Heresy 2

[Bava]

Maybe I'm wrong but I remember Melisandre to state explicitely that shadow (-magic) and fire (-magic) go hand in hand. Because there can't be a shadow without light (fire) and lights always cast a shadow.

Nice post by hotweaselsoup. Your explication of shadow-banding makes sense to me. One question left is how "blood-magic" fits in. For the shadows, Mel needed blood from Stannis (leeches) and I think the woman in the dungeons is exhausted in the same way, no blood left. So it seems hard to draw a line between shadow-binding/magic and blood magic (or is shadow-binding just one kind of blood-magic?)

[FanTasy]

The thing that struck me was that there are so many variatons of preventing death in this story.

We've seen a mild form of returning the flame of life with what Aeron does to his drowned men.

We know its basic first aid procedure, but essentially it is not different from what Beric and Thoros did: they prevented the shade, the dead man, to leave the dead body. The only difference is that with Beric the 'first aid' was applied multiple times. And in the case of Cat after three days and when her body was already in decay.

We have more resurrections, reinstating a particle of life is what happens to the wights. A fraction of life is returned to them while their body's are preserved.

The shadow baby's are a different cookie: it seems to me as a part of life was abstracted, given its own temporary form..

And there is Mel, who in one of her lines suggests that she is not mortal. She could be a shadow baby sustained for a longer time, as long as the fire in her room is burning?

Made me think about Sam's story in the succession of the Lord Commanders of the Night's Watch.

Sam says two things before he is interrupted (aargh):

- that there are stories about knights who lived on and on;

- that there is something weird in the succession list of the Lord Commanders, with the numbering. Jon wouldn't be the 998th in row but somewhere in the 600, if I recall correctly. Weird.

I'm not sure where these thoughts/ramblings are leading to. Could it be that some Lord Commanders were resurrected time and time again?

Or did they start a new count after the disaster with the Night's King?

[hotweaselsoup]

Maybe I'm wrong but I remember Melisandre to state explicitely that shadow (-magic) and fire (-magic) go hand in hand. Because there can't be a shadow without light (fire) and lights always cast a shadow.

Nice post by hotweaselsoup. Your explication of shadow-banding makes sense to me. One question left is how "blood-magic" fits in. For the shadows, Mel needed blood from Stannis (leeches) and I think the woman in the dungeons is exhausted in the same way, no blood left. So it seems hard to draw a line between shadow-binding/magic and blood magic (or is shadow-binding just one kind of blood-magic?)

Bava, I'm not sure that the leeches had anything to do with the shadow babies that Mel created. The implication is that she and Stannis are having sex, and I would tend to believe that it is through this sexual act that Mel "harvests" a little bit of Stannis' spirit. (At the risk of sounding icky, a man's sperm does contain a bit of his identity.) My take on the leeches is that Mel had a vision of Joffrey, Balon, and Robb dying, and she burned the leeches as a way of taking credit for the deaths - deaths which she foresaw, but actually had no hand in bringing about. (This is not my idea - it was put forth by someone else in another thread - but I can't remember who posted it first. It makes sense to me, though.)

[MtnLion]

Hmm, the Night's King was number thirteen, a pretty small number as for the 600/998 number. But, you do bring up a good point, FanTasy, about the knights going on and on. It could be possible that some Lord Commanders held successive terms of office. Perhaps there was an election when one was long gone, and presumed dead, and they returned to reassume the office. There is an awful lot left to be explained about the lineage of the Lord Commander's office.

[tze]

Maybe I'm wrong but I remember Melisandre to state explicitely that shadow (-magic) and fire (-magic) go hand in hand. Because there can't be a shadow without light (fire) and lights always cast a shadow.

And the irony is that, for all her protestations that her powers are needed to fight against the darkness, by her own admission her powers don't work in darkness. She explains her powers by saying that shadows can't exist without light. Well, that means that, in true darkness, there are no shadows. I'll bet a hundred bucks that Mel's shadow powers stop working in the dark.

- that there is something weird in the succession list of the Lord Commanders, with the numbering. Jon wouldn't be the 998th in row but somewhere in the 600, if I recall correctly. Weird.

I'm not sure where these thoughts/ramblings are leading to. Could it be that some Lord Commanders were resurrected time and time again?

Sam says this:

"we say that you’re the nine hundred and ninety-eighth Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, but the oldest list I’ve found shows six hundred seventy-four commanders, which suggests that it was written during...”

