Gorne's way seems to also foreshadow your idea of the people trapped inside the Wall being fed the blood of their own children. Gorne got around the Wall by going under it. But his brother Gendel was lost under the caves and had to stay there. The only food left was human flesh. So Gendel and his children became cannibals. So, trapped under the Wall, forced to feed on the life of your own offspring, sounds a lot like the same kind of curse. It also reminds me of "no man is as accursed as a kinslayer." But in reverse: the people trapped inside the Wall are suffering immensely. And they must sustain themselves with the children of their own blood, effectively being accursed to survive through such vile feasts.
There was once a time when there seemed an endless treasure trove of theory videos that blew my mind. Now it is a rare thing to hear a new theory that makes me 🤔🤫😮🤯🤯 Naturally I'm not in agreement w all the nuances but you are the first to get me hype on a new theory in a long time. Cheers! Well done 🤘🤘 Preston is still the GOAT to me, and I know not popular opinions but I'm at least semi-convinced by The Green Hand with N+A=J...I just love the idea of the infamous GRRM/D&D conversation of R+L=J being Martin WANTING the show to be different from the books and playing those two dopes like fools. I'm also semi-convinced on Mance/Quorin/Tormund=Kingsguard theory - Mance is the first name mentioned in the books and I have always suspected all three of them of being more than they seem. I used to think Mance was Rheagar but Arthur Dayne does make more sense. I particularly just can't ignore the scene where he kicks the crap out of John like it's nothing.... Hahaha am I still welcome here after that?
The apprentices were shambling in chains-sounds a LOT like maesters. Those chains BIND. Those boys, the maesters-chains in text bind the character to some place or something. And Mad Axe guy is interesting considering how Yoren dies. Arya gave an axe to his killer and he was the target of Jaqen. Sam is getting chained as a maester-all these ghostie stories are lowkey lining up with events currently happening in text. A weird echo or warped reflection. Wana bet there are literal tunnels/passageways in the Wall? Places inside the Wall that can be visited.
Crowfood's Daughter has a theory about how the maesters started off as slaves. There's a lot of things about the Ghiscari that remind me of the First Men so that figures.
@Sunspear7 The maesters are slaves-but they are slaves by choice. Just like the peoples asking Dany if they can be slaves...some of these 'slaves' are slaves by choice in text. Some are forced. Some don't know that they are slaves.
@@aprilmae274 I meant they literally started off as slaves when the Citadel was founded, the chains are a callback to that. They were probably scribes bought for Peremore Hightower like the ones who want to sell themselves in Mereen. I get what you mean where they're slaves by choice in an abstract sense in at the time of the main story though.
Holy shite-I just realized something about Craster. He is a Godly man-so is fukin Bonifer Hasty at Harrenhall. Craster had 100 sons; The Others. Some of them get killed in text..and Bonifer HAD his Holy Hundred but some of them are killed as well. 14 in fact. 14 is also Fortnight-Night Fort. For real, shit between the Wall and Harrenhall are lining up. Hasty is from Stormlands-no WAY can it be good for HIM to be at Harrenhall considering it was a war between the Stormlands and Iron Born that bring Aegon to Westeros. If Stannis is at the wall while Bonifer is at harrenhall shit is going to get CRAZY AF. That is an echo of Harren's brother being in charge of the Wall when Harren is building Harrnehall. And in Arienne's chapter, we read about a group of 100 boys and young men heading for Jon Conn...over on the Iron Islands-we meet the Goodbrothers. They are identical, twins to each other but they were not born at the same times. The Goodbrothers are described by Aeron exactly as the Others are described by Will in GoT prologue. wtf these books are awesome crazy! These numbers and chacarters are lining up into teams and each team is a warped copy of each other is how it reads. Harrenhall and the Wall can conect thru that Gate..there is a Gate at Harrenhall too.
Going around Texas I just learned about Fort Cavazos (previously Fort Hood) and Vanessa Guillen. Couldn't help but think about Danny Flint. Makes me wonder if there's a lot more stories like that in the real world that inspired George to include some in his. It's a dark world out there.
