Drawing Blood From a Bolton

[Lady Green]

Yes, but poisoning simply isn't Ramsay's style no matter how sly he may be. And why does Roose go out of his way to blame Ramsay when he could have merely gone along with the maester's diagnosis?

I think this could be as simple as Bolton wanting to cover his back and make sure he can get rid of Ramsay if needs be, murder of an heir could be punished by the King etc. Also means if he does want to get rid of Ramsay then he could do it without getting his hands dirty. This doesn't even necessarily have to mean that Domeric was poisoned, nevermind by who.

[Beorn Snow]

I like this theory. (And whether Ramsay is subtle has nothing to do with it ;) )

I can imagine an Other-Bolton connection. But like someone said, when we had an eye at the Dreadford we should´ve had more hints at it. But who knows, it´s a possibility.

[rivergirl]

Love this theory! I'm so glad we've got forum masterminds such as yourself working on the Song as well as the Game, because sooner or later they're going to have to cross paths.

Also, something you mentioned really briefly that i loved- when Winterfell and Joramun joined forces to free the Watch, just like how now the Watch and the Wildlings are joining forces to free Winterfell. It's nice to see that the North does indeed remember.

[Ingelheim]

Nice theory butterbumps, as ever. It seems that Roose has a lot of secrets, and his obsesion with the blood is strange.

[Ororo727 Jon Snow Fangirl]

IIRC, Roose tells Theon that he if he has a child with Fat Walda that Ramsay will more than likely kill him as well.

[BringerOfSnow]

I tend not to bite at most crackpot theories, but this one tastes delicious! Almost as good as a Freypie!

[Little Wing]

Very interesting. I hope this thread compliments the idea.

[lojzelote]

That's an interesting theory, Bumps. I like some aspects of it, mainly the thing with Roose; I too think he's got aspirations to prolong his natural lifespan, or something of that kind. From description we get he sounds a bit like a vampire (not that I think he is a literal vampire) and Sadako level creepy.

What I don't undestand, though, is the bit with the Other blood. While I think that it's possible that the Stark King who put down the NK would let his relative's potentially dangerous halfbreed children live due to the fear of kinslaying, I don't follow why would the said progeny be presented with vast lands, let alone a stronghold like Dreadfort. I find it far more likely that if such mongrel children ever existed, the Starks would have them locked up like the proverbial crazy wife in the attic, and they would never see light of the day again.

[butterbumps!]

What I don't undestand, though, is the bit with the Other blood. While I think that it's possible that the Stark King who put down the NK would let his relative's potentially dangerous halfbreed children live due to the fear of kinslaying, I don't follow why would the said progeny be presented with vast lands, let alone a stronghold like Dreadfort. I find it far more likely that if such mongrel children ever existed, the Starks would have them locked up like the proverbial crazy wife in the attic, and they would never see light of the day again.

This is a really good point. I think it might stand on its own as something highly questionable even putting aside any magical implications for a moment. The Boltons seem unique in having had an ongoing habit of terrorizing the North/ Starks, which only ended (allegedly) a thousand years ago. It seems like the Boltons were serious trouble historically, but they were never stripped of lands, titles or anything. I think that's rather odd on its own.

I don't want to push this too far, since I know the premise is speculative, but if the Boltons are in fact descendants of the NK, it may follow that they took the Dreadfort lands and built this castle (I know this is thin, but I find it somewhat similar to the Nightfort conceptually), staked their claim, and then the Starks challenged them. I wouldn't think the Starks had anything to do with giving them titles or land; I think the Boltons rose up and took it (in this scenario). Years of fighting may have lost the initial reason why these two families were at odds, and by the time the truce was drawn, the reason for the rivalry may have been lost entirely.

[The Mother of The Others]

Placeholder. Will finish reading the theory in the days ahead. It's enjoyable so far.

[TheNorthernWarrior]

My belief was that the Boltons were Kings of their own back in First Men Days, and they were the last Major House in the North to bend the knee to the Starks. I don't believe they have any direct relations with the Starks (other than all people in the North would have some general level of relation). The Starks didn't grant them anything, the Boltons kept their Castles & Lands in exchange for peace. Later on when they rebelled and were put down, the Starks laid siege to the Dreadfort for 3 years! Thats a long Siege, clearly the Castle is the rival to Winterfell in terms of strength (pre-Burning).As a reward Karlon Stark for victory was awarded his own seat and lands, which later became known as Karstark. I would assume those lands were taken from the Boltons, as penance for the rebellion. This means that the Boltons most likely surrendered, conceding large amounts of land (Karstark is itself a major House now) and avoiding total defeat. They have been a weakened house since, hence why they haven't rebelled until a golden opportunity aka now.

