|
Post by Melifeather on Jan 26, 2018 16:50:49 GMT
First off - really good stuff! I love this thread and couldn't be happier that you've revisited it! Bael (sometimes spelled Baal, Baël (French), Baell) is in 17th Century goetic occult writings one of the seven princes of the Underworld. The name is drawn from the Canaanite deity Baal mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the primary god of the Phoenicians. While his Semitic predecessor was depicted as a man or a bull, the demon Baal was in grimoire tradition said to appear in the forms of a man, cat, toad, or combinations thereof. An illustration in Collin de Plancy's 1818 book Dictionnaire Infernal rather curiously placed the heads of the three creatures onto a set of spider legs. What does this have to do with anything, you ask. First, three heads! Seven princes! (Ice) spider legs! For realz tho, this actually goes back to something I postulated earlier in the essay/thread: reading between the lines of the tale's text, "Bael" is not human. Bael is something very old, and not very nice. I could not agree more! In addition, I am wondering if perhaps this contact didn't have something to do with Stark daughters coming of age, given the coincidental timing of a "singer" showing up at Winterfell on a cold night after "as it happened the winter roses had only then come into bloom, and no flower is so rare nor precious." Like, I'm thinking that there may have been some sort of exchange or blessing b/t Starks and CotF that would normally transpire to commemorate this blessed event - and at risk of being totally gross, I can't help but think of the "blooming" itself: a maiden's blood=> ripe for marriage => blood on the wedding night => wedded to the trees. (But, that's probably another thread.) Don't even know why I am singling this out, because I am in full agreement here as well. Somewhere in here I made note of the part of the legend that says Bael disguised himself as a "singer", and as such was able to gain entry to Winterfell and the Lord Stark who had dared call him 'craven'. Now, my gut feeling on this is that the "singer" that Bael pretended to be may have been none other than a Child of the Forest - I speculate that many thousands and thousands of moons ago, the Children may have had contact (regular or occasional) with the Starks. Are you discounting Mance or do you think even "Mance" is a disguise? Anyway, whatever "it" was, Bael donned his singer persona and took full advantage of "it" - taking the daughter of Winterfell for himself. Bael/Ba'al being a prince of the underworld and all, it makes perfect sense to me that 1) the daughter and her child would be found in the CRYPTS, and 2) the daughter's 'hiding with the dead beneath the castle' is a metaphor for the daughter actually being dead herself...and the child itself 'born with the dead' but nonetheless alive, as we see with Ghost. So to min's comment above, this seems to me to be a good hint about being marked by the Old Gods - the REALLY old gods. Agreeing with you again here - it makes so much sense. 2) Bael is associated with the goddess Ashtoreth - also spelled Astoreth, Athtar, Astarat, Astarte. Ashtoreth is either a fertility goddess of sexual love and/or a goddess of war and strife (remember the Blackthorn, Tree of Strife, from the Fisherman's Daughter thread that I linked to Ashara Dayne?), depending on which culture you cotton to, and Bael was her male consort. She is the deified morning/evening star (aka Venus), and has a very interesting Canaanite backstory: In Canaan, Ashtoreth dropped her warlike attributes, but became, on the one hand, the colorless consort of Baal, and on the other hand, a moon-goddess. In Babylonia the moon was a god, but after the rise of the solar theology, when the larger number of the Babylonian gods were resolved into forms of the sun-god, their wives also became solar, Ishtar, "the daughter of Sin" the moon-god, remaining identified with the evening-star. In Canaan, however, when the solar theology had absorbed the older beliefs, Baal, passing into a sun-god and the goddess who stood at his side becoming a representative of the moon--the pale reflection, as it were, of the sun- -Ashtoreth came to be regarded as the consort of Baal and took the place of the solar goddesses of Babylonia. And I will point out that Ashara's presumed suicide was actually a descent into the underworld going along with our assertion that towers can be interpreted as the inversion of going down into a well. Anyway, before I go off on more tangents....IMO we have good evidence here that ol' Bael was indeed a trickster who hopped in bed with the daughter of Winterfell. The question remains, though: was the child she bore truly a son of Bael, or was her babe the product of her 'plucking' by her father? And do we have a modern-day version of this with Lyanna Stark, the last true daughter of Winterfell? Did Howland Reed intend to play the ancient role of the "singer", only to be Bael'd first? I'm reminded here of Petyr Baelish, the mockingbird...mockingbirds being "singing" birds that tend to be victims of egg mimicry and brood-parasitization - basically, some other lazy bird lays their trickster egg in the "singer's" nest so that the nest owners can expend the energy parenting the lazy bird's offspring. If Rickard "plucked" Lyanna, was it intentional to prevent being plucked by Bael? Was he keeping her safe for Robert? It's a weird way to view it, but it could work. Lord Baelish is Rickard's echo or inversion on the wheel of time. Repeating what Rickard did or doing the opposite, but enough of a difference to get a different outcome. So far Sansa is alive, but she is also yet a virgin... Enough for now...perhaps more thoughts in a few months. I hope we don't have to wait another month!
