FROM DARKNESS TO DARKNESS

Our early encounter with the order of maesters, primarily through Maester Luwin, entices us to see in these selfless men the promise of enlightenment for feudal Westeros. Modern readers are thus inclined to see in the maesters, men of the Renaissance, precursors to the scientists and scholars of the modern world. This view is not entirely false.

But it is not the full story.

We are going to examine the obscure origin of the order. In particular, we are to going to pay special attention to the following initiatic rite.

Armen the Acolyte cleared his throat. “The night before an acolyte says his vows, he must stand a vigil in the vault. No lantern is permitted him, no torch, no lamp, no taper... only a candle of obsidian. He must spend the night in darkness, unless he can light that candle. Some will try. The foolish and the stubborn, those who have made a study of these so-called higher mysteries. Often they cut their fingers, for the ridges on the candles are said to be as sharp as razors. Then, with bloody hands, they must wait upon the dawn, brooding on their failure. Wiser men simply go to sleep, or spend their night in prayer, but every year there are always a few who must try.”

That will lead us to conjecture that there is a filiation between the maesters and the greenseers of ancient days. I am not sure whether the parentage is legitimate. Perhaps the order of maesters was instituted as a poor substitute for the wise men of the children of the forest and of the First Men, or perhaps the maesters were put in place to eradicate their predecessors.

Our central observation is in section 6.

We will need to keep in mind Marwyn's words to Sam.

The world the Citadel is building has no place in it for sorcery or prophecy or glass candles, much less for dragons.

Let’s look at the evidence throughout our fragmentary knowledge of the history of Westeros. The only account of the origin of the Citadel we have does not come from any character, or from any legendary history but from GRRM himself.

The Hightowers of Oldtown are among the oldest and proudest of the Great Houses of Westeros, tracing their descent back to the First Men. Once kings, they have ruled Oldtown and its environs since the Dawn of Days, welcoming the Andals rather than resisting them, and later bending the knee to the Kings of the Reach and giving up their crowns whilst retaining all their ancient privileges. Though powerful and immensely wealthy, the Lords of the High Tower have traditionally preferred trade to battle, and have seldom played a large part in the wars of Westeros. The Hightowers were instrumental in the founding of the Citadel and continue to protect it to this day. Subtle and sophisticated, they have always been great patrons of learning and the Faith, and it is said that certain of them have also dabbled in alchemy, necromancy, and other sorcerous arts.

1. The Honeywyne
2. The Ravenry
3. Septons
4. Valyrian influences
5. The Rhoynar
6. The Ordeal of Darkness
7. Ravencraft
8. Books and Trees
9. Unnatural Sciences
10. Chains
11. Anonymity, Oaths, Celibacy
12. White Ravens

1. The Honeywine

The City has been built at the mouth of the Honeywine, which is no more than a minor river of Westeros – compared to the Mander, the Trident, the White Knife. The river seems to owe its name to the honey harvested in the region, as testified by the existence of House Beesbury upriver at Honeyholt, and by the gift given to Brienne by one of her suitors.

Ser Hugh Beesbury brought her a pot of honey “as sweet as the maids of Tarth.”

Curiously, despite the name of the river, and the fact that the honey of the Quiet Isle is used to make a famous mead, no alcoholic beverage seems known to derive from the honey of the river. The famous Inn The Quill and Tankard offers a famously strong cider, ale and even dornish wines, but no mead.

Of course the honey can be used for to make the wax for candles, and for the manufacture of the seals used by the maesters. Many of the more important buildings of Oldtown are built on islands on the river. The High Tower stands on Battle Island. The Ravenry has been built on the Isle of Ravens. The Quill and Tankard is on an unnamed island. There is an additional island called the Isle of Blood, to which an old man, a young woman and baby sail from the Citadel.

2. The Ravenry

The human occupation of the Oldtown area dates at least from the Age of Heroes, before the arrival of the Andals. The oldest building of the Citadel is supposed to be the Ravenry, a castle with an ancient weirwood on an island.

“How far do we have to go?”
“Not far. The Isle of Ravens.”
They did not need a boat to reach the Isle of Ravens; a weathered wooden drawbridge linked it to the eastern bank. “The Ravenry is the oldest building at the Citadel,” Alleras told him, as they crossed over the slow-flowing waters of the Honeywine. “In the Age of Heroes it was supposedly the stronghold of a pirate lord who sat here robbing ships as they came down the river.”

The Age of Heroes refers to the nebulous era that followed the pact between the First Men and the Children of the forest, and which ended sometime before the arrival of the Andals in Westeros. I find the story of the pirate intriguing for several reasons. First piracy usually necessitates a clandestine life, and a hidden or hardly accessible lair, while the pirate of the Honeywine resided in a stronghold on a commercial route. So "pirate" would seem an odd term here. Then, it is specified that the ships were robbed as they came down the river, so they were attacked for the goods brought from upriver. We have noticed already that the Honeywine is a small river, which leads to Honeyholt and perhaps to Brightwater Keep. Were the ships robbed for their honey?

It seems to me that the "pirate" was simply a warlord which exacted a toll for passage. Let's turn now to the castle itself.

Moss and creeping vines covered the walls, Sam saw, and ravens walked its battlements in place of archers. The drawbridge had not been raised in living memory.
It was cool and dim inside the castle walls. An ancient weirwood filled the yard, as it had since these stones had first been raised. The carved face on its trunk was grown over by the same purple moss that hung heavy from the tree’s pale limbs. Half of the branches seemed dead, but elsewhere a few red leaves still rustled, and it was there the ravens liked to perch. The tree was full of them, and there were more in the arched windows overhead, all around the yard. The ground was speckled by their droppings. As they crossed the yard, one flapped overhead and he heard the others quorking to each other.

So the weirwood preceded the castle, like it did in Winterfell, and in so many other places. The pirate elected to have his lair around a weirwood. The weirwood seems one of the few trees of the children which escaped the destructions of the First Men and of the Andals. It has a carved face, even though moss seems to obscure the carving. I have no idea about the nature of the purple moss. We see purple moss at the Whispers and on the ruins of the Rhoyne basin. The yard does not seem to include a cemetary.

There are few weirwoods with faces south of the Neck: in the godswoods of Harrenhal, Riverrun, Casterly Rock, and (or so we have been told) in the Isle of Faces. There is a young weirwood, without a face, at the Whispers.

The weirwood of the Ravenry stands alone, not in a godswood.

The ravens like to perch on weirwoods, as we saw in Raventree Hall, and in Winterfell. The tree is said to be half dead, but we learned from Tytos Blackwood that the death of a weirwood is lengthy affair.

“For a thousand years it has not shown a leaf. In another thousand it will have turned to stone, the maesters say. Weirwoods never rot.”
“And the ravens?” asked Jaime. “Where are they?”
“They come at dusk and roost all night. Hundreds of them. They cover the tree like black leaves, every limb and every branch. They have been coming for thousands of years. How or why, no man can say, yet the tree draws them every night.”

We note in passing that the maesters know the biology of weirwood. How could the maester know that weirwoods turn to stone after a thousand years, if they haven't studied weirwoods for a thousand years?

The tree at the Ravenry seems to be part of the recurring theme of the weirwood in an island. Chiefly we have the weirwoods of the Isle of Faces. Another instance is to be found at the crofter's village where Stannis has taken refuge. I would conjecture that the Hermit's cave at the Quiet Isle was once a greenseer cave, with a tree at the top of the hill. Leaving that case aside, it's as if weirwoods were neutralized when encircled by water.

Maester Luwin tells us why the First Men once gave the heart trees to the fire and to the axe.

