The Crow Calls the Raven Black, why I believe Blood Raven is not the Three Eyed Crow explained

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

16 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Jon's body getting cold, the ghost of high heart, the house of the undying... Every prophesy

Right. But you said: 

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but we have Bran and other dreamers seeing forward in time

Obviously Bran is not GoHH or did he visit the Undying.

I take "seeing forward in time" as Bran knows what is happening in the future. Like when he sees things happening in the past through the heart tree. This is not the same as prophecy. 

I was thinking you were meaning Bran can see the future through the wiernet (as I see a lot of people assume). Maybe I was misunderstanding your meaning...

[LiveFirstDieLater]

56 minutes ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

 There's also not much reason to craft BR as such a fascinating character, whose presence looms large over the narrative right from the Blackfyre Rebellion period until now, and then suddenly turn it around by claiming Bran is the 3EC the whole time.  GRRM could have just kept the 3EC as some random old greenseer in a cave then.

 

Not to mention, we have no idea whether this kind of power is even possible for Bran in the first place (being able to project himself as a crow into his own subconscious.) There's no such hint anywhere in the books yet. 

ETA: Thought of another thing --> If the 3EC isn't BR, then why have all dreams with the 3EC stopped for Bran once he's in the cave?

So for those of us that read these books over the course of many years, BR hasn't loomed large at all... In fact he's only a relatively recent addition to the story... Without Dunk and Egg we wouldn't even have most of his background. 

and I don't think the three eyes crow dreams have ended... That's why Bran only hears the 3eC when engulfed in darkness. In fact he even admits it's hard for him to tell time or the difference between waking and dreaming... And why he likes the dark so he can pretend that the talking corpse is the 3eC.

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

20 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

So for those of us that read these books over the course of many years, BR hasn't loomed large at all... In fact he's only a relatively recent addition to the story... Without Dunk and Egg we wouldn't even have most of his background. 

and I don't think the three eyes crow dreams have ended... That's why Bran only hears the 3eC when engulfed in darkness. In fact he even admits it's hard for him to tell time or the difference between waking and dreaming... And why he likes the dark so he can pretend that the talking corpse is the 3eC.

But he doesn't see a literal 3EC in his dreams. He imagines BR as the 3EC because he is more comfortable with this visual (BR is nasty). The 3ec dreams as we see them in the earlier books have stopped.

[Little Scribe of Naath]

21 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

So for those of us that read these books over the course of many years, BR hasn't loomed large at all... In fact he's only a relatively recent addition to the story... Without Dunk and Egg we wouldn't even have most of his background. 

That wasn't my point. You have a character who lived one of the most incredibly interesting lives of the series. Hand of the King, Commander of Raven's Teeth, sorceror, spymaster, skinchanger, Commander of the NW....the list goes on. He's not some milquetoast character in the least. Why would GRRM go to the lengths of creating the character like this if he didn't want him to play a big role in mentoring one of the main (probably the most important) character of the series?

23 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

and I don't think the three eyes crow dreams have ended... That's why Bran only hears the 3eC when engulfed in darkness. In fact he even admits it's hard for him to tell time or the difference between waking and dreaming... And why he likes the dark so he can pretend that the talking corpse is the 3eC.

No, Bran doesn't have a single dream of the 3EC once he's gotten to the cave. In fact he doesn't have one in any of his ADWD chapters, after the appearance of Coldhands who serves as a guide to BR. That's another indication that BR saw no more need to appear in his dreams as Bran was already coming to him anyway.

[LiveFirstDieLater]

56 minutes ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

Right. But you said: 

Obviously Bran is not GoHH or did he visit the Undying.

I take "seeing forward in time" as Bran knows what is happening in the future. Like when he sees things happening in the past through the heart tree. This is not the same as prophecy. 

I was thinking you were meaning Bran can see the future through the wiernet (as I see a lot of people assume). Maybe I was misunderstanding your meaning...

 

 

 

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 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."With two you see no farther than your walls. With three you would gaze south to the Summer Sea and north beyond the Wall."

So why wouldn't Bran be able to see forward?

I would expect looking forward to be a "visual prophesy" like we see so many examples of... For instance:

Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick blackblood.

Are you suggesting that this isn't prophetic? What about Jojen... His green dreams seem to all be of the future... Like the sea swallowing winterfell, the winged wolf in chains, and the Stark boys faces being flayed (or their doubles...) then in the crypts. Admittedly Jojen is terrible at understanding what he sees.

The ghost of high heart I sighted above... All her prophesies seem to be her looking forward, in fact it seems that all the prophesies appear as visions.

The only one who might have trouble doing this is BR:

"A man must know how to look before he can hope to see," said Lord Brynden. "Those were shadows of days past that you saw, Bran. You were looking through the eyes of the heart tree in your godswood. Time is different for a tree than for a man. Sun and soil and water, these are the things a weirwood understands, not days and years and centuries. For men, time is a river. We are trapped in its flow, hurtling from past to present, always in the same direction. The lives of trees are different. They root and grow and die in one place, and that river does not move them. The oak is the acorn, the acorn is the oak. And the weirwood … a thousand human years are a moment to a weirwood, and through such gates you and I may gaze into the past

Now BR only says here that they can look into the past... But he's also about to say that nobody can hear you too, and I think many of us suspect that doesn't apply to Bran.