Interesting parallel! I read a book a few months ago (wish I could remember the title and author!) about the history of women going into the military disguised as men, and it dates back a surprisingly long way - to Ancient Rome, at least. One of the most interesting things is that so many of them *didn't* end up like Danny Flint or Vanessa Guillen, but rather passed as soldiers and sailors just as professional as the men around them, often until they were either killed in battle, or wounded badly enough that their "little secret" was found out. By that point, their comrades in arms were generally as protective of them as they were of each other, and would go out of their way to protect them from anyone else finding them out and causing them harm. In fact, many of those who recovered from war wounds were welcomed back to their old positions in their male identities! The thought is strangely wholesome.
Tying the Westerosi magic to the emphasis on bloodlines like the Starks would parallel the blood magic that gives Targaryens their abilities and dragons. It isn't some divine gift, but a blood ritual tied to the blood line that performed the ritual. The Targaryens have the three heads, with their ancestral ritual caster as the third head. The Starks get warging abilities and greensight through a similar blood ritual and the "third head" is the ancestor that bonded to (or warged into after expelling the tree's shadow) the first weirwoods. The diminishing of the dragons may have been maester sabotage, OR it could have simply been maester's making it impossible to keep up with blood sacrifice in the dragon pits while simultaneously keeping that prized knowledge away from the maesters. If the loss of Targaryen fire magic was just from maesters unwittingly stopping crucial fire magic blood rituals, and the Targaryens ending the Rite of First Night unwittingly stopped crucial green magic blood ritual, it would make for a nice parallel. I would almost prefer it be revealed the maesters were more curious about the dragon magic than deliberately trying to kill them, because that would better mirror Alyssane ending the Right of the First Night with noble and justified intentions, even if she didn't realize she was also undermining a blood ritual Brief aside: Imagine Bran the Builder is Bloodraven-fused to the roots of a weirwood that spans the castle walls. When we assume it's Bloodraven or a time-travelling Bran controlling the ravens and sending the dreams that would drive Bran north, they or just some could have come from Bran the Builder in the crypts. The issue with Bloodraven warging past the wall, and the counter explanation of the wall not being DIRECTLY between winterfell and bloodraven's cave seems like a lame solution. Time-traveling Bran is cool, but Bran the Builder sucking up centuries of blood and running some puppet master outfit? Maybe Allysane deliberately ended the right of the first night because she figured out what was in the crypts. Maybe Bloodraven had to go north of the wall to merge with a Weirwood because of Bran the Builder's presence south of the wall. The final march to winterfell could even end with Wight Jon confronting Bran the Builder to release the ritual and accept death. He dies, Jon dies again, the Others return to the tree under winterfell and into the state of non-life they were yanked out of. Further aside: What if Bran the Builder was Bran warging into someone (like he did to Hodor) in the far far past? Like Bran warged 1000s of years into the past and has been posted up bloodraven-style beneath the crypts of winterfell where he'd one day be born. The final confrontation would be between resurrected Jon, and an effectively undead Bran. Like Bran set all these events in motion trying to change things out of fear of the Others, and the emphasis on Guest Right comes down to Jon getting through to Elder-Bran and helping him let go of his fear of the Others. Bran releases the ritual it turns out he initiated, he finally dies, Jon dies for real as the magic reanimating him is released, and the Others are able to return to their natural state in the Weirwoods. It could even be that Bloodraven tried to stop all of this from happening in the first place by intervening with a young Bran and training him correctly, but Bloodraven and Bran were effectively destined to play the roles they played. Not by prophecy, but by nature of who they are as people. The reason the ravens sent Bran north is because they would NEED to for Bran to warg into the past, become Bran the Builder, wait 1000 years, and warg into those ravens to send himself north. I've now convinced myself all these videos are true, but Bran did it.
Probably when the Queen prohibited it, the custom of the 'first night' was used only because it was an old custom and no longer had an added magical reason.
@@drunkengrumkin1315 I think the ritual may still be in place even after the custom stopped, and some aspects of the story are consequences of the reduction in sacrifices to the old gods (especially with more secular maester influence). If we are talking about a dynastic blood-magic ritual, my guess is that is binding and puts families like the Starks and Targs in a "no takesies backsies" type of situation. Basically the Right of the First Night is a symptom of a deeper structural problem (like the one posited in this video series), and one theme in the story is the consequences of treating the symptoms of problem without understanding and dealing with the root cause.
