Heresy 71

[King Tyrion VIII]

How old would that make him though? You are suggesting Mance is a Blackfyre correct?

War of the Ninepenny Kings was circa 259. Thats 41 years to now, plus whatever we speculate Mance's age was when the NW took him from the Wildlings.

[Urrax]

...Redrivers excellent treatment of Winterfell. ...

Where is that?

[LynnS]

Where is that?

[Black Crow]

War of the Ninepenny Kings was circa 259. Thats 41 years to now, plus whatever we speculate Mance's age was when the NW took him from the Wildlings.

No age is given in the story, just that he was a child. However given how fast they grow up north of the Wall I'd say its most unlikely that he would have survived the battle with the Watch if he was older than 9 so if we take Mance as being in his forties the age is spot on for a young boy being taken north to safety - and having the sense not to admit who he really was.

He's certainly younger than Baristan who was the one who offed Maelys.

Casting Mance as a Blackfyre would go a long way towards providing him with a motive, especially with that red and black cloak.

[King Tyrion VIII]

I love the idea of Mance as a Blackfire. Id be comfortable putting his age at about 50.

[cealicu_ca]

donno... BC, I guess i'm going to say that for once I think you're reading too much into it. Sam simply states the facts, Gilly is now Mance's son mother (adoptive, if you want to put it this way), so that would make Craster the grandfather, while still having Mance as his father (a sort of irony... it seems to me like Sam was contemplating the child's situation). Nevertheless i'm intrigued by your new theory (Mance as a Blackfyre) although the evidence is less then circumstantial (might have been the right age and his choice of colors for his coat...). Moreover, I really believe that Mance's "justice" would not have let Craster go on killing his sons (and thus Mance's siblings), if he indeed were Craster's son (and knew of it).

[Black Crow]

I think you're getting confused by two different arguments. :cool4:

I'm not and nor have I ever have been suggesting a connection between Craster and Mance. I don't think that they are related - which is why I am (and have been in the past) suggesting instead a possible Blackfyre connection.

[JonNonRegis]

although the evidence is less then circumstantial (might have been the right age and his choice of colors for his coat...

It's also difficult to see why a Blackfyre (or those guarding him) would choose to flee beyond the Wall. A most inhospitable, remote, awkward location to reach, and once there, to do anything a Blackfyre might want to do. Simply going back across the Stepstones to Essos would be much easier and faster.

Mance's own explanation for his cloak makes plenty of sense to me.

[alienarea]

Off he goes.

[cealicu_ca]

I think you're getting confused by two different arguments. :cool4:

I'm not and nor have I ever have been suggesting a connection between Craster and Mance. I don't think that they are related - which is why I am (and have been in the past) suggesting instead a possible Blackfyre connection.

ops, sorry about that :) almost 1 AM for me, a large glass of dry red wine and my concentration slips away :)))

[Black Crow]

Red wine sounds good, and so does concentration slipping away... good night all.

[Phillip Frye]

Hi. I've been following since the late 40's.

Regarding the issue of Craster's grandson, YOU'RE ALL WRONG.

If Mance's baby is Craster's grandson, that fact would not necessarily make Mance Rayder Craster's son. Instead, I think it more likely that Dalla and (probably) Val are Craster's daughters.

The immediate objection is that Craster's "wives", which mostly consist of his daughters, live sheltered, miserable lives with no knowledge of the outside world, which is the opposite of the impression we have of Dalla and Val. However, if Dalla and Val were Craster's daughters, it is probable that they were not born within the group of "wives" at the keep. Instead, they would have been conceived as part of a political/religious function between Craster and another prominent wildling woman outside of the "wifely" group, almost certainly a priestess of some sort.

From reading the chapters in which Craster appears, I came away with four impressions of the man: incest, gluttony, aravice, and "godly man". I think that Black Crow has already correctly identified Craster's role in wildling society. He is a sin-eater, who pays the tithe to Hell, so the other wildlings don't have to sacrifice their sons or other things of value . . . until recent events set aside the arrangement. I won't recount the earlier descriptions of sin-eaters here, except to note that they undertook to reduce the sins for which a deceased must pay in the afterlife and were hated by everyone, which is pretty much how the wildlings view Craster (no one has a positive view of him).

However, everything that Craster has done in his life leads him to identify himself as a "godly man" with nothing to fear from the Cold Gods. Someone who sleeps with his daughters would not seem to be "godly" under the code of the wildlings. In fact, the wildlings are repulsed by incest and could have easily overpowered the keep, which would have been defended by a single old man, who until shortly before his death lacked even a decent metal axe. So the fact that they tolerated Craster within their midst suggests that he fulfilled some function on their behalf.

