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Heresy 234 and the coming of Winter


Black Crow

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Welcome to the latest iteration of Heresy, the quirky thread that attempts to figure out what's really going on and why.

In Heresy 233 we started out with a pretty fundamental look at the Others and links with skinchanging.

Just by way of a recap [with the usual health warning that the theory is not universally agreed] , what has been proposed is that the Walkers are former skinchangers who rather than entering mortal bodies, create their own from snow and ice.

From that basic premise we moved on to consider how this happens. We know that in past times men [skinchangers?] were sacrificed to the trees and then "released" by the White Cold to become [living] Walkers, while the wights are dead things incidentally raised by the same Cold.

Towards the end of the thread discussion naturally shifted to the limits of the "resurrection" and the place of the Wall so it seems logical to start of Heresy 234 with a discussion of Winter.

We're introduced to it in Bran's first Crow dream when he is taken north by the Crow to see beyond the curtain of light and when he cries out in fear he is told it is why he must live. The seasons are screwed of course, but every now and again there's something really bad, so that on the one hand in the cold the Walkers appear and the dead walk too, and on the other hand the dead also start walking through the magic of Fire, hence the Song, not of swords but of Ice and Fire.

The question that arises then is two-fold, what is the nature of the White Cold that raises the Walkers and the Wights, and where is its equivalent that will give the world to the Fire. Are the dragons a manifestation or the cause - and what part does the Wall play in regard to both.

 

 

 

 

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A few days ago I rewatched GRRM favourite sci-fi movie: 1956 Forbidden Planet and it got me thinking about the relationship between human emotions and elementals like ice and fire (and maybe water) that GRRM is building in the books.

For example we have these small quotes  about cold/ice and hate:

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Sansa hugged herself, suddenly cold. "Why are you always so hateful?

Can a bird hate? Jon had slain the wilding Orell, but some part of the man remained within the eagle. The golden eyes looked out on him with cold malevolence.

The voice had been as faint as rustling leaves, as cold as hate.

She hates the cold but loves the flames.

After Bran peaks at the Heart of Winter we get this scene:

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Bran looked at the crow on his shoulder, and the crow looked back. It had three eyes, and the third eye was full of a terrible knowledge. Bran looked down. There was nothing below him now but snow and cold and death, a frozen wasteland where jagged blue-white spires of ice waited to embrace him. They flew up at him like spears. He saw the bones of a thousand other dreamers impaled upon their points. He was desperately afraid.

Then on ADWD Bran III after Leaf tells the tale of the dwindling of the old races Bran thinks:

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She seemed sad when she said it, and that made Bran sad as well. It was only later that he thought, Men would not be sad. Men would be wroth. Men would hate and swear a bloody vengeance. The singers sing sad songs, where men would fight and kill.

So can the cold be a manifestation of the subconscious hate of all the souls of men stored in the trees and stones across millennia?

 

Now I will include a couple of quotes from Forbidden Planet that might have been an inspiration:

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Dr. Morbius : In times long past, this planet was the home of a mighty, noble race of beings who called themselves the Krell. Ethically and technologically they were a million years ahead of humankind, for in unlocking the mysteries of nature they had conquered even their baser selves, and when in the course of eons they had abolished sickness and insanity, crime and all injustice, they turned, still in high benevolence, upwards towards space. Then, having reached the heights, this all-but-divine race perished in a single night, and nothing was preserved above ground.

Quote

Commander Adams : What is the Id?

Dr. Morbius : [frustrated]  Id, id, id, id, id!

[calming down] 

Dr. Morbius : It's a... It's an obsolete term. I'm afraid once used to describe the elementary basis of the subconscious mind.

Commander Adams : [to himself]  Monsters from the id...

Dr. Morbius : Huh?

Commander Adams : Monsters from the subconscious. Of course. That's what Doc meant. Morbius. The big machine, 8,000 miles of klystron relays, enough power for a whole population of creative geniuses, operated by remote control. Morbius, operated by the electromagnetic impulses of individual Krell brains.

Dr. Morbius : To what purpose?

Commander Adams : In return, that ultimate machine would instantaneously project solid matter to any point on the planet, In any shape or color they might imagine. For *any* purpose, Morbius! Creation by mere thought.

Dr. Morbius : Why haven't I seen this all along?

Commander Adams : But like you, the Krell forgot one deadly danger - their own subconscious hate and lust for destruction.

