Brandon’s Blood Seal (Part 1) – What’s in a Name

(Top Image: Wolves of the North, by Cristi Balanescu. Depicting Ned Stark in the godswood with Ice and two direwolves prowling)

In 2019, George RR Martin’s visited Castle Ward of Northern Ireland, the night before the start of Titancon in Belfast. Castle Ward was the set for Winterfell and the Inn of the Crossroads in the show. The event started with a podium interview, followed by a bbq dinner with George meeting the people who had bought tickets for it. I was one of the people who got to meet George that night, sat with him on a bench in a tent, not that much different than Robb’s armies once did at the Twins. And no, this feast did not end in a red wedding.

George RR Martin at Castle Ward (2019) and meeting
George RR Martin speaking at Castle Ward (left), meeting George RR Martin (right), August 2019

During the stage interview, George answered the audience’s prepicked question about his choice for the name Bran, and whether this was because the name means raven or crow. He explained that he knew its etymological meaning, but it was not the reason why he picked the name. He just wanted a strong sounding one and Bran was it. He simply liked the name.

This does not mean, however, that George did not incorporate the name’s meaning visually and symbolically after choosing it. The etymological meaning for names is not irrelevant. But it is not a reason why he selects a name for his main characters. In the clip below of an interview, George explains he needs to choose a name first, before he can write about a character.

He began to write aSoIaF, because the scenes of Bran’s first chapter kept intruding into his writing of a never published novel Avalon. And so, we can be certain that Bran was one of the first names he chose. We also know that he prefers to write out one POV first, before moving on to the next. In other words, much of the imagery after Bran’s first chapter followed from the initial scenes and the choosing of Bran’s name, which then bleeds over in the next POV, etc.

Index

The Brandons

So, Bran means raven or crow in Old Welsh, but also refers to the biological process of decay following from bacteria and fungal action. Bran is also a shortened version of Brandon, which means chieftain or prince in Old Irish (breenhin). This implies that whenever Meera or Jojen refer to Bran as their prince, they are calling him their Brandon.

In Old English Brandon can also mean beacon hill  (brom + dun). This of course immediately brings Battle Isle and the beacon of the Hightower to mind. Regardless on whether Brandon the Builder or his son Brandon helped build the tower, we can see why George wants us to associate Brandon with the Hightower.

The first “high tower,” the chroniclers tell us, was made of wood and rose some fifty feet above the ancient fortress that was its foundation. Neither it, nor the taller timber towers that followed in the centuries to come, were meant to be a dwelling; they were purely beacon towers, built to light a path for trading ships up the fog-shrouded waters of Whispering Sound. The early Hightowers lived amidst the gloomy halls, vaults, and chambers of the strange stone below. It was only with the building of the fifth tower, the first to be made entirely of stone, that the Hightower became a seat worthy of a great house. That tower, we are told, rose two hundred feet above the harbor. Some say it was designed by Brandon the Builder, whilst others name his son, another Brandon; the king who demanded it, and paid for it, is remembered as Uthor of the High Tower. (tWoIaF – The Reach: Oldtown)

The beacon is also used as a sign to call the banners to war – they do so with a green flame, which likely would be wildfire.

Atop the Hightower, the great beacon fire turned a baleful green as Lord Martyn Hightower called his banners. (Fire & Blood – The Sons of the Dragon)

The word brand means fierce or fire. In Dutch we refer to a fire as a brand. In English you still retain this meaning with firebrand or in the branding of someone (with a hot poker). This is derived from Old French brand or brant (“sword”) and brandon (“kindle material”). Hence brand also means a torch or flaming sword. So, perhaps we should regard the name Brandon as brand-on, or more precisely “flaming sword on” (for the bolt-on fans, wink wink) or “light the sword” with flame.

It therefore is fair to conclude that the crows on top of the broken tower during Bran’s climb and the image of the Three-Eyed Crow in Bran’s coma dream followed from George’s choice of the name he liked for Bran. And even the idea of a magical flaming sword Lightbringer goes back to the name choice of Bran, after including the longer name Brandon.

So to sum up, Bran and Brandon cover the following meanings:

  • Bran: raven, crow
  • Brand: fire, sword => torch or flaming sword
  • Brandon:
    • chieftain, prince
    • beacon hill
    • kindle material

Brandon is an almost exclusive name for the Stark lineage. Of the twenty two mentioned Brandons, only four are not Starks:

  • the alleged forefather Brandon of the Bloody Blade from the Reach, son of Garth the Green. He is the sole Brandon associated to a completely different region than the North.
  • The Norrey, Brandon Norrey, who visits the Night’s Watch for Alys Karstark’s wedding and brings a wet nurse to Castle Black.
  • his son and heir Brandon “The Younger” Norrey, who joined Stannis’ campaign to free Deepwood Motte and capture Winterfell
  • Brandon Tallhart, son of the castellan Leobald Tallhart, and held captive at Torrhen Square by the Ironborn.

Of the eighteen Brandon Starks only two are textually referred to as Bran: POV Bran Stark and the founder of House Stark, Brandon the Builder. This invites us to consider parallels between POV Bran and the Builder. The other Brandon Stark that is up for parallel scrutiny is Bran’s late uncle, since Bran was named after his dead uncle.

And then there is this quote from Bran’s POV.

“I could tell you the story about Brandon the Builder,” Old Nan said. “That was always your favorite.”
Thousands and thousands of years ago, Brandon the Builder had raised Winterfell, and some said the Wall. Bran knew the story, but it had never been his favorite. Maybe one of the other Brandons had liked that story. Sometimes Nan would talk to him as if he were her Brandon, the baby she had nursed all those years ago, and sometimes she confused him with his uncle Brandon, who was killed by the Mad King before Bran was even born. She had lived so long, Mother had told him once, that all the Brandon Starks had become one person in her head. (aGoT, Bran IV)

In other words, if we wish to learn more about Brandon the Builder’s story, we must look at all the other Brandons for potential hints, for in the head of the “storyteller” all the Brandons are one. We know this is in relaton to the Builder, because that is the story Old Nan wanted to tell.

So, for example, the story about baby Brandon that Old Nan nursed, may be a clue that baby Builder had a wetnurse, because his mother was unavaiilable. By itself this seems extremely speculative, but not that unlikely a guess when the whole wetnurse theme pops up again with Jon Snow and Edric Dayne being milk brothers, and Brandon “The” Norrey bringing a wetnurse for a motherless infant to Castle Black.

Which Brandon?

This example of speculation seems rather inconsequentional. But with Bran’s uncle Brandon Stark we get quite interesting scenes with noteworthy symbolical meaning. Lady Barbrey Dustin mentions how Brandon Stark loved his bloody sword.

“Brandon loved his sword. He loved to hone it. ‘I want it sharp enough to shave the hair from a woman’s cunt,’ he used to say. And how he loved to use it. ‘A bloody sword is a beautiful thing,’ he told me once.” (aDwD, The Turncloak)

She clarifies that this is not just about a physical sword, but Brandon’s penis and how he loves taking a woman’s virginity, getting his “sword” bloody. And then in the World Book we learn that Brandon the Builder’s ancestor or father was Brandon of the Bloody Blade, son of Garth the Green. The World Book explains this nickname as having come about for this ancestral Brandon killed a lot of children of the forest in the Reach. But via Brandon “Bloody Sword” Stark, we now have a literary connection to assume that Brandon of the Bloody Blade was as much a philanderer of highborn daughters as Brandon Stark is implied to have been. And this then raises several questions

  • Who was the Builder’s mother?
  • What was the Builder’s birth status?

Houses in the Reach who stipulate a connection to Garth via one of his children, usually also include who Garth’s son or daughter wed. Not so for Brandon the Builder’s lineage. Maybe his mother was a smallfolk beauty. If so, then Brandon the Builder was born a bastard amongst the smallfolk. Or maybe his mother was a higborn daughter who had an out of wedlock dalliance with Brandon of the Bloody Blade. This would make Brandon the Builder a highborn bastard. Especially in the latter case, that seeming inoccuous hint for the Builder having had a wetnurse begins to gel.

Or how about Bran’s visit into the crypts with maester Luwin after he dreamt about his father Ned Stark being down there? As they walk towards Ned Stark’s “empty” tomb, down the vault, Luwin asks Bran to recite his history and ancestry to Osha, who carries Bran.

“Do you recall your history, Bran?” the maester said as they walked. “Tell Osha who they were and what they did, if you can.” He looked at the passing faces and the tales came back to him. The maester had told him the stories, and Old Nan had made them come alive. (aGoT, Bran VII)

When they reach Ned Stark’s prepared tomb, Maester Luwin reaches inside the tomb to prove it is empty, but out jumps Shaggydog. As Luwin defends himself against the direwolf’s attack, he lets his torch fly in the air and it ends up kissing the cheek of Brandon Stark’s statue. [Luwin] thrust his arm into the blackness inside the tomb, as into the mouth of some great beast.

Bran saw eyes like green fire, a flash of teeth, fur as black as the pit around them. Maester Luwin yelled and threw up his hands. The torch went flying from his fingers, caromed off the stone face of Brandon Stark, and tumbled to the statue’s feet, the flames licking up his legs. (aGoT, Bran VII)

Shaggydog’s eyes are compared to green fire. First of all “green eyes” stand for “greenseeing”, while fire is something that we tend to associate with dragons and R’hllor. But green fire is wildfire: a coming together of greenseeing with fire.

And then we literally witness fire “caroming” (gently touching, aka kissing) Brandon’s face, to then lick his legs. A few paragraphs earlier, George already compared the flame of the torch to a tongue, as they pass the statues of Kings in the North.

“They were the Kings in the North for thousands of years,” Maester Luwin said, lifting the torch high so the light shone on the stone faces. Some were hairy and bearded, shaggy men fierce as the wolves that crouched by their feet. Others were shaved clean, their features gaunt and sharp-edged as the iron longswords across their laps. “Hard men for a hard time. Come.” He strode briskly down the vault, past the procession of stone pillars and the endless carved figures. A tongue of flame trailed back from the upraised torch as he went. (aGoT, Bran VII)

The tongue of fire is said to “trail back”, which is an allusion to going back in time. When we consider the whole context, including Bran’s histories, we can determine this scene is aimed at shedding a light on the past. In fact, the crypts represent and depict the past. The statues with iron swords in their lap are an ancient custom. Each and every lord and king of House Stark has been depicted seated on a throne with a direwolf at his feet and a sword in his lap.

“The steps go farther down,” observed Lady Dustin.
“There are lower levels. Older. The lowest level is partly collapsed, I hear. I have never been down there.” (aDwD, The Turncloak)

The crypts, statues and their swords are a favourite mystery amongst readers to speculate and wonder about. Why are the older levels deeper? Does it not make more sense that when you dig a crypt, you only dig six feet for the older generations, and then deeper over time for the newer kings? Were the pre-Andal crypt swords made of bronze instead of iron? Did they make a statue for Brandon the Builder in the lowest vault? The answer has been staring us in the face since Bran arrived at Bloodraven’s cave.

  • In Bran’s second chapter of aGoT, he informs us that the grounds of Winterfell within the walls are not levelled, but consist of hills and valleys.
  • Bran also tells us that the crypts’ vaults are cavernous and longer than winterfell itself.
  • Winterfell has a natural underground hot spring.
  • Bloodraven’s cave north of the Wall is littered with bones of dead greenseers and their animals they skinchanged: a graveyard.
  • Thrones are made of weirwood roots for greenseers or apprentices.

Hot Springs are either caused by shallow flows of magma or via circulation of water or gas through faults as far as the hot rock deep in the planet’s crust. Since there is no record or legend of volcanic activity in or near Winterfell, its hotsprings are the result of circulation through faults. The heat itself is always a result of radioactive decay of natural elements in a planet’s mantle, the layer beneath the crust. In other words, Winterfell has a cave system going deep into the earth and crust. The crypts never needed to be dug out at all! That is why the oldest graves are deeper beneath the ground and why the crypts are cavernous and longer than Winterfell’s perimeter.

And where are greenseers trained? How do they prolong their lives? They sit on weirwood thrones made of roots and moss, with their animals close for a second life, in hollow hills and cave systems, beneath a weirwood tree. Where do they die? On those thrones. What happens to their bones? They remain where they died.

“Bones,” said Bran. “It’s bones.” The floor of the passage was littered with the bones of birds and beasts. But there were other bones as well, big ones that must have come from giants and small ones that could have been from children. On either side of them, in niches carved from the stone, skulls looked down on them. Bran saw a bear skull and a wolf skull, half a dozen human skulls and near as many giants. All the rest were small, queerly formed. Children of the forest. The roots had grown in and around and through them, every one. (aDwD, Bran II)

Bran’s description of the graveyard of greenseers and the animals they skinchanged in Bloodraven’s cave most likely describes what would be found in the lowest partially collapsed vault of the Winterfell crypts. When you realize that Brandon the Builder’s last years of life was that of a greenseer on a weirwood throne, deep underground, and so were his earliest descendants, then it becomes very obvious why the Starks started this tradition of making seated statues of their ruling Starks on thrones in that cave system.

As Hodor he explored the caves. He found chambers full of bones, shafts that plunged deep into the earth, a place where the skeletons of gigantic bats hung upside down from the ceiling. He even crossed the slender stone bridge that arched over the abyss and discovered more passages and chambers on the far side. One was full of singers, enthroned like Brynden in nests of weirwood roots that wove under and through and around their bodies. Most of them looked dead to him, but as he crossed in front of them their eyes would open and follow the light of his torch, and one of them opened and closed a wrinkled mouth as if he were trying to speak.(aDwD, Bran III)

Greenseers dream and sit on thrones for an extended part of their life, but they also die on those thrones and their bones remain where they died. A new weirwood throne is created for a new greenseer, and so on, and thrones can even be made in the readiness for young living greenseers, both for training and later, when they are old, to prolong their life.

The statue of Bran’s uncle, Brandon Stark, therefore embodies a greenseer kissed by fire, a wildfire greenseer, like Bloodraven (who is a greenseer with dragonlord blood), and that greenseer would have been the man referred to as Brandon the Builder. We know “kissed by fire” certainly does not apply literally to Bran’s dead uncle. Brandon “Bloody Sword” Stark did not die in wildfire flames. Instead he choked himself on a torture tool while trying to reach for his sword in the hope to save his father from being cooked in his armor by wildfire.

And then there is the “namesake” thought of Bran in relation to his uncle. This is how his POV words it.

Brandon took his namesake’s, the sword made for the uncle he had never known. He knew he would not be much use in a fight, but even so the blade felt good in his hand. (aCoK, Bran VII)

Note how Bran is referred to as Brandon here (a rare occasion), and that his uncle is made the namesake of Bran. But Bran’s uncle Brandon Stark could not be the namesake of his nephew Bran, since the first died long before the second was born. It only works if Brandon Stark was a namesake of another greenseer Brandon, which would have been the Builder.

The tradition of the statues in the crypts preserves the memory of their beginnings, of their founder, even though the present day Starks like Ned Stark have come to believe that children of the forest and greenseers are mere fairytales, let alone how they operate or where they reside.

[Ned] swept the lantern in a wide semicircle. Shadows moved and lurched. Flickering light touched the stones underfoot and brushed against a long procession of granite pillars that marched ahead, two by two, into the dark. Between the pillars, the dead sat on their stone thrones against the walls, backs against the sepulchres that contained their mortal remains. […] The Lords of Winterfell watched them pass. Their likenesses were carved into the stones that sealed the tombs. In long rows they sat, blind eyes staring out into eternal darkness, while great stone direwolves curled round their feet. The shifting shadows made the stone figures seem to stir as the living passed by. (aGoT, Eddard I)

Even the making of a weirwood throne for a greenseer child in training, such as Bran, has been incorporated in the Stark’s burial practices: the tombs for the living children are already assigned and prepared.

[Arya]’d been just a little girl the first time she saw [the crypts of Winterfell]. Her brother Robb had taken them down, her and Sansa and baby Bran, who’d been no bigger than Rickon was now. They’d only had one candle between them, and Bran’s eyes had gotten as big as saucers as he stared at the stone faces of the Kings of Winter, with their wolves at their feet and their iron swords across their laps. Robb took them all the way down to the end, past Grandfather and Brandon and Lyanna, to show them their own tombs. (aGoT, Arya IV)

This then might explain why the wives of the Kings and Lords are not buried inside the crypts, but daughters are (even though they normally do not get statues). And this is likely the origin of the belief that there always must be a Stark in Winterfell. This was not just the seat of the Kings of Winter, but the sacred seat of greenseer kings and their students, where they enhanced their powers in the darkness beneath the hills.

We can even find an allusion to this in the etymological meaning of -fell of the name Winterfell. Wizz-the-Smith mentions in his essay on Hollow Hills that –fell means hill. But it encompasses all of the following:

  • The most obvious one would be to fell or strike down or cut down winter
  • It also means skin or pelt. In Dutch we still say vel.
  • Thirdly it means hill or mountain.
  • And finally it means strong, fierce, but also terrible and cruel. Which conflates with the meaning for stark.

So, –fell is a great suffix to encompass both the characterization of the severe Stark Kings of Winter as well as skinchanging beneath a hill. I have already mentioned the many hints we get via Bran’s description of the layour of Winterfell and the existence of hot springs that Winterfell is indeed a hill with a cave system beneath it, and how this view resolves a great many questions about the crypts. The Starks never needed to dig out tunnels to create the crypts of their dead, because it was a pre-existing cave system.

The etymology of the word crypt is certainly interesting:

  • It comes from Latin, where it meant vault.
  • As so often is the case with Latin many of their words were derived from ancient Greek. In this case it is kruptós, which means hidden or secret.
    • The word cryptic is derived from this, which can mean having a hidden meaning or having a mystic nature and in zoology it means camouflaged.
  • One of its primary meanings, before it got outdated, was cave or cavern.
  • Now we mostly associate this with an underground burial place in a church.

The Winterfell crypts therefore camouflage the true secret origins of Winterfell as an underground city. When Arya arrives at Beric’s hollow hill in the Riverlands, this can be read as her going back to her “roots”. Here she witnesses how a hollow hill with a symbolical greenseer is a sanctuary for the smallfolk.

When Harwin pulled the hood off her head, the ruddy glare inside the hollow hill made Arya blink like some stupid owl. A huge firepit had been dug in the center of the earthen floor, and its flames rose swirling and crackling toward the smoke-stained ceiling. 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. (aSoS, Arya VI)

Whole families are shown to live alongside their “greenseer” Beric. Certainly during a Long Night and a winter lasting generations, living underground makes the most sense: temperatures underground remains relatively stable. During winter it would actually be warmer beneath the ground than above, especially if the walls of the caves are heated by hot springs. Theon notices this when he visits the crypts with Lady Barbrey Dustin.

He had always thought of the crypts as cold, and so they seemed in summer, but now as they descended the air grew warmer. Not warm, never warm, but warmer than above. Down there below the earth, it would seem, the chill was constant, unchanging. (aDwD, The Turncloak)

This would be the main reason why the people of the closest settlement south of the Wall live underground in Mole’s Town.

Mole’s Town was bigger than it seemed, but three quarters of it was under the ground, in deep warm cellars connected by a maze of tunnels. Even the whorehouse was down there, nothing on the surface but a wooden shack no bigger than a privy, with a red lantern hung over the door. (aGoT, Jon IX)

The Bryndens

As History of Westeros points out in their podcast on Brandon the Builder, the name Brynden is a variation of Brandon.

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.”
“I have an uncle Brynden,” Bran said. “He’s my mother’s uncle, really. Brynden Blackfish, he’s called.”
“Your uncle may have been named for me. Some are, still. Not so many as before. Men forget. Only the trees remember.” His voice was so soft that Bran had to strain to hear. (aDwD, Bran III)

Brynden “Blackfish” Tully was named after Brynder “Bloodraven” Rivers, while Lord Tytos Blackwood’s eldest son and heir is also called Bynden. Brynden is a variation of Brandon, which is Bran’s name too, and Bran was named after his dead uncle Brandon Stark, but the name Brandon goes all the way back to the legendary founder of House Stark, Brandon the Builder. So all of these are each other’s namesakes, forming an overarching name-group of the Brandons. The Bryndens basically are the Brandons of the Riverlands.

Bloodraven

Inside the cave, we end up with two Brandons side by side: Brandon the Elder and Bran the younger, mentor and pupil respectively.

Three Eyed Crow, by Aldo Katanayagi

As a Brandon, Bloodraven ought to display some of the name’s meaning. His cave is beneath a hill with a weirwood grove. You may not have thought of it this way yet, but consider a winter world covered in snow. There is no way to distinguish landmarks, not even hills really. And then you have a grove of red evergreen canopy on top of a hill where you can find shelter from wights and Others. That hill acts as a natural beacon, leading people to safety: a beacon hill, a brandon.

The cave is warded. They cannot pass.” The ranger used his sword to point. “You can see the entrance there. Halfway up, between the weirwoods, that cleft in the rock.” […]  Bran craned himself sideways to better see the cave. Then he saw something else. “A fire!In the little cleft between the weirwood trees was a flickering glow, a ruddy light calling through the gathering gloom. (aDwD, Bran II)

Brynden himself features the colors of a weirwood, with his albino skin and red eye. This makes Bloodraven a living human beacon, and not necessarily with the implication of Sauron’s roaming eye. We could even say that Brynden Rivers is a wildfire beacon, for he is a greenseer and, as Aegon IV’s son, he has Targaryen dragonblood.

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. (aDwD, Bran II)

Aside from his coloring, in this passage Brynden Rivers is portrayed as

  • decaying with mushrooms (fungi) growing on him, which is one of the etymological meanings of Bran. It makes him look like a corpse, but he appeared as a corpse to Dunk even in his younger years, before he was Hand even.
  • Bran refers to him as the three-eyed crow, and he once was a crow of the Night’s Watch. We could even say he was Lord Crow, as he was their Lord Commander.
  • As Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch he was a chieftain.
  • The image also references his winestain birthmark which earned him the nickname Lord Bloodraven, because to some people it appears to have the shape of a raven. His personal loyal guard were called Raven’s Teeth. His mother was Melissa Blackwood, and House Blackwood’s sigil features a dead white weirwood on a black shield, surrounded by a flock of ravens on a red field. This sigil portrays Raventree Hall, after the Brackens poisoned their weirwood. Though the weirwood itself is dead, its ravens still return each night to roost. Finally, I showcase in Quoth the Raven that Bloodraven skinchanges Mormont’s raven acting as advisor and alarm clock for the Lord Commander, in his own way still staying true to his vows.
House_Blackwood
Sigil of House Blackwood
  • While the quoted passage inside the cave does not focus on this, we know from other sources that he was a royal bastard, fathered by Aegon “the Unworthy” IV. At the end of his life, Aegon legitimized each and every of his bastards – noble born or not. And this technically made Brynden Rivers a prince, just as much as Daemon Blackfyre, even though unlike Daemon he never chose to alter his name Rivers that indicated he was a bastard.
  • He possesses or possessed a Valyrian steel sword, Dark Sister. During a Q & A in 2018, Ashaya of History of Westeros asked whether Bloodraven took the Valyrian sword Dark Sister with him to the Wall when he joined the Night’s Watch. And George said one very clear word – “Yes”. (fragment of Ashaya’s question and George’s answer on History of Westeros’ youtube video of The Three Eyed Bloodraven above). It is not confirmed whether Bloodraven also took Dark Sister on his last ranging, but since it has not been reported anywhere at the Wall or south of it, it seems safe to assume that that Dark Sister is in fact inside the cave. It would be odd to go ranging that far north of the Wall and leave your Valyrian steel sword behind, right? Neither this Valyrian steel sword or any other has been magically set aflame (yet), but it allegedly is either dragonforged or with the help of dragonflame. So, it represents a flaming sword in a symbolic way. And it certainly can be considered a magical sword, since the forging also involves spells and Valyrian steel is used as a chain link by the maesters to indicate the maester studied magic. It may not be a sword that gives off light, like Dawn, but it certainly can be considered to be Dawn’s dark sister.

The properties of Valyrian steel are well-known, and are the result of both folding iron many times to balance and remove impurities, and the use of spells—or at least arts we do not know—to give unnatural strength to the resulting steel. (tWoIaF – Ancient History: Valyria’s children)

“This is Valyrian steel,” [maester Luwin] said when the link of dark grey metal lay against the apple of his throat. “Only one maester in a hundred wears such a link. This signifies that I have studied what the Citadel calls the higher mysteries—magic, for want of a better word. […]” (aCoK, Bran IV)

So, all the possible meanings for Bran and Brandon are somehow embodied by Brynden Rivers.

Notice how Bloodraven portrays a character who is a greenseer with fireblood – a wildfire greenseer – kissed with Targaryen dragonblood. In the youtube video where Elio and Linda reviewed the finale of season 4 of the show, where Bran meets the Three-Eyed Raven (as he is named in the show), they do a spoiler section at the end. Elio once asked George when he outlined or figured out who the greenseer would be that Bran will end up training with. And George answered that initially he did not know who exactly it would be, except that he would have Targaryen blood. Only around about 1998 did he have a fleshed out background for this last greenseer. I am posting the video here, where Elio starts to relay this story.

For many this might seem more like a quote to debate on the “true” identity of the Three-Eyed-Crow, but for me George knowing that he basically needed a greenseer who was kissed by fire is the most important take away. In other words, George decided early on (1993-1994) that he wanted a greenseer north of the Wall with dragonrider blood. This character then becomes the current embodiment of a wildfire greenseer, or green fire.

 

Index

The Blackfish

Before we ever learned of Brynden Rivers’ existence, even before the three-eyed crow, we learn that Catelyn’s uncle, Brynden “Blackfish” Tully is a Knight of the Gate. A gate huh? You don’t say. We learn of Brynden’s status in relation to a gate in Winterfell’s godswood in Catelyn’s very first chapter of the series. It should certainly pique our interest that a variation of a Brandon is guarding a gate, so let us visit him there.

Silent faces watched from arrow slits in tower, battlements, and bridge. When they had climbed almost to the top, a knight rode out to meet them. His horse and his armor were grey, but his cloak was the rippling blue-and-red of Riverrun, and a shiny black fish, wrought in gold and obsidian, pinned its folds against his shoulder. “Who would pass the Bloody Gate?” he called. (aGoT, Catelyn VI)

Most interesting for the Blood Seal thesis is that the gate’s name is the Bloody Gate. And we have several visual allusions here to House Stark, the children of the forest and the Night’s Watch: silent watching faces and obsidian, the black reference combined with a gate, and a grey horse and armor.

Brynden took the black fish as his personal arms after his brother, Catelyn’s father, Lord Hoster Tully referred to him as the black goat of the family for refusing any wedding match offered to him. Brynden replied that their sigil had a trout, so he was a black fish.

“Even so,” Lord Hoster muttered. “Even so. Spit on the girl. The Redwynes. Spit on me. His lord, his brother … that Blackfish. I had other offers. Lord Bracken’s girl. Walder Frey … any of three, he said … Has he wed? Anyone? Anyone?
No one,” Catelyn said, “yet he has come many leagues to see you, fighting his way back to Riverrun. I would not be here now, if Ser Brynden had not helped us.”
“He was ever a warrior,” her father husked. “That he could do. Knight of the Gate, yes.” (aGoT, Catelyn XI)

The Blackfish nickname and his personal arms symbolize his decision to remain unwed. Brynden commanding the guarding of a gate, taking on black arms and remaining unwed is very much like a brother of the Night’s Watch.

Though Brynden recognizes his niece Catelyn well enough, he still holds to formal protocol towards Ser Donnel Waynwood, before he opens the gate to them.

Who would pass the Bloody Gate?” he called.
“Ser Donnel Waynwood, with the Lady Catelyn Stark and her companions,” the young knight answered.
The Knight of the Gate lifted his visor. “I thought the lady looked familiar. You are far from home, little Cat.” […]
May we enter the Vale?” Ser Donnel asked. The Waynwoods were ever ones for ceremony.
“In the name of Robert Arryn, Lord of the Eyrie, Defender of the Vale, True Warden of the East, I bid you enter freely, and charge you to keep his peace,” Ser Brynden replied. “Come.” (aGoT, Catelyn VI)

Take note that Ser Donnel Waynwood is stationed at the Bloody Gate. He led the sortie from the Bloody Gate to save Catelyn. He would not have been able to do so without Brynden’s knowledge or allowance. And yet both Brynden and Donnel go through the formal ceremony, as if Brynden does not know Donnel’s business and is a blind man who does not recognize the people riding towards them. This is very much like the Wall’s Black Gate, where only a sworn brother of the Night’s Watch can lead people or animals through if he says the creed of the Night’s Watch.

The Black Gate, Sam had called it, but it wasn’t black at all. It was white weirwood, and there was a face on it. A glow came from the wood, like milk and moonlight, so faint it scarcely seemed to touch anything beyond the door itself, not even Sam standing right before it. The face was old and pale, wrinkled and shrunken. It looks dead. Its mouth was closed, and its eyes; its cheeks were sunken, its brow withered, its chin sagging. If a man could live for a thousand years and never die but just grow older, his face might come to look like that. The door opened its eyes. They were white too, and blind. “Who are you?” the door asked, and the well whispered, “Who-who-who-who-who-who-who.”
I am the sword in the darkness,” Samwell Tarly said. “I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers. I am the shield that guards the realms of men.”
Then pass,” the door said. Its lips opened, wide and wider and wider still, until nothing at all remained but a great gaping mouth in a ring of wrinkles. Sam stepped aside and waved Jojen through ahead of him. Summer followed, sniffing as he went, and then it was Bran’s turn. Hodor ducked, but not low enough. The door’s upper lip brushed softly against the top of Bran’s head, and a drop of water fell on him and ran slowly down his nose. It was strangely warm, and salty as a tear. (aSoS, Bran IV)

There is even a reverse analogy between Catelyn seeing her uncle again after such a long time. It has been years. The Blackfish claims the years have not been kind to him, and indeed his face is weathered, wrinkled and his hair full grey, he still comes across as powerful, nor has his spirit altered.

“Take off your helm. I would look on your face again.”
“The years have not improved it, I fear,” Brynden Tully said, but when he lifted off the helm, Catelyn saw that he lied. His features were lined and weathered, and time had stolen the auburn from his hair and left him only grey, but the smile was the same, and the bushy eyebrows fat as caterpillars, and the laughter in his deep blue eyes. (aGoT, Catelyn VI)

Makes you wonder who’s face is portrayed in the Black Gate, no? Could it be Brandon the Builder? More, perhaps it is Brandon’s chosen second life, after he died?

Kerry_Barnett_passing_the_wall_II
Passing the Wall, by Kerry Barnett

After all, Leaf tells Bran that most of Brynden Rivers has gone into the tree, right after Bloodraven speculates that the Blackfish may have been named after Brynden Rivers.

Your uncle may have been named for me. Some are, still. Not so many as before. Men forget. Only the trees remember.” His voice was so soft that Bran had to strain to hear.
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. For us, for you, for the realms of men. […]” (aDwD, Bran III)

Brynden Tully resigns from being the Knight of the Vale after Lysa’s follies and joins Cat’s journey to White Harbor and Robb’s army. He takes charge of the outriders there, or as Catelyn says,

Ser Brynden Tully was Robb’s eyes and ears, the commander of his scouts and outriders. (aCoK, Catelyn I)

Scouting and spying is what the Blackfish has in common with Bloodraven, both when he was Master of Whisperers as well as a greenseer. The Blackfish being the commander of the scouts and outriders makes him a symbolical greenseer.

Brynden Tully retakes his role as Knight of the Gate, when he holds Riverrun against the siege by the Freys and Lannisters, and meets with Jaime on the drawbridge. Nothing can persuade him to open the gate for Jaime’s army and surrender the castle, not even the life of his nephew, Edmure. And while Jaime may believe it was his threat to Edmure’s child that persuaded Edmure and eventually the Blackfish to yield the castle, the astute reader realized it was whatever sweet song Tom Sevenstreams played to Edmure about Lady Stoneheart and the Brotherhood without Banners (which Radio Westeros pointed out in their podcast about the Brotherhood). The Blackfish does not surrender the castle, nor his arms, and instead swims away.

That we should connect Brynden Tully as being one of the Riverlands’ Brandons and to Bloodraven is pointed out with yet another Brynden character – Brynden Blackwood, Lord Tytos Blackwood’s eldest son and heir.

“My second. Brynden is my eldest, and my heir. Next comes Hoster. A bookish boy, I fear.” (aDwD, Jaime I)

Tytos’ second son Lucas was slain at the Twins, making his third son Hoster, the closest surviving brother to Brynden Blackwood. Tytos’ fourth son is called Edmure. These are the three male names of the Tully men – Lord Hoster Tully, his brother Brynden Tully and Hoster’s son Edmure. So, there can be no mistake to regard Brynden Blackwood to having been named after the Blackfish, except with the Blackwoods their Brynden is the heir instead of Hoster Blackwood. But as this Brynden is a Blackwood and his name is dropped amidst talk about the dead weirwood of Raventree and how every night the ravens return to it to roost, George is also reminding the reader of Brynden “Bloodraven” Rivers whose mother was a Blackwood.

Index

The Ricks

Several character names include a variation of -ric, -rick, -ryck, -rik or -rec. There is Beric Dondarrion, Edric Dayne and Edric Storm, or Arryk and Erryk, Erik, Erich, Eldric and Elric. But also Rickard and Rickon. I refer to them as The Ricks. The reconstructed proto Germanic *rics (and Latin rex) stands for king or ruler and related to the Old English word for realm (in Dutch still Rijk or Germein Reich). While these names are not varations of Bran or Brandon, they serve to give insight into the chieftain/ruler aspect of Brandon: the king, rather than a greenseer.

(BE)ric

By the time we meet Beric as leader of the Brotherhood without Banner, Lord Dondarrion has become a visual herald of Brynden Rivers. He is introduced to us seated on a weirwood throne in a hollow hill. He shows signs of decay and is an undead corpse. And his injuries match with Bloodraven’s (one eye, caved in head, etc). Arya thinks of Beric as a scarecrow, while it goes without saying that Bloodraven is a very scary crow.

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. […] 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. […] 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. (aSoS, Arya VI)

And while Bloodraven was never hanged, Bran’s uncle, Brandon Stark, strangled himself with a Tyroshi choking device. The dark black ring around Beric’s neck “ties” him to another Brandon. The mark of being hanged for both Beric and Brandon Stark is a symbolic reference to greenseeing. As has been noted by myself and many others for years (including David Lightbringer and the Fattest Leech) we can see several allusions to Odin of Norse mythology in green(seer) characters. Being one-eyed is one of those marks, but so is hanging. Odin sacrificed his one eye in order to be allowed to drink from Mimir’s Well for wisdom and knowledge. His one eye was placed and left in the well, but in return Odin acquired two ravens Huginn (thought) and Muninn (memory) to whom Odin bestows speech. He also hung from the tree Yggdrasil (upside down) for nine days to learn to read the runes (used for fortune telling) in Mimir’s well. It compares much with the legend of Sidharta sitting beneath his tree without food to become enlightened and the Buddha.

I know that I hung on a windy tree nine long nights, wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin, myself to myself, on that tree of which no man knows from where its roots run. No bread did they give me nor a drink from a horn, downwards I peered; I took up the runes, screaming I took them, then I fell back from there. (Poetic Edda, Havamal)

So, why does Bloodraven not have a marking of being hanged? Well, he is a real greenseer, not a symbolical one, and he is physically bound to the weirwood tree. Beric and Brandon Stark are not physically bound to a tree, but instead they have the mark of being hanged. And yes, in that sense it should be noted that Brandon Stark hanged himself not to see the future, but while attempting to reach his sword, amidst a scene of a burning. We have the elements of greenseeing enlightenment, a sword and wildfire flames in the death scenes of Brandon and Rickard Stark.

Two other greenseer allusions about Beric are hinted at in Edric’s story when he guarded Beric after the Mountain fell on Beric and his detail.

“He had a broken lance sticking out of him, so no one bothered us. When we regrouped, Green Gergen helped pull his lordship back onto a horse.” (aSoS, Arya VIII)

First, we immediately recognize the spear wound of Odin as he hung from Yggrdrasil. George adds a green character into helping the lightning lord back onto a horse – Green Gergen. His name only ever appears in this quote. We never meet him on page. Gergen is a name variation on George. So, the choice of name for this man was purely symbolical and a wink at the author’s deliberate choice in helping Beric back into the game. Basically, George here is telling us, “I as author deliberately chose to resurrect Beric from the dead,” and betraying that he is on team “green”.

Jaime thinks honor is a horse when the Blackfish (aka “Brandon”) asks him whether he knows what honor is. Sandor says a knight is a sword with a horse. And many a reader who researched some Norse mythology realizes that the enlightenment via weirwood tree, aka Yggdrasil, is depicted with imagery of Odin one-eye riding his horse Sleipnir. Yggdrasil literally means Ygg’s steed or Ygg’s horse. Likewise the hanged ride the gallows. Green George pulling Beric onto a horse is a reference to the same.

Beric may have numerous and obvious allusions of a greenseer, but he is only a symbolic greenseer. More, most readers tend to associate him more with Rh’llor and fire magic. Even if Green George put him back on his horse, in-story it was Thoros of Myr who resurrected Beric Dondarrion with a burial ritual called the last kiss.

“I have no magic, child. Only prayers. That first time, his lordship had a hole right through him and blood in his mouth, I knew there was no hope. So when his poor torn chest stopped moving, I gave him the good god’s own kiss to send him on his way. I filled my mouth with fire and breathed the flames inside him, down his throat to lungs and heart and soul. The last kiss it is called, and many a time I saw the old priests bestow it on the Lord’s servants as they died. I had given it a time or two myself, as all priests must. But never before had I felt a dead man shudder as the fire filled him, nor seen his eyes come open. It was not me who raised him, my lady. It was the Lord. R’hllor is not done with him yet. Life is warmth, and warmth is fire, and fire is God’s and God’s alone.” (aSoS, Arya VII)

Jon Snow would say that Beric was kissed by fire. The mix of greenseer symbolism in combination with fireblood, results thus in wildfire.

“Sometimes I think I was born on the bloody grass in that grove of ash, with the taste of fire in my mouth and a hole in my chest. Are you my mother, Thoros?”” (aSoS, Arya VII)

Notice how Beric asks whether Thoros is his mother. Similarly, Bloodraven admits that he once had a mother too, and it was she who named him.

Beric’s blood and body is somehow animated by fire magic. It is this fireblood that Beric uses to set his common sword aflame, and wield a flaming sword. This makes Beric a brand-on.

Unsmiling, Lord Beric laid the edge of his longsword against the palm of his left hand, and drew it slowly down. Blood ran dark from the gash he made, and washed over the steel. And then the sword took fire. (aSoS, Arya VI)

Beric Dondarrion by joelhustak
Beric Dondarrion, by Joel Hustak

A flaming sword is not all that Beric has by his side. He also has a dark sister, Arya, until she is stolen. Not only does Arya have dark hair, she is also referred to as dark heart by the Ghost of High Hill.

Her hair was a lusterless brown, and her face was long and solemn. (aGoT, Arya I)

The dwarf woman studied her with dim red eyes. “I see you,” she whispered. “I see you, wolf child. Blood child. I thought it was the lord who smelled of death . . .” She began to sob, her little body shaking. “You are cruel to come to my hill, cruel. I gorged on grief at Summerhall, I need none of yours. Begone from here, dark heart. Begone!” (aGoT, Arya VIII)

Certain people or occupations are referred to as a sword: a sworn sword, the Sword of the Morning, … In Arya’s case Syrio Forel called her a sword.

It was the third time [Syrio] had called her “boy.” “I’m a girl,” Arya objected.
“Boy, girl,” Syrio Forel said. “You are a sword, that is all.” (aGoT, Arya II)

I’m not a boy! But Mycah was. He was a butcher’s boy and you killed him. Jory said you cut him near in half, and he never even had a sword.” She could feel them looking at her now, the women and the children and the men who called themselves the knights of the hollow hill. “Who’s this now?” someone asked.
The Hound answered. “Seven hells. The little sister. The brat who tossed Joff’s pretty sword in the river.” (aSoS, Arya VI)

And this dark sister is a ward as well, for she is a hostage whom the Brotherhood without Banners wish to exchange for a ransom and hostages are also called a ward. Notice too that Tormund calls hostages a blood price.

So, with Bloodraven the ward is a magical invisible wall, a spell that prevents the dead and Others from entering, and Dark Sister is an actual sword of Valyrian steel. With Beric we have a visual reference to a greenseer who ends up with a dark sister as a ward, while using his blood to set a sword aflame.

Beric also shares much of the ideals of the original Night’s Watch. We have an allusion to a warded wall by green magic in Arya’s description of Beric’s cave.

The walls were equal parts stone and soil, with huge white roots twisting through them like a thousand slow pale snakes. (aSoS, Arya VI)

The Wall – allegedly raised by Brandon – is part stone and soil, aside from ice, and via Bran we learn it is protected by a magical ward, including a magical door made of weirwood, the Black Gate. So, when we see a wall of equal parts stone and soil with white weirwood roots twisting through them, this is a physcal visualiation that symbolizes a wall with green magic twisting through it.

Beneath the hollow hill, Beric does not just herald Brynden Rivers. He is also most certainly an echo of the ancient past, at the very least showing us the formation of the Night’s Watch, how people became refugees living in secret cities underground. Beric’s story of the formation of the Brotherhood without Banners could be a tale told by the first rangers of the proto Night’s Watch.

“When we left King’s Landing we were men of Winterfell and men of Darry and men of Blackhaven, Mallery men and Wylde men. We were knights and squires and men-at-arms, lords and commoners, bound together only by our purpose.” […] “Six score of us set out to bring the king’s justice to your brother.” […] “Six score brave men and true, led by a fool in a starry cloak.” […] “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. “With their help, we fight on as best we can, for Robert and the realm.” […] “The king is dead,” the scarecrow knight admitted, “but we are still king’s men, though the royal banner we bore was lost at the Mummer’s Ford when your brother’s butchers fell upon us.” He touched his breast with a fist. “Robert is slain, but his realm remains. And we defend her.”
[…]
“We are brothers here,” Thoros of Myr declared. “Holy brothers, sworn to the realm, to our god, and to each other.”
“The brotherhood without banners.” Tom Sevenstrings plucked a string. (aSoS, Arya VI)

What is the Night’s Watch if not a brotherhood without banners sworn to protect the realms of men?

The Shieldhall was one of the older parts of Castle Black, a long drafty feast hall of dark stone, its oaken rafters black with the smoke of centuries. Back when the Night’s Watch had been much larger, its walls had been hung with rows of brightly colored wooden shields. Then as now, when a knight took the black, tradition decreed that he set aside his former arms and take up the plain black shield of the brotherhood. The shields thus discarded would hang in the Shieldhall. (aDwD, Jon XIII)

An extra hint that this tale about Beric and Brotherhood without Banners is being played in the current time for the benefit of the reader to learn something of the past is the repeated mention of the Mummer’s Ford. A mummery is a (puppet) play or performance, a retelling of events of the past.

