WINTERREISE

As I was listening to a cycle of songs, thinking what to write in this chapter, a friend paid a visit :

"Comment peux-tu écouter une chose pareille ? C'est ridicule. On dirait... Schubert. C'est vrai que quelquefois on tombe sur un truc à la radio par hasard. Quoi ? Tu l'as programmé. Pour moi, c'est de la musique de film comique. J'imagine un bonhomme grotesque qui chante... S'il-te-plaît, ne compare pas à l'opéra – J'adore l'opéra..."

So he went, on and on.

In the Winterfell Huis Clos, and perhaps in all of Martin's fiction, all comments in passing deserve to be taken seriously, even when they are anonymous. Here is a sample.

“The gods have turned against us,” old Lord Locke was heard to say in the Great Hall. “This is their wroth. A wind as cold as hell itself and snows that never end. We are cursed.”

Here is the first personification of Winter we came across.

“Lord Winter has joined us with his levies,” one of the sentries outside the Great Hall japed

The strange greetings of Roose Bolton.

Until that day, let us eat and drink and make merry ... for winter is almost upon us, my friends, and many of us here shall not live to see the spring.

All northmen dread the arrival of winter. However impredictable, it is part of the cycle of life. But we have been led to expect an extraordinary severe winter, in reason of the summer that preceded it. Beyond the Wall, the threat of the Others is mounting and we are left to wonder how they will come to the realm.

I wish I could present a well-argumented analysis. In this chapter, I am not intent on proving anything. We will gather disparate informations about the nature of Winter. Then we will return to our study and try to see what seems prefigured, keeping in mind everything we have already observed about Ramsay.


Contents

1. The Seasons in Westeros
2. Winterfell
3. The white Ravens
4. The Winter Maid
5. The Blizzard
6. The Kings of Winter
7. Omens

1. The Seasons in Westeros

The imbalance of the seasons has yet to be explained to us. It concerns the whole of Martin's world, not just Westeros, since Pentos seems affected by the coming Winter.

In the north of Westeros, Winter is a central fact of life. Here is Big Bucket.

“Winter is almost upon us, boy. And winter is death. I would sooner my men die fighting for the Ned’s little girl than alone and hungry in the snow, weeping tears that freeze upon their cheeks. No one sings songs of men who die like that. As for me, I am old. This will be my last winter. Let me bathe in Bolton blood before I die. I want to feel it spatter across my face when my axe bites deep into a Bolton skull. I want to lick it off my lips and die with the taste of it on my tongue.”

The most recent Winter happened more than a decade ago. The recent summer lasted a decade. The Harrenhal tourney happened the year of the false spring – which means winter. It seems a cycle of seasons happened in between, since Sansa recalls a winter in Winterfell.

The recent winters have been mild, by all account. The most recent severe Winter happened at the time of Tyrion's birth, about twenty-six years ago.

“You are a young man, Tyrion,” Mormont said. “How many winters have you seen?”
He shrugged. “Eight, nine. I misremember.”
“And all of them short.”
“As you say, my lord.” He had been born in the dead of winter, a terrible cruel one that the maesters said had lasted near three years, but Tyrion’s earliest memories were of spring.

I could find no mention of recorded memory of severe winters, beside the Long Night and the stories of Ser Bartimus.

When old King Edrick Stark had grown too feeble to defend his realm, the Wolf’s Den was captured by slavers from the Stepstones. They would brand their captives with hot irons and break them to the whip before shipping them off across the sea, and these same black stone walls bore witness.
“Then a long cruel winter fell,” said Ser Bartimus. “The White Knife froze hard, and even the firth was icing up. The winds came howling from the north and drove them slavers inside to huddle round their fires, and whilst they warmed themselves the new king come down on them. Brandon Stark this was, Edrick Snowbeard’s great-grandson, him that men called Ice Eyes. He took the Wolf’s Den back, stripped the slavers naked, and gave them to the slaves he’d found chained up in the dungeons. It’s said they hung their entrails in the branches of the heart tree, as an offering to the gods. The old gods, not these new ones from the south. Your Seven don’t know winter, and winter don’t know them.”
Davos could not argue with the truth of that. From what he had seen at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, he did not care to know winter either. “What gods do you keep?” he asked the one-legged knight.
“The old ones.” When Ser Bartimus grinned, he looked just like a skull. “Me and mine were here before the Manderlys. Like as not, my own forebears strung those entrails through the tree.”
“I never knew that northmen made blood sacrifice to their heart trees.”
“There’s much and more you southrons do not know about the north,” Ser Bartimus replied.

