Episode 105: A CLASH OF KINGS, BRAN V: "Under the Skin" SHOW NOTES!

Hello and welcome to the Not A Cast … podcast: the one true chapter-by-chapter podcast going through A Song of Ice and Fire one chapter a week. I’m one of your hosts Jeff better known as BryndenBFish. 

And I’m your other host Emmett, better known as PoorQuentyn.          

Welcome to the one hundred and fifth episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “Under the Skin: An Analysis of ACOK, Bran V,” in which Jojen Reed further instructs Bran on prophecy and skinchanging, as well as foreshadowing his grisly death at the hands of a new character: Reek.

“Reek” in quotes, of course. 

This episode is brought to you by our Small Council: 

• Hand of the King WolfmanZack 
• Grand Maester Timbob
• Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Mark N. 
• Lord Travis, Master of Ships and Warden of the Waves
• Ser Keith J, Master of Whisperers
• Lord Philip the Merciful, Master of Laws
• Archmaester June, Healer of the Lesser Poxes
• Ragged Michael, Warden of the North
• Nelson the Hammer, Prince of Dragonstone
• Scarlett the Other Red Woman and Mistress of Whisperers
• Lord Micah: Warden of the West and the Kraken’s Bane
• Lord James: the Jim that was Promised
• The High Bearded Priest
• Lord Jake, Assistant (to the) Hand of the King
• Lady Xena Valyrian
• Hedrigal, Captain of the Air Ship Arrogance
• His Grace’s High Inquisitor Frank
• Ser Jasper the Cruel, the King’s Justice
• Laurence, Prince of Dorne
• Kelly, Warden of the East and Mistress of (Old) Bay of Crabs
• Steven the Steadfast, Master of Hounds
• The Blue Winter Rose Knight of Highgarden
• Lady Stephanie
• Lord Anonymous
• Lord Carlos
• Lord Andrew the Restless, a Priest of the Drowned God
• The King's Cook, Nolly (No-lee) Olly (Oh-lee), Master of Cannoli
• Ser Sourcedelica 
• Prince Matthew of House Targaryen - Proud Soy Boy of Summerhall, Defender of the 5th Book and Swing Dancer with Dragons
• Ser K.W. Dent, Elsie of the Blackwood Guard, and Batman of the Seven Kingdoms
• Lord Penchant for Nostalgia
• Queer Alex, Rainbow Commander of the They-des and Gentle-thems (ladies and gentlemen)
• Lord Clint, Esq., Master of Absolutely, Positively NOT Serving As A Spy for Several Unnamed High Lords and Ladies In Order to Further the Secret Blackfyre-Style Conspiracy to Overthrow The Oppressive Small Council
• Haldivar, The Waiter for TWOW
• A-a-ron Damphair Prophet of the Forsaken and High Priest of Euron Crows Eye
• Lieutenant Glenn Lord of H town
• Vanerys of the House Colgaryen, the First of Her Name, Princess of Dragonstone, Mistress of Art, The Overworked, Queen of the Pencils, the Eraser and the First Draft, Queen of Monochrome, Devotee of the Great GOT, Portraitist of the Realm, Lady Realist of the Seven Kingdoms, Blender of Paints and Maker of Drawings
• Seanwell the Slayer
• Lord Adam T
• Lady Alexandra of Tarth
• Ser Kristoph Logas, Bloody Scorpion of the Red Field, Defender of the Letter of Kin, and the Wolverine of house Qorgyle
• Lady Elizabeth, Mistress of Horse (Faced Lesbians)
• Ser Josh Snow Bastard Bounty Hunter of the North
• Thank you to all our counselors!

Spoiler warning: All published books, 5 novels, 3 Dunk and Egg novellas, histories, interviews, TWOW sample chapters, as well as Game of Thrones the TV show. Anything and everything!

Question

Azor Ahai Five, a Sworn Sword patrons, asks:

Who was your favorite PoV when you first read the series when you two were young and nubile, and who was your favorite PoV now that you are (well one of you) grumpy old men? What do you think it says about both the story and about yourselves?

So, thank you Azor Ahai Five for the question. If you’d like to ask us questions we’ll answer here on the NotACast podcast, you are welcome to become a Sworn Sword of higher patron over at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF where you can get show notes, early access to every episode, special posts and 25 bonus episodes!

Speaking of those bonus episodes, our next patreon-only episode, voted on by our patrons, is coming your-all’s way starting the week of the 22nd of March, and it’s going to be all about the Grand Northern Conspiracy. So, we’ll be getting in deep on analyzing the GNC, whether it’s true or not and more! You can find that episode and all of our other episodes at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF!

But enough about patreon! When we last checked in with Bran Stark, he had learned that his new friend sad boy Jojen may see the future in his dreams. Let’s find out whether Jojen is indeed a magic sad boy in this synopsis of ACOK, Bran V!

Synopsis

Alebelly finds Bran at the forge with Mikken and informs the prince that there’s been a bird from the king. Excited, Bran asks if it’s from Robb … which, yeah, it’s from Robb. So, Alebelly carries Bran up to Luwin’s chambers, and Bran finds Rickon and the Walders Frey waiting for him in Luwin’s chambers.

Maester Luwin sent Alebelly away and closed his door. “My lords,” he said gravely, “we have had a message from His Grace, with both good news and ill. He has won a great victory in the west, shattering a Lannister army at a place named Oxcross, and has taken several castles as well. He writes us from Ashemark, formerly the stronghold of House Marbrand.” 

