Heresy 18

[Tini]

Craster and his sacrifices: Usualy, it is boys, then it became sheep and soon it may be dogs. What they would want with sheep, I don't know. But it seems, that anything is more usefull to the WW, then a girl.

That might not be the view of the WW but the view of the person offering the sacrifice. The value placed on girls south of the Wall seems to be a lot less than that of boys. The WIldling view may actually not differ that much even though wildling women seem to have more liberties. Sons may support their fathers when they grow up, sheeps and dogs are valuable possessions; daughters are lost to abduction. If the sacrifice has to be something of highest value, girls may be quite far down the line.

As for Craster, I think Sand Snake No. 9 is correct about Craster's reason to sacrifice the boys and hang on to the girls. The boys aren't needed as far as he is concerned. That doesn't say that the WW wouldn't take girls /have no use for girls. It just says they were not offered girls as part of Craster's deal.

Unless Craster is just a part of a WW breeding program because the WW realized that taking the females means fewer children in the next generation while taking (most of) the males has no influence on the birth rate.

[Lummel]

...So Craster used to give sheep, and now his sons. Why would the Others want sheep? To eat? I have no idea, but maybe one of the brilliant Heresy minds does. It is worth noting that the Others are referred to as gods, meaning they have been worshiped as some divine group and not just creatures that require tribute...

Craster and his sacrifices: Usualy, it is boys, then it became sheep and soon it may be dogs. What they would want with sheep, I don't know. But it seems, that anything is more usefull to the WW, then a girl...

The sheep are a mystery that in the absence of further information or a fantastic brain wave will have to left to one side. They could simply be a mark of continued devotion offered up in the awkward pauses while Craster doesn't have any new born sons on hand, on the other hand it's not impossible that the white walkers have some use for the sheep - food or wool for craster's boys maybe? Blood for their servants Old Nan style perhaps?

I think there are two ways of looking at the sacrifice of Craster's boys. Either that they are sacrificed because they are valuable - for example if the White walkers convert them into wooddancers like themselves so that they become soldiers to continue their tasks or that they are sacrificed because they are expendable like veal calves which might be the case if it is the female line of descent that is considered valuable and something that is in the female line that Craster and / or the white walkers are keen to preserve.

No answers here though just puzzles :)

[Lord of Cheese]

Could be blood magic. Young babies could have power in their 'pureness'. Maybe Craster keeps the women to increase the chances of male births by increasing breeding. Edit: I think sand snake 9 had the right of it in an earlier post.

Nasty to even think about Craster... Need brain bleach.

[hotweaselsoup]

About the human/WW interbreeding. First we are told that wildling women lay with others and the outcome were terrible half-human children. Then the Night King gave his seed and soul to a pale woman, but we aren't told about the offspring IIRC.

Sounds a bit like mating horses and donkeys. AFAIK if you mate male horse and female donkey you get cross-species A while female horse and male donkey results in B. And A or B is infertile or atleast they can't reproduce. Please correct if this is wrong, school was long ago.

Other explanation would be if the Others had a beelike organisation with only one female.their current queen needs toproduce the next queen and they are looking for a new Night King to give seed and soul.

I think that's a really astute observation! All the Old Races seem to have powers that humans do not - the dominion over beasts of air and land and sea of the Children, the super-strength and size of the Giants, the cold powers of the White Walkers, etc. But there is one power that humans seem to have that the Old Races do not, and perhaps that the Old Races covet: fecundity. Maybe this explains all the apparent hybridization that is going on, the otherwordly males hunting human females, the otherwordly females seeking out human males, etc.?

There is also the Kindly Old Man warning Arya that she will lose her ability to become a mother if she follows the path to becoming a Faceless Man. In a world where everything has a cost, it seems that the power to create another life must be sacrificed if she is to gain the powers of the assassin. Jon has vowed never to father sons, so he too has sacrificed one power and perhaps has received some power in return. Bran cannot have children, his ability to procreate sacrificed when he was pushed from the tower, and we know that his injury may have been seminal in opening his "third eye", his greenseeing ability. Robb died without issue, and Sansa the Moonmaid has Virgin Queen written all over her, in my opinion. It may be that she will forego marriage and children to keep her autonomy, which is sacrificing one power to receive another.

At this point, it may be that Rickon is the only hope for the Stark line to continue, but who knows how his story will play out?

[Sword Of Mid Afternoon]

Forgive me for shifting things a bit... but I just read something that may pertain to a central heresy. (These shifts are what keep the thread alive, I would argue.)

I was reading random new forum threads from the right side recently updated column of links....

