Heresy 45

[Black Crow]

I always pictured the Drowned God as figure like Cthulhu... But I´m not sure about this, but it really would be interesting if the cause of the rise of the others is simply that they´re being forgotten. No one believes in then anymore...

Its years since I read any Lovecraft but I likewise tend to see him as something not unlike Cthulhu and if anything was a candidate for the Great Other it might be him, but I don't see a direct connection with the Sidhe.

Rather, I'd suggest its not simply a matter of the Others/Sidhe coming back but that the rising power of magic is awakening all sorts of "Old Powers", not just those of Ice and Fire. If Ice and Fire have somehow upset the balance it doesn't necessarily follow that the other powers will stand neutral and may even (if the Drowned God is based on Cthulhu) turn out to be a good deal worse.

[alienarea]

Not sure what you mean. Craster is giving up his sons to the Others/Sidhe for whatever purpose and has been doing so for years as a conscious if not necessarily a willing act.

Stark sons are certainly going out of fashion but at a variety of seemingly unrelated hands.

Where are you thinking there might be a connection?

I'm not sure how to word this. Throughout the series there is a strong impact of the maternal bloodlines, especially with the Starks: the Bael story, the delayed she-wolves of Winterfell, Lyanna, now we have Arya and Sansa as the ones who will get revenge (I speculate). On the other (sic!) Craster gives his boys to the White Walkers and "bears a heavy curse". Are Starks cursed as well and the males die untimely? Is Craster a Stark?

[Little Wing]

Its years since I read any Lovecraft but I likewise tend to see him as something not unlike Cthulhu and if anything was a candidate for the Great Other it might be him, but I don't see a direct connection with the Sidhe.

Rather, I'd suggest its not simply a matter of the Others/Sidhe coming back but that the rising power of magic is awakening all sorts of "Old Powers", not just those of Ice and Fire. If Ice and Fire have somehow upset the balance it doesn't necessarily follow that the other powers will stand neutral and may even (if the Drowned God is based on Cthulhu) turn out to be a good deal worse.

Well, yeah, but I wasn't talking about Cthulhu himself as much as the Old Ones from the story... Cthulhu is just a high priest of sorts IIRC... anyway, I'm only seeing them loosely tied to the Others/Sidhe, just wanted to hear thoughts on it :)

[Black Crow]

Well Qhorin Halfhand did warn that "the Old Powers" were awakening, which is at the very least a nod to Lovecraft even if we're not necessarily going in that direction with the story.

[Little Wing]

Oh, of course - just loose parallels. I tread lightly on the Ice of Sidhe, no worries :smug:

But, what I should say, mayhaps is O Rl' yeh? :lol:

[Black Crow]

I recently stumbled in the wiki over the last words of Maester Aemon to Jon:

“You are half the age that Egg was, and your own burden is a crueler one, I fear. You will have little joy of your command, but I think you have the strength in you to do the things that must be done. Kill the boy, Jon Snow. Winter is almost upon us. Kill the boy and let the man be born.”

There might be some foreshadowing in it and not only advice for the Lord Commander.

The boy IS killed, let's see what man will be born.

Its a popular line on a variety of threads and as you suggest usually taken to mean that young Jon has to die in order to be reborn as...

I'm not so sure though. Aemon offered it as advice on how to serve as Lord Commander and thereafter in ADwD Jon is constantly reminding himself of it in making his decisions, being firm with Sam, resisting invitations to sit and eat with his old friends and so on. He is consciously following the advice, good advice, and I think that's all there is to it without looking for a deeper meaning involving actual death and resurrection.

[Dan Lemaux]

I kinda thought drowned god could be a Manannan figure or Poseidon figure. The father of many demi-gods and one of a few powerful (possibly related? Like brothers?) gods of ancient.

Also, what if the reason for people thinking the knights king was a Bolton and not a stark because of his possible offspring's pale/blue eyes due to breeding with that female other? Kind of a stretch I realize.

[Black Crow]

The latest theory we've discussed is that its both - that the Nights King was indeed Brandon Stark as related by Old Nan, but his seed, his terrible half-human son, was the first Bolton.

[wolfmaid7]

I think the Nk was a Stark,The Stark in WF along with the king-beyond-the-wall overthrew him. I believe though that they did have a child and that it was fostered at WF.I think the child in question was female and the Matriach of the current line of Starks, or maybe she had twins Faes were known for having multiple births; kinda Jacob and Esau thing one became the first Bolton the other remained at WF.

[Bellatrix Stark]

Also, what if the reason for people thinking the knights king was a Bolton and not a stark because of his possible offspring's pale/blue eyes due to breeding with that female other? Kind of a stretch I realize.

Night's King? Nan said the Night's King was a Stark. Are you thinking of another of Nan's stories that was about (I think...) the Boltons rising up against the Starks, one of the Stark's was slayed by a Bolton and that Bolton wore the Stark's skin? That's the only story I can think of right now...

Also, first time here in the Hersey thread. Gotta say ya'll make some sense and I persevered and read this entire thread today. :D

[The Chequered Raven]

Well, yeah, but I wasn't talking about Cthulhu himself as much as the Old Ones from the story... Cthulhu is just a high priest of sorts IIRC... anyway, I'm only seeing them loosely tied to the Others/Sidhe, just wanted to hear thoughts on it :)

Cthulu is one of the Old Ones.

But, as you said, that does not really matters because GRRM surely did not copy but lightli took some inspiration.

[Black Crow]

Night's King? Nan said the Night's King was a Stark. Are you thinking of another of Nan's stories that was about (I think...) the Boltons rising up against the Starks, one of the Stark's was slayed by a Bolton and that Bolton wore the Stark's skin? That's the only story I can think of right now...

