Recommended: new 'Wall Origin' theory

[sweetsunray]

1 minute ago, LongRider said:

In GOT Arya gets lost chasing cats in the Red Keep, during her adventures there, she sees Varys and Illyrio and hears some of their plotting.  She also sees the dragon skulls for the first time.  She loses track of the two men and ends up in the sewer and finds her way out from there.  Interestingly, in her journeys across the Riverlands, and again when in the HBW, she continues to get herself into out of places that others might not.  She's a walking ward breaker, that one.

GOT Arya IV

That's because she has a needle in hand. She can sew wherever she wants or needs.

[sweetsunray]

I've been looking at those Lands of Ice and Fire Maps for potential other similarities. Basically there seem to be metaphorical geographical clues in those maps on which we can apply Quaithe's advice: look south for the north and east for the west.

So, I've been staring at Oldtown and Starfall and I noticed that the "bays" leading into those sites are almost each other's copy, except the bottom corner on the right of the bay to Starfall is missing the piece of rounded land where we find Three Towers for the Whispering Sound.

Starfall seems to be on the equivalent spot as Oldtown, but if we look at the Torrentine fork above in comparison to the Honeywine, Starfall is situated "above" Oldtown. It predates it so to speak. The people who settled on Starfall arrived earlier in Westeros than those of Oldtown, where we have the Battle Island with the black fused stone fort which is a hint to dragons.

@SaffronLady has proposed that Honeywine could mean golden blood, though I also would include "golden arbor", implicating a "deception" or "lie" in that area (and I think it's the Hightower claims about their history). Anyhow, the Honeywine is more of a delta, while the Torrentine is a torrentious mountain river dropping off a cliff into the sea. But seen from above it compares to the left two forks where we have Honeyholt, which means "Keep/guard the honey" or "halt the liars". The sigil of House Beesbury (bee grave) are 3 beehives and their words are "Beware my sting". Sting of course is a sword in Tolkien's Hobbit and LotR, which is a sword that lights up. And a beehive is ruled by a queen.

There are no male bees in a beehive, none. It's just the queen and her female worker bees. The male bees fly out and wait in the air for a new young queen to pass by and get lucky with her. The "lucky" is relative, for if they do get lucky, it is also certain instant death. The moment they ejaculate their abdomen and lower parts are blown off because it's that physically powerful. But that once in a lifetime ejaculation will fertilize all the eggs that the new queen will lay for the rest of her life in her new beehive.

Robert Graves has speculated that certain myths and legends refer to patriarchy stealing the honey of the matriarchy. And with certain temples in Greece devoted to goddesses the priestesses were referred to as "bee" (worker bee), such as Demeter and Persephone temples. That's why George picked the name Mel for Melisandre (Melony): Mel = Miel = french for honey. And in Judges a prophetess with clout in pre-monarch times is featured: Deborah (Debora = bee). Wild honey is sometimes associated to oracles and prophecy, because the surroundings from which the bees get their pollen cannot just determine its taste, but can be potentially halucogenic. We have such claims or tales in relation to the Oracle of Delphi for example.

So what's Robert Graves' claim about the patriarchy about? There are 2 different myths where a beehive is born out of a carcass. For example, the same Judges in the bible with the prophetess Deborah also features Samson's story: he kills a lion, leaves the carcass, but then passes it again on his way back, and he witnesses a beehive being born out of the carcass. This is a "miracle". This can never happen for real in nature. Robert Graves argues that therefore it represents the "miracle of making honey without a queen". Something similar occurs in the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. In the myth Eurydice dances on her wedding day in a flower field (bee reference), and gets chased by a sater or Aresteius, son of Apollo. As she flees she gets bitten by a snake and dies - queen bee is dead. After her death the bees have a sickness and start dieing. Aresteius is advized to sacrifice 4 bulls and 4 cows, leave their carcasses for 3 days and then return. He does this and when he returns he discovers beehives being born out of the carcasses, and they never get sick anymore. Hence Aresteius is the patron of beehive keeping. I mentioned his father was Apollo, who is the god of the Oracle at Delphi. Well he wasn't initially. It predates Apollo and used to be a Cretian one, associated with the same goddess that we think is the equivalent of Persephone (and of course in Crete we have the Minotaur guarding a maiden-queen).

