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What is the thing that comes in the night?


The South Forgets

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1 hour ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

And there were the horn and the dragonglass blades and arrowheads wrapped up in the cloak of the Night's Watch. Weren't those left by Benjen? 

Left by “a brother”. We don’t know whether that was Benjen. It does seem to be a person who either has foresight or was helped by someone with foresight. Could have been put there by CH, by CotF. I doubt it was Benjen. 

The someone who buried it there seems to have assumed the NW would know what to do with the big stash of dragon glass. But the knowledge of its use was unknown to Mormont, to Qhorin, to Jon. Nobody knew. Heck, even Edd didn’t have a clue (and he rarely is clueless). Benjen would know his brothers don’t know its purpose. 

But Coldhands who was a brother once long ago and undead for a very long time might presume the nowadays NW still knows its use. CotF might presume the same thing. 

Anyhow, this was left explicitly for the NW (black cloak left as sign who may take possession of the dragon glass) rather recently (cloak still in a good state and not decomposing) by someone who knew the NW would come to the Fist and would be attacked by the Others, but didn’t know the NW had forgotten about dragon glass. And it is possible the cloak is Benjen’s for dogs or Ghost to find easily. But the sole brother who doesn’t need his cloak is a dead brother. 

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39 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Agreed that a resolution is preferable, but notice in the story telling what Benjen’s dissapearance had as a purpose: his was big enough for the NW and for the reader to agree with Mormont’s Great Ranging to the Fist. The many times characters wonder about Benjen’s fate is in aGoT and aCoK. This ceases afterwards. If Benjen’s remembered afterwards it’s as the uncle who disappeared, but without the character wondering what happpened to him. And the raven’s “dead! Dead! Dead!” at one of the last public mentioning of him between characters seems the nail in Benjen’s coffin. 

Has the raven ever lied? Has he ever been  wrong?

The search of Benjen also shows jon’s growth. Initially Jon thinks the great ranging an awesome idea: to find Benjen, Jon’s uncle, a Stark, etc... Family over his oath brothers. When the rangers and Qhorin sacrifice their lives in order to help him infiltrate the wildlings, when he sees and learns of the events at the Fist Benjen’s whereabouts becomes a non-issue to Jon. The last time he saw Mormont and found the buried cloak Benjen was all he could think of. Afterwards he learns the Fist and Craster was a massacre.

compare this with aDwD family issues. He’s not using a faithful nw-man for it. No, he agrees to send Mance south to find a fleeing Arya... Mance who’s supposed to be dead and a deserter. Jon’s willing to sacrifice and use a deserter’s life, not a brother’s life. He is willing to send rangers out North of the wall to convince a great number of wildlings to come south, but not to search for Benjen. And when in the end he decides to ride south himself in answer of the Pink Letter, he only accepts volunteers.

Benjen was never a big character. Even in Tyrion’s POV he’s barely featured. He’s not even featured face to face in a Ned POV. Benjen appears in two Jon POVs, and he features in a story told to Bran. We might have more character insight into Rhaegar and Brandon Stark than we have of Benjen. And Jon even manages to grow up and love the NW and his brothers without Benjen being there. 

It only seems this big a mystery to the reader and Jon in aGoT, when all the other Starks still live and the sole issue north of the wall is believed to be an army of wildlings.

so, I agree a resolution would be nice, but the odds are against Benjen: not just logically, but also literary. I do like leech’s proposal of coming across Benjen in some alternative underground cave situation. Starks going underground improves their survival, that is the young generation at least. Ned’s fate was sealed in the black cells (he damned himself thrice). Lyanna died of fever while hidden (south) from the rest of the world. 

That helps. 

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2 hours ago, Megorova said:

Nymeria ate them, as revenge for killing Lady.

Though in ADWD Jon had a dream, in which he saw Ygritte, Donal Noye, Deaf Dick Follard, Qhorin Halfh, and Robb. He killed there all of them. And before that, in another dream, he saw dead Eddard.

