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.

Quoth, the Raven

(Top image: The Raven, by Black Toad)

“Pyp should learn to hold his tongue. I have heard the same from others. King’s blood, to wake a dragon. Where Melisandre thinks to find a sleeping dragon, no one is quite sure. It’s nonsense. Mance’s blood is no more royal than mine own. He has never worn a crown nor sat a throne. He’s a brigand, nothing more. There’s no power in brigand’s blood.
The raven looked up from the floor. “Blood,” it screamed. (aFfC, Samwell I)

In They’re Here! I laid before you the circumstantial evidence of the presence of some Others just north of Castle Black the day the Pink Letter arrives and Bowen Marsh attacks Jon, as well as the foreshadowing and indication that the moment Jon’s blood dropped on the snow, the Others raise an army of wights from the many brothers still buried and unburned in the lichyard.

Towards the end, I mentioned the concept of a Blood Seal, for which the whole series of essays is named. Basically the Blood Seal Thesis proposes that while children of the forest provide the spellwork for a warding spell as was used for Storm’s End, the Wall and Bloodraven’s cave, the spell is sealed and locked to a location or area by spilling one’s own blood. The spell then is tied to a particular blood imprint and the seal can only be broken by someone who has a similar imprint. And in the Wall’s case, Jon’s blood can break the seal.

It is quite a simple concept, but devastating for the years of speculation and theorizing on how the Wall ends up destroyed: Mel’s bag of tricks or Sam or Euron blowing the mended horn at the Fist of the First Men in Oldtown. If the Blood Seal Thesis is indeed true, then the true Wall (the magical ward) is already done for when Wyck grazed Jon’s neck. And that, quite understandably, is a hard pill to swallow.

Now, I did not pluck this Blood Seal concept out of thin air. Mormont’s raven shows it to Jon, Sam and the reader. He physically mimes it, using Sam as prop. Hence, this essay will analyze the words and actions of Mormont’s raven for two chapters: Samwell’s first chapter of aFfC and Jon’s second chapter of aDwD. These two chapters belong together, for they start as each other’s timeline parallel in Castle Black, before they conjoin with Jon informing Samwell that he is to go to Oldtown.

Index

  • Mormont’s Raven: my take on the arguments about interpreting the bird.
  • Bloodraven: when Mormont’s raven is skinchanged, Bloodraven is behind it, because this is how Bloodraven keeps true to his vows of the Night’s Watch.
  • Swapping Babes: Bloodraven does not want Jon to swap the babes, foreseeing death.
  • A Mad Mouse: Bloodraven skinchanges a mouse to hurry Sam into interrupting Jon’s meeting with Sam.
  • Saving a Son?: Is Bloodraven a sentimental old sot, or is there more?
  • The Shield: Bloodraven reenacts the blood magic that seals a warding spell.
  • The Seal: more wordplay by George about the Blood Seal
  • The Ward: a hostage is a ward and sending your hostage away may not be a great idea.
  • Conclusion (tl;tr)

Mormont’s Raven

Theorists and book fans have grown dubious about interpreting Mormont’s raven, ever since Ser Creigthon’s corn-code in 2013. Unfortunately the debunking of this proposal has led to a far too easy rejection of interpretations to the raven’s actions and words in certain context. Both the corn-code and Ran’s answer to it are taken out of context. People misremember the corn-code as some type of dictionary with the word corn meaning death, and Ran’s argument is now used to dismiss any and all interpretations of the raven’s actions and words. Ser Creighton argued that George RR Martin hid a code into the raven’s speech that followed rules about repetition, capitals or non-capital as well as punctuation. It treated any raven’s words as some type of morse code to be deciphered, without context. At the time, Ran debunked the corn-code’s premise – that anything ravens say in threes had foreshadowing meaning – and infamously added that sometimes a raven is just hungry (paraphrasing).

For those interested in rereading the corn-code:

While I appreciated Ser Creighton’s effort, the main mistake and flaw of the theory is to try to fixate George’s writing into a hard set of rules. George’s writing is much more fluid and his bag of tricks varied, but never without context. A touch of (phonetic) wordplay, a rare pinch of an anagram, an evocative imaginative scene, a foundation of parallels, a splash of color, and a generous pouring of symbolism sauce. The corn-code never truly treated Mormont’s raven as a character that wishes to add his own two cents to the topic of discussion between characters within its context with the few means it has available. The corn-code never tackled the raven as an animal that is skinchanged at certain times and at other times is a mere intelligent bird with the ability to parrot words. And sometimes the skinchanger hopes to persuade a suspicious character into believing the raven is merely an animal, just like Bran sometimes says “Hodor” while skinchanging Hodor so that Meera and Jojen would not discover the truth. And since the corn-code never considered Mormont’s raven as an actual character, it therefore is just as silly by the naysayers to apply Ran’s argument to any actual analysis that investigates the raven’s words and actions within the context of a scene. Ran never claimed that whatever Mormont’s raven said or did is meaningless. He debunked the secret code idea in particular.

Ryan_Valle_Old_Bear_MormontII
Jeor Mormont with his raven, by Ryan Valle (Fantasy Flight Games)

Analyzing the words and deeds of Mormont’s raven is not easy and certainly not always entirely obvious. Aside from interpreting his words, behavior or body language, one must first determine whether we are seeing Mormont’s raven in action as animal or as skinchanged. I do have a vague rule to assess this: when the raven behaves very deliberate then most of the time he is being skinchanged. And yes, I emphasize “most of the time”, because George also is quite capable of convincing the reader that when the raven is flapping and screaming “snow” repeatedly in warning as I pointed out in They’re Here! it must be skinchanged, when in fact a non-skinchanged raven may be just as alarmed naturally by the smell of the Others or wights as much as Chett’s dogs are at the Fist. In Samwell’s first chapter of aFfC as well as Jon’s second chapter of aDwD, however, Mormont’s raven behaves too deliberate to ascribe to natural behavior and each word and action fits within a certain skinchanger attempting to warn Sam and Jon against the consequences of the baby swap.

Bloodraven

Before we tackle those particular chapters, I will lay down the arguments that Mormont’s raven is being skinchanged by Bloodraven in particular. Even if we ‘know’ or ‘speculated’ that Mormont’s raven is being skinchanged, we tend to think of him more as a super intelligent bird with uncanny foreknowledge all on his own. That was how he we came to think of him when he was introduced to us in aGoT and had no idea there was such a thing as skinchanging (only introduced in aCoK). But in aDwD he confirms it via Jon’s Wall dream.

The world dissolved into a red mist. Jon stabbed and slashed and cut. He hacked down Donal Noye and gutted Deaf Dick Follard. Qhorin Halfhand stumbled to his knees, trying in vain to staunch the flow of blood from his neck. “I am the Lord of Winterfell,” Jon screamed. It was Robb before him now, his hair wet with melting snow. Longclaw took his head off. Then a gnarled hand seized Jon roughly by the shoulder. He whirled …and woke with a raven pecking at his chest. “Snow,” the bird cried. Jon swatted at it. The raven shrieked its displeasure and flapped up to a bedpost to glare down balefully at him through the predawn gloom. (aDwD, Jon XII)

Someone actually entered into Jon’s dream to wake him up and that someone has a gnarled hand, and thus a tree related individual. Only greenseers have been proven to enter someone’s dream and interact with them. The three-eyed-crow appeared to Jojen in a greywater fever dream and visited Bran’s dreams often, including an infamous one to “wake” him out of his coma after his fall. And Bran appeared once as a slender weirwood in Jon’s wolf dream when he was warging Ghost. Bran then touched Jon’s own third eye, after which Jon became aware he was a warg and actively used Ghost to spy on the wildlings gathering at the source of the Milkwater. And Bran’s own POV in aCoK confirms this was a shared experience.

In the quoted Wall-dream the gnarled hand is associated to Mormont’s raven trying to wake him as well. One might argue that the greenseer reaching out for Jon’s shoulder with his (tree) gnarled hand may not be the raven. But as Jon dresses himself after being woken, Mormont’s raven points out that Jon is King.

He rose and dressed in darkness, as Mormont’s raven muttered across the room. “Corn,” the bird said, and, “King,” and, “Snow, Jon Snow, Jon Snow.” That was queer. The bird had never said his full name before, as best Jon could recall. (aDwD, Jon XII)

Mormont’s raven did not say this out of the blue, but was correcting Jon’s own dream-claim. The raven could only do so if he was a witness to Jon’s dream, and thus the same greenseer with the gnarled hand. So, this is the scene where George shows us without telling that Mormont’s raven is being skinchanged by a greenseer.

So, why Bloodraven and not Bran? After all, this dream occurs around the time Stannis interrogates Theon and both Bloodraven and Bran skinchange two ravens, advising to drag Theon before a weirwood tree. Bran already appeared as a weirwood tree in Jon’s wolf dream in the Skirling Pass in aCoK. So, having him interact with tree features in Jon’s Wall dream might be a hint to this. I can not fully dismiss that possibility for this dream instance. However, I would point out that there is a second character trying to wake Jon from his dream as an eagle.

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. (aDwD, Jon XII)

In other words, Bloodraven and Bran are both visiting Jon in this dream, the teacher and pupil. I lean towards Bran being the eagle, while the gnarled hand and Mormont’s raven are Bloodraven. The eagle attempts to wake Jon without much awareness of the magical significance of this dream, while the gnarled hand intervenes in a manner he wants to halt Jon’s Wall dream right there and then. The word gnarled fits the ancient Bloodraven more, and Melisandre sees Bloodraven as a wooden man in her flames.

A face took shape within the hearth. Stannis? she thought, for just a moment … but no, these were not his features. A wooden face, corpse white. Was this the enemy? A thousand red eyes floated in the rising flames. He sees me. Beside him, a boy with a wolf’s face threw back his head and howled. (aDwD, Melisandre I)

bloodraven_tree_seanclosson
Bloodraven, by Sean Closson

There is also another symbolic connection with Bloodraven being the gnarled hand and the raven calling Jon Snow king, and not Bran. It harks back to Bloodraven’s life before he left for the Wall and beyond: Bloodraven was the Hand of the King to two Targaryen kings, Aerys I and Maekar I, and kingmaker when he arrested and executed Aenys Blackfyre. And thus, this imagery of the gnarled hand reaching for Jon’s shoulder and as raven referring to him as king would make it so that Bloodraven served as Hand to a third (Targaryen) king in the skin of Mormont’s raven. This symbolic impact of threes would be lacking if in this instant Bran is the gnarled hand and skinchaning Mormont’s raven. Take note that my proposal here implies that Bran and Bloodraven already witnessed the events of the Tower of Joy from their end, and thus I predict that any such Bran POV chapter in tWoW would timeline with aDwD, Jon XII.

This particular dream waking by Mormont’s raven is not the first time we see this. In his first chapter of aDwD, Jon is woken up in a similar manner from a warg dream.

Snow,” the moon murmured. The wolf made no answer. Snow crunched beneath his paws. The wind sighed through the trees. […] Snow,” the moon called down again, cackling. The white wolf padded along the man trail beneath the icy cliff. The taste of blood was on his tongue, and his ears rang to the song of the hundred cousins. Once they had been six, five whimpering blind in the snow beside their dead mother, sucking cool milk from her hard dead nipples whilst he crawled off alone. Four remained … and one the white wolf could no longer sense. “Snow,” the moon insisted. […] “Snow.” An icicle tumbled from a branch. The white wolf turned and bared his teeth. Snow!” His fur rose bristling, as the woods dissolved around him. “Snow, snow, snow!” He heard the beat of wings. Through the gloom a raven flewIt landed on Jon Snow’s chest with a thump and a scrabbling of claws. “SNOW!” it screamed into his face. (aDwD, Jon I)

As Jon wargs Ghost, the moon starts to call his name to wake him. And as Jon wakes Mormont’s raven lands on his chest screaming his name to wake him. That the moon is actually the raven we can determine by the mention of the moon cackling. Notice too that as Jon wakes the raven is beating its wings and flying to land on his chest. The raven therefore sat perched somewhere in the room at a distance, fitting with the further off moon calling Jon’s name. At this point, Bran has not yet skinchanged any raven yet. Nor do Bran’s POVs of aDwD reveal he decided to serve as an alarm clock for the Lord Commander at the Wall. And thus here we can be certain that Bloodraven = Mormont’s raven, and always has been.

This gives an insight into Bloodraven that may not match with the general reader perception of him based on the gossip of the smallfolk in the Dunk & Egg novellas and his Machiavellian choices as Hand of the King. When readers suggest that Bloodraven skinchanges any other animal beyond Mormont’s raven south of the Neck, they basically consider him still hanging on to his role as Master of Whisperers, spying on anyone anywhere in the realm with regards the Iron Throne. In that view, Bloodraven only skinchanges Mormont’s raven in crucial scenes to keep tabs on the Night’s Watch on an equal level that he spies on the plots in the Red Keep in the black tomcat believed to be Rhaenys’ kitten Balerion. Bloodraven skinchanging Mormont’s raven to be Jon’s alarm clock seems a use of his precious time far beneath that. And yet, I would argue that the animal that Bloodraven skinchanges most of the time is in fact Mormont’s raven, and that this goes beyond keeping tabs. As Mormont’s raven, Bloodraven has attempted to remain true to his vows to the best of his ability: making suggestions to Lord Commanders and waking them up like a steward.

Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. 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, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night’s Watch, for this night and all the nights to come. (aGoT, Jon VI)

LC Brynden Rivers of the NW by Mike Hallstein
Lord Commander Brynden Rivers of the Night’s Watch, by Mike Hallstein

Brynden Rivers ended up taking the black, after he arrested and executed Aenys Blackfyre who had wanted to press his claim at the Great Council of 233 AC after the death of Maekar I. When Aegon V was chosen as the new king, he gave Bloodraven the choice between execution or taking the black. He opted for the black and formed an honor guard to accompany maester Aemon to the Wall. This backstory cleverly makes Bloodraven out to a man who was forced to go to the Wall like a common criminal and abandoned his post eventually to seek for another greenseer.

But I think it was almost a certainty Bloodraven had already decided to join maester Aemon to the Wall voluntarily at the age of 58, once Aemon Targaryen had rejected the offer of a crown. His choices and actions with Daemon II Blackfyre at Whitewalls (in Mystery Knight) show that Brynden Rivers was fully capable of entrapping and arresting traitors and Blackfyres without bloodshed. Bloodraven’s choice to allow Aenys Blackfyre to come, arrest and execute him make the most sense, if he had already decided to step down as Hand and go to the Wall. Once Aemon had rejected the crown, the sole viable Targaryen claimant was Aegon. Meanwhile Aenys Blackfyre proved to be dillusional, but also power hungry. He may have been Daemon Blackfyre’s son, but he tried to jump ahead of his nephew, the son of his older brother, without the backing of even Bittersteel (see House Blackfyre). Aenys’ claim would have failed, but he could form certain alliances with houses (who had just cost them king Maekar) to make trouble at the start of the reign of the new king Aegon. So, he could go to the Wall for the remainder of his life, with his honor intact and hand a divided realm to young king Aegon V,  or he could go to the Wall as a convicted criminal, and give Aegon V a few years before Bittersteel would attempt another rebellion with Daemon III (the nephew Aenys tried to get ahead in line of). Ruthless, to be sure, and Machiavellian, but it was never a reason to doubt his devotion for the Wall before and after his disappearance at 77 during a ranging in 252 AC.

And yes, I have quotes that support the notion that at the very least Bloodraven still considers himself a man of the Night’s Watch.

The Lord Commander’s place is at Castle Black, lording and commanding,” [Thoren Smallwood] told Mormont, ignoring [Jon and Sam], “it seems to me.”
The raven flapped big black wings.Me, me, me.”
“If you are ever Lord Commander, you may do as you please,” Mormont told the ranger, “but it seems to me that I have not died yet, nor have the brothers put you in my place.”(aCoK, Jon I)

When Jeor Mormont is about to go on the great ranging, Thoren Smallwood tries to convince Jeor that the Lord Commander should not go ranging at all and should remain at Castle Black. Mormont’s raven refers to himself as the role of Lord Commander. It is as if he is saying, “I can lord and command”. After all, Bloodraven was elected as Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch in 239 AC and he has not yet died.

So, basically what I am saying is that Bloodraven still tries to honor his oath to the Night’s Watch. It may be that he does it in an unorthodox way, both by skinchanging a raven at the Wall to remain at his post as well as searching and now training a greenseer. Nevertheless both align with shielding the realms of men. It is not that different from Jon realizing that the Free Folk are also men/humans and therefore they are part of the realms of men and worth protecting. When we keep that in the back of our mind, then some of his actions and words as Mormont’s raven can be understood more in depth.

Swapping Babes

One of the major plot developments of both aFfC, Samwell I and aDwD, Jon II is Jon’s plan to send Gilly away from the Wall together with maester Aemon and Mance’s baby, instead of her own son. Amongst readers there is much speculation on the fate of Gilly’s boy because of this swap. And when people argue that sweet little Monster is doomed, they often dig up the dark words of Mormont’s raven in aDwD, Jon II as foreshadowing for this. In fact, I was doing an elaborate analysis on the baby swap plot, when I realized that the raven’s words are more than the literary device of foreshadowing, but instead come from a character with foreknowledge who wants to stop the swap. And I will argue that Bloodraven goes to certain lengths in attempting to stop it.

For a correct analysis of Mormont’s raven commentary, we must reshuffle the two chapters into one but from Bloodraven’s POV. And thus we must begin with aDwD, Jon II first, then switch to aFfC, Samwell I, back to aDwD, Jon II and then both chapters parallel to each other. Jon’s chapter starts with him reading the letter he is supposed to send to King’s Landing, what he refers to as a paper shield, over and over until his eyes blur, knowing he must sign it, but unwilling to do so. Dolorous Edd interrupts Jon by announcing Gilly’s arrival.

It was a relief when Dolorous Edd Tollett opened the door to tell him that Gilly was without. Jon set Maester Aemon’s letter aside. I will see her.” He dreaded this. “Find Sam for me. I will want to speak with him next.
He’ll be down with the books. My old septon used to say that books are dead men talking. Dead men should keep quiet, is what I say. No one wants to hear a dead man’s yabber.” Dolorous Edd went off muttering of worms and spiders. (aDwD, Jon II)

Jon asks Edd to find him Sam and that he wishes to speak with him after Gilly. And Tollett volunteers that his best chance in finding Sam will be down in the library. Gilly enters and Jon informs her he has to tell her something hard. After confirming that Mance will burn, he points out how the life of Dalla’s son is in danger as well.

“[…] It’s not [Mance] we need to talk about. It’s his son. Dalla’s boy.”
“The babe?” Her voice trembled. “He never broke no oath, m’lord. He sleeps and cries and sucks, is all; he’s never done no harm to no one. Don’t let her burn him. Save him, please.”
Only you can do that, Gilly.” Jon told her how. (aDwD, Jon II)

The chapter never puts Jon’s plan into speech, but the how is revealed in aFfC to send Gilly away from the Wall with Dalla’s boy, pretending that the babe is her son. Bloodraven learns of Jon’s plan the same time that Gilly is told of it here. The greenseer may be able to interact with Jon and Bran on the dreamscape and enter their dreams, but that is the closest he can come to “mind reading”.

Bloodraven and Gilly give a similar reply to Jon’s plan.

Gilly shook her head.No. Please, no.”
The raven picked up the word. “No,” it screamed. (aDwD, Jon II)

Gilly and Monster_beespit
Gilly, by beespit

What follows are Jon’s arguments to Gilly where he represents Mel burning Mance’s son a certainty and even threatens to kill Gilly’s son the day that Dalla’s son burns if Gilly refuses.

