#speaking of mythology influences in asoiaf. one day i gotta talk about jon snow odin symbolism

[weirwoodking]

I am once again asking you to discuss Irish mythology asoiaf with me... please your grace, I am a simple woman with simple needs

Okay one of the rabbit holes that I love going down and over-thinking about is ASOIAF’s take on the otherworld. While the concept of an otherworld appears in many Indo-European mythologies, GRRM draws the most influence from Celtic myths. I think most people know about how GRRM said that the Others are inspired by the aos sí (aka the sídhe), a supernatural race that lives in the Gaelic Otherworld. The aos sí are also connected to the changeling myths, changelings being babies that were taken by these magical folk and replaced with something else (see the similarity with how Craster’s sons are taken by the Others). This stealing of the babies was usually punishment for trespassing or committing some other offense. A large part of the aos sí mythos involve them being extremely territorial, only becoming aggressive when someone invades their home. This characteristic of the aos sí has inspired the theory that the reason that the Others in ASOIAF are angry is because some sort of transgression was committed against them. I don’t think that the Others are a one-to-one for the aos sí, but GRRM could certainly take the territorial characteristics of those mythological creatures and use it as influence for the Others. The main similarity that is confirmed between the two is just that the Others are supposed to have the same sort of haunting beauty.

So, back to the otherworld. An element of otherworld myths is that it exists alongside the edge of our world, which reminds me a lot of how the Wall is described as the “end/edge of the world”. There’s also a recurring theme in otherworld stories of an otherworldly woman beckoning heroes toward her, which sounds very similar to the tale of Night’s King and the corpse queen. Speaking of heroes that enter the otherworld, one such story is the Irish tale of the Voyage of Bran (different Bran than the Welsh Brân the Blessed), in which a man named Bran embarks on a quest to Emain (one of the names of the Irishh otherworld), which is a place of lasting spring and summer. Another story of a journey to an otherworld is the Welsh tale of Branwen, the sister to Brân the Blessed, who travels to Annwn, and finds the survivors of a great battle as well as the severed head of her brother. Most otherworlds are typically characterized by being bountiful and paradise-like places, very different from what we would expect a place called the Land of Always Winter to be like. However, the concept of a magical realm existing alongside the non magical realm is still there with the LOAW.

What also interests me is how the otherworld in Athurian legend, Avalon, was the title of the book that GRRM was working on when he came up with the idea for ASOIAF. Avalon was going to take place in GRRM’s Thousand Worlds series, and I wonder if it was also going going to contain otherworld elements. Elements that GRRM then transferred over to ASOIAF.

Anyway, this is ramble-y, I just think otherworld mythology and its influence in ASOIAF is really neat. Especially since there are a lot of Brans in these stories (and I didn’t mention it, but spiritual trees are also common in otherworld myths too). Considering GRRM has said that the final two books with take us “farther north than we’ve ever been before” (the furthest place north we’ve been is the Frostfangs), I’m pretty sure we’re going to see the “Other”world in TWOW and/or ADOS, and I can’t wait to see his take on it.