Dragon sighting at Winterfell?!?

[LordNedsHead]

I was just finishing up a reread of ACoK when I read over something I have never noticed before int he very last chapter of the book. It occurs during Bran's wolf dream. Bran/Summer looks up into the sky and sees something pretty funky. Here are a few lines of the chapter describing what he sees. " The smoke and ash clouded his eyes, and in the sky he saw a great winged snake whose roar was a river of flame. He bared his teeth, but then the snake was gone. Behind the cliffs tall fires were eating up the stars."
WTF? I can't believe I've never noticed this before. I always just assumed that Winterfell was put to the torch by Ramsey Bolton. Reading further into the chapter I found these lines describing the state of Winterfell. "They stood in the shadow of the First Keep, or what remained of it. One whole side of the building had torn loose and fallen away. Stone and shattered gargoyles lay strewn across the yard."
This seems like a hell of alot of destruction for a band of a few hundred men. Granted the First Keep is already mostly in ruin, but Winterfell was built by Bran the builder who was rumored to be the master of architectural techniques long forgotten. Now that I'm more carefully considering this scene, it just strikes me as unlikely that raiders from the Dread Fort would be capable of this type of destruction in the short time they were at Winterfell. Setting a fire strong enough to bring down the stone walls of a castle seems implausible. Moving quickly like they must have to reach Winterfell in time, it is unlikely they had and seige engines bing enough to do the job either. Martin says Rodrik Cassel had none with him either so Ramsey couldn't have used those.
I realize I'm probably falling victim to the malady of having too much time on my hands while waiting for the next book to come out, but something here doesn't add up. Bran's previous wolf dreams were filled with "wolfy" descriptions for things unnatural to wolves. Manrock for castles, man-claws for swords, hardskin for armor, but I don't think there are any examples of symbolism in Bran's wolf dreams. So if the "winged snake" wasn't a dragon it had to be something else that Summer interpreted as such. I can't come up with any other likely possibilities.
Does anyone have any further info or ideas they can offer? I know its far fetched to say a dragon attacked Winterfell right after it was sacked(unless ramsey has something to do with the ubiquitos stone dragon which again seems a bit absurd) but it seems reaaly strange for George to use that description of what Bran/Summer saw.

[The_BlauerDragon]

[quote name='LordNedsHead' post='1757417' date='Apr 16 2009, 11.46']I know its far fetched to say a dragon attacked Winterfell right after it was sacked(unless ramsey has something to do with the ubiquitos stone dragon which again seems a bit absurd) but it seems reaaly strange for George to use that description of what Bran/Summer saw.[/quote]
Here's a thought. Do we know if Martin's Dragons can Hybernate? If so, for how long? Could it be that there was a Dragon sealed inside (or beneath) part of Winterfell that was awakened and set free by the fires? Also, could it be that there was an egg, and that Ramsey burning so many living people in those flames might have accidentally hatched it?

[Warden of the MidWest]

[quote name='the Blauer Dragon' post='1757430' date='Apr 16 2009, 14.52']Here's a thought. Do we know if Martin's Dragons can Hybernate? If so, for how long? Could it be that there was a Dragon sealed inside (or beneath) part of Winterfell that was awakened and set free by the fires? Also, could it be that there was an egg, and that Ramsey burning so many living people in those flames might have accidentally hatched it?[/quote]

I don't think it would be an egg, considering how long it took Dany's dragons to get to the point of flight a new hatchling would not likely be able to fly that soon, although the theories of a full grown dragon beneath Winterfell contributing to the geothermal heat that warms the castle are interesting. The only problem is how did it get there. The Starks have no known ties to Valyria and nothing suggested that they had any ties to the Targs, except with the possible Lyanna and Rhaegar which took place after Dragons were extinct. interesting...

