Jump to content

Why do so many people believe the Night’s King bride was an ...(Spoilers)


level52

Recommended Posts

Why do so many people believe the Night’s King married and had sex with a female other?  No offense to anyone who believes the so-called “Night’s Queen” was an other.  She’s described as having cold skin and blue eyes just like an Other so ostensibly it makes sense.

But besides the practical reasons that would make sex between an Other and a human impossible, doesn’t the description of the Night’s Queen seem more like fanciful legend that’s been embellished after several millennia of retelling?  

Furthermore, she’s described as a “corpse queen” (ASOS ch. 54).  In the show the Others are depicted as corpse-like, but not in the books.  It’s explicitly suggested in TWOIAF she may have been a Barrowland Queen (page 145).  And there’s mention of a legendary curse in the Barrowlands that makes “pretenders” seeking to rule the Barrowlands become corpse-like in appearance (TWOIAF page 135). 

So the Night’s Queen has pale, cold skin; she’s  described by legends as a “corpse queen”; there are legends of a curse that could Barrowland’s wannabe rulers appear corpse-like; and discussion in TWOIAF (page 137) of The Barrow King giving his daughter to Starks after losing a centuries-long war.  

So it makes more sense the Night’s Queen is a woman from the Barrowlands, perhaps a sorceress, than an Other.  The inclusion of blue eyes doesn’t fit, but likely comes from legend rather than fact. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does it say she looks like a corpse anywhere? Because being a corpse queen doesn't necessarily mean she looked like a corpse or was undead, it may mean she ruled over corpses, such as how the Others raise and are served by the dead.

That the Others and humans are not likely to be able to have sex isn't something I think matters, you're looking for the historic truth in a story that only exists for purposes of foreshadowing the present story. The question is what is it foreshadowing. And it's interesting you say a sorceress, because while I'm not at all confident in it, my stab at the meaning is Melisandre, her faith grants her fire, so says the text, I think she may lose faith and thus become an ice sorceress. The corpse queen descriptions seem to focus on the same areas as Melisandre's descriptions. Stannis is to become the Night's King, they're coupling, sacrificing their "children".

Lady Barbrey's future would be another candidate to echo the story somehow.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, chrisdaw said:

Does it say she looks like a corpse anywhere? Because being a corpse queen doesn't necessarily mean she looked like a corpse or was undead, it may mean she ruled over corpses, such as how the Others raise and are served by the dead.

That the Others and humans are not likely to be able to have sex isn't something I think matters, you're looking for the historic truth in a story that only exists for purposes of foreshadowing the present story. The question is what is it foreshadowing. And it's interesting you say a sorceress, because while I'm not at all confident in it, my stab at the meaning is Melisandre, her faith grants her fire, so says the text, I think she may lose faith and thus become an ice sorceress. The corpse queen descriptions seem to focus on the same areas as Melisandre's descriptions. Stannis is to become the Night's King, they're coupling, sacrificing their "children".

Lady Barbrey's future would be another candidate to echo the story somehow.

I agree.  I think we are being set-up for three Night King/Corpse Queen scenarios:

- Stannis and Mel

- Jon and Val

- and potentially, Euron and the woman with hands of white fire from the Foresaken chapter.

In the original story of the Night King giving his seed to the Corpse Queen; I don't interpret this as the physical act. This is a time when the men of the NW were not prohibited from siring children or having a wife.  These restrictions are added to the oath later.  So it's conceivable that the NK did have offspring that he 'sacrificed' to the Corpse Queen.  Even then, I don't think we are talking about actually killing his own children.  The other stories of the Night Fort may fill in the gaps. 

I'm thinking of the story of four apprentice boys who were visited by the thing that comes in the night.  I'm going to say comes in their dreams to test them as Bran, Euron and Jaime were tested.  Euron leaps off some tall tower to see if he can fly;  Bran falls from the tower and Jaime repeatedly jumps off the towers of Casterly rock into sea; until Tywin puts a stop to it. 

The three apprentice boys die in the story, or fail the test for flying and are sacrificed in a sense. The fourth goes mad and becomes Mad Axe.

As for Stannis and possibly Euron; their transformations will take on the horror of the Night King story in all it's supernatural aspects; while Jon's transformation into a Night King figure is much more subtle.

This might be a bit of foreshadowing:
 

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Jon IX

But he had not left the Wall for that; he had left because he was after all his father's son, and Robb's brother. The gift of a sword, even a sword as fine as Longclaw, did not make him a Mormont. Nor was he Aemon Targaryen. Three times the old man had chosen, and three times he had chosen honor, but that was him. Even now, Jon could not decide whether the maester had stayed because he was weak and craven, or because he was strong and true. Yet he understood what the old man had meant, about the pain of choosing; he understood that all too well.

Tyrion Lannister had claimed that most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it, but Jon was done with denials. He was who he was; Jon Snow, bastard and oathbreaker, motherless, friendless, and damned. For the rest of his life—however long that might be—he would be condemned to be an outsider, the silent man standing in the shadows who dares not speak his true name. Wherever he might go throughout the Seven Kingdoms, he would need to live a lie, lest every man's hand be raised against him. But it made no matter, so long as he lived long enough to take his place by his brother's side and help avenge his father.