So, if Beric has so many Brandon elements associated to him, then why does George not call him just a variation on Brandon? Not to mention the issue that Beric was never a king, nor will he ever be. He is indeed dead now, even if other men pretend to be Beric to confuse the Freys and Lannisters. Not even his ancestors were ever kings. House Dondarrion was founded when a messenger of the Storm King (of Storm’s End) managed to deliver the king’s message, despite being attacked by Dornishmen. The Storm King awarded the messenger with a lordship. Beric remains as loyal as his ancestor to his mission, even after king Robert in whose name he was sent out for has died, even after king Robert’s Hand who gave the order in Robert’s name lost his head. I therefore suspect that his name is partially a wordplay by George that says be rick, or be king. Not so much as Beric himself being royalty, having a crown and starting a dynasty, but how he is the stand-in king by extension as Protector of the Realm.

Protector of the Realm is one of the titles usually bestowed to the King of the Iron Throne. George has hinted that this title is more than symbolic and military in nature. In several cases this title was bestowed to someone else than the king or queen, either a regent or the chief military commander:

  • Lord Rogar Baratheon while he was Hand for young Jaehaerys I,
  • prince Daemon Targaryen for Queen Rhaenyra
  • and prince Aemond Targaryen for incapicitated Aegon II,
  • Leowyn Corbray and Unwin Peake during their regencies for Aegon III,
  • prince Baelor Targaryen for his father Daeron II (the Good),
  • Ned Stark by dying Robert, …

And with Beric, George is showing us that this title of Protector of the Realm might go back as far as the Long Night and the figure around whom a proto Night’s Watch was formed. And perhaps this is how we should come to regard the deeper meaning of the Ricks: Protectors of the Realm.

Beric is nicknamed the lightning lord, for House Dondarrion’s sigil: a lightning bolt. The name Barak in Hebrew means lightning, and in Arabic the blessed. And in Dutch the word for thunder is donder, which we recognize in Dondar-. In mythology storm gods are often associated with the hammer to cause thunder and lightning or thunder bolts to strike. Thunder and lightning were hardly ever separated or regarded as differentiating symbols, since lightning cannot go without thunder, and vice versa. They are both the same weather phenomenon, separated only in time, because sound travels slower than light. In that sense, Beric as lightning lord is merely another reincarnation of the Storm King; you can see his sigil of the lightning bolt before you can hear his thunder-name. And it turns out that our symbolic Storm King fosters a boy of House Dayne.

Index

Edric Dayne
Edric_dayne_by_eluas
Edric Dayne, by Eluas

By Beric’s side, we find his squire Edric Dayne, whose first name makes him one of the Ricks. With Beric as an elder Rick and Edric as a Rick the younger, we see the parallel between Beric and Bloodraven extend to each having apprentices of the same name group: Brynden and Bran, and Beric and Edric. But there are also differences.

  • Brynden and Bran are both greenseers. With Beric and Edric the emphasis seems to be being trained into true knighthood. After all a squire does not just serve a knight or lord by maintaining his armor, but is also getting trained and can be knighted by their mentor.
  • Brynden and Bran reside beneath a beacon hill (the distinct red weirwoods on top of a hill), whereas Beric and Edric reside in an area where the Andals cut the weirwood groves.
  • Beric and Edric are associated to flaming swords as objects, while Brynden and Bran embody flaming swords with their name.

Beric and Edric should be in this mentor relationship like Brynden and Bran, because of a rare trait or ability in comparison to all the other physical knights. And that of course is the idea of wielding Lightbringer to protect the realm. After all, House Dayne possesses a sword that glows with light, namely Dawn.

“And now it begins,” said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light. (aGoT, Eddard X)

Even if Dawn is not the Lightbringer of legend, it certainly is a lightbringer, as much as Beric’s flaming sword is. Though Dawn has a different appearance than Valyrian steel as far as looks go, it shares similar traits when it comes to strength and sharpness.

The Daynes of Starfall are one of the most ancient houses in the Seven Kingdoms, though their fame largely rests on their ancestral sword, called Dawn, and the men who wielded it. Its origins are lost to legend, but it seems likely that the Daynes have carried it for thousands of years. Those who have had the honor of examining it say it looks like no Valyrian steel they know, being pale as milkglass but in all other respects it seems to share the properties of Valyrian blades, being incredibly strong and sharp. (tWoIaF – Dorne: the Andals arrive)

Dawn predates Old Valyria and thus the known Valyrian Steel swords. Hence, we should see proper Valyrian steel in general as the dark sisters of Dawn, for Valyrian steel is a grey so dark it looks almost black.

Most Valyrian steel was a grey so dark it looked almost black, as was true here as well. (aSoS, Tyrion IV)

Though Edric Dayne is not a Sword of the Morning (yet) as Beric’s squire, it does seem that George had the intention for him to become such if he had been able to execute the five year gap. By then Edric would have been ten and seven. It is very uncertain whether Edric Dayne will become the Sword of the Morning without the gap. Nevertheless, as the intention was there, Edric is a valid parallel for a boy being in training to become worthy to be the Sword of the Morning. For Dawn is not an heirloom passed from king to king, or lord to lord. It is not even a possession of the lord of Starfall to be given away or lent out. It belongs to House Dayne in general, and whichever knight or warrior of House Dayne is deemed worthy may carry it.

Though many houses have their heirloom swords, they mostly pass the blades down from lord to lord. Some, such as the Corbrays have done, may lend the blade to a son or brother for his lifetime, only to have it return to the lord. But that is not the way of House Dayne. The wielder of Dawn is always given the title of Sword of the Morning, and only a knight of House Dayne who is deemed worthy can carry it. For this reason, the Swords of the Morning are all famous throughout the Seven Kingdoms. (tWoIaF – Dorne: the Andals arrive)

As much as there are symbolical allusions to greenseeing for Beric, there are symbolic allusions of Bran as wielder of a lightbringer, and Dawn in particular.

“The finest knight I ever saw was Ser Arthur Dayne, who fought with a blade called Dawn, forged from the heart of a fallen star. They called him the Sword of the Morning, and he would have killed me but for Howland Reed.” Father had gotten sad then, and he would say no more. Bran wished he had asked him what he meant. He went to sleep with his head full of knights in gleaming armor, fighting with swords that shone like starfire, but when the dream came he was in the godswood again. (aCoK, Bran III)

There are boys who secretly dream of being a son of Starfall so they might claim that storied sword and its title. (tWoIaF – Dorne: the Andals arrive)

I do not think these allusions of Dawn in the hands of Bran are a foreshadowing that Bran will ever wield or use Dawn, but instead that Brandon the Builder wielded Dawn. Another allusion to this is the sword that Bran takes with him from the crypts, before he journeys to the Wall.

Osha carried her long oaken spear in one hand and the torch in the other. A naked sword hung down her back, one of the last to bear Mikken’s mark. He had forged it for Lord Eddard’s tomb, to keep his ghost at rest. But with Mikken slain and the ironmen guarding the armory, good steel had been hard to resist, even if it meant grave-robbing. Meera had claimed Lord Rickard’s blade, though she complained that it was too heavy. Brandon took his namesake’s, the sword made for the uncle he had never known. He knew he would not be much use in a fight, but even so the blade felt good in his hand. (aCoK, Bran VII)

Bran is said to have taken the sword of his uncle, Brandon, while he recognizes he would not be much of a physical fighter with it. And of course Brandon has flaming sword as meaning.

Not using a sword in a fight is also exemplified in Edric Dayne’s story on how he protected the mortally wounded Beric at the Mummer’s Ford.

“I was at the Mummer’s Ford. When Lord Beric fell into the river, I dragged him up onto the bank so he wouldn’t drown and stood over him with my sword. I never had to fight, though. […] (aSoS, Arya VII)

And of course this ties back to a protective nature and purpose.

Just like the Starks once were Kings of Winter and Kings in the North, the Daynes used to be Kings of the Torrentine. They were relegated to vassals and lords by Nymeria of the Rhoynar.

At the mouth of the Torrentine, House Dayne raised its castle on an island where that roaring, tumultuous river broadens to meet the sea. Legend says the first Dayne was led to the site when he followed the track of a falling star and there found a stone of magical powers. His descendants ruled over the western mountains for centuries thereafter as Kings of the Torrentine and Lords of Starfall. (tWoIaF – Dorne: the Kingdoms of the First Men)

The name of the river Torrentine is pretty much on the nose: it means torrential. And the World Book describes it as roaring and tumultuous. House Dayne’s island Starfall is at the “mouth” of this “roaring” river. In other words, George is describing this river and the location as a noisy beast. The animals that roar are big cats (such as lions), bears, seals, deer, bovids (such as buffalo), elephants and several New World primates (simians). Since the Lannister words are “Here me roar” the beast comparison for the Torrentine is most likely pointing to a lion. The lion is not solely connected to House Lannister of Casterly Rock (that resembles a lion’s head) though. The animal is also featured in the legend about Azor Ahai. During the Long Night, Azor Ahai attempts to forge a magical blade. He heats and folds it over and over (like Valyrian steel) for thirty days and then tempers it by plunging it in water during the Long Night, but it bursts. Next, he uses a lion’s heart to temper it.

“The second time it took him fifty days and fifty nights, and this sword seemed even finer than the first. Azor Ahai captured a lion, to temper the blade by plunging it through the beast’s red heart, but once more the steel shattered and split. (aCoK, Davos I)

This too fails, and the sword shatters and splits. And yes, take note that the Valyrian steel sword of House . Stark Ice was split in two new swords by the lead lion of house Lannister, Tywin. We also witnessed the first sword being destroyed by solid water in the prologue chapter of aGoT: Waymar Royce’s sword has the dark appearance of Valyrian steel, but was actually common steel.

A scream echoed through the forest night, and the longsword shivered into a hundred brittle pieces, the shards scattering like a rain of needles. (aGoT, Prologue)

I will come back to this when we examine the swords much closer in The Bloody Swords. But for now we can take note that the Torrentine is both water and a roaring lion. And then there is the story about Ashara Dayne falling from the Palestone Sword of Starfall into the sea.

“My father was Ser Arthur’s elder brother. Lady Ashara was my aunt. I never knew her, though. She threw herself into the sea from atop the Palestone Sword before I was born.” (aSoS, Arya VIII)

The Palestone Sword is a tower of Starfall, but is named a sword, and quite obviously a descriptive name for Dawn. Ashara did this after Ned Stark brought Dawn back to Starfall, since the Sword of the Morning – Arthur Dayne – had died in the confrontation at the Tower of Joy.  It is as if Ashara Dayne sacrificed herself upon Azor Ahai’s third and successful attempt to forge Lightbringer.

“A hundred days and a hundred nights he labored on the third blade, and as it glowed white-hot in the sacred fires, he summoned his wife. ‘Nissa Nissa,’ he said to her, for that was her name, ‘bare your breast, and know that I love you best of all that is in this world.’ She did this thing, why I cannot say, and Azor Ahai thrust the smoking sword through her living heart. It is said that her cry of anguish and ecstasy left a crack across the face of the moon, but her blood and her soul and her strength and her courage all went into the steel. Such is the tale of the forging of Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes. (aCoK, Davos I)

And yes, Ashara Dayne “sacrificing” herself from atop the Palestone Sword after the Torrentine being described as a roaring lion, pinpoints Starfall as the location where Lightbringer was forged, and thus one of the many hints that Dawn = the Lightbringer.

Another ironic clue in Davos’ chapter is that he thinks

A true sword of fire, now, that would be a wonder to behold. Yet at such a cost . . . When he thought of Nissa Nissa, it was his own Marya he pictured, a good-natured plump woman with sagging breasts and a kindly smile, the best woman in the world. He tried to picture himself driving a sword through her, and shuddered. I am not made of the stuff of heroes, he decided. If that was the price of a magic sword, it was more than he cared to pay. (aCoK, Davos I)

And yet, one of the historical Swords of the Morning was called Davos Dayne, and he wed Princess Nymeria of the Rhoynar.

Edric Dayne is not the sole Edric in the books and histories. There are three Edric Starks: Edrick “Snowbeard”, Edric Stark (grandson of Alaric Stark), and Edric Stark (third son of Cregan Stark). And then of course we have Edric Storm. It is not my intention here to delve into every Edric, but I hope to incorporate them in the next essays about Brandon the Builder, either for the swords or his bloodline, depending on their relevance. I just want you to take note that the Edrics appear in relation to just three houses: Stark, Dayne and Durrandon descendants.

There are also several Erichs, who are either kings of House Durrandon or Ironborn. Arrec is another name featured with the Durrandons. And this leads us to Arryk and Erryk. This pair of twins appears twice. First for House Cargyll, as the twin kingsguard brothers on opposing sides during the Dance of Dragons. They kill one another at Dragonstone when Aegon II sent Arryk to assassinate Rhaenyra  as vengeance for Blood and Cheese. Aegon II had hoped that Arryk could pretend to be Erryk, since the twins were indistinguishable, but Erryk comes upon Arryk at Dragonstone. Though the duel between the twin brothers was witnessed by Rhaenyra, Daemon and others, nobody dared to intervene: they did not know which of the two was Erryk, supporter of Rhaenyra. George explained in 1999 that the twins are based on the Arthurian story from Mallory about the brothers Balin and Balan, with Balin being the Knight with the Two Swords. But George adapted and altered it so that the brothers know one another in their final duel, even though onlookers cannot separate the two. Notice that kingsguard are referenced as White Swords, and thus are echoes of Swords of the Morning. George reuses the names Arryk and Erryk for the twin guards of Lady Olenna Tyrell. She too cannot tell one from the other and refers to them as Left and Right. This pair embody greenseeing as their livery is green with gold.

The underlying point and significance is that whichever Edric or Erich or Aric you look at, no matter which side or house they pop up, they are all an aspect or reflection of the same archetype or legendary figure, or two sides of the same coin: the white sword and the greenseer aspect. 

Index

Edric Storm

Robert Baratheon has many bastards, but Edric Storm was raised at Storm’s End, which is a castle and location linked to Brandon the Builder. More precisely, in the legend Brandon was still a boy and not yet known as the Builder.

A seventh castle he raised, most massive of all. Some said the children of the forest helped him build it, shaping the stones with magic; others claimed that a small boy told him what he must do, a boy who would grow to be Bran the Builder. No matter how the tale was told, the end was the same. Though the angry gods threw storm after storm against it, the seventh castle stood defiant, and Durran Godsgrief and fair Elenei dwelt there together until the end of their days. (aCoK, Catelyn III)

Even if Brandon the Builder never really advized Durran Godsgrief on how to build a castle that could withstand storms, George tied Brandon to Storm’s End with that legend. So, if apart from House Dayne and House Stark, the Rick-name Edric appears at Storm’s End, we should pay attention to it.

Edric Storm is one of the few bastards of Robert who was officially acknowledged to be his son. In Edric’s case this was because his mother was a noblewoman, Delena Florent. This makes Edric Storm a Great Bastard (like Bloodraven). He becomes a central plot character for Stannis’ arc both in aCoK and aSoS. Initially he is to serve as potential evidence that Cersei’s children are not Robert’s: Edric looks the spitting image of Robert… almost.

“There’s proof of a sort at Storm’s End. Robert’s bastard. The one he fathered on my wedding night, in the very bed they’d made up for me and my bride. Delena was a Florent, and a maiden when he took her, so Robert acknowledged the babe. Edric Storm, they call him. He is said to be the very image of my brother. If men were to see him, and then look again at Joffrey and Tommen, they could not help but wonder, I would think.” (aCoK, Davos I)

He does however has his mother’s ears, a Florent trait.

The boy drew himself up tall. “I am Edric Storm,” he announced. “King Robert’s son.”
“Of course you are.” Davos had known that almost at once. The lad had the prominent ears of a Florent, but the hair, the eyes, the jaw, the cheekbones, those were all Baratheon. (aSoS, Davos II)

What we should take away from this is that a son inherits something of his mother which is typical for her family:

  • Jon Snow has the Stark look from Lyanna.
  • Bloodraven is a magician, greenseer and skinchanger via his Blackwood mother.

Later, Edric Storm is featured as a potential sacrifice for Melisandre’s desire to “wake a stone dragon” at Dragonstone.

“I am a small man,” Davos admitted, “so tell me why you need this boy Edric Storm to wake your great stone dragon, my lady.” He was determined to say the boy’s name as often as he could.
“Only death can pay for life, my lord. A great gift requires a great sacrifice.” (aSoS, Davos V)

So, we can generally describe Edric as a Great Bastard who resembles his father, a king, but also has a typical trait from his mother’s family. Since House Florent claims descent from Garth Greenhand – via his daughter Florys the Fox – and his father is the grandson of Rhaelle Targaryen, Edric Storm has wildfire blood.

If Brandon the Builder was a greenseer because of his paternal ties to Garth the Green, then the fire element that made him a wildfire greenseer must have come from his mother. There seem to be only two potential houses in existence during the Age of Heroes in Westeros that could be candidates to pass on a fiery type of blood: House Hightower and House Dayne. And only one of these houses has an ancient pale sword: House Dayne.

George also chose to put Edric Storm behind the warded walls of Storm’s End, rather than Renly. Davos has to smuggle Mel into the cave beneath the castle, so she could birth her shadow assassin behind the ward, in order to kill the castellan Courtney Penrose and acquire Edric Storm. It is through this plot that we first learn of some type of magic that can be cast on walls to prevent shadows (and wights) from passing. I elaborate on George’s possible motivation of Mel initially sending a shadow assassin on Renly in open field, and afterwards behind a ward in What Use is a Night’s King of the Night’s King essay series.

The big clue to Brandon the Builder (amidst these tangential commonalities with Brynden Rivers) is how Stannis refuses to refer to Edric by his name.

“Devan? A good boy. He has much of you in him. It is Robert’s bastard who is sick, the boy we took at Storm’s End.
Edric Storm. “I spoke with him in Aegon’s Garden.”
“As she wished. As she saw.” Stannis sighed. “Did the boy charm you?” He has that gift. He got it from his father, with the blood. He knows he is a king’s son, but chooses to forget that he is bastard-born. And he worships Robert, as Renly did when he was young. My royal brother played the fond father on his visits to Storm’s End, and there were gifts . . . swords and ponies and fur-trimmed cloaks. The eunuch’s work, every one. The boy would write the Red Keep full of thanks, and Robert would laugh and ask Varys what he’d sent this year. Renly was no better. He left the boy‘s upbringing to castellans and maesters, and every one fell victim to his charm. Penrose chose to die rather than give him up.” The king ground his teeth together. “It still angers me. How could he think I would hurt the boy? I chose Robert, did I not? When that hard day came. I chose blood over honor.”
He does not use the boy’s name. That made Davos very uneasy. “I hope young Edric will recover soon.”
Stannis waved a hand, dismissing his concern. “It is a chill, no more. He coughs, he shivers, he has a fever. Maester Pylos will soon set him right. By himself the boy is nought, you understand, but in his veins flows my brother’s blood. There is power in a king’s blood, she says.” (aSoS, Davos IV)

… and brigand’s blood, Stannis! Anyway, it is always “the boy”. According to legend, Brandon the Builder was also only “the boy” when he was involved in helping Durran Godsgrief. And did you pick up the trio of sword, a boy’s horse and fur-trimmed cloak (a sable cloak?). Or that “the boy” is shivering and cold?

Edric Storm starts to sound like another Edric who is an echo or allusion of Brandon the Builder. And if so, then the debate between Stannis and Davos about sacrificing Edric becomes even more poignant and layered.

“You are making me angry, Davos. I will hear no more of this bastard boy.
“His name is Edric Storm, sire.”
“I know his name. Was there ever a name so apt? It proclaims his bastardy, his high birth, and the turmoil he brings with him. Edric Storm. There, I have said it. Are you satisfied, my lord Hand?”
“Edric—” he started.
“—is one boy! He may be the best boy who ever drew breath and it would not matter. My duty is to the realm.” (aSoS, Davos V)

But apparently one boy who allegedly was “at” Storm’s End” once mattered a great deal and made a crucial difference at Storm’s End and the Wall. At present a boy called Bran matters, and a boy Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch matters too. Edric Dayne already made a difference when he prevented Beric from drowning, for the Brotherhood without Banners made a difference for the smallfolk. In his indirect own way, Edric Storm mattered. It redirected Davos’ focus to find something to prove to Stannis where he could earn a kingdom – the cry for help by the Night’s Watch. Is it any coincidence then that George has Stannis talk about the Long Night, Lightbringer and a “dragon” turning the battle, right after dismissing one boy’s importance?

His hand swept across the Painted Table. “How many boys dwell in Westeros? How many girls? How many men, how many women? The darkness will devour them all, she says. The night that never ends. She talks of prophecies . . . a hero reborn in the sea, living dragons hatched from dead stone . . . she speaks of signs and swears they point to me. I never asked for this, no more than I asked to be king. Yet dare I disregard her?” He ground his teeth. “We do not choose our destinies. Yet we must . . . we must do our duty, no? Great or small, we must do our duty. Melisandre swears that she has seen me in her flames, facing the dark with Lightbringer raised on high. Lightbringer!” Stannis gave a derisive snort. “It glimmers prettily, I’ll grant you, but on the Blackwater this magic sword served me no better than any common steel. A dragon would have turned that battle. Aegon once stood here as I do, looking down on this table. Do you think we would name him Aegon the Conqueror today if he had not had dragons?” (aSoS, Davos V)

Or the irony of Davos wondering whether Edric Storm is to play the Nissa Nissa part in this context.

This fostering of acknowledged bastards at Storm’s End is not new either. Fire and Blood includes a tale of a “biography” written by Coryanne Wylde of House Rain of the Stormlands: A Caution for Young Girls. Fire and Blood paints this cautionary tale for a large part as sordid fiction that no sepon or maester at the Citadel would touch to copy. Instead the copyists were fallen septons, failed students of the Citadel and – worst of all – mummers. In the eyes of the Citadel, mummers are as bad as singers with the truth (except that the singers of the earth sing the True Tongue). By framing this tale of Coryanne Wylde in this way, George is signaling the reader that it has an equivalency to legends and myths of heroes of the Age of Heroes. In other words, it sheds a light on the past, on a hero of the Age of Heroes, but in a distorted way, since mummers are not singers. I will restrict myself to what has been verified by the Citadel and is relevant to Edric Storm.

When she was thirteen, Coryanne Wylde, had an affair with a stable boy, resulting in a pregnancy. Coryanne was locked away until she delivered her baby son. That son was sent to Storm’s End and was fostered there by a steward and his childless wife. And in her case only very few people beyond the walls of Rain House knew of it. (see Fire and Blood, a Surfeit of Rulers).

Rainwood_by paolo puggioni
Rainwood, by Paolo Puggioni

Wylde is another form of spelling wyld or wild, meaning a wild person or (hunting) game. There is even a residential area of Birmingham called Wylde Green. House Wylde of Rain House is situated in Rainwood. This forest was once connected to the Kingswood as a primeval forest where the children of the forest lived. Arianne ends up sheltering in a Rainwood cave with evidence of it once having been inhabitated by the children in the second chapter of her POV for tWoW. And the World Book describes the rainwood during the Dawn Age prior to the pact as follows.

The wet wild of the rainwood was a favored haunt of the children of the forest, the tales tell us, and there were giants in the hills that rose wild in the shadow of the Red Mountains, and amongst the defiles and ridges of the stony peninsula that came to be called Massey’s Hook. Although the giants were a shy folk, and ever hostile to man, it is written that in the beginning, the children of the forest welcomed the newcomers to Westeros, in the belief that there was land enough for all. (tWoIaF – The Stormlands: The Coming of the First Men)

But First Men began to harvest timber and hardwoods from the rainwood and ran into conflict with the children of the forest, until the Pact created a truce between the two species. By then though the numbers of the children in the forest at the rainwood were already greatly diminished. And long after the Pact, during the Age of Heroes, Durran Godsgrief begins to build his kingdom and castle at Storm’s End and conquers the rainwood from the children of the forest.

The Godsgrief himself was first to claim the rainwood, that wet wilderness that had hitherto belonged only to the children of the forest. His son Durran the Devout returned to the children most of what his father had seized, but a century later Durran Bronze-Axe took it back again, this time for good and all. (tWoIaF – The Stormlands: House Durrandon)

Storm’s End also fostered the bastards of Ser Lucamore “the Lusty” Strong (a “white sword”) by his third illigitemate wife.

The amiable and well loved Ser Lucamore Strong of the Kingsguard, a favorite of the smallfolk, was found to have been secretly wed, despite the vows that he had sworn as a White Sword. Worse, he had taken not one but three wives, keeping each woman ignorant of the other two and fathering no fewer than sixteen children on the three of them.  […] The third wife, whose children were the youngest (one still on her breast), would be sent down to Storm’s End, where Garon Baratheon and young Lord Boremund would see to their upbringing. (Fire and Blood – The Long Reign, Jaehaerys and Alysanne: Policy, Progeny and Pain)

So, when Storm’s End is said to foster a wylde child from the rainwood, it alludes to fostering a child of the forest, or at least a greenseer boy who was trained amongst the children of the rainwood. Combine this with the white sword and kinghood, and this seems to point to a greenseeing bastard born from House Dayne, who were Kings of the Torrentine and in possession of a palestone sword, fostered at Storm’s End. That boy would later be known as Brandon the Builder. This then would be the explanation for Brandon being able to wield Dawn.

Many other theorists have proposed that the original sword Ice was actually Dawn and that Dawn was Lightbringer, but they barely touched on the explanation how Brandon the Builder could have wielded it. At best they propose he stole or borrowed it, without considering the hints we have that Brandon may have been born to a daughter of House Dayne. Storm’s End and fostering is one of the clues to this. I will delve in depth to the numerous hints for this in Wildfire and Blood.

Index

Eldric Shadowchaser

If Edrics are actually echoes of Brandon, then why do they have such a different name? We might find our answer in the names of the heroes who allegedly wielded Lightbringer according to Essosi claims. There is one name that stands out, because it is a Rick-name: Eldric Shadowchaser.

How long the darkness endured no man can say, but all agree that it was only when a great warrior—known variously as Hyrkoon the Hero, Azor Ahai, Yin Tar, Neferion, and Eldric Shadowchaser—arose to give courage to the race of men and lead the virtuous into battle with his blazing sword Lightbringer that the darkness was put to rout, and light and love returned once more to the world. (tWoIaF – The Bones and Beyond: Yi Ti)

Eldric is a variation of the last hero or/and Azor Ahai.

Most of the focus usually goes to Azor Ahai. That is after all the name that appears in the main series, with a legend on how he forged Lightbringer and how some monster burst into flame after being thrust with the blade. The other four names are dropped in the World Book with just a general claim in connection to wielding Lightbringer and ending the Long Night. If these other names are ever debated, it is usually in relation to whether these are different local Essosi heroes who ended up conflated with each other, or there is only one hero and different regions try to claim this hero was theirs (the monomyth). Personally I think it is a bit of both.

  • Some areas or cultures tried to claim their ancestor to be this legendary hero they heard about.
  • Other areas and people did indeed have local tales of efforts being undertaken to end the Long Night, and erronously attributed the success to these tales, such as the Rhoynar legend.
  • Some legends and associated names are about one and the same person.
  • And then there are Essosi legendary heroes that some readers argue are part of the monomyth, even though there is nothing in the local tales about that hero to support this: Huzhor Amai of the Silver Sea or Hugor Hill of the Andals.
Hyrkoon_by Jordo Gonzalez
Hyrkoon the Hero with Lightbringer in hand, leading the virtuous into battle, by Jordi Gonzalez

David Lightbringer and History of Westeros argued that several of these names can be directly tied to an ethnic group or area in Essos east of the Bone Mountains. It is as if these groups are trying to claim “our hero is the one”:

  • Hyrkoon the Hero– The Patriarchs of Hyrkoon claim descent from this Hyrkoon.
  • Yin Tar – Yin is the port city of Yi Ti. Several dynasties of the Great Empire of Yi Ti have ruled from Yin: grey, indigo, pearl-white and azure (presently).
  • Neferion – Nefer is another port city, the most northern port east of the Bone Mountains, and the capital of N’ghai, the last remnant of their former empire. It is shrouded by fog, nine tenth of it is underground and its nickname is Secret City.

We can be sure that none of these three were the actual hero in question. At best, they were either local heroes at the time. At worst, there was no hero whatsoever, and they appropriated it because some of the details of the legend surrounding the actual hero reminded them of their own world. None of these are really “names” even. Neferion basically means Nefer-like for example.

There certainly is a nationalistic incentive to proclaim the hero to have been one of their own, when we consider that the remnants of the Patriarchy of Hyrkoon, the Jogos Nhai and Yi Ti hate each other’s guts.

Even though these three are not actual names and very unlikely to have been Azor Ahai, let alone the last hero, they are not completely irrelevant. What does Quaithe cryptically say to Dany in Qarth if she wants to learn secrets and become knowledgeable?

“To go north, you must journey south, to reach the west you must go east. To go forward you must go back and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow.” (aCoK, Daenerys III)

Beneath the shadow is a reference for Asshai. On the surface, it seems as if Quaithe is advizing Dany to journey to Asshai. Certainly Dany’s massive journey as far as Dothrak in the first book and Jorah advizing Dany to go to Asshai several times in both aGoT and aCoK supports the idea that George may have intended for Dany to journey to Asshai, initially. Quaithe’s cryptic advice stems from aCoK and was said in Qarth, very near the Bone Mountains. In Qarth, east can only mean the lands beyond the Bones. It implies that in order to learn about the past of the West, Dany had to go east of the Bones and suggests that George intended for Dany to hear stories about Hyrkoon, Neferion, Yin Tar and eventually Azor Ahai along the way.

But in 2011 in a Q& A with Tad Williams, George answered the question whether we “will ever see Asshai or the Shadow” as follows:

You may hear about it and you may get flashback scenes from characters who have been there and you can puzzle it out on the internet. But I don’t know. I may return to write other stories set in this world. I want you to return to Osten Ard by the way. (SSM, Redwood City Signing, July 27 2011)

In other words, after finishing aDwD, George had no intention (anymore) for Dany to journey as far as Asshai. It appears to me that having to drop te five year gap forced George to shelve any hope to have Dany learn of the Azor Ahai related legends east of the Bones. But he also felt he needed to preserve consistency with Quaithe’s aCoK advice, at the very least to the reader. And thus the information the readers have in the World Book about the lands and stories East of the Bone Mountains would be the info GRRM intended for us to learn via Dany’s scrapped journey to Asshai. This supports the fantasy archeologists in their efforts and is certainly something for naysayers to consider.

Finally there is the name reference of the mountain range, the Bone Mountains and the geographical reference in the World Book to this part of the world, Beyond the Bones. George invites us to look at places where we find “bones” and to see beyond the mummer show of scary bones: crypts, burrows, graveyards, greenseer caves.

If these three ethnic groups beyond the Bones declared the legendary hero to be theirs based on commonalities of the actual hero, each of them therefore would reflect an aspect of the actual hero from the West. In other words, we can conclude that

  • He founded a new family or House after the Long Night ended.
  • He is associated with the colors or stones of grey, indigo and pearl-white.
  • and this hero and the people with him survived underground, in a secret city.

Brandon the Builder is definitely a man associated as a founder of a new house, namely House Stark, after the Long Night. So, we can see how Hyrkoon and Brandon the Builder have something in common.

The same is true for Nefer and Winterfell. I have already pointed out the visual hints and the etymology of Winterfell and its crypts being an underground cave system, not unlike Bloodraven’s cave, beneath a weirwood serving as a beacon in a white winter world – a secret city. Now here is the description of Nefer of the World Book, the city we can safely assume claims Neferion is Azor Ahai.

Only one port of note is to be found on the Shivering Sea east of the Bones: Nefer, chief city of the kingdom of N’ghai, hemmed in by towering chalk cliffs and perpetually shrouded in fog. When seen from the harbor, Nefer appears to be no more than a small town, but it is said that nine-tenths of the city is beneath the ground. For that reason, travelers call Nefer the Secret City. (tWoIaF – Beyond the Free Cities: East of Ib)

George uses fog or mist as a visual play on the phrase “mists of time”. Not just here, but for example when Theon walks Jeyne Poole to her groom Ramsay in the godswood at Winterfell and the fog clears up to show a new tableau with all of Luwin’s ravens in the weirwood tree – their home from before there was ever a castle at Winterfell, let alone a maester’s rookery.

Then the mists parted, like the curtain opening at a mummer show to reveal some new tableau. The heart tree appeared in front of them, its bony limbs spread wide. Fallen leaves lay about the wide white trunk in drifts of red and brown. The ravens were the thickest here, muttering to one another in the murderers’ secret tongue. (aDwD, The Prince of Wnterfell)

Nefer thus reveals us something about the past. And when a wielder of lightbringer is claimed to be Neferion, it basically means the actual hero lived or was from a secret city. Winterfell could have been that secret city.

So, if the Azor Ahai (azure) legend refers to the last hero and that last hero was Brandon the Builder, then we should find a clue for the Starks in relation to grey, indigo and pearl-white dynasties of Yin, where Yin Tar would have been from. The Stark sigil is grey, and via Arya Stark (the dark sister) we also have allusions to indigo and pearl-white. Before she arrives at Beric’s hollow hill, Arya stays a night at Acorn Hall. Lady Ravella Smallwood, née Ravella Swan, has Arya take a bath and gives her an acorn dress of the daughter she sent to a motherhouse for safe keeping.

Arya promptly found herself marched upstairs, forced into a tub, and doused with scalding hot water. Lady Smallwood’s maidservants scrubbed her so hard it felt like they were flaying her themselves. They even dumped in some stinky-sweet stuff that smelled like flowers. And afterward, they insisted she dress herself in girl’s things, brown woolen stockings and a light linen shift, and over that a light green gown with acorns embroidered all over the bodice in brown thread, and more acorns bordering the hem. (aSoS, Arya IV)

Arya compares herself to an oak tree because of it.

“I look like an oak tree, with all these stupid acorns.”
“Nice, though. A nice oak tree.” He stepped closer, and sniffed at her. “You even smell nice for a change.” (aSoS, Arya IV)

Gendry’s comment provokes Arya into wrestling him and the dress gets torn. Arya gets forced into a second bath and put in yet another dress: a lilac dress with pearls.

It was even worse than before; Lady Smallwood insisted that Arya take another bath, and cut and comb her hair besides; the dress she put her in this time was sort of lilac-colored, and decorated with little baby pearls. The only good thing about it was that it was so delicate that no one could expect her to ride in it. (aSoS, Arya IV)

It is as if every bath and scrubbing represents a going back in time to reveal what lies beneath the wolf’s skin. The first scrub shows Arya’s origin to that of a greenseer – the acorn that becomes a tree. But before the greenseer was an acorn, he was a baby pearl to a lilac eye-colored and delicate lady. So, in Arya, the dark sister, we have the grey, the purple and pearl mentioned for the dynasties of Yi Ti, where they claim the hero with a flaming sword who ended the Long Night is Yin Tar.

That Arya’s dresses truly are about an ancestral boy, rather than an ancestral girl, is made clear by the fact that in the morning, Ravella Smallwood gifts Arya her boy’s iron studded leather jerkin.

So the next morning as they broke their fast, Lady Smallwood gave her breeches, belt, and tunic to wear, and a brown doeskin jerkin dotted with iron studs. “They were my son’s things,” she said. “He died when he was seven.” (aSoS, Arya IV)

Notice too that the other dinasty of Yi Ti that I did not mention yet is the azure one. Azure is a type of blue, and Arya is a dark sister with blue eyes, but also brings Azor Ahai to mind. So, the colors of the dynasties that ruled Yi Ti from Yin link the Grey Starks to Azor Ahai.

Now how can I be certain that we should tie Arya’s scenes of the dresses at Acorn Hall to a hero with a flaming sword? Because Arya’s acorn dress scene with Gendry is steeped into talk about flaming swords. Gendry explains Thoros’ trick to set his sword aflame to Arya – he doused his sword with wildfire. And this scene occurs in a forge!

“[Thoros] won’t remember me, but he used to come to our forge.” The Smallwood forge had not been used in some time, though the smith had hung his tools neatly on the wall. Gendry lit a candle and set it on the anvil while he took down a pair of tongs. “My master always scolded him about his flaming swords. It was no way to treat good steel, he’d say, but this Thoros never used good steel. He’d just dip some cheap sword in wildfire and set it alight. It was only an alchemist’s trick, my master said, but it scared the horses and some of the greener knights.” (aSoS, Arya IV)

Though Azor Ahai is treated as a name, personally I believe it to be a title or descriptor, just like last hero, corpse queen or the prince that was promised. Readers write those with capitals, though none are capitalized in the books. Within the series no translation for Azor Ahai has been given. I have checked up on potential real world etymological connections, with most failing at having credible sources. Even the claim on Wikipedia about the meaning for Azor or Azur in relation to a settlement in Israel are dubious. They claim it means mighty or heroic and reference the town’s website, but that website states it means defence belt.

The sole potential inspiration that seems credible is the Gospel of Mathew that mentions Azor as an ancestor of Jesus. Biblical scholars speculate that Azor may be a shortened name of Azariah. Now pronounce Azor Ahai and then Azariah. That is a match, no? In Hebrew, the name Azariah means Yah has helped, or God’s helper or God’s help. This explanation has been floating around the internet for a while, but without a proper source or explanation, leaving out or not knowing that Azor is short for Azariah. That meaning does seem to fit the notion of a title or descriptor given by religious worshippers. It is comparable to the freed slaves of Yunkai calling Dany Mhysa (mother).

The oldest verified source of the legend of Azor Ahai is Asshai. As Azor Ahai sounds quite exotic in comparison to Westeros, we assume Azor Ahai was an Essosi hero (or villain). When we apply some historical source reasoning on this, however, we can quickly see this is not necessarily the case.

It is also written that there are annals in Asshai of such a darkness, and of a hero who fought against it with a red sword. His deeds are said to have been performed before the rise of Valyria, in the earliest age when Old Ghis was first forming its empire. This legend has spread west from Asshai, and the followers of R’hllor claim that this hero was named Azor Ahai, and prophesy his return.

The deeds of the hero with the red sword were written in the Asshai annals, which are year to year recordings. It is not directly stated that Asshai scholars knew his name or even named him. Instead it is pointed out that R’hllorists refer to this anonymous hero as Azor Ahai. And then there is this quite important realization to keep in the back of our minds – Asshai never made any claims on where God’s helper was born or where he defeated the Long Night. Asshai is the oldest still surviving city and port of whole Planetos by all appearances. For all we know Asshai learned of this hero from trading ships or pirates that sailed from Oldtown to Asshai. But as they were a trading center for the rest of Planetos and the civilisation with the eldest written records, the legend got spread around to other sailors, wizards,  mages, shadowbinders and fire worshipping priests via Asshai.

There is even another way how Asshai could have recorded deeds in their annals 8000 years ago. Preserving knowledge and events in annals suggests that Asshai had accurate means to acquire information of events in the world remotely while they were occurring. In Asshai’s case that might have been glass candles. Asshai exports dragonglass and glass candles are made from dragonglass or obsidian. Readers assume that glass candles are a Valyrian invention, because the glass candles in the Citadel came from Valyria, and because Marwyn (who has been at Asshai) refers to it as Valyrian sorcery. And yet, the technology to use dragonglass as a remote viewer tool may predate Valyria as much as dragons may have. If you believe that the Great Empire of the Dawn and/or Asshai had dragon and fire and blood magic knowledge before the Valyrians, then we should include glass candle magic and technology as theirs as well. If so, then Asshai was able to monitor events across Planetos, including Westeros, during the Long Night.

An indication to this is the fact that Quaithe, a shadowbinder of Asshai, uses a glass candle most prominently to communicate with Dany. Now, has Quaithe ever used a name to identify someone? Aside from the perfumed senechal as translation of the cog Selaesori Qhoran, Quaithe uses only symbolic descriptors. One of the main reasons might be that a glass candle user does not always know or understand the language of the people they watch. If you do not know a certain language, it is hard to distinguish names from other words in that language. This might explain why Quaithe uses descriptors so much: imagery is a universal language. So, an Asshai recordkeeper was unlikely to have recorded an actual name in the annals.

Asshai using glass candle magic for remote viewing might explain the discrepancy of a hero with a bright red sword, instead of a pale white sword, if Lightbringer = Dawn. If you view a white light through some type of screen that is colored, say red dark obsidian, then that light would appear as a bright red, and not as white.

In any case, the legend of Azor Ahai and much later prophecy (5000 years ago) may have spread from Asshai in Essos, but the heroes recorded in their annals could have been men plowing through the snows of northern Westeros, and either the story sailed as far as Asshai or was witnessed via glass candle magic.

Eldric Shadowchaser does not fit any of the other four. Even if the name pops up in Essos and was jotted down by Lomas Longstrider as he traveled beyond the Bone Mountains, it does not contain a reference to an area from either side of that mountain range in Essos. And the World Book gives no Essosi source for it. It sounding so very Westerosi like seems to hint that this Eldric Shadowchaser was a Westerosi whose tale traveled as far as Essos, east of the Bone Mountains, but without this name being remembered in Westeros itself.

Is it a name though? Shadowchaser is a good descriptor that seems to paint a picture of a hero hunting Others with Lightbringer. When George uses the name Eldric, most readers agree he may be referencing Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné. When we search for other historical characters in Westeros being called Eldric, however, we come up with only one aside from this Shadowchaser – Eldric Arryn, a potential heir to Lady Jeyne Arryn during the reign of Aegon III. That is odd. We do have an Elric Stark who was imprisoned by his cousin Lord Cregan Stark, when Elric’s father (who used to be regent) was reluctant to hand over power to Cregan Stark when he came off age.

Now, say Eldric out loud. If you do, it would sound like elder Rick, meaning the elder king or old king. Or as I already suggested with the title for a king: the elder protector of the realm. Once again, Eldric Shadowchaser may have been a misunderstood descriptor rather than an actual name. Another possibility may have been that he was actually just called Rick, having a boy Rick by his side that he mentored, and that in Westeros they initially distinguished the two as the Elder Rick and the Young Rick, as I already did for both Brynden with Bran and Beric with Edric Dayne.

Would George do such a thing as conflating elder Rick into Eldric? Well, he likely would, when you consider that in our own name history, Ned comes from the conflation of the affectionate “mine Ed” which was reinterpreted as “my Ned”. Certainly if foreigners heard sailors speak of Elder Rick, it would have sounded like one name to them and Essosis may have conflated it into Eldric. The same idea works, if the name was recorded into the annals of Asshai via glass candle remote viewing.

What should be clear by now is that all the prior Ricks (from Beric to Edric and Erryk) that I mentioned, can be prominently associated to either Dawn, a palestone sword that could emenate light, or a flaming sword which we think of as Lightbringer. So, of the five names associated to the legendary hero who forged Lightbringer, Elder Rick (Eldric) seems to be the closest to the actual name of either the forger or wielder of Lightbringer during the Long Night.

