Heresy 230 and die Herren von Winterfell

[alienarea]

8 hours ago, LynnS said:

Good and yes.

 

7 hours ago, lalt said:

Sure!

I chatted with Black Crow and will write an opener for the next heresy about it. I didn't open the files (two text files) yet, so I'll probably make a complete fool of myself. I hope we all get some fun out of it.

[LynnS]

12 minutes ago, alienarea said:

 

I chatted with Black Crow and will write an opener for the next heresy about it. I didn't open the files (two text files) yet, so I'll probably make a complete fool of myself. I hope we all get some fun out of it.

Hooray!   OK sounds good.

[Melifeather]

9 hours ago, lalt said:

in my opion, is far more likely that it was signed between COTF and a faction of the First Men. Those who became lords, founders of castles/houses. The other First Men faction, being betrayed, outcasted and slaughtered.

 

In my opinion, this is a given. The wildlings are the Others - they have been "otherized"...their crimes magnified, vilified, and caricatured.

[LynnS]

14 minutes ago, Melifeather said:

In my opinion, this is a given. The wildlings are the Others - they have been "otherized"...their crimes magnified, vilified, and caricatured.

Yes, I can agree with the wildlings defined this way.

[alienarea]

8 minutes ago, Melifeather said:

In my opinion, this is a given. The wildlings are the Others - they have been "otherized"...their crimes magnified, vilified, and caricatured.

One of my biggest questions is why Joramun had a horn that could bring down the wall.

In my understanding this would only work if the horn would contain some of the same magic as the wall?

If you build a wall to keep out your enemy, why place the key to the wall (so to speak) in enemy territory? That does not make sense, unless Joramun went North of the wall voluntarily, and the horn was his return ticket?

Was he a Stark, too? 

His name could also be a concatenation of Jorl (=Earl) and Amun, one of the gods of Egypt, who, among other (no pun maybe) things was a god of the winds.

And the Other come with cold winds, or vice versa.

[Lady Dyanna]

Another absolutely crazy idea... but what if the wall is meant to somehow limit the power of the weirwoods? It’s easy to forget that one of the few things that we know that wall holds is at the very least the remains of a weirwood. We see that when Sam et al pass through it’s mouth. Not to mention the newly sprouted branches that we see in the Night Fort kitchens. Why bury a weirwood tree at the center of a huge block of ice? What exactly does that do? 

[LynnS]

13 hours ago, Melifeather said:

In my opinion, this is a given. The wildlings are the Others - they have been "otherized"...their crimes magnified, vilified, and caricatured.

By this do you also mean they have the magic to become White Walkers ?  
 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Jon III

"The Horn of Joramun?" Melisandre said. "No. Call it the Horn of Darkness. If the Wall falls, night falls as well, the long night that never ends. It must not happen, will not happen! The Lord of Light has seen his children in their peril and sent a champion to them, Azor Ahai reborn." She swept a hand toward Stannis, and the great ruby at her throat pulsed with light.

He is stone and she is flame. The king's eyes were blue bruises, sunk deep in a hollow face. He wore grey plate, a fur-trimmed cloak of cloth-of-gold flowing from his broad shoulders. His breastplate had a flaming heart inlaid above his own. Girding his brows was a red-gold crown with points like twisting flames. Val stood beside him, tall and fair. They had crowned her with a simple circlet of dark bronze, yet she looked more regal in bronze than Stannis did in gold. Her eyes were grey and fearless, unflinching. Beneath an ermine cloak, she wore white and gold. Her honey-blond hair had been done up in a thick braid that hung over her right shoulder to her waist. The chill in the air had put color in her cheeks.

Lady Melisandre wore no crown, but every man there knew that she was Stannis Baratheon's real queen, not the homely woman he had left to shiver at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. Talk was, the king did not mean to send for Queen Selyse and their daughter until the Nightfort was ready for habitation. Jon felt sorry for them. The Wall offered few of the comforts that southron ladies and little highborn girls were used to, and the Nightfort offered none. That was a grim place, even at the best of times.

A Dance with Dragons - Jon XI

"Did you follow me as well?" Jon reached to shoo the bird away but ended up stroking its feathers. The raven cocked its eye at him. "Snow," it muttered, bobbing its head knowingly. Then Ghost emerged from between two trees, with Val beside him.

