Did the Starks practice blood sacrifice?

[The Map Guy]

8 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Only we didn’t see it from Bran’s PoV but Theon’s

The old gods, he thought. They know me. They know my name. I was Theon of House Greyjoy. I was a ward of Eddard Stark, a friend and brother to his children. "Please." He fell to his knees. "A sword, that's all I ask. Let me die as Theon, not as Reek." Tears trickled down his cheeks, impossibly warm. "I was ironborn. A son … a son of Pyke, of the islands."
A leaf drifted down from above, brushed his brow, and landed in the pool. It floated on the water, red, five-fingered, like a bloody hand. "… 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. It was not Bran we killed. It was not Rickon. They were only miller's sons, from the mill by the Acorn Water. "I had to have two heads, else they would have mocked me … laughed at me … they …"
A voice said, "Who are you talking to?"
{Ghost in Winterfell ADWD}

If this is the scene you are talking about ... then honestly we never got confirmation that it was Bran that "whispered" to Theon. Theon assumed it was Bran's ghost. But it could just be the old gods giving Theon a message (like save Bran from the Others!).
Besides, if it was really Bran, he wouldn't whisper " ... Bran"
If I bumped into you in the streets, I wouldn't try to grab your attention by saying "Map Guy!" That would just be strange. I would call you by your own name ... "Ms. Future Map Guy's groupie!"

8 hours ago, LynnS said:

9 hours ago, The Map Guy said:

How do CotF eyes look like again? Color?

I think you can look this up yourself. https://asearchoficeandfire.com/

That was not Arya's voice, nor any child's. It was a woman's voice, high and sweet, with a strange music in it like none that he had ever heard and a sadness that he thought might break his heart. Bran squinted, to see her better. It was a girl, but smaller than Arya, her skin dappled like a doe's beneath a cloak of leaves. Her eyes were queer—large and liquid, gold and green, slitted like a cat's eyes. No one has eyes like that. Her hair was a tangle of brown and red and gold, autumn colors, with vines and twigs and withered flowers woven through it.
"Who are you?" Meera Reed was asking.
Bran knew. "She's a child. A child of the forest." He shivered, as much from wonderment as cold. They had fallen into one of Old Nan's tales.
{Bran II ADWD}
I think your mini theory where Leaf disguised herself as a mini silent sister (where the only thing visible are her eyes) seems improbable.

8 hours ago, Ygrain said:

Bran supposedly needed a part of a tree to awaken his gift. Perhaps a tree needed a part of a man (blood?) to awaken its gift?

I don't know ... weirwood paste is not in any history books. We still don't know the science of human-greenseers other than what Bloodraven (a proven liar with Aenys Blackfrye) has said. The next person that would probably know anything about weirwood paste would be Howland Reed (who lived with the Green Men). Howland could of told Jojen about it ... BUT how convenient that Jojen was not there when Bran ate the paste.

But if you guys ask me, I would say the paste Bran ate was just a hallucinogen that weakened Bran's mind ... so Bloodraven can warg into him.
When Bran gets the weirwood visions, he does it accidentally by skinchanging into a weirwood tree when he slept.

[Immediately after Bran ate the weirwood paste]
"Close your eyes," said the three-eyed crow. "Slip your skin, as you do when you join with Summer. But this time, go into the roots instead. Follow them up through the earth, to the trees upon the hill, and tell me what you see."
Bran closed his eyes and slipped free of his skin. Into the roots, he thought. Into the weirwood. Become the tree. For an instant he could see the cavern in its black mantle, could hear the river rushing by below.
Bran is LITERALLY skinchanging into a weirwood tree.

I guess this was never in recorded history because wargs never attempted to warg into a tree. The have a chance to warg into giant bears, fierce wolves, flying eagles ... who would have ever thought to warg into a weirwood tree that doesn't move?

Remember, Bran's story was cut off 9 years ago by the final sickle vision. We don't know what happens afterwards ... for 9 years. Maybe the story continues like it was written at face value, like D&D's version. Or perhaps it takes a darker turn, and Bloodraven successfully wargs into a weakened-minded Bran, who is also a living warg ........ warg-ception!

[LynnS]

2 hours ago, The Map Guy said:

I think your mini theory where Leaf disguised herself as a mini silent sister (where the only thing visible are her eyes) seems improbable.

 It isn't a theory.  It's a comment about something Tyrion said.  If Leaf went out into the world to learn the language among other things; then a good place for someone who doesn't speak the language is with the silent sisters.  She could listen and learn and nobody will try to speak to her.  Nobody will look too closely at a silent sister.  Otherwise, how is Leaf to move around the world of men for 200 years without being noticed.  

