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Heresy 178


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Welcome to Heresy 178, this week’s edition of the thread where we take an in-depth look at what GRRM has referred to as the real conflict, not the Game of Thrones, but the threat which lies the North, in the magical otherlands above the Wall.

 

Heresy is not of itself a theory. There is occasional consensus but no “Heretic view” on matters. Instead Heresy is a free-flowing and above all a very friendly series of open discussions and arguments about the Song of Ice and Ice and Fire.

 

If new to the thread, don’t be intimidated by the size and scope of Heresy, or by some of the many ideas we’ve discussed here over the years. This is very much a come as you are thread with no previous experience required. We’re very welcoming and 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. You will neither be patronized nor directed to follow links, but will be engaged directly. Just be patient and observe the local house rules that the debate be conducted by reference to the text, with respect for the ideas of others, and above all with great good humour

 

The strength and the beauty and ultimately the value of Heresy as a critical discussion group is that it reflects diversity and open-ness. This is a thread where ideas can be discussed – and argued – freely, because above all it is about an exchange of ideas and sometimes too a remarkably well informed exchange drawing upon an astonishing broad base of literature ranging through Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and so many others all to the way to the Táin Bó Cúailnge and the Mabinogion.

 

If new to Heresy you may also want to refer to to Wolfmaid's essential guide to Heresy: http://asoiaf.wester...uide-to-heresy/, which provides annotated links to all the previous editions of Heresy, latterly identified by topic. The Centennial Project essays in the run-up to Heresy 100 are particularly recommended, but be  warned however that Heresy is constantly moving and evolving and that what was once regarded as important may now be exploded. Live in the moment and the current thread.

 

Beyond that, read on…

 

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And now as usual the slightly spoilerish full text of GRRM's1993  letter to his agent, Ralph Vicinanza. Things have obviously changed a bit since then but If you don’t want to know, don’t read on:

 

October 1993

 

Dear Ralph,

 

Here are the first thirteen chapters (170 pages) of the high fantasy novel I promised you, which I'm calling A Game of Thrones. When completed, this will be the first volume in what I see as an epic trilogy with the overall title, A Song of Ice and Fire.

 

As you know, I don't outline my novels. I find that if I know exactly where a book is going, I lose all interest in writing it. I do, however, have some strong notions as to the overall structure of the story I'm telling, and the eventual fate of many of the principle [sic] characters in the drama.

 

Roughly speaking, there are three major conflicts set in motion in the chapters enclosed. These will form the major plot threads of the trilogy, intertwining with each other in what should be a complex but exciting (I hope) narrative tapestry. Each of the conflicts presents a major threat to the peace of my imaginary realm, the Seven Kingdoms, and to the lives of the principal characters.

 

The first threat grows from the enmity between the great houses of Lannister and Stark as it plays out in a cycle of plot, counterplot, ambition, murder, and revenge, with the iron throne of the Seven Kingdoms as the ultimate prize. This will form the backbone of the first volume of the trilogy, A Game of Thrones.

 

While the lion of Lannister and the direwolf of Stark snarl and scrap, however, a second and greater threat takes shape across the narrow sea, where the Dothraki horselords mass their barbarians hordes for a great invasion of the Seven Kingdoms, led by the fierce and beautiful Daenerys Stormborn, the last of the Targaryen dragonlords. The Dothraki invasion will be the central story of my second volume,A Dance with Dragons.

 

The greatest danger of all, however, comes from the north, from the icy wastes beyond the Wall, where half-forgotten demons out of legend, the inhuman others, raise cold legions of the undead and the neverborn and prepare to ride down on the winds of winter to extinguish everything that we would call "life." The only thing that stands between the Seven Kingdoms and and endless night is the Wall, and a handful of men in black called the Night's Watch. Their story will be the heart of my third volume, The Winds of Winter. The final battle will also draw together characters and plot threads left from the first two books and resolve all in one huge climax.

 

The thirteen chapters on hand should give you a notion as to my narrative strategy. All three books will feature a complex mosaic of intercutting points-of-view among various of my large and diverse cast of players. The cast will not always remains the same. Old characters will die, and new ones will be introduced. Some of the fatalities will include sympathetic viewpoint characters. I want the reader to feel that no one is ever completely safe, not even the characters who seem to be the heroes. The suspense always ratchets up a notch when you know that any character can die at any time.

