Heresy 242 The Other Starks

[Melifeather]

1 hour ago, LynnS said:

Kit Harrington's new gig.  

 

Some Pig/Pretty Pig has written extensively about the influence of the Black Knight and his ebony blade on ASOIAF. Don't forget this post either.

First, I must point out that the Black Knight's name is DANE Whitman (white-man?). Even though he's opposite in color to Arthur Dayne, an inverted parallel is quite obvious as is a magical sword carved from a meteor. The opposing black side hasn't made an appearance in our story - yet - but Ned Stark does seem to embody the qualities of the Black Knight, and Ice or its missing predecessor, may very well be based on the ebony blade. Its actually pretty ironic that Kit Harrington (Jon Snow) is playing this part in the movie.

[LynnS]

18 minutes ago, Melifeather said:

Some Pig/Pretty Pig has written extensively about the influence of the Black Knight and his ebony blade on ASOIAF. Don't forget this post either.

First, I must point out that the Black Knight's name is DANE Whitman (white-man?). Even though he's opposite in color to Arthur Dayne, an inverted parallel is quite obvious as is a magical sword carved from a meteor. The opposing black side hasn't made an appearance in our story - yet - but Ned Stark does seem to embody the qualities of the Black Knight, and Ice or its missing predecessor, may very well be based on the ebony blade. Its actually pretty ironic that Kit Harrington (Jon Snow) is playing this part in the movie.

I thought of Pretty Pig immediately.  A lot of interesting crossovers between the Black Knight, the Danes and  the dark blade and Jon Snow.  We may yet have a black sword turning up in the form of obsidian.  Thanks for the link!

As for the black armor:

Quote

 

A Dance with Dragons - Jon XII

Burning shafts hissed upward, trailing tongues of fire. Scarecrow brothers tumbled down, black cloaks ablaze. "Snow," an eagle cried, as foemen scuttled up the ice like spiders. Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist. As the dead men reached the top of the Wall he sent them down to die again. He slew a greybeard and a beardless boy, a giant, a gaunt man with filed teeth, a girl with thick red hair. Too late he recognized Ygritte. She was gone as quick as she'd appeared.

 

 

[Melifeather]

10 minutes ago, LynnS said:

I thought of Pretty Pig immediately.  A lot of interesting crossovers between the Black Knight, the Danes and  the dark blade and Jon Snow.  We may yet have a black sword turning up in the form of obsidian.  Thanks for the link!

As for the black armor:

 

Since Dawn is a (white) blade full of light it seems reasonable that Ice may be a (black) blade that burns red.

[LynnS]

49 minutes ago, Melifeather said:

Since Dawn is a (white) blade full of light it seems reasonable that Ice may be a (black) blade that burns red.

It could be that the sword of the morning and evening are two different swords.

[LynnS]

Not A podcast on Bran II And III ASOS.  Obviously, I don't agree with the conclusion for the Tree Knight story. I do enjoy these podcasts regardless of where you fall on the outcome.  It's always interesting to listen.

Episode 174: A STORM OF SWORDS, BRAN I & II: ”Once Upon A Time” (podbean.com)

Not A Podcast ASOIAF Re-Read Podcast (podbean.com)

[LynnS]

Oh Hells NO!  Rob Starks return as imagined by Joe Magician.  It's Joe Magician, so I had to hear what the twist would be.

Did the Freys preserve Rob's head and body to keep as a trophy?  I've wondered about Robert Strong's head replacement.  Did they send Rob Stark's head to Joffrey?  Where does that leave Rob's body with the direwolf head attached?  Did he second-life Grey Wind before the Frey's killed the wolf?  It's crazy and twisted enough to make it onto the page.

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A Clash of Kings - Daenerys IV

Farther on she came upon a feast of corpses. Savagely slaughtered, the feasters lay strewn across overturned chairs and hacked trestle tables, asprawl in pools of congealing blood. Some had lost limbs, even heads. Severed hands clutched bloody cups, wooden spoons, roast fowl, heels of bread. In a throne above them sat a dead man with the head of a wolf. He wore an iron crown and held a leg of lamb in one hand as a king might hold a scepter, and his eyes followed Dany with mute appeal.

