Why and how a weirwood dies (theory)

[Wolfcrow]

We have a centuries old dead weirwood (and no the Bracken thing is a feud, I don't believe this is how a massive tree like this died) at Raventree hall and we have one of them that is currently dying at Oldtown. My question is why now and how? We know that if undisturbed they are undead, so what is going on now and we see it happening again? 

First, I believe in the theory that the Blackwoods are actually the Greenwoods and the family of Warg kings in the north. The women of the family were taken by the Starks and this is how they got their powers. The women of house Blackwood have a weird thing going on too, they tend to be really powerful and their children too. In general in many instances we have seen, that the magic of the old gods is probably passed down matrilineally. In the stories we see that they killed the Warg king and his sons, but if at the time the Starks didn't have magic in their bloodline and the others did, the most possible thing is that some people survived, most probably men, and they left. If this is the situation, the time that the last empowered male dies, the whole magical blood is lost, since it's passing down by the mothers. The symbolism with the name (Green-Black) it makes scence in my head too tbh.

Long story short I think the Blackwoods drained the tree's magic to returned the magic in the bloodline. I think the ravens that are there every night, are the spirits that they couldn't survive in the dead weirwood and they Warg in the ravens or if the trees allow greenseers to see through them, and the ravens speak their messages in front of the trees, then maybe having ravens in the trees would be a useful thing, since the three is dead. The second reason I think Blackwoods did something to their own weirdwood is their sigil (A flock of ravens surrounding a black shield charged with a dead weirwood, on a scarlet field) and their castle's name (Raventree Hall) why have these name and images if the weirwood was poisoned after? Both houses ruled as kings and according to the Blackwoods, the Brackens were petty lords and horse breeders who hired swords to usurp the Blackwood kings, if they were kings they had the hall and the sigil at this point, then why these suggest that the heart trea was dead already? We have seen, before, people using part of the trees or using the trees themselves, so they have some magic power that you can derive from them, for sure. It isn't dificult to imagine that you can completly drain them if the spell or your goal is a very complicated one.

And I think this is happening again. The tree in the Oldtown is dying and you have Euron really close and he actually is doing some pretty sketchy things, plus Lord Hightower, along with his "mad" daughter are ,allegedly, are practicing magic at the tower. I think that one of them or both of them are draining the tree for power. In asoiaf we know that you can't just do magic, you need blood or other source material to be successful. They probably are talking power from the tree without realizing it (or maybe they do idk).

I don't think that current Blackwoods know that since most families in the time of the events don't know stuff about magic, specially so far back, but they know about the "we protect our women" since lord Blackwood was really protective of his daughter, and every Blackwood woman in the past had a reputation.

 

[Phylum of Alexandria]

Interesting to think about. Crowfood's Daughter (and probably LmL) suggested the Grey King's Promethean gift of fire to man via a thunderbolt to a tree is a legend about greenseeing and other weirwood magics, and it suggests some sort of trickery or theft. Perhaps the weirwood of Raventree Hall is one such tree that was violated for the purpose of granting humans magical blood. 

I haven't watched her video in a while, but I remember Crowfood's Daughter associating the Blackwoods with the Yronwoods. What is your take on the Greenwood/Blackwood connection?

[Targaryen Restoration]

Weirwoods feed off of blood.  Do you remember Bran's time travel when he saw his ancestors butchering a man to feed the Winterfell tree?  But they can live for a very long time without blood unless you believe the Children are giving all of them blood transfusions in secret.  The dying trees were killed by the maesters.  The trees are healthy where the OG worship is strong and where people would murder any maester who tried to kill the trees.

[Wolfcrow]

10 minutes ago, Targaryen Restoration said:

Weirwoods feed off of blood.  Do you remember Bran's time travel when he saw his ancestors butchering a man to feed the Winterfell tree?  But they can live for a very long time without blood unless you believe the Children are giving all of them blood transfusions in secret.  The dying trees were killed by the maesters.  The trees are healthy where the OG worship is strong and where people would murder any maester who tried to kill the trees.

This is very old stuff though, it's not something that happened now. Let's say for the Oldtown one it's the maesters, the Blackwood's tree is way before that, there is no way the maesters did it and the sigil along with the Hall prove that. Also, since it's so old they defenetly did sacrifices on this one it's not that. Plus through out westeros there are so many wars and battles, specially in Riverlands. Even Ned was cleaning his sword under the tree, it's pretty difficult to believe it's the lack of blood. 

[Wolfcrow]

17 hours ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

I haven't watched her video in a while, but I remember Crowfood's Daughter associating the Blackwoods with the Yronwoods. What is your take on the Greenwood/Blackwood connection?

We know that for sure that Blackwoods have magic to their bloodline. They ruled most of the wolfswood before being driven from the north by the Kings of winter, so there is a possibility the name was not wolfswood before the Starks took over. Greenwood vould be a good name for the forest before the Starks, since it's first a huge green wood, but also because cotf and wargs and maybe greenseers were living in the forest too. The majority of the wood it's green with oaks evergreen and black brier, but has Ironwood too, which has black wood. Also there are weirwoods through out the forest. We know that the warg king was in sea dragon's point which is at the end of wolfswood, we don't know how big the part that ruled was, but since he was warg and close to the children of the forest,I'm guessing he was going deep into the woods and control a big part of it. And again he and his family were defeated by the Kings of winter. The Greenwood, which we don't know much about were a house in the north that the Kings of winter vanquished. The name suggest probably two things either they were rulers in a really green woody area or had green men powers, so wargs greenseers and close to the old gods and cotf, so I would place them probably in the somewhere in the Woolfswood too. The colour green through out the story is associated with tcotf, wargs, green men life and nature on the other side black is the colour of death and corruption. They went from a fully green place with magic around them, to a house that is Black and has a dead weirwood as a sigil and as a heart tree. That is why I think they are from house Greenwood imo, and this house was probably the house of the warg king. 

