“For The Night”

Candle by Anthony0857

The Candle of Lies and Death

A single candle in the wrong hands can mean death.

This article comes to a shocking conclusion on what happened during the killing of Jon Snow “for the Watch.” It may have been someone else entirely that did it. “Not me, it was not me.” may very well be the honest truth.

The two people that did it said “for the Watch” but it should have been “for the Night.”

Preface: how to read GRRM tea-leaves:

When GRRM writes a minor characters, or simply mention someone and then something ridiculously extreme and horrible happens to them, take note. It is a big clue. A GRRM-tell. He may very well be talking about major character arcs and plot points that will be very relevant and uses those minor characters to tell you the truth about them that he doesn’t do directly..

We will first explore relevant 3 examples of reading GRRM-leaves those and then we will get to reason behind and then the enormous catastrophic effect that will surround Jon’s death.

Jon’s death was not a murder. it was not an insurrection or rebellion. it was a sacrifice.

Jon’s death wasn’t even a sacrifice made by the Watch.

But before we get into explaining what how and why of that statement  we need to first build up to it by understanding of how GRRM uses a specific kind of foreshadowing technique, because if you are not attuned to how subtly he does this, you would miss what he is trying to reveal, and the things I will tell you will not make sense and I will get charming love letters in the comments section.

All of these examples will culminate in using this foreshadowing prism to better understand the context of Jon’s death, “for the Night.”

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In The True Purpose of Duskendale: The Night’s Queen, we explored Lady Serala, Lord Darklyn’s wife.

Lady Serala, played some part [In the defiance of Duskendale]. Her detractors blame her entirely for what transpired; the Lace Serpent, as they name her, poisoned Lord Darklyn against his king with her pillow talk. Her defenders insist that the folly lay with Lord Denys himself;

his wife is hated simply because she was a woman of foreign birth who prayed to gods alien to Westeros.

The Lace Serpent was burned alive, poor woman, though her tongue was torn out first, and her female parts, with which it was said that she had enslaved her lord.

As to Lady Serala, hers was a crueler death. Aerys had the Lace Serpent’s tongue and her womanly parts torn out before she was burned alive (yet her enemies say that she should have suffered more and worse for the ruin she brought down upon the town).

What other kind of “women” do you burn alive to kill? The Night’s Queen.

It was said of The Night’s King that:

“a woman was his downfall… and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well.”

Here GRRM is telling us that what we have been told about The Nights King and Queen are not true. Darklyn’s “wife is hated simply because she was a woman of foreign birth who prayed to gods alien to Westeros.” That also describes the Night’s Queen. This tells us, that even if she may or may not have taken his “seed” (can be metaphorical not just sperm) and if she did take his soul, she was not the one to control it. The person behind her ruby probably did. Bloodraven.

Moral of the story: things said and written are not necessarily true. Almost everything written about the Age of Heroes is wrong and are literary misdirection so he can shock us when they are revealed.

“My words lied. My eyes and my arm shouted out the truth,but you were not seeing.” -Syrio Forel.

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This article below is essential to understanding this theory. You need to click the link below, read it, and come back after you finish. This post will not make sense otherwise.

The Hooded Man of Winterfell Revealed

Click the above link and come back you’ve finished it.

It’s ok… I can wait.

Scroll down when you have finished reading The Hooded Man Revealed.

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Understanding The Hooded Man article linked above is foundational to understanding where I think the story is going. You won’t understand what I am talking about.

Most of you won’t read it and still won’t know what the hell I am talking about. It’s ok I guess, because I don’t know what I am talking about most of the time anyway.

The essence of the post is that the Nightwalker, Euron, has not only gotten ahold of a glass candle now lit, but he is a night walker that can control the conscious movements, actions and speech of other people and he has used them to very violently murder people such as Yellow Dick in Winterfell by controlling Theon. It gives the human vessels he occupies strength and ability they normally would not posses.

