Are Walkers Actually Young Weirwoods?

[Phylum of Alexandria]

14 hours ago, Evolett said:

It was also noted that the eyes were blind. The face could not see.

I can't say this is related to your observations about the face itself, but this detail here makes me think of similar patterns that I've been mulling over: Pale white cave dwelling beings that are blind. There are pale white vampire bats in the caverns of Sothoryos (and are presumably at least as blind as a bat). The fire wyrms are pale white and live in the depths of the earth, and seem to be blind as well. Living weirwoods seem to grow deep into the earth, and their earliest worshippers are noted as having excellent night vision. And yet, Bran and his crew observed pale blind fish in the caves with the CotF.

Perhaps this patterns is just an instance of GRRM indulging his more scientific "rationalist" side as an author...like his dragons having winged limbs rather than fours limbs plus wings. Animals adapted to total darkness often lose their pigmentation and their sight as well, though they keep their vestigial eyes. So maybe this is just a bit of world building that won't have much impact on the magical side of the plot.

Or perhaps the Black Gate's blindness is GRRM's way of preparing us for Bran's eventual journey into the dark. And, as Crowfood's Daughter suggests, maybe the opening of one's third eye requires darkness of some kind. Which might speak to the nature of the source of his power. Maybe this is just the natural magic of a cave-dwelling tree species that eventually found its way into the light?

But pale white things often denote the supernatural or the alien in GRRM's writing. Things described as maggot-white tend to have parasitic traits, like...

Spoiler

the Pear-Shaped Man in The Pear-Shaped Man, and the "monkey" in The Monkey Treatment, and...

...the parasitic baby fire wyrms eating Aerea Tagaryen from the inside. 

Maybe weirwoods are different than all that. Certainly the moonglow sets them apart from mere blind fish and vampire bats, possibly fire wyrms as well.

And yet weirwoods have themselves been compared to white snakes and grave worms. And clearly they have properties that can at least be perceived as parasitic. So I can't say that they're not connected in some way, either thematically or more directly via the mechanics of the magical plot. 

It could be that the Black Gate's blindness has nothing to do with this; I'm just mulling over possibilities. Or maybe fumbling about in the dark...

 

[Evolett]

6 hours ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

Or perhaps the Black Gate's blindness is GRRM's way of preparing us for Bran's eventual journey into the dark.

But Bloodraven has already confirmed that darkness is essential to Bran's spiritual development:

Quote

“Never fear the darkness, Bran.” The lord’s words were accompanied by a faint rustling of wood and leaf, a slight twisting of his head. “The strongest trees are rooted in the dark places of the earth. Darkness will be your cloak, your shield, your mother’s milk. Darkness will make you strong.” ADWD, Bran

And Bran's third eye opened fully (meaning he was able to control slipping in and out of Summer) in the darkness of the Crypts of Winterfell. 

According to the World Book, the blind priests of Lorath who worship the Blind God Boash believed their third eye would open  darkness:

Quote

Their eunuch priests wore eyeless hoods in honor of their god; only in darkness, they believed, would their third eye open, allowing them to see the “higher truths” of creation that lay concealed behind the world’s illusions. tWoIaF

Arya is able to see through the eyes of a cat during her blind phase.  So yes, darkness enhances psychic ability. And it's interesting that the blind priest religion is from Lorath, where Jaqen H'ghar hailed from. 

I don't know how this applies to the BG and it possibly all boils down to whether the Gate is a tree or simply a door. If we're dealing with a door then perhaps the face is "blind" because it's not connected to the weirnet by the root system, meaning it cannot see beyond its own surroundings. Or the person tied to the door was simply blind originally. 

Perhaps the association between worms and weirwood roots serves to highlight the saprophytic nature of the weirwoods. Judging by all the bones piled within the cave of the CotF, their role in the decomposition cycle seems specialized on flesh in particular. Maybe roots / worms growing through eye-sockets indicates that supernatural seeing is only possible if one becomes a "meal" for a weirwood (though this does not apply to Bran). The HoBaW is a dark place and much of it is underground. There has been no sign of a living weirwood though there are the weirwood doors and chairs. It's clear the heads are flayed to obtain the faces. I wonder what they do with the flesh of the dead? 

