Episode 174: A STORM OF SWORDS, BRAN I & II: "Once Upon A Time" SHOW NOTES! (Patreon)

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 seventy-fourth episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “Once Upon a Time: An Analysis of ASOS, Bran I & II,” in which George does some Tolkien pastiche before turning to one of the most iconic in-universe stories in the entire series.

This episode is brought to you by our NotASmallCouncil:

• Hand of the King WolfmanZack
• Grandmaester Timbob, troubleshooter of systems and designer of circuit boards
• Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Mark N.
• 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, the Quilled Lion, Warden of the West, Herald of the Golden Tooth, Master of the Banefort and the Kraken’s Bane
• Lord James: the Jim that was Promised
• Lord Jake, Assistant (to the) Hand of the King
• Lady Xena Valyrian
• Ser Jack, Lord of Ser Arthur Dayne and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen's Sad Prophecy Boys Club
• His Grace’s High Inquisitor Frank
• 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 Carlos
• Lord Andrew the Restless, a Priest of the Drowned God
• Ser Sourcedelica
• Sugar Tits Dent the Troglodyte Warrior
• Lord Penchant for Nostalgia
• Queer Alex, Beyonce's Favorite Stan, Herald of Cher, and Bastard of Chromatica, Exalter of Black Lives and Defender of Trans Lives, Rainbow Commander of the Theydes and Gentlethems and the Not A Cast’s Nonbinary Not an Army.
• Haldivar, The Waiter for TWOW
• 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, Maker of Drawings and the Michaelangelo of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• 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
• Ser Veyor, Chief of Parties in the Frozen Wastes
• Lord Peter
• Grave-Robb Stark, the Cadaver King and Horror of Harrenhal
• Holdup, the holder of cups
• Ser Tim: The Knight Who Was Guided By Voices
• Lord Nick
• Thucydides, Lord of Plagues
• Ser Jack, Lord of Ser Arthur Dayne and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen’s Sad Prophecy Boys Club
• Lady Anna, The Lovely Castellan
• Luke, Lord of Lone Leaf & The Pillar of Autumn
• Joe Snow “King of the Metro North and protector of the Tri-State”
• Squire Matt S, future Ser Matt S, the one who will bring balance to the Kingdoms
• Lord Kyle
• Lord Samuel Seaworth
• Ser Max, Lord Commander of the Constitutional Guard
• Lady Ivory Dayne, aspiring noble author in the seven kingdoms, lady of Starfall, wardeness of the south, and patron of freewheeling bisexuals
• Lady Jemisa, She Who Suggests That Coconuts Migrate
• Lord Kristoff of Arendelle, official ice master and deliverer, the valiant pungent reindeer king, keeper of feisty pants, and prince consort to his ginger sweet love Queen Anna (Pronounced Ah-nuh)
• Lord Sir Septon Ruthers
• Ser Grizzly Adams, the King’s Justice, Warden of the Kingswood and Sheriff of the Seven Kingdoms
• Lord Anonymous II
• Lord Tyler, the prince that promises to wait patiently, for the winds of winter
• Lord DB
• Sister Winter, Hopeful Romantic & Unrepentant Shipper
• Lord Moncef
• The severed head of a Targaryan prince, rotting on the council walls
• Ser Small Paul, Guardian of the Stone Haven, Defender of Dunnottar Castle
• James of House Keene, Lord of the Forest City, Admiral of the Cuyahoga, and Warden of the Western Reserve
• Lord Timothy Marshall, Master of Roads and Bridges
• And our newest members of the small council: everyone give a warm welcome to
  • Lord Joe R
  • Lady Kristina H!

Patreon Announcement!

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Synopsis

The ridge slanted sharply from the earth, a long fold of stone and soil shaped like a claw. Trees clung to its lower slopes, pines and hawthorn and ash, but higher up the ground was bare, the ridgeline stark against the cloudy sky.

He could feel the high stone calling him. Up he went, loping easy at first, then faster and higher, his strong legs eating up the incline. Birds burst from the branches overhead as he raced by, clawing and flapping their way into the sky. He could hear the wind sighing up amongst the leaves, the squirrels chittering to one another, even the sound a pinecone made as it tumbled to the forest floor. The smells were a song around him, a song that filled the good green world.

At long last we are with Bran Stark, and we start naturally with Bran as he wargs his direwolf Summer.

Bran, Summer runs until he gets up to a crest of a hill in the woods and sees a kite above the sky. He thinks he’s a prince of the woods and elsewhere. Strong and to be feared above all animals. He sees a pack of wolves, remembering his own pack: the five wolves, no six counting the one who stood apart, remembering their similar-yet-different scents. Shaggydog was the nearest: angry but now growing distant. The others he could sense too except for his sister who died.

These woods belonged to them, the snowy slopes and stony hills, the great green pines and the golden leaf oaks, the rushing streams and blue lakes fringed with fingers of white frost. But his sister had left the wilds, to walk in the halls of man-rock where other hunters ruled, and once within those halls it was hard to find the path back out. The wolf prince remembered.

The wind shifts, and Summer-Bran smells and senses fear and blood. He runs over, driven by the smell and finds the deer down and dying with eight wolves around her ripping into the stomach of the deer. Summer leaps down onto the pack, and all the wolves scatter except the head male and female. One of the smaller wolves tries to attack, but Summer snaps at his leg, and the wolf limps off. That left only the large, gray male wolf.

The male wolf was old and fearless, and Summer knows that it will be a good fight, and they go at each other, fighting, circling. Most of the other wolves stay away except for one who Summer tore the throat out of. But at last, the wounded male wolf rolled over and exposed his throat and belly in submission. Summer licks the blood off the old wolf and turns to the prey at hand.

"Hodor."

The sudden sound made him stop and snarl. The wolves regarded him with green and yellow eyes, bright with the last light of day. None of them had heard it. It was a queer wind that blew only in his ears. He buried his jaws in the deer's belly and tore off a mouthful of flesh.

"Hodor, hodor."

No, he thought. No, I won't. It was a boy's thought, not a direwolf's. The woods were darkening all about him, until only the shadows of the trees remained, and the glow of his cousins' eyes. And through those and behind those eyes, he saw a big man's grinning face, and a stone vault whose walls were spotted with niter. The rich warm taste of blood faded on his tongue. No, don't, don't, I want to eat, I want to, I want . . .

But Hodor continues to chant, shaking Bran softly. The giant was trying to be gentle, but he was  giant after all, over seven feet tall. Finally, Bran shouts angrily that he’s here, and Hodor looks abashed as the wolves fade and Bran is left in an ancient, crumbling watchtower that Bran named “Tumbledown Tower.”

Jojen is there and tells Bran that he was away for too long. But all Bran wanted to do was eat. Bran cannot live by wolf food alone but needs real food. Meera is bringing food back soon. But Bran is sick of frog food. He wanted to eat that deer that Summer was eating! Jojen asks if Bran marked the trees, and Bran is angry and embarrassed that he forgot. Jojen was always telling him to do things when he opened his third eye, and Jojen chides Bran that he always forgets to do the things he tells him.

It was true. He meant to do the things that Jojen asked, but once he was a wolf they never seemed important. There were always things to see and things to smell, a whole green world to hunt. And he could run! There was nothing better than running, unless it was running after prey. "I was a prince, Jojen," he told the older boy. "I was the prince of the woods."

"You are a prince," Jojen reminded him softly. "You remember, don't you? Tell me who you are."

He’s Bran of course, the Prince of Winterfell, or what remained of Winterfell after it was burned and broken. He’s not sure he can be a prince of a place he’d never see again. Jojen asks who Summer is. Bran’s direwolf: the Prince of Green. Jojen asks if Bran and Summer are two, and Bran hates the question. They’re both two and one. Jojen wanted Bran to warg back at Winterfell, but now he was always telling him to come back.

"Remember that, Bran. Remember yourself, or the wolf will consume you. When you join, it is not enough to run and hunt and howl in Summer's skin."

It’s enough for Bran though. He liked being in Summer’s skin better than being in his own. Jojen tells him to mark the tree next time, doesn’t matter which one. Bran says sure, but can he go back now? No. Bran needs to eat as a human now.

Bran’s angry at this since Jojen doesn’t know what it’s like to be a warg, but then Hodor shouts HODOR and runs to the door, yup, as Meera comes through. George spends some time reminding us of what Meera looks like: small, flat-chested and sixteen. Meera returned with two trout and six frogs. She asks if anyone’s hungry, and Bran sure is. But not for frogs. The Walders Frey said the frogs made teeth go green. He also didn’t see their bodies amidst the bodies they found at Winterfell. Wonder if they’ll show up again …

Anyways, Meera asks if Bran will help her clean the catch, and Bran likes her company. She didn’t scare unless it was something Jojen said or rather what he dreamed -- since his dreams always came true … except that time that Jojen dreamed that Bran was dead. Except maybe Bran was a little dead.

They make a frog stew which wasn’t as good as deer, but Bran thought it was alright all the same. He thanks Meera for the food. And then Jojen says they need to move on.

Bran could see Meera tense. "Have you had a green dream?"

"No," he admitted.

