Heresy 201 and onward we go...

[LynnS]

2 hours ago, JNR said:

And if GRRM made Bran Stark a "head of the dragon" in this sense, I would find that very well set up and fitting -- Bran would literally be getting in a dragon's head! -- particularly if his family member Jon Snow never became a head of the dragon in any sense.

I am completely on board with this idea! 

To go back to the notion of green dreams; I'm of a mind that Ned had more than a little of the wolf blood and we could perhaps interpret his fever dream or portions of it as a green dream.  It seems to me that Martin has constructed the dream with elements or memories of real events and then adds foreshadowing as in: a storm of petals, blue as the eyes of death.  His memory of Lyanna and the Kingsguard, in particular Arthur Dayne seem to converge for some reason.

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

"She should be on a hill somewhere, under a fruit tree, with the sun and clouds above her and the rain to wash her clean."

"I was with her when she died," Ned reminded the king. "She wanted to come home, to rest beside Brandon and Father." He could hear her still at times. Promise me, she had cried, in a room that smelled of blood and roses. Promise me, Ned. The fever had taken her strength and her voice had been faint as a whisper, but when he gave her his word, the fear had gone out of his sister's eyes. Ned remembered the way she had smiled then, how tightly her fingers had clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling from her palm, dead and black. After that he remembered nothing. They had found him still holding her body, silent with grief. The little crannogman, Howland Reed, had taken her hand from his. Ned could recall none of it. "I bring her flowers when I can," he said. "Lyanna was … fond of flowers."

The rose petals spilling for Lyanna's hand after Ned gives his word seems to converge with this memory at the ToJ.  I won't include the entire quote, but the trigger word is vow changing the character of the dream to something more akin to a green dream.

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Eddard X

"We swore a vow," explained old Ser Gerold.

Ned's wraiths moved up beside him, with shadow swords in hand. They were seven against three.

"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.

"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.

What we know from the preceding elements is that the 3 KG took a vow that supercedes all other vows to the king and they are prepared to die for it.  This suggests that Ned's vow to Lyanna has the same force; it is essentially an unbreakable vow. Something that he can't tell his king, Robert. 

It is also the secret that Ned dies for. When Lyanna dies she drops the rose in her hand releasing a storm of rose petals.  Ultimately, it's uncovering Robert's blue-eyed bastards that leads to their deaths and Ned's.  It starts with Lyanna who is holding a black rose of her own... someone with black hair and blue eyes.

I'd go so far as to say that the vow Ned made has left a bitter taste in his mouth.

[Black Crow]

7 hours ago, JNR said:

 

People have suggested Bran may skinchange a dragon.  This doesn't seem to me like something we can rule out -- Varamyr clearly establishes that some skinchangers really are far stronger than others, and furthermore, can skinchange multiple entities simultaneously, and Bran looks likely to be stronger even than Varamyr.  So there seems to be obvious potential there.

 

We're obviously going to have to wait and see, but I suspect that this may depend on the nature of the beast.

From everything we've seen so far I'm inclined to see dragons and white walkers as one and the same, by which I mean that just as the first are fire made flesh, the second are ice made flesh. Both are magical constructs. So much of the magic in this story seems to revolve around the soul and while we focus on skinchangers who hop from body to body its worth remembering this business of true death when a skinchanger's own body dies and he or she lives out a second life in the last host, fading away and dying with the host. I wonder therefore whether the dragons and white walkers are an escape clause, a last body in which the soul can enjoy a second life which has no host to absorb it and an effectively unlimited life-span.

If that's so, then its possible that Bran might be able to duel with the soul of a dragon, and perhaps even gain possession of the body but it might be a very different matter from normal skin-changing

Conversely, by the same token this would provide a possible explanation for the suspected Stark connection to Winter; that the old lords have escaped death by becoming white walkers.

[LynnS]

15 hours ago, Black Crow said:

We're obviously going to have to wait and see, but I suspect that this may depend on the nature of the beast.

