HERESY 50

[King Tyrion VIII]

I can't remember if Coldhands' Elk is described as missing an antler or not.

[Tyryan Lannister]

I can't remember if Coldhands' Elk is described as missing an antler or not.

Pretty damn sure it's not the same animal

[Alia of the knife]

I'm actually the exact opposite, for the following reasons: 1) I do get to see some of the memorable scenes realized (Red Wedding should be a great scene, as too should the Beric-Hound fight and the Sack of Astapor), 2) I at least find it fun to try and guess where the show is going with certain things that they have changed (e.g. the Littlefinger-Sansa; I feel that Ros will end up playing the role of Ser Dantos, which hopefully means she gets a crossbow in the gut :devil: ), and 3) the changes that they do which annoy me give me something new to bitch and whine about :cool4:

:laugh:

[Alia of the knife]

Once I read a book I generally have no desire to watch the movie. A recent notable exception would be Steig Larsson's books on Lisabeth Salandar - The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo. I saw the movie first, fell in love and bought the next two books and devoured them only to find myself waiting for book #4, which is held up in court after Larsson passed away with no Last Will. But what I just described is how I came into the world of Ice and Fire. Saw a few of the episodes on TV, fell in love with some characters, bought the rest of the books and find myself waiting for book #6. In both examples, I find myself wanting to watch the books being portrayed on TV for the imagery sensation that I experienced while reading the books.

My biggest fear is that something happens, which causes HBO to go..."okay, lets' wrap it up"....and the screenwriters quickly bring the story to an abrupt end; just like I described a few posts ago with series Deadwood and Rome. In the middle of Season 3 for Deadwood, contracts expired and HBO could not keep actors due to other committments, so the writers took the last remaining episodes and closed out the story. What a huge disappointment to alot of people.

Sorry for the side show as this is really not Heresy material; but I've vented and feel much better.

Thats okay, and I would add also "Carnivale"

[Alia of the knife]

Arctic and North American native view of the wolf:

The she-wolf would be both great mother and hunter of her pack, along with a powerful mate.

Also, crows are not considered harbingers of evil, or bad tidings, instead their intelligence is a major factor in their character, and many tribes associate their clans with them.

"Wolves were generally revered by tribes that survived by hunting, but were thought little of by those that survived through agriculture. Some tribes, such as the Nunamiut of northern and northwestern Alaska and the Naskapi of Labrador respected the wolf's hunting skill and tried to emulate the wolf in order to hunt successfully. Others see the wolf as a guide.^[12] The Tanaina of Alaska believed that wolves were once men, and viewed them as brothers.

Plains

In the Cardinal directions of the Plains Indians, the wolf represented the west, while for the Pawnee, it represented the southeast. According to the Pawnee creation myth, the wolf was the first creature to experience death. The Wolf Star, enraged at not having been invited to attend a council on how the Earth should be made, sent a wolf to steal the whirlwind bag of The Storm that Comes out of the West, which contained the first humans. Upon being freed from the bag, the humans killed the wolf, thus bringing death into the world. The Pawnee, being both an agricultural and hunting people, associated the wolf with both corn and the bison; the "birth" and "death" of the Wolf Star (Sirius) was to them a reflection of the wolf's coming and going down the path of the Milky Way known as Wolf Road"

[TheButcherCrow]

While, as I think has been rather established by now, I oppose any and all deviations from the books on a matter of principle, in trying to figure out why Mel is there the only conclusion I can come to is that it is as a means of showing that they follow the same religion (and probably going on to show that Mel, when faced with someone who actually has been brought back to life, still maintains that she is in the right and that everyone else is wrong, which we of course know to be the exact opposite of the truth--stupid Mel; sorry, can never resist a Mel-bashing :devil: )

Edit: me no can right Anglish :dunce:

She is there to get Gendry. Gendry = Edric, me nem nessa.

[Frey family reunion]

I've been wanting for a while now to raise the subject of the "threefold death" and your post really points in that general direction. (So sorry if this has been discussed before...the search function is not working for me, I'm assuming because the forums are in "performance mode"?).

So there is a hypothetical Indo-European practice of a form of sacrifice known as the threefold death, in which the victim is killed in three ways: by hanging (or falling, or strangulation), by wounding, and by drowning. The obvious mythic figures associated with this motif are Odin and Merlin (in his Welsh form, Myrddin Wyllt); in the case of Odin, he undergoes the threefold death himself in order to attain secret knowledge/prophecy. Merlin is less directly connected: he prophesies a threefold death for someone else, and he ends up dying this way.

A commentator on Lucan's Pharsalia notes that the Celts (he's talking about the Gaulish ones) offer sacrifices to the god Taranis (a storm or thunder god) by burning, to Teutates/Toutatis by drowning, and to Esus (associated with trees and a three-headed bull) by means of suspending his victims from trees and ritually wounding them.

