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Bran's weirwood visions


Clegane'sPup

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And through such gates you and I may gaze at the past

The past remains the past. We can learn from it, but we cannot change it.

Once you have mastered your gifts, you may look where you will and see what the trees have seen, be it yesterday or last year or a thousand ages past.

The singers carved eyes into their heart trees to awaken them, and those are the first eyes a new greenseer learns to use…

In a year, or three or ten. That I (Bloodraven) have not glimpsed. It will come in time I promise you. But I am tired now, and the trees are calling me.

 

What did Bran see and hear after he ate the paste when he slipped his skin and went into the weirwood? He saw WF and his father through the eyes of the heart tree located in WF’s godswood. He got scared and withdrew, but later he sees more. He did not remember closing his eyes, sounds to me like he fell asleep and this is what he saw:

He saw a young Eddard and heard a younger Eddard say, “… let them grow up close as brothers, with only love between them,” he prayed and “let my lady wife find it in her to forgive…”

1)He saw two children play fighting.

After that the glimpses came faster and faster, till Bran was feeling lost and dizzy.

2)He saw a pregnant woman emerge from the black pool who begged for a son to who would avenge her.

3)A brown haired girl kisses the lips of a young knight as tall as Hodor.

4)A dark eyed youth making arrows from the branches of the weirwood.

5)Tall and hard lords, stern men in fur and chain mail.

6)A bearded man, a captive, a white haired woman. The woman slit the captives throat with a bronze sickle.

It seems to me Martin is using Bran to reveal glimpses of Stark history through the eyes of WF’s weirwood tree. Bran’s body is in the cave. His mind is seeing what the tree saw. Any guesses who those people were? And what else could Martin reveal through Bran’s gifts?

Bran’s green dreams, the visions of the future, part of his gifts is a different topic.

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It seems the visions go backwards in time, and also that they skip more and more time as they go back.

1 - Lyanna and Benjen.

2 -  my guess is Beron Stark's wife or one of the other Stark widows from the same period.

3 - Dunk and Old Nan

4 - the youth is described as having dark eyes, not hair. Seems a bit un-Starkish to me, since we're always hearing about the most Starkish looking Starks having grey eyes?

5 - Stark kings of old, since Bran recognises some of them from the statues in the crypts.

6 - a sacrifice or execution or a bit of both in the very distant past - Bran notes the heart tree is growing smaller and the other trees were dwindling into saplings and vanishing.

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@Clegane'sPup, yeah, I agree that 2, 4 & 6 are impossible to know for sure with the info we have so far. The second I think is the "easier" of the three because we know it's going backwards in time, and it's between Lyanna and Benjen as kids and Dunk being there. Bran at first thinks the girl is Arya (meaning the boy would have to be him), so she not only looks like Arya but should be roughly the same age, so let's say ~ 10. Lyanna was born in 266/267, so she would be 10-ish ~ 276 AC. Dunk and Egg will end up going to Winterfell to join the Starks against Dagon Greyjoy, and that's when Beron is wounded and eventually dies. Did that make any sense whatsoever? :lol:

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I read someone's theory (don't ask where I can't remember and it was quite a long time ago) that the woman rising from the black pool pregnant was the Stark daughter kidnapped by Bael the Bard. She gets pregnant and the child grows up to become Lord Stark.  Bael becomes leader of the Wildlngs and is killed by his own son Lord Stark in battle thirty years later.  The mother who apparently had loved Bael threw herself from the top of a tower when Lord Stark brought his head back to Winterfell.

This could be a case of Bran finding out that what the tales tell is not always true.  The mother supposedly so in love with Bael, in this vision, is declaring vengeance on him.

I found it quite convincing though don't know the timeline.  The son becomes "Lord" not King Stark so its since the time of the Conquest, last few hundred years or so.

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In addition to the common theories re: Lyanna + Benjen, and Dunk + Nan, I sometimes wonder if the sacrifice wasn't tied to the Night's King (and queen) in some way, or at least connected. We hear conflicting stories of whether the Old Gods need, want, or care about blood sacrifices in the stories, but it is clear that at least some magic can be worked through blood sacrifice, and there's no reason to doubt that applies in the North as well. It seems reasonable to assume that all the thing Bran sees that we also see - that is, that George describes for us - are meaningful to the story in some way.

