Heresy 13

[Orrin Storm]

Ah, well that's something we're not so sure of. The story of Bael the Bard is obviously important, but its also a classic changeling story and the plucking of roses is also a reference to the Tam Lin story, which is why some of us are inclined to view this as an infusion of Sidhe blood rather than Wildling blood.

Oh, I agree. I was just noting that the skinchanger ability is more common among the wildlings than the northman below the Wall. The closer to that wildling relation the more likely you get skinchangers I'd imagine. I think Bael's story does elude to the Sidhe blood, but his blood is also of the First Men so I think it covers both.

Edit: If Winterfell isn't likely the location the second Pact was formed, then where would it have been?

Also the hills of Winterfell aren't hollow, they're where the hot springs are, aren't they? How would the Children have lived their. We know of First men burrows to the south and north of Winterfell, but not under it. Unless you count the crypts.

[Black Crow]

Well there are these mysterious lower levels of the crypts, seemingly forbidden but where Bael and the Stark girl went for a year and a day.

As to the comparative prevalance of warging beyond the Wall I'd be inclined to think that's not down to the purity of the First Men bloodline, but to the periodic infusion of Sidhe blood - remember those tales of Wildling women lying with the Others/Sidhe and producing terrible half human children.

[Howling Mad]

The general forum was driving me crazy, I had to get back to the sane people.

[Howling Mad]

I have been waiting for the discussion to turn to weirwoods to post this but I think the start of the new thread should not derail any conversations. I have been curious about the weirwood at the Citadel. This is Sam's description;

It was cool and dim inside the castle walls. 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.

Now why would Sam think the tree seems to be dying? How can he tell by appearance? This is what Bloodraven says about the weirwoods;

A weirwood will live forever if left undisturbed.

So why is ( or it seems to be ) the weirwood at the Citadel dying and who "disturbed" it? Do the maesters want to eradicate weirwoods like they may have attempted with the dragons? For reference here is the only description of a dead weirwood from Jaime;

Some of the trees in their godswood were said to be as old as Raventree’s square towers, especially the heart tree, a weirwood of colossal size whose upper branches could be seen from leagues away, like bony fingers scratching at the sky...

...It was a weirwood ancient and colossal, ten times the size of the one in the Stone Garden at Casterly Rock. This tree was bare and dead, though.

“The Brackens poisoned it,” said his host. “For a thousand years it has not shown a leaf. In

another thousand it will have turned to stone, the maesters say. Weirwoods never rot.”

“And the ravens?” asked Jaime. “Where are they?”

“They come at dusk and roost all night. Hundreds of them. They cover the tree like black leaves,

every limb and every branch. They have been coming for thousands of years. How or why, no man can

say, yet the tree draws them every night.”

It might not be the whole maester's guild that is poisoning the weirwood but rather some radical anti-old gods faction. I think we are just now being expoused to the intrigues of the citadel's inner politics.

[Black Crow]

:commie:

[Ser Leftwich]

Some thoughts on the Singers of the Song of the Earth and the Song of Ice and Fire, and the possibility of separate songs; a Song of Ice and a Song of Fire

Both the First Men and the Andals burned weirwoods after they cut them down and there has been some speculation about the original religion of the First Men. Specifics about the religion does not matter, just the speculation that singing of some kind was related to the religion.

We know that, properly done, fire magic and sacrifice can have results.

If, timeline wise, the Andals were escaping the spread of Valyria, dragons were alive and well at that time, so likely was the resurgent strength in magic that is occurring in-story with Dany's dragons.

Some unexpected magical results could have come from the massive burnings of weirwoods that prompted a First Men and/or CotF attempt to try to reset the balance.

Maybe separate songs of Fire and Ice were used in the past and a combined "song of ice and fire " will be the solution.

[Black Crow]

It might not be the whole maester's guild that is poisoning the weirwood but rather some radical anti-old gods faction. I think we are just now being expoused to the intrigues of the citadel's inner politics.

If it is being poisoned in the first place, I'd say so and Marwyn has to be high on the list of suspects. Just as an odd thought on those glass candles, its always been assumed that the 100 pieces of dragonglass given each year by the Children were weapons, but what if some of them were to be fashioned into "candles" to enable the Maesters to talk with the Greenseers?