"Why leave, then?" his sister demanded. "Tumbledown Tower's a good place for us. No villages near, the woods are full of game, there's fish and frogs in the streams and lakes . . . and who is ever going to find us here?"

"This is not the place we are meant to be."

But it’s safe, according to Meera. It seems safe. There was a battle at Winterfell. There could be an army that comes through here. Maybe Robb’s army? Bran suggests. According to Jojen, Maester Luwin only spoke of the Boltons and Ironborn. Meera challenges Jojen and says all he wants to do is go see the three-eyed crow. But that’s a hell of a long way away beyond the Wall.

Jojen wishes they were eagles or if they had horses. Meera suggests stealing horses, but Jojen doesn’t want to be a thief, and he doesn’t want people pursuing us. Maybe they could buy the horses?

"Look at us, Meera. A crippled boy with a direwolf, a simpleminded giant, and two crannogmen a thousand leagues from the Neck. We will be known. And word will spread. So long as Bran remains dead, he is safe. Alive, he becomes prey for those who want him dead for good and true." Jojen went to the fire to prod the embers with a stick. "Somewhere to the north, the three-eyed crow awaits us. Bran has need of a teacher wiser than me."

"How, Jojen?" his sister asked. "How?"

"Afoot," he answered. "A step at a time."

Meera says it was a long journey from Greywater to Winterfell, but this road is way, way longer. And none of them have been beyond the Wall. How are they going to find the three-eyed crow in the vast expanse beyond the Wall?

"Perhaps he will find us."

A wolf howls before Meera replies, and Jojen asks if it’s Summer. It’s not. Bran scorns Jojen in his mind that he could dream just fine but couldn’t tell a wolf howl from another wolf howl. Why were they always listening to Jojen anyways? He wasn’t even a prince like Bran or as strong as Hodor or a good hunter like Meera. Bran suggests stealing the horses and riding to the Umbers. Or maybe they steal a boat and sail down the White Knife to White Harbor and the Manderlys.

Hodor responds with a burp and “Hodor.” He liked Bran’s plan, but the Reeds weren’t going to follow his suggestions even if they were bannermen to the Starks. Hodor starts saying his name over and over again to enjoy the different ways it sounds. Bran tells Hodor to head out to practice with his sword. They had gotten the swords from the crypts of Winterfell. Bran had his uncle Brandon’s sword, Hodor had a large piece of iron that was centuries old. They hear Hodor slashing at a massive wolfswood tree.

"Jojen, what did you mean about a teacher?" Bran asked. "You're my teacher. I know I never marked the tree, but I will the next time. My third eye is open like you wanted . . . "

"So wide open that I fear you may fall through it, and live all the rest of your days as a wolf of the woods."

"I won't, I promise."

"The boy promises. Will the wolf remember? You run with Summer, you hunt with him, kill with him . . . but you bend to his will more than him to yours."

Bran only forgot. He’s only nine. He’ll get better as he gets older. Florian the Fool and Aemon the Dragonknight didn’t start as great knights. Jojen says that’s wise if the days were getting longer, but they aren’t. It’s getting colder. Jojen asks Bran for the Stark words, and Bran repeats them, feeling cold. Winter is coming.

Jojen gave a solemn nod. "I dreamed of a winged wolf bound to earth by chains of stone, and came to Winterfell to free him. The chains are off you now, yet still you do not fly."

"Then you teach me." Bran still feared the three-eyed crow who haunted his dreams sometimes, pecking endlessly at the skin between his eyes and telling him to fly. "You're a greenseer."

"No," said Jojen, "only a boy who dreams. The greenseers were more than that. They were wargs as well, as you are, and the greatest of them could wear the skins of any beast that flies or swims or crawls, and could look through the eyes of the weirwoods as well, and see the truth that lies beneath the world.

Jojen says the gods gave them all gifts. Meera’s a hunter, can breathe mud and fly through trees. Jojen has his green dreams. And Bran? He could be so much more than Jojen. But someone has to teach Bran, and Jojen can’t as he doesn’t understand it. The crannogmen used to know, but they’ve forgotten so much and didn’t know the rest.

Meera backs up Jojen, saying they could stay and not trouble anyone and be safe. But if they go to Last Hearth or beyond the Wall, they could be taken. Bran is a boy, but he’s Ned Stark’s son, Robb’s heir. They have sworn by earth and water, bronze and iron, ice and fire to follow his command. So, the choice is his.

Bran asks if they really mean that. They do. Bran tries to think it through like daddy Ned would. He thinks the Umbers would be loyal and the Karstarks too. They would be safe with either Factcheck: half-true. They could go to Wyman Manderly or the Cerwyns. But Cley Cerwyn was dead. In fact, all of them could be dead.

If they stayed here, hidden down beneath Tumbledown Tower, no one would find them. He would stay alive. And crippled.

Bran realized he was crying. Stupid baby, he thought at himself. No matter where he went, to Karhold or White Harbor or Greywater Watch, he'd be a cripple when he got there. He balled his hands into fists. "I want to fly," he told them. "Please. Take me to the crow."

Bran II

Bran, Meera, Jojen and Hodor make their way through the wilds of the North where there are no roads and only nature. Large trees loom above them as they progress through valleys. They got lost a time or two, but they only had to wait for night and then find the Ice Dragon up in the sky. The blue star pointed north as Osha once told Bran. He wonders where Osha got off to, hoping that she was safe in White Harbor with Rickon and Shaggydog eating crabs, eels and fish with Lord Wyman. Or maybe they were at Last Hearth staring at a great fire that the Umbers put together.

But Bran’s life was riding in Hodor’s basket and growing cold back there. Meera says she hates going up and down Bran’s stupid mountains. And yes, she loved them before. She both hates and loves the mountains. Bran insists that it’s different to love and hate something. They’re opposites like night and day or ice and fire.

"If ice can burn," said Jojen in his solemn voice, "then love and hate can mate. Mountain or marsh, it makes no matter. The land is one."

Thank you, Yoda-man.

Bran says they could take the kingsroad and be at the Wall by now, and they wouldn’t be so hungry. They had once eaten trout that Meera caught or squirrels or hares that Summer brought back, but the mountains had less game to hunt, and Summer sometimes returned empty-handed.

But Jojen refuses to return to the roads. They would encounter travelers, and Jojen was stubborn af. So, everyone keeps moving slowly north and slowly into the heights. And on some days it was rainy or windy or even sleeting. Even on clear days, they felt completely alone. Meera asks if there are people here, and Bran says there are. Umbers are east of the kingsroad, and then there were the mountain clans: Wulls in the west, Harclays in the hills, Knotts, Liddle, Norreys and Flints in the high places. Bran’s great grandmother on his dad’s side was a Flint. That was why Bran loved to climb so said Old Nan.

Meera comments that there was a Wull who rode with Howland to war. Theo Wull or Buckets says Jojen. Bran adds that the Wull sigil was three brown buckets. Lord Wull gave homage to Ned once a year -- though he wasn’t a true lord, he was just the Wull.

Jojen Reed stopped to catch his breath. "Do you think these mountain folk know we're here?"

"They know." Bran had seen them watching; not with his own eyes, but with Summer's sharper ones, that missed so little. "They won't bother us so long as we don't try and make off with their goats or horses."

Nor did they. Only once did they encounter any of the mountain people, when a sudden burst of freezing rain sent them looking for shelter. Summer found it for them, sniffing out a shallow cave behind the greygreen branches of a towering sentinel tree, but when Hodor ducked beneath the stony overhang, Bran saw the orange glow of fire farther back and realized they were not alone. "Come in and warm yourselves," a man's voice called out. "There's stone enough to keep the rain off all our heads."

The man – who Bran figures for a Liddle – offers oatcakes, sausages and some ale, but he never asks for their name and didn’t give his. Bran asks if it’s far to the Wall. It’s not too far away, and Bran comments that they’d be there faster if … Meera finishes if we took the kinsroad.

The Liddle took out a knife and whittled at a stick. "When there was a Stark in Winterfell, a maiden girl could walk the kingsroad in her name-day gown and still go unmolested, and travelers could find fire, bread, and salt at many an inn and holdfast. But the nights are colder now, and doors are closed. There's squids in the wolfswood, and flayed men ride the kingsroad asking after strangers."

The Reeds exchanged a look. "Flayed men?" said Jojen.

"The Bastard's boys, aye. He was dead, but now he's not. And paying good silver for wolfskins, a man hears, and maybe gold for word of certain other walking dead." He looked at Bran when he said that, and at Summer stretched out beside him. "As to that Wall," the man went on, "it's not a place that I'd be going. The Old Bear took the Watch into the haunted woods, and all that come back was his ravens, with hardly a message between them. Dark wings, dark words, me mother used to say, but when the birds fly silent, seems to me that's even darker." He poked at the fire with his stick. "It was different when there was a Stark in Winterfell. But the old wolf's dead and young one's gone south to play the game of thrones, and all that's left us is the ghosts."

"The wolves will come again," said Jojen solemnly.

"And how would you be knowing, boy?"

"I dreamed it."

So badass.