They look as though they belong together. Val was clad all in white; white woolen breeches tucked into high boots of bleached white leather, white bearskin cloak pinned at the shoulder with a carved weirwood face, white tunic with bone fastenings. Her breath was white as well … but her eyes were blue, her long braid the color of dark honey, her cheeks flushed red from the cold. It had been a long while since Jon Snow had seen a sight so lovely.

"Have you been trying to steal my wolf?" he asked her.

Quote

 

A Storm of Swords - Bran IV

As the sun began to set the shadows of the towers lengthened and the wind blew harder, sending gusts of dry dead leaves rattling through the yards. The gathering gloom put Bran in mind of another of Old Nan's stories, the tale of Night's King. He had been the thirteenth man to lead the Night's Watch, she said; a warrior who knew no fear. "And that was the fault in him," she would add, "for all men must know fear." A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well.

He brought her back to the Nightfort and proclaimed her a queen and himself her king, and with strange sorceries he bound his Sworn Brothers to his will. For thirteen years they had ruled, Night's King and his corpse queen, till finally the Stark of Winterfell and Joramun of the wildlings had joined to free the Watch from bondage. After his fall, when it was found he had been sacrificing to the Others, all records of Night's King had been destroyed, his very name forbidden.

"Some say he was a Bolton," Old Nan would always end. "Some say a Magnar out of Skagos, some say Umber, Flint, or Norrey. Some would have you think he was a Woodfoot, from them who ruled Bear Island before the ironmen came. He never was. He was a Stark, the brother of the man who brought him down." She always pinched Bran on the nose then, he would never forget it. "He was a Stark of Winterfell, and who can say? Mayhaps his name was Brandon. Mayhaps he slept in this very bed in this very room."

 

I'm wondering if we are getting a replay of the Night's King and Corpse Queen with Jon and Val.

 

 

 

[LynnS]

 

13 hours ago, alienarea said:

One of my biggest questions is why Joramun had a horn that could bring down the wall.

In my understanding this would only work if the horn would contain some of the same magic as the wall?

If you build a wall to keep out your enemy, why place the key to the wall (so to speak) in enemy territory? That does not make sense, unless Joramun went North of the wall voluntarily, and the horn was his return ticket?

Was he a Stark, too? 

His name could also be a concatenation of Jorl (=Earl) and Amun, one of the gods of Egypt, who, among other (no pun maybe) things was a god of the winds.

And the Other come with cold winds, or vice versa.

What we are told is that the Horn of Winter wakes giants in the earth.
 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Jon XII

Jon turned in his saddle, frowning. And Joramun blew the Horn of Winter and woke giants from the earth. That huge horn with its bands of old gold, incised with ancient runes … had Mance Rayder lied to him, or was Tormund lying now? If Mance's horn was just a feint, where is the true horn?

 Did the Horn of Winter once belong to Winter or the King of Winter? .  I'm not sure that it brings down the Wall by itself and if it does, I don't think we'll see that until the very end of the story.  

I think that Joramun took the horn and buried it long ago. Was it originally in the crypts of Winterfell or in owned by the Stark of Winterfell?  Ygritte says she is worried about the spirits released by all the graves that Mance opened looking for the horn.  He might just overlook an old warhorn banded in bronze of a type the Thenns use;  but Coldhands may know where that horn was buried and retrieve it.

I wonder if Coldhands was dug up by Mance and if he is one of the giants woken from the earth.  Is he one of the Nine, the other giants?    Is he the Horned Lord that Dalla tells Jon about and did he have both horns; the small and the large in his grave?

[LynnS]

6 hours ago, Lady Dyanna said:

Another absolutely crazy idea... but what if the wall is meant to somehow limit the power of the weirwoods? It’s easy to forget that one of the few things that we know that wall holds is at the very least the remains of a weirwood. We see that when Sam et al pass through it’s mouth. Not to mention the newly sprouted branches that we see in the Night Fort kitchens. Why bury a weirwood tree at the center of a huge block of ice? What exactly does that do? 

