Heresy 125

[TheTowerOfJoy]

Barring the "fact" that in that conversation the author wrote it whereby the one defininig feature was left out....You please then explain Gilly's reaction to small paul.Explain why she the one who made mention of cold gods would make such a mistake.

When Gilly says that Smaul Paul (the wight) is coming for the baby, couldn't it just be as Old Nan says that children "stink of life", and so the wight was drawn to the baby to kill it, not to take it away like the Others who have come for Craster's sons have done?

Perhaps Gilly has seen both, the Others coming for the sons, and the wights coming to kill anything living?

[Hrafntýr]

Sorry you took that personally. My post was meant to be read in a joking tone, and was directed towards BC. He often suggests his ideas keep things simple, and likes to point out my ideas and the ideas of others are over-complicating GRRM's simple storylines :)

I am of a mind with you on the matter. That GRRM's story is anything but simple.

I do not know how much we agree on the manner of Bran: fall vs. defenestration. But, I think I do know one concrete area in which we differ.

I may be wrong, but I think you see Bran as being manipulated into bearing his old gods gifts (or curse?)... BR infiltrating his dreams since his very first one, spying on him with a thousand eyes and one, implanting his will into Jojen's greendreams, and generally manipulating him into eventually taking root in his weircave.

I see Bran being inherently willful and insubordinate, yet spiritually receptive... bonding with crows from the time he could climb, listening carefully to Old Nan's "myths," seeing the truth in things (even truths yet to come) in his vision (falling coma-dream), at first not wanting to believe Jojen (willful) but then realizing he shared some gifts (receptive), and eventually coming to fully accept his true self, rather than hide or deny the existence his gifts the way someone who is less brave would.

Nah, I didn't really take it personally, but I did want to make sure that you understood I didn't think the crows literally made Bran fall! (But I do sometimes have a wooden ear for picking up jokes. I'm a profoundly gullible person.)

But the matter of our disagreement/agreement on this point is not so clear: I agree with both the things you say above! I do suspect that Bran is being manipulated, but I also believe him to be unusually independent and strong, spiritually receptive, and to love Winterfell fiercely. I think our real difference is in our evaluation of the program of the Children and/or Bloodraven. I'm not saying I think it's "evil" or something! But it pains me to expect that Bran is going to "have" to do things, as a consequence of following this course, that are going to be awful for him (that's my guess). It's one thing when this is the consequence of the impersonal mechanisms of karma, but I can't tell you how disturbed I was when I first read those lines of BR about having always watched Bran and that "from your first dream" business. I know that upon close inspection this all breaks down, since we're always determined by something, so that if Bran's path wasn't shaped by BR then it would have been shaped by society, his family, the Oedipus Complex, whatever! We're never free, we're just vehicles through whom action moves. And given that I'm a pretty strong misanthrope, it's not like I even think it would be a bad thing if the entire human race were wiped out. It just pains me to think that Bran, a child, might be the instrument responsible for destroying things he cares about, which is what I fear.

You're getting it across, I still disagree with you for all the reasons I've already stated.

I saw a thread once where somebody was analysing the moon cycles in Bran's chapters in the cave to deteremine how long he had been in the cave and whether his POV chapters were possibly further ahead at this point than everybody else.

The tough thing about what you are looking for is that Bran's chapters in the cave contain from memory at least 3 or 4 full cycles of the moon, whereas Val's trip to find Tormund only takes 1. In order to prove any connection between events relative to each other, you would first have to sync up Bran's chapters with everybody else.

For Bran, this would mean going all the way back to when he met Sam at the Nightfort (the last time his story crossed anybody else) and then counting all the observed cycles of the moon from there. Then you would have to hope that somebody like Jon or Sam gives a ballpark timeframe for how long there was between that meeting and Val leaving.

Without syncing them up like that it would be very difficult to prove that for example Bran noticing meat tastes funny at a certain point, is concurrent with Val's trip.

It's an interesting idea, I look forward to seeing what comes of it.

You could check this out, the "Lunar phases" tab (it's a great resource, too, for distances by raven, horse, ship, and overall timeline). But the makers of the spreadsheet see Bran's cave chapters as too far from the other events to place.

[TheTowerOfJoy]

I edited the post to add this, but obviosuly after you quoted it.