[Howling Mad]

If it is being poisoned in the first place, I'd say so and Marwyn has to be high on the list of suspects. Just as an odd thought on those glass candles, its always been assumed that the 100 pieces of dragonglass given each year by the Children were weapons, but what if some of them were to be fashioned into "candles" to enable the Maesters to talk with the Greenseers?

Curioser and curiouser. Our the glass candles made of dragon glass? I don't recall.

[bloodymime]

Curioser and curiouser. Our the glass candles made of dragon glass? I don't recall.

"The night before an acolyte says his vows, he must stand a vigil in the vault. No lantern is permitted him, no torch, no lamp, no taper . . . only a candle of obsidian."

Feast for Crows prologue.

[Sand Snake No. 9]

It's interesting to me that the Maesters study magic but deny its existence or power, and, mostly, don't seem able to use it. Yet they co-exist in their world with all manner of sorcerers, hedge witches, seers, skinchangers, etc., and where some magic seems downright ordinary. I'm thinking in particular of using blood magic to see an individual's future, like Maggie the Frog, a maegi, did for Cersei, but which could also be done by one of the working girls at the Happy Port. I also think there's something significant about how Melisandre makes a big fuss about the existence and production of the fake Lightbringer she makes for Stannis, while zombie Beric Dondarrian could make a flaming sword that produced both light and heat with his own blood, in other words, flaming swords are no big whoop.

So, are the maesters mostly men without innate power, or is there something in maester training that makes them lose power and awareness? After all, Maester Luwin denied the truth of Bran and Rickon's dream even though he had a maester's link in magic.

The Stark family ignorance of magic, at least academically, seems strange too. After all, they don't live that far from the manifestly magical wall, and right beyond that wall are skinchangers, seers, spearwife/witches and three other humanoid races etc. Eddard and Catelyn seem unsurprised by their children's bonds with their dire wolves, not even bothering to enquire how a three-year-old avoids being mauled by his enormous savage pet.

It seems to me that magic is absent in Westeros in a large part because people refuse to acknowledge it, and that is probably due to the influence of the Maesters and the Faith.

[Cheese Pudding]

I thought of that "Winter's fall" connection also because Winterfell's name was not translated to Portuguese. Some other castles, like Riverrun and Casterly Rock were (Riverrun's translation is awful by the way), Winterfell's wouldn't be so 'ugly'. But it has no meaning, since the Spanish version has translations for everything (and "Invernalia" is neuter, no possible conclusion about this pact or something related to it).

[Howling Mad]

"The night before an acolyte says his vows, he must stand a vigil in the vault. No lantern is permitted him, no torch, no lamp, no taper . . . only a candle of obsidian."

Feast for Crows prologue.

thanks

[Howling Mad]

BR tells Bran that the crows used to speak the words but men have forgotten. Does this loss coincide with the maesters (keepers of ravens) rejecting magic?

The ability to perform magic or control magical creatures gives a person or group a considerable advantage. It therefore is not surprising that non-magical groups such as the maesters would be working to supress or eliminate magic e.g. dragons, knowledge of CotF, etc

[Cheese Pudding]

I don't believe in this anti-magic politics. They could have simply cut the tree at Oldtown, for example. They know Marwyn's knowledge about magic, if they were magic haters, he would never be an Archmaester. It's more likely that they are just a bunch of old sceptics. Like Maester Luwin, it may be common for acolytes to try the Valyrian Steel Link, and since magic is no longer common in Westeros, they grow sceptic due to their failures.

[Tyryan Lannister]

It seems to me that magic is absent in Westeros in a large part because people refuse to acknowledge it, and that is probably due to the influence of the Maesters and the Faith.

I'm inclined to agree. I would say that GRRM is trying to parallel the pre-Renaissance European clergy having stripped away almost all knowledge of Greco-Roman math and science while it was kept alive and well in the geographically close Islamic world.

EDIT: also just saw this http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/68220-what-is-the-purpose-of-the-maesters/ thread in the general and find it hilarious how almost everyone posting in it is kind of against heresy stuff.

[Orrin Storm]

I'm inclined to agree. I would say that GRRM is trying to parallel the pre-Renaissance European clergy having stripped away almost all knowledge of Greco-Roman math and science while it was kept alive and well in the geographically close Islamic world.

