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Heresy 97 the Children of the Forest


Black Crow

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Welcome to Heresy 97, the latest edition of the very fast moving thread that looks behind the struggle for the Iron Throne to try and work out what’s really going in the over-arching Song of Ice and Fire.



And welcome too to the seventh and last part of Mace Cooterian’s Centennial Seven project aimed at defining the seven major heresies and bringing together the textual evidence, current thinking and arguments surrounding them.



Sadly Evita hasn’t been in a position to let us have her piece on the Stranger, or what the rest of us call the Children of the Forest, so instead we present a joint effort with select passages by yours truly and the intellectual commentary by redriver.



Once again the trend to run through these centennial threads at an incredibly fast rate continues, but there’ll be a chance to revisit everything over the course of the next two threads as your humble servants write up the final versions of the essays for inclusion in Heresy 100: the Centennial Edition.



What has always made Heresy so different of course and more vibrant and exciting than other threads is that while the theories discussed here have evolved and are often fiercely debated, what we are really looking at is the whole Song of Ice and Fire and therefore I’d like to suggest that once the essays are posted in Heresy 100, instead of looking at the individual topics we look at the connections, the parallels and how it really does hang together – or not.



We can’t claim to know as much as we’d like to, far less definitively predict how this is all going to turn out, (or have the arrogance to pretend that we do) but I do think we can fairly claim that the ongoing discussion on these pages takes us far deeper into the story than we have ever been before and into a far better understanding of the Song of Ice and Fire.



In the meantime also, here’s a link to Wolfmaid's essential guide to Heresy: http://asoiaf.wester...uide-to-heresy/, which provides annotated links to all the previous editions of Heresy and will also house the archives created by the Centennial Seven project. Above all please don’t be intimidated by the size and scope of Heresy. We’re very good at talking in circles and we don’t mind going over old ground again, especially with a fresh pair of eyes, so just ask.



Otherwise, all that we do ask of you as ever is that you observe the house rules that the debate be conducted by reference to the text, with respect for the ideas of others, and above all great good humour.



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And so to the Seventh Heresy, The Stranger; or the Children of the Forest. I was going to introduce them with an extract from the World Book and Maester Luwin’s history lesson but neither actually tells us very much so its straight to A Dance with Dragons:



It was a woman’s voice, high and sweet, with a strange music in it like none he had ever heard and a sadness that he thought might break his heart. Bran squinted, to see her better. It was a girl, but smaller than Arya, her skin dappled like a doe’s beneath a cloak of leaves. Her eyes were queer – large and liquid, gold and green, slitted like a cat’s eyes. No one has eyes like that. Her hair was a tangle of brown and red and gold, autumn colours, with vines and twigs and withered flowers woven through it…



“The First Men named us children,” the little woman said. “The giants, called us who dak nag gran, the squirrel people, because we were small and quick and fond of trees, but we are no squirrels, no children. Our name in the True Tongue means those who sing the song of earth. Before your Old Tongue was ever spoken, we had sung our songs ten thousand years.



Meera said, “You speak the Common Tongue now.”


“For him. The Bran boy. I was born in the time of the dragon, and for two hundred years I walked the world of men, to watch and listen and learn. I might be walking still, but my legs were sore and my heart was weary, so I turned my feet for home.”



Next Bran chapter: Bloodraven



“Those you call the children of the forest have eyes as golden as the sun, but once in a great while one is born amongst them with eyes as red as blood, or green as the moss on a tree in the heart of the forest. By these signs do the gods mark those they have chosen to receive the gift. The chosen ones are not robust, and their quick years upon the earth are few, for every song must have its balance. But once inside the wood they live long indeed. A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. Greenseers.”



And then Jojen (why does he know?)



“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies,” said Jojen. “The man who never reads lives only one. The singers of the forest had no books. No ink, no parchment, no written language. Instead they had the trees, and the weirwoods above all. When they died they went into the wood, into leaf and limb and root, and the trees remembered. All their songs and spells, their histories and prayers, everything they knew about this world. Maesters will tell you that the weirwoods are sacred to the old gods. The singers believe they are the old gods. When singers die they become part of that godhead.



Leaf again to finish:



“Where are the rest of you?” Bran asked Leaf once.


