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lautakwah · 1 month ago

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Ask, and ye shall receive. Posting the Nie Huaisang Essay for his birthday, I hope the three Nie Huaisang Enjoyers will like this♡

Nie Huaisang, GNC Icon?

An analysis of the construction of Chinese masculinity and manhood as it relates to perceived gender-nonconformity in Chinese male characters in period dramas by western fans.

「你小心点！这个呢可是我最喜欢的一副扇子。你看画工精巧构图別致。怎么样是不是当世极品哪？」

“Be careful! This is my favorite folding fan. Look, it’s exquisitely painted and uniquely constructed. How is it? It’s of the highest grade, isn’t it?”

― Nie Huaisang, episode 35 of 陈情令 The Untamed (2020)

It was late 2019 when I first heard about Chen Qing Ling, in countries outside of China and other majority-Chinese speaking areas better known as The Untamed.[1] I had, at the time, not watched a proper C-drama in years. Intrigued by CQL’s sudden popularity, however, I decided to check it out; after all, it was not every day that a C-drama gains popularity in the west. Even with the recent uptick in East-Asian media gaining traction[2], it was still a surprise to see a xianxia series getting the same level of adoration in online circles I had previously only seen dedicated to Disney intellectual property.

Based on the web-novel Mo Dao Zu Shi (Founder of Demonic Cultivation) by MXTX, CQL tells the story of Wei Ying, courtesy name Wuxian, and details the events in the cultivation world surrounding his teenage years until his untimely death several years later, and the mystery surrounding his resurrection yet 13 years afterwards. A series spanning roughly 20 years in 50 episodes, CQL is an epic that at the same time leaves out a lot of the original novel. After all, it is an adaptation of a danmei-genre novel: focusing on male-male romance generally created by and for women and sexual minorities (Lavin et al 2017). Considering the strict media regulations in China, most of the homoeroticism either had to be censored or subtextual (Xu 2014; Shaw and Zhang 2018).

With this popularity, however, also came the very western-centric, colonialist, and orientalist interpretations of the text. Focusing in particular on the way that Asian men have been and are seen as more feminine (Han 2016; Han 2006; Song 2004) and how western fans continue to perpetuate this rhetoric when consuming C-dramas, I will take as a case study the way that Nie Huaisang, one of the main supporting characters in CQL, has been hailed as a gender-nonconforming, nonbinary, and/or trans icon by western fans. Starting with expounding on the danmei genre as a whole, and what that means for Nie Huaisang as a character, I shall then discuss the ways that Chinese masculinities are constructed and how Nie Huaisang exemplifies the wen ideal of masculinity, being a scholar and an artist. Finally, I will talk about western fans’ attitudes being culturally insensitive on top of reiterating and reinforcing western-centric, colonialist, and orientalist tropes and ideals surrounding masculinity and manhood.

Danmei, derived from the Japanese term tanbi and the Chinese equivalent to BL (Boys’ Love), although by now it has transformed into its own subculture instead of wholly resembling its Japanese counterpart, literally means “addicted to beauty” (Feng 2009; Lavin et al 2017; Kam 2012). It depicts an idealized love between (young) male characters, who also embody ideal, generally androgynous, beauty standards, and whose beauty is at the forefront of the text. These beauty standards extend even to the side characters, and in drama adaptations the casts tend to boast idols and young, conventionally attractive actors in all roles ― as is the case with CQL.

What this means for Nie Huaisang, who is neither a love interest nor a main character, is that he would still have to fall into the trope of being a beautiful man, and have it be natural within the narrative. Chinese beauty standards here differ from the eurocentric and oftentimes colonialist norm that western fans are used to. Furthermore, culturally and historically the androgynous looks that are romanticized and exalted are constructed within the framework of masculinity; in other words, while for westerners androgyny might mean gender-nonconformity, nothing could be farther from the truth when looking at how Chinese masculinity and manhood are constructed (Kam 2012).

