Heresy 240: Ten Heretical Years

[Tucu]

2 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Yes, I think we've pretty well agreed over the years that we're dealing with a cave system below Winterfell rather than a series of constructed basements and sub-basements - with the caveat that in my experience crypts are usually airspaces in the foundations of large structures. In other words the crypts that we see in the books are a part of the Winterfell castle foundations, which are in turn built on top of a an ancient cave system - separate but connected.

As described the crypts [as distinct from the caves] seem to take the form of a long [spiral?] corridor, lines by individual burial chambers - clearly not 8,000 years worth, but as to those Starks below are they actually buried, or just gone below? 

Bran makes it sound like a long cavern with pillars (connected to additional vaults):

Quote

The vault was cavernous, longer than Winterfell itself, and Jon had told him once that there were other levels underneath, vaults even deeper and darker where the older kings were buried

Quote

He strode briskly down the vault, past the procession of stone pillars and the endless carved figures. A tongue of flame trailed back from the upraised torch as he went.

 

[asongofheresy]

7 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Ah well, its long been my [heretical] contention that the Wall must fall in order to resolve this happy tale of honest country folk

 

Ygritte, after all, was pretty insistent that it's evil

Interesting view, we definitely need more info about North during TWOW. 

[Black Crow]

28 minutes ago, asongofheresy said:

Interesting view, we definitely need more info about North during TWOW. 

Indeed, and as I was saying that's the point about Heresy. This is a story about the children of Winterfell and about the Wall and Winter. R+L=J and the Targaryen succession is just a distraction and a smoke-screen 

[LynnS]

I keep coming back to the arrival of the Andals (the 5 kings and the remainder of their armies) as the tipping point for deposing the old order of the Night Watch and replacing it with a different world view.  Something that precipitated the return of the White Walkers.  We have the enemy of the old gods stopped from invading at the Neck, showing up in force, at the Wall.

They don't just give up their beliefs and world view on joining the Watch.  What may have been a peaceful co-existence between the old order NW, the Wildlings and the COTF would likely be turned on it's head.

What would the Andals think if they encountered the wierwood at Whitetree?

Quote

 

A Clash of Kings - Jon II

Whitetree, the village was named on Sam's old maps. Jon did not think it much of a village. Four tumbledown one-room houses of unmortared stone surrounded an empty sheepfold and a well. The houses were roofed with sod, the windows shuttered with ragged pieces of hide. And above them loomed the pale limbs and dark red leaves of a monstrous great weirwood.

It was the biggest tree Jon Snow had ever seen, the trunk near eight feet wide, the branches spreading so far that the entire village was shaded beneath their canopy. The size did not disturb him so much as the face . . . the mouth especially, no simple carved slash, but a jagged hollow large enough to swallow a sheep.

"An old tree." Mormont sat his horse, frowning. "Old," his raven agreed from his shoulder. "Old, old, old."

"And powerful." Jon could feel the power.

Thoren Smallwood dismounted beside the trunk, dark in his plate and mail. "Look at that face. Small wonder men feared them, when they first came to Westeros. I'd like to take an axe to the bloody thing myself."

 

What would they make of the Wildlings worshipping the old gods?  At some point they would become the enemy as well.

What of the grove of nine weirwood trees?  Were they given the faces of their enemy?  Sacrifices to the old gods.

Was the answer to a superior force waking giants in the earth and deployment of the White Walkers to repel the invaders?  

[Tucu]

17 minutes ago, LynnS said:

I keep coming back to the arrival of the Andals (the 5 kings and the remainder of their armies) as the tipping point for deposing the old order of the Night Watch and replacing it with a different world view.  Something that precipitated the return of the White Walkers.  We have the enemy of the old gods stopped from invading at the Neck, showing up in force, at the Wall.

They don't just give up their beliefs and world view on joining the Watch.  What may have been a peaceful co-existence between the old order NW, the Wildlings and the COTF would likely be turned on it's head.

What would the Andals think if they encountered the wierwood at Whitetree?

What would they make of the Wildlings worshipping the old gods?  At some point they would become the enemy as well.

What of the grove of nine weirwood trees?  Were they given the faces of their enemy?  Sacrifices to the old gods.

Was the answer to a superior force waking giants in the earth and deployment of the White Walkers to repel the invaders?  

Some of the big changes are rather recent. Maegor sent thousands of the Faith Militant to the Wall (Walton Stark died when they rebelled years later). Jaehaerys and Alysanne abolished the first night, gave the New Gift to the Wall (that triggered depopulation of the area) and paid for Deep Lake so that the NW would abandon the Nightfort.

