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A Theory on Sphinxes and Heroes. Part III Nothing for us to fear


northern_amnesia

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First, I needed to prove that Arthur was Jon’s dad (Part II), now I need to prove why it matters, but mostly, I’d like to prove that Brandon Stark survived his execution in KL, and what two of the sphinxes that I mentioned in Part I are all about (the three headed dragon and WF statues).

Next, I’ll talk about The Others, In Part V about all the sphinxes in this story and their importance, and then about Jon’s death.

 

To talk about sphinxes, we need to talk about Craster.

When Jon meets Craster and finds out what he’s doing, he goes to talk to Mormont and the LC asks him a very interesting question: “Does Craster seem less than human to you?” and Jon thinks “In half a hundred ways”.

Mormont then tells him that Craster serves crueler gods and that the sons are an offering, a prayer, which of course makes you think about Dany and her sacrifice.

Bael’s song says that the maiden “loved the bard so dearly she bore him a son,” and that that boy grew up to become Lord of WF. But it also says that Bael “left the child in payment”.

The thing is, that the song talks about different men, ‘Bael the bard’ is the smart and charming dude that sings for the Lord, but ‘Sygerrik the deceiver’ is the one that actually fathers the child, and of course we have a third guy, the Lord that gives the child a name, or rather a lastname.

In Lyanna’s story, Sygerrik is Arthur, Ned the “sisterless” is the one that makes Jon a Snow.

But Bael is the smart and charming dude that sings for Lord Stark.

In the song’s dark ending, Bael returns 30 years later and the son kills him because he doesn’t recognize him. What the song doesn’t say but is obvious, is that Bael himself was leading an attack against WF, so he couldn’t expect a different outcome.

That explains Qhorin’s death. he falls to his knees saying “sharp” referring to the song “The Dornishman’s wife”. In that song the guy died because he was caught cheating.

Jon cuts his neck, as if to recall what I mentioned about Ned’s dream and the prologue, “The Others made no sound.”

Heroes have to pay a price to become heroes, and they have to pay it in blood.

“All knights must bleed, Jaime,” Ser Arthur Dayne had said, when he saw. “Blood is the seal of our devotion.” Jaime I – AFfC

The Last Hero finds the magic after his ‘sword freezes’, and Qhorin was the price that Jon paid for magic.

Jon’s magic is Mance Rayder, the singer, and this will be clear in the bastard letter.

Ok, now I can talk about Brandon Stark and for that, I am going to explain two things.

 

First: what really happened during the rebellion.

Second: how Brandon Stark ended up being ‘Mance Rayder’, the mediocre brown-eyed singer Jon meets beyond the Wall.

 

Jon leaves the Wall with a cool new sword thinking he’ll have to fight wildlings, but along the way the sword ‘freezes’ and he realizes that his war is elsewhere. But to fight that war, against ‘the creature that makes cloaks with the skins of women’ he needs to be someone else. And of course, he dies (allegedly).

That’s exactly what happened with Brandon.

I mentioned when I spoke of Ned’s dream, that there are 3 parts in the prologue and that in the second, we find several indications of how things really happened during the war. This is how the story begins:

 

Quote

“Twilight deepened. The cloudless sky turned a deep purple, the color of an old bruise, then faded to black. The stars began to come out. A half-moon rose. Will was grateful for the light.”


Let’s bring light to what happened on the Trident.

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“We can make a better pace than this, surely,” Royce said when the moon was full risen.“Not with this horse,” Will said. Fear had made him insolent. “Perhaps my lord would care to take the lead?”

In the prologue (and this is a problem that Dustin also has in Ned’s dream), Waymar goes ranging on the wrong horse.

In that same situation was the ‘promised prince’, Rhaegar, he had the wrong horse. He needed dragons, not horses.

Rhaegar wanted to be a hero, and like Waymar, he was unwilling to fail, to die without the glory that the prophecy had promised him.

That leads him to “the 3-headed dragon”, which was nothing more than the idea of killing his father to marry his mother, making him the three headed dragon, like Aegon.

And before you dismiss this idea thinking I’m crazy, think about what Dany did with her family, how she sacrificed them all to get her dragons.

 

That bring us to Rhaegar’s idea of the “Song of Ice & Fire”, that’s why he crowns Lyanna:

 

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“High in the Halls of the Kings who are gone, Jenny would dance with her ghosts“

That’s ‘Jenny’s song’ lyrics, the song that the GoHH asks as payment for her prophecies. The “gone” King was Aerys.

