Lucky computers perform tasks arbitrarily, so robots can't 'care' about repetitive mundane work like comment supering to the gods/machine base beep boop
The Lannister and Stark fued is based off The Wars of the Roses that took place between 1455-1487. The Lancasters(Lannister) against The Yorks(Stark). The Yorks won. Funnily enough the Yorks have Scandinavian and Germanic blood ties... they have the blood of the First Men. Those two Tribes (Scandinavian/Germanic) were described as barbaric to anyone and everyone who encountered them. Kind of like the Free Folk or the First Men 😉
Sir Gareth is a Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend. He was the youngest son of King Lot and Morgause, King Arthur's half-sister, thus making him Arthur's nephew, as well as brother to Gawain, Agravain, and Gaheris, and either a brother or half-brother of Mordred. He is particularly notable in Le Morte d'Arthur where he is also known by his nickname "Beaumains" in French "beau" means beautiful and "mains" means hands
Ooooh - and don't forget the 6th (!) season of Supernatural (!), where the hunter (!) Garth (!!) Fitzgerald IV salts and burns the corpse of Jenny (!!) Greentree (!!!), because she is (wrongly) accused of being a murderish (!!!!) ghost(!!!!!!)... Mythology, mythology everywhere!
Be careful with a possible misconception (and a wrong traduction) of Beaumains - in french, the word "main" is feminine, so the term to use is "belle" ("belles" in plural), and not "beau" ("beaux" in plural).
It’s a pity so less quantity of viewers. It is hardly to find THIS level of depth of investigation upon the masterpiece of literature, that has been doing by LML. Have been signed up to the channel for couple of years, yet used to accept this detailed hard work as givenness. Hope one day this amount of research and work to present it the right way shall be valued by the community. Thank you for your contribution, LML. Warm hello from your fan from Russia!
It is two years since the above comment was written. LML now has over 90 THOUSAND followers! Egor’s comment was prophetic. I have been a long time subscriber as well and it has been wonderful to see this content reach more and more people. I am delighted for the success of this content because it is so well deserved but I am not a bit surprised. No one else even comes close to providing this level of analysis, especially of symbolism.
There is evidence that other trees were also sacred (Kings Landing Godswood has an oak for a heart tree; tree faces carved by the Free Folk when they came south of the Wall) and Bran was told that the weirwoods were essentially training wheels to help him practice his greensight, I think that yes, other trees could be and were used, but the weirwoods were the most powerful as they used blood magic as well as green magic, while the other trees had just the green magic
I understood Garth to be a fertility god and because his descendants are majority of the Reach it echos in them with abundant fertility and food growth. If the Starks are wargs connected to the weirwoods and the north with the Odin energy Lightbringer has done an amazing job of pointing out. I figured the Reach is more Celtic mythology. Garth reminds me of the Dagda from Celtic mythology. The Iron Islands is very deep ones and Chathulu.
The iron islands religion is very much like the worship of Ran and Agir in norse myth. They are a married couple of sea gods and if you die at sea Ran fishes your corpse with her net and brings you to her undersea halls.
If each house had a green man then that assignment has been taken over by the grey maesters in the main story, green turning grey, green boys and greybeards. Martin just keep adding to the themes! Thanks for the video (green)man
Ahh my favorite theory. See-guard. Will tells us about a green man being skin changed in the AGOT prologue. Something about being caught red handed skinning a buck in the Mallister wood. Mayhaps this is why the garth lore takes a dark turn, or has two different tellings. You have skin changer language (the hand specifically red hand and skinning), as well as horn and tree language with the buck and the wood.
If green men were sacrificed does that mean that they were undead like cold hands. Bran did think cold hands could be a green man asking if he had horns
I think that’s one possibility, yeah. Have you listened to my green zombies podcasts? I think the original Nights watch were zombies at one point. Perhaps green men also.
@@DavidLightbringer I confess that I cannot remember exactly which videos I have seen, although I think that I have watched most of yours now. I remember you referring to the original nights watch possibly being undead and that’s probably where I was extrapolating from with reference to the green men. I am loving these scripted (not live-stream videos) they’re just the right length for my attention span.
@@DavidLightbringer I was gonna mention this as well, along with me somehow just realizing that's Venus in your lml symbol... The search key listing, highlighting, revisiting format in tight time really hit me as high quality while watching. The winnowing of ideas from text into evidence for your theory framework felt very effective. After years of listening, my green man/primordial mystical ecosystem, i.e. garthosystem??, understanding effortlessly increased by watching this one. Great sprinkle of tangents, segways and custom TH-cam beggary.
You've compared the Weirwood Network to mushroom or fungus networks, but there's an even more direct comparison in nature you may find interesting. Trees like aspens exist as colony networks, sending runners out beneath the soil and shooting up at points as trees. Colonies of aspen trees are not actual individual specimens, but one giant clonal organism. In fact, the largest (or at least heaviest) known living organism is the aspen colony "Pando" here in Utah. Pando is also possibly one of the longest living organisms in the world. Estimates vary widely, but greater than 10,000 years is common. This wouldn't change your theory in any way, but I thought perhaps you'd like the information! Love your work. A lot of crackpot ASoIaF theories on the wind that I try to avoid, but your takeaways are so strongly ... rooted in the source material. Stellar job top to bottom, Sir.
One of your greatest ASOIAF features, thank you so very much! Please, give us more Old Nan - I love her, I love her, I do! The interaction between her and Robert was a most wonderful comic relief in the rather dark stuff of human sacrifices and horny horned green-ish greenseeing god-men. And: Yes, I agree one hundred percent, we will see those extraordinary gentlemen (and ladies - they must have been procreating in the last umphthousand years somehow!) on the Isle of Faces in WoW, we will!
I know a man who drank so much carrot juice he turned orange, and I decided to drink enough wheat grass juice to turn myself green. I also read about a boy who turned green from exposure to too much silver...