The Old Irish materials hint at a special relationship between this form of death and kingship, though that is work of serious reading between the lines in the extant literature (it's clearest in the stories of Muirchertach macc Ercae, Áed Dub, and Diarmat, but the motif lurks through lots of cattle-raid stories, and that of Da Derga's Hostel). I posted a while back about sacrifice and wells in the British Isles: not human, generally speaking, but there's a strong motif linking decapitation with wells.

In any event: drowning, falling/hanging/wounding, and burning seem to match up pretty well with what you've suggested, FFR. An earlier era may have practiced human sacrifices. Also, the implements of drowning, wounding and burning are present in the Reed Oath.

It does seem like the Nightfort is perfectly set up for Such a multiple sacrifice. Meathooks for hanging, ovens for burning, wells for falling-drowning. All in the presence of a Weirwood tree.

[Tyryan Lannister]

I would comment on other topics, but your hand is quite drunk and currently at a bar drinking more (hurray wifi!) to actually comment, so beyond that go heresy go!

[Harlan]

Good point "bold". It may just be wishful thinking on my part but I'm not taking the Bran you are the 3EC statement as a definitive point that Bloodraven is completely out of the series. I do understand that some characters need to be written out, but I believe HBO can still show BR sitting in his weirwood throne as the master greenseer, before it's all said and done. Again, maybe wishful thinking on my part.

That was my optimistic portion of this post. The pessimistic portion is that I think HBO has bigger hurdles to clear than worrying about catching up with GRRM. As one poster estimated above (assuming two seasons for every book moving forward) it is possible time wise for GRRM to release ADoS in time for the series climatic ending. Quick Math would put ADoS released in 2020 just in time for Season 10. But hears lies the problem and repeating what someone said above...how many shows do you see going 10 seasons?

One of the more recent popular series was the Sopranos...it went 6 seaons. Some of my favorite series (Deadwood went 3 seasons and Rome went 2 seasons) met early ends by means of attrition and the lack of HBO wrapping up the actors/actresses contracts for extended period of times. Now granted, Deadwood and Rome were not based on someones novels..but neither was The Sopranos.

In any event, it is promising that HBO is taking two seasons to present ASoS. This will give them time to explore some meaningful aspects of the books and develop some of the main story arcs. On the other hand, I'm still sratching my head on the lack luster episode 2.

Do we know that seasons 3 and 4 will only cover book 3, or are the show writers abandoning the bbok divisions completely and just making seasons of appropriate length, To clarify, might season 4 cover parts of book 4/5?

Well, he is the one who both protects Dany from getting poisoned by the locusts and it is this event that causes Barry to realize that Hizhdar has to go--and I feel that the reason for Barry relenting on his laurels and essentially committing high treason was because 1) the poison was enough to make even Strong Belwas sick, which means that it definitely would have killed Dany and 2) Belwas had become a very good friend of his over the previous two or so years, so it wasn't just that some random dude got poisoned instead of Dany, it was one of Barry's people; now, yes, in the show, if they keep the poisoning, they will likely have it happen to some random dude and it won't much affect the story line due to Barry still seeing that the poison was meant for Dany, but I feel that removing Belwas and therefore that extra level of "you hurt my friend" is going to cheapen Barry's character a little bit

They'll probably add him in season 4 and make him one of the slaves who fought in the pits. It would introduce the character in time to save dany's life and maintain most of his back story and set up Barry's plot? Any guesses on what will cause Barry to tattle on Mormant in the TV show?

While I have no idea if the Show will make it the full 9/10 seasons it needs to complete the story, I don't think the writers are just going to write an ending if the show loses popularity either. If they were going to change the plot of the story, the best way to do it would be to eliminate the red wedding. The show writers aren't doing that though.

[Black Crow]

I can't remember if Coldhands' Elk is described as missing an antler or not.

There's no mention of it being challenged in that department and the direwolf was in any case killed down by Winterfell not beyond the Wall. That together with the description of the piece of antler that did it having the tines snapped off suggests it was a dagger and right now Gared is the only suspect anywhere near the scene.

[Black Crow]

I've been wanting for a while now to raise the subject of the "threefold death" and your post really points in that general direction. (So sorry if this has been discussed before...the search function is not working for me, I'm assuming because the forums are in "performance mode"?).

So there is a hypothetical Indo-European practice of a form of sacrifice known as the threefold death, in which the victim is killed in three ways: by hanging (or falling, or strangulation), by wounding, and by drowning. The obvious mythic figures associated with this motif are Odin and Merlin (in his Welsh form, Myrddin Wyllt); in the case of Odin, he undergoes the threefold death himself in order to attain secret knowledge/prophecy. Merlin is less directly connected: he prophesies a threefold death for someone else, and he ends up dying this way.

