#thenorthsource

[slayingasavagegiant]

—a storm of swords, catelyn vi

[kitnjon]

Sophie Turner as Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones Season 6

[valyriansource]

lyanna week 2026 day four: wolf blood

Her father sighed. "Ah, Arya. You have a wildness in you, child. 'The wolf blood,' my father used to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it, and my brother Brandon more than a touch. It brought them both to an early grave." Arya heard sadness in his voice; he did not often speak of his father, or of the brother and sister who had died before she was born. "Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her."

[atopvisenyashill]

Snow was falling on the godswood too, melting when it touched the ground. Beneath the white-cloaked trees the earth had turned to mud. Tendrils of mist hung in the air like ghostly ribbons. Why did I come here? These are not my gods. This is not my place. The heart tree stood before him, a pale giant with a carved face and leaves like bloody hands.

[kitnjon]

Jon Snow & Sansa Stark in GoT S08 E02 -> A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

[atopvisenyashill]

Don’t wanna depend on no one else I’d rather rescue myself

[atopvisenyashill]

CHILDREN OF THE MOON

So here in one of my charts I go into the "children of the moon" imagery associated with the Starks. Certainly evocative titles, but maybe a bit confusing, so I'm going to explain them all a bit more.

First of all - the children of the moon stuff is very obvious, just because of the wolf imagery. Wolves & the moon often go hand in hand and the Starks are no exception to that. This doesn't mean other characters aren't also moon related nor does it mean that the Starks don't also have sun (or stars, whatever) associations. But let's dig in. Let's go with the girls first!

ARYA -> MOON GODDESS

We are starting with Arya, because the concept of a "moon goddess" is pretty easy to wrap your head around and Arya and the moon is just everywhere. It's very much an intrinsic part of her story, her association with the moon - it's not just a little sprinkling of imagery, it's the cycle on which her arc is based! See the thing about Arya is she is ever changing and she changes with the moon - and when the moon is full, Arya is herself.

This is something that is very obvious when you think about her as the Night Wolf, or think about Arya as a werewolf - coming out to howl at the moon when it's full, starting to sneak around at the "height" of her power when she has a faceless man doing her bidding-

It broke with a loud crack, and she threw the pieces aside. I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth. That night she lay in her narrow bed upon the scratchy straw, listening to the voices of the living and the dead whisper and argue as she waited for the moon to rise. They were the only voices she trusted anymore. She could hear the sound of her own breath, and the wolves as well, a great pack of them now. They are closer than the one I heard in the godswood, she thought. They are calling to me.

Often, Arya's longing to be a wolf once again is accompanied by her looking at the moon - whether she is finally seeing it in all her power or whether she is lamenting that it has been stolen from her. And it recurs throughout her story in a cycle - when Arya sees the wolves at the beginning of ACOK, she notes their eyes are "bright with reflected moonlight" as in the moon is near full when she sees the animals she shares a soul with; she notes it being dark and a new moon or a waning one as they travel to Harrenhal and she begins to shift from identity to identity, not liking any of them because they do not fit her, are too meek; and it is at Harrenhal that the moon comes out and Arya becomes the Night Wolf, seen above.

Similarly, the first few chapters of ASOS, as Arya and Gendry are in a state of change, fleeing Harrenhal and coming across the Brotherhood, trying to figure out what their next move should be, the move is absent - it's stated in her first chapter that you can't even see the moon again. But in ARya V, at the Peach, the moon comes out, and Arya feels like herself again - just in time for Sandor to show up and remind Arya of exactly who she is-

She dreamed of wolves that night, stalking through a wet wood with the smell of rain and rot and blood thick in the air. Only they were good smells in the dream, and Arya knew she had nothing to fear. She was strong and swift and fierce, and her pack was all around her, her brothers and her sisters. They ran down a frightened horse together, tore its throat out, and feasted. And when the moon broke through the clouds, she threw back her head and howled.

And Arya is followed everywhere by the moon, not just watching it but it watching her-

Jack-Be-Lucky, Harwin, and Merrit o' Moontown braved the burning septry to search for captives. 

