[LugaJetBoyGirl]

This is Treb. Alright, spoiler junkies, the prologue POV is...

VARAMYR!!!!!

Yeah! right out of left field.The chapter is filled with very key skinchanger information and history, a look at the aftermath of the battle of the Wall, and yes the OTHERS.

A nugget: Dogs are the easiest to warg, followed by wolves. Birds are the HARDEST to skinchange.

Copious notes were taken and will be posted once we get home!

This post has been edited by Ran: 14 July 2007 - 07:18 AM

[Ran]

Ah-ha! A wildling, I nailed it. Excellent. :)

Last I recall, Varamyr actually looked like he had gone a bit mad (as did his animals -- how many did he have left? Lost Orell, the Shadowcat had slunk off, the wolves were at one another's throats...) I suppose he recovered.

[Peter Dyckman-Campbell]

Lugalirra, on Jul 8 2007, 11.31, said:

This is Treb. Alright, spoiler junkies, the prologue POV is...

VARAMYR!!!!!

Yeah! right out of left field.The chapter is filled with very key skinchanger information and history, a look at the aftermath of the battle of the Wall, and yes the OTHERS.

A nugget: Dogs are the easiest to warg, followed by wolves. Birds are the HARDEST to skinchange.

Copious notes were taken and will be posted once we get home!

Holy shit. I had thought that Varamyr had crawled off to die, but admittedly we never saw this happen.

[beniowa]

:drool:

[Aratan]

The Fat Man, on Jul 8 2007, 12.42, said:

Holy shit. I had thought that Varamyr had crawled off to die, but admittedly we never saw this happen.

Given the fate of previous Prologue characters, I am not holding out much hope that Varamyr hasn't died by the end of this chapter.

Aratan

[Peter Dyckman-Campbell]

Aratan, on Jul 8 2007, 13.59, said:

Given the fate of previous Prologue characters, I am not holding out much hope that Varamyr hasn't died by the end of this chapter.

Aratan

No, I know. I was expressing surprise that he had survived as long as he did.

[Tediz]

I was expecting Stonesnake or one of the Betrayers, or possibly someone in the Mormont/Glover party, but this also makes sense. Can't wait to read a full summary!

[Quoth]

The Fat Man, on Jul 8 2007, 14.01, said:

No, I know. I was expressing surprise that he had survived as long as he did.

I doubt that they ever would, but it would be interesting to see the Others take a human captive. At least for a while. For what possible reason? I dunno. But I think it would be interesting. It would allow for a narrative providing more detail about them, is where, I suppose I'm heading...

[ztemhead]

curious.  makes me wish I hadn't forgotten the passwords to my varamyrsixskins aol user account that I made about four years ago.

[Jaxom 1974]

Wow.

Gives a whole new perspective on how and where this is going to go. And shows a little bit more how truly deep ADWD would have been if it and AFFC had been all one volume.

[Narishma Reborn]

I didn't take notes at the reading because I was in full costume, but I'm just going to point out some stuff I recall from it, since I'm the first one from the con back home and ready to post. The order may be a bit funky, but I'm just throwing out some things to keep you occupied until the full reports come in.

- George has been working on this chapter for many years, it seems. He's restructured it several times, due to the nature of the chapter involving many flashbacks into Varamyr's life.

-The chapter begins with Varamyr inside the skin of one of his wolves (like the Bran inside summer POVs we've seen, in fact, at first I thought it was a Bran chapter). The three wolves (One-Eye, the oldest, and I can't recall the names of the other two) are hunting and come across three people, two men and a woman cradling her "pup" (baby). The wolf thinks that the men are the greatest danger, and they set upon them. They kill the men, and then the woman. The wolf Varamyr is inside begins eating the child, the "sweetest meat" of them all or something.
-Varamyr awakes from this in a shelter in an abandoned village about half a league north of this. He is injured. A boy stabbed him with a bone knife as he had tried to take a cloak from the boy's dead mother. Varamyr had been patched up by Thistle, a spear-wife, whom had not recognized him. They had started in a large group of refugees running from the Battle at the Wall. Some of those had run off with the Weeper, who was planning on taking the Wall, some had run off with a supposed seer woman who had a vision of boats arriving to take those beyond the wall to a new home, various others had gone in different directions.
-When Orell the eagle had burned, Varamyr had at first passed out. When this happened, his snow bear (who always hated him) broke free and killed a bunch of people before being slain. I can't recall what happened to the shadowcat... only his wolves had stayed true to him.
-Varamyr reflects on his training with Haggin (sp?), another skinchanger who he had been taken to as a boy.
-There is a flashback to when he was 6; he was a scrawny, sickly child whose older sister had taken to calling "Lump" (a name he later used when Thistle asked him who he was). He had a younger brother, Bump, who was strong and healthy and whom his mother had directed all her attention to, leaving Lump to fend for himself. They had three dogs, and one day the dogs were found in a room, with Bump dead. Their father could not know which dog was responsible, and so killed them one by one. When the last, most loyal of them came to the father's call, Varamyr slipped into him, and tried to beg his father not to kill him. Of course, being a dog, this came out as a whine, and when the father beheaded the dog, Varamyr screamed from elsewhere. At that point they knew what he was. Some time later, his father came with an axe and took him out into the woods, and Varamyr thought that it was his turn to die, but instead he gave him to Haggin.