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, asongofheresy said:

Now after the ending of SnK, my question is, what happens when the Wall of asoiaf collapses/melts with magic etc. Is it a good thing to eliminate this barriers or something dangerous will be unleashed upon humanity?

I wonder if the original owne of the horn of winterr was the Night King. Waking giants in the earth could refer to greenseers. Bloodraven refers to them as dreamers.  If the Night King's allegience is to the old gods, I can see the Horn of Winter being used to call up the White Walkers.

If one blast wakes giants in the earth; what does a second blast achieve?

Quote

 

A Storm of Swords - Jon II

In Old Nan's stories, giants were outsized men who lived in colossal castles, fought with huge swords, and walked about in boots a boy could hide in. These were something else, more bearlike than human, and as wooly as the mammoths they rode. Seated, it was hard to say how big they truly were. Ten feet tall maybe, or twelve, Jon thought. Maybe fourteen, but no taller. Their sloping chests might have passed for those of men, but their arms hung down too far, and their lower torsos looked half again as wide as their upper. Their legs were shorter than their arms, but very thick, and they wore no boots at all; their feet were broad splayed things, hard and horny and black. Neckless, their huge heavy heads thrust forward from between their shoulder blades, and their faces were squashed and brutal. Rats' eyes no larger than beads were almost lost within folds of horny flesh, but they snuffled constantly, smelling as much as they saw.

They're not wearing skins, Jon realized. That's hair. Shaggy pelts covered their bodies, thick below the waist, sparser above. The stink that came off them was choking, but perhaps that was the mammoths. And Joramun blew the Horn of Winter, and woke giants from the earth. He looked for great swords ten feet long, but saw only clubs. Most were just the limbs of dead trees, some still trailing shattered branches. A few had stone balls lashed to the ends to make colossal mauls. The song never says if the horn can put them back to sleep.

 

I don't think we are talking about Wun Wun's people.  Did Joramun blow the horn thinking he would put them back to sleep?

Would the horn answer to him or to it's true owner?  

 

 

[LynnS]

What if the Horn of Winter is roughly equivalent to Dragonbinder?  Instead of a cup fire, it's cup of ice and all WW's who hear it must answer to it's master.

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, Tucu said:

Some of the big changes are rather recent. Maegor sent thousands of the Faith Militant to the Wall (Walton Stark died when they rebelled years later). Jaehaerys and Alysanne abolished the first night, gave the New Gift to the Wall (that triggered depopulation of the area) and paid for Deep Lake so that the NW would abandon the Nightfort.

Sure but is long after the first cultural clash at the Wall.

[Melifeather]

On 11/28/2021 at 4:31 AM, Black Crow said:

Its when we start to look at the purpose of the Wall that things start to get a little sticky because it was all so very long ago – a whole 8,000 years ago. To put this in context, the current action in Westeros is taking place 300 years after Aegon’s Conquest, which for reference purposes we can equate to William of Normandy’s Conquest of England in 1066. Scroll back 1,000 years and we have the Roman invasion of Celtic Britain in AD 43. The Iron Age (or if you prefer the arrival of the Andals) is reckoned to have started around 650 years before that, and the Bronze age as long ago as 2,000 years before the arrival of the Romans. So far as recorded histories go, the Biblical Old Testament goes back less than 4,000 years and includes stories of kings ruling for hundreds of years, all of which gives considerable point to the words of Samwell Tarly:

The oldest histories we have were written after the Andals came to Westeros. The First Men only left us runes on rocks, so everything we think we know about the Age of Heroes and the Dawn Age and the Long Night comes from accounts set down by septons thousands of years later. There are archmaesters at the Citadel who question all of it.

The first five books of the Bible (the Torah) were - supposedly - written down by Moses as if he were God's secretary. The story starts with the creation of the world, and ends with Moses dying on the wrong side of the Jordan (Wall?) and being buried in an unmarked grave. Prior to the word being written down, history was passed down orally. 

It is thought that Moses lived during the Age of Aries and that he wrote the books 800 years after Noah and the flood. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments he was seen with two rays of light on his forehead which looked like horns. Many artists depict Moses with horns which are thought to symbolize divinity and honor. Rams horns - the shofar - are featured prominently in the Torah - as you might expect for someone that lived during the Age of Aries the Ram just as Jesus is depicted with the two fishes of Pisces.

While Moses was gone up in the mountains, the people reverted to their previous beliefs and formed the golden calf of Taurus. When Moses returned and saw the calf, he was so angry that he smashed the tablets. He later chiseled new tablets which were rewritten by God. According to traditional teachings of Judaism in the Talmud, they were made of blue sapphire stone as a symbolic reminder of the sky, the heavens, and ultimately of God's throne. Many Torah scholars, however, have opined that the biblical sapir was, in fact, lapis lazuli - a possible alternate to sapphire. Side note: Brienne and her sapphires may have an alternative meaning that hasn't been explored.