So wether BR is capable of seeing prophesy or not, I guess I can't prove. But it is one of the big forms of magic in the series, it's the definition of a green dream, and the Ghost of High Heart is famous for it... Why wouldn't Bran be able to also?

[LiveFirstDieLater]

5 minutes ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

That wasn't my point. You have a character who lived one of the most incredibly interesting lives of the series. Hand of the King, Commander of Raven's Teeth, sorceror, spymaster, skinchanger, Commander of the NW....the list goes on. He's not some milquetoast character in the least. Why would GRRM go to the lengths of creating the character like this if he didn't want him to play a big role in mentoring one of the main (probably the most important) character of the series?

No, Bran doesn't have a single dream of the 3EC once he's gotten to the cave. In fact he doesn't have one in any of his ADWD chapters, after the appearance of Coldhands who serves as a guide to BR. That's another indication that BR saw no more need to appear in his dreams as Bran was already coming to him anyway.

So Blood Raven can play the villain? The man behind the Others...

We only have three chapters of Bran in Dance... And I think you are stating interpretation as fact...

Bran wondered if all of this wasn't just some dream. Maybe he had fallen asleep out in the snows and dreamed himself a safe, warm place. You have to wake, he would tell himself, you have to wake right now, or you'll go dreaming into death. Once or twice he pinched his arm with his fingers, really hard, but the only thing that did was make his arm hurt. In the beginning he had tried to count the days by making note of when he woke and slept, but down here sleeping and waking had a way of melting into one another. Dreams became lessons, lessons became dreams, things happened all at once or not at all. Had he done that or only dreamed it?

Bran has trouble knowing if he's awake... I'd just suggest maybe it isn't so clear for the reader either

[Little Scribe of Naath]

2 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Bran has trouble knowing if he's awake... I'd just suggest maybe it isn't so clear for the reader either

Really?

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Once or twice he pinched his arm with his fingers, really hard, but the only thing that did was make his arm hurt. 

Clear enough to me.

[LiveFirstDieLater]

13 minutes ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

Really?

Clear enough to me.

Haha ya when he pinches himself we know he's awake

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

18 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

 

 

 

So wether BR is capable of seeing prophesy or not, I guess I can't prove. But it is one of the big forms of magic in the series, it's the definition of a green dream, and the Ghost of High Heart is famous for it... Why wouldn't Bran be able to also?

If you are talking about visions which Bran doesn't know what they are or mean then okay, yes he can do that. But when you say: 

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but we have Bran and other dreamers seeing forward in time

it implies something a lot more obvious, like his visions of the past through the heart tree.

[Macgregor of the North]

@LiveFirstDieLater

Can I ask a genuine question. 

What has given you the idea that Bloodraven is the man behind the Others like you said a few posts up. And what exactly do you mean by that?.

[LiveFirstDieLater]

2 minutes ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

If you are talking about visions which Bran doesn't know what they are or mean then okay, yes he can do that. But when you say: 

it implies something a lot more obvious, like his visions of the past through the heart tree.

I didn't mean to imply that...

I do think it makes sense that one would see the past clearer than the future...

Im not sure he totally understands what he saw in the past either...

[Isobel Harper]

Hmmm, just a thought...  If Bran can see/reach into the past, could Future Bran send visions to people in the past?  (Whether he is the 3EC or not.)

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

2 hours ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

I didn't mean to imply that...

I do think it makes sense that one would see the past clearer than the future...

Im not sure he totally understands what he saw in the past either...

I was just making sure you weren't suggesting he can, right now, look into the future through the wierwood (like he can the past). 

I think we are on the same page now.

[LiveFirstDieLater]

2 hours ago, Macgregor of the North said:

@LiveFirstDieLater

Can I ask a genuine question. 

What has given you the idea that Bloodraven is the man behind the Others like you said a few posts up. And what exactly do you mean by that?.

You never ask the easy questions! Haha promise I'm not ignoring you, just want the answer to make sense... And have some textual support...

But at it's heart I think it revolves around what we think the Others are, an as of yet unsolved mystery.

Are they Ice Deamons invading the realms of men for their own ends? Or are they more like I see Dragons, a force of nature, which can be bent to the will of man, but only to a certain extent?

55 minutes ago, Isobel Harper said:

Hmmm, just a thought...  If Bran can see/reach into the past, could Future Bran send visions to people in the past?  (Whether he is the 3EC or not.)

It seems to me that it takes a certain sort of person, or awakening, in order to receive visions... Wether they come from dreams, weirwoods, flames, or shade of the evening... If there is really "someone" sending these visions (as opposed to them being more like an extra "sight") is a good one.

on the one hand we have Melisandre asking for what she wants to see, claiming her God sends the visions... The Ghost of High heart seems to get hers from the "old gods" but it's unclear to me if that means an intelegence with motives or just a collective knowledge isn't clear...

