|
Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Sept 3, 2017 2:48:56 GMT
In what is probably a futile attempt to tie a few topics, threads, and thoughts clanging around in my head together, I want to dive into one of the most important and most heretical segments of my Marvel research - the arc that nudges up against RLJ …or rather, NOT RLJ, to be more apt. This plotline is the one that drove me to turn this Marvel distraction into a full-fledged bona-fide project, and convinced me beyond all shadow of a doubt that GRRM is recycling stories from the beloved action comics of his youth. Like everyone else, I’m eagerly awaiting TWOW – not just for the pleasure of getting what may very well be the last book in this series, but also for hints that I’m on the right track with this Marvel direction and not just wasting gobs of internet time reading about Silver Age superheroes when I could be acting like a responsible and productive parent to my kids or watching cat videos on YouTube. In addition, the further I delve into some of these crazy theories of mine and the more I pull on some of these threads that I encounter along the way, the more things begin to coalesce into a somewhat cohesive narrative – one that could certainly be fully and spectacularly WRONG, of course, but a narrative nonetheless. This particular one actually ties into the crackpottery of the Fisherman's Daughter and the forthcoming Sisterhood of Trees, and amazingly enough resolves some lingering timeline issues that I’ve had (well, that everybody reading ASOIAF has had, really). So, hop on the crazy train with me now for this short but intense ride. Although the parallels for this arc will be primarily in plot and not character, there are a few noteworthy individual correlations that I want to introduce. Let’s begin with trees. Specifically, intelligent alien ones. The COTATI The Cotati (Avengers 133 1975) are an ancient race of peaceful once-humanoid tree-beings from the planet Hala in the Pama star system (Pama being the name of the sun). They evolved approximately 20 million years ago, and coexisted (albeit separately/in different areas) on Hala with the humanlike but barbaric Kree (Fantastic Four 65 1967). (I have so much to say about the Kree, including the genetic engineering experiments that they were subjected to that led into splitting of their race, but that’s another thread.) For the record, the Kree look almost fully & typically human, the only difference being that they have blue skin. At the time of their lives on Hala, the Cotati were more or less Ent-like: long tree-ish bodies with branches for limbs (har) that allowed slow ambulatory movement. They possessed a humanoid head with eyes and mouth that sat atop their long trunklike torsos. In other words, an Ent. Or Groot, if you’re so inclined (although Groot is a different unrelated race, just so you know – I AM NOT GROOT). However, the Cotati’s most unique quality wasn’t a physical characteristic but an ability – they were highly sentient, and also telepathic. Their telepathy – along with their plantlike appearance – allowed them to lay low and do their tree thing mostly undetected on the planet by the warrior Kree. Until the Skrulls came, anyway. Skrulls (Fantastic 4 #2 January 1962) are another race of humanoid aliens, but these guys are reptilian. Green skin, scales, red eyes, pointy ears, sharp teeth, ugly. These are the offshoots of more of the same genetic experiments I mentioned for the Kree – while part of the population got all the good cool genes that turned them beautiful and godlike (like a branch of the Kree), this branch got the serious genetic shaft that left them monstrous and lizardy. Oh, and they are shapeshifters too, able to assume almost any form, and also genderbenders – even though they have sexually dimorphic bodies (males larger than females) they can still change sex at will. Sound vaguely familiar? The Skrulls were a technologically advanced race, and were primarily a peaceful trading civilization operating out of their home base on planet Skrullos. As traders, they had a motivated interest in being able to travel around the universe, looking for civilization/trade partners/general ways to feel superior, so they put their technology skills to use and developed long-distance space travel to help them jet around looking for other colonies to fold into the Skrull empire in some kind of weird extraterrestrial NAFTA deal – the Skrull would share their technology with the new culture so that the colony could advance and become a worthy “free trade” partner in a show of mutual cooperation. It was during one of these quests that the Skrull encountered the planet Hala. Let me stop and recap for a second: I’m sure I don’t need to explain the tree people, but I want to clarify timeframe in terms of ASOIAF. The Cotati/Kree were hanging out on their home planet in the period I would term “a long damn time ago”, roughly one million years in the Marvelverse, so for our purposes this is also going to be “a long damn time ago” in Planetos – most certainly pre-First Men. I haven’t identified the correlating ASOIAF human races in question here (the trees are a no brainer) besides thinking they may be GeoDawnians or some other proto-Valyrian colony, but really, it doesn’t matter. It’s all origin-story soup in the end. The takeaway is that we have two big cultures about to clash, with the trees on the sidelines. So the Skrull show up on Hala, and discover not one but TWO intelligent races inhabiting the planet. Apparently the Skrull didn’t have enough tech to go around, because they decided that sharing their secrets with both Cotati and Kree was just stupid, and instead…they needed to fight for it. Caveat: the fight was with wits, not arms – the two races were given a building competition. Representatives of both the Kree and the Cotati (17 each, jiving with GRRM’s love for prime numbers) would be taken to new locales in different parts of neighboring solar systems and tasked with making those areas habitable. The Skrulls provided supplies and a smidgen of Skrull knowledge, and gave each race one year to do something amazing. At the end of the year, they would be judged on their output and the winning race would receive the benevolent gifts of the Skrull. (Aside: It is unknown whether Jeff “Jiffy Pop” Probst hosted this season of “Survivor: Hala”.) Each race went to a moon to complete their tasks. Yep, two moons in play here, calm down LmL. The Cotati went to one barren moonscape (exact location unknown), and the Kree went to the moon of Earth 616 – “our” Earth – and settled on the far side of such in a location known as the Blue Area of the Moon to complete their tasks. In the Blue Area, the Kree built a city – an amazing city, the best city, so beautiful. They build unbelievable cities, you know. To mimic the circumstances of Earth in hopes of impressing their potential benefactors, the even included artificial gravity and self-replenishing air in this giant and magnificent city on the barren landscape of the moon. I am reminded of two things here:
From TWOIAF: From ACOK:
Qarth also being the place that happens to host a room full of human-looking beings with blue skin, just like the Kree. Qarth furthermore being a city on the outskirts of the Red Waste, which isn’t a moon but probably looks a lot like the landscape of one.
