Bran's vision of Jon in Bran III, GoT

[Lost Melnibonean]

4 hours ago, DigUpHerBones said:

sure there is, it is currently located outside of The Reach, with a false prophet tied to it's bow.

the First, and the Last...

its only 7:30AM in Cali

Como va, ve? 

[Lost Melnibonean]

19 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Jaime, Oberyn, Sandor, Ned, etc. are the foot soldiers.  Littlefinger and his ilk are the master puppeteers, wagering on and with the lives of others, as pointed out here:

Nice!

Ned gets a vague inkling of what or or whom he's up against shortly before his death when he glimpses the shadow of his real opponent out of his peripheral, poorly-developed 'vision'-- but sadly this dim revelation was too little, too late:

Why did he leave?  Due to events orchestrated by Littlefinger.

Who is 'the beast...lurking, hidden, treacherous' ('lurking' is similar to 'looming'), the 'beast' responsible for Jon Arryn's death?  The answer is the same:  Littlefinger.  A beast who lurks in the shadows and is reluctant to show his true face might have 'black blood.'  For example, Craster is said to have 'black blood,' presumably because he's treacherous, amoral and in love with his own power first-and-foremost, like Littlefinger ('Littlefinger loves Littlefinger' AGOT-Eddard VII).

'Black blood' is also associated with poisoning.  In Craster's case, he's poisoning his bloodline by committing incest and kinslaying, sacrificing his sons who are then transformed into 'undead' abominations with black blood (we know this from Sam's investigation of the wights' congealed black blood like black crystal or dust).  In Littlefinger's case, he's associated with his fair share of poisonings (e.g. the Tears of Lys administered to Jon Arryn; the Strangler administered to Joffrey; let alone the more figurative poisonings of the mind in which he engages in order to harness others to his perverse will).  

Why do I strongly suspect Littlefinger is the beast in question leaving spoor on the forest floor?  Because of this quote from someone who has actually sighted the beast and seen him for what he is without harboring any illusions (leading to Littlefinger setting up Tyrion in turn and probably trying to have him killed on several occasions):

'Shitting in the woods' is like leaving 'spoor on the forest floor.'  The beast is Littlefinger.  And he befouls everything he touches.

Indeed.  Also, his name 'Petyr' is etymologically derived from 'rock' or 'stone' as in 'petrify'-- literally 'turn to stone' or figuratively terrify or overwhelm someone to the extent that they can no longer think, feel, or act for themselves, you know kind of like what he's doing to Sansa...He's literally transforming her into a stone -- Alayne Stone.  

Symbolically, he was also the figure 'looming' over and ultimately responsible for Joffrey's murder.  So, although not physically present at the wedding, his shadow nevertheless 'loomed' large over the proceedings in King's Landing.  I believe Varys is referencing Littlefinger here:

Littlefinger, apart from his name containing the word 'little,' is also physically rather small, yet nevertheless psychologically imposing and dangerous which Varys recognises.  Sansa's hairnet of poison crystals or 'stones' -- which evokes the mythological 'medusa' or 'gorgon' who could petrify anyone trapped in its gaze -- also ties Baelish to the poison stone theme (Bloodstone Emperor also comes to mind) as well as the idea of Baelish ensnaring people, in similar fashion to his nemesis Varys the Spider, in his web of intrigue and deception.

@OtherFromAnotherMother cool thread!  I love brainstorming with other forum members on the various dreams and prophecies.  In general, I agree with the interpretations offered for Bran's so-called 'coma dream,' apart from one major difference, namely I don't believe it's all happening in 'real time.'  There are subtle indications that time is not passing for Bran the way it's passing for those on dimension 'Planetos.'  For one, the light relations do not make sense.  At the beginning of the dream it is clearly daylight or Bran would not be able to clearly visualize the colors and details of the landscape.  However, towards the end of the dream he's suddenly seeing Sansa crying herself to sleep at night and Jon sleeping in an ice cell (which should presumably be happening at night as well, unless you're going to argue he's on a night-duty schedule!)  

At this point it's clearly daylight.  Then suddenly it switches to night:

How come there's a light reflection coming off the wall 'shining like blue crystal if Jon is 'sleeping'?  Is this happening during the day or night?  They're not that far north at the Wall to never experience nightfall.

The way I interpret the shifting light relations at the very least is that time is passing faster for Bran in the dream than it is for others.  In other words, he is able to 'fast-forward' from day to night in the blink of an eye or beat of a wing, which is an indication of how he's already 'time-travelling' into the future.  Therefore, the vision of Jon's body growing cold 'pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled' is a strong intimation of death and may even be a prophetic vision.  I also find it odd that Ghost is nowhere to be seen, considering when Jon first arrived at the Wall he always slept with Ghost who kept him warm and comforted him.  When Bran glimpses 'the heart of winter' it's likely he's seeing a prophetic vision of the 'Long Night' to come.  'Beyond the curtain' is a metaphor for breaking through and circumventing the usual constraints governing time, place and person.  Therefore, I wouldn't presume anything in the dream is happening in 'real time.'

