The Curious Case of Cold Hands. Unlike quite a few characters
we've dealt with or focused on, his story appears to be
complete. But that doesn't mean we won't
learn more about him, like, say, who the heck he was.
And the implications surrounding his story itself are far, very
far from complete. This might be what matters more.
As much as I'm curious who his identity is, who he was, this
might be of lesser importance than what he can do or what he
suggests is possible for others to do or others to do with a
capital O because cold hand scratches the surface regarding
the magical potential and potency of Green Seers.
Some of this parallels what the others are capable of, which
might have originally emanated from the children.
Cold Hands is at the Nexus of these concepts, a Ranger and an
undead skin changer, perhaps beyond the wall sent to bring
Bran to Bloodraven's cave. Yet he cannot pass the magical
barriers on either of those himself.
So he is affected by magic intended to keep out the whites,
but he lacks many, if not most of their traits.
Despite the mystery, or perhaps in part because of it, he's
absolutely one of the most unique characters in The Song of
Ice and Fire. And by doing a deep dive on him,
we can inch ourselves closer to some of the central mysteries of
the Northern Old gods, others new Long night, whatever you
want to call it. Plotline all that and more on
this episode of History of Westeros podcast.
Hello, and welcome back, everybody.
We have another great one for you.
Every Sunday when we do live streams, they are at 3:00
Eastern and we do a live stream most Sundays.
You can catch that on YouTube afterwards, but if you wait a
little longer you can catch it an edited version on Spotify or
a audio only version also on Spotify or anywhere you catch
podcasts. It's also available ad free if
you listen on Patreon. We are Sean less today, no Sean.
But I do want to shout Sean out. And of course, I want to shout
out Nina, whose notes are in this episode, as they are in
most episodes, and they're very, very helpful to us, extremely
helpful to us, especially on topics like this where we have
to do a lot of imagining and a lot of what we're working on is
thematic and deep dives and guessing.
It's all very well. It's not certain.
So it's it really pays for me to have other people helping out,
and Nina is a huge help. On her blog right now there's a
post about the narrative significance of Viserys egg not
hatching, meaning Rainier son Viserys if there is any at all.
It's not guaranteed for an egg to hatch, but it seems strange
for Rainier's kids to go 4 for 5:00 on that, and it's a good
answer that she has for that question, so check it out.
Good queen allie.tumblr.com If you have any questions, you can
send them to us at westeroshistory@gmail.com.
For example, Let us know who you think Cold Hands is and what his
character tells us. Any surrounding mysteries like
that. Perfect opportunity to weigh in.
Reason I say it's a perfect opportunity is it's very wide
open. We don't have a lot of answers
here, so guesses are very appropriate.
And of course, at the end of this episode I'll mention some
other ones that relate to this one.
If you want to stay immersed, we'll be able to keep that going
for you by giving you suggestions on related episodes
as well. I'll give you the answer to this
trivia question. Who gives this mysterious Ranger
the nickname Cold Hands? Where does that name come from?
The answer will be revealed during the episode if you're
paying close attention, but you may already know.
Now here's a character that presents a bit of a problem for
our usual starting point process, which is you know, we
like to do character focused episodes and often how we start
it is well you'll see after this quote regarding his first
appearance. Brother, the shout cut through
the night. Through the shrieks of 1000
Ravens. Beneath the trees, a man muffled
head to heels in modeled blacks and Grays sat astride an elk.
Here, the writer called. A hood shattered his face.
He's wearing blacks. Sam urged Gilly toward him.
The elk was huge, a great elk, 10 feet tall at the shoulder,
with a rack of antlers near as wide.
The creature sank to his knees to let them mount.
Here, the rider said, reaching down with a gloved hand to pull
Gilly up behind him. Then it was Sam's turn.
My thanks, He puffed. Only when he grasped the offered
hand did he realize that the rider wore no glove.
His hand was black and cold, with fingers hard as stone.
So that's his first appearance as a member of the undead or
semi dead or whatever he is. Which of course is a question
for us this episode, but we may have seen him before as a living
person, so we'll we'll maybe address that as we run through
the possibilities of what his identity is during this episode.
Now, of course, immediately calling out the word brother is
a pretty telling way to enter. I mean, this is a really
exciting, unexpected debut. Like, this guy appears on stage
on screen and you're like, wait, who is this person or person?
Is that even the right word to use?
Yes, it is. But dead person or living person
is a fair question. Yeah, and dead question is the
correct answer. But they didn't know that.
At this point, we're trying to put ourselves in Sam and Gilly's
minds in the moment of the scene and, you know, a Ranger rescuing
them. That's not too strange.
There's Rangers about, you know, they ran away from Craster's
Keep, but there there's Rangers around the elk, though, that's a
little odd, right? A a giant elk too, One that can
lift all three of them and is like 10 feet tall.
I mean, this is indeed a great elk.
And all the Ravens, like, what is that about?
That's strange. But they're too distracted by
nearly being killed by whites, which might be even stranger
than all the Ravens. And of course the the hands are
like, wait, what's going on with these hands?
Why aren't you wearing gloves, man?
And that's the end of the chapter, so it goes off page
from there. And not to mention that Sam and
Gilly were about to die to white small paw.
There was no sign of an other, but more whites were there,
including several of the worst mutineers like Lark the
Sistermen, who was part of Chad's conspiracy to murder
Mormont on the 1st. And then of course, those
different mutineers killed Kraster at I mean killed Well
and Kraaster. They killed Mormon and Kraaster
at Kraaster's Keep. So all sorts of hell was
breaking loose north of the wall at different times, different
places. So maybe Cold Hands was watching
this activity, following the great ranging, watching from
afar. And of course, if Bloodraven is
overseeing all this or is in direct control of it, he's
probably been watching through. Mormon's Raven, for example.
Could have been his means of keeping track of what's been
going on. But there's so many ways for him
to watch a bird. Watching from afar or several
birds is really easy to imagine that's possible.
We wouldn't have to have seen that.
I mean, we're in a giant forest after all.
Now this is Sam 3 from A Storm of Swords, so it's Chapter 47 of
82. So a little bit past the halfway
point, and we called it in Val Aritas for a song of Isis Fire.
We called this chapter. Hands of Cold are always cold.
Yes, and this is Sam Gilly, and the baby's journey from the
village to the night Fort happens off page.
But I really wonder about what happens.
Like they talk to cold hands. What does he say?
Is there any other information? They must have traveled for
several days with him? Maybe we kind of roughly guessed
that it took 2 1/2 weeks. There are there has been some
work done by some people on estimating timelines.
Like there's the Google Sheets of sung by some fire timeline
project and that project guesses about 2 1/2 weeks would have
passed of them traveling. So yeah, unless they were like
Sandor and Arya going, you know, days without a single one of
them uttering a word, which doesn't really seem like
something Sam would do. Sam's a little more talkative
than that, and Gilly as well, and they would at least talk to
each other. So there there's got to be some
interesting things that came up off page there between them.
And maybe one day we'll find out.
Maybe Sam will bring that up. He'll talk to John, Undead John
or someone, and maybe some of these concepts will be raised
again. Raised.
Get it? Yeah, you get it.
And the Night Four chapter from Bran's point of view is chapter
57. So it's 10 chapters later after
this. And that is Bran's last chapter
until A Dance with Dragons. So yeah, so cold Hands of course
is not in that night for a chapter, but he's mentioned
obviously Bran and and Sam discuss him.
Sam tells him that he's out there waiting for him and all
that. The Bran 1A Dance with Dragons
is the chapter where they take shelter in that long haul.
They learn he's dead. Although Bran was already
suspicious of that. But they come out and say it.
Then they they also learn he's killed.
Those turn cloak Rangers and they seem to eat human flesh,
Those turn clock Rangers in particular, and that's the
chapter where he says your monster.
Brandon Stark and Brand, two of a dancer Dragons.
They reach The Cave and are attacked by whites.
And while the children appear to blast some of those whites with
fire and save Brand and company, Cold Hands himself appears to
have been torn apart and ending him for good.
And of course, I say ending him for good, apparently because
they killed him long ago, is the line that comes shortly after
once they get inside from Leaf. And then Bran only has one more
chapter in a dance with Dragon's Orb period, and that's the one
where he's learning and down in the caves and jump going into
Hodor. It's all sorts.
Lots of time passes in that one, but there's no mention of Cold
Hands in that one. So from Bran's POV, we see the
Knight Fort and then the Black Gate, but the other way around
for safer looking at it from Cold Hands.
So he guided them to the night for it showed them the black
Gate. And then Sam opened it right
with the oath. And then he just waited there
while Sam and Gilly went inside. And when they got there, Bran
was already there with with his friends.
Now we might ask why cold Hands bothered to save Sam and Gilly
in the 1st place. I mean, hey, maybe it's just a
good deed, but no, it's actually more than that.
It's he couldn't pass the wall he couldn't go into the night
for he needed someone to open a human Ranger, specifically
someone that had said the oath to open the gate, go in, get
Bran and lead him back out. So he was hindered by the magic
on the wall. He needed a human cat's paw to
do his bidding, which is interesting because cold hands
himself might be the cat's paw of bloodraven.
So it's like multi level cat's paws here.
So Sam and Gilly were thus bloodravens indirectly means to
get to Bran or rather to get Bran to come to him.
And of course if you recall as soon as he sees Bloodraven for
the first time in his tree, he's like you see me as I am and you
see why I could not come to you like yeah I guess so you Mr. in
a tree guy. So moving forward here's a
revealing quote. Why?
Didn't he come with you? Mira gestured toward Gillian,
her babe. They came with you.
Why not him? Why didn't you bring him through
this black gate too? He He can't.
Why? Not.
The wall, the wall is more than just ice and stone, he said.
There are spells woven into it, old ones and strong.
He cannot pass the wall, so he had some idea who he was looking
for. Cold hands, the one, Right.
But he doesn't necessarily know exactly what he looks like.
He didn't know he was crippled, for example.
He doesn't know brands lost the use of his legs.
That wasn't something that cold hands told them to look for.
He didn't say, hey, get the, you know, go in there and get me
this person, the one that doesn't use his legs, you know,
he just said he's in there, you know?
And at first they thought it was Jojen, you know, easy mistake to
make, right? But it's interesting that even
though he's a Ranger, apparently.
I mean, it's possible, as as Mira points out, that anyone can
wear black cloak. You know, it doesn't mean he's
definitely a Ranger. I assume he's a Ranger.
He's wearing the the Nights Watch gear.
It would be a little weird to put all that on just to pretend
to be a Ranger, but it would make some sense to to get them
to make sure that you're trusted.
Like, OK, this guy's a Ranger. I can trust him, you know.
But if if this is just a raised dead being, why not pick a
Ranger that was already wearing the clothes, you know?
But the point of that is, even having been a Ranger, he
couldn't open the gate, right? So the the oath didn't matter
for him, I suppose Maybe he could open it and still not walk
through. Maybe he can open the door but
not pass the threshold. But either way, that's kind of
an interesting little conundrum that the spells in the wall are
stronger than the oath get, allowing you to pass the gate
like one seems to trump the other.
And here's continuing on with the scene in the night for it.
Here's another quote. Are you?
The one Jojen turned to look at her.
The. One he.
Said that Sam wasn't the one, she explained.
There was someone else, he said. The one he was sent to find who?
Said. Bran demanded.
Hold hands, Gilly answered softly.
So yeah. Cold Hands knew there would be
people in the castle. Now how Again a bird magic.
There's a lot of ways that we can't name but so we can't maybe
get at the specific method. But it matters that he knew.
It matters that some sort of magical means alerted to him of
their presence. So he didn't know what exactly
where Bran was, but he did he know that he was at the night
Fort. Maybe the they passed a tree and
that alerted them. Maybe Blood Ravens.
Ravens were searching around and they finally found him and that
information was passed the cold hands somehow.
And then Sam realizes that Bran is John's brother and Sam says,
hey, I'm John's brother too, you know, nights watch brother and
that starts to turn the tide of trust.
Of course it's summer trusting Sam that really turns Bran's
mind. And Sam also says you would not
have found the Black Gate without it.
So this was also crucial to making the connection and
getting them into cold Hands. Presence was actually just
showing them where the Black Gate was.
I mean Sam and Gilly wouldn't have found the Black Gate
without cold hands either, so it was multi step here.
Cold Hands shows Sam and Gilly where the Black Gate is.
They go in and lead brand and company to the Black Gate after
that rather. And an I4 is huge down there.