 

Will he become mostly dead and a little alive? 

Edit Joe doesn't mention this dream appearance of Rob and Grey Wind:

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A Clash of Kings - Theon V

King Robert sat with his guts spilling out on the table from the great gash in his belly, and Lord Eddard was headless beside him. Corpses lined the benches below, grey-brown flesh sloughing off their bones as they raised their cups to toast, worms crawling in and out of the holes that were their eyes. He knew them, every one; Jory Cassel and Fat Tom, Porther and Cayn and Hullen the master of horse, and all the others who had ridden south to King's Landing never to return. Mikken and Chayle sat together, one dripping blood and the other water. Benfred Tallhart and his Wild Hares filled most of a table. The miller's wife was there as well, and Farlen, even the wildling Theon had killed in the wolfswood the day he had saved Bran's life.

But there were others with faces he had never known in life, faces he had seen only in stone. The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna. Her brother Brandon stood beside her, and their father Lord Rickard just behind. Along the walls figures half-seen moved through the shadows, pale shades with long grim faces. The sight of them sent fear shivering through Theon sharp as a knife. And then the tall doors opened with a crash, and a freezing gale blew down the hall, and Robb came walking out of the night. Grey Wind stalked beside, eyes burning, and man and wolf alike bled from half a hundred savage wounds.

Returning Rob/Grey Wolf to the story as the King of Winter would be quite a shock.  I don't think the King of Winter can be returned as a fire wight.

[LynnS]

Valar Rereadis: TWOIAF - The Barrow Kings livestream today at 3:00 pm EST.

 

[LynnS]

Today's Tinfoil:  Why do the Faceless Men have faces of infants?

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A Dance with Dragons - The Ugly Little Girl

A thousand faces were gazing down on her.

They hung upon the walls, before her and behind her, high and low, everywhere she looked, everywhere she turned. She saw old faces and young faces, pale faces and dark faces, smooth faces and wrinkled faces, freckled faces and scarred faces, handsome faces and homely faces, men and women, boys and girls, even babes, smiling faces, frowning faces, faces full of greed and rage and lust, bald faces and faces bristling with hair. Masks, she told herself, it's only masks, but even as she thought the thought, she knew it wasn't so. They were skins.

Assuming that only FM make use of these faces; how are they used?

Quote

 

A Dance with Dragons - The Ugly Little Girl

"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."

The girl took a deep shuddering breath, and realized it was true. No one was choking her, no one was hitting her. Even so, her hand was shaking as she raised it to her face. Flakes of dried blood crumbled at the touch of her fingertips, black in the lantern light. She felt her cheeks, touched her eyes, traced the line of her jaw. "My face is still the same."

If changing your face goes deeper than artifice and the face is as true as the you are born with, accessing the memories of the dead person; what do they access with an infants face?  A face with with no identity or memory? Is this how FM become No One?

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A Dance with Dragons - The Ugly Little Girl

That made him chuckle. "You will be the very goddess of humility, I am sure. But can you pay the price?"

"What price?"

"The price is you. The price is all you have and all you ever hope to have. We took your eyes and gave them back. Next we will take your ears, and you will walk in silence. You will give us your legs and crawl. You will be no one's daughter, no one's wife, no one's mother. Your name will be a lie, and the very face you wear will not be your own."

Arya would become a god's wife - a daughter, wife and mother to No One/Many-faced god.  If she can pay the price.  Shades of Craster's women!  Are they godswives as well?  Craster pays a heavy price to the cold gods..

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A Feast for Crows - Arya II

"Why would you wish to fight? Are you some bravo, strutting through the alleys, spoiling for blood?" He sighed. "Before you drink from the cold cup, you must offer up all you are to Him of Many Faces. Your body. Your soul. Yourself. If you cannot bring yourself to do that, you must leave this place."

The cold up? (Drink from a cup of ice, drink from the cup of fire.)  The cold cup is the cup of death.  The price is her body and soul.

[LynnS]

Valar Rereadis - Barrow Kings was a long discussion on geography but I fell asleep before they got to the stuff I wanted to hear at the end.  I'll have to listen to the last part again.

