Heresy 230 and die Herren von Winterfell

[LynnS]

4 hours ago, Black Crow said:

I'm inclined to agree as to the gate offering a passage, but not e means of a conventional tunnel. One of the mysteries of course is what is at the other end, and we're probably looking at the other side of the door being another weirwood - miles away

Or to another sink hole.

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A Storm of Swords - Jon III

The mouth of the cave was a cleft in the rock barely wide enough for a horse, half concealed behind a soldier pine. It opened to the north, so the glows of the fires within would not be visible from the Wall. Even if by some mischance a patrol should happen to pass atop the Wall tonight, they would see nothing but hills and pines and the icy sheen of starlight on a half-frozen lake. Mance Rayder had planned his thrust well.

Within the rock, the passage descended twenty feet before it opened out onto a space as large as Winterfell's Great Hall. Cookfires burned amongst the columns, their smoke rising to blacken the stony ceiling. The horses had been hobbled along one wall, beside a shallow pool. A sinkhole in the center of the floor opened on what might have been an even greater cavern below, though the darkness made it hard to tell. Jon could hear the soft rushing sound of an underground stream somewhere below as well.

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A Dance with Dragons - Bran I

"I'll come with you."

"You'll stay. The boy must be protected. There is a lake ahead, hard frozen. When you come on it, turn north and follow the shoreline. You'll come to a fishing village. Take refuge there until I can catch up with you."

ETA:  I'm guessing that Jon came over the Wall with the wildlings somewhere between the Night Fort and Deep Lake since Bran/Summer encounters Jon when he makes his escape and they are close to the Night Fort.

So potentially, the Black Gate leads to the same sinkhole near Deep Lake Fort where the wildlings camped before making the climb. 

[LynnS]

8 hours ago, Lady Dyanna said:

I have to agree that it definitely does offer a passage. And of course that might be its only purpose. But in combination with the idea that magic is weak to nonexistent in the lands south of the wall, and then the fact that a lot of our magic seems to stem from the weirwoods, which are in very short supply in that area makes me wonder if there are other reasons as well. Half hand says it himself. The trees have eyes again. Makes it sound like a new occurrence. And as small as it is the growth of that weirwood into the Nights Fort kitchen also seems to be a recent development. It’s also referred to as a leviathan, which I find interesting. Most seem to tie that into Sam. But we also have Nagga’s Ribs on the Iron Islands, which sounds a lol like petrified weirwood. Maybe the Hammer was more effective than is thought and actually served to sever the ties the weirwoods has made into the Iron Islands?  Yes. I realize that this is pushing it a bit. But just trying to think out of the box a bit. 

I'll come back later.  My hands are sore today.

[Melifeather]

9 hours ago, Lady Dyanna said:

I have to agree that it definitely does offer a passage. And of course that might be its only purpose. But in combination with the idea that magic is weak to nonexistent in the lands south of the wall, and then the fact that a lot of our magic seems to stem from the weirwoods, which are in very short supply in that area makes me wonder if there are other reasons as well. Half hand says it himself. The trees have eyes again. Makes it sound like a new occurrence. And as small as it is the growth of that weirwood into the Nights Fort kitchen also seems to be a recent development. It’s also referred to as a leviathan, which I find interesting. Most seem to tie that into Sam. But we also have Nagga’s Ribs on the Iron Islands, which sounds a lol like petrified weirwood. Maybe the Hammer was more effective than is thought and actually served to sever the ties the weirwoods has made into the Iron Islands?  Yes. I realize that this is pushing it a bit. But just trying to think out of the box a bit. 

I'm curious where you found "leviathan" in conjunction with a weirwood? I'd like for such a passage to exist, because of my belief that the wildlings are connected somehow to the Ironborn. Both are of First Men descent of course, but water is the Ironborn's strength and the Wall is frozen water. Not to mention is how the Iron Islands are severed from the mainland - cut off - warded perhaps? Symbolically, frozen water is trapped - contained - imprisoned. And the magic that rises the dead beyond the Wall is like a mist, and mist is what a pierced white walker dissolves into when touched by obsidian. 

[dialt]

On 5/16/2020 at 6:32 PM, alienarea said:

Just an idea on the fly. Assuming the Night's King was a Stark, was he Maybe a warg as well? The strange sorceries he bound his brothers with, and seeing the corpse queen from top of the wall seems to hint at maybe controlling a bird, a mirror to Orell's eagle?

I believe he was a skinchanger. But there's another paragraph with a more consistent parallel Night's King seeing the corpse queen from the top of the Wall/ Jon doing the same with Val.

On the edge of the Wall an ornate brass Myrish eye stood on three spindly legs. Maester Aemon had once used it to peer at the stars, before his own eyes had failed him. Jon swung the tube down to have a look at the foe. Even at this distance there was no mistaking Mance Rayder's huge white tent, sewn together from the pelts of snow bears. The Myrish lenses brought the wildlings close enough for him to make out faces. Of Mance himself he saw no sign this morning, but his woman Dalla was outside tending the fire, while her sister Val milked a she-goat beside the tent. - ASOS JON IX

About the eagle.... I'd have a lot to say.

