While Mance is my favorite, I too have wondered if it's someone no one would ever figure out.
The best part is that the relevant comic arc has not only all of the players from ASOIAF - Rhaegar, Lyanna, even Arthur Dayne (you guys will DIE over that one) - but nearly identical scenarios: a kidnapping, a great tournament, the birth of a special child. The big difference is WHO fathered the magical child, and HOW it went down. It involves the addition of two extra characters - one of whom has an ASOAIF counterpart that has been referenced a couple of times only, and one that has been mentioned a LOT and would absolutely blow your mind.
Now BC and LmL's criticisms over on Heresy about GRRM going a totally different direction with his ending are absolutely valid - that thought is what has me hanging back on total support of my comic theory. However, this particular Marvel arc is so freaking old and so freaking obscure that I'm confident that no one would be able to read a version of it in ASOIAF and identify its origin, save for me and Stan Lee. (I think all the other illustrators are dead now.) So, I dunno....maybe George really would go forward with it, writing basically a better and more detailed version of the comic arcs he loved.
While Mance is my favorite, I too have wondered if it's someone no one would ever figure out.
The best part is that the relevant comic arc has not only all of the players from ASOIAF - Rhaegar, Lyanna, even Arthur Dayne (you guys will DIE over that one) - but nearly identical scenarios: a kidnapping, a great tournament, the birth of a special child. The big difference is WHO fathered the magical child, and HOW it went down. It involves the addition of two extra characters - one of whom has an ASOAIF counterpart that has been referenced a couple of times only, and one that has been mentioned a LOT and would absolutely blow your mind.
Now BC and LmL's criticisms over on Heresy about GRRM going a totally different direction with his ending are absolutely valid - that thought is what has me hanging back on total support of my comic theory. However, this particular Marvel arc is so freaking old and so freaking obscure that I'm confident that no one would be able to read a version of it in ASOIAF and identify its origin, save for me and Stan Lee. (I think all the other illustrators are dead now.) So, I dunno....maybe George really would go forward with it, writing basically a better and more detailed version of the comic arcs he loved.
I guess I am in the R+L=J camp. I am 100% certain Martin began writing it that way. If he changes his mind about it because nearly everyone figured it out that's his prerogative. Still a dick move. In the end, I don't think it matters who Jon's parents were. He'll have an Aemon-like decision to make in the hypothetical ADOS and choose duty over a crown.
As soon as the cameras are off I am going to fuck that little dog.
It involves the addition of two extra characters - one of whom has an ASOAIF counterpart that has been referenced a couple of times only, and one that has been mentioned a LOT and would absolutely blow your mind.
Your lordship lost a son at the Red Wedding. I lost four upon the Blackwater. And why? Because the Lannisters stole the throne. Go to King’s Landing and look on Tommen with your own eyes, if you doubt me. A blind man could see it. What does Stannis offer you? Vengeance. Vengeance for my sons and yours, for your husbands and your fathers and your brothers. Vengeance for your murdered lord, your murdered king, your butchered princes. Vengeance!
I think a lot of people forget that Azor is never claimed to be someone great. A blacksmith who worked and sacrificed to accomplish what he viewed as necessary.
It's the same thing with the Last Hero and all his companions. Not once is it ever mentioned that they were anybodies. Yet still we have theories about how the Last Hero was Bran The Builder, The Night's King, etc. But nowhere does it ever mention anything other than that he was the last hero and had a dog, a horse, a sword, and a dozen companions.
Now these were the days before the Andals came, and long before the women fled across the narrow sea from the cities of the Rhoyne, and the hundred kingdoms of those times were the kingdoms of the First Men, who had taken those lands from the children of the forest. Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods, the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch. So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost. He set out into the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog and a dozen companions. For years he searched until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities. One by one his friends died, and his horse, and finally even his dog, and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it. And the Others smelled the hot blood in him and came silent on his trail, stalking him with packs of pale white spiders big as hounds –
People simply want the characters to be somebodies before their quest that establishes their greatness as well, that's the norm for fantasy. But we see with at least the Azor Ahai and Last Hero myths that this is never mentioned as being the case. As far as we know, they became great through their quest, and not that they were great men who set out to do what great men do.
And it rather ties back well into whitewolfstark's point about how myths are often about how the ruling class came to be in power. They didn't have power before their quests, they gained it from the quests. Nobody really remembers exactly how this one family or that family came to actually be in power short of the broad strokes like we see in the World Book, but there's always some legend that separated them from the rest... because they weren't anything special until that moment.
