Who is the Grey girl in Melisandre's fires?

[corbon]

On 5/10/2020 at 8:18 AM, Springwatch said:

Jon's not that reasonable, given the Watch is no place for women, and he is bound not to interfere; also that many northern lords love their Starks. But anyway, these rationalisations apply to Arya. It is a staggering coincidence that Alys turns up and fulfils them.

Sure he is.
Mel is seeing whats important and relevant in the war for the Dawn, so she's not likely to be seeing some random girl fleeing north to... Karhold, or anywhere else. And Jon's the Lord Commander, so anyone fleeing towards Mel is fleeing to Jon's protection. 
The only rationalisation that applies to Arya is the marriage thing and the sister thing. 
Since Alys isn;t Jon;s sister, Mel is 1/2 on her rationalisations.

On 5/10/2020 at 8:18 AM, Springwatch said:

Can we agree that there is no image in the fire like a little tv screen? Otherwise everyone could sit round the fire and watch the film, and I don't think that's so. Flames, sparks and ashes suggest shapes, and only then the detail follows in the mind of the viewer.

Yes, and no. 

The detail doesn't follow 'in the mind' of the viewer - its in the shapes in the flames and takes years of expertise to 'see'. If it was just a tv image then anyone could see it.

On 5/10/2020 at 8:18 AM, Springwatch said:

In other words, a lengthy session of charades from R'hllor. I don't think so. It seems to go against the nature of the medium:

No, it does not. Its a few minutes, or a selection of short bursts of images that combine as a whole.
Other images described take time too, such as the waters that rise up over the towers and engulf them..

On 5/10/2020 at 8:18 AM, Springwatch said:

This fits with Mel's chapter, where she sees very short images, that shift from topic to topic.

No, thats you deliberately mis-conflating two things to support your argument.
Thats a series of images of old visions she's had before, not full visions themselves. Its more like a series of cutscenes she scrolls through trying to find the right 'frequency' to find teh grey girl scene.

On 5/10/2020 at 8:18 AM, Springwatch said:

The visions are far more than the rays of light coming from the fire - Mel describes 'the shapes beyond the flames'  i.e. the visions are formed in the mind, not the eye. Sort of like the real life way we recall a memory - there can be a lot of information attached to that memory.

Myabe, maybe not. There is a clear difference showing between what Mel 'sees in the fires (external) and the clear, explicit shift 'inward' toward the memories of Melony and Lot 7.
I think that she's still seeing the 'imagery' in teh fires, and due to her training and skill its pretty  clear and definitive for her. There is too much detail and too much surety on that detail, compared to the uncertainty (even as she tries to project certainty) about some of the not-imagery interpretations.

On 5/10/2020 at 8:18 AM, Springwatch said:

I doubt extremely that there's a big patch of blue in the flames. The idea of 'blue' was formed in her mind, and it was part of the vision, not a conscious addition of her own. In other words, the fire gave to her eyes something like the scene of a lake, but the blueness of the lake came on a different channel.

According to her, it was in the fire she could see it. I see no reason why it has to be iternal to her mind, and reason why its not - its clearly external and changes to internal before Melony/Lot 7.

There is no reason that we need 'different channels' for colour. ts a skill she has learned over years. If she sasy its blue, there is no reason to fuss about it being blue, or how.  

On 5/10/2020 at 8:18 AM, Springwatch said:

If Alys took the long way round (let's say, the Wall was not her first choice or something) - she was travelling a long time. The horse looked starved, didn't it?

If she went straight she was travelling a long time, considering she fled and likely didn't have the opportunity to steal everything she needed for the voyage and was definitely pursued all the way. 

On 5/10/2020 at 8:18 AM, Springwatch said:

Also the visions don't say anything about snow on the fields or not. Most likely the conditions looked appropriate for the season, else they might have been worth mention.

This is true. Yet if you see a snow-blanketed landscape its not natural to separated it out into hills, fields and trees, stones, stream beds. Snow hides lots of differences by its very nature. A field implies human creation, and you can't see that under snow. Its just an open space.

On 5/10/2020 at 8:18 AM, Springwatch said:

The weather at the Wall didn't seem so bad. Scattered snowflakes, patches of snow. The Wall was weeping the day the Wildlings came through, and after that there was talk of shadows, so the sun was shining. People felt cold, but that's natural when you're sitting on the biggest ice cube in the world. The real cold, snowy weather came later, iirc

Can you provide some textual references for non-snow covered ground? Anywhere in the north in current-ish time (suitable for Alys being the grey girl), or at the wall at any time in the books?
There was snow on the ground in Winterfell before Ned left. When Robb left too. And at the wall when Jon arrived and was training as a recruit. 

Quote

AGoT JonIII
When they finally spied Castle Black, its timbered keeps and stone towers looked like nothing more than a handful of toy blocks scattered on the snow,

I think for most of the north, the ground has been snow covered for some time.
Some patches in some places are not snow covered the whole time - including near Harhold 

Quote

"Not well." Alys sighed. "My father took so many of our men south with him that only the women and young boys were left to bring the harvest in. Them, and the men too old or crippled to go off to war. Crops withered in the fields or were pounded into the mud by autumn rains. And now the snows are come. This winter will be hard. Few of the old people will survive it, and many children will perish as well."

But its clear that there was snow in Winterfell before Lord Karstark took his men away and snow was falling again (and already on the ground) when Robb left Winterfell.
Its possible that Alys fled through a not-currently-snowed area but she indicates that the snows have come again and the iference is from before she left Karhold.

On 5/10/2020 at 8:46 AM, a black swan said:

I agree the magic fueling the flames allowed Mel to see the scene that one time. The magic did not tell her where or even when this scene would occur which she clearly admits to herself and not Jon or Mance. 

Agreed.

On 5/10/2020 at 8:46 AM, a black swan said:

Alys was described as being blue (in no way, at any point, according to not one single person is she ever "grey as ash" or "a girl in grey" so with her being blue clearly the weather was crazy fierce.

Well, cold. It depends how well equipped she was. You can be blue with cold without it having even snowed yet.

On 5/10/2020 at 8:46 AM, a black swan said:

If she'd gone the long way for some illogical reason then she would be far worse off physically. She had no supplies, no preparation for a long dangerous journey alone during Winter. She seemed to get her strength back rather quickly. She was ultimately found near a village and the King's Road increasing her danger of being found by her pursuers. Not very clever. She's doesn't tick all the boxes. 

Agreed.

On 5/10/2020 at 8:46 AM, a black swan said:

The fact that Mel describes the girl as jon's sister and "little sister" - was that idea inspired/planted in her mind by the magic in the flames or her was it own bias? If it was the latter, what else was tainted by her bias? 

Her own bias. She herself indicates that she doesn't actually know this, just can't think who else it could be.

7 hours ago, Springwatch said:

Not magic, inference only. "The girl", she said. "A girl in grey on a dying horse. Jon Snow's sister." Who else could it be?

But you need something to infer that relationship. The most reasonable and likely cause of that inference is a facial similarity.

On 5/10/2020 at 5:44 PM, rustythesmith said:

Girl in grey

One of the faulty logics that readers tend to use when interpreting the girl in grey prophecy is to assume that a person must be wrong if she is biased.

You are incorrectly assuming why everyone else thinks what they think. Smart readers understand the difference between bias and accuracy. You are not the only smart reader.