No one truly knows, Bran. The children are gone from the world, and their wisdom with them. It had to do with the faces in the trees, we think. The First Men believed that the greenseers could see through the eyes of the weirwoods. That was why they cut down the trees whenever they warred upon the children.

The First Men would eventually make a pact with the children of the forest.

There they forged the Pact. The First Men were given the coastlands, the high plains and bright meadows, the mountains and bogs, but the deep woods were to remain forever the children’s, and no more weirwoods were to be put to the axe anywhere in the realm.

So the weirwood of the Ravenry survived the war between Men and children. Let's return to the little history of House Hightower.

The Hightowers of Oldtown are among the oldest and proudest of the Great Houses of Westeros, tracing their descent back to the First Men. Once kings, they have ruled Oldtown and its environs since the Dawn of Days...

Therefore the Hightowers were among the First Men favorable to the children of the forest, since they didn't bring down the heart tree.

Of course, it is not an accident that the pirate of the Honeywine had chosen a weirwood island as his lair.

Note that there are two mentions of the coldness inside the walls of the Ravenry. We just saw the first one. The second one comes a moment later, when Pate offers a room to Sam.

“I will bring you some woolen coverlets. Stone walls turn cold at night, even here.”

The chilliness might not carry much significance, but it is worthwile to keep in mind, especially since we are told by Maester Aemon.

It is always warm in Oldtown.

The Ravenry is far from being the only building of the Citadel.

Upriver, the domes and towers of the Citadel rose on both sides of the river, connected by stone bridges crowded with halls and houses.

Domes are representative of a sophisticated architecture, that is generally absent from the medieval castles we see in the Seven Kingdoms. (Only septs and a few exceptional buildings have domes in Westeros. But domes are common in Braavos and Volantis.)

 3. Septons

Let's return to the objective piece of information provided by the appendices.

The Hightowers of Oldtown are among the oldest and proudest of the Great Houses of Westeros, tracing their descent back to the First Men. Once kings, they have ruled Oldtown and its environs since the Dawn of Days, welcoming the Andals rather than resisting them, and later bending the knee to the Kings of the Reach and giving up their crowns whilst retaining all their ancient privileges. Though powerful and immensely wealthy, the Lords of the High Tower have traditionally preferred trade to battle, and have seldom played a large part in the wars of Westeros. The Hightowers were instrumental in the founding of the Citadel and continue to protect it to this day. Subtle and sophisticated, they have always been great patrons of learning and the Faith, and it is said that certain of them have also dabbled in alchemy, necromancy, and other sorcerous arts.

So House Hightower has always ruled the area of Oldtown. Is this statement compatible with the pirate story? Does it mean that the fabled pirate was the founder of the house. Obviously the house owes its name to the spectacular tower that has been erected at the mouth of the river. The tower wasn't there during the Age of Heroes, so house Hightower certainly bore another name then.

We learnt that the Hightowers remained kings when the Andals came to Westeros. Apparently the Hightowers adopted the Faith of the Seven – and left behind the faith in the old gods and, we can presume, stopped praying at the heart tree of the Ravenry.

So it seems likely that House Hightower left the Ravenry when they converted to the Faith of the Seven. They might have given the stronghold to the Citadel then.

Septons played an important in the development of scholarship in Westeros. Here is what Sam tells of them.

The oldest histories we have were written after the Andals came to Westeros. The First Men only left us runes on rocks, so everything we think we know about the Age of Heroes and the Dawn Age and the Long Night comes from accounts set down by septons thousands of years later. There are archmaesters at the Citadel who question all of it.

So the Septon started the historical era, which perhaps coincided with the end of the Age of Heroes. So at the time of the arrival of the Andals, there was no order of maesters as we know it. But the septons had an influence on the maesters, since they brought the writing system the maesters would make later use of. However, there is no formal connection between the Faith of the Seven and the Citadel. Even in the part of Westeros that has retained the old gods, maesters serve as counsellors, healers to the lords of the Seven Kingdoms, indifferently of new gods and old gods.

Here is the string of titles claimed by Lord Hightower: Voice of Oldtown, Lord of the Port, Lord of the High Tower, Defender of the Citadel, Beacon of the South (according to the appendix of AFfC).

There is no mention of the Faith of the Seven, and a minor semantic difference with the prologue of AFfC, where it is said that Lord Hightower is Protector of the Citadel. Surely protector is synonymous with defender. The meaning of Voice of Oldtown is unclear. The title Beacon of the South evokes the words of the House (We light the Way) and the function of the High Tower for navigation. I am not sure what south refers to in that title. It could be the south of the Neck or simply the south of the Realm as defined by the title of Warden of the South (a title currently held by Mace Tyrell, and usually reserved for the lord of Highgarden).

In many ways it is interesting to consider a certain homogeneity between House Stark and House Hightower. Both houses have been in exisence from the dawn of times. Both houses seem to have founded and protected to this day two great secular orders of Westeros: the Night's Watch and the Citadel. Indeed, Brandon the Builder is rumored to have built the Wall as well as Winterfell. The Stark in Winterfell was King in the North, while Lord Hightower is Beacon of the South.

And the houses seem to share the same set of colors.

The sigil of House Hightower is a white tower with a fire on top on a grey field. Here is Gunthor Hightower.

This time it was Lord Leyton’s son Gunthor who came aboard, in a cloth-of-silver cloak and a suit of grey enameled scales.

It might not be a coincidence that the maesters wear grey robes.

We don't know when Oldtown became a prominent city. But there is a vague date for the installment of the High Septon in Oldtown.

The Lord’s Sept joined in a moment later, then the Seven Shrines from their gardens across the Honeywine, and finally the Starry Sept that had been the seat of the High Septon for a thousand years before Aegon landed at King’s Landing.

The Starry Sept stands in interesting contrast to the great sept of Baelor in King's Landing: black marble and white marble respectively.

Downstream, below the black marble walls and arched windows of the Starry Sept, the manses of the pious clustered like children gathered round the feet of an old dowager.

The thousand years figure should hardly be taken literally. It is mentioned again in connection to another event.

4. Valyrian Influences

The Valyrians have left a few marks on the Citadel. First, we are told that they brought the glass candles a thousand years before the Fall of Valyria.

Pate knew about the glass candles, though he had never seen one burn. They were the worst- kept secret of the Citadel. It was said that they had been brought to Oldtown from Valyria a thousand years before the Doom. He had heard there were four; one was green and three were black, and all were tall and twisted.

Of course, we should be cautious not to take the a thousand years figure too literally. If we did we would see that the arrival of the glass candles preceded by a century the building of the Starry Sept.

But is seems likely that the Andals had been in Westeros for some time already. Here are the rumoured properties of the candles.

The candle was unpleasantly bright. There was something queer about it. The flame did not flicker, even when Archmaester Marwyn closed the door so hard that papers blew off a nearby table. The light did something strange to colors too. Whites were bright as fresh-fallen snow, yellow shone like gold, reds turned to flame, but the shadows were so black they looked like holes in the world. Sam found himself staring. The candle itself was three feet tall and slender as a sword, ridged and twisted, glittering black. “Is that... ?”
“... obsidian,” said the other man in the room, a pale, fleshy, pasty-faced young fellow with round shoulders, soft hands, close-set eyes, and food stains on his robes.
“Call it dragonglass.” Archmaester Marwyn glanced at the candle for a moment. “It burns but is not consumed.”
“What feeds the flame?” asked Sam.
“What feeds a dragon’s fire?” Marwyn seated himself upon a stool. “All Valyrian sorcery was rooted in blood or fire. The sorcerers of the Freehold could see across mountains, seas, and deserts with one of these glass candles. They could enter a man’s dreams and give him visions, and speak to one another half a world apart, seated before their candles. Do you think that might be useful, Slayer?”

