The Glass Candles are burning. What does it mean?

Potential Spoilers Below

The Wheel of Time:

"Life is a dream from which we all must wake before we can dream again"

   —Amys

Tel'aran'rhiod (tel-AYE-rahn-rhee-ODD; Old Tongue: The Unseen World), also known as the World of Dreams and the Wolf Dream, is a parallel world where all the possibilities of the Wheel of Time connect, and it is linked to all the myriad such worlds that exist within the Wheel. It is both of those worlds and apart from them, and is occasionally entered for a few seconds at a time by ordinary people dreaming, although there is great risk to those who do so as imagination becomes reality in the Unseen World and what happens there happens in the normal world as well. There are people

called Dreamwalkers who have the ability to enter Tel'aran'rhiod at will, and they are able to exert varying degrees of mastery over its strange and malleable nature.

Tel'aran'rhiod

Perrin within the Wolf Dream

The Aiel Wise Ones are known to use Dreamwalking as a method of communication between the clans. Known Aiel Dreamwalkers include Amys, Bair,Melaine and Seana.  Wise Ones are the matriarchal leaders of the Aiel.

Amys - Bair - Melaine

Seana

The Game of Thrones:

A woman stood under the persimmon tree, clad in a hooded robe that brushed the grass. Beneath the hood, her face seemed hard and shiny. She is wearing a mask, Dany knew, a wooden mask finished in dark red lacquer. “Quaithe? Am I dreaming?” She pinched her ear and winced at the pain. “I dreamt of you on Balerion, when first we came to Astapor.”

“You did not dream. Then or now.”

“What are you doing here? How did you get past my guards?”

“I came another way. Your guards never saw me.”

“If I call out, they will kill you.”

“They will swear to you that I am not here.”

“Are you here?”

“No. Hear me, Daenerys Targaryen. The glass candles are burning.  Soon comes the pale mare, and after her the others. Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun’s son and the mummer’s dragon. Trust none of them. Remember the Undying. Beware the perfumed seneschal.”

Note:  So the difference is this isn’t a dream.  Whether a form of magic or forgotten technology glass candles are a forms of communication unknown to most or lost to time except by a chosen few as revealed thus far.  Quaithe seems to use the glass candles the way the Wise Ones use dreamwalking;a form of long distance communications to relay important information.

Dany

Quaithe

The Wheel of Time:

Since training ter'angreal for the World of Dreams exist, it is likely that they were used or studied in some way in the Age of Legends. Seeing as most of the Forsaken can enter Tel'aran'rhiod it can be assumed that it was more or less common during the Age of Legends. The last known dreamer in the White Tower was named Corianin Nedeal; she died many years ago. Egwene al'Vere is the only natural "dreamer", called dreamwalkers, out of the Aes Sedai. Aiel Wise Ones also make use of Tel'aran'rhiod frequently, and the gift of Dreaming, or Dreamwalking, seems to be more common among them. Many of the Forsaken, including Lanfear and Moghedien have been known to use Tel'aran'rhiod for meetings, spying, and for traveling.

The Forsaken

Lanfear

Moghedien

A lesser form of traveling called Skimming

The Game of Thrones:

“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.”

In the WOT instead of ravens Aes Sedai of the White Tower and their associates used pigeons to relay messages back and forth prior to rediscovering the World of Dreams and being able to communicate instantaneously through it.

He knew that you were coming.”

“How?”

Alleras nodded at the glass candle.

Note: Maester Marwyn IMO knows how to utilize theglass candles; he is simply leading Sam down a road he needs to take because he also tells him the following:

“You . . . you should stay and forge your chain. If I were you, I would do it quickly. A time will come when you’ll be needed on the Wall.”

Is Sam going to be needed because of the Horn of Joramun after he discovers its true use?  Those who have read TWOT should also remember that the Horn of Valere was taken to the White Tower the same place that kept had the secret library known as the “thirteenth depositary” where only a select few had access to the secret histories that were unknown to the masses.  Again I believe that the Citadel is keeping secrets for their own reasons also as was the White Tower.

