The Last Hero tale by Old Nan foreshadows the deaths of ...

[Dagon]

If you subscribe to the Ragnarok theory, Sam will survive because he is Heimdallr, the one that blows the horn to signal the war.

[Lost Melnibonean]

but there wasn't only 12. If you are including bloodraven dont you have to include the other COTF in the cave as well? There is mention of at least 3 or 4 other COTF in the caves. so that makes the number higher than 12.

The COTF are not human. Bloodraven is not a COTF.

[Northernmonkey]

The COTF are not human. Bloodraven is not a COTF.

If they don't count then I don't think Coldhands does either.

I quite like this theory but I don't think the 12 companions fit so far. But Bran will probably meet more people in the next books.

[Lost Melnibonean]

Maybe Benjen Stark will be the last hero instead. He went North and lost all of his companions. Maybe he will end up coming to Bran and the children and Bran will be able to lend him aid. (Mostly crackpot but I don't have any better ideas as to what could be going on with Benjen :laugh: )

That's not crackpot at all...

All Bran could think of was Old Nan's story of the Others and the last hero, hounded through the white woods by dead men and spiders big as hounds. He was afraid for a moment, until he remembered how that story ended. "The children will help him," he blurted, "the children of the forest!"

[Lady Olenna]

It sounds very plausible and I certainly agree on the 12 people part, which I encountered in previous threads.

But if Sam or Hodor dies I'd cry my eyes out.

Hodor will die an honorable death, if he dies at all.

But Rickon won't die because he has yet to sit the throne. Rickon will be king.

[Lost Melnibonean]

Nevertheless, he carries out the role of the horse. Maybe he pulls double duty.

"Hodor's no horse," Bran said. --Bran II, Clash

[The Mother of The Others]

People do die in the arctic unless they're hooked up to a tree. So no big surprise there. It doesn't stop at 12 either--if there were anywhere from 5 to 7 additional people wandering about up there they'd keel over too because it's just too cold to survive without wrapping yourself in a blanket of roots and enjoying the photosynthesis.

And the total number of deaths needn't climb as high as 12 at all, because didn't we already believe Bran was the new last hero truth seeker even before he had any companions? So the deaths of 11 or 12 people aren't required to announce what we already see clearly without any companion deaths. So the deaths will just be a bonus; Bran was linked with that last hero storyline since the story was first told to us with him in the room. Glad to see you're part of the Rickon Must Die movement though. For Finger's full grandeur to unfurl, it's simply the right thing to do. Go too long without any Stark deaths and the reader starts to get cocky and the Starks begin to strut again. So Rickon's death should be a well-timed reminder of what's trending in Westeros.

Maybe these 12 names associated with Bran's journey are yet another sign that history is repeating like the dim echo of a gong that sounded so loud last time that it warped spacetime and trapped the world into living these terrible events over and over in a repeating pattern. This doppleganger history ensures Jon and Daenerys are surrounded by salt and smoke so they qualify as the new AA and that Bran sees 12 people on his journey because the Last Hero and the AA and all that jazz are manifestations of Jordan's Wheel of Time that circles like a widening gyre and Bran is both the Last Hero reincarnated and also the original Bran the Builder destined to return to the past and fulfill it by building Winterfell just the way he remembers each brick from climbing it.

[The Others Side]

Good thread but please don't talk about Shaggydog dying. He is the best direwolf.

agreed.

[Lost Melnibonean]

agreed.

Well, I think there might be some hope. With black fur and curiously green eyes, I wonder if he has a role to play in the upcoming dance of dragons?

[Lady Blizzardborn]

Bran did not go looking for the CotF to save humanity and defeat the Others. He also didn't set off with twelve companions. The Last Hero learned how to defeat the Others and actually fought them. Bran can't go out and fight them. And don't forget that we never heard the rest of the story.

Jojen is going to die, he said so. Bloodraven is probably going to. Meera and Hodor may or may not.

Coldhands doesn't count because he's already dead. And as the Ironborn tell us, what is dead may never die

Sam, Gilly and the baby only met up with Bran briefly. They are hardly companions on his journey.

Rickon and Shaggy...isn't it remotely possible that GRRM named the dog Shaggydog specifically to subvert that exact expectation? He loves messing with his readers. Why should this be an exception?

[Lost Melnibonean]

Bran did not go looking for the CotF to save humanity and defeat the Others. He also didn't set off with twelve companions. The Last Hero learned how to defeat the Others and actually fought them. Bran can't go out and fight them. And don't forget that we never heard the rest of the story.

Jojen is going to die, he said so. Bloodraven is probably going to. Meera and Hodor may or may not.

Coldhands doesn't count because he's already dead. And as the Ironborn tell us, what is dead may never die

Sam, Gilly and the baby only met up with Bran briefly. They are hardly companions on his journey.

Rickon and Shaggy...isn't it remotely possible that GRRM named the dog Shaggydog specifically to subvert that exact expectation? He loves messing with his readers. Why should this be an exception?

I wouldn't expect Bran's story to imitate Nan's partial telling of the LH legend, but The George wrote that for a reason.

[mb2518]

Is there any other foreshadowing that Rickon will die? Martin usually gives more than one clue.

[Lost Melnibonean]

Is there any other foreshadowing that Rickon will die? Martin usually gives more than one clue.

