Heresy 211 Eight Cairns

[St Daga]

12 hours ago, Tucu said:

15 hours ago, St Daga said:

My impression is that the old gods might listen, but they don't do a damn thing about what you ask for, not even a twisted little bit of help. But perhaps I am a bit cynical... Perhaps I need to look at these instances of prayer again and see if there is a payoff.

In some cases the Old Gods respond.

I am not sold on the old gods helping, but it's possible. I suppose it's a bit like deciding if you think gods are in play in this story or not.

12 hours ago, Tucu said:

Waymar challenged the Old Gods and he got WWs:

Waymar was going to get the White Walker's, no matter what he said. They were looking for him, I think.

12 hours ago, Tucu said:

Sam asked for a safe return and he got a few wights and Coldhands:

Sam did get a flight of ravens and Coldhands to help him, but did they protect him and Gilly, or did Sam just get used to help bring Bran through the wall?

12 hours ago, Tucu said:

Arya asked for guidance:

It was Ned's voice that helped Arya, and that might not have come from the old gods. This is as scene I have internally debated more times than I care to admit. Just what was going on here? Is Ned's spirit in the trees? If so, how? He was very far from a weirwood when he died, his bones are MIA. Did Arya just hear what she needed to hear to motivate her, Ned's words in her own head? Did Ned via the weirnet help her out? I honestly can't decide what I think. Varamyr's death scene plays in to my confusion about this, as well.

12 hours ago, Tucu said:

Bran asked the Old Gods to protect Robb, they answered and Osha "translated":

Osha says the old gods can't help in the south and she says this is because there are no weirwoods in the south, but we know that there are plenty of weirwoods in the south. Hell, there is even one in the godswood at Riverrun, which Cat seems to have forgotten about when she says all the weirwoods in the south are gone. Robb and his northmen pray to a weirwood on at least one occasion, so they exist in his southron world. Perhaps some of these discrepancies are just GRRM not feeling his plot out very well, but it strikes me that this might be a false myth that Osha and Cat are telling us, not the actual truth.

However, in the end, Robb didn't trust his instincts and he didn't trust what Grey Wind was trying to tell him, so in a way, the old gods did try to help him but he didn't open himself to the gift that was provided.

12 hours ago, Tucu said:

Theon also prayed to the Old Gods:

In this scene that you are talking about, Theon has already come back to being himself. Bran has already spoke to him through the tree, I think. Theon deciding to be Theon and not Reek comes from within himself, although I do think hearing the tree's say his name has certainly helped him find the strength. 

Perhaps some of my issues with the "prayers" to the heart tree seem that much of the time what you wish for doesn't happen, although you have used some good examples that might indicate they do. I can see an argument for several possibilities and do appreciate that GRRM has given us multiple ways to interpret the same text.

 

 

[St Daga]

12 hours ago, SirArthur said:

regarding the british cairns: GRRM linked stonehenge with religion and astronomy, http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Measuring_Time/

the comet:

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Category/C91/P45

I did not have Hastings in mind especially, but I suppose there might have been some subconscious influence. The comet was actually more drawn from the Bard's in JULIUS CAESAR, as well as the ones actually in the sky as I was writing.

Thanks for the links. Sometimes I get overwhelmed looking at the SSM's when I am not looking for specifics. Super interesting about Caesar's comet, which was apparently seen for seven days, and was thought to be Julius Caesar's soul and came several months after his death/murder. Of course, this comet comes after Ned's death, although the timeline isn't specific about how long after. 

Another interesting thing I picked out of the second link was this:

Does Howland know who Jon Snow's mother is? and GRRM's response is "The Shadow knows".

So, I am sure this has been debated before but I have never seen this. Is GRRM just being cute, or is he telling us that Howland is The Shadow? There are many shadow's in the text, but there is an idea that something more than Bloodraven is manipulating the story and characters. Is Howand Reed is the main instigator of the story, the main manipulator. Perhaps it was just GRRM trying to avoid a question and answering rather flippantly instead.

 

[St Daga]

10 hours ago, Obscured by Klowds said:

The consequence that Ned gave to Bran for his confessed compulsive nighttime climb seems to be an opportunity to clean himself spiritually by communing with the godswood.  Perhaps Ned is applying a punishment that has meaning or purpose from long ago.  Maybe it is the exposure that Bran needed to overcome his fear of the Old Gods. 