Rickon wonders if Robb is coming home. He’s not. And Bran asks if Robb beat Tywin. He didn’t. He beat Stafford Lannister. Big Walder says that Tywin’s the one who matters, and Bran internally agrees. Rickon, though, wants Robb to come home soon. And he can bring Grey Wind, Catelyn and Ned with them.

Though he knew Lord Eddard was dead, sometimes Rickon forgot … willfully, Bran suspected. His little brother was stubborn as only a boy of four can be. 

Bran feels glad that Robb was winning, but he also remembers Osha’s words about Robb marching the wrong way, and that disquiets him. On cue, Luwin turns to the Frey boys and tells them that their uncle Stevron died. He was wounded in the battle, and though they thought it wasn’t serious, he very mysteriously died just three days later. Big Walder shrugs and says he was old and always complaining about being tired. Little Walder puts in that he was tired of waiting for Lord Walder to die. 

The Frey boys get to arguing about who will be the heir with Little Walder being wrong, and Big Walder being extremely precise about who’s in line next. It goes Ryman then Edwyn then Black Walder then Petyr Pimple. Then Aegon. It’s really simple. Little Walder says that Ryman is too old with a bad belly. No way he’ll be lord right?

“I’ll be lord. I don’t care if he is,” Big Walder said.

Shocked, Luwin interrupts to tell the Freys to cut the shit and exhibit some grief over Stevron. So, Little Walder pretends to be sad, and Bran knows that they’re not actually sad. He asks to be excused, and Luwin lets him go.

But Hodor is busy down in the stableyard. So, Osha gets summoned. On the way across the yard, Bran asks if Osha knows the way to the Wall and beyond the Wall. She does. Follow the Ice Dragon constellation, chasing the blue star in the rider’s eye. Bran asks if there’s giants and Others and Children of the Forest north of the Wall. And Osha answers, partially-answers and dodges. She says that there are giants, she’s heard of the CoTF, and she asks why Bran is asking about the Others. Well, has she seen a Three-Eyed Crow? She hasn’t seen that, and she’s happy she hasn’t. She leads him to the window seat so he can watch the goings-on of the courtyard below.

A minute later Jojen and Meera Reed enter Bran’s bedchamber. Prince Bran asks them whether they heard about the bird, and Jojen nods.

“It wasn’t a supper like you said. It was a letter from Robb, and we didn’t eat it, but-”

“The green dreams take strange shapes sometimes,” Jojen admitted. “The truth of them is not always easy to understand.” 

Bran asks Jojen to tell him about the bad thing he dreamed but didn’t tell him about back in Bran IV, and Jojen asks if that means that Bran believes him. Bran does. So, Jojen tells him that the sea is coming and will lap around the walls of Winterfell and how salt water will flow over the walls themselves. Floating atop the water will be men: Alebelly, Septon Chayle and Mikken. 

Bran says that these men have to be told, but Jojen sadly states that even if they’re told, they can’t avoid their fate. But now that Jojen has shown Bran his, Bran’s gotta show his now. 

Jojen sat on Bran’s bed. “Tell me what you dream.”

He was scared, even then, but he had sworn to trust them, and a Stark of Winterfell keeps his sworn word. “There’s different kinds,” he said slowly. “There’s the wolf dreams, those aren’t so bad as the others. I run and hunt and kill squirrels. And there’s dreams where the crow comes and tells me to fly. Sometimes the tree is in those dreams too, calling my name. That frightens me. But the worst dreams are when I fall.” He looked down into the yard, feeling miserable. “I never used to fall before. When I climbed. I went everyplace, up on the roofs and along the walls, I used to feed the crows in the Burned Tower. Mother was afraid that I would fall but I knew I never would. Only I did, and now when I sleep I fall all the time.”

Meera asks if that’s everything, and Bran says he guesses so. And then Jojen calls Bran a warg. Bran asks what that means, and Jojen tells Bran that he’s a warg, shapechanger, beastling. That’s what everyone will call Bran when they find out about his wolf dreams. And they’re going to call him names, be afraid of him and maybe want to kill him.

Bran thinks back to Old Nan and her stories. He isn’t like that though. It’s only in his dreams. He’s not really a wolf. 

“The wolf dreams are no true dreams. You have your eye closed tight whenever you’re awake, but as you drift off it flutters open and your soul seeks out its other half. The power is strong in you.”

“I don’t want it. I want to be a knight.”

“A knight is what you want. A warg is what you are. You can’t change that, Bran, you can’t deny it or push it away. You are the winged wolf, but you will never fly.” Jojen got up and walked to the window. “Unless you open your eye.” He put two fingers together and poked Bran in the forehead, hard.

Bran can’t feel the third eye where Jojen poked him, and Jojen tells him he’ll have to find it with his heart unless he’s a big ass scaredy cat. Well, Bran’s no big ass scaredy cat. He ain’t afraid of no dreams. Well, he fuckin’ should be, Jojen sort-of says. In dream, Bran can see the past, present and future 

When the Reeds leave, Bran tries opening his third eye, but it doesn’t work. He doesn’t know how. And in the days that followed, Bran tried warning the people in Winterfell that the sea was coming. Mikken thought it was a joke, Chayle thinks he’s a good swimmer and wouldn’t drown. But Alebelly takes the warning seriously. Well, he takes it a bit literally and refuses to bathe until six other guards threw him into a bath. Thereafter, he scowled at Bran.

And then Rodrik Cassel returns to Winterfell with a prisoner. And shall we describe this prisoner? Let’s do that, even though he’s super unimportant to the rest of ASOIAF:

His prisoner, a fleshy young man with fat moist lips and long hair who smelled like a privy, even worse than Alebelly had. “Reek, he’s called,” Hayhead said when Bran asked who it was. “I never heard his true name. He served the Bastard of Bolton and helped him murder Lady Hornwood, they say.”

