Heresy 198 The Knight of the Laughing Tree

[LynnS]

37 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

There is a weirwood in the Night Fort -- and where there is a weirwood, there is a throne.

I agree about the crown, 'under the sea, no one wears hats...'

Good Grief!  Does weirwood seed paste paralyze the one who consumes it?

Quote

 

A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

He ate.

It had a bitter taste, though not so bitter as acorn paste. The first spoonful was the hardest to get down. He almost retched it right back up. The second tasted better. The third was almost sweet. The rest he spooned up eagerly. Why had he thought that it was bitter? It tasted of honey, of new-fallen snow, of pepper and cinnamon and the last kiss his mother ever gave him. The empty bowl slipped from his fingers and clattered on the cavern floor. "I don't feel any different. What happens next?"

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.

 

I've always wondered how Brynden Rivers managed to sit still for so long.

[JNR]

2 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

I don't doubt that Bob the Builder lived and built Winterfell, but whether it was 10,000 years ago and he built the Wall 8,000 years ago is quite a different matter.

That's a logically different subject, though.  All of these statements are objectively true:

1. The canon suggests Brandon the Builder existed.

2. The canon suggests Brandon the Builder lived ten thousand years ago.

3. The canon suggests Brandon the Builder built Winterfell.

4. The canon suggests Brandon the Builder lived eight thousand years ago.

5. The canon suggests Brandon the Builder built the Wall.

6. The canon suggests Brandon the Builder built Storm's End.

7. GRRM deliberately introduced ambiguity and uncertainty into everything pertaining to Brandon the Builder and reminded us of that in an SSM.

My case is that while the fans typically remember 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6... the fans also typically forget 2 completely, and are often a little sketchy on 7.

An actual case for Brandon the Builder as having lived at X time, and having accomplished Y feats, is another matter altogether, and is not a case I'm making.

[JNR]

13 minutes ago, LynnS said:

I've always wondered how Brynden Rivers managed to sit still for so long.

It helps that he has weirwood roots growing through him and no real option of moving.

[LynnS]

1 minute ago, JNR said:

It helps that he has weirwood roots growing through him and no real option of moving.

Yes, but what is the cause of sitting still long enough to enable roots to grow through one's flesh in the first place.  The bowl slips from Bran's fingers and drops to the floor.  He doesn't seem to notice.  Leaf touches his hand, he raises his hand. I'm not even sure Bran is aware of these actions, although he says he doesn't feel any differently.  That's very odd, no?  This suggests a certain amount of physical control over Bran on Leaf's part.

I'm reminded of Quaithe touching Dany's wrist, leaving a tingling sensation.  She seems to have made a physical connection with Dany using touch that allows her to come to her by way of glass candle.  

 

[JNR]

1 hour ago, LynnS said:

That's very odd, no?

You might have something there.  I don't really see any reason why Bran would have raised his hand in that situation, or why Leaf would have touched his hand, either.

He does close his eyes, whisper, and talk after that, but those aren't very physically demanding tasks. 

(Since he can talk, you'd think he would say something like "Why can't I move my arms?!" in a panic, if he were suddenly paralyzed, of course, and he doesn't.)

I'm not sure the business with Quaithe and the wrist is the same, but I think you might have something on that subject, too.  That we're told her wrist tingled is a curious detail and the sort of thing I would expect GRRM to add as a flag for our attention.

[Black Crow]

Perhaps its a sign that his consciousness is detaching from his body.

[JNR]

Perhaps, but as Lynn points out, it's definitely odd that he raises his hand.

Quote

"Excuse me, sir," asked Bran, "but before I skinchange a tree, can I go to the restroom?"

Also: If one skinchanges a tree, which has no skin, isn't that really... barkchanging?

[Black Crow]

5 hours ago, JNR said:

Perhaps, but as Lynn points out, it's definitely odd that he raises his hand.

 

Not necessarily, if it's Leaf doing the raising

[Melifeather]

17 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

There is a weirwood in the Night Fort -- and where there is a weirwood, there is a throne.

I agree about the crown, 'under the sea, no one wears hats...'

Indeed. And the pale Other that he made queen may be a weirwood. Is this what you are suggesting? I could see the analogy of a greenseer being a Night's King, and the sacrificing of children "to the wood" would also fit.

[LynnS]

7 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Not necessarily, if it's Leaf doing the raising

That's the way I read it.  That feeds right into all those suspicions about the cotf not what they seem.   When Bran raises his hand, the other singers take that as a signal to put out the torches.  "The darkness thickened and crept towards him."  That's creepy as hell. 