Preston Jacobs has decided to finish TWOW based on various theories and fan fiction?  Because... what the hell?  Now it's a race to see who can finish first?

[LynnS]

2 hours ago, LynnS said:

Valar Rereadis - Barrow Kings was a long discussion on geography but I fell asleep before they got to the stuff I wanted to hear at the end.  I'll have to listen to the last part again.

Discussion of Night King/Corpse Queen starts at one hour with comparison between Stannis as the NK who also gives his soul in his case to Melisandre for the making of shadow babies.  Stannis has basically taken up position as King at the Wall.  It doesn't quite fit since Mel is hot rather than cold and the corpse queen is described as icy cold.

I'll go a step further and say that should Selyse meet her own end; Stannis could take Val as his Queen for political purposes and to rule over the Wildlings.  That could result in the King in the North and the Stark of Winterfell joining forces to depose him, if the NK story is replayed.

At 1 hr 23 min - discussion on Lady Dustin's anti-stark sentiment conveyed to Theon in the crypts.  I'm going to disagree that she tells Theon to keep it a secret because she knows Theon will spill the beans to Roose anyway and this is what she wants Roose to hear.  It's the two guards she takes with them who are the target of this information.

Overall entertaining and logical deconstruction of the Night King/Corpse Queen story.

.  .  

[Melifeather]

On 4/11/2022 at 9:19 AM, LynnS said:

Today's Tinfoil:  Why do the Faceless Men have faces of infants?

Maybe just to experience what its like? The wearer does access the memories of the face.

2 hours ago, LynnS said:

Discussion of Night King/Corpse Queen starts at one hour with comparison between Stannis as the NK who also gives his soul in his case to Melisandre for the making of shadow babies.  Stannis has basically taken up position as King at the Wall.  It doesn't quite fit since Mel is hot rather than cold and the corpse queen is described as icy cold.

 

It is an inversion - a mirror of the past. Since the Nights King wasn't really a king (he was the Lord Commander) the inversion is that now there IS an actual king that is not really the Lord Commander - but he expects Jon to obey him. Melisandre is the hot "Other" rather than cold. I had thought that Stannis was also King Sherritt who called down a curse upon the Andals from the Nightfort. I think he fits both roles, but Jon Snow is the one that is the LC so he may be a better candidate for replaying the role of the Nights King - especially since he's likely dead and about to be resurrected.

Speaking of Andals...while researching the factual bits of The Last Kingdom I came across the similarity of the word "Andal" to the Muslim inhabited Al-Andalus (later Andalusia, aka the "Moors") which is what the geography of modern day Spain and Portugal were once named. For much of its history Andalusia existed in conflict with the Christian kingdoms to the north. I don't know if we've ever explored parallels between the Andals and the Moors? I think its because we've always associated the Andals with the Catholic religion - the seven pointed star as a parallel to the trinity, but perhaps its our ignorance of the Muslim faith that has limited our perspective?

 

[LynnS]

2 minutes ago, Melifeather said:

Maybe just to experience what its like? The wearer does access the memories of the face.

I'm not sure what the Kindly Man means when he says that they don't employ the subterfuge of simple glamors; they go deeper.  Possibly accessing memories of a lifetime rather than just the last moments. The price of becoming a FM is that you give up everything about yourself, body and soul.  That might be akin to no memory at all which would be the infant state with no identity.  They would become No One.  I wonder if this is the final stage of transformation before taking on another identity - a mind wipe.  

I believe there is a quote somewhere about infants being the greatest gift to the House of Black and White but I can't find it.  I might be mis-remembering.  

[LynnS]

12 minutes ago, Melifeather said:

It is an inversion - a mirror of the past. Since the Nights King wasn't really a king (he was the Lord Commander) the inversion is that now there IS an actual king that is not really the Lord Commander - but he expects Jon to obey him. Melisandre is the hot "Other" rather than cold. I had thought that Stannis was also King Sherritt who called down a curse upon the Andals from the Nightfort. I think he fits both roles, but Jon Snow is the one that is the LC so he may be a better candidate for replaying the role of the Nights King - especially since he's likely dead and about to be resurrected.

