector. Which could have been inspired by the aztec spider goddess.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Goddess_of_Teotihuacan

The notion that there is a web connecting all the wights is interesting to me.   Consider the curtain of light surrounding the heart of winter as the core of the web with strands connecting the wights to the core of the web and to each other.  There seems to me a connection between the curtain of light and the flickering light in Thistle's eyes.  She's a corpse caught in the web and now strings can be pulled individually or in unison.

The Wall can stop the wights but do you think it can stop the WW's or their ice spiders as well? 

[sweetsunray]

52 minutes ago, LynnS said:

In the Lovecraftian scenario; we're not talking about the Great Other but the Great Mother.  The ice spiders are the insect worker vector and the WW, the soldier vector. Which could have been inspired by the aztec spider goddess.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Goddess_of_Teotihuacan

The notion that there is a web connecting all the wights is interesting to me.   Consider the curtain of light surrounding the heart of winter as the core of the web with strands connecting the wights to the core of the web and to each other.  There seems to me a connection between the curtain of light and the flickering light in Thistle's eyes.  She's a corpse caught in the web and now strings can be pulled individually or in unison.

The Wall can stop the wights but do you think it can stop the WW's or their ice spiders as well? 

I likened the Spider Goddes of Lyber with the Spider Goddess of Teotihuacan in a Varys -silk route essay once, especially because the acolytes of teh Spider Goddess fought a bloody feud with the acolytes of the Serpent God (Quetzalcoatl):

The whole essay with the Teohuatican Spider Goddess as feature illustration https://sweeticeandfiresunray.com/2017/11/03/the-spiders-origin-part-i/

The section on Lyber: https://sweeticeandfiresunray.com/2017/11/03/the-spiders-origin-part-i/#Lyber

 Lovecraftean's (smith's) Great Goddess/monster is a spider with a "human face": https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Atlach-Nacha. And then you have the spiders of Leng (https://monster.fandom.com/wiki/Spider_of_Leng) of course, and in George's Leng they worship god-empresses.  @The Fattest Leech provided the lovecraft link to Atlach-Nacha

[Melifeather]

Steven King's "It" was an ancient alien monster, and in the end it's described like a spider. It even wrapped it's prey within a silky cocoon. It is a shapeshifting creature known as a Glamour and it was created by a separate omnipotent creator called the Other. It's natural enemy is another creature created by the Other called the Turtle.

It can morph into any other person, animal, or object including combinations, in order to lure it's target into a trap. It's most common form is that of Pennywise the clown. It prefers children over adults, because they are easier to scare and manipulate, and according to the creature, frightened flesh tastes better.

It arrived on Earth in a massive cataclysmic event similar to an asteroid impact. Once people settled over this location, It adopted its usual pattern of a 27-30 year hibernation, waking to kill and eat. Each awakening and return to hibernation is sometimes marked by a violent act such as a mass murder or weather event.

I know the two men are friends, but do you think George completely ripped off Steven King's It? Or is it more likely that he's included certain elements as an homage?

[sweetsunray]

5 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

Steven King's "It" was an ancient alien monster, and in the end it's described like a spider. It even wrapped it's prey within a silky cocoon. It is a shapeshifting creature known as a Glamour and it was created by a separate omnipotent creator called the Other. It's natural enemy is another creature created by the Other called the Turtle.

It can morph into any other person, animal, or object including combinations, in order to lure it's target into a trap. It's most common form is that of Pennywise the clown. It prefers children over adults, because they are easier to scare and manipulate, and according to the creature, frightened flesh tastes better.

It arrived on Earth in a massive cataclysmic event similar to an asteroid impact. Once people settled over this location, It adopted its usual pattern of a 27-30 year hibernation, waking to kill and eat. Each awakening and return to hibernation is sometimes marked by a violent act such as a mass murder or weather event.

I know the two men are friends, but do you think George completely ripped off Steven King's It? Or is it more likely that he's included certain elements as an homage?

IT was and still remains one of my favourite books of Stephen King, but for me personally the alien giant spider doing it all was a let down reveal to me, because I personally am not scared by spiders. That said, an intelligent ice spider in the Heart of Winter, after Jackson's feat with Shelob in the LotR movies would be less of a let-down for me now. He cannot be ripping off King here with that, as the Others we see are not mere illusionary manifestations of the spider itself (as pennywise is), but independent living minions. Nor are people used as food. Imo it's an amalgam of Anderson's Ice Quuen, Stephen King's spider reveal, and Ta Williams' Norns who aren't truly sidhe. 

