Time and Causality

[Melifeather]

2 hours ago, Tucu said:

Keep an eye on the snowstorm around Winterfell. Characters in multiple sides attribute it to the gods

 

Was there thunder snow? That’s actually a real phenomenon. The tower Bran fell from had been hit by lighting. Queenscrown tower was also hit by lightning. Whatever a third event looks like it should be struck by lightning. 

[Son of Man]

On 11/7/2020 at 9:38 AM, LynnS said:

I think we've had a pretty big reveal, in an interview with George Martin, in a newly published book Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon", by James Hibberd.  I guess it's more or less in the public domain at this point.

This is especially interesting to me because I've been banging on about the events at the Skirling Pass for a while; as an example of Martin manipulating time.  I don't call it time travel.  Martin's explanation that events in the future an affect the past, seems better to me.  I would never have guessed that Hodor was connected to Bran through the dimension of time and was changed by events in the future.  When Martin says that the hold the door incident was more akin to hold the pass and that Bran went into Hodor's mind;  I think he was referring to the events at the door to Bloodraven's cave.

I think this is the event where Bran went into Hodor's mind so powerfully, it broke Hodor's mind in the past.   

Besides Hodor and the Skirling Pass, I think there is another incident of time manipulation that we could define as deja vu.  

To be continued...

 

Green seers of the past must have broken a lot of minds.  Playing with minds is like playing with porcelain.

[Tucu]

4 hours ago, Melifeather said:

Was there thunder snow? That’s actually a real phenomenon. The tower Bran fell from had been hit by lighting. Queenscrown tower was also hit by lightning. Whatever a third event looks like it should be struck by lightning. 

Thunder of the methaphorical kind (that lasted for days):

Quote

And in the heart of the wood the weirwood waited with its knowing red eyes. Theon stopped by the edge of the pool and bowed his head before its carved red face. Even here he could hear the drumming, boom DOOM boom DOOM boom DOOM boom DOOM. Like distant thunder, the sound seemed to come from everywhere at once.

 

[LynnS]

2 hours ago, Son of Man said:

Green seers of the past must have broken a lot of minds.  Playing with minds is like playing with porcelain.

Hello Son of Man.  Thank you for joining the conversation.  How do you figure that greenseers broke a lot of minds in the past?

[LynnS]

pc problem

[LynnS]

3 hours ago, Tucu said:

And in the heart of the wood the weirwood waited with its knowing red eyes. Theon stopped by the edge of the pool and bowed his head before its carved red face. Even here he could hear the drumming, boom DOOM boom DOOM boom DOOM boom DOOM. Like distant thunder, the sound seemed to come from everywhere at once.

Theon is another character with a damaged mind and body.  He is on the cusp of lifting the veil to see beyond or having Bran reach through the mists to him.  Physically, he is close to death and longs for it.  Ramsey has repeatedly weakened his mind to near insanity. These seem to be the conditions for Bran to use him in some manner.  He may become someone who can speak to trees.  In the timeless place between the worlds, Theon is shown the hearts of those standing before the heart tree, into their bestial nature.  Roose is hidden behind a mask with only his eyes showing, chips of dirty ice. 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - The Prince of Winterfell

The mists were so thick that only the nearest trees were visible; beyond them stood tall shadows and faint lights. Candles flickered beside the wandering path and back amongst the trees, pale fireflies floating in a warm grey soup. It felt like some strange underworld, some timeless place between the worlds, where the damned wandered mournfully for a time before finding their way down to whatever hell their sins had earned them. Are we all dead, then? Did Stannis come and kill us in our sleep? Is the battle yet to come, or has it been fought and lost?

Here and there a torch burned hungrily, casting its ruddy glow over the faces of the wedding guests. The way the mists threw back the shifting light made their features seem bestial, half-human, twisted. Lord Stout became a mastiff, old Lord Locke a vulture, Whoresbane Umber a gargoyle, Big Walder Frey a fox, Little Walder a red bull, lacking only a ring for his nose. Roose Bolton's own face was a pale grey mask, with two chips of dirty ice where his eyes should be.

