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The White Worm


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I forgot to post above about crows, one of the reasons I think George is obsessed with crows is that gairm means "to crow" and it sounds like his initials GRRM, and several words beginning with gairm mean "crow"  (and Dwelly's Gaelic Dictionary is published by Gairm, which is one of the reasons he uses so many Gaelic names, also because Tolkien did)

gairm-ghille means "crier"--gairm means "crow" and Sam is a crybaby who is a crow who gets with Gilly.  And Sam is a version of George.

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1 hour ago, Moiraine Sedai said:

The white paleness is a characteristic of creatures who live in darkness.  Maybe the people left behind in Westeros will slowly transform into pale wraith like creatures. People like the Starks will grow to adapt to darkness and won't be able to readjust at the end of the long night. 

That is the plot of In the House of the Worm and Dark, Dark, Were the Tunnels.  And also Dying of the Light to an extent.  But I actually think almost everyone will die during the New Long Night, and civilization will have to rebuild from scratch by a handful of Wildlings and Mountain Men, with almost no memory of what happened in the previous age.

 

It just occurred to me that in George's Dark, Dark, Were the Tunnels, spacemen literally come down from the moon and land on Earth and explore it, and find hideously deformed humanoids underground, and barely recognize them as human, and they kill the little telepathic skin-changer CoTF-like Greel character and say that humanity on Earth has devolved past the point of no return.

I have argued that the God-on-Earth came down from the Second Moon (the Lion of Night) and did not recognize the CoTF and the weirwoods as being sentient, and built his Great Empire of the Dawn, and then eradicated a weirwood grove and then the weirwoods turned on him and his empire and destroyed it.

This is also the plot of Guardians where the spacemen come down from space and build a colony of Namor (which named after the comic book anti-hero Namor, who was an Atlantian merman who fought against surface-dwellers who wronged his kingdom under the sea), and do not recognize the mud-pots as sentient, and harvest them to eat.  The mud-pots wake from their green-dreams under the sea and go to war with the human colonists, and nearly eradicate them before Tuf realizes they are sentient and brokers a peace. 

Also, in And Seven Times Never Kill Man, the spacemen called Steel Angels come down from space and build a colony and say that the Jaenshi are animals and have no souls, and try to eradicate them for their land.  The Steel Angels are wiped out by the magical hive-minded prayer pyramids of the Jaenshi.

With The Men of Greywater Station the human scientist spacemen landed on an alien planet completely dominated by the hive-minded Greywater Fungus.  They must have destroyed some area of fungus and lifeforms to set up their station and take biological samples.  So the Greywater Fungus might have taken this as the humans attacking first, and then the fungus went all out to destroy their station.  However, the fungus did not recognize human beings as sentient, it thought the station was the sentient creature.  And it succeeded in destroying the station and taking over the humans.

There is a theme of not recognizing sentient life because it is too different, and/or repulsive that is common in several of George's works.  It is a theme in Dark, Dark, Were the Tunnels, with Greel and the Spacemen.  With In the House of the Worm between the yaga-la-hai and the Grouns.   With Sandkings, Kress did not think the Sandkings were sentient, and they killed him and ate him. 

 

And to a lesser extent, in Nightfliers and A Song for Lya, the alien telepathic beings were just too alien to comprehend, and had either no consciousness, or a kind that was too far removed from human experience to comprehend.

(And of course that volcryn is a telepathic space creature that launches itself around the galaxy on huge space wings, which I think is what the weirwood does also)

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Hey @Odin's Beard this may not be particularly helpful but I thought of something and found it amusing and aesthetically fitting. when talking about the doom of Valyria the kindly man refers to creatures inside slave mines; the wingless Firewyrms, which Arya mistakes for regular worms when first hearing of them.

not quite the same thing, I know, but kinda close and possibly even relevant.

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1 hour ago, Targaryeninkingslanding said:

Hey @Odin's Beard this may not be particularly helpful but I thought of something and found it amusing and aesthetically fitting. when talking about the doom of Valyria the kindly man refers to creatures inside slave mines; the wingless Firewyrms, which Arya mistakes for regular worms when first hearing of them.

not quite the same thing, I know, but kinda close and possibly even relevant.

That is actually pretty good.  Tunnels underground made by wingless worms and filled with enslaved peoples. which is destroyed when the slaves revolt and kill their masters.  Fits pretty well with a description of a weirwood cave, and those that it had enslaved rebelling and destroying it.