Though he didn't had dreams in which Bran, Rickon, Arya, Sansa, Catelyn, or Benjen were dead.

So could be that absence of Catelyn and Benjen in Jon's "dead dreams", is a clue that those two are not done yet being characters of ASOIAF. And we know that Cat is a fire wight. So maybe Benjen is also something like that. So he could be Coldhands.

Coldhands said to Bran, that he is his monster. So maybe it was implication that they are related, blood related.

1) that’s why we hear over and over in aFfC how even silent sisters were raped in the RL and bones of the dead have been defiled. And this Holy Sparrow spreading the message has a cart full of “holy bones” that are first littered beneath Balon’s statue (from where Arya once witnessed the execution of her father), until Cersei herself is lured out to complain of it, and asks the High Sparrow to remove them from the square. The irony of Ned’s bones possibly ending back where they came from to taunt Cersei and lead her to make an alliance with a man who may be her undoing should not be lost to us. 

2) I do acknowledge the argument that Benjen is not amongst the dead people Jon dreams of. However, Jon does dream of people who are not dead as well. He has a dream of Bran telling him it’s safe underground in aCoK, while Bran and Rickin hide in the crypts from Theon. Jon dreams of Ned as the face in the tree at WF, and thus as a spirit in a tree, like Arya actually hears Ned’s voice at the weirwood tree in Harrenhal. 

3) even if Benjen is alive alive, or some type of wight, he still isn’t Coldhands. Coldhands is Coldhands.

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18 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

And the raven’s “dead! Dead! Dead!” at one of the last public mentioning of him between characters seems the nail in Benjen’s coffin. 

Has the raven ever lied? Has he ever been  wrong?

That's the thing - Coldhands is a dead thing. So he could be Benjen's dead body. Benjen is dead, but his body - Coldhands, is undead, a walking dead. What the raven said, only support possibility that Benjen is CH.

22 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

We do know from history that the CotF gave obsidian weapons to the Watch every year

100 daggers every year.

12 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Jojen doesn’t answer if he’s dreamed this (important omission, especially given the 3ec and that jojen has dreamed his own death) and continues his confusion over who/what the three eyed crow is... remember jojen is the reason they are headed north in the first place.

I lost you :wacko: You think that Bran's monster is 3EC?

But that's wrong, because Jojen said, that they'll go with the ranger, with Bran's monster. So Coldhands is Bran's monster, not 3EC. Furthermore, when they came to that cave, Bloodraven denied that he is the 3EC. And Benjen also didn't said, that the one who sent him, is the 3EC. Meera asked him who sent him, and then she herself added part about 3EC. So if Bloodraven is really not the 3EC, and Coldhands also doesn't know nothing about this 3EC, so when he was answering to Meera's question, he was answering only to first out of two of them - Who sent you? So a friend, dreamer, wizard, the last greenseer, all of that is about Bloodraven, not about 3EC, whom Coldhands doesn't know.

Bran called Coldhands a monster, here too: "Meera, he’s some dead thing. The monsters cannot pass so long as the Wall stands and the men of the Night’s Watch stay true, that’s what Old Nan used to say. He came to meet us at the Wall, but he could not pass. He sent Sam instead, with that wildling girl."

Bran called Coldhands a monster, and Coldhands added - Your monster.

So if you still think, that Bran's monster is not Coldhands :dunno:

Also when Coldhands said, that he is Bran's monster, he was also looking at Bran, as if the rest of them didn't existed. So could be that that was because, when he was still alive, he was Bran's uncle Benjen Stark, and thus he doesn't care about the rest of them, for him only his nephew Bran is important.

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9 hours ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Slavery - I can’t prove this one yet, but I find the “ravens teeth” to be highly suspect.

