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The pregnant woman and the sacrificial victim.


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4 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

The visions run backward in time. The first few visions are fairly recent, back to presumably Brandon Snow who fashioned the 3 weirwood arrows 300 years ago to assassinate Aegon's dragons. But if one reads the passage carefully, Martin gives us a vast timeleap from there to the white haired woman making the sacrifice. He notes that the weirwood grows smaller and smaller (note the bolded part below).

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

And while the tree grows ever smaller, Bran has other visions that we aren't given detail of, but which involve old Kings in the North from long before Torhenn knelt. And only at the very end do we get the vision of the human sacrifice. We can safely say this is many thousands of years ago, and quite possibly may represent the very founding of Winterfell. Perhaps the first sacrifice that "activated" the Winterfell Heart Tree. Perhaps the first Stark who was sacrificed to bond the Tree to the Stark bloodline for everafter? Or perhaps a defeated rival petty King, who was sacrificed to power the spell which bound the Starks to the Winterfell tree? Or perhaps some other dark mystery that lies at the beginning of the mystical Stark backstory.

Spot on!  This moment represents the beginning of greenseeing (at least for the Stark family), the moment conferring the greenseeing power on Brandon Stark (our Bran -- although I also believe, due to the ambiguous wording of the passage, that the sacrificed captive is named 'Brandon Stark' and he is the first greenseer at Winterfell).  That's why Bran can taste the blood so vividly -- firstly, because he's in the heart tree, which drinks and/or remembers drinking the blood; secondly, because the blood welling up in his mouth in the moment of having his throat cut is tasted by the dying captive, and thereby via telepathic connection by Bran, who I postulate is the man's ancestor (akin to Dany tasting the 'taste of molten gold' when her brother Viserys dies); and thirdly, because the 'red tide' flowing from the man is the same red tide of 'wolfsblood' flowing in Bran's veins.  Maybe @GloubieBoulga can help us sort out the details.  She tells me it involves a bastard, a bear, a boar, a wolf, and a bird (and a woman of course)...something like that!

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Personally I believe in the "Bran spiritual time traveler" theory. Meaning that I think Bran will have the power to affect the past through his magic, probably limited to the bloodline that runs through the Winterfell Heart Tree. In that way I believe he was Brandon the Builder himself. And the fact that Bran tastes the blood himself seems to hint that Bran himself may have had a hand in the sacrifice.

Or at least has benefited from the sacrifice.  I'm not sure our Bran Stark = Bran the Builder.  I don't think so.  Bran the Builder = Azor Ahai = Night's King archetype.  Our Bran Stark = the Last Hero archetype.  

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So perhaps he directed the white haired woman - a distant ancestor of his, perhaps -  to make the sacrifice, to seal the link between the Starks and the Tree for all eternity.

We won't know for sure until it is revealed, as the possibilities are myriad, but I think it will be revealed as a highly significant event about the Stark origins.

Absolutely.

Why does she have white hair?  I don't think it's because she's old.  Is she albino like Bloodraven?  Does she have Targaryen/Valyrian ancestry?  Blackwood?  Bracken?  Does her name rhyme with Melissa?  Nissa?  COTF heritage...'snowy locks'..?...You guys will have to help me out.  I am useless with the timeline!

'Under the sea, the crows are white as snow; I know I know, oh oh oh...'  She is a white crow.  

4 hours ago, Vaedys Targaryen said:

Perhaps she was raped and wants her son to avenge her?

I think this is correct, although I have no proof!  I also think she has something to do with the creation or summoning of the Others.  The emergence, without apparently entering, from the cold, black pool is associated with the Others symbolically, according to certain indications I've found.

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3 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Why does she have white hair?  I don't think it's because she's old.  Is she albino like Bloodraven?  Does she have Targaryen/Valyrian ancestry?  Blackwood?  Bracken?  Does her name rhyme with Melissa?  Nissa?  COTF heritage...'snowy locks'..?...You guys will have to help me out.  I am useless with the timeline!

'Under the sea, the crows are white as snow; I know I know, oh oh oh...'  She is a white crow.  

I think this is correct, although I have no proof!  I also think she has something to do with the creation or summoning of the Others.  The emergence, without apparently entering, from the cold, black pool is associated with the Others symbolically, I think.

Possibly she is the parrallel to the white lion Moqorro? Dany is probably going to be spilling a lot of blood in TWOW. George did say that by the end of ADWD she has embraced her family words, so :dunno:

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26 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

 

Possibly she is the parrallel to the white lion Moqorro? Dany is probably going to be spilling a lot of blood in TWOW. George did say that by the end of ADWD she has embraced her family words, so :dunno:

I think we're seeing the unification of fire and ice, dragon and tree in this brutal seminal moment.