I love your theory here and it also got me thinking about it, and I noticed you left out or missed one more story that gives even more weight to your theory. The story of the Rat Cook. According to the story, the Rat Cook's fate was to be turned into a giant White rat and eat his own children. Now most white rats have red eyes. What else has white skin and red eyes and eats people? The Weirwood trees.
Very interesting idea there. Greenseer Magic power in humans would come from a kind of symbiosis with weirwood trees, with blood sacrifice powering specific magical artifacts (weirwood+human+wall) which.
Simeon Star Eyes; we saw a closeup of the NK on a magazine cover during S8 and he had seven-pointed stars in his eyes, and an old illustration of the Stranger also has seven-pointed stars for eyes. Simeon could be the original NK.
What if in. Order for Bran to better or more efficiently. Control westeros he only can manipulate certain family trees or has to move explicitly around them. Maybe he has to set up certain places where he has to allow to remain unobsercable by him in order for it to happen? Idk theres a lot of trippy concepts in Dune when you start looking at Harkonnen No chambers, face dancers, bene txeleliu spice tanks. Id have to imagine George would put in some of the weird body horror of Dune.
Do you think that Val the Wilding Princess is Stark coded? Jon thinks she belongs with Ghost and her eyes are similar to Eddard's eyes. That and Stannis seems to want to place her in Winterfell. Mance has told Stannis a Melisandre things he hasn't told anyone else. Could they know of her stark blood? Could Val really be R+L satisfying the blue rose on growing out of the wall from Dany's visions. Is John possibly N+A? It would also fit with the Bael the bard symbolism that both Raegar and Mance seem to echo, and "Stealing" a stark girl and hiding her is the thing they would do. That and the blue rose is often associated with Stark women and Jon Snow is not a woman. This thought has been bothering me, but the community is certain R+L=J. I am not so certain. One more point, Stannis is anal about titles, he wouldn't call someone a princess unless they were one. So she either has to be from Dorne, where it is still custom to call someone a prince or princess, and Stannis knows that or she is an actual Princess of the Iron throne and Stannis knows that.
4:23 This one never made much sense to me. If the guy has an axe able to cut/chip through the wall (more likely a pickaxe) then how would sealing it up behind him be of any consequence? He could simply keep at it and get all the way through or turn around and break through the new ice. There would have to be some sort of restraint put on him more than just the ice. Like nailing him to one of the trees inside the wall and then sealing him in, but that is never mentioned.
I assumed suffocating/dying before he reached the other side. we don't know how long it takes to burrow through the wall - could've been that the guy had dug some, then left to resupply/eat/etc and been doing that for awhile before the watch caught him in the middle.
The "There must always be a Stark in Winterfell", doesn't really work for the "modern times" in Westeros post Right to the first night being abolished. The Starks wouldn't be offering Stark blood anymore past that point. They would only be feeding the tree with the blood of the men they beheaded.
The First Night was abolished 300 years ago, but the saying and the tradition itself were thousands of years old. hard to forget, and since Ned was raised in the Vale since he was 8 he is not privy to anything a Lord would pass to his heir, so I am sure he only had the slogan
@@bioblade Huh? What I'm saying is this whole theory that the Weirwood trees needing a certain blood from a certain family so, the saying "There must always be a Stark in Winterfell" would have come from the fact that a Stark must be there to create Bastards with his blood to sacrifice to the trees doesn't work when the right to the first night has been abolished for hundreds of years. Unless you're saying that somehow the trees can live for hundreds of years without being fed??
79 I think is the actual number of trees inside the wall too, that would be about 3.8 miles of wall per tree. That sounds like a reasonable distance a massive ice making weirwood could cover and some magic
Rat Cook deserves a Michelin Star
Real
Why?
@pyropulseIXXI bro, if someone could cook a person so good that the consumer demands second helpings, they gotta be cooking on another level..
Holy shit I had not seen your mustache.
It commands so much authority I will never again question anything you say.
Ikr 😂😂
Gorne's way seems to also foreshadow your idea of the people trapped inside the Wall being fed the blood of their own children.
Gorne got around the Wall by going under it.
But his brother Gendel was lost under the caves and had to stay there. The only food left was human flesh. So Gendel and his children became cannibals.
So, trapped under the Wall, forced to feed on the life of your own offspring, sounds a lot like the same kind of curse.