 

[Ring3r]

8 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

I mean like in the tundra. No/very small trees.

Ah, permafrost.  Yeah, nothing with roots will grow if the ground is frozen.  lichens only.

 

Hmm.  Lichen.  Liches.  The Others are moss!  jk.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

13 hours ago, Evolett said:

But Bloodraven has already confirmed that darkness is essential to Bran's spiritual development

Yes, I meant "prepared" in a writerly sense. In ACOK we see Bran has escaped death by hiding in the crypts, but it may or may not be connected to the magic itself as far as new readers understand it. Then in ASOS we encounter a blind and withered weirwood face glowing faintly in the dark. We don't know it at the time, but it prepares us for what Bran eventually encounters in ADWD with the Bloodraven the living corpse directly telling Bran to embrace the darkness and wed the trees.

13 hours ago, Evolett said:

Maybe roots / worms growing through eye-sockets indicates that supernatural seeing is only possible if one becomes a "meal" for a weirwood (though this does not apply to Bran).

That's certainly at least part of it.

Very strong similarity to the Greeshka in A Song for Lya here. In terms of presentation though, almost the inverse.

Spoiler

In that story, the Greeshka is introduced as a parasite that happens to be worshipped by the people of Shkeea. Only later do the main characters witness what really seems to be a psychic afterlife for those who have joined with the Greeshka and have allowed it to slowly eat them.

In ASOIAF the Weirwoods are revered as the Old Gods, and only later does Bran find out that there's a creepier, more parasitic dimension to their nature.

Spoiler

But in A Song for Lya there was the strong possibility of psy-luring and manipulation on the part of the Greeshka or the hivemind it created.

We don't get true sense of a hivemind with the weirwood, just a shared psychic space. And while Bran will surely be tempted by the powers and distractions that greenseeing can afford him, it's not quite the Isle of the Lotus Eaters-style temptation that that Dany experienced with the Undying. That felt much more like a lure (and more of a hivemind, to be honest). So far, Bran's greenseeing feels driven by him rather than anyone or anything else.

Maybe the magic trees are simply vehicles to ride, and whatever chaos they may cause is an amplification of the minds of those who ride them. And maybe the predatory hivemind nature that Dany encountered reflected the nature of the Undying wizards rather than the trees themselves.

Either that or, B. the two trees have some important differences in how they function, or C. we'll eventually see the weirwoods depicted similarly to the Shade trees. 

[LongRider]

The Black Gate is a threshold, a liminal space.  From light to dark.  From heat to cold.  From actual to magic.

Definitely a threshold of the known to the unknown.  

 

edt; other Weirwood doors have the qualities as well.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

I've recently re-listened to A Song for Lya and And Seven Times Never Kill Man to see what was similar and different from the weirwoods and Shade trees of ASOIAF.

The temptation when reading GRRM's other works is to assume that similar details or plots in the older stories will help predict what happens in ASOIAF, but we tend not to mention what is not carried over into ASOIAF, at least so far.

Here are my thoughts, with spoiler protection for those who care about such things.

A Song for Lya. Overview:
 

Spoiler

The Greeshka is introduced as a deadly parasite; its hosts regarded as willing victims of its psionic lure. This possibility never fully goes away, but is complicated by the fact that the organism does seem to offer some sort of blissful psychic afterlife for the people it consumes. Whether that’s part of the psy-lure is never resolved, but the difference doesn’t seem so dramatic by the story’s end.

The telepaths who interact with the Greeshka insist that it is not sentient in any way. If it’s manipulating people, it’s not via conscious intention. It may simply enable the formation of a psychic hivemind among those it has consumed, and the hivemind does the luring on their own. It’s also possible, however, that the telepaths simply cannot penetrate the mind of the Greeshka, and so they read it as simple and harmless.

What’s similar to ASOIAF: An entity worshipped as a god feeds upon those whose psychic powers it enables. Its worshippers simply view the sacrifice as a necessary balance to honor their god. But the consumption is written as a horror: the passive entity seems to be parasitic in some way. And the idea of human conversion to an earlier non-human ritual practice is present in both stories.