And along a similar vein, I wouldn't be surprised if, say Jon is Azor Ahai, that people or Jon himself simply attribute things to him, whether they be true or not, simply as part of the Azor Ahai Reborn mythos. That he couldn't have simply been the Bastard of Winterfell if he did whatever required doing. I'm reminded that one of GRRM's most influential books he ever read was called the Lord of Light y Roger Zelazny and that the very introduction to the book is:
His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god, but then he never claimed not to be a god.
It won't really matter who Azor Ahai Reborn is. His followers will create a mythos that will eventually warp him into someone who will probably end up being far greater than the real man was, even if he was an extraordinary person already.
Your lordship lost a son at the Red Wedding. I lost four upon the Blackwater. And why? Because the Lannisters stole the throne. Go to King’s Landing and look on Tommen with your own eyes, if you doubt me. A blind man could see it. What does Stannis offer you? Vengeance. Vengeance for my sons and yours, for your husbands and your fathers and your brothers. Vengeance for your murdered lord, your murdered king, your butchered princes. Vengeance!
LOL...if I had it anywhere near organized, I would have posted it long ago. I have to start at the very very beginning though, to have it make sense.
Once hubs is off work and can wrangle kids for me a bit, I will work something up to just get out there. Trust me, I won't have to post much for you to know exactly what correlates to it - it is THAT obvious.
As LmL mentioned in the Heresy thread, I'm not saying GRRM plagarized or anything, but he, uh, drew a lot of influence. A LOT of influence.
People simply want the characters to be somebodies before their quest that establishes their greatness as well, that's the norm for fantasy. But we see with at least the Azor Ahai and Last Hero myths that this is never mentioned as being the case. As far as we know, they became great through their quest, and not that they were great men who set out to do what great men do.
And it rather ties back well into whitewolfstark 's point about how myths are often about how the ruling class came to be in power. They didn't have power before their quests, they gained it from the quests. Nobody really remembers exactly how this one family or that family came to actually be in power short of the broad strokes like we see in the World Book, but there's always some legend that separated them from the rest... because they weren't anything special until that moment.
And along a similar vein, I wouldn't be surprised if, say Jon is Azor Ahai, that people or Jon himself simply attribute things to him, whether they be true or not, simply as part of the Azor Ahai Reborn mythos. That he couldn't have simply been the Bastard of Winterfell if he did whatever required doing. I'm reminded that one of GRRM's most influential books he ever read was called the Lord of Light y Roger Zelazny and that the very introduction to the book is:
His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god, but then he never claimed not to be a god.
It won't really matter who Azor Ahai Reborn is. His followers will create a mythos that will eventually warp him into someone who will probably end up being far greater than the real man was, even if he was an extraordinary person already.
While I thank you for the attribution, I'll give my source, as Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye, who in his essay on the Four Mythos in the section under "Romance" states:
"The romance is nearest of all literary forms to the wish-fulfillment dream, and for that reason it has socially a curiously paradoxical role. In every age the ruling social or intellectual class tends to project its ideals in some form of romance, where the virtuous heroes and beautiful heroines represent the ideals and the villains the threats to their ascendancy. This is the general character of chivalric romance in the Middle Ages, aristocratic romance in the Renaissance, bourgeois romance since the eighteenth century, and revolutionary romance in contemporary Russia.
...
[N]o matter how great a change may take place in society, romance will turn up again, as hungry as ever, looking for new hopes and desires to feed on. The perennially childlike quality of romance is marked by its extraordinarily persistent nostalgia, its search for some kind of imaginative golden age in time or space." (Frye 186)
I don't consider ASOIAF part of the Romance mythos in the least. It is far too much in the Ironic and Satiric mythos, which parodies Romance a la Don Quixote to make a moral point. GRRM is too interested in tearing apart the Romance-based mythos of the Fantasy genre. However, it does have those roots in Romance and part of that is the expectation that we're being told the tale of how the ruling social class came to power--I wonder how he'll twist that in the end.
ETA:
Martin makes a good argument in the books as written for why we should turn away from Romance and see life as it truly is--without any blinders. One only needs read Sansa's arc to really grasp that message.
