Heresy 235 The Winter Snow

[Frey family reunion]

1 hour ago, Tucu said:

If we ignore the comedy for a bit and focus on the tragedy we still get a lot from Quentyn's POV and actions. We get the background of the incoming rebellion in Volantis and the tragedy in Astapor.

If Gerris Drinkwater's version is the one that reaches Dorne we probably are going to see war between Dorne and Dany eventually:

And by freeing the dragons Quentyn almost ensured the destruction of Meereen:

 

But none of the quotes you brought up were actually in any of Quentyn’s POV chapters.  They were in Dany’s and Barristan’s chapters.  So the same information could have been told without giving Quentyn four POV chapters.  We just wouldn’t have gotten to know Quentyn quite as well.  So the question is why does the author seem intent on us getting to know Quentyn just to toast him?  

I mean you could be right, I’m certainly not completely sold on any theory including my own, but my guess is Quentyn’s story may continue just in an unexpected way.  

So let’s say that GRRM wanted Aegon to still be alive, but Young Griff was a misdirect.  A mummer’s dragon.  The only character that could possibly fit the bill age wise, and circumstance wise, is probably Quentyn.  We just get another example of an uncle raising his dead sister’s child as his own.  

Which then goes back to the idea of Quentyn’s song.  

4 hours ago, Tucu said:

They do not understand. They may be Dornish, but I am Dorne. Years from now, when I am dead, this will be the song they sing of me

While it currently seems comical (and perhaps that’s all it is) but if you juxtapose that with this:

Quote

“Will you make a song for him?” The woman asked.

”He has a song,” the man replied.  “He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire.”

Then perhaps it takes on a greater meaning.  Especially if, Quentyn’s death is the first step towards the endgame.  One of the three heads of the dragon.  Three consciousnesses transferred into the body of a dragon.

[Tucu]

33 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

But none of the quotes you brought up were actually in any of Quentyn’s POV chapters.  They were in Dany’s and Barristan’s chapters.  So the same information could have been told without giving Quentyn four POV chapters.  We just wouldn’t have gotten to know Quentyn quite as well.  So the question is why does the author seem intent on us getting to know Quentyn just to toast him?  

I mean you could be right, I’m certainly not completely sold on any theory including my own, but my guess is Quentyn’s story may continue just in an unexpected way.  

So let’s say that GRRM wanted Aegon to still be alive, but Young Griff was a misdirect.  A mummer’s dragon.  The only character that could possibly fit the bill age wise, and circumstance wise, is probably Quentyn.  We just get another example of an uncle raising his dead sister’s child as his own.  

Which then goes back to the idea of Quentyn’s song.  

While it currently seems comical (and perhaps that’s all it is) but if you juxtapose that with this:

Then perhaps it takes on a greater meaning.  Especially if, Quentyn’s death is the first step towards the endgame.  One of the three heads of the dragon.  Three consciousnesses transferred into the body of a dragon.

The first set of quotes (the ones in the Looney Toons post) were from his POV. The second set were from The Queen's Hand that occurs just after the Dragontamer. Quentyn's personal story can end but the consequences of his actions can continue.

Maybe GRRM wants to continue Quentyn's personal story, but even if he doesn't I don't see his POVs as wasted.

[alienarea]

Quentyn is gone for good. He served his purpose and needed to die.

[LynnS]

Was anyone lucky enough to see the Blood Moon eclipse?

When and how to see the lunar eclipse (and yes, the 'super moon') (yahoo.com)

I'm fairly convinced now that Tyrion saw one:

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A Dance with Dragons - Tyrion VIII

Only the brightest stars were visible, all to the west. A dull red glow lit the sky to the northeast, the color of a blood bruise. Tyrion had never seen a bigger moon. Monstrous, swollen, it looked as if it had swallowed the sun and woken with a fever. Its twin, floating on the sea beyond the ship, shimmered red with every wave. "What hour is this?" he asked Moqorro. "That cannot be sunrise unless the east has moved. Why is the sky red?"