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It was written that on the day of Doom every hill for five hundred miles had split asunder to fill the air with ash and smoke and fire, blazes so hot and hungry that even the dragons in the sky were engulfed and consumed. Great rents had opened in the earth, swallowing palaces, temples, entire towns. Lakes boiled or turned to acid, mountains burst, fiery fountains spewed molten rock a thousand feet into the air, red clouds rained down dragonglass and the black blood of demons, and to the north the ground splintered and collapsed and fell in on itself and an angry sea came rushing in. The proudest city in all the world was gone in an instant, its fabled empire vanished in a day, the Lands of the Long Summer scorched and drowned and blighted.

An empire built on blood and fire.  The Valyrians reaped the seed they had sown.

. . .

On the day the Doom came to Valyria, it was said, a wall of water three hundred feet high had descended on the island, drowning hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, leaving none to tell the tale but some fisherfolk who had been at sea and a handful of Velosi spearmen posted in a stout stone tower on the island's highest hill, who had seen the hills and valleys beneath them turn into a raging sea. Fair Velos with its palaces of cedar and pink marble had vanished in a heartbeat. On the north end of the island, the ancient brick walls and stepped pyramids of the slaver port Ghozai had suffered the same fate.

So many drowned men, the Drowned God will be strong there,

Valyria was a civilization built on blood sacrifice, and I think all magic comes from blood sacrifice to weirwoods, and Valyria just happened to have extensive mines underneath it filled with enslaved people--and a vast explosive potential.  And the First Faceless Man (and recall that the Manworm became a Faceless Man) leads a rebellion that ends up causing the central fires of the Earth to awaken and  Valyria actually explodes up into the air--they specifically mention material getting launched a thousand feet into the air,  and the remainder of the land sinks under the sea.  Valyria was a focal point of magic, and when it was destroyed, magic waned, because the weirwoods physically departed the Earth in the explosion.

And this is a direct parallel to the sinking of Numenor in Lord of the Rings, when the Numenorians started to follow Sauron and fell into evil ways and attempted to invade Valinor (the land of the gods), Eru Iluvatar (god) launched Valinor and Avallone into space which caused Numenor to sink under the ocean.

The World Book mentions three places that survived the Doom: Mantarys, Oros, and Tyria.  Mantarys, Oros, and Tyria, spell "Mot" the Semitic god of death.

Mantari is Turkish for "mushroom, fungus" and whoever did the wiktionary entry (was it George?) posted a red and white mushroom picture for it.

Tyria in Finnish means "to screw up, to mess up" and Tyrian refers to the purple dye, which Braavos is famous for.

And oro in Latin means "to pray, beseech" and in Latin auras means "the upper air, rises high, heavens" oros means "gold or worth your weight in gold"  oros is also the name of a suit of cards from Spain depicted as a gold coin. 

 

After the Faceless Men destroy Valyria they go on to build Braavos, which is another metaphorical weirwood cave: it is a secret town that is sinking into the sea, built underneath a Stone Giant with red eyes (that takes child sacrifice) and has a temple devoted to the worship of death.

 

Edit to add: Sauron surviving the sinking of Numenor and sneaking away to Middle Earth to set up a new place and ruin that too, sounds like a good parallel to the Faceless Men destroying Valyria and sneaking away to establish Braavos.

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Bloodraven is part Blackwood, and Algernon Blackwood's The Willows, is about an island that is populated with psychically vampiric predatory alien willow trees that live outside of our conceptions of time and space and feed on human beings.  The climax of the story has a dead body tangled up in Willow roots that has been killed and drained by the Willows or the extra-dimensional winged beings that accompany them.

The Willows manifest your fears into physical reality, just like in George's favorite movie Forbidden Planet (which has an alien machine under a hill that has red and white trees on it, that can manifest your nightmares into physical reality) , (and like in the book Sphere by Michael Crichton)  Which is a further confirmation of the White Walkers being a psychic projection of Bran's.  @Frey family reunion

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“Hush!” he whispered, holding up his hand. “Do not mention them more than you can help. Do not refer to them by name. To name is to reveal; it is the inevitable clue, and our only hope lies in ignoring them, in order that they may ignore us.”“Even in thought?” He was extraordinarily agitated.  “Especially in thought. Our thoughts make spirals in their world. We must keep them out of our minds at all costs if possible.” . . .