For the more recent visions, like Dunk and Nan, they're relevant simply because they are present for us to see and interact with the POVs (and Hodor is possibly their descendant). The older visions, however, have to be progressively more important to stay relevant: the Kings of Winter, the history of the North, and finally something very important that happened early in the reign of the Starks. That leaves us with just a handful of stories: the Last Hero, the Night's King, and the founding of Winterfell by Bran the Builder.

It's hard to see how this sacrifice could be connected to Bran the Builder's stories, so it's instead connected in some way to the others. I'm torn on whether this sacrifice ended the Long Night, began it, or was merely part of it. The description of the woman making the sacrifice has me suspecting that the "corpse bride" was an exaggerated myth after the fact about the evil priestess queen who performed human sacrifice at the Winterfell heart tree, and possibly started a necromantic reign of terror.

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3 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

2 -  my guess is Beron Stark's wife or one of the other Stark widows from the same period.

I had to some snooping because I didn't know who Beron Stark was. This would make sense. Sooooo, this would have something to do with the as yet unpublished novella She Wolves of Winterfell?

41 minutes ago, Valyrian Spoon said:

I've seen some speculation that number 4, the dark haired youth making arrows is Brandon Snow, the bastard brother of Torrhen Stark. The arrows he's making are theorised to be weirwood arrows that he planned to use to kill Aegons dragons.

 

Thanks Valyrian Spoon for the weirwood arrow hint. Those two threads had some interesting ideas.

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1 hour ago, velo-knight said:

It's hard to see how this sacrifice could be connected to Bran the Builder's stories, so it's instead connected in some way to the others. I'm torn on whether this sacrifice ended the Long Night, began it, or was merely part of it. The description of the woman making the sacrifice has me suspecting that the "corpse bride" was an exaggerated myth after the fact about the evil priestess queen who performed human sacrifice at the Winterfell heart tree, and possibly started a necromantic reign of terror.

Not so hard, because we have some examples of justice, condamnations (or not) and executions during the saga. For the most, these are crimes (king- and/or kinslaying) with falsesofficials guilties, and trues but hidden guilties. For example :

- Cersei and Tyrion successively accused for Jon Arryn's death, but Lysa and LF are responsible.

- Tyrion and Sansa accused for Joffrey's death

- Brienne for Renly's

- Theon for Bran and RIckon, and Winterfell's destruction. 

- Craster or Jon Snow suspected for Jeor Mormont

This list (non exhaustive) show us characters who are at one moment (or all the time) scapegoat, because they are out of "normality" (social or physical) = a bastard, for example, has always "black blood", Tyrion is an "evil little monster" (as popular rumor says from him when he plays the Hand in ACOK), Brienne is a monster because she is ugly for a woman and doesn't play the woman's part but warrior's (and good warrior), Craster is a bastard-incestuous-kinslayer (Craster is guilty for many heavy crimes but not for Mormont's death) 

So, one hypothesis for this sacrifice in Bran's vision is that the man who is sacrified is a bastard, accused for a crime he didn't commit, and this sacrifice consecrated the foundation of Winterfell. According to the legend which says that Bran the Builder was at the origin of Winterfell, and probably was a greenseer, we can make another hypothesis : Brandon the builder as "raven" or "crow" (as "bird", in fact) was perhaps the real guilty (or knew who was the true guilty and protected him/her), and like others "birds characters" (LF, Lysa Arryn, Lord Varys, Euron Greyjoy, even Stannis...) in the saga, he lied about this crime. 

This would significate that Winterfell is built on crimes and lies. And could explain why Brandon says "no" when he sees the scene. 

The woman with white hair reminds me LSH, who has also white hair. I suspect here a vengeance story, perhaps a mother who killed the one she thought responsible for the death of her beloved son. This remind me what she said to Jon, in AGOT, when they met together during Bran's coma : 

 
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Jon did not know what to say. "It wasn't your fault," he managed after an awkward silence.
Her eyes found him. They were full of poison. "I need none of your absolution, bastard."
Jon lowered his eyes. She was cradling one of Bran's hands. He took the other, squeezed it. Fingers like the bones of birds. "Good-bye," he said.
He was at the door when she called out to him. "Jon," she said. He should have kept going, but she had never called him by his name before. He turned to find her looking at his face, as if she were seeing it for the first time.
"Yes?" he said.
"It should have been you," she told him. Then she turned back to Bran and began to weep, her whole body shaking with the sobs.  Jon had never seen her cry before. (Jon II, AGOT)
 

 

 
 

 

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15 minutes ago, GloubieBoulga said:

- Craster or Jon Snow suspected for Jeor Mormont

I wasn't aware that this happened at all......