ack... I think I'm more tired than I thought. There's something to chew on for awhile, before the others come with their notes and stuff. much more juicy stuff to come.

[Regina]

Ohhhh...thanks for the spoiler-y goodness! Very exciting! :thumbsup: :cheers:


(Although, I am surprised to hear another new chapter, as I thought George was worried about too many spoilers this time around? Not that I'm complaining, mind you!)

[Ran]

Very interesting indeed. I wonder where Tormund's got to?

[Jughead of the Round]

Thanks for those tidbits, Narishma.

It is interesting how the snow bear has always hated Varamyr. I had thought that skinchanging was a mutual agreement between the two parties, but this shows that's not the case. Also, Varamyr's wolves eating the other wildlings seems almost cannibalistic to me. I felt that the wildlings would stick together after their defeat, but it seems like they're all just fighting (and stepping on each other) to survive. I guess I shouldn't be surprised since they are "wild"-lings.

I wonder if this Haggin may be affiliated with the "3-eyed crow."

Having Varamyr as a prologue pov is a great choice. It will present a window into the wildling culture from inside, as opposed to Jon's outsider pov. Also, the backstory dealing with skinchanging should be a lovely set up for Bran's chapters in this book.

This post has been edited by Jughead of the Round: 08 July 2007 - 04:34 PM

[Narishma Reborn]

Jughead of the Round, on Jul 8 2007, 17.31, said:

Thanks for those tidbits, Narishma.

It is interesting how the snow bear has always hated Varamyr. I had thought that skinchanging was a mutual agreement between the two parties, but this shows that's not the case. Also, Varamyr's wolves eating the other wildlings seems almost cannibalistic to me. I felt that the wildlings would stick together after their defeat, but it seems like they're all just fighting (and stepping on each other) to survive. I guess I shouldn't be surprised since they are "wild"-lings.

I'm too tired to type out a lot, but George was talking about this later at one of the parties, in that he was trying to differentiate a little bit in the chapter a difference similar to "sex" and "rape". The chapter described those who bonded with wolves as often being almost "married", and Varamyr had taken over animals unwillingly in the past.

Oh, and there was mention of a gathering of skinchangers Varamyr was taken to while young and training with Haggin. Orell was mentioned there, as well as a number of wargs (person/wolf pairs), Borus/Boarus who had a boar that he resembled greatly, someone with a goat. Nothing that sounded like our three-eyed crow, but possibilities. Haggin himself died a good while back.

[Herbie of High Heart]

Most excellent. I can't wait to learn more about wildling and skinchangers. Thanks, GRRM!

[Alex__]

The chapter that George read essentially provides three pieces of information:

- First and foremost, a lot of background on skinchangers, including what Narishma said before (love vs rape).
- The personality of Varamyr (which is a side effect and is not that important, because, well... he's a prologue POV character. Guess what happens to him.)
- Mance was the linchpin of the host of wildlings, holding it together purely by the strength of his personality. Once he's gone, there's no host. There are just a bunch of people (and other species) trying to survive by any means necessary, including getting at each other's throats.

This post has been edited by Alex Eldritche: 08 July 2007 - 05:49 PM

[Barba]

Alex Eldritche, on Jul 8 2007, 17.28, said:

- The personality of Varamyr (which is a side effect and is not that important, because, well... he's a prologue POV character. Guess what happens to him.)

How, how, how??? :drool:

EDIT: Um, how exactly did he die? :|

This post has been edited by Barba: 08 July 2007 - 05:46 PM

[Bazzlebane]

* Does a happy jig *

This sounds really cool.

[Jughead of the Round]

Quote

Oh, and there was mention of a gathering of skinchangers Varamyr was taken to while young and training with Haggin.

This training may be the norm for wildling youths who show an aptitude for skinchanging. The three-eyed crow could be simply a master of such a program, but I feel that the crow is something more. Bran going to such a program, and getting trained, would be awesome, but I feel he has a greater role to play. He seems destined to deal with whatever is at the heart of the North, so I feel the three-eyed crow may have a 'program' unique to Bran, that is beyond anything a normal skinchanger may learn.