Bran’s Plan to defeat the Night King: He sets an unlikely trap

Potential Spoilers Below

I believe that when Bran goes back to the past physically and becomes Bran the Builder and eventually makes his home as a three-eyed crow in the Winterfell weirwood tree he has a plan.  He knows that he won’t be able to put off his confrontation with the Night King for much longer, relatively speaking (i.e. a week or a month etc.), after he jumps back in time to begin with.  Bran has seen how his mentor was killed and knows his end will come in a similar fashion. 

So, what is his plan?  I think it has to do with Varamyr Sixskins.

“Varamyr woke suddenly, violently, his whole body shaking. “Get up,” a voice was screaming, “get up, we have to go. There are hundreds of them.” The snow had covered him with a stiff white blanket. So cold. When he tried to move, he found that his hand was frozen to the ground. He left some skin behind when he tore it loose.

“Get up,” she screamed again, “they’re coming.”

Thistle had returned to him. She had him by the shoulders and was shaking him, shouting in his face. Varamyr could smell her breath and feel the warmth of it upon cheeks gone numb with cold. Now, he thought, do it now, or die.

He summoned all the strength still in him, leapt out of his own skin, and forced himself inside her.”

“Thistle arched her back and screamed.

Abomination. Was that her, or him, or Haggon? He never knew. His old flesh fell back into the snowdrift as her fingers loosened. The spearwife twisted violently, shrieking. His shadowcat used to fight him wildly, and the snow bear had gone half-mad for a time, snapping at trees and rocks and empty air, but this was worse. “Get out, get out!” he heard her own mouth shouting. Her body staggered, fell, and rose again, her hands flailed, her legs jerked this way and that in some grotesque dance as his spirit and her own fought for the flesh. She sucked down a mouthful of the frigid air, and Varamyr had half a heartbeat to glory in the taste of it and the strength of this young body before her teeth snapped together and filled his mouth with blood. She raised her hands to his face. He tried to push them down again, but the hands would not obey, and she was clawing at his eyes. Abomination, he remembered, drowning in blood and pain and madness. When he tried to scream, she spat their tongue out.”

“The white world turned and fell away. For a moment it was as if he were inside the weirwood, gazing out through carved red eyes as a dying man twitched feebly on the ground and a madwoman danced blind and bloody underneath the moon, weeping red tears and ripping at her clothes. Then both were gone and he was rising, melting, his spirit borne on some cold wind. He was in the snow and in the clouds, he was a sparrow, a squirrel, an oak. A horned owl flew silently between his trees, hunting a hare; Varamyr was inside the owl, inside the hare, inside the trees. Deep below the frozen ground, earthworms burrowed blindly in the dark, and he was them as well. I am the wood, and everything that’s in it, he thought, exulting. A hundred ravens took to the air, cawing as they felt him pass. A great elk trumpeted, unsettling the children clinging to his back. A sleeping direwolf raised his head to snarl at empty air. Before their hearts could beat again he had passed on, searching for his own, for One Eye, Sly, and Stalker, for his pack. His wolves would save him, he told himself.

That was his last thought as a man.”

“True death came suddenly; he felt a shock of cold, as if he had been plunged into the icy waters of a frozen lake. Then he found himself rushing over moonlit snows with his packmates close behind him. Half the world was dark. One Eye, he knew. He bayed, and Sly and Stalker gave echo.

When they reached the crest the wolves paused. Thistle, he remembered, and a part of him grieved for what he had lost and another part for what he’d done. Below, the world had turned to ice. Fingers of frost crept slowly up the weirwood, reaching out for each other. The empty village was no longer empty. Blue-eyed shadows walked amongst the mounds of snow. Some wore brown and some wore black and some were naked, their flesh gone white as snow. A wind was sighing through the hills, heavy with their scents: dead flesh, dry blood, skins that stank of mold and rot and urine. Sly gave a growl and bared her teeth, her ruff bristling. Not men. Not prey. Not these.

