At this point who isn't Quaithe or Bloodraven?

[Alyn Oakenfist]

So given how many theories there are nowadays of X being Bloodraven or Quaither (depending on the gender) who hasn't been theorized to be one of the 2?

[Wizz-The-Smith]

What? 

Quaithe theories I can handle, her potential identity is a mystery after all. Each to their own and all that. 

Bloodraven is quite simply Brynden Rivers!! Anyone who thinks otherwise is crazy.

Out of interest, what other characters have been theorized as being Bloodraven? I've never heard any of those theories. 

[kissdbyfire]

1 hour ago, Wizz-The-Smith said:

What? 

Quaithe theories I can handle, her potential identity is a mystery after all. Each to their own and all that. 

Bloodraven is quite simply Brynden Rivers!! Anyone who thinks otherwise is crazy.

Out of interest, what other characters have been theorized as being Bloodraven? I've never heard any of those theories. 

Yeah, I agree. Now, there are a few “theories” out there claiming Brynden Bloodraven Rivers isn’t the 3EC. All completely unsupported IMO. Give it a sec and @Megorova will pop in to explain why and how the 3EC is Shiera Seastar. 

[Frey family reunion]

21 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Yeah, I agree. Now, there are a few “theories” out there claiming Brynden Bloodraven Rivers isn’t the 3EC. All completely unsupported IMO. Give it a sec and @Megorova will pop in to explain why and how the 3EC is Shiera Seastar. 

I was a bit skeptical of Bloodraven not being the three eyed crow as well.  But when you look back, it does appear that the three eyed crow has a different "voice" then Bloodraven.  Much more childlike.

ETA: my tinfoil for the 3 eyed crow, is that it may be future Bran reaching back in time to influence his past self.  

[kissdbyfire]

6 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

ETA: my tinfoil for the 3 eyed crow, is that it may be future Bran reaching back in time to influence his past self.  

As long as you’re aware it’s tinfoil! 

I will be extremely surprised if the 3EC is revealed to be anyone but Bloodraven. 

[Frey family reunion]

3 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

As long as you’re aware it’s tinfoil! 

I will be extremely surprised if the 3EC is revealed to be anyone but Bloodraven. 

I don't know how far into time travel paradoxes GRRM is willing to go in this series.  However, his original outline's reference to the "neverborn" makes me raise my eyebrow a bit, but just a little bit.

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

I know that the neverborn could be a direct swipe from Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. But that seems unusually brazen even for GRRM to be that unsubtle.  And GRRM does loves his Twilight Zone.

But would you agree that the voice of the 3 eyed crow is different than Bloodraven's voice?

 

[John Suburbs]

2 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

As long as you’re aware it’s tinfoil! 

I will be extremely surprised if the 3EC is revealed to be anyone but Bloodraven. 

I don't think this is as tinfoil as it seems. Nobody but Bran is ever talked about as opening their third eye, not even Bloodraven nor any greenseer.

Coldhands identifies himself as "Your monster, Brandon Stark," not Bloodraven's.

Nobody, not even BR himself, identifies him as the 3EC, just "the last greenseer." The funny thing is that the word "last" can have multiple meanings. Sure, he can be the last one of all time, or he could be the last one before a new one comes along, like Obama was the last president before Trump. And if Bran is becoming something greater than a greenseer, then BR may very well be the last. But even he is confused at being called a crow.

Meanwhile, the old Welsh word for crow is bran.

[Curled Finger]

Have we seen either suspect named as the other?  Seems to me I remember some talk about BR being Quaithe.  

[TheLastWolf]

11 minutes ago, Curled Finger said:

Seems to me I remember some talk about BR being Quaithe.  

I think that you might mean @Megorovasaying that the 3EC was not BR but Quaithe / Shiera Seastar 

[TheLastWolf]

33 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Meanwhile, the old Welsh word for crow is bran

In Welsh, word frân mean crow and word gigfran means raven. Fran is in old Welsh also spelt Bran, Vran and Uran. In Irish, word bran means raven.

[Curled Finger]

56 minutes ago, TheLastWolf said:

I think that you might mean @Megorovasaying that the 3EC was not BR but Quaithe / Shiera Seastar 

'twas but sarcasm, sorry.  

[Curled Finger]

5 hours ago, Wizz-The-Smith said:

What? 

