Heresy 101 The Crows

[wolfmaid7]

Well.. The one happened before Bran opened his third eye, the other happened after Bran opened his third eye. To me, that makes a difference. Aside from that we have two different peoples perspective that happen at two different times in the story. The first happened in Bran's dream, the second happened in Jon's dream.

ETA Jon was having a 'wolfdream' that is why I added in ghost. It is not only Jon's perception.

Huh you lost me..... After Bran had his third eye opened ( his falling dream) he continued to dream of the 3eyed crow and still no recognition that its him.So i think its safe to say its not him.

On this night he dreamed of the weirwood.It was looking at him with its deep red eyes ,calling to him with its twisted wooded mouth,and from its pale branches the three eyed crow came flapping,pecking at his face and crying his name in a voice as sharp as swords ACOK,Bran p,255

Plus this is Bran's description of the 3eyed Crow's voice nothing like Bran's hell the entire conversation you can tell its two different people.

"I can't fly," Bran said. " I can't, I can't

How do you know? Have you ever tried"?

The voice was high and thin.Bran looked around to see where it was coming from. A crow was spiraling down with him,just out of reach.Following him as he fell. Help me" he said.

As you can tell different voices

[wolfmaid7]

I would like to note something-see highlighted portion given the quotes below and the context,the purpose of the eyed Crow was and is to teach Bran to fly and by fly i mean using "future sight". He made it a point to tell Bran that there are different kinds of wings,and his lesson was the wings of the mind.BR is teaching Bran with regards to skinchanging not to use "future sight".

I'm trying,the crow replied. "Say,got any corn?"

....................."You have wings," Bran pointed out

Maybe you do too.

Bran felt along his shoulders,groping for feathers

There are different kinds of wings,the crow said.

What are you doing to me"? He asked the crow tearfully

Teaching you to fly

"I can't fly"

Your flying right now

I'm falling

Every flight begins with a fall,the crow said.Look down

"im afraid"

Look down

Bran looked down.....................................He saw winterfell.

[aDanceWithFlagons]

Huh you lost me..... After Bran had his third eye opened ( his falling dream) he continued to dream of the 3eyed crow and still no recognition that its him.So i think its safe to say its not him.

Plus this is Bran's description of the 3eyed Crow's voice nothing like Bran's hell the entire conversation you can tell its two different people.

As you can tell different voices

This is still before he opened he opened his third eye. It did not happen until he was in the crypts. (He did dream of Summer before the crypts, but he could not control it. He never reached out until after the dream you speak of.)

I still stand beside this.... The 3 eyed crow is a part of (yet part of) Bran from the weirwood connection that manifested from his greenseeing abilities and came to Bran's mind in the long dream of the coma.

The weirwood calling after him is because he is a greenseer. We.have established that.

I allow that there may be an entity outside Bran. With consideration that the 3EC is similar to the Raven trickster. The trickster is mostly only out for himself, but sometimes good things happen on the side.

And Bloodraven is not the 3eyed crow.

[JNR]

Ok guys there seems to be 2 thoughts here,am i stating this right?

1.The 3eyed crow a manifestation of Bran's unconscious mind that has no clue what it looks like be it a Crow or a Weirwood? I don't about this one guys. The weirwood sapling persona and the Crow persona are still giving off different tones.The Weirwood sounds like Bran,even feels like Bran that crow has a completely different feel...." Say got any corn?" gives me the heebie jeebies and a kind of Chester Cat vibe.

2. The crow is a separate entity from BR ,autonomous .Maybe be complementary ,maybe not etc. Believe this one more.

So what's the thinking ?

I certainly believe 2.

I also believe Bloodraven has appeared in Bran's dreams, but that's a separate matter. From early in CoK, we have:

“Do trees dream?” [asked Bran]

“Trees? No . . .” [replied Luwin]

“They do,” Bran said with sudden certainty. “They dream tree dreams. I dream of a tree sometimes. A weirwood, like the one in the godswood. It calls to me."

That's Bloodraven's influence.

Leaf's reaction is revealing in that she doesn't seem puzzled by the three-eyed crow reference, like Bloodraven.

She seems simply to recognize the difference between the 3EC and the last greenseer... as related, yet different concepts... as we recognize the difference between ham and eggs.