The Bastard o’ Bolton was dead. Thank goodness. Crisis averted! He had been caught doing something horrible in the Hornwood Lands. And there was a significant casualty of Ramsay Snow’s shittery:

They came too late for poor Lady Hornwood, though. After their wedding, the Bastard had locked her in a tower and neglected to feed her. Bran had heard men saying that when Ser Rodrik had smashed down the door he found her with her mouth all bloody and her fingers chewed off. 

Lady Hornwood deserved better.

But the problem was that Ramsay had married Donella, and that is causing complications in the North. Luwin thinks that Hornwood’s marriage to Ramsay means that the Hornwood lands would fall to the Boltons. But Rodrik believes that vows made at sword point are not valid. But would Roose Bolton care about that, or would he care about the lands? I think the latter.

Anyways, they’ve kept this … serving man of Ramsay’s around, because he’s the only living witness of Ramsay’s atrocities. But now Bolton and Manderly men were killing each other in the Hornwood Forests, and Rodrik Cassel doesn’t have the men to stop the fighting.

Rodrik then turns to Bran and asks what the hell the boy was doing telling the guardsmen to stop bathing. So, Bran replies that Jojen saw the sea coming in his green dreams, and Alebelly was going to drown. Luwin brings Rodrik up to speed about Jojen’s green dreams, casting some doubt over them, but then he mentions that raiders, who could they possibly be, are attacking the Stony Shore. The Tallharts are going to deal with them. Oh boy. And Rodrik thinks he’s going to have to ride against these raiders too. Rodrik then asks whether Jojen saw Rodrik drowned, and Bran takes heart that this wasn’t what Jojen dreamed. So, maybe they’re not going to drown if they stay away from the sea? 

Bran says as much to Meera and Jojen that night, and Meera agrees. Jojen doesn’t.

“The things I see in green dreams can’t be changed.”

That made his sister angry. “Why would the gods send a warning if we can’t heed it and change what’s to come?”

“I don’t know,” Jojen said sadly.

Meera puts in that Alebelly should fight and so should Bran! Wait, Bran? Is he going to drown? Suddenly realizing what she said, Meera tries to dodge the question, but Bran turns to Jojen and asks what he saw in his green dream. Was he drowned? Nope. Not drowned. Whew! Another crisis averted, right? 

“I dreamed of the man who came today, the one they call Reek. You and your brother lay dead at his feet, and he was skinning off your faces with a long red blade.”

Meera says she should head down into the dungeon and put a spear through Reek’s heart, and YES. DO IT. PLEASE. But Jojen says that gaolers will stop him, and they won’t believe their story. No one can stop the future from coming. Well, then Bran will use his own guards. Alebelly and Poxy Tim and Hayhead. EVERYONE.

Jojen’s mossy eyes were full of pity. “They won’t be able to stop him, Bran. I couldn’t see why, but I saw the end of it. I saw you and Rickon in your crypts, down in the dark with all the dead kings and their stone wolves.”

No, Bran thought. No. “If I went away… to Greywater, or to the crow, someplace far where they couldn’t find me…”

“It will not matter. The dream was green, Bran, and the green dreams do not lie.”

And that is ACOK, Bran V! Whew. This chapter. Buddy, I tell you (and everyone else): these Bran chapters in ACOK are SO GOOD. What did you think of this chapter? 

Depth

Bran’s storyline in ACOK is like a well-managed construction project. Every time we check in, George has added another floor, and it’s all stable and up to code. Bran V builds on every single plot and character beat from Bran IV, every scrap of imagery, every bit of political business going on in the background. By the end of the chapter, everything is in place to fall apart with Theon’s attack on the castle in Bran VI, after which our hero vanishes for a while before restoring and reconciling himself in Bran VII at the end of the book. It’s structural perfection.

Yout put it really well with how GRRM is adding floors to Bran’s journey up to the pinnacle where he leaves Winterfell. A lovely aspect of Bran’s journey leading up to this chapter is how the political and magical transition from foreground to background, taking the others’ place. I’m thinking of Bran I, II and III and how the daily-happenings of Winterfell and politics of the harvest feast are at the forefront until the end of the chapter where Bran’s wargs Summer. Bran IV is a whole chapter of Jojen Reed becoming Bran’s magical mentor with only a brief mention of what’s occurring politically. But here, in Bran V, we’re moving into synthesis of the political and magical. We start with the politics, then Jojen’s magic side. But by the middle of the chapter, they’re one and the same: Jojen’s green dreams feed into Rodrik promising to take Alebelly with him on campaign, but the prisoner that Rodrik brings back to Winterfell, Reek, feeds into Jojen’s green dream about who will “kill” Bran. George successfully synthesizes these themes of Bran’s story in ACOK, and as we’ve said several times in our analyses of Bran’s ACOK chapters, we can interpret this synthesis of magic and politics as microcosm for where George is taking the series.

