voice, have you read this yet??? Anyone?? This one is worth discussing for sure, there are SO many Ice & Fire parallels!
“In Qohor he is the Black Goat, in Yi Ti the Lion of Night, in Westeros the Stranger. All men must bow to him in the end, no matter if they worship the Seven or the Lord of Light, the Moon Mother or the Drowned God or the Great Shepherd. All mankind belongs to him... else somewhere in the world would be a folk who lived forever. Do you know of any folk who live forever?”
I particularly enjoyed the Crossroads Inn, the Land of Always Winter, and of course, the Ice Dragon itself. Adara is a name that I could swear I've heard before in one of the other 1000 Worlds books. Perhaps it was Laren Dorr? It's bugging me now. I remember it reminded me of Ashara. Seems like LmL and I were talking about it and comparing them. Or, perhaps it was maestercambodia.
I can see why this story would give you the impression that beings made of ice are the good guys.
And as many others have said before, this may well be the origin of Winterfell's cold pond.
"I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers."
Adara is a name that I could swear I've heard before in one of the other 1000 Worlds books. Perhaps it was Laren Dorr?
Hmmm, I too read this one after the 1000 Worlds stories, so the name wouldn't have stood out to me elsewhere. I think the girl in Laren Dorr was Lyanna though, IIRC.
I can see why this story would give you the impression that beings made of ice are the good guys.
Ha! Yes, this supports that idea, though I am pretty sure I was a white walker sympathizer before I read this. Maybe that's why I liked this story so much. I do think we can safely say, in both the Ice Dragon and ASOIAF, that the fire dragon riders are not the good guys.
And as many others have said before, this may well be the origin of Winterfell's cold pond.
Yup! And possibly of the hot ponds as well, of which there are three.
However, what stood out to me the most was that the Ice Dragon was coming for Adara. It was seen in the sky the night she was born, the night that winter killed her mother and claimed her, and it comes back every winter. This is intriguing for multiple reasons. First, Adara and the dragon seem to have an understanding; a bond that forms naturally and strengthens over time. It's not quite skinchanging of course; Dany's bond with Drogon is a closer match but still not perfect. I think it's safe to say though that the Ice Dragon is Adara's spirit animal, so to speak. And that this is only possible b/c winter has already claimed her, and she is different from other children. I would argue that it also matters that she comes from a family of (fire) dragon riders, so she would have dragonlord blood. A dragon claimed by winter.
Second, with every passing year, the winters get longer and colder, and people blame this on the ice dragon. We know the ID is there for Adara, who may not be ready to leave yet or may not know that she is supposed to. By waiting, she is bringing these long hard winters upon her people. When winter is denied the child it has claimed, it comes for her, bringing cold and death with it. What do you think would happen if Adara's family had fled south, taking her far away from the Lands of Always Winter?
If, on the other hand, her father had placed baby Adara outside in the snow, to be picked up... might these long cold winters have been avoided?
We know Adara is winter's child b/c she is physically colder than most humans, suited to life in the North. Like her mother, she is blond with light blue eyes. I remember you noting in And Seven Times Never Kill Man how bronze and gold are similar colors, aside from luminescence. Well, blue and white walker glowing blue are the same. Adara is clearly intended to go North, to live in the LOAW. Had she gone, would she have become an Other? The show certainly seems to suggest this, as does her eye color and the fact that she feels like she doesn't belong among regular humans. She is different from them, out of place. Ok, interesting, but why am I focusing on this? Well, some of Adara's descendants seem to have remained in the North - the far North. Two sisters, to be exact; light hair and blue eyes, seemingly out of place among the wildlings. Even better, one of them recently gave birth and died in the process. Let's look at some passages to make my point:
It was warm within. A small fire burned beneath the smoke holes, and a brazier smouldered near the pile of furs where Dalla lay, pale and sweating. Her sister was holding her hand. Val, Jon remembered. “I was sorry when Jarl fell,” he told her. Val looked at him with pale grey eyes. “He always climbed too fast.” She was as fair as he’d remembered, slender, full-breasted, graceful even at rest, with high sharp cheekbones and a thick braid of honey-colored hair that fell to her waist.
