Heresy 6

[Spaceman Hobbes]

Alright, first time Heretic here, but I think I'll give it a shot. I've been reading and thinking about the idea that there has to be a Stark on the wall as some sort or sacrifice. Benjen obviously would fill this role, and before him we have examples of Starks being Night's Watch members. As long as we're at it, let's assume there is some reason for a WW+Stark/Targ hybrid to always be on the wall. One final assumption is that after the Night's King fiasco, the real purpose of the wall was entrusted to a select group of 7 Sworn Brothers.

Why 7? Because throughout the seven kingdoms there were another 7 men(one for each kingdom) wearing white cloaks furthering whatever the NW original purpose was. Aegon later made these 7 his King's Guard(we have a back story for EVERY single organization in the book, except the KG. hmmmm). Eventually the KG forgot/lost their purpose and we're left with just a small secret society within the Night's Watch.

Which brings us to Jon. Let's say that something went terribly wrong with the last hybrid(Mance, because why not?), and Benjen wanted to avoid a similar problem with the next one. On his way back from the war, Ned visits Benjen and Benjen has Ned take his son to Winterfell to raise as his own. Ned can't tell Catelyn, and claims Jon as his own.

And in a super twist, Young Griff is actually Lyanna and Raeghers baby, and the KG stalled Ned and Howland long enough for someone to escape and bring the child to Varys. Ned feels so guilty about Lyanna's death, because he made a promised he never kept.

[Lummel]

So maybe the drinking of blood is something we haven't seen yet.

Or there is another explanation.

The weirwoods like to drink blood, we know that.

[FanTasy]

The weirwoods like to drink blood, we know that.

So the red hot blood that the white walkers according to Old Nan were lusting for was not for beverage or food, but to give to the weirwoods?

Vampire trees? Instruments of the 'numerous and nameless' old gods? Is it logical to call numerous and nameless gods other? To distinguish the nameless from the gods who have names?

Well ... vampire trees would be original, allthough there are nasty trees and plants with an appetite for human flesh in LOTR and in Harry Potter.

In real life there are quite a number of plants that live on the blood and meat of animals.

Back to what Nan said about the white walkers feeding humans to their servants. I always took it these servants are the wights, that they were a kind of Zombie Stormtroopers for the white walkers.

But we haven't seen any feeding on flesh on blood by wights, have we? The folks that are slain are resurrected to wights, not eaten. They are slain by tearing at limbs and troaths, if I recall correctly. The wights don't carry weapons and they don't bite or drink their victims to death.

And the dead bodies that we saw resurrected are not described as bloodless, like victims of traditional vampires. The blood of the wights seems to be dry-frozen.

A disturbing thought that I believe has been raised on the first Heresy thread: what if the servants are not the wights but the Children.

The trees could be their intelligence network. Faces are cut in trees overseeing crossroads and are located in godswoods.

And the weirnet could be sustained by blood offerings, as suggested in ADWD where bones were found in that great tree, in Bran's visions and (spoiler for TWOW)

in what Theon and Asha suggest in the gift chapter of TWOW?

[Black Crow]

But we haven't seen any feeding on flesh on blood by wights, have we? The folks that are slain are resurrected to wights, not eaten. They are slain by tearing at limbs and troaths, if I recall correctly. The wights don't carry weapons and they don't bite or drink their victims to death.

And the dead bodies that we saw resurrected are not described as bloodless, like victims of traditional vampires. The blood of the wights seems to be dry-frozen.

Oddly enough we do, its in the village which isn't Whitetree. When Small Paul comes in to the longhouse to collect Gilly's baby the other Wights are snacking on one of the garrons while they wait.

[FanTasy]

Oddly enough we do, its in the village which isn't Whitetree. When Small Paul comes in to the longhouse to collect Gilly's baby the other Wights are snacking on one of the garrons while they wait.

Ow ... I forgot that. Poor garron.I would rather snack of a garron (have to google this, I always read it as a horse) than have a bite of a Sworn Brother. Somehow I get a hunch that they scarcely wash themselves thoroughly.

