Heresy 191 The Crows

[Black Crow]

And just a reminder as this thread is likely to run its course this evening; Heresy 192 will open with Inversions.

[GloubieBoulga]

10 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Please don't keep us in suspense -- we'd love it if you shared the details of how you think the structure plays out over time in different variations of the same!  Who is the original 'crow liar' for example?  And the original 'kin(g)slaying?  And how that relates to the present-day?

A little challenge to all scrive in english, when I'm not finished to explain that in french 

So in that hypothesis, and to keep away the suspense, the original crow who committed a king and kinslayer is Brandon the Builder. 

It is impossible to decide if he were a vilain character (as Littlefinger, for example), or if he acted like Jaime Lannister when he killed Aerys for to spare a possible huge massacre by wildfire. 

Now, how came I to that scenario ? After my first read, I thought that the story of the Stark was not completely clear and that it was impossible the were all the time "perfect". I had imagined that a brother Stark had killed another brother Stark and token his place : perhaps the reason was a classical rivality for a woman. In ASOIAF, there are many kin and kingslaying, but the most remarquable is Renly's death, because Stannis's shadow is also described like the Others : the shadow bring cold, and the sword cut the armor as easily as silk. 

Quote

 

Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness.(...)

  "Will, where are you?" Ser Waymar called up. "Can you see anything?" He was turning in a slow circle, suddenly wary, his sword in hand. He must have felt them, as Will felt them. There was nothing to see. "Answer me! Why is it so cold?" (...)

It was cold. Shivering, Will clung more tightly to his perch. His face pressed hard against the trunk of the sentinel. He could feel the sweet, sticky sap on his cheek.

A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as new-fallen snow, there black as shadow, everywhere dappled with the deep grey-green of the trees. (...)

They emerged silently from the shadows, twins to the first. Three of them … four … five … Ser Waymar may have felt the cold that came with them, but he never saw them, never heard them. Will had to call out. It was his duty. And his death, if he did. He shivered, and hugged the tree, and kept the silence.

(...)   It was cold butchery. The pale blades sliced through ringmail as if it were silk.  (AGOT, Prologue)

 

 

 

Quote

 

"I beg you in the name of the Mother," Catelyn began when a sudden gust of wind flung open the door of the tent. She thought she glimpsed movement, but when she turned her head, it was only the king's shadow shifting against the silken walls. She heard Renly begin a jest, his shadow moving, lifting its sword, black on green, candles guttering, shivering, something was queer, wrong, and then she saw Renly's sword still in its scabbard, sheathed still, but the shadowsword . . .

"Cold," said Renly in a small puzzled voice, a heartbeat before the steel of his gorget parted like cheesecloth beneath the shadow of a blade that was not there. He had time to make a small thick gasp before the blood came gushing out of his throat. (Catelyn IV, A Clash of Kings)

 

 

 

Renly's death is shorter than Waymar's, but same images, same colors (black and green), the cold, and a sudden wind, and after the shadowsword striked, the blood. 

This was a great clue to link Others as shadows of the past, and to suspect a bloody story between two brothers. 

After that, we have two tales :

- Bael's story, the king wildling who had a son with the only Stark girl. At the end son and father fight together (like Oedipus and Laïos), and the father let himself being killed. This tale is of great interest (for my purpose), because it is unknow in the Stark family and Jon react violently to say that Bael is a liar, when it is suggested that Stark and Wildlings are same blood. Ho ho, could the Stark have a secret story ? A story wraped in shadows and silence ? This tale is also about a kinslayer and a kingslayer

- The second tale is about the King of the night, following Old Nan, a Stark - and even a Brandon Stark - who at the end was defeated and killed by his brother, the lord Stark. We don't know what is true in this story, we don't even know if the Night King existed (I have also a theory about that, but it is not the subject here^^), but this is another story of a Stark, and with a kinslayer/kingslayer. 

I must also remember another short tale : the fight between infernals dogs at Nightfort, that Symeon Star-Eyes saw. The direwolves are sometimes described as infernal dogs (for example Nymeria in Riverlands, in ACOK, when Arya travels with Yoren and hear about her direwolf for the first time). This tale could also speak about the Clegane brothers, but we have here the theme of a fight between brothers, and the "infernal dog" suggests Stark as much as Clegane. 