The man says he dreams about his dead mom, but when he wakes those dreams don’t come true. Yeah, but Jojen’s dreams are different. Hodor says “Hodor.” They end up spending the night together as the rain falls outside of the cave. No one wants to leave besides Summer who Bran finally allows to go exploring through the rain and trees. When they wake the next day, they find the Liddle gone, but the man left behind a sausage and oatcakes made of either pinenuts or blackberries. Bran tries every one and promises to repay the Liddles back a hundredfold for every nut and berry.

The trail is easier, and Bran almost feels easy when the sun comes out. He takes a nap in the basket until Meera wakes him up to show him an eagle in the sky. Bran wonders what it would be like to fly, thinking that greenseers used to take on the skin of a bird and fly. He watches the eagle until it disappears. Bran is disappointed, but Meera reassures Bran that they’ll see more. Hodor says Hodor and Bran repeats Hodor back to him.

Jojen comments that Hodor likes hearing his name. This leads Bran to explain that Hodor’s real name is Walder, Hodor is just a word he says … yeah. Old Nan was his great-great grandmother. He wonders if Nan is alive or dead. Theon shouldn’t have killed her. She didn’t hurt anyone ever.

"Some people hurt others just because they can," said Jojen.

"And it wasn't Theon who did the killing at Winterfell," said Meera. "Too many of the dead were ironmen." She shifted her frog spear to her other hand. "Remember Old Nan's stories, Bran. Remember the way she told them, the sound of her voice. So long as you do that, part of her will always be alive in you."

Beautiful.  Bran promises to remember, and the party proceeds on in silence for a time until Bran asks the Reeds if they know any stories. They know a few. Could they maybe tell him one? One with knights. Hodor and Bran like stories involving knights. Ah, well there are no knights in the Neck, unless you count the dead ones in the bogs. Andals, Ironmen, Freys and all types of idiots who wanted to conquer Greywater. And they all died.

Bran, unnerved by the Dead Marshes, shivers, but he likes the scary stories.

"There was one knight," said Meera, "in the year of the false spring. The Knight of the Laughing Tree, they called him. He might have been a crannogman, that one."

"Or not." Jojen's face was dappled with green shadows. "Prince Bran has heard that tale a hundred times, I'm sure."

"No," said Bran. "I haven't. And if I have it doesn't matter. Sometimes Old Nan would tell the same story she'd told before, but we never minded, if it was a good story. Old stories are like old friends, she used to say . You have to visit them from time to time."

Man, I love that.

Meera agrees and starts to tell the tale. There was a crannogman once who grew up hunting, fishing, climbing trees and learning the magic of the Reeds. Bran didn’t know this story and asks if the man had green dreams. He did not. But he could do all the crannog magic things and even make castles appear and disappear.

Bran wishes he could be magic and asks when he meets the tree knight. Soon, Meera scolds. If Bran would shut up and listen. So, Bran stays quiet for a moment, and Meera continues saying that the dude knew crannog magic, but the crannogmen stay home rather than travel, but this guy was curious, and he decided to leave the crannogs and go to the Isle of Faces to find the green men.

So, the man paddled down the Green Fork past the Twins at night and paddled onto the Isle of Faces to meet the green men - a story for another time. But Howl- er, I mean the crannogman stayed at the Isle all winter, and then he paddled from the island and went to the largest castle in the world

"Harrenhal!" Bran knew at once. "It was Harrenhal!"

Meera smiled. "Was it? Beneath its walls he saw tents of many colors, bright banners cracking in the wind, and knights in mail and plate on barded horses. He smelled roasting meats, and heard the sound of laughter and the blare of heralds' trumpets. A great tourney was about to commence, and champions from all over the land had come to contest it. The king himself was there, with his son the dragon prince. The White Swords had come, to welcome a new brother to their ranks. The storm lord was on hand, and the rose lord as well. The great lion of the rock had quarreled with the king and stayed away, but many of his bannermen and knights attended all the same. The crannogman had never seen such pageantry, and knew he might never see the like again. Part of him wanted nothing so much as to be part of it."

Bran knows what that feels like as he wanted to be a knight before he was paralyzed. Meera continues the story talking about how the daughter of the castle was queen of love and beauty with five champions swearing to defend her crown: four brothers and her uncle a white knight of the Kingsguard. Bran asks if she was a fair maid, and Meera says yeah, but there were others who were hotter: like the wife of the dragon prince and her maids who had all the knights coming to their yards to … tie favors around their lances.

Bran complains that this sounds an awful lot like a romance story. He likes knights and monster stories.

"Sometimes the knights are the monsters, Bran. The little crannogman was walking across the field, enjoying the warm spring day and harming none, when he was set upon by three squires. They were none older than fifteen, yet even so they were bigger than him, all three. This was their world, as they saw it, and he had no right to be there. They snatched away his spear and knocked him to the ground, cursing him for a frogeater."

"Were they Walders?" It sounded like something Little Walder Frey might have done.

"None offered a name, but he marked their faces well so he could revenge himself upon them later. They shoved him down every time he tried to rise, and kicked him when he curled up on the ground. But then they heard a roar. 'That's my father's man you're kicking,' howled the she-wolf."

"A wolf on four legs, or two?"

"Two," said Meera. "The she-wolf laid into the squires with a tourney sword, scattering them all. The crannogman was bruised and bloodied, so she took him back to her lair to clean his cuts and bind them up with linen. There he met her pack brothers: the wild wolf who led them, the quiet wolf beside him, and the pup who was youngest of the four.

Hmmm. These people sure do sound familiar.

That night, there was a feast, and the wolf girl insisted that the crannogman attend. So, he ate and drank with the wolves, barrowdown men, moose, bears and mermen. Some dragon prince sang a sad song that made the wolf maid cry and got laughed at by the youngest wolf. She promptly poured wine over his head. Then there were storm lords and knights of skulls and kisses, a maid with laughing purple eyes, a red snake, the lord of griffins and a quiet wolf who only spoke to the maid after the wild wolf spoke on his behalf.

But then the crannogman spotted the three squire attackers: a squire who served a pitchfork knight, another who served a porcupine knight and a knight with two towers on his surcoat. Freys. The wolf maid pointed them out to her brothers, and the youngest offered to get the crannogman a horse and some armor, but the crannogman wasn’t sure what to do. He wanted vengeance, but he was small, and he was scared to make a fool of himself. So, the crannogman slept by the shore, facing the Isle of Faces and praying to the old gods of the north and Neck.

Jojen asks if Bran ever heard this story from his dad. He hadn’t. Old Nan did the storytelling. Bran asks to hear the rest, and Meera starts to talk about the tourney, but Bran only wants to hear about the jousting.

"As my prince commands. The daughter of the castle was the queen of love and beauty, with four brothers and an uncle to defend her, but all four sons of Harrenhal were defeated on the first day. Their conquerors reigned briefly as champions, until they were vanquished in turn. As it happened, the end of the first day saw the porcupine knight win a place among the champions, and on the morning of the second day the pitchfork knight and the knight of the two towers were victorious as well. But late on the afternoon of that second day, as the shadows grew long, a mystery knight appeared in the lists."

Bran knows about mystery knights. They would show up with their faces all covered, and sometimes they would be famous champions in disguise. Even Aemon the Dragonknight won a tourney as a mystery knight so that he could name his sister queen of love and beauty rather than one of the king’s mistresses. Barristan did it twice too.

Bran thinks the mystery knight was the little crannogman, but Meera says no one knew. The mystery knight was short and had ill-fitting armor made of bits and pieces. And the sigil?

“The device upon his shield was a heart tree of the old gods, a white weirwood with a laughing red face."

"Maybe he came from the Isle of Faces," said Bran. "Was he green?" In Old Nan's stories, the guardians had dark green skin and leaves instead of hair. Sometimes they had antlers too, but Bran didn't see how the mystery knight could have worn a helm if he had antlers. "I bet the old gods sent him."

Meera says maybe, but then the mystery knight rode to the end of the lists where the five champions were living, and he challenged the three squires. Bran decides then that this was definitely the crannogman. Yeah, no. The crannogman defeated his three tormentors one by one and the crowds cheered for him as they didn’t like those fucking Freys.

And look, I don’t care, but no more summaries. It’s killing me to summarize one of the best in-universe stories in the entire series. So, we read to the end!

When his fallen foes sought to ransom horse and armor, the Knight of the Laughing Tree spoke in a booming voice through his helm, saying, 'Teach your squire honor, that shall be ransom enough.' Once the defeated knights chastised their squires sharply, their horses and armor were returned. And so the little crannogman's prayer was answered . . . by the green men, or the old gods, or the children of the forest, who can say?"

It was a good story, Bran decided after thinking about it a moment or two. "Then what happened? Did the Knight of the Laughing Tree win the tourney and marry a princess?"

"No," said Meera. "That night at the great castle, the storm lord and the knight of skulls and kisses each swore they would unmask him, and the king himself urged men to challenge him, declaring that the face behind that helm was no friend of his. But the next morning, when the heralds blew their trumpets and the king took his seat, only two champions appeared. The Knight of the Laughing Tree had vanished. The king was wroth, and even sent his son the dragon prince to seek the man, but all they ever found was his painted shield, hanging abandoned in a tree. It was the dragon prince who won that tourney in the end."

