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The Horn of Winter was never made to make the wall fall...


Ser Harly of Southwell

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On 11/28/2016 at 3:46 PM, GyantSpyder said:

A weir is one of two things:

  1. A kind of dam that lets the water level rise until it reaches a certain point, but then discharges the water slowly at a predictable rate to prevent flooding.
  2. A wooden construction (an enclosure, a bunch of stakes, there are a few ways to build them) that helps trap fish to make a particular spot on a river good for fishing.

The weirwoods and the worship of the Old Gods, with its human sacrifice, might be seen as a form of "regulation" of the human population, which otherwise might "flood" and overwhelm the Children of the Forest (or some other entity that is responsible for the weirwoods, like a mysterious magical presence deep in the bowels of the earth or something).

Or it could even be a ecological thing happening rather than a war of species, where somebody on this world knows that an excess of humans and of human technology (and perhaps of dragons and dragon-related magic, like Valyria), could create environmental disaster (like the Red Waste).

The unknowing humans caught in the weir like fish could also be a source of food for the magical part of this whole shebang that drinks human blood. Because we know somebody is doing it. Blood is magical and all that.

Since we know they have powers related to the mind, and to dreams, and of course they have a religion that exerts an unclear amount of influence over human behavior, they might be checking human technological development in a similar way that they check population - keeping the human population manageable, controllable, and incapable of mounting any real resistance to whoever is actually in charge here, whether it's the Children of the Forest, the Others, or somebody else (perhaps some mysterious puppet master presence deep in the caves beneath the earth). Perhaps they reduce the enthusiasm for technological progress in some way - perhaps if technological progress gets above a certain point, they discharge the excess humanity in some way to get it back to manageable levels (Maybe that's the Others? That doesn't quite feel right, but it's a thought.).

But yeah, the point is that weirs don't block, but weirs are an obstacle. They control progress and regulate the intensity of something dangerous, and they keep living things that don't know they are being kept, for the harvest.

To go by the etymology, weirwood could mean "Tree of Damming Up," "Tree of Fencing In," "Protector Tree," or "Tree of Defense."

Basically it means Westeros when the Andals or the R'hl'orr'ites aren't making a concerted effort to go around chopping down or burning all the weirwoods, is a sort of human farm, fishing hole or hunting preserve, except the humans are not the fishers or hunters, they are the wildlife being managed at a predictable level by some other intelligence.

Discovered this the other day.  Probably the best thread to put this here. 

Another name for a weir in the bolded text's sense is ...a garth! 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_weir

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7 hours ago, Isobel Harper said:

Discovered this the other day.  Probably the best thread to put this here. 

Another name for a weir in the bolded text's sense is ...a garth! 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_weir

WTF ---- !!!

Mind = blown

I mean I was already onto the connection between Garth and greenseers and horned lords, but... damn, son. Nice find, I'll have to hat tip you when I use that one. And use it I shall. 

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2 hours ago, LmL said:

WTF ---- !!!

Mind = blown

I mean I was already onto the connection between Garth and greenseers and horned lords, but... damn, son. Nice find, I'll have to hat tip you when I use that one. And use it I shall. 

 I read your essay and it's splendid.  You've covered the various possibilities for Jon's resurrection thoroughly and I enjoyed reading it.  Of course my favorites bits were about Coldhands; because who doesn't want to know more about him? I've also toyed with the idea that Coldhands is the Night's King first hero and provides the template for what lies in store for Jon.  So nicely done and very intriguing! 

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16 minutes ago, LynnS said:

 I read your essay and it's splendid.  You've covered the various possibilities for Jon's resurrection thoroughly and I enjoyed reading it.  Of course my favorites bits were about Coldhands; because who doesn't want to know more about him? I've also toyed with the idea that Coldhands is the Night's King first hero and provides the template for what lies in store for Jon.  So nicely done and very intriguing! 

Sweet, glad you liked it! I love Coldhands too and I have had these ideas formulating for a long time, just thinking about it form the perspective of zombies and skinchangers and enduring the Cold, but when I started writing this I really caught a hold of the way zombies are placed in the corn king cycle, and then you can really start to see who Coldhands might be. 

As for the LH and the NK and AA and all the rest... we will probably never know how many different people make up this combined legend. We see a bunch of people in the story doing AA and LH things, so it was probably the same last time. I try to avoid getting too specific adopt instead for presenting a range of options. Leaves something for other people to do with my stuff, take the ball and run so to speak. :) 

I have a follow up (or two) coming that will talk about the King of Winter and the Night's Watch. Thanks again for checking it out! 

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This might just be insomniac ravings, but the Horn of Winter might not have destroyed the Wall, it might have been a factor in its creation.  Despite Mance amusing that the Horn destroys the Wall, we are only told that the horn 'woke the giants' when Joramun blew the horn.  The time line fits if the theory if the thirteenth LC is actually the Last Hero is correct.  The theory basically states that the Last Hero honored his twelve fallen comrades by taking up the mantle of thirteenth LC instead of the first LC, naming his fallen comrades as his predecessor.  

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On 11/30/2016 at 11:35 AM, LmL said:

I could go on but I wrote a whole essay (or two) about these ideas. @ravenous reader, my "picking up your green sea / greener baton" essay is coming, but I got caught up writing about skinchanger zombies and green men - and actually getting these ideas out first will make the green sea essay easier to present. This is the heart of the burning greenseer idea, I believe. Essentially, the idea of a zombie last hero is George's version the resurrected corn king / horned god / green man folklore. Instead of a freshly reborn corn king in the spring, we get a resurrected zombie corn king in the winter, fighting to bring the spring. The winter is the death phase of the corn king cycle, and so the King of Winter is a dead green man. It's pretty cool stuff, i think you will certainly dig it. I did one episode already, with a full expose on the King of Winter coming in a couple days. 

https://lucifermeanslightbringer.com/2016/11/28/the-sacred-order-of-green-zombies-the-last-hero/

I read your essay LmL.  I love the twist GRRM is bringing of a zombie hero to save us from the apocalypse, instead of a hero to save us from the zombie apocalypse!  Those are the turns of phrase that leap off the page and get seared in the mind, making your writing so great!

I have one question that's been niggling me lately:  so if Jon is the King of Winter fighting for the spring, does that still leave room for Bran as King of Summer and how do you see that relationship playing out in mytho-symbolic terms?

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19 hours ago, LmL said:

WTF ---- !!!

Mind = blown

I mean I was already onto the connection between Garth and greenseers and horned lords, but... damn, son. Nice find, I'll have to hat tip you when I use that one. And use it I shall.

Awesome!  By the way, I just listened to your latest podcast yesterday.  As always, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  

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4 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

I read your essay LmL.  I love the twist GRRM is bringing of a zombie hero to save us from the apocalypse, instead of a hero to save us from the zombie apocalypse!  Those are the turns of phrase that leap off the page and get seared in the mind, making your writing so great!