On 5/10/2020 at 5:44 PM, rustythesmith said:

Melisandre's bias towards Arya being the girl in grey stands out to the reader very clearly. One might say too clearly. She obviously wants to give Jon good news. If a prophet is supposed to be objective in her interpretations then Melisandre's conflict of interest is apparent.

Its explicit. She literally tells us that she needs more than what she saw to convince Jon, and  also that some of the things she tells him are her own inferences or guesses.

On 5/10/2020 at 5:44 PM, rustythesmith said:

But the truth is that a person being biased does not necessarily mean that she's wrong. It's perfectly possible for a person to be biased and correct.

Agreed. We don't need to be taught this.

13 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Has Mel ever had visions of the past? Have fire priests ever had visions of the past? It seems that Thoros's, Benerro's and Mel's visions in flames are always "future visions".

Yes. The visions include the past as well as possible and actual futures. The skill (one of them at least) is in separating out these things.

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"Fire is a living thing," the red woman told him, when he asked her to teach him how to see the future in the flames. "It is always moving, always changing . . . like a book whose letters dance and shift even as you try to read them. It takes years of training to see the shapes beyond the flames, and more years still to learn to tell the shapes of what will be from what may be or what was. Even then it comes hard, hard. You do not understand that, you men of the sunset lands."

She's not interested much in 'what was', but the shapes she see in the flames include what will be, what may be, and what was.

[corbon]

1 hour ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

 

We get three versions of the vision.

This one is Mel's interpretation;

"You are wrong. I have dreamed of your Wall, Jon Snow. Great was the lore that raised it, and great the spells locked beneath its ice. We walk beneath one of the hinges of the world." Melisandre gazed up at it, her breath a warm moist cloud in the air. "This is my place as it is yours, and soon enough you may have grave need of me. Do not refuse my friendship, Jon. I have seen you in the storm, hard-pressed, with enemies on every side. You have so many enemies. Shall I tell you their names?" (Jon I, ADwD 3)

This one is something that she seems to have genuinely seen in her flames;

"Do not be so certain." The ruby at Melisandre's throat gleamed red. "It is not the foes who curse you to your face that you must fear, but those who smile when you are looking and sharpen their knives when you turn your back. You would do well to keep your wolf close beside you. Ice, I see, and daggers in the dark. Blood frozen red and hard, and naked steel. It was very cold." (Jon I, ADwD 3)

This is what we get in real time;

The flames crackled softly, and in their crackling she heard the whispered name Jon Snow. His long face floated before her, limned in tongues of red and orange, appearing and disappearing again, a shadow half-seen behind a fluttering curtain. Now he was a man, now a wolf, now a man again. But the skulls were here as well, the skulls were all around him. Melisandre had seen his danger before, had tried to warn the boy of it. Enemies all around him, daggers in the dark. He would not listen. (Melisandre I, ADwD 31)

It's at least part of the vision. She seems familiar with it, so we seem to be getting the broad strokes. 

I think the skulls all around Jon is what she interprets as "enemies all around him." Skulls mean death. And the reason she wants him to keep Ghost by his side is because she a wolf in the vision. Most of us agree that this is Jon warging Ghost and then returning to his body, but she doesn't understand it that way, so her interpretation is that Ghost will protect Jon as long as he keeps him by his side. 

She spread her hands. "On the morrow. In a moon's turn. In a year. And it may be that if you act, you may avert what I have seen entirely." Else what would be the point of visions? (Melisandre I, ADwD 31)

This is Mel's problem in a nutshell.

 

1 hour ago, kissdbyfire said:

@Alexis-something-Rose, I think the skulls Mel sees have to do w/ Bloodraven and Bran. I’ll expand on this eventually. 

 

 

Interesting point around the skulls: she wonders if they may reference the Bridge of Skulls, not enemies. She thinks not, but it shows that she's doing an awful lot of interpreting there...

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"We've had a raven from Ser Denys Mallister at the Shadow Tower," Jon Snow told her. "His men have seen fires in the mountains on the far side of the Gorge. Wildlings massing, Ser Denys believes. He thinks they are going to try to force the Bridge of Skulls again."

"Some may." Could the skulls in her vision have signified this bridge? Somehow Melisandre did not think so. "If it comes, that attack will be no more than a diversion. I saw towers by the sea, submerged beneath a black and bloody tide. That is where the heaviest blow will fall."

 

[rustythesmith]

24 minutes ago, corbon said:

You are incorrectly assuming why everyone else thinks what they think. Smart readers understand the difference between bias and accuracy. You are not the only smart reader.

Its explicit. She literally tells us that she needs more than what she saw to convince Jon, and  also that some of the things she tells him are her own inferences or guesses.

Agreed. We don't need to be taught this.

I can see for myself why people think what they think, because they tell us in their posts. I have an intimate understanding of this prophecy in particular and the pitfalls in which the readers get trapped, because I spent a very long time struggling through these traps myself, and because I solved this prophecy years ago, wrote the book on it and made a movie out of it. You're right that I'm not the only smart reader. Many other readers were involved in the research and discussions necessary to find the connections that would allow me to put the pieces together. I'm just the madman who had the time to do it. But it wasn't all friendship and roses. Along the way there were plenty of thought-police who thought they were helping but were just in the way.

[sweetsunray]

2 hours ago, corbon said:

Yes. The visions include the past as well as possible and actual futures. The skill (one of them at least) is in separating out these things.

Can you give an example? You are stating this, but I'd like some evidence for this.

Mind you, I'm not asking about what Bran, Bloodraven or Ghost of High Heart can see. Different magic.

I agree though that Mel does a lot of filling in the gaps, and only the given imagery is reliable.

[Rose of Red Lake]

On 5/9/2020 at 10:44 PM, rustythesmith said:

Azor Ahai

Melisandre isn't wrong about her Azor Ahai prediction. The readers misinterpret her prediction. Melisandre's original prediction wasn't that Stannis is Azor Ahai. It was that Dragonstone will be the place where Azor Ahai is reborn amidst smoke and salt. She mistakenly thought Stannis was Azor Ahai because she knows for certain from the original vision that Dragonstone is the place where Azor Ahai will be reborn. When she arrived at Dragonstone she found Stannis there, a claimant to the throne.

Much like the reader's mistake, Melisandre's mistake is that she jumped the gun and settled upon a conclusion too soon. Azor Ahai hasn't been "reborn" at Dragonstone yet, but he/she will be reborn at Dragonstone in a future book, in some interpretation of the words reborn, smoke, salt and so on.

Melisandre

The reason GRRM says Melisandre is the most misunderstood character is because he wrote her to be misunderstood. His answer was akin to patting himself on the back in a way that is only identifiable to himself, reminiscent of the speech of Littlefinger and Varys. It's also a way of hiding the truth in plain sight, because he knows that the way people will interpret his words is not the way he means them. And that the common interpretation will drown out any other interpretations.

Melisandre is written in a way that will cause the less investigative and metaphorically inclined readers to believe that she is foolish and wrong all of the time. The more-investigative and metaphorically inclined readers will find that, much like other prophets and seers, Melisandre occupies a wise fool role. Her visions always come true in some interpretation. But in every case, only the first and original interpretation is valid.

Every re-iteration, re-telling and re-interpretation of the vision and the original telling moves Melisandre, the characters and the readers further away from the original vision and telling. It does this for a number of reasons: Because we take shortcuts with speech, we omit vital details, we make faulty assumptions, we use faulty logic. That's why the original telling has to basically be enshrined. It has to be carefully remembered word-for-word so that it can be referenced over and over again. Because part of our job is thinking up new interpretations of the words. Every possible interpretation of those words has to be explored because the author is using symbolism, metaphor, slippery language and he's manipulating our expectations to his advantage. Which is only to say that he wants to pleasantly surprise us.