The fire burned a while and died. Arya watched the moon through the branches overhead. "Ser Gregor the Mountain," she said softly. "Dunsen, Raff the Sweetling, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei." It made her feel queer to leave out Polliver and the Tickler. And Joffrey too. She was glad he was dead, but she wished she could have been there to see him die, or maybe kill him herself. Polliver said that Sansa killed him, and the Imp. Could that be true? The Imp was a Lannister, and Sansa . . . I wish I could change into a wolf and grow wings and fly away.

"Isle of the Gods is farther on. See? Six bridges down, on the right bank. That is the Temple of the Moonsingers." It was one of those that Arya had spied from the lagoon, a mighty mass of snow-white marble topped by a huge silvered dome whose milk glass windows showed all the phases of the moon. A pair of marble maidens flanked its gates, tall as the Sealords, supporting a crescent-shaped lintel.

Arya heard much and more that night, but almost all of it was in the tongue of Braavos, and she hardly understood one word in ten. Still as stone, she told herself. The hardest part was struggling not to yawn. Before the night was done, her wits were wandering. Standing there with the flagon in her hands, she dreamed she was a wolf, running free through a moonlit forest with a great pack howling at her heels.

At the top she found a set of carved wooden doors twelve feet high. The left-hand door was made of weirwood pale as bone, the right of gleaming ebony. In their center was a carved moon face; ebony on the weirwood side, weirwood on the ebony. The look of it reminded her somehow of the heart tree in the godswood at Winterfell. The doors are watching me, she thought.

Arya, like the Moon (or a werewolf, or a cat) comes alive at night. Not haunted by the moon so much as watched over. She is the moon, and the moon is she, and they derive power from each other. Does the moon grow full when Arya is herself or does Arya feel like herself when the moon is full?

Notable, then, that oftentimes while she is at the House of Black and White she cannot see the moon-

The moon turned and turned again, though Arya never saw it. She served, washed the dead, made faces at the mirrors, learned the Braavosi tongue, and tried to remember that she was no one.

Cat would always find the kindly man waiting for her when she went creeping back to the temple on the knoll on the night the moon went black. "What do you know that you did not know when you left us?" he would always ask her.

 When the moon was black she was no one, a servant of the Many-Faced God in a robe of black and white. She walked beside the kindly man through the fragrant darkness, carrying her iron lantern. She washed the dead, went through their clothes, and counted out their coins. Some days she still helped Umma cook, chopping big white mushrooms and boning fish. But only when the moon was black. 

Arya notes in her Mercy chapter, very early on, that it is a full moon...and by the ending she is referring to herself not as Mercy, or even no one, but as Arya Stark. When the moon is full, Arya is herself, and though she can lie when it's black, she cannot escape its call - nor does she ultimately want to. I don't think her imagery will change but rather will cement itself as the story goes on. She is the Moon Goddess, and Arya will come into her power with the full moon, reclaim her name, and run under the light of the moon once again.

SANSA -> MOON MAIDEN

Sansa is next because "moon maiden" is a very common image in the series, very much a "starting point" image in a lot of stories, and is easiest to explain once you start to see the moon patterns.

So what is a moon maiden?

A maiden - near puberty or very beginning (teenager)

Surrounded by a moon that hangs over a tower

When the moon is eclipsed/blotted it causes bleeding, pain, and a sense of falling

Now...what the hell does that mean?

Snatching up her knife, Sansa hacked at the sheet, cutting out the stain. If they ask me about the hole, what will I say? Tears ran down her face. She pulled the torn sheet from the bed, and the stained blanket as well. I'll have to burn them. She balled up the evidence, stuffed it in the fireplace, drenched it in oil from her bedside lamp, and lit it afire. Then she realized that the blood had soaked through the sheet into the featherbed, so she bundled that up as well, but it was big and cumbersome, hard to move. Sansa could get only half of it into the fire. She was on her knees, struggling to shove the mattress into the flames as thick grey smoke eddied around her and filled the room, when the door burst open and she heard her maid gasp.

This is the most obvious scene for her being a moon maiden - during the night, when her first moon blood comes, it makes a red stain, and she attempts to blot it out by hacking it away with a knife. Doing this fills the room with smoke. And note that Sansa stays in various towers throughout her stay in the Red Keep, so she is always hanging over a tower like the moon throughout the first 3 (ish) books.

