Where The Children of The Forest Came From
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ย. 2024
- In this video I talk about some of the Norse Mythology inspirations of A Song of Ice and Fire and what it could mean for the origins of the Children of The Forest, those creepy little forest elves we saw in Game of Thrones.
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As a Dane I’d like to point out that Odin and his siblings made humans out of driftwood they found by the sea. Also “ask” is the danish word for ash so might have some more symbolism there.
Why does being a Dane play into it? Ha ha Danes are no more pagan than any other Germanic people right?
@@amh9494Well Odin is a norse god so i would guess danes, swedes, norwegians and especially icelandic people are usually more inclined to know more about norse mythology than other germanic people.
@@amh9494well as a dane we grew up with norse mythology. To us it’s about as well known has bible stories are to people growing up in the united states
Going on a week with your channel. My nose is now officially back into the books, and that was inspired by you. Thanks
Really fits with the idea that Westeros is post-apocalypse. You should talk about that in a future video.
New subscriber, brilliant analysis, BIG FAN!
Love your channel and can't wait for more of your theories. Thank you for making concise, eloquent videos instead of extending them unnecessarily. One of few creators I don't watch at 2x speed :)
Maybe the blood sacrifices at the heart trees is actually the Children's way of stocking up on "food" for winter?
I've noticed quite a few things about The North that remind me of Norse Mythology. The army of Wights is similar to the Nawaharjan, the army of the dead that Hel leads during Ragnarok. The war between the First Men and the Children was similar to the war between the Aesir and the Vanir, Aesir were the more civilized gods and the Vanir were nature and fertility gods. The story of living inside Macumber's eye is kind of like the Norse world creation myth too, Odin and his bros made Midgard out of Ymir's corpse, the trees were his hair, the mountains his bones, the sky was the inside of his skull.
Big fan, the wall is trees? I love it, great theories
Based on a lot of David Lightbringer’s analysis, I’ve come to believe the origin of the weirwood trees, which as I think you’ve talked about are likely more like an interconnected fungus, must be connected somehow to the comets he attributes to causing the long night. I think the comets and the two types of magical trees that we know of - Weirwoods and the Shade of the Evening Trees - are linked and the creation of the different species on Planetos are linked back to the comets as “seeds” somehow of that, as David has talked about in his theory videos. David thinks there was only one long night, but I’m not sold on that, it seems to me there were likely several and perhaps each relates to the origins of these different phenomena in the back history/mythology of the World of Ice and Fire. Was there a “black seed” that gave rise to certain aspects of this world, like the undersea “squishers” and the oily black stone? Was there a “white seed” at a different time that produced the sword Dawn and the Weirwoods and the Children of the Forest? Is there evidence in the story for locations on the planet being linked to likely asteroid strike locations like The God’s Eye or the supposedly bottomless Womb of the World lake where the Dothraki believe the real “first men” emerged. I think somewhere in all of that mythological code is the real plot of these books and some kind of logical explanation for what the true factions are and what they want in the story. I hope GRRM makes enough of it explicit that the story can be understood by astute readers.
Based on his previous science fiction work, the malevolent fungus idea makes a lot of sense. However, based on his previous Science Fiction work, I wouldn’t expect any explicit explanations.
This could also be lightly supported by Elden Ring lore written by Martin - in which the body-devouring Erdtree is supposedly seeded by a comet bearing the Elden Beast.
Altshift had talked about this i guess,siad maybe a single comet struck but it split into pieces and struck.
Unless you think Garth Greenhand existed post-Long Night, weirwoods had to be older than the Long Night since Garth was running around planting weirwoods.
@@williamhermann6635 Unless there were multiple long nights, and unless Garth is a metaphor more than a single entity per say. He might be a stand in for all of the green men and some of those legends may be mixed up from what actually happened. I think it’s a mistake to assume that most of the World of Ice and Fire ancient mythology is literally true, it seems to me most of it is probably partially based on things that actually happened but is then heavily coded in myth, so really the game is trying to decide what parts ARENT literally true. That seems to me that’s what Martin is going for.
Any videos with more of these norse mythology parallels? I'm intrigued
Great vid!
This theory reminds my of the Pequeniños in Orson Scott Card’s “Speaker for the Dead.” The trees there are the end of the lifecycle of these aliens who otherwise look like people.
Yahoo, never miss a post!!!