“Now listen,” he said. “The only thing for us to do is to go on as though nothing had happened, follow our usual habits, go to bed, and so forth; pretend we feel nothing and notice nothing. It is a question wholly of the mind, and the less we think about them the better our chance of escape. Above all, don’t think, for what you think happens!”

Here is how they are described:

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For a short mile it was visible, pouring in and out among the islands, and then disappearing with a huge sweep into the willows, which closed about it like a herd of monstrous antediluvian creatures crowding down to drink. They made me think of gigantic sponge-like growths that sucked the river up into themselves.  They caused it to vanish from sight. They herded there together in such overpowering numbers.

 . . .They made me think of a host of beings from another plane of life, another evolution altogether, perhaps, all discussing a mystery known only to themselves. I watched them moving busily together, oddly shaking their big bushy heads, twirling their myriad leaves even when there was no wind.  They moved of their own will as though alive, and they touched, by some incalculable method, my own keen sense of the horrible. There they stood in the moonlight, like a vast army surrounding our camp, shaking their innumerable silver spears defiantly, formed all ready for an attack.

They make a buzzing sounds like the crabs in The Whisperer in Darkness, and they are accompanied by some sort of barely perceptible winged creatures that fly up into the air.

And like in House of the Worm, one of the ways to fight them is to avoid thinking about them, or to inflict pain on yourself to distract you. 

 

Tolkien's Old Man of the Willow seems to play off this story: "He is portrayed in the story as a tree, albeit a sentient and evil one with various powers including hypnosis and the ability to move his roots and trunk"  He tries to eat the hobbits.   "Bombadil relates that of the corrupted trees of the Old Forest, 'none were more dangerous than the Great Willow; his heart was rotten, but his strength was green; and he was cunning, and a master of winds, and his song and thought ran through the woods on both sides of the river. His grey thirsty spirit drew power out of the earth and spread like fine root-threads in the ground, and invisible twig-fingers in the air, till it had under its dominion nearly all the trees of the Forest from the Hedge to the Downs.' "

 

While we are thinking about evil predatory trees, one of George's favorite authors is Jack Vance and Jack wrote a story called Son of the Tree, about a colossal predatory tree tended by druids, and that eats thousands of slaves a day:

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The Tree From Another Galaxy

"A vast, breathing, sappy mass, a trunk five miles in diameter, and twelve miles from the great kneed roots to the ultimate bud--the 'Vital Exprescience' in the cant of the Druids.  The Tree ruled the horizons, shouldered aside the clouds, and wore thunder and lightning like a wreath of tinsels.  It was the soul of life, trampling and vanquishing the inert, and Joe understood how it had come to be worshiped by the the first marveling settlers on Kyril.

For Joe Smith, the sight of the Tree was the beginning of an experience that would forever change his life.  He had journeyed into space in search of a man, but what he found was a tree, a huge sky-dominating tree, that held the power of life and death over millions of slaves.

. . .

Roads converged in all directions toward the Tree and along these roads walked the drab men and women of the Laity--making their pilgrimage to the Tree.  Joe had watched them once or twice as they entered the Ordinal Cleft, a gap between two great arched roots.  Tiny figures like ants, they paused, turned to stare out across the gray land before continuing on into the Tree.  Everyday brought thousands from all corners of Kyril, old and young.  Wan dark-eyed men, women, children--dusty, hungry, thirsty--their souls aflame for the peace of the Tree.

"It grows and grows.  Some day it will grow beyond its strength or the strength of the ground.  It will buckle and and fall in the most terrible sound yet heard on the planet.  And the crash will be the crack of doom for the Druids."

The plot of the story is that the druids try to smuggle a seedling (the Son of the Tree) to a neighboring planet to establish Tree worship there and take over the planet.  In ASOIAF, one of the Vale mountain clans is called "Sons of the Tree"

 

 

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16 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

I forgot to post above about crows, one of the reasons I think George is obsessed with crows is that gairm means "to crow" and it sounds like his initials GRRM, and several words beginning with gairm mean "crow"  (and Dwelly's Gaelic Dictionary is published by Gairm, which is one of the reasons he uses so many Gaelic names, also because Tolkien did)

gairm-ghille means "crier"--gairm means "crow" and Sam is a crybaby who is a crow who gets with Gilly.  And Sam is a version of George.

Just how many language dictionaries do you have at your disposal? :D  I feel like all these words should be compiled into a glossary and added to the Wiki.  