[The_BlauerDragon]

[quote name='Warden of the MidWest' post='1757436' date='Apr 16 2009, 11.58']I don't think it would be an egg, considering how long it took Dany's dragons to get to the point of flight a new hatchling would not likely be able to fly that soon, although the theories of a full grown dragon beneath Winterfell contributing to the geothermal heat that warms the castle are interesting. The only problem is how did it get there. The Starks have no known ties to Valyria and nothing suggested that they had any ties to the Targs, except with the possible Lyanna and Rhaegar which took place after Dragons were extinct. interesting...[/quote]
It could have been quite small, and simply appeared in the dream as it was going to grow to be.
The Dragon beneath Winterfell is easier to explain. To my knowledge, Winterfell was built after the first war for the dawn. If the ties between the Others and Dragons are as strong as they seem to be, it is logical to assume that Dragons might have been in that war too. Maybe the Dragon's name was R'hllor!

[Aplomb]

That's always been a WTF to me too. Also, later in the same chapter after Hodor busts them out of the crypts, Osha says "we made noise enough to wake a dragon." Obviously that's just a figure of speech, but it calls back to what Summer saw.

It might have been a pillar of smoke and flame that momentarily resembled a winged snake, I suppose, if we don't hear about any northern dragons for the rest of the series.

[Jojen's Ghost]

It was just smoke. This is what happens when wolves try to be poetic. :stunned:

[iheartseverus]

Interesting thread! Now, as to how the Stark dragon got down there under Winterfell, perhaps its similar to situation with the dragon under Gringott's Bank in Hogsmeade. The dragon was there first--the bank was built on top of it!

I love the idea of the Stark dragon providing the geothermal heat for the castle. LOL, if the Starks' motto is 'Winter Is Coming,' then their dragon's motto should be 'Not While I'm Here!' :P

[Winter Crow]

:o ....

Oh... By the moon... How did I not ever, EVER, notice this? HOW?! ARGH! My mind is bursting! Bobling! This is soooooo freakin' weird!
Alright, sorry for that... Slight overreaction. This is amazing! The idea of a Dragon providing the hot spring warmth of Winterfell is freakin' awesome. And Blauer, I love your idear of a hybernating Dragon. It could easily make sense (if dragons in Martinworld do hybernate, that is).
Well, if this is true, and let's face it, we don't have a lot of evidence, the plot just became a thousand times more interresting to me. Re-read ACoK I must!

[The_BlauerDragon]

[quote name='iheartseverus' post='1757462' date='Apr 16 2009, 12.31']Interesting thread! Now, as to how the Stark dragon got down there under Winterfell, perhaps its similar to situation with the dragon under Gringott's Bank in Hogsmeade. [b]The dragon was there first[/b]--the bank was built on top of it!

I love the idea of the Stark dragon providing the geothermal heat for the castle. LOL, if the Starks' motto is 'Winter Is Coming,' then their dragon's motto should be 'Not While I'm Here!' :P[/quote]
That's along the lines of what I was thinking. Kind-of brings new meaning to that line the Night's Watch has about the Horn that Wakes The Sleeper, doesn't it? Also adds perspective to Mel's whole desire to use fire to wake a Dragon from stone. Could be that the recipe for waking this Dragon was passed down through the followers of R'hllor but the context and the exact location got lost in translation somewhere along the way.

[EDIT] Think of it this way. Mel says that her God is light and fire. We have many examples of the saying "Dragons are fire made flesh". [/EDIT]

[Aplomb]

The main thing that gets in the way of the possibility of a literal dragon, to my mind, is the fact that Bran didn't wake up and tell the others, "Holy crap, there was a freakin' dragon out there!" He seemed to remember the rest of it alright.

[Guest Other-in-law]

Not to mention that the dragon rumours are flying around Westeros....all from Dany, half a world away, but oddly enough not a single peep out of the much closer North. And no, the aFfC split doesn't explain that at all, there was all of aSoS for Northern dragon talk to spread, if there was any.

It's just a function of Summer's limited vocabulary, like "hardskin" for armour, and "stone caves" for castles.

[Winter Crow]

I'm afraid Other-in-Law has a good point. But hey, a guy can dream eh? :P

Personally I think it's great. I really dig your idea Blauer Dragon, about how the "resting places" of dormant dragons may have been forgotten. Perhaps the "stone dragon" of Dragonstone is merely a dragon sleeping beneath the rock-surface of the island?

