Could what the White Walkers want be as simple as a game?

Potential Spoilers Below

I keep telling everyone that similarities between The Wheel of Time (TWOT) and A Song of Ice and Fire (ASOIAF) are vast even if there are those out there that say otherwise.

“No, archer.” She laughed. “I only came to warn you, despite the prescripts. Once entered, the Tower of Ghenjei is hard enough to leave in the world of men. Here it is all but impossible. You have a bannerman’s courage, which some say cannot be told from foolhardiness.”

Impossible to leave? The fellow—Slayer—surely had gone in. Why would he do that if he could not leave? “Hopper said it’s dangerous, too. The Tower of Ghenjei? What is it?”

Her eyes widened, and she glanced at Hopper, who still lay stretched out on the grass ignoring her and watching Perrin. “You can talk to wolves? Now that is a thing long lost in legend. So that is how you are here. I should have known. The tower? It is a doorway, archer, to the realms of the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn.” She said the names as if he should recognize them. When he looked at her blankly, she said, “Did you ever play the game called Snakes and Foxes?”

Aelfinn and Eelfinn

“All children do. At least, they do in the Two Rivers. But they give it up when they get old enough to realize there’s no way to win.”

“Except to break the rules,” she said. “ ‘Courage to strengthen, fire to blind, music to daze, iron to bind.’ ”

“That’s a line from the game. I don’t understand. What does it have to do with this tower?”

“Those are the ways to win against the snakes and the foxes. The game is a remembrance of old dealings. It does not matter so long as you stay away from the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn. They are not evil the way the Shadow is evil, yet they are so different from humankind they might as well be. They are not to be trusted, archer. Stay clear of the Tower of Ghenjei. Avoid the World of Dreams, if you can. Dark things walk.

“We are the near ancient, the warriors of final regret, the knowers of secrets.”

Follow my logic.  The Aelfinn and the Eelfinn are like the White Walkers; they are the snakes and the foxes.  Are they truly evil?  Maybe it is the way Birgitte said in that they are so different from humankind they might as well be.  Do they draw the symbol as a remembrance of old dealings with the Children of the Forest?  The White Walkers are the near ancient as they are the stories that parents told their children to frighten them to do the right thing; and guess what they were real.  They were the warriors of final regret for the Children of the Forest when it came to their fight against the First Men.  Do they know secrets that humankind has long forgotten?  Does the secret have to do with the Children of the Forest and what they did?  The Tower of Ghenjei is simply the House of the Undying in that there wasn’t a visible way in but Dany found her way in and so did Mat, Thom and Noal.

We know how to get in,” Mat said.

“Olver’s story?” Noal asked skeptically.

“It’s the best we have,” Mat said. “Look, the game and the rhyme are about the Aelfinn and Eelfinn. People knew about them once. Those bloody doorframes are proof of that. So they left the game and the rhyme as warning.”

“That game can’t be won, Mat,” Noal said, rubbing his leathery chin.

“And that’s the point of it. You need to cheat.”

“But maybe we should try a deal,” Thom said, playing with the waxed tip of a mustache. “They did give you answers to your questions.”

“Bloody frustrating ones,” Mat said. He had not wanted to tell Thom and Noal about his questions—he still had not told them what he had asked.

“But they did answer,” Thom said. “It sounds like they had some kind of deal with the Aes Sedai. If we knew what it was the Aes Sedai had that the snakes and foxes wanted—the reason they were willing to bargain—then maybe we could trade it to them for Moiraine.”

“If she’s still alive,” Noal said grimly.

“She is,” Thom said, staring straight ahead. “Light send it. She has to be alive.”

“We know what they want.” Mat glanced at those flames.

“What?” Noal asked.

“Us,” Mat replied. “Look, they can see what’s going to happen. They did it to me, they did it to Moiraine, if that letter is any clue. They knew she would leave a letter for you, Thom. They knew it. And they still answered her questions.”

