Did the Starks practice blood sacrifice?

[kissdbyfire]

Also, it’s interesting how the description of the weirwood in WH could be a description of Wyman Manderly, who doesn’t even worship the Old Gods.

“Glover led him along a darkened hall and down a flight of worn steps. They crossed the castle’s godswood, where the heart tree had grown so huge and tangled that it had choked out all the oaks and elms and birch and sent its thick, pale limbs crashing through the walls and windows that looked down on it. Its roots were as thick around as a man’s waist, its trunk so wide that the face carved into it looked fat and angry.”

[The Fattest Leech]

Bran is wed to the trees via the paste, the weirwood paste, just as Daenerys is wed to fire via her fire "wedding" funeral pyre. GRRM has said these two have the most magical content to their arcs, so it makes sense they go through similar growing powers processes.

Bloodraven is offering himself, as the old ways tell, in an imperfect parallel as Drogo or Rhaego was the one consumed for Dany. (Mirri was for the birthing songs, the bloody battle that women endure)

It's only as difficult as you make it.

[Eli Cross]

On 5/17/2020 at 11:11 PM, Brandon Ice-Eyes V1 said:

So basically did House Stark once partake in Blood Sacrifice and are we given any idea as to why they stopped if they did?

The White Walkers required it.  Craster was doing the same thing.  The North belongs to the Others and you have to pay to stay.

[dialt]

14 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

With regards to the idea of the "weirwood's face is the magical stamp of the one sacrifice made before a weirwood" ... some type of consecration idea.

As intruiging it may be, Bran's strong "nooo, don't," reaction does not seem to fit with that, and in fact we also learn that faces aren't necessary for a greenseer to see.

 

14 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

And if this was true, then why doesn't the weirwood's face in Winterfell's godswood doesn't alter into maester Luwin's face after Osha mercy killed him as he lay between the roots the tree, bleeding out already anyway. Theon prayed to the tree several times. You'd think he'd recognize maester Luwin's face, no?

My guess is in fact that what Bran sees is the consacration of the tree. So to speack. Therefore the face carved/melted with that tree is the one of the man who was sacrified to "create" that heart-tree.

What happens on subsequent occasions is not a new consecration, but a "ritual" - at times involuntary - that recalls, celebrates that founding event.

To use a comparison, during the last supper Jesus consecrates bread and wine as his doby and blood, in the Catholic Mass the priest "repeats the rite" and the host becomes Jesus - for those who believe - not the priest.

Of course the big difference is that in the Christian/Catholic tradition is a God that is sacrified and eaten by the worshippers. Not the contrary. But that is its uniqeuness. And in any case, what matters for us is that what happens during the Mass is an echo/repetition/homage of an ancient founding event. Not a new "founding" event.

About the "nooo" we have 2 more cases.

- “No matter,” said Hullen. “They be dead soon enough too.”
Bran gave a wordless cry of dismay.
“The sooner the better,” Theon Greyjoy agreed. He drew his sword. “Give the beast here, Bran.”
The little thing squirmed against him, as if it heard and understood. “No!” Bran cried out fiercely. “It’s mine.”
“Put away your sword, Greyjoy,” Robb said. For a moment he sounded as commanding as their father, like the lord he would someday be. “We will keep these pups.” - AGOT BRAN I

- The smell of blood hung heavy in the air, and the sounds the dying dogs had made were terrible to hear, yet Loptail still came when father called him. He was the oldest dog, and his training overcame his terror. By the time Lump slipped inside his skin it was too late.
“No, Father, please”, he tried to say, but dogs cannot speak the tongues of men, so all that emerged was a piteous whine. - ADWD PROLOGUE

The scene from AGOT, is about the pups. But: the party is coming back from Gared's execution. The man was dragged on his knee and beheaded. In ADWD prologue, as a consequence of what we're reading in that quote "his father dragged him [joung Varamyr] into the woods. He brought his axe, so Lump thought he meant to put him down the same way he had done the dogs. Instead he’d given him to Haggon". So you have 3 people dragged and put on their knees. Two are executed. One is spared. So are the pups in AGOT BRAN I and Varamyr. Plus, Bran's pup seems to understand what's being said (but he cannot speak, thankfully Robb and Jon speak for the pups). Varamyr's dogs cannot speak the toungues of men.  Same as Bran, in ADWD BRAN III.

