Two Overkills: butchering Waymar Royce and Kevan Lannister

[Nadden]

3 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Out of context, yes. But the context is that the far-eyes is not in the scene anymore and a wildling human.

The five are simply compared to the one that will first saw. They are all compared in his head. The first one doesn’t have to be there to be compared to.

[sweetsunray]

We have several illustrations by artists who received George's info on this particular scene.

There are 6 Others. Not 1 Other and 5 CotFs. The countless mentions of half dozen and groups of 6 in parallel to that match with this. 1 commander, 6 to execute.

And yes, I'm very much convinced the CotF have zero to do with the Others, were never their allies, and did not create them. The sole evidence ever put forward for this is by chucking out the context and then pretty much claim the POV is describing something entirely different than what the context desribes.

[sweetsunray]

7 minutes ago, Nadden said:

The five are simply compared to the one that will first saw. They are all compared in his head. The first one doesn’t have to be there to be compared to.

The first one, an Other, is right there in the scene.

And you've ignored my other remarks

• The CotF are not twins to each other.
• The far-eyes is a human wildling, and only a symbolical stand-in for greenseers watching via trees

Hence even in his mind, Will, cannot compare CotF as twins to the far-eyes he saw in the tree, before it disappeared when we actually are at the scene.

[Nadden]

48 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

And you've ignored my other remarks

Sorry, I’ll need to get back to you:)

[Nadden]

4 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

• The CotF are not twins to each other.
• The far-eyes is a human wildling, and only a symbolical stand-in for greenseers watching via trees

First of all thx, I love this online space for this stuff:) But I think we need to look at twins as not identical. I’ve never seen or heard of six identical twins.

 

The six! that are named in the series thus far all have very similar descriptions with one exception, Snowylocks. That one is perhaps some type of albino bastard.The wiki of Fire and Ice gives these descriptions relative to their appearance. I’ve underlined the names and put in hold the similarities.

 

 

Leaf is one of the children of the forest. She has nut-brown skin dappled like a deer's with paler spots, and large ears. She has large liquid gold and green eyes which are slitted like a cat's eyes. Leaf's hair is a tangle of brown, red and gold, autumn colors, with vines and twigs and withered flowers woven through it. She wears a cloak of leaves.

 

Scales is one of the children of the forest with nut-brown skin that is dappled like a deer's with paler spots, and large ears and large eyes slitted like a cat's eyes. Scales has three fingers and a thumb with sharp black claws instead of nails.

 

She is white-haired, which is why Meera Reed names her Snowylocks.

 

Coals is one of the children of the forest with nut-brown skin that is dappled like a deer's with paler spots, and large ears and large eyes slitted like a cat's eyes. Coals has three fingers and a thumb with sharp black claws instead of nails.

 

Black Knife has nut-brown skin that is dappled like a deer's with paler spots, large ears and large eyes slitted like a cat's eyes and three fingers and a thumb with sharp black claw instead of nails.

 

Ash is one of the children of the forest with nut-brown skin that is dappled like a deer's with paler spots, and large ears and large eyes slitted like a cat's eyes. Ash has three fingers and a thumb with sharp black claws instead of nails

 

And in  your next bullet - the only thing we get as a description of the far-eyes is that it’s a female. And that she is half-hid in a tree. Well the Cotf are human-like females and dress with a tangle of brown, red and gold, autumn colors, and vines and twigs and withered flowers woven through their hair. And have a cloak of leaves.

And of coarse Will can make that comparison. Will discusses the whole camp in the first scene and compares the differences and similarities when him and Waymar gain the ridge in the next scene. His mind isn’t like a dry erase board that gets wiped between classes. Of course he still remembers the far-eyes in the ironwood. 
 

And I think Martin hints at this comparison when he writes the lines, 

“Will closed his eyes. Far beneath him…”

when referencing the Watchers from Will position half-hid or lost amongst the needles in the sentinel in that paragraph. In the first scene Will is looking up far beneath the woman in the ironwood. But in the sentinel it’s reversed. Thus he reverses the two words, “eyes” and “far”.
 

And I believe there’s a better explanation for the white shadow in that scene. 
 