Dr. Morbius : The beast. The mindless primitive! Even the Krell must have evolved from that beginning.

Commander Adams : And so those mindless beasts of the subconscious had access to a machine that could never be shut down. The secret devil of every soul on the planet all set free at once to loot and maim. And take revenge, Morbius, and kill!

Dr. Morbius : My poor Krell. After a million years of shining sanity, they could hardly have understood what power was destroying them.

 

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2 hours ago, Tucu said:

A few days ago I rewatched GRRM favourite sci-fi movie: 1956 Forbidden Planet and it got me thinking about the relationship between human emotions and elementals like ice and fire (and maybe water) that GRRM is building in the books.

For example we have these small quotes  about cold/ice and hate:

After Bran peaks at the Heart of Winter we get this scene:

Then on ADWD Bran III after Leaf tells the tale of the dwindling of the old races Bran thinks:

So can the cold be a manifestation of the subconscious hate of all the souls of men stored in the trees and stones across millennia?

 

Now I will include a couple of quotes from Forbidden Planet that might have been an inspiration:

 

It’s also the metaphor used in the Robert Frost poem:

Quote

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

But going back to the Forbidden Planet, that’s my main inspiration for thinking that the White Walkers are to the Weirwoods or the Weirnet as Stannis’ shadow assassins were to Stannis.  They are the ID of the weirnet come to life and turned into a monster to battle the colonizers of their land.  

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That could certainly explain the apparent dichotomy of the tree-huggers and death, but perhaps a simpler explanation is the "input" of those human skinchangers sacrificed to the trees. There could of course be a delicious irony if those sacrifices were demanded by the Three-fingered lot.  

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4 hours ago, Black Crow said:

That could certainly explain the apparent dichotomy of the tree-huggers and death, but perhaps a simpler explanation is the "input" of those human skinchangers sacrificed to the trees. There could of course be a delicious irony if those sacrifices were demanded by the Three-fingered lot.  

A point of clarification.  When you say human skinchangers sacrificed to the trees, do you mean the greenseers who’s consciousness eventually went into the weirnet permanently, or the forced sacrifices who’s blood literally fed the tree(s)?

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There is an SSM regarding Frost's poem that might be useful for context:

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Why your saga is called A Song of Ice and Fire, because of the Wall and the dragons or is something more beyond that?

Oh! That’s the obvious thing but yes, there’s more. People say I was influenced by Robert Frost’s poem, and of course I was, I mean... Fire is love, fire is passion, fire is sexual ardor and all of these things. Ice is betrayal, ice is revenge, ice is… you know, that kind of cold inhumanity and all that stuff is being played out in the books.

Looking at the opposing side we get how Azor Ahai forged his burning sword by sacrificing the thing that he loved the most:

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“A hundred days and a hundred nights he labored on the third blade, and as it glowed white hot in the sacred fires, he summoned his wife. ‘Nissa Nissa,’ he said to her, for that was her name, bare your breast, and know that I love you best of all that is in this world'. She did this thing, why I cannot say, and Azor Ahai thrust the smoking sword through her living heart. It is said that her cry of anguish and ecstasy left a crack across the face of the moon, but her blood and her soul and her strength and her courage all went into the steel. Such is the tale of the forging of Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes.

“Now do you see my meaning? Be glad that it is just a burned sword that His Grace pulled from that fire. Too much light can hurt the eyes, my friend, and fire burns.”

 

The birth of Mel's shadow baby shares the ecstasy and fire/heat language:

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Davos raised a hand to shield his eyes, and his breath caught in his throat. Melisandre had thrown back her cowl and shrugged out of the smothering robe. Beneath, she was naked, and huge with child. Swollen breasts hung heavy against her chest, and her belly bulged as if near to bursting. "Gods preserve us," he whispered, and heard her answering laugh, deep and throaty. Her eyes were hot coals, and the sweat that dappled her skin seemed to glow with a light of its own. Melisandre shone.

Panting, she squatted and spread her legs. Blood ran down her thighs, black as ink. Her cry might have been agony or ecstasy or both. And Davos saw the crown of the child's head push its way out of her. Two arms wriggled free, grasping, black fingers coiling around Melisandre's straining thighs, pushing, until the whole of the shadow slid out into the world and rose taller than Davos, tall as the tunnel, towering above the boat. He had only an instant to look at it before it was gone, twisting between the bars of the portcullis and racing across the surface of the water, but that instant was long enough.

