The bear and the maiden fair - an analysis of all bear related themes in aSoIaF

[Pied Pypar]

Ah man. Nice post

[Ahai Ahoy]

great essays - very enjoyable read

[LongRider]

Just a couple of comments;

 

I came over to this thread on Sweetsunray's suggestion in the 'Gendry is in love with Arya' thread.  Glad I did!

 

sweetsunray said "his {GRRM's] side and secondary characters are nearly as rich, adaptable, grey suffering from a conflict of the human heart as much as his main characters do. We simply lack their inner thoughts and feelings in writing, and can only go by subtext, actions, behaviour and expressions. One of GRRM’s guides is the song of the seven.

 

The Warrior is prayed to for courage and victory and carries a sword.

 

 

The Smith represents crafts and labor in general (not only smithing). He is prayed to when work needs to be done, for strength and carries a hammer.

 

 

Warriors take a stand against enemies, act protectively and guard little children while holding either a sword, shield, spear or bow. Smiths work day and night with hammers and fire, building for little children and trying to make the world right.

 

 

 

 

 

I really like using the song as a reference to the changes going on in Gendry's arc. Well done. 

 

sweetsunray said "They don't kill each other [bears and wolves], because they don't compete with one another, but seem to co-exist in a rather harmonous manner, completing one another,...."

 

Evolett said;
She [Sansa] reminds herself that the furs (and by extension her bear ancestry) will protect her on the mountain itself. The next line can imply that she, as a bear cub, feels safe in her room in the Eyrie but is uncertain if that status will help protect her at the Gates of the Moon. "

 

 

In relation to the bears and wolves having a cooperative co-existence in reference to Sansa.  She may have looked and felt like a bear cub, but on one of the most dangerous parts of the trek down the mountain side, she heard the wind howling and thought it sounded like 'a ghost wolf' and took strength from that. So one might say the bear and wolf motifs were both represented in her travel down the mountain.

 

Great work kudos to Evolett as well.  Really enjoying the read, thanks.

[LongRider]

 

So I'll be looking forward to that, especially your thoughts on the Oak Tree and acorns, which I feel have not been given enough attention in fandom. Brienne does appear to be the classical ugly duckling. I wish I could write as fast as my thoughts soar.. hm, but time is a problem and there're always new insights...

 

To me Bri is cast as the 'beast' in a classic Beauty and Beast story.  Bri as an ugly duckling too?  Maybe.  :)

