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Heresy 244 Big Scaly Beasties with Bad Breath


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On 3/29/2023 at 1:14 PM, Nadden said:

But if Waymar’s armor is mirror-like, science says, “if you observe the reflections from two opposing mirrors, you will realize that the image well become greener with each reflection. This is because mirrors usually reflect light from the green spectrum more than other colors. So when a mirror is reflecting color, that color contains reflections, from the green spectrum more than other color spectrums. As such, as other colors fade away gradually the only visible color remaining will green.I do you like the idea of infinity mirrors. However, I don’t see Waymar’s armor being mirror-like. The only mirror-like thing is the black mirror reflecting the things you listed. This would also make the “pale sword” in essence, made of obsidian.

Then how do you explain the blue glow? Obsidian is black and is made of molten rock. It's been described as frozen fire. Shouldn't it glow red?

The white walker's armor reflected the colors of the forest. Will noted snow which should be white, the shadows on the ground made by the trees and perhaps the black of Waymar's clothing, and the deep-green of the evergreen trees. He also noted the white walker's eyes:

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Will saw its eyes; blue, deeper and bluer than any human eyes, a blue that burned like ice. 

If any mirror were actually involved, shouldn't it be an ice mirror like the Wall? The white walker's blade glowed blue along the edge. During the fight, Will noted that the white walker itself also glowed with a pale blue light. I think we are to interpret this glowing pale blue light as "ice magic" in action. 

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4 hours ago, Melifeather said:

Shouldn't it glow red?

So glad you pointed these things out. There’s lots to unpack, and you’ve showed me so much patience already. I’m not the best communicator when it comes to writing. To start I want to focus on the action that is happening strictly in the narrative. 
 

A half moon was full risen on a cloudless night. Will was grateful for the light.
 

Will is commanded, by Waymar, up the tree to look for a fire and to be quick about it. In a rush Will becomes lost amongst the needles, he has lost his bearings. He no longer knows where, exactly, Waymar and the “great rock” are. But he see something that, in his mind, he vaguely describes as pale shapes. In his head he differentiates the pale shapes from the white shadow that he sees when he turns his head. He doesn’t think that it’s another pale shape because it likely has more form. The pale shapes are actually from the captured moonlight that the sapphire gems on Waymar’s hilt are casting. Will having lost his bearings doesn’t see the origin of the pale shapes. But they glide through the wood. Will feels a need to call down a warning but the white shadow disappears as Waymar moves past the view of the mirror. The knife in his mouth falls out. It’s at this precise moment that Waymar is suddenly wary. Turning in circles he too become disoriented. This is why he calls up to Will, he knows Will is in the sentinel tree. If Will answers he’ll be able to regain his bearings. But Will, afraid, doesn’t call out. He can’t explain what he just saw. Waymar still moving, unknowingly, comes to stand in front of the “great rock”. And that’s when Will sees the Other Waymar.

At this point, like Will’s inner monologue questions, it’s been a trick of the moonlight.

Next, as I suggested, we see both Waymar and the Other Waymar mirror each others actions in the mirror:

They both already have their swords drawn.
 

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A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce.

He threw the long sable cloak back over his shoulders, to free his arms for battle, and took his sword in both hands.

The Other slid forward on silent feet.

 

These are the first actions of the encounter. Waymar’s cloak had made him invisible in the mirror. It wasn’t reflective. But when he throws it back over his shoulders we get a lengthy description of the Other Waymar and his sword. The sword had been in one hand for only a moment in order to throw his cloak over his shoulders; but that’s when we get the sword description.

Waymar bravely and gracefully steps forward and warns his reflection to “Come no further”. 
 

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Ser Waymar met him bravely.

 
He lifted his sword high over his head, defiant. His hands trembled from the weight of it, or perhaps from the cold.

From this we are never told the starting position of the Other Waymar. However, we are told that the Other Waymar is looking up. And in turn we are not told where Waymar is looking. Martin leaves these things out to hide the facts.
 

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The Other halted. 

its eyes…fixed on the longsword trembling on high, watched the moonlight running cold along the metal.

 

But we can infer the Other Waymar’s starting position.

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The pale sword came shivering through the air.

Ser Waymar met it with steel.