“You will make a crow of him.” She wiped at her tears with the back of a small pale hand. “I won’t. I won’t.”
Kill the boy, thought Jon. “You will. Else I promise you, the day that they burn Dalla’s boy, yours will die as well.”
Die,” shrieked the Old Bear’s raven. “Die, die, die.” (aDwD, Jon II)

If Bloodraven foresees (multiple) death, then why does he remain silent for so long in between screaming, “No,” and “Die”? The conversation is no less ominous, also mentions dying and death, but it takes almost two pages of interaction before Mormont’s raven speaks again. We would almost expect him to scream “burn” or “take him” or “cold” and other phrases the raven has uttered in the past. But the raven says none of that. It takes so long, in contrast to his own initial protest, that it leads to the possibility that Bloodraven was not actually in the skin of Mormont’s raven in between his “No,” and “Die”.

I propose that Bloodraven realized that Gilly needed an ally by her side to have the strength to withstand Jon’s pressure and coming threats: Sam. Jon had sent Edd Tollett in search of Samwell to speak with him after Gilly. If Bloodraven could get Sam moving before that, then Sam might interrupt Jon’s meeting with Gilly and prevent the swap from happening. Sam faced and killed wights to protect and save Gilly and her son. If he could find the courage to do that, he also would have the courage to tell Jon “No”.

A Mad Mouse

Dolorous Edd had volunteered Sam’s whereabouts, and so Bloodraven knew exactly where to find him: in the library with his books. Now I ask you to whose benefit was it that George had Edd reveal Sam’s whereabouts? Tollett is the one to fetch him and it is odd that he would voice the location. Jon does not care where Edd will find Sam, as long as he finds him and tells him to go see Jon. The sole in-world reason for Tollett to mention the otherwise superfluous information of Sam’s whereabouts is for a third ear, which is the raven’s, and thus Bloodraven.

So, after witnessing Jon’s first response to Gilly’s no, Bloodraven stops skinchanging Mormont’s raven and instead skinchanges …

Sam was reading about the Others when he saw the mouse.
His eyes were red and raw. I ought not rub them so much, he always told himself as he rubbed them. (aFfC, Samwell I)

A mouse!

Shadrich mad mouse by John Jennette
Shadrich’s personal arms, by John Jennette

The idea that the mouse in Samwell’s library may be skinchanged is not new. Plenty of people who are on a reread, at least wonder about it for the two first sentences in Samwell’s first chapter of aFfC. A few of those raise the question on the internet. And a rare person will claim that the children of the forest and Bloodraven are skinchanging mice in Castle Black’s library to destroy the information it has about the Others. But overall the question whether that mouse is being skinchanged that very moment is quickly laid to rest again.

Firstly, yes, George wants you to consider the possibility that the mouse is being skinchanged. Those first two sentences contain attention grabbers: mention about the Others and red eyes, and when you are on a reread you remember also some Mad Mouse character in Brienne’s and Sansa’s arc. The truth is that the mouse’s eyes are not actually red. Samwell’s eyes are. He was reading in a dusty moldy library for hours on end. Nevertheless George sure managed to grab your attention and make you wonder. At the very least, George made you reread those two opening sentences twice.

The reasons for the reader to dismiss the skinchanging idea of the mouse so quickly are:

  • It is just a grey mouse with black eyes.
  • Nothing eventful seems to take place. All the mouse does is feast on Sam’s leftovers of bread and cheese. It does not point Sam to an important revealing passage about defeating the Others, or even a particular book full of forgotten lore. No, nothing of that sort occurs. Sam does not even succeed in squashing it with a book: the mouse escapes.
  • Bloodraven is already skinchanging Mormont’s raven in Jon’s solar, screaming “No!” and “Die” and reading Jon’s paper shield when Sam enters the solar, and Bloodraven cannot skinchange two animals at once.

The first reason for dismissal is based on an erroneous self invented rule. Summer and Mormont’s raven are not albinos, and are nevertheless skinchanged. The white-red coloring is more a symbol of alignment or association to weirwoods and Bloodraven, rather than evidence on skinchanging itself. This alignment may be done through suggestion rather than actual coloring, and George does make the suggestion in those two first sentences. More, George has tied mice often with skinchangers before. Arya thinks of herself as a mouse at Harrenhal, and Arya is a skinchanger. Sansa too is called a mouse twice. Her skinchanging abilities are not developed, but George has confirmed that she is. Varamyr is referred to look like a mouse. And then of course we have Shadrich of the Shady Glenn referring to himself as the Mad Mouse who does carry personal arms with a white mouse and red eyes, as cocksure as if he was the knight of the laughing tree. (see Shadrich, Morgarth and Byron by Blue-Eyed-Wolf). Victarion refers to maester Kerwin of Greenshield a mouse as well.

 “Could that mouse of a maester be doing this? Maesters know spells and other tricks. He might be using one to poison me, hoping I will let him cut my hand off.” The more he thought on it, the more likely it seemed. “The Crow’s Eye gave him to me, wretched creature that he is.” Euron had taken Kerwin off Greenshield, where he had been in service to Lord Chester, tending his ravens and teaching his children, or perhaps the other away around. (aDwD, The Iron Suitor)

This particular mouse’s fate and treatment by the Ironborn is abominable – he is raped by sailors and eventually killed by Victarion because he failed to heal Vic’s gangrenous wound. Though of course Kerwin as maester is unlikely to have been a skinchanger or even someone who prayed to the old gods, it should be noted that the castle he served, Greenshield, is an allusion to a location protected by “green” magic, where ravens and children (of the forest) live.

The third reason assumes wrongly that Bloodraven must be skinchanging Mormont’s raven the whole time. I pointed out that the raven is suspiciously silent almost throughout Jon’s meeting with Gilly, which includes several opportunities to cry “Die” far earlier and a lengthy scene of Gilly holding her hand above a flame. Bloodraven could indeed exit Mormont’s raven and skinchange the mouse for a short while to accomplish his intent and return to the skin of Mormont’s raven.

The second reason for dismissal is all about motive. Like Sam we regard a library as a potential treasure trove of secret information. We hope and, for trope reasons, expect Sam to discover the crucial secret about the Others and the Wall in a book. So, if Bloodraven is going to bother with skinchanging any animal in the library it must be either to lead Sam to such a discovery or obstruct him. Since the first obviously does not happen, and we are regularly reminded on how mice nibble at books in the library, the theorized motive for skinchanging whenever the mouse is brought up on forums or reddit becomes obstructing Sam in finding out the truth.

The mouse was half as long as his pinky finger, with black eyes and soft grey fur. Sam knew he ought to kill it. Mice might prefer bread and cheese, but they ate paper too. He had found plenty of mouse droppings amongst the shelves and stacks, and some of the leather covers on the books showed signs of being gnawed. It is such a little thing, though. And hungry. How could he begrudge it a few crumbs? It’s eating books, though . . . (aFfC, Samwell I)

And while some readers have come to believe this as a motive for skinchanging mice in general at Castle Black, it clashes for this mouse in question. If Jon’s exchange with Gilly is so crucial to Bloodraven, he did not just think to himself, “Oh well I’ll have a nibble at some books while I’m at it. This is getting boring.” And if that was indeed his plan, he ended up doing the opposite: exposing himself to Sam and nearly gets the mouse killed. Of course, the counter argument to the idea that the children of the forest and Bloodraven are skinchanging mice to gnaw at books in their spare time is that mice will do this anyhow. There is no need to skinchange mice for mice to do mice-things.

Given the subject at hand in Jon’s solar at the time, Bloodraven’s motive is crucial. I propose that Bloodraven hopes to get to Sam in the library before Dolorous Edd, and have him leave his books so that he bumbles into Jon’s meeting with Gilly and can be her ally against Jon’s bullying. Sam is such a book lover that he forgets all about time and space, and even food. Not that many events can draw Sam’s attention away from books. Only that which destroys books could: fire or mice. And there are plenty of mice that can be skinchanged in the library. Mice are not bold creatures that go near humans and eat their food by candle light right under their nose. That particular mouse must be either mad because of toxoplasmosis or it is being skinchanged.

Samwell Tarly and the mouse, by Colin Boyer

The motive I propose is exactly what the mouse achieves:  it draws Sam’s attention, away from reading. He actually stops reading, for the very first time in hours and hours.

One more book, he had told himself, then I’ll stop. One more folio, just one more. One more page, then I’ll go up and rest and get a bite to eat. But there was always another page after that one, and another after that, and another book waiting underneath the pile. I’ll just take a quick peek to see what this one is about, he’d think, and before he knew he would be halfway through it. He had not eaten since that bowl of bean-and-bacon soup with Pyp and Grenn. Well, except for the bread and cheese, but that was only a nibble, he thought. That was when he took a quick glance at the empty platter, and spied the mouse feasting on the bread crumbs. (aFfC, Samwell I)

Take note that the mouse is said to feast in the first chapter, after the prologue, of a book called A Feast for Crows. If the mouse is being skinchanged by Bloodraven in this moment, a three-eyed-crow is feasting.

This may seem a non-event to you, but in Sam’s case it is a huge feat. Sam does not just stop reading. The mouse makes him move.

After hours in the chair Sam’s back was stiff as a board, and his legs were half-asleep. He knew he was not quick enough to catch the mouse, but it might be he could squash it. By his elbow rested a massive leather-bound copy of Annals of the Black Centaur, Septon Jorquen’s exhaustively detailed account of the nine years that Orbert Caswell had served as Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. […] No mouse is a match for Septon Jorquen. Very slowly, Sam took hold of the book with his left hand.  It was thick and heavy, and when he tried to lift it one-handed, it slipped from his plump fingers and thumped back down. The mouse was gone in half a heartbeat, skittery-quick. (aFfC, Samwell I)

And then Sam becomes aware of time and actually gets up. He decides to leave the library.

He was surprised at how low the candle had burned. Had the bean-and-bacon soup been today or yesterday? Yesterday. It must have been yesterday. The realization made him yawn. Jon would be wondering what had become of him, though Maester Aemon would no doubt understand. […] Pushing himself to his feet, Sam grimaced at the pins and needles in his calves. (aFfC, Samwell I)

Sam is already back up at the yard from the library when he runs into Dolorous Edd who was sent by Jon to fetch him.

“Samwell,” said a glum voice, “I was coming to fetch you. I was told to bring you to the Lord Commander.”
A snowflake landed on Sam’s nose. “Jon wants to see me?”
“As to that, I could not say,” said Dolorous Edd Tollett. “I never wanted to see half the things I’ve seen, and I’ve never seen half the things I wanted to. I don’t think wanting comes into it. You’d best go all the same. Lord Snow wishes to speak with you as soon as he is done with Craster’s wife.”
“Gilly.”
“That’s the one. If my wet nurse had looked like her, I’d still be on the teat. Mine had whiskers.”
“Most goats do,” called Pyp, as he and Grenn emerged from around the corner, with longbows in hand and quivers of arrows on their backs. “Where have you been, Slayer? We missed you last night at supper. A whole roast ox went uneaten.”
“Don’t call me Slayer.” Sam ignored the gibe about the ox. That was just Pyp. “I was reading. There was a mouse . . .” (aFfC, Samwell |)

So, if Bloodraven skinchanged the mouse to get Samwell moving quick enough to interrupt Jon’s meeting with Gilly, he had succeeded initially. He could however not account for Pyp and Grenn wanting to make conversation with Samwell over nothing of importance, despite Sam’s protests and insistence that he must see Jon. Unfortunately, Pyp delayed Sam so that he arrives at Jon’s solar just as Gilly leaves.

I don’t have time for this.” Sam left his friends and made his way toward the armory, clutching his books to his chest. […] Gilly was leaving as Sam arrived, wrapped up in the old cloak he’d given her when they were fleeing Craster’s Keep. She almost rushed right past him, but Sam caught her arm, spilling two books as he did. (aFfC, Samwell I)

In other words, if Sam had not been delayed by Pyp, Grenn and Edd, he would have stumbled into the meeting before Jon could bully Gilly into silence on the subject.

Saving a Son?

It seems reasonable to assume that Bloodraven is against the swapping of the babes, because of the team effort in saving Sam, Gilly and her son from the wights at the not-Whitetree village.

A mother can’t leave her son, or else she’s cursed forever. Not a son. We saved him, Sam and me. Please. Please, m’lord. We saved him from the cold.” (aDwD, Jon II)

Bloodraven has been involved in the business of saving Sam, Gilly and her son, since the mutiny.

“The girl don’t lie,” the old woman on the right said. “She’s my girl, and I beat the lying out of her early on. You said you’d help her. Do what Ferny says, boy. Take the girl and be quick about it.”
Quick,” the raven said. “Quick quick quick.” (aSoS, Samwell II)

Then when Samwell and Gilly arrived at the anonymous village north of the Wall, Sam prays to the Old gods in front of a weirwood.

[Samwell] turned back to the weirwood and studied the carved face a moment. It is not the face we saw, he admitted to himself. The tree’s not half as big as the one at Whitetree. The red eyes wept blood, and he didn’t remember that either. Clumsily, Sam sank to his knees. “Old gods, hear my prayer. The Seven were my father’s gods but I said my words to you when I joined the Watch. Help us now. I fear we might be lost. We’re hungry too, and so cold. I don’t know what gods I believe in now, but . . . please, if you’re there, help us. Gilly has a little son.” That was all that he could think to say. The dusk was deepening, the leaves of the weirwood rustling softly, waving like a thousand blood-red hands. Whether Jon’s gods had heard him or not he could not say. (aSoS, Samwell III)

In this manner, Sam let Bloodraven know his position and whereabouts, and sends Coldhands to the village so that he can accompany Sam to the Black Gate for when Bran arrives there and must pass the Wall. But wights find them first.

“He’s come for the babe,” Gilly wept. “He smells him. A babe fresh-born stinks o’ life. He’s come for the life.” (aSoS, Samwell III)

The wight though has a raven for a companion that tries to peck and strip him, as Sam fights him.

Hoarfrost whitened [Small Paul’s] beard, and on one shoulder hunched a raven, pecking at his cheek, eating the dead white flesh. […] The raven on his shoulder ripped a strip of flesh from his pale ruined cheek. […] Samwell Tarly threw himself forward and plunged the dagger down into Small Paul’s back. Half-turned, the wight never saw him coming. The raven gave a shriek and took to the air. […]  The wight was burning, hoarfrost dripping from his beard as the flesh beneath blackened. Sam heard the raven shriek, but Paul himself made no sound. (aSoS, Samwell III)

That raven should be regarded as a scout or outflyer from Coldhands. Small Paul was not the only wight. There were more, outside. And both Coldhands and Bloodraven united all ravens as a vanguard to attack the wights, until Coldhands could rescue them/

alec-acevedo-got-ravens-11x17
Weirwood Ravens, by Alec Acevedo

She stood with her back against the weirwood, the boy in her arms. The wights were all around her. There were a dozen of them, a score, more . . . some had been wildlings once, and still wore skins and hides . . . but more had been his brothers. Sam saw Lark the Sisterman, Softfoot, Ryles. The wen on Chett’s neck was black, his boils covered with a thin film of ice. And that one looked like Hake, though it was hard to know for certain with half his head missing. They had torn the poor garron apart, and were pulling out her entrails with dripping red hands. Pale steam rose from her belly. Sam made a whimpery sound. “It’s not fair . . .” (aSoS, Samwell III)

At this point Bloodraven speaks to Sam via raven and a large murder of ravens descend on the wights.

Fair.” The raven landed on his shoulder. “Fair, far, fear.” It flapped its wings, and screamed along with Gilly. The wights were almost on her. He heard the dark red leaves of the weirwood rustling, whispering to one another in a tongue he did not know. The starlight itself seemed to stir, and all around them the trees groaned and creaked. Sam Tarly turned the color of curdled milk, and his eyes went wide as plates. Ravens! They were in the weirwood, hundreds of them, thousands, perched on the bone-white branches, peering between the leaves. He saw their beaks open as they screamed, saw them spread their black wings. Shrieking, flapping, they descended on the wights in angry clouds. They swarmed round Chett’s face and pecked at his blue eyes, they covered the Sisterman like flies, they plucked gobbets from inside Hake’s shattered head. There were so many that when Sam looked up, he could not see the moon. “Go,” said the bird on his shoulder. “Go, go, go.”
Sam ran, puffs of frost exploding from his mouth. All around him the wights flailed at the black wings and sharp beaks that assailed them, falling in an eerie silence with never a grunt nor cry. But the ravens ignored Sam. He took Gilly by the hand and pulled her away from the weirwood. “We have to go.” (aSoS, Samwell III)

Sam realizes that words are whispered in a language unknown to him, which is either the Old Tongue of the First Men or the True Tongue of the children of the forest. Though Bloodraven is referred to as the “last greenseer” by the children of the forest, he is not the sole one in the cave. Bran sees plenty of singers on greenseer thrones.

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)

This means that all the skinchangers and greenseers of Bloodraven’s cave were involved in the effort to keep a true Black brother alive as well as Gilly and her son, until Coldhands arrived.

Brother!” The shout cut through the night, through the shrieks of a thousand ravens. Beneath the trees, a man muffled head to heels in mottled blacks and greys sat astride an elk. “Here,” the rider called. A hood shadowed his face. He’s wearing blacks. Sam urged Gilly toward him. The elk was huge, a great elk, ten feet tall at the shoulder, with a rack of antlers near as wide. The creature sank to his knees to let them mount. “Here,” the rider said, reaching down with a gloved hand to pull Gilly up behind him.
Then it was Sam’s turn. “My thanks,” he puffed. Only when he grasped the offered hand did he realize that the rider wore no glove. His hand was black and cold, with fingers hard as stone. (aSoS, Samwell III)

Bloodraven and Coldhands did not save them just because Sam prayed to them, but because he needed Sam to open the Black Gate for Bran so that he could escort him to Bloodraven.

“From Craster’s,” the girl said. “Are you the one?”
Jojen turned to look at her. “The one?”
“He said that Sam wasn’t the one,” she explained. “There was someone else, he said. The one he was sent to find.”
“Who said?” Bran demanded.
“Coldhands,” Gilly answered softly.
Meera peeled back one end of her net, and the fat man managed to sit up. He was shaking, Bran saw, and still struggling to catch his breath. “He said there would be people,” he huffed. “People in the castle. I didn’t know you’d be right at the top of the steps, though. I didn’t know you’d throw a net on me or stab me in the stomach.” He touched his belly with a black-gloved hand. “Am I bleeding? I can’t see.” (aSoS, Bran IV)

It is important to take note of the fact that the night when Sam arrives at the Nightfort is not the same night he was rescued by Coldhands from the wights at the village. There was a full moon the night at the village and a half-moon at the Nightfort, which would be a third quarter half-moon. The two chapters are about a week apart. Since Sam arrives at the Nightfort on the first night of Bran’s arrival there, this means that Bloodraven had foreseen Bran would be there, before he had arrived, and likely even had foreseen that Sam would be the man to help Bran through the Black Gate.

“You won’t find it. If you did it wouldn’t open. Not for you. It’s the Black Gate.” Sam plucked at the faded black wool of his sleeve. “Only a man of the Night’s Watch can open it, he said. A Sworn Brother who has said his words.”
“He said.” Jojen frowned. “This . . .Coldhands?”
“That wasn’t his true name,” said Gilly, rocking. “We only called him that, Sam and me. His hands were cold as ice, but he saved us from the dead men, him and his ravens, and he brought us here on his elk.” (aSoS, Bran IV)

So, close inspection does not warrant the assumption that Bloodraven wishes to save the baby in particular. By the time that Bloodraven sent Sam on his way with Gilly and her son from Craster’s as Mormont’s raven, all the other true brothers of the Night’s Watch had already fled Craster’s and went straight for Castle Black. Meanwhile it was in evidence that Sam needed Gilly and the baby for courage and will to get to the Wall, to survive. Even Gilly points out that the wights came for fresh-life, not necessarily because he is Craster’s son. And in From Sandkings to Nightqueens I show all the evidence and reasoning that babies serve as meat for the Mother of the Others, instead of the imho the flawed theory that Craster’s sons are Otherized. And if babies are meat, then it matters little to the Others whether that meat is Craster’s or Mance’s.