The Stark of the saga don't seem have so violently rivality, even Sansa and Arya, who are very interesting because they are like the two faces of the same coin. They can quarrel, sometimes very violently, but when they are separated, each think to the other with tenderness and without bitterness (for example, in ASOS, Sansa who wake up in the Eyrie, the snow is falling, and she recalls how she was playing and laughing with her sister). 

In the time of the serie, kinslaying and kingslaying are the big affair : Cersei who help to kill king Robert; Jaime who killed king Aerys (and received the nickname "kingslayer"), Stannis with Renly, Littlefinger and the Tyrell with Joffrey, the Frey and the Bolton with Robb Stark, Euron Greyjoy with Balon, and in a certain way Daenerys with Viserys (she humiliated him, before he was killed by Drogo) and with his baby Rhaego (she gave his life to save Drogo from the death). 

Except for Jaime - who totally assumed his crime and never look for a justification (he told to Brienne for the first time what Aerys was doing) - all the others crimes are "denied" and input to another : a boar killed Robert; Stannis was sleeping when Renly died and Brienne was accused; LF wasn't at Kingslanding, Sansa was wearing the poison and Tyrion was the ideal guilty; the Frey accused Robb Stark to have attacked them by skinchanging with his direwolf; and Dany accused Mirri maz Duur for Rhaego, and denied her proper part in Viserys' doom and death (but we can see when she dreams of Viserys who calls her "traitor" that she don't totally ignores her part). So all this kin(g)slaying have one common point : an official and easy to hate guilty (this is always a character who openly want to escape to his fate), and a hidden guilty. 

Oh ! I forgot one : Bran and Rickon Stark "killed" officialy by Theon the Greyjoy half-Stark, but in fact by Ramsay Snow. 

I forgot another kin(g)slayer, but intentionnaly. I'll serve it after. 

At this point, I thought that Stark childs had to discover a Stark secret story to interrupt a heavy curse. But I hadn't a scenario, and above all, I coudn't find the link with the Others, the trees, the Heart of Winter. I had some peaces of the puzzle, but I couldn't put them together. 

So, I put my interest to the Wall : this will be next post, I have no more time to continue now ^^

 

[LmL]

On 11/27/2016 at 4:55 AM, LynnS said:

It would seem that BR is the 3EC looking at Bran's POV in DwD.  He was 'a crow', a brother of the Night' Watch and he is a greenseer requiring the third eye; but Jon is also now a 3EC and like Bran hasn't yet realized his full potential.  The passing of the old guard to the new.  It's curious that Bran first asks Sam if he's the 3EC, then he's picked up by Coldhands another brother of the NW and taken to BR, yet another brother of the NW. If Melisandre had identified BR as the man limned in flame;  I'd go with it.  But she identifies Jon.  This harkens back to MMD ritual where she wakes powers old and dark:  the great wolf and the man limned in flame.  Dany and Melisandre see the same vision; but Dany doesn't know Jon, while Melisandre recognizes him.

 

This isn't to say that Jon is transformed by fire (he may be at some point); only that viewing someone through a fire gives them the appearance of being wreathed or limned in flame.

Bloodraven may have watched Bran all his life; but he is more tree now than man and suspect that he shows up in Bran's dreams as the weirwood tree who calls to him rather than the crow.  He can't go to Bran so he needs the 3EC to intercede as well as Jojen, Sam and Coldhands. I suppose we won't find out until we see how the story develops but I wouldn't rule Jon out as the 3EC.

ADWD, Bran:

Up above them, flaming figures were dancing in the snow. The wights, Bran realized. Someone set the wights on fire. Summer was snarling and snapping as he danced around the closest, a great ruin of a man wreathed in swirling flame. He shouldn’t get so close, what is he doing?

It's a pretty direct parallel, and this time the man wreathed in flame is a burning wight. That's exactly what Jon will be - a fiery version of Coldhands. A moment later in that scene, 

“The burning wight loomed over him, etched tall against the trees in their icy shrouds.”

That's a burning wight superimposed over a tree to create the burning tree motif which refers to the weirwoods. Essentially, the shadow of a great wolf and the burning man are both aspects of Jon. When we saw those two in Mirri's tent, it was done to equate the botched resurrection of Drogo with Jon's impending resurrection.  Both Jon and Drogo are dying solar kings, the first step to making Azor Ahai reborn. I suspect Jon's resurrection will involve sacrificing Ghost, as Drogo's horse was, to send the strength of the animal into the person (and in Jon's case, the spirit of himself and Ghost will be 'going into the rider,' so to speak).