Leo Tyrell's first mention of the candles and the reaction of people on the terrace show clearly that it is the first time a candle of the Citadel has been lighted in living memory.

“You’re wrong,” said Leo. “There is a glass candle burning in the Mage’s chambers.”
A hush fell over the torchlit terrace. Armen sighed and shook his head. Mollander began to laugh. The Sphinx studied Leo with his big black eyes. Roone looked lost.

Note that the candles grant powers (television, dream visiting) that correspond to those of greenseers. However, if we take Marwyn literally, the candles do not seem to enable to see over forests and marshes, precisely the territory once reserved for the children of the forest.

Of course, obsidian is a material of the children of the forest, who made weapons. There is obsidian on Dragonstone, where varieties of several colors can be found.

“On Dragonstone, where I had my seat, there is much of this obsidian to be seen in the old tunnels beneath the mountain,” the king told Sam. “Chunks of it, boulders, ledges. The great part of it was black, as I recall, but there was some green as well, some red, even purple. I have sent word to Ser Rolland my castellan to begin mining it. I will not hold Dragonstone for very much longer, I fear, but perhaps the Lord of Light shall grant us enough frozen fire to arm ourselves against these creatures, before the castle falls.”

We find the black color, as well as the rarer green version. So the valyrian origin of the dragonglass is not entirely certain. Of course, the candles of the Citadel do not come from Dragonstone, which  had been occupied by the Targaryens only recently.

The shape and function of the candles mirror those of the main building of the City. Indeed, the High Tower is a lighthouse, with a permanent fire burning at the top. It is also the residence of the Lordly family. House Hightower probably got its name after the building of the tower. However, the Hightowers were kings before the Andals, which seem to have arrived in Westeros before the Valyrians could exert their influence.

The function of the tower reminds me of the words of the House: We light the way. The Hightower is a eight hundred feet high building, which could not be erected by medieval construction workers. But across the seas...

The waycastle called Sky was no more than a high, crescent-shaped wall of unmortared stone raised against the side of the mountain, but even the topless towers of Valyria could not have looked more beautiful to Catelyn Stark.

It's the only mention I could find of the topless towers of Valyria. But we saw numerous instances of spectacular architectural achievements from the dragonlords of old (the valyrian roads, the walls of Volantis, Dragonstone), thanks to their mastery of fused stone. Note that the Targaryen seem to have forgotten the technology of their forebears.

It seems natural to conclude that Valyrians built, or helped build, the High Tower, probably at the time when cultural exchanges allowed also the arrival of the glass candles in Oldtown. House Hightower itself is not of Valyrian origin, since it is said to descend from the First Men.

There is one other possibility though: the tower has been built by the same means that has built the Wall.

Then we have the sphinx of the Citadel.

The gates of the Citadel were flanked by a pair of towering green sphinxes with the bodies of lions, the wings of eagles, and the tails of serpents. One had a man’s face, one a woman’s.

We had an additional detail earlier.

And like the green marble sphinxes that flanked the Citadel’s main gate, Alleras had eyes of onyx.

We are not told that those sphinxes are of the Valyrian type, though. The Valyrian sphinxes we saw seem a bit different.

The next evening they came upon a huge Valyrian sphinx crouched beside the road. It had a dragon’s body and a woman’s face.
“A dragon queen,” said Tyrion. “A pleasant omen.”
“Her king is missing.” Illyrio pointed out the smooth stone plinth on which the second sphinx once stood, now grown over with moss and flowering vines. “The horselords built wooden wheels beneath him and dragged him back to Vaes Dothrak.”

Just like the sphinxes of the Citadel, the Valyrian sphinxes come in pairs. We don't know of any particular function of these statues. There are another pair in the council chamber of the Red Keep.

The chamber was richly furnished. Myrish carpets covered the floor instead of rushes, and in one corner a hundred fabulous beasts cavorted in bright paints on a carved screen from the Summer Isles. The walls were hung with tapestries from Norvos and Qohor and Lys, and a pair of Valyrian sphinxes flanked the door, eyes of polished garnet smoldering in black marble faces.

We have sphinxes of black marble (with garnet eyes) and sphinxes of green marble (with onyx eyes), which brings to mind the green/black candles of Valyria.

Another testimony of the Valyrian influence resides in the presence of valyrian steel in the panoply of links.

The domes of the Citadel might be Valyrian cultural imports as well. Indeed, we see many domes in the Free Cities, but none in the medieval castles of Westeros. Important septs  as well as a few curious other buildings (the kitchen of the Nightfort) are roofed with a dome.

In any case, the order of maesters was in existence when the glass candles were brought to Oldtown. We have no other indication before that time.

To summarize, the Hightowers converted to the Faith of the Seven with the arrival of the Andals in Westeros. They might have abandoned the Ravenry and its weirwood at that time, and had the Valyrian erect the High Tower at that time or at a later point.

5. The Rhoynar

The final major invasion of Westeros seems to have left little mark on the Citadel. The Rhoynar reached Westeros a thousand years ago, that is after the arrival of the glass candles at Oldtown.

Perhaps they have made an indirect contribution to the history of the Seven Kingdoms, and of the Citadel, by the knowledge of metallurgy they passed to the Andals.

Even when Dorne wasn't part of the Seven Kingdoms, I see no reason for the Citadel to have deprived the dornish nobility of the maesters. Only one sign points to the high esteem in which the residents of the Citadel hold their Dornish neighbors.

The path divided where the statue of King Daeron the First sat astride his tall stone horse, his sword lifted toward Dorne.

It seems to me that the statue testifies to a certain hostility. Or perhaps Daeron's reign marks the time when the Citadel conquered Dorne (in the sense that Dornish nobility began to have maesters). It is worthwile to note that the statue is within the Citadel and is not in a public place in the city.

Conversely we see little contribution of Dornish culture to the Citadel. That might be part of the rivalry between the Reach and Dorne.

“The white ravens and the black ones quarrel like Dornishmen and Marchers, so they keep them apart.”

Leo Tyrell mentions explicitly that it is odd for the Citadel to admit Dornishmen.

“The Citadel is not what it was,” complained the blond. “They will take anything these days. Dusky dogs and Dornishmen, pig boys, cripples, cretins, and now a black-clad whale. And here I thought leviathans were grey.”

6. The ordeal of Darkness

So the origin of the Citadel can be tentatively traced back to the time when the Hightowers converted to the faith of the Seven. However, one wonders why some order of the Faith had stepped up at this point, instead of a secular order. Possibly the need to accommodate the followers of both the old gods and the news gods was imperative, and the newly formed order had to be universally accepted (even though we saw that until fairly recently, the maesters were competing with the order of alchemists).

Let's return to the rite of passage of the maesters.

“The night before an acolyte says his vows, he must stand a vigil in the vault. No lantern is permitted him, no torch, no lamp, no taper... only a candle of obsidian. He must spend the night in darkness, unless he can light that candle. Some will try. The foolish and the stubborn, those who have made a study of these so-called higher mysteries. Often they cut their fingers, for the ridges on the candles are said to be as sharp as razors. Then, with bloody hands, they must wait upon the dawn, brooding on their failure. Wiser men simply go to sleep, or spend their night in prayer, but every year there are always a few who must try.”

We need to understand what is the vault. The word seems to refer to a large, perhaps cavernous, place situated underground. In any case it is the designated place for the final rite of passage for the aspirant maester.

There are other mentions of vaults in the Citadel.

Some of the old Valyrian scrolls down in the locked vaults were said to be the only surviving copies in the world.

