The Three Eyed Crow is Old Nan not Bloodraven

[LiveFirstDieLater]

The Three Eyed Crow is Old Nan and not Bloodraven

I have tried to make various arguments for why I believe Bloodraven is not the three eyed crow on these forums, and I’ve gone back and forth about who the Three Eyed Crow is, but this is my attempt at a relatively concise explanation of why Bloodraven is not the Three Eyed Crow, Old Nan is. Unfortunately mods shut down my last thread, but I’ll give this board one last shot. Sorry about the formatting but this website is terrible. 

 

First I: Are You a Crow?

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The crow landed on his hand and began to eat.
"Are you really a crow?" Bran asked.
Are you really falling? the crow asked back.
"It's just a dream," Bran said.
Is it? asked the crow.

Before the Crow even has three eyes, Bran asks very plainly if it is really a crow, and while the crow doesn’t directly answer, it clearly understands the question, and hears Bran call it a crow. This leaves no question that whoever is appearing to Bran will know he/she appeared as a crow.

When Bran first meets Sam he asks him if he is the Three eyed Crow.

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"The Night's Watch, yes." The fat man was still breathing like a bellows. "I'm a brother of the Watch." He had one cord under his chins, forcing his head up, and others digging deep into his cheeks. "I'm a crow, please. Let me out of this."
Bran was suddenly uncertain. "Are you the three-eyed crow?" He can't be the three-eyed crow.
"I don't think so." The fat man rolled his eyes, but there were only two of them. "I'm only Sam. Samwell Tarly. Let me out, it's hurting me." He began to struggle again.  

            

Sam is confused, assumes Bran means a brother of the night’s watch, has the wrong number of eyes, and I think we can all agree is not the three eyed crow.

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His mouth twisted. "I don't even dream of Ghost anymore. All my dreams are of the crypts, of the stone kings on their thrones. Sometimes I hear Robb's voice, and my father's, as if they were at a feast. But there's a wall between us, and I know that no place has been set for me."
The living have no place at the feasts of the dead. It tore the heart from Sam to hold his silence then. Bran's not dead, Jon, he wanted to stay. He's with friends, and they're going north on a giant elk to find a three-eyed crow in the depths of the haunted forest. It sounded so mad that there were times Sam Tarly thought he must have dreamt it all, conjured it whole from fever and fear and hunger . . . but he would have blurted it out anyway, if he had not given his word.
Three times he had sworn to keep the secret; once to Bran himself, once to that strange boy Jojen Reed, and last of all to Coldhands. "The world believes the boy is dead," his rescuer had said as they parted. "Let his bones lie undisturbed. We want no seekers coming after us.Swear it, Samwell of the Night's Watch. Swear it for the life you owe me."

Given this is Sam’s PoV, and he’s thinking about the Three Eyed Crow in the third person, he can be safely ruled out… But it’s worth pointing out how really mad and creepy the whole thing sounds… wanting no seekers to disturb Bran’s bones.

Bran also Asks Bloodraven if he is the three eyed crow.

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"Are you the three-eyed crow?" Bran heard himself say. A three-eyed crow should have three eyes. He has only one, and that one red. Bran could feel the eye staring at him, shining like a pool of blood in the torchlight. Where his other eye should have been, a thin white root grew from an empty socket, down his cheek, and into his neck.
"A … crow?" The pale lord's voice was dry. His lips moved slowly, as if they had forgotten how to form words. "Once, aye. Black of garb and black of blood." The clothes he wore were rotten and faded, spotted with moss and eaten through with worms, but once they had been black. "I have been many things, Bran. Now I am as you see me, and now you will understand why I could not come to you … except in dreams. I have watched you for a long time, watched you with a thousand eyes and one. I saw your birth, and that of your lord father before you. I saw your first step, heard your first word, was part of your first dream. I was watching when you fell. And now you are come to me at last, Brandon Stark, though the hour is late."

Bloodraven makes the same assumption as Sam, and believes Bran is talking about the Night’s Watch.  Bran makes the same observation about the crow having the wrong number of eyes.

Bloodraven meanwhile should know exactly what Bran means if he was the three eyed crow, since Bran asked the crow in the dream if he was a crow.  It is also terribly suspicious that Bloodraven only uses passive verbs about his passed dream interactions with Bran. He says he watched, and saw, but not that he talked, pecked and buffeted…

However, the weirwood in Bran’s original falling dream does just watch.