• The news of Oxcross
  • Bran V opens with Bran working the bellows with Mikken, a detail I love. It shows that Bran has learned that all-important lesson about leadership from Ned:
    • “Know the men who follow you, and let them know you. Don’t ask your men to die for a stranger.” 
  • This is a theme that links the coming-of-age stories of the young Starks to the larger movements of the story: the destruction of the Riverlands fueling the rise of the Brotherhood and the Sparrows, Dany’s crusade against and conquest of the cities of Slaver’s Bay, the Others on the margins with their zombie army
  • Don’t ask your people to die for a stranger. Don’t rule over them like a god. Do not make them slaves. These are central issues in the political world of ASOIAF
  • Bran will engage with them most directly regarding Hodor, and I’m curious to see how that works as connective tissue when Bran returns to the political world
  • Here in ACOK, though, the point is that Bran is literally hands-on with the warm pumping lifeblood of Winterfell, a metaphor for his evolution as prince and man
  • I love the small detail that after Luwin’s newsbreak, Bran is brought back to hang out on the window seat.
  • I had the chance to re-read ACOK, Bran I, and I’d forgotten the detail that Bran prefers the window seat. 
    • He could not walk, nor climb nor hunt nor fight with a wooden sword as once he had, but he could still look. He liked to watch the windows begin to glow all over Winterfell as candles and hearth fires were lit behind the diamond-shaped panes of tower and hall, and he loved to listen to the direwolves sing to the stars.
  • Bran continues to connect himself to the lifeblood of Winterfell by constant observation. He’s not allowing his disability to disconnect him from the castle itself.
  • And that speaks to Bran’s value as a leader. He won’t let use his disability as a crutch to keep himself from being connected to the castle.
  • And again, it’s why Bran is such a fascinating contrast to Tyrion and the royal family in King’s Landing who consciously separate themselves out from their subjects within the Red Keep.
  • But that connection that Bran consciously maintains makes it all the more emotionally wrenching when you consider that almost all the people that Bran loves in Winterfell, interacts with in this chapter are all about to die.
  • By the end of the book, Mikken will be dead, and the warm pumping lifeblood of Winterfell will spill out on the ground, the castle broken by the Bastard of Bolton
  • Is it a coincidence that Jojen foretells Mikken’s death in this same chapter, that Ramsay is introduced in this same chapter? All the elements that speak to both Winterfell’s doom and its restoration are swirling more than ever around Bran
  • Even Alebelly, the man who carries Bran upstairs, is foretold to die in this chapter
  • I bring all this up because of how perfectly it fits with the news from Robb, how the Starks and Freys react to it, and how that fulfills Jojen’s prophecy
  • Bran is thrilled to get a letter not from “the king,” as Alebelly says, but Robb. His big brother. Bran loves Robb, and misses him, and is excited to hear from him
  • Rickon feels the same way: he wants Robb to come home, and bring Catelyn with him, and even Ned. It’s all about family and grief and the age-old temptation to defy death that we talked about in the last Bran chapter
  • But that’s not the nature of the missive they’ve received from Ashemark. They’ve been written to by the King in the North, not Robb; the winner of Oxcross, not the young man who sobbed with Bran in the dark as their fingers intertwined
  • That’s the tone with which Maester Luwin delivers the news of Oxcross: gravely, all “my lords” to both the Starks and the Walders Frey. He’s the political mentor!
  • Neither set of kids respond as he would hope. But they respond in opposite ways. The Starks long for their brother to return instead of glorying in his victory
  • Sansa glories in his victory because it’s all she can do; she’s surrounded by enemies and must play a part, exulting on the inside. Her brothers aren’t in the position of having to lie; they’re just sad about the distance between them
  • Meanwhile, the young Freys greet the news that their uncle Stevron died with a pitch perfect comedy routine that tears the polite mask off the game of thrones
  • Big Walder and Little Walder could not possibly care less that a kindly relative they have lived with and known all their lives has just died
  • All they care about is the game. All they care about is that everyone in the endless line of succession at the Twins has just taken one step forward
  • You know the adult Freys talk like this too; that’s confirmed in the one and only chapter told from a Frey POV, Merrett’s epilogue in ASOS
  • But they mostly know better than to talk like this around the Starks...except for Big and Little Walder, because they’re too young to know better
  • Little Walder directly states that the viper’s nest infighting at the Twins has produced people just waiting on each other to die. Stevron died waiting for Lord Walder to die, and now Little Walder zeroes in on Ryman’s belly as his weakness
  • Big Walder, meanwhile, has the inheritance order laid out in his head like snakes and ladders, and openly declares that he will be lord of the Twins
  • That’s quite a bold statement given how many people are ahead of him! And while many of them are considerably older (like Ryman) and might die on their own, Little Walder is the same age, and ahead of Big Walder in the succession
  • So Big Walder is basically saying out loud to his cousin’s face that he intends to murder him, three books before he does! But no one picks up on it, in part because Big Walder is a tiny squeaky-voiced child. This is why I love him
  • It’s also in part because Luwin zooms in on the sheer heartlessness of their reaction, the lack of grief, their refusal to treat Stevron as a person
  • Little Walder pretends to be sad, but it’s about as convincing as when he pretended to be remorseful after Luwin caught them bullying Hodor. The Starks are lost in grief; the Freys can only pretend to feel it. The families are perfect contrasts even before the Freys turn on the Starks at the Red Wedding
  • The one thing they have in common here is a conviction that Oxcross is a minor victory because it was against Stafford, a total nobody, instead of Tywin
  • On one hand, this is a childish reaction: the death of the commander matters less than the destruction of the army, and Tywin is dancing to Robb’s tune again
  • On the other, both Bran and Big Walder have keen instincts for children, and they are right that the fighting doesn’t stop for their side until Tywin is captured, killed, or forced to surrender; Catelyn came to the same conclusion earlier in the book
  • When she learns about Robb’s victory upon her return to Riverrun, she acknowledges it with a weary nod and moves on, further undercutting the triumph
  • All of this contributes to a tone of dread and prophetic awareness that this victory will not be enough to stave off Robb’s downfall. Catelyn puts it best at the Fords:
    • But if we are winning, why am I so afraid?
  • Catelyn’s fear is rooted deep in her fears for her sons’ safety and for a nebulous fear she’s had since the start of AGOT, but Bran’s fear for Robb is less nebulous.
  • They’re marching the wrong way.
  • Osha’s line to Bran from AGOT gets a repeat-beat here with Bran thinking about it in the context of Robb’s victories.
  • Of course, Bran fears for Robb’s life - for very good reason, and he and Rickon want their family back. 
  • Yet, the unstated fear is that when the heart of winter strikes south, the protectors of the North will be far away, or heaven forbid, dead and unable to save the people and Bran.
  • And just to make Bran’s fears explicit, Bran asks Osha about the Others, Giant and Children of the Forest after he’s heard Robb’s letter.
  • Bran’s macro fear about the apocalypse is tied to his wanting his family to be back together, and that’s a distinguishing aspect to the Starks.
  • The lone wolf dies. The pack survives. 
  • And that wolf pack mentality extends outward from family to castle, region, country. It becomes more and more apparent why Bran is our POV to the Harvest Feast
  • I think we can trace the origins of the Harvest Feast in the North to why the North survived the Others during the First Long Night.
  • The modern secular holiday illustrates the ethereal ideal of the North working at communitarian purposes to stave off the apocalypse.
  • And to help remind Bran of his ethereal purpose, who shows up “immediately” after Osha departs but sad, magic boy: Jojen Reed.
• Jojen Dumbledore-Cassandra Reed
  • The other big takeaway for Bran from the news has to do with Luwin’s opposite, his new magical mentor Jojen Reed, who saw this coming in a dream
  • Jojen saw the news as meat: dripping red and rare for Bran and Rickon, old and gray for the Freys...yet the latter liked the taste of their meal more
  • In other words, the Freys feed on death, the ugly meat like that which they will serve to their victims at the Red Wedding, whereas even good meat (aka victory, the corpse of Stafford and his army) doesn’t taste good to Bran and Rickon
  • They want life, the people they love walking back through Winterfell’s gates, and the Battle of Oxcross doesn’t make that happen for them
  • This imagery also dovetails with Bran’s own dreamworld: the dripping red meat he tears into as Summer in his wolf dreams
  • As in Bran IV, Bran is struggling to understand his relationship to death, violence, war, and how that fits in the context of his family (his pack) and his own growth
  • Once more, we are seeing the political and magical worlds coming together in ACOK. How the young Starks and Freys react to their secular mentor telling them about a battle confirms the revelations from the sorcerous mentor
  • When Bran returns to his chambers after meeting with Luwin, Jojen emerges as if summoned, as if knowing it’s his turn in this dialectic unfolding in Bran’s soul
  • Bran feels sickened by the sheer force of the revelation that magic dreams are real, that Jojen was telling the truth, but he’s also excited to learn more because this is the stuff of the stories and songs he loved before the fall
  • And once again, we see their dynamic take the form of a pact, an exchange of information rooted in mutual honesty and trust, a la the First Men and Children
  • Jojen’s legitimacy has been established, Bran’s doubts banished, and so he and we are primed to take the green boy seriously when he tells us the sea is coming
  • It’s an apocalyptic vision of death, following on the heels of the meat delivered by feasting crows from the battlefront in Jojen’s last green dream
  • How chilling is it that Alebelly, the man who introduced Jojen and Meera to the Great Hall and thus the reader back in Bran III, is on the list of those drowned! It’s as if by welcoming the Reeds to Winterfell, he sealed his own doom…
  • But before we dig more into Jojen’s prophecy, we have to talk more about Bran, because Jojen offers his vision to get Bran to finally talk about his dreams
  • Bran is still afraid, but as Dad said, that’s the only time you can be brave. His political side, the Stark in Winterfell, Ned Stark’s son, demands he keep his vow
  • So he tells them the dreams, all of them: the wolf, the tree, the fall. They are separate in terms of how much Bran controls and the emotions they invoke
  • But taken together, they speak to a childish exultation in power, the running and hunting he’s denied in the waking world, yet also an awareness of the limits on and demands of that power
  • The fall constantly reminds him of how he got this power, and the tree and the crow constantly remind him of the responsibilities that go along with it
  • Jojen is here to drag that dynamic into the waking world and force Bran to grow up, both in terms of accepting his powers and reconciling them with reality
  • Jojen is here to educate Bran about his powers, but also to educate him about public reaction to it
  • They’ll call you names and hate you, the people you love so much, the people who work the bellows with you and carry you up the stairs. They’ll try to kill you
  • Which is what Varamyr story from the ADWD Prologue.
  • People fear Varamyr, some try to kill him, etc — and all for simply being a wart, right?
  • No. It’s how you use the power. 
  • Varamyr uses his warging/skinchanging power selfishly and becomes a monster himself.
  • The mission for Bran, then, is to be better and use his power for good.
  • With great power comes great … you know the phrase, people.
  • In part, this is to once again link the political and magical. Bran’s burgeoning powers aren’t happening in isolation; they’re happening in the context of the secular world of Winterfell, the world of Maester Luwin and Ser Rodrik
  • But it’s also about ensuring that Bran trusts the Reeds and only the Reeds with the truth about what he can do. It’s telling that the only adult who takes all this seriously is Osha, and she leaves with Rickon at the end of the book
  • Jojen has Bran’s best interests in mind, mostly, but is also pressuring and manipulating and even scaring the kid into doing what Bloodraven wants him to
  • He also delivers some good old-fashioned mentor talk fitting into the maturation cycle of the Hero’s Journey: a knight is what you want, a warg is what you are
  • You have to open your third eye: a source of not only power but (as Jojen says) truth, the journey inward that must mirror the journey outward for any good hero
  • Bran immediately puts it to the test in the physical world by talking to the people Jojen saw in his vision, and they all represent different reactions to this threat
  • Mikken finds it funny, Chayle treats death solemnly but isn’t afraid, and while Alebelly takes it seriously, he’s swiftly debunked and George plays it for laughs
  • Like Jojen says, it’s not always easy to get people to believe, especially since the visions might not come true if they did! Bran must learn how to bridge the gap
  • If we recall from Bran IV, Bran rejects Jojen’s prophecies before getting confirmation that they’re true.