That's what she said. So there's a lot of steps, a lot
of walking and all that. Now moving on when they're
discussing the nature of him and they realize what this person
is. It's a bit of a conundrum, isn't
it? Because this is Sam who they
trust. He's, he expresses, he knows
John and they tell Sam that John's alive, but and they trust
Sam not to tell anyone that they saw him because Bran's.
The fact that Bran's alive needs to be kept secret, especially
from Bolton's but from other people as well.
So it's strange for them to have the realization they do about
who Cold Hands is and what he is after this moment of trust and
and being placed in this beings hands.
And this is the quote that comes from that conversation.
He's. Dead.
Bran could taste the bile in his throat.
Mira, he's some dead thing. The monsters cannot pass so long
as the Wall stands and the Men of the Nights Watch stay true.
That's what Old Nan used to say. He came to meet us at the Wall,
but he could not pass. He sent Sam instead with that
wildling girl. Now something.
Interesting about the Storm of Swords.
At this time in the book, this concept isn't just happening.
Here we have Barack Dondarian, and at the end of the book we
have Lady Stoneheart, and here we have cold hands.
So many readers figured out that he was undead before this quote.
I mean, there's a lot to suggest that, but this is where Bran and
company fully realize it. And So what a shock that must
be. Because yeah, again, there's
that trust thing. They they're with someone they
think they trust. But then they're realize it's
like a a story from old Dan but not of the good guys, not the
the the legendary heroes you know, the the dead people the
dead things. He calls it.
So what a strange realization. But they also realize they don't
have much choice. They talk to Jojen.
They're like yeah, well what what choice do we have and
branded already like I said he branded already suspected that
cold hands was dead subconsciously because when he's
inside summer. When he's skin changes inside
summer, cold hands smells like dead meat.
He doesn't smell right. He smells rotten.
Of course, wolves having a vastly stronger sense of smell
than humans really does make it an interesting perspective,
right? So what about before though?
Like we're trying to talk about where cold hands was before and
and other times we're trying to figure out where he was where
about, like before he rescued Sam and Gilly, where was he?
So if we consider again, he showed up at the village for
that rescue and LED them to the knife for it and waited outside
while they go in. And then Brand and company
emerge and he leads into The Cave.
That's what we know. But what about?
What about before that? So the the others never picked
up on his presence, but that's probably because of the Ravens.
Bran notices that the Ravens are his eyes and ears, and they
range far and wide to keep an eye out for any danger.
So that seems explained pretty well.
But where did again, where did he start?
Where did the cold hands begin his journey?
As a dead person, let alone as a living person, Which I suppose
is a completely different question.
Was he at The Cave? There's a bunch of bodies at The
Cave. As we'll see later, when they
arrive there, a bunch of whites rise up and some of them are
wearing Nights Watch black. That doesn't mean they've always
been there, 'cause, as we see in Brand three, Dance with Dragons.
As he's in there, more and more dead things show up to wait
outside The Cave. They're pretty much all animals.
Well, they're all animals. Not pretty much.
They're all animals, but it's like additional creepiness and
something, you know, they they're gathering out there.
So Bloodraven might have just picked one of the bodies that
was sitting out there right in front of his cave and raised it
or something else. Maybe it was raised and he took
it over. He like, pushed the others out
of the body and took it over for himself.
We don't know that that's even possible.
It's just a theory. Maybe he raised him from afar.
Maybe there's something entirely else that some other form of
magic that we're not aware of. But I'm guessing it's not
raising him from afar because most of our guesses as to his
identity don't really fit for someone raised for just this
purpose, right? But I doubt he embarked from The
Cave as well, since he can't enter it anyway.
And yeah, it's a little tricky, but part of the mystery for
sure. So either they knew they meaning
Bloodraven and whoever else, I don't know.
Probably just Bloodraven knew Brand would cross the Wall, or
they knew he was heading towards it.
Yeah, maybe that's seeing through Summer, or maybe again
through some Ravens that are just watching.
Or maybe they just knew because Blood Raven sent dreams to Bran
and maybe Jojen as well, and that is part of why they went
north in the 1st place. So if they go north, he's got to
figure at some point they're going to have to cross the Wall,
and that's not an easy thing to do.
So he sent help. But of course that help was
incomplete because Cold Hands can't actually cross the wall,
so he needed a helper. I wonder if Cold Hands was out
in the region of the first of the First Men.
It's. He was possible.
He was hanging around there too, you know.
I don't really know. He could have been watching
there. He could have been the one that
planted the cache of dragon glass that ghost LED John to.
He must most certainly showed up after to rescue Sam, right?
But that was after the mutiny at Craster.
So there's the whole fist of the First Men.
All that happens with the mystery of the cash left behind
and all that, but it's possible Cold Hands was even around that
far back, or at least the blood Raven was watching and Cold
Hands sort of took over his job there.
His his close up. I don't know exactly what word
to use there. We don't have to assume cold
hands. His first task was to find
Brand. He may have been used for other
purposes ahead of that and then this was his next job, but I
kind of think he just was raised or used for this task only
because bringing Bran to The Cave was a crucial moment and
there may not have been much else that mattered.
I mean that seems to be the only thing Blood Raven is focused on
is just get Bran here, train him up and and worry about the big
bad and not much else at all. If anything else at all, nothing
matters but stopping the others. So cold hands is someone handed
off from Sam to Bran's POV right?
He he's starts with Sam then moves over to Bran and stays
with Bran's chapters. And like I said, Bran only has 3
chapters in To Dance With Dragons.
The first two have cold hands in them and the third one doesn't.
So let's go to the part where cold hands kills the nights.
Watch traitors 'cause this is like, for them, this is even
more shocking. They're like, wait, who are you?
You are a Ranger, but you just killed other Rangers and we're
supposed to trust you? I don't quite get it.
Here's the quote. They were foes.
Men of the nights watch. You killed them.
You and the Ravens. Their faces were all torn and
their eyes were gone. Cold hands did not deny it.
They were your brothers. I saw the wolves had ripped
their clothes up, but I could still tell their cloaks were
black, like your hands. Cold hands said nothing.
They're. Shocked.
Yeah, he insists. They're foes, and it's a tough
sell, 'cause they're Rangers. You're you're trying to explain
the nuances of, yeah, not all Rangers are good guys.
You shouldn't assume they're good people just 'cause they're
wearing nights, Watch cloaks. That's not something that a lot
of people who aren't at the wall realize, especially younger
people. A lot of people have a well,
they have the view of the watch that say John had before he went
there and people like Tyrion disabused him.
And then his own experience as well really taught him that,
yeah, the watch is not just a bunch of noble Knights guarding
the realms. There's a lot of terrible people
there that were forced to go there as criminals and and other
people that didn't belong there, they didn't deserve to be there,
things like that. So he has to explain how he knew
they were foes, but he doesn't really.
He just says they're foes. He just insists and expects them
to kind of accept that and I, but we still kind of wonder how
he knew. It's not hard to guess, though,
given that he showed up to rescue Sam and Gilly just after
the mutiny at Craster's. He could have witnessed them or
overheard them. Maybe he heard.
Maybe he was there when Chet was talking to Small Paul and Lark,
the sistermen and all those other guys in his in his POV
chapter about their mutiny plan Could have been a Raven just
sitting right there listening to them talk.
Or cold hands could be right over in the trees just
listening. Something like that.
Again, magic can cover a lot of bases here.
Especially birds can change birds listening.
That seems to be the easiest way to explain it.
I mean, you can also just have straight up mind reading, I
suppose, but I I kind of doubt that.
You know, people going. We do have that concept in A
Song of Ice and Fire. We have glass candles and people
entering each other's dreams and things like that.
So it's definitely possible, but that's a little specific, just
for some people that wouldn't otherwise matter.
Like if we're glass candles. Are kind of different too, like
the mechanism of entering someone's dreams is different
from entering your conscious self, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, the. Unconscious is very different to
me. That's a good point.
And as well, why would Bloodraven be paying attention
to these low level nights, watch people at all in the 1st place?
Like he would have to have a reason to have been listening to
them. You know, like oh let me let me
just what are these guys talking about?
Well, I'm just curious. Yeah, it seems like he would not
give a crap about these guys. He's not really concerned about
what happens to these small group of nights Watchmen.
He's concerned about the. Big picture.
I'm just picturing like he goes into someone's dreams and he's
like damn, you have some good dreams.
I'm. Coming back here later, this is
like, now this is a good dreamer right here.
And that's what you do. You got to find the good
channels to watch, yeah. Yeah, some.
People have boring dreams and it was like or just.
Nightmares every night. You're like, I'm never going to
dollar US. Ed's dreams again, he thought
it. Would.
I thought it would be funny. I thought Dollar said brain
would be funny. But no, it's horrible.
That's why he's telling jokes all the time, because he's
trying to. He's trying to tone down all the
horror coming from within his own mind.
So there's a somewhat funny but also very gross irony here,
right? Alo Lop Hand is found by Bran
inside Summer. He's inside Summer when he finds
Alo Lop Hand with his throat slit and then he eats him right
as Summer he eats aloe and then some of the other deserters that
were with Aloe. And the reason we know it's Aloe
is because of his lop hand. He's missing a hand and it
wasn't chewed off by a wolf. It's got a leather strap and
it's it's the same way it was described when he was a living
person. So it's a it's a good way to
tell the reader who this character is.
George was careful to not just have them be bodies 'cause then
it would be we would have no idea who they are.
So this is ironic. Bran eats a human flesh as a
wolf then wakes up as they're roasting meat and like, oh, and
they're like bran, you almost missed the meal.
He's like, well, I kind of was eating in my dreams, so that's
why I didn't wake up. And it's been figured out by a
lot of people, us included, but not nearly only us, that the
food that they're eating is those night watch Rangers.
So Bran wakes up from eating nights, watch Ranger in his
dreams as summer to eating it for real as himself.
And that's what they should have been shocked about, right?
Instead of being shocked about dead Rangers who really were
deserters and bad guys, they should be shocked about the fact
that they're eating them. He tells them he found a sow.
Like, yeah, right, a sow. Sure.
In the cold and snow. Yeah, don't think about it too
much. So what they see as questionable
killings as they're eating human, leads to pointed
questions like why don't you take off your mask?
Why won't you tell us who you are?
They're starting to get really nervous and scared and and it's
all like it's a snowball effect. Hey Northern pun.
And that's when they start demanding answers and he gives
them some answers but not complete answers.
And it's only gets scarier, I suppose in some ways.
Now if we jump forward after that chapter, the next we're
going to see they've made it to the green Seer cave.
At least they're close to it. They're walking up to it, and
the Ravens get really loud. Bran thinks that even Summer is
scared and Cold Cans declares they are here.
He also tells them he can feel their coldness, then tells them
they have to hurry towards The Cave mouth.
He basically suspects an ambush, but has no choice.
They can't wait it out. What's going to happen?
The the whites can outweigh anyone, right?
They're just sitting there in the snow bank, and it's
definitely going to get worse if night falls and the sun is going
down it. During the scene, they were
rushing and they barely get there before it's dark.
He points out that White Walkers leave no footprints as well,
which we saw in the prologue, but it's a good reminder and
it's something that these characters didn't know except
for maybe having heard. That is a legend in old Nan's
stories. So it's interesting, very
interesting to me that cold hands can feel the coldness of
the whites. If that's something imbued in
him or it's because Bloodraven is using him, or if it's a power
he had in life, I mean, they're Darwin, the Ranger who has the
wooden teeth. He talks about something like
this. He says you can smell the cold
and it's just a different scent. And someone's like, you can't
smell cold. And he's like, yes, you can.
And this guy, Darwin, it seems to know what he's talking about.
He's not just telling stories. There's a couple of times where
he seems to be right. And he's a veteran of the Watch
and has been a Ranger for a very long time.
In fact, Chet and his people are like, well, we better kill
Darwin if we're going to get away, 'cause if we don't kill
that guy, he'll find us. That's how good he is.
So that's important. And the fact that cold hands,
getting back to the fact that cold hands can feel these
things, he can feel their darkness is it's really
interesting to me. And it ties into something about
him that is kind of dark. And there's a lot of dark things
about him, not just his, you know, clothing, but can he feel
like, what kind of human emotions does he have?
What kind of human feelings does he have?
Does he have sensations? Does he just feel them less?
He clearly can feel cold, so it's not nothing.
He can feel stuff. Does he feel pain?
Just the fact that he's living in a body that's falling apart,
that all the blood is congealed in in his hands And.
And what does this mean for the other undead characters?
What does this mean for Lady Stoner?
