In Brant Two, GRRM digs deep into his bag of tricks and comes up with...twincest! But this pair of identical twins couldn't be more dissimilar--they disagree on literally everything, except for maybe the need to silence Bran. Speaking of which, Jamie looks to add "kidslayer" to his list of honors/epithets. 

But let's not make the mistake of having the incident at the very end of the chapter obscure everything that came before--the chapter is in fact about problems of perception and interpretation. Surprise! That also happens to be a key theme in Bran One. So it seems pretty clear based on these two chapters (and insights from the larger series) that Bran's role is similar to that of Ishmael in Moby Dick. That is, he's the (limited) lens through which we view much of the action in the story, and communicates some of the key problems and issues George wants to explore. These include the inescapably subjective experience of seeing and interpreting our reality. Of course, this problem will occur over and over throughout the series and is not exclusive to Bran. But it's clear that it is perhaps the central motif of Bran's character. 

I've said over and over again that real magic is being able to see with another person's eyes, being able to feel what they feel. Early returns, however, aren't encouraging--George so far seems to be saying that it's difficult, if not impossible, to do so. Bran One and Two say that our understanding is necessarily totally context dependent and incomplete, while Arya One says we can't reliably make others aware of our feelings and experience, at least not with words. Meanwhile, here's Cat Two, earnestly encouraging us to look through different lenses and keep the parallax alive, hoping that maybe, just maybe, we can find a shared meaning. For my part, I'm on Team Cat. Whatever the resolution, I'm virtually certain that this will be an animating source for all the books to come in the series. 

Note:  I'm heavily involved in a Lady Stoneheart episode. LSH as a Dante character. LSH in the context of war literature. LSH in the context of the literature of revenge--emphasis on The Iliad and The Oresteia. And finally, LSH and the contrast between restorative and retributive justice. 

These are my LSH areas of exploration. If you have questions or avenues you want covered, please do leave a voice message through the Spotify pod message function. Get in!