And Sam never finishes his sentence. The implication that I read into this is that this list must have composed during the dominion of the Andals, as it's written in their language. I'm not sure if that means Sam actually found a list of Lord Commander that had 674 names on it, going back to the very founding of the Wall, or that the oldest list he could find listed the 674th Lord Commander and Sam can't find any mention of any Lord Commanders earlier than the 674th Lord Commander. I think the latter makes more sense, since if Sam believed he's found a list with the name of the original Lord Commander you'd think it would have been mentioned.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Night's Watch as controlled solely by the First Men looked very, very, very different from the Watch as controlled by the Andals. Maybe the ancient First Men in the North were just naturally longer-lived than the Andals, and that's why old stories have kings reigning for centuries. If that's true, then ancient First Man Lord Commanders might have been living, and therefore reigning, for centuries as well.

Or perhaps the ancient Watchmen had to be killed and resurrected to carry on their duties? That would clarify where Coldhands comes from, but the issue then is the Black Gate: Coldhands claims he can't cross through it, and supposedly it's the oldest Gate on the Wall. But then again, we only have his word that that's the case, and he could easily have been lying to Sam about that for some unknown purpose. Or perhaps the Black Gate was only warded later, after the event that inspired the Night's Kings story came to pass, or perhaps after the Andals started joining the Watch?

Maybe the original Watchmen didn't serve until death, maybe they died and then served (which would explain why Coldhands, who appears to be dead, still appears to consider himself a Watchmen, as he wears black and calls Sam "brother"---the vows he took might have been worded slightly differently), but perhaps the Andals couldn't be resurrected in the same way as those who followed the Old Gods, and so the Watch ended the practice. If that's true, then it would shed an interesting light on Jon's future, and it would explain why the numbering of the Lord Commanders seems odd.

[Bava]

Bava, I'm not sure that the leeches had anything to do with the shadow babies that Mel created. The implication is that she and Stannis are having sex, and I would tend to believe that it is through this sexual act that Mel "harvests" a little bit of Stannis' spirit. (At the risk of sounding icky, a man's sperm does contain a bit of his identity.) My take on the leeches is that Mel had a vision of Joffrey, Balon, and Robb dying, and she burned the leeches as a way of taking credit for the deaths - deaths which she foresaw, but actually had no hand in bringing about. (This is not my idea - it was put forth by someone else in another thread - but I can't remember who posted it first. It makes sense to me, though.)

Right. I think to remember that Mel burned the leeches as a price/sacrifice for the deaths of the 3 Kings and as it were Kings it had to be King's blood. (Didn't she want to sacrifice Edric Storm already, or was that about the dragon waking business?...)

To be honest I don't understand this "Mel and Stannis had Sex to create the shadow baby" theory. Sure you usually have sex before birthing a child, but I think there are other ("magical") ways to get a shadow-baby inside her. I thought she only had to "birth" that spirit because she couldn't just let it loose in Stannis tent but had to transport it inside the Wall's of Storm's End and the only way to do so was carrying the shadow inside herself. In other fantasy worlds (*cough* Supernatural *cough*) you need to kiss a demon to seal a deal or even have sex with it in the heavy cases. You might argue that having sex is a very intimate and maybe even spiritual (two become one) act and so the spirit can be extracted. But somehow I can't imagine either of these explanations in the ASOIAF world.

As I understand it you need to make a sacrifice to create a shadow, hence my association with blood, the "juice of life". I can see that it is a huge sacrifice for Stannis to touch a woman but from a more general point of view "spilling your seed" isn't really a sacrifice, although the clear connection to creating new life can't be denied. If you say Quyburn is up to something similar in the dungeons, is he having sex with that woman too or extracting ovules and thereby exhausting her/extracting spirit, and then how does he get the "spirit" into Robert Strong?

I think sacrifices in general and more specific blood sacrifices or killing someone/something is an essential part of shadowbinding and this shadow-magic. We have seen Mirri Maz Duur sacrifice the horse before doing that shadow magic, later wording the phrase "only life can pay for life". Dany explains the birth of her 3 dragons accordingly. Then UnBeric showed the truth of this by "sacrificing" himself to revive Catelyn. Mel needs to sacrifice King's blood for her magic and Stannis is getting weaker and weaker with every spell and every leech. Leeching itself doesn't have this exhausting effect as is proven by Roose Bolton. I think the spirit, identity or shadow transfered to someone or bound to something comes from the blood that is sacrificed.

Putting everything together I imagine creating a shadow like this. The blood holds the identity/spirit. If you burn the blood the spirit is transfered to the "shadow" cast by the light of the fire.

