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Post by Maester Flagons on Apr 4, 2016 19:09:18 GMT
Cerberus is the hound of Hades; the giant, three-headed dog who guards the gates of the underworld. Sometimes represented with snake heads too or snake tails along with the dog heads. He prevents the dead from leaving. Some say he eats those who try to escape death.
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Post by Melifeather on Apr 4, 2016 20:16:46 GMT
Cerberus is the hound of Hades; the giant, three-headed dog who guards the gates of the underworld. Sometimes represented with snake heads too or snake tails along with the dog heads. He prevents the dead from leaving. Some say he eats those who try to escape death. Well then, there is something that could be similar. In AFFC Chapter 18 The Drowned Man there is mention of leviathans, which are sea monsters. Biblically leviathans are like whales, but middle eastern origins describe it as a seven-headed sea serpent. Nagga was said to have fed on krakens and leviathans. Edited to add: and then there's a report that Euron executed a man that wouldn't support him in the kingsmoot and he had his body cut into seven pieces. I will be explaining this symbolism when I get the Drowned Man analysis completed. I'm only about 2/3'rds done.
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Post by Maester Flagons on Apr 30, 2016 1:06:51 GMT
Don't recall if anyone mentioned the door to death. (A door must have its hinges.) When Catelyn lights a candle in the Sept she thinks this of the Crone, ..."who let the first raven into the world when she peered through the door of death." The raven came from the world of death into the world of the living through the actions of the old woman.
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Post by Melifeather on Apr 30, 2016 3:53:32 GMT
Don't recall if anyone mentioned the door to death. (A door must have its hinges.) When Catelyn lights a candle in the Sept she thinks this of the Crone, ..."who let the first raven into the world when she peered through the door of death." The raven came from the world of death into the world of the living through the actions of the old woman. I wonder if the Crone is symbolic of "the wisdom" of letting in "a raven" called Bloodraven into the Children's realm as a greenseer.
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Post by Maester Flagons on Apr 30, 2016 13:31:35 GMT
Yeah. What i am now pondering is, did this crow that the Crone let in actually bring about a change, or just deliver the message? And there is a simple connectection to the three-eyed crow too. The three-eyed crow is in the minds of Bran and Jojen after suffering a tragedy. Floating in between death and life where the hinge could flip either way. The three eyed crow did bring Bran back to the living after he had passed to the brink of death. Another similarity - Coldhands and the Black Gate. I'd say Coldhands is a walking, talking three-eyed crow, and This dead crow flew down to the door in the Wall, but could not pass through. Sam opened it, but Coldhands still could not pass. So maybe this crone and raven is actually yet to come in the current story. Someone must break the hinge at the Wall. Or at least oil it.
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Post by min on Apr 30, 2016 14:06:41 GMT
Yeah. What i am now pondering is, did this crow that the Crone let in actually bring about a change, or just deliver the message? And there is a simple connectection to the three-eyed crow too. The three-eyed crow is in the minds of Bran and Jojen after suffering a tragedy. Floating in between death and life where the hinge could flip either way. The three eyed crow did bring Bran back to the living after he had passed to the brink of death. Another similarity - Coldhands and the Black Gate. I'd say Coldhands is a walking, talking three-eyed crow, and This dead crow flew down to the door in the Wall, but could not pass through. Sam opened it, but Coldhands still could not pass. So maybe this crone and raven is actually yet to come in the current story. Someone must break the hinge at the Wall. Or at least oil it. Sounds like a job for a red woman. I too think Coldhands is a three-eyed crow.
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Post by min on May 4, 2016 15:06:29 GMT
This quote from Mel about drawing a shadow or essence of something and draping it around another like a cloak or a veil has me wondering once again about Quathe’s instructions to Dany. So here is the allusion to sewing, draping and seaming; connecting the ritual to the House of Black and White.
DwD Melisandre
"The bones help," Said Melissandre. "The bones remember. The strongest glamors are built of such things. A dead man's boots, a hank of hair, a bag of fingerbones. With whispered words and prayer, a man's shadow can be drawn forth from such and draped about another like a cloak. The wearer's essence does not change, only his seeming."
Dany gets instructions from an encounter with Quaithe in Chapter 40 of a Clash of Kings and it’s noteworthy that she drinks the shade of the evening to lift the veil before entering the House of Udying in Chapter 48 of a Clash of Kings. aCoK Chapter 40 Dany III
To go north, you must journey south, to reach the west you must go east. To go forward you must go back and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow.