I have one question that's been niggling me lately:  so if Jon is the King of Winter fighting for the spring, does that still leave room for Bran as King of Summer and how do you see that relationship playing out in mytho-symbolic terms?

Well, that's a good question (thanks for the kind words btw and glad you enjoyed it). It may be that Jon will be concerned with ending the Long Night and Bran will have more to do with establishing the future of the Starks? Jon may eventually die for good and all to achieve victory, while perhaps Bran inhabits the WF godswood and shapes the course of future Starks. Of perhaps Bran the Broken actually gets to be the lord, ruling from his litter or palanquin or whatever. 

 The first question is what happens to our immortals skin changer zombie heroes – after they are done with their job, do they stick around?  Someone suggested to me the other day that perhaps the nights king is a story like this, perhaps he is one of those skinchanger zombie heroes who didn't want to exit stage left.  

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4 hours ago, Isobel Harper said:

Awesome!  By the way, I just listened to your latest podcast yesterday.  As always, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  

I'd like to think my take on zombies was more entertaining than that choosing which victim shall get bashed with a barbed wire baseball batt. =P

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You're doing a great job with Mythical Astronomy, I just wanted to thank you in my own name and of your fans from the Ogień i Lód forums in Poland ;)

Sacred Order of Green Zombies has very nice atmosphere, especially now, just before Yule/Christmas and Winter Solistice.  Your essays show how great GRRM is, but also highlight the importance of symbolism and mythology - this helped me a lot in my own writing.

Once again, Huuuuge THANK YOU and Merry Christmas, or should I say Happy Yuletide?

 

Another thing: Do you think that house of Euron's mother (Sunderly) is another hint that he is in fact a new Bloodstone Emperor, the Solar would-be god?

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17 hours ago, Blue Tiger said:

You're doing a great job with Mythical Astronomy, I just wanted to thank you in my own name and of your fans from the Ogień i Lód forums in Poland ;)

Sacred Order of Green Zombies has very nice atmosphere, especially now, just before Yule/Christmas and Winter Solistice.  Your essays show how great GRRM is, but also highlight the importance of symbolism and mythology - this helped me a lot in my own writing.

Once again, Huuuuge THANK YOU and Merry Christmas, or should I say Happy Yuletide?

 

Another thing: Do you think that house of Euron's mother (Sunderly) is another hint that he is in fact a new Bloodstone Emperor, the Solar would-be god?

I see the hits coming from your site all the time my man! You know, sometime we should set up a translated chat, or perhaps you can collect a few questions and translate them to me, something like that. I wish I could drop in and chat but... My Polish, it's dreadful. :)

And yes! The timing. :) Ho ho ho! I know, I know, oh ho ho!

Not sure if the Sunderly is meant as a solar clue or not, but we have plenty of symbolism to tie Euron to the Bloodstone Emperor, so that's not a problem. I took it more as a symbol of the drowned moon mother of AA reborn, due to the drowned man sigil of Sunderly. 

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On 12/3/2016 at 9:37 AM, Blue Tiger said:

Sacred Order of Green Zombies has very nice atmosphere, especially now, just before Yule/Christmas and Winter Solistice.  

 

9 hours ago, LmL said:

Ho ho ho! I know, I know, oh ho ho!

Funny that you should mention it, @Pain killer Jane and I were recently discussing Patchface's 'oh oh oh' which I had highlighted as significant being the triplet (GRRM's favorite number is magical number 3) punctuating almost all of his diabolic prophetic ditties, with PK Jane pointing out that this when reversed can be 'ho ho ho' -- can't believe I missed that!

I find this mirror inversion of letters very clever of GRRM, since Patchface is the representative of an inverted world of sorts -- the underworld, i.e. 'under the sea/see' -- in which topsy-turvy inverse relations apply, e.g. under the sea crows are white not black;  the old eat the young, not vice versa; one falls up not down as expected, etc., so it makes sense (or 'non-sense', depending on one's perspective...) that Santa's 'ho ho ho' would become translated as Patchface's 'oh oh oh'!  (P.S. in light of your latest 'inversion' essay @Feather Crystal you might enjoy that tidbit-- thus, GRRM's inversions can be found not only at the macro- but at the micro- level, down to wordplays at the level of syllables!).

In line with the latest permutation of @LmL's thesis, PK Jane explained that with his antler helm and jingle bells Patchface could be a representation of Santa Claus who is an aspect of the Holly King and considered to be a green man/horned Lord.  The horned god, basically a masculine fertility and solar deity, is reborn in fire on the Winter Solstice or Yule (represented by the burning of the yule log, a 'Christmas tree' analog) and is additionally associated with the figure leading the 'wild hunt,' of which Santa's unruly progression through the sky with his entourage of reindeer and elfin helpers can be thought of as a variation:

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Wikipedia:

The Wild Hunt is a European folk myth involving a ghostly or supernatural group of huntsmen passing in wild pursuit. The hunters may be either elves or fairies or the dead, and the leader of the hunt is often a named figure associated with Woden (or other reflections of the same god, such as Alemannic Wuodan in Wuotis Heer ("Wuodan's Army") of Central Switzerland, Swabia etc.), but may variously be a historical or legendary figure like Theodoric the Great, the Danish king Valdemar Atterdag, the Welsh psychopomp Gwyn ap Nudd, biblical figures such as Herod, Cain, Gabriel or the Devil, or an unidentified lost soul or spirit either male or female.

Seeing the Wild Hunt was thought to presage some catastrophe such as war or plague, or at best the death of the one who witnessed it. People encountering the Hunt might also be abducted to the underworld or the fairy kingdom. In some instances, it was also believed that people's spirits could be pulled away during their sleep to join the cavalcade.

The concept was developed based on comparative mythology by Jacob Grimm in Deutsche Mythologie (1835) as a folkloristic survival of Germanic pagan tradition, but comparable folk myths are found throughout Northern, Western and Central Europe. Grimm popularised the term Wilde Jagd ("Wild Hunt") for the phenomenon.

Besides being an allusion to the deep, throaty laughter with which Santa is associated, the 'ho ho hoh' -- otherwise known as the devil's bluster (see relevant section on p. 69) -- is the heralding cry (or laugh, again depending on your inclination...it's a duality) prefacing or announcing the devil's stage entry during Medieval mystery plays in which the devil, God the father, and God the son (again that recurring constellation of '3') appear on stage together.  Is it any wonder then that 'Santa' is an anagram of 'Satan' -- another kind of 'reversal' or 'inversion' --  and putting that together with the pagan solar/fertility god festival, bringing us back to your central mythological motif 'Lucifer means Lightbringer'?  Talking of fertility gods and green men, you might enjoy this modern reworking of the myth!

Patchface therefore as GRRM's patchwork of many of these myths is a demonic figure and greenseer 'stand-in' to boot -- yes, all greenseers are demonic; all greenseers are fiery, even when they're seemingly cold-forged. As @LynnS has suggested, perhaps the red-and-green patchwork Harlequin-type tattoo Patchface wears might be symbolic of this greenseer duality of ice (or 'green' magic) and fire (the 'red').  What's your take on the symbolism inherent in the red-and-green combination?  

