#the last greenseer

[asoiafartandstuff]

Art of Melissa blackwood with her 3 kids Mya, Gwenys, & brynden rivers also known as bloodraven. made by the great artist @tosquinha

[atopvisenyashill]

To anyone who’s bursting with a dream Come one come all You hear the call To anyone who’s searching for a way To break free

[hollowwhisperings]

Jojen is Fine, Actually: "Weirwood Paste" is Weirwood Paste.

CW: humanitarian diets, body horror, general blasphemy, mention of grooming (in the context of creepy tree wizards).

Okay so my being a HUGE Jojen (& House Reed in general) fan gives me an Obvious Bias against the idea of Jojen Dying Offscreen.

My being a huge literary nerd & lore geek, however, informs my Metaphor Senses that Jojen is Fine*, Actually.

The "Weirwood Paste" is Weirwood Paste: made of weirwood seeds, locally sourced. Said "Local Weirwood Tree" being. Y'know. Brynden Rivers.

It's Brynden Paste.

(*Fine: chronically ill, majorly depressed, freezing cold, surrounded by creepy tree people, stuck in a zombie wasteland, if he ever goes home he Dies, repeatedly dreaming of his own death... but, at least, Not Dead nor Being Eaten by the Prince of his Dreams? He's "Fine".)

First and foremost: storytelling conventions, even in a series as "deliberately unconventional" as ASOIAF, tend to tell audiences that NO ONE is genuinely "dead" until you see a body. And personally check its pulse. And test for rigor mortis. And maybe stab them in a lethal place, jusr to be Sure. And then burn the body, scatter its ashes, send couriers off in different directions to hide what remains in Remote Places never to be known of by the other couriers. Maybe Silence the couriers if they come back.

Er, you get the picture.

Most subscribers to "Jojenpaste" are in it for the lolz or assume The Worst due to Jojen's non-presence in the latest Bran chapters (aaand Jojen's being Very Permanently Dead in That Dragon Show). It's also an "easy" assumption that Since GRRM Is GRRM, any & all opportunities for Humanitarianism will be fully utilized.

Except... the weirwood paste is ALREADY "made of people" just because it's Weirwood (specifically, weirwood seeds) and the series has consistently described weirwood trees as "[human]".

Weirwood have "bone white" bark; they have Faces carved into them; they "Watch" and "Listen" and "Witness": this is consistent across POV characters, even before Jojen casually brings up "oh they're what Greenseers Become" or any meetings with a Literal Tree Man.

Weirwoods are described in human terms, doing human things, and at least 1 major character has been directly equivicated with Weirwoods for Plot Purposes: Ghost the Direwolf (and wolves, of course, are consistently used to mean "someone of House Stark" and the Starklings especially).

Then there is The Creepy Tree Man in the room: Brynden Rivers, called "Three-Eyed Raven" by Bran and Jojen (for that was how their Dreams interpreted him) or "The Last Greenseer" by the Singers (...despite BRAN very pointedly Being There To Prove Otherwise).

Brynden is also, as mentioned, a Tree Now.

A Weirwood Tree.

Y'know. Like the ones whose seeds make the Paste Bran's been eating.

So, unless the Singers have been sneaking about in Others' Territory to collect seeds from a different weirwood tree... that Paste is made of BRYNDEN.

Bran being fed "Brynden Paste' while Brynden Indoctrinates Teaches Bran to be a Tree Wizard makes far more sense, logistically & thematically, than Jojen getting shanked offscreen to belatedly be revealed to be "part of Bran all along".

For one thing, Meera would gladly set the Cave & everyone in it on fire if anyone so much as looks at her baby brother suspiciously. For another, Brynden is Right There for the eating & is filled with all sorts of Prophecy Juice: he's a Blackwood, he's a Targaryen, he's a Royal Bastard, he was an Infamous Spymaster with "A thousand eyes and one", he's done weird sacrifice BS before, he's a Greenseer (Jojen "only" has Greensight), he's a Living God (as per Singer & First Men Lore), the Cave Cult is trying to turn Bran INTO him...

There is a lot more "logic" to Bran's Magic Lessons featuring his knowingly (subconsciously, at least) eating Brynden than his secretly eating his friend. Human sacrifice tends to require Knowledge of the cost being paid & being Willing to do it anyway: Bran might be too tripped up on Paste to consciously connect the "Weirwood Paste" he eats with "that Human Weirwood Tree i'm sitting next to" but the Singers explicitly tell Bran the Paste is made from Weirwood Seeds. Bran "knows".

Godeating (metaphoric & literal) is a trope that is most commonly found in JRPGs, nowadays, but it has Precedent throughout western mythology: the Titan Kronus ate each of his children as they were born, Zeus alone escaping, in an effort to Dodge Prophecy; Zeus inherited Said Prophecy and, being his Father's Son, ate his first wife. The details of the Titanomachy (the War against the Titans by their reasonably upset kids) are Lost but Zeus, at least, gained all his Wife's Wisdom (& her pregnancy too) after eating her: Athena may or may not have Taken It Back upon breaking out from her Eaten Mother & Dear Old Dad.

Consuming something in order to "become" what is eaten is Fairly Common, if not with that specific phrasing: vampires seldom explain their reproduction as "eat me to become me", whilst the adorable Nintendo character Kirby & his method of Powering Up via Playing Vacuum, is Rephrased out of Sheer Self-Preservation (no one, not even I, likes to admit that The Cute Pink Blob is an Eldritch Abomination). Many JRPGs & works in eastern media use similar themes of "monster eats monster" and "let's eat god" for the purposes of High Stakes Action. Japan & East Asia has a lot less "baggage" when it comes to utilizing themes from Abrahamic verse, meaning that western works using themes of [consuming the divine] and [apotheosis] use Vampire Methodology. Such is the case in the Dragon Age series & its Order of Grey Wardens (who are, From A Certain POV, dragon god vampires).

