All, I'm pretty pooped, but want to post ideas I have on topics we can talk about before my batteries die!
How are dreams used in ASOIAF? Do you think they're prophetic? Are they used by the author to denote something else? What dreams in the series stuck out the most for you, and why?
“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
Hmm this is a difficult one for me. I wouldn't say that the dreams are prophetic but I do think the dreams throughout the canon could provide some insight at least into PAST events. And of course there are Jojen's green dreams to consider. As with the focus of the story being POV I think dreams in the series are mostly subjective. As Wolfmaid has said previously in other places Jojen's green dreams about a chained wolf could be a description of Shaggydog and the one Jojen was suppose to help was Rickon. It would be interesting if it was suppose to be Rickon that was suppose to be taken to the three eyed crow which I am not 100 percent sure is the man living in the tree.
Throughout all of ASoIaF, we are told the story in multiple different ways and through many different techniques. One of these techniques is to showcase the dreams of our Point of View characters. This happens often and it can be very easy to miss or forget these occurrences. This thread is specifically designed to gather all of the dreams that are described throughout the series. Please feel free to add your own examples as you come across them.
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
It seemed as though he had been falling for years. Fly, a voice whispered in the darkness, but Bran did not know how to fly, so all he could do was fall. Maester Luwin made a little boy of clay, baked him till he was hard and brittle, dressed him in Bran’s clothes, and flung him off a roof. Bran remembered the way he shattered. “But I never fall,”he said, falling. The ground was so far below him he could barely make it out through the grey mists that whirled around him, but he could feel how fast he was falling, and he knew what was waiting for him down there. Even in dreams, you could not fall forever. He would wake up in the instant before he hit the ground, he knew. You always woke up in the instant before you hit the ground. And if you don’t? the voice asked. The ground was closer now, still far far away, a thousand miles away, but closer than it had been. It was cold here in the darkness. There was no sun, no stars, only the ground below coming up to smash him, and the grey mists, and the whispering voice. He wanted to cry. Not cry. Fly. “I can’t fly,”Bran said. “I can’t, I can’t …”How do you know? Have you ever tried? The voice was high and thin. Bran looked around to see where it was coming from. A crow was spiraling down with him, just out of reach, following him as he fell. “Help me,”he said. I’m trying, the crow replied. Say, got any corn? Bran reached into his pocket as the darkness spun dizzily around him. When he pulled his hand out, golden kernels slid from between his fingers into the air. They fell with him. The crow landed on his hand and began to eat. “Are you really a crow?”Bran asked. Are you really falling? the crow asked back. “It’s just a dream,”Bran said. Is it? asked the crow. “I’ll wake up when I hit the ground,”Bran told the bird. You’ll die when you hit the ground, the crow said. It went back to eating corn. Bran looked down. He could see mountains now, their peaks white with snow, and the silver thread of rivers in dark woods. He closed his eyes and began to cry. That won’t do any good, the crow said. I told you, the answer is flying, not crying. How hard can it be. I’m doing it. The crow took to the air and flapped around Bran’s hand. “You have wings,”Bran pointed out. Maybe you do too. Bran felt along his shoulders, groping for feathers. There are different kinds of wings, the crow said. Bran was staring at his arms, his legs. He was so skinny, just skin stretched taut over bones. Had he always been so thin? He tried to remember. A face swam up at him out of the grey mist, shining with light, golden. “The things I do for love,”it said. Bran screamed. The crow took to the air, cawing. Not that, it shrieked at him. Forget that, you do not need it now, put it aside, put it away. It landed on Bran’s shoulder, and pecked at him, and the shining golden face was gone. Bran was falling faster than ever. The grey mists howled around him as he plunged toward the earth below. “What are you doing to me?”he asked the crow, tearful. Teaching you how to fly. “I can’t fly!”You’re flying right now. “I’m falling!”Every flight begins with a fall, the crow said. Look down. “I’m afraid …”LOOK DOWN! Bran looked down, and felt his insides turn to water. The ground was rushing up at him now. The whole world was spread out below him, a tapestry of white and brown and green. He could see everything so clearly that for a moment he forgot to be afraid. He could see the whole realm, and everyone in it. He saw Winterfell as the eagles see it, the tall towers looking squat and stubby from above, the castle walls just lines in