0:23 I recommend checking out Preston Jacob's series "The Minds of Wolves and Robins," which discusses George's use of psychic, often diminutive races that can manipulate the minds of others.
I love my dissociative psychosis but when I really wanna feel crazy I like to Michael Talk About Stuff
I can’t help but think of the Pequininos and Fathertrees from Speaker for the Dead, being different stages of one lifecycle (a fairly violent one). The book came out in 1986 so it’s a possible influence.
I love your take, thank you.
the problem with the world building of the series is that it lacks an actual story of creation for its world and its beings. What youtube channels and fans are doing is speculations based on the the known inspiration for the series. For Westeros for example the lore started from the waves of migration, I dont recall that the writer provided a chapter to explain how all the beings were created.
Like in this video to answer the questions it also resorted to comparing it and making analyzation based on the possible inspiration for the series BUT the series itself did not provide proper explanation for the origins of things and beings in the lore. Its ok and sometimes good to have fan theories but with lack of actual source materials theories relies heavily on the creative minds of the fans.
Interesting video idea.
Could the children be George's Tom Bombadil -like creations? Especially if he flips them after starting out as the good guys in Old Nan's stories to Bran but ultimately being the faction which are perpetuating all of these barriers and blood magic and the like. Whereas Bombadil didn't crave or succumb to the power of the ring the children absolutely are power hungry and will do all sorts to try and cling on to some of it!
But they arent the ones who corrupted the weirwoods. Humans did that. They only "perpetuate" that system because its the only connection they have left. The only way for them to live on.
You seem fixated on the idea that GRRM wrote ASoIaF as an allegory of Norse mythology. I doubt that very much. George used many real-world and mythological influences to create this world. He wasn’t basing it on just one, like Norse mythology.
Since GRRM is very well-read in history, mythology, and fantasy, many ideas are in his consciousness and sub-consciousness, which come out in his writing.
But the children appear to be more animalistic rather than tree like. As in they have large eyes and dappled skin. Doesn't Garth appear more tree-like
Well, in the show, in the prologue, the Others literally nailed a child to a tree. I thought it always meant that they were after the Children of the Forest but your theory could take that symbolism deeper.
The "wise men of the forest" have some interesting similarities with the Dothraki. There's also this: "All that ended two hundred years ago with the coming of the Dothraki. The horselords had hitherto shunned the forests of the northern coasts; some say this was because of their reverence for the vanished wood walkers, others because they feared their powers." And Leaf: "For him. The Bran boy. I was born in the time of the dragon, and for two hundred years I walked the world of men, to watch and listen and learn. I might be walking still, but my legs were sore and my heart was weary, so I turned my feet for home."
The common link between the two is dragons. The Dothraki ventured out because they no longer feared dragons in the wake of the Doom of Valyria. Leaf began walking amongst men because dragons had come to Westeros. Kind of a cool inversion there.
You could be right but I don't think the books will address the orign of TCotF. That would be going back 1,000,000 years or more
Bran POVs reporting for duty.
I don't get end cards on mobile - which video of lml was it?
Which came first? The Dragon or the Egg? EVERY seed is a Child waiting to happen. If every tree has a Child..what happens to the Tree and the Child inside it if you yank that Child out and take it's place for yourself? What happens to you? What happens to the Child inside if the tree becomes infected or burns? Look at the Hounds burns on his face-listen to what Aemon is saying to Jon when he tells him to Kill the Boy Within. Aemon is telling Jon to kill Bran. The Children of the Forest have big numbers and they have been twisted-turned into tiny demons and monsters after they are removed from their Trees. There are hardly any Children left that have not been turned...all those babes at the breast-all those Children in their Mother's arms..those are NOT people babies. Breastmilk in text can kill, heal, or change a person-baby or full grown. Arya sees them for what they are. And those holes in the ground Arya sees are NOT for seed planting etc. Those are graves that people have climbed out of...look how small some of them are. Still to big to be for plants thoough, right? Those are Children Graves...there should have been Trees there. And In Brienne's chapter where she wanders the Forest with Pod..she comes across the same wall twice. THAT is because the Trees are moving to fuck with her head..and she knows it in her thoughts. She won't think it through all the way though becasue Someone is reading their minds and they KNOW it so they guard themselves