My stance on various ASOIAF conspiracy theories, Part 26

Thursday is theory day.

This is the twenty-seventh article of the series. Since there are a lot of theories floating out there and I'm asked often enough what I think of them, I thought I write it down. You can then laugh about me when I am totally proven wrong by "The Winds of Winter" or something like that. Rules are as follows: you put a question about any theory or plot element (really, let's stress "theory" a bit for the sake of interesting questions) either in the comments of any theory post or by mail (stefan_sasse@gmx.de) and I will answer them in an upcoming post. And if you now ask "Stefan, isn't this a shameless rip-off of Sean T. Collin's "Ask me anything"?", I would tell you to shut up, because you are right.

Prepare for part 27. Spoilers for "A Song of Ice and Fire", obviously.  

 

What's the deal with Bloodraven? 

There are basically three questions to answer. At first, why and how did he team up with the Children of the Forest and decided to become a tree, second, how could he survive so long, and third, what does he want with Bran. First, Bloodraven was Lord Commander on the Wall after he lost the Handship. Ominously, we haven't heard anything about his tenure, but given how infamous Bloodraven was at his time, I take it that his tenure was rather uneventful. I mean especially that there weren't any scandals like him disappearing in a puff of white smoke; it seems rather he died a natural death, which means in battle (else his disappearance would have been hard to pull off). Let's assume that he somehow found out much about the Heart of Winter, the Children, warging and greenseeing. That seems reasonable, given that he uses his already strong powers frequently in his days as master schemer and hand, and that he only fully understood what he was using when he came to the Wall, where he met someone (Children, most like) and decided to leave the Watch. Engineering his demise shouldn't have proved difficult. Now, why did he live so long? Because he became a tree, and a weirwood besides that, and they tend to endure rather long. Plus, magic. I don't think there's much more importance to it than him being really old. He's only slightly older than Aemon, by the way, if at all. And third, what does he want with Bran? Obviously, he's aware of the danger that the Others pose, and aware of the Heart of Winter, or else he wouldn't have shown it to Bran. Since he can look into the future and Winterfell's hearttree is an especially potent window, he would have been able to see Bran warging in and out of Summer without any problem and realizing that a powerful greenseer was about to be born. So all he had to do was to wait, send him some dreams, send Jojen some dreams, and then do absolutely nothing to prevent all the bad stuff from happening so Bran would have an incentive to seek him out. The power that Bran represents - and make no mistake, he is powerful - should be of use in the battle to come, and Bloodraven is nothing if not a pragmatist in that respect.

Who do you think is the woodswitch on high heart, as well as Quaithe?

I think you refer to the little "witch" that always wants to hear the song of Jenny of Oldstones. It's interesting that we learn in "A Dance with Dragons" that she came to court and predicted all sort of stuff before vanishing in the wake of the Summerhall tragedy, isn't it? So, there are a lot of theories out there that point to the Ghost of High Heart as being a Child of the Forest, but while the description certainly fits (old, huddled, small), I don't understand why a Child would choose this life. I can shrug that off, of course, if there is some connection to Jenny of Oldstones, but the one fact I can't get over it is the hands of the Children. They are described to have only four fingers and claw-like nails, and I somehow sincerily doubt that this little detail went unnoticed at court and in the countless visits she received at High Heart. So, your guess is as good as mine. I don't have a clue who she is and what she does. We know too little about Jenny of Oldstones, and that's a veil that can only be lifted once we arrive at the very last Dunk&Egg-story. In so many words: we don't know.
 

Is it possible that the child Cersei conceived of Robert and killed with the help of a woodswitch survived and is now Gendry?

Eh...yes...possible, of course. But likely? No. What interest should a random woodswitch sought out by Jaime to provide Moon Tea have in rescuing the bastard? Or, if we omit her, it's possible that Varys was involed some shenanigans, but clearly, letting an embryo survive that was aborted with Moon Tea is quite of a stretch for Westeros (they can't do this stuff today, pray), and Cersei never would have let the pregnancy go so far as to actually have the little thing in any state that makes survival possible. Plus, all of this suspension of disbelief would be for what, exactly? Gendry being the trueborn son of Robert and Cersei? No one has any use of having such a thing. Hiding such a child can be a useful thing only when you accept kindness as motive, rescuing his life. Because if you want to use him in his function as heir, you need him when Cersei and Robert are a married couple. That was clearly not the case. So, you can of course hide him until...what happens? Cersei's incest is discovered? Then the marriage is null and void, and the child no heir at all. So, either way, it doesn't make a lot of sense to take all that effort, risk and magic necessary involved of rescuing the child.