When Mormont’s raven shrieks die four times during Jon’s meeting with Gilly that seems quite a bit excessive to foretell the death of just one baby. It is an indication that Bloodraven foresees a lot of death. Take for instance the scene when Jeor Mormont announces his decision to seek the confrontation with Mance’s united army of wildlings to the men of the Night’s Watch at the Fist of the First Men, Mormont’s raven cries die four times plus.

We’ll die.” That was Maslyn’s voice, green with fear.
Die,” screamed Mormont’s raven, flapping its black wings. “Die, die, die.”
Many of us,” the Old Bear said. “Mayhaps even all of us. But as another Lord Commander said a thousand years ago, that is why they dress us in black. Remember your words, brothers. For we are the swords in the darkness, the watchers on the walls . . .”
[…]
When the shouting died away, once more he heard the sound of the wind picking at the ringwall. The flames swirled and shivered, as if they too were cold, and in the sudden quiet the Old Bear’s raven cawed loudly and once again said, “Die.” (aSoS, Prologue)

He says die five times too when Jeor realizes they must turn the Fist into a fortress to slow or halt Mance’s army and tells Qhorin to pick his men to scout.

“Belike we shall all die, then. Our dying will buy time for our brothers on the Wall. Time to garrison the empty castles and freeze shut the gates, time to summon lords and kings to their aid, time to hone their axes and repair their catapults. Our lives will be coin well spent.”
Die,” the raven muttered, pacing along Mormont’s shoulders.Die, die, die, die.” The Old Bear sat slumped and silent, as if the burden of speech had grown too heavy for him to bear. But at last he said, “May the gods forgive me. Choose your men.”
Qhorin Halfhand turned his head. His eyes met Jon’s, and held them for a long moment. “Very well. I choose Jon Snow.” (aCoK, Jon V)

Four times die is slightly less than five times. About 270 brothers died on Jeor’s great ranging, including the scouts in the Frostfangs and those killed during the mutiny at Craster’s, aside from those who died at the Fist. So, we can roughly conclude that Bloodraven foresees about 200 deaths, as a consequence of the swap. So, this is about something bigger than saving a baby’s life, let alone out of some sentiment of having saved him in the past.

The Shield

Since, I propose that Bloodraven skinchanged the mouse in the hope to have Sam interrupt Jon’s meeting with Gilly, it stands to reason that Mormont’s raven would try to signal something to Sam upon his arrival. And this should give us a better understanding. As it turns out, when Sam enters the solar, we instantly are bombarded with plenty of action by Mormont’s raven.

[…] when the bird spied Sam it spread its wings and flapped toward him crying, “Corn, corn!”
Shifting the books, Sam thrust his arm into the sack beside the door and came out with a handful of kernels. The raven landed on his wrist and took one from his palm, pecking so hard that Sam yelped and snatched his hand back. The raven took to the air again, and yellow and red kernels went everywhere.
Close the door, Sam.” Faint scars still marked Jon’s cheek, where an eagle had once tried to rip his eye out. “Did that wretch break the skin?
Sam eased the books down and peeled off his glove. “He did.” He felt faint. “I’m bleeding.” (aFfC, Samwell I)

The raven spies Sam, flaps towards him and cries for corn. As Samwell takes out kernels of corn and opens his hand to the raven, he pecks so hard he pierces Sam’s glove and skin, drawing blood. With the demand for corn, we are inclined to think of it just being a raven in this instance. But this is negated by the raven purposefully reading the parchment from Jon’s shoulder. Furthermore, pecking so hard that he makes Sam bleed is  unprecedented. The worst he has done before was shit on Jeor’s shoulders when Jeor was eating Craster’s questionable breakfast. So, yes, the raven is being skinchanged by Bloodraven in this instance.

A possible explanation might be that Bloodraven was upset with Sam’s tardiness and wanted to punish him. However, once we add the raven’s response to Jon’s statement about the power of blood once he’s done eating the corn, this becomes quite unlikely.

“Pyp should learn to hold his tongue. I have heard the same from others. King’s blood, to wake a dragon. Where Melisandre thinks to find a sleeping dragon, no one is quite sure. It’s nonsense. Mance’s blood is no more royal than mine own. He has never worn a crown nor sat a throne. He’s a brigand, nothing more. There’s no power in brigand’s blood.
The raven looked up from the floor. “Blood,” it screamed. (aFfC, Samwell I)

Instead, I propose that Bloodraven was using the raven to reenact a particular blood magic. In this practice the palm is cut. We already know a certain brigand who cut his palm and used his blood to set his sword aflame: Beric Dondarrion.

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_loxaraz_
Beric Dondarrion, by Loxaraz

Such is the power of brigand’s blood after he was kissed by fire. Do I need to remind you that aside from having ties to R’hllor, Beric also has visual references to Bloodraven? The same visual reference that is alluded to when Sam is reminded of Jon’s scars around his eye, because Orell’s eagle tried to tear his eye out?

The walls were equal parts stone and soil, with huge white roots twisting through them like a thousand slow pale snakes. […] 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. […] A scarecrow of a man, he wore a ragged black cloak speckled with stars and an iron breastplate dinted by a hundred battles. […] One of his eyes was gone, Arya saw, the flesh about the socket scarred and puckered, […] . (aSoS, Arya VI)

And when we compare how effectively Beric uses his blood to light up his common steel sword with flames, to how Mel burns a brigand (Rattleshirt) to light a fake magical sword like the sun, we can see how messed up her use of blood magic truly is.

The sword glowed red and yellow and orange, alive with light. Jon had seen the show before … but not like this, never before like this. Lightbringer was the sun made steel. When Stannis raised the blade above his head, men had to turn their heads or cover their eyes. Horses shied, and one threw his rider. The blaze in the fire pit seemed to shrink before this storm of light, like a small dog cowering before a larger one. The Wall itself turned red and pink and orange, as waves of color danced across the ice. Is this the power of king’s blood? (aDwD, Jon III)

The first uses his own fire-blood for justice, while Mel’s magic is a wasteful mummery to show off the trappings of power.

Once you remember Beric bloodying his blade with his palm it becomes quite clear that Bloodraven was trying to show such a magic use of blood to Sam and Jon when he drew Samwell’s blood and then implied that blood is powerful to Jon’s rhetorical question as Mormont’s raven. But why is it so important? And what the hell has it to do with swapping babes?

The raven gives us a hint, because prior to begging Sam for corn, he is doing something noteworthy and odd.

[Jon] was reading a parchment when Sam entered. Lord Commander Mormont’s raven was on his shoulder, peering down as if it were reading too, […] (aFfC, Samwell I)

Jon is reading Aemon’s letter meant for King’s Landing, again, and so is Bloodraven via the raven. Jon refers to the letter as a paper shield.

“We all shed our blood for the Watch. Wear thicker gloves.” Jon shoved a chair toward him with a foot. “Sit, and have a look at this.” He handed him the parchment.
“What is it?” asked Sam. The raven began to hunt out corn kernels amongst the rushes.
A paper shield.
Sam sucked at the blood on his palm as he read. He knew Maester Aemon’s hand on sight. His writing was small and precise, but the old man could not see where the ink had blotted, and sometimes he left unsightly smears. “A letter to King Tommen?” (aFfC, Samwell I)

Notice how both Samwell’s bleeding palm and the raven hunting the corn that flew and fell surround this mention of the paper shield. So, the shield is the heart of the matter here.

This paper shield prompts Cersei to plot the assassination of Jon. And the kernels that Mormont’s raven sent flying were the sigil colors of the Lannsters: yellow and red.

“Another problem has arisen on the Wall, however. The brothers of the Night’s Watch have taken leave of their wits and chosen Ned Stark’s bastard son to be their Lord Commander.” […] “I glimpsed him once at Winterfell,” the queen said, “though the Starks did their best to hide him. He looks very like his father.” […] Catelyn Tully was a mouse, or she would have smothered this Jon Snow in his cradle. Instead, she’s left the filthy task to me. “Snow shares Lord Eddard’s taste for treason too,” she said. “The father would have handed the realm to Stannis. The son has given him lands and castles.”
“The Night’s Watch is sworn to take no part in the wars of the Seven Kingdoms,” Pycelle reminded them. “For thousands of years the black brothers have upheld that tradition.”
“Until now,” said Cersei. “The bastard boy has written us to avow that the Night’s Watch takes no side, but his actions give the lie to his words. He has given Stannis food and shelter, yet has the insolence to plead with us for arms and men.” (aFfC, Cersei IV)

Notice that Cersei thinks Catelyn must be a mouse by allowing Jon to live. This seems like a reference to Samwell’s mouse that I proposed Bloodraven skinchanged to get Sam moving: mice don’t want Jon to die.

There is one issue: Cersei never managed to execute her plan, since she and her assassin Osney Kettleback both ended up arrested by the High Sparrow. Even if Cersei was victorious in her trial by combat, Osney has confessed under torture to the murder of the High Septon. Kevan Lannister thought of sending Osney’s brothers to the Wall for their crimes, but he was murdered by Varys before he could ever turn his unvoiced idea into a command. Was there ever time for Cersei to even send Osney’s brothers to Eastwatch? A message to friends within the Watch? I do think that Eastwatch and Cersei may have been involved in warning Bowen Marsh, but that is for another essay.

We seem to have three separate issues:

  • an assassination plot on Jon’s life
  • swapping babes
  • blood magic in the spirit that Beric used it

And yet, all are tied together.

When we look to the paragraphs and sentences shortly before we are told that Jon and Mormont’s raven are reading the parchment, the paper shield, the word shield is mentioned several times in a short span of text.

I don’t have time for this.” Sam left his friends and made his way toward the armory, clutching his books to his chest.I am the shield that guards the realms of men, he remembered. He wondered what those men would say if they realized their realms were being guarded by the likes of Grenn, Pyp, and Dolorous Edd.
[…]
Jon’s solar was back beyond the racks of spears and shields. He was reading a [paper shield] when Sam entered. Lord Commander Mormont’s raven was on his shoulder, peering down as if it were reading too, when the bird spied Sam it spread its wings and flapped toward him crying, “Corn, corn!” (aFfC, Samwell I)

the Wall_by Mathias Habert
The Wall, by Mathias Habert

The blood magic that Mormont’s raven reenacted has to do with a shield. And the shield that guards the realms of men is not just a physical wall, but a magical warding spell. And in fact, right after Mormont’s raven drew blood of Sam’s palm, Jon tells Sam, “Close the door“!

The paper shield is a great analogy to the warding spell. The medium on which the words are written is not the shield; the words written on it are. And spells are words too.

Melisandre touched the ruby at her neck and spoke a word. The sound echoed queerly from the corners of the room and twisted like a worm inside their ears. The wildling heard one word, the crow another. Neither was the word that left her lips. (aDwD, Melisandre I)

When it comes to warding spells, we know of three confirmed locations being protected by such: Bloodraven’s cave, Storm’s End and the Wall.

“There was no need,” she said. “[Renly] was unprotected. But here . . . this Storm’s End is an old place. There are spells woven into the stones. Dark walls that no shadow can pass—ancient, forgotten, yet still in place.” (aCoK, Davos II)

“The Wall. The Wall is more than just ice and stone, he said. There are spells woven into it . . . old ones, and strong. He cannot pass beyond the Wall.” (aSoS, Bran IV)

The ward upon the cave mouth still held; the dead men could not enter. (aDwD, Bran III)

The last two locations and constructions are ascribed to both children of the forest and Brandon the Builder.

A seventh castle [Durran] 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)

With Storm’s End, Catelyn presents the help Durran received to build the protective walls as an either or choice of what you believe: children of the forest or Brandon the Builder. Something similar occurs with the legends on the raising of the Wall. For the Wall though, it is portrayed as a cooperation between Brandon the Builder and the children of the forest, with the first as the architect of the physical wall, and the later get credited for weaving magic into the construction.

Maester Childer’s Winter’s Kings, or the Legends and Lineages of the Starks of Winterfell contains a part of a ballad alleged to tell of the time Brandon the Builder sought the aid of the children while raising the Wall. (tWoIaF – Ancient History: The Dawn Age)

Legend has it that the giants helped raise the Wall, using their great strength to wrestle the blocks of ice into place. There may be some truth to this though the stories make the giants out to be far larger and more powerful than they truly were. 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)

The ward on Bloodraven’s cave affirms this is a magic that originates from the children of the forest. It is their spell. This notion of Brandon the Builder as architect, however, can be easily disproven by Winterfell, yet another construction ascribed to him: Winterfell’s grounds were never leveled.

It taught him Winterfell’s secrets too. The builders had not even leveled the earth; there were hills and valleys behind the walls of Winterfell. (aGoT, Bran II)

Any actual architect would have leveled the ground. And if we compare the oldest constructions of Winterfell to the Storm’s End, the Hightower (also ascribed to Brandon) and the Wall, we would have a boy genius for Storm’s End (and the Hightower), but is not even a mediocre architect when he built his own home. If Brandon the Builder was not an architect, he helped in raising the magical ward that the children of the forest cast. One of the legends claims that Brandon the Builder learned the language of the children of the forest, “which was described as sounding like the song of stones in a brook, or the wind through leaves, or the rain upon the water.” Bran’s mentions of the True Tongue (the language of the children of the forest) makes it doubtful that any human can actually learn to speak it, let alone their spells. Bloodraven is a human and has been the sole human amongst the children of the forest for decades in the cave, and apparently cannot speak it either.

I propose that Brandon’s contribution was that of blood magic: the children of the forest said the words, while Brandon the Builder cut the palm of his hand and sealed the spell to the stones, to the location with his blood. His ancestor Brandon of the Bloody Blade is a likely hint that The Builder knew of such blood magic. George also added “the use of a sword” in connection to the ward of Bloodraven’s cave.

“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.” (aDwD, Bran II)

With a few exceptions, almost all magic involves some form of blood magic. While we easily consider it an evil magic where the lives of innocents (other people or children) need to be sacrificed to empower someone who sacrifices nothing, there are also examples where but a few drops of one’s own blood suffices. Maggy the Frog and the one-eyed prostitute Yna in Braavos can tell someone’s fortune with that person’s drop of blood.

Matt_Olson_Maggy_Maegi
Maggy the Frog, by Matt Olson

“Maegi?”
“Is that how you say it? The woman would suck a drop of blood from your finger, and tell you what your morrows held.”
“Blood magic is the darkest kind of sorcery. Some say it is the most powerful as well.” (aFfC, Cersei VIII)

[Merry’s] girls were nice as well; Blushing Bethany and the Sailor’s Wife, one-eyed Yna who could tell your fortune from a drop of blood, […] (aFfC, Cat of the Canals)

Notice how Yna has the one-eyed connotation to Bloodraven. Maggy the Frog may have Essosi origin, but the nickname “the frog” and her green tent, link her to green magic as well. So, it is entirely possible that Brandon the Builder could fixate the warding spell to a particular location by slashing his palm and allow drops of blood to fall on a stone foundation.

Since Bloodraven is inside a cave warded by the same spell as the Wall or Storm’s End, he likely has first hand knowledge how this blood magic works. He might have done the exact same blood letting of his own palm with his Dark Sister when the children of the forest warded the cave. Hence as Mormont’s raven he tries to reveal this to Samwell and Jon.

Note: Jon’s chapter of his meeting with Samwell leaves out most of these hints. Jon is unaware that Mormont’s raven is reading the paper shield along with him. And the chapter leaves out the exact words Jon says when the raven cries “Blood”.

Samwell Tarly turned up a few moments later, clutching a stack of books. No sooner had he entered than Mormont’s raven flew at him demanding corn. Sam did his best to oblige, offering some kernels from the sack beside the door. The raven did its best to peck through his palm. Sam yowled, the bird flapped off, corn scattered. “Did that wretch break the skin?” Jon asked. […] “Val sent her to plead for Mance again,” Jon lied, and they talked for a while of Mance and Stannis and Melisandre of Asshai, until the raven ate the last corn kernel and screamed, “Blood.” (aDwD, Jon II)

So, Sam’s chapter is crucial in figuring out what the raven is about.

The Seal

I refer to this fixation with blood magic of the warding spell as a seal. This is a deliberate choice, as much of the other hints to this concept occur in relation to George’s use of that word. For example in They’re Here! I already mentioned the foreshadowing name Sealskinner. But the most glaring examples are related to parchments, or paper shields: Ramsay’s letters written in blood to Asha and Jon and Stannis’ signing of his contract with the Iron Bank with his own blood.

The paragraphs about Ramsay’s letter to Asha mention a seal, spatter of drops of blood, fluttering skin, dark wings, ravens, writing in blood, and iron.

“My lady.” The maester’s voice was anxious, as it always was when he spoke to her. “A bird from Barrowton.” He thrust the parchment at her as if he could not wait to be rid of it. It was tightly rolled and sealed with a button of hard pink wax. Barrowton. Asha tried to recall who ruled in Barrowton. Some northern lord, no friend of mine. And that seal … the Boltons of the Dreadfort went into battle beneath pink banners spattered with little drops of blood. It only stood to reason that they would use pink sealing wax as well.
This is poison that I hold, she thought. I ought to burn it. Instead she cracked the seal. A scrap of leather fluttered down into her lap. When she read the dry brown words, her black mood grew blacker still. Dark wings, dark words. The ravens never brought glad tidings. The last message sent to Deepwood had been from Stannis Baratheon, demanding homage. This was worse. “The northmen have taken Moat Cailin.” […`] the message above was scrawled in brown in a huge, spiky hand. It spoke of the fall of Moat Cailin, of the triumphant return of the Warden of the North to his domains, of a marriage soon to be made. The first words were, “I write this letter in the blood of ironmen,” the last, “I send you each a piece of prince. Linger in my lands, and share his fate.” (aDwD, The Wayward Bride)

The seal is linked to the image of spattered blood droplets. The letter is linked to skinchanging via the fluttering scrap of leather, raven wings and words. The words on the parchment are written in blood of men. And of course a parchment of written words can be equated to a paper shiel. In this case a paper shield of blood.

A seal, is a stamp or imprint identifying a person or house. It is a type of signature, or a person, for in Asha’s case a seal (animal) was a stand-in bride to Ironmaker, for a union arranged by a crow’s eye.

Asha was still at Ten Towers taking on provisions when the tidings of her marriage reached her. “My wayward niece needs taming,” the Crow’s Eye was reported to have said, “and I know the man to tame her.” He had married her to Erik Ironmaker and named the Anvil-Breaker to rule the Iron Islands whilst he was chasing dragons. […] Tris Botley said that the Crow’s Eye had used a seal to stand in for her at her wedding. “I hope Erik did not insist on a consummation,” she’d said. (aDwD, The Wayward Bride)

In the King’s Prize, we get another wordplay that links a seal to the Wall.

Asha crawled out from under her sleeping furs and pushed her way out of the tent, knocking aside the wall of snow that had sealed them in during the night. (aDwD, The King’s Prize)

Where Asha’s POV focuses on the taking of Moat Cailin, Jon’s POV focuses on Ramsay’s forthcoming marriage to Arya Stark, reminding us of the seal standing in for a person at a wedding.