Clearly if you add Karstark Lands to Bolton Lands you would have an uber powerful house, as the Boltons must have been back in the day. Dividing their land in half, giving the Eastern part of a Stark sub-branch, meant that you now had Stark Lands to the East and West of Boltons, and Umbers to the North.

[House Mauldania]

I think there is something to this, but I don't think the line started from the NK.

[Sworn Shield]

I always found it interesting that Roose is the only person to not succumb to the "Curse of Harrenhal". IIRC Roose's last scene in Harrenhal has him burning pages of a book into a fire, I always thought that was weird.

[Florina Laufeyson]

Roose appears to be very otherworldy. Other characters remark on his "unfeeling", "icy", and "disturbing" manner. How he never raises his voice and that cold, inhuman look in his eyes. Roose's whole complex about "bad blood will out" is also telling. Why is he so obsessed with this? Could this have anything to do with the possible connection to the Others? The Boltons as a whole seem to be so very envious of the Starks and their skinchanging. The flayed man on the Boltons' sigil does invoke the whole using men and wearing their skin. What do the Others do? They use a form of supernatural power to occupy the skins of men, mindlessly, as wights.

This is a pretty interesting theory.

[Sevumar]

Another poster and I have been cataloging citations of the Red Priests and R'hllor for different, non crackpot purposes, and it put some questions about the Others into a different relief for me. We have a lot more info on R'hllor and fire magic than we do for the Others, but it strikes me that there are so many fundamental similarities between these two magics (both philosophically and in terms of how the magic manifests), that I began to rethink some assumptions about the Others based on things we know of fire.

I think it's possible that ice and fire magic could be the opposite poles of one of a number of push-pull magic spectra, but I'm not sure that the magic of the Others is accessible to humans. Beyond some similarities in the tasks those two magics are capable of performing, I don't see a whole lot of reason to tie them together, necessarily. Importantly, we don't know anything about what the magic of the Others costs its practitioners or how common they are among the population of Others. Magic seems inherently bound up in the identity of the others, an inseparable part of their nature, so it seems reasonable that it would function or be practiced in significantly different ways than we've seen humans wield magic.

It's clear that fire magic is channeled by humans; it seems to manifest via humans tapping into the magic cycles you speak of, and the more it is tapped into, the more powerful it becomes. Given how strikingly similar the theology and eschatology of the Reds are to the small bits we get from the Long Night and ice magic, I don't think it's a huge stretch to entertain the possibility that ice magic could have similar origins to fire magic in terms of the human use of blood magic, and by extension, has an entirely human basis as well.

I'm not sold on the idea that usage of fire magic reinforces its growing strength. I think the 'level' or potency of magic in Westeros derives from the state of the world's magic balance without much in terms of a human input. The exception, of course, would be a dampening event like the Doom of Valyria or the destruction of some key part of the balance's framework. The power of magic seems to be influenced by a couple of things, the overall 'tide' of magic in the world as I mentioned above, and the user's proximity to geography that amplifies power (Melisandre's statement about the Wall as a hinge of the world).

The sort of human degeneration through the use of magic is something I believe we may have seen with regard to Mel and Moqorro. Moqorro's descriptions almost suggest that he's been entirely consumed by magic-- the black of his skin suggests charring sort of like what he did with Vic's arm; it's noted curiously, almost as though it doesn't seem natural.

I think Moqorro's skin color derives from his ethnicity, not his handling of fire magic. In contrast, High Priest Benerro seems to be of Qartheen origin and he seems to have incurred no skin pigmentation change from his use of R'hllorian magic. Victarion's arm is described in a very different manner from Moqorro's skin, in that it is charred, broken, and hot, far from the state of normal flesh. Nothing stands out as abnormal about Moqorro's appearance aside from his size.

We know that the FM did use blood sacrifice from Bran's vision of the woman with a bronze sickle. I know that popular opinion is that this is how the FM began waking the weirwoods, but I find it passing odd that if this were the case, that Bran would be seeing what happens before the man's blood hits the ground. If the sacrifice is when the tree "woke," why does he see the ceremony that took place before the sacrifice actually happened?

I share your skepticism about the 'blood sacrifice' waking the trees. My own thoughts on the subject are that the First Men, being from Essos, were accustomed to rituals that relied on transactional magic fueled by blood. Possessing that understanding, they came to Westeros, observed that the weirwoods were somehow tied to the magic of the Children, and tried to reproduce the powers of the Children by applying rules they understood. This wouldn't have worked, and it would have been a big misinterpretation of a completely different system of magic native to the races of Westeros.