Index

Rickon Stark
Rickon_Stark_by_aniaem
Art Parkinson as Rickon Stark in Game of Thrones, Small repaint

Young and wild Rickon Star is featured in person in but two books. As he is a toddler still, he is easily overlooked in importance in comparison to his siblings, even though he was set up in aDwD to be a motivation for political players such as Lord Manderly to strongarm Davos into finding him at Skagos and smuggle him back to White Harbor. His name mainly points out that he is a Rick, but he also has the same suffix as Brandon. If Brand-On means “flaming sword on”, then Rick-On could be seen to mean “crown on” or “protection on”.

I already mentioned a crypt scene in relation to Brandon Stark being kissed by fire from Luwin’s torch as Rickon’s wolf Shaggydog attacks him. This is a scene wheremost readers’s hairs rise with sensations of foreshadowing regarding Rickon: the toddler and his wolf are aggressive, Shaggydog fights with Summer, and we even get a mention of twenty feet tall shadows. It all comes across as ominous.

I have come to the conclusion that this is not a foreshadowing scene at all, but should be regarded as a revealing scene of the past. I have already cited several reasons for this in the Brandon Stark section where I cover it:

  • Luwin asks Bran to recall his histories and tell them to Osha
  • The torch is trailing back and thus shedding light on the past

George uses similar references to “going back in time” at the start of the crypt visit.

Summer stalked out in the echoing gloom, then stopped, lifted his head, and sniffed the chill dead air. He bared his teeth and crept backward, eyes glowing golden in the light of the maester’s torch. (aGoT, Bran VII)

When you hear an echo, the sound from which it originates lies in the past. The echoing gloom is tied by George to the dead and cold with the word chill. Or he has Summer creep backward in that light of the histories.

Though Summer and Shaggydog fight, who does Shaggydog initially attack? A maester. And after Rickon appears out of Ned’s empty tomb and recalls Shaggy to him, Rickon’s warning is meant for a maester as well.

“Shaggy,” a small voice called. When Bran looked up, his little brother was standing in the mouth of Father’s tomb. With one final snap at Summer’s face, Shaggydog broke off and bounded to Rickon’s side. “You let my father be,” Rickon warned Luwin. “You let him be.” (aGoT, Bran VII)

No matter how well intentioned Luwin is and of course is not responsible for Ned Stark ending up a head short, he is still a product of the Citadel and through him has an influence on the Starks. A book later Luwin will deny the existence of magic, greenseeing and green dreaming, even go as far as drug Bran to prevent him from dreaming about wolves and weirwood trees.

The shadow fight between Shaggy and Summer therefore must be regarded as a disagreement between Starks on how to protect their legacy, which is their ancestry, from the Citadel.

In the drunken shifting torchlight, they saw Luwin struggling with the direwolf, beating at his muzzle with one hand while the jaws closed on the other. “Summer!” Bran screamed. And Summer came, shooting from the dimness behind them, a leaping shadow. He slammed into Shaggydog and knocked him back, and the two direwolves rolled over and over in a tangle of grey and black fur, snapping and biting at each other, while Maester Luwin struggled to his knees, his arm torn and bloody. Osha propped Bran up against Lord Rickard’s stone wolf as she hurried to assist the maester. In the light of the guttering torch, shadow wolves twenty feet tall fought on the wall and roof. (aGoT, Bran VII)

I propose that one faction argued for the destruction of the Citadel, while the other argued for the distortion of the truth, to make it a secret, so much so that eventually the Starks themselves did not really know the truth anymore themselves.

It therefore is no coincidence that before this particular crypt scene on page we learn from Bran in an earlier chapter that Rickon made a scene inside the crypts before already, wielding an iron sword he’d “snatched from a dead king’s hand”.

His baby brother had been wild as a winter storm since he learned Robb was riding off to war, weeping and angry by turns. He’d refused to eat, cried and screamed for most of a night, even punched Old Nan when she tried to sing him to sleep, and the next day he’d vanished. Robb had set half the castle searching for him, and when at last they’d found him down in the crypts, Rickon had slashed at them with a rusted iron sword he’d snatched from a dead king’s hand, and Shaggydog had come slavering out of the darkness like a green-eyed demon. The wolf was near as wild as Rickon; he’d bitten Gage on the arm and torn a chunk of flesh from Mikken’s thigh. It had taken Robb himself and Grey Wind to bring him to bay. Farlen had the black wolf chained up in the kennels now, and Rickon cried all the more for being without him. (aGoT, Bran VI)

So, Rickon’s two crypt scenes put the crowned protector-king (rick-on) concept together with a wildfire greenseer (brand-on) wielding an iron sword and letting a torch fly. While they seem to be split over two brothers (Rickon and Brandon), the two also overlap. Notice how in the above quote, Bran gets “propped up” agains the stone wolf of another Rick-named character, a Rickard (see Wardens), but the actions of Rickon’s wolf reveal something about a Brandon.

What we are being shown or told about Brandons and Ricks are fractures of the truth, but we should unite these. The hint to this are the eyes of both wolves in the scene. The wolf of a Rick is green-eyed, implying greenseeing, whereas the actual greenseer’s wolf Summer is golden-eyed. Together though this makes for the special color combo of green-gold, the colors of Dr. Weird. This is a superhero and ghost for which George once wrote a short story as a teen, Only Kids are Afraid in the Dark. This old short story lacks much of George’s later layering and nuance in his writing. But the color coding of green-gold versus black-red still permeats George’s writing to this very day, including the template of Dr. Weird’s trick: using a fool’s body (whose mind or soul is destroyed) to distract a black-red demon into attacking and eventually forcing them to retreat.

And that this color-code applies to the wolves is backed by several references to both Bran and Rickon supposed to being afraid of the dark.

“Rickon,” Bran said, “would you like to come with me?”
“No. I like it here.”
“It’s dark here. And cold.”
“I’m not afraid. I have to wait for Father.” (aGoT, Bran VII)

Bran could not recall the last time he had been in the crypts. It had been before, for certain. When he was little, he used to play down here with Robb and Jon and his sisters. He wished they were here now; the vault might not have seemed so dark and scary. (aGoT, Bran VII)

Arya recalls one of those times they played down in the crypts, with Bran having the age of Rickon and Jon as “ghost”.

Robb smiled when she said that. “There are worse things than spiders and rats,” he whispered. “This is where the dead walk.” That was when they heard the sound, low and deep and shivery. Baby Bran had clutched at Arya’s hand.
When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs, and Bran wrapped himself around Robb’s leg, sobbing. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. “You stupid,” she told him, “you scared the baby,” but Jon and Robb just laughed and laughed, and pretty soon Bran and Arya were laughing too. (aGoT, Arya IV)

So, the truth about Brandon the Builder is fractured and distorted: who he was, his abilities, his bloodlines, his name, and his feats and deeds. This did not just happen because of the passing of time, and distortion of Andal and Citadel agenda. The crypt scene fight between Summer and Shaggy points to the Starks themselves wanting to bury the truth.

And while we may expect George to shed more light on Brandon the Builder via Bran’s greenseeing of the past, he uses Rickon in particular to plant the seeds for us, by having him slashh with a rusted iron sword, the torch kissing Brandon’s cheek, and Rickon eyeing the gargoyles of the First Keep through a looking glass. But I will save that for the essay on Brandon the Builder that goes into architecture way deeper. Ultmately, it revolves around Brandon’s blood and origins.

Rickon patted Shaggydog’s muzzle, damp with blood. “I let him loose. He doesn’t like chains.” He licked at his fingers. (aGoT, Bran VII)

Although the blood on Shaggy’s muzzle is Luwin’s and on the surface RIckon is portrayed as a hungry wolf licking another man’s blood from his fingers, the act of licking echoes the “licking” of the torch flames of Brandon’s statue. So, we end up with a link between being “kissed by fire” and blood. And we also have an echo to Rickon’s anti-maester or anti-Citadel sentiment – maesters wear a chain around their neck, and George does portray maesters and especially Luwin as a slave of the mind, to the anti-magic doctrine of the Citadel. (also see Bran Stark (Part 1) – Serwyn Reversed).

The Wardens

A third set of names have the suffix -ard, such as Eddard, Rickard, Ellard, Bennard, Cregard, Tommard, Raynard, and Maynard. –ard means brave or hard. But in the case of Eddard, we have a fantasy variation by George on the name Edward. In which case the suffix is actually a disguised –ward. And overall, I do believe we should have ward or warden in the back of our head with names that end with –ard.

Though warden-names are not wholly reserved for the North, or even the Starks, they do appear most often in the Stark lineage, but (excepting one) only after House Stark rescinded their crown to Aegon the Conquerer. In other words, these type of names become common for the Starks once their title becomes warden of the North and not King in the North anymore. We could say that gradually the –ric suffix is replaced by the –ard one.

Lord Ellard Stark supported Rhaenys Targaryen’s bid for the Iron Throne during the Great Council of 101 AC. Though George uses Ellard as a first name, its etymology is tied to Ellard as a surname. It is either derived from Adel(w)ard or Aelf(w)ard, with the first meaning “noble guard” (or ward) and the second “elf guard” , or “noble brave” and “elf brave”. George tends to use the prefix dare- and durran for brave or daring characters (see later). But Davos’ son Allard Seaworth is a variation of Ellard, and he is a brave and rash character, who does not survive the Battle of the Blackwater. Meanwhile Lord Allard Royce of Runestone covers the warden meaning, when Jonos Arryn rebels against Aenys I Targaryen in 37 AC and his older brother Lord Ronnel Arryn and declares himself King of Mountain and Vale. Aenys’s indecisiveness leads to Allard taking matters in his own hands, sweeping away Jonos’ supporters and pinning the remainder down at the Eyrie. Though this results in Jonos kinslaying his brother by throwing him through the Moon Door, it also ensured that upon arrival of Maegor Targaryen on the back of Balerion the rebellion was shortlived and restricted to the Eyrie alone. After Jonos’ death, the Arryn cousin Hubert Arryn gets the job. Hubert happened to be married to a Royce of Runestone and already had several children with her and as such Lord Allard’s family benefited from his noble guarding of the succession. It should be noted that the sigil of House Royce of course is a bronze shield.

The next one is Bennard Stark. As a second son and uncle to Cregan Stark, he never was actual Lord of Winterfell. But as Cregan was still a minor when he became Lord of Winterfell, Bennard was his regent and therefore a warden of Cregan Stark and therefore the North in every practical sense. And he liked being that so much, that he was very reluctant to hand over the reigns even when Cregan came of age, until eventually an eighteen year old Cregan rose up against Bennard and imprisoned his uncle (and his sons). We recognize the prefix ben– like we have with the several Benjens, but here combined with the -(w)ard suffix. That said, George tips us off that Bennard is a fantasy variation of the name Bernard, when he also includes a Bennard Brune. Bernard means “brave as a bear”. Brune is a circumlocution for the taboo word for bear (see bears and maidens). George is very much aware of this since the knightly House Brune of Brownhollow has a bearpaw for a sigil while their cousins, the landed noble House Brune, have Dyre Den as a seat. I should also add that the bear is considered to be a guardian or protector of the forest realm in real world folklore and that George RR Martin has shown to use much of the bear folklore in his bear figures.

The next warden name that appears in the Stark lineages is Cregard Stark, the eldest son of Edric Stark and Serena Stark, and grandson of Cregan Stark. We know almost nothing of him, other than his lineage and that neither he or his younger brother continued the Stark line. There is no other character named Cregard, in either the books or the histories. It is thus a unique name. We do notice of course that it must be a composite name of the illustruous Cregan with the -ard suffix. And we can also notice that his father had a rick-name, and not just any rick-name, but an Edric. So, we go from a man with an ambituous king-name to a ward-name, while referencing Cregan. The latter is an Irish surname, derived from the Gaelic O Croidheagain and the word croidhe, which means heart. The combination of these three names – Cregan to Edric to Cregard – suggests that it is not so much the crown or a throne that makes the Starks royalty, but that them being wardens or protectors of the realm of men lies at the heart of the matter.

The last two Starks with a warden name are Rickard and Eddard Stark, who both were the last two Lords of Winterfell and Wardens of the North.

Eddard Stark
Ned Stark and Ice, by Michael Komarch

Eddard is by itself as unique a name as Cregard. The sole other character called Eddard is a Karstark, and was specifically named after Ned Stark. Here we are certain the -ard suffix is associated to -ward, as Eddard is a fantasy variation by George on the name Edward, which means wealthy guard.

There is no doubt though that Eddard and Edric are related names. George makes sure of that when he has Edric Dayne being referred to as Ned Dayne, just like Eddard Stark.

Ned, help me remove my breastplate.” Arya got goosebumps when Lord Beric said her father’s name, but this Ned was only a boy, a fair-haired squire no more than ten or twelve. (aSoS, Arya VI)

My father was called Ned too,” she said [to Edric Dayne]. (aSoS, Arya VIII)

Basically if the Starks still would have been Kings in the North, Eddard most likely would have been called Edric.

The ward and warding meaning of Eddard’s name is not only reflected in his title as Warden of the North, but also in his backstory. He was a ward himself to Jon Arryn who protected Eddard against the Mad King’s demand to deliver Eddard’s head after the execution of both his father Rickard and his brother Brandon Stark. And after the Greyjoy Rebellion he became warden of Theon Greyjoy. Theon was his hostage to keep the father Balon Greyjoy in check.

“Ten, or close as makes no matter,” he told her. “I was a boy of ten when I was taken to Winterfell as a ward of Eddard Stark.” A ward in name, a hostage in truth. (aCoK, Theon I)

Old Flint stomped his cane against the ice. “Wards, we always called them, when Winterfell demanded boys of us, but they were hostages, and none the worse for it.” (aDwD, Jon XI)

And indeed, not before Theon returned to Pyke did Balon Greyjoy attack the continent again, and when he did attack, Balon chose the North.

In Old English ward is actually weard (guardian or protection). And as such a weird- or weirwood is a phonetical wordplay on a weardwood or a protective tree. One memorable scene of Eddard puts him beneath the weirwood tree in Catelyn’s very first POV chapter of the series. Like Bran in Bloodraven’s cave, Ned is seated on moss “beneath” the weirwood, with a magical sword (Valyran steek) Ice across his lap.

Catelyn found her husband beneath the weirwood, seated on a moss-covered stone. The greatsword Ice was across his lap, and he was cleaning the blade in those waters black as night. A thousand years of humus lay thick upon the godswood floor, swallowing the sound of her feet, but the red eyes of the weirwood seemed to follow her as she came. (aGoT, Catelyn I)

The description immediately brings a symbolical greenseer beneath the tree to mind as well as the crypt statues. It is also implied that this image goes back for thousand years. Of course, Ned Stark was not an actual greenseer and he is seated above ground, rather than inside a hollow hill. Nevertheless, he serves as the first symbolical parallel to a greenseer. In this scene we are bombarded with verbal inclusion of the children and Bran.

He lifted his head to look at her. “Catelyn,” he said. His voice was distant and formal. “Where are the children?” (aGoT, Catelyn I)

Ned asks about the whereabouts of their mutual children, but upon a reread Ned’s question could read as wondering where the children of the forest are.

He had a swatch of oiled leather in one hand. He ran it lightly up the greatsword as he spoke, polishing the metal to a dark glow. “I was glad for Bran’s sake. You would have been proud of Bran.”
I am always proud of Bran,” Catelyn replied, watching the sword as he stroked it. (aGoT, Catelyn I)

Brandon the Builder is the sole ancestor referred to as Bran. So, in a sense both Ned and Catelyn could be interpreted as talking about the Builder as much as they discuss their own son Bran. Especially since Catelyn introduces us to the legendary Brandon the Builder in thought as she walks up to Ned in the godswood.

Even though we do not see the blood on the Ice in this scene, we are reminded that Ned’s sword had been covered with blood. So, we have a greenseer allusion asking where the children (of the forest) are, while cleaning the blood from his magical sword. With the concept of a bloodied sword and how Ned’s Ice is polished to a dark glow, we get our earliest hint to dark magic, which blood magic always inherently is, even if it were just a few drops of the greenseer’s own volunteered blood as I claim the Blood Seal to be.

RickardS

Although I said that -ard names almost exclusively appear after Torrhen Stark knelt to Aegon the Conquerer and surrendered his crown, there is one exception to this. The name Rickard Stark appears twice in the lineage or histories of House Stark. There is of course, Eddard’s father, Lord Rickard Stark, but there is also a King Rickard Stark, nicknamed the “Laughing Wolf”. This King Rickard Stark conquered the Neck and took the Marsh King’s daughter to wife. This seems to be the last King who conquered a rival northern king. We can deduce this via his father King Jon Stark, who built the Wolf’s Den to drive out sea raiders (Ibbinese, Valyrians or Andal) from the White Knife. The building of the Wolf Den heralds an era where the Kings at Winterfell would have had vassals that extended far beyond their initial petty kingdom. And thus King Rickard would have been the first King in the North, rather than King of Winter, and therefore the first fully recognized warden or guardian of the North.

As with Eddard, Rickard is George’s fantasy version of the real world name Richard, which means brave king, not warding king. Nevertheless, since other -ard names seem to cover both the brave and ward meanings, we can regard the name Rickard as being both a rick-name as well as a ward-name. By having this name appear before the surrendering of the crown and royal status to Aegon the Conquerer for a historical character who annexed the Neck to the North, George reminds us that a king’s purpose is tied to being a protector of a realm, just as Beric was in the depths of a hollow hill.

Notably, Rickard is the most “common” of the warden-names. Aside from the two Starks having had this name, there is also Rickard Karstark, Rickard Liddle, Rickard Redwyne, Rickard Rowan, Rickard Ryswell and Rickard Thorne. The Lord of Karhold who ended up being executed by Robb Stark was named after Lord Rickard Stark. We may assume the same for Rickard Liddle, as he is the youngest son of The Liddle, and Rickard Ryswell, second son to Rodrik Ryswell (aka Red Rick Ryswell. See trail of red stallion for the meaning of red). We know Lord Rodrik Ryswell had hoped to see his daughter Barbrey wed to one of Lord Rickard Stark’s sons, either Brandon or Eddard or even Benjen perhaps. So, it is very likely that he named one of Barbrey’s younger brothers in honor of his liege at the time.

Lord Rickard Rowan marched with Septon Moon against King Maegor the Cruel and camped with the septon outside of the walls of Oldtown, but did not join the Septon in attacking Oldtown after Maegor’s death. Lord Rowan was present for Jaehaerys’ wedding to Alysanne and the ten year jubilee of Jaehaerys’ reign after. His sisters and daughters were also companions (ladies in waiting) to Queen Alysanne.

Sir Rickard Redwyne was a younger contemporary of Rickard Rowan who joined his father to King’s Landing, when Lord Manfryd Redwyne got a seat at Jaeharys’ small council. He was knighted by King Jaehaerys at a squire’s tourney in celebration of the completion of the Dragonpit. Much later, he unhorsed and unmasked a mystery knight at a tourney of Old Oak: the Silver Fool turned out to be Prince Baelon and Rickard knighted him.

Finally, we have Rickard Thorne who was kingsguard during Viserys I and chose to back the Greens and Aegon II at the start of the Dance of the Dragons. When Rhaenyra and her army captured King’s Landing, he accompanied Lord Larys Strong, princess Jaehaera and nearly three-year-old prince Maelor through a secret passage in Maegor’s holdfast to help them escape. Rickard was responsible to see prince Maelor safely to Oldtown. Rhaenyra offered prize money for info and whereabouts on the false knights and her nephew. At Bitterbridge (held by the Blacks), Rickard (in duisguise) sought to stay a night at the Hogs Head inn, with his “son”. The innkeep Ben Buttercakes, allowed Rickard to stay in the barn for a silver stag and if Rickard cleaned it. While offering a drink to Rickard, the innkeep sent a stableboy to look through Rickard’s things for more silver. And thus the stableboy found Maelor’s dragon egg in Rickard’s white cloak. Rickard fled with Maelor on horseback pursued by a mob. He was killed by a crossbowman, but clung to his charge until the very end. A fight ensued between the captors of Prince Maelor: some wanted to give him to Rhaenyra for her reward, while others wished to give him to Lord Ormund Hightower at the nearby green camp for even a bigger reward, and a washerwoman wihed to keep Maelor for her own son. The stories on how he died and by whom vary, but by the time Lady Caswell of Bitterbridge arrived on the scene, Prince Maelor was dead. The prince’s head was delivered to Rhaenyra and the dragon egg to Lord Ormund.

What is noticeable is that six out of the seven Rickards were or are part of a rebellion or war story.

  • King Stark annexed the Neck after defeating the Marsh King.
  • Lord Rickard Stark’s death sparked the rebellion against the Mad King and there are rumors that he might have been part of a conspiracy to depose the Mad King in favor of Rhaegar Targaryen at a potential great council during the tourney of Harrenhal.
  • Lord Rickard Rowan rebelled against King Maegor. Rickard Karstark rebelled against King Joffrey and at the end against King Robb.
  • Rickard Thorne chose the Green side.
  • Rickard Ryswell is one of the nobles alongside Roose Bolton, while Rickard Liddle’s father the Liddle (and presumably Rickard himself) supports Stannis when he sends his heir Morgan Liddle to fight alongside Stannis to recapture Deepwood Motte and Ned’s girl (Jeyne Poole as Arya). Since Rickard Ryswell smootched with Mance’s “washer woman”, he may even be part of the Northern conspiritors against Roose inside Winterfell, along with his sister Barbrey. The fact that his father Rodrik is a red-character, Red Rick, suggests that he is either a false supporter of Roose or his House or line will end.

And even though the Rickard in question may not always survive the rebellion or war, the ruler he is against dies violently: the Marsh King, Maegor, Rhaenyra Targaryen, the Mad King, King Joffrey, and Robb Stark. We could say that this is covered by the Rick-part of the name.

And of course with several we have the warding meaning too, especially for the green side:

  • I already postulated how by annexing the Neck, King Rickard Stark likely was the first King in the North rather than King of Winter, and therefore made the Starks protectors and wardens of all the North. And the Starks lived up to that role ever after. But notice too how the Marsh Kings were considered to be touched by the Old Gods and how they rode lizard-lions. This evokes the image of a “green dragon”, or of the “wildfire” concept.
  • Rickard Redwyne unmasked a mystery knight at Old Oak (a tree often standing in for weirwood) and the knight turned out to be a Targaryen prince who rode the green dragon Vhagar. Prince Baelon was also known as the Spring Prince. And so, since Rickard knighted this Spring Prince, he is associated with the making of a green wilfdire knight (who wielded Dark Sister). This brings to mind the mystery knight of the Laughing Tree who taught squires a lesson during the false spring, in defence of a young man who would lord the Neck and lead to events that would result in a wildfire (k)night’s watchman, Jon.
  • Rickard Thorne chose the “greens” who were Targaryens and dragonriders, and thus “green dragons” or a “wildfire” king.
  • Rickard Karstark was beheaded by Robb in front of a weirwood in the godswood of Riverrun. The Karstark sigil is a sunburst. Together we have a wildfire image once more.
  • Rickard Stark was cooked/burned alive in his armor in a false “trial by combat”. The material to burn him was wildfire.
The Death of Rickard Stark and Brandon Stark by Reaprycon

It is therefore quite interesting that Bran Stark gets “propped up” against Rickard Stark’s statue by Osha (a stand in for child of the forest) in the crypt scene with Rickon and Shaggy attacking maester Luwin, while the torch kissed the stone cheek of Brandon Stark’s statue and blackens Brandon Stark’s legs. It circles back to the wildfire greenseer Brandon the Builder and his line transitioning into protectors of the realm, aka greenseer kings.

Maynard

Maynard Plumm is a character that appears in the Mystery Knight. Supposedly he is a hedge knight from House Plumm and distantly related to Lord Viserys Plumm. He meets with Duncan and Egg as they are on their way to the tourney of Whitewalls. He defends Brynden Rivers’ actions and advizes Duncan several times against staying at the tourney after the wedding of Lord Ambrose and his new wife, Lady Frey. Maynard himself never participates in the tourney. He aids a wounded Duncan and makes sure that Aegon is safe and informs Duncan that Brynden Rivers knows that the tourney is a cover to crown Damon II Blackfyre. Then the hedge knight disappears and the next morning Brynden Rivers arrives to arrest with his army. It is believed that Maynard Plumm was Bloodraven himself in a glamor. (See for example this reddit thread on several of the hints to this). So Maynard = Brynden = Brandon.

The surname Maynard is of Norman origin and comes from an Old French first name Mainard or Meinard, which is derived from Old Germanic.Maginard. We already know that the -ard suffix means strong or brave or hard. But Magin doubles down on the strength meaning. So, the name just means strong. But as George also uses the -ard as a disguised -ward, we could regard the name Maynard as meaning strong ward. And we can also recognize the name to be a wordplay by George to point out that Bloodraven is the main ward(en) or protector of the realm in the Mystery Knight and aSoIaF.

One other character carries the name Maynard in the novels: namely Maynard Holt. He is a Night’s Watchman, captain of the Talon at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea who sails with Cotter Pyke to Hardhome, where his ship was reported to take on water. In the hçuse name Holt we recognize a wordplay to “hold”. Combine this with strong ward, and his name would mean hold the wall basically. Interestingly enough, house Holt’s seat was the Wolf’s Den. Therefore Maynard Holt seems yet another name hint to the Starks’ main role is to preserve the ward of the Wall and this may even include keeping their origins secret and have them be associated with wolves rather than green dragonblood.

Index

CONCLUSION

Via this etymological spurred research of Brandons, Ricks and Wardens the following picture emerges the following hypothesis about Brandon the Builder that I propose.

Brandon the Builder was the last hero and wielder of Lightbringer, crucial in ending the Long Night and helping to form the Night’s Watch and protect the realm during the Long Night by sheltering people in a secret underground city, cave system, that is now known as Winterfell. As a descendant of Garth the Green, he was a greenseer. But he was unique in that he also had dragonblood. This was not Targaryen or even Valyrian blood as it is with his namesake Brynden Rivers, but likely proto-Valyrian Dayne blood. He would have gotten this blood from his mother. While there are claims in world about his father or paternal ancestor being Brandon of the Bloody Blade of the Reach, there is a curious absence in mentioning the maternal line. And yet, we know that the mother is important, as Arya reminds us of early on. We are regularly reminded of greenseers, actual or symbolical, of having mothers. Bloodraven’s mother named him Brynden. Beric asks whether Thoros is his mother now.

The repeated pattern of Storm’s End having fostered bastards of noble blood, including a Rick heavily featured in a Lightbringer plot, suggests that Brandon the Builder might have been bastard born, explaining why his maternal lineage was so easily obscured. Nevertheless, if he was a bastard son of a Dayne princess that would explain how Brandon could have become a wielder of Dawn as Lightbringer, and therefore a Sword of the Morning. It may even be that Brandon’s wielding of Dawn as a bastard with Dayne blood, may be the origin why Dawn became a sword that any member of the House could wield when the need arises. It also explains how he founded of a totally new house, and chose to never return south.

Via Brynden Tully as a Brandon, we get hints to Brandon the Builder’s ties to the Black Gate. The focus on Brynden’s weathered face as Guardian of the Bloody Gate combined with Bran thinking of the Black Gate’s face as what a face would look like after thousands of years, suggests that the face may actually be Brandon’s face, after he became fully one with a weirwood tree at the end of his prolonged greenseer life. Notice too how we have a parallel of names between a Bloody Gate and the magical weirwood Black Gate of the Wall. This fits the concept of the Blood Seal that I propose – that Brandon used his own unique wildfire blood to seal the magical ward of the Wall. After all a “guardian of the bloody gate” is a warden of a gate.

This brings us to the third group of names amongst the Starks: the ward names. Because of the Blood Seal, Brandon’s descendants were always protectors and wardens of the realm. They had to ensure that the seal on the Wall’s ward remained intact and unbroken. In other words, Brandon’s particular wildfire blood was not to be spilled on the Wall. Dawn was sent back south. Brandon’s wildfire blood became a necessary secret as well as the fact that he was the last hero. Initially it was okay for him to be known as a greenseer, and this was how he was mostly portrayed, until even that became a threat with the rise of the Citadel’s influence and the Andals. The Stark descendants wed into daughters of northern houses, dousing the fire out of their blood, and consolidated power over the North to ensure that no other rival house would have a wildfire skinchanger near the Wall. This tactic succeeded for thousands of years, until a dragon prince begot a wildfire skinchanger with a Stark daughter and that wildfire skinchanger was sent to the Wall.

Of course, my hypothesis still needs much more evidence than what we have gathered from the name business, but it already laid the groundwork for it.

They’re Here!

“You close it good and tight. They’re coming, crow.” He smiled as ugly a smile as Jon had ever seen and made his way to the gate. The boar stalked after him. The falling snow covered up their tracks behind them.. (aDwD, Jon XII)

While there are variations and disagreements on many particulars on what follows after the assassination attempt on Jon’s life, there tends to be one consensus amongst the readers: the Others are chilling far away from the Wall for now.

Index

An Illusion of Time

George actively aims to lull the reader into believing there is time before the Others will finally come knocking, by having Jon himself misread or underestimate the signs of their near presence; by having Jon plan an overland trek to Hardhome. He also created an expectation with the readers via the attack on the Fist of the First Men in aSoS and Mel’s vision of Hardhome that when the Others do arrive at the Wall, they will do so with a full force of perhaps ten thousand wights.

Snowflakes swirled from a dark sky and ashes rose to meet them, the grey and the white whirling around each other as flaming arrows arced above a wooden wall and dead things shambled silent through the cold, beneath a great grey cliff where fires burned inside a hundred caves. Then the wind rose and the white mist came sweeping in, impossibly cold, and one by one the fires went out. Afterward only the skulls remained. (aDwD, Melisandre I)

Burning shafts hissed upward, trailing tongues of fire. Scarecrow brothers tumbled down, black cloaks ablaze. “Snow,” an eagle cried, as foemen scuttled up the ice like spiders. Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist. As the dead men reached the top of the Wall he sent them down to die again. He slew a greybeard and a beardless boy, a giant, a gaunt man with filed teeth, a girl with thick red hair. Too late he recognized Ygritte. She was gone as quick as she’d appeared. (aDwD, Jon XII)

WightGiants
Wight army with wighted Giants, Game Of Thrones TV-series.

But the Others do not always use the tactic of the Fist of the First Men. Nor do they operate all at once in the same location. For example, while some led an attack on Hardhome, other Others nibbled at Tormund’s army journeying south to the Wall.

Furthermore, readers also expect the first strike to be at Eastwatch, because Mel said so.

Then the towers by the sea, crumbling as the dark tide came sweeping over them, rising from the depths. […]
“Eastwatch?”
Was it? Melisandre had seen Eastwatch-by-the-Sea with King Stannis. That was where His Grace left Queen Selyse and their daughter Shireen when he assembled his knights for the march to Castle Black. The towers in her fire had been different, but that was oft the way with visions. “Yes. Eastwatch, my lord.” (aDwD, Melisandre I)

But Melisandre herself is unsure whether she saw Eastwatch fall. Her own thoughts lean towards, “Nope”. She gave Jon an affirmative answer, because it seemed better to lie with confidence than to be truthful about her doubts. She has wanted Jon to seek her for advice and win his trust since her arrival at the Wall. He was always a skeptic of her. After the Weeper killed his brothers and left them as she had foretold, Jon finally comes to seek her out, and her answering “I don’t know which place I saw,” would not do.

So, if it is not Eastwatch, then what did Mel see? Since the early days of aDwD‘s release, a good section of the fandom suspects this is a vision about Euron conquering Oldtown:

Both Garlan the Good and Rooseman propose the two towers represent members of House Hightower. Personally, I think the two towers represent the physical Hightower and the fall of House Hightower. The public reading by GRRM at a convention of Aeron’s POV chapter The Forsaken for tWoW has only strengthened the idea of Oldtown as target location for Euron’s attack. The naysayers of an attack on Oldtown in the early days doubted the length Euron would go with his dabbling in magic. The Forsaken though sets Euron up to either become or be an accomplice to an Eldritch horror and blew the naysayer argument out of the water (pun intended). Euron and Oldtown falls beyond the scope and intent of this essay. But it serves to throw serious Shade (pun intended) on Mel’s claim about Eastwatch.

Winter Has Come

It is quite important to keep the timeline in the back of your mind of Jon’s last chapter in aDwD, in comparison to basically almost any other POV, events and plot developments. That chapter is the farthest ahead in time, including aDwD‘s epilogue and sample chapters of tWoW. The plot of all the other POVs still need to catch up to Jon’s timeline: Cersei in King’s Landing, Arianne with Aegon and Storm’s End, Theon and Asha with Stannis, Davos in search of Rickon, Jaime and Brienne in the Riverlands, Sansa in the Vale, and finally Samwell and Aeron Damphair involving Oldtown and Euron. Add Arya in Braavos, Dany in the Dothraki Sea and the three POVs in Meereen, and we already have enough content for at least the first third of tWoW, if not the first half. And while no white raven from Oldtown has yet arrived at Castle Black to announce winter, it has in King’s Landing during the Epilogue, which can be synched with Jon IX or Jon X of aDwD. (see the timeline project). So, yes winter is very much here, and with winter so are the Others.

The white ravens of the Citadel did not carry messages, as their dark cousins did. When they went forth from Oldtown, it was for one purpose only: to herald a change of seasons. “Winter,” said Ser Kevan. The word made a white mist in the air. (aDwD, Epilogue)

Now, I am not the first reader to propose, the Others are “here”. Once in a while, readers will pause at the following description in the last paragraphs of Jon’s last chapter of aDwD.

“For the Watch.” Wick slashed at him again. This time Jon caught his wrist and bent his arm back until he dropped the dagger. The gangling steward backed away, his hands upraised as if to say, Not me, it was not me. Men were screaming. Jon reached for Longclaw, but his fingers had grown stiff and clumsy. Somehow he could not seem to get the sword free of its scabbard. (aDwD, Jon XIII)

With almost everybody’s attention on upset Wun Wun, it is unlikely any of the men screaming are actual witnesses to the assassination attempt. Wick’s attack of Jon is not the cause of their screaming. And so, some readers will wonder out loud, “Is it wights?” Especially, because this is the exact same question of Jon’s guard Rory when Patrek screams in mortal torment when Wun Wun pulls his arm.

He might have said more, but the scream cut him off. Val, was Jon’s first thought. But that was no woman’s scream. That is a man in mortal agony. He broke into a run. Horse and Rory raced after him. “Is it wights?” asked Rory. Jon wondered. Could his corpses have escaped their chains? The screaming had stopped by the time they came to Hardin’s Tower, but Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun was still roaring. The giant was dangling a bloody corpse by one leg, the same way Arya used to dangle her doll when she was small, swinging it like a morningstar when menaced by vegetables. Arya never tore her dolls to pieces, though. The dead man’s sword arm was yards away, the snow beneath it turning red. (aDwD, Jon XIII)

But just one line of “men screaming” without further explanation is not enough to convince readers. After all, we are not explicitly told what the men are screaming in fear for. It is suggestive, but inconclusive. However, when we go farther back in time of this chapter and to an earlier chapter we can build a case of circumstantial evidence.

The Free Folk Know

The day the Free Folk are to pass through Castle Black’s gate to the southern side of the Wall, it starts to grow darker by afternoon, first grey with a snow sky blocking the sun out. As soon as the Free Folk realize there is a snow sky, they increasingly become impatient in the long waiting line and start to move faster. The darker it grows, the more the urgence increases amongst the Free Folk, enough for Jon to realize it is more than just impatience, but real fear.

By afternoon the sun had gone, and the day turned grey and gusty. “A snow sky,” Tormund announced grimly. Others had seen the same omen in those flat white clouds. It seemed to spur them on to haste. Tempers began to fray. One man was stabbed when he tried to slip in ahead of others who had been hours in the column. […] On and on the wildlings came. The day grew darker, just as Tormund said. Clouds covered the sky from horizon to horizon, and warmth fled. There was more shoving at the gate, as men and goats and bullocks jostled each other out of the way. It is more than impatience, Jon realized. They are afraid. Warriors, spearwives, raiders, they are frightened of those woods, of shadows moving through the trees. They want to put the Wall between them before the night descends. (aDwD, Jon XII)

And when Jon first inquires with Tormund to tell him all he can about the Others, the man is reluctant to talk of them north of the Wall, mumbling his answer and eyeing the tree line uneasily.

“Tormund,” Jon said, as they watched four old women pull a cartful of children toward the gate, “tell me of our foe. I would know all there is to know of the Others.”
The wildling rubbed his mouth. “Not here,” he mumbled, “not this side o’ your Wall.” The old man glanced uneasily toward the trees in their white mantles. “They’re never far, you know. They won’t come out by day, not when that old sun’s shining, but don’t think that means they went away. Shadows never go away. Might be you don’t see them, but they’re always clinging to your heels.” (aDwD, Jon XII)

It is so easy for the reader to dismiss this fear as superstition or jolly Har-Tormund as being a tall-talker, because George has conditioned the reader to consider wildlings and lowborn characters in this way. We are conditioned by our own culture and the precedents to respond to them the same way Waymar Royce dismissed Gared in aGoT‘s prologue, even if we know and recognize the Others are real. And even while Tormund is indeed a tall-talker, can still make jokes and be a jolly fellow, he is also a leader. Thousands of wildlings still chose to follow him after the Battle at the Wall, followed him south to agree to a deal with the Night’s Watch. Unlike the many who went with Mother Mole to Hardhome, these Free Folk and Tormund survived in great numbers and managed to cross safely to the southern side of the Wall. But this was not because the Others did not bother with them. Quite the opposite, Others journeyed with them south, taking out scouts, outriders and stragglers.

“Did they trouble you on your way south?”
“They never came in force, if that’s your meaning, but they were with us all the same, nibbling at our edges. We lost more outriders than I care to think about, and it was worth your life to fall behind or wander off. Every nightfall we’d ring our camps with fire. They don’t like fire much, and no mistake. When the snows came, though … snow and sleet and freezing rain, it’s bloody hard to find dry wood or get your kindling lit, and the cold … some nights our fires just seemed to shrivel up and die. Nights like that, you always find some dead come the morning. ‘Less they find you first. The night that Torwynd … my boy, he …’ Tormund turned his face away. (aDwD, Jon XII)

We should picture this journey south by Tormund and the Free Folk more akin to Samwell’s death march to Craster after the Fist.

Tormund also points out to Jon that there is a huge difference between accepting the existence of Others and the actual deadly interaction with them.

Tormund turned back. “You know nothing. You killed a dead man, aye, I heard. Mance killed a hundred. A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise uphow do you fight a mist, crow? Shadows with teethair so cold it hurts to breathe, like a knife inside your chest … you do not know, you cannot know … can your sword cut cold?” (aDwD, Jon XII)

Others_padhome
The Others, by padhome

Jon’s own personal experience has solely been with just one wight. His Wall-dream/nightmare with the dead climbing the Wall like spiders basically only involves wights. So far, he has never seen or crossed swords with an Other. The sole man who lived to tell such a tale was Samwell. He does not even know the tell-tale signs of their proximity. But Tormund and the Free Folk passing the gate of the Wall do. So, Jon and we the readers should take the Free Folk’s fears serious.

And we should pay attention to Tormund’s orders when they align with environmental circumstances that are associated with Others: darkness, cold and snow. During the crossing of the Wall, it starts to snow. By then it is near dusk. Tormund urges his son Toregg to get the sick and weak moving, to burn the dead. When Toregg returns, he does so with Tormund’s rearguard.

The stream was no more than a trickle by the time Toregg emerged from the wood. With him rode a dozen mounted warriors armed with spears and swords. “My rear guard,” Tormund said, with a gap-toothed smile. “You crows have rangers. So do we. Them I left in camp in case we were attacked before we all got out.”
“Your best men.” (aDwD, Jon XII)

This rearguard’s job all day was to guard the sick and weak at the camp, not from attack by say the Weeper, but the Others. The risk or possibility of that happening was this real in Tormund’s mind. And guess who is one of the men of Tormund’s rearguard?

Borroq_by_Yapattack
Borroq, by Yapattack

Amongst the riders came one man afoot, with some big beast trotting at his heels. A boar, Jon saw. A monstrous boar. Twice the size of Ghost, the creature was covered with coarse black hair, with tusks as long as a man’s arm. Jon had never seen a boar so huge or ugly. The man beside him was no beauty either; hulking, black-browed, he had a flat nose, heavy jowls dark with stubble, small black close-set eyes.
Borroq.” Tormund turned his head and spat.
“A skinchanger.” It was not a question. Somehow he knew.(aDwD, Jon XII)

Borroq is not just some skinchanger amongst thousands of Free Folk who followed Tormund. He is one of Tormund’s best men and part of the rearguard who was left to guard in case the Others decided to attack. Now, why would Tormund have a skinchanger and his boar remain behind to keep watch for any sign of the Others? Might it be, because his boar would “smell” the Others sooner than humans would? Because he would be the first able to warn people?

Borroq and his boar are often met with suspicion by readers and Jon. Certainly, George is using certain stereotypical situations for people to dislike him and his boar. First, Tormund turns and spits after speaking his name, and Ghost bares his teeth in a silent snarl, standing protectively in front of Jon once he smells the boar.

Ghost turned his head. The falling snow had masked the boar’s scent, but now the white wolf had the smell. He padded out in front of Jon, his teeth bared in a silent snarl. (aDwD, Jon XII)

This reminds us of Grey Wind when he was aggressively protective of Robb at their arrival at the Twins, before the Red Wedding.

Grey Wind edged forward, tail stiff, watching through slitted eyes of dark gold. When the Freys were a half-dozen yards away Catelyn heard him growl, a deep rumble that seemed almost one with rush of the river. Robb looked startled. “Grey Wind, to me. To me!” Instead the direwolf leapt forward, snarling. (aSoS, Catelyn VI)

George is using our memory of Catelyn’s warning to Robb to keep Grey Wind by his side to sniff out those who may do him harm to make us distrust the boar and Borroq. This only works as a superficial comparison. George RR Martin did his research as a writer when it comes to wolf body language, and both he and his wife are long time sponsors and supporters of wolf sanctuaries. As a consequence George always makes sure to write any of the direwolves’ vocalisations and body language to fit with that of real wolves.

Take Grey Wind’s behavior against Black Walder and the Freys they meet upon arrival at the Twins for example. The stiff tail matches that of a wolf considering the other a threat. Slitting the eyes is an expression of suspicion and fear. A deep rumbling growl is an extremely aggressive warning. And it is followed by a leap forward. Grey Wind is therefore correctly described as regarding Black Walder as a very hostile threat and behaves accordingly.

wolf body language

While Ghost puts himself in between the boar and Jon, he does not leap, but pads forward. This is more befitting with dominant and confident behavior. Without any particular mention of hackles being raised or specifying the tail’s position, we can therefore regard Ghost’s snarl as a caution or warning towards the boar – “You behave, for this is my pack!” and “You’ll have to go through me if you mean Jon any harm.” This snarl is only meant for the boar, not Borroq. This is lightyears away from Grey Wind’s leaping, rumbling growl, stiff tail and slitted eyes towards the Freys.

Tormund reminds us that Ghost’s protective stance against the giant boar is a natural one.

