Meera of Tarth Posted August 24, 2016 Share Posted August 24, 2016 19 hours ago, Little Scribe of Naath said: Side note: I'm from India, and the story of BR/Bran's "third eye" always reminds me of the Hindu deity Lord Shiva, termed as "the Destroyer". According to ancient mythology, he is an ascetic who resided in a cave in the snowy Himalayan mountain peaks, and one of his most distinguishing features is his third eye, which contains immense power. The opening of the "third eye" has both a light and dark association - it represents spiritual awakening, wisdom, providing perception beyond the ordinary (as in ASOIAF), but it's also believed that if he opens his third eye when enraged, it will result in the end of the world (hence, the epithet, "the Destroyer"). There are stories where he has used it to provide light to the world when it was shrouded in darkness, and also stories where he has used it to burn his enemies to ashes The above was a long-winded way of saying - Bran's magical powers can be incredibly beneficial or horribly destructive, depending on how he chooses to wield it. The consequences of his powers (especially when we throw time manipulation into the mix) would be extremely far-reaching. Hence why I am worried about how the Children and BR are training Bran - I don't think they are getting this message across to him. That's incredibly interesting! I t fits a lot Bran's powers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aryagonnakill#2 Posted August 24, 2016 Share Posted August 24, 2016 18 hours ago, ravenous reader said: That's a good point. As an albino, Bloodraven would also have had to shield himself, particularly his skin and eyes, from the sun. That's interesting. I think that's exactly the duality GRRM is so caught up in exploring. And you're right about the latter concern, namely that Bran has not yet learned the lesson of his own limitations and excesses...as of yet, we have not seen him temper his powers. He is still hopping into Hodor at will -- which it's impossible to argue is not an 'abomination' of some kind -- and generally, like the mythological figure Icarus, 'flying too close to the sun.' His wolf has green eyes, which are, according to what the Children tell Bran, indicators of those ones especially gifted with the 'sight.' From this, taken together with Rickon's and Shaggy's behavior, we may suspect that Rickon -- like Jojen who also has green eyes -- has been able to foresee not only his father's and Robb's deaths before anyone else, but perhaps also his own ('today is not the day I die...') Perhaps that's why he acts so haunted and lashes out, along with his wolf; his relatively non-verbal three-year-old mind straining to comprehend and effectively express the terrifying enormity of what he's seen. Sadly, this may be foreshadowing of Rickon's early death: Shaggydog frequents 'the undergrowth' and the crypts, 'the underground,' which might signify that Rickon, in addition to being able to commune with 'the underworld,' already has one foot in the grave. Would you elaborate? How do you account for the weirwood sapling? What does a weirwood have to do with Targaryens, besides their proclivity for burning them down? Later he does become afraid of whatever he sees in that darkness, though. That's a great example. The 'mud' also has a magical association with the Crannog people, including Jojen and Meera: The image of agile Arya scampering amongst the branches at night naturally brings to mind a cat, which is her other totem animal besides a wolf, and also nocturnal. Fittingly, Arya 'sees' through the eyes of a cat during her 'blind-training' in Braavos at the same time as she's the 'Night Wolf.' The first lesson given to her by her teacher Syrio was catching cats, which led her to the dungeons in the first place. He wanted her to think like a cat, see like a cat, and his lesson about 'the true seeing'-- learning to see what is actually there, not what either you desire or someone else desires for you to see -- involved a cat... Wolves and cats both prowl! Perfect reference to what we've been discussing. Also, in light of the fact this ritual has been described in such detail, we can anticipate someone succeeding in lighting one of these candles (perhaps even someone who shouldn't really have access to them...)! 9 hours ago, Macgregor of the North said: @ravenous reader asked if you could elaborate on your view of the prophetic dream @aryagonnakill#2, I had been thinking on it to and thought I'd throw in a comment to elaborate if you guys don't mind? Is the tree significant in the sense that Jon's prophetic dream sees Bran as what he will become one day? And it is shown as a sapling because well, Bran is a boy and is only just beginning to open his third eye, but the way the tree grows so rapidly, is this a reference to how his power has grown and accelerated so much because he was in the Crypts at the time? Or something like that. So I the way I was thinking is that we are seeing 2 different things happen here. First is that we know Jon was in bed dreaming, and I believe R+L=J so I believe Jon has Targ blood and that Targs can have prophetic dreams. I believe Jon was having a prophetic dream of an event that will occur in the next book, where Jon is trapped inside Ghost after being killed by the mutineers. This event is where Jon in Ghosts body comes upon a weirwood sapling/tree and whether the tree actually grows or not I don't know, that could easily be some sort of metaphor from Bran having grown up since Jon last saw him, but basically Bran will communicate with Jon and will tell Jon his parentage and some info about the others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little Scribe of Naath Posted August 25, 2016 Share Posted August 25, 2016 On 8/23/2016 at 5:36 PM, ravenous reader said: That's interesting. I think that's exactly the duality GRRM is so caught up in exploring. And you're right about the latter concern, namely that Bran has not yet learned the lesson of his own limitations and excesses...as of yet, we have not seen him temper his powers. He is still hopping into Hodor at will -- which it's impossible to argue is not an 'abomination' of some kind -- and generally, like the mythological figure Icarus, 'flying too close to the sun.' Yes, Bran's story has elements of Icarus for sure (Jaime could be a representation of the sun.) In general, the greatest "weak point" in Bran's character is his tendency to listen to his innate curiosity and urge for exploration/adventure rather than caution. On 8/23/2016 at 5:36 PM, ravenous reader said: His wolf has green eyes, which are, according to what the Children tell Bran, indicators of those ones especially gifted with the 'sight.' From this, taken together with Rickon's and Shaggy's behavior, we may suspect that Rickon -- like Jojen who also has green eyes -- has been able to foresee not only his father's and Robb's deaths before anyone else, but perhaps also his own ('today is not the day I die...') Perhaps that's why he acts so haunted and lashes out, along with his wolf; his relatively non-verbal three-year-old mind straining to comprehend and effectively express the terrifying enormity of what he's seen. Ravenous Reader, that's a brilliant idea - in fact, I think that might be the best explanation for his curious prescience! Do you think it could tie into what BR told Bran - "greenseers generally have only red or green eyes, and their quick years on the earth are few?" If so, BR and COTF are definitely lying to Bran - his wolf doesn't have red or green eyes, but he's apparently the greenseer, not Jojen or Rickon. What do you think it means for Jon then? On 8/23/2016 at 5:36 PM, ravenous reader said: Shaggydog frequents 'the undergrowth' and the crypts, 'the underground,' which might signify that Rickon, in addition to being able to commune with 'the underworld,' already has one foot in the grave. Noooooooooooo I have some other theories about Rickon, but that's probably me being optimistic as usual and not believing that any more Starks will die On 8/23/2016 at 5:36 PM, ravenous reader said: That's a great example. The 'mud' also has a magical association with the Crannog people, including Jojen and Meera: Yep, I love Meera and Jojen, really. The line which Barristan says about mud - Quote You could make a poultice out of mud to cool a fever. You could plant seeds in mud and grow a crop to feed your children. Mud would nourish you, where fire would only consume you, but fools and children and young girls would choose fire every time." It applies so well to their caring, protective, responsible, loyal-to-the-bone nature. They have actually nourished Bran and his powers, in a way. In general, "earth" (mud) has positive associations in the series and I'm guessing, is the balancing element between ice and fire. Both ice and fire are destructive in a way earth can never be - and GRRM lets us see (cough, Dany) how easy it is to destroy, but it's "planting trees" (an earth-associated activity) which is the hard but necessary part. A discussion for another thread On 8/23/2016 at 5:36 PM, ravenous reader said: The image of agile Arya scampering amongst the branches at night naturally brings to mind a cat, which is her other totem animal besides a wolf, and also nocturnal. Fittingly, Arya 'sees' through the eyes of a cat during her 'blind-training' in Braavos at the same time as she's the 'Night Wolf.' The first lesson given to her by her teacher Syrio was catching cats, which led her to the dungeons in the first place. He wanted her to think like a cat, see like a cat, and his lesson about 'the true seeing'-- learning to see what is actually there, not what either you desire or someone else desires for you to see -- involved a cat... Don't forget the intimate connections throughout her arc with her mother, "Cat" and her homeland (the Riverlands). Arya's personality is wolflike, however the skills she is learning are "cat-like", that's the reason GRRM chooses to have her training with cats around. Cats have swift reflexes, are really flexible, possess excellent night vision, tend to stun and capture their prey rather than fight them. Their primary strategy is to stalk their victims, hide themselves, and pounce when the prey passes by. Sounds familiar? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macgregor of the North Posted August 25, 2016 Author Share Posted August 25, 2016 @aryagonnakill#2 I will leave the dream passage here for easy reference if we talk on if further. It always helps to have it close to hand. "Jon did not think sleep would come easily, but he knew the Halfhand was right. He found a place out of the wind, beneath an overhang of rock, and took off his cloak to use it for a blanket. "Ghost," he called. "Here. To me." He always slept better with the great white wolf beside him; there was comfort in the smell of him, and welcome warmth in that shaggy pale fur. This time, though, Ghost did no more than look at him. Then he turned away and padded around the garrons, and quick as that he was gone. He wants to hunt, Jon thought. Perhaps there were goats in these mountains. The shadowcats must live on something. "Just don't try and bring down a 'cat," he muttered. Even for a direwolf, that would be dangerous. He tugged his cloak over him and stretched out beneath the rock. When he closed his eyes, he dreamed of direwolves. There were five of them when there should have been six, and they were scattered, each apart from the others. He felt a deep ache of emptiness, a sense of incompleteness. The forest was vast and cold, and they were so small, so lost. His brothers were out there somewhere, and his sister, but he had lost their scent. He sat on his haunches and lifted his head to the darkening sky, and his cry echoed through the forest, a long lonely mournful sound. As it died away, he pricked up his ears, listening for an answer, but the only sound was the sigh of blowing snow. Jon? The call came from behind him, softer than a whisper, but strong too. Can a shout be silent? He turned his head, searching for his brother, for a glimpse of a lean grey shape moving beneath the trees, but there was nothing, only . . . 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 his brother always had three eyes? Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow. He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs. 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. 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." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macgregor of the North Posted August 25, 2016 Author Share Posted August 25, 2016 @aryagonnakill#2 on the dream again. I suppose it's a case of wait til the next book to see if what you think is happening is true. After re analysing it time and time and again it just seems to me it's a straight up case of Bran's powers reaching a higher level in the darkness of the Crypts, enough for him to reach out to Jon and warn him what awaits him so he can act accordingly. When he reaches out though he gets to Ghost, who Jon is dreaming of and is kind of part of at that time. It certainly seems as though the purpose of the exchange is to help Jon awaken his powers to see, and Bran may even guide Ghost to the area where the Wildlings are, as we see Ghost at the beginning of the dream think on his lost Wolf siblings and howling, then after Bran talks to him he is actually just right there where the Wildlings are and ready to see what Bran wanted to show him/Jon. It's like during Bran talking to him he has just gravitated toward the spot Bran wants him to. If there is any prophetic Targness to it, in my eyes anyway, it seems that Jon sees how Bran will be in the future possibly. Wed to the trees, A sapling at first because he is young and his powers are yet grown to the level they will, but he sees the tree growing visibly and quickly because Brans level of power will accelerate quickly and not take long to begin doing so. Infact even at the actual time of the dream they are growing because Bran is engulfed in the darkness of the Crypts which is proven to heighten his powers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aryagonnakill#2 Posted August 25, 2016 Share Posted August 25, 2016 3 hours ago, Macgregor of the North said: @aryagonnakill#2 on the dream again. I suppose it's a case of wait til the next book to see if what you think is happening is true. After re analysing it time and time and again it just seems to me it's a straight up case of Bran's powers reaching a higher level in the darkness of the Crypts, enough for him to reach out to Jon and warn him what awaits him so he can act accordingly. When he reaches out though he gets to Ghost, who Jon is dreaming of and is kind of part of at that time. It certainly seems as though the purpose of the exchange is to help Jon awaken his powers to see, and Bran may even guide Ghost to the area where the Wildlings are, as we see Ghost at the beginning of the dream think on his lost Wolf siblings and howling, then after Bran talks to him he is actually just right there where the Wildlings are and ready to see what Bran wanted to show him/Jon. It's like during Bran talking to him he has just gravitated toward the spot Bran wants him to. If there is any prophetic Targness to it, in my eyes anyway, it seems that Jon sees how Bran will be in the future possibly. Wed to the trees, A sapling at first because he is young and his powers are yet grown to the level they will, but he sees the tree growing visibly and quickly because Brans level of power will accelerate quickly and not take long to begin doing so. Infact even at the actual time of the dream they are growing because Bran is engulfed in the darkness of the Crypts which is proven to heighten his powers. There are 3 things that make me think it is a future event, and ya this is one of those really confusing parts of the book that we can only speculate on until we get more info from the next book or two. 1st is that I just don't think Bran was capable of it at the time. I think him speaking of darkness has to be the cave as opposed to the crypts. 