Clydas thrust the parchment forward. It was tightly rolled and sealed, with a button of hard pink wax. Only the Dreadfort uses pink sealing wax. Jon ripped off his gauntlet, took the letter, cracked the seal. When he saw the signature, he forgot the battering Rattleshirt had given him. Ramsay Bolton, Lord of the Hornwood, it read, in a huge, spiky hand. The brown ink came away in flakes when Jon brushed it with his thumb. Beneath Bolton’s signature, Lord Dustin, Lady Cerwyn, and four Ryswells had appended their own marks and seals. A cruder hand had drawn the giant of House Umber. “Might we know what it says, my lord?” asked Iron Emmett.
Jon saw no reason not to tell him. “Moat Cailin is taken. The flayed corpses of the ironmen have been nailed to posts along the kingsroad. Roose Bolton summons all leal lords to Barrowton, to affirm their loyalty to the Iron Throne and celebrate his son’s wedding to …” His heart seemed to stop for a moment. (aDwD, Jon VI)

We see another interplay of these words and concepts during the war meeting with Stannis.

Candles had been placed at its corners to keep the hide from rolling up. A finger of warm wax was puddling out across the Bay of Seals, slow as a glacier.

We have a mention of a hide, and thus a reference to skinchangng. Next a finger, and a thumb is still a finger. The word wax is used, instead of blood, but since a seal can be made of wax as well as blood, here the wax stands for blood.

Finally, we witness Stannis signing his contract with the Iron Bank with his own blood.

“Your Grace,” a second voice said softly. “Pardon, but your ink has frozen.” The Braavosi, Theon knew. What was his name? Tycho… Tycho something… “Perhaps a bit of heat… ?”
“I know a quicker way.” Stannis drew his dagger. For an instant Theon thought that he meant to stab the banker. You will never get a drop of blood from that one, my lord, he might have told him. The king laid the blade of the knife against the ball of his left thumb, and slashed. “There. I will sign in mine own blood. That ought to make your masters happy.”
“If it please Your Grace, it will please the Iron Bank.”
Stannis dipped a quill in the blood welling from his thumb and scratched his name across the piece of parchment. (tWoW, Theon I)

So, George is showing us repeatedly how (paper) shields get signed or sealed with drops of blood. Notice too, how iron is also mentioned in combination with this: Ironmen, Iron Emmett or Iron Bank. This implies that Brandon the Builder used an iron sword (and not a bronze one) to cut his palm or thumb to draw blood and seal the warding spell for the Wall. And yes, there are often hints of foreshadowing to the “breaking” or “cracking” of this seal as well as Jon coming to harm.

We also have numerous mentions of walls mixed with blood or built on blood. So, George has connected the concept of building with blood and walls.

Arya remembered Old Nan’s stories of the castle built on fear. Harren the Black had mixed human blood in the mortar, Nan used to say, dropping her voice so the children would need to lean close to hear, but Aegon’s dragons had roasted Harren and all his sons within their great walls of stone.  (aCoK, Arya VI)

Bricks and blood built Astapor,” Whitebeard murmured at her side, “and bricks and blood her people.” […] “An old rhyme a maester taught me, when I was a boy. I never knew how true it was. The bricks of Astapor are red with the blood of the slaves who make them.” (aSoS, Daenerys II)

Of course, in the case of Harren the Black and the masters of Astapor it is the blood of other people that built those walls: the evil of slavery and murder. That is as evil as Ramsay writing letters with the blood of his prisoners of war. The Blood Seal instead is like Stannis writing his signature with his own blood from his thumb. Regardless, Ygritte tells Jon and us the reader that the Wall is made of blood.

“I hate this Wall,” she said in a low angry voice. “Can you feel how cold it is?”
“It’s made of ice,” Jon pointed out.
You know nothing, Jon Snow. This wall is made o’ blood.” (aSoS, Jon IV)

The Ward

While I have shown just a few of the many examples of hints to this Blood Seal of the ward of the Wall, you probably are still wondering how this connects to Jon wanting to swap the two babes. Just as the flying yellow and red kernels of corn after reading the paper shield foreshadows an assassination attempt on Jon’s life for the Lannister side, I think Bloodraven foresaw that somehow the swapping of the two babies would lead to the writing and sending of the Pink Letter. But the Pink Letter and the assassination plot itself are for another essay within the Blood Seal Thesis. Instead, I will focus here on a more symbolical connection between the baby swap and the Blood Seal. Instead of focusing on the fate of Craster’s son, perhaps we should consider Mance’s son.

Jon thinks that Mel wants to burn Mance for his king’s blood and will burn his son for the same reason. This is his motivation to swap the babes. But Mel has already decided to see whether Mance is a man worth saving, after Jon argued for his life to Stannis and the latter has admitted that Mance has value to him.

“I would hope the truth would please you, Sire. Your men call Val a princess, but to the free folk she is only the sister of their king’s dead wife. If you force her to marry a man she does not want, she is like to slit his throat on their wedding night. Even if she accepts her husband, that does not mean the wildlings will follow him, or you. The only man who can bind them to your cause is Mance Rayder.”
I know that,” Stannis said, unhappily. “I have spent hours speaking with the man. He knows much and more of our true enemy, and there is cunning in him, I’ll grant you. Even if he were to renounce his kingship, though, the man remains an oathbreaker. Suffer one deserter to live, and you encourage others to desert. No. Laws should be made of iron, not of pudding. Mance Rayder’s life is forfeit by every law of the Seven Kingdoms.”
The law ends at the Wall, Your Grace. You could make good use of Mance.” (aDwD, Jon I)

At the end of the meeting between Stannis and Jon, Melisandre announces she will walk Jon to his quarters, and tells him she will counsel the flames on his character.

As they stepped out into the yard, the wind filled Jon’s cloak and sent it flapping against her. The red priestess brushed the black wool aside and slipped her arm through his. “It may be that you are not wrong about the wildling king. I shall pray for the Lord of Light to send me guidance. When I gaze into the flames, I can see through stone and earth, and find the truth within men’s souls. I can speak to kings long dead and children not yet born, and watch the years and seasons flicker past, until the end of days.” (aDwD, Jon I)

And she did, for she had Rattleshirt burned instead of Mance. So, what does Melisandre have to say about Mance’s son (despite her knowing he is actually Gilly’s son)?

“Our false king has a prickly manner,” Melisandre told Jon Snow, “but he will not betray you. We hold his son, remember. […]” (aDwD, Melisandre I)

“Monster?”
“His milk name. I had to call him something. See that he stays safe and warm. For his mother’s sake, and mine. And keep him away from the redwoman. She knows who he is. She sees things in her fires.” (aDwD, Jon VIII)

Mel uses and considers the baby a hostage for Mance’s good behavior. And what are hostages referred to as well?

“[…] So I insisted upon hostages.” I am not the trusting fool you take me for … nor am I half wildling, no matter what you believe. “One hundred boys between the ages of eight and sixteen. A son from each of their chiefs and captains, the rest chosen by lot. The boys will serve as pages and squires, freeing our own men for other duties. Some may choose to take the black one day. Queerer things have happened. The rest will stand hostage for the loyalty of their sires.”
The northmen glanced at one another. “Hostages,” mused The Norrey. “Tormund has agreed to this?”
It was that, or watch his people die. “My blood price, he called it,” said Jon Snow, “but he will pay.”
“Aye, and why not?” 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)

That’s right! Hostages are wards! And in this instance the wards are a blood price – yet another reference for the magical ward to blood magic. But what happens if you send wards away instead of keeping them close as hostage? Robb sent his ward Theon back to the Iron Islands. And that backfired immensely.

So, when Bloodraven learned of Jon’s plan to swap Gilly’s son for Mance’s and send his hostage away, he foresaw the breaking of the Blood Seal on the magical ward as a result of the assassination attempt on Jon’s life after the arrival of the Pink Letter. That is why he screamed, “No,” warned for mass death, and tried to show Samwell how the magical ward is locked in place by the Blood Seal.

Conclusion (tl;tr)

In aFfC, Samwell I and aDwD, Jon II, Mormont’s raven acts out in an unprecedented manner and strongly opposes Jon’s plan to swap the babes. This is enough to support the assumption that Mormont’s raven is being skinchanged by Bloodraven in these scenes.

To make sense out of it, we should first start with Jon II and notice that the raven is suspiciously silent in between its strong opposition of Jon’s plan to swap Gilly’s son for Mance’s and its ominous foreshadowing of mass death because of it. The raven’s silence is long enough to allow for Bloodraven skinchanging a mouse in the library to draw the attention of a book lover’s greatest fear in Samwell I. And indeed, Samwell’s attention is finally not focused on books anymore, and he decides to leave the library, well before Dolorous Edd could get down there. And had Pyp, Grenn and Edd not delayed Sam in the yard, he may well have stumbled into Jon’s meeting with Gilly. As allies both would have had the courage to stand up against Jon’s bullying.

Despite, Bloodraven’s and Sam’s efforts, he arrived a moment too late. Upon entering Jon’s office, Mormont’s raven is ostensibly reading Jon’s shield of words (paper shield) to King Tommen, before he pecks through Samwell’s gloves to bloody his palm and points out that blood is the necessary ingredient for blood magic.

This is the Blood Seal reenactment, and how the spell for a magical ward cast by the children of the forest is sealed: cutting the palm or thumb and seal the spell of words in the True Tongue to stone with the droplets of blood. There are a multitude of references to this shield of words and blood seal, via Ramsay’s letters to Asha and Jon after Moat Cailin falls, and Stannis signing his contract with the Iron Bank with the blood from a cut he made in his thumb.

In other words, They’re Here! argues the foreshadowed end result, point B – the assassination attempt on Jon’s life breaks this Blood Seal of the magical ward of the Wall and the Others that are present can raise an army of wights from the lichyard because of it. And the events that lead to point B is the swapping of the babes. The two synched chapters of Samwell and Jon are point A. How we get from A to B is for another essay.

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.

The Blood Seal Thesis

(top image: The assassination of Jon Snow, by Arantza Sestayo, published for the aSoIaF calendar of 2022)

King’s blood, to wake a dragon. Where Melisandre thinks to find a sleeping dragon, no one is quite sure. It’s nonsense. Mance’s blood is no more royal than mine own. He has never worn a crown nor sat a throne. He’s a brigand, nothing more. There’s no power in brigand’s blood.
The raven looked up from the floor.Blood,” it screamed. (aFfC, Samwell I)

Is Jon dead or not? If he is, how will he be resurrected? Who wrote the Pink Letter? How will the Wall fall? When will the Others show up? What is Bloodraven up to? And how does Mel fit into this all? So many opinions and speculations. Over the years I speculated along, but there were a few issues I was certain of:

  • Detective work of Jon’s last two chapters reveal strong hints that the Others are at Castle Black, lurking beneath the canopy of the Haunted Forest, the evening of Bowen Marsh’s attempt at Jon’s life.
  • Along with The Fattest Leech and Melanie Lot Seven, I recognize that George is reusing a plot point of his former novelette Skin Trade in the attempt on Jon’s life that is entrenched in the Bolton flaying plot with the Pink Letter, and therefore Jon is not actually dead.
  • The combination of the Others being present (but unseen) that fateful night and Jon’s blood falling onto the frozen yard of the biggest mirror of all Planetos (the recycled Skin Trade plot point) will somehow allow the Others’ magical powers to resurrect all the dead brothers of the Night’s Watch that have been buried in the lichyard.

When it comes to the recycling of the Skin Trade plot points, I recommend Melanie Lot Seven’s blog post I’ve Got You Under My Skin and of course for any fan of George Martin to read the story, which was included in the Dreamsongs collection. But here is the short summary of it (and comes with a spoiler warning!):

Skin Trade is a detective story revolving about the gruesome murders of werewolves. All the victims are found being skinned or flayed. The culprit tuns out to be the son of the rich man who pretty much owns everything in town. They turn out to be a family of pure and old werewolf blood, but despite this old blood, the son cannot work the change. The son discovered though that he only can if he wears the skinned pelt of another werewolf. It is however not the son himself who executes the murders. He has a magical interdimensional fiend do it, the Skinner. This being with knives for fingers can travel from mirror to mirror, and when the protagonist’s blood falls onto a mirror, the Skinner comes through. George retranslated this in aSoIaF, with Roose Bolton having the part of the rich man of the old blood, Ramsay of the psychopathic son who is a disappointment to his father, Jon the protagonist’s and the Others are the Skinner.

I have posted my analysis to prove the presence of the Others several times over the years on the forum of Westeros.org. I have it as a draft for this blog too. And yet, for years I did not publish these beliefs and analysis on my blog. A fundamental puzzle piece was missing until now for me to publish it on my blog: George has to fit the Skinner coming through the Wall into the magic of Planetos. He cannot just spring this on the reader without prior groundwork, especially since the Wall is not just a physical barrier, but a magical one. More, the magic and this particular Wall mirror were created and protected specifically against the Skinner from passing through. (see also Night’s King and what his use was for the corpse queen) So, if Jon’s blood on the mirror allows for the Others to walk through or allows their magic to resurrect the dead in the lichyard, then it must make magical sense to aSoIaF and Planetos, which is not the same world as Skin Trade. More, while George may clarify the “why” after aDwD, he must have already written in the clues for this prior to aDwD, Jon XIII, so that in retrospect and after a reread we all say “Oh my, so that was what this was about!”.

The “blood on the mirror” plot point is the literary smoking gun, but so far I lacked the scenes where the gun is being displayed, before it ever went off. The lead quote at the top was the clue to where the gun is displayed.

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 is an outlaw, or a brigand. And his brigand’s blood can light up a common steel sword. The sword is not a magical sword, and Beric was never a king, nor ever claimed to be a king. And yet, his blood was magical and could create very real flames. Beric turning a common steel sword into a Lightbringer by shedding his own brigand’s blood on it contrasts Mel’s depraved show at the Wall. She burns a fake king-beyond-the-Wall  with brigand’s blood to make a glamored common steel sword glow bright like the sun.

The sword glowed red and yellow and orange, alive with light. Jon had seen the show before … but not like this, never before like this. Lightbringer was the sun made steel. When Stannis raised the blade above his head, men had to turn their heads or cover their eyes. Horses shied, and one threw his rider. The blaze in the fire pit seemed to shrink before this storm of light, like a small dog cowering before a larger one. The Wall itself turned red and pink and orange, as waves of color danced across the ice. Is this the power of king’s blood? (aDwD, Jon III)

What does this have to do with “blood on the mirror” and the Skinner coming through? The most important aspect of the Wall is the magical spell that prevents them from crossing: the invisible ward. Even if there was no physical wall, the spell itself blocks wights and Others from passing. Bloodraven’s cave has a similar magical ward and showcases this.

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.
“A fold in the rock, that’s all I see,” said Meera.
“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)

There is no physical door or wall sealing the cave, only an invisible ward, which allows the living to pass, but not the wights that start to gather outside the cave, not the Others, not Coldhands.

The ward upon the cave mouth still held; the dead men could not enter. The snows had buried most of them again, but they were still there, hidden, frozen, waiting. […] 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)

Magic on Planetos has a cost and the coin is blood. Mel may speaks words and incantations to cast a spell, but the spell requires blood to be drawn.

The red priestess shuddered. Blood trickled down her thigh, black and smoking. (aDwD, Melisandre I)

When Skin Trade‘s plot point of “blood on the mirror” is recycled into aSoIaF, George reframed it into an act of blood magic. If Jon’s blood being spilled on the mirror Wall can break the warding spell, then it could only do so, because blood was used to seal the spells the children of the forest cast. No, not a carnage of slit throats, but a voluntary trickle caused by a cut in the hand. The most effective and strongest magic is not one where you spill another’s blood, but your own, willingly, as Beric’s blood on his blade proves. This is what I dub the Blood Seal. Blood pays for the magic, but it also protects it, as it bonds with the magic like a unique lock that can only be unlocked by someone with similar blood. As a consequence, Jon’s blood lineage becomes a crucial factor in how the warding spell gets broken, but so is the blood lineage of the one who sealed it thousands of years ago: Brandon the Builder.

This Blood Seal hypothesis did not come to me through a brainstorm, but textual analysis of words and actions of Mormont’s raven, particularly in the parallel chapters of Samwell and Jon regarding the swapping of the two babes. While the Blood Seal is an elegant and simple concept that fits within the magical framework that George has crafted in the series, it does require an elaborate amount of textual analysis to showcase it and it requires safeguards so that a Stark nicking his shin while shaving his beard at the Wall would not undo it.

This thesis therefore will include several essays, not just on the Blood Seal itself, but also the plotlines that lead to the breaking of the Wall and answers to questions being raised because of the hypothesis:

  • They’re Here! The clues and hints (“evidence”) in aDwD, Jon XII and Jon XIII for the Others being present at the other side of the Wall at Castle Black on the fateful day of the assassination attempt on Jon’s life.
  • Quoth, the Raven: The clues and hints laid out by Mormont’s raven, in actuality skinchanged by Bloodraven, in aFfC, Samwell I and aDwD, Jon II both as a foreshadowing of the breaking of the Wall’s ward as well as the casting of the blood seal.
  • Brandon’s Blood Seal (introduction): Delving into the past and the hints and clues about Brandon the Builder, his lineage, but also his talents and the claims about him. This builds on the tremendous work that History of Westeros has done already with regards to the Great Empire of Dawn.
    • Part 1 – What’s in a Name: etymological overview of three group names all having parallels to each other: the Brandons, the Ricks and the Wardens.
  • Protecting the Blood Seal: While the Night’s Watch guard the realm of men at the Wall, the Starks aimed to protect the Blood Seal, and managed to do this for thousands of years, despite a potential near brush to break it in the past.
  • Breaking the Blood Seal: What are the safeguards and the necessary conditions to break Brandon’s Blood Seal.
  • Jon’s Wall: In this essay I propose that the magical Wall is not just a spell or an icy object, but almost a living magical entity that Jon ends up bonding with and which he can skinchange. Or is it the Wall that can skinchange him? And I will argue the case that Jon and the magical Wall being one is the reason why Jon survives the assassination attempt on his life.
  • Wards, Seals and the Pink Letter: The swapping of Gilly’s son for Mance’s is somehow tied to the Pink Letter being sent. Is this just because of wordplay or is the loss of a hostage actually a crucial key to the authoring of the Pink Letter.
  • The Stink of Treason: Several plotlines that are tied to Jon and the Wall stink and reek. These are waving smellflags that forewarn Bowen Marsh’s betrayal.
  • Beyond the Wall: If Bloodraven acted to prevent the Pink Letter from being sent, to prevent the breaking of the Blood Seal, and kept true to his Night’s Watch vows via Mormont’s raven, then why does he seem to be absent on the fateful day? The answer is that the Others took out several cyvasse pieces from the board beyond the Wall all at once.
  • The Aftermath: A prediction on what we can expect on how George will reveal this in tWoW, what are the immediate consequences and scenes we will read about in a Castle Black POV.

NK: Craster and his Wives

This essay will focus on Craster and his wives, Gilly in particular, in terms of the elements that fit the patterns, functions and abilities insofar they match with the Night’s King as well as the corpse queen. While most readers will recognize up to a level that Craster has a partial Night’s King role, his wives will hardly ever be recognized as a parallel to a corpse queen.

However, Gilly most certainly is repeatedly featured and cast in a corpse queen role by George in all the right locations: north of the Wall  in an enchanted frosted forest, the Nightfort’s kitchens and the Wall’s lichyard. This was an obvious parallel to the corpse queen to pick up on, but almost so on the nose for a girl we have sympathy for that it is easily glossed over. She may be no sorceress or hivemind, but Gilly is a mother, leaking milk that she shares with adult men. This is very much a Sandking maw feature.

Maw references are not solely restricted to Gilly alone. We also find them for other wives of Craster in the short moments that they are featured. And in an unexpected way, we come to the realization that George uses incest amongst humans to mimic an inhuman lifeform’s ability to perform autogamy or parthogenesis.

A follow-up essay is in the making, where I will go deeper into his legacy – sweet little monster.

