Ned Stark was a greenseer?

[King Jon Coldhands]

Ned Stark's actions as Hand before his death set the foundation for many of the plots in ASOIF. He released Jaqen H'ghar and Rorge from the black cells, and chose to send Lord Beric Dondarrion and the Red Priest Thoros of Myr to bring Gregor Clegane to justice. These decisions change the trajectory of the story dramatically...

We know that Ned's son Bran has potent green dreams, and the Starks of Winterfell are a historically mystical and powerful house. Could Ned Stark's decisions have been informed by his own green dreams, to whatever extent?

[John Suburbs]

If he did have green dreams, he interpreted them pretty badly. Pretty much everything he did, and did not do, led to the deaths of his wife, his eldest son and his most loyal retainers, plus the destruction of his house and the scattering of his remaining family.

But maybe there is a happy ending that we as readers cannot see yet.

My own thought is that if the Stark children all have warging abilities to varying degrees, then Ned must have had them as well. And perhaps just before he died he managed to enter a dog somewhere near the Sept of Baelor, which perhaps was able to make its way into the throne room as a certain boy king lay dying of poison to give him one last condescending sniff.

[Daddylonglegs]

Sometimes traits skip a generation, so it's not unreasonable to think that Ned could not. It's been a while since I've read aGoT, an interesting question though.

[Lord Ravenstark]

Is skinchanging even hereditary?

[sweetsunray]

Is skinchanging even hereditary?

Yes. It's a Stark trait. But skinchangers have been basically witch hunted in the past. So, Starks would not start shouting it from the top of the roof I suppose. The half horse comments about Lyanna, suggest she might have had some skinchanging ability.

[DigUpHerBones]

i have no evidence, but i feel as though the "greendreams" have the same power as the Glass candles. Meaning it is 2 way communication, not just 1 way.

i am not suggesting Ned is alive, I am just suggesting that whatever plain his spirit is on will be able to influence Bran, somehow.

or greenseeing somehow blends time.

so yes, Ned could greensee.

whether he knew it or not is another subject.

[esilvia2003]

This theory is reasonable and can be right, but I don't know GRRM will reveal it. Maybe through one of Bran's green dreams?

[jaqenh'ghar1997]

On 5/15/2015 at 7:09 PM, John Suburbs said:

If he did have green dreams, he interpreted them pretty badly. Pretty much everything he did, and did not do, led to the deaths of his wife, his eldest son and his most loyal retainers, plus the destruction of his house and the scattering of his remaining family.

 

 

 

 

But maybe there is a happy ending that we as readers cannot see yet.

 

 

 

 

 

My own thought is that if the Stark children all have warging abilities to varying degrees, then Ned must have had them as well. And perhaps just before he died he managed to enter a dog somewhere near the Sept of Baelor, which perhaps was able to make its way into the throne room as a certain boy king lay dying of poison to give him one last condescending sniff.

 

Thats an interesting thought 

 

[jaqenh'ghar1997]

On 7/5/2015 at 4:51 PM, Lord Ravenstark said:

Is skinchanging even hereditary?

 

I don't think it is because none of Varamyr Six skin's parents could skinchange . So probably not 

[Lord Asher Forrester]

On 20/06/2016 at 4:03 AM, jaqenh'ghar1997 said:

I don't think it is because none of Varamyr Six skin's parents could skinchange . So probably not 

I would say that probabbly yes. Sometimes genetic traits skip one or more generations and we know that skinchangers without animals do not manifest their powers, like Sansa. Skinchanging is said to be very rare but all the Stark children have it, is just coincidence? Every character that we know is a skinchanger is an already known first men descendent:  Stark children; Bloodraven; Free folk skinchangers; or at least probbably first men descendents, like house Farwynd , so very probbably it is passed trough first men blood and thus would be hereditary. Altough we can't really be sure yet, so all possibilities still open by now.

[Jango]

I would say no. For one, you have to keep in mind that being a Greenseer and being the Three Eyed Crow are 2 completely separate things. Greenseers are kind of like the red priests/priestesses of the Lord of Light. Things they see are extremely vague to their eyes. On top of it being vague, if you aren't aware that you're a Greenseer, can you imagine how hard it must be to interpret, or even understand that you're having greenvisions? With that, it can still be debunked because if Ned, for sake of conversation, did have full control of his greenvisions, and was more powerful than the Three Eyed Crow, he would have not done everything he did in the first book. All of Ned's actions in King's Landing in A Game of Thrones led to his death, his wife's death, his son's death, the, not complete, destruction of House Stark and so forth, you you get the idea.

[naossano]

Now that I saw that thread I will be picturing ned as ser pounce.

[ShimShim]

I feel not. Catlyn mentioned her husband did not put much stock in professes and omens. I have a feeling a green seer, being more attune to the supernatural elements of this world, would perhaps give more credence to things like omens, and the other things beyond the wall, which Ned also seems to think don't exist. 

[Wheller]

Not to necro-thread, but I don't think Ned was a skinchanger/greenseer. We never really hear anything about Ned to suggest that he was.

I am of the opinion that the skinchanging abilities exhibited in Ned and Cat's children actually come from Cat's side of the family. Cat's mother is a Whent, and House Whent is descended from House Lothston. Mad Danelle Lothston was said to have an unnatural control over large bats. So the skin changing could have passed down from House Lothston, to House Whent, to Catelyn Tully, to her children.