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 At the heart of the godswood, the great white weirwood brooded over its reflection in the black pool, its leaves rustling in a chill wind. When it felt Bran watching, it lifted its eyes from the still waters and stared back at him knowingly.

 

Second II: The Many Dreams of Bran

After bran’s fall he has different kinds of dreams… 

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He was scared, even then, but he had sworn to trust them, and a Stark of Winterfell keeps his sworn word. "There's different kinds," he said slowly. "There's the wolf dreams, those aren't so bad as the others. I run and hunt and kill squirrels. And there's dreams where the crow comes and tells me to fly. Sometimes the tree is in those dreams too, calling my name. That frightens me. But the worst dreams are when I fall."

Ok so, Bran dreams:

Wolf Dreams: when he shares Summer’s Skin

Crow Dreams: there the three eyed crow comes and pecks at him and tells him to fly

Tree Dreams: Scary tree calls Brans name (Brandon Stark!)

Falling Dreams: Where Bran relives the fall from the old tower.

So the three eyed crow is distinct from the Weirwood tree, this is important, since as I’ve shown above, Bloodraven (who appears to Melisandre as a wooden face in her fires) doesn’t self-identify as a three eyed crow. Meanwhile the Weirwood tree (distinct entity from the crow) trying to call Brans name wordlessly is a spot on match.

Now let’s look at the falling dreams…

In Bran’s first falling dream, he seems to remember Jaime throwing him and the Three Eyed Crow tells him he doesn’t need it now. I would suggest that the Three Eyed Crow is either taking a memory from Bran or hiding it from him…

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The crow took to the air, cawing. Not that, it shrieked at him. Forget that, you do not need it now, put it aside, put it away. It landed on Bran’s shoulder, and pecked at him, and the shininggolden face was gone.

So we see that the Three Eyed Crow seems to be able to take Bran’s memories, or at least make him temporarily forget. When does Bran dream the Falling Dream again?

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Summer followed them up the tower steps as Hodor carried Bran back to his bed. Old Nan was asleep in her chair. Hodor said "Hodor," gathered up his great-grandmother, and carried her off, snoring softly, while Bran lay thinking. Robb had promised that he could feast with the Night's Watch in the Great Hall. "Summer," he called. The wolf bounded up on the bed. Bran hugged him so hard he could feel the hot breath on his cheek. "I can ride now," he whispered to his friend. "We can go hunting in the woods soon, wait and see." After a time he slept.
In his dream he was climbing again, pulling himself up an ancient windowless tower, his fingers forcing themselves between blackened stones, his feet scrabbling for purchase.

Bran dreams the falling dream again after Old Nan fell asleep. Remember Bran has been left in her care since his fall… and she has been protecting him as the three eyed crow from the other dreams (and perhaps from the other dreamers).

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He fought against sleep as long as he could, but in the end it took him as it always did. On this night he dreamed of the weirwood. It was looking at him with its deep red eyes, calling to him with its twisted wooden mouth, and from its pale branches the three-eyed crow came flapping, pecking at his face and crying his name in a voice as sharp as swords.

Here we see the Three Eyed Crow trying to stop Bran from listening to the Weirwood.

Using a voice “as sharp as swords”… you know what is compared to a sword, a needle! 

CLICK CLICK CLICK!

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"Crows are all liars," Old Nan agreed, from the chair where she sat doing her needlework. "I know a story about a crow."
"I don't want any more stories," Bran snapped, his voice petulant. He had liked Old Nan and her stories once. Before. But it was different now. They left her with him all day now, to watch over him and clean him and keep him from being lonely, but she just made it worse. "I hate your stupid stories."
The old woman smiled at him toothlessly. "My stories? No, my little lord, not mine. The stories are, before me and after me, before you too."

And of course, Crows have toothless smiles!

 

Third III: Knowing Fear and Fearing to Know

And then, while the joke is on Theon here, Nan continues to be birdlike:

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Theon Greyjoy had once commented that Hodor did not know much, but no one could doubt that he knew his name. Old Nan had cackled like a hen when Bran told her that, and confessed that Hodor's real name was Walder. No one knew where "Hodor" had come from, she said, but when he started saying it, they started calling him by it. It was the only word he had.
They left Old Nan in the tower room with her needles and her memories.

