Bloodraven, Bran, and the Old Gods

[H Wadsworth Longfellow]

Bloodraven has a plan to save the people of Westeros. 

Leaf - "In the world that men have made, there is no room for (direwolves), or us."

Is man the real threat?  One would think from what we're getting from Leaf. Then the following is contradictory to that argument.  Bloodraven wants to save all.

"(Bloodraven) has lived beyond his mortal span, and yet he lingers.  For us, for you, for the realms of men."

"When (singers) died, they went into the wood, into leaf limb and root, and the trees remembered.  All their songs and spells, their histories and prayers, everything they knew of this world. Maesters will tell you that the weirwoods are sacred to the old gods.  The singers believe they are the old gods.  When singers die they become a part of that Godhood."

Bloodraven means to save all by migrating their memories and knowledge into the trees.  That's what his plan sounds like to me.  I changed my mind about Bran's future after reading this chapter.  I used to think Bran will survive through the story and live at the end.  I don't think that anymore.  I now think his body will die and he will achieve that Godhood when he joins the hive minds inside the trees.  But there is trouble down the road.

"Never fear the darkness, Bran.  The strongest trees are rooted in the dark places of the earth.  Darkness will be your cloak, your shield, your mother's milk. Darkness will make you strong."

All alone in the dark watching the human drama through the eyes of the trees and the ravens.  That is Bran's future.  And Bran seems to slowly accept it as his dreams of knighthood slowly evaporates in the gloom of the cave.  There is trouble though.  Bran continues to violate one of the ethics of skinchanging.  He keeps forcing himself into the poor stable boy and spies on the Reeds.  He begins to develop strong feelings for Meera Reed.  I think this is what will turn Bran from the potential greenseer who will save everyone into a selfish boy who will use his power to do harm.  Already he has eaten human flesh through his direwolf.  Bran is slowly becoming bad. 

 

Edited April 15 by H Wadsworth Longfellow

[KingoftheRiversandtheHills]

I think Bran's greenseer journey will be one of the things that make or break the war against the dead. It would also be one of the things that make or break the books for me. I think that Bran will not turn out to be the cold unfeeling King of Westeros the showed pulled out of their ass but a more 9 year old, violent (because he’s a 9 year old with too much heaped up on him he’s bound to have a couple outbursts), creepy (as shown with his spying on Meera due to his strong feeling for her that I think will turn into obsession), little finger/varys version of the three-eyed raven that will try to help save humanity. I don't know if he'll just shed his body and live in the weirwoods, that seems a little far fetched to me.

Edited April 15 by KingoftheRiversandtheHills

[Darth Sidious]

Godhood! What a scary thought to make Bran the Great Other. He doesn’t have the maturity to control his feelings. And no one to correct him. Kinda reminds you of Joffrey. 
 

The Starks kept the Greenseers strong through human sacrifice. The blood feed the trees and the trees feed the Greenseers. Ned broke the tradition and weakened the Greenseers. The Weirwood in Winterfell is the altar feeding all of the Greenseers. The Starks must always be present to feed the tree. 

[kissdbyfire]

Nah, your interpretation is way off. But I’ll give you brownie points for at least trying to disguise your ingrained and nonsensical Stark hatred. 

[Ser Arthurs Dawn]

11 hours ago, Darth Sidious said:

Godhood! What a scary thought to make Bran the Great Other. He doesn’t have the maturity to control his feelings. And no one to correct him. Kinda reminds you of Joffrey. 
 

The Starks kept the Greenseers strong through human sacrifice. The blood feed the trees and the trees feed the Greenseers. Ned broke the tradition and weakened the Greenseers. The Weirwood in Winterfell is the altar feeding all of the Greenseers. The Starks must always be present to feed the tree. 

Say goodbye to your precious Walder Frey, because he's getting fed to the evil tree first. 

Bran is just a boy who has been thrown into a situation he doesn't belong in. He's lost his family, he's lost the use of his legs, his dreams of knighthood have been dashed, he's been hounded by a bird to "open his third eye". As much as Meera and Jojen support him and try to steer him in the right direction, they don't fully grasp the trauma, grief, and confusion he is feeling. He's facing extreme challenges and temptation just like every other major character. I certainly don't believe Bloodraven is evil, but I believe he is doing a piss-poor job of training and guiding Bran. Bran is being set up to be the most powerful being on Planetos, and it's happening way way too quickly. Meanwhile, BR has been around for what, over 100 years?