Whether you believe Robert Graves doesn't matter, but George certainly knows about this. Proof in the pudding for House Beesbury's Honeyholt is the seat of house Bulwer at the bottom of the Whispering Sound, which is Blackcrown (A Black Crown) and a bull's skull on a bloodred field, and the words "Death before Disgrace".

Imo George here is applying Robert Graves' bee-myth theory on the legend of the Bloodstone Emperor versus the Amethyst Empress, where the BE (a man) stole the seat of the Empress, and given the location it suggests that the last battle between AE & BE was fought at Battle Isle. With the reference to Sting, and Starfall at a bigger version of the bay, that would add to the idea that Lightbringer = Dawn.

Supportive of this impression is the strait that connects both bays: Redwyne Strait, aka "direct red blood relation". And that Honeyholt would be the equivalent of BlackMont on the Torrentine (The Shadow reference?)

The house equivalent to Blackcrown's position is Sunhouse: sun victorious over the black crown. But not immediately. On the map of the East (beyond the bones) the outlier of the Mountains of the Morn(ing) seems to be connected to the Bleeding Sea (Red lake reference to Brandon of the Bloody Blade) with the 5 forts. Metaphorically seen from above they make for 5 steps, or 5 generations, before a descendant of the Bloody Blade ends up with a Dayne.

The Sunhouse sigil are 6 sunflowers on a blue field, which then would be blue for Others and thus Long Night and the 6th generation after AE winning the Battle for the Dawn. And that 6th generation imo was Brandon the Builder.

Now finally I get to the very relevant bit for the trees in the wall concept. I already mentioned that we're missing a bit of land at the Bay for Starfall in order to be a full equivalent for the Whispering Sound: the land of House Costayne, the seat Three Towers. @SaffronLady pointed out that House Costayne backed Queen Rhaenyra during the Dance (hmm another Queen Bee dance versus a honey stealer), which is certainly odd given its proximity to Oldtown, and the Greens were basically Hightowers.

Aside from 3 towers not having its equivalency in the bay for Starfall, I noticed how the Arbor acts like a shield in front of Redwyne Strait. An arbor is the name for one of those gates you see in gardens: either made out of vines or from latticework with "climbers". Hmmmm. And on my "The West Map" of the "Lands of Ice and Fire" edition you can see a row of three tiny towers across the Arbor map (no grove but a tower/tree line!). Curiously enough the map doesn't name them. Which is really weird, since every symbol that either represents a town, house or ruin on any of these maps (from beyond the wall all the way to Asshai and Sothoryos) has a name written next to it.

In other words, I think 3 towers refer to these 3 towers set in a line on the Arbor (a green gate), which is a shield. And here George uses a spelling game: three towers = tree towers.

You won't see these 3 towers in a line on another map alas. But here's a link to an online jpg of it: http://i2.wp.com/www.fantasticmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Westeros.jpg

And if "3 towers" refer to the Arbor-shield and towers, implying the Wall/Ward and potentially 3 wildfire dragon-persons (Brandon the Builder in the gate, Bran at the cave and Jon Snow) then it makes sense that there's no equivalent attached to the Starfall bay.

I mention Bran, because at the end of his last chapter he sees stuff while looking at flames. This indicates he must have some type of fireblood too. Via Tully? Cat is after all a fire-wight and there's the auburn hair. Which gave me an idea to try and test on the map, and it turns out that it works: if I place a long stick/ruler straight from Starfall to Winterfell, the sole seat that is covered by my stick (right in the middle of it) is Riverrun.

So the three Towers/Houses/Bloodlines that are crucial to protect and ward Westeros are: House Dayne, House Tully and House Stark. This would explain why House Tully has the red/blue sigil, split between ice (north) and fire (south). 

Now of course, logically the 3 towns/sites/seats on the Arbor must be Ryamsport (ram-gate? Black Gate), Vinetown (Riverrun) and Starfish Harbor (Starfall). But I'll leave that for you.

