Heresy 189

[Black Crow]

Carrying on from there and returning to the matter of Othor and Jafer I suggest that there is a very precise parallel here and that they are not being directly controlled by anyone.

Old Nan, as we all know, claimed that the Others hated all living things. As we've actually seen this doesn't appear to be literally true of the white walkers, but its certainly true of the wights. They hate the living because they are the dead. In the case of Othor and Jafer that hatred of the living appears to be focused on Lord Mormont and Ser Jeremy Rykker respectively, just as Stannis' hatred of Renly and the Castellan was acted out by a shadow baby.

Now this is not to suggest that there was no third party intervention going on, but just as Mel unleashed Stannis' shadow-babies to slay the focus of his frustration and anger, someone may well have unleashed dead Othor and Jafer to focus their hatred of the living on two of the authority figures who sent them out to die.

The Wall provided a barrier to that, just as the walls of Storms End did to Stannis' hatred, but once inside off they went.

[LynnS]

2 hours ago, Black Crow said:

I'm not necessarily sure that willpower is the right word here, but broadly I agree. 

Mel herself clearly has no problems passing either the Wall or the walls of Storms End. The problem lay with the shadow baby, and although, obviously, she birthed it, we need to remember that it is a piece of Stannis' soul and a projection of his frustration and ultimately hatred of the Castellan.

Its the shadow baby, not Mel, who cannot pass the walls and so she needs to birth it within the walls. There is a secret entrance which allows her to do this but the requirement for Davos to take her inside is the entirely mundane one of needing a boat to get there rather than any magic preventing her.

 

Ah thank you.  That's a better clarification.  I don't know if willpower is the word either.  Just the lack of a better word or description. 

[LynnS]

3 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Carrying on from there and returning to the matter of Othor and Jafer I suggest that there is a very precise parallel here and that they are not being directly controlled by anyone.

Old Nan, as we all know, claimed that the Others hated all living things. As we've actually seen this doesn't appear to be literally true of the white walkers, but its certainly true of the wights. They hate the living because they are the dead. In the case of Othor and Jafer that hatred of the living appears to be focused on Lord Mormont and Ser Jeremy Rykker respectively, just as Stannis' hatred of Renly and the Castellan was acted out by a shadow baby.

Now this is not to suggest that there was no third party intervention going on, but just as Mel unleashed Stannis' shadow-babies to slay the focus of his frustration and anger, someone may well have unleashed dead Othor and Jafer to focus their hatred of the living on two of the authority figures who sent them out to die.

The Wall provided a barrier to that, just as the walls of Storms End did to Stannis' hatred, but once inside off they went.

Interesting! That works for me.  Your choice of words makes me think of "Cry havoc, and let slip to dogs of war."

 

OH!  This must be why Bloodraven warns Bran against calling back the dead or bringing the dead to life or something along those lines.  They will be driven by their own hatred.

[Black Crow]

5 hours ago, LynnS said:

Interesting! That works for me.  Your choice of words makes me think of "Cry havoc, and let slip to dogs of war."

OH!  This must be why Bloodraven warns Bran against calling back the dead or bringing the dead to life or something along those lines.  They will be driven by their own hatred.

Exactly so. I think when looking at Old Nan's description of the Others being cold dead things that hated all life, we've understandably focused on the walkers and then dismissed it in the light of GRRM's declaration that they "are not dead" and in their ambiguous behaviour. I think that Nan was actually dead right  but was actually talking about the cold dead wights and that it is they, the dead who hate the living.

I'd say we also see this with Messrs Coldhands, Dondarion and Lady Stoneheart. Their hatred of the living is not so indiscriminate as that of the wights, its more focused and especially so in the case of Stoneheart, but its there.

[LynnS]

5 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Exactly so. I think when looking at Old Nan's description of the Others being cold dead things that hated all life, we've understandably focused on the walkers and dismissed it in the light of GRRM's declaration that they "are not dead" and in their ambiguous behaviour. I think that Nan was actually dead right  but was actually talking about the cold dead wights and that it is they, the dead who hate the living.

I'd say we also see this with Messrs Coldhands, Dondarion and Lady Stoneheart. Their hatred of the living is not so indiscriminate as that of the wights, its more focused and especially so in the case of Stoneheart, but its there.

Wow!  What comes to mind immediately are things like Arya's impression that the the dragons skulls in the basement of Kingslanding loved her not and I think Jon or Bran says the same in the Crypts of Winterfell.  And this interesting quote from Jon:

All my dreams are of the crypts, of the stone kings on their thrones. Sometimes I hear Rob's voice, and my Father, as if they were at a feast. But there's a wall between us, and I know that no place has been set for me.