 

Five central characters will make it through all three volumes, however, growing from children to adults and changing the world and themselves in the process. In a sense, my trilogy is almost a generational saga, telling the life stories of these five characters, three men and two women. The five key players are Tyrion Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen, and three of the children of Winterfell, Arya, Bran, and the bastard Jon Snow. All of them are introduced at some length in the chapters you have to hand.

 

This is going to be (I hope) quite an epic. Epic in its scale, epic in its action, and epic in its length. I see all three volumes as big books, running about 700 to 800 manuscript pages, so things are just barely getting underway in the thirteen chapters I've sent you.

 

I have quite a clear notion of how the story is going to unfold in the first volume, A Game of Thrones. Things will get a lot worse for the poor Starks before they get better, I'm afraid. Lord Eddard Stark and his wife Catelyn Tully are both doomed, and will perish at the hands of their enemies. Ned will discover what happened to his friend Jon Arryn, but before he can act on his knowledge, King Robert will have an unfortunate accident, and the throne will pass to his sullen and brutal son Joffrey, still a minor. Joffrey will not be sympathetic and Ned will be accused of treason, but before he is taken he will help his wife and his daughter escape back to Winterfell.

 

Each of the contending families will learn it has a member of dubious loyalty in its midst. Sansa Stark, wed to Joffrey Baratheon, will bear him a son, the heir to the throne, and when the crunch comes she will choose her husband and child over her parents and siblings, a choice she will later bitterly rue. Tyrion Lannister, meanwhile, befriend both Sansa and her sister Arya, while growing more and more disenchanted with his own family.

 

Young Bran will come out of his coma, after a strange prophetic dream, only to discover that he will never walk again. He will turn to magic, at first in the hope of restoring his legs, but later for its own sake. When his father Eddard Stark is executed, Bran will see the shape of doom descending on all of them, but nothing he can say will stop his brother Robb from calling the banners in rebellion. All the north will be inflamed by war. Robb will win several splendid victories, and maim Joffrey Baratheon on the battlefield, but in the end he will not be able to stand against Jaime and Tyrion Lannister and their allies. Robb Stark will die in battle, and Tyrion Lannister will besiege and burn Winterfell.

 

Jon Snow, the bastard, will remain in the far north. He will mature into a ranger of great daring, and ultimately will succeed his uncle as the commander of the Night's Watch. When Winterfell burns, Catelyn Stark will be forced to flee north with her son Bran and her daughter Arya. Hounded by Lannister riders, they will seek refuge at the Wall, but the men of the Night's Watch give up their families when they take the black, and Jon and Benjen will not be able to help, to Jon's anguish. It will lead to a bitter estrangement between Jon and Bran. Arya will be more forgiving... until she realizes, with terror, that she has fallen in love with Jon, who is not only her half-brother but a man of the Night's Watch, sworn to celibacy. Their passion will continue to torment Jon and Arya throughout the trilogy, until the secret of Jon's true parentage is finally revealed in the last book.

 

Abandoned by the Night's Watch, Catelyn and her children will find their only hope of safety lies even further north, beyond the Wall, where they fall into the hands of Mance Rayder, the King-beyond-the-Wall, and get a dreadful glimpse of the inhuman others as they attack the wildling encampment. Bran's magic, Arya's sword Needle, and the savagery of their direwolves will help them survive, but their mother Catelyn will die at the hands of the others.

 

Over across the narrow sea, Daenerys Targaryen will discover that her new husband, the Dothraki Khal Drogo, has little interest in invading the Seven Kingdoms, much to her brother's frustration. When Viserys presses his claims past the point of tact or wisdom, Khal Drogo will finally grow annoyed and kill him out of hand, eliminating the Targaryen pretender and leaving Daenerys as the last of her line. Daenerys will bide her time, but she will not forget. When the moment is right, she will kill her husband to avenge her brother, and then flee with a trusted friend into the wilderness beyond Vaes Dothrak. There, hunted by Dothraki bloodriders [?] of her life, she stumbles on a cache of dragon's eggs [?] of a young dragon will give Daenerys the power to bend the Dothraki to her will. Then she begins to plan for her invasion of the Seven Kingdoms.