Above their heads the trees were full of ravens, their feathers fluffed as they hunched on bare brown branches, staring down at the pageantry below. Maester Luwin's birds. Luwin was dead, and his maester's tower had been put to the torch, yet the ravens lingered. This is their home. Theon wondered what that would be like, to have a home.

[Likely Luke Strong]

On 11/16/2020 at 6:38 PM, LynnS said:

No, Bran's connection to Jon at the Skirling Pass has yet to happen.  In Bran's last chapter, he still experiences time moving in one direction.  Bran has yet to see as the tree sees,  Bloodraven tells him he will master that gift in the future.    Bran has yet to become tree-Bran as we see him at the Skirling Pass.  

While I think Bran reaching out into the past to speak to someone in their dreams is plausible, I think the fact that Bran mentions speaking to Jon in his dreams at the end of Clash (right after the Skirling Pass event) implies that this specific event did occur in real time.

Quote

Here in the chill damp darkness of the tomb his third eye had finally opened. He could reach Summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon. Though maybe he had only dreamed that. - ACOK Bran VII

 

As to the original post, while I think Bran will break Hodor similarly to the event at the entrance to the cave, I'd be surprised if the actual breaking point isn't more explicit about the retroactive effects on Hodor. Also, given that the subsequent chapter introduces some form of nonlinear time that Bran didn't yet have access to, I think that it would make more sense for Hodor's state to be a consequence of abusing that power in synthesis with skinchanging Hodor.

[LynnS]

2 hours ago, Likely Luke Strong said:

As to the original post, while I think Bran will break Hodor similarly to the event at the entrance to the cave, I'd be surprised if the actual breaking point isn't more explicit about the retroactive effects on Hodor. Also, given that the subsequent chapter introduces some form of nonlinear time that Bran didn't yet have access to, I think that it would make more sense for Hodor's state to be a consequence of abusing that power in synthesis with skinchanging Hodor.

Thank you for your comments..

Apologies.  I'm having no end of grief with my pc this morning.

This is a choice that readers can make depending on how you read the text and the meaning you take from it. For another analysis, I'll refer you to this OP:

For the purposes and spirit of this OP; we are entertaining these ideas.  

[LynnS]

@Seams Circling back to your comment about curtains and curtain walls;  what do you think this is:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Bran III

Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him. And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks.

Is this the aurora, a ward of some kind, or possibly even a polar moon halo?

Quote

Halo (from Greek ἅλως, halōs[1]) is the name for a family of optical phenomena produced by light (typically from the Sun or Moon) interacting with ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. Halos can have many forms, ranging from colored or white rings to arcs and spots in the sky. Many of these appear near the Sun or Moon, but others occur elsewhere or even in the opposite part of the sky. Among the best known halo types are the circular halo (properly called the 22° halo), light pillars, and sun dogs, but many others occur; some are fairly common while others are (extremely) rare.

The ice crystals responsible for halos are typically suspended in cirrus or cirrostratus clouds in the upper troposphere (5–10 km (3.1–6.2 mi)), but in cold weather they can also float near the ground, in which case they are referred to as diamond dust. The particular shape and orientation of the crystals are responsible for the type of halo observed. Light is reflected and refracted by the ice crystals and may split into colors because of dispersion. The crystals behave like prisms and mirrors, refracting and reflecting light between their faces, sending shafts of light in particular directions. Atmospheric optical phenomena like halos were used as part of weather lore, which was an empirical means of weather forecasting before meteorology was developed. They often do indicate that rain will fall within the next 24 hours, since the cirrostratus clouds that cause them can signify an approaching frontal system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(optical_phenomenon)

https://phys.org/news/2016-02-nacreous-clouds-winter.html

Is this another moon portal? 

