The black tomcat with the chewed off ear...

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Da HELL?! You guys just keep blowing my fucken mind with this stuff!

To put it in more context, here's the exact quote.

“That’s the real king of this castle right there,” one of the gold cloaks had told her. “Older than sin and twice as mean. One time, the king was feasting the queen’s father, and that black bastard hopped up on the table and snatched a roast quail right out of Lord Tywin’s fingers. Robert laughed so hard he like to burst. You stay away from that one, child.”

And Arya's hearing about Jon.

The Black Bastard of the Wall, one man had called him [Jon]."

So not only is the black bastard the real king of the castle, it's the black bastard who ends up snatching the quail from Tywin.

[Florina Laufeyson]

Still, its kinda mind blowing. I really hope thats actual foreshadowing and not just lucky coincidence.

[Lyse Stark]

To put it in more context, here's the exact quote.

“That’s the real king of this castle right there,” one of the gold cloaks had told her. “Older than sin and twice as mean. One time, the king was feasting the queen’s father, and that black bastard hopped up on the table and snatched a roast quail right out of Lord Tywin’s fingers. Robert laughed so hard he like to burst. You stay away from that one, child.”

And Arya's hearing about Jon.

So not only is the black bastard the real king of the castle, it's the black bastard who ends up snatching the quail from Tywin.

And in Quail Symbolism

In mythology and legend the Quail is widespread and appears in many different cultures. It was a fighting bird and so depicted courage and victory in battle for the Romans. The term 'quail' was one of endearment; the bird was sometimes given as a gift from one lover to another. In Greek legend the jealous Hera turned Leto into a Quail; she was the mother of Apollo and Artemis, so the bird was associated with them also. Asteria changed into a Quail to escape Zeus. The bird is connected with Heracles/Hercules. The Phoenicians sacrificed the Quail to Melkarth when he defeated Typhon (Sephon), as darkness. It was also sacrificed to the Tyrian Baal. The Quail was also a game bird and was symbolic of the hunt. The Quail was the protector to Germanic farmers who captured them and penned them inside houses as protection against lightning strikes.

The quail is a symbol of a contrite spirit, communal love, and higher consciousness. It is Artemis in the Greek mythology, who lived on "Quail Island," and the sacred animal of the Phoenician sun god, Bel. The quail is the early, dewy morning awaiting the first rays of the sun, Apollo, Artemis' twin brother.

And to lose the quail, in mythology, means to lose prosperity, or power, so in that aspect, Tywin losing that roast quail to Balerion foreshadows the Lannisters being ousted from power by Jon Snow.

[The Crow's Third Eye]

I don't know whether I have this correct, but I always got the impression that the Wall proves a barrier to warging - Jon can't feel Ghost when he is South of the Wall and Ghost is to the North. I always assumed that was because of the Wall, so could Bloodraven actually warg Balerion?

[Julian Rayne]

I don't know whether I have this correct, but I always got the impression that the Wall proves a barrier to warging - Jon can't feel Ghost when he is South of the Wall and Ghost is to the North. I always assumed that was because of the Wall, so could Bloodraven actually warg Balerion?

.

Bloodraven isn't merely a war, he's a greenseer. Maybe he can bypass the Wall using the weir-fi network.

And if he can war all the way to King's Landing, it's almost certain that the observed the events of the city's fall.

[RumHam]

It is Balerion, some people think Bloodraven is warging it (the cat has one eye). I and some others like to think that Rhaenys is living her second life in it (though doubtful she was a skinchanger).

Where is it ever mentioned that the cat has one eye?

[Dagon]

This is pretty nuts. So, what will be the end-game use for this cat? Or has its role already been played out? So far I'm thinking it's a parallel for what will happen with Jon. What will he "steal" of great importance?

[Lyse Stark]

This is pretty nuts. So, what will be the end-game use for this cat? Or has its role already been played out? So far I'm thinking it's a parallel for what will happen with Jon. What will he "steal" of great importance?

I think it means that Jon will seize the Throne from the Lannisters in my opinion.

[Dagon]

I think it means that Jon will seize the Throne from the Lannisters in my opinion.

We can only hope.

[RumHam]

I don't know whether I have this correct, but I always got the impression that the Wall proves a barrier to warging - Jon can't feel Ghost when he is South of the Wall and Ghost is to the North. I always assumed that was because of the Wall, so could Bloodraven actually warg Balerion?

You are correct, The Wall does seem to be some kinda warg-bond barrier. Not only can Jon not sense Ghost, but later Ghost can't sense Summer when Bran & Co. go north of the wall:

Snow,” the moon called down again, cackling. The white wolf padded along the man trail beneath the icy cliff. The taste of blood was on his tongue, and his ears rang to the song of the hundred cousins. Once they had been six, five whimpering blind in the snow beside their dead mother, sucking cool milk from her hard dead nipples whilst he crawled off alone. Four remained … and one the white wolf could no longer sense.

