how come old-Nan know so much

[Itai Peer]

I'm rereading Dance , and in one of Bran chapter , 3-eyes-crow tell him about old soul  of long-dead children in crows , and that is how the crow can deliver messages ... the point is that Bran remembered that old-Nan told him this story once.

This is not the first old-Nan story that trun-out to be true.    If she was telling legends and myths , I would assume some of her stories are trues , but many are fictional , Yest seems that most of her stories were true , and lot of theories are build now around old-Nan ( for example , the fact the old-Nan was confused between the different "Brandons"  - than maybe Bran possess these old Brandons .. ) 

Some even relates to old-Nana stories as "Cannon" 

 

How come she know so much ? 

[Scootaloo Stark]

Maybe all that knowledge was passed on from generation to generation, even when they didn't encounter magic and non-human races anymore. Nowadays Westerosi just think it's all fairytales and myths. They know more than they are aware of.

[YOVMO]

1 hour ago, Itai Peer said:

I'm rereading Dance , and in one of Bran chapter , 3-eyes-crow tell him about old soul  of long-dead children in crows , and that is how the crow can deliver messages ... the point is that Bran remembered that old-Nan told him this story once.

This is not the first old-Nan story that trun-out to be true.    If she was telling legends and myths , I would assume some of her stories are trues , but many are fictional , Yest seems that most of her stories were true , and lot of theories are build now around old-Nan ( for example , the fact the old-Nan was confused between the different "Brandons"  - than maybe Bran possess these old Brandons .. ) 

Some even relates to old-Nana stories as "Cannon" 

 

How come she know so much ? 

This is a really excellent question. I hope you get some traction. As a literary device, old nan does serve to clue the readers in to knowledge that is otherwise lost and preserved only in folk tales -- kind of like  the flip side to Maester Luwin who has more practical knowledge. It always made sense that a dottering old ladies folk stories would be a good place to put the history of magic which the Citadel fights so hard to suppress and ridicule. That said, it would stand that there is some sort of explanation.

 

I mean she is old so there is that, but is it enough?

[Khal BlackfyreO]

She old...

[Seams]

I've been looking closely at Old Nan lately, too, and I think there is much more to her than meets the eye.

The fact that Arya uses the name "Nan" as one of her many aliases seems significant to me. That she tells people "Nan" is short for "Nymeria" seems even more significant.

I am pretty sure that Nan is either a Faceless Man or a skinchanger, and that she has been on a mission inside Winterfell for many decades. Maybe she was waiting for the current Brandon Stark to be born and then to reach a certain age, similar to Bloodraven waiting for the boy to make his way to the cave.

You may be aware of the recent discussion of Bran as a sort of reincarnation or time-traveler of Bran the Builder from the legends. If that notion is correct, Nan might be part of the same time loop or magical time travel.

Today I came across an interesting detail describing Nan in a feast scene, the harvest feast just before Theon returns to declare himself the new Prince of Winterfell. Feasts in ASOIAF tend to foreshadow death and/or represent the underworld, I think. (In ancient Celtic culture, there was a perpetual feast underway in the underworld.)

Bran watched Farlen make his red bitch beg for bones and smiled at Old Nan plucking at the crust of a hot pie with wrinkled fingers. (Clash, Bran III)

Hot Pie is the name of Arya's friend. Is this symbolically an attack on Arya's friend? But Arya's friend is a baker who would make crusts for pies. What does a pie crust represent? I think pies are very significant, given the events that unfold around the time that Joffrey cuts the pie at his wedding reception. At one point, I speculated that the author was using the rhyming wordplay of "pies" and "spies" to drop some hints for us. It would not surprise me at all if this pie affiliation is a clue that Old Nan is a spy. I think we are seeing Nan about to put her finger in a pie, here. Is she going to pull out a plum? What does it mean that a red dog is begging for bones right before we see Old Nan? Bones are very significant in the Winterfell scenes.