The pale sword, like Waymar’s sword, was also trembling or shivering and they met in the air. I believe Waymar saw the Other Waymar’s sword high in the air and saw it as his challenge being excepted. So both swords were high in the air and both sets of eyes fixed on the other’s sword.

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Royce checked a second blow, and a third, then fell back a step. Another flurry of blows, and he fell back again.

Again and again the swords met

Ser Waymar was panting from the effort now, his breath steaming in the moonlight…

…the Other's danced with pale blue light.

At this point every blow is accounted for with neither combatant gaining an advantage. Because the swords will always come together in the mirror.

And then Waymar’s sword becomes white with frost as he is panting from effort and his breath steams in the moonlight. His sword is like a car windshield in moist cold air. The moisture will gather on a smooth cold surface and freeze.

Then Waymar is bit through the ringmail beneath the arm. Will assumes it was the pale sword. What doesn’t happen here is a death blow. Waymar is pierced by an arrow from the man that was up against the rock earlier. Waymar’s sword action stops as he checks his wound; and so does the sword action of the pale sword. 
 

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Then Royce's parry came a beat too late. The pale sword bit through the ringmail beneath his arm. The young lord cried out in pain. Blood welled between the rings. It steamed in the cold, and the droplets seemed red as fire where they touched the snow. Ser Waymar's fingers brushed his side. His moleskin glove came away soaked with red.

Quick note: Waymar’s blood only “seemed” red as fire because of the Purkinje effect. Check this out here. The blood there is actually black. The point in me sharing that is that Will is an unreliable narrator. We can’t believe everything he sees; including the arrow he doesn’t see.

And so when Will watches the next sword actions, he sees one action as a Waymar putting all his weight behind it and the Other Waymar swing as being lazy; but they are the exact same swing just different in Will’s mind because know Waymar is desperate.

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and he came up snarling, lifting the frost-covered longsword with both hands and swinging it around in a flat sidearm slash with all his weight behind it. The Other's parry was almost lazy.

When the blades touched, the steel shattered.

 

And again the swords come together again, but this time the sword breaks and the stone shatters.

This post has given all the actions of the duel. At minimum I believe it shows that it’s possible that Waymar is looking in a mirror. Notice how we never get a further description of the Other Waymar or the pale sword after the shattering. 
 

Next, I’ll show you that the lone shard in Waymar’s left eye is frozen fire and I’ll explain the burning blue eye he has. And I hope you can see now that there’s no red in this scene.

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12 hours ago, Melifeather said:

Then how do you explain the blue glow? Obsidian is black and is made of molten rock. It's been described as frozen fire. Shouldn't it glow red?

Waymar, a handsome grey-eyed youth, has eyes that pay homage, shows structure, and symbolizes so much in so few words.

Waymar’s bloody left eye is figuratively compared to fire; and his right eye compares perfectly with another set of eyes that are compared to ice.

Left eye:

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A shard from his sword transfixed the blind white pupil of his left eye.

…the shards scattering like a rain of needles. Royce went to his knees, shrieking, and covered his eyes. Blood welled between his fingers.

It steamed in the cold, and the droplets seemed red as fire where they touched the snow. 

So we see the left eye bleeding with the same blood that is “red as fire”. Martin is using similes to develop his figurative language here. He does the same thing with the right eye:

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The right eye was open. The pupil burned blue. It saw.

its eyes; blue, deeper and bluer than any human eyes, a blue that burned like ice. 

The right eye, with a pupil that burned blue, compares perfectly with another set of eyes with a blue that burned like ice. 
 

So, in summary, one eye has blood red as fire and the Other eye is blue that burns like ice. Fire and Ice, a homage to Robert Frost with a popular poem of the same name. Here we begin to see the structure. Two parts of a whole. One side Fire/One side Ice; with aspects of the other in each. Burning ice and then Frozen fire. It’s the same structure as Yin /Yang. 
 

But where does the blue eye (burning ice) come from and what about the shard (frozen fire) in the left eye. Again we see that they are two aspects of a whole. The shard comes from what appears to be the pale blade and the blue eye comes from Waymar’s hilt. They are both a translucent crystal. The left is obsidian and the the right is sapphire. Obsidian explains why the left eye had a white pupil (It reflects the pale moonlight); and the sapphire explains the burning blue pupil (sapphires capture the moon’s light). There’s very good structural balance thus far.