I don't believe that this shows us much about CotF magic or weirwoods, but something else. I think that CotF magic is separate from blood sacrifice; it seems that blood is how "magic" is channeled by humans. We know that blood is part of what creates the Others as well. Craster has been sacrificing his sons to them, ostensibly making them stronger. I really think the presence of blood sacrifice implies the sort of magic that becomes a hiltless sword (i.e. human generated).

I think we agree about the nature of the Children's magic being apart from the system of blood magic employed by most human civilizations. I don't think we can say for certain that blood magic is involved in any process associated with the Others. We have Craster's understanding that he's sacrificing blood and flesh to the Others and receiving some benefit in return, but no specifics with which to evaluate what's really going on here.

We're very light on any details about the mechanics of anything used by the Others, and I think this is intentional on Martin's part. I think he wants us to share the kind of dread experienced by characters who don't know when the enemy will show up, how it will behave, and what it wants. As readers, we know a little about tools that can be used to combat them, but even this knowledge is only shared by a small circle of those who went on the Great Ranging. Not even the entirety of the Night's Watch acknowledges the threat of the Others and their abilities.

There's nothing to suggest that the Others are some ancient, pre-existing Westerosi race, just as there is no evidence that they are humans corrupted by magic. However, we have 3 examples of FM blood sacrifice, two of which are directly connected to the Others: Craster and the NK. We also have Bran's vision. I think it may make more sense if the Others are in fact former humans in light of what seems to be the nature of blood magic and the corruption that occurs when blood magic is used (and the sort of unbounded danger these sorts of magic produce).

Actually, I think something Martin said does suggest that pretty strongly:

"'The Others are not dead. They are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the Sidhe made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous.'

The inclusion of 'inhuman' in that capsule description of the Others seems like a shorthand way of saying that they are a species unto themselves. Their nature and motives are so alien that traditional human ways of thinking about warfare might not even apply, and the comparison to the Sidhe reinforces that. For me, that puts to rest any idea that the Others are derivative of humankind. My guess would be that their existence may even predate the dawn of humanity in Martin's world. There's something that makes them more akin to a force of nature than a species of mortals.

They can apparently only be harmed by certain materials and they work materials known to men to be unworkable with human arts.

The Others are also skin changers-- they seem to wear the skins of the corpses. If the Boltons were connected to the Others, wearing dead people's skins would, in fact, be a propagandistic demonstration of their own abilities. I came to the conclusion that this might be a form of mockery or envy while I was reading; in light of thinking through their possible connection to the Others, however, I could see this practice as being less about imitation and mockery, but rather an assertion of their own powers.

I don't think this is a very accurate characterization of the Others at all. Wights don't seem to be the consciousness of the Others inside a dead body the way that human and CotF skinchanging works. Rather, it seems to be a magical technique used by the Others as a kind of force multiplier. What makes sense to me is that the Others have the ability to animate dead corpses and to imbue them with some basic sense of purpose and some orders. They clearly have access to the knowledge, skills, and senses of the bodies they're using for their wights, so there seems to be a biological process going on in addition to the magical one. This is very different from skinchanging as described in the story and it seems to have no connection to the Boltons.

[redviper9]

Going off of the discussion of how the Boltons acquired their lands, I think the fact that the Starks haven't extinguished them or at the very least stripped them of good chunks of their territories shows that there's more going on here than the standard Lord Paramount vs. envious/rebellious bannerman type of relationship. Again, we just have to look at how some other conflicts of this nature played out in Westeros. Tywin Lannister wiped out every member of Houses Reyne and Tarbeck and left their castles in ruins as silent reminders of what would happen to those who dared cross Casterly Rock. Aerys Targaryen destroyed House Darklyn and most of House Hollard. Following the Blackwater, the Tyrells wasted no time in stripping the Florents of Brightwater Keep and awarding the lands to themselves. The Baratheons allowed a branch of the Conningtons to retain Griffin's Roost, but stripped them of so much land that the house is nowhere near as powerful as it once was.

And yet the Boltons, despite their numerous challenges to the Starks -- challenges that often resulted in the Lord of the Dreadfort killing the Stark in Winterfell and wearing his skin -- remain one of the most powerful noble families in the North. This leads me to think that the Boltons carved out their stronghold in the North while the Starks were establishing their hegemony (a lá Dorne, where both the Martells and the Yronwoods were considered royal families prior to Nymeria's invasion); therefore, it's not a matter of the Starks having given the Boltons their lands, as they did with the Mormonts, the Manderlys, and the cadet branch of House Stark that would eventually become the Karstarks.