The Age of Taurus ended roughly 4000 years ago which would be in line with the estimated age of the Torah. 

There are many archeologists that believe the Sphinx was built during the Age of Leo, which ended 8000 years ago. The evidence is the Orion Correlation theory which posits that there is a correlation between the location of the three largest pyramids of the Giza pyramid complex and Orion's Belt of the constellation Orion, and that this correlation was intended as such by the original builders of the Giza pyramid complex. The stars of Orion were associated with Osiris, the god of rebirth and afterlife by the ancient Egyptians. Depending on the version of the theory, additional pyramids can be included to complete the picture of the Orion constellation, and the Nile river can be included to match with the Milky Way.

Now I recall why we once discussed the Precession of the Equinoxes so long ago!

With this in mind, I think I see glimmers of new meaning in the following:

Quote

 

A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

And they did sing. They sang in True Tongue, so Bran could not understand the words, but their voices were as pure as winter air. "Where are the rest of you?" Bran asked Leaf, once.

"Gone down into the earth," she answered. "Into the stones, into the trees. Before the First Men came all this land that you call Westeros was home to us, yet even in those days we were few. The gods gave us long lives but not great numbers, lest we overrun the world as deer will overrun a wood where there are no wolves to hunt them. That was in the dawn of days, when our sun was rising. Now it sinks, and this is our long dwindling. The giants are almost gone as well, they who were our bane and our brothers. The great lions of the western hills have been slain, the unicorns are all but gone, the mammoths down to a few hundred. The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well. In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us."

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.

 

Leaf's words sound like the precession of the equinoxes for Westeros. The "great lions" that have been slain could be a reference to the Age of Leo 10,000 to 8000 years ago, the unicorns the Age of Cancer 8000 to 6000 years ago , the mammoths the Age of Gemini 6000 to 4000 years ago, the giants the Age of Taurus the bull 4000 to 2000 years ago, the Children the Age of Aries 2000 to the present (like the Hebrews of Biblical times), and the direwolves the Age of Pisces - the current Age.  But the Children recognize that in the future - after the direwolves are gone - that there will be a dawning of the Age of Aquarius - a time of enlightenment, and according to the Mayan, having passed through all the Ages in the precession of the equinoxes, the beginning of a new cycle.

It seems appropriate to me for Daenerys to be a promised messiah rising in the east during the Age of Pisces. She isn't recognized by the "Hasidic" Children however as their messiah, just like the Jews that didn't accept Jesus and became Christian. The jews acknowledge that Jesus was an important prophet, but not the messiah (prince that was) promised by their god.

[alienarea]

Another big mystery is why the COTF helped the last hero?

[LynnS]

There seems to be some contradiction between what the Horn of Joramun and the Horn of Winter and what they actually do.

The Horn of Winter wakes giants in the earth and possibly puts them back to sleep.

The Horn of Joramun.is supposed to being down the Wall, presumably the magic wards. 

Are there two horns or one horn?  I know we have a second great horn, but is that a re herring?

Is the Horn of Winter now called Joramun's horn because he took possession of it.

Is it possible that one horn can accomplish the first three points?

One blast - to wake giants in the earth

Second blast - to put them back to sleep

Third blast - to bring down the magic of the Wall.

 

[LynnS]

3 minutes ago, alienarea said:

Another big mystery is why the COTF helped the last hero?

And why they gave the Watch a tribute of 100 pieces of dragonglass.  Perhaps this is a reminder that they gave the last hero a weapon.

[asongofheresy]

2 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Indeed, and as I was saying that's the point about Heresy. This is a story about the children of Winterfell and about the Wall and Winter. R+L=J and the Targaryen succession is just a distraction and a smoke-screen 

True but there are only two Targaryens, Daenerys and Aegon, that could distract us from the Starks, though if one is child of Lyanna then he/she is a Stark too, and the other is a Dayne? 

[LynnS]

OK, so I have hyperactively unloaded every random thought in my head and now I think I'll do some hyperactive baking. 

[asongofheresy]

1 hour ago, LynnS said:

I wonder if the original owne of the horn of winterr was the Night King. Waking giants in the earth could refer to greenseers. Bloodraven refers to them as dreamers.  If the Night King's allegience is to the old gods, I can see the Horn of Winter being used to call up the White Walkers.

If one blast wakes giants in the earth; what does a second blast achieve?

I don't think we are talking about Wun Wun's people.  Did Joramun blow the horn thinking he would put them back to sleep?

