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Heresy 223 and where we go from here


Black Crow

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4 hours ago, alienarea said:

It is also a possibility that bookJon and bookDaenerys never meet.

 

Certainly a possibility and possibly a strong one at that. I think that its more than a touch premature to introduce Jon to a dragon at this stage in the discussion

Stepping back from both wishful thinking and the Mummers' farce, legitimacy so far as crowns are concerned is a funny thing.

Aegon the Conqueror had no legitimate claim to Westeros save that of conquest. His heirs and successors derived their legitimacy from him, and as they lost their dragons that legitimacy weakened sufficiently for Robert's Rebellion to succeed. With the death of Aerys and Rhaegar the heir became Viserys, but he was never crowned because of a lack of support - and a lack of dragons to try and enforce that supposed legitimacy. While 300 years may seem a long time its not actually very long at all when you're dealing with noble families who count their lineage in thousands of years. GRRM has spoken in the past of how some of the story is influenced by Jacobitism and this is very relevant. Although the Stuarts had ruled Scotland for hundreds of years they only occupied the English throne for a bare 85 years between 1603 and 1688 so when Bonnie Prince Charlie tooled up 57 years after that it was a bit hard to convince Englishmen that he was the rightful lawful king. There was more too it than that of course but it does form a good analogy for the return of the Targaryens.

Moving on to Danaerys the Dragonlord and her own Seven Men of Moidart. She has her dragons and she has her thin claim to legitimacy [as in a presumed right to the throne]. This, although she doesn't know it yet, will be trashed by Young Aegon also claiming that same legitimacy and even [if some clown proposes it] R+L=J.

God bless the King! (I mean our faith's defender!) 
God bless! (No harm in blessing) the Pretender. 
But who Pretender is, and who is King, 
God bless us all! That's quite another thing!

So in the end, just as GRRM outlined back in 1993 its not going to come down to legal claims to the throne, but to Danaerys' dragons and her Dothraki donkey wallopers and that isn't going to be a pretty sight calculated to warm the hearts of her loving subjects. And then, at the end of the day when Danaerys the Slayer has gone to her eternal rest, is anyone seriously going to bid for the throne on the basis of being a Targaryen and therefore the rightful king.

The Targaryen claim to the throne died on the Trident and Danaerys is doomed

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Did we ever discuss the White Walkers to be the souls (for lack of a more fitting term) of the nightwatch brothers bound to the Night's King by sorcery? And if Jon is the inversion of the Night's King, he has to 'unbound' them?

I am thinking of this because it is something that would work in the books but not in the show, forcing the show to invent the Night King.

 

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32 minutes ago, alienarea said:

Did we ever discuss the White Walkers to be the souls (for lack of a more fitting term) of the nightwatch brothers bound to the Night's King by sorcery? And if Jon is the inversion of the Night's King, he has to 'unbound' them?

I am thinking of this because it is something that would work in the books but not in the show, forcing the show to invent the Night King.

 

Old Nan's stories have the white walkers being created first, then the Long Night, then the Battle for the Dawn, then the Wall is built, and then 13 Lord Commanders later we get the Nights King, so presumably the white walkers were made long before he was caught sacrificing to the Others. Don't you think the LC was executed or at the very least imprisoned within the Wall?

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1 hour ago, alienarea said:

Did we ever discuss the White Walkers to be the souls (for lack of a more fitting term) of the nightwatch brothers bound to the Night's King by sorcery? And if Jon is the inversion of the Night's King, he has to 'unbound' them?

I am thinking of this because it is something that would work in the books but not in the show, forcing the show to invent the Night King.

 

Yes and no. As told by Old Nan, after he was overthrown it was found that he and his people had been sacrificing to the Others, which implies that they were doing a Craster. So its possible, but not the origin. My own feeling is that the origin lies with the Starks, who are powerful skinchangers and perhaps powerful enough to form new bodies for themselves of ice and snow. We have discussed variations on this and to my mind there's plenty scope for more discussion on these lines because I agree completely with your second paragraph

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3 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Certainly a possibility and possibly a strong one at that. I think that its more than a touch premature to introduce Jon to a dragon at this stage in the discussion

Stepping back from both wishful thinking and the Mummers' farce, legitimacy so far as crowns are concerned is a funny thing.