Came across the Benjen one, and in it, there's a quote from ACoK regarding Theon's dream while in Winterfell...

Found something that struck me as curious... I checked the previous heresies and I don't believe we've mentioned it previously.

But there were others with faces he had never known in life, faces he had seen only in stone. The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna. Her brother Brandon stood beside her, and their father Lord Rickard just behind. Along the walls figures half-seen moved through the shadows, pale shades with long grim faces. The sight of them sent fear shivering through Theon sharp as a knife. And then the tall doors opened with a crash, and a freezing gale blew down the hall, and Robb came walking out of the night. Grey Wind stalked beside, eyes burning, and man and wolf alike bled from half a hundred savage wounds.

Could just be the grim Kings of Winter... but if they're just regular old Stark ancestors, why the sudden, almost instinctive fear? Headless Ned, eviscerated Robert, roasted Rickard, garotted Brandon and bloody mess Lyanna didn't evoke that fear, though he didn't know many of them in life. Furthermore... why the sudden freezing cold when he noticed them? The descriptives make me think of WhiteWalkers.

Even if the pale shades are just Kings of Winter.. it is curious that they share so many descriptives that could very easily be interchanged w/ those attributed to WhiteWalkers.

[Black Crow]

Good catch, whether or not they're ancestral Starks, they're cold and dangerous. And again the blue roses; Bael, Lyanna, Jon - and ultimately Tam Lin.

[Black Crow]

Just picking up on a question asked by FanTasy at the very end of the last thread:

The Wildlings certainly do know of the Children. Way back in AGoT when she and Maester Luwin are teaching Bran the early history of Westeros, Luwin says the Children who once used the dragonglass arrowheads he shows him, are long gone. Osha disagrees, saying that north of the Wall things are different and that the Children still use dragonglass.

(oddly enough, while she says that the Children and "other old races" went above the Wall, its Maester Luwin who more explicitly says that they "fled")

As I recall Sam also finds a mention of a man of the Nights watch who explored the far north and traded with them.

So there's no doubt that the Wildlings know about the Children and know that they're around, but as in the days of the Last Hero the Children are only to be found when they want to be found.

Whether this impacts on whatever Mance is up to might be an interesting question.

[mrazny]

Hopefully this will be a helpful quick exercise... I don't think this story will quite go down the "easiest answer is the real answer", but we always go pretty deep down these rabbit holes, and though we've always talked in ways that are right along the lines of what I want to highlight; enough intro, getting to it.

We were probably given very strong hints very early, and more than likely, our earliest information given was our most important information given.

The White Walkers didn't stalk Royce. The main white walker challenged him / taunted him. We've talked of the White Walkers as at the least having a structure, a culture, a language, etc. Not just mindless monsters. In any case, the base visuals call to a pack mentality. The WW's circled Royce, but remained hidden and did not engage. This isn't a wolfpack (and yes I'm calling them this deliberately) circling prey. They aren't truly circling at all. This isn't a pack hunting...

This was closest to an Alpha challenging another wolf.

Eventually the story gives us the true wolf-based scenario when Summer takes over the pack from Varamyr's wolves. Not perfect, but it truly was a one-on-one scenario. This wouldn't be how Varamyr's wolves take down an elk.

We have two angles that this is going at. One is an early establishment of the WW's being very Wolf-like, and setting the seeds for a commonality between the WW's and the Starks within some symbol. But it also sets something about the WW's relationship with Men. They didn't just treat Waymar as prey, but on some level considered him equal or similar.

To dive back into the crackpot :) What would have happened if Waymar bested the first White Walker? Does he become the new Alpha? Does he get indoctrinated? And to get back into unknown scenarios within the text; What if Benjen bested his challenge?

[FanTasy]

Just picking up on a question asked by FanTasy at the very end of the last thread:

The Wildlings certainly do know of the Children. Way back in AGoT when she and Maester Luwin are teaching Bran the early history of Westeros, Luwin says the Children who once used the dragonglass arrowheads he shows him, are long gone. Osha disagrees, saying that north of the Wall things are different and that the Children still use dragonglass.

(oddly enough, while she says that the Children and "other old races" went above the Wall, its Maester Luwin who more explicitly says that they "fled")

As I recall Sam also finds a mention of a man of the Nights watch who explored the far north and traded with them.

So there's no doubt that the Wildlings know about the Children and know that they're around, but as in the days of the Last Hero the Children are only to be found when they want to be found.

Whether this impacts on whatever Mance is up to might be an interesting question.

Thanks! I forgot looking for what that other wildling woman knows.

Okay, so it seems probable that Mance knows about them too, as I suspected (because of this helmet with ravenwings, for starters).