Within the ASOIAF series itself, Dany's eating a horse heart (raw) has Humanitarian Themes in service of Prophecy and [Divinity]: the horse heart to the Dothraki, a society of horselords, could be what weirwood seeds are to First Men (especially given Jojen's whole "btw, the trees are gods are former greenseers").

Brynden & the Cave's Singers (whom I dearly hope are some long-exiled Cult & not reflective of Singers as a whole) are not particularly subtle in their Intentions for Bran: he is to be their New "Last" Greenseer. Bran is to Become Brynden or Brynden is to Become Bran: either and possibly both are plausible, though how compliant with the Singers' goals Brynden may be has yet to be revealed.

(the Brynden of F&B and D&E strikes me as someone who would gladly bodysnatch some poor kid for his own Agenda: the Singers seem unlikely to support fire-breathing foreigners, not without a Contingency Plan; somewhat likely to want Bran for the purposes of installing a Tree Hivemind Police State; and maybe, possibly... "just" wanting a Second God for their Cult in Bran, who probably Smells Better).

SUMMARY

Weirwoods are Personified in almost every appearance. Weirwood Trees are considered Gods. Jojen (& some Singers) have stated that the Next Evolutionary Phase of a Greenseer is "Weirwood Tree". Brynden "the Last Greenseer" is part of a Weirwood Tree.

Brynden & the Singers are Turning Bran Into A Weirwood Tree.

Bran's current diet is Tree Paste. His magic teacher, Brynden, is Part-Tree. The Nearest Tree to make Paste from is Brynden. The Paste is made of Brynden.

(Let's NOT think too hard on which parts of Brynden: I've only gotten this far in this Meta by using "Hunanitarian" as a pun.)

Eating Gods to Become A God is an existing Trope. Brynden is a God, by Singer & First Men definitions. Bran is being Groomed to Become Brynden, a God. To Become Brynden, Bran must Eat Brynden.

TL;DR

The Weirwood Paste is Weirwood Paste and Brynden is the Weirwood: the Paste is not "Jojen", it's BRYNDEN.

Jojen is Not Paste: Jojen is Alive but Not Well & Very Depressed.

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Well, you're not wrong...

Before them a pale lord in ebon finery sat dreaming in a tangled nest of roots, a woven weirwood throne that embraced his withered limbs as a mother does a child. His body was so skeletal and his clothes so rotted that at first Bran took him for another corpse, a dead man propped up so long that the roots had grown over him, under him, and through him. What skin the corpse lord showed was white, save for a bloody blotch that crept up his neck onto his cheek. His white hair was fine and thin as root hair and long enough to brush against the earthen floor. Roots coiled around his legs like wooden serpents. One burrowed through his breeches into the desiccated flesh of his thigh, to emerge again from his shoulder. A spray of dark red leaves sprouted from his skull, and grey mushrooms spotted his brow. A little skin remained, stretched across his face, tight and hard as white leather, but even that was fraying, and here and there the brown and yellow bone beneath was poking through. "Are you the three-eyed crow?" Bran heard himself say. A three-eyed crow should have three eyes. He has only one, and that one red. Bran could feel the eye staring at him, shining like a pool of blood in the torchlight. Where his other eye should have been, a thin white root grew from an empty socket, down his cheek, and into his neck. —ADWD, Bran II

The walls were equal parts stone and soil, with huge white roots twisting through them like a thousand slow pale snakes. […] In one place on the far side of the fire, the roots formed a kind of stairway up to a hollow in the earth where a man sat almost lost in the tangle of weirwood. [...] "When we left King's Landing we were men of Winterfell and men of Darry and men of Blackhaven, Mallery men and Wylde men. We were knights and squires and men-at-arms, lords and commoners, bound together only by our purpose." The voice came from the man seated amongst the weirwood roots halfway up the wall. "Six score of us set out to bring the king's justice to your brother." The speaker was descending the tangle of steps toward the floor. "Six score brave men and true, led by a fool in a starry cloak." A scarecrow of a man, he wore a ragged black cloak speckled with stars and an iron breastplate dinted by a hundred battles. A thicket of red-gold hair hid most of his face, save for a bald spot above his left ear where his head had been smashed in. "More than eighty of our company are dead now, but others have taken up the swords that fell from their hands." When he reached the floor, the outlaws moved aside to let him pass. One of his eyes was gone, Arya saw, the flesh about the socket scarred and puckered, and he had a dark black ring all around his neck. —ASOS, Arya VI

beric dondarrion is like the poor man’s bloodraven when you think about it

“Don't get me started on Lord Beric. He's here, he's there, he's everywhere, but when you send men after him, he melts away like dew.”

“How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have? the riddle ran. A thousand eyes, and one.”

[asoiafhead]

girl i just realised this is meant to be bloodraven. thought about late seasons got for too long took x10 psychic damage thats so funny

[hedwig221b]

You have any pregnant stiles not related to ABO fic recs? Your fic where Stiles runs away to the cabin for magic training got me craving!!!

Sure! Stereks do love pregnant Stiles lmao, with or without abo. Here are some:

Walking the Path of Intimacy by Moit

A supposedly routine migraine leads Stiles to discover that he's pregnant with Derek's child, a situation he did not know was possible. Now he's got to tell the rest of his pack (not to mention his father) but how will they react? How will Derek take the news? Featuring pregnant!Stiles with weird food cravings and a pack that is trying their best to accommodate their Alpha's mate.