For awhile, I was pretty sure that Old Nan was from the Frey family: her great-grandson's real name is Walder (although everyone calls him Hodor) and she says "mayhaps" once or twice. If that is true, is she a foe of the Stark family? Freys are gatekeepers, guarding the river crossing on the Green Fork of the Trident. Is her real reason for being in Winterfell to find some kind of gate? Or to guard it? If she is a skinchanger, did she enter Hodor's mind before Bran and his group went into hiding, and is she experiencing the journey to Bloodraven's cave through Hodor?

@Macgregor of the Northmade a good case for Nan being a member of the Umber family not long ago.

Now, whether she is also the hooded man in Winterfell is very much open to debate . . . .

As you can see, I haven't put together all the pieces, but I think she's got some big secrets and will be part of an interesting twist.

[Macgregor of the North]

Going further with what @Seams mentioned about the timeloop discussion and Bran the builder etc I think Old Nan is an integral part of the timeloop that sees Bran Stark become Brandon the builder. 

She is kind of like a teacher. She says to Bran that she could tell him the story of Brandon the builder because it's his favourite. Bran actually denies this and it may have been another Brandon's favourite. What if it was actually Brans favourite in another past timeloop?.

Basically I think Nan is serving as an important part in Brans life which, through her stories, is like a preparation device for Bran to learn what he must do when he becomes who he must become- Brandon the builder. 

The reason Nan thinks all the Brans are the same sometimes is that she has maybe told so many Brandon's so many stories throughout all the loops. There are actually four Brandon Starks she knows during her time at WF this time round. 

I am kind of assuming something from each loop stays with certain characters. It's been theorised in real life that time loops can be kind of like a video game scenario where a character or characters learn each time, and master their environment to finally break the loop/cycle. 

I think instead of becoming Bran the builder to rebuild WF and the wall etc after this long winter/long night devastation, Bran is going to learn and do different things this time round(in the story we are reading) to have a different outcome. 

Old Nan has maybe just been an integral part of his learning process for this to happen. Also, she is physically absolutely needed to exist for Bran to become who he must become because her great grandson Hodor is Brans travel vessel, so they are all intertwined, in this loop especially. 

These are just some views. By no means do I presume they are Canon.

[spauldo17]

13 hours ago, Seams said:

 

Hot Pie is the name of Arya's friend. Is this symbolically an attack on Arya's friend? But Arya's friend is a baker who would make crusts for pies. What does a pie crust represent? I think pies are very significant, given the events that unfold around the time that Joffrey cuts the pie at his wedding reception. At one point, I speculated that the author was using the rhyming wordplay of "pies" and "spies" to drop some hints for us. It would not surprise me at all if this pie affiliation is a clue that Old Nan is a spy. I think we are seeing Nan about to put her finger in a pie, here. Is she going to pull out a plum? What does it mean that a red dog is begging for bones right before we see Old Nan? Bones are very significant in the Winterfell scenes.

 

I gotta be honest, Seams, your post seemed super far-fetched.  First off, the Faceless Men haven't been seen to get involved much with politics or end game stuff, they are a religion of assassins.  It doesn't seem like a group that would plant itself in the Stark family simply to reiterate old wives tails to Stark children.

The hot-pie thing is, IMO you looking way way too far in to things. A symbolic attack on Arya's friend just because GRRM wrote the word "hot pie"?  Hot pie is a pretty common thing to say, especially at a feast....because it's a food.  To add to that, just because Joffrey cuts a pie at his wedding reception doesn't mean that pies are suddenly significant.  By that logic any object present at an event would now become significant.  Joffrey also watched dwarves joust on pigs....are pigs now significant?  I think not

 

sorry if this sounds like I'm poo-pooing your idea, but they just seem so far fetched.

 

Maybe Nan is someone significant, or maybe shes just a literary device GRRM uses to give us, the reader, some background lore

[CJ McLannister]

14 hours ago, Khal BlackfyreO said:

She old...

This, basically.  She "knows" alot because she represents the oral tradition that was responsible for passing knowledge down from one generation to the next for hundreds of years.  But she also knows nothing, because she doesn't believe her stories are true.

