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The COTF Master Plan: Part 1


40 Thousand Skeletons

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1 hour ago, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

I feel your pain, man. It's like with, I don't know, some random example... Bran's attempted assassination. GRRM told us we'll get it resolved, we got it resolved, the pieces were put together by Tyrion, Jaime and Cersei, it isn't really that complex, one would think that that was it. The evidence of the dagger having belonged to LF isn't more complete than the evidence of Joffrey's commissioning Bran's assassination. Yet here we are. So I feel and sympathize with your exasperation one hundred percent.

I hope you'll appreciate the delicious irony, too.

I simply disagree. Just my opinion, but I think the evidence for the dagger belonging to LF is much stronger than the evidence for Joffrey being behind the attempt. Mainly because the primary evidence for Joffrey is the thoughts of our POV characters. And I happen to think that the POV characters are wrong constantly. Not 100% of the time, but a lot of the time.

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So you're basically saying time travel is an "I WIN" button. You've set up a situation in which no one can disprove or cast doubts on your theory because ... time travel (and time travel that works in a specific way, mind you).

You would have been better off trying to start your argument out with that, because without it it falls apart. I think that's going to be be a really, really tough sell.

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1 minute ago, Gertrude said:

So you're basically saying time travel is an "I WIN" button. You've set up a situation in which no one can disprove or cast doubts on your theory because ... time travel (and time travel that works in a specific way, mind you).

You would have been better off trying to start your argument out with that, because without it it falls apart. I think that's going to be be a really, really tough sell.

I didn't pick the theory out of thin air, it's what I think is correct. Not my fault if it's a tough sell. You don't have to believe me. And you can try to cast doubts on my theory and argue against the evidence. I'm just saying the specific argument that "the plan is too complicated" does not really apply if there is time travel. And yes it is sort of an "I Win" button. I think the COTF essentially end up winning but then Bran has to go back and save humanity from the COTF. Bran will ultimately create peace between humans, COTF, and the Others, which I think is the point of the series.

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Which is why I said you'd be better off trying to argue the Time Travel theory in the first place, because that's what this really revolves around. If creating one shadow baby sucks a significant amount of life force from a person, I'd hate to know what the cost of unlimited time travel is. That's far more powerful than a mere shadow baby.

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Another thought - if the CotF can time travel and do so until it gets things right, why didn't they do that when the first encountered the First Men? Do it Groundhog's Day style.

"OK guys, so the pit trap didn't work, but I have an idea how to modify it ..."

"Well, the falling rocks into the pit didn't work either. How about we put shadowcats at the bottom of the pit?"

"Herding shadowcats is harder than it looks. Sorry about your leg, but we can fix that next time"

...

"Finally! So sending dreams to their war-leader suggesting he try and gain the jump on us by leading the men into a narrow choke point flooded with ice and hiding a pit trap filled with shadowcats and pointy sticks coated with poison and then dropping rocks on them while we point and laugh at them worked. We won!"

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8 minutes ago, Gertrude said:

Which is why I said you'd be better off trying to argue the Time Travel theory in the first place, because that's what this really revolves around. If creating one shadow baby sucks a significant amount of life force from a person, I'd hate to know what the cost of unlimited time travel is. That's far more powerful than a mere shadow baby.

You may be right but I honestly wasn't planning on posting this theory at all until people discussing my thread on the bran assassination demanded more evidence. It was tough for me to decide what to put in part 1.

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2 minutes ago, Gertrude said:

Another thought - if the CotF can time travel and do so until it gets things right, why didn't they do that when the first encountered the First Men? Do it Groundhog's Day style.

"OK guys, so the pit trap didn't work, but I have an idea how to modify it ..."

"Well, the falling rocks into the pit didn't work either. How about we put shadowcats at the bottom of the pit?"

"Herding shadowcats is harder than it looks. Sorry about your leg, but we can fix that next time"

...

"Finally! So sending dreams to their war-leader suggesting he try and gain the jump on us by leading the men into a narrow choke point flooded with ice and hiding a pit trap filled with shadowcats and pointy sticks coated with poison and then dropping rocks on them while we point and laugh at them worked. We won!"