[Black Crow]

I have a recollection when checking on timelines that a lot of the early Israelite leaders in the Bible are said to have lived for hundreds of years. I think the accepted explanation is confusion caused by different individuals having the same name but not being distinguished as being say the Third of his Name. There is a hint of this in uncertainty in some of the stories as to which Bran a particular individual was.

Incidentally I'm also reminded that Stonehenge, which is reckoned to have been constructed between 3000 BC and 1500BC, ie; far more recently in Westerosi history than the Wall, was stated by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 12th century, to have been built by Giants! Once again its worth having a look at something like this (scroll down towards the end of the Wikipedia article) to appreciate just how unreliable some of these old histories are and to underscore Sam's health warning about the Westerosi histories

[FanTasy]

(snip)

I wouldn't be surprised if the Night's Watch as controlled solely by the First Men looked very, very, very different from the Watch as controlled by the Andals. Maybe the ancient First Men in the North were just naturally longer-lived than the Andals, and that's why old stories have kings reigning for centuries. If that's true, then ancient First Man Lord Commanders might have been living, and therefore reigning, for centuries as well.

Or perhaps the ancient Watchmen had to be killed and resurrected to carry on their duties? That would clarify where Coldhands comes from, but the issue then is the Black Gate: Coldhands claims he can't cross through it, and supposedly it's the oldest Gate on the Wall. But then again, we only have his word that that's the case, and he could easily have been lying to Sam about that for some unknown purpose. Or perhaps the Black Gate was only warded later, after the event that inspired the Night's Kings story came to pass, or perhaps after the Andals started joining the Watch?

Maybe the original Watchmen didn't serve until death, maybe they died and then served (which would explain why Coldhands, who appears to be dead, still appears to consider himself a Watchmen, as he wears black and calls Sam "brother"---the vows he took might have been worded slightly differently), but perhaps the Andals couldn't be resurrected in the same way as those who followed the Old Gods, and so the Watch ended the practice. If that's true, then it would shed an interesting light on Jon's future, and it would explain why the numbering of the Lord Commanders seems odd.

Thanks Tze, for the exact quote!

About Coldhands not being able to pass through the Black Gate. Maybe it is because he is dead and therefore not a Night Watch member anymore. His watch ended when he died.

[tze]

About Coldhands not being able to pass through the Black Gate. Maybe it is because he is dead and therefore not a Night Watch member anymore. His watch ended when he died.

That's my issue, though. Coldhands dresses in black, and black clothing can't be very popular north of the Wall (nobody wants to be seen as dressing like one of the hated crows), which implies he's gone to some effort to obtain it. Why bother, especially when you don't really need to fear freezing to death? Coldhands also hails Sam as "brother". Bran thinks of him as a ranger. We're told that a Watchman serves only until death, yet Coldhands is dead and appears to still consider himself a Watchman. That seems weird.

[mor2]

About Coldhands not being able to pass through the Black Gate. Maybe it is because he is dead and therefore not a Night Watch member anymore. His watch ended when he died.

Wildlings and other man passed the wall unhindered, he cant pass simply because he is dead. In this case there is nothing to suggest that the words were anything but a trigger the black gate, not some kind of magical defence. at best we can construed from them the oringal oath of the nights watch.(considering that the black gate was built at the same time as the wall).

That's my issue, though. Coldhands dresses in black, and black clothing can't be very popular north of the Wall (nobody wants to be seen as dressing like one of the hated crows), which implies he's gone to some effort to obtain it. Why bother, especially when you don't really need to fear freezing to death? Coldhands also hails Sam as "brother". Bran thinks of him as a ranger. We're told that a Watchman serves only until death, yet Coldhands is dead and appears to still consider himself a Watchman. That seems weird.

We dont know if Coldhand is infact "dead" as in Wight dead, it seems that there are more than one ways to bring pepople back from the dead, it stand the reason that they are not all the same, some can be magical "extended CPR", while other reanimation.

as for the cloth, it seem that they all seem to retain some semblance of their former self and I prefer to leave that at that, unless you wish to see more pink masts ;)

[just want to search]

Sam says this:

"we say that you’re the nine hundred and ninety-eighth Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch,

but the oldest list I’ve found shows six hundred seventy-four commanders,which suggests that it was written during

...”

