HotU showed the Red Wedding ... or did it?

[headly1994]

If your un-armed and someone hacks At you you will most likely put your forearm out defensively leading to severed hands.

[J. Stargaryen]

In what way does that contradict what I said?

@ FFR,

I was sort of hoping to get a response to this question.

[Frey family reunion]

@ FFR,

I was sort of hoping to get a response to this question.

I guess my point is that I don't think the Red Wedding is a climax in the war of the five (or four) kings.It certainly did halt the Northern presence in the South, and it dealt a pretty big blow to House Stark (which was already reeling at the time), but Stannis is still contesting his claim. The Greyjoys are continuing their attempt at conquest, in fact their plans have grown bolder. I think the Dornes are about to enter the Frey, and I think House Tyrell may attempt to wrest power from House Lannister.

This vision was shown to Dany who is not invested in the events of the Red Wedding. She has enmity to both House Lannister and House Stark. I really think this vision has more to do with a future contact between her and Jon Snow. As someone above (or in another post) noted "looked at her in mute appeal" could be a reference to Ghost and the idea of a dead half wolf half man could certainly fit the bill if Jon slipped into Ghost's skin before his body "died".

The lamb sceptre is more difficult, but I'm coming around to a theory that the ancient Valyrians used the blood of the Lhazareen (the lamb men) as a sacrifice to allow them to be bound with their dragons. I also think that the Lhazareens may be descended from the First Men before they left for Westeros. If so, then the sceptre may represent that Jon is the king of a people that Dany has only known as the "lamb men". But I'll admit this theory is still in the crackpot stage.

[J. Stargaryen]

I guess my point is that I don't think the Red Wedding is a climax in the war of the five (or four) kings.It certainly did halt the Northern presence in the South, and it dealt a pretty big blow to House Stark (which was already reeling at the time), but Stannis is still contesting his claim. The Greyjoys are continuing their attempt at conquest, in fact their plans have grown bolder. I think the Dornes are about to enter the Frey, and I think House Tyrell may attempt to wrest power from House Lannister.

This vision was shown to Dany who is not invested in the events of the Red Wedding. She has enmity to both House Lannister and House Stark. I really think this vision has more to do with a future contact between her and Jon Snow. As someone above (or in another post) noted "looked at her in mute appeal" could be a reference to Ghost and the idea of a dead half wolf half man could certainly fit the bill if Jon slipped into Ghost's skin before his body "died".

The lamb sceptre is more difficult, but I'm coming around to a theory that the ancient Valyrians used the blood of the Lhazareen (the lamb men) as a sacrifice to allow them to be bound with their dragons. I also think that the Lhazareens may be descended from the First Men before they left for Westeros. If so, then the sceptre may represent that Jon is the king of a people that Dany has only known as the "lamb men". But I'll admit this theory is still in the crackpot stage.

Truthfully, the Battle of the Blackwater might have been the in-universe climax of the WotFK. For us though, the climax was the RW.

WRT to the vision, it's possible that it also foretells something more Dany-related than the RW, but there's just no reasonable way to rule the RW out of the vision: the wolf-headed king - Robb; the lamb scepter - Wendel Manderly; "mute appeal" - Jinglebell.

Maybe there are two interpretations: one for the audience and one in-universe explanation, along the lines of what you and others are suggesting. However, I strongly oppose the exclusion of the audience interpretation for the above mentioned reasons.

[winterstood]

The HotU vision shows the aftermath of the red wedding. Remember the freys made a DISPLAY of Rob!

They sewed Grey Wind's head on his decapitated body and the HotU vision gives us the rest of the picture - they sewed a lamb's leg as a king's sceptre on his hand as mockery - etc. and set them all up at a big table where everyone could laugh at them. Sickening.

[The Night's Prince]

Anyhow, I think there is a distinct possibility that this vision is Bran and not the Red Wedding.

Bran is a boy. Dany wouldn't mistake a boy for a King. Sorry. Not buying it.