Then there's a matter of Jon Snow. Everyone pretty much knows that he's not actually Ned's son, and there is two theories about where he came from. First that he's the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, and second that he is the son of Brandon Stark and Ashara Dayne.

Lyanna Stark was said to be an unnaturally good horse rider, which would make sense if she skinchanged horses.

Brandon Stark was said to have 'The Wolf Blood,' which we do know that the Starks are known for Skinchanging, so it would make sense if he was one too.

Whichever theory you believe would be able to explain Jon.

[Charlie Hustle]

if so.. then he is the the worst of them all. Especially when he see that his wife and eldest child would be killed. And on top of that, he would be headed, his eldest daughter would be raped and so on and so forth. Thats a terrible sacrifice to save the world.

[Faera]

I think that all Starks might have the warg and skin-changer ability dormant inside them somewhere.

The Starks interbred with the Marsh King's greenseer magic bloodline and the Warg King's bloodlines, so both powers are in there. Given that all six of Ned's children - including Jon - have varying degrees of the ability, at the very least he must be a carrier of the power even if he never utilised it himself. Plus, all of his children have different levels of power. Bran is by far the most powerful, though this is likely due to circumstances (loss of his legs, near-death experience, contact with the 3EC, and meeting Jojen who actively encouraged Bran to consciously to use his powers by choice etc.), followed by Jon, then Arya and Rickon, with Robb never really being fully aware of his powers much like Sansa isn't now. Ned was probably the "Robb/Sansa" of his generation-set: the potential was there but never embraced.

[Even if the R+L=J theory really is true, Jon would have presumably got his warging abilities from Lyanna who was Ned's sister. With Lady Dustin's comments about Lyanna and Brandon being keen horseriders, it is possible they were able to awake some of that power in them while Ned never managed to.]

However, I do not think the power ever manifested in Ned in any meaningful way. If it did, he probably ignored it. He might have developed the ability under different circumstances but they didn't and even if they had it doesn't mean he would necessarily have any great control over it. After all, it took a while for Bran to go from his wolf dreams to consciously be able to slip into Summer or Hodor whenever he wants and maintain complete control.

[The Sunland Lord]

Very unlikely. He might have been some sort of skinchanger, but never used this ability, or we never saw he could. Greenseer is the most powerful of the skinchangers and Ned certainly didn't make the wisest decisions before his death. He didn't even appreciate the value of Sansa's wolf, so he killed it personally only to please Robert Baratheon. Would a greenseer do something like this? 

[Annara Snow]

On 2/17/2017 at 3:34 AM, Wheller said:

Not to necro-thread, but I don't think Ned was a skinchanger/greenseer. We never really hear anything about Ned to suggest that he was.

I am of the opinion that the skinchanging abilities exhibited in Ned and Cat's children actually come from Cat's side of the family. Cat's mother is a Whent, and House Whent is descended from House Lothston. Mad Danelle Lothston was said to have an unnatural control over large bats. So the skin changing could have passed down from House Lothston, to House Whent, to Catelyn Tully, to her children.

Then there's a matter of Jon Snow. Everyone pretty much knows that he's not actually Ned's son, and there is two theories about where he came from. First that he's the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, and second that he is the son of Brandon Stark and Ashara Dayne.

Lyanna Stark was said to be an unnaturally good horse rider, which would make sense if she skinchanged horses.

Brandon Stark was said to have 'The Wolf Blood,' which we do know that the Starks are known for Skinchanging, so it would make sense if he was one too.

Whichever theory you believe would be able to explain Jon.

LOL no. Everyone knows that Jon is the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna. Some people just like to come up with crackpots that make no sense because they think it will make them cool (no, it does not).

"The wolf blood" that Ned referred to simply meant that Brandon and Lyanna were hotheaded, unlike Ned. All three of them had the same parents. Unless you think Ned was a geneticist and knew what genes they had, it makes no sense to speculate that Ned was referring to what genes they did or did not have. 

And your theory doesn't make much sense either, as it wouldn't explain Jon's skinchanging abilities and wofl-warging the fact that they are so similar to his half-siblings. Clearly the warg gene came from the Stark side of the family (Ned and Lyanna, respectively), even though the two of them had never exhibited such abilities. You can pass a gene without exhibiting the traits - and who knows, maybe they had some dormant abilities that were never awakened. 

The other possibility would be that they never had the trait because it's recessive, so in that case both Cat and Rhaegar would have to contribute a skinchanging gene. But we know that GRRM has no clue about how genetics work, so it's better not to overthink it.

 

[Annara Snow]

On 11/2/2017 at 9:49 PM, Faera said:

 

[Even if the R+L=J theory really is true, Jon would have presumably got his warging abilities from Lyanna who was Ned's sister. With Lady Dustin's comments about Lyanna and Brandon being keen horseriders, it is possible they were able to awake some of that power in them while Ned never managed to.]

"Even if the R+L=J theory really is true"?  That's cute.

The idea that you have to be a skinchanger to be a good horserider is really funny. I guess there must be an incredible number of skinchangers all over Westeros and Essos then, as well as in real life.