|
|
|
Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Jan 27, 2018 19:38:49 GMT
First off - really good stuff! I love this thread and couldn't be happier that you've revisited it! Thanks! Lollygag's link was just so perfect and fit in so well to what we'd already talked about, so I wanted to get this out there. Are you discounting Mance or do you think even "Mance" is a disguise? Not sure about Mance, if maybe he was the "singer" who had actually been the one cuckolded by the "Bael" character or vice versa. It seems that the singer who was welcomed by the Starks and the trickster who ultimately stood in as the singer are two different people, and I haven't figured out which role Mance is playing. In current time, he's clearly playing the trickster, since "Abel" is pretending to be something he's not in order to gain access to Winterfell and a Stark "daughter", but it's hard to know if he's done this before, or done the opposite before. It's an interesting thread to tug on though, that's for sure. And I will point out that Ashara's presumed suicide was actually a descent into the underworld going along with our assertion that towers can be interpreted as the inversion of going down into a well. Ohhhh yes. In fact, this whole Bael/Baal thing has led me down another rabbit hole of discovery that I think may have potential to tie all this stuff together. It is a massive project though - it make take me a year to get this sucker together.
|
|
|
Post by Weasel Pie on Jan 27, 2018 22:12:36 GMT
What does this have to do with anything, you ask. First, three heads! Seven princes! (Ice) spider legs! For realz tho, this actually goes back to something I postulated earlier in the essay/thread: reading between the lines of the tale's text, "Bael" is not human. Bael is something very old, and not very nice. Somewhere in here I made note of the part of the legend that says Bael disguised himself as a "singer", and as such was able to gain entry to Winterfell and the Lord Stark who had dared call him 'craven'. Now, my gut feeling on this is that the "singer" that Bael pretended to be may have been none other than a Child of the Forest - I speculate that many thousands and thousands of moons ago, the Children may have had contact (regular or occasional) with the Starks. In addition, I am wondering if perhaps this contact didn't have something to do with Stark daughters coming of age, given the coincidental timing of a "singer" showing up at Winterfell on a cold night after "as it happened the winter roses had only then come into bloom, and no flower is so rare nor precious." Like, I'm thinking that there may have been some sort of exchange or blessing b/t Starks and CotF that would normally transpire to commemorate this blessed event - and at risk of being totally gross, I can't help but think of the "blooming" itself: a maiden's blood=> ripe for marriage => blood on the wedding night => wedded to the trees. (But, that's probably another thread.) Anyway, whatever "it" was, Bael donned his singer persona and took full advantage of "it" - taking the daughter of Winterfell for himself. Bael/Ba'al being a prince of the underworld and all, it makes perfect sense to me that 1) the daughter and her child would be found in the CRYPTS, and 2) the daughter's 'hiding with the dead beneath the castle' is a metaphor for the daughter actually being dead herself...and the child itself 'born with the dead' but nonetheless alive, as we see with Ghost. Brilliant, especially the interpretation of "singer" and the "born with the dead" phrase. Was this part of the pact then? Had Lord Stark forgotten? Reminder of the northern women Val and Dalla (the Valkyries), an obvious nod to the underworld of Valhalla where a dead army gathers for Odin under the golden tree. Heh. Also that Mance disguises himself as a "singer" - and since we can completely ignore the show (thankfully), Mance could indeed be the original Bael if your notions are right here. Frankly it all dovetails nicely. Remember when we talked about Jon's father needing to be alive in the story in order for the Bael parallels to work? Mance lives and he's fond of poking around the Winterfell crypts. Offhand remark - we know the CotF can skinchange, but we also see the Others skinchange in a way of course by animating the dead. Could an Other animate/inhabit a body and make it appear alive? Just parking that thought here. Let me read the rest of your post.