And.

And of course there was even less chance of his coming on the fragmentary, anonymous, blood-soaked tome sometimes called Blood and Fire and sometimes The Death of Dragons, the only surviving copy of which was supposedly hidden away in a locked vault beneath the Citadel.

For what it is worth, Night's Watch has its library in the vaults of Castle Black.

Let's return to the night spent by the maesters in the vault. The insistance on darkness reminds me unmistakingly of another rite of passage.

The great cavern that opened on the abyss was as black as pitch, black as tar, blacker than the feathers of a crow. Light entered as a trespasser, unwanted and unwelcome, and soon was gone again; cookfires, candles, and rushes burned for a little while, then guttered out again, their brief lives at an end.
The singers made Bran a throne of his own, like the one Lord Brynden sat, white weirwood flecked with red, dead branches woven through living roots. They placed it in the great cavern by the abyss, where the black air echoed to the sound of running water far below. Of soft grey moss they made his seat. Once he had been lowered into place, they covered him with warm furs.
There he sat, listening to the hoarse whispers of his teacher. “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.”

Both the aspirant greenseer and the aspirant maester shall confront their fear of darkness before reaching the ranks of the initiated. Before Bran could have his visions, all lights in the cavern had to be extinguished.

Leaf touched his hand. “The trees will teach you. The trees remember.” He raised a hand, and the other singers began to move about the cavern, extinguishing the torches one by one. The darkness thickened and crept toward them.

That raises the questions of a filiation between the role of maesters and what were once greenseers.

We do not know where the vault is located. Perhaps in the Isle of Ravens, under the weirwood.

Let's formulate the following tentative scenario. There was once a greenseer attached to the tree of the Ravenry, like there were greenseers in the godswoods all over Westeros. When the Andals came, the Hightowers had to abandon the greenseer, and created the secular order of maesters, which inherited the charges of the greenseers. (Of course, a number of variants are possible: a group of men could have stepped up and offered to fulfill the function of the greenseers.)

Armen the Acolyte explains the symbolism of the rite of passage of maesters.

Pate had heard the same stories. “But what’s the use of a candle that casts no light?”
“It is a lesson,” Armen said, “the last lesson we must learn before we don our maester’s chains. The glass candle is meant to represent truth and learning, rare and beautiful and fragile things. It is made in the shape of a candle to remind us that a maester must cast light wherever he serves, and it is sharp to remind us that knowledge can be dangerous. Wise men may grow arrogant in their wisdom, but a maester must always remain humble. The glass candle reminds us of that as well. Even after he has said his vow and donned his chain and gone forth to serve, a maester will think back on the darkness of his vigil and remember how nothing that he did could make the candle burn... for even with knowledge, some things are not possible.”

The explanation seems contrived and relies on cheap symbolism. Is the lesson understood in a different way by some at the Citadel?

Of course, if any aspirant maester had the gift of greendreams, that might be awoken in the darkness of the vault. Indeed, Bran's gift first appeared when Bran was hiding in the darkness of the Winterfell crypts. It could be that the night spent in darkness had the purpose of detecting such a gift.

Before we go any further, note that the words of house Hightower, We light the Way, seems to contradict this sympathy for the darkness. The very symbol of the house, the High Tower has a permanent fire on top, like a lighthouse should. I shall note in passing that the fire on top of the tower reminds me of the red temples in the Free Cities. While we are mentioning the red religion, let's recall one of its favorite prayer: The night is dark and full of terrors, the very opposite of Lord Brynden's credo: “Never fear the darkness, Bran.”

At least in two occasions, a red priest and a maester proved to be mutually incompatible. Maester Cressen tried to poison Melisandre, and was poisoned in turn. We had a similar situation around Victarion. Indeed, the Iron captain discarded maester Kerwin as soon as he was healed by the red priest Moqorro. Cressen's internal monologue stressed how much Melisandre was alien to him.

“Only children fear the dark,” he told her.

A statement which echoes what Bloodraven told Bran. The red woman professed contempt in turn.

“There are truths in this world that are not taught at Oldtown.”

One shall note that the Citadel is more aware than anyone about the existence of greenseers. Indeed, here is what Maester Luwin tells Bran.

Maester Luwin tugged at his chain collar where it chafed against his neck. “They were people of the Dawn Age, the very first, before kings and kingdoms,” he said. “In those days, there were no castles or holdfasts, no cities, not so much as a market town to be found between here and the sea of Dorne. There were no men at all. Only the children of the forest dwelt in the lands we now call the Seven Kingdoms.
“They were a people dark and beautiful, small of stature, no taller than children even when grown to manhood. They lived in the depths of the wood, in caves and crannogs and secret tree towns. Slight as they were, the children were quick and graceful. Male and female hunted together, with weirwood bows and flying snares. Their gods were the gods of the forest, stream, and stone, the old gods whose names are secret. Their wise men were called greenseers, and carved strange faces in the weirwoods to keep watch on the woods. How long the children reigned here or where they came from, no man can know.
“But some twelve thousand years ago, the First Men appeared from the east, crossing the Broken Arm of Dorne before it was broken. They came with bronze swords and great leathern shields, riding horses. No horse had ever been seen on this side of the narrow sea. No doubt the children were as frightened by the horses as the First Men were by the faces in the trees. As the First Men carved out holdfasts and farms, they cut down the faces and gave them to the fire. Horrorstruck, the children went to war. The old songs say that the greenseers used dark magics to make the seas rise and sweep away the land, shattering the Arm, but it was too late to close the door. The wars went on until the earth ran red with blood of men and children both, but more children than men, for men were bigger and stronger, and wood and stone and obsidian make a poor match for bronze. Finally the wise of both races prevailed, and the chiefs and heroes of the First Men met the greenseers and wood dancers amidst the weirwood groves of a small island in the great lake called Gods Eye.
“There they forged the Pact. The First Men were given the coastlands, the high plains and bright meadows, the mountains and bogs, but the deep woods were to remain forever the children’s, and no more weirwoods were to be put to the axe anywhere in the realm. So the gods might bear witness to the signing, every tree on the island was given a face, and afterward, the sacred order of green men was formed to keep watch over the Isle of Faces.
“The Pact began four thousand years of friendship between men and children. In time, the First Men even put aside the gods they had brought with them, and took up the worship of the secret gods of the wood. The signing of the Pact ended the Dawn Age, and began the Age of Heroes.”

The parallel set up by Luwin seems clear. The greenseers were the wise men of the children, while the maesters sees themselves as the wise men of humankind. Note that the memory of greenseers seems to have died among the wildlings (or it is a well kept secret known to a few).

Here is Maester Luwin again.

Maester Luwin scratched at the side of his nose with his writing quill. “Does she now?” He nodded. “You told me that the children of the forest had the greensight. I remember.” “Some claimed to have that power. Their wise men were called greenseers.”
“Was it magic?”
“Call it that for want of a better word, if you must. At heart it was only a different sort of knowledge.”
“What was it?”
Luwin set down his quill. “No one truly knows, Bran. The children are gone from the world, and their wisdom with them. It had to do with the faces in the trees, we think. The First Men believed that the greenseers could see through the eyes of the weirwoods. That was why they cut down the trees whenever they warred upon the children. Supposedly the greenseers also had power over the beasts of the wood and the birds in the trees. Even fish. Does the Reed boy claim such powers?”
“No. I don’t think. But he has dreams that come true sometimes, Meera says.”
“All of us have dreams that come true sometimes. You dreamed of your lord father in the crypts before we knew he was dead, remember?”
“Rickon did too. We dreamed the same dream.”
“Call it greensight, if you wish... but remember as well all those tens of thousands of dreams that you and Rickon have dreamed that did not come true. Do you perchance recall what I taught you about the chain collar that every maester wears?”

