Post by stdaga on Apr 22, 2017 10:21:04 GMT
By day, he was a man like any other. This, to me, suggests that he was dutiful and human during what passed for 'daylight' during the long night... aka, the Winter Sun sigil of House Karstark:
This is all rather inferential and speculative, I know, but I think it does bear support in the text.
The story of the Night's King, as well as Bael the Bard, the Tower of Joy, and the Tournament at Harrenhal all need to be finished, and then some answers will fall into place. Until then, inference and speculation is the name of the game!
Bran is calm and gentle, but he also engaged in cannibalism with a dead man (lunch with Coldhands), and regularly traumatizes a mentally-handicapped man by stealing control of his body just so he can go cave-exploring.
I am going to give Bran a pass on the cannibalism, because as my Mom taught me when we were visiting other peoples homes, you eat what you are given and you don't complain about it. As to the frequent, and more callous as time passes, "mind rape" of Hodor, you got me. Bran has some darkness to him!
But Bran is not Old Nan's "sweet Summer child" anymore. He's as wild and powerhungry as they come. He's more like Varamyr Sixskins, today, than he is like the boy who dreamed of becoming a knight of the kingsguard.
Maybe in time, Bran will become Brandon "Sixskins", but I don't think he is there yet.
Then we have the odd bits of intel; Bloodraven's comment that Bran's blood makes him a greenseer, for instance. Bran has the same blood as Robb and Sansa and Arya and Rickon. Thus their blood might've enabled them to become greenseers too, if they ate some weirwood paste. Jon seems to have a natural weirwood marriage happening via Ghost, so it seems that Jon's blood has given him this potential as well.
I have wondered about Jon and Rickon (they do have direwolves with red and green eyes) and Sansa has possibly prophetic dreams. I do wonder if the whole generation of Stark children has this same ability? But if that is so, why did Bloodraven pick Bran? Why not one of the other kids?
Which Brandon?
Yes, for sure. What Brandon? Our young Bran, child of Ned and Cat, isn't referred to in this way. Another hint about the connection between the Brandon Starks.
Re Lyanna, I don't think her gift was ever awakened. I think she was sensitive to the old powers, and growing up next to a weirwood, was likely influenced by them to a large degree. But this is likely true for most, or even all, Starks. According to BR, Bran's blood makes him a greenseer.
And that is telling. It wasn't Bran's fall, nor the three-eyed crow, nor the opening of his third eye, nor his direwolf, nor his eye color, nor the eye color of his wolf.
Just his blood.
So, if you think that Lyanna's gift was never awakened but she and Bran share the blood of Winterfell, and she has power in/of the weirwoods, do you think that Bran's gift was not awakened by his fall and near death/death experience. His greenseer ability would have happened at some point regardless?
Rickon's wolf doesn't seem that special to me. Black fur and green eyes are normal in the wolf-world, even if they are rare for children of the forest.
Black wolves and white wolves exist in nature outside of this story, but not red or green-eyed wolves. GRRM is trying to tell us something through those direwolves.
Catelyn:
"Sometimes," Catelyn said slowly, "the best thing you can do is nothing. When I first came to Winterfell, I was hurt whenever Ned went to the godswood to sit beneath his heart tree. Part of his soul was in that tree, I knew, a part I would never share. Yet without that part, I soon realized, he would not have been Ned. Jeyne, child, you have wed the north, as I did . . . and in the north, the winters will come." She tried to smile. "Be patient. Be understanding. He loves you and he needs you, and he will come back to you soon enough. This very night, perhaps. Be there when he does. That is all I can tell you."
Part of his soul was in that tree? As in the blood of the Starks? Or maybe Lyanna!
But albinism is rare.
Interestingly, however, it can be caused by inbreeding.
Well, if your theory is correct, it was not Bloodraven that sent the wolves. If it was Lyanna that sent the direwolves, and Jon is her son and born of incest (Eddard the Quiet, Brandon the Wild or Benjen the Pup), you speculate the albino wolf is a clue that has been often misread? Maybe so! This is a valid idea as far as I am concerned.
Why is he being called to the crypts, yet shunned by the Kings of Winter?
As we know, every one of them are male. Every sculpture in those crypts is of a stern man. And every one of them seem to rebuke Jon Snow.
But deeper, lower, there is a presence that calls out to him. A silent beacon.
And Lyanna is the only exception to their rule.
But Lyanna does not rest as deep or far into the crypts as some of the ancient kings, correct? She probably does not have a sword to bind her to her crypt, however.
I can see why it seems like a stretch. But for me, it seems like an even bigger stretch to think that Ghost's albinism is a coincidence. If it isn't a coincidence, we must ask ourselves what makes Jon special in an Old Gods kind of way. And for me, personally, Lyanna is the only plausible explanation.
Ned can't be the reason, because the other children are Ned's, and their wolves are the normal colors of wolves.
It is certainly not a coincidence that Ghost is as he is. But what is he exactly? Certainly I agree that Ned is the link between the six children and the six direwolves.
I view dreams as forms of spirit flight – cycles in which our consciousness becomes unthetered from waking physical experiences. Rather than view the crypt dreams as implants installed by a another power/spirit/consciousness, I view them as Jon's own power/his own ability/his own lucid spirit flight/journey.
Jon is Jon in his crypt dreams. These dreams are not at all like his wolf dreams, in which he is Ghost. In his crypt dreams, Jon is the outcast, the bastard. And the Kings of Winter do not abide bastards in their crypts.
Well, if Jon is responsible for his own dreams, then his feelings of being an outcast in his dreams makes sense, because he feels like an outcast in life. He is responsible for thinking the Kings of Winter tell him he is "no Stark" because he feels that he is "no Stark". That actually makes much more sense to me than the Kings of Winter rejecting him. Of course, we know Jon has Stark blood, just not the name. I think of Jon as a Stark/Stark and you have referred to Jon as the uber-Stark! It's Jon's own sense of rejection that he feels in his dreams!
All the pups are certainly special. But I have a feeling they would not have been special in the arms of non-Starks.
Starks+Direwolves=Special
Wildlings+Direwolves=Meh
We have no family of Free Folk with an entire pack of direwolves at their heels, even though direwolves are not uncommon north of the Wall. House Stark of the Wolfswood is unique in this regard. And among them, Jon seems to be the most unique of all.
Well, Varamyr did covet Ghost! Actually, we have not seen any other direwolves in our story, besides our dead mama and her six pups. Even in Jon's first POV, Benjen says he has heard direwolves howling but has anyone ever actually seen one? Ygritte is very surprised the first time she laid eyes on Ghost! Maybe they are more rare than we think they are?
Not going to lie, I sometimes wonder if Sansa or Arya are the Shaggydog Story in our story. I mean, to name Rickon's wolf Shaggydog and make them the Shaggydog of the story is pretty obvious for GRRM, and he doesn't seem to do obvious. Subtle is his mistress! I would bet on Sansa, myself.
Two shadows lie between Ned and Catelyn, in the Lord of Winterfell's bed.
These two shadows also happen to have been given statues in the crypts, even though it was out of turn for Ned to do so.
I did not intend for this thread to become another parentage debate, and won't go down that road. But it would be bad form to not point out that Brandon+Lyanna=Jon is a very strong implication of the above quote.
There is a certainly part of me that thinks this is the answer. Brandon and Lyanna. Sitting in a tree ... you know how it goes. But is it a stretch of the timeline to make it work. But not a stretch of my imagination!
There are few things more powerful than a mind that is both critical and open.
In terms of her cause of death, the text is quite clear: it was her wolf blood that led her to an early grave.
Ned certainly seems to think so!
Fun discussion, as always!