What's more, Jon Snow similarly becomes a kind of demonic figure -- in your 'zombie hero lightbringer' sense -- by association with Patchface, as demonstrated particularly in the following passage where they are presented interchangeably as leaders of the apocalyptic 'wild hunt' to follow:

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ADWD - Jon XIII

The queen’s nostrils flared. “You still mean to ride to Hardhome. I see it on your face. Let them die, I said, yet you will persist in this mad folly. Do not deny it.”

“I must do as I think best. With respect, Your Grace, the Wall is mine, and so is this decision.”

“It is,” Selyse allowed, “and you will answer for it when the king returns. And for other decisions you have made, I fear. But I see that you are deaf to sense. Do what you must.”

Jon persisting in his 'mad folly' is 'deaf to sense,' thus he is located in the realm of 'non-sense' which is the domain of Patchface, the undisputed, creepy specialist in nonsense!  One could even say that like Patchface Jon might be a 'fool' and the description of him as 'mad' indicates that he like Patchface is veering towards crossing over the boundary of the known, visually represented by the Wall separating ('sensible') self and ('mad') o/Other, as well as being the boundary between life and death, since those who are mentally ill are commonly -- and unfairly -- excluded from the sphere of life, sometimes secondarily to the limitations imposed on them by their condition, but more perniciously by the stigmatizing prejudices of others.  Additionally, any reference in the text to madness invariably reminds me of greenseers who are located outside the purview of the quotidian, spoken of in sensationalist derogatory terms, and often presumed to be dead (e.g. Bloodraven and Bran are both living 'ghosts'); as well as possibly being a reference to the knife's edge every Targaryen (assuming R+L=J) walks between 'mad folly' and 'greatness'.

Remember, as we've discussed previously, Melisandre is accused by Jon of only seeing 'fools in her fires,' of which he is one (although he doesn't know this, being Jon Snow) appearing frequently in her visions!  In fact, he is accused of as much by the assembly for wanting to lead this apparently foolhardy mission north of the Wall.  Going beyond the wall is equivalent to going 'under the sea'.  It's the world of inverted reason, of the 'undead'-- and paradoxically deeper insight (e.g. 'third-eye' opening which also takes places 'under the sea'). It's a 'deep green sea/see'... 

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Up spoke Ser Malegorn. “Lord Snow, who will lead this ranging?”

“Are you offering yourself, ser?”

“Do I look so foolish?”

Again, the wordplay indicates only a fool would lead the ranging, whereafter both Patchface and Jon spontaneously step forward, thereby identifying themselves as the fools in question!

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Patchface jumped up. “I will lead it!” His bells rang merrily. “We will march into the sea and out again. Under the waves we will ride seahorses, and mermaids will blow seashells to announce our coming, oh, oh, oh.”

They all laughed. Even Queen Selyse allowed herself a thin smile. Jon was less amused. “I will not ask my men to do what I would not do myself. I mean to lead the ranging.”

Interestingly, while everyone else is laughing, inspired by the fool's seemingly innocuous warcry 'oh, oh, oh'; Jon, however, is the only one who seems to understand the subtext of that 'oh, oh, oh' is not a jest but a threat.  There's a curious paradox here (as I mentioned, the difference between a 'laugh' and a 'cry' is a matter of perspective).  So, while he's the fool -- and the audience is laughing at him as befits the purpose of the fool -- the fool himself is not laughing.  In this respect, it's notable that 'Yule' is thought to be derived from the same root as 'jolly'...which in turn is related to the Dionysian 'wild hunt' or 'jol'-- so 'tis very literally 'the season to be jolly' although it should be borne in mind that this is no laughing matter.  ;)

Applying the Jon-Patchface equivalence and my theories on 'drowning' as it pertains to greenseer transformation, 'marching into the sea and out again' represents Jon's death and subsequent resurrection, analogous to Patchface's drowning and washing up again after three days, during which it's likely he actually died, making him a 'zombie' too.  If Patchface's history of 'rising harder and stronger' following his 'drowning' is anything to go by, then Jon should be resurrected as a zombie greenseer (remember Bran's already opened his third eye) three days following his death (another Christ allusion).  So, that's how long I'm predicting Ghost-plus/minus- tree magic will have to keep his soul safe in the 'soul jar', before the reanimation of his body, if that assists your 'calculations'! 

'Blowing seashells,' since I've thus far digressed from the topic of this thread, would likely represent the horn, which can either be literal or figurative.  Regarding the latter connotation, Jon is the 'horned god' archetype and dragons have horns; so 'waking a dragon' via magical resurrection can thus be thought of symbolically as growing horns, analogous to assuming Patchface's antler helm, donning the weirwood 'antennae' of the greenseers, or putting on Nagga's crown.  The gesture of 'growing' or putting on' horns implies transformation via dying, what PK Jane has called 'sacrificing for power'.  This is why Cressen dies shortly after he is coerced into wearing Patchface's helm.  In contrast to Cressen, however, whose death is final and who was sacrificed in order to augment Melisandre's power, not his own (his story is a 'pale echo' or 'near miss'  or 'failed forging' of the heroic journey); Jon's 'forging' as  'Azor Ahai' will be powerfully transformative.  'Riding seahorses' might be symbolic of waking a dragon -- a sea/see dragon!  The 'coming' spearheaded by Jon/Patchface is analogous to the 'Second Coming'...no dodgy puns, please!...(the 'second Long Night' perhaps corresponding to the second pass of the comet).

Regarding the second coming of the 'crows white as snow' whom @Pain killer Jane has suggestively conceptualized as 'scarecrows' entrusted with battling against their brothers/cousins the 'scary crows' or Others (both of whom are 'white as snow') on behalf of the human realm of 'scared crows':  If Jon is a special uppercase Snow among the uncapitalized snow (making him 'a special snowflake'), an exceptional Crow among the crows, a leading Shadow among shadows; if his 'drowning' is a 'crowning' as Corn King Zombie ( @Seams has posited these terms 'crowning'/'drowning' are related with which I agree), then perhaps Jon is not 'a' crow but 'The' crow'; perhaps as @LynnS has suggested he might even become 'the three-eyed crow', now that he is coming into his own as a major magical player.  

Consider the following quotations, many of which contain foreshadowing of Jon as a resurrected ice zombie, on a par with the Others, yet other:

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A Game of Thrones - Prologue

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

 

A Game of Thrones - Prologue

The Other halted. Will saw its eyes; blue, deeper and bluer than any human eyes, a blue that burned like ice. They fixed on the longsword trembling on high, watched the moonlight running cold along the metal. For a heartbeat he dared to hope.

They emerged silently from the shadows, twins to the first. Three of them … four … five … Ser Waymar may have felt the cold that came with them, but he never saw them, never heard them. 