Maester seemed well informed about the nature of greenseers and their powers. The Citadel never put the tree of Ravenry to the axe, and it is well known to the maester that the weirwood faces were the mark the greenseers. The other information we have about greenseers comes from Jojen.

“No,” said Jojen, “only a boy who dreams. The greenseers were more than that. They were wargs as well, as you are, and the greatest of them could wear the skins of any beast that flies or swims or crawls, and could look through the eyes of the weirwoods as well, and see the truth that lies beneath the world.

It is particularly interesting form this perspective that there is no maester in Greywater Watch, as if the crannogmen had not made the transition from the old order to the era of maesters, and still had wise men of their own, such as Jojen with his greendreams and, perhaps, Howland Reed who has traveled to the Isle of Faces.

The key to the understanding of the relation between maesters and greenseers might lie in Luwin's relationship to Bran, as prince of Winterfell. We will examine in detail that story elsewhere. But it seems to me that Luwin attempted to preserve Bran from the influence the Three-Eyed-Crow, by locking the direwolves in the godswood and by giving Bran sleeping draughts. Maester Colemon's behavior with Sweetrobin might obey the same logic.

7. Ravencraft

Just like greenseers were, maesters seem to be attached to a godswood. Indeed, maesters are assigned to a place by the Citadel, rather than to a Lord or a house. Since every castle in Westeros has a godswood, we can guess that maesters are distributed across the Realm just like the greenseers of olden days were, with the caveat that neither the castles at the Wall nor the Eyrie have any godswood.

Both the greenseers and the maesters have used ravens to communicate. Here is what Brynden tells us.

“Do all the birds have singers in them?”
“All,” Lord Brynden said. “It was the singers who taught the First Men to send messages by raven ... but in those days, the birds would speak the words. The trees remember, but men forget, and so now they write the messages on parchment and tie them round the feet of birds who have never shared their skin.”

The filiation is quite explicit. The First Men could send message by raven, but they had no writing system, and didn't need any. The ability to make the raven speak the words might have depended on a greenseer. We don't know when men forgot about the ravencraft they had learned from the singers. Does Archmaester Walgrave know more than his peers on the subject?

It is interesting to recall some of Maester Luwin's words to Bran.

Maester Luwin sighed. “I can teach you history, healing, herblore. I can teach you the speech of ravens, and how to build a castle, and the way a sailor steers his ship by the stars. I can teach you to measure the days and mark the seasons, and at the Citadel in Oldtown they can teach you a thousand things more. But, Bran, no man can teach you magic.”

What does Luwin mean by the speech of ravens? Can the maesters communicate in some way with the ravens? Is it a way to give them instructions for the delivery of messages. Does an attachment develop between a maester and his birds?

The ravens of the Ravenry seem connected to the heart tree, and we can guess that the spirit of the children of the forest go back and forth between the birds and the tree.

In any case the best account on ravens we have comes from Maester Tybald.

Stannis snapped the word out. "A maester's raven flies to one place, and one place only. Is that correct?"
The maester mopped sweat from his brow with his sleeve. "N-not entirely, Your Grace. Most, yes. Some few can be taught to fly between two castles. Such birds are greatly prized. And once in a very great while, we find a raven who can learn the names of three or four or five castles, and fly to each upon command. Birds as clever as that come along only once in a hundred years."

Are the clever birds more "inhabited" than the regular ones? Are the very clever birds inhabited by former greenseers? Tybald seems to be echoing Lord Brynden.

“Only one man in a thousand is born a skinchanger,” Lord Brynden said one day, after Bran had learned to fly, “and only one skinchanger in a thousand can be a greenseer.”

So we have a similar hierarchy than among the ravens: from common, to rare, to exceptional.

It seems that defiance against the birds of the Citadel has been expressed once, according to Maester Aemon.

“Doves and pigeons can also be trained to carry messages,” the maester went on, “though the raven is a stronger flyer, larger, bolder, far more clever, better able to defend itself against hawks... yet ravens are black, and they eat the dead, so some godly men abhor them. Baelor the Blessed tried to replace all the ravens with doves, did you know?” The maester turned his white eyes on Jon, smiling. “The Night’s Watch prefers ravens.”

Most of what we know of Baelor is recalled by Cersei.

The Targaryen dynasty had produced kings both bad and good, but none as beloved as Baelor, that pious gentle septon-king who loved the smallfolk and the gods in equal parts, yet imprisoned his own sisters.

The only Targaryen King to have expressed defiance against the ravens is the most pious of all the men who sat the Iron Throne, the one closest to the Faith of the Seven. However, it appears that the Faith and the Citadel have always lived in harmony and Baelor was slightly deranged.

In any case, it can not be a coincidence that the maesters used the same birds than the First Men for long distance communications.

8. Books and Trees

The First Men culture was illiterate, except for runes, which seem too primitive for any elaborate recording. However, Brynden told us that before the Andals, it was possible to store knowledge.

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies,” said Jojen. “The man who never reads lives only one. The singers of the forest had no books. No ink, no parchment, no written language. Instead they had the trees, and the weirwoods above all. When they died, they went into the wood, into leaf and limb and root, and the trees remembered. All their songs and spells, their histories and prayers, everything they knew about this world. Maesters will tell you that the weirwoods are sacred to the old gods. The singers believe they are the old gods. When singers die they become part of that godhood.”

We do not know to what extent the First Men could retain the access to the memories stored in the trees. In any case, their greenseers had access to the weirwoods. So the First Men might have been illiterate because they had no need for literacy. After the old order disappeared, the maesters took over the function of preserving knowledge. They just employed the writing system brought by the Andals and their septons.

There is a central library at the Citadel.

As great a maester as once he’d been, now his robes concealed soiled smallclothes oft as not, and half a year ago some acolytes found him weeping in the Library, unable to find his way back to his chambers.

So not all books are stored in vaults.

We could add that the glass candles brought from Valyria were an attempt to replicate the visionary capabilities of the greenseers. So the candles were just a tool to enable the maesters to function as the greenseers had. However, the candles do not seem to have been employed much. And Marwyn and Sam agree that the candles could enable to get rid of the ravens for communication.

How conscious are the current maesters and archmaesters of such a connection to the old powers of Westeros? We hear Luwin's knowledge of greenseers. But the archmaesters of the Citadel disagree about the history of Westeros. I find archmaester Rigney's theory quite interesting. In fact it might raise a fundamental question about the Song of Ice and Fire. Are we entering a new era or accomplishing a new cycle. This is Rodrik the Reader's report.

Archmaester Rigney once wrote that history is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will perforce happen again, he said.

How is it possible to hold such a theory in the view of the disappearance of the children of the forest, of the arrival of the Andal, of the Conquest? So the extent of the knowledge of the distant past remains a mystery to me.

Let's turn now to functions that do not seem to match between maesters and greenseers.

9. Unnatural Sciences

Let's keep in mind Marwyn the Mage's pronouncement.

The world the Citadel is building has no place in it for sorcery or prophecy or glass candles, much less for dragons.

Indeed, Maester Luwin, among the most interested in the supernatural among the maesters, has a dismissive view on magic etc.

Maester Luwin sighed. “I can teach you history, healing, herblore. I can teach you the speech of ravens, and how to build a castle, and the way a sailor steers his ship by the stars. I can teach you to measure the days and mark the seasons, and at the Citadel in Oldtown they can teach you a thousand things more. But, Bran, no man can teach you magic.”

He explained his views more fully later.