Overall there's a sheme/model at play in some variations. But it's basically made of: a human being dragged, put on his knees and about to be executed. The topic of speaking/not speaking (and as a consequence of being heard/understood). Mercy. It all with different esits.

Of course we can draw different conclusions.  I have mines, but others can be fair, interesting. But I'd stress out that these are the pieces to put together.

22 hours ago, LynnS said:

Leaf says it is to wed Bran to the tree.

True. But there's another kind of wedding we're made aware of...

Wolves were harder. A man might befriend a wolf, even break a wolf, but no man could truly tame a wolf. “Wolves and women wed for life,” Haggon often said. “You take one, that’s a marriage. The wolf is part of you from that day on, and you’re part of him. Both of you will change.” 

Coincidence? I don't think so.

 

[LynnS]

29 minutes ago, lalt said:

22 hours ago, LynnS said:

Leaf says it is to wed Bran to the tree.

True. But there's another kind of wedding we're made aware of...

Wolves were harder. A man might befriend a wolf, even break a wolf, but no man could truly tame a wolf. “Wolves and women wed for life,” Haggon often said. “You take one, that’s a marriage. The wolf is part of you from that day on, and you’re part of him. Both of you will change.” 

Coincidence? I don't think so.

That doesn't sound inconsistent with what happens when Bran is wed to the tree:  The tree is part of you from that day on, and you're part of the tree.  Both of you will change.
 

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A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

"Once you have mastered your gifts, you may look where you will and see what the trees have seen, be it yesterday or last year or a thousand ages past. Men live their lives trapped in an eternal present, between the mists of memory and the sea of shadow that is all we know of the days to come. Certain moths live their whole lives in a day, yet to them that little span of time must seem as long as years and decades do to us. An oak may live three hundred years, a redwood tree three thousand. A weirwood will live forever if left undisturbed. To them seasons pass in the flutter of a moth's wing, and past, present, and future are one. Nor will your sight be limited to your godswood. The singers carved eyes into their heart trees to awaken them, and those are the first eyes a new greenseer learns to use … but in time you will see well beyond the trees themselves."

"When?" Bran wanted to know.

"In a year, or three, or ten. That I have not glimpsed. It will come in time, I promise you. But I am tired now, and the trees are calling me. We will resume on the morrow."

 

  

[sweetsunray]

31 minutes ago, lalt said:

The scene from AGOT, is about the pups. But: the party is coming back from Gared's execution. The man was dragged on his knee and beheaded. In ADWD prologue, as a consequence of what we're reading in that quote "his father dragged him [joung Varamyr] into the woods. He brought his axe, so Lump thought he meant to put him down the same way he had done the dogs. Instead he’d given him to Haggon". So you have 3 people dragged and put on their knees. Two are executed. One is spared. So are the pups in AGOT BRAN I and Varamyr. Plus, Bran's pup seems to understand what's being said (but he cannot speak, thankfully Robb and Jon speak for the pups). Varamyr's dogs cannot speak the toungues of men.  Same as Bran, in ADWD BRAN III.

Overall there's a sheme/model at play in some variations. But it's basically made of: a human being dragged, put on his knees and about to be executed. The topic of speaking/not speaking (and as a consequence of being heard/understood). Mercy. It all with different esits.

Well, as you admit yourself, those were executions, not consecrating sacrifices.

[dialt]

@sweetsunrayYes. But as I have said prior... I don’t think that there were/are other sacrifices but those needed to aweken the trees. That’s the point I was trying to make (and that Craster’s story is a red herring, that he has other motives). 
So - in regards to the “nooo don’t” scenes - you have 1 sacrifice (in Bran’s vision) and 2 parallel scenes that “echo” that sacrifice (AGOT Bran I and ADWD prologue) Not two more rituals. I take those 2 parallels scenes as clues, hints, foreshadowing the ritual.
The other ritual is Bran “wedding”. The paste. And that’s another reason as to why I think... that a human sacrifice in the ritual is needed to be a ritual.