There’s also this, though: With regard to the the thought of dead cities, we should talk about the results of the contest: nutshell, the Kree lost. Even though the Kree had constructed this big beautiful city using rudimentary technology passed to them by the Skrull, the Cotati used their own talents to cultivate a total self-sustaining ecosystem – their once-barren landscape was now a beautiful living ‘garden of earthly delights’ suitable not only for the Cotati but other species as well. The Skrull were duly impressed by the Cotati’s success, judged them to have done more with the tools and time given to them than the Kree, and declared them the winners worthy of joining the Skrull Empire. The Kree back on Hala were wroth upon learning this outcome.. In revenge, they began to slaughter the peaceful Cotati en masse, with intent on destroying the entire race of ‘opposition’ through genocide. Knowing their destruction was nigh, the Cotati took two steps to preserve the race: first, they spawned a new generation before dying (think “suckering” trees like aspens and cottonwoods…and weirwoods, from the sound of it); second, they began to transform into normal-looking trees. In this survival mode, the Cotati triggered a rapid devolution – they sacrificed their mobility and rechanneled that energy into the development of their telepathy; as such, they became “rooted” in place, but their mental powers “branched” into a wide network of interconnected sentience. This led to a change in physical appearance as well: “As a result, their legs, torso and head merged into a single trunk-like body which was rooted firmly to the ground, and their faces became increasingly less evident until eventually no trace of any facial features remained. Most Cotati now look like simple, unremarkable trees although some have more distinctive appearances which include faces."
The Cotati were not the only targets of the Kree, however. When the Skrull ambassadors learned that the Kree intended to win the contest by default – in the form of eliminating their competitors – they basically enacted a Trump-worthy travel ban that prohibited the Kree from ever joining their mercantile circle in any world or solar system. The Kree liked this about as much as they liked losing in the first place, and expressed their displeasure by massacring the Skrull delegates and commandeering their spacecraft – along with its superior technology. This act also led to two significant results: it began the multi-race multi-world Kree-Skrull war (Avengers #89 - 97 June 1971 - March 1972) that continued for eons and eventually involved the Avengers, and it also led the Kree to begin performing genetic experimentation of their own on neighboring Earth’s early Homo sapiens in order to engineer better Kree and build mutant soldiers to be used against the Skrull. Ok, time for another recap. To couch this in ASOIAF terms, these prehistoric races went to war. The Kree/Skrull conflict is a very large and complex arc that is deserving of its own thread because IMO it is truly a foundation for the ice/fire conflict in the books, so here I will only note that 1) it happened, and 2) it involved two large races/factions/powers that influence the rest of history. I have some ideas on who these races may have been that I might add into the footnotes, but in summary my *suspicion* is that the Kree equates to one of the early advanced civilization strains, most likely the one that gave rise to the Valyrians, that built some of these greatest cities that ever were or ever will be. Vaes Tolorro, the dead city “pale as the moon” with "faded scars of fire" may be a nod to the Marvel-ous city of the Blue Area of the Moon. Qarth itself with its population of “Milk Men” (white/pale, like the moon and Vaes Tolorro) and its blue-skinned living corpse dignitaries in the House of the Undying may also be homage to the Kree, who are yooge players in the Marvelverse, bigly. The fact that Qarth is also quite important in the books but gets barely a blurb in TWOIAF is also a big red flag to me – I’ve determined that anything that is repeated/revisited through the series but that is conveniently left out of the World Book is going to be REALLY FRIGGING IMPORTANT. While the Kree were off starting a war and commencing to build their vast militaristic empire, however, the poor trapped Cotati were still trying their best to not become extinct, relying on their reverse evolution. They got lucky, though, finding aid from an unexpected source – some members of the Kree themselves. A sect of pacifist Kree, dismayed by the turn their society had taken and even more dismayed at the persecution they were receiving at the hands of their fellow Kree who were in favor of war (damn, Stan Lee really is a freaking prophet), went underground to become ninjas. No, seriously – they went into hiding and trained in secret to become masters of both self-defense and the mind…sooo, yeah, ninjas. Over time, they became excellent fighters and meditative gurus. Time passed, war raged, and eventually the members of this sect were contacted by the remaining Cotati. An alliance was forged – the pacifist Kree would become guardians of the now-immobile Cotati, protecting them from the warrior factions with their mad ninjitsu, and in return the Cotati would teach the Kree all the secrets and powers of the mind. After 100 years of this reciprocity, the Kree made this deal both permanent and official and designated themselves the Priests of Pama (Avengers #123 (1974). Do tell, now!! Guardians of the trees, you don’t say!! Hmmmm, now where I have heard this before...
Due to their superb fighting skills, the Priests finally flew within Kree radar and were recruited to serve at various galactic outposts along with Kree Sentries. As they departed Hala, each Priest smuggled a pair of sapling Cotati out with them to their new respective planets, including Earth-616; they re-homed the Cotati in secret temples on their new planet(s) and resumed their guardianship. Those Cotati that were relocated to Earth have from time to time involved themselves in the goings-on of various superheroes, including our very own Avengers (the Avengers serving in this arc as a general catch-all for what I term the Rebellion Brat Pack – all those from current story who were teens/young adults during the Rebellion, save the Targaryens)…and it is with the Avengers that they will play a part in THIS tale, and where I will take leave (har) of the Cotati to move on to the next relevant character. THE SWORDSMAN
Swordsman (Jacques Duquesne) (Avengers Vol.1 #19 August 1965) has been both a superhero and a villain. I’m eager to see who others come up with as an ASOIAF parallel; I know who I have in mind and why, but I want first reactions from the peanut gallery too. First, Jacques is one'a them funny-talkin' furriners, growing up in a life of privilege “far away” in a nation across the ocean under French rule at the time. After becoming skilled in the use of swords, knives, and other bladed weaponry, he joined a resistance movement under his alias “Swordsman” (think Errol Flynn here) to liberate his homeland from the French; after successfully rebelling, he learned that the leader of resistance had killed his father. Duquesne abandoned his homeland in disillusionment and hit the road looking for purpose. He didn’t find that, but he did find a life of gambling, alcohol, and petty crime. Duquesne took up his costume and swordplay once again to join the Carson Carnival of Traveling Wonders; it is during this time that he met a young boy named Clint Barton, the future Hawkeye (Tales of Suspense #57 September, 1964). (I will interject here and mention that Hawkeye’s counterpart is Jaime Lannister. George himself has made this comparison and it is solely based on similarity in character (sarcastic, rather cynical) rather than specific skill set - GRRM even lamented once over the producers of the Marvel movies gave all of Hawkeye’s wiseass personality to Tony Stark, because Hawkeye was such a great character on paper and Bob Downey got all the good dialogue in the films. So, Jaime. Comic Hawkeye even looks like Jaime, if you think about it; all blond and square-jawed and handsome. I only bring this up because this Jaime connection is a hat-tip to the identity of Swordsman. IMO.)
So Clint Barton joins the Carnival, and Swordsman takes him under his wing, training him in the use of bladed weapons while Barton discovers his rad archery skills. However, the camaraderie is short-lived, as one day Hawkeye discovers his mentor doing some bad shit he wasn’t supposed to be doing - namely cheating their boss. Young Clint tried to do the right thing and tell – someone always tells – and Swordsman tried to kill him but failed. Swordsman escaped, and left the carnival to pursue a life of crime. Digressing, I *suspect* that the Hawkeye/Swordsman relationship has some echoes in Jaime and Arthur Dayne, and/or some other members of the Kingsguard in the days before Harrenhal, and I further *suspect* that Jaime became very disillusioned with Ser Dayne at some point in the same way that Hawkeye became disillusioned with Swordsman - perhaps even for similar reasons. Also, I have to sideline here for a second just for sheer hell of it: This’ life of crime’ that Sworsdman entered involved a stint with a group known as the Lethal Legion (Avengers #78 July 1970), a band of villains founded/led by one Grim Reaper (Avengers #52 May 1968) – the “black sheep” (Marvel's words, not mine) brother of former Avenger Wonder Man, aka Simon Williams.