I also was reminded of Mel's vision of towers crumbling:

Quote

Then the towers by the sea, crumbling as the dark tide came sweeping over them, rising from the depths.[...] "If it comes, that attack will be no more than a diversion. I saw towers by the sea, submerged beneath a black and bloody tide. That is where the heaviest blow will fall."

"Eastwatch?"

Was it? Melisandre had seen Eastwatch-by-the-Sea with King Stannis. That was where His Grace left Queen Selyse and their daughter Shireen when he assembled his knights for the march to Castle Black. The towers in her fire had been different, but that was oft the way with visions. 

Just as the sea is symbolic so are the towers in her vision. It are the tree towers/3 towers: people, houses and weirwood sites. When all three have crumbled or fallen, the ward is finished.

Edited August 27, 2023 by sweetsunray

[Kienn]

Interesting video but a bit too… scientific/literal for me I guess.

My current favored theory is simply that the Wall was first made and guarded by the White Walkers. The oath was originally theirs, though it may have been shorter/slightly different at the time. They guarded the north from the realms of men.

The truce between Men and CotF and “the Others”(a faction of CotF) would be what led to this situation. Men took the south, the CotF took the north. The Others and their servants guarded the border to ensure the Men abided, the white shadows became the first Black Brothers…

Eventually the 13th commander of those brothers loved a human woman, blah blah blah and the humans had to take up guarding the Wall.

The real magic of the Wall is the cold. It doesn’t block magic, it simply brings/maintains the cold, much like the white walkers.

I tend to think the Wall was originally a more realistic sized wall, but the property of maintaining the cold over thousands of years allows that initially stone wall to form the base of a glacier. As snow falls and stays it compacts and condenses into ice. The borders of the magic form it into the Wall we know today. There was never any quarrying of ice blocks. The NW does however assist in the growth by sprinkling stones on top of the wall. As the snow falls the stones become incorporated and the wall grows faster. 8000 years later and we have the current wall, the edges are beyond the magic so they can melt in the sun, but the core always remains frozen.

With the weirwood at the Night fort and the black gate weirwoods were always implied to be along the wall… it is interesting to me that perhaps it may have not been a wall at first, but only a border marked by weirwoods. In this case when the Men took ownership they abided by the old Pact and did not burn or cut the weirwoods… but they did not prevent them from being buried by snow, and so the Wall began to grow.

I’m skipping lots of various wrinkles in this summary as I’ve not bothered to fully formalize my thoughts on this topic. I consider it too sparse to be sure enough of anything for that… but some of this video does fit and enhance with my favored ideas so i like it.

[Seams]

Some earlier comments in this thread mentioned the ward that holds The Wall together or that keeps certain things from crossing The Wall. You will probably not be surprised that I think GRRM has given us important wordplay hints to help us sort out what those wards are and how they work. 

ward

Warden

steward

stew

A "ward" can be a sort of guard or protection. When people refer to the ward on The Wall, the implication is often that there is some kind of mysterious magical spell that holds The Wall together and/or keeps certain beings or entities from crossing it. 

But we know that a "ward" in ASOIAF is also a young person being raised in a household other than that of his birth family. Ned and Robert were wards sent to live with Jon Arryn; Theon is a ward taken hostage and held at Winterfell to ensure good conduct by House Greyjoy. Catelyn takes Little and Big Walder as wards to demonstrate the alliance with House Frey. 

In GRRM's fertile imagination, I suspect that the youthful wards are supposed to be conflated with the magical protection wards. Pyke may be crumbling, in part, because the "ward" named Theon has been taken to the green lands. Little and Big Walder immediately teach the children at Winterfell to play a game called Lord of the Crossing, where one winner of a game determines who is allowed to cross a bridge. 

My guess would be that having a ward provides a form of protection for the household that holds the young person. This can be explicit, in the sense that House Greyjoy is less likely to rebel if their male heir is a hostage of their enemy. But it may also be implied and not spelled out that the "walls" of the keep are stronger if a ward is held within. 

We all know that Jon Snow wanted and expected to be made a ranger when he was admitted to membership in the NIght's Watch. He was shocked and disappointed when he was instead assigned to be a steward. Readers quickly grasp that Mormont wants to train Jon Snow to be a future Lord Commander. Having him at hand as a steward is the best way to expose him to the work of a Lord Commander. 

