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Dragon sighting at Winterfell?!?


LordNedsHead

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I have found no signs in the book to support this Dragon theory, besides that one sentence. So, below are some general thoughts and speculations.

I agree that a Winterfell Dragon is somewhat of an oddity. Winterfell and Starks are Westeros, The First Men, not dragons. Dragons were the province of Valyria.

However, dragons being the perfect weapon against Others, it does make sense that someone with the ability to would "store" a dragon in Winterfell, in anticipation of a time when it might be needed. Winterfell being the place in the north that is first and foremost linked to defending the north, the NW not included. Who would do such a thing? Someone with intimate knowledge of dragons, and probably of magic. Would Ned have known about it? There's no way to tell, IMO. Ned being who he is would probably not pull out this ancient dragon just to fight a war, since that is theoretically not what it was meant for.

When would it have been placed there? Probably it must be after Aegon the Conquerer, since dragons were brought there by him (I believe).

For a brief moment, I considered the possibility that the dragon belonged to the "other" side (no pun intended). That it was an ice dragon, similar to the Others. This would make sense only really because Summer snarled at it. Opposing this is the fact that it breathed fire, something that is the anathema of the Others. So it seems farfetched indeed.

Another thought I had was that a dragon is such a showstopper, that it would more or less destroy the tension in the book. Unless, of course, it is an evil or aloof dragon. A dragon friendly to the NW, for example, would possibly be so powerful against the Others that the nerve of the book would be gone prematurely.

We have seen no sign of any dragon, though there may be subtle hints in AGoT. It's been a while since I read that.

For a while I considered the title of the series: A Song of Ice and Fire. Most likely, this is symbolizes Ice - the enemy, Others, wights and the Nameless One, and Fire - the heroes, R'hllor, Targaryens. An alternate possibility is that Stark and Winterfell represent Ice. Ned's sword is called Ice, their words are Winter is coming, and they are generally referred to as being cool, frozen individuals. Also, they are the House with the main focus in the book, at least initially.

Continuing on that theory, Rheagar also refers to this title. During Daenery's visit in the House of the Undying, Rhaegar in one of her visions is looking at infant Aegon and saying "His is the song of Ice and Fire." Since Lyanna is involved there somehow, this gives a small amount of support for the theory that Ice does in fact refer to Starks.

Or this could just be a sidetrack, and Lyanna is involved only because she is from the Warden of the North family.

If Ice is a reference to Ned's sword, Fire could be a reference to a yet-to-be-seen Targaryen sword called Fire. I believe GRRM has referred to swordplay as "song", at some point or other, and the title "song of ice and fire" literally means swordplay with the swords Ice and Fire.

Going back to Winterfell, the event that coincided with this dragon sighting was the destruction of Winterfell. This is a somewhat monumental event. It also, I believe, coincides with Bran's third eye opening. I recall some line such as "In the dark, his third eye had finally opened."

Well, anyway... food for thought, but for now, I think I will be content with the explanation that it was in fact either the comet that Summer saw, or some mysterious vision.

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I have found no signs in the book to support this Dragon theory, besides that one sentence. So, below are some general thoughts and speculations.

I don't particularly think it was a 'real dragon'. But there are other clues that can be seen as support for this theory.

1. Winterfell's hot springs. Heated by a dormant (and very old, very large) dragon?

2. The crypts extend longer than winterfell and have more levels underneath the level with the Stark Kings, about which virtually nothing is known.

3. Winterfell was supposedly built by Brandon the Builder, with the aid of giants. The same guys who supposedly built the Wall and Storms End, both of which have mystical powers - so why not something mystical about Winterfell?

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I have found no signs in the book to support this Dragon theory, besides that one sentence.

Yeah, but that one sentence is basically "Summer saw a dragon!"

He either saw an actual dragon that was actually in the same time and place as he was, or it was a Melisandre-style prophetic vision, since he was also looking at fire & smoke.

The idea that the wolf/Bran just saw Winterfell burning and interpreted it as a winged snake is completely silly to me. The whole paragraph is very carefully written.

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I dont know...it just seems really out of character for GRRM. sounds like something out of a teenager fantasy novel. Though GRRM did right a children's story about an ice dragon and he has been know to use the names and ideas of some of his earlier works in ASoIaF.

If Ned knew there was a dragon under winterfell, i think that in Ned's last POV chapters he would probably be reminiscing on a certain secret that he had to tell Rob. So i think that part of the theory is dead.

Someone did mention that the destruction of winterfell was much more great than what a fire could ensue plus the fact that little Bolton didnt have any siege engines with him......

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The idea that the wolf/Bran just saw Winterfell burning and interpreted it as a winged snake is completely silly to me. The whole paragraph is very carefully written.
In that moment Bran saw everything. Summer was savaging Hali, pulling glistening blue snakes from her belly. Her eyes were wide and staring. Bran could not tell whether she was alive or dead.

Yes, yes, and that quote proves, also, that Bran see Melisandre-like vision in people's intestines, yeah?

And also:

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.

I suppose the star-eating is real, also, right? :P

It's just the red comet disappearing, and the sun rising. Very cinematic and portentous, very GRRM.

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¿a "sleeping" dragon in winterfell? I doubt it, unless you consider jon snow as "a dragon".

Maybe, its not too weird, since Jojen foresaw the Greyjoy attack as a black tide over Winterfell. And many ASOIAF prophecies seem to be a personification... a woman that is a fish, etc...

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Except it's the "talls fires behind the cliffs" that are supposed to eat up the stars, not the winged snake, read the quote.