But that’s me of course.

@lynnS I didn’t make that comment  to say that they are inconsistent. Quite the contrary. I interprete it pretty much as you do.

[Rose of Red Lake]

On 5/17/2020 at 8:46 PM, Lady Dacey said:

What Bran saw was a woman killing a man in front of the weirwood. We do not know what was her intention, we have no grasp of what was happening. Killing in front of a weirwood tree might be just a ceremonial execution, for example. What makes killing "sacrifice" is expecting something in return from the deities that life has been offered to. As an example, in this world where capital punishment is the norm, if someone who has committed a crime and has been judged guilty is the executed in front of a weirwood, is that "blood sacrifice"? If there is a duel in the godswood that leaves one person dead, was that "blood sacrifice"? 

Pre-modern sacrifices werent always religious, and they have a lot of similarities to modern day executions. Both are systematic, ritualized, legitimated, killings for the purposes of social control, to help maintain stability (in their view). And, both examples expect something in return for the killing: for chaos to transform into order. Whether the chaos is believed to be sourced from nature or humans themselvesdoesnt matter that much in the grand scheme of things. Beliefs are essentially the same, someone has to die to make the crops grow or the cannibalism stop. 

[sweetsunray]

On 5/19/2020 at 7:33 PM, Ygrain said:

This is the crux of the matter: why use this stereotypical imagery in the first place? Definitely not for Bran's benefit - Westeros does not have the sickle-wielding druid stereotype, he won't place the pieces together. It must be for the benefit of the reader then, just like when we see through Bran's eyes the twincest in the tower and know what it means while Bran does not. What would be the point of misleading the reader into a false conclusion, what purpose would it have in the story?

For this reason -

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Too many contemporary Fantasies take the easy way out by externalizing the struggle [between good and evil], so the heroic protagonists need only smite the evil minions of the dark power to win the day. And you can tell the evil minions, because they're inevitably ugly and they all wear black. I wanted to stand much of that on its head. In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which. (Sunsets of High Renown, an interview with GRRM, by Nick Gevers)

This is pretty much George's philosophy in his writing since decades. Indeed, he doesn't use the image of an old woman for Bran's benefit, though who knows what Old Nan has told him about witches, the same way she misinformed Jon and Bran about giants- he uses "appearances" to poke the reader's prejudice and then gradually desconstructs it, in repeated stages, and in particular in Bran's arc.

TREES

It starts with the trees: in the prologue they're portrayed as the nightmarish things that evoke memories of Snowwhite running scared in the night and grabbing trees with maws away from the evil queen and her hunter (though on closer inspection they actually seem to "act" protectively of our three rangers). Then our first introduction to the weirwood tree with a face is that in Catelyn's chapter who turns her back to it and how it gives her the shivers. Then follows Bran's run through Winterfell to say goodbye and how he's scared of the weirwood tree. The true danger isn't the weirwood tree though, but the man who chucks him out of a window. Then in aCoK, we're shown how the weirwood can be used as a safeguard (Meera and Jojen climbing into the tree to avoid being bitten by Summer and Shaggydog). We're reminded of this sheltering role (btw it was in truth a shelter for Will too, if he had stayed in his tree until dawn) with Wex.

COTF, GIANTS

Next phase - Bran now finds peace within the godswood, and is reminded by Osha of the existence of giants and the CotF. Old Nan's tales about giants are stereotypical fairytale like, but incorrect. Luwin "educates" Bran that giants and CotF don't exist, and if they did they're all dead now. George deconstrcuts the giants in aSoS through Jon's arc with the Free Folk and Wun Wun in aDwD at CB.  When Bran dreams his father dead, he begins to talk of the ellusive children coming to save them like in the stories, and Luwin emulating the secular reader the most telling Bran they're all dead and gone. All of these are stereotypical images, evoking the idea of Tolkien Elves who have left for the west. It's not until aDwD we actually see our first CotFs.  CotF aren't even remotely like fairies such as in LotR, and they're not all dead and gone. They're a species or race, having to hide in caves, and there's no sailing west for them. 