Would the horn answer to him or to it's true owner?  

 

 

Could the sleeping giants be the CotF or are they like Titan of Braavos instead? Colossal protectors in some way? 

[alienarea]

28 minutes ago, Melifeather said:

The first five books of the Bible (the Torah) were - supposedly - written down by Moses as if he were God's secretary. The story starts with the creation of the world, and ends with Moses dying on the wrong side of the Jordan and being buried in an unmarked grave. Prior to the word being written down, history was passed down orally. 

It is thought that Moses lived during the Age of Aries and that he wrote the books 800 years after Noah and the flood. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments he was seen with two rays of light on his forehead which looked like horns. Many artists depict Moses with horns which are thought to symbolize divinity and honor. Rams horns - the shofar - are featured prominently in the Torah - as you might expect for someone that lived during the Age of Aries the Ram just as Jesus is depicted with the two fishes of Pisces.

While Moses was gone up in the mountains, the people reverted to their previous beliefs and formed the golden calf of Taurus. When Moses returned and saw the calf, he was so angry that he smashed the tablets. He later chiseled new tablets which were rewritten by God. According to traditional teachings of Judaism in the Talmud, they were made of blue sapphire stone as a symbolic reminder of the sky, the heavens, and ultimately of God's throne. Many Torah scholars, however, have opined that the biblical sapir was, in fact, lapis lazuli - a possible alternate to sapphire. Side note: Brienne and her sapphires may have an alternative meaning that hasn't been explored.

The Age of Taurus ended roughly 4000 years ago which would be in line with the estimated age of the Torah. 

There are many archeologists that believe the Sphinx was built during the Age of Leo, which ended 8000 years ago. The evidence is the Orion Correlation theory which posits that there is a correlation between the location of the three largest pyramids of the Giza pyramid complex and Orion's Belt of the constellation Orion, and that this correlation was intended as such by the original builders of the Giza pyramid complex. The stars of Orion were associated with Osiris, the god of rebirth and afterlife by the ancient Egyptians. Depending on the version of the theory, additional pyramids can be included to complete the picture of the Orion constellation, and the Nile river can be included to match with the Milky Way.

Now I recall why we once discussed the Precession of the Equinoxes so long ago!

With this in mind, I think I see glimmers of new meaning in the following:

Leaf's words sound like the precession of the equinoxes for Westeros. The "great lions" that have been slain could be a reference to the Age of Leo 10,000 to 8000 years ago, the unicorns the Age of Cancer 8000 to 6000 years ago , the mammoths the Age of Gemini 6000 to 4000 years ago, the giants the Age of Taurus the bull 4000 to 2000 years ago, the Children the Age of Aries 2000 to the present (like the Hebrews of Biblical times), and the direwolves the Age of Pisces - the current Age.  But the Children recognize that in the future - after the direwolves are gone - that there will be a dawning of the Age of Aquarius - a time of enlightenment, and according to the Mayan, having passed through all the Ages in the precession of the equinoxes, the beginning of a new cycle.

It seems appropriate to me for Daenerys to be a promised messiah rising in the east during the Age of Pisces. She isn't recognized by the "Hasidic" Children however as their messiah, just like the Jews that didn't accept Jesus and became Christian. The jews acknowledge that Jesus was an important prophet, but not the messiah (prince that was) promised by their god.

I read some books by Hancock,  please check his latest America Before, which deals with when mankind settled the Americas (hint: maybe earlier).

What to me is quite amazing in Hancock's books is that established history may not always be correct and his underlaying theme of the flood caused by the end of the last ice age wiped out a previous civilization.

[LynnS]

3 minutes ago, asongofheresy said:

Could the sleeping giants be the CotF or are they like Titan of Braavos instead? Colossal protectors in some way? 

Specifically greenseers who are COTF.  If you consider them to be a part of the weirwood; as a whole unit; they are giants.

[HoodedCrow]

Dueling horns would be cool. The song of jazz dragons…and it would fit in. Several blasts would work:)

[LynnS]

1 minute ago, HoodedCrow said:

Dueling horns would be cool. The song of jazz dragons…and it would fit in. Several blasts would work:)

If the great horn that Melisandre pretends to destroy is a dragonbinding horn (because it sure looks like one); then what would happen if Jon in his icy form as the King of Winter and leader of the White Walkers blew on that?  I expect it would be explosive. 

[HoodedCrow]

Or the snow melt:)  I used to think that a prophecy would mean that Dany would not die because she is a woman. Tyrion might because he says that he is a half man. Victarion might be the designated dier. But if Jon is already icy dead and he blows it?