"Oh." Bran thought about the tale awhile. "That was a good story. But it should have been the three bad knights who hurt him, not their squires. Then the little crannogman could have killed them all. The part about the ransoms was stupid. And the mystery knight should win the tourney, defeating every challenger, and name the wolf maid the queen of love and beauty."

"She was," said Meera, "but that's a sadder story."

"Are you certain you never heard this tale before, Bran?" asked Jojen. "Your lord father never told it to you?"

Bran shook his head. The day was growing old by then, and long shadows were creeping down the mountainsides to send black fingers through the pines. If the little crannogman could visit the Isle of Faces, maybe I could too. All the tales agreed that the green men had strange magic powers. Maybe they could help him walk again, even turn him into a knight. They turned the little crannogman into a knight, even if it was only for a day, he thought. A day would be enough.

And that is the synopsis of ASOS, Bran I and II! Talk about a killer ending! It seems trite to say that I loved the Knight of the Laughing Tree story. What did you think, ser?

Depth

It’s easy to forget about Bran in ASOS, especially relative to how prominent he was in ACOK. He had seven chapters, set at Winterfell, the heart of the unfolding political and military struggles in the North. In this book, he only has four chapters, and the narrative focus has shifted away from Stark turf towards the Riverlands and the territory beyond the Wall. Later in ASOS, George will tie Bran’s chapters into first Jon’s and then Sam’s, but here, he’s almost totally isolated from the rest of the story.

And y’know, that’s not necessarily a bad thing! These chapters feel like a palate cleanser in a lot of ways, leaving me refreshed for the more thorny and complicated chapters to come from Davos, Daenerys, etc. The quest narrative, the wistful tone, the nature imagery full of reds and golds, it all brings me back to a younger age when I was first reading stories like this, which is very appropriate given Bran’s position as the young fantasy reader in-universe. I know that for a lot of people, this isn’t the appeal of ASOIAF; they’re in it for the more shocking, deconstructionist material. But I think George handles this material with equal care and skill. What do you think?

In Bran Stark, George RR Martin embeds powerful pathos, charming anecdotes and an almost LOTR-like sense of nature and the world around them. For much of these chapters, I felt like we had transitioned from the hard, gritty fantasy to a lighter fare -- something you noted so well. This feels like … I don’t know. YA Fiction isn’t the exact term here, but these chapters feel like chapters I would read to my children, y’know? And that’s great! It’s great George can interpose Bran with all the other adult characters, and I love it.

But the problem is that we have only four Bran chapters in ASOS. There are only three Bran chapters in ADWD. I have no idea if this is a controversial take or not, but I think this is a mistake on George’s part! If Bran is destined to become King of Westeros, we have precious little page space given to the boy. And I don’t think it’s enough unless George ramps up the number of Bran chapters in Winds -- And I don’t think that’s particularly likely! Sorry, I’m ranting. I know.  But give us more Bran, George! Give us the boy, give us the prince, give us the wolf!

• Prince of the wolfswood
  • Bran’s story in ASOS begins the same way as his sister Arya’s: racing through the woods, feeling his connection to the natural world
  • But Arya has only just begun warging into her direwolf, at a distance, and she isn’t consciously in control of it
  • Bran opened his third eye at the end of the last book, and is now deliberately skinchanging into Summer
  • This intentionality, this sense of purpose, changes the tone. Instead of the ambient danger around Arya, we get a sense of peace and serenity
  • Bran is as one with his environment. That’s why George describes the ridge of earth as shaped like a claw: the land is the wolf is the king
  • Everything orbits him: the soil and the stone, the squirrels and the birds. The smells make a song, as George writes, a song that fills the good green world, like the song of ice and fire that we’re reading
  • Bran can now perceive nature as a structure like a story, into which every individual fits. A feeling of harmony prevails, everything in its right place
  • What is Bran’s place? Prince, he thinks: prince of the wolfswood. Again, the land is the kingdom is the king, it’s the Fisher King archetype at work
  • Bran links the natural and manmade, political and mystical. He’s atop the food chain, atop the hierarchy of Winterfell, atop the world from his ridge
  • But as with Dany, power goes hand in hand with loneliness. Summer sees a pack of common wolves below. Not his pack. They’re gone; so is Bran’s
  • Summer’s fierce joy gives way to grief when he remembers that Lady is dead, and as he thinks, Ghost was always a silent one who stood apart
  • Yet even though they were different from each other, they all smelled like pack: individuals brought together to be more than the sum of their parts
  • Bran is the living heart of House Stark; his chapters mourn for the time when they were together. The kids and the wolves stand in for each other
  • But that doesn’t mean they’re identical. Lady died; Sansa didn’t. As Summer thinks about it, this is because Sansa disappeared into the halls of “man-rock,” where there was no place for the creatures of the woods
  • Bran has to bridge that gap, and that’s not easy. He thinks of himself as “the wolf prince,” until he smells prey, and then he’s all wolf, fighting the pack of lesser wolves and stealing their kill. He even kills one of them
  • But just as he’s about to enjoy his food, he hears Hodor. I love how George paces this. It’s so creepy and effective how Summer registers that none of the other wolves heard it, a “queer wind” outside of nature
  • The next time he hears Hodor, it wakes up Bran, the boy dreaming inside the wolf. “No I won’t,” he thinks–the boy’s POV now, not the direwolf’s
  • And the boy doesn’t belong to this world. The trees darken to shadows; the wolves fade like Bran’s siblings. There’s a sickening moment when he sees Hodor through them, like they’re ghosts. If you think of that pack as a metaphor for Bran’s family, then this is a poetic expression of Bran transcending them to become the new God-King
  • The last thing Bran feels before he’s forced to wake up and face reality is the taste of blood on his tongue. It’s the same thing he tastes at the end of his weirwood trip in ADWD. It’s the price to be paid for this kind of power
  • Of the character reintroductions in ASOS, Bran’s is probably the most interesting as a warg and in Summer.
  • It’s clear that Bran is very in touch with his wolf-side, and that helps make this feel like a dynamic opening scene.
  • Where Arya isn’t sure what she’s doing, and Jon tries to deny it, Bran is fully in control, demonstrating his advanced warging abilities over that of his siblings.
  • And that’s a cool beat that draws us back into Bran’s story, but I think the thematics here are pretty cool.
  • I think thematically, this scene is doing something similar as when we saw Dany’s dragons breathing fire and growing larger.
  • Meanwhile, as we’ll discover later, Summer is also hunting for food as Dany’s dragons were diving into the ocean to retrieve fish.
  • The difference is that the dragons embody Dany’s id as you were saying last week, and Dany isn’t precisely skinchanging her dragons. She’s not living in her three dragons.
  • There’s certainly a bond, but it’s not the direct bond that Bran has with Summer.
  • In Summer’s case, he is stealing the kill of the pack of wolves and displaying dominance over the rest of the wolves.
  • That could be read as symbolism of Bran’s future place as King of Westeros, dominant over all wolves.
  • But it’s also showing that despite Summer’s role as protector of the band (and occasional bringer of food), there’s still a violence inherent in Summer.
  • How will this impact Bran going forward? Jojen will later warn Bran about staying in Summer too long, noting that the danger is Bran forgetting his human flesh.
  • But I think the danger posed here is that Bran becomes more animal-like, more wolfish -- something many fans speculate about Jon when he likely enters Ghost after his death.
  • We’ll unpack how this will affect Bran when it comes to Hodor later in ASOS and on into ADWD, but the real danger is both in Bran disappearing too long into Summer, and the danger of becoming too much like Summer in morality.
  • Moreover, Bran is forging his consciousness with Summer’s, and it’s not clear whose thoughts we’re seeing in this opening prologue of sorts. Who controls who? It’s the question that Bran will have to answer throughout, I think, the rest of the series.
• Tumbledown Tower
  • So Bran is forced back into his body by his human companions–the pack of the prince. Those are the terms by which they define him
  • Just as Summer’s joy turned to grief, so Bran’s excitement for the world of the wolf turns to bitter resentment at being forced to be himself again
  • He’s back with his mentor, Jojen Reed; George reminds us that he’s so solemn and self-serious that Old Nan nicknamed him “little grandfather”
  • He considers it his job to keep Bran in line, preventing him from falling too far into Summer. This makes him different from the other magical mentors we talked about in ACOK, the heralds of the age of wonder and terror
  • Melisandre eggs Stannis on. Jaqen does the same to Arya before leaving her. Quaithe is so cryptic that it’s difficult to say what exactly she’s trying to get Dany to do, but she’s definitely not restraining her like Jojen does Bran
  • I think this makes Jojen more responsible than those other characters. He’s not in it for power, he’s in it to teach Bran the best he possibly can
  • That doesn’t mean Bran has to like it! He’s aggravated by Jojen’s warnings and admonishments. As he thinks, Jojen was the one who wanted Bran to open his third eye, and now he keeps pulling him back
  • That’s because Jojen knows how important it is to balance the man and the wolf, the prince of Winterfell and the prince of the forest:
    • “You are two, then?”
      