The things below moved, but did not live. One by one, they raised their heads toward the three wolves on the hill. The last to look was the thing that had been Thistle. She wore wool and fur and leather, and over that she wore a coat of hoarfrost that crackled when she moved and glistened in the moonlight. Pale pink icicles hung from her fingertips, ten long knives of frozen blood. And in the pits where her eyes had been, a pale blue light was flickering, lending her coarse features an eerie beauty they had never known in life.

She sees me.”

Varamyr considered himself the strongest skinchanger there was but yet he failed to take the body of the woman Thistle.  So, what is Bran’s plan?  He plans to warg the Night King himself!  It has been shown how close to impossible it is to warg a person.  Bran however IMO is not an ordinary greenseer and warg!  I think on the downward swing of the Night King’s blade, after he is found in the Winterfell Crypts, Bran will reach out with his mind and do the IMPOSSIBLE.  Since I don’t think he can see into the future I think he put events in motion that will be his undoing.

The first event was him giving Arya the catspaw dagger.

The next piece of corroborating evidence IMO is his conversation with Sansa that described his abilities. 

Notice that he doesn’t say he can see the future.  He says he can see “Everything that’s ever happened to everyone.” Past tense.  He follows it up with “Everything that’s happening right now.”  Again, nothing about the future.  He then ends with “It’s all pieces now, fragments.  I need to learn to see better.”  I believe a truer statement was never uttered when it comes to his future.  I think when he emerges from the Crypts of Winterfell, in the skin of the Night King, Arya will see him and sneak up behind him and kills him with the very dagger he gave to her. Note the last picture.  I think at this point in the story he knows that he is the face of the Winterfell weirwood.

Comments encouraged.  Love to hear the idea’s of others.  Most believe that since I present my idea’s as “fact like” I’m not open to change my viewpoints which is far from the truth.  I simply look at the information presented and go from there.  If you can shine a light on another way of thinking that opens the door to debate.

Bran can only see the past; he can’t see the future

Potential Spoilers Below

I believe that Bran is mostly responsible for most of the prophecies within the books.  I also believe that it is impossible for him to see the future.  This I believe is corroborated by what is said in the books.  A greenseer can see anything that has passed as easy as skipping to your favorite movie/TV scene on a DVD.  Think of it this way; you go back in time today a thousand years and have a computer with accurate information of the past.  A significant event is about to occur and you tell someone of those events but they don’t quite believe you.  Once the event has passed, they recall what you have said and dub you a prophet.  This to me is what Bran does.  He has total recall of all the events that came before but nothing of tomorrow.  Simply put he doesn’t know what happens tomorrow because it hasn’t happened yet.  I believe that there is one exception to a greenseer’s ability to see all and I will cover that later.

“Bran’s throat was very dry. He swallowed. “Winterfell. I was back in Winterfell. I saw my father. He’s not dead, he’s not, I saw him, he’s back at Winterfell, he’s still alive.”

“No,” said Leaf. “He is gone, boy. Do not seek to call him back from death.”

“I saw him.” Bran could feel rough wood pressing against one cheek. “He was cleaning Ice.”

“You saw what you wished to see. Your heart yearns for your father and your home, so that is what you saw.”

“A man must know how to look before he can hope to see,” said Lord Brynden. “Those were shadows of days past that you saw, Bran. You were looking through the eyes of the heart tree in your godswood. Time is different for a tree than for a man. Sun and soil and water, these are the things a weirwood understands, not days and years and centuries. For men, time is a river. We are trapped in its flow, hurtling from past to present, always in the same direction. The lives of trees are different. They root and grow and die in one place, and that river does not move them. The oak is the acorn, the acorn is the oak. And the weirwood … a thousand human years are a moment to a weirwood, and through such gates you and I may gaze into the past.”

“But,” said Bran, “he heard me.”