Weirwoods could be like a quaking aspen, a single mega organism that breaches the surface many times. its possible the green men had the power to "call" a part of the of organism to the surface, less planting, more just encouraging it to sprout in a given place
LMFAO😂🤣😂🤣😂You made me laugh when you imitated the voice of Old Nan and King Robert, you’re good LML😁Thanks for sharing this video, you’re Awesome!👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👍👍🇨🇦🙋🏼♀️
Garth Greenhand himself and his symbolism and descriptions make him sound like a tree with a face. Maybe looking like a weirwood only green. Maybe an oaken tree with a carved face. If Garth was the oaken tree, then he could die and be reborn in the form of a carved weirwood. The Garth Oakenwood tree lived its life like the waters of the green river whereas the Weirwood tree lives it's life like a skeleton over the river snatching fish/souls from the green river.
Possible Timeline (feel free to correct) Garth and the First Men arrive on Westeros War(s) between First Men and Children of the Forest Pact formed on Isle of Faces (possibly moderated by Green Men) Great Empire colonizes Westeros - Fused stone fortresses built Azor Ahai kills Nissa Nissa, shattering the moon and beginning the Long Night First Others appear, begin taking over Westeros First hero pushes them back, eventually killing Night's King and Night's Queen Wall is built
Did you watch my timeline heresy videos about the Pact and the Hammer? I’m pretty close to you on most of this but there’s a theory I have about the pact
Because the hammer of the waters talks about blood sacrifice on the isle of faces, but “giving the trees faces” probably also involves blood sacrifice, so now it’s starting to sound like the same event actually
What information do we have about Garth: - where Garth is garthing, everything blooms - he was a king - sometimes he demanded blood sacrifices Prima Noctae anyone? Demanding blood sacrifices (deflowering) and making everything bloom (self-explanatory). Aaaand "deflowering" - flowers are pretty common in heraldry and culture of the Reach.
Love the Old Nan and Robert bit, that was stellar writing and performance. 😂😂 praising Garth in my own way before work here, this was a perfect length video for the ritual. 💚
Dude holy smokes you really blew me away with that garth/weir meaning, I listen to these while I work and I literally froze up with my mouth open when you explained what a fishing garth was 🤯🤯🤯
Maybe Bloodraven is an example of a greenseer/green man entity merging with the tree. Perhaps all weir wood trees are sacrificed green men in a hive mind.
I started watching this playlist (I rewatch your content) and I just wanted to say how MUCH I enjoyed seeing Old Nan! That was a very clever and entertaining, not to mention hysterical bit I had forgotten. This is the perfect video to start a playlist.
I like to think of the wood dancers from An elemental perspective too - it makes me think of the bravosi water dance Arya learns, an interesting parallel which would be in line with your suggestion that the wood dancers were warriors, but of the earthen kind as opposed to the watery kind. You can even consider the Others to be something of “ice dancers”, who would oppose the “fiery dancers” of dragons and red priests? A lot of dancing and elements going on here but it’s just a thought
This is so damn thrilling. To have all the different layers beneath this brilliant series laid out to us. Thank you so much for sharing your research with us! And again, TWOW can't come too soon. And what year other than the 10th anniversary of Dance haha!
Oh that’s a good call!! I found Martin using “sleeping under hedges” as greenseer talk - Meribald likes to rest his hard as horn feet under old hedges - “ The old ones are the best” 🧐🧐🧐
The green men seem like the nature version of the old and deep ones, they are godlike with a penchant for sacrifice. Perhaps Garth crossed the arm of dorne to conduct a trade. He brings some giants and children of the forest and in return, he gets fresh crops of humans. He then teaches them to grow and prosper, all while banging and sacrificing the shit out of them.
While I realy did not enjoy quins sidekick, I love his vids for the dreamy audiobook quality, I absolutly adore your interludes with old nan and Robert, although I am deeply disturbed by king Robert too. They are original and very on point and just fit into the adorably silly tone you carrie through extensiv research and symbolism heavy content.
Really had an “aha” moment with this video l, it really helped uh.. hammer 😬(yikes)the green man and hammer symbolism in my brain, and helped me understand the connection with green men and the summer king. thank you good Ser knight
Dude, I am amazed. Your videos and theories are always so interesting and well thought out, plus it has entertainment value! (you're pretty funny sometimes) So keep them coming please!
@@DavidLightbringer haha, there you go again. although you are probably simultaniously being honest. On another note; do you collect wigs and theatre props? Did you have all those before you made videos? just curious...
Hello, "the wierwoods are the puppetmaster" here. Great video!!! Could the wood dancers be those "wed to the trees", the ones whom the wierwoods warg into. Howland Reed (The Knight of the Laughing Tree) and King Bran could be wood dancers. Perhaps the wierwoods wanted the faces carved into their trunks. What better way to gather information from your enemy, the humans, by having them confess their sins directly to the puppetmaster.
You had me at Kermit :-). Garth Greenhand = GEotD's God-on-Earth? We know very little of the latter, but given his 100 wives he also seems to have been a horny guy with a lot of children, and he is also regarded as a God (his name kinda gives it away). And I assume the East would also have legends about the cycle of nature.
@@umwha The Bloodstone Emperor also lived in the East, and yet we have a parallel in Night's King in the West for him too (and no, I do not believe they're one and the same guy). Remember these are all myths, legends, and prophecies from thousands of years back, so we shouldn't seek too much realism in them. Was there really a guy in the East that lived for 10,000 years? Doubtful. This is simply another example of the mirroring of myths that we see throughout the story (another example: The Others vs. ghost grass). Legends that are tied to events that happen the world over, and that are sort of similar but not quite, as they are adapted to the local culture. Of course, Bran is going to repeat this cycle: he will become an extremely powerful greenseer and skinchanger. He will know everybody's past, present, and future, and he can slip into anybody's skin at any time. To the people of Westeros he will basically be a god, and quite a terrifying one at that. The East will probably have their own version of a Bran when they tell the story to their children a few thousand years after the story.