even in their thoughts. The same thoughts that WE are reading. Almost all thoughts are more and more guarded as the story goes on. The trees ARE walking and the Children are Angry. What Bran thinks about how Men would fight-yeah they would. And SO are the Children...they ARE fighting. I don't think people were starpped into trees-I think men STOLE the places inside the trees to steal the magics for themselves. It CANNOT be a true Sacrifice unless the sacrifice is GIVEN. Consent. Participation. These Men STOLE the Trees..and then they burned them when the Children fought back to keep their Tree homes. LOOK at the 'Weirwood' Throne in the Eyrie-it doesn't look like a tree so much as it looks like 2 people holding each other as they burned inside a tree. They are wrapped in the wood ribbons in desciption...only parts of the tree actualy still look tree-ish. The Eyri-it does NOT connect to the ground in any way that is needed for a Weirwood to actually LIVE for this reason with the Throne there. The Children and the Trees go hand in hand..and every tree has a Child. I wonder-that Weirwood Throne..did some trees have entire families in them? Then they go and plant the Baby Seed at a certain time? The Eyrie Throne; is that two people wrapped in each others arm, or is it a Mother, a Father, and a Child Seed-baby that they killed to make THAT Throne? If the Wolf Bond and Dragon Bonds are so strong...it stands to reason that the Seed Child will stay bonded to the their Tree seed. Like Dragon eggs..and sometimes a Seed won't take and so that Child likely stays with it's parents in a Family Tree or moves into another Tree or takes one that is empty due to natural death...and THAT is why weirwoods can live FOREVER. Tose are the trees reserved for unrooted Seed Childrens. They just go into the weirwood tree once the prvious resident Child dies ALL the tiny bones inside a Weirwood were Seed Children who had to die in those trees as their seeds took no roots. In THIS way they get to live a life even if it is not the life of a True Tree. It was also a chink in their armor-it is through Weirwoods that they could infect the Tree Magics since weirwoods were a failsafe..a back-door so to speak, for the Children. They each had their own Tree still but the weirwoods..those trees were open for taking rather than having to be seed-bound by birth/roots. Even the Iron Born are Kings/Queens of their own Ship. These Trees-they matter, as do their seeds. When cut from their Tree-the Children go Mad. How can their be Children of the Forest if there is no more Forest? What are they Children of then-once they have no tree? They are Children of War.
They are call the Singers but their names are too long that men can't pronounce them. They live in caves full of corpses, there is a cave with blind fishes because there is no light in the cave, the Singers can see in the dark which make sense when you leave in darkness...
Bran also see a skeleton of a "giant bat", Daenerys sees Viserion hanging on the ceiling like... a bat.
The Asshaii mentions a legend an ancient people with no names coming from the Shadows who taught their arts to the Valyrians and bring them the dragons.
The Shadows is a mountainous region full of caves in which we are told that dragon used to live in. In that region there is the Vale of Shadow, a vale in constant darkness like a cave in which flow a river with... blind fishes. It's in that Vale that we can find Stygai, the "corpse city"...
And Shadowbinders, who wears masks to hide their faces from the gods, are afraid of that city.
When Melisandre have a vision of Bloodraven, the "Lord corpse" as Bran call him, she is afraid because he can see her back, she thinks is a god... If greenseers can watch you constantly, it would make sense for a group of people to wear mask and consider those corpse to be gods.
The Singers are the only people that know the things that the Valyrians would learn...
The Singers came from the Shadows, from the darkness of the caves.
*"Never fear the darkness, Bran." The lord's words were accompanied by a faint rustling of wood and leaf, a slight twisting of his head. "The strongest trees are rooted in the dark places of the earth. Darkness will be your cloak, your shield, your mother's milk. Darkness will make you strong."*
I don't think this is the first cycle and really like the idea of the cycle of rebirth and destruction of the world. I've toyed with the idea that squishers are the remnants of an older cycle that even myth and legend have largely lost to time.
the hist in elderscrolls is similar to the weirwoods in some ways
"Children of the Forest."
"Small People of the Woodland"? Maybe . . .
"Progeny of the Trees?" Possibly . . .
"Young Humans who live out in the Wilderness?" Probably not . . .
"Immature Forms of the Network of Trees?" That's my guess. My headcanon is that the Children "grow up" to be Weirwoods. Or at least consider the trees to be the "final form" of their kind.
@michealtalksaboutstuff I have a theory that I've been working on in my head a little bit that kind of makes sense if you think outside of the ice and fire box for a minute. What if we're looking at all of this stuff wrong? What if we should be looking at it from the point of view of the others?
