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Glass Candles: how they work, Jaquen's role at the Citadel, and how the Citadel used them


sweetsunray

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5 hours ago, LynnS said:

It's a very different story adapted for television.  Did you notice the statue of the winged wolf?  LOL  The director's emphasis on Simon's  eyes after he is infected?  I wondered when the audience would get the reveal that his eyes were changed.  Still the notion of the queen and hive mind;  the ability to mimic is there.  Stingers like manticores.  I wondered how much Martin was involved in this adaptation.

The other angle is that this is life from Mars or from beyond if you want to make the comparison to Ungoliant.

Yah, the production value is what you would expect for tv at that time but I do find it campish but amusing.  

A depraved mind is what you will get from the novella.

https://forwearemany.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/sandkings.pdf

 

 

Yes, oh yes, Sandkings the tv episode is very different from the novella story (which I much prefer). A few ideas I had about some of the details you mentioned above; the winged wolf idea possibly was borrowed from Bitterblooms, and the eye color change possibly was borrowed from And Seven Times Never Kill Man, as that is what happens when Jaenshi/Steel Angels get near the mind control pyramid- their eyes change color to large and flecked with gold, until if/when they move away. As for the show, yeah, this was all a tight group of authors that were working in Hollywood, in Wildcards, and running at the same Con circles = Friends! :)

Bitterblooms is my next book club story that I have been working on getting ready.

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13 hours ago, LynnS said:

Perhaps compare notes afterwards.

Read it yesterday night.

IMO one of George's more straightforward stories. But Wo and Shade reveal made me smile big time. I don't get what the script writer of the TV adaptation was on about on how the book Simon Kress wouldn't work on TV because you don't have any sympathy for him, he's a total dick. The main character in American Psycho is also a total dick. They didn't turn him into a mad scientist who saves his wife and son in the end of the movie either.

Anyway, George has a thing for "being eaten" (by dreamspiders, the greeshka, and now the maw, Tuf's introductory story): one of our primal fears is being "prey". I'd say that is almost one of the things he has toned down a lot in asoiaf, though the wights may disembowel a character, dragons occasionally get to snack on someone, references to cannibalism and the House of the Undying. That's because asoaif is a high fantasy epic, with horror elements mingled into it, during very specific scenes to instill a moment of terror. But overall, the Others and the wights aren't operating to make a meal out of humans for their ice maw/ice queen.

"Hive mind" and psionic "mind control/manipulation" is also something he recycles a lot, in various forms - via religious zealotry, but also on how some type of lifeform operates, and it always manages to deceive people and characters, because it doesn't look "intelligent" to us. Another lifeform's hive mind works very layered and in stages. And George is very successful in almost making you forget who's behind the controls, by constantly putting the focus on the mobiles/wights/Others. As the hive mobiles have eyes, mandibles and seem to operate individually (each able to do a different task), your eye is on them, not the intricate mind behind it. Our panicked mind instinctively goes for the immediate swarming threat before us, rather than the problem behind it. The sole intelligence in asoaif that we know of that combines a swarming hive mind with weird lifeform with intelligence are the Others. It's such a perfect working concept to create mystery and make the reader guess, that it leaves no doubt, he's recycling the crux of the idea and set up.

The lifeform gets even more confusing over time, as the mobiles don't even retain their size or appearance. What you thought to know about them or learned about them initially becomes almost null and void in a later stage: first they're the size of ants and the maw some meaty mouth with a mini-psionic brain, then they grow when they acquire more room (and so does the maw), and then when they grow so big Simon Kress cannot possibly provide for them anymore, and becomes himself useless, he ends up a meal himself, carried in by mobiles with human faces (his face), walking on hind legs and using arms... becoming more humanoid. The why and how of it and the insect its compared to originally may vary, and alter across stories, but the concept of it remains the same. We have stories of the spider goddess' acolytes warring with those of serpent god: an endless war that doomed the city Lyber in the grasslands of Essos (present day Dothraki sea), the tales of Ice Spiders the size of dogs and yet these have been curiously absent now. We evan have Sam wondering about those Ice Spiders - what are they? There are the various hostile regions north of the 5 forts of Yi Ti with some human flesh eating lifeform in various types of deserts, lifeforms with half human appearances,  the citizens of K'Dath performing unspeakable rituals to slake the hunger of their mad gods, and of course the mystery surrounding Sothoryos (and big sized spotted spiders). I suspected that we'll never see the ice spiders of the past Long Night in the present day story again, although I thought the ice spiders were killed and the ice queen had to resort to other sources to recreate an army of ice soldiers, and her source were humans. But the metamorphosis of the sandkings suggests that the ice spiders haven't all died, just metamorphosed into the Others as we know them.

