Bran and the reeds gobbling down human meat

[dRagonese]

So in Brans 1st dance chapter he wargs into summer and sees the black brothers that coldhands killed and when he gets back into his body jojen and meera are cooking meat. coldhands claims that its a sow but for some reason i just feel like they are eating parts of the watchmen coldhands killed. How much does this affect the story? not the much but it is definitely an interesting tidbit. 

[Victor Newman]

14 minutes ago, dRagonese said:

So in Brans 1st dance chapter he wargs into summer and sees the black brothers that coldhands killed and when he gets back into his body jojen and meera are cooking meat. coldhands claims that its a sow but for some reason i just feel like they are eating parts of the watchmen coldhands killed. How much does this affect the story? not the much but it is definitely an interesting tidbit. 

Bran has already partaken of human meat while warged into his wolf.  He's growing more and more wild.

[Deepbollywood Motte]

The suggestion of cannibalism is seen often in the story, on skagos, Frey pies, Jojen paste, and yes, this instance. None of these instances have been proven so we don't actually know if it's gonna affect the story, guess we have to wait. It will probably have some implications otherwise I wouldn't know why GRRM would make the suggestion of cannibalism so often. 

2 minutes ago, Take Me 2 Your Leader said:

Bran has already partaken of human meat while warged into his wolf.  He's growing more and more wild.

And also this, which is one of the taboos of skinchanging according to Varamyr six-skins

[Dorian Martell's son]

1 hour ago, dRagonese said:

So in Brans 1st dance chapter he wargs into summer and sees the black brothers that coldhands killed and when he gets back into his body jojen and meera are cooking meat. coldhands claims that its a sow but for some reason i just feel like they are eating parts of the watchmen coldhands killed. How much does this affect the story? not the much but it is definitely an interesting tidbit. 

It doesn't. Bran and co. were starving, Jojen was near death and it was freezing outside. Like most people who engage in cannibalism,  it s a desperate necessity. 

1 hour ago, Take Me 2 Your Leader said:

Bran has already partaken of human meat while warged into his wolf.  He's growing more and more wild.

He isn't growing wild. He hasn't eaten human meat since, and he has three humans within wolf range if he wanted to 

[Curled Finger]

Varamyr says his master told him eating human flesh while skinchanged as an animal was bad juju.  He didn't say anything about eating human flesh while in one's own human skin.  

Joking aside, I think desperate straits require desperate measures a person wouldn't normally take under any other circumstances.   Does it matter?  I doubt it.   Kinslaying and breaking guest right seem to be the big taboos.   Skinchangers are further warned not to warg humans or mate with animals while skinchanged.    Skinchanging seems to be pretty restrictive, but smacks of real decency among the savage wildlings.  

Really, what else were the kids supposed to do? 

[ravenous reader]

Look up the symbolism of the Catholic Holy Communion.  GRRM grew up Catholic; and it shows.

[TMIFairy]

On 9.07.2017 at 5:55 AM, ravenous reader said:

Look up the symbolism of the Catholic Holy Communion.  GRRM grew up Catholic; and it shows.

Hmmm - Long Pig and the Holy Wafer are somehow similar? I don't get it ...

[ravenous reader]

49 minutes ago, TMIFairy said:

Hmmm - Long Pig and the Holy Wafer are somehow similar? I don't get it ...

The wine and the wafer represent the blood and the body of Christ, respectively.  Partaking of the communion confers immortality and salvation, at the expense of the sacrifice of someone else's life. The preservation of life (the 'ice' component, if you like) is facilitated by the consumption of life (the 'fire' component).  Think of the bloody-looking weirwood bole ritual ('a white paste, thick and heavy, with dark red veins running through it'... the white and red colors of the mixture echoing the white wafer and the red wine) via which Bran joined, or 'married', the godhood (girls being initiated into the Church also wear white wedding dresses on their First Communion, symbolizing their marriage in Christ) -- that is not so far removed from the communion motif.  @evita mgfs has written some interesting thoughts on it -- 

We also discussed it here on her Bran's growing powers thread.