What’s different so far: The psychic afterlife that adherents experience upon Final Union is a proper hivemind, and a proper heaven. It is a feeling of bliss, acceptance, and total love, though this may simply be psionic love-bombing for the sake of lure. Yet Bran’s greenseeing in the weirwood does not seem to function in the same way. It seems that Bran has great freedom in how he utilizes his time wedded to the trees, as if they were a psychic vehicle for him to ride.

Notably, Dany experienced a flood of temptations that served to test her in the House of the Undying. And once she passed the test, she ultimately was lured to the Undying themselves, who tried to feed upon her soul. This may tell us something important about the Shade trees that enable the power of the Undying, but my guess is that they are yet another psychic vehicle like the weirwood, except the drivers here are more ruthless or desperate actors. That could be where Euron's story is heading.

And Seven Times Never Kill Man. Overview:
 

Spoiler

The Jaenshi are a race of sentient creatures who worship translucent stone pyramids that contain images of their gods inside. They ostensibly craft the pyramids, but that could just be the mistaken assumption of the story’s main character. It is entirely possible (and I’m inclined to believe) that the pyramids actually function as psy-manipulation technology created by the Githyanki, or their masters, the Hrangans.

When under the influence of the pyramids, the Jaenshi live in perfect harmony with their environment. Those who stop worshipping the pyramids exhibit not just physical changes (like a different eye color) but behavioral as well, losing their self-regulating harmonious style of living. Not to mention losing their memories. When back in the presence of the pyramids, the godless can be swayed back into their devotional style.

The story focuses on a bloody conflict between the Jaenshi and a colony of ruthless, dogmatic humans. The Steel Angels claim what they feel is granted to them by their god, and destroy anything they regard as heresy. By the story’s end, most of the Jaenshi are wiped out. And yet, their pyramids thrive. The image of the Steel Angels’ god appears inside of the pyramids, which their leader, who had been having dreams of such occurrences, interprets as a prophecy. The pyramids are then worshipped by the Steel Angels, and these humans too begin to take on self-regulating harmonious style of the Jaenshi. Curiouser and curiouser.

What’s similar to ASIOAF: Another “mindless” object of religious devotion that seemingly exhibits psionic powers. The worshippers are connected to nature, and live in a balanced, self-culling style, just like the Children of the Forest. They too have amber eyes, though only when under the sway of the gods. It’s not clear if the CotF were psionically “captured” in this way. More human conversion into an alien cult.

What’s different so far: We don’t get a firsthand perspective from the pyramid cult, so unfortunately we don’t know how to relate the psionic experience to the weirwoods or Shade trees.

In the larger setting of the And Seven Times Never Kill Man story:

Spoiler

the presence of ultra-intelligent bad actors such as the Hrangan make the notion of secondhand manipulators of psionic astral planes more of a plausible option to consider.

So far we don’t have any engineers like that in ASOIAF. While I wouldn't be against GRRM seeding some ideas about the weirwoods having their own biological imperatives that may subtly influence how greenseers' thoughts and actions are expressed, I don't think there's a way to bring in a God Ecologist type manipulator character into the story without some terribly bad writing. 

...Except, of course, if the manipulators are Bloodraven, and the CotF. Or Bran, at least later on in the story. We already know that Bloodraven fills that role to some extent. This type of manipulation would be another variation on the "drivers of the vehicle" interpretation of the weirwoods. I'm fine with such a direction in the magical plot.

With the Thousand Worlds stories, the larger backdrop of intergalactic warfare allowed for commentary about the reaches of power and information control that was relevant for their Cold War context. With ASOIAF, the core problem of the story should be rooted in humanity itself, albeit rendered into a destabilizing force via magical amplification.

tl:dr. Maybe the view will change upon the release of Book 6, but I am now leaning against the idea of active psy-manipulation on the part of the weirwoods. As long as it's properly "fed and watered," perhaps the magical organism cares not how its hosts utilize its powers.