PART IIa - THE ORIGIN ARC: The Celestials
Apr 21, 2016 3:37:35 GMT
Maester Flagons, Weasel Pie, and 2 more like this
Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Apr 21, 2016 3:37:35 GMT
THE ORIGIN ARC
Now let us journey to the place and time where it all began, and where it all may end...with the fate of man.
It all starts with the Celestials (Eternals 1 1976):
One of the oldest and most powerful races of maybe-humanoid cosmic beings, the Celestials harken from the beginnings of time and basically run things from behind the scenes in their unknown home world. They are ~2000 feet tall and visit various dimensions every so often to stir shit up and kick ass - I’m totally imagining the tiny little alien guys piloting the huge octopus ships from War of the Worlds here, btw. However, I will mention three important takeaways for them:
1) The Celestials are shadow puppet masters of the multiverse – for mysterious and unknown reasons, they influenced many key events and populations in human history (various realms) such as Mayans, Atlanteans, Egyptians, etc.
2) The Celestials are a star-faring race "as many as the stars themselves" (the nameless old gods beyond count!); no one on Earth has ever seen their true form or knows what they look like under their armor. They do not communicate directly and instead send representatives to speak for them. (A representative like a chick in a lacquer mask who seems to talk through the stars? Anyway...)
3) Finally, and most importantly, about a million years ago the Celestials were responsible for a little human science project that resulted in two offshoots of humanity: the lovely, beautiful, demigod-like Eternals, and the mutant, reptilian, shapeshifting Deviants.
Fun Side Fact: The Celestials created the mysterious object known as the Black Monolith. The Monolith is a strange, almost sentient object that was placed on Earth by The Celestials during The First Host [keep reading] possibly to record vast amounts of data over time. Virtually nothing is known about what it does or what it is even used for. During The First Celestial Host on Earth, The Celestials placed the first of many Monoliths in a jungle and exposed it to early humans, who were largely afraid of it due to the high-pitched noises it made. Even though its functions are virtually unknown it is highly possible that The Monolith is a recording device of some sorts as well as a gateway to another dimension, one that tends to evolve any who enter it beyond their natural state of being.
FWIW, the Monolith is a very large black stone. I have no idea if it's oily or it it drinks the light; I'm just sayin'.
Now, I am not proposing here that the GRRMiverse that we know as Planetos is the result of tinkerings by a race of 2000 ft tall alien beings. That's just dumb. However, what I'm seeing here is more or less the basis for all of this unwritten history of Planetos, long before the days of First Men and runes and perhaps even the Children, I don't know. The whole bit with the Celestials is just setting the stage for what's to follow, which is what I want to cover next: the big touchstone points in the historical record. The segment that I believe represents this is the idea of Celestial “Hosts” and their subsequent impact…..e.g. the occasional visits to the Earth realm to check in on their human kids, see how they’re doing and make sure they aren’t eating glue or making watercolors out of Mom’s makeup. Hypothetically speaking, of course; not that I would have any experience with THAT stuff.
There are four of these Host visits, and they seem to correspond to major periods in the history of Westeros - but that's just like, my opinion, man. You read and decide.
The First Host: ...
Oh, see, you thought you were about to get something good here, right? Well, you will, but not right now. The First Host is The first visit to Earth 1M years ago, as mentioned in Point 3 above, that spawned Eternals and Deviants. This is really important and therefore really chock full o' detail, so it will be covered to exhaustive end in a subsequent post. Hold tight and grip your seat in anticipation.
The Second Host: Ok, getting to the meat. Celestials came to Earth about 18,000 – 16,000 B.C. to check upon the progress of the First Host's visit. After deciding that the progression of the Deviants just wasn’t all that, the Celestials decided to destroy the Deviants' kingdom of Lemuria by bombing it to oblivion from their mothership at the same time that neighboring island of Atlantis was retaliating against a Deviant attack. The combination of explosions and eruptions sank Lemuria, Atlantis, and other similar civilizations into the ocean. This disaster became known as the Great Cataclysm.
All right, the lost city of Atlantis I don’t think I need to get into – we know what that’s about. Lemuria, on the other hand….well, this rolls into ASOIAF and TWOIAF territory, which some may find interesting.
*Annoying segue warning*
Lemuria (Sub-Mariner #9 January, 1969) is another lost continent like Atlantis, formerly located in the mid-Pacific Ocean. Originally home to the Deviants, whom will be covered later. The Celestials bombed the island and the majority sunk into the ocean. Not all was lost, however – some islands survived and became home base to “Yamatai, a civilization that resembled the later society of Japan in its feudal period”, among others.
