Heresy 21

[Sword Of Mid Afternoon]

Even as a Hibernian I have no idea.

My internet stopped working at work pretty early today, so I was forced to only pop in via phone now and again...

Regrettably I am not a Chemist, (unless one works for Dow, a similar industrial giant, , the government, or is a professor... there aren't many callings for Chemists in the world) but I am not un-familiar with the field.

(( As a disclaimer.... I am 100% certain we include far more 'science' in our theories than GRRM has even considered considering.)))

For a piece of igneous rock tied to a piece of wood to reach a temperature where contact through a super thick leather glove causes tongue-on-cold-flag-pole flash freezing....

...well, as you no doubt recollect from high school chemistry class, wood and obsidian are not what we'd call efficient thermal conductors. The list of things that could cause such a temperature change in such items is very short.

EDIT - There is a long leagues difference between fantasy and science fiction.

See Lord of the Rings & Dune. So similar, yet so utterly unreconcilably different.

[Black Crow]

Me back again after a week away from both the Internet and ASoIF which was oddly liberating.

Pleased to see a lot of attention being paid again to the Celtic mythology which seems to underpin a lot of what we discuss - well I would say that.

Anyway rather than ping my way through everything I missed I'd like to comment on this business of the nature of wights. They are, overwhelmingly, human, although there have been bears and traditionally the White Walkers ride dead horses. This I think ties in with the christian belief that only humans have souls and I like the suggestion that the bears, horses and ravens carry the souls of dead wargs.

A number of heresies ago we did discuss the theory that the soul remains sleeping with the body until it decomposes into the earth and that when an individual is raised as a wight by Ice or Fire that decay is arrested and the soul is awakened - but bound to whatever purpose it was awakened for. When Thistle "sees" Varamyr, its her soul (the blue light) which sees him. Conversely Varamyr doesn't and indeed can't go into the earth because as a warg he's not bound to his body as ordinary mortals are.

As to the cold business, I like the parallel with liquid nitrogen and suspect that at the very least its at the back of GRRM's mind - with the caveat that a freeze-dried body isn't going anywhere let along moving around with the ease we've seen and its therefore at that point we shift from science (fiction) to magick.

As to cold killing; there are in fact three elements to the fire triangle, one of which is heat. If its too cold a fire will not burn. There's a little bit of a mystery here in the prologue to AGoT because when Will first finds the dead wildlings they appear to have frozen to death, despite the fact that as Ser Waymar points out it isn't cold enough. Yet when Ser Waymar runs into Craster's boys they kill him with their swords rather than freezing him.

[alienarea]

I wonder whether the WWs that kill Royce in the prologue of AGoT belong to the shades that were released by Mance Rayder when he opened the graves looking for the Horn of Joramun.

To me the WWs need to be the spirits/souls/ghosts of dead (first) men because of the swords. If they were beings based on other liquids or cloudlike or aquatic as I thought before because if they were completely different then why would they use swords? Doesn't make sense to me.

Theon has the dream/vision of the dead Stark kings from the crypts that look like WWs. The Stark in Winterfell and Joramun of the wildlings joined forces to overthrow the Night King.

I assume Mance Rayder learned where Joramun was buried from the wildlings and that is where he opened the graves. Maybe Mance Rayder is descendant from Joramun?

Following this line of thought I wonder whether Mance was the one who hid the cache with the horn and the dragonglass for Jon?

Maybe that was a message to Jon that he needs to bring the other (no pun) half of the horn from the Winterfell crypts? Because the horn needs to be blown and the wall has to fall to free the spirits from Joramun's people and the Stark's from being WWs.

The Night King gave his soul and seed to the corpse bride. Did Joramun and the Stark of Winterfell need to give their souls to overthrow him? And therefore the Land of Always Winter is the special hell for Starks that Ned spoke of?

[Music Loving Chemist.]

Even as a Hibernian I have no idea.

My internet stopped working at work pretty early today, so I was forced to only pop in via phone now and again...

Regrettably I am not a Chemist, (unless one works for Dow, a similar industrial giant, , the government, or is a professor... there aren't many callings for Chemists in the world) but I am not un-familiar with the field.

(( As a disclaimer.... I am 100% certain we include far more 'science' in our theories than GRRM has even considered considering.)))

For a piece of igneous rock tied to a piece of wood to reach a temperature where contact through a super thick leather glove causes tongue-on-cold-flag-pole flash freezing....

...well, as you no doubt recollect from high school chemistry class, wood and obsidian are not what we'd call efficient thermal conductors. The list of things that could cause such a temperature change in such items is very short.

EDIT - There is a long leagues difference between fantasy and science fiction.

See Lord of the Rings & Dune. So similar, yet so utterly unreconcilably different.