The Lethal Legion bears some resemblance to the Kingswood Brotherhood in deed as well as character development. First, Simon Toyne was a member of the KWB. His relationship to Myles Toyne of the Golden Company (who was still alive at the time) is unknown; however, recall that Myles Toyne was known as “Blackheart”. The Grim Reaper in popular lore is portrayed as bare skull atop a skeleton cloaked in black. Myles Toyne was the former leader of the Golden Company, and his golden skull now sits atop a standard pole when they ride to battle, as a sign to foes that Death is coming. The Golden Company was founded by Aegor Rivers, half Targaryen great bastard, and brother to Daemon Blackfyre, the wonder son of Aerys IV. Here’s a few versions of Wonder Man:
And a couple of Bittersteel, just because.
Lulz! Black or red, a dragon is still a dragon! You guys don’t even realize that I work on these Marvel theories just for the pictures. Anyway, interesting that we have the connection with both the Kingswood Brotherhood and the Golden Company between all of these characters in both comic and book series.
Back to it, Swordsman’s arc carries on and he goes through a few cycles in which he actually tries to turn over a new leaf and join the Avengers. He gets rejected a time or two, then finally convinces them that he’s a good dude and gets to join the team. HOWEVER. But of course he’s not a good dude for realz! Of course he’s a secret agent of the Mandarin – a nefarious supervillan that bears much in common with our favorite meaty magister Illyrio Moptais. (Although Mandarin (Tales of Suspense #50 February 1964) and the Avengers clash multiple times in the Marvelverse, Mandarin isn’t particularly interested in defeating the Avengers for his own sake; really, all he’s after is power and world dominion, and these pesky superheroes just get in his way, yanno?) To aid Swordsman in his infiltration plot, he even outfits Swordsman with a nifty special sword, modded out with all kinds of power using a special secret Malukan technology. Remember that Easter Egg about the special gift that Illyrio put in the chest to give to FAegon? (Malukans, just so you know, are an extinct race of large dragon-like reptilian beings known for their special secret tech. Mandarin’s 10 Rings of Power that he wears on each finger - lookin' at you, cheesemonger - are of Malukan origin as well, and his life quest is to unlock all the secrets of this race so he can use them in his quest for world domination. Just sayin’.) Swordman’s mission for the Mandarin is to kill all the Avengers via a bomb, but at last crucial moment he caved and refused to detonate it, sparing them and betraying the Mandarin.
Despite his semi-heroic change of heart, he nonetheless left the Avengers and again returned to the life of a costumed mercenary. Until...he met Mantis (Avengers #112 June 1973).
I am not going to go into much of Mantis’ backstory, because this is one instance in which the ASOIAF parallel character has very little in common with the Marvel version. There are a few indirect similarities but going into the detail required to explain them is probably more trouble than it’s worth, so let it suffice to say that 1) Mantis has a childhood connection to the Priests of Pama, and 2) she becomes an Avenger.
Mantis has like zero Kelvin resemblance to Lyanna, just so you know. I mean, really.
It is my opinion that Mantis has a PLOT parallel in Lyanna Stark. Mantis was actually raised in a temple of the Priests of Pama (a backstory I won’t get into) mentioned upthread, those guardians of the Cotati. Despite enjoying a childhood of training in defense and mental arts with the Priests, in some weird plot arc twist she has her memory of this erased – the Priests make her literally forget about these warrior indulgences of her girlhood and send her out into the wider world to broaden her horizons/gain life experience and whatnot that they believe will assist her in a future important role.
This is one of the subtle Lyanna connections – she grew up as a wild tomboy in Winterfell playing with tourney swords and whatnot, but then Rickard develops his southron ambitions and, in my personal crackpot headcanon, sends her south to serve in court. No, there is no textual support for this; no, I don’t care. Lyanna being at court around the time of her disappearance actually explains so many things in the story and is indirectly supported by tons of evidence, so that’s my theory and I’m sticking to it. All this batshit I'm pouring out right now makes so much more sense if you just go with it.
Mantis goes to the big city to learn the ways of the world, and like most small-town girls that strike out for the bright lights, she ends up working as barmaid/prostitute instead. (And what a coincidence that I just so happen to believe that brothels and prostitutes were a part of Lyanna’s story as well, but that’s a different thread.) It is via this glamorous life that she meets and befriends Swordsman, drowning himself in drink.
Duquesne fell hard for Mantis, and again personified the old trope that love turns a guy around – she dragged him out of his alcoholic stupor and convinced him to clean up and accompany her in joining the Avengers. Despite Swordsman’s past escapades, the team accepted Mantis’ character voucher and allowed him to join. Duquesne thrived in the new group: “It appears that he was in search of a cause. His membership in the Avengers and his love of Mantis brought out his best traits, aiding him in overcoming his many character flaws and finding his inner nobility.” Awwww. The love of a good woman does it every time!