Passing beneath the shadow has been interpreted as the shadow by Asshai but this is a reference to the shadow beneath the Mother of Mountains in Vaes Dothrak where we know Dany must go to join the crones.
So to touch the light, Dany must pass beneath the Shadow of the Mother of Mountains. But are we talking literally of shadows or of sorcery; the essence of something pulled over something else to create a seaming?
The House of the Undying seems very much connected to the serpentine section of the Wall. Indeed while taking inventory in the wormways; Jon reflects that he is standing beneath a mountain of ice. Is the Wall a shadow of the Mother of Mountains, an essence draped over the Wall like a cloak or a veil?
It seems almost certain that the Dothraki high holy place is another place of power or hinge of the world. Has Dany already passed beneath the shadow?
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Post by min on May 4, 2016 15:23:49 GMT
Here some artwork from the World of Ice and Fire showing the switchback stairs. It does look like a seam stitching the wall together. LOL. Curious, in the notes, there is also a reference to the shadow beneath the Wall. The Wall - World of Ice and Fire
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Post by Melifeather on May 4, 2016 15:59:50 GMT
she drinks the shade of the evening to lift the veil before entering Euron brought a keg of shade of the evening when he went home for the kingsmoot, so it must be a powerful tool for sorcery. I am wondering if the drinker actually dies or makes it possible for them to pass through into the underworld? Or, at the very least pass through warded hinges? Passing beneath the shadow has been interpreted as the shadow by Asshai but this is a reference to the shadow beneath the Mother of Mountains in Vaes Dothrak where we know Dany must go to join the crones. We understand shadows and white shadows to be spirits drawn from the living, so to pass beneath one...well, doesn't it sound like you have to become dead? Melisandre is very, very old...she is like the undying, and maybe Qaithe is too? Is she giving Dany instructions on how to become like they are?
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Post by min on May 4, 2016 22:31:23 GMT
I think these drugs (shade of the evening; weirnut paste or Tyrion's mushroom) alter the mind so that the unconscious mind can see the shadow visions and the shadow world beneath the conscious world; the 'seeming' beneath the veil. Bran's vision and Jojen's green dreams are possible because of the coma state. They have opened death's door but haven't crossed the threshold. It could be argued that as the bride of fire; Dany has been carried across the threshold in the house of the undying.
Dany seems to be traversing the shadow beneath the Wall with it's long hallway of doors; that hinge is open via the black gate and the corresponding door at the Palace of Dust. Those places seamed together with crooked stitches.
My cracked pot about wiernut paste is that it isn't made from the nut of the tree; but from the red and white mushroom of the type that Tyrion finds. Shade of the evening with it's inky color and taste also from a hallucinogenic fungus associated with it's tree. They are poisons. Recalling Euron's attempt to get Victarion try Shade of the Evening and Victarion's contention that Euron's gifts are poison.
So I guess I question whether Dany has passed beneath the shadow of the Wall to touch the light in the House of the Undying. Touching the light as a euphemism for acquiring truth; knowledge; visions, morrows not yet made. And if there is a connection between that other place the shadow beneath the mother of mountains and the wall; if their respective shadows are seamed together as another hinge as well.
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Post by Melifeather on May 4, 2016 22:40:31 GMT
Touching the light as a euphemism for acquiring truth; knowledge; visions, morrows not yet made. I like that description, because it is also by opening the third eye that the skinchanger has another type of sight. An eye would let in light, so touching the light is the ability to see this alternative universe.
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Post by min on May 4, 2016 22:55:20 GMT
Touching the light as a euphemism for acquiring truth; knowledge; visions, morrows not yet made. I like that description, because it is also by opening the third eye that the skinchanger has another type of sight. An eye would let in light, so touching the light is the ability to see this alternative universe. I like it! If her third eye hasn't been opened assuming she's a candidate; then that could make all the difference controlling dragons.
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Post by Maester Flagons on May 4, 2016 23:56:55 GMT
My cracked pot about wiernut paste is that it isn't made from the nut of the tree; but from the red and white mushroom of the type that Tyrion finds. Shade of the evening with it's inky color and taste also from a hallucinogenic fungus associated with it's tree. They are poisons. Recalling Euron's attempt to get Victarion try Shade of the Evening and Victarion's contention that Euron's gifts are poison. Thats a good take on the potions. The paste which Bran eats has always thrown me off because I do not recall weirwoods described as bearing fruit. You know, Porcini mushrooms have a symbiotic relationship with trees, growing around the roots of the trees and producing the fruits above ground. And other mushrooms have the same relationship with plants and their roots. Then there are the magic mushrooms which can bring about "altered thinking processes, closed and open-eye visuals, synesthesia, an altered sense of time and spiritual experiences." Anyway, the hinges and the ability to 'travel' across them is interesting. It seems that one's own blood is not enough. There must be a catalyst before taking the journey.