From everything we've seen so far I'm inclined to see dragons and white walkers as one and the same, by which I mean that just as the first are fire made flesh, the second are ice made flesh. Both are magical constructs. So much of the magic in this story seems to revolve around the soul and while we focus on skinchangers who hop from body to body its worth remembering this business of true death when a skinchanger's own body dies and he or she lives out a second life in the last host, fading away and dying with the host. I wonder therefore whether the dragons and white walkers are an escape clause, a last body in which the soul can enjoy a second life which has no host to absorb it and an effectively unlimited life-span.

If that's so, then its possible that Bran might be able to duel with the soul of a dragon, and perhaps even gain possession of the body but it might be a very different matter from normal skin-changing

Conversely, by the same token this would provide a possible explanation for the suspected Stark connection to Winter; that the old lords have escaped death by becoming white walkers.

OH my!  That's fantastic.  Could it be that Bran has seen into the frozen hell reserved for Starks and recognizes some of the faces from the crypts? This is the reason that he must live?

I've always wondered what Shireen meant when she said the dragons were coming to eat her.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_King

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Nezha's_Triumph_Against_Dragon_King

[JNR]

17 hours ago, Black Crow said:

If that's so, then its possible that Bran might be able to duel with the soul of a dragon, and perhaps even gain possession of the body but it might be a very different matter from normal skin-changing

Sure.  All speculation at this point.  

In the canon, the dragons have yet to come within five hundred miles of the Narrow Sea and Dany can't control any of them -- can't even command Drogon to fly her back to Meereen, and so instead is forced to wander through a sad world of bad berries and diarrhea.   So we're nowhere near even establishing the dragons will go to the North of Westeros.

I would just find it delightful if someone as unexpected as Bran (by the fanbase) became a head of the dragon... based on something as obvious and overwhelmingly established as his greenseer's ability to

Quote

wear the skins of any beast that flies

Maybe Jojen wasn't kidding around when he said that.  He also said, and possibly with the same rough notion in his head:

Quote

If ice can burn

...and that seems like an enigmatic greendreamy reference if I've ever read one.

17 hours ago, LynnS said:

I've always wondered what Shireen meant when she said the dragons were coming to eat her.

Perhaps Shireen, at an unconscious level manifesting in dreams, fears death by fire, and dragons are her dreams' expression of that.

[PrettyPig]

14 minutes ago, JNR said:

and so instead is forced to wander through a sad world of bad berries and diarrhea.

I have nothing to add here except that this made me laugh audibly.  

[Matthew.]

4 hours ago, JNR said:

I would just find it delightful if someone as unexpected as Bran (by the fanbase) became a head of the dragon... based on something as obvious and overwhelmingly established as his greenseer's ability to

Bran is semi-regularly proposed as a head of the dragon, under the assumption that he'll skinchange one of them; before ADWD (and "Aegon VI)", both Bran and Tyrion were frequently floated as potential non-Targ dragon "riders." 

As an aside, if I had to take a random stab at which dragon Bran might 'borrow,' I'm thinking Rhaegal. He's green and bronze (good Pact colors), and Quentyn even describes him as the "green of moss in the deep woods at dusk." Drogon's coloring made his eventual rider obvious, so perhaps there's some foreshadowing in the others as well 
 

21 hours ago, LynnS said:

I've always wondered what Shireen meant when she said the dragons were coming to eat her.

I always took it that Shireen would be the person with "king's blood" that Melisandre would eventually sacrifice in an attempt to wake dragons from stone--Shireen's soul will be 'fed' to Melisandre's dragon.
 

22 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Conversely, by the same token this would provide a possible explanation for the suspected Stark connection to Winter; that the old lords have escaped death by becoming white walkers.

In addition to what you propose here (which, I'm assuming, is that the ancient Starks skinchanged into WW bodies), I wonder if this might tie in some way to whatever quality it is that makes the Winterfell crypts ominous.

Eddard has a fever dream where the Kings of Winter are watching him with "eyes of ice," and there's that moment late in AGOT where Rickon and Bran feel a strong urge to visit the crypts following their father's death (before word of his death has arrived at Winterfell); it is strongly implied that they think Eddard's spirit is in the crypts at that point in time, and GRRM confirms in an SSM that there was something unique about that particular time frame that made Hodor terrified of the crypts.

