A Theory on Sphinxes and Heroes- Part IV Ice Eyes

[northern_amnesia]

In Part I I talked about the statues of WF and the link they seem to have with the Titan of Braavos, that statue has eyes of fire, a broken sword like the LH and a horn like Joramun in the legend of the Nk.

In Part II, I talked about Ned’s Tower dream to prove that Arthur is Jon’s father.

Part III talks about what happened during the war and how Brandon survived his execution at KL.

This part is about the Others and the Starks, next I’ll make a summary of all the sphinxes and Jon’s death, and later, I’ll talk about the pink letter.

A. The Last King

 

The Last Hero goes out in search of a magic that would allow him to recover something he lost, and begins his journey with 12 companions, a horse, a dog, and his sword. But as he searches, he loses everything, his friends die one by one, and he is left without a horse, and even without a dog.

The hero finds himself completely alone and with the sword so frozen that the steel shatters.

What this legend talks about, is the line of Starks, their bloodline, each Stark in the crypt is a ‘last hero’, that is exactly what the crypt shows, the ‘Last Stark’, and he is a hero because he kept the sword frozen and the proof is that the steel shatters:

“By ancient custom an iron longsword had been laid across the lap of each who had been Lord of Winterfell, to keep the vengeful spirits in their crypts. The oldest had long ago rusted away to nothing, leaving only a few red stains where the metal had rested on stone.” Eddard I - AGoT

The new swords begin to disappear from the crypt in this generation, while Eddard is ‘the last’ statue, when Bran and the Reeds steal the swords while escaping from WF, and that proves that there are ‘others‘.

 

"That king is missing his sword," Lady Dustin observed.(...). The sight disquieted him. He had always heard that the iron in the sword kept the spirits of the dead locked within their tombs. If a sword was missing …” The Turncloak - ADwD

It turns out that a ‘high’ amount of iron makes things look black:

“Dragonbone is black because of its high iron content, the book told him.” Tyrion II AGoT

This will help us understand the Others.

 

Speaking of black, The NK, was a ‘black brother’ to whom legend blames of a series of things for which the NW brothers are forbidden to do anything but ‘watch’.

When I spoke about this legend in Part I, I said that it’s not clear how he’s defeated, except for the mention of the ‘Horn of Joramun’.

In recent history, the eyes of Cersei’s children function as a ‘horn’, they are the loud and clear warning that those children are not the king’s, and the one that sounds the horn is Sansa, who tells Ned that Joffrey is nothing like his father.

In our story, our horn is Waymar, whose resemblance to Jon makes us suspect that there must be some connection between his death and ‘the bastard of Winterfell’. Waymar’s death, broken sword included, takes us back to the LH and the crypt of WF where there is something very wrong.

Unlike what was traditionally (and apparently for good reason) displayed in the WF crypt, instead of finding the classic statue of the deceased lord or king, we have 3 statues, three “watchers”, even though according to Bran, Brandon and Lyanna “are not supposed to” have statues, that’s an honor for Kings and Lords and the brothers were neither.

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“Then a long cruel winter fell,” (…) Brandon Stark this was, Edrick Snowbeard’s great-grandson, him that men called Ice Eyes. He took the Wolf’s Den back, stripped the slavers naked, and gave them to the slaves he’d found chained up in the dungeons. It’s said they hung their entrails in the branches of the heart tree, as an offering to the gods. The old gods, not these new ones from the south. Your Seven don’t know winter, and winter don’t know them.” Davos IV – ASoS

The “song of fire”, the song they sing south of the Wall, is the one that wrote the official story, the “seven facing three” that Ned dreams of. 

But to know what really happened, we need some ‘ice eyes’ to see how the ‘Song of ice’, unflods, the one that The Others sing, in deathly silence.

 

B. The Others made no sound

 

We know that the Others have a ‘special’ appearance with eyes that burn like ice, swords that are not made of any known metal, and an armor that changes color between white, grey, and black. I’ll talk about this in the next part.

