Heresy 53

[Black Crow]

By all means, keep discusing about the 'white priests' and their daggers, I for one, have nothing to say about that, at least not just now :D

Ah well, it is the meat and drink of heresy, for such unconsidered trifles provide us with the clues to what's really going on.

[Black Crow]

Oooh, I like "black walkers"!!

Ah, remember Craster's boys are also known as White Shadows, so Black Shadows (or Red Shadows) might be appropriate for Mel and her ilk.

Or we could say that if the white ones are Otherlanders, the red ones might be Neverlanders :cool4:

[WindsOfWinter]

Ah, remember Craster's boys are also known as White Shadows, so Black Shadows (or Red Shadows) might be appropriate for Mel and her ilk.

The shadows come to dance, my lord, dance my lord, dance my lord! The shadows come to stay, my lord, stay my lord, stay my lord!

[Tyryan Lannister]

Indeed, I think its another pointer towards the popular theory that Jon will be revived by Mel being a bit iffy and that there will indeed be a conflict over him of some kind, with the Red lot having to contend not just with the Otherlanders but with Val and other representatives of the Old Gods - and I don't just mean the tree-huggers.

Maybe both Mel and Val perform the necessary rituals to "revive" him and it ends up being Val who does it but Mel believes that she herself did, for she doesn't know that Val had been doing her own ritual at the same time :dunno:

[Tyryan Lannister]

Or we could say that if the white ones are Otherlanders, the red ones might be Neverlanders :cool4:

So Benerro is Hook and Moqorro is Smee? :eek:

[Black Crow]

Nah, Mel is Smee.

[Black Crow]

Maybe both Mel and Val perform the necessary rituals to "revive" him and it ends up being Val who does it but Mel believes that she herself did, for she doesn't know that Val had been doing her own ritual at the same time :dunno:

No, I think its all part of the confounding of expectations. Its assumed by most that Mel will kiss him better and he's going to rise up as Azor Ahai, instead, as you know, we expect him to go the other way. Apart from anything else with two books to go its a bit early for revelations. He's going to have to work at his destiny - whatever it is.

[Boulderbum]

By all means, keep discusing about the 'white priests' and their daggers, I for one, have nothing to say about that, at least not just now :D

All this talk of bone daggers got me re-reading the beginning ofGoT. I'm sure this has been mentioned with regards to timeline, but in Catlyn I, she remarks that the weir woods were burned out of the south 1000 years ago. This supports the compressed timeline since we are led to believe this happened during the Andals war against the children/FM

[Black Crow]

All this talk of bone daggers got me re-reading the beginning ofGoT. I'm sure this has been mentioned with regards to timeline, but in Catlyn I, she remarks that the weir woods were burned out of the south 1000 years ago. This supports the compressed timeline since we are led to believe this happened during the Andals war against the children/FM

Its certainly consistent with what Rodrik the Reader and Hoster Blackwood tell us, even if we were to allow for the Andals waiting until they had secured control of Westeros before turning on the Old Races.

[Tyryan Lannister]

All this talk of bone daggers got me re-reading the beginning ofGoT. I'm sure this has been mentioned with regards to timeline, but in Catlyn I, she remarks that the weir woods were burned out of the south 1000 years ago. This supports the compressed timeline since we are led to believe this happened during the Andals war against the children/FM

Its certainly consistent with what Rodrik the Reader and Hoster Blackwood tell us, even if we were to allow for the Andals waiting until they had secured control of Westeros before turning on the Old Races.

Can't remember, does Hoster say that the Raventree weirwood was poisoned thousands of years ago or a thousand years ago?

[Tyryan Lannister]

From an Iron Man 3 on Facebook fake-newsfeed:

Tony Stark: I have to leave.

Peppert Potts: Where are you going?

Tony Stark: Robb just left for war and there must always be a Stark in Winterfell!

:lmao:

http://www.funnyordie.com/articles/b322d1fb52/iron-man-3-on-facebook?playlist=featured_pictures_and_words

[King Tyrion VIII]

Can't remember, does Hoster say that the Raventree weirwood was poisoned thousands of years ago or a thousand years ago?