[Eira Seren]

Maybe in the earliest days of the NW the singers taught the brothers how to skinchange into crows to help them scout & that's where the name came from. If there are a lot of "shadows" of singers in ravens then there may be a lot "shadows" of NW brothers in the crows?

There's a possibility!

I wondered about the Diane Sutterfield passage again:

There is a story . . . in which two ravens…were companions and advisers to the great God of the north. One bird was called Huginn, which in that place and time meant Thought, the other Muninn, which meant Memory. They lived in a magic ash tree where borders of many worlds came together, and from its branches they flew blithely between worlds, gathering information for Odin. Other creatures could not cross the borders from one world to another, but Thought and Memory flew where they pleased, and came back laughing.

Thought and Memory had a great many offspring, all of whom were gifted with great mental powers allowing them to accumulate and pass on a good deal of knowledge from their ancestors.

The ravens in Westeros carry thoughts and memories (the shadows of Singers).

They enjoy roosting in weirwoods. They appear to be on friendly terms with BR and the Singers who are turning into trees, and perhaps other Singers.

For the ravens, the Wall seems to pose no barrier.

They watch and gather information. And report back?

Ravens learn from humans; perhaps they teach un-skinchanged ravens the things they know and learn?

And back to Crows...

I blush to admit forgetting to include this little but perhaps quite priceless gem in my introductory essay:

Catelyn went to the Sept and lit a candle to the Father above, for her own father's sake, a second to the Crone, who had let the first raven into the world when she peered through the door of death...

Do ravens also pass between other borders and boundaries (besides the Wall) in the way that Huginn and Munnin are said to do?

Hmmm. They're similar in that beyond the raven association, they're both powerful magic-users and male and they were both born in a fictional variant of England.

But that's where things seem to stop. Uskglass is immortal, still appearing to be a teenager hundreds of years after he was born. He is said to have learned his magic from fairies. He has three kingdoms, two in other dimensions, and purportedly leases territory from Lucifer (!) that is adjacent to Hell. His power level appears to be dramatically superior to Bloodraven's; Bloodraven can't even keep himself alive much longer.

In fact, all the magicians in Clarke's world are said to trace their capabilities back to Uskglass (Strange: "it is his magic that we do"). Bloodraven's skills, such as they are, don't seem to have inspired subsequent generations of magic-users.

Though, not a direct correlation, Bloodraven seems to be doing something "inspirational" for the remaining Singers.

Completely agree with you. That's exactly what I meant in my earlier post about why the LCs raven in particular and the other ravens are so intelligent. They are very clever creatures to begin with and then when they choose a partner they learn from that partner the same way that Summer learns from Bran.

In the internal monologues we see with Bran and Summer that there is a constant interuption of the direwolf's thoughts with little things like 'steel man claws' are 'swords', 'the elk is not prey' etc. Summer learns from these thoughts and Bran learns how to understand what Summer is thinking and how he sees the world. Their connection is such that when Bran sends Summer to aid Jon to escape the wildlings band he's with Bran directs Summer through the fight.

What I am trying to illustrate is that if the connection between animal and skinchanger is so close that they can hear each others thoughts and share emotions then there is always going to be a residual amount of that knowledge shared between them left behind. Then if the raven's human or Singer is dead or gone the bird will retain that learning even without there being a Singer or human sharing their second life within the bird. Plus we are told by Varamyr that the essence of the person eventually fades to just background noise, so they are not ruling the animal and not even equal partners anymore.

Again, I don't think that Bloodraven is controlling the raven but that he can peek in to see what's happening if he wants to. The bird is acting on it's own from it's own and any previous skinchanger's knowledge of the world.

This explains a lot for me, especially the raven's personality, which doesn't really seem like it would be the same as Bloodraven's personality, if we were able to get to know him a bit better. The scene where his response is to look a bit grumpy and ruffled, for example, seems to be all the raven. And it shows "Thought" and "Memory" not only reporting back, but probably acting independently, and frequently in their own interest ("Corn?").

And of course, as ButcherCrow points out, there's the possibility that it isn't just Singer's memories, but NW memories they're drawing from.