I love that a weir is also a garth; I totally thought he named that tree for Peter Weir of the Grateful Dead lol. Maybe it's both! On to weirwoods...I'm trying to decide what I think they are. Are they a tree or are they something more like a mushroom, that fruits along a mycelium network? The weirwood is so mysterious. Nobody besides Garth seems to be able to plant them. I entertained the idea that they were an oak tree that had received a blood sacrifice...that would align with Garth, and the interesting fact that somewhere in ADwD, Jon notices that someone has carved faces into regular trees by Castle Black, one of which at least I believe to be an oak if memory serves. It certainly would be crazy if we saw these as weirwoods in TWoW. However...I remember in Bran's journey, he sees a slender weirwood rising from the abandoned Night Fort, free of a face or any plant life. It struck me that perhaps it is not a tree but a fungus... something not unknown to be employed by George (in his novelette, Men of Greywater Station, a hive minded, telepathic fungus called The Fungus (lol) takes over the vising mens' minds...sound familiar?). Bloodraven literally has mushrooms growing on his face, giving us a giant clue. Fungi feed off the living and slowly decay their victims, just as the weirwood, and other hive minded groups like when Daenerys is sucked on by the warlocks in the House of the Undying. It would also certainly be like George to trick and subvert our certainty that the weirwood is a tree simply because he calls it a tree. And eating its paste and receiving crazy visions sounds like tripping balls on psilocybin...more mushroom links. It certainly would be fun if true. Feel free to steal this theory if you like it! Not sure if it's true but it's possible!
In your excellent Astronomy, I've also noticed the pale shadow of Alchemy lurking in the unseen background (though you repeatedly refer to the Alchemical wedding, which seems to be both the great problem and solution to the Song). The great sacrifice for the long night was made with many base metals: copper, bronze, flesh, and bone. But what was needed more than all was the Philosopher's stone: Nissa Nissa, who was pure, relatable to Mother Mary or such symbolic figures. At once, George has made both the Birth of Christ and the Fall of Lucifer, and with it, shown how man, through his horny Alchemy, corrupts the natural order of the world, plunging it into eternal duality.
Yes I’ve only dabbled in Alchemy comparisons, and there are more to be made. I’m just very shallow in my alchemy knowledge and haven’t taken the time to bark up that tree enough to write an essay about it. But yes, Martin is writing about every kind of transformation imaginable, so alchemy is a natural fit.
@@DavidLightbringer I hope you do! Also, quite aside, look up the sculpture "The Ecstacy of Saint Teresa," by Bernini. It depicts Teresa about to be trusted with a spear, crying out in anguish and ecstasy. I'm sure it is Nissa Nissa's source, as it is meant to depict godhood piercing the heart of a mortal. And to top it off, what Teresa's contemporaries said about her is remarkably similar to what the slave masters say about Dany.
The Vale has a Weirwood throne and when building the Eerie it is said that the workers carted up large amounts of soil in an attempt to plant a sort of Godswood which I imagine was supposed to include a Weirwood. However, his didn't work out and all of the soil was used for a garden
Writer M.R. James has a ghost story from 1904 called "The Ash-tree" that I'm 100% sure Martin knows about, I highly recommend checking it out because it is CRAZY how your theories align with what happens in the story with a malevolent ash tree, a witch done wrong, an under tree cave, a gardener setting a fire, and erupting venomous spiders.
Hey man love the content as always. I stumbled upon something that supports your moon meteors theory in dance of dragons today. Ive never heard you mention this quote (that I can remember) but the exact text is "Benerro jabbed a finger at the moon, made a fist, spread his hands wide. When his voice rose in a crescendo, flames leapt from his fingers with a sudden whoosh and made the crowd gasp. The priest could trace fiery letters in the air as well. Valyrian glyphs. Tyrion recognized perhaps two in ten; one was Doom, the other Darkness." If you hadn't noticed that before I just wanted to point it out to you
haha yeah it's like my theory spelled out in a game of charades, isn't it? I've only mentioned it in very old podcast episodes, so you might not have heard me talk about it. i should find an excuse to bring it up again! It's f*cking startling quite frankly, how on the nose it is
The Irish history and folk tales are cool for a lot of stuff with what the green men could have been via druids and their activities in those accounts of history
I’ve been at my computer working a lot the last couple months, so I’ve been watching a lot of these and other videos. It’s fun to walk through someone else’s potential creative process. Anyway, I’m pretty convinced, at least as of the last time I went through any of the book information, that the story is about how humans are torn between technology and nature, modern convenience as made attractive by evolved natural inclinations, and how the natural world evolved its own undoing in the development of human kind’s naturally derived intelligence. In the story, the Weirwoods represent baseline nature, with the “children” representing early stages in human technological development, when a homogeneous balance still existed between human intelligence and human’s ability to create within a thriving natural world. Humans stopped chopping down Weirwoods when they overcame the fear of natural forces. They instead put human faces on the trees, trying to perceive the natural world as an anthropomorphic extension of their own being, rather than the other way around. As humans got greedy, seeing nature as their belonging and corrupting even the children, they began to taint the Weirwoods and Green forces with their self-made technology (unnatural magic), such as blood sacrifice and Weirwoods thrones (for green seer pilots to sit in). While I think Weirwoods naturally can consume blood, as life force in the world seems to be part of the creative forces of magic, I don’t think it was supposed to happen through the forceful scenario of sacrifice, but rather natural cycles of life and death. Humans corrupted and polluted the Green forces of the Weirwood network with their unnatural magics-blood sacrifice and forceful manipulation of the green sight and warging. I think the Long Night came about when the Children followed in the steps of the humans and corrupted the network through mass sacrifice, completely toxifying the Green magics in order to attempt to bring about the end of the humans. I don’t know if they meant to make the Others, or if that was a side effect of the corrupting magics they called upon, but I think they were the result. I don’t know if the Others are the collective souls of the humans who have bonded with the Weirwoods, having been rejected from the network (possibly what the Children were trying to do), or if they’re corrupted Greenmen, rejected from the network when men took it over, but I do think they were the result of a blood-polluted Weirdwood network. I think part of the conclusion of the Others storyline will be purging the human-made creative magic pollution from the network, which I think is most potently represented by Bloodmagic and the existence of Dragons (which were possibly made possible by the Bloodstone, which I think might represent the industrial revolution changing the world “overnight”). In some way, I think the story will illustrate humans coming to understand their place as an extension of nature, rather than nature being an anthropomorphic extension of themselves manifested through gods and legends. I actually think this schism in thought is what split the Dawn Empire in the way I believe it split. At the end of this story, I think the Weirwood network, Bloodmagic, Greenmagjc, and all other such forces might be entirely purged from the world at the end of the conflict, representing nature accidentally destroying itself by evolving humans with the intelligence to create their own “magics.” Life on Planetos will be saved, but the completely mundane world left behind will be much more harsh and unpredictable, as all the magics that have been making the various areas of the world habitable and prosperous will fail-a kind of global Doom of Valyria. There could be a happier ending where humans just stop messing with creative magics altogether, but I doubt it. For a little of the reason I think these things: - Humans first steps into their own powers of creation were the creation of obsidian weapons-in the story, obsidian is the first substance seen to destroy the others - Dragonsteel is the first totally manmade material in the story’s world, and it is the only other material known to destroy Others-I think it is representative of entirely-manmade materials like plastics - The humans warred with the scary creatures in harmony with nature, like Children, giants, and greenmen, but anthropomorphized the source of the power that made them scary upon making peace with these natural forces - The children and giants were pushed into the back of the visible world (conscious mind) and forgotten, with only some remaining in the God’s Eye (the area in the mind that explains the world through ego extension via familiarized religion and legend) There are other things, but this is already too long.