On top of that, there's not just one hive, but several. First they war with one another, but can also abandon their enmity and cooperate to target more difficult prey, until eventually they war the other species, rather than each other. And now I'm wondering whether that also applies to Planetos. We have several Long Night legends across the planet, and several spider references combined with worship, wars but also their destruction and victory of mankind. This puts the idea forward that Planetos knew several spider queens with their own slightly different mobiles/Others, adapted to their environment and mimicking different people and creatures. Not all survived. Like the red and black sandkings (and their maws) these hives were successfully destroyed. But other hives retreated to a location out of the way and survived, and resulting thereby in a different type of metamorphosis. Hence we have different "heroes" successfully battling across history and planet to a different degree.

As to the motive of the war instinct in sandkings: ultimately it's dominion. Wo believes herself to have a good and safe working relationship with Shade, but it's also likely the most intelligent maw around and going for dominion across the universe.

ETA: the spider goddess of Lyber can certainly be regarded as a link to sandkings. It incorporates "worhsip", which is what Wo uses as the hook or carrot for Simon Kress... worship. Except with the spider goddess it's reversed. The sandkings worship Simon Kress (initially) and Wo, while the Spider Goddess is worshipped. We do have stories of the Blood Emperor (a Simon Kress on steroids) and Night's King as human male who also strives for worship, with the latter doing the Ice Queen's bidding. And then we have Craster, leaving his sons for the Cold Gods. He too takes on a Simon Kress role: feeling high and mighty and safe - the Others won't harm him he believes - but growing more desperate over time to "feed" the Others, becoming desperate for sons towards the end so he doesn't have to leave them his sheep and dogs anymore. And in that sense, when his wives mention Craster's Sons, we can now conclude they're not his sons who've been Otherized, but the molten Others having his face, like the orange sandkings all have Simon's face.

And the region north of the 5 forts does refer to monsters that need to be fed and various deserts using the name "sand".

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13 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

IMO one of George's more straightforward stories. But Wo and Shade reveal made me smile big time. I don't get what the script writer of the TV adaptation was on about on how the book Simon Kress wouldn't work on TV because you don't have any sympathy for him, he's a total dick. The main character in American Psycho is also a total dick. They didn't turn him into a mad scientist who saves his wife and son in the end of the movie either.

Quote

“Shade is a sandking,” Kress repeated numbly. “And you sold me a tank of ... of ... infants, ah....” “Do not be absurd,” Wo said. “A first-stage sandking is more like a sperm than an infant. The wars temper and control them in nature. Only one in a hundred reaches second stage. Only one in a thousand achieves the third and final plateau, and becomes like Shade. 

Recycling the one in a hundred and one in a thousand and assigning that to greenseers is interesting.  It appears that Bran is also evolving through stages. Stage one: opening the 3rd eye; stage two, wed to the tree and stage three, psionic ability ???

Simon Kress becomes more insane after infection and perhaps reflects the insanity of the white maw of the novella.  While Simon Kress of the novella begins to feel the terrible driving hunger of the white maw.   The maws are damaged and twisted by the cruelty of their god whose face they wear and carve into their castles.

So I wonder if this is also recycled into aSoIaF.  Are the Others one of the old races? Did they originally worship the old gods? Were they used as soldiers to battle the First Men?  Was the Queen imprisoned north and north and north and kept in cryo-stasis? Howling all alone in the dark to quote Dany.  Does the Queen have abilities similar to a 3rd stage greenseer by way of psionic powers, controlling the wight/mobiles?  Are the WWs second stage mobiles?

Something tells me that the threat posed by the Others is the fault of the singers and their greenseers of old. The greenseers seem to be the enemy of the Others:

Quote

 

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.

 

Looking into the heart/soul/mind of winter is a psionic experience that fills Bran with fear and terrible knowledge.  I've never been able to reconcile the notion that there is nothing there or that this is a vision of the future with what Bran is actually seeing.  There must be something there; we just aren't getting the physical description, only the mental projection.