Ser Bartimus says clearly that winter is related to the old gods. He even hints that the slavers were sacrificed to appease the gods.

Old Lord Locke, himself familiar with the Wolf's Den, seems to agree with Bartimus.

“The gods have turned against us,” old Lord Locke was heard to say in the Great Hall. “This is their wroth. A wind as cold as hell itself and snows that never end. We are cursed.”

In both stories, the forces of Winter bring retribution to men for their sins.

Why does Lord Locke think that the guests of the castle are cursed?

2. Winterfell

What is Winterfell? Why is it called Winterfell? Who were the kings of winter?

Osha smiled. “Winter’s got no king. If you’d seen it, you’d know that, summer boy.”

The kings in the north were sometime called the kings of Winter. The terms seem interchangeable. But one might perceive a nuance in their uses. The appellation "King of Winter" is never used for Robb Stark or the kings of recent memory though, except by Maege Mormont when Robb is crowned by acclamation.

“MY LORDS!” he shouted, his voice booming off the rafters. “Here is what I say to these two kings!” He spat. “ Renly Baratheon is nothing to me, nor Stannis neither. Why should they rule over me and mine, from some flowery seat in Highgarden or Dorne? What do they know of the Wall or the wolfswood or the barrows of the First Men? Even their gods are wrong. The Others take the Lannisters too, I’ve had a bellyful of them.” He reached back over his shoulder and drew his immense two-handed greatsword. “Why shouldn’t we rule ourselves again? It was the dragons we married, and the dragons are all dead!” He pointed at Robb with the blade. “There sits the only king I mean to bow my knee to, m’lords,” he thundered. “The King in the North!”
And he knelt, and laid his sword at her son’s feet.
“I’ll have peace on those terms,” Lord Karstark said. “They can keep their red castle and their iron chair as well.” He eased his longsword from its scabbard. “The King in the North!” he said, kneeling beside the Greatjon.
Maege Mormont stood. “The King of Winter!” she declared, and laid her spiked mace beside the swords. And the river lords were rising too, Blackwood and Bracken and Mallister, houses who had never been ruled from Winterfell, yet Catelyn watched them rise and draw their blades, bending their knees and shouting the old words that had not been heard in the realm for more than three hundred years, since Aegon the Dragon had come to make the Seven Kingdoms one... yet now were heard again, ringing from the timbers of her father’s hall:
“The King in the North!”
“The King in the North!”
“THE KING IN THE NORTH!”

The term Kings of Winter is otherwise used exclusively for the dead kings in the crypts and to refer to kings of ancient days. The appellation king in the north is used seemingly to designate the king as an active political player.

The Starks did not always rule the whole of the north. There was a time when the seven kingdoms were a hundred kingdoms, and Winterfell already existed at that time. It is said that the Dreadfort bent the knee to the Starks a thousand years ago. So the Starks could not refer to themselves as king in the north before that time. Perhaps the title King of Winter applied, if only as a shorthand for king of Winterfell. Catelyn Stark seems to think that the title kings in the north goes back far in time when she thinks about the sword Ice.

The name it bore was older still, a legacy from the age of heroes, when the Starks were Kings in the North.

The age of heroes brings us back to the period that followed the pact between the men and the children of the forest, much before the time when the Dreadfort swore fealty to Winterfell, before Jon Stark founded White Harbor etc. So the Starks as Kings in the North were not kings of the whole north then.

The term "King of Winter" suggests a rule over the realm of Winter. Or does it refer to a periodic rule: during the season of winter the Starks ruled? Did the Starks of old play a particular role in the changes of seasons? Or did Winterfell play such a role?

The saying that "There must always be a Stark in Winterfell" would go along with the title "King of Winter". The saying remains mysterious to this day.

3. The white Ravens

The Citadel has the charge of informing the Realm of the change of seasons. We meet the first white raven in Dragonstone.

