Heresy 233 A Walk on the White Sid[h]e

[Melifeather]

If Bloodraven wore a glamour to appear as Maynard Plumm, should we question his appearance in the cave? I am wondering if the Kindly Man’s demonstration of glamours where Arya tried to pluck his worm is intended as a clue that all isn’t what it seems with Bloodraven? Maybe that isn’t even Bloodraven at all?

[LynnS]

15 hours ago, Tucu said:

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The nightfires had burned low, and as the east began to lighten the immense mass of Storm's End emerged like a dream of stone while wisps of pale mist raced across the field, flying from the sun on wings of wind. Morning ghosts, she had heard Old Nan call them once, spirits returning to their graves

That combines nicely with these two quotes from ADWD. First one from Tormund:

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A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up … how do you fight a mist, crow? Shadows with teeth … air so cold it hurts to breathe, like a knife inside your chest … you do not know, you cannot know … can your sword cut cold?"

and this one from Varamyr's trip:

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Then both were gone and he was rising, melting, his spirit borne on some cold wind. He was in the snow and in the clouds

I am waiting for TWOW to get clues of who the shadowbinders controlling them are.

This is really good!  This tells me that the white shadows/killing cold and the white walkers are two forms of the same thing. In the winter, mists become ice crystals.  So this is consistent with Sam breaking the spell and releasing the white 'mist' from it's body:

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

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

Tormund's comment about the knife in your chest calls to mind the failed greenseers surrounding the north poll, whose bones are speared with ice.  This is a psychic vision, so the actual bones are somewhere else.  In the North beyond the Wall, the dead are burned; so these must be very old graves.  The crypts Winterfell come to mind and also the graves in the north where Mance was digging and also in the lichyards at each fort along the Wall.

In the winter, the polar moon is always present.  A moon halo might explain the curtain of light,

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Halo (from Greek ἅλως, halōs[1]) is the name for a family of optical phenomena produced by light (typically from the Sun or Moon) interacting with ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. Halos can have many forms, ranging from colored or white rings to arcs and spots in the sky. Many of these appear near the Sun or Moon, but others occur elsewhere or even in the opposite part of the sky. Among the best known halo types are the circular halo (properly called the 22° halo), light pillars, and sun dogs, but many others occur; some are fairly common while others are (extremely) rare.

The ice crystals responsible for halos are typically suspended in cirrus or cirrostratus clouds in the upper troposphere (5–10 km (3.1–6.2 mi)), but in cold weather they can also float near the ground, in which case they are referred to as diamond dust. The particular shape and orientation of the crystals are responsible for the type of halo observed. Light is reflected and refracted by the ice crystals and may split into colors because of dispersion. The crystals behave like prisms and mirrors, refracting and reflecting light between their faces, sending shafts of light in particular directions. Atmospheric optical phenomena like halos were used as part of weather lore, which was an empirical means of weather forecasting before meteorology was developed. They often do indicate that rain will fall within the next 24 hours, since the cirrostratus clouds that cause them can signify an approaching frontal system.

 

So I wonder if the polar moon also acts as a moon-door for whatever sees through the eyes of the wights  The white shadows supply the army of the undead and the white walkers hold the wights in thrall. Both can be chased away by the sun, forced to return to their graves, the earth, the stone or the trees.  But in polar winter, the night is 25 hors long.,

[LynnS]

12 hours ago, Tucu said:

There are no shadows in the dark. Shadows are the servants of light

Yes, when the moon is obscured.  She does point out that Jon has been kissed by the moon and he is casting a shadow on the Wall twenty feet high.  Jon later takes note that Sam is also casting an enormous shadow in the moonlight.  So we can have servants of the sun or the moon. 

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

I doubt it, while there are occasions when they might step out into moonlight, but we're also told of darkness, fog and falling snow, so if its overcast there won't be much in the way of moonlight

Yep correct.  I should have asked if they are powered by the moon in some way.  The WW's  wear robes of silver seaweed; reflective material; armor made of ice mirrors.  So yes tricks of the light.

[LynnS]

Arya hears the story of Trios:

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A Dance with Dragons - The Ugly Little Girl

One time, the girl remembered, the Sailor's Wife had walked her rounds with her and told her tales of the city's stranger gods. "That is the house of the Great Shepherd. Three-headed Trios has that tower with three turrets. The first head devours the dying, and the reborn emerge from the third. I don't know what the middle head's supposed to do. Those are the Stones of the Silent God, and there the entrance to the Patternmaker's Maze. Only those who learn to walk it properly will ever find their way to wisdom, the priests of the Pattern say. Beyond it, by the canal, that's the temple of Aquan the Red Bull. Every thirteenth day, his priests slit the throat of a pure white calf, and offer bowls of blood to beggars."