Going from a solid state to a gas, mist or however you would like to call it does cause superfreezing. And although it might be a little exagerrated in movies, you can freeze a man with a container of CO2 and kill him... Or freeze a limb and crack it, or at least cause severe frostbite.

So perhaps there could be some credibility in the WW's turning to mist from a scientific point of view...

But then again those containers are pressurized to about 200 bar. So it wouldn't be realistic to imagine the WW's as walking gas containers pressurized enough to cause severe enough cold to hurt someone with. And if that isn't realistic, then why even go as far to explain their coldness which such a thing. So that proves nothing.

It wouldn't take as much as that though to cause the 'tongue-on-cold-flag-pole' freezing that happened to the glove, that happens to me almost daily when I work with CO2 ice. Which has a temperature of about -78°C, And causes that effect when turning back to its gaseous state.

[FanTasy]

Ah ... I wasn't suggesting the Others would actually have liquid nitrogen where humans have H²O in their body's, but the effect of liquid nitrogen does fit nicely to what is described when the Others appear (extreme cold, taking away of oxygen so people have a hard time to breathe and fires die, wights presumably being in contact with the Others described as covered in frostbite).

Maybe not actual liquid nitrogen, but they could be 'other' than human in that they have extreme cold and blue blood in stead of hot red blood?

We discussed that the wights seem to be triggered by hot blood and that their bones remember.

Are they triggered by hot blood and tearing at people not so much because they are ' cold blooded' killers, but because they 'remember' that they were once human and that as a human you need hot blood?

[Music Loving Chemist.]

Ah ... I wasn't suggesting the Others would actually have liquid nitrogen where humans have H²O in their body's, but the effect of liquid nitrogen does fit nicely to what is described when the Others appear (extreme cold, taking away of oxygen so people have a hard time to breathe and fires die, wights presumably being in contact with the Others described as covered in frostbite).

Maybe not actual liquid nitrogen, but they could be 'other' than human in that they have extreme cold and blue blood in stead of hot red blood?

We discussed that the wights seem to be triggered by hot blood and that their bones remember.

Are they triggered by hot blood and tearing at people not so much because they are ' cold blooded' killers, but because they 'remember' that they were once human and that as a human you need hot blood?

I wasn't suggesting it either, but it is kind of interesting. For example, when Sam's glove gets stuck due to the intense cold he also describes the Other's blood evaporating into mist (Hence the Others/Mist connection people are talking about here I suppose.) It would be interesting if that intense cold actually came from the evaporation process... They would basically be walking refrigerators :P

[FanTasy]

I wasn't suggesting it either, but it is kind of interesting. For example, when Sam's glove gets stuck due to the intense cold he also describes the Other's blood evaporating into mist (Hence the Others/Mist connection people are talking about here I suppose.) It would be interesting if that intense cold actually came from the evaporation process... They would basically be walking refrigerators :P

Yep, if it is true the Others do generate the cold this seems to be a pretty effective strategy against humans with hot blood.

When humans get cold their reaction performance is influenced, you try to reach for a weapon but when it is really cold you will not be able to get it out of the scabbard or use it effectively.

[Eyron]

Yep, if it is true the Others do generate the cold this seems to be a pretty effective strategy against humans with hot blood.

When humans get cold their reaction performance is influenced, you try to reach for a weapon but when it is really cold you will not be able to get it out of the scabbard or use it effectively.

Dun dun dun... :eek:

Last Jon chapter :)

[Black Wolf Smith]

Following this line of thought I wonder whether Mance was the one who hid the cache with the horn and the dragonglass for Jon?

The Night King gave his soul and seed to the corpse bride. Did Joramun and the Stark of Winterfell need to give their souls to overthrow him? And therefore the Land of Always Winter is the special hell for Starks that Ned spoke of?

I always thought the cache of dragonglass had been there for hundreds.

Where did Ned talk about a special hell? I am doing a reread of aGoT now but not very far into it.

For the person who said this is like study group, this is like half dozens study groups, chemistry, History, science, myths and folklore of the Irish, Scottish, English, and Vikings.

[FanTasy]

For the person who said this is like study group, this is like half dozens study groups, chemistry, History, science, myths and folklore of the Irish, Scottish, English, and Vikings.

Har! :cheers:

[Efilnikufesin]

Where did Ned talk about a special hell? I am doing a reread of aGoT now but not very far into it.

Here ya go, chapter when they arrive in King's Landing

Outside, wagons and riders were still pouring through the castle gates, and the yard was

a chaos of mud and horseflesh and shouting men. The king had not yet arrived, he was

told. Since the ugliness on the Trident, the Starks and their household had ridden well

ahead of the main column, the better to separate themselves from the Lannisters and the

growing tension. Robert had hardly been seen; the talk was he was traveling in the huge

wheelhouse, drunk as often as not. If so, he might be hours behind, but he would still be

here too soon for Ned’s liking. He had only to look at Sansa’s face to feel the rage

twisting inside him once again. The last fortnight of their journey had been a misery.