“Gone into the earth,” she answered. “Into the stones, into the trees. Before the First Men came all this land that you call Westeros was home to us, yet even in those days we were few. The gods gave us long lives but not great numbers, lest we overrun the world as deer will overrun a wood where there are no wolves to hunt them. That was the dawn of our days, when our sun was rising. Now it sinks, and this is our long dwindling. The giants are almost gone as well, they who were our bane and our brothers. The great lions of the western hills have been slain, the unicorns are all but gone, the mammoths down to a few hundred. The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well. In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us”


She seemed sad when she said it, and that made Bran sad as well. It was only later that he thought, Men would not be sad. Men would be wroth. Men would hate and swear a bloody vengeance. The singers sing sad songs, where men would fight and kill.




The Children of the Forest.



Black Crow is covering the text part of this intro, I'm looking at this race on a more thematic level. We'll have learned that this was the indigenous race to Westeros prior to the arrival of the First Men, that they worshiped nature and existed in harmony with it.



The arrival of the FM was an assault on them which threatened them with extinction, as well as the Weirwoods. They could not compete with bronze swords or horses, so they took drastic action and raised the waters to break the Arm of Dorne. You might argue that this exercise was a failure given that men built boats and sailed across, but you could also make the case that it was successful in a temporizing way-it provided time for FM acceptance of the old gods, and protection for the trees.



Luwin's half finished story of the CotF probably leaves us with more questions than answers.We know that they headed north.The hammer of the waters looks like another failure,but it gave rise to a culture and geography -in the Crannogmen and the swamp- that made it impossible for the Andals to ever conquer it, but we still don't know why the CoTF headed beyond the Wall.



Questions that arise-


  • We now know from SSM that the CotF have some connection with the Others, but what is that connection?Did they create them and if they did so was it by accident or design?
  • Are the CotF as resigned to their fate as Leaf indicates? Might they have a hidden agenda?
  • Are Bran and Bloodraven safe where they are? Is the ward keeping entities out or people in?
  • Can a young man like Bran, despite his obvious super-powers, deal with what needs to be done. He is a boy after all.
  • There seems to be a hint that the CoFF and the Crannogmen may have exchanged DNA at some point. Is this possible?
  • There are a million other questions but you will have to ask them and answer them because my little typy finger is tired,
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...


Next Bran chapter: Bloodraven



“Those you call the children of the forest have eyes as golden as the sun, but once in a great while one is born amongst them with eyes as red as blood, or green as the moss on a tree in the heart of the forest. By these signs do the gods mark those they have chosen to receive the gift. The chosen ones are not robust, and their quick years upon the earth are few, for every song must have its balance. But once inside the wood they live long indeed. A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. Greenseers.”



And then Jojen (why does he know?)


...




It seems to explain Jojen, i.e. he has green eyes, isn't robust like the chosen CoTF and has some greenseeing abilities. Maybe Jojen knows because he has seen where he will end up - attached to a weirwood as otherwise he won't last much longer.


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Things I'd like to know.


1. From other text(Dunk and Egg mostly) we hear that Brendon Rivers as Hand of the King has a1000 eyes and 1. He is called a sorcerer, he may be able to glamour himself to look like another human ( Maynard Plumm) a one eyed dog and possibly use birds to spy on his enemies. My question is does he have contact with CotF as early as the timeline of Dunk and Egg or did he learn his sorcery elsewhere?



He goes to the Wall at the same time a Maester Aemon but Aemon never mentions him. He leaves the NW as LC and goes to the Children and we never know the circumstances.



The next we see of him he's pretty much a tree and he's giving Bran a line of SHit about how greenseers are identified.1 in a thousand are skinchangers and 1of a thousand skinchangers are greenseers. You can identify them by either red or green eyes.


This doesn't jive at all. Bran has blue eyes, all 5 of his siblings are wargs and his half brother makes 6 out of 6.



In short his story just doesn't add up. Why do the CotF need human greenseers? To make sense of human affairs that may impact them is my only guess. Is the warding of the Cave of Skulls to draw wights to the entrance so BRAN can't escape? I think so.



If BR was working with CotF as early as D&E times what is his and their agenda.



