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Did Bran Go Back in Time in ACoK?


Ghost+Nymeria4Eva

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Referring to a scene in one of Jon's chapters towards the end of ACoK. Jon, Qhorin, and three other black brothers are going through the Skirling Pass when Jon has another wolf dream in his sleep. He becomes Ghost as he goes hunting. And then this happens:

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Jon?
The call came from behind him, softer than a whisper, but strong too. Can a shout be silent? He turned his head, searching for his brother, for a glimpse of a lean grey shape moving beneath the trees, but there was nothing, only . . .
A weirwood.
It seemed to sprout from solid rock, its pale roots twisting up from a myriad of fissures and hairline cracks. The tree was slender compared to other weirwoods he had seen, no more than a sapling, yet it was growing as he watched, its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky. Wary, he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face. Red eyes looked at him. Fierce eyes they were, yet glad to see him. The weirwood had his brother’s face. Had his brother always had three eyes?
Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow.
He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs.
Don’t be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this. And the tree reached down and touched him.
And suddenly he was back in the mountains, his paws sunk deep in a drift of snow as he stood upon the edge of a great precipice. Before him the Skirling Pass opened up into airy emptiness, and a long vee-shaped valley lay spread beneath him like a quilt, awash in all the colors of an autumn afternoon.

Bran during this time is still hiding in the crypts of Winterfell, so it's obviously can't be the  same Bran that reaches out to Ghost. It looks like he has just become the three-eyed crow, symbolized by the young weirwood tree with his face on it. (So are the faces on weirwoods faces of the 3EC, rather than carved ones as believed? There would not be anyone to carve a face on a weir sapling growing on a rock in an inhospitable region.)

Anyway, does this mean Bran as the 3EC has gone back in time to help Jon? Or did the 3EC imitate Bran? Did Bran open Jon's warg eye as the previous 3EC did to him? At the end of Dance, Bran is still sort of an apprentice 3EC. So this must come from even further in the future.

How did he teleport Ghost to the top of the pass for the view of the valley? And how did to "talk" to Jon? Is it that Ghost's direwolf ears can "hear" the tree, whereas humans don't hear anything or perhaps just peculiar whispers?

(There's also the part about Bran being in the dark. Ghost smells death from the tree.That's a lot of sinister undertones to the weir magic hinted here.)

 

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3 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Ah, the post is archived. I noticed that you observed the tree line effect. The pass is all stone, but the sapling still grows. Perhaps there's a different reasons weirwoods don't grow in the Vale. 

I think someone mentioned that Bran is in the crypts, hence the death and the darkness. But the Bran in the passage says he "likes" it there. We know he doesn't, which is why he likes to warg into Summer. And Summer doesn't like it either. And Ghost observes a "terrible" smell too. Could it just be decomposing bodies, considering nothing been buried there recently?

The reason I thought it was a time travel trip is because Bran specifically says "before the crow." At this point, he hasn't met the crow yet and doesn't know anything about weirwood magic. And he sounds confident and even helps Jon see, unlike the Bran in Winterfell who's just learning about his warging abilities. Also, the weirwood. It's present and is growing, like it's between its adult and young stage, kind of like a time lapse video. 

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5 hours ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

Referring to a scene in one of Jon's chapters towards the end of ACoK. Jon, Qhorin, and three other black brothers are going through the Skirling Pass when Jon has another wolf dream in his sleep. He becomes Ghost as he goes hunting. And then this happens:

Bran during this time is still hiding in the crypts of Winterfell, so it's obviously can't be the  same Bran that reaches out to Ghost. It looks like he has just become the three-eyed crow, symbolized by the young weirwood tree with his face on it. (So are the faces on weirwoods faces of the 3EC, rather than carved ones as believed? There would not be anyone to carve a face on a weir sapling growing on a rock in an inhospitable region.)

Anyway, does this mean Bran as the 3EC has gone back in time to help Jon? Or did the 3EC imitate Bran? Did Bran open Jon's warg eye as the previous 3EC did to him? At the end of Dance, Bran is still sort of an apprentice 3EC. So this must come from even further in the future.

How did he teleport Ghost to the top of the pass for the view of the valley? And how did to "talk" to Jon? Is it that Ghost's direwolf ears can "hear" the tree, whereas humans don't hear anything or perhaps just peculiar whispers?