[Moiraine Sedai]

On 7/8/2017 at 1:56 PM, dRagonese said:

So in Brans 1st dance chapter he wargs into summer and sees the black brothers that coldhands killed and when he gets back into his body jojen and meera are cooking meat. coldhands claims that its a sow but for some reason i just feel like they are eating parts of the watchmen coldhands killed. How much does this affect the story? not the much but it is definitely an interesting tidbit. 

I expect Bran will go down a darker path in TWoW.

[The Fattest Leech]

3 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

The wine and the wafer represent the blood and the body of Christ, respectively.  Partaking of the communion confers immortality and salvation, at the expense of the sacrifice of someone else's life. The preservation of life (the 'ice' component, if you like) is facilitated by the consumption of life (the 'fire' component).  Think of the bloody-looking weirwood bole ritual ('a white paste, thick and heavy, with dark red veins running through it'... the white and red colors of the mixture echoing the white wafer and the red wine) via which Bran joined, or 'married', the godhood (girls being initiated into the Church also wear white wedding dresses on their First Communion, symbolizing their marriage in Christ) -- that is not so far removed from the communion motif.  @evita mgfs has written some interesting thoughts on it -- 

We also discussed it here on her Bran's growing powers thread.

Just a quick note. I was raised Catholic, and like George, I am severely severed from the practice. As soon as I found out at a very young age that my cat would not be in heaven waiting for me, I gave the church the finger and said, "then send me to hell."

Anyway... I am glad of one thing, of the few different churches we went to and/or tried, they never gave out those stale wafers. All of them used the communion bread instead. Thank god because those things look nasty!

This stuff http://www.communionbread.org/

[The Fattest Leech]

On 7/8/2017 at 11:17 PM, Curled Finger said:

Varamyr says his master told him eating human flesh while skinchanged as an animal was bad juju.  He didn't say anything about eating human flesh while in one's own human skin.  

Joking aside, I think desperate straits require desperate measures a person wouldn't normally take under any other circumstances.   Does it matter?  I doubt it.   Kinslaying and breaking guest right seem to be the big taboos.   Skinchangers are further warned not to warg humans or mate with animals while skinchanged.  

Yeah, it's funny and I noticed this a while back too, but there is a long list of no-no's within the "scripts" of the old gods and the new, and no where does eating human flash appear on the "ticket to hell" spreadsheet (just as a wolf ).

On 7/8/2017 at 11:17 PM, Curled Finger said:

  Skinchanging seems to be pretty restrictive, but smacks of real decency among the savage wildlings.  

Really, what else were the kids supposed to do? 

They do have gatherings of skingchangers and wargs up north. It appears as if everyone gets along rather well, and this includes a mix of animals of some should be at each others throats by instinct, but they don't.

Fun fact with a little theory for good measure: In a few of George's older stories he uses gatherings like this as a way to mate with others not related to you, a way to spread the gene pool. He even calls them "gatherings", no change there. So I wonder if the skingchanger/wargs used these gatherings as a way to keep the 'talents' alive by also mating at these gatherings? Bastardy is not the issue north of the wall as it is south, so no issue there.

A Dance with Dragons - Prologue

Other beasts were best left alone, the hunter had declared. Cats were vain and cruel, always ready to turn on you. Elk and deer were prey; wear their skins too long, and even the bravest man became a coward. Bears, boars, badgers, weasels … Haggon did not hold with such. "Some skins you never want to wear, boy. You won't like what you'd become." Birds were the worst, to hear him tell it. "Men were not meant to leave the earth. Spend too much time in the clouds and you never want to come back down again. I know skinchangers who've tried hawks, owls, ravens. Even in their own skins, they sit moony, staring up at the bloody blue."

Not all skinchangers felt the same, however. Once, when Lump was ten, Haggon had taken him to a gathering of such. The wargs were the most numerous in that company, the wolf-brothers, but the boy had found the others stranger and more fascinating. Borroq looked so much like his boar that all he lacked was tusks, Orell had his eagle, Briar her shadowcat (the moment he saw them, Lump wanted a shadowcat of his own), the goat woman Grisella …

[sweetsunray]

On 8/7/2017 at 7:56 PM, dRagonese said:

So in Brans 1st dance chapter he wargs into summer and sees the black brothers that coldhands killed and when he gets back into his body jojen and meera are cooking meat. coldhands claims that its a sow but for some reason i just feel like they are eating parts of the watchmen coldhands killed. How much does this affect the story? not the much but it is definitely an interesting tidbit. 

