What do you think awaits in the Land of Always Winter?

[Blugenes]

A city of White Walkers? Frigid beauty amidst deadly spiders the size of dogs? Something even worse than the horrors currently threatening the wall?

[Ser Oswell]

Snow.

[apovsic]

Winter.

[Hodor of House Hodor]

Benjen Stark

[DominusNovus]

Ice.

[Fat Mac]

The Others seem relatively intelligent. They have the ability to make weapons and armor, so I wouldn't be surprised if they had some type of city up there.

[Hutch]

Ice spiders.

[Northernmonkey]

The remains of a human city, built by the first men but abandoned a long time ago. But populated by white walkers.

And obviously Benjen.

[Carcetti]

http://static2.traveltek.net/images/www.coachholidays.com/v2/destinations/christmas_markets/germany/germany_banner.jpg

[Nyrhex]

Here be dragons.

[Carcetti]

Here be dragons.

This. Of the frozen kind, i think

[Petyr Patter]

Penguins.

[TheUnknownTargaryen]

Benjen Stark

:agree: and the heart of winter..

[Lost Melnibonean]

This is what we know...

Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him. And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks.

Now you know, the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder. Now you know why you must live.

"Why?" Bran said, not understanding, falling, falling.

Because winter is coming.

Bran looked at the crow on his shoulder, and the crow looked back. It had three eyes, and the third eye was full of a terrible knowledge. Bran looked down. There was nothing below him now but snow and cold and death, a frozen wasteland where jagged blue-white spires of ice waited to embrace him. They flew up at him like spears. He saw the bones of a thousand other dreamers impaled upon their points. He was desperately afraid.

"Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?" he heard his own voice saying, small and far away.

And his father's voice replied to him. "That is the only time a man can be brave."

Now, Bran, the crow urged. Choose. Fly or die.

Death reached for him, screaming.

Bran spread his arms and flew.

Wings unseen drank the wind and filled and pulled him upward. The terrible needles of ice receded below him. The sky opened up above. Bran soared. It was better than climbing. It was better than anything. The world grew small beneath him.

If the Heart of Winter is a real location in the same three-dimensional world in whoch Bran lives, then it appears to be at the north pole of the LOIAF. But it is a place of darkness, beyond the curtain of light. Most likely the sun never shines there and its light can do no more than cast faint shadows. It's obviously very, very cold. And it's terrifying, at least for a young boy. And it's coming and only Bran can stop it. Either the Others are able to expand "winter" or the Heart of Winter is expanding with the Others in it's vanguard.

The line I have the most trouble with is, "He saw the bones of a thousand other dreamers impaled upon their points." The dreamers are greenseers, no? They seem to be dead, no? Are they dead because the gazed too long at the Heart of Winter? Or are they dead because they sacrificed themselves in an endless battle against the Heart of Winter?

[Nyrhex]

Penguins.

UnPenguins.

That, or UnSnowmen.

[Mirri Maz Durr]

GRRM dressep up as Santa.

[Claire Stark]

White Walkers. Wights. Benjen. And lots and lots of snow.

[Shadrich]

Ice Ice Baby.

[Thucydides]

Balon Swann's distant cousin Bella Swan and her husband Edward Cullen. And Jacob Black. And Renesmee Swan-Cullen.

Bella, Edward, and Renesmee will teach Bran how to sparkle. Jacob will teach him how to brood. And how to have killer abs.

[Great Gods' Guinness]

There was nothing below him now but snow and cold and death, a frozen wasteland where jagged blue-white spires of ice waited to embrace him. They flew up at him like spears. He saw the bones of a thousand other dreamers impaled upon their points. He was desperately afraid.

"Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?" he heard his own voice saying, small and far away.

And his father's voice replied to him. "That is the only time a man can be brave."

Now, Bran, the crow urged. Choose. Fly or die.

Death reached for him, screaming.

Bran spread his arms and flew.

Wings unseen drank the wind and filled and pulled him upward. The terrible needles of ice receded below him. The sky opened up above. Bran soared. It was better than climbing. It was better than anything. The world grew small beneath him.

The line I have the most trouble with is, "He saw the bones of a thousand other dreamers impaled upon their points." The dreamers are greenseers, no? They seem to be dead, no? Are they dead because the gazed too long at the Heart of Winter? Or are they dead because they sacrificed themselves in an endless battle against the Heart of Winter?

Could the thousand other dreamers be recruits of BR's like Bran who chose to die rather than fly? I'm new to the forum, so I could be way off. I'm just thinking Bran may not be the first person BR has tried to turn into a man-tree. The vision of the North is certainly somewhat specific to Bran, as it involves Jon, but the Land of Always Winter is held to be mysterious by lots of people in Westeros, I believe, so could be as good a place as any to give other candidates the choice.