Slavery? The RT highly suspect why? Are you suggesting they were under a spell or something like that? :unsure:

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4 minutes ago, Megorova said:

That's the thing - Coldhands is a dead thing. So he could be Benjen's dead body. Benjen is dead, but his body - Coldhands, is undead, a walking dead. What the raven said, only support possibility that Benjen is CH.

No, it supports the proposal that Benjen might be a wight. But Coldhands is already excluded from being Benjen, because Bran would have recognised him. 

As for “your monster”... this is open for interpretation. It could be said to mean the same thing as when someone says “i’m your servant”. It could mean “i’m the monster you created”. And it could mean “i’m someone you need to fear.”

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5 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

You're right of course, but where the f#@& is Benjen? And why the f#@& does the author keep asking us? It's drives me nuts!

You sthould read @sweetsunray's essay on this. I had some suspicions before, although I hadn't taken it quite as far in my mind. But when I read her essay, it all made so much sense! She connected the dots I hadn't been able to connect in my head. :)

 

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6 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

You're right of course, but where the f#@& is Benjen? And why the f#@& does the author keep asking us? It's drives me nuts!

 

5 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Where the f#@& are Ned’s bones?!?!?!

THIS drives me nuts. 

Where in 7 hells are my car keys?

Why do I have to ask the exact same question everyday, even several times a day? 

Now, that's a proper Earth-shattering conundrum. :P

 

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8 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

3) even if Benjen is alive alive, or some type of wight, he still isn’t Coldhands. Coldhands is Coldhands.

:lmao:

:agree: This is a wise solution. :thumbsup: (And I'm not sarcastic. This is brilliant :)) Even if before he was Benjen Stark, then after Benjen Stark died, he is not him anymore, and thus Coldhands is Coldhands.

35 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

The someone who buried it there seems to have assumed the NW would know what to do with the big stash of dragon glass. But the knowledge of its use was unknown to Mormont, to Qhorin, to Jon. Nobody knew. Heck, even Edd didn’t have a clue (and he rarely is clueless). Benjen would know his brothers don’t know its purpose. 

I think that maybe, whoever hid that horn, wasn't intending for it to be found. And the fact that those treasures were wrapped into a NW's cloak, is not significant.

Either Val found that horn and daggers in a grave, but instead of giving them to Mance, she hid them in a different place, where no one will be looking for it, because wildlings thought that the horn is in one of the graves, so that's where they were looking, and would have kept looking there.

Or someone else has found the horn, and brought it to Val. She said to that person that she herself will show it to Mance, and they will see whether this thing is what they are looking. But instead of showing it to Mance, she hid it. And it was wrapped in a black cloak, because Val took it from Mance's personal things. Could be that he kept a black cloak, as a token, for reminiscing his past. But it's not the kind of thing that he take out to look at often. So Val was in Mance's tent, she brought there the horn, maybe Mance wasn't there at that time, but his wife was, and it was Mance's wife who suggested to Val to hide the horn, and not tell about it to Mance. So she went thru their things, took out from somewhere kept by Mance black cloak, just to wrap the horn in it, to cover it from snow, and gave it to Val to hide away.

Also maybe the dragonglass daggers were added there afterwards, they were not in the grave together with the horn. Maybe Val, or whoever found that horn, and re-hid it where later it was found by Jon, added there dragonglass daggers, because he/she was intending to leave that settlement, and to bring the horn away from wildlings. So he/she also knew that dragonglass is able to kill the Others, so for his/her journey, on which that person probably was intending to go not alone, he/she prepared weapons to arm his/her companions. Maybe Val was going to go over The Wall together with her boyfriend. And thus she planned to also bring there the horn and dragonglass daggers.

I think that whoever hid there, that horn and daggers, was a wildling. Because only wildlings - 1. are free to go amongst other wildlings, and not be suspected, when he/she was carring around that black cloak, and could have been noticed by someone, and 2. know about properties of dragonglass. Because wildlings have spears with dragonglass spearheads, and 3. knew about what that horn supposedly can do to The Wall.