 

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12 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

A point of clarification.  When you say human skinchangers sacrificed to the trees, do you mean the greenseers who’s consciousness eventually went into the weirnet permanently, or the forced sacrifices who’s blood literally fed the tree(s)?

Both. but primarily the latter, although there's ambiguity anent the degree of force. Remember the faces on grove north of Castle Black, some are screaming while others are more peaceful and some even smiling. I'm reminded of the Danish bog bodies who appear to have been willing sacrifices

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On 2/5/2021 at 9:58 AM, Black Crow said:

Both. but primarily the latter, although there's ambiguity anent the degree of force. Remember the faces on grove north of Castle Black, some are screaming while others are more peaceful and some even smiling. I'm reminded of the Danish bog bodies who appear to have been willing sacrifices

I guess this also helps to explain why there are no weirwood groves in the North and why there are no towns beyond the Wall.

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On 2/4/2021 at 9:05 AM, Frey family reunion said:

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Too much of one thing is a bad thing.  Fire and ice have to join and neutralize each other as in frozen fire.

Quote

 

A Storm of Swords - Bran II

"Oh, I do. My lord father told me about mountains, but I never saw one till now. I love them more than I can say."

Bran made a face at her. "But you just said you hated them."

"Why can't it be both?" Meera reached up to pinch his nose.

"Because they're different," he insisted. "Like night and day, or ice and fire."

"If ice can burn," said Jojen in his solemn voice, "then love and hate can mate. Mountain or marsh, it makes no matter. The land is one."

"One," his sister agreed, "but over wrinkled."

 

The solution seems to be that ice or whatever or whomever represents ice; must burn with love to neutralize their hateful nature.  I don't think this is just about the sword Ice turned into a flaming sword.  It's about the soul of ice transformed by fire.

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7 hours ago, LynnS said:

Too much of one thing is a bad thing.  Fire and ice have to join and neutralize each other as in frozen fire.

The solution seems to be that ice or whatever or whomever represents ice; must burn with love to neutralize their hateful nature.  I don't think this is just about the sword Ice turned into a flaming sword.  It's about the soul of ice transformed by fire.

But who is the soul of ice?

And whose fire will transform him/her/it?

 

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2 minutes ago, alienarea said:

But who is the soul of ice?

And whose fire will transform him/her/it?

Exactly.  I'm going with Dany as the soul of fire since we have already seen her soul transformed with spiritual fire in the dragon dream where she is cleansed and made new again.  There is also the Undying prophesy:

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A Clash of Kings - Daenerys IV

"Three?" She did not understand.

. . . three heads has the dragon . . . the ghost chorus yammered inside her skull with never a lip moving, never a breath stirring the still blue air. . . . mother of dragons . . . child of storm . . . The whispers became a swirling song. . . . three fires must you light . . . one for life and one for death and one to love . . . Her own heart was beating in unison to the one that floated before her, blue and corrupt . . . three mounts must you ride . . . one to bed and one to dread and one to love . . . The voices were growing louder, she realized, and it seemed her heart was slowing, and even her breath. . . . three treasons will you know . . . once for blood and once for gold and once for love . . .

Of all the quotes about the soul, this one sticks out:

Quote

 

A Dance with Dragons - The Sacrifice

Ser Corliss Penny stepped forward, clutching the torch with both hands. He swung it about his head in a circle, fanning the flames. One of the captives began to whimper.

"R'hllor," Ser Godry sang, "we give you now four evil men. With glad hearts and true, we give them to your cleansing fires, that the darkness in their souls might be burned away. Let their vile flesh be seared and blackened, that their spirits might rise free and pure to ascend into the light. Accept their blood, Oh lord, and melt the icy chains that bind your servants. Hear their pain, and grant strength to our swords that we might shed the blood of your enemies. Accept this sacrifice, and show us the way to Winterfell, that we might vanquish the unbelievers."

 

The cleansing fire that burns away the darkness in someone's soul.  

 

 

 

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8 hours ago, Tucu said:

I guess this also helps to explain why there are no weirwood groves in the North and why there are no towns beyond the Wall.

While I'm doubtful that the white walkers are coming from the trees, I do acknowledge that it is significant that there aren't any known groves of weirwoods left south of the Wall. However, there are weirwood hearttrees at every northern house, so again, if it can happen north of the Wall, it should be able to occur south of the Wall. The Wall is only a warded physical barrier. Magical beings just can't pass of their own accord, but once they are on the other side, Othor and Jafer are proof that there is nothing that prevents them from rising. To me this is evidence that it takes human intervention to create white walkers.