Aegon the Conqueror had no legitimate claim to Westeros save that of conquest. His heirs and successors derived their legitimacy from him, and as they lost their dragons that legitimacy weakened sufficiently for Robert's Rebellion to succeed. With the death of Aerys and Rhaegar the heir became Viserys, but he was never crowned because of a lack of support - and a lack of dragons to try and enforce that supposed legitimacy. While 300 years may seem a long time its not actually very long at all when you're dealing with noble families who count their lineage in thousands of years. GRRM has spoken in the past of how some of the story is influenced by Jacobitism and this is very relevant. Although the Stuarts had ruled Scotland for hundreds of years they only occupied the English throne for a bare 85 years between 1603 and 1688 so when Bonnie Prince Charlie tooled up 57 years after that it was a bit hard to convince Englishmen that he was the rightful lawful king. There was more too it than that of course but it does form a good analogy for the return of the Targaryens.

Moving on to Danaerys the Dragonlord and her own Seven Men of Moidart. She has her dragons and she has her thin claim to legitimacy [as in a presumed right to the throne]. This, although she doesn't know it yet, will be trashed by Young Aegon also claiming that same legitimacy and even [if some clown proposes it] R+L=J.

God bless the King! (I mean our faith's defender!) 
God bless! (No harm in blessing) the Pretender. 
But who Pretender is, and who is King, 
God bless us all! That's quite another thing!

So in the end, just as GRRM outlined back in 1993 its not going to come down to legal claims to the throne, but to Danaerys' dragons and her Dothraki donkey wallopers and that isn't going to be a pretty sight calculated to warm the hearts of her loving subjects. And then, at the end of the day when Danaerys the Slayer has gone to her eternal rest, is anyone seriously going to bid for the throne on the basis of being a Targaryen and therefore the rightful king.

The Targaryen claim to the throne died on the Trident and Danaerys is doomed

As I keep saying, it matters more who believes j=r+l and what the implications are than if it is actually true. 

One thing I appreciated about the farce is they got this right.   No one immediately bowed down to Jon and proclaimed him King.  Instead this only mattered in his relationship with Dany.

Of course one has to wonder about Bran's motivation revealing it, which is pretty much the only relevant thing he does with his power.  His sharing this directly leads to Varys's death, Dany's death, and Bran himself being crowned.   How this ending was supposed to come across as Bran being anything but an evil chess master who used magic to cheat at the game of thrones and win is beyond me. 

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9 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

As I keep saying, it matters more who believes j=r+l and what the implications are than if it is actually true. 

One thing I appreciated about the farce is they got this right.   No one immediately bowed down to Jon and proclaimed him King.  Instead this only mattered in his relationship with Dany.

Of course one has to wonder about Bran's motivation revealing it, which is pretty much the only relevant thing he does with his power.  His sharing this directly leads to Varys's death, Dany's death, and Bran himself being crowned.   How this ending was supposed to come across as Bran being anything but an evil chess master who used magic to cheat at the game of thrones and win is beyond me. 

Well as to the first this has always been the weakest aspect of the R+L=J, ie; how do you make it matter

As to the second, we needn't worry ourselves over the inept fumbling of the mummers

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What bothers me the most about the mummer's Nights King is that he is somehow the leader of the white walkers. How can that be if he was mutinied against and removed? What would the punishment be? I'm assuming execution, so how could he possibly remain connected to the white walkers? Old Nan said his name was erased from history as were all the records from his time as Lord Commander, but nobody doubts that he was removed from office. So what is our takeaway? What could be the "high note" from this sequence? The show demonstrated a human origin for the white walkers. Is that part actually true?

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16 hours ago, Black Crow said:

My own feeling is that the origin lies with the Starks, who are powerful skinchangers and perhaps powerful enough to form new bodies for themselves of ice and snow.

