Like many fellow theorists, book readers, and tinfoil soothsayers drawn to the Song of Ice and Fire fandom, I was taken aback by the outcome of the Battle of Winterfell in Season 8, Episode 3. Arya felling the Night King seemingly negates the entirety of the prophecy regarding Azor Ahai reborn and Lightbringer and seems to dash any semblance of the themes related to the war against the Great Other (personal sacrifice, etc). All that we've speculated. All that we've surmised and guessed and pondered meant nothing...
But my user tag isn't "Proud Knight of House Tinfoil" for nothing! I'm going to double-down, dig in, and do some late-game theorizing that, if true, would show that we've been double-duped by a false flag operation... committed by the true Great Other, the Three-Eyed Crow (or Raven, in the show). Follow me down the tinfoil rabbit hole!
Our first hint comes from the lips of the person who originally told us of the Night King, Old Nan, and Bran's thoughts during their interaction:
“It was just a lie,” [Bran] said bitterly, remembering the crow from his dream. “I can’t fly. I can’t even run.”
“Crows are all liars,” Old Nan agreed, from the chair where she sat doing her needlework. “I know a story about a crow.”
“I don’t want any more stories,” Bran snapped, his voice petulant...I hate your stupid stories.”
The old woman smiled at him toothlessly. “My stories? No, my little lord, not mine. The stories are, before me and after me, before you too.”
...It would never be the way it had been, he knew. The crow had tricked him into flying, but when he woke up he was broken and the world was changed.
So, right before we hear about the Others, in detail, for the first time, Bran thinks about about how the crow has tricked him and that all crows are liars. I don't think this is a coincidence. This same dialogue was included in the show (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvObuhT7Kpw).
The idea that Bloodraven is secretly tied to the Others and a villain in waiting is not new. In fact, many of these early theories pegged correctly that the Others were tied to the Children of the Forest (who are tied, intrinsically, to Bloodraven in the events of the current story). There's also the compelling comparisons to real-world mythology. I myself have laid out the case for Bloodraven's strange similarities to the evil dragon Nidhoggr from Norse Mythology (https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/7eq2vj/spoilers_extended_the_dragon_and_the_world_tree/) and Bram Stoker's Dracula (https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/6rpem5/dracula_in_westeros_spoilers_extended/). While both certainly hint at a villainous intention behind Bloodraven, it's the Dracula comparisons that I find most compelling when compared to our story with Bran and the 3EC. See, in Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula lures John Harker to his castle under the pretenses that Harker was securing the final paperwork to purchase an estate in England that Dracula could make his new home. It's revealed that Dracula's intentions are much more sinister. Once the paperwork is finalized and Dracula has learned modern customs from Harker, he leaves him to die.
This comparison rings ever more true when we think of Bran's state in Season 7 and Season 8. He straight up says several times that he's not Brandon Stark. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the following scene:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtI3mxhZNy0. While we often see this played off as a side-effect of his wider knowledge, it leaves open the distinct possibility that Meera is right: Bran died in Bloodraven's cave.
But how could Bloodraven do this? Well, consider the following: Bloodraven is a powerful warg, he is shown to be be able to possess multiple animals at once. We know from Bran that it's possible to take control over someone's body IF you're strong enough and the person's mind is, shall we say, compromised in some way. Now let's return to the fateful "hold the door moment" in the cave ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR8mJ1NnTP8 ). Bran and Bloodraven are both warged into the past. Pressed by an assault from the Night King, Bloodraven directly tells Bran that he should warg into past Hodor. This means that Bran's consciousness is split multiple ways: Into the "sea" (ie - the past) and into Hodor's mind in present and past. Bloodraven is then "killed" by the Night King, represented in the "sea" by him turning into incorporeal ash (or some particles). Once Bran's body is safe behind the wall, he changes demeanor, now calling himself the 3EC and stating that he's not Bran. It's my assertion that what we are seeing here is a calculated plan by Bloodraven, using the Night King as the catalyst, to force Bran's consciousness into a situation that allowed him to take over. It's possible that Bran is still in there somewhere or maybe his consciousness is lost in the aether. Now, the earlier passage takes on more depth and meaning: "The crow had tricked him into flying, but when he woke up he was broken and the world was changed."
What this could mean is that the entire threat of the White Walkers was planned, orchestrated, and carried out by the Three-eyed Crow to get what he wants: The ability to rejoin the waking world while simultaneously putting a stop to a threat to his existence: The Night King. The 3EC spun a story, just like Old Nan, on the true motivations of the Night King to save his own skin at the cost of human lives. So, in truth, Arya killing the Night King isn't negating the prophecy of Azor Ahai...the prophecy to stop the Great Other could be the people/person who puts a stop to the Three-eyed Crow, the true threat to humanity. In fact, if the Great Other is associated with the Faceless men and their many-faced god of death like many have speculated, Arya killing the Night King is a fulfillment of her training at the House of the Black and White: She is unknowingly still an agent of the Great Other and an agent of Death. This would explain why they let her go in the first place: to fulfill her destiny to kill a threat to the Great Other...the god with "a thousand faces and one"...the Three-Eyed Crow.
