The reason I don't give Old Nan any credit.

[Mister Smikes]

I think old Nan is just an old Nan.  But I don't see why we should rule out giving her stories credit.  Seems to me that this is the kind of series where many of the ancient fairy tales and old wives tales and common tales may end up coming true in one sense or another.   The wordly-wise, cynical, elitist, and power-hungry philosophers of KL might not understand the whole of reality.  And the hints of old wives tale that Old Nan gives us might also be fore-shadowing.

[Mister Smikes]

On 6/3/2021 at 11:42 PM, Daeron the Daring said:

Doesn't it sound like a typical cliché horrors story? With the hunting of maidens and feeding their dead servants on children's flesh? It really does. It just sounds like Old Nan is tryna portray the worst to Bran without any knowledge but the stories she herself heard from somewhere.

We've received plenty of foreshadowing of cannibalism and of the living dead in the series so far.   The Frey Pie incident really was not something to celebrate.  And the "monsters versus maidens" thing is definitely a theme as well.   Has not Drogon already devoured a maiden? 

[Mister Smikes]

On 6/4/2021 at 9:52 AM, Mourning Star said:

Don't forget Squire Dalbridge!

As you say, there are plenty of characters who are old enough to have been around when Aegon V was king.

No-one ever remembers Ser Bonifer Hasty.  But he was close to Rhaella; is haunted by some tragedy (which, if it is not just losing Rhaella, might have something to do with Summerhall); and is the only known contemporary of Duncan the Tall that is in a plausible position to be his descendant (very tall, promising tournament knight, at court at the same time as Duncan the Tall; is only a landed knight which implies no particular heritage). 

[TheLastWolf]

8 hours ago, Mister Smikes said:

No-one ever remembers Ser Bonifer Hasty.  But he was close to Rhaella; is haunted by some tragedy (which, if it is not just losing Rhaella, might have something to do with Summerhall); and is the only known contemporary of Duncan the Tall that is in a plausible position to be his descendant (very tall, promising tournament knight, at court at the same time as Duncan the Tall; is only a landed knight which implies no particular heritage). 

 

Spoiler

….Ser Bonifer Hasty and Rhaella Targaryen could have had a daughter who might’ve been passed off as a stillbirth to the Mad King. She could have been given to that chandler and could have married that lesser Payne and had Pod. She might not have run away, but could be one of the women whose identity is still a mystery till ADWD.

 

[Bobity.]

On 6/4/2021 at 5:22 AM, LynnS said:

Nan hands down stories from a time when there was no written records.  I'm more curious about her stories of the Night King and Night Fort and what bits of truth can be found in them.  Same with the Wildlings and their stories.

Agreed!! Old Nan's Night Fort accounts include a detail I have picked at for years.

Quote

where blind Symeon Star-Eyes had seen the hellhounds fighting - A Storm of Swords - Bran IV

First, Symeon is repeatedly accounted to be an Age of Heroes figure, before the Wall was built.  A contradiction that opens the possibility that the Night Fort site predates the Long Night into the Age of Heroes.

Second. How does a blind man see hellhounds fight? Perhaps he could see, and story of sapphires in sockets are singers embelishments of strong blue eyes? Or perhaps he lost his sight mid story like Aemond?

Third. This is the only account of substance for Symeon Star-Eyes. I looked, all other references are among lists of heroes and the story of his eyes.

Fourth. Hellhounds. I want to know more about the hellhounds.

[LynnS]

5 hours ago, Bobity. said:

First, Symeon is repeatedly accounted to be an Age of Heroes figure, before the Wall was built.  A contradiction that opens the possibility that the Night Fort site predates the Long Night into the Age of Heroes.

Or he's contemporary with the Wall and as the story is handed down; over time, the details are muddied and he becomes someone who lived during the age of heros.

5 hours ago, Bobity. said:

Second. How does a blind man see hellhounds fight? Perhaps he could see, and story of sapphires in sockets are singers embelishments of strong blue eyes? Or perhaps he lost his sight mid story like Aemond?

