Heresy 240: Ten Heretical Years

[LynnS]

I'm surprised to learn that the hosts of Radio Westeros think that either Mel or Dany could fill a Nissa Nissa role in the forging  Lightbringer.  I've mentioned this idea before but I thought it was too much tinfoil for most people. 

7 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

All things are of course possible, but I'd say not. The Long Night, the Wall and the Walkers are a ultimately a Westeros thing

Do you think the last hero and AA are the same character, the same story told through different cultural lenses? 

[Black Crow]

6 minutes ago, LynnS said:

I'm surprised to learn that the hosts of Radio Westeros think that either Mel or Dany could fill a Nissa Nissa role in the forging  Lightbringer.  I've mentioned this idea before but I thought it was too much tinfoil for most people. 

Depends how metaphorical the story is, both anent the original and any future one

[Black Crow]

8 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Do you think the last hero and AA are the same character, the same story told through different cultural lenses? 

Certainly a popular interpretation, but my gut feeling is no and that they are on different sides

[LynnS]

22 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Certainly a popular interpretation, but my gut feeling is no and that they are on different sides

I'm inclined that way as well.  I think the white sword/dawn sword and the red sword/lightbringer are two different swords.   I think AA is forging dragonsteel and both AA and Nissa Nissa belong something akin to the Red Lot since AA at least, doesn't need sleep.  It seems to me that Mel is the fiery heart to be sacrificed at some point.

AA did kill a beast that sounds like a WW according to the tales:

Quote

 

A Dance with Dragons - Jon III

"He would know." Aemon Targaryen had seen nine kings upon the Iron Throne. He had been a king's son, a king's brother, a king's uncle. "I looked at that book Maester Aemon left me. The Jade Compendium. The pages that told of Azor Ahai. Lightbringer was his sword. Tempered with his wife's blood if Votar can be believed. Thereafter Lightbringer was never cold to the touch, but warm as Nissa Nissa had been warm. In battle the blade burned fiery hot. Once Azor Ahai fought a monster. When he thrust the sword through the belly of the beast, its blood began to boil. Smoke and steam poured from its mouth, its eyes melted and dribbled down its cheeks, and its body burst into flame."

 

So I'm not sure that Essos wasn't affected by the First long night given the tale about the Rhoyne freezing and a darkness on the land.

If the First Men of Westeros were on good terms with the COTF and threatened by the WWs that help would be given and additional protection of the Wall.  

Cause and effect might have been given to us in Ned's coma dream with the return of the red comet/dragons answered by a storm of white walkers.

[Black Crow]

Ultimately, although things spill over, this is a story about about the children of Winterfell and Westeros - and the threats from their rivals, the Lannisters, from Danaerys and the Dragons and ultimately Winter. Everything else is just a distraction

[LynnS]

I continue to be distracted by Radio Westeros The Winds of Winter Primers.  Recommended listening.

[Black Crow]

17 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Ultimately, although things spill over, this is a story about about the children of Winterfell and Westeros - and the threats from their rivals, the Lannisters, from Danaerys and the Dragons and ultimately Winter. Everything else is just a distraction

Just to expand a little on this comment. GRRM has of course a tendency to wander off in strange directions, but we need to stick with the story. Old Nan provides the core of the Westeros mythos. Our Mel provides an Essosi alternative, focussing around Light and Fire, although curiously enough not on Dragons, but although she interferes she lies outside Westeros and I feel that the resolution to the whole business will lie in Westeros

[Black Crow]

21 hours ago, Black Crow said:

 

Turn to the Long Night and there's no story, it just happens and the White Walkers come for the first time - why?

 

Thinking about this one, I'm sure that this is a plot device. GRRM has assured us that the cause of the dodgy seasons is magical and will be revealed in time. I read this as meaning that at some point in the story the whole mystery of the Starks, Winter and the Wall [and the White Walkers] will be revealed to us - and it will be something which happened in Westeros - not something random out east.

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

Thinking about this one, I'm sure that this is a plot device. GRRM has assured us that the cause of the dodgy seasons is magical and will be revealed in time. I read this as meaning that at some point in the story the whole mystery of the Starks, Winter and the Wall [and the White Walkers] will be revealed to us - and it will be something which happened in Westeros - not something random out east.

I'm uncertain of when they come for the first time in the sequence of events; but it must be before the construction of the Wall meant to hold them back.  The story of the Last Hero would seem to be the end of this conflict resulting in the Pact and then the construction of the Wall, Winterfell and the Watch.  That would imply that the threat of the Others hasn't been completely eliminated and could return for an unknown reason.  