Perhaps, but Bran only seems to overcome this fear after his fall, and that has nothing to do with Ned's godswood punishment.

10 hours ago, Obscured by Klowds said:

Sentinel surveilance is one of three forms of surveilance, active and passive being the other two. 

Perhaps we get all three of these from different types of trees? I need to think on this a little bit.

9 hours ago, Obscured by Klowds said:

Okay, Ima take one more crack at this.  Climbing the sentinel- we go from Waymar compelling Will to do it, to Bran being compelled to do it, to Bran compelling Summer to do it.  At the point where Bran compells Summer to climb the sentinel in Winterfell's godswood, he has a dramatic breakthrough in telepathy.  He makes the switch from passive warging to active.  Somehow it seems important that Bran overheard Will tell his story even though he can't recall much of it.  I think that the trauma from watching Will receive justice led young Bran to become obsessed with climbing, and that the things that Bran can't recall have greater influence on him than the things he can.  Did something about Will’s terrifying experience pass on to Bran?  How are stories like diseases?

I always interpreted that scene with Summer in the godswood as the direwolf trying to climb the tree as a way to help him climb the wall to escape his imprisonment in Winterfell. At this time, Bran and Co have hidden in the crypts, but have truly not escaped from Winterfell. I guess I look at it as Bran along for the ride with Summer, not Bran compelling Summer's behavior. When I have my books with me, I will have to look this scene over again, but just at a quick glance it does seem like Bran could be compelling Summer to climb. This is an interesting thought and I am going to think about it a bit. But I wonder if the reason that Bran climbed that sentinel tree to start with, for his whole life, is because something compelled him to do it. I wonder how young or how old Summer's spirit could be?

And just to clarify, Will, who has climbed the tree in the prologue has died, and it is Gared that Bran heard talking to Ned. So, I am not sure that Gared would have a connection to Will's climb. Gared never came with Will and Waymer and before his death, Will seems to wonder if Gared remained with the horses, indicating he had not seen Gared for some time. It is possible that Gared did watch Will climb the tree. When you point out Will and his climb, however, I do think that Will seemed drawn to the sentinel tree he eventually climbed, in a way that Bran seems drawn to the sentinel tree in the Winterfell godswood.

Still, Bran was a climber long before he seen Gared executed and long before Will climbed the sentinel tree north of the wall. It's hard to say how much of Gared's words to Ned that Bran even heard, but it might be more than he has let on. No doubt that introductory scene we have of the Stark's is important. Ned, Robb, Bran, Jon. A lesson in justice, a lesson in death, and a gift from the gods, perhaps!

[LynnS]

3 hours ago, St Daga said:

Thanks for the links. Sometimes I get overwhelmed looking at the SSM's when I am not looking for specifics. Super interesting about Caesar's comet, which was apparently seen for seven days, and was thought to be Julius Caesar's soul and came several months after his death/murder. Of course, this comet comes after Ned's death, although the timeline isn't specific about how long after. 

Another interesting thing I picked out of the second link was this:

Does Howland know who Jon Snow's mother is? and GRRM's response is "The Shadow knows".

So, I am sure this has been debated before but I have never seen this. Is GRRM just being cute, or is he telling us that Howland is The Shadow? There are many shadow's in the text, but there is an idea that something more than Bloodraven is manipulating the story and characters. Is Howand Reed is the main instigator of the story, the main manipulator. Perhaps it was just GRRM trying to avoid a question and answering rather flippantly instead. 

 

Some interesting wiki stuff about The Shadow.

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

Quote

Gibson's characterization of The Shadow laid the foundations for the archetype of the superhero, including stylized imagery and title, sidekicks, supervillains, and a secret identity. Clad in black, The Shadow operated mainly after dark as a vigilante in the name of justice, and terrifying criminals into vulnerability. Gibson himself claimed the literary inspirations upon which he had drawn were Bram Stoker's Dracula and Edward Bulwer-Lytton's "The House and the Brain".[5] Another possible inspiration for The Shadow is the French character Judex; the first episode of the original Judex film serial was released in the United States as The Mysterious Shadow, and Judex's costume is rather similar to The Shadow's. French comics historian Xavier Fournier notes other similarities with another silent serial, The Shielding Shadow, whose protagonist had a power of invisibility, and considers The Shadow to be a mix between the two characters. In the 1940s, some Shadow comic strips were translated in France as adventures of Judex.[7]

GRRM's use of the Shadow meme, might refer to Bran.