[Khal BlackfyreO]

2 minutes ago, CJ McLannister said:

This, basically.  She "knows" alot because she represents the oral tradition that was responsible for passing knowledge down from one generation to the next for hundreds of years.  But she also knows nothing, because she doesn't believe her stories are true.

She and Ygritte should have met up and chewed the fat together.

[cgrav]

1 hour ago, Khal BlackfyreO said:

She and Ygritte should have met up and chewed the fat together.

Maybe Old Nan's a wildling. Or has Children of the Forest blood, like the ghost of High Heart.

 

1 hour ago, CJ McLannister said:

This, basically.  She "knows" alot because she represents the oral tradition that was responsible for passing knowledge down from one generation to the next for hundreds of years.  But she also knows nothing, because she doesn't believe her stories are true.

First sentence yes, but second sentence, no. I think she believes the stories. In an early ACoK Bran chapter, she says she can smell the comet and abruptly declares "It be dragons, boy".

Interestingly, that same paragraph points out that she never refers to Bran as "prince" after Robb is declared King, sort of negative implication that someone other than Bran is the Prince. Does Old Nan, of all people, know about RLJ? Or maybe she senses that the Starks will lose the North very soon?

And do we have any confirmation of what happened to Old Nan when Winterfell was taken? There's some implication that she may have been taken back to the Dreadfort, but I can't find anything specific. 

[Seams]

2 hours ago, spauldo17 said:

sorry if this sounds like I'm poo-pooing your idea, but they just seem so far fetched.

Maybe Nan is someone significant, or maybe shes just a literary device GRRM uses to give us, the reader, some background lore

I gotta be honest, I completely understand that people enjoy the series in a superficial way and would prefer not to have to think about complex and subtle details the author spends so much time laying out for readers. Thinking requires effort! You are entitled to as much poo-pooing as you care to enjoy in the privacy of your mind!

I kept a poster on the wall of my classroom for readers who were starting to get into complex texts and one of the pieces of advice was, "Good readers make predictions." So I will continue to grapple with the text and share ideas with others in this forum who enjoy sorting out clues and trying to anticipate plot twists based on the evidence before us.

You will never like my posts if you are unwilling to examine the subtext, engage in literary analysis (metaphor, symbolism, parallel construction, allusion) or otherwise exercise your brain with the feast of clues that GRRM has laid before us. I take comfort in noting that you use zero evidence from the texts for your the blanket assertions rejecting my points. My points are based on extensive examples from the books (see the links, as well). So I am happy to simply agree to disagree with you and let you enjoy your beliefs.

P.S. Pigs are significant. Are you able to enjoy that motif? I think not. Too bad, though, it's a good one.

[spauldo17]

I pray you are not a teacher of literature analysis.  I have taken many a class in analyzing literature, and what you were suggesting with "hot pies" was juvenile.

I agree that good readers make predictions, but I would add that good readers make GOOD predictions.

Your logic was basic, it was that of a child.  You said, essentially, because x was present when y happened, now x is significant.  This makes little to no sense because it applies in literally every paragraph.  When Dany's dragons hatched there was grass present, now grass is significant?  When Jon snow was resurrected a man was wearing boots, are those boots now significant?

Why in the world would Nan be assaulting arya's friend named Hot Pie?  It makes absolutely no sense and would have zero impact on the story. Not a good prediciton

[Lady Noble]

16 hours ago, Seams said:

I've been looking closely at Old Nan lately, too, and I think there is much more to her than meets the eye.

The fact that Arya uses the name "Nan" as one of her many aliases seems significant to me. That she tells people "Nan" is short for "Nymeria" seems even more significant.

I am pretty sure that Nan is either a Faceless Man or a skinchanger, and that she has been on a mission inside Winterfell for many decades. Maybe she was waiting for the current Brandon Stark to be born and then to reach a certain age, similar to Bloodraven waiting for the boy to make his way to the cave.

You may be aware of the recent discussion of Bran as a sort of reincarnation or time-traveler of Bran the Builder from the legends. If that notion is correct, Nan might be part of the same time loop or magical time travel.