Well that was an interesting take for sure, and I think I agree with some of your thematic ideas. And you know I think the wwnet was corrupted, exactly, and purging it is what needs to be done. I hope we find out one day the face carving was a human thing and not the original way cotf used the trees
Talking about taking a face and putting it on a tree reminds me of the same magical ability that the faceless men have it seems like the key pieces are there, sacrifice, A face stolen, And the face being preserved in some way and being able to be used later by multiple entities.
Love this video ! About the Wood dancers, makes me think of the classic Wharhammer game, in it, there is the Wood Elves faction (very reminicent of the CHildren of the forest) and they have the War dancers, a cast of skilled warriors
I have been listening to you for the past week! I love your videos! You’ve revived my love for game of those! And you got a like for that old Nan impression! 😂
@@DavidLightbringer it’s a treat to hear! Hearing you go from Robert to Nan was perfect. Keep doing what you’re doing! All of these theories and back story is what I love to learn.
This comment is a sacrifice to the algorithm gods.
Lucky computers perform tasks arbitrarily, so robots can't 'care' about repetitive mundane work like comment supering to the gods/machine base beep boop
whad a beep, whaf a boop bada... hell, you get the point
Better do the same 😜
Praise be
After watching your content I'm beginning to believe that knowing European history and folk lore should come with a spoiler warning for Martin's work
The Lannister and Stark fued is based off The Wars of the Roses that took place between 1455-1487. The Lancasters(Lannister) against The Yorks(Stark). The Yorks won. Funnily enough the Yorks have Scandinavian and Germanic blood ties... they have the blood of the First Men.
Those two Tribes (Scandinavian/Germanic) were described as barbaric to anyone and everyone who encountered them. Kind of like the Free Folk or the First Men 😉
Sir Gareth is a Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend. He was the youngest son of King Lot and Morgause, King Arthur's half-sister, thus making him Arthur's nephew, as well as brother to Gawain, Agravain, and Gaheris, and either a brother or half-brother of Mordred. He is particularly notable in Le Morte d'Arthur where he is also known by his nickname "Beaumains" in French "beau" means beautiful and "mains" means hands
Ooooh - and don't forget the 6th (!) season of Supernatural (!), where the hunter (!) Garth (!!) Fitzgerald IV salts and burns the corpse of Jenny (!!) Greentree (!!!), because she is (wrongly) accused of being a murderish (!!!!) ghost(!!!!!!)... Mythology, mythology everywhere!
Be careful with a possible misconception (and a wrong traduction) of Beaumains - in french, the word "main" is feminine, so the term to use is "belle" ("belles" in plural), and not "beau" ("beaux" in plural).
The trees are the hands of "god" reaching into the universe to sift the souls of eternity
It’s a pity so less quantity of viewers. It is hardly to find THIS level of depth of investigation upon the masterpiece of literature, that has been doing by LML. Have been signed up to the channel for couple of years, yet used to accept this detailed hard work as givenness. Hope one day this amount of research and work to present it the right way shall be valued by the community. Thank you for your contribution, LML. Warm hello from your fan from Russia!
It is two years since the above comment was written. LML now has over 90 THOUSAND followers! Egor’s comment was prophetic. I have been a long time subscriber as well and it has been wonderful to see this content reach more and more people. I am delighted for the success of this content because it is so well deserved but I am not a bit surprised. No one else even comes close to providing this level of analysis, especially of symbolism.
There is evidence that other trees were also sacred (Kings Landing Godswood has an oak for a heart tree; tree faces carved by the Free Folk when they came south of the Wall) and Bran was told that the weirwoods were essentially training wheels to help him practice his greensight, I think that yes, other trees could be and were used, but the weirwoods were the most powerful as they used blood magic as well as green magic, while the other trees had just the green magic
I suspect something like this to be true as well bronhaller!
I understood Garth to be a fertility god and because his descendants are majority of the Reach it echos in them with abundant fertility and food growth. If the Starks are wargs connected to the weirwoods and the north with the Odin energy Lightbringer has done an amazing job of pointing out. I figured the Reach is more Celtic mythology. Garth reminds me of the Dagda from Celtic mythology. The Iron Islands is very deep ones and Chathulu.
I think that’s right, yeah
The iron islands religion is very much like the worship of Ran and Agir in norse myth. They are a married couple of sea gods and if you die at sea Ran fishes your corpse with her net and brings you to her undersea halls.