Bloodraven is quite simply Brynden Rivers!! Anyone who thinks otherwise is crazy.

 

Well, yah...

[kissdbyfire]

2 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

I don't know how far into time travel paradoxes GRRM is willing to go in this series.  However, his original outline's reference to the "neverborn" makes me raise my eyebrow a bit, but just a little bit.

In my opinion there’s no time travel paradoxes in this story. Also, I don’t take anything from the 1993 “outline” seriously. Nothing, nada, zip, zero, zilch.

Quote

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

I know that the neverborn could be a direct swipe from Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. But that seems unusually brazen even for GRRM to be that unsubtle.  And GRRM does loves his Twilight Zone.

Who doesn’t love the Twilight Zone?

TWoT... what can I say? I tried and tried and tried. No book before or since has made me feel so numbingly bored out of my skull.

 

Quote

But would you agree that the voice of the 3 eyed crow is different than Bloodraven's voice?

I’m not sure what you mean here? 

2 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

I don't think this is as tinfoil as it seems. Nobody but Bran is ever talked about as opening their third eye, not even Bloodraven nor any greenseer.
 

There are two greenseers that we know of in the story... And Bloodraven isn't a PoV. 

Quote

Coldhands identifies himself as "Your monster, Brandon Stark," not Blood-raven's.

Nobody, not even BR himself, identifies him as the 3EC, just "the last greenseer." The funny thing is that the word "last" can have multiple meanings. Sure, he can be the last one of all time, or he could be the last one before a new one comes along, like Obama was the last president before Trump. And if Bran is becoming something greater than a greenseer, then BR may very well be the last. But even he is confused at being called a crow.

This is often used to explain why Bloodraven isn’t the 3EC. I suppose I just don’t really see it the way most people do.

Quote

Meanwhile, the old Welsh word for crow is bran.

And Martin was asked specifically about this, and said “nope, I used Brandon because 
I thought it sounded cool”. And I heard this from him in person. I know, when the author says something in the text or outside that goes against someone’s head canon, a lot of people dismiss the author to hang onto their head canon. I’m the opposite, I dismiss the head canon and go w/ what the author says,

[Frey family reunion]

1 hour ago, kissdbyfire said:

TWoT... what can I say? I tried and tried and tried. No book before or since has made me feel so numbingly bored out of my skull.

I enjoyed the first three books of the series, but I found that the fourth book while still over a thousand pages in length didn't seem to move the plot along.  When the fifth book came out and still didn't move the plot along at all, I came to the conclusion that Jordan was writing for pay days and not to complete the story.  So fortunately I jettisoned the series then.   (BTW, AFFC and ADWD seemed uncomfortably similar to books 4 and 5 of TWOT.

1 hour ago, kissdbyfire said:

I’m not sure what you mean here? 

What I mean is most characters tend to have their own way of speaking in the story.  For example, Arya's dialogue is quite different from her mother's dialogue or her sister's dialogue.  If you just gave me a quote of what the character said without an attribution, I think I could pick up which of the characters said it just by the type of dialogue.

The way that Bloodraven spoke to Bran in ADWD is much more formal and cold then the way the 3 eyed crow spoke to Bran in the dream.  Now this could be attributed to speaking to someone in their dreams.  That the way your "voice" is presented may be assimilated with the personality of the person you are speaking to.  Or it could be that Bloodraven was not in fact the 3 eyed crow.

[Many-Faced Votary]

I personally believe Quaithe is Shiera Seastar, but I fully accept she could simply be a mysterious shadowbinder whose identity will never be revealed. Indeed, Quaithe being Shiera is the only theory of her identity which bears any sort of fruit in a literary sense. Beyond this, it is inconceivable that she is [insert historical woman who has no bearing on the contemporary story and no real ties with Daenerys or possibly Bloodraven]. Regardless, her identity does not matter nearly as much as her impact on Dany's journey and how she (Dany) will view the people she meets.

Bloodraven is... Bloodraven, or Brynden Rivers; it is folly to suggest otherwise. I cannot say for a certainty that he is the "real" Three-Eyed Crow, but there is no good reason to think otherwise, and what would be the narrative and thematic point if he is not? 

[Megorova]

8 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Give it a sec and @Megorova will pop in to explain why and how the 3EC is Shiera Seastar. 