Sam

Horn of Joramun

Horn of Valere

Maester Marwyn knew Sam was coming and Alleras seems to believe it has to do with him seeing it in the glass candle.  The Forsaken used Tel’aran’rhiod to travel across great distances instantly.  Will they also discover something like this in the Game of Thrones?

A question that comes to mind is have there been individuals at the Citadel who have been studying and withholding information on the glass candles in the same fashion as Corianin Nedeal did in the White Tower?

The Wheel of Time:

Anyone can enter the World of Dreams while sleeping, and those who brush up against it in their sleep often do not know what they are doing. These people usually do not stay for more than a few seconds. Many people awake with pains and bruises that they cannot explain, caused by taking small injuries in Tel'aran'rhiod. Dreamwalkers can enter the world at will while sleeping, as well as those who hold certain ter'angreal. Some dream ter'angreal do not even require channeling to activate them, and thus Tel'aran'rhiod can also be accessed by those who do not channel. Another way to access the World of Dreams is to create a gateway into it from the waking world. Aiel Wise Ones, however, have warned against this several times, stating that anyone who does this loses a piece of their humanity. On rare occasions, very powerful channelers such as Rand al'Thor have unknowingly entered the World of Dreams while sleeping and have stayed there for a time. It is unclear if this is caused by the channeler, or if an outside force has actually pulled them into the Unseen World somehow. One final way to enter Tel'aran'rhiod is only accessible toWolfbrothers; these individual can enter through what is known as the Wolf Dream.

Rand al'Thor

Elyas and Perrin; Wolfbrothers

The Game of Throne

The Wolf Dream screams of Brandon Stark.  He is just like Perrin in that he can speak to wolves in a similar fashion that Bran speaks with his direwolf.  Though we know Bran will grow to be able to warg almost any animal and any person if he is as strong as I believe he is.  Bran is currently mastering his gift of becoming a greenseer.

Bran dreams of the three-eyed crow

Perrin

A greenseer is the name for the wise men of the children of the forest who had magical abilities that included power over nature and prophetic visions.

Bran being mentored by the three-eyed crow

A child of the forest

Greenseers had the greensight and were wargs as well.  The First Men believed that they were responsible for carving the faces into weirwood treesand stories describe the greenseers seeing through the faces of their weirwoods, influencing animal and plant life.  One in a thousand men is born a skinchanger and one skinchanger in a thousand is born a greenseer.  It is also known that humans can be born greenseers just as they are born wargs.

Weirwood Tree

The relationship between the greenseers of the children of the forest and the order of green men who protect the Isle ofFaces in the God's Eye has not been specified. There is one greenseer left in the world - thethree-eyed crow.

Note:  Anyone who has read TWOT knows that Perrin can do the same things as Bran.  They also know how rare it is to be a Wolfbrother just like being a greenseer who is a warg.

The Wheel of Time:

The first thing to remember in the World of Dreams is that what happens is real, so if a person dies in the dream, that person also dies in the real world. Some people who go to sleep perfectly healthy will die; this happens when they die in Tel'aran'rhiod, and this can happen to anyone who accidentally touches the world unaware (or even those who know what they are doing). Along the same lines, people who are wounded there will awaken with the wounds.

The world is malleable; one can project thoughts to make creatures and buildings. Larger things that are made in this fashion are more difficult to maintain and control than smaller ones. A person with stray thoughts in the World of Dreams may have difficulty maintaining their personal appearance, which often causes their clothing to flicker and change. The key to mastering the World is to always remember it is a dream; if a person accepts something happening as reality that person may become trapped in the dream. Conversely, to keep her personal appearance solid and unchanging, a Dreamwalker must focus and think of herself as real. Individuals who are talented at manipulating the World of Dreams can also imagine themselves as being somewhere else, and they will instantly appear in that location.Additionally, such individuals can also affect constructs made by other individuals; someone with greater control of the World of Dreams could imagine something out of existence while a person with less control is actively attempting to prevent it. One can also affect one's own body while in the World of Dreams, to the extent of healing wounds if they are supremely skilled.

