Heresy 7

[Eyron]

Butterbumps! Very nice post!

Agree on man trying to transcend death and slavery being the crucial points in all this. Agree on the Night's King and the wights.

Immortality is the heart of the matter to me too. But I don't think the wargs and sorcery are completely comparable, though. The element of sacrifice is important here I think. The wargs don't sacrifice others or blood to be what they are, I think it's an innate ability.

[lokisnow]

The Prominance of DEATH in Catelyn's description of the Seven in the bluray extras is fascinating. Death is the Stranger, btw, something I'd never gotten from the novels, but it ties in with butterballs take that Death has been thrown out of balance (and perhaps Death is the Great Other?)...

[butterbumps!]

Butterbumps! Very nice post!

Agree on man trying to transcend death and slavery being the crucial points in all this. Agree on the Night's King and the wights.

Immortality is the heart of the matter to me too. But I don't think the wargs and sorcery are completely comparable, though. The element of sacrifice is important here I think. The wargs don't sacrifice others or blood to be what they are, I think it's an innate ability.

Thanks for the welcome! I complete agree that warging isn't exactly something that works like sorcery- it does seem innate. But I suppose it could be the idea of "should someone with this ability use that power?" I confess my prejudice that I am a lot more tolerant of warging/ weirnetting than dragons (except of course for Black Crow's Ice Dragon), but I suppose to be objective I'm conceding the interpretation of this as forcible will-binding.

[unBloodraven]

@butterbumps Welcome to the thread, I'm fairly new here myself!

I like your thoughts on the imbalance being people using magic to tamper with 'the plan' (or however you want to phrase it). I'll need to mull it around for a bit and I'll come back with something more witty and comprehensive.

[Francis Buck]

I agree with many of butterbumps thoughts, in particular the idea that the war between ice and fire is not quite as literal as some believe. While I do think that, at the end of the series, there will be two massive opposing armies that more or less fall into line as "ice" (Starks, the North, the Others) and "fire" (Targaryens, the South, the dragons), I don't think there's actually a sort of "cosmic war" between ice and fire. In addition, I also agree that death, and all of the resurrection-based themes in the story, will play a very significant part at the end of the series. I like the idea that it's being set out of balance, but it's hard to say exactly. I tend not to believe that the gods are "real" in the sense we normally think of them, or if they are then they're not going to have any significant influence on the characters in the series.

[Cerulean]

Just a quick thought - but with Arya studying at the House of Black and White (presumably to be a Faceless etc) perhaps this ties in with the Starks's role in keeping the balance?

....I had lots of braindumps to offer on the Heresy thread, but I've spent literally ALL DAY reading through Heresy 6 only to get caught up on Heresy 7... then gave up. So I'll just go from here.

My mind is exhausted from everything I've read so far, so many interesting points and thoughts. I'm sure I'll have something more illuminating to add to the conversation tomorrow after I have slept.. and of course, spent some time curled up with ASoS :).

(Oh, by the way.. Hi, my name is Cerulean, and I have an Ice and Fire addiction...)

[Lady Olenna]

Butterbumps! Love the post - great thoughts and ideas.

The only thing that immediately popped into my head after reading the part about will-binding (slavery) was the story the kindly man told Arya about the first of the faceless men answering the prayers of the slaves. I'm probably remembering this incorrectly, but I thought that he said that the Doom of Valyria was brought about because of the enslavement. I will have to go back and read that chapter tonight if I have time. I just thought it kind of fit in with your ideas about death and slavery.

[Sword Of Mid Afternoon]

Just to flesh out the Coldhands = Night's King theory... what do we propose he's been doing for these past 1000-8000 years? Do we think he, as a wight, remained intact for that period of time?* Ice does preserve, but even so, that's a remarkable amount of preservation.

