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

[Frey family reunion]

3 minutes ago, Melifeather said:

I was with you until the last two paragraphs. If it's Bran's sonsciousness/subconscious affecting the weirnet, why would HE want the wildlings herded south? IMO the wildlings have the best motive for manufacturing the white walkers and wights, namely to convince the Watch that THEY are not the Others.

If Bran joined the weirnet you have to keep in mind, that he is only one consciousness of many that's part of the weirnet.  Maybe Bran is so powerful that his consciousness can completely take over the weirnet and be unaffected by all the other consciousness that had previously joined, whether they be human, COFT, or perhaps even direwolf, or prehistoric bear ect. but I doubt it.  And then how about the trees themselves?  Do they have a type of sentience above and beyond the greenseers that joined their telpathic network?  

Bran may supply the stories, but I find it doubtful that he would end up controlling the motivation of the collective.  

[Melifeather]

Circling back to the unintended creation theory...when comparing white (walker) shadows to the black shadows that Melisandre gave birth to, I think it would be helpful to go over what we know about them. This is one of those topics subject to what I like to call "the befores". Before we can discuss what we know about shadows, we should review what we know about shadowbinders and where they come from first.

Melisandre is a shadowbinder from Asshai. A shadowbinder is a practitioner of magic who binds shadows to do their will. Shadowbinders originated in Asshai near the Shadow Lands.

The Shadow Lands are a mountainous region in the Far East of Essos. The city of Asshai is located on its very southeast tip. The river Ash runs through the narrow Vale of Shadows in the mountains and has such high cliffs that the river only receives sunlight directly at noon, otherwise it is in constant shadow. It is said that demons and dragons live in the caves within the cliffs.

Speaking of dragons, ancient texts from Asshai claim that dragons originated in the Shadows and were first tamed by a people so ancient no one remembers their names.

The invasive Ghost Grass grows in the Shadow Lands. It's pale, milkglass stalks are higher than a man on horseback.

Mirri Maz Duur learned from a bloodmage from the Shadow Lands. Bloodmages are practitioners of blood magic. Septon Barth posited that bloodmages created dragons from wyverns. It is also said that bloodmages bred animals with slave-women to create half-human children.

Returning to shadowbinders, they are known to work their terrible sorceries at night. They typically wear red lacquer masks to hide their face - such as the one Quaithe wore. Melisandre doesn't wear a mask, but she likely does wear a glamour.

Now that we've covered the "befores" we can get down to what shadows are. 

It is heavily implied that shadows are created through sexual intercourse. Thus the fan-given nickname of "shadow babies". Melisandre informed Davos that shadows are servants of the Lord of Light, and that they can only live when given birth by light. Furthermore the brightest lights create the strongest shadows, which implies that the second shadow drawn from Stannis wasn't as strong as the first one. Melisandre gave birth to two shadows sired by Stannis: one that killed Renly, and the other killed the castellan of Storms End, Cortnay Penrose. For his part Stannis seemed to age years and grow weaker. Davos noted that Stannis's eyes looked like two dark blue bruises in the hollows of his face. Stannis can perceive the movements and actions of his shadows during his dreams.

One of the more striking similarities between what we know about shadows and the story of the Nights King is the claim that the 13th Lord Commander chased down the female Other, loved her, and gave her his seed which implies that sexual intercourse had taken place. It seems possible to me that the 13th Lord Commander's "seed" may have been the very first white shadow. This seems like evidence that white shadows, or white walkers, are also drawn from humans through the act of sexual intercourse. The difference is in the method of creation. Fire (magic) consumes the black shadow and so it is short lived, whereas Ice (magic) preserves the form of the white shadow.

 

[Frey family reunion]

17 minutes ago, Melifeather said:

The difference is in the method of creation. Fire (magic) consumes the black shadow and so it is short lived, whereas Ice (magic) preserves the form of the white shadow.

Circling back again to your theory that Mance and the Wildlings (at least some of them) may be more involved with the White Walkers then they're letting on, it is interesting that Mance's back story includes coming in contact with a shadowbinder that just happens to live North of the Wall.  It's either an odd throw away detail, or it could be a clue as to who may be lending a hand in the creation of the White Walkers.  

We're also introduced to Morna (I think that's her name) a Wildling witch who also is wearing a mask.  

[Melifeather]

13 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

It's either an odd throw away detail, or it could be a clue as to who may be lending a hand in the creation of the White Walkers.  

Do good authors frequently include odd throw away details? Isn’t the hallmark of a good writer the ability to meet reader expectations with a narrative that is clear, concise, efficient, and effective? Television scripts are even more efficient in telling a story. Odd throw away details would be a waste of valuable time. I realize that ASOIAF is an expansive and rich story, but I can’t help but recall that GRRM also has extensive experience working on television shows. I tend to believe his quirky little details are quite deliberate.

[Wizz-The-Smith]

Cool chat as always people.  

On 02/02/2021 at 7:30 PM, Melifeather said:

This is my problem with the white walkers emerging unintentionally. Why should that only happen on the north side of the Wall? Obviously it got cold enough for Othor and Jafer to rise on the south side, so logically it should be possible for white walkers to emerge from weirwoods south of the Wall unintentionally. 

Hi Melifeather.  