On the subject of Jon tearing down the burning curtain during Othor's attack, I'm not sure what to make of it except that his burned hand marks him as an instrument of R'Hllor.  There is sorcery in the room and Othor is described as moon faced:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Jon VII

Jon had no time to be afraid. He threw himself forward, shouting, bringing down the longsword with all his weight behind it. Steel sheared through sleeve and skin and bone, yet the sound was wrong somehow. The smell that engulfed him was so queer and cold he almost gagged. He saw arm and hand on the floor, black fingers wriggling in a pool of moonlight. Ghost wrenched free of the other hand and crept away, red tongue lolling from his mouth.

The hooded man lifted his pale moon face, and Jon slashed at it without hesitation. The sword laid the intruder open to the bone, taking off half his nose and opening a gash cheek to cheek under those eyes, eyes, eyes like blue stars burning. Jon knew that face. Othor, he thought, reeling back. Gods, he's dead, he's dead, I saw him dead.

Jon also seems to be affected a brain worm or mental tick with the repetition of eyes,eyes,eyes.  This is evocative of Ned's dream: a storm of petals, blue as the eyes of death.

Oddly, Sam who is also described as moon-faced develops a similar tick after his encounter with Coldhands at the Black Gate.

Quote

A Feast for Crows - Samwell II

"Jon would never. Lord Snow did. Sometimes there is no happy choice, Sam, only one less grievous than the others."

No happy choice. Sam thought of all the trials that he and Gilly suffered, Craster's Keep and the death of the Old Bear, snow and ice and freezing winds, days and days and days of walking, the wights at Whitetree, Coldhands and the tree of ravens, the Wall, the Wall, the Wall, the Black Gate beneath the earth. What had it all been for? No happy choices and no happy endings.

The number three is considered a magical number and this repetition, not only sounds like echos or ripples;  Mormont's bird does the same thing, so often we don't even notice until.  It's startling when the bird changes from corn, corn,corn to burn,burn,burn:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Jon VII

… and saw Lord Mormont, naked and groggy from sleep, standing in the doorway with an oil lamp in hand. Gnawed and fingerless, the arm thrashed on the floor, wriggling toward him.

Jon tried to shout, but his voice was gone. Staggering to his feet, he kicked the arm away and snatched the lamp from the Old Bear's fingers. The flame flickered and almost died. "Burn!" the raven cawed. "Burn, burn, burn!"

 How does the raven know what to do?  Who is this bird?  This brings me back to Jon's wolf dream where he is being chased by the moon.  The moon seems to be laughing/cackling, a noise ravens and crows make.  Ghost is nearly stabbed by an icycle when he hears a shriek and Jon wakes to Mormont's raven pecking at his chest.  So was the bird party to his dream disguised as the moon and is Bran or Arya keeping tabs on Jon using Mormont's raven?  I'm guessing this is Bran after he learns to skinchange birds chasing Jon somewhat playfully as the moon in his dream.

[Melifeather]

5 hours ago, Likely Luke Strong said:

While I think Bran reaching out into the past to speak to someone in their dreams is plausible, I think the fact that Bran mentions speaking to Jon in his dreams at the end of Clash (right after the Skirling Pass event) implies that this specific event did occur in real time.

Quote

Here in the chill damp darkness of the tomb his third eye had finally opened. He could reach Summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon. Though maybe he had only dreamed that. - ACOK Bran VII

Bran wasn’t sure if he touched Jon or if he dreamed it. This is an instance where future Bran reached back into the past and in effect touched himself. (Har!)

[LynnS]

14 minutes ago, Melifeather said:

Bran wasn’t sure if he touched Jon or if he dreamed it. This is an instance where future Bran reached back into the past and in effect touched himself. (Har!)

"Dreams become lessons,lessons become dreams"

[Seams]

On 11/16/2020 at 8:38 PM, LynnS said:

Bran's connection to Jon at the Skirling Pass has yet to happen.  In Bran's last chapter, he still experiences time moving in one direction.  Bran has yet to see as the tree sees,  Bloodraven tells him he will master that gift in the future. 