This is honestly a question I don't yet have a definitive answer for, but I'm still actively working on the theory. But GRRM has made ancient history vague enough that I think there certainly can be a reasonable answer that fits with this theory. It is, for instance, possible that they simply didn't have time travel power in the past and gained it when a particular greenseer with that power joined the godhood. It seems likely that they can only travel back to the birth of the oldest tree in the weirnet, which would cause unknown limitations on how much of history they can affect, especially if the oldest trees were cut down before they had that power.

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46 minutes ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

Bran will ultimately create peace between humans, COTF, and the Others, which I think is the point of the series.

Really? Then why is it called a Song of Ice and Fire?

As for my part, I'm not positive yet about the CotF feinting the attack on Bran, largely because I still can't see its purpose. But I'm pretty sure that they play a far more vital (and not quite rosy) role in the whole story than it appears so far.

Somebody mentioned cyvasse as the Game of Thrones and I think this is a brilliant point! There has to be two players shuffling about pieces all the time, possibly even on multiple levels: Varys and Petyr Baelish fancy themselves as players not anticipating that they are pieces themselves within a bigger game...

My point is, the Children might well be the one player - so who's the other one?

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13 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

 

I haven't gotten to this part of the theory yet, but I'm just going to put it out there that this story involves mother fucking time travel. GRRM has played around with time travel in his other stories, and the basic concept he uses is that consciousness can move in either direction through time. This seems to be how BR describes the weirwood trees to Bran. So I'll elaborate more in part 2, but to summarize: The COTF can likely send their collective godhood consciousness back in time and then use their powers (sending dreams, warging, etc.) like normal to change the past. However, since their powers are somewhat limited in scope, they can only change so much. Bran, however, seems to have the ability to SKINCHANGE PEOPLE. This is described as the worst abomination by Varamyr, and it is described as impossible in GRRM's other stories that have skinchanging. If Bran is absorbed into the weirnet, and potentially has the ability to go back in time and skinchange into people, all bets are off. The only catch is that they can't change too much of the timeline leading up to Bran, because then Bran may not exist or may not join them, and the timeline would change again, and they would lose that power.

 

is that why there must always be a stark at winterfell so they can protect the stark bloodline up until bran is born?

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2 hours ago, Moving Watch said:

Really? Then why is it called a Song of Ice and Fire?

As for my part, I'm not positive yet about the CotF feinting the attack on Bran, largely because I still can't see its purpose. But I'm pretty sure that they play a far more vital (and not quite rosy) role in the whole story than it appears so far.

Somebody mentioned cyvasse as the Game of Thrones and I think this is a brilliant point! There has to be two players shuffling about pieces all the time, possibly even on multiple levels: Varys and Petyr Baelish fancy themselves as players not anticipating that they are pieces themselves within a bigger game...

My point is, the Children might well be the one player - so who's the other one?

If GRRM told you the meaning of the title the last time you guys were hanging out I would love to know what it means.

The purpose, mainly, is to manipulate Cat. It is one step of a giant plan.

Who's the other player? Well, there isn't necessarily 2 big players, but I think the key is to look at groups of people who have crazy powers or knowledge. Until Dany burned them, the Undying of Qarth were similar in some ways to the COTF and tried to absorb Dany into their collective. The Shrouded Lord has teleportation powers and may be able to control who gets greyscale, so that's pretty neat. Then there are the maesters, who do not unnaturally extend their lives, but they do preserve knowledge through writing and teaching, thus becoming a different sort of collective consciousness. And they have glass candles to communicate via dreams, like the COTF.

The HOTU may give us a big hint at our ending with Bran. It seems the Undying attempted to absorb Dany into their collective and failed. We may see a similar thing happen with Bran, where the COTF try to finally absorb Bran and enslave humanity, but Bran in his heart decides not to give them his power and instead hijacks the weirnet and goes back in time to fix everything he can for the people he loved. But in order to do this, he must basically "replay all the moves so far" up to a certain point in order to gain his powers in the first place. He may have to kill his parents and brother, and maybe even cripple himself. You know, fucked up shit like that because GRRM writes some really fucked up shit. That is how I think the story will end (in our author's words "bittersweet") and how Bran will be the hero, in a super dark way.

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7 minutes ago, Jasemina said:

is that why there must always be a stark at winterfell so they can protect the stark bloodline up until bran is born?