I like this idea. In the Dance prologue we see Varamyr's spirit sort of soaring through the world until at last it settles in his wolf. What if other spirits can resist being drawn into familiars, etc.? There is plenty of possible foreshadowing, too. The swords in the crypt, Jon's dreams of fighting Robb at the Wall, etc.

Another thought: What is the significance of sacrifice in Westeros? Bran sees a sacrifice at the heart tree. MMD tells us death pays for life. Davos hears a story about slaves sacrificing their captors in the Wolf's Den. There are plenty of examples in the text. We're told many trees were given faces to seal the Pact; was a man or a CotF killed for each tree? Is it possible that sacrifice is always how dragons were hatched, and the reason dragons died off is because the Targaryens either forgot or became unwilling to do it? Is Winter tied to a Stark sacrifice? Is Bran, ensconced in the tree, his own kind of sacrifice? We're told the maesters hate magic. Could they be responsible for dissuading people from sacrificing, and could this be a problem? On the other hand, Craster, the godly man, sacrifices regularly...

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I do think Varamyr's chapter was intended to show us that skinchanger spirits can be separated from the body. While the body is yet alive the spirit is tethered to it, but death severs the connection. But we also learned that skinchangers create a tether to the animals that they slip into, and as long as that animal remains alive - the tether is preserved. If the body dies the skinchanger's spirit remains tethered to it's animals and is drawn into the animal with the strongest bond. In Varamyr's instance it was One Eye. Presumably if Jon were to die his spirit remains tethered to Ghost, but what if Ghost is killed? Would this be Jon's final death? Or could he in theory be released from all tethered connections and float free like Varamyr? 

I theorize that white walkers are spirits that have been severed from all human and animal tethers, but magic encapsulates the spirit into an icy form so that it doesn't float away or go into the rocks, streams, and trees. That is why when the magic spell is broken with obsidian the ice dissolves into a mist.

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44 minutes ago, Direwolf Blitzer said:

I like this idea. In the Dance prologue we see Varamyr's spirit sort of soaring through the world until at last it settles in his wolf. What if other spirits can resist being drawn into familiars, etc.? There is plenty of possible foreshadowing, too. The swords in the crypt, Jon's dreams of fighting Robb at the Wall, etc.

Another thought: What is the significance of sacrifice in Westeros? Bran sees a sacrifice at the heart tree. MMD tells us death pays for life. Davos hears a story about slaves sacrificing their captors in the Wolf's Den. There are plenty of examples in the text. We're told many trees were given faces to seal the Pact; was a man or a CotF killed for each tree? Is it possible that sacrifice is always how dragons were hatched, and the reason dragons died off is because the Targaryens either forgot or became unwilling to do it? Is Winter tied to a Stark sacrifice? Is Bran, ensconced in the tree, his own kind of sacrifice? We're told the maesters hate magic. Could they be responsible for dissuading people from sacrificing, and could this be a problem? On the other hand, Craster, the godly man, sacrifices regularly...

We've discussed this before.   The presence of wild dragons means a sacrifice is not needed.  I agree a sacrifice might be needed for a face on a tree.

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35 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

I do think Varamyr's chapter was intended to show us that skinchanger spirits can be separated from the body. While the body is yet alive the spirit is tethered to it, but death severs the connection. But we also learned that skinchangers create a tether to the animals that they slip into, and as long as that animal remains alive - the tether is preserved. If the body dies the skinchanger's spirit remains tethered to it's animals and is drawn into the animal with the strongest bond. In Varamyr's instance it was One Eye. Presumably if Jon were to die his spirit remains tethered to Ghost, but what if Ghost is killed? Would Jon this be Jon's final death? Or could he in theory be released from all tethered connections and float free like Varamyr? 

I theorize that white walkers are spirits that have been severed from all human and animal tethers, but magic encapsulates the spirit into an icy form so that it doesn't float away or go into the rocks, streams, and trees. That is why when the magic spell is broken with obsidian the ice dissolves into a mist.

I like this.   It ties the White Walkers, Wargs and ressurected people together. 