I don't propose anything in particular, but it does put me in mind of Varamyr's death, where his "spirit" seems to be briefly disoriented before being called into One Eye to begin his second life--a string of events that seems to be outside of his control. I wonder if Eddard experienced something similar upon his death, that his spirit was being called into the depths of the crypts by...something. Weirwood roots? Something more strange? 

[Black Crow]

Taking this theory a little further and concentrating on the dragons for a moment we have a couple of bits of information which may tie together here.

At least some of the Targaryens seem to have believed that they were or could become dragons - and died trying

There is a belief that the Maesters killed off the Dragons

We do know that the dragons didn't simply fall off their perches but rather withered and died.

This might all be consistent with the theory because if the dragons are indeed magical constructs intended to house a soul, then without that soul [if say the Maesters didn't directly kill the dragons but rather wove magic which prevented the soul from migrating into it] they are just an empty  husk; and this would also of course be consistent with theories that Danaerys' three dragons are actually Khal Drogo, her son Rhaego and that Mirri Mar Duuz.

[Black Crow]

20 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

 

In addition to what you propose here (which, I'm assuming, is that the ancient Starks skinchanged into WW bodies), I wonder if this might tie in some way to whatever quality it is that makes the Winterfell crypts ominous.

Eddard has a fever dream where the Kings of Winter are watching him with "eyes of ice," and there's that moment late in AGOT where Rickon and Bran feel a strong urge to visit the crypts following their father's death (before word of his death has arrived at Winterfell); it is strongly implied that they think Eddard's spirit is in the crypts at that point in time, and GRRM confirms in an SSM that there was something unique about that particular time frame that made Hodor terrified of the crypts.

I don't propose anything in particular, but it does put me in mind of Varamyr's death, where his "spirit" seems to be briefly disoriented before being called into One Eye to begin his second life--a string of events that seems to be outside of his control. I wonder if Eddard experienced something similar upon his death, that his spirit was being called into the depths of the crypts by...something. Weirwood roots? Something more strange? 

Something of that nature... and also an explanation for the iron swords

[LynnS]

2 hours ago, Matthew. said:

As an aside, if I had to take a random stab at which dragon Bran might 'borrow,' I'm thinking Rhaegal. He's green and bronze (good Pact colors), and Quentyn even describes him as the "green of moss in the deep woods at dusk." Drogon's coloring made his eventual rider obvious, so perhaps there's some foreshadowing in the others as well 

I'm inclined to think that Victarion will take the green dragon and kill the white dragon to even the odds. Then Bran will have to take the dragon away from Victarion in some way.   

[Matthew.]

9 minutes ago, LynnS said:

I'm inclined to think that Victarion will take the green dragon and kill the white dragon to even the odds. Then Bran will have to take the dragon away from Victarion in some way.   

On that note, I do wonder what's going to happen with that horn. Just based on characterization, it doesn't feel right to me that Euron wouldn't have some sort of plan in place here, doesn't feel right that he would entrust Victarion with stealing a dragon and delivering it to him, so what's the trick?

I'll revisit an idea I've proposed here in the past, and suggest that Victarion is being set up to die an ironic death, by misunderstanding the meaning of the horn being claimed with blood (with Moqorro, perhaps, purposely promoting that misunderstanding):

Quote

Who blows the hellhorn matters not. The dragons will come to the horn's master. You must claim the horn. With blood.

The dragons will come to the horn's master, and the horn can only be claimed "with blood." I think Victarion will attempt to bind the horn to himself via some kind of blood ritual nonsense, when the true meaning of "claiming the horn with blood" is that it can only be claimed when its current master is dead.

Thus, Victarion will never be the horn's master, because he didn't pay the iron price; when it's finally sounded, it will deliver a dragon to Euron.

[LynnS]

35 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

On that note, I do wonder what's going to happen with that horn. Just based on characterization, it doesn't feel right to me that Euron wouldn't have some sort of plan in place here, doesn't feel right that he would entrust Victarion with stealing a dragon and delivering it to him, so what's the trick?