With Mantis’ help, not only did Swordsman find a cause with the Avengers, he sacrificed himself for it – his final mission centered around the love of his life and a conflict with this next guy. Last but certainly not least, let’s meet:
|
|
|
Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Sept 3, 2017 4:40:50 GMT
KANG THE CONQUEROR
This is a super-fun but super-difficult character to track; hence why it took so long for me to lay this sucker out. Kang (Avengers #8 September, 1964) is a big baddie, like #65 out of the best 100 comic villains of all time, and his arc is enormous. Even the dedicated Marvel archivists can’t get quite a handle on all his plots or all his personas due to the span and complexity of this character (nor could his creators, if truth be told, since Kang is also one of the most retconned characters in Marvel history). See, Kang is a timelord. Or rather, THE timelord. Kang not only travels through space and time, he also splinters off into a different version of himself each time he does so – therefore, there are many alternate Kangs, and each alternate has a unique plot arc and own villainous schemes, etc, and these various iterations can often come into contact with each other and either ally together or come into conflict, and their histories will overlap, and.... Ergo, this is hard as shit to follow and I’m not even going to try. Most of it isn’t that relevant anyway. What I will do, however, is discuss the backstory of the “Prime Kang” and relay a single storyline of one of the versions (I’m not even sure which one, tbh) on “our” Earth -616 that involves the Avengers and ties into ASOIAF in a major way. Once I have laid out Kang’s arc and folded in the other characters above, it will be absolutely, perfectly clear why this is so. In the meantime, allow me to introduce Kang / Rama Tut/ Immortus / Victor Timely/ Iron Lad / Scarlet Centurion/Blue Totem/et al– all who started out life as the pedestrian Nathaniel Richards. (I should note here that Nathaniel Richards also has multiple alters due to time travel fun – the one discussed below is *somehow* related to Reed Richards, “Mr. Fantastic” of the Fantastic Four. This fanboy comment sums it up well: “Depending on the continuity, he's either the great great great great great great grandson of Reed Richards and/or Victor von Doom, or the half-brother of Reed Richards from when his father, whose name is also Nathaniel Richards, visited the future and knocked up some woman.” Feel my pain, people. The things we do for love…) Nathaniel Richards harkens from Earth-6311, an alternate to Earth-616. He was born in the year 3000 and named after his famous ancestor, scientist Dr. Nathaniel Richards (Fantastic Four #272 1984) (father of Mr. Fantastic Reed Richards – again, not going here), who had traveled to the future and brought peace and prosperity to Earth-6311 by uniting once-rival factions under single leadership and rebuilding society after the destruction of the planet’s moon. Yes, I’m serious. Mr. Fantastic's dad is Aegon the Conqueror, and there was a destroyed moon in the picture. I can feel LmL's fangasm from here. Nate (imma call him Nate) was a scholarly youth with a brilliant mind, fascinated with science and history. A serious injury at the hands of a school bully put him in convalescence for a year; during this free time in recovery, he immersed himself in historical research and discovered some old movie reels/ videos in his family archives that documented life on Earth-616 during his ancestors’ time. It was by viewing those videos that Nate learned of the heroic supergroups The Avengers and the Fantastic Four (led of course by relative of undetermined association Reed Richards, who IMO is sort of the Egg of the story here), and their battles against a villain (?) known as Immortus. At age 16, Nate had a visit from HIMSELF, in the form of Kang the Conqueror, and realized that HE was in fact the villainous (?) Immortus. He embarked upon some interventionist tactics to try and prevent his eventual transformation into Kang, but he failed in these attempts and with the help of some major retconning, resumed his human life with all memory of that interaction erased. Like I said, not gonna go into all that. Nate’s fascination with his family history and Earth-616 continued, and finally, when he was 25, he had a breakthrough – he discovered the remains of a time –travelling device in an ancestor’s fortress (I assume the senior Dr. Richards’, but not totally sure) and devoted all his spare time to retroengineering it. And retroengineer he did – using his scientific genius, Nate built a massive time machine IN THE SHAPE OF A DAMN SPHINX - a SPHINX, Ned!! - and promptly hurtled himself to Earth-616, hoping to land in F4 time but instead waaay overshooting to Eygpt circa 2950 BC. After some aweing and subjugating of the locals via his rad tech, he renamed himself Rama-Tut, declared himself Pharaoh, and ruled there as a god for 10 years. At this point it gets really gnarly with the time travel, so let’s just say that he washes, rinses, and repeats this trick multiple times, warping to multiple planets which he would then conquer under multiple divergent personas – thus the moniker “Kang the Conqueror”. At some point he returned to Earth-616 in the 20th century and bucked up to the Fantastic Four and Victor von Doom, and had his butt kicked by the Avengers, which made them enemies 4eva across several timelines and identities. It’s pretty crazy. From the archivists: “Simply put, while Rama-Tut, Kang, Scarlet Centurion, Immortus, Iron Lad, and Mister Gryphon all started as Nathaniel Richards of Earth-6311, and their histories overlap, all the time travelling has schismed their timelines. Unforeseen by Kang at this time, each of his travels into the past created divergent versions of himself, all of which ruled their own divergent empires and continued their own schemes. Nathaniel Richards has had various incarnations over the years and each identity has its own ever expanding history. In addition there are many alternate versions of Kang in existence; for the sake of clarity, it is commonly accepted that each alternate Kang that has interacted with Earth-616 is a direct divergence from the "Prime" Kang of Earth-6311.”
In other words, WTAF Stan Lee.
A couple of generic points about our boy Kang before moving on. I will just paste in its entirety and highlight the wowser bits because I’m lazy and want to get on with it.
"Kang ages at a slower rate than modern humanity, increasing his longevity. Kang is an expert of time travel and manipulation of space-time. He has mastered advanced technology and is presumed to have above average intelligence. Kang wears a full-body armor which enhances his strength. Kang's battle armor is produced from a rare synthetic alloy from the 40th century. It is neuro-kinetic, meaning it responds to his subconscious thoughts. Though Kang has no powers, his armor endows him with rough equivalents of super-human abilities. He is able to lift ~5 tons when wearing the armor. The armor can project a force field covering a circle twenty feet around its user. The force field is durable enough to protect its user from direct nuclear strikes. Kang's armor can create temporal divergences, giving him the ability to travel through and manipulate time. Kang has even demonstrated technology transferring his mind to alternate bodies when a body of his dies. He might thus extend his life indefinitely. Kang maintains strongholds in various alternate realities. His primary base used to be Chronopolis, a fortress serving as a crossroads to every era in human history but itself outside the time-stream and undetectable. "So, you’ve probably figured out by now that I pegged Nate Richards’s ASOIAF counterpart as Rhaegar with a little bit of Bran/Stark family thrown in for seasoning – bookish dude digs around in the family library, becomes obsessed with some arcane nugget of the past, and then finds something that compels him to do some really cray business that leads to some level of disaster. I agree that the time-traveling is more aligned with the Starks since we have Bran currently jacking into the weirnet, but IMO George has split the Kang arc between the Targaryens and the Starks...although I can tie them back together via another character that I'll get to in a sec. The inclusion of the special armor was interesting as well – we’ve already seen a similar deal with the Destroyer armor in Thor's arc (Thor being another strong Rhaegar parallel), and here it is again: special futuristic metal imbued with magic, extra strong to go extra long, disrupts time, etc. Rhaegar’s fancy black armor is described as nearly identical to the fancy black armor of Daemon Blackfyre, and now we have Euron showing up in The Foresaken sample chapter with some fancy black Valyrian steel armor of his own. Ergo, I think there’s something really damn important about the armor that we don’t know yet!
The transference of consciousness to another host body upon death – ok, that’s a Stark-y thing, but who knows? Perhaps that is what all the dragonlords from Old Valyria onward were trying to figure out how to do!
The last one, Chronopolis the Crossroads….well, there’s the Inn of the Crossroads, close to where Lyanna Stark disappeared, and then there’s the Trident, where Rhaegar died…and all of that is close to Harrenhal and the Isle of Faces and the huge-ass grove of weirwoods that has unlimited access to every era in human history, outside the time-stream and although not undetectable, certainly not easily accessible….
There are plenty more Kang abilities and signature moves that I won’t drag out, but it’s safe to say that we have some conflation in ASOIAF between Stark and Targaryen – which actually isn’t a problem if you believe (like I do) that at one point in history, these guys shared a common race with similar magics.