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, LynnS said:

Yes, Bran must live and Jon must die.  I've always been struck by these two passages:

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. 

The "cold dead thing" was of course the description of Coldhands

As to Sansa, well spotted. It may simply be a case of GRRM recycling a phrase he liked, but given the context of the snowflake communion it may very well be more significant. However I don't reckon Bran is seeing a simulacrum of Winterfell but rather the future revealing Winterfell as it really is or rather a once and future Winterfell, and yes I agree that creed that there must always be a Stark in Winterfell is a very important part of the Musgrave Ritual for that very reason

[St Daga]

3 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

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".

I can certainly understand your interpretation as faceless = expressionless, but I'm still not sure that these Other's have a face, or at least one that is easily seen. Eyes, yes, according to Will, but details of a face, I am not sure. Now, it could be like a mask that hides features, or even the armor of the Other's includes a great helm with only eye slit's, which is why they appear "faceless" to Will. Perhaps any man in  great helm with a face shield would appear "faceless". I just read back through Samwell's experience of killing an Other, and he never once mentions whether it has a face or not, he doesn't even mention it's eye color, if it stands out to Sam at all. Which, is rather odd, since eye color is one of the things that stands out most about the Other's and the wights. His description mostly includes body type. Samwell's Other doesn't attempt to speak, so perhaps no attention is drawn to it's mouth. 

As to the Faceless Men, you are correct in the fact that they actually wear many faces, or have the ability to change faces, which almost makes them the opposite of "faceless". So, then why the name? I have read idea's over the years that perhaps the Faceless Men actually worship or are connected to the Other's, and I wonder if they didn't discover something in the depths of Valyria that helped cement this worship, and their name for themselves. As if it really is an homage to something greater than they are? Something they think helped free them?

As to Catelyn's early assertation that the old gods are nameless and faceless, I think she is the only person who likens the old gods to being faceless, which almost doesn't make any sense since she is standing directly before the heart tree at Winterfell, which most definitely has a face. But I find she is probably incorrect about several things. Bran thinks of the faceless weirwood at the Nightfort to be connected to the Old Gods, in spite of it not having a face.

 

3 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

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. 

This seems to be a connection between the Other's and the Stranger. With eyes, but otherwise faceless. Death.

And to contradict my own thoughts on this, there is the statue of the Stranger that burns on Dragonstone, and it's noted to have a face that is more animal than human, while Sansa thinks of the face of the Stranger in the Sept of Baelor as half-human, though what the other half looks like is left vague. But at least these two statues seem to have faces, which doesn't make them seem "faceless" at all. Not human perhaps, but not void of any detail, either. We have discussed the possibility that this could link the Stranger to an ability to be a skinchanger.

 

 

[St Daga]

13 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

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"

I guess this is possible. We don't have anyone who can really read runes, correct? That has always made me wonder what runes were actually engraved on Robb's crown? What did they mean? Did they mean anything at all?

What makes you think the Royce's are fake? And by fake, do you mean that they really have no first men blood, just claim to? They have held Runestone since before the Andal's came, although I guess this could be a false claim. I admit they do seem a bit over the top "showy" with that bronze armor. I do find it interesting that the Royce Bronze Kings are said to have been rivals of the Shett's, who styled themselves "The Kings of the True Men". What does that mean? True Men? As opposed to what other kind of men? Perhaps there is a hint in that.

[St Daga]

3 hours ago, LynnS said:

7 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:

I have never been sold on which one of them should die, but it does seem like Bran and Jon will have some kind of interaction that ends in the mortality of one of them. 

Quote

 

His father peeled off his gloves and handed them to Jory Cassel, the captain of his household guard. He took hold of Ice with both hands and said, "In the name of Robert of the House Baratheon, the First of his Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, by the word of Eddard of the House Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, I do sentence you to die." He lifted the greatsword high above his head.

 

Bran's bastard brother Jon Snow moved closer. "Keep the pony well in hand," he whispered. "And don't look away. Father will know if you do."

 

Bran kept his pony well in hand, and did not look away. AGOT-Bran I

 

This passage does read as if foretelling the future, with either Jon or Bran passing judgement on the other.  Bran is being told not to look away from what must be done, but at the same time, we already know from Bran that Jon is an old hand at justice, and knows what must be done and to not look away. Honestly, it does seem likely Jon will die and Bran and his summer imagery will live on. But one thing that Bran is taught is that he must swing the sword himself, and how will he ever do that? We already know Jon is capable, and whatever the outcome between Jon and Bran, I think it will be painful and emotional for everyone involved.