The one clear example we have (and it's not that clear at all) is Varys's story of the Daemon voice... Now it could just have been a person speaking as we know men could do through the glass candles, or truly a supernatural being is obviously also a mystery.

Bran seems to send Jon a vision in what appears to me to be real time... Not the past, but it's really him communicating through the dream as opposed to sending a prophesy or vision...

Anyway this was all a long winded way of saying it seems up for debate

[AureliusAmbrosius]

5 hours ago, LmL said:

I have to agree with @AureliusAmbrosius here, even though I do think Occum's razor is misused at times analyzing fiction. In the case of Jon paternity, there is compelling reason for RLJ to be true - namely, it accomplishes things which Ned being Jon's father does not. What he's saying about future Bran being the three-eyed crow is that we need to figure out what that would accomplish that can only be done that way, or would be compelling if done that way. What's the point? How does it make sense with the plot? I don't think it does, for the reasons stated above. BR's role becomes essentially nonsensical if he isn't the 3EC, and it's hard for any of that part of the story to make sense, as argued by @AureliusAmbrosius. The only thing it accomplishes is a very confusing time loop where Bran becomes the prime cause and effect of the entire story. I don't think that is consistent with the story so far and just wouldn't make sense as a narrative. There is to much emphasis on accountability and reponsibility for your actions for a time-loop to be the cause of or answer to all the problems. It doesn't "make everything fall into place" as RLJ does. RLJ explains obvious ploy mysteries in a way nothing else can, but the same is not at all true of time-traveling Bran theories. 

Right, thanks @LmL. I guess what I'm really making is a point about the metatextual use of Occam's Razor. "Among competing hypotheses about what GRRM is doing, the one that requires the least complicated post-hoc justifications is to be preferred." (It's like the Tyrion Targaryen thing. Whether they tell us or not, if Tyrion rides a dragon, he's probably a Aerys' son, since justifications for how and why that's possible have already been introduced into the story. That is, since the WOIAF goes out of its way to create the possibility, and we have a compelling plot need (dragon riding) that's actually the simplest theory for how he could do it and have it make sense. (As opposed to, say, Bran skin changing an animal he's never met so Tyrion can sit on the "saddle" and ride it.))

4 hours ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Blood Raven could be the one behind the Others...

We still have very few meaningful events that happened North of the Wall before the series starts which could be responsible for the return of the others...

BR abandoning his post is one possible candidate (Mance digging up old crypts could be another, although I don't really like it)... The wall will hold so long as the brothers of the nights watch stay true...

So while it's possible that the return of the Others has to do with the movement of stars or fate or wrath of gods...

I still think that at the end of the day the root cause will be the action of a mortal or mortals... In fact to me this seems the simpler answer, and more fitting

But back to Occams Razzor, the point is it doesn't apply because there is no reason to believe a simple answer is more likely than a complicated one... And we have no empirical evidence by which to judge, nor any reason to believe the plot will reflect reality.  

Still I think I understand what you guys mean, in that why suspect time travel if there is an explanation that doesn't need it... 

I don't know if I agree with BR being on the side of the Others, but it's interesting. I do think we should assume GRRM will take the simplest path he can make to achieve a given dramatic arc, though. So, even if BR is on the side of the Others, future!Bran is probably not the 3EC. 

I actually sort of like the notion that Bran's unconscious is the 3EC - which is exactly the same theory, minus time travel.

I still think "Why is BR appearing as a crow?" is the best question you're possibly raising, though. Might be just an author mistake, but I think it's probably meaningful.

[LiveFirstDieLater]

16 minutes ago, AureliusAmbrosius said:

Right, thanks @LmL. I guess what I'm really making is a point about the metatextual use of Occam's Razor. "Among competing hypotheses about what GRRM is doing, the one that requires the least complicated post-hoc justifications is to be preferred." (It's like the Tyrion Targaryen thing. Whether they tell us or not, if Tyrion rides a dragon, he's probably a Aerys' son, since justifications for how and why that's possible have already been introduced into the story. That is, since the WOIAF goes out of its way to create the possibility, and we have a compelling plot need (dragon riding) that's actually the simplest theory for how he could do it and have it make sense. (As opposed to, say, Bran skin changing an animal he's never met so Tyrion can sit on the "saddle" and ride it.))

I don't know if I agree with BR being on the side of the Others, but it's interesting. I do think we should assume GRRM will take the simplest path he can make to achieve a given dramatic arc, though. So, even if BR is on the side of the Others, future!Bran is probably not the 3EC. 

I actually sort of like the notion that Bran's unconscious is the 3EC - which is exactly the same theory, minus time travel.

I still think "Why is BR appearing as a crow?" is the best question you're possibly raising, though. Might be just an author mistake, but I think it's probably meaningful.

I think that is totally reasonable... 

I might suggest that if you really can't stand the "time travel", and I totally get that, it may be a little more than just his subconscious. Like Dany has "blood of the dragon", Bran has Stark blood and it may be some ancestral link/heritage/collective appearing. The Brandon Stark(s) of old if you will. It still always bugs me that Old Nan might confuse him with past Brandon's (especially one(s) who died young, maybe in a metophorical fall perhaps?). 