It also reminds me of "no man is as accursed as a kinslayer." But in reverse: the people trapped inside the Wall are suffering immensely. And they must sustain themselves with the children of their own blood, effectively being accursed to survive through such vile feasts.
I vaguely do remember "Tacoing" about the Nightfort for 3 freaking hours. That was a long night.
There was once a time when there seemed an endless treasure trove of theory videos that blew my mind. Now it is a rare thing to hear a new theory that makes me 🤔🤫😮🤯🤯 Naturally I'm not in agreement w all the nuances but you are the first to get me hype on a new theory in a long time. Cheers! Well done 🤘🤘
Preston is still the GOAT to me, and I know not popular opinions but I'm at least semi-convinced by The Green Hand with N+A=J...I just love the idea of the infamous GRRM/D&D conversation of R+L=J being Martin WANTING the show to be different from the books and playing those two dopes like fools.
I'm also semi-convinced on Mance/Quorin/Tormund=Kingsguard theory - Mance is the first name mentioned in the books and I have always suspected all three of them of being more than they seem. I used to think Mance was Rheagar but Arthur Dayne does make more sense. I particularly just can't ignore the scene where he kicks the crap out of John like it's nothing....
Hahaha am I still welcome here after that?
The apprentices were shambling in chains-sounds a LOT like maesters. Those chains BIND. Those boys, the maesters-chains in text bind the character to some place or something. And Mad Axe guy is interesting considering how Yoren dies. Arya gave an axe to his killer and he was the target of Jaqen. Sam is getting chained as a maester-all these ghostie stories are lowkey lining up with events currently happening in text. A weird echo or warped reflection. Wana bet there are literal tunnels/passageways in the Wall? Places inside the Wall that can be visited.
Crowfood's Daughter has a theory about how the maesters started off as slaves. There's a lot of things about the Ghiscari that remind me of the First Men so that figures.
@Sunspear7 The maesters are slaves-but they are slaves by choice. Just like the peoples asking Dany if they can be slaves...some of these 'slaves' are slaves by choice in text. Some are forced. Some don't know that they are slaves.
@@aprilmae274 I meant they literally started off as slaves when the Citadel was founded, the chains are a callback to that. They were probably scribes bought for Peremore Hightower like the ones who want to sell themselves in Mereen. I get what you mean where they're slaves by choice in an abstract sense in at the time of the main story though.
Holy shite-I just realized something about Craster. He is a Godly man-so is fukin Bonifer Hasty at Harrenhall. Craster had 100 sons; The Others. Some of them get killed in text..and Bonifer HAD his Holy Hundred but some of them are killed as well. 14 in fact. 14 is also Fortnight-Night Fort. For real, shit between the Wall and Harrenhall are lining up. Hasty is from Stormlands-no WAY can it be good for HIM to be at Harrenhall considering it was a war between the Stormlands and Iron Born that bring Aegon to Westeros. If Stannis is at the wall while Bonifer is at harrenhall shit is going to get CRAZY AF. That is an echo of Harren's brother being in charge of the Wall when Harren is building Harrnehall. And in Arienne's chapter, we read about a group of 100 boys and young men heading for Jon Conn...over on the Iron Islands-we meet the Goodbrothers. They are identical, twins to each other but they were not born at the same times. The Goodbrothers are described by Aeron exactly as the Others are described by Will in GoT prologue. wtf these books are awesome crazy! These numbers and chacarters are lining up into teams and each team is a warped copy of each other is how it reads. Harrenhall and the Wall can conect thru that Gate..there is a Gate at Harrenhall too.
"That is the only time a man can be brave" is one of my favorite single sentences in anything I've read, ever...
Going around Texas I just learned about Fort Cavazos (previously Fort Hood) and Vanessa Guillen. Couldn't help but think about Danny Flint. Makes me wonder if there's a lot more stories like that in the real world that inspired George to include some in his.
It's a dark world out there.
Interesting parallel! I read a book a few months ago (wish I could remember the title and author!) about the history of women going into the military disguised as men, and it dates back a surprisingly long way - to Ancient Rome, at least. One of the most interesting things is that so many of them *didn't* end up like Danny Flint or Vanessa Guillen, but rather passed as soldiers and sailors just as professional as the men around them, often until they were either killed in battle, or wounded badly enough that their "little secret" was found out. By that point, their comrades in arms were generally as protective of them as they were of each other, and would go out of their way to protect them from anyone else finding them out and causing them harm. In fact, many of those who recovered from war wounds were welcomed back to their old positions in their male identities! The thought is strangely wholesome.