Beyond aestheticism, however, which is more of a danmei staple (Feng 2009), there are many other ways in which masculinity and manhood were conceptualized in ancient China. Nie Huaisang, being a scholar, embodies a very distinct masculine ideal (Kam 2002; Kam 2015; Song 2004). The scholar class was a male-only, and, indeed, one of the most venerated of professions held in ancient China. Nie Huaisang, being a sect heir and later sect leader, furthermore was well-off, meaning that he couldn’t be in a “feminine” scholarly position either ― marginalized/poor scholars were emasculated by being in the service of higher-ranking men, think of pinshi (poor scholars), muyou (secretary scholars), or hanshi (obscure scholars), which could never be the case for Nie Huaisang (Kam 2016). Within the framework of Chinese masculinity, and specifically the wen-wu (literary-martial) understanding and conceptualization of it, scholars were further preferred over their martial counterparts; Nie Huaisang, by virtue of being a scholar and a beauty, even lives up to the romanticized masculine ideal of the caizi jiaren[3] (“scholar-beauty”) hero (Song 2004). While being a well-rounded individual was of course appreciated more[4], as a poet, artist, and shrewd intellectual Nie Huaisang more than conforms to male gender roles as they exist within the cultural and historical context (Kam 2002; Kam 2015).

「大哥这人你也了解一向鲁莽又容易冲动。可你不像他。你自小理性内敛、又习得奇门道用。」

“You know eldest brother[5] well. He’s always been reckless and impulsive. But you are not like him. You have been rational and restrained since you were young, and you are good at Daoist magic.”

― Jin Guangyao to Nie Huaisang, 乱魄 Fatal Journey (2020)

In Fatal Journey, which is a spin-off movie of CQL focusing solely on the Nie sect, Jin Guangyao tells Nie Huaisang the above. Nie Mingjue is in the series and movie both depicted as a strong fighter; juxtaposing both brothers, one who is good at martial pursuits and one who follows intellectual pursuits, it becomes clear that here, too, “rationality” and therefore being an intellectual is preferred over the brute strength in cishetero-patriarchal hypermasculinity that the west favors, while simultaneously marking both brothers as still conforming to masculine standards.

The fact that western fans interpret Nie Huaisang to be “GNC-coded”, then, has to do with their own preconceptions surrounding how western (white, eurocentric) masculinity and manhood are constructed, and taken as the norm for these concepts. Because of orientalism, East Asian men as a whole are feminized, emasculated, and infantilized (Han 2016; Han 2006; Kam 2012; Kapac 1998). Western fans consuming and interacting with East Asian media will be done through such a lens, and when uncontested, only perpetuate this rhetoric. In period dramas such as CQL, where everyone wears flowing robes and has long hair[6] ― historically and culturally accurate ― western audiences will instead interpret this to mean their conceptions of Chinese people to be more feminine aren’t unfounded. While the construction of Chinese masculinities have changed since ancient times (Kam 2015; Song 2010), and the representations of Chinese masculinities in TV have become more globalized (Song 2010), it nevertheless does not mean that male characters in period dramas are ever seen as feminine or deliberately emasculated through being a scholar as opposed to a warrior ― that is a purely western interpretation.

Nie Huaisang’s mannerisms, while seemingly “feminine” by western standards ― his love for fans, his artistry, his intellect, his aversion to violence ― all have cultural, contextual, historical, and in-universe explanations that have nothing to do with his manhood nor his masculinity[7]; he was written as a frivolous “second young master” with no ambition to take on the role as sect leader[8], and his sect’s cultivation style actively poisoned the mind and body. Is it any wonder, then, that he did not take up the dao? While he doesn’t conform to the cultivation world’s standards of a cultivator and later as sect leader, a role he was forced into after his brother’s death, this does not make him gender-nonconforming. Western audiences’ preoccupation with his antipathy towards using his dao and not fighting furthermore points to their subscription to western-centric, colonialist ideals of hypermasculinity (Han 2016; Song 2004), which they assume are universal, and therefore ascribing Nie Huaisang traits that simply aren’t there. In the end, his wielding of a fan and brush instead of a dao is then interpreted as him being effeminate and not conforming to gender roles, instead of understanding that as a scholar and artist, he conforms to gender roles just fine, but does not conform to traditional cultivator roles.

In a rapidly globalizing world where it is increasingly easy to gain access to media made elsewhere, western audiences’ inability to understand that their worldview is limited actively perpetuates orientalist tropes and racist misconceptions. The way that Nie Huaisang is seen as gender-nonconforming by fans points to the racialization of gender and its construction. A scholar and an intellectual, wielding a fan and being an expert strategist, Nie Huaisang is at times reminiscent of Zhuge Liang, a legendary historical scholar. Yet, while he conforms to male gender roles within his own cultural context, being emblematic of the wen ideal of masculinity, western audiences cannot conceive of him as a man because he deviates from white cisheteronormative patriarchy.