“This is Valyrian steel,” he said when the link of dark grey metal lay against the apple of his throat. “Only one maester in a hundred wears such a link. This signifies that I have studied what the Citadel calls the higher mysteries-magic, for want of a better word. A fascinating pursuit, but of small use, which is why so few maesters trouble themselves with it.
“All those who study the higher mysteries try their own hand at spells, soon or late. I yielded to the temptation too, I must confess it. Well, I was a boy, and what boy does not secretly wish to find hidden powers in himself? I got no more for my efforts than a thousand boys before me, and a thousand since. Sad to say, magic does not work.”
“Sometimes it does,” Bran protested. “I had that dream, and Rickon did too. And there are mages and warlocks in the east...”
“There are men who call themselves mages and warlocks,” Maester Luwin said. “I had a friend at the Citadel who could pull a rose out of your ear, but he was no more magical than I was. Oh, to be sure, there is much we do not understand. The years pass in their hundreds and their thousands, and what does any man see of life but a few summers, a few winters? We look at mountains and call them eternal, and so they seem... but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, stars fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes.
“Perhaps magic was once a mighty force in the world, but no longer. What little remains is no more than the wisp of smoke that lingers in the air after a great fire has burned out, and even that is fading. Valyria was the last ember, and Valyria is gone. The dragons are no more, the giants are dead, the children of the forest forgotten with all their lore.
“No, my prince. Jojen Reed may have had a dream or two that he believes came true, but he does not have the greensight. No living man has that power.”

Grand Maester Pycelle's opinion is not very different.

“Good. You may go.” As he turned toward the door, though, she called him back. “One more
thing. What does the Citadel teach concerning prophecy? Can our morrows be foretold?”
The old man hesitated. One wrinkled hand groped blindly at his chest, as if to stroke the beard
that was not there. “Can our morrows be foretold?” he repeated slowly. “Mayhaps. There are certain spells in the old books... but Your Grace might ask instead, ‘Should our morrows be foretold?’ And to that I should answer, ‘No.’ Some doors are best left closed.”

If the maesters were continuators of the greenseers, they didn't attempt to emulate, and in fact rejected, the visionary abilities. Interestingly, Maester Luwin declared the children of the forest dead, and attributed the last remnant of magic to Valyria.

Archmaester Marwyn would seem to share Pycelle's view on prophecy.

“Born amidst salt and smoke, beneath a bleeding star. I know the prophecy.” Marwyn turned his head and spat a gob of red phlegm onto the floor. “Not that I would trust it. Gorghan of Old Ghis once wrote that a prophecy is like a treacherous woman. She takes your member in her mouth, and you moan with the pleasure of it and think, how sweet, how fine, how good this is... and then her teeth snap shut and your moans turn to screams. That is the nature of prophecy, said Gorghan. Prophecy will bite your prick off every time.”

He expresses no views on the children of the forest. But Valyria's magic has resurgent with the birth of the dragons, and the lighting of the black candle.

“It burns but is not consumed.”
“What feeds the flame?” asked Sam.
“What feeds a dragon’s fire?” Marwyn seated himself upon a stool. “All Valyrian sorcery was rooted in blood or fire. The sorcerers of the Freehold could see across mountains, seas, and deserts with one of these glass candles. They could enter a man’s dreams and give him visions, and speak to one another half a world apart, seated before their candles. Do you think that might be useful, Slayer?”

Marwyn is living proof that there is place for nonmainstream thinking within the Citadel.

Beside being postmen and scholars, the maesters are healers. So far, we haven't seen any such capabilities attributed to greenseers. Brynden tells Bran that restoring broken legs is beyond his power (it is also beyond the powers of the maesters). Woodwitch have sometime some healing power, as does the Elder Brother at the Quiet Isle. One can imagine that the gift comes from weirwood roots in the Hermit's cave – but that needs to be confirmed.

 A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. Greenseers.”

Perhaps the glass candle could have played the role of the thousand eyes, and the books could be the receptacles of wisdom. But I see nothing like the hundred skins of the maesters.

10. The Chain

After having stood a vigil during the night, the maester is ready to speak his vows and to don his chain. It seems that maesters wear their chain at all times, even while asleep.

Jon had the logs crackling merrily by the time Chett led in Maester Aemon. The old man was clad in his bed robe, but around his throat was the chain collar of his order. A maester did not remove it even to sleep.

Grand Maester Pycelle is decorated like a veteran of the Red Army.

His maester’s collar was no simple metal choker such as Luwin wore, but two dozen heavy chains wound together into a ponderous metal necklace that covered him from throat to breast. The links were forged of every metal known to man: black iron and red gold, bright copper and dull lead, steel and tin and pale silver, brass and bronze and platinum. Garnets and amethysts and black pearls adorned the metalwork, and here and there an emerald or ruby.

In view of the importance of metallurgy in the history of Westeros, we need to pay attention to the correspondence between the metals and the various aspects of scholarship. The correspondence is to be found in the links that constitute the chains of all maesters, and in the rods and masks of the archmaesters.

It seems that the Children of the Forest did not know metallurgy.

“Obsidian,” Maester Luwin insisted, holding out his wounded arm. “Forged in the fires of the gods, far below the earth. The children of the forest hunted with that, thousands of years ago. The children worked no metal. In place of mail, they wore long shirts of woven leaves and bound their legs in bark, so they seemed to melt into the wood. In place of swords, they carried blades of obsidian.”

The First Men brought bronze to Westeros. Bronze is an alloy of copper and (usually) tin. There are mentions of iron, particularly black iron, before the arrival of the Andals. Before iron was mined, it could be found in meteorites, which might be where black iron comes from. Indeed the crown of the kings of Winter was made of bronze and black iron. Iron is used by the Starks to ward the crypts of Winterfell, in order to prevent the ghost of the deceased from wandering among the living.

The Andals brought steel when they invaded Westeros. It might be worthwile to note that they learned metallurgy from the Rhoynar. Hence, the particular tradition of carrying a chain might trace back to the Rhoynar.

It is not clear when gold started being crafted in Westeros. We know that the Brackens earned gold through horsebreeding, which was part of their dispute with the Blackwoods five hunded years before the Andals came. Note that the latter house seemed tied to the children of the forest. Gold is hardly in use in the north of Westeros. It might not have been use as a currency in most of Westeros before the Conquest, except in the Reach (we hear of no ancient gold coin, except the hand found in the black cells by Qyburn).

Silver has probably long been used as a currency. But we do not have any testimony of an ancient use of silver.

The latest metal to have reached westeros seems to be valyrian steel. The valyrian swords of the story seem to be no older than a thousand years old (Ice is six hundred years old, Heartsbane is five hundred years old). It is unclear how the maesters work valyrian steel to manufacture a chain.

Let's attempt to sort the metals used for the links by order of appearance of the corresponding metal in Westeros: Bronze (astronomy), Black Iron (ravencraft), Copper (history), Tin (?).

Then in no particular order: Brass (?), Electrum (?), Gold (arithmetic), Iron (warcraft), Lead (?), Pewter (?), Platinum (?), Red gold (?), Silver (Healing), Pale Silver (?), Steel (?).

Finally: Valyrian steel (Magic and the occult).

It is not clear that gold and red gold are distinct, and that pale steel differs from steel. But iron and black iron are definitely not the same metal.

Let's note that the following objects can be made of a variety of metals in Westeros: coins (gold, silver, copper, iron), crowns (gold, bronze, iron), dragons (Danaerys' dragons seem to correspond to bronze, gold and black iron; in the past we had Silverwing etc), bands over horns (bronze, iron, silver, gold) and magical horns (red gold, old gold, valyrian steel). We see that metals have magical or religious properties: iron prevents the Stark spirits in the crypts from wandering, bronze daggers and sickles are used for sacrifices.