What does it mean for John? John's far more relevant I think
because you know he has more in common with cold hands than Lady
Stoneheart does. But of course they both, they
all have things in common now he knows cold hands does that he
can't make it to The Cave. He knows this is pretty much it
for him and because there's a ward on The Cave he can't pass,
just like you can't pass the wall.
I I assume it's basically the same magic and it seems to work
the same way, the same being seemed kept out.
While he's saying this a Raven lands on his shoulder and says
come come like this additional, you know, someone else adding
their voice to it, saying, you know, more encouragement is
needed. Not just Cold Hands speaking,
but the Raven. And the Raven is probably Blood
Raven, which maybe argues that it's there's two different
beings here. Cold Hands is operating.
You know he's taking orders from Blood Raven, but isn't
necessarily, it's just a puppet. But that isn't necessarily true
either because we've seen that skin changers control multiple
animals at once. So maybe he's controlling cold
Hands and this Raven and all those other Ravens.
Maybe the Elk Two, I don't know. But it's possible we have to
include that in the range of options.
So what a turn around that is. They're scared of cold hands.
They're understandably so. He's undead.
That's scary. On the other hand, it might help
them get used to the idea of a dead person, given, you know,
later on when they not all of them.
I don't suppose all of these characters will still be alive
when, when and if John and Brand are reunited.
Well, some people might be put off by John's deadness, if it's
even pointed out, which I think it will be.
I don't think they'll be able to conceal that like like they did
on on that TV show because of the physical changes like they
go through like your blood flowing to your hands and all
the stuff. I don't think that's just not
going to happen to John, right? Like, no, John is immune to
those things. His body is special, right?
So yeah, I think they're going to have to deal with that.
Not just a scar that he can cover up with his shirt.
Oh, he's just built different. Josh just built different.
Literally. Now.
Literally. Yeah.
Literally, yeah. So they were.
That's really moving to me. They were scared of him.
They questioned him, they were threatened by him.
But he sacrificed himself to get them those last 60 yards to
safety. Or did he?
Or is he just a body that that that has no feelings or
personality, so maybe we shouldn't care.
But I I don't really lean that way.
I really feel like there's probably some personality in
there, some life, some sense of being, some remains of a person,
a soul, are still in there. Kind of like they're still the
spirits of children are in all the Ravens or their spirit,
Second life concept, things like that.
So I think there's someone in there, even if it's maybe
multiple someones, maybe blood Raven.
Plus the original person who called hands was and as well I
pointed out back at the beginning that Bran notices that
some of these whites on that last 60 yard dash to safety that
attacked them were nights watch. They were nights watch black.
They had the cloaks, the ring male whatever.
Some of those people might have known the man who had been cold
hands in life and he might have known them as he may have even
recognized of like a some sort of item of clothing or birthmark
or something. We recognized Bloodraven's
birthmark on him. That's that's one of the big
clues as to who the three eyed crow really was.
The the greens here in the tree, that birthmark really gave a lot
away. Someone might have, you know, be
really tall or really short, you know, and there's little things
that could give away who somebody is besides just seeing
their face. And I wonder if any of that was
like cold Hands was feeling that, thinking that just
noticing that triggering some memory that's been long gone.
But if we back up a little bit to try to start talking about
who he is, let's think about that.
Let's get into that subtopic and and that's going to cover a lot
of the rest of this episode with his goal and his route and his
time with Bran and company up to what appears to be his ending.
We can maybe start to guess his identity.
And then we can run each guess through that path, the short
path, and see if it works, see if it fits, see the pros and
cons of of each guess. Well, let's start here, he said.
Jojen frowned this cold hands that.
Wasn't his true name, Said Gilly, rocking.
We only called him that, Sam and me.
His hands were cold as ice, but he saved us from the dead men,
him and his Ravens, and he brought us here on his elk just.
Like the phrase Three Eyed Crow, they make up a name because they
don't have a given name. They didn't know his name was
Bloodraven. They didn't know his name was
Brendan until they asked him later.
And this is a bit of a pattern of brands, POV, his arc,
nameless beings that that he deals with.
Although apparently cold hands came from Sam the name.
Either way, nicknames for beings that don't have names.
And yeah, cold Hands, the three Eyed Crow, all those ancient
dreamers in The Cave, they don't really have names.
The others are effectively nameless at this point and will
probably remain that way. The children as well, they do
have names, but they're unpronounceable to humans, so
they have to give them names too.
Leaf and Snowy, Locks and Scales and Black Knife, whatever all
their names are. I don't have them written down.
All those are just nicknames given to them by Mira and Bran,
I guess. Guess Jojen didn't do the
nicknaming it specifically, says Brandon Mira in the book if I
remember correctly, the Jojen's like, I don't need nicknames,
but let's not just get stuck on cold hands alone.
I I brought this for up for a minute as well, but let's come
back to it here. Salmon Gilly's description of
cold hands has them mesmerized and as well we are.
But the animals are really interesting too.
It kicks off some additional dialogue here.
Quote his. El said Bran wonderstruck his
elk said Mira startled his. Ravens, said Jojen.
Hodor said Hodor. Was he green?
Bran wanted to know. Did he have antlers the fat?
Man was confused. The elk.
Yes, the elk did have antlers. Very large antlers.
But the elk was not green. Nor was the man.
Yeah, look, even a creepy, mysterious undead figure like
cold hands can be associated with some Comic Relief if you're
George R Martin, right? But the relief is brief and
rare. It has a dark implications
because well a Green Man and all this other stuff the this takes
us back to the ancient, ancient past and things like sacrifice
and the times that Bran maybe sees in his last vision.
The last thing he sees in his final vision in his final
chapter is tasting the blood from a where would sacrifice
that? He's seeing through and it's
still like the first thing he sees when they're like this will
wedge you to the trees. And he sees a series of visions
and it culminates with this human sacrifice.
It's like this is what this is all leading up to.
But Yikes, Yeah, but it is kind of funny to think of cold hands
as green or a green elk. Just that mental picture like,
yeah, that's 10 foot tall green elk.
Whoa, yeah, I like it. So that was A Storm of Swords.
Don't forget, the meeting of Sam and Bran's respective parties is
also joyous for several reasons. So this Comic Relief comes at a
time when they're happy. They're like, wow, I found Bran
finds out that he's with someone that he likes.
He finds out that John is alive. That's he, or he rather Sam
finds out John is alive. There's lots of positivity in
this scene, even though they're going to soon have to part and
go about their respectively dangerous lives.
But it's a really nice kind of brief moment of away from the
horror. And there's another joke in that
too, where remember, Mira shoves Sam off his feet with her frog
spear when they're thinking he's like the thing that goes bump in
the night or the thing the the the the thing that walks at
night or whatever it's called. And they're scared of him
because he's all big and huffing and puffing and he's all like,
you might have, I might be bleeding and like, let's check
under your shirt and he's like, and she's like you're wearing
mail. You've got armor on.
Like, there's no way all I did was push you.
And he's like, yeah, but it hurts.
So it's pretty funny. And of course, as, as I pointed
out before, it's loaded with vibes, minds of Mauria stuff
going on here. Of course, if you recall from
from our interview with George RR Martin, which you should
listen to. Absolutely, Or watch if you
haven't, we brought that up to him.
And he was like, did I was like, I didn't do that on purpose.
It's like I'm thinking to myself, man, there's like 12
homages to the minds of Mauria in this one scene.
And he's like, yeah, I guess subconsciously I just did that
like, yeah, I guess so. So it's pretty darn good though.
Well done George. Well done.
So yeah, this same kind of moment when it comes back later,
it's it's it's really comparing these you've got this sort of
light hearted meeting of these characters and then pretty
quickly after it returns to horror quote.
Outside the night wind howled, bleak and black.
The trees were full of Ravens screaming.
Cold hands did not move. A monster, Bran said.
The Ranger looked at Bran as if the rest of them did not exist.
Your. Monster Brandon Stark.
Yours. The Raven echoed from his
shoulder outside the door. The Ravens in the trees took up
the cry until the night would echoed to the murderous song of
yours. Yours, Yours, Jojen.
Did you dream this? Mira asked her brother.
Who is he? What is he?
What do we do now, Jojen? Sort of non answers the dream
part, which I take as no, he didn't dream about Cold Hands.
I think he would have said so if he had.
He's pretty blunt, Jojen is. He doesn't seem to hold back.
So although maybe he is holding back a little bit about his own
fate 'cause there's maybe one or two things he's not saying, but
I don't think he's he holds back about this.
And so I think he would have said something if there were a
dream, but also if Cold Hands is controlled or puppeted by
Bloodraven. I think that's who he'd dream
of. I think he'd dream of the the
being behind it, not the vessel body, right?
Like like when Melisandre has the images of them through her
dream, she sees them as the the corpse lore with the wooden face
and the the boy with the wolf head, and the kind of concepts
are merged. So I'm not sure about that, but
I lean towards thinking that it would be Bloodraven or a Raven
or something like that, that he would envision if he had a
dream. But yeah, he says no.
He's like he basically says no or through through non
answering. But he does say we have no
choice, we have to follow him. It's very much like what Jorah
says to Danny in The Red Waste. We might not make it going
forward, but we'll definitely die if we go back.
And it's very much the same here.
They've gone too far in this icy, frozen winter land to
possibly get back to anywhere. They have to go forward and you
know it's the same thing in The Red Waste.
There's no way they can go trudge back through that desert
that they've come all this way through.
Hopefully they can emerge out of it soon, but they definitely
won't make it going back. So I think that's pretty
interesting. And Mira asking Jojen is like
usually Mira is takes the lead in spots like this, but she's
kind of out of her depth. She's not.
I mean, the supernatural stuff she has no answers for.
That's that's definitely for her brother and Bran to to take
stock of or to to weigh in on and and they don't have anything
other than logic. Jojen doesn't have a magical
answer. He's like, yeah, if we go back,
we're going to die. We have no choice.
That's not anything about a dream.
OK, let's talk a little bit about some of the specifics with
cold hands, like his his traits, his features quote.
Who are you? Why are your hands black?
The Ranger studied his hands as if he had never noticed them
before. Once the heart has ceased to
beat, a man's blood runs down into his extremities, where it
thickens and congeals his. Voice rattled in his throat, as
thin and gaunt as he was his. Hands and feet swell up and turn
as black as pudding. The rest of him becomes as white
as milk. Mira.
Reed rose her frog spear in her hand and a chunk of smoking meat
still impaled upon its tines. Show us your face.
The Ranger made no move to obey. Can I tell you you're quote
reading. He's really funny because you
have a deep Such a deep voice compared to thin and gaunt voice
is not yours. I know, and nor do I have a
rattle. My voice rattled a mother.
I need. I was like, how do I do?
How do you do that? Like what kind of voice actor
can do that? Like, what is that even sounds
like after you make your voice rattle, you need to have some
serious talent to do that. Yeah, maybe need some, some some
studio effects to make that happen.
So yeah, obviously there's the frozen hands and a few other
features. The fact that he won't take his
mask off. But yeah, he calls himself
nights or doesn't call himself nights.
Watch. He wears nights watch black and
calls Sam brother. That seems pretty
straightforward. Being thin and gaunt doesn't
tell us very much because he's dead.
So like that, that's just desiccation and, you know, decay
covering his face. Now, I don't think there's a big
secret here. I I think he's probably just,
his face is horrifying and he doesn't want to freak them out.
You know, like he clearly doesn't need it for warmth, so
it's not functional. So I think it's purely just for
their benefit, because it probably looks awful, like maybe
the some bird ate away his lips or something, Like his eyes are
still there. So maybe not, because apparently
that's one of the first things they go for.
Yuck. Yeah, that's exactly what you
all needed to know, right? What's the first part of the
dead body that animals will feast on?
Yeah, it's the eye. It's the soft parts, right?
His eyes are pretty soft so the cold doesn't affect him.
So he yeah he's not using that for warmth.
So I I really think like something horrifying is has been
below that mask. It would just I mean these are
children. He's trying to like hey children
follow me into the cold and darkness.
Like it wouldn't help if he had like a you know a rigor mortis
face or the the skull grin or a bunch of shattered teeth or who
knows like it's probably terrifying.
So it it makes sense to cover that I think.
And of course obviously he's sent to find brand.
We know that by either by Bloodraven or the children, or
the whole Green Seer network. I'm saying just Bloodraven, but
I think whenever you say Bloodraven, we have to recognize
that he's in the Green Seer network now.
It's not just him, it's him and all the Green Seers before him,
all their souls or whatever, for lack of a better term, their
spirits, their beings are all in there.