Curiously, the color of their armor is the same as that of the direwolves that Jon a Robb found:

“He’s not like the others,” Jon said. “He never makes a sound. That’s why I named him Ghost. That, and because he’s white. The others are all dark, grey or black.”

No iron here. He’s white.

In AGoT’s prologue, when Will sees the Others he thinks “The Others made no sound” and that’s the point of being a ‘watcher’.

The Last Hero is a watcher, he was looking for something, and we know from the legend that he left a trail, a trail of dead friends, and horse and even a dog, following that trail, we will see the ‘song of ice’.

 

1. The sword in the darkness

Waymar Will and Gared are looking for 8 wildlings, 8 are the NW brothers that the LH leaves as a trail so we can follow his story.

When Waymar and Will arrive on the scene they find that there is nothing, except for an axe that Will had described as: “Heavy-looking, double-bladed, a cruel piece of iron. It was on the ground beside him, right by his hand.”

Upon arriving and seeing that the axe is still there, Will feels confused, it’s a “valuable weapon” and it is still there…‘untouched ’.

The ‘cruel piece of iron’ as we’ll see, represents Lyanna, and appears all over the hero’s trail. In every death of the men of the NW, there’s an axe or a mention of an axe. After all, the ‘Last Hero‘ in the crypt when this story begins, is Lyanna. But besides, Ned told Robert that he saw Lyanna’s beauty “but not the iron underneath“, Lyanna was the double-bladed, cruel piece of iron. Lyanna caused much of Ned’s problems

Waymar, as I said in Part II, is the first one attacked, and that attack proves that Arthur is Jon’s father. But there’s another point, another clue that Will gives us during the attack, he says that The Others ‘made no sound’ and yet, during the fight, The Other says something, he mocks Waymar, and that mockery we hear later and much further north, when Qhorin tells Jon:

“They warned me bastard blood was craven,” he heard Qhorin Halfhand say coldly behind him. “

What the Other says to Waymar, is what Qhorin says to Jon: bastard. And this coldness, will be relevant for Jon.

 

2. Watchers and Fire

We don’t see the second attack, what we see is the result. The night Jon swears his vows with Sam, Ghost brings Flowers’s right hand from the forest. Sam is important later.

When the NW comes out to examine the bodies of the dead rangers, Jon thinks of Othor that his “singing days were done” a singer is a bard, or a wolf, and Othor represents both. Othor appears with a horn, Othor represents Brandon, as I said in Part III, entering KL while shouting ‘come out and die’.

In fact, it’s because of Othor and Flowers (and what they did) that the NW goes out to the ranging and they effectively die, like Rhaegar.

Flowers kills 5 brothers that night. Lyanna’s dissapearence leads 5 people directly to their deaths in KL: Rickard Stark, Jeffory Mallister, Kyle Royce, Elbert Arryn, and the poor guy who died instead of Brandon in the execution.

Othor goes in search of the LC. I said in Part III that Hightower was an accomplice of the Starks and this is sustained in Othor’s attack, because Jon surprises him hiding in Mormont’s room, the same room were the Valyrian steel sword was ‘hidden’. This supports the idea that Brandon went to KL to make Rhaegar ‘come out’ from whetever he was hidden, that Hightower knew, and hid Brandon, until Rhaegar appeared.

Othor’s attack also includes a very interesting detail:

“The sword, where was the sword? He’d lost the damned sword! When he opened his mouth to scream, the wight jammed its black corpse fingers into Jon’s mouth. (…) Its hand forced itself farther down his throat, icy cold, choking him”

During the attack, Jon loses his sword and wants to scream, but the wight stops him by sticking his fingers ‘icy cold’ down his throat, choking him. The attack is curiously very similar to the legend that tells how Qhorin lost his fingers:

“Only thumb and forefinger remained on the hand that held the reins; the other fingers had been sheared off catching a wildling’s axe that would otherwise have split his skull. It was told that he had thrust his maimed fist into the face of the axeman so the blood spurted into his eyes, and slew him while he was blind. Since that day, the wildlings beyond the Wall had known no foe more implacable.”