Index

Craster as Night’s King

I have covered most about Craster already in What Use is a Night’s King and From Sandkings to Nightqueen. And I have covered him extensively as well in Craster’s Black Blooded Curse in the Bears & Maiden section. So, this section of the essay will be mostly a summary.

Taking the most superficial view, Craster seems nothing like a Night’s King. He commands no army. His rule goes no further than the pigsty home he built on shit (according to Dolourous Edd). He is neither king or lord commander. He is just a wildling, shunned by everybody else living north of the Wall. He has no queen, but nineteen wives, most of whom are his daughters. Not a one is a sorceress. Not a one is an infamous, bedazzling beauty. And he certainly is no magician.

His ambitions go no further than to continue his incest without caring one iota about any of his children, be serviced by the girls and women, drink, fuck and snore. He pales in comparison to the legend about the Bloodstone Emperor, the Night’s King and Euron. Aside from the incest and leaving his sons in the forest to die, we do not know if he ever harmed another wildling or brother of the Night’s Watch directly. But he might have killed Othor with an axe as I proposed in Craster’s Black Blooded Curse and turn wights into blood sausages for his secret larder. Joe Magician once argumented he might have directed Waymar Royce into a trap for the Others (see Joe Magician’s theories on The Killing of the Wrong Ranger).. The problem though is that it is very unlikely we will ever see any confirmation to these speculations.

He sure is a despicable man, but he does not have that eldritch terror characterization. Oh, and he is dead already, killed basically in what amounts to a barfight. He is the trailer-trash version of the Blood Emperor. Personally, I actually like it that George made such an impactful villain such a nobody. No songs will be sung about him in a thousand years; no tales told, not even by parents warning their children “if you don’t behave, Craster will come and get you.” Even less than a year after his death, he is almost forgotten, with almost nobody knowing how instrumental he was in empowering the Others in numbers and the maw in power. Exactly like the historical Night’s King, his name will be obliterated and for the exact same reason – human sacrifice.

Despite being a nobody, Craster is the one guy who managed to enlarge the numbers of the Others right under the nose of the Night’s Watch, who knew partially what he was doing, and yet the Night’s Watch never realized the significance of it. Even after Jeor Mormont was almost assassinated by a wight and numerous rangers have gone missing (including first ranger Benjen Stark), no one but Jon Snow and Dolorous Edd ever consider that it may be better to not deal with Craster at all. They still have their priorities on its head: to seek out Mance Rayder and destroy his host. It has to be said that at least Brandon the Breaker and Joramun obliterated the Night’s King’s name over discovering something similar. Mance and Jeor Mormont did not even do that. They knew he committed infanticide and they left him to it, or traded with him.

Without Craster, Waymar Royce may still be alive. Benjen Stark would have returned from his ranging. The Night’s Watch would not have lost close to 300 brothers at the Fist. Jeor Mormont most likely would still be alive. And the Free Folk would not have the need to follow Mance Rayder as King-Beyond-the-Wall. Stannis would not have sailed for Eastwatch. A large part of the plot would just not exist without Craster’s offerings of sons to the Others. Singers may never sing about his downfall. Nannies may never tell scary hearth about him. But the impact he has on Westeros, even after his death, is still ongoing, and widening, until it will engulf everyone manoeuvring for power in every region of the Seven Kingdoms.

So, Craster’s Night’s King action to sacrifice his seed to the Others is significant. And nobody of the other characters with a Night’s King arc will end up sacrificing their seed to the Others, not Euron, not Stannis and certainly not some of readers’ favourite character to villainize, Jon Snow. The rise of the Others is Craster’s fault.

And it gives us enough incentive to look at some things about Craster slightly closer.

  • Craster may be considered a wildling, but he has a tie to the Night’s Watch – he is the son of a brother of the Night’s Watch.
  • Craster is in general not regarded as some type of king, but Chett considers Craster as living like a lord at his shitty “keep”, and considers living the same way, while calling himself king. Meanwhile Craster refers to himself as godly. He might not only mean that he stays on the good side of his gods, but may be implying he thinks of himself as a god.
  • There are hints that Craster may have helped to kill or led rangers towards the Others. Except for Gared all of these became wights. In that way Craster would have then be involved in binding brothers of the Night’s watch to the hivemind of the corpse queen maw.
  • Equally there are hints on cannibalism, and that Craster’s larder may be filled with sausages made out of wight blood. (see Craster’s Black Blooded Curse). Cannibalism is not necessarily linked to the Night’s King, but it certainly is for the Bloodstone Emperor who is the Night’s King-like character in the empire of Yi TI to a tiger (spider?) woman.

All of these elements may pale in comparison to the Lovecraftian evil that the legend of the Bloodstone Emperor, Euron or the Night’s King evokes in us, but he is still the sole man who is responsible for the Others even being a current threat.

Wife, Mother, Sister and Daughter

One of the most glaring discrepancies between Craster and the historical Night’s King is the fact that he has 19 wives, most of them his own daughters, and none of them are infamous haunting beauties as is said of the corpse queen. And yet, when we scratch of the surface and look deeper into scenes that feature Gilly, we actually discover that Craster’s human non-sorceress wives and daughters do serve as parallels to the corpse queen.

Gilly as corpse queen

“I don’t even know your name.”
Gilly, he called me. For the gillyflower.”
“That’s pretty.” He remembered Sansa telling him once that he should say that whenever a lady told him her name. He could not help the girl, but perhaps the courtesy would please her. (aCoK, Jon III)

One often cited scene to argue Jon Snow will become the next Night’s King is the one where Jon meet with Gilly after he woke into a bedazzling winter scene on the grounds of Craster’s Keep.

He woke to the sight of his own breath misting in the cold morning air. When he moved, his bones ached. Ghost was gone, the fire burnt out. Jon reached to pull aside the cloak he’d hung over the rock, and found it stiff and frozen. He crept beneath it and stood up in a forest turned to crystal. The pale pink light of dawn sparkled on branch and leaf and stone. Every blade of grass was carved from emerald, every drip of water turned to diamond. Flowers and mushrooms alike wore coats of glass. Even the mud puddles had a bright brown sheen. Through the shimmering greenery, the black tents of his brothers were encased in a fine glaze of ice.
So there is magic beyond the Wall after all. He found himself thinking of his sisters, perhaps because he’d dreamed of them last night. Sansa would call this an enchantment, and tears would fill her eyes at the wonder of it, but Arya would run out laughing and shouting, wanting to touch it all. (aCoK, Jon III)

Jon wakes into  a “magical” iced winter world, and considers it an “enchantment”. Even though the frosting effect is natural, George pushes the reader to consider this as a scene where Jon woke up in a fairyland and is about to meet with a sorceress. And indeed, a young woman approaches him.

“Lord Snow?” he heard. Soft and meek. He turned. Crouched atop the rock that had sheltered him during the night was the rabbit keeper, wrapped in a black cloak so large it drowned her. Sam’s cloak, Jon realized at once. Why is she wearing Sam’s cloak? “The fat one told me I’d find you here, m’lord,” she said. […] Her arms closed over the swell of her belly. “Is it true, m’lord? Are you brother to a king?”
“A half brother,” he admitted. “I’m Ned Stark’s bastard. My brother Robb is the King in the North. Why are you here?”

By asking about Jon’s brother being a king, a Stark King, the scene is supposed to bring the Night’s King to mind, of whom it is sometimes claimed that he was a brother of the King of Winter, Brandon the Breaker Stark. And of course Jon Snow ends up becoming the Lord Commander, shortly after his return to the Wall.

Her breath frosted the air in small nervous puffs. “They say the king gives justice and protects the weak.” She started to climb off the rock, awkwardly, but the ice had made it slippery and her foot went out from under her. Jon caught her before she could fall, and helped her safely down. The woman knelt on the icy ground. “M’lord, I beg you—” […] “You don’t have to speak with me, m’lord. Just take me with you, when you go, that’s all I ask.” All she asks, he thought. As if that were nothing. “I’ll . . . I’ll be your wife, if you like. My father, he’s got nineteen now, one less won’t hurt him none.”(aCoK, Jon III)

We have a sentence that claims that the girl’s breath frosts the air, instead of the other way around. This evokes the idea of a woman cooling her surroundings, like an Other. And she begs him to take her with him, to be his wife. The complete scene appears a re-enactment of the legend of the Night’s King.

A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well. He brought her back to the Nightfort and proclaimed her a queen and himself her king, and with strange sorceries he bound his Sworn Brothers to his will. (aSoS, Bran IV)

The link between these two has been noticed for a long while already by many readers. I am not the first, nor will I be the last. Many readers also often propose that this is a foreshadowing scene or predictive scene that proves that Jon will end up being the Night’s King reborn. To this I disagree for the following reasons:

  1. Jon does not wake in an enchanted forest of the future, but the past. Why do I say this? Jon wakes to the dawn! Which comes after the (long dark) night. This would be the same timing when the historical Night’s King met the corpse queen, after the Long Night, when the Wall was already built (see Timeline Stuff). It seems illogical that George would foreshadow that Jon will become the new Night’s King after the Others are defeated during the present story’s winter.
  2. Since Jon wakes up in the past to a partial re-enactment of the corpse queen’s offer to the Night’s King, this is a test instead of a foreshadowing, which Jon passes with honors, since he refuses to take Gilly with him, let alone take her for  his wife. Jon refuses to repeat the past.

Instead, I will point out that when readers focus on Jon for this scene, they gloss over the obvious casting of Gilly as a parallel to the corpse queen.

It is tempting to regard this as merely a temporarily stand-in role for this particular enchantment scene. But it ought to be noted with much more gravitas, considering that her husband and father is Craster, a partial current Night’s King who sacrifices his sons to the Others. I will show you that Gilly is featured as a stand-in corpse queen at the Nightfort and the lichyard of Castle Black just as well, in a manner that is as obvious as in the frosted forest scene.

In other words, all of a sudden Craster does have a “corpse queen” for a wife, after all. In fact, in contrast to Melisandre, Gilly is repeatedly staged to stand-in for the corpse queen in all the right places.

gilly of the free folk by capraiaso
Gilly of the Free Folk, by Capraiaso

While Gilly is unsuccessful with Jon, she repeats the offer to Sam after the birth of her son and Craster’s death.

“Where?” asked Sam, puzzled. “Where should I take her?”
“Someplace warm,” the two old women said as one.
Gilly was crying. “Me and the babe. Please. I’ll be your wife, like I was Craster’s. Please, ser crow. He’s a boy, just like Nella said he’d be. If you don’t take him, they will.” (aSoS, Samwell II)

And Gilly ends up being smuggled by a brother of the Night’s Watch, Samwell, south of the Wall via the Black Gate into the Nightfort!

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.
[…]
“Who are you?” Jojen asked the girl with the baby.
Gilly,” she said. “For the gillyflower. He’s Sam. We never meant to scare you.” She rocked her baby and murmured at it, and finally it stopped crying.
Meera was untangling the fat brother. Jojen went to the well and peered down. “Where did you come from?”
From Craster’s,” the girl said.
[…]
“How did you get through the Wall?” Jojen demanded as Sam struggled to his feet. “Does the well lead to an underground river, is that where you came from? You’re not even wet . . .”
“There’s a gate,” said fat Sam. “A hidden gate, as old as the Wall itself. The Black Gate, he called it.” (aSoS, Bran IV)

I argued in What Use is a Night’s King under the section smuggling that the corpse queen as Other or magical monster could not have gone through the Black Gate. She took another watery route. But as a human, Gilly can pass through of course.

Notice there are two references in Gilly’s conversation with Jojen, Meera and Bran that echo her conversation with Jon during the enchanting dawn at Craster’s Keep: she’s Gilly for the Gilliflower, from Craster’s. In this manner, George wants us to recall that initial staged scene where we get our first and foremost reference to Gilly standing in for the corpse queen. This time she is not frosting the air with her breath, but said to be pale.

Gilly as a stand-in corpse queen with her baby boy at the Nightfort itself, supports the notion that the corpse queen desired to get south of the Wall in order to get her sons (Others) south of the Wall. It also supports my proposal in From Sandkings to Nightqueens that the thing-that-came-in-the-night was the unglamored monstrous corpse queen, since Bran fears that what he hears coming towards them from the well is that specific monster.

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. […] Or maybe it wasn’t Mad Axe at all, maybe it was the thing that came in the night. The ‘prentice boys all saw it, Old Nan said, but afterward when they told their Lord Commander every description had been different. And three died within the year, and the fourth went mad, and a hundred years later when the thing had come again, the ‘prentice boys were seen shambling along behind it, all in chains. […] That was only a story, though. He was just scaring himself. There was no thing that comes in the night, Maester Luwin had said so. If there had ever been such a thing, it was gone from the world now, like giants and dragons. […] The footfalls sounded heavy to Bran, slow, ponderous, scraping against the stone. It must be huge. Mad Axe had been a big man in Old Nan’s story, and the thing that came in the night had been monstrous.  (aSoS, Bran IV)

The fact that maester Luwin claimed it did not exist – or that if it ever did was gone like giants and dragons – is actually a tell-tale hint that it did exist, that it still exists, just as giants and dragons do. (see Bran Stark (Part I) – Serwyn Reversed of the Mirror Mirror essay series).

George even inserts a hint to Craster, with the legend horror tale of Mad Axe. The axe is a heavily featured weapon in the aCoK’s chapter at Craster’s, and that is prior to Gilly confirming they “come from” Craster’s.

Craster gave a shrug. “Happens I have better things to do than tend to the comings and goings of crows.” He drank a pull of beer and set the cup aside. “Had no good southron wine up here for a bear’s night. I could use me some wine, and a new axe. Mine’s lost its bite, can’t have that, I got me women to protect.” He gazed around at his scurrying wives. (aCoK, Jon III)

In a second Craster quote about the axe, we even have a Sandking maw reference for his wife, whose mouth is said to be a wet pink cave.

The woman’s mouth hung open, a wet pink cave, but Craster only gave a snort. “We’ve had no such troubles here . . . and I’ll thank you not to tell such evil tales under my roof. I’m a godly man, and the gods keep me safe. If wights come walking, I’ll know how to send them back to their graves. Though I could use me a sharp new axe.” (aCoK, Jon III)

We also have a maw human-eating reference for Gilly as the stand-in for the corpse queen, since Gilly and Sam end up into the kitchens of the Nightfort!

In From Sandkings to Nightqueens, I pointed out how Mel gains power in the eyes of Stannis, after Cressen stepped through the maw-entrance of the feast hall of Dragonstone. The Nightfort’s kitchens represent the same thing.

“Will Gilly be safe if I leave her here till I come back?” Sam asked them.
“She should be,” said Meera. “She’s welcome to our fire.”
Jojen said, “The castle is empty.”
Gilly looked around. “Craster used to tell us tales of castles, but I never knew they’d be so big.”
It’s only the kitchens. Bran wondered what she’d think when she saw Winterfell, if she ever did. (aSoS, Bran IV)

George could have chosen so many locations for Bran and Gilly to spend the night. He could have the well go up in a more logical location. But no, he writes a fake well with an underground tunnel leading into a kitchen, and not just any kitchen but a kitchen where THE ultimate horror story of the Rat Cook is alleged to have taken place!

That was where the Rat Cook chopped the prince to pieces, he knew, and he baked the pie in one of these ovens.  […] 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)

And when it comes to smuggling of corpse queens, remember how we were shown that after Mel (another corpse queen parallel) was smuggled behind Storm’s End’s warded walls, she then was sailed from Dragonstone to the Wall. Gilly too sails, after having been smuggled south of the Wall by Sam: first to Braavos and afterwards to Oldtown.

Oldtown is of special interest. The Hightower is likely warded as well as it is one of the alleged buildings that Bran the Builder helped out with, aside from Storm’s End, the Wall and Winterfell. It certainly leads to interesting possibilities to have Gilly as stand-in corpse queen show up, with a “son”, at Oldtown. Especially, if a rival maw power like Shade can be expected to move onto Oldtown with Euron’s fleet. I will hold off on the speculations for Gilly and Sam for Oldtown for now, because it should be done alongside of Euron’s essay as Night’s King with his Shady queen by his side.

One other final staging clue is the location from where Jon sees off Gilly, Sam and maester Aemon – the lichyard.

The hour before dawn was dark and still. Castle Black seemed strangely hushed. At the lichyard, a pair of two-wheeled wayns awaited him, along with Black Jack Bulwer and a dozen seasoned rangers, tough as the garrons they rode. (aFfC, Samwell I)

It is the sole scene in the published novels so far that actually takes place in a lichyard. And it is here that Gilly proudly declares her identity once again, just as she did inside the Nightfort’s kitchen to Bran and in the enchanted iced forest to Jon.

“As you command, my lady.”
A spasm of anger flashed across Gilly’s face. “Don’t you call me that. I’m a mother, not a lady. I’m Craster’s wife and Craster’s daughter, and a mother.” (aFfC, Samwell I)

This is a unusual display of commanding presence by Gilly. She is almost queenly. So we have a queen of the lichyard, or a corpse queen.

Notice too how she denies being a lady. It is an odd denial, for Gilly could regard it as a compliment (unless she was akin to Arya). But we can comprehend the deeper meaning of the denial much better, once we consider another Lady tied to a lichyard – Sansa’s direwolf whose bones were buried in Winterfell’s lichyard after they were sent to Winterfell from Darry where Ned Stark killed her. As a corpse queen, Gilly is angered by being referenced as a direwolf, or a Stark.

So, we can establish three identity declarations by Gilly in her arc, and in all three she is staged as a corpse queen figure. Why?

Mother’s Milk

If we consider Mel as mostly representing the sorceress aspect of the corpse queen and Euron’s Shade (of the evening) the hivemind abilities, then Gilly stands for the most natural aspect of the corpse queen – motherhood.

Time and time again Gilly is portrayed as either pregnant, nursing or leaking mother’s milk and weeping for the son she loses. Even a monster such as the corpse queen loves her children, nurses them and weeps for them. When Jon scouts the Skirling Pass of the Frostfangs, George writes the following as a description of the icy surroundings.

The Frostfangs were as cruel as any place the gods had made, and as inimical to men. The wind cut like a knife up here, and shrilled in the night like a mother mourning her slain children. What few trees they saw were stunted, grotesque things growing sideways out of cracks and fissures. Tumbled shelves of rock often overhung the trail, fringed with hanging icicles that looked like long white teeth from a distance. (aCoK, Jon)

The name of this icy mountain range that goes as far as the Lands of Always Winter are basically named icy fangs, cruel and hostile to men, that can cut like a knife. And the paragraph compares icicles to long white teeth. And right smack in the middle of those teeth, is the evocative image of a night’s mother weeping or mourning her dead children, which would be Others (her sons) or mini-maws (her daughters). At the heart of the cruel, deadly Others is a mother weeping for the children that were slain in the past. It is as if George is signaling that our maw, the corpse queen, is a mother mourning the Others killed in the past, and her hostility towards men stems from this.

Of course, Gilly is not the sole mother in the series nursing and weeping over children, but not every mother is cast as a corpse queen linked to a Night’s Kinglike figure. Nor is any woman so associated with mother milk, except perhaps Lysa Arryn, whom I have already associated to be tied to an ice spider mother figure in the Plutonian Others.