You're doing great, I've been loving watching you grow as a speaker and a critic. Keep going and I'll keep watching.
Tying the Westerosi magic to the emphasis on bloodlines like the Starks would parallel the blood magic that gives Targaryens their abilities and dragons. It isn't some divine gift, but a blood ritual tied to the blood line that performed the ritual. The Targaryens have the three heads, with their ancestral ritual caster as the third head. The Starks get warging abilities and greensight through a similar blood ritual and the "third head" is the ancestor that bonded to (or warged into after expelling the tree's shadow) the first weirwoods.
The diminishing of the dragons may have been maester sabotage, OR it could have simply been maester's making it impossible to keep up with blood sacrifice in the dragon pits while simultaneously keeping that prized knowledge away from the maesters. If the loss of Targaryen fire magic was just from maesters unwittingly stopping crucial fire magic blood rituals, and the Targaryens ending the Rite of First Night unwittingly stopped crucial green magic blood ritual, it would make for a nice parallel. I would almost prefer it be revealed the maesters were more curious about the dragon magic than deliberately trying to kill them, because that would better mirror Alyssane ending the Right of the First Night with noble and justified intentions, even if she didn't realize she was also undermining a blood ritual
Brief aside: Imagine Bran the Builder is Bloodraven-fused to the roots of a weirwood that spans the castle walls. When we assume it's Bloodraven or a time-travelling Bran controlling the ravens and sending the dreams that would drive Bran north, they or just some could have come from Bran the Builder in the crypts. The issue with Bloodraven warging past the wall, and the counter explanation of the wall not being DIRECTLY between winterfell and bloodraven's cave seems like a lame solution. Time-traveling Bran is cool, but Bran the Builder sucking up centuries of blood and running some puppet master outfit? Maybe Allysane deliberately ended the right of the first night because she figured out what was in the crypts. Maybe Bloodraven had to go north of the wall to merge with a Weirwood because of Bran the Builder's presence south of the wall. The final march to winterfell could even end with Wight Jon confronting Bran the Builder to release the ritual and accept death. He dies, Jon dies again, the Others return to the tree under winterfell and into the state of non-life they were yanked out of.
Further aside: What if Bran the Builder was Bran warging into someone (like he did to Hodor) in the far far past? Like Bran warged 1000s of years into the past and has been posted up bloodraven-style beneath the crypts of winterfell where he'd one day be born. The final confrontation would be between resurrected Jon, and an effectively undead Bran. Like Bran set all these events in motion trying to change things out of fear of the Others, and the emphasis on Guest Right comes down to Jon getting through to Elder-Bran and helping him let go of his fear of the Others. Bran releases the ritual it turns out he initiated, he finally dies, Jon dies for real as the magic reanimating him is released, and the Others are able to return to their natural state in the Weirwoods. It could even be that Bloodraven tried to stop all of this from happening in the first place by intervening with a young Bran and training him correctly, but Bloodraven and Bran were effectively destined to play the roles they played. Not by prophecy, but by nature of who they are as people. The reason the ravens sent Bran north is because they would NEED to for Bran to warg into the past, become Bran the Builder, wait 1000 years, and warg into those ravens to send himself north.
I've now convinced myself all these videos are true, but Bran did it.
Probably when the Queen prohibited it, the custom of the 'first night' was used only because it was an old custom and no longer had an added magical reason.
@@drunkengrumkin1315 I think the ritual may still be in place even after the custom stopped, and some aspects of the story are consequences of the reduction in sacrifices to the old gods (especially with more secular maester influence). If we are talking about a dynastic blood-magic ritual, my guess is that is binding and puts families like the Starks and Targs in a "no takesies backsies" type of situation.
Basically the Right of the First Night is a symptom of a deeper structural problem (like the one posited in this video series), and one theme in the story is the consequences of treating the symptoms of problem without understanding and dealing with the root cause.
I would listen to 10 hours about the Nightfort
I love your theory here and it also got me thinking about it, and I noticed you left out or missed one more story that gives even more weight to your theory. The story of the Rat Cook. According to the story, the Rat Cook's fate was to be turned into a giant White rat and eat his own children. Now most white rats have red eyes. What else has white skin and red eyes and eats people? The Weirwood trees.