GRRM also tells us that the Others are beautiful.  I'm not sure how to reconcile that with something monstrous.  Perhaps something beautiful that was made into something monstrous and not of their own doing.  Giant spiders would fit the bill, I suppose but if the Queen can use ice to make the WWs then it follows that she can make spiders.  Perhaps they mock their god by wearing the face of their god.  LOL   It looks to me like Bran is being set up to correct the mistakes the greenseers made; to take the place of Wo and Shade.

1 hour ago, sweetsunray said:

But overall, the Others and the wights aren't operating to make a meal out of humans for their ice maw/ice queen.

What are they doing exactly?  Or specifically, what is the Ice Queen doing?  Taking souls?  A thousand eyes and a hundred faces?  Killing everything with hot blood because she is insane with hatred?

1 hour ago, sweetsunray said:

"Hive mind" and psionic "mind control/manipulation" is also something he recycles a lot, in various forms - via religious zealotry, but also on how some type of lifeform operates, and it always manages to deceive people and characters, because it doesn't look "intelligent" to us. Another lifeform's hive mind works very layered and in stages. And George is very successful in almost making you forget who's behind the controls, by constantly putting the focus on the mobiles/wights/Others. As the hive mobiles have eyes, mandibles and seem to operate individually (each able to do a different task), your eye is on them, not the intricate mind behind it. Our panicked mind instinctively goes for the immediate swarming threat before us, rather than the problem behind it. The sole intelligence in asoaif that we know of that combines a swarming hive mind with weird lifeform with intelligence are the Others. It's such a perfect working concept to create mystery and make the reader guess, that it leaves no doubt, he's recycling the crux of the idea and set up.

Boy, howdy!  How does this compare to the hive mind of the weirwood network?  Assuming that there is a hive mind involved with the weirnet.  Using the hive mind of the Others seems like an extension of the weirnet.  

1 hour ago, sweetsunray said:

I suspected that we'll never see the ice spiders of the past Long Night in the present day story again, although I thought the ice spiders were killed and the ice queen had to resort to other sources to recreate an army of ice soldiers, and her source were humans. But the metamorphosis of the sandkings suggests that the ice spiders haven't all died, just metamorphosed into the Others as we know them.

I agree.  Although I do think she is using another source to recreate her soldiers.  Failed greenseers who Bran sees as bones impaled with spears of ice.

1 hour ago, sweetsunray said:

On top of that, there's not just one hive, but several. First they war with one another, but can also abandon their enmity and cooperate to target more difficult prey, until eventually they war the other species, rather than each other. And now I'm wondering whether that also applies to Planetos. We have several Long Night legends across the planet, and several spider references combined with worship, wars but also their destruction and victory of mankind. This puts the idea forward that Planetos knew several spider queens with their own slightly different mobiles/Others, adapted to their environment and mimicking different people and creatures. Not all survived. Like the red and black sandkings (and their maws) these hives were successfully destroyed. But other hives retreated to a location out of the way and survived, and resulting thereby in a different type of metamorphosis. Hence we have different "heroes" successfully battling across history and planet to a different degree.

I'm not as well read on the subject and I had no idea about all these other spider references.  It seems plausible to me.  I would add manticores as one version of a spider/scorpion/sandking.

 

 

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3 minutes ago, LynnS said:

I agree.  Although I do think she is using another source to recreate her soldiers.  Failed greenseers who Bran sees as bones impaled with spears of ice.

I'd just add that the WWs appear to float across the snow; leaving no footprints and not making no sound.  Failure to fly? and failure to avoid spears of ice.

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That was a lot! And worth reading. So first of all, thank you.

In my reply I am going to address those topics/details that I believe highlight how and where our takes diverge

On 5/21/2020 at 1:17 PM, sweetsunray said:

So you might be looking at the "cloak" thing a bit too narrowly as meaning "skinchanger".

I think - and I believe that we agree on that - that "cloak" is one of those things used by George with multiple layers of meanings. Sometimes the same cloak does that. So I do not deny anything that you said. But my aim was to point out that in that specific chapter, this is one of the symbolic meanings of that cloak. That to suggest that there's a sort of recurring scheme/pattern that comes in different variations (the cloak and the killing of Royce being one of those variation) that symbolically represent the killing of a skinchanger. If you read the story of Royce and his cloak that way, it doesn't invalidate other layers of meanings / interpretations and nuances. They're all there.

