Ravens logistics - (from TWOW Theon chapter)

[aryagonnakill]

Seems reasonable to me to assume the ravens act just like many real life birds, by use of magnetic poles they know the exact location of their home. Thus as many have said already here a Raven born at winterfell would then be shipped/taken to whiteharbor. That raven would then be used by manderly to send a message to the starks. Once that raven was back in winterfell it would be useless until it was brought to another place again.

[Mista C]

I wouldn't bother too much with the ravens. It's just something we have to accept. First of all, who trained the ravens? Did a maester show them how to get from Oldtown to Winterfell? How do you train a raven?

Don't think too much about it, and just accept it.

Agreed. When and how were the thousands of ravens flying throughout Westeros trained?

Seems reasonable to me to assume the ravens act just like many real life birds, by use of magnetic poles they know the exact location of their home. Thus as many have said already here a Raven born at winterfell would then be shipped/taken to whiteharbor. That raven would then be used by manderly to send a message to the starks. Once that raven was back in winterfell it would be useless until it was brought to another place again.

Agree with this as well. But talk about a total logistical nightmare and pain in the ass. And who's responsibility would it be to distribute ravens to all other major houses? Seems like if you and your house want to be able to get mail from other houses, you've got to disperse (via cages/wagons/horse) your ravens, that know how to fly back to your castle, all across the land to all the houses. If you only send your trained ravens to certain houses, then that would mean that you cannot get mail from any of the houses that you did not send trained ravens to. Especially with someplace like, say the Iron Islands, this gets even trickier. So if the logic stands, only ravens born there can fly back there, so the Iron Islanders would have had to raise and train a fleet of ravens that know how to fly back to the Iron Islands. They would have then had to "deliver" these trained ravens to every major house from Dorne to the wall so that in the event someone at Storm's End wants to send a raven to the Iron Islands, they would have one or however many. If Storm's End never has any reason to send mail to the Iron Islands, then the raven from the Iron Islands that is trained to fly back there just sits in his cage for years and years until it dies I guess.

It gives me a headache just trying to figure it out.

[Lord Martin]

I have a feeling GRRM will regret telling us how the ravens work. The chance of inconsistencies have gone up significantly.

For instance, we know Theon killed all the ravens when he took Winterfell so Luwin couldn't send out messages (apologies if thats a TV only thing, though I am fairly certain it happened in the book too). So where did the Dredfort's Maester get the Winterfell birds? No one from Winterfell has been sending out Ravens since Theon took the castle. The last messages before that were Robb calling his banners. So how did the Winterfell birds get to the Dredfort... should we just assume that the Dredfort's maester had them?

Similarly, how difficult would it have been to organize the Red Wedding? Were did they find birds trained to go to Harrenhal when it had been abandoned by Lady Whent?

IMO, the details of ravenry should have been left to our imagination... now theres just that much more for GRRM to have to cross check when telling his story...

[Team_Rob]

Okay, I've changed my mind. Stannis asks Tybald if the ravens would return to the Dreadfort or go to Winterfell. It would seem there's only one possibility. Since the ravens presumably came from the Dreadfort, it stands to reason that they're specially trained to fly to Winterfell and no other place.

So, it seems that if a raven is trained to fly to Winterfell you could take it anywhere in Westeros and it would find its way to Winterfell.

Thanks. This had me muffed as well. I'll have to read it again now that I have a better understanding. From Theon's reaction, I knew it was important, but I was still confused.

[Arry Underfoot]

I think they can always find home. The text supports this when Victorion thinks about the birds the Crow's Eye sent with him on his trip to Meereen.

[bemused]

Theon didn't kill the WF ravens..neither did Ramsay.

When they return to WF for " Arya's " wedding we see ravens in the Godswood and perching in the ruins of Maester Luwin's rookery. It's mentioned that the 3 borrowed Maesters accompanying Roose are there, in part , to take charge of Luwin's ravens .

[Mista C]

I have a feeling GRRM will regret telling us how the ravens work. The chance of inconsistencies have gone up significantly.

Similarly, how difficult would it have been to organize the Red Wedding? Were did they find birds trained to go to Harrenhal when it had been abandoned by Lady Whent?

IMO, the details of ravenry should have been left to our imagination... now theres just that much more for GRRM to have to cross check when telling his story...

Great points! GRRM most definately should have just kept this quiet and up to us to figure out. I have to admit, since this thread was started, I've now thought more about how the ravens work than at any point while actually reading the first five books... I used to just take it for what it was. Now I want to know exact details. Ravens that fly to Harrenhal? How?

[Mista C]

Theon didn't kill the WF ravens..neither did Ramsay.

When they return to WF for " Arya's " wedding we see ravens in the Godswood and perching in the ruins of Maester Luwin's rookery. It's mentioned that the 3 borrowed Maesters accompanying Roose are there, in part , to take charge of Luwin's ravens .