But what if turning Jon Snow into a steward is also a move to strengthen The Wall? We know that Mormont values Jon Snow's "Stark blood" and his wolf. Are those the magical elements that make Jon Snow a great "steward / ward" at Castle Black?

Mormont's faith in Jon Snow as a steward/ward is immediately justified when Jon Snow defeats the white with a flaming curtain (drapery?). If a curtain is a parallel or synonym for a wall, what kind of foreshadowing is at work in the symbolism of the flaming curtain? Is Jon able to seize the fire because he is secretly (we believe) a Targaryen, in addition to being a Stark? Is he the ward that has been anticipated for generations? If so, what will his magical blood do? Strengthen The Wall, or destroy it? First one and then the other? Maybe the point is that The Wall becomes irrelevant because Jon Snow invites Mance and the Wildlings to enter peacefully the community south of The Wall?

There may be further wordplay in the ward/warden/steward wordplay.

After a sword (or other metal) is forged, it must be annealed to become strong and flexible - it is heated and then quenched in water. I think we see this with Jon Snow burning his hand on the flaming drapery but then thrusting it into a puddle of melted snow. He has forged and annealed his own hand. So Jon Snow is declared to be a steward, but he is also a sword. (Sward?) 

Remember Torrhen Stark, the last King in the North? The King who Knelt? He knelt as a king but rose as a king no more but Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. 

Knelt, get it? Knee? A kneel? Anneal?

Aegon the Conqueror and Torrhen Stark may have "forged" a sword like Oathkeeper and Widow's Wail, incorporating the "metal" of two houses. There is very specific symbolism in Torrhen crossing the river but not letting Aegon set foot in the North. With the agreement forged by the two kings, House Stark continues as a "ward" (warden) to protect the northern part of the Seven Kingdoms. The northmen are allowed to keep their swords instead of surrendering them to be incorporated in the Iron Throne. Perhaps the point is that Aegon realizes he needs a ward to keep that region safe, and no one else has the right magic except House Stark. So they forge a compromise, so to speak, and seal the deal by annealing a new (s)word/warden.

This may be why there must always be a Stark in Winterfell. If there isn't, the ward is broken and all kinds of beasts and evil spirits can infiltrate. 

(We will have to start a new thread to figure out why the wardens of the east and west are important, and whether their functions are distinct from the warden of the north. Presumably, House Martell provides the "ward" in the south. That seems like a complex function, as they never quite "kneel" for A the C the way that House Stark does.) 

But this brings me to stew. Wtf, George? 

I know it's important, because this:

Quote

A great blaze was crackling in the center of the camp, and he could smell stew cooking. The Old Bear might not be hungry, but Jon was. He drifted over toward the fire.

Dywen was holding forth, spoon in hand. "I know this wood as well as any man alive, and I tell you, I wouldn't care to ride through it alone tonight. Can't you smell it?"

Grenn was staring at him with wide eyes, but Dolorous Edd said, "All I smell is the shit of two hundred horses. And this stew. Which has a similar aroma, now that I come to sniff it."

"I've got your similar aroma right here." Hake patted his dirk. Grumbling, he filled Jon's bowl from the kettle.

The stew was thick with barley, carrot, and onion, with here and there a ragged shred of salt beef, softened in the cooking.

"What is it you smell, Dywen?" asked Grenn.

The forester sucked on his spoon a moment. He had taken out his teeth. His face was leathery and wrinkled, his hands gnarled as old roots. "Seems to me like it smells . . . well . . . cold."

Your head's as wooden as your teeth," Hake told him. "There's no smell to cold."

There is, thought Jon, remembering the night in the Lord Commander's chambers. It smells like death. Suddenly he was not hungry anymore. He gave his stew to Grenn, who looked in need of an extra supper to warm him against the night.

The wind was blowing briskly when he left. By morning, frost would cover the ground, and the tent ropes would be stiff and frozen. A few fingers of spiced wine sloshed in the bottom of the kettle. Jon fed fresh wood to the fire and put the kettle over the flames to reheat. He flexed his fingers as he waited, squeezing and spreading until the hand tingled. The first watch had taken up their stations around the perimeter of the camp. Torches flickered all along the ringwall. The night was moonless, but a thousand stars shone overhead.