In fact earlier in that same chapter Gilly has been showing her adpetness at survival, much more adept than Sam is.

Sam left Gilly in the longhall to make a fire while he poked his head into the hovels. She was better at making fires; he could never seem to get the kindling to catch, and the last time he'd tried to strike a spark off flint and steel he managed to cut himself on his knife. Gilly bound up the gash for him, but his hand was stiff and sore, even clumsier than it had been before.

. . .

By the time he returned to the longhall, Gilly had the fire going. She sat close to it with her furs opened, the babe at her breast.

So I would argue that when she says

"He's come for the babe," Gilly wept. "He smells him. A babe fresh-born stinks o' life. He's come for the life."

She is further demonstrating the wives knowledge of wights and what they do and what they are. She at know stage likens this situation to Craster's offerings. This is an entirely diifferent siutaion, they have already refused the offering and absconded with it. They are now out in the world with the wights and the cold gods will not protect them anymore.

Yes, and she knows that wights kill things, and especially seem to hate babies because they "stink of life".

[Voice]

I agree with Hrafnjir on this one....First i got to ask,exactly where in the text do you see proof that Bran was bonding with Crows from the moment he could climb?

Bran II AGOT:

The rooftops of Winterfell were Bran’s second home. His mother often said that Bran could climb before he could walk. Bran could not remember when he first learned to walk, but he could not remember when he started to climb either, so he supposed it must be true.

And later in the same chapter:

There were crows’ nests atop the broken tower, where no one ever went but him, and sometimes he filled his pockets with corn before he climbed up there and the crows ate it right out of his hand. None of them had ever shown the slightest bit of interest in pecking out his eyes.

And a few paragraphs after that:

He liked the birds: the crows in the broken tower, the tiny little sparrows that nested in cracks between the stones, the ancient owl that slept in the dusty loft above the old armory. Bran knew them all.

Then:

But no one ever got up to the jagged top of the structure now except for Bran and the crows.

And:

The last part was the scramble up the blackened stones to the eyrie, no more than ten feet, and then the crows would come round to see if you’d brought any corn.

With all this, GRRM feels compelled to mention them one last time at the very end of the chapter, which is quite interesting:

Somewhere off in the distance, a wolf was howling. Crows circled the broken tower, waiting for corn.

Crows circling the Broken Tower. The tower struck by lightning over 140 years ago. Not sure if there's a connection, but that's about the same time the last dragon died. In any case, it's interesting given the behavior of the ravens at Raventree (BR's mother's home). I know this only serves to help your guys' point, rather than my own, but I'm not set in stone on anything until there's another book in my hands.

BR was totally manipulating Bran,it was as they say "a set up" he wanted Bran in the cave and he got Bran in the cave.The fall was just a means to an end everything else fell into line like poetry.

Almost all the Stark kids listened to Old Nan's tale they must reference it a dozen time,they are all wilful,receptive etc.But looking at this objectivley you can see where the set up was obvious.

1. Thei lives were going to get turned over with Roberts visit

a. Enter the Direwolves that matched the kids perfect > Male to female and a white one for the bastard named Snow

2.Bran falls in the craziness of Roberts visit where everyone was doing their thing

a. Enter the Crow to begin planting the seeds

3. Robb goes off to war Cat is off in Kingslanding leaving Bran in Winterfell

a. Enter the Reeds.

Set up.

Sure, I can see how if one approaches this with a nefarious view of BR, or from the POV that Bran is not meant to be in consort with him, then the events you describe are obvious indications of a set up.

I was of the same mind on my first reread. I was convinced beyond a doubt the cave was bad and BR the sorcerer claimed in D&E. Since then, I've had a change of heart. Now when I read the text, a different picture emerges. One of the Starks suppressing their receptiveness in order to normalize their lives and fit in with the status quo. The events on the day of the hunt, and Bran falling/being thrown from the window, serve to stop Bran's denial. It takes different triggers for the gifts to emerge in each child, but emerge they must (though I have my doubts with Sansa).