Thinking about it, it might not be the sunrise, it might just be the red comet crashing near winterfell. It glides past, scares Bran!Summer, disappears behind cliffs then the light of the impact hides the stars. No doubt someone will come to forge a new dawn from the heart of this meteorite, again.

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Except it's the "talls fires behind the cliffs" that are supposed to eat up the stars, not the winged snake, read the quote.

Thinking about it, it might not be the sunrise, it might just be the red comet crashing near winterfell. It glides past, scares Bran!Summer, disappears behind cliffs then the light of the impact hides the stars. No doubt someone will come to forge a new dawn from the heart of this meteorite, again.

Now there's an interesting theory. ;) Crashing comet, why not?

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I like this crashing comet theory.

I mean, it's not that much of a stretch to call the comet a snake. It leaves a huge trail and all, sounds plausible to me. And the fact that it's up in the sky could explain the winged part from the wolf's POV. It actually makes quite a fair amount of sense to me to see a wolf describing a comet as a winged snaked. "Whose roar was a river of flame"... well, the comet is red after all.

And I like to imagine that the cliffs tall fires refers to the fire that ensued on its crash. As much as I would love to it being a dragon, I think this makes more sense. Also like how it ties up with the comet appearing at the last chapter of AGOT and then crashing at the last chapter of ACOK. =D

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woah, that's pretty trippy.

I'm more on the side that Summer saw an actual dragon, even though it's the less believable possibility.

I still don't really get why it's less believable. I think my two cents i'd like to add to this thread are:

People Are Stupid.

In pursuit of dragons, much blood has been shed. Mel believes she has the power to raise dragons from stone, but have we actually seen her do this? Sure, she has other magic at her disposal, but I don't think we know that she is actually capable of raising a dragon. She believes she is, and others do, because they're all very, very stupid.

Summerhall, the events of The Mystery Knight, both likely attempts to raise dragons. Both miserable failures, for one reason or another. Dragonstone, for some reason, believed to hold a dragon. But have we seen it? NO. All of the "knowledge" everyone surrounding these places and events has about dragons is flawed. We don't yet know for certain that there is even a particular ritual that CAN wake a dragon. King's blood, up to this point, is all hearsay. And, remember, People are Stupid, so hearsay and fourth- or fifth-hand knowledge is pretty meaningless.

All we have seen is a particular magical event where a particularly important woman burnt her particularly powerful husband, some particularly expensive eggs, and ultimately herself, and emerged with living dragons, under a sky now containing The Comet. We have no idea what in particular precipitated this. It could have been The Comet and nothing else.

We know that people talk about a dragon living under a castle, regardless of which castle that is. IMHO, Osha's line about waking a dragon is actually pretty good evidence that dragons are known to hibernate, at least in legend. We know that the Starks have been in Winterfell for a very, very long time, long enough that no one would remember what lies under the First Keep. We know that Melisandre has her panties in a bunch about waking a dragon "from stone" -- which in my book mostly just corroborates that there's a dragon living in or under a castle somewhere. We know that Winterfell is built over something hot, probably hot springs -- in other words, its location was already significant, before the castle was built. And finally, we know that people bust their asses trying to hatch dragons, to no avail, when the only dragon hatching we've seen was basically by accident, or at least blind experiment.

And then we have this scene. In which we have a wolf's report about a winged snake, a loud and violent atmosphere where it is difficult to see, a lot of potential witnesses, a broken First Keep, and that's it. We have no idea what happened. But for the people who are putting pieces together and see evidence for a dragon hibernating in Westeros all over the series, this ties it very nicely together.

As for the Witnesses Conundrum, the only reasonable evidence against this theory in my eyes. Maybe there's no dragon there at all, or maybe it was just a vision in the flames. But maybe people are stupid -- and it was loud, and hard to see, and the dragon was fast. That does it for me.

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IMHO, Osha's comments about "waking a dragon" isn't a reference to a dragon potentially living under Winterfell or their ability to hibernate or anything like that.

I kind of interpreted it as a reference to the Targs and their imminent return.

I mean, it makes sense to me:

Viserys and even Dany constantly make references to "waking the dragon" in the context of bringing their Targ wrath upon others. The closeness between Osha's comment about waking a dragon and the typical Targ use of the phrase seems like too large a coincidence for me.

I'm inclined to believe that Summer's "winged snake" is a sort of foreshadowing for the return of the Targs to Westeros to restore order. Especially since he glimpsed it amongst all the wanton chaos of Winterfell's destruction, and nobody else seemed to notice it.

I just feel like it's extremely unlikely that there could be a dragon sealed underneath Winterfell that was somehow awoken by something going on up above. It seems just a little too far-reaching for me.

But who knows? :dunno:

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The First Keep has been reduced to a heap of debris strewn about the courtyard. Seems unlikely to me that Theon and his cohorts could of caused this damage since they never had siege engines. That's another point in favour of the Winterfell dragon theory.

I guess that just seems weak to me because that damage could be from basically anything. for one thing, if you light fires, the right kind of stone just explodes when heated. air trapped inside and all. anyway, it would be the kind of thing that would be explained by the Winterfell Dragon, but it doesn't seem to me that it makes the Winterfell Dragon more likely.

it's like, if Jon Arryn had recently bought a very expensive flower pot from Volantis, and he was worried no one would know how to take care of the flowers in his absence, that would explain why he says, "The seed is strong." But that line -- "The seed is strong" -- does not in and of itself support my Arryn-Gardener hypothesis.

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