Boars and wolves,” said Tormund. “Best keep that beast o’ yours locked up tonight. I’ll see that Borroq does the same with his pig.” He glanced up at the darkening sky. “Them’s the last, and none too soon. It’s going to snow all night, I feel it. Time I had a look at what’s on t’other side of all that ice.” (aDwD, Jon XII)

It is to be expected and natural that Ghost considers Borroq’s unknown boar a potential threat, without assuming something nefarious. Now let us inspect the boar’s response to this: the boar is perfectly well behaved and refrains from responding in kind to either Ghost or Jon.

Wait a minute, you might think by now, “Did the boar not threaten Jon at some point?” You are thinking of a moment that occurs far later in the interaction sequence, and it is actually unrelated to either Ghost or Jon. Just when Borroq is about to pass through the gate as the very last of the Free Folk, the last of Tormund’s rearguard, does the boar appear to be close to charging something or someone.

The skinchanger stopped ten yards away. His monster pawed at the mud, snuffling. A light powdering of snow covered the boar’s humped black back. He gave a snort and lowered his head, and for half a heartbeat Jon thought he was about to charge. To either side of him, his men lowered their spears. (aDwD, Jon XII)

The boar does this shortly after snuffling. So, we can safely conclude that this was in response to a smell he picked up. If this was a response to Ghost’s smell, the boar should have done so far earlier: when Ghost put himself between Jon and the boar. This is why we can rule out the boar wanting to charge either Jon or Ghost. So what did he smell? We are told that a light powder snow covers the boar. And since it is snowing, the snow would also drop on the ground. So, could it be the Others that the boar smells? This seems the likeliest answer, for Borroq warns Jon that “they” are coming, shortly after.

“You close it good and tight. They’re coming, crow.” He smiled as ugly a smile as Jon had ever seen and made his way to the gate. The boar stalked after him. The falling snow covered up their tracks behind them. (aDwD, Jon XII)

Because he has an ugly smile, readers tend to consider this as some nasty taunt or joke by Borroq. However, as I point out, the man is just doing the job he is supposed to do as a skinchanger rearguard. He goes through as last, and warns Jon that his boar just smelled the Others coming for them. Jon and his guardsmen mistook the target of the boar’s alarm. And Borroq’s sole crime in his introduction scene is being ugly, which is not really a crime, is it? Instead, it is quite a typical trap of George Martin to mislead the reader.

Snow! Snow! Snow!

So, once we scratch away the layer of misdirection, Borroq and his boar plant the seeds that animals can smell the Others. George has refrained from explicitly confirming this in the books as published. But the recent finds in the Cushing Library at Texas A &M University of the draft versions for aFfC and aDwD of 2004 has Ghost confirming how Others smell to him in one of Jon’s wolf dreams.

With the cliff between them, he could not sense his brother, but sometimes when he padded down the long cold burrow under the ice and poked his nose through the hard black bars, he could feel him. The snow was falling where his brother was, covering all the woods in white. And there were hunters near, living men and dead men, and the ones who wore the shapes of men but smelled only of cold. (aFfC draft 2004, Jon I)

The “cliff” that Ghost references in this quote is the “Wall”. On the one hand, this draft version confirms that the magical ward prevents Ghost from “sensing” Summer north of the Wall, as long as Ghost is south of it. And it confirms that Ghost can recognize living men from wights and from Others by smell. He is aware that the Others are not actually men at all, but only wear the shape of men and they smell only of the cold. There are several main reasons why this draft version got scrapped:

  • It is too much on the nose (pun intended) about the Wall’s magical interference with sensing who is north of the Wall.
  • It is a huge reveal about the Others “wearing” a humanoid shape (see From Sandkings to Nightqueens).
  • Once George knew he would end Jon’s arc of aDwD in the cliffhanger he did, it is only logical that he pulled such an early explicit confirmation that Ghost knows what Others smell like. Instead he gave us a hint to it via Borroq’s boar in Jon’s penultimate chapter.
  • It creates a situation where the magical ward of the Wall can not only prevent sensing someone or something, but can prevent smell, and thus a potential physical paradox.

You may remember Ghost as nearly taking a bite out of one of Jon’s guards as well as Ghost sniffing or approaching Bowen Marsh after his visit with Jon. The common interpretation of both these scenes is that Ghost is acting hostile to conspirators who plan to assassinate Jon Snow that evening. This interpretation is wrong and does not hold up under closer scrutiny, both for wolf body language and the fact that Ghost becomes aggressive even towards Jon himself. Here is the complete scene about Jon’s two guards standing outside out of fear of Ghost’s wild and aggressive behavior.

Jon Snow with Ghost by Michael Komarck
Jon Snow with Ghost and Mormont’s raven, by Michael Komarck

Outside the armory, Mully and the Flea stood shivering at guard. “Shouldn’t you be inside, out of this wind?” Jon asked.
“That’d be sweet, m’lord,” said Fulk the Flea, “but your wolf’s in no mood for company today.”
Mully agreed. “He tried to take a bite o’ me, he did.”
“Ghost?” Jon was shocked.
“Unless your lordship has some other white wolf, aye. I never seen him like this, m’lord. All wild-like, I mean.” (aDwD, Jon XIII)

The above quote is the scene readers tend to remember, and the quote that will be used by theorists to argue for example that Mully is one of the conspiritors. But that quote cut off much too early. Jon enters and experiences this:

He was not wrong, as Jon discovered for himself when he slipped inside the doors. The big white direwolf would not lie still. He paced from one end of the armory to the other, past the cold forge and back again. “Easy, Ghost,” Jon called. “Down. Sit, Ghost. Down.” Yet when he made to touch him, the wolf bristled and bared his teeth. It’s that bloody boar. Even in here, Ghost can smell his stink. (aDwD, Jon XIII)

When Jon enters the forge, Ghost is pacing in agitation. And when Jon himself attempts to calm Ghost, Ghost bristles and bares his teeth at Jon. We can conclude that Ghost is restless and extremely upset over something, enough to be aggressive to Jon himself, but I think I can get everybody to agree at least that Jon is not conspiring to kill himself, right? So, Ghost’s behavior in this scene and thus earlier to Mully is not related to a conspiracy to assassinate Jon.

Jon blames it on Ghost being able to smell Borroq’s boar. But if this was true, then his behavior here is far more aggressive with the boar at a safe distance, than when he actually faced the boar north of the Wall, or why he would display this behavior only now, when Borroq’s boar has been within the vicinity for days, and also afterwards when Ghost is much calmer. Nor does it explain the alarmed behavior of Mormont’s raven.

Mormont’s raven seemed agitated too. “Snow,” the bird kept screaming. “Snow, snow, snow.” (aDwD, Jon XIII)

Notice how the raven repeats the word snow four times. Because Samwell taught the ravens to say Snow, Jon’s name, we are bound to assume that is who the raven is referring to. But the raven could also just mean the white stuff falling from the sky. If so, then Ghost and the raven are aggressive and agitated because of what they smell in association to the snow, just like Borroq’s boar seemed to do.

Right before Jon arrived at the forge and the two guards outside, Jon looks at the Wall and the sky above the Wall. He notices clear signs of a snow sky.

He glanced up past the King’s Tower. The Wall was a dull white, the sky above it whiter. A snow sky. “Just pray we do not get another storm.” (aDwD, Jon XIII)

Wallpaper of the Wall
the Wall, author unknown (contact me for credit)

We can determine the source direction of this snow sky is the north: someone standing outside in Castle Black looking at the Wall and the sky above it, must be looking in the northern direction. So, with the precedent of the behavior of Borroq’s boar in the back of our mind, we can see that a snow sky floating in from the north direction is a valid potential cause of Ghost’s aggression, even towards Jon, and for Mormont’s raven screaming snow repeatedly.

Let me make clear, that I am not proposing that Ghost or the raven fear the snow itself. Jon observed far earlier that Ghost actually likes fresh snow.

At the base of the Wall he found Ghost rolling in a snowbank. The big white direwolf seemed to love fresh snow. (aDwD, Jon VI)

It is not the snow itself that sets off alarm bells, but the Others who come with this particular snowstorm rolling in from the north (or caused it).

“What about the Others?”
“[…] The Others come when it is cold, most of the tales agree. Or else it gets cold when they come. Sometimes they appear during snowstorms and melt away when the skies clear. […]” (aFfC, Samwell I; and aDwD, Jon II)

So, I propose that Ghost and Mormont’s raven are agitated and alarmed, because they smell the Others being near to the Wall.

Let us now test this working hypothesis for their behavior against their later behavior throughout the day. Shortly after this scene, Jon has Satin fetch Marsh and Yarwick to visit his solar in order to discuss their needs, his plan to man as many castles as he can at the Wall and how to save the survivors at Hardhome.

Jon shooed [Mormont’s raven] off, had Satin start a fire, then sent him out after Bowen Marsh and Othell Yarwyck. “Bring a flagon of mulled wine as well.”
“Three cups, m’lord?”
“Six. Mully and the Flea look in need of something warm. So will you.” […]
Marsh entered snuffling, Yarwyck dour. “Another storm,” the First Builder announced. “How are we to work in this? I need more builders.” (aDwD, Jon XIII)

Jon has his fruitless exchange with both men, and they depart. When Bowen and Othel pass Ghost he sniffs them.

Satin helped them back into their cloaks. As they walked through the armory, Ghost sniffed at them, his tail upraised and bristling. (aDwD, Jon XIII)

This sniffing and bristling is often interpreted as Ghost expressing suspicion of Marsh and Yarwick. But a suspicious wolf would NOT raise his tail vertical. Instead he would narrow his eyes, flatten his ears and the tail would point straight outward, parallel to the floor or ground (like Grey Wind). Ghost’s described posture towards Bowen Marsh is that of dominance. When the tail alone bristles and goes vertically up, without wagging, a wolf is asserting a non-aggressive, relaxed form of dominion, and certainly not expressing suspicion. Marsh or Yarwyck do not even provoke one of Ghost’s silent snarls. Ghost’s wolf body language is neither aggressive or suspicious, just dominance. 

So, on the one hand Bowen Marsh’s plan to assassinate Jon seems to not yet have been formed at this point. This only emphasizes how unlikely it was that Ghost’s actual aggression towards Jon and Mully was related to a mutiny plot.

On the other hand, Ghost not being aggressive anymore seems odd in light of my snow-smell hypothesis: if the raven and Ghost were agitated because of the smell of snow, then should they not remain such or become even more aggressive when it actually starts to snow? Not, if the winds have turned so that Ghost and the raven are not downwind anymore. And what do we learn when Bowen and Yarwyck open the door?

The snow was falling heavily outside. “Wind’s from the south,” Yarwyck observed. “It’s blowing the snow right up against the Wall. See?” He was right. The switchback stair was buried almost to the first landing, Jon saw, and the wooden doors of the ice cells and storerooms had vanished behind a wall of white. (aDwD, Jon XIII)

It is a snowstorm alright, except the wind is now blowing from the south, blowing the snow up against the Wall. In other words, the northern winds that blew snow across the Wall, have turned. This means that the Others are now downwind and cannot be smelled anymore by Ghost or the raven. Hence, Ghost and the raven cease to be aggressive or agitated.

The hypothesis holds up to later scenes with Ghost and the raven. When Jon leaves for the Shield Hall with Tormund and his other two guards, after hours of planning with Tormund over the Pink Letter, Ghost is perfectly calm, wanting to pad along with Jon.

Horse and Rory had replaced Fulk and Mully at the armory door with the change of watch. “With me,” Jon told them, when the time came. Ghost would have followed as well, but as the wolf came padding after them, Jon grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and wrestled him back inside. (aDwD, Jon XIII)

There is nothing in the direwolf’s behavior that is cause for alarm. Meanwhile Mormont’s raven is making jokes around Tormund, when Jon and Tormund discuss Selyse’s plans to wed Gerrick Kingsblood’s daughters to three of her Queen’s men, shortly before Clydas gives Jon the Pink Letter.

“He has a little red cock to go with all that red hair, that’s what he has. Raymund Redbeard and his sons died at Long Lake, thanks to your bloody Starks and the Drunken Giant. Not the little brother. Ever wonder why they called him the Red Raven?” Tormund’s mouth split in a gap-toothed grin. “First to fly the battle, he was. ‘Twas a song about it, after. The singer had to find a rhyme for craven, so …” He wiped his nose. “If your queen’s knights want those girls o’ his, they’re welcome to them.”
Girls,” squawked Mormont’s raven. “Girls, girls.”
That set Tormund to laughing all over again. “Now there’s a bird with sense. How much do you want for him, Snow? I gave you a son, the least you could do is give me the bloody bird.” (aDwD, Jon XIII)

So, George only wrote Ghost and the raven as alarmed and aggressive even to Jon, when the snow sky was gathering above the Wall, coming from the north, and both animals relax once the wind blows from the south and are absolutely calm by late afternoon or dusk. The mutiny plot cannot explain this behavior whatsoever, whereas the cold smell of the Others north of the Wall explains it well, including when the winds turn. The animals were only aggressive when they were downwind of the Others, but relaxed when they were not downwind anymore. This then becomes the circumstantial evidence to the Others being at the other side of the Wall at Castle Black at the moment when Bowen Marsh and his fellow mutineers attempt to kill Jon.

The Cold

While snow is only sometimes a sign of the Others, they always come with the cold or the cold comes with them. Cold is exactly the last that Jon experiences by the end of his last chapter.

Then Bowen Marsh stood there before him, tears running down his cheeks. “For the Watch.” He punched Jon in the belly. When he pulled his hand away, the dagger stayed where he had buried it.
Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger’s hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. “Ghost,” he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold … (aDwD, Jon XIII)

Jon can only feel the cold at the end, never even the fourth knife, which is weird given the three prior wounds: a graze at the neck, a stab at the belly, and one between the shoulder. Of these three only the belly stab can be potentially mortal, but it would take hours and hours to die from it. The belly stab is the wound that smokes, which can only happen in extreme cold. In the infamous prologue of aGoT, Gared explains how the cold causes a numbness to sensations.

“Nothing burns like the cold. But only for a while. Then it gets inside you and starts to fill you up, and after a while you don’t have the strength to fight it. It’s easier just to sit down or go to sleep. They say you don’t feel any pain toward the end.” (aGoT, Prologue)

Of course, the process that Gared explains normally takes hours. In Jon’s case the sensations follow one another in rapid succession, like some form of flash freeze.

Any scene with wights or others has always involved a drop in temperature because of northern winds, and sudden cooling or extreme cold when they are near. And it is just so in aGoT‘s Prologue. All day prior to Waymar’s fateful duel with the Other, a cold northern wind blew.

A cold wind was blowing out of the north, and it made the trees rustle like living things. All day, Will had felt as though something were watching him, something cold and implacable that loved him not. (aGoT, Prologue)

Waymar Royce by Christof Grobelski
Waymar Royce by Christof Grobelski

When Will glimpses the pale shapes gliding through, Waymar asks him why it is so cold all of a sudden in a manner it was not before.

Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness. Then it was gone. “Can you see anything?” [Waymar] was turning in a slow circle, suddenly wary, his sword in hand. He must have felt them, as Will felt them. There was nothing to see. “Answer me! Why is it so cold?It was cold. Shivering, Will clung more tightly to his perch. (aGoT, Prologue)

Will also describes Waymar’s physical responses, worded in a manner that we are inclined to interprete them as an expression of emotion, while they are more than likely physical reflexes to the cold.

Will heard the breath go out of Ser Waymar Royce in a long hiss. “Come no farther,” the lordling warned. His voice cracked like a boy’s. He threw the long sable cloak back over his shoulders, to free his arms for battle, and took his sword in both hands. The wind had stopped. It was very cold. […] Ser Waymar met him bravely. “Dance with me then.” He lifted his sword high over his head, defiant. His hands trembled from the weight of it, or perhaps from the cold. (aGoT, Prologue)

Waymar’s voice likely cracks from the cold. Even the hiss of his breadth may be due to the cold and having trouble with breathing.

Curiously, Waymar uses a challenge to the Other that is only phrased in that same way once: by Jon. When he sees snowflakes dance as he is about to go through the gate back into Castle Black after all the wildlings went through, and Borroq warned Jon that they are coming, Jon translates their air dance as a challenge by the Others for Jon to dance with them.

A snowflake danced upon the air. Then another. Dance with me, Jon Snow, he thought. You’ll dance with me anon. (aDwD, Jon XII)

Dancing and the dance is a regular euphemism throughout the series for war, a fight or duel. But this particular phrase is unique for Waymar and Jon alone, and both tied to the Others. Alys Karstark makes a close remark, but it is conditional only – “you could dance with me“, after which she adds, “You danced with me anon.”

And of course, Waymar’s wound steams like Jon’s.

The pale sword bit through the ringmail beneath his arm. The young lord cried out in pain. Blood welled between the rings. It steamed in the cold, and the droplets seemed red as fire where they touched the snow. (aGoT, Prologue)

Blue-eyed dead Othor and Jafer were carried through the gate into Castle Black on Jeor’s orders, instead of being burned north of the Wall. When Jon and the rest of the Night’s Watch ride for the Wall with the two wighted dead men, it is still a hot summer day.

The day was grey, damp, overcast, the sort of day that made you wish for rain. No wind stirred the wood; the air hung humid and heavy, and Jon’s clothes clung to his skin. It was warm. Too warm. The Wall was weeping copiously, had been weeping for days, and sometimes Jon even imagined it was shrinking. (aGoT, Jon VII)

After Jeor tells him of the news about Ned Stark having been arrested for treason, Jon leaves the tower to have his dinner at the mess hall. By then a north wind has rises and it is much colder.

The wind was rising, and it seemed colder in the yard than it had when he’d gone in. Spirit summer was drawing to an end. […] A north wind had begun to blow by the time the sun went down. Jon could hear it skirling against the Wall and over the icy battlements as he went to the common hall for the evening meal.(aGoT, Jon VII)

When Jon sits in his cell after attacking Alliser Thorne, we witness Ghost snarling at Jon and having scratched gouges into the door to get out, combined with Jon experiencing an extreme cold.

When he woke, his legs were stiff and cramped and the candle had long since burned out. Ghost stood on his hind legs, scrabbling at the door. Jon was startled to see how tall he’d grown. “Ghost, what is it?” he called softly. The direwolf turned his head and looked down at him, baring his fangs in a silent snarl. Has he gone mad? Jon wondered. “It’s me, Ghost,” he murmured, trying not to sound afraid. Yet he was trembling, violently. When had it gotten so cold? Ghost backed away from the door. There were deep gouges where he’d raked the wood. Jon watched him with mounting disquiet. “There’s someone out there, isn’t there?” he whispered. Crouching, the direwolf crept backward, white fur rising on the back of his neck. The guard, he thought, they left a man to guard my door, Ghost smells him through the door, that’s all it is. Slowly, Jon pushed himself to his feet. He was shivering uncontrollably, wishing he still had a sword. (aGoT, Jon VII)

Of course the crucial aspect here is that Othor and Jafer were already wighted before they were carried south of the Wall.

Dywen sucked at his wooden teeth. “Might be they didn’t die here. Might be someone brought ’em and left ’em for us. A warning, as like.” The old forester peered down suspiciously. “And might be I’m a fool, but I don’t know that Othor never had no blue eyes afore.”
Ser Jaremy looked startled. “Neither did Flowers,” he blurted, turning to stare at the dead man. (aGoT, Jon VII)

So, in aGoT, we have a situation where “sleeping” (inactive) wights can be carried south of the Wall. And while first reads may give a reader the impression that Othor and Jafer are acting on memory, the north winds rising suggests that the Others are directing them remotely from north of the Wall. The Wall may be able to prevent an active wight and Others from crossing, but it does not prevent the Others from using their magic, once a wight is south of the Wall.

Wights during the Battle of the Fist of the First Men (non cropped)_zippo514
Battle of the Fist of the First Man, by zippo14

At the Fist of the First Men, Chett experiences an extreme cold the day prior to the attack of the wights and how one of the dogs snarls at him.

The day was grey and bitter cold, and the dogs would not take the scent. The big black bitch had taken one sniff at the bear tracks, backed off, and skulked back to the pack with her tail between her legs. The dogs huddled together miserably on the riverbank as the wind snapped at them. Chett felt it too, biting through his layers of black wool and boiled leather. It was too bloody cold for man or beast, but here they were. […] “Seven hells.” He gave the leashes a hard yank to get the dogs’ attention. “Track, you bastards. That’s a bear print. You want some meat or no? Find!” But the hounds only huddled closer, whining. Chett snapped his short lash above their heads, and the black bitch snarled at him. (aSoS, Prologue)

At night, as Chett lies waiting for the hour to kill Samwell, it starts to snow and his beard is frozen with icicles, not unlike Tormund’s in Jon’s last chapter of aDwD. And here we also have ravens muttering and quorking snow.

Ice caked his beard all around his mouth. […] He could hardly breathe. […] He got to his knees, and something wet and cold touched his nose. Chett looked up. Snow was falling. He could feel tears freezing to his cheeks. […] It was a heavy fall, thick white flakes coming down all about him.  […] The snow was falling so heavily that he got lost among the tents, but finally he spotted the snug little windbreak the fat boy had made for himself between a rock and the raven cages. […] One of the ravens quorked. “Snow,” another muttered, peering through the bars with black eyes. The first added a “Snow” of its own. (aSoS, Prologue)

The wildling [Tormund] arrived red-faced, shouting for a horn of ale and something hot to eat. He had ice in his beard and more crusting his mustache. (aDwD, Jon XIII)

This is the first precedent where we witness snow as a phenomenon in association with the Others and the wights they direct.. More, the aSoS Prologue also involves an assassination plot: Samwell and Jeor were to be killed. And later, Samwell’s POV in aSoS proves that the attack involves more than zombies alone: he meets with an Other as they flee from the Fist and ends up killing it with dragonglass.

The Other_by Dejan Delic
The Other by Dejan Delic

The wind sighed through the trees, driving a fine spray of snow into their faces. The cold was so bitter that Sam felt naked. […] There was only the [torch] Grenn carried, the flames rising from it like pale orange silks. He could see through them, to the black beyond. That torch will burn out soon, he thought, and we are all alone, without food or friends or fire. But that was wrong. They weren’t alone at all. […] Hoarfrost covered [the horse] like a sheen of frozen sweat, and a nest of stiff black entrails dragged from its open belly. On its back was a rider pale as ice. […] [Sam] was so scared he might have pissed himself all over again, but the cold was in him, a cold so savage that his bladder felt frozen solid. The Other slid gracefully from the saddle to stand upon the snow. Sword-slim it was, and milky white. Its armor rippled and shifted as it moved, and its feet did not break the crust of the new-fallen snow. […] The wights had been slow clumsy things, but the Other was light as snow on the wind. It slid away from Paul’s axe, armor rippling, and its crystal sword twisted and spun and slipped between the iron rings of Paul’s mail, through leather and wool and bone and flesh. It came out his back with a hissssssssssss and Sam heard Paul say, “Oh,” as he lost the axe. Impaled, his blood smoking around the sword, the big man tried to reach his killer with his hands and almost had before he fell. (aSoS, Samwell I)

Bran near Bloodraven's cave
Bran arriving at Bloodraven’s cave, Game of Thrones show

We get similar signs in Bran’s chapter with Coldhands in the final stretch before the entrance of Bloodraven’s cave: a raven screaming, sharp cold, and a bristling Summer.

Something about the way the raven screamed sent a shiver running up Bran’s spine. […] But the air was sharp and cold and full of fear. Even Summer was afraid. The fur on his neck was bristling. […] “They are here.” (aDwD, Bran II)

Hodor’s beard and mustache is iced.

Icicles hung from the brown briar of [Hodor’s] beard, and his mustache was a lump of frozen snot, glittering redly in the light of sunset. (aDwD, Bran II)

Bran mentions how Summer can smell Varamyr’s wolf pack when Summer is downwind from them. So, here George suggests the concept of smelling a threat when the wolf is downwind.

“Where?” Meera’s voice was hushed.
“Close. I don’t know. Somewhere.”
“Those wolves are close as well,” Bran warned them. “The ones that have been following us. Summer can smell them whenever we’re downwind.” (aDwD, Bran II)

And when Meera comments that the way looks clear, she sounds like readers thinking, George does not show us explicitly that Others are present north of the Wall at Castle Black.

Meera eyed the hill above. “The way looks clear.”
“Looks,” the ranger muttered darkly. “Can you feel the cold? There’s something here. Where are they?” (aDwD, Bran II)

But Coldhands corrects Meera and the reader: if someone feels an extreme cold, then they are there.

And when Bran’s tears freeze, Coldhands warns that if they are not here yet, they will be soon.

Bran blinked back a tear and felt it freeze upon his cheek. Coldhands took Hodor by the arm. “The light is fading. If they’re not here now, they will be soon. Come.” (aDwD, Bran II)

While Jon notes that Bowen Marsh has tears streaming from his eyes, we can put question marks behind the fact whether these tears are actually streaming and not instead frozen icicles on his cheeks. Meanwhile what causes Bowen Marsh to weep to begin with? Extreme cold dehydrates our eyes, prompting a response by our tear ducts to produce tears to water the eyes. This is the reason why Chett and Bran (and Hodor) produce tears. It is merely our assumption that Bowen is weeping for emotional reasons, instead as a physiological reflex to the extreme cold that Jon describes.

Note that the wight attack in Bran’s chapter happens in front of a cave with a magical ward like that of the Wall. And while the wights and the Others are unable to pass the magical ward into the cave, in Bran’s last chapter we learn that more wights keep gathering in front of the entrance and snow is piling up like a wall against the cave.

Snowflakes drifted down soundlessly to cloak the soldier pines and sentinels in white. The drifts grew so deep that they covered the entrance to the caves, leaving a white wall that Summer had to dig through whenever he went outside to join his pack and hunt. (aDwD, Bran III)

Both with the magical ward and this white snow wall in front of the entrance building, George is setting up a further parallel between the cave and the Wall.

Buried Zombies

Jon had two dead wildlings carried from the weirwood grove north of the Wall into Castle Black.

The Hornfoot man could not sit a saddle and had to be tied over the back of a garron like a sack of grain; so too the pale-faced crone with the stick-thin limbs, whom they had not been able to rouse. They did the same with the two corpses, to the puzzlement of Iron Emmett. “They will only slow us, my lord,” he said to Jon. “We should chop them up and burn them.”
“No,” said Jon. “Bring them. I have a use for them.” […] The living wildlings Jon sent off to have their wounds and frostbites tended. Some hot food and warm clothes would restore most of them, he hoped, though the Hornfoot man was like to lose both feet. The corpses he consigned to the ice cells. (aDwD, Jon VII)

Jon keeps them in the ice cells of the Wall and explains to Bowen Marsh he hopes they will turn and become wights in order to learn more about wights.

Finally the Lord Steward cleared his throat. “Your lordship knows best, I am sure. Might I ask about these corpses in the ice cells? They make the men uneasy. And to keep them under guard? Surely that is a waste of two good men, unless you fear that they …”
“… will rise? I pray they do.”
Septon Cellador paled. “Seven save us.” Wine dribbled down his chin in a red line. “Lord Commander, wights are monstrous, unnatural creatures. Abominations before the eyes of the gods. You … you cannot mean to try to talk with them?”
Can they talk?” asked Jon Snow. “I think not, but I cannot claim to know. Monsters they may be, but they were men before they died. How much remains? The one I slew was intent on killing Lord Commander Mormont. Plainly it remembered who he was and where to find him.” […] “My lord father used to tell me that a man must know his enemies. We understand little of the wights and less about the Others. We need to learn.” (aDwD, Jon VIII)

The two corpses in the ice cells are mentioned a third and last time in Jon’s last chapter, in relation to the snowstorm.

The switchback stair was buried almost to the first landing, Jon saw, and the wooden doors of the ice cells and storerooms had vanished behind a wall of white. “How many men do we have in ice cells?” he asked Bowen Marsh.
“Four living men. Two dead ones.” […] The corpses. Jon had almost forgotten them. He had hoped to learn something from the bodies they’d brought back from the weirwood grove, but the dead men had stubbornly remained dead. […] “What would the lord commander like us to do with his corpses?” asked Marsh when the living men had been moved.
“Leave them.” If the storm entombed them, well and good. He would need to burn them eventually, no doubt, but for the nonce they were bound with iron chains inside their cells. That, and being dead, should suffice to hold them harmless. (aDwD, Jon XIII)

Since the rule of three applies, readers speculate that we will see these two rise as wights at some point. And the readers who do suspect that the men screaming in the last paragraphs while Wyck and Marsh attempt to assassinate Jon are doing so on account of the appearance of wights, will often propose these two have been wighted and are wreaking havoc.

These two corpses serve to plant the seed of Others wightifying corpses at Castle Black, but I do not regard them to be the lethal threat: the iron chains will keep them in position. In the last mention of them though, George gives us a hint how to figure out the imminent threat: the snowstorm has created a wall of white, the same way a wall of snow was created at Bloodraven’s cave in Bran’s last chapter. When Bran traversed the fresh snow towards the cave in his second chapter, Bran and his friends are attacked by wights buried beneath the fresh snow that fell until three days before.

A hand, he saw, as the rest of the wight came bursting from beneath the snow. Hodor kicked at it, slamming a snow-covered heel full into the thing’s face, but the dead man did not even seem to feel it. Then the two of them were grappling, punching and clawing at each other, sliding down the hill. […] All around him, wights were rising from beneath the snow. (aDwD, Bran II)

And this brings me back to Borroq’s boar. Aside from Jon blaming Ghost’s aggression on Borroq’s boar, Jon’s thirteenth chapter also tells us that Borroq and his boar reside at Castle Black’s lichyard, and that the boar has been rooting in the soil of the graves.

Until such time, Borroq had taken up residence in one of the ancient tombs beside the castle lichyard. The company of men long dead seemed to suit him better than that of the living, and his boar seemed happy rooting amongst the graves, well away from other animals. (aDwD, Jon XIII)

Yes, Castle Black has a lichyard. In fact, George introduced us to the lichyard both early in aFfC and aDwD, when Gilly, Samwell and maester Aemon depart to Eastwatch. In Craster and His Wives I explain how Gilly serves as a stand-in character for the corpse queen (or the Mother of the Others), and having her be a commanding presence in the scene at the lichyard creates a visual pun of Gilly as corpse queen. The lichyard thus has already been framed in connection to the Others upon introduction.

While most of us did not forget about the two corpses in the ice cells or the boar, the lichyard has slipped the minds of most of us. Most readers hardly registered that the boar has basically been loosening the soil of those graves. Hmmm, not unlike Mance opening graves in search of a certain horn.

Ygritte: “[…] We opened half a hundred graves and let all those shades loose in the world, and never found the Horn of Joramun to bring this cold thing down!” (aSoS, Jon IV)

And what is certain: while septon Cellador is horrified over two chained corpses in an ice cell, neither he or any other, including Jon, had the wisdom to burn the hundreds if not thousands “men long dead” in there. So the two chained corpses in the ice cell are not the danger, but the potential army (company) of wights lying in wait beneath loosened soil are. Just as in Bran’s arc, the buried wights are the threat.

Another pointer to the true threat in parallel to Bran’s chapter comes from Mel.

“Borroq is the least of your concerns. This ranging …” (aDwD, Jon XIII)

Mel’s phrase is a parallel to Coldhands’ reply to Bran worrying over Varamyr’s wolf pack that Summer can smell when downwind to them.

“Wolves are the least of our woes,” said Coldhands. (aDwD, Bran II)

Notice that Mel begins to say something about a ranging, before Jon interrupts her. Mel never gets to finish her sentence, so this was purposefully added as a reference to Coldhands who is often called the ranger by Bran. And both the wolf pack and the boar have in common that they are a skinchanger’s animals.

During Jon’s last meeting with Marsh and Yarwyck, we get a foreshadowing.

As for Borroq, Othell Yarwyck claimed the woods north of Stonedoor were full of wild boars. Who was to say the skinchanger would not make his own pig army? (aDwD, Jon XIII)

Othell does not call it a boar army, but a pig army. In Craster’s Black Blooded Curse, I argued that George equates pigs symbolically to humans and eating pork to cannibalism. The most glaring examples are:

Nearby, a small girl pulled carrots from a garden, naked in the rain, while two women tied a pig for slaughter. The animal’s squeals were high and horrible, almost human in their distress. (aCoK, Jon III)

When [Samwell] looked at the fire, he thought he saw Bannen sitting up, his hands coiling into fists as if to fight off the flames that were consuming him, but it was only for an instant, before the swirling smoke hid all. The worst thing was the smell, though. If it had been a foul unpleasant smell he might have stood it, but his burning brother smelled so much like roast pork that Sam’s mouth began to water, […] (aSoS, Samwell II)

And in the latter association to pork or pigs, George included the image of a dead man rising. So, by association the foreshadowed pig army implies an army of wights. The sole potential wight army rising south of the Wall are those unburned dead in the lichyard.

The Magical Ward

I have more hints and foreshadowing in sky descriptions that predict the appearance of some Others north of Castle Black during Jon’s last chapter, but I am reserving them for another essay of the Blood Seal Thesis. If the detective work of Ghost’s body language in relation to the weather analysis and the precedent of prior experiences with the Others are not enough for you to seriously consider the presence of the Others at the other side of the Wall when Wyck and Bowen Marsh attack Jon as a valid proposal, then sky descriptions will not persuade you either.

I may have managed to persuade you to consider the possibility that the Others are here and that an army of wights is rising from their uprooted graves, causing men to scream in the background of the assassination attempt. But there is also one huge caveat: there seems to be an enormous difference between the Others reactivating and directing wights like Othor and Jafer, who were already wighted long before they were carried through Castle Black’s tunnel by the Night’s Watch and wightifying the dead south of the Wall. After all, the Wall is not just a physical barrier, but a magical one too.

“The Wall. The Wall is more than just ice and stone, [Coldhands] said. There are spells woven into it . . . old ones, and strong. He cannot pass beyond the Wall.” It grew very quiet in the castle kitchen then. […] Beyond the gates the monsters live, and the giants and the ghouls, he remembered Old Nan saying, but they cannot pass so long as the Wall stands strong. So go to sleep, my little Brandon, my baby boy. You needn’t fear. There are no monsters here. (aSoS, Bran IV)

In fact, the magical ward is far more important than the physical barrier. Bloodraven’s cave has a similar ward, but the entrance allows the living to cross to and fro since there is no physical barrier.

“Can you feel the cold? There’s something here. Where are they?
Inside the cave?” suggested Meera.
“The cave is warded. They cannot pass.” The ranger used his sword to point. “You can see the entrance there. Halfway up, between the weirwoods, that cleft in the rock.”
“I see it,” said Bran. Ravens were flying in and out.
[…]
“There’s a passage there. Steep and twisty at first, a runnel through the rock. If you can reach it, you’ll be safe.”
“What about you?
The cave is warded.” (aDwD, Bran II)

How much this is a barrier I already emphasized in the Night’s King series, and I argued that one of the uses of the Night’s King to the corpse queen was as a smuggler to get her south of the Wall, like Davos had to smuggle Mel beyond the ward of the Storm’s End to birth her shadow assassin. It may not be a barrier against smell, wind and snow, but if it was never a barrier against the Others raising an army of the dead of a lichyard, it makes little sense the Others bothered with Othor and Jafer being carried through the Wall by the Night’s Watch. I expect the magical ward from preventing the Others to wightify anyone who was not yet a wight north of the Wall, even though it allows them to activate a sleeper wight.

In other words something must occur to the warding spell of the Wall, before the Others can raise the dead of the lichyard. The Blood Seal Thesis proposes that a warding spell must be locked in place with a blood seal. Since a seal is also a stamp, this implies that the warding spell becomes imprinted with that particular blood mix of the person shedding their blood to fixate it. As a consequence the seal can only be broken by shedding the blood of someone with a similar blood make up. In other words, the seal is a person. And obviously, I am proposing that Jon is a blood match and therefore the seal.

So, when Wyck grazes Jon’s neck and his blood drops onto the snow that was also blown against the ice of the Wall, the Wall’s warding spell was broken. The circumstantial evidence for the proposed concept of a Blood Seal is too expansive for this essay, but I will provide you with hints and references to the breaking of the magical ward and how this is tied to the foreshadowing of a wight army.

In the paragraph where Jon reveals to the reader that Borroq has made the lichyard his temporary residence with his boar, we also learn where Borroq is to live permanently.

The skinchanger [Borroq] was to accompany Soren Shieldbreaker to Stonedoor once the wayns carrying the Sealskinner‘s clan to Greenguard returned. (aDwD, Jon XIII)

It is quite doubtful whether Borroq and his boar will ever survive the night of Jon’s last chapter in aDwD to move to Stonedoor, so this plan only serves to give the reader hints, and the names used are eye opening: Shieldbreaker, Sealskinner, Greenguard and Stonedoor. In-world these are the names of two castles of the Night’s Watch and two names of prominent wildling leaders. The foreshadowing does not involve the actual locations or these two men, but the story these names foretell.

Let us start with the name Greenguard. The warding spells of the Wall, Storm’s End and Bloodraven’s cave are all attributed to children of the forest, who practice green magic.

“Legend has it that the giants helped raise the Wall, using their great strength to wrestle the blocks of ice into place. […] These same legends also say that the children of the forest—who did not themselves build walls of either ice or stone—would contribute their magic to the construction.” (tWoIaF – the Wall and Beyond: the Night’s Watch)

“A seventh castle he raised, most massive of all. Some said the children of the forest helped him build [Storm’s End], shaping the stones with magic; (aCoK, Catelyn III)

Hence we can say that a green guard is a green magic warding spell. And obviously in this case this is about the magical ward of the Wall. Though I do believe the conquering of Storm’s End by Aegon and the breach of Bloodraven’s cave may serve as a parallel in tWoW.

Ramsay_Moat_Cailin_by_gibilynx
Ramsay Bolton after Moat Cailin, by Gibilynx

In the foreshadowing the Sealskinner is on his way to this green guard, or the magical Wall. We recognize a reference to the blood seal concept that I propose in the first part. Meanwhile Skinner is the name of one of Ramsay’s Bastard Boys. Ramsay Bolton has several men-at-arms appointed by Roose to be of Ramsay’s service. Skinner was the one who flayed Theon’s fingers on Ramsay’s orders. He also claims that Ramsay killed his trueborn brother Domeric Bolton. It is possible that Skinner is one of the hunting party that may be on its way to Castle Black, but Skinner’s name is mostly yet another reference, to George’s novelette The Skin Trade. In that story, the Skinner is a supernatural shapeshifting assassin who in one of its shapes has knives for fingers. It uses mirrors as doors to traverse dimensions.

Skinner,” Steven called. The surface of the mirrors seemed to ripple and bulge, like a wave cresting on some quicksilver sea. The fog was thinning, Willie realized with sudden terror; he could see it clearer now, and he knew it could see him. And suddenly Willie Flambeaux knew what was happening, knew that when the fog cleared the mirrors wouldn’t be mirrors anymore; they’d be doors, doors, and the skinner would come…(Dreamsongs II, the Skin Trade)

The Skinner’s targets are werewolves on Steven’s orders. Steven has werewolf blood, but so pureblooded (inbred) that he himself cannot work the transformation from man into werewolf. But he discovered that when he wears the skin or pelt of another werewolf who can work the change, that he can steal their power for a short while. Both The Fattest Leech and Melanie Lot Seven have pointed out how Steven is a proto-Ramsay, while Willie Flambeaux (flaming sword), a werewolf of mutt descent (bastard) is a proto-Jon.

The above quote with Steven calling for the skinner to go after Willie via the mirrors follows a scene where Willie was wounded and his blood ended up on the mirrors of a funhouse.  

Willie looked into the mirrors. The reflections were gone. Willie, Steven, the moon, all gone. There was blood on the mirrors and they were full of fog, a silvery pale fog that shimmered as it moved. Something was moving through the fog, sliding from mirror to mirror to mirror, around and around. Something hungry that wanted to get out. (Dreamsongs II, the Skin Trade)

So, for aSoIaF, skinner serves as a double reference to both the supernatural Others as well as Ramsay, who flays people and steals first his brother’s birthright, then the Hornwood lands and finally Winterfell via a marriage to a fake wolf. And regardless of the real author of the Pink Letter, it was signed and “sealed” in Ramsay’s name.

Bastard, was the only word written outside the scroll. No Lord Snow or Jon Snow or Lord Commander. Simply Bastard. And the letter was sealed with a smear of hard pink wax. “You were right to come at once,” Jon said. You were right to be afraid. He cracked the seal, flattened the parchment, and read. (aDwD, Jon XIII)

That Pink Letter itself serves as a sealskinner. In my proposal of the blood seal concept, Jon himself is the blood seal that preserves the Wall’s green magical guard or ward. And the assassination attempt on Jon’s life occurs after he read the Pink Letter in the shield hall. And of course we can also see how the Sealskinner is a dual reference to the Others as supernatural beings coming through a mirror after the blood seal of the green guard is cracked.

The Shieldbreaker does not require much explanation. That leaves us with Stonedoor. The word door aligns with the Skinner reference: a mirror becomes a door. So why stone? Well, we tend to think of the Wall as being physically made from ice, but the Wall is made from earth, stone and ice. What happens if the magical ward is broken? Others can do with ice whatever they wish: dissolve it into mist for example. What remains of the Wall if they do? All that remains is stone section, and then the ice mirror has turned into a stone door. And without the ward or a cracked seal on the ward, the Others’ magic can raise that “pig army” from the graves. It is after all at Stonedoor that Yarwyck foretells Borroq might be able to raise a pig army.

So, basically that one sentence with those four foreshadowing references can be translated to mean that after the arrival of the Others and the Pink Letter to the Wall, the shield will be broken and turned into a stone door as well as an army of wights will rise from the lichyard. And since there is plenty of circumstantial evidence to support the proposal that the Others are at the other side of the Wall at Castle Black the day the Pink Letter arrived, the breaking of the shield of the ream occurs that very same night. (For an extensive analysis on hints and clues for the Blood Seal, see Quoth the Raven)

Conclusion (tl;tr)

Tormund reveals that the Others have nibbled at his thousands of wildlings during their trek south, and he is unwilling to reveal too much about them north of the Wall. The last wildlings that pass through the Wall are Tormund’s rearguard and best men. They are last as their main responsibility is to guard and keep other people alive. Borroq and his boar belong to Tormund’s rearguard and he is the very last wildling to pass through. We can safely assume this is because as skinchanger with far more experience with the Others than Jon, Borroq can raise the alarm the earliest when the Others are near. When the wild boar changes his stance to that of a charge, this is not related to Ghost or Jon, but immediately after the boar is snuffling the ground and snow is falling down. And this is followed by Borroq’ warning that the Others are coming.

The aggressive behavior of Ghost, including towards Jon, and Mormont’s raven acting in high alert is caused by them smelling the Others coming for Castle Black, for this behavior coincides with a snowsky rolling in from the north and any prior signs of the nearness of the Others. In these examples involving canines, the animal even turns or snarls at their caretaker. Later in the day, Ghost and the raven relax. This coincides with the wind turning, and blowing from the south. They are calmer and less aggressive from this point onwards, because the Others are now downwind, and neither Ghost or the raven can smell them anymore.