Karma Is A Bitch by Brego_Mellon_Nin

Ironically, Stiles was just returning to his dorm after failed negotiations about a possible adoption agreement with a local pack, when he saw the fairy. She was cornered and he was unable to curb his protective instincts. The fight was short and Stiles was left with only a blooming bruise on his jaw when the bullies scurried away. As a thank you, the fairy wanted to grant him a wish. Who knew what a bit of fairy fertility magic could do?

You'll Grow Into Your Skin by crossroadswrite

“So funny story,” Stiles winces, “Remember when I joked you couldn’t get me pregnant?” Derek nods his head. He remembers pretty much everything from that day. “Right,” Stiles bobs his head, stops himself and does a little ta-da gesture towards Jacy, “Surprise?”

Things We Lost by Dexterous_Sinistrous

“Who … who am I to wed?” A small flash of guilt covered the king’s features before he was able to recover. “Your union will join the royal families—joining our family to the Hales.” Dread and sorrow sunk in Stiles’ stomach as he closed his eyes. There was only one Hale left unharmed by the great fire that nearly wiped out the entire royal family—the Dread Wolf of Triskelia, Crowned King Derek Hale.

and the wild things roared their terrible roar by hoars

Derek as Khal Drogo (but set in snow beyond the wall) and Stiles as Daenerys Stormborn (although he's a greenseer of the Children rather than a dragon).

Hot Pocket Ratio by ShippersList

At the threat of the alpha pack, all Derek wants is to keep his pack safe and alive. As the last resort, he tries summoning a demon to help with fighting the alpha pack. He gets a bit more than he bargained for. Or, the story where the classic demon deal of "Will you pledge your firstborn to me?" takes some unexpected turns.

You'll Be Mine and I'll Be Yours by tearsandholdme

"Oh my god!” Stiles hissed, his back colliding with the door. “Oh my god! I slept with my boss, oh my god. I'm a walking cliché!” It was supposed to be a one night stand. No complications, no feelings, no baggage. But then a missed doctor's appointment in his childhood comes back to haunt him and Stiles is left with a lot more than one very good night.

An Alpha's Misunderstandings by Dexterous_Sinistrous

And Derek was there, as if it was a simple twist of fate. There were so many ways Stiles wanted to forgive Derek, but then he came to his senses. He wouldn’t risk Charlotte’s safety for that hope–never again. ~*~ Stiles and Derek are parted by war and misunderstandings, only to find each other again.

Stiles, the Kink Enabler by halcyon1993

Stiles begins to suspect that Derek has a breeding kink.

Shifts by gryvon

Stiles has what he's always secretly wanted - he's in a relationship with Derek and he's one of Derek's betas - but all that gets turned upside down when Gerard kidnaps him and his unexpected baby.

Long Overdue by tangowhiskey

Stiles is pregnant with Derek's pups. However, he's now overdue, making him tired and irritable. He wants nothing more than for Derek to have sex with him in the hope that it will induce labour. Derek may or may not love the idea.

Puppy Love by Pookaseraph

Things Stiles wished people had told him before he'd become the mate of an Alpha werewolf: gender was no barrier to having kids with an Alpha werewolf.

Stay with me by Beautiful_noise

Derek gets a glimpse of the future in which Stiles has two biological daughters and that's how he knows he and Stiles are going to break up.

Last To Know by Never_Says_Die

Kink meme fill in which every werewolf and shapeshifter in Beacon Hills is aware that Stiles is pregnant before he is. And apparently the first baby!werewolf being born into the pack (their Alpha's, no less) is a big freakin' deal and excuse enough for everyone to lose their damn minds. When Stiles figures out why everyone's been acting so weird around him, he's not amused.

Predators

He was born for this. Nature itself whispered into his ear where he should put his hands, how to twirl his tongue just right and when to bite. Stiles knew well enough that his saliva was currently working its magic on this unfortunate man, making him hungry, lustful, and insatiable. Soon, all his thoughts would be consumed by Stiles. And, just this once, Stiles would allow Derek to consume him.

aaand the fic the anon mentioned:

Sunshine

"Don’t you want to show them all what you’re capable of? Prove that Talia's been wrong about you the entire time? Force her to eat her own shit?” Stiles stared at Peter with a lodge in his throat. He wanted it. Of course, he did. He imagined himself standing in front of Talia’s sour self, and pushing fucking fireworks out of his hands, growing trees and crumbling mountains just to prove her wrong. But even more than that, to show her that Stiles was able to give Derek everything she hoped her son to have. Stiles did that. And… he had another big fucking thing on the way. But, as he learned, life wasn't a fairytale.

Other fic recs: angsty fics | possessive Derek | historical AU | baby/mpreg | outsider POV | smut | mafia | hurt/comfort | magical!Stiles | Stiles gets kicked out of the pack | BAMF!Stiles | omegaverse | witch!Stiles | creature!Stiles | bad friend Scott | pack mom!Stiles | unrequited love | werewolf!Stiles | dark sterek | single parent!Stiles | feral Derek | arranged marriage | Stiles is underestimated

[asongoficeandfiresource]

The last greenseer, the singers called him, but in Bran's dreams he was still a three-eyed crow. When Meera Reed had asked him his true name, he made a ghastly sound that might have been a chuckle. "I wore many names when I was quick, but even I once had a mother, and the name she gave me at her breast was Brynden." -- Bran III, ADWD

A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar 2024 || Brynden Rivers by Justin Sweet

[stormcloudrising]

if d&d knew about jonsa why did they change it? martin said the ending is gonna be the same with more additions which is obvious bc the show cut some of the characters

Why did they marry Sansa to Ramsay, which won’t happen in the books? Why did they write Dany as not having feelings for Daario and leaving him in Essos without a backward glance, which won’t happen in the books, since she chooses him at the end of her last ADWD chapter.