 

A Game of Thrones - Jon VII

Suddenly he heard the shriek of Mormont's raven. "Corn," the bird was screaming. "Corn, corn, corn, corn, corn, corn." Ghost bounded ahead, and Jon came scrambling after. The door to Mormont's solar was wide open. The direwolf plunged through. Jon stopped in the doorway, blade in hand, giving his eyes a moment to adjust. Heavy drapes had been pulled across the windows, and the darkness was black as ink. "Who's there?" he called out.

Then he saw it, a shadow in the shadows, sliding toward the inner door that led to Mormont's sleeping cell, a man-shape all in black, cloaked and hooded … but beneath the hood, its eyes shone with an icy blue radiance …

 

A Game of Thrones - Jon IX

Tyrion Lannister had claimed that most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it, but Jon was done with denials. He was who he was; Jon Snow, bastard and oathbreaker, motherless, friendless, and damned. For the rest of his life—however long that might be—he would be condemned to be an outsider, the silent man standing in the shadows who dares not speak his true name. Wherever he might go throughout the Seven Kingdoms, he would need to live a lie, lest every man's hand be raised against him. But it made no matter, so long as he lived long enough to take his place by his brother's side and help avenge his father.

Another word for 'an outsider' is 'an other' or Other.  I wonder which brother and which father is foreshadowed thereby? How does Bran come into it and how will their relationship play out in the upcoming war?

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AGOT- Jon IX

I have no place, Jon wanted to say, I'm a bastard, I have no rights, no name, no mother, and now not even a father. The words would not come. "I don't know."

"I do," said Lord Commander Mormont. "The cold winds are rising, Snow. Beyond the Wall, the shadows lengthen.

 

A Clash of Kings - Jon I

Sam?" Jon called softly.

The air smelled of paper and dust and years. Before him, tall wooden shelves rose up into dimness, crammed with leatherbound books and bins of ancient scrolls. A faint yellow glow filtered through the stacks from some hidden lamp. Jon blew out the taper he carried, preferring not to risk an open flame amidst so much old dry paper. Instead he followed the light, wending his way down the narrow aisles beneath barrel-vaulted ceilings. All in black, he was a shadow among shadows, dark of hair, long of face, grey of eye. Black moleskin gloves covered his hands; the right because it was burned, the left because a man felt half a fool wearing only one glove.

 

A Clash of Kings - Jon VII

"Eagles have sharper eyes than men. We are seen. So now we run." The Halfhand wound a long black scarf around his face and swung up into the saddle.

The other rangers exchanged a look, but no man thought to argue. One by one they mounted and turned their mounts toward home. "Ghost, come," he called, and the direwolf followed, a pale shadow moving through the night.

 

A Dance with Dragons - Jon VI

"Shadows." The world seemed darker when he said it.

"Every man who walks the earth casts a shadow on the world. Some are thin and weak, others long and dark. You should look behind you, Lord Snow. The moon has kissed you and etched your shadow upon the ice twenty feet tall."

Jon glanced over his shoulder. The shadow was there, just as she had said, etched in moonlight against the Wall. A girl in grey on a dying horse, he thought. Coming here, to you. Arya. He turned back to the red priestess. Jon could feel her warmth. She has power. The thought came unbidden, seizing him with iron teeth, but this was not a woman he cared to be indebted to, not even for his little sister. "Dalla told me something once. Val's sister, Mance Rayder's wife. She said that sorcery was a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it."

 

A Dance with Dragons - Jon XII

"Tormund," Jon said, as they watched four old women pull a cartful of children toward the gate, "tell me of our foe. I would know all there is to know of the Others."

The wildling rubbed his mouth. "Not here," he mumbled, "not this side o' your Wall." The old man glanced uneasily toward the trees in their white mantles. "They're never far, you know. They won't come out by day, not when that old sun's shining, but don't think that means they went away. Shadows never go away. Might be you don't see them, but they're always clinging to your heels."

By 'they're never far' and 'they're always clinging to your heels' it's implied Jon might be one of these shadows.

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A Dance with Dragons - Jon XII

"I know," said Jon Snow.

Tormund turned back. "You know nothing. You killed a dead man, aye, I heard. Mance killed a hundred. A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up … how do you fight a mist, crow? Shadows with teeth … air so cold it hurts to breathe, like a knife inside your chest … you do not know, you cannot know … can your sword cut cold?"

We will see, Jon thought, remembering the things that Sam had told him, the things he'd found in his old books. Longclaw had been forged in the fires of old Valyria, forged in dragonflame and set with spells. Dragonsteel, Sam called it. Stronger than any common steel, lighter, harder, sharper … But words in a book were one thing. The true test came in battle.

 

A Dance with Dragons - Jon X

Carved from the base of the Wall and closed with heavy wooden doors, the ice cells ranged from small to smaller. Some were big enough to allow a man to pace, others so small that prisoners were forced to sit; the smallest were too cramped to allow even that.

Jon had given his chief captive the largest cell, a pail to shit in, enough furs to keep him from freezing, and a skin of wine. It took the guards some time to open his cell, as ice had formed inside the lock. Rusted hinges screamed like damned souls when Wick Whittlestick yanked the door wide enough for Jon to slip through. A faint fecal odor greeted him, though less overpowering than he'd expected. Even shit froze solid in such bitter cold. Jon Snow could see his own reflection dimly inside the icy walls.

Are you sure Jon represents a 'black fire' sword?  In an awful lot of these quotes he seems destined to be a 'pale white' one?

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A Storm of Swords - Jon VII

Whatever you called them, the straw soldiers had been Maester Aemon's notion. They had more breeches and jerkins and tunics in the storerooms than they'd had men to fill them, so why not stuff some with straw, drape a cloak around their shoulders, and set them to standing watches? Noye had placed them on every tower and in half the windows. Some were even clutching spears, or had crossbows cocked under their arms. The hope was that the Thenns would see them from afar and decide that Castle Black was too well defended to attack.

Jon had six scarecrows sharing the roof of the King's Tower with him, along with two actual breathing brothers. 

I love this one, since it's left ambiguous whether Jon is counted among the dead shadow warriors, i.e. along with the 'six undead scarcrows', or the 'actual breathing brothers'!  

Following, a few biblical verses I found in which 'snow' appears, which are of relevance to the current discussion:

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Daniel 7:9

"I kept looking Until thrones were set up, And the Ancient of Days took His seat; His vesture was like white snow And the hair of His head like pure wool His throne was ablaze with flames, Its wheels were a burning fire.

 

Matthew 28:3

And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow.

 

Psalm 147:16

He gives snow like wool; He scatters the frost like ashes.

 

Revelation 1:14

His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire.

 

Exodus 4:6

The LORD furthermore said to him, "Now put your hand into your bosom." So he put his hand into his bosom, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow.

 

2 Kings 5:27

"Therefore, the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and to your descendants forever." So he went out from his presence a leper as white as snow.

 

Lamentations 4:7

Her consecrated ones were purer than snow, They were whiter than milk; They were more ruddy in body than corals, Their polishing was like lapis lazuli.