Mostly I think that the perpetrator is Val, because if that is so, then we will be able to hear about it from her.

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4 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Euhm... they’re in balon’s sept imho. :P

Balon has a sept? The drowned god is not gonna be happy... :P

2 hours ago, Prince of the North said:

 

Um, just some food for thought for those who point to Martin's "No" written in the margin of the first draft of ASoIaF to the editor's question if Coldhands is Benjen: a great many other things in the first draft changed a great deal between there and what actually became the story we know;)

I'm not saying definitively that Coldhands is Benjen...but I'm just not convinced that "No" is the smoking gun, slam dunk "proof" of...well, anything people sometimes make it out it be.

 

I don't think the exchange w/ he editor had anything to do w/ that outline? I'm not sure this is what you referring to, and I'm also not sure when the exchange w/ the editor happened. But I think the two are years apart? :dunno:

 

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17 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Balon has a sept? The drowned god is not gonna be happy... :P

 

:blush: I mean Baelor of course... pfff, been s while since I discussed stuff and background names are the first I might mix up.

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7 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

:blush: I mean Baelor of course... pfff, been s while since I discussed stuff and background names are the first I might mix up.

I do that all the time! :lol:

 

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8 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

:blush: I mean Baelor of course... pfff, been s while since I discussed stuff and background names are the first I might mix up.

It happens. They are as easy to confuse as wildlings and children of the forest. 

No biggie :cheers:

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6 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

You're right of course, but where the f#@& is Benjen? And why the f#@& does the author keep asking us? It's drives me nuts!

In my opinion martin does attempt to spin a mystery about the stark pup. Sadly for for me there is no follow through. Benjen goes poof.  The stark pup was present at that tourney when his sister received her present from the Prince. And yeah, LM, I would like to know where the fuck Benjen is and whether he is dead or alive.

6 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Where the f#@& are Ned’s bones?!?!?!

Yeah, where are Eddard's bones? :bang: I did a diatribe a few years ago that Eddard's bones are in his tomb in the crypts.

4 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

It could be possible for Benjen to show back up in some way, if he does then I would suppose that could happen during a trip through underground tunnels (Gornes way?)

I like.

2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Benjen was never a big character. Even in Tyrion’s POV he’s barely featured. He’s not even featured face to face in a Ned POV. Benjen appears in two Jon POVs, and he features in a story told to Bran. We might have more character insight into Rhaegar and Brandon Stark than we have of Benjen. And Jon even manages to grow up and love the NW and his brothers without Benjen being there. 

The mystery man, Howland, who knows to much (according to ssm's) is chillin  in the swamp. I'm wondering if perhaps Benjen disappeared because he too knows to much?

 

 

 

 

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7 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

The mystery man, Howland, who knows to much (according to ssm's) is chillin  in the swamp. I'm wondering if perhaps Benjen disappeared because he too knows to much?

This is a great point, and one not brought up often enough in any "where's Benjen?" talk. 

And isn't there, somewhere, a scene where Jon thinks about some tactic that Benjen created, where rangers would shelter in one of the abandoned castles for a few nights? Hmmmm. What if he turns up at Queensgate? Or, better put, what if he is there when Morna arrives? What if this is the reason why Morna isn't in the Shieldhall? She's the only leader of the FF not present. Conspicuous as hell, if you ask me. And will she (and uncle Ben!) arrive in the aftermath of the assassination attempt? :wideeyed:

 

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20 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

This is a great point, and one not brought up often enough in any "where's Benjen?" talk. 

And isn't there, somewhere, a scene where Jon thinks about some tactic that Benjen created, where rangers would shelter in one of the abandoned castles for a few nights? Hmmmm. What if he turns up at Queensgate? Or, better put, what if he is there when Morna arrives? What if this is the reason why Morna isn't in the Shieldhall? She's the only leader of the FF not present. Conspicuous as hell, if you ask me. And will she (and uncle Ben!) arrive in the aftermath of the assassination attempt? :wideeyed:

 

Thanks.

