Ravenous Reader

a black and white photo of an optical illusion of stairs in a building . ALT: a black and white photo of an optical illusion of stairs in a building .

This one?

I never did find out what the covered bridge going from the 4th floor of the bell tower to the 2nd floor of the rookery meant! 😊

Also, the Winterfell wall path taken in, around,up & paradoxically ending on ground level echoes the House of the Undying’s ‘always up, always the door to your right’…

It comes from the notorious letter, “Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?”
’Enigmas’ being an anagram of ‘gamines,’ & ‘secrets’ as a synonym for ‘enigmas,’ suggests this is their code for what can’t be spoken aloud…However, the picture accompany the words is a visual metaphor leaving no doubt.

For a young girl, right? Prepubescent? Early adolescent?

@outerpanda.bsky.social @rustedrevolver.bsky.social Someone on fb pointed out that the word ‘enigmas’ is an anagram for the French word ‘gamines.’ @virginie.bsky.social Can you confirm the meaning of ‘gamine’?

AGOT prologue begins with

"We should start back"

AFFC prologue begins with

"Only when his arms and legs were numb from the cold did Aeron Greyjoy *struggle back* to shore and don his robes again"

Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, & then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do
TIMOTHY SNYDER

“The storyteller makes no choice, soon you will not hear his voice
His job is to shed light, and not to master
Since the end is never told, we pay the teller off in gold
In hopes he will come back, but he cannot be bought or sold…”
— GRATEFUL DEAD, ‘Terrapin Station’

George RR Martin has given me hundreds of hours of entertainment. There have been times in my life where obsessing about his worlds prevented me from obsessing and spiraling about my own.

He owes us nothing.

If he doesn’t write another word, I owe him a profound debt.

#freedom
“Power is only Pain -
Stranded - thro' Discipline,
Till Weights -will hang -
Give Balm - to Giants -
And they'll wilt, like Men -
Give Himmaleh -
They'll Carry - Him!”
EMILY DICKINSON

a man with a beard is carrying a child on his back and the word hodor is on the screen . ALT: a man with a beard is carrying a child on his back and the word hodor is on the screen .

#freedom
“Just a turn of the doorknob, and there lies freedom.”
EMILY DICKINSON
— (Is she opening or closing the door…?)

“I trust you enjoyed the journey, Your Grace?” Robert snorted. “Bogs and forests and fields, and scarcely a decent inn north of the Neck. I’ve never seen such a vast emptiness. Where are all your people?” “Likely they were too shy to come out,” Ned jested. He could feel the chill coming up the stairs, a cold breath from deep within the earth. “Kings are a rare sight in the north.” “More likely they were hiding under the snow. Snow, Ned!” The king put one hand on the wall to steady himself as they descended. “Late summer snows are common enough,” Ned said. “I hope they did not trouble you. They are usually mild.” “The Others take your mild snows,” Robert swore. “What will this place be like in winter? I shudder to think.” “The winters are hard,” Ned admitted. “But the Starks will endure. We always have.”

A GAME OF THRONES: EDDARD I

#asoiaf #asongoficeandfire
#agameofthrones #agot
#eddardstark #nedstark #ned #eddard
#eddardI

As far as ‘non egalitarian relation’…
bsky.app/profile/rave...

Definitely. In fact, that is the answer to GRRM’s (via Varys’s) ‘riddle of power’!

…And that will keep you as busy and as happy as anyone can be, as long as your part in the Story goes on.

'Come now, ride with me!’”
JRR TOLKIEN, ‘The Return of the King, The Lord of the Rings’

‘…You will be the Mayor, of course, as long as you want to be, and the most famous gardener in history; and you will read things out of the Red Book, and keep alive the memory of the age that is gone, so that people will remember the Great Danger, and so love their beloved land all the more…

‘…But you are my heir: all that I had and might have had I leave to you. And also you have Rose, and Elanor; and Frodo-lad will come, and Rosie-lass, and Merry, and Goldilocks, and Pippin; and perhaps more that I cannot see. Your hands and your wits will be needed everywhere…

…It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them…’

…'But,' said Sam, and tears started in his eyes, 'I thought you were going to enjoy the Shire, too, for years and years, after all you have done.'

'So I thought too, once. But I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me…

…Your time may come. Do not be too sad, Sam. You cannot always be torn in two. You will have to be one and whole, for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be, and to do...’

“‘Where are you going, Master?' cried Sam, though at last he understood what was happening.

'To the Havens, Sam,' said Frodo.

'And I can't come.'

'No, Sam. Not yet, anyway, not further than the Havens. Though you too were a Ring-bearer, if only for a little while…

a woman is holding a red boot with the word red written on it ALT: a woman is holding a red boot with the word red written on it

To be fair, they are very similar! 😉

a man says only death may pay for life in a dark room ALT: a man says only death may pay for life in a dark room

#freedom
“I honestly believe discipline is freedom. When you have discipline you get what you want. When you don't have discipline you don't get any of what you want…If you don't pay the price, you get nothing. So you got to pay the price…have discipline…then the world is open to you”
VENUS WILLIAMS

#freedom
“Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.”
*
“Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.”
NELSON MANDELA

They are not coming for a group; they are coming for the Constitution itself. (But, anyway, happy 4th of July! )

What do you mean? Please express in plain terms!

If the wars eat us not up, they will; and there’s all the love they bear us.

Care for us? True indeed! They ne’er car’d for us yet. Suffer us to famish, and their store-houses cramm’d with grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act establish’d against the rich, and provide more piercing statutes daily to chain up and restrain the poor.

YouTube video by David Lightbringer Bran the Builder, Explained - A Song of Ice and Fire - Game of Thrones

Trip down nostalgia lane… makes me smile, remembering how many of these ideas came into being, all of us earnestly committing to the game, feverishly contributing to the collective project of solving the mystery, when we still believed GRRM would finish the books!
m.youtube.com/watch?v=b_Q0...

Such friends are thine enemies, knave.