I don't know if that phrase is necessarily true or if all the Starks ever have even said it, but I doubt it. If there is anything to the phrase, I'm betting it has to do with the greenseer connected to the WF heart tree. In the OP I mentioned that I think every living weirwood had a connected living greenseer. It seems that Winterfell started out as a ring fort designed to protect that particular weirwood for some reason, and it grew into a castle over time. It may simply be because there are hot springs there to keep that tree and/or people alive through a long winter.

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4 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

This is honestly a question I don't yet have a definitive answer for, but I'm still actively working on the theory. But GRRM has made ancient history vague enough that I think there certainly can be a reasonable answer that fits with this theory. It is, for instance, possible that they simply didn't have time travel power in the past and gained it when a particular greenseer with that power joined the godhood. It seems likely that they can only travel back to the birth of the oldest tree in the weirnet, which would cause unknown limitations on how much of history they can affect, especially if the oldest trees were cut down before they had that power.

So go back to a period of time where you think it's safe to say they do have this power. What would they do with this power if they had it? Would they be more aggressive towards current man, or would they try to manipulate them with dreams to work towards a goal of the Childrens' chosing? Why are we seeing them making moves now, and not earlier? If they have been making moves earlier and we're just not picking up on them, what examples do you see in the text of that?

I think this is a pretty big question not to have worked out. If your answer is 'it hasn't been revealed yet', that's fair, but I do expect to see some hints of it from Martin at this point. Some things can be hand-waved because it needed to happen because of plot, but something as big and far-reaching like you're suggesting can't come out of no-where.

I'm not trying to break your balls, and I do love hearing new or different theories, but this one I don't see any solid base for right now.

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On 24-10-2016 at 1:10 AM, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

Well the main thing that happens is she ends up capturing Tyrion. A lot of people think it is a coincidence that the 2 characters run into each other, but if the COTF control the weather, they could have potentially controlled the journeys of Cat and Tyrion well enough to the point that they ran into each other at the inn. Obviously the result that actually happened was Bran never saw his mother again, and the Wot5K was started in earnest.

Catelyn could have taken a ship back to White Harbor, instead of giong by road. Tyrion could have journeyed to Eastwatch or White Harbor and take a ship to KL. It wasn't the weather that made her stick around for over a month in KL, or that partly teleported Tyrion from Wall to WF. It wasn't the weather that kept Catelyn remain in the Vale for longer than necessary.

And I disagree with the supposition that the assassination was meant to fail. It could also have been ordered by someone who suffers from both hurbis and utter stupidity at the same time. And Joffrey is indeed a candidate. He proved it often times enough. Without Tywin, Joffrey wouldn't have lasted a month.

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10 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

Mainly because the primary evidence for Joffrey is the thoughts of our POV characters.

There is Joff's statements about being familiar with VS and smirking about it to himself as if he thinks he's smart. When Tyrion actually describes the dagger, Joff's initial reaction is in direct response to the described dagger. Joff knows damn well what dagger Tyrion is talking about. But he's grown up enough not to discuss such matters in front of the Tyrells and his grandfather (who ordered him to bed without dinner once) at his own wedding-breakfast.

Cersei also confirms motive - she reveals that Robert said something akin to "We put animals down, but not people," at Winterfell with regards to Bran's coma. And he does it in the presence of his children, such as Joffrey. And we are repeatedly informed how Joff wanted his father's approval and doesn't accept any criticism on Robert... even what Joff takes from his father's words and what he does with it, would not be to Robert's actual liking.

So, it's far more than POV thoughts on the matter.

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19 hours ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

@Ser Walter of AShwood

Please don't say stuff like this! 

There are a lot of people like me who are saving the show until after WoW comes out. Some people even DoS. Personally, I have only seen up to season 3. So you just ruined this for me.

My deepest and humble apologies (and I am not being sarcastic here), I forgot about the spoiler tags, fixed it in the post.
I'll make sure to remember that in any future posts.

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8 hours ago, Gertrude said:

So go back to a period of time where you think it's safe to say they do have this power. What would they do with this power if they had it? Would they be more aggressive towards current man, or would they try to manipulate them with dreams to work towards a goal of the Childrens' chosing? Why are we seeing them making moves now, and not earlier? If they have been making moves earlier and we're just not picking up on them, what examples do you see in the text of that?