First the idea of someone spying from above is another recurring topic. And quite often that is tied to fire, to "fake crown", sometimes with towers. It's a little bit hard to explain... but my feeling is that there are a couple of concepts intertwined at work.

For instance:

Spoiler

ACOK prol.

The Valyrians fashioned these towers in the shape of dragons to make their fortress seem more fearsome, just as they crowned their walls with a thousand gargoyles instead of simple crenellations."

Shuffling along the gallery, they passed before a row of tall arched windows with commanding views of the outer bailey, the curtain wall, and the fishing village beyond. In the yard, archers were firing at practice butts to the call of "Notch, draw, loose." Their arrows made a sound like a flock of birds taking wing. Guardsmen strode the wallwalks, peering between the gargoyles on the host camped without.    
Again he had to cross the long gallery. A night wind whispered through the great windows, sharp with the smell of the sea. Torches flickered along the walls of Dragonstone, and in the camp beyond, he could see hundreds of cookfires burning, as if a field of stars had fallen to the earth. Above, the comet blazed red and malevolent. I am too old and wise to fear such things, the maester told himself.

ASOS prol.

- The day was so dark that the Old Bear had the torches lit [the Fist of the First Men], a great circle of them burning all along the ringwall that crowned the top of the steep stony hill. 

- The Old Bear had hidden far-eyes in a ring of trees around the Fist, to give warning of any approach.

Going backward, to AGOT prol., we know that Royce's cloak was "his crowing glory". But notice this one... 

- He [Royce] stood there beside the sentinel, longsword in hand, his cloak billowing behind him as the wind came up, outlined nobly against the stars for all to see.

And you can add to the list, The Hightower, the Titan of Braavos, Queenscrown...  all "stony" structures. Like the Fist and Dragonstone. In addition, inside the Titan and Queenscrown there are arrow slits, and we have people pratching archery in ACOK, ASOS and AFFC prologues. Whreas in ADWD prologue, Varamyr tells that at first he believed that the eagle was hit by an aflame arrow).

But I leave it all here. These are all little details I've noticed, but I still don't see the point. If there's any.

Other than that, the aegle is a symbol of kingship. As Jupiter's symbol, it used to be the personifacation of power itself above mankind. Therefore as the emblem of the Roman State. It was the “sacrosanto segno” = the sacred standard, of the Republic and the Army. Then of the Empire and the Emperor himself. 

And no matter what the real etymology is, Orell to me, sounds a lot like Aurelius. The name of a roman emperor whose root is tied to gold/kingship because its far more ancient meaning is that of something burning and reddening like the sun does at sunset/sunrise. 

That is what always got me the most.

Especially because I knew - but I didn't remeber why I knew it -  that the eagle flying and burning (like a phoenix) is a symbol of the so called "translatio imperii": the transfer of that power from one ruler/city/institution to another.

But I never looked up. I did it now.... and @LynnS and all of you folks, here we have it again: Virgil/Dante... Lavinia.

- After Constantine turned the eagle back [= moved the capital from Rome to Byzanthium] against the course of the heavens, which it had followed after the man of old who wedded Lavinia - Paradise VI

Guess I really need to look deeper to this woman.

EDIT: sorry I clicked the publish button before I was done. I need to add one more thing...

Pure speculation, but I think that it wasn't Melisandre who burned the eagle. I believe it was Jon's blood that did it.

GRRM uses a lot the idea of red scars/wounds "burning in rage". And we also know, that the eagle who's still possessed partially by Orell's consciousness and the he/she hates Jon.

But that eagle drank the blood of Ghost and Jon. And another thing that Varamyr tells is that he drank the blood of his master's heart, and his words still haunt him.

If Jon is a Targaryen... his blood is a fiery one and it is inside the aegle, a aegle that hates him. So the sight of Jon is what may have set up the actual fire... 

 

[Lady Dyanna]

On 5/18/2020 at 9:11 AM, Melifeather said:

I'm curious where you found "leviathan" in conjunction with a weirwood? I'd like for such a passage to exist, because of my belief that the wildlings are connected somehow to the Ironborn. Both are of First Men descent of course, but water is the Ironborn's strength and the Wall is frozen water. Not to mention is how the Iron Islands are severed from the mainland - cut off - warded perhaps? Symbolically, frozen water is trapped - contained - imprisoned. And the magic that rises the dead beyond the Wall is like a mist, and mist is what a pierced white walker dissolves into when touched by obsidian. 

Ok. So I was getting two things confused. It’s Sam that somewhat resembles a leviathan when he stumbles out of the well. But I do find the description of the weirwood in that scene interesting. 

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Pale moonlight slanted down through the hole in the dome, painting the branches of the weirwood as they strained up toward the roof. It looked as if the tree was trying to catch the moon and drag it down into the well.

The earlier description is interesting too. 
 

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The Reeds decided that they would sleep in the kitchens, a stone octagon with a broken dome. It looked to offer better shelter than most of the other buildings, even though a crooked weirwood had burst up through the slate floor beside the huge central well, stretching slantwise toward the hole in the roof, its bone-white branches reaching for the sun. It was a queer kind of tree, skinnier than any other weirwood that Bran had ever seen and faceless as well, but it made him feel as if the old gods were with him here, at least.

 

[QhorinQuarterhand]

Wrong thread