“He heard a whisper on the wind, a rustling amongst the leaves. You cannot speak to him, try as you might. I know. I have my own ghosts, Bran. A brother that I loved, a brother that I hated, a woman I desired. Through the trees, I see them still, but no word of mine has ever reached them. The past remains the past. We can learn from it, but we cannot change it.”

“Will I see my father again?”

“Once you have mastered your gifts, you may look where you will and see what the trees have seen, be it yesterday or last year or a thousand ages past. Men live their lives trapped in an eternal present, between the mists of memory and the sea of shadow that is all we know of the days to come. Certain moths live their whole lives in a day, yet to them that little span of time must seem as long as years and decades do to us. An oak may live three hundred years, a redwood tree three thousand. A weirwood will live forever if left undisturbed. To them seasons pass in the flutter of a moth’s wing, and past, present, and future are one. Nor will your sight be limited to your godswood. The singers carved eyes into their heart trees to awaken them, and those are the first eyes a new greenseer learns to use … but in time you will see well beyond the trees themselves.”

“When?” Bran wanted to know.

“In a year, or three, or ten. That I have not glimpsed. It will come in time, I promise you. But I am tired now, and the trees are calling me. We will resume on the morrow.”

My theory suggests that Bran physically went back in time at some point that we haven’t reached yet most likely to escape the Night King in the TV show.  HBO lends credibility to this by the season 1 DVD where they released a picture of Bran the Builder being carried around, as if he couldn’t walk, while directing others in the building of the Wall.  This to me is shown in the books in the following excerpt.

Bran the Builder directing the building of the Wall.  Notice that he is being carried around as if he can't walk.

“The songs said that Storm’s End had been raised in ancient days by Durran, the first Storm King, who had won the love of the fair Elenei, daughter of the sea god and the goddess of the wind. On the night of their wedding, Elenei had yielded her maidenhood to a mortal’s love and thus doomed herself to a mortal’s death, and her grieving parents had unleashed their wrath and sent the winds and waters to batter down Durran’s hold. His friends and brothers and wedding guests were crushed beneath collapsing walls or blown out to sea, but Elenei sheltered Durran within her arms so he took no harm, and when the dawn came at last he declared war upon the gods and vowed to rebuild.

“Five more castles he built, each larger and stronger than the last, only to see them smashed asunder when the gale winds came howling up Shipbreaker Bay, driving great walls of water before them. His lords pleaded with him to build inland; his priests told him he must placate the gods by giving Elenei back to the sea; even his smallfolk begged him to relent. Durran would have none of it. A seventh castle he raised, most massive of all. Some said the children of the forest helped him build it, shaping the stones with magic; others claimed that a small boy told him what he must do, a boy who would grow to be Bran the Builder. No matter how the tale was told, the end was the same. Though the angry gods threw storm after storm against it, the seventh castle stood defiant, and Durran Godsgrief and fair Elenei dwelt there together until the end of their days.”

When Bran goes back in time, he has the knowledge or can access the events of everything that has ever occurred from the day, hour, minute and second that he went back.  Lord Brynden, aka Bloodraven, and the 3-eyed crow from the TV show tells Bran that he can’t interact with anyone in the past but Bran seems to be the exception to this rule for whatever reason.  The look on the 3-eyed crow when he realizes this in the TV show lets us know that this is the case.  What would happen if Bran, the exception to this rule, started using glass candles in conjunction with his talent?  Or does he have the ability to do on his own what others do with glass candles?  Would he be able to do what Archmaester Marwyn suggests to Sam?

“What feeds a dragon’s fire?” Marwyn seated himself upon a stool. “All Valyrian sorcery was rooted in blood or fire. The sorcerers of the Freehold could see across mountains, seas, and deserts with one of these glass candles. They could enter a man’s dreams and give him visions, and speak to one another half a world apart, seated before their candles. Do you think that might be useful, Slayer?”

“We would have no more need of ravens.”