I’ve explained where the shard of frozen fire has come from. (The reflection of Waymar’s sword in the black mirror) Note that the pale sword is described using the term “ shard” and obsidian is a translucent crystal or volcanic glasss which shatters much better than metal.

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It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystal…

The sapphires are the gems on Waymar’s hilt. Let’s look at Waymar’s hilt:

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…drew his longsword from its sheath. Jewels glittered in its hilt, and the moonlight ran down the shining steel.

Four books later, while watching the Wildlings pass through the wall, John spots a broken hilt with jewels. It has three sapphires in it. I believe this is Waymar’s broken sword hilt. It’s also cool to think that maybe it was a one-eyed man that turned it in. Burning with a deep blue that is bluer than any human eye and is burning is a great description for a Sapphire.

The term “transfixed” describes the left eye. It means the eye can’t move. Thus sticking with the pattern of the structure  the right eye should move but be “fixed”. Now read this:

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The Other halted. Will saw its eyes; blue, deeper and bluer than any human eyes, a blue that burned like ice. They fixed on the longsword trembling on high, watched the moonlight running cold along the metal. For a heartbeat he dared to hope.

The eyes move yet are fixed on the longsword.

In summary, Will twice mistakes the blue sapphire gems for eyes. 
 

The pair of eyes that he mistakes for the Other Waymar’s eyes are mounted on the guard of the hilt and the eye that Will mistakes for Waymar’s right eye is on the pommel of the broken sword hilt. The first time the sword is pointed up and the next time it is pointed down. Again an inverted parallel.

Any questions so far? There’s still more

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Speaking as someone who has actually stealthily ranged in snowy woods in darkness, with malice aforethought, GRRM's description of the encounter [and the later one between Sam and Ser Puddles] is very straightforward and requires no mysterious mirrors, no projected reflections  from gemstones or getting lost while climbing a tree.

Ser Waymar was faced by an opponent, in stealth armour with a very sharp sword, accompanied by six companions.

As to the nature of those companions:

First a reminder of what Tommy Patterson the comic-book artist said anent the walkers

 I had many talks with George. He told me of the ice swords, and the reflective, camouflaging armor that picks up the images of the things around it like a clear, still pond. He spoke a lot about what they were not, but what they were was harder to put into words. Here is what George said, in one e-mail: 'The Others are not dead. They are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the Sidhe made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous.”

And then an older post in which I wrote 16 March 2015 - 04:47 PM

"In an interruption to our advertised program I'm watching a feature on Sky Atlantic, providing a catch up on the HBO series thus far and featuring interviews with [among others] GRRM, who has just confirmed that when Sam pinked Ser Puddles "he broke the spell holding him together." 

In other words the walkers are created and sustained by magic, which begs the rather obvious questions as to who might be working the magic and why?

 

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4 hours ago, Black Crow said:

"In an interruption to our advertised program I'm watching a feature on Sky Atlantic, providing a catch up on the HBO series thus far and featuring interviews with [among others] GRRM, who has just confirmed that when Sam pinked Ser Puddles "he broke the spell holding him together." 

In other words the walkers are created and sustained by magic, which begs the rather obvious questions as to who might be working the magic and why?

Is the scene with Galadriel and Frodo in the Lord of the Rings scrying in a basin of water magic? Is the Purkinje effect magic? Was Vic Tandy’s shivering sword magic? All real magic comes from a lack of understanding. 

 

4 hours ago, Black Crow said:

'The Others are not dead. They are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the Sidhe made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous.”

The word ‘Others’ by definition is a person or thing that is the counterpart of someone or something else: For example, “the role of the Other in the development of self.”

A white shadow on the face of a natural occurring obsidian rock painted in the moon’s light would be strange and beautiful.

Sidhe are from Irish legend comparable to fairies or elves. They are said to be of, relating to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; ghosts. Or fallen angels. So I agree that they appear like ghost to Will. They do appear like a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous. It’s how the haunted forest got it’s name.

And while I don’t want to take away anything from your nightly rangings in the woods I’m guessing you know little about the practice of scrying in the woods. And likely you’ve never carried a sword bejeweled real sapphires. Or felt the effects of infra sound. You likely never considered the Purkinje effect relative to blood. And I can tell you that we can’t trust what Will sees, hears, and thinks. Will, unknowingly, drops a dirk from his mouth and thinks Waymar’s blood is red. He has now idea what the pale shapes are. He is confused, cold, hungry, and disoriented, and scared.