This passage is like Symbolism's Greatest Hits: the senses, food, weapons, shit, death, fingers, fire and a bunch of other symbolism stuff (leather, teeth, a spoon, tents, wine, stars, roots, a well, woods) that GRRM put in the books just for me, because no one else appreciates or understand them. (Hold on, let me readjust my tinfoil hat.) 

Jon Snow has all of this symbolism heaped on just before he squeezes between two sharpened stakes and through a gap between the stones of the ringwall at the Fist. In other words, I believe he has to remove the ward in order to pass through not just the literal Wall, but the magical wall. All of the conditions have to be met, sort of like Dany not knowing what she is doing but magically creating exactly the right conditions to hatch her dragon eggs. 

Giving away the stew is a key moment in that magic recipe, I suspect. Soon Donal Noye will tell Jon, "Jon, you have the Wall till I return . . . I said, the Wall is yours." Is the giving of the stew to Grenn similar to Noye giving the Wall to Jon Snow? 

(I mentioned earlier in the thread the possibility that Mag the Mighty and Donal Noye are forged into a single weapon when they mutually kill each other in the tunnel. Jon Snow is able to find the obsidian cache when he slips through the ringwall and follows his direwolf to the sandy grave where the bundle is hidden. I'm still clinging to my suspicion that the obsidian dagger with the orange edge is Lightbringer. Is this passage through a wall the way that "forging" of magical weapons occurs? Jon Snow passes through another "wall" when Qhorin leads him through the waterfall and through the secret passage in the mountain. At the other end of the passage, they meet Rattleshirt. Mormont may hint at the steps needed to forge magical weapons at the end of AGoT when he asks whether Jon Snow has a grumkin to magic up his sword. He really expects that Jon Snow is taking steps to magic up his sword and may wonder where he is in the process.) 

There are other significant stews in ASOIAF: bowls of brown with their mystery meat, sister stew, maybe the oats mixed with horse blood that Qhorin Halfhand prescribes for his ranging party, perhaps even the weirwood paste eaten by Bran. Do those stews involve stewards? Or have I stretched the definition of stew too far? 

We could also examine Jaime taking a ward or two as part of his negotiated settlement in the Riverlands. He has Hoster the Hostage Blackwood riding by his side when he reaches Pennytree. I would say that Jaime and Brienne departing together at the end of the last book is a pretty good clue that another magical "wall" is about to be crossed. Did Hoster enable this, as Jaime's ward, or does the absence of the Bracken ward create the gap? 

[Sandy Clegg]

8 hours ago, Seams said:

This passage is like Symbolism's Greatest Hits: the senses, food, weapons, shit, death, fingers, fire and a bunch of other symbolism stuff (leather, teeth, a spoon, tents, wine, stars, roots, a well, woods) that GRRM put in the books just for me,

Ha, well you’re not quite alone. This is a great catch, with the stewards cooking up a symbolic stew-ward. Let’s take the theory in the OP to  broadly imply: ‘a weirwood foundation for the Wall (and/or its ward) which needed (or still needs) to be fed on sacrifice. Now we can use that to further analyse the stew. My breakdown of your scene above would be like this:

 - the shit of two hundred horses. And this stew. Which has a similar aroma

Horse shit = fertiliser. If we’re talking trees as essential ‘ward components’, then the stew will show us what feeds them / keeps them strong.

- "I've got your similar aroma right here." Hake patted his dirk. 

Of course Hake is referring metaphorically to his cock here, another fertility symbol. But also a dirk is just a dagger, used in blood sacrifice. This we can combine with the ingredients, which appear directly after the dirk:

- The stew was thick with barley, carrot, and onion, with here a ragged shred of salt beef, softened in the cooking.

The root vegetables, carrot and onions may simply be suggestive of certain, um, male body parts useful for sacrifice (see Varys) with salt beef a generic meat/flesh symbol. 

