[ADwD Spoilers] Meera and Jojen cliffhanger?

[tze]

I don't buy into the idea that Jojen's blood is in the weirwood past that Bran eats. I do think that the reader is supposed to wonder what is going to happen to Jojen as there are strong hints that he is seeing something very bad for himself. Whatever it is doesn't have to relate to the COTF but likely is something he thinks he cannot avoid. Remember that in one of his greendreams he saw Winterfell being flooded and took this literally when it was figuratively Theon/Iron Islands/Drowned God assault of Winterfell. Jojen doesn't always interpret his dreams correctly.

I think you have a great point. We've seen people misinterpret prophecy time after time. Jojen has clearly seen something that he thinks is his own death, but it's very possible that he's misinterpreting his greendream. He is just a kid, after all.

[Brucolac]

This is actually one of the more annoying cliffhangers to me since it happened half way through the book, and you can't tell if Meera ran from the fire to just be alone or because something was happening, and then then no more chapters in the next 700 pages. Got to love the herculean writing effort of presenting three Bran chapters in 10 years.

[Wouter]

This is actually one of the more annoying cliffhangers to me since it happened half way through the book, and you can't tell if Meera ran from the fire to just be alone or because something was happening, and then then no more chapters in the next 700 pages. Got to love the herculean writing effort of presenting three Bran chapters in 10 years.

I think it's clear that Meera ran off to be alone because she was very sad (I don't think she could know something was happening right then, unless Jojen actually would have agreed to be sacrificed and he talked about it with Meera - seems unlikely, she would do everything to stop it), but the worrying thing is that neither her nor Jojen are there the next time round, when Bran expects them (or at least Meera).

And the whole atmosphere in the chapter is creepy - how many times did GRRM tell us the moon seemed like a sharp sickle?

[Brucolac]

Yeah, I thought that at first read, but then neither Jojen or Meera show up again that night when Bran is waiting up for them before he goes to sleep. So, she runs off, but then they both go missing.

The time frame in his last chapter is Jojen is off somewhere sulking while Bran, Meera and Hodor sit at the fire where Meera is already crying. She suddenly runs off, to cry more alone perhaps? Bran gets carried by Hodor to Bloodraven and gets the paste. Bran returns to the place where they all sleep and finds them both gone and tries to wait up for them to return but passes out before they do. Their absence makes you have to wonder.

[Midnight Diamondstar]

dragginstoned

This is totally off topic...I like your new profile picture. Hodor has a posse And this lady says not to mess with my boy.

[CrypticWeirwood]

Jojen also saw Bran dead, when it was just the miller’s wife’s kids.

[Theo1]

It sounds like Joren tastes better with each spoonful. Sacrifice is key to sparking the power of the old gods ( the vision of the sacrifice), and seems to be an aspect that used to be known in the north. - several references to this from a Davos POV and Joren himself talks to brad about the truths that those in winter el have forgotten. Brad just "supposed" it was sap. That is going to make his courtship with Meera a bit more challenging.

[Yakman]

Jojen is not the paste. That's ridiculous.

The Children do not control the Others. Also, ridiculous.

But I would not be surprised to see Jojen making a break for it, with Meera at his heels. He is in a death spiral - and he's actively looking for the day he dies. Someone like that has no fear - not of wights, or Others, or Coldhands.

[Miriel]

I wonder if the sacrifice Bran sees is from the time of the Andal invasion? The captive may be an Andal. The First Men used bronze, the Andals brought iron with them to Westeros, IIRC. The sacrifice is before the tree, so the Children could see it, and a bronze weapon is used to cut the captive's throat. Perhaps it has to do with the relations between the Children and the First men? Just a thought ...

[Black Crow]

The Children do not control the Others. Also, ridiculous.

Ah, but its not ridiculous at all: Consider, the first and most important point to bear in mind is GRRM’s fondness for the “unreliable narrator” technique; in other words don’t take everything you read as gospel. As told by Old Nan and popular report, the Others are assumed to be the very embodiment of evil, slaughtering everyone they come across without mercy, however GRRM is reported to have cautioned that the reveal will be much more complex and indicated that while not the embodiment of sweetness and light they’re not going to turn out to be as black as they’re painted and this is reinforced in text by Sam’s caveats regarding his researches in the archives at Castle Black

In considering the true identity of the Others a number of factors need to be taken into account; the first of which is the way in which the story so far is balanced. Supposedly the Game of Thrones is just setting the scene for a climactic battle against the Others, who apart from a few tantalizing glimpses appear to be conspicuous by their absence.