It seems to me that the weirwood at the Night Fort is there to provide the magic that operates the Black Gate, to provide a secret passage through the Wall.   I think it is tied to the magic of the Wall.  Something to do with the origins of the Night Fort as the only means for passing beyond the Wall before the other forts were built.  When only brothers of the Watch could open the gate. 

[LynnS]

On 5/13/2020 at 9:28 AM, lalt said:

I loved your back-and-forth with @St Daga about the "frozen hell reserved to the Starks of Winterfell / IX (another IX  ) circle of Dante's Inferno".

Here's another interesting reference to Dante's Inferno:

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Daenerys II

The streets had been largely deserted when they had set out from the port that morning, and scarcely seemed more crowded now. An elephant lumbered past with a latticework litter on its back. A naked boy with peeling skin sat in a dry brick gutter, picking his nose and staring sullenly at some ants in the street. He lifted his head at the sound of hooves, and gaped as a column of mounted guards trotted by in a cloud of red dust and brittle laughter. The copper disks sewn to their cloaks of yellow silk glittered like so many suns, but their tunics were embroidered linen, and below the waist they wore sandals and pleated linen skirts. Bareheaded, each man had teased and oiled and twisted his stiff red-black hair into some fantastic shape, horns and wings and blades and even grasping hands, so they looked like some troupe of demons escaped from the seventh hell. The naked boy watched them for a bit, along with Dany, but soon enough they were gone, and he went back to his ants, and a knuckle up his nose.

Seventh Circle (Violence)

The Seventh Circle of Hell is divided into three rings. The Outer Ring houses murderers and others who were violent to other people and property. Here, Dante sees Alexander the Great (disputed), Dionysius I of Syracuse, Guy de Montfort and many other notable historical and mythological figures such as the Centaurus, sank into a river of boiling blood and fire. In the Middle Ring, the poet sees suicides who have been turned into trees and bushes which are fed upon by harpies. But he also sees here profligates, chased and torn to pieces by dogs. In the Inner Ring are blasphemers and sodomites, residing in a desert of burning sand and burning rain falling from the sky.

Source: https://historylists.org/art/9-circles-of-hell-dantes-inferno.html

A demon escapes from the 7th hell?

Spoiler

 

He mocks me and he mocks the god. Kinslayer. Blasphemer. Demon in human skin.

The dreams were even worse the second time. He saw the longships of the Ironborn adrift and burning on a boiling blood-red sea.

Quotes from the Foresaken chapter.

https://thehawke.github.io/twow-excerpts/chapters/forsaken.html

 

Seven hells:

https://asearchoficeandfire.com/?q=hell&scope[]=agot&scope[]=acok&scope[]=asos&scope[]=affc

[dialt]

On 5/15/2020 at 3:46 PM, LynnS said:

This is really the whole point of heresy I think.  We are all  operating under our own interests/fixations but the point is to come to a better understanding of the material by sharing those unique points of view or ways of understanding or how one engages with the material. 

That's why I find so refreshing to come here. 

About Val... exactly. That's something I thought about it too. She may be Jon's corpse queen.

But I also find interesting that Stannis offered Jon the chance to become Lord of Winterfell & of marring Val. 

Or to rephrase that to marry Val has become a sort of equivalent of taking possess of Winterfell.

I see the echo of that idea about "no having a castle" I was talking about before. Especially because Jon refused.

As if we're seeing the same thing from another perspective, or the same model moving/working backwards.

If so, it may go on the other direction all way through.

And... I also think there's an homage/inspiration taken from the Aeneid. Truth to be told, I suspect that there are many in the novels. But there's a description of Val that reminds a lot one of Lavinia. The woman that Aeneas will marry in the end. And, now that I think about it... the Aeneid is Virgil's main work. And Virgil is Dante's psychopomp in his tour of the Hell.

Other than that a big thanx.

Sorry but your last post came in, while I was writing this one. I'll check later.

@Melifeather I remember your theory. And I like the fact that even if we come to that conclusion following different tracks, we agree that the Pact is the cause not the consequence - as many suggest - of the Long Night.

About the Thenns, I dont' have an answer to your questions.

But it's worth noticing that they consider themselves the last of the First Men. That their culture is different than that of the rest of the FF and more akin to that of those who live beyond the Wall.