GREENSEERS

Catelyn introduces us to tales about CotF greenseers as wizards with all sorts of powers at Moat Cailin as if they just have to wriggle their hands and speak a spell and voila Hammer of the Waters: an army of Gandalfs the White. While Luwin dismisses their existence and their powers. George gradually deconstructed it with the introduction of Jojen in aCoK - a green dreamer: the first introduction to an ability that Luwin once again dismisses until he realizes he was wrong, and Jojen at least can give a definition to a greenseer's abilties - skinchanger + green dreamer in one. Greenseers aren't wizards like Gandalf. While their powers are great when it comes to seeing accurately far in the past and they are exceptional skinchangers, it's nothing like the wizardry stuff of moving oceans and seas to drown an enemy, or mending a boy's broken back.

HUMAN SACRIFICE

Each puzzle piece was introduced to the reader as a stereotype, not all at once, but gradually. As one stereotype was deconstructed, a new stereotype was introduced, only to be deconstructed again. And I'm wrong when I don't jump to the conclusion that an old hag with a sickle killing a captive man before a tree is evidence of human sacrifice, just as it is introduced to us after George deconstructed all the other stereotypes (who were stereotypes for the reader)? Just when right after Bran's last scene in his POV is followed up by the deconstructive narrative of Theon communicating with Bran at the heart tree, confessing his crimes, begging for mercy?

Yes, I question the image of an old woman with a sickle and what is actually going on, exactly because it fits the prejudiced image of druidic human sacrifice, right when he reveals in a POV, not through hearsay, what a greenseer's abilities are - the ability to see through the veil of eras and ages, to long forgotten pasts. Add the fact how much "justice" and especially the imperfection and lack of justice by both corrupt as well as well intentioned judges is a theme in the series, in fact is part of the very first chapter of the series after the prologue, and this is where the deconstruction imo is leading towards: greenseers as the magical solution for the failing justice in Westeros. It is possible that it's not so much deconstruction as it is a nuancing and greying by George, but I doubt it's just nuancing when he deconstructed every other stereotype.

None of these stereotypes were ever meant as stereotypes for Bran to recognize as "oh, they're stereotypes", so it makes little sense to ask "for Bran or for the reader?". For Bran it's how these beings and abilities and events are introduced to him, and they "just are". Bran isn't reading fantasy genre books in world. The stereotypes are stereotypical only for the reader. Nor do I claim that a "human sacrifice is used as examplary lesson to put greenseers off of it".... Bran himself never thinks "Oh, it's a sacrifice... Nooo, don't sacrifice!". Bran describes what he sees - a man being killed - and we as reader think "ooh, an old woman with a sickle! That's human sacrifice! Nooooo!".

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Absolutely not. If we saw Ned executed by an old woman holding a sickle, we'd go, WTF?! because neither old women nor sickles are commonly used for executions. And we'd go WTF?! even more if the stairs drank blood because that's not what steps normally do (and neither do tree roots). Such deviations from the normal pattern would immediately set us on high alert wondering what is going on and what is the meaning behind that all.

[...]

That's kinda beside the point. How the heck does a tree convey taste? Even magical trees have only been shown to function as cameras, with or without sound. How come it suddenly transmits taste, and why is this single occasion connected with blood?! That's what's so, forgive the pun, bloody suspicious, and makes me think there is more to it than just merely a lesson for the greenseer not to take a life lightly.

You wouldn't go WTF if George led us through a Westeros society step by step where executioners can be women, if instead of Ilyn Payne, George introduced us to Alyce Payne in Sansa's chapter, and has everyone behave to her as if she's the executioner. And in Bran's imagery that he sees prior to the old woman, are other women praying and wishing before the heart tree. In fact, apart from Ned asking that Jon and Robb may grow up as brothers and Bloodraven making weirwoord arrows, most other imagery that George focuses long enough to include in an actual scene that's a mini story are women, none of which seem to fit into the patriarchical role for women. Which is surprising since even the North is portrayed as heavily patriatic.

A lot of objects are described to "drink" something (blood, light, ...) which is a figure of speech. That's the figure of speech I was after in the "stairs drinking blood".