A Clash of Kings - Jon VII

Quote

 

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.

 

 

[PrettyPig]

6 hours ago, St Daga said:

It brings to mind Dying of the Light. In that case it was a rogue planet that moved closer to a star system and then eventually away from it, but what if when Warlorn traveled on it's path, it severely blocked the light from one planet while absorbing all that life and light for itself? I could see something like this happening in GRRM's world, except instead of looking at Warlorn, we are looking at the other planet. I could see this being possible with a comet or rogue planet. Heck, it's fantasy with a scifi glamour, so anything is possible.

!!!!   I have never read Dying of the Light, but I’m about to!   According to many people familiar with GRRM ‘s other works he is recycling material left and right, so incorporating a rogue planet from the opposite perspective seems completely reasonable.   Although blocking out light for years at a time isn’t necessarily factual or even theoretically possible, it’s sci-fi and we have dragons and ice zombies and skinchangers, soooo.....

This makes all kinds of sense though — George is at heart a sci-fi/fantasy nerd and I (and many others) have been wondering how he would incorporate this element into ASOIAF seamlessly given the difference in backdrop.   There are already hints to a space presence what with the black stones, Dawn, etc, and a large rogue planet entering Planetos’ orbital path would wreak all kinds of havoc on seasons, geological events, magnetism, on and on.   Brilliant!

[St Daga]

2 hours ago, LynnS said:

Some interesting wiki stuff about The Shadow.

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

Thanks for the link! It is interesting!

2 hours ago, LynnS said:

GRRM's use of the Shadow meme, might refer to Bran.

Yes, to Bran. He certainly has shadow imagery. And Arya maybe. She has several shadow references.

Quote

Quiet as a shadow, she told herself, light as a feather. AGOT-Arya III

And Jon, with one of my favorite lines from the books.

Quote

 All in black, he was a shadow among shadows, dark of hair, long of face, grey of eye.  ACOK-Jon I

This line about Jon has always teased my mind. A shadow among shadows! Better than even being a shadow is a shadow that hides in shadows!

[JNR]

6 hours ago, St Daga said:

So, I am sure this has been debated before but I have never seen this. Is GRRM just being cute, or is he telling us that Howland is The Shadow?

I think he's just being cute.  As Wikipedia points out:

Quote

The introduction from The Shadow radio program "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!", spoken by actor Frank Readick Jr, has earned a place in the American idiom.

This is just not a reference many of his readers are likely to get.

It's not unlike the way he seems to think his readers are familiar with the many shortcomings of 70s/80s fantasy (to which he continues to object in interviews).  When he started the series, that was true; today, a quarter-century later, not so much.   What remains true is that he is familiar with those shortcomings.

[St Daga]

20 minutes ago, PrettyPig said:

7 hours ago, St Daga said:

It brings to mind Dying of the Light. In that case it was a rogue planet that moved closer to a star system and then eventually away from it, but what if when Warlorn traveled on it's path, it severely blocked the light from one planet while absorbing all that life and light for itself? I could see something like this happening in GRRM's world, except instead of looking at Warlorn, we are looking at the other planet. I could see this being possible with a comet or rogue planet. Heck, it's fantasy with a scifi glamour, so anything is possible.

!!!!   I have never read Dying of the Light, but I’m about to!   According to many people familiar with GRRM ‘s other works he is recycling material left and right, so incorporating a rogue planet from the opposite perspective seems completely reasonable.   Although blocking out light for years at a time isn’t necessarily factual or even theoretically possible, it’s sci-fi and we have dragons and ice zombies and skinchangers, soooo.....

This makes all kinds of sense though — George is at heart a sci-fi/fantasy nerd and I (and many others) have been wondering how he would incorporate this element into ASOIAF seamlessly given the difference in backdrop.   There are already hints to a space presence what with the black stones, Dawn, etc, and a large rogue planet entering Planetos’ orbital path would wreak all kinds of havoc on seasons, geological events, magnetism, on and on.   Brilliant!