2nd is that it seems incomplete, I think after touching him on the forehead there should be more. 3rd is that I think the setup is there perfectly now that Jon will likely be in Ghost after the stabbing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macgregor of the North Posted August 25, 2016 Author Share Posted August 25, 2016 2 hours ago, aryagonnakill#2 said: There are 3 things that make me think it is a future event, and ya this is one of those really confusing parts of the book that we can only speculate on until we get more info from the next book or two. 1st is that I just don't think Bran was capable of it at the time. I think him speaking of darkness has to be the cave as opposed to the crypts. 2nd is that it seems incomplete, I think after touching him on the forehead there should be more. 3rd is that I think the setup is there perfectly now that Jon will likely be in Ghost after the stabbing. On the 1st part though haven't we kind of confirmed throughout the thread that the darkness of the Crypts is exactly what has finally awoken Brans third eye and heightened his powers to the point of being able to contact Ghost/Jon this way? Also, that kind of double vision thing Bran does when he surveys WF and tells Osha that it is day is not him slipping Summers skin I dont think. This seems like a glimmer at how strong Brans powers will become where he doesn't need to slip Summers skin or look through the trees, and it's due to the Crypts darkness I believe. It really does seem that his capabilities are at a higher level down there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravenous reader Posted August 25, 2016 Share Posted August 25, 2016 9 hours ago, Little Scribe of Naath said: Ravenous Reader, that's a brilliant idea - in fact, I think that might be the best explanation for his curious prescience! Do you think it could tie into what BR told Bran - "greenseers generally have only red or green eyes, and their quick years on the earth are few?" If so, BR and COTF are definitely lying to Bran - his wolf doesn't have red or green eyes, but he's apparently the greenseer, not Jojen or Rickon. What do you think it means for Jon then? Thanks, Little Scribe! Yes, that quote's the one I was referencing. I don't know, however, if it ought to be taken as an absolute rule. In the same sentence, GRRM writes that 'the chosen ones are not robust' which would apply to third-eye awakening in general. For example, Varamyr 'Lump' is described as being less robust than his siblings, Bran's crippling, Jaime's maiming, Bloodraven losing an eye, Theon's castration, even Robert Arryn's epilepsy, and Tyrion the twisted, misshapen dwarf who has one green eye and has lost a nose. Regarding Jon, Ghost has red eyes, so that's a definite suggestion he also has the gift. I would love Jon to have a long happy life, but I think his uncharacteristic (by Westerosi standards) urge to selflessness is is going to be his undoing -- that's why he's the hero. 9 hours ago, Little Scribe of Naath said: The line which Barristan says about mud - Quote You could make a poultice out of mud to cool a fever. You could plant seeds in mud and grow a crop to feed your children. Mud would nourish you, where fire would only consume you, but fools and children and young girls would choose fire every time." It applies so well to their caring, protective, responsible, loyal-to-the-bone nature. They have actually nourished Bran and his powers, in a way. In general, "earth" (mud) has positive associations in the series and I'm guessing, is the balancing element between ice and fire. Both ice and fire are destructive in a way earth can never be - and GRRM lets us see (cough, Dany) how easy it is to destroy, but it's "planting trees" (an earth-associated activity) which is the hard but necessary part. Thanks for the mud reference-- that's actually the one I was looking for but couldn't find! I like your idea about earth being the balancing element. Now that you've stated it that explicitly, it has an undeniable elegance and appeal. Indeed, 'dragons plant no trees' and the new would-be masters and conquerors the Ironborn 'do not sow' which is antithetical to life. When you talked about Shiva, it reminded me of the 'Trios,' obviously GRRM's manifestation of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva: Quote A Dance with Dragons - The Ugly Little Girl One time, the girl remembered, the Sailor's Wife had walked her rounds with her and told her tales of the city's stranger gods. "That is the house of the Great Shepherd. Three-headed Trios has that tower with three turrets. The first head devours the dying, and the reborn emerge from the third. I don't know what the middle head's supposed to do. The first devours the dying -- Shiva -- destruction. The reborn emerge from the third -- Brahma -- creation. Following this pattern, we can deduce 'what the middle head's supposed to do': the second head -- Vishnu -- preservation. The 'middle' (the medium or balance) is the less glamorous aspect, that's why its significance has been overlooked and people have forgotten its purpose. It requires hard, plodding work. As Barristan points out, that's what immature girls like Dany and Sansa fail to see, 'Mud would nourish you, where fire would only consume you, but fools and children and young girls would choose fire every time.' Applying this scheme to GRRM's 'elements' fire, ice, water and earth is a bit more complicated. As we've seen, both fire and ice can be destructive and both can also be generative forces associated with rebirth (e.g. the dragons hatching, the white walkers rising). When fire and ice clash, they ultimately produce water which can likewise be destructive as well as nurturing in its own right. Although GRRM has insisted fire consumes vs. ice preserves -- he also subsequently deconstructs this dichotomy (e.g. the fire feeding the hot springs at Winterfell preserves human life in the castle and plant life in the greenhouse; and ice can wipe out life as easily as one might snuff out a flame, e.g. white walkers). Here, both ice and fire work together to destroy (consume) and defend (preserve): Quote A Storm of Swords - Jon VII Up above another fire was blooming. The old wooden steps had drunk up oil like a sponge, and Donal Noye had drenched them from the ninth landing all the way down to the seventh. Jon could only hope that most of their own people had staggered up to safety before Noye threw the torches. The black brothers at least had known the plan, but the villagers had not. Wind and fire did the rest. All Jon had to do was watch. With flames below and flames above, the wildlings had nowhere to go. Some continued upward, and died. Some went downward, and died. Some stayed where they were. They died as well. Many leapt from the steps before they burned, and died from the fall. Twenty-odd Thenns were still huddled together between the fires when the ice cracked from the heat, and the whole lower third of the stair broke off, along with several tons of ice. That was the last that Jon Snow saw of Styr, the Magnar of Thenn. The Wall defends itself, he thought. A Storm of Swords - Jon IV And when they looked up Jarl and his team were gone. Men, ropes, stakes, all gone; nothing remained above six hundred feet. There was a wound in the Wall where the climbers had clung half a heartbeat before, the ice within as smooth and white as polished marble and shining in the sun. Far far below there was a faint red smear where someone had smashed against a frozen pinnace. The Wall defends itself, Jon thought as he pulled Ygritte back to her feet. So, ice like fire does indeed preserve itself at the expense of consuming others. So, what does the earth do? The other forces clash and cancel each other out and the earth absorbs what remains, providing fertile ground, or mud, for a new cycle. This is GRRM's philosophy in a nutshell: Quote A Storm of Swords - Bran II "Because they're different," he insisted. "Like night and day, or ice and fire." "If ice can burn," said Jojen in his solemn voice, "then love and hate can mate. Mountain or marsh, it makes no matter. The land is one." "One," his sister agreed, "but over wrinkled." 9 hours ago, Little Scribe of Naath said: Don't forget the intimate connections throughout her arc with her mother, "Cat" and her homeland (the Riverlands). Arya's personality is wolflike, however the skills she is learning are "cat-like", that's the reason GRRM chooses to have her training with cats around. Cats have swift reflexes, are really flexible, possess excellent night vision, tend to stun and capture their prey rather than fight them. Their primary strategy is to stalk their victims, hide themselves, and pounce when the prey passes by. Sounds familiar? I agree with all you've said. Additionally, Arya's becoming so deadly precisely because she's learning to think like her enemies -- something her father and mother were hopeless at doing -- so 'catching cats' should also be understood as a metaphor for catching or outwitting those Lannisters: Quote And who are you, the proud lord said, that I must bow so low? Only a cat of a different coat, that's all the truth I know. In a coat of gold or a coat of red, a lion still has claws, And mine are long and sharp, my lord, as long and sharp as yours. Arya's 'a cat of a different coat' the Lannisters will not see coming. And her 'claws' are long and sharp -- like Needle! @Macgregor of the North and @aryagonnakill#2: I will think about your dream queries and comment shortly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravenous reader Posted August 26, 2016 Share Posted August 26, 2016 On 8/25/2016 at 11:28 AM, ravenous reader said: @Macgregor of the North and @aryagonnakill#2: I will think about your dream queries and comment shortly. On 8/24/2016 at 11:49 AM, aryagonnakill#2 said: the way I was thinking is that we are seeing 2 different things happen here. First is that we know Jon was in bed dreaming, and I believe R+L=J so I believe Jon has Targ blood and that Targs can have prophetic dreams. I also believe R+L=J. Jon has a 'magical' blood endowment from both sides, both Targaryen and First Men. In this respect, he's a bit like Bloodraven, as highlighted here: On 8/23/2016 at 11:18 PM, Dorian Martell said: Like Bloodraven, he is Targ and blood of the first men. Ghost is his conduit, albino like bloodraven, standing in front of a weirwood tree. Indeed, this is an interesting parallel between Jon and Bloodraven. I think of Bloodraven and Jon as 'ice dragons.' For someone possessing heightened 'third-eye' capacity, there are many available 'conduits' of mystical experience, including for entering someone's dreams: an animal spirit medium like Ghost, a corresponding plant medium like the weirwood tree, a person (although Jon hasn't 'entered' someone's mind the way Bran does with Hodor), or even 'hitching a ride' indirectly with a more powerful greenseer as Jon might have done with his brother Bran’s assistance, as well as sorcery techniques like the 'glass candles' they use at the citadel, or Melisandre's fire reading, and potions like weirwood paste and shade of the evening, etc. In addition to predominantly harnessing the animate world, there are still further potential conduits in the inanimate world available to those with 'higher' knowledge: the wind, the stones, the water, maybe even the moon, etc.: Quote The World of Ice and Fire - Ancient History: The Dawn Age Their song and music was said to be as beautiful as they were, but what they sang of is not remembered save in small fragments handed down from ancient days. Maester Childer's Winter's Kings, or the Legends and Lineages of the Starks of Winterfell contains a part of a ballad alleged to tell of the time Brandon the Builder sought the aid of the children while raising the Wall. He was taken to a secret place to meet with them, but could not at first understand their speech, which was described as sounding like the song of stones in a brook, or the wind through leaves, or the rain upon the water. The manner in which Brandon learned to comprehend the speech of the children is a tale in itself, and not worth repeating here. But it seems clear that their speech originated, or drew inspiration from, the sounds they heard every day. The gods the children worshipped were the nameless ones that would one day become the gods of the First Men—the innumerable gods of the streams and forests and stones. Because we know that our Bran, like his ancestor, is able to learn 'the song of the children' -- what else can you call his ability to send messages, and be understood in some cases, via rustling leaves with and without wind..? (as he did reaching out to Ned, Arya, and Theon) -- he could presumably be expected to speak to others using anything at all. On 8/24/2016 at 11:49 AM, aryagonnakill#2 said: I believe Jon was having a prophetic dream of an event that will occur in the next book, where Jon is trapped inside Ghost after being killed by the mutineers. But in the same dream Jon sees through Ghost's eyes and is able to do reconnaissance-by-proxy of the wildling encampment at the Milkwater -- so the second half of the dream, at least, is occurring in 'real time,' not at some point in the future, nor in the next book. Jon as a warg is proving valuable to his Night's Watch brothers as a reconnaissance agent, providing 'intel' much in the same way as Orel is doing via his eagle for the other side. It's important for the story, therefore, that part of this dream has current relevance for the ranging party: Quote 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. 