I'll revisit an idea I've proposed here in the past, and suggest that Victarion is being set up to die an ironic death, by misunderstanding the meaning of the horn being claimed with blood (with Moqorro, perhaps, purposely promoting that misunderstanding):

The dragons will come to the horn's master, and the horn can only be claimed "with blood." I think Victarion will attempt to bind the horn to himself via some kind of blood ritual nonsense, when the true meaning of "claiming the horn with blood" is that it can only be claimed when its current master is dead.

Thus, Victarion will never be the horn's master, because he didn't pay the iron price; when it's finally sounded, it will deliver a dragon to Euron.

Could it be that Moqorro has already claimed the horn with blood some way?  Not sure what he did to Victarion to cause the monkeys to start screaming and jump overboard.  Moqorro does seem to be stringing him along.

[Brad Stark]

On 9/9/2017 at 5:56 PM, LynnS said:

I've always wondered what Shireen meant when she said the dragons were coming to eat her.

I assumed Melisandra was going to burn Shireen to try to 'wake dragons from stone'

[Frey family reunion]

7 hours ago, Matthew. said:

Bran is semi-regularly proposed as a head of the dragon, under the assumption that he'll skinchange one of them; before ADWD (and "Aegon VI)", both Bran and Tyrion were frequently floated as potential non-Targ dragon "riders." 

As an aside, if I had to take a random stab at which dragon Bran might 'borrow,' I'm thinking Rhaegal. He's green and bronze (good Pact colors), and Quentyn even describes him as the "green of moss in the deep woods at dusk." Drogon's coloring made his eventual rider obvious, so perhaps there's some foreshadowing in the others as well 
 

 

Yea, Rhaegal's colors are the same as Meera's someone else that Bran would love to ride.

 

7 hours ago, Matthew. said:

I always took it that Shireen would be the person with "king's blood" that Melisandre would eventually sacrifice in an attempt to wake dragons from stone--Shireen's soul will be 'fed' to Melisandre's dragon.
 

Yep, Shireen's bloodlines are the same as Edric Storm's, who Melisandre was very insistent on burning alive.  Both have Baratheon/Florent bloodlines.  Baratheon being descended from House Durrandon and the Florents insistence that they have the strongest bloodline ties to House Gardner.

[JNR]

7 hours ago, Matthew. said:

Bran is semi-regularly proposed as a head of the dragon, under the assumption that he'll skinchange one of them

We must read different threads.  In the ones I've read, "head of the dragon" is nearly always assumed to mean

1. Dragonrider

2. Probably Targaryen

3. Probably child of Rhaegar

...and Bran qualifies in none of these senses. 

Also, of course, Aemon is fairly explicit in AFFC in suggesting that he himself would have qualified to be a head of the dragon, helping guide Dany as PtwP:

Quote

Once he woke up weeping. "The dragon must have three heads," he wailed, "but I am too old and frail to be one of them. I should be with her, showing her the way, but my body has betrayed me."

and Aemon couldn't have been 1 or 3 either. 

(This passage is continually forgotten in another place on the grounds that it's inconvenient and makes those present feel itchy and doleful when brought up.)

[LynnS]

If we want to discuss released chapters from WoW in Heresy; does it have to be contained in spoiler tags?    

[Black Crow]

Dunno... might be worth playing safe

[SirArthur]

So if the souls exists and it is possible to warg a human being, can Bran warg himself and animate his legs ?

Is Viserys "waking the dragon" a reference to some soul movement ?

[Black Crow]

As to the first no, he's already there and can't.

As to the second; quite possibly, it could indeed be a reference to the moment when the soul enters the dragon

 

And welcome to Heresy 

[SirArthur]

So Azor Ahai reborn is literally the soul movement of Azor Ahai to an infant. Quite possibly even the movement of the soul to a stillborn baby ? Like Ashara's ? This theory lights so many candles.

( I never believed in reborn as a synonym for brought back to life. Because it is reborn, not reanimate )

edit: In the prophecies it is "come again" and "born again".

[Brad Stark]

Azor Ahai reborn could literally be reincarnation or a completely different person doing the same thing Azor Ahai did.  I doubt GRRM goes into detail unless it is important to the story