Old Nan's Identity and her Unrevealed Secrets

[kissdbyfire]

On 7/8/2020 at 5:10 PM, Megorova said:

And what kind of name is Nan?

Nan = grandmother.

[Megorova]

1 minute ago, kissdbyfire said:

Nan = grandmother.

"Grandmother" is not a fitting name for a newborn girl, don't you think? Before she became an Old Grandmother, she obviously had a different name.

[kissdbyfire]

Just now, Megorova said:

"Grandmother" is not a fitting name for a newborn girl, don't you think? Before she became an Old Grandmother, she obviously had a different name.

Are you serious?

Of course it's not her given name, but it is how she is known and how people refer to her. 

[Rosetta Stone]

Nan can tell us who the pregnant woman was in Bran's hallucination.  The one who prayed for a son to avenge her.  I think this son could be Rickard Stark and the woman was angry at the Targaryens. 

[TheLastWolf]

9 hours ago, Mithras said:

Dunk has to be a lowborn (in fact the lowestborn) from the gutters of Flea Bottom for his story to have meaning. Not every ASOIAF piece GRRM writes has to be about hidden Targaryen bastards.

 No use of hinting at all those descendants if Dunk was just as mongrel off the streets and not the baseborn son of Daemon I Blackfyre and Daenerys I Targaryen.

8 hours ago, Mithras said:

Finally, wildling origin also explains where Old Nan learned some of the creepiest stories that no one else knows

Why would she talk of the wildlings as creatures who drank human blood from skulls and reinforced superstitions and prejudices if she were a wildling?

8 hours ago, Mithras said:

she would definitely say that crows are liars.

And oath breaker or not, all crows have lied for reasons good or bad. Sam  to make Jon LC to Denys Mallister and Cotter pyke. Jon on Qhorin's orders and so on. 

And Brienne is plainly Dunk's descendant via Nan as are the rest. the shield is too coincidental to not be so. 

[TheLastWolf]

14 hours ago, TheLastWolf said:

Ranging from Rheagar's harp to Bloodraven’s Butterwell dragon egg to Dark Sister and The Knight of the Laughing Tree shield. 

Thoughts on this? Except the egg and DS, the other two must be in the crypts, I feel. There were more hidden objects mention an older thread. 

[TheLastWolf]

10 hours ago, Rosetta Stone said:

Nan can tell us who the pregnant woman was in Bran's hallucination.  The one who prayed for a son to avenge her.  I think this son could be Rickard Stark and the woman was angry at the Targaryens

Yeah. Probably true. Better theory than the woman being Nan herself. 

[kissdbyfire]

1 hour ago, TheLastWolf said:

Yeah. Probably true. Better theory than the woman being Nan herself. 

I have never seen anyone propose that the pregnant woman in Bran’s vision in Dance is Old Nan. 

[TheLastWolf]

4 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

I have never seen anyone propose that the pregnant woman in Bran’s vision in Dance is Old Nan. 

You should a topic fully before making any comments. I've made the same mistake. 

See the last post in page one of this topic by @Mithras

Quote

 I agree. Wildling origin for Old Nan explains several things. First of all, Hodor might have giant ancestry like the Umbers. I was never comfortable with the girl who kissed Dunk being Old Nan and Hodor being one of Dunk's descendants. Second, it might explain why she said crows are liars. If she had some experience similar to what happened between Ygritte and Jon, she would definitely say that crows are liars. The timeline might place her arrival coincide with the campaign of Raymun Redbeard. If she came with him, fell in love with a crow who impregnated her and betrayed her, everything would fit. That would make her the pregnant woman in Bran's vision (at the same spot where Osha liked to swim naked). She was praying for revenge against that crow who cheated her

Noy my mistake if you haven't read it. Just sayin 

[kissdbyfire]

1 hour ago, TheLastWolf said:

You should a topic fully before making any comments. I've made the same mistake. 

See the last post in page one of this topic by @Mithras

Noy my mistake if you haven't read it. Just sayin 

Touché, I didn’t finish reading that post b/c while I mostly agree w/ @Mithras on a broad range of topics, I disagree w/ the idea that the girl kissing a tall knight in Bran’s vision isn’t Old Nan. 

[DMC]

Not only is it ok if Old Nan is just Old Nan, I'd prefer it that way.  She doesn't need to have some secret identity or backstory.  In fact, it's better she doesn't.  I mean, in what tale does the wizened old sage woman have a backstory?  That just makes it lame, keep the mystery.  I do think she is the one being referenced kissing Dunk in Bran's vision, but that's just for shits and giggles.

[TheLastWolf]

1 hour ago, kissdbyfire said:

3 hours ago, TheLastWolf said:

You should a topic fully before making any comments. I've made the same mistake. 

See the last post in page one of this topic by @Mithras

Noy my mistake if you haven't read it. Just sayin 

Touché, I didn’t finish reading that post b/c while I mostly agree w/ @Mithras on a broad range of topics, I disagree w/ the idea that the girl kissing a tall knight in Bran’s vision isn’t Old Nan

Nor do I believe it. Sorry if I was a bit harsh in pointing out @Mithras's post. And @DMC what we want or prefer doesn't matter. I learnt that the hard way. And it would be really lame if Old Nan had no identity. She was obviously not named Old Nan when born. We don't want a secret identity to be revealed, just a forgotten one. 