The proposals that Ghost and the raven are aggressive because of the plot to assassinate Jon are wrong. Ghost shows no aggression towards Bowen Marsh whatsoever, but relaxed dominance. Meanwhile Ghost nearly attacks Jon himself far ealier, when the snowsky was drifting in from the north.

Northern winds, snowfall, alarmed and aggressive, fearful animals, smoking wounds, extreme cold and the reflext from the tear ducts to water the eyes with tears freezing on the spot, and icicles on beard and mustache are all visible tell-tale signs that accompany a trap or attack by either themselves or wights. Since all these follow one after the other throughout Jon’s last day in aDwD, this mounts to a pile of circumstantial evidence to take the notion that the Others are present at the other side of the Wall quite serious.

On top of that we have numerous foreshadowing hints that not the two dead men chained in the ice cells are the danger, but the hundreds if not thousands forgotten dead brothers buried in the lichyard. Borroq’s boar has been rooting through the soil of those graves, thereby loosening the earth, making it easier for wights to rise from the lichyard. The few Others waiting at the other side of the Wall at Castle Black do not need to bring an army of wights from Hardhome. Once the magical ward of the Wall cracks or breaks, their magic can raise a lichyard ‘pig’ army. And this cracking or breaking is tied to the assassination attempt of Jon. It is thus entirely possible that the men screaming in the background while Wick slashes at Jon for a second time are screaming because dead men and dismembered arms come back to life.

Bran Stark (Part 1) – Serwyn Reversed

(Top Illustration: a cutout from Bran Stark, by Richey Beckett).

Bran was going to be a knight himself someday, one of the Kingsguard. Old Nan said they were the finest swords in all the realm. There were only seven of them, and they wore white armor and had no wives or children, but lived only to serve the king. Bran knew all the stories. Their names were like music to him. Serwyn of the Mirror Shield. Ser Ryam Redwyne. Prince Aemon the Dragonknight. (aGoT, Bran II)

The very first POV where Serwyn is mentioned is Bran’s, so naturally, he is the first character to examine in that respect. In this essay, we will focus mostly on several scenes in Bran’s POV of aCoK that include elements of St. George and the dragon, combined with Serwyn’s legend. In the Serwyn introduction, we speculated how  St. George and the dragon is the likely inspirations to GRRM’s Serwyn of the Mirror Shield. That speculation seems correct with the clear tableau-scenes for both in Bran’s chapters. That does not mean these scenes are an exact parallel. Quite the opposite, they are mirror images, meaning a reversal of the original legends, both in-world and real world. This occurs so consistently, that George has a reason for it.

“Your blood makes you a greenseer,” said Lord Brynden. “This will help awaken your gifts and wed you to the trees.” Bran did not want to be married to a tree … but who else would wed a broken boy like him? A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. A greenseer. He ate. (aDwD, Bran III)

Bran’s arc is not just that of a boy discovering he has rare magical abilities, but in a larger sense, an arc of conversion. While, St. George converts the pagans he saves from the scurge of the dragon to Christianity, Bran converts from the Faith (Planetos’s version of Christianity) to the Old Gods over the course of the first five books, but in the last act will convert others too.

But before we get into this, let us first inspect the two significant scenes of aCoK, Bran IV.

Index

Tableau 1 – A Giant, a Prince and a Damsel in Distress

hodor_is_coming_i___restoring_faith_in_winterfell_by_gumshorts-d5t8t0g
Hodor is Coming, Restoring Faith in Winterfell by Gumshorts

One of the easiest ways to look for potential Serwyn related scenes is to search for “damsel in distress” scenes. In Bran’s fourth chapter of aCoK, Meera Reed (and her brother) ends up in a distress situation. As Jojen questioned Bran about the dreams he has and his warging, Bran gets so upset that his anger flows over into Summer who threatens the Reed siblings. Sensing Summer’s rage, Shaggy joins in. To keep out of harm’s way and wolf teeth, Jojen and Meera climb the weirwood in the godswood.

Summer rushed forward, but Meera blocked him, jabbing with the three-pronged spear. The wolf twisted aside, circling, stalking. Meera turned to face him. […] The direwolf lunged again, and again Meera’s spear darted out. Summer dodged, circled back. The bushes rustled, and a lean black shape came padding from behind the weirwood, teeth bared. The scent was strong; his brother had smelled his rage. Bran felt hairs rise on the back of his neck. Meera stood beside her brother, with wolves to either side. […] her brother scrambled up the trunk of the weirwood, using the face for his handholds. The direwolves closed. Meera abandoned spear and net, jumped up, and grabbed the branch above her head. Shaggy’s jaws snapped shut beneath her ankle as she swung up and over the limb. Summer sat back on his haunches and howled, while Shaggydog worried the net, shaking it in his teeth. (aCoK, Bran IV)

Meanwhile, on Meera’s urging Bran tried to call Summer and Shaggy back from attacking them, but Summer ignores Bran’s summons.

“Bran, call them off.”
“I can’t!” (aCoK, Bran IV)

Then Bran realizes that Hodor – a human giant- is in the godswood and he calls for him to help chase off Summer and Shaggy. Ever helpful, Hodor waves his arms and stamps his feet and succeeds.

A few moments passed before they heard a tuneless humming. Hodor arrived half-dressed and mud-spattered from his visit to the hot pools, but Bran had never been so glad to see him. “Hodor, help me. Chase off the wolves. Chase them off.”
Hodor went to it gleefully, waving his arms and stamping his huge feet, shouting “Hodor, Hodor,” running first at one wolf and then the other. Shaggydog was the first to flee, slinking back into the foliage with a final snarl. When Summer had enough, he came back to Bran and lay down beside him. (aCoK, Bran IV)

What we have here is a reversal of Serwyn saving his princess from a giant. In the original we have a knight who saves a princess from a giant. But in this scene we have a sworn shield saved by a giant from a prince.

The Prince in the tower

Bran may have wished to be a knight like Serwyn one day, but before long he ends up being the Prince of Winterfell instead.

[Hayhead] peered in, saw Bran howling out the window, and said, “What’s this, my prince?” It made Bran feel queer when they called him prince, though he was Robb’s heir, and Robb was King in the North now. (aCoK, Bran I)

Bran had never asked to be a prince. It was knighthood he had always dreamed of; bright armor and streaming banners, lance and sword, a warhorse between his legs. (aCoK, Bran II)

Better yet, a prince in a tower behind bars and shuttered windows, with Winterfell as his prison.

Bran preferred the hard stone of the window seat to the comforts of his featherbed and blankets. Abed, the walls pressed close and the ceiling hung heavy above him; abed, the room was his cell, and Winterfell his prison. (aCoK, Bran I)

Hodor carried him up the winding steps to his tower and knelt beside one of the iron bars that Mikken had driven into the wall. Bran used the bars to move himself to the bed, and Hodor pulled off his boots and breeches.[…] When he blew out his bedside candle, darkness covered him like a soft, familiar blanket. The faint sound of music drifted through his shuttered window. (aCoK, Bran III)

The prince is even mentally a prisoner (on so many levels at the time as I will show later), with his direwolf locked behind iron bars in the godswood. And yes this seems a deliberate description of the tower-like-prison for a “prince”, because as soon as Bran lies down to sleep, he remembers the conversation he had with Ned Stark about knights, in gleaming armor, marvels who are a shining lesson to the world.

Something his father had told him once when he was little came back to him suddenly. He had asked Lord Eddard if the Kingsguard were truly the finest knights in the Seven Kingdoms. “No longer,” he answered, “but once they were a marvel, a shining lesson to the world.” […] [Bran] went to sleep with his head full of knights in gleaming armor, fighting with swords that shone like starfire, […] (aCoK, Bran III)

And earlier in the chapter, towards the end of the harvest feast, we are of course reminded of Bran not being a knight, when he thinks he wants to be a knight.

“You have done well, Bran. Here, and at the audiences. You will be an especial fine lord one day, I think.”
I want to be a knight. Bran took another sip of the spiced honey wine from his father’s goblet, grateful for something to clutch. (aCoK, Bran III)

Bran often reflects on everyone calling him prince, and how he wants to be a knight in shining armor instead, how they call him prince but do not heed his wishes, such as locking the direwolves into the godswood or not allowing him to ride beyond the gate with Dancer. And yet, just before Bran becomes the actual threat in the Serwyn-tableau scene, through Summer, Bran actually declares himself the Prince of Winterfell for once.

[Jojen] was making Bran angry. “I don’t have to tell you my dreams. I’m the prince. I’m the Stark in Winterfell.” (aCoK, Bran IV)

Serwyna of the shield.

Meanwhile, the main female character in Bran’s arc, Meera, is not a princess, but his sworn shield. The very same night that Meera and Jojen arrived at Winterfell, they swore themselves to him. Officially their vow is to the King in the North, Robb, and Winterfell, but they say the words to Bran, and it is emphasized even then that their vow is mostly meant to benefit Bran himself.

“My lords of Stark,” the girl said [on her knees]. “The years have passed in their hundreds and their thousands since my folk first swore their fealty to the King in the North. My lord father has sent us here to say the words again, for all our people.”
She is looking at me, Bran realized. He had to make some answer. “My brother Robb is fighting in the south,” he said, “but you can say your words to me, if you like.”
“To Winterfell we pledge the faith of Greywater,” they said together. “Hearth and heart and harvest we yield up to you, my lord. Our swords and spears and arrows are yours to command. Grant mercy to our weak, help to our helpless, and justice to all, and we shall never fail you.”
“I swear it by earth and water,” said the boy in green.
“I swear it by bronze and iron,” his sister said.
“We swear it by ice and fire,” they finished together. (aCoK, Bran III)

“[…] You are only a boy, I know, but you are our prince as well, our lord’s son and our king’s true heir. We have sworn you our faith by earth and water, bronze and iron, ice and fire. The risk is yours, Bran, as is the gift. The choice should be yours too, I think. We are your servants to command.” She grinned. “At least in this.”
“You mean,” Bran said, “you’ll do what I say? Truly?”
“Truly, my prince,” the girl replied, “so consider well.” (aSoS, Bran I)

Many people refer to Bran as “my prince” in aCoK. For most it is but a courtesy, while they dictatee Bran where to go, where he cannot go, what he must do then or later, and even what he must dream. Meera is the sole one who treats Bran as a minor with some power over his own body, when calling him her prince. In aCoK, Meera refers to Bran as her prince once – in the chapter that features the reversed Serwyn scene.

Bran had never heard of a moving castle before. He looked at  [Meera] uncertainly, but he couldn’t tell whether she was teasing him or not. “I wish I could see it. Do you think your lord father would let me come visit when the war is over?”
“You would be most welcome, my prince. Then or now.” (aCoK, Bran IV)

Therefore, not only is there a role reversal in the Serwyn related scene, between whom saves whom from whom, but also a gender reversal: the princess has become a prince, the warrior a girl. Jojen also swears the same vows, but of the siblings, only Meera is described as a warrior as they would have looked during the era of heroes of legends such as Serwyn.

As the newcomers walked the length of the hall, Bran saw that one was indeed a girl, though he would never have known it by her dress. She wore lambskin breeches soft with long use, and a sleeveless jerkin armored in bronze scales. Though near Robb’s age, she was slim as a boy, with long brown hair knotted behind her head and only the barest suggestion of breasts. A woven net hung from one slim hip, a long bronze knife from the other; under her arm she carried an old iron greathelm spotted with rust; a frog spear and round leathern shield were strapped to her back. Her brother was several years younger and bore no weapons. (aCoK, Bran III)

Since she carries no sword at the time, only a knife, her vows do not make her a sworn sword. She does however carry a shield, which makes her a sworn shield. It’s not a mirroring shield, but the bronze scales of her armor would make her a sworn mirroring shield (see Mirror Mirror – Brass Alchemism and Mirror Mirror – Behind the Mirror). And since the chapter nearly ends with Bran remembering his father making a favorable comment about Howland Reed, Meera’s father, as saving Ned’s life from the greatest knight that Ned had ever seen, Arthur Dayne, this sets Meera up to have the potential to be the greatest sworn shield he could wish for.

“The finest knight I ever saw was Ser Arthur Dayne, who fought with a blade called Dawn, forged from the heart of a fallen star. They called him the Sword of the Morning, and he would have killed me but for Howland Reed.” ( aCoK, Bran III)

Howland Reed is not a knight, and we do not even know exactly in what manner Howland saved Ned. Nor does he sound to have been a sword fighter. This puts Howland more in the defensive “sworn shield” role, rather than the offensive “sworn sword” role. We should regard the legendary Serwyn in the same sense. It is not his sword skill or sword that is the legend’s subject, but the shield.

And yes, by the end of aCoK, Meera does carry Lord Rickard Stark’s grave-sword. But the paragraph makes clear that we still should not regard Meera a sworn sword. Meera complains it is too heavy for her and Bran summarizes the sword carrying a game.

Osha carried her long oaken spear in one hand and the torch in the other. A naked sword hung down her back, one of the last to bear Mikken’s mark. He had forged it for Lord Eddard’s tomb, to keep his ghost at rest. But with Mikken slain and the ironmen guarding the armory, good steel had been hard to resist, even if it meant grave-robbing. Meera had claimed Lord Rickard’s blade, though she complained that it was too heavy. Brandon took his namesake’s, the sword made for the uncle he had never known. He knew he would not be much use in a fight, but even so the blade felt good in his hand. But it was only a game, and Bran knew it. (aCoK, Bran VI)

George did not have them carry swords to turn any of these three into knights or sworn swords, even symbolically. He needed those swords to be gone as evidence for visitors of the crypts that any rumor of Bran or Rickon being alive was corroborated at their hide-out, as Lady Dustin seems to be doing when down in the crypts with Theon.

While many readers focus on the Arthur Dayne-versus-Howland Reed quote to speculate on Arthur Dayne, the main use about this paragraph in Bran’s third chapter of aCoK is how we should see Meera as the closest thing to a legend of the age of heroes walking into his life and swearing to be his protector. After all, garbed in Age of Heroes gear, Meera is the daughter of the man who somehow bested the already legendary Arthur Dayne. Hence the chapter ends not just with Bran dreaming of knights in shining armor, but instead the Reed siblings entering the godswood and Meera acting protectively of her brother.

The Giant

Our giant in the Serwyn tableau is the good-hearted Hodor who measures nearly seven feet. There are several quotes for this, such as Bran referring to Hodor as a simple giant in aGoT or Osha speculating that Hodor’s size may be due to giant’s blood, but I chose two quotes from aCoK instead that precede Hodor rescuing Meera from Summer and Shaggydog and set Hodor up to be a protective giant.

[Osha] gave him a sour grin. “That it’s a fool boy who mocks a giant, and a mad world when a cripple has to defend him.”
“Hodor never knew they were mocking him,” Bran said. “Anyhow he never fights.” […] “Septon Chayle says he has a gentle spirit.”
“Aye,” she said, “and hands strong enough to twist a man’s head off his shoulders, if he takes a mind to. […] (aCoK, Bran II)

Here we have Osha refer to Hodor as a giant, but simultaneously alerting the reader of small seemingly unimportant events where people have unexpected roles. First, a cripple (Bran) has to defend a giant (Hodor) when the Walders mock Hodor, and two chapters later a giant (Hodor) has to defend a sworn shield (Meera) from her prince’s direwolf, because Luwin shamed Bran about his wolf dreams. A mad world indeed.

The singer sang good songs, “Iron Lances” and “The Burning of the Ships” and “The Bear and the Maiden Fair,” but only Hodor seemed to be listening. He stood beside the piper, hopping from one foot to the other. (aCoK, Bran III)

Finally, Hodor becoming a protector is heralded with the song The Bear and Maiden Fair. For more extensive insight on this song and the theme in the series, please read the introduction and essays on Bears and Maidens. But to summarize the important connection here is the fact that in aGoT, George planted the seeds of association between giants and bears through Tyrion at the Wall. There Aemon called Tyrion a giant, while Jon thinks of him as a small bear when huddled in the bearskin Benjen loaned him. In aSoS, George reaffirms this association when Jon thinks of the giants he sees as bearlike. So, when George puts a human giant in the same paragraph along with several songs, including The Bear and the Maiden Fair, then he intends to associate Hodor to that song in particular. This is affirmed with Hodor’s dancing style – a simple hopping from one foot to the other – which is similar to that of dancing bears.

The harvest feast at Winterfell is the first time that George ever mentions the song The Bear and the Maiden Fair. Its hokum lyrics were only introduced in aSoS, so we will ignore its deeper bear hunt-ritual meaning as well as its sexual innuendo. On the surface though it is about a bear dancing with a maiden fair, or at least wishing it. And when the actual dancing begins during the harvest feast, Bran notes that Hodor dances all by himself. In other words, the maiden fair is absent in this dancing scene.

The bear’s folkloristic roles vary: avenger, destroyer, but also groom, lover and protector. Osha highlighted how Hodor has the potential to be a destroyer when she mentions he has the hands to twist a man’s head off, but also implied he should be the protector. The reference to the bear-maiden song sets up Hodor to be a protective bear towards a maiden fair, which he becomes in the godswood scene, when he saves Meera from the direwolves.

Tableau 2 – Netting a wolf

meera_reed_elera
Meera Reed, by Elera

The same godswood chapter also features a scene of the legend of Saint George and the dragon. In that legend people chose people to be sacrificed to a poisonous dragon by a lake or well by lot. And eventually, the lot fell on the king’s daughter. She was sent out to the lake, dressed as a bride, to be the dragon’s next meal. By happenstance, Saint George passed and when the dragon emerged, he charged and wounded it with his lance, but did not kill it. Instead Saint George throws the princess’ girdle around the dragon and it followed the princess meekly back to the city. Once inside the city, Saint George makes an offer to the citizens – he will kill the dragon for them, but only if they all convert to Christianity.

Bran’s fourth chapter starts with Meera capturing Summer in her net.

“Yai!” the girl shouted, the spear darting out. The wolf slid to the left and leapt before she could draw back the spear. Meera cast her net, the tangles unfolding in the air before her. Summer’s leap carried him into it. He dragged it with him as he slammed into her chest and knocked her over backward. Her spear went spinning away. The damp grass cushioned her fall but the breath went out of her in an “Oof.” The wolf crouched atop her.
Bran hooted. “You lose.”
“She wins,” her brother Jojen said. “Summer’s snared.
He was right, Bran saw. Thrashing and growling at the net, trying to rip free, Summer was only ensnaring himself worse. Nor could he bite through. (aCoK, Bran IV)

The above scene is a reference to the girdling of the dragon. While a net is not exactly a girdle, Meera wears it like a girdle, from her hip.

A woven net hung from one slim hip, a long bronze knife from the other; […] (aCoK, Bran III)

Though Meera is not a princess, as a Serwyn figure she can perform the girdling. This is highlighted in her manner of capturing Summer.

Meera moved in a wary circle, her net dangling loose in her left hand, the slender three-pronged frog spear poised in her right. Summer followed her with his golden eyes, turning, his tail held stiff and tall. Watching, watching . . . (aCoK, Bran IV)

Serwyn uses a feign to kill  a dragon. As the dragon is distracted by the shield, he never sees Serwyn’s spear coming.  Meera uses the same feign with her frog spear and the net, except her spear is the decoy, while the net is her true weapon. Did you notice that is another reversal?

More, the outcome of the capture scene is yet another reversal. After its capture, the citizens want the dragon killed. Saint George tells them he will only do so if they all agree to convert from paganism to Christianity, otherwise he will set the dragon free again. Unlike the citizens in Saint George’s legen, Bran demands Summer’s release.

Let him out.”
Laughing, the Reed girl threw her arms around the tangled wolf and rolled them both. Summer gave a piteous whine, his legs kicking against the cords that bound them. Meera knelt, undid a twist, pulled at a corner, tugged deftly here and there, and suddenly the direwolf was bounding free. (aCoK, Bran IV)

Setting Summer free, rather than kill  him can be seen as a foreshadowing that the Reed siblings and Bran are essential to ensure summer will follow after winter. But from the angle of the Saint George legend, it means Bran chooses the Old Gods over the Faith, and that in fact this conversion is necessary to end winter. Hence, Jojen’s inquiry after Bran’s dreams and explanation of Bran’s abilities, which Bran denies, begins right after Summer is set free. These are conversion attempts that Bran initially resists, clinging to the maester’s beliefs (in contrast to aCoK, Bran I).

The Winged Wolf Chained

“I dreamed of a winged wolf bound to earth with grey stone chains,” he said. “It was a green dream, so I knew it was true. A crow was trying to peck through the chains, but the stone was too hard and his beak could only chip at them.” […] “You are the winged wolf, Bran,” said Jojen. “I wasn’t sure when we first came, but now I am. The crow sent us here to break your chains.” (aCoK, Bran IV)

Kristina_Carroll_greendream_chained winged wolf
Greendream “the chained winged wolf” by Kristina Caroll

Jojen relates his dream, after we saw Meera Reed girdle Summer and before Hodor ends up having to save Meera and Jojen from the direwolves. In Jojen’s dream the image of a girdled wolf is repeated, now in chains, with yet another tie to Saint George’s legend: the wolf has wings, like a dragon.

But as with Meera netting of the wolf, the reversel repeats itself here – like Summer was set free, the Reed siblings and the Three Eyed Crow want to set Bran free, before outside forces (such as Theon’s Drowned God or Ramsay Bolton’s desire to wear the skin of Lord of Winterfell) can kill him.

fly or die
Bran Stark and his dreams by Teilku

Fly or die!” cried the three-eyed crow as it pecked at him. He wept and pleaded but the crow had no pity. (aCoK, Bran II)

In Bloodraven’s “fly or die”, we recognize Saint George’s choice put to the people of Selene – kill the dragon or free the dragon, and just as in the legend it requires conversion. Except of course, here the desired choice is freedom, the choice to live, and a conversion towards the paganistic Old Gods, not the Christian-like Faith. This makes Bloodraven a saint for the same reasons that Meera is a sworn shield.

Bran’s dreams of the three-eyed-crow are often regarded as cruel, or as implying that the dreamer can die while dreaming, in a similar way as dreamers die in Nightmare on Elm Street. But there is a far more mundane reason for Bloodraven doing everything he can to push for Bran to reach and accept his talents.

“I dreamed that the sea was lapping all around Winterfell. I saw black waves crashing against the gates and towers, and then the salt water came flowing over the walls and filled the castle. Drowned men were floating in the yard. When I first dreamed the dream, back at Greywater, I didn’t know their faces, but now I do. That Alebelly is one, the guard who called our names at the feast. Your septon’s another. Your smith as well.” […] “In the dark of night the salt sea will flow over these walls,” said Jojen. “I saw the dead, bloated and drowned.” (aCoK, Bran V)

And it is not just Theon and Ironborn who poses a danger to Bran, but Reek (Ramsay in disguise).

“Did you see me in a green dream?” he asked Jojen nervously. “Was I drowned?”
“Not drowned.” Jojen spoke as if every word pained him. “I dreamed of the man who came today, the one they call Reek. You and your brother lay dead at his feet, and he was skinning off your faces with a long red blade.” (aCoK, Bran V)

And you would think that if Bloodraven had the power to kill someone in a dream like Freddy Kruger, that he would actually use that power. The ability to kill someone in a dream is the type of magical powers that GRRM is not keen on including in stories, because it leads to the paradox of the magician not using that power more often and solve the issue, before it becomes a threat or a problem. Hence the “die” is not a physical threat to Bran during his dream, at least not after he came out of his coma, but a warning of a physical threat by an enemy that could get Bran killed in the near future, unless he starts to use his abilities and believes in oracle dreams.

It put out his left eye and then his right, and when he was blind in the dark it pecked at his brow, driving its terrible sharp beak deep into his skull. He screamed until he was certain his lungs must burst. The pain was an axe splitting his head apart, but when the crow wrenched out its beak all slimy with bits of bone and brain, Bran could see again. (aCoK, Bran II)

The “fly or die” dream is featured only twice in the series. The first time during his coma, after his mother has left Winterfell. Catelyn held vigil day and night beside him, making sure that even during his coma he had sufficient nourishment. Neither Robb, maester Luwin or Old Nan would be this meticulous, and with a physical state lingering between death and survival, this situation risked to become one where Bran would waste away and maester Luwin eventually would decide that the Starks should prepare to let Bran’s life go. It was time for Bran to wake up and eat. Apart from all the threats surrounding Sansa and Arya, the threat to Westeros coming both from Essos and the North, this is what the crow shows to Bran as being his immediate threat to his life – how skinny he is.

Bran was staring at his arms, his legs. He was so skinny, just skin stretched taut over bones. Had he always been so thin? (aGoT, Bran III)

BTW if you think Old Nan would not let Bran waste away, I must remind you that she was hired as a young woman to wet nurse a baby Brandon Stark, whose mother had died, and that Brandon Stark died at the age of three from a “summer chill”.

Nan had come to the castle as a wet nurse for a Brandon Stark whose mother had died birthing him. He had been an older brother of Lord Rickard, Bran’s grandfather, or perhaps a younger brother, or a brother to Lord Rickard’s father. Sometimes Old Nan told it one way and sometimes another. In all the stories the little boy died at three of a summer chill, but Old Nan stayed on at Winterfell with her own children. (aGoT, Bran IV)

Per the Stark family tree published by George in tWoIaF, this must have been the firstborn son of Willam Stark, Rickard’s grandfather, and Lyanne Glover who died in childbirth. Rickard is recorded in the family tree as only child of Edwyle Stark – second son of Willam – and Marna Locke. A “summer chill” does not sound as a heavy epidemic or disease, and summer is not the worst of seasons. So, for a child that young to die in the summer from a chill, after Old Non was its wet nurse, this sort of reflects badly on her actual caring abilities for another woman’s child.

The second time the dream is featured is at the end of Bran’s second chapter in aCoK, just after Donnella Hornwood’s case is brought to Luwin’s attention, who decides it is not a presseing matter of urgency that can be resolved in the future. This dream also occurs after Theon has learned of his father’s plans to invade the North. Off-page, Ramsay is preparing to seize Hornwood and inevitably weaken the peace and safety within the North, while Theon is manipulated into proving to his father he is a Greyjoy by turning against the family who raised him. That the threath for death is one of an assassination, instead of physical weakness this time around is made clear by one major change in the dream in aCoK to the one during his coma.

A face swam up at him out of the grey mist, shining with light, golden. “The things I do for love,” it said. Bran screamed. The crow took to the air, cawing. Not that, it shrieked at him. Forget that, you do not need it now, put it aside, put it away. It landed on Bran’s shoulder, and pecked at him, and the shining golden face was gone.  (aGoT, Bran I)

What he saw made him gasp in fear. He was clinging to a tower miles high, and his fingers were slipping, nails scrabbling at the stone, his legs dragging him down, stupid useless dead legs. “Help me!” he cried. A golden man appeared in the sky above him and pulled him up. “The things I do for love,” he murmured softly as he tossed him out kicking into empty air. (aCoK, Bran II)

In aCoK, Bloodraven makes no attempt to keep Bran from seeing the truth of what befell (pun intended) him, as he did when Bran was in his coma. Now, he does want Bran to know that men might want to kill him. Of course, Jaime is not a threat to Bran anymore, but Ramsay and Theon are both motivated to act in their own twisted way to earn the respect and regard of a father – another type of “love”.

It seems strange that Bloodraven seems to think it necessary to peck open Bran’s third eye again, when he seemed succesful enough previously, enough for Bran to dream about his father’s death ahead of the dark wings bringing the news, enough for him to not only have wolf dreams, but weirwood dreams as well.

The mention of dreams reminded him. “I dreamed about the crow again last night. The one with three eyes. He flew into my bedchamber and told me to come with him, so I did. We went down to the crypts. Father was there, and we talked. He was sad.” […] “It was something to do about Jon, I think.” The dream had been deeply disturbing, more so than any of the other crow dreams. (aGoT, Bran VII)

Of late, he often dreamed of wolves. They are talking to me, brother to brother, he told himself when the direwolves howled. He could almost understand them . . . not quite, not truly, but almost . . . as if they were singing in a language he had once known and somehow forgotten. […] “When I sleep I turn into a wolf.” Bran turned his face away and looked back out into the night. “Do wolves dream?” […] “Do trees dream?”
“Trees? No . . .”
“They do,” Bran said with sudden certainty. “They dream tree dreams. I dream of a tree sometimes. A weirwood, like the one in the godswood. It calls to me. The wolf dreams are better. I smell things, and sometimes I can taste the blood.” (aCoK, Bran I)

This does not sound like a boy who is chained. It sounds a like a wolf with wings, who can fly, who enjoys it, who does not seem to need to go through an enlightenment ordeal again.

He thought of the golden man and the three-eyed crow, remembered the crunch of bones between his jaws and the coppery taste of blood. “I don’t have dreams. Maester Luwin gives me sleeping draughts.”
“Do they help?”
“Sometimes.”
Meera said, “All of Winterfell knows you wake at night shouting and sweating, Bran. The women talk of it at the well, and the guards in their hall.”
“Tell us what frightens you so much,” said Jojen.
“I don’t want to. Anyway, it’s only dreams. Maester Luwin says dreams might mean anything or nothing.” (aCoK, Bran IV)

In the course of three chapters, Bran has turned from a boy daring to freely speak about his dreams, challenging maester Luwin’s claims, enjoying most of the dreams, even the crow dreams, before the latest “fly or die” dream, into a boy who sounds more and more like a mini maester Luwin, citing him constantly with “maester Luwin says…”.  So Bran changed, but why and when?

A Maester’s Chains

Jojen’s dream about the winged wolf mentions how grey stone chains weigh him down. That creates the question who or what those chains symbolize. The answer is layered:

  • Bran’s fears,
  • Bran’s disappointment that he cannot fly in waking life,
  • beliefs that Brans cling to in order to prevent him from facing his fears and feed on his disappointment,
  • sleeping drugs given to him to try and give Bran dreamless sleep

The last two items on this list stem from the same source: maester Luwin. All in all, the reasons why the Winged Wolf is chained are both internal as well as external, and thus two culprits – Bran himself and maester Luwin.

maester luwin all in grey
Donals Sumpter as maester Luwin in GOT

Grey chains are an apt symbolic representation of maester Luwin. While Lady Dustin refers to maesters in general as “grey rats“, Luwin in particular is grey all over.

The maester was a small grey man. His eyes were grey, and quick, and saw much. His hair was grey, what little the years had left him. His robe was grey wool, trimmed with white fur, the Stark colors. (aGoT, Catelyn II)

“We have no steward,” Maester Luwin reminded her. Like a little grey rat, she thought, he would not let go. “Poole went south to establish Lord Eddard’s household at King’s Landing.”  (aGoT, Catelyn III)

And of course, maesters are “collared”. They wear their chain, day and night, even when sleeping. While all maesters wear their chains, and more than maester Luwin is featured throughout the series, Luwin in particular is regularly featured as tugging his chain.

The maester tugged at the chain around his neck, as he often did when he was uncomfortable. “Bran, sweet child, one day Lord Eddard will sit below in stone, beside his father and his father’s father and all the Starks back to the old Kings in the North … but that will not be for many years, gods be good. Your father is a prisoner of the queen in King’s Landing. You will not find him in the crypts.”
[…]
Maester Luwin tugged at his chain collar where it chafed against his neck. “They were people of the Dawn Age, the very first, before kings and kingdoms,” he said. “In those days, there were no castles or holdfasts, no cities, not so much as a market town to be found between here and the sea of Dorne. There were no men at all. Only the children of the forest dwelt in the lands we now call the Seven Kingdoms. (aGoT, Bran VII)

When he came back, Maester Luwin was with him, all in grey, his chain tight about his neck. “Bran, those beasts make sufficient noise without your help.” He crossed the room and put his hand on the boy’s brow. “The hour grows late, you ought to be fast asleep.”
[…]
“They do,” Bran said with sudden certainty. “They dream tree dreams. I dream of a tree sometimes. A weirwood, like the one in the godswood. It calls to me. The wolf dreams are better. I smell things, and sometimes I can taste the blood.”
Maester Luwin tugged at his chain where it chafed his neck. “If you would only spend more time with the other children—” (aCoK, Bran I)

“The sea is coming here,” Bran said. “Jojen saw it in a green dream. Alebelly is going to drown.”
Maester Luwin tugged at his chain collar. “The Reed boy believes he sees the future in his dreams, Ser Rodrik. I’ve spoken to Bran about the uncertainty of such prophecies, but if truth be told, there is trouble along the Stony Shore. Raiders in longships, plundering fishing villages. Raping and burning. Leobald Tallhart has sent his nephew Benfred to deal with them, but I expect they’ll take to their ships and flee at the first sight of armed men.” (aCoK, Bran V)

Officially, the chain represents the reminder to a maester that he serves the realm and the household where he lives. And each chain stands for the subject of knowledge he mastered.

Bran thought for a moment, trying to remember. “A maester forges his chain in the Citadel of Oldtown. It’s a chain because you swear to serve, and it’s made of different metals because you serve the realm and the realm has different sorts of people. Every time you learn something you get another link. Black iron is for ravenry, silver for healing, gold for sums and numbers. I don’t remember them all.” (aCoK, Bran IV)

But with Luwin it symbolizes not so much “knowledge” as it does the Citadel’s beliefs that enslaved Luwin into spreading them. Notice how Luwin touches and tugs the chain whenever he is confronted with a controversial subject, and how he recites or answers in a manner that stems from the Citadel’s indoctrination. And in all the instances where he tugged his chain in answer to dreams, maester Luwin’s beliefs turn out to be wrong.

Maesters are called “knights of the mind“. But in the series, knights are mostly featured as “shields”. And thus maesters are meant to shield people’s minds, which is the opposite from learning whatever there is to learn. In Bran’s arc maester Luwin attempts to shield Bran’s mind from having green, wolf and tree dreams by drugging him. Maester Luwin is responsible for the sudden change in Bran’s attitude towards the dreams he has.

The door to his bedchamber opened. Maester Luwin was carrying a green jar, and this time Osha and Hayhead came with him. “I’ve made you a sleeping draught, Bran.” […] “This will give you dreamless sleep,” Maester Luwin said as he pulled the stopper from the jar. “Sweet, dreamless sleep.”
“It will?” Bran said, wanting to believe.
“Yes. Drink.” Bran drank. The potion was thick and chalky, but there was honey in it, so it went down easy. “Come the morn, you’ll feel better.” Luwin gave Bran a smile and a pat as he took his leave. (aCoK, Bran I)

And not just by giving him something physical to stop Bran from having dreams. Luwin also shames Bran, after they have a heated exchange over Summer and Shaggy being locked into the godswood.

“We should put the Walders in the godswood. They could play lord of the crossing all they want, and Summer could sleep with me again.[…]” […] He howled. “Ooo-ooo-oooooooooooo.”
Luwin raised his voice. “A true prince would welcome—”
“AAHOOOOOOO,” Bran howled, louder. “OOOO-OOOO-OOOO.”
The maester surrendered. “As you will, child.” With a look that was part grief and part disgust, he left the bedchamber.
Howling lost its savor once Bran was alone. After a time he quieted. I did welcome them, he told himself, resentful. I was the lord in Winterfell, a true lord, he can’t say I wasn’t. […] He had offered [the Walders] meat and mead and a seat by the fire, and even Maester Luwin had said afterward that he’d done well. (aCoK, Bran I)

Sure, Bran behaved childish, but he is a boy of eight, who has nothing left to entertain himself but his dreams. He cannot partake in play with the Walders, and the wolves are locked away. His rebellious behavior was a howl for acceptance of who or what he may be, and understanding of his pain of being shut out from what a boy his age should be doing – play. And it resulted in Luwin making a face of disgust. Luwin’s rebuke and expression of disgust stung deeply and reveals how Bran wants to please the maester. It is no accident, that Luwin pats Bran like a “good boy” (dog) after drinking the drug Luwin gave him to stop his dreaming. Inevitably, the drugging taught Bran to feel like a freak, to hide and negate what is going on, and to run away from his fears.

Just as much as Luwin is featured with tugging his own chain, he is often seen suggesting or reminding people and wolves should be chained.

“You are a surpassing clever boy when you work at it, Bran. Have you ever thought that you might wear a maester’s chain? There is no limit to what you might learn.”
I want to learn magic,” Bran told him. “The crow promised that I would fly.” (aGoT, Bran VI)

“That … that beast,” Luwin went on, “is supposed to be chained up in the kennels.”
Rickon patted Shaggydog’s muzzle, damp with blood. “I let him loose. He doesn’t like chains.” He licked at his fingers.
[…]
“Bran,” the maester said firmly, “I know you mean well, but Shaggydog is too wild to run loose. I’m the third man he’s savaged. Give him the freedom of the castle and it’s only a question of time before he kills someone. The truth is hard, but the wolf has to be chained, or …” He hesitated.
or killed, Bran thought, but what he said was, “He was not made for chains. We will wait in your tower, all of us.”
[…]
Maester Luwin sighed. “Woman, by rights you ought to be dead or in chains. The Starks have treated you more gently than you deserve. It is unkind to repay them for their kindness by filling the boys’ heads with folly.”  (aGoT, Bran VII)

Maester Luwin wants to chain Bran’s mind like that of a maester’s, and chain or kill anything wild – Shaggydog, Summer, Osha the wildling. Never does he even suggest to render the wolves their freedom, to their natural habitat. A wolf’s life chained inside a kennel 24/7 is a miserable life.

Bran’s first chapter in aCoK starts with him questioning Farlen, Gage, Luwin and Osha about the reason why the direwolves howl. Farlen says they howl for freedom, while Gage claims they howl to express their wish to hunt.

“It’s freedom they’re calling for,” declared Farlen, who was kennelmaster and had no more love for the direwolves than his hounds did. “They don’t like being walled up, and who’s to blame them? Wild things belong in the wild, not in a castle.”
They want to hunt,” agreed Gage the cook as he tossed cubes of suet in a great kettle of stew. “A wolf smells better’n any man. Like as not, they’ve caught the scent o’ prey.”
Maester Luwin did not think so. “Wolves often howl at the moon. These are howling at the comet. See how bright it is, Bran? Perchance they think it is the moon.”
When Bran repeated that to Osha, she laughed aloud. “Your wolves have more wit than your maester,” the wildling woman said. “They know truths the grey man has forgotten.” The way she said it made him shiver, and when he asked what the comet meant, she answered, “Blood and fire, boy, and nothing sweet.” (aCoK, Bran I)

Maester Luwin disagrees with Farlen and Gage, as well as paints the wolves as stupid – suggesting they mistake the comet for the moon – and that their howles are pointless. Meanwhile, Osha gives no straight answer, but she paints Luwin to be a fool who knows less truth than a direwolf.

As it turns out, Luwin is wrong, again. Farlen and Gage identify the needs of the direwolves correctly, but Osha’s answer comes closest to the truth. Bran’s wolf dream at the end of the first chapter, despite being drugged by Luwin, reveals us the answer.

  • Neither Summer or Shaggy howl at the comet. It is useful for light, but otherwise they ignore it.
  • Next, we learn Summer misses the hunt. Eating dead meat he did not kill himself gives him no joy, and yet he does not howl at the chittering squirrels out of his reach in the trees.
  • Then, we learn that Shaggy and Summer do feel walled in, but that gets answered with snarls, not howls.

The world had tightened around them, but beyond the walled wood still stood the great grey caves of man-rock. Winterfell, he remembered, the sound coming to him suddenly. Beyond its sky-tall man-cliffs the true world was calling, and he knew he must answer or die. (aCoK, Bran I)

In the last line of the chapter, George gives us the answer to Bran’s question – the direwolves answer the call of the “true” world beyond Winterfell. It seems as if Summer and Shaggy regard man’s world as an illusionary fabrication or unnatural, which would make the call of the “true” world, the call of of the wild.

The mention of dying might mean the threats outside of Winterfell’s protective walls. For all (Bran, Rickon, direwolves and Osha) it ultimately would mean death to remain chained, whereas the wilderness represents freedom and survival. The least wild and most docile direwolf of the pack, Lady, was killed as a precaution. If Bran and Rickon had not set the direwolves free from the godswood nor hid themselves, Theon or Ramsay as Reek would have killed them at some point. Osha would have been dragged to the Dreadfort by Ramsay, like so many other women, and one of the first used for hunting sport. And we can even expand this risk of death to that of the races and people trapped north of the Wall with the Others claiming dominion – – the giants, children of the forest, direwolves and wildlings.

Important is that George chose to identify the answer as a true world, while Osha’s explanation for the wolves’ howling was that they know truths that the maester has long forgotten. Neither Osha or GRRM specify what this truth or true world is, but it suffices to conclude that Osha came closest to the answer.

Jojen’s image of the chained winged wolf therefore represents the wonders of wild nature being held captive physically behind walls or in chains, emotionally through shame, and mentally through drug substance, kept in place until someone decides it is in their best interest to kill them. Ultimately, the chain represents a slow agonizing death. Even in a man who voluntarily forged the chain around his neck something died when he was still a green boy.

All those who study the higher mysteries try their own hand at spells, soon or late. I yielded to the temptation too, I must confess it. Well, I was a boy, and what boy does not secretly wish to find hidden powers in himself? I got no more for my efforts than a thousand boys before me, and a thousand since. Sad to say, magic does not work.” (aCoK, Bran VI)

Once, as a green boy, Luwin hoped and believed, and ended up disappointed. His denial of such powers not existing stems from a projection of his own disappointment. It is easier for him to say magic does not exist, that nobody can have such powers than to entertain the thought that he was not gifted with the abilities others were born with. When Luwin reprimanded Osha for repaying the Stark’s kindness by filling the boys’ heads with folly, perhaps he should reprimand himself for repaying the Starks’ kindness by filling Bran’s head with his own disappointments, bitterness – his mental poison – because he was not chosen, because he was not special.

Eventually, his chain prevents him from being trusted by Bran and the Reeds with their plan to hide, forces him to serve the conquerer Theon somehow, which will cost him his life in Bran’s last chapter in aCoK. Luwin was wounded by a spear thrown at him by one of Ramsay’s men when he ran towards Theon.

On the edge of the black pool, beneath the shelter of the heart tree, Maester Luwin lay on his belly in the dirt. A trail of blood twisted back through damp leaves where he had crawled. Summer stood over him, and Bran thought he was dead at first, but when Meera touched his throat, the maester moaned. […] Gently, they eased Luwin onto his back. He had grey eyes and grey hair, and once his robes had been grey as well, but they were darker now where the blood had soaked through. “Bran,” he said softly when he saw him sitting tall on Hodor’s back. “And Rickon too.” He smiled. “The gods are good. I knew . . .” […] The maester smiled. “Hush now, child, I’m much older than you. I can . . . die as I please.” […]
Osha gazed up at the weirwood, at the red face carved in the pale trunk. “And leave you for the gods?”
I beg . . .” The maester swallowed. “. . . a . . . a drink of water, and . . . another boon. If you would . . .” (aCoK, Bran VII)

Luwin failed to convert Bran into disbelieving in the Old Gods and greenseer magic, and was converted himself into seeking the Old Gods. His bloody trail and his request to the CotF stand-in Osha to give him mercy in front of the weirwood, where the Old Gods can see, then completes the image of a dying man offering his blood and life to the Old Gods voluntarily. It must have taken a strong will and desire to crawl all the way to the heart tree from Winterfell’s yard, and so Luwin did so with a purpose in mind – likely to prey and beg the Old Gods to look after Bran or let him know without a doubt that Bran and Rickon were not the children that Theon killed, perhaps even only shortly before Bran and Rickon show up at the weirwood. Hence he concludes the “gods are good”.