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7 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

Tolkien's Old Man of the Willow seems to play off this story: "He is portrayed in the story as a tree, albeit a sentient and evil one with various powers including hypnosis and the ability to move his roots and trunk"  He tries to eat the hobbits.   "Bombadil relates that of the corrupted trees of the Old Forest, 'none were more dangerous than the Great Willow; his heart was rotten, but his strength was green; and he was cunning, and a master of winds, and his song and thought ran through the woods on both sides of the river. His grey thirsty spirit drew power out of the earth and spread like fine root-threads in the ground, and invisible twig-fingers in the air, till it had under its dominion nearly all the trees of the Forest from the Hedge to the Downs.'

This sounds a bit like the heart of corruption at the center of the House of Undying.

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13 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

Tolkien's Old Man of the Willow seems to play off this story: "He is portrayed in the story as a tree, albeit a sentient and evil one with various powers including hypnosis and the ability to move his roots and trunk"  He tries to eat the hobbits.   "Bombadil relates that of the corrupted trees of the Old Forest, 'none were more dangerous than the Great Willow; his heart was rotten, but his strength was green; and he was cunning, and a master of winds, and his song and thought ran through the woods on both sides of the river. His grey thirsty spirit drew power out of the earth and spread like fine root-threads in the ground, and invisible twig-fingers in the air, till it had under its dominion nearly all the trees of the Forest from the Hedge to the Downs.' "

Something about this tree-man makes me want to reexamine Dunk's mentor, Ser Arlan of Pennytree. He seems like a benevolent presence in Dunk's life, rescuing him from street life in Flea Bottom and both taking care of him and training him to be a hedge knight. Before the stories begin, Ser Arlan dies of a chill and Dunk buries him on a hillside.

Later, we meet Ser Bennis of the Brown Shield. Dunk says that he had been a relatively decent person when he had encountered him earlier in the presence of Ser Arlan (although he later remembers Ser Bennis pinching him, which reminds me again of the crab claw motif) but now, "The man is grown mean and false and craven." I wonder whether Ser Bennis represents a transformation of he qualities embodied by Ser Arlan, or whether his bad qualities were kept in check when Ser Arlan was alive?

I have been trying to sort out the brown/green symbolism that seems to be a thread running through the books. I think of Ser Bennis as one of the brownest of the brown characters or elements (along with Bronn, Nimble Dick, bowls of brown and some other "dirt" and "shit" characters). If GRRM was drawing on the story of the evil willow trees, I wonder whether his variation on the theme gives the ground (dirt, earth) a bigger role in the dynamic between tree and human? The trees may be intent on consuming humans but there is a cycle that depends on dirt: trees drop leaves to create humus which becomes dirt and then nourishes the trees. 

Arya's transformation from highborn girl to assassin involves several situations of being underground: she is in the basement of the Red Keep when she encounters (we suspect) Varys and Ilyrio discussing war. She exits through the sewers and comes out filthy. She falls into a dirty hole (and likes it) when Amory Lorch's men attack Yoren's Night's Watch wagon train. She also wears the acorn-embroidered dress of a daughter of House Smallwood - perhaps a "seedling" stage in her transformation to assassin. She also seems to become a willow around that time in her story.

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On 6/12/2021 at 7:40 AM, LynnS said:

Bran almost sees the identity of the crow as the veil is ripped away. The crow shrieks in fear in response.  We'll have to be on the look-out for Arya sporting long black hair in the next book.   All men must serve.

You might call it trolling.  I call it the dance of a thousand veils; where Martin takes off just enough  clothing to flirt with the line; before putting some clothes back on.

It would seem that Melisandre is actually an old woman pretending to be young and beautiful with magic. And there is the waif who appears to be a child but is actually an old woman.

What if the opposite was also possible? A woman who is actually kept young by magic but appears to be old?

On 6/12/2021 at 10:39 AM, Frey family reunion said:

Regarding luring Bran into the cave.  Bloodraven's "thousand and one eyes" may be a bit of a shout out to one of the most influential collection of stories in literature:  One Thousand and One Nights.

I love this!