 

Tyrion Lannister will continue to travel, to plot, and to play the game of thrones, finally removing his nephew Joffrey in disgust at the boy king's brutality. Jaime Lannister will follow Joffrey on the throne of the Seven Kingdoms, by the simple expedient of killing everyone ahead of him in the line of succession and blaming his brother Tyrion for the murders. Exiled, Tyrion will change sides, making common cause with surviving Starks to bring his brother down, and falling helplessly in love with Arya Stark while he's at it. His passion is, alas, unreciprocated, but no less intense for that, and it will lead to a deadly rivalry between Tyrion and Snow.

 

[7 Lines Redacted]

 

But that's the second book...

 

I hope you'll find some editors who are as excited about all of this as I am. Feel free to share this letter with anyone who wants to know how the story will go.

 

All best,

George R.R. Martin

 

 

 

What’s in that redacted passage we don’t know but here’s what appears to be the equally spoilerish original synopsis/publisher’s blurb for Winds of Winter; not the forthcoming one, alas, but one apparently dating back to when it was still to be the third volume of the trilogy and following directly on in content and style from the first synopsis set out above:

 

 

Continuing the most imaginative and ambitious epic fantasy since The Lord of the Rings Winter has come at last and no man can say whether it will ever go again. The Wall is broken, the cold dead legions are coming south, and the people of the Seven Kingdoms turn to their queen to protect them. But Daenerys Targaryen is learning what Robert Baratheon learned before her; that it is one thing to win a throne and quite another to sit on one. Before she can hope to defeat the Others, Dany knows she must unite the broken realm behind her. Wolf and lion must hunt together, maester and greenseer work as one, all the blood feuds must be put aside, the bitter rivals and sworn enemies join hands. The Winds of Winter tells the story of Dany’s fight to save her new-won kingdom, of two desperate journeys beyond the known world in to the very hearts of ice and fire, and of the final climactic battle at Winterfell, with life itself in the balance.

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By the way, how many Children there are? We have seen something like sixty… but then, every raven has a CotF, at least the ones inside the cave... And that is if you don't take BR as saying there is one inside every bird in the world. There is a whole murder inside the cave, a population of 60, long lived people is not enough to populate every single raven mind inside the cave, given how many years one raven lives.

 

Perhaps Greenseers go into the trees and Singers go into the crows

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Perhaps Greenseers go into the trees and Singers go into the crows

 

I think he's specifically questioning the logistics of every crow in the cave holding the spirit of a dead Singer, given the disparity between their lifespans and fertility rates. One would reasonably assume that, unless the crows in BR's cave are themselves deeply unnatural, most of the crows present were only born less than ~15 years ago (give or take a few years), so how many Singers would have reasonably died over that same period to "fill" all the crows?

We would have to assume one of several scenarios:
-It's just an oversight by GRRM
-One is not truly bound to a single second life, and the collective consciousness moves from crow to crow - or, perhaps, from weirwood, to crow, to weirwood to crow...
-The crows are in some way unnatural
-There are way, way more living Singers than what we've seen

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I think he's specifically questioning the logistics of every crow in the cave holding the spirit of a dead Singer, given the disparity between their lifespans and fertility rates. One would reasonably assume that, unless the crows in BR's cave are themselves deeply unnatural, most of the crows present were only born less than ~15 years ago (give or take a few years), so how many Singers would have reasonably died over that same period to "fill" all the crows?

We would have to assume one of several scenarios:
-It's just an oversight by GRRM
-One is not truly bound to a single second life, and the collective consciousness moves from crow to crow - or, perhaps, from weirwood, to crow, to weirwood to crow...
-The crows are in some way unnatural
-There are way, way more living Singers than what we've seen


Perhaps some sort of reincarnation/rewarging?
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Perhaps some sort of reincarnation/rewarging?