Girl in grey

One of the faulty logics that readers tend to use when interpreting the girl in grey prophecy is to assume that a person must be wrong if she is biased. Melisandre's bias towards Arya being the girl in grey stands out to the reader very clearly. One might say too clearly. She obviously wants to give Jon good news. If a prophet is supposed to be objective in her interpretations then Melisandre's conflict of interest is apparent.

So with a prophecy, an author is trying to trick the inattentive readers until they become attentive, because that's what a prophecy is. It's foreshadowing that announces itself so that the mystery of how it will resolve can be played like a game. And he knows that some people will be rather pleased with themselves for spotting Melisandre's bias and rejecting the Arya interpretation right from the start. The result is that the player is on the wrong path before he has hardly begun, and on that path there are many red herrings that need to be overcome.

But the truth is that a person being biased does not necessarily mean that she's wrong. It's perfectly possible for a person to be biased and correct. So the reader's inability to solve the mystery will be a consequence of his own shortcoming rather than that of the author or story. And that's exactly what GRRM wants in every case. If I thought a person being biased means the person is wrong, that mistake rests entirely upon me rather than the story. It's simply my own failure of reasoning, because the right answer was available all along.

 

By "game" do you mean distinguishing between:

1. Prophecy twist in text (characters are surprised)

2. Prophecy twist outside the text (readers are surprised)

And so this prophecy has met only the first stage, when it needs to meet BOTH stages. Is that what you mean?

In other words, if the reader isnt surprised...whats the point.

[rustythesmith]

8 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

By "game" do you mean distinguishing between:

1. Prophecy twist in text (characters are surprised)

2. Prophecy twist outside the text (readers are surprised)

And so this prophecy has met only the first stage, when it needs to meet BOTH stages. Is that what you mean?

In other words, if the reader isnt surprised...whats the point.

I mean outside of the text, or metatextually. It's like a game or a riddle between the author and the reader. To the characters, prophecies are indistinguishable from dreams or magic, and they tend to cause the characters problems when they pursue them.

When the story says something, or when a character in the story says or thinks something, we can step back and look at it like a story and recognize that everything the story says is actually something the author is saying. He's just trying to say it indirectly through his characters and themes. So when a character says something like
 

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“Men see what they expect to see.” (ADWD Melisandre I)

We're invited to wonder if Martin is speaking to us metatextually through Melisandre. 'Is there something here that isn't really here? And that I am only seeing because I expect to see it?'

Most of the time the facile reading is all there is, and there's no meta meaning to a line. But when an idea keeps coming up over and over again, that's a pretty good indication that there's more going on. My degree of confidence that an idea, phrase or pattern is a metatextual sign-post is proportionate to the number of times that it recurs.
 

Quote

 

“The seeing, the true seeing, that is the heart of it.” (AGOT Arya IV)

“Men see what they expect to see,” Varys said as he fussed and pulled. (ACOK Tyrion III)

“Men see what they expect to see, Alayne.” (AFFC Alayne I)

 

The characters may or may not be aware of when a prophecy resolves. Sometimes they are aware of it and sometimes they aren't. That's different from a character being aware of a prophecy's resolution. For example, every character is aware that Joffrey died, but no character is aware that it was the resolution to the Ghost of High Heart's prophecy about a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair who slew a king. Except perhaps the Ghost of High Heart.

Melisandre in particular seems to have inherited the curse of her real world mythological namesake Cassandra. Like Cassandra, Melisandre seems cursed to utter true prophecies, but never to be believed. So I think Melisandre's correctness will sadly continue failing to reach her awareness, and that will continue to be the cause of her internal conflict, self-doubt and imposter syndrome.
 

[The Map Guy]

Just plugging my two cents on what the skulls are since everyone is looking the other way.

 

Death, thought Melisandre. The skulls are death.

Could the skulls simply be zombies?

And this girl-in-grey vision is in the future?

She spread her hands. "On the morrow. In a moon's turn. In a year. And it may be that if you act, you may avert what I have seen entirely." Else what would be the point of visions?

 

How does Jon get surrounded by zombies in the future? I would say it would be a failed wight-hunt!!! And no not a STUPID wight-hunt ... but an IMPORTANT wight-hunt: the zombie girl-in-grey on a zombie horse!

And this future scene would most definitely happen AFTER the Long Night invades Westeros ... at a frosty lake, with a fortress nearby.

This zombie girl must be super special to R'hllor, enough for Jon Snow to hunt for her. All the other wights have to walk, but she gets her own zombie white horse. I wonder why?

The red priestess shuddered. Blood trickled down her thigh, black and smoking. The fire was inside her, an agony, an ecstasy, filling her, searing her, transforming her. Shimmers of heat traced patterns on her skin, insistent as a lover's hand. Strange voices called to her from days long past. "Melony," she heard a woman cry. A man's voice called, "Lot Seven." She was weeping, and her tears were flame. And still she drank it in.

Perhaps in the dark days of future past, Jon Snow says "Lot Seven"
And then the weeping girl-in-grey cries "Melony"
Geez I wonder what those mean? Or at least the lost-in-flames-translation meaning ...

 

A lot of people think the girl-in-grey is Arya, or Sansa, or Alys, or Jeyne, or Lyanna .. etc.
Here is what I think:
"A girl in grey on a dying horse. Jon Snow's sister." Who else could it be? 
{Melisandre ADWD}

[kissdbyfire]

54 minutes ago, The Map Guy said:

A lot of people think the girl in grey is Arya, or Sansa, or Alys, or Jeyne , or Lyanna .. etc.
Here is what I think:
"A girl in grey on a dying horse. Jon Snow's sister." Who else could it be? 
{Melisandre ADWD}

Please don’t say “wightified Meera”!

 

[MissM]

10 hours ago, rustythesmith said:

I can see for myself why people think what they think, because they tell us in their posts. I have an intimate understanding of this prophecy in particular and the pitfalls in which the readers get trapped, because I spent a very long time struggling through these traps myself, and because I solved this prophecy years ago, wrote the book on it and made a movie out of it. You're right that I'm not the only smart reader. Many other readers were involved in the research and discussions necessary to find the connections that would allow me to put the pieces together. I'm just the madman who had the time to do it. But it wasn't all friendship and roses. Along the way there were plenty of thought-police who thought they were helping but were just in the way.

Very nice read, your theory was broken down very well and your conclusion is very sound:

Quote

 

The Prophet

I think Arya as the girl in grey fits well with Melisandre’s characterization. She considers herself very good at reading and interpreting the flames, but she seems to be wrong very often. However, she always hits some parts with striking accuracy but doesn’t receive acknowledgement for them. Her correct interpretations are sometimes obscured from her point of view.

For example, Melisandre sees a vision of Renly smashing Stannis’s forces beneath the walls of King’s Landing, but Stannis believes that Renly’s death has prevented that scenario from happening.

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Melisandre saw another day in her flames as well. A morrow where Renly rode out of the south in his green armor to smash my host beneath the walls of King’s Landing. Had I met my brother there, it might have been me who died in place of him.” (ACOK Davos II)

Loras’s brother, Ser Garlan Tyrell, wears Renly’s armor in the Battle of the Blackwater to make it appear that Renly’s ghost has returned for vengeance against the kinslaying Stannis. But this fact never finds its way to Melisandre’s ears. The tragedy in Melisandre’s interpretations isn’t that she’s always wrong, it’s that she doesn’t know how terrifyingly right she is the first time.