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Post by Maester Flagons on May 5, 2016 0:00:31 GMT
Touching the light as a euphemism for acquiring truth; knowledge; visions, morrows not yet made. I like that description, because it is also by opening the third eye that the skinchanger has another type of sight. An eye would let in light, so touching the light is the ability to see this alternative universe. I like it too. Bran passed beyond the curtain of light while comatose. Now he has to learn to see all of this while conscious.
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Post by min on May 5, 2016 1:49:59 GMT
I like that description, because it is also by opening the third eye that the skinchanger has another type of sight. An eye would let in light, so touching the light is the ability to see this alternative universe. I like it too. Bran passed beyond the curtain of light while comatose. Now he has to learn to see all of this while conscious. I forgot about the curtain of light! Fantastic! Tyrion's Mushroom: The empty flagon slipped from his hand and rolled across the yard. Tyrion pushed himself off the bench and went to fetch it. As he did, he saw some mushrooms growing up from a cracked paving tile. Pale white they were, with speckles, and red-ribbed undersides dark as blood. The dwarf snapped one off and sniffed. Delicious, he thought and deadly.
There were seven of the mushrooms. Perhaps the Seven were trying to tell him something. He picked them all, snatched a glove down from the line, wrapped them carefully, and stuffed them down his pocket. The effort made him dizzy, so afterward he crawled back onto the bench, curled up and shut his eyes. I'm not sure if he's dizzy from his drunken bender or from handling the mushrooms but I've always been amused that he ends up carrying them in the toe of his boot. Snowylocks gives Bran a bowl of Weirnut paste: She had a weirwood bowl in her hands, carved with a dozen faces, like the ones the heart trees wore. Inside was a paste, thick and heavy, with dark red veins running through it. "You must eat of this," said Leaf. She handed Bran a wooden spoon.
The boy looked at the bowl uncertainly. "What is it?"
"A paste of weirwood seeds."
Something about the look of it made Bran feel ill. The red veins were only weirwood sap, he supposed, but in the torchlight they looked remarkably like blood. He dipped the spoon into the past, then hesitated. "Will this make me a greenseer?"
"Your blood makes you a greenseer," said Lord Brynden. "This will help awaken your gifts and wed you to the trees."
Bran did not want to be married to a tree ... but who else would wed a broken boy like him? A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. A greenseer.
He ate.
It had a bitter taste, though not so butter as acorn paste. The first spoonful was the hardest to get down. He almost retched it right back up. The second tasted better. The third was almost sweet. The rest he spooned up eagerly. Why had he thought that it was bitter? It tasted of honey, of new-fallen snow, of pepper and cinnamon and the last kiss his mother ever gave him. The empty bowl slipped from his fingers and clatter on the cavern floor. "I don't feel any different. What happens next?" Dany drinks Shade of the Evening: When they reached the door -- a tall oval mouth, set in a wall fashioned in the likeness of a human face -- the smallest dwarf Dany had ever seen was waiting on the threshold. He stood no higher than her knee, his face pinched an pointed, snoutish, but he was dressed in delicate livery of purple and blue, and his tiny pink hands held a silver tray. Upon it rested a slender crystal glass filled with a thick blue liquid: shade of the evening, the wine of warlocks. "Take and drink," urged Pyat Pree.
"Will it turn my lips blue?"
"One flute will serve only to unstop your ears and dissolve the caul (veil) from off your eyes, so that you may hear and see the truths that will be laid before you."
Dany raised the glass to her lips. The first sip tasted like ink and spoiled meat, foul, but when she swallowed it seemed to come to life within her. She could feel tendrils spreading through her chest, like fingers of fire coiling around her heart, and on her tongue was a taste like honey and anise and cream, like mother's milk and Drogo's seed, like red meat and hot blood and molten gold. It was all the tastes she had ever known, and none of them ... and then the glass was empty.
There is a symmetry between Dany's experience and Bran's experience. The initial disgust and foulness and then the seduction of the drug as Dany feels it coursing through her body. And lest we forget; Bloodraven grows little grey mushrooms on his forehead. LOL
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