So we have the unnatural season with their magical cause.  What is stopping the seasons from returning to the natural state.  How is this magic sustained?  The Others can only exist under these magical conditions.

 

 

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, LynnS said:

So we have the unnatural season with their magical cause.  What is stopping the seasons from returning to the natural state.  How is this magic sustained?  The Others can only exist under these magical conditions.

The Wall:

 

Blood built it

Blood stopped the building of it

And Blood will bring it down

 

[LynnS]

Quote

 

A Dance with Dragons - Jon I

Jon did not deny it. "The Wall is no place for a woman."

"You are wrong. I have dreamed of your Wall, Jon Snow. Great was the lore that raised it, and great the spells locked beneath its ice. We walk beneath one of the hinges of the world." Melisandre gazed up at it, her breath a warm moist cloud in the air. "This is my place as it is yours, and soon enough you may have grave need of me. Do not refuse my friendship, Jon. I have seen you in the storm, hard-pressed, with enemies on every side. You have so many enemies. Shall I tell you their names?"

 

Quote

In every story there are visible and hidden “hinges”–places where the particular bits of the story “hang,” for structure. The visible hinges are crisis points and revelations, easy enough to spot. The hidden hinges, however, are harder to see. This is partly because the hat-trick of writing depends just as much on what happens behind the curtain as it does on the visible excitements that make up the outer story.

prairiemary: THE METAPHOR OF HINGE

 

[asongofheresy]

What are the other hinges of the world? Is Aeron's trauma with hinges more than Euron's abuse? 

[alienarea]

1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

The Wall:

 

Blood built it

Blood stopped the building of it

And Blood will bring it down

 

Questions:

1) Whose blood built it?

2) Whose blood stopped the building? When and why?

3) What would if have become in case the building would not have been stopped? A higher wall? 

4) Whose blood will bring it down?

My 2 cents:

1) The sacrifice Bran witnesses in tree mode

2) The 79 that were buried in the wall

3) Too high too walk on

4) Jon Snow's

 

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, asongofheresy said:

What are the other hinges of the world?

I'm going with the Wall is the 'hinge of ice': upon which related magic i.e. the White Walkers/winter are dependent upon or connected to.  The other hinge may be the hinge of fire.

Quote

 

A Dance with Dragons - Jon VI

Jon frowned in disbelief. "That's … queer."

"You think so?" She knelt and scratched Ghost behind his ear. "Your Wall is a queer place, but there is power here, if you will use it. Power in you, and in this beast. You resist it, and that is your mistake. Embrace it. Use it."

 

So Mel tells Jon that he can access and use the power of the Wall.  So the Wall may be a reservoir of ice magic or a dam of sorts.  Dams function by containing and releasing their contents at different times.  Dams are also power sources.

 

Quote

 

noun

a jointed device or flexible piece on which a door, gate, shutter, lid, or other attached part turns, swings, or moves.

a natural anatomical joint at which motion occurs around a transverse axis, as that of the knee or a bivalve shell.

that on which something is based or depends; pivotal consideration or factor.

Also called mount. Philately. a gummed sticker for affixing a stamp to a page of an album, so folded as to form a hinge, allowing the stamp to be raised to reveal the text beneath.

verb (used without object), hinged, hing·ing.

to be dependent or contingent on, or as if on, a hinge (usually followed by on or upon):Everything hinges on his decision.

verb (used with object), hinged, hing·ing.

to furnish with or attach by a hinge or hinges.

to attach as if by a hinge.

to make or consider as dependent upon;

 

 

 

[Black Crow]

1 minute ago, LynnS said:

I'm going with the Wall is the 'hinge of ice': upon which related magic i.e. the White Walkers/winter are dependent upon or connected to.  The other hinge may be the hinge of fire.

So Mel tells Jon that he can access and use the power of the Wall.  So the Wall may be a reservoir of ice magic or a dam of sorts.  Dams function by containing and releasing their contents at different times.  Dams are also power sources.

 

 

 

Exactly, which is why I think that the building of the Wall is bound up with the Long Night and that bringing down the Wall is the key to ending it

[LynnS]

16 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Exactly, which is why I think that the building of the Wall is bound up with the Long Night and that bringing down the Wall is the key to ending it

I guess the question becomes: can someone turn the dam off and on, dial the flow of ice magic up or down.  Was the false spring a manifestation of that control.  Was someone playing around with the thermostat?