This is not to say that interpreting any character as a minority should not be done. Representation is important ― we all know this. Personally, I would even welcome it as a gender-nonconforming nonbinary person myself. The way western fans go about it, however, only shows they do so through a western-centric, colonialist, and orientalist lens. The point, then, is not that he cannot be gender-nonconforming ― it is to change how western audiences interact with and interpret non-western media.

FOOTNOTES

I will henceforth refer to the series as CQL.

Think for example of how K-pop is becoming more and more mainstream by the day, and how anime and manga are as much part of pop culture as comics and cartoons.

A type of novel depicting the story of a young, rich, beautiful scholar and his female love interest.

Take, for example, Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhuge Liang from Romance of the Three Kingdoms; while all three are undoubtedly held up as paragons of masculinity and male role models even now, Guan Yu, being a martial god (thus epitomizing wu), and Zhuge Liang, being an unparalleled intellectual (thus epitomizing wen), both defer to Liu Bei, who embodies both parts of the wen-wu dichotomy equally, being an adept swordsman and an able strategizer.

This refers to Nie Mingjue, Nie Huaisang’s eldest brother and also Jin Guangyao’s eldest sworn brother. He was at the time the sect leader of Qinghe (where the Nie clan was based).

Long hair has long been a confucian ideal, and not gendered because of it. As one’s body is granted to them by their parents, and one has to pay respect to their elders, cutting hair is akin to desecrating the body and disrespecting one’s elders.

Beyond being explicitly stated in the text multiple times, the official artbook of the drama also reinforces this, as does Nie Huaisang’s propensity to quote poetry or waxing lyrical. One memorable line at the end of the series especially brings this home: 「这山川风物四时美景真是无论看多久都不会觉得厌。我呢是一个识趣的人该我做的我不会假手他人如果不该我做的我也做不来。」(“These mountains and rivers, the scenery of all seasons – I really do feel that no matter how long I look , I won’t become bored of them. As for me, I’m a sensible man. For the things I should do, I won’t shirk. But for things that aren’t my business, I won’t meddle in.”)

After all, we have already established he conforms to Chinese standards of masculinity, and as a Chinese male character from a mainland Chinese production that was made primarily for Chinese-speaking audiences, that is honestly all the context needed to understand him as a character.

Wei Wuxian asks Nie Huaisang if he would ever have the intention to become head cultivator (i.e. leader of all the sects), and by answering thus, invoking scenic imagery and speaking in a higher register, which, yes, is in-character for him, also has an added layer. Reminiscent of Chinese dynastic succession struggles, unambitious siblings tended to throw themselves into the arts, poetry, and music, while eschewing politics and power plays in the hopes that their siblings who had ambitions for the throne would not kill them. Nie Huaisang, here, is conjuring up these same sentiments, hinting to Wei Wuxian that he is not scheming to be head cultivator by talking poetically, and further implicitly pleading with his old friend not to suspect his motives and not to kill him because of them.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Feng, Jin. 2009. ““Addicted to Beauty”: Consuming and Producing Web-based Chinese “Danmei” Fiction at Jinjiang.” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 21, no. 2 (fall): 1-41. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41491008.

Han, C. Winter. 2016. “From “Little Brown Brothers” to “Queer Asian Wives”: Constructing the Asian Male Body.” In Body Aesthetics, edited by Sherri Irvin, 60-80. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Han, Chong-suk. 2006. “Being an Oriental, I could Never Be Completely a Man: Gay Asian Men and the Intersection of Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Class.” Race, Gender & Class 13, no. 3/4 (2006): 82-97. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41675174.

Kam, Louie. 2016. Changing Chinese Masculinities: From Imperial Pillars of State to Global Real Men. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Kam, Louie. 2015. Chinese Masculinities in a Globalizing World. New York: Routledge.

Kam, Louie. 2012. “Popular Culture and Masculinity Ideals in East Asia, with Special Reference to China.” The Journal of Asia Studies 71, no. 4 (November): 929-943. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021911812001234.

Kam, Louie. 2002. Theorising Chinese Masculinity: Society and Gender in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kapac, Jack. 1998. “Culture/Community/Race: Chinese Gay Men and the Politics of Identity.” Anthropologica 40, no. 2 (1998): 169-81. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25605895.

Lavin, Maud, Ling Yang, and Jing Jamie Zhao. 2017. Boys’ Love, Cosplay, and Androgynous Idols: Queer Fan Cultures in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Shaw, Garreth, and Xiaoling Zhang. 2018. “Cyberspace and gay rights in a digital China: Queer documentary filmmaking under state censorship.” China Information 32 (2), 270-92. https://doi.org/10.1177/0920203X17734134.