Rickon named his direwolf Shaggydog. A shaggydog story in a drama ends in futility after setting up expectations and unfulilled promise. Consider Hemingway's Old Man & the Sea where Santiago struggles to catch a great marlin and fights a heroic battle against sharks only to have his prize devoured by the time he returns. Or consider Steinbeck's Of Mice & Men where George and Lenny's dream dies when George has to kill Lennie to save him from a worse fate.

ETA: Neither of those stories are pointless btw. The George could have a shaggydog story in store for us to illustrate the cruelty or greed of man, barbarism of war, or the great perseverance of one man (Davos) who is unable to overcome despite a heroic but futile effort.

[Lost Melnibonean]

Well, I think there might be some hope. With black fur and curiously green eyes, I wonder if he has a role to play in the upcoming dance of dragons?

And there's this too...

Tyrion had only the vaguest memory of Theon Greyjoy from his time with the Starks. A callow youth, always smiling, skilled with a bow; it was hard to imagine him as Lord of Winterfell. The Lord of Winterfell would always be a Stark.

Tyrion XI, Clash

If that's true, it would appear that Rickon is the best candidate to rule WF.

[Lost Melnibonean]

"It is wolves I mean to hunt. I can scarcely sleep at night for the howling." Bolton buckled on his belt, adjusting the hang of sword and dagger. "It's said that direwolves once roamed the north in great packs of a hundred or more, and feared neither man nor mammoth, but that was long ago and in another land. It is queer to see the common wolves of the south so bold."

...

The hunting party returned near evenfall with nine dead wolves. Seven were adults, big grey-brown beasts, savage and powerful, their mouths drawn back over long yellow teeth by their dying snarls. But the other two had only been pups.

Arya X, Clash

Why seven adults and two pups? That specificity suggests some foreshadowing or symbolism. During the tale, we learn that three adult Starks were killed before Game: Rickard, Brandon & Lyanna. The Benjen is presumed dead and the Ned loses his head. Later we see Robb switch heads with Grey Wind and Catelyn floating in the river before Beric raises her from the dead. That's nine dead adult Starks.

So which two Stark pups will die? We can be pretty sure one will be Arya...

"Youll be sewing all through winter. When the spring thaw comes, they will find your body with a needle still locked tight between your frozen fingers."

Arya I, Game

But which will be the other? Bran seems pretty safe as he's set to become with a tree. That leaves Sansa and Rickon. Please place your bets...

[Lord Lothston]

A Shaggy dog story is a joke like the aristocrats that comedians tell. they share a base story structure and punchline then you fill in the rest with flavour. What you add to it and how you flesh the story out is the whole point of shaggy dog type story.

George isn't telling Rickons story at all. It cant be a shaggy dog story cause their is no story being told.

A bad joke/story teller only tells the key points of a shaggy dog story. A good one makes it into narrative of sorts. In the case of the aristocrats it is a test of the comedians skill level. I seem to lack the ability to explain it well but the wiki seems wrong or the Shaggy dog title is applied to some other story type

[mushroomshirt]

I hope Sam doesn't die before he discovers:

a. Alleras is Sarella

The sphinx is the riddle not the riddler.

This has to be important. The more I think about it the more I think Aemon must have been talking about Sarella. Who else?

[Lost Melnibonean]

The sphinx is the riddle not the riddler.

This has to be important. The more I think about it the more I think Aemon must have been talking about Sarella. Who else?

It is important...

I believe that Aegon is Aemon's sphinx--a chimera just like the manticore noted with the griffin and the dragon. The classical Greek sphinx would not allow anyone to pass unless he could solve the riddle posed by the sphinx. But in this case the sphinx--Aegon--is the riddle, being a Blackfyre and perhaps a Brightflame and a Bloodstar too. And if Daenerys doesn't guess the riddle Aegon will destroy her.

[Winterfell is Burning]

Bran did not go looking for the CotF to save humanity and defeat the Others. He also didn't set off with twelve companions. The Last Hero learned how to defeat the Others and actually fought them. Bran can't go out and fight them. And don't forget that we never heard the rest of the story.

Yeah, the whole theory is very much a stretch and I'm surprised people are buying it so easily.

[The Mother of The Others]

Alleras is being set up to solve the beast's riddle by killing it. (Archer slays dragon).

Aemon was talking about solving the riddle by..... solving it. (Wise man decodes statue's secret recipe for rekindling magic).

Alas, Deanerys with her pyre was an idiot savant (genius) who was adept enough to decode the sphinx's riddle without the help of the wise. ...... Errrrr, well, you know. She needs the Wise to start advising the hell out of her, actually, but she figured out the sphinx riddle ala natural without any help, and so made herself the frontrunner to be Aemon's promised princess.

But as for Alleras being what Aemon was talking about? No. She wasn't born when Aemon got sent packing to the wall. He don't know her from a donkey fart. Alleras took her Sphinx nickname from.... the big multi-species statue standing in front of Aemon's college, which he would remember. And he doesn't know Aegon is alive so he wouldn't be all hyped about anything related to that guy, though I did like that last lil' bit about Aegon being the sphinx riddle. That'd be a neat "real" answer to the riddle: the PTWP passes society's test and is accepted as the realm's messiah because of being a mix of just the right bloodlines so everybody sort of gives him/her a pass, and each bloodline would be an animal species on the sphinx statue, and each might have saucy blood magic powers to add to the equation. That's hot, but is it what Aemon was so excited about up in the cold?