The Reeds have always seemed sincere. If Jojen was merely a pawn in BR's game of weirthrones, and by extension, his father Howland, since he read those dreams as them needing to take Bran north to the 3EC - then the story has lost its center. Ned always trusted Howland Reed. Bran trusts Jojen. I'll doubt the veracity of Craster's wives long before I doubt any Reed :D

I totally agree that the finding of the direwolf pups was more than chance. I see it as fate - the Starks being chosen. But not by BR or the Children. I see them as another gift from the Old Gods. I know some here equate the Old Gods with the Children, as well as with BR by extension. And while that is not untrue, it is an incomplete picture of the Old Gods in my opinion - who include everything - and not just Children and Greenseers.

[TheTowerOfJoy]

I don't think the Others are a separate race. I think they are far too close to men in size, build, armor, weaponry, and appearance to be a completely separate race, like say Giants or Children. I think some action of Men caused their existence, and that they are the physical embodiment of Man's motive during said event.

Old Nan says they came for the first time in the Long Night. I think she's right. I think they emerged from the North long before any man was able to sacrifice a son to them. And, really, if you think about it they must have been, because who would anyone pay homage to, or seek solace from (as in the case of Craster)?

ETA: I just realized I didn't answer your question hahaaa... It weakens the Craster-son argument because that theory requires some sort of infant-sacrifice-arrangement in order to initiate the Long Night -- because they would be required to create the Others that came for the first time. And if that is when they came for the first time, how did anyone know their sacrifices would turn into white walkers if there weren't yet Others to make sacrifices to?

This is where we disagree. We agree that they are not a seperate race, however, what you call "Ancient Others", IMO, are simply human greenseer spirits inhabiting the bodies of Craster's sons and before them past generations of human sacrifices to extend their own lives.

That's what they were back at the beginning of the original Long Night, and that's what they are now.

[Voice]

(though I have my doubts with Sansa)

Sorry to quote myself here. Honestly, I'm totally not narcissistic...

A cool image just appeared to me:

LF's tutelage of Sansa serves not only to develop her skill in the game,

but inadvertently awakens her ancestral Stark/FM gifts and

she starts manipulating people not only politically, but physically...

I'm imagining her slipping into Robert Arryn's skin and jumping him/herself out the moondoor.

Then she seriously fawks shit up in KL - playin' da game LF-style and dominating it Stark-style.

I want to like Sansa, but don't. This would help :)

[Black Crow]

So, if Ice preserves, how long can an "ice shadow" live? if the answer is > 100 years, then where are the ones born 100 years ago (before Craster was born)?

Why isn't there an ever-growing number of these "ice shadows"? What has made the previous ones go away?

Its a good question, like how old is Coldhands, because we don't know how long cold preserves in this context.

What may be relevant to this question is that speech by Leaf about the Singers being long-lived but few in number, because thus far we really have no good reason to suppose that the white walkers are numerous, even back in the day or rather the Long Night the story told by Old Nan is not of the icy hordes pouring down from the North as most people on the main board seem to be confidently expecting but of a few, mounted on dead horses and leading armies not of walkers but of wights.

As to Craster's sons, from the way Gilly tells of them coming more often lately we can conclude on the one hand that they are building their numbers ahead of what's to come, but on the other that every son is needed cos their aint many of them - which again is consistent with Mel birthing black shadows singly and only as required. I'd say that others were required from time to time between the Long Night and the present, but not armies of them and perhaps just for a single purpose. Mel's shadows are heard of no more once the deed is done, Craster's sons obviously last longer, preserved in their icy bodies, but as to how long...

[Voice]

This is where we disagree. We agree that they are not a seperate race, however, what you call "Ancient Others", IMO, are simply human greenseer spirits inhabiting the bodies of Craster's sons and before them past generations of human sacrifices to extend their own lives.

That's what they were back at the beginning of the original Long Night, and that's what they are now.

Indeed it is :)

Though for me this feels like a stretch, I think your idea is far more likely than CotF turning babies into frozen knights.

I like that you are also thinking of an Other (whether Ancient or human GS) entity that creates white walkers, and that it is somewhat or possibly immortal.

I do have an idea of what and who the Ancient Others are (Ancient Others are mostly a place-holder in my mind). And while I think it's a pretty good alternative to the theories presented, it's not quite ready to be unveiled. Everyone will see it before WoW though LOL

[wolfmaid7]

When Gilly says that Smaul Paul (the wight) is coming for the baby, couldn't it just be as Old Nan says that children "stink of life", and so the wight was drawn to the baby to kill it, not to take it away like the Others who have come for Craster's sons have done?