Song, Geng. 2010. “Chinese Masculinities Revisited: Male Images in Contemporary Television Drama Serials.” Modern China 36, no. 4 (2010): 404-34. https://doi.org/10.1177/0097700410368221.

Song, Geng. 2004. The Fragile Scholar: Power and Masculinity in Chinese Culture. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Xu, Beina. 2014. “Media Censorship in China.” Council on Foreign Relations, September 25, 2014. https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/177388/media%20censorship%20in%20china.pdf

#ling.txt #mdzs #cql #nie huaisang #meta #I GUESS. IDK WHAT TO TAG THIS LMFAO #cringe culture is dead in this house we write academic analysis posts abt our favs or whatever♡#i miss marcus bc i literally asked him to read this when i had first finished it #and he (like all real ling lautakwah née xiaoguiwang fans know) immediately clocked that i must've been in immense pain writing that #footnote abt liu b*i LMFAO like yeah i DO hate that punk ass baby-punting bitch #unfortunately culturally hes venerated as the ideal guy or whatever. fuck him tho♡#also if there are formatting issues it's bc i copy pasted it frm a fucking pdf and did it all on mobile. dont @ me it's 11pm and ive been #working allllll day long 🤧

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atopvisenyashill · 1 year ago

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Bran The Time Traveling Toddler

Yes that IS a reference to the Tyrion the time traveling fetus theory. The thing about MY insane theories is that they actually make sense and I’m right. Follow me please down the worm hole!!

There’s very clearly Someone Influencing things when it comes to the Starklings and even the overreaching plot in general - there’s enough weird magic surrounding them, whispering in the wind, that it’s a no brainer they’re being watched over. The question is WHO and WHEN. For me, personally, I think it’s Bran, and I think it’s an older Bran from the future (whether it be Bran In TWOW and ADOS or Bran post canon) trying to lead his siblings to safety.

Now, like my Harrenhal meta, I don’t think I’m saying anything new so much as compiling what people have said scattered across the interwebs. There’s a lot of theories about whether Bran can time travel, time travel in general in the series, how george has dealt with time travel before, and about the three eyed crow’s identity and I agree with bits and pieces of what other people have said - preston jacobs is a more famous example of this theory for example. But I don't want to get caught up on things like time travel paradoxes because, like, i don’t care about that, and george has talked about how time travel is more fantasy than scifi bc it’s just not really scientifically possible. do you know what that means? it means there’s no weird physical paradoxes because it’s ✨magic✨ and Bran isn't literally going through space and time. It's as Jojen says-

With two eyes you see my face. With three you could see my heart. With two you can see that oak tree there. With three you could see the acorn the oak grew from and the stump that it will one day become. With two you see no farther than your walls. With three you would gaze south to the Summer Sea and north beyond the Wall

Through his greenseeing abilities, Bran can see the whole of a lifespan, from conception to burial, and can pop out at any point in that lifespan, because a span of 100, 1000, or 1,000,000 years is all the same to the weirwood. So I don't think it's in the realm of Crazy Ass Theories to say that Bran is capable of a more magic based form of time travel. That he can whisper in people's dreams, on the wind, taking on the voice of the old gods themselves and doing his best to nudge things the way he needs them to be in order to keep the people he loves safe.

I also don't think Bloodraven is Three Eyed Crow (though I do think he also uses this metaphor of "flying" wrt magic, and that's why Euron also has a comment about flying in his dreams - I just don't believe that metaphor originates with Brynden himself. Rather, I think he picked it up from somewhere else), but instead, it's Bran, using the weirwood network to get all the pieces on the board he needs where he needs them to be for the endgame. Notice that Brynden doesn't seem to know what Bran is talking about when he mentions the Three Eyed Crow-

"Are you the three-eyed crow?" Bran heard himself say. A three-eyed crow should have three eyes. He has only one, and that one red. Bran could feel the eye staring at him, shining like a pool of blood in the torchlight. Where his other eye should have been, a thin white root grew from an empty socket, down his cheek, and into his neck. "A … crow?" The pale lord's voice was dry. His lips moved slowly, as if they had forgotten how to form words. "Once, aye. Black of garb and black of blood."