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. This whole section, beginning from 'And suddenly...' is taking place concurrently. Ghost did not sleep with Jon when he took his daytime power nap. Instead he went ranging, and Jon was able to see through Ghost's eyes what the wolf was seeing in 'real time' and later report back on the Wildlings’ activities to the other rangers: Quote 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 to Castle Black. Then he realized 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 snowcapped peaks that ringed it. There were men down in the valley, he saw now; many men, 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 haphazardly, like a pox on the face of the earth. He spied untidy mounds of hay, 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 that 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 . . . "Ghost!" Jon shouted, sitting up. He could still feel the talons, the pain. "Ghost, to me!" Ebben appeared, grabbed him, shook him. "Quiet! You mean to bring the wildlings down on us? What's wrong with you, boy?" "A dream," said Jon feebly. "I was Ghost, I was on the edge of the mountain looking down on a frozen river, and something attacked me. A bird . . . an eagle, I think . . . " Squire Dalbridge smiled. "It's always pretty women in my dreams. Would that I dreamed more often." Qhorin came up beside him. "A frozen river, you say?" "The Milkwater flows from a great lake at the foot of a glacier," Stonesnake put in. "There was a tree with my brother's face. The wildlings . . . there were thousands, more than I ever knew existed. And giants riding mammoths." From the way the light had shifted, Jon judged that he had been asleep for four or five hours. His head ached, and the back of his neck where the talons had burned through him. But that was in the dream. This is a clue that Jon’s third eye has been opened. The two pains have separate sources: his head aches where Bran touched him to awaken his third eye; his neck burns where the eagle’s talons penetrated Ghost’s flesh. Similarly, Jaime’s head 'pounds' after his weirwood dream awakening: Quote A Storm of Swords - Jaime VI Steelshanks Walton stood above them, tall and dour. "What is it? Why did you scream?" "A dream . . . only a dream." Jaime stared at the camp around him, lost for a moment. "I was in the dark, but I had my hand back." He looked at the stump and felt sick all over again. There's no place like that beneath the Rock, he thought. His stomach was sour and empty, and his head was pounding where he'd pillowed it against the stump. Quote "Tell me all that you remember, from first to last," said Qhorin Halfhand. Jon was confused. "It was only a dream." "A wolf dream," the Halfhand said. "Craster told the Lord Commander that the wildlings were gathering at the source of the Milkwater. That may be why you dreamed it. Or it may be that you saw what waits for us, a few hours farther on. Tell me." It made him feel half a fool to talk of such things to Qhorin and the other rangers, but he did as he was commanded. None of the black brothers laughed at him, however. By the time he was done, even Squire Dalbridge was no longer smiling. "Skinchanger?" said Ebben grimly, looking at the Halfhand. Does he mean the eagle? Jon wondered. Or me? Skinchangers and wargs belonged in Old Nan's stories, not in the world he had lived in all his life. Yet here, in this strange bleak wilderness of rock and ice, it was not hard to believe. "The cold winds are rising. Mormont feared as much. Benjen Stark felt it as well. Dead men walk and the trees have eyes again. Why should we balk at wargs and giants?" "Does this mean my dreams are true as well?" asked Squire Dalbridge. "Lord Snow can keep his mammoths, I want my women." "Man and boy I've served the Watch, and ranged as far as any," said Ebben. "I've seen the bones of giants, and heard many a queer tale, but no more. I want to see them with my own eyes." "Be careful they don't see you, Ebben," Stonesnake said. Ghost did not reappear as they set out again. The shadows covered the floor of the pass by then, and the sun was sinking fast toward the jagged twin peaks of the huge mountain the rangers named Forktop. If the dream was true . . . Even the thought scared him. Could the eagle have hurt Ghost, or knocked him off the precipice? And what about the weirwood with his brother's face, that smelled of death and darkness? The last ray of sun vanished behind the peaks of Forktop. Twilight filled the Skirling Pass. It seemed to grow colder almost at once. They were no longer climbing. In fact, the ground had begun to descend, though as yet not sharply. It was littered with cracks and broken boulders and tumbled heaps of rock. It will be dark soon, and still no sight of Ghost. It was tearing Jon apart, yet he dare not shout for the direwolf as he would have liked. Other things might be listening as well. "Qhorin," Squire Dalbridge called softly. "There. Look." The eagle was perched on a spine of rock far above them, outlined against the darkening sky. We've seen other eagles, Jon thought. That need not be the one I dreamed of. Even so, Ebben would have loosed a shaft at it, but the squire stopped him. "The bird's well out of bowshot." "I don't like it watching us." The squire shrugged. "Nor me, but you won't stop it. Only waste a good arrow." Qhorin sat in his saddle, studying the eagle for a long time. "We press on," he finally said. The rangers resumed their descent. Ghost, Jon wanted to shout, where are you? Then Ghost reappears after having been missing all day. He's injured, exactly as Jon dreamed and felt it, so that part where Ghost was attacked by the eagle happened simultaneously with the dream, not in the future. Quote He was about to follow Qhorin and the others when he glimpsed a flash of white between two boulders. A patch of old snow, he thought, until he saw it stir. He was off his horse at once. As he went to his knees, Ghost lifted his head. His neck glistened wetly, but he made no sound when Jon peeled off a glove and touched him. The talons had torn a bloody path through fur and flesh, but the bird had not been able to snap his neck. Qhorin Halfhand was standing over him. "How bad?" As if in answer, Ghost struggled to his feet. "The wolf is strong," the ranger said. "Ebben, water. Stonesnake, your skin of wine. Hold him still, Jon." Together they washed the caked blood from the direwolf's fur. Ghost struggled and bared his teeth when Qhorin poured the wine into the ragged red gashes the eagle had left him, but Jon wrapped his arms around him and murmured soothing words, and soon enough the wolf quieted. By the time they'd ripped a strip from Jon's cloak to wrap the wounds, full dark had settled. Only a dusting of stars set the black of sky apart from the black of stone. "Do we press on?" Stonesnake wanted to know. Qhorin went to his garron. "Back, not on." "Back?" Jon was taken by surprise. "Eagles have sharper eyes than men. We are seen. So now we run." The Halfhand wound a long black scarf around his face and swung up into the saddle. The other rangers exchanged a look, but no man thought to argue. One by one they mounted and turned their mounts toward home. "Ghost, come," he called, and the direwolf followed, a pale shadow moving through the night. Ghost returning brings proof of the relevance of Jon’s dream, causing the ranging party to change their plans accordingly. Thanks to Jon/Ghost, they have been tipped off to the wildling spy shadowing them in the form of an eagle. Quote This event is where Jon in Ghosts body comes upon a weirwood sapling/tree and whether the tree actually grows or not I don't know, that could easily be some sort of metaphor from Bran having grown up since Jon last saw him, but basically Bran will communicate with Jon and will tell Jon his parentage and some info about the others. The sapling's accelerated growth could be a metaphor for time travel, like here: Quote A Dance with Dragons - Bran III 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. My term for this phenomenon as witnessed by Bran is 'dying in reverse'! GRRM includes such images of trees rapidly growing older or younger, such as in this example, in order to indicate to the reader that the usual time relations do not apply, as well as to show the direction of time shift. Because the trees here are getting younger, and then vanishing altogether, 'dying in reverse', we can conclude that thousands of years are passing (weirwoods have exceptionally long lifespans) and Bran is plummeting into 'deep history'; that's also why he feels 'lost and dizzy': Quote 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. So Bran has travelled all the way back in time to the bronze age (First Men), before iron (Andals), before steel (Valyrians, possibly Rhoynar), and after dragonglass, bone, and wood (the weapons of the Children). Quote "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. This part is interesting. There are several hints that travelling in time for Bran is not merely a passive exercise like watching a movie at a distance. Somehow, he can also 'plug into' the scene and interact with it, as evidenced by the blood which he actually tastes here, or in his interactions with Ned who hears him, Arya who understands him, and Theon whom he touches and who's reciprocally able to hear, understand, and feel Bran, changing Theon's life trajectory, and possibly the destiny of the Starks, in the process. Similarly, he's able to interact with Jon, modifying the course of events to a certain extent. Quote @aryagonnakill#2 said: This event is where Jon in Ghosts body comes upon a weirwood sapling/tree and whether the tree actually grows or not I don't know, that could easily be some sort of metaphor from Bran having grown up since Jon last saw him, but basically Bran will communicate with Jon and will tell Jon his parentage and some info about the others. Recently, I was having a similar discussion on 'Heresy' with a number of people, including @LynnS, @Feather Crystal, and @wolfmaid7, as well as on 'Bran's growing powers' with @The Fattest Leech. It was posited that Jon may not necessarily have been 'in Ghost's body' at that point of the dream (up until that word 'suddenly' where there's an abrupt shift to the Milkwater scene). As I said commenting on @Dorian Martell's post above, there are many possible conduits for dream 'infiltration' and manipulation, so perhaps this wasn't an ordinary 'warging' 'wolfdream.' Perhaps it was more like what occurred between Bran and the three-eyed crow (whom I consider to be Bloodraven, although there is room for alternate, including nefarious, interpretations) in his so-called 'coma dream.' In that dream, the greenseer came to Bran using the avatar of a crow, and gave him a 'flying lesson'. It's never stated, however, by what mechanism Bran was able to fly in that particular case. Bran doesn't seem to have to inhabit any corresponding avatar himself, he's just a disembodied 'bird's eye' moving above Winterfell which evolves into a 'god's eye' view where he's flitting across continents faster and higher than a modern-day jet plane, let alone a bird. Then, the three-eyed crow pecks at his forehead, presumably gouging out a pathway for the third eye, and Bran awakes from the coma. It's curious that the opening of the third eye only occurred at the end of the vision, whereas it would've made more sense had it occurred before. Turning to the 'first part' (before the 'suddenly') of Jon's dream, it starts off as a wolf dream, which although occurring in Jon's mind at present is not clearly simultaneous with what Ghost is doing at that very moment. Ghost is off on his ranging in glacial country where there should not be any weirwood trees let alone saplings, unless he's happened on Bloodraven's cave (which could feasibly be in the vicinity of the Milkwater). On 8/25/2016 at 5:35 AM, Macgregor of the North said: Jon? The call came from behind him, softer than a whisper, but strong too. Can a shout be silent? He turned his head, searching for his brother, for a glimpse of a lean grey shape moving beneath the trees, but there was nothing, only . . . 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 his brother always had three eyes? Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow. He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs. 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. And suddenly... The weirwood at Bloodraven's cave also sprouts from a cleft in the rock: Quote A Dance with Dragons - Bran II "Inside the cave?" suggested Meera. "The cave is warded. They cannot pass." The ranger used his sword to point. "You can see the entrance there. Halfway up, between the weirwoods, that cleft in the rock." "I see it," said Bran. Ravens were flying in and out. Assuming this is not just a symbol of Bran that GRRM has taken the liberty of inserting using his 'poetic license', and that therefore Ghost's weirwood and Bloodraven's are one and the same, then Jon/Ghost appears to be the one time-travelling, perhaps facilitated by Bran from the future (married to the tree) and/or present (in the crypt). Jon/Ghost is transported back in time to watch the tree grow up in fast-forward to the mature tree that Bran, however, will only physically encounter in the future in ADWD! However, this interpretation still doesn’t account for the abrupt – ‘suddenly’ – shift of location that seems to take place between Ghost at the weirwood tree’s location and Ghost’s scouting post at the top of the cliff overlooking the Milkwater. Further, if the tree in the dream were truly the same as Bloodraven’s weirwood, then surely Bran and co. would’ve remarked on a glacier or cliff in the vicinity of the cave in the ADWD passages? All this leads me to conclude that only the second half of the dream is a true wolf dream; the first half is analogous to the coma-dream style. On 8/25/2016 at 9:02 AM, aryagonnakill#2 said: There are 3 things that make me think it is a future event, and ya this is one of those really confusing parts of the book that we can only speculate on until we get more info from the next book or two. 1st is that I just don't think Bran was capable of it at the time. I think him speaking of darkness has to be the cave as opposed to the crypts. 2nd is that it seems incomplete, I think after touching him on the forehead there should be more. 3rd is that I think the setup is there perfectly now that Jon will likely be in Ghost after the stabbing. Yes, I share the same doubts about the level of Bran's powers in the crypt, although Bran does report he's been able to contact Jon from crypt-central (and possibly via Summer somehow...the direwolves have that 'pack intuition radar’ thing going on). The following description of being able to 'touch Ghost and talk to Jon' does seem like confirmation it's about the same event we've been debating, where Bran does indeed do just that: Quote A Clash of Kings - Bran VII "The wolf ate," Jojen said. "Not you. Take care, Bran. Remember who you are." He remembered who he was all too well; Bran the boy, Bran the broken. Better Bran the beastling. Was it any wonder he would sooner dream his Summer dreams, his wolf dreams? 