Heresy 238 The Song of Sansa the Snow Queen

[LynnS]

I'm preoccupied with the federal election in Canada.  If you are wondering WTF is going on; Rex Murphy is the soul of the age.  Here for your diversion only.  Can you spot the reference to Winds of Winter ?

Justin Trudeau and the Election that Should Have Never Been | Rex Murphy | JBP Podcast S4: E45 - YouTube

[alienarea]

10 hours ago, LynnS said:

I'm preoccupied with the federal election in Canada.  If you are wondering WTF is going on; Rex Murphy is the soul of the age.  Here for your diversion only.  Can you spot the reference to Winds of Winter ?

Justin Trudeau and the Election that Should Have Never Been | Rex Murphy | JBP Podcast S4: E45 - YouTube

I'm preoccupied with the federal election in Germany. If the candidates we are being served were the menu I want the catch of the day.

[Black Crow]

On 9/15/2021 at 4:28 PM, Melifeather said:

Suppressed by the author not by the characters. Maybe "reserved" is a better word?

Possibly. I expect that we'll get an explanation in due course of why obsidian is known as dragonglass and why dragonsteel swords were useful against the Others, but I suspect that it will be an explanation rather than a critical plot point.

Jon, alive or dead, is a warrior of renown but there is a limit to what one man and his sword can do, which is why I'm more interested in the discussions anent Trouserless Bob the Summer King and Jon the King of Winter, and where Sansa sits in this. 

[Black Crow]

Mind you, I do wonder about dragonsteel and dragonglass, and whether the magic they carry is only effective in breaking the spell holding the Others together, or whether it might have a similar effect on the big beasties?

[LynnS]

On 9/16/2021 at 6:56 AM, alienarea said:

I'm preoccupied with the federal election in Germany. If the candidates we are being served were the menu I want the catch of the day.

Forty-seven parties on the ballot?

4 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Mind you, I do wonder about dragonsteel and dragonglass, and whether the magic they carry is only effective in breaking the spell holding the Others together, or whether it might have a similar effect on the big beasties?

I suspect that dragonsteel draws out the fire and traps it, in the same way that dragonglass draws out the cold.  

[Melifeather]

5 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Possibly. I expect that we'll get an explanation in due course of why obsidian is known as dragonglass and why dragonsteel swords were useful against the Others, but I suspect that it will be an explanation rather than a critical plot point.

Jon, alive or dead, is a warrior of renown but there is a limit to what one man and his sword can do, which is why I'm more interested in the discussions anent Trouserless Bob the Summer King and Jon the King of Winter, and where Sansa sits in this. 

If seasons end when the king is killed, Jon was stabbed before he could be raised as a king unless becoming Lord Commander is sufficient? Holding the title, Lord of Winterfell seems to be the seat of the winter king. So I think we can assume Jon needs to retake Winterfell in order to claim the lordship, but will he? He turned Stannis down. Oh sure, he entertained the thought - Val included - but the only way to honorably forsake his Nights Watch vows would be to die. I guess technically he may have been released if he does die and is resurrected. But I suspect that this is where Sansa steps in and takes up the mantle of Lady of Winterfell and Queen of Winter.

[Black Crow]

2 hours ago, Melifeather said:

If seasons end when the king is killed, Jon was stabbed before he could be raised as a king unless becoming Lord Commander is sufficient? ... But I suspect that this is where Sansa steps in and takes up the mantle of Lady of Winterfell and Queen of Winter.

 Yes... I'm inclined to speculate that it may be both. Jon must die to become King of Winter while Sansa needs to become Lady of Winterfell to keep the family firm going.

[Frey family reunion]

On 9/15/2021 at 9:54 AM, Black Crow said:

"Suppressed" is perhaps too strong a word, but its certainly significant that Sam finds mention of dragonsteel being used to fight the Others a long long time ago.

I’m a bit dubious that “dragonsteel” and Valyrian steel are the same thing.  The First Men runes has the last hero slaying the others with a “blade of dragonsteel”.  Valyria was only founded approximately 5000 years before the story starts.  The Long Night occurred between 6000 and 8000 years prior to the start of the story. 

Even if these are approximations, it seems a thousand year discrepancy between the founding of Valyria and the Long Night should put a lot of doubt in our mind that Valyrian steel was in existence at the time of the Long Night.

I think dragonsteel means something else.

[alienarea]

Musings about the theory that Lyanna was a Queen of Winter but her reign was short (false spring).

If Sansa becomes the next Queen of Winter

- does she she become QoW because her direwolf got killed, i.e. were the direwolf pups send to protect the Stark pups from becoming King/Queen of Winter?

- if so, was Arya planned to become the next QoW, because Nymeria should have been killed?