There were brothers who escaped the mutiny at Craster's (Grenn, Edd, etc.) who saw exactly what happened and reported what happened when they made it back to the Wall.  I didn't think there was any confusion about it, much less Craster or Jon being suspected of killing Mormont.

Just curious, could you quote from the text about this?

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So, what does the storyteller want us to understand when we read this passage? ? The first thing to note is that the visions sequence immediately follows Bran’s ingestion of the weirwood paste, and ends with a vision of an execution that most likely is a human sacrifice, which strengthens the Jojen paste theory.

The first time Bloodraven sends Bran into the trees on his own (he had already guided Bran into the trees back in Jon VII, Clash 53, and as mentioned in Bran VIII, Clash 69), he expects Bran to simply see from the eyes of the weirwood Bran was directly plugged into...

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"Close your eyes," said the three-eyed crow. "Slip your skin, as you do when you join with Summer. But this time, go into the roots instead. Follow them up through the earth, to the trees upon the hill, and tell me what you see."

But Bran looks out of the eyes of the heart tree at Winterfell...

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Bran closed his eyes and slipped free of his skin. Into the roots, he thought. Into the weirwood. Become the tree. For an instant he could see the cavern in its black mantle, could hear the river rushing by below. Then all at once he was back home again.

He sees his father cleaning Ice...

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Lord Eddard Stark sat upon a rock beside the deep black pool in the gods wood, the pale roots of the heart tree twisting around him like an old man's gnarled arms. The greatsword Ice lay across Lord Eddard's lap, and he was cleaning the blade with an oilcloth.

And Bran calls out to him...

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"Winterfell, " Bran whispered.

Eddard clearly hears a sound, but does he hear a voice, or the wind?

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His father looked up. "Who's there?" he asked, turning …

… and Bran, frightened, pulled away. His father and the black pool and the godswood faded and were gone and he was back in the cavern, the pale thick roots of his weirwood throne cradling his limbs as a mother does a child. A torch flared to life before him.

 

Note that Leaf is as concerned as Bloodraven with Bran’s development as a greenseer...

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"Tell us what you saw." From far away Leaf looked almost a girl, no older than Bran or one of his sisters, but close at hand she seemed far older. She claimed to have seen two hundred years.

Bran's throat was very dry. He swallowed. "Winterfell. I was back in Winterfell. I saw my father. He's not dead, he's not, I saw him, he's back at Winterfell, he's still alive."

 

Does Leaf suggest that Bran can communicate with the past, but that such communication could be problematic? Or does she suggest that such communication is futile?

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"No," said Leaf. "He is gone, boy. Do not seek to call him back from death."

"I saw him." Bran could feel rough wood pressing against one cheek. "He was cleaning Ice."

 

Leaf partially explains why Bran saw out of the heart tree at Winterfell rather than the tree he was directly plugged into...

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"You saw what you wished to see. Your heart yearns for your father and your home, so that is what you saw."

Bloodraven goes further, suggesting that Bran needs to learn control, and he explains that the greenseer can see what the tree has seen in the past, because time is static for a tree rather than continuous as it is for men...

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"A man must know how to look before he can hope to see," said Lord Brynden. "Those were shadows of days past that you saw, Bran. You were looking through the eyes of the heart tree in your godswood. Time is different for a tree than for a man. Sun and soil and water, these are the things a weirwood understands, not days and years and centuries. For men, time is a river. We are trapped in its flow, hurtling from past to present, always in the same direction. The lives of trees are different. They root and grow and die in one place, and that river does not move them. The oak is the acorn, the acorn is the oak. And the weirwood … a thousand human years are a moment to a weirwood, and through such gates you and I may gaze into the past."

Bloodraven elaborates, explaining that greenseers cannot communicate directly with persons in the past through the trees (although, we will see evidence that Bran can communicate directly with persons in the present in A Ghost in Winterfell, Dance 46)...

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"But," said Bran, "he heard me."

"He heard a whisper on the wind, a rustling amongst the leaves. You cannot speak to him, try as you might. I know. I have my own ghosts, Bran. A brother that I loved, a brother that I hated, a woman I desired. Through the trees, I see them still, but no word of mine has ever reached them. The past remains the past. We can learn from it, but we cannot change it."