      “Two,” he sighed, “and one.”
  • So Jojen tells Bran to mark trees while inside the wolf, to prove that the human brain is still in charge. But Bran always forgets
  • In part, it’s just the sheer intoxication of entering another mind, another species, another way of looking at the world
  • But it’s also because Bran doesn’t want to remember. His time in Summer is an escape from his real life, and his real life sucks right now
  • The setting reflects that. They’re in the vault of a ruined watchtower that’s been abandoned for millennia. Bran calls it “Tumbledown Tower”
  • Doesn’t that just sum up Bran’s story so far? He took a tumble from a tower, and now the tower has tumbled; Winterfell has fallen
  • Bran even refers to Winterfell as “burned and tumbled,” just to make the connection clear. They’re in the metaphorical ruins of his childhood
  • Bran’s home is broken, just like his legs. So while he’s being kind of a spoiled brat about Jojen’s lessons, his frustration is relatable
  • As he thinks, how can he be prince of a place he might never see again? Politics is abstract; the world through Summer’s eyes is more tangibly real
  • In both the political and magical realm, restraint is vital. Bran thinks that there’s no point to being a skinchanger if he can’t wear the skin he likes
  • But Jojen points out that eating as Summer won’t nourish Bran’s stomach. Bran thinks that Jojen doesn’t know what he’s talking about; he’s no warg
  • Just as Dany dodged Barristan’s points by calling his perspective into question, Bran is right that Jojen lacks experience, but Jojen is right that Bran still has to concern himself with the mundane world of mankind
  • And Jojen has more on his to-do list than telling Bran about how great power comes with great responsibility. He also wants to move on
  • The reader might be frustrated at this point, because it seems like we already settled this question at the end of Bran’s plot in ACOK
  • They were already talking about going north to the three-eyed crow! I do think it’s a little redundant, but this is Bran’s Hero’s Journey, and part of the Hero’s Journey is the Refusal of the Call
  • Bran has to have the opportunity to turn aside from the path, or his decision to walk that path will feel less meaningful
  • Bran’s duality is reflected in the Reed siblings. Meera wants to stay here: it’s peaceful precisely because it’s ruined, with plenty of food and water
  • But Jojen wants to move on despite the danger of being found by their enemies, despite how long and punishing a trip on foot will be
  • Why? Because Jojen is aware of his own limits. He’s not a greenseer himself; his destiny is to start Bran on his path, not finish it for him
  • The three-eyed crow is the one who can teach Bran to fly. Jojen can’t enforce the lessons he teaches; he’s worried Bran is starting to stray
  • Bran points out that he’s still a little kid, not a great wise hero. As Myrcella said in ACOK, children are supposed to be childish
  • But innocence is lost quickly in ASOIAF, and Bran can’t afford to enjoy his childhood here any more than he could at Winterfell
  • He has to put aside childish things. He wishes Robb was here to save the day with his army, but he’s not. There’s no authority left, only them
  • Jojen makes Bran repeat his house words: winter is coming. It means more than literal winter, more even than the Others. It means that every summer child has to grow up
  • If they stay here, Meera says, they'll be safe...but that's it. Bran's development will stagnate, his potential will go unrealized, like someone who never moves past children's stories
  • And it has to be his choice, the Reeds tell him; they swore an oath to protect him, but they can't do it all for him. This is such clean, classical storytelling, all the mystery and worldbuilding focused like a laser through character
  • Bran knows that he can't rely on his father's bannermen any more than he can rely on the Reeds; the war has made everything so uncertain
  • Moreover, none of them can give him what he wants: the physical freedom he experienced at the start of the chapter while warging into his wolf
  • Bran loved to run and climb; now he can't, and the pain of it still makes him cry. He wants to fly, he says. Take me to the crow
  • It's so bittersweet because Bran is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. Not that there's anything wrong with wanting to use his legs again, but he never will; Bran is setting himself up to be disappointed, as we see in ADWD
  • So even as Bran comes into his power, he is still denied that which he wants most: his happy childhood back
  • Most of us aren't princes, let alone greenseers, but I think we can all relate to that: grieving for the past, the person we used to be, once upon a time
  • The hero’s journey stuff you’ve identified for Bran is super important for Bran to wrestle with.
  • Bran has to shrug off childish things and grow up much more quickly than anyone else.
  • I think our frustration with Bran is that we want him to come into that role much more quickly than he really should.
  • George has stated several times in the past that his idea for a five year gap was imagined as a way to get Bran through all of the training and get to the good stuff.
  • And as George said:
    • Bran, who was taken in by the Children of the Forest and the green ceremony, [so you could] come back to him five years later. That’s good. Works for him.
  • But I think this would have cheapened Bran’s journey. It’s important to see Bran’s development as it happens, rather than catch up with him when he’s an all-powerful warg and greenseer.
  • Bran has to make the decision to go to the three-eyed crow, and he has to learn from Jojen on the way there.
  • He has to step away from the safety of tumbledown tower and face the unknown so as to save the world.
  • It’s an incredible burden that Bran bears here. It’s fortunate he’s so young so that the burden doesn’t feel crushing to him.
  • For now it’s an adventure, a hope that Bran will walk again. It helps that he’s still a child and doesn’t realize what’s being asked of him.
  • It’s sometimes easier not knowing so that one can fly.
  • That’s the payoff that Jojen talks about: how Bran is no longer the chained wolf. He will fly in the future, and the payoff will be sweet.
  • And the sweetness of the payoff will pay off through the journey to get to that payoff.
• The Liddle
  • And so they set out into the wild. This is the most Tolkien-esque, classical high fantasy stuff in the entire series; they could easily be the Fellowship
  • They’re cut off from human civilization; as Bran thinks, there are no roads in these mountain valleys. They’re in the domain of nature now, using the stars to navigate rather than anything that might appear on a map
  • George emphasizes the transition with changing colors, as he often does in Bran’s visually-driven chapters. We’ve gone from the autumnal reds and golds near Tumbledown Tower to the dark greens and grays of a land that is always bracing itself for winter; it stands in for Bran’s maturation
  • It’s isolated to the point of abstraction, a symbolic space where the major ideas and images of the series dwell. It’s like a loop, as Meera says: up and down, up and down. She hates the repetitiveness of it
  • But wait, Bran says. Yesterday you said you loved the mountains! So I do, she responds. I’d only heard of mountains in my father’s stories; it’s wonderful to see them in person. Bran doesn’t get the contradiction
  • How can you both love and hate something at the same time? It’s only confusing to a child, or an adult who can’t move past childhood
  • Most of us eventually learn that opposites come together all the time. Life is the seed of death, which is the seed of the next wave of life
  • People want freedom; they also want structure. People want intimacy; they also want privacy. People are good. People are evil. If it was easy to separate and sort out these categories, we would’ve done it by now
  • Even love and hate, the eternal opponents in the human heart’s conflict with itself, can mate, as Jojen puts it; they’re two halves of the same face
  • It’s not strange at all for Meera to love the mountains for their novelty yet hate the actual practice of traveling on them. That’s how people work!
  • As Bran grows up and comes into his power (both magical and political), it is vital for him to internalize this interplay between yin and yang
  • Jojen compares it to ice and fire: the title of the story, suggesting that the idea of the self as a vessel for contradictory elements is the central theme of ASOIAF, expressed in Dany, Jaime, Theon, Sandor, Stannis, etc.
  • “The land is one.” Everything is one–a baseline principle for a large percentage of human spirituality, philosophy, and science
  • It’s a holistic understanding of natural and potentially supernatural processes that flow over and through us. As everyone has heard:
    • “[The Force] is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.”
  • Jojen doesn’t even mention the old gods or the three-eyed crow here, because it’s not about the cultural specifics, it’s about enlightenment
  • But there’s one force more powerful than enlightenment, and that’s death. As Meera says: the One is “over-wrinkled.” Literally, she means mountains, but she’s also talking about wrinkled skin: aging until you don’t
  • Enlightenment is rooted not in nature itself, but in the brain and body of the individual perceiving nature. That’s as close as I get to a spiritual understanding of why we’re here: to bear witness to the Earth
  • So when we die, what happens to that enlightenment? We have answers to that, so many answers! Culture is nothing but answers to that question
  • We conceptualize life after death, and try to enact it through inherited wisdom: food, faith, clothing, dances, songs, stories
  • Bran is living after death, in a sense; he rose from the crypts, and his family thinks he’s gone. So he embodies this process: a shard of meaning preserved against the fall, a Christian martyr redeemed by grace
  • All of that feeds so beautifully into what happens next. Bran remembers that this land isn’t actually empty; there are people watching them
  • In another storyline, that would make us paranoid–like the eagle watching Jon and Qhorin Halfhand beyond the Wall in the last book
  • But here, it’s the eyes of community on them, so when the weather turns against them, one clansmen steps forward to offer shelter from the storm
  • The Liddle is so archetypal that he doesn’t even get a first name. He doesn’t need one–he’s a font of wisdom and generosity more than a man
  • He’s every kindly old man that ever offered support to any main character. He’s an NPC, which might be too stiff if his words weren’t so emotional
  • He offers the travelers food and shelter, which is more than an individual act of support. It’s an act of cultural transmission at the heart of the North
  • Guest right is sacred up here, and we’re all in it together when winter comes–or we should be, anyway. So Jon argues as Lord Commander
  • It’s the human connection that prevents us from breaking down completely into isolated individuals, and it’s the essence of Stark rule in the North
  • Now, is this literally true? Not really; Bolton lands certainly weren’t a paradise before the war came. There were territorial disputes, there were harsh uncaring lords, even the best Starks couldn’t be everywhere at once
  • But it was better, and that knowledge fits into the context of myth. Stark rule has lasted long enough to seem like the state of nature itself
  • It’s totemic; it’s foundational. It’s what undergirds everything else, the mystical land-healing properties of having a Stark in Winterfell
  • And you feel it most strongly when it’s not there. That’s when it can take on these legendary proportions–only in retrospect is the shape of it clear
  • It’s the sorrowful sense of loss that animates these Bran chapters, summer turning to winter as the game of thrones turns people into ghosts
  • They haunt our dreams. Maybe Jojen’s come true, but the Liddle’s don’t, as with the Ghost of High Heart and Lem Lemoncloak in the south
  • Jojen’s true source of hope that “the wolves will come again” is Bran himself: a dream of spring, that from his seed the tree will return
  • Just as they don’t ask his name, the Liddle doesn’t ask theirs, but he clearly knows who they are; he glances at Bran and Summer when he mentions that Ramsay’s men are looking for wolves and “walking dead”
  • There’s the bitter irony there that Bran can’t walk, but also a comparison to the wights, the world of the Others, because that’s where he’s heading
  • He’s leaving the North behind, too, albeit in the opposite direction. But he keeps the memory of this place alive. “He was dead, now he’s not.”
  • This scene is the only real glimpse we get of Northern politics and military movements in ASOS; we know there are Ironborn in the wolfswood, probably Asha following up on Winterfell as she recalls in AFFC
  • We also hear that Ramsay holds the kingsroad, and is asking after the Stark boys; so this is an open secret long before ADWD
  • The Liddle may well have told his fellow clansmen about this, the ones who march with Stannis in ADWD
  • I’d take it a step further and suggest that there are hints that this Liddle is a person of significance in Clan Liddle
    • The clasp that fastened his squirrelskin cloak was gold and bronze and wrought in the shape of a pinecone, and the Liddles bore pinecones on the white half of their green-and-white shields.