All the Stark children share a parallel of trying to survive and hold onto their true identities despite being under the influence/care of an antagonist. Even if that antagonist has the best intentions in mind. I think they will all come out on top.

This is why I personally loath the AA reborn, Nissa Nissa bs of the story. These are kids, and a few of them are being thrust into roles of "savior of humanity", and it's all from legends that are thousands of years old. We put so much focus on who is going to be the ultimate savior that we decide anyone else is doomed to fail or become evil. I think these characters are going to overcome the challenges, temptations, and misguided teachings and decide work together. Prophecy or no, at the end of the day, it will take a village to overcome whatever apocalyptic threat Westeros will face. And as for Bran, he's still a sweet boy. Like his siblings, he currently lacks a good mentor.

[Northern Sword]

13 hours ago, Darth Sidious said:

Godhood! What a scary thought to make Bran the Great Other. He doesn’t have the maturity to control his feelings. And no one to correct him. Kinda reminds you of Joffrey. 
 

The Starks kept the Greenseers strong through human sacrifice. The blood feed the trees and the trees feed the Greenseers. Ned broke the tradition and weakened the Greenseers. The Weirwood in Winterfell is the altar feeding all of the Greenseers. The Starks must always be present to feed the tree. 

The Bran and Joffrey comparison is way off the mark to me. If not polar opposites, close to it. While the question of Bran's maturity is valid. Joffrey's maturity was not the issue.

I agree with the sacrifice analysis.

[Pontius Pilate]

On 4/15/2024 at 7:06 AM, H Wadsworth Longfellow said:

Bloodraven means to save all by migrating their memories and knowledge into the trees.  That's what his plan sounds like to me.  I changed my mind about Bran's future after reading this chapter.  I used to think Bran will survive through the story and live at the end.  I don't think that anymore.  I now think his body will die and he will achieve that Godhood when he joins the hive minds inside the trees.  But there is trouble down the road.

BR holds no hope for mankind and threw in the towel if this is his best plan.  It's not a bad plan.  He saves the ghosts of all in Westeros and make them part of the data stored in the tree network.  He saves the trees at the same time because no humans will mean no more cutting trees.  Jon will be the first to live after losing his body and finding a new home in his Direwolf.  Ghost is indeed a fitting name for the dw.  The Direwolf will be Jon's ghost from here on.  He gets to live as an individual in the wolf instead of joining a collective entity inside the trees.  He's always been somewhat of a lone wolf.  

Weirwoods are not the Old Gods. The OGs are hidden underground sucking blood through the trees.  We are told in history when Allysanne and Jaeherys outlawed the first night and built a buffer zone between the lords' fief and the Wall.  Must have also outlawed human sacrifice.  The OGs got by because Craster was sacrificing for the realm.  His absence is a problem for the OGs.  I think Mormont sort of understood the necessity of what Craster did.  He just can't explain it to his people because it's an awkward truth.  The peace will break if or when Mellissandre sacrifices Craster's son.  The boy is a son of Ice and a close kin of the Starks.  It's a terrible insult to sacrifice a pure Stark blood to R'hllor.  The boy has been promised to the Others since the day he was born.  

 

[James Fenimore Cooper XXII]

There are a few ways things could go wrong because of Bran. He uses Bloodraven's teachings to enact revenge on the families who opposed the Starks.  I can easily believe Bran Stark saving the families he likes but letting Lannisters, Freys, and Karstarks just die.  A Greenseer should remain neutral and not take sides.  Jon allowed his inappropriate loyalty to House Stark cloud his judgment and wrecked the Night's Watch.  Bran will fail in the same way.

Most of the people will choose to leave Westeros.  Those who have the means to do so would prefer to cross to Essos and start new lives instead of accepting mass suicide.  Suicide through Bran driving them to kill each other.  Look at the mechanics of how to transfer the human data to the weirwoods.  It is not happening through a USB cable.  No.  It will be done through blood transfusion as in human sacrifices to the weirwoods on a crazy mass scale.  Because that is part of the solution to push the people's minds into the weirwoods.  The solution, if that is what Bloodraven really planned, is as wild as the religion of the Faceless Men. 