I am liking where you are traveling.

Full disclosure, I know Morna is a wildling.

Other than that I would would need to go back into the books to find out who Jon sent where.

One thing I know, is that Stannis claimed the Nightfort.

 

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10 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

Thanks.

I am liking where you are traveling.

Full disclosure, I know Morna is a wildling.

Other than that I would would need to go back into the books to find out who Jon sent where.

One thing I know, is that Stannis claimed the Nightfort.

 

I :wub: Morna! 

“Howd Wanderer swore his oath upon his sword, as nicked and pitted a piece of iron as Jon had ever seen. Devyn Sealskinner presented him with a sealskin hat, Harle the Huntsman with a bear-claw necklace. The warrior witch Morna removed her weirwood mask just long enough to kiss his gloved hand and swear to be his man or his woman, whichever he preferred. And on and on and on.”

Morna went to Queensgate, right next to CB. To the other side of CB is Oakenshield, where now dwells the Thunderfist. Morna is a leader, and she paid Jon's blood price. She is the only leader of the FF who is not at the Shieldhall. 

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2 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

I don't think the exchange w/ he editor had anything to do w/ that outline? I'm not sure this is what you referring to, and I'm also not sure when the exchange w/ the editor happened. But I think the two are years apart? :dunno:

Ah!  Dammit!  You're exactly right!  Don't mind me, I completely conflated two different things!  That margin note from Martin to his editor Ann Groell wasn't in the early outline of ASoIaF but in the original ADwD manuscript.  Thank you for setting me straight on this:)  

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16 hours ago, Megorova said:

I lost you :wacko: You think that Bran's monster is 3EC?

Haha I shouldn’t have stated as fact my interpretation I suppose! And done a better job explaining where I’m coming from...

I don’t think Coldhands says he is Bran’s monster... I think he was answering the question about the three-eyed-crow. He had already answered who sent him (last greenseer). 

Jojen clearly calls Coldhands Bran’s Monster, but as with most of Jojen’s interpretations, I think he’s making a mistake (or rather a misinterpretation).

Quote

But that's wrong, because Jojen said, that they'll go with the ranger, with Bran's monster. So Coldhands is Bran's monster, not 3EC. Furthermore, when they came to that cave, Bloodraven denied that he is the 3EC. And Benjen also didn't said, that the one who sent him, is the 3EC. Meera asked him who sent him, and then she herself added part about 3EC. So if Bloodraven is really not the 3EC, and Coldhands also doesn't know nothing about this 3EC, so when he was answering to Meera's question, he was answering only to first out of two of them - Who sent you? So a friend, dreamer, wizard, the last greenseer, all of that is about Bloodraven, not about 3EC, whom Coldhands doesn't know.

I don’t know what if anything Coldhands knows about the three eyed crow (he clearly knows Bloodraven as the last greenseer)... I take this as Coldhands saying the 3eC is “your monster Brandon Stark.”

But let me try to tie this back into the OP!

I firmly believe that Bran’s Quest north of the wall is a crazy parallel to Dany’s visit to the House of the Undying.

Why do I think this is relevant here? Well Bran and company have passed through the mouth like door and are now “lost”, except for the directions of their guide, and death pursues them.

Bran’s Guide is cold hands, Dany’s was Pree... What does this have to do with the thing that comes in the Night? Bear with me... commentary in bold because I’m having format issues.

 
Quote

 

Sweet sadness filled the room as man and wife and babe faded like the morning mist, only the music lingering behind to speed her on her way.
 
Sam and Gilly and Baby?
 
It seemed as though she walked for another hour before the long hall finally ended in a steep stone stair, descending into darkness.
 
Like the Well leading to the night gate
 
Every door, open or closed, had been to her left. Dany looked back behind her. The torches were going out, she realized with a start of fear.
 