 

Nearly everyone accepts that the brother Bloodraven hated was Bittersteel, and the woman he desired was Shiera Seastar. There is a sharp divide between some of us who believe the brother he loved was Daemon Blackfyre, and others who believe it was Daeron II. But in any case, this is another hint at the identity of the three-eyed crow as Bloodraven, and perhaps a hint at the involvement of the Blackfyre in the coming second dance of dragons.

Bran wants to see his father again, and Bloodraven tells him that he can look where he will after he has learned to control his gift...

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"Will I see my father again?"

"Once you have mastered your gifts, you may look where you will and see what the trees have seen, be it yesterday or last year or a thousand ages past. Men live their lives trapped in an eternal present, between the mists of memory and the sea of shadow that is all we know of the days to come. Certain moths live their whole lives in a day, yet to them that little span of time must seem as long as years and decades do to us. An oak may live three hundred years, a redwood tree three thousand. A weirwood will live forever if left undisturbed. To them seasons pass in the flutter of a moth's wing, and past, present, and future are one. Nor will your sight be limited to your godswood. The singers carved eyes into their heart trees to awaken them, and those are the first eyes a new greenseer learns to use … but in time you will see well beyond the trees themselves."

 

So, Bloodraven explains that the greenseer can see beyond living beings, and now, we better understand how Bloodraven was able to show Bran what he showed him in Bran III, Game 17. Note also that all time is static for the trees, so that the past and present are one with the future, but even so, the future is obscured by the sea of shadow, and we recall what the Undying Ones told Daenerys in Daenerys IV, Clash 48, that visions of the future are “the shape of shadows ... morrows not yet made ...”

Bran is eager to continue, but Bloodraven is tired and tells Bran to patient, apparently believing that Bran is not yet ready to absorb too much too soon...

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"When?" Bran wanted to know.

"In a year, or three, or ten. That I have not glimpsed. It will come in time, I promise you. But I am tired now, and the trees are calling me. We will resume on the morrow."

 

Now, note that Bran is physically unplugged from the tree (and note that Jojen is not seen)...

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Hodor carried Bran back to his chamber, muttering "Hodor" in a low voice as Leaf went before them with a torch. He had hoped that Meera and Jojen would be there, so he could tell them what he had seen, but their snug alcove in the rock was cold and empty. Hodor eased Bran down onto his bed, covered him with furs, and made a fire for them. A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees.

Watching the flames, Bran decided he would stay awake till Meera came back. Jojen would be unhappy, he knew, but Meera would be glad for him, He did not remember closing his eyes.

 

Why would Jojen be unhappy?

The visions are dreams. Presumably, these are not inspired by Bloodraven, and Bran is no longer directly plugged into the trees, so my understanding is that Bran is already able to “look where [he] will and see what the trees have seen, be it yesterday or last year or a thousand ages past,” but since Bran has not yet “mastered [his] gifts, the visions are uncontrolled and confusing, perhaps even misleading. Obviously, the first vision involves Eddard praying about Robb and Jon. Unfortunately for the reader, Bran does not stick around to explore the relationship further...

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… but then somehow he was back at Winterfell again, in the godswood looking down upon his father. Lord Eddard seemed much younger this time. His hair was brown, with no hint of grey in it, his head bowed. "… let them grow up close as brothers, with only love between them," he prayed, "and let my lady wife find it in her heart to forgive …"

"Father." Bran's voice was a whisper in the wind, a rustle in the leaves. "Father, it's me. It's Bran. Brandon."

Eddard Stark lifted his head and looked long at the weirwood, frowning, but he did not speak. He cannot see me, Bran realized, despairing. He wanted to reach out and touch him, but all that he could do was watch and listen. I am in the tree. I am inside the heart tree, looking out of its red eyes, but the weirwood cannot talk, so I can't.

 

But maybe Bran does stick around to learn more about the relationship between Jon and Robb since Eddard resumes his prayer, and Bran feels tears well in his eyes, or maybe that was just grief for his father...

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Eddard Stark resumed his prayer. Bran felt his eyes fill up with tears. But were they his own tears, or the weirwood's? If I cry, will the tree begin to weep?

Next we see young Lyanna and Benjen...