the dirt. He saw Maester Luwin on his balcony, studying the sky through a polished bronze tube and frowning as he made notes in a book. He saw his brother Robb, taller and stronger than he remembered him, practicing swordplay in the yard with real steel in his hand. He saw Hodor, the simple giant from the stables, carrying an anvil to Mikken’s forge, hefting it onto his shoulder as easily as another man might heft a bale of hay. At the heart of the godswood, the great white weirwood brooded over its reflection in the black pool, its leaves rustling in a chill wind. When it felt Bran watching, it lifted its eyes from the still waters and stared back at him knowingly. He looked east, and saw a galley racing across the waters of the Bite. He saw his mother sitting alone in a cabin, looking at a bloodstained knife on a table in front of her, as the rowers pulled at their oars and Ser Rodrik leaned across a rail, shaking and heaving. A storm was gathering ahead of them, a vast dark roaring lashed by lightning, but somehow they could not see it. He looked south, and saw the great blue-green rush of the Trident. He saw his father pleading with the king, his face etched with grief. He saw Sansa crying herself to sleep at night, and he saw Arya watching in silence and holding her secrets hard in her heart. There were shadows all around them. One shadow was dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound. Another was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful. Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood. He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the narrow sea, to the Free Cities and the green Dothraki sea and beyond, to Vaes Dothrak under its mountain, to the fabled lands of the Jade Sea, to Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise. Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him. And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks. Now you know, the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder. Now you know why you must live. “Why?”Bran said, not understanding, falling, falling. Because winter is coming. Bran looked at the crow on his shoulder, and the crow looked back. It had three eyes, and the third eye was full of a terrible knowledge. Bran looked down. There was nothing below him now but snow and cold and death, a frozen wasteland where jagged blue-white spires of ice waited to embrace him. They flew up at him like spears. He saw the bones of a thousand other dreamers impaled upon their points. He was desperately afraid. “Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?”he heard his own voice saying, small and far away. And his father’s voice replied to him. “That is the only time a man can be brave.”Now, Bran, the crow urged. Choose. Fly or die. Death reached for him, screaming. Bran spread his arms and flew. Wings unseen drank the wind and filled and pulled him upward. The terrible needles of ice receded below him. The sky opened up above. Bran soared. It was better than climbing. It was better than anything. The world grew small beneath him. “I’m flying!”he cried out in delight. I’ve noticed, said the three-eyed crow. It took to the air, flapping its wings in his face, slowing him, blinding him. He faltered in the air as its pinions beat against his cheeks. Its beak stabbed at him fiercely, and Bran felt a sudden blinding pain in the middle of his forehead, between his eyes. “What are you doing?”he shrieked. The crow opened its beak and cawed at him, a shrill scream of fear, and the grey mists shuddered and swirled around him and ripped away like a veil, and he saw that the crow was really a woman, a serving woman with long black hair, and he knew her from somewhere, from Winterfell, yes, that was it, he remembered her now, and then he realized that he was in Winterfell, in a bed high in some chilly tower room, and the black-haired woman dropped a basin of water to shatter on the floor and ran down the steps, shouting, “He’s awake, he’s awake, he’s awake.”
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
I tell you, my lord, the darkness is coming. There are wild things in the woods, direwolves and mammoths and snow bears the size of aurochs, and I have seen darker shapes in my dreams.”
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
Yet when she slept that night, she dreamt the dragon dream again. Viserys was not in it this time. There was only her and the dragon. Its scales were black as night, wet and slick with blood. Her blood, Dany sensed. Its eyes were pools of molten magma, and when it opened its mouth, the flame came roaring out in a hot jet. She could hear it singing to her. She opened her arms to the fire, embraced it, let it swallow her whole, let it cleanse her and temper her and scour her clean. She could feel her flesh sear and blacken and slough away, could feel her blood boil and turn to steam, and yet there was no pain. She felt strong and new and fierce.
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
Another dream from Bran, the night Tyrion Lannister and the Nights Watch men come to Winterfell.
