The Citadel's riddle - the mystery of the white ravens

[sweetsunray]

In aCoK we learn and see a white raven for the first time.

Shireen comes up to see it at Maester Cressen's office and rookery, asking him whether her mother is right when she claims that a white raven means that the summer has ended.

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"That is so, my lady. The white ravens fly only from the Citadel." [...] "They are larger than other ravens, and more clever, bred to carry only the most important messages. This one came to tell us that the Conclave has met, considered the reports and measurements made by maesters all over the realm, and declared this great summer done at last. Ten years, two turns, and sixteen days it lasted, the longest summer in living memory." (aCoK, Prologue)

Cressen answers it is true, explains they only fly from the Citadel, that the Conclave has considered measurements and reports all over the realm and declared summer to be over, and let the white ravens fly. He also words these messengers in a dubious way: they carry the most important message. In this way George leaves the reader with the impression that the white raven comes with a written message claiming the whole Conclave (imo) bullshit. It does not carry a message. Cressen was waxing poetic: its mere sight "tells" the receiver all they need to know. 

Kevan Lannister points this out to us in his Epilogue in aDwD

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Not silver. White. The bird is white. The white ravens of the Citadel did not carry messages, as their dark cousins did. When they went forth from Oldtown, it was for one purpose only: to herald a change of seasons. (aDwD, Epilogue)

. And Maester Yandel (who was taught his letters by Archmaester Walgrave, the senile maester of the white rookery) reveals that the Citadel is still confounded in trying to predict the change of seasons correctly.

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Though the Citadel has long sought to learn the manner by which it may predict the length and change of seasons, all efforts have been confounded. (tWoIaF - Ancient History: the Long Night)

Hmmm, so Maester Cressen's claim about the Conclave is bullshit. Yandel (imo unwittingly) reveals one of the Citadel's big secrets: they have long sought to learn to predict the change of seasons, but have no reliable scientific method.

And yet these ravens still fly out. And when they do fly out, they are correct. Take for example the Year of the False Spring.

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In the annals of Westeros, 281 AC is known as the Year of the False Spring. Winter had held the land in its icy grip for close on two years, but now at last the snows were melting, the woods were greening, the days were growing longer. Though the white ravens had not yet flown, there were many even at the Citadel of Oldtown who believed that winter's end was nigh. (tWoIaF - The Fall of the Dragons - The Year of the False Spring)

  All the maesters from all over Westeros most assuredly would have sent reports of weeping walls, celestial observations, green shoots, etc, enough to convince a majority at the Citadel that a change of season was upon them. And yet "they" did not send the white ravens... or perhaps the white ravens refused to fly out when the Conclave believed they would?

What I mean to argue is the following: it is not the Citadel or a Conclave who determine when the seasons changed on any observation sent to them from all over Westeros. It are the white ravens who inexplicably know, and what the Conclave truly does is watch the white ravens for signs of them wanting to fly out, but they are trying to keep this a secret.

Though white ravens are not the same species as black ravens, their natural roosting behavior can be extrapolated from black ravens: ravens don't really require a rookery. They roost in their home-weirwood. And the Isle of Ravens has a yard with a very old weirwood.

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An ancient weirwood filled the yard, as it had since these stones had first been raised. The carved face on its trunk was grown over by the same purple moss that hung heavy from the tree's pale limbs. Half of the branches seemed dead, but elsewhere a few red leaves still rustled, and it was there the ravens liked to perch. The tree was full of them, and there were more in the arched windows overhead, all around the yard. The ground was speckled by their droppings. As they crossed the yard, one flapped overhead and he heard the others quorking to each other. "Archmaester Walgrave has his chambers in the west tower, below the white rookery," Alleras told him. "The white ravens and the black ones quarrel like Dornishmen and Marchers, so they keep them apart." (aFfC, Samwell V)

We are told explicitly that the white ravens are kept apart in the white rookery, apart from the black ravens. But the ancient weirwood with stones raised around it, points to the weirwood predating the Citadel (as would be the case for most castles). Beyond the wall, villages did not plant their weirwoods. They settled near and around an already existing weirwood. And the way of life of the Free Folk is pretty much a glimpse into the days of the Long Night.

So, if there was no white rookery, those white ravens would just roost in the weirwood, like the black ravens. And I very much doubt that back in ancient times these black ravens attacked them.

But why would they lock them up in a rookery? To avoid being exposed as failures, an emberassment to their first task ever given to them.