Who is Gilly?
“The wet nurse,” said Lady Melisandre. “Your Grace gave her freedom of the castle.”
“Not for running tales. She’s wanted for her teats, not for her tongue. I’ll have more milk from her, and fewer messages.”
“Castle Black needs no useless mouths,” Jon agreed. “I am sending Gilly south on the next ship out of Eastwatch.”
Melisandre touched the ruby at her neck. “Gilly is giving suck to Dalla’s son as well as her own. It seems cruel of you to part our little prince from his milk brother, my lord.”
Careful now, careful. “Mother’s milk is all they share. Gilly’s son is larger and more robust. He kicks the prince and pinches him, and shoves him from the breast. Craster was his father, a cruel man and greedy, and blood tells.”
The king was confused. “I thought the wet nurse was this man Craster’s daughter?”
“Wife and daughter both, Your Grace. Craster married all his daughters. Gilly’s boy was the fruit of their union.”
“Her own father got this child on her?” Stannis sounded shocked. “We are well rid of her, then. I will not suffer such abominations here. This is not King’s Landing.”(aDwD, Jon I)

At the Wall, Gilly is clarified to be both the wet nurse, wanted for her teats and milk, but as ever accompanied with the reminder that she was Craster’s wife and daughter. And in this scene, it become quite ironic that the one Night’s King figure present regards a corpse queen stand-in of another Night’s King figure an abomination and agrees they are well rid of her.

This scene also reveals Gilly does not just signify the motherhood aspect alone, but it also relates her to a third factor of the use of a Night’s King: binding, or in Gilly’s case bonding. The fact that Dalla’s boy and Gilly’s son both drink her mother’s milk makes them milk brothers. And in truth breastfeeding facilitates emotional bonding, as it releases oxytocin in the body and brain, a hormone that makes us feel connected and loving.

Notice too, how Mel – another corpse queen figure – touches her ruby, when she makes the argument for Stannis to not allow Gilly be sent away with “her son”. As I mentioned already in From Sandkings to Nightqueens, the wearer of one of Mel’s rubies is not merely used for a glamor spell alone, but the wearer or carrier is also bound to Mel in blood and soul: this also applies to Stannis; for his glamored sword has a great square ruby in the hilt. We witness Mel trying to use her magical bond with Stannis, while we are equally told of the bond between two persons because of Gilly’s milk.

It then becomes interesting that Gilly’s nursing is not only tied to feeding sons, but also grown men. Samwell has a dream of a feast at Horn Hill, where he is the Lord of Horn Hill, and when the feast is done, he goes to his old room that he shared with his sisters, only to find Gilly there.

When the feast was done he went up to sleep; not to the lord’s bedchamber where his mother and father lived but to the room he had once shared with his sisters. Only instead of his sisters it was Gilly waiting in the huge soft bed, wearing nothing but a big shaggy fur, milk leaking from her breasts. (aSoS, Samwell III)

Dolorous Edd makes an innuendo to Sam that he would not mind being on Gilly’s teat, while Gilly herself evokes the image of leaking milk.

Gilly.
“That’s the one. If my wet nurse had looked like her, I’d still be on the teat. Mine had whiskers.”
[…]
Her eyes filled with tears. “I have to go. It’s past time that I fed them. I’ll be leaking all over myself if I don’t go.” She rushed across the yard, leaving Sam perplexed behind her.(aFfC, Samwell I)

Or how about Samwell actually ending up drinking Gilly’s mother milk when Gilly and him copulate.

The Cinnamon Wind was spinning all around them and he could taste the rum on Gilly’s tongue and the next thing her breasts were bare and he was touching them. I said the words, Sam thought again, but one of her nipples found its way between his lips. It was pink and hard and when he sucked on it her milk filled his mouth, mingling with the taste of rum, and he had never tasted anything so fine and sweet and good. If I do this I am no better than Dareon, Sam thought, but it felt too good to stop. And suddenly his cock was out, jutting upward from his breeches like a fat pink mast. It looked so silly standing there that he might have laughed, but Gilly pushed him back onto her pallet, hiked her skirts up around her thighs, and lowered herself onto him with a little whimpery sound. That was even better than her nipples. She’s so wet, he thought, gasping. I never knew a woman could get so wet down there. “I am your wife now,” she whispered, sliding up and down on him. And Sam groaned and thought, No, no, you can’t be, I said the words, I said the words, but the only word he said was, “Yes.” (aFfC, Samwell III)

And as a result, Samwell bonds to Gilly even more.

[…] so all that Sam could do was struggle back into his blacks. He found them on the deck beneath his hammock, all bundled up in one damp heap. He sniffed at them to see how foul they were, and inhaled the smell of salt and sea and tar, wet canvas and mildew, fruit and fish and blackbelly rum, strange spices and exotic woods, and a heady bouquet of his own dried sweat. But Gilly’s smell was on them too, the clean smell of her hair and the sweet smell of her milk, and that made him glad to wear them. (aFfC, Samwell III)

So, we have two grown men being pictured in a situation where they are breastfed, while Gilly, the corpse queen stand-in leaks milk if she does not feed her children. While readers may consider this some particular fetish of George himself, I consider it a hint to the maw-mobile manner of feeding in Sandkings.

The mobiles eat pap—predigested food obtained inside the castle. They get it from the maw after she has worked on it for several days. Their stomachs can’t handle anything else, so if the maw dies, they soon die as well.” (Dreamsongs I – Sandkings)

The heart and stomach of the hivemind (the maw) is the sole one able to actually consume food. Her mobiles cannot eat prey, only tear it apart and deliver it to the maw. But the maw feeds her mobiles with a type of pap or sap she secretes. Since the corpse queen is imo similarly a maw, except one in a furry spider shape, she would feed her grown sons, the Others. And the sap she would feed them with is conceptually comparable to milk.

The pair of Craster and Gilly thus make for an interesting couple to learn about the feeding habbits of both Others and the corpse queen: Crasters feeds the corpse queen with his sons, while Gilly shows how the corpse queen maw nurses the Others.

Which then also gives us some insight why George wrote Lysa Arryn to nurses her seven year old son at a far.

“Don’t be afraid, my sweet baby,” Lysa whispered. “Mother’s here, nothing will hurt you.” She opened her robe and drew out a pale, heavy breast, tipped with red. The boy grabbed for it eagerly, buried his face against her chest, and began to suck. Lysa stroked his hair. (aCoK, Catelyn VI)

The maester combed his fingers through his hair, dribbling globs of porridge on the floor. “Lady Lysa would give his lordship her breast whenever he grew overwrought. Archmaester Ebrose claims that mother’s milk has many healthful properties.”
“Is that your counsel, maester? That we find a wet nurse for the Lord of the Eyrie and Defender of the Vale? When shall we wean him, on his wedding day? That way he can move directly from his nurse’s nipples to his wife’s.” Lord Petyr’s laugh made it plain what he thought of that. (aFfC, Alayne I)

And just as a reminder, notice Lysa’s color scheme.

Lysa, freshly scrubbed and garbed in cream velvet with a rope of sapphires and moonstones around her milk-white neck, was holding court on the terrace overlooking the scene of the combat, surrounded by her knights, retainers, and lords high and low.

Lysa and Robin Arryn
Lysa and Robert Arryn, by unknown (contact me so I can credit)

There are many more references for Gilly with nursing and milk or mother’s milk. But those I cited are some of the most important one in certain scenes and unrelated to babies, as a takeaway that Gilly can be regarded as a source of insight about the corpse queen in a physical way. Though Gilly is human and the corpse queen is not, the physical aspects that are heavily featured in Gilly should have their analogy with the corpse queen.

Copies for Children

Which brings me back to Craster and his nineteen wives who are also his daughters: the incest. As other readers have noted, the number nineteen is quite interesting as there are nineteen castles in total along the Wall and according to Tyrion nineteen dragon skulls in the Red Keep.

There were nineteen skulls. The oldest was more than three thousand years old; the youngest a mere century and a half. The most recent were also the smallest; a matched pair no bigger than mastiff’s skulls, and oddly misshapen, all that remained of the last two hatchlings born on Dragonstone. They were the last of the Targaryen dragons, perhaps the last dragons anywhere, and they had not lived very long. (aGoT, Tyrion II)

The Watch had built nineteen great strongholds along the Wall, but only three were still occupied: Eastwatch on its grey windswept shore, the Shadow Tower hard by the mountains where the Wall ended, and Castle Black between them, at the end of the kingsroad. The other keeps, long deserted, were lonely, haunted places, where cold winds whistled through black windows and the spirits of the dead manned the parapets. (aGoT, Jon III)

For those who widen their eyes at the mention of the oldest dragon skull being three thousand years old, keep in mind that not all skulls have been identified, and therefore not all skulls are necessarily Targaryen dragons nor have to date from past the conquest. Some of these skulls might have been carried from Valyria to Dragonstone by the Targaryens before they abandoned Old Valyria, expecting the coming Doom. Maybe the oldest dragon skull is the ancestral, first dragon of the Targaryens if and when they became a dragonriding family at Old Valyria (over three thousand years ago). Maybe it is the skull of a native wild dragon of Dragonstone the Targaryens discovered after they moved from Old Valyria to Dragonstone, or someplace else in Westeros.

It is noteworthy that George chose to have nineteen dragon skulls and nineteen defense forts along the Wall in aGoT. This suggests that the nineteen skulls and forts determined how many wives Craster would have. If Gilly is a stand-in wife for the corpse queen, then we can regard the other eighteen wives as stand-ins for the corpse queen as well. This makes for nineteen mortal enemy pairs for each skull with each corpse queen stand-in and a Wall fortress standing in between each pair to keep them from coming to blows. I suspect the number nineteen itself, originating with the number of dragon skulls, is supposed to match the total Targaryens that will be known in the histories recognized as kings or queens of Westeros, after the times of aSoIaF. The Targaryen dynasty starting from Aegon I the Conquerer up to the Mad King comprises of seventeen recognized kings. Two more are in the running, with each likely recognized as such, if they manage to oust the official Baratheon dynasty and claim the Iron Throne, however briefly: Dany and (fake?) Aegon VI.

This puts forward the possibility that there may have been a total of nineteen maws who were all mothers and sisters to each other. I managed to identify several potential maws in George’s world building and histories of Planetos in From Sandkings to Nightqueens, but there may have been more. In Sandkings, maws do not only reproduce mobiles, but new small maws as well. The four maws that Simon Kress possesses are hinted to be Shade’s spawn. On the one hand, Shade attempts to have those maws taken care of, but also wants to keep them small, so they could never rival Shade itself. We have a potential allusion to this in the backstory of Andalos and Lorath combined. For one, the mazemakers built several mazes on every island of Lorath as well as the nearby peninsula of Essos, right smack in the middle of the region of the proto-Andals – the Axe and Hills of Norvos – from which Andalos and the Faith of the Seven faces of one god (hivemind) expanded. (see From Sandkings to Nightqueens in the section “maws”).

Notice how the Axe as “origin” location for the Andals matches with the often mentioned and featured axe at Craster’s. It even appears in the Night’s Watch finding wighted Othor and Jafer in aGoT, or in combination with the thing-that-comes-in-the-night with the tale of Mad Axe. Or how Tyrion thinks of the Velvet Hills of Andalos, where allegedly seven murderous swan maidens roamed, as teats or breasts.

The Velvet Hills proved a disappointment. “Half the whores in Lannisport have breasts bigger than these hills,” he told Illyrio. “You ought to call them the Velvet Teats.” (aDwD, Tyrion II)

And it are both wet nursing Gilly and velvet-wearing Lysa Aryn who are explicitly featured as breastfeeding children and adult men well beyond their weaning age.

Nor should it then be any surprise then that the rat cook’s tale includes an Andal king being served his own son, or that George employed the sole Andal lord of the North to re-enact the rat cook plot. It is yet another tip off by George that the Andalos became a kingdom founded on cannibalism and the sacrifice of human sons.

Now, I have no further inclination to hunt for more maw-locations in the histories of Planetos in this essay, but instead wish to return to the conceptual notion of Craster and his nineteen wives who are mothers, daughters and sisters to one another. As I have before, on the surface Craster’s wives seem anathema to the Night’s King template of a king-figure wed to one hivemind controlling maw. And yet, it is also an excellent parallel to a maw’s method of procreation. While characters and readers often talk, think or write of a Sandking-maw or an aSoIaF-maw such as the corpse queen as female and mother, it is in fact an asexual self-fertilizing lifeform, using some type of autogamy or parthogenesis. It does not copulate with another entity. In that sense, a maw is genetically genderless, both father and mother to its offspring. This is why Varys as a eunuch works as a stand-in for the corpse queen, and why incestual reproduction in a human family also works as a conceptual parallel.

Genetically, a self-fertilizing lifeform reproduces genetical copies of itself. It is nature’s form of “cloning”. Another novella that George published, Nightflyers, includes a ghostly cold human-hating “mother”. As this is a sci-fi of the 1000 worlds world building, she ended up making a male clone of herself (Royd), who is regarded as her son, but in truth a clone.

“I should not call her my mother,” Royd said. “I am her cross-sex clone. After thirty years of flying this ship alone, she was bored. I was to be her companion and lover. She could shape me to be a perfect diversion. She had no patience with children, however, and no desire to raise me herself. After she had done the cloning, I was sealed in a nurturant tank, an embryo linked into her computer. It was my teacher. Before birth and after. I had no birth, really. Long after the time a normal child would have been born, I remained in the tank, growing, learning, on slow-time, blind and dreaming and living through tubes. I was to be released when I had attained the age of puberty, at which time she guessed I would be fit company.” (Dreamsongs I, Nightflyers)

The passengers on the Nightflyer eventually discover that the ghost of Royd’s “mother” still lives in the controls of the ship, and that she is the one who is behind mysterious murders and accidents. Aside from a cold hatred, she is also showcased to be able to posses the bodies and limbs of the dead to kill the remaining survivors. Royd’s mother therefore is a proto-corpse queen with the ability to control wights remotely.

You can read the transcript with commentary of Nightflyers on the Fattest Leech’s blog, where she too makes the same argument about cloning and what she refers to as self-pollinization: the closest manner in which humans can attempt to reproduce genetic copies of themselves without having access to scientific cloning technologies is through incest. So, when George writes human characters that are to perform a stand-in role for an entity that self-fertilizes, then incest comes the closest to it. 

Naturally, we can then already project that this is partially why George chose for Targaryens to be incestuous. The Valyrian word for dragon is genderless and it is impossible to determine a dragon’s sex unless it lays eggs, which may hatch without fertilization (and thus parthogenesis). The dragon and the spider may be one another’s eternal enemies, eternally divided, but their manner of reproduction is similar – genetical copies.

That is why I think George wrote Craster to have 19 wives who are also his daughters to match 19 dragon skulls, kept from warring one another with 19 forts on a Wall that does not allow Others to pass south, and dragons to fly north.

The Wolf and the Maw
jon snow and ghost by mujia liao
Jon Snow and Ghost by Mujia Liao

I already highlighted how, at a deeper level, Gilly denies being like a direwolf while being staged as the corpse queen at a lichyard in a prior subsection. It is not the first time that Gilly is set against a direwolf or Jon. It occurs several times, from the very moment they first meet. In fact, the same scene where Gilly is staged as corpse queen at Castle Black’s ends with Jon Snow referencing that first meeting in wolf terms.

Jon was watching the wayns. “The first time I saw Gilly,” he said, “she was pressed back against the wall of Craster’s Keep, this skinny dark-haired girl with her big belly, cringing away from Ghost. He had gotten in among her rabbits, and I think she was frightened that he would tear her open and devour the babe . . . but it was not the wolf she should have been afraid of, was it?
No, Sam thought. Craster was the danger, her own father. (aFfC, Samwell I)

Jon was remembering. “The first time I saw Gilly she was pressed back against the wall of Craster’s Keep, this skinny dark-haired girl with her big belly, cringing away from Ghost. He had gotten in among her rabbits, and I think she was frightened that he would tear her open and devour the babe … but it was not the wolf she should have been afraid of, was it?
“She has more courage than she knows,” said Sam. (aDwD, Jon II)

Unaware of the fact that Jon forced Gilly to leave her son behind and take Dalla’s with her instead, it is not surprising that Samwell considers only Craster to be the danger in the above quote. Sam lacks the necessary information to understand Jon’s true meaning of his words. Furthermore, Sam’s thoughts about Craster misdirect the reader to the wrong scene between Jon and Gilly in aCoK: the one where Jon learns about Craster sacrificing his sons to the Others while standing in a frozen enchanted forest.

“Is it Craster who frightens you, Gilly?”
For the baby, not for me. If it’s a girl, that’s not so bad, she’ll grow a few years and he’ll marry her. But Nella says it’s to be a boy, and she’s had six and knows these things. He gives the boys to the gods. Come the white cold, he does, and of late it comes more often. That’s why he started giving them sheep, even though he has a taste for mutton. Only now the sheep’s gone too. Next it will be dogs, till . . .” She lowered her eyes and stroked her belly. […] “Will you take me? Just so far as the Wall—”
“We do not ride for the Wall. We ride north, after Mance Rayder and these Others, these white shadows and their wights. We seek them, Gilly. Your babe would not be safe with us.” (aCoK, Jon III)

That is not the actual scene that Jon is remembering and referencing. Jon alludes to his first meeting with Gilly, an earlier scene of the same chapter.

He was wondering where to find Sam when he heard a shout of fear. “Wolf!” He sprinted around the hall toward the cry, the earth sucking at his boots. One of Craster’s women was backed up against the mud-spattered wall of the keep. “Keep away,” she was shouting at Ghost. “You keep away!” The direwolf had a rabbit in his mouth and another dead and bloody on the ground before him. “Get it away, m’lord,” she pleaded when she saw him.
[…]
The woman regarded them with nervous eyes. She was younger than he’d thought at first. A girl of fifteen or sixteen years, he judged, dark hair plastered across a gaunt face by the falling rain, her bare feet muddy to the ankles. The body under the sewn skins was showing in the early turns of pregnancy. “Are you one of Craster’s daughters?” he asked.
She put a hand over her belly. “Wife now.” Edging away from the wolf, she knelt mournfully beside the broken hutch. “I was going to breed them rabbits. There’s no sheep left.” […] She wiped her hands on her skirt. “M’lord—”
“I’m no lord.” (aCoK, Jon III)

Gilly’s denial of being a lady at the lichyard mirrors their interaction here. At Craster’s Gilly addressed Jon as m’lord, a title Jon denies any claim to. At Castle Black, Jon addresses Gilly as my lady, and she angrily proclaims that Jon should not be calling her that. So, what is the wolf’s threat referred to both in the lichyard at Castle Black as well as the first meeting?

But others had come crowding round, drawn by the woman’s scream and the crash of the rabbit hutch. “Don’t you believe him, girl,” called out Lark the Sisterman, a ranger mean as a cur. “That’s Lord Snow himself.
“Bastard of Winterfell and brother to kings,” mocked Chett, who’d left his hounds to see what the commotion was about.
That wolf’s looking at you hungry, girl,” Lark said. “Might be it fancies that tender bit in your belly.
Jon was not amused. “You’re scaring her.”
Warning her, more like.” Chett’s grin was as ugly as the boils that covered most of his face. (aCoK, Jon III)(aCoK, Jon III)

Chett and Lark indicate that Jon is a threat to Gilly’s son. Maester Aemon later refers to Jon as Lord Snow and how only as Lord Snow, Jon would be able to make the stone hearted decision to swap babies and separate a child from its mother.

“No. No, that’s wrong. Jon would never . . .”
Jon would never. Lord Snow did. Sometimes there is no happy choice, Sam, only one less grievous than the others.” (aFfC, Samwell II)

He could not blame Gilly for her grief. Instead, he blamed Jon Snow and wondered when Jon’s heart had turned to stone. Once he asked Maester Aemon that very question, when Gilly was down at the canal fetching water for them. “When you raised him up to be the lord commander,” the old man answered. (aFfC, Samwell III)

So, Chett and Lark were correct to warn Gilly against Lord Snow who would use her unborn son for his own ends – save Dalla’s son. Though neither Ghost or Jon/Lord Snow would ever eat Gilly’s son, it should be noted that Lark’s jape about the wolf fancying the unborn child is yet another hint at Craster’s sons being a food offering.