[Toccs]

“Do trees dream?” [asked Bran]

“Trees? No . . .” [replied Luwin]

“They do,” Bran said with sudden certainty. “They dream tree dreams. I dream of a tree sometimes. A weirwood, like the one in the godswood. It calls to me."

That's Bloodraven's influence.

Leaf's reaction is revealing in that she doesn't seem puzzled by the three-eyed crow reference, like Bloodraven.

She seems simply to recognize the difference between the 3EC and the last greenseer... as related, yet different concepts... as we recognize the difference between ham and eggs.

:agree:

[Black Crow]

There is, I think, perhaps a relatively simple explanation for the question as to whether Bloodraven and the three-eyed-crow are the same.

We've seen Bran take his first steps in greenseeing through the tree. He appears as a tree in Jon's dream vision and he saw, heard and tasted those things at Winterfell as a tree, but he is not a tree.

First the Crow in his dreams and then Bloodraven in person have told Bran that he can go beyond the weirwood and fly - presumably as a crow.

As JNR reminds me, Bloodraven and the the Three-eyed Crow have completely different speech patterns, which only heightens his vagueness when Bran asks him, yet Bloodraven tells Bran that he has been watching him all his life and has come to him in dreams.

Is the answer therefore that Bloodraven has indeed been coming to Bran through the Crow; that he is able to see Bran through that third eye filled with terrible knowledge, but it is the Crow who speaks for him.

[WierWood Wolf]

That being said, if we're looking at a wider role for the crows, Bloodraven may not necessarily have been the sole point of contact and the three-eyed crow that visited Jojen may not necessarily have been Bloodraven. We have speculated in the past that Bloodraven's own third eye may have been opened by a crow while he lay in the total darkness of the black cells.

Might BR have been contacted by the Singers during childhood at Raventree Hall? The powers attributed to him before he is in the Black Cells seem substantial. He is said to have clamored into a one eyed dog, turn into a mist. Have packs of gaunt gray wolves hunt down his foes. Carrion crows spy for him and whisper secrets in his ears.

Dunk doubts these tales,but they sound like a skinchangers gig(except this mist part. This sounds like WW magic). Can we discount any of these stories? Not so sure.

[Toccs]

Might BR have been contacted by the Singers during childhood at Raventree Hall? The powers attributed to him before he is in the Black Cells seem substantial. He is said to have clamored into a one eyed dog, turn into a mist. Have packs of gaunt gray wolves hunt down his foes. Carrion crows spy for him and whisper secrets in his ears.

Dunk doubts these tales,but they sound like a skinchangers gig(except this mist part. This sounds like WW magic). Can we discount any of these stories? Not so sure.

He's also accused of personally causing the Great Spring Sickness and the crippling drought that followed, I think all of the stories about him have to be taken with a fairly large grain of salt.

Knowing what we know we can safely conclude that he was skinchanging and we have seen him use a glamour to spy on his enemies, but remember that being enigmatic was his entire schtick. He probably started most of the rumours.

[Black Crow]

A possible explanation for the quite distinct speech patterns - and attitude - of the Three-eyed-Crow and Bloodraven may lie in the medium.

Bran tried to speak to his father through the weirwood, but because it was a tree all that happened was that the leaves rustled.

If the Crows are the messengers of the Singers, perhaps the Three-eyed-Crow was indeed a crow and because Bloodraven was going beyond the trees to come to Bran in his dreams he was coming through the Crow, and was therefore speaking through the Crow, or the Crow was speaking on his behalf, hence the chirpy and impatient tone not of Bloodraven but of the crow itself. If so then perhaps only the third eye, full of terrible knowledge, was Bloodraven.

[nanother]

That being said, if we're looking at a wider role for the crows, Bloodraven may not necessarily have been the sole point of contact and the three-eyed crow that visited Jojen may not necessarily have been Bloodraven. We have speculated in the past that Bloodraven's own third eye may have been opened by a crow while he lay in the total darkness of the black cells.

Might BR have been contacted by the Singers during childhood at Raventree Hall? The powers attributed to him before he is in the Black Cells seem substantial. He is said to have clamored into a one eyed dog, turn into a mist. Have packs of gaunt gray wolves hunt down his foes. Carrion crows spy for him and whisper secrets in his ears.