Probably, it was the longest ever second in Universe - it lasted over 7 hours.

7 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

But when you look back, it does appear that the three eyed crow has a different "voice" then Bloodraven.  Much more childlike.

Not childlike, the 3EC's voice was - "The voice was high and thin." Females have voices higher than males.

Also this - "The crow opened its beak and cawed at him, a shrill scream of fear, and the grey mists shuddered and swirled around him and ripped away like a veil, and HE SAW THAT THE CROW WAS REALLY A WOMAN, a serving woman with long black hair, and he knew her from somewhere, from Winterfell, yes, that was it, he remembered her now, and then he realized that he was in Winterfell, in a bed high in some chilly tower room, and the black-haired woman dropped a basin of water to shatter on the floor and ran down the steps, shouting, “He’s awake, he’s awake, he’s awake.” "

38 minutes ago, Many-Faced Votary said:

I cannot say for a certainty that he is the "real" Three-Eyed Crow, but there is no good reason to think otherwise, and what would be the narrative and thematic point if he is not? 

The 3EC saved Bran, so Bran was thankful to it. And then Jojen and Meera came to Winterfell, and Jojen told Bran that he also dreamed about the 3EC, and that the 3EC wants Bran to go beyond The Wall, and that it said that it will help him. Bran had no reason to suspect that Jojen was lying to him, and, as I already wrote - he was thankful to the 3EC for saving him. Thus, because he thought, that it's his saviour/the 3EC, who wants him to go beyond The Wall, he agreed to it. He was brought to Bloodraven's cave, where the Children "wedded" him to a tree. But that's what the 3EC was trying to prevent from happening:

AGOT "The ground was so far below him he could barely make it out through the grey mists that whirled around him, but he could feel how fast he was falling, and he knew what was waiting for him down there. ... Bran looked down. There was nothing below him now but snow and cold and death, a frozen wasteland where jagged blue-white spires of ice waited to embrace him. They flew up at him like spears. He saw the bones of a thousand other dreamers impaled upon their points."

ADWD "The sight of him still frightened Bran—the weirwood roots snaking in and out of his withered flesh... One was full of singers, enthroned like Brynden in nests of weirwood roots that wove under and through and around their bodies. Most of them looked dead to him, but as he crossed in front of them their eyes would open and follow the light of his torch, and one of them opened and closed a wrinkled mouth as if he were trying to speak."

 

In his coma-(fly or fall and die)-dream Bran saw a thousand dreamers impaled by ice spires/singers with weirwood roots growing through their bodies. The 3EC saved him from becoming one of them, prevented him from becoming "food" for the Weirwood Network. It didn't wanted Bran to become like Bloodraven, or like Jojen (who became a slave of the Weirwood after his near-death illness. The Weirwood saved Jojen to possess his body. Unlike Bran, Jojen did fell in his near-death-dream, and the Weirwood got him, and after that his eyes became green, and the Weirwood gave him dreams, thru which it guided him to do what the Weirwood wanted).

It wasn't the 3EC, who wanted/needed Bran to go beyond The Wall, it was Bloodraven, and Bloodraven made Jojen to use the 3EC as a bait to lure Bran into Bloodraven's trap.

Jojen did saw the 3EC in his dreams, though in those dreams the 3EC was trying to free Bran from the Weirwood, not to bind him to it (what the Children and Bloodraven did):

ACOK, Bran IV " "I dreamed of a winged wolf bound to earth with grey stone chains," he said. "It was a green dream, so I knew it was true. A crow was trying to peck through the chains, but the stone was too hard and his beak could only chip at them.""

The winged wolf is Bran, the 3EC is Shiera Seastar, and those stone chains is the Weirwood, weirwood roots growing thru Bran's body, after he ate that weirwood seed paste, that wedded him to a tree.

Thus, the narrative and thematic point of Bloodaven being not the 3EC, is that it was the 3EC/Shiera, who lured Bloodraven beyond The Wall, and binded him to a tree, and Bloodraven used the 3EC as a bait to lure Bran beyond The Wall, to do to Bran what Shiera did to him, Shiera, who previously saved Bran from Bloodraven's fate/becoming food for the Weirwood.