I'm wondering whether Bloodraven's assumption about Bran's vision might be mistaken. GRRM has made a big point of telling us that POVs include unreliable narrators and we have seen instances (Sansa / Sandor's "unkiss," for instance) where characters remember the same incidents in ways that are incompatible. In his instruction for Bran, he may be drawing on his own experience of becoming a greenseer, but he doesn't understand the different nature of Bran's power.

In spite of Bloodraven's characterization, I think it's possible that Bran was seeing something from the future when he saw the woman with the sickle, cutting the man's throat. The woman he saw sounds a lot like Lady Stoneheart to me. Since Catelyn's first POV in AGoT involves Ned sitting under that tree and cleaning his sword after executing a deserter, it feels right to me that GRRM would give us a glimpse of a future event that involves a blade, a blood sacrifice to that tree and a transformed Catelyn out for vengeance.

For those who cling to Bloodraven as infallible, alternatively, Bran may have seen a past event that foreshadows something we will see with Lady Stoneheart in the future. We know that GRRM uses history and legend and even contemporary stories as parallels.

Yet another possibility draws on Melifeather's metaphor about Bran dropping into the ocean of time: perhaps Bran sees a sort of Platonic Ideal of the sacrifice under the weirwood. This is an event that has been repeated over the centuries and it will continue to occur with variations on into the future.

On 11/17/2020 at 9:00 AM, LynnS said:

Oddly when Bran starts to dream of Jaimie pushing him out the window; he's interrupted by the crow; who tells him to put that memory away; that Bran doesn't need it anymore.  So it seems to me that the things we do for love  involve Bran becoming a cripple.  And the assassination attempt a reason to Bran to flee beyond the Wall to safety.

What agency could be involved?  Well potentially Rickon's direwolf could be a conduit agent for some other force, Something that is  working on the actors involved toward pushing Bran out of the window and them providing the impetus to flee to safety.

It's become clear to me that the metaphor for these "time loops" or "parallels from legends" have to do with circular stairways. But there are other interesting paths that require special characters to lead the way - Meera on the causeway to the Queenscrown, for instance. Ser Jorah, Ser Barristan and Strong Belwas together in the sewers at Meereen. Perhaps both Mya Stone and Miranda Royce on the path down from the Eyrie.

From the get-go, Bran is unconstrained by the normal rules that seem to apply to paths. He climbs the outside of buildings. He finds a path between the walls of Winterfell that is unknown to others. Sansa remembers a game of chase through Winterfell where Bran ends up on top of a covered bridge looking down at Sansa and Arya. He almost gets his direwolf to climb a sentinel pine in order to get over the wall of the Winterfell gods wood.

Jaime pushing Bran off the tower represents an evolution of Bran's ability to travel outside of normal paths. That old keep is a metaphor, of course. There's no reason for the Stark family to keep a vacant, useless ruin in the middle of their family compound, so it must have a literary purpose. My suspicion is that it represents these legends of the past or events that have happened in the past. Bran is able to climb all over these events - and isn't it interesting that Jaime and Cersei are also able to gain access to them, in their own way?

Maybe Jaime is the three-eyed crow. He has taught Bran to fly by pushing him out the window.

Hodor doesn't want to go down the winding stairway into the crypt. He seems ok with going up the same stairs and breaking down a door so Bran and his companions can emerge into the Winterfell courtyard.

We have a lot more work to do to figure out which characters can and/or want to travel certain paths. It would also be good to understand how they can take other characters along through certain barriers. As others have noted on this thread, skin changing and warging seem to be limited by the barrier of the Wall. Are there other barriers that cannot be breached? Or can be breached only in very limited circumstances, by characters with special powers?

20 hours ago, Melifeather said:

I was thinking that Bran changed who left Winterfell with their father. I think Bran was supposed to go with, but he had to be pushed from the tower in order to remain at home and send Arya in his place.