Also, first time here in the Hersey thread. Gotta say ya'll make some sense and I persevered and read this entire thread today. :D

Welcome to Heresy, you'll find it gets kinda addictive.

[Bellatrix Stark]

Welcome to Heresy, you'll find it gets kinda addictive.

I definitely found that I badly need to brush up on my Gaelic/ Norse/ what have you mythologies again. Luckily I have a "encyclopedia" of different cultural mythologies. Any that I should pay extra attention to, other than the ones mentioned on this thread?

[Black Crow]

Its a good question and Google is your friend. The important thing to bear in mind is that this is a work of fiction of GRRM's devising and is not a single story or cycle of stories from any particular mythology with only the names changed by way of disguise. For events in the North and in particular beyond the Wall its quite easy to detect elements of Norse mythology and a lot of people pick up on them quite easily outside of the Heresy threads. Where we have an edge in the theoretical interpretation business is in the much less well known Celtic stuff and especially including the Welsh Mabinogion and the Irish Cu Chulain cycle. On the whole though I'd recommend just immersing yourself in what you can find and noting the parallels as well as the more obvious ones like the Morrigan/Morrigen. And if you can come up with fresh connections so much the better.

[brut]

I'm talking about the unknown Last Hero - as I pointed out a few heresies back the lack of a name is significant when compared with the Nights King. Old Nan tells Bran that he too was a Brandon Stark from Winterfell. This may be Old Nan telling him (and us) a truth and that he really was one of the many Bran Starks, or she was ramping it up just for his benefit. In contrast, having been turned down on the offer to tell him the story of Bran the Builder, she tells of the Last Hero and conspicuously doesn't identify him either as Bran the Builder doing somethging more exciting than building things, or as any other Stark. Hence the suggestion that rather than being the leader of the happy band, the Last Hero was just that, the last of the thirteen - and he didn't come back either, which is why nobody knows which of the thirteen he was.

Point is, if he never came back, who would know that he was the last one? What if actually three or four of the group got to the children but never returned? Or, what if no one got to the children at all? Alternatively, how would we know for sure that Old Nan's story about the Last Hero is valid if there was no one coming back sharing the story? Or are you suggesting that children told someone who told someone who told Old Nan? I seriously doubt that. So, existence of the Last Hero is only an assumption of the survivors who may have thought that there must have been the very last of the group reaching the children, because things got better. But, in and by itself IF the children indeed helped humanity, doesn't really mean that any of the humans reached them. Maybe the children just acted on their own accord? So the Last Hero is just that, a hypothesis.

Also, wouldn't it be known at some point when the band of heroes was gathering who they were exactly? Someone making the record of Jons and Mats and Harries heading off into the wild seeking help? If there is an account of the group forming, why isn't there at least some info on who the members were?

[Black Crow]

Well it was a very long time ago...

I think the only viable answer has to be that the Children told men that there had been one left who did whatever had to be done at whatever the cost. Presumably since Bran took comfort from the hope that the Children would help his uncle Benjen as they did the Last Hero, he wasn't killed, but we obviously don't know what did happen to him in the end, which is why we have a possibility that he's Coldhands.

[redriver]

"Joramun blew the Horn of Winter and woke giants from the earth."

Thinking about the recent post about GOT Ascent,in which the Red Comet is seen as heralding a bunch of bad stuff,could the Horn of Winter have been a celestial object?

The Red Comet gets named "Mormont's Torch" by the Night's Watch.Perhaps a white object like an asteroid was called the Horn of Winter in its day (Joramun's).And perhaps it did wake the Others.Could it have landed at Starfall?

I'm sure my timelines are horribly out here.

[Profion]

Comets rarely hit planets, and if has the size to be seen from far, them doesn´t matter where it will hit, whole Westeros would be gone...no need for the others to wake... Though it kinda made me think, perhaps the fall of a huge meteor is the cause of the Long Night? We know that a huge asteroid fall can produce a huge debrits that will stop the light of the sun from heating the planet for months (much like happened with the dinossaur), and the planet enters some kind of Ice age, perhaps a similar event in smaller scale made the planet get colder and gave the Others the chance to spread through the continent? I don´t remember if GRRM had said something about the LN being caused by magic...

[Profion]

Its years since I read any Lovecraft but I likewise tend to see him as something not unlike Cthulhu and if anything was a candidate for the Great Other it might be him, but I don't see a direct connection with the Sidhe.

Rather, I'd suggest its not simply a matter of the Others/Sidhe coming back but that the rising power of magic is awakening all sorts of "Old Powers", not just those of Ice and Fire. If Ice and Fire have somehow upset the balance it doesn't necessarily follow that the other powers will stand neutral and may even (if the Drowned God is based on Cthulhu) turn out to be a good deal worse.

That´s true, no one want´s Cthulhu rising from his sleep \o/

[redriver]

Comets rarely hit planets, and if has the size to be seen from far, them doesn´t matter where it will hit, whole Westeros would be gone...no need for the others to wake... Though it kinda made me think, perhaps the fall of a huge meteor is the cause of the Long Night? We know that a huge asteroid fall can produce a huge debrits that will stop the light of the sun from heating the planet for months (much like happened with the dinossaur), and the planet enters some kind of Ice age, perhaps a similar event in smaller scale made the planet get colder and gave the Others the chance to spread through the continent? I don´t remember if GRRM had said something about the LN being caused by magic...

I hear you.But I'm suggesting an asteroid,which I think is mainly composed of ice,much of which would evaporate away on entering the atmosphere,leaving perhaps a small impact and enough source material to forge Dawn?