This isn't the only time this happens though, and it's not even just related to her period, which is to say, it's not just her moonblood that makes her so associated with being a moon maiden. Earlier in that chapter, there is a similar image (where she feels period cramps, though she doesn't realize it)-

She crossed over the dry moat with its cruel iron spikes and made her way up the narrow turnpike stair, but when she reached the door of her bedchamber she could not bear to enter. The very walls of the room made her feel trapped; even with the window opened wide it felt as though there were no air to breathe. Turning back to the stair, Sansa climbed. The smoke blotted out the stars and the thin crescent of moon, so the roof was dark and thick with shadows. Yet from here she could see everything: the Red Keep's tall towers and great cornerforts, the maze of city streets beyond, to south and west the river running black, the bay to the east, the columns of smoke and cinders, and fires, fires everywhere. Soldiers crawled over the city walls like ants with torches, and crowded the hoardings that had sprouted from the ramparts. Down by the Mud Gate, outlined against the drifting smoke, she could make out the vague shape of the three huge catapults, the biggest anyone had ever seen, overtopping the walls by a good twenty feet. Yet none of it made her feel less fearful. A stab went through her, so sharp that Sansa sobbed and clutched at her belly. She might have fallen, but a shadow moved suddenly, and strong fingers grabbed her arm and steadied her.

This association doesn't stop once she gets her period, either-

Lysa threw herself into Littlefinger's arms, sobbing. As they hugged, Sansa crawled from the Moon Door on hands and knees and wrapped her arms around the nearest pillar. She could feel her heart pounding. There was snow in her hair and her right shoe was missing. It must have fallen. She shuddered, and hugged the pillar tighter.

Really, the Vale is just full of rising (and falling!) ice moon imagery, it's basically built off it, I mean look at that sigil, and there's so many moons in the Vale (literally we have a moon trapped against a purple sky)! So similar to being trapped in the tower in the Red Keep, Sansa is trapped now in a tomb, a white tomb with a hanging moon-

Old snow cloaked the courtyard, and icicles hung down like crystal spears from the terraces and towers. The Eyrie was built of fine white stone, and winter's mantle made it whiter still. So beautiful, Alayne thought, so impregnable. She could not love this place, no matter how she tried. Even before the guards and serving men had made their descent, the castle had seemed as empty as a tomb, and more so when Petyr Baelish was away. No one sang up there, not since Marillion. No one ever laughed too loud. Even the gods were silent. The Eyrie boasted a sept, but no septon; a godswood, but no heart tree. No prayers are answered here, she often thought, though some days she felt so lonely she had to try. Only the wind answered her, sighing endlessly around the seven slim white towers and rattling the Moon Door every time it gusted. It will be even worse in winter, she knew. In winter this will be a cold white prison.

So, while this is a section about Sansa being a Moon Maiden, I think it's important to point out that starting in ASOS, we get a slight shift in this...

It was a hair net of fine-spun silver, the strands so thin and delicate the net seemed to weigh no more than a breath of air when Sansa took it in her fingers. Small gems were set wherever two strands crossed, so dark they drank the moonlight.

"I dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair, venom dripping from their fangs. And later I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow." She turned her head sharply and smiled through the gloom, right at Arya.

"I forgot, you've been hiding under a rock. The northern girl. Winterfell's daughter. We heard she killed the king with a spell, and afterward changed into a wolf with big leather wings like a bat, and flew out a tower window. But she left the dwarf behind and Cersei means to have his head."

A dark moon who kills the king, explodes, and turns into a moon meteor or a falling moon/falling star (or, if you want to be Greek about, turns to stone). And in fact we get a lot of this "darkening" of her moon - not just the amethysts that "drink the moonlight" but Sansa actively covering the moon-

Dress warmly, Ser Dontos had told her, and dress dark. She had no blacks, so she chose a dress of thick brown wool. The bodice was decorated with freshwater pearls, though. The cloak will cover them. The cloak was a deep green, with a large hood. She slipped the dress over her head, and donned the cloak, though she left the hood down for the moment.

"That Royce glimpsed this pretty face I do not doubt, but it was one face in a thousand. A man fighting in a tourney has more to concern him than some child in the crowd. And at Winterfell, Sansa was a little girl with auburn hair. My daughter is a maiden tall and fair, and her hair is chestnut."