Between that and the fact that the cat does not have only one eye, there's really no reason to think Bloodraven has been skinchanging into the cat.

[The Mother of The Others]

The hint that BR can warg past the wall is that Mormont's raven does all its talking in one of the castles on our side of the wall. So maybe Raven wired himself into the hardline for warging (rooted himself to the tree) and this lets him access trees to the south since the weir network is all connected, and that gets his foot in the door so he can then warg animals south of the wall too?

[RumHam]

The hint that BR can warg past the wall is that Mormont's raven does all its talking in one of the castles on our side of the wall. So maybe Raven wired himself into the hardline for warging (rooted himself to the tree) and this lets him access trees to the south since the weir network is all connected, and that gets his foot in the door so he can then warg animals south of the wall too?

Maybe he can. Maybe there's some kinda connected root system through Gendel's caves that goes under that wall or something. He's obviously been communicating with Bran, after all. Still I think when you take away the "the cat has only one eye" misconception, the Bloodraven connection evaporates pretty quickly. He never would have been in the same room with the cat to establish a bond, for one thing. I don't think we've seen anyone take control over an animal for the first time over a vast distance.

[Pod The Impaler]

My bet is that the cat is Balerion. And for 3whatever reason, it remembers and hates.

As a kitten during the rebellion, it would easily have lived until the current area.

As to why it hates Lannisters or whatever, being as this is a fantasy series, there are any number of possible explanations - warging, posession by Rhaeny's ghost, Bloodraven, influenced by the Old Gods, unusual intelligence (for a house cat) etc.

[RumHam]

I don't even think it's fair to say the cat "hates Lannisters" it doesn't seem to like anybody.

[joluoto2]

I don't know whether I have this correct, but I always got the impression that the Wall proves a barrier to warging - Jon can't feel Ghost when he is South of the Wall and Ghost is to the North. I always assumed that was because of the Wall, so could Bloodraven actually warg Balerion?

BR is a level 16 hacker. Firewalls is nothing to him.

[CassBlackfyre]

But I'm sure you support this definitive statement, because it is what you believe to be correct. Am I right?

Yes, because of this vvv and the textual evidence to support it

I believe this is a definitive statement because the author has heavily implied that it's the same cat.

[Nitromification]

This is the internet, and we were bound to come to cats anyway I suppose.

On the subject of black cats, I understand Tommen has three black kittens given to him by Margaery. This is quite far-fetched but maybe they represent the three heads of the dragon...?

And Balerion the Cat sounds a lot like Balerion the Dragon; big, black, and kind of the overlord of the Red Keep.

[Thendel]

Where is it ever mentioned that the cat has one eye?

Mormont's raven has both eyes, yet if there's any animal being warged by Bloodraven, it's gotta be that one.

Bloodraven's preference for one-eyed animals should not be considered absolute. If it was, only One Eye would apply, and we know for a fact that that didn't happen. If you mean to disprove that Balerion is warged by Bloodraven by focusing on the one-eyed thing, you'd have to explain Mormont's raven as well.

[Ibbison from Ibben]

When Sansa goes to the Red Keep Godswood to meet Dontos for the first time, she has an encounter on the way:

When something brushed against her leg, she almost jumped out of her skin, but it was only a cat, a ragged black tom with a chewed-off ear. The creature spit at her and leapt away.

"... almost jumped out of her skin..." foreshadowing Sansa becoming a skinchanger.

And, of course, on the way back from the Godswood she has an encounter with a dog.

Part of Sansa's nightmare after the riot when she has her first flowering:

Then she saw the bright glimmer of steel. The knife plunged into her belly and tore and tore and tore, until there was nothing left of her down there but shiny wet ribbons.

That certainly sounds like it could be a first person POV memory of Rhaenys' murder by Amory Lorch. I fully agree that we have no reason to suspect that Rhaenys was a skinchanger, and many reasons to reject the possibility entirely, but the dream Sansa has, some time after having physical contact with the cat, is very suggestive. I'm keeping an open mind on the Rhaenys-warging-into-Balerion issue as a result.

ETA grammar/style

[RumHam]

Mormont's raven has both eyes, yet if there's any animal being warged by Bloodraven, it's gotta be that one.

Bloodraven's preference for one-eyed animals should not be considered absolute. If it was, only One Eye would apply, and we know for a fact that that didn't happen. If you mean to disprove that Balerion is warged by Bloodraven by focusing on the one-eyed thing, you'd have to explain Mormont's raven as well.

Yeah. I'm not even saying that Bloodraven can only warg animals with one eye. I was just correcting the misconception that the cat has only one eye (it used to be on the Wiki) which is really the only reason people's minds jump to Bloodraven. Bloodraven probably doesn't even know that cat exists.