Let me provide the counterargument for that:
An argument for turning away from the Ironic & Satiric (acknowledging everything Irony & Satire focus on, while arguing for a turn away from it for a Romantic POV): "Life as it Is" Monologue from Man of La Mancha (a 1968 musical adaptation of Don Quixote)
Last Edit: Dec 24, 2015 1:01:33 GMT by whitewolfstark: Clarification
I guess I am in the R+L=J camp. I am 100% certain Martin began writing it that way. If he changes his mind about it because nearly everyone figured it out that's his prerogative. Still a dick move. In the end, I don't think it matters who Jon's parents were. He'll have an Aemon-like decision to make in the hypothetical ADOS and choose duty over a crown.
I, too, was once unhappily resigned to the idea that Martin was doing RLJ. Today, I'm pretty sure he's headed a different direction - and that he knew the story from the very beginning. I think, assuming he actually finishes WINDS, that the majority of fans will be stunned and impressed.
"Anticlimax is, of course, the warp and way of things. Real life seldom structures a decent denouement." - Martin Silenus
I think, assuming he actually finishes WINDS, that the majority of fans will be stunned and impressed.
Snowy, without asking you to give away too much, are you of the opinion that GRRM has set up the story so that the reveal WILL happen in Winds? That it more or less has to come out in the next book in order for the rest of the story to proceed sensibly/logically?
I guess I am in the R+L=J camp. I am 100% certain Martin began writing it that way. If he changes his mind about it because nearly everyone figured it out that's his prerogative. Still a dick move. In the end, I don't think it matters who Jon's parents were. He'll have an Aemon-like decision to make in the hypothetical ADOS and choose duty over a crown.
I, too, was once unhappily resigned to the idea that Martin was doing RLJ. Today, I'm pretty sure he's headed a different direction - and that he knew the story from the very beginning. I think, assuming he actually finishes WINDS, that the majority of fans will be stunned and impressed.
If its Hodor i'll be pissed :::
"The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes"--Sherlock Holmes"
I think, assuming he actually finishes WINDS, that the majority of fans will be stunned and impressed.
Snowy, without asking you to give away too much, are you of the opinion that GRRM has set up the story so that the reveal WILL happen in Winds? That it more or less has to come out in the next book in order for the rest of the story to proceed sensibly/logically?
I don't know if the solution would have to come out in book six, as opposed to a later book. But yes, I do think at this point that it will happen in WINDS.
"Anticlimax is, of course, the warp and way of things. Real life seldom structures a decent denouement." - Martin Silenus
I, too, was once unhappily resigned to the idea that Martin was doing RLJ. Today, I'm pretty sure he's headed a different direction - and that he knew the story from the very beginning. I think, assuming he actually finishes WINDS, that the majority of fans will be stunned and impressed.
If its Hodor i'll be pissed :::
LOL. Shoulda lined up a Hodor essay...
"Anticlimax is, of course, the warp and way of things. Real life seldom structures a decent denouement." - Martin Silenus
If R+L=J is false I'd say R+L=D. So much of Dany's birth on Dragonstone make so little sense to me and the only people who could have verified it are dead. Dragonstone is so close to KL its a terrible place to hide. The huge storm that she is apparently named after is never really mentioned by any other characters. The only effect is destroying the royal fleet. If the royal fleet was destroyed where did Darry get the ships to kidnap the Targ kids. Who where the other 4 loyal men? Why does Willem Darry have hands like soft leather when he was the Master at Arms at the Red Keep and should probably have calloused hands from years of weapon training? Then the whole lemongate fiasco. Also Quaithe telling Dany to remember who she is. Lots of questions and very few answers.
Have you read the Wild and Wacky Willem Darry and Lemongate threads here yet? We have talked about this a lot.
Don't forget the absolute weirdness that is the Master-At-Arms leaving his King behind at the Red Keep right before the city is about to be attacked in order to spirit the queen and his son to safety....if you buy into the standard theory, anyway.
A bit of them. Its a lot to read through. I will finish them up soon.
Darkstar will be the next Vulture King.
Craster has 19 daughters and there are 19 castles on the Wall, coincidence I think not!
My current thoughts are that if you take Ned, Bobby B, Rhaegar, Arthur, Lyanna and Ashara and locked them all in a tower together then somehow we would wind up with Jon and Dany. Not quite sure who's responsible for what though. I might have left one or two possibilities out of the tower too. I'm not quite sure.
What I am sure of is that I'm dying to hear what @prettypig has to suggest!
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?