The 3 fingered lot as BC so wonderfully calls them seem to have their 1st and 3rd fingers flexed and are showing us only the middle finger.


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This is a copy of the thread and theory started a few Heresies ago.

I am having basic problems with the storyline and the way we have been discussing it. I started with a firm belief that I was reading a tale that was a classic fantasy, yet during the time I have interacted with ya'll, I am drifting to the conclusion that the magic in this world is secondary at best.

What changed? Well, it begin with the Others and the descriptions of the Long Night. Did it actually happen, and was the plague of Others and Wrights what we are lead to believe it to be? I think not. The penny dropped when we were discussing the Wildings and ancient creatures beyond the a Wall. We are given to believe that this wave of warm-blooded hate came sweeping from the North, from the Lands of Eternal Winter, killing every human that breathed, yet it there is evidence everywhere in the North it didn't happen that way. Ancient peoples like the Thenns survived. Giants, mammoths, dire wolves, ect, all survived the deluge. CotF seem to have been ingnored, or warded.

About 90% of these novels are devoted to politics. So what do we see with the North, the Crows, Stannis, Mel, the Wildings? Politics. I have a feeling that the Others are being used not just as a tool of the Big Bad, but a political chip being leveraged to re-write Westeros history.

It is not a coincidence that the CotF and the Green Seer function is being run by Bloodraven.

The Others have to be tools in a political manipulation. To what ends, I don't know, but there is more to the Others than just magic. As for the politics, I've come to the conclusion that the WW and CotF are being used as pawns in an all to human, non magical game. It's to coincidental that with all our talk of Starks and their special relationship to the North we fine TARGS running things at the exact time the Others and the Wrights have been moved on to the board.

Both Bloodraven and Aemon are in control of the Wall, and Bloodraven, if nothing else, is loyal to a fault to the Targ line. How many years did he and Aemon run the Night Watch? And now he's sitting on the Weirwood throne with not a operational CotF greenseer in sight. Who is controlling things, and who is moving the pieces into place? Who kicked the Others into motion?

Not to be Church-y, but why is Bloodraven in Aemon's Raven pushing to get Jon elected to his old post? For me, someone for whom the L+R stuff gives me a headache, that is the best evidence I have seen that he is a Targ. But why Jon as Commander? To rally a power base that can be used to stop the Other threat, but could so easily be turned South if the new Long Night isn't going to come ... If Bloodraven has control of the CotF and the Others.

Sorry. Christ, this really sounds Church-y.

I don't see Bloodraven being controlled by anyone, let alone the dappled Yodas. This is the guy who stood strong against the Blackfryes, was Hand to the King, Lord Commander of the Wall, and now he's being used as a data entry operator for the weirnet? Not buying it.

The CotF are dead. Glowing eyes maybe, but the only one that seems to communicate is Bloodraven.

Why would Bloodraven give a damn if Jon was a warg Stark? We haven't had any indication through the novels and the novellas that he was interested in anything but the Iron Throne and the Targs. Now he had become some groovy Greenseer in a cave commune smoking weir, and he becomes custodian of Nature? ( I know. I'm an idiot. ) I don't think so.

The Others and the CotF are being used.

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Things I'd like to know.

1. From other text(Dunk and Egg mostly) we hear that Brendon Rivers as Hand of the King has a1000 eyes and 1. He is called a sorcerer, he may be able to glamour himself to look like another human ( Maynard Plumm) a one eyed dog and possibly use birds to spy on his enemies. My question is does he have contact with CotF as early as the timeline of Dunk and Egg or did he learn his sorcery elsewhere?

He goes to the Wall at the same time a Maester Aemon but Aemon never mentions him. He leaves the NW as LC and goes to the Children and we never know the circumstances.

The next we see of him he's pretty much a tree and he's giving Bran a line of SHit about how greenseers are identified.1 in a thousand are skinchangers and 1of a thousand skinchangers are greenseers. You can identify them by either red or green eyes.

This doesn't jive at all. Bran has blue eyes, all 5 of his siblings are wargs and his half brother makes 6 out of 6.

In short his story just doesn't add up. Why do the CotF need human greenseers? To make sense of human affairs that may impact them is my only guess. Is the warding of the Cave of Skulls to draw wights to the entrance so BRAN can't escape? I think so.

