Tyryan Lannister Posted November 17, 2012 Share Posted November 17, 2012 But fire would not damage dragon eggs. I think its a stretch to think they were the same eggs.Fire wouldn't... but fire AND SORCERY possibly would... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little Wing Posted November 17, 2012 Share Posted November 17, 2012 Re: King's blood and what makes a King - I view leadership as an ability to reach people, emulating confidence, ability and common sense while in turn receiving both love and respect from your people, so nothing to do with blood, a point Martin may be making as well, we shall see, especially when Jon is concerned. It revolves on the Varys' riddle about power too, it is what people believe, it's subjective. So, to connect this, I think that if Mel believes she's working with King's blood, and that King's blood has some power, it is her auto-suggestion that makes it real, or to put it simply, her faith in it makes it real (hah, sangue real) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tyryan Lannister Posted November 17, 2012 Share Posted November 17, 2012 I had an idea which I thought would be unorthodox enough to discuss here. I wanted to talk about the whole idea of king's blood having power in Martin's world, and why in my mind it is quite flawed unless there is so mechanic I am not aware of that which changes this.In all logical aspects of it, can we truly know if a man could have king's blood? What, really gives a man a king's blood? And if we dive even deeper into the matter at question, we could ask what makes a man a king?Is a king just a man who says he is a king? Because anyone could say that. Is he just a man who has loyal followers? Because that could be just a chieftain or a general or a priest. Does one get it from his father? Because if we say so, then Joffrey certainly doesn't have it, unless we count his ancestors as being the Kings of the Rock. And does Mance Rayder have it? Certainly the customs of a kinghood is much different for a wildling, in which a king doesn't exactly have an heir. A king, to the free folk is a man who can rally the whole of the free folk under him, and it is not a title given by birth.What I'm trying to say is that unless Melisandre's whole concept of king's blood=mystical power is flawed at some point, so unless GRRM means for it to be wrong, then it is his own idea which, in my opinion, is fundamentally wrong. What do you guys think?I feel that in Martin's world, certain Kingly lines have special aspects of their blood (the Targaryens--simply because they're Valyrian, NOT because they are Kings; the Starks, if there is indeed a stronger connection between them, the children, and the Others as many here believe). However, I think that in general being a King does nothing special for you, and the one instance of king's blood (outside of the Targs and Starks) seemingly having special properties (Edric Storm being leeched and the leeches thrown into the fire) is misleading: in all three cases of kings dying, the death would have occurred anyways and Mel's spell had nothing to do with it: there is evidence for Tywin, Roose, and Walder having planned the Red Wedding by then; if, as is heavily implied, Euron did hire a Faceless Man to kill Balon, then that would have been put to action already; and it is very plausible that Petyr and Lady Olenna had planned to kill Joffrey from the moment that Petyr brought them into the Lannister side--and all the initial steps towards these deaths occurred even before the Blackwater, and they don't sacrifice Edric's leeches until well after the Battle.So, yeah, outside of the Starks and Targs, having kings' blood seems to be pretty damn meaningless.** The one possible exception to the Starks and Targs being the only special ones would be the Baratheons, for they are descended from the Targs (Orys was Aegon the Conq's bastard half-brother) and they are descended from the Storm Kings (Orys married the daughter of King Argilac Durrendon the Arrogant, the last Storm King, and the Durrendons are said to be descended from Durran, the first Storm King, and Elenei, the daughter of the sea god and the goddess of the wind--which is to say that the Baratheons have special blood because they have Valyrian blood and the bloods of gods). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Crow Posted November 17, 2012 Author Share Posted November 17, 2012 Fire wouldn't... but fire AND SORCERY possibly would...Like the supposed dragon under Winterfell I feel this is overcomplicating things, and that given both sides are engaged in the Game of Ice and Fire, I see no reason not to go along with Ilyrio's story that the dragon eggs came from Asshai, but that they were a good deal fresher than he said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Crow Posted November 17, 2012 Author Share Posted November 17, 2012 The one possible exception to the Starks and Targs being the only special ones would be the Baratheons, for they are descended from the Targs (Orys was Aegon the Conq's bastard half-brother) and they are descended from the Storm Kings (Orys married the daughter of King Argilac Durrendon the Arrogant, the last Storm King, and the Durrendons are said to be descended from Durran, the first Storm King, and Elenei, the daughter of the sea god and the goddess of the wind--which is to say that the Baratheons have special blood because they have Valyrian blood and the bloods of gods).I'd go along with this. Kings bleed as easily as anybody else and it comes out