That opens up a lot of possibilities, and seems like the only logical solution if Bran's population estimate is accurate. Another explanation could be that the birds in that cave live unusually long lives. Cold preserving, and all that.

In the end, I have a feeling Martin was simply imprecise.
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That opens up a lot of possibilities, and seems like the only logical solution if Bran's population estimate is accurate. Another explanation could be that the birds in that cave live unusually long lives. Cold preserving, and all that.

In the end, I have a feeling Martin was simply imprecise.

I wonder if the fact that the singers naturally having long influences how long they exist before they fade away into their host.

Or in the thousands of years their population bloomed.

Also, its pretty warm down in the cave so I don't know if this is a case of the cold preserves.
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I wonder if the fact that the singers naturally having long influences how long they exist before they fade away into their host.



That's makes a lot more sense actually. Props for saving Martin's arse on this one ;)
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Just a few quick thoughts from the last thread...

 

Robb with sword drawn across lap - I already posted that this was not a denial of guest right, just a dislike of Tyrion who was received, heard, offered a place to stay, declined said offer and left safely. I believe the posture was foreshadowing that Robb would soon be joining the other Starks in the crypts.

 

Ravens/Crows in the cave with Bran - not all have spirits of Children inside them living a second life. Bloodraven explained to Bran that whenever a skinchanger/warg inhabits a host they leave a memory on the soul. A memory of someone left in a prior host is not the same thing as a spirit living inside a host as it's second life.

 

Bran's denial of warging - Bran enjoyed/enjoys warging Summer and Hodor. He showed anger towards Jojen and Meera whenever they asked him questions that he didn't want to answer, or be held accountable for things he was supposed to do, but forgot. This is quite different than the assertion that he tried to refuse the connection. I am at work right now and cannot invest the time properly to supply passages and analysis at the moment, but will do so later.

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Just a few quick thoughts from the last thread...
 
Robb with sword drawn across lap - I already posted that this was not a denial of guest right, just a dislike of Tyrion who was received, heard, offered a place to stay, declined said offer and left safely. I believe the posture was foreshadowing that Robb would soon be joining the other Starks in the crypts.
 

I read Phil's retort at the end of the last thread, and while it's persuasive and I do not necessarily disagree with it, I find myself leaning your way on the matter. Or, at least, that you are both right about it. Might be that it is such a blatant threat, that the refusal of guest right simply hung in the air.

Phil is right when he points out that immediately after the saddle plans, and a quite discernable nudge from Luwin, he immediately offers Tyrion hospitality.


Ravens/Crows in the cave with Bran - not all have spirits of Children inside them living a second life. Bloodraven explained to Bran that whenever a skinchanger/warg inhabits a host they leave a memory on the soul. A memory of someone left in a prior host is not the same thing as a spirit living inside a host as it's second life.
 

You are on quite the roll! Now that you mention it, this caveat does ring a bell.


Bran's denial of warging - Bran enjoyed/enjoys warging Summer and Hodor. He showed anger towards Jojen and Meera whenever they asked him questions that he didn't want to answer, or be held accountable for things he was supposed to do, but forgot. This is quite different than the assertion that he tried to refuse the connection. I am at work right now and cannot invest the time properly to supply passages and analysis at the moment, but will do so later.

No need. I missed the convo on that topic, but I remember that being the case as well.
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Ravens/Crows in the cave with Bran - not all have spirits of Children inside them living a second life. Bloodraven explained to Bran that whenever a skinchanger/warg inhabits a host they leave a memory on the soul. A memory of someone left in a prior host is not the same thing as a spirit living inside a host as it's second life.

 

That's what Bloodraven said but as Bran only visited the one we don't really know. On the whole to be honest I'd be inclined to agree with Voice that this may simply be down to GRRM not thinking through the normal lifespan of a crow.

 

Nevertheless, although that particular exchange may not be intended to be significant, I remain convinced that there's more to the crows than meets the eye  - and I'm not talking about the one in the middle. We've talked before about their possibly being players in some degree, but singers or no singers there's something strange going on with a murder of crows who choose to live or at least roost in the total darkness of the caves and can fly around in there without hitting anything.