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. He could not understand why Jojen was always trying to pull him back now. Bran used the strength of his arms to squirm to a sitting position. "I have to tell Osha what I saw. Is she here? Where did she go?" The wildling woman herself gave answer. "Nowhere, m'lord. I've had my fill o' blundering in the black." He heard the scrape of a heel on stone, turned his head toward the sound, but saw nothing. He thought he could smell her, but he wasn't sure. All of them stank alike, and he did not have Summer's nose to tell one from the other. At that point in the crypts, Bran would've been able to contact Jon via wolf dreams, but there should not have been any time travel component (indicated by the sapling growing in 'fast-forward'), the advent of which I had been associating up till now exclusively with Bloodraven's tutelage in the cave. As a caveat, however, perhaps we ought to bear in mind that the usual deductive reasoning about time, including concepts like 'before' and 'after' and rules about not being able to be in different times and places simultaneously is not going to apply in Bran's case, nor perhaps in any other 'third-eye' case. Using the usual rules of logic, and traced to their conclusions, we end up with paradoxes belying our assumptions. Taken to its extreme, we can't even assume that the usual rules of birth and death apply. Thus, just as I showed the weirwood trees 'dying in reverse' fading into other trees and other lives, it's conceivable that Bran may have been able to enter and influence events pre-dating his own birth and post-dating his own death, throwing into question the whole notion of individuality. Think of the river of time like a ribbon you can fold back and forth and spiral, coil, scrunch and knot, juxtaposing points on the ribbon that were hithertofore considered disparate, rendering such concepts as 'upstream' and 'downstream,' 'source' and 'mouth' redundant. Additionally, we ought to consider the possibility that GRRM sometimes uses narrative devices such as the fast-forward or -reverse technique in order to tip off the reader to the symbolic significance attending a certain event, the exact chronology of which we're not supposed to question too closely...It's difficult to say. Recently, @Black Crow on Heresy made the point to me that GRRM likes to pull the wool over the reader's eyes as to what's really going on by swamping us with a lot of 'chaff,' so on the one hand we're cautioned not to delve into every little detail and word too closely, while on the other to 'put on our Myrish lenses' and scrutinize the text. GRRM does love his game! For argument's sake, let's try to make sense of it without resorting to symbolic explanations. Technically, Bran has already experienced time-travelling before the eye-opening crucible of the crypt, at least once if not twice. On the very first occasion thereof, he was in the company of a greenseer (three-eyed crow, likeliest candidate Bloodraven), who perhaps 'took him along for the training ride,' whereas now, without such assistance, Bran is left to his own devices and, although he's learning quickly, would not conceivably be capable of embarking on another 'time- and spaceflight' without 'hitching a ride' with a teacher. We know the flight over Winterfell culminating in the frightening vision of the 'Heart of Winter' was a flight in time as much as space, given that Bran was able to see Jon's future death ('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'); as well as the subtle hint inserted by GRRM at the outset of the flight that Robb in the courtyard looked older than Bran remembered him (like the sapling, Robb has shot up in fast-forward from Bran the dreamer's vantage point): 'He saw his brother Robb, taller and stronger than he remembered him, practicing swordplay in the yard with real steel in his hand' (AGOT-Bran III). The other hint of time-travel occurs in this same passage, and it's even more mysterious: Quote A Game of Thrones - Bran III He saw Winterfell as the eagles see it, the tall towers looking squat and stubby from above, the castle walls just lines in the dirt. He saw Maester Luwin on his balcony, studying the sky through a polished bronze tube and frowning as he made notes in a book. He saw his brother Robb, taller and stronger than he remembered him, practicing swordplay in the yard with real steel in his hand. He saw Hodor, the simple giant from the stables, carrying an anvil to Mikken's forge, hefting it onto his shoulder as easily as another man might heft a bale of hay. At the heart of the godswood, the great white weirwood brooded over its reflection in the black pool, its leaves rustling in a chill wind. When it felt Bran watching, it lifted its eyes from the still waters and stared back at him knowingly. Compare: Quote ADWD-A Ghost in Winterfell And in the heart of the wood the weirwood waited with its knowing red eyes. Theon stopped by the edge of the pool and bowed his head before its carved red face. Even here he could hear the drumming, boom DOOM boom DOOM boom DOOM boom DOOM. Like distant thunder, the sound seemed to come from everywhere at once. The night was windless, the snow drifting straight down out of a cold black sky, yet the leaves of the heart tree were rustling his name. “Theon,” they seemed to whisper, “Theon.” The old gods, he thought. They know me. They know my name. I was Theon of House Greyjoy. I was a ward of Eddard Stark, a friend and brother to his children. “Please.” He fell to his knees. “A sword, that’s all I ask. Let me die as Theon, not as Reek.” Tears trickled down his cheeks, impossibly warm. “I was ironborn. A son … a son of Pyke, of the islands.” A leaf drifted down from above, brushed his brow, and landed in the pool. It floated on the water, red, five-fingered, like a bloody hand. “… Bran,” the tree murmured. They know. The gods know. They saw what I did. And for one strange moment it seemed as if it were Bran’s face carved into the pale trunk of the weirwood, staring down at him with eyes red and wise and sad. Bran’s ghost, he thought, but that was madness. Why should Bran want to haunt him? In both cases, the heart tree with ‘knowing eyes’ at the heart of the Winterfell godswood is inhabited by Bran. He is the ‘genius loci’ of Winterfell (for more, see our essays on ‘Bran’s growing powers,’ particularly my brief introduction (scroll down for the purple heading: 'The genius loci -- the spirit of the place') and @Tijgy’s subsequent commentary). After doing a search for ‘knowing eyes,’ besides the three-eyed crow with his third eye filled with a ‘terrible knowledge,’ Bran is the only other one described in this way, lending credence to this hypothesis. This has always been Bran’s tree. It's the same tree from which he contacted Ned, Theon, and his more ancient antecedents back to the bronze age sacrificial tableau, the blood of which he was able to 'taste' despite not having been born yet, evidence further linking him to this specific tree in addition to the one in Bloodraven's hollow. In the former example of the weirwood catching sight of itself, therefore, I think this is Bran looking at himself looking at himself looking at himself looking at himself looking at himself looking...(or, Bran reflecting on himself reflecting on a reflection of himself reflecting on a reflection of himself reflecting ...etc) -- you get the idea! (once one starts going down the time-travelling rabbit-hole, language starts to crack at the fault lines of all our assumptions and break down…). No wonder the tree is described as self-consciously 'brooding'! There are three reflections or 'eyes' of Bran in play (a sort of ‘triple-vision trick’ to adapt your terminology): the eye in the sky above, the eye in the pool below; and between them, the focal point of the eye in the tree (i.e. Bran as three-eyed tree, echoing Ghost/Jon’s observation of the sapling with his brother’s eyes). In other words, this moment represents a nexus or intersection of two time 'flights', as it were; namely 'present' Bran flying overhead being initiated by the teacher, and Bran watching 'from the future' via the weirwood, The tree has 'knowing' eyes, because it knows Bran, knows something he doesn't, and ultimately is Bran. Just as the tree in the second case I provided is described as ‘waiting’ for Theon, anticipating his arrival as if it knew to expect him, the tree in the first case knows that he's (Bran) there, knows to look up before he 'sees' him, because he's already seen him, having experienced this before (from the vantage point of 'coma dream' Bran flying above the tree). It's a closed time loop. On 8/22/2016 at 7:28 AM, Macgregor of the North said: I Also think when Bran pulls some kind of double vision trick to survey Winterfell above and see how it is, this is a glimmer we see of a stronger power Bran will soon have where he no longer needs to use Summers eyes or Weirwood eyes to see things and I wonder if the Crypts/it's Darkness or whatever has helped him focus to do this in some way. It is easy to think he just slips Summers skin when he surveys Winterfell but I'm not so sure he is doing this, I'm convinced it's something more powerful happening here since his third eye has opened in the Darkness of the Crypts. On 8/25/2016 at 11:23 AM, Macgregor of the North said: Also, that kind of double vision thing Bran does when he surveys WF and tells Osha that it is day is not him slipping Summers skin I dont think. This seems like a glimmer at how strong Brans powers will become where he doesn't need to slip Summers skin or look through the trees, and it's due to the Crypts darkness I believe. It really does seem that his capabilities are at a higher level down there. Thank you for bringing that particular passage, which I’d initially overlooked, to my attention. It is certainly intriguing, and I agree with your assessment that it's not clear-cut 'warging' or 'wolf dreams.' For one, when Bran is using the wolf as a conduit, he cannot do this, from what we've observed, by using any 'double vision,' ‘split-consciousness’ or waking tactic whatsoever. In fact, Jojen and Meera are often frantic that Bran is 'gone' for hours even days, unconscious, unresponsive and missing meals when he's in that state, frequently expressing their fears that he may lose his human identity to the wolf altogether. Thus, we may conclude that something different, and more advanced, is in play. Let's break down the passage in question: Quote "Bran," a voice was whispering softly. "Bran, come back. Come back now, Bran. Bran . . . " He closed his third eye and opened the other two, the old two, the blind two. In the dark place all men were blind. But someone was holding him. He could feel arms around him, the warmth of a body snuggled close. He could hear Hodor singing "Hodor, hodor, hodor," quietly to himself. "Bran?" It was Meera's voice. "You were thrashing, making terrible noises. What did you see?" "Winterfell." His tongue felt strange and thick in his mouth. One day when I come back I won't know how to talk anymore. "It was Winterfell. It was all on fire. There were horse smells, and steel, and blood. They killed everyone, Meera." This part is Bran coming out of his stupor and reporting back on what he's seen of Winterfell through Summer's eyes—characteristic of ‘normal’ ‘wolf-dreaming.’ Quote He felt her hand on his face, stroking back his hair. "You're all sweaty," she said. "Do you need a drink?" "A drink," he agreed. She held a skin to his lips, and Bran swallowed so fast the water ran out of the corner of his mouth. He was always weak and thirsty when he came back. And hungry too. He remembered the dying horse, the taste of blood in his mouth, the smell of burnt flesh in the morning air. "How long?" "Three days," said Jojen. The boy had come up softfoot, or perhaps he had been there all along; in this blind black world, Bran could not have said. "We were afraid for you." "I was with Summer," Bran said. "Too long. You'll starve yourself. Meera dribbled a little water down your throat, and we smeared honey on your mouth, but it is not enough." "I ate," said Bran. "We ran down an elk and had to drive off a tree cat that tried to steal him." The cat had been tan-and-brown, only half the size of the direwolves, but fierce. He remembered the musky smell of him, and the way he had snarled down at them from the limb of the oak. "The wolf ate," Jojen said. "Not you. Take care, Bran. Remember who you are." He remembered who he was all too well; Bran the boy, Bran the broken. Better Bran the beastling. Was it any wonder he would sooner dream his Summer dreams, his wolf dreams? 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. This seems very similar to Jon's dream. Quote Though maybe he had only dreamed that. He could not understand why Jojen was always trying to pull him back now. Bran used the strength of his arms to squirm to a sitting position. "I have to tell Osha what I saw. Is she here? Where did she go?" The wildling woman herself gave answer. "Nowhere, m'lord. I've had my fill o' blundering in the black." He heard the scrape of a heel on stone, turned his head toward the sound, but saw nothing. He thought he could smell her, but he wasn't sure. All of them stank alike, and he did not have Summer's nose to tell one from the other. "Last night I pissed on a king's foot," Osha went on. "Might be it was morning, who can say? I was sleeping, but now I'm not." They all slept a lot, not only Bran. There was nothing else to do, Sleep and eat and sleep again, and sometimes talk a little . . . but not too much, and only in whispers, just to be safe. Osha might have liked it better if they had never talked at all, but there was no way to quiet Rickon, or to stop Hodor from muttering, "Hodor, hodor, hodor," endlessly to himself. "Osha," Bran said, "I saw Winterfell burning." Off to his left, he could hear the soft sound of Rickon's "A dream," said Osha. "A wolf dream," said Bran. "I smelled it too. Nothing smells like fire, or blood." "Whose blood?" "Men, horses, dogs, everyone. We have to go see." "This scrawny skin of mine's the only one I got," said Osha. "That squid prince catches hold o' me, they'll strip it off my back with a whip." Meera's hand found Bran's in the darkness and gave his fingers a squeeze. "I'll go if you're afraid." Bran heard fingers fumbling at leather, followed by the sound of steel on flint. Then again. A spark flew, caught. Osha blew softly. A long pale flame awoke, stretching upward like a girl on her toes. Osha's face floated above it. She touched the flame with the head of a torch. Bran had to squint as the pitch began to burn, filling the world with orange glare. The light woke Rickon, who sat up yawning. Ironically, Bran ‘squinting in the glare’ sees less in the light than he does in the dark. The light also cancels out Rickon's 'dream.' Quote When the shadows moved, it looked for an instant as if the dead were rising as well. Lyanna and Brandon, Lord Rickard Stark their father, Lord Edwyle his father, Lord Willam and his brother Artos the Implacable, Lord Donnor and Lord Beron and Lord Rodwell, one-eyed Lord Jonnel, Lord Barth and Lord Brandon and Lord Cregan who had fought the Dragonknight. On their stone chairs they sat with stone wolves at their feet. This was where they came when the warmth had seeped out of their bodies; this was the dark hall of the dead, where the living feared to tread. And in the mouth of the empty tomb that waited for Lord Eddard Stark, beneath his stately granite likeness, the six fugitives huddled round their little cache of bread and water and dried meat. "Little enough left," Osha muttered as she blinked down on their stores. "I'd need to go up soon to steal food in any case, or we'd be down to eating Hodor." "Hodor," Hodor said, grinning at her. "Is it day or night up there?" Osha wondered. "I've lost all count o' such." "Day," Bran told her, "but it's dark from all the smoke." "M'lord is certain?" Never moving his broken body, he reached out all the same, and for an instant he was seeing double. There stood Osha holding the torch, and Meera and Jojen and Hodor, and the double row of tall granite pillars and long dead lords behind them stretching away into darkness . . . but there was Winterfell as well, grey with drifting smoke, the massive oak-and-iron gates charred and askew, the drawbridge down in a tangle of broken chains and missing planks. Bodies floated in the moat, islands for the crows. "Certain," he declared. In contrast to the wolf dreams in which Bran gets immersed for hours and days at a time, characterized by his struggling to tune out of the dream and emerge into ‘reality,’ here Bran does a quick ‘tune in-tune out’ as if he’s briefly changing a radio station. Another clue that this is not a normal wolf dream is that the point of view throughout is clearly Bran, whereas when he is in Summer, the wolf’s stream of consciousness takes precedence. GRRM uses this technique deliberately to indicate a wolf dream, marked by unusual linguistic circumlocutions and other awkward constructions as a marker of the wolf’s non-verbal point of view in contrast