While I don't have any theories at the moment on exactly WHAT the timeless, faceless Three-eyed Crow wants explicitly, I do think there' s a lot of evidence pointing to the God's Eye and the Isle of Faces as the eventual target. There's countless theories and speculation videos that the God's Eye is going to be important, ranging from practical (it's a base for the CotF) to the cosmological. While the show doesn't really overtly mention the God's Eye or the Isle of Faces being important, I think there are some subtle hints that the show is heading there:
First, if Bran's story ends with the death of the Night King, why have we not seen Jojen's foreshadowing of "The End" pay off (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozPholpWbCw). Jojen, who we know for sure can see the future says "This isn't the end for you [speaking to Bran]. Not yet." When asked by Meera how they'll know, Jojen looks down at a flaming hand: "You'll know". This is such a deliberately worded piece of foreshadowing and yet we haven't seen anything close to it occurring. If Bran hasn't seen the end of this arc yet...and the Three-eyed Crow isn't interested in anything but the destruction of the Night King... then where does that leave us? Clearly, Bran and the 3EC aren't done in our story yet.
Second, if the destruction of the Night King has nothing to do with Azor Ahai and, thus, Targaryen lineage (as per prophecy), then WHY was it so vital that Bran pushed Sam into revealing Jon's identity before the showdown with the Night King. His lineage had nothing to do with the Nights King, but it has every reason why Jon would go South. Towards King's Landing, yes...but also towards the God's Eye...increasing the chances that Bran would follow to "assist" their efforts despite having no expressed interest in affairs not concerning the Night King. Also, if Azor Ahai IS related to the Targaryen bloodline, then pitting the two surviving members against each other by making them rivals directly benefits the Great Other, particularly if both are needed (ie - Nissa Nissa) to defeat him.
Another hurdle for this theory is the presence of the Isle of Faces and the God's Eye in the show thus far. Although the books have tales and histories outlining its possible importance, the show has not really brought it up. So wouldn't they have mentioned it by now or at least hinted at its importance? Well, maybe they have...
There's a suspicious change to the map in the title intro to the show in Season 8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZE9gVF1QbA). The clearest way this presents itself is in a complete reduction of the total number of landmarks shown. Basically, the Wall, Winterfell, and King's Landing with some areas like Last Hearth also shown. But a closer look shows some strange changes that I didn't notice the first few times. First, the God's Eye is shown very close to King's Landing. It seemingly has changed locations to be visible on the map from the closer view from KL. Second, and very intriguingly, King's Landing is upside down. For reasons we can speculate on later, King's Landing is shown with the South being at the top. So they went out of their way to ensure that we saw the God's Eye even in the limited scope of the Season 8 intro. It's almost as if there is an invisible line between Winterfell and Kings Landing where the map is drawn reverse. All the text above the line is oriented North (despite change in camera direction) and the text below is oriented South (King's Landing).
Now, let's compare that to the teaser trailer with ice and fire sweeping over Westeros (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NspqGM0DbbQ). Here, we see ice heading down from the North with fire traveling from the South. It meets in the middle and black stone springs up in the middle of Westeros (where the Trident and God's Eye roughly are) and we zoom up to see an overhead shot of the continent. Now, when this came out, a lot of people speculated that this was going to be a dragonglass wall and that the war against the Night King would end in a stalemate. A fair assessment, but one we now know isn't accurate. Look closely at the "wall". It's not a straight line. It's bigger in the middle than it is toward the top and bottom. What we're seeing here, my friends...is an eye. An eye rimmed with fire and ice with black stone as the pupil. A pupil that is in the same spot that divides the map orientation in the opening screen.
So now we see the "eye" of black stone in the middle of Westeros, close to the God's Eye (in traditional orientation and mapping). Black eyes are associated in our story with crows and ravens. THIS is the eye of the Three-eyed Crow. All throughout Westeros, weirwoods act as a source he can see through, turning the entire continent into his eye. We know GRRM is a huge fan of Tolkein...is this the ASOIAF equivalent to the Eye of Sauron?
And the news only gets worse for humanity. A quote from the World Book about the Long Night of Yi Ti:
"When the daughter of the Opal Emperor succeeded him as the Amethyst Empress, her envious younger brother cast her down and slew her, proclaiming himself the Bloodstone Emperor and beginning a reign of terror. He practiced dark arts, torture, and necromancy, enslaved his people, took a tiger-woman for his bride, feasted on human flesh, and cast down the true gods to worship a black stone that had fallen from the sky. (Many scholars count the Bloodstone Emperor as the first High Priest of the sinister Church of Starry Wisdom, which persists to this day in many port cities throughout the known world). In the annals of the Further East, it was the Blood Betrayal, as his usurpation is named, that ushered in the age of darkness called the Long Night."
Black stone is associated with the Long Night of Yi Ti after a blood betrayal. Black stone, like that at the center of the eye in the teaser. A Long Night that began with blood relations slaying each other for power. Not only do we now have a potential power struggle set up between Jon and Dany (pushed into motion by the 3EC), but there's still the Valonqar theory that Jaime or Tyrion will murder Cersei. Cleganebowl would pit brother against brother. And, if you believe the possibility of Jaime, Cersei, or Tyrion being secret Targaryens...we have even more blood-on-blood violence. The Long Night isn't over...it's just beginning.
...or I'm just succumbing to my own madness and stringing together unrelated threads in the desperate need to stave off the creeping sensation that no theories will actually matter in the show's conclusion...
Either way, I hope you enjoyed the ramble if you've stuck it out this far with me.