When Waymar faces the Other in the prologue he says “dance with me”, and I always found it curious, until I realized that Jenny dances “with her ghosts” and dragons were supposed to be dead.

Rhaegar wanted a new “dance”, or rather, a ghost, a ‘gone’ king.

Rhaegar wanted to start a conflict, he wanted Aerys gone, likely because the GoHH told him that the dragons would return after Aerys died. So Rhaegar thought to speed things up a little.

 

What Rhaegar needed was for the conflict to escalate just enough to justify the fact that he planned to overthrow Aerys, and Lyanna was perfect.

Lyanna was engaged to a Baratheon (just like the prince who married Jenny), and Robert was a cousin, he was kin, so eventually, things could be solved peacefully, once Aerys was removed from the equation of course.

“Somewhere off in the wood a wolf howled. (...) Royce paused a moment, staring off into the distance, his face reflective. A cold wind whispered through the trees.”

Lyanna disappears, as I already mentioned, in a very strange circumstance because there is no logical reason that explains her presence near Harrenhal, where she allegedly disappears.

The reason is that she was never there.

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“There’s something wrong here,” Gared muttered.
The young knight gave him a disdainful smile. “Is there?”
“Can’t you feel it?” Gared asked. “Listen to the darkness".


Let’s hear what “the darkness” Ned Stark said:

“Brandon. Yes. Brandon would know what to do. He always did.” Cat II – AGoT

“Wind. Trees rustling. A wolf. Which sound is it that unmans you so, Gared?”


The sound that scares Gared, and should have scared the dragons, is Brandon entering KL and shouting “come out and die.” If Brandon “always” knew what to do, this scream deserves careful examination.

History says that Brandon died in KL and that Rhaegar returned from wherever he was to confront Robert.

The prologue suggests otherwise.

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“Royce slid gracefully from his saddle. He tied the destrier securely to a lowhanging limb, well away from the other horses, and drew his longsword from its sheath. Jewels glittered in its hilt, and the moonlight ran down the shining steel. It was a splendid weapon, castle-forged, and new-made from the look of it. Will doubted it had ever been swung in anger.”


This was Rhaegar’s moment of glory, this is the moment he has been preparing for since as a child, he read ‘something’ that made him believe that he needed to be a warrior.


In the prologue, Will thinks that Waymar had prepared for his vocation: “At least insofar as his wardrobe was concerned.”

 

Waymar had a splendid cloak, ‘his crowning glory’ Will called it, Rhaegar had a splendid armor, the one with the rubies, and this, the battle, was his crowning moment.

 

Unfortunately, the “splendid weapon” was Rhaegar’s idea of starting a conflict. It was a splendid opportunity for his enemies, a great excuse.

 

Brandon goes to KL and yells a threat knowing that he is going to be arrested, because as logic and Bael’s song suggest, it is the expected outcome of threatening the prince’s life.

What really happened is what we can infer from what happens at the Wall, in the “song of ice”.

 

Waymar leaves and doesn’t return, the parallel is Lyanna’s disappearance, though is actually Arthur’s disappearance.

When Ned sends Gared’s head to the Wall, Mormont assumes that something happened to Waymar, so a group (led by Benjen) goes looking for him.

This is what allegedly happened, ‘someone’ told Brandon of Lyanna’s kidnapping so he goes to KL.

Othor and Flowers “return”, one of them wearing a “hunting horn” (come out and die) and both with blue eyes, a very clear reference to Harrenhal and Lyanna.

Othor as I said, is the one that Jon discovers, hidden, apparently trying to kill Mormont in the same place where a valyrian steel sword was hidden. So, Othor is Brandon looking for Rhaegar. I’ll discuss every single parallel between Robert’s rebellion and what happens north of the Wall in the next part.

 

At some point, likely after Harrenhal’s Tourney, Arthur showed up at Winterfell, like Sygerrik the deceiver, the one that hides with the maiden, and told the Starks what was happening because he had a bellyfull of dragon madness. There’s also a parallel of this situation north of the Wall, The NW is expecting Qhorin and he’s late in coming, but when he finally comes, he brings very useful information, Mance is looking for a ‘power’, some sorcery to bring down the Wall.

 

Arthur is Sygerrik, the one that fathers the child while hiding with the maiden, but the bard is the one with the “horn” , the one that screams, Brandon Stark.