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4 hours ago, Melifeather said:

While I'm doubtful that the white walkers are coming from the trees, I do acknowledge that it is significant that there aren't any known groves of weirwoods left south of the Wall. However, there are weirwood hearttrees at every northern house, so again, if it can happen north of the Wall, it should be able to occur south of the Wall. The Wall is only a warded physical barrier. Magical beings just can't pass of their own accord, but once they are on the other side, Othor and Jafer are proof that there is nothing that prevents them from rising. To me this is evidence that it takes human intervention to create white walkers.

I currently see this as a matter of thresholds on the strengh of the magic. We have seen what might be weaker versions of weirwood ghosts south of the Wall: Theon cold dreams in ACOK (including the feast of the dead), Johanna cold ghostly visit to Jamie in Riverrun and maybe Ned's chat with Arya in Harrenhal.

Regarding Jafer and Othor, they were transformed north of the Wall and they were inactive during the day when they were moved to Castle Black. We have seen inactive wights in the mouth of BR's cave.

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4 hours ago, Tucu said:

I currently see this as a matter of thresholds on the strengh of the magic. We have seen what might be weaker versions of weirwood ghosts south of the Wall: Theon cold dreams in ACOK (including the feast of the dead), Johanna cold ghostly visit to Jamie in Riverrun and maybe Ned's chat with Arya in Harrenhal.

Regarding Jafer and Othor, they were transformed north of the Wall and they were inactive during the day when they were moved to Castle Black. We have seen inactive wights in the mouth of BR's cave.

We have discussed before that the ghosts in Theon’s and Jaime’s dreams may actually be Bloodraven or Bran since entering people’s dreams is a power greenseers have.

As for wights. They aren’t active during daylight hours on either side of the Wall. They only become dangerous after sunset and the cold wind rises. I seem to recall that Bran can hear the wights shuffling around outside the cave after dark.

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9 hours ago, Tucu said:

I currently see this as a matter of thresholds on the strengh of the magic. We have seen what might be weaker versions of weirwood ghosts south of the Wall: Theon cold dreams in ACOK (including the feast of the dead), Johanna cold ghostly visit to Jamie in Riverrun and maybe Ned's chat with Arya in Harrenhal.

Regarding Jafer and Othor, they were transformed north of the Wall and they were inactive during the day when they were moved to Castle Black. We have seen inactive wights in the mouth of BR's cave.

I agree. The critical bit is the intensity of the Cold.

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Time now for a crackpot question: do wargs in angry unconscious or semi-conscious states attract the cold?

I have 3 cases to look at: the stabbing of Jon Snow, the stabbing of Varamyr and the curious case of the wights and the hateful warg in Castle Black

The stabbing of Jon Snow

In ADWD Jon I Mel warns Jon about his stabbing and the correlated cold:

Quote

You would do well to keep your wolf close beside you. Ice, I see, and daggers in the dark. Blood frozen red and hard, and naked steel. It was very cold.”

It is always cold on the Wall.”

You think so?”

“I know so, my lady.”

Then you know nothing, Jon Snow,” she whispered.

 

Mel's warning seems to imply that there is something unnatural about that cold event. When Jon is stabbed the last thing he feels is the cold; we have yet to see how strong that event gets.

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When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold …

 

The stabbing of Varamyr

In the ADWD prologue, Varamyr and company have been running away from the Wall for several days without encountering many wights or extreme cold events. He gets stabbed while stealing a coat from a dead wildling (no wighted yet) and has been in and out of consciousness for days

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He could taste his true death in the smoke that hung acrid in the air, feel it in the heat beneath his fingers when he slipped a hand under his clothes to touch his wound. The chill was in him too, though, deep down in his bones. This time it would be cold that killed him.

<...>

I should have taken her before she left. How long had she been gone? Two days? Three? Varamyr was uncertain. It was dark inside the hut, and he had been drifting in and out of sleep, never quite sure if it was day or night outside.

<...>

Fear drove him to his feet, reeling. Holding his side to staunch the seep of blood from his wound, Varamyr lurched to the door and swept aside the ragged skin that covered it to face a wall of white. Snow. No wonder it had grown so dark and smoky inside. The falling snow had buried the hut.