Again like with the case of Lady Serala not only did GRRM make Yellow Dick die a horrible death, he then uses a Shagga son of Dolf joke to put even more attention to this death as his manhood shoved was down his throat.

More importantly GRRM does not plant this night walker death on someone meaningless, unless it paves the path of using it on or surrounding main characters. Someone like Jon Snow.

Brace yourself. Nightwalkers are candling.

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The Purpose of Lady Stoneheart

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, GRRM said this: “Lady Stoneheart does have a role in the books,” Martin said. “Whether it’s sufficient or interesting enough… I think it is, or I wouldn’t have put her in. One of the things I wanted to show with her is that the death she suffered changes you.”

In The Many-Faced God, Revealed, I wrote the basis for why I think Lord Commander Jon of the Night’s Watch will turn dark and become Lord Commander of “the Wights Watch” (HT: princesscatsweater)

When Catelyn was brought back by “R’hilor” magic she turned into a vengeful spirit monster focused on getting revenge on Freys, the people that killed her. She has lost her humanity. The reason GRRM wrote her in is not because she plays an important role, she really hasn’t up to now. It is to prevent a deus ex machina with unJon and others. He laid a path for Jon to take a darker rode. To become Night’s King after he was killed by his “brothers.”

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So the essence of take always from the past three examples are that things said about the past or what happened are not often true and purposeful misdirections. There is a man that has a glass candle and is using them to make others murder for him [could Euron just night walked Balon into the sea?], and GRRM purposefully included Lady Stoneheart to show how you are changed when you come back, and will declare a ceaseless war on the people he is convinced killed him.

Do you see how there is potential for manipulation of Jon’s killing? Even though there may be motive? Especially after GRRM hides this by adding the pink letter?

Jon’s death may not be a murder, insurrection or rebellion.

It was a sacrifice and an act of intrigue during a period of war by the enemy. It was an act of war to begin The Battle for The Dawn on our side of The Wall.

Jon notes that “Melisandre was gone, he realized, and so were the queen’s knights.” when he gave his speech to the men where he informed them Stannis was dead after reading the pink letter. In Melissandre’s eyes, if Stannis is dead that makes Shireen a Queen. There is power in queensblood. This is speculative, but Shireen may have been sacrificed by fire off-page while everything was going on.

Magic has a price. I believe there was a great deal of magic used in period after Jon’s speech when Melissandre disappeared with her Queensguard.

Lady Melisandre wore no crown, but every man there knew that she was Stannis Baratheon’s real queen, not the homely woman he had left to shiver at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea.
-A Dance with Dragons – Jon III

Melissandre is focused on waking the stone dragon. Mentioning it over and over and over.

Melisandre said. “A king’s blood. Only a king’s blood can wake the stone dragon.”
-A Storm of Swords – Davos IV

“Give me the boy, Your Grace. It is the surer way. The better way. Give me the boy and I shall wake the stone dragon.”
A Storm of Swords – Davos IV

“He is always with the red woman, and . . . he is not in his right mind, I fear. This talk of a stone dragon . . . madness, I tell you, sheer madness. Did we learn nothing from Aerion Brightfire, from the nine mages, from the alchemists? Did we learn nothing from Summerhall? No good has ever come from these dreams of dragons,
– A Storm of Swords – Davos III

“On bended knee I beg you, sire. Wake the stone dragon and let the traitors tremble. Like Aegon you begin as Lord of Dragonstone. Like Aegon you shall conquer. Let the false and the fickle feel your flames.”
-A Storm of Swords – Davos V

“I am a small man,” Davos admitted, “so tell me why you need this boy Edric Storm to wake your great stone dragon, my lady.” He was determined to say the boy’s name as often as he could.
-A Storm of Swords – Davos V

Melisandre moved closer. “Save them, sire. Let me wake the stone dragons. Three is three. Give me the boy.”
-A Storm of Swords – Davos VI

Shireen knew all along they were going to kill her to get dragon.

“There is three” is also another clue that there are three ice dragons.

