Hanging Freys and Swiping Crowns

[Lion of Judah]

Lady Stoneheart will know about Robb's will, this theory makes me wonder if she will honor said will and turn the crown over to Jon.

[Summer is Ending]

I'd like to take a step back and ask another question-- How did Nymeria find Cat's body? Originally I thought this was a little contrived but it worked so I didn't dwell on it.

We know Bloodraven watches over Bran and have some fairly strong evidence that he watches Jon through Mormont's raven. Is he watching the other Stark children too? In going through the Arya reread there's a number of suspiciously Bloodraven-like possibilities and Sansa has things like (thank you brashcandy) this:

He's been watching the Starks for a long time apparently.

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. And now you are come to me at last, Brandon Stark, though the hour is late.”

[Lord Bronn Stokeworth]

I'd like to take a step back and ask another question-- How did Nymeria find Cat's body? Originally I thought this was a little contrived but it worked so I didn't dwell on it.

We know Bloodraven watches over Bran and have some fairly strong evidence that he watches Jon through Mormont's raven. Is he watching the other Stark children too? In going through the Arya reread there's a number of suspiciously Bloodraven-like possibilities and Sansa has things like (thank you brashcandy) this:

Did Bloodraven have a role in Nymeria finding Cat's body and did he have an agenda beyond helping Arya make some sort of peace with her mother dying? Might that agenda have something to do with the crown?

I don't have any specific idea yet but unlike our dear friend Melisandre, Bloodraven actually has a solid track record for seeing the future and Nymeria finding Cat's body is a curious coincidence.

ETA: During Sandor's trial the Old God imagery is pretty intense (the cave seems very much like the one Bran ends up in) and Berric descends a weirwood staircase with his missing eye making him seem rather Bloodraven-esque so there's at least some symbolic ties to him and the Brotherhood.

It could be Bran too since time isn't linear through the weirwoods.

I like the idea about possible Old God influence in the Sandor trial, but not on Berric's side. I wonder if Bloodraven/Bran could have influenced it somehow to insure Sandor won. He seems to have a larger role to play with the Stark girls (going by Bran's dream). Also, the whole BWB seems to have taken a nasty turn since Stoneheart took over. It was probably best that Arya not be around her. Even if I am wrong and Stoneheart is 100% Cat, I don't think she would be a good influence on Arya who needs to stop her hatred rather than nursing it.

[Tagganaro]

I'd like to take a step back and ask another question-- How did Nymeria find Cat's body? Originally I thought this was a little contrived but it worked so I didn't dwell on it.

We know Bloodraven watches over Bran and have some fairly strong evidence that he watches Jon through Mormont's raven. Is he watching the other Stark children too? In going through the Arya reread there's a number of suspiciously Bloodraven-like possibilities and Sansa has things like (thank you brashcandy) this:

Did Bloodraven have a role in Nymeria finding Cat's body and did he have an agenda beyond helping Arya make some sort of peace with her mother dying? Might that agenda have something to do with the crown?

I don't have any specific idea yet but unlike our dear friend Melisandre, Bloodraven actually has a solid track record for seeing the future and Nymeria finding Cat's body is a curious coincidence.

ETA: During Sandor's trial the Old God imagery is pretty intense (the cave seems very much like the one Bran ends up in) and Berric descends a weirwood staircase with his missing eye making him seem rather Bloodraven-esque so there's at least some symbolic ties to him and the Brotherhood.

This is so interesting. Another thing of interest- Nymeria and her pack just recover the body and flee when Beric gets there right? I don't know if that's a rarity, but I thought it seemed kind of odd when there were all sorts of stories about the wolves just attacking armed groups and people in broad daylight now. I could be wrong about the details though- It just struck me as somewhat odd that Nymeria and her pack would just run away like that.

[A Crow Come Over]

Lady Stoneheart will know about Robb's will, this theory makes me wonder if she will honor said will and turn the crown over to Jon.

^This

[The Dragon has three heads]

AM:

Is it possible tht brynden had the crown flaunted in his face during the early days of the siege and knew it was in Frey hands when he went to meet up with(we can assume) the BWB after his escape from river run? Tom could only have got messages to other riders leaving the siege, but it's also possible.

Will she crown Job though, I'm not sure, I would be getting chills as I read it, no doubt, but if she got word of Rickon, or Bran, all bets are off.

-perhaps after she crowns Jon and unites the north he steps aside for Rickon and re takes the black or starts the watch a new...hmmm....

[Ragnorak]

If unCat travelled into the Neck and disappeared into the swamps that strongly implies a meeting with the crannogmen and possibly Howland. If Robb's will was a topic, what are the chances that Howland tells Cat a certain truth about Jon? What does that mean for or against the crown being the focus?

I have wondered if the Hollow Hill where the Brotherhood hides is beneath High Heart. It seems to be underneath a sacred weirwood grove regardless of where it is. It is a minor point, but I wondered about Thoros and his powers in such a place based on what the Ghost of Highheart said.

“Look in your fires, pink priest, and you will see. Not now, though, not here, you’ll see nothing here. This place belongs to the old gods still… they linger here as I do, shrunken and feeble but not yet dead. Nor do they love the flames. For the oak recalls the acorn, the acorn dreams the oak, the stump lives in them both. And they remember when the First Men came with fire in their fists.”

The seeming antipathy between the magical powers of fire and the Old Gods makes Thoros and his risen Beric an odd pair to occupy what looks like an old greenseer cave. It makes me suspect a Bloodraven connection even more. Compare the passages where Arya sees Beric and Brran sees Bloodraven. They're quite similar.