Also, right after this quote where Bran sees the dancing wolf and flaming man, we read:

Then he saw himself, sprawled facedown in the snow. Summer was trying to drive the thing away from him. What will happen if it kills me? the boy wondered. Will I be Hodor for good or all? Will I go back into Summer’s skin? Or will I just be dead?

That's what this is about - skinchanger death and what happens afterward. 

[Black Crow]

Interesting, but I still reckon Jon is the King of Winter. 

Osha said Winter has no King and that I think is the problem. Gloubieboulga reckons there is a kingslaying involved here and I'd argue that's the true significance of the Nights King story. The King of Winter was put into the ground out of season by his brother, the Summer King.

[LmL]

3 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Interesting, but I still reckon Jon is the King of Winter. 

Osha said Winter has no King and that I think is the problem. Gloubieboulga reckons there is a kingslaying involved here and I'd argue that's the true significance of the Nights King story. The King of Winter was put into the ground out of season by his brother, the Summer King.

Personally, I think there is absolutely zero chance that the three eyed Crow is anyone but BR, and honestly, I don't understand why anyone spends time trying to think of ways that Bloodraven isn't the 3EC. I try to always stay open minded, but it doesn't make any sense to me that it would be anyone else, and there's just nothing in the books to suggest it.  Maybe I'm just not a fan of time travel theories. 

And yes, it certainly seems likely that Jon is the ultimate King of Winter in the story. Not that any once role precludes another - John is expressing last hero symbolism as well as AA symbolism. 

Perhaps a better question would be, "is Jon actually a greenseer?"

 probably not, but I suppose we don't know for sure. 

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, LmL said:

I don't understand why anyone spends time trying to think of ways that Bloodraven isn't the 3EC.

Because i think in terms of possibilities and I don't leave any stones unturned regardless of the orthodoxy.  Turning things upside down; asking if something else could be true sometimes yields some interesting insights.  I've learned not to accept everything as it seems on first blush.

We're not really talking about time travel but we talking about the ability of greenseers or greendreamers to pierce the veil of time.  As BR explains time runs different for men; the river travels only in one direction; but the tree experiences time differently past; present and future are all one.  This explains why Bran can talk to Jon in his wolf dream and appear as a sapling tree, open Jon's 3rd eye before Bran has even crossed the wall and started his apprenticeship with BR.  Bran dreamed him in this future encounter and recollects it when he still hiding in the crypts of Winterfell.   And he was able to communicate with him.  

The question is whether or not Jon will have the same ability to affect Bran in the same way.  The question I'm trying to answer is whether or not Jon is "THE" crow; rather than "A" crow.

Bran asks Sam  if he is "The" Crow and he responds that he is A Crow.  Bran asks BR the same question and gets the same answer.  It's Patchface who identifies Jon as The Crow when he first encounters Jon:

The Crow, The Crow; under the sea, the crows are white as snow.  

Bran is the apprentice greenseer and I think Jon is the apprentice 3EC as well as the Winter King to be and the burning man. It remains to be seen what power either Bran or Jon will manifest.

   

[LmL]

19 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Because i think in terms of possibilities and I don't leave any stones unturned regardless of the orthodoxy.  Turning things upside down; asking if something else could be true sometimes yields some interesting insights.  I've learned not to accept everything as it seems on first blush.

We're not really talking about time travel but we talking about the ability of greenseers or greendreamers to pierce the veil of time.  As BR explains time runs different for men; the river travels only in one direction; but the tree experiences time differently past; present and future are all one.  This explains why Bran can talk to Jon in his wolf dream and appear as a sapling tree, open Jon's 3rd eye before Bran has even crossed the wall and started his apprenticeship with BR.  Bran dreamed him in this future encounter and recollects it when he still hiding in the crypts of Winterfell.   And he was able to communicate with him.  The question is whether or not Jon will have the same ability to affect Bran in the same way.  The question I'm trying to answer is whether or not Jon is "THE" crow; rather than "A" crow.