 We could surmise that the original Night King was also a bastard, oathbreaker, motherless, friendless, damned, condemned as an outsider and his name stricken from the record.  We don't know his true name, only that he was a Stark. 

Val as a potential Ice Queen is also interesting.  Jon thinks her lovely and espies her from his location at the Wall:

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.

And then, on her return from her mission, beyond the Wall:

Quote

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.

So we start getting the set-up here for Val as Jon's 'ice' queen.  How is it that Val's eyes are turned blue unless she has been given temporary immunity from the wights, WWs and the cold as she ventures out alone with just Ghost for protection. Who does she really meet for negotiations?  GRRM has said that Dany was given temporary immunity from fire.  Val's change in eye color could indicate the same thing for ice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, LynnS said:

How is it that Val's eyes are turned blue unless she has been given temporary immunity from the wights, 

A minor point, but this is not a 'thing' to question. Certain eye shades appear grey sometimes and blue other times. That is totally normal and natural. My sister has eyes like that. I assure you, she's not had dealings with Others or wights.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, corbon said:

A minor point, but this is not a 'thing' to question. Certain eye shades appear grey sometimes and blue other times. That is totally normal and natural. My sister has eyes like that. I assure you, she's not had dealings with Others or wights.

That's the argument against.  But why is GRRM pointing it out in Jon's POV and confusing the issue in the first place.  If it means nothing why bother at all?

And what are you doing up so early?  It's 3 am here. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

48 minutes ago, LynnS said:

That's the argument against.  But why is GRRM pointing it out in Jon's POV and confusing the issue in the first place.  If it means nothing why bother at all?

The point is, its not an issue. GRRM isn't 'confusing things', he's just writing realistically.

Quote

And what are you doing up so early?  It's 3 am here. 

I'm at my 'here', not your 'here'. You seem to be in some backward hick country 16 or 17 hours behind real places. :P;)B)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, corbon said:

The point is, its not an issue. GRRM isn't 'confusing things', he's just writing realistically.

The only other time he does the eye color switch is with Qyburn.  Jaime sees him with brown eyes and Cersei sees Qyburn with blue eyes according to the effect he wants to have on them.  An obvious glamour.  He presents himself to Jaime as uthreatening (because Jaime is threatened by him).  With Cersei she is reminded of Barriston the Bold but can't quite put her finger on it.

Martin isn't just using a trick of the light with all the emphasis he puts on eyes and eye color.  

I know you reject most of this stuff as a matter of principle. Your objection is noted.:)

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I see why people believe that she was an Others-like figure.

However, the story goes that the Night’s King glimpsed her from the atop the Wall and “Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her”.

To me, it looks like that he “stalked” her. Pretty much how Varamyr used to stalk the women form the villages nearby.

So, if she’s a corpse Queen... maybe that is because he mind controlled her body.

Maybe the point is how much a powerful skinchanger he was, not that she was an Others-like figure.

And if so... maybe it's not that he sacrified the children. He simply didn't care about them.

But she? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, LynnS said:

The only other time he does the eye color switch is with Qyburn

There’s Renly as well, changing from green to blue or vice versa. :)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Right but wasn't that because of his green armor?  Special from Tohbo Mott.  Magicked up in some way.

Was it? I’m not sure, but .i thought Martin was on the record saying it had been a mistake? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, kissdbyfire said:

Was it? I’m not sure, but .i thought Martin was on the record saying it had been a mistake? 

Oh.  It seems that Sansa first sees Renly in his green armor and his eyes are green.  Without the armor his eyes are blue.  We learn from Tohbo Mott that he made this armor for Renly (Ned's visit to Gendry) and from Tywin we get that Tobho Mott knows spells for working metal.  I don't recall Martin going on record that this was a mistake.  I know he said that he relied on Ran and Linda to keep these things straight.  So, perhaps it was a mistake.  I don't know.  But I can's see Ran or Linda letting that get by them unless it was deliberate.

We have another example where Tyrion tells Griff that coloring his hair blue makes his eyes appear more blue than they might otherwise be.  The same thing with Renley's armor perhaps?  But I think there is more than just a little magic there.

It would be disappointing if it was a mistake and GRRM just forgot.  But then, I forget a lot of stuff these days. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@LynnS, I wasn’t sure so I did some digging and found this SSM:

He did note with some amusement that his readers catch his mistakes for him (Renly's eyes being green once, then blue, and then calling them 'blue-green eyes that changed color depending on what he wears' as an out). Ditto with various horse gender oopses.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

@LynnS, I wasn’t sure so I did some digging and found this SSM:

He did note with some amusement that his readers catch his mistakes for him (Renly's eyes being green once, then blue, and then calling them 'blue-green eyes that changed color depending on what he wears' as an out). Ditto with various horse gender oopses.

Interestiing bit about the Sandkings...

Quote

He did note with some amusement that his readers catch his mistakes for him (Renly's eyes being green once, then blue, and then calling them 'blue-green eyes that changed color depending on what he wears' as an out). Ditto with various horse gender oopses.