Brynden mentions the watch, but doesn't mention the three eyed crow. Everyone simply refers to Brynden as the greenseer, not the three eyed crow, except for Bran himself, who simply assumes Brynden is the three eyed crow (and we know magical assumptions in this series are generally wrong!).

What’s double interesting to me about this “bloodraven is the three eyed crow” assumption is brynden himself makes his “a thousand eyes and one” comment - but doesn’t mention a third eye. Meanwhile, Bran’s narrative is obviously filled with bird references and the opening of his third eye from Bran feeding the crows on the towers before he falls then longing to go back to the crows afterwards, of a crow sending Jojen to “the winged wolf,” of his dreams of living as a bird in maester luwin’s rookery with his siblings - Jon Snow even compares him to a bird in their final scene face to face when he thinks bran has “fingers like the bones of birds.”

And notable that though both Rickon and Bran have a greendream where they talk to Ned in the crypts of Winterfell just before Ned is executed, Rickon makes no mention of a three eyed crow, but Bran explicitly sees him-

The mention of dreams reminded him. "I dreamed about the crow again last night. The one with three eyes. He flew into my bedchamber and told me to come with him, so I did. We went down to the crypts. Father was there, and we talked. He was sad."

"Shaggy," a small voice called. When Bran looked up, his little brother was standing in the mouth of Father's tomb. With one final snap at Summer's face, Shaggydog broke off and bounded to Rickon's side. "You let my father be," Rickon warned Luwin. "You let him be." "Rickon," Bran said softly. "Father's not here." "Yes he is. I saw him." Tears glistened on Rickon's face. "I saw him last night."

What that says to me is that the Three Eyed Crow has the ability to speak directly to only Bran and can only otherwise appear in a more ephemeral way to others. With the established rules about not being able to communicate properly with the past, I think this makes sense - being able to use the weirwood hivemind/greenseeing powers to appear in a different form to yourself but unable to appear in a concrete form to anyone else.

I think it's even likely we'll see Bran doing some of this nudging and whispering on page in ADOS or maybe as early as TWOW, but it won't be the exact same sort of "Bran can literally reach out and touch someone in a weirwood dream" that they had in the show with the later scenes. It'll be more like that very first scene in the show where we see Bran influence the past slightly - you know, when he calls out "father!" and young Ned turns around, having heard a voice on the wind-

And there's a direct parallel to ADWD here, where Bran is certain Ned heard him speaking in the godswood but Brynden says it's not possible (not possible for Brynden perhaps!)-

Lord Eddard Stark sat upon a rock beside the deep black pool in the godswood, the pale roots of the heart tree twisting around him like an old man's gnarled arms. The greatsword Ice lay across Lord Eddard's lap, and he was cleaning the blade with an oilcloth. "Winterfell," Bran whispered. His father looked up. "Who's there?" he asked, turning … … and Bran, frightened, pulled away. His father and the black pool and the godswood faded and were gone and he was back in the cavern, the pale thick roots of his weirwood throne cradling his limbs as a mother does a child.

It's not quite time travel. It's like the acorn and stump metaphor - Bran can't appear in his physical body in the past but he can make a bit of noise, perhaps even be mistaken for one of the old gods.

As TWOW and ADOS go on, I think we'll see Bran's powers grow (likely in ways that frighten him and horrify the reader), and we'll see the very beginnings of him influencing the plot that happens during the previous books, showing up in scenes we've already experienced, similar to the Ned scene above. I think this because, well...he's already done it!

Now, as for What Time Traveling Bran Has Already Done - it’s tricky because we have a LOT of magic users waking and shaking. I’m not including every single instance of weird whispering or funny birds here, just the moments I think are more likely to be Bran than anyone else because I think Bran mostly deals with his siblings. I imagine they're easiest to reach out to magically because they already have the ability to access magic, and they're also the people he cares most about. The most obvious to me is in A Clash of Kings, when Jon hears a voice on the wind, very similar to the young Ned scene in the show-

Jon VII in A Clash of Kings

The call came from behind him, softer than a whisper, but strong too. Can a shout be silent? He turned his head, searching for his brother, for a glimpse of a lean grey shape moving beneath the trees, but there was nothing, only … A weirwood. It seemed to sprout from solid rock, its pale roots twisting up from a myriad of fissures and hairline cracks. The tree was slender compared to other weirwoods he had seen, no more than a sapling, yet it was growing as he watched, its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky. Wary, he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face. Red eyes looked at him. Fierce eyes they were, yet glad to see him. The weirwood had his brother’s face. Had his brother always had three eyes?

Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow. He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs.

Don’t be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this. And the tree reached down and touched him.

This moment was when I really started paying attention to Weird Shit Bran Might Be Doing because of that line "not before the crow." Now, we know Bran mentions talking with Jon later on, in the very last chapter of the book, here-

He could reach Summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon. Though maybe he had only dreamed that.

But I think it's both Bran in the present and Bran in ADOS speaking here - brothers reaching out to each other in their fear, and future Bran piggybacking off that connection to send a warning (this is back in Jon VII, during the shared Jon-Bran dream as before)-

Then he realized he was looking at a river of ice several thousand feet high. Under that glittering cold cliff was a great lake, its deep cobalt waters reflecting the snowcapped peaks that ringed it. There were men down in the valley, he saw now; many men, thousands, a huge host. Some were tearing great holes in the half-frozen ground, while others trained for war...This is no army, no more than it is a town. This is a whole people come together.

Bran warns Jon of the wildling army headed their way because he needs the Night’s Watch to stop fighting the wildlings, get them safely out of the True North (so they can’t be reanimated as wights), and focus on the Long Night. When you read the passage, it seems as if Bran is trying to awaken Jon’s third eye - something present baby Bran isn’t concerned with, because he barely understands his own third eye awakening. But a Bran in ADOS or beyond would know exactly what to say and do to get Jon and himself to wake up! Not just because of the paradox, but because of his connection to his brother and his vast understanding of his own magic. Similar to the idea that “who would know how to motivate Bran better than Bran himself” who would know how to motivate Jon better than one of his beloved siblings?

Arya X in A Clash of Kings

In the godswood she found her broomstick sword where she had left it, and carried it to the heart tree. There she knelt. Red leaves rustled. Red eyes peered inside her. The eyes of the gods. "Tell me what to do, you gods," she prayed.

For a long moment there was no sound but the wind and the water and the creak of leaf and limb. And then, far far off, beyond the godswood and the haunted towers and the immense stone walls of Harrenhal, from somewhere out in the world, came the long lonely howl of a wolf. Gooseprickles rose on Arya's skin, and for an instant she felt dizzy. Then, so faintly, it seemed as if she heard her father's voice. "When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives," he said.

“But there is no pack," she whispered to the weirwood. Bran and Rickon were dead, the Lannisters had Sansa, Jon had gone to the Wall. "I'm not even me now, I'm Nan."

"You are Arya of Winterfell, daughter of the north. You told me you could be strong. You have the wolf blood in you."

"The wolf blood." Arya remembered now. "I'll be as strong as Robb. I said I would." She took a deep breath, then lifted the broomstick in both hands and brought it down across her knee. It broke with a loud crack, and she threw the pieces aside. I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth.

Once again, we have a voice - it seemed as if it was her father's voice - telling a Starkling to do something specific, reminding that Starkling of their ties to Winterfell, the north, and home. The voice she hears, speaking her true name, is the kick in the pants Arya needs to grab Gendry and Hot Pie and get out of Harrenhal. There's something interesting, engaging, heartbreaking, that when Arya is at one of her lowest points, lamenting the loss of her pack, and out comes the voice of one of her pack urging her to keep faith, and helping to inspire one of her best moments - I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth. Again, we have a voice trying to get the Starklings to wake up and face their reality!

Sansa in A Storm of Swords

That night Sansa scarcely slept at all, but tossed and turned just as she had aboard the Merling King. She dreamt of Joffrey dying, but as he clawed at his throat and the blood ran down across his fingers she saw with horror that it was her brother Robb. And she dreamed of her wedding night too, of Tyrion's eyes devouring her as she undressed. Only then he was bigger than Tyrion had any right to be, and when he climbed into the bed his face was scarred only on one side. "I'll have a song from you," he rasped, and Sansa woke and found the old blind dog beside her once again. "I wish that you were Lady," she said.

To be clear I think there’s a large change this is nothing. BUT. Considering Bran seems to be reaching out to his siblings, I like the idea that Bran, and magic in general, is trying to talk to Sansa but she can’t quite hear it. Winterfell and it’s magic and it’s family is calling it’s daughter home, even torn from her magical guide as she is, still trying to reach out through her dreams and through the animals around her. I’m desperately hoping that at some point in Sansa’s early TWOW chapters, we’ll start to see birds acting and speaking funny around her as Bran tries harder to reach his lost sister.