He knew that you were coming.”

“How?”

Alleras nodded at the glass candle.

Did Bran do this with Daenys Targaryen and inspire her to write the books Signs and Portents.  Was this Bran putting his pieces in place in order to fight the darkness he saw coming?  Is this the reason why the Targaryen’s were spared the Doom?  Without them there would be no Jon Snow, no Azor Ahai who I believe to be one in the same.  Click here for that.

Daenys Targaryen, also called "Daenys the Dreamer", was the daughter of Lord Aenar Targaryen of Dragonstone. Daenys is reputed to have had a gift of prophecy; She wrote the book Signs and Portents in which she detailed her visions.  Aenar and his family survived the Doom of Valyria because they sold all of their holdings and belongings twelve years before the Doom and left Valyria, moving instead to the island of Dragonstone where they claimed the castle by the same name. It is believed by scholars that Aenar's decision to relocate his family was based on one of Daenys's visions, in which she predicted the Doom. 

“Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him. And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks.

Now you know, the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder. Now you know why you must live.

“Why?” Bran said, not understanding, falling, falling.

Because winter is coming.”

Is what Bran saw the White Walkers planning to cross back into the realms of men?

Do the stories that are told that are believed to be from events in the past actually just happen in the present, relatively speaking?  Take the stories of Lann the Clever and the Rat Cook; we saw them play out with Tyrion and Arya.  Click here to get my meaning.  This leads me to the most popular of those stories Azor Ahai.  Did that story play out entirely from events of the past or are they a combination of both the past and the present?  Below is the story that Old Nan tells the children but in the books the story is never fully completed.  Why is that?  I think it hasn’t because it hasn’t yet occurred; the ending at least.

Oh my sweet summer child … What do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north, when the sun hides it face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods.

The Others … Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks.

In that darkness, the Others came for the first time … They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins. They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding pale dead horses, and leading hosts of the slain. All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes, found no pity in them. They hunted the maids through the frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children.

Now these were the days before the Andals came, and long before the women fled across the narrow sea from the cities of the Rhoyne, and the hundred kingdoms of those times were the kingdoms of the First Men, who had taken those lands from the children of the forest. Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods, the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch. So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost. He set out into the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions. For years he searched until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities. One by one his friends died, and his horse, and finally even his dog, and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it. And the Others smelled the hot blood in him and came silent on his trail, stalking him with packs of pale white spiders big as hounds

We know that Jon Snow goes ranging with Lord Commander Mormont and the White Walkers attack and they kill almost all their horses.  Could not Jon’s horse have been one of the ones that was killed?

“I am not your lord,” said Mance. “And the what is plain enough. Your brothers died. The question is, how many?”

Jon’s face was throbbing, the snow kept coming down, and it was hard to think. You must not balk, whatever is asked of you, Qhorin had told him. The words stuck in his throat, but he made himself say, “There were three hundred of us.”

“Us?” Mance said sharply.

“Them. Three hundred of them.” Whatever is asked, the Halfhand said. So why do I feel so craven? “Two hundred from Castle Black, and one hundred from the Shadow Tower.”

“There’s a truer song than the one you sang in my tent.” Mance looked to Harma Dogshead. “How many horses have we found?”

“More’n a hundred,” that huge woman replied, “less than two. There’s more dead to the east, under the snow, hard t’ know how many.” Behind her stood her banner bearer, holding a pole with a dog’s head on it, fresh enough to still be leaking blood.

“You should never have lied to me, Jon Snow,” said Mance.

“I . . . I know that.” What could he say?”

We also know that in the TV show that Jon faces a White Walker at Hardhome with a regular sword and the blade snaps and shatters.  He may face one somewhere else in the books and something similar may happen.

We also see Jon Snow setout to capture a wight with a dozen companions, in the TV show, and one by they died.  Not all but some.  The story doesn’t say all.