As a bit of a tangential connection, Martin clearly alludes to a number of Aesops Fables, and so far "rushlight" has only been used once in the entire series:

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After the bone-grinding cold of the lands beyond the Wall, the caves were blessedly warm, and when the chill crept out of the rock the singers would light fires to drive it off again. Down here there was no wind, no snow, no ice, no dead things reaching out to grab you, only dreams and rushlight and the kisses of the ravens. And the whisperer in darkness.
The last greenseer, the singers called him, but in Bran's dreams he was still a three-eyed crow. When Meera Reed had asked him his true name, he made a ghastly sound that might have been a chuckle. "I wore many names when I was quick, but even I once had a mother, and the name she gave me at her breast was Brynden."
"I have an uncle Brynden," Bran said. "He's my mother's uncle, really. Brynden Blackfish, he's called."
"Your uncle may have been named for me. Some are, still. Not so many as before. Men forget. Only the trees remember." His voice was so soft that Bran had to strain to hear.

A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

The Farthing Rushlight:

A  Rushlight in love with its own brilliancy, once boasted that its light was brighter even than that of the sun, the moon, and the stars. Just then a door opened, and a puff of wind blew it out. On lighting it, its owner said: "Cease now your boasting.  Be content to shine in silence. Heavenly lights do not blow out. Know that not even the stars need to be relit."

A false light can only lead us further into darkness...

Anyway, fun stuff!

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48 minutes ago, LynnS said:

You mean Old Nan?

I most certainly do!

Although, I'm inclined to like the idea that Bran saw behind the veil there for a moment at the end of the dream and that the serving woman with long black hair is how Old Nan sees herself.

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When he raised his hand to the spot, Bran felt only the smooth unbroken skin. There was no eye, not even a closed one. "How can I open it if it's not there?"
"You will never find the eye with your fingers, Bran. You must search with your heart." Jojen studied Bran's face with those strange green eyes. "Or are you afraid?"
"Maester Luwin says there's nothing in dreams that a man need fear."
"There is," said Jojen.
"What?"
"The past. The future. The truth."

A Clash of Kings - Bran V

Now, is the serving woman the same one he sees later in the vision of the heart tree? Then there came a brown-haired girl slender as a spear who stood on the tips of her toes to kiss the lips of a young knight as tall as Hodor. It seems possible, but I just don't know.

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@By Odin's Beard out of curiosity since you seem to use a lot of real world symbolism and Gealic translations of names, have you given any thought about Crom Cruach the ancient fertility god of Ireland who in christian times was demonized, the image representing him changed from a wizened old man to a monstereus worm who represented death.

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35 minutes ago, direpupy said:

@By Odin's Beard out of curiosity since you seem to use a lot of real world symbolism and Gealic translations of names, have you given any thought about Crom Cruach the ancient fertility god of Ireland who in christian times was demonized, the image representing him changed from a wizened old man to a monstereus worm who represented death.

Never heard of that one, that's good, I will have to look it up.

Tangentially related I was reading the Old Norse dictionary and found an entry for Starkhodr, who was a mythical hero.   Stark + Hodor, I think this is where the whole Bran and Hodor plot got its germ.  Bran will take over Hodor permanently to escape the cave.

Then I was looking up who this Starkhodr was and came across Lailoken, who was the forerunner to the wizard Merlin, (who is also a version of Odin).   Lailoken was impaled and died on a fishing-weir. 

Which is an obvious inspiration for Bloodraven being impaled on the weirwood.  Bloodraven is Odin, and the weirwood is the world tree Yggdrasil.

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On 6/11/2021 at 3:08 PM, Mourning Star said:

The crow does acknowledge it:

"You have wings," Bran pointed out.
Maybe you do too.
Bran felt along his shoulders, groping for feathers.
There are different kinds of wings, the crow said.

How is this the Three-Eyed Crow "acknowledging", to use your word, that it is a crow?  That may be your interpretation but it is only that.

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So, to be clear...

You are honestly suggesting that after Bran calls the crow a crow, says it has wings, feels for wings on his own back, and the crow responds that "there are other kinds of wings", that it doesn't know it's appearing as a crow? lol

lol, indeed.  Yep, that's exactly what I'm gonna do because none of that is the Three-Eyed Crow "acknowledging" that it knows it is appearing in Bran's dream as a crow.  Again, your self-serving interpretation is not reality or fact as you present it to be.

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I'm here to discuss the text, if you are just going to deny the words on the page then there is no reason for us to interact further.

