Or someone who messed with the balance of nature and length of seasons to extend her "free time".
Or that.
Are you talking about Mel?
I think she's old, but not NQ-old.
Didn't have anyone in particular in mind. I don't think that the NQ is still around. Just eff'd it up and eventually bunked out. IMO the best contender for NQ is a previous Lady Dustin.
The blade was Valyrian steel, spell-forged and dark as smoke. Nothing held an edge like Valyrian steel.
Didn't have anyone in particular in mind. I don't think that the NQ is still around. Just eff'd it up and eventually bunked out. IMO the best contender for NQ is a previous Lady Dustin.
Ah. Yes, she's a very good contender. My ole buddy Blazfemur has suggested that NQ was actually a she-wolf, and that NK was into bestiality. An interesting take, but not one that I find very likely.
I think she was most likely a northern girl, and that they are both alive - NK and NQ. GRRM's twisted version of a "happily ever after story." Like weirwoods, the Others do not die.
"I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers."
My ole buddy Blazfemur has suggested that NQ was actually a she-wolf, and that NK was into bestiality. An interesting take, but not one that I find very likely.
The twisted garden scene in Bram Stoker's Dracula just came to mind.
I think she was most likely a northern girl, and that they are both alive - NK and NQ. GRRM's twisted version of a "happily ever after story." Like weirwoods, the Others do not die.
Interesting. Didn't GRRM say the NK won't show up in the books, that he's in the past?
The blade was Valyrian steel, spell-forged and dark as smoke. Nothing held an edge like Valyrian steel.
I suspect that "Maegor III" was a mistake, though I cannot say for certain. Perhaps a flubbed line, as you suggest. It is true that the Targaryen succession on the series is different than the one in the novels; most notably, the Mad King's father Jaehaerys II was dropped, as was established way back in season one. In much the same way as the Rhoynar have been dropped from the royal titles, "King of Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men," etc.
These changes were simplifications, however. The books are very complex, but the practical limits of a television series call for a bit more simplicity. Dropping a king or two accomplishes that.
ADDING kings, however, would be a step in the opposite direction, which is why I think "Maegor III" had to be a mistake. And not one that was in the scripts, I would guess. Bryan Cogman, who is the Keeper of the Continuity on the series, knows the names of the Targaryen kings as well as I do.
Of course, it could also be a subtle bit of characterization, as you suggest, intended to show that Mace is an idiot who does not know his Westerosi history. (Not a mistake that Book Mace would make, but the character in the show combines Mace with Harys Swyft, and actually seems more like the latter).
All this, of course, is surmise on my part. You would have to ask David or Dan or Bryan for a more definitive answer.
In the book canon, of course, there has only been only King Maegor, the reputation of Maegor the Cruel being so black. England has had only one King John, for much the same reasons. (Prince Aerion Brightflame did name his son Maegor, but that was meant as a provocation, and in any case the boy never sat the Iron Throne).
As for the Night's King (the form I prefer), in the books he is a legendary figure, akin to Lann the Clever and Brandon the Builder, and no more likely to have survived to the present day than they have.
So the last paragraph is particularly interesting. He does not name the addition of NK as a mistake. And to my heavily biased brain, his phrasing suggests that Lann the Clever and Bran the Builder are "alive" and hanging out together beyond the curtain of light.
"I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers."
So the last paragraph is particularly interesting. He does not name the addition of NK as a mistake. And to my heavily biased brain, his phrasing suggests that Lann the Clever and Bran the Builder are "alive" and hanging out together beyond the curtain of light.
Hmmmm, IDK.
The blade was Valyrian steel, spell-forged and dark as smoke. Nothing held an edge like Valyrian steel.
Am admittedly very biased towards the idea that Bran the Builder is the Night's King, in the present tense, and that he is coming back home.
Bear in mind that the Night's King was never killed in the books, only his name was forbidden, and that cold preserves.
Gotchya. I think that Bran Stark is BtB reincarnated and will be Bran the ReBuilder. No one knew WF like he did and after the sack they'll need his help. But if we combine theories it could mean Bran will be the new NK. ARGH!?