 

Sad to say that doesn’t bode well for Ghost because it says his dog dies also.  Could not Bran have just thrown in the parts about Azor Ahai looking for the Children of the Forest to show what he did to glamorize the story more?  After Jon Snow eventually killed the first White Walker didn’t they get a sense that this man could be a threat to them?  Are they now also stalking him?  Personally, I believe Jon and Bran’s story to be intermingled in the telling of Azor Ahai and I believe that the Night King is stalking Bran; which is the reason he has to hide and eventually goes back in time. 

So, what is it a greeseer can’t see?  I believe that answer to that is each other if they choose not to be known.  I believe this to be true because Bloodraven, who was supposed to be the last greenseer, didn’t seem to know that there were other greenseers living in the same underground cavern that he sat.  The Night King who I also believe to have greenseer abilities didn’t know where the 3-eyed crow sat until an unexperienced Bran gave up his location. 

“Bran ate with Summer and his pack, as a wolf. As a raven he flew with the murder, circling the hill at sunset, watching for foes, feeling the icy touch of the air. As Hodor he explored the caves. He found chambers full of bones, shafts that plunged deep into the earth, a place where the skeletons of gigantic bats hung upside down from the ceiling. He even crossed the slender stone bridge that arched over the abyss and discovered more passages and chambers on the far side. One was full of singers, enthroned like Brynden in nests of weirwood roots that wove under and through and around their bodies. Most of them looked dead to him, but as he crossed in front of them their eyes would open and follow the light of his torch, and one of them opened and closed a wrinkled mouth as if he were trying to speak. “Hodor,” Bran said to him, and he felt the real Hodor stir down in his pit.”

Comments encouraged.  Love to hear the idea’s of others.  Most believe that since I present my idea’s as “fact like” I’m not open to change my viewpoints which is far from the truth.  I simply look at the information presented and go from there.  If you can shine a light on another way of thinking that opens the door to debate.

How can Jon Snow wield the sword Dawn and become the Sword of the Morning?

Potential Spoilers Below

ASOIAF: How Jon Snow proves he is the Sword of the Morning

I have searched for a satisfactory answer as to how I believe Jon Snow can wield the sword Dawn, which I believe to be Lightbringer, and become the next “Sword of the Morning” for the longest time now and finally I believe I have done it based upon what came before in the pages of the Wheel of Time.  A lot of people have come around to my theory of how Bran is actually Bran the Builder and a lot/most of the famous Bran’s throughout Westerosi history.  If you don’t know that theory click here to see it.  So, what do we know of the Dayne family and their family sword Dawn?

Jon Snow

Dawn from the TV show

Bran

Bran the Builder as depicted by the DVD from the 1st Season.  Notice that he is being carried around directing the building the Wall.

“The Daynes of Starfall are one of the most ancient houses in the Seven Kingdoms, though their fame largely rests on their ancestral sword, called Dawn, and the men who wielded it. Its origins are lost to legend, but it seems likely that the Daynes have carried it for thousands of years.  Those who have had the honor of examining it say it looks like no Valyrian steel they know, being pale as milkglass but in all other respects it seems to share the properties of Valyrian blades, being incredibly strong and sharp.

Though many houses have their heirloom swords, they mostly pass the blades down from lord to lord. Some, such as the Corbrays have done, may lend the blade to a son or brother for his lifetime, only to have it return to the lord. But that is not the way of House Dayne. The wielder of Dawn is always given the title of Sword of the Morning, and only a knight of House Dayne who is deemed worthy can carry it.”

“For this reason, the Swords of the Morning are all famous throughout the Seven Kingdoms. There are boys who secretly dream of being a son of Starfall so they might claim that storied sword and its title. Most famous of all was Ser Arthur Dayne, the deadliest of King Aerys II’s Kingsguard, who defeated the Kingswood Brotherhood and won renown in every tourney and mêlée. He died nobly with his sworn brothers at the end of Robert’s Rebellion, after Lord Eddard Stark was said to have killed him in single combat. Lord Stark then returned Dawn to Starfall, and to Ser Arthur’s kin, as a sign of respect.”