You mean Dany as 'white lion'?  (indeed, she is a white lion-Other figure enveloped in her 'hrakkar' skin like the mane of a male lion!)  Could this mysterious white-haired lady be a female greenseer?  What is she doing at Winterfell?  Did you see my parallel over on @40 Thousand Skeletons's thread about Dany's 'taste of molten gold', between the Dany-Viserys and Bran-captive tableaux?  There are marked similarities.  Many readers mistakenly assume Jon is Dany's foil -- but it's Bran vs. Dany, with Jon caught between them.

What's your interpretation of the 'Crone who had let the first raven into the world when she peered through the door of death (ASOS -- Catelyn I)?  Sacrificing someone to the weirwood simultaneously carves the red smile 'ear to ear' on the captive and the tree, thereby activating the weirwood or 'opening the door' to the underworld, releasing the raven = 'Bran' in the process!  Perhaps the dragon went into the tree, the raven went out.  Are ravens related to the Others?  

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2 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

I think we're seeing the unification of fire and ice, dragon and tree in this brutal seminal moment.

You mean Dany as 'white lion'?  (indeed, she is a white lion-Other figure enveloped in her 'hrakkar' skin like the mane of a male lion!)  Could this mysterious white-haired lady be a female greenseer?  What is she doing at Winterfell?  Did you see my parallel over on @40 Thousand Skeletons's thread about Dany's 'taste of molten gold', between the Dany-Viserys and Bran-captive tableaux?  There are marked similarities.  Many readers mistakenly assume Jon is Dany's foil -- but it's Bran vs. Dany, with Jon caught between them.

Oh, I agree that this fire and ice thing is going to be about Bran and Dany. Jon will do his thing, but Bran is where it is at!

There is not much more I can say just yet without spoiling what I have been writing up for BC, but the "warmth calls to warmth" concept will come in to play in the next book and will broaden the gap in the two elements. (Oh, and Mel is using trickery when she says that)

I get the taste of blood, taste of gold comparison- blood of the three and "dragon" alchemy bonding blood. I think it is rather clever because it shows the dichotomy of the ice and the fire. I dig it. To me (and this is going to be an unpopular idea) I do see a difference in the ice vs fire concept. They share many similar traits on the surface, but I see elements and objects in each side being used differently.

 

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3 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

what I have been writing up for BC

What's the title of the essay?

4 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I do see a difference in the ice vs fire concept. They share many similar traits on the surface, but I see elements and objects in each side being used differently.

Tell us more.  These days, when I discuss it with @LmL, I can't tell 'frozen fire' and 'burning ice' apart!  Ha ha.

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14 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

I think we're seeing the unification of fire and ice, dragon and tree in this brutal seminal moment.

You mean Dany as 'white lion'? 

 

Moqorro is also described as a white lion because of his looks. His crazy white hair/beard combo and burnt black skin. He is going to find his fire goddess. Dany is too with her hrakkar. And when Tyrion joins them, Dany will have her pride, and her pride.

... but I don't really want to make this thread about Dany and fire. I think what @Free Northman Reborn said is spot on, and I think Moqorro is going to Dany for a similar blood ritual thingy.

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2 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

What's the title of the essay?

Not sure yet, but it is about the Citadel.

2 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Tell us more.  These days, when I discuss it with @LmL, I can't tell 'frozen fire' and 'burning ice' apart!  Ha ha.

Hahaha. I know what you mean. Sometimes I can set my own head to spinning trying to connect and then decode this damned series! As soon as I think I "got" certain aspects, I pet my cat and it flies out of my head and then I have to start over. 

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7 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I think Moqorro is going to Dany for a similar blood ritual thingy.

He's going to sacrifice someone?

7 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

.. but I don't really want to make this thread about Dany and fire.

Rather not... :P  The mods are quick to arbly censor such threads (signed, Renowned-Dany- hater-it is known!)

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7 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Not sure yet, but it is about the Citadel.

Hahaha. I know what you mean. Sometimes I can set my own head to spinning trying to connect and then decode this damned series! As soon as I think I "got" certain aspects, I pet my cat and it flies out of my head and then I have to start over. 

It's all part of George's diabolical plan to ensure 'dead men sing songs' forever!

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Just now, ravenous reader said:

He's going to sacrifice someone?

Rather not... :P  The mods are quick to to arbly censor such threads(signed,Renowned-Dany hater-it is known!)

I think Dany will by "instinct" as she did when she hatched her dragonlettes. I think he is going there as an agent of R'hollor to witness/assist/whatever his new goddess on earth figurehead.