I stress the word “appear” because if the Others are to have any real credibility as players in the story they must already be established as such. As they don’t appear to be, it therefore follows that they may in fact already be present but not yet recognized as such. This pretty inevitably points to the Children who can reasonably be regarded as important but surrounded by a lot of uncertainty as to their part in the proceedings. While I’m far from being the first to propose that they may in fact be the Others the suggestion is generally greeted with a mixture of indignation and derision, but consider:

1. Mel and the rest of the followers of R’hllor are engaged in a struggle between light and darkness as embodied by the Great Other and while there’s obvious scope for regarding the Great Other as the leader of the Others, the Red lot appear to be oblivious to the supposed threat posed by the impending winter and the White Walkers, and are chiefly concerned with destroying “False Gods” in general and positively enthusiastic about destroying weirwoods.

2. The Children represent themselves as being cuddly, but otherwise sad and resigned to extinction. According to stories uncovered by Sam they assisted the First Men in original the war against the Others, making them gifts of obsidian weapons to help kill them, however those stories are explicitly preceded by Sam's (GRRM's) firm warning that the old stories are not to be relied on. What we do know is that they dwell in the darkness abhorred and feared by the followers of R’hllor (amongst an awful lot of skulls and other bones) and are known to be able to work very powerful magic.

3. Another argument against equating the Children with the Others is the way in which Bran and his companions are pursued and have to fight their way to safety in those dark caves and at first sight this seems straightforward, but it can also be read in a much more sinister way with their being deliberately herded to the caves and discouraged from trying to escape by a threat much more apparent than real. Bran in short is where the Children want him and they aren’t going to let him go.

4. Nor are the stories of the Others’ supposed cruelty and ruthlessness to be relied upon. Clearly if Craster (and company?) have been giving up their children for years there has been some kind of interaction going on, albeit not necessarily a friendly one. The stories however may be just that stories. GRRM is well aware how for generations families on either side of the Anglo Scottish border terrified their children into obedience with tales of how the other lot were baby-eaters and worse – “Hush ye, hush ye, dinna fret ye, Black Douglas will no get you” - and told how the other lot had tails and so on and so forth. In reality what have we actually seen – a one to one fight between a Shadow and Ser Waymar Royce, watched by the walker’s companions until he got him down and only then moving in to finish him off. Then there was the battle for the Fist which was exactly that – a battle. Yet by contrast move across to the realms of men and there are already real massacres going on and atrocious cruelties perpetrated not by the Others but by the Lannisters, the Dothraki and a whole host of other humans.

5. And so we come to the White Walkers/White Shadows. They are certainly explicitly identified as Others in the prologue to AGoT and when Sam kills one in the fight for the Fist, but in both cases this can be put down to our old friend the unreliable narrator. Just because Will and Sam think that the tall pale guys they have never seen before are Others it doesn’t necessarily follow that they are right. I’ve already discussed the reasoning behind thinking that they are actually the magical/glamoured servants of the real others, wearing the same stealth armour as the Children once did, just as Mel and Moqorro are the magical glamoured servants of R’hllor and will only add that both appear to be janissaries – purchased as slaves (and in Mel’s case at least as a child) by the Red temple in the case of Mel and as children given up by Craster (and is he the only one?) in the case of the White Walkers.

This symmetry is important because this is the Song of Ice and Fire. The two are supposed to be in balance but clearly are not, hence the magical upset in the normal seasons. At the moment the forces of light and fire are in the ascendancy and the return of Azor Ahai is awaited to complete the victory once and for all – a victory that will see the final extinction of the Old Gods and the Children. GRRM has already indicated that the ending will be “bittersweet” which has been interpreted as a phyrric victory over the Others, but what if the real meaning is the victory of the Others/Children and descendents of the First Men over the forces of light and fire to restore the balance between Ice and Fire at the cost of giving up most of Westeros to the ice.