Map of Lemuria location, which is based on Earth, but you get the drift.
Point of Interest: There was also a blood betrayal here, Great Empire of the Dawn-style, though this one involved children of a bitter evil god rising up to oppose the ruling faction and not a sibling, but same diff. More pertinent is the god himself, the entity Set, a seven-headed Elder God worshipped primarily by Stygians that is associated with serpents and dragons. Set’s children, the ones who participated in the aforementioned betrayal, were known as the Serpent Men, and the symbol of his power was an artifact called the Serpent Crown. This crown was lost during the Great Cataclsym. More on that in a sec.
Set, becuz. I’m going to come back to him and the other Elder Gods in a different post, because they are relevant too. The history with these guys is wild.
Serpent Crown:
Yi-Ti, anyone? I am trying to find appropriate English translations for these names (my Mandarin/Cantonese is rusty, sorry) and of course am coming up with a whole host of stuff because “the meaning can change depending on stroke of the symbol”, but I have to say….most translations are elemental words: Waves/sea, stars, sky, mountain, stone. Khitai is pronounced "Kee-Tay", fwiw.
“Other Lemurian-descended societies include the Turanians and Hyrkanians, the latter of whom served as the ancestors of the Mongols and Turks.”
Orly. Hyrkanians, huh. Like Hyrkoon the Hero? Ancestors of the Mongols/Turks, sorta like the Dothraki? Oh, George.
Cool as that is, lo and behold, in the very next issue Sub-Mariner #10 February, 1969 we learn that some surviving Lemurians of the Great Cataclysm resurfaced in the Pacific Ocean, settled into the ruins of Lemuria, and evolved into a NEW race “homo mermanus”. This evolution took place thanks to a convenient find by their ruling emperor: the Serpent Crown. The emperor donned the Crown, fell under the control of Set the Serpent God, and began to take on Set’s physical attributes such as green scaly skin and extremely prolonged life. Eventually the power of the crown bled over to the general population and affected them similarly. The emperor’s name? NAGA. Oh, George.
Wearing the Serpent Crown here.
Naga ruled as an iron-fisted tyrant for 500 years before a group of Lemurian dissidents finally stole the Serpent Crown. Lots of blood, battle, death ensued for that little trick, but eventually the crown is lost and remains so until the 20th century.
I can find exactly zero 'official' pictures of the Driftwood Crown/Crown of Salt and Rock of the Iron Islands, but here are some depictions from the FF games that I assume were created based off of some type of GRRM-approved input:
Looks kinda snakey / serpenty / reptilian to me; I wonder if the Driftwood crown is modeled after the original?
Wait, why the Iron Islands association, you ask?
Good question. FWIW, all of this backstory on Lemuria is coming from the arc of one Prince Namor the Submariner (First Silver Age appearance Fantastic Four #4 May 1962), a human-Atlantean hybrid that is the Marvel version of Aquaman. In what should be a surprise to no one, Prince Namor’s character most closely aligns with Theon Greyjoy.
Final word on Lemuria – DC Comics also jumped on the “merlings!” bandwagon, Lemurians in that series being undersea humanoids with scaly skin and webbed appendages.
/randomsegue
Back to the Second Celestial Host and the Great Cataclysm. It may interest you to know that this Great Cataclysm/continental sinking occurs in Marvel time right around the same point in prehistory as supposedly the Breaking of the Arm of Dorne in Planetos. In this post I detail another eerily familiar event that occurred in this same time period in approximately the same location (Atlantis area), and again in this one I go into yet another arc taking place in the NORTH at approximately the same point. So, lotsa stuff happening in what equates to the Dawn of Days/Age of Heroes. I also noted in the discussion of Zhered-Na that in ASOIAF terms, there is some definite conflation between the Breaking of the Arm and The Doom with regard to the sinking of Atlantis in terms of trigger events - volcanoes and whatnot.
Moving on.
The Third Host: It was during this time that Tiamut the Communicator, known as The Dreaming Celestial (Eternals #7 1977) was set up by a cabal of Celestials lead by Arishem the Judge, who coveted Tiamut’s intimate connection to The One Above All (the head honcho Celestial that never comes to Earth). After falling to a coup, The Dreaming Celestial was sealed away inside the Diablo Mountains [has anyone noticed the recurring theme of sealing cosmic entities inside of mountains? How about the Marianas Trench or something for once, Stan?] for a crime he never committed. With this act, Arishem in turn became second-in-command to The One Above All.