On 5/21/2020 at 1:17 PM, sweetsunray said:

While I don't agree with everything Joe Magician claims in his theory that the Others were after Jon (the specific claims of Craster's involvement, the claims about the trees), I do agree with the essence of it: those six believed they had caught the one they feared the most before he could ever be a real threat to them, except they were msitaken.

My opinion as well. I believe they mistook Royce for Jon but I don't buy the Craster's involvement, etc... (and I also think that at the Fist of the First Men, the Others were looking for Jon). And I would add an "iderect hint" to prove the case.

In the next 4 prologues, you always have a character struggling to correctly identify someone else. And that is always tied to a death or a death experiece. See below:

Spoiler

ACOK

"The witty, clever lad that Lord Steffon had written of never reached Storm's End; the boy they found was someone else, broken in body and mind, hardly capable of speech, much less of wit. Yet his fool's face left no doubt of who he was."

Patchface is someone else, after his death experiece. And Cressen is capable of correctly identify him only because the marks of the boy's face.

ASOS

- It won't matter anyhow. Once we're gone, Smallwood can attack anyone he likes. What do we care? If none of them ever returns to the Wall, no one will ever come looking for us, they'll think we died with the rest. That was a new thought, and for a moment it tempted him.

= Chett hopes to be mistook for one of the deads.

AFFC

- "Archmaester Walgrave had no trouble telling one raven from another, but he was not so good with people. Some days he seemed to think Pate was someone named Cressen"

Cressen is dead by this time.


- "I thought her head was smashed against a wall," said Roone. "No," said Alleras. "It was Prince Rhaegar's young son Aegon whose head was dashed against the wall by the Lion of Lannister's brave men. We speak of Rhaegar's sister, born on Dragonstone before its fall. The one they called Daenerys."

ADWD
The terrible Lord Varamyr had gone craven, but he could not bear that she should know that, so he told the spearwife that his name was Haggon. Afterward he wondered why that name had come to his lips, of all those he might have chosen. I ate his heart and drank his blood, and still he haunts me.

Thistle doesn't recognize Varymir. And he takes the identity of the man he killed long ago.

AGOT

If the Others mistook Royce for Jon, they killed the wrong man. Or they killed Royce because he was the wrong man. In any case a struggle in identifying someone and a death.

 

On 5/21/2020 at 1:17 PM, sweetsunray said:

But I notice you dismiss Will's "It saw" too easily. Both Will and Varamyr may be seeing correctly - that the one watching through those eyes is both a she and an it.

I think that sure the one watching is a she and it. But my point was that Varamyr can sense the She because he is a skinchager. 

On 5/21/2020 at 1:17 PM, sweetsunray said:

I don't believe in the Others were made by the CotF before the Pact for various reasons. The Pact definitely came before the Long Night for sure. We can throw out any of the legends of the CotF warring the FM from Moat Cailin with the Hammer of the Waters for sure too. The pact was performed and sealed at the Gods Eye between warring parties. Any idea where warring parties usually make a peace deal? Where the geographical divide is, or a neutral area. Why did the CotF war against the FM? Because the FM chopped trees and entire forests, and most especially the weirwoods. What covers most of the Riverlands, especially around the Gods Eye? Right, forests. You would think that if the FM had at least advanced as far as the Neck to force the CotF to offer a Pact, that a) the Riverland forests were decimated and entire groves of weirwood would have been cut down even before the Andals arrived b) the Pact would have been made at the Neck. About half the contintent was conquered by the FM when they made the Pact.

And I agree that the Pact came before the Long Night. 100%. And I agree that the war between CotF and FM happened because the PF cut the trees. I am less sure about the rest, but from my prospective it doesn't make a big difference (you may be right or not..I just don't know), because I don't think that the Others are a consequence of the cutting of the trees. I think that what caused the Long Night or the Others to arise, is due to the Pact itself or to what it entailed.

In short, I believe that the Pact was signed between the Cotf and a faction of the FM whose leaders became land owners/founders of houses and castles leaving... the Other(s) faction with nothing. Or that just because land ownership and the rules of inheritance and succession were enstablished between men, Others ended up to be excluded, betrayed, etc... That lead to the feud/civil war between skinchangers I was talking about. And from that feud/civil war the Others as we know them, arised.