[StarkDragon]

Hmm, not gonna pretend I'm the best at prophecy but here goes;

Iron Crown - for an Iron Throne?

Silent Wolf King - 'Silent' screams Ghost or Bran to me.

Sees Danny even though he's dead - I agree this screams greenseer

Mute Appeal to Danny - Foreshadowing Stark v Danny?

Holds a Lamb Scepter - Hmmmm, this could be alot of things. Here's my guess, he rules with being 'passed on' the legacy of Robb, who'd been a lamb sent to slaughter. Meaning his goals are very vengeful.

Feast of Roast Fowl - A definate difference for food, but short of being food, I see not much to it.

Hacked off Hands - This speaks Rickon, on the Cannibal island, imo. However, this somehow makes me think about Starfish soup. Feast, hacked off hands... hmm.

Wolf presides over it - Again, a mention that this will be Stark initiated and ruled.

So my best guess is, if this did not predict the Red Wedding, this foreshadows a vengeful silent successor to Rob who will be very against Danny's ambitions.

They could be against Dany ambitions because of Stannis. If he is an ally, because of perhaps Jon, then that would have reason to be against Danny, wheras otherwise I can't imagine Starks having a reason to dislike her, short of if she supports the Freys. (Not likely to occur)

I can't help myself, Patchface says:

Under the sea mermen feast on starfish soup, and all the serving men are crabs

Isn't there a family allied to the Manderlies, who's sigils are crabs? I'll have to look it up...

but I've heard others suggest a starfish looks similar to a hand, and 'soup' suggests a feast. A feast with hacked off hands?

tldr;

A silent Wolf King (likely John I suppose), with mute appeal to Danny (because of their alliance with Stannis) while watching her from beyond the grave (greenseers are theorized to get better with more pain, near death would be a power up), with a lamb scepter (being passed on kingship from a 'slaughtered lamb'),

I think the most important part for pointing out how it's NOT the Red Wedding, is that the Wolf King looks directly, and follows, at Danny with 'mute appeal'. Why would Robb feel anything about a Targareon he never met?

[Mithras]

I think it is clearly the Red Wedding. It is not clearly stated in the book but Greywind's head was sewed to Robb's head. In the show, some people were carryhing him like this on a chair and having fun. Surely they had the time to sit him on the throne and made more fun of him after the slaughter. And the Red Wedding is related to Dany because I think she will burn the remaining Freys within their towers just like Harren the Black is burned by Aegon.

[YuriP]

Don't forget the the red wedding it self was written well after ACOK so some things may have changed.

[Lost Melnibonean]

Tze, who's one of the smartest, most thoughtful posters on here and to whom you should all pay attention, made an incredible observation about the vision of the Red Wedding that Dany sees in the House of the Undying. Namely, that it wasn't the Red Wedding that Dany saw.

Even if this isn't about the Red Wedding, the event was still foretold in other places, namely in Jinglebell's song ("Blood on the fool, blood on the king, blood on the maiden's thigh. But chains for the guests and chains for the bridegroom, aye, aye, aye") and by the Ghost of High Heart (Catelyn's death and resurrection and Grey Wind left outside to howl).

To make my own contribution ... in Judeo-Christian mythos, lambs are a symbol of purity and innocence. If this vision does indeed pertain to Bran, might the lamb-leg "scepter" be a symbol of him losing his innocence on his path to being a greenseer? I know several posters subscribe to the idea that Bloodraven's/the Children's motives aren't 100% pure.

I'm not familiar with the details of the Black Dinner of 1440. Perhaps the details in Dany's vision alluded to that historical event, since GRRM drew his inspiration for the RW from that real treachery?

[Dead Wolf]

It's an interesting theory, but I'm pretty sure it was the RW Dany. The wolf king in her vision had a leg of lamb in his hand, and Wendel Manderly is eating a leg of lamb just beofre the slaughter, and was even holding when he was shot

[aceluby]

The HotU vision shows the aftermath of the red wedding. Remember the freys made a DISPLAY of Rob!