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17 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

We've discussed this before.   The presence of wild dragons means a sacrifice is not needed.  I agree a sacrifice might be needed for a face on a tree.

I actually wonder about that. If death separates the spirit from the body, couldn't the spirit be drawn into the dragon egg with the strongest bond? This might be why the Targaryens placed the eggs into the cribs even if the intention wasn't to kill the Targaryen that the egg was intended for. But, if sacrifice is required - who is to say where the spirit of the sacrificed one went? Just spitballing, but what if a magic ceremony were done with the intention to hatch a particular egg, but when the "dragon seed" infant was sacrificed it's spirit was actually drawn into an egg laid somewhere out in the wild instead? The egg in the ritual fails to hatch, but no one realizes that the spirit went elsewhere.

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9 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

I actually wonder about that. If death separates the spirit from the body, couldn't the spirit be drawn into the dragon egg with the strongest bond? This might be why the Targaryens placed the eggs into the cribs even if the intention wasn't to kill the Targaryen that the egg was intended for. But, if sacrifice is required - who is to say where the spirit of the sacrificed one went? Just spitballing, but what if a magic ceremony were done with the intention to hatch a particular egg, but when the "dragon seed" infant was sacrificed it's spirit was actually drawn into an egg laid somewhere out in the wild instead? The egg in the ritual fails to hatch, but no one realizes that the spirit went elsewhere.

Wild dragons in this instance could simply be analogous to birds who have "never been ridden." Moqorro tells Victarion he must claim the dragons with blood; maybe that horn was how it was done the first time, and the descendants of the original victim simply inherited the dragon bond. This could also explain why the first men have magic that seems to have come from the CotF, and the Andals don't. Only the first men gave people to the trees.

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5 minutes ago, Direwolf Blitzer said:

Wild dragons in this instance could simply be analogous to birds who have "never been ridden." Moqorro tells Victarion he must claim the dragons with blood; maybe that horn was how it was done the first time, and the descendants of the original victim simply inherited the dragon bond. This could also explain why the first men have magic that seems to have come from the CotF, and the Andals don't. Only the first men gave people to the trees.

Only death can pay for life. This saying seems to imply that a life needs to be sacrificed in order to create a new life, and Dany's dragons do seem to have personalities like the people she sacrificed. Drogon especially seems to be Drogo reborn.

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47 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

Only death can pay for life.

I think GRRM was trying to provide rules for his fantasy world when he had Jaqen inform Arya that the gods required three lives be sacrificed to pay for the three lives that she spared from the flames. Death was needed to pay for their lives. I think this also applies to dragons and white walkers. If these creations are to be "born" then lives need to be taken in exchange.

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On 6/15/2019 at 12:54 AM, SirArthur said:

Wait a moment. According to D&D's interpretation Rhaegar and Lyanna is a shocking answer ? Wtf is going on ? It is a romantic option in their interpretation. 

I have always thought this was an odd statement. I guess if they answered Lyanna, it's only "shocking" if Ned is still considered Jon's father. It's not really shocking for Lyanna to have had a child with Rhaegar, whom it is speculated that she spent a significant amount of time (although we really don't know that) because the implication, not facts, of the story leads to this idea. Implication only!. It would be "surprising" if it was Lyanna and a father like Robert or Arthur. but not really "shocking". And Rhaegar isn't shocking, at least in my opinion. The only other shocking idea for me besides a Stark mother and father for Jon is a Stark mother and Mance. Hard to say what is shocking in d&d's opinion? I guess they could consider it "shocking" that Lyanna is Jon's mother and Ned isn't his father, since that would mean that Eddard lied. Except we know that Ned feels lies are okay for the right reasons, so again, R+L=J shouldn't be "shocking" to the reader. Ned and Ashara isn't shocking, in my opinion, or Wylla, if Wylla is really some regular woman. Honestly, if Ned is the father, the only shocking answer for the mother that really stands out to me is Lyanna or Cersei.

And I don't want to devolve the conversation back to parentage, because there is so much else to discuss, but I am just trying to catch up with the thread.