It's a very interesting story. The world building is pretty great, and there are certainly hints of ASOIAF in the text. I just read it early this spring, and found a lot to think about. Every bit of GRRM's outside work feels like some insight into what he is putting into play in this story. Although, I am not convinced it's absolute recycling. I think his writing has echoes and inversions and crooked reflections of his previous work, so I don't necessarily expect the same outcome, and perhaps even think he could take a similar arc and change the trajectory completely! 

[St Daga]

1 minute ago, JNR said:

6 hours ago, St Daga said:

So, I am sure this has been debated before but I have never seen this. Is GRRM just being cute, or is he telling us that Howland is The Shadow?

I think he's just being cute. 

It's certainly possible this could be used as a generic response to questions he either doesn't want to answer or can't answer.  But he could use this answer for just about any question, and he decided to use it when asked about Howland. That could mean something! Or not! 

[alienarea]

Apologies for intruding with strange stuff out of nowhere again.

I just binge-watched Twin Peaks season 3 (the last one from 2017) and the main character said "I'll be going through the red door and then I'm home".

And, of course, it has a one-armed dwarf, doppelgänger and bad entities from other worlds/dimensions. As the original Twin Peaks aired before GRRM started writing ASoIaF, I wonder whether we looked at it for connections?

[Who abducted Lyanna Palmer?]

[JNR]

13 minutes ago, St Daga said:

But he could use this answer for just about any question, and he decided to use it when asked about Howland.

Not really.  He is not always asked questions that begin "Does X know..." but he was in this case.  I think he just free-associated from the question to the radio show catchphrase.

When he's asked about the connection between Dany's dragons and the return of magic, he says "There's lots of cheese on that pizza."  I suppose we could, based on this, dive into the history of pizza in Naples and Italy, and expand it from there to the New York area with Lombardi's a century ago, and then to the NJ-area pizzerias GRRM knew in his youth... and via this culinary analysis, hope to establish the relationship between Dany's dragons and magic.  But I wouldn't call it a promising approach.

[PrettyPig]

10 minutes ago, St Daga said:

It's a very interesting story. The world building is pretty great, and there are certainly hints of ASOIAF in the text. I just read it early this spring, and found a lot to think about. Every bit of GRRM's outside work feels like some insight into what he is putting into play in this story. Although, I am not convinced it's absolute recycling. I think his writing has echoes and inversions and crooked reflections of his previous work, so I don't necessarily expect the same outcome, and perhaps even think he could take a similar arc and change the trajectory completely! 

Yes, I guess I should say he is recycling concepts and themes rather than full-fledged plots - and then melding these with concepts/themes from other favorites works, tv shows, comics, historical references....

Just downloaded Dying and one paragraph in my eyebrow is up:  "In the dawn of history, a rogue world pierced a curtain of interstellar dust...the rogue had nothing for Celia, only rock and ice and neverending night...."  

 

[LynnS]

15 minutes ago, JNR said:

Not really.  He is not always asked questions that begin "Does X know..." but he was in this case.  I think he just free-associated from the question to the radio show catchphrase.

When he's asked about the connection between Dany's dragons and the return of magic, he says "There's lots of cheese on that pizza."  I suppose we could, based on this, dive into the history of pizza in Naples and Italy, and expand it from there to the New York area with Lombardi's a century ago, and then to the NJ-area pizzerias GRRM knew in his youth... and via this culinary analysis, hope to establish the relationship between Dany's dragons and magic.  But I wouldn't call it a promising approach.

I think there is a difference between the history of pizza and the Shadow character.  One of them, I don't take very seriously; the other is rather suggestive.

[Matthew.]

1 hour ago, alienarea said:

As the original Twin Peaks aired before GRRM started writing ASoIaF, I wonder whether we looked at it for connections?

I don't know about more overt connections, but I had the distinct impression that the way Dany's journey through the House of the Undying was written took partial inspiration from the final episode of season 2, where Cooper is wandering through the Black Lodge.

[alienarea]

1 hour ago, Matthew. said:

I don't know about more overt connections, but I had the distinct impression that the way Dany's journey through the House of the Undying was written took partial inspiration from the final episode of season 2, where Cooper is wandering through the Black Lodge.