Dunk doubts these tales,but they sound like a skinchangers gig(except this mist part. This sounds like WW magic). Can we discount any of these stories? Not so sure.

Yes, I think even if we take these rumours with several grains of salt, it's likely that his skinchanging abilities surfaced long before the Black Cells. Also, it seems to me that the 'fly or die' element is important in the 3EC's first visit, as opposed to mere sensory deprivation.

I certainly agree with this. Loads of evidence.

In the past, you suggested (and I now think correctly) that there was more than just the appearance to distinguish them. The tone and language of the 3EC are also significantly different from Bloodraven's.

For instance, as Bran is plummeting to his apparent dream-death, in his first encounter with the 3EC before he learns to fly, he is terrified.

"Help me," he begs the 3EC.

"I'm trying," says the 3EC. "Say, got any corn?"

Seriously?!

Then a bit later, the crow tells him:

It's such a flip attitude. I can't imagine Bloodraven saying that, or acting like that, under such circumstances.

I think you were right to call attention to this before, and remembering it has led me to quite a different idea about the 3EC than I had then.

Sold.

I think if you look at BR in The Mystery Knight, the flippant tone is not that out of character for him. Also, if the fly-or-die thing is a usual part of of the recruitment process, he might have been through it a number of times already :p

I've brought this up before, that Bloodraven's confusion when asked about his identity may just be the author subtly referencing Gandalf's return from the dead in the LOTR. He too appeared perplexed when the hobbits called him Gandalf and it took him a minute to remember he had gone by that name. Bloodraven has a lot of parallels to Gandalf the greatest being that both characters seem to be heavily based on Odin.

In addition, doesn't Varamyr state that skinchangers who take the skins of birds often become fairly flighty?

Good point. Also, this 'uncertainty' matches his teasing during Bran's first dream:

The crow landed on his hand and began to eat.

“Are you really a crow?” Bran asked.

Are you really falling? the crow asked back.

“It’s just a dream,” Bran said.

Is it? asked the crow.

Also note his answer when Meera asked for his name: “I wore many names when I was quick, but even I once had a mother, and the name she gave me at her breast was Brynden.”

He's not one fore simple, straight answers.

[Melifeather]

A possible explanation for the quite distinct speech patterns - and attitude - of the Three-eyed-Crow and Bloodraven may lie in the medium.

Bran tried to speak to his father through the weirwood, but because it was a tree all that happened was that the leaves rustled.

If the Crows are the messengers of the Singers, perhaps the Three-eyed-Crow was indeed a crow and because Bloodraven was going beyond the trees to come to Bran in his dreams he was coming through the Crow, and was therefore speaking through the Crow, or the Crow was speaking on his behalf, hence the chirpy and impatient tone not of Bloodraven but of the crow itself. If so then perhaps only the third eye, full of terrible knowledge, was Bloodraven.

This is what I'm thinking also, and like I tried explaining before, the thoughts of the crow or raven also end up getting communicated thus asking for corn, etc.

[King of Winters]

There is, I think, perhaps a relatively simple explanation for the question as to whether Bloodraven and the three-eyed-crow are the same.

We've seen Bran take his first steps in greenseeing through the tree. He appears as a tree in Jon's dream vision and he saw, heard and tasted those things at Winterfell as a tree, but he is not a tree.

First the Crow in his dreams and then Bloodraven in person have told Bran that he can go beyond the weirwood and fly - presumably as a crow.

As JNR reminds me, Bloodraven and the the Three-eyed Crow have completely different speech patterns, which only heightens his vagueness when Bran asks him, yet Bloodraven tells Bran that he has been watching him all his life and has come to him in dreams.

Is the answer therefore that Bloodraven has indeed been coming to Bran through the Crow; that he is able to see Bran through that third eye filled with terrible knowledge, but it is the Crow who speaks for him.

If not Bloodraven, then who could the Three-Eyed Crow be?

[aDanceWithFlagons]

If not Bloodraven, then who could the Three-Eyed Crow be?

Struan Rodger

[WierWood Wolf]

I find it odd Mormonts raven is a vegetarian until he does the LC the favor of removing his eyes.