If so, there's a chance that the notion itself of First Men is not equal to the First Men who came to Westeros. Mankind came. But there must have a been a split (and that can improve the idea of the Pact as the orgin of such divide) or a second wave made of different people.

 

[Melifeather]

17 hours ago, alienarea said:

One of my biggest questions is why Joramun had a horn that could bring down the wall.

In my understanding this would only work if the horn would contain some of the same magic as the wall?

If you build a wall to keep out your enemy, why place the key to the wall (so to speak) in enemy territory? That does not make sense, unless Joramun went North of the wall voluntarily, and the horn was his return ticket?

Was he a Stark, too? 

His name could also be a concatenation of Jorl (=Earl) and Amun, one of the gods of Egypt, who, among other (no pun maybe) things was a god of the winds.

And the Other come with cold winds, or vice versa.

Joramun was the King Beyond the Wall that allied with the Lord of Wiinterfell to take down the Night's King. The ancient myth about his Horn of Winter was that when he blew it he "woke the giants". The wildlings believe the horn could also bring the Wall down, but where they got this idea isn't explained.

I believe the current events are mirrored reflections of the past, so Mance is the mirrored (reverse) of Joramun. He doesn't have to be Joramun's opposite in every way, but he will be faced with the same circumstances, maybe not in the same order, but the end result will be the opposite of what happened to Joramun.

Ramsay supposedly has Mance captured and held in a cage. I happen to believe that is false, but none the less we have to take into consideration that it may also be true. If the King Beyond the Wall was forcibly being held by the Lord of Winterfell, could the old myth be lying about Joramun's circumstances? After all, why would the wildlings cooperate with the Lord of Winterfell? Especially against their own prison guard? Something is fishy about this old story.

4 hours ago, LynnS said:

By this do you also mean they have the magic to become White Walkers ?

I was watching an 2014 interview of GRRM on YouTube this morning and he discussed, among other things, that the Valyrians were sorcerers and could control dragons, but he didn't confirm the origin source of dragons, like if the dragonlords conjured them or if they just found the eggs and learned how to hatch and control them. My point though is that the north is a reflection of the south - the other side of the coin so to speak. Fire on one side, ice on the other. Dragons on one side, white walkers on the other. The Valyrians were humans even if they knew sorcery, so it makes sense that the white walkers are also controlled by humans with sorcery. Daenerys successful hatching included human sacrifice: she smothered Drogo with a pillow, she lost her unborn child in a resurrection ritual, and she burned Mirri alive. I theorize that the wildlings know an ice ritual that involves succumbing to the cold and then rising again as a white walker.

4 hours ago, LynnS said:

I'm wondering if we are getting a replay of the Night's King and Corpse Queen with Jon and Val.

This has already happened, but Val wasn't involved. I believe the events occurring at the Wall are a repeat, but the details are out of order, and the outcome will be reversed. Jon's sister Arya is the "corpse" while his cousin Alys is the "queen". Jon remained unmarried, but married Alys to the Magnar of Thenn - a kind of wilding king/ruler who is now the Lord of Karlshold. Jon has yet to rise as the Night's King, and I do believe he will in the next book. Furthermore I believe he will succeed where the Night's King of old failed. There were mutineers that removed Jon as the Lord Commander, and the Pink Letter probably helped take him down (another way Joramun could have allied with the Lord), but when Jon finally rises from the dead he will be a true Night's King and no one will be able to stand against him, because he'll already be dead.

1 hour ago, lalt said:

I remember your theory. And I like the fact that even if we come to that conclusion following different tracks, we agree that the Pact is the cause not the consequence - as many suggest - of the Long Night.

I think the wildlings are descendants of people who were loyal to an elder Stark, a Lord that died with two sons to survive him: a weak and ineffectual trueborn son and a stronger warrior bastard son - the Bastard O'Winterfell. I think the bastard took Winterfell and was legitimized like Ramsay. The trueborn son was either killed or imprisoned with his followers beyond the Wall. The story that was told afterward portrayed the bastard as the Last Hero fighting against evil others. The Pact would have been something far older than this event, so by helping a bastard Last Hero defeat a trueborn heir would have broken the laws of the old gods - this is why I wonder if there was a faction of Children? If there was no split or faction, then how could the Children have agreed to help the Last Hero and not have also broken the Pact? I guess it depends upon what was in the Pact. We know that it designated territories, so maybe the trueborn son was cutting and burning down weirwoods? That is the only reason I can think of that would compel the Children to break one of their own laws.