That's my theory. And because of that:

On 5/21/2020 at 1:17 PM, sweetsunray said:

The trees are misunderstood allies to both the CotF and humans, regardless of the type of tree they are, regardless of them having a carved face or not.

Agree. The feud is between Men/Others. What I mean by saying that the trees were part of the equation that created the Others, is just that. But for instance... the point may be that Others refuse or cannot join the weirwood net. Not that the ww are the evil mastermind behind their creation.

On 5/21/2020 at 1:17 PM, sweetsunray said:

I thin the Others are an actually different species, and that their appearance is more a type of "camouflage" or mimicry of "humanoids", while their minds are insect-like (insects with high IQ though)... They're ice spiders. There is also symbolic "second skin" reference to this in the Faith Militan

 

On 5/21/2020 at 1:17 PM, sweetsunray said:

And thus their queen is a she-ice spider. Which brings me back to Will's "IT saw", with IT being a reference to one of the famous books where Pennywise the clown with his fangs turns out to be a ginormous spider. Stephen King's reveal dismayed a lot of readers, because it seemed to come from completely left field and out of nowhere with the "they all float down here" but a weak set up for it.  George however introduced us early on over stories of ice spiders, regularly reminding us of it, and even in other camouflage/mirror mirror plots incorporating insect hints:

So.. ok. Get it. Let me explain my take.

If they are humanoids (and I agree they are) there must a human ingredient in the "recipe".

And there could be an animal ingredient. You suggest spider.

In my view, beside the fact that skinchangers fulfil both criteria (human/animal), in my view - and even more so because ice spiders are teased so much - the reavel à la Stephen King (or à la No. I am your father) might be that they are not ice spiders, but... direwolves (and their wargs). What characterizes the body strutcure/skeleton of direwolves is not only that they are bigger/taller than wolves, but that in proportion, their legs are longer and their heads are larger than it is in wolves. To make it easer: a larger percentage of their body is made of head and lambs than it is with wolves. How do we know it?

Grey Wind and Summer emerged from the green. Summer sniffed the air and growled. “Wolves,” gasped Hali.
“Direwolves,” Bran said. Still half-grown, they were as large as any wolf he had ever seen, but the differences were easy to spot, if you knew what to look for. Maester Luwin and Farlen the kennelmaster had taught him. A direwolf had a bigger head and longer
legs in proportion to its body
, and its snout and jaw were markedly leaner and more pronounced. There was something gaunt and terrible about them as they stood there amid the gently falling snow. - AGOT BRAN V

So beside the details reminiscent of the Others (emerging from the woods, standing stood gaunt and terrible), the prominents parts of a direwolf's body, are legs and head. So is with the spiders.

Plus the "mirror trick" in our case, may be that the Others = a reflection of the Starks. The Other face of House Stark. Their "dark side" to refer again the I am your father comparison.

And.... maybe the she controlling them - their Queen - is also a mother... a dead mother:


Half-buried in bloodstained snow, a huge dark shape slumped in death. Ice had formed in its shaggy grey fur, and the faint smell of corruption clung to it like a woman’s perfume. [...]
 “I’m surprised she lived long enough to whelp,” he said. His voice broke the spell.
“Maybe she didn’t,” Jory said. “I’ve heard tales . . . maybe the bitch was already dead when the pups came.”
“Born with the dead,” another man put in. “Worse luck.” - AGOT BRAN I

I am not saying that this dead she-direwolves is mind-controlling the Others. I am proposing that this might be a clue/hint...

I'll reply to rest later on. At the same time... I sincerely apologize. I see that this is too OT.
And it be fine for me, to open another thread to debate these arguments.

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2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Night's King as human male who also strives for worship, with the latter doing the Ice Queen's bidding.

 

2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

As to the motive of the war instinct in sandkings: ultimately it's dominion.

Hence the need for the Wall to stop such an expansion and the reason why the ice queen must infiltrate the Wall through access to the Night King.  I think we are getting a replay of this with Val:

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Jon XI

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.

Her eyes are normally grey, so I question who she was negotiating with and why Ghost went with her.  This reminds me that GRRM said that Dany was given temporary immunity from fire.  With Val it appears to be temporary immunity from wights, WWs and the cold.  Was she communicating with the ice queen and is she going to play out the warm bodied version as proxy for the ice queen.   