  • Here in Bran V, our prince and future king is now recognizing that Jojen can  genuinely see the future. 
  • Interestingly, Bran was able to distinguish that Jojen’s vision about the gray meat vs the bloody meat was metaphorical at the start of this chapter.
  • But here, Bran takes Jojen’s statements about the sea coming to Winterfell and opening his third eye quite literally!
  • Which then leads to Jojen pulling a gentle version of the Three-Eyed Crow’s pecking and tearing of Bran’s head by poking Bran in between his eyes, telling him to open his third eye.
  • And Bran thinks: 
    • When he raised his hand to the spot, Bran felt only the smooth unbroken skin. There was no eye, not even a closed one. "How can I open it if it's not there?"
  • Jojen, feeling exasperated, tells Bran to open his third eye with his heart. It’s not literal, Bran!
    • This is meta by George.
  • Bran’s shifting viewpoints about Jojen’s green dreams then get reflected in the people of Winterfell
    • Mikken laughs Bran off, saying he’s always wanted to see the sea.
    • A bemused Septon Chayle states that he’s a strong swimmer. So, he won’t drown
    • And Alebelly takes Bran’s warning extremely literally, refusing the bathe for fear of drowning.
  • I understand all of these viewpoints. Rational and irrational reactions to prophecy are precisely what I would do if confronted by a vision of the future -- one that seems more and more true as time progresses.
  • And when Ser Rodrik Cassel shows up, even Maester Luwin has to admit that Jojen’s visions do seem to coincide with the troubles occurring in the North. 
• The evolving Hornwood crisis, “Reek,” and Jojen’s new prophecy
  • The political half of Bran’s story returns to prominence when Ser Rodrik returns to Winterfell, bringing with him an important prisoner who is not as he appears…
  • The Reek-Ramsay twist inspires a great deal of confusion, whitch isn’t helped by how the show executed the end of Theon’s story in Season 2
  • But it’s one of my favorite twists in the series! The reveal itself blew the top of my head off my first time through ACOK; it’s so memorable that it kept Ramsay vividly in my mind all those years until he showed up again in ADWD
  • It’s a trip to come back and see all the groundwork being laid for it. On reread, the Bastard of Bolton (still nameless at this point) has been built up too much to be simply killed unceremoniously offscreen
  • Even as we’re being told about his death, we get an unshakeable image of his crimes: the fate of poor Donella Hornwood
  • It should set off all our alarms that such an intense villain has been casually swept aside before he even appears, but George immediately distracts us
  • “Reek” was established by Lady Hornwood herself in an earlier Bran chapter, so his presence isn’t suspicious for a first time reader
  • Moreover, Rodrik and Luwin shift the discussion from the Bastard himself to the larger ripple effects, and here’s where we see George’s masterful structure 
  • “The monster has tied us in a thorny knot,” and what a knot it is! Ser Rodrik doesn’t even know the full extent of it yet; he only will as he dies
  • Ramsay combined brutal violence with the mores of feudal society to climb the ladder. He both broke and followed the rules; that’s why he’s so dangerous
  • On one hand, he kidnapped Lady Hornwood. He wedded and bedded her by force. She only named him heir at swordpoint. This is transparent fraud and theft of land as well as rape and murder; Winterfell must stop this to be an authority worthy of the name, to live up to the image of those earlier Bran chapters
  • But once the fig leaf of marriage and inheritance is established, Luwin and Rodrik become powerless to make any real changes. Their hands are tied
  • This is what makes Ramsay interesting: he isn’t just pure chaos. He has a crude but effective understanding of how to hijack the power systems around him
  • He has exposed a lot of those systems’ weaknesses here! The institution of marriage that is supposed to protect women has destroyed one, the cloak of her husband’s protection tightening like a noose around Donella Hornwood’s neck
  • The institution of land inheritance, which is supposed to provide for a smooth transition of power, has here sparked a civil war in the Hornwood forests
  • This is not to say that these institutions never produce good outcomes, nor that people like Luwin and Rodrik who believe in them are inherently bad people
  • What I’m saying is that these bedrock institutions and these well-meaning people have no answer for a person who operates in the way Ramsay does
  • The cunning way that Ramsay tied these well-intentioned men in knots reads as a bit more than meets the eye.
  • There’s a really fascinating line Rodrik says about Reek in this chapter: 
    • Would that I could take this serving man's head off as well, he's as bad as his master. 
  • Methinks this is that famous GRRM-subtlety at work here. Ramsay is just as bad as his master: namely, Roose Bolton.
  • Ramsay kidnapping Donella Hornwood and forcibly marrying her all seem in keeping with the disorganized psychopath we see in full force at the end of ACOK and throughout Theon’s chapters in ADWD.
    • I want to be a lord. So, I’ll kidnap Donella Hornwood and force my way into a lordship.
  • But the action of Donella writing a will and assigning Ramsay as her heir reads as a much more calculated political act.
  • It’s the paper shield that grants the fig-leaf of legitimacy to Ramsay’s monstrous and illegal act.
  • And that seems more in keeping with how we see Roose Bolton play the northern game of throne:
    • In ASOS, Roose Bolton asks the Iron Throne for a royal writ from King’s Landing that names him as Warden of the North and also legitimizes Ramsay as a Bolton.
  • Now, as we’re going to explore in significant depth as we learn more about Roose Bolton in Catelyn and Arya’s latter ACOK chapters, I don’t think this is evidence that Roose Bolton had been turned by Tywin yet.
  • Rather, it’s that Roose Bolton is using the War of the Five Kings to advance Bolton interests in the North by simultaneously endangering northern houses, lords and heirs in battles in the south (as we talked about back in Episode 62) while simultaneously using Ramsay to increase Bolton holdings and power in the North.
  • All of this is made worse by the larger war unfolding in Westeros. None of this happens if Robb and Roose are still here, if Lord Hornwood and his son are alive
  • It is precisely this context that allows Ramsay to pull off this gambit disguising himself as Reek. In peacetime, this wouldn’t be enough to save his life
  • Why? Because there would be an adult Stark in Winterfell with the authority to not only deliver justice to “Reek,” but also settle the dispute over Hornwood lands
  • As it stands, Robb is in the south. So, too, is Roose, who may now lay claim to Hornwood territory. Luwin and Rodrik can’t settle this on their own
  • That’s not only true in legal terms, but military terms; with Robb having taken the bulk of their strength, Rodrik can’t contain the Manderly-Bolton fighting