[alienarea]

1 hour ago, Melifeather said:

Joramun was the King Beyond the Wall that allied with the Lord of Wiinterfell to take down the Night's King. The ancient myth about his Horn of Winter was that when he blew it he "woke the giants". The wildlings believe the horn could also bring the Wall down, but where they got this idea isn't explained.

I believe the current events are mirrored reflections of the past, so Mance is the mirrored (reverse) of Joramun. He doesn't have to be Joramun's opposite in every way, but he will be faced with the same circumstances, maybe not in the same order, but the end result will be the opposite of what happened to Joramun.

Ramsay supposedly has Mance captured and held in a cage. I happen to believe that is false, but none the less we have to take into consideration that it may also be true. If the King Beyond the Wall was forcibly being held by the Lord of Winterfell, could the old myth be lying about Joramun's circumstances? After all, why would the wildlings cooperate with the Lord of Winterfell? Especially against their own prison guard? Something is fishy about this old story.

I was watching an 2014 interview of GRRM on YouTube this morning and he discussed, among other things, that the Valyrians were sorcerers and could control dragons, but he didn't confirm the origin source of dragons, like if the dragonlords conjured them or if they just found the eggs and learned how to hatch and control them. My point though is that the north is a reflection of the south - the other side of the coin so to speak. Fire on one side, ice on the other. Dragons on one side, white walkers on the other. The Valyrians were humans even if they knew sorcery, so it makes sense that the white walkers are also controlled by humans with sorcery. Daenerys successful hatching included human sacrifice: she smothered Drogo with a pillow, she lost her unborn child in a resurrection ritual, and she burned Mirri alive. I theorize that the wildlings know an ice ritual that involves succumbing to the cold and then rising again as a white walker.

This has already happened, but Val wasn't involved. I believe the events occurring at the Wall are a repeat, but the details are out of order, and the outcome will be reversed. Jon's sister Arya is the "corpse" while his cousin Alys is the "queen". Jon remained unmarried, but married Alys to the Magnar of Thenn - a kind of wilding king/ruler who is now the Lord of Karlshold. Jon has yet to rise as the Night's King, and I do believe he will in the next book. Furthermore I believe he will succeed where the Night's King of old failed. There were mutineers that removed Jon as the Lord Commander, and the Pink Letter probably helped take him down (another way Joramun could have allied with the Lord), but when Jon finally rises from the dead he will be a true Night's King and no one will be able to stand against him, because he'll already be dead.

I think the wildlings are descendants of people who were loyal to an elder Stark, a Lord that died with two sons to survive him: a weak and ineffectual trueborn son and a stronger warrior bastard son - the Bastard O'Winterfell. I think the bastard took Winterfell and was legitimized like Ramsay. The trueborn son was either killed or imprisoned with his followers beyond the Wall. The story that was told afterward portrayed the bastard as the Last Hero fighting against evil others. The Pact would have been something far older than this event, so by helping a bastard Last Hero defeat a trueborn heir would have broken the laws of the old gods - this is why I wonder if there was a faction of Children? If there was no split or faction, then how could the Children have agreed to help the Last Hero and not have also broken the Pact? I guess it depends upon what was in the Pact. We know that it designated territories, so maybe the trueborn son was cutting and burning down weirwoods? That is the only reason I can think of that would compel the Children to break one of their own laws.

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?

[Melifeather]

6 hours ago, 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?

Or a raven like Mormont’s raven?

Jon Snow and Ramsay have something in common that I think is an echo of the past: their legitimate brothers are dead. 

I also think Jeor Mormont is replaying a role. Giving Jon his ancestral sword was very father- like, and leaving his lordship and home to take the black so that his trueborn son Jorah could inherit may also be an echo of the past.
 

I’d like to throw Roose in the mix too, because his bastard became Lord of Winterfell. 
 

All of these things are echoes of the past and it’s up to the reader to sift through them like clues in order to get a sense of what may have happened thousands of years ago.