Can a girl be brave when she’s afraid? (Brave Dany Flint!)
 
Perhaps twenty still burned. Thirty at most. One more guttered out even as she watched, and the darkness came a little farther down the hall, creeping toward her. And as she listened it seemed as if she heard something else coming, shuffling and dragging itself slowly along the faded carpet. Terror filled her. She could not go back and she was afraid to stay here, but how could she go on? There was no door on her right, and the steps went down, not up.
 
The thing that comes in the night! See back to the OP!
 
Yet another torch went out as she stood pondering, and the sounds grew faintly louder. Drogon's long neck snaked out and he opened his mouth to scream, steam rising from between his teeth. He hears it too. Dany turned to the blank wall once more, but there was nothing. Could there be a secret door, a door I cannot see? Another torch went out. Another. The first door on the right, he said, always the first door on the right. The first door on the right . . .
 
It came to her suddenly. . . . is the last door on the left!
 
She flung herself through. Beyond was another small room with four doors. To the right she went, and to the right, and to the right, and to the right, and to the right, and to the right, and to the right, until she was dizzy and out of breath once more.
 
Coldhand leads Bran’s troop seemingly in circles...
 
When she stopped, she found herself in yet another dank stone chamber . . . but this time the door opposite was round, shaped like an open mouth, and Pyat Pree stood outside in the grass beneath the trees. "Can it be that the Undying are done with you so soon?" he asked in disbelief when he saw her.
 
"So soon?" she said, confused. "I've walked for hours, and still not found them."
 
"You have taken a wrong turning. Come, I will lead you." Pyat Pree held out his hand.
 
Dany hesitated. There was a door to her right, still closed . . .
 
"That's not the way," Pyat Pree said firmly, his blue lips prim with disapproval. "The Undying Ones will not wait forever."
 
"Our little lives are no more than a flicker of a moth's wing to them," Dany said, remembering.
 
"Stubborn child. You will be lost, and never found."
 
She walked away from him, to the door on the right.
 
"No," Pyat screeched. "No, to me, come to me, to meeeeeee." His face crumbled inward, changing to something pale and wormlike.

 

 

No one could get as stubborn as Jojen, so they struggled on through the wild, and every day climbed a little higher, and moved a little farther north.

With all that said, and as bad as it looks for Bran, or as Virgil (Dante) might say sometimes the only way to reach the light is to pass through the darkness. But for now maybe they should listen to the boatman...

I come to lead you to the other shore; into eternal Darkness; into fire and into ice. And you who are living yet, I say begone. From these who are dead.

If nothing else, do you think the thing in the dark following Dany in the House of the Undying is the thing that comes in the night?

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29 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

 

If nothing else, do you think the thing in the dark following Dany in the House of the Undying is the thing that comes in the night?

 

This is such an interesting idea!  If the Wall is a hinge on which to hang a door; is the House of Undying another hinge for that same door?

I have been puzzling over the similarities between the Black Gate and the entryway to the HoU.  The Black Gate is a ghost face hung on a weirwood door that opens it's mouth and the other door represents the same the same entryway:

When they reached the door—a tall oval mouth, set in a wall fashioned in the likeness of a human face— CoK Dany IV

So yes, the thing can inhabit the halls of the HoU and be seen at the Wall or have access to the Otherworld of both places.  Although, I think the veil has to be lifted for it to be seen.

I've wondered about the similarities of the long hall of doors both in Dany's vision and the wormways beneath the Wall; it's maze-like construction and long hallway with doors.  I imagine that the woven carpet she sees is a depiction of the magic woven into the Wall.

Pyatt basically tells Dany that there is only one door; cryptically that the way out is the same as the way out.

I don't think the Thing that comes in the night is just a bogeyman story unless all of Old Nan's stories are bogeyman stories and she only tells them to Bran because he likes the scary stories. 

 

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