The darkness creeping towards Bran as the cotf come closer and closer, until all the lights go out.  I'm reminded of Dany in the HoU, when she succumbs to the voices, can barely move or speak. 

 

[ravenous reader]

1 hour ago, LynnS said:

That's the way I read it.  That feeds right into all those suspicions about the cotf not what they seem.   When Bran raises his hand, the other singers take that as a signal to put out the torches.  "The darkness thickened and crept towards him."  That's creepy as hell. 

The darkness creeping towards Bran as the cotf come closer and closer, until all the lights go out.  I'm reminded of Dany in the HoU, when she succumbs to the voices, can barely move or speak. 

 

Could this passage be related?

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Prologue

A scream echoed through the forest night, and the longsword shivered into a hundred brittle pieces, the shards scattering like a rain of needles. Royce went to his knees, shrieking, and covered his eyes. Blood welled between his fingers.

The watchers moved forward together, as if some signal had been given. Swords rose and fell, all in a deathly silence. It was cold butchery. The pale blades sliced through ringmail as if it were silk. Will closed his eyes. Far beneath him, he heard their voices and laughter sharp as icicles.

When he found the courage to look again, a long time had passed, and the ridge below was empty.

 

4 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

Indeed. And the pale Other that he made queen may be a weirwood. Is this what you are suggesting? I could see the analogy of a greenseer being a Night's King, and the sacrificing of children "to the wood" would also fit.

Yes, I agree with all of that.  In addition to the weirwood as figurative pale Other woman, there may have also been an actual woman, perhaps a Child of the Forest, involved.  I haven't decided yet whether she lured him in, framed him (the way Jaime was 'framed by the trees' in the 'whispering wood'); or whether the greenseer sacrificed her, the gatekeeper of the weirwood, in order to gain access to the 'weirnet'.  I'm seeing symbolic evidence of both in the text.

[LynnS]

6 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

A Game of Thrones - Prologue

A scream echoed through the forest night, and the longsword shivered into a hundred brittle pieces, the shards scattering like a rain of needles. Royce went to his knees, shrieking, and covered his eyes. Blood welled between his fingers.

The watchers moved forward together, as if some signal had been given. Swords rose and fell, all in a deathly silence. It was cold butchery. The pale blades sliced through ringmail as if it were silk. Will closed his eyes. Far beneath him, he heard their voices and laughter sharp as icicles.

When he found the courage to look again, a long time had passed, and the ridge below was empty.

Oh my!  It sure looks like they are related.

[JNR]

9 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Not necessarily, if it's Leaf doing the raising

So to sum up... you think that

1) Leaf, by touching Bran, established a telekinetic connection to Bran that empowered her to lift his body parts on her mental command (a supernatural power of the CotF never shown or even hinted at in myths, five books into a seven-book series)

2) Bran didn't ever think about or mention this astounding loss of control of his own body -- either at that time or later

3) The situation described in 1 and 2 is not odd

Seems to me that would be one of the oddest things in the series. 

I find it simpler to imagine that the paste is affecting Bran physically, leading him to drop the bowl and then lift his hand because it feels numb and he's testing it.  But even that would still be odd (because he never thinks about or mentions that, either).

[wolfmaid7]

14 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Could this passage be related?

 

Yes, I agree with all of that.  In addition to the weirwood as figurative pale Other woman, there may have also been an actual woman, perhaps a Child of the Forest, involved.  I haven't decided yet whether she lured him in, framed him (the way Jaime was 'framed by the trees' in the 'whispering wood'); or whether the greenseer sacrificed her, the 

That hidden signal was a genius find to add.I was telling @Matthew this a few days ago but to save time, my theory on the greenseers broad in my post to Lynn.I think by the process @JNR described the hidden signal scene indicates how the greenseers are maneuvering the WWs.

20 hours ago, LynnS said:

Yes, but what is the cause of sitting still long enough to enable roots to grow through one's flesh in the first place.  The bowl slips from Bran's fingers and drops to the floor.  He doesn't seem to notice.  Leaf touches his hand, he raises his hand. I'm not even sure Bran is aware of these actions, although he says he doesn't feel any differently.  That's very odd, no?  This suggests a certain amount of physical control over Bran on Leaf's part.

I'm reminded of Quaithe touching Dany's wrist, leaving a tingling sensation.  She seems to have made a physical connection with Dany using touch that allows her to come to her by way of glass candle.  