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That's what Bloodraven said but as Bran only visited the one we don't really know. On the whole to be honest I'd be inclined to agree with Voice that this may simply be down to GRRM not thinking through the normal lifespan of a crow.
 
Nevertheless, although that particular exchange may not be intended to be significant, I remain convinced that there's more to the crows than meets the eye  - and I'm not talking about the one in the middle. We've talked before about their possibly being players in some degree, but singers or no singers there's something strange going on with a murder of crows who choose to live or at least roost in the total darkness of the caves and can fly around in there without hitting anything.


Where I live we have things that live in caves, in the dark and are black, and fly. But they aren't passerines, much less birds. They are called bats, and don't live that long.

As for the crows not having actual dead CotF but memories of being skinchanged before.… makes sense, but it would be weird as BR says all of them have Singers. Not memories or were skinchanged before but inside them. He does mention all of them were ridden, I believe, but if we are going to ignore the fact there are Singers inside every bird, arbitrarily, we should very well take the ridden part as a mating ritual.

The excerpt is as it follow:

"A woman, of those who sing the song of earth," his teacher said. "Long dead, yet a part of her remains, just as a part of you will remain in Summer if your boy's flesh were to die upon the morrow. A shadow on the soul. She will not harm you."

"Do all birds have singers on them?"

"All," Lord Brynden said. "It was the singers who taught the First Men to send messages by raven… but in those days, the birds would speak the words. The trees remember, but keen forget, so now they write messages in parchment and tie them round the feet of birds who have never shared their skin."

First: They talk about a long dead singer. An crow lives around 20 years, which is pretty much a long time. So I will grant it the benefit of doubt, the oldest crow lived 59 years, which is almost half of BR age, which also should take in account if these crows are unnaturally long lived.

Second: It is clear they are talking about dead CotF inside the crows. I personally don't see any other explanation, unless they are talking in a really meta, grammatically savvy way to avoid it. One curiosity is that Bloodraven says All, as in all of the birds. Also granting the benefit of doubt and natural language chatting, I assume it only means the birds inside the caves. Of course there is more interpretations.

For these points, it would imply either CotF can leap to second, third and so on, lives, that crows have unnatural lifespans or that there are far more CotF than we are lead to believe.

Third and fourth are minor points for another discussion, I noticed while when searching for it.

Third: Bloodraven talks about men using third person, logically excluding himself and Bran. That is weird and casual, because it either means Bloodraven believes Bran and himself are not men anymore or that they in fact are not. That is similar to how Bran believes men would be wroth, not that "we would be wroth", and that he is not wroth. Although it might be just semantics and grammar, but it feels really unnatural seeing them mention mankind as something apart from them.

And fourth… and that one is definitively weird: notice how he mentions birds that never shared skin with men. The logical and probable motive is simply that men stopped skinchanging into birds… or it can mean birds stopped skinchanging into men.
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Where I live we have things that live in caves, in the dark and are black, and fly. But they aren't passerines, much less birds. They are called bats, and don't live that long.

As for the crows not having actual dead CotF but memories of being skinchanged before.… makes sense, but it would be weird as BR says all of them have Singers. Not memories or were skinchanged before but inside them. He does mention all of them were ridden, I believe, but if we are going to ignore the fact there are Singers inside every bird, arbitrarily, we should very well take the ridden part as a mating ritual.

The excerpt is as it follow:

"A woman, of those who sing the song of earth," his teacher said. "Long dead, yet a part of her remains, just as a part of you will remain in Summer if your boy's flesh were to die upon the morrow. A shadow on the soul. She will not harm you."

"Do all birds have singers on them?"

"All," Lord Brynden said. "It was the singers who taught the First Men to send messages by raven… but in those days, the birds would speak the words. The trees remember, but keen forget, so now they write messages in parchment and tie them round the feet of birds who have never shared their skin."

First: They talk about a long dead singer. An crow lives around 20 years, which is pretty much a long time. So I will grant it the benefit of doubt, the oldest crow lived 59 years, which is almost half of BR age, which also should take in account if these crows are unnaturally long lived.