If BR was working with CotF as early as D&E times what is his and their agenda.

The 3 fingered lot as BC so wonderfully calls them seem to have their 1st and 3rd fingers flexed and are showing us only the middle finger.

The short answer about the dead man in the tree is that he is really Brynden Blackwood, so named by his mother a Blackwood of Raventree Hall and brought up in the ways of the Old Gods.

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Dagda: as to who's kidding who and using who, I'm reluctant to trace everything back to Bryn Blackwood as that would go against everything GRRM has said about avoiding the Dark Lord trope. That's not to say that he isn't one of the bad guys, but rather that I'm not sold on casting him as the one who's behind it all.



Where the real heresy comes in and indeed came in a long time ago is in questioning the cosy assumption that the Children (or should we call them Singers) helped Men to defeat the Others back in the day and that Bran has been brought north to the cave to learn how to defeat them again.



That speech by Leaf reeks of enough humbug to fell small children and make grown men weep. Actually Bran does weep or at least feels sad on first hearing it, but then, away from Leaf he starts to think that Men would fight in those circumstances, and although he hasn't seemingly tumbled to it yet there was nothing mentioned of where the Others fit into this sad story or the danger they supposedly pose, or of passing on the knowledge necessary to defeat the blue eyed horror.


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She seemed sad when she said it, and that made Bran sad as well. It was only later that he thought, Men would not be sad. Men would be wroth. Men would hate and swear a bloody vengeance. The singers sing sad songs, where men would fight and kill.


I think we have to distinguish between the few living children and the children greenseers gone in the trees.

It seems the living ones have accepted their fate. But those in the trees are as different as the faces in the trees. It is a god of many faces and we have faces full of hate like the one in Harrenhal.

Imagine a greenseer witnessing all the killing of Children by men without the power to interfere over a very long time. This must be a soul filled with hate.


That there are wights before the cave of the Children could mean that there ancestors have turned away from them. They even are so few that they need human greenseers to keep contact to them. A fact that I think would earn disrespect of some of the old greenseers.


I think the fact that men can live in the North has to do with Winterfell and the Starks. If the oldest Stark claimed guest right at Winterfell he represented mankind as Winterfell represents the North.

So as long as there is a Stark in Winterfell and stays true to the laws of the old gods, guest right and no kinslaying, men have a place in the North (Westeros?). When there is no Stark at Winterfell there is no one to claim guest right.

I can imagine the pact being made between living children, the Starks and the greenseers in the trees represented by the weirtree at Winterfell. Might be that in the crypts under Winterfell the oldest and most powerful greenseers have their seat.


It is interesting that after the pact is broken (however that happened)

winter is coming and it is coming from Winterfell as the center of the North.
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BC, this theory isn't a replacement theory, because I still think that the CotF and the Others have their own plans, and I still think Starks bloodline is more important.

Bloodraven isn't the evil lord sitting in his magical tower. I think he is running a purely political game as he did when he was Hand. He is a Targ, and magic is a secondary plus.

We have always talked about how crazy it would be for Howland to appear with his moldy letter proclaiming L+R=J, and who would care. I was a big proponent of that line of logic until I started thinking about it and realized that for years it has been Targ bloodlines, not Starks, embedded in the power structure of the North. Bloodraven and Aemon at the Wall, later Bloodraven on the CotF Weirwood throne. They are still Targs to the bone, and politically have to be bound to having a Targ on the Iron Throne. Jon comes of age and all of a sudden theOthers are moved into play. It's suspicious at the least.

It would also partially explain the shock that Aemon expresses when he realizes that Dany has the dragons. They ( Aemon, BR, EMO Prince ) though the prophesy was aimed at Jon, the Targ in hand.

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The short answer about the dead man in the tree is that he is really Brynden Blackwood, so named by his mother a Blackwood of Raventree Hall and brought up in the ways of the Old Gods.

So him praying to the Old Gods put him in touch with the CotF and they recruited him from the git go, taught him all the tricks so he could serve them? A powerful man in service to the IT has an agenda that co- exists with his keeping the Targs in power? The obvious question is why?