Which brings me to it's twin floating on a red sea.  This seems to represent Euron Blood-Eye who no longer wears a patch to conceal his dark eye.  He has two patches, a black and a red.  I think Martin is representing both types of eclipses in the use of these eye patches. Quite foreboding, if you ask me.  An eclipse of this type would probably make it into a book on Signs and Portents.

"When the sun rises in the West an sets in the East..."

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard X

"And now it begins," said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.

"No," Ned said with sadness in his voice. "Now it ends." As they came together in a rush of steel and shadow, he could hear Lyanna screaming. "Eddard!" she called. A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death.

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A Solar Eclipse can be seen as a very powerful New Moon where important beginnings or endings occur, 

The solar eclipse is the symbol of the Dark Lord, also called the Lord of Shadows, the Leader of the Wild Hunt, Hades, Pluto and the death and resurrection aspects of Cernunnos, Dionysus — and, on a cosmic level, Shiva, among others. The Christian comparison is the portion of the crucifixion of Jesus when he descends into hell then resurrects. As such, the solar eclipse (the Bible story of the crucifixion states the sun darkened at 9.00 am) is a time for ritual observances that link the practitioner with the death passage portion of the cycle of life.

This is an opportunity to connect with the Shadowlands or the Underworld and to face one’s own fears and uncertainties about death. By confronting death through meditation, the face of Death is unmasked. The face one sees may initially be grotesque and horrible, but once the beholder accepts that this is also the face of the giver of life’s energy, that face changes and is beautiful to behold. This is the significance of focusing on the passage. By facing our fears, we gain insight and freedom — death is no longer to be feared.

 

The Solar Eclipse and Magick | Pagan Calendar (shirleytwofeathers.com)

[LynnS]

Well GoT Prequel Bloodmoon was cancelled; so might we see some if this pre-history told in TWOW?  The White Walkers first came into being 8000 years ago?  Brandon the Builder founded House Stark?

Game of Thrones prequel 'Bloodmoon': from cast to release date, everything we know so far (inews.co.uk) 

[Frey family reunion]

29 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Well GoT Prequel Bloodmoon was cancelled; so might we see some if this pre-history told in TWOW?  The White Walkers first came into being 8000 years ago?  Brandon the Builder founded House Stark?

Game of Thrones prequel 'Bloodmoon': from cast to release date, everything we know so far (inews.co.uk) 

Good one less thing that they can screw up.  I don't mind them prostituting the Targaryens, but they need to leave their hands off of the Northern history.

[LynnS]

48 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

Good one less thing that they can screw up.  I don't mind them prostituting the Targaryens, but they need to leave their hands off of the Northern history.

George was meant to be one of the showrunners and writers.  So he was going to be hands on and some of the snippets are interesting.

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Set some 10,000 years before the events of Game of Thrones, Bloodmoon “really puts the ‘pre’ in ‘prequel,'” according to Game of Thrones’ author George R.R. Martin, “since it is set not 90 years before Game of Thrones, or a few hundred years, but rather ten thousand years.”

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Westeros isn't on Earth—it may be a little larger, George R.R. Martin has speculated—but it does have a single moon, similar to ours. In the A Song of Ice and Fire books, the moon over Westeros goes through phases, like ours, and casts pale moonlight. In Qarth, where Daenerys visited the House of the Undying in Game of Thrones Season 2, many believe that there were once two moons, until the dragons hatched from the second of the planet's satellites. But there's nothing in ASOIAF lore about a bloodmoon.

'Game of Thrones' Prequel Series Starts Filming, But What's a Bloodmoon? (newsweek.com)

Quote

 

There have been other astrological omens important to Game of Thrones, particularly the red comet that appeared in the sky in Season 2. In A Song of Ice and Fire, there are also the wanderers, seven stars that correspond to the seven gods in the Faith of the Seven widely practiced in Westeros. One star, associated with the Thief, is red, similar to Mars.

Quote

So while nothing we know about A Song of Ice and Fire stands out as particularly bloody and moon-y

, there is certainly precedent for astronomical bodies playing a part in the politics of Westeros, particularly as omens to be read in different ways by different factions.