 

[LynnS]

Gods.  Lady Stoneheart will not love Jon or Jamie Lannister.  This brings up some curious thoughts about Arya and the Faceless Men.  The FM can't kill anyone they know.  This must be tied to the dead coming back seeking vengeance on the assassin.  Curiously Arya recalls Old Nan's tales of grumkins (Jaqn H'gar) offering three wishes and that you have to be careful of the last wish.  This is a kind of monkey's paw story where there is a terrible price for interfering with fate.  (Something that MMD also warns Dany about before calling up the old powers.) In the story, the unintended consequence of the third wish is that No One shows up at the door.  Arya's third wish is that Jaqn kills himself.  Something she uses against him to get more wishes and vexes him to no end.  LOL   Thankfully her kill list is getting shorter without her intervention but she does cross the line breaking the code that a FM can't choose who lives or dies.  Very puzzling how the FM fit into the overall picture. 

,,,,,,

Is the Wall the outcome of the Pact?  An agreement between ice and fire; the Cotf and men, a combined effort to stop and contain the enemy?   The Wall symbolizes the sword on one side (Ned's sword Ice) and the serpent on the other (fire).  Split asunder by the switchback stairs like a lightning bolt (the Storm Gods) and stitched back together with crooked stitching (the House of Black and White).

[Dornish Neck Tie]

6 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Carrying on from there and returning to the matter of Othor and Jafer I suggest that there is a very precise parallel here and that they are not being directly controlled by anyone.

Old Nan, as we all know, claimed that the Others hated all living things. As we've actually seen this doesn't appear to be literally true of the white walkers, but its certainly true of the wights. They hate the living because they are the dead. In the case of Othor and Jafer that hatred of the living appears to be focused on Lord Mormont and Ser Jeremy Rykker respectively, just as Stannis' hatred of Renly and the Castellan was acted out by a shadow baby.

Now this is not to suggest that there was no third party intervention going on, but just as Mel unleashed Stannis' shadow-babies to slay the focus of his frustration and anger, someone may well have unleashed dead Othor and Jafer to focus their hatred of the living on two of the authority figures who sent them out to die.

The Wall provided a barrier to that, just as the walls of Storms End did to Stannis' hatred, but once inside off they went.

[Sinbold]

On 7/28/2016 at 9:26 PM, LynnS said:

Hello Sinbold,  Thank you for reading my post.  That was my take at first also or as Brad Stark says; boy that's impossible; the sun is never going to do that.  So it's impossible, Dany is never having another child.  It really depends on how you frame prophecies.   If you agree that prophecy can be about event past, present and future; then consider actually seeing the sun moving backwards through the sky.  We see this in cinema all the time to represent days passing very quickly one sun rise after another or representing the passage of time.  A sunrise running in reverse would represent time moving backwards.  Think about running a time lapse film backwards and watching a tree sprout and grow in front of your eyes and reverse it to see the tree shrink back to the acorn.  We already have an example of this in Clash of King:

A weirwood.

It seemed to sprout from solid rock, its pale roots twisting up from a myriad of fissures and hairline cracks. The tree was slender compared to other weirwoods he had seen, no more than a sapling, yet it was growing as he watched, its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky. Wary, he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face. Red eyes looked at him. Fierce eyes they were, yet glad to see him. The weirwood had his brother's face. Had is brother always had three eyes?

Not always came the silent shout. Not before the crow.

This occurs at the Fist of the First Men when weirBran talks to Jon in his Ghost dream.  This is before Bran has passed the Black Gate.  Jon and Bran encounter each other again after Jon and the Wildlings climb the Wall and Bran see him through Summer make his escape from the Wildlings back to Castle Black syncing up their timelines.  So wierBan communicated with Jon before he reached Bloodraven's cave,  in Bran's future and Jon's past.

I think Dany is due for another set of prophecies or visions when she reaches the Dothraki High Holy place and passes beneath the Shadow of the Mother of Mountains.  She may have a vision of the past, she might see the Wall built, the seas emptying to make a glacier in a reverse time lapse.  

That is my interpretation of the first two lines of that prophecy.  

Thanks for reading!