the same colour as everybody else. Blood magic appears to be important in Westeros, but simply being a king or descended of a king should make any difference. There needs to be something special in the blood, whether its the Wolf Blood or the Blood of Old Valyria - or whatever Craster's bloodline is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little Wing Posted November 17, 2012 Share Posted November 17, 2012 Hmm... I take back what I said about Martin. He keeps mentioning blood of the First Men and blood of old Valyria, Ghiscari blood and so on... gotta be a reason behind that... is blood not being important for leadership/kingship a fantasy trope? Maybe giving blood importance will be another subversion of said tropes? I'm actually not into fantasy... *hides in corner* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Crow Posted November 17, 2012 Author Share Posted November 17, 2012 Hmm... I take back what I said about Martin. He keeps mentioning blood of the First Men and blood of old Valyria, Ghiscari blood and so on... gotta be a reason behind that... is blood not being important for leadership/kingship a fantasy trope? Maybe giving blood importance will be another subversion of said tropes? I'm actually not into fantasy... *hides in corner*The reason, I reckon, is that its what's in the blood that matters. Simply being a king isn't enough if the right blood isn't running through your veins; hence my reference to Craster. He wasn't a king, save of his own dunghill, but there was something in his blood that saw his sons taken by the Sidhe, just as there's somthing in the Stark blood that makes them wargs.Essentially this was also what we were told about the Kings beyond the Wall; they were kings because their people made them so, not because they were the sons or grandsons of previous kings; their "kings blood" was valueless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lummel Posted November 17, 2012 Share Posted November 17, 2012 Heh Heh very Weberian. The followers invest the leader with charisma.There seems to be power in blood and distinct types of power in certain bloodlines, but the whole notion of kingship seems to have to be understood very vaguely.For example the Dothraki follow the strong. Drogo followed his father as leader but that was because he was strong as much as because he was his father's son - that simply gave him the opportunity to demonstrate his courage/leadership abilities. Are the likes of Robert and his family of kings blood because of their Targaryen connection or because Robert seized the throne and was acclaimed as leader? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7V3N Posted November 17, 2012 Share Posted November 17, 2012 I like to think of the king's blood thing as metaphorical to what Varys said about power. If a priest of R'hllor is allowed to take the blood of a people's king to sacrifice to their god, that itself is power. It is proof of R'hllor's (real or not) power--these people worship him so much that they would be willing to sacrifice one of the king's own blood (ie. Edric Storm). I think that Melisandre may have lost touch with what it really meant, and I do not think that being able to label yourself "king" makes your blood magical or more valuable in any way.The exception, I believe, could be precise magic rituals. Perhaps it was important to the hatching of Dany's dragons that Drogo was a powerful "king" of a great amount of people. Then again, maybe it made no difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lysmonger Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Ah, not quite. GRRM has confirmed that their arrival was part of a classic migration pattern. Expansion of the Valyrian Empire caused the Andals to move westwards. Having been displaced from their homeland in Andalos they proceeded to conquer a new one in Westeros. As to the Valyrians, they're still around. Old Valyria was destroted in the Doom but there's still a Valyrian enclave behind the black walls in Volantis, while the Targaryens, Valereons and Baratheons had settled on Dragonstone before setting out to conquer Westeros in turn. There are questionmarks as to what they were doing on Dragonstone and suggestions that they had prudently planted themselves there to avoid the impending Doom, but that's not quite the same thing as fleeing.Martin has been messing around with the whole magical dying race ethnicity trope. He doesnt state it clearly, but Danaeris acting like she is the last dragon lord,last of her kind, is completely false. Valyrians are essentially everywhere in Essos. They spent "thousands of years of colonizing the coast and were so predominate that they had no problem fighting against each other after the fall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lysmonger Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 GRRM has taken inspiration from many sources, but he puts his own spin on his characters, so we cannot assume that any one character will be exactly like the myths that inspired it.If Bloodraven were exactly like Odin, why would he need a replacement?Odin may have placed one of his eyes down Mimir's well, which was beneath the world tree, but that doesn't mean that GRRM had made Bloodraven the Three Eyed Crow as well. It may suit his storytelling to make them two characters, and the Heresy thread is exploring as to whether or not that is indeed the case.Yes Martin does like to mix his sources. But Bloodraven/odin and Jaime Lannister/tyr are the same exact people just with slightly