It's a collective. He's just the least.
He's like the mouthpiece of the collective.
He's the most recent living part of it.
We know there's been other living parts of it that have
passed over prior centuries. The children are still part of
it, but in a different kind of way.
So yeah, I say blood Raven, but anytime I say blood Raven, I
really mean, you know, the whole, the whole package here.
And Speaking of that whole package, then Elk and Ravens, is
that Blood Raven from afar doing that or is cold hands actually
doing that? Is cold hands actually
controlling the elk, which, you know, the elk might just be, you
know, not, there might not be much magic involved there at
all. But the Ravens, clearly, the
Ravens, clearly there's magic going on there.
They're using their eyes and ears.
They all yell in unison. They talk.
Sometimes they literally give instructions.
So that seems very straightforward.
I'm not, like I said, I'm not quite as sure about the elk, but
it seems pretty likely that there's some skin changing going
on there, or at least some control.
It seems very normal for the children and that the old God's
magic to do that sort of thing. When he kills the elk, he
whispers a prayer in a language they don't recognize.
Now, Old Tongue, probably, but it's relevant to point out,
because if this is a language that this person spoke in life,
that might be a clear to their identity.
But again, if it's bloodraven, then he's learned the Old Tongue
at some point. You know he learned it at Castle
Black. Maybe he learned it while he was
handed the king. No idea.
But I wouldn't put it past him. Knowing is the point.
It's certainly very feasible. And that's of course the Ravens
as well come up big in a lot of places.
That's how he knew the Wolves were following them.
How he knew the Nights Watch deserters were following them,
How he has kept away from the undead, and maybe the others as
well. Of course, we must repeat he
can't pass the Wall or Bloodraven's cave, but knew
where the Black Gate was. That's another one we could just
pin on Bloodraven. Perhaps, but maybe not.
If this guy is older than Bloodraven, he might have had
the knowledge in his, you know, dead brain of where this gate
was, something that maybe even Bloodraven didn't know.
And why wouldn't Bloodraven know the about the Black Gate?
Well, he might, but the knife forts been closed for 200 years.
They shut that thing down before Blood Raven was born, so it's no
guarantee he was aware of it. Now, as I said, it's also easy
to assume he could have. He was Lord Commander, he could
have gone there, he could have sent men there to explore it.
There's plenty of reasons He could have read about it in a
book that obviously Castle Black has a substantial library.
He's a reader, He knows things. He may have already known about
it before he got there. Maester Amon could have told him
about it. There's a lot of things, lot of
ways. We don't know which of the many
things it is, but it's not far fetched or anything like that.
But it doesn't have to be him. Cold hands, the living as a
living person, whoever he was, might have been the way that
this was rediscovered. We have never seen a white talk.
Can they? Maybe, But that's something
about cold hands that seemingly is unique, or at least we
haven't seen it elsewhere. He also doesn't have blue eyes.
The whites very distinctly have blue eyes very distinctly.
It's one of their most notable features.
It's a pretty telltale sign that they're being controlled by the
others, and it's certainly telltale that in this case they
don't. So I guess if they're controlled
by a Green seer, if Blood Raven's controlling him, that's
an if. It's not a sure thing.
But let's let's use that theory for a minute and say that is the
case. Well, there's no eye color
change. There's nothing notable about
Cole hands eyes. They never hardly referred to
his eyes. Other than that there's
apparently there's nothing notable about them.
Or so that would have come up right?
Like if he had rainbow eyes, someone would have said
something, you know? Or if he had a third eye, that
would have, that would have been mentioned.
Kind of like the the theories around Septal Amor.
Like could she really have stunning purple eyes like a
Chara Dane if Tyrion just never like Tyrion.
Just didn't notice that. Like why George just didn't
write that He's like, yeah, her eyes are purple, but I decided
not to write that down. That seems cheat, like cheating.
So I I think cold hands eyes are most likely not a factor.
They're not interesting so they're probably just two
regular brown black eyes or something like that.
But he like a white he can't be near fire.
It's very dangerous to him. He sits far, far from it when
he's in the long haul, when they're roasting their meat.
So it's particularly dangerous to him, to all undead beings.
Perhaps that makes sense. That really dried out there.
There's no blood, you know, There's no moisture in your skin
from all the regular moisture that we have as living beings
that dead things don't have. And we do see this first hand
when small Paul has Sam and like a bear hug and I mean dead Small
Paul Sam grabs a burning ember and shoves it in Small Paul's
mouth and for a second nothing happens.
But then like his head burst into flames and and his grip
loosens and the white just burns up and collapses.
So that's interesting, right? So you he cold hands doesn't
want that to happen to himself. But that's almost sad to me.
He can feel cold. We see him outside The Cave
saying, don't you feel it there? It's cold, which is very
alarming to me that he can feel. So does he want to feel the heat
of the fire? But he just can't get close to
it because it'll kill him. It's like, that's kind of sad.
Actually, I feel sad for a corpse.
George, what are you doing here? How are you getting us to do
these things, man? So of course he also says you're
monster Brandon Stark. And the other clue being that
they killed him long ago. A lot of debate has happened in
the fandom over that phrase long ago.
Like, whose perspective are we talking about here?
And it's it's impossible to know for sure the the speaker.
Is Leaf speaking to Bran though are you speaking is Leaf
speaking to Bran on Bran's terms like well this is a child so I'm
speaking to him. What would what would seem like
a long time to a 7 year old? What is long ago to a 7 year
old? Or is Leaf Speaking of long ago
on her terms? Because if it's on her terms,
woo long ago from the perspective of a children of the
Forest, well that's but your imagination is the limit there.
Yeah, It's kind of where I think I've, I've fallen on different
sides of this, this interpretation over the years.
I think currently I'm like, if Leif's talking about long ago
from her perspective that's so long ago, it seems too long to
me for it to actually be from her perspective.
So I think currently I lean towards long ago from Bran's
perspective. I do too.
I don't think the corpse. I don't think it's feasible for
a corpse, even in the frozen north, to last that long.
Well, it's not. Even the corpse part, to me,
it's like the clothing. Oh yeah, you know, like, yeah,
you're right. Like it's like the other
logistical things like like I they would have to re clothe
him, I think. I don't know.
So I I just tend to lean like long ago for her.
Isn't like 100 years, you know, to be like it would be much
longer than that I I think so, I think.
I side with you. I think it's like a few years
ago, Like like long ago. Meaning.
Yeah, a long time for someone to have been dead, but not a long
time in terms of historical length.
But your mileage may vary. We're certainly guessing here,
so this isn't something I can claim authority on.
And who's this and? Also, I'll say I would love it
if anyone went back to our previous episodes where we
talked about this very subject, because I think you might have
found us like arguing the other side of things, you know, eight
years ago. It's entirely.
Possible you've been doing this show so long that I sometimes
don't know what my opinion was on some of these topics, 8 or
10. Years.
I always encourage y'all. If you remember, if you went
back to an old episode and you're like actually your
opinion was very different back then, I'd love it if you pointed
out to us that would be. Entertaining.
I agree with that. Yeah, if y'all.
Cause some of you will have listened to those old episodes a
lot more recently than we have. You know, I don't listen to our
old episodes unless. We're re editing them, whichever
you so often, it happens, That's true.
It does occasionally happen, but yeah, not for, not for pleasure,
that's for sure. Yeah, I'm gonna listen to myself
eight years ago. It's like.
That Kanye West joke. Oh yeah.
Or he's like, just listening to dope.
These Beats are dope. This podcast, Are you listening?
To your own music, yes. So yeah, and they who is they?
They killed him long ago. I think the simplest answer is
the same they that is killing him right then.
The whites, the others. Well, the servants of the
others, the undead raised beings, or what killed him in
the 1st place, and maybe is what raised him to fight alongside
his other dead brothers before this magic of the children
intervened somehow to release him from their grip in death and
put him in their own grip. So I don't even, I'm not sure
it's actually much better for the dead guy, but but maybe it
is. So yeah, is this necromancy or
warging or a combination of both?
What? What's the deal here?
Like what animates him? I mean, we already know powerful
green seers can control people. We've seen Bran control Hodor.
This is a Gray. Seer this is a.
Gray seer control the dead. That's a real Gray area.
Good point. Yes, that's it.
From now on, it's a Gray seer. Yeah, it is a Gray area.
It's like, well, they're not alive.
You can control a dead person. So Vermeer's master hag on said
it was a abomination for skin changers to try to control human
beings. Somehow I don't think Bloodraven
gives a crap about that. He doesn't care a about skin
changer, societal scruples, nor does he care about anything
other than the ends justify the means.
I think that's the kind of character he is, the kind of
person we. That's the conclusion we arrived
at when we did multiple deep dives on him.
We've done 3 episodes on this guy.
Plus he comes up an awful lot in other places and that's where I
land. I land on him being ruthless,
but mostly a good guy, just not he'll.
He'll do anything to achieve ends that he believes are
correct here. It's a little harder to argue
with him. I mean, it's one thing to
execute someone dishonorably because you think that it's
better for the realm, because there's a lot of debate as to,
you know, what's the right way to handle justice and laws.
This is a completely other matter.
And I yeah, pun intended, this isn't about justice or laws.
This is a fight for survival. This is a only one of us can
live on this continent. This is a we.
This This world isn't big enough for the both of us.
So things like standard ethical and moral considerations have to
be shifted. The ground is shifted.
This isn't humans versus other humans.
We're not considering the rights of this isn't human nature.
We're not considering human rights.
We're considering the potential for human extinction and the
others who are not human, human or humane or a species that if
they were real we might not recognize them as one that had a
right to life unlike every just about every other species that
does exist in in the real world that we would view it
differently. It's a completely different
paradigm. If there was a being that
existed in the real world that was absolutely dedicated to
eradicating all human life, I think we could even the like
most pacifistic you know, type of person.
The most all life has a right to exist type person would be would
be moved by that be like yeah, OK, maybe this is an exception.
We got to kill those you know we can't coexist with that.
We can coexist with 99.99% of species but this thing no.
So it's tricky to getting at the ethics of this with Bloodraven,
dealing with his as a hand to the king.
I think it's a lot easier to discuss even though it's not
easy. But with this, it's a lot
trickier 'cause our we just don't have common ethical ground
in the real world to frame this in.
And even if we did, I think it's safe to say that Bloodraven
would lean towards the side of whatever, whatever it takes.
I'll do any sort of evil, any sort of unethical thing if it
means saving humanity, which, yeah, I mean yeah, that a lot
of, a lot of the price should be high, or we should be willing to
pay a pretty high price to save everyone.
But getting back to the like logistics of the magic here, can
green seers normally animate dead bodies?
I don't think so. But but what explains cold hands
here? Did the others resurrect him and
then Blood Raven wrenched that control away?
But he wouldn't have been able to just raise the thing in the
first place. It's it's peculiar.
It's puzzling. And if they can animate dead
bodies, whoa, that's we'll come back to that.
But wow, what a if Bran can start raising the dead.
I mean, that's that's not something I don't think anyone
expected to see coming. Like that is not on my Super
Skin Changer green seer bingo card.
You know, Arya or John. Can they do that too?
Then can they skin change into dead animals?
Probably not. But what if they can?
Or what if only Bran can? Because he's obviously more
powerful than either of them. So implication, the
implications. Because of the implication, it's
pretty stunning. Yeah, Speaking of magic, it's
been a while. Now that we've been on Magic
Mind, it's been months now, and for for a drink that's supposed
to improve your focus over the long term, I can say it wasn't a
short term bump. My focus remains strong.
Last week we talked about how all three of us have purchased
it ourselves beyond the supply they gave us, which I think is
pretty telling. Why would we do that if it
wasn't working? But today I had a really funny
experience and ashea can back me up on this 'cause it might sound
like I'm making it up otherwise. But I told her we're sitting
here getting ready for our episode.
Said to her I haven't been thinking about coffee at all.
I haven't been thinking about having a cup of coffee, and I've
been awake for several hours. The idea that I had wasn't even
it wasn't even on my mind. I just didn't even occur to me
very. Unlike.
That is weird. These is a coffee addict.
Yeah, I will. Wake up and I want that coffee.
So it was weird. And it was like, I had to stop
and think was like, wow, that's really interesting.
And I'm drinking one. I am having a coffee so it's not
like. And again, my goal wasn't to
quit coffee, it was just to tone it down a bit.
Drink less coffee, drink it less often, maybe drink weaker coffee
because I make it pretty damn strong, less strong today, less
amount. Like I I often have 3 cups, but
lately it's been one or two and have them spread out more often.