Qhorin loses his fingers due to a ‘wildling’s axe’, as I already mentioned, the axe is in all the scenes where the Others appear, and it’s Lyanna. Qhorin blinds the ‘axemen‘ with blood to kill him. Ned dreams of Lyanna and her bed of blood, Jon has very dark grey eyes, as if he had an extra grey, and since both Qhorin (Arthur) and Lyanna had grey eyes, the ‘blinding blood’ are Jon’s eyes, he can easily be posed as a Stark because he looks like any of them.

Jon thinks that the wildlings ‘had known no foe more implacable’ than Qhorin; in the prologue, Will feels that something ‘cold and implacable’ is watching him.

Bael’s song tells that Lord Stark called Bael ‘a craven who preyed only on the weak’, so Bael went to tech him a lesson, which is very interesting, considering what Aemon told Jon:

“A craven can be as brave as any man, when there is nothing to fear. And we all do our duty, when there is no cost to it. How easy it seems then, to walk the path of honor. Yet soon or late in every man’s life comes a day when it is not easy, a day when he must choose.” Jon III – AGoT

And that’s exactly why ‘the watchers’ are not supposed to have kids, because having a child makes you fear for their life.

Back to the Wall and the corpses.

Othor dies as Rickard, set on fire, Flowers, who had died beheaded as Brandon supposedly died, is cutted to pieces, there is nothing left, as there was no Brandon in KL, as Ned’s dream points out.

 

3. The light that brings the dawn

When the NW reaches the Fist, Jon makes a very interesting discovery, a package containing obsidian or ‘frozen fire’ and a horn wrapped in a NW cloak. Jon tries to sound the horn but can’t get any sound out of it.

A fist has 5 fingers, and curiously, a few days after that Jon blows the silent horn Qhorin arrives, the ranger with the 3 missing fingers on the right hand, the same hand that Jon burns.

In Ned’s dream, Arthur has Dawn poking over his right shoulder, and in his memory, Lyanna squeezes Ned’s fingers tightly while the black petals fall from her hand, as Waymar’s sword falls from Will’s hand, the sword that was “proof” of the existence of the Others.

When I talked about Lyanna’s crowning in Part I, I said that it was curious that Rhaegar had laid the flowers where the Starks usually put their swords, on her lap. The statues are holding the swords with their hands. Lyanna, who is represented by an axe on the trail we are following, drops black petals, which metaphorically are Arthur’s fingers.

Jon finds 3 things in the Fist: a ‘black cloak’ (him), a silent horn (Brandon), and frozen fire (Arthur).

For inexplicable reasons, since they had never met, Qhorin personally chooses Jon and later sends him on a vital mission, ordering him to ‘watch’. Clearly, the explanation is that he wants to spend time with Jon before sending him to Brandon.

Arthur was a ‘broken’ sword, he wanted to die.

The mission that Qhorin entrusts him, leads Jon to ‘Mance’, who is singing “The Dornishman’s Wife” when they meet. Mance asks Jon if he’s a craven (like Bael), and Jon answer is just gold:

“And did you see where I was seated, Mance?” He leaned forward. “Did you see where they put the bastard?”

Mance, offers to find him a new cloak.

 

4. The Horn that wakes the sleepers

Jon gives the horn he finds in the Fist to Sam.

Jon and Sam are ‘brothers’, they took their oath together. Sam shows us the trail of the other hero, Ned.

After the attack on the Fist, Sam escapes but is so exhausted that he can’t continue, so Small Paul carries him, until the weight is too much and he leaves Sam sitting on the floor. Grenn and Paul are trying to convince Sam to get up and keep going when an ‘Other’ appears riding a dead horse from the NW. Remember that the LH leaves a trail of dead friends, a horse and a dog. Here’s the horse.