I would imagine that ravens at any castle's rookery are kept in cages with the name of where they are trained to fly marked on the cage, correct? So if you need a raven to fly to Riverrun, you open the cage marked "Riverrun" and fix your message to that raven, then release it.

So here's another stumper... after the three borrowed Maesters at Winterfell collect and re-cage all of the ravens perched amongst the Godswood and in the rookery ruins, how on earth would they know where each of the ravens was trained to fly to?

[Free Northman]

I have a feeling GRRM will regret telling us how the ravens work. The chance of inconsistencies have gone up significantly.

For instance, we know Theon killed all the ravens when he took Winterfell so Luwin couldn't send out messages (apologies if thats a TV only thing, though I am fairly certain it happened in the book too). So where did the Dredfort's Maester get the Winterfell birds? No one from Winterfell has been sending out Ravens since Theon took the castle. The last messages before that were Robb calling his banners. So how did the Winterfell birds get to the Dredfort... should we just assume that the Dredfort's maester had them?

Similarly, how difficult would it have been to organize the Red Wedding? Were did they find birds trained to go to Harrenhal when it had been abandoned by Lady Whent?

IMO, the details of ravenry should have been left to our imagination... now theres just that much more for GRRM to have to cross check when telling his story...

I think you misunderstand how the raven system works.

Ravens that can reach Winterfell are not kept at Winterfell. They are kept at all the other keeps that might want to send a message to Winterfell. The ravens killed by Theon were mostly ravens kept by Maester Luwin with which he would send messages to the Last Hearth, the Dreadfort, Bear Island, White Harbor, Barrowton, Deepwood Motte and all the other vassal lords in the North.

Meaning, they mostly originated from places other than Winterfell. The only Winterfell birds kept at Winterfell, are probably juvenile birds that had recently been born, and which had not yet reached the point in adulthood where they get shipped off to various other castles in the realm.

So every other castle in the realm would still have their previous stock of Winterfell-hatchlings - sometimes kept for years until such time as they had the need to send a bird to Winterfell. Hence, the birds from the Dreadfort that could fly to Winterfell would be from a batch of hatchlings that left Winterfell prior to Theon's destruction of the Raven stocks in Winterfell.

[Lord Martin]

I think you misunderstand how the raven system works.

Ravens that can reach Winterfell are not kept at Winterfell.

Yes they are. There would be many birds at Winterfell that are trained to fly only to Winterfell, there would also be other birds designated for other castles.

Winterfell, being the capital of the North, presumably receives more "mail" than other castles and therefore must raise more birds than other castles. (All this assumes birds are trained to return to their "home" castle.) The hatchlings are raised there as you say. Plus every bird that is sent there w/ a message must stay there until transported to another castle. So when Bran gets letters from the South in ACOK, where do those birds go next? Back to the Lord who sent them? Onto another Lord who needs Winterfell bound birds? But they don't go right away, they stay until physically moved elsewhere.

That said, its quite possible the Dreadfort maester brought the Winterfell birds from the Dreadfort... that makes perfectly good sense. But is also possible he just grabbed birds from Winterfell that had already carried messages there and were awaiting future use.

And if the other posters are correct that the Winterfell ravens were in the Godswood at WF, then I agree with the question, how the hell do you tell where the raven is trained to fly?

[ManyFacedMember]

Maybe ravens are marked in some way. Small tattoo, or similar.

Maybe ravens can say what is their destination (this is stretch i think)

[bemused]

I think that the people of Westeros could think of banding the ravens ? ( and Tybald could have removed the bands on the ones he took to Stannis' camp)

But really, once Luwin's rookery was destroyed and the ravens set free , why wouldn't the birds from other locations fly home ? Those now in WF may all be Winterfell birds.

If Roose is planning on having Ramsay and "Arya" take up residence at WF, lines of communication would need to be re-established. With WF sitting abandoned for.. how long ? ... other holds haven't been recieving WF ravens as per usual , and may not have many , or any by now.

[The Giver]

I think something that might help straighten out how the ravens would get back to different castles relates to visiting. I'm not sure how this would work for smaller castles, but for Winterfell, there were always bannermen coming to visit. I believe Bran mentions this in AGOT. Couldn't they just take back ravens with them after each visit?

[Screamer]

I would imagine that ravens at any castle's rookery are kept in cages with the name of where they are trained to fly marked on the cage, correct? So if you need a raven to fly to Riverrun, you open the cage marked "Riverrun" and fix your message to that raven, then release it.

So here's another stumper... after the three borrowed Maesters at Winterfell collect and re-cage all of the ravens perched amongst the Godswood and in the rookery ruins, how on earth would they know where each of the ravens was trained to fly to?

They are all micro chipped????