Heresy 224 Whitey Snow and the Winter Hill Gang

[asongofheresy]

26 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

It does sound as if Chelsted was burned a month prior to the Trident, and that Rossart was named Hand two weeks later. 

Aerys raped Rhaella every time he burned someone and Chelsted wasn't the first, so I agree with you that Daenerys conception could have been as early as when Aerys burned Rickard Stark. Added to that was the report that Rhaella was pregnant when she left. Now, I understand that was Maester Yandel's report, but nobody seems to question that much was true. If the birth was conveniently 9 months later, I would think that would open up legitimacy questions.

The definition of "quicken" doesn't encompass conception, but rather it's the first time a mother can feel the fetus "fluttering" in the womb.

Yes, and that's happens at 13-16 weeks of pregnancy, that's why I think Daenerys' conceiving should be pushed back. If Daenerys is really Rhaella's child and she was conceived during the trial of the Starks, is it possible shadows she sees during Mirri's ritual are Rickard and Brandon?  

[corbon]

1 hour ago, Jova Snow said:

Yes, and that's happens at 13-16 weeks of pregnancy, that's why I think Daenerys' conceiving should be pushed back. If Daenerys is really Rhaella's child and she was conceived during the trial of the Starks, is it possible shadows she sees during Mirri's ritual are Rickard and Brandon?  

How do you place Dany being conceived before the war, which lasted about a year, and no one being aware she was born well before Rhaella went to Dragonstone?

[Lord Aegon The Compromiser]

9 hours ago, JNR said:

That's true, but is a little like saying Icarus is plausible except for being able to fly with homemade wings. 

The number and sex of the pups are what determines the fit with the Stark kids, and that was the only reason the pups weren't killed:

But really, it seems pretty clear that GRRM just literally hadn't thought his first chapter through when he wrote it, and in particular, he hadn't thought the direwolves through. 

He's told us directly about that first chapter that

So we know this was just on-the-fly, random inspiration. 

And we also know he hadn't thought at all about the rest of his world at that point, because he also says

He clearly had only begun to think about Westeros as a whole, never mind details like the Black Gate.

I'm glad he kept the pups -- I like them as story content -- but it's probably asking too much for them to make much sense, because that chapter just didn't emerge in his head via a logical process.  It started with direwolf pups in the summer snow, and then he started building the world after that.

It seems GRRM has literally already told us how the mother direwolf and pups got there. Via both interview and Book: magic.

In interview he says it is this direwolf pup scene in summer snows that starts everything. He didn't start world building until after. It seems logical to me that there just isn't another explanation. So, basically, it was magic. 

Then in Book we have The Stark Gang riding out without hearing the pups or smelling the already rotting mother. Seems likely to me it would be a magical explanation that they appeared after the Starks rode out. 

Also Gared escorting the mother direwolf from north of the Wall, nearly all the way to Winterfell, then killing her...seems illogical to me. He would have ran into someone. Somebody would have a story of "This NW f**k running by with a bloody big direwolf."

[Black Crow]

11 hours ago, JNR said:

That's true, but is a little like saying Icarus is plausible except for being able to fly with homemade wings. 

The number and sex of the pups are what determines the fit with the Stark kids, and that was the only reason the pups weren't killed:

But really, it seems pretty clear that GRRM just literally hadn't thought his first chapter through when he wrote it, and in particular, he hadn't thought the direwolves through. 

He's told us directly about that first chapter that

So we know this was just on-the-fly, random inspiration. 

And we also know he hadn't thought at all about the rest of his world at that point, because he also says

He clearly had only begun to think about Westeros as a whole, never mind details like the Black Gate.

I'm glad he kept the pups -- I like them as story content -- but it's probably asking too much for them to make much sense, because that chapter just didn't emerge in his head via a logical process.  It started with direwolf pups in the summer snow, and then he started building the world after that.

On the whole I'm inclined to agree, but while he subsequently built [and is very likely still building], his world - we also need to remember that although the discovery of the pups is the initiating point of the story, GRRM worked backwards as well as forwards, ie:

he conceived and wrote that scene first. 

Then he has to think about why the Starks are out there and its interesting that Gared isn't referred to by name in that first chapter. 

What we don't know is when he actually wrote/devised the prologue, which does name Gared and brings in the pack of walkers - and can legitimately speculate as to when and why he constructed that passage, why he wrote of six [or more] walkers and so on

[asongofheresy]

8 hours ago, corbon said:

How do you place Dany being conceived before the war, which lasted about a year, and no one being aware she was born well before Rhaella went to Dragonstone?