As someone pointed out above, he could have left his keep in earlier times to participate in other wildling activities. In fact, the only time we see him is when he is old and kept in his keep by the returning cold at the end of Summer although I concede that his personality would have probably prevented him from leaving his keep for long (his "wives" might stray).

What type of daughter would a "godly man" of the wildlings have? How about a woman who can travel in the Haunted Forest with no fear whatsoever at the onset of Winter, dressed entirely in white, and bearing a ceremonial bone knife (sounds like someone with Winter in her heart). She sounds like someone with nothing to fear from the Cold Gods. Wouldn't a daughter of a "godly man" and from the matrilineal line of wildling priestesses be someone fit to marry the man who has earned the title of King Beyond the Wall?

If Craster fulfilled an important religious function for the wildlings, it would make sense to merge his seed with the matrilineal line of prominent wildling women/priestesses, and I think that this goes double if Craster had Stark blood as well. Therefore, it would make sense that Craster would have been chosen to father additional children outside of the keep, especially valuable daughters (sons could be returned to sender for deposit with the Cold Gods). If Dalla and Val's mother(s) were outside of the Craster Control Group, the taint of incest would not attach to them.

Of course, it could be argued that this theory lacks textual evidence. It certainly is speculation, but no more so than the theory that Craster is the father of Mance Rayder.

If Sam's statement is correct, the real question is how Sam would know this. Usually, GRRM lets us into the thoughts of his POV characters, including Sam, but he ususally explains why they would have knowledge or an opinion (especially when Cersei is doing the thinking). Four options exist:

1) GRRM made a mistake, and Sam told us something that is not true (Craster is not the baby's grandfather). If this was a straight-up mistake, it would have probably have been fixed in the paperback version and later printings.

2) GRRM made a mistake and told us something that is true, but is not something that the character Sam should have known. Basically, this would be an editing mistake, where he cut out some other material and failed to cut out this related statement. Oops.

3) Gilly raising Mance's son makes Craster the grandfather, as pointed out elsewhere.

4) Sam knows something about Craster's lineage that he learned elsewhere and has never thought fit to reflect upon in the books other than to note that the baby is Craster's grandchild, meaning that either Mance or Dalla is Craster's get.

Given how matrilineal in orientation the wildlings are (like the Pict raiders north of Hadrian's Wall when it was built), I am going with Craster being the seed donor for the two most prominent wildling women in the series, Dalla and Val. Who else would be prominent (or notorious) enough to have fathered them?

[Harlan]

But we have seen Thoros raise the dead there is no ambiguity there,we have yet to see any Popisees do that,by now why cloak that in mystery.There is a reason for that ambiguity as well because every tale says for sure that Popsees raise the dead.But no one has ever seen it.To say that someone fought Popsees and rose later,or Popsees past by a few hours after Wights went by so they are responsible is something that a Lawyer would have a field day with.We see Popsiees but we can't say that something unseen is not a factor.

To be perfectly fair, we haven't seen Thoros raise the dead. He took the lightning lords body down a side chamber and they both came back a few moments later. The resurrection is never actually observed by a view point character. for those who wish to read themselves and confirm what I have stated, read chapter 34 of a Storm of swords it's an arya chapter.

Well I believe the exact 'story' about Mance's origins (from the Halfhand) is:

"...He was wildling born, taken as a child when some raiders were put to the sword. When he left the Shadow Tower he

was only going home again.”

From Jon VII (Clash of Kings)

To me "taken" here means "taken from the Wildling raiders." Whether they themselves took him isn't clear but Qhorin saying that when Mance deserted he was "only going hie again." , indicates that he was a child of the Wildlings, at least as far as they were concerned.

Halfhand isn't like Smallwood or Marsh in that he just sees them as savages and has a bias towards them so I think we can take this as a serious pint rather than any bias or some such.

I assume by your strong suspicion of the supposed timing with the Ninepenny War, that you mean he's a Blackfyre? Considering he's a child at this time I doubt he was "fleeing" North, at least by himself. You could say he was being smuggled North but I don't know how he'd fall into the hands of the Wildlings then or how he'd know of his supposed heritage after the fact.

I think it's likely just as Qhorin told it, that he's a Wildling bastard.

Is he Craster's bastard? Possibly. IIRC there's nothing that states that Craster has spent his whole life at his keep. It's very likely he grew up around other Wildlings and as such got a Wildling girl pregnant when he was a teenager. We know the Wildlings are pretty liberal when it comes sex. It doesn't explain how Sam would know but it's not impossible.