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The rest of his father's words were drowned out by a sudden clatter of wood on wood. Eddard Stark dissolved, like mist in a morning sun. Now two children danced across the godswood, hooting at one another as they dueled with broken branches. The girl was the older and taller of the two. Arya! Bran thought eagerly, as he watched her leap up onto a rock and cut at the boy. But that couldn't be right. If the girl was Arya, the boy was Bran himself, and he had never worn his hair so long. And Arya never beat me playing swords, the way that girl is beating him. She slashed the boy across his thigh, so hard that his leg went out from under him and he fell into the pool and began to splash and shout. "You be quiet, stupid," the girl said, tossing her own branch aside. "It's just water. Do you want Old Nan to hear and run tell Father?" She knelt and pulled her brother from the pool, but before she got him out again, the two of them were gone.

We know this is Lyanna and Benjen because the girl looks like Arya, and we are told that Arya resembles Lyanna. Here, Lyanna even talks like Arya. We know Lyanna can fight, and that she must have had practice if not training. And, of course, Benjen was her younger brother. This vision doesn’t really tell us anything new, but it suggests the direction in time of the visions. The next two visions would seem to fit together since the second most likely is a vision of Old Nan kissing Dunk about four generations and 80 to 90 years ago, and the first should not happen after the second. I expect that we will recognize these visions clearly when we read “She-Wolves of Winterfell.” ...

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After that the glimpses came faster and faster, till Bran was feeling lost and dizzy. He saw no more of his father, nor the girl who looked like Arya, but a woman heavy with child emerged naked and dripping from the black pool, knelt before the tree, and begged the old gods for a son who would avenge her. Then there came a brown-haired girl slender as a spear who stood on the tips of her toes to kiss the lips of a young knight as tall as Hodor.

Our best guess at the next vision is Brandon Snow, the bastard brother of the king who knelt...

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A dark-eyed youth, pale and fierce, sliced three branches off the weirwood and shaped them into arrows.

The question this raises, though, is why insert this vision at this point in the story? If this is Brandon Snow, then those three weirwood arrows were intended for Aegon’s dragons. Does this suggest that we will see three more weirwood arrows for Daenerys’s dragons?

Here is another hint that the visions are moving backward in time...

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The tree itself was shrinking, growing smaller with each vision, whilst the lesser trees dwindled into saplings and vanished, only to be replaced by other trees that would dwindle and vanish in their turn.

The specific identity of the tall, hard, stern men in the next vision does not matter. What matters is that Bran is now seeing things from long, long ago, when the kings of winter ruled in the North...

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And now the lords Bran glimpsed were tall and hard, stern men in fur and chain mail. Some wore faces he remembered from the statues in the crypts, but they were gone before he could put a name to them.

And here we seem to have one of those stern lords prepare a human sacrifice. I don’t think the identity of the bearded man or white haired woman is important. That the sickle is bronze tells us that Bran is witnessing something from the bronze age, before the Andals crossed the sea...

Quote

 

Then, as he watched, a bearded man forced a captive down onto his knees before the heart tree. A white-haired woman stepped toward them through a drift of dark red leaves, a bronze sickle in her hand.

"No," said Bran, "no, don't, " but they could not hear him, no more than his father had. The woman grabbed the captive by the hair, hooked the sickle round his throat, and slashed. And through the mist of centuries the broken boy could only watch as the man's feet drummed against the earth … but as his life flowed out of him in a red tide, Brandon Stark could taste the blood.

 

 

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3 hours ago, velo-knight said:

In addition to the common theories re: Lyanna + Benjen, and Dunk + Nan, I sometimes wonder if the sacrifice wasn't tied to the Night's King (and queen) in some way, or at least connected.

A look back at the original post is in the reveal tab for those who want to join the discussion

Spoiler

And through such gates you and I may gaze at the past

The past remains the past. We can learn from it, but we cannot change it.

Once you have mastered your gifts, you may look where you will and see what the trees have seen, be it yesterday or last year or a thousand ages past.

The singers carved eyes into their heart trees to awaken them, and those are the first eyes a new greenseer learns to use…

In a year, or three or ten. That I (Bloodraven) have not glimpsed. It will come in time I promise you. But I am tired now, and the trees are calling me.

 

What did Bran see and hear after he ate the paste when he slipped his skin and went into the weirwood? He saw WF and his father through the eyes of the heart tree located in WF’s godswood. He got scared and withdrew, but later he sees more. He did not remember closing his eyes, sounds to me like he fell asleep and this is what he saw:

He saw a young Eddard and heard a younger Eddard say, “… let them grow up close as brothers, with only love between them,” he prayed and “let my lady wife find it in her to forgive…”

1)He saw two children play fighting.