Second: It is clear they are talking about dead CotF inside the crows. I personally don't see any other explanation, unless they are talking in a really meta, grammatically savvy way to avoid it. One curiosity is that Bloodraven says All, as in all of the birds. Also granting the benefit of doubt and natural language chatting, I assume it only means the birds inside the caves. Of course there is more interpretations.

For these points, it would imply either CotF can leap to second, third and so on, lives, that crows have unnatural lifespans or that there are far more CotF than we are lead to believe.

Third and fourth are minor points for another discussion, I noticed while when searching for it.

Third: Bloodraven talks about men using third person, logically excluding himself and Bran. That is weird and casual, because it either means Bloodraven believes Bran and himself are not men anymore or that they in fact are not. That is similar to how Bran believes men would be wroth, not that "we would be wroth", and that he is not wroth. Although it might be just semantics and grammar, but it feels really unnatural seeing them mention mankind as something apart from them.

And fourth… and that one is definitively weird: notice how he mentions birds that never shared skin with men. The logical and probable motive is simply that men stopped skinchanging into birds… or it can mean birds stopped skinchanging into men.

Yeah BR is ambigous in how he speaks so there are many interpretations.What has always struck me is the language of 'shared skin' this to me separates Bran and his siblings from someone like V6 and other skinchangers.With creatures like Ghost and the ravens of BRs cave ( like BC i believe they are players in their own right) They have the ability to share their skin,for it to be consenual.Unlike people like V6 and Haggon who have to break the wills of other creatures to forge a bond.

 

This ofcourse means as some of us believe that we have to look closer at the Crows and the Direwolves.

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Yeah BR is ambigous in how he speaks so there are many interpretations.What has always struck me is the language of 'shared skin' this to me separates Bran and his siblings from someone like V6 and other skinchangers.With creatures like Ghost and the ravens of BRs cave ( like BC i believe they are players in their own right) They have the ability to share their skin,for it to be consenual.Unlike people like V6 and Haggon who have to break the wills of other creatures to forge a bond.

 

This ofcourse means as some of us believe that we have to look closer at the Crows and the Direwolves.

 

Perhaps Orell and his eagle are a hint.

 

 

Starting to like the crows are players idea, wasn't sure about it at first. Good discussion.

 

Crows vs ravens, think they are all encompassing, or a difference?

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Where I live we have things that live in caves, in the dark and are black, and fly. But they aren't passerines, much less birds. They are called bats, and don't live that long.

As for the crows not having actual dead CotF but memories of being skinchanged before.… makes sense, but it would be weird as BR says all of them have Singers. Not memories or were skinchanged before but inside them. He does mention all of them were ridden, I believe, but if we are going to ignore the fact there are Singers inside every bird, arbitrarily, we should very well take the ridden part as a mating ritual.

The excerpt is as it follow:

"A woman, of those who sing the song of earth," his teacher said. "Long dead, yet a part of her remains, just as a part of you will remain in Summer if your boy's flesh were to die upon the morrow. A shadow on the soul. She will not harm you."

"Do all birds have singers on them?"

"All," Lord Brynden said. "It was the singers who taught the First Men to send messages by raven… but in those days, the birds would speak the words. The trees remember, but keen forget, so now they write messages in parchment and tie them round the feet of birds who have never shared their skin."

 

I was about to jump all over this excerpt as proof that not only do all birds in the cave have singers in them, but all birds period.

 

Talk about a gamechanger! But alas no, I looked it up and the quote was missing a "the".

 

 

A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

 

"A woman, of those who sing the song of earth," his teacher said. "Long dead, yet a part of her remains, just as a part of you would remain in Summer if your boy's flesh were to die upon the morrow. A shadow on the soul. She will not harm you."
 
"Do all the birds have singers in them?"
 
"All," Lord Brynden said. "It was the singers who taught the First Men to send messages by raven … but in those days, the birds would speak the words. The trees remember, but men forget, and so now they write the messages on parchment and tie them round the feet of birds who have never shared their skin."

 

I was a bit bummed, just because that would seriously change the game, but alas it changes nothing regarding your excellent points, which follow. But I do think this last paragraph explains why all the birds in the cave have Singers in them. They shared the skin in order to use them to deliver messages. Rather than sending a raven with a parchment message, the Singers slipped inside of them, then spoke the words aloud with the voice of ravens. Cool stuff. But, anticlimactic perhaps for this particular mystery.