[LynnS]

Getting back to the OP;  I wonder if what Bran saw was part of the ritual for giving the heart tree a face.  I'm thinking about the trees that Jon sees on the way to Moles Town.  The ash, the old chestnut and the oak tree have all been given faces recently.   And also the story about the Pact, where the trees were given faces so they could watch. 
 

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A Dance with Dragons - Jon V

The Lord Steward led the way. Jon rode a few yards back, Dolorous Edd Tollett at his side. Half a mile south of Castle Black, Edd urged his garron close to Jon's and said, "M'lord? Look up there. The big drunkard on the hill."

The drunkard was an ash tree, twisted sideways by centuries of wind. And now it had a face. A solemn mouth, a broken branch for a nose, two eyes carved deep into the trunk, gazing north up the kingsroad, toward the castle and the Wall.

The wildlings brought their gods with them after all. Jon was not surprised. Men do not give up their gods so easily. The whole pageant that Lady Melisandre had orchestrated beyond the Wall suddenly seemed as empty as a mummer's farce. "Looks a bit like you, Edd," he said, trying to make light of it.

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A Dance with Dragons - Jon V

The wagons continued on their slow way south through frozen mud and blowing snow. A mile farther on, they came upon a second face, carved into a chestnut tree that grew beside an icy stream, where its eyes could watch the old plank bridge that spanned its flow. "Twice as much trouble," announced Dolorous Edd.

The chestnut was leafless and skeletal, but its bare brown limbs were not empty. On a low branch overhanging the stream a raven sat hunched, its feathers ruffled up against the cold. When it spied Jon it spread its wings and gave a scream. When he raised his fist and whistled, the big black bird came flapping down, crying, "Corn, corn, corn."

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A Dance with Dragons - Jon V

The brothers on the wagons had seen this face as well, Jon did not doubt. No one spoke of it, but the message was plain to read for any man with eyes. Jon had once heard Mance Rayder say that most kneelers were sheep. "Now, a dog can herd a flock of sheep," the King-Beyond-the-Wall had said, "but free folk, well, some are shadowcats and some are stones. One kind prowls where they please and will tear your dogs to pieces. The other will not move at all unless you kick them." Neither shadowcats nor stones were like to give up the gods they had worshiped all their lives to bow down before one they hardly knew.

Just north of Mole's Town they came upon the third watcher, carved into the huge oak that marked the village perimeter, its deep eyes fixed upon the kingsroad. That is not a friendly face, Jon Snow reflected. The faces that the First Men and the children of the forest had carved into the weirwoods in eons past had stern or savage visages more oft than not, but the great oak looked especially angry, as if it were about to tear its roots from the earth and come roaring after them. Its wounds are as fresh as the wounds of the men who carved it.

When I first read these passages I wondered if the free folk had killed a drunkard, an old man and a strong man who fought back rather than be killed.  The stones and the shadowcat.  Two are easily overcome, the third is not.

I'm guessing that sacrifice is not a common thing among the free folk who won't give up their gods; but someone is sacrificed when a heart tree is given a face.  So perhaps what Bran sees is part of the ritual for giving the Winterfell heart tree a face.  

[dialt]

I'll put it this way...

If I am not mistaken, the only time we read of weirwood trees seeds is in this occasion

 "What is it?" "A paste of weirwood seeds." Something about the look of it made Bran feel ill. The red veins were only weirwood sap, he supposed, but in the torchlight they looked remarkably like blood. He dipped the spoon into the paste, then hesitated. "Will this make me a greenseer?" - ADWD BRAN III

I am one of those who believe that the paste of weirwood seeds is Jojen's paste.

If so, it's possible that there are not weirwood seeds at all. But that a blood sacrifice is needed to turn an ordinary tree in a weirwood tree. And that the blood sacrifice we see in Bran's vision - same chapater - is the blood sacrifice that "created" the Winterfell heart-tree.

Blood sacrifices are quite often part of the myths of cities foundations.

When the Starks took possess of their land and founded Winterfell, they made this blood sacrifice as a sign of alliance with the goods.

So did other houses.

And that's why the weirwood trees of the castles of Westeros have human faces and none of them the cat eyes of the COTF.

A detail that people would notice.

That said, personally, I may be wrong, but I doubt that beside these sacrifices (the ones needed to "create" the wwt) others were made, by the Starks or anybody else. In short, I believe that Craster's motive is something else, his story a red herring more than a clue. 