  • This is why Rodrik can’t execute “Reek,” the man who will later kill him, even though he desperately wants to. This is why Ramsay’s gambit works
  • Rodrik needs a witness to the Bastard’s crimes. He needs proof that despite the fig leaf of marriage and inheritance, which would be the basis of Roose’s claim to the Hornwood lands, the Bastard acted outside acceptable norms
  • The Northern political and cultural systems we’ve been exploring in these Bran chapters always had these weaknesses, but they were largely invisible in peacetime with an adult Stark in Winterfell, like rocks lurking under the surface
  • When the tide goes out, when the Stark in Winterfell is a child and the bulk of the lords and armies are away, these invisible weaknesses suddenly take hold
  • As you were saying earlier, George sets himself the task in Bran V of fully integrating these political and magical developments in Bran’s chapters
  • Luwin brings up Jojen’s prophecies in response to Ser Rodrik chiding Bran playfully about Alebelly’s stench; Luwin, as always, is skeptical but fair
  • He has to admit that there is some evidence for Jojen’s vision of danger from the sea. There are Ironborn raiders burning their way up and down the Stony Shore
  • The reader knows that’s Theon, even the first time through, even before we get to Theon III and see him doing it. We immediately sense the danger
  • The Ironborn attacks are dangerous, and they’re made all the more dangerous by the lack of analysis that Luwin and Rodrik are applying to the situation.
  • “Sea raider” is a frustratingly ambiguous term. Any idea who these mysterious “sea raiders” might be? No? WELL, WHY THE HELL NOT?
  • I don’t want to insult anyone but Luwin and Rodrik’s intelligence here, but the geography of the North should be a pretty big indication on who’s raiding the Stony Shore.
  • There is a solid body of land separating the Stony Shore from any potential raiders coming from Essos: WESTEROS.
  • And which culture has a history of seaborn raids against Westeros and the North? THE IRONBORN.
  • Now, I’m not saying that knowing the identity of these raiders would prevent Theon and his reavers from inflicting war crimes along the Stony Shore, Torrhen’s Square and later Winterfell.
  • But I am saying that recognizing that it’s the Ironborn attacking may elevate the threat status of these attacks from “raids” to “existential threat to the North.”
  • And while I’m not sure that the Bolton and Manderlys would stop pointing their swords against each other and focus on the greater threat, we see how smarter political actors use the ironborn threat in ADWD.
  • Rose and Stannis use the optics of their campaigns against the Ironborn at Moat Cailin and Deepwood Motte to unite the North against a common threat and under their own banner.
  • Could Rodrik and Luwin have done similarly if they were investing the full power of their office? I don’t know, but I’d like to think so!
  • It’s so frustrating but so appropriate that Luwin and Rodrik, Bran’s rational political mentors, come so close to interpreting Jojen’s magical vision correctly
  • They make the connection between the sea and the Ironborn attack, but they miss the crucial detail that the sea is coming, that it’s coming for Winterfell
  • Rodrik leaving Alebelly behind when he rides out against the Ironborn ends up guaranteeing the poor man’s death when Theon attacks the castle
  • That’s what Jojen means when he says there’s no exit from the dictates of prophecy. Your attempt to escape it will bring it about; we’ll see the same thing with Stannis regarding the vision of “Renly” breaking his host at King’s Landing
  • There’s also a dreadful irony on reread when Rodrik takes comfort from the fact that Jojen didn’t see him drowned. It’s not the Ironborn he has to worry about--it’s the Bastard of Bolton, both emboldened by the power vacuum as he says
  • All of this feeds so perfectly into Jojen’s new nightmare: a hideous vision of “Reek” skinning Bran and Rickon, and the Stark boys winding up in their crypt
  • Again, George is dropping a clue to “Reek’s” true origin: the flayed man of House Bolton. Ramsay is a skinchanger too, just in a different way. He inhabits Reek’s persona just as Bran will literally inhabit Hodor’s body, and he traps Theon inside that same persona by flaying him. What’s behind the mask, under the skin?
  • Just as Ramsay isn’t really Reek, those two boys in Jojen’s vision aren’t really Bran and Rickon. They are placeholders, peasant boys like Hodor and Reek forced to stand in and die for their social betters, like the man Wyman Manderly has killed in place of Davos in ADWD, like Jojen dying for Bran to be the hero. They are whipping boys, like Pate for Tommen. They suffer so you don’t have to.
  • As a lapsed Catholic, George takes a two-sided approach to themes like this. On the one hand, you have the very sincere religious imagery of Bran and Rickon in the crypts from which they will be reborn after three days down in the dark
  • But George is also very hesitant to sanctify suffering, as we’ll see with Melisandre and Davos in ASOS: “Were my sons no more than a lesson for a king?”
  • This world of disguise and sacrifice, of hidden lives and hidden deaths and hidden pain, is what has enabled Ramsay’s rise and defines his reign
  • Even as George gestures at the Ironborn with one hand in Bran V, the other hand is busy setting up the Bastard of Bolton as the true villain of this storyline
  • Both are expressed in the green dreams, even as they disguise the truth in elusive allusive imagery, and the green dreams do not lie
  • Remember how Bran started to take Jojen’s statement about the third eye and the sea coming to Winterfell literally?
  • Guess who takes his green dream a bit literally at the end of this chapter? Jojen!
  • This brings a 2012 GRRM quote about prophecies to mind
    • Prophecies are, you know, a double edge sword. You have to handle them very carefully; I mean, they can add depth and interest to a book, but you don’t want to be too literal or too easy... In the Wars of the Roses, that you mentioned, there was one Lord who had been prophesied he would die beneath the walls of a certain castle and he was superstitious at that sort of walls, so he never came anywhere near that castle. He stayed thousands of leagues away from that particular castle because of the prophecy. However, he was killed in the first battle of St. Paul de Vence and when they found him dead he was outside of an inn whose sign was the picture of that castle! [Laughs] So you know? That’s the way prophecies come true in unexpected ways. The more you try to avoid them, the more you are making them true, and I make a little fun with that.
  • The sea flowing over the walls of Winterfell and dead, drowned men floating in the castle yard, opening the third eye are easy prophecies to interpret in a re-read podcast, but it’s not easy to get it right in the moment!
  • Even magic sad boy Jojen can get his interpretation wrong, and it brings to mind what Melisandre tells Jon in ADWD:
    • The vision was a true one. It was my reading that was false. I am as mortal as you, Jon Snow. All mortals err. (ADWD, Jon X)