In his dream he was climbing again, pulling himself up an ancient windowless tower, his fingers forcing themselves between blackened stones, his feet scrabbling for purchase. Higher and higher he climbed, through the clouds and into the night sky, and still the tower rose before him. When he paused to look down, his head swam dizzily and he felt his fingers slipping. Bran cried out and clung for dear life. The earth was a thousand miles beneath him and he could not fly. He could not fly. He waited until his heart had stopped pounding, until he could breathe, and he began to climb again. There was no way to go but up. Far above him, outlined against a vast pale moon, he thought he could see the shapes of gargoyles. His arms were sore and aching, but he dared not rest. He forced himself to climb faster. The gargoyles watched him ascend. Their eyes glowed red as hot coals in a brazier. Perhaps once they had been lions, but now they were twisted and grotesque. Bran could hear them whispering to each other in soft stone voices terrible to hear. He must not listen, he told himself, he must not hear, so long as he did not hear them he was safe. But when the gargoyles pulled themselves loose from the stone and padded down the side of the tower to where Bran clung, he knew he was not safe after all. “I didn’t hear,”he wept as they came closer and closer, “I didn’t, I didn’t.”
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
“Sometimes I dream about it,”he said. “I’m walking down this long empty hall. My voice echoes all around, but no one answers, so I walk faster, opening doors, shouting names. I don’t even know who I’m looking for. Most nights it’s my father, but sometimes it’s Robb instead, or my little sister Arya, or my uncle.”The thought of Benjen Stark saddened him; his uncle was still missing. The Old Bear had sent out rangers in search of him. Ser Jaremy Rykker had led two sweeps, and Quorin Halfhand had gone forth from the Shadow Tower, but they’d found nothing aside from a few blazes in the trees that his uncle had left to mark his way. In the stony highlands to the northwest, the marks stopped abruptly and all trace of Ben Stark vanished. “Do you ever find anyone in your dream?”Sam asked. Jon shook his head. “No one. The castle is always empty.”He had never told anyone of the dream, and he did not understand why he was telling Sam now, yet somehow it felt good to talk of it. “Even the ravens are gone from the rookery, and the stables are full of bones. That always scares me. I start to run then, throwing open doors, climbing the tower three steps at a time, screaming for someone, for anyone. And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It’s black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don’t want to. I’m afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it’s not them I’m afraid of. I scream that I’m not a Stark, that this isn’t my place, but it’s no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream.”He stopped, frowning, embarrassed. “That’s when I always wake.”His skin cold and clammy, shivering in the darkness of his cell. Ghost would leap up beside him, his warmth as comforting as daybreak. He would go back to sleep with his face pressed into the direwolf’s shaggy white fur. “Do you dream of Horn Hill?”Jon asked.
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
When they had first come to King’s Landing, she used to have bad dreams about getting lost in the castle. Father said the Red Keep was smaller than Winterfell, but in her dreams it had been immense, an endless stone maze with walls that seemed to shift and change behind her. She would find herself wandering down gloomy halls past faded tapestries, descending endless circular stairs, darting through courtyards or over bridges, her shouts echoing unanswered. In some of the rooms the red stone walls would seem to drip blood, and nowhere could she find a window. Sometimes she would hear her father’s voice, but always from a long way off, and no matter how hard she ran after it, it would grow fainter and fainter, until it faded to nothing and Arya was alone in the dark.