When Varamyr pushed at it, the snow crumbled and gave way, still soft and wet. Outside, the night was white as death; pale thin clouds danced attendance on a silver moon, while a thousand stars watched coldly. He could see the humped shapes of other huts buried beneath drifts of snow, and beyond them the pale shadow of a weirwood armored in ice. To the south and west the hills were a vast white wilderness where nothing moved except the blowing snow. “Thistle,” Varamyr called feebly, wondering how far she could have gone. “Thistle. Woman. Where are you?”

<...>

A wave of dizziness washed over Varamyr. He found himself upon his knees, his hands buried in a snowdrift. He scooped up a fistful of snow and filled his mouth with it, rubbing it through his beard and against his cracked lips, sucking down the moisture. The water was so cold that he could barely bring himself to swallow, and he realized once again how hot he was.

The snowmelt only made him hungrier. It was food his belly craved, not water. The snow had stopped falling, but the wind was rising, filling the air with crystal, slashing at his face as he struggled through the drifts, the wound in his side opening and closing again. His breath made a ragged white cloud. When he reached the weirwood tree, he found a fallen branch just long enough to use as a crutch. Leaning heavily upon it, he staggered toward the nearest hut. Perhaps the villagers had forgotten something when they fled … a sack of apples, some dried meat, anything to keep him alive until Thistle returned.

He was almost there when his crutch snapped beneath his weight, and his legs went out from under him.

How long he sprawled there with his blood reddening the snow Varamyr could not have said. The snow will bury me. It would be a peaceful death. They say you feel warm near the end, warm and sleepy.

<...>

Varamyr could feel the snowflakes melting on his brow. This is not so bad as burning. Let me sleep and never wake, let me begin my second life.

<...>

The gods made no reply. His breath hung pale and misty in the air. He could feel ice forming in his beard. Varamyr Sixskins closed his eyes.

<...>

Varamyr woke suddenly, violently, his whole body shaking. “Get up,” a voice was screaming, “get up, we have to go. There are hundreds of them.” The snow had covered him with a stiff white blanket. So cold. When he tried to move, he found that his hand was frozen to the ground. He left some skin behind when he tore it loose. “Get up,” she screamed again, “they’re coming.”

<...>

He summoned all the strength still in him, leapt out of his own skin, and forced himself inside her. Thistle arched her back and screamed. Abomination. Was that her, or him, or Haggon? He never knew. His old flesh fell back into the snowdrift as her fingers loosened. The spearwife twisted violently, shrieking.

<...>

The white world turned and fell away. For a moment it was as if he were inside the weirwood, gazing out through carved red eyes as a dying man twitched feebly on the ground and a madwoman danced blind and bloody underneath the moon, weeping red tears and ripping at her clothes.

<...>

True death came suddenly; he felt a shock of cold, as if he had been plunged into the icy waters of a frozen lake.

<...>

Below, the world had turned to ice. Fingers of frost crept slowly up the weirwood, reaching out for each other. The empty village was no longer empty. Blue-eyed shadows walked amongst the mounds of snow.

<...>

The last to look was the thing that had been Thistle. She wore wool and fur and leather, and over that she wore a coat of hoarfrost that crackled when she moved and glistened in the moonlight. Pale pink icicles hung from her fingertips, ten long knives of frozen blood.

So Varamyr says that the chill is in him deep down his bones. He is getting in and out of consciousness and its getting colder. He dies his true death, feels the cold and Thistle rises almost at the same time. We don't know what happens with Varamyr body but he is not mentioned as one of the wights.

 

The curious case of the wights and the hateful warg in Castle Black

The day after Ghost finds the black hand, Mormont and company head out to the weirwood grove. The morning was unnaturally warm and there is no mention of the bodies being particularly cold

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The morning was unnaturally warm; beads of sweat dotted the Lord Commander’s broad forehead like dew on a melon.

When they get back to the Wall with the wights the day is still hot:

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The day was grey, damp, overcast, the sort of day that made you wish for rain. No wind stirred the wood; the air hung humid and heavy, and Jon’s clothes clung to his skin. It was warm. Too warm. The Wall was weeping copiously, had been weeping for days, and sometimes Jon even imagined it was shrinking.

The old men called this weather spirit summer, and said it meant the season was giving up its ghosts at last. After this the cold would come, they warned, and a long summer always meant a long winter. This summer had lasted ten years. Jon had been a babe in arms when it began.