Dreamers impaled upon spikes in the Heart of Winter? Hmmm. Anyway, without going into the sordid details, the biggest takeaway from this character the Dreaming Celestial is that he represents a fall from grace, a good guy made out to be a bad guy due to being framed by someone else, a scapegoat for those with larger aspirations. Sound familiar?
Fun Side Fact: Although it’s unknown what the Celestials look like, they each have distinct armor.
Arishem the Judge is the RED Celestial.
Tiamut the Communicator before his exile was GOLD, but after being imprisoned in the mountain, his armor, denied the rays of the sun, turned…..BLACK.
Black or red, a dragon is still a dragon….
Another hallmark of this Third Host which came to Earth around the 10th Century was that they were met by a council of Earth’s Godheads – Zeus, Odin, and Brahma; this council confronted the Celestials, and after much negotiation a pact of non-interference with humanity was agreed upon by the Celestials, Earth's Godheads, the Eternals, and the Deviants until the arrival of the Fourth Host. *** This Third Host also spawned the creation of the Destroyer Armor, subject of THIS post.
I find this really interesting because we have the meeting of three Godheads who form a PACT with the two “special” offshoot branches of humanity. In my mind this smacks of both the Pact with the CotF and the mystery Pact of Ice and Fire, about which we know nothing; my connection to this will be more evident once I cover the First Host and the Eternals/Deviants. (I won’t get into the godly influence of the 3 Skyfathers here because the divine connection in ASOIAF will be peripheral at best – no actual gods making arrangements, in other words. Loving the magic number three, though.)
***ETA: I have been halfway following the thread "Let's Find the Swords" at Westeros, a thread that is, well, exactly what it says...a collaborative attempt to locate all of the known Valyrian Steel swords in current time. In defense of a theory, Modesty Lannister submitted THIS most excellent post that very succinctly covers the possibility of a PACT between the Starks and Targaryens going back to the Conquest. I'm hoping to get more feedback from her on this, because it ties in quite well with the above Marvel findings. Have a read.
The Fourth Host: “The Fourth Celestial Host arrived in recent years in order to judge mankind's worthiness now that the dormant DNA complex for benevolent mutations had become activated by the worldwide increase in radiation levels. The Celestials deemed humanity fit to survive. A group of twelve human beings representing the great accomplishments of mankind accompanied the Celestials when they left Earth.”
Now, this Fourth Host is, IMO, what’s coming in the current universe – it hasn’t happened yet. That little blurb about DNA and benevolent mutations becoming widespread? I think we have the opposite on Planetos – the magical bloodlines have dwindled. Targaryen, Stark, Lothston/Whent, CotF, giants, direwolves…it’s all fading. The time of the Elves is over, and this “fourth stage”, whatever it is, will be the judgment day for the fate of magic.
Note also that the Celestials send a representative – Arishem the Judge, always this guy - to issue verdict against humanity during these hosts. Afterwards, this representative leaves with TWELVE figureheads…so a group of THIRTEEN leaves Earth after judgment has been passed. Neat.
Also, with regard to these twelve representatives – these guys are known as the Young Gods.
At the end of the Third Host, Gaea (the Elder God that is the sentient force of the Earth, or Mother Nature) knew that in one thousand years (“We knew you were to come to us,” the wizard king said. “A thousand years ago we knew, and have been waiting all this time. We sent the comet to show you the way”) the Fourth Host would arrive and demand its proof of humanity’s worthiness. Gaea instructed her subject goddesses of the Earth to find and gather these twelve perfect beings for presentation – this was completed over the millennium, with NINE of the chosen hailing from different Earth centuries. The 9 were kept in a state of suspended animation until the time of the Fourth Host drew nigh. [How many bodies do you think were seated at the table of the House of the Undying, do you think?] Upon the dawning of the Fourth Host, they were still short magic number THREE – so Odin charges Heimdall, guardian of the Bifrost bridge into Asgard, and Kamorr, also known as Kamorr the Small or Kamorr the Dwarf (yes, really), with the quest of finding the remaining three Young Gods in the present time.
Note: In my Black Armor post I peg Arthur Dayne as Heimdall; however, I think this is one of those mutable characters serving several purposes/arcs, and that 'Heimdall' may be generally representative of 'really important member of the Kingsguard'. In current ASOIAF time, Heimdall would be more accurately represented by Jaime Lannister.
The three special snowflakes were located and brought to Asgard to prepare for the Fourth Host. One of these special snowflakes is a young solider whose superhero Young God name becomes, I shit you not: Bright Sword.