Why did they write the Dornish story in a way that won’t happen in the books…especially the Sand Snakes? Why was Bran the only Stark child that was given the power to warg his direwolf and other animals? Why were the final two seasons and everyone’s individual story sacrificed to Dany’s arc, which won’t be the case in the books? Why was Bran the only greenseer on the show? Why did they make Cersei the ruling queen when Dany attacks, which won’t’ be the case in the book.

I could go on and on, but you get my point. It wasn’t just the Jon and Sansa story that D&D dropped or changed. They changed a lot of storylines, and in the end, they did what George didn’t want and why he chose them over other writers who came to him proposals to adapt the books. They centered the back half of the story around one main character…Dany.

Part of the reason is because unfortunately, George didn’t finish the books in time for a proper adaptation. But another part I think is while D&D are great at adapting completed material as we saw with the first 5 seasons, they are not good at writing complex characterizations or plots on their own.

And so, once it became obvious that George was not going to complete the books on time, they simplified the hell out of the remaining story…including Jon and Sansa because that’s probably going to be the most complicated of the remaining stories to write…even with George handling it.

Truthfully, knowing D&D’s skill set, I don’t think that there is anyway they could have done it without having the printed word from George to adapt. This is because IMO, it’s not just the familial relationship that George will have to deal with but Jon and Sansa’s hidden connection to not just the current magical storyline but the one from the ancient past as well. So, in a way, I’m glad they didn’t attempt to write it on their own.

However, they did drop a lot of hints and if we ever get TWOW from George, I think fans will look back on the show and say, oh, that’s why D&D wrote them like that.

ETA: I haven’t yet watched 3 Body Problem on Netflix, but from what I’ve heard, D&D seems to have done a good job adapting it, which proves my point. They are working with a finished story. Yes, another complex story, but one that is at least completed and so most of the heavy lifting in terms of plotting has already been done for them.

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

What in the "hell" is going on with Rickon Stark?

Consider the moment when Rickon Stark ventured into the Winterfell crypts and spoke with what he believed to be his father:

“Shaggy,” a small voice called. When Bran looked up, his little brother was standing in the mouth of Father’s tomb. With one final snap at Summer’s face, Shaggydog broke off and bounded to Rickon’s side. “You let my father be,” Rickon warned Luwin. “You let him be.” “Rickon,” Bran said softly. “Father’s not here.” “Yes he is. I saw him.” Tears glistened on Rickon’s face. “I saw him last night.” “In your dream …?” Rickon nodded. “You leave him. You leave him be. He’s coming home now, like he promised. He’s coming home.”

Bran VII, AGOT

Prior to this encounter, Bran had revealed that the three-eyed crow had visited his dreams the night before, guiding him to the crypts where he spoke with Ned's ghost. Bran's ability to foresee Ned's impending death isn't unexpected—after all, he is a greenseer.

But what about Rickon? Is he a greenseer too? Well,

“In a sense. Those you call the children of the forest have eyes as golden as the sun, but once in a great while one is born amongst them with eyes as red as blood, or green as the moss on a tree in the heart of the forest. By these signs do the gods mark those they have chosen to receive the gift. The chosen ones are not robust, and their quick years upon the earth are few, for every song must have its balance. But once inside the wood they linger long indeed. A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. Greenseers.”

Bran III, ADWD

Rickon himself hasn't been explicitly marked as one, but ADWD tells us that his direwolf, Shaggydog, has the eyes of a greenseer:

He had a pack as well, once. Five they had been, and a sixth who stood aside. Somewhere down inside him were the sounds the men had given them to tell one from the other, but it was not by their sounds he knew them. He remembered their scents, his brothers and his sisters. They all had smelled alike, had smelled of pack, but each was different too. His angry brother with the hot green eyes was near, the prince felt, though he had not seen him for many hunts. Yet with every sun that set he grew more distant, and he had been the last. The others were far scattered, like leaves blown by the wild wind.

While Shaggydog's green eyes hint at a connection to greenseers, this alone doesn't fully explain what's going on with Rickon. There seems to be something deeper—an affinity with death itself.

More than any other character, Rickon spends a lot of time in the Winterfell crypts. We start hearing about this by Bran's sixth AGoT chapter, when the boys lean that Robb has to go south - a journey from which he will never return. Upon hearing the news, it's quite notable that Rickon instinctively seeks solace among the dead Stark kings. What's even more interesting is this:

“Listen to Maester Luwin’s counsel, and take care of Rickon. Tell him that I’ll be back as soon as the fighting is done.” Rickon had refused to come down. He was up in his chamber, red-eyed and defiant. “No!” he’d screamed when Bran had asked if he didn’t want to say farewell to Robb. “NO farewell!” “I told him,” Bran said. “He says no one ever comes back.”

Bran VI, AGOT.

For whatever reason, Rickon seems to have a rather heightened sense of death. Which brings us back to his direwolf, Shaggydog.

It just doesn't make sense to me. Why does Rickon's direwolf, of all the wolves, have unique coloring alongside Jon’s Ghost? Ghost’s white fur makes sense given Jon's outsider status and central role in the story. But why Shaggydog? Shouldn't Bran, with his greenseer abilities, have the "special" wolf? Instead, it’s Shaggydog, with his jet-black fur and green eyes, who stands out.

Given Rickon’s frequent presence in the Stark crypts, it seems possible that GRRM is suggesting Rickon has a spiritual connection to the dead—perhaps even serving in a role akin to a guardian, considering his apparent communion with the deceased. Several mythological figures come to mind as potential inspirations for this role.