[DMC]

28 minutes ago, TheLastWolf said:

And it would be really lame if Old Nan had no identity.

Why?  I agree, obviously, she was not originally named Old Nan, but that doesn't mean it's necessary we need her backstory.  There are literally hundreds of characters in this sprawling tale.  Her role, as much as I loved it, is decidedly over.  Why does the reader need to know what her knowledge derives from?  How does that advance or improve  the story?

[TheLastWolf]

5 minutes ago, DMC said:

Her role, as much as I loved it, is decidedly over.  Why does the reader need to know what her knowledge derives from?  How does that advance or improve  the story?

See post no #1 and #18 of this thread. 

[DMC]

27 minutes ago, TheLastWolf said:

See post no #1 and #18 of this thread. 

All seem to be convoluted and esoteric premises.  How is Old Nan's knowledge gonna reenter the narrative?  Other than Bran, which if that's the case just do it some other way anyway, it seems hard to imagine.

[Megorova]

11 hours ago, TheLastWolf said:

And oath breaker or not, all crows have lied for reasons good or bad.

I don't think that by saying that all crows are liars, Old Nan meant Night Watchers. In Nan's past something happened, there was some sort of reason why Dunk left Winterfell and didn't married. Dunk had to play an important role in the fate of House Targaryen, so it was necessary that he didn't settled down, didn't have a family, though did have children, because they also were supposed to play a role in a big game, thru their descendants. If Dunk didn't became a Kingsguard, then whatever happened at Summerhall, wouldn't have happened, Barristan Selmy becoming a Kingsguard also wouldn't have happened, Brienne also wouldn't have happened, etc. So the mastermind, that crafted for Dunk his role, whatever that role was, caused him to leave Winterfell, and to go someplace else on some sort of mission, from which he never returned, at least not to Winterfell. I think that that mastermind was Shiera Seastar, who is the Three-Eyed Crow. So, by saying that all crows are liars, Old Nan didn't meant all crows/birds, or even Night Watchers, she meant a specific crow - the 3EC/Shiera, who used some sort of trick to separate Dunk and Nan. And Nan later find out that the reason why Dunk was taken away from Winterfell and separated from her, was a lie made up by the 3ECrow.

Nan said that all crows are liars, because with her lies the 3EC/Shiera ruined Nan's life.

[kissdbyfire]

That doesn't make sense, @Megorova. That would be Martin cheating to deceive all his readers but you, of course. If ON meant the 3EC - who isn't Shiera btw - is a liar, Martin wouldn't have her say "all crows are liars". 

[Megorova]

29 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

If ON meant the 3EC - who isn't Shiera btw - is a liar, Martin wouldn't have her say "all crows are liars". 

More often than not, women, that were cheated by their boyfriends/or husbands, afterwards think/say that all men are cheaters and horndogs. They don't even know ALL men, nevertheless, based on their single negative experience, they project their opinion about their exes on all other men.

So Old Nan is also like that. She was lied once by one "Crow", and now is projecting her opinion about that crow, who was a liar, on all other crows. Do you get what I mean? (I forgot what's the English word for that sort of subjective negative projecting )

[TheLastWolf]

1 hour ago, Megorova said:

Nan said that all crows are liars, because with her lies the 3EC/Shiera ruined Nan's life.

I agree with you about Shiera/Quaithe plotting all that you said about Dunk and all. But how could Nan have known that it was Quaithe's plot and that she was the 3EC?

[The Fattest Leech]

On 7/8/2020 at 4:10 PM, Megorova said:

It's not about secret identity, it's about Old Nan's past. And we know absolutely nothing about her past. That Hodor, who, by the way, is actually - Walder (which is not his secret identity ), is her great-grandson, reveals absolutely nothing about Nan's own life. We don't know her actual name. And it's obvious that her parents didn't named their newborn daughter - Old Nan  And what kind of name is Nan? Seems likely that it's a shortening, same as Ned is a shortening of Eddard. We don't know who was her husband, whether she had more than one, how many children she had, what were their names, where her daughters went after departing from Wintefell, whether those daughters had children/grandchildren, and if they did, then whether any of them are currently characters in ASOIAF, whether all of Nan's children were kids of the same man, or if Nan gave birth to a bastard/bastards, etc., etc., etc. Her past could be significant, even without her having a secret identity. Though we know so little about her, that it could be revealed later, that in the past she played a major role, for example, was the mother of Dunk's children.

Re: the bold.

Old Nan was once Young Nan, but Nan isn't her given birth name, just like [young] Jojen is called Little Grandfather- it's a nickname akin to grandmother or nanna/nanny. It's a style GRRM uses across all of his works when he wants to add a wise storyteller type. It's a creative way to add narrative to the story without breaking the fourth wall. GRRM has used old Jon, and then Old Tesenya, and old narKarmian the elderly ship captain that teaches Holt to fly and is a storyteller, and the old storyteller in Windhaven which then Maris becomes "old" Maris as a storyteller and needs a singer (Bran is old Nan's "singer"). Adding: and Gumbo Granny from The Needle Men is an old, old storyteller that is very much like old Nan and Bloodraven both. It's a favorite story component of GRRM's, it seems.

Old Nan's story is already significant as it serves in the current story. We don't need another secret identity or complicated secret past to make ASOIAF any better. Plus, there isn't enough time, and Nan is most likely dead at Dreadfort.