I'm not denying the words on the page.  It is you who are deliberately reading what you want into that dream sequence in order to then proclaim that you know for a fact that the Three-Eyed Crow isn't Bloodraven.  This is not a fact.  Now, I freely admit that I continue to subscribe to the theory that Bloodraven is the Three-Eyed Crow.  This is due to my interpretation of what I've read in the story and the symbolism and hints I think Martin has given readers.  However, unlike you, I'm certainly not proclaiming it as fact and I remain open to new info I find compelling.  You definitely haven't provided any new compelling info - just your opinion.  

But, yes, to prevent further derailing let's just drop it.    

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On 6/12/2021 at 6:40 AM, LynnS said:

You might call it trolling.  I call it the dance of a thousand veils; where Martin takes off just enough  clothing to flirt with the line; before putting some clothes back on.

I'm not sure I know exactly what you mean by saying "You might call it trolling"?  I certainly don't think Martin is trolling readers with that sequence.  I think that's just Bran leaving the dream with TEC and coming back to his senses/body.  The servant woman is really there with Bran in his room and is startled into dropping the basin by his awakening. 

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1 hour ago, By Odin's Beard said:

Never heard of that one, that's good, I will have to look it up.

 

Its not easy to find most articels only talk about Crom Cruach in relation to Saint Patrick so to find out about about the depiction thing you will have to do a bit of surching 

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1 hour ago, direpupy said:

@By Odin's Beard out of curiosity since you seem to use a lot of real world symbolism and Gealic translations of names, have you given any thought about Crom Cruach the ancient fertility god of Ireland who in christian times was demonized, the image representing him changed from a wizened old man to a monstereus worm who represented death.

Just did a little digging, crom means "bent" and cromach means "crow" and cruach means "mound" and is maybe associated with mounds of dead bodies and and he is turned into a worm of death.  The weirwood roots are under a mound and associated with The Crow.

The picture of Crom Cruach on wikipedia looks like a monstrous white tree with one eye.

Crom Cruach is associated with Moloch, the Bull that humans were sacrificed to.  The weirwood is a bole that humans are sacrificed to,

(also varis means "bent" in Latin and varis means "crow" in Finnish)

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On 6/11/2021 at 3:18 PM, By Odin's Beard said:

I think Mourning Star has you beat on that point.

OK, you're certainly entitled to your opinion:)

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Bloodraven appears as a man with a wooden face to Melissandre in her fire vision.

Sure.  Who said people have to appear the same in all dreams/visions regardless of who's having the dream/vision?  It's certainly possible for one to appear differently to different "dreamers".

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Bran has a weirwood that observes him in his dreams:

"At the heart of the godswood, the great white weirwood brooded over its reflection in the black pool, its leaves rustling in a chill wind. When it felt Bran watching, it lifted its eyes from the still waters and stared back at him knowingly."

If that was really Bloodraven, why would he appear as a crow and a tree in the same dream?

Maybe because it's merely showing Bran that the TEC has watched him through the weirwood at the heart of Winterfell's godswood?  I don't know.  There is a great deal of symbolism in these dreams, of course, so maybe that's it?  We have reason to believe the TEC has watched Bran by varying means, right?  Our interpretations of what this might possibly mean are just that and not really proof of...anything.

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and when he meets Bloodraven:

"I have watched you for a long time, watched you with a thousand eyes and one. I saw your birth, and that of your lord father before you. I saw your first step, heard your first word, was part of your first dream. I was watching when you fell."

Notice that George made the dream sentence ambiguous just to troll us. He really makes it sound like he is merely an observer. If he had been the 3ec, he might have said something like "I was that crow that pecked open your third eye, and woke you up from the coma."

I don't think George means to "troll" readers at all.  And your last paragraph here actually helps support my point that TEC does not necessarily know how he appears in people's dreams/visions.  That is, the TEC would have to know that's how he appears to Bran before he could describe himself that way to Bran, no? 

 

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And the fact that his cave is filled with ravens instead of crows is a hint that he is not The Crow.

Or..it could just as easily be an allusion to Bloodraven being there?  Again, I think the "crow" symbolism with the TEC is because he is a brother of the Nights Watch or a "crow".

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Bran likes it better when the torches are put out, because then he can pretend it is the 3ec talking to him, not a grisly talking corpse.

OK, sure, what Bloodraven has become (I believe in order to live long enough to teach Bran) isn't very pretty to look at.  Doesn't mean anything beyond that, though.  

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I do note that Bran appears to Jon as a tree in his dream, but to Mel as a boy with a wolf's face, was Bran wedded to the Tree yet when she saw that vision?