Ser Arthur Dayne

King Aerys II - The Mad King

The TV show depicting Howland Reed stabbing Ser Arthur Dayne in the back as he was about to kill Ned Stark.

What GRRM has said of the Dawn:

The same guy asked about the Daynes and the Sword of the Morning, asking how that title is decided. George said the Sword of the Morning is always a member of House Dayne, someone who is deemed worthy of wielding Dawn as decided within the House, that whoever it is would have to earn the right to wield it.

Question: What happened to Ser Arthur Dayne's sword Dawn after Ned brought it back to Ashara?

Answer: Dawn remains at Starfall, until another Sword of the Morning shall arise.

So, the question is if I think Bran was Bran the Builder what happened?  I believe that Bran exists twice within the current story.  I believe he is the Bran that we know that we have seen become the 3-eyed crow but I also believe that he exists right in front of us and we just didn’t know it.  Remember what we learned from the TV show that the weirwood tree in which a singer resides takes on the face of said greenseer.  Well the face of the weirwood tree at Winterfell looks ancient.  I believe that Bran sits within that tree right now carrying out his role as the 3-eyed crow.  Click here to see that theory.

The 3-eyed crow who taught Bran.  Notice that his face looks like the face of the weirwood tree in which he sits.

Winterfell and its weirwood tree

Bran staring at himself?

So now lets go back and take a look at Jon Snow’s father:

“As a young boy, the Prince of Dragonstone was bookish to a fault. He was reading so early that men said Queen Rhaella must have swallowed some books and a candle whilst he was in her womb. Rhaegar took no interest in the play of other children. The maesters were awed by his wits, but his father’s knights would jest sourly that Baelor the Blessed had been born again. Until one day Prince Rhaegar found something in his scrolls that changed him.  No one knows what it might have been, only that the boy suddenly appeared early one morning in the yard as the knights were donning their steel. He walked up to Ser Willem Darry, the master-at-arms, and said, ‘I will require sword and armor. It seems I must be a warrior.’

Dragonstone

Queen Rhaella

Rhaegar

So, what did he read and where did the scrolls come from?  I believe what he read came from “Signs and Portents”

I believe that the scrolls that he read that day told him of events to come concerning himself, Lyanna Stark, Ser Arthur Dayne, Jon Snow and the events that could save their world.  At the end of the War of the Usurper, at the Tower of Joy, Lyanna Stark died and I used to believe that she gave birth to Jon Snow who I believe was the reincarnated soul of Ser Arthur Dayne who was known as the Sword of the Morning; whom I believe died shortly before Jon Snow was born.  I now believe that Jon did the same thing that Bran did and goes back in time physically and becomes the original Azor Ahai.  He does this after everything in our story plays out.  After he is offered the Iron Throne which he declines because he has to fulfill the destiny that he has always fulfilled and founds the Dayne family line.  This is what I believe in part that which Rhaegar Targaryen passed onto his best friend Ser Arthur Dayne.  Something along the lines that sword is never to be taken up again, after his death, until one who comes along who can answer a question that has been passed down through the Dayne family lords since their beginnings.  Only then will another Sword of the Morning be named again.  This isn’t the only family that I believe carries a secret that has been passed down from its beginning.  I believe that the Starks had a secret that was passed down, from father to son, but an event that occurred with Ned’s father and brother happened and that secret has been lost.  To see that theory click here.

Lyanna Stark

The Tower of Joy

The Iron Throne

So how would Jon Snow know the answer to said question and answer?  He doesn’t; not until he does what he has to do first.  Jon Snow has had a recurring dream but it always ends and he never finishes it.  What is the dream?

“Do you ever find anyone in your dream?” Sam asked.