All very nicely put. 

Spoiler

*Show Spoiler--Until I watched the comments at the end of Hold the Door, I didn't buy that time traveling mumbo jumbo. But it appears that Bran might not be just witnessing the past, but perhaps also shaping the present and future. 

 

[Lost Melnibonean]

18 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Yes, I know and given LF's machinations; it's an obvious choice.  But I'm always looking for an alternative to Un-Gregor and LF..

Tyrion and Tywin are possibilities. I'I've seen Ilyn put forth as well. 

[ravenous reader]

Considering the following:

2 hours ago, Blackfyre Bastard said:

LF doesn't actively identify himself with his family sigil; he hides behind a mockingbird (i.e. he mocks everybody else with this change), but he's a giant still.

30 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

I argued quite some time ago that Petyr hired a Faceless Man to kill Eddard. I think one or three folks even agreed with me.

I'm wondering if there are alternative explanations to the following than the usual orthodoxy:

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A Storm of Swords - Arya IV

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. 

Perhaps the Ghost of High Heart mixed up her birds...

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

@Lost Melnibonean, @ravenous reader

I don't actually think they are "real time" events. I just wanted to emphasize that it wasn't future events and couldn't come up with a simple wording for it. My idea for the OP was an argument against Bran's vision of Jon being "prophetic" to the stabbing at the end of DwD. I was using the phrase real time to differentiate from the stabbing chapter. 

I'm working right now so I can't reply to your other posts as deeply as I'd like to. But later I will. 

[ravenous reader]

1 hour ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

I don't actually think they are "real time" events. I just wanted to emphasize that it wasn't future events and couldn't come up with a simple wording for it. My idea for the OP was an argument against Bran's vision of Jon being "prophetic" to the stabbing at the end of DwD.

My point would contradict your premise then, as I don't think you can rule out that particular 'vision' being a future event.  There is a point in the 'coma dream' where 'present' and 'future' intersect, namely when Bran makes eye contact with the weirwood tree who reciprocally looks at him 'knowingly,' marking a moment of future intrusion into the present moment.  I believe this is Bran himself, in a reflexive moment of consciousness and in time.  Accordingly, I lean towards the 'vision' of Jon you referenced being a future event, not merely representative of metaphorical loneliness, etc., occurring when his body will be placed in the ice cells following the stabbing for some reason, for which there is much foreshadowing elsewhere.

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

18 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

My point would contradict your premise then, as I don't think you can rule out that particular 'vision' being a future event.  There is a point in the 'coma dream' where 'present' and 'future' intersect, namely when Bran makes eye contact with the weirwood tree who reciprocally looks at him 'knowingly,' marking a moment of future intrusion into the present moment.  I believe this is Bran himself, in a reflexive moment of consciousness and in time.  Accordingly, I lean towards the 'vision' of Jon you referenced being a future event, not merely representative of metaphorical loneliness, etc., occurring when his body will be placed in the ice cells following the stabbing for some reason, for which there is much foreshadowing elsewhere.

So you think Bran is seeing Jon after the stabbing in this vision?

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Therefore, the vision of Jon's body growing cold 'pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled' is a strong intimation of death and may even be a prophetic vision.  I also find it odd that Ghost is nowhere to be seen, considering when Jon first arrived at the Wall he always slept with Ghost who kept him warm and comforted him.  

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Accordingly, I lean towards the 'vision' of Jon you referenced being a future event, not merely representative of metaphorical loneliness, etc., occurring when his body will be placed in the ice cells following the stabbing for some reason, for which there is much foreshadowing elsewhere.

I addressed these considerations my my OP. The information is all in Jon's next chapter following Bran's. 

Short summary: (quotes from GoT are in OP). Jon considers himself alone several times despite Ghost being with him. There are also quotes which talk about Jon forgetting what it was like to be warm (memory of warmth fleeing). Also, the wall color. It is white when Jon is stabbed. And in Bran's vision Jon is in a bed. I don't recall there being beds in the ice cells.

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

3 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Catelyn and Rodrik do travel into a literal storm. 

You're absolutely right. I missed this. Thanks!

 

[The Fattest Leech]

4 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

The entire sequence is an outline for A Song of Ice and Fire. First we see the opening of The War of the Five Kings, and then we see dragons stirring in the east. And then... 

This passage recalls what we read about in the prologue. And after the release of the 1993 letter from The George to his publisher, we know that we will read about the War for the Dawn after we finish the Second Dance of the Dragons.

 

We will learn later about the significance of the three-eyed crow, that having your third-eye opened allows you to see things not visible to normal men.

True. I held back on symbolism, something I seem to be doing a lot of lately.  

[Darth Sidious]

On 10/19/2016 at 4:01 PM, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

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.

This is Jon's death.  He will die and very possibly will become a creature of the White Walkers after they resurrect him from death. 