What is the first man Brandon the builder and the Starks, did not actually build the wall?
I mean think about it a little bit there was already people up there in the north yeah okay that's cool but the children of the forest are having to hide out in a cave under a Weirwood, with a magical Border protection spell going on around said cave that nothing did or magic or White Walker ish whatever you want to call it, can you come in that cave as long as that spell is going. Now the details are kind of slight as to why this is happening right now and why they're doing what they're doing but what if it was The OTHERS who actually started building the wall and had got it going and then to quote some of the other characters, when the others "Went to Sleep" or "not gone, just sleeping" as a few characters have said in the story after the long night they were sleeping and the first man in the Starks or whatever and Brandon the builder possibly even started adding on to the wall. I think that might give more Credence to your where would trees in the wall theory which I agree with 100% with people with attached to them. I agree 100% on that and I think it would be hilarious if it was the white walkers who began using that magic against the children of the forest by attaching some of them to their own wear would God trees and putting ice wall over them and using them for batteries.
Let me know what you think sir. I'm open to any conversation on this matter of fact I would love to see you make a video about this even if any reason just to prove me wrong. There is a lot more to this theory many many more details but I have to voice text and I make a lot of mistakes when I do that and I don't want to put all that on here so you let me know if you want to know more about it but like I said I would love to see a video whether the theory is right or wrong.
Appreciate you bro
They come from the forest, obviously. (They were harvested from trees.)
If I told you the truth, it'll make your head explode!
It could be the Children of the Forest (COTF) are the green/ice magic equivalent to dragons in fire magic. Fire magic uses blood ritual to combine a fire wyrm and wyvern to create a dragon bound to a bloodline. Imagine the children are the combination of a weirwood and human bound to a green-seer bloodline like the Starks. Similar to the smoke shadow summoned by Melisandre using fire magic and blood ritual, the Others are icy white shadows cast using green/ice magic and blood ritual performed by the COTF. The COTF could have been "created" by the weirwoods not as servants to the trees, but as an extension of the weirwood network. Being able to walk around and talk could help expand the blood ritual and grow the weirwood network.
As new "hosts" for the ritual show up in Westeros, the COTF adopt their form and effectively parasitize whoever they rope into this ritual sacrifice. Like they "look" human because they were made FROM a human and a weirwood. They might be the same thing as the Squishers and this (and the Right of First Night) are a more complex form of the Squishers more "forceful" approach to reproduction as a larger hive mind/super-organism.
All the magic in ASOIAF could be like a parasitic fungus that requires a host to reproduce and propagate, and what looks and feels like power is really this thing/force growing inside you as its host (neat metaphor for power corrupting). It could also be that the different magics stem from different fundamental aspects of reality/power. Green magic could be growth/change/adaptability, fire magic could embody ambition/entropy/rebirth, and ice magic order/stability/justice. Dragons and COTF could be these aspect bound to a physical body using obsidian or some element relevant to the aspect.
In dark souls three it is the end of the world and you have characters becoming arch trees witch are the weir woods/ erd trees of dark souls
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This is their native planet. The Steel Angels were the first men. We invaded them.
Martin said that he always thinks about the world of ice and fire on a more scientific and plausible lens, so bringing creationism and claiming that the CotF were created by trees is completely out of a left field
Not even remotely. He’s got other races in world of ice and fire that have weird origins. It’s also a fantasy series, with magic and dragons. People use magic that has no basis in science
Ok so I'm convinced that Sunspear and Highgarden (and probably Hightower and the Arbor) have all been secretly allied since Robert's Rebellion.
I don't know if this is video worthy but I don't think I've seen the theory anywhere either...if you like it it's yours.
Off the top of my head we've got Oberyn hinting that the heir to Hightower is a good dude, straight up saying that the heir to Highgarden is his boy, Serella and Lucky Leo hanging together at the Citidel, and while Mace (who I think is in the dark with it) makes a show of hating the Dornish but nothing ever happens and Oberyn and Doran both pretty much completely ignore the Tyrells entirely,, they're singularly obsessed w the Lannisters....
I dunno 🤷♂🤷♂Whatcha think?
Also WHO TF IS MARWIN AND WHAT IS HE DOING IT MAKES ME CRAZY. Cmon George! We need this
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