The blade was Valyrian steel, spell-forged and dark as smoke. Nothing held an edge like Valyrian steel.
Just the boneway methinks. There isn't much else to show that the Yronwoods have played a big role outside of Dorne.
quite right but they do have a couple of interesting things going for them.
- they have iron and tin mines; the only other place mentioned in westeros that do are the iron islands. They also mine silver. Now tin or silver can be very useful when you need to make a mirror-shield.
- Quentyn Martell quotes the Yronwood girls as being blue-eyed blondes (save for the youngest one).
And we are very familiar with who also has blue eyes (dark or pale) in the story:
???
not quite:
The blood of Valyria still runs strong in Lys, where even the smallfolk oft boast pale skin, silver-gold hair, and the purple, lilac, and pale blue eyes of the dragonlords of old.
Last Edit: Sept 15, 2016 23:03:55 GMT by arrysfleas
"Arya did not dare take a bath, even though she smelled as bad as Yoren by now, all sour and stinky. Some of the creatures living in her clothes had come all the way from Flea Bottom with her; it didn’t seem right to drown them."
Gotchya. I think that Bran Stark is BtB reincarnated and will be Bran the ReBuilder. No one knew WF like he did and after the sack they'll need his help.
I think Bran's intimate knowledge might be due to forces that are operating the other way around. Rather than be BtB reincarnated, I think that as a descendant of BtB ("Your blood makes you a greenseer") Bran is picking up on arcane, but Stark, influences from long ago.
Something is rising from the north, and rebuilding influence. SSM:
The greatest danger of all, however, comes from the north, from the icy wastes beyond the Wall, where half-forgotten demons out of legend, the inhuman others, raise cold legions of the undead and the neverborn and prepare to ride down on the winds of winter to extinguish everything that we would call "life." The only thing that stands between the Seven Kingdoms and and endless night is the Wall, and a handful of men in black called the Night's Watch. Their story will be the heart of my third volume, The Winds of Winter. The final battle will also draw together characters and plot threads left from the first two books and resolve all in one huge climax.
And as the old powers awaken, and the trees have eyes again, so too would NK's influence (if he still exists, LOL).
I'm confident that this is the case, because the SSM above does indeed state that the Winds of Winter is not bringing a new threat. Rather, the Winds of Winter are bringing a "greatest danger" so very old that it is half-forgotten and attributed to legend.
If BtB=NK, what is he if not a "half-forgotten demon out of legend"?
But if we combine theories it could mean Bran will be the new NK. ARGH!?
I think this wording also rules out the notion that NK is an office which might be inherited or passed down. There has only ever been but one.
And it is here that I must express (again) my frustration with the show. If the show had not revealed NK in such a cartoonish and clumsy way, then my theory would still sound like a complete crackpot.
Some people like having their pet theories validated by the show, but I for one do not. They ruined NK. They made everyone believe he might now exist, but have turned him into a very un-GRRM-like villain.
My head-canon's version of NK is one more like the show's version of Maester Luwin, but inhuman and beautiful. Someone that the Starks (and the not-a-Stark) will feel compelled to trust.
And his version of Mel is way cooler.
"I can see it. You have more of the north in you than your brothers."
I think Bran's intimate knowledge might be due to forces that are operating the other way around. Rather than be BtB reincarnated, I think that as a descendant of BtB ("Your blood makes you a greenseer") Bran is picking up on arcane, but Stark, influences from long ago.
You have given me lots to think about. I'm going to let this stew in my brain before responding. I'm also going to try and get further along in the topic in case some of my other burning questions have already been addressed.
The blade was Valyrian steel, spell-forged and dark as smoke. Nothing held an edge like Valyrian steel.
When they came to Westeros, they did not take the time to learn about the new land into which they had come. They did not learn of its children, its heart, its trees. Instead, they came as men are wont to do, and rained down upon the contienent with fire and sword.
They burned the heart of the world.
They burned the weir that regulates and bridges consciousness itself.
Rather than learn and understand the balance that had been in place for 1000x1000 years, they sought to overthrow it, and replace it with their own cultural ecology.
Thus, the transgression was caused as transgressions usually are: through ignorance.