Perhaps Gilly has seen both, the Others coming for the sons, and the wights coming to kill anything living?

We don't know but GRRM has created ambiguity around this and i'm pointing out another alternative.The whole point is to show one thing we are sure of that being Gilly is talking about something with blue eyes,white skin and cold.My point using the Wights which is a great arguement is to say reasonable doubt more than exist to proove its not wws.The babies could be getting shredded to pieces by wights,never living beyond that night.They could be getting picked up by wws,or by wildlings parading around as such.All of this is being suggested one way or the other in the book. Level on level on level.Different readers re drawn to different things.

Why i don't buy your last statement is if it was only about the living she would have been scared for herself and Sam as in e need to get out of dodge.She was focused on him coming for her baby.

Bran II AGOT:

The rooftops of Winterfell were Bran’s second home. His mother often said that Bran could climb before he could walk. Bran could not remember when he first learned to walk, but he could not remember when he started to climb either, so he supposed it must be true.

And later in the same chapter:

There were crows’ nests atop the broken tower, where no one ever went but him, and sometimes he filled his pockets with corn before he climbed up there and the crows ate it right out of his hand. None of them had ever shown the slightest bit of interest in pecking out his eyes.

And a few paragraphs after that:

He liked the birds: the crows in the broken tower, the tiny little sparrows that nested in cracks between the stones, the ancient owl that slept in the dusty loft above the old armory. Bran knew them all.

Then:

But no one ever got up to the jagged top of the structure now except for Bran and the crows.

And:

The last part was the scramble up the blackened stones to the eyrie, no more than ten feet, and then the crows would come round to see if you’d brought any corn.

With all this, GRRM feels compelled to mention them one last time at the very end of the chapter, which is quite interesting:

Somewhere off in the distance, a wolf was howling. Crows circled the broken tower, waiting for corn.

Crows circling the Broken Tower. The tower struck by lightning over 140 years ago. Not sure if there's a connection, but that's about the same time the last dragon died. In any case, it's interesting given the behavior of the ravens at Raventree (BR's mother's home). I know this only serves to help your guys' point, rather than my own, but I'm not set in stone on anything until there's another book in my hands.

Sure, I can see how if one approaches this with a nefarious view of BR, or from the POV that Bran is not meant to be in consort with him, then the events you describe are obvious indications of a set up.

I was of the same mind on my first reread. I was convinced beyond a doubt the cave was bad and BR the sorcerer claimed in D&E. Since then, I've had a change of heart. Now when I read the text, a different picture emerges. One of the Starks suppressing their receptiveness in order to normalize their lives and fit in with the status quo. The events on the day of the hunt, and Bran falling/being thrown from the window, serve to stop Bran's denial. It takes different triggers for the gifts to emerge in each child, but emerge they must (though I have my doubts with Sansa).

The Reeds have always seemed sincere. If Jojen was merely a pawn in BR's game of weirthrones, and by extension, his father Howland, since he read those dreams as them needing to take Bran north to the 3EC - then the story has lost its center. Ned always trusted Howland Reed. Bran trusts Jojen. I'll doubt the veracity of Craster's wives long before I doubt any Reed :D

I totally agree that the finding of the direwolf pups was more than chance. I see it as fate - the Starks being chosen. But not by BR or the Children. I see them as another gift from the Old Gods. I know some here equate the Old Gods with the Children, as well as with BR by extension. And while that is not untrue, it is an incomplete picture of the Old Gods in my opinion - who include everything - and not just Children and Greenseers.

Those quotes don't proove Bran was bonded to the crows,he liked them,he liked being up there thats it.

As to your second point boyyyyy you jump to more conclusions than frogs on a Lillypad.Did you ask me if i share the same mindset as you about the cave?

Firstly, darkness and death means something different depending on the lens you look through. Sure people see skulls in the cave and think woooo evil. Death and darkness isn't evil it's a part of life.

Secondly,manipulation while mostly seen as negative isn't always so it depends on the outcome one seek.So to go back to what i said,they wanted Bran in the cave they got him because they want to use him for something.The outcome being evil or good depends on what side you're on when the shit goes down. If its a flood bad for you,good for the fishes.