Theon Greyjoy in A Dance With Dragons

BUT. I don't think it's just the Starklings that get these messages from Bran - it's everyone he cares about, everyone he loves or will love. One of the other more obvious examples of this is Theon Greyjoy, himself clearly capable of some degree of magic, just like the Starklings-

The night was windless, the snow drifting straight down out of a cold black sky, yet the leaves of the heart tree were rustling his name. “Theon,” they seemed to whisper, “Theon.” The old gods, he thought. They know me. They know my name. I was Theon of House Greyjoy. I was a ward of Eddard Stark, a friend and brother to his children. “Please.” He fell to his knees. “A sword, that’s all I ask. Let me die as Theon, not as Reek.” Tears trickled down his cheeks, impossibly warm. “I was ironborn. A son … a son of Pyke, of the islands.” A leaf drifted down from above, brushed his brow, and landed in the pool. It floated on the water, red, five-fingered, like a bloody hand. “… Bran,” the tree murmured. They know. The gods know. They saw what I did. And for one strange moment it seemed as if it were Bran’s face carved into the pale trunk of the weirwood, staring down at him with eyes red and wise and sad. Bran’s ghost, he thought, but that was madness. Why should Bran want to haunt him? He had been fond of the boy, had never done him any harm. It was not Bran we killed. It was not Rickon. They were only miller’s sons, from the mill by the Acorn Water.

“he had been fond of the boy” please allow me this moment to contemplate killing myself thanks.

okay back on track but this is very self explanatory - we know Theon has some sort of capacity for magic because he had a vision of the Red Wedding in ACOK and unlike Jaime who just fell asleep on a weirweed tree, Theon was just up in bed. We see it again here, where Theon can hear a voice on the wind and then seems to see Bran’s own face in the face of the weirwood tree. Once again, the voice on the wind is trying to help a loved one of Bran’s find their way back to themselves, back to home. And Theon, for all the harm he has done, is still so so loved by Bran, and loves Bran in return.

Samwell Tarly III in A Storm of Swords

Sam made a whimpery sound. “It’s not fair …” “Fair.” The raven landed on his shoulder. “Fair, far, fear.” It flapped its wings, and screamed along with Gilly. The wights were almost on her. He heard the dark red leaves of the weirwood rustling, whispering to one another in a tongue he did not know. The starlight itself seemed to stir, and all around them the trees groaned and creaked. Sam Tarly turned the color of curdled milk, and his eyes went wide as plates. Ravens! They were in the weirwood, hundreds of them, thousands, perched on the bone-white branches, peering between the leaves. He saw their beaks open as they screamed, saw them spread their black wings. Shrieking, flapping, they descended on the wights in angry clouds. They swarmed round Chett’s face and pecked at his blue eyes, they covered the Sisterman like flies, they plucked gobbets from inside Hake’s shattered head. There were so many that when Sam looked up, he could not see the moon. “Go,” said the bird on his shoulder. “Go, go, go.”

Whoever this is - it's Bran!!!! - helps to save Sam and Gilly's lives, actively tells them to run for it, and just a little bit later, Sam is around to help save Bran in turn. I think there's also something to be said for the brotherhood connection here. They refer to each other as brothers in the book because of their connection to Jon; that connection to Jon, and therefore each other, means a lot to both Sam and Bran. There's a practical reason for saving Sam here in that he can help Bran in the "present" timeline, will likely help in the future, but more than that there's an emotional bond here and it seems to me that magic runs off emotions just as assuredly as it runs off of other important stuff like blood and and sacrifice and weirwoods.

Jon Snow XII in A Storm of Swords

With a raucous scream and a clap of wings, a huge raven burst out of the kettle. It flapped upward, seeking the rafters perhaps, or a window to make its escape, but there were no rafters in the vault, nor windows either. The raven was trapped. Cawing loudly, it circled the hall, once, twice, three times. And Jon heard Samwell Tarly shout, “I know that bird! That’s Lord Mormont’s raven!” The raven landed on the table nearest Jon. “Snow,” it cawed. It was an old bird, dirty and bedraggled. “Snow,” it said again, “Snow, snow, snow.” It walked to the end of the table, spread its wings again, and flew to Jon’s shoulder. Lord Janos Slynt sat down so heavily he made a thump, but Ser Alliser filled the vault with mocking laughter. “Ser Piggy thinks we’re all fools, brothers,” he said. “He’s taught the bird this little trick. They all say snow, go up to the rookery and hear for yourselves. Mormont’s bird had more words than that.” The raven cocked its head and looked at Jon. “Corn?” it said hopefully. When it got neither corn nor answer, it quorked and muttered, “Kettle? Kettle? Kettle?” The rest was arrowheads, a torrent of arrowheads, a flood of arrowheads, arrowheads enough to drown the last few stones and shells, and all the copper pennies too.