(There's also the part about Bran being in the dark. Ghost smells death from the tree.That's a lot of sinister undertones to the weir magic hinted here.)

 

No

Bran VIII, ACOK

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

 

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7 hours ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

The reason I thought it was a time travel trip is because Bran specifically says "before the crow." At this point, he hasn't met the crow yet

He did met the Crow in his dream, prior he woke up from his coma, and that Crow pecked a third eye in his forehead, since then he had three eyes. Only the third eye, is not an actual eye. It's the sixth chakra, chakra of wisdom and divine knowledge, so called "third-eye chakra", located on forehead.

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

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

GRRM actually did gave a hint, that Dany was able to hatch her dragons thanks to someone else's wisdom, same as Bran was able to awake from his coma: ACOK, Dany IV - "Shadows whirled and danced inside a tent, boneless and terrible. A little girl ran barefoot toward a big house with a red door. Mirri Maz Duur shrieked in the flames, a dragon bursting from her brow." <- brow/forehead. Mirri Maz Duur was Quaithe's apprentice, when she was at Asshai, and it was Quaithe, who gave to Dany instructions, about what should be done, to hatch her dragons. AGOT, Dany IX - "After that, for a long time, there was only the pain, the fire within her, and the whisperings of stars." ADWD, Dany X - "She was flying once again, spinning, laughing, dancing, as the stars wheeled around her and whispered secrets in her ear. "To go north, you must journey south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward, you must go back. To touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow." "Quaithe?" Dany called. "Where are you, Quaithe?" Then she saw. Her mask is made of starlight." - The stars in Dany's dream in AGOT was also Qauithe.

7 hours ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

and doesn't know anything about weirwood magic.

Look at this situation from a different angle - what if the Three-Eyed Crow is not Bloodraven, and the Three-Eyed Crow has nothing to do with the Weirwood and the Old Gods magic? Quaithe, who is Shiera Seastar, is the Three-Eyed Crow. Shiera binded Bloodraven to the Weirwood, like Nimue did to wizard Merlin. GRRM is using Arthurian legends as a basis for ASOIAF. Shiera is based on water fairy Nimue, Morgana le Fay, and an Irish deity Morrigan, who was the Battle Crow and the Queen of Phantoms/shadows - thus, the Three-Eyed Crow and a shadowbinder Quaithe. There's House Morrigen in ASOIAF, their castle is called Crow's Nest, and there's a crow on their banner, which is a clue about identity of the Three-Eyed Crow, thru her connection to Irish Morrigan. Jojen's dream, in which the Crow was trying to free a winged wolf from stone chains, could actually mean, that Shiera/3EC will try to free Bran from the Weirwood <- stone chains is the roots of weirwood trees, that will grow from inside of Bran's body, out of that seedpaste, that he ate, because that's what it means, to be wedded to a tree. Bloodraven is "wedded" to a tree. The Children of the Forest are bad guys, probably they created the Others.

Bran didn't actually time-traveled. Only his consciousness did. Similar situation was depicted in the latest episode of Legion TV-series, S3E1. Piece of script:

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Amahl Farouk: This is the astral plane. A world beyond the world. Made of pure energy. Very few can see it. David, for example. Oh, you know him. David Haller. He used to be easy to find. His power was so loud and no control. But now [BIRDS SINGING]

Timetraveler: Is this a mental space? - [LIQUID POURING] - Did you make this?

AF: I was looking for David and saw you. Your trail. See? The realms of time and space collide here in the plane. Now the first time I see you, I think, "Interesting. " But the second time You're helping him, no?

TT: I don't know what you're talking about.

AF: We, too, want to help him. He's a very sick young man.

TT: Then why did she shoot him? The blonde?

AF: You have seen this? So we find him and you go back to change what happens. 

TT: I have to go.

AF: To warn him.