Lots of confirmed and hinted scenes in the books about cannibalism

• Singer's Stew (bowl of brown) in Flea Bottom
• Frey Pies at Ramsay's wedding feast
• allegedly cannibalism is not uncommon at Skagos Island
• heavy-heavy suggestions in Sam's chapter at Craster's that the "dark blood sausages" are "wight sausages", and a wink to long pork in Jon's chapter at Craster's when he decides not to eat Craster's food and the raven shitting on Jeor when he does. Sam later eats such a dark sausage on his run back to the Wall with Gilly
• Bran, Jojen and Meera eating mutineer-roast, a sort of stew that ought to make you wonder at BR's cave

The Rat Cook story explicitly explains that cannibalism is not a sin in the eyes of the old gods, but the breaking of guest right is, establishing how it's a sin to kill a host or guest while guest right is established, but not eating meat of another human being. But that doesn't mean that cannibalism isn't a social taboo. It is.

The skinchanger taboos seem to me imposed to prevent abuse and excesses. We know that skinchanging gives that person a magical power over well all things living. Especially other humans who don't have that power can be skittish about it, and skinchangers have been hunted in the past just for being a skinchanger, even when they didn't do anything wrong. Hunting people and eat them while you have mental control over an animal, mating with animals and trying to have mental control over another human being are the type of things that gets whole villages riled up carrying torches and sticks to go on a witch-hunt to kill any and all skinchangers (whether they were the ones doing it or not). 

Of course, George does nibble away at those social and skinchanger taboos with special circumstances:

• eating the dead when the Others are about saves you from having to fight and kill a wight afterwards, while preventing starvation when there's nothing else to be had.
• a skinchanger unable to walk + a simple minded big person who can carry him, but mentally so limited that they don't even know how to defend themselves. If Hodor was not simple minded and just a big man able to defend himself and Bran then there would be no need for skinchanging him. 
• a giant pack of wolves hunting, including people, for food... They start out hunting innocent villagers and children. As skinchanger you can redirect that giant pack of wolves into attacking the human monsters who rape and kill and let those villagers starve. The wolves are going to hunt and eat people anyway. But naturally they will tend to go for the easiest victims (old, sick and very young) who cannot defend themselves. It requires a skinchanger to make them bold enough to attack armed soldiers. 

It's not all that cut & dry. The rules and taboos make absolute sense at first glance, but breaking the rules and taboos can be for the better.

[DarkBastard]

I think the "rules" for warging are self imposed.  On the one hand, they are already mistrusted and don't want other wargs eating humans...which could result in the extermination of their kind.  On the other hand, it is likely that one could get "lost" in the warging...and not want to leave it.  It makes sense that it would be an addiction, particularly to a recently crippled child who dreams of being whole again.  Moderation is the key here.

As far as eating a human as a human...generally frowned upon, to be sure.  But I don't think it would physically change a person...unless the idea of having done it drives them mad.  With so many more significant plot points I don't think this would be a pursuit worth chasing...but that's just my opinion!

[TMIFairy]

16 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

The wine and the wafer represent the blood and the body of Christ, respectively.

BIG SNIP@evita mgfs

discussed it here on her Bran's growing powers thread.

Too complicated for me to understand. But nonetheless thank you for explaining!

 

[ravenous reader]

1 hour ago, TMIFairy said:

Too complicated for me to understand. But nonetheless thank you for explaining!

 

What's so complicated?  You live in a predominantly Catholic country, don't you?  What's your understanding of the ritual of Holy Communion and the transubstantiation ('Transubstantyzacja', I believe in Polish)?  If it's too sensitive, however, for you to discuss with an open mind, I understand.  I also find GRRM's exploration of cannibalism and how he invests it with religious significance disturbing.