You are right that the real crux of my argument is that I don't think the three eyed crow is Blood Raven. It seems such a clear difference which I tried to show has existed from the very start between crow and raven... While the name "blood raven" only appears later in the series... It's hard for me to believe it isn't intentional.

Anyway, happy Friday all, I'll be back with more insane ramblings soon enough... 

[ravenous reader]

10 hours ago, Tijgy said:

It was an accident. I am more brilliant that I thought  - Or rather, you are always great in finding pun.

It's probably a combination of both!

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I actually still think it is more likely Bloodraven is the 3EC.

I agree.

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We have been teased for several books that Bran is going north to find the 3EC; who lives north of the Wall. We have a guide (CH) leading them to the 3EC. He does appear as the solution of this mystery, the end of the quest Bran, Jojen, ... started in the third book. There is textual evidence BR is the 3EC (as already mentioned in this thread), the author went further on the question and said he knew the 3EC would always have a link to the Targ and it makes me more sense if you look to the bigger picture. 

What if Bloodraven isn't the 3EC? Bloodraven has been waiting for Bran to come, while he has been doing nothing? 

That's a persuasive argument against it being anyone else.  If Bloodraven isn't the three-eyed crow, it makes the character a bit useless and lackluster, 'milquetoast' as @Little Scribe of Naath puts it.  Would GRRM assassinate one of the greatest characters he ever created like that?

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"Now I am as you see men, and now you will understand why I could not come to you ... except in dreams, BRAN III ADWD

If BR=3EC, then you can explain this by saying the 3EC visited Jojen, told him where he had to go and to take Bran with him. But what if BR isn't 3EC, how would have he got Bran in the cave? Whatever you say about Bloodraven, he isn't really the type who would just stand by and let things be if he deems those things important. He took initiative by subduing the Second Blackfyre Rebellion before it even started, he ensured Aenys was executed so he would not make a claim. So he would have ensured actively Bran came to him, no?

That would seem more in character. 

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OTOH I do think it might a little dangerous to adhere the 3EC only to Bloodraven. The interesting about this is that Bloodraven isn't really completely Bloodraven anymore. He is becoming a part of the tree, the godshood which consists of the spirits/... of many greenseers. And we do know bonds of skinchangers are a sort of relationship where both are becoming a part of the other. Like Jojen says, "Part of you is Summer, and part of Summer is you. You know that, Bran."

You have also Varamyr thinking:

"They say you forget," Haggon had told him, a few weeks before his own death. "When the man's flesh dies, his spirit lives on inside the beast, but every day his memory fades, and the beast becomes a little less a warg, a little more a wolf, until nothing of the man is left and only the beast remains."

 When he claimed the eagle that had been Orell's, he could feel the other skinchanger raging at his presence. Orell had been slain by the turncloak crow Jon Snow, and his hate for his killer had been so strong that Varamyr found himself hating the beastling boy as well. 

The CotF say about Bloodraven: "Most of him has gone into the tree", just like all the greenseers before him. I do think you can assume it is not impossible to think those spirits of those greenseers never have influenced Bloodraven. And that while Bloodraven is still the main active agent of the old gods (aka the collective greenseer spirits), you actually could say his actions are so much influenced by those different spirits that they are rather the actions of the old gods than the actions of him. (And maybe one of those greenseers was a d*ck and had a bond with a crow who liked corn.)

(Does it make any sense what I wrote?)  

Yes.  You always make sense to me.  You have a knack for making surprising connections, weaving the different threads of green invisible to others into one-- that's why you're the 'princess of the green'!  I think the theme of  pursuing immortality-- which is the original greenseer project -- by cultivating a system of collective consciousness with its more ominous implications of body- and mind-snatching -- the original greenseer sin -- is one of GRRM's main preoccupations. 

(P.S. The shadow of 'the greenseer d*ck crow' with an insatiable hunger for corn might be the Night's King...After all, he gave away all his seed -- i.e. corn -- to the ice succubus enchantress, in a fatal pact condemning him to search for more seed for all eternity!  If Bran is his latest Stark heir, then Bran is also literally his 'seed', which he now reclaims.)

Whatever ones interpretation of its identity, the three-eyed crow represents a violent intrusion into or contamination of Bran's consciousness, in addition to the 'communion' being powerfully transformative.  

6 hours ago, LmL said:

Good points, I agree that we should consider BR a merged tree - human spirit. Furthermore, I've suggested it's possible for a tree spirit to bodysnatch a human body. Think about Jon dying and going into Ghost, only to merge with Ghost's spirit, and then there merged man-wolf is put back in the resurrected human body. 

But switch Jon and his wolf for a greenseer and his tree... kill the man, the spirit goes into the tree, begins to join godhood.. but then somehow the tree-human spirit renters the body. Boom. Trees bodysnatching people. 

I think this has to do with either making a Coldhands or an Other.