Anyhoo, at this point you’re probably asking the million-dollar question: What the seven hells do all of these characters have to do with each other???Well, let’s conclude with the plot that wraps it all up in a bow: 。・:*:・゚★,。・:*:・゚☆THE QUEST FOR THE CELESTIAL MADONNA☆゚・: *:・。,★゚・:* ・。
Let me digress here for a sec: this saga is quite large and involved – so much so that, in an attempt to straighten out this arc, all the episodes were finally compiled in a single special collection book published in 2002. If you want the full details of this plot that parallel ASOIAF – and there are many – then I suggest you order it on Amazon for $25.99 (Prime-eligible!) because you are not going to get them from me. My high-level analysis should be more than enough to convince you of the relevance to GRRM’s story, however.
From ancient days of the Kree, a prophecy. As with most prophecy, its origin and age was unknown, but that never stopped anyone before, so…. This prophecy stated that one day the perfect human female would arise, a pinnacle of human evolution, and this perfect woman would be known as the Celestial Madonna; and this Madonna would mate with another perfect specimen – the prime male of the Cotati race. From this union they would beget the likewise perfect child; this child would be the Celestial Messiah, a being that destined to change the universe. I don’t even think I need to say anything here, really. BUT: note please that The Prince That Was Promised, the hero that was prophesied, is the child of the Celestial Madonna and the leader of the race of freaking telepathic trees. The child's father is not a king, not a prince, not an Asgardian god, not a superhero or a cave-dwelling mystic or some human rando that was in the right place at the right time….a TREE.
And who might have been pegged as this perfect female, the Celestial Madonna? Why, that would be Mantis, foster daughter of the Priests of Pama and faux-girlfriend of Swordsman. Mantis wasn’t actually aware that she had been pegged as the Madonna, but her caretakers, the Priests? Oh, they knew…they totes knew. In fact, the entire reason for their training her in the physical and mental defense arts in the first place (before mind-wiping her and sending her out into the world to sling drinks and turn tricks) was to prepare her for this role and ensure that she had the wherewithal to survive and birth the miracle Messiah. *This ties in really well with Weasel Pie ‘s recent postulation in the show forum that Lyanna may have held a very “special” status in the Stark family – that of a brood mare meant to churn out some kind of hybrid monster children. WP was leaning toward her mating with an Other, something in line with his long-held Jon Otherbaby idea, but I had already come across this Celestial Madonna arc and wanted to put forth a different option for Lyanna’s non-human babydaddy.* Now who in the world would have known about this prophecy, and how would they have known the time of its fulfillment was nigh? Hark, behold a portent in the sky!! I’ll just leave this here: Riiighhht. So Kang sees the Star of David (literally) hovering over Avengers Mansion and decides it is time to make his big move. Why, though? Why was Kang, ultimate timelord and already master of many worlds, interested in this? Well, apparently back in the days when he was still "Just Nate" goofing off in the family attic, he found some dusty old records that spoke of the Celestial prophecy! Since the prophecy stated that this Madonna would sire the most powerful person in history by the most powerful man in history, Nate/Kang was bound and determined to find this Madonna and make her his trophy wife, natch.
|
|
|
Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Sept 3, 2017 15:30:07 GMT
Ol' Kang desperately wanted to be the father of this Messiah, so did his damndest to force the prophecy by learning the identity of the Madonna and forming a plan to get in her pants. When the star showed up over Avengers HQ, he narrowed it down to 3 candidates : 1) Mantis (Lyanna) 2) Scarlet Witch (parallels Catelyn) 3) Agatha Harkness (somewhat parallels Old Nan) However, he wasn’t certain which of the three ladies was the chosen one, so what’s a timelord to do BUT KIDNAP THEM, all of them, and keep them imprisoned while he worked it out, amirite? End result, though, is that two of the three will die and the third will be given the “honor” of sexy time with Kang to make that special baby. Just to make that super clear, the timelord-Rhaegar Targaryen figure kidnaps the woman prophesied to birth the child that is destined to save the world, because he’s trying to be the dad of that child. Obviously things differ in ASOIAF in that Rhaegar didn't actually kidnap three women, not physically anyway, but there's the whole "there must be a third; the dragon has three heads" thing to consider. The parallels of the women that Kang abducts don't really line up to the Rebellion story, but whatever. I've said from the beginning not to expect perfect 1:1 matches. But, factor in Elia, Ashara, and Lyanna as potential candidates for his head-bearers, and there you have it.The plot gets really wild and wonky here –Kang captures some of the Avengers, but leaves behind poor old back-on-the-wagon Swordsman, thinking that the dude is washed up and worthless as a superhero. Proceed to multiple convoluted arc-welding segments: there's fighting with random characters; there’s time travel; there’s MacroBots and suspended animation and other typical Marvel goofiness. In a surprise twist that, like, no one ever saw coming though , Swordsman has tracked Kang and his Avenger captives to Kang’s evil lair at the Pyramids of Giza in his attempt TO PROVE KANG WRONG, DAMMIT; there he encounters Rama Tut – Nate Richards’ first alt, remember – who has time-traveled to join forces with the Avengers (to reinvent history? To wipe out the competition? To redeem his earlier years of totalitarianism? I’m still not sure..) and defeat his own alter ego. Swordsman and his new bestie Tut free the Avengers; Rama Tut reveals via his knowledge of the future that Mantis is in fact the Madonna. !!! With this new knowledge, Kang decides that if he can’t have her, NO ONE WILL!! Muah ha ha ha haaaaa….. He fires an energy weapon at Mantis…and just in the nick of time and plot contrivance, Swordsman, that once hapless drunk, steps in to take the blast, sacrificing his life to save his love from certain death. A true hero at last, Swordsman dies in Mantis’ arms as she pours forth her regret about largely friendzoning him for years. Note also that, as in the pic above, Mantis refers to herself as "this one" and conversationally speaks in the weird neutral-third-person that we see in the books with Missandei. We may also eventually get a nod to this poignant little scene with Dany and Jorah in the books. Factoid: Swordsman is also the first Avenger to die since the team’s inception across all of Marvel.
Three (!) days later, biblical imagery abounding, the team buries their ally in the garden of the temple of the Priests of Pama where Mantis was raised.
Tragic though this loss may be, that’s not the end, though. After burying Swordsman, Kang appears AGAIN and captures all the Avengers AGAIN, this time ferrying them to Limbo…because he’s a timelord and can do that. While they’re all hanging around outside the confines of space and time, Kang sends in reinforcements – the Legion of the Unliving (Avengers #131 January, 1975). The Legion is quite literally an army of super-powered dead people/things from past eras– and some “neverborn” people/things, too, from eras that hadn’t happened yet/wouldn’t ever happen – that Kang is able to command through mind control.
(On a humorous note, the Frankenstein monster is a Legion member – but ironically it can’t be controlled by Kang because it isn’t really dead; it’s just made up of dead body parts. Technicality Penalty! Now we have an inkling as to UnGregor’s benefit in the Great War, I suppose.)