[alienarea]

21 hours ago, LynnS said:

 

What we are told is that the Horn of Winter wakes giants in the earth.
 

 Did the Horn of Winter once belong to Winter or the King of Winter? .  I'm not sure that it brings down the Wall by itself and if it does, I don't think we'll see that until the very end of the story.  

I think that Joramun took the horn and buried it long ago. Was it originally in the crypts of Winterfell or in owned by the Stark of Winterfell?  Ygritte says she is worried about the spirits released by all the graves that Mance opened looking for the horn.  He might just overlook an old warhorn banded in bronze of a type the Thenns use;  but Coldhands may know where that horn was buried and retrieve it.

I wonder if Coldhands was dug up by Mance and if he is one of the giants woken from the earth.  Is he one of the Nine, the other giants?    Is he the Horned Lord that Dalla tells Jon about and did he have both horns; the small and the large in his grave?

And maybe the giants from earth that will be woken by Joramun's horn are weirwoods buried inside of the wall (79 sentinels?)?

Some trees grow very planted in the stomach of a human corpse, if I recall correctly the Red Khmer did that. If the 79 sentinels were served weirwood seeds with their last meal, the trees might grow inside of the wall? Could explain the wall growing as well ...

[LynnS]

On 5/13/2020 at 5:54 AM, Black Crow said:

First the numbers: three is always reckoned a magic number and nine even more so because it is thrice three.

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Jon VII

The hooded man lifted his pale moon face, and Jon slashed at it without hesitation. The sword laid the intruder open to the bone, taking off half his nose and opening a gash cheek to cheek under those eyes, eyes, eyes like blue stars burning. Jon knew that face. Othor, he thought, reeling back. Gods, he's dead, he's dead, I saw him dead.

Quote

A Feast for Crows - Samwell II

No happy choice. Sam thought of all the trials that he and Gilly suffered, Craster's Keep and the death of the Old Bear, snow and ice and freezing winds, days and days and days of walking, the wights at Whitetree, Coldhands and the tree of ravens, the Wall, the Wall, the Wall, the Black Gate beneath the earth. What had it all been for? No happy choices and no happy endings.

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.

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Jon VII

Jon nodded. He should have come straight from the stable. He climbed the tower steps briskly. He wants wine or a fire in his hearth, that's all, he told himself.

When he entered the solar, Mormont's raven screamed at him. "Corn!" the bird shrieked. "Corn! Corn! Corn!"

Makes me wonder if there are anymore of these magical threes and what that means for each character.  

Mormont's raven is a queer bird.

[LynnS]

3 hours ago, alienarea said:

And maybe the giants from earth that will be woken by Joramun's horn are weirwoods buried inside of the wall (79 sentinels?)?

Some trees grow very planted in the stomach of a human corpse, if I recall correctly the Red Khmer did that. If the 79 sentinels were served weirwood seeds with their last meal, the trees might grow inside of the wall? Could explain the wall growing as well ...

Hmmm... sentinel trees..... Oh, that old trick.
 

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Bran IV

"Why not?"

"The Wall. The Wall is more than just ice and stone, he said. There are spells woven into it . . . old ones, and strong. He cannot pass beyond the Wall."

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Jon I

Jon did not deny it. "The Wall is no place for a woman."

"You are wrong. I have dreamed of your Wall, Jon Snow. Great was the lore that raised it, and great the spells locked beneath its ice. We walk beneath one of the hinges of the world." Melisandre gazed up at it, her breath a warm moist cloud in the air. "This is my place as it is yours, and soon enough you may have grave need of me. Do not refuse my friendship, Jon. I have seen you in the storm, hard-pressed, with enemies on every side. You have so many enemies. Shall I tell you their names?"

On this Mel and Coldhands agree:  spells that are locked beneath the ice and more than ice and stone; old spells and strong woven into the Wall.  The Black Gate is one of the old spells locked beneath the ice:
 

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Bran IV

The well grew darker and colder with every turn. When Bran finally lifted his head around to look back up the shaft, the top of the well was no bigger than a half-moon. "Hodor," Hodor whispered, "Hodorhodorhodorhodorhodorhodor," the well whispered back. The water sounds were close, but when Bran peered down he saw only blackness.