Today I came across an interesting detail describing Nan in a feast scene, the harvest feast just before Theon returns to declare himself the new Prince of Winterfell. Feasts in ASOIAF tend to foreshadow death and/or represent the underworld, I think. (In ancient Celtic culture, there was a perpetual feast underway in the underworld.)

Bran watched Farlen make his red bitch beg for bones and smiled at Old Nan plucking at the crust of a hot pie with wrinkled fingers. (Clash, Bran III)

Hot Pie is the name of Arya's friend. Is this symbolically an attack on Arya's friend? But Arya's friend is a baker who would make crusts for pies. What does a pie crust represent? I think pies are very significant, given the events that unfold around the time that Joffrey cuts the pie at his wedding reception. At one point, I speculated that the author was using the rhyming wordplay of "pies" and "spies" to drop some hints for us. It would not surprise me at all if this pie affiliation is a clue that Old Nan is a spy. I think we are seeing Nan about to put her finger in a pie, here. Is she going to pull out a plum? What does it mean that a red dog is begging for bones right before we see Old Nan? Bones are very significant in the Winterfell scenes.

For awhile, I was pretty sure that Old Nan was from the Frey family: her great-grandson's real name is Walder (although everyone calls him Hodor) and she says "mayhaps" once or twice. If that is true, is she a foe of the Stark family? Freys are gatekeepers, guarding the river crossing on the Green Fork of the Trident. Is her real reason for being in Winterfell to find some kind of gate? Or to guard it? If she is a skinchanger, did she enter Hodor's mind before Bran and his group went into hiding, and is she experiencing the journey to Bloodraven's cave through Hodor?

@Macgregor of the Northmade a good case for Nan being a member of the Umber family not long ago.

Now, whether she is also the hooded man in Winterfell is very much open to debate . . . .

As you can see, I haven't put together all the pieces, but I think she's got some big secrets and will be part of an interesting twist.

This is an AWESOME theory. I, too, think there's more to Old Nan than just being old, but I love your conclusions. All I remember about her is that NO ONE knows how old she is. She's been around Winterfell for longer than anyone can remember. Also, as Hodor's great (or great great) grandmother there must be SOME magic in her blood, like there is in Hodor's. (Assuming you allow giants to qualify as magical.) The Faceless Men seem to go where there's magic or seem to be around magic so it makes sense.

The only part about your theory I don't get is the FM have had no other (that I'm aware of) roles other than to assasinate. If she is a sleeper cell it's unlike the FM we've been introduced to.

[Seams]

47 minutes ago, Lady Noble said:

This is an AWESOME theory. I, too, think there's more to Old Nan than just being old, but I love your conclusions. All I remember about her is that NO ONE knows how old she is. She's been around Winterfell for longer than anyone can remember. Also, as Hodor's great (or great great) grandmother there must be SOME magic in her blood, like there is in Hodor's. (Assuming you allow giants to qualify as magical.) The Faceless Men seem to go where there's magic or seem to be around magic so it makes sense.

The only part about your theory I don't get is the FM have had no other (that I'm aware of) roles other than to assasinate. If she is a sleeper cell it's unlike the FM we've been introduced to.

Thanks! There are definitely a lot of loose pieces that would have to be nailed down, if any of these ideas are correct. The notion that she might be a Faceless Man (or that a Faceless Man is using her as a cover) comes from the death of numerous children named Bran that were under her care and from the similarities with Olenna Redwyne (follow the link labeled "Faceless Man" in my post, above). But maybe she wasn't killing those Brans, maybe she was just waiting for the right one to come along. If the Faceless Men have been hired to kill Bloodraven, Old Nan skinchanging into Hodor could be a means to this end. (It seems like Jojen would have sensed her presence in Hodor, though, if she were tagging along. So maybe this possibility is less strong.)