Has Martin ever emailed you and been like, "Stop it."
There's a lot of horniess in this comment section.
Pray to Garth the algorithm is kind to this one
🙏 🌼 🐐
Pray and upvote?
Do comments help, I wonder? They should right?
☄️🌝☄️👁🙏👁☄️🌚☄️
👌👁👁💨💨
If each house had a green man then that assignment has been taken over by the grey maesters in the main story, green turning grey, green boys and greybeards. Martin just keep adding to the themes! Thanks for the video (green)man
They grey must represent death and winter as well. The office of Maester will probably be replaced with something else more accessible.
somewhere in there the order of pyromancers was once more important too. the green gets burned out, then is ashen grey.
The weir wood trees catch souls in the flow of time thus collecting the souls of all beings and their history within their godwood. Woah.
This is a welcome distraction as I am very anxious today ❤️
Ahh my favorite theory. See-guard. Will tells us about a green man being skin changed in the AGOT prologue. Something about being caught red handed skinning a buck in the Mallister wood. Mayhaps this is why the garth lore takes a dark turn, or has two different tellings. You have skin changer language (the hand specifically red hand and skinning), as well as horn and tree language with the buck and the wood.
If green men were sacrificed does that mean that they were undead like cold hands. Bran did think cold hands could be a green man asking if he had horns
I think that’s one possibility, yeah. Have you listened to my green zombies podcasts? I think the original Nights watch were zombies at one point. Perhaps green men also.
@@DavidLightbringer I confess that I cannot remember exactly which videos I have seen, although I think that I have watched most of yours now. I remember you referring to the original nights watch possibly being undead and that’s probably where I was extrapolating from with reference to the green men. I am loving these scripted (not live-stream videos) they’re just the right length for my attention span.
Holy shit LML, this is one of the highest quality videos you’ve done yet. Please keep up the amazing content!
Thanks for saying so, I put a lot into this one :)
@@DavidLightbringer I was gonna mention this as well, along with me somehow just realizing that's Venus in your lml symbol...
The search key listing, highlighting, revisiting format in tight time really hit me as high quality while watching. The winnowing of ideas from text into evidence for your theory framework felt very effective. After years of listening, my green man/primordial mystical ecosystem, i.e. garthosystem??, understanding effortlessly increased by watching this one. Great sprinkle of tangents, segways and custom TH-cam beggary.
Oh just remembered you explained it some time, and I can't recall what it is at all.
You've compared the Weirwood Network to mushroom or fungus networks, but there's an even more direct comparison in nature you may find interesting. Trees like aspens exist as colony networks, sending runners out beneath the soil and shooting up at points as trees. Colonies of aspen trees are not actual individual specimens, but one giant clonal organism. In fact, the largest (or at least heaviest) known living organism is the aspen colony "Pando" here in Utah. Pando is also possibly one of the longest living organisms in the world. Estimates vary widely, but greater than 10,000 years is common. This wouldn't change your theory in any way, but I thought perhaps you'd like the information! Love your work. A lot of crackpot ASoIaF theories on the wind that I try to avoid, but your takeaways are so strongly ... rooted in the source material. Stellar job top to bottom, Sir.
These Robert and Old Nan cameos are great
One of your greatest ASOIAF features, thank you so very much! Please, give us more Old Nan - I love her, I love her, I do! The interaction between her and Robert was a most wonderful comic relief in the rather dark stuff of human sacrifices and horny horned green-ish greenseeing god-men. And: Yes, I agree one hundred percent, we will see those extraordinary gentlemen (and ladies - they must have been procreating in the last umphthousand years somehow!) on the Isle of Faces in WoW, we will!
I think I buy the idea that the green men are human shamans or children of the forest that wear antlers moreso than a seperate race of beings.
I humbly offer this comment unto the algorithm gods
comment supered by basic bot beep boop
I know a man who drank so much carrot juice he turned orange, and I decided to drink enough wheat grass juice to turn myself green.
I also read about a boy who turned green from exposure to too much silver...
Weirwoods could be like a quaking aspen, a single mega organism that breaches the surface many times. its possible the green men had the power to "call" a part of the of organism to the surface, less planting, more just encouraging it to sprout in a given place
That’s awesome. You’re hired to direct the green men prequel spin off show
@@DavidLightbringer glad you liked my idea
LMFAO😂🤣😂🤣😂You made me laugh when you imitated the voice of Old Nan and King Robert, you’re good LML😁Thanks for sharing this video, you’re Awesome!👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👍👍🇨🇦🙋🏼♀️
I read all your essays back when you first wrote them, but damn! am I enjoying hearing your passion in these videos. You rock David!
Garth Greenhand himself and his symbolism and descriptions make him sound like a tree with a face. Maybe looking like a weirwood only green. Maybe an oaken tree with a carved face. If Garth was the oaken tree, then he could die and be reborn in the form of a carved weirwood. The Garth Oakenwood tree lived its life like the waters of the green river whereas the Weirwood tree lives it's life like a skeleton over the river snatching fish/souls from the green river.
Totally, you’re grasping the overall picture. The weirwood is standing in for the Holly tree as the tree of winter opposite the Oak.
Your videos give me joy, LML. Old Nan reading the promo had me in tears!!!
But Old Nan, you already made me muck out the stables yesterday! Can't Hodor do it today?
Possible Timeline (feel free to correct)
Garth and the First Men arrive on Westeros
War(s) between First Men and Children of the Forest
Pact formed on Isle of Faces (possibly moderated by Green Men)
Great Empire colonizes Westeros - Fused stone fortresses built
Azor Ahai kills Nissa Nissa, shattering the moon and beginning the Long Night
First Others appear, begin taking over Westeros
First hero pushes them back, eventually killing Night's King and Night's Queen
Wall is built
Did you watch my timeline heresy videos about the Pact and the Hammer? I’m pretty close to you on most of this but there’s a theory I have about the pact
@@DavidLightbringer not yet, I'll definitely catch that one soon!
