Summer - Bran III

Let me preface this by saying that this chapter was the most interesting to me in my first read-through. It dangles answers right before our eyes. One of the characters sees something that we as readers are unable to. We are given glimpses of what’s going on in multiple mysterious lands (Always-winter and Asshai). Also, if you consider the fact that the series was only intended to be three books, then the first book should include insight and foreshadowing into what is truly going on in the world.

I also talk about this chapter a lot on forums because I believe people connect certain parts to Robert Strong, Oberyn Martell and prophesy when it doesn’t have anything to do with them.

Bran recalls Maester Luwin dressing up clay dolls to look like him - dropping them out of the tower to demonstrate how dangerous climbing could be. He says, “But I never fall.” In the end, he never really does, at least not by accident or his own carelessness.

He falls though, from above the world. The imagery is interesting. I wonder if he’s seeing the world as it is in the beginning of his fall, or if he’s just entering this out of body experience from some type of void. He thinks he’s dreaming, but he’s not.

“I’ll wake up when I hit the ground,” Bran says

“You’ll die when you hit the ground,” Replies the crow, Bloodraven.

He sees the ground very far away, only grey mists surround him. He mentions that it’s cold, there’s no sun or stars. The fact that there is navigation throughout the seas makes me believe that the nothingness that surrounds him is a void his consciousness is plunging from. He is very close to death, after all. Is this a familiar experience for all those who are near-death, or only those with the warging/greenseeing ability? In a later chapter, Euron mentions that he experienced a similar circumstance.

He tries to fly.

“The things I do for love,” A painful memory, causing him to fall faster than ever, nearing death in body and mind.

“Every flight begins with a fall”

Bran sees the whole world spread out before him. “He could see the whole realm, and everyone in it.”

He sees maester Luwin studying the sky with a bronze tube, taking notes. He’s probably forecasting the weather.

He sees Robb practicing swordplay with real steel in his hand.

“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.”

He sees Hodor carrying an anvil to Mikken’s forge.

He sees the weirwood brooding over its reflection until it lifts its gaze back at Bran.

He sees a galley racing across the waters of the Bite. His mother is inside, looking at the knife that was intended for him, blood still on it. Ser Rodrik is there, too, sea-sick and throwing up over the rails of the ship.

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.

The next couple glimpses are one paragraph, which is the most discussed aspect of his experience. 

He sees Ned pleading with the King.

He sees Sansa crying herself to sleep.

He sees Arya watching in silence and holding her secrets in her heart.

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.

“There are 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.”

The shadow with the terrible face of a hound is too easy, Sandor Clegane. If you’re dense, the ash is also alluded to because of his face and fire.

Armored like the sun, golden and beautiful. Many take this description to mean Oberyn Martell, especially when they consider the next bit to be Gregor Clegane. Their sigil, however, is that of a RED sun, with a spear through it. Oberyn, though damn sexy in the show, is not often referenced as beautiful. Jaime, however, fits all the criteria. He’s armored in gold, and is pretty.

These two men are also the ones searching for Arya at this point in the story (refer to previous chapter). They are both leading search parties north of the Trident. North of the Trident is also where there are mountains of the Vale begin.

Now, for the giant in armor made of stone. Sure, Gregor's helm has a stone fist atop the helmet and he's called the mountain that rides, but the whole of his armor is not made of stone, nor is he relevant yet in this story. If it is a reference to Robert Strong, the armor is different and it wouldn't make much sense - Strong has white enameled plate over gilded mail. He also has rainbow feathers coming from the top of his helm. If Gregor was decapitated, then I suppose the poison used by Oberyn could turn his blood thick and black, however, GRRM uses "black blood" as a reference to any blood coming from wounds:

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.

So, thick black blood isn't any indication that poison was used. It most likely isn't Robert Strong. The armor is wrong, he's not yet relevant, and there's no indication that thick black blood = poison. This means it probably doesn't have anything to do with Gregor's duel with Oberyn Martell, either.