A commentator on Lucan's Pharsalia notes that the Celts (he's talking about the Gaulish ones) offer sacrifices to the god Taranis (a storm or thunder god) by burning, to Teutates/Toutatis by drowning, and to Esus (associated with trees and a three-headed bull) by means of suspending his victims from trees and ritually wounding them.

The Old Irish materials hint at a special relationship between this form of death and kingship, though that is work of serious reading between the lines in the extant literature (it's clearest in the stories of Muirchertach macc Ercae, Áed Dub, and Diarmat, but the motif lurks through lots of cattle-raid stories, and that of Da Derga's Hostel). I posted a while back about sacrifice and wells in the British Isles: not human, generally speaking, but there's a strong motif linking decapitation with wells.

In any event: drowning, falling/hanging/wounding, and burning seem to match up pretty well with what you've suggested, FFR. An earlier era may have practiced human sacrifices. Also, the implements of drowning, wounding and burning are present in the Reed Oath.

Useful post, but just off the top of my head and thinking specifically of Odin, I'm not entirely sure that this was a straightforward sacrifice but an ordeal. It may very frequently have been fatal as witnessed by the various bog burials, but in very simplistic terms survival got you Odin's/Bloodraven's job.

[King Tyrion VIII]

Pretty damn sure it's not the same animal

I just reread the series, each book right after the other, and I'm already forgetting details. ASOIAF is huge.

[Black Crow]

Just as an addendum to my last; the ordeal is pretty clearly alluded to in Bran's heart of winter vision when he sees the impaled dreamers below.

[King Tyrion VIII]

I was just reading some of BranVras's blog and came across the idea that Bittersteel is also still alive and is still playing out the rivalry. Has this possibility ever been discussed before?

I can't get it to copy, but it's #10 near the bottom:

http://branvras.free.fr/HuisClos/Animals.html

[EmmaoftheCanals]

There's no mention of it being challenged in that department and the direwolf was in any case killed down by Winterfell not beyond the Wall. That together with the description of the piece of antler that did it having the tines snapped off suggests it was a dagger and right now Gared is the only suspect anywhere near the scene.

There's that and also: doesn't an elk have antlers which aren't very snappable?

Edit: Nevermind, I looked up some pictures:). I was thinking of a moose.

[Toccs]

I was just reading some of BranVras's blog and came across the idea that Bittersteel is also still alive and is still playing out the rivalry. Has this possibility ever been discussed before?

I doubt it since there whole Golden Skull tradition was started by him on his deathbed.

[Kallb123]

There's no mention of it being challenged in that department and the direwolf was in any case killed down by Winterfell not beyond the Wall. That together with the description of the piece of antler that did it having the tines snapped off suggests it was a dagger and right now Gared is the only suspect anywhere near the scene.

Agreed, it was likely a dagger. I've only got book 3 to hand and Bran says the elks sometimes have antlers. When Bran meets CH I don't remember whether the elk has any antlers, maybe it doesn't seem strange to Bran that he doesn't because he's been told not all elk do anyway. It just seems to link the events up more.

Even if it wasn't CHs elks antler, it seems like a pointer to CH (kinda backing up all the other Gared stuff)

[jon rr stark]

The show makers know how the story ends already, the book and show should have very similar coclusions.

Also, would it be so terrible if the show ended before the books did? I`ve read many books after having watched the movie which was based on the book. I don't think my having watched the movie made the book any less enjoyable.

Surely knowing the endgame would ruin it. For a start we would have nothing to debate or speculate on here

[jon rr stark]

Wait, Bran is the Three Eyed Crow?

Just watched the show last night and I thought Jojen said he was the 3 eyed crow. But is that just the show dumbing down as BC said.

[Hrafntýr]

Useful post, but just off the top of my head and thinking specifically of Odin, I'm not entirely sure that this was a straightforward sacrifice but an ordeal. It may very frequently have been fatal as witnessed by the various bog burials, but in very simplistic terms survival got you Odin's/Bloodraven's job.

Sure, the Lindow and other bog burials give us some (possible...scholars aren't uniformly convinced) evidence of actual sacrificial practices, of rituals. But the archaeological evidence tells us basically nothing of the significance of the threefold death. For that, one needs to look to textual evidence, of which, for the Celts, we have two varieties: the literatures of the Celts (in this case that of the British Isles and the Old Norse) and the first- and secondhand reports of the Romans. The mythological referents of the threefold death were the ones to which I was referring in my post. Obviously Odin and Merlin shouldn't be considered sacrificial tributes. But the mythology surrounding their "trials" can tell us something about the purpose of the threefold sacrifice; in their cases, it has something to do with mantic wisdom. And then the other Celtic materials I referred to relate the threefold death to kingship; the theory is that the three modes of death unite in one person the three "functions" of Celtic society (priest, warrior, and productive classes) into the body of the king.