The shows final scene of the prologue hints to the idea of theta brain waves with the use of the theta symbol. Check it out. Martin has written a great ghost scene with plausible explanations.

I don’t mean to simple be contrary but even some of the structure of the writing supports some of these ideas. (Fire and Ice: posted above) Have you considered the meaning of the figurative needle in Waymar’s eye? The shard that came from the rain of needles?

P.S. obsidian, volcanic rock, is found north of the the Wall. And the Great Other would be a nice parallel to the “great rock”.

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However you want to interpret this, the passages I've quoted [and the later encounter with Sam] show that GRRM is thinking and talking about real individuals, not some projection from gemstones or images in a mirror. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar

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41 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

However you want to interpret this, the passages I've quoted [and the later encounter with Sam] show that GRRM is thinking and talking about real individuals, not some projection from gemstones or images in a mirror. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar

Then why put a shivering sword in the narrative. And why put a piece of frozen fire in Waymar’s eye? And why call it a “Great” rock? And what’s with all the Yin/Yang references? It feels like you have to ignore a lot to enjoy your cigar.

These things mean something. Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye. I mean shiver me timbers.

Those last to sayings are child sayings and they allude to mock oaths or broken promises.

You should want to investigate these things in order to enjoy your cigar. Martin does love and know his literary references.

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Cos a great rock is exactly that. Its a big stone. That is very different from an obsidian mirror. As Melifeather pointed out, obsidian is glass not rock. You could in theory split it in such a way as to produce a clean and shiny face. Its not natural, but hey this is a work of fantasy so why not. But... Its also a story and as we ourselves can't see this wondrous mirror it's GRRM's task to let us know that its there. Instead, he just speaks of a great rock. I've been out there, seen them, climbed them.

The "frozen fire" in Ser Waymar's eye? No, GRRM wrote of a fragment of frozen Ser Waymar's sword

And there's still the White Walker who approached Sam.

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On 3/31/2023 at 5:10 PM, Nadden said:

Quick note: Waymar’s blood only “seemed” red as fire because of the Purkinje effect. Check this out here. The blood there is actually black. The point in me sharing that is that Will is an unreliable narrator. We can’t believe everything he sees; including the arrow he doesn’t see.

What is the purpose of Will describing what he saw as red blood if it looks black? And what is the point of saying that red looks black?

 

On 3/31/2023 at 11:50 PM, Nadden said:

So we see the left eye bleeding with the same blood that is “red as fire”. Martin is using similes to develop his figurative language here. He does the same thing with the right eye:

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So now its okay to say the blood that seeped from his eye was red and not black?

You have yet to satisfactorily explain how Will saw 5-8 white walkers come out of the woods and face a single Waymar? If the rock is a mirror, wouldn't it reflect Will up in the tree? The white walkers came from the woods and walked out into the clearing. They stood to the sides, right and left, and end up circling Waymar and all join in the slaughter.

Scrying is a method of divination using mirrors. Who in this scene is using the giant rock as a mirror (assuming the rock is a big chunk of obsidian) to see the future? Fighting yourself in a mirror isn't a form of scrying and your reflection wouldn't then step out of the mirror to finish the job. I doubt very much that Waymar's sword could have shattered the great rock behind the lean too and it couldn't have reflected anything since it was covered with snow.

In GRRM's book The Skin Trade, a skinner named Flayer uses mirrors to time travel to hunt werewolves and kill them. We do have a nod to Flayer in ASOIAF in the Bolton family who has a history of skinning wolves and wearing the pelts. I think GRRM does like to recycle his ideas, but with new and different spins. Melisandre uses flames to divine the future, and we've read a little bit about glass candles made of obsidian that when lit can emit a strange pale flame as well as an unpleasantly bright light that does queer things to colors. There are four known glass candles in Oldtown, one green and three black. 