And then later…

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"Theon's sitting in Robb's chair," Rickon said.
"Hush, Rickon." Bran could feel the menace around them, but his brother was too young. A few torches had been lit, and a fire kindled in the great hearth, but most of the hall remained in darkness. There was no place to sit with the benches stacked against the walls, so the castle folk stood in small groups, not daring to speak. He saw Old Nan, her toothless mouth opening and closing.

Bran should be scared of the darkness (like in Bloodraven’s Lair).

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Unbidden, he thought back on the tales that Old Nan used to tell them, when he was a boy at Winterfell. He could almost hear her voice again, and the click-click-click of her needles. In that darkness, the Others came riding, she used to say, dropping her voice lower and lower. Cold and dead they were, and they hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every living creature with hot blood in its veins. Holdfasts and cities and kingdoms of men all fell before them, as they moved south on pale dead horses, leading hosts of the slain. They fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children …

After all… The Night’s King was a Stark of Winterfell, named Brandon Stark…

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No, Bran thought, but he walked in this castle, where we'll sleep tonight. He did not like that notion very much at all. Night's King was only a man by light of day, Old Nan would always say, but the night was his to rule. And it's getting dark.

The Talking Corpse, living North of the wall in the lands of always winter, buried beneath the ground in darkness, hooked up to a white Weirwood tree… Who was sent there because he committed a crime, he slew a guest beneath his roof (Blackfyre):

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Afterward the gods transformed the cook into a monstrous white rat who could only eat his own young. He had roamed the Nightfort ever since, devouring his children, but still his hunger was not sated. "It was not for murder that the gods cursed him," Old Nan said, "nor for serving the Andal king his son in a pie. A man has a right to vengeance. But he slew a guest beneath his roof, and that the gods cannot forgive."

And finally, to loop it all back together, here is Ned teaching Bran in his very first chapter, just before they find the wolves:

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So deep in thought was he that he never heard the rest of the party until his father moved up to ride beside him. "Are you well, Bran?" he asked, not unkindly.

"Yes, Father," Bran told him. He looked up. Wrapped in his furs and leathers, mounted on his great warhorse, his lord father loomed over him like a giant. "Robb says the man died bravely, but Jon says he was afraid."

"What do you think?" his father asked.

Bran thought about it. "Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?"

"That is the only time a man can be brave," his father told him. "Do you understand why I did it?"

"He was a wildling," Bran said. "They carry off women and sell them to the Others."

His lord father smiled. "Old Nan has been telling you stories again. In truth, the man was an oathbreaker, a deserter from the Night's Watch. No man is more dangerous. The deserter knows his life is forfeit if he is taken, so he will not flinch from any crime, no matter how vile. But you mistake me. The question was not why the man had to die, but why I must do it."

Bran had no answer for that. "King Robert has a headsman," he said, uncertainly.

"He does," his father admitted. "As did the Targaryen kings before him. Yet our way is the older way. The blood of the First Men still flows in the veins of the Starks, and we hold to the belief that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.

"One day, Bran, you will be Robb's bannerman, holding a keep of your own for your brother and your king, and justice will fall to you. When that day comes, you must take no pleasure in the task, but neither must you look away. A ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is."

 

 A man can only be brave when he’s afraid…

Old Nan telling stories about wildlings abducting people and being in league with the Others. 

In truth, it is a deserter who is the most dangerous.

The man who casts the sentence should swing the sword.

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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 icewaited 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.

"Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?" he heard his own voice saying, small and far away.

And his father's voice replied to him. "That is the only time a man can be brave."

 

The Three Eyed Crow (Nan) shares the terrible knowledge with Bran (looking into the Heart of Winter), just like sharing stories…

 

Nothing but snow and cold and death, with jagged blue white spires of ice, and the bones of a thousand other dreamers… This is a spot on birds eye view of Bloodraven’s Lair. The Grove of frozen Weirwoods in the land of always winter with the wights buried in the snow… The bones of a thousand other dreamers implailed on the roots of the Weirwoods.

 

Bran is afraid…

 

And then he hears Ned’s important lesson.

Oh ya, and by the way, Bloodraven is a deserter from the Nights Watch! One who casts the sentence without swinging the sword (check out the end of the Mystery Knight), one who does not know fear (like the Nights King, that was the fault in him) and embraces the darkness, and who flinched from no crime, even violating Guestright like he did by promising safe passage to a Blackfyre and then cutting his head off and presenting it to the Great Council. To complete the metaphor, it is the three eyed crow who leads Bran into the Stark Crypts after Ned’s death, and a bloody raven who brings the word of his death... dark wings dark words.