This line of thought has me somewhat confused. If we are talking about the Others coming from the trees/weirnet, surely this happened thousands of years ago, before (or during) the first Long Night. The Others were then subsequently driven north of the continent and the Wall was built to keep them there and defend the realm from further White Walker attacks. 

Those I've discussed this theory (Others from trees) with before have speculated that the original creation was because of an unwanted or forced entry into the weirnet. Thus pushing some of the skinchangers/greenseers out and creating the Others.

Perhaps one of the first human greenseers to ever inhabit the weirnet? Greedy for the power that comes with such magic. Potentially an ancient First Man king looking to become a greenseer king?

Anyhoo, in my opinion, it makes most sense that the Others came from the trees before the Wall was built. In the interim they've been hiding out, waiting in the Lands of Always Winter (or wherever they hide out) for the appropriate time to attack again. 

That's my (maybe erroneous) head cannon anyway. Lol.  

On 02/02/2021 at 10:12 PM, Frey family reunion said:

And to add to the oddness of it all they come equiped with icy longswords and armor, when the concept of longswords and armor probably didn't exist during the time that the long Night actually existed.  

Hey Frey family reunion.  

Sorry if I've missed something, but why wouldn't they have longswords and armor? They are masters of ice magic (George said they can do great things with it (paraphrasing)) so why not copy what the enemy do? (If they didn't have them anyway)

There are very famous swords from that era. The first humans in Westeros knew about swords and armor, if the trees were watching then any inhabitant of the weirnet would know what threats the humans bring. Seems to me it is likely they were weaponized first time around, but of course I may be wrong.  

Always enjoy reading everyone's thoughts on heresy, great work as always. 

[Melifeather]

17 hours ago, Wizz-The-Smith said:

This line of thought has me somewhat confused. If we are talking about the Others coming from the trees/weirnet, surely this happened thousands of years ago, before (or during) the first Long Night. The Others were then subsequently driven north of the continent and the Wall was built to keep them there and defend the realm from further White Walker attacks. 

Those I've discussed this theory (Others from trees) with before have speculated that the original creation was because of an unwanted or forced entry into the weirnet. Thus pushing some of the skinchangers/greenseers out and creating the Others.

Perhaps one of the first human greenseers to ever inhabit the weirnet? Greedy for the power that comes with such magic. Potentially an ancient First Man king looking to become a greenseer king?

Anyhoo, in my opinion, it makes most sense that the Others came from the trees before the Wall was built. In the interim they've been hiding out, waiting in the Lands of Always Winter (or wherever they hide out) for the appropriate time to attack again. 

Well Bran has seen through the heart tree at Winterfell. Shouldn't he be "pushing out" skinchangers/greenseers and creating "Others"? Especially with his feelings of men being "wroth"? 

Bloodraven too has been watching through the weirnet for 70+ some years. Shouldn't he have already pushed out Others whenever it was winter?

[Wizz-The-Smith]

32 minutes ago, Melifeather said:

Well Bran has seen through the heart tree at Winterfell. Shouldn't he be "pushing out" skinchangers/greenseers and creating "Others"? Especially with his feelings of men being "wroth"? 

Bloodraven too has been watching through the weirnet for 70+ some years. Shouldn't he have already pushed out Others whenever it was winter?

We think that wouldn't happen because it was a one off event thousands of years ago. Somebody (probably an early human greenseer) forced their way into the weirnet and on entry corrupted it. You mentioned the sexual intercourse as being key to creating the shadows, this is equivalent to a rape of the weirnet, an abomination. But it only happened once, the human (or evil human, not necessarily the very first) forced themselves into the net and caused a defensive reaction from those inhabiting it. Namely the greenseers. 

The phrase 'the Other's come from the trees' was coined, but I think that is taken too literally. They don't actually morph out of the bark or trunk, they are a result of the weirwoodnet, a defense to it being attacked. Perhaps they were expelled from the trees/weirnet the way Varamyr was expelled from the weirwood tree in the ADWD Prologue. A result of greenseer magic rather than an actual humanoid figure emerging from wood. 

The invader usurpes the magic and displaces the original inhabitants. The spirits are expelled from the weirnet and take their icy form. 

@Voice's classic essay 'A Weirwood Ghost'  explores this phenomenon with very similar ideas. He was the first I saw talk about this.

Alternatively, I know that LML is going to be releasing his 'Weirwalkers' video soon, looking at all the symbolic evidence backing this idea. 

[Melifeather]

Just a curious aside...Bran said:

Quote

 

A Storm of Swords - Bran IV

"This seems an old place," Jojen said as they walked down a gallery where the sunlight fell in dusty shafts through empty windows.

"Twice as old as Castle Black," Bran said, remembering. "It was the first castle on the Wall, and the largest." But it had also been the first abandoned, all the way back in the time of the Old King. Even then it had been three-quarters empty and too costly to maintain. Good Queen Alysanne had suggested that the Watch replace it with a smaller, newer castle at a spot only seven miles east, where the Wall curved along the shore of a beautiful green lake. Deep Lake had been paid for by the queen's jewels and built by the men the Old King had sent north, and the black brothers had abandoned the Nightfort to the rats.

That was two centuries past, though. Now Deep Lake stood as empty as the castle it had replaced, and the Nightfort . . .

 

If Castle Black is only two hundred years old, then the Nightfort is only four hundred years old.

Ah, wait. Deep Lake is only two hundred years old - not Castle Black. Never mind.