We even have an earlier hint in Theon’s chapter where he attempt to hunt down Bran and Rickon that maester Luwin is willing to change his mind on Jojen’s abilities.

Theon was about to tell [Frey] what he ought to do with his wet nurse’s fable when Maester Luwin spoke up. “The histories say the crannogmen grew close to the children of the forest in the days when the greenseers tried to bring the hammer of the waters down upon the Neck. It may be that they have secret knowledge.” (aCoK, Theon VI)

Measter Luwin cushioned it in histories say and it may be. But ultimately Luwin expressed the consideration here that Jojen had the greensight – a different kind of knowledge as he once put it to Bran. Luwin changed his tune.

In the end, despite his mind-enslaving chain, Lewin has gained the freedom in choosing his exact time of death, once it is inevitable, and where and by whom, begging the wildling woman (he believed earlier should be killed or chained; had been treated by the Starks gentler than she deserved) to gift him with mercy.

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Osha’s Support

In the second chapter of aCoK, Osha is the first to inquire after Bran’s dreams since Luwin began to drug him. During this inquiry we see how much Bran has changed when it comes to discussing his dreams.

She tied up her hair. “You have more of them wolf dreams?”
“No.” He did not like to talk about the dreams.
“A prince should lie better than that.” Osha laughed. “Well, your dreams are your business. Mine’s in the kitchens, and I’d best be getting back before Gage starts to shouting and waving that big wooden spoon of his. By your leave, my prince.”
She should never have talked about the wolf dreams, Bran thought as Hodor carried him up the steps to his bedchamber. (aCoK, Bran II)

Bran’s resentfulness towards Osha asking about it may seem inconsistent to his relation with Osha.

Osha lingered behind. “Is it the wolf dreams again?”
Bran nodded.
You should not fight so hard, boy. I see you talking to the heart tree. Might be the gods are trying to talk back.”
“The gods?” he murmured, drowsy already. Osha’s face grew blurry and grey. Sweet, dreamless sleep, Bran thought. (aCoK, Bran I)

However, in Bran’s eyes Osha became an accomplice to Luwin’s drugging. When maester Luwin comes to give Bran his draught, we are told that Osha and Hayhead are alongside him, and she “bore” him into bed. Osha likely came along with the best intentions, her own intentions – make sure those drugs would not harm Bran, to advize him on not fighting the wolf dreams, hinting at her belief that this is Old Gods stuff. But to Bran, she betrayed him and was maester Luwin’s accomplice or ally, possibly explaining why Bran resents Osha asking about the dreams a chapter after.

In truth, Osha aims to remain an independent source of support to Bran, and George depicts this support by having Osha literally carry him in her ams. Normally, Hodor carries Bran on his back for daily movement, but whenever the subject of a scene involves prophetic dreams or wolf dreams, Osha is summoned instead.

  • After Bran had his crypt dream revealing Ned Stark’s death to him, before the raven arrived with the confirming message in aGoT, Bran VII.
  • She carries him into dreambed, before he has his wolf dream that answers the question what wolves howl over in aCoK, Bran I.
  • She carries him after the letter arrives with Robb’s news of his victory at Oxcross and Stevron Frey’s death, confirming Jojen’s prophetic dream about the dishes served to the Walders and Bran will be appreciated differently.

In place of Hodor, the wildling woman Osha was summoned. She was tall and tough and uncomplaining, willing to go wherever she was commanded. “I lived my life beyond the Wall, a hole in the ground won’t fret me none, m’lords,” she said.
“Summer, come,” Bran called as she lifted him in wiry-strong arms. The direwolf left his bone and followed as Osha carried Bran across the yard and down the spiral steps to the cold vault under the earth. Maester Luwin went ahead with a torch. Bran did not even mind—too badly—that she carried him in her arms and not on her back. Ser Rodrik had ordered Osha’s chain struck off, since she had served faithfully and well since she had been at Winterfell. She still wore the heavy iron shackles around her ankles—a sign that she was not yet wholly trusted—but they did not hinder her sure strides down the steps. (aGoT, Bran VII)

Osha scooped him up in her bony arms. She was very tall for a woman, and wiry strong. She bore him effortlessly to his bed. (aCoK, Bran I)

Bran got a sick feeling in his belly. They like the taste of this dish better than I do. He asked Maester Luwin to be excused.
“Very well.” The maester rang for help. Hodor must have been busy in the stables. It was Osha who came. She was stronger than Alebelly, though, and had no trouble lifting Bran in her arms and carrying him down the steps. (aCoK, Bran V)

Before the Reeds arrived, Osha was the sole person at Winterfell who would often disagree with Luwin’s claims, point out how maester Luwin is wrong, talked of the Old Gods and attempted to support him when it came to his dreams.

She confirms the existence of giants and children of the forest north of the Wall, of the Others and wights, always opposing maester Luwin’s dismissals.

Maester Luwin says there are no more giants. He says they’re all dead, like the children of the forest. All that’s left of them are old bones in the earth that men turn up with plows from time to time.”
“Let Maester Luwin ride beyond the Wall,” Osha said. “He’ll find giants then, or they’ll find him. My brother killed one. Ten foot tall she was, and stunted at that. They’ve been known to grow big as twelve and thirteen feet. Fierce things they are too, all hair and teeth, and the wives have beards like their husbands, so there’s no telling them apart. The women take human men for lovers, and it’s from them the half bloods come. It goes harder on the women they catch. The men are so big they’ll rip a maid apart before they get her with child.”
[…]
[Hodor] was awfully big, Bran thought as he watched him go. “Are there truly giants beyond the Wall?” he asked Osha, uncertainly.
Giants and worse than giants, Lordling. I tried to tell your brother when he asked his questions, him and your maester and that smiley boy Greyjoy. The cold winds are rising, and men go out from their fires and never come back … or if they do, they’re not men no more, but only wights, with blue eyes and cold black hands. Why do you think I run south with Stiv and Hali and the rest of them fools? […]” (aGoT, Bran VI)

Bran’s fist curled around the shiny black arrowhead. “But the children of the forest are all gone now, you [Luwin] said.”
Here, they are,” said Osha, as she bit off the end of the last bandage with her teeth. “North of the Wall, things are different. That’s where the children went, and the giants, and the other old races.” (aGoT, Bran VII)

In aSoS, Jon’s POV confirms for the reader that Osha’s claim of the existence of giants is true. In aDwD, Bran’s own POV confirms the existence of the Children of the Forest for the reader.

Aside from being a supportive support character on Bran’s side, since her capture, Osha has been featured most often in godswood scenes, where she speaks of the children of the forest or the Old gods.

A faint wind sighed through the godswood and the red leaves stirred and whispered. Summer bared his teeth. “You hear them, boy?” a voice asked. Bran lifted his head. Osha stood across the pool, beneath an ancient oak, her face shadowed by leaves. Even in irons, the Wildling moved quiet as a cat. […] Her hair was growing out, brown and shaggy. (aGoT, Bran VI)

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Natalia Tena as Osha in GOT

When Osha’s face is shadowed by leaves, her face would render a dappled skin effect. She may not have cat’s eyes, but she moves like a cat, while her hair is shaggy or atangle. Compare this to the description we have of Leaf.

And yet there she was, whirling, a scrawny thing, ragged, wild, her hair atangle. […] It was a girl, but smaller than Arya, her skin dappled like a doe’s beneath a cloak of leaves. Her eyes were queer—large and liquid, gold and green, slitted like a cat’s eyes. No one has eyes like that. Her hair was a tangle of brown and red and gold, autumn colors, with vines and twigs and withered flowers woven through it. (aDwD, Bran II)

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A Child of the Forest by Blu Oltramare

Osha is a stand-in for a child of the forest like Leaf, hence she is also stationed beneath a stand-in heart tree (see Winterfell and the North as Underworld), instructing him on how the Old Gods communicate via winds and rustling of leaves, teaching him to listen. The oracle’s priests and priestesses of Ancient Grecian Dodona would interprete the rustling of leaves as Zeus’s words.

“Who do you think sends the wind, if not the gods?” She seated herself across the pool from him, clinking faintly as she moved. […] “They see you, boy. They hear you talking. That rustling, that’s them talking back.” […] “They’re sad. Your lord brother will get no help from them, not where he’s going. The old gods have no power in the south. The weirwoods there were all cut down, thousands of years ago. How can they watch your brother when they have no eyes?” Bran had not thought of that. It frightened him. If even the gods could not help his brother, what hope was there? Maybe Osha wasn’t hearing them right. He cocked his head and tried to listen again. He thought he could hear the sadness now, but nothing more than that. (aGoT, Bran VI)

The Setting – A Well and a Tree

The setting of both tableau scenes, Luwin’s conversion and Osha’s oracling is Winterfell’s godswood, with a heart tree as old as the Age of Heroes, symbol and home of the Old Gods (Westeros’s paganism), and a pool. It is the most apt location to stage reverse parallels for Saint George’s legend as the dragon settled at a well or lake. Saint George’s dragon was not just a fire breathing dragon. It dripped poison that poisoned the land and threatened to poison Selene’s well. Hence, they sacrificed sheep, men, boys and the princess – to prevent the dragon from poisoning the well. And so, to witness an entrapment of Summer similar to Saint George’s dragon, to witness Summer scaring Meera and Jojen up into the weirwood raises the question whether we should consider the black pool of Winterfell’s godswood poisoned or not. If so, what is the poison at Winterfell? And what is required to purify it?

dotreesdream_idiacanthidae
Do trees dream, by idiacanthidae

From the onset, George ties the pool to the heart tree: the pool acts like a mirror reflecting the tree.

At the heart of the godswood, the great white weirwood brooded over its reflection in the black pool, its leaves rustling in a chill wind. When it felt Bran watching, it lifted its eyes from the still waters and stared back at him knowingly. (aGoT, Bran III)

By itself, the scene already matches the Serwyn story of the dragon looking at its own reflection. But instead of a dragon, the weirwood tree stares into the mirror. More, if Bran sees the eyes of the weirwood looking at him via the mirroring pool, then Bran himself is staring into the mirror. Combine this with Summer standing in for the dragon part in both scenes of aCoK, Bran IV, and we begin to wonder whether the weirwood and/or greenseer is a poisonous monster equivalent to a dragon? A section of the fandom believes this to be the case forwarding various theories:

  • children of the forest making the Others
  • Azor Ahai pushing tree spirits out of the tree, thereby creating the Others
  • First Men sacrificing people in front of the Winterfell heart tree
  • Bloodraven who has blood of the dragon in him living under the tree and this being compared to Niddhog gnawing at Yggdrasil’s roots.

However, we cannot just make the blanket claim that when George inserts a direwolf in the girdled position, or a weirwood and Bran staring into the pool-mirror, they therefore are as monstrous as the dragon. George did not simply replace the dragon with a greenseer or a direwolf here. He reversed the legends! Summer is released after capture, and Meera and Jojen needed to be saved by Hodor the giant, because Luwin had shamed Bran about the dreams he has, even drugs Bran against them.

And then there is the paradox of the weirwood staring into the mirror. In the various “Princess and dragon” tales, the mirror represents self-absorption: the dragons and Medusa are so captivated by their own reflection that they lose sight of their surroundings – the bigger picture – and therefore do not see the weapon aimed at them. A self-absorbed weirwood though is a paradox. It is a being that knows all of humanity’s history in Westeros since the Long Night at least. It has the biggest picture anyone can ever have. Take note that the paragraph reminds us that the tree stares back at Bran “knowingly”.

Creepy Trees and Good Guys

katie-hallaron-bloodraven-final-got

Much of the belief that weirwoods and green magic are evil amongst the fandom relies on quotes about chthonic elements regarding the weirwoods or the caves beneath the groves – skulls, slithering roots, scary faces with red bleeding eyes. These elements are culturally considered to be creepy and thus readers conclude that creepy equals evil (or tainted or poisoned). Both through the first POV and our cultural conditioning we have been set up to see any symbol related to death, forests and the wild as “evil”. One of my aims of the Chthonic Cycle essays was to make clear that death (and its symbols) does not equal evil, but instead is part of the natural cycle. Here are George’s own words on “good and evil”.

Too many contemporary Fantasies take the easy way out by externalizing the struggle [between good and evil], so the heroic protagonists need only smite the evil minions of the dark power to win the day. And you can tell the evil minions, because they’re inevitably ugly and they all wear black. I wanted to stand much of that on its head. In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which. (Sunsets of High Renown, an interview with GRRM, by Nick Gevers)

The example George regularly gives to illustrate how he wants to turn prejudices about evil on its head is that of the Night’s Watch: they wear black, but George in general regards the institute the ‘good guys’, even if members of that institute may be malicious. A reader would be wrong to argument the Night’s Watch is an evil organization because they wear black. The same principles hold for weirwoods and hollow hills, or a black pool. George wrote them to look creepy so that the reader fears them, but not necessarily because the reader should fear them. Appearances can be deceiving, and this is just as true for trees with sinister faces and caves with disturbing skulls. In other words, “creepy” is an invalid argument, whether it is to evaluate weirwoods, Ilyn Payne, Sandor Clegane, Tyrion Lannister, Varys, and so many others.

A variant of the creepy-argument is how a POV or in-world characters or people consider them creepy, such as Catelyn, Bran, the initial First Men or the Andals. We first see a weirwood through Catelyn’s eyes and mind who grew up with the Andal bias that weirwoods should be cut down and she considers them creepy. The prologue of aGot describes trees as reaching or grabbing Waymar Royce’s sword, reminding anyone who ever watched Disney’s Snowwhite of the nightmarish trees during her flight from the hunter and evil queen. Likewise, in Bran’s first chapter in the godswood we learn the heart tree frightens him.

He raced across the godswood, taking the long way around to avoid the pool where the heart tree grew. The heart tree had always frightened him; trees ought not have eyes, Bran thought, or leaves that looked like hands. (aGoT, Bran II)

But if a POV’s fear – an emotion – is a valid argument, then what do we do if Bran comes to enjoy the same spot later on and finds it peaceful?

The godswood was an island of peace in the sea of chaos that Winterfell had become. […] Summer lapped at the water and settled down at Bran’s side. He rubbed the wolf under the jaw, and for a moment boy and beast both felt at peace. Bran had always liked the godswood, even before, but of late he found himself drawn to it more and more. Even the heart tree no longer scared him the way it used to. The deep red eyes carved into the pale trunk still watched him, yet somehow he took comfort from that now. The gods were looking over him, he told himself; the old gods, gods of the Starks and the First Men and the children of the forest, his father’s gods. He felt safe in their sight, and the deep silence of the trees helped him think. Bran had been thinking a lot since his fall; thinking, and dreaming, and talking with the gods. (aGoT, Bran VI)

Bran’s initial fear of the heart tree is comparable to Sansa’s early terror of the Hound, who barks more to her than he actually bites. These are the anxieties of children whose judgment is based on appearances, not intuitive insight. For in the same chapter that Bran still fears the heart tree, he considers Jaime Lannister what a knight is supposed to look like.

Ser Jaime Lannister looked more like the knights in the stories, and he was of the Kingsguard too, but Robb said he had killed the old mad king and shouldn’t count anymore. (aGoT, Bran II)

And yet, it is the good looking knight of the Kingsguard who pushes him out of a window at the end of the chapter. The golden handsome knight ends up being Bran’s enemy, whereas the scary weirwood has never done him harm. Hence, the feelings of in-world POVs based on appearance serve to illustrate George’s quoted point – do not determine good and evil on appearance alone.

The only time a man can be brave

George used the creepy stereotype, both in-world and for the reader as a perception that he gradually deconstructs, especially in Bran’s arc. Bran starts out as a 7-year old who on the one hand loves scary monster stories of Old Nan, but is also still afraid of the boogieman in his closet. As he grows up and gets older, he learns to conquer his childish fears for creepy looking things and horror stories and face the real life dangers instead. After all, his father did say the only time a man can be called brave is when he is afraid.

Bran thought about it. “Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?”
“That is the only time a man can be brave,” his father told him. (aGoT, Bran I)

The earlier example of Bran being afraid of the weirwood, while golden knight Jaime is the man he ought to fear leads to a new fear that Bran in time needs to overcome. Bran’s coma was not the right time for it yet, but later when the immediate health danger has passed, there is physical and emotional room for Bran to confront the trauma and fear related to it. But Luwin’s sleeping drug takes that away from Bran. By itself it is nothing more than a band-aid, not a medicine or antisceptic to keep a wound from festering. As it turns out, the drug did not prevent Bran from dreaming whatsoever.

Fearing dreams

“Do they help?”
Sometimes.”
Meera said, “All of Winterfell knows you wake at night shouting and sweating, Bran. The women talk of it at the well, and the guards in their hall.”
“Tell us what frightens you so much,” said Jojen. (aCoK, Bran IV)

Worse, his fears fester.

After Jojen mentions the ability to see north beyond the Wall, Bran becomes nervous and wants to change the subject. Bran once saw into the heart of winter and it teriffied him.

“[…] With three you would gaze south to the Summer Sea and north beyond the Wall.”

Summer got to his feet. “I don’t need to see so far.” Bran made a nervous smile. “I’m tired of talking about crows. Let’s talk about wolves. Or lizard-lions. Have you ever hunted one, Meera? We don’t have them here.” (aCoK, Bran IV)

Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him. And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks. (aGoT, Bran III)

So that is one fear Bran has – that which he saw in the heart of winter. As long as he can tell himself it are only dreams that do not mean anything, just a bad dream, then whatever he saw that scared the living daylight out of him does not exist, is not real. But, whatever monstrous thing is out there, it is very real.

Her brother interrupted. “Did you dream of a lizard-lion?”
“No,” said Bran. “I told you, I don’t want—”
“Did you dream of a wolf?”
He was making Bran angry. “I don’t have to tell you my dreams. I’m the prince. I’m the Stark in Winterfell.”
“Was it Summer?”
You be quiet.”
“The night of the harvest feast, you dreamed you were Summer in the godswood, didn’t you?”
Stop it!” Bran shouted. Summer slid toward the weirwood, his white teeth bared.
Jojen Reed took no mind. “When I touched Summer, I felt you in him. Just as you are in him now.”
“You couldn’t have. I was in bed. I was sleeping.”
“You were in the godswood, all in grey.”
“It was only a bad dream . . .”
Jojen stood. “I felt you. I felt you fall. Is that what scares you, the falling?” (aCoK, Bran IV)

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Bran Stark “Now you know,” by aprilis420

Jojen hits on Bran’s other fear – his fall, and Jaime who pushed him. It is here we get the explicit reasoning for Bran’s silence: he wants to forget and imagine it is not true. And this reasoning also applied to what he saw in the heart of winter.

The falling, Bran thought, and the golden man, the queen’s brother, he scares me too, but mostly the falling. He did not say it, though. How could he? He had not been able to tell Ser Rodrik or Maester Luwin, and he could not tell the Reeds either. If he didn’t talk about it, maybe he would forget. He had never wanted to remember. It might not even be a true remembering. (aCoK, Bran IV)

Ultimately, the thing at the heart of the lands of always winter is what Bran should remain in fear of, while simultaneously proving himself brave by fighting it. All his other fears are merely lessons to become so brave. And his first lesson in bravery is to overcome the fear of what happened to him in the past – Jaime and his fall.

“Do you fall every night, Bran?” Jojen asked quietly.
A low rumbling growl rose from Summer’s throat, and there was no play in it. He stalked forward, all teeth and hot eyes. Meera stepped between the wolf and her brother, spear in hand. “Keep him back, Bran.”
“Jojen is making him angry.”
It’s your anger, Bran,” her brother said. “Your fear.”
“It isn’t. I’m not a wolf.” Yet he’d howled with them in the night, and tasted blood in his wolf dreams.
“Part of you is Summer, and part of Summer is you. You know that, Bran.”
Summer rushed forward, but Meera blocked him, jabbing with the three-pronged spear. The wolf twisted aside, circling, stalking. (aCoK, Bran IV)

Maester Luwin’s rationalisatons, shaming and drugging are the external chains applied to Bran, but it are his fears that make him embrace them. And it has the absolute opposite effect that Luwin intended – it makes Bran and Summer deadly dangerous for all the wrong reasons. Their warg link is unbroken, since Summer acts for Bran when Bran is angry, but with Bran denying his abilities, even to himself, he can neither control himself nor Summer. Luckily nobody is actually harmed.

Though Bran was reluctant and angry with the Reed siblings when they pressed him about his dreams, Jojen’s explanations and claims about greensight arm Bran with courage and knowledge to confront Luwin again.

“My brother has the greensight,” said Meera. “He dreams things that haven’t happened, but sometimes they do.”
“There is no sometimes, Meera.” A look passed between them; him sad, her defiant. (aCoK, Bran IV)

This enables Bran to inquire after the topic, armed with terms and explanations, without risking Luwin’s disapproval over his own wolf and crow dreams. Even if Luwin does not believe such powers are real and manages to convince Bran to suppose that Jojen lied to him, Bran also provoked Luwin into reciting tidbits of knowledge.

“Meera says her brother has the greensight.” […] [Bran] “You told me that the children of the forest had the greensight. I remember.”
“Some claimed to have that power. Their wise men were called greenseers.”
“Was it magic?”
“Call it [magic] for want of a better word, if you must. At heart it was only a different sort of knowledge.”
“What was it?”
Luwin set down his quill. “No one truly knows, Bran. The children are gone from the world, and their wisdom with them. It had to do with the faces in the trees, we think. The First Men believed that the greenseers could see through the eyes of the weirwoods. That was why they cut down the trees whenever they warred upon the children. Supposedly the greenseers also had power over the beasts of the wood and the birds in the trees. Even fish. Does the Reed boy claim such powers?” (aCoK, Bran IV)

For the very first time, maester Luwin divulges something close to the truth, including the admission that neither Luwin or his colleagues know the answers. Luwin confuses greensight (foretelling dreams) with greenseeing (skinchanging and green dreams), but with the information he surrenders, Bran can start to tie this against his own experiences – tree dreams, wolf dreams and the Reed siblings believing that Bran can mentally control Summer.

“No. I don’t think. But he has dreams that come true sometimes, Meera says.”
All of us have dreams that come true sometimes. You dreamed of your lord father in the crypts before we knew he was dead, remember?”
Rickon did too. We dreamed the same dream.”
“Call it greensight, if you wish . . . but remember as well all those tens of thousands of dreams that you and Rickon have dreamed that did not come true. Do you perchance recall what I taught you about the chain collar that every maester wears?” (aCoK, Bran IV)

When Luwin also discloses he studied the higher mysteries, magic, but found it did not work, he indirectly betrays his disbeliefs stems from his personal disappointment as a boy. This background story makes Luwin very human, and therefore fallible. This conversation and admittance by Luwin plant the seeds of doubt for Bran.

“No, my prince. Jojen Reed may have had a dream or two that he believes came true, but he does not have the greensight. No living man has that power.”
Bran said as much to Meera Reed when she came to him at dusk as he sat in his window seat watching the lights flicker to life. “I’m sorry for what happened with the wolves. Summer shouldn’t have tried to hurt Jojen, but Jojen shouldn’t have said all that about my dreams. The crow lied when he said I could fly, and your brother lied too.”
Or perhaps your maester is wrong.” (aCoK, Bran IV)

Bran initially defends maester Luwin, referring to his father relying on the maester’s counsel. But Meera points out that Ned Stark may have listened, yet made his own decisions.

“He isn’t. Even my father relied on his counsel.”
“Your father listened, I have no doubt. But in the end, he decided for himself.[…]” (aCoK, Bran IV)

After which she relates him one of Jojen’s dreams that Bran can treat like a test case in order to see whether Jojen does have a power to know future events through dreams or not. Once Jojen’s prophetic dream about the Walders liking their dish (news of the war) better than Bran’s turns out to come true, the first thing Bran does is search whose counsel he can listen to, apart from maester Luwin’s. He asks Osha, the wildling CotF stand-in, who also always told him that maester Luwin was wrong.

“Osha,” Bran asked as they crossed the yard. “Do you know the way north? To the Wall and . . . and even past?”
“The way’s easy. Look for the Ice Dragon, and chase the blue star in the rider’s eye.” She backed through a door and started up the winding steps.
And there are still giants there, and . . . the rest . . . the Others, and the children of the forest too?
The giants I’ve seen, the children I’ve heard tell of, and the white walkers . . . why do you want to know?”
Did you ever see a three-eyed crow?
No.” She laughed. “And I can’t say I’d want to.” Osha kicked open the door to his bedchamber and set him in his window seat, where he could watch the yard below. (aCoK, Bran V)

Osha confirms she has seen giants with her own eyes, but simultaneously admits the existence of the children is a hearsay claim. And when she answers she never saw the three-eyed crow, Bran also knows that Osha is not the one to seek out as a teacher about greensight or greenseeing. For this his sole nearby expert is Jojen.

I would also like to point out that George signals Bran is back at the point of the first chapter, when he was open to trees dreaming and his own wolf dreams. Osha carried Bran to his bedchamber to the window seat, where he could watch the yard below. And it is this window seat and yard watching that Bran’s first chapter in aCoK opens with.

Bran preferred the hard stone of the window seat to the comforts of his featherbed and blankets. Abed, the walls pressed close and the ceiling hung heavy above him; abed, the room was his cell, and Winterfell his prison. Yet outside his window, the wide world still called. He could not walk, nor climb nor hunt nor fight with a wooden sword as once he had, but he could still look. (aCoK, Bran I)

At the start of the fifth chapter, Bran has come full circle and came around. A window that is not shuttered (as it is in aCoK, Bran II) represents the ability to see, physically but also metaphorically. And it is not just any window, but a tower window. While on the one hand it represents a prison for a princess or prince, it also functions as a stand-in for a weirwood tree. And thus it hints at how greenseeing may in time be a joy for Bran that can replace his inability to become a knight, to walk with his own two legs.

Both the tower window and the greenseeing symbolize spiritual and intellectual enlightenment. In the spiritual sense it is often associated with clairvoyance, pre-cognition (greensight) and out-of-body experiences (flying, skinchanging). So, greensight stands for enlightenment in George’s world, a higher form of consciousness, a clearer and therefore purified view on issues, unclouded by fear and desire for the mundane. In order to have such an understanding one must be able to have a bird-like overview – exactly what a window looking over the yard provides. Being able to see all that happened in the past that led to the present as well as the consequences it may have in the future via weirnet accomplishes the same thing. And of course, the oriental symbol of enlightenment is the opened third eye.

“How would I break the chains, Jojen?” Bran asked.
Open your eye.”
“They are open. Can’t you see?”
“Two are open.” Jojen pointed. “One, two.”
“I only have two.”
You have three. The crow gave you the third, but you will not open it.” He had a slow soft way of speaking. “With two eyes you see my face. With three you could see my heart. With two you can see that oak tree there. With three you could see the acorn the oak grew from and the stump that it will one day become. With two you see no farther than your walls. With three you would gaze south to the Summer Sea and north beyond the Wall.” (aCoK, Bran IV)

bran 3rd eye julie kabbache
Three-Eyed-Crow giving “Bran Stark” his third eye (by Julie Kabbache)

George links this with the real world phenomenon of flying-dreams. Sometimes people do end up dreaming that they are flying, but it requires a specific set of conditions. First, it requires the dreamer to know that he or she is in fact dreaming. Most of the time when you have a dream, you live and experience that dream as if it is real, because you do not know that you are dreaming. There might be a flicker of realization where you suddenly think, “Oh, I’m dreaming,” but even that often soon passes and your mind is submerged into the experience once more as if it is real. If however you do preserve this insight and continue to dream all the while knowing it is a dream, you are having a lucid dream. Once you become fully aware that you are dreaming, you gain the power to choose what you will be doing in a dream. Hence, you can say, “I may not be able to fly in the real world, but this is a dream and gravity is not an actual thing here, so I can fly if I want to.”

Being lucid in a dream is not enough, though. It requires a great amount of confidence and awareness to fly in a dream, since the fear of falling is an instinctual one. In order to fly, even in a dream, the dreamer’s consciousness must overcome his instincts (the opposite of intuition). So, both the lucid state and the required consciousness imply an opened third eye.

And so, having come full circle, and with Osha admitting she cannot actually teach Bran about dreams, he is finally ready for Jojen as his first teacher.

It seemed only a few heartbeats after she took her leave that the door opened again, and Jojen Reed entered unbidden, with his sister Meera behind him. “You heard about the bird?” Bran asked. The other boy nodded. “It wasn’t a supper like you said. It was a letter from Robb, and we didn’t eat it, but—”
“The green dreams take strange shapes sometimes,” Jojen admitted. “The truth of them is not always easy to understand.”
“Tell me the bad thing you dreamed,” Bran said. “The bad thing that is coming to Winterfell.”
“Does my lord prince believe me now? Will he trust my words, no matter how queer they sound in his ears?”
Bran nodded.
“It is the sea that comes.” (aCoK, Bran V)

And though Bran is still afraid, he finally dares to tell Jojen and Meera about his own dreams.

Jojen sat on Bran’s bed. “Tell me what you dream.”
He was scared, even then, but he had sworn to trust them, and a Stark of Winterfell keeps his sworn word. “There’s different kinds,” he said slowly. “There’s the wolf dreams, those aren’t so bad as the others. I run and hunt and kill squirrels. And there’s dreams where the crow comes and tells me to fly. Sometimes the tree is in those dreams too, calling my name. That frightens me. But the worst dreams are when I fall.” He looked down into the yard, feeling miserable. “I never used to fall before. When I climbed. I went everyplace, up on the roofs and along the walls, I used to feed the crows in the Burned Tower. Mother was afraid that I would fall but I knew I never would. Only I did, and now when I sleep I fall all the time.”
Meera gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Is that all?”
I guess.” (aCoK, Bran V)

Sometimes, sharing, talking and describing something you fear can help you see it in another light, from another angle, and suddenly it is not as frightening anymore. Is it no surprise then, that no falling dream has ever been mentioned in Bran’s POVs ever again.

Next, Bran learns that he is a warg and that what he calls wolf dreams are not really dreams, but him acutally being awake and his soul inside Summer. Jojen also explains to him why Bran cannot freely tell people about his wolf dreams – it might motivate people to kill him – which is far more honest than Luwin’s attempt to drug Bran.

Warg,” said Jojen Reed. […] “Warg. Shapechanger. Beastling. That is what they will call you, if they should ever hear of your wolf dreams.”
The names made him afraid again. “Who will call me?”
“Your own folk. In fear. Some will hate you if they know what you are. Some will even try to kill you.”
Old Nan told scary stories of beastlings and shapechangers sometimes. In the stories they were always evil. “I’m not like that,” Bran said. “I’m not. It’s only dreams.”
“The wolf dreams are no true dreams. You have your eye closed tight whenever you’re awake, but as you drift off it flutters open and your soul seeks out its other half. The power is strong in you.” (aCoK, Bran V)

Once again, Jojen reminds Bran to open his third eye, explaining he needs to use his heart for that. After the sea has arrived at Winterfell with Theon and his Ironborn, after the three men that Jojen predicted would drown are indeed dead (Alebelly, Mikken and Septon Chayle), Bran hides inside the crypts, together with Rickon, Osha and the Reed siblings, while Summer and Shaggydog roam freein the Wolfswood.

Setting aside any speculation about the bending of spacetime*, Bran has managed to open his third eye while inside the crypts, and we learn of it while Jon wargs Ghost during his scouting mission with Qorin Halfhand in the Skirling Pass.

He sat on his haunches and lifted his head to the darkening sky, and his cry echoed through the forest, a long lonely mournful sound. As it died away, he pricked up his ears, listening for an answer, but the only sound was the sigh of blowing snow.
Jon?
The call came from behind him, softer than a whisper, but strong too. Can a shout be silent? He turned his head, searching for his brother, for a glimpse of a lean grey shape moving beneath the trees, but there was nothing, only . . .
A weirwood.
It seemed to sprout from solid rock, its pale roots twisting up from a myriad of fissures and hairline cracks. The tree was slender compared to other weirwoods he had seen, no more than a sapling, yet it was growing as he watched, its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky. Wary, he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face. Red eyes looked at him. Fierce eyes they were, yet glad to see him. The weirwood had his brother’s face. Had his brother always had three eyes?
Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow.
He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs.
Don’t be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this. And the tree reached down and touched him. (aCoK, Jon VII)

3 eyed Bran
Three Eyed Bran (author unknown)
Reaching out across time?

Some readers believe this can only be a future Bran who is already down in Bloodraven’s cave, because of Ghost smelling death and barring his fangs at it, and Bran mentioning “not before the crow” and Bran’s avatar being a weirwood tree. However, in Jon’s present time, Bran is down in the crypts and Theon has already wreaked havoc in Winterfell; the three-eyed-crow “gave” Bran his third eye already in the coma-dream, and Bran has had tree-dreams since the start of aCoK.

Moreover, the reference to death is important in this scene for George, because he wants to have the first-time reader believe that Theon killed Bran. He builds up the suggestion as follows, to then reveal the truth:

  • In Arya IX, Arya water dances in a tree and then prays before the weirwood tree of Winterfell. She hears the voice of her dead father speak via the weirwood tree. This puts the idea in the reader’s mind that the souls of dead Starks can still communicate via weirwoods.
  • In Theon IV, Theon goes in search for Bran and Rickon, the direwolves, Osha and the Reed siblings. Reek makes a veiled suggestion that Theon understands, but is left unexplained for the reader.
  • In Jon VII, in the Skirling Pass has this weird wolf-dream where Ghost sees his brother Summer/Bran in a weirwood tree and smells the stench of death. Because of Arya’s experience, this plants the idea that Bran must be dead.
  • In Catelyn VII, Catelyn shares the news to Brienne that Bran and Rickon were killed by Theon after he found them at the mill, before releasing Jaime.
  • At the very end of Theon V the hoax with the miller boys is revealed, while George and Theon’s thoughts keep up the pretense and suggestion that Theon did kill Bran and Rickon, in a manner that matched Jojen’s green dream. Moreover, the chapter starts with direwolves with the faces of Bran and Rickon, which ties in with Jon’s weird wolf/tree/Bran dream. 

Bran’s last chapter of aCoK confirms that Bran’s third eye opened while hiding down inside the crypts. He mostly uses it to warg, but one time, this must have converged into a tree dream, while he was warging Summer.

Here in the chill damp darkness of the tomb his third eye had finally opened. He could reach Summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon. Though maybe he had only dreamed that. […] Bran had told himself a hundred times how much he hated hiding down here in the dark, how much he wanted to see the sun again, to ride his horse through wind and rain. But now that the moment was upon him, he was afraid. He’d felt safe in the darkness; when you could not even find your own hand in front of your face, it was easy to believe that no enemies could ever find you either. And the stone lords had given him courage. Even when he could not see them, he had known they were there. (aCoK, Bran VII)

And in a vision where Bran checks whether it is daylight or not for Osha to explore the surface, George snuck in a reference of broken chains.

Never moving his broken body, he reached out all the same, and for an instant he was seeing double. There stood Osha holding the torch, and Meera and Jojen and Hodor, and the double row of tall granite pillars and long dead lords behind them stretching away into darkness . . . but there was Winterfell as well, grey with drifting smoke, the massive oak-and-iron gates charred and askew, the drawbridge down in a tangle of broken chains and missing planks. Bodies floated in the moat, islands for the crows. (aCoK, Bran VII)

This particular visual event has only two purposes: proving that Bran can use his third eye at will, while fully awake, as well as signal the chains that bound the winged wolf are broken. The in-story purpose is pointless. The reader and Bran already knew it was daylight, because of the opening “wolf dream” of the chapter, and Osha never managed to venture out all by herself on the surface, since the doorway of the crypts was blocked and it required Hodor to push it open.

And hence, when Bran faces his fear of dreams in which he falls, just by sharing the experience with people who will not judge him for his wolf dreams, Bran rids himself of maester Luwin’s chains, opens his third eye and can see with it at will.

Ensnaring a Black Brother

In aSoS, Bran has to overcome yet another irrational fear – the fear of Old Nan’s horror stories. Where Bran’s arc in aCoK revolves around dreams and the fear of them, Bran’s arc in aSoS features storytelling, both heroic tales of smiling tree knights as well as Old Nan’s horror stories that have the Nightfort as their setting. Both type of stories reflect Bran’s growth. His initial fear of a weirwood as featured in aGoT, Bran II has evaporated completely. By aSoS, weirwoods may as well be smiling in his mind. But the bad people from which Old Nan’s horror stories originate still freak him out and he fear their ghosts may still linger. The ruin that the Nightfort has become feeds into the typical image of a haunted castle. This stereotype is so strong in the minds of the reader that most consider it to be a future setting where depraved, bad things will happen in tWoW, just like bad things happen at Harrenhal over and over.

But there is an immense difference between Harrenhal and the Nightfort. Nobody claims the Nightfort is cursed and it stands for thousands of years, while Harrenhal only stands for little over three hundred years. Why is that important? There will always be bad people, always be some murder or rape that occurs in some castle – just look at all the horror that occurred in Winterfell at the hands of Theon or Ramsay, or the horrors and murder for the building of the Red Keep. It would be far more significant if no murder, mayhem or rape occurred in a castle in Westeros. And over the course of thousands of years, perhaps even eight thousand years, a castle would gather multiple such stories. With the Nightfort you have a horror story per thousand or two thousand years. Harrenhal on the other hand has a horror story per generation since its very existence. So, the Nightfort actually has a rather good track record. Meanwhile the sole evidence for ghosts haunting anyone is in the dreams of people who are on an evil path themselves.

In fact, I believe that the Nightfort actually may be the safest haven at the Wall from the Others. But the actual argument for this will come up in the Mirror Mirror essay for Jon. For this essay, the Nightfort is of significance for two reasons. Bran needs to conquer his childhood fear for ghosts and horror stories, just as Arya did at Harrenhal. And this culminates in a similar scene as the one where Meera netted Summer in aCoK. In aSoS, Bran IV, Meera uses her net to capture Sam, at a well and weirwood in the Nightfort’s kitchen.

First, the Nightfort’s kitchen is the equivalent of Winterfell’s godswood: it has a well (a black pool) in the middle of it and a weirwood growing just beside it.

The Reeds decided that they would sleep in the kitchens, a stone octagon with a broken dome. It looked to offer better shelter than most of the other buildings, even though a crooked weirwood had burst up through the slate floor beside the huge central well, stretching slantwise toward the hole in the roof, its bone-white branches reaching for the sun. It was a queer kind of tree, skinnier than any other weirwood that Bran had ever seen and faceless as well, but it made him feel as if the old gods were with him here, at least. (aSoS, Bran IV)

While the weirwood makes Bran feel safe, he is wary of the well and horrified by the kitchen setting, constantly reminding Bran of the Rat Cook.

The Rat Cook had cooked the son of the Andal king in a big pie with onions, carrots, mushrooms, lots of pepper and salt, a rasher of bacon, and a dark red Dornish wine. Then he served him to his father, who praised the taste and had a second slice. Afterward the gods transformed the cook into a monstrous white rat who could only eat his own young. He had roamed the Nightfort ever since, devouring his children, but still his hunger was not sated. “It was not for murder that the gods cursed him,” Old Nan said, “nor for serving the Andal king his son in a pie. A man has a right to vengeance. But he slew a guest beneath his roof, and that the gods cannot forgive.”  (aSoS, Bran IV)

The kitchen and its ovens are akin to a forge, a symbolic setting where George has Jon’s character “forged”. So, in a way, just as aCoK, Bran IV is a chapter to herald Bran is about to “grow”, he too will take a further step in growth in aSoS, Bran IV, and the Rat Cook’s story takes a central place here. Why? Well, Bran is actually digesting and working through a very particular trauma – the Red Wedding. We learn at the start of the chapter that Bran saw it in a dream.

The dream he’d had . . . the dream Summer had had . . . No, I mustn’t think about that dream. He had not even told the Reeds, though Meera at least seemed to sense that something was wrong. If he never talked of it maybe he could forget he ever dreamed it, and then it wouldn’t have happened and Robb and Grey Wind would still be . . . (aSoS, Bran IV)

Bran knows what the Freys did to Robb and Grey Wind at the Twins. He dreamt it. He felt it. He saw it. He knows it. But the horror, the trauma and the grief of it is so enormous, that Bran does not want to dwell on it. Instead he clings to childish fears, on every horror story Old Nan ever told him set at the Nightfort – Mad Axe, Night’s King, the thing that comes in the night, Danny Flint and the Rat Cook. And as long as he has these tales on his mind, he does not have to consciously think of the events of the Red Wedding. Real life loss is scarier than any of Old Nan’s stories.

In this context, in this setting, Bran’s worst Old Nan nightmare almost seem to come to life.

Then he heard the noise. His eyes opened. What was that? He held his breath. Did I dream it? Was I having a stupid nightmare? He didn’t want to wake Meera and Jojen for a bad dream, but . . . there . . . a soft scuffling sound, far off . . . Leaves, it’s leaves rattling off the walls outside and rustling together . . . or the wind, it could be the wind . . . The sound wasn’t coming from outside, though. Bran felt the hairs on his arm start to rise. The sound’s inside, it’s in here with us, and it’s getting louder. He pushed himself up onto an elbow, listening. There was wind, and blowing leaves as well, but this was something else. Footsteps. Someone was coming this way. Something was coming this way. […] It’s coming from the well, he realized. That made him even more afraid. Something was coming up from under the ground, coming up out of the dark. Hodor woke it up. He woke it up with that stupid piece of slate, and now it’s coming. It was hard to hear over Hodor’s snores and the thumping of his own heart. Was that the sound blood made dripping from an axe? Or was it the faint, far-off rattling of ghostly chains? Bran listened harder. Footsteps. It was definitely footsteps, each one a little louder than the one before. He couldn’t tell how many, though. The well made the sounds echo. He didn’t hear any dripping, or chains either, but there was something else . . . a high thin whimpering sound, like someone in pain, and heavy muffled breathing. But the footsteps were loudest. The footsteps were coming closer. (aSoS, Bran IV)

He fears it’s Mad Axe or the thing that comes at night. He does not dare to make a noise, wants to hide his face behind his blanket, but wakes up Meera who prepares to capture it, while Bran slips in Hodor’s skin.