 

Of course there is something moon-y in ADWD.  We just haven't recognized what that was until now.  

[Frey family reunion]

10 minutes ago, LynnS said:

George was meant to be one of the showrunners and writers.  So he was going to be hands on and some of the snippets are interesting.

Let me qualify my earlier response then.  Good.  Now George has one less thing to keep him from finishing the series.

[LynnS]

1 minute ago, Frey family reunion said:

Let me qualify my earlier response then.  Good.  Now George has one less thing to keep him from finishing the series.

LOL!  I find it interesting to see what he meant to do with it.  It looks to me like he was intending to answer every mystery not yet covered in the books.  But then had second thoughts changing the timeline from10,000 years to 5,000 years.  In the end I think it was cancelled because it would be too spoilery.   If he intends to publish, where does he go from there?  Which is why I think this stuff will make its way into the next book since he has been thinking about it.  IIRC he didn't publish the words of House Dayne because he thought that would be too spoilery.  So yes I think he intends to publish rather than reveal too much in a tv series.  

[Black Crow]

37 minutes ago, LynnS said:

LOL!  I find it interesting to see what he meant to do with it.  It looks to me like he was intending to answer every mystery not yet covered in the books.  But then had second thoughts changing the timeline from10,000 years to 5,000 years.  In the end I think it was cancelled because it would be too spoilery.   If he intends to publish, where does he go from there?  Which is why I think this stuff will make its way into the next book since he has been thinking about it.  IIRC he didn't publish the words of House Dayne because he thought that would be too spoilery.  So yes I think he intends to publish rather than reveal too much in a tv series.  

Of course the corollary to that is that if the real spoilers lie that far back, they have nothing to do with the Targaryen Succession or the Iron Throne 

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

they have nothing to do with the Targaryen Succession or the Iron Throne 

Remember the Corn Code.  I remember how caught up I got in that.  To this day, I wonder if I had been corned.

[Tucu]

14 hours ago, LynnS said:

Was anyone lucky enough to see the Blood Moon eclipse?

When and how to see the lunar eclipse (and yes, the 'super moon') (yahoo.com)

I'm fairly convinced now that Tyrion saw one:

Which brings me to it's twin floating on a red sea.  This seems to represent Euron Blood-Eye who no longer wears a patch to conceal his dark eye.  He has two patches, a black and a red.  I think Martin is representing both types of eclipses in the use of these eye patches. Quite foreboding, if you ask me.  An eclipse of this type would probably make it into a book on Signs and Portents.

"When the sun rises in the West an sets in the East..."

The Solar Eclipse and Magick | Pagan Calendar (shirleytwofeathers.com)

Asha's chapters have some of the best moon quotes in the books. They almost tell their own story (a Long Night story):

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The moon was almost full, the night so clear that she could see the mountains, their peaks crowned with snow. Cold and bleak and inhospitable, but beautiful in the moonlight. Their summits glimmered pale and jagged as a row of sharpened teeth

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When she saw how pale he was, she pinched his cheek. "Splash some blood upon the moon with me, and I promise you a kiss for every kill."

Quote

The trees were huge and dark, somehow threatening. Their limbs wove through one another and creaked with every breath of wind, and their higher branches scratched at the face of the moon. The sooner we are shut of here, the better I will like it, Asha thought. The trees hate us all, deep in their wooden hearts.

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The trees hid the moon and stars from them, and the forest floor beneath their feet was black and treacherous. Before they had gone half a mile, her cousin Quenton's mare stumbled into a pit and shattered her foreleg. Quenton had to slit her throat to stop her screaming

Quote

The moon and stars looked down upon their struggle, their pale light filtered through the tangle of bare limbs that twisted overhead.

Quote

The sun and moon and stars had been gone so long that Asha was starting to wonder whether she had dreamed them.

Quote

The sun and moon and stars had been gone so long that Asha was starting to wonder whether she had dreamed them. "I will eat."