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

51 minutes ago, Lord High Papal said:

This is Jon's death.  He will die and very possibly will become a creature of the White Walkers after they resurrect him from death. 

Thanks for sharing your opinion. Do you have any information to support your opinion? Any thoughts on why the interpretation I layed out in the OP is wrong? 

[ravenous reader]

On 10/20/2016 at 6:01 PM, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

So you think Bran is seeing Jon after the stabbing in this vision?

Yes, I'm tending towards that interpretation, because I see evidence of skewed time relations in the so-called 'coma dream' and the 'poetry' of the language GRRM is using for Jon strongly intimates death, with possible wight/Walker overtones.

Although not everyone agrees with me, I even find it suspect that GRRM included the detail that Robb appears older ('taller and stronger') than Bran remembers him, which I think is a subtle marker of 'fast-forward' time projection, but of course can be interpreted figuratively (Robb assuming his position as Lord of Winterfell) or justified imaginatively (using speculations as to the extended length of time Bran would have been in the coma during which time Robb may have undergone an adolescent growth spurt!).

That doesn't mean, however, that your interpretation is 'wrong.'  I enjoyed your analysis with reference to the text.

On 10/20/2016 at 8:51 PM, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

Any thoughts on why the interpretation I layed out in the OP is wrong? 

It's not wrong.  I just don't think it can be proved either way.  The beauty of a dream, prophecy or foreshadowing is how metaphor bleeds into matter, story into history, desire into memory.  I've been looking at many of Patchface's 'evil ditties' lately and enjoying doing so for just that reason -- there is no conclusive answer!

On 10/20/2016 at 6:15 PM, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

Short summary: (quotes from GoT are in OP). Jon considers himself alone several times despite Ghost being with him. [indeed, it might refer to a psychological state secondary to the shock of having landed at the Wall after having been effectively ousted by the Starks from Winterfell, prompting Jon to question his identity] There are also quotes which talk about Jon forgetting what it was like to be warm (memory of warmth fleeing). [ditto] Also, the wall color. It is white when Jon is stabbed. [artistic license?  there's also the blue flower growing from the chink in the Wall which most people associate with Jon; a 'shining blue crystal' unavoidably evokes the blue sapphire/star eyes of the Others/wights] And in Bran's vision Jon is in a bed. I don't recall there being beds in the ice cells. [fair enough...when someone is incapacitated, sick or dying, they usually need to be laid out on some sort of horizontal surface or platform which may be misconstrued as a 'bed']

What about Jon's skin growing 'pale' and 'hard'?  How do you account for that?

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

7 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Yes, I'm tending towards that interpretation, because I see evidence of skewed time relations in the so-called 'coma dream' and the 'poetry' of the language GRRM is using for Jon strongly intimates death, with possible wight/Walker overtones.

Although not everyone agrees with me, I even find it suspect that GRRM included the detail that Robb appears older ('taller and stronger') than Bran remembers him, which I think is a subtle marker of 'fast-forward' time projection, but of course can be interpreted figuratively (Robb assuming his position as Lord of Winterfell) or justified imaginatively (using speculations as to the extended length of time Bran would have been in the coma during which time Robb may have undergone an adolescent growth spurt!).

That doesn't mean, however, that your interpretation is 'wrong.'  I enjoyed your analysis with reference to the text.

It's not wrong.  I just don't think it can be proved either way.  The beauty of a dream, prophecy or foreshadowing is how metaphor bleeds into matter, story into history, desire into memory.  I've been looking at many of Patchface's 'evil ditties' lately and enjoying doing so for just that reason -- there is no conclusive answer!

What about Jon's skin growing 'pale' and 'hard'?  How do you account for that?

I'm glad you brought up growing pale and hard. His skin is literally growing pale because he will always be layered up at the wall. No sun will be touching his body bow. Hard because he is getting tougher, both physically and mentally. I go back to my quote earlier: 

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If he must be alone, he would make solitude his armor.

About the wall coloring. Bran's quote says nothing about a flower. He is talking about the wall color, which is the same color as it is in the chapter I reference from Jon. What do you mean artistic license? How do you account for the wall being "dull white" during the stabbing?

If the vision was about the stabbibg, Jon's skin wouldn't be "growing" pale if he was already asleep in a bed. It would already be pale.

Just "ditto" on how closely these quotes relate to Bran's words?

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as the memory of all warmth fled from him.

Then from Jon:

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The chill was always with him here. In a few years he would forget what it felt like to be warm.

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So cold, he thought, remembering the warm halls of Winterfell, where the hot waters ran through the walls like blood through a man’s body. There was scant warmth to be found in Castle Black; the walls were cold here, and the people colder.

 

I also think it is significant that the Cat, Ned, Sansa, Arya, and Robb (we can discuss this interpretation in a different thread) visions are all about recent events. Jon's is different? 

I'm having a lot of fun discussing this with you. Always good to debate the visions, dreams, and prophecies!