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A Feast for Crows - Samwell V

When Sam hesitated, one of those hands grabbed him by the arm and yanked him through the door. The room beyond was large and round. Books and scrolls were everywhere, strewn across the tables and stacked up on the floor in piles four feet high. Faded tapestries and ragged maps covered the stone walls. A fire was burning in the hearth, beneath a copper kettle. Whatever was inside of it smelled burned. Aside from that, the only light came from a tall black candle in the center of the room.

The candle was unpleasantly bright. There was something queer about it. The flame did not flicker, even when Archmaester Marwyn closed the door so hard that papers blew off a nearby table. The light did something strange to colors too. Whites were bright as fresh-fallen snow, yellow shone like gold, reds turned to flame, but the shadows were so black they looked like holes in the world. Sam found himself staring. The candle itself was three feet tall and slender as a sword, ridged and twisted, glittering black. "Is that . . . ?"

". . . obsidian," said the other man in the room, a pale, fleshy, pasty-faced young fellow with round shoulders, soft hands, close-set eyes, and food stains on his robes.

 

The way that the glass candle is described sounds like it must be "lit" in order to "scry" or use for divination. Is your interpretation of the snow covered great rock "lit" as well? GRRM has set the rules for using obsidian to scry in this story by making it necessary for the person using it to be able to light it.

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23 minutes ago, Melifeather said:

What is the purpose of Will describing what he saw as red blood if it looks black? And what is the point of saying that red looks black?

My initial thoughts are that the apparent black blood that seems red as fire, although not described, on a symbolic longsword, that seemingly causes the wound, would be a great Blackfyre sword. Figuratively speaking.

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10 hours ago, Melifeather said:

You have yet to satisfactorily explain how Will saw 5-8 white walkers come out of the woods and face a single Waymar? If the rock is a mirror, wouldn't it reflect Will up in the tree? The white walkers came from the woods and walked out into the clearing. They stood to the sides, right and left, and end up circling Waymar and all join in the slaughter.

Will, up in a tree, can not see himself because of the angle.

The white walkers that you reference are the “watchers” that are knowingly watching Waymar fight himself. They, in their delicate armor or cloaks of leaves, are half-hid, faces shadowed and waiting patiently.

When Waymar breaks his sword, pieces of frozen fire from the mirror also shatter. The shards of frozen fire pierce his ringmail, they don’t slice. The shards are like splinters and ringmail protects against slices. The shards rain down like needles. 

Waymar covers his eyes and goes to his knees. A shard of frozen fire has also pierced his eye. Simultaneously, the watchers move forward and Will closes his eyes. He can’t watch the cold blooded butchery that he is anticipating. 
 

Note: The “pale blades” use the same terminology as the “pale sword” or the shards of frozen fire. Also, the “pale sword” was described initially as a “shard” of crystal. We know frozen fire is volcanic glass.

Will, eyes still closed, hears voices and laughter while he was thinking about Waymar getting coldly butchered.
 

(Translation of the voices he heard: Fool kicked his own ass)

They didn’t slaughter him. Waymar has some injuries and Will is holding up the pommel, with a sapphire in it, of his broken hilt to his face but he’s still alive.

And, I’m not sure, but I think Will only fainted. Again Will closes his eyes. He never saw the long, elegant hands that brushed his cheek; which sounds like a caring gesture. Remember he had sticky sap on his cheek from the tree. We don’t know if Waymar had long, elegant hands. However, long, elegant hands might well describe the hands of the tree climbing children of the forest. Perhaps they were placing Waymar’s sable cloak around his neck, no sure.

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1 hour ago, Melifeather said:

Scrying is a method of divination using mirrors. Who in this scene is using the giant rock as a mirror (assuming the rock is a big chunk of obsidian) to see the future? Fighting yourself in a mirror isn't a form of scrying and your reflection wouldn't then step out of the mirror to finish the job. I doubt very much that Waymar's sword could have shattered the great rock behind the lean too and it couldn't have reflected anything since it was covered with snow.

Yes I believe a seer in the mirror, the couple that Will sees earlier, is scrying. And your right, Waymar is not scrying. 
 

And his reflection never steps out of the mirror to finish the job. The shards from the obsidian are the only thing that injures him. His sword doesn’t shatter the whole rock; just parts. Picture hitting a big chunk of ice with a hammer.

The mirror is a vertical surface and the soot from the fire pit is used to help create the mirror. You tube, soot with mirror.

The circumstances also have to have the moon in the right position on a clear night. Reminds me of Stonehenge.