Hmm ... looking for the paperbin filled with theorettes now :bawl:

[Ibbison from Ibben]

Many thanks to Cap Ou Pas Cap for the Nan collection. It is quite helpful to have the stories presented together. And also to Black Crow, for another even-handed summary. A couple things that stood out for me:

1) Lots of stories about blood drinking, always by "some group of beings that aren't us, who aren't like us, and who you should be afraid of". This, of course, is well represented in real history, with blood drinking being attributed to Attila the Hun and medieval Jews (the infamous Blood Libel) among others, by their enemies in order to demonize them. We could (and probably will, or already have) devote (-ed) an entire thread to sorting out which of Nan's stories have some truth and which are libels. We know blood magic exists in the world of aSoIaF, but some of these stories are likely to be (blood-) red herrings.

2) This:

The same chapter, Yoren tells that Benjen is missing.

All Bran could think of was Old Nan’s story of the Others and the last hero, hounded through the white woods by dead men and spiders big as hounds. He was afraid for a moment, until he remembered how that story ended. “The children will help him,” he blurted, “the children of the forest!”

I had totally forgotten about this story fragment. Nan is cut off when she relates the tale of the Long Winter, and a lot of the speculation here is about What Came Next. We know, however, that Nan repeats her stories, and Bran has heard this one before. (I wonder if she has a traditional season for reruns, or tells new, particularly exciting, stories during a Sweeps Week.) We may not know how Nan's story ended, but Bran does. Important clues about What Came Next should be detectable in Bran's thoughts and actions (especially his beliefs about, and attitudes concerning, the CotF).

[hotweaselsoup]

Oddly enough we do, its in the village which isn't Whitetree. When Small Paul comes in to the longhouse to collect Gilly's baby the other Wights are snacking on one of the garrons while they wait.

? I just re-read that passage, and I'm not sure the wights can be said to be eating the garron. Gilly and Sam have just one horse, which they bring into the longhall with them. When Small Paul and Sam are fighting, Gilly leaves with the garron and the baby. After Sam torches Small Paul, he exits the longhall and finds the wights surrounding Gilly:

"She stood with her back against the weirwood, the boy in her arms. The wights were all around her. There were a dozen of them, a score, more...[snip]...They had torn the poor garron apart, and were pulling out her entrails with dripping red hands. Pale steam rose from her belly."

And then the ravens attack the wights, and Coldhands shows up to save the day. So, while it's definitely true that the wights killed the horse and tore out her belly, I don't think we ever see them eating the garron. It seems more to me like they killed the horse to get to Gilly and the baby, not because they wanted to eat it.

But that story of Old Nan's about the Others feeding their servants on the flesh of human babies, and the idea that the servants are the Children - that I find very intriguing. I have a theory that the Others use the dead to do their bidding because only the dead are cold enough to possess. I can't see the Others as vampires, mainly because I think heat is their kryptonite: drinking hot blood would be like us drinking liquid nitrogen, I think. But they seem very interested in these warm human babies, and as others have pointed out, the weirwoods do like to drink hot blood...

[FanTasy]

* temporarily resurrecting one theorette too quickly disposed off :leer:

[Lummel]

Hmm, my thinking was that the wights couldn't eat. They are dried up inside. If they are left in the warm they decompose like the hand taken to the Hand in Kings Landing. Coldhands doesn't eat or drink - they probably can't digest anything.

This is why I was thinking about the weirwoods.

The story says that the servants of the white walkers are fed nice hot blood. The only thing we know that definitely likes that particular drink in the North are the Weirwoods. Which would feed into the idea of the children, or some of the children using the white walkers against man.

Alternatively maybe blood and guts are to the weirnet as electricity is to the internet. If the white walkers use the weirnet as well (communication, information gathering, projection/super warging) maybe they pay for it in blood (pay as you go weirnet...). Or possibly the white walkers honour the old goods too.

The problem with this is that it needs the humans to be able to disassociate their worship of the old goods with blood and gut sacrifices from what the white walkers are doing, but maybe it's one of those they have terrorists but we have freedom fighters kinds of things :dunno: .

[FanTasy]

Alternatively maybe blood and guts are to the weirnet as electricity is to the internet. If the white walkers use the weirnet as well (communication, information gathering, projection/super warging) maybe they pay for it in blood (pay as you go weirnet...). Or possibly the white walkers honour the old goods too.