 

[LynnS]

9 minutes ago, St Daga said:

I have never been sold on which one of them should die, but it does seem like Bran and Jon will have some kind of interaction that ends in the mortality of one of them. 

This passage does read as if foretelling the future, with either Jon or Bran passing judgement on the other.  Bran is being told not to look away from what must be done, but at the same time, we already know from Bran that Jon is an old hand at justice, and knows what must be done and to not look away. Honestly, it does seem likely Jon will die and Bran and his summer imagery will live on. But one thing that Bran is taught is that he must swing the sword himself, and how will he ever do that? We already know Jon is capable, and whatever the outcome between Jon and Bran, I think it will be painful and emotional for everyone involved.

 

Oh very nice!   I think they have to work together to solve the ice side of the equation.  Tree-Bran has already established a connection to Jon when he opened his third eye at the Skirling Pass.  And I think Jon has to be dead to travel north of the Wall, to make discoveries about the nature of the Others and return to Bran in his coma dream as The Crow.  I don't think Jon will be confined by time either and the past/present/future will be one to him as well.  

I think it's Patchface who identifies Jon as such:

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Jon XI

They found Her Grace sewing by the fire, whilst her fool danced about to music only he could hear, the cowbells on his antlers clanging. "The crow, the crow," Patchface cried when he saw Jon. "Under the sea the crows are white as snow, I know, I know, oh, oh, oh." Princess Shireen was curled up in a window seat, her hood drawn up to hide the worst of the greyscale that had disfigured her face.

 Bran originally refers to the 3EC as "The Crow".

[St Daga]

32 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Oh very nice!   I think they have to work together to solve the ice side of the equation.  Tree-Bran has already established a connection to Jon when he opened his third eye at the Skirling Pass.  And I think Jon has to be dead to travel north of the Wall, to make discoveries about the nature of the Others and return to Bran in his coma dream as The Crow.  I don't think Jon will be confined by time either and the past/present/future will be one to him as well.  

I think it's Patchface who identifies Jon as such:

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Jon XI

They found Her Grace sewing by the fire, whilst her fool danced about to music only he could hear, the cowbells on his antlers clanging. "The crow, the crow," Patchface cried when he saw Jon. "Under the sea the crows are white as snow, I know, I know, oh, oh, oh." Princess Shireen was curled up in a window seat, her hood drawn up to hide the worst of the greyscale that had disfigured her face.

 Bran originally refers to the 3EC as "The Crow".

I'm probably over stubborn about this, but I don't know that Jon has to actually die. Just almost die, Which is what I think happened with Bran after his fall from the tower. That near death experience changed Bran, and I think a near death experience will change Jon.

I do like this idea of "the crow" being Jon Snow. That would indicate that Jon and Bran are both able to communicate outside of the current timeline, but if using the tree's, that might be possible. Do we have any white crows in our story? We have white raven's, the ones that announce the change of season, but I am not sure about white crows.  Shireen's greyscale seems an important part of this scene as well, although her greyscale scars are quite dark, I think. Patchface is creepy as can be, but his words seem to be quite prophetic. 

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, St Daga said:

. Do we have any white crows in our story? We have white raven's, the ones that announce the change of season, but I am not sure about white crows.  

The black crows and the white crows fight each other, as do the black rangers and the white rangers. The white crows announce Winter and with its approach the white rangers are currently winning. 

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, St Daga said:

I'm probably over stubborn about this, but I don't know that Jon has to actually die. Just almost die, Which is what I think happened with Bran after his fall from the tower. That near death experience changed Bran, and I think a near death experience will change Jon.

I do like this idea of "the crow" being Jon Snow. That would indicate that Jon and Bran are both able to communicate outside of the current timeline, but if using the tree's, that might be possible. Do we have any white crows in our story? We have white raven's, the ones that announce the change of season, but I am not sure about white crows.  Shireen's greyscale seems an important part of this scene as well, although her greyscale scars are quite dark, I think. Patchface is creepy as can be, but his words seem to be quite prophetic. 

I think it's possible that the 'white crows' are white walkers.

[LynnS]

18 hours ago, Black Crow said:

The black crows and the white crows fight each other, as do the black rangers and the white rangers. The white crows announce Winter and with its approach the white rangers are currently winning. 

Bones pierced by ice spears:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Bran III

Because winter is coming.