Hey @The Fattest Leech, did you notice that line (I can't decide if it's reverent or irreverent) in one of the recipes you sent me..?!

Quote

White Flour Communion Bread
(3 loaves)

2 cups white flour 

(or one white flour and one wheat flour)
1/2 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. sugar
6 Tbsp. butter 
3/4 cup milk

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl.
Cut in butter.
Add milk and stir.
Knead for a few minutes.
Divide into three balls of dough.
Pat out on floured board to 1/2 " thick.
Pierce with fork into stripes (see photo above)
Bake at 450 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

• Piercing the bread must be done or the bread will puff up in the oven.
(Remember, Jesus was pierced for our transgressions.)

 

[The Fattest Leech]

 

6 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

Hey @The Fattest Leech, did you notice that line (I can't decide if it's reverent or irreverent) in one of the recipes you sent me..?!

 

Nice! 

Jesus? Caesar? It is a theme. 

[GyantSpyder]

It's big purpose in the story is to call into question what "side" Bloodraven and Coldhands are on, and thus what "side" Bran is being recruited for, and ultimately frustrate the assumption that Bran being recruited to do whatever he's going to do is necessarily a good thing.

It's also part of a larger theme of showing that humanity is not that great and capable of a lot of horror, and so if you see people like you fighting a monster, you shouldn't necessarily assume the monsters are the bad guys.

ASOIAF is a lot like StarCraft. Most of the times you sympathize with the Terrans, but there are times you sympathize with the Zerg, or find yourself sympathizing with them without realizing it.

 

[Seams]

Over the last few days, I've been slowly making my way through searches that might help to explain the "butcher king" symbolism in the books, so I've looked at "butcher," "cleaver," "slaughter," and many different types of meat - steak, mutton, beef, roast, pork, bacon, chicken, fowl, etc. It's pretty clear that GRRM wants readers to think about the ways that humans treat other humans as meat, and he wants to compare humans eating animals to humans eating other humans.

The OP refers to the scene where Bran emerges from warging, during which Summer ate human flesh from Night's Watch mutineers who killed Mormont and Craster. I believe Craster did have pigs (although Jon noted during his visit to Craster's Keep that there were no sheep left in the compound). It's possible that a pig escaped during the commotion after the murders, so it's possible that Meera is telling the truth when she tells Bran that Coldhands found a pig, explaining why the hungry travelers suddenly have fresh pork to eat. On the other hand, Coldhands could have come across some uneaten flesh from the dead humans, after the wolf pack had eaten its fill.

The ambiguity is deliberate, I believe. GRRM wants us to wonder about this. I think we are supposed to compare the situation to this scene featuring Arya:

The dead were never hard to find. They came to the House of Black and White, prayed for an hour or a day or a year, drank sweet dark water from the pool, and stretched out on a stone bed behind one god or another. They closed their eyes, and slept, and never woke. “The gift of the Many-Faced God takes myriad forms,” the kindly man told her, “but here it is always gentle.” When they found a body he would say a prayer and make certain life had fled, and Arya would fetch the serving men, whose task it was to carry the dead down to the vaults. There acolytes would strip and wash the bodies. The dead men’s clothes and coins and valuables went into a bin for sorting. Their cold flesh would be taken to the lower sanctum where only the priests could go; what happened in there Arya was not allowed to know. Once, as she was eating her supper, a terrible suspicion seized hold of her, and she put down her knife and stared suspiciously at a slice of pale white meat. The kindly man saw the horror on her face. “It is pork, child,” he told her, “only pork.” (AFFC, Arya II)

Most of the references to pork and bacon are in Jon and Tyrion POVs, although Arya POVs include a number of pork mentions. I haven't yet taken a close look at references to pigs, but I know that Jon and Tyrion will probably vie for first place there, because of Samwell Tarly's "Ser Piggy" nickname and Penny's trained animal, Pretty Pig. (This is difficult to pin down, though, because I would have to look at sow, piglet, pig, piggy, etc. to come up with a definitive analysis, and I doubt it's worth doing.)