I didn't say that, I just said Daenerys has to be conceived earlier if Rhaella's child was quickening, which isn't possible if Daenerys was conceived when Chelsted was burned. 

[JNR]

9 hours ago, Lord Aegon The Compromiser said:

In interview he says it is this direwolf pup scene in summer snows that starts everything. He didn't start world building until after. It seems logical to me that there just isn't another explanation. So, basically, it was magic.

In the sense that inspiration in our world is a form of magic.

But it's pretty clear reading that interview, and others like it, that he had no in-world explanation for the direwolves at all.  They simply popped into his head as randomly as the summer snow, and he sat down and wrote the chapter. 

He did decide to keep the direwolves later, when he'd worked on the story more and understood its world and principles... but if there is any principle to explain them, he has yet to roll it out in canon or discuss it in an interview.

7 hours ago, Black Crow said:

GRRM worked backwards as well as forwards

He did, yet the point remains.

Suppose that Bloodraven has the power to create whatever fetuses he wants, with whatever genetic traits he wants, inside any female creature he wants. 

For instance, suppose by magic he can create six direwolf pups inside this particular female direwolf, of which four are male, two are female, and one is albino and after being born, wanders off alone before making a sound only Jon can hear, so it can then be discovered by Jon.

This being the case, Bloodraven should also have the power to create a greenseer inside some woman's womb -- or ten greenseers, in ten different wombs.  And he should have done it decades earlier.  But he didn't do it, because we're told he couldn't do it.  He had to twiddle his thumbs waiting for Bran:

Quote

He has lived beyond his mortal span, and yet he lingers. For us, for you, for the realms of men. Only a little strength remains in his flesh.

No need for such majestic endurance if Bloodraven could have waved his wand and created a greenseer any  time, at will.

So if by some in-world magic the pups were created, it must have been some other entity, as yet unrevealed.  But I don't think we'll ever find out there was such an entity, because GRRM literally never planned the direwolves in the first place.

[Black Crow]

2 hours ago, JNR said:

In the sense that inspiration in our world is a form of magic.

But it's pretty clear reading that interview, and others like it, that he had no in-world explanation for the direwolves at all.  They simply popped into his head as randomly as the summer snow, and he sat down and wrote the chapter. 

He did decide to keep the direwolves later, when he'd worked on the story more and understood its world and principles... but if there is any principle to explain them, he has yet to roll it out in canon or discuss it in an interview.

He did, yet the point remains.

Suppose that Bloodraven has the power to create whatever fetuses he wants, with whatever genetic traits he wants, inside any female creature he wants. 

For instance, suppose by magic he can create six direwolf pups inside this particular female direwolf, of which four are male, two are female, and one is albino and after being born, wanders off alone before making a sound only Jon can hear, so it can then be discovered by Jon.

This being the case, Bloodraven should also have the power to create a greenseer inside some woman's womb -- or ten greenseers, in ten different wombs.  And he should have done it decades earlier.  But he didn't do it, because we're told he couldn't do it.  He had to twiddle his thumbs waiting for Bran:

No need for such majestic endurance if Bloodraven could have waved his wand and created a greenseer any  time, at will.

So if by some in-world magic the pups were created, it must have been some other entity, as yet unrevealed.  But I don't think we'll ever find out there was such an entity, because GRRM literally never planned the direwolves in the first place.

I'm not sure what your point is here.

GRRM started off with the direwolves and the story grew around them. I'm not sure how Bloodraven has come into the current discussion, because I have always been wary of theories which identify him as a puppetmaster and indeed have reinforced that opinion in this very thread.

 

[Lord Aegon The Compromiser]

JNR, I agree. What I'm saying is for now I'm content to say "Well, it must have been magic." As we almost certainly will never get an explanation and none other makes much if any sense. I'm not saying George said it was magic, or ever will. I'm not putting forth a claim, just, pretty much the only way we get an explanation is if we get a POV of the real 3EC or someone similar thinking back on how they sent the Starks those direwolf pups one day.

[Melifeather]

Surely greenseers have more capabilities other than “watching”. What’s the point in that?

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

Surely greenseers have more capabilities other than “watching”. What’s the point in that?

They are seers of course and Jojen refers to green dreams, so I'd suggest that's what greenseers do. They can see things through others' eyes, and enter their dreams and manipulate them through their dreams, an extension, or rather a different form of warging really, but I very much doubt they have physical powers.

[Brad Stark]

GRRM started with the direwolf chapter before he had the rest of his world building well under way.  That doesn't imply that he told us everything he had in his head at the time - he very well could have intended a mystery as to who sent the wolves and how, knew the answer, and deliberately not told us.  GRRM has a garden that grows - for example, I believe he had the concept of a wizard/greenseer that Bran needed to visit long before he filled in Bloodraven's backstory and made him a Targaryen bastard.