 

Job 9:30

"If I should wash myself with snow And cleanse my hands with lye,

And we're back to where we started: the lime frosting, the corals, the leprosy (greyscale analog), the weirwood, the Gipps with their wicker shields and lime-stiffened hair, and last but never least, the fire -- all being symbolic elements surrounding the greenseer transformation or 'sea change':

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Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them — Ding-dong, bell.

Ariel's song from The Tempest, Shakespeare

'Ding-dong bell' -- Patchface.

And finally, since as some of you may have noticed I like poetry:

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The Second Coming

 

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer; 

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, 

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity. 

 

Surely some revelation is at hand; 

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi 

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   

The darkness drops again; but now I know   

That twenty centuries of stony sleep 

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? 

 

--WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

 

ETA: fixed formatting problems for which I apologize; please refresh your browser should you have the old version

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I'll also mention that Wild Hunt's memebrers include: King Arthur, Odin/Woden, King Herla, Herne the Hunter, Hereward the Wake, Old Nick. And concerning Dutch Sinterklaas, from Wikipedia:

Quote

According to Hélène Adeline Guerber and others, the origin of Sinterklaas and his helpers has been linked by some to the Wild Hunt of Wodan. Riding the white horse Sleipnir he flew through the air as the leader of the Wild Hunt. He was always accompanied by two black ravens, Huginn and Muninn.[4] Those helpers would listen, just like Zwarte Piet, at the chimney – which was just a hole in the roof at that time – to tell Wodan about the good and bad behaviour of the mortals.

 

Folklore and myth connected to Solistice/Yule/Christmas/Saturnala/Sol Invictus is so rich... mistletoe, holly, wickerman, manger, Krampus, Santa, Mages, Ragnarok, Fimbulwinter, Christmas dishes, boar's head, roosters, reindeers, brining back the light, defeating the darkness etc...We could set up a whole thread about traditions from all around the world and their symbolic meaning and origins.

I'm currently writing a short (hopefully) story where Winter Solistice symbolism is prominent - as a gift to a good friend of mine and exercise in symbolic writing. Shame I'm not good enough to write prose in English (I hope) yet .

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LynnS had a very good theory that the Wall may already be in the process of coming down. Actually her original theory had to do with how it was built, mainly by drawing the cold unto itself...literally consuming the cold. But now that it seems as if a blizzard is emanating out of Winterfell it may be that the consuming quality has been reversed and it's now expelling the cold, and the reason why it's expelling through Winterfell is due to a missing ward, namely there is no Stark in Winterfell.

So what is the purpose or threat of the horn? In Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series the Horn of Valere opened graves and it called up legendary heroes from the past. The heroes were bound to whomever blew the horn. Therefore "giants" could be legendary heroes versus an earthquake.

Ironically Ygritte recounted all the graves that they had already opened just to find the horn releasing shades or shadows in the process.

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1 hour ago, ravenous reader said:

, then perhaps Jon is not 'a' crow but 'The' crow'; perhaps as @LynnS has suggested he might even become 'the three-eyed crow', now that he is coming into his own as a major magical player.

To clarify, I am not suggesting time travel as in the time lords or the time machine.  I think that Martin is using a form of foreshadowing or futureshadowing trope.

Two specific variants are Futureshadowing, where the shadowing comes after the actual event chronologically but is still seen before it, and Foreseeing My Death, where a character has foreseen, prophesied or predicted his/her own demise.

The case in point: where Bran dreams of seeing and talking to Jon before he's crossed the wall; and Jon dreams Bran as the sapling tree before Bran actually becomes WierBran.

A good explanation for a non-linear character like Bran and I suspect Jon; who doesn't experience time flowing in one direction.

Most people live within a time stream, where time flows in one direction and effects follow causes. However, there are some characters in fiction that are slightly removed from the time stream and are able to see the past, present, and future all at the same time. These characters tend to exude a mysterious, all-knowing air about them, as they generally know who you are, why you are talking to them, and what will happen if you do what you are planning. They aren't necessarily The Omniscient as you might be able to create your own destiny, but they may often act much like him.

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NonLinearCharacter

I think Jon as Bran's 3EC is another version of futureshadowing that isn't yet recongized for what it is. However, for this to occur; I think both characters have to be contemporary with each other in the normal flow of time.  In other words they must also share the 'present' time frame.
 

 

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50 minutes ago, LynnS said:
2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

, then perhaps Jon is not 'a' crow but 'The' crow'; perhaps as @LynnS has suggested he might even become 'the three-eyed crow', now that he is coming into his own as a major magical player.

To clarify, I am not suggesting time travel as in the time lords or the time machine.  I think that Martin is using a form of foreshadowing or futureshadowing trope.

Two specific variants are Futureshadowing, where the shadowing comes after the actual event chronologically but is still seen before it, and Foreseeing My Death, where a character has foreseen, prophesied or predicted his/her own demise.

The case in point: where Bran dreams of seeing and talking to Jon before he's crossed the wall; and Jon dreams Bran as the sapling tree before Bran actually becomes WierBran.

I personally see the novels as the embodiment of the mixing of the Present Perfect  and Future Perfect tenses. "I am become....I will have become." A direct line of the past affecting the present and both affecting the future and then back around because the future and the present is what we concern ourselves with in the past. That is what I make of the time travel vibes and the self-fulfilling prophecies. 

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1 hour ago, Blue Tiger said:

I'll also mention that Wild Hunt's memebrers include: King Arthur, Odin/Woden, King Herla, Herne the Hunter, Hereward the Wake, Old Nick. And concerning Dutch Sinterklaas, from Wikipedia:

Folklore and myth connected to Solistice/Yule/Christmas/Saturnala/Sol Invictus is so rich... mistletoe, holly, wickerman, manger, Krampus, Santa, Mages, Ragnarok, Fimbulwinter, Christmas dishes, boar's head, roosters, reindeers, brining back the light, defeating the darkness etc...We could set up a whole thread about traditions from all around the world and their symbolic meaning and origins.

I'm currently writing a short (hopefully) story where Winter Solistice symbolism is prominent - as a gift to a good friend of mine and exercise in symbolic writing. Shame I'm not good enough to write prose in English (I hope) yet .

"The night parade of one hundred demons" in Japanese folklore. Hyakki Yagyo is the name. But it takes place in the summer. 

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2 hours ago, Blue Tiger said:

I'll also mention that Wild Hunt's memebrers include: King Arthur, Odin/Woden, King Herla, Herne the Hunter, Hereward the Wake, Old Nick. And concerning Dutch Sinterklaas, from Wikipedia:

Quote

According to Hélène Adeline Guerber and others, the origin of Sinterklaas and his helpers has been linked by some to the Wild Hunt of Wodan. Riding the white horse Sleipnir he flew through the air as the leader of the Wild Hunt. He was always accompanied by two black ravens, Huginn and Muninn.[4] Those helpers would listen, just like Zwarte Piet, at the chimney – which was just a hole in the roof at that time – to tell Wodan about the good and bad behaviour of the mortals.