   

 

But that tree is GROWING, not shrinking back into an acorn.  I'm not following your analogy.  Does time flow in reverse anywhere in any of the books without having to ignore what you read and "Think about running a time lapse film backwards and watching a tree sprout and grow in front of your eyes and reverse it to see the tree shrink back to the acorn."?  It seems to me you are adding things into what's written to support your claim.  I'm all for someone proving me wrong, but I would be more convinced if it were a quote from a book rather than a request that I imagine something that's never been written.

[Melifeather]

I don't speak for LynnS, but what I think she was getting at is the imagery of the tree growing and that she wanted you to imagine it running in reverse. There is, however, a passage in Dance where Bran is watching the heart tree of Winterfell in reverse: 

… but then somehow he was back at Winterfell again, in the godswood looking down upon his father. Lord Eddard seemed much younger this time. His hair was brown, with no hint of grey in it, his head bowed. “… let them grow up close as brothers, with only love between them,” he prayed, “and let my lady wife find it in her heart to forgive …”

“Father.” Bran’s voice was a whisper in the wind, a rustle in the leaves. “Father, it’s me. It’s Bran. Brandon.”

Eddard Stark lifted his head and looked long at the weirwood, frowning, but he did not speak. He cannot see me, Bran realized, despairing. He wanted to reach out and touch him, but all that he could do was watch and listen. I am in the tree. I am inside the heart tree, looking out of its red eyes, but the weirwood cannot talk, so I can’t.

Eddard Stark resumed his prayer. Bran felt his eyes fill up with tears. But were they his own tears, or the weirwood’s? If I cry, will the tree begin to weep?

The rest of his father’s words were drowned out by a sudden clatter of wood on wood. Edward Stark dissolved, like mist in a morning sun. Now two children danced across the godswood, hooting at one another as they dueled with broken branches. The girl was the older and taller of the two. Arya! Bran thought eagerly, as he watched her leap up onto a rock and cut at the boy. But that couldn’t be right. If the girl was Arya, the boy was Bran himself, and he had never worn his hair so long. And Arya never beat me playing swords, the way that girl is beating him. She slashed the boy across his thigh, so hard that his leg went out from under him and he fell into the pool and began to splash and shout. “You be quiet, stupid,” the girl said, tossing her own branch aside. “It’s just water. Do you want Old Nan to hear and run tell Father?” She knelt and pulled her brother from the pool, but before she got him out again, the two of them were gone.

After that the glimpses came faster and faster, till Bran was feeling lost and dizzy. He saw no more of his father, nor the girl who looked like Arya, but a woman heavy with child emerged naked and dripping from the black pool, knelt before the tree, and begged the old gods for a son who would avenge her. Then there came a brown-haired girl slender as a spear who stood on the tips of her toes to kiss the lips of a young knight as tall as Hodor.

A dark-eyed youth, pale and fierce, sliced three branches off the weirwood and shaped them into arrows. The tree itself was shrinking, growing smaller with each vision, whilst the lesser trees dwindled into saplings and vanished, only to be replaced by other trees that would dwindle and vanish in their turn. And now the lords Bran glimpsed were tall and hard, stern men in fur and chain mail. Some wore faces he remembered from the statues in the crypts, but they were gone before he could put a name to them.

Then, as he watched, a bearded man forced a captive down onto his knees before the heart tree. A white-haired woman stepped toward them through a drift of dark red leaves, a bronze sickle in her hand.

“No,” said Bran, “no, don’t,” but they could not hear him, no more than his father had. The woman grabbed the captive by the hair, hooked the sickle round his throat, and slashed. And through the mist of centuries the broken boy could only watch as the man’s feet drummed against the earth … but as his life flowed out of him in a red tide, Brandon Stark could taste the blood.

 

 

 

[Melifeather]

The passage LynnS provided about the growing sapling is from a Clash of Kings. In it Bran appears to Ghost/Jon as a weirwood sapling, at that particular moment in the books Bran was still hiding in the crypts of Winterfell. This is proof that Bran is time traveling. He didn't have the ability to slip into the weirwood root system until A Dance with Dragons, but here we have an account of Bran speaking to Jon in the past...or Jon speaking to future Bran...however you want to look at it.

[JNR]

59 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

The passage LynnS provided about the growing sapling is from a Clash of Kings. In it Bran appears to Ghost/Jon as a weirwood sapling, at that particular moment in the books Bran was still hiding in the crypts of Winterfell. This is proof that Bran is time traveling.

Problem is, Bran remembers having done it.  Also from ACOK, we have:

Quote

Here in the chill damp darkness of the tomb his third eye had finally opened. He could reach Summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon. Though maybe he had only dreamed that.