Jon gets called to Mormont's solar to get the news of Robert's death and Ned's treason and his gets angry

Quote

Lord Eddard has been imprisoned. He is charged with treason. It is said he plotted with Robert’s brothers to deny the throne to Prince Joffrey.”

“No,” Jon said at once. “That couldn’t be. My father would never betray the king!” “Be that as it may,” said Mormont. “It is not for me to say. Nor for you.”

“But it’s a lie,” Jon insisted. How could they think his father was a traitor, had they all gone mad? Lord Eddard Stark would never dishonor himself…would he?

He fathered a bastard, a small voice whispered inside him. Where was the honor in that? And your mother, what of her? He will not even speak her name.

<...>

“Lady Stark is not my mother,” Jon reminded him sharply. Tyrion Lannister had been a friend to him. If Lord Eddard was killed, she would be as much to blame as the queen.

After this Jon goes into a semi-conscious state and the day gets colder:

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Jon did not remember standing or leaving the solar. The next he knew, he was descending the tower steps, thinking, This is my father, my sisters, how can it be none of my concern?

Outside, one of the guards looked at him and said, “Be strong, boy. The gods are cruel.”

They know, Jon realized. “My father is no traitor,” he said hoarsely. Even the words stuck in his throat, as if to choke him. The wind was rising, and it seemed colder in the yard than it had when he’d gone in. Spirit summer was drawing to an end. The rest of the afternoon passed as if in a dream. Jon could not have said where he walked, what he did, who he spoke with. Ghost was with him, he knew that much. The silent presence of the direwolf gave him comfort.

As the sun goes down the north wind starts to blow and Jon goes to the common hall and gets into a fight with Thorne:

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A north wind had begun to blow by the time the sun went down. Jon could hear it skirling against the Wall and over the icy battlements as he went to the common hall for the evening meal.

<..>

And then he heard the laughter, sharp and cruel as a whip, and the voice of Ser Alliser Thorne. “Not only a bastard, but a traitor’s bastard,” he was telling the men around him.

In the blink of an eye, Jon had vaulted onto the table, dagger in his hand. Pyp made a grab for him, but he wrenched his leg away, and then he was sprinting down the table and kicking the bowl from Ser Alliser’s hand. Stew went flying everywhere, spattering the brothers. Thorne recoiled. People were shouting, but Jon Snow did not hear them. He lunged at Ser Alliser’s face with the dagger, slashing at those cold onyx eyes,

They march him to his sleeping cell and "much later" Mormont visits him. Note that it is already dark and there is no signs of the wights yet

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Later, much later, after they had marched him back to his sleeping cell, Mormont came down to see him, raven on his shoulder. “I told you not to do anything stupid, boy,” the Old Bear said. “Boy,” the bird chorused. Mormont shook his head, disgusted. “And to think I had high hopes for you.”

He is alone with Ghost in his cell, he feels angry and also feels the room getting colder. He falls asleep and then awakes with the cold event and the wights

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“My father is no traitor,” he told the direwolf when the rest had gone. Ghost looked at him in silence. Jon slumped against the wall, hands around his knees, and stared at the candle on the table beside his narrow bed. The flame flickered and swayed, the shadows moved around him, the room seemed to grow darker and colder. I will not sleep tonight, Jon thought. Yet he must have dozed.

When he woke, his legs were stiff and cramped and the candle had long since burned out. Ghost stood on his hind legs, scrabbling at the door. Jon was startled to see how tall he’d grown. “Ghost, what is it?” he called softly. The direwolf turned his head and looked down at him, baring his fangs in a silent snarl. Has he gone mad? Jon wondered. “It’s me, Ghost,” he murmured, trying not to sound afraid. Yet he was trembling, violently. When had it gotten so cold?

At this point the corpse is very cold:

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Its hand forced itself farther down his throat, icy cold, choking him. Its face was against his own, filling the world. Frost covered its eyes, sparkling blue. Jon raked cold flesh with his nails and kicked at the thing’s legs.

 

So we have 3 cold events that happened around angry or desperate wargs that are in semi-conscious or unconscious state of mind. Coincidence, correlation, causation?

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On 2/8/2021 at 4:45 AM, Black Crow said:

I agree. The critical bit is the intensity of the Cold.

I agree also.  Degrees or strengths of magic.   Recall the fire mage that Quaithe tells Dany about.  He couldn't draw fire from obsidion and then gets a power up from the red comet and climbs a fiery ladder. 