[Fool Stands On Giant’s Toe]

Maybe brackens?

Woodland fungi such as Mycena epipterygiacan be found growing under the bracken canopy. Both Camarographium stephensii and Typhula quisquiliaris grow primarily from dead bracken stems.
 

Bracken is known to produce and release allelopathic chemicals, which is an important factor in its ability to dominate other vegetation, particularly in regrowth after fire. 
 

In cattle, bracken poisoning can occur in acute and chronic forms, acute poisoning being the most common. Milk from cows that have eaten bracken may also contain ptaquiloside, which is especially concentrated in buttermilk.^[21] In pigs and horses, bracken poisoning induces vitamin B1 deficiency.^[23]

 

Hydrogen cyanide is released by the young fronds of bracken when eaten by mammals or insects.^[24] Two major insect moultinghormones, alpha ecdysone and 20-hydroxyecdysone, are found in bracken. These cause uncontrollable, repeated moulting in insects ingesting the fronds, leading to rapid death.^[25] Bracken is currently under investigation as a possible source of new insecticides.^[26]

 

[Wolfcrow]

10 hours ago, Fool Stands On Giant’s Toe said:

Maybe brackens?

That was a great explenation and it was my first thought too, the only reason I didn't stick with me was the Hall's name and the sigil. 

Let's say they did it, for them to be jealous and envy their power, meens that the Blackwoods were already expanding and rule a large part and they were quite powerful kings right? Because if they were juast a random house with petty Kings that dind't have that much power why care? If the Blackwoods had power, then they had their Hall and Sigil already and in these the tree is dead. And let's say they changed it, why? Why not keep the sigil with the tree in his prime so you can remeber,or why change eventhe name of the Castle?

That's why the story tome seems fishy.

[Fool Stands On Giant’s Toe]

11 hours ago, Forward-Speaker-5979 said:

That's why the story tome seems fishy

Ha! Something fishy in the river lands  

Never had the thought about the Blackwood sigil. 
 

I need to reread the Jamie Blackwood chapters. I had a thing about elbows. I believe the Blackwood boy was described as all elbows. 

[James West]

Fire will burn a weirwood tree.  A stray flame from a campfire or even lightning will do in a weirwood tree.  

[LynnS]

Damaging the roots will kill a tree. 

[Aejohn the Conqueroo]

Do you think that we can extrapolate or infer anything about the death of wierwood trees from the death and rebirth of Cat/ Lady Stoneheart?

[Rondo]

On 12/21/2021 at 7:39 PM, LynnS said:

Damaging the roots will kill a tree. 

True in the real world.  Weirwoods are like vampires in Westeros.  A few drops of Stark blood will surely bring that old tree back to its sinister life.  

[Rondo]

2 hours ago, Aejohn the Conqueroo said:

Do you think that we can extrapolate or infer anything about the death of wierwood trees from the death and rebirth of Cat/ Lady Stoneheart?

You were not asking me but I will volunteer an answer.  No.  The tree has been dead for a long time.  Cat was not reborn.  She was like a damaged vehicle who got patched and force started.  She is operating for the moment but her engine will stop soon.  I liken Cat to an I4 engine operating on 3 cylinders.  

[Fool Stands On Giant’s Toe]

No idea if this is relevant to ASoIF. Possibly insightful tho.
 

The ecology of The truffle  

the Hartig net 

 

the fruiting body can be identified as generative, skeletal, or binding hyphae.

• If a fungus contains all three types (example: Trametes), it is called trimitic.

 

Hyphae are described as "gloeoplerous" ("gloeohyphae") if their high refractive index gives them an oily or granular appearance under the microscope. These cells may be yellowish or clear (hyaline)
hyaline substance is one with a glassy appearance. The word is derived from 'transparent', and ὕαλος, hýalos, 'crystal, glass'.^[1][2]

Felted mushrooms are interesting when thought of combined with hyaline 

felted and often anastomosed hyphae.

Well known EcM fungal fruiting bodies include the economically important and edible truffle(Tuber) and the deadly death caps and destroying angels (Amanita).

In most fungi, hyphae are divided into cells by internal cross-walls called "septa" (singular septum). Septa are usually perforated by pores

A mulberry tree with silk worms plus an ectothermic or phillothermic  spore would be cool

Flint and limestone can contain large amounts of phosphorus. A much needed nutrient for trees and fungi. Bones are a very good source. Bone valley is a large producer of phosphorus due to its high content of fossils.
 

The structure of the EcM network depends on the availability of nutrients. When nutrient availability is low, the investment in the underground network is high relative to above-ground growth.^[42] Phosphorus is another typically limiting nutrient in many terrestrial ecosystems. Evidence suggests that phosphorus is transferred largely as orthophosphate.^[40] Some mat-forming ectomycorrhizas contain ribonucleasescapable of rapidly degrading DNA to obtain phosphorus from nuclei.

[The Lord of the Crossing]

There seems to exists a mutual dependency between the Children and the trees.  As the number of the Children decrease so do the number of trees.