Sam

Jon shook his head. “No one. The castle is always empty.” He had never told anyone of the dream, and he did not understand why he was telling Sam now, yet somehow it felt good to talk of it. “Even the ravens are gone from the rookery, and the stables are full of bones. That always scares me. I start to run then, throwing open doors, climbing the tower three steps at a time, screaming for someone, for anyone. And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It’s black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don’t want to. I’m afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it’s not them I’m afraid of. I scream that I’m not a Stark, that this isn’t my place, but it’s no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream.” He stopped, frowning, embarrassed. “That’s when I always wake.” His skin cold and clammy, shivering in the darkness of his cell. Ghost would leap up beside him, his warmth as comforting as daybreak. He would go back to sleep with his face pressed into the direwolf’s shaggy white fur. “Do you dream of Horn Hill?” Jon asked.

The Winterfell Crypts

Ghost

Horn Hill

The answer to who lies within the Crypts of Winterfell.  You all know who I believe is there; Bran.  So, Bran being the 3-eyed crow will know the question and the answer that has been passed down the Dayne Family line since its beginning through his greensight abilities.  The new teaser trailer for Season 8 lets us all know that everything about that trailer is about Jon Snow and who he really is.  As Jon, Sansa and Arya make their way through the Crypts of Winterfell we hear the following: Lyanna’s statue whipsers “You have to protect him.” her words to her brother Ned, Catelyn’s statue whispers “All this horror that has come to my family.  It’s all because I couldn’t love a motherless child.” and Ned’s statue whispers “You are a Stark.  You may not have my name but you have my blood.”  All the whispers are referring to Jon Snow.  I believe that Jon will make his journey into the Crypts alone after speaking with the Bran we know and when he gets to the weirwood tree, the catacombs that make up the crypts, he will find Bran, an old frail man, sitting there.  It will be this Bran who will let him in on this secret.  Jon Snow will eventually make his way to Starfall, most likely riding on a dragon, and claim the sword Dawn which will in his hands become Lightbringer as it did so many thousands of years ago.

Arya, Sansa and Jon

Catelyn

Drogon

How do I come to this theory?  I didn’t really because that is kind of what happened in The Wheel of Time to the character Rand al’Thor who became the Dragon Reborn.  He was the reincarnated Lews Therin Telamon who was the original Dragon.  Time travel is funny and the same way Hodor was Hodor before Bran was born who made him the way he was; I believe the same thing to be true concerning Bran the Builder and Azor Ahai.  So, with that being said everything that GRRM said about Dawn holds true.  Only a member of House Dayne who is deemed worthy as decided within the House and the sword remaining at Starfall.  Without Jon Snow their House would cease to be by not giving him the sword.  Below is the story of what Rand al’Thor did to prove he was the Dragon Reborn; what I believe Jon Snow has to do in order to claim the sword Dawn and become once again the Sword of the Morning as he always was.

Lews Therin Telamon
aka The Lord of the Morning

Hodor

The Wheel of Time: How Rand proved he was the Dragon Reborn

“Rand al’Thor,” Paitar said. “I have a question for you. How you answer will determine the outcome of this day.”

“What kind of question?” Cadsuane demanded.

Cadsuane

“Cadsuane, please,” Rand said, holding up his hand. “Lord Paitar, I see it in your eyes. You know that I am the Dragon Reborn. Is this question necessary?”

“It is vital, Lord al’Thor,” Paitar replied. “It drove us here, though my allies did not know it from the start. I have always believed you to be the Dragon Reborn. That made my quest here even more vital.”

Min frowned. The aging soldier reached down to his sword hilt, as if ready to draw. The Maidens grew more alert. With a start, Min realized Paitar was still standing close to Rand. Too close.”

Maidens of the Spear

“He could have that sword out and swinging for Rand’s neck in an eyeblink, she realized. Paitar placed himself there to be ready to strike.”

“Rand didn't break his gaze from the monarch. "Ask your question."