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37 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

Jaqen chose to kill 3 people for Arya.   No magic involved with these deaths.   This could have been his religious beliefs or his way of manipulating Arya.

Arya saved Jaqen, Rorge, and Biter. He informed Arya that the gods were robbed three deaths and he believed he needed to give the gods three deaths as payment for his life and Rorge and Biter's lives. He took it upon himself to do the killing, but he gave the choices to Arya.

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6 hours ago, Direwolf Blitzer said:

I like this idea. In the Dance prologue we see Varamyr's spirit sort of soaring through the world until at last it settles in his wolf. What if other spirits can resist being drawn into familiars, etc.? There is plenty of possible foreshadowing, too. The swords in the crypt, Jon's dreams of fighting Robb at the Wall, etc.

 

This is a narrative I've been pushing for a while now. Although Varamyr's prologue is explicit in laying out the "rules" of skinchanging and in particular the outcome, ie; when a skinchanger dies he [or she] is drawn into the strongest of the familiars and is trapped there until the soul is fully absorbed into the host - or the host also dies. There is no escape.

However, Varamyr never skinchanged a Direwolf, and my argument is that thanks to that particular bond [and remember that Leaf characterises Direwolves as one of the old races] the Starks are powerful enough wargs to fly free even when their original body is dead, and this I suggest can be manifested in two ways, either by riding the winds until they have need of a body and then creating one out of snow and ice [white walker] or returning to their own dead body [Coldhands].

There may be an internal conflict over this but after years of thought on the matter I believe that Jon will opt for the second.

I also believe that this will turn out to be the key element of the story, underpinning the Stark connection to Winter - and of course such a big complicated reveal as to be totally unfilmable, hence the mummers opting for their Nights King nonsense.

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On 6/16/2019 at 8:19 AM, Brad Stark said:

Do we ever see anything other than Dawn described as milkglass?  The Other's sword is impossibly thin and has bluish light, so apart from being translucent, I don't think they are described the same way. 

Dawn is twice described as milkglass, once in the text, in Ned's toj/fever dream and once in the World Book. The other times we hear of milkglass, it's too describe the ghost grass of the Dothraki Sea, some medicine/potion vials in Pycelle's chambers, and the bones of the Other that Sam kills with the obsidian dagger. So, milkglass ties to the Dawn sword, the bones of the Other's and the grass that the Dothraki think will end the world. The only one that doesn't fit is the vial's in Pycelle's chambers, unless those vial contents might be connected to death in some way.

 

On 6/16/2019 at 8:44 AM, Feather Crystal said:

The two shields of Westeros are houses Dayne and Stark. I theorize that you would use opposing magic to guard against the other, therefore Dayne would have a sword that could defend against fire, and Stark would have a blade that could defend against ice. Speaking of Dawn - it’s probably the blade that could kill dragons.

In this case, you think that Dawn, the blade of the Dayne's, works against fire (dragons), while the Stark blade called Ice works against ice? So, fire fighting fire and ice fighting ice? Because it seems like it might actually be fight fire with ice and ice with fire, so I see the possible opposite of what you are saying. Although I like the idea of the Dayne's and Stark's both being protector's of the realm in some way, two sides of a coin. I actually think that 10,000 year ago, they were the same people, the same family, and somehow split. The Day/Dayne's and the Dark/Stark's! Or Dark Star(k's) and Day Star's (Dayne's) as plays on words. We might even be seeing hints of a split family in the Dayne's of Starfall and the Dayne's of High Hermitage. I don't know what the opposite of Dark Star is? Perhaps White Star, Bright Star, Light Star...? :dunno:

A couple possible inversions in play within the Stark's and Dayne's themselves. We know we have Gerold "Dark Star" Dayne, and then in the Sword of the Morning (certainly connected to the Dayne's) constellation, we have the "white star" in it's hilt. As to the Stark's, whom I think of as Dark Stark's or Star(k), i opposition, we have a reference to the "white star" wolves, whom are the Karstark's, a split off of the original line of Stark's. We also had the Greystark's, but they apparently died out. I wonder what their sigil was?