Yes, the House of the Undying has a Black Lodge vibe.

 

[Melifeather]

I tend to think that the Children view Planetos as a moon and sister moon to the moon in the sky. The Azor Ahai story is an oral telling of how the Children believe the moon they live on became "cracked" or broken. The three swords Azor forged were the three times they, and later humans, stole from nature to work magic. 

The hammer of waters was the first “sword” that the Children’s greenseers forged, and it was tempered in water.

The second “sword” that the greenseers forged was tempered in the heart of a lion. The Children realized that they were the lions in the forest. They used their great magic to create white shadows armored in ice to fight back, bringing about the Long Night, but it wasn't long before mankind learned how to work ice magic too, and use it against their enemies. A few survivors decided to seek out the Children and sent the Last Hero to remind the Children that there was a Pact. The Children agreed to help the Last Hero to defeat the Others, and build to the Wall to ban the humans that were abusing ice magic.

The third sword was tempered in Nissa Nissa. The name Nissa means “moon”, so Nissa Nissa equates to "moon moon" or rather twin moons - the one in the sky and the one they live on. The dragonlords sacrificed slaves to hatch the first dragons. Recall that the slaves worked underground in mines, and I believe this is where the first eggs were found. You could view the mines as deep cracks in the ground, or moon if you like.

The Children had introduced magic into the world, but humans abused it. This is why the Children feel it's their fault that they broke the world, and why they're trying to right their great mistake. The sacrificed moon maiden is a replay of this mistake and memorialized with each cycle of the wheel of time, beginning with the story of Duran taking Elenei all the way to the present.

[Obscured by Klowds]

17 hours ago, St Daga said:

And just to clarify, Will, who has climbed the tree in the prologue has died, and it is Gared that Bran heard talking to Ned. So, I am not sure that Gared would have a connection to Will's climb. Gared never came with Will and Waymer and before his death, Will seems to wonder if Gared remained with the horses, indicating he had not seen Gared for some time. It is possible that Gared did watch Will climb the tree. When you point out Will and his climb, however, I do think that Will seemed drawn to the sentinel tree he eventually climbed, in a way that Bran seems drawn to the sentinel tree in the Winterfell godswood.

 

Thanks for taking the time to clarify that.  Oh, right!  Blue-eyed Waymar choked Will and Jeor later explained that Ned sent him Gared's head.  That does reduce the odds that Bran was influenced by Will, because it would have had to be communicated through Gared, and it isn't clear that he hung around long enough to see Will climb the sentinel.  I don't know when Bran started climbing, but I think waking in the night to do it is strangely compulsive.

Here is some of Bran compelling Summer to climb the sentinel:

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Bran VI
Snarling, he paced back and forth in front of the gate, then threw himself at it once more. It moved a little and slammed him back. Locked, something whispered. Chained. The voice he did not hear, the scent without a smell. The other ways were closed as well. Where doors opened in the walls of man-rock, the wood was thick and strong. There was no way out.
There is, the whisper came, and it seemed as if he could see the shadow of a great tree covered in needles, slanting up out of the black earth to ten times the height of a man. Yet when he looked about, it was not there. The other side of the godswood, the sentinel, hurry, hurry . . .
Through the gloom of night came a muffled shout, cut short.
Swiftly, swiftly, he whirled and bounded back into the trees, wet leaves rustling beneath his paws, branches whipping at him as he rushed past. He could hear his brother following close. They plunged under the heart tree and around the cold pool, through the blackberry bushes, under a tangle of oaks and ash and hawthorn scrub, to the far side of the wood . . . and there it was, the shadow he'd glimpsed without seeing, the slanting tree pointing at the rooftops. Sentinel, came the thought.
He remembered how it was to climb it then. The needles everywhere, scratching at his bare face and falling down the back of his neck, the sticky sap on his hands, the sharp piney smell of it. It was an easy tree for a boy to climb, leaning as it did, crooked, the branches so close together they almost made a ladder, slanting right up to the roof.