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The origins of the Citadel are almost as mysterious as those of the Hightower itself. Most credit its founding to the second son of Uthor of the High Tower, Prince Peremore the Twisted. A sickly boy, born with a withered arm and twisted back, Peremore was bedridden for much of his short life but had an insatiable curiosity about the world beyond his window, so he turned to wise men, teachers, priests, healers, and singers, along with a certain number of wizards, alchemists, and sorcerers. It is said the prince had no greater pleasure in life than listening to these scholars argue with one another. When Peremore died, his brother King Urrigon bequeathed a large tract of land beside the Honeywine to "Peremore's pets," that they might establish themselves and continue teaching, learning, and questing after truth. And so they did. (tWoIaF - The Reach: Oldtown)

What would our bedridden Peremore have seen from his window? He would have seen white ravens in a weirwood tree, never flying out, while black ravens flew to and fro.

What question would have arisen? "Why do the white ravens remain, while the black ravens fly off and come back again?" And his "Old Nan" by his bedside would have told him a story that as long as people remember the white ravens only fly off when the seasons change. But as Old Nans are wont to do, she could not tell him why they did so.

This would have only deepened Peremore's curiosity, and so he had every type of person claiming to have knowledge come and laid out the mystery about the white ravens to them and wanted their answers. Healers would have talked about birds knowing the seasons by the greens that shoot. Singers would have sung tales about well The Singers that sing the song of Earth (but the singers are gone from The Isle of Ravens). (Drowned) Priests would have claimed the birds could tell from the waves (sea) and storms (sky). Etc, etc.

In other words these "scholars" argued passionatel about the biggest mystery of the series - why are the seasons so variable and how do only the white ravens know?

They did not find the answer in Peremore's lifetime, but were set to task by his brother. And so in order to test their theories, the "scholars" had to observe the white ravens. The mystery of the white ravens was their first and major riddle to solve, and what they began to study. From this grew the Citadel. But their failure at solving it, became an embarrassment, and the white ravens in the weirwood a reason for younger maesters and accolytes to mock their elder archmaesters. It becomes difficult to maintain a seat of intellectual superiority when those damned white birds up in their tree prove you know nothing really. And of course they also needed to breed them: for their tests, to continue the task, but also to protect their own reputation.

The story of the False Spring indicates that without the white ravens, the Conclave would have made a complete fool of themselves before long if they did not have the white ravens deciding it for them. The white ravens are their primary task, their origin, their constant prove of failure, but also their greatest treasure, for without them they would be unmasked as pretenders to knowledge they do not actually possess. 

This is likely also the source why they dislike magic, and why it is dangerous in their eyes: if you realize that the seasons are so erratic because of magic and that the determination of the change of seasons by the white ravens is also magical, then their reason for existing becomes null and void.

ETA: And so, the Citadel's perfectly fine with a senile Archmaester Walgrave at the White Rookery. Nobody will believe whatever he claims to say. Only the stupidest of novices like Pate can be set to take care of the man, which is great too, because they don't want smart novices around those birds to figure their secret out. But enter Sam who has seen magic, fought magical Others, was saved by a magical dead guy, went through a magical gate, and has quite a lot of contact with a magical black raven. And enter Euron who'll end up destroying the Citadel and its conclave, and then we'll see through Sam's POV the white ravens only fly when they know it's time to announce winter has come.

Edited September 1, 2023 by sweetsunray

[SaffronLady]

Sorry to derail the thread slightly, but

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The carved face on its trunk was grown over by the same purple moss that hung heavy from the tree's pale limbs.

Is this a dragonlord reference? Maybe the dragonlords usurped power over the seasons (like how they symbolically usurped power over time by conquering "the river of time", the Rhoyne) from the greenseers (represented by the weirwood) but had to intermarry with them to keep that power, leading to the creation of wildfire people (dragonblood greenseers)?

No idea how white ravens are supposed to fit inside this model, though. What white or pale thing flies out/would have flown out across Westeros to mark the change of seasons?

[sweetsunray]

4 hours ago, SaffronLady said:

Sorry to derail the thread slightly, but

Is this a dragonlord reference? Maybe the dragonlords usurped power over the seasons (like how they symbolically usurped power over time by conquering "the river of time", the Rhoyne) from the greenseers (represented by the weirwood) but had to intermarry with them to keep that power, leading to the creation of wildfire people (dragonblood greenseers)?