"How did Tellindal Tirraso die?"

"Who?" Min asked, looking at Cadsuane. The Aes Sedai shook her head, confused.

"How do you know that name?" Rand demanded.

"Answer the question," Easar said, hand on his hilt, body tense. Around them, ranks of men prepared themselves. 

“She was a clerk," Rand said. "During the Age of Legends. Demandred, when he came for me after founding the Eighty and One . . . She fell in the fighting, lightning from the sky . . . Her blood on my hands . . . How do you know that name!"

Demandred

Ethenielle looked to Easar, then to Tenobia, then finally to Paitar. He nodded, then closed his eyes, letting out a sigh that sounded relieved. He took his hand from his sword.

"Rand al'Thor," Ethenielle said, "Dragon Reborn. Would you kindly sit down and speak with us? We will answer your questions."

Why have I never heard of this so-called prophecy?" Cadsuane asked.

"Its nature required secrecy," King Paitar said. They all sat on cushions in a large tent in the middle of the Borderlander army. It made Cadsuane' shoulders itch, being surrounded like this, but the fool boy—he would al-ways be a fool boy, no matter how old he was—looked perfectly at peace

Thirteen Aes Sedai waited outside the tent, which wasn't large enough for them all. Thirteen. That hadn't made al'Thor blink. What man who could channel would sit amid thirteen Aes Sedai and not sweat?

He's changed, Cadsuane told herself. You're just going to have to accept that Not that he didn't need her anymore. Men like him grew overly confident A few little successes, and he'd trip over his own feet and land in some predicament.

But. . . well, she was proud of him. Grudgingly proud. A little.

"It was given by an Aes Sedai of my own family line," Paitar continued. The square-faced man sipped a small cup of tea. "My ancestor, Reo Myershi, was the only one who heard it. He ordered the words preserved, passed from monarch to monarch, for this day."

"Speak them to me," Rand said. "Please."

"I see him before you!" Paitar quoted. "Him, the one who lives many lives, the one who gives deaths, the one who raises mountains. He will break what he must break, but first “he stands here, before our king. You will bloody him! Measure his restraint. He speaks! How was the fallen slain? Tellindal Tirraso, murdered by his hand, the darkness that came the day after the light. You must ask, and you must know your fate. If he cannot answer . . ."

He trailed off, falling silent.

"What?" Min asked.

"If he cannot answer," Paitar said, "then you will be lost. You will bring his end swiftly, so that the final days may have their storm. So that Light may not be consumed by he who was to have preserved it. I see him. And I weep."

"You came to murder him, then," Cadsuane said.  “To test him," Tenobia said. "Or so we decided, once Paitar told us of the prophecy."

"You don't know how close you came to doom," Rand said softly. "If I had come to you but a short time earlier, I'd have returned those slaps with balefire."

"Inside the Guardian?" Tenobia sniffed disdainfully.

"The Guardian blocks the One Power," Rand whispered. "The One Power only."

What does he mean by that? Cadsuane thought, frowning.

"We knew well the risk," Ethenielle said proudly.  I demanded the right to slap you first. Our armies had orders to attack if we fell. 

“My family has analyzed the words of the prophecy a hundred times over," Paitar said. "The meaning seemed clear. It was our task to test the Dragon Reborn. To see if he could be trusted to go to the Last Battle."

"Only a month earlier," Rand said. "I wouldn't have had the memories to answer you. This was a foolish gambit. If you had killed me, then all would have been lost."

"A gamble," Paitar said evenly. "Perhaps another would have risen in your stead."

"No," Rand said. "This prophecy was like the others. A declaration of what might happen, not advice.”

Comments encouraged.  Love to hear the idea’s of others.  Most believe that since I present my idea’s as “fact like” I’m not open to change my viewpoints which is far from the truth.  I simply look at the information presented and go from there.  If you can shine a light on another way of thinking that opens the door to debate.