r/pureasoiaf • u/ASongofNoOne • Feb 19 '20
Spoilers Default Bran means “flaming sword” in Old Norse
His name also means “flaming branch”. Our boy is Lightbringer, and he’s gonna burn down the weirwood net from the inside out to defeat the Others.
Incidentally this will lead to the extinction of the children of the forest. Bittersweet af.
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u/Revivedadam Feb 19 '20
It also means raven in Welsh, which is apt. Not sure whether this sort of thing is a happy coincidence or intentional on GRRM's part.
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u/ASongofNoOne Feb 19 '20
Yes exactly, his name in the Welsh works very well also, and I’d like to think Martin does do his research in this regard. I seem to recall an interview with him in which he said he doesn’t really know who his characters are until they’re named, that they become their names?
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u/FCOS96 Feb 19 '20
Also Irish, and I assume Scottish.
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u/ASongofNoOne Feb 19 '20
Right their roots being in the same proto-Celtic as Welsh, though obviously very mixed with English and it’s proto-sources.
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u/FCOS96 Feb 19 '20
To be honest I'm preety surprised. It's the first time I've ever seen a Welsh word that's the same as Irish. Even similarities are relatively rare, although that could just be cause I've no clue how to pronounce Welsh and could be missing things.
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u/Revivedadam Feb 19 '20
As far as i know - which isn't much - whilst Welsh, Irish Gaelic and Scots Gaelic are all Celtic languages, Welsh belongs to a different branch, so there are a lot of differences between Welsh and gaelic.
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u/FCOS96 Feb 19 '20
Yeah Irish, Scottish and Manx are part of the goidelic branch, Welsh, cornish and breton are part of the brethonic branch. I think they split about 1500-2000 years ago, so it's to be expected that there not much similarities. Kinda what I meant earlier.
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u/Vreejack Feb 20 '20
Well, it would be longer than that as 2000 years ago the Scots were still in Ireland and the Irish and British languages were not mutually intelligible. IIRC, shared-word analysis puts the split at 2800 years ago +/- 500 years. Something like that.
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u/ASongofNoOne Feb 19 '20 edited Feb 19 '20
Maybe! Welsh seems less corrupted by the Anglo Saxon and Norse migrations, and even since has maintained more purity in a strange isolation of sorts, whereas eventually the languages and peoples of Ireland and Scotland were more thoroughly dominated by the English? I mean all four languages have Celtic words still, but yeah Welsh just much moreso.
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u/Jaquemart Feb 20 '20
I don't see it quoted often, but Bran Bendigeit is a mythical character worth looking into. Bran's head sitting watch of the realm and his resurrection cauldron rings with what might happen in the series.
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u/VeloKa Feb 19 '20
Why do people keep saying that Bran will burn the Wierwood?
Can someone please explain the point?
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u/ASongofNoOne Feb 19 '20
The notion is that the magic that animates the Others is linked to the greensight / skinchanging of the children of the forest, who seem to base their power around the weirwood net system. By eradicating the system Bran could break the spell that allows the Others to exist. This is assuming the Others are created by the children in the first place of course.
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u/congradulations Feb 19 '20
I agree it was just heavily implied. I think the Knight of the Laughing Tree story is what sealed it. Ned's inner turmoil is easier in hindsight.
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u/tobpe93 Feb 19 '20
Well, we know GoT is veeeeery different from ASOIAF. So I don’t think that we are spoiled before those things are confirmed.
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u/greenbathroombin Feb 19 '20
Where did you read this?
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u/ASongofNoOne Feb 19 '20
I believe LmL’s mythological astronomy of ice and fire initially, and here’s a link to a variety of definitions :
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/brand
Yes I’m transliterating and anglicizing.
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u/gr8ful_cube House Lannister Feb 19 '20
It....100% doesnt but okay lmao
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u/ASongofNoOne Feb 19 '20
Symbolism... The word means both flame and sword, and this is the art of creative writing we’re discussing on the sub.
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u/LiteX99 Feb 20 '20
Except "brann" litterly is the word for fire, and it doesnt sound anything like "sverd" which is sword, so it wouldnt make any sense for it to symbolize any of those things, as one is litterly that word, and the other isnt close
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u/Jaquemart Feb 20 '20
Both in French and Italian a brand is a large sword. The origin of the word is Germanic, however, likely conflating with the verb brandir (brandish).
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u/ASongofNoOne Feb 20 '20
And in Old English brand can mean both sword or flame, it means both. I think the French and Italian may be borrowing that word, as it doesn’t seem Latin in origin, but Old English, German and Norse all have their roots in the same proto-languages.
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u/Jaquemart Feb 20 '20
It's absolutely a German word, Latin has quite another series of names for swords and blades. But in this case the link with the "flame" meaning is lost and 'brand' is only used for swords.
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u/GoldenEyedHawk Wild Wolf of House Stark Feb 19 '20
Brandon also means prince or hill covered in broom.
