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Given Bran's vision of his ancestor killing a captive, how horrible were the Starks of old?


Rondo

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Bran was given a vision of one of his ancestors murdering a captive and feeding his blood to the Stark's weirwood tree.   So the Starks of old were practitioners of human sacrifice.  Is it possible that this practice only ended with the deaths of Rickard and Brandon Stark?  Ned was too young to inherit the family tradition.  

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We don't know that the people in that vision were Starks, I always took it to be first men living in what one time would become Winterfell.

Even then, I doubt the tradition ended with Rickard because Ned didn't know, he was 16 when his father and brother died, in contrast, Bran sees Ned execute Gared when he was Eight. Also, there'd be rumors about the Stark as there is about the Boltons flaying people. So if the Starks ever partook in it (which is likely) I'd say the stop before the conquest at the very minimum, probably a lot earlier.

But also, that wouldn't make them horrible even for current Westeros, killing captives is really common, offering them to Gods doesn't change the situation, unless you do it like R'lhor followers do (burning) or Drowned God followers do (drowning).

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55 minutes ago, Rondo said:

Bran was given a vision of one of his ancestors murdering a captive and feeding his blood to the Stark's weirwood tree.   So the Starks of old were practitioners of human sacrifice.  Is it possible that this practice only ended with the deaths of Rickard and Brandon Stark?  Ned was too young to inherit the family tradition.  

Ned grew up away from the Starks and that may explain why the human sacrifice ended.  He seems like a genuinely moral guy in his mature, if thirties can be considered old, years.  
 

The most probable time of when the Starks stopped the blood offerings was after the conquest.  World of ice and fire was written during the Baratheon rule.  The part where the Starks were killing people to nourish the trees would be omitted because it makes them look bad.  

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49 minutes ago, Barbrey Dustin said:

I think the Starks practicing blood sacrifice to weirwoods was a regular thing.  Viewed from the lens of the current story's time period, yeah, they would be horrible people.  

I think so too.  Fertilizing a growing tree one time is not going to do much.  The Starks were sacrificing people to trees for thousands of years.  

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Another thread that subtly calls out to all anti Starks. 

4 hours ago, CamiloRP said:

We don't know that the people in that vision were Starks, I always took it to be first men living in what one time would become Winterfell

:agree:

4 hours ago, CamiloRP said:

But also, that wouldn't make them horrible even for current Westeros, killing captives is really common, offering them to Gods doesn't change the situation, unless you do it like R'lhor followers do (burning) or Drowned God followers do (drowning).

Ta da! 

Don't forget feeding to dragons in Valyria. And after the Doom too

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13 minutes ago, TheLastWolf said:

Ta da! 

Don't forget feeding to dragons in Valyria. And after the Doom too

Feeding people to the dragons wasn't religious, tho the oficial Valiryan religion was likely R'lhor, which is def the most fucked up religion in ASOIAF

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14 minutes ago, TheLastWolf said:

Another thread that subtly calls out to all anti Starks. 

:agree:

Ta da! 

Don't forget feeding to dragons in Valyria. And after the Doom too

Not necessarily a hate thread.  It's a legitimate question.  You make valid points yourself about Valyria.  I will throw some Qohor in for flavor.  

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5 hours ago, Rondo said:

Bran was given a vision of one of his ancestors murdering a captive and feeding his blood to the Stark's weirwood tree.   So the Starks of old were practitioners of human sacrifice.  Is it possible that this practice only ended with the deaths of Rickard and Brandon Stark?  Ned was too young to inherit the family tradition.  

The Starks of old had names like The Hungry Wolf, Brandon the Breaker and Brandon Ice Eyes.  I think like many cultures, sacrifice to the gods was likely a big deal to the 1st Men in Westeros 10,000 years back.  Perhaps sooner even.  The 1st Men wrote with runes and I think we can safely assume they were primitive.   

That sacrificing to the weirwoods was no doubt a part of the Pact with the COTF.  What says the vision isn't telling us that specifically over someone simply being sacrificed?  Perhaps it's time the North remembered in the weirwoods' eyes.  

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7 minutes ago, CamiloRP said:

Feeding people to the dragons wasn't religious, tho the oficial Valiryan religion was likely R'lhor, which is def the most fucked up religion in ASOIAF

Valyria sacrificed in the mines and volcanoes presumably to make/keep dragons.  In that the Valyrians fancied themselves gods they might have viewed the sacrifice as being unto themselves.  There are tons of gods demanding sacrifice in this world.  Larra Rogarre was hated for the gods she worshipped.  

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3 minutes ago, Curled Finger said:

Valyria sacrificed in the mines and volcanoes presumably to make/keep dragons.  In that the Valyrians fancied themselves gods they might have viewed the sacrifice as being unto themselves.  There are tons of gods demanding sacrifice in this world.  Larra Rogarre was hated for the gods she worshipped.  

Well then yup. I actually just brought it up in another post about the prices of Valiryan magic, I argued that the slvaes and conquered countries were the 'blood price' Valiryans paid for magic.

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42 minutes ago, CamiloRP said:

Well then yup. I actually just brought it up in another post about the prices of Valiryan magic, I argued that the slvaes and conquered countries were the 'blood price' Valiryans paid for magic.

You know it's very funny sometimes.  I don't always find the words to appropriately express what I mean and there you went and did it for me.  

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6 hours ago, Rondo said:

Bran was given a vision of one of his ancestors murdering a captive and feeding his blood to the Stark's weirwood tree.   So the Starks of old were practitioners of human sacrifice.  Is it possible that this practice only ended with the deaths of Rickard and Brandon Stark?  Ned was too young to inherit the family tradition.  