The symbol drawn to get into the Tower of Ghenjei is a triangle with a wavy line down the center with a head of a snake and fox at either end.  The symbol that we have seen the White Walkers draw is a circle with a straight line down the center with human heads at either end.  What was needed to cheat and perhaps win the game and do they have it in ASOIAF?  Courage to strengthen – they have plenty of that; no real cowards here.  Fire to blind – the Wights can be burned and they act as eyes for the White Walkers.  Iron to bind – change iron to dragon glass and you find their weakness.  Can it actually bind/imprision them?  Music to daze – Thom was a gleeman and played the harp.  Who is known for the harp in ASOIAF?  That’s right Jon Snow’s dad Rhaegar.  Everyone expects the harp to make an appearance somehow.  In TWOT it put the Finn in a dazed state where they stopped attacking you.  Could the same thing be shown with the White Walkers and music?  Coincidence? 

Mat’s first visited the Finn and he received answers.  Dany visited the House of the Undying and she received answers.  Mat visited the Finn the second time and he received 3 gifts.  Memories to fill the holes in his head (days of the memories of others).   They gave him a silver foxhead medallion because he wanted to be free of Aes Sedai (it negated the One Power from being used against him by Aes Sedai).  And lastly he asked for a way out (they gave him what he thought was a weapon – his ashandarei).  Mat used the ashandarei and jabbed it into the wall of the tower and it acted as a key to get out where drawing the symbol from the inside wouldn’t work.

They haven’t shown it in the TV show but I am certain that had the books been released Dany would have entered into another strange world like she did in the House of the Undying.  That doorway will IMO be at the top of the Mother of Mountains which she will ascend and become “She Who Comes With The Dawn”.  Every Wheel of Time fan know that “He Who Comes With The Dawn” was Rand when he came back from Rhuidean at dawn.  When khals go back to Vaes Dothrak they climb the Mother of Mountains to give thanks and return at dawn; no woman is allowed to set foot on the mountain.  Dany will defy tradition and become the first woman to do so.  It is there that she will receive her three gifts after being transported to another strange place. 

One is the gift that they mentioned when she was in the House of the Undying: “Shall we teach you the secret speech of dragonkind?”  This is why the Mother of Mountains was mentioned when she gave her speech to all the Dothraki and made them all her bloodriders in the TV show.  It is also the reason she has so much control of her dragons where she had none prior to being taken to Vaes Dothrak; they simply gave here the secret speech of dragonkind. 

The second gift will be what she promised Ser Jorah in the books.  “Ser Jorah Mormont,” she said, “first and greatest of my knights, I have no bride gift to give you, but I swear to you, one day you shall have from my hands a longsword like none the world has ever seen, dragon-forged and made of Valyrian steel.”  She will then present the sword that she receives to Ser Jorah.

The third will probably be a medallion similar to Mat’s foxhead medallion.  Most likely it will be in the shape of a dragon of some kind.  What it will negate?  The magic of their world?  I don’t know yet.  I will have to think on this some more.

Without going into the entire story Mat was given the ashandarei as a way out of the tower.  He also said that he was told the truth when he entered the world of the Finn.  Why?  What if Dany was also told the complete truth but it wasn’t for her benefit but it was for the benefit of the White Walkers.  What if what Dany was told put her on the path that she took to get her where they wanted her to go?  Cut to the chase it led her to Jon Snow and Tyrion who came up with the plan to get a Wight as proof to show to Cersei so that she would join the fight against the army of the dead.  That led to the Night King killing Viserion and reanimating him.  He then used him as a key to get past the Wall.  He was stuck north of the Wall and couldn’t get back to what he sought.  Think about it; what did Mat, Thom and Noal seek?  They sought to retrieve Moiraine.  What if he is in search of his “Corpse Queen” or simply a way to get somewhere he wants to go.  He wants something and I think it is located at the Isle of Faces where the pact between the First Men and the Children of the Forest was struck; or at least where what he seeks can be found.  What did they hide from him?  They took something that he thinks precious IMO.  It is for this reason I don’t think his ultimate plan is to rule or even kill.  What he is doing is a means to an end.  I think the attack on Winterfell a diversion while he searches for what he is looking for.  Since he will eventually get to King’s Landing maybe what he finds is in the form of a map and it will lead him there.  Although in the end he will have to eventually make his way back to Winterfell because Bran has been there centuries enshrined in the Winterfell Weirwood tree awaiting round 2 between the three-eyed raven and the Night King; Ding Ding (Apollo Creed for all you non Rocky fans). 

What do you guys think he wants?

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.