[cybroleach]

[quote name='Other-in-law' post='1757493' date='Apr 16 2009, 16.14']It's just a function of Summer's limited vocabulary, like "hardskin" for armour, and "stone caves" for castles.[/quote]
You know on my last couple of rereads it occurs to me how inconsistent GRRM is with these 'wolf dreams' half the time there thoughts are clear as day then next dream it's all vague with Hardskin snake breathing fire stuff. :tantrum:

[LordNedsHead]

Smoke shaped like a dragon is certainly a possiblity and its immediately what I assumed Martin was getting at. But after rereading the paragraph several times it really seems like very crude imagery. Summer looks through the smoke and ashes to see..more smoke shaped like a dragon? In my opinion Martin is much to good of a wordsmith (and too painstaking meticulous with his penchant for rewrites) to allow something this clumsy in the finished work.
And assuming it was just a puff of smoke it still doesn't account for the wholesale destruction portions of Winterfell had undergone when Bran's crew emerged from the crypts.

[iheartseverus]

[quote name='LordNedsHead' post='1757641' date='Apr 16 2009, 18.59']Smoke shaped like a dragon is certainly a possiblity and its immediately what I assumed Martin was getting at. But after rereading the paragraph several times it really seems like very crude imagery. Summer looks through the smoke and ashes to see..more smoke shaped like a dragon? In my opinion Martin is much to good of a wordsmith (and too painstaking meticulous with his penchant for rewrites) to allow something this clumsy in the finished work.
And assuming it was just a puff of smoke it still doesn't account for the wholesale destruction portions of Winterfell had undergone when Bran's crew emerged from the crypts.[/quote]

Plus, there's this... "...a great [b]winged[/b] snake whose [b]roar was a river of flame[/b]." Sounds pretty dragonish to me.

[The_BlauerDragon]

That's along the lines of what I was thinking. He mentions smoke and ash first, THEN he mentions the Dragon separately. Combine that with Mel's certainty that there is a Dragon somewhere in Westeros, asleep in stone, that can be awoken with Kingly blood and fire. Then add in the references to a Dragon sleeping beneath Winterfell. When that's all added together, consider the age of Winterfell, it's origins, and the statements about how Dragons are Fire made Flesh. Toss in a heaping helping of the rather cryptic "There must Always be a Stark in Winterfell". In my mind, if it does not point to a literal Dragon rising from the ashes of Winterfell, then it's either another of GRRM's supremely well seasoned Red Herring Filets, or it's a MAJOR frack up!

[cybroleach]

[quote name='LordNedsHead' post='1757417' date='Apr 16 2009, 14.46']" The smoke and ash clouded his eyes, and in the sky he saw a great winged snake whose roar was a river of flame. He bared his teeth, but then the snake was gone. Behind the cliffs tall fires were eating up the stars."
" Stone and shattered [b]gargoyles lay strewn across the yar[/b]d."[/quote]

A new thought on this is that the one situation relates to the other this winged snake is no more than a gargoyle on fire. falling from the keep.

[Sandor's Lady]

Oh, wow, excellent thread, here, Blauer Dragon!

The first time I read this, I think it really didn't register as I read through the whole thing really fast and was thinking more along the lines of "OMG, what's happened to Bran?!" than registering poetic imagery about winged serpents and what not (go figure :rolleyes: ). So I guess my first read through, I kinda wrote it off as just that - poetic imagery. Now, the second time I read through it, it threw me for a loop and I was like, "Wait... is that what I think that is?" and honestly I have gone back and forth on that ever since.

So...is it really a dragon, or just a really well-chosen (or really poorly-chosen, if you wanna look at it that way) wording for a wolf's point of view of a burning building? Let's examine this, shall we?