But true, Martin could be referencing the Cotf when he writes,

“The Others made no sound.”

It could work in either context that we are discussing.

And beyond all this, it works soooo well with the parallel you found.

[Nadden]

4 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

We have several illustrations by artists who received George's info on this particular scene.

I don’t think this is a good argument. I’d have to see those pictures that Martin specifically approves as perfect representations of his work.

[Nadden]

4 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

They were using white obsidian?

No, the were pale because of the moonlight. Just like the moonlight running cold along Waymar’s sword.

[Crona]

@sweetsunray

Hey, I really like your analysis! I believe Varys had killed Kevan brutally as a personal vendetta against the Lannisters. You bring up a really good parallel, makes me think the Others (the leader) also has some sort of personal vendetta against the Starks, did the Starks/NW in the past kill all of the spider’s children? If it is an lovecraft entity I doubt we will see it in the story, most likely it will stay in the shadows. It does fit with the below passage though:

 

Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him. And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks.

Now you know, the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder. Now you know why you must live.

[GZ Bloodraven]

The parallels between Varys and The Others is deeply related to the themes about identity and death. As an actor, Varys' true personality is buried so deep that he "dies." And now he brings winter to Kevan Lannister, like you said, in the cold and calculating manner that The Others brought winter to Waymar and Chett. I do think Varys legitimately is trying to set up at least 100 years of peace and prosperity via Aegon/Faegon (and taking it 100 years at a time is good), but there might be a danger of him losing his humanity and losing himself to his cold character. On top of his kind of false familial loyalty twist on top of his imminent encounter with the necessity of magic-wielders to save the country he claims to want to protect on top of him probably failing in his specific mission to create a long-lasting peace. 

Also, the guys that killed Waymar are not CotF, unless he retcons it. I don't think that eliminates their connection: the likelihood that magical ice zombies are not somehow connected to magical earth kids, both trapped north of the wall for centuries, is way too high for them not to be either from the same magic source, or from the same war. 

[Corvo the Crow]

1 hour ago, Nadden said:

No, the were pale because of the moonlight. Just like the moonlight running cold along Waymar’s sword.

Would regular obsidian be pale in the moonlight? I don't know, but it's quite dark so I guess not. Perhaps fancy colored ones.

[kissdbyfire]

6 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

No it doesn't. It's reflective armor, not made of leaves and branches.

I’ve seen that claim you were replying to being made so many times, but I never understood it. It makes zero sense to me since the Others are described as icy (and therefore could be reflexive) and the CotF actually wear natural materials so to speak. The two things are completely unlike each other. Oh and there’s those old quotes where Martin describes the Others as “the Sidhe made of ice” and another where he says their swords are made of ice. 

[sweetsunray]

2 hours ago, Nadden said:

But I think we need to look at twins as not identical. I’ve never seen or heard of six identical twins.

So, I'm trying to summarize your theory here:

1. there was a far-eyes in a tree, who was a wildling, a human, and she disappeared from sight
2. the 5 Watchers are not Others but CotF, because Will thinks of them as twins to the far-eyes, (the human who's not there anymore)
3. But he doesn't mean identical twins, he means non-identical twins
4. But well Will only describes the far-eyes as female, and CotF have females too, so now raiding wildlings do so with a CotF for far-eyes

Truly, much respect to you trying to decipher the text and proposing ideas, but

The 6 Others are identical, because they're basically gender-crossed clones of their mom, aka corpse queen, aka a big mean ass ice spider. A bug and a feature of George's writing (cloning/self fertilisation).

[sweetsunray]

2 hours ago, Nadden said:

I don’t think this is a good argument. I’d have to see those pictures that Martin specifically approves as perfect representations of his work.

Illustrated editions, calendars, world book illustrators, illustrators who have reported what George told them, etc

[kissdbyfire]

AGoT, Prologue

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.

They emerged silently from the shadows, twins to the first. Three of them … four … five … Ser Waymar may have felt the cold that came with them, but he never saw them, never heard them. Will had to call out. It was his duty. And his death, if he did. He shivered, and hugged the tree, and kept the silence.

The pale sword came shivering through the air.