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So him praying to the Old Gods put him in touch with the CotF and they recruited him from the git go, taught him all the tricks so he could serve them? A powerful man in service to the IT has an agenda that co- exists with his keeping the Targs in power? The obvious question is why?

That's where I disagree with Dagda. I think that this has everything to do with the Old Races and the Old Powers. Bloodraven certain had a reputation as a Targaryen loyalist, but I contend the reality is that this isn't about the dragons. Bloodraven is a Blackwood and was prosecuting the old feud with the Brackens, rather than defending the Targaryens against the Blackfyres - something which could be yet more complicated if Mance is really a Blackfyre. Moreover, far from grooming Jon as the true heir, its Maester Aemon who so very forcefully reminds him he is a son of Winterfell.

And so back to Qhorin Halfhand's warning that the Old Powers are wakening and that the trees have eyes again. This is about the Ice of the Singers and the other old races, not about the Fire of the Targaryen dragons.

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That's where I disagree with Dagda. I think that this has everything to do with the Old Races and the Old Powers. Bloodraven certain had a reputation as a Targaryen loyalist, but I contend the reality is that this isn't about the dragons. Bloodraven is a Blackwood and was prosecuting the old feud with the Brackens, rather than defending the Targaryens against the Blackfyres - something which could be yet more complicated if Mance is really a Blackfyre. Moreover, far from grooming Jon as the true heir, its Maester Aemon who so very forcefully reminds him he is a son of Winterfell.

And so back to Qhorin Halfhand's warning that the Old Powers are wakening and that the trees have eyes again. This is about the Ice of the Singers and the other old races, not about the Fire of the Targaryen dragons.

I really don't disagree with that line of reasoning, I just think that there is a parallel line of plots going on here. You have a confluence of interests playing out here, with Blackraven getting an opportunity he can't pass up on the weir throne, with all the political manipulation the weirnet implies, and the CotF getting the most powerful warg alive at the time, playing into their interests. They are using each other, yet the timing of the release of the Others ( or their own moves) is telling. It's a power move, and the CotF seem to have been content just living their lives North of the Wall. Something changed, and my guess is that it was Pantless Bob and Jon coming of age. Vary has the other bunch out of their area of control.

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So him praying to the Old Gods put him in touch with the CotF and they recruited him from the git go, taught him all the tricks so he could serve them? A powerful man in service to the IT has an agenda that co- exists with his keeping the Targs in power? The obvious question is why?

That's part of the question that started me on this roll ... to many Targs in the bush for there not to be a connections.

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Regarding Jojen (and the Crannogmen): Jojen does say that in the Neck they remember truths (of the First Men) that were forgotten in Winterfell. Luwin also mentions the the CotF and the crannogmen grew close when the CotF were preparing to call the hammer of waters. And don't forget about the Isle of Faces and the Green Men. Their order was supposedly founded when the Pact was agreed on. According to Old Nan's tales they might be green(?) and they might have antlers, but in any case, Bran seems to think they're scary. It'd seem that Howland Reed visited and spent some time with them shortly before the tourney in Harrenhal, so it's likely that the Reeds have more knowledge about the Old Gods than the average crannogman.They're left in obscurity so far, but IIRC there was a SSM confirming that we'll hear more from them. Isle of the Faces is mentioned in the new novel, although not clear what its role might have been, if any.



Targaryens:


We know the CotF took interest in the Targaryens and their Prince that was Promised. There was one whom Jenny of Odlstones took to court (well, a woods witch she claimed to be a CotF) and made a propehcy regarding the PtwP resulting in the reigning king ordering two of his children to marry (I think? too lazy to look up which king and which descendants it was about). She might have lived on as the Ghost of High Heart after Summerhall, or she could have returned North as Leaf (who would also have been exploring the Seven Kingdoms around that time), or she might have been someone entirely else. So it's entirely possible that the CotF would actively seek out someone like Bloodraven, for either or both of his bloodlines. What their motivation was in doing so is another question.