Going further, and tapping into the possible magical connections of both the Starks and the Boltons, perhaps leaving the Boltons around was a matter of balance. The Starks seem to be closely associated with the "earth" magic of the Children of the Forest and the weirwoods, a magic that seems more natural and cares more about balance than ice and fire magic. It could be that the old Kings of Winter knew that the Boltons -- despite their many depravities and their hypothesized connection to ice magic -- were necessary to maintain a proper balance; in other words, there can be no light without darkness. The Bolton challenges can thus be interpreted as an effort to upset the natural order for their own ends, and though the Starks always fight to put the Boltons down, they know that the balance could also be upset if the Boltons were no longer around.

[Ragnorak]

Wonderfully put together Butterbumps. You used enough Krazy Glue that no one will ever know the pots are cracked!

Brash brought up Lady Dustin earlier. My big question mark with her has always been Ramsay. He has a penchant for victimizing women and she calls him the hated bastard word with impunity. She may even show less hatred for the Freys than Ramsay. Since Ramsay is Roose's heir I can't find an agenda for her that fits with being a Bolton supporter that accounts for Ramsay. I do think she fits into the Roose mystery somehow.

I think you definitely hit on a something with Reek. Nothing remotely crackpot about that at all. Access to Lady Bolton's chambers-- twice-- and a Maester requires an explanation and being a Bolton (or somehow otherwise being very important to Roose) is the only one I can think of. His second wife was Lady Dustin's sister so she must have heard some interesting tales...

I also think you're dead on about the similarities of magic. I wanted to start thread about this very topic but haven't gone through to yank out all the magic descriptions yet. Jojen compares wood to fire as being similar in power. The Red Priest fire gazing sounds essentially the same as greenseer tree watching. Both view past, present, and future events. The CoTF controlled nature and we see two Red Priests burning people to control the winds. We see the Red Priest resurrection and MMD's non-fire raising the dead. Jojen's dreams are basically the same as the Targ prophetic dreams we've seen. Wights seem to be basically warged corpses. Some magical forces seem to be in opposition as well. The Ghost of Highheart tells Thoros that the weirwood stumps remember and he'll see nothing in his fires while on that hill.

Direwolves, mammoths, and giants might be the parallel for dragons and the Red Priests could be the Other counterpart. Too little information but it isn't unfounded. If you look at the destruction of the Red Waste or the once fertile land around Meereen it has a Long Night apocalyptic feel. North is the Heart of Winter and Valaryia could be seen as the Heart of Fire. Beric complained to Thoros about fire consuming and "too many times." What would happen if he stayed undead for too long or was raised too often? Would he be a fire wight? We do know the Wall doesn't stop Mel from crossing for what that matters. I got the sense that her shadow babies were more a "Shadowbinder" thing than a Red Priest thing. But the shadow babies and the White Walker mist have certain similarities.

There's more than a few oddities surrounding Roose. Mel's use of leeches adds to the mystery his odd leeching habit. The unique eyes stand out especially with the ice description. There's also the Bael the Bard tale where the bastard of Winterfell is killed (flayed specifically) by a Bolton implying the Wildlings and Starks are allies against the Boltons (as they were allied against the NK.)

[Dr. Pepper]

Actually, I think something Martin said does suggest that pretty strongly:

"'The Others are not dead. They are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the Sidhe made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous.'

The inclusion of 'inhuman' in that capsule description of the Others seems like a shorthand way of saying that they are a species unto themselves.

This is part of an email exchange between Martin and the illustrator of the graphic novels. Martin is describing what the Others look like, how they move, etc to an artist. It would be completely different if this email occurred with the scripter, but it didn't. This is information that Tommy Patterson needed to better provide a visual portrayal of the Others. The above is a fragment of one tiny part of the email exchange between Martin and the illustrator.

<snippity snip snip>

Rag...amazing job detailing the two sides of the coin!

[hollowcrown]

I do believe that the Starks made some sort of pact in order to become the Kings of Winter which was one of co-operation with the Old Gods. But now that pact has been broken

Do you think it's possible the pact was broken by Robb getting married by the faith of the Seven?

Or did that just happen in the TV series...I can't remember.

[Beorn Snow]

Do you think it's possible the pact was broken by Robb getting married by the faith of the Seven?

Or did that just happen in the TV series...I can't remember.

Nah I doubt that. It can hardly be the first time a Stark marries in the south like that. But also, everything had long begun moving by then.