Barley is more interesting. It’s Latin name is hordeum vulgare, about which Wikipedia says:

The name Hordeum comes from the Latin word for "to bristle" (horreō, horrēre), and is akin to the word "horror".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hordeum

The horror continues:

8 hours ago, Seams said:

The forester sucked on his spoon a moment. He had taken out his teeth. His face was leathery and wrinkled, his hands gnarled as old roots. "Seems to me like it smells . . . well . . . cold."

Your head's as wooden as your teeth," Hake told him. "There's no smell to cold."

The whole thing adds up to: cold. This gives us the connection to the icy Wall. And the taster of this ‘tree fertiliser stew’ is Dywen - the forester with a wooden head and wooden teeth and hands like roots. Wow - it’s not subtle. The stew is sucked on by a symbolic tree.

8 hours ago, Seams said:

It smells like death. Suddenly he was not hungry anymore. He gave his stew to Grenn, who looked in need of an extra supper to warm him against the night.

Jon is not a fan of this stew. I think this may be a clue that whatever is/was being sacrificed to the trees may have a symbolic connection to Jon or the Starks. Or just that GRRM is confirming one of Jon’s more positive traits: he stands against blood sacrifice, as we see when he swaps Gilly and Dalla’s babies.

The blood ingredient is confirmed in the next scene with Jon metaphorically squeezing the blood from his fingers into the kettle until they tingle:

- A few fingers of spiced wine sloshed in the bottom of the kettle. Jon fed fresh wood to the fire and put the kettle over the flames to reheat. He flexed his fingers as he waited, squeezing and spreading until the hand tingled.

Wine is the blood symbol here: ‘spiced’ to reflect Jon’s dragon blood perhaps? 

My second thought here is that Jon as a symbolic weirwood tree here may be spreading and stretching his fingers in symbolic mimicry of a tree spreading and growing its branches, which recalls this scene in the prologue:

- Branches stirred gently in the wind, scratching at one another with wooden fingers.

Nourished by the blood, the fingers stretch and spread and the ward is strengthened.

EDIT: barley-broth is an older word for a kind of strong ale or whiskey:

barˈley-bree, barˈley-broo or -broth noun (Scot)

1. Strong ale

2. Whisky

As an alternative reading of barley,  giving 'strong ale' also kind of works nicely in conjunction with the other ingredients, suggesting an element of potency.

Edited August 31, 2023 by Sandy Clegg

[SaffronLady]

6 hours ago, Seams said:

Presumably, House Martell provides the "ward" in the south. That seems like a complex function, as they never quite "kneel" for A the C the way that House Stark does.) 

No. House Tyrell has rather consistently provided Wardens in the South. Dorne, despite being a war den, have never hosted Wardens.

[LongRider]

Myrcella was sent to Dorne by Cersei as Tyrion had arranged her betrothal to Trystane Martell.  Would this count as a ward?  The betrothal was arranged so as to bring Dorne to the side of the Lannisters.  Wards can be political, and the betrothal is political and sending Myrcella to Dorne, political and protective.  I would consider her a ward.  

[Sandy Clegg]

7 minutes ago, LongRider said:

Wards can be political, and the betrothal is political and sending Myrcella to Dorne, political and protective.  I would consider her a ward. 

I think this is the next step, to identify wards/hostages/long-term 'guests' or prisoners even. It's such a blurry line in many case - Theon being a prime example. There is protection in a ward, but damaging them can prove dangerous - as we see with Myrcella and Darkstar. In cutting off her ear, Gerold Dayne weakens Dorne from within. In building up Sansa into a formidable player of the game, Littlefinger is strengthening his ward. These could all be just general motifs or they might add up to something more like clues, there are just so many to identify first.

 

[sweetsunray]

9 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

The blood ingredient is confirmed in the next scene with Jon metaphorically squeezing the blood from his fingers into the kettle until they tingle:

- A few fingers of spiced wine sloshed in the bottom of the kettle. Jon fed fresh wood to the fire and put the kettle over the flames to reheat. He flexed his fingers as he waited, squeezing and spreading until the hand tingled.

Wine is the blood symbol here: ‘spiced’ to reflect Jon’s dragon blood perhaps? 