In the physical world the Timetraveler haven't met yet neither David, nor Amahl, but in the spiritual world she (TT) have already went into the future (and past, on rewind), and contacted David several times. Same thing with Bran and Jon. While Bran is still at Winterfell in the crypts, and on his way to the Children's cave, his consciousness from the future is able to get in contact with Jon in the present, because there is no past, present or future in the astral/spiritual realm. When Bran will uncover his potential, for him all time will become an open plane. That's how Ned Stark heard him, when Bran saw the past Ned with Ice at Winterfell's godswood. Though in Legion the Timetraveler was able to also physically travel in time, not only mentally, while Bran/Bloodraven/greenseers are able to go back only in form of trees, thus they can't physically influence what was happening in that time. And that fragment, when Bran-tree touched Ghost-Jon, at that time Jon was sleeping/warging, so it was all happening in a spiritual realm, not in the physical world. And Ghost appeared on that hill, because he walked there, not teleported, or anything like that. Jon was in Ghost, then his consciousness was interacting with Bran-tree, and in those moments, that in the real world could have lasted much longer than in Jon's dream, Ghost was free from Jon, and walked to that hill, and then Jon's consciousness returned back into Ghost, after Bran-tree touched him in a spiritual realm. So Jon was unaware of what Ghost was doing, while Jon was interacting with Bran-tree, or how much time passed, that's why there was that sudden change of scene for Jon. Because while he was interacting with Bran-tree, Ghost was walking, and came to that place. And even though for Jon's consciousness that interaction lasted only several moments, in the physical world a lot more time had passed.

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15 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

No

Bran VIII, ACOK

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

 

But he didn't talk to Jon through Ghost. He was talking through a weir sapling that Ghost came across. Where did the weirwood come from otherwise? It wasn't one of those symbolic prophesy dreams. 

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"The tree was slender compared to other weirwoods he had seen, no more than a sapling, yet it was growing as he watched, its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky."

is a mirror version of

"The tree itself was shrinking, growing smaller with each vision, whilst the lesser trees dwindled into saplings and vanished,"

Accelerated tree growth indicates fast-forwarding in time, and shrinking trees indicate going back in time. 

 

In Celtic astronomy the constellation corvus is Bran/the crow, or the soul of Bran.  The carrion crow is corvus corone.  In ASOIAF the crone's lantern constellation is the constellation corvus, and the crone sees our fates and lights the way, there is a word play on crone/corone--the crow lights the way.  The soul of Bran is the crow, Bran's name means crow, his pet birds are crows.  Jojen says Bran is a winged wolf--a winged Stark.  Bran is the 3 eyed crow, he opened his own third eye through the network from the future, and he did the same to Jon, it is all part of Bran's master plan, brannamh is a chess-like game, and Bran is the chessmaster. 

Bran is also the god of winter in Celtic astronomy and I think Bran saw himself in the Heart of Winter--the crow's 3rd eye was full of terrible knowledge--Jojen tells Bran that there are things to fear in dreams--"the past, the future, the truth"  Mel sees him as the Great Other, or at least the Great Other's champion.  That is probably the Death that Ghost smelled.
 

Opening third eyes is advanced greenseerer stuff, and I don't think 9 year old Bran did it by accident.  At that point in Bran's journey, he did not even know weirwoods were a source of magical power, he thought the 3 eyed crow was going to be a wizard.  He had a vague memory of the interaction with Jon in the dream because it was him, just not current him, and he got some kind of echo of a memory.

 


 

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12 hours ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

But he didn't talk to Jon through Ghost. He was talking through a weir sapling that Ghost came across. Where did the weirwood come from otherwise? It wasn't one of those symbolic prophesy dreams. 

It looked different from Bran's POV than from Jon's. Jon is warging Ghost and see Bran as growing weirwood tree (as a greenseer, or Old God). The tree reaches touches "him". Except from Bran's POV, who doesn't see himself as a tree, he touches Ghost and finds he can talk to Jon. Same event, but different perceptions.

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I simply cannot understand why readers don't understand this issue.

There is no time travel. There is no time travel. There is no time travel.

(PS - There is no time travel.)

In  ACoK, Bran VIII (as noted above), Bran clearly states he "touched Ghost and talked to Jon." No reason to doubt this statement exists. It happened, and it happened while Bran hid in the Winterfell crypts. The only anomaly is that in Jon's POV, Jon (while inadvertently warging Ghost) sees a Bran-shaped weirwood instead of Bran. OK. That's rather odd, but we have seen so few weirwood visions at this point that we have no basis for comparison.