They sewed Grey Wind's head on his decapitated body and the HotU vision gives us the rest of the picture - they sewed a lamb's leg as a king's sceptre on his hand as mockery - etc. and set them all up at a big table where everyone could laugh at them. Sickening.

Seems the most plausible out of everything. The only thing even slightly out of place is the 'iron' crown vs his actual 'iron & bronze' crown, but honestly it's really on the nitpicking side of things.

[Aeternum]

Yeah, it was the Red Wedding.

Gurm had the idea for the Red Wedding since the end of AGOT, and it was heavily foreshadowed in ACOK. He must have had a rough draft or general idea of the wedding massacre when he did the Undying scene, long before he wrote down the actual scene in the third book. (For example, the rough idea "Robb gets murdered at a dinner" later evolving into "Robb gets murdered by the Freys at his uncle's wedding dinner".)

Sure, a few minor details (wooden plates and other irrelevant stuff) probably got changed from the rough idea to the final version, or disappeared altogether, but it's still the same scene.

[IamMe90]

I think the argumentation for tze's theory is self-defeating. The argument as I understand it is that it doesn't make sense for the vision to depict the RW because the details don't match up (in some significant way) to the actual details of the RW, therefore the scene is depicting a event to come. So, the argument implies that the details of the vision should line up with the actual event being depicted, in some significant way. But the problem is that the details of the vision can't possibly line up with an actual event yet to come. the only candidates for the wolf headed king are the male stark children (of which there are 3), and i don't see how you can say that Bran, Rickon, or John will be killed in a feast setting. that seems just extremely unlikely to me... but if you've got a good hypothetical event in which this would occur that fits the details better than the RW, by all means tell me.

Also, I feel to see how a BwB RW2 version 2 would line up with the details of the scene better than the RW since there will be no dead wolf king in such a scene.

[Man of Many Faces]

I always figured that vision was the RW, but after reading through all these posts I am beginning to question it. It may very well be a future even that we haven't seen yet, although I am not sure what it may be, who it may involve or why there would be another event so similar to the RW. All I can think of is it will somehow be a Stark getting revenge on the Freys for RW.

[Vaxis]

Whatever details are not exactly matching, I feel pretty sure that GRRM had the RW in mind when we wrote that scene. It's visions and illusions, I don't expect they would be exactly as it would play out.

[Schmendrick]

Part 1 of 4

Hello, all. I’ve been lurking in the shadows of the Westeros forums for a long time. I know I’m late to the party (in this thread and in general) but I’ve recently had the urge to contribute some of my thoughts and findings about the books, so here goes ….

Apple Martini and tze are right to question whether this vision of Dany’s depicts the Red Wedding – because it doesn’t (at least not primarily). Dany is seeing the harvest feast presided over by Bran in ACoK, in Bran III. This feast takes place 27 chapters earlier than – but in the same book as – Dany’s visit to THotU. I think that the Red Wedding is (intentionally) evoked in the vision as well, though.

I'm going to have to break up the analysis into several posts (it's pretty long). Here's a summary of the basic argument, which can also serve as a tl;dr once the rest is posted:

SUMMARY

Dany’s vision shows the harvest feast that Bran presides over at Winterfell. It’s all there. A feast. Cups. Fowl. Bread. Trestle tables. Bran is sitting in for King Robb on the dais, in his father’s seat, which had been the seat of kings (he even accepts the Reed’s oath of fealty in Robb’s stead). There is a strong sense of foreboding throughout the chapter. Bran quietly observes the festivities and thinks of all those Northerners who have already died and those who will die in the future.

Both Bran and Robb are described/depicted as having a wolf’s head in the books (Robb literally and Bran in Mel’s vision). And Bran (Robb’s heir at the time) is a stand-in for Robb at the feast, since Robb is off at war. Thus, the Wolf-headed King in the vision is Bran, but also Robb. The vision depicts the harvest feast, but also evokes the Red Wedding.