Interestingly, at least to me, Cersei refers to Tywin as the "bright star of the west" and thinks how it will be darker now that he is gone. I didn't expect a possible Lannister connection. "Bright Star" is also associated with the Crone's Lantern constellation. I did not find any connection to "light star" in the text.

 

On 6/16/2019 at 10:15 AM, MaesterSam said:

That's an amusing thought. :D

Another possibility is that Rhaegar wanted to overthrow Aerys peacefully. He didn't want a rebellion or a war: he wanted to hold a Great Council and essentially get the lords' blessing to take over the kingship. It had a high likelihood of working: we know from the various POVs that Rhaegar was very well liked by virtually everybody, and many people thought he would make a great king and certainly a better king than Aerys. This would be a way to end the reign of the mad king without bloodshed; even Aerys could stay alive and maybe live out his days on Dragonstone. Too bad it didn't work out. 

Honestly, if Rhaegar thought that Aerys would peaceably step down, even based on a Great Council's recommendation, then he might have been an airhead! I don't see anyway a paranoid, "mad", cruel king will give up peaceably. Who does the Kingsguard follow and protect but the King, so the unless Aerys agreed to step down, and I don't see why he would, there would have to be some conflict, some bloodshed. Now, that might not have meant a nationwide bloody civil war, but I see no peaceable solution in regards to Aerys no longer being king.

 

On 6/17/2019 at 11:13 AM, Black Crow said:

Moving on to Danaerys the Dragonlord and her own Seven Men of Moidart. She has her dragons and she has her thin claim to legitimacy [as in a presumed right to the throne]. This, although she doesn't know it yet, will be trashed by Young Aegon also claiming that same legitimacy and even [if some clown proposes it] R+L=J.

This is a good point, No matter if Dany's claim is true or not, how people will perceive her claim will be fouled by another person also claiming to be the true heir to the throne (Young Griff, whether his claim is true or not). Each claim will weaken the other, and to throw a third such claim (... if RLJ) into the ring will make the whole situation devolve into a complete fiasco. AND it won't matter, because as you point out, the Targaryen claim did end on the Trident, so if any of them want to take it back, the only thing that matters is conquest. The same way good ole Bobby B did it!

 

4 hours ago, Direwolf Blitzer said:

Is Winter tied to a Stark sacrifice? Is Bran, ensconced in the tree, his own kind of sacrifice?

This is an interesting thought. I had always thought that the Stark sacrifice of sending their blood to the Night's Watch might be important, at least in keeping the wall strong, (as in those members would eventually be blood sacrifice) but perhaps the Stark in the tree is also important. Or perhaps just people of the right blood, since we see Bloodraven in the tree, and he seems to have no Stark blood, unless we will find out some day Stark's married back into the Blackwood family.

 

4 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

I do think Varamyr's chapter was intended to show us that skinchanger spirits can be separated from the body. While the body is yet alive the spirit is tethered to it, but death severs the connection. But we also learned that skinchangers create a tether to the animals that they slip into, and as long as that animal remains alive - the tether is preserved. If the body dies the skinchanger's spirit remains tethered to it's animals and is drawn into the animal with the strongest bond. In Varamyr's instance it was One Eye. Presumably if Jon were to die his spirit remains tethered to Ghost, but what if Ghost is killed? Would this be Jon's final death? Or could he in theory be released from all tethered connections and float free like Varamyr? 

I know it's very tinfoil, but I question that this is what happened to Robb. In near death, his spirit tried to connect with Grey Wind, but when Grey Wind was killed, Robb's spirit went back into himself, while looking for a source body to inhabit. I think he tried to inhabit Catelyn's body. And I think it worked. I think what made it work was that Cat killed Aegon/Jinglebell, which worked as a blood sacrifice. Then, Robb and Cat are co-existing in Cat's body when she is killed. Did Robb's spirit again have to go searching? Or does Robb's spirit remain tethered to Cat's body in death? And when Beric's fire awakened Catelyn's remains, what spirit/soul did he really wake?

 

 

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