What could it be, then? If what we are seeing are events that are currently happening while Bran lays unconscious/dying/having an out of body experience, then what Bran is seeing is the literal mountains of the Vale, maybe even specifically, Giant's Lance.

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 from

This 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:

1. 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. 
2. 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. 

Perhaps it's the case that all with the warg/greensight ability fall when near-death, and simply only die when they hit the ground. Maybe the Others still need to impale the dreamers on the spires of ice. Maybe we'll see this if Jon has to go through it.

Death reached for him, screaming.

Is death the ground, or an entity?

Bran wakes up after learning to fly.

“His name is Summer”

The Things I do for Love - Bran II

The Things I do for Love – Bran II

The chapter begins with a bunch of the party out hunting wild boar, which Robert wanted for the feast that evening.  Bran is eagerly anticipating heading south and riding a real horse for a change, instead of his usual pony. He daydreams about being a knight of the kingsguard and considers the three kingsguard that came along with King Robert. Of the three, he says that Jaime is the only one who looked like the knights in the stories. Jaime, however, doesn't seem very fond of boar hunting and isn't with the party.

He reminisces about his life in Winterfell and visits a couple of friends. He plays with his wolf for a bit and then decides to go climbing. His wolf, the only one still without a name at this point, objects to his climbing. This is where some of the interesting imagery begins and, of course, he begins his ascent into warg-dom.

First, when he begins climbing he considers Winterfell, “To a boy, Winterfell was a grey stone labyrinth of walls and towers and courtyards and tunnels spreading out in all directions. In the older parts of the castle, the halls slanted up and down so that you couldn't even be sure what floor you were on. The place had grown over the centuries like some monstrous stone tree, Maester Luwin told him once, and its branches were gnarled and thick and twisted, its roots sunk deep into the earth.”

This seems like a comparison to an old bone-white weirwood tree, which we’ll see referenced again as a tree that looks like stone around the cave up north and possibly on the Iron Islands. Is it only a comparison though, or does Winterfell have something magical about it below in its deep roots? What keeps it warm? What’s in the crypts?

The tree imagery doesn't stop there; however, “He confessed his crime the next day in a fit of guilt. Lord Eddard ordered him to the godswood to cleanse himself. Guards were posted to see that Bran remained there alone all night to reflect on his disobedience. The next morning Bran was nowhere to be seen. They finally found him fast asleep in the upper branches of the tallest sentinel in the grove.”

Could this possibly be foreshadowing his time inside and connected to a weirwood, just as Blood Raven is?

“When he got out from under it and scrambled up near the sky, Bran could see all of Winterfell in a glance. He liked the way it looked, spread out beneath him, only birds wheeling over his head while all the life of the castle went on below. Bran could perch for hours among the shapeless, rain-worn gargoyles that brooded over the First Keep, watching it all: the men drilling with wood and steel in the yard, the cooks tending their vegetables in the glass garden, restless dogs running back and forth in the kennels, the silence of the godswood, the girls gossiping beside the washing well. It made him feel like he was lord of the castle, in a way even Robb would never know.”

This is very similar to what happens to Bran next. He enjoys seeing events in Winterfell unfold from above. The next thing he knows, he’s flying and seeing events all across Westeros from above.  Is it possible that he becomes a kind of “lord of warging/greenseeing” that his siblings and any other wargs would never know?

“Old Nan told him a story about a bad little boy who climbed too high and was struck down by lightning, and how afterward the crows came to peck out his eyes. Bran was not impressed. There were crows’ nests atop the broken tower, where no one ever went but him, and sometimes he filled his pockets with corn before he climbed up there and the crows ate it right out of his hand. None of them had ever shown the slightest bit of interest in pecking out his eyes.”

Is it just another Old Nan story or does she know something about warging, or even about Blood Raven and his crows?