There is a lot more going on here, but you’ll have to read what I post below for the rest. :P

[Schmendrick]

Part 2 of 4

DANY'S VISION DEPICTS THE HARVEST FESTIVAL

In Bran III, ACoK, Bran presides over a feast at Winterfell, celebrating “Robb’s victories and the bounty of the harvest.” As Robb’s heir (at the time) and a Prince of Winterfell, Bran officiates as Robb’s stand-in. Although he is cheered as he enters Winterfell’s Great Hall:

He was old enough to know that it was not truly him they shouted for— it was the harvest they cheered, it was Robb and his victories, it was his lord father and his grandfather and all the Starks going back eight thousand years.

The feast features many of the things Dany sees in the HotU vision:

Compare Dany's Vision:

(1) …. the feasters lay strewn across overturned chairs and hacked trestle tables ….

(2) Severed hands clutched bloody cups ….

(3) …. roast fowl ….

(4)…. heels of bread.

With Bran's Feast:

(1) …. eight long rows of trestle tables filled Winterfell’s Great Hall ….

(2) Bran raised his voice. He bid them welcome in the name of his brother, the King in the North, and asked them to thank the gods old and new for Robb’s victories and the bounty of the harvest. “May there be a hundred more,” he finished, raising his father’s silver goblet.

“A hundred more!” Pewter tankards, clay cups, and iron-banded drinking horns clashed together.

(3) There were great joints of aurochs roasted with leeks, venison pies chunky with carrots, bacon, and mushrooms , mutton chops sauced in honey and cloves, savory duck, peppered boar, goose, skewers of pigeon and capon, beef-and-barley stew, cold fruit soup.

(4) There was black bread and honeycakes and oaten biscuits ….

The only food-related thing missing is wooden spoons, but as butterbumps! noted earlier in this thread, “everyone in Westeros it seems uses wooden spoons, so that's probably not a distinguishing feature ….” I did a quick Kindle search, and she is absolutely right. Wooden spoons are ubiquitous in Westeros. Winterfell has them, and even powerful lords in King’s Landing use them. It would be surprising if the harvest feast didn’t feature wooden spoons.

The Feast of Corpses

So, the food-related imagery checks out. But what about the corpses?

…. she came upon a feast of corpses. Savagely slaughtered ….

At the feast, Bran eventually stops eating and talking and his thoughts turn morbid. He thinks sadly of his family – his father and mother, brothers and sisters. He remembers the last time they were all together in the Great Hall, feasting King Robert. Then he thinks:

And now they are all gone.

It was as if some cruel god had reached down with a great hand and swept them all away, the girls to captivity, Jon to the Wall, Robb and Mother to war, King Robert and Father to their graves, and perhaps Uncle Benjen as well …

Even down on the benches, there were new men at the tables. Jory was dead, and Fat Tom, and Porther, Alyn, Desmond, Hullen who had been master of horse, Harwin his son … all those who had gone south with his father, even Septa Mordane and Vayon Poole. The rest had ridden to war with Robb, and might soon be dead as well for all Bran knew. He liked Hayhead and Poxy Tym and Skittrick and the other new men well enough, but he missed his old friends.

He looked up and down the benches at all the faces happy and sad, and wondered who would be missing next year and the year after. He might have cried then, but he couldn’t. He was the Stark in Winterfell, his father’s son and his brother’s heir, and almost a man grown.

At the foot of the hall, the doors opened and a gust of cold air made the torches flame brighter for an instant.

This passage has a surreal quality to it. It almost reads as if Bran’s third eye flutters open for a moment and he foresees all of the death and sadness to come. And that last line about the doors opening and the cold air blowing into the hall and the flames burning brighter gives everything an ominous, magical touch.

The doors open to admit the Reeds, whom we (and Bran) meet for the first time here; the two who will lead him on his journey to the Three-Eyed Crow. We know from ADwD where this journey leads. Bran will become (at least for a time) a passive observer – able to observe those he loves, but unable to speak to them or alter their fates. That (bittersweet) end is foreshadowed here.