 

 

Doesn't this seem to be alternating between the thoughts of Summer and Bran?  I interpret this as the moment that Bran learns to communicate directly with Summer and influence Summer's behavior rather than passively enjoy the ride.  I'm pretty sure that Jojen made a point about whether or not Bran was the one in control during wolf dreams.  I'll see if I can hunt that down.  That last bit of that quote, in green, about the sticky sap and Bran's bare face seems to echo Will's climb at two points.

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Prologue

Ser Waymar looked him over with open disapproval. "I am not going back to Castle Black a failure on my first ranging. We will find these men." He glanced around. "Up the tree. Be quick about it. Look for a fire."

Will turned away, wordless. There was no use to argue. The wind was moving. It cut right through him. He went to the tree, a vaulting grey-green sentinel, and began to climb. Soon his hands were sticky with sap, and he was lost among the needles. Fear filled his gut like a meal he could not digest. He whispered a prayer to the nameless gods of the wood, and slipped his dirk free of its sheath. He put it between his teeth to keep both hands free for climbing. The taste of cold iron in his mouth gave him comfort.

Down below, the lordling called out suddenly, "Who goes there?" Will heard uncertainty in the challenge. He stopped climbing; he listened; he watched.

 

And this:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Prologue

"Will, where are you?" Ser Waymar called up. "Can you see anything?" He was turning in a slow circle, suddenly wary, his sword in hand. He must have felt them, as Will felt them. There was nothing to see. "Answer me! Why is it so cold?"

It was cold. Shivering, Will clung more tightly to his perch. His face pressed hard against the trunk of the sentinel. He could feel the sweet, sticky sap on his cheek.

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.

 

If Bran didn't get the story from Gared, is there another way that he might have gotten it? 

18 hours ago, St Daga said:

It's hard to say how much of Gared's words to Ned that Bran even heard, but it might be more than he has let on.

Agreed.  It is hard to say what Bran heard.

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Bran I

Bran's father sat solemnly on his horse, long brown hair stirring in the wind. His closely trimmed beard was shot with white, making him look older than his thirty-five years. He had a grim cast to his grey eyes this day, and he seemed not at all the man who would sit before the fire in the evening and talk softly of the age of heroes and the children of the forest. He had taken off Father's face, Bran thought, and donned the face of Lord Stark of Winterfell.

There were questions asked and answers given there in the chill of morning, but afterward Bran could not recall much of what had been said. Finally his lord father gave a command, and two of his guardsmen dragged the ragged man to the ironwood stump in the center of the square. They forced his head down onto the hard black wood. Lord Eddard Stark dismounted and his ward Theon Greyjoy brought forth the sword. "Ice," that sword was called. It was as wide across as a man's hand, and taller even than Robb. The blade was Valyrian steel, spell-forged and dark as smoke. Nothing held an edge like Valyrian steel.

His father peeled off his gloves and handed them to Jory Cassel, the captain of his household guard. He took hold of Ice with both hands and said, "In the name of Robert of the House Baratheon, the First of his Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, by the word of Eddard of the House Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, I do sentence you to die." He lifted the greatsword high above his head.

 

 

[Melifeather]

9 hours ago, Obscured by Klowds said:

Thanks for taking the time to clarify that.  Oh, right!  Blue-eyed Waymar choked Will and Jeor later explained that Ned sent him Gared's head.  That does reduce the odds that Bran was influenced by Will, because it would have had to be communicated through Gared, and it isn't clear that he hung around long enough to see Will climb the sentinel.  I don't know when Bran started climbing, but I think waking in the night to do it is strangely compulsive.

Here is some of Bran compelling Summer to climb the sentinel:

Doesn't this seem to be alternating between the thoughts of Summer and Bran?  I interpret this as the moment that Bran learns to communicate directly with Summer and influence Summer's behavior rather than passively enjoy the ride.  I'm pretty sure that Jojen made a point about whether or not Bran was the one in control during wolf dreams.  I'll see if I can hunt that down.  That last bit of that quote, in green, about the sticky sap and Bran's bare face seems to echo Will's climb at two points.

And this:

If Bran didn't get the story from Gared, is there another way that he might have gotten it? 

Agreed.  It is hard to say what Bran heard.

 

Rather than viewing this as information passed from Gared to Bran, we should examine the sentinel as a means of escape. If Gared had remained up the tree white walker Royce couldn't have gotten to him - I suppose the cold probably still would have. I agree Bran was trying to help Summer escape, so the sentinel as a means of escape may become significant for Bran in future.