The Faceless Men do seem to have a lot of secrets still - the speculation in the forum around the "death" of Balon Greyjoy and the apparent death of Pate in the prologue to AFfC, with the theft of the key connected to his death, may hint at larger roles for them. I see the Bank of Braavos and the Faceless Men as two sides of the same coin, so to speak, so I try to imagine how things involving the Bank and its representatives might provide clues for hidden aspects of the Faceless Men.

I suspect (hope) we will know more when the next book comes out.

[Golden Eyes]

17 hours ago, Khal BlackfyreO said:

She old...

dude you took the words from my mouth. That is what i said too. She has been aroudn to see lots of stuff and she tells others about it.

[Seams]

1 hour ago, spauldo17 said:

I have taken many a class in analyzing literature, and what you were suggesting with "hot pies" was juvenile.

Your logic was basic, it was that of a child. 

Boo hoo hoo.

Grass is a motif. Boots are a motif. Sorry you are too sophisticated to see them with your "many a class" under your belt, big man.

Enjoy your simple world!

[spauldo17]

Just now, Seams said:

Boo hoo hoo.

Grass is a motif. Boots are a motif. Sorry you are too sophisticated to see them with your "many a class" under your belt, big man.

Enjoy your simple world!

Did you not appreciate my word order or simply that I was stating my background?  Did you not do the same thing when you said you teach?  You have displayed an ad hominum fallacy, attacking the poster rather than the argument.  It's a classic tactic of someone who has nothing of import left to add. 

I appreciate intellectually engaging discussions on things, especially if I'm wrong, but please don't resort to the tactics your students would use in an argument.  attacking the person has no place, because it has no value.

[Seams]

1 minute ago, spauldo17 said:

Did you not appreciate my word order or simply that I was stating my background?  Did you not do the same thing when you said you teach?  You have displayed an ad hominum fallacy, attacking the poster rather than the argument.  It's a classic tactic of someone who has nothing of import left to add. 

I appreciate intellectually engaging discussions on things, especially if I'm wrong, but please don't resort to the tactics your students would use in an argument.  attacking the person has no place, because it has no value.

You called me juvenile and a child, I called you sophisticated and a big man but I'm the one attacking?

I'm glad you appreciate intellectually engaging discussion. You should try it some time.

I don't want to further hijack this thread, so I hope you will stop responding unless you have something constructive to add to the topic.

[spauldo17]

1 minute ago, Seams said:

You called me juvenile and a child, I called you sophisticated and a big man but I'm the one attacking?

I'm glad you appreciate intellectually engaging discussion. You should try it some time.

I don't want to further hijack this thread, so I hope you will stop responding unless you have something constructive to add to the topic.

"You called me juvenile and a child, I called you sophisticated and a big man but I'm the one attacking?"

In short- yes. you were using sarcasm which I'm sure you understand.  Don't be daft for the sake of an argument.  No need to pretend to be obtuse.

"I'm glad you appreciate intellectually engaging discussion. You should try it some time."

In one line you claim you weren't attacking....and then you attack.  At least be consistent.

as for adding something to the discussion... I'm still waiting for you to respond to my actual points:

Why do you think "hot pie" meant arya's friend and not an actual hot pie? Why do you think that the Faceless Men planted someone in the Stark family to relay old folk tales to the Stark kids when they are an order of assassins?

[cgrav]

I think positing these obscure motifs would be better received if you explained what you think the significance is. 

if you said something like "pies represent privilege and naïveté", you could probably find some significance. Hot Pie - well fed kid who'd never seen violence. Old Nan picking at a crust next to a lordly child, in contrast to a begging dog. Joff eats pie at an extravagant wedding, naïve to his impending vengeance.  And perhaps Frey pie fits the motif.

They seem to show up only around people who don't know something important.

as for the "red bitch" begging, that sounds like Melissandra always asking Stannis for sacrifices to establish his royalty, while privileged, naïve Bran has his royalty handed to him and sits comfortably indoors.

now I'm not attached to any interpretation here, just providing an example how an argument is a lot more convincing when its thorough, organized, and succinct.

edit: just thought that if Old Nan is a wildling, maybe it's why she won't use regal titles.