 

[LynnS]

7 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Just to expand a little on this comment. GRRM has of course a tendency to wander off in strange directions, but we need to stick with the story. Old Nan provides the core of the Westeros mythos. Our Mel provides an Essosi alternative, focussing around Light and Fire, although curiously enough not on Dragons, but although she interferes she lies outside Westeros and I feel that the resolution to the whole business will lie in Westeros

Mel isn't obsessed with dragons anymore so much as she is obsessed with the great other, the soul of ice; the personification of darkness, death and hate.  A nihilistic god.  The white walkers are likely his servants but that character hasn't shown up yet.

Mel certainly equates this with the prophecy from Asshai and the emergence of a hero/AA.  Mel, Rhaegar, and Aemon associate the return of dragons with AA/PWIP.  Mel thinks this is Stannis while Benerro and Moqorro think it's Dany.

Either way the return of the WWs seemed linked to the return of dragons.  Ice made flesh and fire made flesh.  That seems to be what Ned's fever dream is pointing out.  As to why the WWs came in the first place; there is the old Qartheen legend of two moons in the sky or the initial appearance of dragons.  So I don't know if cause and effect is solely a Westerosi event or concern but it may be that the solution depends on the Wall coming down. 

So we have the extreme of the spectrum in fire and ice,  Jojen hints at the solution when he says that if ice can burn, then love and hate can mate. 

[Black Crow]

4 hours ago, Black Crow said:

The Wall:

 

Blood built it

Blood stopped the building of it

And Blood will bring it down

 

I confess, as I have done before, that these words quoted here are Jennet Clouston's curse upon the House of Shaws in the opening chapter of Kidnapped, but they are so apposite...

[LynnS]

7 hours ago, Black Crow said:

I think that the building of the Wall is bound up with the Long Night

This is making more sense to me.  It's applying a control on something that has to be contained.  It's binding ice magic and it's manifestation to the Wall.  When ice magic is being collected/contained by the Wall;  summer returns.  When ice magic is being released winter returns, and the Wall, it's wards and the Watch are the next line of defense.  That gives some meaning to the Stark (watch words) Winter is coming.

So at the moment,  I see the Wall as a a control, something that regulates summer and winter.  But I don't think it's the root cause.  I think that is tied to the heart of winter/soul of ice and until that is resolved the control can't be removed. I think the soul of ice has to meet it's opposite; the heart of winter has to burn; the soul has to be transformed from darkness, death and hate to it's opposite.

[Tucu]

4 hours ago, LynnS said:

This is making more sense to me.  It's applying a control on something that has to be contained.  It's binding ice magic and it's manifestation to the Wall.  When ice magic is being collected/contained by the Wall;  summer returns.  When ice magic is being released winter returns, and the Wall, it's wards and the Watch are the next line of defense.  That gives some meaning to the Stark (watch words) Winter is coming.

So at the moment,  I see the Wall as a a control, something that regulates summer and winter.  But I don't think it's the root cause.  I think that is tied to the heart of winter/soul of ice and until that is resolved the control can't be removed. I think the soul of ice has to meet it's opposite; the heart of winter has to burn; the soul has to be transformed from darkness, death and hate to it's opposite.

In the chapter that Tormund crosses the Wall there are references comparing the Wall to a dam and the wildlings to a river passing through the Wall. Given that Jon allows them to pass, he would be a release valve.

My headcanon on this is that the magical cold wind blows from the doom in the Lands of Always Winter; this doom was caused by the people of the Last Hero. The Last Hero sought the help of the CoTF and together they sacrificed a lot of wards (children given as "blood price") to create the magical wards that form the Wall.

The WWs were an adaptation of the trees/CoTF to the Long Night, protectors adapted to the new conditions. The wights are raised by the cold wind, not the WWs. Most humans were sent south of the Wall, but some were left behind to feed the weirwoods. Under the new "normal" the CoTF were capable of herding a small number of wights (the ones outside the cave) and the wildlings would control the number of wights by burning their dead and not reproducing too much. Summers would cause the wildling population to explode; they unite under a king-beyond-the Wall and they are smashed against the Wall and the NW; feeding the wards.

The new Long Night would have its origins in Maegor and Jaehaerys I actions: the Faith Militant in the Wall, the new Gift, the abolition of the first night and the abandonment of the Nightfort. F&B describes Jaehaerys' reign as a long summer; the population of Westeros doubled during his reign and large areas of forest were cut for farmland. The dragon kings were summer kings and their long summers causes the population to explode north of the Wall too. The dwindling CoTF were just not strong enough to adapt the control mechanism established after the Long Night to the new conditions and the whole system is getting out of control once again. North of the Wall we have the cold winds plus angry and unpredictable Bran who already looked into the Heart of Winter. South of the Wall we have hundred of thousands of free spirits from the combination of Bob's summer and the W5Ks.