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2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

And then we have Craster, leaving his sons for the Cold Gods. He too takes on a Simon Kress role: feeling high and mighty and safe - the Others won't harm him he believes - but growing more desperate over time to "feed" the Others, becoming desperate for sons towards the end so he doesn't have to leave them his sheep and dogs anymore. And in that sense, when his wives mention Craster's Sons, we can now conclude they're not his sons who've been Otherized, but the molten Others having his face, like the orange sandkings all have Simon's face.

Hah!  Brilliant.

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Just want to note this real quickly while I have a second. In Martin’s writing world he also has something called the Hrangan Minds, and they are very much like the extreme ice and Fire dragons we have in the story, especially when we consider that at first GRRM wasn’t going to included animal dragons and Dany Targ powers were going to be pyrokenisis and mind control. The mind control GRRM said Dany was going to use for the  Dothraki, which is like the relationship between Simon Kress and the Sandkings but especially the maw (mhysa, mhysa). Simon is a prototype for Dany, and even a bit of Viserys, but that makes sense because Dany is slowly making more decisions like Viserys would rather than Rhaegar would. She’s deciding for her own what type of Targaryen she wants to be, and GRRM said by the end of ADWD she’s embraced “fire and blood”. 

More later because I’d live to add more viewing device methods GRRM used in his stories and why. 

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45 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Just want to note this real quickly while I have a second. In Martin’s writing world he also has something called the Hrangan Minds, and they are very much like the extreme ice and Fire dragons we have in the story, especially when we consider that at first GRRM wasn’t going to included animal dragons and Dany Targ powers were going to be pyrokenisis and mind control. The mind control GRRM said Dany was going to use for the  Dothraki, which is like the relationship between Simon Kress and the Sandkings but especially the maw (mhysa, mhysa). Simon is a prototype for Dany, and even a bit of Viserys, but that makes sense because Dany is slowly making more decisions like Viserys would rather than Rhaegar would. She’s deciding for her own what type of Targaryen she wants to be, and GRRM said by the end of ADWD she’s embraced “fire and blood”. 

More later because I’d live to add more viewing device methods GRRM used in his stories and why. 

I've only read a few of Martin's earlier works.  Is there a theme concerning comets and meteor.  Thinking of the show's version of the sandkings as aliens, not native to the planet.  The notion that the sandkings are from Mars fits with conjecture or wild speculation that life on earth came from Mars or that comets and meteors may introduce an alien form of life.

I ask myself if the Others are one of the old races native to Planetos or an alien form of life that was introduced by comet or meteor.

ETA:  famous quote

According to George R. R. Martin, the Others "are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the Sidhe made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous."[5] Further, although Old Nan describes the Others as "dead things",[6] Martin has stated that the Others are not dead.[5] However, the Night's King's queen, presumably an Other due to her blue eyes and pale skin, is described as a "corpse queen" on account of her white, cold skin.[7][8]

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18 hours ago, LynnS said:

Well that's a thorough treatment covering everything including silicone based life forms. :)  I'm sorry to be so off topic but this is just so fascinating.  I have read the article before and have found it plausible but difficult to imagine something as alien as ice spiders.   However, I think GRR M is recycling the sandkings in our story; that makes it all the more plausible to imagine the Others and the Queen as something that is Aos Si, a form of life that is incredibly beautiful.  I wondered about the crystalline structure of silicone and some kind of structure that creates it's own light or luminescence,  something that generates the curtain of light.

I also wonder about convergent evolution:

Quote

Convergent evolution is a biological concept whereby unrelated species acquire similar traits because they adapted to a similar environment and/or played similar roles in their ecosystems. In fiction, the concept is extended whereby similar planets will result in races with similar cultures and/or histories. 

 

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Just one more impression that I have of Dany's visit to the Undying... the instructions she is given to only take the door on the right and only the stairs leading upwards.  This sounds like the instructions for navigating a maze/spider-web where she is led directly to the center of the web.   

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3 hours ago, LynnS said:

Well that's a thorough treatment covering everything including silicone based life forms. :)  I'm sorry to be so off topic but this is just so fascinating.  I have read the article before and have found it plausible but difficult to imagine something as alien as ice spiders.   However, I think GRR M is recycling the sandkings in our story; that makes it all the more plausible to imagine the Others and the Queen as something that is Aos Si, a form of life that is incredibly beautiful.  I wondered about the crystalline structure of silicone and some kind of structure that creates it's own light or luminescence,  something that generates the curtain of light.