One such figure is Anubis, the well-known Egyptian deity associated with death and the afterlife. 

Anubis is commonly depicted either as a man with the head of a jackal or as a black jackal or dog. He plays a crucial role in the mummification process and guides souls to the afterlife.

He has a less well-known brother, Wepwawet, who is tasked with "opening the way" for the dead on their journey to the afterlife. While Anubis is traditionally shown as black, Wepwawet is often depicted as white or grey. This stark contrast evokes the imagery of the Stark direwolves: Grey Wind, Summer, and Ghost, with their grey or white fur, parallel Wepwawet, whereas Shaggydog, with his distinctive black fur, symbolizes a link to Anubis. This alignment suggests a symbolic connection between Rickon and Anubis, while Jon, Bran, and Robb may correspond to Wepwawet.

Interestingly, throughout the series, all three of Rickon’s brothers have been portrayed as boys with wolf heads.

Farther on she came upon a feast of corpses. Savagely slaughtered, the feasters lay strewn across overturned chairs and hacked trestle tables, asprawl in pools of congealing blood. Some had lost limbs, even heads. Severed hands clutched bloody cups, wooden spoons, roast fowl, heels of bread. In a throne above them sat a dead man with the head of a wolf. He wore an iron crown and held a leg of lamb in one hand as a king might hold a scepter, and his eyes followed Dany with mute appeal.

Dany IV, ACOK

Stark’s direwolf killed four of our wolfhounds and tore the kennelmaster’s arm off his shoulder, even after we’d filled him full of quarrels …”

“So you sewed his head on Robb Stark’s neck after both o’ them were dead,” said yellow cloak.

Epilogue, ASOS

[...] The wooden man she had glimpsed, though, and the boy with the wolf’s face … 

The flames crackled softly, and in their crackling she heard the whispered name Jon Snow. His long face floated before her, limned in tongues of red and orange, appearing and disappearing again, a shadow half-seen behind a fluttering curtain. Now he was a man, now a wolf, now a man again. But the skulls were here as well, the skulls were all around him.

Melisandre, ADWD

Both Jon and Bran, along with their direwolves, also have a notable connection to the dead, further reinforcing the parallel to Wepwawet.

He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs. Don’t be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this. And the tree reached down and touched him.

Jon VII, ACOK

GRRM could be exploring the idea of Rickon as one with a deep connection to the spirits of the dead. This could explain not only his ability to perceive Ned’s presence in AGoT, but also his capacity to engage in extended conversations with him.

Additionally, various myths feature guiding dogs that act as "gatekeepers" to their respective underworlds.

Among these, Cerberus is perhaps the most renowned: the Greek three-headed black dog tasked with keeping the dead in Hades and preventing the living from entering.

ref: https://mythopedia.com/topics/cerberus

Cerberus has a Norse counterpart in Garmr, a black hound who similarly guards the gates of Hel, overseeing the dead and preventing the living from crossing into the underworld.

In Celtic mythology, black dogs like the Cŵn Annwn and the Barghest are often seen as omens of death or as guardians of the underworld. A modern depiction of this idea appears in the Harry Potter series, where the black dog, known as the Grim, is a harbinger of death.

Rickon is not a POV character, so we don't have direct insight into his thoughts or experiences with warging or dreaming. However, the evidence suggests that he is deeply connected to the concept of death and the underworld. In this way, he parallels his warg siblings—Jon, Bran, and Arya—who also have connections to death and the dead in various ways.

Rickon’s frequent presence in the crypts, his communion with spirits, and his direwolf’s distinctive black fur align him with these ancient symbols of death and protection. The many mythological references suggest that Rickon may not merely be a passive observer but could embody a significant role in the spiritual realm of the Stark family, hinting at a deeper narrative purpose that aligns with these ancient archetypes.

Whether GRRM will further explore Rickon’s connection to the dead remains to be seen, but the text and these mythological parallels certainly raise intriguing questions about his role in the magical landscape of the story.

[agentrouka-blog]

the difference form the valyrian and the first men that went north is that yes what the first men did was wrong to the native inhabitants but they also took on there culture and magic. becoming worshipers of old gods and wargs and greenseers. the targs notoriously brought there slaves to dragonstone and practice there valyrian costumes ignoring the costumes of westeroses. 

Also, I think the migration of the First Men is to me a lot closer to the expansion of neolithic farmers into the territories of hunter gatherer societies than any modern concept of colonialism. (Yes, the First Men had bronze and built ring forts, but still.) Not all migration is colonization. They had cultural misunderstandings, the Children attacked first, and the war lasted for a long time on both sides before they agreed on a peace for mutual benefit, followed by a great deal of cultural exchange. They fought together against the Andals, who truly did come blade in hand even as they were running for their lives from Valyrian expansion.

Pretending the First Men were inherently evil for entering into and settling in Westeros at all is absurd. This is supposed to be twelve to eight tousand years in the past. There had been Children of the Forest in Essos too, so they presumably migrated in one direction or the other. The lands were connected. Humans migrate, that's not in and of itself a flaw or mistake.

That's a far cry from swooping in to violently obtain rulership over an established society.

[asoiafartandstuff]

Art of Brynden Rivers also known as bloodraven & Sheira Seastar dancing by the amazing artist @tosquinha

[atopvisenyashill]

Plug me in and turn me on And flip the switch, I'm good as gone It slits my skin, and trips my brain I feel the burn, but I don't feel the pain

[midlandslady2]

Spoilerrrrsssss Alert!🚨

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So this thing with Daemon being a dreamer and the circulating theories of him becoming immortal after the battle of the God’s Eye, or him becoming a greenseer. I do not care. But I am concerned.