No idea how white ravens are supposed to fit inside this model, though. What white or pale thing flies out/would have flown out across Westeros to mark the change of seasons?

Purple moss = wildfire to me. Moss is green. Jojen's eyes are green moss. Purple is well the eye color of dragonblood. So, purple moss is a greenseer/green dreamer/skinchanger with dragonblood.

[the trees have eyes]

11 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Though the Citadel has long sought to learn the manner by which it may predict the length and change of seasons, all efforts have been confounded. (tWoIaF - Ancient History: the Long Night)

Idk, I think this is just saying they don't know when seasons will change or how fast the change will be, vitally important things given the impact on agriculture and survival.  We take for granted a regular and entirely predictable change of the seasons so the impact of not knowing whether a season will last two or ten years is hard to really appreciate.  The summer of ten years is followed by an autumn of 1-2 for example, with little time to lay up further food supplies for a winter of unknown duration, so it seems understandable that they would be trying to work out a way of predicting the change in advance rather than just observing it occurring. 

Given summer snows in The North and huge differences further south in The Reach or Dorne it seems reasonable enough to gather reports from across the realm before deciding to announce the change to the whole Realm: those in one region might find the announcement surprising, those in another no news at all, but because the boundary between seasons is fuzzy in terms of observed experience the lack of a meteorological yardstick makes it a judgment call.

Aren't the ravens returning to their home nest, so to speak?  How else do the Citadel ravens (white or black) know where to go?

[sweetsunray]

Black ravens can fly out in the morning to return to their home-weirwood by nightfall. They don't need training for that. Gradually, George has revealed that ravens don't need a rookery: see Raventree Hall and Theon witnessing the ravens in WF's godswood gathered in the weirwood during Jeyne's wedding to Ramsay. George even adds the poetic hint of mists or fogs separating or lifting to reveal a new tableau, aka "how it was before maesters". He includes Bran's ironic thoughts about BR's implied claim that skinchanging was how CotF taught the First Men to learn True Tongue and use ravens for vocal messages in the Old Tongue. Bran remembers Old Nan claiming the same thing and how Robb laughed at such a claim. Bran thinks that all of his siblings could fly in ravens, and how "they could then all live in Luwin's rookery". The Citadel knows that black ravens always come home and they leave them their freedom at the Citadel: they're all on the walls and the yard with the tree. Apparently they don't bother with a rookery for them.

The white ravens are more intelligent than their black brethren. They may not know Common Tongue, and may not even need to be skinchanged. And yet they keep these in a white rookery: to breed and to study closely for their moods and out of sight. That the Citadel leaves a dementing archmaester beneath them and has the dumbest most easily fooled novice serve Walgrave and the white ravens daily seems to have been done on purpose: keep brighter minds away from the white ravens and only dumb fools who can make nothing of whatever Walgrave says on either his good or bad days close to the expert.

Alleras confirms that the castle at the Isle of Ravens is the oldest one. She also claims allegedly it was a pirate's keep during the Age of Heroes, but she says that while they cross the Honeywine, aka "sweet as honey lies" or "golden wine" (Golden Arbor). And fake-Pate promisis Sam that he will have a "great view" on the Honeywine (lies) from the White Rookery. The castle was built to study the white ravens.

Now take Yandel's connection to Walgrave. Yandel was an unwanted child left at the scrybe's hearth (a place where acolytes read and write for any illiterate in need for it). He is then given to servants to be raised within the Citadel. So as a boy he was a servant. Some maesters were kind to him, and archmaester Walgrave taught him his letters. This interaction was what prompted Yandel to enter the order. He got his first link when he was 13, 2 years after Robert's Rebellion was done, and completed his chain in 7 years, quicker than Maester Aemon even. It puts this very bright, inquisitive boy learning to read and write, in Archmaester Walgrave's rooms right beneath the White Rookery around the time of the False Spring. Around the time that every maester in Westeros sent reports about green shoots, weeping walls, etc and "most of the Citadel believed spring season". A serving boy would have picked up on those beliefs and discussions amongst maesters and noted that that white ravens did not fly. He certainly would have asked about it to Walgrave. And whatever Walgrave said, led to Yandel writing as primary source that the Citadel is still confounded about predicting the length and change of seasons.