[chrisdaw]

It is the nature of the passages that anything real time is going to be prophetic, because he's hitting key points that are going to persist through the series. Arya will hold her secrets hard in her heart, Sansa will not find happiness in her bed and his time at the wall will turn Jon hard and cold hearted.

[Lost Melnibonean]

46 minutes ago, chrisdaw said:

It is the nature of the passages that anything real time is going to be prophetic, because he's hitting key points that are going to persist through the series. Arya will hold her secrets hard in her heart, Sansa will not find happiness in her bed and his time at the wall will turn Jon hard and cold hearted.

Good points. 

[ravenous reader]

6 hours ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

Hard because he is getting tougher, both physically and mentally

That's a good example of the textual ambiguity I was discussing earlier.  As I mentioned, the way in which GRRM constructs his nested meanings 'literal bleeds into figurative' and vice versa...so there's leeway for some readers to emphasize the former, weighting a more literal interpretation vs. others who might be more attracted to the latter, opting for a more figurative interpretation.  In this particular instance, you're choosing a more figurative approach to Jon's skin growing hard and pale, interpreting the hardening as Jon 'developing a thick skin' or  figuratively 'armoring' himself against a hostile world (a bit like Sansa learning to make courtesy her armor):

6 hours ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

Quote

If he must be alone, he would make solitude his armor.

On the other hand, there's still room in the text to interpret skin growing pale and hard literally.  Apart from the 'hardening' perhaps referring to the dead body slowly freezing in the cold like a piece of meat placed in a freezer, perhaps the hardening of the tissues is simply rigor mortis setting in:

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Once the contracting of all the body's muscles has taken place this state of Rigor - technically referred to as the Rigid Stage - normally lasts anything from eight to twelve hours after which time the body is completely stiff; this fixed state lasts for up to another eighteen hours.

Contrary to common perception the process of Rigor Mortis actually does reverse and the body returns to a flaccid state; the muscles losing their tightness in the reverse of how they gained it: i.e.: those larger muscles that contracted last will lose their stiffness first and return to their pre-Rigor condition.

Rigor Mortis is a good means of indicating time of death as is normally visible within the first thirty-six to forty-eight hours after death; after which it leaves the body.

If Jon is magically resurrected somehow, then there might be an additional dimension and accompanying time framework to the hardening besides the normal progression of biological rigor mortis!  

It's interesting that you prefer highlighting the figurative when it comes to the qualities of Jon's skin, however you are very literal when it comes to the qualities of the Wall!  (in my interpretation, I'm doing the exact opposite to you...)

6 hours ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

About the wall coloring. Bran's quote says nothing about a flower. He is talking about the wall color, which is the same color as it is in the chapter I reference from Jon. What do you mean artistic license? How do you account for the wall being "dull white" during the stabbing?

As I explained above, there is an extended window during which the body may harden after death, not taking into account any hardening which may supervene due to freezing, so it's possible in the hours that may have elapsed that 'the moods of the Wall' may have shifted, depending on atmospheric conditions.  Sometimes rapid shifts in color and reflection are possible, as noted here:

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A Clash of Kings - Jon I

Sam squinted up at the Wall. It loomed above them, an icy cliff seven hundred feet high. Sometimes it seemed to Jon almost a living thing, with moods of its own. The color of the ice was wont to change with every shift of the light. Now it was the deep blue of frozen rivers, now the dirty white of old snow, and when a cloud passed before the sun it darkened to the pale grey of pitted stone.

 

A Storm of Swords - Bran IV

Bran raised his head to look up at the Wall, and imagined himself climbing inch by inch, squirming his fingers into cracks in the ice and kicking footholds with his toes. That made him smile in spite of everything, the dreams and the wildlings and Jon and everything. He had climbed the walls of Winterfell when he was little, and all the towers too, but none of them had been so high, and they were only stone. The Wall could look like stone, all grey and pitted, but then the clouds would break and the sun would hit it differently, and all at once it would transform, and stand there white and blue and glittering. It was the end of the world, Old Nan always said. On the other side were monsters and giants and ghouls, but they could not pass so long as the Wall stood strong. I want to stand on top with Meera, Bran thought. I want to stand on top and see.

 

A Dance with Dragons - Jon XI

Outside the day was bright and cloudless. The sun had returned to the sky after a fortnight's absence, and to the south the Wall rose blue-white and glittering. There was a saying Jon had heard from the older men at Castle Black: the Wall has more moods than Mad King Aerys, they'd say, or sometimes, theWall has more moods than a woman. On cloudy days it looked to be white rock. On moonless nights it was as black as coal. In snowstorms it seemed carved of snow. But on days like this, there was no mistaking it for anything but ice. On days like this the Wall shimmered bright as a septon's crystal, every crack and crevasse limned by sunlight, as frozen rainbows danced and died behind translucent ripples. On days like this the Wall was beautiful.

 

A Dance with Dragons - Jon VII

The sun had broken through near midday, after seven days of dark skies and snow flurries. Some of the drifts were higher than a man, but the stewards had been shoveling all day and the paths were as clean as they were like to get. Reflections glimmered off the Wall, every crack and crevice glittering pale blue.