 

Lynn,i have longed champion the idea of the greenseers or should i say BTB with the help of the COTF are snatching bodies to extend his life and i believe the intent is to pull a V6 with Bran except Bran will allow himself to be taken without a fight because he's basically becoming sympathetic already.

I think you found the clue with the above.

I'm also going to reference my theory of the greenseers being behind the dead and the white walkers.The mechanism of how they were doing it in my mind is akin to @JNR s shadowbinding theory. 

And so  in addition i am going to jump to the post by Ravenous

[JNR]

In fact, I wonder if all this comes down to a typo that made it through spellcheck. 

Look how much more natural this bit becomes if I add one letter:

Quote

Leaf touched his hand. "The trees will teach you. The trees remember." She 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.

Now it's just Leaf signalling to the other CotF.

Also, if the word is "he," meaning Bran, then the phrase "the other singers" doesn't fit very well.  If the word is "she," meaning Leaf, it fits perfectly.

[ravenous reader]

23 minutes ago, JNR said:

In fact, I wonder if all this comes down to a typo that made it through spellcheck. 

Ha ha.  Possibly!

23 minutes ago, JNR said:

Look how much more natural this bit becomes if I add one letter:

Very true.  But is 'natural' really what GRRM is after in this supercharged supernatural moment?!

23 minutes ago, JNR said:

Now it's just Leaf signalling to the other CotF.

Also, if the word is "he," meaning Bran, then the phrase "the other singers" doesn't fit very well.  If the word is "she," meaning Leaf, it fits perfectly.

Not really.  Once he partook of the weirwood bowl, Bran by wedding the trees became one of the singers himself.

Assuming it isn't a typo, then GRRM might be trying to convey the diffusion of identity, or collective nature, of the 'hive mind' in which attribution of causality to any one entity is tricky.  I particularly love @LynnS's catch regarding the paralysis.  The sequence of Leaf touching Bran's hand followed by Bran lifting that hand also reminded me of @The Fattest Leech's idea of Bran as Pinocchio.  The image evoked is of Bran as the puppet with invisible strings attached to his limbs, strings Leaf is pulling as puppeteer in order to raise his hand.  @LmL has also come up with the idea of the weirwoods consuming the greenseers in a manner analogous to spiders who 'attack wrap' their prey, first paralyzing them with venom, then rolling them into a coccoon or mummified state, after which they inject digestive juices in order to liquefy the body, before they proceed to drain the corpse of its lifeforce.  The invisible 'string' attached to Bran's hand is both a puppet string and a spider's sticky silk thread (and the strings of a musical instrument...Bran is being 'played' in more ways than one, in addition to being a 'player').

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A Dance with Dragons - Bran II

Before them a pale lord in ebon finery sat dreaming in a tangled nest of roots, a woven weirwood throne that embraced his withered limbs as a mother does a child.

His body was so skeletal and his clothes so rotted that at first Bran took him for another corpse, a dead man propped up so long that the roots had grown over him, under him, and through him. What skin the corpse lord showed was white, save for a bloody blotch that crept up his neck onto his cheek. His white hair was fine and thin as root hair and long enough to brush against the earthen floor. Roots coiled around his legs like wooden serpents. One burrowed through his breeches into the desiccated flesh of his thigh, to emerge again from his shoulder. A spray of dark red leaves sprouted from his skull, and grey mushrooms spotted his brow. A little skin remained, stretched across his face, tight and hard as white leather, but even that was fraying, and here and there the brown and yellow bone beneath was poking through.

 

[Melifeather]

15 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Assuming it isn't a typo, then GRRM might be trying to convey the diffusion of identity, or collective nature, of the 'hive mind' in which attribution of causality to any one entity is tricky.  I particularly love @LynnS's catch regarding the paralysis.  The sequence of Leaf touching Bran's hand followed by Bran lifting that hand also reminded me of @The Fattest Leech's idea of Bran as Pinocchio.  The image evoked is of Bran as the puppet with invisible strings attached to his limbs, strings Leaf is pulling as puppeteer in order to raise his hand.  @LmL has also come up with the idea of the weirwoods consuming the greenseers in a manner analogous to spiders who 'attack wrap' their prey, first paralyzing them with venom, then rolling them into a coccoon or mummified state, after which they inject digestive juices in order to liquefy the body, before they proceed to drain the corpse of its lifeforce.  The invisible 'string' attached to Bran's hand is both a puppet string and a spider's sticky silk thread (and the strings of a musical instrument...Bran is being 'played' in more ways than one, in addition to being a 'player').