[Lissasalayaya]

A great criticism of theories that Daenerys is headed toward a villain ending is that it would send a terrible message because Dany began as a thirteen-year-old victim. 'You're saying a victim of trauma can never overcome her trauma and is destined to be evil.' The word "child" is often brandied about as if to nock an arrow labeled "child predator" and aim it at all who might dare to disagree with that opinion. Yet here's an eight-year-old boy who was pushed from a tower and crippled from the waist down for the rest of his life, and an increasingly popular theory is that Bran is becoming a villain, and that a villain ending for Bran would be interesting and true to life because his trauma is too unbearable for him to overcome.

What am I to make of the contrast in treatment of a fictional 13 year old girl victim and a fictional 8 year old boy victim? Surely an 8 year old is more a child than a 13 year old. Surely complete paralysis of the legs and permanent lifelong immobility is as severe a tragedy as any Daenerys suffered, or near enough to render any attempt to counterweigh them unthinkable. So what gives?

There's a reasonable middle ground that accomodates majority agreement. For instance, everyone would agree that suffering trauma when young doesn't necessarily destine a person for villainhood. No more does a splendid life necessarily preclude a person from villainhood.

Everyone would agree that, as a general rule, in the project of staying a good person, suffering trauma does not help.

Everyone would agree that the line between trauma and hardship is sometimes blurry.

Everyone would agree that, as a general rule, in the project of staying a good person, hardship does often help. This is the point that persuaded Maekar Targaryen to allow his son Egg to travel with a hedge knight.

With those simple statements it's easy to see that extreme opinions like "This category of ending for this character could never be good storytelling" and "This category of ending for this character could never be bad storytelling" evade the relevant issues entirely. The relevant issues are everything that happened inbetween that character's beginning and ending — the hard choices, deeds done, moral dilemmas, roads taken and not taken, and the character's internal struggles. The operative variable, then, is the character.

What difference between Daenerys and Bran produces this contrasting treatment in the audience? It must be something those characters don't have in common. That should be easy to suss out, because they have so much in common.

Both characters suffered extreme trauma when young. Both characters can fairly be called children. Both characters were betrayed by adults they trusted. But one is a girl, and the other is a boy. And for that crime villainy is the only ending that makes sense for Bran. 

Let the record show that I called it in April 2024. George R.R. Martin has got our number, folks. Bran kills Daenerys.

 

[James Fenimore Cooper XXII]

The signs are there, Bran is going to become a villain.  Why else show him his family killing people and feeding their blood to the trees unless that is what he will do in the future.  I maintain that the only way to turn back the long night is to kill Bran with dragon fire. 

[Northern Sword]

11 hours ago, James Fenimore Cooper XXII said:

There are a few ways things could go wrong because of Bran. He uses Bloodraven's teachings to enact revenge on the families who opposed the Starks.  I can easily believe Bran Stark saving the families he likes but letting Lannisters, Freys, and Karstarks just die.  A Greenseer should remain neutral and not take sides.  Jon allowed his inappropriate loyalty to House Stark cloud his judgment and wrecked the Night's Watch.  Bran will fail in the same way.

Most of the people will choose to leave Westeros.  Those who have the means to do so would prefer to cross to Essos and start new lives instead of accepting mass suicide.  Suicide through Bran driving them to kill each other.  Look at the mechanics of how to transfer the human data to the weirwoods.  It is not happening through a USB cable.  No.  It will be done through blood transfusion as in human sacrifices to the weirwoods on a crazy mass scale.  Because that is part of the solution to push the people's minds into the weirwoods.  The solution, if that is what Bloodraven really planned, is as wild as the religion of the Faceless Men. 

Bran does not come across as revenge orientated to me. I'm trying to think of a single example. 

The Lannister's threw him out a window and is responsible for the down fall of his family, so how would you blame him for letting them die. I don't see Bran as actively engineering their down fall, like Littlefinger did to the Starks. Of course, Bran will look out for his family and those he loves, even if this may fade over time.

Inappropriate loyalty to his own House ?! hahaha. Wow. 

And why would a greenseer be neutral? Is Mel neutral? Or Jojen? The faith is certainly not neutral. Nor the WW.