The archamaesters do not wear a chain, but are attributed a ring, a rod and a mask of the metal associated to their specialty. We are given no explanation about these items, except perhaps in the following episode.

Maester Gormon sat below the iron mask in Walgrave’s place, the same Gormon who had once accused Pate of theft.

I infer that there is a meeting room in the Citadel where the metallic masks are assembled to mark the seats of the various archmaesters.

That brings us to that small episode.

Once theirs had been a powerful guild, but in recent centuries the maesters of the Citadel had supplanted the alchemists almost everywhere. Now only a few of the older order remained, and they no longer even pretended to transmute metals...

The order of maester does not seem to be a apparented to the alchemists. The alchemists seem to deal in matters (fire and metals) alien to the children of the forest. Indeed we know that the Fist Men cut and burned the heart trees of the children, that fire is not welcome in the sanctuaries of the children (see High Heart) and that metallurgy was brought to Westeros by the First men and other human invaders. That would put the alchemists at odds with the maesters, if the latter order comes ultimately from the children of the forest (as a continuation or as a reaction), as I have suggested.

In any case, we have not explained why the maesters need to keep their chain at all times. We don't even know why they believe they must sleep with such a cumbersome collar. Note that across the Narrow Sea, a metallic collar is a mark of servitude.

11. Anonymity, Oaths, Celibacy

We can turn now to the conditions of being a maester. Like the men of the Night's Watch and the men of the Kingsguard maesters have to swear an oath. We do not know the words, except indirectly from Pycelle.

Grand Maester Pycelle did not disappoint her. “Lord Qyburn?” he managed, purpling. “Your Grace, this... a maester swears sacred vows, to hold no lands or lordships...”
“Your Citadel took away his chain,” Cersei reminded him. “If he is not a maester, he cannot be held to a maester’s vows. We called the eunuch lord as well, you may recall.”

Marwyn hints at the ideals of the order.

“B-b-but,” Sam sputtered, “the other archmaesters... the Seneschal... what should I tell them?”
“Tell them how wise and good they are. Tell them that Aemon commanded you to put yourself into their hands. Tell them that you have always dreamed that one day you might be allowed to wear the chain and serve the greater good, that service is the highest honor, and obedience the highest virtue. But say nothing of prophecies or dragons, unless you fancy poison in your porridge.”

All in all, the maester's vows seems similar to those of the Night's Watch and of the King's Guard. Note that the maester serves a place rather than a person.

“My order serves.”
“Yes, but whom?”
“The realm,” Maester Luwin said, “and Winterfell. Theon, once I taught you sums and letters, history and warcraft. And might have taught you more, had you wished to learn. I will not claim to bear you any great love, no, but I cannot hate you either. Even if I did, so long as you hold Winterfell I am bound by oath to give you counsel. So now I counsel you to yield.”

Of course, the Night's Watch seems to be a much older order than the maesters, unless we accept the filiation with the Greenseers. Here are the vows of the Night's Watch.

Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all nights to come.

Here again the dichotomy between light and darkness is of central importance. But it reminds rather of the cult of the Lord of Light than of the ordeal of masters. Here the night is to be fought, and light is to be preserved. So the connection between the Night's Watch and the order of maesters is rather obscure. However, Aemon is living proof that the vocations are not incompatible. Both orders have in common the interdiction to own lands and titles. Commonalities and dissimilarities can be found in the election of the Lord Commander and the random designation of the Seneschal. Perhaps, once the Night's Watch served as an inspiration for the creation of the order of maesters.

It might be that the service of the maesters and the Night's Watch complemented each other. However, the Night's Watch seems to have been created to keep away the Others. The children of the forest and their greenseer Lord Brynden seem to be hostile to the Others as well, and have collaborated occasionally with the Watch in the past. I tend to believe that one of the missions of the maesters was to keep the greenseers at bay. It is not clear what to make of all this, especially since not everything might be as it seems.

The King's Guard seems to have been founded by the Targaryens (there is no indication that it has a predecessor of any sort, unless the weirwood table around which the guards meet is indicative of something).

The order of maesters goes further than those other orders in its insistance on anonymity. That is entirely comprehensible, since the maester has to serve and advise a lordship, and play a role in the Game of Thrones. The position of High Septon is more radical on the eradication of any name. Nevertheless it seems that the maesters keep their birth names.

Maester Walys was his grey rat’s name. And isn’t it clever how the maesters go by only one name, even those who had two when they first arrived at the Citadel? That way we cannot know who they truly are or where they come from ... but if you are dogged enough, you can still find out. Before he forged his chain, Maester Walys had been known as Walys Flowers. Flowers, Hill, Rivers, Snow ... we give such names to baseborn children to mark them for what they are, but they are always quick to shed them.

It might be that maester are allowed to change their names when they swear their vows, but we have no indication that they do.

The most extreme combination of anonymity, selflessness and service is to be found among the Faceless Men of Braavos. The Faceless Men trace their origin to the slaves of Valyria. They might ultimately have come from Westeros. In any case, Arya's initiation bears striking similarities to Bran's early carreer as a greenseer. Don't we see Jaqen H'Gar swearing an oath in front of a heart tree? We can wonder if there isn't ultimately a final loss of identity when the greenseer joins the multitude in the trees.

Like other orders, the maesters are not allowed to marry and found a family. The interdiction is certainly not of religious nature, but follows simply from the need of protecting the service of the maesters from familial obligations. However, the obligation of chastity is largely a facade, according to Barbrey Dustin.

Walys Flowers had a Hightower girl for a mother ... and an archmaester of the Citadel for a father, it was rumored.The grey rats are not as chaste as they would have us believe. Oldtown maesters are the worst of all.

That Sam confirms that there is some tolerance with respect to novices (they haven't said their vows yet).

If he did, though, he would need to hide her somehow; the Citadel did not permit its novices to keep wives or paramours, at least not openly.

And we see in that novices and acolytes are regular customer to the Quill and Tankard where the serving women's virtue is for sale. We do not see any maester at the Inn though.

12. White Ravens

From the perspective of a certain filiation between the greenseers and the maesters, the white rookery in the Ravenry is of special interest. Here is what we know about the white ravens.

The Citadel has the charge of informing the Realm of the change of seasons. We meet the first white raven in Dragonstone.

Shireen gave a brave little nod. “Mother said the white raven means it’s not summer anymore.”
“That is so, my lady. The white ravens fly only from the Citadel.” Cressen’s fingers went to the chain about his neck, each link forged from a different metal, each symbolizing his mastery of another branch of learning; the maester’s collar, mark of his order. In the pride of his youth, he had worn it easily, but now it seemed heavy to him, the metal cold against his skin. “They are larger than other ravens, and more clever, bred to carry only the most important messages. This one came to tell us that the Conclave has met, considered the reports and measurements made by maesters all over the realm, and declared this great summer done at last. Ten years, two turns, and sixteen days it lasted, the longest summer in living memory.”
“Will it get cold now?” Shireen was a summer child, and had never known true cold.
“In time,” Cressen replied. “If the gods are good, they will grant us a warm autumn and bountiful harvests, so we might prepare for the winter to come.” The smallfolk said that a long summer meant an even longer winter, but the maester saw no reason to frighten the child with such tales.

It's intriguing that that the white ravens are bred to carry only the most important messages. Is there an instance where a white raven has carried any message? (There is the remote possibility that the raven that brought the letter to Jon Snow at the end of ADwD was a white raven.) But Cressen's view could be superceded by Kevan Lannister's at the sight of the arrival of Winter.