And Sam never finishes his sentence. The implication that I read into this is that this list must have composed during the dominion of the Andals, as it's written in their language. I'm not sure if that means Sam actually found a list of Lord Commander that had 674 names on it, going back to the very founding of the Wall, or that the oldest list he could find listed the 674th Lord Commander and Sam can't find any mention of any Lord Commanders earlier than the 674th Lord Commander. I think the latter makes more sense, since if Sam believed he's found a list with the name of the original Lord Commander you'd think it would have been mentioned.

your second interpretation doesn't fit with the wording of sam's sentence.

shows six hundred seventy-four commanders

it can only be understood as a list with 674 different commanders , never does it state that he traced it back to the creation of the wall , cause that would not make sense as the andals (as i understood) arrived thousnds of years after the creation of the wall (which i assume as 8000 if bran the builder build/started building it). and we know they didn't write nothing until the septons/measters can't remmber which started writing their history so it is highly unlikely the first commanders in the thousands of years before andal invasion were somehow memorised them by heart.

[RevengeOfTheStarks]

I proposed a theory on a different thread that's very similar to this here

The gist is that the first Starks formed an alliance with the COTF after finding them during the long winter.

1. Bran the Builder Last Hero who set out during the first Long Winter to find the Children. He found them at the hollow hill which is the current site of Winterfell and formed an alliance with them, which included a marriage pact, whereupon he took a Child as wife and founded the Stark line.

OR

2. The Last Hero is BB's progenitor. LH found the Children and formed the same alliance but his son is BB. Reason I think this/evidence: Cat in one of her CoK POV's thinks about how the original Storm's End was a castle that couldn't stand up to the storms buffetting it, and had to be rebuilt several times. But then, some say, a "child" rebuilt it to its current shape and with magial fortification, and that child was BB. I think "child" was literalized over the ages and that the child was a Child as in COTF, or a person who looked like one, as a half COTF person would be very small. (we suspect interbreeding between men and COTF is the reason for the Reeds' short stature)

Also, "there must always be a Stark in Winterfell" has something to do with the above hypothesized pact. I think this is a term of agreement with the COTF because there's something down in the crypts that needs to be guarded.

So anyway, either scenario 1 or 2 occurs. Either way, BB builds winterfell where he finds the COTF, and starts the NW. I agree with the above posters that original NW was very VERY different from the one that reformed after the Andal invasion, and that the original purpose and nature of that organization are hidden somewhere in the story of the Night's King who according to current folklore:

1. Took an "Other" to wife

2. bound the NW to him by sorcery

3. sacrificed to the Others

4. was defeated by the Stark in Winterfell and Joramun

5. Had his name struck from the records because he was sacrficing to the Others

The above points are probably a garbled mix of truth and distortion. I'm completely going crackpot now because I don't have a lot of evidence to back up what I think is truth and what distortion, but this is just what feels right to me: The NW, per the agreement between BB and the COTF, is supposed to sacrifice to the "Others" aka COTF (as in give them children to become WW, ala Craster) , and it's plausible that there will occasionally be instances of more intermarriage between Stark and COTF to strenghten and maintain the blood ties and alliance. The Watch itself is supposed to keep the North safe from invading forces that threathen the well-being of both COTF and First Men/Starks. In return for the protection from invaders, the Children use their magic to make sure the First Men are also safe, and the Stark line in particular, is protected. However, the Andals do successfully invade, and the Stark in Winterfell at the time is a total ass and decides to turn over their institutions to them by overthrowing the NW (and Night's King) and allowing the Andal power to destroy the previous records of the watch (hence, expunging the NK). This correlates with Sam finding the oldest records of Lord Commanders to show only the last 667 (edit: 674) of them. He's about to say something about what that implies until Jon cuts him off. I think he may have been trying to say that that means they only go back as far as the first Andals, a significant point.

Aslo, Coldhands is the NK. These events, if true to any extent, would clearly have dismayed/pissed off the Children, who have been waiting millenia for our current Bran to show up and help rectify this crap. Makes sense that they would have tried to intervene to some extent during the NK fiasco, maybe saving the 13th Lord Commander the best they could, and then using him to bring Bran.

Somehow, the WW are part of the original plan of the Wall. They are the sacrifices that the NW has been making for the defense of the North, with the knowledge and blessing of the first Starks. The Starks are wargs and skinchangers because of their COTF heritage. Also, anyone notice how in GoT Bran is compared to a squirrel often, and the COTF are squirrel people because of their habitation in trees (which probably entails climbing)? I just thought that was interesting. Squirrel imagery is used later too, and Bran thinks in the cave of the Children that he's eating squirrel stew, which made me think the COTF cannabalize their dead what with all the bones lying aroudn (why not, meat's meat, why waste it)

Aslo, how does Bloodraven just waltz off the wall without anyone saying a single word? He's still dressed in his black and everything! He never actually died so his watch is certainly not ended. Does this not mean that he is a turncloak to the current NW establishment? And if so, doesn't that mean we should be questioning his apparent motives? Once again there are several possibilities:

1. He's evil and he's taking Bran for a ride (I doubt this very much)

2. He knows what the true purpose of the wall and NW is and he's working right now towards that original goal. He either sees himself as still loyal to that purpose, or doesn't care that he broke his vows the the current NW because it's a hijacked institution.