  • Throughout ASOIAF, nobles wear the clasp shaped in their house sigil: Jaremy Rykker wears one of crossed hammers of the Rykkers, Arya observes Wylis Manderly wearing a silver and trident clasp of the Manderlys in Harrenhal.
  • And when Bran surrenders Winterfell to Theon, Maester Luwin dresses the boy by clasping his cloak with a “wolf's-head clasp of silver and jet.”
  • It’s not definitive evidence, but I think this is evidence for the man in the cave to be a leader in Clan Liddle.
  • Among the Liddles, there are two Liddles who appear on-page later in the story: Duncan Liddle and Morgan Liddle.
  • Duncan is a Night’s Watch ranger and is up at the Wall, but Morgan Liddle marches with Stannis on Deepwood Motte and then Winterfell (famously yelling that Asha is a “cunt” during the forest battle outside of Deepwood before apologizing to Asha after the fact).
  • It’s interesting that George doesn’t describe this Liddle’s appearance beyond the clasp itself, and I’ve wondered whether GRRM gardened this Liddle to be retroactively Morgan Liddle in ADWD.
  • But in this chapter, we get the humble aid to those in need that keeps those relationships alive in the first place: the food he leaves behind
  • It’s greater than any treasure, because it demonstrates a resilience against the downfall and depression he was describing
  • And it encourages Bran to take heart as well; he promises himself that he’ll pay the Liddles back a hundredfold for it when he goes home
  • I love this, because it’s a whimsical childish expression of a mature concept, capturing Bran in the middle of growing up
  • Even as his chapters have this storybook, fairytale tone, they hint at the deeper responsibilities emerging for Bran as he travels
  • It’s his job to do what Ned didn’t, what Robb won’t: come home, and make the stories real again
• The ghosts of Harrenhal
  • What everyone remembers these chapters for is, of course, the tale of the Knight of the Laughing Tree
  • It’s often considered in isolation, less about its place in Bran’s arc than as a big backstory infodump about Robert’s Rebellion and R+L=J
  • George is teasing the reader with crucial information, a big piece of multiple puzzles; fans of the series use it in their research to come up with theories. Bran is, to an extent, just a vessel for that task here
  • But in context, this story is enriched by Bran’s perspective, because it builds on what we’ve been talking about. What is real, and what is only a dream? Why do we wear masks? What is our responsibility to each other?
  • This scene isn’t just giving us a story about the past. It is making an argument about how stories work. The Knight of the Laughing Tree story is as much about what doesn’t happen as what does happen–the truth lingers in the gaps, the interjections, the subtext surrounding the text
  • It’s the ASOS equivalent to HOTU in ACOK–George bringing the structure of story to the forefront so we can examine it
  • In this isolated, symbolic space, with no immediate threat for the characters respond to and no other way to pass the time, Bran and his companions plunge headlong into the heart of narrative itself
  • It starts with Hodor saying “Hodor,” just as when he woke Bran up from dreaming in Summer’s skin. Even before he holds the door, that word is a bridge between worlds, a password to a change in consciousness. It hides the reality of past and future simultaneously, a loop like the mountains
  • Names have power–but then again, Hodor isn’t Hodor’s name. It’s Walder, Bran says, the same name as the boys who mocked him at Winterfell
  • He learned that from Old Nan: keeper of the flame, source of all the stories. What happened to her? No one knows; it’s a mystery
  • They didn’t see her body at Winterfell. Why would Theon hurt someone like her? Jojen says that some people hurt others because they can
  • It’s how you establish authority, as we’ll see in the Knight of the Laughing Tree story as well. But Meera reminds us that it wasn’t Theon who sacked Winterfell; they have no way of knowing it was actually Ramsay
  • It’s a mystery to them, the possibilities of the past shrouded as if by fog, almost as much as the unknowable future
  • All they can do, Meera says, is remember the stories. Remember not just their content, but their context: what it was like when Old Nan told them
  • That’s how you keep some part of her alive in your heart. It’s the same process of cultural transmission we saw with the mysterious Liddle
  • It’s the same defense against the ruin of entropy: story is our only recourse against death. Stories are how we bring the dead to life. When we die, whatever else we become, we become story
  • This scene is about that process, drawing our attention to the elements of story that lurk just outside the frame
  • The Reeds make that literal. When Bran asks for stories about knights, his favorite, they tell him the only knights in the Neck are below the water
  • They’re beneath the surface of the story, beneath the conscious layer of your mind. They’re the restless dead, the return of the repressed
  • As Luwin said, there aren’t many knights in the North, and so the only knights in the Neck are dead ones. It’s a clear reference to Tolkien’s Dead Marshes, the fertile ground from which this story springs
  • Bran shivers at the thought, but he enjoys the sensation. That’s the appeal of narrative in a nutshell: a realistic plunge into an artificial scenario
  • You feel something that you know isn’t real, even if it refers to real things, so you can enjoy the sensation on its own terms, exploring your own mind
  • It also primes readers for what’s going to happen in ASOS, Brian IV when the scary stories become almost real.
  • We like scary stories because we want to feel the fear in a controlled, safe environment.
  • What we don’t want is ghosts coming out of the well at the Nightfort.
  • And we especially don’t want the wights rising from the ice lake to try to pull Bran & co down.
  • But in a way, this is all a glidepath for Bran’s journey: scary stories become almost scary realities that become real horror in the white wilderness.
  • It’s that feeling Bran loves in stories, just like he loved it in climbing, and it’s what he wants out of this one. But he’s confronted with ambiguity
  • Right away, we learn that this story takes place in the year of the false spring: a warning to the audience that there are lies around every corner
  • Meera says the titular knight might’ve been a crannogman like them. Jojen says he might not have been. It’s uncertain; no story is ever complete
  • Jojen’s face is “dappled with green shadows,” a lovely image capturing both life and death, the present tense of nature and the past of memory
  • He tries to head Meera off at the pass–we’ll get to why later–by saying Bran’s probably heard that one a bunch of times already
  • But he hasn’t, and anyway, he says it wouldn’t matter. Old Nan said you have to return to favorite stories like they’re old friends
  • It’s a vital lesson Bran has learned, and George is dropping the veil to speak to his audience here: rereading is an enriching process
  • Old Nan compared stories to people. They change like they’re alive, and I think that’s in large part because we are always changing
  • Your perspective changes. It’s a different light, so if you shine it on the same story, it will look differently to you
    • We look up at the same stars, and see such different things.
  • There are different ways to tell a story, different ways to listen to it. Stories are mutable things, and there is no such thing as a neutral aesthetic
  • Story, storyteller, and audience: the borders blur among them all. When Meera describes the protagonist of her story as a curious lad in his native environment, Bran immediately identifies with him–as Meera probably expected! Meera describes the hero’s garb as similar to her own, which helps Bran picture this character in his head. He looks like both Jojen and Meera–and of course he does, because they’re the only crannogmen Bran has met and he still doesn’t know all that much about their unique culture
  • The more of them he meets, the more he learns about them, the richer his internal language for them will be–the language of metaphor and dreams
  • But there’s another layer to this, because the reader is also listening to this story, and we can put together more than Bran can
  • We know enough to gradually figure out that the protagonist of this story is Howland Reed–father to Jojen and Meera, war buddy of Ned Stark
  • So it’s actually appropriate for him to look like Jojen and Meera in Bran’s head–because they probably look like him, their dad!
  • He told them this story, and he probably told it to them this way so they would relate, project themselves into it just as Bran is doing; she talks about Howland’s guerilla abilities as superpowers because he talked about it that way to entertain them, to impress a sense of culture as well
  • Someone else might have told them as well … mayhaps Jyanna …
  • All these layers of information, perspective, and time; story collapses them all together, makes them briefly into the same thing
  • Bran interrupts the story to ask when they’re getting to the tree knight part. He’s every audience member who just wants the big moments without any of the buildup and context that makes those moments so satisfying. When are we gonna get to the fireworks factory?!
  • Bran only knows that there’s a tree knight involved because they told him so beforehand. Storytelling doesn’t take place on a blank slate; it’s all about creating, managing, and subverting expectations. The title of a story, how it’s described, is part of the storytelling process, not extraneous
  • After all, just as Bran is impatient to get going, so is Howland, inside the story! It’s all about stepping outside the world you know and preparing to change; that’s also happening to Bran, because it happens to everyone
  • Howland gets past the Twins as Bran must get through the Wall. Howland goes to the Isle of Faces, as Bran is going to the cave of the children
  • Here the storyteller intervenes; George via Meera keeps the Isle of Faces secret, not ready to divulge what goes on there
  • This is a key, unexplored moment, because George is setting up the Isle of Faces and the Green Men to be a big deal in later volumes of ASOIAF.
  • In a very old webchat, George was asked, saying:
    • Will we see or hear anything of the green men on the Isle of Faces? If not, what are they like? Just a secluded order that's never bothered, and has no role in the events of the Seven Kingdoms?
  • And GRRM responded:
    • The green men and the Isle of Faces will come to the fore in later books. (Boy, it's tough to sneak anything by you guys.)
  • Later, George stated that the Green Men protect the Isle of Faces; so that begs the question how Howland Reed was able to gain entry onto the island and what its future role will be.
  • Theories about, but I do think the Isle of Faces will play an important role in Bran’s story in particular.
  • One theory - I don’t know who came up with it, but I first heard about it from BookShelfStud around the end of GoT - is that the Isle of Faces will be where Bran rules as King from.
  • Regardless, I love the ambiguity, because it’s very possible George hadn’t come up with how this place would be important yet and planned to garden his way to a satisfying story regarding Howland and/or Bran.
  • Meera holds Bran responsible for this–you wanted a story about knights! It’s a self-conscious statement about genre, how fluid it inherently is
  • Bran wanted knights–his original self-image, the return to the womb of narrative. He’ll come back to Winterfell one day, and when Howland returned from the Isle of Faces back to the world of mortal men, he came to another of the great castles of Westeros
  • Bran recognizes it from its size–it’s Harrenhal. Makes sense to us, we’ve been there! Meera only smiles. Was it? It was, but the point is made
  • Bran filled in the gaps, and so must we. Reading or listening to a story isn’t a passive process–it’s a journey we’re taking on the inside
  • Bran turns the archetype into a specific place; his POV is the link between fiction and reality. It’s a two way street
  • Harrenhal as Meera describes it is nothing like the rotting nightmare we saw in Arya’s chapters in the last book. It’s a festival of colors and smells and tastes, the sounds of laughter and music, the heart of Westeros
  • And it’s like that because that’s how Howland remembers it. That’s how they all remember it, the Robert’s Rebellion generation: the false spring, the last gasp of a world we could be happy in before the war came
  • There’s no neutral way to present it. What came next has transformed this tourney into legend; there’s no way to escape our perspective on events
  • And yet the castle was still ruined from Aegon’s conquest, but even when we get Ned’s perspective back in his final chapter, it’s very similar to how the setting is presented:
    • It was the year of false spring, and he was eighteen again, down from the Eyrie to the tourney at Harrenhal. He could see the deep green of the grass, and smell the pollen on the wind. Warm days and cool nights and the sweet taste of wine.
  • No mention of the ruined castle, the scorch marks of dragons, the broken towers, etc.
  • For Ned and Howland, this was a time before sadness fell upon the world: youth, sex, song.
  • The reader’s perspective matters as much as the storyteller’s. Bran suddenly suspects from all the romantic imagery that this is a love story