Bran looked at the crow on his shoulder, and the crow looked back. It had three eyes, and the third eye was full of a terrible knowledge. Bran looked down. There was nothing below him now but snow and cold and death, a frozen wasteland where jagged blue-white spires of ice waited to embrace him. They flew up at him like spears. He saw the bones of a thousand other dreamers impaled upon their points. He was desperately afraid.

If these are failed greenseers; perhaps they have been transformed into White Walkers?

[sweetsunray]

4 hours ago, St Daga said:

I can certainly understand your interpretation as faceless = expressionless, but I'm still not sure that these Other's have a face, or at least one that is easily seen. Eyes, yes, according to Will, but details of a face, I am not sure. Now, it could be like a mask that hides features, or even the armor of the Other's includes a great helm with only eye slit's, which is why they appear "faceless" to Will. Perhaps any man in  great helm with a face shield would appear "faceless". I just read back through Samwell's experience of killing an Other, and he never once mentions whether it has a face or not, he doesn't even mention it's eye color, if it stands out to Sam at all. Which, is rather odd, since eye color is one of the things that stands out most about the Other's and the wights. His description mostly includes body type. Samwell's Other doesn't attempt to speak, so perhaps no attention is drawn to it's mouth. 

the problem with a helm and armor covering the face would have made it impssible for him to strike the "jugular". Sam didn't strike armor, but the neck, pierced the skin

 

 

[LynnS]

19 hours ago, St Daga said:

I'm probably over stubborn about this, but I don't know that Jon has to actually die. Just almost die, Which is what I think happened with Bran after his fall from the tower. That near death experience changed Bran, and I think a near death experience will change Jon.

I do like this idea of "the crow" being Jon Snow. That would indicate that Jon and Bran are both able to communicate outside of the current timeline, but if using the tree's, that might be possible. Do we have any white crows in our story? We have white raven's, the ones that announce the change of season, but I am not sure about white crows.  Shireen's greyscale seems an important part of this scene as well, although her greyscale scars are quite dark, I think. Patchface is creepy as can be, but his words seem to be quite prophetic. 

A lot of people are uncomfortable with this concept.  It doesn't feel right to them and the idea of slippery time conjures up the usual objections to time lords et al.  We've been told that greenseers don't experience time in a linear fashion and the rules about time don't apply but we're not talking about time lords either. We've been given an example in the Tree-Bran, Ghost-Jon encounter.  But I think the circumstances when this can happen are very specific.  It occurs in the dream world for one thing and both Bran and Jon have a third eye. Jon hasn't realized the full power of that yet.

Just as Bran has a dream of the future where he encounters Ghost-Jon; there is a lot in Jon's POV that I think echos the future.; where his character and concerns about Bran's welfare are reflected in the actions of the 3EC. 

It's a chicken and egg story; once the third eye is open, it doesn't matter which came first - Jon/3EC opening Bran's 3rd eye during the coma dream or Tree-Bran opening Jon's 3rd eye at the Skirling Pass.

https://phys.org/news/2014-04-liquid-spacetime-slippery-superfluid.html

The idea that there are different streams and eddies to the flow of space-time is also demonstrated at the Bridge of Dreams when Tyrion and co pass through bridge and repeat events leading up to their passage before they encounter the Stone Men. Some kind of reset occurred.  Einstein translates to one stone.  So the bridge of dreams might be loosely considered an Einstein-Rosen bridge.   

This harks back to Bloodraven describing time as a river.

 

[Melifeather]

22 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

IT was and still remains one of my favourite books of Stephen King, but for me personally the alien giant spider doing it all was a let down reveal to me, because I personally am not scared by spiders. That said, an intelligent ice spider in the Heart of Winter, after Jackson's feat with Shelob in the LotR movies would be less of a let-down for me now. He cannot be ripping off King here with that, as the Others we see are not mere illusionary manifestations of the spider itself (as pennywise is), but independent living minions. Nor are people used as food. Imo it's an amalgam of Anderson's Ice Quuen, Stephen King's spider reveal, and Ta Williams' Norns who aren't truly sidhe. 

Do you think the white walkers have been featured enough through all five books to turn out to be alien-like creatures from the north? They were in the prologue of AGOT and Sam killed one in ASOS, but they haven't been seen on the page since. I can't help but recall that GRRMs original plan was to not even have dragons, so I really don't think white walkers themselves are meant to be the main threat.