Melisandre became apologetic to Jon and admitted defeat after the arrival of Alys Karstark.

“I was not wrong.”

“You were not right. Alys is not Arya.”

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“The vision was a true one. It was my reading that was false. I am as mortal as you, Jon Snow. All mortals err.” (ADWD Jon X)

Pressure from Jon and herself caused her to second-guess what she saw in the vision even though she was certain from the beginning that the girl in grey was Jon Snow’s sister.

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“The girl,” she said. “A girl in grey on a dying horse. Jon Snow’s sister.” Who else could it be? (ADWD Melisandre I)

One way that characters and readers often misinterpret prophecy is that we simply aren’t thinking big enough. Prophecies are presumably sent by a divine being and a god has a much wider gaze than mortals do. Melisandre alludes to this idea in a snarky manner towards Davos.

Quote

 

“I have worshiped them all my life.”

“All your life, Davos Seaworth? As well say it was so yesterday.” She shook her head sadly. (ASOS Davos III)

 

To a god, a lifetime is a blip on the radar and that’s reflected in the visions they send. Rivers look like little streams. A series of events that took place over years culminates into a single symbolic image of a girl in grey on a dying horse. The images of prophecy can be so dense with answers that they’re impossible to decipher.

After the Hound captured Arya, she tried to leave a trail of breadcrumbs by marking trees.

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She had tried to help them by scratching her name on the trunks of trees when she went in the bushes to make water, but the fourth time she did it he caught her, and that was the end of that. It doesn’t matter, Arya told herself, Thoros will find me in his flames. Only he hadn’t. Not yet, anyway, and once they crossed the river . . . (ASOS Arya IX)

Thoros may not have found her in the flames, but maybe another red priest did.

 

 

[The Map Guy]

1 hour ago, kissdbyfire said:

Please don’t say “wightified Meera”!

Ahhhhhh TMI! TMI!
Oh no ... our poor Meera, our good-hearted and fierce Meera of Greywater Watch ... the girl-in-grey? A wight?
This is so dark GRRM ... nothing can be worse than this.
What a heart breaking and shocking scenario if this was to happen!
Makes me want to cry.

[corbon]

13 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Can you give an example? You are stating this, but I'd like some evidence for this.

Mind you, I'm not asking about what Bran, Bloodraven or Ghost of High Heart can see. Different magic.

I agree though that Mel does a lot of filling in the gaps, and only the given imagery is reliable.

Umm, those were Mel's own words I quoted explaining how this works to Davos. She sees the future that will be, the future that may be, and the past. It takes years or practice to be able to 'see' the images at all, and years more of practice to classify them as future or past.

Seems to me that she might not always get that classification right, and might not know it when she doesn't. This is not exactly a science and she doesn't exactly have a great track record outside the pure imagery.

Any of the visions she see might actually be from the past, not the future. Most that we hear about aren't, because she's not interested in the past and is trying actively to tune out 'past' visions, per her own words. But who is to say what might get past her training if its relevant enough?

Here you go again.

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"Fire is a living thing," the red woman told him, when he asked her to teach him how to see the future in the flames. "It is always moving, always changing . . . like a book whose letters dance and shift even as you try to read them. It takes years of training to see the shapes beyond the flames, and more years still to learn to tell the shapes of what will be from what may be or what was. Even then it comes hard, hard. You do not understand that, you men of the sunset lands." 

 

[corbon]

15 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Can you give an example? You are stating this, but I'd like some evidence for this.

Mind you, I'm not asking about what Bran, Bloodraven or Ghost of High Heart can see. Different magic.

I agree though that Mel does a lot of filling in the gaps, and only the given imagery is reliable.

Another example, thanks to @rustythesmith's 'book' and asearchoficeandfire.com.
 

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They built a great fire atop the hill, and Thoros of Myr sat crosslegged beside it, gazing deep into the flames as if there was nothing else in all the world.

"What is he doing?" Arya asked Ned.

"Sometimes he sees things in the flames," the squire told her. "The past. The future. Things happening far away."

 

[sweetsunray]

17 hours ago, corbon said:

Umm, those were Mel's own words I quoted explaining how this works to Davos. She sees the future that will be, the future that may be, and the past. It takes years or practice to be able to 'see' the images at all, and years more of practice to classify them as future or past.

Seems to me that she might not always get that classification right, and might not know it when she doesn't. This is not exactly a science and she doesn't exactly have a great track record outside the pure imagery.

Any of the visions she see might actually be from the past, not the future. Most that we hear about aren't, because she's not interested in the past and is trying actively to tune out 'past' visions, per her own words. But who is to say what might get past her training if its relevant enough?

Here you go again.

 

Thank you. :-) That Mel and Thoros can see the past in the flames went unnoticed by me, because the other known examples of flame visions seem to all revolve around foretelling future events.

[Springwatch]

On 5/12/2020 at 4:27 AM, corbon said:

Sure he is.
Mel is seeing whats important and relevant in the war for the Dawn, so she's not likely to be seeing some random girl fleeing north to... Karhold, or anywhere else. And Jon's the Lord Commander, so anyone fleeing towards Mel is fleeing to Jon's protection. 
The only rationalisation that applies to Arya is the marriage thing and the sister thing. 
Since Alys isn;t Jon;s sister, Mel is 1/2 on her rationalisations.

Yes, and no. 

The detail doesn't follow 'in the mind' of the viewer - its in the shapes in the flames and takes years of expertise to 'see'. If it was just a tv image then anyone could see it.

No, it does not. Its a few minutes, or a selection of short bursts of images that combine as a whole.
Other images described take time too, such as the waters that rise up over the towers and engulf them..

No, thats you deliberately mis-conflating two things to support your argument.
Thats a series of images of old visions she's had before, not full visions themselves. Its more like a series of cutscenes she scrolls through trying to find the right 'frequency' to find teh grey girl scene.

Myabe, maybe not. There is a clear difference showing between what Mel 'sees in the fires (external) and the clear, explicit shift 'inward' toward the memories of Melony and Lot 7.
I think that she's still seeing the 'imagery' in teh fires, and due to her training and skill its pretty  clear and definitive for her. There is too much detail and too much surety on that detail, compared to the uncertainty (even as she tries to project certainty) about some of the not-imagery interpretations.

According to her, it was in the fire she could see it. I see no reason why it has to be iternal to her mind, and reason why its not - its clearly external and changes to internal before Melony/Lot 7.

There is no reason that we need 'different channels' for colour. ts a skill she has learned over years. If she sasy its blue, there is no reason to fuss about it being blue, or how.  

In all honesty, I'm not following your thinking here - but that's fine, you go your way, I'll go mine.

Quote

If she went straight she was travelling a long time, considering she fled and likely didn't have the opportunity to steal everything she needed for the voyage and was definitely pursued all the way. 

I've been thinking about this. At the Wall, Alys says she will forgive the women who betrayed her. But how does she know? Given this, and the sheer unlikeliness of racing on one horse all the way to the Wall, I wonder if there wasn't a half-way house. Friends to supply her, and hide her while she rests, and bring her news of Cregan and his hunt. We only see Alys right at the end of her journey, when she was so cold and weak that heading back to the road and villages might be her only chance of survival. I don't think we'll ever know.