Bran asks Sam  if he is "The" Crow and he responds that he is A Crow.  Bran asks BR the same question and gets the same answer.  It's Patchface who identifies Jon as The Crow when he first encounters Jon:

The Crow, The Crow; under the sea, the crows are white as snow.  

Bran is the apprentice greenseer and I think Jon is the apprentice 3EC as well as the Winter King to be and the burning man. It remains to be seen what power either Bran or Jon will manifest.

   

 yeah, I know I know, it's the heresy thread – everything is up for questioning.    I certainly think it's good to challenge everything, and I'm glad there are people working on things that I am not. To me, the  ideas suggesting someone other than blood Raven is communicating to brand just doesn't make sense… And I don't find the word parsing evidence around bloodravens answer is compelling.  That's just my take, so whatever, it's not really the main topic here, just my two cents. 

 you're very much correct that what we are seeing is not really time travel, but more like a piercing of the veil of the construct of time.   The main or most important ramification of this clarification is that Martin is not going to let time travel paradoxes exist.  I think it will be limited to a bit of whispering communication here and there, and that's about it.  Otherwise, it just gets too damn weird too quickly and wouldn't really suit the novels. 

My take on the "tapping on the forehead to open the third eye" thing is that it refers generally to awakening greenseer or skinchanger powers, but I don't think it signifies a specific destiny or appointment as a "three eyed crow."  Again that's just my hunch, but there it is.  Bran was definitely giving Jon a push or a boost of some kind, that's how I read that part. 

[LynnS]

2 minutes ago, LmL said:

 yeah, I know I know, it's the heresy thread – everything is up for questioning.    I certainly think it's good to challenge everything, and I'm glad there are people working on things that I am not. To me, the  ideas suggesting someone other than blood Raven is communicating to brand just doesn't make sense… And I don't find the word parsing evidence around bloodravens answer is compelling.  That's just my take, so whatever, it's not really the main topic here, just my two cents. 

 you're very much correct that what we are seeing is not really time travel, but more like a piercing of the veil of the construct of time.   The main or most important ramification of this clarification is that Martin is not going to let time travel paradoxes exist.  I think it will be limited to a bit of whispering communication here and there, and that's about it.  Otherwise, it just gets too damn weird too quickly and wouldn't really suit the novels. 

My take on the "tapping on the forehead to open the third eye" thing is that it refers generally to awakening greenseer or skinchanger powers, but I don't think it signifies a specific destiny or appointment as a "three eyed crow."  Again that's just my hunch, but there it is.  Bran was definitely giving Jon a push or a boost of some kind, that's how I read that part. 

The thing about is that the reader is first told of Bran dreaming Jon while in the crypts of Winterfell without knowing he full significance of Bran's ability to pierce the veil of time.  So the question I asked is whether or not Jon will manifest the same ability at some point  and if the reader had already encountered Jon as the 3EC without knowing it.

It's the quality of the conversation; the use of the Stark words "Winter is coming" and Aemon's advice to Jon to kill the boy to let the man be born and the choice the 3EC gives Bran to fly or die; the same kind of choice that Jon gives to both Sam and Gilly.  It's the appearance in some of Bran's dreams of both a tree and crow simultaneously.  BR is more tree than man now.  He no longer thinks of himself as a crow of the Night's Watch, was confused by the question.  

Even if the tree in the dream is Bran himself as we saw in the coma dream; who would Bran send to help him fly if it isn't his brother Jon as the 3EC?  i think that Jon will be Bran's instrument for part of the story. 

My hunch is that we've been misled on the identity of the 3EC.  The Starks aren't your run of the mill skinchangers. 

[LmL]

3 minutes ago, LynnS said:

The thing about is that the reader is first told of Bran dreaming Jon while in the crypts of Winterfell without knowing he full significance of Bran's ability to pierce the veil of time.  So the question I asked is whether or not Jon will manifest the same ability at some point  and if the reader had already encountered Jon as the 3EC without knowing it.

It's the quality of the conversation; the use of the Stark words "Winter is coming" and Aemon's advice to Jon to kill the boy to let the man be born and the choice the 3EC gives Bran to fly or die; the same kind of choice that Jon gives to both Sam and Gilly.  It's the appearance in some of Bran's dreams of both a tree and crow simultaneously.  BR is more tree than man now.  He no longer thinks of himself as a crow of the Night's Watch, was confused by the question.  