 

 

[Frey family reunion]

8 hours ago, LynnS said:

Getting back to the OP;  I wonder if what Bran saw was part of the ritual for giving the heart tree a face.  I'm thinking about the trees that Jon sees on the way to Moles Town.  The ash, the old chestnut and the oak tree have all been given faces recently.   And also the story about the Pact, where the trees were given faces so they could watch. 
 

When I first read these passages I wondered if the free folk had killed a drunkard, an old man and a strong man who fought back rather than be killed.  The stones and the shadowcat.  Two are easily overcome, the third is not.

I'm guessing that sacrifice is not a common thing among the free folk who won't give up their gods; but someone is sacrificed when a heart tree is given a face.  So perhaps what Bran sees is part of the ritual for giving the Winterfell heart tree a face.  

That's an interesting thought.  If so, then that would probably be as far back in time as Bran would be able to view, at least in the Winterfell Godswood.  It would make sense in a way that for a weirwood to be made a part of a telepathic network it would possibly require the blood of another telepath.  If so, then what would probably be needed would be the sacrifice of a skinchanger.

ETA: Upon further reflection, though, if it took a sacrifice to give the tree "a face", I'm not sure how Bran would be able to view the actual sacrifice from the tree.

[LynnS]

33 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

That's an interesting thought.  If so, then that would probably be as far back in time as Bran would be able to view, at least in the Winterfell Godswood.  It would make sense in a way that for a weirwood to be made a part of a telepathic network it would possibly require the blood of another telepath.  If so, then what would probably be needed would be the sacrifice of a skinchanger.

ETA: Upon further reflection, though, if it took a sacrifice to give the tree "a face", I'm not sure how Bran would be able to view the actual sacrifice from the tree.

I still like the idea that a skinchanger is sacrificed especially if the village is dealing with someone like Varamyr.  Perhaps the face is carved first and the sacrifice follows. I'm also reminded of this:
 

Quote

 

A Storm of Swords - Bran II

"No one knew," said Meera, "but the mystery knight was short of stature, and clad in ill-fitting armor made up of bits and pieces. The device upon his shield was a heart tree of the old gods, a white weirwood with a laughing red face."

 

So carve the face and smear it with blood?  LOL

[dialt]

My two cents... the face isn’t exactly carved. That is what people believe, not necessarily the truth. I’d say that the tree assumes the face of the person sacrificed to trigger its power. The two entities (human being/tree) merge. So do their features.

@Frey family reunion the weird thing imo is that in the paste ritual... Bran himself poses as a tree. The text is misleading, on purpose. Because at first glance we’re lead to believe that the gift is what Bran is receiving, the greensight. And that he (Bran) is the chosen one. But in reality, the green eyed Jojen is (as well as the red eyed Bloodraven) That’s the sign (green or red eyed) by whole the Gods mark the chosen ones... to receive the gift. The gift... of death. If so, Bran = a tree Jojen is sacrified to /melted with the tree just like Bloodraven is.  The question is what makes Bran so special.

[LynnS]

On 5/19/2020 at 4:22 PM, kissdbyfire said:

@LynnS, I don’t think that was a memory of the future. I believe that contact between Bran and Jon happened in real time. Just my 2p, of course.

Since we have come to a pause; let me take another crack at an explanation.

On 5/19/2020 at 4:07 PM, LynnS said:

A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

"You saw what you wished to see. Your heart yearns for your father and your home, so that is what you saw."

"A man must know how to look before he can hope to see," said Lord Brynden. "Those were shadows of days past that you saw, Bran. You were looking through the eyes of the heart tree in your godswood. Time is different for a tree than for a man. Sun and soil and water, these are the things a weirwood understands, not days and years and centuries. 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."

- men experience time in one direction, past to present

- for the trees, the river does not move them; in other words the river becomes still and unmoving

- the oak is the acorn (moving from future to the past); and the acorn is the oak (moving from past to future) or the past, present and future are one

This statement: the oaks is the acorn and the acorn is the oak is a mirror image.  At the Skirling Pass:

- Jon say he spoke to Bran and then Bran touched Ghost

- in the crypts, Bran dreams that he touched Ghost and spoke to Jon

Jon and Bran experience the encounter in another mirror image.  This should tell us that something is askew about how Bran is experiencing time while Jon experiences it in the normal manner.