-Jon, ASOS
Val is beautiful, with light eyes and blond hair. Just like Adara, and Adara's mother. Dalla, curiously, is never described, but I assume Mance wouldn't have chosen the less attractive of the two, and if she looked drastically different from her sister, Jon should have noticed.
Val was the sister of the woman the King-beyond-the-Wall had taken for his queen. The wildling princess was what Stannis and his men were calling her. Her sister Dalla had died during the battle, though no blade had ever touched her; she had perished giving birth to Mance Rayder’s son.
-Sam, AFFC
Dalla died giving birth, just like Adara's mother.
Even here, a thousand leagues from the Wall, Gilly was reluctant to say Lady Melisandre’s name aloud. “She wanted king’s blood for her fires. Val knew she did. Lord Snow too. That was why they made me take Dalla’s babe away and leave my own behind in his place. Maester Aemon went to sleep and didn’t wake up, but if he had stayed, she would have burned him.”
-Sam, AFFC
This sounds as though Val was also pressuring Gilly to take Dalla's winter child down south. Interesting...
“Mance said our words, Gilly. Then he turned his cloak, wed Dalla, and crowned himself King-Beyond-the-Wall. His life is in the king’s hands now. It’s not him we need to talk about. It’s his son. Dalla’s boy.”
-Jon, ADWD
In that order? Curious. I wonder if Dalla and her sister had anything to do with Mance's actions?
Sometimes the Wall itself seemed to shake them off, as a dog might shake off fleas. Jon had seen that for himself, when a sheet of ice cracked beneath Val’s lover Jarl, sending him to his death.
Hmmm. Dalla wed the King Beyond the Wall, and Val was dating the skinchanger. Coincidence, or did they seek out powerful men?
Beyond, the haunted forest waited, dark and silent. The light of the half-moon turned Val’s honey-blond hair a pale silver and left her cheeks as white as snow. She took a deep breath. “The air tastes sweet.” “My tongue is too numb to tell. All I can taste is cold.” “Cold?” Val laughed lightly. “No. When it is cold it will hurt to breathe. When the Others come …”
-Jon, ADWD
Here, leaving the Wall, Val is decidedly less bothered by the cold (apparently not at all, actually) than Jon, who himself is a Northerner who has spent many months beyond the Wall. Winter's lady. And here is Ed, moments later:
“I don’t care what she says,” muttered Dolorous Edd, as Val vanished behind a stand of soldier pines. “The air is so cold it hurts to breathe. I would stop, but that would hurt worse.” He rubbed his hands together. “This is going to end badly.”
Then Ghost emerged from between two trees, with Val beside him. They look as though they belong together. Val was clad all in white; white woolen breeches tucked into high boots of bleached white leather, white bearskin cloak pinned at the shoulder with a carved weirwood face, white tunic with bone fastenings. Her breath was white as well … but her eyes were blue, her long braid the color of dark honey, her cheeks flushed red from the cold. It had been a long while since Jon Snow had seen a sight so lovely.
The eye color change is slightly annoying, but light grey and light blue are not that different, and the surroundings may play a role in bringing out one color or the other. In any case, she and Ghost belong together.
Oh my, here I go off topic again. Lol. But I know you won't mind discussing Val a bit, will you? She and Dalla are interesting in their own right, but if we consider the possibility that they are descendants of Adara, this gives added significance to Dalla's son now being in Oldtown, one of the southernmost cities in Westeros. Winter won't easily claim him there, but it will surely try...
Lastly, of course, we must consider the possibility that Adara is an ancestor to House Stark, which did apparently build its castle around her cold pool. I like this idea, though sadly I don't quite know what to do with it. Jon is quiet but not abnormally so, he doesn't seem physically colder than other people, doesn't have light hair or light eyes. Ice Dragons are only passingly mentioned in ASOIAF, so I doubt he will be riding one...
“In Qohor he is the Black Goat, in Yi Ti the Lion of Night, in Westeros the Stranger. All men must bow to him in the end, no matter if they worship the Seven or the Lord of Light, the Moon Mother or the Drowned God or the Great Shepherd. All mankind belongs to him... else somewhere in the world would be a folk who lived forever. Do you know of any folk who live forever?”