Shireen gave a brave little nod. “Mother said the white raven means it’s not summer anymore.”
“That is so, my lady. The white ravens fly only from the Citadel.” Cressen’s fingers went to the chain about his neck, each link forged from a different metal, each symbolizing his mastery of another branch of learning; the maester’s collar, mark of his order. In the pride of his youth, he had worn it easily, but now it seemed heavy to him, the metal cold against his skin. “They are larger than other ravens, and more clever, bred to carry only the most important messages. This one came to tell us that the Conclave has met, considered the reports and measurements made by maesters all over the realm, and declared this great summer done at last. Ten years, two turns, and sixteen days it lasted, the longest summer in living memory.”
“Will it get cold now?” Shireen was a summer child, and had never known true cold.
“In time,” Cressen replied. “If the gods are good, they will grant us a warm autumn and bountiful harvests, so we might prepare for the winter to come.” The smallfolk said that a long summer meant an even longer winter, but the maester saw no reason to frighten the child with such tales.

Shireen gave a cry of delight. Even Cressen had to admit the bird made an impressive sight, white as snow and larger than any hawk, with the bright black eyes that meant it was no mere albino, but a truebred white raven of the Citadel. “Here,” he called. The raven spread its wings, leapt into the air, and flapped noisily across the room to land on the table beside him.
“I’ll see to your breakfast now,” Pylos announced. Cressen nodded. “This is the Lady Shireen,” he told the raven. The bird bobbed its pale head up and down, as if it were bowing. “Lady,” it croaked. “Lady.”
The child’s mouth gaped open. “It talks!”

“The shadows come to dance, my lord, dance my lord, dance my lord” the fool sang on, swinging his head and making his bells clang and clatter. Bong dong, ring-a-ling, bong dong.
“Lord,” the white raven shrieked. “Lord, lord, lord.”

The Conclave's finding of the coming of winter precedes the signs of the change of seasons.

Autumn had come, the Conclave had declared, but the gods had not seen fit to tell the winds and woods as yet.

The determination of the change of season seems to be a "science".

The Lord Commander did not seem amused. “You are not fool enough to believe that, my lord. Already the days grow shorter. There can be no mistake, Aemon has had letters from the Citadel, findings in accord with his own. The end of summer stares us in the face.”

The maesters make observations and have certain criteria to make their conclusions.

So I suppose the announcement is of great value for all farmers of Westeros. But why use special ravens? The messengers are surely impressive, and that contributes to the prestige of the Citadel. Or is it an ancient custom, whose justification has been lost?

The white ravens are trained exclusively at the Citadel. I suppose they are sent back to Oldtown in a cage as soon as possible. No maester outside of Oldtown seems to keep any in his rookery. I wonder how those ravens have been trained. The ravens live on the Isle of Ravens.

Shireen gave a brave little nod. “Mother said the white raven means it’s not summer anymore.”
“That is so, my lady. The white ravens fly only from the Citadel.”

They fly only from the Citadel. If I understand well the logistics of ravenry, a bird is raised in a certain place, before being dispatched somewhere else, and it returns home if freed by a maester. We have some explanations from Maester Tybald.

Stannis snapped the word out. "A maester's raven flies to one place, and one place only. Is that correct?"
The maester mopped sweat from his brow with his sleeve. "N-not entirely, Your Grace. Most, yes. Some few can be taught to fly between two castles. Such birds are greatly prized. And once in a very great while, we find a raven who can learn the names of three or four or five castles, and fly to each upon command. Birds as clever as that come along only once in a hundred years."

I wonder if the white raven can learn the names of all the castles. Since they have all been raised in Oldtown, how could they know their destination otherwise? We see the birds in Oldtown.

“Archmaester Walgrave has his chambers in the west tower, below the white rookery,” Alleras told him. “The white ravens and the black ones quarrel like Dornishmen and Marchers, so they keep them apart.”

Walgrave seems to be the maester in charge of the white rookery.

Everyone said that Walgrave had forgotten more of ravencraft than most maesters ever knew, so Pate assumed a black iron link was the least that he could hope for, only to find that Walgrave could not grant him one. The old man remained an archmaester only by courtesy. As great a maester as once he’d been, now his robes concealed soiled smallclothes oft as not, and half a year ago some acolytes found him weeping in the Library, unable to find his way back to his chambers. Maester Gormon sat below the iron mask in Walgrave’s place, the same Gormon who had once accused Pate of theft.