I mean, I was happy that he saw all that. I haven’t seen it but I think it will be quite an epic vision. But I don’t want him to become a dreamer per se. I wanted him to believe in the prophecy, yes. I wanted him to be more open minded to the fantastic world that is Westeros. But I don’t want him to become like Bran, you know? This stoic person that doesn’t really feel anything because he already knows how everything will happen and that he should not interfere because the things that have to pass will pass as it’s written. Heleana is this character. She wasn’t that sad about Jaehaerys’ death because she accepted that it was meant to happen. Daemon is not like that. We love Daemon because he is this unpredictable beast who feels as deeply as he rages. I don’t want his essence to ever change, I wanted his edges polished for the sake of his loved ones. But I want to see Daemon’s rage when Viserys and Aegon are captured. I want him to burn everything in his pain. I want Daemon being Daemon, like he was in season 1 episode 6, 7 and 8, when he was already older, calmer and softer, yet still capable to behead Vaemond in the blink of an eye. I think that’s my favorite version of Daemon (although I also love his younger years). I also don’t want him to go after Aemond in the God’s Eye because he knows that’s how it’s supposed to play out, knowing Rhaenyra will die later in such a horrible way but accepting it. It takes away from his sacrifice. I loved that in the book he goes to face Aemond to protect Rhaenyra, because Aemond is the last real threat to her (supposedly). I don’t want him to know that it’s not but going there anyway because it was foretold. Nop, I don’t like it. 🙂‍↔️

I also don’t like if he becomes immortal. Although I adore him, I want him to die there. 🫣

Now that I’ve heard about the whole picture, I feel slightly disappointed. Did Daemon really just accepted Rhaenyra because he saw it in the vision that she was meant to be queen? Or did Alys show him the vision because she knew he was ready to do the right thing? I do like that all this time Alys has been training him for that. I do enjoy that in a very weird way. Like she saw potential in him to be a good person but she had a lot of work to do before he got to that point. Hmm that I like. 🤔😌

Another odd thing. Last episode Oscar Tully made it abundantly clear that the army was for Rhaenyra and to Daemon as her representative. But in the leaked scene it seems the army would turn against Rhaenyra if Daemon said so because they were fiercely loyal to him. When did that happen? How did it happen? Am I the only one that got surprised? 🤔🤨

And finally … yes yes I know we cannot be greedy with how the season has been. But! I wanted a private scene with Daemon and Rhaenyra after the army scene. I wanted intimacy! To make up for lost time. I don’t want him to be best buddies or old colleagues, as Emma pointed out, I want them to be lovers! Passionate lovers! I want to erase the memory of Rhaenyra’s kiss with Mysaria and of Daemon’s scene with Alyssa. Because they are the main couple, yet we saw them with other people and we don’t see them having loving scenes together. Couldn’t they give us that?? I think not and we should be happy we got that “bend the knee” scene. But, as a fan of season 1, I needed to see passion. I needed to see how much they missed each other. 🤓😳

And now I’ll have to wait 2 years. Not knowing what evil schemes the writers will prepare for season 3. 😬

[branwyn-the-half-witch]

The Wall and the Waning of Magic: 2/2

(this was originally a Twitter thread; re-posting here for ease of reading)

Why Do We Build The Wall?

There are three possibilities I would offer regarding the nature of the Wall on the basis of these observations. Firstly, due to the sheer age of the Wall and the scarce-remembered events, one tantalising possibility is that everyone is wrong, and the Wall was not built as a defence against the Others, but BY them as they fled North from the powers of the Last Hero, Azor Ahai, the monkey-tailed girl, the choirs of the Rhoynar and every other half-remembered hero.

This seems absurd, but the Wall is made of ice, and described often in the same terms as the ice-swords of the Others.

It plainly does not keep out the Others or their servants, as we have indisputably seen, but does potentially cut off the magic of a skinchanger, blocks the agent of the 3EC (allied to the singers) and drains and distresses dragons.

In short, it has a negative effect on all those who could feasibly be described as the enemies of the Others. And yet, when Jon Snow sees it, he is seized with the necessity of keeping the Wall up.

He knows that if the Wall falls, the world falls; but what, famously, does Jon Snow know?

This may be a magical compulsion to ensure the Wall remains, whilst the enemies of its makers are drained by it, weakened to the point where they cannot thwart another Longer Night. It is often asked why the Others woke now, why are the dead marching now? Perhaps it was simply finally time; the dragons gone, the singers and giants barely a memory (and forced closer to the Others geographically than to anyone who might help them). The last great greenseer old, fading and unable to flee.

If Azor Ahai took dragons to war against the dark, if the singers aided the Last Hero...those things seemingly could not happen this time.

Another option is that the Wall – which does have foundations of stone, even if it is largely ice by now – was not initially thus but became corrupted. And we have a ready-made candidate for who may have done that. The Night’s King is a contemporary of Joramun, whose horn can allegedly bring down the Wall (more on him in a moment), married an Other (so they must have still been there) and held the Night’s Watchmen in thrall.

Perhaps his great sin was building or infecting the Wall to begin with, and once it began to drain the magic, magic was not strong enough to throw it down. This man, an enemy of humanity in much the same way as Craster and Euron, chose his side and aided it well, if so. And this may explain why the Black Gate, a creation of the singers, looks decayed, has been blinded and appears to be grieving.

Giants and the Horn of Joramun

However, if either of the above were true, then we should have heard of it by now from someone, surely? We have met some surviving singers, and a greenseer who all have access to the knowledge and memories of their ancient comrades. Surely this would have come up?

So suppose the Wall was build as described and is functioning as designed. Does that mean it isn’t draining magic, and this is all just very coincidental? I think it still is draining the world, because such an enormous ward must require something to power it.