Your point could still be valid in part, but there was not a swap of Bran for Arya, if this Catelyn POV is accurate:

Quote

"Sansa must wed Joffrey, that is clear now, we must give them no grounds to suspect our devotion. And it is past time that Arya learned the ways of a southron court. In a few years she will be of an age to marry too."

Sansa would shine in the south, Catelyn thought to herself, and the gods knew that Arya needed refinement. Reluctantly, she let go of them in her heart. But not Bran. Never Bran. "Yes," she said, "but please, Ned, for the love you bear me, let Bran remain here at Winterfell. He is only seven."

"I was eight when my father sent me to foster at the Eyrie," Ned said. "Ser Rodrik tells me there is bad feeling between Robb and Prince Joffrey. That is not healthy. Bran can bridge that distance. He is a sweet boy, quick to laugh, easy to love. Let him grow up with the young princes, let him become their friend as Robert became mine. Our House will be the safer for it."

AGoT, Catelyn II

(Interesting that Ned sees Bran as a "bridge" here, or a bridge builder.)

But I think there may be something to your H.G. Wells comparison: Arya's direwolf escapes execution for biting Joffrey but Sansa's wolf is sacrificed in place of Nymeria. As you point out, Jon escapes death by the hands of the wildlings at the ruined inn, but he is subsequently killed by the Night's Watch.

I have long viewed the death of the old man at the ruined inn as analogous to the death of Aslan, the lion in the Chronicles of Narnia, on the stone table. The old man's white hair and his "mute appeal" to Jon indicate to me that he is a symbolic version of the direwolf Ghost. Ygritte kills him but his death allows Jon to escape and return to the Night's Watch.

So I see the "death" at Queenscrown differently from your theory that Bran went back in time to save Jon, only to have Jon caught up in his fate at a later point. I think the old man / Ghost died to save Jon. Bran and Summer were part of the action, to be sure. I bet this will foreshadow later events surrounding the death of Jon Snow and of the direwolf Ghost.

(I do suspect that both the wildlings and the Night's Watch wanted to sacrifice/kill Jon for their own purposes: Jeor Mormont talks about wanting Jon's unique blood and his direwolf to go on the ranging beyond the Wall. That unique blood and direwolf may be coveted by the free folk and the Bowne Marsh faction within the Night's Watch for other reasons. My suspicion is that Bowen Marsh wants that blood spilled on the Wall to strengthen its magic as a barrier - he was the one who wanted to seal the gate at Castle Black. The wildlings want the blood spilled at the old ruined inn because inns are magical entrances to otherworlds and they want to find Gorne's Way under the Wall and into Winterfell. Spilling Jon's blood might be a way to open the entrance.)

6 hours ago, LynnS said:

Theon is another character with a damaged mind and body. 

I agree that Theon has a special power to transcend certain barriers. I think it started before his torture by Ramsay and before Bran reached out to him through the heart tree, although those events strengthened and gave purpose to his power.

That incident where Theon was coming down the steps two at a time and he ran into Old Nan, knocking her over, is an important clue for us about Theon's powers. Like Bran, he doesn't use stairs in a conventional way - he takes them two at a time. As the resident keeper and teller of myth and legend, knocking over Old Nan may be an important symbol of Theon's ability to break time loops. We see a lot of characters who are doomed to repeat events from history or legend, but Theon may have a unique power to end the repetition. I wonder whether his difficult shot with the arrow, killing the deserter who was going to kill Bran in the forest, represents one of those broken time loops?

[Frey family reunion]

7 hours ago, Likely Luke Strong said:

While I think Bran reaching out into the past to speak to someone in their dreams is plausible, I think the fact that Bran mentions speaking to Jon in his dreams at the end of Clash (right after the Skirling Pass event) implies that this specific event did occur in real time.

GRRM is giving mixed messages as to the timing of these events.  The first issue, is that there is a significant discrepancy between Bran’s views on darkness during his time in the crypts and Bran’s views on darkness when he makes contact with Jon through Ghost:

In Bran’s last wolf dream before he leaves the crypts he seems to hate the darkness:

Quote

The dark place was pulling at him by then, the house of whispers where all men were blind.  He could feel its cold fingers on him.  The stony smell of it was a whisper up the nose.  He struggled against the pull.  He did not like the darkness.