Don't get your hopes up - it's not really a dragon:
1 From Summer's description, it sounds like it's just a fleeting glimpse - there one moment and gone the next. Perhaps it was an explosion (which would also help explain the destruction). Wolves don't often see explosions, so how would a wolf describe it? A huge winged serpent that leaves the trees burning might be about as accurate as it gets from a wolf's POV.
2 It's also possible that this could have been a volcanic eruption. Again, with a wolf trying to describe it, we get a less-than-scientific description of what happened. A plume of ash and magma could be mistaken for a "winged serpent" to a wolf. And with the geo-thermal heat under Winterfell, it's entirely possible the area had dormant seismic activity. This would also explain the great destruction. (Though I'm pretty sure someone would have mentioned feeling the ground shaking or hearing rumbling if this were the case.)
3 If dragons are tied to magic - particularly fire magic - why is it that Dany's dragons affect the magic in the world (ie, it starts coming back) and this dragon doesn't seem to have an effect?
4 Dragon's are big-ass, impressive, rare creatures. Can we really accept that [i]no-one[/i] but Summer saw the thing? I mean, if I were there at the sack and saw a dragon errupt out of the castle, you can be sure I'd be telling people about it. Even if we haven't seen Ramsay or any of his buddies in a while, surely we'd hear rumours. A dragon running around the North is something people are going to talk about. I would think that even if the dragon hatched/awoke/whatever after the main host had left, there's still the few survivors hanging around. I would think Maester Luwin would have said, "Oh my god, Bran, there's a dragon running around!"

Oh, wow, guys it really is a dragon!:
1 Even assuming that Summer was trying to explain an explosion, where would the explosion have come from? Unless Ramsay had gunpowder, I can't imagine him doing anything powerful enough to make the castle explode. (Of course, the volcanic erruption theory may still stand, but that's probably just me going out on a limb.)
2 I may not be remembering clearly (I don't have the books with me at the moment) - have we seen anything since the sack of Winterfell that might indicate even [i]more [/i] fire magic going on?
3 Martin is a very skilled story-teller who doesn't throw phrases out there lightly. One mention of a "winged serpent" might be something you can write off, but another character in the same chapter saying "We made enough noise to wake a dragon" seems to be too much of a coincidence, especially with this recurring idea of awakening dragons from stone. Do we know what was going on at the exact same time as the sack? Maybe something Melisandre was up to? This is way too early for Euron's dragon horn to have affected anything, IIRC (though that idea of the Horn that Wakes the Sleeper referring to a dragon is [i]awesome[/i], IMO :thumbsup: ). I think it would be outrageously funny if all Mel's attempts to wake a dragon on Dragonstone somehow woke a dragon all the way on the other end of Westeros in Winterfell! :lol:

Now, the way I see it, #4 in the first section is a pretty compelling reason why there wasn't a dragon. But #3 in the second section is a pretty darn compelling reason why it was!

So... please add, argue, debate, point out wonderful pages in the book to support either theory (that I would go find myself if I weren't at work... :leaving: )

[LordNedsHead]

#4 in the first section could be explained away because the raiders had left for the Dread Fort by that point The chapter is very clear that there is no scent of any living man in or around Winterfell. The area around Winterfell is wooded. Visibility from a distance would be impaired and even something as large as a dragon could be explained away as an eagle depending on the distance. That's if anyone happened to see it at all.
Also as to Magic awakening in point #3, There is the magic Alice in Wonderland Talking Door Knob under the wall. Perhaps the dragon emerging from Winterfell caused it to awaken. Dunno, but since we're speculating ot could be a possibility.

Oh wow! I'm a Freerider now! Huzzah!

[The_BlauerDragon]

I would just like to add one minor correction.


This, er...




isn't my thread.



Thanks for the compliment anyway though.


And you're right, it is a great thread. :thumbsup:

As for all the rest. The North is a big place, with a lot of mountains and not much in the way of people. There really weren't many living people remaining at Winterfell, and a Dragon could have flown off in all that smoke and fire without having been seen, and could just as easily be roaming around the North without being seen. Magic might have been down to almost nothing before Dany woke the Dragons, but it was never gone entirely (Magic wall of Ice, anyone?). To me, it all fits together and spells out Dragon.

And when it comes to Dragons, um... Trust me. I should know.
I R 1!