The walls were equal parts stone and soil, with huge white roots twisting through them like a thousand slow pale snakes. People were emerging from between those roots as she watched; edging out from the shadows for a look at the captives, stepping from the mouths of pitch-black tunnels, popping out of crannies and crevices on all sides. In one place on the far side of the fire, the roots formed a kind of stairway up to a hollow in the earth where a man sat almost lost in the tangle of weirwood.

The voice came from the man seated amongst the weirwood roots halfway up the wall. “Six score of us set out to bring the king’s justice to your brother.” The speaker was descending the tangle of steps toward the floor. “Six score brave men and true, led by a fool in a starry cloak.” A scarecrow of a man, he wore a ragged black cloak speckled with stars and an iron breastplate dinted by a hundred battles. A thicket of red-gold hair hid most of his face, save for a bald spot above his left ear where his head had been smashed in. “More than eighty of our company are dead now, but others have taken up the swords that fell from their hands.” When he reached the floor, the outlaws moved aside to let him pass. One of his eyes was gone, Arya saw, the flesh about the socket scarred and puckered, and he had a dark black ring all around his neck. “With their help, we fight on as best we can, for Robert and the realm.”

The roots were everywhere, twisting through earth and stone, closing off some passages and holding up the roofs of others. All the color is gone, Bran realized suddenly. The world was black soil and white wood. The heart tree at Winterfell had roots as thick around as a giant’s legs, but these were even thicker. And Bran had never seen so many of them. There must be a whole grove of weirwoods growing up above us.

Before them a pale lord in ebon finery sat dreaming in a tangled nest of roots, a woven weirwood throne that embraced his withered limbs as a mother does a child.

His body was so skeletal and his clothes so rotted that at first Bran took him for another corpse, a dead man propped up so long that the roots had grown over him, under him, and through him. What skin the corpse lord showed was white, save for a bloody blotch that crept up his neck onto his cheek. His white hair was fine and thin as root hair and long enough to brush against the earthen floor. Roots coiled around his legs like wooden serpents. One burrowed through his breeches into the desiccated flesh of his thigh, to emerge again from his shoulder. A spray of dark red leaves sprouted from his skull, and grey mushrooms spotted his brow. A little skin remained, stretched across his face, tight and hard as white leather, but even that was fraying, and here and there the brown and yellow bone beneath was poking through.

“Are you the three-eyed crow?” Bran heard himself say. A three-eyed crow should have three eyes. He has only one, and that one red. Bran could feel the eye staring at him, shining like a pool of blood in the torchlight. Where his other eye should have been, a thin white root grew from an empty socket, down his cheek, and into his neck.

[Lord Damian]

UnCat wants her daughters back, so, lets suppose unCat intends on crowning her favorite child, sansa with it. She did not care for Jon before, why would she now. She seems determined to have the oath fulfilled in getting her daughters back in exchange for her releasing Jaime. After all, it did cost her Robb's life and for the now, the Kingdom.

[Sevumar]

The presence of the crown on campaign with Ryman makes it seem like this item was explicitly not valued by the Freys, and its presence on Ryman's prostitute seals the show of contempt for the betrayer's crown. If Lord Walder or the Lannisters valued it as a trophy, it would've been kept somewhere secure, as suggested in the original post.

I think it's most likely that the crown is just a focal point for Stoneheart's grief, as it's the only remaining motivation she possesses. It also doesn't add up that she and her allies keep killing Freys and collaborators after the crown is in her hands, if the crown was the "real prize" all along. I think it's just a symbol and a bit of continuity.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

I think it's most likely that the crown is just a focal point for Stoneheart's grief, as it's the only remaining motivation she possesses. It also doesn't add up that she and her allies keep killing Freys and collaborators after the crown is in her hands, if the crown was the "real prize" all along. I think it's just a symbol and a bit of continuity.

Just to be clear, I'm saying the crown was the focal point in that particular attack, not that it's the focal point of the entire Frey-hanging campaign.

[Sevumar]

Just to be clear, I'm saying the crown was the focal point in that particular attack, not that it's the focal point of the entire Frey-hanging campaign.

OK, that seems more plausible. I think the crown is something she'd want to have as a last link to Robb, but it doesn't seem to me like there's value to the crown beyond symbolism to Northern forces and sentimental value to Stoneheart.

[Tyrion_is_Omar]

Lady Stoneheart will know about Robb's will, this theory makes me wonder if she will honor said will and turn the crown over to Jon.

Would be a nice closure for Jon/Cat's relationship and I do believe that there are going to be some plot, relationships, characters's cloures on the next book. And would give to Jon, if the theory of the Northern conspiracy is true, a really strong start with the north, the brotherhood without banners and blackfish recognising him as their leader.

but, my two problems are:

- I don't think that the RW was enough motive to change Cat's mind about who should be Robb's heir. Unless that she decides to honor her son last wish and believes that Jon is the only one that can avenge Robb and rise the Stark again.

- That would be momentary because as soon as one of her childrens appears on the picture, she would take her support to Jon and would proclaim that Arya/Sansa/Rickon/Bran is the king/Queen in the north. And, I do believe that at least one of the children is going to be reunited with Jon in the next book.

[Ludd]

Cat will NEVER support Jon and indeed will war against him. She will crown Sansa (or Tyrion/Harry the Heir/LF) before Jon.

Cat is not of the North and will muck things up big time.

Cat will probably be the one to kill Jon. Ned's chapters in GoT foreshadowed this.

If Cat know Bran was alive she would crown HIM . Not so sure about Rickon - she neglected him when Bran was injured which I must say did not endear her to me.

While she may not have been at here best, Cat COULD have spent time cuddling Rickon while still sitting with Bran. It makes me think she did not favour him much. Just as she clearly favoured Sansa not Arya.

[The Dragon has three heads]

Never say never.

But remember she thinks all her children are dead or missing. She may turn to Jon to demand vengeance for her/their family.