|
|
|
Post by Weasel Pie on Jan 27, 2018 22:27:50 GMT
I'm reminded here of Petyr Baelish, the mockingbird...mockingbirds being "singing" birds that tend to be victims of egg mimicry and brood-parasitization - basically, some other lazy bird lays their trickster egg in the "singer's" nest so that the nest owners can expend the energy parenting the lazy bird's offspring. Love this. I also remember Baal as being associated with child sacrifice, specifically burnt offerings? He's similar to Moloch like that. Big topic because Baal can be a parallel to Zeus but he can also be a parallel to Beezelbub, very cross-cultural as a character. Cool article.The ritual of burning was called “the act of laughing” perhaps because when the flames are consuming the body, the limbs contract and the open mouth seemed almost to be laughing. Causing a child to “pass through fire” was the standard euphemism for child sacrifice in the ancient world. The “high places” were sacrificial cults that had grown up in the countryside. Since human sacrifice was the most horrendous of the religious perversions that occurred at these shrines, the term “high places” became a synonym for shrines to Baal engaged in human sacrifice. Baalbek was just such a place.Turns out Baal is also the inspiration for the modern word cannibal. Cahna-bal (the priests of Baal) sometimes ate the burned sacrifices.
|
|
|
Post by Melifeather on Jan 27, 2018 22:58:40 GMT
The ritual of burning was called “the act of laughing” perhaps because when the flames are consuming the body, the limbs contract and the open mouth seemed almost to be laughing. Causing a child to “pass through fire” was the standard euphemism for child sacrifice in the ancient world. The “high places” were sacrificial cults that had grown up in the countryside. Since human sacrifice was the most horrendous of the religious perversions that occurred at these shrines, the term “high places” became a synonym for shrines to Baal engaged in human sacrifice. Baalbek was just such a place.Turns out Baal is also the inspiration for the modern word cannibal. Cahna-bal (the priests of Baal) sometimes ate the burned sacrifices. Horrifying. Those poor children.
|
|
|
Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Jan 27, 2018 23:08:37 GMT
Whoa....nice! I can't remember that factoid came up in some of the early reading I was doing, it was late and I was really tired. But, I really like the combination of sorts in the ceremony with the moon/darkness and fire - goes back to the idea that perhaps ice and fire are not so different after all. The ritual of burning was called “the act of laughing” perhaps because when the flames are consuming the body, the limbs contract and the open mouth seemed almost to be laughing. Holy crap, I'm immediately drawn to the KotLT shield with the laughing weirwood face....OMG. What I'm finding in my prelim research is that yes, ice and fire are tied together. Nutshell, I think GRRM is drawing off of the legends surrounding Baal and Ashtoreth in ancient Babylonia/Phonecia/etc. There is a nice little love triangle between Baal, Ashtoreth/Astarte/Ashere, and her SISTER Anath. There's fire, moon worship, betrayal, necromancy, resurrection, the works....and I think our players in ASOIAF are the human versions of these Old Gods. It sounds so boring when I type it out.