The white ravens knew his name, and would mutter it to each other whenever they caught sight of him, “Pate, Pate, Pate,” until he wanted to scream. The big white birds were Archmaester Walgrave’s pride. He wanted them to eat him when he died, but Pate half suspected that they meant to eat him too.

So it seems Walgrave has sent the white ravens for decades now. Maester Gormon, a Tyrell by birth, seems to be his successor.

A daring theory worthy of a moment of thought would make of the ravens not merely the heralds, but the agents of the season change. I have yet to find support for such a notion, so I am going to resist elaborating on this.

Here is a more plausible variant. Certain people alike the children of the forest has caused the imbalance of the seasons. Just like the children, they have disappeared as a people, but inhabit the white ravens.

A less far fetched question would be to ask how relevant Lord Brynden's assertion about the black ravens is relevant to the white ones.

“Do all the birds have singers in them?”
“All,” Lord Brynden said. “It was the singers who taught the First Men to send messages by raven ... but in those days, the birds would speak the words. The trees remember, but men forget, and so now they write the messages on parchment and tie them round the feet of birds who have never shared their skin.”

Since the white ravens are particularly clever, it seems that they are inhabited as well. But the white ravens and the black ravens are seemingly different species who dislike each other.

“Archmaester Walgrave has his chambers in the west tower, below the white rookery,” Alleras told him. “The white ravens and the black ones quarrel like Dornishmen and Marchers, so they keep them apart.”

So are the white ravens inhabited by different children of the forest?

We are told they are not albino, and they have black, not red, eyes. Nevertheless, do they entertain a relation to the black ravens similar to the relation of Ghost to his brothers?

At last, winter has arrived in the Seven Kingdoms. We see it in King's Landing.

The rest was shrouded in shadow ... except beneath the open window, where a spray of ice crystals glittered in the moonlight, swirling in the wind. On the window seat a raven loitered, pale, huge, its feathers ruffled. It was the largest raven that Kevan Lannister had ever seen. Larger than any hunting hawk at Casterly Rock, larger than the largest owl. Blowing snow danced around it, and the moon painted it silver.
Not silver. White. The bird is white.
The white ravens of the Citadel did not carry messages, as their dark cousins did. When they went forth from Oldtown, it was for one purpose only: to herald a change of seasons.
“Winter,” said Ser Kevan. The word made a white mist in the air. He turned away from the window.

Let's try to determine to the corresponding moment in the north. I don't think we have the means to synchronize the events north and south. The moon phases can help. The moon is full in King's Landing on the night of Kevan's death. The last full moon we saw in the north might have been at the time of Val's promised return.

We have a single indication of the moment of Winter in the north.

“All your questions shall be answered. Look to the skies, Lord Snow. And when you have your answers, send to me. Winter is almost upon us now. I am your only hope.”

It seems that Melisandre makes a prediction rather than repeat common wisdom about the imminence of Winter. Whether almost mean one hour, one day or one month is unclear. I tend to interpret that by the fact that Melisandre saw a white raven in her flame. Melisandre was in Dragonstone when the raven came to announce Autumn, and therefore knows the Conclave's tradition.

The exhortation to Jon Snow to look to the skies, might of course refer to the arrival of the raven. This indeed how Jon understand it.

“Melisandre ... look to the skies, she said.” He set the letter down. “A raven in a storm. She saw this coming.”

There is a precedent for such a prediction. Indeed, Melisandre anticipated the announcement of Selyse's court arrival at the Wall.

The red priestess had warned him of their coming almost a day before the raven arrived from Eastwatch with the same message.

Of course, in that case Melisandre might have simply seen in her flames the departure of Selyse. But in case, it sets a precedent for the anticipation of ravens.

If we accept that Melisandre saw the coming of the white raven that announces Winter. It means that the conclave in Oldtown has sent forth all ravens at the same time a few days before. I presume that a raven reached King's Landing some time before, since journey to King's Landing seems a much shorter one, a few hundred leagues, while the Wall seems at least three times as far.

If indeed Val's return coincided with the full moon, as she announced, then that full moon was in turn the same than the one that saw the arrival at the raven in King's Landing.

Of course a raven has been sent to Winterfell as well, unless the conclave has disqualified Winterfell in reason of the lack of maester affected to the ruined place. It should have reached its destination a few days before.