In the meantime, and sticking with the thread, this implies that Bran aint going nowhere - unless he twigs what's going on and uses Hodor to escape - and that unless as has been speculated, the Reeds turn out to be family so to speak, ie; Children, their outlook could be grim.

[StannisandDaeny]

Oh no, hell no. The Bran chapters were scary enough, and this just freaked me out. I usually read over them pretty quickly so I never noticed all these subtle things. Jojen in the paste... ugh. I never liked him but please tell me this is not true x_x The Reeds were clearly trying to find a way out and no one was paying them any attention, almost as if they were prisoners. They were not having a good time and the overall feel of the chapters is pretty depressing. They also had nothing to do there, it seemed a very dull and evil place. Underground places are also usually bad places in all kinds of stories, not to mention the heap of bones in the cave. Bones from the remains of blood sacrifices, maybe?

No one tells Bran his purpose or what exactly they want him to do, so I don't trust them. The Children may have allied to the Others. They have motives to destroy the Humans. How useful would it be to have a spy network that could look through all of the weirwoods during a conquest? I certainly don't think the Children are good and fear things are going to turn out badly and I want them out of that blasted cave, which is a total letdown for something we've waited so long to see. Bran is clearly being used, if he looks at Bloodraven he should see his future, becoming a monster locked in a constant almost dream-like state without any human contact while your body withers away isn't a preferable fate for any human being.

Children are just ants to Hodor though and Hodor is no longer passive as we could tell from the fight with the Wights so I'm confident he can beat them out of there when the time comes, when Bran finally realizes he has to get out of there.

[Wouter]

I think Bloodraven and the singers/children there want Bran to gain his powers and be an important element in the defeat of the Others - that they don't look squaky-clean is par for the course in ASOIAF. Nor do I think the Reeds are prisoners - they are under siege together with the singers/children, and because of that they can't just leave, but not because the singers/children want to keep them there.

However, I am still worried about Jojen. All the references to sacrifice and cannibalism, together with Jojen's depression (and him not proclaiming he won't die today, as he used to do back in Winterfell and on the road) are worrisome.

[Dragons Dancing]

It is only speculation that Jojen is sullen because he thinks he is going to die. More speculation would be that he could be sullen because he has had dreams making him think that he is in the spiders web and he knows he has to find a way out to try to bring help for Bran to get out. We don't know why he is sullen but clearly the COTF/Bloodraven business is not making him content. Something is likely very wrong with this situation and Jojen's actions are supposed to make us wonder about this.

I hope that Bran is not going to used by Bloodraven to destroy the wall and the North. If ASOIF is all about the destruction of the Starks and the North then I will be beyond disappointed and likely never read GRRM again. But nothing good has happened to the Starks since the beginning of the series and I am beginning to think they will all die in disgusting ways by the end.

[Wouter]

I don't understand why people think Bloodraven wants to destroy the Wall? Everything we learn about the guy points to him fighting the Others, from before anyone else (but the singers/children and maybe Craster and a few other wildlings) even knew they were more than myths.

Jojen said "the wolves will return". Count on that, his visions come true.

[Yakman]

Ah, but its not ridiculous at all: Consider, the first and most important point to bear in mind is GRRM’s fondness for the “unreliable narrator” technique; in other words don’t take everything you read as gospel. As told by Old Nan and popular report, the Others are assumed to be the very embodiment of evil, slaughtering everyone they come across without mercy, however GRRM is reported to have cautioned that the reveal will be much more complex and indicated that while not the embodiment of sweetness and light they’re not going to turn out to be as black as they’re painted and this is reinforced in text by Sam’s caveats regarding his researches in the archives at Castle Black

In considering the true identity of the Others a number of factors need to be taken into account; the first of which is the way in which the story so far is balanced. Supposedly the Game of Thrones is just setting the scene for a climactic battle against the Others, who apart from a few tantalizing glimpses appear to be conspicuous by their absence.