If the river is still for Bran, he can move throughout time in any direction.  Anything that he does will be like dropping a pebble in a pool of water creating ripple or echoes in time.  Some of those ripples will reverberate back through time where Bran perceives his future self.  This is what I mean by a memory of the future.

Because Bran appears to Jon as the Tree rather than Summer; I don't think this can occur before Bran crosses the Wall and is wed to the tree.   And because Bran has not crossed the Wall while Jon is at the Skirling Pass;  this version of Bran does not yet exist in the present either.  Bran becomes the tree long after Jon has left the Skirling Pass.  So Jon is really seeing a future version of Bran.

I keep harping on this because this is the one example we have in the books that tells us how weirwoods/greenseers experience time.  I feel like readers are stuck on the notion of time travel as we see it on Dr. Who.  Or that time travels in only one direction as described by BR.  Or that because Bran has mastered his third eye and can now warg at will, that he has somehow come into all his powers all at once.  We are only getting a muddied glimpse of the future when Bran thinks he may have dreamed of Jon and Ghost.  He's not even sure himself.

Tree-Bran is a tooled up and completely different version of Bran in the Crypts and this comes from his dream/lessons and BR.  Bran has to take the next step to skinchange the tree.  Once he becomes the tree, time no longer runs in one direction.  

[kissdbyfire]

4 hours ago, lalt said:

My two cents... the face isn’t exactly carved. That is what people believe, not necessarily the truth. I’d say that the tree assumes the face of the person sacrificed to trigger its power. The two entities (human being/tree) merge. So do their features.

But we are told of faces being carved several times, all the way back to the Pact  on the IoF. We also have the Free Folk carving faces on trees on the way to Mole’s Town. I also think we would have heard something about the faces taking on the likeness of the sacrificed person, especially given how much the maesters dislike and distrust magic, and more so that of the heathen tree-worshipping northerners. 

 

4 hours ago, lalt said:

@Frey family reunion the weird thing imo is that in the paste ritual... Bran himself poses as a tree. The text is misleading, on purpose. Because at first glance we’re lead to believe that the gift is what Bran is receiving, the greensight. And that he (Bran) is the chosen one. But in reality, the green eyed Jojen is (as well as the red eyed Bloodraven) That’s the sign (green or red eyed) by whole the Gods mark the chosen ones... to receive the gift. The gift... of death. If so, Bran = a tree Jojen is sacrified to /melted with the tree just like Bloodraven is.  The question is what makes Bran so special.

I disagree, I don’t think the text misleading at all. Bran is told the paste will help awaken his gift, and that’s exactly what it does. Also, Bloodraven is very clear that it’s Bran’s blood that makes him a greenseer, not that the paste will make him a greenseer. 

“Something about the look of it made Bran feel ill. The red veins were only weirwood sap, he supposed, but in the torchlight they looked remarkably like blood. He dipped the spoon into the paste, then hesitated. “Will this make me a greenseer?”
“Your blood makes you a greenseer,” said Lord Brynden. “This will help awaken your gifts and wed you to the trees.”

 

[dialt]

34 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

I disagree, I don’t think the text misleading at all. Bran is told the paste will help awaken his gift, and that’s exactly what it does. Also, Bloodraven is very clear that it’s Bran’s blood that makes him a greenseer, not that the paste will make him a greenseer. 

"In a sense. Those you call the children of the forest have eyes as golden as the sun, but once in a great while one is born amongst them with eyes as red as blood, or green as the moss on a tree in the heart of the forest. By these signs do the gods mark those they have chosen to receive the gift. The chosen ones are not robust, and their quick years upon the earth are few, for every song must have its balance. But once inside the wood they linger long indeed. A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. Greenseers."

The text doesn't say that the gift is the greensight. The text says that those chosen to recive the gift have green or red eyes, like Jojen and Bloodraven. Not Bran, who has blue eyes.

Bloodraven is tied to the tree. Jojen... is the paste that Bran eats. 

= the chosen ones are those who receive the gift of Death. They're chosen to be sacrified.

Bran eats Jojen's paste.  They become one. They merge. Like Bloodraven & the Tree. That's how Bran becomes a Greenseer.

[kissdbyfire]

Just now, lalt said:

"In a sense. Those you call the children of the forest have eyes as golden as the sun, but once in a great while one is born amongst them with eyes as red as blood, or green as the moss on a tree in the heart of the forest. By these signs do the gods mark those they have chosen to receive the gift. The chosen ones are not robust, and their quick years upon the earth are few, for every song must have its balance. But once inside the wood they linger long indeed. A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. Greenseers."