Now compare Bran’s thoughts about the dark when he makes contact with Ghost and Jon while Jon is in the Skirling Pass:

Quote

Don’t be afraid, I like it in the dark.  No one can see you, but you can see them.  But first you have to open your eyes.  See?  Like this.

It’s an intentional discrepancy that makes me at least doubt that this is the same Bran that was in the Winterfell crypts.  

The other thing to keep in mind is that the Bran in the Winterfell crypts was still trying to figure his own powers out.  It seems doubtful that this Bran would be so confident, that he would be able to reach out to Jon (or Ghost) and awaken Jon’s (or Ghost’s) fledging gifts.    This Bran also seemed to be limited in viewing things through Summer’s eyes.  He hadn’t yet learned to wed himself to the Weirwoods yet.

I think it’s more likely that this Bran, confident in his abilities and powers and a Bran who likes the cover of darkness and who appears to already be wedded to the Weirwood is a future version of Bran nestled in the cradle of Bloodraven’s cave.

[Seams]

51 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Is this another moon portal? 

I like it! Could be.

52 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Jon also seems to be affected a brain worm or mental tick with the repetition of eyes, eyes, eyes.  This is evocative of Ned's dream: a storm of petals, blue as the eyes of death.

As you point out, saying something three times is a trait of Mormont's raven and may also be magical - like an incantation or spell. Of course, I always return to that central pun in the series: ice and eyes. Jon Snow really, really wants to own the ancestral Stark sword Ice. Maybe his repetition of the word "eyes" here is his way of taking possession (symbolically) of Ice.

Othor's blue eyes sound like Roose Bolton's eyes like chips of ice, don't they? Although Roose's eyes are ice covered with dirt - grey. Maybe we will see the dirt washed from those eyes at some point and the blue ice underneath will become visible.

58 minutes ago, LynnS said:

How does the raven know what to do?  Who is this bird? 

I think the raven is a repository of the consciousness of past Lord Commanders. So Jeor Mormont will eventually be in the bird, still acting as a mentor for Jon Snow, along with other lord commanders from centuries past. Just as Jeor Mormont knew that he had to get Jon Snow to the Fist at a certain date and time when the moon would be full (so Ghost could lead Jon to the cache with the horn and the dragonglass) the raven contains all-knowing, magical insights about how to defeat the Others - things that have been forgotten or chewed by mice from the books and scrolls in the Castle Black library.

Small Paul really, really wants to get Mormont's raven as part of the mutiny plot. Examining Small Paul might help us to understand more about the raven and what he represents.

[Melifeather]

51 minutes ago, Seams said:

agree that Theon has a special power to transcend certain barriers. I think it started before his torture by Ramsay and before Bran reached out to him through the heart tree, although those events strengthened and gave purpose to his power.

That incident where Theon was coming down the steps two at a time and he ran into Old Nan, knocking her over, is an important clue for us about Theon's powers. Like Bran, he doesn't use stairs in a conventional way - he takes them two at a time. As the resident keeper and teller of myth and legend, knocking over Old Nan may be an important symbol of Theon's ability to break time loops. We see a lot of characters who are doomed to repeat events from history or legend, but Theon may have a unique power to end the repetition. I wonder whether his difficult shot with the arrow, killing the deserter who was going to kill Bran in the forest, represents one of those broken time loops?

I actually see Theon's taking two steps at a time to be an indication that he has a split personality. Not only is he Reek - he actually can distinguish between Reek and Theon - but he's also the Ghost of Winterfell. Not to derail this thread, but I've already done an analysis of Theon and why I believe he's the Ghost in Winterfell if you click here.