It would seem to me that the Night's King was the enemy of the Starks of Winterfell, the Wildlings, the Night's Watch (essentially everything North of the Neck that was aware of his existence)... so much so that all mention of him was stricken from the historical record. If he is Coldhands, it's very good of him to overlook that and help out the realms of men anyways. Way to be the better person, eh?

*It would seem to me that while a wight can remain intact for a considerable period of time...(I'm thinking months, a year or so at most) even in the cold the flesh does begin deteriorating somewhat, they're always described by Summer/Bran as smelling of death & rotten flesh; and the moment it goes above freezing it completely falls apart.

I went back and forth as to whether Night King's wife was a Walker or a wight, and I'm presently sold on Wight, but with the dark arts and such associated with their union, I do not think her life as Night Queen is standard wight lifespan.

[Jojen]

Black Crow mentioned something in an earlier post here about who approached BR and brought him over to the 'Other' side (or at least the Children's side). Could it be Night's King? If CH=NK, then how do we suppose he and BR started working together?

[Uncat]

A little off track here, but do you think the Marsh King may have been descended from Wood Dancers? Given that his daughter married a Stark, this could mean that the Starks also have the blood of the Children in them as well, which makes them extra-extra special in the grand scheme of things.

(...)

, but as we're told, the Wall is melting little by little, which suggests that they're running out of Walkers.

The Wall is melting away? Where have you read this? That would be really interesting. When reading about how the wall "shook" of the climbers in that Jon chapter in ASOS I thought, that the wall lost a lot of ice to do that. If I scale the loss of twelve hours we witnessed up to, say eight or even just five thousend years, I can't see the Wall being in such a good shape for such a long period. Even being up north, the wall should have diminished greatly in that thousends of years it already exists. Even up north It loses to much ice during summer - just consinder how the ice of glaciers or at our polar caps behaves during summer. And this is no glacier fed by the eternal snows of some mountain massiv. We see the Wall weep during summer and Summer lasts a long time in Westeros. It is true that such a mass of ice would create a micro climate of its own (and GRRM even tells us about this). But still, it is no glacier, it has no influx of new ice and that hand full of builders can't seriously reshape its flanks each winter. We are talking of thousends of tons of Ice the wall would loose along its flanks during summer and we are talking about working under the worst conditions, when replacing it in the winter. There is now way, the builder can be mantaining it in such good shape. Not even if we multiply that handful by ten. Three hundred miles of wall times sevenhundred feet. No calculator at hand. But this would make for a sourface of roughly a hundred square kilometers. No, two hundred. The wall has two sides. And the wall has not only kept its height. It also roughly kept its shape as a Wall with perpendicular flanks. Even if it not had melted, it should have turned into somekind of iceberg ridge with slops curving up over the milienia. A ridge with steep slopes maybe, but still slopes formed from all the ice broken of during summer and all that snow piling up on its sides during winter. Or would the Nightswatch march out each blessed winter's day, showells in hand to clear away threehundred miles of snow? I guess not. But then the micro climate of the wall would preserve the snow at its foot for quite a time. And yet the Wall raises as a sheer wall of ice right from the ground when we first see it. All the snow is gone and yet the wall still stands. Martin may have exagerated the height of the wall a little. But exactly this leads me to think, that he thought the qualities of the wall very carfully throug. He wanted the Wall to be just this: mindnumbingly fantastic and unimaginably huge. I.e, something, that - if you take a closer look instead of believing the legends - only true and strong magic can form and maintain.

My point being: If the Wall is melting just now after all those millenia, something is up with it or with the forces that created and maintained it up until now.

I'm really starting to get obsessed with this monster.

[Black Crow]

It looks like I started a bit of a monster of my own way back in November with the first thread (I'll try re-posting Heresy 8) but am rather pleased with it and with the new faces we're suddenly starting to see.

As ever a lot has been going on overnight, but to return to Lady Olenna's question " I think about the fact that he named Summer, Summer (which is also my name, maybe that's why I love Bran so much!). It represents the opposite of Winter and if the Starks are tied to the Heart of Winter why would he want Summer? Unless he just doesn't want Winter to be released?"

