Five Song of Ice and Fire theories that may come true in The Winds of Winter

Jojen Paste

In A Dance with Dragons, Bran Stark returns from a book-long hiatus to continue his journey north beyond the Wall. Accompanied by Meera and Jojen Reed, as well as his direwolf Summer and the lovable Hodor, he eventually finds the cave of the Three-Eyed Raven. That mystical figure ends up being a skeletal old man wrapped in weirwood roots, but he does promise to teach Bran to fly.

Reading between the lines, fans have discovered that the Three-Eyed Raven is actually Brynden Rivers, the bastard son of King Aegon Targaryen IV before he joined the Night’s Watch. He begins to teach Bran about the magic of greensight and skin changing, and at a certain point, Bran is fed an odd weirwood paste that appears to further awaken his own greenseeing abilities. What’s in that paste? Some fans have a stomach-churning answer.

Known as “Jojen Paste,” this theory suggests that the strange weirwood paste given to Bran is actually a concoction created fro the blood of Jojen Reed. For one thing, Jojen himself is increasingly withdrawn and despondent, something Meera notes to Bran. And in his visions, Bran sees the First Men — his distant ancestors — sacrificing humans to the Old Gods and tasting their blood, which implies the use of blood magic.

Jojen tells Bran how he will soon discover the “secrets of the old gods,” but oddly enough, Jojen seems “sadder now, sullen, with a weary, haunted look about the eyes.” He claims to know the day of his death, telling Bran and Meera during one particularly hairy situation in A Clash of Kings that “this is not the day I die.” But in Dance, that day seems to be getting closer:

"Inside was a white paste, with dark red veins running through it…Something about the look of it made Bran feel ill. The red veins were only weirwood sap, he supposed, but in the torchlight they looked remarkably like blood…It had a bitter taste, though not so bitter as acorn paste. The first spoonful was the hardest to get down. He almost retched it right back up. The second tasted better. The third was almost sweet. The rest he spooned up eagerly. Why had he thought that it was bitter? – A Dance with Dragons"

So according to this theory, Jojen voluntarily sacrifices himself to the Old Gods and the Children of the Forest, knowing his blood — remember, he has greensight abilities himself — will help Bran become the Three-Eyed Raven and achieve his destiny, a destiny that’s vital to the survival of humanity. Grim, no?