After that the glimpses came faster and faster, till Bran was feeling lost and dizzy.

2)He saw a pregnant woman emerge from the black pool who begged for a son to who would avenge her.

3)A brown haired girl kisses the lips of a young knight as tall as Hodor.

4)A dark eyed youth making arrows from the branches of the weirwood.

5)Tall and hard lords, stern men in fur and chain mail.

6)A bearded man, a captive, a white haired woman. The woman slit the captives throat with a bronze sickle.

It seems to me Martin is using Bran to reveal glimpses of Stark history through the eyes of WF’s weirwood tree. Bran’s body is in the cave. His mind is seeing what the tree saw. Any guesses who those people were? And what else could Martin reveal through Bran’s gifts?

Bran’s green dreams, the visions of the future, part of his gifts is a different topic.

The below is a gathering of posters ideas so far.

1)He saw two children play fighting.

Most likely Lyanna and Benjen

2)He saw a pregnant woman emerge from the black pool who begged for a son to who would avenge her.

Possibly Beron Stark’s wife or one of the other widowed Stark women from that time

3)A brown haired girl kisses the lips of a young knight as tall as Hodor.

Most likely Nan and Dunk

4)A dark eyed youth making arrows from the branches of the weirwood.

Possibly Brandon Snow, the one who wanted to sneak up on dragon’s, the bastard brother of Torrhen who bent the knee to Aegon I.

5)Tall and hard lords, stern men in fur and chain mail.

Possibly one of these men that Bran remembered from his history lessons and the statues in the crypts "That one is Jon Stark. When the sea raiders landed in the east, he drove them out and built the castle at White Harbor. His son was Rickard Stark, not my father's father but another Rickard, he took the Neck away from the Marsh King and married his daughter. Theon Stark's the real thin one with the long hair and the skinny beard. They called him the 'Hungry Wolf,' because he was always at war. That's a Brandon, the tall one with the dreamy face, he was Brandon the Shipwright, because he loved the sea. His tomb is empty. He tried to sail west across the Sunset Sea and was never seen again. His son was Brandon the Burner, because he put the torch to all his father's ships in grief. There's Rodrik Stark, who won Bear Island in a wrestling match and gave it to the Mormonts.

6)A bearded man, a captive, a white haired woman. The woman slit the captive’s throat with a bronze sickle.

 

Are you are thinking that the captive the bearded man & the white haired woman slit the throat of is a man associated with the legendary Night’s King?

I kid you not; I’m not very good with the timeline business. It really does seem to me that #6 is the hardest to grapple with. Hell, before I started this thread I had no idea who Beron Stark or Brandon Snow was. So thanks to all who posted.

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46 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

A look back at the original post is in the reveal tab for those who want to join the discussion

  Reveal hidden contents

And through such gates you and I may gaze at the past

The past remains the past. We can learn from it, but we cannot change it.

Once you have mastered your gifts, you may look where you will and see what the trees have seen, be it yesterday or last year or a thousand ages past.

The singers carved eyes into their heart trees to awaken them, and those are the first eyes a new greenseer learns to use…

In a year, or three or ten. That I (Bloodraven) have not glimpsed. It will come in time I promise you. But I am tired now, and the trees are calling me.

 

What did Bran see and hear after he ate the paste when he slipped his skin and went into the weirwood? He saw WF and his father through the eyes of the heart tree located in WF’s godswood. He got scared and withdrew, but later he sees more. He did not remember closing his eyes, sounds to me like he fell asleep and this is what he saw:

He saw a young Eddard and heard a younger Eddard say, “… let them grow up close as brothers, with only love between them,” he prayed and “let my lady wife find it in her to forgive…”

1)He saw two children play fighting.

After that the glimpses came faster and faster, till Bran was feeling lost and dizzy.

2)He saw a pregnant woman emerge from the black pool who begged for a son to who would avenge her.

3)A brown haired girl kisses the lips of a young knight as tall as Hodor.

4)A dark eyed youth making arrows from the branches of the weirwood.

5)Tall and hard lords, stern men in fur and chain mail.

6)A bearded man, a captive, a white haired woman. The woman slit the captives throat with a bronze sickle.

It seems to me Martin is using Bran to reveal glimpses of Stark history through the eyes of WF’s weirwood tree. Bran’s body is in the cave. His mind is seeing what the tree saw. Any guesses who those people were? And what else could Martin reveal through Bran’s gifts?

Bran’s green dreams, the visions of the future, part of his gifts is a different topic.