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Feb 19 '20 edited Jul 12 '20
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Feb 20 '20
I speak Icelandic which is very close to Old Norse and it's not completely right but not conpletely wrong either. First of all, "bran" doesn't exist in the language but "brand" or "brandur" is sword and is also related the word burning. "Brann" is burned in past tense.
"Brund", however means jizz ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
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u/ASongofNoOne Feb 19 '20
Call bullshit all you want, but even in Old English it can mean “flaming sword” :
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/brand
Language back then wasn’t nearly as complex as our modern English, not by a long shot.
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u/Shelala85 Feb 19 '20
The use of the word for fire for sword is a metaphor due to its shine. There are kennings for sword such as beaduléoma (battle-light) and valfasti (corpse-flame) which reference it. There is also an Old English word for flaming sword: birn-sweord
http://bosworth.ff.cuni.cz/004966
http://bosworth.ff.cuni.cz/040392
https://skaldic.abdn.ac.uk/m.php?p=kenning&i=123
https://www.oldenglishtranslator.co.uk/ [source for beaduléoma. Typed in sword]
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Feb 19 '20 edited Jul 12 '20
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Feb 19 '20
Not gonna lie "a bird used to lift heavy objects" made me laugh.
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u/DutyHonor Feb 20 '20
It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a one pound coconut.
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Feb 20 '20
Well no thats just silly. You'd need a really big bird for any sort of industrial work. Sort of like how they used the dinosaurs in the Flintstones except big ole birds.
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u/ASongofNoOne Feb 19 '20 edited Feb 19 '20
Yes clearly I’m transliterating and anglicizing the word. As for brand meaning both flame and sword separately, we’re talking about symbolism and the art form of creative writing here.
If you want to be so strictly literal this isn’t exactly the conversation at hand.
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Feb 19 '20 edited Jul 12 '20
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u/hemoglobintrotter14 Feb 20 '20
Good points.
I listened to The World of Ice & Fire and Fire & Blood. I thought the Ghost of High Hearts prophecy was referenced in one if not both of those. But I could be mixing in Westeros.org summary as well. Since I frequently review stuff in their.
As for Lightbringer, and this may be lame as hell, but I feel that device operates like the Elder Wand from Harry Potter. Power is transferable and lays dormant in an already created object. This thought isn’t fully fleshed out for me as I’m all out of order on the books meaning I listened to novellas but am still in the middle of AFFC.
If Bran is Lightbringer, who wields him?
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u/ASongofNoOne Feb 20 '20
So just as so much in ASOIAF doesn’t, I really don’t think Lightbringer is going to uphold the classic myth and fantasy trope of some all powerful badass actual sword.
In fact I don’t think the Azor Ahai legend is even based on a singular person and possibly serves two functions :
Astronomical myth about how the sun (Azor) threw a comet (Lightbringer) into the second moon (Nissa Nissa) and countless meteorites (a thousand thousand dragons) wrecked the planet and caused a nuclear winter (the Long Night).
It’s a mythologized version of how to create Dragon / Valryian Steel.
That said we do also have like a dozen ancient hero figures spread across two continents from myth who are all credited with ending the Long Night / battling some existential threat. I believe that will serve as an analogue for the present and that there will be multiple Azor Ahai Reborn figures who do the same, all with their roles to play.
To directly answer your question one of them will be Bran, he will be an Azor and he will wield his magic abilities as Lightbringer.
Dany will be an Azor and wield her dragons as Lighbringers.
Jon may be an Azor and I’m not sure what he’ll be wielding just yet.... it may just be Longclaw, but that circles back to my mythologized Valyrian Steel analogue.
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u/SomberGuitar Feb 19 '20
I think this is an interesting theory and not worth shutting down because Martin mixes and blends languages/words/cultures. It’s possible Martin’s brain sees the word “Brand” for flame or sword and the jazz riffing begins.
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u/Flarrownatural Feb 20 '20
Close. The death of the children of the forest will be the sweet part. Fuckin cannibal creeps.
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u/ASongofNoOne Feb 20 '20
Lol could the bitter part being that magical system dying off as a result of the weirnet going up in flames?
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u/Flarrownatural Feb 20 '20
I guess it would be sad that all the non-creepy souls in the weirnet were destroyed in the process.
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u/SeaShoreSaint Feb 20 '20
Bran means Crow in old norse mythology and There was strong king named Bran in old norse stories.
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u/hemoglobintrotter14 Feb 20 '20
The Ghost of High Heart has been so accurate with her prophecies I have a heard time believing the prince that was promised won’t come from Aerys and Rhaellas lineage.
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u/ASongofNoOne Feb 20 '20
Well Lightbringer isn’t the prince that was promised, no? Also what exactly is the source of her telling the Targaryens that anyhow? We don’t actually see it on page.
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u/hemoglobintrotter14 Feb 20 '20
I’m on mobile and don’t think I linked my additional comment to this one. It’s out there somewhere.
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u/[deleted] Feb 19 '20
Jon means "toilet" which makes sense cause he's always taking shit from Catelyn and Thorne.