And of course, her descent down the mountain, away from the "tomb" her Hades brought her too-

They passed beneath a wind-carved arch, where long icicles clung to the pale stone, dripping down on them. On the far side the path narrowed and plunged down sharply for a hundred feet or more. Myranda was forced to drop back. Alayne gave the mule his head. The steepness of this part of the descent made her cling tightly to her saddle. The steps here had been worn smooth by the iron-shod hooves of all the mules who'd passed this way, until they resembled a series of shallow stone bowls. Water filled the bottoms of the bowls, glimmering golden in the afternoon sun. It is water now, Alayne thought, but come dark, all of it will turn to ice. 

I think her imagery is shifting - she darkened her moon, then fell, and now she is a trapped moon, and in a state of change.

JON -> BLOOD MOON KING

Jon, once you have a bit of an understanding of the imagery, is fairly simple and straightforward, though no less intriguing.

"Blood moon" is basically an eclipsed moon - note that it is different from a blotted or dark moon, because a blood moon is black and red, or bleeding itself, rather than blotted out. It starts bloody, it doesn't become bloody the way the moon maid does as she rises or falls.

This is something that is seen very obviously in his father's sigil alone - a red dragon (bleeding star, bloody moon) on a black field. It even fits the way Rhaegar died - his black armor, and his chest caved in red. Similarly, when we get these images of Jon as the Blood Moon King, he has been made bloody, the blood drips - usually because he is fighting. One early image is the battle on the wall; Jon above the the wildlings fighting to keep the bloody tide down-

By then the east stables were afire too, black smoke and wisps of burning hay pouring from the stalls. When the roof collapsed, flames rose up roaring, so loud they almost drowned out the warhorns of the Thenns. Fifty of them were pounding up the kingsroad in tight column, their shields held up above their heads. Others were swarming through the vegetable garden, across the flagstone yard, around the old dry well. Three had hacked their way through the doors of Maester Aemon's apartments in the timber keep below the rookery, and a desperate fight was going on atop the Silent Tower, longswords against bronze axes. None of that mattered. The dance has moved on, he thought.

Again Jon notched and drew and loosed, but there was only one of him and one of Satin, and a good sixty or seventy Thenns pounding up the stairs, killing as they went, drunk on victory. On the fourth landing, three brothers in black cloaks stood shoulder to shoulder with longswords in their hands, and battle was joined again, briefly. But there were only three and soon enough the wildling tide washed over them, and their blood dripped down the steps.

So before going into the obvious visions, it’s important to point out that this is a pattern. Like with Sansa and the moon over a tower, like Arya’s identity growing stronger & weaker with the moon, Jon has a “cycle” very similar to them; Jon is raised high, bloodied himself, being overwhelmed but never giving up against the black and bloody tide.

Visions danced before her, gold and scarlet, flickering, forming and melting and dissolving into one another, shapes strange and terrifying and seductive. She saw the eyeless faces again, staring out at her from sockets weeping blood. Then the towers by the sea, crumbling as the dark tide came sweeping over them, rising from the depths. Shadows in the shape of skulls, skulls that turned to mist, bodies locked together in lust, writhing and rolling and clawing. Through curtains of fire great winged shadows wheeled against a hard blue sky.

Could the skulls in her vision have signified this bridge? Somehow Melisandre did not think so. "If it comes, that attack will be no more than a diversion. I saw towers by the sea, submerged beneath a black and bloody tide.”

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. The world dissolved into a red mist. Jon stabbed and slashed and cut.

Jon Snow and his black brothers were gathered around three spears, some twenty yards away. The spears were eight feet long and made of ash. The one on the left had a slight crook, but the other two were smooth and straight. At the top of each was impaled a severed head. Their beards were full of ice, and the falling snow had given them white hoods. Where their eyes had been, only empty sockets remained, black and bloody holes that stared down in silent accusation.

Jon Snow turned away. The last light of the sun had begun to fade. He watched the cracks along the Wall go from red to grey to black, from streaks of fire to rivers of black ice. Down below, Lady Melisandre would be lighting her nightfire and chanting, Lord of Light, defend us, for the night is dark and full of terrors . “Winter is coming,” Jon said at last, breaking the awkward silence, “and with it the white walkers. The Wall is where we stop them. The Wall was made to stop them … but the Wall must be manned.

