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Did Summer see a dragon?


ugashep

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Okay so I just finished a re-read of aCoK and I noticed a lot of stuff I hadn't before. Apologies if this has been discussed previously but I couldn't find it. In the last chapter in Bran's POV, Bran is having a wolf dream while down in the Crypts with Hodor, Osha, Rickon, et al. while the direwolves are walking around the ruins of Winterfell and there is the following passage:



"The ashes fell like a soft gray snow. He padded over dry needles and brown leaves to the edge of the wood where the pines grew thin. Beyond the open fields he could see the great piles of man-rock stark against the swirling flames. The wind blew hot and rich with the smell of blood and burnt meat, so strong he began to slaver. Yet as one smell drew them onward, others warned them back. He sniffed at the drifting smoke. Men, many men, many horses, and fire, fire, fire. (emphasis in the original). No smell was more dangerous, not even the hard cold smell of iron, the stuff of man claws and hardskin. 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 the snake was gone." (emphasis supplied).



Now granted this could be inane wolf mind chatter, it does say that smoke and ash clouded his eyes, but a great winged snake whose roar was a river of flame sounds like a pretty good description of a dragon and we know that dragon's are drawn to blood and death. Anyway, I totally had not noticed this before, anybody got any thoughts?


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Nope.



for the new thought you asked for, maybe another seer/warg/witch was present, some Force that only gets what it wants when there's no longer a Stark at Winterfell, so the warg saw it as a visitation of chaos, as if an entity were spying on the disaster or even egging on the insanity of that time. But basically it's a big streamer of smoke in the sky and the warg made sense of it in warg fashion, by personifying the malignant fire.


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a few lines later it says "All through the night the fires crackled, once there was a great roar and a crash that made the earth jump under his feet(emphasis mine). Dogs barked and whined and horses screamed in terror. Howls shuddered through the night; the howls of the manpack, wails of fear and wild shouts, laughter and screams."



maybe this was just the gargoyles/part of the wall falling, or maybe not :dunno: ;)


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Hey, if BloodRaven was the other warg that the wolf sensed watching the fire, and he saw BR as a dragon, that might be a very minor proof that "blood of the dragon" really means what it says and has a basis in magical fact. (Because wolves don't give a crap about heraldry so he wouldn't be associating BR with the man's crest. The wolf would be associating the dragon with BR because it's an honest to god animal spirit totem for the Targ family! Dragon blood flows in them in some real way. (Like I said, a very minor proof. But wargs seem to be blessed with the "true seeing" spell, so you never know).




Also, going with Bogdevil's loud roar quote and assuming it's a real dragon.... if Winterfell's springs really were warmed by a tamed or captive dragon's breath all these years, the castle is going to be a worthless husk from now on, pointless to rebuild! It's main luxury is gone and the real estate is no more valuable than any other snow castle now. But the implications of ancient Stark dragon taming would be WHOA. And that dragon would be humongous compared to Danney's, it'd be a slapdown when they met. But what has the Stark dragon been feeding on??? Have the Stark bannermen been complaining for generations about how much meat Winterfell demands of them, way more than the Starks should need? Hmmm.


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Interesting. I remember reading about the winged snake / dragon over WF and was also always confused that early in the books WF is described as always being warm but later, when the Starks are gone, it's specifically mentioned (several times) that WF is very cold. Hmmm.



Edit: Had assumed that the winged snake / dragon was metaphorical until just now when doubt set in. Guess I should spend more time here - I'm sure this has been discussed at length before.


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  1. The town [Lhazareen village] was afire, black plumes of smoke roiling and tumbling as they rose into a hard blue sky.

The smoke and ash clouded his eyes, and in the sky he saw a great winged snake whose roar was a river of flame.

Then the towers by the sea, crumbling as the dark tide came sweeping over them, rising from the depths. Shadows in the shape of skulls, skulls that turned to mist, bodies locked together in lust, writhing and rolling and clawing. Through curtains of fire great winged shadows wheeled against a hard blue sky.