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2 hours ago, Melifeather said:

The way that the glass candle is described sounds like it must be "lit" in order to "scry" or use for divination. Is your interpretation of the snow covered great rock "lit" as well? GRRM has set the rules for using obsidian to scry in this story by making it necessary for the person using it to be able to light it.

I agree, again You tube soot and mirrors. In the videos candles are used. I do think the fire pit was used.

And again, thanks for taking the time. I’m not great at explaining my thoughts.
 

Also, can you see the shard in Waymar’s left eye as a needle in the eye? The shard comes from the rain of needles.

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On 4/1/2023 at 8:09 AM, Black Crow said:

Cos a great rock is exactly that. Its a big stone. That is very different from an obsidian mirror. As Melifeather pointed out, obsidian is glass not rock. You could in theory split it in such a way as to produce a clean and shiny face. Its not natural, but hey this is a work of fantasy so why not. But... Its also a story and as we ourselves can't see this wondrous mirror it's GRRM's task to let us know that its there. Instead, he just speaks of a great rock. I've been out there, seen them, climbed them.

Obsidian is commonly used in black mirrors for scrying. And is evidence that volcanic activity has occurred nearby. Check out Vic Tandy in Wikipedia. It associates white shadows and volcanoes and shivering swords. And I believe it explains Will’s gut and Gared’s madness.

 

On 4/1/2023 at 8:09 AM, Black Crow said:

The "frozen fire" in Ser Waymar's eye? No, GRRM wrote of a fragment of frozen Ser Waymar's sword

Will noticed the glittering jewels when Waymar initially drew his sword from its’ sheath; however, it was the first time he’d laid eyes on the sword according to this line: “It was new-made from the look of it.” Will hadn’t ever seen him use it.

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…and drew his longsword from its sheath. Jewels glittered in its hilt, and the moonlight ran down the shining steel. It was a splendid weapon, castle-forged, and new-made from the look of it. Will doubted it had ever been swung in anger.

And according to the structure Martin seems to be using: the shard in Waymar’s left eye is not from his blade.

“Fire and Ice”, the very antithesis of the entire series, is literally starring directly at us. The right eye is directly compared to something that is figuratively compared to “Ice”.

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…its eyes; blue, deeper and bluer than any human eyes, a blue that burned like ice. (AGOT Prologue)

And the left eye, as mentioned earlier, is bleeding with blood that is directly compared to “fire”.

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Blood welled between the rings. It steamed in the cold, and the droplets seemed red as fire where they touched the snow. Ser Waymar's fingers brushed his side. His moleskin glove came away soaked with red. (AGOT Prologue)

The structure of the figurative imagery in the eyes is set up with the right side as “fixed” on burning ice and the left side as “transfixed” by frozen fire.

Burning ice and frozen fire are inverses parallels, a sort of Yin and Yang. They are two aspects of a whole. Together there is balance. “Fixed” and “transfixed” also highlight this type of relationship.

Frozen fire is what the Valyrian’s call obsidian. It’s a translucent volcanic glass or crystal that comes alive with moonlight. It makes the pupil of the left appear white. The shard comes from what appears to be the pale sword. Something from both swords in each eye, again structural balance.

In the world of literary analysis, in which I’m a novice, one tries to read between the lines. We try to understand the underlying or implicit meaning or subtext, of a literary piece.

For example, did you notice that Will’s dirk fell from his mouth? First time through the reading most people don’t. It’s not explicitly in the text.

He whispered a prayer to the nameless gods of the wood, and slipped his dirk free of its sheath. He put it between his teeth to keep both hands free for climbing. The taste of cold iron in his mouth gave him comfort………..Will opened his mouth to call down a warning, and the words seemed to freeze in his throat. (The dirk falls out and we never read about it.)

Why? Because Martin is telling us that Will is unaware of what is happening. From his POV he doesn’t realize it himself. But it does have consequences. (That is for another discussion)

The term shard is purposely vague. We don’t know for sure if the shard is made of steel and neither does Will. In fact, I’m suggesting it’s

In the duel there appeared to be two swords. And we never get a description of the pale sword after the two swords last touch.

When the blades touched, the steel shattered.