The text doesn't say that the gift is the greensight. The text says that those chosen to recive the gift have green or red eyes, like Jojen and Bloodraven. Not Bran, who has blue eyes.

Bloodraven is tied to tree. Jojen... is the paste that Bran eats. 

= the chosen ones are those who receive the gift of Death. They're chosen to be sacrified.

Bran eats Jojen's past.  They become one. They merge. Like Bloodraven & the Tree. That's how Bran becomes a Greenseer.

Nope, disagree 100%. And no, the paste is not Jojen paste. 

[dialt]

5 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Nope, disagree 100%. And no, the paste is not Jojen paste. 

Fair. Of course one has to agree on Jojen paste. If you don’t... you don’t. And that’s fine 

[dialt]

1 hour ago, kissdbyfire said:

But we are told of faces being carved several times, all the way back to the Pact  on the IoF. We also have the Free Folk carving faces on trees on the way to Mole’s Town. I also think we would have heard something about the faces taking on the likeness of the sacrificed person, especially given how much the maesters dislike and distrust magic, and more so that of the heathen tree-worshipping northerners. 

 Sorry I totally missed this part. 
Yes, in the current time that’s what some wildlings do. Because they believe that the faces are carved. But do they know/remember the truth? The Pact is something really ancient. And if magic (or a sorcery) is at the origin of those faces... then even more so the maester won’t tell the truth. If they know about it. What we do know, is that the faces are quite often... distressed faces. So... that’s my reasoning.

[LynnS]

3 hours ago, lalt said:

Fair. Of course one has to agree on Jojen paste. If you don’t... you don’t. And that’s fine 

Well it's a mind altering substance of some sort.  Probably made from tree sap and the mushrooms growing on top of BR's skull.

[Rhaenyra's Fool]

On 5/18/2020 at 5:13 PM, Brandon Ice-Eyes V1 said:

Do you think it’ll make a return in the coming books or is it probably gone for good. (Weirwood blood sacrifice)

I think there's a chance it'll come back, and that maybe certain of the Free Folk and even some mountain clans (in the North and/or the Vale) might still do human sacrifice. There's something I found interesting in Fire and Blood. When Harren the Red took Harrenhal he killed Gargon "the Guest" Qoherys in the Godswood. I've always thought that a little strange. Why not kill him in the yard where the castle folk and Harren's band might all better be able to see the execution? We know that there is at least some worship of the Old Gods in the Riverlands still (e.g. House Blackwood, and Gyldayn's wording when he talks about Cregan Stark's men marrying into Riverlands communities implies that there was such worship among the smallfolk even before the infusion of northern blood during the minority of Aegon III). I think that Gargon Qoherys' execution might have doubled as a sacrifice, since it happened inside the Godswood.

[OneFretfulTrout]

Did the first men actually understand the cotf's religion? Maybe they used to perform blood rituals before they started to worship the old gods and then mixed old and new beliefs? Did they come up with the idea that the trees would give them also special powers (or their blessing, or whatever) if they used an unnatural (but supposedly more powerful) fertilizer? We are told that the oak is at the same time the acorn- Could this imply that the weirwood tree in the vision is also partially still a child and thus may have reacted in the same way as Bran? Does the statement "they could not hear him" also mean that they did not understand the will of the trees?

And if they were indeed successful (?) and got something in return for the blood, was this gift "corrupted" because it was not a natural death? At least, I'd expect some kind of downside as it was not a 'true' sacrifice (as opposed to Bran). Are the trees now themselves corrupted because all these vengeful human spirits are now inside of them?

And was the prupose of the paste to make it easier for Bran to find this memory among all other memories? Is his mission to prevent such rituals from happening again and to appease the old gods?

???

[LynnS]

59 minutes ago, OneFretfulTrout said:

And was the prupose of the paste to make it easier for Bran to find this memory among all other memories? Is his mission to prevent such rituals from happening again and to appease the old gods?

Leaf says it is to wed Bran to the tree.
 