Of course ... that tale from White Harbor, where the entrails of the slavers (?) were hung in the weirwood. That was done by 'ordinary' human Northmen, not by the frozen kind.

ETA Ow ... and that reminds me of the scenes where the direwolfs not went for the throat but for the belly. I thought this was 'normal' hunting behaviour, to go for the soft spots. The wights seem to do the same thing with that poor garron at the village that wasn't Whitetree.

[Lummel]

Maybe it's a mistake to thing of the weirnet as something good or bad, or as something just associated with the children. Maybe it is just something very powerful that anyone with the right skills can exploit.

Then again, the old gods, the different faces on the trees - they are not all (if any) friendly, maybe they are more like spirits in shamanism, powerful supernatural forces that need to be propitiated with blood to keep them happy ?

[redriver]

Where are we getting weirwoods like to drink blood from?

Not disputing it,but I can't remember where the "like" part comes from.

[Eyron]

Hm, do we really know that the weirwoods like to drink blood?

Bran could taste the blood from the sacrifice done at the hearttree, it didn't say he enjoyed it especially right?

[Edit: I see redriver already pointed this out!]

If the First Men used to sacrifice to the trees they would have to drink the blood since trees drink whatever is poured at their roots, but we don't really know if this was what they wanted. It could be part of what went wrong with the magic in Westeros, and brought about inbalance.

I still think that the weirwoods are *untouchable* for the ice lot, since the free folk see them as safe areas to go to when the white cold comes. I think being in their presence prevents wightification, but again that is not certain, other factors can be the reason it seems that way. Such as the iron chains Jon put on the two DBs he brought from the weirwood grove to Castle Black, when the new recruits went there to say their vows.

I think the ravens attacking the wights (pointed out by hws above) is interesting. This is also one thing that makes me think the wights are not the Children's tools. But, Coldhands excellent timing is also interesting, so he (or someone he is in contact with) must have seen or known about what happened to the NW after the Fist.

There has been speculation on why Ghost didn't want to go into the Fist of First Men, and why he led Jon to the horn and obsidian in the woods outside, and I think Ghost either is really psychic, or that someone is pulling his strings at times. The latter seems likely considering what we now know of Bloodraven and Bran.

Ghost could have meant it as a warning to Jon, like we have seen the other direwolves do, but finding the bundle in the black cloak seems like something else, just like when he found Othor and Jafer in the woods. I guess it could be just from sensing the smell of something interesting, but when things add up like they have with the direwolves and the greenseer being a skinchanger it seems more probable that it's connected.

The ravens Sam brought was also hysterical when the wights came [edit: at the Fist], that seems to imply that they did not particularily like what was happening. I have to go back and check what Mormonts crow did...

[FanTasy]

Where are we getting weirwoods like to drink blood from?

Not disputing it,but I can't remember where the "like" part comes from.

Har ... you're right. They might hate it. That's the worst part about being a tree, I guess. People sacrificing gore on your roots and you can't run away :cool4:

ETA But seriously ... good catch Redriver

[FanTasy]

There has been speculation on why Ghost didn't want to go into the Fist of First Men, and why he led Jon to the horn and obsidian in the woods outside, and I think Ghost either is really psychic, or that someone is pulling his strings at times. The latter seems likely considering what we now know of Bloodraven and Bran.

Ghost could have meant it as a warning to Jon, like we have seen the other direwolves do, but finding the bundle in the black cloak seems like something else, just like when he found Othor and Jafer in the woods. I guess it could be just from sensing the smell of something interesting, but when things add up like they have with the direwolves and the greenseer being a skinchanger it seems more probable that it's connected.

Just reread this bit and it struck me what happened.

Jon has some doubts about building camp on top of the fist. He asks about the water.

Ghost doesn't want to go up there. In another book we see another wolf not wanting to cross a bridge, possibly "feeling" that the place would mean not only it's own death but that of his owner.

But what I failed to notice at the first read is that Ghost did come, later, specifically to lure Jon to that cache of obsidian and the horn, buried recently and stashed in a cloak of the Nights Watch.

So if it was fear that kept Ghost the first time, something happened to him that overcame his fear. One wonders ...