The below is a gathering of posters ideas so far.

1)He saw two children play fighting.

Most likely Lyanna and Benjen

 

2)He saw a pregnant woman emerge from the black pool who begged for a son to who would avenge her.

Possibly Beron Stark’s wife or one of the other widowed Stark women from that time

 

3)A brown haired girl kisses the lips of a young knight as tall as Hodor.

Most likely Nan and Dunk

 

4)A dark eyed youth making arrows from the branches of the weirwood.

Possibly Brandon Snow, the one who wanted to sneak up on dragon’s, the bastard brother of Torrhen who bent the knee to Aegon I.

 

5)Tall and hard lords, stern men in fur and chain mail.

Possibly one of these men that Bran remembered from his history lessons and the statues in the crypts "That one is Jon Stark. When the sea raiders landed in the east, he drove them out and built the castle at White Harbor. His son was Rickard Stark, not my father's father but another Rickard, he took the Neck away from the Marsh King and married his daughter. Theon Stark's the real thin one with the long hair and the skinny beard. They called him the 'Hungry Wolf,' because he was always at war. That's a Brandon, the tall one with the dreamy face, he was Brandon the Shipwright, because he loved the sea. His tomb is empty. He tried to sail west across the Sunset Sea and was never seen again. His son was Brandon the Burner, because he put the torch to all his father's ships in grief. There's Rodrik Stark, who won Bear Island in a wrestling match and gave it to the Mormonts.

 

6)A bearded man, a captive, a white haired woman. The woman slit the captive’s throat with a bronze sickle.

 

 

Are you are thinking that the captive the bearded man & the white haired woman slit the throat of is a man associated with the legendary Night’s King?

I kid you not; I’m not very good with the timeline business. It really does seem to me that #6 is the hardest to grapple with. Hell, before I started this thread I had no idea who Beron Stark or Brandon Snow was. So thanks to all who posted.

As I suggested above, The specific identity of the tall, hard, stern men in the second to last vision does not matter. What matters is that Bran is now seeing things from long, long ago, when the kings of winter ruled in the North. In the last vision, we seem to have one of those stern lords prepare a human sacrifice. I don’t think the identity of the bearded man or white haired woman is important. What matters is that they were watering the weirwood with human blood. That the sickle is bronze tells us that Bran is witnessing something from the bronze age, before the Andals crossed the sea. 

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7 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

As I suggested above, The specific identity of the tall, hard, stern men in the second to last vision does not matter. What matters is that Bran is now seeing things from long, long ago, when the kings of winter ruled in the North. In the last vision, we seem to have one of those stern lords prepare a human sacrifice. I don’t think the identity of the bearded man or white haired woman is important. What matters is that they were watering the weirwood with human blood. That the sickle is bronze tells us that Bran is witnessing something from the bronze age, before the Andals crossed the sea. 

Thank you for the breakdown, and thank you @Clegane'sPup for posting this. This really clarifies a vision that always stood out to me but was hard to piece together. My first instinct was that the identities of the bearded man and white haired woman were important, but it's clear the visions go very far back in time, so I didn't really know where to go with it, having only read ASOIAF and none of the companion pieces. Not yet, that is.

 

5 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

I read someone's theory (don't ask where I can't remember and it was quite a long time ago) that the woman rising from the black pool pregnant was the Stark daughter kidnapped by Bael the Bard. She gets pregnant and the child grows up to become Lord Stark.  Bael becomes leader of the Wildlngs and is killed by his own son Lord Stark in battle thirty years later.  The mother who apparently had loved Bael threw herself from the top of a tower when Lord Stark brought his head back to Winterfell.

This could be a case of Bran finding out that what the tales tell is not always true.  The mother supposedly so in love with Bael, in this vision, is declaring vengeance on him.

I found it quite convincing though don't know the timeline.  The son becomes "Lord" not King Stark so its since the time of the Conquest, last few hundred years or so.

This sounds pretty compelling. If you do happen to find the OP on this I'd love to see it. Anyway I agree but I also think it's important to note that if true it also confirms the tale in many respects (the pregnancy, the Stark/Winterfell connection, foreshadowing of the later vengeance) while revealing truth buried by the revisionism of the victors. History as murky and not what it appears at first glance, a hallmark of ASOIAF. 

