Heresy 239: Reflections

[Tucu]

1 hour ago, asongofheresy said:

Regarding the connection between Faceless God and God of Many Faces, it reminds me of Koh from ATLA, Koh has many faves but he steals the faces of others to use, so I assume he doesn't have a face of his own, he is a centipede living in a cave, though I don't know if there is any mythological basis for Koh that can influence GRRM as well 

Koh is probably based on the Japanese Noppera-bo, a form of faceless ghosts. This was also probably the source of Kaonashi (No Face) in Spirited Away.

The Noppera-bo sometimes impersonate people and sometimes they are actually animals capable of "skin changing"; kitsune foxes, tanuki or mujina.

This and other Japanese ghost stories made it to the west via the works of Lafcadio Hearn (Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things)

[asongofheresy]

54 minutes ago, Tucu said:

Koh is probably based on the Japanese Noppera-bo, a form of faceless ghosts. This was also probably the source of Kaonashi (No Face) in Spirited Away.

The Noppera-bo sometimes impersonate people and sometimes they are actually animals capable of "skin changing"; kitsune foxes, tanuki or mujina.

This and other Japanese ghost stories made it to the west via the works of Lafcadio Hearn (Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things)

Ah thank you for sharing this, the kitsune part made me think of Florys the Fox, I wonder if she was skin changing as well. 

[Melifeather]

21 hours ago, LynnS said:

I like this idea.  The COTF as Wood Dancers.  What is the equivalent for Water Dancer?  Arya learns from Syrio how to be a Water Dancer and he's a Faceless Man.  Seem the FM could be water dancers to me; but are they allied with the wood dancers or working at cross purposes?  The Faceless God and the God of Many Faces?

I like this as well.  How did the Alchemist take Pate's likeness?  Did he take his face when he killed him or is it some kind of glamour.  How does Jaqen take on a new face?  We assume he's carrying skins around but maybe the faces in the HoB&W serve a different purpose?  Used for novices who don't kow how to glamour. 

 

19 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Anent the first, I don't think we're talking about groups as such; rather its a synonym for warriors trained in particular techniques.

Anent the second I think its unlikely that Jaqen is carrying faces in his pocket; rather that he, being a fully paid up member of the guild can either collect images before leaving the house, or as in the case of Pate, absorb him on the spot 

 

Answering both....I've always assumed that water dancers are so named, because they were trained in the way of Braavosi swordsmen and Braavos is a city full of canals.

As for glamors...both the kindly man and Melisandre enlighten us.

The kindly man said, why use a spell when a mummer's trick would serve? So, some of this is just being able to control the muscles in the face:

Quote

 

A Feast for Crows - Arya II

"That's not how I meant. Jaqen used magic."

"All sorcery comes at a cost, child. Years of prayer and sacrifice and study are required to work a proper glamor."

"Years?" she said, dismayed.

"If it were easy all men would do it. You must walk before you run. Why use a spell, where mummer's tricks will serve?"

"I don't know any mummer's tricks either."

"Then practice making faces. Beneath your skin are muscles. Learn to use them. It is your face. Your cheeks, your lips, your ears. Smiles and scowls should not come upon you like sudden squalls. A smile should be a servant, and come only when you call it. Learn to rule your face."

"Show me how."

"Puff up your cheeks." She did. "Lift your eyebrows. No, higher." She did that too. "Good. See how long you can hold that. It will not be long. Try it again on the morrow. You will find a Myrish mirror in the vaults. Train before it for an hour every day. Eyes, nostrils, cheeks, ears, lips, learn to rule them all." He cupped her chin. "Who are you?"

"No one."

"A lie. A sad little lie, child."

She found the Myrish mirror the next day, and every morn and every night she sat before it with a candle on each side of her, making faces. Rule your face, she told herself, and you can lie.

 

 

Melisandre and Mance discuss the glamor of looking like Rattleshirt:

Quote

 

A Dance with Dragons - Melisandre I

Melisandre paid the naked steel no mind. If the wildling had meant her harm, she would have seen it in her flames. Danger to her own person was the first thing she had learned to see, back when she was still half a child, a slave girl bound for life to the great red temple. It was still the first thing she looked for whenever she gazed into a fire. "It is their eyes that should concern you, not their knives," she warned him.

"The glamor, aye." In the black iron fetter about his wrist, the ruby seemed to pulse. He tapped it with the edge of his blade. The steel made a faint click against the stone. "I feel it when I sleep. Warm against my skin, even through the iron. Soft as a woman's kiss. Your kiss. But sometimes in my dreams it starts to burn, and your lips turn into teeth. Every day I think how easy it would be to pry it out, and every day I don't. Must I wear the bloody bones as well?"

"The spell is made of shadow and suggestion. Men see what they expect to see. The bones are part of that." Was I wrong to spare this one? "If the glamor fails, they will kill you."