So while the Avengers are fighting the Unliving, they get unexpected help from another source: Immortus (Avengers #10 November, 1964), yet ANOTHER version of Kang from some other time splinter event that I am not going to recap.
Brief runthrough of Immortus, not for who he is as a Kang alt but for what he does/represents as this alt. From the Marvel Wikia:
Since this is the quick and dirty version of Immortus, I only wanted to highlight the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey background and his service on behalf of the Time Keepers. Immortus - Lord of Limbo, Master of the Timestream, and Watcher of the Timelines - is very much a Brynden Rivers-type being, so it should make *some* sense that this character shows up to help defeat the evil timelord. An evil timelord that happens to be a "relation".... remember that Bloodraven is a Targaryen, distant half-relative of Rhaegar, just as Immortus is a distant half-relative of Nate Richards via Kang. Also, should be apparent here that this part of the saga more closely parallels ASOIAF in current time – Bran’s arc now and possibly in the war to come - instead of anything that went down pre- Rebellion. Just a FYI. But yeah, Immortus = Bloodraven. Anyway.
ETA: Given that Immortus' job assigned by the Time Keepers was to straighten out the mess caused by his own incarnations through history, I'm wondering if this is where the Stark "Multi-Bran" theory comes into play. As in, Bloodraven was the meat suit for the original Brandon Stark. Ser Rivers kindof retained his own identity within the tree, but he's also the conduit for Bran the Timelord. (I still think that our current Bran is the 13th Doctor, fwiw - the final iteration of the first Brandon Stark.)
Mantis still has to go on to fulfill her destiny….but how? Oh,but that garden, though! How convenient that Mantis buried her lover in the same garden that just so happened to house the race of Cotati that the Pama priests were sworn to guard – and in particular the Elder Cotati, who wouldn’t you know just so happened to be that perfect male plant destined to mate with the Madonna.
Trees don’t have bodies, though, and these were action comics designed to be sold to kids at corner grocery stores in the 1970s, so the writers had to come up with a way to get these two together without breaking all kinds of decency laws. The solution? “The bones remember”, basically…and thus the Prime Elder Cotati, that perfect tree, infused his consciousness into the buried corpse of Jacques Duquesne and resurrected the Swordsman to complete the physical deed.
So yes – the Madonna will have sex with her dead lover. Her child will have a non-human father, and this child will be born of the dead, by the dead.
Mantis (after some totally understandable wedding-night jitters were calmed by the Elder Cotati) married her reanimated lover in that same garden, the wedding officiated by none other than Immortus himself in front of the giant-ass tree that is the usual arboreal abode of the soul of the Prime Cotati. (This image actually represents a part of the plot that I'm not covering (yet) - an actual double wedding in front of the tree. In addition to Mantis and Swordsman/Cotati, the Vision and Scarlet Witch also tie the knot. My plan is to look into this through the lens of Ned and Ashara Dayne perhaps hooking up at the start of the war as mentioned in the Fisherman's Daughter essay.)
Once vows were said, the pair’s spirits dissolved into energy and left the Earth to mate; somewhere on another plane they consummated the marriage and conceived a child. After Mantis had been successfully impregnated, the Prime Cotati withdrew his consciousness from Swordman's mortal form and Duquesne’s body crumbled to dust.
Mantis’ spirit later returned to her body to bear her child – a son named Sequoia, after the noblest and mightiest of trees. Not long after Sequoia’s birth, she reluctantly relinquished him to the Cotati, who wished for Quoi (official nickname) to be raised and trained by the alien plants; at this time she “gave up her hold on life” and voluntarily dissolved into energy a second and final time. Her body is buried in the Pama temple garden, next to Swordsman.
|
|
|
Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Sept 3, 2017 17:26:49 GMT
Now THERE’S a trope-busting love story, people! (Well, sorta. There are plenty of tropes in this story – but the tree-mated alien baby angle is…different.) So I assume that by now the parallel I’m drawing to ASOIAF is pretty obvious: I believe that this Celestial Madonna arc was/is GRRM’s source of inspiration for the story surrounding Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen. We just don’t officially have the details yet, even though we have all the characters, and even hints at motivation. Now though what I’d like to do in talk about this in terms of the Show!RLJ! reveal, and whether or not George will do the same thing for the books as D&D did for the show. If RLJ is true for the books as well as the show and Jon Snow really is Aegon 2.0 Targaryen, then this Marvel stuff is all just pure coincidence and I wasted a bunch of time for nothing. The fandom certainly seems to believe that RLJ is a done deal and anyone who doesn’t think so is some delusional flat-earther living in a perpetual state of denial. That may be true …but what if it isn’t? All the clues point to RLJ, they say…and a lot do, and point to Rhaegar making off with Lyanna to father the child it seems clear she eventually bore. HOWEVER. One of the reasons that I *really, really* liked this Celestial Madonna find is that it ALSO goes along with those clues…but gives us a sweet plot twist at the end while still using those very same clues. Nothing changed in the setup at all – the character roster is the same, the guy still kidnaps the girl, the girl still ends up having a child, so logically A+B=C, right? WRONG! So wrong. In Weasel Pie ’s Cersei's Eugenics thread in the show forum, we talked about the possibility that Lyanna was trying to escape a situation of The Sacrificial Maiden That Was Promised, or whatever – that SHE was perhaps the important “Stark in Winterfell”, destined for a certain fate by some ancient decree, oath, debt, etc. Or perhaps... she had no idea, and her father was attempting to circumvent this destiny FOR her, with his southron ambitions that would have her marrying into the house of the Storm Lords, far from Winterfell. On the flip side, a prophecy-savvy Crown Prince may have very well known what her future held and decided that he too was part of the prophecy fulfillment…which he was, just not in the way he imagined. Instead of fathering the Celestial Messiah/PtwP/3rd head of the dragon like he intended, Rhaegar merely set the stage for the conception to occur exactly as it should have, while all signs STILL point to him as the father. I also wanted to tie this in to Howland Reed and the Green Men on the Isle of Faces, and discuss what role Howland may have played in getting Miss Stark to fulfill her destiny...by wedding herself to a weirwood. Perhaps "the" master weirwood out on the Isle of Faces, or head Green Man, or something to that effect. If Lyanna were to be given over to the trees as part of some ancient Stark-centric obligation and be required to birth some kind of half human messiah baby, a few things: 1) Howland Reed would have a real vested interest in seeing this through. His interaction with Lyanna at the ToHH and continued relationship with the Starks is by design. 2) It would make sense that there is another opposing faction - the Others and their legions - that would also have a vested interest in the child produced of this union. 3) Rhaegar believing that he (or Aegon) was meant to save the world somehow through this child - thanks to a prophecy he doesn't fully know or understand - seems to provide some good motivation for his actions. Some folks here like freyfamilyreunion have also brought up the possibility that Lyanna birthed two children in the Rebellion timeline. I'm still working out the fuzziness of the "Aegon's birth" timeline because there is quite a bit of contradictory information about when exactly he was born, how old he was at death, why wasn't it mentioned that Elia was pregnant at the tourney, etc. Now that I have this Madonna arc laid out, it might be worth taking a look at the idea that Lyanna DID have a child early on, and Rhaegar TOOK that child from her for/as his own. Hence, the mystery Aegon...a second Aegon, just like show world. Lots of thoughts, just brain dumping for now.