 Anyway, I appear to have interpreted the body literally and the wall metaphorically!  As such, I am taking the shining blue crystal as a marker for magic, death and the supernatural, including 'wightification' and 'Otherization':

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A Game of Thrones - Prologue

The wind had stopped. It was very cold.

The Other slid forward on silent feet. In its hand was a longsword like none that Will had ever seen. No human metal had gone into the forging of that blade. It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystal so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on. There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor.

 

A Game of Thrones - Bran III

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. [the color blue in conjunction with ice is frequently associated with death; another example below:]

 

A Dance with Dragons - Theon I

The doors of the Great Hall opened with a crash.

A cold wind came swirling through, and a cloud of ice crystals sparkled blue-white in the air. Through it strode Ser Hosteen Frey, caked with snow to the waist, a body in his arms. All along the benches men put down their cups and spoons to turn and gape at the grisly spectacle. The hall grew quiet.

Another murder.

 

A Storm of Swords - Bran IV

The gathering gloom put Bran in mind of another of Old Nan's stories, the tale of Night's King. He had been the thirteenth man to lead the Night's Watch, she said; a warrior who knew no fear. "And that was the fault in him," she would add, "for all men must know fear." A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. [pale skin + glittering blue crystal] Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well.

 

A Feast for Crows - The Reaver

On the dais, Euron pushed aside his slattern and climbed upon the table. The captains began to bang their cups and stamp their feet upon the floor. "EURON!" they shouted. "EURON! EURON! EURON!" It was kingsmoot come again.

"I swore to give you Westeros," the Crow's Eye said when the tumult died away, "and here is your first taste. A morsel, nothing more . . . but we shall feast before the fall of night!" The torches along the walls were burning bright, and so was he, blue lips, blue eye, and all. 

 

A Dance with Dragons - Jon V

You know the foe we face. You know what's coming down on us. Some of you have faced them before. Wights and white walkers, dead things with blue eyes and black hands. I've seen them too, fought them, sent one to hell. They kill, then they send your dead against you. 

 

A Dance with Dragons - Jon XI

Jon had to laugh. "You never change."

"Oh, I do." The grin melted away like snow in summer. "I am not the man I was at Ruddy Hall. Seen too much death, and worse things too. My sons …" Grief twisted Tormund's face. "Dormund was cut down in the battle for the Wall, and him still half a boy. One o' your king's knights did for him, some bastard all in grey steel with moths upon his shield. I saw the cut, but my boy was dead before I reached him. And Torwynd … it was the cold claimed him. Always sickly, that one. He just up and died one night. The worst o' it, before we ever knew he'd died he rose pale with them blue eyes. [pale + blue eyes] Had to see to him m'self. That was hard, Jon." Tears shone in his eyes. "He wasn't much of a man, truth be told, but he'd been me little boy once, and I loved him."

Jon put a hand on his shoulder. "I am so sorry."  [I disagree by the way with @chrisdaw that Jon becomes hard-hearted or cold-hearted.  On the contrary, despite everything thrown at him he retains his kindness, empathy, warmth, even a sense of humor, and his ability to make friends and win the loyalty of those in unlikely places by reaching out to others around him]

 

A Game of Thrones - Jon VII

The hooded man lifted his pale moon face, and Jon slashed at it without hesitation. The sword laid the intruder open to the bone, taking off half his nose and opening a gash cheek to cheek under those eyes, eyes, eyes like blue stars burning. Jon knew that face. Othor, he thought, reeling back. Gods, he's dead, he's dead, I saw him dead.

 

A Clash of Kings - Jon III

"What color are their eyes?" he asked her.

"Blue. As bright as blue stars, and as cold."

 

A Storm of Swords - Samwell I

"The others are too steep," Mormont said. "We have—"

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. The bear was dead, pale and rotting, its fur and skin all sloughed off and half its right arm burned to bone, yet still it came on. Only its eyes lived. Bright blue, just as Jon said. They shone like frozen stars. 

 

A Game of Thrones - Jon VII

"Aye," muttered Dywen, the old forester. "Belike the axe that Othor carried, m'lord."

Jon could feel his breakfast churning in his belly, but he pressed his lips together and made himself look at the second body. Othor had been a big ugly man, and he made a big ugly corpse. No axe was in evidence. Jon remembered Othor; he had been the one bellowing the bawdy song as the rangers rode out. His singing days were done. His flesh was blanched white as milk, everywhere but his hands. His hands were black like Jafer's. Blossoms of hard cracked blood decorated the mortal wounds that covered him like a rash, breast and groin and throat. Yet his eyes were still open. They stared up at the sky, blue as sapphires. [again the combination of pale flesh with crystal blue, here likened to sapphires (which are shining gem crystals)...so 'sapphires' too are a marker of magic, the supernatural, death/'undead']

 

A Game of Thrones - Bran VII

"There was a knight once who couldn't see," Bran said stubbornly, as Ser Rodrik went on below. "Old Nan told me about him. He had a long staff with blades at both ends and he could spin it in his hands and chop two men at once."

