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Heresy 230 and die Herren von Winterfell


Black Crow

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On 2/23/2020 at 4:37 PM, alienarea said:

Without Melisandre, Renly kills Stannis and wins Blackwater. The Lannisters plus Sansa die. Rob executes Jaime as Sansa is dead, not sure he would attack Renly and also not sure whom the Freys were to side with once the Lannisters are gone.

That could leave us with Rob vs Theon, Renly vs Daenerys, Oberyn Martell, Roose Bolton and Mance as wildcards. 

Maybe can start an alternate timeline? 

I was thinking on this again...the crown prevailed over Stannis, not because of the Renly armor trick, but because House Tyrell chose to rejoin it's massive army to the crown. The only way the crown could have been overthrown would be for the two brothers - Renly and Stannis - to have found a way to resolve their claim to the throne issue. Stannis was the elder, but Renly was more popular. IMO Renly should have deferred to Stannis and supported him as his Hand - and waited his turn. They could have saved the realm from Joffrey and Cersei, but there was no way to seal an alliance. This was symbolically demonstrated with the peach offering, which I believe represented a maidenhead. Political alliances are cemented by intermarriage. Stannis was already married, but he had a daughter that he could have promised. Renly was gay, but he had married Margaery, and she would have found a way to get impregnated - likely in a similar fashion as the show demonstrated. But Renly didn't have an heir to offer Stannis - yet - so he offered the peach. It was a symbolic gesture of an alliance that Stannis refused. 

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5 hours ago, LynnS said:

A brief aside on the Völkerschlachtdenkmal:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/monument-to-the-battle-of-the-nations

Do you suppose this monument was the inspiration for the Winterfell crypts?  THe stone guardian on top of the monument have a representation of dogs at their feet.  Mastiffs I think.

And how odd that the german version of the book has a unique title, compared to other editions. 

Having visited die Volkerschlachtdenkmal I have to say that its in a wholly different league to the Winterfell crypts

As to the unique title, that's precisely why I raised it in the first place; because of its emphasis on the Starks rather than spinning off in other directions

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4 hours ago, Melifeather said:

I was thinking on this again...the crown prevailed over Stannis, not because of the Renly armor trick, but because House Tyrell chose to rejoin it's massive army to the crown. The only way the crown could have been overthrown would be for the two brothers - Renly and Stannis - to have found a way to resolve their claim to the throne issue. Stannis was the elder, but Renly was more popular. IMO Renly should have deferred to Stannis and supported him as his Hand - and waited his turn. They could have saved the realm from Joffrey and Cersei, but there was no way to seal an alliance. This was symbolically demonstrated with the peach offering, which I believe represented a maidenhead. Political alliances are cemented by intermarriage. Stannis was already married, but he had a daughter that he could have promised. Renly was gay, but he had married Margaery, and she would have found a way to get impregnated - likely in a similar fashion as the show demonstrated. But Renly didn't have an heir to offer Stannis - yet - so he offered the peach. It was a symbolic gesture of an alliance that Stannis refused. 

I was not going through the details because I haven't read the books in a long time.

My point goes back to Black Crow identifying Melisandre as the problem. Without Melisandre, Renly would defeat (not necessarily kill) Stannis, and House Tyrell would stand with Renly. The Lannisters cannot win this, and maybe Oberyn shows up early.

The problem with this is that it leaves House Stark in a weak position without drama. I doubt Walder Frey would betray House Stark without the Lannisters backing him.

And so on.

It is overconstructed in some areas, and ungardened (is this a proper word?) in others, and as a result off balance and hard to finish.

 

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1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

Having visited die Volkerschlachtdenkmal I have to say that its in a wholly different league to the Winterfell crypts

Well, loosely based on the stone guardians with dogs at their feet is really what I'm thinking,   Do you travel on a spiral staircase to reach the top?  If the whole thing was buried, the entry would be at ground level with stone guardians/kings and dogs/direwolves at the entry point.  Just speculating of course.

Do you know if Martin instructed his editor to release the german edition with that title?

 

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11 hours ago, LynnS said:

Well, loosely based on the stone guardians with dogs at their feet is really what I'm thinking,   Do you travel on a spiral staircase to reach the top?  If the whole thing was buried, the entry would be at ground level with stone guardians/kings and dogs/direwolves at the entry point.  Just speculating of course.

Do you know if Martin instructed his editor to release the german edition with that title?

 

spiral staircase...

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

 

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2 hours ago, Black Crow said:

It's random musings on my part.  I keep thinking about Redriver's essay and the notion that the last battle occured on the spot where Winterfell's First Keep and crypt were built.  The place where "Winter" fell.  Likewise the monument of the Battle of the Nations marks the place where Napoleon and Hitler were finally overcome; the same place where their campaigns ended and marked with a 'crypt even though it doesn't actually contain anything to make it an actual crypt.