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

Jojen’s prophecy comes true, just not how he expects. “Reek” skins the miller’s boys in place of Bran and Rickon, and while the Stark boys do end up in the crypt, it’s only to hide from Theon.

We talked about the setup for the Ironborn attack on Winterfell already, but we’ll also see Benfred Tallhart’s campaign against the Ironborn raiders, mentioned in this chapter, come to a sad end in Theon III. 

Readers are left thinking that Lady Hornwood ate her own fingers rather than starve, but there’s another potentially worse scenario: that Ramsay flayed her fingers, and she bit them off to stop the pain -- which is similar to what Theon remembers trying to do after Ramsay flayed his fingers. In Theon’s case, he wasn’t successful, and he begged Ramsay to cut his flayed fingers off. Horrifyingly, Donella may have been more successful than Theon -- perhaps because she had more teeth than Theon did.

Does Osha’s reference to the Ice Dragon with a blue star in the rider’s eye foreshadow a white walker riding a dragon a la Season 8? Or Ice Euron, perhaps? 

Luwin’s argument that vows made at sword point are not valid will come up in Jaime’s story when he thinks about the vows he made at sword point to Catelyn regarding her daughters.

Theory/Discussion

Let’s talk Black Walder Frey! Did Stevron Frey die of natural causes, or did his grandson Black Walder off him? Is Edwyn right that Black Walder had a hand in the death of their father Ryman, or is that just paranoia talking? Do we think Black Walder will be victorious over Edwyn, or vice versa thanks to Walder Rivers, or will they kill each other off to make room for Lame Lothar? Is Big Walder (Lothar’s chosen heir; see our Bran I episode) just a tiny version of Black Walder?

Black Walder totally murdered Stevron

• Let’s talk about Black Walder a bit and why this makes sense
  • Black Walder is a notoriously violent man that even Robb alternatively wants to kill and is also a bit afraid of.
  • He fights alongside of Robb Stark out in the west, climbing the walls of the Crag to take the castle for Robb
  • He participates in the Red Wedding, killing a Vance during the slaughter.
  • In the Epilogue, Merrett Frey thinks this about Black Walder:
    • Black Walder was a man who took what he wanted, even his brother's wife. 
  • After the Red Wedding, he chases the Brotherhood without Banners into the Neck and besieges Seagard and puts Patrek Mallister in a noose in order to force his father Jason to surrender the castle (this proves successful)
  • Though he doesn’t appear on-page in AFFC, Edwyn thinks Black Walder as a danger to his role as heir to the Twins.
  • Though we know that it was Stoneheart who killed Ryman Frey, Edwyn thinks the evidence points to Black Walder:
    • "My brother had a hand in this, I'll wager. He allowed the outlaws to escape after they murdered Merrett and Petyr, and this is why. With our father dead, there's only me left between Black Walder and the Twins."
  • So, a violent Black Walder sleeping with his brothers, cousins and even his father’s wives coupled with his desire for the Twins leads me to think that Black Walder was the type of guy who could kill Stevron and then to be suspected (wrongly) of killing Ryman and who Edwyn thinks of as a threat.
  • He wants the Twins and killing Steveon advances him one rung up the ladder.

Conclusion

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