I'll post another question,hopefully there is someone thread-active with a photographic memory (or a Kindle, boy do I want one of those, be it just for this thread). Black Crow's summary about the blue roses reminded me of something that was bugging me earlier.

[Lokidring]

I like the WW/direwolves similarity...

Which brings to mind another question that may lead to more Heretical musings (or, again, may've been already addressed): What is the significance/difference of direwolves? Are they just bigger, or do the possess other Wintry qualities that set them apart from 'normal' wolves? Are the Stark/Snow children's direwolves hiding other powers, that may become apparent as Winter ascends? I know there has been discussion on earlier threads about Sansa's loss of Lady and why Bran named his Summer, but I still feel there's a lot we don't know about direwolves, period. Could their history/evolution be a key to understanding the Song?

[Sword Of Mid Afternoon]

Re: post #25 above...

That would've been a neat scene for the show... Cameo for Ned, Robert, Jory, add Rodrick instead of other household guard... Foreshadow Robbs fate...

Directors don't like dream sequences, unless they're bran's, and the viewers are denied what I would deem to be several important scenes.... Ned's fever dreams, dungeon dreams, Arya's nymeria dreams, Jon's weirwood/wildling camp dreams, Dany in HofU, & probably others that escape me.

**FYI - The OP On the Benjen thread thought it significant that Benjen wasn't there.

[Tyryan Lannister]

I had an entirely different theory on why Renly wanted a Rainbow Guard.

ENTIRELY.

Well, yeah, there's that as well...

[mrazny]

I like the WW/direwolves similarity...

Which brings to mind another question that may lead to more Heretical musings (or, again, may've been already addressed): What is the significance/difference of direwolves? Are they just bigger, or do the possess other Wintry qualities that set them apart from 'normal' wolves? Are the Stark/Snow children's direwolves hiding other powers, that may become apparent as Winter ascends? I know there has been discussion on earlier threads about Sansa's loss of Lady and why Bran named his Summer, but I still feel there's a lot we don't know about direwolves, period. Could their history/evolution be a key to understanding the Song?

Most of the Direwolf evidence that comes to mind in the text ties directly to a warg-connection with their respective Stark children. Summer saves Bran and knowing Bran's in danger could very well just have been Summer's innate connection to Bran. Ghost was closest to having extra-presence... Finding the dragonglass, knowing when to show what hostility, but also concerning was Ghost being lured by Mel for a moment.

The other item of note is Nymeria's mega-pack. This could just be from Nymeria's size, or perhaps Direwolves are simply more sophisticated in their ability to communicate and organize. How much is from acclimating with human Stark kids? How much is a natural superior intelligence and culture that direwolves can hold?

[FanTasy]

So Craster used to give sheep, and now his sons. Why would the Others want sheep? To eat? I have no idea, but maybe one of the brilliant Heresy minds does. It is worth noting that the Others are referred to as gods, meaning they have been worshiped as some divine group and not just creatures that require tribute.

I'm not said mind ... but some thoughts anyway.

Very good point. Who ate the sheep?

I think it may be reference to the biblical story: man prepared to sacrifice a sheep, but the god wants him to be prepared to sacrifice his son.

Somewhere else in this thread there was mentioning of why no female children were sacrificed.

Were they to Craster more valuable? Or are females not required, not suitable as an offering?

This is odd, because of the tales of the others laying with female humans, producing half-human children.

Why were the boys offered, and was it required that they were young, newborn children?

And if they were changelings, who or what were their 'replacements'?

[Black Crow]

And if they were changelings, who or what were their 'replacements'?

While its convenient to refer to them as changelings, in folklore frequently enough no exchange is necessary. The Sidhe/Faerie folk are anxious to obtain and perhaps even need human servants. Strictly speaking changelings are obtained surreptitiously, leaving something else in exchange - sometimes another Faerie but equally often a glamoured doll or even just a log, so that by the time the deception is rumbled they're long gone. On the other hand if the children are given up willingly, as Craster was doing, then there's no need for deception or an exchange of bodies.

Sometimes grown-ups will be taken as servants, sometimes by deception, sometimes by way of a bargain - serving for a fixed time or until a certain set of circumstances come about.

I wouldn't rule out Jon becoming Tam Lin.

[Woman of War]

....and Mance Rayder alias Thomas the Rhymer will sing about him

[Black Crow]

I just love it when people are on the same wavelength :cool4:

[FanTasy]

By the way, and off topic, I just watched the latest interview in SSM http://www.westeros....nica_Interview/

Mainly the same old questions (favourite character). When asked what the song of ice and fire stands for GRRM said that he liked multiple meanings, but that he was inspired by the Robert Frost poem and that he likes this poem a lot. I'm not sure he expressed this before? I looked for confirmation of this inspiration in SSM but could not find it before.