The Night's Watch seem to take this as some sort of divine sign, and Jon's friends take it as an excellent ploy from Samwell Tarly. But when Pyp confronts Sam over it a page later, Sam completely denies it -

“I had nothing to do with the bird,” Sam insisted. “When it flew out of the kettle I almost wet myself.”

Everyone has their theories about people warging Mormont's crow of course. I think what's interesting to me here is that Jon is really wrestling with the idea of leaving the Watch for Winterfell, in which case Janos Slynt was likely to take over command. Someone like Slynt being in charge when the Long Night is coming is a bad idea, and here, Mormont's bird directly contributes to Jon staying where he needs to be - watching over the wildlings and making sure they aren't turning into Wights.

(And this is getting into my other theories here, but IF Sansa as the Girl In Grey is true, I think this is a neat sort of timeline fixing - almost as if Bran is saying “no, not yet, the pieces aren’t aligned, Jon can’t leave yet, Brienne isn’t at the Vale to get Sansa, I haven’t trained enough, Jon still keeps slapping his hands over his third eye so he can’t see, I need to give myself more time here.”)

Bran II in A Game of Thrones

But...it's not just his family and friends that I think Bran is trying to help here, and of course, if he IS the Three-Eyed Crow, he isn’t YET. What I think is going to be a big climactic part of Bran's story is self sacrifice, giving up some of his own power, his own happiness, to save others. Yes, part of this is my absolute refusal to accept Borg Hivemind Fantasy Police State King Bran in that he will say NO to the hivemind, but I think there's something magical here as well!

I think in order to access great power you need to be willing to put your own body on the line.

Jojen mentions having gotten sick with "greywater fever" shortly before his greendreams started

Dany experiences a miscarriage then literally walks into fire in order to hatch her dragons

both Beric and Catelyn have to quite literally be gruesomely murdered in order for Thoros' fire magic to work to bring them back to life

Melisandre has to physically give birth in order for her shadow assassination to work

on and on it goes. In order to be capable of great power, you can’t just have a willingness to throw someone ELSE onto the pyre but yourself as well. But Bran is pushed out of the window instead of willingly jumping. Or...

The wolfling was smarter than any of the hounds in his father’s kennel and Bran would have sworn he understood every word that was said to him, but he showed very little interest in chasing sticks…Finally he got tired of the stick game and decided to go climbing….

The wolf did as he was told. Bran scratched him behind the ears, then turned away, jumped, grabbed a low branch, and pulled himself up. He was halfway up the tree, moving easily from limb to limb, when the wolf got to his feet and began to howl.

Bran looked back down. His wolf fell silent, staring up at him through slitted yellow eyes. A strange chill went through him. He began to climb again. Once more the wolf howled. “Quiet,” he yelled. “Sit down. Stay. You’re worse than Mother.” The howling chased him all the way up the tree, until finally he jumped off onto the armory roof and out of sight.

I think this is future Bran, finally becoming the Three Eyed Crow, inside Summer. Summer shows no interest in the game and it’s only then that Bran decides to go climbing. Future Bran is sacrificing himself for the greater good - but can’t stop his mournful cry of the fate that awaits his own young self.

#valyrianscrolls #bran stark #getting on my soap box #starklings #twow speculation #ados speculation #magic in asoiaf #the winged wolf #rani attempts meta #lawyering for bran #i started writing this over a year ago alsdjflk #tbh i also did a write up bc the only 'bran is doing some light time travelling' meta i've found is in fact preston jacobs and people #that are building off of preston jacobs. and the thing is i fucking hate video format #give me a goddamn pdf or pure audio for the love of god. so i wanted a write up of this SOMEWHERE for my own reference #if nothing else!!!!!#anyways i know 'bran is a time traveler' sounds insane but 'bran can whisper through the trees even in the technical past' makes sense #i will be doing more bran posting i have had this blog over a year and i do not post about my son enough #i'm doing my fandom name thewingedwolf a disservice here #i’m basically just trying to write up all my various bran theories. i promise to post more than once a year for bran aksksjdjd #i gotta post this now or it’s gonna sit for another year so if there are spelling or grammar mistakes no there’s not

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