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2 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I think Dany will by "instinct" as she did when she hatched her dragonlettes. I think he is going there as an agent of R'hollor to witness/assist/whatever his new goddess on earth figurehead.

Yawn (how come there's no yawning emoticon?!)  That sounds a bit underwhelming...;)

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8 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Yawn (how come there's no yawning emoticon?!)  That sounds a bit underwhelming...;)

No, there's more, but this ain't the Dany show type of thread to get in to it.

(and yeah, there are like 10 more emoji's I neeed!)

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2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Maybe @GloubieBoulga can help us sort out the details.  She tells me it involves a bastard, a bear, a boar, a wolf, and a bird (and a woman of course)...something like that!

I think I will translate my essay about the Others, because by writing it and analysing the details, I have found many things about all that. 

Reading the title of the thread, I believed first it was about Dany sacrificing his child Rhaego for Drogo's life ! But there is imo a strong thematic link, because Mirri is calling for "shadows" and visibly she "paid" the shadows with Rhaego's life, and I wonder if there wasn't a "boy" anciently promised to the death, but who escaped by sacrificing the wrong person/the wrong boy. There is this quote from ADWD which suggests same kind of event (The Prince of WInterfell, ADWD): 

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A leaf drifted down from above, brushed his brow, and landed in the pool. It floated on the water, red, five-fingered, like a bloody hand. "… Bran," the tree murmured.
They know. The gods know. They saw what I did. And for one strange moment it seemed as if it were Bran's face carved into the pale trunk of the weirwood, staring down at him with eyes red and wise and sad. Bran's ghost, he thought, but that was madness. Why should Bran want to haunt him? He had been fond of the boy, had never done him any harm. It was not Bran we killed. It was not Rickon. They were only miller's sons, from the mill by the Acorn Water. "I had to have two heads, else they would have mocked me … laughed at me … they …"

 

Could it be that the Others were looking for their right price for all this time ? Same question about Gilly's and Craster's child. 

For the sacrificed man at WInterfell, yes I think this is a bastard with wolfblood : it is suggested by the black pool at the feet of the weirwood (the black is the color of the bastard blood, symbollically, as it is repeated in the serie), the fact that there must be always a "Stark" at Winterfell (perhaps one reason is to keep the "wolfblood" by "impregnation"; but I think this is not the only reason)

And for the pregnant woman, so... looking for other pregnant women in the serie helps to do hypothesis, not for the character herself but for why she appears in Bran's vision and what is her signification in the whole vision : we have 3 pregnant women, Dany who sacrifices her boy; Dalla, whom boy is saved by Jon and Gilly; and Gilly, who saves her boy (but after that, she is forced to let the boy at the Wall and saves Dalla's boy). But Jon knows nothing, and if we look attentively, Dany's and Gilly's boys were both promised to shadows. It seems it wasn't the case for Dalla's boy. PErhaps the "king's blood" is far less important than the "promised blood". To add some common point with the pregnant woman at Winterfell, Dany's boy - before being promised to shadows - was promised to avenge his mother and to be the "stallion that mount the world". So the other question could be : what kind of promise made the pregnant woman to the "old gods" by bathing in the cold black pool, what was she ready to pay for having a baby boy ? Was it her own life ? 

(all that makes me think to the price that the Faceless Men are requiring for the death)

 
 
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There is something in this series of GRRM which worries me. The main characters Jon, Daenerys and Tyrion have been all born taking their mother's life. In Jon's case, an insane number of people died in relation with his coming. There is this notion of blood price for life. Something paid for the dragons too.

R'hollor and blood mages are talking a lot of sacrifices and offerings. But I don't think GRRM meant it a right, glory thing. I understand sacrificing oneself or what is your most dear to the benefit of others. But sacrificing someone, who is nothing for you, for your own excessive benefit is plainly wrong.

Of course, there is violence there and there, people killing others and thanking their goods by offering their enemies. But I rather believe it is less a demand by the Old Gods, a practice by the Children. The kin slaying ban seems to suggest that. The "Blood Betrayal" too.

What Bran saw needs context. What did the man before? Was it worst than beheading a criminal? Who were this man and woman?

And who is the pregnant woman? If the one after (before in time) is young "Old Nan" and Dunk. Who is the other woman? Rickard's mother, grand mother? And to avenge from what?

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On 6/16/2017 at 10:35 AM, Widowmaker 811 said:

I'm not ready to write off Bloodraven as a bad guy.  His personal history shows a dedicated man who served the royal family.  But I have to ask.  What was the reason for showing Bran these visions? 