In AGoT Bran III, we see Bran's view of his dream where the 3EC appears. Later, in ACoK, Jojen reports that he dreamed of a three-eyed crow. In ADwD Bran II, when Bran first meets Bloodraven, he asks BR if he is the 3EC. Bloodraven doesn't understand the question. Conclusion - Bloodraven is not aware that he appears as a crow with three eyes to Bran and Jojen when he contacts then via dream. Likewise, Bran shows no awareness that he appeared as a weirwood sapling to Ghost/Jon  when he contacted them. Apparently this is how weirwood dreams work. Those who contact others by dream appear in those dreams as an avatar that they are not aware of.

Others have referred to this as the "dream avatar hypothesis". Call it what you will. It seems to be the most parsimonious description. Time was fully linear. When Bran attempts to contact someone via dream, he just happens to appear as a weirwood tree. (See the opening of the "Mercy" chapter for another instance.)

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6 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Doesn't Bloodraven discuss the trees' perspective of time in Bran III, Dance? Could it be that a greenseer loses perspective of time since time for a tree is kinda fungible

This occurs three books before Bran meets 3EC. 

3 hours ago, Ibbison from Ibben said:

Bloodraven doesn't understand the question. Conclusion - Bloodraven is not aware that he appears as a crow with three eyes to Bran and Jojen when he contacts then via dream.

What makes you say that? It seems like he understood it well enough and confirms that he is the crow. 

3 hours ago, Ibbison from Ibben said:

Likewise, Bran shows no awareness that he appeared as a weirwood sapling to Ghost/Jon  when he contacted them. Apparently this is how weirwood dreams work.

Except that it wasn't a weirwood dream. Bran was warging into Summer. In his Summer dream, he doesn't see Jon. Also, Summer sees that weird "winged snake" over Winterfell. Other than that, it seems the usual warg dream. If Summer met Ghost, it would be perfectly sensible. Unless if there are roots from the godswood growing into the crypts of Winterfell. 

Also, how did Bran manage to communicate with Jon who is beyond the Wall at this point? Doesn't the Wall block magical powers like this? Bloodraven has the trees. 

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Very possible, we see evidence on this even earlier though....

In Brans chapter in Game, the one where he is falling and than awakes from the coma at the end, he sees...

"His brother Jon laying cold and stiff as all memory of warmth fled from him"(paraphrased from memory, not exact quote). 

This suggests that as early as the first half of the first book, Bran could at the very least see the future(or I suppose it's more accurate to say he sees time in a non linear fashion), if not effect it....yet.

So yea I think there is definitely evidence to support a time traveling Bran theory(i Iike to call him Bran Conner, but that may just be me).

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Quote

Those were shadows of days past that you saw, Bran. You were looking through the eyes of the heart tree in your godswood. For men, time is a river. We are trapped in its flow, hurtling from past to present, always in the same direction. The lives of trees are different. They root and grow and die in one place, and that river does not move them. The oak is the acorn, the acorn is the oak. And the weirwood … a thousand human years are a moment to a weirwood, and through such gates you and I may gaze into the past."

"Once you have mastered your gifts, you may look where you will and see what the trees have seen, be it yesterday or last year or a thousand ages past. Men live their lives trapped in an eternal present, between the mists of memory and the sea of shadow that is all we know of the days to come. Certain moths live their whole lives in a day, yet to them that little span of time must seem as long as years and decades do to us. An oak may live three hundred years, a redwood tree three thousand. A weirwood will live forever if left undisturbed. To them seasons pass in the flutter of a moth's wing, and past, present, and future are one. Nor will your sight be limited to your godswood. The singers carved eyes into their heart trees to awaken them, and those are the first eyes a new greenseer learns to use … but in time you will see well beyond the trees themselves."

"In a year, or three, or ten. That I have not glimpsed.

Bloodraven really makes the point that all Bran can do is see into the past and future--you will gaze, you will look, you will see, but the last line of Bran's POV in Dance is the "Brandon Stark could taste the blood." --in Bran's weirwood trip he did not just gaze into the past, he wasn't just watching a recording of events in the past, he was actually there.  His second time in the network he already surpassed Bloodraven, and Bran did it without even being in contact with the weirwood roots.