And what’s interesting is that Jon, while being a moon himself, is frequently seen fighting moons-

The hooded man lifted his pale moon face, and Jon slashed at it without hesitation. The sword laid the intruder open to the bone, taking off half his nose and opening a gash cheek to cheek under those eyes, eyes, eyes like blue stars burning.

“Snow,” the moon murmured. The wolf made no answer. Snow crunched beneath his paws. The wind sighed through the trees…. Jon wriggled an arm out from under his blankets to shoo the raven off. It was a big bird, old and bold and scruffy, utterly without fear. “Snow,” it cried, flapping to his bedpost. “Snow, snow.” Jon filled his fist with a pillow and let fly, but the bird took to the air.

There's a few things that is pointing to, in my view. First of all, this image - Jon making war on a moon - could very well be foreshadowing R+L=J. I don't like phrasing it as "Jon killed his mother" because it wasn't an active thing he did but nevertheless, I think this pattern of Jon attacking moons and being surrounded by a bloody tide is pointing to his parents. I already established the shared imagery with his father, but his mother being a dying moon maid, in my opinion, also plays into that. Remember, Lyanna is often a bloody moon, a bleeding moon-

"Promise me, Ned," Lyanna's statue whispered. She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept blood.

But I don't think it's just that. Notice Jon is also followed by a bleeding and bloody star as well.

The morning sky was streaked by thin grey clouds, but the pale red line was there behind them. The black brothers had dubbed the wanderer Mormont's Torch, saying (only half in jest) that the gods must have sent it to light the old man's way through the haunted forest. "The comet's so bright you can see it by day now," Sam said, shading his eyes with a fistful of books. "Never mind about comets, it's maps the Old Bear wants."

Jon clapped him on the shoulder with his burned hand.  They walked back through the camp together. Cookfires were being lit all around them. Overhead, the stars were coming out. The long red tail of Mormont’s Torch burned as bright as the moon. Jon heard the ravens before he saw them.  Some were calling his name. The birds were not shy when it came to making noise.

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. "Let him go," Jon shouted. "Wun Wun, let him go." Wun Wun did not hear or did not understand. The giant was bleeding himself, with sword cuts on his belly and his arm. He swung the dead knight against the grey stone of the tower, again and again and again, until the man's head was red and pulpy as a summer melon. The knight's cloak flapped in the cold air. Of white wool it had been, bordered in cloth-of-silver and patterned with blue stars. Blood and bone were flying everywhere.

Jon, a blooded moon, surrounded by a dark bloody tide, followed by a bleeding star...again, very R+L coded there, but I do think this foreshadows his conflicts at the ending - not only with the bloody tide (probably meaning the others, but remember it stands in for the Wildlings as well - it's moreso that Jon frequently leads the battle against a tide, against all odds) but also against a bleeding star. And our bleeding star characters are, of course, the other Targaryens.

So, all of Jon's imagery is tied to his secret identity. Like Arya being the moon, and Sansa's rise as a moon into a sun, I think Jon standing at the top of a tide is all about his story. The odds are insurmountable, and he cannot escape from his identity - nor can he escape from his role being lifted high above the others around him. Similar to Sansa, I don't know if his image will change in the next two books but I don't think so. I think he will remain a moon - but perhaps the blood moon aspect will change.

BRAN -> DARK MOON ABYSS

That is a fancy way of saying Bran is a black hole.

I specify "dark moon" because I think it's important to point out that like Sansa, Bran starts as a moon character but I do believe after an "explosion" of some sort, he might shift into being a sun character. I am much more confident about Bran shifting into something else because his whole story shifts in several places! You see, he starts out as a RISING moon, but very quickly finds himself drawn into the black hole. Here’s what I mean-

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.

Obviously familiair, right? Important to point out that the broken tower he catches Jaime and Cersei fucking in was broken by lightning-

His favorite haunt was the broken tower. Once it had been a watchtower, the tallest in Winterfell. A long time ago, a hundred years before even his father had been born, a lightning strike had set it afire. The top third of the structure had collapsed inward, and the tower had never been rebuilt.

If I were truly a direwolf, I would understand the song, he thought wistfully. In his wolf dreams, he could race up the sides of mountains, jagged icy mountains taller than any tower, and stand at the summit beneath the full moon with all the world below him, the way it used to be.