The last two are repetitions from The King's Prize and The Sacrifice.

For comparison we can look at one of Old Nan's tales:

Quote

Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods."

 

[LynnS]

49 minutes ago, Tucu said:

Asha's chapters have some of the best moon quotes in the books. They almost tell their own story (a Long Night story):

There is also Jon's wolf-dream of the moon following him and calling his name.  There is a lot of moon-y stuff in the books.  It's just not mentioned as a sign or portent.  Although Ned's dream of a blood streaked sky and a storm of petals blue as the eyes of death, could be considered such.  The super moon eclipse is not only known as the blood moon, but also the flower moon and the wolf moon. 

I think we have some of these elements showing up in Ned's ominous dream.  The blue rose, the dead petals falling from Lyanna's hand, the super moon over Volantis with it's red sky at dawn.  Something Tyrion compares to sunrise in the west invoking Mirri Maaz Duur's prophecy.  This might be an old dream of Ned's but it's certainly prophetic and ill-omened.  

 

[LynnS]

Quote

There have been other astrological omens important to Game of Thrones, particularly the red comet that appeared in the sky in Season 2. In A Song of Ice and Fire, there are also the wanderers, seven stars that correspond to the seven gods in the Faith of the Seven widely practiced in Westeros. One star, associated with the Thief, is red, similar to Mars.

This bit from the second article is also interesting since we've been talking about fallen stars personified as characters in the book.  Who are the wanderers in the book?  Certainly Brienne representing the Maid is one of the wanderers.  I wonder if Tyrion will turn out to be "The Thief" who steals a kingdom.  And is Arya, the Stranger?

The famous stories of heros - were they all wanderers/fallen stars?

[Tucu]

2 hours ago, LynnS said:

This bit from the second article is also interesting since we've been talking about fallen stars personified as characters in the book.  Who are the wanderers in the book?  Certainly Brienne representing the Maid is one of the wanderers.  I wonder if Tyrion will turn out to be "The Thief" who steals a kingdom.  And is Arya, the Stranger?

The famous stories of heros - were they all wanderers/fallen stars?

The way I see it each culture built myths around their magical users. The First Men had their Heroes and the Andals their wanderers/fallen stars. Most of the stories are by now the result of syncretism.

By the end of the books I expect that the new generation of "heroes" will result in new myths. All the references to the stone exiles, wanderers, fallen stars, heroes, even The Others might be pointing to the new mythology for the next age.

Quote

Old powers waken. Shadows stir. An age of wonder and terror will soon be upon us, an age for gods and heroes

 

[LynnS]

6 minutes ago, Tucu said:

The way I see it each culture built myths around their magical users. The First Men had their Heroes and the Andals their wanderers/fallen stars. Most of the stories are by now the result of syncretism.

By the end of the books I expect that the new generation of "heroes" will result in new myths. All the references to the stone exiles, wanderers, fallen stars, heroes, even The Others might be pointing to the new mythology for the next age.

 

Nicely put.  I like it.

[LynnS]

Oops.

George R.R. Martin Responds to 'The Long Night' Cancellation - PureWow

[alienarea]

The wanderers, seven stars that correspond to the faith of the seven.

And maybe Rhaegar's rubies as well? One is still missing.

Because one of the stars (of the seven) fell?

And Dawn was created from a fallen star.

[Frey family reunion]

7 hours ago, LynnS said:

Oops.

George R.R. Martin Responds to 'The Long Night' Cancellation - PureWow

It might also be an indication that Hollywood is happier with the Mummer's version of Westeros, than GRRM's actual, probably much darker and ickier, vision.

Despite how stupid the Mummer's version was.  Or maybe knowing Hollywood, because of how stupid it was.

[LynnS]

20 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

It might also be an indication that Hollywood is happier with the Mummer's version of Westeros, than GRRM's actual, probably much darker and ickier, vision.

Despite how stupid the Mummer's version was.  Or maybe knowing Hollywood, because of how stupid it was.

Or HBO didn't think it would draw a large enough audience without dragons.