The text doesn’t explicitly say what happened to the Other’s blade or the Other. The watchers move-in and Will closes his eyes and doesn’t open them for a long time.

Will uses the term “shard” when describing the Other’s blade in his head.

It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystal so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on.

So I’m suggesting, with relative certainty, that the shard is crystal from what appears to be the pale sword. Will, however, believes it to be a shard from Waymar’s sword. Will is an unreliable narrator here. So of course he does; he just found Waymar’s broken hilt. And he can’t see what the shard is made of.

And Waymar doesn’t have a gem from his sword actually in his eye. The gem is still mounted on the pommel of the longsword’s broken hilt. Will just happens to be unknowingly holding it in his “nerveless fingers” in front of Waymar’s right eye. Like his lost dirk he just doesn’t realize it.

 

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On 9/8/2022 at 12:53 PM, Brad Stark said:

but what reason would they have to kill her after?

Because the pups aren’t going to leave mommy direwolf otherwise. Also, what do you think about the mother direwolf carrying the albino pup in her mouth. The white pup was born before the rest.

The white pup is a parallel to Jon. The mother begrudgingly carried that pup like Catelyn cared for Jon.

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On 10/11/2022 at 4:42 AM, Black Crow said:

She was a "far eyes", a lookout halfway up a tree - dead

You mentioned this person was a Greenseer. I’m interested on how you arrived at that conclusion.

My train of thought goes like this:

The woman half-hid in the ironwood parallels Will lost amongst the needles. Will, his face pressed hard against the trunk of the sentinel (redwood), could feel the sweet, sticky sap on his cheek. 
 

The tree blood of the sentinel matches the winestain birthmark of Bloodraven.

A Greenseer is a child of the forest and this one was a twin to the rest, the other watchers.

”far-eyes” is a homophone for fairies. 

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17 hours ago, Nadden said:

Yes I believe a seer in the mirror, the couple that Will sees earlier, is scrying. And your right, Waymar is not scrying. 
 

And his reflection never steps out of the mirror to finish the job. The shards from the obsidian are the only thing that injures him. His sword doesn’t shatter the whole rock; just parts. Picture hitting a big chunk of ice with a hammer.

The mirror is a vertical surface and the soot from the fire pit is used to help create the mirror. You tube, soot with mirror.

The circumstances also have to have the moon in the right position on a clear night. Reminds me of Stonehenge.

If the great rock were an obsidian glass candle and the (now cold) fire pit was used to light it, then why no mention of an uncomfortably bright light? If the glass candle Sam saw could cast an uncomfortably bright light, then wouldn't the great rock be more than 10-fold brighter? The glass candle holds a flame. It's not really described what that flame looks like. It could look like a normal candle flame, but that would require a wick of some kind. Perhaps the glass candle is lit all along the edges of the obsidian? The glass candle also makes the color red turn to flame. Surely Will would have noted the queer colors?

As for the shard from Waymar's sword that pierced his eye...the text says his sword shattered into a hundred brittle pieces, and scattered like a rain of needles. One shard pierced the pupil of his left eye leaving it blind and white in color. The sword shattered from the icy cold contact with the white walker's sword. According to an article in the New Scientist, cheap, non-alloyed steel typically becomes brittle at about -30 ºC. Adding expensive metals like nickel, cobalt and vanadium to steel reduces that temperature by strengthening the connections between grains. Kimura's steel lacks such additives, but only becomes brittle at -100 ºC, matching the performance of alloys. In other words, it was really, really cold. The temperature of the shard froze the black color of Waymar's pupil making it look white.

GRRM has stated that the white walkers "are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the Sidhe made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous." Further, although Old Nan describes the Others as "dead things", Martin has stated that the Others are not dead. Since the author has confirmed that the white walkers are physical beings, Sidhe made of ice, and that they are not dead, then I think we can safely conclude that they are NOT reflections in a mirror.

Edited by Melifeather
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1 hour ago, Melifeather said:

If the great rock were an obsidian glass candle and the (now cold) fire pit was used to light it, then why no mention of an uncomfortably bright light? If the glass candle Sam saw could cast an uncomfortably bright light, then wouldn't the great rock be more than 10-fold brighter? The glass candle holds a flame. It's not really described what that flame looks like. It could look like a normal candle flame, but that would require a wick of some kind. Perhaps the glass candle is lit all along the edges of the obsidian? The glass candle also makes the color red turn to flame. Surely Will would have noted the queer colors?