I have no quams about the Reeds sincerity they showed up when they needed to,Jojen was sent a dream that led him to WF i don't think there was anything sinister about that. Events that happened ensured the Starks had Direwolves and they ended up separated.

[TheTowerOfJoy]

Or a black hole? I haven't the foggiest. Only that whatever it is, it is the answer. IRL, solar radiation is the cause of the curtain of light. Perhaps Bran is appalled by cosmic radiation ;)

ETA: Only that whatever it is, it is the answer - this is why I don't see the Singers as the culprits. Bran was afraid of what he saw there, and is not afraid of Leaf.

Not only that the 3EC (assumed to be BR) tells him that after seeing that, now he understands why he must live.

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.

[TheTowerOfJoy]

Indeed it is :)

Though for me this feels like a stretch, I think your idea is far more likely than CotF turning babies into frozen knights.

I like that you are also thinking of an Other (whether Ancient or human GS) entity that creates white walkers, and that it is somewhat or possibly immortal.

I do have an idea of what and who the Ancient Others are (Ancient Others are mostly a place-holder in my mind). And while I think it's a pretty good alternative to the theories presented, it's not quite ready to be unveiled. Everyone will see it before WoW though LOL

How is it a stretch, we've seen a greenseer (Bran) inhabit another human's body (Hodor), and an attempt to do so by V6 that failed (Thistle).

To me an infant is much closer to Hodor than Thistle, meaning they would be easier to inhabit, and once broken, like Hodor, would become a new vessel for their spirits to live their "second life", and "third life", and "thousanth life".

Just as Bran becomes Hodor, the Night's King and his fellow human greenseers are become a son of Craster.

And just to be clear I'm not saying that all human greenseers become others, just those that are looking to extend their own lives, and refusing to pass from the world.

[TheTowerOfJoy]

Its a good question, like how old is Coldhands, because we don't know how long cold preserves in this context.

What may be relevant to this question is that speech by Leaf about the Singers being long-lived but few in number, because thus far we really have no good reason to suppose that the white walkers are numerous, even back in the day or rather the Long Night the story told by Old Nan is not of the icy hordes pouring down from the North as most people on the main board seem to be confidently expecting but of a few, mounted on dead horses and leading armies not of walkers but of wights.

As to Craster's sons, from the way Gilly tells of them coming more often lately we can conclude on the one hand that they are building their numbers ahead of what's to come, but on the other that every son is needed cos their aint many of them - which again is consistent with Mel birthing black shadows singly and only as required. I'd say that others were required from time to time between the Long Night and the present, but not armies of them and perhaps just for a single purpose. Mel's shadows are heard of no more once the deed is done, Craster's sons obviously last longer, preserved in their icy bodies, but as to how long...

Right, but my point is that these sacrifices are cyclical, not additive, it implies that there isn't one white walker per Craster Son, but one White Walker per spirit, that requires sacrifices to sustain itself.

The White Walkers in the prologue appear to be sentient. They appear to communicate and move independently. Each of them is a spirit of something else, and my guess is that they are a small group of human greenseers looking to extend their own lives by taking the bodies of Craster's sons and all the sacrifices before them.

[Voice]

Nah, I didn't really take it personally, but I did want to make sure that you understood I didn't think the crows literally made Bran fall! (But I do sometimes have a wooden ear for picking up jokes. I'm a profoundly gullible person.)

But the matter of our disagreement/agreement on this point is not so clear: I agree with both the things you say above! I do suspect that Bran is being manipulated, but I also believe him to be unusually independent and strong, spiritually receptive, and to love Winterfell fiercely. I think our real difference is in our evaluation of the program of the Children and/or Bloodraven. I'm not saying I think it's "evil" or something! But it pains me to expect that Bran is going to "have" to do things, as a consequence of following this course, that are going to be awful for him (that's my guess). It's one thing when this is the consequence of the impersonal mechanisms of karma, but I can't tell you how disturbed I was when I first read those lines of BR about having always watched Bran and that "from your first dream" business. I know that upon close inspection this all breaks down, since we're always determined by something, so that if Bran's path wasn't shaped by BR then it would have been shaped by society, his family, the Oedipus Complex, whatever! We're never free, we're just vehicles through whom action moves. And given that I'm a pretty strong misanthrope, it's not like I even think it would be a bad thing if the entire human race were wiped out. It just pains me to think that Bran, a child, might be the instrument responsible for destroying things he cares about, which is what I fear.