[JNR]

23 hours ago, LynnS said:

I think there is a difference between the history of pizza and the Shadow character.  One of them, I don't take very seriously; the other is rather suggestive.

Well, the real topic here is Howland and what he knows.  And of course one major thing that distinguishes Howland is that he was there when Lyanna died.

This is an area GRRM has intentionally, since the first book, fogged over so thoroughly, so painstakingly, that 22 years and four books later we still can't say with certainty where it happened, or when, or the extent to which it connects to Jon's parents... if indeed it does.

Do we think GRRM is going to drop a serious clue about what Howland knows just because someone wrote him an e-mail and asked?

I guess we all have to decide that for ourselves, but I wouldn't bet on it.  GRRM is the king of evasive maneuvers, and in that very same e-mail reply, he said

Quote

You can ask, but don't count on answers. I like to keep my hand hidden till it's time to play my cards.

 

[St Daga]

10 hours ago, Obscured by Klowds said:

Thanks for taking the time to clarify that.  Oh, right!  Blue-eyed Waymar choked Will and Jeor later explained that Ned sent him Gared's head.  That does reduce the odds that Bran was influenced by Will, because it would have had to be communicated through Gared, and it isn't clear that he hung around long enough to see Will climb the sentinel.  I don't know when Bran started climbing, but I think waking in the night to do it is strangely compulsive.

I would imagine that Bran has been climbing long before the events of the prologue, so I don't know if anything that happened to Waymar, Will or Gared was part of his climbing. I do think it's possible that Bran has been encouraged to climb by something that he dreams, which might be why he climbed out the window that night. But the only reason he needed to even climb in the night is because no one would let him climb during the day.

10 hours ago, Obscured by Klowds said:

Doesn't this seem to be alternating between the thoughts of Summer and Bran?  I interpret this as the moment that Bran learns to communicate directly with Summer and influence Summer's behavior rather than passively enjoy the ride.  I'm pretty sure that Jojen made a point about whether or not Bran was the one in control during wolf dreams.  I'll see if I can hunt that down.  That last bit of that quote, in green, about the sticky sap and Bran's bare face seems to echo Will's climb at two points.

I would agree that something seems to be encouraging Summer to climb that tree, and the odds are it's Bran. But I am not convinced that other people don't skinchange those direwolves. Ghost especially! If it is Bran, which it probably is, then perhaps he was trying to get Summer out of the godswood for a reason. This is the when the Iron Born come to take Winterfell, a fairly small force of Iron Born, we are told. Had the wolves not been locked in the godswood, what kind of damage could could they have done to Theon and his men? A lot, I would think. Perhaps Bran had a premonition that the Iron Born would come and he wanted the wolves inside the castle. So, if he did want Summer to climb the tree to cross the wall, then perhaps it was with the hope that the wolves would keep Winterfell safe. And perhaps it wasn't Bran who was trying to get Summer to climb? But some one or something else that was trying to save Winterfell from the Iron Born?

When the three direwolves come at Tyrion in Winterfell, it's Summer who acts aggressive first, but we are given no reason for Bran to feel this way about Tyrion. It was Jaime and Cersei who caused his fall, not Tyrion. So, I wonder if it was another entity that caused the direwolves to go after Tyrion? As I said, I think the wolves could be warged by more than one person.

And while Will is a good climber, this might have been the reason he was a good poacher. Isn't that why he was sent to the wall. Perhaps he could climb tree's and stealthily hunt in the forests. Then the Night's Watch put those skills to use. Waymer seems to know that Will can climb, so this is not a first time for Will. There are similarities in the descriptions of the sap and needles, I agree. So, what you propose is possible, or that the sense are connected in some way, as I don't think that GRRM uses such similar wording without it supposed to mean something.

11 hours ago, Obscured by Klowds said:

If Bran didn't get the story from Gared, is there another way that he might have gotten it? 

We don't really know what Gared told Ned, and it might not have been about what happened to Waymer Royce or Will at all. Gared's message might have been something very different. I am not sure that Bran heard anything about Waymer, he certainly never thinks about him in the story, and Waymar's name is mentioned in Bran's POV in Game and Bran never thinks twice about it.