Do Weirwoods Break Free Will In Westeros? 

When I read “break free” in the title, I thought about the trees like getting up and moving around lol

I like to call the Daemon arc "Tripping balls in Harrens halls"

The argument of Daemon's free will is the similar to if God came to you himself and erased all doubt he was real, what would you do? If certainly affects your decisions, but they're still yours to make. That being said, Daemon's vision is that of things that will happen, so he sees he's meant to conform to it. So rather than only introducing an element of certainty, it outlines a path of determinism. tldr: God says he exists vs God tells you "this is how things will be". Rather different to me.

If Bran is really going to reorganize the system and grant more free will to humanity I think Bran's story may well have inspired Ranni's journey in Elden Ring as well.

Your channel is one of the main reasons I plan on checking out HotD, thanks for the work

The truth is, we don't know what Hodor was like before the "Hold the door" event. He may have been developmentally disabled all along, and it may be this that made Hodor susceptible to Brans powers, as his higher mental functions (reason, free will) weren't there to resist the mental " invasion" just as an animal wouldn't have them.

Oscar Tully: Daemon we will follow you, even though we ALL hate you, but only because you also loyally serve our Queen. You have our swords to weild against the Queens enemies. Daemon: aight bet, were gonna attack Rhaenyra and make me King! Tree: Arya Stark is the Prince that was Promised XD

I wouldn't call what happened to Hodor as 'breaking free will', it's a traumatic brain injury. If someone is in a car accident or gets smited in the head with a mace, we don't say 'they lost their free will'. Certainly they've lost a lot of decision making capacity, and they need help to live day to day, but it's not the same as losing their free will. Hodor still has a desires, and wishes and opinions. He's enslaved, yes, his options are limited and he's manipulated but that's not the same as not having free will. Now the time loop aspect does play with fate/destiny and the inevitability of things happening. But if fate is fixed, that doesn't mean that only Hodor lost free will. It means -everyone- Hodor, Bran, Meera, the dragons, literally every one has no free will. If only certain people have fixed fates or only certain events are fated to action, then a magical power that can either prevent or create 'fixed' events, then I think you're getting closer to breaking free will.

I certainly think from your analysis that you are on the right track. I think its a common theme in myth and fantasy of having prophecy, its not that there isn't free will but the past, future and present are written. So say Oedipus or King Aeetes in Jason/Argonauts, or Chronos - they have the free will to try to avoid their fate but their very actions make the prophecy inevitable. Every action and mistake Bran makes is inevitable, he is free to do this but it always happened and always will have happened. Daemon has free will but saw exactly what he needed to see, because overall he does trust and love his brother and believes the Song. Now as for Bran...well I think he is 'dead' and unless someone disables the Three Eyed Raven he will be unable to have any free will, but that may very well happen by the end.

Sending dreams back through time to "make" someone take an action is no different in this context than going up to someone personally and having nightly discussions with them about doing the thing. In both cases you aren't exerting any domination or control over them. They have not become your puppet. While your talk might be convincing they are still free to not do what you are suggesting or even to do the opposite.

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” ― Epicurus

Daemon's vision did not do a single thing to his free will, he made the decision himself. It just made his decision from being about his marriage vs his ego to being about a "greater plan". So in changing the context for his choice it changed who it made him as a man going foreward.

Does a peasant have free will? Obviously yes, but they do in fact have to listen to their lord (or face the consequences) As far as im concerned its the exact same thing with green dreams

nice. keep making good vids pls, we have so few ytubers doing anything worth watching about westeros. here is my sub of support. either they do meandering rants or through nasty shade at each other or have very toxic followers that are very bitter and can't be interacted with. you, Alt Shift and Gray area are the only ones still putting out stuff I watch. To your long career 🥂

Speaking of free will and defying the god's plan - Euron Greyjoy. I wonder if his arc will reflect the idea of "dangers of freedom" to balance option "opression by trees". Especially interesting contrast - we get to associate Euron with "scream of a rusted iron hinge" and overall opening of the door(and bad things after that) and Hodor is literally hold-the-door.

Just because you see something is certainly happening doesn't mean you're robbing anyone of free will. They will be using their free will to make that happen.