"Symeon Star-Eyes," Luwin said as he marked numbers in a book. "When he lost his eyes, he put star sapphires in the empty sockets, or so the singers claim. Bran, that is only a story, like the tales of Florian the Fool. A fable from the Age of Heroes." The maester tsked. "You must put these dreams aside, they will only break your heart."

The mention of dreams reminded him.  "I dreamed about the crow again last night. The one with three eyes. He flew into my bedchamber and told me to come with him, so I did. We went down to the crypts. Father was there, and we talked. He was sad." [this is interesting; notice how talk of Symeon Star-Eyes with star sapphires for eyes segues into talk about the crow with three eyes, thereby associating the magical eyes of the two!   @Wizz-The-Smith has also pointed out how sapphires are associated with the 'third eye' chakra in 'real-world' mythologies.  I think Symeon was likely a greenseer like the three-eyed crow; maybe he was even a former Night's Watchman=crow]

 

A Game of Thrones - Bran III

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. Bran looked down. There was nothing below him now but snow and cold and death, a frozen wasteland where jagged blue-white spires of ice waited to embrace him. They flew up at him like spears. He saw the bones of a thousand other dreamers impaled upon their points. He was desperately afraid.

 

6 hours ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

How do you account for the wall being "dull white" during the stabbing?

It wasn't dull white during the stabbing.  It had been dull white earlier, presaging snow.  I believe the prevailing conditions were referred to as a 'snow sky.'  The stabbing itself took place later at night, so the Wall should've been black at that point, not dull white.  On moonless nights, it's been said to appear 'black as coal.'

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Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger’s hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. “Ghost,” he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold …

However, given the 12-48-hour window I've discussed, we can't rule out that the sun could've risen in the interim changing the Wall's color while Jon's body is lying in storage somewhere.  

6 hours ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

the same color as it is in the chapter I reference from Jon.

Is it?  That works well in support of your theory!  Still, given the well-recognized shifting 'moods' of the weather and the Wall, I don't think you can definitively rule out other possibilities, not to mention the figurative avenues one might pursue.

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What do you mean artistic license?

Sorry if I didn't make myself clear.  I was referring to how GRRM plays with multiple figurative and literal meanings simultaneously.  For example, I think the theory of the 'hooded man' as Theon himself would be an example of 'artistic license,' which cannot be explained rationally with reference to any 'real-world' logic (people do not slip in and out of psychosis that rapidly from one moment to the next).  Rather, it's intended to say something about Theon's conflicted psychological state and narrative trajectory.  In the context of the coma dream, an example of 'artistic license' would be the shifting light conditions which do not correspond to any logical pattern if the dream is occurring in 'real time':  namely, first it's daylight starting with Winterfell and Robb; then abruptly night with Sansa and then Jon seen sleeping; then suddenly further north a 'curtain of light'-- doesn't really make sense unless something magical is transpiring.  Can you explain using a solely literal interpretation why Jon is 'sleeping' during the day (sunny daylight conditions would have to be prevailing at the time he is 'sleeping' if the wall is ablaze like a blue crystal)?  And where is Ghost? Ghost's absence can't be discounted.  Shortly before, we're told Sansa is crying herself to sleep 'at night,' so if this 'flight' is nothing more than a quick surveillance tour of the kingdoms, then logically it should also be nighttime at the Wall, and the Wall should be dark black not bright blue.   I suppose you might argue the Wall is bathed in moonlight...or that Jon is resting during the day following night-duty...You see there are a multitude of different ways to explain things!  

In any case, the time of day at Winterfell does not correspond with that further south or even further north. 

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If the vision was about the stabbing, Jon's skin wouldn't be "growing" pale if he was already asleep in a bed. It would already be pale.

Like the process of rigor mortis, the process of post-mortem circulatory settling and livedo takes time (the following from the same article referenced above):

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Lividity is the process through which the body's blood supply will stop moving after the heart has stopped pumping it around the inside of the deceased. What normally happens at this point is that the blood supply - or at least any blood that remains within the corpse depending on the nature of their death - will settle in direct response to gravity. For example an individual found lying on their stomach would be found with all the blood from their back heading towards the ground. Lividity also displays itself as a dark purple discolouration of the body and can also be referred to as Livor Mortis or Post Mortem Hypostasis.

Any part of the body which has come into contact with a firm surface for a period of time - such as a floor or bench top - will show signs of this during lividity as this impression against the skin displays itself as an indentation surrounded by gravity-pulled blood.

It is worth noting that lividity begins to work through the deceased within thirty minutes of their heart stopping and can last up to twelve hours. 

Therefore, some parts of the body will become paler as the blood drains away from them in response to gravity, while others will become dusky due to blood pooling and settling with gravity and pressure.