I'm thinking that Martin has reimagined the monument and of made it into the crypts of Winterfell.  Of course, I can never know that for sure.  It makes sense to me that the germans would recognize the similarities between the two and support the idea that the story is about the Starks and underscore the importance of the mystery of the crypts in the story.

Edit:

- the top level of each crypt features stone guardians and their dogs

- levels below are accessed by a spiral staircase

- we have only been shown the top level at Winterfell

- the monument has several levels below the top level and the bottom-most level features the entryway marked by a statue of Loki, the trickster

- we have speculated that there is another door in the lower levels of the Winterfell crypts     

 

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A bit of topic, but featuring dragons: a few years back I asked my Chinese Tai-Chi teacher about dragons, because it is one sign of the Chinese zodiac, all the other ones a real animals.

And a lot of European countries have tales about dragons, but most of us believe dragons did not exist unless you count dinosaurs who are believed to gone extinct before mankind evolved.

Why is mankind fascinated with dragons that didn't exist?

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11 minutes ago, alienarea said:

A bit of topic, but featuring dragons: a few years back I asked my Chinese Tai-Chi teacher about dragons, because it is one sign of the Chinese zodiac, all the other ones a real animals.

And a lot of European countries have tales about dragons, but most of us believe dragons did not exist unless you count dinosaurs who are believed to gone extinct before mankind evolved.

Why is mankind fascinated with dragons that didn't exist?

Quote

There is no evidence to prove the existence of any creature they may have coexisted with a human population that bears any similarity to that of a classical dragon, yet it is a common motif in most civilizations around the world. If a dragon, or even a dragon-like, predator never existed with humans, why is it so commonly recognized and feared? According to Jung’s principles there must be something about this symbol that arose from a genetically stored memory in our brains. At some point in our evolutionary past something imprinted our response to a dragon symbol so that, with no foreknowledge of this predator and without having ever seen it ourselves, we can all still recognize a dragon and label it as dangerous. According to anthropologist David E Jones, the dragon is what remains of our instinctive reaction to the three most deadly predators for our primate ancestors; the snake, the eagle and the large cat.

:dunno:

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49 minutes ago, alienarea said:

We strayed away from the lords of Winterfell to dragons and the thread stopped.

That sums up the series nicely.

Yes it does rather and that really is the pity of it all. 

If we turn back again the 1993 synopsis its pretty clear:

Five central characters will make it through all three volumes, however, growing from children to adults and changing the world and themselves in the process. In a sense, my trilogy is almost a generational saga, telling the life stories of these five characters, three men and two women.

Its NOT the story of the lost heir, the sword in the stone etc. And that's my problem with R+L=J. The formula may be true; the trouble is tying it to the dragons, the Targaryen succession and Mel's Azor Ahai ravings and thereby rejecting what GRRM declares to be an ensemble piece into a solo performance.

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1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

Yes it does rather and that really is the pity of it all. 

If we turn back again the 1993 synopsis its pretty clear:

Five central characters will make it through all three volumes, however, growing from children to adults and changing the world and themselves in the process. In a sense, my trilogy is almost a generational saga, telling the life stories of these five characters, three men and two women.

Its NOT the story of the lost heir, the sword in the stone etc. And that's my problem with R+L=J. The formula may be true; the trouble is tying it to the dragons, the Targaryen succession and Mel's Azor Ahai ravings and thereby rejecting what GRRM declares to be an ensemble piece into a solo performance.

Melisandre might be the culprit, but Daenerys is the problem, and, to a lesser extend, Tyrion.

Daenerys is too much "Zeitgeist" for my taste, the female sword and dragons hero, shoehorned in from one of his short stories.

Tyrion should have either died earlier, or Oberyn should have won  the duel and killed the mountain, allowing Tyrion to stay in KL.

Looking back, Oberyn is where the problems start to show. He's a cool character, but gets killed off as quick as he is introduced. Another short story woven in.

GRRM fails to follow his synopsis, and strays away from the original characters in favor of fleshing out details that are not important.

 

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2 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Five central characters will make it through all three volumes, however, growing from children to adults and changing the world and themselves in the process. In a sense, my trilogy is almost a generational saga, telling the life stories of these five characters, three men and two women.

That was when the story was three volumes.  I only see Sansa, Tyrion, Aegon and Tree-Bran making it to the end.  The wolves may survive but I'm guessing only Summer and Nymeria won't be killed off.

 

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8 hours ago, LynnS said:

That was when the story was three volumes.  I only see Sansa, Tyrion, Aegon and Tree-Bran making it to the end.  The wolves may survive but I'm guessing only Summer and Nymeria won't be killed off.

 

Tree-Bran should have received Ghost. The boy goes into the tree and the wolf becomes his alter ego going where the boy cannot, observing in silence.

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58 minutes ago, alienarea said:

Tree-Bran should have received Ghost. The boy goes into the tree and the wolf becomes his alter ego going where the boy cannot, observing in silence.

Presumably a role that can be played by Summer

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