They were savages who sacrificed to the trees directly and indirectly to their "gods."  We know that human sacrifice can pacify the White Walkers.  Craster was doing it until recently.  An ancient pact must have existed between the WW and the Starks.  Being a Stark, Craster was fulfilling this pact without realizing it.

5 hours ago, CamiloRP said:

We don't know that the people in that vision were Starks, I always took it to be first men living in what one time would become Winterfell.

Even then, I doubt the tradition ended with Rickard because Ned didn't know, he was 16 when his father and brother died, in contrast, Bran sees Ned execute Gared when he was Eight. Also, there'd be rumors about the Stark as there is about the Boltons flaying people. So if the Starks ever partook in it (which is likely) I'd say the stop before the conquest at the very minimum, probably a lot earlier.

But also, that wouldn't make them horrible even for current Westeros, killing captives is really common, offering them to Gods doesn't change the situation, unless you do it like R'lhor followers do (burning) or Drowned God followers do (drowning).

We can be confident that the woman who slit the victim's throat was a Stark.  The vision was a Stark family album.  She was a Stark.

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6 minutes ago, Quoth the raven, said:

We can be confident that the woman who slit the victim's throat was a Stark.  The vision was a Stark family album.  She was a Stark.

I'm not saying she wasn't, she could have been, but it's not a certainty, and it wasn't a stark family album, Bran sees the following:

Ned

What's likely Lyanna and Benjen

A pregnant woman, we get no clue who she is, but likely she isn't a Stark by blood, just the mother/wife of a Stark 

A slender girl kissing a young knight as tall as Hodor, now this is likely Dunk and some girl, but this girl likely isn't a Stark, so no Stark in this vision.

"A dark eyed youth' snapping branches from the trees and making arrows out of them. The dark eyes point at him not being a Stark, as Starks have grey eyes, tho this doesn't mean it's impossible for him to be a Stark, tho I doubt an old gods worshiping Stark would cut branches from a weirwood, some freefolk do so, but still, it feels off.

Bran then sees a bunch of Stark lords/kings he recognizes from the crypts, and the way in which they are dressed speaks of a long time ago.

Then he sees the sacrifice.

So rather than a Stark family album it's a film about everything that happened in front of WF's weirwood.

 

In the description he gives of the final vision he describes two persons:

A bearded man and a white haired woman. Nothing in their appearance points to any of them being a Stark, and Bran doesn't recognize any of them even tho he was just recognizing lords (how good are WF sculptors, right?)

But the most important thing he describes is a bronze sickle, this points to a period before the Andal invasion.

Now, the truth is that we don't know when House Stark was founded, but  we know the heart tree is older than Winterfell, and if WF and House Stark where created around the same time, it follows that the tree is older than House Stark. Also, having those hot springs around would make it quite a desirable place, first men groups would gather there. Also, as the passage is written, we get a sense that this is the last thing Bran sees, meaning it's likely the first thing of note to happen in front of the heart tree, which would be something that happened when the tree was first growing, as first men culture is built around these trees (but it was after the pact). With all of this combined we get that the event happened before the creation of House Stark.

Of course I could be dead wrong, tho thinking about it has convinced me more in that direction, but all I'm saying is we have no reason to take it as a certainty that the people in the vision where Starks.

 

 

 

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52 minutes ago, Quoth the raven, said:

They were savages who sacrificed to the trees directly and indirectly to their "gods."  We know that human sacrifice can pacify the White Walkers.  Craster was doing it until recently.  An ancient pact must have existed between the WW and the Starks.  Being a Stark, Craster was fulfilling this pact without realizing it.

How is Craster a Stark???

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Yeah, the argument the op seems to be trying to make here requires that we make a lot of assumptions. We have to assume:

1. The tree-sacrificers were Starks

2. The sacrifice victim was an innocent man and not a criminal or a Nights Watch deserter

3. The Starks regularly practiced human sacrifice

None of these things is actually made clear. The tree-sacrificers may have been Stark ancestors. They probably were. But the sacrifice appears to have been made before Winterfell was built, so it is very unlikely that these people were Starks themselves.

The sacrifice victim may have been innocent of wrongdoing. He may have been a criminal who murdered somebody and this was his punishment. We don't know.

The Starks may or may not have regularly practiced ritual human sacrifice through the centuries. It's very possible. If they did, they almost certainly stopped doing it, or there would be rumors about this still being a thing, similar to the rumors about the Boltons and flaying.

It seems pretty unlikely, therefor, that Ned's father and brother were secretly committing ritual sacrifices to the Winterfell heart tree. Ned would have been aware of that if it happened and probably would have taken part himself. But Rickard and Brandon weren't doing anything of the sort. 

And if the Starks made a habit of practicing human sacrifice to the heart tree, why did Bran see only that one example? Surely if they were all zelous tree-worshipping psychos, he would have seen more examples of human sacrifice than just the one?

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35 minutes ago, Nathan Stark said:

And if the Starks made a habit of practicing human sacrifice to the heart tree, why did Bran see only that one example? Surely if they were all zelous tree-worshipping psychos, he would have seen more examples of human sacrifice than just the one?

Admittedly, he might have seen more examples. We didn't get the most detailed account of his mind trip. I highly doubt we're going to see every single venture he makes into the past.

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The women in the vision may have been the daughter of brandon the daughterless. I wonder if Baels story may be an inverse of R+L=J. Basically its a rape thats remembered as a romance. Also we don't know if the captive was an innocent. This may have been a vision of lady Stark sacrificing a condemned man in hopes that Baels child be born a male that could be raised to into the lord of Winterfell.

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