I always thought the humans gathering on the Isle of Faces to "sign" the Pact had as a direct result their sacrifice to cause the Hammer.
That’s an interesting idea. I do think the two events are connected
Because the hammer of the waters talks about blood sacrifice on the isle of faces, but “giving the trees faces” probably also involves blood sacrifice, so now it’s starting to sound like the same event actually
What information do we have about Garth:
- where Garth is garthing, everything blooms
- he was a king
- sometimes he demanded blood sacrifices
Prima Noctae anyone? Demanding blood sacrifices (deflowering) and making everything bloom (self-explanatory).
Aaaand "deflowering" - flowers are pretty common in heraldry and culture of the Reach.
Yep. I think the prima nocta makes sense as a greenseers trying to spread their magical seed thing. I’ve always thought that made sense
That fishing weir connection is simply brilliant, LmL. Thank you for your continued hard work! Looking forward to your book!
5:22 was straight up prophecy
If Old Nan says, then it's true. Let's avoid lightning and like the video
That Old Nan/King Rob interplay was incredible.
i was worried I carried it on too long so thanks :)
Old Nan's threats earned your house another bannerman.
Love the Old Nan and Robert bit, that was stellar writing and performance. 😂😂 praising Garth in my own way before work here, this was a perfect length video for the ritual. 💚
I lol'd like 6x's during Robert & Old Nan. Brilliant work, Ser!
Dude holy smokes you really blew me away with that garth/weir meaning, I listen to these while I work and I literally froze up with my mouth open when you explained what a fishing garth was 🤯🤯🤯
That was my initial reaction too homie, it’s nuts
Wait ... Doesnt cold hands ride an elk? Maybe he's a frozen Green man
Maybe Bloodraven is an example of a greenseer/green man entity merging with the tree. Perhaps all weir wood trees are sacrificed green men in a hive mind.
Smart, very smart. Just what I am thinking. You’ll like the next Green Man video :)
@@DavidLightbringer Your thesis is aptly downloaded and fragments are linking together like fishies in a garth.
Thank you for introducing these lesser-known myths through ASOIAF! It is genuinely fascinating stuff!
I started watching this playlist (I rewatch your content) and I just wanted to say how MUCH I enjoyed seeing Old Nan! That was a very clever and entertaining, not to mention hysterical bit I had forgotten. This is the perfect video to start a playlist.
aww thanks Tracy! These were really fun videos to make
So based on the season finale of season 2 of House of the Dragon, the Green Men also have hooves. So they're more of a Pan-like creature.
I love how the cameos are getting more elaborate
Man this intro had me dyin laughing keep it up brother, keepin my workday flowin like the rippledown rill
I like to think of the wood dancers from An elemental perspective too - it makes me think of the bravosi water dance Arya learns, an interesting parallel which would be in line with your suggestion that the wood dancers were warriors, but of the earthen kind as opposed to the watery kind. You can even consider the Others to be something of “ice dancers”, who would oppose the “fiery dancers” of dragons and red priests? A lot of dancing and elements going on here but it’s just a thought
Song and dance are used quite frequently as metaphors, certainly
@@DavidLightbringer LML you’re the best! Favourite channel on TH-cam 💪🏽
This is so damn thrilling. To have all the different layers beneath this brilliant series laid out to us. Thank you so much for sharing your research with us!
And again, TWOW can't come too soon. And what year other than the 10th anniversary of Dance haha!
Old Nan is great lol I don't know why I love her but I do.
I feel like there is a significant amount of Fishers of Men symbiology in all this. Weirwoods and green seas etc.
Yes! I was just thinking this, especially since the last hero had 12 companions! And Jon is just so Jesusy, Jon and Dany and bran all three
Is the maze in Leng and the Highgarden hedge maze hinting at a connection between Green Men and Old Ones?
Oh that’s a good call!! I found Martin using “sleeping under hedges” as greenseer talk - Meribald likes to rest his hard as horn feet under old hedges - “ The old ones are the best” 🧐🧐🧐
The green men seem like the nature version of the old and deep ones, they are godlike with a penchant for sacrifice. Perhaps Garth crossed the arm of dorne to conduct a trade. He brings some giants and children of the forest and in return, he gets fresh crops of humans. He then teaches them to grow and prosper, all while banging and sacrificing the shit out of them.
he's got a bloody blade, no doubt ;)
this seems accurate from personal experience.
Imagine ASOIAF in an animated show instead of live action. It’d be a lot cheaper than vfx and they could show so much more stuff
Welp, I'm convinced!
Here's hoping for more Old Nan and Robert in future as well.
Myth is a hell of a drug.
While I realy did not enjoy quins sidekick, I love his vids for the dreamy audiobook quality, I absolutly adore your interludes with old nan and Robert, although I am deeply disturbed by king Robert too. They are original and very on point and just fit into the adorably silly tone you carrie through extensiv research and symbolism heavy content.
King Robert v Old Nan 😂🤣
A “Long Night” video game done in the style of Witcher 3 would be fun...
Great way to start my day !!!!
Thanks again for another short, sweet, to-the-point analysis!
Really had an “aha” moment with this video l, it really helped uh.. hammer 😬(yikes)the green man and hammer symbolism in my brain, and helped me understand the connection with green men and the summer king. thank you good Ser knight
Love the voice acting and the channel as a whole can't wait for WoW 2021!
Dude, I am amazed. Your videos and theories are always so interesting and well thought out, plus it has entertainment value! (you're pretty funny sometimes) So keep them coming please!
“Funny sometimes” is the exact amount of funny I was going for, perfect
@@DavidLightbringer haha, there you go again. although you are probably simultaniously being honest. On another note; do you collect wigs and theatre props? Did you have all those before you made videos? just curious...
Hello, "the wierwoods are the puppetmaster" here. Great video!!! Could the wood dancers be those "wed to the trees", the ones whom the wierwoods warg into. Howland Reed (The Knight of the Laughing Tree) and King Bran could be wood dancers. Perhaps the wierwoods wanted the faces carved into their trunks. What better way to gather information from your enemy, the humans, by having them confess their sins directly to the puppetmaster.