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Regarding Jojen (and the Crannogmen): Jojen does say that in the Neck they remember truths (of the First Men) that were forgotten in Winterfell. Luwin also mentions the the CotF and the crannogmen grew close when the CotF were preparing to call the hammer of waters. And don't forget about the Isle of Faces and the Green Men. Their order was supposedly founded when the Pact was agreed on. According to Old Nan's tales they might be green(?) and they might have antlers, but in any case, Bran seems to think they're scary. It'd seem that Howland Reed visited and spent some time with them shortly before the tourney in Harrenhal, so it's likely that the Reeds have more knowledge about the Old Gods than the average crannogman.They're left in obscurity so far, but IIRC there was a SSM confirming that we'll hear more from them. Isle of the Faces is mentioned in the new novel, although not clear what its role might have been, if any.

Which could connect the Green Men to the WW as well as the COTF as there was an illustrated edition of ACOK, by John Howe, showing the WW collecting Craster's boys with antlers and hoods on. Which could be another small connectom between the Children and the WW.

Targaryens:

We know the CotF took interest in the Targaryens and their Prince that was Promised. There was one whom Jenny of Odlstones took to court (well, a woods witch she claimed to be a CotF) and made a propehcy regarding the PtwP resulting in the reigning king ordering two of his children to marry (I think? too lazy to look up which king and which descendants it was about). She might have lived on as the Ghost of High Heart after Summerhall, or she could have returned North as Leaf (who would also have been exploring the Seven Kingdoms around that time), or she might have been someone entirely else. So it's entirely possible that the CotF would actively seek out someone like Bloodraven, for either or both of his bloodlines. What their motivation was in doing so is another question.

The GoHH didn't claim to be a COTF she didn't say anything about being a COTF, though I think she's a descendant of them.

It was Jaehaerys II who was told by the GoHH about TPTWP and he married Aerys and Rhaella together. And it couldn't have been Leaf as the descriptions are wrong and the GoHH says she gorged on grief at Summerhall.

So I don't think you can the COTF took and interest in TPTWP because the GoHH made a prophecy about it, we don't even know of she truly has connections to the COTF.

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Its interesting that when Leaf is asked why she speaks the Common Tongue she replies “For him. The Bran boy. I was born in the time of the dragon, and for two hundred years I walked the world of men, to watch and listen and learn. I might be walking still, but my legs were sore and my heart was weary, so I turned my feet for home.”



The "time of the dragon" clearly suggests the Targaryen conquest and this too is presumably why “ for two hundred years I walked the world of men, to watch and listen and learn.” She then says she came home because she was weary, but might it instead be because she had found Bloodraven?


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I am so excited for this discussion! Although I am disappointed that I was still over on the Night's King thread that everyone will probably miss my last post, which I think is a revelation.

The next we see of him he's pretty much a tree and he's giving Bran a line of SHit about how greenseers are identified.1 in a thousand are skinchangers and 1of a thousand skinchangers are greenseers. You can identify them by either red or green eyes.

This doesn't jive at all. Bran has blue eyes, all 5 of his siblings are wargs and his half brother makes 6 out of 6.

In short his story just doesn't add up. Why do the CotF need human greenseers? To make sense of human affairs that may impact them is my only guess. Is the warding of the Cave of Skulls to draw wights to the entrance so BRAN can't escape? I think so.

If BR was working with CotF as early as D&E times what is his and their agenda.

The 3 fingered lot as BC so wonderfully calls them seem to have their 1st and 3rd fingers flexed and are showing us only the middle finger.

That greenseer info certainly is a line of shit, and they are giving the Starks (and First Men) the middle finger! I completely agree! Why else grab Bran, who is a boy of 10? He has powers, and Bloodraven has had his eye on him since he was born, but I'm sure they were thinking they could have an easier time manipulating a child rather than a grown man, but I think Bran will be smart enough to come to a realization of the truth here and warg Summer into hunting those pesky squirrels.

What changed? Well, it begin with the Others and the descriptions of the Long Night. Did it actually happen, and was the plague of Others and Wrights what we are lead to believe it to be? I think not. The penny dropped when we were discussing the Wildings and ancient creatures beyond the a Wall. We are given to believe that this wave of warm-blooded hate came sweeping from the North, from the Lands of Eternal Winter, killing every human that breathed, yet it there is evidence everywhere in the North it didn't happen that way. Ancient peoples like the Thenns survived. Giants, mammoths, dire wolves, ect, all survived the deluge. CotF seem to have been ingnored, or warded.