Very interesting idea there. Greenseer Magic power in humans would come from a kind of symbiosis with weirwood trees, with blood sacrifice powering specific magical artifacts (weirwood+human+wall) which.
Simeon Star Eyes; we saw a closeup of the NK on a magazine cover during S8 and he had seven-pointed stars in his eyes, and an old illustration of the Stranger also has seven-pointed stars for eyes. Simeon could be the original NK.
Arson Iceaxe more references to Fire and Ice that turns into a “Mad” person
What if in. Order for Bran to better or more efficiently. Control westeros he only can manipulate certain family trees or has to move explicitly around them. Maybe he has to set up certain places where he has to allow to remain unobsercable by him in order for it to happen? Idk theres a lot of trippy concepts in Dune when you start looking at Harkonnen No chambers, face dancers, bene txeleliu spice tanks. Id have to imagine George would put in some of the weird body horror of Dune.
Michael, I like your videos. If you swap 'rat' for 'tree' in the legend of Rat Cook, some interesting ideas arise to explore.
There must always be a Stark has never made much sense to me, this theory is better than any other i know
Night Fort = METAL 🤘
Daddy Nights King has arrived 🙏🏼
In The Stone City these aliens called the Danlai punish criminals by fusing them into the city walls, reinforces your theory.
What happens if a tree is not given the blood of its greenseer’s descendants?
Could that be how the Blackwood’s tree was “poisoned”?
Do you think that Val the Wilding Princess is Stark coded? Jon thinks she belongs with Ghost and her eyes are similar to Eddard's eyes. That and Stannis seems to want to place her in Winterfell. Mance has told Stannis a Melisandre things he hasn't told anyone else. Could they know of her stark blood? Could Val really be R+L satisfying the blue rose on growing out of the wall from Dany's visions. Is John possibly N+A?
It would also fit with the Bael the bard symbolism that both Raegar and Mance seem to echo, and "Stealing" a stark girl and hiding her is the thing they would do. That and the blue rose is often associated with Stark women and Jon Snow is not a woman. This thought has been bothering me, but the community is certain R+L=J. I am not so certain.
One more point, Stannis is anal about titles, he wouldn't call someone a princess unless they were one. So she either has to be from Dorne, where it is still custom to call someone a prince or princess, and Stannis knows that or she is an actual Princess of the Iron throne and Stannis knows that.
Interesting theory!
Algormancy!
4:23 This one never made much sense to me. If the guy has an axe able to cut/chip through the wall (more likely a pickaxe) then how would sealing it up behind him be of any consequence? He could simply keep at it and get all the way through or turn around and break through the new ice. There would have to be some sort of restraint put on him more than just the ice. Like nailing him to one of the trees inside the wall and then sealing him in, but that is never mentioned.
I assumed suffocating/dying before he reached the other side. we don't know how long it takes to burrow through the wall - could've been that the guy had dug some, then left to resupply/eat/etc and been doing that for awhile before the watch caught him in the middle.
@@abigail6873 That's my take too. Although in the Wall, he might freeze to death first.
The "There must always be a Stark in Winterfell", doesn't really work for the "modern times" in Westeros post Right to the first night being abolished.
The Starks wouldn't be offering Stark blood anymore past that point. They would only be feeding the tree with the blood of the men they beheaded.
The First Night was abolished 300 years ago, but the saying and the tradition itself were thousands of years old. hard to forget, and since Ned was raised in the Vale since he was 8 he is not privy to anything a Lord would pass to his heir, so I am sure he only had the slogan
@@bioblade Huh? What I'm saying is this whole theory that the Weirwood trees needing a certain blood from a certain family so, the saying "There must always be a Stark in Winterfell" would have come from the fact that a Stark must be there to create Bastards with his blood to sacrifice to the trees doesn't work when the right to the first night has been abolished for hundreds of years.
Unless you're saying that somehow the trees can live for hundreds of years without being fed??
Makes sense to me.
I buy it.
If by haunted, you mean warging, why not
But there should be more hints/incidents if it was the case, no ?
79 I think is the actual number of trees inside the wall too, that would be about 3.8 miles of wall per tree. That sounds like a reasonable distance a massive ice making weirwood could cover and some magic