- all of this starts when the Stark girls (Lyanna, Sansa, Arya) are out of Winterfell. Is this the meaning of "There must always be a Stark in Winterfell"?

- it's all about women, and the downfall of the Night's King started when he saw the pale bride. Are the Others lead by the Queen of Winter? This may be a reference to Michael Crichton's "Eaters of the Dead" and a hive concept.

- did Rhaegar abduct Lyanna because he knew she would become the QoW? Did he bring her to Dorne because of this, i.e. as far away from the lands of winter as he could imagine?

- all of this might have been touched in "She-Wolfes of Winterfell" (the title sounds like a bad prison porn flick).

[alienarea]

18 hours ago, LynnS said:

Forty-seven parties on the ballot?

I suspect that dragonsteel draws out the fire and traps it, in the same way that dragonglass draws out the cold.  

Three candidates that can become Merkel's successor. And if I were going to a restaurant and those were the only options on the menu, I were to ask for the catch of the day. Or maybe just scrambled eggs.

[Black Crow]

On 9/17/2021 at 7:39 PM, Frey family reunion said:

I’m a bit dubious that “dragonsteel” and Valyrian steel are the same thing.  The First Men runes has the last hero slaying the others with a “blade of dragonsteel”.  Valyria was only founded approximately 5000 years before the story starts.  The Long Night occurred between 6000 and 8000 years prior to the start of the story. 

Even if these are approximations, it seems a thousand year discrepancy between the founding of Valyria and the Long Night should put a lot of doubt in our mind that Valyrian steel was in existence at the time of the Long Night.

I think dragonsteel means something else.

I think that we need to bear in mind GRRM's comments in text and SSM about history getting hazy after a couple of thousand years and that what's important here is that he's telling us that Valyrian steel can defeat the Others in the same way that dragonglass can, or more particularly bearing in mind his statement that when Sam pinked Ser Puddles he "broke the spell", that it can defeat magic - hence my question-mark over dragons

[Frey family reunion]

On 9/19/2021 at 6:00 AM, Black Crow said:

I think that we need to bear in mind GRRM's comments in text and SSM about history getting hazy after a couple of thousand years and that what's important here is that he's telling us that Valyrian steel can defeat the Others in the same way that dragonglass can, or more particularly bearing in mind his statement that when Sam pinked Ser Puddles he "broke the spell", that it can defeat magic - hence my question-mark over dragons

I'm just very skeptical that Jon and Sam's first guess as to "dragonsteel" was the correct one.  Just like the timelines are fuzzy, we're also warned that the language is fuzzy and potentially misleading as well.  

Here they're trying to make sense of an Andal interpretation of an ancient First Man rune.  The whole thing seems a tad suspect to me, especially since we're told repeatedly that the First Men weren't introduced to steel until the Andal invasions which occurs much later than the long night.

Why would the First Men have a rune for steel, whether dragon steel or otherwise?  

And then we have to decide whether there truly was a "last hero", or whether this is just a fictionalized version of a much more complicated event.  In most scenarios it's very rare that a lone person comes in and saves the day, especially in such an apocolyptic scenario.

[Black Crow]

In all fairness I have to agree with what you're saying anent the limitations of runes and if we're being sensible about this we'd have to assume that the chronicles [or whatever they were] read by Sam are the product of Andal septons rather than translated transcripts of official records from an earlier age.

Anent the Last Hero, being equally sensible, legendary heroes are generally speaking more metaphorical than real; a good example being King Arthur and even Sir Francis Drake, and reputed to return in times of danger and moreover given that GRRM more than nods to this by introducing a number of variation both in the main books and the additional ones.

So being sensible, yes its all a load of old cobblers, but on the other hand this isn't a factual work of history but a work of fiction penned by Mr Martin, and what's more of course, at this point he's still scattering little clues rather than revealing great truths. In this case, as I say, he's suggesting that Valyrian steel might be efficacious, but not yet telling us how or why - even the reveal about dragonglass breaking the spell seems to have been no more than a slip of the tongue in a piece to camera.

[Black Crow]

Since we're on the subject:

Posted 16 March 2015 - 04:47 PM
"In an interruption to our advertised program I'm watching a feature on Sky Atlantic, providing a catch up on the HBO series thus far and featuring interviews with [among others] GRRM, who has just confirmed that when Sam pinked Ser Puddles "he broke the spell holding him together." 
In other words the walkers are created and sustained by magic, which begs the rather obvious questions as to who might be working the magic and why?
 

[Tucu]

Dragonsteel and other magic weapons might be a distraction for the characters and a reversal of expectations for the readers.

Quote

"You are fighting shadows when you should be fighting the men who cast them," Daario went on

Quote

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?