Meanwhile maester Cressen makes it out to sound as if the Conclave "knows". Walgrave knows Cressen. Since he's in the late stage of dementia, Walgrave is "time-shifting" when he mixes eighteen year old Pate up for Cressen. Cressen chose to become a household maester, but Walgrave remained all of his life at Oldtown and the Citadel. This means that Walgrave and Cressen were acolytes or novices together in their youth, and that Cressen knows no more about the white ravens than the average acolyte (whatever the Citadel claims). Walgrave though is said to have forgotten more about ravencraft than most maesters ever know of it: aka, Walgrave knows/knew white ravens the best of any other maester alive.

The manner in which Yandel writes that statement about the Citadel being confounded has the tone of "it is known". You only do that if you believe it is indeed a given and known to everybody. But Cressen's statements about the Conclave claims the opposite. This would mean that Yandel learned of it as a young boy in such a non-secretive way. It is something he ended up believing every other maester and lord just knows. If he had known it was something that might draw the ire, he would have cut it out. So, I'm wondering whether he ended up with poison in his porridge one day.

Pate and Yandel are also each other's reverse mirror in understanding and intellectual brightness. Pate began as a novice at the same age that Yandel forged his first link. But Pate hasn't even forged one link in 5 years since he began. And though he is a "novice" in title, he serves no better purpose than a servant. He pretty much works down the ladder. Meanwhile Yandel worked himself up from a destiny to be a servant to a maester, who as far as we know, chose to remain in the Citadel.

Add that Yandel writes fondly of Archmaester Walgrave, while the old man is only an archmaester out of "courtesy", and we can infer that Yandel still regards Walgrave as a mentor unlike any other maester or archmaester, in spite of what everybody else thinks of him now.

Eventually, George wrote and revealed a lot of puzzle pieces about the glass candles almost like an info dump upon Sam's arrival at the Isle of Ravens. Books won't tell us more about dragons than Tyrion can or we can learn from Dany and her dragons. True Tongue and truth is tied to ravens and ballads. So, any real valuable truth that Samwell will witness and discover is tied to the white ravens of the Citadel, and all clues point to the white ravens having been Peremore's riddle he put to his pets.

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by sweetsunray

[sweetsunray]

19 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

Aren't the ravens returning to their home nest, so to speak?  How else do the Citadel ravens (white or black) know where to go?

Let's try the alternative you're saying: that they are mechanically trained by maesters to know their "home" (all the important castles and keeps that didn't exist until after Andal and Targ conquest), and there's no magical element involved in it.

Then maesters would have to breed and raise white ravens in the castles of the lords and kings. Then they need to train them: let them fly around to go back "home" (the castle) at greater distances, etc. Until eventually they can send caged white ravens either by ship or a baggage train to Oldtown, where they are then kept indoors so they don't escape and fly home, when the "maesters know" it's a new season.

Kids spend a lot of time near the rookery or a maester's office beneath it. Kids are curious. They'd be asking to see the white "chick" being raised, etc. Castle Black wasn't raising any white ravens, because then Sam would have been put to task with them already at CB. Given the direct response to seeing a white raven by kevan, selyse to shireen (off page) and Shireen wanting to see it, etc multiple generations have only ever seen white ravens at change of seasons.

All evidence points to the white ravens only being seen in the rest of Westeros at change of season, mysteriously knowing to hop in tower offices of castles they were never raised at. If they are bred and raised at the Citadel, then they know where to go without the above mentioned training, and thus magic is in play.

 

[sweetsunray]

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Old Nan had told him the same story [about ravens as talking messengers] once, Bran remembered, but when he asked Robb if it was true, his brother laughed and asked him if he believed in grumkins too. He wished Robb were with them now. I'd tell him I could fly, but he wouldn't believe, so I'd have to show him. I bet that he could learn to fly too, him and Arya and Sansa, even baby Rickon and Jon Snow. We could all be ravens and live in Maester Luwin's rookery. (aDwD, Bran III)

Here Bran makes a huge anachronistic mistake: (black) ravens don't need a rookery or a maester, especially not skinchanged ravens. All they require is a place to roost, and they do so at a weirwood. Before the Andal invasion and the massacre of skinchangers and greenseers, there was no need for a rookery or a maester as councelor: lords and kings would have had pet ravens like Mormont's raven to councel them.

There wasn't any need for libraries either, because the weirwoods are the libraries, and FM had no writing. The Andal septons introduced writing. Writing was an Andal thing. Maesters learned writing from the septons. And if there was no writing, there also was no need for maesters to teach kids to learn it.