Now, in the cited scenes Jon and Ghost is mostly featured as a threat to Gilly’s son, rather than Gilly herself. And it is often seen as foreshadowing for a deadly fate of Gilly’s son, nicknamed monster. I will come back to that in the section for the one other surviving character who can be regarded as Craster’s legacy – his son.

But it is not the sole scene where Gilly feels or is threatened by a wolf, physically or metaphorically. There is this scene at the Nightfort:

A shadow detached itself from the broken dome above and leapt down through the moonlight. Even with his injured leg, the wolf landed as light and quiet as a snowfall. The girl Gilly made a frightened sound and clutched her babe so hard against her that it began to cry again. (aSoS, Bran IV)

Here we have Summer frightening Gilly. Bran assures her Summer will not hurt her, and they leave Gilly and her nursing baby soon after to pass through the Black Gate. Summer and Bran indeed cannot pose a direct threat to Gilly or her son, but we should not forget that in this particular scene, Gilly is a stand-in for the corpse queen. It suggests the idea that if the corpse queen detects Summer and thus Bran north of the Wall, she and her sons, the Others, might take a fright, and respond defensively. We do indeed witness wights trying to ambush Bran and Summer, and failing in it, gather more wights in front of the warded cave. And of course, the summer season or the return of it, would scare her.

And then we have this hidden clue, when Jon is given the offer by Stannis to become Lord of Winterfell with Val as his wife. Jon’s thoughts at some point are intruded by Ghost’s, who rejoins him after finding his own way back to Castle Black from the caves where Jon and the Free Folk slept the night before climbing the Wall.

He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. It was a hunger inside him, sharp as a dragonglass blade. A hunger . . . he could feel it. It was food he needed, prey, a red deer that stank of fear or a great elk proud and defiant. He needed to kill and fill his belly with fresh meat and hot dark blood. His mouth began to water with the thought. (aSoS, Jon XII)

“Ah-ah, but there is no Gilly in this scene!” you might argue. Not directly, no. Notice however that Jon-Ghost think of a red deer stinking of fear as needed prey. And Gilly is described as a frightened doe by Samwell, after she flees from Jon’s office who just forced her to agree to swap her son for Mance’s.

“Sam.” Her voice sounded raw. Gilly was dark-haired and slim, with the big brown eyes of a doe. She was swallowed by the folds of Sam’s old cloak, her face half-hidden by its hood, but shivering all the same. Her face looked wan and frightened. (aFfC, Samwell I)

The hunger Jon experiences for a red frightened deer is compared to a sharp dragonglass blade. What a strange item to compare it to. It is not an everyday blade. It is a weapon to slay Others. Tie this hunger to strike a dragonglass blade at fearful deer, with Gilly being compared to a frightened doe, and George conjures the idea of the wolf Jon striking at the corpse queen, and that the corpse queen fears him.

And in a strange way, George even describes Jon as a wolf feeling a hunger for fresh meat and dark blook like the corpse queen. Who else knows how sharp a dragonglass blade cuts? The Others that were killed with it, have not survived to consider how painful it is. But their mother would have experienced it through the hivemind without being killed by it.

Even from this vantage point, Chett’ and Lark’s foreshadowing warnings in the first meeting between Jon and Gilly as a stand-in corpse queen are correct. Jon discovered the cache of obsidian and broken horn with the help of Ghost, passed it around to Samwell and his Night’s Watch friends, and Samwell ended up slaying one of the Others, the maw’s son, by happenstance, and now Stannis and the Night’s Watch know how lethal it is against the Others.

The wolf versus the corpse queen foreshadowing ends with Jon being woken by Dolorous Edd at the hour of the wolf, and Gilly as the queen of the lichyard.

When he woke, he found Edd Tollett looming over him in the darkness of his bedchamber. “M’lord? It is time. The hour of the wolf. You left orders to be woken.” (aDwD, Jon II)

The time for the wolf has come to do what Chett and Lark warned Gilly about: she is forced to leave her child behind.

The point about showing these repeated forewarnings of a wolf as a potential threat to Gilly or her son is to warn readers against speculating about forewarnings for Gilly or her actual baby. It may be in some cases only a forewarning of the threat that Jon poses to the corpse queen and her son(s), the Others. Jon may be a threat to both Gilly and the corpse queen, but also just the corpse queen, or on the contrary just Gilly.

Conclusion (tl;tr)

We have established that Craster is a Night’s King figure by sacrificing his sons, sheep, pigs and dogs to the Others. And there is plenty of circumstantial literary evidence to back up the notion that his sons help to feed the lifeform that is mother to the Others.

Once we recognize that his story role as Night’s King figure is purely one of physical support, we see that not just he but his wives too are key to understand the Others and their corpse queen, the maw, as lifeform in its physical needs and way of procreation.

Gilly is repeatedly cast as the corpse queen:

  • when she offers to be Jon’s wife in a magical frosted forest after the dawn;
  • when she is smuggled inside the Nightfort into the Rat Cook’s kitchen;
  • when she says goodbye to Jon at Castle Black’s lichyard.

As a physical stand-in for the corpse queen, Gilly is mostly portrayed and associated as mother weeping over the son taken from her and nursing not only babies but grown men. From this we can infer that the corpse queen in her own turn secretes a type of sap or pap (mother’s milk) that is food for her adult sons, the Others.

And just like Gilly is a corpse queen, so are her sisters and mothers. In the sci-fi Nightflyer, George uses cloning for the crazy cold mother hellbent on killing humans. In Sandkings, the maws perform some type of self-fertilization (autogamy), which is nature’s version of cloning. And while the corpse queen could certainly be reproducing sons (Others) and daughters (mini-maws) via autogamy, this natural manner of reproduction is impossible for non-magical humans and cloning technology is not available. So, in the fantasy world of Westeros, George has the family of Craster and his 19 wives mimics the corpse queen’s reproduction system commit a form of incest that comes the closest to creating clones.

With Gilly as stand-in for the corpse queen at the Nightfort, we get another suggestive parallel with the thing-that-only-comes-at-Night, since Bran believes that is who is coming nearer to them, when he hears shuffling, stumblind and steps underground drawing nearer to the well.

Finally, Jon is also often cast as a wolf threat to Gilly and her son. This then is not just meant in the sense that he forces Gilly to leave her son behind and swap him for Mance’s, but just as well that the corpse queen should fear Jon and how he may harm her.

Timeline Stuff

Before I delve in depth into the Night’s King legend itself, I will tackle the mistaken conflation of the Night’s King events with the Long Night. Measter Yandel’s information on the Night’s King is the most succinct, but contains crucial timeline pointers. He tells us that an alliance of two kings from both sides of the Wall brought the Night’s King down: a Stark King of Winter, Brandon the Breaker, and Joramun, King-Beyond-the-Wall.

This give us some rough idea when the Night’s King lived. We know there was

This all means that the Night’s King lived AFTER the Long Night. Unfortunately, readers often discuss the Night’s King as if he was alive during the Long Night. They were distinct separate events though. When this is pointed out to theorists especially, some go as far as to present their own non-canon timeline, claiming that GRRM lied about the history, rather than reassess their theory.

Readers and theorists who make this mistake tend to argue that a Night’s King copy like the one of the past is necessary, because who else is going to lead the Others? The answer of course is that the Others do not need a Night’s king-copy to lead them, because they did not have a Night’s King during the Long Night that lasted a generation. And especially when a present-day Night’s King theory hinges on this fabricated “necessity” for the Others, some of its proponents will go as far as to claim that the Night’s Watch and the Wall  predate the Long Night, and that this provoked the Others. But so far nobody has managed to successfully explain to me why humans who’ve expanded their settlements from Dorne as far at least as the Fist of the First Men would raise a 700 feet ice Wall filled with magic warding spells and a Night’s Watch army of more than ten thousand men without a known magical, deadly threat.

Index

The Long Night timeline

Of course, you should not just believe my assertions, without the evidence for this, which are several cross references, involving the Long Night, the last hero and Brandon the Builder. All the world book info we have on these are the foundation for why we can conclude with certainty that the Night’s King came generations and centuries after the Long Night.

  • (8000 or 6000 years ago) A generation lasting Long Night

It is also from these histories that we learn of the Long Night, when a season of winter came that lasted a generation—a generation in which children were born, grew into adulthood, and in many cases died without ever seeing the spring. Indeed, some of the old wives’ tales say that they never even beheld the light of day, so complete was the winter that fell on the world. (tWoIaF – Ancient History: The Long Night)

  • (during the Long Night) A type of proto Night’s Watch is formed. It is not one united army yet. It likely were warriors and guardsmen from separate and individual ringforts trying to defend them from the Others.
  • (towards the end of the Long Night) The last hero sets out in search of the children of the forest for aid. After an arduous journey where the last hero loses his sword, dozen friends, horse and dog to the cold, ravenous giants, cold servants and Others, he finds the CotF and this tips the scales against the Others.
  • (the end of the Long Night) Because of the aid that the last hero procured, the first men of the proto Night’s Watch band together. So, at this point the various warriors and guardsmen form one army we can now call the Night’s Watch, including having the most ancient sounding part of the vows. This is the section where they declare who they are –  “I am the sword in the darkness. 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, the shield that guards the realms of men.” 
  • (the end of the Long Night) At the Battle for the Dawn, these first men of the Night’s Watch defeat the Others. Surviving Others flee to the icy north (presumably the Heart of Winter).

How the Long Night came to an end is a matter of legend, as all such matters of the distant past have become. In the North, they tell of a last hero who sought out the intercession of the children of the forest, his companions abandoning him or dying one by one as they faced ravenous giants, cold servants, and the Others themselves. Alone he finally reached the children, despite the efforts of the white walkers, and all the tales agree this was a turning point. Thanks to the children, the first men of the Night’s Watch banded together and were able to fight—and win—the Battle for the Dawn: the last battle that broke the endless winter and sent the Others fleeing to the icy north. Now, six thousand years later (or eight thousand as True History puts forward), the Wall made to defend the realms of men is still manned by the sworn brothers of the Night’s Watch, and neither the Others nor the children have been seen in many centuries. (tWoIaF – Ancient History: the Long Night)

  • (after the Long Night) The founder of House Stark, Brandon the Builder raises Winterfell. His descendants style themselves the Kings of Winter.

Legend says that Brandon the Builder raised Winterfell after the generation-long winter known as the Long Night to become the stronghold of his descendants, the Kings of Winter. (tWoIaF – The North: Winterfell)

There are a few crucial conclusions we can already derive from this information.

  • Firstly, the King of Winter Brandon the Breaker, who took down the Night’s King, comes after Brandon the Builder: he is a Stark and a King of Winter, and both the House and the title come after the founding of the House and the raising of the castle.
  • The story of the last hero gives us some info on the relation between the CotF and the First Men during the Long Night. During the Dawn Age, the CotF and First Men initially were committed in deadly hostilities against one another. These ceased after they agreed to a peace via a Pact at the God’s Eye. But agreeing to a peace does not mean the start of an alliance. It may move to an alliance over time, but not before it becomes in the interest of both sides to work together. So, after the Pact, CotF kept to themselves in the forests and hollow hills, while First Men did their thing: fighting each other, migrating, settling, … Only when both races/species are under existential threat by the Others during the Long Night they form an alliance.

Inexorably, the war ground on across generations, until at last the children understood that they could not win. The First Men, perhaps tired of war, also wished to see an end to the fighting. The wisest of both races prevailed, and the chief heroes and rulers of both sides met upon the isle in the Gods Eye to form the Pact. Giving up all the lands of Westeros save for the deep forests, the children won from the First Men the promise that they would no longer cut down the weirwoods. All the weirwoods of the isle on which the Pact was forged were then carved with faces so that the gods could witness the Pact, and the order of green men was made afterward to tend to the weirwoods and protect the isle. (tWoIaF – Ancient History: The Coming of First Men)

Building_the_Wall_Chase_Stone
Building the Wall by Chase Stone
Brandon the Builder

Note: I also recommend the video on Brandon the Builder from History of Westeros.

These above conclusions and implications surrounding Brandon the Builder and when the alliance between CotF and First Men formed help us clear up when the Wall was raised. In the following quotes we get all the necessary clues.

Maester Childer’s Winter’s Kings, or the Legends and Lineages of the Starks of Winterfell contains a part of a ballad alleged to tell of the time Brandon the Builder sought the aid of the children while raising the Wall. He was taken to a secret place to meet with them, but could not at first understand their speech, which was described as sounding like the song of stones in a brook, or the wind through leaves, or the rain upon the water. The manner in which Brandon learned to comprehend the speech of the children is a tale in itself, and not worth repeating here. (tWoIaF – Ancient History: the Dawn Age)

Brandon the Builder is not only tied to being the first to build Winterfell with stone after the Long Night. He is also connected to the building of the Wall. The above quote has three interesting points. The Builder sought out the children, WHILE raising the Wall. In other words, construction and work on the Wall had commenced when he sought the children. Secondly, this seeking out of CotF and staying with them at a secret place has a commonality with the story of the last hero. Brandon the Builder went in search for them as did the last hero. And since Brandon the Builder had to learn their language first to understand them, we can infer that the last hero would have to learn as well.

Finally, maester Yandel makes a suspicious remark. He says the manner in which Brandon the Builder learned their speech is not worth repeating. The expression “not worth repeating” is an opinionated dismissal. And we know that maester Yandel most often dismisses magical stuff, such as greenseeing. While maester Yandel does reveal what type of powers greenseers are claimed to have, he throws shade on whether such abilities existed and refuses to tie this ability to a specifically named hero of the Age of Heroes. Most likely the tale of Brandon the Builder learning the language of the CotF would make clear to us that he was a greenseer. And yes of course, George as actual author did not want to go into the details of this teaching process. It is something we (shall) witness via Bran Stark in the current timeline in the secret cave with Bloodraven. Hence, why George would not consider it worth repeating – we must read for ourselves in aDwD and the as of yet unpublished tWoW.

Some of the commonalities between the last hero and Brandon the Builder seeking the CotF should raise the question whether Brandon the Builder was the last hero? I would say, “yes”.

Aside from the Wall and Winterfell, Brandon the Builder is also tied to the building of Storm’s End and the Hightower at Oldtown.

As Brandon the Builder is connected with an improbable number of great works (Storm’s End and the Wall, to name but two prominent examples) over a span of numerous lifetimes, the tales have likely turned some ancient king, or a number of different kings of House Stark (for there have been many Brandons in the long reign of that family) into something more legendary. (tWoIaF – The North: Winterfell)

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)

By yielding to a mortal’s love, Elenei doomed herself to a mortal’s death, and for this the gods who had given her birth hated the man she had taken for her lord husband. In their wroth, they sent howling winds and lashing rains to knock down every castle Durran dared to build, until a young boy helped him erect one so strong and cunningly made that it could defy their gales. The boy grew to be Brandon the Builder; (tWoIaF – The Stormlands – House Durrandon)

In a non-magical world without greenseers, maester Yandel’s dismissal of Brandon the Builder being responsible for the construction of architectural feats across the entire continent from Oldtown until the Wall seems a fair one. But it is a magical world with greenseers able to communicate via ravens and trees (and people with broken minds, such as Hodor). And it is a magical world where greenseers of the North (the cold preserves) and linked with weirwood trees could live far longer than a normal human being can. So, yes, a greenseer could be partially responsible in relaying what needs to be built to serve a protective purpose against the elements and threats of a certain location.

Of interest with Storm’s End is the claim that Brandon the Builder helped out as an anonymous boy who only later in life came to be known as Brandon the Builder. If Brandon the Builder helped out Durran as a greenseeing boy using the weirnet and ravens to communicate and help with the construction of Storm’s End, this means he already had been trained by children of the forest. It also means Brandon the Builder went in search of the CotF when he was a boy, exactly like Bran Stark, whose arduous journey in search of the three-eyed-crow also has commonalities with the last hero’s journey. This further suggests that Brandon the Builder indeed was the last hero, who was a boy journeying in search of the CotF.

Readers and theorists have the habit of writing the identifier to the last hero with capitals, as Last Hero. But George does not. He writes it as “the last hero” both in asoiaf and the World Book. With the capital use, readers are prone to equate him to having committed feats like Azor Ahai’s or a warrior hero such Serwyn. Why else would someone be called a hero, hmmm? The answer is simple: the last hero is an anonymous figure born towards the end of the Age of Heroes. His story about seeking the children of the forest does not even involve warrior feats or even that he was physically present at the Battle for the Dawn. Sure, he had a sword and a horse and a dog and companions. So does Bran on a similar journey, but we never see him doing any sword fighting aside from beating Tommen up before his fall at Winterfell.

There is no explicit name for the era between the Long Night and the coming of the Andals. Still, the era before the Long Night and after is markedly different. Before there are mainly small petty kingdoms with people at best living in wooden ringforts. The archeological legacy is scant, so that the events of those times can only come down to the current timeline via legends and songs. After the Long Night, the kingdoms grow bigger as feuds between petty kingdoms are settled and the First Men settle in more permanent stone constructions. The archeological legacy is tangible and still visible to people of the current timeline in sections of castles and runes. And it has intervals of cooperation beyond peace between First Men and CotF, including against the Andal invasion. There is no in-world name for this era, but I think of it as the Age of Construction. Brandon the Builder is the hero who bridges both eras. He is the first and only man linked in name to “after the Long Night” via the permanent construction of Winterfell, and yet he is explicitly said to be of the Age of Heroes, which makes him the ideal hero to be referred to as the last one.

Storm’s End has commonalities with the Wall. Melisandre explains to Davos why he needs to smuggle her into the underground seaside passage of the castle: there are ancient magical wards that prevent a shadow from passing.

Melisandre: “There are spells woven into the stones. Dark walls that no shadow can pass—ancient, forgotten, yet still in place.” (aCoK, Davos II)

Maester Yandel does not know about these warding spells in the stones of Storm’s End, and if he did would never recognize to be true. It therefore does not matter whether he argues that the ingenious curtain wall of Storm’s End dates from the Andal period. It are the ancient spells in the stones that prevent any sorceress from sending murderous shadows through its walls to kill whomever huddles behind them. The exact same thing was done with the Wall.

Melisandre: “Great was the lore that raised it, and great the spells locked beneath its ice.” (aDwD, Jon I)

“The Wall is more than just ice and stone, he said. There are spells woven into it . . . old ones, and strong. [Coldhands] cannot pass beyond the Wall.” […] 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.  (aSoS, Bran IV)

The same type of magic was used for both structures, and supports the claim that Bran the Builder was involved. It is also eyebrow raising that George has managed to keep Storm’s End out of any type of plot-attempt to attack it with dragons. While dragonriders have visited, lived and recuperated there, any mention of dragons fighting is done outside or away from Storm’s End. If the wards in the stones of Storm’s End have a similar effect on dragons as what Queen Alysanne experienced with Silverwing at the Wall – she refused thrice to fly across the Wall – then Argilac the Arrogant made a fatal mistake not putting his castle to the test against the Conquerer and his three sisters. Perhaps Storm’s End may be put to the test in aDoS, once Dany arrives in Westeros with her dragons? 

I would not be surprised if we learn in tWoW that the Hightower in Oldtown also has similar magical wards, especially since Lord Leyton Hightower is said to be looking for spells to protect Oldtown against Euron Greyjoy. 

With so many parallels and overlapping of stories, it seems that the last hero was a boy Brandon before he became known as the Builder. Since he went looking for the children of the forest while building of the Wall had commenced, this means this work started towards the end of the Long Night, with earth and stone, likely inspired by a reasonable success at the Fist to give the First Men cover long enough to retreat.