Quote

Everyone talks about snows forty foot deep, and how the ice wind comes howling out of the north, but the real enemy is the cold. It steals up on you quieter than Will, and at first you shiver and your teeth chatter and you stamp your feet and dream of mulled wine and nice hot fires. It burns, it does. Nothing burns like the cold

 

[Springwatch]

On 9/17/2021 at 6:39 PM, Black Crow said:

 Yes... I'm inclined to speculate that it may be both. Jon must die to become King of Winter while Sansa needs to become Lady of Winterfell to keep the family firm going.

 

On 9/18/2021 at 7:15 AM, alienarea said:

If Sansa becomes the next Queen of Winter

- does she she become QoW because her direwolf got killed, i.e. were the direwolf pups send to protect the Stark pups from becoming King/Queen of Winter?

- if so, was Arya planned to become the next QoW, because Nymeria should have been killed?

I believe Osha: Winter's got no king - which sounds like either a queen (or even empress, suggested by the spider in the woods), or a spirit king. So I agree Jon must die to be that king, not so sure about Sansa. Yes, because Lady died, and Lady is made in the image of her child owner, as all the direwolves are. Or no, to fulfil that image of being the sole red rose among white ones (and again, that idea of not 'belonging' in the world of black and white).

Either way, 'death' need not be permanent, because ice is so very, very good at preserving. Arya too - she may truly be found in the spring thaw, with Needle frozen to her grip, but she can come back.  Likely she was a queen during winter too.

[Springwatch]

5 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

I'm just very skeptical that Jon and Sam's first guess as to "dragonsteel" was the correct one.  Just like the timelines are fuzzy, we're also warned that the language is fuzzy and potentially misleading as well.  

Here they're trying to make sense of an Andal interpretation of an ancient First Man rune.  The whole thing seems a tad suspect to me, especially since we're told repeatedly that the First Men weren't introduced to steel until the Andal invasions which occurs much later than the long night.

Why would the First Men have a rune for steel, whether dragon steel or otherwise?  

And then we have to decide whether there truly was a "last hero", or whether this is just a fictionalized version of a much more complicated event.  In most scenarios it's very rare that a lone person comes in and saves the day, especially in such an apocolyptic scenario.

All true, but there might be something in it. Valyrian Steel is a very sophisticated product - there must have been versions before that which shared some of its ingredients/characteristics. The First Men wouldn't have a clue of course, (just as we don't really understand the nature of the sword 'Dawn') - but such a weapon would be so important it might be worth creating a rune or two to try and describe its origin story.

 

3 hours ago, Tucu said:

Dragonsteel and other magic weapons might be a distraction for the characters and a reversal of expectations for the readers.

Quote

"You are fighting shadows when you should be fighting the men who cast them," Daario went on

This, very much. All those references to puppeteers and cyvasse are adding up. And the building picture is that the shadows and pawns are not just white walkers/shadow babies, but also the characters of Westeros etc - suggested by the 'mummer's dragon' and the red priest's Victarion vision, showing the black strings that make him dance. And Sansa herself being a piece, not yet a player, of course.

 

 

[alienarea]

Quaithe is the one behind the White Walkers.

[Black Crow]

11 hours ago, alienarea said:

Quaithe is the one behind the White Walkers.

Do tell

[Tucu]

One of those "Wow, I never noticed that" moments: Sam prayed to the demons of snow for the gift of mercy shortly before his encounter with Ser Puddles:

Quote

He had wrapped his scarf over his nose and mouth, but it was covered with snot now, and so stiff he feared it must be frozen to his face. Even breathing was hard, and the air was so cold it hurt to swallow it. "Mother have mercy," he muttered in a hushed husky voice beneath the frozen mask. "Mother have mercy, Mother have mercy, Mother have mercy." With each prayer he took another step, dragging his legs through the snow. "Mother have mercy, Mother have mercy, Mother have mercy."

His own mother was a thousand leagues south, safe with his sisters and his little brother Dickon in the keep at Horn Hill. She can't hear me, no more than the Mother Above. The Mother was merciful, all the septons agreed, but the Seven had no power beyond the Wall. This was where the old gods ruled, the nameless gods of the trees and the wolves and the snows. "Mercy," he whispered then, to whatever might be listening, old gods or new, or demons too, "oh, mercy, mercy me, mercy me."

Maslyn screamed for mercy. Why had he suddenly remembered that? It was nothing he wanted to remember. The man had stumbled backward, dropping his sword, pleading, yielding, even yanking off his thick black glove and thrusting it up before him as if it were a gauntlet. He was still shrieking for quarter as the wight lifted him in the air by the throat and near ripped the head off him. The dead have no mercy left in them, and the Others . . . no, I mustn't think of that, don't think, don't remember, just walk, just walk, just walk.