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.

Pale moonlight slanted down through the hole in the dome, painting the branches of the weirwood as they strained up toward the roof. It looked as if the tree was trying to catch the moon and drag it down into the well.

You can see his imagery literally changing as he falls - rising up high with the moon, being struck by lightning, and falling. He even laments it - he used to be the rising moon, but now the light of the moon is lost to him. And when the lightning strikes...that is when Bran falls.

Somewhere to the north a lightning bolt crackled across the sky, brightening the inside of the tower for an instant. Hodor jumped and made a frightened noise. Bran counted to eight, waiting for the thunder. When it came, Hodor shouted, "Hodor!"

"HOOOOOODOOOOOOOR!" the stableboy screamed as lightning filled the sky again, and even Jojen was shouting now, shouting at Bran and Meera to shut him up. "Be quiet!" Bran said in a shrill scared voice, reaching up uselessly for Hodor's leg as he crashed past, reaching, reaching.

A sort of inverse - instead of falling, he reaches, and in the reaching, he falls anyway, and wargs Hodor for the first time.

And so he shifts. Bran is definitely, at this point, a dark moon, rather than a collapsing sun. The image he has is often a dark explosion, the way a black hole, and in a spiral of some sort-

From the well came a wail, a piercing creech that went through him like a knife. A huge black shape heaved itself up into the darkness and lurched toward the moonlight, and the fear rose up in Bran so thick that before he could even think of drawing Hodor's sword the way he'd meant to, he found himself back on the floor again with Hodor roaring "Hodor hodor HODOR," the way he had in the lake tower whenever the lightning flashed.

The day was growing old by then, and long shadows were creeping down the mountainsides to send black fingers through the pines.

On this night he dreamed of the weirwood. It was looking at him with its deep red eyes, calling to him with its twisted wooden mouth, and from its pale branches the three-eyed crow came flapping, pecking at his face and crying his name in a voice as sharp as swords.

The moon was a black hole in the sky. Wolves howled in the wood, sniffing through the snowdrifts after dead things. A murder of ravens erupted from the hillside, screaming their sharp cries, black wings beating above a white world.

The moon was fat and full. Stars wheeled across a black sky. Rain fell and froze, and tree limbs snapped from the weight of the ice.

Under the hill, the broken boy sat upon a weirwood throne, listening to whispers in the dark as ravens walked up and down his arms.

BUT. I don't think the Dark Moon Abyss will be his final form. For this reason-

The moon was a black hole in the sky. Outside the cave the world went on. Outside the cave the sun rose and set, the moon turned, the cold winds howled.

What's important to keep in mind is that the black hole stuff gets more and more pronounced as he reaches the cave, until he's positively swallowed up by black holes in his final chapters - he's literally in a black hole that swallows up all light-

The great cavern that opened on the abyss was as black as pitch, black as tar, blacker than the feathers of a crow. Light entered as a trespasser, unwanted and unwelcome, and soon was gone again; cookfires, candles, and rushes burned for a little while, then guttered out again, their brief lives at an end.

But outside the cave the world goes on. This black hole is only temporary - when he leaves the cave is when he will take on his final form. Will he be a Bright Sun Abyss? A Dark Moon King? A Harvest Moon King? I'm not sure! But I feel fairly confident that there is a next.

[atopvisenyashill]

Branoween, Day 7: Endgame Speculation

This one includes a small meta section since a lot of the return portion of the hero's journey hasn't happened for Bran just yet!

Refusal of the Return

This one seems straightforward to me because it is something Bran already struggles with.

There is also the implication that Bran wargs birds; the crows that say both Theon and Jon's name seem to be not Brynden but Bran. And this is something Haggon mentions that bird skinchangers struggle with the most - "staring up at the bloody blue." I imagine Bran will be particularly susceptible to something like that given that he's already gotten lost in Summer.

And, of course, he is right in the middle of getting even deeper within his own magic by doing a sort of dream/memory walk through the weirwood network. Literally he is about to tempted by memories of the past - and might not want to come back.

The Magic Flight

Again, also fairly straightforward.

I don't know how much I believe D&D when they say what came from GRRM but given Bran's continued violation of Hodor, it makes sense that there will be a final consequence for this and Bran will murder Hodor somehow.