 

Folklore and myth connected to Solistice/Yule/Christmas/Saturnala/Sol Invictus is so rich... mistletoe, holly, wickerman, manger, Krampus, Santa, Mages, Ragnarok, Fimbulwinter, Christmas dishes, boar's head, roosters, reindeers, brining back the light, defeating the darkness etc...We could set up a whole thread about traditions from all around the world and their symbolic meaning and origins.

I'm currently writing a short (hopefully) story where Winter Solistice symbolism is prominent - as a gift to a good friend of mine and exercise in symbolic writing. Shame I'm not good enough to write prose in English (I hope) yet .

Very interesting!

2 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

LynnS had a very good theory that the Wall may already be in the process of coming down. Actually her original theory had to do with how it was built, mainly by drawing the cold unto itself...literally consuming the cold. But now that it seems as if a blizzard is emanating out of Winterfell it may be that the consuming quality has been reversed and it's now expelling the cold, and the reason why it's expelling through Winterfell is due to a missing ward, namely there is no Stark in Winterfell.

 

Could either you or @LynnS provide me with the best link to the 'cold-consuming' explanation?  Another interpretation with a slightly different nuance, which I believe @evita mgfs once suggested , is that while officially there is no Stark in Winterfell since the Boltons have usurped the Stark seat, there is nevertheless a Stark presence in Winterfell via the heart tree which Bran is now inhabiting.  You'll notice that the snow storm really starts accelerating during those 'non-POV' chapters, specifically 'The Prince of Winterfell', 'The Turncloak,' and 'A Ghost in Winterfell,' covering the period of Bolton rule coincident with Bran's breakthrough in making contact with Theon via the weirwood.  My inclination would be to conclude that Bran's presence there (even in absentia) is responsible for orchestrating the snow storm, since it's been our contention on the 'Bran's growing powers re-read' thread that the old gods weapons which Bran as a greenseer may also be able to wield come in 'a quartet of w-s', namely 'wind, wolves, (weir)wood, and winter'!  It's as if Winterfell is retaliating against the invaders by some magic, the way Jon similarly observes that the Wall 'defends itself'-- notably, both structures were built by the same person using powerful spells, namely Bran's namesake Brandon the Builder.  Therefore, perhaps it's precisely the presence rather than the absence of a ward that is responsible for the stormy exhalation!  Maybe one could think of it as a triggering of some sort set in motion by the violations inflicted by the Boltons (especially the fArya marriage travesty in front of the heart tree followed by the rapes).

Quote

So what is the purpose or threat of the horn? In Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series the Horn of Valere opened graves and it called up legendary heroes from the past. The heroes were bound to whomever blew the horn. Therefore "giants" could be legendary heroes versus an earthquake.

Ironically Ygritte recounted all the graves that they had already opened just to find the horn releasing shades or shadows in the process.

How was the horn releasing shadows when no-one had blown it?

Do you have a reference for that?  

2 hours ago, LynnS said:

To clarify, I am not suggesting time travel as in the time lords or the time machine.  I think that Martin is using a form of foreshadowing or futureshadowing trope.

Two specific variants are Futureshadowing, where the shadowing comes after the actual event chronologically but is still seen before it, and Foreseeing My Death, where a character has foreseen, prophesied or predicted his/her own demise.

The case in point: where Bran dreams of seeing and talking to Jon before he's crossed the wall; and Jon dreams Bran as the sapling tree before Bran actually becomes WierBran.

 

Couldn't these events be happening concurrently, i.e. in so-called 'real time'?  Jon north of the Wall in the Skirling pass connects with Bran who is concurrently hiding out  in the Winterfell crypt.  Bran's third-eye capacity may have been prematurely powerful already in the crypt, so it wouldn't necessarily have required him getting his 'first lesson' in greenseeing in the strict sense of 'skinchanging trees' before he was able to do that.  

I agree about the sapling avatar being foreshadowing -- or perhaps a better word is 'foresight'.  It's fascinating that Jon is able to apprehend Bran as a weirwood sapling while Bran seems to have no awareness that he's appearing to Jon as a weirwood at all!  He thinks he's accessed Jon via Summer.  There was no actual weirwood that Ghost encountered on the mountain.  If you examine that particular dream closely, you'll notice some odd discrepancies which I believe GRRM inserted as markers in order to signal to the reader that the first part of the dream (up until the words 'And suddenly...' ) can not be happening in the physical realm, by which I mean the weirwood is not a material weirwood!  

The particular 'clues' are the light conditions (it suddenly gets very dark as if it's evening, whereas just before and just after it's bright and sunny, which wouldn't really be possible); they're above the tree line, so it's not possible that Jon/Ghost would be finding the weirwood around a dense forest; and Ghost who should normally be mute cries out.

Quote

A good explanation for a non-linear character like Bran and I suspect Jon; who doesn't experience time flowing in one direction.

Most people live within a time stream, where time flows in one direction and effects follow causes. However, there are some characters in fiction that are slightly removed from the time stream and are able to see the past, present, and future all at the same time. These characters tend to exude a mysterious, all-knowing air about them, as they generally know who you are, why you are talking to them, and what will happen if you do what you are planning. They aren't necessarily The Omniscient as you might be able to create your own destiny, but they may often act much like him.

Yes indeed (this reflects Bloodraven's 'time is a river...different for a tree' speech) and let's not forget that Jon, not Bran, might be the most powerful of them all -- of all the direwolves, Ghost's eyes opened first, noted by Jon because of all the siblings he was the most observant; bastards open their eyes before other children, grow up earlier, etc. which might also be a hint that he acquired the third-eye capacity even before Bran opened his (Jon's ) eye, paradoxically.

Quote


tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NonLinearCharacter

I think Jon as Bran's 3EC is another version of futureshadowing that isn't yet recongized for what it is. However, for this to occur; I think both characters have to be contemporary with each other in the normal flow of time.  In other words they must also share the 'present' time frame.

Another way of expressing this is a a 'causal time loop' or 'retrocausality' whereby events occur in the present, or have been primed to occur, as the result of other events in the future, which are reciprocally predicated on the 'former,' if it's still even possible to refer to concepts of 'before' and 'after.'   You can see how traditional notions of cause-and-effect and chronology break down in the context of what is essentially an event without source!

Could you explain what you mean by the necessity of inhabiting the same time frame and the consequences, revelations, etc. thereof?  I'm not following how you envision that playing out in terms of Bran and Jon.  Thanks!

Please see my post below for more on the 'time projection' aspect (I also prefer using that to 'time travel' which can be confusing):

1 hour ago, Pain killer Jane said:

I personally see the novels as the embodiment of the mixing of the Present Perfect  and Future Perfect tenses. "I am become....I will have become." A direct line of the past affecting the present and both affecting the future and then back around because the future and the present is what we concern ourselves with in the past. That is what I make of the time travel vibes and the self-fulfilling prophecies. 