|
|
|
Post by Weasel Pie on Sept 4, 2017 0:31:16 GMT
A sect of pacifist Kree...ninjas Thinging Faceless Men, Green Men - this connects them since the Order of Green Men guard the weirwood on the Isle of Faces. As they departed Hala, each Priest smuggled a pair of sapling Cotati out with them to their new respective planets, including Earth-616; they re-homed the Cotati in secret temples on their new planet(s) and resumed their guardianship. This is awesome, not sure if you remember my idea that there is something alien at work - with the sword Dawn being krypton to the Kryptonians. That the origin of the Others is another world, they were seeded here by a meteoric/comet event (Panspermia). Anyway still reading....
|
|
|
Post by Weasel Pie on Sept 4, 2017 0:47:46 GMT
I’m eager to see who others come up with as an ASOIAF parallel; I know who I have in mind and why, My first thought was Jaime Still reading but... After becoming skilled in the use of swords, knives, and other bladed weaponry, he joined a resistance movement under his alias “Swordsman” (think Errol Flynn here) to liberate his homeland from the French; after successfully rebelling, he learned that the leader of resistance had killed his father. Duquesne abandoned his homeland in disillusionment and hit the road looking for purpose. He didn’t find that, but he did find a life of gambling, alcohol, and petty crime. ... is a bit of a Lannister brother soup to me. Could also be... Darkstar? the Hawkeye/Swordsman relationship has some echoes in Jaime and Arthur Dayne, and/or some other members of the Kingsguard in the days before Harrenhal, and I further *suspect* that Jaime became very disillusioned with Ser Dayne at some point in the same way that Hawkeye became disillusioned with Swordsman Nice. You guys don’t even realize that I work on these Marvel theories just for the pictures. Anyway, interesting that we have the connection with both the Kingswood Brotherhood and the Golden Company between all of these characters in both comic and book series. Yeah this really drives it home. Wow. To aid Swordsman in his infiltration plot, he even outfits Swordsman with a nifty special sword, modded out with all kinds of power using a special secret Malukan technology. So... FAegon?? Lyanna being at court around the time of her disappearance actually explains so many things in the story Duquesne fell hard for Mantis, and again personified the old trope that love turns a guy around – she dragged him out of his alcoholic stupor and convinced him to clean up and accompany her in joining the Avengers. Despite Swordsman’s past escapades, the team accepted Mantis’ character voucher and allowed him to join. Duquesne thrived in the new group: “It appears that he was in search of a cause. His membership in the Avengers and his love of Mantis brought out his best traits, aiding him in overcoming his many character flaws and finding his inner nobility.” Awwww. The love of a good woman does it every time! With Mantis’ help, not only did Swordsman find a cause with the Avengers, he sacrificed himself for it – his final mission centered around the love of his life and a conflict with this next guy. Daario?? LOL OK I need to know you're take on this one.
|
|
|
Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Sept 4, 2017 1:00:45 GMT
Nope, but close...possibly a relation, depending on what you believe. OK I need to know you're take on this one. Hint: remember how we talked about Lyanna possibly being pregnant much earlier than anyone thought? Remember also my crackpot that she somehow fell in with the Kingswood Brotherhood? Who is the connection between Jaime, Arthur Dayne, the Kingswood Brotherhood, and the Golden Company? Who is one that was slain, like Swordsman?
|
|
|
Post by Weasel Pie on Sept 4, 2017 1:25:42 GMT
visited the future and knocked up some woman HA! Interdimensional breeding, I knew it. Uh oh... Nate (imma call him Nate) was a scholarly youth with a brilliant mind, fascinated with science and history. A serious injury at the hands of a school bully put him in convalescence for a year; during this free time in recovery, he immersed himself in historical research and discovered some old movie reels/ videos in his family archives that documented life on Earth-616 during his ancestors’ time. It was by viewing those videos that Nate learned of the heroic supergroups The Avengers and the Fantastic Four (led of course by relative of undetermined association Reed Richards, who IMO is sort of the Egg of the story here), and their battles against a villain (?) known as Immortus. At age 16, Nate had a visit from HIMSELF, in the form of Kang the Conqueror, and realized that HE was in fact the villainous (?) Immortus. He embarked upon some interventionist tactics to try and prevent his eventual transformation into Kang, but he failed in these attempts and with the help of some major retconning, resumed his human life with all memory of that interaction erased. Like I said, not gonna go into all that. Nate’s fascination with his family history and Earth-616 continued, and finally, when he was 25, he had a breakthrough – he discovered the remains of a time –travelling device in an ancestor’s fortress More soup, Bran/Aegon/Rhaegar. Unforeseen by Kang at this time, each of his travels into the past created divergent versions of himself, all of which ruled their own divergent empires and continued their own schemes. Since people are buzzing about Bran being possibly the NK on the show - this is actually a way for that to happen. Every time he spaces out, he lives other entire lives. Etc. Kang ages at a slower rate than modern humanity, increasing his longevity. Kang is an expert of time travel and manipulation of space-time. He has mastered advanced technology and is presumed to have above average intelligence. Kang wears a full-body armor which enhances his strength. Kang's battle armor is produced from a rare synthetic alloy from the 40th century. It is neuro-kinetic, meaning it responds to his subconscious thoughts. Though Kang has no powers, his armor endows him with rough equivalents of super-human abilities. He is able to lift ~5 tons when wearing the armor. The armor can project a force field covering a circle twenty feet around its user. The force field is durable enough to protect its user from direct nuclear strikes. Kang's armor can create temporal divergences, giving him the ability to travel through and manipulate time. Kang has even demonstrated technology transferring his mind to alternate bodies when a body of his dies. He might thus extend his life indefinitely. Kang maintains strongholds in various alternate realities. His primary base used to be Chronopolis, a fortress serving as a crossroads to every era in human history but itself outside the time-stream and undetectableWait... RHAEGAR can time travel? head explodes.... sure, why not! you’ve probably figured out by now that I pegged Nate Richards’s ASOIAF counterpart as Rhaegar with a little bit of Bran/Stark family thrown in for seasoning Ah I got one right this perfect woman would be known as the Celestial Madonna; and this Madonna would mate with another perfect specimen – the prime male of the Cotati race. Emphasis mine. Lyanna’s non-human babydaddy Wait, who are you saying it is? Bloodraven? It's OK, I think BR warged a direwolf to father Ghost. The Legion is quite literally an army of super-powered dead people/things from past eras– and some “neverborn” people/things, too, from eras that hadn’t happened yet/wouldn’t ever happen – that Kang is able to command through mind control. Are you freaking kidding me? This stuff is glorious! the Madonna will have sex with her dead lover. Her child will have a non-human father, and this child will be born of the dead, by the dead. But who is it? Bran's iteration as Rhaegar? BR warging someone/something? Not long after Sequoia’s birth, she reluctantly relinquished him to the Cotati, who wished for Quoi (official nickname) to be raised and trained by the alien plants; at this time she “gave up her hold on life” and voluntarily dissolved into energy a second and final time. Sad story. Sounds like the baby was always meant to be returned to the Cotati, who would have been PO'd otherwise. Giving me a Craster's Sons vibe. Also give the Others their reason for invading the South, they're searching for this dude.