 

I had never seen this interpretation of this scene before. The text seems very clear and unambiguous: one Other appears, checks Waymar and his sword out, and then the other Others emerge. Not only there’s no indication anywhere that Will is comparing Others 2 - 6 to the wildling he had seen earlier, but that doesn’t even make sense given how the text is structured. And another thing, there is no indication anywhere that the CotF “bring the cold”, but there are plenty that the Others do. Waymar feels the cold that came with them, “them” being the Others that join the first Other. 

[Nadden]

On 1/6/2023 at 5:56 PM, sweetsunray said:

It is the same thing for Kevan. The arrow had struck Kevan in the chest. Varys could have waited patiently until Kevan died.

The bolt, from the crossbow, in Kevan’s chest I believe parallels the pale sword that bit through the ringmail beneath Waymars arm. The sword is described symbolically like a lightning bolt.

The pale sword came shivering through the air and danced with a pale blue light. It made a high, thin sound at the edge of hearing. It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystals so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on. There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor.

And here’s a quote describing Waymar’s broken hilt after the duel with the pale sword.

Quote

He found what was left of the sword a few feet away, the end splintered and twisted like a tree struck by lightning. (AGOT, Prologue)

Thus Varys would seem to be playing the part of the white shadow. 
 

The pale-faced Varys standing in a shadow clutching a crossbow in his powered hands  sliding forward on silky slippers.

[sweetsunray]

3 minutes ago, Nadden said:

The bolt, from the crossbow, in Kevan’s chest I believe parallels the pale sword that bit through the ringmail beneath Waymars arm. The sword is described symbolically like a lightning bolt.

The pale sword came shivering through the air and danced with a pale blue light. It made a high, thin sound at the edge of hearing. It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystals so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on. There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor.

Thus Varys would seem to be playing the part of the white shadow. 
 

The pale-faced Varys standing in a shadow clutching a crossbow in his powered hands  sliding forward on silky slippers.

Varys is the "parent", the "spider" who gives the signal for the 6 kids to kill. Varys stands-in for the hivemind thing that scares the bejebus out of Bran at the Heart of Winter. Velvet and silky slippers are hairy spider references. Will doesn't see it there, because it isn't physically there.

[Nadden]

17 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Truly, much respect to you trying to decipher the text and proposing ideas, but

Sorry I’m not being very clear but I suggesting that the far-eyes was/is actually a Cotf. 
 

The far-eyes + five watchers = six

[sweetsunray]

3 minutes ago, Nadden said:

Sorry I’m not being very clear but I suggesting that the far-eyes was/is actually a Cotf. 
 

The far-eyes + five watchers = six

I edited that post to incorporate it as point 4: the claim that raiding wildlings have CotF in their ranks apparently. Now, you are reaching and twisting everything.

Worse: you are now proposing that wildlings + Others + CotF are one team.

Sorry, but, no.

[Nadden]

6 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Varys is the "parent", the "spider" who gives the signal for the 6 kids to kill. Varys stands-in for the hivemind thing that scares the bejebus out of Bran at the Heart of Winter. Velvet and silky slippers are hairy spider references. Will doesn't see it there, because it isn't physically there.

Yes!, this is very good! I hadn’t considered the silky slippers combined with the spider reference. I completely agree. 
 

Silk, the web, can look like a broken mirror or ice. This fits in my thoughts but I’m afraid it differs from yours.

[sweetsunray]

2 hours ago, Crona said:

Hey, I really like your analysis! I believe Varys had killed Kevan brutally as a personal vendetta against the Lannisters. You bring up a really good parallel, makes me think the Others (the leader) also has some sort of personal vendetta against the Starks, did the Starks/NW in the past kill all of the spider’s children? If it is an lovecraft entity I doubt we will see it in the story, most likely it will stay in the shadows. It does fit with the below passage though:

There are several allusions to icicles as teeth, (one such in the Frostfangs wink wink) combined with winds or tears of a mother crying for her dead sons. The icespear landing at Kevan's feet is another such allusion. And then there's Bran's dream of spears flying at him, but imo are frosty fangs the size of spears snapping at him... or could be icy urticating hair shot at him. Some spiders do that.