What exactly do you think is meant by the following tale of 'greenseers turning the trees to warriors':

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A Dance with Dragons - The Wayward Bride

"To the walls," Asha Greyjoy told her men. She turned her own steps for the watchtower, with Tris Botley right behind her.

The wooden watchtower was the tallest thing this side of the mountains, rising twenty feet above the biggest sentinels and soldier pines in the surrounding woods. "There, Captain," said Cromm, when she made the platform. Asha saw only trees and shadows, the moonlit hills and the snowy peaks beyond. Then she realized that trees were creeping closer. "Oho," she laughed, "these mountain goats have cloaked themselves in pine boughs." The woods were on the move, creeping toward the castle like a slow green tide. She thought back to a tale she had heard as a child, about the children of the forest and their battles with the First Men, when the greenseers turned the trees to warriors.

?

Also note the image of the north under water again (green sea/green see).  Why is GRRM doing this repetitively?  Have you figured out the broader significance of the symbolic drowning of the north yet?

5 hours ago, LmL said:

I have to agree with @AureliusAmbrosius here, even though I do think Occum's razor is misused at times analyzing fiction.

The problem with 'Occam's razor' when applied to fiction is that one cannot 'deduce' everything using 'linear logic' -- 'symbolic logic' is also important and that is not a straightforward process of elimination.

4 hours ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

I may be wrong, but Bran has actually never had a prophetic dream about the future. This is a common misconception. 

The dream in AGOT is him seeing things in real time, I guess, but with a double layer of meaning in the choice of words by the author ("Jon sleeping on a cold hard bed with memory of warmth fled...

This is definitely a prophetic dream, in which the usual time relations do not apply.  The full quote is  'Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him.'  Apart from the strong suggestion of death given by 'skin growing pale and hard...memory of all warmth fled,' if it were in 'real time' Jon would not be sleeping alone, neither would his bed be cold -- at that point in time, he always slept with Ghost, who would keep him warm and immediately spring into action to comfort him when he'd have disturbing.dreams.  Also, why would Jon be sleeping at all?  Other scenes to which we're privy in Bran's 'coma dream' unfold in the clarity of daylight, when Jon would be expected to be actively performing his various Night's Watch recruit's duties at the Wall, not sleeping!  This is a tip-off that the usual logic of time has been skewed.  Moreover, I've previously pointed out the strange insertion by GRRM that Bran saw Robb in the Winterfell courtyard looking 'taller [i.e. older] and stronger than Bran remembered him.'  Accentuating Robb's growth seems odd (especially considering Bran is viewing him from above, a vantage point from which most adolescent or adult people look approximately the same size), unless it's a literary device or symbolic marker to indicate that there's been some kind of time shift, analogous to the weirwood sapling/trees growing in fast-forward or -reverse orienting the reader to the supernatural dimension of what's transpiring in other dreams.  Otherwise, maybe it's just GRRM's rather awkward way of indicating that Bran has been in his coma for several months during which Robb underwent a peak in his adolescent growth spurt!

4 hours ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

ETA: Thought of another thing --> If the 3EC isn't BR, then why have all dreams with the 3EC stopped for Bran once he's in the cave?

Perhaps because it's warded against the Others...Just playing 'devil's advocate'!

I think that's actually a good point.  

7 hours ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

I dreamt of a man without a face, waiting on a bridge that swayed and swung. On his shoulder perched a drowned crow with seaweed hanging from his wings.

 

An alternative interpretation of a 'drowned crow':

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A Dance with Dragons - Jon XI

Jon had expected that. The direwolf made Queen Selyse anxious, almost as much as Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun. "Ghost, stay."

They found Her Grace sewing by the fire, whilst her fool danced about to music only he could hear, the cowbells on his antlers clanging. "The crow, the crow," Patchface cried when he saw Jon. "Under the sea the crows are white as snow, I know, I know, oh, oh, oh." Princess Shireen was curled up in a window seat, her hood drawn up to hide the worst of the greyscale that had disfigured her face.

I can think of at least one crow who is literally as white as snow -- Bloodraven.  Moreover, in his underground cavern fed by its underground 'sunless sea', he is in a chthonic space, as @sweetsunray has suggested is mythologically coherent.  Figuratively, therefore, Bloodraven and Bran have been 'drowned'.  What's more, the domain of the underworld -- or realm of 'Winter' -- is progressively 'drowning out' other regions like the Riverlands as it encroaches on them and claims them as its own.

 Another option for the 'drowned white crow' figure/s might be the Night's King and other thralls who, having been depleted of all warmth, become 'undead' pale icy/snowy creatures like wights (pun on 'white' by the way) or White Walkers, who are on the rise like 'drowned men rising harder and stronger...'

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So while I think the crow imagery does have to do with supernatural powers, I don't think we can conflate the drowned crow with the three eyed crow, nor do I see any indication Euron was visited by the 3eC... Or even that he had a "teacher" in his dreams at all... But if there is more evidence I'd be interested.