@sweetsunray listed other good examples of possible-but-never-quite-confirmed cannibalism. A close reading of sausage references shows that they are often specifically linked to human fingers. The cook at Castle Black is named Three-finger Hobb, and Jon says his, "sausages were made of grease and salt and things that did not bear thinking about" (ADWD, Jon IX). Lord Manderly, Sam Tarly and the Frey family's maester at The Twins have fingers as fat or plump as sausages. Manderly and several Freys (the "stoat trio") will all be involved in the suspicious meat pies served at the Bolton wedding feast. Sam has the Ser Piggy identity going, but there is also a very interesting moment when he is on the road to Castle Black with Gilly:

"You can stand by the fire as long as you like. You'll have food and drink, too. Hot mulled wine and a bowl of venison stewed with onions, and Hobb's bread right out of the oven, so hot it will burn your fingers." Sam peeled a glove off to wriggle his own fingers near the flames, and soon regretted it. They had been numb with cold, but as feeling returned they hurt so much he almost cried. "Sometimes one of the brothers will sing," he said, to take his mind off the pain. . . . .

. . . no one sings of the Stranger." The Stranger's face was the face of death. Even talking of him made Sam uncomfortable. "We should eat something. A bite or two."

Nothing was left but a few black sausages, as hard as wood. Sam sawed off a few thin slices for each of them. The effort made his wrist ache, but he was hungry enough to persist. (ASoS, Samwell III)

Sam is not literally cooking and cutting off his fingers to feed himself and Gilly, but there are allusions in the excerpt to a previously established "fingers plump as sausages" metaphor describing Sam (ACoK, Jon I, subsequently mentioned again in ASoS, Bran IV) and a couple of reference to pain in his fingers and wrist. Of course, the comparison of sausage eating with finger pain raises the subject of Ramsay Snow's unfortunate kidnapped bride, Lady Donella Hornwood. There's also a Coldhands compare / contrast in there, probably.

Note: Another interesting question to ask about the scene with Bran and Meera and their group enjoying the ambiguous pork dinner is whether the characters show new qualities after eating the meal. I believe that GRRM often shows characters taking on some characteristic of whatever it is that is eaten - think of Dany eating the stallion's heart, for instance. The meal eaten by Bran, Meera, et al. is either the flesh of Night's Watch mutineers and deserters or pork. Soon after the meal, don't Bran and his group encounter Sam and Gilly and the baby and use Sam's power to pass through the Black Gate? Because of Sam's strong association with pigs and pork, I think this could be subtle confirmation that the meat Bran ate was pork. Coldhands didn't lie about finding the pig.

[TMIFairy]

20 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

What's so complicated?  You live in a predominantly Catholic country, don't you?  What's your understanding of the ritual of Holy Communion and the transubstantiation ('Transubstantyzacja', I believe in Polish)?  If it's too sensitive, however, for you to discuss with an open mind, I understand

 

Oh, I don't understand it in Church either - and I consider the cult of the Holy Wafer baffling.

I do know that there is some mind blowing difference between transubstantiation and transublimation - ha! I can quote two Big Words in a row - but my mind refuses to grasp the theological subtleties ...

No, the subject is not too sensitive, but it simply goes over my head.

And this is not the forum for this either.

I agree on the religious context of cannibalism, though. IMO "long pig" simply MUST come with taboos - and what better manner than to envelope it within religious do's and do'nots? - as otherwise people would be hunting one anther for meat come the morrow ...

The way I see it "unlimited" cannibalism produces an immediate breakdown of society. When you bump somebody on the bus you would never know if glare you are getting is simply a stink-eye for your clumsiness or are you being sized up to be taken home and put on the table ...

ADDED LATER:

See how dim I can be? It took all this time and lots of detours to come to the conclusion that indeed, one can make a link between the Wafer and the Long Pig

And that it had been starring me in the eye all along

 

[BalerionTheCat]

Some clans, north of the Wall and also Skagos, are practicing cannibalism. But maybe to some exceptions, only during hard Winters. The last alternative when people are dying and no food is available. But even if Bran ate human flesh, which seems possible, I don't think it means more than going to extreme solutions to survive.