[LongRider]

~~~snip~~~

 

I don't see a clear-cut supportive bear in Sansa's story yet. She was mentally and emotionally closed off from Tyrion and he seemed to have no impact really on how to see things. That was Sandor instead. Lothor Brune might be a bear figure for his Brune name, and while he protects her, he's not a supportive catalyst or guiding character. But she's called a "bear cub". Perhaps she can become her own bear? I know that another euphemism for a bear is "God's dog", and that would fit Sandor, and Sansa likes dogs as animals too. Perhaps, Sandor is Sansa's support bear, even if he is not with her, just as most main characters are without their guiding bear in the plot at the moment (Arya, Dany). 

 

Sandor is not a bear, he's a dog.  He's called the Hound, Joffery's dog and other dog names.  His house sigil is 3 dogs, he tells the man he gives the mercy too "I'm my own dog now."  Robert tells Ned "Get her a dog, she'll be happier for it."  A Sandor reference.  He scratches Dog on the ears on the QI, and Dog's barks, part of the fluff if you will, point us to Sandor.         :) 

 

His 'dogness' is consistent over the course of his arc too.  He's going from a mad killing dog to a protector dog; ie; the Beast becoming Human.  I like your ideas for Gendry as a hidden bear, but not all characters that interact with the Starks,  need be bears.  

 

 

 

Thank you. ABout the "fluff". I think we do often sense it's important somehow. For example Tormund's two stories. They have a bit of magic feel, like some riddle in one of those epic mythologies. In our gut we feel it's significant. And yet he seems to be telling some crazy story that's not even relevant to what Jon wants to learn. Jon thinks - I want to know about this horn related style, not this husband to bears stuff. And then Tormund goes on and on about it, in a way that doesn't seem to make sense even - not in a literal way. It's like GRRM misdirects on purpose to dismiss Tormund's stories. So,while our gut says, this must be significant, our head says - makes no sense, must be some fluff to characterize Tormund. And yes, of course it characterizes Tormund, but in a more meaningful way than we can conceive with our mind. Or people start to search for some physical meaning in it - he must be Maege's lover. Maybe he is. Maybe he isn't. Does it make his bear association any less significant if he wasn't? :)

 

Your ideas about the 'fluff' have merit.  But boy of boy, there is so much of it, it can be exhausting to tease these ideas out!    :thumbsup:

[sweetsunray]

 

Sandor is not a bear, he's a dog.  He's called the Hound, Joffery's dog and other dog names.  His house sigil is 3 dogs, he tells the man he gives the mercy too "I'm my own dog now."  Robert tells Ned "Get her a dog, she'll be happier for it."  A Sandor reference.  He scratches Dog on the ears on the QI, and Dog's barks, part of the fluff if you will, point us to Sandor.         :)

 

His 'dogness' is consistent over the course of his arc too.  He's going from a mad killing dog to a protector dog; ie; the Beast becoming Human.  I like your ideas for Gendry as a hidden bear, but not all characters that interact with the Starks,  need be bears.  

 

 

 

Your ideas about the 'fluff' have merit.  But boy of boy, there is so much of it, it can be exhausting to tease these ideas out!    :thumbsup:

 

I agree about Sandor. All the references point to dog only. Lothor is the bear character in Sansa's company. There are two Brune branches, one of them a knightly house, and Lothor seems to be a cousin related to the knightly house Brune. Their sigil is a bear paw with claws. Both seats of the Brunes are named in such a way they're a "den" reference.

[LongRider]

 

I agree about Sandor. All the references point to dog only. Lothor is the bear character in Sansa's company. There are two Brune branches, one of them a knightly house, and Lothor seems to be a cousin related to the knightly house Brune. Their sigil is a bear paw with claws. Both seats of the Brunes are named in such a way they're a "den" reference.

 

And in the gift chapter [spoiler] It shows she and Lothor have bonded as friends.  So he may become a type of protector for her against LF.  Perhaps that would extend Sweet Robin as well.  Although not a wolf, he's currently Sansa's only know living kin besides Jon Snow, and he needs all the bearish help he can get! [/spoiler]

[Hodor's Speechwriter]

Love it. What do you think it means for Gendry's future, aside from foreshadowing the obvious romantic linkup with Arya before her death?

[asimetrikal]

quick cut-in:

 

i am an ESL instructor and textbook writer/editor. i have a BA in linguistics (specializing in indo-european historical linguistics) from the university of texas at austin.

 

bears are a powerful cultural entity in many prehistoric peoples, including the proto-indo-europeans (hereinafter abbreviated PIE). due to the large number of speakers of IE languages (like, half the world's population) and the historically well-attested numerous daughter branches, we can deduce an appreciable amount of the actual folklore surrounding bears in PIE culture.

 

namely, we can surmise that PIE speakers believed in 'name-magic', the belief that a thing's actual (cultic) name gives some sort of power over it, or causes it to physically manifest where it was only an idea before.

 

to wit: the PIE word for bear was *h₂ŕ̥tḱos - probably a form of the verb 'to destroy' (cf. Av 'rasah', Eng 'raze') - and this is reflected in the spanish oso, latin ursus and greek arktos (whence english 'arctic', originally connoting 'northerly, forested, the land of bears'). however certain clades within the IE family tree seem to have been in regular geographical contact with bear populations, and so this form was lost and euphamisms used in it stead. in slavic languages we get forms like medved 'honey eater' (cf. eng 'mead'). in germanic languages we tend to have forms like bear, bruin, baerrin, bjorn; all of which point to a moniker approximating 'the brown one'. ultimately this comes from PIE *b^her- 'to be bright, to glow healthily, to be brown'. 

 