In the show, their magic flight is when Hodor dies. Again, unsure if this will be the same scene but it seems not unlikely that it happens where Bran is skinchanging Hodor as they are escaping the cave (for whatever reason) and this is how Hodor is killed, considering how this dynamic has devolved and how Bran’s initial violation of Hodor was also in a dangerous situation where they are about to be caught.

"but will they leave the cave" yes, it is an integral part of the Hero's Journey that they make the return home and any theory that has Bran as God-King beyond the Wall rather than somewhere in Westeros proper is really goofy to me considering how closely Bran's story otherwise sticks to the Hero's Journey.

“but he will subvert the hero’s journey!” sure, by showing us that bran’s violation of hodor is a natural consequence of the way brynden & the children & arguably even jojen reed have enabled bran’s continued pushing of magical boundaries without giving him the time and instruction he actually needs to understand what it is he’s doing. the magical flight can certainly be metaphorical as well - escaping the weirwood net. but i think it’s more likely he will mirror the last hero and go back south, and anyways, if his magical flight is away from the weirwood net…why would he stay in the cave when he wakes up lmao. What ten year old actually wants to never leave a dank ass cave again, if given the option to do anything else? He’s leaving the cave.

Rescue From Without

This is where we get more into theorizing territory.

My interpretation is that the "rescue from without" is going to be about rescuing Bran from the weirwood hivemind after his escape (so NOT the metaphorical magical flight - this part of the journey instead!)

I think his family are going to be very important to pulling him back into his mind. I don't know how successful it will be but I do believe there will be a more active effort to do so than we got in the show.

I also believe that physically speaking, Jon Snow might play a role in getting Bran back south of the Wall. I sure hope Meera doesn't die but even if she lives they needed Sam's help to cross the Wall which means they might need another man of the Night's Watch to cross back over.

All throughout ADWD, Jon is actively brushing off his magical capabilities. He literally attacks Mormont’s crow saying his name in the middle of a wolf dream at one point. But once he's dead it won't be something he can ignore. So I think it's likely, considering how tethered to each other Bran and Jon are, that Jon will greendream, and meet Bran, and become aware that Bran is alive - and might physically help Bran make the rest of the journey once he gets to the Wall.

Crossing the Return Threshold

TO ME. The first threshold is Theon’s attack on Winterfell - Theon acts as the catalyst to get Bran to leave, Theon is heavily associated with dogs (and Cerberus is Thee most popular depiction of the Guardian of the Threshold), Bran literally crosses the threshold magically during these chapters while Within The Earth and is carried over a number of thresholds as they climb back up and leave. And this directly starts the next chapter of his journey.

So rather than Bran’s significant return across the threshold With New Gifts being him crossing the wall, it will be his return to Winterfell, and imo, his return to the Winterfell Godswood specifically. It’s the road he leaves on, it’s the road he will return on.

Master of Two Worlds

Similar to the magic flight, I think in order for Bran to achieve "master of two worlds" he has to not only leave that fuck ass cave but regain control over his mind and body. No more getting lost in dreams, but actual control over his magic.

But I chose an image of him in winterfell for a reason - master of two worlds means he can control his magic AND exist in real life. He can purposefully send dreams, doesn’t get lost, and communicate effectively and freely.

Maybe, again, this will be subverted in some way - this is imo where we’d get into the “and i must scream” horror aspect - that others THINK bran is in control but it’s someone else in the driver’s seat.

Freedom to Live

This one I made with no layers because the point is Bran's identity is no longer fractured. He has made some sort of peace - whether it be a forced peace because his mind is taken over (it won't be, he's gonna be fine, I'm not coping!!) or Bran taking back his mind - with his magic and his abilities, he has returned home and accepted his path forward, and he has reunited with his loved ones. No more prince of the wood, Bran the Broken, Bran the Beastling, and his southron dreams all being at odds with each other.

In the end, he is just Bran. Quick to laugh, easy to love.

But also I do believe that it's likely Jon will be offered a crown - maybe over the North, maybe over all of Westeros - but will, as his mentor did, refuse it in favor of Bran.

And interestingly, just as Aegon was the fourth son of a fourth son, Bran is the second son of a second son.