And Jojen sees Bran as a winged wolf, etc.  Again, I think it sure seems like people appear differently to different "dreamers".  And, if that's the case, I believe it could support the contention that the TEC does not know he appears as such in Bran's dreams which, in turn, could explain why Bloodraven seemed confused when Bran asked if he was TEC.  But it seems to me that Bloodraven made the connection pretty quickly.

Now, of course, this is all just supposition on my part.  But I'm going to continue subscribing to the theory that Bloodraven is TEC until Martin sees fit to change my mind;) 

 

ETA: clarity

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1 hour ago, Prince of the North said:

How is this the Three-Eyed Crow "acknowledging", to use your word, that it is a crow?

I'd rather you didn't respond to my posts at all in the future, but if you do, please at least try to be honest when you are quoting me.

Go back and look, this quote was used to show that the crow is acknowledging it has wings. And, for the record, "acknowledge" was literally your word I was quoting there.

Obviously, the answer is that otherwise the dialogue doesn't make any sense. 

I'm really not using any interpretation here at all:

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The crow landed on his hand and began to eat.
"Are you really a crow?" Bran asked.
Are you really falling? the crow asked back.
"It's just a dream," Bran said.
Is it? asked the crow.
"I'll wake up when I hit the ground," Bran told the bird.
You'll die when you hit the ground, the crow said. It went back to eating corn.
Bran looked down. He could see mountains now, their peaks white with snow, and the silver thread of rivers in dark woods. He closed his eyes and began to cry.
That won't do any good, the crow said. I told you, the answer is flying, not crying. How hard can it be. I'm doing it. The crow took to the air and flapped around Bran's hand.
"You have wings," Bran pointed out.
Bran felt along his shoulders, groping for feathers.
There are different kinds of wings, the crow said.

A Game of Thrones - Bran III

Saying, "There are different kinds of wings", after demonstrating flying so Bran could see, means it knows Bran is seeing its wings, and, after all, there have to be wings in the first place for there to be a different kind to refer to.

This passage simply does not make sense if the crow thought Bran was asking if it was a brother of the Night's Watch.

The crow knew it appeared as a crow in Bran's dream. Fact.

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4 hours ago, Mourning Star said:

I'd rather you didn't respond to my posts at all in the future, but if you do, please at least try to be honest when you are quoting me.

I'm completely honest, you are not.  And since you actually don't want to drop it, round and round we go!  Also, why don't you want me to respond to your ridiculous posts stating for a fact that TEC is not Bloodraven?  Is it because you don't want to be challenged?  Offer some actual proof please.  Your opinion doesn't constitute proof.   

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Go back and look, this quote was used to show that the crow is acknowledging it has wings. And, for the record, "acknowledge" was literally your word I was quoting there.

But, for the record, I don't think TEC "acknowledged" appearing as a TEC in Bran's dream - just so everyone knows.  TEC saying "maybe you do, too" of having wings to Bran in no way is TEC acknowledging that he's a crow.  I mean, I get that you want and need it to mean that to support your confirmation bias that TEC isn't Bloodraven...but it simply doesn't:rolleyes: 

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Obviously, the answer is that otherwise the dialogue doesn't make any sense. 

Nope. Just your confirmation bias getting the best of you.  You need it to mean that or your ridiculous statement that it's a fact that TEC isn't Bloodraven doesn't work otherwise.

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I'm really not using any interpretation here at all:

None of what you bolded proves TEC has acknowledged or even knows that he appears as a TEC.

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Saying, "There are different kinds of wings", after demonstrating flying so Bran could see, means it knows Bran is seeing its wings, and, after all, there have to be wings in the first place for there to be a different kind to refer to.

And Bran seeing wings or not has absolutely no bearing on TEC knowing he appears to him as a TEC and definitely is not "proof" that Bloodraven is, in fact, not TEC.

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This passage simply does not make sense if the crow thought Bran was asking if it was a brother of the Night's Watch.

Non-sequitur.  I certainly never even implied that Bran was asking TEC whether he is a member of the Nights Watch:rolleyes:  My theory is that the symbolism suggesting TEC is Bloodraven is because a member of the NW (which Bloodraven is) who has opened his "third eye" would logically be symbolised as a "Three-Eyed Crow".  Martin may change my mind in the future, though.  One never knows;)

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The crow knew it appeared as a crow in Bran's dream. Fact.

Prove. It.

 

ETA: changed "Bloodraven" to "TEC" and overall clarity.

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