As I have always wondered if the direwolf set up in Winterfell was specifically meant to get Ghost to Jon. I believe Jon was led to Ghost, hearing voices of the trees, as Bran notices in his first chapter. An albino mute direwolf with red eyes ... an albino human with one red eye, who is also in a way 'mute' to the world, because he can only communicate outside his cradle in dreams and through rustling of leaves ... coincidence?

[redriver]

Har ... you're right. They might hate it. That's the worst part about being a tree, I guess. People sacrificing gore on your roots and you can't run away :cool4:

ETA But seriously ... good catch Redriver

Thank you.

But that's not to say human sacrifices weren't made to weirwoods.My particular version of the Heresy is that human sacrifice is the abomination that results in entities such as the Others and the reason they don't appear human friendly.

Humanity rejected and reincarnated in Ice.But they do remember-"memories are the bones of the soul".

[Lummel]

Oh the 'like' comes from me, partly because blood, fish and bone is a good all round fertiliser...

But lets face it, if the weirwoods don't like blood they are awfully bad at getting the message across. Given thousands of years of interconnectivity between the children and greenseers it should have been possible to inform the people of the north that the weirwoods prefer to be honoured by a nice leaf mulch if that was the case.

[Eyron]

Just throw in a little bit I haven't noticed on earlier re-reads. Helmets are important, we learn in the books. They show who you are (antlers, dog-shaped, dragon).

Mance Rayders war helmet is made of bronze and iron and has raven wings on either temple. ASOS Jon II.

Sweet.

Just a helmet he found, or paid the iron price for?

Bronze and iron - First men connection.

Ravens - Bloodraven / COTF.

Could he (Mance) be not only an ex-crow but the son of a crow, of a certain Lord Commander? Brynden Rivers was not always stuck in a tree.

I was going to answer this yesterday but other stuff came up, I think the helmet was a great catch! I forgot about it when reading and I have not come as far in my meticulous reread... It's only too bad we don't know where he got it. Holler if you stumble on some info on this!

I doubt he is Bloodraven's son though, BR is very very old and Mance is about 40 years old I think. BR was born in 175AL making him about 125 yrs old. He would then have fathered Mance at age 85... Not impossible I suppose, biologically speaking, but I don't think it's the likeliest possibility.

I can imagine he is a bastard of some NW brother, since he was given to the watch when he was a child. Perhaps it wasn't very easy for bastards of the NW amongst the free folk. Craster was seen as more of a kneeler to the free folk, and that was meant as derogatory. It could be because he was a son of a crow or maybe because of him having different ways. I got the feeling it was because he was a crow's bastard.

[Elaena Targaryen]

I agree with Ibbison that there have been stories in are own history of others drinking blood and the way that it's presented in this story it seems to mirror those folklore myths. (I wonder if there were similar stories told on the opposite sides of Hadrian's Wall?) We have not seen anyone, or heard of anyone actualy seeing someone drinking blood, and it seems more like rumors to scare children. Have we only heard these stories in the north? The sacrifices are completely different and there is something substantial to puzzle out. Blood has been used in magic to build the Wall and Storm's End as well. So I wonder if the weirwoods need/want the blood or if it's the sacrifice itself that's important, or is it another type of blood magic?

OT but has it been discussed that the ruby that Mance wears is adorned in a iron cuff? The next time we go over the importance of iron or talk about similarites in magic we should discuss this, unless it already has been.

[Lykos]

I think the Wights have a very limited intellect, so they would behave very much like dumb beasts ( they seem to retain some memory of their former self). They definitely have kept their blood, hence the black hands.

I keep confusing Wights & Whitewalkers wouldn´t it make more sense if they were called the other way round?

We know the Whitewalkers look like transformed humans with ice bones and blue blood and they are more intelligent than Wights and react faster. Are the Ice - Spiders also Whitewalkers? They seem totally different in apearance, yet there are similarities.

They seem to be closer to the "Evil" leading them.

It seems as if the CotF can keep them magicaly in check. Probably did it to the cave with the Greenseers because these don´t move. I see the Weirwoodnetwork as a force the Greenseers tap into and become part of, and when thats accomplished they live eternaly and are allknowing but can convey knowledge only to the other greenseers. So the only way to use this knowledge is by the greenseers that haven´t become part of the network completely and they don´t have full access.

Bran is in a special position because he is connected to the Weirwood - and Warg - network.