I find it implausible Gared crossed the Wall at a castle or gate with men present.  Are we supposed to believe he wasn't asked about Waymar Royce, didn't mention The Others, no one noticed he completely lost his marbles, and then he slips away unnoticed and is forgotten about?

It is possible the answer is simply "magic".  Whether the Others, the Children, Bloodraven or someone else, it seems clear he was involved with someone with powerful magic, and GRRM may have simply felt it was enough of an answer that the Wall wouldn't pose a serious obstacle.

[Brad Stark]

3 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

They are seers of course and Jojen refers to green dreams, so I'd suggest that's what greenseers do. They can see things through others' eyes, and enter their dreams and manipulate them through their dreams, an extension, or rather a different form of warging really, but I very much doubt they have physical powers.

We have people like Jojen who have the greensight, and people like Bran, Jon and Varamyr who are wargs.  Greenseers are different and need to be something more than just powerful greensight and powerful Wargs to be different.  We are repeatedly told how important Bran is, and that doesn't make sense if he is just a powerful Warg who can see things.

While they are likely the most power magic we will see in the series, I GRRM isn't going to give us a godlike character - so I don't see Bran hurling down fireballs and lightning.

[corbon]

13 hours ago, Jova Snow said:

I didn't say that, I just said Daenerys has to be conceived earlier if Rhaella's child was quickening, which isn't possible if Daenerys was conceived when Chelsted was burned. 

Well, its was @Feather Crystal who suggested that she agreed with you that Danaerys could have been conceived as early as the Burning of Rickard Stark - ie before the war started. But in the quote I included in my post, you made an if/then statement/question which assumes the possibility of Dany being conceived from the Trial of the Starks (which I assume to mean roasting of Eddard and self-strangulation of Brandon, described by @Feather Crystal as Aerys Burning Rickard, given that we are told Rickard called for a Trial by Combat and the roasting/strangulation was Aerys' version of the trial).

So, yes, you did consider that was an option as you suggested an interesting possibility that follows from it.

I repeat, how can the idea that Danaerys was conceived around the Trial of the Starks be justified given that the Trial was before the war, the war lasted almost a year or thereabouts and there is no mention of Danaerys, or even a baby-bump, when Rhaella flees to Dragonstone after the Trident?

I'm not trying to 'gotcha'. Clearly you both consider it a possibility. There must be an explanation how that can fit, I'm interested in hearing it.

[JNR]

7 hours ago, Black Crow said:

I'm not sure what your point is here.

The direwolves were not "sent" by anyone to the Stark kids.

[Melifeather]

5 hours ago, corbon said:

Well, its was @Feather Crystal who suggested that she agreed with you that Danaerys could have been conceived as early as the Burning of Rickard Stark - ie before the war started. But in the quote I included in my post, you made an if/then statement/question which assumes the possibility of Dany being conceived from the Trial of the Starks (which I assume to mean roasting of Eddard and self-strangulation of Brandon, described by @Feather Crystal as Aerys Burning Rickard, given that we are told Rickard called for a Trial by Combat and the roasting/strangulation was Aerys' version of the trial).

So, yes, you did consider that was an option as you suggested an interesting possibility that follows from it.

I repeat, how can the idea that Danaerys was conceived around the Trial of the Starks be justified given that the Trial was before the war, the war lasted almost a year or thereabouts and there is no mention of Danaerys, or even a baby-bump, when Rhaella flees to Dragonstone after the Trident?

I'm not trying to 'gotcha'. Clearly you both consider it a possibility. There must be an explanation how that can fit, I'm interested in hearing it.

I’m just hesitant to rehash the Rebellion timeline yet again and so soon after we’ve already moved on. I’ll try to gather some relevant links and post them for you later.

[Black Crow]

10 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

We have people like Jojen who have the greensight, and people like Bran, Jon and Varamyr who are wargs.  Greenseers are different and need to be something more than just powerful greensight and powerful Wargs to be different.  We are repeatedly told how important Bran is, and that doesn't make sense if he is just a powerful Warg who can see things.

 

Which is why I went beyond seeing, or rather having green dreams, and suggested that what greenseers can do is see through others' eyes and enter their dreams to manipulate them 

[Black Crow]

5 hours ago, JNR said:

The direwolves were not "sent" by anyone to the Stark kids.