Perhaps he has a 3rd eye?  He might even be the face of the Black Gate, sitting on a weirwood throne somewhere.

Hellhounds = direwolves?  Was this the Night King and Stark of Winterfell doing battle?

[Serddar]

I don't think she's special or unique in that "destiny" kind of way. Her stories have probably been passed through the generations, and as such there is truth in them. 

[Fool Stands On Giant’s Toe]

On 6/5/2021 at 11:23 PM, TheLastWolf said:

Title 

Why?, coz she doesn't pay 'em back ¿

Bad credit? No credit? No problem!  
 

Old Nan rules! 
She’s everyone’s favorite grandma.

I want a book or HBO show of “Old Nan Story’s” 

A la Jim Henson’s The StoryTeller but instead of a dog maybe a goat ...with a bell around its neck?

[Half Of Tormunds Member]

I’m doing my first reread in years and something caught my attention about Old Nan that might be relevant here. 
 

From AGOT, Bran 4. 

 

Quote

His eyes stung  he wanted to be down there, laughing abs running. Angry at the though, Bran knuckles away the tears before they could fall. His eight name day had come and gone. He was almost a man grown now, too old to cry.

”It was just a lie,” he said bitterly, remembering the crow from his dream. “I can’t fly. I can’t even run.”

”Crows are all liars,” Old Nan agreed, from the chair where she sat doing her needlework. “I know a story about a crow.”

Bran doesn’t say that he dreamt about a crow. He just says it was a lie. Old Nan brings up the crows. 
 

Granted, he may have told her about the dream beforehand, but it just stuck me as odd this time through. 

[Seams]

20 minutes ago, Half Of Tormunds Member said:

Bran doesn’t say that he dreamt about a crow. He just says it was a lie. Old Nan brings up the crows. 

Bran always brought along corn in his pocket when he climbed walls in Winterfell so he could feed the crows. 

At the Harvest Festival where Jojen and Meera arrive at Winterfell, Bran is the Stark at the head of the table, deciding which guest gets the first serving off of each platter. He sends sweets to Old Nan and Hodor (because, he says, he loves them: "The things I do for love"?) and root vegetables to the two Walders. 

The word "mayhaps" is associated with House Frey because of their family "Lord of the Crossing" children's game where the presiding lord can push you in the water if you don't notice that he says "mayhaps" during the game. Essentially, slipping in the word "mayhaps" is a license to tell a lie. Old Nan is one of the few characters other than Lord Walder Frey who says "mayhaps" in ASOIAF. 

Quote

He was a Stark, the brother of the man who brought him down." She always pinched Bran on the nose then, he would never forget it. "He was a Stark of Winterfell, and who can say? Mayhaps his name was Brandon. Mayhaps he slept in this very bed in this very room." (Storm, Bran IV)

Old Nan and the Freys are liars. When Old Nan says that all crows are liars, does this give us a clue that Old Nan (and the Freys?) are also crows? 

It's probably also significant that she pinches Bran on the nose at that point. In the nursery rhyme GRRM references a few times in ASOIAF, four-and-twenty blackbirds are baked in a pie; one of them pecks off the nose of the maid in the royal household. (In different versions of the rhyme, the wren or the doctor puts the nose back on again.)

The crows that circled the Old Keep at Winterfell might have been skinchanged by Old Nan. She may have been present when Jaime pushed Bran off of the Old Keep. ("The things I do for love.") 

[Mourning Star]

40 minutes ago, Half Of Tormunds Member said:

I’m doing my first reread in years and something caught my attention about Old Nan that might be relevant here. 
 

From AGOT, Bran 4. 

 

Bran doesn’t say that he dreamt about a crow. He just says it was a lie. Old Nan brings up the crows. 
 

Granted, he may have told her about the dream beforehand, but it just stuck me as odd this time through. 

I have been a proponent of Old Nan being the three eyed crow for a long time, used this quote in discussion more than once, but you know what... I never put this together, but I think you are right! 

How does Old Nan know Bran is talking about a crow? Haha brilliant! Especially when compared to Sam and Bloodraven not knowing what he is talking about, and assuming he means the Night's Watch.