  • It’s again a joke about genre expectations, like the kid in Princess Bride: “is this a kissing book?” Bran is squeamish about this kind of story because he lacks the internal language to make sense of it
  • He can access the emotions of stories of knightly virtue–but the chivalric romance toward which that virtue is often put? He’s less into that
  • Bran can conceptualize a “fair maid,” but takes it no further. He’s in an in-between position, which is why he says Hodor is the one who hates kissy stuff. That’s fascinating–Bran is uncomfortable, but doesn’t want to admit it, because before long, he won’t be uncomfortable
  • For the moment, Bran likes the stories where knights fight monsters. But part of growing up is developing critical thinking, and in that case that means recognizing, as Meera says, that the knights can be monsters
  • It’s a key line in the series, resonating back to Jorah’s line about the smallfolk never being left in peace and forward to Thoros saying that some knights are dark and full of terror, that war made monsters of them all
  • Here, the concept is boiled down to its simplest form, appropriate for the context of a children’s story. What if that which was supposed to be your guardian against the dangerous Other was, in fact, the danger?
  • What if there was a world in which we got rid of the white walkers, dragons, shadowbinders, all of it, and it didn’t save us from ourselves?
  • I think it’s brilliant how George links Bran’s squeamishness about sex and romance to his naivete about knights and monsters. He seems to be suggesting they’re flipsides of the same coin. If you can’t handle the reality of people loving and fucking each other, you probably can’t handle the reality of people hating and fucking each other over
  • In this, it’s a … I hate to use the phrase, but teachable moment for Bran. It’s the Reeds gently challenging Bran’s perspective of knights = good.
  • It’s a much less dire challenging of Bran’s idealism than what Jaime experienced, but I think Jaime resonates with what the Reeds say.
    • Knights see and do worse every time they go to war.
  • At the same time, the brilliance here is that this is also the Reed’s bias coming to the fore.
  • There are no crannog knights. They might hold a tiller better than a lance, but I think it’s an institutionalized distaste for knights.
  • And why would they be opposed to knighthood? The story itself tells the story, but it’s because their mortal enemies the Freys are a part of the noble culture of knighthood.
  • Frey knights and chivalry were enemies of the Reed. Frey lances and swords killed crannogmen in the past.
  • And Frey knights will be the ones that will carry out the Red Wedding to come.
  • Bran has to internalize all of this, and again Meera puts it plainly to him as George is putting it plainly to us: Howland was doing nothing but enjoying the nice spring day when three squires kicked his ass because they felt that this nice spring day was their property, and he had no right there
  • Back we go to the start of the story: why was Will at the Wall, again?
  • Howland stands in for literal smallfolk getting kicked around, like the Walders mocking Hodor in ACOK, despite him being a Walder too
  • Indeed, Bran compares the two situations–again showing how stories move from general to particular and back as we make sense of them
  • Who saves our hero? A wolf, like the wolves who will come again. A wolf on two legs, Meera clarifies: stories blur people into symbols of their essence. Just like Bran became Summer, his aunt becomes a wolf
  • Because this is Lyanna, of course, as the “wild wolf” is big brother Brandon, the “quiet wolf” is middle brother Ned, and the “pup” is Benjen
  • Naming them this way adds to the fanciful atmosphere of this story. Everyone is an animal like it’s a fable
  • The symbols are part of what makes this story so powerful, because this is a children’s story, and yet it had adult ramifications.
  • This is an adventure story at heart, something a kid will like.
  • But it’s also an adult story with heavy adult themes.
  • Basically, this is YA Fiction at its best or maybe that’s too trite.
  • What I think the KOTLT tracks strongest with is CS Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia.
  • Just to throat-clear for a moment, KOTLT is not allegory the way Lewis’ work was.
  • The Lion Lord is not Jesus the way Asian was for Pete’s sake! That’s Tywin, and he’s no Jesus.
  • But I think they both tell profound stories using symbols and animal/nature stand-ins.
  • And they’re both told in ways that children and adults can enjoy for different reasons.
  • Bran can enjoy the story for the tourney, castles, jousting, knights, squires, but adults can see the subtext and see how this story is speaking to something more profound, more sad than what Bran sees.
  • But to make the story palatable to both children and adults, it’s told (and written by George and Clive Staples) to have a layer of meaning.
  • And yet, even in having a deeper meaning, it’s still relatively simple, and thus, my meta thought about this story is that it’s fairly easy to decipher, because it’s intentionally done so both in the context of a story Bran would understand as a child!
  • But it also fits right into the imagery of Bran’s chapters specifically. He was just mourning his pack, both as Summer and himself; now we see the previous generation of Starks as a pack, all together, one last time
  • That they go unnamed forces us to recognize who they are, just as with the other characters at Harrenhal. Some of them we can recognize the first time through: the dragon prince is Rhaegar, the storm lord is Robert, the maid with the purple eyes is Ashara Dayne
  • But others are only clear on reread. We haven’t met the red viper Oberyn Martell yet, nor the lord of griffins Jon Connington. And we only know from ADWD that the white sword dancing with Ashara was Barristan
  • All of it fades, distorted by both narrative and time; we leave behind traces of who we were, a blurry image, a flash of color, a line from a song
  • This is how they look back at themselves. Barristan looks at his face in a reflection in ADWD, and wonders when he got old. When did he stop being this guy, a character in a story, as ageless as song itself?
  • Story is all shadow puppets, but so is politics, and so is memory. We never get to the thing in itself; we just put it into a different context
  • Lyanna in the moment is the perfect Stark. She’s heroic–saving Howland, upholding her duty, because he’s her father’s man. She owes him that
  • She’s charismatic–so much so that she basically bullies Howland into joining them at the feast. She’s impossible to refuse
  • She’s martial, but also romantic, crying at Rhaegar’s sad song…until Benjen teases her, at which point she overturns her wine glass on him
  • She inspires Howland, gives him the hope that he can avenge himself on his tormentors. At this point, Jojen interrupts again to wonder why Bran hasn’t heard this story. Again, we’ll get to that in a minute!
  • But his interruption allows Bran to assume continuity. Howland was considering vengeance, and then the Knight of the Laughing Tree shows up. So of course, the little crannogman must be the knight!
  • I think this is a brilliant touch about Bran thinking that the crannogman must be the Knight of the Laughing Tree.
  • We love stories that twist the expected norm, we love our scrappy, little champions standing up to the big and strong.
  • And we love vengeance too. We love the good guys coming back Maximus style to have their vengeance in this life or the next.
  • That’s a tried and true method of interrogating traditional story tropes. But what George does is different.
  • We’ll talk more about the identity of the Knight at the end of the podcast, but George layers the event with further interrogation of the trope.
  • We’re being shown how the way a story is told and interpreted changes its meaning; it’s all signs and symbols, like the sigils used instead of names
  • I love that George describes Bran as “sagely” in this moment, a little kid pretending to be a wise old sage. The stories he knows have prepared him for this moment; he knows all about mystery knights
  • But he doesn’t necessarily know how to solve the mystery. His beloved stories have deceived him as they did about the nature of knights. The tropes are a lie; the first step toward wisdom is admitting ignorance
  • The mystery knight joins the joust, defeats those knights whose squires thrashed Howland, and the only ransom they ask is honor
  • It’s the essence of storybook heroism, all the abstract values of chivalry embodied. For a minute, the world worked like it was supposed to: the downtrodden lifted up, their tormentors brought to justice
  • Howland’s prayer to the old gods was answered, and so the Knight vanished like a spirit out of legend, their job done. A happy ending!
  • That’s how Bran takes it, anyway. It was a good story. Should’ve been more violent, though! And the mystery knight should’ve won the tourney and declared the wolf maid the queen of love and beauty
  • This is perfect: it clarifies Bran’s role as the in-universe young reader on the cusp of awareness. He knows what he likes, but not what it means
  • All he can think of is the terms of victory, the catharsis without any complication or any self-examination. It’s a power fantasy, that’s all
  • He’s casually bloodthirsty like many kids–like young Megga Tyrell, who wants a betrothed willing to kill a hundred men for her love
  • He also wants everything to be neat and complete. The Knight has to be the crannogman, and if so, he has to have a crush on the wolf maid–even though Bran doesn’t like the kissing books, he knows the structure of them
  • This is George making the case for a critical and thoughtful approach to stories; if you treat them as wish fulfillment, you’ll miss the whole point
  • Lyanna was the queen of love and beauty…but as Meera says, that’s a sadder story. The true story, shorn of all the dazzling fairytale imagery
  • That’s the sad song Rhaegar was singing, the one that made Lyanna cry. Just like how Bran shivered pleasurably at the thought of dead knights under the water, Lyanna enjoys the song despite it making her cry–because it makes her cry, because it makes her feel things
  • And he’s the one who named her the queen of love and beauty, he’s the one who stole her away, leaving her pregnant with Jon Snow
  • Meanwhile, the king who was hunting the Knight of the Laughing Tree next took out his anger on the “wild wolf” Brandon and his father Rickard
  • Then comes the war, and the murder of Rhaegar’s other children, and finally Lyanna’s death in childbirth. Promise me, Ned. Keep it secret.
  • That’s why Bran doesn’t know this story, while the Reeds know it by heart. With Howland as the protagonist, with a guileless lil brat as the audience, this is a feel-good story about finding friends and overcoming obstacles
  • But if you look at this as a story about the Starks, it’s the beginning of the end. Ned doesn’t tell it because it might give away the secret–and also because it’s too painful. Lyanna was beautiful, willful, dead before her time
  • Jaime has a different story about Harrenhal; we’ve already started hearing about it. Oberyn and Jon Connington would have their own ones to tell
  • I think you’re so right that it’s painful for Ned, because what Meera leaves out of the story, Ned picks up back in AGOT:
    • Ned remembered the moment when all the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar Targaryen urged his horse past his own wife, the Dornish princess Elia Martell, to lay the queen of beauty's laurel in Lyanna's lap. He could see it still: a crown of winter roses, blue as frost.
  • For Ned, the fever dream of Harrenhal started with youth, with love, with wine and warm wind in the air.
  • It ends with Rhaegar wrenching the world of youth away by doing what seems like an enormous act of chivalric love: placing the laurel’s crown on Lyanna’s lap.
  • Though Rhaegar was not the mystery knight (c’mon people), this connects to what Bran remembered earlier in the chapter about the history of mystery knights:
    • The Dragonknight once won a tourney as the Knight of Tears, so he could name his sister the queen of love and beauty in place of the king's mistress.
  • Aemon the Dragonknight prevented the King from naming Aegon IV’s mistress as queen of love and beauty, but Rhaegar won the tourney to crown a woman as his mistress.
  • Yes, that’s a one-sided interpretation of what occurred, and I think we’ll unpack that there’s more to the story of Rhaegar trying to find the KoTLT and him winning the tourney.
  • But it’s the reason why Ned found the story impossible to tell to his children. The Tourney of Harrenhal was the moment when he lost almost all of his family.
  • Stories change as you change. They’re chameleons that crack you open. Bran has just been told the keystone story of a generation, one that hints at why everything turned out the way it did, the secrets that define his family, but he doesn’t realize any of that, because of how it was told to him and because of how he approaches it as a reader
  • As the chapter ends, Bran projects himself into the story like he projected himself into Summer. I could visit the Isle of Faces. I could be a knight
  • It’s so bittersweet because he’s doing exactly what we tell kids to do with stories: let them in, think of them as part of you and you as part of them
  • Be inspired! Dream and live your dreams! But while Bran doesn’t know the truth, we do on reread: he has misread the story, including his own