I’m not saying that the the mirror is a glass candle. I’m saying that all the same elements are there. Here’s that video

 

1 hour ago, Melifeather said:

As for the shard from Waymar's sword that pierced his eye...the text says his sword shattered into a hundred brittle pieces, and scattered like a rain of needles. One shard pierced the pupil of his left eye leaving it blind and white in color. The sword shattered from the icy cold contact with the white walker's sword. According to an article in the New Scientist, cheap, non-alloyed steel typically becomes brittle at about -30 ºC. Adding expensive metals like nickel, cobalt and vanadium to steel reduces that temperature by strengthening the connections between grains. Kimura's steel lacks such additives, but only becomes brittle at -100 ºC, matching the performance of alloys. In other words, it was really, really cold. The temperature of the shard froze the black color of Waymar's pupil making it look white.

Here I’m saying the parts of the great rock(pale sword) shattered. Obsidian (the shard) that catches the moon’s light appears pale. The shard in his eye is frozen fire from the “great rock”. Will only thinks it’s from Waymar’s sword when sees his left eye. Will (an unreliable narrator) is mistaken about the origin of the shard.
 

The shard is like you phone glass. It’s  like having your phone off in a dark room. Then turning on a flashlight (the moon). At the right angle the phones surface will appear pale.

In order for Waymar’s sword to freeze like your suggesting his hand would also (and likely more)

1 hour ago, Melifeather said:

GRRM has stated that the white walkers "are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the Sidhe made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous." Further, although Old Nan describes the Others as "dead things", Martin has stated that the Others are not dead. Since the author has confirmed that the white walkers are physical beings, Sidhe made of ice, and that they are not dead, then I think we can safely conclude that they are NOT reflections in a mirror.

I would agree that Waymar’s (handsome) reflection is “strange, beautiful…”. His reflection is “a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous.” The reflection is an aspect of a living thing.

”Sidhe made of ice” - the mirror has a thin sheet of ice. 

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2 hours ago, Melifeather said:

GRRM has stated that the white walkers "are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the Sidhe made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous." Further, although Old Nan describes the Others as "dead things", Martin has stated that the Others are not dead. Since the author has confirmed that the white walkers are physical beings, Sidhe made of ice, and that they are not dead, then I think we can safely conclude that they are NOT reflections in a mirror.

Exactly so, and neither are the other figures that Will sees moving through the wood and then circling around Waymar - and nor of course is the one pinked by Sam

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36 minutes ago, Nadden said:

I’m not saying that the the mirror is a glass candle. I’m saying that all the same elements are there. Here’s that video

 

Here I’m saying the parts of the great rock(pale sword) shattered. Obsidian (the shard) that catches the moon’s light appears pale. The shard in his eye is frozen fire from the “great rock”. Will only thinks it’s from Waymar’s sword when sees his left eye. Will (an unreliable narrator) is mistaken about the origin of the shard.
 

The shard is like you phone glass. It’s  like having your phone off in a dark room. Then turning on a flashlight (the moon). At the right angle the phones surface will appear pale.

In order for Waymar’s sword to freeze like your suggesting his hand would also (and likely more)

I would agree that Waymar’s (handsome) reflection is “strange, beautiful…”. His reflection is “a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous.” The reflection is an aspect of a living thing.

”Sidhe made of ice” - the mirror has a thin sheet of ice. 

Black mirrors cannot reflect as the color black absorbs light.

The author has made his rules for how obsidian works in this world. The obsidian can be fashioned into a blade or spear and used to break magic spells as demonstrated by Sam when he stabbed the white walker that Heresy has dubbed Ser Puddles. Where was the black mirror there?

The second way obsidian is used is for scrying through a black candle which needs to be lit. We have yet to learn how they are lit, but we do know it’s not with a match or source of fire. Acolytes spend the night trying to light a black candle so I doubt a campfire would do the trick.

The point about negative temperatures being necessary to shatter Waymar’s sword was to support the fact that “frozen fire” would not be cold enough to shatter steel. In fact, obsidian is so brittle it would stand no chance against steel. Waymar could whack his sword repeatedly against an obsidian mountain and never shatter his sword.

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