|
|
|
Post by Weasel Pie on Sept 4, 2017 1:26:13 GMT
Who is one that was slain, like Swordsman? The Smiling Knight, who Jaime says is the Mountain of his boyhood, and if I'm right about Cersei's Eugenics, that means the ultimate babydaddy for "purposes." The Smiling Knight being Darkstar's father (I've believed this for a while), a branch relative of the Dayne's. Trying to think this through.
|
|
|
Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Sept 4, 2017 1:32:36 GMT
Half as big, and twice as a mad. But yes, my first thought when I discovered this arc was that Swordsman is TSK - who was actually a male descendant of Daemon Blackfyre. (I think I have a thread blurb about this somewhere.) I suspected that maybe Lyanna was having a thing with him. More in a bit
|
|
|
Post by Weasel Pie on Sept 4, 2017 1:35:43 GMT
The Smiling Knight is the Dornishman of the song.
Nailed it.
Oh sheesh this makes Jon a Dayne. It's that sword Dawn that his father wanted....
|
|
|
Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Sept 4, 2017 2:35:03 GMT
I mean, go back and read Swordman's synopsis again... he's from a foreign land across the sea, his father was betrayed and killed by someone he thought was an ally (recall that Maelys the Monstrous slew his own cousin, Daemon Blackfyre - relation to THE Daemon unknown, but whatever - during the WotNPK), he embarked on a life of banditry and mercenary work... The little information that we have about TSK makes me think he's a Blackfyre - perhaps a son of the Daemon slain by Maelys in 260. That would make him Rhaegar's age or slightly older, nothing too untoward regarding a 14yo Lyanna Stark - probably similar to a Dany/Daario situation. Anyway, yeah: The Smiling Knight is the Dornishman of the song. The song made the wolf maid sniffle...because it reminded her of the lover who had recently met the Dornishman's blade? I dunno. But it sounds good, right? I have a whole massive tinfoil about this that I should probably discuss in a separate thread....actually, I already have a thread on it that we can resurrect if you like. But, you can probably see where I'm going. Rhaegar could have had MULTIPLE reasons for taking Lyanna if you go along with this Madonna arc - prophecy about TPtwP, a Stark maiden needing to mate with The Most Interesting Man in the World, a Stark maiden potentially being pregnant with a pretender's child (lest we forget, Blackfyres are Targaryens!)...the possibilities abound! The other thoughts I had involved Howland Reed. If Howland were to be undergoing/have completed some kind of physical 'transformation' into...something...courtesy of his stay on the Isle of Faces, then HE may be the one to do the deed with Lyanna, serve as that meat-sack conduit for the Green Man/Horned Lord/Master Weirwood/whatever. Did he convince Lyanna to celebrate the Old Gods way and do her duty for the mankind? Even THAT could have been something Rhaegar discovered in his compendium o'prophecies. Anyway, I figured we could all have some fun with this one. Lots of angles, and amazingly it provides a vehicle for the answer to Jon's parentage to be both RLJ and not RLJ, because the bread crumbs are the same for both.
|
|
|
Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Sept 4, 2017 2:51:00 GMT
The Smiling Knight, who Jaime says is the Mountain of his boyhood, and if I'm right about Cersei's Eugenics, that means the ultimate babydaddy for "purposes." Also, YESSSS I didn't even make that connection between the Mountain/UnGregor and TSK as a like resurrected thing. That is glorious.
|
|
|
Post by Weasel Pie on Sept 4, 2017 3:09:24 GMT
you can probably see where I'm going. Rhaegar could have had MULTIPLE reasons for taking Lyanna if you go along with this Madonna arc - prophecy about TPtwP, a Stark maiden needing to mate with The Most Interesting Man in the World, a Stark maiden potentially being pregnant with a pretender's child (lest we forget, Blackfyres are Targaryens!)...the possibilities abound! Righto, Rhaegar knew the prophecy that the baby Lyanna was having would be... something. The Prince who was promised to... save, destroy, whatever. If Howland were to be undergoing/have completed some kind of physical 'transformation' into...something...courtesy of his stay on the Isle of Faces, then HE may be the one to do the deed with Lyanna, serve as that meat-sack conduit for the Green Man/Horned Lord/Master Weirwood/whatever. ... you know I think Bran occupied Howland to become the KotLT right? And that I think the KotLT and TSK are somehow related? I did some reading up and found Jaime Andreas von Strucker and his twin sister Andrea were the children of Nazi supremacist Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, who saw great potential in their future.[2] While still in-utero, the children were bio-engineered by Dr. Arnim Zola to have superpowersfrom Uncanny X-Men #194 - lots more there of course. Also - Andreas was trained as, drumroll - the next Swordsman.- Another bit from the story of the Swordsman Jacques Duquesne causing Hawkeye to fall and hoping he was dead. Jaime caused Raveneye (Bran) to fall and hoped he was dead - Jaime keeps sticking out for me in all of this. GRRM made a salad of things methinks. One day the carnival paymaster was robbed, and Barton later found Swordsman with the money. Barton ran from him and climbed the high wire. Swordsman cut it by hurling his sword. Barton fell to the ground and the Swordsman left thinking he was dead. Barton survived and grew up to become Hawkeye.[2] (It is presumed that he and Barton reconciled years later)
|
|
|
Post by Weasel Pie on Sept 4, 2017 3:26:25 GMT
I think there is no doubt that the storyline of the Swordsman reveals the story of Lyanna.
But there were 4 Swordsmen.
Jacques Duquesne Andreas Strucker
Then we have Philip Javert - to tie in with your thread here "Kang" (Immortus)'s forces attacked Javert and attempted to replace him with a Space Phantom (who previously impersonated the Elder Cotati Swordsman) after taking him to what appeared to be the Cotati garden.[7]
Then there's a Counterearth Swordsman who turns out to be Deadpool, but I think it's too late in the series for GRRM to have used.
So it seems to me that GRRM pick and chose some stuff from each of the other Swordsmen.
|
|