Lyanna never left Winterfell. She lived and died at her post.

 

Rhaegar, as Bael song suggest, was “hiding with the dead,” he was with one of the dead men from Ned’s dream, Whent, until his moment came.

He went to KL with the idea of being the hero that saves the day. He even talked to Jaime about all the changes he was going to make upon his return.

 

Arthur, like Jon, talked to his LC of his doubts about the “humanity” of the royal family, but unlike Mormont, Hightower listened, and did what Mormont suggested Craster’s wives should do:

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“Craster sprawls in his loft even now, stinking of wine and lost to sense. On his board below lies a sharp new axe. Were it me, I'd name it "Answered Prayer' and make an end."


Gerold left Jaime Lannister, (that kills first and thinks later), night and day with the king.

To lead men you must know them, Jon Snow” Jon VII – ACoK

Gerold disappears roughly at the same time that Rhaegar arrives to KL and Rhaella is sent to Dragonstone.

Gerold is ‘Sygerrik’ in the song of fire, the one that hides with the maiden and fathers the child. Hightower is the man that takes care of Dany in the “house with the red door”, he is the man she remembers giving orders all the time, and of course, he is her father, that’s why in the House of the Undying they call Dany “daughter of three”.

Dany is a sphinx, the 3 headed dragon.

‘Bael’ is Rhaegar, the one that steals the maiden (Rhaella) from Aerys, Hightower is ‘Sygerryk’ the real dad, and Aerys the one that gives her a name (and a fame).

 

The “song of fire” the song that explains Dany’s existence, is actually a song from the north, “Brave young Danny Flint” about the girl that enters the NW dressed as a boy, Dany is the ‘prince that was promised’. Prophecy promised a prince, not a princess, just as the NW is supposed to be made only by ‘brothers‘, (incest like) as the PTWP that was supposed to be made by Aerys and Rhaella.

 

The “song of ice” is of course, a song from the south. The song that explains Jon’s existence is “The Dornishman’s Wife” a song, about a guy that dies singing. Clearly, the one that dies singing is no guy, but Lyanna, and she dies singing that she was murdered. We'll see how in the next part.

 

“The Song of Ice & Fire” is Bael’s song, a mixed up version of events of how two children (and two very powerful weapons) were born, and the answer to the riddle that the Black Gate (that’s white) asks: Who are you?

 

This is a story of reflections. Both stories have the same ingredients, a White Knight dad (Hightower/Dayne), a heroic brother (Rhaegar/Brandon) and a ‘shadow’ brother (Viserys/Ned).

Back to the rebellion:

Hightower, like Gared in the prologue, was afraid. When Rickard and whoever died in Brandon’s place dies (Glover most likely), Gerold approaches Jaime and tells him not to question the king, which Jaime mistakenly interprets as a sign of extreme loyalty.

Gerold is, I’m sure, the one who makes the switch between Brandon and the poor bastard that died in his place. That’s hinted at in AGoT’s prologue:

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“Gared did not rise to the bait. He was an old man, past fifty, and he had seen the lordlings come and go. "Dead is dead," he said. "We have no business with the dead."


What Gerold feared was that Jaime, who was clearly very impressed with Rickard’s execution, would say something that would jeopardize what he, Arthur, and the Starks were doing. There’s another parallel at the Wall, Mance’s execution and the victims’ switch, and Jon’s own plans as we’ll see in Part VI.

Brandon leaves KL just as Mance entered WF twice, mixed in the army that goes out to fight in the Trident.

Rhaegar never gets to the battle, like Waymar, he dies and is never found, the one that faces Robert on the Trident, is Brandon.

 

Rhaegar’s armor is Brandon’s “sword in the darkness“, this is what Will thinks of Waymar’s sword, which like the dragon’s armor, was full of jewels: “Will doubted it had ever been swung in anger.”

Brandon lets Robert “kill” him on the Trident. In the prologue, when Waymar yells “For Robert!” Will thinks that The Other’s parry was almost lazy.

 

This matches the story Mance tells Jon about his desertion, in which he talks about an injury he took while hunting, that made him want to leave the NW.

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"My brothers feared I might die (...) so they carried me to a wildling village where we knew an old wisewoman did some healing. She fed me porridge and potions until I was strong enough to ride again. And she sewed up the rents in my cloak as well, with some scarlet silk from Asshai that her grandmother had pulled from the wreck of a cog washed up on the Frozen Shore. It was the greatest treasure she had, and her gift to me." (...) "I left the next morning . . . for a place where a kiss was not a crime, and a man could wear any cloak he chose."