One final note: I think that the Red Wedding is certainly (and intentionally) evoked here. Bran looking out over a feast, on Robb’s throne, thinking of Robb and the others who have gone off to war with him, wondering how many will soon be dead … so if the RW is being evoked in the feast, it would be fair to say that it is being evoked on some level by the vision as well.

[J. Stargaryen]

Hello, all. I’ve been lurking in the shadows of the Westeros forums for a long time. I know I’m late to the party (in this thread and in general) but I’ve recently had the urge to contribute some of my thoughts and findings about the books, so here goes ….

Apple Martini and tze are right to question whether this vision of Dany’s depicts the Red Wedding – because it doesn’t. Dany is seeing the harvest feast presided over by Bran in ACoK, in Bran III. This feast takes place 27 chapters earlier than – but in the same book as – Dany’s visit to THotU. I think that the Red Wedding is (intentionally) evoked in the vision as well, though.

I'm going to have to break up the analysis into several posts (it's pretty long). Here's a summary of the basic argument, which can also serve as a tl;dr once the rest is posted:

SUMMARY

Dany’s vision shows the harvest feast that Bran presides over at Winterfell. It’s all there. A feast. Cups. Fowl. Bread. Trestle tables. Bran is sitting in for King Robb on the dais, in his father’s seat, which had been the seat of kings (he even accepts the Reed’s oath of fealty in Robb’s stead). There is a strong sense of foreboding throughout the chapter. Bran quietly observes the festivities and thinks of all those Northerners who have already died and those who will die in the future.

Both Bran and Robb are described/depicted as having a wolf’s head in the books (Robb literally and Bran in Mel’s vision). And Bran (Robb’s heir at the time) is a stand-in for Robb at the feast, since Robb is off at war. Thus, the Wolf-headed King in the vision is Bran, but also Robb. The vision depicts the harvest feast, but also evokes the Red Wedding.

There is a lot more going on here, but you’ll have to read what I post below for the rest. :P

Welcome to the forums. :cheers:

This is a good alternative explanation, but the Red Wedding still matches up better with what Dany saw in the HotU.

Farther on she came upon a feast of corpses. Savagely slaughtered, the feasters lay strewn across overturned chairs and hacked trestle tables, asprawl in pools of congealing blood. Some had lost limbs, even heads. Severed hands clutched bloody cups, wooden spoons, roast fowl, heels of bread. In a throne above them sat a dead man with the head of a wolf. He wore an iron crown and held a leg of lamb in one hand as a king might hold a scepter, and his eyes followed Dany with mute appeal.

- HotU

“Robb!” she screamed. She saw Smalljon Umber wrestle a table off its trestles. Crossbow bolts thudded into the wood, one two three, as he flung it down on top of his king. Robin Flint was ringed by Freys, their daggers rising and falling. Ser Wendel Manderly rose ponderously to his feet, holding his leg of lamb.

She pressed the blade deeper into Jinglebell’s throat. The lackwit rolled his eyes at her in mute appeal

Starting here I made a few posts on the subject which delves into the symbolism in Dany's vision.

If I may be allowed to quote myself:

Logically speaking, if you do not believe that the RW is the correct interpretation of the HotU vision, it means that you think a better explanation does exist, regardless of whether it is apparent to us at this time. But I wonder if that is even realistically possible, because of how well the HotU vision matches up with the RW. I would go so far as to say that if there is only one correct interpretation of the HotU vision, it must be the RW. And if there happens to be more than one correct interpretation, no problem, the RW will be one of them.

[Schmendrick]

Part 3 of 4

THE DEAD KING WITH THE HEAD OF A WOLF

From Dany's Vision:

In a throne above them ….