That's a good way of looking at the challenge posed by the tenses, which tend to 'unwind' somewhat in the face of all this time projection!  Just one correction, if I may, the present perfect='have become' (although I find 'am become' very poetic) and as you said the future perfect= 'will have become'.  In both cases, the person 'projects'  to another time -- the past and future respectively--  with the intent of envisioning the completion or fulfilment of an action in progress.  In both cases there is a sense of ongoing action or fulfilment.

I think @Cowboy Dan said it best, here (I've borrowed the idea of 'fulfilment' from him):

On 7/14/2016 at 0:16 AM, Cowboy Dan said:

GRRM has used the aphorism "history doesn't repeat but it rhymes" attributed to Twain (not actually his aphorism, more a pithy summation of his views like Voltaire's biography which coined the phrase, “I don’t agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”). I've been noticing certain events or roles that get repeated in different contexts throughout the series but can't say I'm as versed in asoiaf history as yourself.

...

...there's a nice Tyrion quote that makes me think it's not just reading too much into things:

An orderly mind, Tyrion reflected, and indeed, once you puzzled out the arrangement, it was easy to see that every potion had its place. And such interesting things. -Tyrion IV, ACOK

Apparently GRRM almost wound up as a grandmaster chess player and it shows in the seemingly insane yet extremely structured logic that underpins the whole of the series.

So to keep on topic yeah I think there's definitely something in the idea that Bran (or the godhead of greenseers he is being assimilated into) will wind up causing a lot of the events that "primed" current day events and allowed our characters (or perhaps even forced some) to naturally follow this same course of action that has already occurred in the past but was always meant to occur in the present too.

 

On 7/14/2016 at 2:42 PM, Cowboy Dan said:

This is where I'm going to go in a very different direction from users in this thread. I do not believe that the end will be breaking of the cycle but a fulfillment. Bran is a child and throughout the story areas like the Wall, Moat Cailin, etc. have large building blocks of black stone referred to as a "child's broken toys." It definitely hints that Bran will rebuild but it's also possible it will be his fault things get broken in the first place. He is a child playing at being a god after all. And it is play. Bran doesn't take it seriously, he just wants to dream, and is constantly admonished for it by the "little grandfather" Jojen Reed.

I mentioned Twain and my avatar is from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, a pretty great time travel story about a 19th century foreman who wakes up one day in Arthurian England. He is condemned to death but predicts an eclipse (he memorized an almanac iirc) and becomes Arthur's second-in-command/head wizard. Basically he brings the Industrial Revolution 1500 years early but the novel ends with the entirety of the realm in open rebellion and the destruction of all these futuristic technologies like the telegraph. It really nailed that type of "you can't change the past because the past already existed, you can only commit acts that already occurred in the past." The protag essentially comes to this conclusion at the end, realizing how pointless all of his actions were. It was much more bitter than sweet but that's just Twain's style. He goes from exceedingly mirthful to endlessly cynical depending on the story he's telling.

So an example of this would be Bran hears the story of Storm's End and how Brandon the Builder helped Durran construct the stronghold. Only Bran already did this before he was born so he's already "primed" the information to himself. When he gets to that point in the story as some kid watching Durran's castle get destroyed he will have already known he would need to help Durran create Storm's End in the future -- Bran's future because he already has in Westeros' past, otherwise there would be no Storm's End. Tense always suffers from time travel.

 

On 7/15/2016 at 6:57 PM, Cowboy Dan said:

Oh yeah it makes sense I just don't see reincarnation as a point GRRM would use like that. If anything we've seen when someone is brought back they're drastically different even after small spans of death. Can't imagine what centuries or milennia would do. He wouldn't have a single memory from the present day.

I can see him transplanting his consciousness or speaking instructions through the trees, there's plenty of text to back those ideas of time travel up. It just doesn't really gel with the story so far or the ways we've seen magic used. The idea of the time loop as I see it is more that a person unknowingly repeats actions of another person in the same/similar role or situation at a different point in time. Like I pointed out earlier, Martin used the "history doesn't repeat but it rhymes." Your idea, while interesting, is one person repeating history literally and doesn't seem to fit GRRM's own word.

 

On 7/15/2016 at 4:00 AM, Cowboy Dan said:

One thing I will say if we're running with the Bran the time-traveler idea is that it's a little coincidental Bran and Lann sound so much alike. Perhaps Bran when he's first learning how to affect the past says his name then the person he talks to says "Lann? That's a queer name" or something to that effect and Bran realizes what he just did. I did say anything I could contribute on Bran would be wild guesses from here on out so there's a wild guess for ya :D

On a more serious note it's possible the stories we're told of the origins of the Seven Kingdoms are "songs" as he says, passed through time based on the actual origins he witnesses through weirwood.net. We know he can "speak" to people in the past it's just that most people can't understand the song of the Earth, only other greenseers. No time travel necessary with that explanation, he just needs to find the proper receiver for his stories.

 

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26 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Very interesting!

Could either you or @LynnS provide me with the best link to the 'cold-consuming' explanation?  Another interpretation with a slightly different nuance, which I believe @evita mgfs once suggested , is that while officially there is no Stark in Winterfell since the Boltons have usurped the Stark seat, there is nevertheless a Stark presence in Winterfell via the heart tree which Bran is now inhabiting.  You'll notice that the snow storm really starts accelerating during those 'non-POV' chapters, specifically 'The Prince of Winterfell', 'The Turncloak,' and 'A Ghost in Winterfell,' covering the period of Bolton rule coincident with Bran's breakthrough in making contact with Theon via the weirwood.  My inclination would be to conclude that Bran's presence there (even in absentia) is responsible for orchestrating the snow storm, since it's been our contention on the 'Bran's growing powers re-read' thread that the old gods weapons which Bran as a greenseer may also be able to wield come in 'a quartet of w-s', namely 'wind, wolves, (weir)wood, and winter'!  It's as if Winterfell is retaliating against the invaders by some magic, the way Jon similarly observes that the Wall 'defends itself'-- notably, both structures were built by the same person using powerful spells, namely Bran's namesake Brandon the Builder.  Therefore, perhaps it's precisely the presence rather than the absence of a ward that is responsible for the stormy exhalation!  Maybe one could think of it as a triggering of some sort set in motion by the violations inflicted by the Boltons (especially the fArya marriage travesty in front of the heart tree followed by the rapes).

How was the horn releasing shadows when no-one had blown it?

Do you have a reference for that?  

Couldn't these events be happening concurrently, i.e. in so-called 'real time'?  Jon north of the Wall in the Skirling pass connects with Bran who is concurrently hiding out  in the Winterfell crypt.  Bran's third-eye capacity may have been prematurely powerful already in the crypt, so it wouldn't necessarily have required him getting his 'first lesson' in greenseeing in the strict sense of 'skinchanging trees' before he was able to do that.  