EDIT: also just saw this http://asoiaf.wester...f-the-maesters/ thread in the general and find it hilarious how almost everyone posting in it is kind of against heresy stuff.

I'm not really seeing the anti-heresy stuff there. Unless you count the maester's serve the Others theory, but I don't think that theory has two legs to stand on even here.

As much as I like the idea that the maesters are the decedents of the wise men and the greenseers that brokered peace with the Children and learned the language of the ravens; I just don't see their order existing pre-Andals.

Maybe more of a Night's Watch moving to the Wall type scenario where there were once wise men that studied and lived in Oldtown, but when the Andals came their "wise men" came in an absorbed the First Men wise men. I could maybe see that happening. In history when a conquering force takes territory the conquerors often adopt the best aspects of the people that had lived their before.

If you "Andalize" the wise men I think they might resent not having ties to magic even though the worship the Seven.

[Harland Flint]

A parallel could be drawn between the Night's Watch and the Maesters. Both were founded in a time of magic, with a purpose that reflected that magic. As magic in Westeros grew weaker (Dragons died, CotF retreated, etc) the Night's Watch and the Maester's forgot their original purpose, ignored the very real potency of magic and became sceptics.

Perhaps the purple moss on the Weirwood symbolises this. The magic of the maesters is slowly suffocating through the long, slow creep of mundaneness and neglect.

[Stark@heart]

I think it's the "moss" that's killing the tree, probably put there by the same arch maesters that had it in for the dragons.

I see Marwyn as being "for" magic and dragons, as they are a natural part of the magical world of Westeros. It's the other ArchMaesters that are working to rid the world of magic and in the process throwing things even more out of balance.

[Black Crow]

As much as I like the idea that the maesters are the decedents of the wise men and the greenseers that brokered peace with the Children and learned the language of the ravens; I just don't see their order existing pre-Andals.

Maybe more of a Night's Watch moving to the Wall type scenario where there were once wise men that studied and lived in Oldtown, but when the Andals came their "wise men" came in an absorbed the First Men wise men. I could maybe see that happening. In history when a conquering force takes territory the conquerors often adopt the best aspects of the people that had lived their before.

I'm still inclined to place the Maesters as the heirs of the Wise Men (or Druids if you prefer), with their Andal equivalent being the septons. I think Harland Flint sums up their "decline" nicely.

[Sword Of Mid Afternoon]

I don't think its a corruption of Winter's fall, or a memory that Winter fell there. Rather I've always taken in the sense of a fell being a hill and that Winterfell therefore means Winter Hill, the seat of the Kings of Winter. We've also discussed in the past the liklihood that its a hollow hill of the Sidhe - hence Bael the Bard and the Lord Stark's daughter living under the castle for a year and a day.

Rather than maintaining a vigil the current thinking is that the Starks were the go-betweens - and protectors of those men left in the lost kingdoms beyond the wall.

I find it difficult to embrace Winterfell as the original seat of the Stark Kings of Winter.

• The original structure was a fraction of its current size and would have been dwarfed by other northern keeps (or at least one [you know where I'm going with this]).
  
• A realm of Winter would naturally be centered considerably north of Winterfell. Conversely, Winterfell is positioned in an almost mathematically central location in what is modernly regarded as The North.
  
• The name Winterfell (fell=hill makes too much sense to be true) has some implication of winter ending there. While it could be the site of the fall of the Long Night, I think it is just as feasible that it was a stronghold delineating the southern boundary of Winter's realm.
  

Allowing the fell-hill connection, I think that justifies Winterfell as a barrow housing the Stark kings and not necessarily their seat of power.

Agree with that last bit... I always interpretted "Winterfell" to mean 'Land of Winter, near the mountains'... (upland stretch of land and/or hill country) rather than the "Fall of Winter" ... judging from Martin's middle english philological interest, I would go with the middle english meaning of Fell (upland or hill) rather than modern Fell (past tense of fall)....

From my Tolkien interests, my second thought on the meaning of "Winterfell" was Tolkien's preferred use of the word Fell (evil or deranged in nature). This bit could go a ways to support the Stark/Other bloodline abomination theory. I have a hunch that if there is anything to this particular heretical theory, Martin must begin to flesh it out in the forthcoming D & E Tale, give the reader something more than circumstantial evidence.

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