Bran spends the feast on a dais, sitting in “the high seat of his fathers.” Interestingly, this is not the first time Martin has put Bran in this seat. We know from the first time that the “high seat” was, in fact, a king’s throne before the first Aegon’s conquest:

“Hodor,” Hodor said, and he trotted forward smiling and set Bran in the high seat of the Starks, where the Lords of Winterfell had sat since the days when they called themselves the Kings in the North. The seat was cold stone, polished smooth by countless bottoms; the carved heads of direwolves snarled on the ends of its massive arms. Bran clasped them as he sat, his useless legs dangling. The great seat made him feel half a baby.

The above is from Bran IV, AGoT. At the beginning of this scene, Robb sits the chair/throne. He rises in anger and points his sword at Tyrion, who has just arrived with his plans for Bran’s new saddle. Robb commands Hodor to bring Bran over. Hodor then places Bran in the seat Robb leaves empty. In light of future events, this scene is dripping with foreshadowing.

The feast isn’t the last time Bran will sit a throne, either. In Bran III, ADwD:

Under the hill, the broken boy sat upon a weirwood throne, listening to whispers in the dark as ravens walked up and down his arms.

From Dany's Vision:

…. sat a dead man ….

Bran isn’t dead and isn’t a man … but Bran is Robb’s stand-in at the feast, so the “dead man” could represent a mixing of Bran and Robb in Dany’s vision. But there is another possibility.

Bran may not be dead, but Bloodraven is (in a manner of speaking, anyway):

“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.”

“Most of him has gone into the tree,” explained the singer Meera called Leaf. “He has lived beyond his mortal span, and yet he lingers.”

If Bran is being groomed as Bloodraven’s successor, then one day Bran will become a dead man on a raised weirwood throne who watches over his people but cannot directly speak to them:

One day I will be like him. The thought filled Bran with dread. Bad enough that he was broken, with his useless legs. Was he doomed to lose the rest too, to spend all of his years with a weirwood growing in him and through him? Lord Brynden drew his life from the tree, Leaf told them. He did not eat, he did not drink. He slept, he dreamed, he watched. I was going to be a knight, Bran remembered. I used to run and climb and fight. It seemed a thousand years ago.

What was he now? Only Bran the broken boy, Brandon of House Stark, prince of a lost kingdom, lord of a burned castle, heir to ruins. He had thought the three-eyed crow would be a sorcerer, a wise old wizard who could fix his legs, but that was some stupid child’s dream, he realized now. I am too old for such fancies, he told himself. A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. That was as good as being a knight. Almost as good, anyway.

As Bran’s thoughts indicate, he is becoming a man. Compare Bran’s potential future (and his feelings about it) to the dead man on a raised throne whose eyes follow Dany with mute appeal in her vision. I think we can safely say that Dany’s vision has an element of “morrows not yet made” to it, in addition to being about the harvest feast.

From Dany's Vision:

…. with the head of a wolf.

Robb’s head is supposedly removed by the Freys and replaced by his Direwolf’s severed head, so on one level, we’ve got Bran standing in for Robb again. But, as was already pointed out by others in this thread, in ADwD, Mel sees a vision of Bran and Bloodraven in which Bran has a wolf’s face:

…. a boy with a wolf’s face threw back his head and howled.

I don’t want to get to much into the legends of Bran the Blessed, because I believe they have already been discussed at length elsewhere on these forums, but it’s worth noting that Martin has written Bran’s arc in such a way that there are a ton of (clearly intended) parallels between our Bran and the Celtic hero-king, Bran the Blessed. Bran the Blessed’s ultimate fate was to be beheaded – at his own request – so that his still-sentient head could be buried underneath a hill in Briton to forever watch over his people.

Bran, at least for now, has decided to follow the path Bloodraven has set for him. He will let his body wither and die and (metaphorically) allow his head to be buried beneath the earth, forever to watch over his people. But he can still hop into his Direwolf and leave the cave. So, in a non-literal parallel to bran the Blessed, he is headless but can put on the head of a wolf.

From Dany's Vision:

He wore an iron crown ….