Blond with white armor even. That's just awesome. (You gotta love the diversity of the 60s and 70s, too, right?)
The other two "Children of Three" are, of course, another young man and a teenage girl.
Point of interest here: Odin tasked Heimdall and Kamorr with this enterprise as his son Thor and his companions The Warriors Three were off gallivanting around all questy like, busy with other important things - things related to the looming threat of Ragnarok prophesied to be orchestrated by Loki – such as leaving on a trek to find a way to repair the cracked Odinsword (the sword to end all things).
Gee, on a journey to reforge a magic sword made of a special magical metal. Go figure. Do you think they may have taken off for the Riverlands on their quest?
Re: other character IDs: Odin is going to be Bloodraven (or Bloodraven jacking someone else) in all of the Asgard arcs, Thor I have already identified as Rhaegar, and the Warriors Three…..do you even need to ask? Seriously, I just don’t even know what to do with this anymore.
Ok, finally, and then I will move on: I mentioned that the Destroyer armor was created at the end of the Third Host, and was built to be quite literally God-Killing armor. When the Celestials returned in the Fourth Host, Odin tried to battle them by wearing the armor that is superpowered with all the life forces of Asgard - except Thor - but was defeated. Additional item of importance: Odin donned not only the magical Destroyer Armor to go up against the Celestials, he wielded the Odinsword: a very old, very strong magical sword, forged in ways that are now lost, after the Third Host as a weapon to battle the Celestials, that has borne an Asgardian curse so powerful that only Odin (or some equally powerful god) can wield it. Just to be clear about this weapon: "The Odinsword is ...in the realm of Asgard under constant guard, as it is prophesied that drawing the blade from its scabbard will cause the end of the world, known to the Norse gods as Ragnarok." So, when the Celestials arrived once again to pass judgment on humanity, Odin put on the magic God-Killer armor, grabbed the magic God-Killer sword....and got his ass promptly kicked by Arishem the Judge. In fact, not only was the Odinsword ineffective against Arishem, the Celestial Judge was able to absorb the life force of the sword into his body and then MELT IT, finally destroying the curse that plagued it from its creation. [The One Ring, anyone? Again, further proof that all these fantasy/sci-guy authors totally bogart each others' works all. the. time.] After Odin's monumental defeat and total failure of all his magic weapons, only Gaea’s presentation of the Young Gods - literally, Earth's sacrifice of 12 of her most perfect and awesome children possessing the most perfect and awesome abilities - appeased Arishem and saved humanity.
Here’s how I interpret the Fourth Host in ASOIAF terms:
I think the CotF and their Old Gods are the Gaeas of the story – they knew this time was coming, and they’ve been preparing but simply don’t have the resources anymore to go whole hog with it.
Also, I'm now starting to view the Celestials as possibly the Others, with perhaps the leader or Great Other being the book version of The One Above All. Arishem the Judge would be (I guess) what the show is portraying as the Night's King - he shows up to kick ass and take names because humankind is screwing up royally, he checks to see if balance needs to be restored, and then either leaves or lays waste. This actually ties into the show plot pretty well - the Night's King being the "leader" of twelve dudes that he took away from the last house call 8000 years ago, but could he also be the guy that "usurped" the book-Dreamer in the first place through some kind of betrayal? We're told that the NK was a bad dude who did bad stuff and was erased from history for it by what may have been his own blood kin, but is that true? Is this the real story or just the historical version of legend? Interesting moral consideration: what if the Night King wasn't really the villain?
Anyway, if there's a quest to secure the new Thirteen for the coming apocalypse and the CotF are in need of assistance, enter Odin/Bloodraven to lend a hand and locate the rest – I think he may have tried to enlist Rhaegar while he was still alive and kicking, entrusting him with the handling of other prophecyish stuff, but Rhaegar failed him. I can see Bloodraven trying to strongarm his way through ‘whatever’ through use of special armor/magic swords/greenseer ability, but the real saving grace will in the end be courtesy of some intervention by ‘those who sing the song of earth’ that pacifies Arishem/Night's King/Great Other in some way. Again, Modern Arc will come into play here as that intervention may take a rather unique form. Stay tuned.
Next we will cast our consciousness back 1 million years and check out what went down during the First Host.
Now let us journey to the place and time where it all began, and where it all may end...with the fate of man.