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
He dreamt an old dream, of three knights in white cloaks, and a tower long fallen, and Lyanna in her bed of blood. In the dream his friends rode with him, as they had in life. Proud Martyn Cassel, Jory’s father; faithful Theo Wull; Ethan Glover, who had been Brandon’s squire; Ser Mark Ryswell, soft of speech and gentle of heart; the crannogman, Howland Reed; Lord Dustin on his great red stallion. Ned had known their faces as well as he knew his own once, but the years leech at a man’s memories, even those he has vowed never to forget. In the dream they were only shadows, grey wraiths on horses made of mist. They were seven, facing three. In the dream as it had been in life. Yet these were no ordinary three. They waited before the round tower, the red mountains of Dorne at their backs, their white cloaks blowing in the wind. And these were no shadows; their faces burned clear, even now. Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, had a sad smile on his lips. The hilt of the greatsword Dawn poked up over his right shoulder. Ser Oswell Whent was on one knee, sharpening his blade with a whetstone. Across his white-enameled helm, the black bat of his House spread its wings. Between them stood fierce old Ser Gerold Hightower, the White Bull, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. “I looked for you on the Trident,”Ned said to them. “We were not there,”Ser Gerold answered. “Woe to the Usurper if we had been,”said Ser Oswell. “When King’s Landing fell, Ser Jaime slew your king with a golden sword, and I wondered where you were.”“Far away,”Ser Gerold said, “or Aerys would yet sit the Iron Throne, and our false brother would burn in seven hells.”“I came down on Storm’s End to lift the siege,”Ned told them, “and the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne dipped their banners, and all their knights bent the knee to pledge us fealty. I was certain you would be among them.”“Our knees do not bend easily,”said Ser Arthur Dayne. “Ser Willem Darry is fled to Dragonstone, with your queen and Prince Viserys. I thought you might have sailed with him.”“Ser Willem is a good man and true,”said Ser Oswell. “But not of the Kingsguard,”Ser Gerold pointed out. “The Kingsguard does not flee.”“Then or now,”said Ser Arthur. He donned his helm. “We swore a vow,”explained old Ser Gerold. Ned’s wraiths moved up beside him, with shadow swords in hand. They were seven against three. “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. “No,”Ned said with sadness in his voice. “Now it ends.”As they came together in a rush of steel and shadow, he could hear Lyanna screaming. “Eddard!”she called. A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death. “Lord Eddard,”Lyanna called again. “I promise,”he whispered. “Lya, I promise …”“Lord Eddard,”a man echoed from the dark.
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
He dreamt of the sky cell. This time he was the gaoler, not the prisoner, big, with a strap in his hand , and he was hitting his father, driving him back, toward the abyss
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
“I had a dream that Joffrey would be the one to take the white hart,”she said. It had been more of a wish, actually, but it sounded better to call it a dream. Everyone knew that dreams were prophetic. White harts were supposed to be very rare and magical, and in her heart she knew her gallant prince was worthier than his drunken father. “A dream? Truly? Did Prince Joffrey just go up to it and touch it with his bare hand and do it no harm?”“No,”Sansa said. “He shot it with a golden arrow and brought it back for me.”In the songs, the knights never killed magical beasts, they just went up to them and touched them and did them no harm, but she knew Joffrey liked hunting, especially the killing part. Only animals, though. Sansa was certain her prince had no part in murdering Jory and those other poor men; that had been his wicked uncle, the Kingslayer. She knew her father was still angry about that, but it wasn’t fair to blame Joff. That would be like blaming her for something that Arya had done.
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
Sansa sat up. “Lady,” she whispered. For a moment it was as if the direwolf was there in the room, looking at her with those golden eyes, sad and knowing. She had been dreaming, she realized. Lady was with her, and they were running together, and … and … trying to remember was like trying to catch the rain with her fingers. The dream faded, and Lady was dead again.
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
Yet last night he had dreamt of Rhaegar’s children. Lord Tywin had laid the bodies beneath the Iron Throne, wrapped in the crimson cloaks of his house guard. That was clever of him; the blood did not show so badly against the red cloth. The little princess had been barefoot, still dressed in her bed gown, and the boy … the boy … Ned could not let that happen again. The realm could not withstand a second mad king, another dance of blood and vengeance. He must find some way to save the children.
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?
Lord Eddard Stark's dream of Lyanna in the Winterfell crypts.
He was walking through the crypts beneath Winterfell, as he had walked a thousand times before. The Kings of Winter watched him pass with eyes of ice, and the direwolves at their feet turned their great stone heads and snarled. Last of all, he came to the tomb where his father slept, with Brandon and Lyanna beside him. “ Promise me, Ned,” Lyanna’s statue whispered. She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept blood.
Why must I always be the isle of crazy alone in an ocean of sensibility? The should to everybody else’s shouldn’t? The I-will to their better-nots?