the purported etymology that 'beorn' (obviously a form of 'the brown one') is related to 'warrior' does not convince and is not widely held among indo-europeanists. in fact, i am an indo-europeanist and this is the first time i've ever run into that suggested connection. 'war' and 'warrior' ultimately come from PIE *wer(s)- 'to mix up, to confuse, to confront' (cf. eng 'worst', lat 'versus').

 

as you pointed out the berserker was a 'bear shirt' but this, more than likely, has to do with his blood-frenzy leading to some sort of trancendence beyond human social norms and/or control, rather than some etymological relationship between 'bear' and 'warrior'.

 

otherwise, i enjoyed many of the connections and character elucidations from the text you have highlighted here. well done.

[Le Cygne]

Sandor is Sansa's "bear" in the song. Not Lothor. There are a lot of parallels there, she thinks Sandor is rescuing her, not Lothor (also a romantic parallel, Mya Stone/Lothor and Alayne Stone/Sandor). And a pretty big hint in the new chapter along those lines, too (almost word for word from a passage with Sandor in an earlier book). Sandor is the one who will protect her from LF. And the stealing symbolism, and her wanting to be stolen, is all there, too. That goes deep...

[sweetsunray]

Sandor is Sansa's "bear" in the song. Not Lothor. There are a lot of parallels there, she thinks Sandor is rescuing her, not Lothor (also a romantic parallel, Mya Stone/Lothor and Alayne Stone/Sandor). And a pretty big hint in the new chapter along those lines, too (almost word for word from a passage with Sandor in an earlier book). Sandor is the one who will protect her from LF. And the stealing symbolism, and her wanting to be stolen, is all there, too. That goes deep...

Unfortunately a lot of the earlier posts got skewed, because of the forum change. One of those explains how a bear's kiss (re)awakens a woman's sexuality. After Jorah's kiss of Dany her sexuality reawakens (a chapter later). She has sexual dreams. She wakes and masturbates, and has an orgasm. She's not sexually attracted to Jorah, but he's her bear nonetheless and his kiss wakes her sexual feelings.

Something similar happens with Sansa, when she hears the bear song. During the song, she has her first fantasy of kissing Loras. The chapter afterwards, she invents Sandor's unkiss.

If you were to say, Sandor is Sansa's beast: I say yes. And nowhere do I claim that Lothor is Sansa's "beast" or romantic interest. Nonetheless he's a bear character. Bears do not solely have a romantic or sexual role to play in the books. But they can have a protective role as well. I agree though with the Lothor-Mya Stone tie. I think Sansa will mediate in some way to make Mya notice Lothor in some way.

Anyhow, at present I'm not updating the earlier OP posts that skewed in the DB after the first quoted material, until I'm certain the October DB will never be installed. So, for the moment I'm working to get the actual complete essays back up on my blog. So, sorry if you thought I ever argued that Lothor was Sansa's romantic bear. I never did. Forum change and broken db messed up half of my essays in here... about 30k of words or something. In fact, one of the folklore bear euphemisms includes a dog reference. So, a hound character can actually be a disguised bear character too.

[sweetsunray]

Le Cygne, the bear character discussions in this thread include all type of bear characters, not just the romantic "beast" for the maiden. We just observe that Lothor Brune has a name that means 'bear': Brune. The actual word 'bear' itself comes from the PIE word *ber- which means 'brown', while the PIE word for the animal is *rktos- (Greek: arktos from which arctic is derived; Latin: ursus from which the French 'ours' is derived; Welsh: arth from which Arthur is derived). But the Baltic, the Germanic and Slavic areas have completely different words for the animal derived from PIE words that are descriptive of nature, rather than actually identifying. For Germanic area it comes down to PIE tie *ber, meaning "the brown one". For Slavic area it comes down to PIE ties *medhu- and *ed, meaning "honey eater", and for the Baltic it ties to the PIE word *tlakis- meaning "the hairy/shaggy one".

In the Germanic area the word for the color 'brown' became: bruin (Dutch), brown (English), brun/brune (French male/fem), braun (German). Brune is the feminine name derived from the male Bruno, both meaning "the brown one", and thus a circumlocation for "bear". Hence just Lothor Brune's name alone establishes a tie to the bear folklore concept. He's a cousin of the Brune cadet branch, a knightly house, at Bronwhollow. Which is a seta's name referring to a den of the brown one, again a bear reference. And the sigil of the cadet branch is a bear paw of a brown bear. Instead of "honey eater" though he ends up with the nickname "apple eater".

He clearly is not Sansa's bear for the second sexual and romantic part of the bear-song, but he is featured in Sansa's arc, in the tourney scenes, in her recounting of those who get the honors for fighting at the Blackwater, as her bodyguard in the Vale, and fleshed out more and more. He even gets his own romantic story, of being in love with Mya Stone, who wanted the young knight Mychel Redfort, while he's an older, homely looking man Mya hasn't got any eyes for. So, for Lothor we have the "I wanted a knight, not a bear" thing going on between him and Mya.