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A Clash of Kings - Daenerys III

Dany had not noticed Quaithe in the crowd, yet there she stood, eyes wet and shiny behind the implacable red lacquer mask. "What mean you, my lady?"

"Half a year gone, that man could scarcely wake fire from dragonglass. He had some small skill with powders and wildfire, sufficient to entrance a crowd while his cutpurses did their work. He could walk across hot coals and make burning roses bloom in the air, but he could no more aspire to climb the fiery ladder than a common fisherman could hope to catch a kraken in his nets."

Dany looked uneasily at where the ladder had stood. Even the smoke was gone now, and the crowd was breaking up, each man going about his business. In a moment more than a few would find their purses flat and empty. "And now?"

"And now his powers grow, Khaleesi. And you are the cause of it."

 

 Is she the cause because Mirri woke the old powers or because of dragons?  The pyromancers also ask Tyrion if there a dragons around because their spells making wildfire are more powerful.

Quote

 

A Clash of Kings - Tyrion XI

"Oh, pardon, I was just remembering something old Wisdom Pollitor told me once, when I was an acolyte. I'd asked him why so many of our spells seemed, well, not as effectual as the scrolls would have us believe, and he said it was because magic had begun to go out of the world the day the last dragon died."

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I've seen no dragons. I have noticed the King's Justice lurking about, however. Should any of these fruits you're selling me turn out to be filled with anything but wildfire, you'll be seeing him as well."

So if Dany is joined with the soul of fire as we see in the dragon dream; then who will become joined with the soul of ice , if it isn't Jon

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13 hours ago, Tucu said:

Time now for a crackpot question: do wargs in angry unconscious or semi-conscious states attract the cold?

I have 3 cases to look at: the stabbing of Jon Snow, the stabbing of Varamyr and the curious case of the wights and the hateful warg in Castle Black

The stabbing of Jon Snow

In ADWD Jon I Mel warns Jon about his stabbing and the correlated cold:

Mel's warning seems to imply that there is something unnatural about that cold event. When Jon is stabbed the last thing he feels is the cold; we have yet to see how strong that event gets.

 

The stabbing of Varamyr

In the ADWD prologue, Varamyr and company have been running away from the Wall for several days without encountering many wights or extreme cold events. He gets stabbed while stealing a coat from a dead wildling (no wighted yet) and has been in and out of consciousness for days

So Varamyr says that the chill is in him deep down his bones. He is getting in and out of consciousness and its getting colder. He dies his true death, feels the cold and Thistle rises almost at the same time. We don't know what happens with Varamyr body but he is not mentioned as one of the wights.

 

The curious case of the wights and the hateful warg in Castle Black

The day after Ghost finds the black hand, Mormont and company head out to the weirwood grove. The morning was unnaturally warm and there is no mention of the bodies being particularly cold

When they get back to the Wall with the wights the day is still hot:

Jon gets called to Mormont's solar to get the news of Robert's death and Ned's treason and his gets angry

After this Jon goes into a semi-conscious state and the day gets colder:

As the sun goes down the north wind starts to blow and Jon goes to the common hall and gets into a fight with Thorne:

They march him to his sleeping cell and "much later" Mormont visits him. Note that it is already dark and there is no signs of the wights yet

He is alone with Ghost in his cell, he feels angry and also feels the room getting colder. He falls asleep and then awakes with the cold event and the wights

At this point the corpse is very cold:

 

So we have 3 cold events that happened around angry or desperate wargs that are in semi-conscious or unconscious state of mind. Coincidence, correlation, causation?

"Cold as ice."

Can we map White Walker occurrences to wargs in fury nearby?

A bit unrelated and in my opinion contradicting: with the White Walkers in the GoT prologue looking like brothers, silblings, I wonder whether each weirwood produces a White Walker by default and they look similar as the weirwoods look similar?

 

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10 hours ago, LynnS said:

I agree also.  Degrees or strengths of magic.   Recall the fire mage that Quaithe tells Dany about.  He couldn't draw fire from obsidion and then gets a power up from the red comet and climbs a fiery ladder. 

 Is she the cause because Mirri woke the old powers or because of dragons?  The pyromancers also ask Tyrion if there a dragons around because their spells making wildfire are more powerful.

So if Dany is joined with the soul of fire as we see in the dragon dream; then who will become joined with the soul of ice , if it isn't Jon

Sansa by snowflake communion?

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