I'm still going with the suggestion in the text that the Old Gods sent them. How exactly the Old Gods are defined in this context is of course a mystery but I'm pretty confident it wasn't that dodgy Bran 'Kurz' Blackwood character. We're agreed there is no Dark [or even slightly greyish] Lord.

[Melifeather]

16 hours ago, corbon said:

Well, its was @Feather Crystal who suggested that she agreed with you that Danaerys could have been conceived as early as the Burning of Rickard Stark - ie before the war started. But in the quote I included in my post, you made an if/then statement/question which assumes the possibility of Dany being conceived from the Trial of the Starks (which I assume to mean roasting of Eddard and self-strangulation of Brandon, described by @Feather Crystal as Aerys Burning Rickard, given that we are told Rickard called for a Trial by Combat and the roasting/strangulation was Aerys' version of the trial).

So, yes, you did consider that was an option as you suggested an interesting possibility that follows from it.

I repeat, how can the idea that Danaerys was conceived around the Trial of the Starks be justified given that the Trial was before the war, the war lasted almost a year or thereabouts and there is no mention of Danaerys, or even a baby-bump, when Rhaella flees to Dragonstone after the Trident?

I'm not trying to 'gotcha'. Clearly you both consider it a possibility. There must be an explanation how that can fit, I'm interested in hearing it.

I personally have not focused on Daenerys's timeline. My focus has always been on Rhaenys and Aegon's conceptions and births and used them as a foundation for the Rebellion timeline. Then I've tried to keep the whole thing to "about" a year. GRRM's choice of "about" allows for both less than or more than a year - especially since he does the same with both Aegon's age at death and the siege on Storms End. He said Aegon was "about" a year, give or take a moon or two, so it is conceivable that the Rebellion was also as short as 10 months or as long as 14 months in length.

My favored timeline has Daenerys being born in May 283, but I think it is possible to shift it to Dec of 282 if the Sack occurred upon Rhaella's arrival to Dragonstone. It is said Rhaella crowned Viserys when she heard of Aerys death, and if she was 9 months along when she made the journey, that shocking news plus the dangerous voyage could have been the reasons why she died in childbirth. The storm was said to be terrible, and the Targaryen fleet was all but destroyed. It seems like a logical conclusion to think the reason why the fleet was there was to escort Rhaella.

@Jova Snow sounds like she's working out her own timeline with a conception just prior to when Jon Arryn raised his banners. 

The links that I have provided are comments supporting my theory for the timing of certain events.

https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/154313-heresy-221-and-the-children-of-winterfell/&do=findComment&comment=8379862

https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/154313-heresy-221-and-the-children-of-winterfell/&do=findComment&comment=8376404

https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/154313-heresy-221-and-the-children-of-winterfell/&do=findComment&comment=8376415

https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/154313-heresy-221-and-the-children-of-winterfell/&do=findComment&comment=8374637

Then there's this whole Heresy thread dedicated to the topic: https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/152827-heresy-215-hammering-out-the-timeline/

 

https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/154313-heresy-221-and-the-children-of-winterfell/&do=findComment&comment=8364875

https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/154313-heresy-221-and-the-children-of-winterfell/&do=findComment&comment=8364506

https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/154313-heresy-221-and-the-children-of-winterfell/&do=findComment&comment=8364480

https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/154313-heresy-221-and-the-children-of-winterfell/&do=findComment&comment=8364476

 

[JNR]

9 hours ago, Black Crow said:

I'm still going with the suggestion in the text that the Old Gods sent them.

It's a better idea than Bloodraven; still, I notice that after Lady was killed, early in AGOT, Sansa was never sent a replacement.

The ostensible sender doesn't seem to have been very committed to the Stark kids actually having them.  This makes me suspect the sender is only GRRM.

[Brad Stark]

6 minutes ago, JNR said:

It's a better idea than Bloodraven; still, I notice that after Lady was killed, early in AGOT, Sansa was never sent a replacement.

The ostensible sender doesn't seem to have been very committed to the Stark kids actually having them.  This makes me suspect the sender is only GRRM.

This is why I suggested some sort of deal, such as the Children sending a wolf to each descendant of the Warg King,  They aren't committed to the Starks at all, just honoring the deal.

The problem with this is why Jon gets a wolf but likely bastards of Ned's brother and Benjen do not.   Nor the cadet branches we are told exist and even the Karstarks are probably Warg King descendants.

Perhaps only the children of the Lord of Winterfell were sent wolves.   We discussed how Ghost being found apart with eyes open could mean he arrived separately.

Could Rickard be involved?  All his grandchildren got wolves and he wasn't laid to rest as Starks typically are.  Are his remains even in his tomb?