So I'm adamant that it's working for me.
I'm not just saying that. And I'm also strongly sure that
it's been working for me. I know I said there's some
amount of placebo effect that could be happening.
I don't think that's the case at this point.
I think I can tell a more significant difference, but I
also still stand by my point that if something gives me a
placebo effect, it makes me and makes me more focused, then I'll
take that too. Results the.
Result, Yeah. Results the result, but I I
actually do think that I I can tell a difference, but beyond
that, yeah and as. We've discussed in the past too.
There's ingredients in Magic mind that have gone through
rigorous scientific testing and the claims are accurate.
So this isn't just yeah, it isn't just, well, my experience
says it's both. It's experiential and it's
scientifically tested. There you go.
I would love it if you try it out, if you let us know what you
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Would love to hear other people's experience with this.
Yeah, just. If it's if it's helping you work
more or get more focused or anything, whether it's helping
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I imagine people are using it in variety of ways and we'd love to
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It's one thing to get your day started, right?
It's another thing to keep your day going and functional all day
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I don't really like to take breaks for very long or at all.
I just want to keep going. I want to.
If I'm focused, I stay focused because sometimes it's hard for
me to get back my focus once I lose it.
So when meal time comes around, it's something like a hassle to
me, You know, I'm like, I don't want to eat, I want to keep
working. But sometimes you just, you got
to eat, you got to stop, you got to eat, you got to refuel.
But I appreciate having an option like factor meals where I
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but I could do the microwave. It could be even faster if I
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It feels wasteful. So you have a lot of control
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There were several. I crushed them all.
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Lots of caffeine. Love that.
Yeah, meanwhile. In my case, I really liked In
one of my meals there was a mashed cauliflower like a
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And it's a little bit of a tedious thing to make at home.
You cut up all the florets and blend it up.
It's really good. I highly recommend cauliflower
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That's one thing when you get food delivered, shipped to you.
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Back to meals. I have an interesting question
for you all. So I posted to our Facebook
group. Can Ungregor AKA the Kyborg, can
he cross the wall? And 55% people said yes, 33%
said no, 11% said from the South, but he wouldn't be able
to come back again. Like he could cross into the
north but not come back again. That's an interesting point.
I didn't add that one. Suzanne Beam shout out.
Suzanne added that to the answers and several people
picked that. So I thought that was a good
alternate suggestion there, yeah.
I like that too. The idea that the magic is meant
to block things from coming South.
Yeah, yeah, that does. That's a really good point.
Yeah, it's it's not necessarily A1.
It might be a one way street. Now the argument against that is
silver wing right at Queen Alice and flew silver wing to the wall
and silver wing thrice refused to pass and the word used is
refused. That's the word used.
Not can't, not impossible, just refuse.
So. Dragons aren't necessarily the
type of magic that you would have expected to be blocked from
going north. You know, like they aren't.
If you were to, if you didn't have this story and you were
asked, do you think Dragons could pass the wall?
I think people wouldn't. I don't think the majority would
say no. You know what I mean?
Like, without that story, I don't think anyone would have
really guessed that, yeah. Yeah, that's true.
That's true. I mean, yeah.
And especially if you would use the TV show as a clue, which you
shouldn't, but you would look at the I don't blame you if you
can't. And like good magic and maybe or
something that wasn't blocked and I would have at least Julie.
A says can I propose the magic in the wall as a topics mood
suggestion? Yes, that's a great idea.
Well, topics mood is is complete.
Now, we haven't announced all the winners, but there will be
more topics, moods and there will be There is a.
Topics that come. Up here and there there's a
document. That these works on that just
has master list of topics that will be in future topics, moods,
future things like that and so I put that here so that these can
throw this in that document. That's right, we have a.
Large topics suggestion document for all sorts of categories and
ideas and small topics. Big topics.
Yeah, it's a great. Topic, Julie.
Yeah, we've. Got all that Is a good good
suggestion. Very much guilty Undertaker asks
a tough question. Do whites feel pain when they
burn or only relief if someone you know?
If someone just like heard you say that you know heard me say
that. Like if you're listening to this
podcast out lied and you're just like some random person you're
walking by someone's desk and you hear the you hear someone
ask do whites feel pain when they burn like whites?
Wait white people do white people, Why would they not feel
pain? Why would they feel relief?
Because that's the following question.
Or do they feel released because their?
Soul being released, yes. Like a sunburn.
Yeah, I tell you, it's one of those things where it's like
Valerian, where if George had planned ahead for it to be on
screen or read out loud, you probably wouldn't have made
Valerian and Valyrian sound so similar.
And he might have gone with zombie instead of white.
But maybe not. I don't know.
And Julie says maybe Silverwing
was a dragon that didn't want to do her duty.
I was like, I don't want to. I can.
I just won't. I'm just not gonna.
Yeah, You never know what these Dragons they're they're willful
beasts, right? Isn't that what what one of the
the beings in the House of the Undying said to Daenerys before
they revealed themselves with like, oh, willful beast, blah,
blah blah blah, blah. We'll teach you all the secrets
of dragon speech, won't we? Yeah.
You liar, Gerald Garcia says. The thing about Silverwing is
that if the Long Night ended with a truce, the wall may be a
border where fire magic can't pass one way and ice magic can't
pass the other. Interesting.
Well, I will say that Melisandre has crossed apparently both
ways. She was able because now she's
not a white. I don't think there is a theory
she's a fire white or something like that.
I don't think she is. I think she's just had an
extended life. Her she's she's not immortal but
she is semi immortal given she has a very extended life which
is not the same thing as resurrection.
I think this like it extends your life.
But one is being the mechanism of bringing someone back from
death is very different than extending life in my opinion.
So but yeah, there are a lot of good theories out there about
the wall. Maybe keeps out certain things
like fire magic or or ice magic or maybe drawing those
distinctions is a really interesting conversation.
So yeah, maybe maybe Silver Wing could pass the other way, but
not this way. And maybe silver Wing could fly
S over the wall but didn't pass it going north.
That's an interesting possibility and we might get
more. Well, we will.
We'll get more clues in the books so as to what can and
can't pass the wall. I think, and we have.
I have at least one more big question on that coming up later
in the episode. Let's talk about some of the
existing theories to about who cold hands is.
Some of these we can discuss some of them.
We can perhaps even eliminate Benjen.
Benjen would be a solid candidate given the long mystery
of his disappearance and the fact that he took the cold hands
role in the TV show. But George R Martin's editor
straight up asked in the margin of A Dance with Dragons while
she was editing the book she's she wrote Is this Benjen?
And he wrote no. Yeah, I have that on screen for
y'all very very clearly is this Benjen?
I think it's benjen dot dot dot with a little happy :) and
George writes in red it was circled at no.
Like a teacher correcting the student.
No, F no, not F no. It's a reasonable guess.
It was a reasonable guess, especially at the time.
And I love that, by the way. I love that the editor is like
really engrossed in the story, like thinking about who this
person is. It's not just like looking for
mistakes, like really deep in it, which is you should do that
as an editor. I mean, you're to edit a book,
you really need to know what it is you're you're editing.
You got to know it well so that we a lot of you have seen this
picture before, heard of it. But that's the point.
Some of you have only ever heard this and haven't seen it.
So we wanted to put it on screen.
So you know, it's not a rumor. So we really don't need to
discuss this possibility any further.
I see no reason to discuss the possibility of Benjin.
I mean, we can talk about Benjin another time because he's he's
still a mystery, I want to say. Real quick, what we've said
before, which is why would George lie to his editor?
He wouldn't. OK, OK, He just wouldn't lie to
his editor, of all people. I mean, maybe it's an elaborate
way to fool the entire fan and like, editor's like, I'm going
to write this, You'll write no fool everywhere.
I don't. Think that's possible.
I think 0% possible. Really, I think the it's only.
Theoretically possible. The only thing that's.
Possible that would make it possible to be Benjen is that
George just changed his mind. I don't really think that's
going to happen in this particular case, but certainly
possible always for an author to change their mind.
That's their prerogative. Agreed.
Yeah, it is. Absolutely.
Yeah. Mind changing is always
possible, but yeah, it does seem unlikely.
OK, so another possible is Weymar Royce.
He's a Ranger. His body wouldn't have
deteriorated because he was killed fairly recently and he
was killed by them like they killed him long ago, which that
would have been two years ago or so.
So that qualifies as long ago I think from Bran's perspective.
But here's a line from the prologue.
Basically the last one of the last lines of the prologue.
The right eye was open, the pupil burned blue, it saw cold
as it's not blue eyes, Weymar Royce has blue eyes there.
Now one of our theories is that that Bloodraven de whited or
took control over on this body, which might change the eye
colour, cause the eye colour seems to indicate who's in
control. So if someone else sees control
over this body then there you go.
That that could explain the lack of blue eyes.
I'm open to that possibility. But there's another problem.
The pupil burned blue it saw one of Weymar Royce's eyes was
destroyed by the shattering blade and there's no mention of
cold hands having a ruined eye. That's a pretty big problem.
It's also a problem that Weymar had fancy clothing.
He had Moleskin gloves wrapped around his throat.
Will did. That's the last thing in the
prologue. Moleskin gloves wrapping around
his throat, not bare hands with his cold hands as a white bother
to take his gloves off. I mean, maybe they fell off, but
I mean, yeah, I don't know. It just doesn't.
There's a lot of things here that don't really work.
And how would Waymar have control over Ravens and an elk?
Now maybe that's bloodraven, but honestly, this last bit is a
problem for almost any candidate who is both a Ranger and a skin
changer. Well, well, Jon Snow, but well
here. That's that's what I just want
to say. I just think that the answer
there has to be that Bloodraven does the controlling and we can
just not have that be the fatal flaw in all of these issues.
I think that I think that really points to the fact that
Bloodraven is controlling this, yes.
I agree it's one of the biggest clues that this is Bloodraven
and not some other being. Because like, does do your war
powers stay with you when you die and come back?
Big question for John, by the way, because yeah, like, do you
does your blood still work the same?
I mean, like you, it's tied to your blood, they say, and your
blood is all like it's congealed and gets in your hands.
And like your blood is just different when you're dead.
So I don't know, maybe, maybe that's just getting too into the
weeds with it. But either way, cold hands can
teach us a thing or two or three or five about John, and that's
really interesting. I think that's perhaps one of
the most interesting things about cold hands is what he
tells us, not who he is. It's possible the war abilities
of cold hands came after his raising, but that also kind of
seems far fetched, right? Like he just was imbued with
these powers after death. That seems kind of unlikely,
like he's some sort of. I think that at that point that
you do that, what's the difference between just blood
Raven doing it? What's the point in making that
be? The the, the?
IT just seems more complex it? Seems like, yeah, it does.
Just blood Raven. Just a better answer than than
any of these things. Yeah, then he's weird, like
within his. Powers.
It's within his interests. Like self-serve.
Like, yeah, it's it's totally reasonable for him to do this.
So one theory that's been out there for a while is Knights
King. Now he was a Ranger, though long
ago is extremely extreme. Here we're talking like 8 to
10,000 years ago. That really, really stretches
the desiccation of a body. The clothing would have to be
reset. He's on his one.
Thousandth clothing item. And George R Martin is flat out
said Night King was a mythical figure.
It's a bit much to have a character designated as a
mythical figure, yet running around doing errands for
Bloodraven 8 to 10,000 years later.
I mean, Aaron does. Maybe kind of not a fair way to
put it, but it's still like why is he in his subordinate role?
You know, like for all this so many years later like man.
But he at least the power part works like he was associated
with having magical abilities. So the skin changer part
actually does fit this one, at least Knights.
Errand Boy Knights, yeah. No longer the Knights king.
He's the Knights Squire now. The Knights Paige.
Yeah, really. He's like talk about a Squire
later. Some Squires never get promoted
to knighthood. Yeah, this guy's been there 8000
years. Really, really long in that job.
One of the Raven's Teeth. This has been one of my favorite
conclusions for quite a long time.
We wrote an episode for In Deep Geek and this was basically my
conclusion there that as far as who Cold Hands was as a living
being, this is my favorite guest.
The Raven's Teeth were Blood Raven's personal guard.
They were Archers and and had other roles as well.
They took the field with him at the Red Grass Field, and they,
many of them went to the wall with him.
When he was sent to take the black.
Maybe, maybe about 50 of them. That was our guest, about 50,
roughly. And those would have helped him
get elected Lord Commander. So you know, 'cause it's a
voting thing, right? And not that his own, just who
he was, helped him become Lord Commander.