Quote

This is true. Yet if you see a snow-blanketed landscape its not natural to separated it out into hills, fields and trees, stones, stream beds. Snow hides lots of differences by its very nature. A field implies human creation, and you can't see that under snow. Its just an open space.

Depends if the landscape is more American (i.e. open, large) or European (more enclosed). There could be a pattern of walls, hedges, fences, tracks, straight lines against wooded areas. And of course the amount of snow in the vision is unknown - we're not told.

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Can you provide some textual references for non-snow covered ground? Anywhere in the north in current-ish time (suitable for Alys being the grey girl), or at the wall at any time in the books?
There was snow on the ground in Winterfell before Ned left. When Robb left too. And at the wall when Jon arrived and was training as a recruit. 

I think for most of the north, the ground has been snow covered for some time.
Some patches in some places are not snow covered the whole time - including near Harhold 

But its clear that there was snow in Winterfell before Lord Karstark took his men away and snow was falling again (and already on the ground) when Robb left Winterfell.
Its possible that Alys fled through a not-currently-snowed area but she indicates that the snows have come again and the iference is from before she left Karhold.

Most descriptions of snow just say snow - it's left to your imagination whether the landscape is blanketed, or light snow that will melt next sunny day (we have those), or patches of old snow left over from the last storm. Old snow is mentioned, which makes me think there might be bare patches between, although there could be new snow between, but for some reason not covering the old snow. Anyway the sun shines and the Wall weeps at times, and no-one's surprised. Winter's not like flicking a switch.

I'm not reading all the northern chapters just for this!, but I have been reading Reek. It was damp and cold with no snows yet at the Dreadfort when Arnolf Karstark was there (maybe a good time for Alys to sneak out of Karhold?) It was 'autumnal' at Barrowton, and very frosty at Winterfell (presumably a few weeks later). This seems to be when the weather changed decisively and was in the first half of Dance. Alys arrives at the Wall early in the second half. The day she arrives is notably warm. I don't consider anything proved.

[corbon]

7 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Thank you. :-) That Mel and Thoros can see the past in the flames went unnoticed by me, because the other known examples of flame visions seem to all revolve around foretelling future events.

Me too actually. I never 'examined' the visions in the flame in any real detail before (the workings of them at least) until I was challenged to (mostly by @Springwatch) and while I'm satisfied with my understanding of how they work in terms of imagery, detail, skill, internals/externals etc (as in, I'm comfortable my understanding fits with the text, not that its deep or perfect) I had also been of the general impression that Mel's visions were only of the future, not the past. The Lyanna idea got me checking that it could be the past.

Its interesting to note that Mel's visions include futures that never come to pass too. So by her own admission they are not infallible, even aside from interpretation issues. She just has faith, perhaps misplaced, in both R'hlorr in sending them and her own capability to discern the difference.

1 hour ago, Springwatch said:

In all honesty, I'm not following your thinking here - but that's fine, you go your way, I'll go mine.

1 hour ago, Springwatch said:

I've been thinking about this. At the Wall, Alys says she will forgive the women who betrayed her. But how does she know?

Most likely because she had help from some women, and when her uncle got hot on her heels, she knew she must have been betrayed. 

1 hour ago, Springwatch said:

Given this, and the sheer unlikeliness of racing on one horse all the way to the Wall,

You don't 'race' a horse all the way. 
And the horse was near dead when she was taken.

1 hour ago, Springwatch said:

I wonder if there wasn't a half-way house. Friends to supply her, and hide her while she rests, and bring her news of Cregan and his hunt. We only see Alys right at the end of her journey, when she was so cold and weak that heading back to the road and villages might be her only chance of survival. I don't think we'll ever know.

Thats possible too, just not required like you intimate. And I agree, we'll likely never know.

1 hour ago, Springwatch said:

Depends if the landscape is more American (i.e. open, large) or European (more enclosed). There could be a pattern of walls, hedges, fences, tracks, straight lines against wooded areas. And of course the amount of snow in the vision is unknown - we're not told.

American, not european.
This is the north, quite far in the north. Its sparsely populated and not particularly fertile or easy land to support many people.
Large parts of Westeros may well look more european, enclosed, heavily populated, but not so much the North.

Thats actuallly another reason, even aside from the apparent lack of snow, to lean towards a God's Eye location for the vision rather than a far North location. Overall, the Riverlands near the God's Eye are much much more populated than the far north and much more likely to have villages that need avoiding and fields to be amongst.
Lean, not decide, suggest, not prove. I hadn't brought this up before because its not strong enough on its own. There undoubtedly are villages and fields in the north too, just not nearly as many.

1 hour ago, Springwatch said:

Most descriptions of snow just say snow - it's left to your imagination whether the landscape is blanketed, or light snow that will melt next sunny day (we have those), or patches of old snow left over from the last storm.

Sometimes that may be true. Other times, I disagree. The view of Castle Black when Jon arrives, for example, strongly indicates a solid blanket of snow.

1 hour ago, Springwatch said:

Old snow is mentioned, which makes me think there might be bare patches between, although there could be new snow between, but for some reason not covering the old snow. Anyway the sun shines and the Wall weeps at times, and no-one's surprised. Winter's not like flicking a switch.

Agreed. But teh wall weeping doesn't indicate the snow is gone.

1 hour ago, Springwatch said:

I'm not reading all the northern chapters just for this!, but I have been reading Reek. It was damp and cold with no snows yet at the Dreadfort when Arnolf Karstark was there (maybe a good time for Alys to sneak out of Karhold?) It was 'autumnal' at Barrowton, and very frosty at Winterfell (presumably a few weeks later). This seems to be when the weather changed decisively and was in the first half of Dance. Alys arrives at the Wall early in the second half. The day she arrives is notably warm. I don't consider anything proved.

Can you supply text please?
Here are some examples where there is already snow much much earlier.

Quote

They had left Winterfell on the same day as the king, amidst all the commotion of the royal departure, riding out to the sound of men shouting and horses snorting, to the rattle of wagons and the groaning of the queen's huge wheelhouse, as a light snow flurried about them. The kingsroad was just beyond the sprawl of castle and town. There the banners and the wagons and the columns of knights and freeriders turned south, taking the tumult with them, while Tyrion turned north with Benjen Stark and his nephew.

It had grown colder after that, and far more quiet.

It was snowing when Robert left Winterfell and grew colder after.

Quote

Jon climbed the steps slowly, trying not to think that this might be the last time ever. Ghost padded silently beside him. Outside, snow swirled through the castle gates, and the yard was all noise and chaos, but inside the thick stone walls it was still warm and quiet. Too quiet for Jon's liking.

Snowing, or loose snow on the ground (can't tell which) when Jon goes up to say goodbye to Bran.

Quote

When they finally spied Castle Black, its timbered keeps and stone towers looked like nothing more than a handful of toy blocks scattered on the snow,

When Jon Arrives at Castle Black the first time its clearly already snow everywhere.

Quote

Ned regarded him coldly. "Lord Baelish, I am a Stark of Winterfell. My son lies crippled, perhaps dying. He would be dead, and Catelyn with him, but for a wolf pup we found in the snow. If you truly believe I could forget that, you are as big a fool now as when you took up sword against my brother."
...
Jon Snow laughed with him. Afterward they sat on the frozen ground, huddled in their cloaks with Ghost between them. Jon told the story of how he and Robb had found the pups newborn in the late summer snows. It seemed a thousand years ago now. Before long he found himself talking of Winterfell.
...
Jon remembered a spray of red blood on white snow, and the way Theon Greyjoy had kicked the dead man's head. The man was a deserter. On the way back to Winterfell, Jon and Robb had raced, and found six direwolf pups in the snow. A thousand years ago.