I don't think you can sort through any of this symbolism any further without first trying to formulate why and how you think GRRM presents us with the 'crow' vs. 'raven' dichotomy. They started talking about that on the 'Heretic' thread 'The Crows', trying to differentiate the categories from one another, before finally chickening out and going with conflating them instead under the overarching banner of 'the Corvidae'.  By the way, @LynnS believes, as you do, that the three-eyed crow is not the same entity as the weirwood nor Bloodraven.  You might be interested in what she has to contribute on the subject.  

Did GRRM 'get sloppy with the Corvids' as @AureliusAmbrosius suggests?  Does he conflate them himself?  Why did he make Euron a 'crow' in the first place?  Why not just make him a 'raven' or rather 'gull,' for example, considering a sea bird would have been more fitting for a sailor?  Or just leave him as a 'kraken' -- why add the 'crow' part?

My impression is that GRRM 'calls crows slightly blacker than ravens.'  Sometimes the kettle is just as black as the pot calls it -- e.g. as evidenced by the 'Kettleblacks' and the instances marked by the proverbs I broke down for you.  Should we trust Old Nan when she says 'all crows are liars'?

While I agree there's no proof that Euron was visited by the three-eyed crow, I disagree that he wasn't 'contacted' as a child by a greenseer.   The story of his childhood flying dream is just too similar to Bran's to be coincidence.

23 hours ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Ok so first I completely agree that not having "quotes" around the speech is primarily indicative of non-verbal communication... Although I think it's important to see who seems capable of this.

For instance you provided a pretty indisputable example of Bran communicating non-verbally. Is there any such example for Blood Raven?

Just for the sake of argument the Undying seem to speak to Dany in much the same way (no quotes).

I'd be interested if people have found other examples...

There is an intriguing example in which a 'voice in italics' intrudes into Sam's consciousness before he kills the Other.  Is this just Sam's inner stream of consciousness or unconscious welling up, prompted by his panicked state -- or is there something supernatural going on, indicating Sam was guided by some power to stay alive and slay the Walker?

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Samwell I

The wights had been slow clumsy things, but the Other was light as snow on the wind. It slid away from Paul's axe, armor rippling, and its crystal sword twisted and spun and slipped between the iron rings of Paul's mail, through leather and wool and bone and flesh. It came out his back with a hissssssssssss and Sam heard Paul say, "Oh," as he lost the axe. Impaled, his blood smoking around the sword, the big man tried to reach his killer with his hands and almost had before he fell. The weight of him tore the strange pale sword from the Other's grip.

Do it now. Stop crying and fight, you baby. Fight, craven. It was his father he heard, it was Alliser Thorne, it was his brother Dickon and the boy Rast. Craven, craven, craven. He giggled hysterically, wondering if they would make a wight of him, a huge fat white wight always tripping over its own dead feet. Do it, Sam. Was that Jon, now? Jon was dead. You can do it, you can, just do it. And then he was stumbling forward, falling more than running, really, closing his eyes and shoving the dagger blindly out before him with both hands. He heard a crack, like the sound ice makes when it breaks beneath a man's foot, and then a screech so shrill and sharp that he went staggering backward with his hands over his muffled ears, and fell hard on his arse.

When he opened his eyes the Other's armor was running down its legs in rivulets as pale blue blood hissed and steamed around the black dragonglass dagger in its throat. It reached down with two bone-white hands to pull out the knife, but where its fingers touched the obsidian they smoked.

Notice that the sounds made by supernatural beings are also placed in italics, namely 'hissssss' and 'crack,' so perhaps the other italicized messages Sam hears may be similarly supernatural in origin?

Before this, a weirwood root reaches out and trips Sam -- very suspicious -- and Sam gets the impression that his legs are moving directed by a willpower other than his own.  It's left ambiguous as to whether Sam is merely reacting instinctively --on 'autopilot' -- as one does in survival mode, or whether there's an additional supernatural input of 'the old gods,' etc., aiding him:

Quote

Chapter Eighteen SAMWELL

Sobbing, Sam took another step. This is the last one, the very last, I can't go on, I can't. But his feet moved again. One and then the other. They took a step, and then another, and he thought, They're not my feet, they're someone else's, someone else is walking, it can't be me.

When he looked down he could see them stumbling through the snow; shapeless things, and clumsy. His boots had been black, he seemed to remember, but the snow had caked around them, and now they were misshapen white balls. Like two clubfeet made of ice...

...

Sam was stumbling himself. There were rocks beneath the snow, and the roots of trees, and sometimes deep holes in the frozen ground. Black Bernarr had stepped in one and broken his ankle three days past, or maybe four, or . . . he did not know how long it had been, truly. The Lord Commander had put Bernarr on a horse after that.

Sobbing, Sam took another step. It felt more like he was falling down than walking, falling endlessly but never hitting the ground, just falling forward and forward.

I have to stop, it hurts too much. I'm so cold and tired, I need to sleep, just a little sleep beside a fire, and a bite to eat that isn't frozen.

But if he stopped he died. He knew that. They all knew that, the few who were left. ..

...

Was that yesterday? He could not remember. He had not slept since the Fist, not once since the horn had blown. Unless it was while he was walking. Could a man walk while he was sleeping? Sam did not know, or else he had forgotten.