While Grenn tries to scare the Other away with fire, Small Paul attacks him with an axe. In the midst of his terror, Sam hears (in his head of course) Jon’s voice saying do it, Sam.You can do it, you can, just do it, and without much thought, he kills the Other. 

Throughout the journey from the Fist to the Wall, Sam is never sure if he is dreaming, remembering, or how he got where he is, because he was terrified of what he saw and really doesn’t want to remember.

I our hero from the other side version of things, the voice that Ned hears is Lyanna’s ‘Promise me, Ned’ which is supposed to be about killing the 3 KG, (what the Other seemed about to do to Grenn, Paul and Sam), when in reality it’s about him killing the ‘Other’, Lyanna, for what she did to Robert (Small Paul).

The problem is that Ned doesn’t remember exactly how things happened, nor does he want to remember.

To see how Ned killed Lyanna, you have to look closely:

“Promise me, she had cried, in a room that smelled of blood and roses. Promise me, Ned. The fever had taken her strength and her voice had been faint as a whisper, but when he gave her his word, the fear had gone out of his sister’s eyes. Ned remembered the way she had smiled then, how tightly her fingers had clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling from her palm, dead and black. After that he remembered nothing.”  

The words of the first victim, Royce, are ‘we remember‘ and that’s what it’s all about.

Waymar yells: For Robert ! while Lyanna dies for Robert, because Ned chooses Robert over his family. 

The ‘fever’ that takes Lyanna is Ned, the cold burns, in fact, ‘nothing burns like the cold‘, Lyanna’s voice is ‘faint as a whisper’ because he’s chocking her.

All the wights choke their victims, they all have black hands like the black petals that Lyanna has in her hands, they all have blue eyes (like Robert’s) that burn, eyes like ice. 

I said in the previous part that Jon’s origin song is the ‘Dornishman’s Wife’ that song is about a guy that dies singing that the dornish took his life, the ‘dornish’ is Ned with his song about some rescue in Dorne that never happened.

This is part of the lyrics:

"As he lay on the ground with the darkness around, and the taste of his blood on his tongue, His brothers knelt by him and prayed him a prayer, and he smiled and he laughed and he sung..." 

Right there we have the entire Lyanna’s death scene, the smile, the prayer (Jon and the promise), the darkness (Ned and his secret), the blood.

Ned murdered Lyanna.

The Wall looks blue when the sun is facing it, when there is ‘light’, but it’s grey when the sun is hidden. That’s why the Others and the wights have blue eyes, they see the truth of what happened, and that’s why the wights kill their ‘brothers’, because it’s exactly what happened.

When Will picks up Waymar’s sword, the one that’s proof of what happened, Waymar raises and this happens:

 

“The broken sword fell from nerveless fingers. Will closed his eyes to pray. Long, elegant hands brushed his cheek, then tightened around his throat. They were gloved in the finest moleskin and sticky with blood, yet the touch was icy cold.

Lyanna squeezes Ned’s fingers (while he’s choking her), Will’s fingers are ‘nerveless’. The ‘rose petals spilling’ ‘dead and black’ is the trail of dead NW brothers who tell the story that Lyanna can’t tell because ‘dead men sing no songs’.

 

5. The Shield

From his terrifying encounter with the Other, Sam goes to another terrifying encounter, Craster’s Keep.

While the NW is there, Craster tells them that there’s nothing to fear, he is a godly man:

“A godly man got no cause to fear such. I said as much to that Mance Rayder once, when he come sniffing round. He never listened, no more’n you crows with your swords and your bloody fires. That won’t help you none when the white cold comes. Only the gods will help you then. You best get right with the gods.” Samwell II – ASoS

 

There are two things about WF that are striking, one is the crypt with its ‘swords’ and the other is the ‘bloody fire’ or rather the heat of the walls that Cat describes as a man’s hot blood running through the walls. Both are supposed to be protection against the ‘white cold’ and its different forms, The Others, and winter.

