#ramavatarama

By Ramavatarama

This art besides being the representation of Kelares, a character from Ramavatarama, can be an inspiration to a possible High Elven heritage armor to the High Elves. Beeing clearly based on the Warcraft III High Elven Priests it’s a very well done representation of the Quel’dorei race.

  tumblogoficeandfire: what is with this jon x...

Okay but I am ON for the JonRobb support group during these tribulations

Thanks so much! And, hmm… on a metaphysical level? You mean, like, a different soul, or something like that? (Like how some vampire and zombie mythos say that a demon inhabits a person’s body after their death, and their soul is gone.) Or that they do still have their soul, but it’s tattered, missing essential pieces… But of course, that would have to get into the concepts of what a soul is, and the very nature of being and death, and of the afterlife, and so many theological ideas that GRRM hasn’t worldbuilt in ASOIAF and I don’t think he even wants to answer concretely. (He wants to make us think, if anything. Although if you would like to see some excellent theological wordbuilding, please read Lois McMaster Bujold’s World of the Five Gods series.) All we know for sure is that GRRM feels Catelyn is so different, so changed, he can’t write her as a POV anymore.

Well… we also know that even though the resurrected Beric and Catelyn are not the same people they once were (per GRRM), they still have the memories of those people. Whether this is because they do have the same soul, or whether it’s the physical brain that retains that knowledge… who can really tell? That Beric can no longer remember many things that were once important to him… it could mean that his mind is deteriorating because of his deaths, or that his deaths cut off his emotional connection to those memories and so he forgets. (Compare the wight Othor, who seemed to remember Jeor Mormont’s importance as Lord Commander, and even where he slept, but was distinctly not at all the same emotionally.) It could even be a combination of all of the above, physical deterioration plus emotional deterioration plus spiritual deterioration… plus all the physical and emotional trauma that death brings to begin with.

This is also relevant:

Q: How much does a character lose through death?

A: “Death is hard.” The character gets more and more removed from his or her former life. The main thing remaining, what brings Beric back, is the sense of purpose, the mission he has yet to accomplish.

–book signing Q&A report (that is, only “death is hard” is an exact GRRM quote, the rest is the reporter’s summation of what he responded)

As Beric’s memories of his life dissipate, all that remains is his mission, the command to keep the peace in the Riverlands. So, not only does he no longer resemble the dashing young knight he used to be physically… but emotionally he’s no longer motivated by glory or honor or fame or love, but only duty, only the need to fulfill his last mission. (But even that was not enough to keep him going by the end, so he passed on his flame to Catelyn’s corpse, to end his own life for good.) And likewise, Lady Stoneheart has only has one thing remaining to her from her former life as Catelyn Stark… the need for vengeance. “She wants her son alive, or the men who killed him dead. She wants to feed the crows, like they did at the Red Wedding.”