New Michael vid letsgoooo

Preston Jacob's Time Traveling Bran video series somewhat brings up this idea towards the end, where he concludes that GRRM is dealing with existentialist ideas in his work. If so, then Daemon is 'acting in bad faith' in supporting Rhaenyra as he pursues the timeline that the weirwood tree showed him. He sees future events and decides to play along rather than pursue what he knows to be right, namely his taking power for himself. Aemond comes off as the absurdist hero of Sisyphus, that is he's told by his sister that his efforts won't yield victory, yet he goes and gets his rock, continues to fight the war in good faith, despite this. Now perhaps it's because Helaena is merely telling him the future where Daemon is seeing the future via weirwood, but either way Aemond is rejecting fate where Daemon is knuckling under. However, none of this solves the free will discussion, as we don't know if Daemon has chosen to knuckle under or if he's being Hodored. Is Daemon really Daemon in his final scene of season 2 or has he been taken over? At least we do know that Aemond has been warned by a source he seems to trust as much as anyone and he's acting authentically.

Your cancer cure example would definitely violate free will though. Since the cure already exists in your timeline, you know 100% that the ancestor already made the choice to move. You going back and convincing them to move has already happened, you're essentially just closing a predetermined loop. The alternative is multiple universes, but in that case there's no point in convincing them since you already live in the good timeline. It's a similar issue with Daemon because he was shown specific images of Bloodraven and Dany, which means that the sender is from a timeline where Daemon already made the 'right' choice. What motive would the sender have then for showing him the visions? They aren't trying to change the timeline, they're just maintaining a predetermined chain of events. In contrast, future visions in the books only show either very general/vague depictions of a positive outcome, or specific depictions of a negative outcome the sender is trying to avoid. The vision sender doesn't know how to reach the best possible timeline because they haven't lived it yet.

there are two concepts, destiny and fate. Some things are destined to happen but how one deals with these events is the fate one makes for themselves.

Bran is not truly the Three-Eyed Raven. Instead, the Three-Eyed Raven, the most powerful skinchanger, has taken over Bran’s body. Bran, being a weak and vulnerable child, was unable to resist, unlike the woman managed to push Varamyr Sixskins out of her body. There’s even a passage that suggests Hodor tried to hide within himself when Bran took over his body, and I imagine Bran in a similar state-scared, hiding deep within himself as the Three-Eyed Raven seizes control. This distinction is crucial because Bran and the Three-Eyed Raven are two separate beings with different agendas. The only hope of stopping the Three-Eyed Raven is for Bran to be provoked enough to fight back and reclaim his body. We know this is possible because Varamyr Sixskins was expelled from a host before, and Bran could potentially do the same.

This discussion seems to glide past the problem that the idea of "free will" is highly problematic on its own. If people have deterministic criteria for making decisions about the world, and if one can plant ideas in another persons' mind by magic, you can cause them to make conclusions based purely on manipulation. Whether or not you call that free will or breaking it, is secondary.

Fuck yes!!! Good morning to meeee ❤

Great video! I think GRRM's point of all the weirwood dreams/visions is that behind the mask of the "God(s)" that you follow is really just a human trying to manipulate you for their own gain. It's really exemplified with Daemon's dreams in HOTD; He gets a vision of Dany rising from the ashes with dragons, but he thinks it's Rheynera, so he sides with her because he believes she's the chosen one. In reality, he's just been manipulated by someone else. It gets deeper too, because many people join religions/cults because they have a lot of issues. I know Scientology will bring in addicts, use methods that are proven to work to help them, and once the addicts are better, the church is able to manipulate them because they helped the addicts get clean. Similarly, Daemon has a lot of issues when he gets to Harrenhall, he meets Alys Rivers who begins to help him with some of his trauma, and once he's bought into the Old Gods' religion, they begin to manipulate him. GRRM grew up Catholic, and we can see today that the Church/religion/Christianity is often used to empower/enrich the people in power of the Church. Yes, there are truly good people, and true believers, but there isn't an omnipotent being guiding them (see: The long history of people predicting the rapture is coming, convincing thousands of people to give up everything, and then the rapture not coming).

It sounds like any issue with free will in HoTD is really an issue of characters being able to see into the future. The inverse argument is used in real life free will debates.

For the King who bore the sword and for the Northern Marches!