The first head devours or consumes the dying.  Or is that the living who move closer to death as they live their lives,

The third head resurrects and preserves the soul.

Does this sound like the hinges of ice and fire? 

Nobody knows what the middle head is supposed to do.  Does this sound like the House of Black and White.  All men must die and do they maintain the balance between life and death; between ice and fire?

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A Game of Thrones - Prologue

Ser Waymar met it with steel. When the blades met, there was no ring of metal on metal; only a high, thin sound at the edge of hearing, like an animal screaming in pain. Royce checked a second blow, and a third, then fell back a step. Another flurry of blows, and he fell back again.

Behind him, to right, to left, all around him, the watchers stood patient, faceless, silent, the shifting patterns of their delicate armor making them all but invisible in the wood. Yet they made no move to interfere.

Who does Ned serve?

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A Game of Thrones - Catelyn I

Catelyn had been anointed with the seven oils and named in the rainbow of light that filled the sept of Riverrun. She was of the Faith, like her father and grandfather and his father before him. Her gods had names, and their faces were as familiar as the faces of her parents. Worship was a septon with a censer, the smell of incense, a seven-sided crystal alive with light, voices raised in song. The Tullys kept a godswood, as all the great houses did, but it was only a place to walk or read or lie in the sun. Worship was for the sept.

For her sake, Ned had built a small sept where she might sing to the seven faces of god, but the blood of the First Men still flowed in the veins of the Starks, and his own gods were the old ones, the nameless, faceless gods of the greenwood they shared with the vanished children of the forest.

 

Sounds like Ned and Craster serve the same gods.

[Tucu]

9 hours ago, LynnS said:

This is really good!  This tells me that the white shadows/killing cold and the white walkers are two forms of the same thing. In the winter, mists become ice crystals.  So this is consistent with Sam breaking the spell and releasing the white 'mist' from it's body:

Tormund's comment about the knife in your chest calls to mind the failed greenseers surrounding the north poll, whose bones are speared with ice.  This is a psychic vision, so the actual bones are somewhere else.  In the North beyond the Wall, the dead are burned; so these must be very old graves.  The crypts Winterfell come to mind and also the graves in the north where Mance was digging and also in the lichyards at each fort along the Wall.

I always assumed that those were pre-Long Night graves, but why was Mance looking for Joramun in a grave? The legends place him after the Long Night. I guess this is just part of the broken timeline.

Ygrette is angry that they freed those shades for nothing and most wildlings seem terrified of the WW. Val seems to be an exception. She happily goes North of the Wall alone in a half-blind horse:

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 I know the forest better than all your black-cloaked rangers. It holds no ghosts for me

 

[LynnS]

3 minutes ago, Tucu said:

I know the forest better than all your black-cloaked rangers. It holds no ghosts for me

Interesting!  Yes about the blue eyes... Martin commented at one point that Dany was given temporary immunity from fire and I wondered if the same was true of Val.  That she had been given temporary immunity from ice.  It makes me wonder who she actually met north of the Wall and why she returned wearing a white bear skin with a weirwood broach.  Where did she get those items?  And why did Ghost go with her.  Is she a warg? Does Ghost act as a conduit for communication with something or someone?

How would she avoid the WW and the killing cold?  Well the forests holds no ghosts for her.  That sounds like immunity to me.

[Melifeather]

...or Val is an ice priestess transformed by ice and the flip side to Melisandre? Maybe she's the one that created the icy white shadows? Or her sister Dalla before her?

[Tucu]

There is a song that appears multiple times in Tyrion's chapters that seems relevant. Tyrion says:

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"Myrish. 'The Seasons of My Love.' Sweet and sad, if you understand the words. The first girl I ever bedded used to sing it, and I've never been able to put it out of my head."

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I loved a maid as fair as summer
with sunlight in her hair.

I loved a maid as red as autumn
with sunset in her hair.

I loved a maid as white as winter
with moonglow in her hair.

I don't think I understand the words, but Val really fits the description of the Winter maid in the song.

In Winterfell, Mance as Abel sings a song called The Winter Maid but we don't get the lyrics for this one.

[LynnS]

8 minutes ago, Tucu said:

There is a song that appears multiple times in Tyrion's chapters that seems relevant. Tyrion says:

I don't think I understand the words, but Val really fits the description of the Winter maid in the song.

The maid of spring is missing... I loved a maid with flowers in her hair?  Maybe this is part of Jenny's Song.  

[LynnS]

I'm having some seniors over tomorrow for toast beast supper.  I'll check in, but I'll be mostly out until tomorrow night. 