Here is the pattern:

  1. Dany sees the sack of the Lhazareen village in real life. Things are real and their descriptions are quite literal.

Bran sees the sack of Winterfell through Summer’s eyes. This is also a real life image but there is a spiritual element through the warg connection as well. What Summer sensed was real stuff but when the smoke and ash clouded his eyes, the poor wolf mistook the smoke and fire rising from Winterfell with a dragon. Surely there is no dragon but Summer felt a spirit world experience when his eyes are clouded.

Mel’s visions are much speculated but I think it (at least the part after the first sentence) clearly describes the sack of a city. These visions come from the spirit world and as a rule; things are not literal in spirit world. Simple real things can take complex imaginary forms in the spirit world. Because a mortal’s eyes are clouded and everything is fuzzy there.

Here is another interesting quote:

“Are you the three-eyed crow?” Bran heard himself say.

“A … crow?” The pale lord’s voice was dry. His lips moved slowly, as if they had forgotten how to form words. “Once, aye. Black of garb and black of blood.”

Maybe Bloodraven does not know that he appears as a three-eyed-crow in the spirit world. Maybe he was casting a spell to close the ordinary eyes and open the third eye of Bran and Bran saw the process as a crow pecking his forehead.

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I was similarly perplexed by that on my re-read.



I don't care for the idea of a real dragon trapped beneath Winterfell, heating their water. That fits with absolutely nothing that we have learned about dragons in these books.



But Summer seeing a dragon presence while being warged by Bran is interesting. I do wonder why, if the dragon is Bloodraven, it doesn't appear as a three-eyed-crow instead. But maybe the crow is for instructing and communicating with Bran, whereas the dragon wasn't meant to interact with Bran. Or maybe it was someone else entirely.



In any event, this is by far better than any explanation I've come up with.


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Interesting. I remember reading about the winged snake / dragon over WF and was also always confused that early in the books WF is described as always being warm but later, when the Starks are gone, it's specifically mentioned (several times) that WF is very cold. Hmmm.

The temperature thing might be just because winter has come, but there's also the possibility that when Ramsay burnt WF the "central heating system" might have been damaged. (Hot water piped inside the walls.)

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  1. The town [Lhazareen village] was afire, black plumes of smoke roiling and tumbling as they rose into a hard blue sky.

The smoke and ash clouded his eyes, and in the sky he saw a great winged snake whose roar was a river of flame.

Then the towers by the sea, crumbling as the dark tide came sweeping over them, rising from the depths. Shadows in the shape of skulls, skulls that turned to mist, bodies locked together in lust, writhing and rolling and clawing. Through curtains of fire great winged shadows wheeled against a hard blue sky.

Here is the pattern:

  1. Dany sees the sack of the Lhazareen village in real life. Things are real and their descriptions are quite literal.

Bran sees the sack of Winterfell through Summer’s eyes. This is also a real life image but there is a spiritual element through the warg connection as well. What Summer sensed was real stuff but when the smoke and ash clouded his eyes, the poor wolf mistook the smoke and fire rising from Winterfell with a dragon. Surely there is no dragon but Summer felt a spirit world experience when his eyes are clouded.

Mel’s visions are much speculated but I think it (at least the part after the first sentence) clearly describes the sack of a city. These visions come from the spirit world and as a rule; things are not literal in spirit world. Simple real things can take complex imaginary forms in the spirit world. Because a mortal’s eyes are clouded and everything is fuzzy there.

Here is another interesting quote:

“Are you the three-eyed crow?” Bran heard himself say.

“A … crow?” The pale lord’s voice was dry. His lips moved slowly, as if they had forgotten how to form words. “Once, aye. Black of garb and black of blood.”

Maybe Bloodraven does not know that he appears as a three-eyed-crow in the spirit world. Maybe he was casting a spell to close the ordinary eyes and open the third eye of Bran and Bran saw the process as a crow pecking his forehead.

#3 reminds me of Quentyn...

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