So before Andal invasion: no rookery, no councelor, no library, no writing, and no teacher such as a maester required. These are the main tasks of maesters at households at present. It becomes really hard to think of a reason why maesters would have as a position at a household of a king or lord with the FM. Healing? There are healers that aren't maesters, and they do the job just as good as maesters do, if we go by Mance's story.

So, prior to the Andal invasion: no maesters at households.

The Citadel exists, but it would have had a far lower number of pupils and teachers. It doesn't have a library (no writing remember, and no books). They don't bother with black ravens, because they deliver messages orally via skinchanging. Tyrion points out that the rise in prestige of "maesters" is a more recent thing. That the guild of the alchemists used to be their rivals, and that the alchemists used to be bigger than the Citadel.

And yet, after the Andal invasion the Citadel ends up supplanting first and foremostly the pet raven's position. Suddenly kings and lords are without speaking ravens anymore, but the black ravens still hang around in the weirwood tree. And their singers and old nan storytellers have tales on how black ravens used to talk and deliver messages. Can't something be done with the black ravens? At this point the Citadel claims to have maesters trained in ravencraft and these maesters can write messages. So, these kings say, "okay send me one of those. We'll see how it goes". Initially the kings and lords are illiterate themselves. This immediately bombards the maester who's only there to send ravens with parchment on their feet to and fro to the councel position: they read the messages for the king and lord. At some point in time (and potentially very quickly), some heir finds out that their maester is actually the third son of an enemy and that the maester in question wasn't completely honest about the written message and sent the heir's father into an ambush that got this lord/king killed. So, the heir kills the treacherous maester, demands a new one from the Citadel, but one who will teach him to read and write (and his own heir) and is bound to serve their castle loyally. And so, maesters also get to be teachers. 

Since writing was an Andal thing and the septons were the first to write things down, they would have done so in their own language. No real need to try and write in a language that has no written version (except for runes). So when maesters learned "their letters" from the septons, they did it in the Andal language. And when they taught it to the lords' children, they also taught it in the Andal language. So, we go from Old Tongue to Common Tongue.

That's the big history picture of before Andal invasion and after Andal invasion. But it raises the question more and more: what then were they studying in the Citadel at the Isle of Ravens (the oldest part of the Citadel) before the invasion? They weren't writing, not reading, black ravens took care of themselves, not really healing, not teaching. The likely answer is that they were stargazers. Why do you study stars? To try and predict seasons.

But why then would the Citadel have claimed they had maesters specialized in ravencraft to help kings and lords out with their ravens after the raven-speech-collapse? Because they were studying the white ravens too.

So, in the early days, the Citadel was doing two things: studying white ravens and stars. Enter Peremore's story:

• a sickly boy bound to his bed and all he could see of the world was what he could see beyond his window. And he didn't get to grow up old or into adulthood either.
• all type of professions brought to this boy and he loved their debates and disputes.

What were they debating if that led to an order that began to concentrate on star gazing and studying white ravens? Trying to predict the length and change of seasons, and the white ravens somehow are a crucial key to it.

Peremore would not have seen much of the stars and heavens from his window. But he would have seen the weirwood tree with black and white ravens. And something about the comparison between both species prompted the question he wanted answered and his pets were set to task to answer it. If the white ravens predate the Citadel and were part of the season-question, that can only mean the white ravens never left the isle of ravens in comparison to the black ones, but only did so when seasons changed.

Apart from studying the stars at the Citadel and the white ravens on the isle, they would have wanted reports from other areas, so they had traveling maesters and they acquired glass candles to watch for season signs in Essos (at a later point). All to try and come up with a theoretical prediction model. This would have been a learning curve. So, even if we assume the Conclave is now able to predict independently and accurately (as with the False Spring), that they decide when the white ravens flies, there would be a very long history of the Conclave having it wrong a lot. If they had it wrong a lot, then it follows they could never have gained such a prestigious monopoly on "the maesters know better". The resulting prestige of most learned men amongst people and the accuracy of the white ravens contradicts an actual learning curve when it comes to seasons. 

If they never bothered at the Citadel with the black ravens (as we see, since the black ravens are at liberty to roost and hop and shit and fly wherever when Sam arrives at the oldest part of the Citadel), then how did they manage to portray themselves as knowing how to use black ravens with written messages, after the Andal invasions. Why would these maesters have wanted to learn writing and reading. The traveling maesters making observations figured out that they could take the Citadel's black ravens along in cages on their mules. They could release them wherever on the road and they'd fly to the Citadel weirwood tree. And they'd write their reports on parchments, bind it to the legs of the black raven. And so when some king noticed that these traveling stargazing weirdos with chains around their neck were using ravens, he wanted one to do the same for him.