Again, this would help explain Old Nan's story referring to "ice spiders", although not since "whomping weirwoods" have I read about weirwood trees moving, but if you're relating an old story in the oral tradition many times the story has become very symbolic. The weirwoods as "ice spiders" would be the greenseers manipulating the white walkers and wights.

 

[JNR]

13 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Not really.  Once he partook of the weirwood bowl, Bran by wedding the trees became one of the singers himself.

Well, the text provides the definition of singers pretty clearly:

Quote

"The First Men named us children," the little woman said. "The giants called us woh dak nag gran, the squirrel people, because we were small and quick and fond of trees, but we are no squirrels, no children. Our name in the True Tongue means those who sing the song of earth. Before your Old Tongue was ever spoken, we had sung our songs ten thousand years."

It is synonymous with the CotF, who are certainly a different species from Bran.  The CotF also literally do sing:

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Sometimes the sound of song would drift up from someplace far below. The children of the forest, Old Nan would have called the singers, but those who sing the song of earth was their own name for themselves, in the True Tongue that no human man could speak.

But Bran never participates in this singing and is not a CotF.

Even if it's a typo, and the word "she" was meant instead of "he," we do still have Leaf touching Bran's hand to account for.  But it's easier for me to believe (1) she was just making a gesture of reassurance than (2) Bran lost control of his hand and didn't notice that, think about it, or talk about, in his own POV chapter.

I mean, imagine the following:

Quote

 

Ned produced Robert's letter. "Lord Varys, be so kind as to show this to my lady of Lannister."

The eunuch carried the letter to Cersei. The queen glanced at the words. "Protector of the Realm," she read. "Is this meant to be your shield, my lord? A piece of paper?" She ripped the letter in half, ripped the halves in quarters, and let the pieces flutter to the floor.

Ned watched, stunned, as his hand lifted, palm up, without his wishing it to do so, and beyond his power to stop!  His fingers curled toward him -- all but the middle one, which pointed directly at the queen.  "Holy shit," he screamed, "my hand is doing weird things all on its own!!"

 

I just can't picture this happening without Ned noticing, thinking about it, or commenting along such lines.

[The Fattest Leech]

39 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Ha ha.  Possibly!

Very true.  But is 'natural' really what GRRM is after in this supercharged supernatural moment?!

Not really.  Once he partook of the weirwood bowl, Bran by wedding the trees became one of the singers himself.

Assuming it isn't a typo, then GRRM might be trying to convey the diffusion of identity, or collective nature, of the 'hive mind' in which attribution of causality to any one entity is tricky.  I particularly love @LynnS's catch regarding the paralysis.  The sequence of Leaf touching Bran's hand followed by Bran lifting that hand also reminded me of @The Fattest Leech's idea of Bran as Pinocchio.  The image evoked is of Bran as the puppet with invisible strings attached to his limbs, strings Leaf is pulling as puppeteer in order to raise his hand.  @LmL has also come up with the idea of the weirwoods consuming the greenseers in a manner analogous to spiders who 'attack wrap' their prey, first paralyzing them with venom, then rolling them into a coccoon or mummified state, after which they inject digestive juices in order to liquefy the body, before they proceed to drain the corpse of its lifeforce.  The invisible 'string' attached to Bran's hand is both a puppet string and a spider's sticky silk thread (and the strings of a musical instrument...Bran is being 'played' in more ways than one, in addition to being a 'player').

 

I do tend to think Bran is becoming an actual wooden boy

[PrettyPig]

4 hours ago, LynnS said:

That's the way I read it.  That feeds right into all those suspicions about the cotf not what they seem.   When Bran raises his hand, the other singers take that as a signal to put out the torches.  "The darkness thickened and crept towards him."  That's creepy as hell. 

The darkness creeping towards Bran as the cotf come closer and closer, until all the lights go out.  I'm reminded of Dany in the HoU, when she succumbs to the voices, can barely move or speak. 

 

Also the darkness creeping toward her as the torches go out in the long hallway of the HotU, with some unseen "thing" dragging itself to her in the dark.

And Jaime's weirwood stump dream in which the flaming blue swords flicker out one by one until he and Brienne are left in darkness...with whatever doom lurks below with them. 

(Fwiw, I am convinced that Jaime and Brienne are not in the mines below Casterly Rock...they are in the caves in the North, possibly below Winterfell.

Finally, Jon's description of his  crypt dream to Sam involves some terror creeping up on him as the darkness closes in, but I can't remember the exact text.