“I had bad dreams,” Shireen told him. “About the dragons. They were coming to eat me.”

The child had been plagued by nightmares as far back as Maester Cressen could recall. “We have talked of this before,” he said gently. “The dragons cannot come to life. They are carved of stone, child. In olden days, our island was the westernmost outpost of the great Freehold of Valyria. It was the Valyrians who raised this citadel, and they had ways of shaping stone since lost to us.

GRRM is extremely subtle. Masterfully so. I think the stone dragon is made out of ice. Note in the last quote from my list of Melissandre quotes she said “let me wake the stone dragons“… dragons is plural For more on that you can read The Ice Dragon Has Three Heads

The only POV character to see, and notice this “stone beast.” Dany said “from a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire.”

Let’s compare that to how TWOIF describes ice dragons:

Of all the queer and fabulous denizens of the Shivering Sea, however, the greatest are the ice dragons. These colossal beasts, many times larger than the dragons of Valyria, are said to be made of living ice, with eyes of pale blue crystal and vast translucent wings through which the moon and stars can be glimpsed as they wheel across the sky. Whereas common dragons (if any dragon can truly be said to be common) breathe flame, ice dragons supposedly breathe cold, a chill so terrible that it can freeze a man solid in half a heartbeat.

The World of Ice and Fire – Beyond the Free Cities: The Shivering Sea

The ice dragon is translucent. If the moon was behind it, it would look like it is a moon dragon. If the stars are behind it, you could say it is a star dragon. Shadows are cold. If a translucent beast was in front a stone tower, it would look as if it was made of stone. The stone dragon is thus made of ice.

The tower it took wing of is of course the Broken Tower in Winterfell where Bran not only fell, but this is where Bran took wing as the ice dragon. Bran is The IceBrandon. Bran is the stone dragon made of ice. The IceBrandon is why they will sacrifice Shireen in fire and Jon will be sacrificed in ice.

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.

-A Game of Thrones – Bran III

Right there in the very first book, GRRM is telling us all memory of ALL warmth. That implies both physical and emotional. Jon’s skin gets pale and hard… that is very ominous for him becoming Nights King. He had trouble sensing ghost when they were on opposite sides of The Wall. If they put him in an ice cell, would he not be able to communicate with Ghost? Could his spirit still get inside Ghost? There is also the troubling fact of the 79 Sentinels inside The Wall, with their souls presumably inside. Could that be another way The Others get his soul through their Sentinels?

If he becomes Nights King inside the wall, he can leave through the south side, turn Night’s Watchmen into wights and Others.

They won’t even need to get over The Wall. But his  Aunt Daenerys will help bring that down for him. After all. they are family. And she will do it for the same reason he is Othered.

Euron. Fucking. Greyjoy.

“For the Watch?” Or “for the Night?”

Then he heard the shouting … and a roar so loud it seemed to shake the Wall. “That come from Hardin’s Tower, m’lord,” Horse reported. He might have said more, but the scream cut him off.

Val, was Jon’s first thought. But that was no woman’s scream. That is a man in mortal agony. He broke into a run. Horse and Rory raced after him. “Is it wights?” asked Rory. Jon wondered. Could his corpses have escaped their chains?

Scary foreshadowing of what is to come.

The screaming had stopped by the time they came to Hardin’s Tower, but Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun was still roaring. The giant was dangling a bloody corpse by one leg, the same way Arya used to dangle her doll when she was small, swinging it like a morningstar when menaced by vegetables. Arya never tore her dolls to pieces, though. The dead man’s sword arm was yards away, the snow beneath it turning red.

“Let him go,” Jon shouted. “Wun Wun, let him go.”