to Bran’s more verbal stream of consciousness. For example: Quote A Clash of Kings - Bran III "The finest knight I ever saw was Ser Arthur Dayne, who fought with a blade called Dawn, forged from the heart of a fallen star. They called him the Sword of the Morning, and he would have killed me but for Howland Reed." Father had gotten sad then, and he would say no more. Bran wished he had asked him what he meant. He went to sleep with his head full of knights in gleaming armor, fighting with swords that shone like starfire, but when the dream came he was in the godswood again. The smells from the kitchen and the Great Hall were so strong that it was almost as if he had never left the feast. He prowled beneath the trees, his brother close behind him. This night was wildly alive, full of the howling of the man-pack at their play. The sounds made him restless. He wanted to run, to hunt, he wanted to— The rattle of iron made his ears prick up. His brother heard it too. They raced through the undergrowth toward the sound. Bounding across the still water at the foot of the old white one, he caught the scent of a stranger, the man-smell well mixed with leather and earth and iron. A Clash of Kings - Bran I He could smell his brother too, a familiar scent, strong and earthy, his scent as black as his coat. His brother was loping around the walls, full of fury. Round and round he went, night after day after night, tireless, searching . . . for prey, for a way out, for his mother, his littermates, his pack . . . searching, searching, and never finding. Behind the trees the walls rose, piles of dead man-rock that loomed all about this speck of living wood. Speckled grey they rose, and moss-spotted, yet thick and strong and higher than any wolf could hope to leap. Cold iron and splintery wood closed off the only holes through the piled stones that hemmed them in. His brother would stop at every hole and bare his fangs in rage, but the ways stayed closed. He had done the same the first night, and learned that it was no good. Snarls would open no paths here. Circling the walls would not push them back. Lifting a leg and marking the trees would keep no men away. The world had tightened around them, but beyond the walled wood still stood the great grey caves of man-rock. Winterfell, he remembered, the sound coming to him suddenly. Beyond its sky-tall man-cliffs the true world was calling, and he knew he must answer or die. Unlike Bran using the ‘double-vision’ technique above, the wolf doesn’t know the word for ‘gate,’ calling it ‘cold iron and splintery wood closed off the only holes through the piled stones’; likewise, in the wolf’s mind the castle is conceived as ‘great grey caves of man-rock’ and its walls ‘sky-tall man-cliffs.’ From the language, therefore, it’s clear when Bran surveys Winterfell in the ‘double-vision’ way, he is doing this without using Summer’s eyes (e.g. he knows the name for human constructions such as ‘gate’ and ‘drawbridge’). Also, in true wolf dreams smells and sounds are emphasized over visual images, usually smells presenting first before the other senses; so it is noteworthy that in Bran's 'double-vision trick' no smells appear, indicating we're dealing with a faculty of a different kind. Indeed, as you correctly highlighted, we have not seen Bran manage this kind of 'waking dream' before, whereby he's able to 'tune in' to whatever is going on above-ground while simultaneously remaining in contact with those below ground -- all without losing consciousness -- which certainly represents an advancement in his powers. Perhaps Bran is learning by himself to do what the three-eyed-crow facilitated in the 'coma dream,' although this is strange when taken in conjunction with Bloodraven's assurance in the cave that he will only ‘oneday’ move on to the next stage and 'see beyond the trees' as if he does not yet possess that power independently. Jojen says: Quote A Clash of Kings - Bran IV "I only have two." "You have three. The crow gave you the third, but you will not open it." He had a slow soft way of speaking. "With two eyes you see my face. With three you could see my heart. With two you can see that oak tree there. With three you could see the acorn the oak grew from and the stump that it will one day become. With two you see no farther than your walls. With three you would gaze south to the Summer Sea and north beyond the Wall." Summer got to his feet. "I don't need to see so far." Bran made a nervous smile. "I'm tired of talking about crows. Let's talk about wolves. Or lizard-lions. Have you ever hunted one, Meera? We don't have them here." What Jojen is saying here seems contradictory, considering Bran has already gazed ‘south to the Summer Sea and north beyond the Wall’ all the way to the Heart of Winter in his ‘coma dream’ even before the three-eyed crow pecked out a path for his third eye at the close of the dream. Again, time relations are topsy-turvy where Bran is involved. It's confusing how Bran appears to possess certain powers in advance of actually gaining them. What is implied is that Bran experienced third-eye vision before the opening of his third eye. One way of explaining this might be that his teacher the three-eyed crow somehow facilitated this vision, although it’s not clear how this might work without first opening someone’s third eye. Quote A Dance with Dragons - Bran III "Will I see my father again?" "Once you have mastered your gifts, you may look where you will and see what the trees have seen, be it yesterday or last year or a thousand ages past. Men live their lives trapped in an eternal present, between the mists of memory and the sea of shadow that is all we know of the days to come. Certain moths live their whole lives in a day, yet to them that little span of time must seem as long as years and decades do to us. An oak may live three hundred years, a redwoodtree three thousand. A weirwood will live forever if left undisturbed. To them seasons pass in the flutter of a moth's wing, and past, present, and future are one. Nor will your sight be limited to your godswood. The singers carved eyes into their heart trees to awaken them, and those are the first eyes a new greenseer learns to use … but in time you will see well beyond the trees themselves." "When?" Bran wanted to know. "In a year, or three, or ten. That I have not glimpsed. It will come in time, I promise you. But I am tired now, and the trees are calling me. We will resume on the morrow." Strangely, Bran already seems to be exercising the faculty of seeing 'beyond the trees,' during his 'coma flight' and reconnoitring for his friends while in the crypt, at both times of which he was not actually ‘hooked in’ to any tree serving as conduit. He has the skills before Bloodraven predicts he shall have them. I posit this paradox we’re picking up is the closed time loop in action. Bran broke through time when he tore the curtain at the end of the world, so the usual time, place, and person restrictions defining others do not apply. Quote A Game of Thrones - Bran III He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the narrow sea, to the Free Cities and the green Dothraki sea and beyond, to Vaes Dothrak under its mountain, to the fabled lands of the Jade Sea, to Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise. 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. Bran looked at the crow on his shoulder, and the crow looked back. It had three eyes, and the third eye was full of a terrible knowledge. The identity of the three-eyed crow is one of three: either Bloodraven, Euron, or most mysteriously of all, Bran himself. I'll leave it open to speculation for now. On 8/25/2016 at 9:02 AM, aryagonnakill#2 said: 2nd is that it seems incomplete, I think after touching him on the forehead there should be more. GRRM is like a movie editor/director. He cut away just as it was getting exciting, as a means to draw and maintain our curiosity! On 8/25/2016 at 9:02 AM, aryagonnakill#2 said: 3rd is that I think the setup is there perfectly now that Jon will likely be in Ghost after the stabbing. There has been ample foreshadowing for that, independent of this dream. Varamyr's prologue is the most significant. GRRM tends to invest his prologues, epilogues, and ‘bookend’ chapters with a great deal of ‘foreshadowing,’ so we should never skip over these. In addition, he’s shown Jon progressively bonding with his wolf in this fashion, so it ought not to surprise us when the time comes. Herewith, a few striking examples: Quote A Storm of Swords - Jon XII He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. It was a hunger inside him, sharp as a dragonglass blade. A hunger . . . he could feel it. It was food he needed, prey, a red deer that stank of fear or a great elk proud and defiant. He needed to kill and fill his belly with fresh meat and hot dark blood. His mouth began to water with the thought. It was a long moment before he understood what was happening. When he did, he bolted to his feet. "Ghost?" He turned toward the wood, and there he came, padding silently out of the green dusk, the breath coming warm and white from his open jaws. "Ghost!" he shouted, and the direwolf broke into a run. He was leaner than he had been, but bigger as well, and the only sound he made was the soft crunch of dead leaves beneath his paws. When he reached Jonhe leapt, and they wrestled amidst brown grass and long shadows as the stars came out above them. "Gods, wolf, where have you been?" Jon said when Ghost stopped worrying at his forearm. "I thought you'd died on me, like Robb and Ygritte and all the rest. I've had no sense of you, not since I climbed the Wall, not even in dreams." The direwolf had no answer, but he licked Jon's face with a tongue like a wet rasp, and his eyes caught the last light and shone like two great red suns. Red eyes, Jon realized, but not like Melisandre's. He had a weirwood's eyes. Red eyes, red mouth, white fur. Blood and bone, like a heart tree. He belongs to the old gods, this one. And he alone of all the direwolves was white. Six pups they'd found in the late summer snows, him and Robb; five that were grey and black and brown, for the five Starks, and one white, as white as Snow. This is interesting. The wall appears to function as a shield so that magic cannot cross, not even in a 'metaphysical' transmission. Interestingly, later, however, when Ghost and Summer are on opposite sides of the wall, Ghost/Jon (the repetition of the moon cackling 'Snow' is a strong hint that this is Jon having a wolf dream) is able to sense his brother's presence: Quote A Dance with Dragons - Jon I "Snow," the moon called down again, cackling. The white wolf padded along the man trail beneath the icy cliff. The taste of blood was on his tongue, and his ears rang to the song of the hundred cousins. Once they had been six, five whimpering blind in the snow beside their dead mother, sucking cool milk from her hard dead nipples whilst he crawled off alone. Four remained … and one the white wolf could no longer sense. "Snow," the moon insisted. The white wolf ran from it, racing toward the cave of night where the sun had hidden, his breath frosting in the air. On starless nights the great cliff was as black as stone, a darkness towering high above the wide world, but when the moon came out it shimmered pale and icy as a frozen stream. The wolf's pelt was thick and shaggy, but when the wind blew along the ice no fur could keep the chill out. On the other side the wind was colder still, the wolf sensed. That was where his brother was, the grey brother who smelled of summer. So, what event or whom is responsible for disrupting the barrier in the interim? @Feather Crystal, any ideas?! Other quotes of Jon's increasingly intensive bonding with Ghost: Quote A Dance with Dragons - Jon I Burning dead children had ceased to trouble Jon Snow; live ones were another matter. Two kings to wake the dragon. The father first and then the son, so both die kings. The words had been murmured by one of the queen's men as Maester Aemon had cleaned his wounds. Jon had tried to dismiss them as his fever talking. Aemon had demurred. "There is power in a king's blood," the old maester had warned, "and better men than Stannis have done worse things than this." The king can be harsh and unforgiving, aye, but a babe still on the breast? Only a monster would give a living child to the flames. Jon pissed in darkness, filling his chamber pot as the Old Bear's raven muttered complaints. The wolf dreams had been growing stronger, and he found himself remembering them even when awake. Ghost knows that Grey Wind is dead. Robb had died at the Twins, betrayed by men he'd believed his friends, and his wolf had perished with him. Bran and Rickon had been murdered too, beheaded at the behest of Theon Greyjoy, who had once been their lord father's ward … but if dreams did not lie, their direwolves had escaped. At Queenscrown, one had come out of the darkness to save Jon's life. Summer, it had to be. His fur was grey, and Shaggydog is black. He wondered if some part of his dead brothers lived on inside their wolves. A Dance with Dragons - Jon II "Bring me something hot." Jon threw off his blankets. Edd was back by the time that he had dressed, pressing a steaming cup into his hands. Jon expected hot mulled wine, and was surprised to find that it was soup, a thin broth that smelled of leeks and carrots but seemed to have no leeks or carrots in it. The smells are stronger in my wolf dreams, he reflected, and food tastes richer too. Ghost is more alive than I am. He left the empty cup upon the forge. Very suggestive foreshadowing that Jon will have his ‘second life fit for a king’ in his direwolf while his human body will be dead. Quote A Dance with Dragons - Jon VII Half a mile from the grove, long red shafts of autumn sunlight were slanting down between the branches of the leafless trees, staining the snowdrifts pink. The riders crossed a frozen stream, between two jagged rocks armored in ice, then followed a twisting game trail to the northeast. Whenever the wind kicked up, sprays of loose snow filled the air and stung their eyes. Jon pulled his scarf up over his mouth and nose and raised the hood on his cloak. "Not far now," he told the men. No one replied. Jon smelled Tom Barleycorn before he saw him. Or was it Ghost who smelled him? Of late, Jon Snow sometimes felt as if he and the direwolf were one, even awake. The great white wolf appeared first, shaking off the snow. A few moments later Tom was there. "Wildlings," he told Jon, softly. "In the grove." Jon brought the riders to a halt. "How many?" ‘Tom Barleycorn’ is a reference, in Jon’s context, to ‘John Barleycorn,’ a folkloric figure enmeshed in themes of human sacrifice, death, and spiritual rebirth – further foreshadowing of Jon’s fate. http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/lammas/a/Barleycorn.htm ‘John Barleycorn’ is a drinking song, punning on the double meaning of ‘spirit,’ by which the ‘spiritual’ product arising out of the sacrifice of the barley could either refer to alcoholic distillation or human redemption. Another possible allusion GRRM may have had in mind is to the writer Jack London, a notable alcoholic (like GRRM’s father incidentally) who not only wrote an autobiographical novel entitled 'John Barleycorn' detailing his alcoholic memoirs, but also wrote several books with wolves as his protagonist or used allegorically: ‘The Call of the Wild’, ‘White Fang’, and ‘The Sea Wolf.’ Jon smells ‘Tom Barleycorn’ coming before he sees him; in a similar vein, Ghost/Jon smelled death at the site of the three-eyed weirwood without having to see it. Tom/John Barleycorn is a harbinger of death, or perhaps not a harbinger but its embodiment. As such, it's important that Ghost arrives to Jon first, before the advent of the grim reaper 'Tom/John Barleycorn.' I take this to mean that when Jon is lying in the snow with Ghost's name on his lips, Ghost, so in tune with Jon by now, as he's been throughout the course of ADWD, hears Jon's summons, and arrives first -- before death can unequivocally claim him. Although Jon's spirit may be sequestered in Ghost, he will nevertheless also be subjected to a 'John Barleycorn'-type spiritual transformation at the same time. Conveniently, the cellar in which Jon has previously seen a wraithelike reflection of himself, signifying this is where his body will be placed while he is undergoing his transformation and underground journey literally (beneath the wall) and figuratively, has an abundance of grains, including barley, with which to distill spirits: Quote A Dance with Dragons - Jon IV Wick Whittlestick wore the keys on a ring about his neck. They all looked alike to Jon, yet somehow Wick found the right one for every door. Once inside, he would take a fist-sized chunk of chalk from his pouch and mark each cask and sack and barrel as he counted them while Marsh compared the new count to the old. In the granaries were oats and wheat and barley, and barrels of coarse ground flour. In the root cellars strings of onions and garlic dangled from the rafters, and bags of carrots, parsnips, radishes, and white and yellow turnips filled the shelves. One storeroom held wheels of cheese so large it took two men to move them. In the next, casks of salt beef, salt pork, salt mutton, and salt cod were stacked ten feet high. Three hundred hams and three thousand long black sausages hung from ceiling beams below the smokehouse. In the spice locker they found peppercorns, cloves, and cinnamon, mustard seeds, coriander, sage and clary sage and parsley, blocks of salt. Elsewhere were casks of apples and pears, dried peas, dried figs, bags of walnuts, bags of chestnuts, bags of almonds, planks of dry smoked salmon, clay jars packed with olives in oil and sealed with wax. One storeroom offered potted hare, haunch of deer in honey, pickled cabbage, pickled beets, pickled onions, pickled eggs, and pickled herring. As they moved from one vault to another, the wormways seemed to grow colder. Before long Jon could see their breath frosting in the lantern light. "We're beneath the Wall." A Dance with Dragons - Jon XII He rose and dressed in darkness, as Mormont's raven muttered across the room. "Corn," the bird said, and, "King," and, "Snow, Jon Snow, Jon Snow." That was queer. The bird had never said his full name before, as best Jon could recall. He broke his fast in the cellar with his officers. Fried bread, fried eggs, blood sausages, and barley porridge made up the meal, washed down with thin yellow beer. As they ate they went over the preparations yet again. "All is in readiness," Bowen Marsh assured him. "If the wildlings uphold the terms of the bargain, all will go as you've commanded." And if not, it may turn to blood and carnage. "Remember," Jon said, "Tormund's people are hungry, cold, and fearful. Some of them hate us as much as some of you hate them. We are dancing on rotten ice here, them and us. One crack, and we all drown. If blood should be shed today, it had best not be one of us who strikes the first blow, or I swear by the old gods and the new that I will have the head of the man who strikes it." The raven also keeps repeating the importance of 'Corn'...reinforcing the allusion to 'John Barleycorn' and 'the Corn King.' Jon breaks his fast in the cellar, signifying he will awake from his 'coma' in the cellar after his 'fast' and mini 'long night.' Quaint digression aside: In conclusion, let's recap the dream: Ghost takes off; Jon sleeps alone (daytime nap) Jon immediately dreams of direwolves, checking in with all his sisters and brothers via Ghost The dream has two parts, separated by 'the editor's cut' prefaced by a new paragraph with the cut-out cue, 'and suddenly...'. In the first part, Jon in Ghost hears Bran calling his name. He confirms Bran's identity after seeing his brother's face in the weirwood sapling. He sees the sapling growing before his eyes -- time travel indicator; Ghost/Jon is in the past (before Bran's birth) watching the tree catch up with the present and then moving beyond into the future. This may be the same tree as Bloodraven's weirwood. Ghost can smell Summer and Bran in the cave even before they are there (they are physically in the Winterfell crypt, or at least elsewhere...they only get to the cave in ADWD and this is ACOK), implying he takes a whiff of the future! So, in this sense, I agree that according to this interpretation this would be a prophetic dream. However, there are problems with that interpretation. Firstly, the abrupt cut to the Milkwater does not make sense. Ghost can not cover that distance in the blink of an eye, even if Bloodraven's cave is somewhere in the vicinity of the Milkwater within walking/loping/running distance. Also the text reads 'and suddenly he was back in the mountains,' indicating that there has been some kind of magical space- and/or time- travel component transporting Ghost in some form away from the mountain, which he probably never left physically. Although always physically present on the mountain, due to Bran's intervention Ghost may have experienced a break in consciousness, and entered Jon's consciousness at that point, so I'm leaning towards that interpretation rather than Ghost actually being at the site of a weirwood tree. Secondly, Ghost howls, so this is not a normal wolf dream or warging experience, since Ghost is mute and Jon should be subject to Ghost's limitations, not vice versa. For example, Bran notes that being in the wolf makes him forget how to use human language; likewise, when Bran skinchanges Hodor in order to go exploring Bloodraven's cave, he notices that he is unable to say anything other than Hodor's characteristic one word 'Hodor.' Extrapolating from this pattern, we would expect Jon to have to conform to Ghost's speech pattern, which appears to be mutism. The fact that Ghost is able to let off a howl which reverberates around the forest should tip us off to something other than the usual warging going on. Perhaps this part of the dream is not occurring simultaneously with Ghost's actual ranging activities. Perhaps it's similar to Bran's coma dream so that Bran visits Jon, both of them appearing to each other via their respective avatars Ghost and weirwood sapling, analogous to Bloodraven's visitation of Bran via the three-eyed crow. Finally, the weirwood reaches out and touches Ghost/Jon gently opening his third eye -- the way Bran did with Theon at Winterfell in 'A Ghost in Winterfell,' and similar to the weirwood stump 'pounding' out Jaime's third eye in his respective dream (alas, Jaime needed a hefty awakening; he can be rather 'thick'...), as well as the three-eyed crow pecking out Bran's third eye in the coma dream like a little hammer or hoe clearing a path for the seed. Once Bran via weirwood sapling touches Ghost/Jon -- triggering the second, more-straightforward half of the dream -- he is able to see the landscape as Ghost sees it in real time. To those of you who have read this far, successfully emerging from the 'rabbit-hole': Thanks for reading! 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Little Scribe of Naath Posted August 27, 2016 Share Posted August 27, 2016 On 8/25/2016 at 11:28 AM, ravenous reader said: [snipped for length] RR, That was an amazing post - especially the dichotomy of ice and fire, and how earth plays into it. You laid out the relationships between the various elements really well. There's so much to discuss there but it is outside the scope of the thread - so I'll limit myself from commenting on it further. On 8/25/2016 at 11:28 AM, ravenous reader said: The first devours the dying -- Shiva -- destruction. The reborn emerge from the third -- Brahma -- creation. Following this pattern, we can deduce 'what the middle head's supposed to do': the second head -- Vishnu -- preservation. The 'middle' (the medium or balance) is the less glamorous aspect, that's why its significance has been overlooked and people have forgotten its purpose. It requires hard, plodding work. That was a great parallel with the three supreme Gods of Hindu mythology! The bolded is, I think, one of GRRM's central messages of the series - a hero's work, a true king's job, is not easy, it's not glamorous or flashy as conventional stories portray. It's hard to achieve balance, to rebuild after destruction, to lead people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macgregor of the North Posted August 27, 2016 Author Share Posted August 27, 2016 @ravenous reader glad you noticed my observation of the double vision trick Bran pulls. I had not seen that discussed anywhere ever and I begun my own thread on it earlier this year which met some agreement. As to everything else, you posted a lot of info but in my part of the world, it's time for some shut eye. Thanks for all your Input though, it's brilliant. I'll return over the weekend to read up properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravenous reader Posted August 27, 2016 Share Posted August 27, 2016 3 hours ago, Little Scribe of Naath said: RR, That was an amazing post - especially the dichotomy of ice and fire, and how earth plays into it. You laid out the relationships between the various elements really well. There's so much to discuss there but it is outside the scope of the thread - so I'll limit myself from commenting on it further. That was a great parallel with the three supreme Gods of Hindu mythology! The bolded is, I think, one of GRRM's central messages of the series - a hero's work, a true king's job, is not easy, it's not glamorous or flashy as conventional stories portray. It's hard to achieve balance, to rebuild after destruction, to lead people. The rest is silence. (Usually I write excessively long posts, but sometimes there's nothing further to add! ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little Scribe of Naath Posted August 27, 2016 Share Posted August 27, 2016 I'll be back in a couple of days to comment properly on the thread, moving house so I'm a bit busy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dorian Martell Posted August 27, 2016 Share Posted August 27, 2016 7 hours ago, ravenous reader said: I also believe R+L=J. Jon has a 'magical' blood endowment from both sides, both Targaryen and First Men. In this respect, he's a bit like Bloodraven, as highlighted here: Indeed, this is an interesting parallel between Jon and Bloodraven. I think of Bloodraven and Jon as 'ice dragons.' For someone possessing heightened 'third-eye' capacity, there are many available 'conduits' of mystical experience, including for entering someone's dreams: an animal spirit medium like Ghost, a corresponding plant medium like the weirwood tree, a person (although Jon hasn't 'entered' someone's mind the way Bran does with Hodor), or even 'hitching a ride' indirectly with a more powerful greenseer as Jon might have done with his brother Bran’s assistance, as well as sorcery techniques like the 'glass candles' they use at the citadel, or Melisandre's fire reading, and potions like weirwood paste and shade of the evening, etc. In addition to predominantly harnessing the animate world, there are still further potential conduits in the inanimate world available to those with 'higher' knowledge: the wind, the stones, the water, maybe even the moon, etc.: Because we know that our Bran, like his ancestor, is able to learn 'the song of the children' -- what else can you call his ability to send messages, and be understood in some cases, via rustling leaves with and without wind..? (as he did reaching out to Ned, Arya, and Theon) -- he could presumably be expected to speak to others using anything at all. But in the same dream Jon sees through Ghost's eyes and is able to do reconnaissance-by-proxy of the wildling encampment at the Milkwater -- so the second half of the dream, at least, is occurring in 'real time,' not at some point in the future, nor in the next book. Jon as a warg is proving valuable to his Night's Watch brothers as a reconnaissance agent, providing 'intel' much in the same way as Orel is doing via his eagle for the other side. It's important for the story, therefore, that part of this dream has current relevance for the ranging party: This whole section, beginning from 'And suddenly...' is taking place concurrently. Ghost did not sleep with Jon when he took his daytime power nap. Instead he went ranging, and Jon was able to see through Ghost's eyes what the wolf was seeing in 'real time' and later report back on the Wildlings’ activities to the other rangers: This is a clue that Jon’s third eye has been opened. The two pains have separate sources: his head aches where Bran touched him to awaken his third eye; his neck burns where the eagle’s talons penetrated Ghost’s flesh. Similarly, Jaime’s head 'pounds' after his weirwood dream awakening: Then Ghost reappears after having been missing all day. He's injured, exactly as Jon dreamed and felt it, so that part where Ghost was attacked by the eagle happened simultaneously with the dream, not in the future. Ghost returning brings proof of the relevance of Jon’s dream, causing the ranging party to change their plans accordingly. Thanks to Jon/Ghost, they have been tipped off to the wildling spy shadowing them in the form of an eagle. The sapling's accelerated growth could be a metaphor for time travel, like here: My term for this phenomenon as witnessed by Bran is 'dying in reverse'! GRRM includes such images of trees rapidly growing older or younger, such as in this example, in order to indicate to the reader that the usual time relations do not apply, as well as to show the direction of time shift. Because the trees here are getting younger, and then vanishing altogether, 'dying in reverse', we can conclude that thousands of years are passing (weirwoods have exceptionally long lifespans) and Bran is plummeting into 'deep history'; that's also why he feels 'lost and dizzy': So Bran has travelled all the way back in time to the bronze age (First Men), before iron (Andals), before steel (Valyrians, possibly Rhoynar), and after dragonglass, bone, and wood (the weapons of the Children). This part is interesting. There are several hints that travelling in time for Bran is not merely a passive exercise like watching a movie at a distance. Somehow, he can also 'plug into' the scene and interact with it, as evidenced by the blood which he actually tastes here, or in his interactions with Ned who hears him, Arya who understands him, and Theon whom he touches and who's reciprocally able to hear, understand, and feel Bran, changing Theon's life trajectory, and possibly the destiny of the Starks, in the process. Similarly, he's able to interact with Jon, modifying the course of events to a certain extent. Recently, I was having a similar discussion on 'Heresy' with a number of people, including @LynnS, @Feather Crystal, and @wolfmaid7, as well as on 'Bran's growing powers' with @The Fattest Leech. It was posited that Jon may not necessarily have been 'in Ghost's body' at that point