|
|
|
Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Jan 27, 2018 23:28:10 GMT
The practice was apparently distasteful even to Carthaginians, and they began to buy children for the purpose of sacrifice or even to raise servant children, instead of offering up their own. And a double Holy OMG for this one. It was totally happening, guys.
|
|
|
Post by Weasel Pie on Jan 28, 2018 5:03:47 GMT
Holy crap, I'm immediately drawn to the KotLT shield with the laughing weirwood face....OMG. ikr? That struck me, as did the baby-swapping when a sacrifice was needed. Did you catch the part about using the bones of the sacrificed children beneath the foundations of buildings? Also high places as the places where the sacrifices are made. Hightower, High Hermitage, High Heart. High Hermitage being the seat of the cadet branch of the Daynes - Darkstar. Heh. So if Bael was a "disguised" cotf/singer (or sumpthin) how second-lifey can we get considering this? Why would GRRM decide to name a character Petyr Baelish? Why would GRRM decide to have Mance intentionally pay an homage to Bael with his Abel persona? Bael/Baal as God/Ungod, certainly an otherworldly immortal type being. Thinking out loud. All good.
|
|
|
Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Jan 28, 2018 17:58:46 GMT
Also high places as the places where the sacrifices are made. Hightower, High Hermitage, High Heart. Yep. exactly. It is all connected - to the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth/Astarte/Asherah. High Hermitage being the seat of the cadet branch of the Daynes - Darkstar. Heh. And the Palestone Sword, the Tower from which Ashara Dayne supposedly leaped. Bael/Baal as God/Ungod, certainly an otherworldly immortal type being. Yep! It's all coming down to that connection of ice and fire....I think they are the same thing/same source. Also, just squirreled onto yet ANOTHER topic, one that may be related to this a little bit - ie the Old Gods not necessarily being good or benevolent gods. Working that up now, although it isn't going very well. Ugh. Cannot think today.
|
|
|
Post by Weasel Pie on Jan 28, 2018 18:29:00 GMT
And the Palestone Sword, the Tower from which Ashara Dayne supposedly leaped. Yes, many suspicious towers (and inverted towers).
|
|
|
Post by Melifeather on Feb 1, 2018 22:38:16 GMT
The numbers seven against three are a connection to Bael the Bard. Sharing the below which I had posted on Heresy.
Ned’s fever dream seems like a depiction of a battle between his northmen (as the seven princes) against a 3-headed Bael. Recall Old Nan’s depiction of the Others as having “spiders big as hounds” that scrabbled over the Wall much like Mance’s men. Doesn’t it make you wonder if the three-heads of the dragon are another depiction of Bael?
When Bael used his disguise as a singer to gain access to Winterfell, he “plucked” the daughter and left behind a rose. Ned’s fever dream connects the seven against three with his dead sister, Lyanna, and it’s that connection that makes the parallel to the Bael story.
Ygritte asserts that Jon is the “Bastard O’Winterfell” like in the Bael story, because after the daughter is returned she has a male child with her. She makes it sound like this is a recurring event, maybe even a requirement. Is it remotely possible that Rickard planned to circumvent tradition by marrying off his rose of Winterfell to a southron lord in order to prevent Bael from plucking his daughter?
I have been promoting a wheel of time theme in the books where events from the past keep reoccurring time and time again, but that Dany was the wheel breaker sending it in reverse. History is undoing itself. But can the players on the wheel avoid their destiny? Rickard tried to remove his daughter from her historical place, but the Bael “story” played through regardless. In the original story the daughter was found in the crypts among the dead, but she was very much alive. IMO the seven versus three was a fight against destiny, so rather than being found alive among the dead, she died.