The Wolf pups were found in the snow. Will was beheaded in the snow.

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It was nice under the trees. Bran kept Dancer to a walk, holding the reins lightly and looking all around him as they went. He knew this wood, but he had been so long confined to Winterfell that he felt as though he were seeing it for the first time. The smells filled his nostrils; the sharp fresh tang of pine needles, the earthy odor of wet rotting leaves, the hints of animal musk and distant cooking fires. He caught a glimpse of a black squirrel moving through the snow-covered branches of an oak, and paused to study the silvery web of an empress spider.

When Bran goes for a ride (I guess when the wildlings take him) there is snow already.

Quote

She had last seen snow the day she'd left Winterfell. That was a lighter fall than this, she remembered. Robb had melting flakes in his hair when he hugged me, and the snowball Arya tried to make kept coming apart in her hands. It hurt to remember how happy she had been that morning. Hullen had helped her mount, and she'd ridden out with the snowflakes swirling around her, off to see the great wide world. I thought my song was beginning that day, but it was almost done.

Sansa last saw snow the day she left Winterfell, so that means points further south were un-snowed at that time. 

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And so they did. Below Stone the steps were broader and less steep, winding in and out of the tall pines and grey-green sentinels that cloaked the lower slopes of the Giant's Lance. Mya's mules knew every root and rock on the way down, it seemed, and any they forgot the bastard girl remembered. Half the night was gone before they sighted the lights of the Gates of the Moon through the falling snow. The last part of their journey was the most peaceful. The snow fell steadily, cloaking all the world in white. 

 I ignored the Eyrie (above the snowline, so meaningless), but even the Gates of the Moon were blanketed in snow by the time Sansa is getting down there. Thats about a month and a half before Alys arrives at Castle Black according to the best timeline available.

[Springwatch]

20 hours ago, corbon said:

American, not european.

This is the north, quite far in the north. Its sparsely populated and not particularly fertile or easy land to support many people.
Large parts of Westeros may well look more european, enclosed, heavily populated, but not so much the North.

Sounds reasonable, especially the far North.

20 hours ago, corbon said:

Thats actuallly another reason, even aside from the apparent lack of snow, to lean towards a God's Eye location for the vision rather than a far North location. Overall, the Riverlands near the God's Eye are much much more populated than the far north and much more likely to have villages that need avoiding and fields to be amongst.

I'm expecting multiple solutions, and this sounds good to me. (More snow talk further down.)

20 hours ago, corbon said:

Lean, not decide, suggest, not prove. I hadn't brought this up before because its not strong enough on its own. There undoubtedly are villages and fields in the north too, just not nearly as many.

There are, Theon sees some from Winterfell (quotes later).

20 hours ago, corbon said:

Sometimes that may be true. Other times, I disagree. The view of Castle Black when Jon arrives, for example, strongly indicates a solid blanket of snow.

Agreed. But teh wall weeping doesn't indicate the snow is gone.

Can you supply text please?
Here are some examples where there is already snow much much earlier.

It was snowing when Robert left Winterfell and grew colder after.

Snowing, or loose snow on the ground (can't tell which) when Jon goes up to say goodbye to Bran.

When Jon Arrives at Castle Black the first time its clearly already snow everywhere.

The Wolf pups were found in the snow. Will was beheaded in the snow.

When Bran goes for a ride (I guess when the wildlings take him) there is snow already.

Sansa last saw snow the day she left Winterfell, so that means points further south were un-snowed at that time. 

 I ignored the Eyrie (above the snowline, so meaningless), but even the Gates of the Moon were blanketed in snow by the time Sansa is getting down there. Thats about a month and a half before Alys arrives at Castle Black according to the best timeline available.

Ok, lots of snow. But I've now done my searches, and the overall picture of the seasons is mixed, definitely magical, occasionally mad, and even metaphorical.

Magic and madness first. The white ravens signify the start of autumn. Autumn is a growing season (usually multiple harvests) and considered a good time to start growing food for the winter (mad). Quotes:

Quote

[Cressen at Dragonstone, after the white raven arrives] "If the gods are good, they will grant us a warm autumn and bountiful harvests, so we might prepare for the winter to come.

[ACOK - PROLOGUE]

Autumn had come, the Conclave had declared, but the gods had not seen fit to tell the winds and woods as yet. For that Catelyn was duly grateful. Autumn was always a fearful time, with the specter of winter looming ahead. Even the wisest man never knew whether his next harvest would be the last.

[ACOK - CATELYN I]

Once the maesters in their Citadel had proclaimed the first of autumn, wise men put away a portion of each harvest...

[ACOK - BRAN II]

Even north of the Wall, autumn is not winter. Degrees north is not a guarantee of arctic conditions:

Quote

He had seen sunlight flashing on icy thin waterfalls as they plunged over the lips of sheer stone cliffs, and a mountain meadow full of autumn wildflowers, blue coldsnaps and bright scarlet frostfires and stands of pipers grass in russet and gold...

[ACOK - JON VI]

[Ghost] Before him the Skirling Pass opened up into airy emptiness and a long vee-shaped vally lay spread beneath him like a quilt, awash in all the colours of an autumn afternoon.

A vast blue-white wall plugged one end of the vale, squeezing between the mountains as if it had shouldered them aside,... he was looking at a river of ice several thousand feet high. Under that glittering cold cliff was a great lake, its deep cobalt waters reflecting the snowcapped peaks that ringed it.

[ACOK - JON VII]

Note the lake is not frozen even next to a glacier (which itself seems to be some kind of metaphor for the Wall...)

Winter conditions can come and go, and arrive at different times in different places:

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Snow in autumn in the riverlands, it's unnatural, Merrett thought gloomily. It had not been much of a snow, true; just enough to blanket the ground for a night. Most of it had started melting away as soon as the sun came up....

[ASOS - EPLILOGUE]

Though snow had blanketed the heights of the Giant's Lance above, below the mountain the autumn lingered and winter wheat was ripening in the fields....

[TWOW - ALAYNE I]

And the North has always had its 'summer snows'. Whatever that means.

(Reek's evidence next)

[Springwatch]

Quote

[At the Dreadfort] The night air was cold and damp, but he saw no sign of snow though surely winter was close at hand.

[ADWD - REEK I]

[At Moat Cailin] It was a grey day, damp and misty. The wind was from the south, moist as a kiss. The ruins of Moat Cailin were visible in the distance, threaded through with wisps of morning mist. His horse moved toward them at a walk, her hooves making faint wet squelching sounds as they pulled free of the grey-green muck.

[ADWD - REEK II]

[At Barrowton]

Outside, beneath a cold, autumnal sky...

<snip> Reek had heard Stout's servants muttering at how the Bastard and his men were eating through the winter stores. "He'll bed Lord Eddard's little girl, they say", Stout's cook complained when she did not know that Reek was listening, "but we're the ones who'll be fucked when the snows come, you mark my words."

[ADWD - REEK III]

[At Winterfell] It was warmer in the godswood, strange to say. Beyond its confines, a hard white frost gripped Winterfell.

[ADWD - THE PRINCE OF WINTERFELL]

Obviously the Neck and the godswood are always warm, but also no snow at the Dreadfort or Barrowton. So it's a bit ambiguous how much snow there is further north. They set off for Winterfell three days after the Barrowton chapter, and this is where it gets seriously wintery.