A few days separate Val's arrival at the Wall from the arrival of the letter. Three days later Tormund's host crossed the Wall and then Tormund made a return trip to Oakenshield. That easily corresponds to the time needed for a raven to make the journey far north.

It is not customary to attach messages to white ravens. But I see no reason why it couldn't be done.

4. The Winter Maid

We know the name of less than ten songs of Abel at Winterfell.


I perceive the maid as red as autumn as evoking Melisandre, for what it is worth. Perhaps it is implied that the song is sang offscreen, or that Mance omits it deliberately.

Rymund's verse seems to be part of Seasons of my love, the Myrish song Tysha taught Tyrion.
and

I loved a maid as white as winter, with moonglow in her hair.

Still the association between seasons and maids. The sight of Val returning to the Wall surely evokes the maid as white as winter, especially since Val insisted she would return by the full moon. Probably Dalla looked the same as her sister. So I wonder whether the arrival of Winter is not related to Val's return to the Wall in her splendid whiteness.

5. The Blizzard

A few days after the wedding, a snowstorm falls.

The first flakes came drifting down as the sun was setting in the west. By nightfall snow was coming down so heavily that the moon rose behind a white curtain, unseen.
“The gods of the north have unleashed their wroth on Lord Stannis,” Roose Bolton announced come morning as men gathered in Winterfell’s Great Hall to break their fast. “He is a stranger here, and the old gods will not suffer him to live.”

It is difficult to situate in time the starting point of the snowfall. Apparently a few days after the wedding, and long before the escape. It's not even clear that all the events contained in the chapter "The Turncloak" happen the same day. At a point, it is said that "Arya" hasn't left her bedroom since the wedding and rumors of abuse are floating in the castle. So the snow did not fall until after a few days after the wedding. (Unless we are misled by the writing and the "Turncloak" chapter begins the day after the wedding and covers a few days. That doesn't really change what follows.)

On the day of the wedding in Winterfell, it is announced that Stannis has left Deepwood Motte. Considering that Winterfell has been warned of Stannis' departure by raven via Karhold (how else?), it has taken some time for the news to reach Winterfell. Hence events happened in that order: Stannis left Deepwood, a few days elapsed, the wedding, a few days elapsed, the snow fell in Winterfell. So there is no room for delay between the snowfall in Winterfell and the snowfall on Stannis. One even has the impression that the snowfall is likely to have reached Stannis first.

At first, the northmen don't show any worry about it.

At the next table, men were arguing about the storm and wondering aloud how long the snow would fall. “All day and all night, might be even longer,” insisted one big, black-bearded archer with a Cerwyn axe sewn on his breast. A few of the older men spoke of other snowstorms and insisted this was no more than a light dusting compared to what they’d seen in the winters of their youth. The riverlanders were aghast.

We see the snow taking over.

Outside the snow was falling still. Wet, heavy, silent, it had already begun to cover the footsteps left by the men coming and going from the hall. The drifts came almost to the top of his boots.

Beyond the walls, as far as he could see, the world was turning white. The woods, the fields, the kingsroad—the snows were covering all of them beneath a pale soft mantle, burying the remnants of the winter town, hiding the blackened walls Ramsay’s men had left behind when they put the houses to the torch.

Farther off, the rutted kingsroad had vanished, lost amidst the fields and rolling hills, all one vast expanse of white. And still the snow was falling, drifting down in silence from a windless sky.

The snow was coming down heavier than ever when they left the hall, with Lady Dustin wrapped in sable. Huddled in their hooded cloaks, the guards outside were almost indistinguishable from the snowmen. Only their breath fogging the air gave proof that they still lived. Fires burned along the battlements, a vain attempt to drive the gloom away. Their small party found themselves slogging through a smooth, unbroken expanse of white that came halfway up their calves. The tents in the yard were half-buried, sagging under the weight of the accumulation.

The snowstorm was still raging when they emerged from the crypts.

As the day of the escape is near, we see the outcome of many days of snow, a month or more.

Endless, ceaseless, merciless, the snow had fallen day and night. Drifts climbed the walls and filled the crenels along the battlements, white blankets covered every roof, tents sagged beneath the weight. Ropes were strung from hall to hall to help men keep from getting lost as they crossed the yards. Sentries crowded into the guard turrets to warm half-frozen hands over glowing braziers, leaving the wallwalks to the snowy sentinels the squires had thrown up, who grew larger and stranger every night as wind and weather worked their will upon them. Ragged beards of ice grew down the spears clasped in their snowy fists. No less a man than Hosteen Frey, who had been heard growling that he did not fear a little snow, lost an ear to frostbite.