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8 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

As I suggested above, The specific identity of the tall, hard, stern men in the second to last vision does not matter. What matters is that Bran is now seeing things from long, long ago, when the kings of winter ruled in the North. In the last vision, we seem to have one of those stern lords prepare a human sacrifice. I don’t think the identity of the bearded man or white haired woman is important. What matters is that they were watering the weirwood with human blood. That the sickle is bronze tells us that Bran is witnessing something from the bronze age, before the Andals crossed the sea

It does matter. Yes, I agree that Bran is seeing things from long ago in #6. I agree that the bronze sickle is a reference from before the Andals crossed the sea. Bronze is a thing with the First Men, the CotF and the Pact. My problem is that I am not well versed enough to discuss the history and the timeline. The bearded man and white haired (old) woman that Bran sees through the weirwood tree could mean an execution not a blood sacrifice.

 

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14 hours ago, Wolf of the Steppes said:

I wasn't aware that this happened at all......

There were brothers who escaped the mutiny at Craster's (Grenn, Edd, etc.) who saw exactly what happened and reported what happened when they made it back to the Wall.  I didn't think there was any confusion about it, much less Craster or Jon being suspected of killing Mormont.

Just curious, could you quote from the text about this?

For Craster, I confess I made a little extrapolation : the character is known by the Nightwatch and the Wildlings as an horrible man, so he would be a perfect guilty (better suspect Craster murdered the LC and was killed by the brothers, than the two was killed by mutineers), and the survivors evoqued the possibility not to be believed by their brothers (but I can't now find the quote about this last thing). 

For Jon, I was shorter, but there is an explicite accusation by Thorne and Slynt in ASOS, when he risks an execution. Note that Jon isn't directly accused for the LC death, but for complicity in the whole plot : those are the survivors of the expedition (Grenn, Edd, aso...), most of Jon's friends, who are directly accused of lies and murder. And Benjen Stark, too. If we forget all that we know as readers, Thorne's tale is coherent and plausible. 

 
Quote

 

"I don't know what your skull is stuffed with. My lord."
"Lord Snow is nothing if not arrogant," said Ser Alliser. "He murdered Qhorin just as his fellow turncloaks did Lord Mormont. It would not surprise me to learn that it was all part of the same fell plot. Benjen Stark may well have a hand in all this as well. For all we know, he is sitting in Mance Rayder's tent even now. You know these Starks, my lord."
"I do," said Janos Slynt. "I know them too well." (Jon IX, ASOS)

 

 
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20 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

It seems the visions go backwards in time, and also that they skip more and more time as they go back.

1 - Lyanna and Benjen.

2 -  my guess is Beron Stark's wife or one of the other Stark widows from the same period.

3 - Dunk and Old Nan

4 - the youth is described as having dark eyes, not hair. Seems a bit un-Starkish to me, since we're always hearing about the most Starkish looking Starks having grey eyes?

5 - Stark kings of old, since Bran recognises some of them from the statues in the crypts.

6 - a sacrifice or execution or a bit of both in the very distant past - Bran notes the heart tree is growing smaller and the other trees were dwindling into saplings and vanishing.

Was just re-reading GoT and found this near the beginning, when Jon is saying goodbye to Arya and bestows Needle unto her.

Quote

Arya's eyes went wide. Dark eyes, like his. "A sword," she said in a small, hushed breath.

We know that both Arya and John have more of the Stark look about them than the rest of the children, so this similarity would seem to lend credence to the idea that this youth from the vision is a Stark or has Stark blood.

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18 hours ago, Clegane'sPup said:

6)A bearded man, a captive, a white haired woman. The woman slit the captive’s throat with a bronze sickle.

 

 

Are you are thinking that the captive the bearded man & the white haired woman slit the throat of is a man associated with the legendary Night’s King?

I kid you not; I’m not very good with the timeline business. It really does seem to me that #6 is the hardest to grapple with. Hell, before I started this thread I had no idea who Beron Stark or Brandon Snow was. So thanks to all who posted.

Yes, I am. I also tend to think the captive's name was Brandon Stark, because of the particular wording George used at the end of the execution / sacrifice. Given that Old Nan associated a Brandon Stark with the Night's King, this would tie things together quite nicely. A number of readers also think that the Night's King story is somehow a story predating, immediately following, or concurrent with the Long Night, instead of being separate legends from the age of heroes. I think the last scene is George showing us a pivotal moment that shaped the history of Westeros forever to follow. The way the scene lingers on it, and uses such striking imagery, and higher detail than the previous very old images, implies that it's very important. 

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