The point here (and why the Children are involved in Ice) is that as I said Winter is followed by Spring, and then Summer and so on. Winter is an essential part of the natural cycle of death and renewal. The Red Lot on the other hand, especially as we've seen in Essos, are preaching a holy war to establish an everlasting summer, hence my reference to the everlasting fires of R'hllor, and what the Red lot are preaching about an end to death - presumably just for believers.

[Black Crow]

I like the idea that it's being set out of balance, but it's hard to say exactly. I tend not to believe that the gods are "real" in the sense we normally think of them, or if they are then they're not going to have any significant influence on the characters in the series.

I have a recollection that GRRM once long long ago assured us there would be no personal appearances by dieties

[Uncat]

@Butterbumps

Prolonged death and and will binding as oposed to being able to live and die the way nature has inteded it. My, why did I not think of this, after all the braincrunching about Danny and the slaves in Essos?

[Lykos]

I have a recollection that GRRM once long long ago assured us there would be no personal appearances by dieties

Wouldn´t that apply to the greenseers in the cave?

[Black Crow]

Nah, they're just greenseers. He was particularly referring to The Great Other and R'Hllor.

[Iceborn]

If they don't appear then we can assume that this is not the final conflict, or maybe the conflict is just an anthropomorphism of summer and winter. I also thought that both summer and winter must happen to have balance.

Also how do people in this world define a year without seasons to go off?

[butterbumps!]

thnx for all the support of my possible CPT!

I just wanted to be a little more precise about the "wrath of the gods": I definitely don't think of deities passing judgment/ appearing in the books, and I meant it more in terms of "upsetting the natural order."

[chris999]

I know I havent contributed much to this thread, but I think you guys are going a little too far with the CH = NK theory.

Coldhands, to me, is just a plain wight. He may be someone who was important in the past, but I dont think he was a king. If he were Nightsking, I think he would be dressed differently, with maybe some esquisite armor and a good sword.

If the Nightsking makes a return, and I think he will, I think it will either be Benjen Stark, Jon Snow or al least some kind of impressive general/warrior.

I just dont think that there is anything about CH that would make him stand out like the NK would. (other than the fact that he isnt a mindless zombie)

anyway, JMHO. carry on, I enjoy reading the thread.

[Sword Of Mid Afternoon]

When I think about the wall... and it's preservation over the years...... i think the preponderance of ice acts kind of like the ice box''s of the pre-refrigeration days.... they'd dig a hole, fill it with blocks of ice during winter, pack its outside with layers of sawdust, and the blocks of ice would remain for the entirety of summer.

I think it's safe to say that it was both created and perhaps preserved with supernatural forces. Glaciers deteriorate because they're on a slope, and whenever there is melt, that melt runs the entire length of said glacier, melting, and melting and creating a bit of a chain reaction of exothermal heat transfer, ever growing. I don't think the wall has such problems.... if it does, they're greatly reduced in scale. As to the builders, their job is to repair fissures and cracks in the wall that present themselves... if they know what they're doing, I can see them repairing things sufficiently to keep the wall from deteriorating significantly over the years... even in their <1000 brothers state. by expending their repairing resources efficiently.

Forgive me for harping on this... but with the Coldhands = Night's King, are we proposing a wight could stay intact for that many centuries/millenia? And motivation? Was he not the enemy of Gods and men? As we thought w/ the three-eyed-crow most likely being BR prior to ADWD, I think the simplest answer might apply to Coldhands as well, being Benjen. In my efforts to keep an open mind on the matter, I appreciate any debunkings of my debunkings. Thanks all.

[Sword Of Mid Afternoon]

Coldhands, to me, is just a plain wight. He may be someone who was important in the past, but I dont think he was a king. If he were Nightsking, I think he would be dressed differently, with maybe some esquisite armor and a good sword.

Hear hear.