(when Varamyr's soul jumped out of his body he was the weirwood briefly, and then he was everything in the forest, "I am the wood and everything that's in it"--the disembodied soul of a skinchanger can be anything and everything)

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"I am in the tree. I am inside the heart tree, looking out of its red eyes, but the weirwood cannot talk, so I can't.
Eddard Stark resumed his prayer. Bran felt his eyes fill up with tears. But were they his own tears, or the weirwood's? If I cry, will the tree begin to weep?" 
The answer is yes, because when he is talking to Theon through the tree it looks like Bran.
 
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The night was windless, the snow drifting straight down out of a cold black sky, yet the leaves of the heart tree were rustling his name. “Theon,” they seemed to whisper, “Theon.”
"… Bran," the tree murmured.
They know. The gods know. They saw what I did. And for one strange moment it seemed as if it were Bran's face carved into the pale trunk of the weirwood, staring down at him with eyes red and wise and sad. Bran's ghost, he thought, but that was madness. Why should Bran want to haunt him? He had been fond of the boy, had never done him any harm.

Ned heard Bran through the tree, Theon heard Bran through the tree. 

And when fake Arya is presented before the Heart Tree: "The weirwood's carved red eyes stared down at them, its great red mouth open as if to laugh. In the branches overhead a raven quorked."  Whereas in book 1  the "face had been carved in the trunk of the great tree, its features long and melancholy, the deep-cut eyes red with dried sap and strangely watchful." and " the great white weirwood brooded over its reflection"

The tree/Bran is laughing because that's not Arya. 

Bran is not subject to the limitations others have.

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"I can't fly," Bran said. "I can't, I can't …"

How do you know? Have you ever tried?

"I can't fly!"

You're flying right now.

A thousand other dreamers failed that test, and got impaled on ice spires, but Bran passed.

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Meera thought so too, later that night when she and Jojen met Bran in his room to play a three-sided game of tiles, but her brother shook his head. "The things I see in green dreams can't be changed."
That made his sister angry. "Why would the gods send a warning if we can't heed it and change what's to come?"
"I don't know," Jojen said sadly.

(major chekov's gun)

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"The gods give many gifts, Bran. My sister is a hunter. It is given to her to run swiftly, and stand so still she seems to vanish. She has sharp ears, keen eyes, a steady hand with net and spear. She can breathe mud and fly through trees. I could not do these things, no more than you could. To me the gods gave the green dreams, and to you . . . you could be more than me, Bran. You are the winged wolf, and there is no saying how far and high you might fly . . .

The gods give people different skill sets, ("your blood makes you a greenseer" "By these signs do the gods mark those they have chosen to receive the gift.")

Jojen could see the future but couldn't change it, Bloodraven could see the past but not change it, Jojen says Bran's skill set is vastly superior to Jojen's and there is no saying how high he might fly.  As a 10 year old boy he already surpassed Varamyr in skinchanging (he can successfully take over a living human and he beat Varamyr/One-eye wolf while in Summer and took over the pack) and better than Bloodraven at surfing the weirwood net.

(and no time travel discussion is complete without mentioning the Bridge of Dream)

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5 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

"Brandon Stark could taste the blood." --in Bran's weirwood trip he did not just gaze into the past, he wasn't just watching a recording of events in the past, he was actually there

No, he wasn't. While Bran's consciousness was looking at those past events, inside his body the weirwood seeds started to grow, and their roots pirced Bran's stomach from the inside. They will grow out of his body, thru his internal organs, bones, muscles and skin, into the ground, binding him to the cave (and it will be painful). Bran tasted his own blood. That blood was coming out of his mouth. Have you watched Ridley Scott's movie "Alien" (1979), or James Cameron's "Aliens" (1986)? Something similar is happening to Bran, except the tree won't jump out of his body, it will only release a few roots, to connect with the ground, and the rest of the tree will remain inside Bran's body. That's the horror, that Bran saw near the end of his coma-dream - "North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks." He saw his own future, what will happen to him, when he will become "wedded to a tree".

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1 hour ago, Megorova said:

No, he wasn't. While Bran's consciousness was looking at those past events, inside his body the weirwood seeds started to grow, and their roots pirced Bran's stomach from the inside. They will grow out of his body, thru his internal organs, bones, muscles and skin, into the ground, binding him to the cave (and it will be painful). Bran tasted his own blood. That blood was coming out of his mouth. Have you watched Ridley Scott's movie "Alien" (1979), or James Cameron's "Aliens" (1986)? Something similar is happening to Bran, except the tree won't jump out of his body, it will only release a few roots, to connect with the ground, and the rest of the tree will remain inside Bran's body. That's the horror, that Bran saw near the end of his coma-dream - "North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks." He saw his own future, what will happen to him, when he will become "wedded to a tree".