I'm actually at the point where I think old school thinking will come back in the North, Bran needs a few sacrifices to power up.

 

[Ser Arthurs Dawn]

12 hours ago, James Fenimore Cooper XXII said:

There are a few ways things could go wrong because of Bran. He uses Bloodraven's teachings to enact revenge on the families who opposed the Starks.  I can easily believe Bran Stark saving the families he likes but letting Lannisters, Freys, and Karstarks just die.  A Greenseer should remain neutral and not take sides.

What do you mean by "letting them die"? Greenseers are powerful, but I don't believe they can intervene and prevent death whenever they please. If so, Bloodraven is terrible at his job. 

[Ser Arthurs Dawn]

49 minutes ago, Northern Sword said:

I'm actually at the point where I think old school thinking will come back in the North, Bran needs a few sacrifices to power up.

*pounds fists on the table* Walder Frey! Walder Frey! Walder Frey! 

[kissdbyfire]

If sacrifices are to work at all, instead of being some type of red herring where characters believe a sacrifice is necessary and goes on to do atrocious acts only to have nothing come of it or have an unexpected and undesirable outcome, then it will be only a willing self-sacrifice. Otherwise it just becomes a free for all where every important player is sacrificing people left and right to achieve whatever end, regardless of said end being “good” or not.

[Northern Sword]

31 minutes ago, Ser Arthurs Dawn said:

*pounds fists on the table* Walder Frey! Walder Frey! Walder Frey! 

His entrails would look good in a WW tree. 

[Northern Sword]

19 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

If sacrifices are to work at all, instead of being some type of red herring where characters believe a sacrifice is necessary and goes on to do atrocious acts only to have nothing come of it or have an unexpected and undesirable outcome, then it will be only a willing self-sacrifice. Otherwise it just becomes a free for all where every important player is sacrificing people left and right to achieve whatever end, regardless of said end being “good” or not.

I'm not so sure. What we have seen to this point doesn't back that up imo. Mel doesn't seem concerned about self sacrifice.

Her burning people alive wasn't voluntary. Alester Florent was burnt for favorable winds... 

Magic in general needs blood and/or fire. Seems a common theme. Maybe there is a more powerful element involved if it is self sacrifice. Kinda like Kings blood is more powerful. So a certain "Type' may produce different results.

Euron has no problem sacrificing people, without a "good" element, same with Vic. A free for all may be what we get. 

This story and the characters in it, as a whole, are neither good nor bad. But both. Is the magic we see going to be any different?

[kissdbyfire]

14 minutes ago, Northern Sword said:

I'm not so sure. What we have seen to this point doesn't back that up imo. Mel doesn't seem concerned about self sacrifice.

Her burning people alive wasn't voluntary. Alester Florent was burnt for favorable winds... 

Magic in general needs blood and/or fire. Seems a common theme. Maybe there is a more powerful element involved if it is self sacrifice. Kinda like Kings blood is more powerful. So a certain "Type' may produce different results.

Euron has no problem sacrificing people, without a "good" element, same with Vic. A free for all may be what we get. 

This story and the characters in it, as a whole, are neither good nor bad. But both. Is the magic we see going to be any different?

Are you sure whatever Mel or Euron did achieved what they expected?

[Northern Sword]

18 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Are you sure whatever Mel or Euron did achieved what they expected?

hahaha. Absolutely not. I have no idea, no one does. Other then GRRM.

Just looking at what we have seen so far, it is not based on self sacrifice. Nor is the end result being good, something that entered into it.

No prerequisites or conclusions have appeared. Other than Mel's sacrifices seem to work. So none should be put on Old God Sacrifice.

[LongRider]

15 hours ago, James Fenimore Cooper XXII said:

The signs are there, Bran is going to become a villain.

Poor Jon Snow, and here I thought he was evil incarnate by trying to save lives and protect the realms of men, only to be upstaged by the Great and Powerful Oz, oops, I mean Bran.  

Edited April 17 by LongRider

[Groo]

On 4/14/2024 at 7:06 PM, H Wadsworth Longfellow said:

All alone in the dark watching the human drama through the eyes of the trees and the ravens.  That is Bran's future. 

So. Boy travels to cave. Boy spends rest of life in cave. That wouldn't be much of a story arc or a character arc.