 Wun Wun did not hear or did not understand. The giant was bleeding himself, with sword cuts on his belly and his arm. He swung the dead knight against the grey stone of the tower, again and again and again, until the man’s head was red and pulpy as a summer melon. The knight’s cloak flapped in the cold air. Of white wool it had been, bordered in cloth-of-silver and patterned with blue stars. Blood and bone were flying everywhere. Men poured from the surrounding keeps and towers. Northmen, free folk, queen’s men … “Form a line,” Jon Snow commanded them. “Keep them back. Everyone, but especially the queen’s men.” The dead man was Ser Patrek of King’s Mountain; his head was largely gone, but his heraldry was as distinctive as his face. Jon did not want to risk Ser Malegorn or Ser Brus or any of the queen’s other knights trying to avenge him.

I think Wun Wun could hear and could understand, he was just not in control. I think this story gets even sadder. I think Bran was forced to skin-change into Wun Wun here by Bloodraven and tear the man to pieces to make a diversion.

Isobel Harper blew my mind with these quotes and some of her analysis below. It may have been Robin Arryn who either controlled Wun Wun. If so, this also hints at Littlefinger working for Team Bloodraven,

In addition to Wun Wun being utilized as Sweetrobin’s own “Hodor,” there are similarities to Sweetrobin during Wun Wun’s murder of the Ser Patrek of King’s Mountain, from the imagery of Ser Patrek being a doll to the parallel of Wun Wun’s attack to Sweetrobin’s “attack” on Winterfell with his doll.  Here is part of the scene of Wun Wun’s attack on Ser Patrek:

The screaming had stopped by the time they came to Hardin’s Tower, but Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun was still roaring. The giant was dangling a bloody corpse by one leg, the same way Arya used to dangle her doll when she was small, swinging it like a morningstar when menaced by vegetables. Arya never tore her dolls to pieces, though. The dead man’s sword arm was yards away, the snow beneath it turning red.

“Let him go,” Jon shouted. “Wun Wun, let him go.”

Wun Wun did not hear or did not understand. The giant was bleeding himself, with sword cuts on his belly and his arm. He swung the dead knight against the grey stone of the tower, again and again and again, until the man’s head was red and pulpy as a summer melon. The knight’s cloak flapped in the cold air. Of white wool it had been, bordered in cloth-of-silver and patterned with blue stars. Blood and bone were flying everywhere.  (ADwD, Jon VIII)

There are several connections to Sweetrobin and his doll throughout the series.  Here are a couple:

Her uncle’s voice was troubled. “Lord Robert,” he sighed. “Six years old, sickly, and prone to weep if you take his dolls away.  (AGoT, Catelyn VI)

This is how Sweetrobin and his doll have parallels to Wun Wun’s attack on Ser Patrek:

“Winterfell is the seat of House Stark,” Sansa told her husband-to-be. “The great castle of the north.”

“It’s not so great.” The boykneltbefore the gatehouse. “Look, here comes a giant to knock it down.” He stood his doll in the snow and moved it jerkily. “Tromp tromp I’m a giant, I’m a giant,” he chanted. “Ho ho ho, open your gates or I’ll mash them and smash them.” Swinging the doll by the legs, he knocked the top off one gatehouse tower and then the other.

It was more than Sansa could stand. “Robert, stop that.” Instead he swung the doll again, and a foot of wall exploded. She grabbed for his hand but she caught the doll instead. There was a loud ripping sound as the thin cloth tore. Suddenly she had the doll’s head, Robert had the legs and body, and the rag-and-sawdust stuffing was spilling in the snow.

-A Storm of Swords – Sansa VII

“I don’t want porridge.” Robert flung his spoon across the hall. It bounced off a hanging tapestry, and left a smear of porridge upon a white silk moon. “The lord wants eggs!”

-A Feast for Crows – Alayne I

This is how Jon previously described Wun Wun, he “reminded Jon of Hodor. Hodor twice as big, twice as strong, and half as clever.” It may also be blue lipped night-walker Euron with a glass candle, who also works for Bloodraven may have planted this diversion. Look at Euron’s sigil. It has Bloodraven’s one red eye shaped like a candle flame in it. But I doubt it. It is Bran. Sweet innocent Bran is now no more. He is no longer in control of himself (read The IceBrandon on how and why he gave his “seed” and thus his soul).

Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun howled again and gave Ser Patrek’s other arm a twist and pull. It tore loose from his shoulder with a spray of bright red blood. Like a child pulling petals off a daisy, thought Jon. “Leathers, talk to him, calm him. The Old Tongue, he understands the Old Tongue. Keep back, the rest of you. Put away your steel, we’re scaring him.”

Couldn’t they see the giant had been cut? Jon had to put an end to this or more men would die. They had no idea of Wun Wun’s strength. A horn, I need a horn.

More foreshadowing for the future Nights King. A horn. He needs a horn. Get this man a horn!

He saw the glint of steel, turned toward it. “No blades! ” he screamed. “Wick, put that knife …”

… away, he meant to say. When Wick Whittlestick slashed at his throat, the word turned into a grunt. Jon twisted from the knife, just enough so it barely grazed his skin. He cut me. When he put his hand to the side of his neck, blood welled between his fingers. “Why? ”

“For the Watch.” Wick slashed at him again. This time Jon caught his wrist and bent his arm back until he dropped the dagger.

The gangling steward backed away, his hands upraised as if to say, Not me, it was not me.

I think this is Euron with the glass candle.  At first he is lying and saying it is “For the Watch.” What Euron wants is for the Night to come. That is an extraordinarily bizarre thing to communicate. “it wasn’t me?”

I just saw you stab me and this once serious steward is playing the 2nd grader game of I’m not touching you.” This is by far the biggest tell that it truly wasn’t him. He backed away from Jon in shock. he didn’t say it wasn’t me… he was so speechless by what just happened he didn’t have any words for it. He was sleepwalking due to the nighwalker. What would you say if someone took over your body and made you murder your friend? You would be speechless and in this world body language tells the truth.

There are good reasons why GRRM stressed the lying game with Arya. And how hard it was for her to stop biting her lip when she lied. The steward did not “bite his lip” here. Without words he was telling the truth.

Here is Arya with Syrio Forel:

“But you lied!”

“My words lied. My eyes and my arm shouted out the truth, but you were not seeing.”

“I was so,” Arya said. “I watched you every second!”

-A Game of Thrones – Arya IV

 

Men were screaming. Jon reached for Longclaw, but his fingers had grown stiff and clumsy. Somehow he could not seem to get the sword free of its scabbard.

Then Bowen Marsh stood there before him, tears running down his cheeks. “For the Watch.” He punched Jon in the belly. When he pulled his hand away, the dagger stayed where he had buried it.

This follow up is why GRRM is the master. First we get the WTF, what do you mean you didn’t do it line? But after Bowen Marsh stabs him with his tears flowing.

Tears are under subconscious control.

Most of us know this without the fancy words. You sit in a movie theater or at a performance. And something in the moment grabs you. You say to yourself I am not gonna cry, I am not gonna cry… I am not gonna cry. Shit. I will make it look like I am scratching my cheek. That’s it. They won’t know.

The nightwalker’s power may controlling your conscious movements, actions, and speech. But nothing can control your autonomic nervous system. If someone has taken over your consciousness, movement and speech, they still would not be able to stop tears. Just as we cannot consciously control it.

Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger’s hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. “Ghost,” he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife.

Only the cold …

 

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Conclusion

GRRM does not put out murderous night walkers controlling “Other” people and only use it on nobodies like Bolton henchmen. He may get Daenerys to sound the The Hammerhorn of The Waters aka Horn of Jorumun to make the Red Comet strike Planetos or it’s moon bringing the Long Night. Things purported to be true in the text, aren’t. Lady Stoneheart was a literary tool to pave a pathway for Jon to become Night’s King. Bloodraven is the master manipulator who probably used both Bran and Euron to stage a diversion and have not one but two Night’s Watchmen kill Jon, cementing the memory in him that The Watch did this to him.

Bloodraven wants to destroy us from within. it looks like it may actually work.

P.S. Thanks to this, Euron can be Daario AND he can be Benjen. You’re welcome.