Let's assume for a moment that Mance rayder is, in fact, a Blackfyre. How would mance have come to be found at the wall as an infant/baby? We can take the books story for gospel and assume Mance was somehow transported into the hands of wildlings were the watch discovered him and raised him, though I tend to think that is a far more complicated explanation than the following simple one. Mance Rayder (as a baby/infant) was purposefully sent to the wall toward the end of the war of the ninepenny kings. Mance could have been sent by the blackfyres to protect their lineage and make sure an heir survives. Or mance may have been sent north by whomever defeated the blackfyres The people who defeated the blackfyres may have been unwilling to kill a baby, so instead they sent the child to the wall where the child's heritage could be forgotten and the child wouldn't be a threat. The story of mance being discovered when attacking wildlings could have just been the cover story used to explain why the watch suddenly had a baby in their ranks.

[King Tyrion VIII]

Does anyone recall which thread you discussed sin eaters? It sounds very interesting.

[Phillip Frye]

Sorry. It is somewhere back in the mists of Heresy . . .

Basically, a sin-eater existed in England, Scotland, and Wales in the Middle Ages until the late 1800's. The person would eat bread and drink ale in the house of the deceased, taking the decedent's sins upon himself. Usually, the sin-eater was from a low social stratum and was often reviled within the community as a sinful person (remember that the sin-eater has assumed the decedent's sins). The sin-eater was viewed as basically a parasite and beggar (but a necessary one) because of local superstitions that a deceased person could not walk into the afterlife until he was absolved of his sins.

[Phillip Frye]

You might notice that Craster is extremely touchy about his social status via the Night's Watch within his own home. He might have some minor self-esteem issues.

[wolfmaid7]

To be perfectly fair, we haven't seen Thoros raise the dead. He took the lightning lords body down a side chamber and they both came back a few moments later. The resurrection is never actually observed by a view point character. for those who wish to read themselves and confirm what I have stated, read chapter 34 of a Storm of swords it's an arya chapter.

Let's assume for a moment that Mance rayder is, in fact, a Blackfyre. How would mance have come to be found at the wall as an infant/baby? We can take the books story for gospel and assume Mance was somehow transported into the hands of wildlings were the watch discovered him and raised him, though I tend to think that is a far more complicated explanation than the following simple one. Mance Rayder (as a baby/infant) was purposefully sent to the wall toward the end of the war of the ninepenny kings. Mance could have been sent by the blackfyres to protect their lineage and make sure an heir survives. Or mance may have been sent north by whomever defeated the blackfyres The people who defeated the blackfyres may have been unwilling to kill a baby, so instead they sent the child to the wall where the child's heritage could be forgotten and the child wouldn't be a threat. The story of mance being discovered by wildlings could have just been the cover story used to explain why the watch suddenly had a baby in their ranks.

Just to be accurate Lem and Jack helped take Berric's body to the tunnel and Thoros asked Ned to accompany him(pg,472.ASOS). So i'd give Thoros the benefit of the doubt because he had certain variables working for him that would make an excellent case that he raised Berric.He asked for the body,had people with him though our POV didn't actually see anything,but i can make a better case for him raising someone than Popsicles.

[Harlan]

Just to be accurate Lem and Jack helped take Berric's body to the tunnel and Thoros asked Ned to accompany him(pg,472.ASOS). So i'd give Thoros the benefit of the doubt because he had certain variables working for him that would make an excellent case that he raised Berric.He asked for the body,had people with him though our POV didn't actually see anything,but i can make a better case for him raising someone than Popsicles.

agreed. I just wanted to be fair and say that we never actually see Thoros raise Beric. I have no doubts that Thoros did, in fact, resurrect Beric, though.

[Black Crow]

I'm not entirely sure what the issue is here since Thoros himself does describe very clearly how he was simply performing the Red Priests' equivalent of the Last Rites, when to his astonishment a once symbolic ritual actually did bring Beric back, and while we don't see it happen subsequently, we do see the wounds old and new.

[Black Crow]

... Given how matrilineal in orientation the wildlings are (like the Pict raiders north of Hadrian's Wall when it was built), I am going with Craster being the seed donor for the two most prominent wildling women in the series, Dalla and Val. Who else would be prominent (or notorious) enough to have fathered them?

Splendid post and a storming debut in Heresy.

I rather like the idea that Val and Dalla might be two of Craster's daughters. There's not exactly much in the way of evidence to support it beyond that curious statement by Sam, but it would make sense.

As to that statement, it could be an error of some kind, but perhaps the simplest explanation might be that Gilly told Sam who Dalla was.