It's pretty clear to me that Alys could not have survived for long in the 'real' winter conditions, so she must have gone earlier.

More quotes from Theon, showing that the Winterfell snowstorm is on a different scale to what came before - deeper, colder, and finally covering the landscape:

Quote

[At Winterfell] The first flakes came drifting down as the sun was setting in the west. By nightfall snow was coming down so heavily that the moon rose behind a white curtain, unseen.

<snip> At the next table, men were arguing about the storm and wondering aloud how long the snow would fall. "All day and all night, might be even longer," insisted one big, black-bearded archer with a Cerwyn axe sewn on his breast. A few of the old men spoke of other snowstorms and insisted this was no more than a light dusting compared with what they'd seen in the winters of their youth....

<snip> Outside the snow was falling still. Wet, heavy, silent, it had already begun to cover the footsteps left by the men coming and going from the hall. The drifts came almost to the top of his boots. It will be deeper in the wolfswood... and out on the kingsroad, where the wind is blowing, there will be no escape from it....

<snip> Between the two walls was the moat, deep and wide... and frozen. Drifts of snow had begun to creep across its icy surface. Snow was building up along the battlements too,...

Beyond the walls, as far as he could see, the world was turning white. The woods, the fields, the kingsroad - the snows were covering all of them beneath a pale soft mantle, burying the remnants of the winter town <snip>

Further off, the rutted kingsroad had vanished, lost amidst the fields and rolling hills, all one vast expanse of white. And still the snow was falling, drifting down in silence from a windless sky. Stannis Baratheon is out there somewhere, freezing....

<snip> Endless, ceaseless, merciless, the snow had fallen day and night. Drifts climbed the walls and filled the crenels along the battlements....

[ADWD - THE TURNCLOAK]

ETA

The mention of the kingsroad might be a pointer to Alys, on the last stretch of her journey. But the bulk of the travelling must have been in 'autumn'.

[corbon]

1 hour ago, Springwatch said:

Sounds reasonable, especially the far North.

I'm expecting multiple solutions, and this sounds good to me. (More snow talk further down.)

There are, Theon sees some from Winterfell (quotes later).

Ok, lots of snow. But I've now done my searches, and the overall picture of the seasons is mixed, definitely magical, occasionally mad, and even metaphorical.

Magic and madness first. The white ravens signify the start of autumn. Autumn is a growing season (usually multiple harvests) and considered a good time to start growing food for the winter (mad). Quotes:

Even north of the Wall, autumn is not winter. Degrees north is not a guarantee of arctic conditions:

Note the lake is not frozen even next to a glacier (which itself seems to be some kind of metaphor for the Wall...)

Winter conditions can come and go, and arrive at different times in different places:

And the North has always had its 'summer snows'. Whatever that means.

(Reek's evidence next)

Agreed in general *(except the multiple solutions, but we can each have our own theories on that).

I think its clear, both from some of your quotes (thanks in general btw!) and from others scattered around the books, that Westeros' "official" (ie multiple years long) '(S)easons' include their own (s)easons. That is, there are colder and warmer patches within the seasons - summer snows for example, and winter growing (eg your wheat quote) seasons.

Plus of course, the 'Seasons' have different effects in different parts - "Winter" still barely sees snow in KL for example, and I think that at the wall there is snow on the ground most of the time even in "Summer".
Similarly (more on that below)  that means that things like 'snow' has slightly different meanings in different places. I mean, snow is snow everywhere, of course, but when a southerner says 'the snows have come' he means simple snow - whereas when a northerner says 'the snows have come' he means the serious, deep, tunnels and trenches through the courtyards snows that last for months or years.

We also see, for example, a very long (a year possibly, maybe more) 'end of winter' (not even a 'Season') before the False Spring. A period where it was still "Winter" but the warmer winds blew, the days grew shorter and the trees greener. 

In summary, we don't now exactly what triggers, or signifies the 'end' or 'beginning' of a "Season" exactly (though the Maesters do, and Westerosi people seem to have a general idea), but the seasons seem to be 'overlaid' on top of a relatively normal (probably annual) (s)easonal cycle.

So to reference that back to some of your quotes, I don't think that Autumn is a particularly 'growing' season, its just that since Summer has ended, the internal growing seasons within Autumn have extra relevance for storing towards the long winter when the internal growing seasons may well fail or be exceptionally poor.

1 hour ago, Springwatch said:

Obviously the Neck and the godswood are always warm, but also no snow at the Dreadfort or Barrowton. So it's a bit ambiguous how much snow there is further north. They set off for Winterfell three days after the Barrowton chapter, and this is where it gets seriously wintery.

Right, the neck is further south, and the Godswood has the internal hot pools. No snow at the Dreadfort is significant, but that too is further south than Winterfell or Karhold.
Moat Cailin, with warm southern winds, isn't relevant to the discussion I think, nor the Riverlands. I think we both agree that that far south there is much less likelihood of snow on the ground even during Winter.

Here is another example that shows 'no snow' (or at least not full snow) further north than Winterfell and well after Robb left (Bran with Meera and Jojen after splitting from Osha).

Quote

No roads ran through the twisted mountain valleys where they walked now. Between the grey stone peaks lay still blue lakes, long and deep and narrow, and the green gloom of endless piney woods. The russet and gold of autumn leaves grew less common when they left the wolfswood to climb amongst the old flint hills, and vanished by the time those hills had turned to mountains. Giant grey-green sentinels loomed above them now, and spruce and fir and soldier pines in endless profusion. The undergrowth was sparse beneath them, the forest floor carpeted in dark green needles.

I still think though, that by the time Alys flees Karhold, it should be well wintery snow there (but not the deep snowstorm further west or she'd be even less likely to make it at all). I doubt she's been on the road for more than 1 month, possibly half that or less. Even in the snow.
Give the distance between Karhold and Molestown as about 500 miles, very roughly (probably less), a good horse could do 50-60 miles a day carrying Alys with light supplies, I think a month is pretty generous, even with snow (but not the massive snows entombing Stannis' army and Winterfell).
To be honest, my best estimate is about 2 weeks, maybe a bit less - thats running the horse into the ground and starting with minimal supplies.

1 hour ago, Springwatch said:

It's pretty clear to me that Alys could not have survived for long in the 'real' winter conditions, so she must have gone earlier.

I don't agree. She's a northerner born and bred and although not fully equipped, she would still be better equipped than your average southerner. She's near the end of her capabilities, and the horse is near dead. 

1 hour ago, Springwatch said:

More quotes from Theon, showing that the Winterfell snowstorm is on a different scale to what came before - deeper, colder, and finally covering the landscape:

Oh I agree - a different scale to what came before. These IMO are the snows that a northerner speaks of when he says 'the snows are coming' - snows that a southerner can't even conceive of. Normal snow can cover the ground and reduce the landscape somewhat, so that the descriptions given in the vision seem ill-fitting, but these snows totally remove the landscape entirely - there are no 'villages' at all in these snows, just drifts at best, low mounds or no sign at all at worst.

Alys could not have survived the whole trip in these snows, I agree.

I would point out though, that all the mentions of snow in those passages quote here, are not snow covering stuff where there was no snow before, they are extreme snow doing extreme stuff way more than normal snow.

1 hour ago, Springwatch said:

ETA

The mention of the kingsroad might be a pointer to Alys, on the last stretch of her journey. But the bulk of the travelling must have been in 'autumn'.