I will finalize my thoughts by harkening back to the dead mother direwolf scene where Ghost is the singular albino pup with the red eyes. If we presume all of the pups have the same mother - doesn’t this contradict Jon’s situation with regards to Catelyn not being his mother? If Jon’s parents are neither Ned nor Catelyn, then perhaps the albino’s father and mother were also not the same as the other pups? Is this evidence of a baby swap? Jon notes that his wolf belongs to the old gods. Are we to assume the old gods placed him there like Bael did - a cuckoo bird in a nest?
|
|
|
Post by Melifeather on Feb 1, 2018 22:40:03 GMT
Dropping this other post that I made earlier on Heresy. I think a lot of it also pertains to Bael:
I'd like to propose an alternate dialog for the 3-Kingsguard based on Arya and Sansa's respective escapes from Kings Landing, because I believe they mirror (and note things are opposite in mirrors) Lyanna and Ashara.
Sandor Clegane is a mirrored (opposite) Arthur Dayne. The former rejects the title of a "white knight" and everything the position implies, while the latter is held up as the shining example of a gallant and valiant one.
Arya, Ned noted, was very much like Lyanna - a wild rebellious girl that bucked the traditional norms and brandished a sword. She was even complimented on her horsemanship by the former master-of-horse's son. I posit that Sandor and Arya retraced Arthur and Lyanna's trail through the Riverlands, but what happened at the end? Arya left Sandor to die and made her way onto a ship to Braavos.
Sansa, on the other hand, slipped out of Kings Landing with the help of Petyr BAELish. She too seems to mirror Lyanna in some respects, but I am of the opinion that when she left she was actually mirroring Ashara Dayne, but who was Ashara's "Bael"? In my earlier post up-thread I suggested that Ned's fever dream was a fight between 7 northmen and a three-headed Bael. Arthur was one of the heads, so I theorize that Arthur snuck Ashara out of the castle as her Bael. Now recall this would all be happening around the time of Lyanna's disappearance, so before the actual Rebellion starts.
Arya didn't leave Kings Landing with Sandor. She was smuggled out by a man of the Nights Watch (Yoren), and didn't leave his possession until the attack on the abandoned holdfast by Ser Amory Lorch. (Any chance that this location mirrors "a tower long fallen"?) But I digress. Arya and her friends are captured by Ser Gregor's soldiers - (Polliver) - and taken to Harrenhal - lots of things happen here, Weasel soup, cup-bearer to Roose Bolton, another escape, then later another capture by the Brotherhood Without Banners, before ending up with Sandor. There're so many things that happen to Arya before she's paired with Sandor that I cannot help but wonder if Lyanna had many similar escapades before getting paired with Arthur? And I wonder who Lyanna's Yoren was? Had to have been a man of the Night's Watch that bael'ed her out of her marriage alliance.
Circling back to Sansa. Sandor asks her to come with him. She declines, but eventually ends up leaving with the help of Bael. If Sandor is Arthur's inversion and Sansa is Ashara - Ashara would have had no such problem accepting Arthur's help leaving. Recall that Sansa dyes her hair and pretends to be Bael's daughter, eventually ending up at the Eyrie. Arya and Sandor were on their way to the Eyrie and decide to go to Riverrun instead. In a similar vein "a man (Bael)" and "a maid" travel as a fisherman and his daughter - a tale regaled by Ned. IMO the maid was likely Ashara brought to the Eyrie by her brother who was the identity of the "dead" fisherman. This may be an alternate narrative for how Ned came to have Arthur's sword.
I understand that I have a conflict with Arthur being with both Lyanna and Ashara, but recall that Arya didn't connect with Sandor until after the Brotherhood W/O Banners. Then she and Sansa were nearly reunited at the Eyrie, but Sandor took her to Riverrun instead. Sansa stays at the Eyrie and Arya goes on to Braavos. We've got a missing Ashara. Well, we do have the story that she jumped from a tower, and towers are just inverted wells which lead to the underworld. Ashara is "dead" to the world, but it's possible that she's the one that went on to Braavos, while Lyanna stayed behind.
