Direwolves Don't Cry: A Direwolves Reread II - ACoK

[Seams]

I don't know when I will ever get back to an additional re-read of Bran VII, which is the final chapter in the ACoK direwolf re-read. While trying to finish this, I got so interested in the discovery about "sharp or shaggy" Starks that I wrote that up as a separate post, thinking I would come back here with a fresh focus on the direwolves to finish writing up this set of analyses. But other topics and tasks have drawn me away, and I don't want to keep everyone (anyone? Bueller?) waiting. So here are the other notes I have for the Bran VII overview and observations, and I encourage you to take a look at the "sharp vs. shaggy" discussion for one approach to some direwolf analysis associated with this complex and important chapter.

Bran VII

Overview

Through Summer’s eyes, Bran sees the burning of Winterfell. Shaggydog kills a dying horse from the burned stable and the two wolves first fight each other, then eat from the carcass. Closing his third eye, Bran’s conscious mind returns to the dark crypt, where he and Rickon, Meera, Jojen, Hodor and Osha have been hiding. After Hodor struggles and opens the door from the crypt, the group surveys the devastation of dead people, collapsed buildings and dead horses. Osha notices that a number of the Ironborn are among the dead. She spots a sigil and Bran identifies it as the flayed man of the Dreadfort. They find Maester Luwin, badly wounded, in the godswood. He tells Osha that Bran and Rickon, as Robb’s heirs, should be split up. Osha and Rickon and Shaggydog leave through the East Gate. Meera, Jojen, Hodor, Bran and Summer crawl out through the jammed Hunter’s Gate. Bran looks back and thinks, “The stone is strong,” and that Winterfell is broken but not dead, like Bran himself.

Observations

Many details in this chapter are or parallel to elements of the Jon VIII chapter.

• Fire in opening paragraphs
• Shadows?
• Smoke?
• Eating raw horse meat
• Dark stone tunnel
• Making torch
• Using torch to light the way
• Feeling safe underground
• Moving in a single file line
• One step and then another
• Surrounded by stone “fathers” (vs. mother mountain)
• Death of sharp mentor
• Shaggy Wildling woman       
• Departure into the unknown