It all starts with the Celestials (Eternals 1 1976):
One of the oldest and most powerful races of maybe-humanoid cosmic beings, the Celestials harken from the beginnings of time and basically run things from behind the scenes in their unknown home world. They are ~2000 feet tall and visit various dimensions every so often to stir shit up and kick ass - I’m totally imagining the tiny little alien guys piloting the huge octopus ships from War of the Worlds here, btw. However, I will mention three important takeaways for them:
1) The Celestials are shadow puppet masters of the multiverse – for mysterious and unknown reasons, they influenced many key events and populations in human history (various realms) such as Mayans, Atlanteans, Egyptians, etc.
2) The Celestials are a star-faring race "as many as the stars themselves" (the nameless old gods beyond count!); no one on Earth has ever seen their true form or knows what they look like under their armor. They do not communicate directly and instead send representatives to speak for them. (A representative like a chick in a lacquer mask who seems to talk through the stars? Anyway...)
3) Finally, and most importantly, about a million years ago the Celestials were responsible for a little human science project that resulted in two offshoots of humanity: the lovely, beautiful, demigod-like Eternals, and the mutant, reptilian, shapeshifting Deviants.
Fun Side Fact: The Celestials created the mysterious object known as the Black Monolith. The Monolith is a strange, almost sentient object that was placed on Earth by The Celestials during The First Host [keep reading] possibly to record vast amounts of data over time. Virtually nothing is known about what it does or what it is even used for. During The First Celestial Host on Earth, The Celestials placed the first of many Monoliths in a jungle and exposed it to early humans, who were largely afraid of it due to the high-pitched noises it made. Even though its functions are virtually unknown it is highly possible that The Monolith is a recording device of some sorts as well as a gateway to another dimension, one that tends to evolve any who enter it beyond their natural state of being.
FWIW, the Monolith is a very large black stone. I have no idea if it's oily or it it drinks the light; I'm just sayin'.
Now, I am not proposing here that the GRRMiverse that we know as Planetos is the result of tinkerings by a race of 2000 ft tall alien beings. That's just dumb. However, what I'm seeing here is more or less the basis for all of this unwritten history of Planetos, long before the days of First Men and runes and perhaps even the Children, I don't know. The whole bit with the Celestials is just setting the stage for what's to follow, which is what I want to cover next: the big touchstone points in the historical record. The segment that I believe represents this is the idea of Celestial “Hosts” and their subsequent impact…..e.g. the occasional visits to the Earth realm to check in on their human kids, see how they’re doing and make sure they aren’t eating glue or making watercolors out of Mom’s makeup. Hypothetically speaking, of course; not that I would have any experience with THAT stuff.
There are four of these Host visits, and they seem to correspond to major periods in the history of Westeros - but that's just like, my opinion, man. You read and decide.
The First Host: ...
Oh, see, you thought you were about to get something good here, right? Well, you will, but not right now. The First Host is The first visit to Earth 1M years ago, as mentioned in Point 3 above, that spawned Eternals and Deviants. This is really important and therefore really chock full o' detail, so it will be covered to exhaustive end in a subsequent post. Hold tight and grip your seat in anticipation.
The Second Host: Ok, getting to the meat. Celestials came to Earth about 18,000 – 16,000 B.C. to check upon the progress of the First Host's visit. After deciding that the progression of the Deviants just wasn’t all that, the Celestials decided to destroy the Deviants' kingdom of Lemuria by bombing it to oblivion from their mothership at the same time that neighboring island of Atlantis was retaliating against a Deviant attack. The combination of explosions and eruptions sank Lemuria, Atlantis, and other similar civilizations into the ocean. This disaster became known as the Great Cataclysm.
“The Deviants, in the middle of another assault on Atlantis, attacked the Celestial ship. In retaliation, the Celestials bombed Lemuria. At the same time, the Atlanteans opened their magma vents to drive off the Deviants. The bomb destroyed Lemuria, and the shock waves from it, combined with the open vents, sank Atlantis. This Great Cataclysm reshaped the Earth's surface."
All right, the lost city of Atlantis I don’t think I need to get into – we know what that’s about. Lemuria, on the other hand….well, this rolls into ASOIAF and TWOIAF territory, which some may find interesting.
*Annoying segue warning*
Lemuria (Sub-Mariner #9 January, 1969) is another lost continent like Atlantis, formerly located in the mid-Pacific Ocean. Originally home to the Deviants, whom will be covered later. The Celestials bombed the island and the majority sunk into the ocean. Not all was lost, however – some islands survived and became home base to “Yamatai, a civilization that resembled the later society of Japan in its feudal period”, among others.