Sobbing, he took another step. The snow swirled down around him. Sometimes it fell from a white sky, and sometimes from a black, but that was all that remained of day and night. He wore it on his shoulders like a second cloak, and it piled up high atop the pack he carried and made it even heavier and harder to bear. The small of his back hurt abominably, as if someone had shoved a knife in there and was wiggling it back and forth with every step. ..

...

His own mother was a thousand leagues south, safe with his sisters and his little brother Dickon in the keep at Horn Hill. She can't hear me, no more than the Mother Above. The Mother was merciful, all the septons agreed, but the Seven had no power beyond the Wall. This was where the old gods ruled, the nameless gods of the trees and the wolves and the snows. "Mercy," he whispered then, to whatever might be listening, old gods or new, or demons too, "oh, mercy, mercy me, mercy me."

Maslyn screamed for mercy. Why had he suddenly remembered that? It was nothing he wanted to remember. The man had stumbled backward, dropping his sword, pleading, yielding, even yanking off his thick black glove and thrusting it up before him as if it were a gauntlet. He was still shrieking for quarter as the wight lifted him in the air by the throat and near ripped the head off him. The dead have no mercy left in them, and the Others . . . no, I mustn't think of that, don't think, don't remember, just walk, just walk, just walk.

Sobbing, he took another step.

A root beneath the crust caught his toe, and Sam tripped and fell heavily to one knee, so hard he bit his tongue. He could taste the blood in his mouth, warmer than anything he had tasted since the Fist. This is the end, he thought. Now that he had fallen he could not seem to find the strength to rise again. He groped for a tree branch and clutched it tight, trying to pull himself back to his feet, but his stiff legs would not support him. The mail was too heavy, and he was too fat besides, and too weak, and too tired.

"Back on your feet, Piggy," someone growled as he went past, but Sam paid him no mind. I'll just lie down in the snow and close my eyes. It wouldn't be so bad, dying here. He couldn't possibly be any colder, and after a little while he wouldn't be able to feel the ache in his lower back or the terrible pain in his shoulders, no more than he could feel his feet. I won't be the first to die, they can't say I was. Hundreds had died on the Fist, they had died all around him, and more had died after, he'd seen them. Shivering, Sam released his grip on the tree and eased himself down in the snow. It was cold and wet, he knew, but he could scarcely feel it through all his clothing. He stared upward at the pale white sky as snowflakes drifted down upon his stomach and his chest and his eyelids. The snow will cover me like a thick white blanket. It will be warm under the snow...

...

When the horns blew Sam had been sleeping. He thought he was dreaming them at first...

...

He remembered turning in a circle, lost, the fear growing inside him as it always did. There were dogs barking and horses trumpeting, but the snow muffled the sounds and made them seem far away. Sam could see nothing beyond three yards, not even the torches burning along the low stone wall that ringed the crown of the hill. Could the torches have gone out? That was too scary to think about. The horn blew thrice...

...

A horse stepped past his head, a shaggy grey beast with snow in its mane and hooves crusted with ice. Sam watched it come and watched it go. Another appeared from out of the falling snow, with a man in black leading it. When he saw Sam in his path he cursed him and led the horse around. I wish I had a horse, he thought. If I had a horse I could keep going...

...

A tall brother with a torch stopped beside them, and for a wonderful moment Sam felt the warmth on his face. "Leave him," the man said to Grenn. "If they can't walk, they're done. Save your strength for yourself, Grenn."

"He'll get up," Grenn replied. "He only needs a hand."

...

He did not remember running, but he must have, because the next he knew he was near the fire half a camp away, with old Ser Ottyn Wythers and some archers. Ser Ottyn was on his knees in the snow, staring at the chaos around them, until a riderless horse came by and kicked him in the face. The archers paid him no mind. They were loosing fire arrows at shadows in the dark. Sam saw one wight hit, saw the flames engulf it, but there were a dozen more behind it, and a huge pale shape that must have been the bear, and soon enough the bowmen had no arrows.

And then Sam found himself on a horse. It wasn't his own horse, and he never recalled mounting up either. Maybe it was the horse that had smashed Ser Ottyn's face in. The horns were still blowing, so he kicked the horse and turned him toward the sound.

In the midst of carnage and chaos and blowing snow, he found Dolorous Edd sitting on his garron with a plain black banner on a spear. "Sam," Edd said when he saw him, "would you wake me, please? I am having this terrible nightmare."

...

His garron screamed and reared and almost threw him as the bear came staggering through the snow. Sam pissed himself all over again. I didn't think I had any more left inside me. ...

...

They were at the gallop by the time they reached the ring. Sam had always been too frightened to jump a horse before, but when the low stone wall loomed up before him he knew he had no choice. He kicked and closed his eyes and whimpered, and the garron took him over, somehow, somehow, the garron took him over. The rider to his right came crashing down in a tangle of steel and leather and screaming horseflesh, and then the wights were swarming over him and the wedge was closing up. They plunged down the hillside at a run, through clutching black hands and burning blue eyes and blowing snow. Horses stumbled and rolled, men were swept from their saddles, torches spun through the air, axes and swords hacked at dead flesh, and Samwell Tarly sobbed, clutching desperately to his horse with a strength he never knew he had.