 

 

When Jon realizes Rattleshirt is actually Mance:

Quote

 

A Dance with Dragons - Melisandre I

Jon Snow turned to Melisandre. "What sorcery is this?"

"Call it what you will. Glamor, seeming, illusion. R'hllor is Lord of Light, Jon Snow, and it is given to his servants to weave with it, as others weave with thread."

Mance Rayder chuckled. "I had my doubts as well, Snow, but why not let her try? It was that, or let Stannis roast me."

"The bones help," said Melisandre. "The bones remember. The strongest glamors are built of such things. A dead man's boots, a hank of hair, a bag of fingerbones. With whispered words and prayer, a man's shadow can be drawn forth from such and draped about another like a cloak. The wearer's essence does not change, only his seeming."

She made it sound a simple thing, and easy. They need never know how difficult it had been, or how much it had cost her. That was a lesson Melisandre had learned long before Asshai; the more effortless the sorcery appears, the more men fear the sorcerer. When the flames had licked at Rattleshirt, the ruby at her throat had grown so hot that she had feared her own flesh might start to smoke and blacken. Thankfully Lord Snow had delivered her from that agony with his arrows. Whilst Stannis had seethed at the defiance, she had shuddered with relief.

 

 

Another lesson from the kindly man. Basically there are three ways to look like someone else. 1) Put on the clothing of the person, maybe a wig, and use the muscles of the face to copy an expression. 2) Use a belonging of the person you want to glamor...a finger bone, a pair of boots, maybe a hank of hair, and then use magic to create the illusion. 3) the use of an actual face flayed from the skull. I suspect when the Faceless Men do take a face from a body, there must be some magic ritual involved so that whenever the mask is worn it will automatically fuse to the wearer's face and they experience the dead person's life:

Quote

 

A Dance with Dragons - The Ugly Little Girl

"Bring me the face," said the kindly man. The waif made no answer, but she could hear her slippers whispering over the stone floor. To the girl he said, "Drink this," and pressed a cup into her hand. She drank it down at once. It was very tart, like biting into a lemon. A thousand years ago, she had known a girl who loved lemon cakes. No, that was not me, that was only Arya.

"Mummers change their faces with artifice," the kindly man was saying, "and sorcerers use glamors, weaving light and shadow and desire to make illusions that trick the eye. These arts you shall learn, but what we do here goes deeper. Wise men can see through artifice, and glamors dissolve before sharp eyes, but the face you are about to don will be as true and solid as that face you were born with. Keep your eyes closed." She felt his fingers brushing back her hair. "Stay still. This will feel queer. You may be dizzy, but you must not move."

Then came a tug and a soft rustling as the new face was pulled down over the old. The leather scraped across her brow, dry and stiff, but as her blood soaked into it, it softened and turned supple. Her cheeks grew warm, flushed. She could feel her heart fluttering beneath her breast, and for one long moment she could not catch her breath. Hands closed around her throat, hard as stone, choking her. Her own hands shot up to claw at the arms of her attacker, but there was no one there. A terrible sense of fear filled her, and she heard a noise, a hideous crunching noise, accompanied by blinding pain. A face floated in front of her, fat, bearded, brutal, his mouth twisted with rage. She heard the priest say, "Breathe, child. Breathe out the fear. Shake off the shadows. He is dead. She is dead. Her pain is gone. Breathe."

 

 

[LynnS]

I'm binge watching The Hundred TV series.  Lord of the Flies meets Battlestar Galactica.  

[alienarea]

3 hours ago, LynnS said:

I'm binge watching The Hundred TV series.  Lord of the Flies meets Battlestar Galactica.  

Then it should be named either Lord Galactica or Battlestar of the Flies

[Tucu]

The first 3 episodes of Wheel of Time are now available in Prime video. I watched the first episode; not bad; Roose Bolton showed up but he hasn't flayed anyone yet

[asongofheresy]

Should I self reflect on the atrocious Heresy thread I have wrote while having an anxiety crisis? The answer is no since I have zero self confidence :(

[Melifeather]

23 hours ago, Tucu said:

The first 3 episodes of Wheel of Time are now available in Prime video. I watched the first episode; not bad; Roose Bolton showed up but he hasn't flayed anyone yet

I've just finished the first episode too. They've already made several creative changes that aren't part of the beginning story, but I enjoyed the episode none the less. The settings were quite beautiful and the trollocs were kinda cool.

[LynnS]

On 11/15/2021 at 1:48 PM, alienarea said:

Then it should be named either Lord Galactica or Battlestar of the Flies

 

[asongofheresy]

How correct Daenerys' interpretations are when it comes to Quaithe's warnings? Both her and the fandom due to her POV, seem to think some warnings already happened, like Pale Mare = Sickness in Mereen, Sun's son = Quentyn, how right her assumptions are? What if Quaithe's list does require a timeline of some sort, and Sun's Son will arrive after Kranken and Dark Flame, Lion and Griffin, and not before? 