This guy has a ton of experience.
The idea of like going up to the wall with like your own voting
bloc. Yeah, right.
The nice watch is now a lot of people, 50s a lot, right?
I know. It's really.
Actually quite funny. It's a picture like some guy
who's like, I'm a lock next year I'm the Lord Commander and like
Blood Raven arrives with 50 men and they're like.
OK, well, that's all right. I'm.
I'm not. I'm going to lose.
Yeah, like, damn it, this guy's been handed the king, like, what
the hell? To two different kings, 13 years
each. And he's already got a voting
bloc. Like, this is not fair.
Now, he that also qualifies as long ago.
That's like 50 years ago, right? It's a pretty, pretty good
length of time. Now, it's not the easiest thing
to believe that one of blood Raven's personal guard was a
warg, but it, you know, it's it's feasible.
You know, he could, if anyone's out there detecting people with
war powers, it could be him. You know, we never hear of such
a thing, but there's a lot of things Blood Raven would have
done that we wouldn't have heard about and.
Not essential that they were a skin changer of any sort, yeah.
It wouldn't have, yeah, exactly. So maybe just one or the two of
them. Like he's, he's Blackwood.
So, you know, maybe there's. Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, I mean
I I think Nourish game even says it in the chat right here.
If it isn't Blood Raven and Cold Hands is a skin changer.
It isn't impossible. Much of this sort of magic lives
in the north and the north is I think the main nights watch
recruiting ground for non convicts.
So that too, Beyond Blood Raven, maybe having some people from
the Riverlands that could have that type of background as well.
Certainly very, very possible. Skin changers aren't so few and
far between that there's once in it.
One in a generation. There's definitely more than one
in a generation, and they could. Sense each other and blood.
Raven was one. So if he knew of this person
while Lord Commander, there's a lot of ways as Lord Commander of
the Night's Watch, he could have encountered to some other skin
changer someone. It might have been a Ranger,
Well, it would have been a Ranger and established a
relationship with this person or knew this person was like, ah,
that's the guy I need to resurrect because he's the one
that had these powers. He knew about this guy, so he's
the one. So he was uniquely qualified to
to be resurrected for this purpose.
Guilty. Undertaker says if George wanted
to make Cold Hands one of the raven's teeth, he could have
made him an Archer. But maybe he can't pull a
bowstring. The big question is why doesn't
Cold hands use his archery? If he was a Raven's Tooth and
that his question is maybe he can't physically, he maybe.
Can't. Yeah, that's possible, and maybe
it's just not that effective. Like, I feel like what makes
bows effective against whites is if they have dragon glass or
fire, and he can't. He probably shouldn't be
handling dragon glass either, so that could be it.
But I like the idea that maybe he just isn't physically capable
because his arms don't work right anymore, but he definitely
can swing a sword in his hands. I was picturing, yeah.
Yeah. So, yeah, it's it's possible.
So again we return to all this is much easier to explain if
it's just blood Raven using his powers if if if cold hands is a
vessel, but what does that mean you know he's a vessel.
We'll come back to that briefly. But either way I think like you
said, seems to be we agree on that he's in a tree.
He can control animals, but he needs a way to speak and do
human things. He needs a a vessel that's
walking around out there in the world that can give, you know
use English well common a language that they can
understand rather than talking through birds or in dreams.
He needs a a be a person. You know, someone with a tongue
you know. So it doesn't even matter
necessarily who the Ranger is. Though as we've said, being
dressed as a Ranger or actually being in the body of a Ranger is
a is a benefit because people like Sam will go oh a friend and
and Bran and Jojen Amir as well will recognize nights watch
generally as a good thing. So on the other hand, being a a
Ranger beyond the wall raises the danger of free folk.
But this is a good time to not have to worry about free folk
because they've all been fleeing S beyond the Wall.
So that that probably is solved by that issue.
And it's also solved by the fact that beyond the wall is vast and
they have all these Raven scouts keeping an eye as to who's
around them. Nina says.
Yeah, cold hands. Probably a white taken over and
controlled by Blood Raven. If whites are dead bodies raised
back to life and then directed by the others, I think
Bloodraven has somehow effectively taken over that
control from the others with respect to this one individual
being. And again, This is why I think
maybe it was even one of the dead ones right outside The
Cave. Remember, OK, there's some
confusion. Again, I have to refer to the TV
show, not because it's relevant here, but because it might have
confused some people. In the show.
It's implied that the Night King didn't know where that cave was,
and then once it was revealed through Bran's dreaming, they
found him and then all hell broke loose.
They clearly know where that cave is in the book, 'cause they
there's a bajillion dead animals just sitting there right outside
it hoping to get, trying to get in.
And they can't. So like, they know where it is,
they just can't get in either. So keep that in mind.
Very different. They know.
They know where this cave is, and that's also why they're
waiting to right outside. And they're like, well, we can't
get in, but we can lay a trap for anyone else who's trying to
get in. And that's that's exactly what
happened. And that's cold hands sense
them. So in a sense, Nina says, and I
tend to agree it narratively isn't important who cold hands
is. It says a lot about ethics and
humanity, but the individual identity of this being isn't
necessarily important. It's certainly not going to be
some major reveal like some big twist like, oh, it was this
person all along. We may never find out who it
was. That's entirely possible, and
that's why that further my furthers.
My opinion that the existence of Cold Hands, what he can do, and
what Blood Blood Raven is doing through him matters far more.
What powers are being used? What it suggests about what
powers are in play in general? The abilities of Green Seers,
the purpose of Blood Raven, what he's willing to do.
This is the point of Cold Hands. Because he's so nondescript, he
doesn't have features that tell us who he was.
He's he's almost intentionally blank.
Eye color, height, physicality. These things are ordinary on
him. None of them stand out.
He's of ordinary height, of ordinary bearing, of ordinary
anything, you name it. Nothing stands out about him
except him being dead. His hands, the things that are
corpse, like all the features of him that seem to matter are the
features that any corpse would have.
Like one that really gets me, that that sells this point to me
is when they ask him about his hands and and the line is he
studied his hands as if seeing them for the first time.
That's kind of the reaction you would have.
If it's not your body, if you're, if it's a vessel, if
Bloodraven is guiding these actions or just like, yeah, you
know what? Yeah, my hands are like this,
'cause I'm dead, you know, like, Oh yeah, look at that.
How about that? Yeah, look at that.
The closest he comes to any sort of self identification is when
he answers the accusation of being a monster.
He's like, yeah, I'm a monster, but I'm your monster.
Yes, I'm. I'm intimidating.
I'm frightening, but not. But I am no danger to you.
I'm yours to use if you safe. I'm.
I'm on your side. You know, it's kind of.
Interesting, when you think about it in those words.
Like I'm your monster. If you think about Bran as being
the one who takes over for Bloodraven, you know if if if
Cold Hands is Blood Ravens monster fully in control of him.
He's basically saying like you, this is your role to feel like
you're going to take control of beings like me.
Oh. Yeah, you're going to be the
yes. That's a good point.
Like I'm your subordinate. Yes, you're we're all monsters
here, yeah. I'm your.
I'm. I'm the subordinate to the last
greens here. Always.
Which will be you. Which will be you.
Yeah. Wow.
That's a good point, yeah. And that's part of why he
There's no reason to answer the question of who are you?
It's like, well, it doesn't matter who I am.
Who I am is irrelevant, you know, it's it's what I am, what
you can do with me, what I suggest is possible for you.
That's what matters. And he's notable because he's
dead and can talk like a living being and is almost exactly like
a white besides his eyes. That is just like mind blowing.
All these what? What does this say?
What is this? What's the potential?
It tells us a lot about the other undead.
Maybe less about Lady Stoneheart, maybe less about
Barrack, Barrack, Donderry, but maybe more because that might be
the means with John is resurrected.
Cold Hands fits very well with Blood Raven's established use of
supernatural agents. Dunk thinks of all the rumors
that Bloodraven quote could change his face, put on the
likeness of A1 Eyed dog, even turn into a mist command, gaunt
Gray wolves to hunt down his foes, and quote carrying crows
to spy for him and whisper secrets in his ear.
This stuff was known about him when he was handed the king,
well before he was a green seer. And of course, that's a big
question. Like, when did he start to use
his green Seer powers? Because this other stuff, Yeah,
like, skin changing isn't the same.
It's it falls under the auspices of Green seer abilities, but
it's it's on the lower level, right, 'cause we have guys who
can just do that. We have skin changers, but we
also Green seers that can skin change and do all these other
things. And yeah, it's an open mystery
as to how Blood Raven's powers developed and when he had them.
And not all those rumors might even be true.
Like, these are things that are said about Blood Raven, but that
doesn't mean they were all accurate.
But he definitely had the power to change his face.
We we saw him do it like Maynard Plum.
Hello. You know, that's that's pretty
proven, you know. And he was infamous for his spy
network. So it stands to reason that one
of the reasons he was so effective as a spy was because
he was using skin changing powers which would whoa, that's
a leg up, a huge leg up. I mean we just went through the
whole 1st, 2/3 of the episode constantly pointing out that
this could have been picked up on by blood Raven through a
Raven, you could have heard it through Mormons Raven or through
any bird over here in Chet, this and that.
Like that is super high level spy stuff.
Like you cannot control for that birds listening on to you,
difficult to keep that away. So it would explain so much the
skin changing, the lack of self recognition, the unimportance of
his identity speaking in a tongue.
No one recognize that too. Like, what was that all about?
Well, if it's Bloodraven speaking through him, it makes a
little more sense. So was he again?
Was he raised by Bloodraven or raised by the others and then
taken over? I kind of favored the latter,
'cause I don't know 'cause if if if, if Green Sears can actually
raise the dead, yeah, that just opens up so many strange
possibilities. Can Bran raise the dead?
If. If he can, then it's it explains
a lot about the connection between the children and the
others. It it, it makes their powers
even closer in potential and but how it works then we may have
thought like, yeah. Yeah, I think if if it's at the
others raised cold hands and it was taken over, I lean a little
more towards Waymar as the answer there.
If it was taken over just cause like we it it, it goes full
circle so well there that we see it happen and then it's like
taken away, even with the other ruined eye thing.
And that's fine. If it was the day he raised him
himself, I leaned towards it being the one of his own
Rangers, one of the Night Raven's Teeth.
Like not Waymar. I guess it would have.
Been kind of neat to have Waymar because and to have the eye
missing because then it would be even more like blood Raven being
one eye, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it.
Would really. That might be two on the nose
there. They might give it.
They might have given it away. Not that it isn't that hard to
figure out, or not that it isn't suggested, but they have.
Nina points out as well that there's a lot of mirroring here
between Cold Hands and Bloodraven, and it kind of works
as an agent of him because of how much they have in common.
They're both Rangers identified by the tattered blacks, which is
how they partly identify Brendan.
When he's in his tree, he still has some black cloaks that are
faded. They both seemingly died quote
long ago, but they're still alive now.
Blood Raven didn't actually die, he's been kept alive
unnaturally, but that's still a parallel supernatural powers.
We're keeping them alive either way.
And it's sort of a amusing twist that Blood Raven himself might
appreciate that he's using the living corpse to be his agent.
When Dunk described him looking like a living corpse.
When Blood Ravens are like his peace pale and you know he looks
kind of like the blood has been leached out of him.
So folks, consider this next quote in support of that idea.
This perhaps illustrates or symbolizes them all, being one
being quote. Cold hands stood beside the
door, a Raven on his arm, both staring at the fire.
Reflections from the flames glittered off 4 black eyes.
He does not eat, Bran remembered.
And he fears the flames. Not to mention how well it fits
the old thousand eyes in one thing.
Well, there's four of his eyes right there, I suppose, and it
is four eyes, right? It's explicit that he has two
eyes here because the 2 Raven eyes, 2 cold hands eyes.
But this could be more of a reflection of who he serves.
The the the flames glittering off their eyes is an indication
that he's directly controlled like a ward.
Because Gilly and Sam say cold hands says he was sent.
There's some problem with Blood Raven being in direct control of
him, like like a skin changer. Like he's just like when Bran
goes into Summer. He's controlling what Summer
does. I don't quite think that's
what's happening here because of the way he talks.
When Gillian Sam say or referring to him, they say cold
hands says he was sent. Not that I'm here for you, I was
sent for you. Like there's two beings here.
There's the the sender and the person arriving to facilitate
that, he says. The one I was sent to find, he
doesn't say. The one I am looking for, he's
he. There's a distinct 2 agents
here. There's the sender and the
sendee. Not it's not one being, it's not
phrased that way. Anyway.