 

Of course, there are some other loose ends I didn’t even touch on... Jojen, for instance, sharing Mel’s penchant for misinterpretation. The remarkable parallels between Bloodraven’s Lair and the House of the Undying. How Old Nan repeatedly tried to talk to Bran before Theon sacked Winterfell. Or even, how I believe Old Nan is Shierra Seastar, Bloodraven’s half sister (oddly related as the crow is to the raven?)... but if people are interested, those could be topics for follow up conversations.

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“The man cannot abide a secret.”

“Is that a crow I hear, calling the raven black?”

 

I actually like the idea that Old Nan is Shiera Seastar...

She had daughters who moved away, Mel and Quaith... likely sold into slavery. Maybe one is Bloodraven’s and the other Bittersteel’s?

It provides a way for Blackfyre and/or Darksister to be in Winterfell.

It explains why so many of her stories are about the south, the targaryens, and dragons.

It explains why she knows the comet is about dragons... and why she’s also waiting for, the right, Brandon Stark.

the timeline for her arrival works out nicely...

as her few strands of white hair and cataracts disguise her Targaryen features and two colored eyes...

Though Old Nan did not think so, and she'd lived longer than any of them. "Dragons," she said, lifting her head and sniffing. She was near blind and could not see the comet, yet she claimed she could smell it. "It be dragons, boy," she insisted. Bran got no princes from Nan, no more than he ever had.

 

This interesting in that there was no reason for Nan to call Bran a Prince before... but of course makes sense if she herself is a legitimized Targaryen Bastard.

 

It made her think of the sea. Maybe that was the way out. Old Nan used to tell stories of boys who stowed away on trading galleys and sailed off into all kinds of adventures.

 

Seastar - also this is another example of how Nan told Targaryen stories to the Stark children.

 

He looked at the passing faces and the tales came back to him. The maester had told him the stories, and Old Nan had made them come alive. "That one is Jon Stark. When the sea raiders landed in the east, he drove them out and built the castle at White Harbor.

[kissdbyfire]

7 hours ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Bran dreams the falling dream again after Old Nan fell asleep. Remember Bran has been left in her care since his fall… and she has been protecting him as the three eyed crow from the other dreams (and perhaps from the other dreamers).

But why protect him from the only dreams that 'are not so bad'? 

[Clegane'sPup]

7 hours ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

I have tried to make various arguments for why I believe Bloodraven is not the three eyed crow on these forums, and I’ve gone back and forth about who the Three Eyed Crow is, but this is my attempt at a relatively concise explanation of why Bloodraven is not the Three Eyed Crow, Old Nan is. Unfortunately mods shut down my last thread, but I’ll give this board one last shot. Sorry about the formatting but this website is terrible. 

Usually I stay off this topic. Because I do not agree with your idea. Cut me some slack as I share my ideas. If you persist with your train of thought you will meet resistance. Surely you understand that. It is my opinion that martin did not write thousands of pages to get Bran from WF to the CotF cave and Bryden Rivers to reveal that Nan is the three eyed crow of Bran's dreams.

[aryagonnakill#2]

If Old Nan is the 3 eyed raven why would she tell Bran all crows are liars?

[LynnS]

14 hours ago, aryagonnakill#2 said:

If Old Nan is the 3 eyed raven why would she tell Bran all crows are liars?

Good question.  I think you mean  3 eyed crow.  There is no mention of the 3 eyed raven in the books, only in the show.   

It's my contention that Old Nan is talking about the Night's Watch when she says crows are all liars.  Mormont says as much:
 

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A Clash of Kings - Jon I

"I've always known that Robb would be Lord of Winterfell."

Mormont gave a whistle, and the bird flew to him again and settled on his arm. "A lord's one thing, a king's another." He offered the raven a handful of corn from his pocket. "They will garb your brother Robb in silks, satins, and velvets of a hundred different colors, while you live and die in black ringmail. He will wed some beautiful princess and father sons on her. You'll have no wife, nor will you ever hold a child of your own blood in your arms. Robb will rule, you will serve. Men will call you a crow. Him they'll call Your Grace. Singers will praise every little thing he does, while your greatest deeds all go unsung. Tell me that none of this troubles you, Jon . . . and I'll name you a liar, and know I have the truth of it."