Anyhow, it's good to know the poem was indeed an inspiration, as expected.

[Eyron]

The sheep are a mystery that in the absence of further information or a fantastic brain wave will have to left to one side. They could simply be a mark of continued devotion offered up in the awkward pauses while Craster doesn't have any new born sons on hand, on the other hand it's not impossible that the white walkers have some use for the sheep - food or wool for craster's boys maybe? Blood for their servants Old Nan style perhaps?

The sheep being food for the boys has crossed my mind too. They need to eat if they are not dead.

Came across the Benjen one, and in it, there's a quote from ACoK regarding Theon's dream while in Winterfell...

Found something that struck me as curious... I checked the previous heresies and I don't believe we've mentioned it previously.

But there were others with faces he had never known in life, faces he had seen only in stone. The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna. Her brother Brandon stood beside her, and their father Lord Rickard just behind. Along the walls figures half-seen moved through the shadows, pale shades with long grim faces. The sight of them sent fear shivering through Theon sharp as a knife. And then the tall doors opened with a crash, and a freezing gale blew down the hall, and Robb came walking out of the night. Grey Wind stalked beside, eyes burning, and man and wolf alike bled from half a hundred savage wounds.

Could just be the grim Kings of Winter... but if they're just regular old Stark ancestors, why the sudden, almost instinctive fear? Headless Ned, eviscerated Robert, roasted Rickard, garotted Brandon and bloody mess Lyanna didn't evoke that fear, though he didn't know many of them in life. Furthermore... why the sudden freezing cold when he noticed them? The descriptives make me think of WhiteWalkers.

Even if the pale shades are just Kings of Winter.. it is curious that they share so many descriptives that could very easily be interchanged w/ those attributed to WhiteWalkers.

I don't think anyone has written about this in the heresy threads before actually. I've seen it somewhere I think, and it is one of the reasons I think there is something to the Starks being connected to the white shadows, the Others (the other strong one being the wolf resemblance described by Mrazny below). And that is besides the Ice, Winter is coming, Winterfell etc...

Shades and shadows are synonymous with ghosts in the story, the Others are referred to as white shadows, and here we see pale shades half-seen. Ygritte says Mance woke shades from the graves when he went digging for Joramun's horn. Old Nan says the white mists are ghosts returning to their graves.

Shades = shadows = ghosts = white mists = white walkers.

That was my reasoning for suggesting the white walkers were ghosts a while back. And especially after re-reading Jaime's dream about Rhaegar accusing him in the caves beneath Casterly Rock. The vision of white mists flowing from him, put together with the depiction of the white walkers in the comic book, and these references to shadows, shades and ghosts made me think there is something to the idea.

Also the way the white walker died when Sam stabbed him, to me it seemed like a spell breaking, sploosh.

However there are things that puzzle me about this, the sacrificed sheep being one thing.

We were probably given very strong hints very early, and more than likely, our earliest information given was our most important information given.

The White Walkers didn't stalk Royce. The main white walker challenged him / taunted him. We've talked of the White Walkers as at the least having a structure, a culture, a language, etc. Not just mindless monsters. In any case, the base visuals call to a pack mentality. The WW's circled Royce, but remained hidden and did not engage. This isn't a wolfpack (and yes I'm calling them this deliberately) circling prey. They aren't truly circling at all. This isn't a pack hunting...

This was closest to an Alpha challenging another wolf.

Eventually the story gives us the true wolf-based scenario when Summer takes over the pack from Varamyr's wolves. Not perfect, but it truly was a one-on-one scenario. This wouldn't be how Varamyr's wolves take down an elk.

We have two angles that this is going at. One is an early establishment of the WW's being very Wolf-like, and setting the seeds for a commonality between the WW's and the Starks within some symbol. But it also sets something about the WW's relationship with Men. They didn't just treat Waymar as prey, but on some level considered him equal or similar.

To dive back into the crackpot :) What would have happened if Waymar bested the first White Walker? Does he become the new Alpha?

I've pointed this very thing out. And that would be the other reason I connect the Starks and the Others as I said above.

I also suggested a scenario where Jon bested an alpha white walker and thus became their new pack-leader, would be neat would it not? :)

One thing though, perhaps Sam is their new alpha now... :uhoh: :lol:

Edit: some parts of the post seemed to dissappear...

[Eyron]

Adding to the rant about the white walkers as ghosts...

I have a hard time seeing ghosts raise children, so that is another thing I put against my own theory.