The white ravens of the Citadel did not carry messages, as their dark cousins did. When they went forth from Oldtown, it was for one purpose only: to herald a change of seasons.

No mention of important messages. We could reconcile perhaps both views by saying that important messages have been sent sometime, but unknowingly to Kevan.

The notion that a long summer is followed by a long winter is entrenched popular wisdom. Let's have a closer look at the bird.

Shireen gave a cry of delight. Even Cressen had to admit the bird made an impressive sight, white as snow and larger than any hawk, with the bright black eyes that meant it was no mere albino, but a truebred white raven of the Citadel. “Here,” he called. The raven spread its wings, leapt into the air, and flapped noisily across the room to land on the table beside him.
“I’ll see to your breakfast now,” Pylos announced. Cressen nodded. “This is the Lady Shireen,” he told the raven. The bird bobbed its pale head up and down, as if it were bowing. “Lady,” it croaked. “Lady.”
The child’s mouth gaped open. “It talks!”

It was no mere albino. We should not associate the white ravens with Bloodraven, Ghost etc. The raven is clever, and seems to behave like Mormont's raven. The habit of repeating chosen words picked in conversations seems meaningful. If we give credence to those birds he bird seems to hold Patchface in high esteem.

“The shadows come to dance, my lord, dance my lord, dance my lord” the fool sang on, swinging his head and making his bells clang and clatter. Bong dong, ring-a-ling, bong dong.
“Lord,” the white raven shrieked. “Lord, lord, lord.”

The Conclave's finding of the coming of winter precedes the signs of the change of seasons.

Autumn had come, the Conclave had declared, but the gods had not seen fit to tell the winds and woods as yet.

The determination of the change of season seems to be a "science", since the Conclave gathers the data assembled by the maesters all over the Realm.

The Lord Commander did not seem amused. “You are not fool enough to believe that, my lord. Already the days grow shorter. There can be no mistake, Aemon has had letters from the Citadel, findings in accord with his own. The end of summer stares us in the face.”

The maesters make observations and have certain criteria to make their conclusions.

So I suppose the announcement is of great value for all farmers of Westeros. But why use special ravens? The messengers are surely impressive, and that contributes to the prestige of the Citadel. Or is it an ancient custom, whose justification has been lost?

The white ravens are trained exclusively at the Citadel. I suppose they are sent back to Oldtown in a cage as soon as they have delivered the announcement of the change of seasons. No maester outside of Oldtown seems to keep any in his rookery. I wonder how those ravens have been trained. The ravens live on the Isle of Ravens.

Shireen gave a brave little nod. “Mother said the white raven means it’s not summer anymore.”
“That is so, my lady. The white ravens fly only from the Citadel.”

They fly only from the Citadel. If I understand well the logistics of ravenry, a bird is raised in his home rookery, before being dispatched somewhere else, and would return home if freed by a maester. We have some explanations from Maester Tybald.

Stannis snapped the word out. "A maester's raven flies to one place, and one place only. Is that correct?"
The maester mopped sweat from his brow with his sleeve. "N-not entirely, Your Grace. Most, yes. Some few can be taught to fly between two castles. Such birds are greatly prized. And once in a very great while, we find a raven who can learn the names of three or four or five castles, and fly to each upon command. Birds as clever as that come along only once in a hundred years."

I wonder if the white ravens can learn the names of all the castles. Since they have all been raised in Oldtown, how could they know their destination otherwise? We see the birds in Oldtown.

“Archmaester Walgrave has his chambers in the west tower, below the white rookery,” Alleras told him. “The white ravens and the black ones quarrel like Dornishmen and Marchers, so they keep them apart.”

Walgrave seems to be the maester in charge of the white rookery.

Everyone said that Walgrave had forgotten more of ravencraft than most maesters ever knew, so Pate assumed a black iron link was the least that he could hope for, only to find that Walgrave could not grant him one. The old man remained an archmaester only by courtesy. As great a maester as once he’d been, now his robes concealed soiled smallclothes oft as not, and half a year ago some acolytes found him weeping in the Library, unable to find his way back to his chambers. Maester Gormon sat below the iron mask in Walgrave’s place, the same Gormon who had once accused Pate of theft.

The white ravens knew his name, and would mutter it to each other whenever they caught sight of him, “Pate, Pate, Pate,” until he wanted to scream. The big white birds were Archmaester Walgrave’s pride. He wanted them to eat him when he died, but Pate half suspected that they meant to eat him too.

So it seems Walgrave has been in charge of sending the white ravens for decades now. Maester Gormon, a Tyrell by birth, seems destined to succeed Walgrave. But at the moment, "Pate" and Sam take care of the rookery.

A daring theory worthy of a moment of thought would make of the ravens not merely the heralds, but the agents of the season change. I have yet to find support for such a notion, so I am going to resist elaborating on this.

Here is a more plausible variant. Certain people alike the children of the forest has caused the imbalance of the seasons. Just like the children, they have disappeared as a people, but inhabit the white ravens. A less far fetched question would be to ask how relevant Lord Brynden's assertion about the black ravens is relevant to the white ones.

“Do all the birds have singers in them?”
“All,” Lord Brynden said. “It was the singers who taught the First Men to send messages by raven ... but in those days, the birds would speak the words. The trees remember, but men forget, and so now they write the messages on parchment and tie them round the feet of birds who have never shared their skin.”

Since the white ravens are particularly clever, it seems that they are inhabited as well. But the white ravens and the black ravens are seemingly different species who dislike each other.

“Archmaester Walgrave has his chambers in the west tower, below the white rookery,” Alleras told him. “The white ravens and the black ones quarrel like Dornishmen and Marchers, so they keep them apart.”

If ravens of the standard variety can be inhabited by children of the forest and greenseers, what sort of creatures inhabits the white ravens?

Since the white ravens are kept apart, they are not allowed to sit on the branches of the weirwood in the yard. Does it mean that they have a loosest connection to the heart tree?

We are told they are not albino, and they have black, not red, eyes. Nevertheless, do they entertain a relation to the black ravens similar to the relation of Ghost to his brothers?

At last, winter has arrived in the Seven Kingdoms. We see it in King's Landing.
The rest was shrouded in shadow ... except beneath the open window, where a spray of ice crystals glittered in the moonlight, swirling in the wind. On the window seat a raven loitered, pale, huge, its feathers ruffled. It was the largest raven that Kevan Lannister had ever seen. Larger than any hunting hawk at Casterly Rock, larger than the largest owl. Blowing snow danced around it, and the moon painted it silver.
Not silver. White. The bird is white.
The white ravens of the Citadel did not carry messages, as their dark cousins did. When they went forth from Oldtown, it was for one purpose only: to herald a change of seasons.
“Winter,” said Ser Kevan. The word made a white mist in the air. He turned away from the window.

If the order of maesters took over the greenseers of olden days, it seems plausible that the white ravens were used by the greenseers once. Did the birds herald the change of season like they do for the maesters, or were they part of the power of greenseers over the change of season? Or perhaps they were the favorite vehicles of greenseers, who could thus meet in what was then Oldtown at the Ravenry.

We have an idea of the number of destinations for the birds.

"On Maiden’s Day in the year 130 AC, the Citadel of Oldtown sent forth three hundred white ravens to herald the coming of winter, but this was high summer for Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen."

We learn also that all ravens are sent at the same time, therefore the arrival of the announcement of a change of season arrives with a delay proportional to the distance to Oldtown. Hence the Wall is reached last.

The number three hundred should correspond roughly to the number of noble houses of the Seven Kingdoms, including Dorne, I believe. That brings us to the more political part of our study.