The Game of Thrones:

Does Dany’s journey through the House of the Undying point to the fact that the glass candlesburning helped to create the visions that she saw akin to the world of dreams?

Because we don’t know a lot about the glass candlesat this point and we don’t know the effect of injuries while using them.  Right now I am leaning in the direction that Thoros of Myr having an instinctive ability, whether the fact that the candles are burning I can’t say, to bring individuals back from the brink of death as being related to those in Tel’aran’rhiodbeing able to heal their own wounds.  His ability can also be likened to Healing in TWOT.

One Aes Sedai healing another

Shadowbinders IMO are using a form of sorcery that is similar to Tel’aran’rhiod only it takes place in the real world and not in the dream.  Take Melisandrebirthing shadow assassins and killing Renly Baratheon and Ser Cortnay Penrose as prime examples.  In TWOT this truth was known to be true in dreams.  Whether it takes place in dreams or the real world the concepts are the same as is the end result of their uses.

Melisandre, shadowbinder of Asshai

The Wheel of Time:

Within Tel'aran'rhiod light appears to be ambient, with no obvious source. One often experiences a constant feeling of unseen eyes watching from every direction while within it. Time is also difficult to measure within the World of Dreams and appears to pass at a completely different rate. A person may be asleep for only an hour in the waking world, but they may experience several hours in Tel'aran'rhiod. Or, a person may only spend fifteen minutes in Tel'aran'rhiod and wake up to find that they had been sleeping for several hours. While time is different between the World of Dreams and the waking world, it does not run backwards. A person who sleeps for fifteen minutes can not go back in time in the World of Dreams, just as a person who spends several hours in Tel'aran'rhiod cannot wake up earlier than the original time that they went to sleep. Wolfbrother's seem to have the greatest amount of control over the World of Dreams than all others, for they have both the intrinsic connection to it that the wolves do, but supplemented with human intelligence regarding how and what they wish to do. Perrin Aybara, for instance, mastered the World of Dreams so completely that he can enter and exit it in the flesh simply by willing it so, and manipulate virtually anything within it. The only other individual who has shown this sort of mastery of Tel'aran'rhiod is the dual-souled man known as Slayer. While not a wolfbrother, his master of the Dream World is surpassed only by Perrin due to his own wolfbrother nature.

A person who visits the Unseen World while sleeping does not get the same rest as someone who sleeps and dreams normally throughout the night.

The Game of Thrones:

Time behaving differently is the biggest clue that both glass candles and Tel'aran'rhiod act in similar fashions. 

Within the rooms that Dany encountered some of those within the room actually looked at her and she got the feeling that they saw her.  They weren’t unseen eyes but the point is made.

Farther on she came upon a feast of corpses… In a throne above them sat a dead man with the head of a wolf. He wore an iron crown and held a leg of lamb in one hand as a king might hold a scepter, and his eyes followed Dany with mute appeal.

“He has a song,” the man replied. “He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire.” He looked up when he said it and his eyes met Dany’s, and it seemed as if he saw her standing there beyond the door.

Within the House of the Undying everyone in the visions that she saw had their eyes upon her for the most part as she was the center of attention.

Time also wasn’t constant within the House of the Undying:

It seemed as though she walked for another hourbefore the long hall finally ended in a steep stone stair, descending into darkness.

Every door, open or closed, had been to her left. Dany looked back behind her. The torches were going out, she realized with a start of fear.

“So soon?” she said, confused. “I’ve walked for hours, and still not found them.”

“You have taken a wrong turning. Come, I will lead you.” Pyat Pree held out his hand.

Since there is a “glass candle” in Qarth and buring in the house of Urrathon Night-Walker I don’t know if this is what is causing the visions that Dany was seeing or is it something that in natural within her.  The Undying of Qarth wanting to keep her there with them would make me think that it has a lot to do with her.