Quote

wed: 

combine (two factors or qualities).

synonyms:

unite · unify · join · link · connect · combine · amalgamate · fuse · integrate · weld · bond · stick together · bring together · knit together · glue · cement · coalesce · merge

I'm guessing that the paste prepares Bran's body in some way that the tree can fuse with Bran physically.
 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Bran II

His body was so skeletal and his clothes so rotted that at first Bran took him for another corpse, a dead man propped up so long that the roots had grown over him, under him, and through him. What skin the corpse lord showed was white, save for a bloody blotch that crept up his neck onto his cheek. His white hair was fine and thin as root hair and long enough to brush against the earthen floor. Roots coiled around his legs like wooden serpents. One burrowed through his breeches into the desiccated flesh of his thigh, to emerge again from his shoulder. A spray of dark red leaves sprouted from his skull, and grey mushrooms spotted his brow. A little skin remained, stretched across his face, tight and hard as white leather, but even that was fraying, and here and there the brown and yellow bone beneath was poking through.

"Are you the three-eyed crow?" Bran heard himself say. A three-eyed crow should have three eyes. He has only one, and that one red. Bran could feel the eye staring at him, shining like a pool of blood in the torchlight. Where his other eye should have been, a thin white root grew from an empty socket, down his cheek, and into his neck.

 

I think this is what it looks like to be wed to the tree.  The tree sustains Bloodraven long after his body can no longer support life.

[kissdbyfire]

18 minutes ago, LynnS said:

I think this is what it looks like to be wed to the tree.  The tree sustains Bloodraven long after his body can no longer support life.

I think Bloodraven’s case is unique. Not that he necessarily was the first one ever to be joined both physically and mentally w/ the heart tree. But that in his case it has to do w/ the search next greenseer not being accomplished within his normal lifespan. So the tree sustains him well past a human’s normal lifespan so that he can find the next greenseer. 

[LynnS]

7 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

I think Bloodraven’s case is unique. Not that he necessarily was the first one ever to be joined both physically and mentally w/ the heart tree. But that in his case it has to do w/ the search next greenseer not being accomplished within his normal lifespan. So the tree sustains him well past a human’s normal lifespan so that he can find the next greenseer. 

Yes, I agree.   I question whether or not the tree becomes his sole sustenance before he becomes the corpse lord.  Tree roots wrapped around his legs essentially trapping him on the throne.  Is there a point where he no longer needs goat or crow or whatever the cotf are feeding Bran and co.  The fact that the tree can sustain him in the first place, doesn't that say that BR has been altered physically?

I'm suggesting that this is the purpose of weirwood paste.  And no, Jojen paste is off the table for me too.  The red stuff in the paste could be sap from the tree, 'blood' but not human blood. I think Shade of the Evening is also tree sap and both are mind altering.  

Weirwood nut?  No idea.  A nut has a hard shell and can contain one seed or multiple seeds to grind into a paste.  Perhaps the cotf collect them.  Whatever it is, I think Bran has to take something of the tree into himself to be wed to the tree.  So I have no reason to think the paste has anything to do with Jojen.

[sweetsunray]

With regards to the idea of the "weirwood's face is the magical stamp of the one sacrifice made before a weirwood" ... some type of consecration idea.

As intruiging it may be, Bran's strong "nooo, don't," reaction does not seem to fit with that, and in fact we also learn that faces aren't necessary for a greenseer to see. It doesn't even have to be a weirwood. In the aGoT prologue the trees are some kind of active - grabbing for Waymar's cloak and sword, barring the way to the location where the Others plan to confront him, rattling their branches to alert Will and Waymar of the stealthy coming of the Others (wearing some type of camouflaging armor to meld into the environment, leaving no footprints and making no noise as they approach), producing sticky treesap to glue Will to the tree (and the Others never targeting him personally until he actually leaves the tree and picks up the broken sword).

When the wight outside of the cave is in a position to harm Bran, a tree shakes of its snow and dumps it on them, hiding Bran from the wight's grasp and sight (and flame).

Right before the Other appears that Sam eventually kills, once again, it's a branch that alerts Small Paul, Grenn and Sam.

I don't think these none weirwood trees are sentient and doing that by themselves. They are being skinchanged by the CotF greenseers that Bran sees later in his aDwD chapters. Bloodraven may be called the "last greenseer", but he's not the only one there. It's just that these other greenseers are CotF and don't speak anything but True Tongue, which sounds like making natural sounds. So, a human greenseer is important to communicate more clearly with humans than CotF who when they speak will sound like water dripping to humans.

Anyway, the faces aren't necessary. They're only handy for training, and they give the other non-greenseeing CotF and humans a point of reference to reach and communicate.

And if this was true, then why doesn't the weirwood's face in Winterfell's godswood doesn't alter into maester Luwin's face after Osha mercy killed him as he lay between the roots the tree, bleeding out already anyway. Theon prayed to the tree several times. You'd think he'd recognize maester Luwin's face, no?