Going further back in history we have Elia being attacked by the Kingswood Brotherhood when Ser Gerold Hightower was injured. (a variation where the maid was fine and Bael was injured) In response, King Aerys sends Arthur Dayne leading a group to put an end to the KWB. We hear a similar account when Ned sends Beric Dondarrion to capture Ser Gregor and his men who were raiding the villages, again in the Riverlands. Close to the same era as the Kingswood Brotherhood there was another group led by Kevan Lannister that was also capturing and holding nobles for money, only there was no posse sent out to stop them, because they were collecting money owed House Lannister. And lastly, lest I forget, we also have Arianne Martell who used her womanly charm to seduce Ser Arys Oakheart into leading little Myrcella Lannister to a well where she’s eventually attacked by Gerold Dayne – interesting how his name is like a two-headed Bael. Myrcella stands in as Bael’s maiden, and Arys Oakheart is mirroring Arthur Dayne. These are all examples of the wheel of time repeating with differing results, but in this version HE ends up dead instead of the maiden – executed by a Captain of Guards, Areo Hotah.
Where am I going with this? It’s a long alternative narrative for the whereabouts of the Kingsguard, because I believe they played out similar Bael-type roles on the wheel of time.
|
|
|
Post by Weasel Pie on Feb 1, 2018 23:19:27 GMT
Melifeather I've only read through each post once but these are substantial ideas... one thing that strikes me is that Arya and Sansa both need to be smuggled (Bael'ed out heh) of their situations because they're in danger. Arya simply for her blood, and she is disguised as a boy. Sansa because she was used as a pawn in a regicide, and she is disguised as "Bael's" bastard daughter. I need to wrap my head around Arthur being the Bael.
|
|
|
Post by Weasel Pie on Feb 1, 2018 23:23:27 GMT
Ygritte asserts that Jon is the “Bastard O’Winterfell” like in the Bael story, because after the daughter is returned she has a male child with her. She makes it sound like this is a recurring event, maybe even a requirement. Is it remotely possible that Rickard planned to circumvent tradition by marrying off his rose of Winterfell to a southron lord in order to prevent Bael from plucking his daughter? This is huge, of course. Institutional daughter-trafficking courtesy of House Stark, we've touched on this in so many discussions. Before Ran's book came out with the sketchy Stark family tree, we knew nothing about the Stark females, and I believe GRRM wanted it that way. Either Rickard tried to prevent it or... as I hinted in my previous post... Lyanna was in danger and someone "Bael'ed" her out.
|
|
|
Post by Melifeather on Feb 2, 2018 4:15:04 GMT
Melifeather I've only read through each post once but these are substantial ideas... one thing that strikes me is that Arya and Sansa both need to be smuggled (Bael'ed out heh) of their situations because they're in danger. Arya simply for her blood, and she is disguised as a boy. Sansa because she was used as a pawn in a regicide, and she is disguised as "Bael's" bastard daughter. I need to wrap my head around Arthur being the Bael. "Bael'ed out" indeed! I can see how the three-headed Bael (the 3-Kingsguard) could be controlled by a 4th - Rhaegar perhaps - even though I have my doubts about going in that direction, but they also could have just been fulfilling the role of Bael of their own accord and basically on accident. I say "on accident", because Yoren didn't deliberately go to Kings Landing intent on Bael'ing Arya out. It just became a necessity and his intensions were actually noble. The circumstances of Lyanna's disappearance may have been similar, but mirrored, because her father was executed after she went missing. So the question is, who was the man of the Nights Watch that helped her leave Winterfell? Was she Bael'ed out after all? Arthur was just one head out of three, and just two legs of a Bael spider! It would also be fitting for the prophecy-obsessed Targaryens to have mistaken the 3-heads of the dragon for a 3-headed Bael.
|
|