My second thought here is that Jon as a symbolic weirwood tree here may be spreading and stretching his fingers in symbolic mimicry of a tree spreading and growing its branches, which recalls this scene in the prologue:

- Branches stirred gently in the wind, scratching at one another with wooden fingers.

Nourished by the blood, the fingers stretch and spread and the ward is strengthened.

It's a "bloody hand". And blood of a bloody hand of a person with hot/spice/fireblood has power.

• Beric's bloody hand
• Weirwood leaves looking like a bloody hand
• Mormont's raven drawing blood from Sam's hand after Jon says "close the door" and Mormont's raven expressed it was a bad idea for Jon to send his hostage/ward (Mance's son) away
• Arya's play: red lettering of the title and capitalized by George, "THE BLOODY HAND" and also painted above the lettering, for those "who couldn't read"
• Qorin Halfhand who put his bloody hand in a wildling's face, blinding him, so he could finish him with the other.

The blood of the bloody hand is the seal/strengthening, because it's a self sacrifice of one's own blood.

ETA: yes, "spiced" stands for "hot" or "fire"... think of the spiced sausages on the market in Vaes Dothrak. It's something he used as well in Song for Lya.

ETA2: stew is begotten via "slow cooking" or in this symbolic case "slow heating" for hours.

Edited August 31, 2023 by sweetsunray

[LongRider]

4 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

There is protection in a ward, but damaging them can prove dangerous - as we see with Myrcella and Darkstar. 

In my comment what was not clearly stated, is that among other reasons, Myrcella was sent to Dorne for her protection from riots and violence happening in KL just then.  However, whatever protection as a ward she may have brought to Dorne was violated by her kidnapping and then the violence with Darkstar.  So, what one might surmise is, if a ward is sent to another family for reasons that include their protection, the ward needs to be protected.  Otherwise, to put it in modern terms, the shit can hit the fan.  

Looking at her story from this view, Myrcella and Theon have a lot in common, the ward was broken when a family member either stole the ward away or sent the ward away.  Theon was no longer protected from his father, and Balon turned Theon into a turncloak.   Myrcella was no longer under Doran's control, and violence similar to what was happening in KL, found her.

[Sandy Clegg]

On wards as protections:

During Queen Alysanne's trip to White Harbour there is a tourney duel between a wildling girl - fostered at White Harbour - and Jonquil Darke, the queen's "own sworn shield" called the Scarlet Shadow. This conjurs yet another image, when combined, of wards as shields.

[LongRider]

1 hour ago, Sandy Clegg said:

On wards as protections:

During Queen Alysanne's trip to White Harbour there is a tourney duel between a wildling girl - fostered at White Harbour - and Jonquil Darke, the queen's "own sworn shield" called the Scarlet Shadow. This conjurs yet another image, when combined, of wards as shields.

Could you elaborate please?  I don’t know this story and so am missing what you are getting at. 
Thanms!

[Sandy Clegg]

38 minutes ago, LongRider said:

Could you elaborate please?  I don’t know this story and so am missing what you are getting at. 
Thanms!

It's literally two sentences in Fire and Blood. Such a small thing that it can only be a tiny clue about fosterlings and wards. 

I think the idea of wards must also involve an idea of oaths and swearing, to invoke protection, so saying that Jonquil was Alysanne's own sworn shield is way of using 'own' to mean 'as well as' the wildling being a kind of sworn shield (as a fostered ward in White Harbour).

Edited September 2, 2023 by Sandy Clegg

[Seams]

4 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

On wards as protections:

During Queen Alysanne's trip to White Harbour there is a tourney duel between a wildling girl - fostered at White Harbour - and Jonquil Darke, the queen's "own sworn shield" called the Scarlet Shadow. This conjurs yet another image, when combined, of wards as shields.

This is worth analyzing at greater length. 

Among the specifics involved in Alysanne's trip to the north is that she enters the North through White Harbor, which, as we know, is under the control of House Manderly, originally from the Reach. I think this is symbolic of a diverted river, somehow, but also creates a beachhead for a non-Northern noble house within the North. This opens a gate that allows non-northerners, such as Targaryens, to enter the North. 

Also Wolf's Den, warden wordplay?