[Black Crow]

GRRM has always warned that prophecies are very unreliable and don't mean what they appear to

[alienarea]

13 hours ago, asongofheresy said:

How correct Daenerys' interpretations are when it comes to Quaithe's warnings? Both her and the fandom due to her POV, seem to think some warnings already happened, like Pale Mare = Sickness in Mereen, Sun's son = Quentyn, how right her assumptions are? What if Quaithe's list does require a timeline of some sort, and Sun's Son will arrive after Kranken and Dark Flame, Lion and Griffin, and not before? 

Prophecies in ASoIaF are like daily horoscopes in the newspaper. When you look long enough, you may find some truth in them, but it could be coincidence as well.

[Melifeather]

Just sharing a post from our landlords...

A couple quotes from George's longtime entertainment agent, Paul Haas:

Quote

 

George loves Dan and Dave, but after season five, he did start to worry about the path they were going because George knows where the story goes. He started saying, “You’re not following my template.” The first five seasons stuck to George’s road map. Then they went off George’s map.

. . .

George has not told me who gets the throne at the end of his arc; he will not tell anybody. I believe maybe his book publisher and book agent know, but I do not. And I’ve represented George since 1992.

So I have no idea where it goes, but the bottom line is that the book’s ending is a more satisfying experience than the show’s.

 

 

[Black Crow]

11 hours ago, Melifeather said:

Just sharing a post from our landlords...

A couple quotes from George's longtime entertainment agent, Paul Haas:

 

Very interesting, but not exactly surprising...

Basically, as we miserable heretics have long argued, fan-fiction took over - and that fan-fiction is being refuted.

[Black Crow]

And on the same theme, anybody heard any good rumours about Winter ?

[Melifeather]

52 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

And on the same theme, anybody heard any good rumours about Winter ?

Only that George stated on his blog on Nov 20th that he was still working on it.

Quote

 I have working, yes, yes… but not on the railroad.   I have been writing WINDS OF WINTER, editing three new Wild Cards books, sitting down with some amazing screenwriters and showrunners to create three hundred and seventeen new GAME OF THRONES successor shows for HBO and HBO Max,  and serving as executive producer on various other television and film projects in various stages of development, including DARK WINDS for AMC, JOKERTOWN for Peacock, ROADMARKS and WHO FEARS DEATH for HBO.  Oh, and I was the executive producer on our (recently wrapped) short film of Howard Waldrop’s NIGHT OF THE COOTERS.   So I have been working.   Maybe too bloody hard, but that’s another tale for another blog post… though these days even finding the time to blog is hard).

But then look at that long laundry list of other projects he's doing at the same time.  We need focus, George! Solitary, singular focus!

[Frey family reunion]

1 hour ago, Melifeather said:

Only that George stated on his blog on Nov 20th that he was still working on it.

But then look at that long laundry list of other projects he's doing at the same time.  We need focus, George! Solitary, singular focus!

I know this is silly of me, but I'm hoping that perhaps he may be hinting that the christening day of his new railroad may also be the announcement of Winds of Winter:

Quote

Write it down.   DECEMBER 3.   The Wolf will howl.   The Dragon will roar.

And yes, I know that one train is the Wolf and one the Dragon, so it probably means nothing more than this.  But one can always hope...

[LynnS]

17 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

I know this is silly of me, but I'm hoping that perhaps he may be hinting that the christening day of his new railroad may also be the announcement of Winds of Winter:

And yes, I know that one train is the Wolf and one the Dragon, so it probably means nothing more than this.  But one can always hope...

Hopefully the train will finally leave the station.  

[Melifeather]

I have been reading alot lately and would be so excited to get my grubby hands on Winds! I'm just in that kind of groove! Winter is time for reading! Right now I'm on my second Kristin Hannah book, The Great Alone - the setting is Alaska shortly after the Vietnam War. Not normally a time period that I enjoy, but the main character is a 13 year old girl with an abusive father with PTSD and her story of survival in the Alaskan wilderness has sucked me in deep. I had read Hannah's, The Four Winds book first about the Dust Bowl. So good, but so sad! Hannah is a wonderful storyteller if you can stand the anxiety of knowing something bad should be happening soon! LOL I also had an old post pop up on my FB feed to remind me about two other authors that I want to try: Mark Lawrence's Thorn series, and Joe Abercrombie's Half series. Both write fantasies and that look to be set in Viking and medieval times - periods that I tend to love reading about. I so enjoyed Ken Follett's historical fiction Kingsbridge series (four books) that I went on to read his Centennial trilogy, but had to stop when it got into the 1980's Cold War era. Eh. Then I lost interest. Has anyone read and enjoyed either Mark Lawrence or Joe Abercrombie? 

[LynnS]

I haven't read any of those novels.  I finished reading Hillary Mantel's Wolf Hall Trilogy.  The historical fiction of Thomas Cromwell.  It's fantastic.  Also made into a TV series which I didn't see.  I'm currently reading Mentats of Dune.