[FainRivers]

He's also accused of personally causing the Great Spring Sickness and the crippling drought that followed, I think all of the stories about him have to be taken with a fairly large grain of salt.

Knowing what we know we can safely conclude that he was skinchanging and we have seen him use a glamour to spy on his enemies, but remember that being enigmatic was his entire schtick. He probably started most of the rumours.

I agree. It's like the Frey's claim that Robb turned into a wolf at the RW. There's a small grain of truth, but it's largely a fallacy. Also, I love the word fallacy.

[Yield.]

Ok bear with me guys as I try to puzzle this out. I have been looking through all the books for textual evidence of who or what the Three Eyed Crow is. I searched for any reference to it and found the following quotes. Some are quite long...

From ACoK:

Bran is speaking to Meera:-

“Did your master-at-arms teach you net-fighting?”
“My father taught me. We have no knights at Greywater. No master-at-arms, and no maester.”
“Who keeps your ravens?”
She smiled. “Ravens can’t find Greywater Watch, no more than our enemies can.”

Jojen speaking to Bran:-

“I dreamed of a winged wolf bound to earth with grey stone chains,” he said. “It was a green dream, so I knew it was true. A crow was trying to peck through the chains, but the stone was too hard and his beak could only chip at them.”
“Did the crow have three eyes?”
Jojen nodded.
Summer raised his head from Bran’s lap, and gazed at the mudman with his dark golden eyes.
“When I was little I almost died of greywater fever. That was when the crow came to me.”
“He came to me after I fell,” Bran blurted. “I was asleep for a long time. He said I had to fly or die, and I woke up, only I was broken and I couldn’t fly after all.”
“You can if you want to.” Picking up her net, Meera shook out the last tangles and began arranging it in loose folds.
“You are the winged wolf, Bran,” said Jojen. “I wasn’t sure when we first came, but now I am. The crow sent us here to break your chains.”
“Is the crow at Greywater?”
“No. The crow is in the north.”
“At the Wall?” Bran had always wanted to see the Wall. His bastard brother Jon was there now, a man of the Night’s Watch.
“Beyond the Wall.” Meera Reed hung the net from her belt. “When Jojen told our lord father what he’d dreamed, he sent us to Winterfell.”
“How would I break the chains, Jojen?” Bran asked.
“Open your eye.”
“They are open Can’t you see?”
“Two are open.” Jojen pointed. “One, two.”
“I only have two.”
“You have three. The crow gave you the third, but you will not open it.” He had a slow soft way of speaking. “With two eyes you see my face. With three you could see my heart. With two you can see that oak tree there. With three you could see the acorn the oak grew from and the stump that it will one day become. With two you see no farther than your walls. With three you would gaze south to the Summer Sea and north beyond the Wall.”

So regular homing pigeon raven can't find them but clearly the three eyed crow can because he came to Jojen in his sickness. What's interesting to note is that Jojen says the crow is the one who gave him the third eye. Does that mean Bran didn't have one in potentia before the crow's visit? We see Bran as a weirwood scratch at Ghost/Jon's head in order to open his own third eye for him so it gets rather confusing. The implication is the crow does not necessarily need to be the one to bestow a third eye, it can be done by any greenseer.

From ASoS:

Sam is speaking with Jon:-

It tore the heart from Sam to hold his silence then. Bran’s not dead, Jon, he wanted to stay. He’s with friends, and they’re going north on a giant elk to find a three-eyed crow in the depths of the haunted forest. It sounded so mad that there were times Sam Tarly thought he must have dreamt it all, conjured it whole from fever and fear and hunger... but he would have blurted it out anyway, if he had not given his word.
Three times he had sworn to keep the secret; once to Bran himself, once to that strange boy Jojen Reed, and last of all to Coldhands. “The world believes the boy is dead,” his rescuer had said as they parted. “Let his bones lie undisturbed. We want no seekers coming after us. Swear it, Samwell of the Night’s Watch. Swear it for the life you owe me.”

The implication here is that not only do Bran and Jojen believe that the 3EC is beyond the wall but Coldhands does as well. Additionally we are now given a location - the depths of the haunted forest. This information could only have come from Coldhands. And it's interesting to note that Sam calls the entity the 3EC which implies that Coldhands never contradicted the assumption of BR, the person he is taking them to meet, as being the 3EC.