Finally, as he gets to the top of the First Keep, we learn of the incestuous relationship between Jaime and Cersei and, well, Bran never falls….

Before he left the window, Bran says his age (7) if that’s of any significance. The wolf howls, the crows circle.

Our Way is the Older Way

The morning dawns and the air is crisp and smells of fall. Now, quickly, follow the horses, we're on the way to a beheading. 

George R.R. Martin introduces us to Westeros and the Starks of Winterfell in the midst of a procession on their way to see a man beheaded. So, if the prologue wasn’t enough of an indication, the reader should now be aware that this book doesn’t end with hobbits, dwarves and wizards sitting for a meal.

The chapter is told through the point of view of Bran Stark, second youngest of the Stark children, who at the age of seven has finally been ruled old enough to see his father, Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, “deliver the King’s justice.” Bran assumes that the condemned man must be a wildling based on his eldest brothers rumors; a man serving Mance Rayder, the-King-beyond-the-Wall. We learn that wildlings are a sort of boogie man to the children of Westeros, lawless people living beyond the Wall, cruel and criminal.

At the execution we meet Robb Stark, the eldest Stark child and heir to Winterfell and Jon Snow, the Stark bastard of an age with Robb. We are also introduced to Theon Greyjoy, Eddard’s ward, and several of the Stark servants and laborers.

The condemned man is not a wildling. Based on his description we, the readers, recognize Gared, the old ranger of the Night’s Watch from the prologue. It appears that he survived the encounter with the Others only to be killed as a deserter in Winterfell.

His death marks the death of the only living person in Westeros, that we are aware of, who may know for a fact that the Others are real and active. Does he manage to deliver a warning to Eddard Stark before he dies? We don’t know as Bran does not remember what questions and answers preceded his death. We know he may have been too far gone to make sense based on Jon Snow’s observation that his eyes looked like those of one already dead from fear.

On the ride back to Winterfell, Ned has a side conversation with Bran which grants us the first look into his character. First, Bran asks him about the debate Jon and Robb were having about whether the man died bravely. Bran asks his father if one can be brave if they are afraid to which Ned replies that that is the only time one can truly be brave. Ned also explains to Bran why he had to personally deliver the sentence.

Bran’s initial nervous excitement on the way to the execution suggests that death is rather commonplace and cheap in Westeros. Ned explains that the Starks keep to the old ways and that the one who ordered justice be done must be the one to deliver it, lest he forget what sentencing a man to death means. Here we see that Ned is a ruler who is steadfast in his ways and in keeping with tradition and we get a glimpse of his sense of honor.

The most important event in the chapter is, of course, the discovery of the dead direwolf and the Stark children’s adoption of her litter of pups. A defining moment for all of the children that will carry weight throughout the series.

The symbolism of the direwolf pup’s is pretty obvious, and basically explained in the text by Jon Snow. There is a pup of the right gender for each of the Stark children, including the outcast runt of the litter that Jon finds at the last second, and the direwolf is their house sigil.

The other hinted at symbolism comes from the manner in which the mother died, she choked on the horns of a stag. The stag is the sigil of House Baratheon to which Ned’s old friend and current King, Robert, belongs. The direwolf choking on the stag it tried to kill is an inauspicious omen at best. The other fact, that all of the characters seem to overlook, is that the wolf pup’s who fate has deemed represent the Stark children have been orphaned by fate.

In introducing us to Winterfell through Bran, Martin has used the freshest eyes available. The first time Bran sees his father behead a man is the first time we see his father. When Ned opens up to Bran to explain concepts of bravery and honor Martin is opening his character up to us. We first hear of the wildlings through Bran’s memories of an old woman’s stories, ones that meet the expectations of a typical fantasy reader. But those stories are somewhat shattered by the bleak reality of the matter and by Ned’s very human explanation of things.

This is a world of honor and blood and death and like Bran we have just begun to learn that.