If it were a future Bran doing it backwards in time, then Bran in ACOK should have no concept of this event having happened.

[LynnS]

2 hours ago, Sinbold said:

But that tree is GROWING, not shrinking back into an acorn.  I'm not following your analogy.  Does time flow in reverse anywhere in any of the books without having to ignore what you read and "Think about running a time lapse film backwards and watching a tree sprout and grow in front of your eyes and reverse it to see the tree shrink back to the acorn."?  It seems to me you are adding things into what's written to support your claim.  I'm all for someone proving me wrong, but I would be more convinced if it were a quote from a book rather than a request that I imagine something that's never been written.

It's still an event in Bran's future.  Because when this happens to Jon; Bran has not yet met Coldhands or crossed through the Wall. So how can he come to Jon in that vision?  We can sync up Jon and Bran's timeline concurrent with each before Bran crosses the wall with the Queensgate incident.  This is when he sees Jon with the Wildlings after they cross the wall; long after the event when Jon sees Bran before he meets Ygritte.  So from Bran's point of view at that converging point in time; Bran hasn't had that vision yet and from Jon's timeline; it's an event that has already occured in his recent past. How recent I don't know.  But in Jon's past.   This is all hard evidence from the book.    

[LynnS]

48 minutes ago, JNR said:

Quote

Here in the chill damp darkness of the tomb his third eye had finally opened. He could reach Summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon. Though maybe he had only dreamed that.

If it were a future Bran doing it backwards in time, then Bran in ACOK should have no concept of this event having happened.

He's no longer bound by time.  His past, present, and future are all one.  The acorn become the tree.  The sapling sprouting from the ground and growing before Jon's eyes is a representation of the present to the future.    This is what Bloodraven says to Bran:

In time, Bran will be able to see beyond the trees. And that past, present, and future are one. Nor will your sight be limited to your godswood.

This is the event that represents the above from Jon's encounter:

A weirwood.

It seemed to sprout from solid rock, its pale roots twisting up from a myriad of fissures and hairline cracks. The tree was slender compared to other weirwoods he had seen, no more than a sapling, yet it was growing as he watched, its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky. Wary, he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face. Red eyes looked at him. Fierce eyes they were, yet glad to see him. The weirwood had his brother's face. Had is brother always had three eyes?

Not always came the silent shout. Not before the crow.

Don't be afraid, I like it in the dark.  No one can see you, but you can see them.  But first you have to open your eyes.  See? Like this.  And the tree reached down and touched him.

 

[LynnS]

So from Jon's point of view (his present); Bran talked to him and then touched Ghost.  From Bran's point of view; it's the reverse: he touched Ghost and then talked to Jon.   Why?  Bran's present to Jon's past.  So the last event encountered by Bran is the first event encountered by Jon.  At the point where Bran and Jon's timelines converge; it's an event that will happen well into Bran's future and long into Jon's past by the time Bran gets to Bloodraven's cave.   This is hard proof that Bran at some point; is unbound by time.

[Melifeather]

2 hours ago, JNR said:

Problem is, Bran remembers having done it.  Also from ACOK, we have:

If it were a future Bran doing it backwards in time, then Bran in ACOK should have no concept of this event having happened.

Ninja'd by LynnS. Bran is part of the weirwood and has no concept of time. He is the acorn and the sapling and the full grown tree. Bran reached into the past and touched Jon, and he remembered it in the past because he did it. If he hadn't reached into the past, then he wouldn't remember it, because it wouldn't have happened. lol, what a conversation! 

I'm on the same page as you, LynnS!

[LynnS]

Here is chapter and verse. 

1)  aSoS Bran IV - establishing that Bran has seen Jon before entering the Nightfort and the chronology of events between characters

The gate the Nightfort guarded had been sealed since the fay he black brothers had loaded up their mules and garrons and departed for Deep Lake, its iron portcullis lowered, the chains that raised it carried off, the tunnel packed with stone and rubble all frozen together until they were as inpenetrable as the Wall itself.  "We should have followed Jon, Bran said when he saw it. He thought of his bastard brother often, since the night that Summer had watched him ride off through the storm.  "We should have found the Kingsroad and gone to Castle Black."

"We dare not, my prince," Jojen said.  "I've told you why."

" But there were wildling.  They killed some man and they wanted to kill Jon too.  Jojen, there were a hundred of them."