It turns out that Craster was right, the moment that Ned left Winterfell he was fucked, because while the Old Gods protected him, ‘the seven don’t know winter, and winter don’t know them’.

Besides, a ‘ghost’ was ‘sniffing round’ WF, ‘Brandon’s ghost’.

 

"Very good! Yes, that was the first time. You were just a boy, and I was all in black, one of a dozen riding escort to old Lord Commander Qorgyle when he came down to see your father at Winterfell. I was walking the wall around the yard when I came on you and your brother Robb. It had snowed the night before, and the two of you had built a great mountain above the gate and were waiting for someone likely to pass underneath."
I remember," said Jon with a startled laugh. A young black brother on the wallwalk, yes . . . "You swore not to tell."
"And kept my vow. That one, at least."

 

 

Mance was the 13th watcher that went to WF to see, and curiously, ‘it had snowed’ as always happens when the “Others” appear. 

If we remember what I said when I spoke of the NK, this ‘black brother’ is the one that bounds his brothers to be nothing but ‘watchers’, which is logical, Ned himself said so, “It was all meant for Brandon”.

 

Back to Ned

After escaping from Craster’s Keep, with Gilly and the baby, Sam falls asleep and wakes up just in time to see that Small Paul is entering the place where the 3 were spending the night. Gilly tells him that he came for the baby, that the wight ‘smells life’, but that’s not exactly what we see. What attracts Paul is the sound.

“Paul swung toward the sound, and seemed to lose all interest in Sam. (...) Half-turned, the wight never saw him coming. The raven gave a shriek and took to the air. "You're dead!" Sam screamed as he stabbed. "You're dead, you're dead." He stabbed and screamed, again and again, tearing huge rents in Paul's heavy black cloak.” 

Undead Paul is the black brother looking for the maiden and the babe, the one lured by the sound, the one with the teared cloak. Brandon Stark. Small Paul dies when Sam pushes his face into a fire, but Brandon is very much alive, and looking for a sorcery.

 

C. All but invisible in the woods

 

Now is the time to talk about the Other’s companions.

This is what Will sees during the attack:

“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.”

All the wights, or rather, all the direct victims of the Others’ attacks are brothers of the NW, so they all took an oath. Like Ned.

Let’s go back to Ned’s dream for a moment, to examine the ‘shadows’ that accompany him to the tower:

“In the dream his friends rode with him, as they had in life. Proud Martyn Cassel, Jory’s father; faithful Theo Wull; Ethan Glover, who had been Brandon’s squire; Ser Mark Ryswell, soft of speech and gentle of heart; the crannogman, Howland Reed; Lord Dustin on his great red stallion.”

Each NW wight corresponds to one of Ned’s 5 companions (not counting Reed):

• Proud Cassel: Waymar proud of his sword
• Faithful Wull: Will who prays to the Old Gods while watching
• Glover: Flowers hand that Ghost brings from the forest.
• Ryswell soft of speech: Othor and his horn that nobody heard
• Dustin and his stallion: Small Paul outraged because the Other stole a horse

I already said that Waymar’s words are ‘we remember’, what ‘the north remembers’ is the path of ‘black petals’ left by the NW brothers, that clearly leads to WF, because if we look closely, each shadow on Ned’s dream and every ‘brother’ of the NW, represent one of Ned’s children.

The proud is Robb, the faithful is Bran, the ‘squire’ is Arya who looks just like Lyanna, the horn is Sansa, and the ‘red’ stallion is Rickon. Every NW brother who dies, dies in place of one of Ned’s children.

“…that is why they dress us in black.” Mormont told, and unfortunately, he was right.

That’s Bael’s song dark end, the gods hate kinslayers, but as Old Nan said, a man has the right to his revenge, so while ‘winter’ kills ‘black brothers’ beyond the wall, ‘the grey brothers’ are killed in the south, and that only leaves us with the ghosts.

 

Thanks a lot for reading. Sorry for any grammar or spelling mistakes, but English is not my first language.