At this point, the northmen are worried.

“The gods have turned against us,” old Lord Locke was heard to say in the Great Hall. “This is their wroth. A wind as cold as hell itself and snows that never end. We are cursed.”
“Stannis is cursed,” a Dreadfort man insisted. “He is the one out there in the storm.”
“Lord Stannis might be warmer than we know,” one foolish freerider argued. “His sorceress can
summon fire. Might be her red god can melt these snows.”

But the nature of the curse is subject to controversy, which overlaps the political struggle. Somebody has offended the gods. According to some, it is due to the wedding in Winterfell. For the Boltons, it is Stannis. The freerider argues that Stannis' god is stronger than the old gods.

There is a similar debate in the crofter's village.

“What has your southron god to do with snow?” demanded Artos Flint. His black beard was crusted with ice. “This is the wroth of the old gods come upon us. It is them we should appease.”
“Aye,” said Big Bucket Wull. “Red Rahloo means nothing here. You will only make the old gods angry. They are watching from their island.”

But the Queen's men and the northmen agree that some god needs to be appeased to stop the blizzard.

Outside the snow was coming down so heavily that Theon could not see more than three feet ahead of him. He found himself alone in a white wilderness, walls of snow looming up to either side of him chest high.

On the day of the escape.

“The storm will end today,” one of the surviving stableboys was insisting loudly. “Why, it isn’t even winter.” Theon would have laughed if he had dared. He remembered tales Old Nan had told them of storms that raged for forty days and forty nights, for a year, for ten years ... storms that buried castles and cities and whole kingdoms under a hundred feet of snow.

As we will see the storm would not stop that day.

Outside the snow still fell. The snowmen the squires had built had grown into monstrous giants, ten feet tall and hideously misshapen. White walls rose to either side as he and Rowan made their way to the godswood; the paths between keep and tower and hall had turned into a maze of icy trenches, shoveled out hourly to keep them clear. It was easy to get lost in that frozen labyrinth, but Theon Greyjoy knew every twist and turning.

Not ten yards from the door, Rowan dropped her empty pail, and her sisters did likewise. The Great Keep was already lost to sight behind them. The yard was a white wilderness, full of half-heard sounds that echoed strangely amidst the storm. The icy trenches rose around them, knee high, then waist high, then higher than their heads. They were in the heart of Winterfell with the castle all around them, but no sign of it could be seen. They might have easily been lost amidst the Land of Always Winter, a thousand leagues beyond the Wall. “It’s cold,” Jeyne Poole whimpered as she stumbled along at Theon’s side.

It's not even Winter, and the snowstorm is extraordinary. Stannis' host has been caught in the storm as it approached Winterfell.

The day Theon and "Arya" reached Stannis in the crofter's village, presumably three days after leaving Winterfell, Asha reflected.

They had been three days from Winterfell for nineteen days. One hundred leagues from Deepwood Motte to Winterfell. Three hundred miles as the raven flies. But none of them were ravens, and the storm was unrelenting. Each morning Asha awoke hoping she might see the sun, only to face another day of snow. The storm had buried every hut and hovel beneath a mound of dirty snow, and the drifts would soon be deep enough to engulf the longhall too.

So the stableboy was wrong: the snowstorm gave no respite. The storm is alike the comet in ACoK: a receptacle of projections, wishes and fears.

Ser Bartimus' tales might support the notion that the old gods might control the weather. Here is what happened after slavers had taken the Wolf's Den.

“Then a long cruel winter fell,” said Ser Bartimus. “The White Knife froze hard, and even the firth was icing up. The winds came howling from the north and drove them slavers inside to huddle round their fires, and whilst they warmed themselves the new king come down on them. Brandon Stark this was, Edrick Snowbeard’s great-grandson, him that men called Ice Eyes. He took the Wolf’s Den back,
stripped the slavers naked, and gave them to the slaves he’d found chained up in the dungeons. It’s said they hung their entrails in the branches of the heart tree, as an offering to the gods. The old gods, not these new ones from the south. Your Seven don’t know winter, and winter don’t know them.”