And all these elements are concentrated in the oldest part of the Citadel: the white ravens in the rookery, the black ravens in the yard, the glass candles and the archmaester of magic, the Archmaester of Ravencraft teaching writing and "letters". They are at present the least prestigious positions and scoffed at, but George putting those together within such a close proximity in the oldest building points to them being the fundamental tasks of origin. We only lack the quarters of the star gazing. But as this is referred to as "navigating by stars" and the oldest castle is associated with pirates, I think it's a safe bet to expect stargazing links being done at the Isle of Ravens as well.

When you want to know the origins of a settlement, order or keep, looking at what's positioned at the heart of it and the first things built beneath or around it is a huge indicator. With Winterfell for example the First Keep is built just outside the crypts' entrance while the weirwood and the godswood of 3 acres are the center/heart, hills or vales were never leveled, and the crypts go too deep to be anything but a natural cave system with deep fissures going through the mantle (hence hot springs and hot pools). With the Wall it is the Nightfort with its weirwood Gate. And whenever old weirwoods are at the heart of a large construction, we know some old weirwood magic drew those building around it, and that it's original purpose or draw was nothing like the Andalized Westeros of the present.

So no writing, no reading, no library, no rookery, no mechanical training of ravens, but magic, skinchanged talking black ravens in weirwoods, and oral histories. And for the Citadel, legendary white ravens that only fly when the erratic seasons change.

Edited September 2, 2023 by sweetsunray

[the trees have eyes]

2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Let's try the alternative you're saying:

More asking than saying.  I read the ravens as GRRM's equivalent of homing pigeons, no more, no less.  The speaking of messages (and perhaps the sending of ravens to locations they were not familiar with) was down to green seer / skin changer magic but the ravens we see in story - the Castle Black ravens Sam releases on The Fist with no messages for example - operate as ravens do in our world, intelligent birds with a homing instinct.

In story the white ravens appear only to announce the changing of seasons so there is almost no information about them.  Whether GRRM added them purely as a symbolic and portentous element to highlight the importance and mystery of the changing of the seasons or whether there is some secret tied to them that ties into the maesters and magic I can't say but the former works on it's own and the latter has no in-story set up (the magic and mystery may be hinted at in the pseudo-histories but whether this counts as set up or background mythos for flavour and thrills is another matter).

If White Ravens are only bred in the Citadel Rookery why would they travel to Castles throughout the land that they have never visited and which, in most cases, have long since cut down any weirwood groves?  If they are magical, who is their message to and who from? 

The maesters study many subjects and their chains are formed of many links of metal, magic being just one element and one not studied by many, so their importance doesn't disappear if the white ravens are revealed as something fantastical.  They don't become charlatans and useless but there would be mockery for them pretending to more than they can do - hypocrisy and pretence being poorly received whether from Crown, Church or Academia.

[sweetsunray]

2 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

More asking than saying.  [...]

In story the white ravens appear only to announce the changing of seasons so there is almost no information about them.  Whether GRRM added them purely as a symbolic and portentous element to highlight the importance and mystery of the changing of the seasons or whether there is some secret tied to them that ties into the maesters and magic I can't say but the former works on it's own and the latter has no in-story set up (the magic and mystery may be hinted at in the pseudo-histories but whether this counts as set up or background mythos for flavour and thrills is another matter).

If White Ravens are only bred in the Citadel Rookery why would they travel to Castles throughout the land that they have never visited and which, in most cases, have long since cut down any weirwood groves?  If they are magical, who is their message to and who from? 

The maesters study many subjects and their chains are formed of many links of metal, magic being just one element and one not studied by many, so their importance doesn't disappear if the white ravens are revealed as something fantastical.  They don't become charlatans and useless but there would be mockery for them pretending to more than they can do - hypocrisy and pretence being poorly received whether from Crown, Church or Academia.

Good questions.