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Just "ditto" on how closely these quotes relate to Bran's words?

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as the memory of all warmth fled from him.

Good quote!  By 'ditto' I meant to imply, as I'd indicated in my immediately preceding statement, that a psychological interpretation as you've done is entirely valid to explain Jon's experience of 'coldness', as it is for the observation that Jon is 'alone' and even the 'hard skin.'  Another way of looking at the similarity of Jon's and Bran's words is that it's foreshadowing of Jon's death, although he may not have literally died yet in the vision nor in reality.  After all, Jon's last thought following his stabbing is about the cold: 'He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold …' (ADWD-Jon XIII).

Apart from the description of Jon as 'cold- or hard-hearted,' I agree with this:

5 hours ago, chrisdaw said:

It is the nature of the passages that anything real time is going to be prophetic, because he's hitting key points that are going to persist through the series. Arya will hold her secrets hard in her heart, Sansa will not find happiness in her bed and his time at the wall will turn Jon hard and cold hearted.

Although, as I've argued above, I don't agree that Jon becomes hard- or cold-hearted, one might make a connection to Lady Stoneheart and thereby to Jon as another potential petrified 'undead' figure to emerge in future.  

Who is the lover Dany's dreaming about here -- Jon?  Euron?  Another? ('an Other?!)...

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A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys VII

Hizdahr will bring me peace. He must.

That night her cooks roasted her a kid with dates and carrots, but Dany could only eat a bite of it. The prospect of wrestling with Meereen once more left her feeling weary. Sleep came hard, even when Daario came back, so drunk that he could hardly stand. Beneath her coverlets she tossed and turned, dreaming that Hizdahr was kissing her … but his lips were blue and bruised, and when he thrust himself inside her, his manhood was cold as ice. She sat up with her hair disheveled and the bedclothes atangle. Her captain slept beside her, yet she was alone. She wanted to shake him, wake him, make him hold her, fuck her, help her forget, but she knew that if she did, he would only smile and yawn and say, "It was just a dream, my queen. Go back to sleep."

 

6 hours ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

Then from Jon:

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The chill was always with him here. In a few years he would forget what it felt like to be warm.

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So cold, he thought, remembering the warm halls of Winterfell, where the hot waters ran through the walls like blood through a man’s body. There was scant warmth to be found in Castle Black; the walls were cold here, and the people colder.

This one could be a fascinating bit of foreshadowing, particularly when filtered through the perspective of what happens to the circulation of a wight, as described in detail by Sam (see quote below).  If Winterfell is like the body of a man with the hot water circulating though the walls like blood, and if Jon is compared figuratively to Winterfell, then the depletion of ones bodily warmth culminating in death would be characterised by the cessation of the circulation and redistribution of blood.  One thing that differentiates wights physiologically from living men is the absence of any circulation, as Sam's amateur forensic analysis correctly deduced.  Their blood is described as hard, black dust; nor do they rot as normal bodies do.  This is another way in which their bodies magically harden or crystallise into something closer to the 'mineral' rather than 'animal' or 'vegetable'.  Moreover, on more than one occasion they are described as being hard as 'iron' ('the wight did not so much as blink. A black hand fumbled at his face, another at his belly. Its fingers felt like iron'--ADWD-Bran II).  Strange that they should be compared to 'iron' when they are supposed to fear iron!  They have black hands like black iron swords.  Perhaps becoming a wight is like forging a sword, which can only be taken out of action by burning and therefore symbolically smelting it down!

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AGOT-Jon VII

Sam edged past Jon and the garrons, sweating profusely. "My lord, it . . . it can't be a day or . . . look . . . the blood ..."

"Yes?" Mormont growled impatiently. "Blood, what of it?"

 "He soils his smallclothes at the sight of it," Chett shouted out, and the rangers laughed.
 

Sam mopped at the sweat on his brow. "You . . . you can see where Ghost . . . Jon's direwolf . . . you can see where he tore off that man's hand, and yet . . . the stump hasn't bled, look . . . " He waved a hand. "My father . . . L-lord Randyll, he, he made me watch him dress animals sometimes, when . . . after . . . " Sam shook his head from side to side, his chins quivering. Now that he had looked at the bodies, he could not seem to look away. "A fresh kill . . . the blood would still flow, my lords. Later . . . later it would be clotted, like a . . . a jelly, thick and . . . and . . . " He looked as though he was going to be sick. "This man . . . look at the wrist, it's all . . . crusty . . . dry . . . like . . . "

Jon saw at once what Sam meant. He could see the torn veins in the dead man's wrist, iron worms in the pale flesh. His blood was a black dust. Yet Jaremy Rykker was unconvinced. "If they'd been dead much longer than a day, they'd be ripe by now, boy. They don't even smell."

Dywen, the gnarled old forester who liked to boast that he could smell snow coming on, sidled closer to the corpses and took a whiff. "Well, they're no pansy flowers, but . . . m'lord has the truth of it. There's no corpse stink."