1,000

From an Iron Man 3 on Facebook fake-newsfeed:

Tony Stark: I have to leave.

Peppert Potts: Where are you going?

Tony Stark: Robb just left for war and there must always be a Stark in Winterfell!

:lmao:

http://www.funnyordie.com/articles/b322d1fb52/iron-man-3-on-facebook?playlist=featured_pictures_and_words

Love it :D

[Black Crow]

Just to digress slightly. There is a popular theory amongst those who subscribe to R+L=J that Bran will be able to tell Jon who his parents are because Lyanna would have insisted on being married in front of a weirwood tree and Bran can see the past...

Bit problematic if there are no live weirwoods south of the Neck.

[Tyryan Lannister]

Just to digress slightly. There is a popular theory amongst those who subscribe to R+L=J that Bran will be able to tell Jon who his parents are because Lyanna would have insisted on being married in front of a weirwood tree and Bran can see the past...

Bit problematic if there are no live weirwoods south of the Neck.

But (IIRC) there are living weirwoods south of the neck--with the exception of the one at Raventree, every weirwood that we have seen in the castles (Harrenhall, Riverrun) are still very much alive; and we have heard Jaime speak of the weirwood at the Rock, and there is the one that was still living at Storm's End that Mel burned after the shadow baby killed the castellan. And taking into account that the Daynes, who were most likely heavily involved in the whole Rhaegar-Lyanna situation, are one of the most prominent First Men families that still regularly identifies as such, it is very likely that they still tend to a weirwood out at Starfall, so maybe that's where Rhaegar and Lyanna went for the wedding, and then, not wanting to force the Daynes' hand and make them look like they were "harboring the enemy" in advent of a loss, Rhaegar decided to move from Starfall to the Tower of Joy. And if it didn't happen at Starfall, maybe they went to the Isle of the Faces? Of course, this all hinges on them having been married, while it is very possible that no wedding ever actually took place.

[Black Crow]

There were certainly heart trees in the godswoods, but were they actual weirwoods?

ETA: Post (VI) so I think its time I went and had a lie down. Good night all.

[Hrafntýr]

WW can be Craster's sons and other humans who have been turned into WW. It is still entirely possible the Others are a humanoid race. Perhaps human/nearly human.

I think that the point of the changeling business, which is such an integral part of Faerie legend, is the need to take human consorts and servants not only to do the things they themselves can't, also but to keep it all going.

At a very basic level if you are geared up to live forever, or at least as near to forever as makes no difference, reproduction doesn't come very highly in the order of things. This is all very well up to a point, but you can't respond to change and to consequent losses except by taking changelings.

This is of course exactly what we're seeing with Bran. The Children/Singers live for a very long time but as a people they aren't coping with their losses, which is why they have effectively kidnapped first Bloodraven and now Bran. He is as much a changeling as Craster's sons, which is why those wights are sitting outside the cave to ensure he doesn't get away until his transformation is complete.

This helps to get at my question above about the reality of fire demons. I think that what we see with Mel and Moqorro is something much more akin to what's going on with BR and may happen to Bran: the willing self-sacrifice of a human to Ice or Fire. I know that the slave background of Mel and Moqorro complicates this, since we don't know if they were given a choice in the matter. But this seems different from whatever the WWs are doing with Craster's sons (and I think I incline toward seeing them "feed" off the life-force/breath of the infants sacrificed). Though I suppose the magic may be the same: the consumption of the life of the sacrifice to make the flesh that is ice or fire. To me there's an element of mutual transfiguration here: the flesh is made ice/fire which is made flesh, or rather, the sacrifice allows the (continued? see our earlier remarks on reincarnation/incarnation) embodiment of the ice/fire being. In Sanskrit, we have a type of nominal compound called the dvandva, which puts two nouns together to make a compound word in which both nouns carry equal weight, as if there's an "and" between them, instead of implying some causal or other priority (think, "singer-songwriter" as an example in English). I think of something like this with Mel, and maybe the WWs: Ice-Flesh, Fire-Flesh, to get at how its both fire and flesh, since we can't say, causally, which has priority (i.e. it's fire made flesh, but also flesh made fire).