George did set up the white ravens in aFfC as a mystery to be solved, and tied to the Citadel's origin, when he does two things

• aFfC prologue: Archmaester Walgrave wants to be used as food for the white ravens after his death
• aFfC Aemon's phrase "the sphinx is the riddle, not the riddler"

In mythology, sphinxes eat the people who fail to answer their riddle correctly. Hence, Walgrave's wish ties to the "sphinx" who is the riddle. Alleras is the stand-in sphinx of old: gatekeeper, someone who knows who you are and where you come from via supernatural means. Marwyn is another stand-in part for the sphinx (with his big hands to better "strangle" someone with): someone who can see wherever he wants, listen and speak to someone wherever he wants, even dreams. Finally the white ravens who will eat you when you die.

Who or what can do all that? Greenseers can.

 

[SaffronLady]

16 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

The maesters now study many subjects and their chains are formed of many links of metal, magic being just one element and one not studied by many, so their current importance doesn't disappear if the white ravens are revealed as something fantastical. 

FIFY.

OTOH, "links of metal" is interesting symbolism. The Crown of Winter's bronze-and-iron had been analyzed a lot, but maester chains with everything jumbled up together are probably more difficult. Not to mention some subjects and metals remained undefined.

[sweetsunray]

It is true that the Citadel ended up broadening their "expertise" to other subjects. The biggest problem is the monopoly they attained in "we can judge truth from lies", while they cannot do so at all and a lot of their beliefs, judgments and counsel are built on lies, including their own lies.

George illustrates this perfectly in Ned's and Cat's bedroom when Luwin brings them Lysa's message. In that scene, he performs the prior role of the pet raven a la Mormont's raven perfectly. He got the message via a wooden box with a lens (to see) in it, and a false bottom with a hollow compartment beneath it, and Lysa's message in it. George makes an allusion to a "tree with eyes" and "hollow hill" here. But the lens is Myrish, which is the first indication that it's a lie.*

*everything Myrish is deceit: cfr. Arya trains to lie in front of a Myrish mirror. George can't always use Arbor Gold for it. He mixes it up.

Luwin completes his deliverance of the letter to the person it is intended for to a T, just as a raven would. The message is not for Ned Stark (the lord), but for his wife only. Just like a skinchanged messenger raven would deliver the message only to the intended ear in the past. Interesting here is that Ned puts on a "ward"robe when Luwin enters, but Cate touches the letter with the seal while naked. She's exposed.

Luwin wants to retreat but is made to stay. The letter ends up being written in a private language that Lysa and Cat developed as girls, aka the language of children. The language of the cotf is the True Tongue that no man can learn to speak, except Lysa and Cat aren't cotf, so the message in their private language that no other man can "read" is not true.

Cat reads it and burns the letter. Luwin again offers to retreat, but once more he is told to stay in order to counsel them, which also used to be a black raven's task (well the sknchanger's or greenseer's task).

"Ward"robed Ned has come to the correct conclusions: to stay out of the mess. But it is Luwin's counsel both on him becoming Hand and "what of Jon?" that ends disastrous. Ned is a head short. The attempt on Jon's life may have harmed the magical protection of the Wall. If Luwin really had been a raven skinchanged by a greenseer: at the very least he'd be able to tell truth from lie.

I believe George will have the Citadel go the Alchemist route. The Alchemists used to have a bigger position when it came to "learned" men, who made themselves out to be more knowledgeable and magically more powerful on a variety of subjects than they really were. But they can make a lot of wildfire. At least that bit was true. The Citadel will end up being exposed to "know nothing" on most stuff. But they will retain a few fields in which they truly are experts and can be of benefit. That "electrum" sounds promising

Edited September 3, 2023 by sweetsunray

[Sandy Clegg]

On 9/1/2023 at 3:28 AM, sweetsunray said:

When Peremore died, his brother King Urrigon bequeathed a large tract of land beside the Honeywine to "Peremore's pets," that they might establish themselves and continue teaching, learning, and questing after truth. And so they did.

Nice ideas here. I haven't looked into the Maester's origins before, but this quote referring to pets did recall another quote, from Lazy Leo:

Leo yawned. "The sea is wet, the sun is warm, and the menagerie hates the mastiff."

He has a mocking name for everyone, thought Pate, but he could not deny that Marwyn looked more a mastiff than a maester. As if he wants to bite you.  - AFFC Prologue

The idea of The Citadel being a metaphorical zoo of sorts tickles me. They do rub that stuffed lemur a lot, too. Maybe this is more a nod to the fact that each Maester specialises in different links, and therefore have different specialisations. They are perhaps less 'united' than we might assume? A good avenue to pursue, I reckon.