Here's the thing with George;  I never know if he is just letting people think what they want to think.  Because he does in fact use clothing color to change eye color as Tyrion points out with Griff.  I think he's dissembling on that answer. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, LynnS said:

Here's the thing with George;  I never know if he is just letting people think what they want to think.  Because he does in fact use clothing color to change eye color as Tyrion points out with Griff.  I think he's dissembling on that answer. 

I think in this case he (and his editors) made a genuine mistake (Renly being all handsome etc with green family armour, but forgetting that Baratheon Blue eyes are actually a key plot point!) and he just jokingly covered it.
I suspect Renly's eyes are very much the clear blue Baratheon colour, not a different blue/green mix.

My sister has grey/blue eyes. Thats pretty common.
Mine are hazel (green/brown mix). My wife's and son's eyes are dark brown but my daughter's are a slightly lighter mid-brown with a darker ring, so maybe a touch of my hazel genes compared to my wife's dark asian brown genes. But the last few months (she's 7, well past baby-eye-change time) I've noticed them catching a green light at times.
Obviously purple eyes often look blue, grey or black at different times.
But green/blue? thats a new one on me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/25/2020 at 12:24 AM, chrisdaw said:

Does it say she looks like a corpse anywhere? Because being a corpse queen doesn't necessarily mean she looked like a corpse or was undead, it may mean she ruled over corpses, such as how the Others raise and are served by the dead.

That the Others and humans are not likely to be able to have sex isn't something I think matters, you're looking for the historic truth in a story that only exists for purposes of foreshadowing the present story. The question is what is it foreshadowing. And it's interesting you say a sorceress, because while I'm not at all confident in it, my stab at the meaning is Melisandre, her faith grants her fire, so says the text, I think she may lose faith and thus become an ice sorceress. The corpse queen descriptions seem to focus on the same areas as Melisandre's descriptions. Stannis is to become the Night's King, they're coupling, sacrificing their "children".

Lady Barbrey's future would be another candidate to echo the story somehow.

The books don’t say she looks like a corpse or a white or an other; it describes her as “pale” and “cold”, two attributes that sound corpse-like, and also that she had blue eyes (an attribute of Wights and Others).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/25/2020 at 1:57 AM, LynnS said:

I agree.  I think we are being set-up for three Night King/Corpse Queen scenarios:

- Stannis and Mel

- Jon and Val

- and potentially, Euron and the woman with hands of white fire from the Foresaken chapter.

In the original story of the Night King giving his seed to the Corpse Queen; I don't interpret this as the physical act. This is a time when the men of the NW were not prohibited from siring children or having a wife.  These restrictions are added to the oath later.  So it's conceivable that the NK did have offspring that he 'sacrificed' to the Corpse Queen.  Even then, I don't think we are talking about actually killing his own children.  The other stories of the Night Fort may fill in the gaps. 

I'm thinking of the story of four apprentice boys who were visited by the thing that comes in the night.  I'm going to say comes in their dreams to test them as Bran, Euron and Jaime were tested.  Euron leaps off some tall tower to see if he can fly;  Bran falls from the tower and Jaime repeatedly jumps off the towers of Casterly rock into sea; until Tywin puts a stop to it. 

The three apprentice boys die in the story, or fail the test for flying and are sacrificed in a sense. The fourth goes mad and becomes Mad Axe.

As for Stannis and possibly Euron; their transformations will take on the horror of the Night King story in all it's supernatural aspects; while Jon's transformation into a Night King figure is much more subtle.

This might be a bit of foreshadowing:
 

 We could surmise that the original Night King was also a bastard, oathbreaker, motherless, friendless, damned, condemned as an outsider and his name stricken from the record.  We don't know his true name, only that he was a Stark. 

Val as a potential Ice Queen is also interesting.  Jon thinks her lovely and espies her from his location at the Wall:

And then, on her return from her mission, beyond the Wall:

So we start getting the set-up here for Val as Jon's 'ice' queen.  How is it that Val's eyes are turned blue unless she has been given temporary immunity from the wights, WWs and the cold as she ventures out alone with just Ghost for protection. Who does she really meet for negotiations?  GRRM has said that Dany was given temporary immunity from fire.  Val's change in eye color could indicate the same thing for ice.

The story says he gave his seed and “sacrificed” to the Others; to me the most reasonable interpretation is he reproduced with the Corpse Queen and have their children as the “sacrifice”.

Also notice that opening the Black Gate - which is as old as the Nightfort itself - requires reciting the Night’s Watch oath but does no include the part about fathering no children or taking no wives.  So it’s likely that part of the oath came after, perhaps as a result of, the Night’s King. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, level52 said:

The story says he gave his seed and “sacrificed” to the Others; to me the most reasonable interpretation is he reproduced with the Corpse Queen and have their children as the “sacrifice”.

Also notice that opening the Black Gate - which is as old as the Nightfort itself - requires reciting the Night’s Watch oath but does no include the part about fathering no children or taking no wives.  So it’s likely that part of the oath came after, perhaps as a result of, the Night’s King. 

Sure, if you want to take it literally, then you can see it that way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...