Or, in my terminology, Autumn. But I think that even in Autumn, at least towards the end of it, as far north as Karhold it was already mostly snow covered (just not 2m+ covered!)

I don;t think she travelled at all in the 'snows' that have already hit Winterfell and Stannis. That seems a bit more localised.

[glassgardens]

It’s Sansa in the Vale, where the villages have been spared years of Total War (unlike the North and the Riverlands), where the fields have not been burned and trampled but have recently yielded an abundant harvest of grain that Littlefinger is now trying to profiteer, and where there are still deer that haven’t been hunted down by starving men and/or wolves.

There’s no game left in the North and Beyond the Wall—there are no green things left for the game to eat, and what game there was has long since been taken by human hunters in need of sustenance—that’s why, for example, Summer’s pack is down to eating men of the Night’s Watch.

There might be a handful of deer left in the Riverlands, but Nymeria’s pack (which numbers in the hundreds according to multiple sources) needs to eat (a lot) and we’ve already seen them repeatedly prey on men and dogs to answer their hunger. 

The Blackfish claimed everything he could from the Riverlands smallfolk, to lay in for a two-year siege, and now all of those foodstuffs is in the hands of Jaime Lannister and defended by that occupying army. So if you’re a guerrilla/terrorist (BWB) or a local resident, you’ve already been taking down every bypassing rabbit, squirrel and side of venison for months now, because there is very little other food. All of which is to say that with winter at the door, deer are now vanishingly rare in the Riverlands.

Meanwhile, in the interior of the Vale (past the Mountains of the Moon), there is plenty of food for humans and animals alike, and no ravening predators that we‘ve heard of, so deer aren’t running for their lives. Deer in the Vale are just hanging out, without too much fear, so that even a non-stealthy person like Sansa could encounter one in passing.

The hills and stones and the deep and blue and still lake sure sound like an Alpine ecosystem similar to what we know of the geography of the Vale. From the Wikipedia article about alpine lakes: “Alpine lakes are usually clearer than lakes at lower elevations due to the colder water, which decreases the speed and amount of algae and moss growth in the water.” It’s deep and blue and still because it’s a high-elevation lake with minimal ecological churn due to the *consistent chill* at high elevation (not just seasonal temperate variations).

Last but not least, the supposed appearance of this girl. The only thing physical descriptor we have of her is that she’s “as gray as ash.” This could be that her face is “ashen” because she was recently traumatized. It could be that her hair has turned gray overnight from fright. She could be wearing a gray cloak or other gray clothing. We have no concrete descriptions of her hair color, eye color, height, style of dress, or demeanor. Therefore Sansa cannot be reasonably eliminated as the grey girl who is “Jon’s sister” just because she does not physically resemble him.

The primary objections to the girl in gray being Sansa seem to be “she couldn’t do it,” “she wouldn’t do it,” and “I don’t want it to be her.“

But we don’t know what we don’t know about the future, and we can’t see how fate or magic might intervene to make Sansa run for it.

[Springwatch]

16 hours ago, corbon said:

I think its clear, both from some of your quotes (thanks in general btw!) and from others scattered around the books, that Westeros' "official" (ie multiple years long) '(S)easons' include their own (s)easons. That is, there are colder and warmer patches within the seasons - summer snows for example, and winter growing (eg your wheat quote) seasons.

Plus of course, the 'Seasons' have different effects in different parts - "Winter" still barely sees snow in KL for example, and I think that at the wall there is snow on the ground most of the time even in "Summer".
Similarly (more on that below)  that means that things like 'snow' has slightly different meanings in different places. I mean, snow is snow everywhere, of course, but when a southerner says 'the snows have come' he means simple snow - whereas when a northerner says 'the snows have come' he means the serious, deep, tunnels and trenches through the courtyards snows that last for months or years.

We also see, for example, a very long (a year possibly, maybe more) 'end of winter' (not even a 'Season') before the False Spring. A period where it was still "Winter" but the warmer winds blew, the days grew shorter and the trees greener. 

In summary, we don't now exactly what triggers, or signifies the 'end' or 'beginning' of a "Season" exactly (though the Maesters do, and Westerosi people seem to have a general idea), but the seasons seem to be 'overlaid' on top of a relatively normal (probably annual) (s)easonal cycle.

So to reference that back to some of your quotes, I don't think that Autumn is a particularly 'growing' season, its just that since Summer has ended, the internal growing seasons within Autumn have extra relevance for storing towards the long winter when the internal growing seasons may well fail or be exceptionally poor.

Right, the neck is further south, and the Godswood has the internal hot pools. No snow at the Dreadfort is significant, but that too is further south than Winterfell or Karhold.
Moat Cailin, with warm southern winds, isn't relevant to the discussion I think, nor the Riverlands. I think we both agree that that far south there is much less likelihood of snow on the ground even during Winter.

Here is another example that shows 'no snow' (or at least not full snow) further north than Winterfell and well after Robb left (Bran with Meera and Jojen after splitting from Osha).

I still think though, that by the time Alys flees Karhold, it should be well wintery snow there (but not the deep snowstorm further west or she'd be even less likely to make it at all). I doubt she's been on the road for more than 1 month, possibly half that or less. Even in the snow.
Give the distance between Karhold and Molestown as about 500 miles, very roughly (probably less), a good horse could do 50-60 miles a day carrying Alys with light supplies, I think a month is pretty generous, even with snow (but not the massive snows entombing Stannis' army and Winterfell).
To be honest, my best estimate is about 2 weeks, maybe a bit less - thats running the horse into the ground and starting with minimal supplies.

I agree with a lot of this. Winds from the south will influence the weather to some degree - we can allow for that, but semi-magical seasons are just impossible to reason with. Maybe the snow is at Winterfell because no Stark is there. . Travel times are similarly a bit sketchy.

16 hours ago, corbon said:

I don't agree. She's a northerner born and bred and although not fully equipped, she would still be better equipped than your average southerner. She's near the end of her capabilities, and the horse is near dead. 

Sure. The colder the weather is, the more skills she needs. The horse is the limiter here, because it does need food and water in large quantities, especially if working hard. So there can be ice, but thin ice, so the horse can access the water. (I feel I'm working way too hard to be realistic here.)

16 hours ago, corbon said:

Oh I agree - a different scale to what came before. These IMO are the snows that a northerner speaks of when he says 'the snows are coming' - snows that a southerner can't even conceive of. Normal snow can cover the ground and reduce the landscape somewhat, so that the descriptions given in the vision seem ill-fitting, but these snows totally remove the landscape entirely - there are no 'villages' at all in these snows, just drifts at best, low mounds or no sign at all at worst.

Alys could not have survived the whole trip in these snows, I agree.

I would point out though, that all the mentions of snow in those passages quote here, are not snow covering stuff where there was no snow before, they are extreme snow doing extreme stuff way more than normal snow.

Or, in my terminology, Autumn. But I think that even in Autumn, at least towards the end of it, as far north as Karhold it was already mostly snow covered (just not 2m+ covered!)

I don;t think she travelled at all in the 'snows' that have already hit Winterfell and Stannis. That seems a bit more localised.

To the bolded, I agree. But I think the key thing about winter snow is that it comes and stays (turning the world white), but summer and autumn snows are temporary and regional, and you can continue farming again in a matter of weeks or months. Up until the Winterfell wedding people thought they were safely in autumn (Autumn ), and that is their big mistake.