From the well came a wail, a piercing creech that went through him like a knife. A huge black shape heaved itself up into the darkness and lurched toward the moonlight, and the fear rose up in Bran so thick that before he could even think of drawing Hodor’s sword the way he’d meant to, he found himself back on the floor again with Hodor roaring “Hodor hodor HODOR,” the way he had in the lake tower whenever the lightning flashed. But the thing that came in the night was screaming too, and thrashing wildly in the folds of Meera’s net. Bran saw her spear dart out of the darkness to snap at it, and the thing staggered and fell, struggling with the net. The wailing was still coming from the well, even louder now. On the floor the black thing flopped and fought, screeching, “No, no, don’t, please, DON’T . . .”
Meera stood over him, the moonlight shining silver off the prongs of her frog spear. “Who are you?” she demanded.
“I’m SAM,” the black thing sobbed. “Sam, Sam, I’m Sam, let me out, you stabbed me . . .” He rolled through the puddle of moonlight, flailing and flopping in the tangles of Meera’s net. (aSoS, Bran IV)

Meera captures Sam, who emerged straight from the well. George used capitals and then repeated the name thrice over afterwards. Many readers tie Goerge’s choice of name for Sam to Tolkien’s Sam, comrade and friend throughout every ordeal of Frodo Baggins, the ring bearer who enters into Mordor to destroy the One Ring to rule them all. Bran believing Hodor woke something terrible up when he threw a slate into the well to check how deep it went certainly is a reference to Pipin’s mistake in Moria. But that is not who George is referring to in this scene. Instead, he refers to another Sam – Roger Zelazny’s Sam. Zelazny was a good friend of George, and one of the novels he wrote is “Lord of Light”. George considers this novel “One of the five best SF novels ever written.” The protagonist in the novel is a man called Sam, who is the Lord of Light, or the enlightened Buddha.

His Followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god. But then, he never claimed not to be a god. […] Thereafter to be portrayed in murals at the ends of countless corridors, carved upon the walls of Temples and painted onto the ceilings of numerous palaces, came the awakening of he who was variously known as Mahasamatman, Kalkin, Manjusri, Siddharta, Tathagata, Binder, Maitreya, the Enlightened One, Buddha and Sam. […]
“Hail, Lord of Light!” It was Ratri [goddess of the Night] who spoke these words. […]
“Hail, Mahasamatman – Buddha!” said Yama [god of Death]. […]
“Hello, Sam,” said Tak [the ape]. (Lord of Light, i, Roger Zelazny)

His full name is Mahasamatman, but if you drop the Maha- and the -atman, you get the shortened Sam, which is the name the Lord of Light prefers. Don’t believe that George is pointing to Sam, the Buddha? This is what George writes next, immediately after Samwell identies himself as SAM.

It was Jojen who fed the sticks to the fire and blew on them until the flames leapt up crackling. Then there was light, and Bran saw the pale thin-faced girl by the lip of the well, all bundled up in furs and skins beneath an enormous black cloak, trying to shush the screaming baby in her arms. (aSoS, Bran IV)

He even has Bran wonder whether Sam is the Three-eyed Crow – the “third eye” commonly a symbol of enlightenment.

Bran was suddenly uncertain. “Are you the three-eyed crow?” He can’t be the three-eyed crow.
“I don’t think so.” The fat man rolled his eyes, but there were only two of them. “I’m only Sam. Samwell Tarly. Let me out, it’s hurting me.” He began to struggle again. (aSoS, Bran IV)

“Are you truly he whom we have named?” asked Yama. […] “Who are you, man?”
“I? I am nothing,” replied the other, “A leaf caught in a whirlpool, perhaps. A feather in the wind…” […] “I am” – he squinted again – “Sam. I am Sam. Once – long ago … I did fight, didn’t I? Many times …”
“You were Great-Souled Sam, the Buddha. Do you remember?”
Maybe I was …” (Lord of Light, i, Roger Zelazny)

And of course there is the description of Sam’s corpulence – that of the fat Buddha.

“The Night’s Watch, yes.” The fat man was still breathing like a bellows. “I’m a brother of the Watch.” He had one cord under his chins, forcing his head up, and others digging deep into his cheeks. “I’m a crow, please. Let me out of this.” (aSoS, Bran IV)

Still not convinced? Then please read George’s Not a Blog “In Memoriam: Roger Zelazny” post of 1995.

And Sam. Him especially. “His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god. But then, he never claimed not to be a god.”

Lord of Light was the first Zelazny book I ever read. I was in college at the time, a long time reader who dreamed of writing himself one day. I’d been weaned on Andre Norton, cut my teeth on Heinlein juveniles, survived high school with the help of H.P. Lovecraft, Isaac Asimov, “Doc” Smith, Theodore Sturgeon, and J.R.R. Tolkien. I read Ace doubles and belonged to the Science Fiction Book Ciub, but I had not yet found the magazines. I’d never heard of this Zelazny guy. But when I read those words for the first time, a chill went through me, and I sensed that SF would never be the same. Nor was it. Like only a few before him, Roger left his mark on the genre. (GRRM, Not a Blog – In Memoriam: Roger Zelazny, June 1995)

If you’ve ever wondered how Jetboy’s last adventure came to be, who actually wrote his final words, or how H’ard pissed off Roger Zelazny, the world’s nicest man, this is the interview for you. (GRRM, Not a Blog – Brad and H’ard, 2 May 2020)

sam good guy
Sawell Tarly by Lidia Macov

But even if you did not know that George named Samwell in reference to Zelazny’s Sam, we do know Sam is squeamish, not even trying to be brave, loathes hunting and killing, scared of a stickfight, unable to sqaush a mouse with a book even. And when he does kill, he does it stumbling, fumbling, his hands before his eyes, almost by accident. There is not a more innocent man on the whole of Planetos, devoid of resentment, anger and hatred than Sam, who could have ended up in Meera’s net at a well and a weirwood. And on top of that he is a Black brother of the Night’s Watch.

The thing on the floor was pushing an arm through the net to reach his knife, but the loops wouldn’t let him. He wasn’t any monster beast, or even Mad Axe drenched in gore; only a big fat man dressed up in black wool, black fur, black leather, and black mail. “He’s a black brother,” said Bran. “Meera, he’s from the Night’s Watch.” (aSoS, Bran IV)

You know the “good guys” (excluding some misguided bad apples amongst the bunch) that George dressed in black to turn the easy identifiers to differentiate evil from good on its head. Having Meera catch this “good guy” (or as a reference to Zelazny, the world’s nicest man) in her net, in that setting, is a parallel to Meera catching Summer being unwittingly warged by Bran, and retroactively tells us that the weirwood is a good guy, that the black pool is a good guy, that greenseers and the Old Gods religion are the good guys, that Bran is one of the good guys.

Considering that George meticulously makes everything a reversal in the godswood scene with the Reed siblings to Serwyn’s and Saint George’s story, that they capture and release an enlightened Sam, a good guy at the Nightfort, and George uses creepiness as a stereotype to turn good and evil on its head, we believe the return to “worshiping” weirwoods as outcome is not a poisoning, but a purification. The poison then would be the Faith, the Citadel, the Drowned God, Rh’llor or dragon rule trying or establishing a root in Winterfell, each on their own trying to make the Starks and the North to turn their back on the Old Gods.

Conclusion – tl;tr

Bran is the very first POV who mentions Serwyn. In aCoK, we see two Serwyn related scenes in one and the same chapter in the godswood:

  • Hodor (the giant) saving Meera (a sworn shield) from Prince Bran angrily warging Summer: a reversal of Serwyn saving a princess from a giant.
  • Meera netting Summer and then setting him free: a reversal of Saint George girdling a dragon before killing him in return for the people converting from paganism to Christianity

Both scenes point out how Bran is not so much a Serwyn (yet), but needs saving from his tower prison, from the chains of maester Luwin and be once and for all a convert to George’s equivalent of paganism – the Old Gods.

In order to grow, become a responsible and able greenseer, Bran must conquer childish fears, and learn to be brave while he is afraid. Hence, as young as he is, throughout the series, Bran is often fearful of things he should not fear.

  • Creepy weirwood trees (aGoT)
  • Falling dreams (aCoK)
  • Ghosts at the Nightfort coming alive and wells (aSoS)

By facing those fears, he grows up a little, gains a new perspective, and therefore enlightenment. This is all in preparation for him to be brave when the time comes to face the monstrosity at the Heart of the Lands of Always Winter, as well as learn to recognize the monster within people’s hearts. And because we walk in Bran’s shoes as he must face each childish fear, George couches the trees, the dreams and the Nightfort in stereotypical creepy horror fashion. But in reality these are the things that provide shelter, protection and truth, while some of the worst things are done by people for love of people. Further evidence of the sheltering aspect of trees, despite their creepy outlook, is deferred to a Jon-Serwyn essay, but Meera and Jojen being safe in the weirwood tree and later Meera catching a converted “good guy” (black brother) Sam (reference to the nicest man that ever lived in George’s eyes – Roger Zelazny) heavily suggest that the pool, the weirwood and green magic has pure and right intentions.

This essay lays the groundwork for a concept of purification from the poisons threatening Winterfell, the Starks and Westeros as a whole: the Citadel, the Faith, Ironborn and Rh’lorr. It is not just Bran who requires conversion. But those who often unwittingly threaten to poison Winterfell are to be converted as well. We therefore expect Bran to be featured before the onset of the Battle of the Ice Lakes, in Riverrun during or after the Red Wedding 2.0, mayhaps Oldtown, each time converting non Old Gods followers into believers in various ways by providing help, mercy and even vengeance. What and who those poisoning agents are will be explained far more in depth in part 2. This will also contain potential suggestions on how Bran may be featured in Stannis’ and Theon’s arc in order to rid Winterfell from Ramsay’s poisonous blood without risking Stannis burning Winterfell’s weirwood, help kill both the Freys at the Ice Lakes and in the Riverlands and potentially strike in the heart of the Citadel at Oldtown.

Iconic mother and her son, Bran the Good

Catelyn’s motherhood is one of the most often debated topics when it comes to judging her as a character. She can live with being separated from her daughters, but not from Bran, and she does not waver from Bran’s side for weeks, while Rickon is miserable without a parent taking care of his emotional needs. Then she abandons Winterfell altogether to leave on a secret mission for King’s Landing. And when she finally sets foot in the North again, she joins her eldest son Robb back South instead of going to Winterfell. It is not until far into the war and the news of the death of Bran and Rickon that she makes her daughters a priority, freeing Jaime who was Robb’s sole major bargaining chip. As a whole this leads to a paradoxal impression of a woman acting impulsively on her motherly emotions for this or that child, but simultaneously neglect the safety of her other children.  This seeming constant inconsistency is often cited as cause for frustration with Catelyn as a mother character by readers (and then I am ignoring her expressed sentiments in thought, actions and words for Jon Snow).

This essay is not meant to judge or defend Catelyn in this regard, but to investigate the construction of Catelyn as a mother character in relation to chthonic mothers. The previous chthonic essay, Lady of the Golden Sword of Winterfell, indicates that several chthonic, ideal mother figures have been conflated into Catelyn – such as Demeter and Isis. This conflation results in an ideal mother for one child (but not the other children) one moment in the narrative, only to switch to an ideal mother for another child the next (and again not the other children). In other words, George crafted Catelyn after “the ideal mother” as portrayed in mythologies, but for different children consecutively, which ironically resulted with many readers in the overall impression that she is a “bad mother”. In this sense, Catelyn may actually be the most complex written character in the whole series.

The Feudal Family

When Catelyn convinces Ned Stark to accept being the King’s Hand, this comes with a price for her: she is to remain behind at Winterfell, while three of her children are to go with Ned to King’s Landing. Her initial protest suggest she hoped that Ned Stark would choose to make a similar arrangement as Jon Arryn – appoint a steward to rule the North for him, while Ned and all of his family would live in King’s Landing. But the Starks are not the Arryns, and the North is not the Vale. You cannot let a steward rule the underworld.

“The Others take both of you,” Ned muttered darkly. He turned away from them and went to the window. […] When he turned away from the window at last, his voice was tired and full of melancholy, and moisture glittered faintly in the corners of his eyes. […] He seated himself in a chair by the hearth. “Catelyn, you shall stay here in Winterfell.”
His words were like an icy draft through her heart. “No,” she said, suddenly afraid. Was this to be her punishment? Never to see his face again, nor to feel his arms around her?
“Yes,” Ned said, in words that would brook no argument. “You must govern the north in my stead, while I run Robert’s errands. There must always be a Stark in Winterfell. Robb is fourteen. Soon enough, he will be a man grown. He must learn to rule, and I will not be here for him. Make him part of your councils. He must be ready when his time comes.” (aGoT, Catelyn II)

This is the last passage where Ned speaks as a ruler of the underworld, giving his last orders where Catelyn is made regent – she has to take his place, rule, teach and raise Robb, the heir and next ruler of the underworld. The “standing” Ned moves from the chthonic, cold night outside of the window to “seat” himself beside the warm fire of the hearth. Meanwhile, Catelyn feels a chill enter her heart (the organ that beats to keep you alive) and begins to think in terms of death, as if Ned is the one dying (though he’s the person going South).

We witness the start of a role reversal with multiple layers:

  • from rule to support
  • underworld to life
  • patron to matron
  • and vice versa.

After Ned hands over the rule to Catelyn, her dialogue becomes more dominant, whereas Ned takes a subordinate role, pleading with her and appealing to emotion. In the end Ned only has ruling and decision powers over his daughters; while Catelyn becomes the ruling parent over her sons. In a patriarchal feudal society, both mothers and fathers made marriage and career choices for sons and daughters, but the actual day-to-day rearing was traditionally left to the same gender parent.

This was the first time he had been deemed old enough to go with his lord father and his brothers to see the king’s justice done. It was the ninth year of summer, and the seventh of Bran’s life. (aGoT, Bran I)

Bran had been left behind with Jon and the girls and Rickon. But Rickon was only a baby and the girls were only girls and Jon and his wolf were nowhere to be found. (aGoT, Bran II)

In Arya’s first chapter and Bran’s first two chapters, Ned and Catelyn are portrayed as this traditional feudal father and mother. Catelyn supervizes what Arya is taught, gives her the rules of what is allowed, determines what type of sport she can engage in, and awaits her in her room to chastice her. Until King’s Road, Ned Stark is not involved in Arya’s day-to-day rearing. Meanwhile, Ned teaches his sons and ward about the King’s justice, takes them out hunting, and is the parent called on to chastice the boys. The feudal noble mother was only her son’s caretaker until he reached the age to be fostered or squire. Bran is at the cusp of moving away from his mother’s frocks and being integrated into the exclusively male world at the age of seven, nearing eight, and voluntarily begins to avoid his sisters and baby brother. While his mother still fusses over him, Ned Stark starts to take him under his wing, and is appealed to when Bran needss chasticing.

His mother was terrified that one day Bran would slip off a wall and kill himself. He told her that he wouldn’t, but she never believed him. Once she made him promise that he would stay on the ground. He had managed to keep that promise for almost a fortnight, miserable every day, until one night he had gone out the window of his bedroom when his brothers were fast asleep.
He confessed his crime the next day in a fit of guilt. Lord Eddard ordered him to the godswood to cleanse himself. Guards were posted to see that Bran remained there alone all night to reflect on his disobedience. The next morning Bran was nowhere to be seen. They finally found him fast asleep in the upper branches of the tallest sentinel in the grove.
As angry as he was, his father could not help but laugh. “You’re not my son,” he told Bran when they fetched him down, “you’re a squirrel. So be it. If you must climb, then climb, but try not to let your mother see you.”
Bran did his best, although he did not think he ever really fooled her. Since his father would not forbid it, she turned to others. (aGoT, Bran II)

Despite Catelyn’s reasonable fears for Bran’s safety, she never forbids him to climb. In our modern, emancipated world a mother would exert her parental authority over her son and would not hesitate to forbid her son to engage in deadly activities at such a young age. She would punish him herself. In the feudal Westeros, Catelyn resorts to extracting promises, horror stories, manipulation and appealing to Ned to forbid it. Ned is the sole parent of the two who punishes and commands his sons. This has nothing to do with preferred parenting style, since obviously Catelyn will order, command and punish her daughters. It is simply traditional adherence to gender authority.

In Catelyn’s bedroom, Ned and Catelyn discuss the fates of Sansa, Arya, Bran and Jon. Ned becomes the loving, gentle partner and mirrors Catelyn’s approach as a loving wife in the godswood. Meanwhile Catelyn becomes increasingly cold and stern.

Then silence fell, until Catelyn found her courage and asked the question whose answer she most dreaded. “What of the other children?”
Ned stood, and took her in his arms, and held her face close to his. “Rickon is very young,” he said gently. “He should stay here with you and Robb. The others I would take with me.”
“I could not bear it,” Catelyn said, trembling.
“You must,” he said. “Sansa must wed Joffrey, that is clear now, we must give them no grounds to suspect our devotion. And it is past time that Arya learned the ways of a southron court. In a few years she will be of an age to marry too.” (aGoT, Catelyn II)

Note that Catelyn asks about the children, while previously Catelyn reflected that Ned always asks after the children. Ned (as mother) decides over Sansa and Arya’s fate, which is an almost jarring oddity to Ned’s protests about Sansa only being eleven half an hour before that. That Ned is verbally mirroring Catelyn as a style reversal in the above conversation rather than voicing his beliefs becomes clear when we consider his later actions and decisions about Arya. He lets Arya scamper about on horseback. He hires Syrio Forel to teach her the proper use of Needle, and considers asking Barristan Selmy to teach Arya a trick or two. Ned does not require her to join the queen in her cart wheel. He does not want his daughters to attend the Hand’s tourney, and only allows Sansa to go because she expresses such a wish to see it. He attempts to keep both his daughters away from southron courtlife as much as possible. So, George has Ned become the male “mother” of the girls in practice. Ned only adopts Catelyn’s concerns over the marital fates of the daughters in an abstract manner.

We see this mirroring of Catelyn’s arguments again when they discuss Bran’s fate.

She finished for him. “… crown prince, and heir to the Iron Throne. And I was only twelve when my father promised me to your brother Brandon.”
…[snip]…
“I was eight when my father sent me to foster at the Eyrie,” Ned said.

The reversal is complete when Catelyn accepts Ned’s argument regarding Bran. Catelyn accepts the loss of three of her children and her husband, while she foresees the loneliness in the vast Winterfell and “instructs” Ned on how to raise a son. And Ned kisses and soothes her, thanks her and shows understanding like a loving, gentle partner.

He was right; Catelyn knew it. It did not make the pain any easier to bear. She would lose all four of them, then: Ned, and both girls, and her sweet, loving Bran. Only Robb and little Rickon would be left to her. She felt lonely already. Winterfell was such a vast place. “Keep him off the walls, then,” she said bravely. “You know how Bran loves to climb.”
Ned kissed the tears from her eyes before they could fall. “Thank you, my lady,” he whispered. “This is hard, I know.”

While at the surface, this loving gesture seems to merely establish a rather modern mutual loving relationship between Eddard and Catelyn, in feudal gender role terms those words imply that Ned is the “wife” asking her “lord husband” for a favor. And it is a stark contrast to Catelyn not daring to forbid Bran from climbing in the past. That Ned Stark has surrendered his authority over Winterfell is driven home in the discussion about Jon Snow. Catelyn’s will basically becomes law.

“What of Jon Snow, my lord?” Maester Luwin asked.
Catelyn tensed at the mention of the name. Ned felt the anger in her, and pulled away.
… [snip]…
Jon must go,” she said now.
“He and Robb are close,” Ned said. “I had hoped …”
He cannot stay here,” Catelyn said, cutting him off. “He is your son, not mine. I will not have him.” It was hard, she knew, but no less the truth. Ned would do the boy no kindness by leaving him here at Winterfell.

Ned Stark behaves like a struck subordinate who pulls away and he appeals to emotions.

Catelyn never managed to convince Ned to send Jon away for the past fourteen years, hardly dared to, and obeyed Ned to never ask about Jon.

It had taken her a fortnight to marshal her courage, but finally, in bed one night, Catelyn had asked her husband the truth of it, asked him to his face.
That was the only time in all their years that Ned had ever frightened her. Never ask me about Jon,” he said, cold as ice. “He is my blood, and that is all you need to know. And now I will learn where you heard that name, my lady.” She had pledged to obey; she told him; and from that day on, the whispering had stopped, and Ashara Dayne’s name was never heard in Winterfell again.
Whoever Jon’s mother had been, Ned must have loved her fiercely, for nothing Catelyn said would persuade him to send the boy away.

What a contrast in authorial behavior between both these characters before and after, no?

So, Catelyn becomes the  feudal “ruling father (to sons)” and Ned the “supporting mother (to daughters)”, which is complete when Bran falls and must remain with his brothers, instead of joining his sisters at court. Ned as “mother” does not get to take Bran with him, because Bran is already being initiated in the exclusive male world of his brothers. Meanwhile Catelyn as “father” has no interest for the everyday care of a male baby.

We continue to see this feudal role reversal in their later arcs whenever they have to handle conflict or issues. While Catelyn sails for King’s Landing, apprehends Tyrion and joins Robb in his war campaign, Ned pleads with the king for the love he bears him, resorts to psychological tricks and mediates between his daughters and even Cersei. And yet the “supporting mother” is a man, and “ruling father” is a woman. This results in Ned hiring a sword instructor for his daughter and not having a clue how to deal with Sansa, while Catelyn mothers Bran at his sickbed and neglects her ruling duties. They are both like fish out of water, doubting themselves, yearning to return to their prior role at Winterfell. They struggle in finding a balance between the demands of their new role and their personal preferences. When both figure out what they really want, the situations have caught up with them and neither are allowed to escape their doom.

Isis and Horus

That was a long introduction, befitting a reread analysis rather, but sets Catelyn up for the conflict resulting from her responsibilities over her sons and Winterfell. Though Catelyn has symbolically become the “ruling father” over the sons, she initially adheres to an ideal mother image of holding vigil over Bran, which George ends up subverting. Eventually ideal motherhood is unachievable and it endangers the lives of Catelyn’s children.

One such idealized chtonic ideal mother goddess is Isis. She conceived Horus after copulating as a kite with dead Osiris and his magical, golden phallus, nursed Horus at her breast, protected her son fiercely from assassination and illness and finally guided him when he challenged the usurping Set (who murdered Osiris) for the rule over the two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt. Set and Horus battled each other for decades until they reach a stalemate and apply to the gods who decide in Horus’s favor. Isis is not solely a mythical ideal mother, she is an iconic single mother.

Isis nursing her son is the source image for Mother Mary nursing baby Jesus. Rome embraced and spread the Isis cult all over the Roman Empire during the formative years of Christianity, and it was the Roman Emperor Constantine who institionalized Christianity as the state’s religion less than four hundred years later. Separate stories and healing spells tell of Isis protecting and tending to her sick or threatened boy. Even to this day they are social tropes about motherhood.

We see the image of the nursing mother appear several times in Catelyn’s chapters.

…they had spent that year apart, Ned off at war in the south while she remained safe in her father’s castle at Riverrun. Her thoughts were more of Robb, the infant at her breast, than of the husband she scarcely knew. (aGoT, Catelyn II)

Let him grow taller, she asked the gods. Let him know sixteen, and twenty, and fifty. Let him grow as tall as his father, and hold his own son in his arms. Please, please, please. As she watched him, this tall young man with the new beard and the direwolf prowling at his heels, all she could see was the babe they had laid at her breast at Riverrun, so long ago.(aGoT, Catelyn X)

As she slept amidst the rolling grasslands, Catelyn dreamt that Bran was whole again, that Arya and Sansa held hands, that Rickon was still a babe at her breast. Robb, crownless, played with a wooden sword, and when all were safe asleep, she found Ned in her bed, smiling.(aCoK, Catelyn II)

There exists only an indirect nursing association to Bran. When Ned recalls seeing Tommen last at Cersei’s teat and guesses his age wrong, Catelyn explains that Bran and Tommen are off-age.

“It will be good to see the children. The youngest was still sucking at the Lannister woman’s teat the last time I saw him. He must be, what, five by now?”
“Prince Tommen is seven,” she told him. “The same age as Bran….” (aGoT, Catelyn I)

… Bran of whom she is always proud. While there is no direct image mentioned of Catelyn nursing Bran, she is however portrayed as holding vigil at his sickbed, which is also an Isis-Horus related image.

Catelyn is not the sole mother linked to this iconic image of nursing mother. For each of these mothers, the sons they nursed are their Horuses:

  • Cersei is the first mother mentioned in such a way. In aFfC and aDwD, Cersei constantly worries about Tommen‘s safety, fussing over what he eats, what he wears, who he is with. It does not necessarily make her a loving mother to Tommen though and it only results in Cersei alienating and attempting to weaken her military and political allies.²
  • Lysa Tully is featured as nursing Sweetrobin, even though he is six already. She fusses over his health, spoils him and feeds his fears.
  • Wylla nursed Jon Snow and Edric Dayne
  • Gilly nurses Monster and Aemon Steelsong. And though Val cannot actually nurse Monster, she keeps the baby with her and Monster is nursed in the tower where she resides.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but in the course of the books I think there is only one nursing scene with a baby girl: the young prostitute at Chataya’s and her baby girl Barra that Ned Stark visits.

Starks sons as Horuses

This essay is not about those other Horuses in the eyes of the various mothers, but about Catelyn and her sons as Horus. Instead of showing us one Horus who grows up from nursed baby into a youth requiring protection and health care and finally into a grown man who wins at least half a kingdom from his enemy and father’s killer in a war that lasted decades, George has split those three different stages across three sons of different ages so that he could compress the Horus concept into a much shorter timeline.

In order to understand Catelyn’s mother role to her sons as Isis, we first need to explore Horus himself. In legend, Horus is depicted in three different stages:

  • a nursing baby or naked boy with his thumb in his mouth (on a lotus) sitting in the lap of his mother.
  • a youth who can be sick and whose life is threatened by Set sending assassins, and who goes by the name Neferhor/Nephoros/Nopheros, which means “The Good Horus”.
  • a grown man who wars and becomes king.

Horus is the god of the Sky, naturally of War and Kingship and Hunting. As a skygod he was depicted as having a falcon’s head. The name Horus was derived from the word haru, which means falcon. So, it should not be surprising that his hieroglyph is a falcon³. The falcon is either represented as perched or with his wings outspread. Sun and moon traversed the sky as Horus flies across as a falcon. Horus right eye was the sun, and his left eye was the moon. During one of the struggles between Set and Horus, Horus’s left eye was gouged out, which was replaced by an eye made by a moon god. Horus thus has two eyes where one shines brighter as the other (or the left is darker or even absent). The sun-eye was called the “Eye of Ra”4, while the moon-eye was called the “Eye of Horus” (and can show various phases of the moon). Its symbol was the same as the wadjet (or wedjat), the “all seeing eye” of one of the earliest Egyptian goddess Wadjet, which means “the green one“. (And now you know why I chose moss green)

As a Kingship god he was the patron god of the dynasty. Pharaohs claimed to be descendants from Horus who was depicted as wearing the crown of the region (all of Egypt, or the half, depending on the dynasty and political situation at the time). The wars he fought with Set lasted for decades, without an obvious winner: win some, lose some. Eventually both had to make their case before the gods who based on the evidence brought before them, judged that Horus dominated over Set, and therefore became king of all Egypt.

Obviously as a falcon, he was a predator, a hunting bird. Of interest is a particular predynastic stone Hunters Palette depicting a “lion hunt” that shows the falcon perched upon a standard.

Finally, a distinction exists between Horus the Elder and Horus the Younger. Egyptian mythology is ultimately a conflation of over three thousand years of dynastic legends, kingdoms and history. The genealogy thus alters. Unraveling these relations gives one a headache, like Bran gets confused after his own name predecessors. Hathor’s consort was Horus, whereas Isis was the mother of Horus. With the conflatiion of Isis with Hathor, while Osiris was Isis’s consort, one Horus became a sibling, the other the son. To make it more confusing, it ultimately matters little, since both Horuses are skygods, falcons, kings and hunters. Horus the Younger though is associated more with the youthly king and the dawn, while Horus the Elder is also called Kemwer, which means (the) great black (one).


Robb Stark as King Horus in Catelyn’s chthonic mother arc deservers its own essay. But I will point out the obvious Horus links.

  • Robb is heavily tied to war from the beginning. Both of Catelyn’s nursing memories of Robb are related to war. She thinks of nursing Robb in Riverrun while her husband is off to fight war in the south against the Mad King in Robert’s Rebellion. And she does so again when Robb has gathered his bannermen to ride South to war, which ends up being a war to avenge his father’s death. The second half of Catelyn’s third chatper in aGoT already presents the Young Wolf as eager to draw his sword against perceived enemies.
  • He is declared King in the North and King of the Trident, unifying the southern Riverlands with the North. His crown is featured several times, as he wears it, but also after his death. Robb is also mightily concerned about establishing his dinasty, and writes a will where he declares an heir in case he dies before having children of his own.
  • He goes out hunting with Bran and Theon which amounts to catching wildlings. At the Battle of the Whispering Wood he catches himself a “lion”, Jaime Lannister. And again through stealth, using a goat track he attacks the Lion Camp at Oxcross.

As for Rickon Stark, he is the baby, and referred to as such by his siblings. His wolf Shaggydog is the black one, who threatens a “lion” in Winterfell hall, and is revealed to hunt a unicorn on Skagos. While Bran is shown to ride off  on a hunt on Dancer, Rickon is the sole Stark son of which we get actual imagery of having success in hunting game. And in aDwD, Davos is sent to find Rickon to make him Lord Stark, or possibly King in the North, for whom Lord Manderly would gladly join the war efforts to avenge the Red Wedding where Robb Stark was murdered.


This is an essay about Catelyn in relation to her son Bran Stark, the Prince of Winterfell. The way Catelyn thinks of Bran and how Ned talks of him, sweet and lovable, Bran certainly fits with the youthful “Good Horus“. He lies in a coma with his mother holding vigil and his life is threatened by an assassin.  In Bran’s third chapter in aGoT the three-eyed crow teaches Bran to fly in a dream, while Jojen refers to Bran as the “winged wolf”, the Stark wolf who can fly as a greenseer.

Bran spread his arms and flew.
Wings unseen drank the wind and filled and pulled him upward. The terrible needles of ice receded below him. The sky opened up above. Bran soared. It was better than climbing. It was better than anything. The world grew small beneath him.
I’m flying!” he cried out in delight.
I’ve noticed, said the three-eyed crow…[snip]…Its beak stabbed at him fiercely, and Bran felt a sudden blinding pain in the middle of his forehead, between his eyes. (aGoT, Bran III)

Jojen’s eyes were the color of moss, and sometimes when he looked at you he seemed to be seeing something else. Like now. “I dreamed of a winged wolf bound to earth with grey stone chains,” he said. “It was a green dream, so I knew it was true. A crow was trying to peck through the chains, but the stone was too hard and his beak could only chip at them.”(aCoK, Bran IV)

“A knight is what you want. A warg is what you are. You can’t change that, Bran, you can’t deny it or push it away. You are the winged wolf, but you will never fly.” Jojen got up and walked to the window. “Unless you open your eye.” He put two fingers together and poked Bran in the forehead, hard.(aCoK, Bran V)

Our flying greenseer Bran Stark who needs to open his all-seeing third eye therefore seems to fit Horus and his Wadjet eye pretty good, even though we associate Bran more with ravens, crows and eagles than falcons. I would not rule out though that one of the birds that Bran ends up skinchanging is a falcon.

“Ser Rodrik tells me there is bad feeling between Robb and Prince Joffrey. That is not healthy. Bran can bridge that distance. He is a sweet boy, quick to laugh, easy to love. Let him grow up with the young princes, let him become their friend as Robert became mine. Our House will be the safer for it.”

George seems to make a point too that Bran is not a War Horus nor King Horus. Bran attempts to dissuade Robb from going to war in the South. And while Bran does ride out on Dancer to hunt, it soon turns sour as he learns of Jory’s death and Ned Stark’s accident. Bran wants to return and the hunt is aborted, right before Bran is captured and assaulted by wildlings. Eventually Dancer (and dance is synonym to war) dies during the sack of Winterfell.

We see all three development stages of Horus in the Stark sons in the course of a few year, or references to it, with each Stark son written to take one of the three main aspects of Horus:

  • Baby Rickon who becomes a hunter
  • Sweet boy Bran who’s broken, but flies as a greenseer, and becomes a god of the sky
  • King Robb who unites two regions into one kingdom, commences a war that is still not truly over and took steps for a possible re-emergence of a King in the North & Trident dynasty.

Not only does it give George the opportunity to use the iconic Isis-mother in Catelyn’s arc without needing to span sixteen years, but to show how this expectation of ideal mother behavior stands in direct conflict with each other.

Good Bran, the boy Horus

Early on we learn about Catelyn worrying over Bran’s safety, especially with regards to his fondness for climbing. After his fall, Catelyn sits beside his bed like a good iconic mother, day and night, keeping vigil for weeks. Even though he is in a coma, she fusses over him needing a haircut, moving his bed under the window so that he would have the morning sun, holding his hand and noticing his fragility and body warmth, keeping him warm and wanting to move him to safety from a fire.

Catelyn looked at Bran in his sickbed and brushed his hair back off his forehead. It had grown very long, she realized. She would have to cut it soon. “I have no need to look at figures, Maester Luwin,” she told him, never taking her eyes from Bran. “I know what the visit cost us. Take the books away.”
…[snip]…
Catelyn nodded absently. “Oh, yes. I remember.” Bran looked so pale. She wondered whether they might move his bed under the window, so he could get the morning sun.
…[snip]…
I can’t leave him, even for a moment, not when any moment could be his last. I have to be with him, if … if …” She took her son’s limp hand, sliding his fingers through her own. He was so frail and thin, with no strength left in his hand, but she could still feel the warmth of life through his skin.
…[snip]…
Robb opened the window…[snip].
“Don’t,” she told him. “Bran needs to stay warm.”
…[snip]…
Fire, she thought, and then, Bran! “Help me,” she said urgently, sitting up. “Help me with Bran.”…[snip]…She sagged with relief. Bran was safe. The library was across the bailey, there was no way the fire would reach them here. “Thank the gods,” she whispered. (aGoT, Catelyn III)

Her care for Bran is nothing but commendable and understandable, in isolation of everything else. She cares for Bran like Isis cared for Horus. But he is not her only child, nor is Winterfell in any type of routine situation. The chapter is rife with elements how this expected idealized mother behavior at her child’s sickbed conflicts with the care of her other children, and endangers all.

“You didn’t even come to the gate when Father and the girls went south.”
“I said my farewells to them here, and watched them ride out from that window.”
…[snip]…
Rickon needs you,” Robb said sharply. “He’s only three, he doesn’t understand what’s happening. He thinks everyone has deserted him, so he follows me around all day, clutching my leg and crying. I don’t know what to do with him.” He paused a moment, chewing on his lower lip the way he’d done when he was little. “Mother, I need you too. I’m trying but I can’t … I can’t do it all by myself.” His voice broke with sudden emotion, and Catelyn remembered that he was only fourteen. She wanted to get up and go to him, but Bran was still holding her hand and she could not move.

The last time Catelyn saw both her daughters alive was from afar, through a window, because she could not bear to leave Bran and resented that Ned chose to go to King’s Landing. Her baby son of three has lost his father, sisters, Bran and his mother’s attention in one fell sweep, while her teen son has to take all these responsibilities on his shoulders and cannot turn to her for emotional support. And yet her response and behavior is perfectly human and recognizable. When tragedy befalls a child, it is not unusual for a parent to keep vigil and be completely focused on the sick, missing or dead child, while the needs of the other children are put on the backburner for an extensive period. The majority of people would not expect a mother to bounce back from a disaster befalling one of her children in less than a month’s time, let alone judge her ill for it. And often it is not until a serious issue arises that the parent realizes they have to return from their mourning to the household and other children.

Though it is the most obvious conflict of interests, it is not the most serious one. The greatest danger is pointed out by George at the start of the chapter when Maester Luwin asks Catelyn’s help in naming a steward and master of horse.

“My son lies here broken and dying, Luwin, and you wish to discuss a new master of horse? Do you think I care what happens in the stables? Do you think it matters to me one whit? I would gladly butcher every horse in Winterfell with my own hands if it would open Bran’s eyes, do you understand that? Do you!”

Catelyn finds it almost ridiculous to care about these matters, but where did the catspaw hide? Exactly, in those stables.

“He’d been hiding in your stables,” Greyjoy said. “You could smell it on him.”

When Catelyn wonders how this catspaw could have gone unnoticed for eight days, Hallis Mollen explains the issue, but allows the reader to formulate the answer to Catelyn’s question in thought.

And how could he go unnoticed?” she said sharply.
Hallis Mollen looked abashed. “Between the horses Lord Eddard took south and them we sent north to the Night’s Watch, the stalls were half-empty. It were no great trick to hide from the stableboys. Could be Hodor saw him, the talk is that boy’s been acting queer, but simple as he is …”

The answer is not the incompetence of the stable boys and the inability of Hodor to say anything but “Hodor”. The catspaw remained unnoticed for so long, was able to hide in the stables, set fire to the library and reach Bran’s room because for eight days Winterfell had no steward, no master of horse and no captain of the guard. Had all these three positions been filled since the day of Ned’s departure, the catspaw would have been detected far sooner, recognized as not being part of any crew, and there would have been a proper functioning guard. Catelyn should care what happens in the stables. It matters a very great deal.

“We have no steward,” Maester Luwin reminded her…[snip]… “There are several appointments that require your immediate attention, my lady. Besides the steward, we need a captain of the guards to fill Jory’s place, a new master of horse—”

Tranformation Born From the Night

So, while Catelyn is the image of an iconic Isis watching over her sick Horus, George shows that by only focusing on this, Catelyn actually endangered Horus-Bran’s life. Hence, there is a problem that needs to be resolved within Catelyn, a transition that she struggles with. I pointed out that in Catelyn’s second chapter there are several reversals for Catelyn’s role:

  • mother to father authority
  • supporting wife to ruler
  • life to death.

We learn in aCoK, through Catelyn’s relationship with Edmure at Riverrun, that Catelyn is not unfamiliar with “ruling” a house while the Lord is absent. When Hoster Tully was at war fighting in Robert’s Rebellion her brother is still too young, Lysa is at the Vale, and Catelyn effectively rules Riverrun. Ruling Winterfell castle itself would not be unfamiliar territory for Catelyn at all. Even if it may be a castle in an underworld, it is still a castle that needs to be run the same way as a southern one. And parenting remains parenting. It is only which gender of children that she acquires authority over that alters.

The transition that she struggles with is from a terrestrial life nature to that of an underworldly chthonic nature. While this is an essay that focuses on Catelyn as an iconic Isis mother it remains an essay of the Chthonic Cycle. I will go over some of the previous quotes again and reveal several interesting internal paradoxes where underwordly figures and elements are shown to be very much alive; where Catelyn wants to keep the underworld out, but has stopped participating in life herself, is wilfully blind, deaf and uses murderous language. It culminates into a struggle for life after death enters the room and she and Bran are saved by a direwolf. During this struggle Catelyn transitions and becomes chthonic (rather than lifeless) and starts to comprehend that the underworld is not in opposition of life, but crucial to life.

Bran looked so pale. She wondered whether they might move his bed under the window, so he could get the morning sun….[snip]… She took her son’s limp hand, sliding his fingers through her own. He was so frail and thin, with no strength left in his hand, but she could still feel the warmth of life through his skin…[snip]…Outside the tower, a wolf began to howl. Catelyn trembled, just for a second.
“Bran’s.” Robb opened the window and let the night air into the stuffy tower room. The howling grew louder. It was a cold and lonely sound, full of melancholy and despair.
“Don’t,” she told him. “Bran needs to stay warm.”
…[snip]…
Catelyn was shaking. It was the grief, the cold, the howling of the direwolves. Night after night, the howling and the cold wind and the grey empty castle, on and on they went, never changing, and her boy lying there broken, the sweetest of her children, the gentlest, Bran who loved to laugh and climb and dreamt of knighthood, all gone now, she would never hear him laugh again. Sobbing, she pulled her hand free of his and covered her ears against those terrible howls. “Make them stop!” she cried. “I can’t stand it, make them stop, make them stop, kill them all if you must, just make them stop!”

To Catelyn Bran’s appearance is like that of a dead child. And she wishes to connect him to life symbolism, such as the morning sun and keeping him warm. But she is surrounded by chthonic elements beyond the door and window – night, coldness, winds, howling wolves, grey empty stone castle. And she fears these elements, as she believes they will bring death to her son. What does she do? She locks herself and her son away in a tower room as far removed as possible from the earth, as near to the sky instead. She never leaves the room herself, avoiding the grey empty castle, and keeps the window closed.And by doing that she is isolated, a voluntarily prisoner. A tower room is very apt for this situation as it is a place that both gaurds and protects as well as isolates and imprisons. As a result, Catelyn has become lifeless in a metaphorical way. She talks and acts in deadly terms. She trembles, she shakes, she is cold. She covers her ears to block out sound. And she wants the direwolves to be killed.

The room has a door and a window. These are the sole passages through which the outside world can come into Catelyn’s mindset. At the other side of the window lies the cold, dark underworld. Meanwhile underworld characters can pass through the doorway, enter or leave. Robb attempts to bring Catelyn and Bran into contact with the underworld, by opening the window and the night air enters. Shuttig out the underworld does not entirely work either. Even with the window closed, Catelyn has been hearing the howling night after night. When it opens, the howling simply becomes louder. And with Catelyn blocking her ears and wanting the wolves dead as their howles grow “louder”, we get the interesting paradox that the wolves are more alive than Catelyn herself is.

Let us look at the paradox that Maester Luwin’s appearance reveals. Catelyn regards him hostile, like a grey rat. Grey belongs to the color scheme of the underworld. Grey is a mixture of black and white, and neither three belong to the lively rainbow color scheme. And a rat is a scavenging rodent, a pestilence, a nuisance. Certainly the Rat Cook story identifies a rat as an underwordly animal. So, Catelyn sees Luwin as a chthonic charachter that she wishes to shoe off.

Like a little grey rat, she thought, [Maester Luwin] would not let go.

But what does this grey rat do? He brings light via a lamp into the dark night and reminds her of the bills and groceries.

Ned and the girls were eight days gone when Maester Luwin came to her one night in Bran’s sickroom, carrying a reading lamp and the books of account. “It is past time that we reviewed the figures, my lady,” he said…[snip]…”My lady, the king’s party had healthy appetites. We must replenish our stores before—”…[snip]…Maester Luwin set the lamp in a niche by the door and fiddled with its wick.

It is actually Catelyn who acts like the dead. She is absent in mind, she snaps, she would butcher horses, she has a voice like a whip, and she cuts off Luwin’s speech. She does not want to look or hear the demands of life and she has not heard her son enter either.

“I have no need to look at figures, Maester Luwin,” she told him, never taking her eyes from Bran…[snip]…She cut him off. “I said, take the books away…”[snip]…Catelyn nodded absently. “Oh, yes. I remember.”…[snip]…Her eyes snapped around and found him. “A master of horse?” Her voice was a whip…[snip]…”My son lies here broken and dying, Luwin, and you wish to discuss a new master of horse? …[snip]… I would gladly butcher every horse in Winterfell with my own hands if it would open Bran’s eyes, do you understand that? Do you!”…[snip]… Catelyn had not heard him enter, but there [Robb] stood, in the doorway, looking at her… What was happening to her?

Her son too she starts to see as being underworldy, rather than associated to southern life symbolism. He comes from outside (the underworld), showing signs of being affected by the coldness and wind outside. She notices he wears a sword (real steel) and that his face is stern, hard, northern like his father, the ruler of the underworld Eddard Stark. And he commands like a lord.