"They . . . they aren't rotting." Sam pointed, his fat finger shaking only a little. "Look, there's . . . there's no maggots or . . . or . . . worms or anything . . . they've been lying here in the woods, but they . . . they haven't been chewed or eaten by animals . . . only Ghost . . . otherwise they're . . . they're . . . "

"Untouched," Jon said softly. "And Ghost is different. The dogs and the horses won't go near them."

 The rangers exchanged glances; they could see it was true, every man of them. Mormont frowned, glancing from the corpses to the dogs. "Chett, bring the hounds closer."
 Chett tried, cursing, yanking on the leashes, giving one animal a lick of his boot. Most of the dogs just whimpered and planted their feet. He tried dragging one. The bitch resisted, growling and squirming as if to escape her collar. Finally she lunged at him. Chett dropped the leash and stumbled backward. The dog leapt over him and bounded off into the trees.

"This . . . this is all wrong," Sam Tarly said earnestly. "The blood . . . there's bloodstains on their clothes, and . . . and their flesh, dry and hard, but . . . there's none on the ground, or . . . anywhere. With those . . . those . . . those . . . " Sam made himself swallow, took a deep breath. "With those wounds . . . terrible wounds . . . there should be blood all over. Shouldn't there?"

Dywen sucked at his wooden teeth. "Might be they didn't die here. Might be someone brought 'em and left 'em for us. A warning, as like." The old forester peered down suspiciously. "And might be I'm a fool, but I don't know that Othor never had no blue eyes afore."

Ser Jaremy looked startled. "Neither did Flowers," he blurted, turning to stare at the dead man.

A silence fell over the wood.

'Othor' has been transformed into a wight, a kind of 'Other' (pun on his name).  GRRM links 'Flowers' with death and crystal-blue eyes, so blue flowers of winter (like the one Dany sees growing in the chink of the Wall presumably signifying Jon, or the wreath given to Lyanna at the Tourney) are associated with death.

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard X

"And now it begins," said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light. [compare to the sword of the Other in the prologue]

"No," Ned said with sadness in his voice. "Now it ends." As they came together in a rush of steel and shadow, he could hear Lyanna screaming. "Eddard!" she called. A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death.

'And now it begins...now it ends'-- Jon's birth attendant with Lyanna's and Arthur's deaths.  Jon's life has always been marked by death.  It hangs over him like a shadow.

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I also think it is significant that the Cat, Ned, Sansa, Arya, and Robb (we can discuss this interpretation in a different thread) visions are all about recent events. Jon's is different? 

That's a good point.  However, as other readers have highlighted, nor is prophetic significance necessarily ruled out in the case of any of the others seen in Bran's visions. Perhaps one way of thinking about it is as the intersection of present and future, in line with how I described Bran's present and future intersecting when he makes eye-contact with whom I believe to be his 'future self' in the weirwood tree.  

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I'm having a lot of fun discussing this with you. Always good to debate the visions, dreams, and prophecies!

'Ditto' .

ETA: looking through some of the quotes I provided surrounding the significance of the 'shining blue crystal', I noticed that there could be a wordplay on 'blue rose' or 'rose blue' whereby rose could refer both to a noun, namely flower, as well as to a verb, namely referring to the dead rising.  Another example of GRRM's verbal equivocation!

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

@ravenous reader

Awesome post as usual. I look forward to responding later when I have more time.

[Schwarze Sonne]

If Bran's vision is supposed to be real time and not past-present-future then what about the dragons in the Shadow Lands he saw flying in his vision? Could it mean that dragon still existed in the world before Daenerys hatched those three? But GRRM said in his SSM that dragons came back to the world for the first time in 200 years. Unless he meant the known world, not the lands beyond.

[Julia H.]

Great OP! I have always leaned towards the interpretation that the vision is about the present (a general present, not that very moment) for the same reasons you mention, except that I haven't noticed the similarity in the color of the Wall. Nice observation!

I would like to add two things. Why is Ghost not with Jon?  If the vision describes the loneliness that Jon feels, then we have an explanation in ADwD: 

"Ghost did not count. Ghost was closer than a friend. Ghost was part of him."

The other observation is about "pale and hard". It does have associations with death and even with the Others. However, the men of the Night's Watch are described by Jon as "hard, cold men", and the whole idea of joining the NW can be compared to a symbolic sort of death in many ways, therefore the description can be interpreted as Jon becoming a man of the NW, one of the hard, cold men, who are dead to the world so that other people can live. Sleeping can also be associated with death, but it's not death itself, only a symbol. The men of the NW (including Jon) are symbolically dead, not literally.

I agree that other interpretations are also possible. It is just that all the visions seem to describe contemporary situations with some premonotion, and this one can also be interpreted as contemporary, so I don't see the need to do otherwise. 

I love the idea that the giant is LF!  It makes a lot of sense. Alternatively, it could also be the shadow called "power",  empty inside but lethal.  

A very good thread with lots of wonderful ideas and excellent posts.