different background stories to be incorporated into the story. Both of them act the same exact way and look exactly what they correspond to in this world. Odin does warg into wolves and ravens most commonly. There are giant elk around Yggsdrasil. There are also tree/squirrel people that are implied around it. At the roots or around it are semi immortal sorcorers or greenseers. Odin is called ravin god. Odin has been called things like 1000 and 1 eyes, old one eye, and three eyed raven. Its been stated that Odin has "three eyes" via sacrifice and preservaence. Being preserved on a tree like Bloodraven has done has been alluded to as a rejuvination method in the Eddas and is possibly one Sacrifice Odin did.The Weirwood trees do not represent "the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and perhaps also The Tree of Life...both trees from the Garden of Eden" Look up Donar Oak tree. The Weirwoods are inlivened by the sacrfice of life. The magic comes from Sacrificie. Groves of extremely old oak trees that possibly had carvings in them were everywhere in europe and in eurasia before Christdom and Islam. It needs to be noted that the biblical trees have no relation to Yggsdrasil or any other pagan tree. However, Buddhist Tree of Life or World Tree is related to Yggsdrasil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Crow Posted November 18, 2012 Author Share Posted November 18, 2012 Yay, we're up again. What about a whip round to hire a Faceless Man to track down whoever was responsible? :devil: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little Wing Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Some disgruntled, probably banned, ex user doing it... wouldn't surprise me none. At least we're back :commie: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Crow Posted November 18, 2012 Author Share Posted November 18, 2012 Back to business and Lysemonger's last post. The parallels with Odin and all his works are admitted. There's certainly a number of elements of Norse mythology being played out here, which we've discussed in some detail on previous heresy threads, but once again they're going into a pick 'n mix. GRRM is far too good an author to simply take the Eddas and change the names to protect the guilty. The Norse stuff is in there but so, very definitely, is the Celtic stuff and while Odin is indeed linked with crows, I still maintain that the three-eyed one disturbing the peace in Westeros is not an avatar of the dreamy dead man in the tree, but the very much more alive Morrigan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lummel Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 The ravens and being buried underground also are links to Bran the Blessed. These aren't unique symbols by any means, which is why why GRRM is drawing on ravens and wolves and so on. They are animals that have symbolic resonance in many cultures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little Wing Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 I've noticed people embracing the idea of Jon being visited by the 3EC or BR or Bran while in a comatose state, not dead, and I agree with parts of those posts, but I've also noticed the idea or phrase rather that this will cause an "awakening" of Jon's warging powers - I though Jon already is a powerful warg... Wouldn't it be more interesting for him to attain a different "power" or to find out certain things, or both? Warging is something he already possesses, why say the visit he gets during the comatose state will awaken that? *shrugs*Anyway, we've seen how traumatic/near death experiences cause a supernatural shift/change in the Stark kids which reminds me of the famous Nietzsche quote: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Those could be their fallback words :laugh: I wonder if the same could be said for Targs/some Targs?Also, won't Jon and Dany be two symbolic resurectees? She from fire/the pyre and him from being frozen/the Wall? Clash of the resurectees...not a word, I know :frown5: leading legions of icy/fiery undead... *gasp*Edited for typos... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Crow Posted November 18, 2012 Author Share Posted November 18, 2012 I think the point is that at the moment Jon's power is latent. Part of him is in Ghost just as part of Ghost is in him, to paraphrase Jojen Reed. He can't yet harness let alone control that power, which is what the Morrigan moment will be all about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little Wing Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 I know I'd love to see some Stark history through Jon's POV when him and the 3EC have their little chat... the Stark connection to Winter especially. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lysmonger Posted November 18, 2012 Share Posted November 18, 2012 Im not saying that the Morrigan does not have to exist. But i Believe bloodraven would essentially know about her. Its just surprising that Bloodraven makes no mention of the white walkers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melifeather Posted November 19, 2012 Share Posted November 19, 2012 My Internet at home is out. Mediacom has a recorded message saying all of Minnesota will be out until maybe 8 pm central. All you Brits will be asleep by then, so I may as well wait till Monday to post my thoughts. This one fingered business on my iPhone is not to my liking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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