It is not a coincidence that the CotF and the Green Seer function is being run by Bloodraven.

The Others have to be tools in a political manipulation. To what ends, I don't know, but there is more to the Others than just magic. As for the politics, I've come to the conclusion that the WW and CotF are being used as pawns in an all to human, non magical game. It's to coincidental that with all our talk of Starks and their special relationship to the North we fine TARGS running things at the exact time the Others and the Wrights have been moved on to the board.

Both Bloodraven and Aemon are in control of the Wall, and Bloodraven, if nothing else, is loyal to a fault to the Targ line. How many years did he and Aemon run the Night Watch? And now he's sitting on the Weirwood throne with not a operational CotF greenseer in sight. Who is controlling things, and who is moving the pieces into place? Who kicked the Others into motion?


I don't see Bloodraven being controlled by anyone, let alone the dappled Yodas. This is the guy who stood strong against the Blackfryes, was Hand to the King, Lord Commander of the Wall, and now he's being used as a data entry operator for the weirnet? Not buying it.

The CotF are dead. Glowing eyes maybe, but the only one that seems to communicate is Bloodraven.

The Others and the CotF are being used.

Yes, exactly, and Leaf was probably the same woods witch with Jenny of Oldstones.

I think the Singers are out for revenge. Hate for a common enemy is why any remaining Children/singers have allied with the Targaryens.

She seemed sad when she said it, and that made Bran sad as well. It was only later that he thought, Men would not be sad. Men would be wroth. Men would hate and swear a bloody vengeance. The singers sing sad songs, where men would fight and kill.
I think we have to distinguish between the few living children and the children greenseers gone in the trees.
It seems the living ones have accepted their fate. But those in the trees are as different as the faces in the trees. It is a god of many faces and we have faces full of hate like the one in Harrenhal.
Imagine a greenseer witnessing all the killing of Children by men without the power to interfere over a very long time. This must be a soul filled with hate.
I think the fact that men can live in the North has to do with Winterfell and the Starks. If the oldest Stark claimed guest right at Winterfell he represented mankind as Winterfell represents the North.
So as long as there is a Stark in Winterfell and stays true to the laws of the old gods, guest right and no kinslaying, men have a place in the North (Westeros?). When there is no Stark at Winterfell there is no one to claim guest right.
I can imagine the pact being made between living children, the Starks and the greenseers in the trees represented by the weirtree at Winterfell. Might be that in the crypts under Winterfell the oldest and most powerful greenseers have their seat.
It is interesting that after the pact is broken (however that happened)
winter is coming and it is coming from Winterfell as the center of the North.

I think you've hit the nail right on the head! So long as there is a Stark in Winterfell, the Pact is still in place and First Men can remain in the North. I think the Children/singers are allying with the Targaryens so that they can't be blamed for the breaking of the Pact. It's a technicality.

We can't forget that the Starks also defeated the Marsh King. Maybe Howland Reed wasn't the good friend Ned thought he was? Maybe it was more like sleeping with the enemy? By that, I don't mean anything sexual but a cozy relationship on the surface, but with one side only doing it for revenge. Jojen Reed shows a little bit of this anger in this passage:

“He said the water would flow over our walls. He saw Alebelly drowned, and Mikken and Septon Chayle too.”

Ser Rodrik frowned. “Well, should it happen that I need to ride against these raiders myself, I shan’t take Alebelly, then. He didn’t see me drowned, did he? No? Good.”

It heartened Bran to hear that. Maybe they won’t drown, then, he thought. If they stay away from the sea. Meera thought so too, later that night when she and Jojen met Bran in his room to play a three-sided game of tiles, but her brother shook his head.

“The things I see in green dreams can’t be changed.”

That made his sister angry. “Why would the gods send a warning if we can’t heed it and change what’s to come?”

“I don’t know,” Jojen said sadly. “If you were Alebelly, you’d probably jump into the well to have done with it! He should fight, and Bran should too.”

“Me?” Bran felt suddenly afraid. “What should I fight? Am I going to drown too?”

Meera looked at him guiltily. “I shouldn’t have said . . .”

He could tell that she was hiding something. “Did you see me in a green dream?” he asked Jojen nervously. “Was I drowned?”