You had me at Kermit :-).
Garth Greenhand = GEotD's God-on-Earth? We know very little of the latter, but given his 100 wives he also seems to have been a horny guy with a lot of children, and he is also regarded as a God (his name kinda gives it away). And I assume the East would also have legends about the cycle of nature.
It’s very possible, yes
@@umwha The Bloodstone Emperor also lived in the East, and yet we have a parallel in Night's King in the West for him too (and no, I do not believe they're one and the same guy). Remember these are all myths, legends, and prophecies from thousands of years back, so we shouldn't seek too much realism in them. Was there really a guy in the East that lived for 10,000 years? Doubtful. This is simply another example of the mirroring of myths that we see throughout the story (another example: The Others vs. ghost grass). Legends that are tied to events that happen the world over, and that are sort of similar but not quite, as they are adapted to the local culture.
Of course, Bran is going to repeat this cycle: he will become an extremely powerful greenseer and skinchanger. He will know everybody's past, present, and future, and he can slip into anybody's skin at any time. To the people of Westeros he will basically be a god, and quite a terrifying one at that. The East will probably have their own version of a Bran when they tell the story to their children a few thousand years after the story.
I love that a weir is also a garth; I totally thought he named that tree for Peter Weir of the Grateful Dead lol. Maybe it's both!
On to weirwoods...I'm trying to decide what I think they are. Are they a tree or are they something more like a mushroom, that fruits along a mycelium network? The weirwood is so mysterious. Nobody besides Garth seems to be able to plant them. I entertained the idea that they were an oak tree that had received a blood sacrifice...that would align with Garth, and the interesting fact that somewhere in ADwD, Jon notices that someone has carved faces into regular trees by Castle Black, one of which at least I believe to be an oak if memory serves. It certainly would be crazy if we saw these as weirwoods in TWoW. However...I remember in Bran's journey, he sees a slender weirwood rising from the abandoned Night Fort, free of a face or any plant life. It struck me that perhaps it is not a tree but a fungus... something not unknown to be employed by George (in his novelette, Men of Greywater Station, a hive minded, telepathic fungus called The Fungus (lol) takes over the vising mens' minds...sound familiar?). Bloodraven literally has mushrooms growing on his face, giving us a giant clue. Fungi feed off the living and slowly decay their victims, just as the weirwood, and other hive minded groups like when Daenerys is sucked on by the warlocks in the House of the Undying. It would also certainly be like George to trick and subvert our certainty that the weirwood is a tree simply because he calls it a tree. And eating its paste and receiving crazy visions sounds like tripping balls on psilocybin...more mushroom links. It certainly would be fun if true. Feel free to steal this theory if you like it! Not sure if it's true but it's possible!
Brilliant stuff
In your excellent Astronomy, I've also noticed the pale shadow of Alchemy lurking in the unseen background (though you repeatedly refer to the Alchemical wedding, which seems to be both the great problem and solution to the Song). The great sacrifice for the long night was made with many base metals: copper, bronze, flesh, and bone. But what was needed more than all was the Philosopher's stone: Nissa Nissa, who was pure, relatable to Mother Mary or such symbolic figures. At once, George has made both the Birth of Christ and the Fall of Lucifer, and with it, shown how man, through his horny Alchemy, corrupts the natural order of the world, plunging it into eternal duality.
Yes I’ve only dabbled in Alchemy comparisons, and there are more to be made. I’m just very shallow in my alchemy knowledge and haven’t taken the time to bark up that tree enough to write an essay about it. But yes, Martin is writing about every kind of transformation imaginable, so alchemy is a natural fit.
@@DavidLightbringer
I hope you do! Also, quite aside, look up the sculpture "The Ecstacy of Saint Teresa," by Bernini. It depicts Teresa about to be trusted with a spear, crying out in anguish and ecstasy. I'm sure it is Nissa Nissa's source, as it is meant to depict godhood piercing the heart of a mortal. And to top it off, what Teresa's contemporaries said about her is remarkably similar to what the slave masters say about Dany.
24 hour staff duty, thanks for coming through in the wee hours of the morning, LmL.
The Vale has a Weirwood throne and when building the Eerie it is said that the workers carted up large amounts of soil in an attempt to plant a sort of Godswood which I imagine was supposed to include a Weirwood. However, his didn't work out and all of the soil was used for a garden
Writer M.R. James has a ghost story from 1904 called "The Ash-tree" that I'm 100% sure Martin knows about, I highly recommend checking it out because it is CRAZY how your theories align with what happens in the story with a malevolent ash tree, a witch done wrong, an under tree cave, a gardener setting a fire, and erupting venomous spiders.
OH SHIT what now? I'll look into it!
@@DavidLightbringer In 1975 it was made into a 32 minute episode of the UK series "Ghost Stories for Christmas" and remade (poorly) in 1986.
Wonderful story telling. Thanks for laying it all out like this.
Old nan has a way with words
Hey man love the content as always. I stumbled upon something that supports your moon meteors theory in dance of dragons today. Ive never heard you mention this quote (that I can remember) but the exact text is
"Benerro jabbed a finger at the moon, made a fist, spread his hands wide. When his voice rose in a crescendo, flames leapt from his fingers with a sudden whoosh and made the crowd gasp. The priest could trace fiery letters in the air as well. Valyrian glyphs. Tyrion recognized perhaps two in ten; one was Doom, the other Darkness."
If you hadn't noticed that before I just wanted to point it out to you
haha yeah it's like my theory spelled out in a game of charades, isn't it? I've only mentioned it in very old podcast episodes, so you might not have heard me talk about it. i should find an excuse to bring it up again! It's f*cking startling quite frankly, how on the nose it is
Enjoyed and excited for The Green Knight Film
The Irish history and folk tales are cool for a lot of stuff with what the green men could have been via druids and their activities in those accounts of history
we need a podcast with only king robert and old nan (maybe the hound too?)