In underestimating the continent, its heart-trees, and the balance of life and death they maintained vis a vis connections in consciousness known as skinchanging, they fucked up, and created a special frozen hell reserved for them.
Columbus et al?
The blade was Valyrian steel, spell-forged and dark as smoke. Nothing held an edge like Valyrian steel.
I don't know if I've ever asked you about it, or seen your response to it, but what is your opinion on Val returning from her trip to Tormund garbed in white and with suddenly blue eyes?
Before
He is stone and she is flame. The king's eyes were blue bruises, sunk deep in a hollow face. He wore grey plate, a fur-trimmed cloak of cloth-of-gold flowing from his broad shoulders. His breastplate had a flaming heart inlaid above his own. Girding his brows was a red-gold crown with points like twisting flames. Val stood beside him, tall and fair. They had crowned her with a simple circlet of dark bronze, yet she looked more regal in bronze than Stannis did in gold. Her eyes were grey and fearless, unflinching. Beneath an ermine cloak, she wore white and gold. Her honey-blond hair had been done up in a thick braid that hung over her right shoulder to her waist. The chill in the air had put color in her cheeks.
After
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.
She just went on a trip north and returned garbed differently and with changed eyes.
I mean, accounting for historical inaccuracies as time passes, isn't she a dead ringer for the Night Queen?
As the sun began to set the shadows of the towers lengthened and the wind blew harder, sending gusts of dry dead leaves rattling through the yards. The gathering gloom put Bran in mind of another of Old Nan's stories, the tale of Night's King. He had been the thirteenth man to lead the Night's Watch, she said; a warrior who knew no fear. "And that was the fault in him," she would add, "for all men must know fear." A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well.
Assume that the "pale skin" was actually just her outfit (though Val already is pale as she's fair skinned), and that the cold skin is just an add on to the legend (though Val also is cold at the moment), and you have Val when she came back. A pale woman in white, with blue eyes.
Heck I mean if you really wanted to get into it too, Val is first glimpsed returning from someone atop the Wall, just like the Night Queen was
Black brothers, northmen, free folk, Thenns, queen's men, all of them fell quiet, listening. Five heartbeats passed. Ten. Twenty. Then Owen the Oaf tittered, and Jon Snow could breathe again. "Two blasts," he announced. "Wildlings." Val.
And Jon's first thought upon seeing her is that she's now lovelier than ever
It had been a long while since Jon Snow had seen a sight so lovely.
Seems to me if you wanted to look for a Night Queen, that is currently alive, than Val pretty much checks off all the required marks.
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!
Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well.
I think you're on to something.
A Storm of Swords - Jon V
"You say that, but how can you know? What if you were stolen by someone you hated?"
"He'd have t' be quick and cunning and brave t' steal me. So his sons would be strong and smart as well. Why would I hate such a man as that?"
Seems like the NK "stole" the NQ.
The blade was Valyrian steel, spell-forged and dark as smoke. Nothing held an edge like Valyrian steel.
Considering they are identifiable as "seeds" that makes me think the trees produce seeds. No magical means of seed production have been described, so I am left to assume the trees produce them as other trees do.
Bran's chapter with the weirwood paste is the ONLY time weirwood seeds are mentioned. Strange, no? None at the base of the great heart tree in the WF Godswood, none around the grove beyond the Wall. Zip. If your a subscriber to Jojen Paste (I am not) than the sudden occurrence of seeds should seem unlikely and suspicious.
It makes more sense to me that the weirwoods reproduce asexually. I know, no fun. But here's how:
New plants are sometimes made by asexual vegetative reproduction. These new plants have exactly the same genes as the parent. Some plants – like strawberries – have stems called stolons that grow out sideways above the soil, and new plants grow up along them. Other plants send out underground stems called rhizomes, which form new plants at a distance from the parent.
The exact same genes as the parent tree...that to me sounds more like the weirwoods we see with their intricately woven roots that act as a nervous system transmitting information. Unfortunately for me this only strengthens the Jojen Paste theory.
The blade was Valyrian steel, spell-forged and dark as smoke. Nothing held an edge like Valyrian steel.