[Ser Leftwich]

11 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

 

But would you agree that the voice of the 3 eyed crow is different than Bloodraven's voice?

 

I agree there difference between the two (tone, word choice, etc.) However, there are several factors to the difference in voice between the two. It is important to think about who is speaking, who is hearing and their state.

First, the 3EC is in many ways a coma/dream metaphorical manifestation in Bran's brain of someone (Bloodraven) contacting him. This is qualitatively different when much later in ADwD when Bran is interacting with Bloodraven both in person and in the dream/tree/weirnet. Between when Bran wakes from his coma and he meets BR in person he has spent a lot of time having greenish-dreams and skinchanging Summer (and even Hodor). Bran is getting better at the weirnet. Where as when he was in a coma he was there, more or less by accident. Bran's 'hearing' is as a traumatized child dreaming fantastical metaphors, which is exactly what he is. Remember, Jojen was also visited by the 3EC when he was ill. Tonally, it seems off for the 3EC to show up in Bran's coma-dream and literally explain the finer points of who they are, their personal history, the nature of magic, and the potential awesome responsibility that likely looms for Bran to shoulder.

Second, compare the metaphorical representations we have of characters in dreams/vision/prophecy, they are all close. It might be some kind of projection of how BR thinks of himself, as compared to how Bran's is manifest in his dreams/weirnet early on, a winged wolf chained, but we don't know that persons in the weirnet have any control over that. A bait and switch from anyone else from a magical part Targ guy, who was also a "crow," is not how it has worked before.

Third, there is something to be said for BR being unused to talking to anyone with his real body. Yes, the CotF and Coldhands (though we do not have confirmation about how much they all 'talked' before Bran and co arrived.) His grasp of regular conversation and discussion may off, to say the least. He never says he is not the 3EC. For all we know, he doesn't separate the concepts of Brynden Rivers, Bloodraven, Lord Commander, and the 3EC in his own mind.

 

[John Suburbs]

21 hours ago, TheLastWolf said:

In Welsh, word frân mean crow and word gigfran means raven. Fran is in old Welsh also spelt Bran, Vran and Uran. In Irish, word bran means raven.

OK, but nowhere do you find Bryn, Brynden or any other form of Bloodraven's translating as crow.

[TheLastWolf]

10 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

OK, but nowhere do you find Bryn, Brynden or any other form of Bloodraven's translating as crow.

I was supporting your point man! 

[John Suburbs]

19 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

In my opinion there’s no time travel paradoxes in this story. Also, I don’t take anything from the 1993 “outline” seriously. Nothing, nada, zip, zero, zilch.

Who doesn’t love the Twilight Zone?

TWoT... what can I say? I tried and tried and tried. No book before or since has made me feel so numbingly bored out of my skull.

 

I’m not sure what you mean here? 

There are two greenseers that we know of in the story... And Bloodraven isn't a PoV. 

This is often used to explain why Bloodraven isn’t the 3EC. I suppose I just don’t really see it the way most people do.

And Martin was asked specifically about this, and said “nope, I used Brandon because 
I thought it sounded cool”. And I heard this from him in person. I know, when the author says something in the text or outside that goes against someone’s head canon, a lot of people dismiss the author to hang onto their head canon. I’m the opposite, I dismiss the head canon and go w/ what the author says,

And yet we have Bran looking back in time through the heart trees and even influencing events in the past -- albeit to a minimal degree, so far.

Sure, two greenseers that we've met, and only one PoV. But in all the talk about greenseers and greensight and the Green Men, nowhere in all this lore is there a single mention about a third eye. Curious, I'd say.

We all interpret the story in our own way. But if I was the 3EC and someone who just went through all kinds of hell to get to me because I was appearing in their dreams as a 3EC were to ask me if I was the 3EC, I would simply say yes, not "a crow? Well, uh, I guess, maybe once . . ."

Ah, but recall that Martin also said he wrote the first Bran chapter in a creative burst because he couldn't get on with other things until he got it out of his head. So sure, he chose the name Brandon because it sounded cool. Then later he added the 3EC. He could have chosen any bird, really, particularly ravens because they were already a key part of the story. But he chose a crow specifically, and then later created Bloodraven and his multiple associations with ravens besides his nickname. So in all probability, Martin selected Bran first and then chose a bird that relates to Bran, not the other way around.