Bran is referring to the events at Queenscrown.  You can read Bran and Jon's version of this encounter in aSoS, Bran III and Jon V

2)  aCoK Jon VII - at the Skirling pass with Qhorin Halfhand and Thoren Smallwood after Jon captures Ygritte and then releases her.   They settle down for the night and Jon dreams: 

A weirwood.

It seemed to sprout from solid rock, its pale roots twisting up from a myriad of fissures and hairline cracks. The tree was slender compared to other weirwoods he had seen, no more than a sapling, yet it was growing as he watched, its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky. Wary, he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face. Red eyes looked at him. Fierce eyes they were, yet glad to see him. The weirwood had his brother's face. Had is brother always had three eyes?

Not always came the silent shout. Not before the crow.

Don't be afraid, I like it in the dark.  No one can see you, but you can see them.  But first you have to open your eyes.  See? Like this.  And the tree reached down and touched him.

3)  How is it even possible that Jon has had this encounter with WeirBran given that Bran hasn't crossed the Wall yet?  How would you describe this event from the point in time when Bran and Jon cross paths?  Something that will occur in Bran's future?  Something that has already happened to Jon in his past?

 

 

 

[Tucu]

16 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Here is chapter and verse. 

1)  aSoS Bran IV - establishing that Bran has seen Jon before entering the Nightfort and the chronology of events between characters

The gate the Nightfort guarded had been sealed since the fay he black brothers had loaded up their mules and garrons and departed for Deep Lake, its iron portcullis lowered, the chains that raised it carried off, the tunnel packed with stone and rubble all frozen together until they were as inpenetrable as the Wall itself.  "We should have followed Jon, Bran said when he saw it. He thought of his bastard brother often, since the night that Summer had watched him ride off through the storm.  "We should have found the Kingsroad and gone to Castle Black."

"We dare not, my prince," Jojen said.  "I've told you why."

" But there were wildling.  They killed some man and they wanted to kill Jon too.  Jojen, there were a hundred of them."

Bran is referring to the events at Queenscrown.  You can read Bran and Jon's version of this encounter in aSoS, Bran III and Jon V

2)  aCoK Jon VII - at the Skirling pass with Qhorin Halfhand and Thoren Smallwood after Jon captures Ygritte and then releases her.   They settle down for the night and Jon dreams: 

A weirwood.

It seemed to sprout from solid rock, its pale roots twisting up from a myriad of fissures and hairline cracks. The tree was slender compared to other weirwoods he had seen, no more than a sapling, yet it was growing as he watched, its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky. Wary, he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face. Red eyes looked at him. Fierce eyes they were, yet glad to see him. The weirwood had his brother's face. Had is brother always had three eyes?

Not always came the silent shout. Not before the crow.

Don't be afraid, I like it in the dark.  No one can see you, but you can see them.  But first you have to open your eyes.  See? Like this.  And the tree reached down and touched him.

3)  How is it even possible that Jon has had this encounter with WeirBran given that Bran hasn't crossed the Wall yet?

 

 

 

At Queenscrown, Bran saw Jon via Summer so I don't think that ASoS extract it is related to Jon's dream about Bran being a tree. There is an extract from ACoK Bran VII while they were in the crypts when Bran remembers touching Ghost and talking to Jon:

"He could reach Summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon. Though maybe he had only dreamed that".

So Jon's dream could be a consequence of Bran's natural greenseer powers or future Bran's actions or even Bloodraven providing a link between Jon and Bran or Bloodraven impersonating Bran.

[Melifeather]

20 minutes ago, Tucu said:

At Queenscrown, Bran saw Jon via Summer so I don't think that ASoS extract it is related to Jon's dream about Bran being a tree. There is an extract from ACoK Bran VII while they were in the crypts when Bran remembers touching Ghost and talking to Jon:

"He could reach Summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon. Though maybe he had only dreamed that".

So Jon's dream could be a consequence of Bran's natural greenseer powers or future Bran's actions or even Bloodraven providing a link between Jon and Bran or Bloodraven impersonating Bran.

I think LynnS is just trying to lay out the sequence of events. 

A Clash of Kings: Bran was in the crypts when he dreamt he touched Jon. It was a memory from the future.

A Storm of Swords: When Bran/Summer sees Jon at Queenscrown, both of them are on the south side of the Wall.

A Dance with Dragons: They are both on the north side of the Wall. Jon/Ghost has the dream of Bran as a sapling.