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

Do you think the white walkers have been featured enough through all five books to turn out to be alien-like creatures from the north? They were in the prologue of AGOT and Sam killed one in ASOS, but they haven't been seen on the page since. I can't help but recall that GRRMs original plan was to not even have dragons, so I really don't think white walkers themselves are meant to be the main threat.

I'm not sure about this either.  But what is the purpose of the Wall in that case?  Why is there a Night Watch?  It's not to keep the Wildlings in their place.

I've been thinking about the thousands of bones that Bran sees impaled by ice spears.  Potentially failed greenseers and I wonder if they have been translated into an ice body.

Then there is Bloodraven's admonition to Bran that he should not attempt to raise the dead emphasizing it by saying it's not possible anyway.  What if the Stark's original sin was that someone did raise the dead and they have been paying for that crime ever since?
 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

"Gone down into the earth," she answered. "Into the stones, into the trees. Before the First Men came all this land that you call Westeros was home to us, yet even in those days we were few. The gods gave us long lives but not great numbers, lest we overrun the world as deer will overrun a wood where there are no wolves to hunt them. That was in the dawn of days, when our sun was rising. Now it sinks, and this is our long dwindling. The giants are almost gone as well, they who were our bane and our brothers. The great lions of the western hills have been slain, the unicorns are all but gone, the mammoths down to a few hundred. The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well. In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us."

She seemed sad when she said it, and that made Bran sad as well. It was only later that he thought, Men would not be sad. Men would be wroth. Men would hate and swear a bloody vengeance. The singers sing sad songs, where men would fight and kill.

Isn't this really the nature of the WWs?  Suppose at one time there was another powerful Stark greenseer who swore a bloody vengeance and raised the dead for that purpose. 

[JNR]

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

I can't help but recall that GRRMs original plan was to not even have dragons, so I really don't think white walkers themselves are meant to be the main threat.

Well, GRRM considered at a very early point not doing literal dragons, but was then convinced by Phyllis Eisenstein that he should.  He never wavered after that.

He certainly intended literal dragons when he submitted the thirteen chapters to his agent in 1993, because his summary from October of that year says Dany:

Quote

stumbles on a cache of dragon's eggs of a young dragon

But we know he subsequently decided dragons had been extinct for some time and made those eggs a wedding present from Mopatis.

As for the Popsicles being the main threat, that's spelled out in 1993 too:

Quote

The greatest danger of all, however, comes from the north, from the icy wastes beyond the Wall, where half-forgotten demons out of legend, the inhuman others, raise cold legions of the undead

But as many have observed, the Popsicles are possibly the laziest villains in fantasy history... so far averaging about one appearance per million words of canon. 

One can only hope that in a book called The Winds of Winter, they'll play a larger and more direct role.  But since the last book was called A Dance with Dragons and didn't feature a dance with dragons, even that seems uncertain.

GRRM's tendency as a gardener to blow his available wordcount on irrelevancies like the Battle of Meereen is on full display in the TWOW sample chapters, and is not a promising sign.

[St Daga]

18 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

the problem with a helm and armor covering the face would have made it impssible for him to strike the "jugular". Sam didn't strike armor, but the neck, pierced the skin

Do the Other's have skin? If the outside covered serves to protect the inside gasses in some kind of solid form, then does it really matter where they are pierced?  I am imagining their outside as an exoeskeleton, not really armor, even though it's described that way by humans, because that is what humans have to compare it too. If obsidian is a weapon they fear and a weapon that can harm them, then does it matter where they are struck with it? However, if one wants to think of it as actual armor, then we have precedent in the story for a fully armored man to be struck in the neck, between breast plate, gorget and helm, and die from his wounds. That was Ser Hugh of the Vale.

[sweetsunray]

1 minute ago, St Daga said:

Do the Other's have skin? If the outside covered serves to protect the inside gasses in some kind of solid form, then does it really matter where they are pierced?  I am imagining their outside as an exoeskeleton, not really armor, even though it's described that way by humans, because that is what humans have to compare it too. If obsidian is a weapon they fear and a weapon that can harm them, then does it matter where they are struck with it? However, if one wants to think of it as actual armor, then we have precedent in the story for a fully armored man to be struck in the neck, between breast plate, gorget and helm, and die from his wounds. That was Ser Hugh of the Vale.

That's the mystery really. I don't know. I can only point out that George had Sam struck the neck, the least physically protected area, whether by armor or exoskeleton. While an exoskeleton is crushable, and more fragile than an actual armor is, Sam didn't strike at it.