GRRM creates an excuse to explain why Alysanne first travels without her brother/king Jaehaerys on her northern progress in 58 AC. I am remembering that Thorren Stark prevented Aegon the Conqueror from setting foot in the North (or, one might say, relieved him of the trouble of crossing the river).

Is it possible that Alysanne had to open up a "gate" for Jaehaerys in order for a Targ king to finally set foot in the northern kingdom? If so, why is Alysanne able to open the "gate"?

I think it might be this duel you cite, between the Jonquil Darke "Queen's Guard" character and the wildling ward. We know that House Darklyn has had the greatest number of members in the King's Guard, and the Darkes are related to the Darklyns. Ser Dontos Hollard is a symbolic survivor of House Darklyn (after the Defiance of Duskendale) and he is the person who gets Sansa through a secret or remote heavy door out of the Red Keep. 

I think you may have hit on something, with one ward or "shield" canceling out a different ward. This must be how magic doors are opened, allowing walls to be breached. 

Although she is unable to get her dragon to fly across the Wall, the Night's Watch castle called Snowgate is renamed Queensgate in her honor, after she secures The Gift for the Night's Watch. What does it mean that there is a gate for her at the Wall? 

How does Alysanne's separate power base as well as her gate and guard situations parallel the situation with Selyse and Stannis at the Wall? Selyse has a lot of Queen's Men who are loyal to her. She is also from the Reach, like House Manderly. She is originally from House Florent, which ties into the Florian and Jonquil motif we see with Alysanne's guard and with Sansa / Ser Dontos. 

Alysanne also persuades her husband to shell out the money to provide clean water and sewers for the small folk of King's Landing. Sewers are part of the "flow" motif - flow / flower / flour but also possibly flow / wolf / fowl / loaf. 

I think this is all leading us toward a recipe for breaching the Wall. What are the necessary elements, and why / how do they work?

Edit: The hand of Jaffer Flowers is part of the attack on the Night's Watch that results in the death of Jeremy Rykker and in Jon Snow defending against the wighted Othor. I bet the bastard name Flowers is part of the necessary "flow" symbolism for creating a gate through the Wall. Thorne takes the hand to the Iron Throne. (Relating to your other thread, Othor and Jeremy were killed with Othor's axe, according to Dywen.)

Edited September 2, 2023 by Seams

[sweetsunray]

9 hours ago, Seams said:

Among the specifics involved in Alysanne's trip to the north is that she enters the North through White Harbor, which, as we know, is under the control of House Manderly, originally from the Reach. I think this is symbolic of a diverted river, somehow, but also creates a beachhead for a non-Northern noble house within the North. This opens a gate that allows non-northerners, such as Targaryens, to enter the North. 

Also Wolf's Den, warden wordplay?

White Harbor and Wolf's Den are at the end of the White Knife. Do we know of any White Knife? Isn't there one far down south. It's rather long, light and very very sharp, and it can give off white light apparently.

As for two wards fighting. What happens if one ward "yields"?

Edited September 3, 2023 by sweetsunray

[SaffronLady]

1 hour ago, sweetsunray said:

What happens if one ward "yields"?

And what of people becoming wards after yielding, such as Torrhen Stark becoming the Warden of the North after he yielded? Was he already a ward?

[Tyrosh Lannister]

The wall is around 300 miles long. Somewhere in the thread it is mentioned the giant weirwoods number less than 100. So that means 1 walker tied to a weirwood freezes around 3 miles of water surrounding it (east-west). 

Then shouldnt the same thing be done 3 miles (north south )? The wall would be 3 miles thick then . 

 

No, I think there are actually thousands of giant weirwoods. 

[Tyrosh Lannister]

I still don't understand why are these weirwoods giant sized when we don't see any other giant weirwoods in the series ? (Other than this theory's nightfort well tree )

[sweetsunray]

40 minutes ago, Tyrosh Lannister said:

I still don't understand why are these weirwoods giant sized when we don't see any other giant weirwoods in the series ? (Other than this theory's nightfort well tree )

They never suffer a lack of water?

[Tyrosh Lannister]

6 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

They never suffer a lack of water?

What about Winterfells heart tree standing right in front of a water pool ? its not giant sized