But let me offer a solution: the Wall was always intended to come down.

Joramun was a King Beyond the Wall who joined with the Starks in throwing down the Night’s King. His Horn, sought by Mance, is allegedly capable of bringing the Wall down.

Now, Mance found a horn, which Mel burns, but that horn was assuredly not THE Horn. Its suspected that the actual horn maybe somewhere Old, soon with a side helping of squids.

But why was the fake horn convincing? Tormund tells us that this was because the fake horn was found in a giant’s grave – and the Horn brings down the Wall, we are told, by waking giants from the earth.

The ‘horn that wakes the sleepers’ if you will. My contention is therefore that Joramun was a giant, one of the very ones who helped build the Wall, and that his horn was fashioned as a failsafe to destroy what was made when it was no longer necessary.

Perhaps the hope was, with the singers and giants and First Men closer than ever, with dragons in the East and heroes aplenty the world over, the threat would be held at bay and the gifting of their combined magic to keep the defences strong was a willing sacrifice on all parts. But men forget, and war destroys records, and Doom came upon the dragons.

Conclusion

We are shown at length that, from a humanitarian standpoint, the Wall is evil. The Free Folk are demonised in ways that cannot possibly be true, they are hunted like beasts and left in horrible danger when the real threat arises. What are they if not the men the Night’s Watch swear to defend, as Jon comes to ask? What original sin did they commit, other than living on the other side when it was built?

The Wall also dehumanises and destroys those who serve upon it. The world would be better without the Wall, physically and magically. GRRM has said that the seasons will be restored to normal by the end, and whilst we don’t know the details of what is going to happen, but we all agree – that wall is coming down.

JRR Tolkien posits, through King Theoden, that ‘oft evil will shall evil mar’; if Euron Greyjoy, the Night’s Pirate King, does indeed bring down the Wall and lets winter in, perhaps he shall have done a greater good than he would ever had intended, and given us a chance for spring thereafter. Let’s not thank him for it, though.

Original thread here: https://x.com/BranwynHlfwitch/status/1768776863961243700

[shilohsversion]

Stark Kids!Adults AU

Jaehaerys Targaryen/Jon Snow: Husband of Queen Daenerys Targaryen & Prince Consort of 7 Kingdoms, Rider of Rhaegal

Sansa Stark: Widow of Lord Robert Arryn & Lady Regent of Vale

Arya Stark: Lady Commander of the King's Guard

Brandon Stark: Three-Eyed Crow & The Last Greenseer

Rickon Stark: King-Beyond-the-Wall

[horizon-verizon]

hotd feels like a downgrade compared to got, got had tank writing after they didn't have the source material to work with everything in hotd looks cheap despite had bigger budget this include the cinematography and the visual a bit yellowish like they try to hide something, the costume, even the actors? how the hell d&d with small budget at that time got Sean Bean (Lotr), Lena Headey (300), and Peter Dinklage (Narnia) and hotd got..... Matt Smith ... Sorry im not british he's probably popular there because dr who stuff But the rest? Emma D'arcy pushing 30 and this is their debut as a lead? i can understand why they never got cast for big movie or show before this they just using Emma as their diversity token.

George probably regret ever said this show would win eight Emmy.

To get one thing out of the way, GoT was always going to have a "dip" in quality sometime down the road bc its head writers and producers David Benioff & D.B Weiss expressed that:

they wanted to make the series palatable to "soccer moms" and I think football enjoyists...basically to it less magical or to focus much less or develop those instrinsic, story-making/plot-driving elements of the original work. Bran, Dany/dragons, direwolves, greenseer, Lady Stonehart, etc. all were cut or severely reduced to focus more on the politics and social chaos, which was very dumb. What was left in the scripts were was in the available books and it is still "half" of what was in those books. not just a "little" trimming, but VERY CRITICAL storylines and characters and whole characterizations of those characters!

As the entire series more or less can be quickly told as an informal indictment against people focusing too much on gaining power for themselves to observe their environment and be good leaders for others....I refer to the Long Night and the Others (the show renamed them to "white walkers"), who are an environmental cataclysm that only dragons and other sorts of magic is needed to defeat. In turn, they deliberatly meesed up Dany's character in nearly every which way, esp to mischaracterizae her mannerism and valiues. There is both sexism and xenophobia in how they handled/developed her arrival at the North, how they developed all Brienne, Arya, and Sansa's arcs that has nothing to do with in-world sexism and xenophobia but their own. They even severely mischaracterized Jon, tbh!

GoT was far more enjoyable not bc D&D had less material. Once again, they didn't "get" ASoIaF from the start and basically HALVED the entire story, so yeah, at one point even if they hadn't had the last books they would have been pressed to properly justify some things that GRRM might have written for the final battle...a lot pf people would ave been lost as toow soem tins worked or ow we ot there...bc the magic element was treated as subsidary.

Anyway, GoT was more enjoyable bc:

the writers at least had much more space to develop their characters seeing as they got much more than 10 episodes a season

they didn't wait long between seasons

you can see where they took in more consulting from the author than not, than Condal from GRRM (you see such from reading the books, comparing it to the shows to see what was left out, what was rewritten and how much, etc.)

and D&D got more access to the motivations behind the politics they craved to portray more then magic, more than Condal or Hess or whoever did for the entire F&B Targ list of generations, which you'd have to get to write for the Dance

by the last few seasons, they themselves have said that they wanted out and to write for other shows so they phoned it in; because magic the lack of last few books are really them not having anything to fallback on and pretend that they

I will give the HotD writers a tiny bit of leeway, since F&B is a history book that takes one to be able to read through secondhand, culturally inherited, etc. biases very well unlike the main books and it doesn't provide direct PoVs. Heads Up - Context

Though PoV chapters/writing also often has biased characters, those characters do not only provide summaries of their feelings and observations in those PoV chapters. They give corroborated observations as well as their own near-unfiltered thoughts and reactions to events/people...there is more obvious, direct, or firsthand information that we can trust is coming from a more obvious, traceable phenomenon/cause and effect. Whereas F&B doesn't record people in their absolute most intimate moments but events from a comaparatively more distanced persepctive.

