“Gods,” Robb swore, his young face dark with anger. “If this is true, he will pay for it.” He drew his sword and waved it in the air. “I’ll kill him myself!” Ser Rodrik bristled at him. “Put that away! The Lannisters are a hundred leagues away. Never draw your sword unless you mean to use it. How many times must I tell you, foolish boy?” Abashed, Robb sheathed his sword, suddenly a child again. Catelyn said to Ser Rodrik, “I see my son is wearing steel now.”
Ser Rodrik protested. “My lady, let me accompany you at least. The kingsroad can be perilous for a woman alone.” “I will not be taking the kingsroad,” Catelyn replied. She thought for a moment, then nodded her consent. “Two riders can move as fast as one, and a good deal faster than a long column burdened by wagons and wheel-houses. I will welcome your company, Ser Rodrik. We will follow the White Knife down to the sea, and hire a ship at White Harbor. Strong horses and brisk winds should bring us to King’s Landing well ahead of Ned and the Lannisters.” And then, she thought, we shall see what we shall see.
I'm not sure if these visions occur before or after caught, because Arya is watching in silence, possibly hiding. Ned is still pleading with Robert even though Robert stormed off in the previous chapter - there shouldn't be much left to plead about if Lady is already dead.
Khal Drogo thrashed, fighting some unseen enemy. Black blood ran slow and thick from his open wound.
He remembered the old man’s eyes too, and the black blood rushing from his throat as the storm cracked overhead.
Beneath her ravaged scalp, her face was shredded skin and black blood where she had raked herself with her nails.
All of it came pouring out of Brienne then, like black blood from a wound
When he laid the edge of the blade against the swollen throat of the creature on the straw, the skin split open in a gout of black blood and yellow pus.
The dragon gave one last hiss and stretched out flat upon his belly. Black blood was flowing from the wound where the spear had pierced him, smoking where it dripped onto the scorched sands.
Geographically, the mountains are north of the Trident, where both Sandor and Jaime are searching. It is said to be looming. If we search for Giant's Lance, we see that it's quite an imposing geographical feature:
So lovely. The snow-clad summit of the Giant’s Lance loomed above her, an immensity of stone and ice that dwarfed the castle perched upon its shoulder. Icicles twenty feet long draped the lip of the precipice where Alyssa’s Tears fell in summer. A falcon soared above the frozen waterfall, blue wings spread wide against the morning sky. Would that I had wings as well.
Interesting - Giant's Lance looming above her. Would that I have wings as well. Well I'll be damned.
Looming over them all was the jagged peak called the Giant’s Lance, a mountain that even mountains looked up to, its head lost in icy mists three and a half miles above the valley floor. Over its massive western shoulder flowed the ghost torrent of Alyssa’s Tears. Even from this distance, Catelyn could make out the shining silver thread, bright against the dark stone.
Another quote about the looming, headless mountain. Three and a half miles is 18,480 feet. Mount Everest is 29,029 feet from ground level. Mount Kilimanjaro is 19,341 feet.
What then, is the visor? There are two possibilities for the visor - either the Gates of the Moon, which lies at the base of the mountain, or the Bloody Gate. It's more likely the Gates of the Moon as it is the last line of defense before ascending the Eyrie. The Bloody gate is further south and is one of the first defenses.
“The Gates of the Moon,” her uncle said as the party drew rein. His standard-bearer rode to the edge of the moat to hail the men in the gatehouse. “Lord Nestor’s seat. He should be expecting us. Look up.” Catelyn raised her eyes, up and up and up. At first all she saw was stone and trees, the looming mass of the great mountain shrouded in night, as black as a starless sky. Then she noticed the glow of distant fires well above them; a tower keep, built upon the steep side of the mountain , its lights like orange eyes staring down from above. Above that was another, higher and more distant, and still higher a third, no more than a flickering spark in the sky. And finally, up where the falcons soared, a flash of white in the moonlight. Vertigo washed over her as she stared upward at the pale towers, so far above.
So, we have a visor, the gates of the moon, that opens up to darkness and nothingness, the Eyrie. The Eyrie is much quieter and less populated than the Gates of the Moon. What is the blood?
The Vale of Arryn bathed in the morning light. It stretched before them to the misty east, a tranquil land of rich black soil, wide slow-moving rivers, and hundreds of small lakes that shone like mirrors in the sun, protected on all sides by its sheltering peaks.If the Eyrie is being personified with the mountains as its armor and the Gates of the Moon as its visor, then the blood of the Eyrie is the definitely the rich black soil.
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.If what Bran is seeing are real things and events, then these dragons really exist in or near Asshai. It's possible that they're smaller dragons like those toward the end of the Targaryen dynasty. Perhaps some Targaryens/ dragons escaped Valyria and headed East. Perhaps Asshai just has dragons of their own - I wish we'd get a look at Asshai.
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 fromThis is another quote used by people connecting it to Jon being stabbed at the end of ADWD. I believe it's just Jon sleeping alone (as Ghost makes the other recruits afraid), and adapting to life at the wall.
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.
What did he see, damn it!? It says he looked beyond the curtain at the end of the world, the heart of winter. I think it has to be something other-worldly, the heart of winter - something that has to do with the existence of the Others - death itself, perhaps. Incorporeal consciousnesses, tied to the elements.
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.
In the show, we see a similar scene when the Other converts the baby. He's surrounded by spires of ice. I believe the truth in the books is much more graphic. Dreamers are impaled on the spires of ice. Bran is a dreamer himself. I think there are two possibilities:
- Those who have the ability to warg/greensight "fall" when near-death, and they come close to this place, this curtain of light at the end of the world. Either they fall and die with their consciousnesses fusing with the spires of ice and become an Other, or they fly and live.
- The sacrifices given by Craster and/or any captives they come across with the ability to warg/greensee are taken and impaled upon the spires manually. This explains why Bran sees bones. Of course, HBO can't show babies being impaled on spires of ice, so their interpretation is more TV friendly.
Death reached for him, screaming.Is death the ground, or an entity?
Bran wakes up after learning to fly.
“His name is Summer”