Just finished re-reading Clash of Kings!
I'm wondering what to make of this...
In the final chapter (Bran's POV), while he's inside of Summer, Bran sees this:
"The smoke and ash clouded his eyes, and in the sky he saw a great winged snake whose roar was a river of flame."
When Bran is inside of Summer, he sees things as a wolf might see them. E.g. in the same paragraph, he sees a "pile of man-rock" (which is probably the crumbling walls of Winterfell). Because as a wolf, he has no comprehension of what architecture is and a crumbled wall is just a pile of man-rock, no matter which part of the castle it fell from.
The things that summer sees may be open to interpretation because as a wolf, he sees things in a very literal sense. He compares the unknown to things that he does know. He knows what the following things are, in order to make the comparrison between what he knows and what he saw: wings, snakes, roaring noise, rivers, flames.
What could he have seen in the sky over Winterfell that looked like a snake with wings that roars fire?
Because his eyes were clouded by smoke and ash, I assume he only saw a vague outline of this flying snake creature. And despite what Summer saw, Bran doesn't raise any questions about it when he returns to his own body a few moments later. Maybe because Summer didn't think too much of it, Bran didn't either...?
I'm inclined to believe that what Bran sees through Summer is literal, whereas what he sees in his dreams is greenseeing. Of course what Summer saw sounds a lot like a dragon. While the size of the creature is not indicated, his roar was a river of flame, indicating that it was large enough. It wasn't a trickling stream of flame...
If it is a dragon, perhaps it woke during the burning of Winterfell? It can't be that a dragon's egg hidden away at Winterfell somehow hatched in the flames and carnage because as we've seen with Dany's dragons, they can't fly as hatchlings. Is it possible that there was a dormant dragon somewhere in the area that awoke during the devastation?
I could be wrong, but I think they might show flashbacks via Bran's connection to the heart trees.
Oh, yeah, yeah! And I'm his father, so that would be great fun! Just to go back to that for a while, it would be such fun to do. It would be great! It would be bizarre, but it would be great! So I guess if they're going to do flashbacks, then yeah!
Well, it's just my theory ...
But it's a good theory! And that should happen, shouldn't it? I've definitely got some unfinished business that needs to be resolved there. I'm obviously not Jon Snow's dad. And you need that to be revealed at some point, don't you? So Bran would kind of be the one having the flashback, and he would see Ned praying, right? And revealing those things? You never know what those guys are going to do with that. It's got to be something special. But I'm into that. I certainly would be into that. Print that! Give them a nudge. [Laughs.] Hopefully I'll get a call soon.