From ADwD:

Meera and Bran speaking:-

“The ranger saved Sam and the girl from the wights,” Bran said, hesitantly, “and he’s taking me to the three-eyed crow.”
“Why won’t this three-eyed crow come to us? Why couldn’t he meet us at the Wall? Crows have wings. My brother grows weaker every day. How long can we go on?”

Clearly no crow in physical form has come to meet them and help ferry them to the cave of skulls so the form of the 3EC is strictly metaphysical. Which raises the question: If it is only a metaphysical form why choose that of a crow if Bloodraven is now part of the weirwood he is attached to?

Meera speaking to Coldhands:-

Meera’s gloved hand tightened around the shaft of her frog spear. “Who sent you? Who is this three-eyed crow?”
“A friend. Dreamer, wizard, call him what you will. The last greenseer.”

So Coldhand places no importance in who they call the 3EC. He knows who he is taking them to and it matters not what you call it cause it all boils down to the same thing - Bloodraven from the sound of it. He, like Leaf, renames who they are asking for, it reads like a correction. Again though it's ambiguous in that BR isn't the last greenseer as we learn later through Bran-in-Hodor's exploring when they find a host of greenseers attached to the trees.

Leaf upon arrival to the cave:-

"Come now. It is warmer down deep, and no one will hurt you there. He is waiting for you.”
“The three-eyed crow?” asked Meera.
“The greenseer.” And with that she was off, and they had no choice but to follow.

Leaf is correcting Meera here I think. She is not agreeing with her that the 3EC is the same thing. If she were agreeing with her she would have something like 'Yes, him.'

Bloodraven and Bran speaking:-

“Are you the three-eyed crow?” Bran heard himself say. A three-eyed crow should have
three eyes. He has only one, and that one red. Bran could feel the eye staring at him, shining
like a pool of blood in the torchlight. Where his other eye should have been, a thin white root
grew from an empty socket, down his cheek, and into his neck.
“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.” The clothes he wore were
rotten and faded, spotted with moss and eaten through with worms, but once they had been
black. “I have been many things, Bran. Now I am as you see me, and now you will understand
why I could not come to you … except in dreams. I have watched you for a long time, watched
you with a thousand eyes and one. I saw your birth, and that of your lord father before you. I
saw your first step, heard your first word, was part of your first dream. I was watching when
you fell. And now you are come to me at last, Brandon Stark, though the hour is late.”

Bloodraven's answer to Bran's 'are you the 3EC?' is, despite the 'aye' in actuality NO. He is claiming to have been a 'crow' only in the sense that he was once a Night Watchman, not the 3EC. He goes on to say that he was many things but not a one of them is him going around in the guise of a metaphysical crow.

Also of note is that he admits to watching as Bran fell. Well the only witnesses to that were Jaime and Cersei and the crows of the broken tower. Just because BR could have been in the crows of Winterfell as well as it's heart tree does not necessarily mean that he can appear as a crow in both Jojen and Bran's dreams.

[Essan]

I find it odd Mormonts raven is a vegetarian until he does the LC the favor of removing his eyes.

Just had a thought on that - wights are identifiable by their blue eyes. But what if they have no eyes? Would that prevent them being wightified? Was the crow specificially eating the Old Bear's eyes - rather than, for example, Craster's - out of respect/to ensure there was no chance of him 'coming back'?

[aDanceWithFlagons]

I find it odd Mormonts raven is a vegetarian until he does the LC the favor of removing his eyes.

The raven eats bacon also. He stole some from Mormont and later from Jon. The raven's taste for ceartain foods could come from having a shadow of a former greenseer in him. But pecking out the eyes is a natural thing to do for a crow. Actually the bird ate his whole face, well maybe not all of face.

[aDanceWithFlagons]

Just had a thought on that - wights are identifiable by their blue eyes. But what if they have no eyes? Would that prevent them being wightified? Was the crow specificially eating the Old Bear's eyes - rather than, for example, Craster's - out of respect/to ensure there was no chance of him 'coming back'?

In aDwD prologue, Thistle is wightified after her eyes are gone. There is blue light shining from the empty sockets.