As to the particular significance of Val’s “bone” dagger, which could well be antler-bone, and the antler bone dagger used to kill the she-wolf, the most obvious point is that neither are of iron, far less any other kind of metal.

Well, I'm a holdout in this thread for the idea that the stag/elk is responsible for killing the direwolf mama, but your point here is definitely the important one as far as I'm concerned: that the killing substance is not of human origin. I'm pretty certain that there's magic to be done with bones, not just from the above, but also the bones in the crypts at Winterfell, and the bones that Roose has below the Dreadfort, that I'm pretty sure have something to do with his own ideas/practices of immortality/nonaging.

[Tyryan Lannister]

I think I incline toward seeing them "feed" off the life-force/breath of the infants sacrificed

Well, I'm a holdout in this thread for the idea that the stag/elk is responsible for killing the direwolf mama

I am in agreement with both of these statements and they remain one of the few things that BC and I have differing opinions on.

[Lord Martin Sheol]

And I was about to write a post saying that people seemed to be less heretical on friday xD

Hmmm, about R+L, I'd bet that they did married since R was so thematic with this three heads thing I think it wouldn't be crazy wanting to officialice the union with the Gods if not the mens at least. About the godswoods, I remember that only in Kings Landing and the Eerie we know there's no wierwood. The rest of the godswood, I can't remember, and given Tyryan's post, I'd say that there are weirwoods at the south, and ultimately, there's the Isle of the Faces.

I like black/white shadows :D It does makes sense with Patchface's song, and the spiritual aspect of those beings. What evidence do we have about WWs not using the apparent methos the Fire lot uses? It'd seem that the 'BSs' the body and memories from the original human being, I'd even say that there's no destruction of the previous being, rather a change, an enhance on the original person. And there's Craster's wifes/daughters calling the WWs as Gilly's son's brothers, wich persuades us into thinking they weren't sacrificed as in killed, but sacrificed as in offered. Again I humbly ask, because I'm not getting it, which hints are you following to conclude they may be killed/drained?

[Hrafntýr]

But (IIRC) there are living weirwoods south of the neck--with the exception of the one at Raventree, every weirwood that we have seen in the castles (Harrenhall, Riverrun) are still very much alive; and we have heard Jaime speak of the weirwood at the Rock, and there is the one that was still living at Storm's End that Mel burned after the shadow baby killed the castellan. And taking into account that the Daynes, who were most likely heavily involved in the whole Rhaegar-Lyanna situation, are one of the most prominent First Men families that still regularly identifies as such, it is very likely that they still tend to a weirwood out at Starfall, so maybe that's where Rhaegar and Lyanna went for the wedding, and then, not wanting to force the Daynes' hand and make them look like they were "harboring the enemy" in advent of a loss, Rhaegar decided to move from Starfall to the Tower of Joy. And if it didn't happen at Starfall, maybe they went to the Isle of the Faces? Of course, this all hinges on them having been married, while it is very possible that no wedding ever actually took place.

Although I don't buy into the Bran seeing a hypothetical L+R wedding before a heart tree, I'm glad that you raised this question of the existence of weirwoods south of the Neck, which is important. Like you, I always am like "Huh?" when people say that there aren't any, since I always thought it was clear that there were. Of course BC's question as to whether southern godswoods have weirwoods is a good one, but we know of at least a few that do: besides the dead Raventree (that I'm looking to be reenlivened!), and the burned one at Storm's End, we know that there's one at Harrenhal, one at Riverrun, at Casterly Rock (if I'm not mistaken), and I remember Brienne at the whispers seeing a wild, young weirwood growing (I remember it because the description sounded like the young slender weirwood in the Bran/John dream). I've always thought that any of the houses that think of themselves as descended from the First Men (I know, I know, everyone's all interbred and all, but some houses pride themselves on the integrity of their First Men lineage, houses like Royce, e.g.) would have a weirwood in their godswood.

[WhiteGuts]

The question of the weirdwoods isn't that important anyway. If what Bloodraven said is true, when Bran is at full capacity, he won't need them to be able to see.