I see at least three interpretations here. First, as Robb’s stand-in, Bran is acting as king (he even accepts the Reed’s oath of fealty in Robb’s stead) but is not Robb. Thus, his crown in the vision is like Robb’s, only lesser. It has the iron but not the bronze.

Second, we have a literal band (ring) of iron mentioned in the harvest feast chapter:

Pewter tankards, clay cups, and iron-banded drinking horns clashed together.

Finally, and most strikingly, there’s this, from Bran III, ADwD:

The days marched past, one after the other, each shorter than the one before. The nights grew longer. No sunlight ever reached the caves beneath the hill. No moonlight ever touched those stony halls. Even the stars were strangers there. Those things belonged to the world above, where time ran in its iron circles, day to night to day to night to day.

In Dany’s vision, the king has an iron crown – presumably an iron circle – around his head. In ADwD, time’s normal cycle – its iron circle – continues above Bran’s head, while he becomes more and more magically separated from the normal flow of time. One might even say that Bran will eventually master time itself (from a certain point of view). Become its king, perhaps?

From Dany's Vision:

…. held a leg of lamb in one hand as a king might hold a scepter ….

There is no literal leg of lamb in the feast, but I think the biblical connotations already mentioned by others in this thread are intentional. Martin is making a clear reference to the Book of Revelations here. Revelations is all about prophecy and visions (specifically of the “apocalypse”), so we have an immediate connection to Bran. The biblical lamb was sacrificed for the common good. Bran (the lamb) has given up his legs (the literal legs of the lamb) and his childhood dreams to become a Greenseer.

Revelations features a prophetic vision of a lamb which has been sacrificed – and yet is alive (similar to the dead-but-alive wolf-king in Dany’s vision). The lamb is on a dais, on a throne, overlooking a feast (just like the wolf-king). We are told that the lamb is Jesus, (so an animal representation of the Christian “King of Kings”).

In Revelations, instead of a leg of lamb, the lamb is holding a scroll with seven seals. We are told that only the Messiah can open the seals. The lamb is able to open them (meaning he is the Messiah). Each time a seal is removed, Revelation’s author, John, is shown another vision of the apocalypse. Keep in mind that this was several books (and many years) before we learned that Bran was to become a Greenseer and (presumably) use his visions to somehow help prevent a coming apocalypse. So Dany is being shown a vision of the future.

I also think those who speculate that the Freys may have given Robb’s corpse a scepter of meat as part of a grizly jest after the Red Wedding may be on to something, but we can’t know for sure.

From Dany's Vision:

…. his eyes followed Dany with mute appeal.

In the Bran chapter which precedes the harvest feast, Maester Luwin instructs Bran that, while he is acting as Robb’s stand-in for meetings with lords and other important people, he should not speak unless a question is posed to him. So there’s that.

More importantly, going back to Bran’s last chapter in ADwD, there’s this:

“But,” said Bran, “he heard me.”

“He heard a whisper on the wind, a rustling amongst the leaves. You cannot speak to him, try as you might. I know. I have my own ghosts, Bran. A brother that I loved, a brother that I hated, a woman I desired. Through the trees, I see them still, but no word of mine has ever reached them. The past remains the past. We can learn from it, but we cannot change it.”

And this:

I am in the tree. I am inside the heart tree, looking out of its red eyes, but the weirwood cannot talk, so I can’t.

So Bran can watch – “his eyes [can] follow[]” – but he cannot speak to those he sees. He can only make “mute appeal.”

I think that the “mute appeal” also reflects Bran’s obvious conflictedness about his fate. In both the ACoK feast chapter and the ADwD cave chapter, Bran sadly reflects:

I was going to be a knight ….

Bran had believed that perhaps the Three-Eyed Crow was a wizard who would fix his legs. Too late, he found out that what Bloodraven really wanted was for him to remain trapped in a life he never wanted – a life of darkness and loneliness and sacrifice. He can watch the world go on, but he cannot call out for help.