I agree with you that the roots will grow out of Bran and trap his body in the cave while he dreams--I have said that several times here before.  But that does not rule out the idea of Bran's consciousness/soul leaving his body altogether to escape the cave.

Arya "remembered a story Old Nan had told once, about a man imprisoned in a dark castle by evil giants. He was very brave and smart and he tricked the giants and escaped . . . but no sooner was he outside the castle than the Others took him, and drank his hot red blood."  

 

There is heavy foreshadowing of Bran permanently taking over Hodor's body:

"If I had a poleaxe with a big long haft, Hodor could be my legs. We could be a knight together."

"Hodor must stay with Bran, to be his legs,"

"Hodor wandered through dark tunnels with a sword in his right hand and a torch in his left. Or was it Bran wandering?
No one must ever know."
 
"But after they were gone, he slipped inside Hodor's skin and followed them. . .
"No one wants to hurt you, Hodor, he said silently, to the child-man whose flesh he'd taken. I just want to be strong again for a while. I'll give it back, the way I always do. No one ever knew when he was wearing Hodor's skin."
 
 

"Then there came a brown-haired girl slender as a spear who stood on the tips of her toes to kiss the lips of a young knight as tall as Hodor. "

Meera is a brown-haired girl slender as a spear, who fights with a spear, Bran is in love with Meera and thinks about using Hodor's body to hold Meera.

"I could put on Hodor's skin, he thought. Hodor could hold her and pat her on the back. The thought made Bran feel strange"

(Hodr/Hother means "warrior," and in Norse mythology Hodr marries Nanna, and the slender girl was Old Nan, and Hodr kills Baldor who in some stories cannot walk and is confined to a cart--Baldur represents summer, Bran is a sweet summer child with a wolf named summer, and Hodr is the winter god that slays him)

 

The CoTF think they have Bran trapped, and they are going to eat him metaphorically like the Undying tried to do with Dany (that is the secret song they are singing that makes the ravens peck at Bran's flesh), but Bran's consciousness is going to jump out of his body completely to escape the cave--likely in Hodor's body, which has been heavily foreshadowed.

 

"If the gods hadn't taken your wits, you would have been a great knight."

And in the Ghost of Winterfell chapter, Theon refers to Bran as a god and a ghost.  And in Turncloak he thinks "The gods could not kill Bran, no more than I could. It was a strange thought, and stranger still to remember that Bran might still be alive"

Hodr is a god of winter, Bran is a god of winter, Hodr = Hother, and Bran is the Great Other,

 

 

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

Arya "remembered a story Old Nan had told once, about a man imprisoned in a dark castle by evil giants. He was very brave and smart and he tricked the giants and escaped . . . but no sooner was he outside the castle than the Others took him, and drank his hot red blood."  

Maybe, that story happened to Bloodraven. And afterwards, to save his life, Shiera Seastar wedded him to the weirwood tree, for that tree to be his life-support.

4 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

There is heavy foreshadowing of Bran permanently taking over Hodor's body:

It doesn't make sense for Bran's consciousness to permanently overtake Hodor's body and escape from that cave, if Bran's own body will stay back. Bran's connection with his own body will be always stronger than his connection with Hodor's body, and thus, he will eventually slip off. The bigger will become distance between them, if Hodor will be escaping without Bran, the harder it will be for Bran to stay in Hodor. Also, the Weirwood wants to possess not only the body, but also to feed on the soul, so it's unlikely, that Bran's soul will remain intact, if the Weirwood will stay connected to his body, even if there will be no soul in it. It's a blood magic. As long as the Weirwood (or someone) has a piece of Bran's body (blood, or hair, etc.), it (the Weirwood) can get control over Bran's soul. It's similar to Voodoo. So, leaving the body behind, is not an option. Thus, most likely, they both will escape. Bran, probably, will use Hodor's body to rip out (detouch from the ground)  the roots, growing from Bran's body, and they will escape thru the underground river.