...

Suddenly the trees were all about them, and Sam was splashing through a frozen stream with the sounds of slaughter dwindling behind. He turned, breathless with relief . . . until a man in black leapt from the brush and yanked him out of the saddle. Who he was, Sam never saw; he was up in an instant, and galloping away the next. When he tried to run after the horse, his feet tangled in a root and he fell hard on his face and lay weeping like a baby until Dolorous Edd found him there.

That was his last coherent memory of the Fist of the First Men. ... All I need do is walk, Sam told himself, as he took that first step toward home. But before an hour was gone he had begun to struggle, and to lag . . .

They were lagging now as well, he saw. He remembered Pyp saying once how Small Paul was the strongest man in the Watch. He must be, to carry me. Yet even so, the snow was growing deeper, the ground more treacherous, and Paul's strides had begun to shorten. More horsemen passed, wounded men who looked at Sam with dull incurious eyes. Some torch bearers went by as well. "You're falling behind," one told them. The next agreed. "No one's like to wait for you, Paul. Leave the pig for the dead men."

...

The wind sighed through the trees, driving a fine spray of snow into their faces. The cold was so bitter that Sam felt naked. He looked for the other torches, but they were gone, every one of them. There was only the one Grenn carried, the flames rising from it like pale orange silks. He could see through them, to the black beyond. That torch will burn out soon, he thought, and we are all alone, without food or friends or fire.

But that was wrong. They weren't alone at all.

The lower branches of the great green sentinel shed their burden of snow with a soft wet plop. Grenn spun, thrusting out his torch. "Who goes there?" A horse's head emerged from the darkness. Sam felt a moment's relief, until he saw the horse. Hoarfrost covered it like a sheen of frozen sweat, and a nest of stiff black entrails dragged from its open belly. On its back was a rider pale as ice. ...

...

The Other's sword gleamed with a faint blue glow. It moved toward Grenn, lightning quick, slashing. When the ice blue blade brushed the flames, a screech stabbed Sam's ears sharp as a needle. The head of the torch tumbled sideways to vanish beneath a deep drift of snow, the fire snuffed out at once. And all Grenn held was a short wooden stick. He flung it at the Other, cursing, as Small Paul charged in with his axe.

The fear that filled Sam then was worse than any fear he had ever felt before, and Samwell Tarly knew every kind of fear. "Mother have mercy," he wept, forgetting the old gods in his terror. "Father protect me, oh oh . . . " His fingers found his dagger and he filled his hand with that.

The wights had been slow clumsy things, but the Other was light as snow on the wind. ..

 

[sweetsunray]

25 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

I can think of at least one crow who is literally as white as snow -- Bloodraven.  Moreover, in his underground cavern fed by its underground 'sunless sea', he is in a chthonic space, as @sweetsunray has suggested is mythologically coherent.  Figuratively, therefore, Bloodraven and Bran have been 'drowned'.  What's more, the domain of the underworld -- or realm of 'Winter' -- is progressively 'drowning out' other regions like the Riverlands as it encroaches on them and claims them as its own.

If they have snow and ice packed above their heads you could say they're "under water" (in a solid state)

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

27 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

 

Moreover, I've previously pointed out the strange insertion by GRRM that Bran saw Robb in the Winterfell courtyard looking 'taller [i.e. older] and stronger than Bran remembered him.'  Accentuating Robb's growth seems odd (especially considering Bran is viewing him from above, a vantage point from which most adolescent or adult people look approximately the same size), unless it's a literary device or symbolic marker to indicate that there's been some kind of time shift, analogous to the weirwood sapling/trees growing in fast-forward or -reverse orienting the reader to the supernatural dimension of what's transpiring in other dreams.  Otherwise, maybe it's just GRRM's rather awkward way of indicating that Bran has been in his coma for several months during which Robb underwent a peak in his adolescent growth spurt!

Or... it could be Robb seems taller/older to Bran because Robb is now the Lord of Winterfell. Bran makes several remarks on how Robb is "using his lord's voice" and seems much more mature since Ned left.

 

[AureliusAmbrosius]

@ravenous reader I think, rather that "getting sloppy with Corvids" - which I agree is exactly the sort of linear application of the Razor that we should merely use as a null hypothesis - the depiction of BR as a 3E Crow, rather than Raven, probably means his role as LC of the NW is being highlighted.

The show actually uses 3ER, from what I understand, but that just makes me think it dovetails with the book!Coldhands differences, which make a more subtle connection between the Children and the NW.

My pet theory is that BR has both Dragon Dreams and Greensight, and therefore could see the Others invasion coming in a way no other person could. 

But one day, I have to systematize and lay out my triangle comparison of the Children, the Others, and the First Men through the lens of Celtic mythology and Roman Britain, in order to get to the bottom of it. @LmL - Don't steal my thunder unless you'll let me give you the Romano-British history part, first!