Well, if you think about it as an old man spying on a little boy, then hell yeah, that's creepy. But BR is simply following the path of the Old Gods. They watch. Not just little boys, but everything and everyone. So while he paid attention to Bran, he paid attention to everything else as well. As we saw with Bran's first glimpse into the Weirnet, he saw those he wanted to see (his father), but he also saw more he never knew of. I think BR witnessed Bran in the same way, though by the time Bran was born, BR surely had more control of his seeing by then.

And clearly, you are not as much of a misanthrope as you think you are if you care so much about a child having to destroy the things he cares about :)

Real life beckons, but I'll be trying to catch up here and there. Until then...

[Black Crow]

Sorry you took that personally. My post was meant to be read in a joking tone, and was directed towards BC. He often suggests his ideas keep things simple, and likes to point out my ideas and the ideas of others are over-complicating GRRM's simple storylines :)

I am of a mind with you on the matter. That GRRM's story is anything but simple.

Ah, let me clarify that point. To my mind there is absolutely no question that GRRM's story is a complex one, but what makes it complex is the interactions, motives, allegiances, fears, hatreds, treacheries, yes and goodness and nobility of the human characters. It is in the end about people and how they behave towards each other in triumph and adversity.

What I'm averse to is adding layers of complexity to the periphery, which is why as I said earlier I like the Craster's sons business because it means that the Others are explainable within the context of the story and consistent with it rather than standing outside it. Its a matter of deconstructing rather than elaborating the mythos.

[Urrax2]

You're getting it across, I still disagree with you for all the reasons I've already stated.

I saw a thread once where somebody was analysing the moon cycles in Bran's chapters in the cave to deteremine how long he had been in the cave and whether his POV chapters were possibly further ahead at this point than everybody else.

The tough thing about what you are looking for is that Bran's chapters in the cave contain from memory at least 3 or 4 full cycles of the moon, whereas Val's trip to find Tormund only takes 1. In order to prove any connection between events relative to each other, you would first have to sync up Bran's chapters with everybody else.

For Bran, this would mean going all the way back to when he met Sam at the Nightfort (the last time his story crossed anybody else) and then counting all the observed cycles of the moon from there. Then you would have to hope that somebody like Jon or Sam gives a ballpark timeframe for how long there was between that meeting and Val leaving.

Without syncing them up like that it would be very difficult to prove that for example Bran noticing meat tastes funny at a certain point, is concurrent with Val's trip.

It's an interesting idea, I look forward to seeing what comes of it.

I don't think the moon cycles for Bran can be synched up with the outside world. As I recall, it's one of the features of Faerie that time moves there differently from the outer world. People spend a lifetime there and come back and find only a day has passed. I think something similar is happening with Bran.

[Black Crow]

Right, but my point is that these sacrifices are cyclical, not additive, it implies that there isn't one white walker per Craster Son, but one White Walker per spirit, that requires sacrifices to sustain itself.

The White Walkers in the prologue appear to be sentient. They appear to communicate and move independently. Each of them is a spirit of something else, and my guess is that they are a small group of human greenseers looking to extend their own lives by taking the bodies of Craster's sons and all the sacrifices before them.

I can see where you're coming from but given that the white walkers are unquestionably ice made flesh I really don't see the bodies of Craster's sons being what's important but rather that their shadows are manipulated to spring fully formed into action like Cadmus' dragon's teeth - and there may be a subtle back-reference to this in the Raven's Teeth.

[Black Crow]

I don't think the moon cycles for Bran can be synched up with the outside world. As I recall, it's one of the features of Faerie that time moves there differently from the outer world. People spend a lifetime there and come back and find only a day has passed. I think something similar is happening with Bran.

:agree:

Absolutely. The cave chapters do seem to be very deliberately written that way, giving an impression that time in there is moving differently. It may a bit like dogs and men with Bran working on Singer time

[Black Crow]

And with that its time to shut this one down and open Heresy 126 - see you over there