Quality banter as usual sir
Love all the artwork!
I’ve been at my computer working a lot the last couple months, so I’ve been watching a lot of these and other videos. It’s fun to walk through someone else’s potential creative process.
Anyway, I’m pretty convinced, at least as of the last time I went through any of the book information, that the story is about how humans are torn between technology and nature, modern convenience as made attractive by evolved natural inclinations, and how the natural world evolved its own undoing in the development of human kind’s naturally derived intelligence.
In the story, the Weirwoods represent baseline nature, with the “children” representing early stages in human technological development, when a homogeneous balance still existed between human intelligence and human’s ability to create within a thriving natural world.
Humans stopped chopping down Weirwoods when they overcame the fear of natural forces. They instead put human faces on the trees, trying to perceive the natural world as an anthropomorphic extension of their own being, rather than the other way around.
As humans got greedy, seeing nature as their belonging and corrupting even the children, they began to taint the Weirwoods and Green forces with their self-made technology (unnatural magic), such as blood sacrifice and Weirwoods thrones (for green seer pilots to sit in).
While I think Weirwoods naturally can consume blood, as life force in the world seems to be part of the creative forces of magic, I don’t think it was supposed to happen through the forceful scenario of sacrifice, but rather natural cycles of life and death.
Humans corrupted and polluted the Green forces of the Weirwood network with their unnatural magics-blood sacrifice and forceful manipulation of the green sight and warging.
I think the Long Night came about when the Children followed in the steps of the humans and corrupted the network through mass sacrifice, completely toxifying the Green magics in order to attempt to bring about the end of the humans. I don’t know if they meant to make the Others, or if that was a side effect of the corrupting magics they called upon, but I think they were the result.
I don’t know if the Others are the collective souls of the humans who have bonded with the Weirwoods, having been rejected from the network (possibly what the Children were trying to do), or if they’re corrupted Greenmen, rejected from the network when men took it over, but I do think they were the result of a blood-polluted Weirdwood network.
I think part of the conclusion of the Others storyline will be purging the human-made creative magic pollution from the network, which I think is most potently represented by Bloodmagic and the existence of Dragons (which were possibly made possible by the Bloodstone, which I think might represent the industrial revolution changing the world “overnight”).
In some way, I think the story will illustrate humans coming to understand their place as an extension of nature, rather than nature being an anthropomorphic extension of themselves manifested through gods and legends.
I actually think this schism in thought is what split the Dawn Empire in the way I believe it split.
At the end of this story, I think the Weirwood network, Bloodmagic, Greenmagjc, and all other such forces might be entirely purged from the world at the end of the conflict, representing nature accidentally destroying itself by evolving humans with the intelligence to create their own “magics.” Life on Planetos will be saved, but the completely mundane world left behind will be much more harsh and unpredictable, as all the magics that have been making the various areas of the world habitable and prosperous will fail-a kind of global Doom of Valyria.
There could be a happier ending where humans just stop messing with creative magics altogether, but I doubt it.
For a little of the reason I think these things:
- Humans first steps into their own powers of creation were the creation of obsidian weapons-in the story, obsidian is the first substance seen to destroy the others
- Dragonsteel is the first totally manmade material in the story’s world, and it is the only other material known to destroy Others-I think it is representative of entirely-manmade materials like plastics
- The humans warred with the scary creatures in harmony with nature, like Children, giants, and greenmen, but anthropomorphized the source of the power that made them scary upon making peace with these natural forces
- The children and giants were pushed into the back of the visible world (conscious mind) and forgotten, with only some remaining in the God’s Eye (the area in the mind that explains the world through ego extension via familiarized religion and legend)
There are other things, but this is already too long.
Well that was an interesting take for sure, and I think I agree with some of your thematic ideas. And you know I think the wwnet was corrupted, exactly, and purging it is what needs to be done. I hope we find out one day the face carving was a human thing and not the original way cotf used the trees
Goin back through the catalog, and I just have to say… Praise Garth for David Lightbringer
Talking about taking a face and putting it on a tree reminds me of the same magical ability that the faceless men have it seems like the key pieces are there, sacrifice, A face stolen, And the face being preserved in some way and being able to be used later by multiple entities.
Love this video !
About the Wood dancers, makes me think of the classic Wharhammer game, in it, there is the Wood Elves faction (very reminicent of the CHildren of the forest) and they have the War dancers, a cast of skilled warriors
I wonder if he was one of the emperors for the great Dawn, emerald eyes
Another great analysis!! Also, I heard you on Grays channel, amazing!!!
yea that was a ton of fun!
Great video dude, really unique idea and you totally sold me on the theory
I'm loving this series, keep up the good work! Excited for the next one 😁 💜
I have been listening to you for the past week! I love your videos! You’ve revived my love for game of those! And you got a like for that old Nan impression! 😂
i do love doing Old Nan voice, it’s half Monty Python and half Chef’s mother
@@DavidLightbringer it’s a treat to hear! Hearing you go from Robert to Nan was perfect. Keep doing what you’re doing! All of these theories and back story is what I love to learn.
Watching this video and the ones associated with it in preparation for the green man video you were talking about!!!
I loves when in the other video you read the Part about Leng which pushed to go and read the kdath story.
One of my all time favs of your vids, Ser : )
A sacrifice to the algorithm gods
LML forever having the best promos. "their chrystaline ovipositers" 😭
Garth Brooks writing songs about trapping fish. Its too perfect .
He’s clearly in on the joke huh
Another well made video - thank you!
A comment! A gift for the gods!
Gotta love some mystical deep wood druids. I do hope theyre more than ordinary hippy dudes
I love Old Nan
Calling it now, those little elves are going to try to jogen paste bran, but get played and eaten themselfs
Oh damn
Party on, Garth.
The Hammer of the Algorithm!! 🔨
drop that shit
Talking symbols, Robert, your green man stand in, Swung a big hammer until he got to old....Nice hammer.