of the dream (up until that word 'suddenly' where there's an abrupt shift to the Milkwater scene). As I said commenting on @Dorian Martell's post above, there are many possible conduits for dream 'infiltration' and manipulation, so perhaps this wasn't an ordinary 'warging' 'wolfdream.' Perhaps it was more like what occurred between Bran and the three-eyed crow (whom I consider to be Bloodraven, although there is room for alternate, including nefarious, interpretations) in his so-called 'coma dream.' In that dream, the greenseer came to Bran using the avatar of a crow, and gave him a 'flying lesson'. It's never stated, however, by what mechanism Bran was able to fly in that particular case. Bran doesn't seem to have to inhabit any corresponding avatar himself, he's just a disembodied 'bird's eye' moving above Winterfell which evolves into a 'god's eye' view where he's flitting across continents faster and higher than a modern-day jet plane, let alone a bird. Then, the three-eyed crow pecks at his forehead, presumably gouging out a pathway for the third eye, and Bran awakes from the coma. It's curious that the opening of the third eye only occurred at the end of the vision, whereas it would've made more sense had it occurred before. Turning to the 'first part' (before the 'suddenly') of Jon's dream, it starts off as a wolf dream, which although occurring in Jon's mind at present is not clearly simultaneous with what Ghost is doing at that very moment. Ghost is off on his ranging in glacial country where there should not be any weirwood trees let alone saplings, unless he's happened on Bloodraven's cave (which could feasibly be in the vicinity of the Milkwater). The weirwood at Bloodraven's cave also sprouts from a cleft in the rock: Assuming this is not just a symbol of Bran that GRRM has taken the liberty of inserting using his 'poetic license', and that therefore Ghost's weirwood and Bloodraven's are one and the same, then Jon/Ghost appears to be the one time-travelling, perhaps facilitated by Bran from the future (married to the tree) and/or present (in the crypt). Jon/Ghost is transported back in time to watch the tree grow up in fast-forward to the mature tree that Bran, however, will only physically encounter in the future in ADWD! However, this interpretation still doesn’t account for the abrupt – ‘suddenly’ – shift of location that seems to take place between Ghost at the weirwood tree’s location and Ghost’s scouting post at the top of the cliff overlooking the Milkwater. Further, if the tree in the dream were truly the same as Bloodraven’s weirwood, then surely Bran and co. would’ve remarked on a glacier or cliff in the vicinity of the cave in the ADWD passages? All this leads me to conclude that only the second half of the dream is a true wolf dream; the first half is analogous to the coma-dream style. Yes, I share the same doubts about the level of Bran's powers in the crypt, although Bran does report he's been able to contact Jon from crypt-central (and possibly via Summer somehow...the direwolves have that 'pack intuition radar’ thing going on). The following description of being able to 'touch Ghost and talk to Jon' does seem like confirmation it's about the same event we've been debating, where Bran does indeed do just that: At that point in the crypts, Bran would've been able to contact Jon via wolf dreams, but there should not have been any time travel component (indicated by the sapling growing in 'fast-forward'), the advent of which I had been associating up till now exclusively with Bloodraven's tutelage in the cave. As a caveat, however, perhaps we ought to bear in mind that the usual deductive reasoning about time, including concepts like 'before' and 'after' and rules about not being able to be in different times and places simultaneously is not going to apply in Bran's case, nor perhaps in any other 'third-eye' case. Using the usual rules of logic, and traced to their conclusions, we end up with paradoxes belying our assumptions. Taken to its extreme, we can't even assume that the usual rules of birth and death apply. Thus, just as I showed the weirwood trees 'dying in reverse' fading into other trees and other lives, it's conceivable that Bran may have been able to enter and influence events pre-dating his own birth and post-dating his own death, throwing into question the whole notion of individuality. Think of the river of time like a ribbon you can fold back and forth and spiral, coil, scrunch and knot, juxtaposing points on the ribbon that were hithertofore considered disparate, rendering such concepts as 'upstream' and 'downstream,' 'source' and 'mouth' redundant. Additionally, we ought to consider the possibility that GRRM sometimes uses narrative devices such as the fast-forward or -reverse technique in order to tip off the reader to the symbolic significance attending a certain event, the exact chronology of which we're not supposed to question too closely...It's difficult to say. Recently, @Black Crow on Heresy made the point to me that GRRM likes to pull the wool over the reader's eyes as to what's really going on by swamping us with a lot of 'chaff,' so on the one hand we're cautioned not to delve into every little detail and word too closely, while on the other to 'put on our Myrish lenses' and scrutinize the text. GRRM does love his game! For argument's sake, let's try to make sense of it without resorting to symbolic explanations. Technically, Bran has already experienced time-travelling before the eye-opening crucible of the crypt, at least once if not twice. On the very first occasion thereof, he was in the company of a greenseer (three-eyed crow, likeliest candidate Bloodraven), who perhaps 'took him along for the training ride,' whereas now, without such assistance, Bran is left to his own devices and, although he's learning quickly, would not conceivably be capable of embarking on another 'time- and spaceflight' without 'hitching a ride' with a teacher. We know the flight over Winterfell culminating in the frightening vision of the 'Heart of Winter' was a flight in time as much as space, given that Bran was able to see Jon's future death ('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'); as well as the subtle hint inserted by GRRM at the outset of the flight that Robb in the courtyard looked older than Bran remembered him (like the sapling, Robb has shot up in fast-forward from Bran the dreamer's vantage point): 'He saw his brother Robb, taller and stronger than he remembered him, practicing swordplay in the yard with real steel in his hand' (AGOT-Bran III). The other hint of time-travel occurs in this same passage, and it's even more mysterious: Compare: In both cases, the heart tree with ‘knowing eyes’ at the heart of the Winterfell godswood is inhabited by Bran. He is the ‘genius loci’ of Winterfell (for more, see our essays on ‘Bran’s growing powers,’ particularly my brief introduction (scroll down for the purple heading: 'The genius loci -- the spirit of the place') and @Tijgy’s subsequent commentary). After doing a search for ‘knowing eyes,’ besides the three-eyed crow with his third eye filled with a ‘terrible knowledge,’ Bran is the only other one described in this way, lending credence to this hypothesis. This has always been Bran’s tree. It's the same tree from which he contacted Ned, Theon, and his more ancient antecedents back to the bronze age sacrificial tableau, the blood of which he was able to 'taste' despite not having been born yet, evidence further linking him to this specific tree in addition to the one in Bloodraven's hollow. In the former example of the weirwood catching sight of itself, therefore, I think this is Bran looking at himself looking at himself looking at himself looking at himself looking at himself looking...(or, Bran reflecting on himself reflecting on a reflection of himself reflecting on a reflection of himself reflecting ...etc) -- you get the idea! (once one starts going down the time-travelling rabbit-hole, language starts to crack at the fault lines of all our assumptions and break down…). No wonder the tree is described as self-consciously 'brooding'! There are three reflections or 'eyes' of Bran in play (a sort of ‘triple-vision trick’ to adapt your terminology): the eye in the sky above, the eye in the pool below; and between them, the focal point of the eye in the tree (i.e. Bran as three-eyed tree, echoing Ghost/Jon’s observation of the sapling with his brother’s eyes). In other words, this moment represents a nexus or intersection of two time 'flights', as it were; namely 'present' Bran flying overhead being initiated by the teacher, and Bran watching 'from the future' via the weirwood, The tree has 'knowing' eyes, because it knows Bran, knows something he doesn't, and ultimately is Bran. Just as the tree in the second case I provided is described as ‘waiting’ for Theon, anticipating his arrival as if it knew to expect him, the tree in the first case knows that he's (Bran) there, knows to look up before he 'sees' him, because he's already seen him, having experienced this before (from the vantage point of 'coma dream' Bran flying above the tree). It's a fixed time loop. Thank you for bringing that particular passage, which I’d initially overlooked, to my attention. It is certainly intriguing, and I agree with your assessment that it's not clear-cut 'warging' or 'wolf dreams.' For one, when Bran is using the wolf as a conduit, he cannot do this, from what we've observed, by using any 'double vision,' ‘split-consciousness’ or waking tactic whatsoever. In fact, Jojen and Meera are often frantic that Bran is 'gone' for hours even days, unconscious, unresponsive and missing meals when he's in that state, frequently expressing their fears that he may lose his human identity to the wolf altogether. Thus, we may conclude that something different, and more advanced, is in play. Let's break down the passage in question: This part is Bran coming out of his stupor and reporting back on what he's seen of Winterfell through Summer's eyes—characteristic of ‘normal’ ‘wolf-dreaming.’ This seems very similar to Jon's dream. Ironically, Bran ‘squinting in the glare’ sees less in the light than he does in the dark. The light also cancels out Rickon's 'dream.' In contrast to the wolf dreams in which Bran gets immersed for hours and days at a time, characterized by his struggling to tune out of the dream and emerge into ‘reality,’ here Bran does a quick ‘tune in-tune out’ as if he’s briefly changing a radio station. Another clue that this is not a normal wolf dream is that the point of view throughout is clearly Bran, whereas when he is in Summer, the wolf’s stream of consciousness takes precedence. GRRM uses this technique deliberately to indicate a wolf dream, marked by unusual linguistic circumlocutions and other awkward constructions as a marker of the wolf’s non-verbal point of view in contrast to Bran’s more verbal stream of consciousness. For example: Unlike Bran using the ‘double-vision’ technique above, the wolf doesn’t know the word for ‘gate,’ calling it ‘cold iron and splintery wood closed off the only holes through the piled stones’; likewise, in the wolf’s mind the castle is conceived as ‘great grey caves of man-rock’ and its walls ‘sky-tall man-cliffs.’ From the language, therefore, it’s clear when Bran surveys Winterfell in the ‘double-vision’ way, he is doing this without using Summer’s eyes (e.g. he knows the name for human constructions such as ‘gate’ and ‘drawbridge’). Also, in true wolf dreams smells and sounds are emphasized over visual images, usually smells presenting first before the other senses; so it is noteworthy that in Bran's 'double-vision trick' no smells appear, indicating we're dealing with a faculty of a different kind. Indeed, as you correctly highlighted, we have not seen Bran manage this kind of 'waking dream' before, whereby he's able to 'tune in' to whatever is going on above-ground while simultaneously remaining in contact with those below ground -- all without losing consciousness -- which certainly represents an advancement in his powers. Perhaps Bran is learning by himself to do what the three-eyed-crow facilitated in the 'coma dream,' although this is strange when taken in conjunction with Bloodraven's assurance in the cave that he will only ‘oneday’ move on to the next stage and 'see beyond the trees' as if he does not yet possess that power independently. Jojen says: What Jojen is saying here seems contradictory, considering Bran has already gazed ‘south to the Summer Sea and north beyond the Wall’ all the way to the Heart of Winter in his ‘coma dream’ even before the three-eyed crow pecked out a path for his third eye at the close of the dream. Again, time relations are topsy-turvy where Bran is involved. It's confusing how Bran appears to possess certain powers in advance of actually gaining them. What is implied is that Bran experienced third-eye vision before the opening of his third eye. One way of explaining this might be that his teacher the three-eyed crow somehow facilitated this vision, although it’s not clear how this might work without first opening someone’s third eye. Strangely, Bran already seems to be exercising the faculty of seeing 'beyond the trees,' during his 'coma flight' and reconnoitring for his friends while in the crypt, at both times of which he was not actually ‘hooked in’ to any tree serving as conduit. He has the skills before Bloodraven predicts he shall have them. I posit this paradox we’re picking up is the fixed time loop in action. Bran broke through time when he tore the curtain at the end of the world, so the usual time, place, and person restrictions defining others do not apply. The identity of the three-eyed crow is one of three: either Bloodraven, Euron, or most mysteriously of all, Bran himself. I'll leave it open to speculation for now. GRRM is like a movie editor/director. He cut away just as it was getting exciting, as a means to draw and maintain our curiosity! There has been ample foreshadowing for that, independent of this dream. Varamyr's prologue is the most significant. GRRM tends to invest his prologues, epilogues, and ‘bookend’ chapters with a great deal of ‘foreshadowing,’ so we should never skip over these. In addition, he’s shown Jon progressively bonding with his wolf in this fashion, so it ought not to surprise us when the time comes. Herewith, a few striking examples: This is interesting. The wall appears to function as a shield so that magic cannot cross, not even in a 'metaphysical' transmission. Interestingly, later, however, when Ghost and Summer are on opposite sides of the wall, Ghost/Jon (the repetition of the moon cackling 'Snow' is a strong hint that this is Jon having a wolf dream) is able to sense his brother's presence: So, what event or whom is responsible for disrupting the barrier in the interim? @Feather Crystal, any ideas?! Other quotes of Jon's increasingly intensive bonding with Ghost: Very suggestive foreshadowing that Jon will have his ‘second life fit for a king’ in his direwolf while his human body will be dead. ‘Tom Barleycorn’ is a reference, in Jon’s context, to ‘John Barleycorn,’ a folkloric figure enmeshed in themes of human sacrifice, death, and spiritual rebirth – further foreshadowing of Jon’s fate. http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/lammas/a/Barleycorn.htm ‘John Barleycorn’ is a drinking song, punning on the double meaning of ‘spirit,’ by which the ‘spiritual’ product arising out of the sacrifice of the barley could either refer to alcoholic distillation or human redemption. Another possible allusion GRRM may have had in mind is to the writer Jack London, a notable alcoholic (like GRRM’s father incidentally) who not only wrote an autobiographical novel entitled 'John Barleycorn' detailing his alcoholic memoirs, but also wrote several books with wolves as his protagonist or used allegorically: ‘The Call of the Wild’, ‘White Fang’, and ‘The Sea Wolf.’ Jon smells ‘Tom Barleycorn’ coming before he sees him; in a similar vein, Ghost/Jon smelled death at the site of the three-eyed weirwood without having to see it. Tom/John Barleycorn is a harbinger of death, or perhaps not a harbinger but its embodiment. As such, it's important that Ghost arrives to Jon first, before the advent of the grim reaper 'Tom/John Barleycorn.' I take this to mean that when Jon is lying in the snow with Ghost's name on his lips, Ghost, so in tune with Jon by now, as he's been throughout the course of ADWD, hears Jon's summons, and arrives first -- before death can unequivocally claim him. Although Jon's spirit may be sequestered in Ghost, he will nevertheless also be subjected to a 'John Barleycorn'-type spiritual transformation at the same time. Conveniently, the cellar in which Jon has previously seen a wraithelike reflection of himself, signifying this is where his body will be placed while he is undergoing his transformation and underground journey literally (beneath the wall) and figuratively, has an abundance of grains, including barley, with which to distill spirits: The raven also keeps repeating the importance of 'Corn'...reinforcing the allusion to 'John Barleycorn' and 'the Corn King.' Jon breaks his fast in the cellar, signifying he will awake from his 'coma' in the cellar after his 'fast' and mini 'long night.' Quaint digression aside: In conclusion, let's recap the dream: Ghost takes off; Jon sleeps alone (daytime nap) Jon immediately dreams of direwolves, checking in with all his sisters and brothers via Ghost The dream has two parts, separated by 'the editor's cut' prefaced by a new paragraph with the cut-out cue, 'and suddenly...'. In the first part, Jon in Ghost hears Bran calling his name. He confirms Bran's identity after seeing his brother's face in the weirwood sapling. He sees the sapling growing before his eyes -- time travel indicator; Ghost/Jon is in the past (before Bran's birth) watching the tree catch up with the present and then moving beyond into the future. This may be the same tree as Bloodraven's weirwood. Ghost can smell Summer and Bran in the cave even before they are there (they are physically in the Winterfell crypt, or at least elsewhere...they only get to the cave in ADWD and this is ACOK), implying he takes a whiff of the future! So, in this sense, I agree that according to this interpretation this would be a prophetic dream. However, there are problems with that interpretation. Firstly, the abrupt cut to the Milkwater does not make sense. Ghost can not cover that distance in the blink of an eye, even if Bloodraven's cave is somewhere in the vicinity of the Milkwater within walking/loping/running distance. Also the text reads 'and suddenly he was back in the mountains,' indicating that there has been some kind of magical space- and/or time- travel component transporting Ghost in some form away from the mountain, which he probably never left physically. Although always physically present on the mountain, due to Bran's intervention Ghost may have experienced a break in consciousness, and entered Jon's consciousness at that point, so I'm leaning towards that interpretation rather than Ghost actually being at the site of a weirwood tree. Secondly, Ghost howls, so this is not a normal wolf dream or warging experience, since Ghost is mute and Jon should be subject to Ghost's limitations, not vice versa. For example, Bran notes that being in the wolf makes him forget how to use human language; likewise, when Bran skinchanges Hodor in order to go exploring Bloodraven's cave, he notices that he is unable to say anything other than Hodor's characteristic one word 'Hodor.' Extrapolating from this pattern, we would expect Jon to have to conform to Ghost's speech pattern, which appears to be mutism. The fact that Ghost is able to let off a howl which reverberates around the forest should tip us off to something other than the usual warging going on. Perhaps this part of the dream is not occurring simultaneously with Ghost's actual ranging activities. Perhaps it's similar to Bran's coma dream so that Bran visits Jon, both of them appearing to each other via their respective avatars Ghost and weirwood sapling, analogous to Bloodraven's visitation of Bran via the three-eyed crow. Finally, the weirwood reaches out and touches Ghost/Jon gently opening his third eye -- the way Bran did with Theon at Winterfell in 'A Ghost in Winterfell,' and similar to the weirwood stump 'pounding' out Jaime's third eye in his respective dream (alas, Jaime needed a hefty awakening; he can be rather 'thick'...), as well as the three-eyed crow pecking out Bran's third eye in the coma dream like a little hammer or hoe clearing a path for the seed. Once Bran via weirwood sapling touches Ghost/Jon -- triggering the second, more-straightforward half of the dream -- he is able to see the landscape as Ghost sees it in real time. To those of you who have read this far, successfully emerging from the 'rabbit-hole': Thanks for reading! This is a very long post so let me break it down as concice as I can 1: Jon's third eye is not open. Ghost's is, and Jon can skinchange with ghost. That is what I meant by conduit. Jon can only barely skinchange his wolf at that point in the story. the halfhand, who has ranged farther than anyone recognizes this and how important it is. 2: Everything happening in the ghost dream is happening in real time. Bran has become a greenseer, and this is able to access the weirnet and speak to Ghost and therefore Jon. Bran is in the crypts of winterfell, surrounded by death, but safe in the darkness. 3: There is no time travel, or at least, nothing practical. When Bran tries to talk to his dad, all Ned hears is a rustle of leaves, like someone approaching. This is consistent with everything that bloodraven says. There is no changing the past. Just viewing it. I do think you are correct about bran at multiple stages of his existence looking through the winterfell heart tree and seeing his reflection in the pool at different places in time. That is the tree brooding. The issue with time travel is that it negates the whole story. Why not travel back in time and remove the threat of the others before they strike. That leads to a boring story. The weirnet allows Bran to learn from the past while still having to confront the present and near future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravenous reader Posted August 27, 2016 Share Posted August 27, 2016 On 8/27/2016 at 1:10 AM, Dorian Martell said: Everything happening in the ghost dream is happening in real time. How do you explain the 'two halves' of the dream, namely the abrupt switch from Ghost surveying the weirwood to Ghost in another location on the cliff overlooking the Milkwood? How can that be in real time? On 8/27/2016 at 1:10 AM, Dorian Martell said: There is no time travel, or at least, nothing practical. When Bran tries to talk to his dad, all Ned hears is a rustle of leaves, like someone approaching. Theon and Arya understand him, however. On 8/27/2016 at 1:10 AM, Dorian Martell said: There is no changing the past. Just viewing it. True. It's a closed time loop. Everything that has happened was 'meant' to happen, including time travel interventions which are integral to the unfolding of the story. In the same way, Cersei cannot change her fate no matter what she does or doesn't do. On 8/27/2016 at 1:10 AM, Dorian Martell said: The issue with time travel is that it negates the whole story. Why not travel back in time and remove the threat of the others before they strike. That leads to a boring story. The weirnet allows Bran to learn from the past while still having to confront the present and near future. Because of the closed time loop changing the past isn't possible, paradoxically. That brings us to the essential question of free will with which we're all confronted, in life as in fiction -- 'the human heart in conflict with itself.' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dorian Martell Posted August 27, 2016 Share Posted August 27, 2016 33 minutes ago, ravenous reader said: How do you explain the 'two halves' of the dream, namely the abrupt switch from Ghost surveying the weirwood to Ghost in another location on the cliff overlooking the Milkwood? How can that be in real time? Ghost has always been in the mountains. They are in the Skirling pass. the fast growing weirwood tree is sprouting out of rock. The gap in time is Bran holding Jons attention. A connection is made through ghost and now Bran can speak directly to Jon. It is the same night and the same dream, but Ghost moved a bit, and he saw the wildling encampment. 38 minutes ago, ravenous reader said: Theon and Arya understand him, however. Theon can inderstand him, but that is realtime. Bran is in the CTOF cave. I am not sure where Arya hears Bran via a weirwood tree. Chapter? 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: True. It's a fixed time loop. Everything that has happened was 'meant' to happen, including time travel interventions which are integral to the unfolding of the story. In the same way, Cersei cannot change her fate no matter what she does or doesn't do. Or, there is no time travel at all. 1 hour ago, ravenous reader said: Because of the fixed time loop changing the past isn't possible, paradoxically. That brings us to the essential question of free will with which we're all confronted, in life as in fiction -- 'the human heart in conflict with itself.' Again, why bring time travel into it if things are going to bet set? The unchanging timeline works just as well with playback only if the end result is hte same imo.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tucu Posted August 27, 2016 Share Posted August 27, 2016 5 hours ago, Dorian Martell said: Theon can inderstand him, but that is realtime. Bran is in the CTOF cave. I am not sure where Arya hears Bran via a weirwood tree. Chapter? In ACoK Arya X, Arya has a strange conversation with the Old Gods that inspire her to escape Harrenhal. It starts with her praying to the Old Gods, then a very distant lonely wolf (farther than her wolfpack) answers her call; then she talks with Tree-Ned. This scene is even weirder than Jon's Tree-Bran dream. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aryagonnakill#2 Posted August 27, 2016 Share Posted August 27, 2016 On August 25, 2016 at 11:23 AM, Macgregor of the North said: On the 1st part though haven't we kind of confirmed throughout the thread that the darkness of the Crypts is exactly what has finally awoken Brans third eye and heightened his powers to the point of being able to contact Ghost/Jon this way? Also, that kind of double vision thing Bran does when he surveys WF and tells Osha that it is day is not him slipping Summers skin I dont think. This seems like a glimmer at how strong Brans powers will become where he doesn't need to slip Summers skin or look through the trees, and it's due to the Crypts darkness I believe. It really does seem that his capabilities are at a higher level down there. I guess I just don't believe that happened. On their journey north Jojen is constantly pressuring Bran to be more in control when he wargs Summer, pointing out that Bran can't so much as get Summer to do a single thing he wants and always looses himself. I believe it is not until Coldhands separates from them north of the wall and Bran uses Summer to find the village that Bran actually takes control. It is then not until they are outside the cave that Bran takes Hodor, and then inside the darkness of the cave I believe his powers start to truly grow. We even get a similar statement from BR telling him not to fear the darkness. It is also in the darkness of the cave that we see Bran first "skinchange" a weirwood tree. His entire last chapter in dance seems dedicated to this fact. Up until that point we never see him go into a tree, and it seems strongly implied if not explicitly stated that he has never done so before. Chronologically speaking I think it also matches up with info we get in Arya chapters. Throughout Feast and Dance we know Arya dreams of Nymeria, yet we never hear of a tree watching her. Spoiler Then in the Mercy sample chapter from winds, chronologically probably after Brans tree experience from his last chapter in Dance, Arya mentions a tree watching her. I think this is just evidence of there being a moment in time when Bran begins to be able to use the trees. Pre-his last chapter of Dance that ability does not seem to exist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macgregor of the North Posted August 27, 2016 Author Share Posted August 27, 2016 15 minutes ago, aryagonnakill#2 said: I guess I just don't believe that happened. On their journey north Jojen is constantly pressuring Bran to be more in control when he wargs Summer, pointing out that Bran can't so much as get Summer to do a single thing he wants and always looses himself. I believe it is not until Coldhands separates from them north of the wall and Bran uses Summer to find the village that Bran actually takes control. It is then not until they are outside the cave that Bran takes Hodor, and then inside the darkness of the cave I believe his powers start to truly grow. We even get a similar statement from BR telling him not to fear the darkness. It is also in the darkness of the cave that we see Bran first "skinchange" a weirwood tree. His entire last chapter in dance seems dedicated to this fact. Up until that point we never see him go into a tree, and it seems strongly implied if not explicitly stated that he has never done so before. Chronologically speaking I think it also matches up with info we get in Arya chapters. Throughout Feast and Dance we know Arya dreams of Nymeria, yet we never hear of a tree watching her. Hide contents Then in the Mercy sample chapter from winds, chronologically probably after Brans tree experience from his last chapter in Dance, Arya mentions a tree watching her. I think this is just evidence of there being a moment in time when Bran begins to be able to use the trees. Pre-his last chapter of Dance that ability does not seem to exist. Your kind of saying it yourself though. It's in the black darkness his powers are heightened, such as the Crypts and the cave. Give the Crypts chapters a re read with this in mind, it may become clearer. Or give a search through the search tool on darkness and third eye opening etc, it's pretty well backed up and some of the stuff is even quoted earlier in the thread. Mind you though, if you don't believe something you don't believe it, I can't force you, I can only urge you to open your third eye to see. Jokes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LynnS Posted August 27, 2016 Share Posted August 27, 2016 18 hours ago, ravenous reader said: To those of you who have read this far, successfully emerging from the 'rabbit-hole': Thanks for reading! Hah! Best rabbit-hole ever! Loved the whole thing! LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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