One wonders if the long and cruel Winter is not the work of Winterfell or of the old gods. Note that the slavers huddled over their fire – they might have been followers of the red god.

Melisandre once intended to burn the Winterfell godswood, just like she had the Storm's End godswood put to the torch. It might be that the storm is a protection against this threat, and that the old gods fear that the queen's men would devastate Winterfell's godswood.

Indeed, Stannis' army suffers much more from the storm than Bolton and his allies. Perhaps, Stannis will come to understand that he can't win the north to his cause without adopting the old gods. Much of the tension in his army is due to the antagonism between the queen's men and the mountain clans. In fact, Stannis' army is so starved, frozen and diminished that it is almost non existent. At best it will fight its last battle against the Boltons.

At the end of the gift chapter, Asha exhorted Stannis to follow Eddard Stark's example and execute Theon in front of the heart tree. Such an execution also demanded by the northmen. It seems Stannis' choice is emblematic of the larger choice of embracing the old gods to lead the northmen versus persisting with R'hllor who seems of little help – beside sending Tycho Nestoris as the result of the sacrifice.

We know from where the wind was blowing.

The snow was knee deep everywhere but where the men had shoveled it away, to hack holes into the frozen ground with axe and spade and pick. The wind was swirling from the west, driving still more snow across the frozen surface of the lakes.

On the day of Alys Karstark's marriage, the weather at the Wall showed more clemency.

“All praise R’hllor, the Lord of Light,” the wedding guests answered in ragged chorus before a gust of ice-cold wind blew their words away. Jon Snow raised the hood of his cloak.
The snowfall was light today, a thin scattering of flakes dancing in the air, but the wind was blowing from the east along the Wall, cold as the breath of the ice dragon in the tales Old Nan used to tell. Even Melisandre’s fire was shivering; the flames huddled down in the ditch, crackling softly as the red priestess sang. Only Ghost seemed not to feel the chill.

The snowstorm is centered on Winterfell and the Wolfswood, where there are weirwoods. In the Gift, and around the castles of the Wall, there does not seem to be any of the weirwoods. That might explain the relative clemency of the weather at Castle Black.

Interestingly, the wind blows from the opposite direction from the wind at the crofter's village. This suggests a sort of hurricane, centered somewhere between the crofter's village and the Wall.

Only two days’ ride from here, the kingsroad was said to be impassable. Melisandre knows that too. And to the east, a savage storm was raging on the Bay of Seals.

The Narrow Sea has commonly storms in autumn, from the north to Dorne. The storm on the Bay of Seals might just be one of those. Otherwise, it seems that the storm stroke Winterfell and is gradually expanding.

Is the blizzard the start of Winter?

6. The Kings of Winter

Why were the Starks sovereigns called the "Kings of Winter"? To rephrase the question: in what sense did they have power over Winter? The meaning of the title seems to have been lost over the centuries, if not the millenia. It is clear that important things have been forgotten in Winterfell: Ned Stark does not know why iron swords have been put on the statues in the crypts. Jojen says that the crannogmen still remember what has been forgotten in Winterfell.

If our reading of Mance's story is accurate, the Horn of Winter had been buried in the crypts of Winterfell, Mance found it, and someone, perhaps Mance himself, blew it. The Horn wasn't named Horn of Winter without a good reason. According to the folklore, the power of the horn seems to consist in waking giants from the earth, and in its capability to break the Wall. The former is not elucidated. The second attribute of the horn might be related to Winter. Indeed, when Mance considers breaking the Wall with the (false) horn.

“But once the Wall is fallen,” Dalla said, “what will stop the Others?”

Blowing the horn breaks the Wall, which in turn will summon the Others. With the Others comes the cold. But is such a cold the same thing as Winter? Does it bring a particularly long Winter?

I have speculated that the Horn of Winter might be blown once, twice or thrice. In my view only three blasts unleash the full power of the horn and could break the Wall. It might be that blowing the horn once of twice would call a less severe winter. However, it does not seem that the current imbalance of seasons is caused by the horn.

Were the Starks once the Kings of Winter because they had the prerogative of breaking the Wall? Or perhaps the horn allowed them to summon Winter with the Horn, a sort of weapon of deterrence that made the Starks feared in the north? Especially since they had the advantage of the hot springs within their walls, and could wishstand the forces of Winter.