I agree about the sapling avatar being foreshadowing -- or perhaps a better word is 'foresight'.  It's fascinating that Jon is able to apprehend Bran as a weirwood sapling while Bran seems to have no awareness that he's appearing to Jon as a weirwood at all!  He thinks he's accessed Jon via Summer.  There was no actual weirwood that Ghost encountered on the mountain.  If you examine that particular dream closely, you'll notice some odd discrepancies which I believe GRRM inserted as markers in order to signal to the reader that the first part of the dream (up until the words 'And suddenly...' ) can not be happening in the physical realm, by which I mean the weirwood is not a material weirwood!  

The particular 'clues' are the light conditions (it suddenly gets very dark as if it's evening, whereas just before and just after it's bright and sunny, which wouldn't really be possible); they're above the tree line, so it's not possible that Jon/Ghost would be finding the weirwood around a dense forest; and Ghost who should normally be mute cries out.

Yes indeed (this reflects Bloodraven's 'time is a river...different for a tree' speech) and let's not forget that Jon, not Bran, might be the most powerful of them all -- of all the direwolves, Ghost's eyes opened first, noted by Jon because of all the siblings he was the most observant; bastards open their eyes before other children, grow up earlier, etc. which might also be a hint that he acquired the third-eye capacity even before Bran opened his (Jon's ) eye, paradoxically.

Another way of expressing this is a a 'causal time loop' or 'retrocausality' whereby events occur in the present, or have been primed to occur, as the result of other events in the future, which are reciprocally predicated on the 'former,' if it's still even possible to refer to concepts of 'before' and 'after.'   You can see how traditional notions of cause-and-effect and chronology break down in the context of what is essentially an event without source!

Could you explain what you mean by the necessity of inhabiting the same time frame and the consequences, revelations, etc. thereof?  I'm not following how you envision that playing out in terms of Bran and Jon.  Thanks!

Please see my post below for more on the 'time projection' aspect (I also prefer using that to 'time travel' which can be confusing):

That's a good way of looking at the challenge posed by the tenses, which tend to 'unwind' somewhat in the face of all this time projection!  Just one correction, if I may, the present perfect='have become' (although I find 'am become' very poetic) and as you said the future perfect= 'will have become'.  In both cases, the person 'projects'  to another time -- the past and future respectively--  with the intent of envisioning the completion or fulfilment of an action in progress.  In both cases there is a sense of ongoing action or fulfilment.

I think @Cowboy Dan said it best, here (I've borrowed the idea of 'fulfilment' from him):

 

 

 

 

 

LynnS's thoughts about the Wall were discussed here Heresy 189

 

Ygritte in ASOS:

Ygritte slammed the heel of her hand into his chest, so hard it stung even through his layers of wool, mail, and boiled leather. “I wasn’t frightened. You know nothing, Jon Snow.”

“Why are you crying, then?”

“Not for fear!” She kicked savagely at the ice beneath her with a heel, chopping out a chunk. “I’m crying because we never found the Horn of Winter. We opened half a hundred graves and let all those shades loose in the world, and never found the Horn of Joramun to bring this cold thing down!”

 

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2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Couldn't these events be happening concurrently, i.e. in so-called 'real time'?  Jon north of the Wall in the Skirling pass connects with Bran who is concurrently hiding out  in the Winterfell crypt.  Bran's third-eye capacity may have been prematurely powerful already in the crypt, so it wouldn't necessarily have required him getting his 'first lesson' in greenseeing in the strict sense of 'skinchanging trees' before he was able to do that.  

Sure the events at the Crypts could be concurrent with events at the Skirling Pass.  But there is no way to know unless there is some reference that tells you where one POV character is in relation to another at any given time.  The only way I know that Bran has this dream of Jon before he crosses the Wall; occurs at Queenscrown when Bran has the wolf dream and sees Jon escapes from the Wildlings after they have crossed the Wall.  A case where their timelines intersect.  

The only other way to know when one event happens in relation to another would be Jon recieving news of Bran and Rickon's death shortly after they go missing and noting where Jon is located when he recieves the news.  It's still a bit ambiguous.  So here's the chronology as far as I can determine:

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A Clash of Kings - Bran VII - Bran touches Ghost and talks to Jon

"The wolf ate," Jojen said. "Not you. Take care, Bran. Remember who you are."

He remembered who he was all too well; Bran the boy, Bran the broken. Better Bran the beastling. Was it any wonder he would sooner dream his Summer dreams, his wolf dreams? Here in the chill damp darkness of the tomb his third eye had finally opened. He could reach Summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon. Though maybe he had only dreamed that. He could not understand why Jojen was always trying to pull him back now. Bran used the strength of his arms to squirm to a sitting position. "I have to tell Osha what I saw. Is she here? Where did she go?"

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A Clash of Kings - Jon VII - Bran talks to Jon and touches him

A weirwood.

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

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

He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Ghost!" Jon shouted, sitting up. He could still feel the talons, the pain. "Ghost, to me!"

Both events occur in aCoK and chapter VII of each POV.  I'm not sure if you can always conclude that the timeline is concurrent for each POV; but let's say that it is.  In Bran's POV; he's unsure about the dream.  In Jon's POV; Bran opens his third eye and Jon is flying seemingly without Bran as a guide.  Bran's presence is fully realized unlike the vague dream recollection in the crypts.

Then in aDwD; Bran expresses the desire that all his siblings should be able to fly:

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A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

"All," Lord Brynden said. "It was the singers who taught the First Men to send messages by raven … but in those days, the birds would speak the words. The trees remember, but men forget, and so now they write the messages on parchment and tie them round the feet of birds who have never shared their skin."

Old Nan had told him the same story once, Bran remembered, but when he asked Robb if it was true, his brother laughed and asked him if he believed in grumkins too. He wished Robb were with them now. I'd tell him I could fly, but he wouldn't believe, so I'd have to show him. I bet that he could learn to fly too, him and Arya and Sansa, even baby Rickon and Jon Snow. We could all be ravens and live in Maester Luwin's rookery.

That was just another silly dream, though. Some days 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?

So even at this point; Bran is only just now expressing that desire and an intention that he would have to show them how to fly.  Something Jon has already experienced with Bran.  So does this mean that the WierBran manifestation is still a power that Bran has not yet actualized or that we have yet to see in the normal time stream.

To clarify; I think all greenseers can communicate with other greenseers by dreaming them at any point in the time continuum.  I'm not sure this includes people who are dead.  Although Melisandre claims to have talked to dead kings; I'm not sure that doesn't mean un-dead kings.  I think the warning about seeking not to raise the dead; refers to the wights and the White Walkers.  A greenseer might be able to see the past and the dead; but not communicate with them or alter events.   They may be able to view the future and communicate with the living in dreams to alter events through the agency of the person receiving the dreams.  Jojen is a good example.

The other question is why these two events are different or experienced in reverse order :

A Clash of Kings - Bran VII - Bran touches Ghost and talks to Jon

A Clash of Kings - Jon VII - Bran talks to Jon and touches him

 

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