I definately get the inversion with Mel.Although I see Jon as the King of Winter and Stannis a something else - AA to Mel's Nissa Nissa - at least this is what she is trying to recreate.  Although placing Stannis as King at the Night Fort seems like an inversion of ice and fire overlayed with elements of the NK story .  That's if Stannis is converted to fire. 

I can see Tormund and Jon joining forces to overthrow Stannis should it come to that.  Is Jon still the LC if he died or is he released from his vows to be the Stark of Winterfell? 

[Melifeather]

1 hour ago, LynnS said:

I definately get the inversion with Mel.Although I see Jon as the King of Winter and Stannis a something else - AA to Mel's Nissa Nissa - at least this is what she is trying to recreate.  Although placing Stannis as King at the Night Fort seems like an inversion of ice and fire overlayed with elements of the NK story .  That's if Stannis is converted to fire. 

I can see Tormund and Jon joining forces to overthrow Stannis should it come to that.  Is Jon still the LC if he died or is he released from his vows to be the Stark of Winterfell? 

I believe history is repeating itself, but running in reverse. The order of conquest is also reversed - Targaryen, Rhoynar (Young Griff and Arianne Martell), the Andals (Cersei fighting against the Seven (the fanatic Andals) and then finally a Queen of Winter - a mirrored inversion - namely, Sansa. Not that the HBO show has followed the books to the letter, but they did show Sansa as inheriting Winterfell.

[Black Crow]

Infants are puzzling. Whether old or young, man or woman, a Faceless warrior can assume the identity of an individual grown-up and wander around impersonating that individual.

An infant is going to be much more difficult, both in assuming the size, and doing anything much once the magic is accomplished, unless...

The only way I can see it work is by way of a long term "investment", taking over the identity of a child and maintaining that identity as it grows up.

[Black Crow]

As to Stannis. I'm inclined to see his fate as straightforward. Or rather Mel has got it wrong and while she has been promoting Stan, Jon is going to be the Man - but out of nowhere as the champion of Ice not the expected champion of Fire

[LynnS]

18 hours ago, Melifeather said:

I believe history is repeating itself, but running in reverse. The order of conquest is also reversed - Targaryen, Rhoynar (Young Griff and Arianne Martell), the Andals (Cersei fighting against the Seven (the fanatic Andals) and then finally a Queen of Winter - a mirrored inversion - namely, Sansa. Not that the HBO show has followed the books to the letter, but they did show Sansa as inheriting Winterfell.

I can see Sansa being declared Queen in the North at some point and for some the old title of Queen of Winter.  I think there is a supernatural element to the King of Winter.  What is Sansa'a connection to the supernatural aspect?

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

The only way I can see it work is by way of a long term "investment", taking over the identity of a child and maintaining that identity as it grows up.

I hadn't considered they would use it on a living infant for that purpose.  Or that a face could become 'living flesh' and change as a child grows up.  But I suppose it's bone structure that changes.  There is the Waif who never ages as well.

Quote

 

A Feast for Crows - Arya II

The waif nodded. Arya nodded back, and in her best Braavosi said, "How many years have you?"

The waif showed ten fingers. Then ten again, and yet again. Then six. Her face remained as smooth as still water. She can't be six-and-thirty, Arya thought. She's a little girl. "You're lying," she said. The waif shook her head and showed her once again: ten and ten and ten and six. She said the words for six-and-thirty, and made Arya say them too.

 

So I wonder if she was also given another identity.  I'm not sure it's the poisons she makes or consumes that stop her from aging.

[Melifeather]

A dwarf could put on the face of an infant to look like an oversized toddler I guess...

[LynnS]

Valar Rereadis Podcast  is turning out to be quite interesting and entertaining.  Another recent podcast:

Valar Rereadis: TWOIAF - Isle of Faces & Green Men - YouTube

Listened to this last night.  Long. but worth it.  The discussion goes on a few but related tangents. The first part of the discussion focused on another of Martin's early works:  And Seven Times Never Kill Man which I will now have to listen to:

George R. R. Martin – And Seven Times Never Kill Man Audiobook – Audiobooks (Free) (staraudiobook.com)

Also mentioned is an essay by Cantuse on the short story:

GRRM’s Earlier Works | Meditations on A Song of Ice and Fire (wordpress.com).