You are correct though to at least put a question mark after Bran actually tasting the blood. It's a taste he recognizes and knows because he warged Summer while Summer hunted and ate prey, which BTW is further evidence that Bran would have recognized the taste of human blood if Jojen Paste theory was true - what he presumed to be tree sap, must have been tree sap, or he'd have recognized the blood taste. (Also true for Bran having tasted the marrow as Summer, and then not recognizing the taste of "Jojen's brains"?... nah). And while it's true that trees normally don't "drink blood", blood does soak into earth, or falls onto leaves, stem and roots. Trees also don't "see" or "hear" or "whisper". And yet, Bran sees, hears, whispers (in Theon's chapters) while skinchanging the tree. So, to me Bran "tasting blood" is just another thing he can do while skinchanging a tree, even though the tree itself cannot. As a skinchanger goes into a tree, or animal, he doesn't lose his sensitory and communicative abilities, so for him if blood falls onto say the stem, Bran can taste that.

In analogy, you could ask yourself: why does Bran keep his mental abilities while skinchanging Hodor, when from Bran's POV we know Hodor's mind is truly limited? Hodor is truly a disabled mind, and yet Bran can still think like Bran while skinchanging him. But you don't. You accept that Bran retains his mind en cognitive abilities when doing this. You accept that Bran can see and hear, though a tree doesn't have real eyes or real ears, but your suspicion is only raised as it being illogical when Bran tastes via the tree.

As for its importance: the sensation of taste is what Bran (and the reader) has as sensitory "evidence" that what he saw really happened. It's not just Bloodraven playing a mental trick on him and given him "fake news" (conjuring a fake image to him).

 

[Frey family reunion]

On 5/30/2020 at 7:17 AM, sweetsunray said:

This is pretty much George's philosophy in his writing since decades. Indeed, he doesn't use the image of an old woman for Bran's benefit, though who knows what Old Nan has told him about witches, the same way she misinformed Jon and Bran about giants- he uses "appearances" to poke the reader's prejudice and then gradually desconstructs it, in repeated stages, and in particular in Bran's arc.

I’m going to have to disagree with this bit.  The image of the old woman with the bronze sickle, doesn’t so much play to my “prejudices” concerning witches from any outside stereotypes, it instead brings to mind a maegi already established in the series who also used a bronze instrument for what appeared to be a ceremonial slaying. 

And I think that may be intentional.  Mirri using the bronze knife to cut the throat of the horse, so its spirit may be transferred to Drogo, may be an intentional parallel to what Bran is seeing through the tree.  The old woman cutting the throat of a man perhaps so his spirit may be transferred into the Weirwood.

[sweetsunray]

1 hour ago, Frey family reunion said:

I’m going to have to disagree with this bit.  The image of the old woman with the bronze sickle, doesn’t so much play to my “prejudices” concerning witches from any outside stereotypes, it instead brings to mind a maegi already established in the series who also used a bronze instrument for what appeared to be a ceremonial slaying. 

And I think that may be intentional.  Mirri using the bronze knife to cut the throat of the horse, so its spirit may be transferred to Drogo, may be an intentional parallel to what Bran is seeing through the tree.  The old woman cutting the throat of a man perhaps so his spirit may be transferred into the Weirwood.

Bronze would be the metal of the old woman's era. MIrri doesn't use a sickle, but a leaf bladed knife with glyphs in an iron age.

That said, I do think that old woman is likely a "woods witch", like Morna. But if she's the main interpreter/communicator of a greenseer's judgment, it makes the most sense for her to be the executioner. Except for Lyanna and Benjen sparring, everybody else there does something in front of the tree while communicating to the "Old Gods" - Ned prays, Old Nan and her hunk declare their love for another, a woman begs for a son to avenge her, while Bloodraven is a greenseer. And every scene represents sociatal (including legal) events in relation to weirwoods - children (innocense) gets play freely without awareness, prayer and child rearing, declaring love/marriage, childbirth and revenge, preparing for war. What is missing is justice and execution. And through the tale of Wolf's Den we know that judgment and execution must be part of it too, btw a judgment that was not performed by the King Stark - that is, he wasn't the judge. He let the people enslaved and tortured by the slaver be the judges and executioners (they were the witnesses after all). The original representation that only the Starks judge and execute turned out to be wrong. It falls to the Lords Stark only because in the much much later 7K, only Wardens, LPs, and Lords/Ladies are empowered by the law to perform the King's Justice. And we see Ned still deliver Gared's spirit to the tree, when he washes the blood of Ice at the foot of the tree. It's not something one has to do to empower a weirwood.