A turn or two later Sam stopped suddenly. He was a quarter of the way around the well from Bran and Hodor and six feet farther down, yet Bran could barely see him. He could see the door, though. The Black Gate, Sam had called it, but it wasn't black at all.

It was white weirwood, and there was a face on it.

A glow came from the wood, like milk and moonlight, so faint it scarcely seemed to touch anything beyond the door itself, not even Sam standing right before it. The face was old and pale, wrinkled and shrunken. It looks dead. Its mouth was closed, and its eyes; its cheeks were sunken, its brow withered, its chin sagging. If a man could live for a thousand years and never die but just grow older, his face might come to look like that.

 

For magical threes, we get twice three Hodors.     Hold the door?  The Black Gate is locked until the right person with the right words unlocks it.  Mel and Stannis learn about the Black Gate from Sam.

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Samwell V

"Demons made of snow and ice and cold," said Stannis Baratheon. "The ancient enemy. The only enemy that matters." He considered Sam again. "I am told that you and this wildling girl passed beneath the Wall, through some magic gate."

"The B-black Gate," Sam stammered. "Below the Nightfort."

"The Nightfort is the largest and oldest of the castles on the Wall," the king said. "That is where I intend to make my seat, whilst I fight this war. You will show me this gate."

 

Hinge: a movable joint or mechanism on which a door, gate, or lid swings as it opens and closes or which connects linked objects.  

[LynnS]

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A Game of Thrones - Bran III

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.

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A Dance with Dragons - Melisandre I

Mance Rayder chuckled. "I had my doubts as well, Snow, but why not let her try? It was that, or let Stannis roast me."

"The bones help," said Melisandre. "The bones remember. The strongest glamors are built of such things. A dead man's boots, a hank of hair, a bag of fingerbones. With whispered words and prayer, a man's shadow can be drawn forth from such and draped about another like a cloak. The wearer's essence does not change, only his seeming."

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A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

No one ever knew when he was wearing Hodor's skin. Bran only had to smile, do as he was told, and mutter "Hodor" from time to time, and he could follow Meera and Jojen, grinning happily, without anyone suspecting it was really him. He often tagged along, whether he was wanted or not. In the end, the Reeds were glad he came. Jojen made it down the rope easily enough, but after Meera caught a blind white fish with her frog spear and it was time to climb back up, his arms began to tremble and he could not make it to the top, so they had to tie the rope around him and let Hodor haul him up. "Hodor," he grunted every time he gave a pull. "Hodor, hodor, hodor."

The moon was a crescent, thin and sharp as the blade of a knife. Summer dug up a severed arm, black and covered with hoarfrost, its fingers opening and closing as it pulled itself across the frozen snow. There was still enough meat on it to fill his empty belly, and after that was done he cracked the arm bones for the marrow. Only then did the arm remember it was dead.

 

Circling back to Bran's vision of potential greenseers impaled on ice spears...  These are not the actual bodies but think of what the bones represent considering that the bones remember.  I think failed greenseers become the white walkers and we are being shown given that the bones are impaled on ice, their souls stolen.

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A Storm of Swords - Samwell I

When he opened his eyes the Other's armor was running down its legs in rivulets as pale blue blood hissed and steamed around the black dragonglass dagger in its throat. It reached down with two bone-white hands to pull out the knife, but where its fingers touched the obsidian they smoked.

Sam rolled onto his side, eyes wide as the Other shrank and puddled, dissolving away. In twenty heartbeats its flesh was gone, swirling away in a fine white mist. Beneath were bones like milkglass, pale and shiny, and they were melting too. Finally only the dragonglass dagger remained, wreathed in steam as if it were alive and sweating. Grenn bent to scoop it up and flung it down again at once. "Mother, that's cold."

 

 

[Lady Dyanna]

On 5/16/2020 at 7:35 AM, LynnS said:

It seems to me that the weirwood at the Night Fort is there to provide the magic that operates the Black Gate, to provide a secret passage through the Wall.   I think it is tied to the magic of the Wall.  Something to do with the origins of the Night Fort as the only means for passing beyond the Wall before the other forts were built.  When only brothers of the Watch could open the gate. 

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. 

[Black Crow]

4 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 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