4 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

"Then there came a brown-haired girl slender as a spear who stood on the tips of her toes to kiss the lips of a young knight as tall as Hodor. "

Probably, that was Duncan the Tall and Old Nan - Hodor's ancestors.

4 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

but Bran's consciousness is going to jump out of his body completely

That's impossible. For that to happen, first he has to die. Like Valamir.

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5 minutes ago, Megorova said:

That's impossible. For that to happen, first he has to die. Like Valamir.

Reread the prologue, Varamyr's soul completely jumps out of his body--he went to the next level above skinchanging--his entire soul left his body, it tries to take over Thistle, fails, becomes a disembodied spirit floating around, then Varamyr's body dies and he goes into One-Eye at the same moment.  And the point I was trying to make is that neither we nor Bran know what he will capable of--it is uncharted territory. 

Bran could do this with Hodor, then mercy kill Bran's body and stay in Hodor and escape.  A skinchanger stays in their animal when they die, so Bran would stay in Hodor.

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I don't think time travel is the right way to describe what happens with Tree-Bran and Ghost-Jon.  What is interesting to me is that they experience the encounter in a different order to each other.

Jon says that Bran talked to him and then touched Ghost; while Bran experiences it in reverse order.  He says he touched Ghost and talked to Jon.  For Jon, time travels in one direction present forward.  With Bran, or specifically weirwood/greenseers are unbound by time.  

We know greenseers can see history through the trees but not interact (according to Bloodraven).  It may be that parts of Bran's coma dream were visions of the future - ie Jon 'sleeping' as all memory of warmth left his body; a euphamism for death.  Followed by a vision of the heart of winter.   If so, these events don't happen until the end of Dance.

So although Bran has a dream of Jon while in the crypts; he isn't a powerful greenseer yet.  He hasn't been wed to the trees and knows nothing about opening Jon's third eye.  Appearing as a sapling that sprouts from barren rock an grows before Jon's eyes in a kind time lapse fast forward; says something about time not operating under conventional rules for greenseers.

I suspect that Bran can only connect with Jon from his own near future because the Starks have some ability to connect with each other through their direwolves.  Jon and perhaps Arya may be the exception to the rule that greenseers cannot interact with others in the past.  At least not with dead people and Jon is very much alive.  

As for Bran experiencing this encounter with Jon while in the Crypt; I think this is a kind of ripple effect back to Bran from his own future, a slight bending of the fabric of time.

The purpose of Bran's visit to Jon is to open his third eye.  This is a wish that Bran expresses once he reaches Bloodraven's cave and not before.
 

Quote

 

A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

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

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

That was just another silly dream, though. Some days Bran wondered if all of this wasn't just some dream. Maybe he had fallen asleep out in the snows and dreamed himself a safe, warm place. You have to wake, he would tell himself, you have to wake right now, or you'll go dreaming into death. Once or twice he pinched his arm with his fingers, really hard, but the only thing that did was make his arm hurt. In the beginning he had tried to count the days by making note of when he woke and slept, but down here sleeping and waking had a way of melting into one another. Dreams became lessons, lessons became dreams, things happened all at once or not at all. Had he done that or only dreamed it?

 

So it does seem to me that time is out of kilter for Bran in some respects once he reaches BR's cave.  

The smell of death?  The wights outside the cave.  Ghost reacts the same way he did with Othor.   

 

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On 6/26/2019 at 10:58 PM, Lost Melnibonean said:

I think there is something to a different state of consciousness and direwolves as conduits.  Bran describes dreaming as lessons, events he is not entirely sure have happened.  Dreaming allows Ghost to take Jon with him since Jon is not consciously using his third eye or ability to skinchange in the same way that Bran does.  Bran's third eye has been opened temporarily when he experiences his coma dream; but he is not fully in command of it until they hide in the Crypt.  In the same sense, Tree-Bran has temporarily opened Jon's third eye at the Skirling Pass but Jon doesn't understand or use the power within him (to quote Melisandre) at this point.  

I think Bran is not confined by time once he is wed to the tree; greenseers experience time differently.  I don't think there is a past, present or future for Bran at this point.  As far as communicating with Jon or touching Ghost to speak to Jon; this seems to be some magical quality of their eye ability where the rules of time don't apply in the conventional sense.  I think the only rule is that Bran can only talk to someone who is living and who has third eye capability and a direwolf connection to the old gods.      

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