I think this is a pretty big question not to have worked out. If your answer is 'it hasn't been revealed yet', that's fair, but I do expect to see some hints of it from Martin at this point. Some things can be hand-waved because it needed to happen because of plot, but something as big and far-reaching like you're suggesting can't come out of no-where.

I'm not trying to break your balls, and I do love hearing new or different theories, but this one I don't see any solid base for right now.

I think it's only safe to say they currently have the power and may not have had it before the pact. Particularly, I think they would have done everything possible to protect High Heart if they could have. As for aggressive moves they have been making, I think they directly caused the Long Night on purpose for one. It hasn't been revealed yet why exactly they couldn't stop the initial invasion, but I think we will learn when we learn more about the Long Night, which seems like an act of desperation.

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3 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

There is Joff's statements about being familiar with VS and smirking about it to himself as if he thinks he's smart. When Tyrion actually describes the dagger, Joff's initial reaction is in direct response to the described dagger. Joff knows damn well what dagger Tyrion is talking about. But he's grown up enough not to discuss such matters in front of the Tyrells and his grandfather (who ordered him to bed without dinner once) at his own wedding-breakfast.

Cersei also confirms motive - she reveals that Robert said something akin to "We put animals down, but not people," at Winterfell with regards to Bran's coma. And he does it in the presence of his children, such as Joffrey. And we are repeatedly informed how Joff wanted his father's approval and doesn't accept any criticism on Robert... even what Joff takes from his father's words and what he does with it, would not be to Robert's actual liking.

So, it's far more than POV thoughts on the matter.

Super good points. I personally think it may be a red herring situation, but I will point out it is also possible that the COTF somehow manipulated Joffrey into delivering the dagger to the assassin. How? I don't have a specific answer off the top of my head, but they are clever and might have figured something out.

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3 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Catelyn could have taken a ship back to White Harbor, instead of giong by road. Tyrion could have journeyed to Eastwatch or White Harbor and take a ship to KL. It wasn't the weather that made her stick around for over a month in KL, or that partly teleported Tyrion from Wall to WF. It wasn't the weather that kept Catelyn remain in the Vale for longer than necessary.

And I disagree with the supposition that the assassination was meant to fail. It could also have been ordered by someone who suffers from both hurbis and utter stupidity at the same time. And Joffrey is indeed a candidate. He proved it often times enough. Without Tywin, Joffrey wouldn't have lasted a month.

The assassination failing can be explained by Joffrey being stupid, but that implies it was a total coincidence that he picked LF's dagger. Sure you can say "it's a story" but I personally don't think GRRM would have kicked off the entire plot with a giant coincidence. It feels off.

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4 minutes ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

Super good points. I personally think it may be a red herring situation, but I will point out it is also possible that the COTF somehow manipulated Joffrey into delivering the dagger to the assassin. How? I don't have a specific answer off the top of my head, but they are clever and might have figured something out.

While I do not deny the existence of magic or manipulations, we are shown also that its power is limited, certainly when it comes manipulation of highly cognitive humans with their own free will. For psychological manipulation you don't need magic whatsoever, but have a mind like Varys or Littlefinger. So, I'm extremely sceptical to this idea, especially, since both Varamyr's prologue and Bran's attempt at skinchanging mind control are shown to be impossible on a human, unless it is a person like Hodor who is cognitively impaired... just as well as we have BR trying to "hint" and "nudge" something here or there through Mormont's raven, but still depends on people's free choice and will.

We already have what it takes to manipulate Joffrey: drunk Robert saying someone should put Bran out of his misery, just as people would do with an animal, and Joffrey having the affective empathic understanding of a peanut.  

Also, we already had a red herring regarding the dagger, and while we were being fed the red herring (aka LF's lies), we were given plenty of clues even in aGoT for which the final answer was given in aSoS imo.

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21 minutes ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

Super good points. I personally think it may be a red herring situation, but I will point out it is also possible that the COTF somehow manipulated Joffrey into delivering the dagger to the assassin. How? I don't have a specific answer off the top of my head, but they are clever and might have figured something out.

Sorry to say, but this sounds like 'fairies did it', something my sister used to say when 'all of a sudden' her bedroom was a complete mess.

I have no problems with you disputing what some people find obvious and canon, but without decent arguments, combined with quotes from the books that subscribe to your arguments, it just doesn't make sense. So please, as I asked before, show us your proper arguments and show us the lines in the books that prove them.

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