Map of Lemuria location, which is based on Earth, but you get the drift.
Point of Interest: There was also a blood betrayal here, Great Empire of the Dawn-style, though this one involved children of a bitter evil god rising up to oppose the ruling faction and not a sibling, but same diff. More pertinent is the god himself, the entity Set, a seven-headed Elder God worshipped primarily by Stygians that is associated with serpents and dragons. Set’s children, the ones who participated in the aforementioned betrayal, were known as the Serpent Men, and the symbol of his power was an artifact called the Serpent Crown. This crown was lost during the Great Cataclsym. More on that in a sec.
Set, becuz. I’m going to come back to him and the other Elder Gods in a different post, because they are relevant too. The history with these guys is wild.
Serpent Crown:
“Other Lemurians survived by fleeing to the Asian mainland, where they were enslaved by an unnamed society. Eventually, they rebelled, drove away their masters, and set up the nation of Khitai (ancestors of the Chinese), where they worshipped deities such as Tao-Lao, Cheng-Ho, Shou-Lao, and Lei-Kung.”
Yi-Ti, anyone? I am trying to find appropriate English translations for these names (my Mandarin/Cantonese is rusty, sorry) and of course am coming up with a whole host of stuff because “the meaning can change depending on stroke of the symbol”, but I have to say….most translations are elemental words: Waves/sea, stars, sky, mountain, stone. Khitai is pronounced "Kee-Tay", fwiw.
“Other Lemurian-descended societies include the Turanians and Hyrkanians, the latter of whom served as the ancestors of the Mongols and Turks.”
Orly. Hyrkanians, huh. Like Hyrkoon the Hero? Ancestors of the Mongols/Turks, sorta like the Dothraki? Oh, George.
Cool as that is, lo and behold, in the very next issue Sub-Mariner #10 February, 1969 we learn that some surviving Lemurians of the Great Cataclysm resurfaced in the Pacific Ocean, settled into the ruins of Lemuria, and evolved into a NEW race “homo mermanus”. This evolution took place thanks to a convenient find by their ruling emperor: the Serpent Crown. The emperor donned the Crown, fell under the control of Set the Serpent God, and began to take on Set’s physical attributes such as green scaly skin and extremely prolonged life. Eventually the power of the crown bled over to the general population and affected them similarly. The emperor’s name? NAGA. Oh, George.
Wearing the Serpent Crown here.
Naga ruled as an iron-fisted tyrant for 500 years before a group of Lemurian dissidents finally stole the Serpent Crown. Lots of blood, battle, death ensued for that little trick, but eventually the crown is lost and remains so until the 20th century.
I can find exactly zero 'official' pictures of the Driftwood Crown/Crown of Salt and Rock of the Iron Islands, but here are some depictions from the FF games that I assume were created based off of some type of GRRM-approved input:
Looks kinda snakey / serpenty / reptilian to me; I wonder if the Driftwood crown is modeled after the original?
Wait, why the Iron Islands association, you ask?
Good question. FWIW, all of this backstory on Lemuria is coming from the arc of one Prince Namor the Submariner (First Silver Age appearance Fantastic Four #4 May 1962), a human-Atlantean hybrid that is the Marvel version of Aquaman. In what should be a surprise to no one, Prince Namor’s character most closely aligns with Theon Greyjoy.
Final word on Lemuria – DC Comics also jumped on the “merlings!” bandwagon, Lemurians in that series being undersea humanoids with scaly skin and webbed appendages.
/randomsegue
Back to the Second Celestial Host and the Great Cataclysm. It may interest you to know that this Great Cataclysm/continental sinking occurs in Marvel time right around the same point in prehistory as supposedly the Breaking of the Arm of Dorne in Planetos. In this post I detail another eerily familiar event that occurred in this same time period in approximately the same location (Atlantis area), and again in this one I go into yet another arc taking place in the NORTH at approximately the same point. So, lotsa stuff happening in what equates to the Dawn of Days/Age of Heroes. I also noted in the discussion of Zhered-Na that in ASOIAF terms, there is some definite conflation between the Breaking of the Arm and The Doom with regard to the sinking of Atlantis in terms of trigger events - volcanoes and whatnot.
Moving on.
The Third Host: It was during this time that Tiamut the Communicator, known as The Dreaming Celestial (Eternals #7 1977) was set up by a cabal of Celestials lead by Arishem the Judge, who coveted Tiamut’s intimate connection to The One Above All (the head honcho Celestial that never comes to Earth). After falling to a coup, The Dreaming Celestial was sealed away inside the Diablo Mountains [has anyone noticed the recurring theme of sealing cosmic entities inside of mountains? How about the Marianas Trench or something for once, Stan?] for a crime he never committed. With this act, Arishem in turn became second-in-command to The One Above All.