I don't think Bloodraven chose the visions- those come from the weirnet and from Bran himself.

On 6/16/2017 at 10:35 AM, Widowmaker 811 said:

  Who was the pregnant woman and who was her enemy?

I would guess, from her place in the apparent reversed chronology of Bran's visions, that she is from the era of consolidation of Stark power in the North. My guess is that her foe is a Red King of the Dreadfort, although the Warg Kings, Barrow Kings, and even Kings Beyond the Wall could also fill the role.

On 6/16/2017 at 10:35 AM, Widowmaker 811 said:

  What is the significance of the human sacrifice to the current story?  

Power from blood. 

"Fool's blood, king's blood, blood on the maiden's thigh..." ASoS

Even burnt blood.

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1 hour ago, BalerionTheCat said:

There is something in this series of GRRM which worries me. The main characters Jon, Daenerys and Tyrion have been all born taking their mother's life. In Jon's case, an insane number of people died in relation with his coming. There is this notion of blood price for life. Something paid for the dragons too.

R'hollor and blood mages are talking a lot of sacrifices and offerings. But I don't think GRRM meant it a right, glory thing. I understand sacrificing oneself or what is your most dear to the benefit of others. But sacrificing someone, who is nothing for you, for your own excessive benefit is plainly wrong.

Of course, there is violence there and there, people killing others and thanking their goods by offering their enemies. But I rather believe it is less a demand by the Old Gods, a practice by the Children. The kin slaying ban seems to suggest that. The "Blood Betrayal" too.

What Bran saw needs context. What did the man before? Was it worst than beheading a criminal? Who were this man and woman?

And who is the pregnant woman? If the one after (before in time) is young "Old Nan" and Dunk. Who is the other woman? Rickard's mother, grand mother? And to avenge from what?

If the Starks are the children of the Bloodstone emperor as Bowen Marsh suggested, then the resolution to the issue is for the children of the Amethysts Empress to take revenge and kill the Starks.  Or at least one of them.  That will right the seasons.

4 hours ago, Bowen Marsh said:

The white-haired woman could be the clue that the Starks descended from the line of the Bloodstone Emperor.  Their betrayal angered the Gods and they were banished to this frozen hell hole. 

Perhaps.  They're fated to guard the gates to the realm and hold back the Others.  That is why there must always be a Stark in Winterfell.  It is their punishment.

 

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I didn't read any of the thread except for the OP, but it is pretty obvious why BR sent Bran visions actually. ;) 

The point of sending Bran (and Jojen) visions is to get Bran to join the weirnet in the same exact manner that BR did. BR may be a "good guy", but it sure seems like the Old Gods who live inside the weirnet are assholes. BR likely started receiving powerful visions from the nefarious weirnet after having his eye stabbed out, so we should assume that all of his actions after the first Blackfyre Rebellion were directly influenced by the weirnet. He probably got sent to the Wall on purpose. And then he ventured north and joined the COTF in their cave, where they joined him to the weirnet, just like they have done to every greenseer ever. And now they are in the process of doing the same thing to Bran. And it is likely that once absorbed into the weirnet, a greenseer loses control of their own mind, and they effectively become a slave inside a living hell. So at this point in his life, BR may have no choice in his actions. He may may under the direct control of an older, more powerful greenseer. Like maybe the one buried down in the crypts at Winterfell. :smoking: 

The point of human sacrifice to the Old Gods from a basic plot standpoint, I think, is that "souls" are absorbed into the weirnet if a person's blood is absorbed into weirwood roots, making the weirnet more powerful. We see the floor of the COTF cave littered with bones. And it is implied that all the dead COTF skinchangers are living infinite "second lives" (Varamyr-style) inside all the ravens (and mayhaps other animals, but definitely ravens), and this is probably facilitated by having had their blood absorbed by the weirnet upon death, hence their bones being all about.

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13 minutes ago, Agents of Fortune said:

If the Starks are the children of the Bloodstone emperor as Bowen Marsh suggested, then the resolution to the issue is for the children of the Amethysts Empress to take revenge and kill the Starks.  Or at least one of them.  That will right the seasons.

Maybe. But the children of the Bloodstone could be the Valyrians. It was them with the magic and the dragons. And the First Men who came to Westeros before the Long Night, those who fled the Bloodstone.

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3 minutes ago, BalerionTheCat said:

It was them with the magic and the dragons.

Fire magic. Also it seems weird how they got their magic.

4 minutes ago, BalerionTheCat said:

And the First Men who came to Westeros before the Long Night, those who fled the Bloodstone.

Yet the First Men also have magic and it would seem that maybe their power has a more wide variety. 

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