[Robb] had come from outside, Catelyn saw;  his cheeks were red from the cold, his hair shaggy and windblown….[snip]… “Leave us now,” Robb said…[snip]…Robb closed the door behind him and turned to her. He was wearing a sword, she saw. “Mother what are you doing?
Catelyn had always thought Robb looked like her; like Bran and Rickon and Sansa, he had the Tully coloring, the auburn hair, the blue eyes. Yet now for the first time she saw something of Eddard Stark in his face, something as stern and hard as the north.

Though Ned instructed her to teach Robb how to rule, Robb is the character who attempts to teach Catelyn something about the underworld outside of that tower. He tells her that Bran is not going to die, the danger has passed, that Bran needs to hear the direwolves sing. To Robb they are singing, not howling. He can even tell them apart as individuals by sound. For Robb the underworld is alive and lively and not a deadly, scary world. And he attempts to make Catelyn see this. While Catelyn regards them as the purest symbol of the emotional hell she has found herself in.

“He needs to hear them sing,” Robb said. Somewhere out in Winterfell, a second wolf began to howl in chorus with the first. Then a third, closer. “Shaggydog and Grey Wind,” Robb said as their voices rose and fell together. “You can tell them apart if you listen close.”… [snip]…”Don’t be afraid, Mother. They would never hurt him.”

Robb is not afraid of cold, outside, wind or the song of the pet direwolves. They might be associated with death, but the underworld protects their own. Catelyn fears symbols and reminders that are no threats to her nor Bran. And this is followed with Robb showing fear for actual threats, the fire, which is supposed to be a symbol of life, as a fire keeps people warm. He stops breathing, he turns pale, whispers and does not hear Catelyn. Meanwhile Catelyn’s senses start working again. She hears, she looks, sees and is relieved when she is secure the fire cannot harm Bran. To her the fire is a flickering reddish light, a source of light in the night, like the lamp Luwin brought in earlier. And when Catelyn thanks the gods, she thanks the seven, not the Old Gods. It is also interesting that a tower is set on fire, after all it is a tower room where Catelyn hoped to protect Bran from underwordly symbols. And yet it is a symbol of life that devours and destroys a tower filled with knowledge (the opposite of the long ago dead that are forgotten). When she looks out of the window of her tower room, she sees flames shoot out of the window of the library tower and smoke rise. Life destroys life. Death is just the state or world after one life kills another life.

Catelyn heard his breath catch in his throat. When she looked up, his face was pale in the lamplight. “Fire,” he whispered…[snip]…Robb did not seem to hear her. “The library tower‘s on fire,” he said.
Catelyn could see the flickering reddish light through the open window now. She sagged with relief. Bran was safe. The library was across the bailey, there was no way the fire would reach them here. “Thank the gods,” she whispered.
Robb looked at her as if she’d gone mad.
…[snip]…
Outside, there were shouts of “Fire!” in the yard, screams, running footsteps, the whinny of frightened horses, and the frantic barking of the castle dogs. The howling was gone, she realized as she listened to the cacophony. The direwolves had fallen silent.
Catelyn said a silent prayer of thanks to the seven faces of god as she went to the window. Across the bailey, long tongues of flame shot from the windows of the library. She watched the smoke rise into the sky and thought sadly of all the books the Starks had gathered over the centuries. Then she closed the shutters.

And while the yard turns into a cacaphony of sound, action and movement, the direwolves themselves become silent. It is almost as if “life” is trying to attack and overpower “death”. And Catelyn shuts the outside world out of the tower room again, only to find a southern very alive, dirty, smelly man with a dagger of Valyrian steel and dragonbone handle in his hand with the intent to kill Bran.

When she turned away from the window, the man was in the room with her.
“You weren’t s’posed to be here,” he muttered sourly. “No one was s’posed to be here.”
He was a small, dirty man in filthy brown clothing, and he stank of horses…[snip]…He was gaunt, with limp blond hair and pale eyes deep-sunk in a bony face, and there was a dagger in his hand.
Catelyn looked at the knife, then at Bran. “No,” she said. The word stuck in her throat, the merest whisper.
He must have heard her. “It’s a mercy,” he said. “He’s dead already.”

The catspaw is a southerner. He stinks hours in the wind of horses. Brown is the color you achieve when you mix all the primary colors red, blue and yellow in paint form together. His hair is blond, and pale eyes are light blue eyes. So, we do have a figure of life, but he is subverted into a death figure: dirty, filthy, gaunt, limp, pale, deep-sunken, bony. No one knows him. He is a “stranger”. He is described like Charon, the ferryman, who helps the shades of the dead across the Achethon into Hades. Hence, why he declares Bran is “dead already”. The catspaw sees himself as a ferryman, who ferries a dead-already Bran to actual death – merciful. He received the money to arrange for the “crossing” too: ninety silver stags in a leather bag.

It is in the consecutive scene that Catelyn begins a transformation process. She moves into action and wants to scream for help? Where does she seek help? From the underworld outside the window. But her airway is deliberately blocked, by a hand over her mouth and a dagger is held against her windpipe.

“No,” Catelyn said, louder now as she found her voice again. “No, you can’t.” She spun back toward the window to scream for help, but the man moved faster than she would have believed. One hand clamped down over her mouth and yanked back her head, the other brought the dagger up to her windpipe. The stench of him was overwhelming.

Catelyn finally gets in touch with life again, as a natural shot of adrenaline kicks in and helps her gain an unprecedented strength to push the dagger away from her throat. And yet she simultaneously bites and tears at the man like a she-wolf or a rabid dog and tastes blood, like a chthonic character. Next, she sucks in air and screams (alive symbolism), and yet he manages to make her stumble and go down (chthonic), while he stands very much alive and breathing hard over her.

She reached up with both hands and grabbed the blade with all her strength, pulling it away from her throat. She heard him cursing into her ear. Her fingers were slippery with blood, but she would not let go of the dagger. The hand over her mouth clenched more tightly, shutting off her air. Catelyn twisted her head to the side and managed to get a piece of his flesh between her teeth. She bit down hard into his palm. The man grunted in pain. She ground her teeth together and tore at him, and all of a sudden he let go. The taste of his blood filled her mouth. She sucked in air and screamed, and he grabbed her hair and pulled her away from him, and she stumbled and went down, and then he was standing over her, breathing hard, shaking. The dagger was still clutched tightly in his right hand, slick with blood.

Are you confused already? I am sure Catelyn is too, when all the “alive” versus “dead” symbolism switches constantly between herself and the catspaw. Even the blood is confusing – Catelyn’s blood of her hands is on his dagger, while his blood of his palm is in her mouth. But in both cases the blood loss is none-life threatening and is associated with life saving adrenalin or taste and filling like food. It is a total jumble, and a liminal scene between life and death, where you don’t know anymore which is which.

The biting and drinking of blood alludes to Greek chthonic personifications that are daughters of Nyx (night), who herself is the daughter of Chaos.

  • The Keres are female spirits that personify violent death and they drink blood of fallen men in battle.
  • Lyssa stands for Mad Rage, Frenzy and Rabies, which is a disease most famously known for making animals, particularly dogs, madly aggressive and eager to bite (with the extra reminder that the hellhound Cerberus is a dog)
  • the Maniae is a spirit group of Insanity, Madness and Crazed Frenzy.

And then Bran’s wolf enters the room. Chthonic help has come.

Catelyn saw the shadow slip through the open door behind him. There was a low rumble, less than a snarl, the merest whisper of a threat, but [the catspaw] must have heard something, because he started to turn just as the wolf made its leap. They went down together, half sprawled over Catelyn where she’d fallen. The wolf had him under the jaw. The man’s shriek lasted less than a second before the beast wrenched back its head, taking out half his throat.
His blood felt like warm rain as it sprayed across her face.

The direwolf is described as a shadow, very silent, taking down the catspaw – a beast that “silences” the catspaw by taking out the man’s throat, who but a minute ago blocked Catelyn’s airway and held a dagger to her throat. And yet the wolf “leaps”, and both this Charon-like catspaw and the direwolf are positioned higher than Catelyn. This time it is blood of the dead that sprays across Catelyn and yet it feels like warm rain of life. It is as if Catelyn is baptized in the blood of the dead, and the direwolf symbol she feared and wanted to shut up and be killed to protect Bran turns out to be a life-saver. He was one of the three wolves that howled in chorus song with Shaggydog and Grey Wind. The three-headed hellhound Cerberus protected the underworld from invaders who were not supposed to be there and who intended harm. One of his heads would tear an invader up until only blood and bone was left. Summer who kills the catspaw acts like one of the heads of Cerberus here.

The wolf was looking at her. Its jaws were red and wet and its eyes glowed golden in the dark room. It was Bran’s wolf, she realized. Of course it was. “Thank you,” Catelyn whispered, her voice faint and tiny. She lifted her hand, trembling. The wolf padded closer, sniffed at her fingers, then licked at the blood with a wet rough tongue. When it had cleaned all the blood off her hand, it turned away silently and jumped up on Bran’s bed and lay down beside him. Catelyn began to laugh hysterically.

The mix of life-dead symbolism does not end with the baptism of the catspaw’s blood. It continues after in the interaction between Bran’s wolf and Catelyn. His jaw is be red and wet from the dead catspaw’s blood that he killed, after he entered the room like a shadow. While Summer (yes I know he’s not named yet then) is an underworld symbol who delivers death to the catspaw, his interaction with Catelyn is very much alive. Summer is not a shadow anymore. Instead, the room is dark, but his eyes glow golden like a lamp. He comes to sniff and taste. His tongue has texture. The blood that he licks from her hands is hers, from her knife wounds. It is not the dead assassin’s blood. Summer is silent, but he looks at her.

As tend to happen to memory, a lot of readers remember it as a scene where a mother protects the body of her son with her own life, and thus an iconic image of the idealistic mother. However, Catelyn is in fact fighting for her own existence in this scene, and Bran’s by extension. It is an outwardly manifested struggle that is happening within Catelyn and perhaps one of the most mysterious chthonic scenes (apart from her impending death at the Red Wedding) in Catelyn’s chapters – a struggle for life and death, where the symbolism of both, twists, turns and convulates. Catelyn is alive and kicking, but also wounded, about to die and turning into a rabid biting hellhound tearing flesh. She can smell and hear and taste, but is silenced and left without air. She is also reborn like a newborn, sucking in air and screaming, before stumbling and falling. It is a twisted fight where a Chthonic Catelyn fights to be born, and her views are permanently altered. If in Dany’s tent we saw a twisting shadow of wolf and man, Catelyn’s struggle with the catspaw is its physical parallel, while we are in the mind of the person transforming. It is a transformation scene of Catelyn’s perspective, and Catelyn’s face being sprayed with blood signals the completion of the transformation, because when she looks at Summer afterwards, she sees how alive the direwolf is and is grateful for him.

Catelyn wondered early on what was happening to her. The answer is that she is transformed and that in terms of the darkest personifications of the underworld – Nyx the dark fiery night, fighting Charon and Thanatos (death), and Nyx’s bloodlusty frenzied daughters of madness. Catelyn is reborn in the Night and baptized into the underworld by Death.

Aphrodite and Aeneas

We are often reminded of Catelyn’s wounds and scars on her hands, and the pain of those wounds stays with her throughout her arc. They are a constant reminder and manifestation of the transformation I pointed out above. The motif of blood, wounded hands, raised hands, transformation with a female character is rather specific and shows up in but a few select motifs. One of those is Aphrodite‘s iconic rescue of Aeneas.

Diomedis fought on the side of the Greeks against the Trojans in the Iliad. He was Athena’s favorite, because he was cunning like Odysseus and though he was the sole mortal given the strength to fight immortals aside from Hercules he lacked hubris and was humble. He owned a sword that bore designs of a lion and a boar, and his cuirass was smithed by the god Hephaistos himself. On a certain day of battle, Athena gives Diomedis the special power to see the gods on the battlefield, so that if Aphrodite may come to her son’s rescue, he could see her and wound her.

He battles with Aeneas who has by then lost his horses (descending from Zeus’s immortal ones) and manages to crush Aeneas’s hip with a rock, upon which Aeanas faints and is completely helples. Aphrodite appears and puts herself into harm’s way. Diomedis wounds Aphrodite’s wrist and her immortal blood (ichor) flows. Shocked at being wounded (she is immortal) by a mortal no less, Aphrodite flees to Mount Olympus on Ares’s chariot horses, where her mother, the Titanesse Dione, cleans the blood and dresses Aphrodite’s wrist while Dione tells tales of other wounds the immortals begot in the past by mortals (Ares, Hades, Hera). Dione simply means generic “goddess”, as it is a feminization of Dios.

Meanwhile, Apollo comes to Aeneas’s rescue. Apollo was a god of light and the sun, golden, patron god of Troy. Amongst the animals sacred to him was the wolf (as well as crows, ravens, swans, …). Diomedes attacks Apollo twice, though Athena had warned him not to go after any other immortal aside from Aphrodite. Apollo manages to warn Diomedes off and Diomedes retreats. While Diomedes is not killed, his transgression has as a consequence that Ares, the god of war, enters the battlefield and fights on the side of the Trojans. Ultimately, Diomedes failed in killing Aeneas, but he manages to acquire Aeneas’s horses. Aeneas never gets them back.

Though George gives us several pointers to this story within the Iliad, the clearest confirmation of it is this small passage.

When the laughter finally died in her throat, they wrapped her in warm blankets and led her back to the Great Keep, to her own chambers. Old Nan undressed her and helped her into a scalding hot bath and washed the blood off her with a soft cloth.

Old Nan, who is known for telling legendary tales of the past, cleans Catelyn’s wounds and washes the higborn blood off, after Catelyn was carried back to her own room. As old as she is, Old Nan is pretty much everybody’s mother, and her name is rather generic. Combined with the knowledge how Catelyn acquired the wounds on her hands, we have Old Nan as Dione cleaning the hand wounds of  iconic-mother-to-the rescue Aphrodite. It is an etirely different iconic mother act though than keeping vigil at a son’s sickbed. Where Isis uses magic and hides to protect Horus, Aphrodite uses her physical body.

While the catspaw may not look like the valiant Diomedes, but as Charon instead, there is the horse connection, for he hid in the stables and smells of horses. He mentions several times that Catelyn was not supposed to be there. Catelyn also remarks how silently Summer entered the room like a shadow (almost invisible in the dark room) , and yet the catspaw heard him and turned around to face Summer, knowin ghe was there. The catspaw carries a ‘magically forged’ dagger with him given to him by a Lion, but actually belonged to the king who ends up killed by a boar. Though Catelyn thinks him ‘stupid’, he was cunning enough to start a fire in the library to distract people away from Bran, who lies unconscious, helpless and broken like Aeneas. Bran later loses his special trained horse Dancer in the ‘sack of Winterfell’ and will never ride it again.

We can see a hint to Apollo coming to the rescue of  Bran-Aeneas in Summer, after Catelyn is wounded and falls to the floor. Summer is described by Catelyn as almost a source of light itself in the dark room. The direwolf is the sigil, the patron of the Starks of Winterfell, just like Apollo is the patron of Troy. When Bran finally names him Summer, we get another tie to Apollo, because during winter Apollo was not present at his oracle of Delphi. During winter, Delphi was left to the chaotic Dionysus and his Maenads. Apollo was a god of summer, not winter.

In that sense, George chose the library to be set on fire as a hint. A library is a storage room for books, and in Winterfell’s case ancient books. While Catelyn is relieved the fire cannot harm her son Bran, she does lament the loss of books. Applying the principle of looking deeper into it with a Myrish looking glass, George is saying – look for ancient literature. And of course one of the best known ancient writing involving a spectacular fire is Troy and thus Homer’s Iliad.

What was Homer’s point? When the gods and fate are at work, an individual’s choices and actions cannot alter fate. Diomedis adheres to fate, while Achilles tries to defy it. And George has constructed his narrative similarly. George makes it all look like certain horrific outcomes are the consequence of a character’s choices and actions, but the powers working against Robert, against the Starks and others were already in place, plotting and murdering independently from other plotters and those who attempt to counter them. The path to the outcome might be slightly different for a short while, but Robert and Ned would still die, Boltons and Balon would make a move against the Starks, Freys would turn their coat for a Tyrell-Lannister force and have a Red Wedding even if Robb was the groom, and so on. George deliberately set so many domino stones into a race to drop from several angles, that even if a major domino stone refuses to drop, the rest still keeps going and going.

It is a crucial underlying intent by the author that he reveals it in Catelyn’s third chapter through her wounded hands and Old Nan washing the blood off. And it is especially important in Catelyn’s arc who makes several controversial choices with seeming bad consequences. More, ironically she herself is under the impression that she has in fact the power to influence outcomes. Even in Bran’s room you should wonder whether Catelyn made an actual difference, since Summer killed the catspaw. Summer came and followed him on his own accord, since Catelyn had been unable to cry for help.

“He came for Bran,” Catelyn said. “He kept muttering how I wasn’t supposed to be there. He set the library fire thinking I would rush to put it out, taking any guards with me. If I hadn’t been half-mad with grief, it would have worked.”

Let us imagine that Catelyn had rushed out, taking guards with her. The catspaw would have had to wait a little longer before entering Bran’s room, to allow her to pass with the guards and remain unseen. This would have given Summer the same amount of time necessary to attack him. So, when Catelyn says the above, she is wrong.

What about the neglected appointment of a master of horse, captain of the guard and steward? All three appointments together would have made a difference, yes, but only if they had been appointed well ahead in time, before Ned Stark left, or intended to leave the first time around (before Bran’s fall), and if they did their jobs well. However, Ned, Luwin, Robb, Vayon Poole (steward), Jory Cassel (captain of the guard), Rodrik Cassel and Hullen (master of horse) did not regard it a pressing matter. If they did not think of it as vital importance, then Catelyn can hardly be blamed for letting the matter lie as well. And certainly after Bran’s fall, it should have been evident to them all that Catelyn was not in a state of mind to be left with such a task and responsibility.

Hence, Catelyn cannot be effectively proclaimed the savior of her son, nor can she alone be blamed for the lack of security at Winterfell at the time. All we can say is that Catelyn acted bravely when her life was threatened, that she was not in her right mind to declare she would gladly butcher all the horses and desires the wolves to be killed and that she had an epiphany at the end of the struggle with the catspaw.

The Poppy Goddess

Now that we know that Catelyn’s actions and choices in Bran’s bedroom (and her arc in general) have no causal bearing on the outcome, we understand that her transformation experience that involves her hand wounds is what truly matters. Regularly, Catelyn feels them, thinks of them or someone comments on them throughout her arc.

Beneath the linen bandages, her fingers still throbbed where the dagger had bitten. The pain was her scourge, Catelyn felt, lest she forget. (aGoT, Catelyn III)

poppy_goddess

The hands are important, because the transformation was important, but not the actual wounds, since wounds heal. The Poppy Goddess is the name of a Minoan figurine discovered in Crete in 1959 that dates back to the 13th century BCE5. Her hands are raised and she wears three poppy seeds on her head6. The raised hands indicates the poppy goddess gazes at the visitor (whomever looks on her) and that she has an epiphany, resulting from a transformed perspective. Her eyes appear to be closed, and the folds in her cheeks give the impression of a smile, and yet her lips have the typical passivity of someone under the stupor of an opium-trip.

Catelyn raised both her hands in the air against the dagger held to her throat. She looked the visitor in the face. She ends up having an epiphany, a deeper understanding and laughs hysterical. They found her laughing. After Old Nan washes the blood away and Luwin dresses her wounds, she is given milk of the poppy, and she closes her eyes.

Afterward, Maester Luwin arrived to dress her wounds. The cuts in her fingers went deep, almost to the bone, and her scalp was raw and bleeding where he’d pulled a handful of hair. The maester told her the pain was just starting now, and gave her milk of the poppy to help her sleep.
Finally she closed her eyes.

So, who is this Poppy Goddess? To the people of Knossos in the bronze age she was a bringer of death or sleep7, who soothes pain with poppy-derived opium, but also a goddess of ecstacy. The poppy itself was used as a soothing narcotic, to induce sleep, and to perform euthanasia8. It is therefore little surprising that later the Greeks depicted many chthonic personifications with poppy flowers in their hands or wearing wreaths of poppies, such as Nyx (night), Hypnos (sleep) and Thanatos (peaceful death). The poppy itself was a chthonic symbol. But it was simultaneously a symbol of fertility, as a poppy can produce many seeds and multiply rapidly. The poppy flower and seed had a dualistic meaning – both life and death combined – the exact same dualism we witness in Bran’s room from start to its conclusion when Catelyn laughs hysterically.

The Greeks themselves identified the Poppy Goddess with Demeter. Demeter consumed opium to sleep and forget her grief over the loss of her daughter. And in depictions Demeter is not only shown to carry ears of corn in her hands, but poppy flowers as well. The Corinthian statues of the temple of Eleusis were decorated with depictions of poppy seeds and it is speculated that an opium ritual was performed during the mysteries with the initiates. The Greeks would have adopted it from Knosses Poppy Goddess rituals.

Notice that not only Catelyn’s hands were wounded, but the catspaw pulled her beautiful, rich hair – a Demeter feature – and Catelyn’s scalp is raw and bleeding. This implies the transformation is Demeter related, not Isis, nor Aphrodite. The Catelyn who is reborn and baptized in blood during the struggle is not exactly a woman of the underworld, like Nyx, but dual in nature, of two worlds, which is why Catelyn thinks the following after waking up.

Catelyn remembered the way she had been before, and she was ashamed. She had let them all down, her children, her husband, her House. It would not happen again. She would show these northerners how strong a Tully of Riverrun could be. (aGoT, Catelyn III)

She understands now what it means to be a northerner (chthonic), but still identifies herself as a Tully of Riverrun in the South. Why Demeter and not Persephone, since Persephone is also dualistic living one half of the year in the underworld and the other half with her mother at Mount Olympus? At this point in the story it does not seem to matter all that much to make the distinction. But more and more figurative symbolism (hair, baths, iconic mother, poppy hands) ties better with Demeter for Catelyn than it does for Persephone.

The crucial difference between both figures is that Persephone is a far more passive character than her mother and has no issue whatsoever with her duties as Queen of the Underworld. She shows no hostility towards Hades or the underworld. Persephone may lead a dual life, her views are not. When she appears in other legends, aside from her abduction, it is always in the underworld as its Queen. In that sense Persephone is wholly chthonic. Meanwhile the myth of Demeter-Persephone is mostly about Demeter – how she deals with her loss, causes trouble for humanity, does not get her way and has to live with the compromize.

Demeter starts out as seeing the underworld as her enemy. For example, one of Demeter’s eptithets is Aganippe, which means “The Mare who destroys mercifully” or just “nightmare”. In this form she was a black winged mare with a mane entwined with Gorgon Snakes. Catelyn certainly spoke and behaved venomous to Jon, Luwin and even almost Robb since Bran’s fall. Meanwhile the catspaw talked of “mercy”, poppy can be used to euthanize someone mercifully, and Catelyn refers to her mental state until the struggle as that of a “nightmare”.

When she opened them again, they told her that she had slept four days. Catelyn nodded and sat up in bed. It all seemed like a nightmare to her now, everything since Bran’s fall, a terrible dream of blood and grief, but she had the pain in her hands to remind her that it was real. She felt weak and light-headed, yet strangely resolute, as if a great weight had lifted from her.

The main point is that Catelyn comes away from the transformation, enriched, able to see both worlds, and dual. She can see death in life and life in death.

Pandora emerges from the underworld

pandora_bornIn the previous essay (see Lady of Winterfell of the Golden Blade) I mentioned how Pandora was probably a chthonic goddess like Persephone or Demeter, an all giving goddess with two jars (good and bad), rather than all gifted; that Hesiod portrayed her one-sidedly and stripped from her dual role. There are only five depictions known of Pandora on vases and reliefs currently. Two of those show Pandora being given gifts by the gods, another depicts her peeking into the box, and then there is one where she emerges from the  soil and hails her hubsand-to-be, hands and arms raised.

When Catelyn emerges in King’s Landing and Varys appears at Littlefinger’s he mentions Catelyn’s hands a few times, and says this:

Varys: “Oh, your poor hands. Have you burned yourself, sweet lady? The fingers are so delicate … Our good Maester Pycelle makes a marvelous salve, shall I send for a jar?”(aGoT, Catelyn IV)

Given the lie about the dagger by Littlefinger as well as Lysa’s lie in her Pandora box, and how Catelyn ends up choosing the wrong path of lies, because her curiosity gets the better of her, it seems doubtful that jar and hands (that were raised against the dagger once) in one and the same paragraph is a coincidence. And if George combined ‘raised hands’, ‘jar’ and ‘playing detective’ for Catelyn, then he is aware that Pandora was originally a dualistic earth-goddess character.

The latter half of Catelyn’s chapter actually shows time and time again that Catelyn thinks in dual terms, and he always combines it with a reminder of her hands. Catelyn is continually confronted with a wider scope of decisions and choices, but Catelyn reframes it each time again as a binary choice between two options.

George illustrates this preferred mindset with Catelyn through her order of food. After she comes to from her four day sleep, and has the pain in her hands as a reminder that the nightmare was real, Catelyn orders bread and honey.

“Bring me some bread and honey,” she told her servants, “and take word to Maester Luwin that my bandages want changing.” They looked at her in surprise and ran to do her bidding.
…[snip]…
Before he could answer, the servants returned with a plate of food fresh from the kitchen. There was much more than she’d asked for: hot bread, butter and honey and blackberry preserves, a rasher of bacon and a soft-boiled egg, a wedge of cheese, a pot of mint tea. And with it came Maester Luwin.
“How is my son, Maester?” Catelyn looked at all the food and found she had no appetite. (aGoT, Catelyn III)

A deeper analysis of the food ordered by Catelyn and actually presented is in my opinion of crucial fundamental importance to chthonic goddess mythology in general, but would take me away immensely from the angle of this essay. The easiest chthonic explanation for a scene where Catelyn does not eat, not during her vigil in the first half and not now either, is because eating the food of the underworld binds the character to the underworld. This is a common belief in most pantheistic mythologies, including the Japanese one. Persephone is bound to Hades because she ate the pommegranade seeds. And in Japanese myth Izanami, wife of Izanagi, says she cannot return to the world of the living, because she ate the food of the underworld. Of course, Catelyn must have eaten food at Winterfell the past years, and so George simply uses the not-eating by Catelyn as a stylistic symbol, where in the first half of the chapter Catelyn does not eat, because she is hostile to the underworld, and in the second half Catelyn ends up deciding to leave the North and go South to King’s Landing.

But there is also the layer of Catelyn feeling as if she “has more on her plate than she asked for”, implying responsibilities. Catelyn wants to keep it simple. Bread and honey is as simple a dish as you can ask for. If served only that, Catelyn has only two choices to make: do I dip the bread in the honey or do I spread the honey across the bread? What she is eventually served might look like a light meal, but multiple choices need to be made. Will she have the bacon first, or the boiled egg, and then the bread? Does she eat it with butter, cheese, honey or blackberry jam? Catelyn cannot handle so many options all at once and she turns it into, “Shall I eat or not at all?” She makes the simplest choice: she has no appetite, so she does not eat.

What the “bread and honey” exemplify most is that Catelyn prefers binary choices. This is echoed with the choice that Catelyn perceives herself in between the time she orders the dish and its arrival.

Robb arrived before her food. Rodrik Cassel came with him, and her husband’s ward Theon Greyjoy, and lastly Hallis Mollen, a muscular guardsman with a square brown beard. He was the new captain of the guard, Robb said. Her son was dressed in boiled leather and ringmail, she saw, and a sword hung at his waist.
…[snip]…
“Why would anyone want to kill Bran?” Robb said. “Gods, he’s only a little boy, helpless, sleeping …”
Catelyn gave her firstborn a challenging look. “If you are to rule in the north, you must think these things through, Robb. Answer your own question. Why would anyone want to kill a sleeping child?

Catelyn sees her son dressed as a warrior and having a sword, the coming War Horus. Just before the food is brought in, Robb depicts Bran as the Youth Horus, the helpless sleeping child. We thus have the near adult Horus already in warrior attire versus the helpless child boy Horus. Which son needs her the most –  Robb or  Bran?

But Catelyn forgets her third Horus – baby Rickon – who is left unmentioned and not in sight, and who is in immense need of his mother as Robb already relayed to her four days before that. But the moment she woke up, Catelyn decided to be the fatherly ruler (strong Tully of Riverrun), and lets go of the caretaking mother role (as if those are mutually exclusive roles). She lets go of Bran for the same reason, and it is shown in two separate instances:

How is my son [Bran], Maester?”…[snip]…
Maester Luwin lowered his eyes. “Unchanged, my lady.”
It was the reply she had expected, no more and no less. Her hands throbbed with pain, as if the blade were still in her, cutting deep. She sent the servants away and looked back to Robb. “Do you have the answer yet?”
…[snip]…
What about Bran?” Robb asked. The poor boy looked utterly confused now. “You can’t mean to leave him.”
“I have done everything I can for Bran,” she said, laying a wounded hand on his arm. “His life is in the hands of the gods and Maester Luwin. As you reminded me yourself, Robb, I have other children to think of now.”

Luwin’s reveal that Bran is still unconscious, in a coma, unchanged, while she contemplates choosing between Robb’s needs or Bran’s needs subconsciously right before, makes her choose Robb. Yes, the conversation that follows right after that is about safeguarding Bran, but she lets Robb make those decisions, through her guidance.

When she declares that she will go to King’s Landing, and Robb asks her confused why a mother would leave Bran, she answers in terms of “Bran” or “Other children”.

Notice the hand references and reminders in these passages, though. Bran’s unchanged status cuts deep, not only for Bran but for herself. Foregoing the motherly caretaker role is painful for her. It is something Catelyn feels she must do, rather than something she wants to. By the time she chooses to go to King’s Landing she has accepted that. It is however a self-imposed binary view by Catelyn. If say Catelyn sent other people to King’s Landing with the dagger, there is nothing theoretically that would truly prevent her from taking Rickon in her lap while she sits with Bran to talk to him about this or that as well as make an authoritive decision over how Winterfell should be run. It is imperative to know this about Catelyn when reading her POV in her continued arc. Her POVs deceive the reader into believing that Catelyn only has two options to choose from in any given situation, because that is how Catelyn reframes any situation.

Once, decisions have been made with regards guarding Bran, the “whodonnit” (catspaw) becomes a “who ordered it” situation as Rodrik reveals details about the dagger. This leads to new choices, where once again  Catelyn is reminded of her hands, before the introduction of the issue.

Lady Stark,” Ser Rodrik said when the guardsman had gone, “did you chance to notice the dagger the killer used?”
“The circumstances did not allow me to examine it closely, but I can vouch for its edge,” Catelyn replied with a dry smile. “Why do you ask?”
“We found the knife still in the villain’s grasp. It seemed to me that it was altogether too fine a weapon for such a man, so I looked at it long and hard. The blade is Valyrian steel, the hilt dragonbone. A weapon like that has no business being in the hands of such as him. Someone gave it to him.”

Its implications broaden the scope. It is not about Robb or Bran anymore, but now Ned Stark and her daughters need to be taken into account to, and that leads to the binary question, “Who is in most danger – my sons in Winterfell or my husband and daughters in King’s Landing?”

“What I am about to tell you must not leave this room,” she told them. “I want your oaths on that. If even part of what I suspect is true, Ned and my girls have ridden into deadly danger, and a word in the wrong ears could mean their lives.”

This reflects her state in Bran’s room in the first half of the chapter. Rickon needs her, Robb needs her, but she cannot let go of Bran’s hand nor move. She wishes to keep it clear and simple – Bran’s sick, so I must be with him. By the end of the chapter she must choose who will warn Ned and her daughters in King’s landing as well as play detective and accuse Lannisters.

There was only one place to find the truth of it, Catelyn realized. “Someone must go to King’s Landing.”
“I’ll go,” Robb said.
“No,” she told him. “Your place is here. There must always be a Stark in Winterfell.” She looked at Ser Rodrik with his great white whiskers, at Maester Luwin in his grey robes, at young Greyjoy, lean and dark and impetuous. Who to send? Who would be believed? Then she knew. Catelyn struggled to push back the blankets, her bandaged fingers as stiff and unyielding as stone. She climbed out of bed. “I must go myself.”

Catelyn decides to “move” and takes on the responsibility entirely on her shoulders alone. By making that choice though, she does end up with too much on her personal responsibility plate.  Is the assumption that she would have traveled slower or less undetected if she had taken a few more people alone correct? Given the fact that Varys and Littlefinger both knew of her presence immediately anyhow and she sailed for King’s Landing, having Theon and a few more guards might not have had a negative result, and it might have been to her benefit.

While I presented Catelyn’s binary approach as a flaw, I would also like to point out it is her strength just as well. Where others only see one option, she always seeks an alternative. Theon, Robb and Rodrik assume Catelyn will go to King’s Landing by kingsroad. That is the sole road to follow to get South. In their mind there is no other option. But once Catelyn has chosen to go, Catelyn’s dual mind automatically seeks for a second option to choose from, and she chooses White Harbor in order to sail to King’s Landing.

Ser Rodrik protested. “My lady, let me accompany you at least. The kingsroad can be perilous for a woman alone.”
“I will not be taking the kingsroad,” Catelyn replied. She thought for a moment, then nodded her consent. “Two riders can move as fast as one, and a good deal faster than a long column burdened by wagons and wheel-houses. I will welcome your company, Ser Rodrik. We will follow the White Knife down to the sea, and hire a ship at White Harbor. Strong horses and brisk winds should bring us to King’s Landing well ahead of Ned and the Lannisters.” And then, she thought, we shall see what we shall see.

Catelyn intended to travel alone to King’s Landing, which surely is not the most rational and sound idea, given that she just woke after four days of poppy-sleep and witnessed and survived an assassination attempt. Catelyn thinks in steps. She did not want a bunch of guards with her, so she thinks she must go alone. Someone else would have immediately thought – ok, so not a whole gang of people, but maybe two or three would do fine. Catelyn can see the sense in that when pointed out, but she simply was not at that stage yet, because she was thinking “a bunch of us” or “myself”. Two is an agreeable number to her, since after all she tends to limit herself to two foods, two sons, two locations, two ways to travel, etc, etc. Rodrik can be the “bread” and she can be the “honey”.

I also red marked the last line of the chapter, “We shall see what we shall see,” which rounds it nicely back to Pandora who is curious to see what is in that box of hers, well jar, or better yet her two jars. And in Catelyn’s case one jar is a lie of doom (red for wrong) and the other is an intuitive hit right on the mark (green light for correct).

“My sister Lysa believes the Lannisters murdered her husband, Lord Arryn, the Hand of the King,” Catelyn told them. “It comes to me that Jaime Lannister did not join the hunt the day Bran fell. He remained here in the castle.” The room was deathly quiet. “I do not think Bran fell from that tower,” she said into the stillness. “I think he was thrown.”

Summary (tl;tr)

When Ned decides to go to King’s Landing to be Hand of the King, a feudal role reversal takes place between Ned and Catelyn. She is now to be the authorial parent of the sons, while Ned becomes the custodial parent of the daughters.

Still, Catelyn struggles with this role reversal after Ned has left and Bran is in a coma because of his fall. Like iconic mother Isis she holds vigil over her youthful Horus, clings to life symbolism and wishes to keep underworld symbols away from the greenseeing Horus. As a result though she neglects the needs of her other two Horuses (baby Hunter Horus and teen War-intent Horus) and the rule of Winterfell. She herself is like a dead woman, not sleeping, not eating, isolated and hostile. Holding on to the wrong priorities is the reason why Bran’s life is threatened by the catspaw, who looks and speaks as if he is Charon to help those who are already dead across the Achethon. The actual threat to her son’s life does not come from Winterfell, the direwolves, the cold air of the night, but from the South.

Robb attempts to make Cat see that the underworld is very much alive, beautiful, a song, a chorus. All the life-death paradoxes merge when Catelyn fights for her own life against the dagger and the catspaw. It is not just a physical struggle between an assassin and mother, as it is also an internal battle for Catelyn to transform and overcome her fears of the underworld’s nature.

Catelyn has a raised hands Poppy Goddess epiphany in a fit of madness, when the deadly direwolf kills the catspaw and thereby saves her life as well as Bran’s. She is reborn in the Night (Nyx) with a dualistic perception like Demeter – life in death and death in life. It leads however to Catelyn leaving her Horuses behind as a Pandora with a binary mind whose strength is that she tends to look for two options, but still limits herself to seeing only two. She re-emerges from the underworld, carrying with her a truth and a lie, and a dagger of doom in  her wounded hands.

And yet, as much as we and Catelyn are eager to regard her as someone whose choices will have an impact on the story, good or bad, George has cleverly hinted that her tale is much like that of the Iliad. When the gods and fate are operating against you, ultimately your choices and actions are of little matter. And we should keep this in mind with whichever choice Catelyn makes afterwards. Catelyn is no more to blame than others for failing to appoint three replacements for the open positions than others, and given the circumstances probably less so. Meanwhile Summer saved Bran, not Catelyn, and he always would have.

Note: a head’s up to my good friend Lucifer Means Lightbringer. I think the Catelyn-catspaw fight scene with Summer coming to the rescue and Catelyn’s hands are certainly something to consider in similar terms the way he superbly analyses The Mountain vs The Viper. We have “pale (moon) eyes” for the catspaw, wounded hands, a dagger, silencing, a scream, blood spraying, Summer light and sun related and the sun and moon fighting on top of Catelyn.

Summary of chthonic roles

Mythological characters or gods Roles aSoIaF characters
Horus Skygod, hunter (of lions), warring dynastic king who avenges murder of father and unifies a northern and southern region, all-seer, son of iconic mother, nursing or thumb sucking baby son, sickly boy, boy needing protection of assassination, falcon, Rickon, Robb and Bran Stark, Tommen, Sweetrobin, Monster, Aemon Steelsong
Isis mother and wife goddess, wife of the ruler of the underworld, mother of a king, goddess of the children and magic. Iconic nursing mother of son, very protective of boy against illness, accidents and assassinations Catelyn Tully Stark, Lysa Tully Arryn, Cersei Lannister, Gilly, Val
Aphrodite Iconic protective mother who protects her son Aeneas with her body and is wounded at the wrist/hands Catelyn Tully Stark
Dione Simply “goddess” who is mother to other goddesses, storyteller, cleans Aphrodite’s wounds Old Nan
Aeneas Aphrodite’s son fighting for Troy, his hip his crushed by stone used by Greek Diomedis, he faints and falls unconscious and is helpless Brandon Stark
Diomedis Cunning warrior (like Odysseus) carrying a sword with a lion and boar symbol, and attempts to kill Aeneas. First he crushes his hip. Then tries to strike the final blow, but is warded off first by Aphrodite who is wounded at the wrist and flees and then warned off by Apollo Jaime Lannister, catspaw sent to kill Bran Stark with a Valyrian steel dagger from the King’s armory on the order of Joffrey( truly a Lannister)
Apollo God of light and sun, patron of Troy, has wolf as one of his dedicated animals. Saves Aeneas. direwolf Summer
Charon Ferryman who helps dead shades cross the Achethon to enter Hades in exchange for obol (money), filthy, meager looking catspaw
Demeter (Aganippe) Chthonic dualistic female earth goddess who can unleash doom or punish, but also brings life.  // Black mare of mercy with a mane of poisonous snakes (nightmare) Catelyn Tully Stark after transformation, but before as hostile as “nightmare” Demeter
Nyx Nyx was the daughter of Chaos and the chthonic fierce goddess of Night. At Ephese there was a statue of her holding two nursing sons in her arms, one black (death) another white (sleep). In one of the traditions, her son is a sleeping oracle in a cave. Catelyn Tully Stark during her struggle with the catspaw, as mother of oracling Bran
The Keres The Keres are female spirits that personify violent death and they drink blood of fallen men in battle, daughters of Nyx Catelyn Tully Stark tasting the catspaw’s blood, sprayed with catspaw’s blood on her face
Lyssa Lyssa stands for Mad Rage, Frenzy and Rabies, which is a disease most famously known for making animals, particularly dogs, madly aggressive and eager to bite.Daughter of Nyx Catelyn Tully Stark biting and ripping at the catspaw’s hand and tearing flesh
The Maniae The Maniae is a spirit group of Insanity, Madness and Crazed Frenzy. Catelyn Tully Stark laughing hysterically
Poppy Goddess Great Mother Goddess with raised hands having an epiphany through opium Catelyn Tully Stark
Cerberus Hellhoud that protects underworld against invaders, three-headed Summer, Shaggydog & Grey Wind combined
Persephone Wife of Hades, Queen of the Underworld, dual worlds Catelyn Tully Stark
Pandora Pandora is shown to emerge from the ground with arms raised. Most likely just another iteration of the Poppy Goddess, Demeter or Persephone, with two jars, one for good thing for humanity, one for bad things for humanity Catelyn Tully Stark believing a lie and realizing a truth, who decides to leave Winterfell and go to King’s Landing

Summary of chthonic items

Mythological items Function aSoIaF items
Ichor Sacred blood from immortals Catelyn’s blood of her wounded hands
Poppy Goddess raised hands Sign of ecstasy and trance-like insight Catelyn’s hands raised against the dagger and consecutive new insight through transformation
Poppy flowers or seeds to induce sleep, dreams, trance, or kill/end someone’s life mercifully, euthanasia, also fertility symbol Milk of the poppy
Pandora’s raised hands Pandora emerges into the world from the underground with raised hands Catelyn’s wounded hands
Pandora’s box/jar Actually two jars: one containing death, ilness, old age, poverty, hunger, war. It was opened whereby humanity has to suffer all these ills ever since. It is believed Pandora also carried another jar with good things for humanity Lysa’s box with the lie about Lannisters murdering Jon Arryn, the dagger, and Catelyn’s correct suspicion that Jame threw Bran from the tower
Obol The money a dead shade needs to pay Charon the ferryman to ferry them across the Achethon into Hades, the underworld Ninety silver stags paid to the catspaw

Notes

  1. It may seem surprising that Tommen features as Cersei’s Horus over Joffrey, because clearly her first born Joffrey was the son she admired and indulged, and yet Tommen is the one through whom she gains the most power.
  2. Yes, Robert Arryn, aka Sweetrobin, immediately comes to mind in relation to the “falcon” and “making people fly”
  3. The “eye of Ra” is linked to the sun and can be destructive to restore order, which I will leave to Lucifer Means Lightbringer.
  4. While the deocration style and grooving of vases from Cyprus in Egypt are used to argue knowledge of the poppy in order to get opium predating dat of the Minoan poppy goddess, the poppy goddess figurine is the oldest direct evidence that opium was used in the Medditeranean area at least since 1500-1300 BC.
  5. There exist other female terracotta figurines with raised hands but having other symbols for a headdress like doves, or snakes wrapped around the arms.
  6. J.A. Sakellarakis. Herakleion Museum. Illustrated guide to the Museum. Ekdotike Athinon. Athens 1987. p. 91.
  7. Link to a UN paper regarding the ancient history of the use of opium and the knowledge on how to retrieve it from the poppy flower: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/bulletin/bulletin_1967-01-01_3_page004.html.