The “scarlet silk” he mentions is a link to Rhaegar’s cloak and the rubies that flew on the Trident. I’ll talk about the rest of the story later.

The witchcraft that Mance suggests with the mention of “potions” and Asshai, is what actually happens in the Trident.

The sourcery is that ‘Lightbringer’ is forged.

When Brandon falls on the Trident, we have the 3 elements that the legend tells about the creation of the sword:

a. The water, which repeating the theme of 3, is the Trident


b. The “lion’s heart”


"Dead is dead." I do not want to know this. "Brandon was different from his brother, wasn't he? He had blood in his veins instead of cold water. More like me." Cat VII - ACoK
Jaime claims that Brandon was more like him, and considering that Jaime fooled Robert for years, I think he’s righ*t.

“Dead is dead ” says Cat, which is exactly what Gared says in the prologue when Waymar is on his way to meet The Others, and his doom.

c. Nissa Nissa’s living heart

What Brandon sacrifices is his life, or rather, what his life should have been: “It was all meant for Brandon, you, Winterfell, everything” Ned told Cat.

Robert hammers “the sword”, Brandon’s chess, who’s wearing Rhaegar’s black armor (a black steel armor), full of red rubies (red as blood), and thus Lightbringer, the hero’s sword, is forged.

The problem is, it’s the sword of the other side. 

The outcome of the magic is that Brandon Stark loses his face, ‘his Stark look’, like Waymar when he rises, “his face was a ruin”.

Brandon’s ‘death’ in the Trident is hinted in Jaime’s fever dream near Harrenhal:

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"Do they keep a bear down here?" Brienne was moving, slow and wary, sword to hand; step, turn, and listen. Each step made a little splash. "A cave lion? Direwolves? Some bear? Tell me, Jaime. What lives here? What lives in the darkness?"
"Doom." No bear, he knew. No lion. "Only doom." (...)”
“The moss covered it so thickly he had not noticed before, but now he saw that the wood was white. It made him think of Winterfell, and Ned Stark's heart tree. It was not him, he thought. It was never him.” Jaime VI - ASoS


We have the ‘little splash’, the water, direwolves, the darkness, and doom.

The “doom” that Jaime dreams of is the direwolf, Brandon Stark.

Mance told Jon:

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“It was the greatest treasure she had, and her gift to me." (...) "I left the next morning . . . for a place where a kiss was not a crime, and a man could wear any cloak he chose."


Those are the 3 parts of the WF sphinx, the 3 reasons why Mance needs to be Brandon again.

The “greatest treasure” is the life that Ned stole from them, the place where “a kiss was not a crime” is Winterfell, or it would have been for Lyanna, and obviously, the man who could “wear any cloak he chose” was Arthur.

Each one represents one of the parts of the statues:

  • The head, the “likeness” is family, the “greatest treasure”
  • The sword is duty, “a kiss is not a crime” if no incest or kinslaying is involved
  • The wolf, is honor, is doing the right thing when it’s hard to do it, when you need to choose a side. A place where “a man could wear any cloak he chose”.

Those are obviously the Tully’s words: “Family, Duty, Honor”.

One last comment about Bael’s song, whose main theme is that what’s important is, mostimes, what we have right in front of our eyes, and that sometimes that’s dangerous, is about two things that Cat thinks when we first meet the Starks.

The first has to do with Ned: “The Starks were not like other men. Ned brought his bastard home with him, and called him “son” for all the north to see.”

For a person who grew up practically next door to the Freys, the comment is of an unusual blindness, and sadly, it proves that deep down Cat never wanted to really see, but also that the north scared her, so at the first opportunity she had, she fled never to return.

The second has to do with the Starks words:

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“The words gave her a chill, as they always did. The Stark words. Every noble house had its words. Family mottoes, touchstones, prayers of sorts, they boasted of honor and glory, promised loyalty and truth, swore faith and courage. All but the Starks. Winter is coming, said the Stark words. Not for the first time, she reflected on what a strange people these northerners were.”

The chill she feels is for Ned, not for the words. The words represent exactly what she thinks, and clearly represent the Starks, the problem is that Cat never knew that Winterfell, but Ned’s version.

I’ll talk about The Other’s version in the next part.

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