Dreamers impaled upon spikes in the Heart of Winter? Hmmm. Anyway, without going into the sordid details, the biggest takeaway from this character the Dreaming Celestial is that he represents a fall from grace, a good guy made out to be a bad guy due to being framed by someone else, a scapegoat for those with larger aspirations. Sound familiar?
Fun Side Fact: Although it’s unknown what the Celestials look like, they each have distinct armor.
Arishem the Judge is the RED Celestial.
Tiamut the Communicator before his exile was GOLD, but after being imprisoned in the mountain, his armor, denied the rays of the sun, turned…..BLACK.
Black or red, a dragon is still a dragon….
Another hallmark of this Third Host which came to Earth around the 10th Century was that they were met by a council of Earth’s Godheads – Zeus, Odin, and Brahma; this council confronted the Celestials, and after much negotiation a pact of non-interference with humanity was agreed upon by the Celestials, Earth's Godheads, the Eternals, and the Deviants until the arrival of the Fourth Host. *** This Third Host also spawned the creation of the Destroyer Armor, subject of THIS post.
I find this really interesting because we have the meeting of three Godheads who form a PACT with the two “special” offshoot branches of humanity. In my mind this smacks of both the Pact with the CotF and the mystery Pact of Ice and Fire, about which we know nothing; my connection to this will be more evident once I cover the First Host and the Eternals/Deviants. (I won’t get into the godly influence of the 3 Skyfathers here because the divine connection in ASOIAF will be peripheral at best – no actual gods making arrangements, in other words. Loving the magic number three, though.)
***ETA: I have been halfway following the thread "Let's Find the Swords" at Westeros, a thread that is, well, exactly what it says...a collaborative attempt to locate all of the known Valyrian Steel swords in current time. In defense of a theory, Modesty Lannister submitted THIS most excellent post that very succinctly covers the possibility of a PACT between the Starks and Targaryens going back to the Conquest. I'm hoping to get more feedback from her on this, because it ties in quite well with the above Marvel findings. Have a read.
The Fourth Host: “The Fourth Celestial Host arrived in recent years in order to judge mankind's worthiness now that the dormant DNA complex for benevolent mutations had become activated by the worldwide increase in radiation levels. The Celestials deemed humanity fit to survive. A group of twelve human beings representing the great accomplishments of mankind accompanied the Celestials when they left Earth.”
Now, this Fourth Host is, IMO, what’s coming in the current universe – it hasn’t happened yet. That little blurb about DNA and benevolent mutations becoming widespread? I think we have the opposite on Planetos – the magical bloodlines have dwindled. Targaryen, Stark, Lothston/Whent, CotF, giants, direwolves…it’s all fading. The time of the Elves is over, and this “fourth stage”, whatever it is, will be the judgment day for the fate of magic.
Note also that the Celestials send a representative – Arishem the Judge, always this guy - to issue verdict against humanity during these hosts. Afterwards, this representative leaves with TWELVE figureheads…so a group of THIRTEEN leaves Earth after judgment has been passed. Neat.
Also, with regard to these twelve representatives – these guys are known as the Young Gods.
At the end of the Third Host, Gaea (the Elder God that is the sentient force of the Earth, or Mother Nature) knew that in one thousand years (“We knew you were to come to us,” the wizard king said. “A thousand years ago we knew, and have been waiting all this time. We sent the comet to show you the way”) the Fourth Host would arrive and demand its proof of humanity’s worthiness. Gaea instructed her subject goddesses of the Earth to find and gather these twelve perfect beings for presentation – this was completed over the millennium, with NINE of the chosen hailing from different Earth centuries. The 9 were kept in a state of suspended animation until the time of the Fourth Host drew nigh. [How many bodies do you think were seated at the table of the House of the Undying, do you think?] Upon the dawning of the Fourth Host, they were still short magic number THREE – so Odin charges Heimdall, guardian of the Bifrost bridge into Asgard, and Kamorr, also known as Kamorr the Small or Kamorr the Dwarf (yes, really), with the quest of finding the remaining three Young Gods in the present time.
Note: In my Black Armor post I peg Arthur Dayne as Heimdall; however, I think this is one of those mutable characters serving several purposes/arcs, and that 'Heimdall' may be generally representative of 'really important member of the Kingsguard'. In current ASOIAF time, Heimdall would be more accurately represented by Jaime Lannister.