Sansa blamed Arya and told her that it should have been Nymeria who died. And Arya

was lost after she heard what had happened to her butcher’s boy. Sansa cried herself to

sleep, Arya brooded silently all day long, and Eddard Stark dreamed of a frozen hell

reserved for the Starks of Winterfell.

[Black Wolf Smith]

Here ya go, chapter when they arrive in King's Landing

thanks

[alienarea]

Here ya go, chapter when they arrive in King's Landing

Note the wording: Starks of Winterfell. Implies there are other (no pun) Starks as well? And it is the same wording as in Old nan's tale about Joramun and the Stark of Winterfell.

[Eyron]

I always thought the cache of dragonglass had been there for hundreds.

No the shallow grave (that is what Jon thought it looked like) was new, and the cloak was not old. In the TV show on the other hand it was the opposite... Which is one thing that has bugged me about it... <_<

[Eyron]

Note the wording: Starks of Winterfell. Implies there are other (no pun) Starks as well? And it is the same wording as in Old nan's tale about Joramun and the Stark of Winterfell.

I was just thinking the same. What about the other Starks... ;) Yes pun.

[Black Wolf Smith]

Note the wording: Starks of Winterfell. Implies there are other (no pun) Starks as well? And it is the same wording as in Old nan's tale about Joramun and the Stark of Winterfell.

i suck finding quotes when I need them, from SSM but GRRM said Karstarks, were not the only Starks to spilt from WF( I took it he was not talking about the Greystarks either)

[Black Crow]

It does rather suggest a reason for the lack of Starks outside Winterfell which has been commented upon many a time.

For a family which has, supposedly at least, been around for 8,000 years there are far too few of them about. This might simply be because GRRM didn't bother to complicate the story by populating the North with the many cadet branches there must surely be out there, but there is an alternative in line with some heretical thinking...

If there must always be a Stark in Winterfell, it may actually be a curse. Those able to escape (flee?) have done so, time and again over the years, changing their names as they do so lest the core line should fail and they may be compelled to return, because there must always be a Stark in Winterfell.

[Tyryan Lannister]

Note the wording: Starks of Winterfell. Implies there are other (no pun) Starks as well? And it is the same wording as in Old nan's tale about Joramun and the Stark of Winterfell.

i suck finding quotes when I need them, from SSM but GRRM said Karstarks, were not the only Starks to spilt from WF( I took it he was not talking about the Greystarks either)

I've been thinking about that SSM as well, and here's my theory on what the other families to have split off from the main Stark line are: the Boltons and whatever family rules Skagos.

For the Boltons, go back to the theories a couple heresies ago about them beginning the flaying as a means to emulate the Starks' skinchanging. Why exactly did they want to emulate the Starks? The most obvious answer is because they wanted to be powerful as/more powerful than the Starks. We already have the story of the Night' King where there is a Stark going out and killing his brother, and many here in heresy world have speculated that part of the reason for this was because the Winterfell Stark wanted more power.

Couldn't the Boltons have been a similar tale? My theory is that,at some point in the past, there was a brother/nephew/cousin of the ruling Stark who didn't have the ability to skinchange, and that his children didn't either, etc. At some point, this close relation decided that he was going to delve into other magics as an attempt to emulate the skinchanging, which led to the flaying of captured Stark sons, which led to the original Boltons bolting (pun intended) from the family, hence the name.

For the Skagosi, pure speculation, but if the ruling family was Stark of some sort, would go a long ways towards explaining why Luwin would have told Osha to take Richon there.

[Black Crow]

My theory is that,at some point in the past, there was a brother/nephew/cousin of the ruling Stark who didn't have the ability to skinchange, and that his children didn't either, etc. At some point, this close relation decided that he was going to delve into other magics as an attempt to emulate the skinchanging, which led to the flaying of captured Stark sons, which led to the original Boltons bolting (pun intended) from the family, hence the name.

As I recall, originally there was a fairly vague mention of the Boltons flaying a Stark lord, just by way of introducing them as an unchancy lot, but its in the story of Bael (yes, a very significant name in mythology) told by Ygritte where we're told that his son was flayed by a Bolton. This I've suggested is consistent with Bael/Tam Lin reintroducing Faerie blood to the Starks, giving his son the ability to skin-change and the Boltons reason to resent it.

[7V3N]

My comment on GRRM and science fiction was not to suggest that he went through the science of making the WW contain/use liquid nitrogen, but rather that he would be aware of science like such and be able/willing to include inspirations from science in his fantasy.