I imagine the rouge Prince (even in the books) was NEVER going to bend the knee In the show it was the visions and in the book who knows what it was But the old gods abuse their power to know what they have to do to make people believe what they want them to believe I don't think u even need to bring in free will to the discussion How could anyone NOT be convinced or have their hearts changed when up against an organism that is beyond our comprehension, that can see and know events across vast space, the past, and the future? Daemon got played but, according to the rules set up by the books, that's fair game and probably not the only time it's happened

Off topic but I always wondered why olena poisoned the wine when margarey was drinking from the same cup?? Maybe it was tyrions pie that was poisoned… then that would free Sansa from him so that could marry Willas. What do you think??

Since warging into humans is seen as such an abomination, does anyone think it's possible that the first white walkers were created by someone trying to warg into a dead human or trying to permanently take over another person's body & it going horribly wrong?

I mean...am I the only one who struggles with viewing free will as an incredibly persistent and very necessary shared illusion?

"if you did not believe it irl why would you believe it in a fiction?" because...because that's a fiction, michael. it fits the fiction's worldbuilding

What if time is all the time, so the future already happened and there is free will, you can see it from the trees bc from any point in time to you can see all the time

Even if they did, I don't think it's a problem, as characters act as if their actions aren't predetermined (ie. they believe they have free will). We as an audience can be clued in about a deterministic setting while not giving (most) characters the same privilege. Looking at you Bran, I know you're on a 4-dimensional journey to nudge things in the direction they need to go for your ascension

What do trees think about?

Magical harassment doesn't break free will. Warging does though.

I don't believe dragons exist in the real world, but they exist in asoiaf. Why should free will be any different?

What do you think Heallana ment to daemon " you know your part " we know his part but do you think he does

I definitely don't think the visions and stuff breaks free will like Daemon could still choose differently and as for the idea of like the trees warging people or something like that I think hodor and thistle scenes show us that warging a person is insanely difficult amd most likely break your mind as a result of the struggle between the free will of the individual amd the controlling force hence why the only effective hive mind we see is the wights the people need to be dead empty vessels to be effectively warged

Ned Stark's actions are a great argument against frree will

No. No one in a prequel can have free will because we already know how their story ends. 🙄

Lets goooooo!

What if George IS Bran...

Is Alys Rivers even REAL? Like is she even THERE? Just she only interacts with Daemon.

My good Mr. Talks, can I ask if you believe in free will in the real-world? It appers to have been compleatly debunked by neuroscience -and when you look into it from a historic perspective, nobody in the world ever actually really bought into the notion of free will, other than christendom(for whom it's issential, because you can't judge people without them having their own agency) Most of the world- through most of human history, has belived in a more 'fate' based universe- like, say, the Greek 'Moirai' and the Norse 'Norns' So brain-science, history and Weirwoods would properly argue they never 'broke' anything- but rather trying to fix a long standing misunderstanding Thanks for your vids- they really make make my head swim : ) Keep up the good work, and a roaring SKÅL(cheers) from the Norf

I don't think that works. If Hodor has free will up until being hijacked freewil is still in play if bran has freewill. If gods have free will and they can alter the natural order freewill exists because the change things. In my mind, free will means things can change after set on a path. If you can do that, ain't no free will.

I didn’t love the daemon arc but not because of the story telling elements. Aemon has pointed out numerous targs who have been seduced by mysticism and prophecy and it consumed them while others like aegon the unworthy had no interests in magic at all. I just think the daemon plot phuqqed the pacing a bit and could have been partially scrapped to allow other stuff to be more fleshed out, like more baela&jace.

You cant spoil a story that has been out over 10 years 😂

Need your exegesis on Romans Chapters 8-9, please. Free will or predestination, go! (kidding) 😂Thanks!

🤟🤟

free will is broken irl

Space fungi

no spoiler warning

There is no such thing regardless.

There are so many issues with damons arc. His agency is removed, now he didnt develop as a person, he got shown by tree daddy why he should change. Have the dreams without the interference without tree daddy and it is fine. The showing future events of what is to happen and how you get there is very bad writing. Much better story to be told without wierwood intervention or even with it, about internal conflict without tying it to GOT. If you show someone the future its ass, always is ass story telling and its lazy. Also, the time traveling element, we now have blood raven causing a decision that results in his time line, but then if his interference was needed for said timeline its a paradox. Especially since we know daemons interventions are essential to get the outcomes we end up with. Just look at how ass heleana is, boring autistic presenting just running the motions.

Weirwoods ruined the story