It may be that its earliest foundations were of stone—the maesters differ in this—but now all that can be seen for a distance of a hundred leagues is ice. (tWoIaF – The Wall and Beyond: The Night’s Watch)

Here, though the top of the Wall loomed eight hundred feet above the forest floor, a good third of that height was earth and stone rather than ice; the slope was too steep for their horses, almost as difficult a scramble as the Fist of the First Men, but still vastly easier to ascend than the sheer vertical face of the Wall itself. (aSoS, Jon IV)

It seems logical that the First Men would have commenced in throwing up defense walls against the Others to keep them from going south any further at various locations, after most of the surviving First Men fled back south from the Lands of Always Winter. There is further evidence for this when it comes to other claims about who helped to build the Wall and we consider the main material used for it.

Whether the legends are true or not, it is plain that the First Men and the children of the forest (and even the giants, if we take the word of the singers) feared something enough that it drove them to begin raising the Wall. […] Nearby lakes provided the material, which the First Men cut into huge blocks and hauled upon sledges to the Wall, and worked into place one by one. […] 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)

The Wall of ice was built by an alliance of First Men, children of the forest and the giants, while under existential fear. This coming together of these races/species implies the building began in earnest towards the end of the Long Night. There was no such alliance before or during most of the Long Night.

Brandon the Builder had laid his huge foundation blocks along the heights wherever feasible, and hereabouts the hills rose wild and rugged. (aSoS, Jon IV)

The main construction material – ice blocks cut from nearby lakes – implies the raising of the ice Wall started before the generation-long winter was broken. In the current timeline of Westeros, only the lakes that Bran Stark traverses in aDwD and where Stannis camps are solid enough to carry large weights without cracking.

They came upon the promised lake not long after, and turned north as the ranger had bid them. That was the easy part. The water was frozen, and the snow had been falling for so long that Bran had lost count of the days, turning the lake into a vast white wilderness. […] The elk went where he would, regardless of the wishes of Meera and Jojen on his back. Mostly he stayed beneath the trees, but where the shore curved away westward he would take the more direct path across the frozen lake, shouldering through snowdrifts taller than Bran as the ice crackled underneath his hooves. (aDwD, Bran I)

The wind was swirling from the west, driving still more snow across the frozen surface of the lakes. […] They had spent most of it out on the ice, shivering beside a pair of holes they’d cut in the smaller of the frozen lakes, with fishing lines clutched in mitten-clumsy hands. (aDwD, The Sacrifice)

This is the state of lakes north and south of the Wall a few months at most before the maesters of Oldtown sent the ravens to declare winter officially started: frozen surfaces, but south of the Wall nowhere near the thickness to cut out large solid huge blocks of ice that you need sleighs and giants for to build an ice Wall. Meanwhile Long Lake, south of the Wall, has only a thin layer of ice in Melisandre’s vision when Alys Karstark flees towards Castle Black for Jon Snow’s protection.

I saw water. Deep and blue and still, with a thin coat of ice just forming on it.” (aDwD, Melisandre I)

So, in order for the First Men to start cutting whole blocks of ice and use them to build the base of the ice wall as solid as a glacier, it still needed to be winter and early spring. Presumably that would be before the Battle for the Dawn and for a while yet after that battle, as the thawing would require a while before setting in. Once the Wall is thick enough with ice, the Wall might weep but not completely melt anymore, and the Night’s Watch could start adding height during summers.

Lord Commander Jeor Mormont: “Once the Watch spent its summers building, and each Lord Commander raised the Wall higher than he found it.” (aGoT, Tyrion III)

We can now adjust the prior timeline to the following.

  • (8000 or 6000 years ago) A generation-lasting Long Night
    • First Men who live as far as the Fist at least retreat more south
    • Warriors and guardsman form units to protect ringforts: a proto Night’s Watch;
    • In the North people seek protection from Others in an area peppered with hot springs ;
    • The separated proto Night’s Watch of each northern petty kingdom begin to throw up defenses with earth and stone;
    • A young boy with greenseer abilities who lives in the hot spring area sets out with horse, dog, sword and dozen companions in search of the children of the forest. The journey is arduous and dangerous and he loses all his companions and animals by abandonment and death. Only he survives encounters with (wighted?) giants, wights and Others and reaches the children of the forest who take him into a secret cave, where he learns their speech, trains his skinchanging skills and greenseeing via weirwood trees. This young boy is Brandon Stark, who later is either referred to as the last hero of the Age of Heroes or as Brandon the Builder.
    • An alliance forms between First Men, CotF and giants, both for the building and warding of an ice Wall construction as well as the CotF gifting the now first men of the Night’s Watch with dragonglass.
    • The Battle for the Dawn happens and work on the Wall continues. The generation long winter is over and spring is around the corner.
  • (after the Long Night) The boy returns “home” a hero. He builds Winterfell at the hot spring location in stone, ensuring a stone and warded protection if the Others ever decide to attack again and manage to get south of the Wall. The Night’s Watch is gifted lands as far as twenty five leagues south of the Wall, known as Brandon’s Gift. Brandon’s descendants declare themselves kings as do other houses, and feuds begin to arise once more. First Men who do not wish to live under these kings and consider the Others defeated climb the Wall, take boats or journey via the bridge of skulls to the northern side of the Wall to explore and form new non-stone settlements, together with the survivors who never retreated south. They refer to themselves as the Free Folk.
  • It takes hundreds of years to complete the Wall, and thousands to reach the current height, according to George himself:  So Spake Martin, September 10 2010, The Wall
Brandon the Builder’s Works

I also have a very speculative timeline proposal for the order in which Brandon’s architectural feats were accomplished. His first feat is Storm’s End, not the Wall. When he helped Durran of the Age of Heros, Brandon was an anonymous boy, just learning and testing his skills in the secret cave of the children of the forest. I suspect that as a greenseer he may have seen Mel’s shadow killing the future Cortnay Penrose, and this prompted Brandon the Builder to get the local CotF to ward the castle against shadows. Ravens, skinchanging willing minds (even human) and weirwoods were used to communicate the “building” to Durran.

The success of Storm’s End and finally having convinced the CotF helps to forge the alliance between the proto Night’s Watch, CotF and giants. Brandon convinces this early Night’s Watch to use ice to build a far more ambitious wall. The material is freely available and in abundance. Giants help carry and place it. But his true motivation have been once again a glimpse of the future, including dragons that can melt stone, but hate the cold of ice during Alyssane’s visit of the Wall. Spells are used as they were in Storm’s End to prevent the Others, white shadows, and their magic (wights) from passing the Wall. Originally only one gate is built, the Black Gate, beneath the wall, with a magical weirwood door that can only be opened by a man who can recite the creed of the Night’s Watch. I suspect the deal between CotF, giants and the Night’s Watch is that the Night’s Watch will open the Black Gate for them when in need in return for the labor of the giants on the Wall and the CotF gifting mined and worked dragonglass tools.

Brandon returns home and intends to build a permanent stone castle, having a similar purpose as Storm’s End, but as a protection against the cold and Others instead of stormwinds. He has no funding for the stone that needs to be quarried and taken up river, however. He learns that Uthor Hightower is looking for someone to build a permanent stone tower with living quarters instead of a wooden beacon at Oldtown. He contacts Uthor via raven, claiming he was the boy who helped Durran build Storm’s End and who helped raise the Wall. In return for economical support, he will help Uthor with his Hightower. And as with the Wall and Storm’s End he may have seen a glimpse of the future that involves Euron attacking Oldtown that may have motivated him to also install wards for the tower as well and ensuring its beacon cannot be doused. tWoW should shed more light on that (wink). Uthor is pleased and pays up, after which Brandon raises Winterfell, and Durran or his son learn of the identity of the boy wonder who helped him build a castle so many years ago during the Long Night.

The Night’s King Timeline

As you notice, nothing of this time in history fits with the Night’s King tale. Wildlings or Free Folk do not yet exist as a concept in the tales of either Brandon the Builder, last hero, Long Night or the building of the Wall. Kings are hardly a common concept either. And clearly Winterfell does not yet exist during the Long Night as a king’s seat nor the lands called Brandon’s Gift. Whereas all of these concepts, titles, castles, the Wall and land are crucial to the era of the Night’s King legend.

It requires quite a few generations after living in the lands beyond the Wall, for Free folk to unite behind a king-beyond-the-wall: they migrated to be free from petty kings in the first place. It takes envy for what the people have south of the Wall to want the Wall to come down and thus serious disparity between the civilizations north and south of the Wall and thus time counted in generations. It takes generations for the Free Folk to forget why it was ever built in the first place or not fear it anymore, and to assume that giants whose ancestors allegedly helped build it would want to tear it down.

The same goes for the Stark side. It took allegedly over a decade for a King of Winter to want to intervene. King of Winter is the most ancient title that Stark Kings styled themselves after: when the Starks but were one of the many petty kings north of the Neck. They only claim to be King in the North once all of the North between the Neck and Brandon’s gift is ruled by them, rebellions by Boltons and Skagosi notwithstanding. This means that Brandon the Breaker, a King of Winter, lived after the Long Night, but in the centuries before House Stark dominated all of the North. He had wars to fight with rivaling petty kings and was unlikely to muster an army as big as the Night’s Watch itself. This was no doubt one of the main reasons he had to form an alliance with Joramun, the king-beyond-the-Wall, once he decided to stamp out Night’s King reign.

The lag in response, however, implies an other issue. If Brandon the Breaker would have had direct weirnet and greenseer raven reports on the doings of the Night’s King, he would have attempted to form alliances far sooner. The fact that it took thirteen years suggest he had little else to go by other than rumors and therefore easily dismissed them, especially if the Night’s King was kin of Brandon the Breaker indeed. Reliance on rumors, however, implies an era where communication with children of the forest and greenseeing had broken down for House Stark. In fact there are several events where some Stark king – we do not know who as of yet – chased off giants or warred a warg king and children of the forest, killing greenseers in the process.

Ancient ballads, amongst the oldest to be found in the archives of the Citadel of Oldtown, tell of how one King of Winter drove the giants from the North, whilst another felled the skinchanger Gaven Greywolf and his kin in “the savage War of the Wolves,” but we have only the word of singers that such kings and such battles ever existed. […] Chronicles found in the archives of the Night’s Watch at the Nightfort (before it was abandoned) speak of the war for Sea Dragon Point, wherein the Starks brought down the Warg King and his inhuman allies, the children of the forest. When the Warg King’s last redoubt fell, his sons were put to the sword, along with his beasts and greenseers, whilst his daughters were taken as prizes by their conquerors. (tWoIaF – The North: Kings of Winter)

Who these Kings of Winter were, we do not know. There are many more rival petty kings that were put to the sword or forced to bend the knee than those I picked as quotes. But these especially paint a specific picture of Kings of Winter gradually destroying the alliance they had with giants and children of the forest, brokered by Brandon the Builder. Surely, Brandon the Breaker’s name implies he was one of those kings who broke with the children of the forest. I would not be surprised at all if we learn that Brandon the Breaker was the King of Winter who killed the warg king, his greenseers and allied children of the forest. I certainly would not be surprised whatsoever that he did this after listening too much to a grey maester from Oldtown in his household who would also dismiss out of hand any tales about an Other ruling in the Nightfort. And again, the argument remains that it would take several generations and centuries for a King of Winter undoing almost all what Brandon the Builder as last hero had accomplished.

Finally, we focus on the timeline implications on the Night’s King himself. The fact that he declared himself king not only shows what potential personality issues he had, but that he had resources to feel that entitled:

  • a united army big enough to take any threat from the south: the Night’s Watch (even if he had southern walls)
  • strong stone fortifications: the stone Nightfort and others
  • and lands: Brandon’s Gift

None of that fits with the era of the Long Night, but very much with the era afterwards while the North is divided and warring over who is the true King in the North. It also shows he did not fear an alliance of First Men with CotF and giants such as existed at the end of the Long Night. Now, while some of you may argue that the absence of CotF and giants in the Night’s King story matches their absence for most of the Long Night and therefore might be evidence that the Night’s King legend occurred during the Long Night, it ignores all the evidence of the Wall, the united Night’s Watch and complex stone architecture belonging to the era after the Long Night, after the Age of Heroes, instead of ringforts, Starks as Kings of Winter, etc. My reply is that alliances with CotF and greenseers (and giants) have been formed, broken, reformed, and broken again over and over. Society can have similar issues repeatedly, centuries later, despite evolved technology, titles and remapping of borders.

Another timeline detail are the thirteen years and how it relates to George’s description of the Long Night as being generation-long. The term generation is used in various ways:

  • people who are born around the same time: in our society we have boomers, gen-X, gen-Y, millennials, …
  • the average period for people to be born and grow up into adulthood and have children of their own,
  • or all the people of various ages that collectively experienced the same significant event

The first meaning barely applies on Planetos, since social and technological evolution is minimal at best. Across a timeline of ten thousand years we can at best divide uncountable generations into Dawn Age First Men, Age of heroes, post Long Night First Men, Andalised and Conquered by Targaryens.

The second meaning is applicable in George’s Planetos, because he often has children as young as thirteen get wedded, bedded and pregnant. So, the thirteen year reign of the Night’s King can be considered to count as one generation in the second meaning. Though officially no one is considered to be an adult until sixteen. Through maester Yandel, GRRM explicitly clarifies, however, to regard the Long Night in the third meaning: we are told it lasted a lifetime, as people were born and died without ever knowing spring. So, the duration of the Long Night was longer than thirteen years.

Finally, we get the information both from Old Nan as well as measter Yandel that the Night’s King was the thirteenth Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. You may be suspicious of course of the number thirteen here. No doubt, George had symbolical reasons to pick this number. There are a manifold of superstitions about the number: unlucky and Friday the 13th. Judas Escariot was one of the thirteen at the Last Supper who betrayed Jesus Christ. The 13th baktun signifies the end of the Mayan calendar and is regarded as the harbinger of an apocalypse. All of this is reflected in the Night’s King: a traitor, aiding an Other to bring a new apocalypse to Westeros. There is even a link to femininity with the Corpse Queen, for a year includes thirteen moon times. So, you are free to doubt whether the Lord Commander was actually the thirteenth Lord Commander or not. However, the superstition of the number thirteen does not seem to be a thing in Westerosi culture. With that I mean that in-world the number thirteen is not used to demonize a person or event, beyond the Night’s King legend. After all, in the legend of the last hero, the last hero has twelve companions, and so also makes for a total of thirteen. It therefore is quite possible that the Night’s King was indeed the thirteenth Lord Commander.

If so, we can thus wonder how long after the Long Night he would have lived. Some Lord Commanders would have served in that position but a few years, others may have led the Night’s Watch for six decades (such as Osric Stark, who was chosen to be Lord Commander at ten, but served sixty years in that position). So, we cannot use an average of years of life or years of being Lord Commander here. We can however use the number of Targaryen kings and Stark Lords to have a vague idea. For example, in the World Book we get a part of the Stark lineage. It starts with Lord Benjen Stark, who was born in 84 AC and was Lord Stark during the reign of Viserys I (yes the Targaryen king you can now see in the HBO show House of the Dragon). We do not know when exactly Benjen Stark became Lord of Winterfell, but we do know when Viserys I became king: 101 AC. If you then count the number of Lords Stark, including Lord Benjen Stark, until you get to Robb Stark, we have twelve Starks ruling the North. Robb Stark died in 299 AC. So, it takes about 200 years for there to be a thirteenth Stark of Winterfell since Lord Benjen Stark, and likely longer given that we should suspect Brandon the Builder to have been a greenseer with an extra long life.

We can do something similar with the Targaryen kings. We start with Aegon I whose reign began in 1 AC. And the twelfth king was Daeron II the Good, who died in 209 AC. So, we have 208 years precisely before the thirteenth king Aerys I becomes King of the Iron Throne. Note that I counted Rhaenyra and Aegon II  as one timeline monarch for this exercise. A Lord Commander serves for life. He cannot be chased off, voted out and then reinstated again. A succession war between several claimants has different counting results as a mutiny does at the Night’s Watch.

Finally, we can also count backwards. Because of the war of five kings I will use the same tactic as I did between Rhaenyra and Aegon II for Joffrey, Tommen and Stannis. Stannis outlived Joffrey, but we do not yet know whether Stannis will outlive Tommen. So, I start counting backwards with Robert Baratheon as the twelfth, who died in 298 AC. The first of these twelve monarchs would be Aegon III the Unlucky. His reign started in 131 AC. Then we have 167 years, before the thirteenth can be seen as a victorious Baratheon.

Now, it is doubtful that it is coincidence that twice George worked out two different lineages in the World Book that cover both around 200 years. I do suspect that George was going for two hundred years, because he made a point of having twelve Starks in the World Book lineage. But give or take the Night’s King would have become the thirteenth Lord Commander some 170 to 210 years after the Long Night. And we can understand how much people can forget a threat in that little time, just by considering the impact the Dance of the Dragons had on the realm. Roughly one hundred thirty years after conquering Westeros with dragons, the Targaryens lose all of their dragons, emboldening Lords across the realm to support Blackfyre rebellions little over sixty years later, until a rebellion finally succeeds one hundred fifty years after the Dance, in 283 AC. By 300 AC the tales about a Targaryen with three dragons in Essos are dismissed as rumors, rather than taken into account as an actual potential threat.

Cycles of three

The final argument for the Long Night and the Night’s King to be regarded as separate events is a literary one – George’s habit of writing in cycles of three. The Long Night was the first confrontation between humanity and the Others. The Night’s King was a second effort by the Others to go against humanity in Westeros. The current timeline events depict their third known effort.

Synopsis (tl;tr)

George wrote the history of the Long Night and the Night’s King to fit his rhythm and storytelling of three: thrice the Others attempt to conquer Westeros over everything that lives there. First there was the Long Night, and circa 170-200 years later after the Battle of the Dawn there is a second attempt with the help of the Night’s King.

Neither the Night’s Watch or the Wall have a clear cut beginning, but we do know the foundations and proto version of it were formed in response to the threat of the Others during the Long Night. The same is true for the stories about Brandon the Builder, who in some stories is a boy aiding a Durrandon, one of the heroes of the Age of Heroes in building Storm’s End, but is also known to have been the founder of the dynasty of the Starks as Kings of Winter and built Winterfell after the Long Night, but also helped build the Wall, bringing in the help of giants and children of the forest. Furthermore, Brandon the Builder (or Bran) has an arc that matches with Bran Stark of 300 AC, who is also a boy looking for the children of the forest to get their aid and learns their language by becoming a greenseer. And since the story of the last hero also matches with Bran Stark’s projected arc where he will lose his companions, we also have a connection between Brandon the Builder as last hero, an overarching figure between the Age of Heroes and the unnamed era of construction. In other words, Brandon the Builder is the last hero.

The claim that Brandon the Builder (and the CotF) was responsible for building Storm’s End, the Wall, the Hightower and Winterfell may seem absurd at first glance, but becomes less absurd considering he must have been a greenseer to learn the language of the CotF: not only would he have had a longer lifespan like Bloodraven does, he could have communicated remotely in various ways with King Durrandon of Storm’s End and the Hightowers at Oldtown, never needing to travel there even. We can even come up with a logical timeline for when these were built. He begins in Storm’s End when he was still a boy and hiding with the CotF, then puts what he learned from that place into practice at the Wall. Then after the ending of the Long Night, he wishes to build Winterfell, but lacking funds he offers his help to build the stone Hightower in exchange for his material needs for Winterfell. The Hightower is a success and he finally raises Winterfell.

It is perfectly fine if you disbelieve this to have been the truth, but George has a reason to link all these constructions to Bran the Builder. He uses these constructions and especially their warding spells in the current timeline and the past to story arcs that either involve the historical Night’s King (the Wall) or present characters featuring aspects of the Night’s King and his corpse queen: Mel with her shadow baby at Storm’s End and whatever she will do to the Wall in tWoW, and Euron heading for Oldtown. By alleging they were all built by the one and the same greenseer to prevent shadows from passing through walls, George effectively gives us links to better understand the present as well as the past interchangeably.