 

This leads me to think that the 3EC is a man of the Watch.  But I favor Jon over Bloodraven and I think Patchface tells us who the 3EC actually is:
 

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A Dance with Dragons - Jon XI

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

 

 

[aryagonnakill#2]

6 hours ago, LynnS said:

Good question.  I think you mean  3 eyed crow.  There is no mention of the 3 eyed raven in the books, only in the show.   

It's my contention that Old Nan is talking about the Night's Watch when she says crows are all liars.  Mormont says as much:
 

This leads me to think that the 3EC is a man of the Watch.  But I favor Jon over Bloodraven and I think Patchface tells us who the 3EC actually is:
 

 

I'm just not sure how/why Jon would be the 3 eyed crow.  I mean I have to assume it takes some pretty serious magic to reach someone in a dream, are you suggesting that Jon not only did that but did so by going backwards at some point in the future?

[White Ravens]

Could it be that Bloodraven doesn't identify as the three-eyed crow because it wasn't him who sent the dreams to Bran?  Perhaps the dream was sent by the collective consciousness that resides within the interconnected network of weirwoods and greenseers.  Perhaps when bloodraven was summoned to the cave he dreamed of a different spirit animal that guided him and therefore doesn't recognize the one that Bran identifies with?

 

Anyway, I don't have an iron in this fire.  Good for you for trying so hard.

 

I find it worth noting that Shiera Seastar is unusual in appearance with one blue eye and one green one.  Odd that Old Nan's eye colour never gets mentioned if she is Shiera. 

[LynnS]

9 hours ago, aryagonnakill#2 said:

I'm just not sure how/why Jon would be the 3 eyed crow.  I mean I have to assume it takes some pretty serious magic to reach someone in a dream, are you suggesting that Jon not only did that but did so by going backwards at some point in the future?

I think the tree-Bran, Ghost-Jon encounter is an example of GRRM messing with linear time since Jon has this experience before Bran has passed the Wall and becomes wed to the weirwood.  Bloodraven tells us that greenseers don't experience time in the same manner as men.  The river moves in one direction for men but not greenseers.  

I also think the magic of the Black Gate is the device that Bran uses since Jon's description of tree-Bran is very similar to Bran's description of the weirwood at the Night Fort and I think it's evident that Bran can access any weirwood once he was wed to the tree.

Melisandre tells us that there is power in the Wall that Jon use and she is also aware of the Black Gate.  I think Black Gate is the middle head of the god Trios; the function of which nobody understands.  It's not just a physical portal between places. 

Jon is strongly bonded with Bran and it seems possible to me that Jon will access the Black Gate and come to Bran in his coma dream.  So I'm waiting to see if that's what happens.

 

  

[aryagonnakill#2]

7 hours ago, LynnS said:

I think the tree-Bran, Ghost-Jon encounter is an example of GRRM messing with linear time since Jon has this experience before Bran has passed the Wall and becomes wed to the weirwood.  Bloodraven tells us that greenseers don't experience time in the same manner as men.  The river moves in one direction for men but not greenseers.  

I also think the magic of the Black Gate is the device that Bran uses since Jon's description of tree-Bran is very similar to Bran's description of the weirwood at the Night Fort and I think it's evident that Bran can access any weirwood once he was wed to the tree.

Melisandre tells us that there is power in the Wall that Jon use and she is also aware of the Black Gate.  I think Black Gate is the middle head of the god Trios; the function of which nobody understands.  It's not just a physical portal between places. 

Jon is strongly bonded with Bran and it seems possible to me that Jon will access the Black Gate and come to Bran in his coma dream.  So I'm waiting to see if that's what happens.

 

  

This is all speculation of course on both our parts, but my interpretation is that Jons dream was a prophetic Targ dream, and that we will see that encounter first hand while Jon is in Ghost in the next book.  If we ever get a next book that is.  Bran will either enter Jons dream as Bloodraven did to him, or while residing in Ghost he will come across a Weirwood and Bran will use it to communicate with him, and the conversation will be much longer than Jons original dream.

[LynnS]

2 hours ago, aryagonnakill#2 said:

This is all speculation of course on both our parts, but my interpretation is that Jons dream was a prophetic Targ dream, and that we will see that encounter first hand while Jon is in Ghost in the next book.  If we ever get a next book that is.  Bran will either enter Jons dream as Bloodraven did to him, or while residing in Ghost he will come across a Weirwood and Bran will use it to communicate with him, and the conversation will be much longer than Jons original dream.

Yes of course.  If we ever get the book. LOL