It just makes the most sense to me that one of the roles greenseers of old had, for society, was to be the judge for criminals, more than being a witness to sacrifices he or she demaned. But as they could not be physically present, the woods witch doing the listening and interpreting, and in a closest relationship with the greenseer would wield the knife, and since the greenseer would be doing the judging it would of course happen in front of the tree, which is also the fastest way to set the criminal's soul free where it will want to go - into the tree.

[Khal Eazy]

I definitely think the old woman with the sickle was a Stark or related to them. Imo, she was certainly sacrificing to the Heart Tree praying for vengeance or favor of the old gods. I think the Heart Trees and Green Seers are a form of blood magic - hence why Martin emphasizes blood so much in that chapter. 

When Ned executes the deserter from the Nights Watch Ned didnt do it in the God's Wood in front of the Tree. So it seems significant that the old woman chose to do it there for some specific purpose beyond just killing the captive. My guess is that the Starks practiced human sacrifice for hundreds/thousands of years (who knows why, maybe part of the Pact or something similar) and somewhere along the way they stopped or forgot about it. Maybe Rickard and Brynden knew about it but never told Eddard before they died. 

When Roose Bolton is talking with Theon about how some Northern houses still practice the right of first night and alludes to other older darker practices. He even brings up the Skagosi saying something like "Only Heart Trees see half of what they do on Skagos."

The Starks have some dark past to uncover and human sacrifice is a rapped up in it. Whether it was for altruistic or selfish purposes will be interesting to find out.

[sweetsunray]

3 hours ago, Khal Eazy said:

When Ned executes the deserter from the Nights Watch Ned didnt do it in the God's Wood in front of the Tree. So it seems significant that the old woman chose to do it there for some specific purpose beyond just killing the captive.

Perhaps, because the Starks have forgotten that executions used to be done in front of weirwoods with greenseers as judges?

600 years earlier, a King Stark beat up slavers who had sailed up the White Knife at the Wolf's Den. He freed the people they had tortured and imprisoned in the Wolf's Den. King Stark did not do the judging or executing. He gave the slavers to the people he freed to do what they believed just. The freed prisoners killed them and hanged their entrails in the tree at the Wolf's Den. This should already tell you that Ned's wa - only a Lord Stark and away from a weirwood - is not the way of a 1000s of years.

So, yes, it seems significant that the old woman does it in front of the tree with a greenseer watching. Ned's way is barely a glimmer of what it used to be.

3 hours ago, Khal Eazy said:

When Roose Bolton is talking with Theon about how some Northern houses still practice the right of first night and alludes to other older darker practices. He even brings up the Skagosi saying something like "Only Heart Trees see half of what they do on Skagos."

Ah, there are some very dark and scary tales about the Skagosi: cannibalism and human sacrifice. We don't know much about them. It's quite clear they shun outsiders. They also rose up into rebellion at some point (during the era when uncle Starks wed their nieces Starks, after Cregan died). Officially they're part of the Northern territory, but they get to govern themselves. And those tales helps big time with that - nobody dares to go there, for fear of being eaten or sacrificed. You can use propaganda to conquer, but also to keep people from sticking their nose into your business, especially when those noses begin to ape dragonlord incest, and begin to build septs.

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Qavo laughed. "If even half the stories coming back from Slaver's Bay are true, this child is a monster. They say that she is bloodthirsty, that those who speak against her are impaled on spikes to die lingering deaths. They say she is a sorceress who feeds her dragons on the flesh of newborn babes, an oathbreaker who mocks the gods, breaks truces, threatens envoys, and turns on those who have served her loyally. They say her lust cannot be sated, that she mates with men, women, eunuchs, even dogs and children, and woe betide the lover who fails to satisfy her. She gives her body to men to take their souls in thrall." (aDwD, Tyrion VI)

Is the above true?