So I, I, and I prefer this 'cause I think the story is
better, a little more tragic, a little deeper.
If Cold Hands is still a person underneath all that, if he still
has some sort of agency, because it's brings us back to the
ethical questions of, yeah, you're using someone else,
you're this is his body. This is like Bran going inside
Hodor, which we all don't think is good, except maybe when it's
a life or death situation. So you might support Bran going
into Hodor to shut him up when he's yelling and alerting the
wildlings nearby, then you know, which would have gotten him
killed. But when he's just doing it to
climb down in the caverns and hang out with JoJo Namira,
that's that's bad, right? So I don't think Bloodraven's
evil. I'm not one of those people.
I know there's some people up there that have this theory that
he's evil. I'm open to it.
But I don't think so personally. Don't think so.
So I think Bloodraven cares about saving the world.
I don't think he would put this much effort into bringing Bran
to The Cave if he didn't. Nina agrees.
We're on the same page with that.
But is it OK to take over a reanimated person?
And if there's if that person can feel it and is suffering
because of it, yeah, I. Would say you think what Raven
isn't evil? Like he's working towards the
end of the world. But you probably also don't
necessarily agree that the means Yeah, they don't.
I would quibble with he does. Evil things I would.
Quibble with some of his means, yeah.
Like, I totally disagree with his Amy's Blackfyre thing.
Yeah, yeah. Exactly.
That's my point is that you might think that he ultimately
is doing the thing that's best for the realm, but it's not the
best for the individual people necessarily or is evil in action
his. Goals are honourable, His
methods not so much, yeah and but.
But I also question myself as to what what would I do?
You know, like what is noble in assistant scenario like this.
That's why I went so much effort to point out like, well, these
aren't humans that we're fighting against.
It's others. It's like beings that want to
kill everyone and that just changes the whole ethical
consideration. Yeah, it's really interesting.
I don't. Know, I don't think I would be
any better than Bloodraven if I actually I would.
Either, yeah. If.
I actually thought that what I was doing was saving humanity.
Yeah. I don't know.
I don't. Yeah, Yeah, it's really.
Hard. The bar is really high.
Like you can, yeah. If it's if the if the outcome is
saving humanity, I think yeah, you can do a lot you can.
Justify a lot of words. I I.
Think right, rightfully so and which yeah, anyways, yeah, but
rarely, rarely is the option. Saving humanity or not.
Like that's not the the, the bar is not normally that high like.
Yeah, for example. Let's use the Hodor example
again. Brands, not evil, but taking
over Hodor is bad. Like, that's not a good thing.
That's something he shouldn't do that.
I mean, unless it's a survival thing, like, I think it's Okay
in survival situation. It was Okay when he did it
outside The Cave, when Hodor was quivering, and then when Bran
took him over, he was a roaring giant slashing right and left.
And it was pretty effective, I think you.
Could say that it's OK, it was the right decision and all of
these things. And you could still say that
it's like, you know, morally questionable and caused like you
know more issues internally and all of these other things.
But it still was worth it. It still.
Has to be acknowledged like they should.
He should like be like sorry Hodor.
You know tell him like I had to do this like he never says.
He never like apologizes or anything like that.
Like yeah that would be that would be better.
Yeah. You're.
Right. You're right.
So yeah. But so we're we're, but we're
supposed to question. This is a central theme of A
Song of Ice and Fire is enslavement, control, power,
authority, the varying, all the things that fall into that
umbrella control of other people.
And so in a fantasy setting we're allowed to and are able to
explore this with a large the umbrella is larger because we're
also including dead beings and non human beings and slavery on
a giant scale out in marine versus slavery over dead people
and what is that mean what are the ethics of that?
We don't know, but we don't even know if the Whites can feel
things or not. And that's a huge question that.
Who wants to know the answer to Jon Snow?
Who of anybody has questioned what's going on with the Whites?
Who wants to know if they have thoughts, feelings, memories.
It's Jon Snow. Jon Snow was asked that
question. Jon wanted to keep those bodies,
the ones they found, you know, outside the wall recently.
So it's a huge crossover. This is how I've saved this part
basically for last because this really all crosses over to Jon
far more than any over any character.
Obviously it's brand's the one involved directly.
But the parallels are to Jon. I mean Vermeer's story is set up
for Jon. A lot of it.
Explain skin changing. Explain Second Life, right.
Cold hands as well, right? I'm dead.
Check. Well, not yet, but he's on his
way. Ranger.
Yep. Skin changer.
Affirmative. And if we're assuming that the
skin changing power passes through thanks to Bloodraven,
then John can maybe do the same thing.
He could maybe control animals from afar while a dead person
again. That's a question though.
Does John still have his Skin changer powers as a dead person?
And of course, as a comparison to Bloodraven, there's even more
parallels. Half Targaryen, Lord Commander
of the Nights Watch, has shared the world of dreams with Bran
yadda yadda. Lots lots of parallels between
these guys and there was a theory that has somewhat fallen
out of favor. But certain aspects of it remain
intriguing, which is that death will enable John to endure quite
a lot more cold, as it does for cold hands.
So does that mean going deeper into the north?
Can you go farther N into the land of Always Winter?
Is that something that could happen?
Is that possible? Yeah.
While considering this episode, I had a thought and I can't
believe I hadn't had this thought before and I brought it
up earlier kind of by accident. But can John cross the wall
after he's raised right, thinking cold hands.
If he's a resurrected being? If he's undead, can he cross the
wall? I don't know.
He might not be able to. Now.
Some people make the argument. OK, well, it's a different kind
of magic. It's fire magic from Melisandre.
It's not the same. Against that, I would say, OK,
it's a fairpoint. It might not apply.
It might be an exception to that kind of magic.
On the other hand, Silverwing, Allison, Queen Allison's dragon,
refused. Three times.
She tried to fly her dragon over the wall and it wouldn't go.
I guess it. Raises the question of like
Barrack Dondarian right past the wall.
Yeah, Well, or Lady Stoneheart now.
Yeah, yeah, Lady. Stoneheart now.
But yeah, like I, I, I, I bring it up just because of the TV
show comparison Wright and and the fact that I don't really see
Lady Stoneheart ending up there. So like it's a moot point there.
But I also think of how Catelyn was maybe in the original
manuscript, was going to die beyond the wall, right.
And be raised there. Yeah.
Might have been stuck there, I guess would be my thought, which
would point to fire magic can't cross.
But also makes me wonder, well, can you?
Is there a notable difference between crossing to North and
South? Yeah, yeah.
And that's a great point. Yes, thanks to people who raised
the issue of maybe it's it's it's a one way St.
Maybe you can go one way but not the other and.
Maybe you feel like discomfort with it, like Silverwing didn't
want to do that because Silverwing felt uncomfortable.
But as a, like, conscious person, like John, you're like,
oh, I feel awful doing this. I'm going to do it anyway, you
know, Maybe it just hurts. Yeah, yeah.
You can. So we must return to the
original example of whites that didn't cross the wall but were
carried over in undead state. And then they rose on the other
side, Jaffer and on differ flowers and Author.
And the interesting thing about them, which which is building
our case for them having memories and thoughts and
feelings still, is that those two didn't just rise and go on a
rampage. They targeted the two highest
officers in the Night's Watch. One of them went for Lord
Commander Mormont. The other one went for 1st
Ranger Jeremy Riker. Well, I.
I also still have the question on how much they have their
memories and all or whatever and how much is control.
Yeah, could the. Others have read their minds and
gleaned that information and used that which is entirely
possible, or just sort of told them to go gave them command to
kill their subordinate, their commanders, which they already
have the information for that is you know, and clearly they were.
Clearly the signal wasn't broken by the wall though whatever like
connection they had, it was it was still possible which is an
interesting thing to consider. Giving John's connection to go
seems to have been severed when when they were on opposite sides
of the wall and the wall coming down could clear up a lot of
this. If John is stuck on one side of
the wall after his resurrection if the wall comes down, well
that ends that problem. He can go back and forth at
will. I I would assume once it's down
whatever means the wall is broken, which we assume will
happen. I don't think it will be a
undead dragon, but for purposes of this discussion, doesn't
really matter what it is. It's just something.
Something will take down the wall or crack it open, and the
magic, the the spells will not affect people walking through
this portion of the broken area or whatever.
Either way, that's one way around that problem, if it's a
problem at all. But I think it's a really good
question. Like if John is resurrected on
the South side of the Wall, maybe he just can't pass
through. He's like, well, I'm bets, maybe
that's part of his motivation to leave the watch.
He's like, I can't even go beyond the Wall anymore.
Like, I'm going to, I'm going to go back to being a Stark.
And of course his attitude about a lot of things might change
post resurrection. So his his personality, his, you
know, like his, his mental state, a lot of things.
So he might be, like a lot of people said to be, more wolfish,
maybe more fiery. So in the interim, if the if
those things don't come close together, if John's resurrection
in the fall of the wall are far apart, well, that's interesting,
but it could be a clue the things are going to come
relatively close together. Yeah, maybe.
Certainly reveal the narrative connection between John's
resurrection and the falling of the wall.
A potential one has to happen before the other or the two are
tied to each other narratively kind of relationship.
And it does remind us of a tactic George uses pretty often,
where we can see where individual plots are going, sort
of. But we can't fully process or
predict how those plots are going to cross into other plots
because even though we know they're going to, but we don't
know when. And the timing is crucial, like
who's going to get to the Wall first, like who's going to get
to the N 1st, which Starks are going to get back to Winterfell,
which claims like we talked about in Rob's Will episode.
So much depends on the order of events.
We can pick and choose what we think might happen, but when you
start to think about what order they're happening in, everything
changes. It's a big ball of impossible
possibilities to figure out, and I think there's some of that
here where timing is employed effectively by George to keep us
confused and guessing and of course wanting more.
Cold Hands obviously doesn't tell us everything about Unjohn,
but he tells us a lot. The ghost angle is huge.
Cold hands might not be a skin changer.
That might be Blood Raven from afar, but if he is, then that
tells us John will still have those powers when he's
resurrected. So I I suspect John's going to
still have his powers when he's resurrected.
It would be kind of odd for George just to take all that
away given he hasn't really used it that much yet.
You know, like it's still been kind of feels like he's just
scratched the surface of his war abilities well.
I would say that if the mechanism for John having a
second life of of being resurrected is that he escapes
into ghosts and is in ghosts, then that would have been the
culmination of him using his his work abilities, his skin
changing abilities. Is it saving him from complete
death? OK.
So that was that. That would be like the final use
of them. Yeah, I.
Don't know. To be clear, that's not what I
think. But I think that would be my
argument. If I if you were saying, well,
we haven't seen it play out, I would say, well, that's the
that's the the IT playing out. Is him escaping into Ghost.
Yeah. But no, I think he'll still have
his abilities. I like, I don't think Ghost.
And I don't think he'll go back into his body and his connection
with Ghost will be suddenly severed.
Yeah, you know. And since John, that's a good
point. And since John is shown that he
wants to try to learn more about the whites and their nature and
whether they have thoughts or feelings or what have you that
could progress, he might learn more about that.
That might be a thing that's coming for us, and it might be
even more poignant because he'll be one of them.
And if we learn that they do have thoughts and feelings and
all that, then it will make the whole nature of undeath more
horrifying. Which is kind of why I lean this
way, because it's just such a grand, Even though it's tragic,
it's just a grand thing to add to it, rather than just being
empty vessels. That's still terrifying.
They're still dead walking and coming at you.
That's still terrifying. But if they have, they still
have some of their humanity in them.
I don't know. It just gives us so much more
depth and makes it so much more terrifying.
So I that's kind of where I lean.
And this is a path John is going down, right?
He's getting a little darker. This is John, the man who killed
John, the boy. This is Lord Commander, baby
swapper. In addition to being one of the
few men with the moral fortitude to see the free focus humans, I
always wanted John to say if you don't see the free focus humans,
you'll see them as whites. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And 'cause that is true there. If you don't see them as humans
and bring them South of the wall, they will attack you, as
in their dead form. Yeah, there are a lot of
predictions about what kind of person John's going to be when
he's resurrected. And yeah, more wolf like, more
fiery. Like I said before, I noticed
that none of those predictions guess that he will be nicer.
Like why would? Yeah, why would you guess that?
Yeah, that's not happening yet. John's not going to get nicer,
not friendlier, it's only going to get worse.