F&B is, as PhoenixAses eloquently said, a secondary source that uses a lot of primary sources like Daemon and Otto's letters and royal/official written declarations of Aegon II and Viserys I and Rhaenyra and so forth. In any sort of non-fiction writing and rhetotical excercise (historical writing, essays for example), a secondary source is any document (video, written, audio, etc.) that draws on one or more primary sources and interprets or analyses them. A primary source is document that gives the direct experience of a thing that is being researched or studied, but not necessarily just one's perosn's thoughts so much as a contemporaneous news report of a thing not long after said thing happened, a photograph, or an audio or video recording of the actual event itself. A photograph of a group of concubines, a recording of a war prisoner being tortured, or the diary of a prince are all primary sources. A textbook that includes them is the secondary source.

F&B is all 2ndhand (different from "secondary source") information of collected testimonies form various people at various points of time witin events information and various maesters' an even some primary sources (Mushroom and Septon Eustace) speculation of what most likely happened between Targs and why they did certain things. Plus what pieces of dialouge and hearsay the maesters managed to preserve after nearly 200 years post-Dance. It was the maesters' and our job as readers to try to decipher what could have most likely happened in incidents where there's missing or suspect information and explain why with as much reliable evidence/knowledge of the society as possible--bc there is always a limit to what could have happened. You need to have a lot of knowledge of how people in particular positions of society will try to present or unconciously presents images of people they like or dislike or believe will be a good/bad influence on whatever the writer/source thinks matters. How those people and people in general construct arguments for why and how something happened, accept specific forms of Westerosi cultural biases as well as the systems that birth them and the history that justifies them.

Therefore, while some online will try to imply that this means one can do whatever they want to create something totally not possible in the orig lore and the story of the Dance ("unreliable" = "all or most of it is fake and propganda") or think bias = propoganda (they aren't bc I could have a certain bias against goldfish but I don't have fliers out there trying to convince anyone that goldfish are disgusting creatures). It actually means that it behooves you to DO YOUR RESEARCH into the lore of pre- & post-Conquest Westeros, the characters not just in F&B but also AWoIaF and the So Spake Martin Website, the main series (so many people think Rhaneyra was always and universally ahted in Westeros or that it was a severe minority that was neutral towards her....not the case. Even Shireen's famous and much-abused quote was more about the "tragedy" of how the royal infighting caused wide destruction, not how hateful rhaenyra supposedly was. In fact, there's a lot more evidence of Aegon II being credited as a subpar and even hateful ruler AND person than for Rhaenyra in noble Westerosi society! And Rhaenyra is called a "Queen" unironically by both Martin and many maesters in all the books). That doesn't mean they liked or approved of her being the heir or being queen, it means that they acknowledged she ruled and was made heir.

I personally would suggest doing even a bit of historical research into how medieval to early modern period European elites thought of religion(s), health and illness, bastardy as a concept and how it changed over several years, etc. as GRRM did to see why he writes certain characters the way he does. this isn't a historical fiction series, though, as som fans seem to want it to be. It is fantasy fiction, so despite F&B being a nonfictional piece of work within Westeros...it's still also a fictional piece of work part of a fictional series doen by a real man. It obviously has themes or narrative relations and tie ins and context for what is happening in the main books. None of these books are intellectually isolated installments! Book franchises with different styles never are!

So I also said it often before, but again Condal and Hess--who are the head writers who get to decided what are the final drafts and what direction the other writers will write and how, plus the directors in some capacity and more than others can--wanted to/did write a story with a much simpler and out-of-touch, benevolvently sexist story where they try to make their female characters less "hateful" to their audiences and it resulted in them dampening their fire, passion, ambition. So these women--who so happen to be the most prominent and driving characters of the entire story about SEXISM of the society and the Targs' assimilation tactics--overall are made boring in a critical way where D&D did not.

Here's the thing. We can and have already seen how terribly sexist they rewrote Dany to be more Cersei-like and other women being written towards a "temptress" or "harpy" (opposite end of the sexist spectrum opposed to how HotD writers have done), but they also still portrayed women who didn't take shit lying down. That is always going to be more entertaining, bc these women are doing stuff and have some type of brain activity/strategy going on, even when they are not overtly being confrontational. This would be true of men; if a man is doing nothing, it's innately less superficially entertaining than a man or child or whatever who are making moves and using theit brains to do it.

So yeah, GoT was more entertaining. But not bc of this too-simple idea of the books being unfinished.

And then there's how Hollywood has in the most recent years been more lead and taiolring their most prominent shows/working producers and writers to skew cis white men....the demographic who simply do not understand the ful breadth of life or has insight into women of any race, class, sexuality...even women of their own race, class, etc. Hess has shown herself to be still way too out of touch in the class department, even with her being lesbian. There is an article called "Hollywood's DEI Programs Have Begun to DIE. How Hard Did the Industry Really Try?" as well as multiples statisticalreports of cis white men on the older side as well as of higher classes still ruling the industry in almsot all ways in terms of the economics and who's directing what, etc. So yeah, this show is merely a reflection of what has been happening to this country, the industry, and its population's steady, historical race, gender, class divide.