I stress the word “appear” because if the Others are to have any real credibility as players in the story they must already be established as such. As they don’t appear to be, it therefore follows that they may in fact already be present but not yet recognized as such. This pretty inevitably points to the Children who can reasonably be regarded as important but surrounded by a lot of uncertainty as to their part in the proceedings. While I’m far from being the first to propose that they may in fact be the Others the suggestion is generally greeted with a mixture of indignation and derision, but consider:

1. Mel and the rest of the followers of R’hllor are engaged in a struggle between light and darkness as embodied by the Great Other and while there’s obvious scope for regarding the Great Other as the leader of the Others, the Red lot appear to be oblivious to the supposed threat posed by the impending winter and the White Walkers, and are chiefly concerned with destroying “False Gods” in general and positively enthusiastic about destroying weirwoods.

2. The Children represent themselves as being cuddly, but otherwise sad and resigned to extinction. According to stories uncovered by Sam they assisted the First Men in original the war against the Others, making them gifts of obsidian weapons to help kill them, however those stories are explicitly preceded by Sam's (GRRM's) firm warning that the old stories are not to be relied on. What we do know is that they dwell in the darkness abhorred and feared by the followers of R’hllor (amongst an awful lot of skulls and other bones) and are known to be able to work very powerful magic.

3. Another argument against equating the Children with the Others is the way in which Bran and his companions are pursued and have to fight their way to safety in those dark caves and at first sight this seems straightforward, but it can also be read in a much more sinister way with their being deliberately herded to the caves and discouraged from trying to escape by a threat much more apparent than real. Bran in short is where the Children want him and they aren’t going to let him go.

4. Nor are the stories of the Others’ supposed cruelty and ruthlessness to be relied upon. Clearly if Craster (and company?) have been giving up their children for years there has been some kind of interaction going on, albeit not necessarily a friendly one. The stories however may be just that stories. GRRM is well aware how for generations families on either side of the Anglo Scottish border terrified their children into obedience with tales of how the other lot were baby-eaters and worse – “Hush ye, hush ye, dinna fret ye, Black Douglas will no get you” - and told how the other lot had tails and so on and so forth. In reality what have we actually seen – a one to one fight between a Shadow and Ser Waymar Royce, watched by the walker’s companions until he got him down and only then moving in to finish him off. Then there was the battle for the Fist which was exactly that – a battle. Yet by contrast move across to the realms of men and there are already real massacres going on and atrocious cruelties perpetrated not by the Others but by the Lannisters, the Dothraki and a whole host of other humans.

5. And so we come to the White Walkers/White Shadows. They are certainly explicitly identified as Others in the prologue to AGoT and when Sam kills one in the fight for the Fist, but in both cases this can be put down to our old friend the unreliable narrator. Just because Will and Sam think that the tall pale guys they have never seen before are Others it doesn’t necessarily follow that they are right. I’ve already discussed the reasoning behind thinking that they are actually the magical/glamoured servants of the real others, wearing the same stealth armour as the Children once did, just as Mel and Moqorro are the magical glamoured servants of R’hllor and will only add that both appear to be janissaries – purchased as slaves (and in Mel’s case at least as a child) by the Red temple in the case of Mel and as children given up by Craster (and is he the only one?) in the case of the White Walkers.

This symmetry is important because this is the Song of Ice and Fire. The two are supposed to be in balance but clearly are not, hence the magical upset in the normal seasons. At the moment the forces of light and fire are in the ascendancy and the return of Azor Ahai is awaited to complete the victory once and for all – a victory that will see the final extinction of the Old Gods and the Children. GRRM has already indicated that the ending will be “bittersweet” which has been interpreted as a phyrric victory over the Others, but what if the real meaning is the victory of the Others/Children and descendents of the First Men over the forces of light and fire to restore the balance between Ice and Fire at the cost of giving up most of Westeros to the ice.

In the meantime, and sticking with the thread, this implies that Bran aint going nowhere - unless he twigs what's going on and uses Hodor to escape - and that unless as has been speculated, the Reeds turn out to be family so to speak, ie; Children, their outlook could be grim.

so. 1 by 1

1) Mel and the other R'hollor people are talking about a religious belief. which comes from... oh wait... where there are no weirwoods. the Great Other may well exist. Her religious stringency may well derive from a hatred of all false gods. The Weirwoods are not her god.