Even if the tree in the dream is Bran himself as we saw in the coma dream; who would Bran send to help him fly if it isn't his brother Jon as the 3EC?  i think that Jon will be Bran's instrument for part of the story. 

My hunch is that we've been misled on the identity of the 3EC.  The Starks aren't your run of the mill skinchangers. 

Just to be clear, you are proposing that: 1.) Jon will be able to use the weirwoodnet, which he hasn't so far (I would love to see this btw, I am not against it), that 2.) Jon will use the weirwoodnet to speak to Bran in the past and awaken him?

For me, this is too far outside the confines of what we have seen. We are lead to believe that Bran's ability to speak to people in the past is actually beyond Bloodraven's capability, and that Bran is a more powerful greenseer that Bloodraven in some respects. So you are proposing not only that Jon is a greenseer, but that he is a tremendously powerful one who will be able to send Bran entire dream visions in the past? I mean, anything is possible, we can't rule it out, but that seems several steps beyond what we have seen. 

My main issue though is that it makes a ton of sense that it is Bloodraven sending bran dreams and manipulating people and events - that what he has always done, his entire life. We have no reason to believe Bloodraven wouldn't do those things, and of course he says that he had to send Bran dreams because he could not come to him in person. There is no clue that Bloodravcen can't send bran dreams or doesn't have the motivation to do so. The entire point of the dreams was to awaken Bran's third eye and get him to Bloodraven's cave, and Bloodraven clearly desired those goals and was prepared to act on them as soon as they are achieved. We don't need a time traveling Bran or Jon to be sending Bran vision - Bloodraven can easily do so and has clearly done so. Am I missing something? What would be the narrative point of having it be time traveling Jon or Bran sending some of the 3EC dreams? 

[LynnS]

9 minutes ago, LmL said:

Just to be clear, you are proposing that: 1.) Jon will be able to use the weirwoodnet, which he hasn't so far (I would love to see this btw, I am not against it), that 2.) Jon will use the weirwoodnet to speak to Bran in the past and awaken him?

For me, this is too far outside the confines of what we have seen. We are lead to believe that Bran's ability to speak to people in the past is actually beyond Bloodraven's capability, and that Bran is a more powerful greenseer that Bloodraven in some respects. So you are proposing not only that Jon is a greenseer, but that he is a tremendously powerful one who will be able to send Bran entire dream visions in the past? I mean, anything is possible, we can't rule it out, but that seems several steps beyond what we have seen. 

My main issue though is that it makes a ton of sense that it is Bloodraven sending bran dreams and manipulating people and events - that what he has always done, his entire life. We have no reason to believe Bloodraven wouldn't do those things, and of course he says that he had to send Bran dreams because he could not come to him in person. There is no clue that Bloodravcen can't send bran dreams or doesn't have the motivation to do so. The entire point of the dreams was to awaken Bran's third eye and get him to Bloodraven's cave, and Bloodraven clearly desired those goals and was prepared to act on them as soon as they are achieved. We don't need a time traveling Bran or Jon to be sending Bran vision - Bloodraven can easily do so and has clearly done so. Am I missing something? What would be the narrative point of having it be time traveling Jon or Bran sending some of the 3EC dreams? 

What evidence do we have the Bran will be a more powerful greenseer than we have been shown so far? We have evidence that Bran is unchained by time and affects Jon before it comes to pass that Bran is even wed to the tree? What's to say that Jon won't be equally as powerful from his own frame of reference as The Crow; the Winter King, the Green King, the Horned Lord, the Night's King or the Lion of the Night.

My guess is that Bran and Jon will work together in some way.  That they both make up aspects of AA; when Bran passes through the Black Gate and tastes the salty tear and later Jon lies in a pool of smoking blood.  Along with that they represent two aspect of a triune god with Bran as a christ figure and John as the holy ghost. 

With Dany as the savior and redeemer, the maid of light; she is also a christ figure with Jon as the baptist.  As AAR, Dany has to forge the sword. Ultimately I think that's Jon.  I've commented about that here:

Is there a narrative purpose in making Jon the 3EC who aids Bran in the same sense that Bran aids Jon to fulfill their destinies or become who they are destined to be?  I don't know.  Perhaps not. 

[Black Crow]

And with that its time to move on to Heresy 192