 

I think the birds all have a singer-consciousness artifact because they were used like reusable envelopes for correspondence... and that's about it.

 

First: They talk about a long dead singer. An crow lives around 20 years, which is pretty much a long time. So I will grant it the benefit of doubt, the oldest crow lived 59 years, which is almost half of BR age, which also should take in account if these crows are unnaturally long lived.

 

Mayhaps, but I think the envelope thing suffices. Still, we've no reason to assume these Ravens are not incredibly long-lived. Mayhaps Mormont's Raven was BR's Raven as LC. Clearly, as has been suspected all over these forums, that bird has been speaking messages of its own - or rather, of its skinchanging inhabitant.

 

Second: It is clear they are talking about dead CotF inside the crows. I personally don't see any other explanation, unless they are talking in a really meta, grammatically savvy way to avoid it. One curiosity is that Bloodraven says All, as in all of the birds. Also granting the benefit of doubt and natural language chatting, I assume it only means the birds inside the caves. Of course there is more interpretations.

 

Yup. Though we've no reason to assume the living (and semi-living/tree-rooted) cotf aren't actively using them as well. While they aren't all greenseers, there are most certainly many wargs and skinchangers among them. Leaf could be using them to keep in touch with Coldhands while he's outside the cave.

 

Third and fourth are minor points for another discussion, I noticed while when searching for it.

Third: Bloodraven talks about men using third person, logically excluding himself and Bran. That is weird and casual, because it either means Bloodraven believes Bran and himself are not men anymore or that they in fact are not. That is similar to how Bran believes men would be wroth, not that "we would be wroth", and that he is not wroth. Although it might be just semantics and grammar, but it feels really unnatural seeing them mention mankind as something apart from them.

 

Yes and no. I speak about Men in the third person all the time on this forum, but that doesn't mean I don't think of myself as a man. Don't get me wrong, it could mean that in this case with BR and Bran, but I'm not sure it has to.

 

In the following example, Eddard speaks of First Men and Starks in the third person briefly, but clearly he still identifies himself as a Stark First Man (as marked in the surrounding clauses, where we have first-person-plural perspective):

 

Bran I AGOT:

 

"He does," his father admitted. "As did the Targaryen kings before him. Yet our way is the older way [possessive 1st person plural]. The blood of the First Men still flows in the veins of the Starks [subjective 3rd person], and we [subjective 1st person plural] hold to the belief that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die. [subjective 2nd person, accusative third person]

 

And fourth… and that one is definitively weird: notice how he mentions birds that never shared skin with men. The logical and probable motive is simply that men stopped skinchanging into birds… or it can mean birds stopped skinchanging into men.

 

Mayhaps. I see it as simply an old man saying the new generation isn't doing things the right way. LOL

 

Seems as though he's pointing out the inferiority of the parchment method, rather than using the skinchanging method for Ravenry.

 

Which raises the question of when Maesters stopped skinchanging.... ;)

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Perhaps Orell and his eagle are a hint.

 

 

Starting to like the crows are players idea, wasn't sure about it at first. Good discussion.

 

Crows vs ravens, think they are all encompassing, or a difference?

 

 

I can't speak for Europe, but in the U.S., "crow" and "raven" are used interchangeably in many regions. There are some regions that refer to smaller "blackbirds" as crows. Here along the pacific coast, we have a very large variety of raven that is a common fixture in native lore. We have the smaller blackbirds as well, that I remember family in the midwest calling "crows". I've seen the New York version of a "raven" once, and wasn't very impressed LOL. Here, they are "blackbirds" or "crows", and "raven" is used to refer to the larger bird.

 

Anyhoo, I think they are somewhat interchangeable in the books. In my mind ravens are larger, simply because of our local species, so it may be that I'm imagining a difference in the text... but I think in the books the difference is "crow" is used for Night's Watchmen (as a derogatory term) and for scavenging birds... while "raven" is used for birds involved in Ravenry and the communication of messages.

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