[Melifeather]

52 minutes ago, Seams said:

n spite of Bloodraven's characterization, I think it's possible that Bran was seeing something from the future when he saw the woman with the sickle, cutting the man's throat. The woman he saw sounds a lot like Lady Stoneheart to me. Since Catelyn's first POV in AGoT involves Ned sitting under that tree and cleaning his sword after executing a deserter, it feels right to me that GRRM would give us a glimpse of a future event that involves a blade, a blood sacrifice to that tree and a transformed Catelyn out for vengeance.

But hasn't the heart tree gotten smaller in the visions by the time Bran sees this sacrifice?

[Wizz-The-Smith]

On 11/16/2020 at 5:07 PM, Curled Finger said:

Haha!  Reminds me of baby Curled Finger in the Riverlands Web where so many gave so much encouragement and gentle, patient explanation.  I remember a young wicked smart guy called Wizz right there, making understanding this amazing story easier and deeper and better all the way around.    @LynnS is doing exactly what you folks did when I began here, encouraging and examining the nuances and I love being part of this with my plodding curiosity.   Last time I spoke with Evita mgfs she sent me a pm directing me to the Riverlands Web!  I think the whole bunch of you should just come back full time.   I miss you all.  

Aww, thanks for your kind words @Curled Finger. 

Yes, Evita was so supportive, she led by example and proved to me it was possible to have 100% friendly threads where encouragement was key. I tried to avoid threads where everyone seemed to just argue and disparage. The Riverlands Web was indeed another such thread, we made it our business to welcome all newcomers and encourage new ideas and discussion. Much fun was had by all (in amongst the more serious analysis) and your involvement was a very welcome addition to our team. Any thread that had 7 versions must've been doing something right.  

On 11/16/2020 at 5:38 PM, LynnS said:

There was a group called the Riverlands Group?  I think I left the forums around that time. The stuff that Wizz has been putting up is new to me.  I want them to come back too!

It was years ago, lots of stuff to delve into. We mostly had a laugh, with lots of talk about the Hound, Arya & Sansa. Then we started picking some individual topics to analyse like Piper & Vance, BWB political intrigue, old gods symbols in the RL's (HHeart, ww stump dream etc) Greenbeard. It was great fun and ran for ages. 

On 11/16/2020 at 6:20 PM, Melifeather said:

Looks like it’s been archived: 

 

Thanks for linking the thread @Melifeather. There were 7 versions, I think I joined in V.2. If I can find more time to frequent the forum as Lynn & Curled Finger so kindly suggested, a new RL's Web thread would be a cool. Hopefully the other crew could come back too, @Booknerd2 @LongRider & @Le Cygne (among others) were the other main contributors. Hi fam if you're seeing this. 

[Tucu]

8 hours ago, LynnS said:

Theon is another character with a damaged mind and body.  He is on the cusp of lifting the veil to see beyond or having Bran reach through the mists to him.  Physically, he is close to death and longs for it.  Ramsey has repeatedly weakened his mind to near insanity. These seem to be the conditions for Bran to use him in some manner.  He may become someone who can speak to trees.  In the timeless place between the worlds, Theon is shown the hearts of those standing before the heart tree, into their bestial nature.  Roose is hidden behind a mask with only his eyes showing, chips of dirty ice. 

I think Theon is heading to a big transformation by the weirwood. I am more inclined for this being on the icy side of things, but that is probably a discussion for another thread.

[LynnS]

5 minutes ago, Wizz-The-Smith said:

I tried to avoid threads where everyone seemed to just argue and disparage

Yes, I want to avoid this as well.  Everything isn't driven by competition.  I don't want this to be who is right and who is wrong; who wins and who loses.  I'm driven by curiosity, mysteries and puzzles.  

[LynnS]

15 hours ago, Melifeather said:

Was there thunder snow? That’s actually a real phenomenon. The tower Bran fell from had been hit by lighting. Queenscrown tower was also hit by lightning. Whatever a third event looks like it should be struck by lightning. 

Yes, I have actually experienced this phenomena in the middle of winter.