I also wonder about convergent evolution:

 

One of GRRM's intros in Dreamsongs discusses one of Heinlein's stories that likely may have inspired George for sandkings, but it's on an invented  world/sattellite near Pluto. But now I'm on doubt. I read it in a glance, and may have come from another source (a Ned's Bed moment).

@The Fattest Leech Do you remember something like that? Or did you mention it in your Aerea essay?

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2 hours ago, LynnS said:

Just one more impression that I have of Dany's visit to the Undying... the instructions she is given to only take the door on the right and only the stairs leading upwards.  This sounds like the instructions for navigating a maze/spider-web where she is led directly to the center of the web.   

What about the name of the drink: "SHADE of the evening". That anatomical spider heart hovering above Dany, and a shade reference makes Dany's experience as one who entered into the maw Shade ;-)

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21 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

What about the name of the drink: "SHADE of the evening". That anatomical spider heart hovering above Dany, and a shade reference makes Dany's experience as one who entered into the maw Shade ;-)

Oh... My...GOD!   That's it exactly.  :bowdown:

ETA: And more than one Maw, this one associated with manticores.

ETA: Another thought that might answer some of my questions about the House of Undying.  If the two maws had a psionic connection, certainly an awareness of each other; then that could explain the similarities between the House of Undying and features such as the Black Gate/Wall and House of Black and White.     

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wow !    please, can i have some more?
if possible, please type more of these fascinating revelations / similarities from GRRM's other literary treasures.

thanks for sharing these ideas LynnS, SweetSun & TFL - much appreciated !

(looks like i should be building a new reading list!)

 

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1 hour ago, LynnS said:

Oh... My...GOD!   That's it exactly.  :bowdown:

ETA: And more than one Maw, this one associated with manticores.

ETA: Another thought that might answer some of my questions about the House of Undying.  If the two maws had a psionic connection, certainly an awareness of each other; then that could explain the similarities between the House of Undying and features such as the Black Gate/Wall and House of Black and White.     

Yes!!! Shade + scorpionlike manticore with a exoskeleton that looks like a human face + Dany in the "stomach" almost being eaten, but her flamethrower deals with it. Totally Sandkings.

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1 hour ago, Yaya said:

wow !    please, can i have some more?
if possible, please type more of these fascinating revelations / similarities from GRRM's other literary treasures.

thanks for sharing these ideas LynnS, SweetSun & TFL - much appreciated !

(looks like i should be building a new reading list!)

 

The blog of @The Fattest Leech includes the Book Club - transcripts of many of George's prior stories where she posts quotes of asoiaf that are related to it:

https://fattestleechoficeandfire.com/pre-asoiaf-works-transcribed-here/

Many of these you can find in the retrospective collection "Dreamsongs" (two books), with George's introductions into several sections in which he not only reveals some autobiographical facts, but also his inspirations, his perception on "genre", and some of the typical things he does when writing. For example when I proposed that red stallions mean "don't bet on this horse (and its rider)" because they're playing you false or are doomed, I pointed out that when George writes a color such as red, it's not just some color he assigns... it functions like a color marker where you go through text and highlight something crucial. I had not read anything of Dreamsongs yet. Turns out that as a teen he used to have a typewriter with a failing lint and he didn't know how to do italics. So he used to type certain words with the red lint instead. What I claimed was thereby confirmed.

https://sweeticeandfiresunray.com/parallelism/the-trail-of-the-red-stallion/

Leechy's blog also includes transcripts of stories that aren't in the Dreamsongs collection, and you otherwise couldn't find anymore nowadays.

I've referenced some of George's other work, using quotes in the Ice Magic (Mirror Mirror) essay series:

https://sweeticeandfiresunray.com/2019/05/28/ice-magic/

(Dany's brass alchemism, Areo Hotah as a mirror, the Faith Militant as swords and foxes, and an explanation and background on Serwyn of the Mirror Shield who is grafted upon the legend of St. George and the dragon, one of George's favourite legends for name reasons)

The rest to which I alluded to in this thread, is for now kept in private drafts, I won't have time to continue working on before July. Anyhow, in the mirror mirror series, I refer to Stone City (in Swords and foxes) and Song for Lya. In Areo Hotah's Mirror Mirro, I reference the character mirrors of George's novel Armageddon Rag

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