2) Sam's records come from the Night's Watch. Meaning that there were actually Crows who took the obsidian blades. They must have had a reason for doing so. The Children must have had a reason for doing what they did.

3) Would Bran Stark really be a willing participant in the genocide of Westeros. Would Brynden Rivers? I think not.

4) The interaction is not 'just stories.' How did Mance Rayder bind the Wildlings to him? He not only defeated the Free Folk and the Thenns in battle, but he convinced them that the threat from the Others occuring. Re-read the Jon chapters of ASoS and ADwD. The threat from the Others is real and immediate. They are rising against the lands of Man.

5) Yes, anything can happen. It's a work of fantasy. But it is a coherent work of fantasy. The wights tried to murder the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch and his chief officers. They then attempted to kill the whole of the ranging party - the chief strength of the Watch. Additionally, they tried to kill poor old Sam, who is a pathetic loser in so many ways, and lost one of their member in the attempt. Why would they do such a thing? Why would they murder that random Royce, or that village of wildlings... or those hundreds or thousands of other wildlings? The Others are EVIL Let no one convince you otherwise.

OURS IS THE FURY..

[ZacharyB]

Also, the last book was going to be called A Time for Wolves or something like that. Pretty sure the Starks are going to come back.

[Applepie Nation]

Also, the last book was going to be called A Time for Wolves or something like that. Pretty sure the Starks are going to come back.

Its going to be called "A Dream of Spring"

[Eyron]

Oh this topic is making my head hurt... And stomach turn...

There is definitely bloodsacrifice going on in the north, as mentioned upthread. There's a lot you don't know about the north Davos was told. (not a quote, I don't have the book at hand)

About the balance of Ice and Fire...

I believe there is something to what Black Crow wrote above. However, I don't think that the Others (Ice) will have to win Westeros for the balance to be restored. It would tie in neatly if we ever find out if Bloodravens sister/lover Shiera is out there somewhere (theory is she may be Quaith), supposedly she was/is in Asshai.

That would mean they both are deep in opposite camps and maybe trying to guide the important players.

There is someone that is assumed to be a mix of the both that could be the way to somehow make balance again.

And that makes me all the more worried, since both R'hollor camp and the Old gods seems keen on bloodsacrifice...

I'm with the pessimists on this one, GRRM don't shy from offing little children, and seems to be set on making all religions look their worst.

I really hope not though, maybe they tried but Jojen got out first?

[Black Crow]

Taking this a stage further, the impression we’re given is that Bran is required by the Children because Bloodraven is dying, but is this really so? Given that he is such a powerful sorcerer is the intention to hook Bran up to the Weirwood network and so allow Bloodraven to escape by warging into say Hodor?

Now that scenario leads in turn to another intriguing possibility; the Three heads of the Dragon prophesy. This is usually taken to mean there will be three dragon riders for Dany’s three dragons and that its all going to end in some climactic battle with the Others being defeated by dragonfire from above – which seems a bit trite and unimaginative. On the other hand the fact that the Targarayen sigil is a three-headed dragon can’t be a co-incidence, so consider this:

What if the first head of the Dragon is Dany (Targarayen) storming westwards with her dragons and the Red crusaders of R’hllor intent on the total destruction of the Others and the triumph of Light and Fire over Darkness and Ice. The second head of the Dragon is Bloodraven (Targarayen) leading the said forces of Darkness and Ice – and then the third is Jon (Targarayen) the son of Ice and Fire whose destiny is to restore the balance between them.

[Free Northman]

I didn't find the Children dark and creepy at all. I found them sad. The last remnants of a dying culture.

People jump to strange conclusions.

Bran is going to leave the cave as soon as his training is done. It would have been 5 years when the 5 year gap still existed, now it will be faster, probably due to his "greater talent".

The situation North of the Wall is boring, seeing as there's nothing left alive in the Haunted Forest. All the exciting action is happening around Winterfell, and further south. Hence, for narrative purposes, I would expect Bran to join the action sooner rather than later.

He is going to be Jon's Merlin.

And no, he didn't drink Jojen's blood.