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, Tucu said:

At Queenscrown, Bran saw Jon via Summer so I don't think that ASoS extract it is related to Jon's dream about Bran being a tree. There is an extract from ACoK Bran VII while they were in the crypts when Bran remembers touching Ghost and talking to Jon:

It establishes a timeline of events between characters.  Something you can never be sure of in the books unless the characters cross paths and their POV's converge. That's the point I'm trying to establish with Queenscrown.  The two chapters that I cite are not directly related.  All they tell us is that Jon has the weirBran vision before Bran has arrived at Bloodraven's cave to begin his instruction and isn't that odd.  So how can Bran actually appear to Jon as a weirwood instead of another direwolf and how can Bran then touch Ghost to open Jon's third eye? And how is it that Bran can appear to Jon as a wierwood where none existed.  This is beyond Bran traveling through the roots of weirwoods and watching events past and present as we have seen him so far .  How is it that he can talk to Ghost-Jon and they both remember the same event albiet in a slightly different order? 

Jon is then shown the land from Ghost's eyes:  This is what follows:

aCoK - Jon VII

And the tree reached down and touched him.

And suddenly he was back in the mountains, his paws sunk deep in a drift of snow as he stood upon the edge of a great precipice.  Before him the Skirling Pass opened up into airy emptiness, and a long vee-shaped valley lay spread beneath him like a quilt, awash in all the colors of an autumn afternoon.

A vast blue-white wall plugged one end of the vale, squeezing between the mountains as if it had shouldered them aside, and for a moment he thought he had dreamed himself back at Castle Black.  Then he realized that he was looking at a river of ice several thousand feet high.  Under that glittering cold cliff was a great lake, its deep cobalt waters reflecting the snow capped peaks that ringed it. There were men down in the valley, he saw now; many en, thousands, a huge host.  Some were tearing great holes in the half-frozen ground, while others trained for war.  He watched as a swarming mass of riders charged a shield wall, astride horses no larger than ants.  The sound of their mock battle was a rustling of steel leaves, drifting faintly on the wind.  Their encampment had no plan to it, he saw no ditches, no sharpened stakes, no neat rows of horse lines.  Everywhere crude earthen shelters and hide tents sprouted haphasardly, like a pox on the face of the earth.  He spied untidy mounds of hay, he smelled goats and sheep, horses and pigs, dogs in great profusion.  Tendrils of dark smoke rose from a thousand cookfires. 

This is no army, no more than it is a town.  This is a whole people come together.

Across the long lake, one of the mounds moved.  He watched it more closely and saw tht it was not dirt at all, but alive, a shaggy lumbering beast with a snake for a nose and tusks larger than those of the greatest boar that had ever lived.  And the thing riding it was huge as well, and his shape was wrong, too thick in the leg and hips to be a man.

Then a sudden gust of cold made his fur stand up, and the air thrilled to the sound of wings.  As he lifted his eyes to the ice-white mountain heights above, a shadow plummeted out of the sky.  A shrill scream split the air.  He glimpsed blue-grey pinions spread wide, shutting out the sun ...

Then Jon wakes.  This dream of surveying the land has a kind of 3EC quality to it, similar to Bran's coma dream.  He can see over a vast territory, horses look like ants swarming but he can see close detail as well.  I don't think this is Ghost's doing or Bran in the Crypts.  He may well dream of himself in the future.  There is a point where he will become much more powerful but we haven't seen that yet in Bloodraven's cave.  Jojen tells Bran that he is the Winged Wolf and that the 3EC has been trying to break his chains.  Bran is still chained to the earth.until we see him appear as the weirwood sprouting from the ground and growing before Jon's eyes.   Bloodraven says:

"In time, Bran will be able to see beyond the trees. And that past, present, and future are one. Nor will your sight be limited to your godswood."

Bran will be unbound by time and unchained from the earth.  He will not depend on the weirwoods but may appear as one.  He is no longer the apprentice but the 3EC.  We haven't yet seen this transformation  but when this occurs Bran can show up at any point in the timeline past and present.   This appearance to Jon is the first indication that Bran is unbound by time.  Why would GRRM make this a possibility if he hasn't already used it? 

How would we recognize it if it isn't odd and out of step with what we know and placed in chapters in just this way.

 

 

[Black Crow]

Given the ambiguities in all of this I'm still reluctant to go with the time-travelling business.

When Bran tells Jon that he likes it in the dark, he isn't speaking from the Heart of Darkness but from the darkness of the Winterfell crypt. We are very explicitly told that his third eye opened in that darkness so we're not talking about memories from the future or anything to do with the weirwood but about a personal link with his brother through his direwolf.