Is this the original meaning of the saying "There must always be a Stark in Winterfell": a Stark should always watch for the Horn of Winter?

In any case the blizzard that fell over the castle started many days before the horn is heard in Winterfell. So it has not been caused by the horn heard the night before the escape.

However the sounding of the horn might have been the start of Winter, officially announced by the archmaesters at the Citadel.

Many questions, few answers.

7. Omens

There will only be impressions here. Just a collection of sinister feelings.

Snowmen on the battlement loom over Winterfell.

Above, he could see some squires building snowmen along the battlements. They were arming them with spears and shields, putting iron halfhelms on their heads, and arraying them along the inner wall, a rank of snowy sentinels.
“Lord Winter has joined us with his levies,” one of the sentries outside the Great Hall japed...

What are the Others' material bodies, if not snowmen? The snowmen seem to be taking over the castle.

At the moment of the escape, Theon compares Winterfell to the Land of Always Winter, a thousand leagues beyond the Wall

Not ten yards from the door, Rowan dropped her empty pail, and her sisters did likewise. The Great Keep was already lost to sight behind them. The yard was a white wilderness, full of half-heard sounds that echoed strangely amidst the storm. The icy trenches rose around them, knee high, then waist high, then higher than their heads. They were in the heart of Winterfell with the castle all around them, but no sign of it could be seen. They might have easily been lost amidst the Land of Always Winter, a thousand leagues beyond the Wall. “It’s cold,” Jeyne Poole whimpered as she stumbled along at Theon’s side.

Another sinister omen is heard over Winterfell on the morning of the escape.
Need I insist on the meaning of a warhorn sounded three times?

The most worrying omen, in my opinion, lies in the evolution of the godswood.

It was warmer in the godswood, strange to say. Beyond its confines, a hard white frost gripped Winterfell. The paths were treacherous with black ice, and hoarfrost sparkled in the moonlight on the broken panes of the Glass Gardens. Drifts of dirty snow had piled up against the walls, filling every nook and corner. Some were so high they hid the doors behind them. Under the snow lay grey ash and cinders, and here and there a blackened beam or a pile of bones adorned with scraps of skin and hair. Icicles long as lances hung from the battlements and fringed the towers like an old man’s stiff white whiskers. But inside the godswood, the ground remained unfrozen, and steam rose off the hot pools, as warm as baby’s breath.

So it seems that the heart tree is faltering. We have discussed already how this is prefigured in the death of the Raventree heart tree.

Ramsay claims to be the trueborn Lord of Winterfell in his letter.

Your false king is dead, bastard. He and all his host were smashed in seven days of battle. I have his magic sword. Tell his red whore.
Your false king’s friends are dead. Their heads upon the walls of Winterfell. Come see them, bastard. Your false king lied, and so did you. You told the world you burned the King-Beyond-the-Wall. Instead you sent him to Winterfell to steal my bride from me.
I will have my bride back. If you want Mance Rayder back, come and get him. I have him in a cage for all the north to see, proof of your lies. The cage is cold, but I have made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell.
I want my bride back. I want the false king’s queen. I want his daughter and his red witch. I want his wildling princess.
I want his little prince, the wildling babe. And I want my Reek. Send them to me, bastard, and I will not trouble you or your black crows. Keep them from me, and I will cut out your bastard’s heart and eat it.
It was signed,
Ramsay Bolton,
Trueborn Lord of Winterfell.

The cage is cold. We don't know what the cage that is, and there is no apparent reason for Ramsay to mention the coldness. It's as if Ramsay were saying: my realm is cold.

The sentinels over Winterfell are snowmen. A horn has been sounded thrice. The old gods have cursed the guests in Winterfell. The godswood is showing signs of weakness in face of the extraordinary storm. Winter is imminent.

The Others come when it is cold, most of the tales agree. Or else it gets cold when they come. Sometimes they appear during snowstorms and melt away when the skies clear. They hide from the light of the sun and emerge by night ... or else night falls when they emerge.

Several little details of Ramsay's story remind me of Craster, and it seems tempting to see in Ramsay one of those half-human children fathered by the Others. He has now the red sword of heroes, which cast no heat, the one that Melisandre says is promised to Azor Ahai, a savior figure.

Whether Ramsay is the agent, the herald or the symptom of the coming of the Others is an open question. But the whole Winterfell Huis Clos seems to prefigure their appearance.