The three special snowflakes were located and brought to Asgard to prepare for the Fourth Host. One of these special snowflakes is a young solider whose superhero Young God name becomes, I shit you not: Bright Sword.
Blond with white armor even. That's just awesome. (You gotta love the diversity of the 60s and 70s, too, right?)
The other two "Children of Three" are, of course, another young man and a teenage girl.
Point of interest here: Odin tasked Heimdall and Kamorr with this enterprise as his son Thor and his companions The Warriors Three were off gallivanting around all questy like, busy with other important things - things related to the looming threat of Ragnarok prophesied to be orchestrated by Loki – such as leaving on a trek to find a way to repair the cracked Odinsword (the sword to end all things).
Gee, on a journey to reforge a magic sword made of a special magical metal. Go figure. Do you think they may have taken off for the Riverlands on their quest?
Re: other character IDs: Odin is going to be Bloodraven (or Bloodraven jacking someone else) in all of the Asgard arcs, Thor I have already identified as Rhaegar, and the Warriors Three…..do you even need to ask? Seriously, I just don’t even know what to do with this anymore.
Ok, finally, and then I will move on: I mentioned that the Destroyer armor was created at the end of the Third Host, and was built to be quite literally God-Killing armor. When the Celestials returned in the Fourth Host, Odin tried to battle them by wearing the armor that is superpowered with all the life forces of Asgard - except Thor - but was defeated. Additional item of importance: Odin donned not only the magical Destroyer Armor to go up against the Celestials, he wielded the Odinsword: a very old, very strong magical sword, forged in ways that are now lost, after the Third Host as a weapon to battle the Celestials, that has borne an Asgardian curse so powerful that only Odin (or some equally powerful god) can wield it. Just to be clear about this weapon: "The Odinsword is ...in the realm of Asgard under constant guard, as it is prophesied that drawing the blade from its scabbard will cause the end of the world, known to the Norse gods as Ragnarok." So, when the Celestials arrived once again to pass judgment on humanity, Odin put on the magic God-Killer armor, grabbed the magic God-Killer sword....and got his ass promptly kicked by Arishem the Judge. In fact, not only was the Odinsword ineffective against Arishem, the Celestial Judge was able to absorb the life force of the sword into his body and then MELT IT, finally destroying the curse that plagued it from its creation. [The One Ring, anyone? Again, further proof that all these fantasy/sci-guy authors totally bogart each others' works all. the. time.] After Odin's monumental defeat and total failure of all his magic weapons, only Gaea’s presentation of the Young Gods - literally, Earth's sacrifice of 12 of her most perfect and awesome children possessing the most perfect and awesome abilities - appeased Arishem and saved humanity.
Here’s how I interpret the Fourth Host in ASOIAF terms:
I think the CotF and their Old Gods are the Gaeas of the story – they knew this time was coming, and they’ve been preparing but simply don’t have the resources anymore to go whole hog with it.
Also, I'm now starting to view the Celestials as possibly the Others, with perhaps the leader or Great Other being the book version of The One Above All. Arishem the Judge would be (I guess) what the show is portraying as the Night's King - he shows up to kick ass and take names because humankind is screwing up royally, he checks to see if balance needs to be restored, and then either leaves or lays waste. This actually ties into the show plot pretty well - the Night's King being the "leader" of twelve dudes that he took away from the last house call 8000 years ago, but could he also be the guy that "usurped" the book-Dreamer in the first place through some kind of betrayal? We're told that the NK was a bad dude who did bad stuff and was erased from history for it by what may have been his own blood kin, but is that true? Is this the real story or just the historical version of legend? Interesting moral consideration: what if the Night King wasn't really the villain?
Anyway, if there's a quest to secure the new Thirteen for the coming apocalypse and the CotF are in need of assistance, enter Odin/Bloodraven to lend a hand and locate the rest – I think he may have tried to enlist Rhaegar while he was still alive and kicking, entrusting him with the handling of other prophecyish stuff, but Rhaegar failed him. I can see Bloodraven trying to strongarm his way through ‘whatever’ through use of special armor/magic swords/greenseer ability, but the real saving grace will in the end be courtesy of some intervention by ‘those who sing the song of earth’ that pacifies Arishem/Night's King/Great Other in some way. Again, Modern Arc will come into play here as that intervention may take a rather unique form. Stay tuned.
Next we will cast our consciousness back 1 million years and check out what went down during the First Host.