A Question that I have and I am still trying to work out to finish my theory is who will be Bran’s rival as a greenseer?  In TWOT Perrin is the Bran character and the Wolf Dream is more powerful or his ability within it was more powerful than the strongest dreamer and could easily with the power of his thoughts thwart what others tried to do to him because of the teachings of Hopper.  Perrin had Slayer as a rival who will be there to stand against Bran?

Hopper

The Wheel of Time:

Heroes bound to the Wheel of Time who have not yet been spun back into the world of life, wait for their rebirth in Tel’aran’rhiod or the call of the Horn of Valere. Rules that govern the heroes prohibit contacting or communicating with dreamwalkers, a rule that the hero Birgitte Silverbow disregarded on numerous occasions to aid in the fight with the shadow.

While heroes lack the ability to manipulate the world of dreams to the extent of the dreamwalkers, they are more aware of what occurs inside the dream. For a time Birgitte spied on the Forsaken providing information of what they were doing in the dream and access to meetings held there.

It is apparently possible to rip a hero from the Wheel of Time using the One Power. This act, without aid, would result in the permanent death of the hero. The death of the hero can be prevented through the unique properties of the Warder Bond.

The Game of Thrones:

If ASOIAF takes on the mythos of the Horn of Valere using the Horn of Winter then it creates an avenue to bring back Ygritte along with the Seventy-nine sentinels in Old Nan’s stories.  Like Birgitte Ygritte was also extraordinary with a bow.

Ygritte

The seventy-nine sentinels 

Old Nan telling Bran a story

The Wheel of Time:

Dreaming is a Talent that seems somewhat like Foretelling, which is the ability to see the future, but with needed interpretation of course. Dreaming seems to be connected to Dreamwalking as the Aiel Wise Ones also seem adept at "reading the dream" as they call it. They also train Dreamwalkers to remember every dream they have when they sleep, which allows them to sift out the ones that are just ordinary dreams and interpret True Dreams (which are the ones that foretell events).

The Game of Thrones:

Anyone familiar with Jojen Reed and Melisandre should know they have the gift of seeing the future although both their interpretations are somewhat lacking. The greensight ability itself filters out True Dreams from ordinary dreams.

Bran Jojen and Meera

The Wheel of Time:

Similar to the Talent of Dreaming the future, a Wolfbrother such as Perrin can see truthful visions of the people in the waking world. These seem to be more relevant to current situations than the future, however.

The Game of Thrones:

Like I keep saying Bran has similar abilities as Perrin in the Wolf Dreams.  As far as seeing and having truthful visions of the people in waking world there is no better example than the following:

He looked east, and saw a galley racing across the waters of the Bite. He saw his mother sitting alone in a cabin, looking at a bloodstained knife on a table in front of her, as the rowers pulled at their oars and Ser Rodrik leaned across a rail, shaking and heaving. A storm was gathering ahead of them, a vast dark roaring lashed by lightning, but somehow they could not see it.

He looked south, and saw the great blue-green rush of the Trident. He saw his father pleading with the king, his face etched with grief. He saw Sansa crying herself to sleep at night, and he saw Aryawatching in silence and holding her secrets hard in her heart. There were shadows all around them. One shadow was dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound. Another was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful. Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.

Sansa

Arya

He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the narrow sea, to the Free Cities and the green Dothraki seaand beyond, to Vaes Dothrak under its mountain, to the fabled lands of the Jade Sea, to Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise.

The narrow sea

Vaes Dothrak

Asshai by the Shadow

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.

The Wall

Jon

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.

So what do we really know about the glass candles?  We know that there is one green and three black candles were brought to the Citadel from Valyria a thousand years before the Doom of Valyria.   We know that they can be used for long distance communications making ravens obsolete. We know that they are being utilized or burning.  We don’t know the reason why they were kept secret as of yet but I believe Sam will uncover that mystery.

The Doom of Valyria

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.