Cold hands was also one of our setups for undead characters,
right? John being the clear main
character. So not only does he tell us
things about skin changers and the powers of the old gods and
the magic of warding, like what you can keep out and in and
maybe undead skin changers too. So I don't think John's powerful
enough to do this bloodraven thing of breaking a white free
from the others control and controlling it himself.
Assuming that's what happened. But yeah, Bran probably can.
I mean Bran is maybe already done things that Bloodraven
can't do like the whole whispering to his talking to his
father which he's like oh he couldn't hear you, He's like I'm
pretty sure he heard him you know so if he could override the
others control on a white if that's something Bloodraven can
do and Bloodraven doesn't think speaking through the past is
possible but Bran can do that. Then Bran can maybe do things
with the dead and the others that Bloodraven didn't know was
possible also yeah could he like skin change into the dead Kind
of like another. Would you be ready for that my
fellow W organs? To see Bran like straight up
controlling undead armies himself, that seems maybe it's a
little far, but I don't know. It seems like maybe there's a
little something to it, because what we're witness to here, it
really does seem like our best conclusion is something in the
general range of Bloodraven controlling this being.
But that involves control over undeath, whether creating it,
whether actually raising the being or seizing control of it
from the being that did raise it.
Which I I sort of lean towards the latter.
I I don't think they can raise the dead, but somehow they
imbued the others with the ability to do that if the
children created them. So we definitely have to
consider the possibility like it's always felt similar.
Control over living animals, control over the dead animals
and dead living things, it's dead beings.
It's always been kind of closely related ones, like the dark side
of that. But control over living animals
has a darkness to it as well, you know, especially if it
extends to people and you start stealing their agency and
controlling them. So which brings us back to that
central theme again. It's dark this episode.
I swear this the places this episode took us to.
It's really something else. I would love to hear more from
you all about this. I hope we've inspired some
additional theories, some additional percolation of the
nature of magic, especially the old God's magic, but also the
fire magic, because that obviously plays in here, as well
as to what's possible as to how these things overlap as to how
they merge. You know, there's some thinking
out there that the old God's network was damaged or something
like a virus got in there when Bloodraven was attached to it
because of his Targaryen blood. I think that's maybe going a
little far, but I like the idea. I like the concept of, you know,
a a virus in the weirwood network.
We think we've we've thought about it like a computer network
so many times that it that, continuing the the metaphor that
way seems to work for me. I hope it works for you too.
And I wonder, yeah, it's like a a mind virus.
Can Bran affect the others that way?
Is that a way to defeat them is by using some of their own magic
back against them, or or using even stronger methods of
control, going to even darker ethical places by enslaving even
more people to save humanity or using the powers of the enemy to
do good? Yeah, I think.
I think if that's where this is going, if that's where Cold
Hands is taking us, if that's his, if he's the window into
what Blood Raven can do, which is the window into what Bran and
John and maybe even Arya can do, then we're nowhere near the end
of that. We're really just at the
beginning of that. Like Bran is maybe eaten Jojen,
but he has barely begun to become a Green Seer.
I mean as far as Bran the Green Seer, a fully realized green
Seer, we haven't seen that yet unless you count the show, which
I don't because the I'm sure George is envisioning of this is
going to be substantially different, especially because
we'll probably see a lot of it from within his own mind which
just the the medium is so different TV versus POV style
thoughts of a character. It's one thing when they're
talking, but when they're thinking it's it's really hard
to translate that to the screen and Brand's internal monologue,
his internal thoughts, his processing of magic and time and
being a child, these things are very difficult to.
I mean, yeah, it's hard to to picture that.
So it's going to be very different.
In the book, the elk eventually gives its life after exhaustion
and exposure. Bran feels terrible.
I think that was a moment that a lot of us felt really bad.
That brave animal carried them so far with so little sustenance
and then died to feed them so they could have enough food to
make it the rest of the way. I mean, that is, that's a noble
sacrifice, right? But that's essentially the
journey of cold hands himself. He did the same thing.
He died only a few weeks after the elk.
He helped them get just as far as he could, then gave his life
at the last minute so they could get those last few steps of
their journey. I think a lot of us took note of
that for the elk because Bran did he, he cried.
And it's another moment of, you know, morality versus necessity,
Bran tells himself, I'm never going to eat this elk.
It was you don't, shouldn't do that to a friend.
And then he just has to. He's going to die if he doesn't.
And that's isn't that Bloodraven's view of the fight
against the others, in a nutshell, well, if I don't do
horrible things, we're all going to die.
Who cares about honor when we're all going to die otherwise?
So I. But I I think that it's worth
shedding a tear for cold hands as well.
If you're going to shed a tear for that elk, shed a tear for
cold hands. He did the same thing He gave
his life, such as it was, or his death, his body.
We'll say he gave his body not long ago after the elk for the
same thing he died. A Ranger of the Night's Watch,
serving the realm, the whole realm, as much as any Ranger can
say so yeah, and if not his life, he gave his body, even if
he didn't have full control over it.
So, honorable sacrifice, true Ranger of the Night's Watch.
Even though we don't know who he is.
There's that old. I wish I'd thought of this
before. There's a Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier is a thing. And a lot of countries have this
of soldiers remains that were not able to be identified.
Cold Hands perhaps is the Unknown Ranger you know.
And his tomb is right outside Blood Raven's Cave.
Now the Green Seer Cave. An ancient place where which is
itself is filled with bones. So it's sort of fitting as a
final resting place. But that's pretty poignant
folks. I think So.
I think even these minor characters like this, even a
nameless character like this, George has written so well that
we can feel a little something for him or a lot something for
him. I feel a lot something for him.
Few more questions from you all. TK OK Podcast network shout out
to them. That's the new Dad podcast and
Pot Moms podcast. Several other shows, Great stuff
over there. Check them out.
Guilty Undertaker says. Well, when Benjen died, he
ceased to be Benjen and became cold hands.
So Benjen not being cold hands is true from a certain point of
view. OK, that's.
That's true. That's true.
True Dornish Dame says. We know from Fire and Blood that
a lot of Northerners went to those marriages, market things
after the dance. So there's a good injection of
northern blood in the Riverlands at that time.
Very true. Very true.
Yeah, I like that. There were a lot of that's true.
To To recap what that was, a lot of Northerners went S with Craig
and Stark and then never had anyone to fight, and they
expected to come South and die. But the Riverlands had a
horrible amount of loss during the war, and so these
Northerners stayed 'cause there were a lot of lot of men had
died and there were a lot of widows.
And and why women that couldn't find a man because so many men
were killed. So the Northerns were like, hey,
we'll stay here instead and make a home down here where it's
warmer and where there's lots of marriage prospects.
So yeah, a lot of that northern blood in the Riverlands, which
could explain how maybe could have increased the potential for
skin changing or skin changers being born in the Riverlands,
which might even be where Blood Raven's ancestry partially comes
from. Or some of the other potential
people down there. Julia suggests new theory.
One of Vera Meer's kids, you mean.
Who is she referring to? To be cold hands.
Yeah. Interesting.
I don't know that cold hands. Is is young enough for that, but
it's possible because we don't really know how old he is.
I mean, if they killed him long ago, that does put it on the
shorter end. It's it's possible we don't.
Yeah. He's kind of age.
We don't really get a sense of how old he is Skin.
Change thing. She threw it out there as a, you
know, I like. It.
Yeah, it it. It may be.
The timeline's a little tight on that, but it's a good idea.
Dornish Dame. They wouldn't have had memories
of Riker being 1st Ranger though given they were Benjin's men and
Riker was appointed when they didn't return.
So they must have had the ability to take in what's said.
Oh, very interesting. Maybe I like that idea, but
maybe they just went to the first Rangers quarters.
But I don't know that the 1st Ranger has a specific quarters.
They may just the 1st Ranger sleeps where the 1st Ranger
sleeps. There is necessary first Rangers
like building there is that for the Lord Commander, but that
changes too cause John has picked John picked quarters that
were different than Lord Commander Mormon if I remember
correctly. And certainly the Lord
Commander's tower, the Lord Commander can be wherever they
want. So that's a very good point that
there's some listening some intelligence at work.
There wasn't just some dormant memory that they relied on
'cause that that's a very good point.
Riker was became 1st Ranger, acting 1st Ranger and then
eventually 1st Ranger because Benjen it was missing.
That's a very good point. Guilty undertaker.
I like to imagine young Brendan Rivers messing with young bitter
steel by having random animals follow him everywhere.
Yeah, that's really funny. Bitter Steel looks like a Disney
Princess. Yeah, it's.
Like, get this off. It's like some rabbit just jumps
up in like a bird's hair starts pecking at his skull.
You know birds are always dropping poop in his soup.
Like that's why he's bitter. Man's day-to-day life is
extremely frustrating. Every day is to put up with this
crap, literally falling out of the sky into his food.
Our trivia question was, who gives the nickname Cold Hands to
Cold Hands? It's Sam.
It is Sam. It's it's at one point they say
Sam and Gilly, but then another point they just say Sam.
So maybe it's Sam and Gilly. But Sam is the more direct
answer, I guess. Makes sense.
Yeah, his hands are cold. Call him cold hands, Gilly.
Called him Cool hands. Cool.
Hands and. Sam was like, no, no, it's cold.
They're colder. Than that, Yeah.
Our next release will be an episode that we did with Alt
Shift X back in. I guess it was October.
Some of you may have heard it already over on his channel.
It's the Song of Ice and Fire and Dune.
It is the influence of Dune on A Song of Ice and Fire.
From the perspective of the Dune movie, the first Dune movie.
There's no spoilers for the Dune 2 or the second-half of the Dune
book. If you've read Dune then there's
certainly no spoilers at all, but if you've only seen the
first movie, it's perfect for you.
There's a lot there, a huge number of parallels.
We had a great chat and it's an edited version, so it's a little
cleaner than the one that was on his channel.
Yeah, I. Would say if you haven't checked
it out, wait for the podcast to be released on our end and
listen to that 'cause it is more polished and cleaned up.
Will save you some time and and if you're trying to.
Avoid spoilers. That's good too, 'cause there's
no spoilers in this one. We will release the secondary
episode. It's a lot shorter where we, me
and Algevtech started discussing spoilery stuff, which applies to
the movie that's about to come out.
So those are separated we had. To split it because I didn't
want to get spoiled. I was editing it and I was like,
I got to the point where it was, it was going to be spoilers and
I was like, I don't really want to get spoiled as he.
He's like. He'll edit that, yeah.
It's only it's under. It's about an hour editing for
him, so yeah. So some episodes that relate to
this one that if you want to stay immersed in the magic of
the old Gods in the North, our episode on most recent episode
on Craster and the Cold Gods is available.
So is our episode on the children of the Forest that was
a Valeritas for the World of Ice and Fire episode.
We have some older episodes on religion and magic.
We have Weirwoods and the Weirwoods tour.
That's a big one that relates to a lot of this very much.
And of course our three parts on Bloodraven.
The third part is about his time after becoming Lord Commander.
The first two parts are his time South of the wall as Hand of the
King during the black fire, rebellions and all that stuff.
So they're all three together is is a good way to do it.
But you can go straight to Part 3 because you don't need parts
one and two to start with his time going north.
But yeah, you're take your pick. Lots of ways to consume those
episodes and enjoy them. Thanks to Nina for her notes.
We discussed this quite a bit offline.
She and I talking about some of the conundrums about the warding
and what John can pass and what he can't pass.
And fire magic versus cold magic.
Yeah, it was really helpful to me to to bounce those ideas off
of her. And a lot of you all had great
ideas as well. I I put some of these questions
out into social media. I do that sometimes.
But this one, I had a particular thought to do that and I got a
lot of good feedback from you all and takes and and theories
and that. So but we're not done with that.
If you have some more ideas on cold hands, go ahead and send
them to us. Yeah, thanks to Nina.
Thanks to Joey, Jesse, Brandon, Michael Klarfeld for all the
great music and video intro and all the good stuff that we have
making our show look so professional.
And of course the maps behind me, those are the the products
of Clara docs.de that's KLARADOX dot DE.
You can buy the files from him and print the maps out at your
local Kinko's or FedEx or whatever, and it's pretty
affordable. Thanks as well to anyone else
who supports us, Shares your love of our show with your
friends. That's super important.
Word of mouth is the best way to get new listeners.
Nothing sells a show like your best friend or your close
friends telling you enthusiastically what they like.
Certainly how I treat my favorite shows.
I tell my friends about them and hope they listen to them.
So if you feel that way about our show, well, please spread
the word. We could really use that and we
certainly appreciate it. Until next time, you know what
to do, my friends. Valar Re Ritas.