“Not drowned.” Jojen spoke as if every word pained him.

I understand that this conversation is about Bran fighting the fate that Jojen saw in his greendream, but it also shows that whatever the greenseers see in the future, they feel they should still fight the outcome, and intercepting Bran is part of that fight.

BC, this theory isn't a replacement theory, because I still think that the CotF and the Others have their own plans, and I still think Starks bloodline is more important.

Bloodraven isn't the evil lord sitting in his magical tower. I think he is running a purely political game as he did when he was Hand. He is a Targ, and magic is a secondary plus.

We have always talked about how crazy it would be for Howland to appear with his moldy letter proclaiming L+R=J, and who would care. I was a big proponent of that line of logic until I started thinking about it and realized that for years it has been Targ bloodlines, not Starks, embedded in the power structure of the North. Bloodraven and Aemon at the Wall, later Bloodraven on the CotF Weirwood throne. They are still Targs to the bone, and politically have to be bound to having a Targ on the Iron Throne. Jon comes of age and all of a sudden theOthers are moved into play. It's suspicious at the least.

It would also partially explain the shock that Aemon expresses when he realizes that Dany has the dragons. They ( Aemon, BR, EMO Prince ) though the prophesy was aimed at Jon, the Targ in hand

I'm beginning to think that Lyanna was kidnapped. Rhaegar was trying to force completion of a prophecy and was mistakenly interpreting how to bring forth the Prince that was Promised, and Maester Aemon must have known about this and that's why he was so shocked to realize that Danerys was the Prince(ss) that was Promised.

That's where I disagree with Dagda. I think that this has everything to do with the Old Races and the Old Powers. Bloodraven certain had a reputation as a Targaryen loyalist, but I contend the reality is that this isn't about the dragons. Bloodraven is a Blackwood and was prosecuting the old feud with the Brackens, rather than defending the Targaryens against the Blackfyres - something which could be yet more complicated if Mance is really a Blackfyre. Moreover, far from grooming Jon as the true heir, its Maester Aemon who so very forcefully reminds him he is a son of Winterfell.

And so back to Qhorin Halfhand's warning that the Old Powers are wakening and that the trees have eyes again. This is about the Ice of the Singers and the other old races, not about the Fire of the Targaryen dragons.

It never made sense to me that Bloodraven became a greenseer. He's an interloper from the fire side into the ice side. How do you explain that fact away?

Qhorin Halfhand and Mance were best friends until they had a falling out and I think it happened when Mance met Dalla. Mance told Jon that he had seen him twice before:

It made no sense at first, but as Jon turned it over in his mind, dawn broke. “When you were a brother of the Watch . . .”

“Very good! Yes, that was the first time. You were just a boy, and I was all in black, one of a dozen riding escort to old Lord Commander Qorgyle when he came down to see your father at Winterfell. I was walking the wall around the yard when I came on you and your brother Robb. It had snowed the night before, and the two of you had built a great mountain above the gate and were waiting for someone likely to pass underneath.”

“I remember,” said Jon with a startled laugh. A young black brother on the wallwalk, yes . . .

“You swore not to tell.”

“And kept my vow. That one, at least.

…As to a crown, do you see one?” “I see a woman.” He glanced at Dalla. Mance took her by the hand and pulled her close. “My lady is blameless. I met her on my return from your father’s castle. The Halfhand was carved of old oak, but I am made of flesh, and I have a great fondness for the charms of women …

When Mance was a man of the Night's Watch, he and Quorin were friends. They visited Winterfell together as brothers, met Dalla on their return trip, Mance broke his vow, and that is what led to his falling out with the Halfhand who was able to resist the charms of women because he was "carved of old oak".
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When Mance was a man of the Night's Watch, he and Quorin were friends. They visited Winterfell together as brothers, met Dalla on their return trip, Mance broke his vow, and that is what led to his falling out with the Halfhand who was able to resist the charms of women because he was "carved of old oak".

It wasn't that trip where Mance meant Dalla; it was the return trip from King Bobby visiting WF, which occurred somewhere like 8 years (??) after Mance deserted from the Watch

ETA: not to say that you are wrong about Mance and Qhorin having visited WF, because they did do so--it was just much earlier, back when Qorgyle was LC IIRC

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