Final though: Craster

Somwhere in CoK when Jon is with the Wildlings, he mentions Craster and is told that Craster isn't a real wilding, he's more like Jon's kind. (Sorry I can't find the exact quote). When I first read this I brushed it off to mean that because Craster sacrifices to the Others rather than fight, he's like a kneeler, but now I think it might be a hint at a connection between Craster's sacrifices and those that the ancient Starks and NW/NK used to make (Jon's kind, the Starks). The wildlings seem to hate Craster and his behavior, which ties in nicely with the story of Joramun helping to bring down the NK. Still trying to figure out what the reason for this resentment might be.

[hotweaselsoup]

Does anyone know wtf Tyrion means when he says "two drops"? I for the life of me cannot figure that out!

Merry Christmas to you, too! And everyone else!

Is that the thing about Ossifer Plumm supposedly getting his Targaryen wife pregnant from beyond the grave? Maybe she was impregnated by another Targaryen instead, making Ben Plumm's forebears both Targaryens - hence the "two drops"? Dunno...

[hotweaselsoup]

Putting everything together I imagine creating a shadow like this. The blood holds the identity/spirit. If you burn the blood the spirit is transfered to the "shadow" cast by the light of the fire.

Yeah, it's hard to imagine Stannis getting busy with Mel (it's hard to imagine Stannis having sex with anyone, actually). That said, it is implied that Mel is draining Stannis somehow, and via sex seemed the logical assumption. She could be leeching him, or bleeding him some other way, and using his blood in her spells - I can buy that as a way to get hold of some Stannis "spirit".

[Black Crow]

Sam says this:‘…we say that you’re the nine-hundred-and-ninety-eighth Lord Commander of the Knight’s Watch, but the oldest list I’ve found shows six hundred seventy-four commanders, which suggests that it was written during-“

And Sam never finishes his sentence. The implication that I read into this is that this list must have composed during the dominion of the Andals, as it's written in their language. I'm not sure if that means Sam actually found a list of Lord Commander that had 674 names on it, going back to the very founding of the Wall, or that the oldest list he could find listed the 674th Lord Commander and Sam can't find any mention of any Lord Commanders earlier than the 674th Lord Commander. I think the latter makes more sense, since if Sam believed he's found a list with the name of the original Lord Commander you'd think it would have been mentioned.

Taken in context the meaning of the passage is straightforward enough, because the crucial bit is the interruption itself:

‘…we say that you’re the nine-hundred-and-ninety-eighth Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, but the oldest list I’ve found shows six hundred seventy-four commanders, which suggests that it was written during-“

“Long ago,” Jon broke in…’

If the Wall was built 8,000 years ago, that would imply an average tenure of 8 years apiece for close on 1,000 Lord Commanders, which isn’t unreasonable. Sam’s point is that the oldest list therefore dates back to just over 2,500 years ago, and while this is a remarkable enough survival in itself, it means that there are effectively no written records for the first 6,000 years of the Watch’s existence.

edited for spelling

[mor2]

which is not really news, we already new that the oldest records are came with andals and writing. Additionally, it's possible that the watch used to have a set terms or the records were lost in accident.

p.s. you got to love my new profile image ;)

[Bran Vras]

Before the Andals, the First Men had runes, which might hold some answers. Are there instance in the text of decipherement of runes? Can even the maesters do that? What are the instances of runes occurring in the story? Were runes supposed to be a medium to write down stories, contracts, laws etc, or were they magical symbols?

[FanTasy]

p.s. you got to love my new profile image ;)

Yes I do!!!! :cheers:

[FanTasy]

Before the Andals, the First Men had runes, which might hold some answers. Are there instance in the text of decipherement of runes? Can even the maesters do that? What are the instances of runes occurring in the story? Were runes supposed to be a medium to write down stories, contracts, laws etc, or were they magical symbols?

Sam says they were found in stone.

In the story there is some interesting mentioning of runes engraved in that nice new silver sword of Ilyn Payne B)

[Bran Vras]

And I forgot to mention House Royce, based in Runestone. Their arms and armours are engraved with (supposedly) magical runes.