[Frey family reunion]

51 minutes ago, Tucu said:

There is a song that appears multiple times in Tyrion's chapters that seems relevant. Tyrion says:

I don't think I understand the words, but Val really fits the description of the Winter maid in the song.

In Winterfell, Mance as Abel sings a song called The Winter Maid but we don't get the lyrics for this one.

Summer maid: blonde

Fall maid: red head

Winter maid: white or silver haired.

ETA: Cat goes from a red head (Fall) to white haired (Winter) when she changes to Lady Stoneheart:

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"Make an end," and a hand grabbed her scalp just as she'd done with Jinglebell, and she thought, No don't, don't cut my hair, Ned loves my hair.  Then the steel was at her throat, and its bite was red and cold.

 

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Lady Stoneheart lowered her hood and unwound the grey wool scarf from her face. Her hair was dry and brittle, white as bone.

 

[alienarea]

We seem to miss a shadowbinder equivalent to Melisandre for the ice side. As ASoIaF has a thing for symmetry, it has to be a male.

Who is suspiciously absent to the story so far?

And what did he really do to help Ned defeat Arthur?

Are we sure Ned returned Dawn in one piece?

Crannogmen live in the area where the hammer of the waters was called from, don't they?

Maybe Howland Reed used some magic to save Ned and unwillingly (?) rose the White Walkers? Are they the wraiths killed at the ToJ?

Was Bran involved from the weirwood?

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, Tucu said:

I loved a maid as fair as summer
with sunlight in her hair.

I loved a maid as red as autumn
with sunset in her hair.

I loved a maid as white as winter
with moonglow in her hair.

Well the first and third are opposites: sunlight and moonglow.  The second and missing fourth must also be opposites: sunset and sunrise.

I loved a maid as fresh as spring, With sunrise in her hair.

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A Feast for Crows - Brienne V

And there were people too. Some lived amongst the reeds in houses built of mud and straw, whilst others fished the bay in leather coracles and built their homes on rickety wooden stilts above the dunes. Most seemed to live alone, out of sight of any human habitation but their own. They seemed a shy folk for the most part, but near midday the dog began to bark again, and three women emerged from the reeds to give Meribald a woven basket full of clams. He gave each of them an orange in return, though clams were as common as mud in this world, and oranges were rare and costly. One of the women was very old, one was heavy with child, and one was a girl as fresh and pretty as a flower in spring. When Meribald took them off to hear their sins, Ser Hyle chuckled, and said, "It would seem the gods walk with us . . . at least the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone." Podrick looked so astonished that Brienne had to tell him no, they were only three marsh women.

 

[Tucu]

14 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Well the first and third are opposites: sunlight and moonglow.  The second and missing fourth must also be opposites: sunset and sunrise.

I loved a maid as fresh as spring, With sunrise in her hair.

 

I have been scratching my head trying to figure out what would be the colour matching spring and sunrise. The colours of sunrise and sunset are basically the same. Maybe GRRM couldn't find a match either so he left that verse out.

[LynnS]

31 minutes ago, Tucu said:

I have been scratching my head trying to figure out what would be the colour matching spring and sunrise. The colours of sunrise and sunset are basically the same. Maybe GRRM couldn't find a match either so he left that verse out.

Well, the colors of spring are the colors of flowers and new growth.  I liken the stuff that Martin leaves out, the holes on the page, according to Sam, to the story of the dog that didn't bark.

“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said. “ — Peter Drucker

https://medium.com/thethursdaythought/the-dog-that-didnt-bark-and-the-truth-that-did-87f85304fdc.

 

[Tucu]

5 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Well, the colors of spring are the colors of flowers and new growth.  I liken the stuff that Martin leaves out, the holes on the page, according to Sam, to the story of the dog that didn't bark.

“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said. “ — Peter Drucker

https://medium.com/thethursdaythought/the-dog-that-didnt-bark-and-the-truth-that-did-87f85304fdc.

 

Summer, Autumn and Winter...no Spring for GRRM readers.

[LynnS]

1 minute ago, Tucu said:

Summer, Autumn and Winter...no Spring for GRRM readers.

LOL.  I'll be happy to get winter.

[Melifeather]

13 hours ago, Tucu said:

I have been scratching my head trying to figure out what would be the colour matching spring and sunrise. The colours of sunrise and sunset are basically the same. Maybe GRRM couldn't find a match either so he left that verse out.

George has admitted he has a thing for redheads.

[Black Crow]

13 hours ago, Tucu said:

Summer, Autumn and Winter...no Spring for GRRM readers.

That's why you can only dream of it