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

Hodor shouts HODOR and then runs to the door when Meera returns -- another allusion to Hodor meaning “hold the door.”

Meera calls Bran “your grace”, foreshadowing his future role as probable endgame king of Westeros.

The clansmen return to the narrative in force come ADWD.

And they call Ned Stark “The Ned” just like they say “The Wull” for the leader of their clan.

Bran thinks about how he didn’t see the Walders’ corpses at Winterfell; Lothar Frey tells Robb and Catelyn he got a letter from the squires, and they show back up in ADWD.

Jojen says the three-eyed crow will find them–and so he does, via Coldhands.

Theory/Discussion

Who was the Knight of the Laughing Tree?

Conclusion

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  • Red Rahloo Himself who has renounced his allegiance to the Squishers
  • Lady of a Thousand Words
  • Septon Merrybald, the Shoeless Sage
  • Sister Winter - Lady of the Wolfswood
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  • Lord Sam K
  • Wisdom Benjicot, Alchemist of Sets and Quanta, Mage of the Arts of Boole and DeMorgan
  • Tibs the Great of House Catnapping
  • Lord J Manderly, Baker of the Frey Pies
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  • Lady Silverwing
  • Kaboth the Unfrozen, Lord of the Bricks and Castle Crimson Light
  • Ser Keith of House Corbray, wielder of Lady Forlorn
  • Lord Andrew - Warden of the Dubai Sands
  • Lord Young of the Ghost Woods
  • Ser Will of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune
  • Lord Clay
  • Septon T-Bone, the Low Septon
  • Refined Wrangler of Icy Arachnids
  • Lady Danielle of House Lannister
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  • Lady Joan, Lady-Ranger of the Frost Fangs
  • Cydnii of House Qo, Princess of the Friendly Black Hotties in the Summer Isles
  • Random: Fierce Protector of Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things
  • Sir Lady Jordan Defender of the God's Eye
  • Lord Peter (not Petyr), Drinker of Strongwine and Lord Commander of the Flat Planetos Society
  • Lady of Rainy Afternoons
  • Lady Ken of House Motown, Goddess of Sips and Wine.
  • Ser Andrew of H-Town
  • Archmaester Hugh of the Tower, whose rod and ring are of tinfoil
  • A-A-ron, Damphair, Prophet of the Forsaken and High Priest of Euron Crowseye
  • Ned M
• Join us next week for ASOS Davos III, in which I think we can all agree that Lord Alester Florent is no traitor!