So, what is he doing in Sansa's arc? Does he have any relevance to her personal story? Well there is his nickname "apple eater". Many people have noted a connection with Sansa's story to that of the Norse Idunn. She was the goddess who carried apples. The eating of her apples kept the gods young. She was abducted and brought to a mountain, the home of a giant who could skinchange into an eagle. Nobody realized something was amiss until they started to age. That's when the gods ordered Loki (who helped her into being abducted) to get her back. He brought her back in the disguise of a falcon, carrying her as a nut and chased by the giant in the form of the eagle. Idunn's abudction and the aging as a consequence of her disappearance fits in the abduction myths or captive myths such as Persephone, Ishtar, etc.

Persephone's abduction causes her mother Demeter to abandon her care for the growth of the land, and people going hungry. Zeus ordered the release of Persephone from Hades, but Hades tricked Persephone into eating pomegranate seeds and she had to return to Hades each yet, for as many months as she ate seeds, which established seasons of growth and seasons of nothing growing (spring versus winter). I already showed how Persephone's checklist for identification completely matches with Lyanna Stark (flowers, wreath of flowers, a statue in the crypts making her queen of the underworld and that's how she's featured in Ned's dreams, false spring but winter returning related to her public appearance at HH and her abduction, bats, horses which tie to the wilder Arcadian Despoina - half sister - who became conflated with Persephone, and so on and so on).

Ishtar was the middle-eastern goddess of sex. When her lover died, she went to the Underworld, having to pass gates, to try and get him back from her sister. But her sister kept her as a prisoner there. Because of that, people and animals stopped having sex and thus procreating. The gods intervened and ordered Ishtar's release. Catelyn starts out as an abducted Persephone in LF's eyes, then has an Ishtar like adventure in the Vale with her sister Lysa, but majorly features as the devestated mother Demeter who searches for her abducted daughter, while her motherland goes hungry. Tyrion takes the majority of Ishtar's symbolism though: sex, abducted, a mourned lover, a voyage passing the Bloody Gate, Gates of the Moon and the 3 gatehouses along the ascent to the Eyrie, then kept captive in the Eyrie, being released by the gods in the trial by combat at the Eyrie, ...

And with Idunn's myth we get something similar after her abduction. Sansa is one of the daughters that Catelyn-Demeter is looking for and so furious about (think the vengeful Furies here), but she fits Idunn with her abduction to the home of giants in the Vale (Giant's Lance, LF as a Tytan's head, ...). The Eyrie's usual translated name in the books in other languages is often "Eagle's nest". And of course there's the falcon symbolism of the Arryns, and her wishing she could fly off as a falcon. George uses LF's pomegranate to remind us that there's a tie to the Persephone myth (and Idunn's myth is a related goddess-abduction myth with bad consequences for the gods and world). But she eats a pear (though there is an apple). Lothor Brune (a bear character) called the "apple eater" fits with the Idunn motif. The Norse gods were the apple eaters of Idunn's apples to maintain their youth (and immortality), so that makes Lothor Brune someone who maintains his youth or is youthful though he's actually already in his late 30s or early 40s, and eventually makes him a character that would wish to see Sansa released from the Giant.

His background story with Mya Stone (who's featured as a shieldmaiden almost) fits that of Brynhilde's. Brynhilde was a Valkyrie for Odin who helped a king win a battle, against Odin's wish. So, she became a fallen Valkyrie who was bound to a human life (shieldmaiden instead) and thus eventually had to marry. Brynhilde though had Odin build her a tower in a ring of fire, and only the man able to conquer that protection without harm and fear would be the man she'd marry. That was Sygurd (who carried a mythical sword, which was believed to have once been Wayland's sword - a smith bear). Sygurd fell in love with her and promised to return to her and marry her. But because of a spell, he forgot about Brynhilde and ended up marrying another. His brother-in-law though wanted Brynhilde as wife, and Sygurd helped his brother-in-law in getting Brynhilde by donning the man's armor and so Sygurd disguised as his brother-in-law entered the tower and ring of fire. So, Brynhilde ended up marrying the other man. When Brynhilde later finds out how Sygurd tricked her into marrying the other man, she informed her husband on how Sygurd took liberties with her while in the tower; and her husband killed Sygurd, while she killed Sygurd's children with his wife and then joined Sygurd on the funeral pyre. This myth is famously retold in Wagner's epic operas The Ring of the Nibelungen.

Mya is a type of shieldmaiden (tomboy), who was seduced by Mychel Redfort, the sole one she has eyes for. He promised to marry her, but ends up marrying another, and Mya is miffed about it, but refusing any other suitor. Lothor Brune falls for her, but neither Sansa nor Myrande believe he has any chance with Mya. And I think that Sansa's awareness of him being in love with Mya will get her to help him catch Mya's notice with some identity trick at the tourney (like Mychel Redfort jousting or entering a melee in Lothor's armor). For this Lothor will end up being more loyal to Sansa than he is of LF.

But how does that make Lothor fit with Sansa as a bear-character, when Lothor has no sexual interest in her, and she has no romantic interest in him? Well LF does refer to her as a bear cub when he inappropriatedly forced his kiss on her. She even thinks of Lothor being LF's man at the time, and while he protected her from Marillion, he wouldn't protect her from LF. Sansa also thinks of herself as a bear-cub when she's packed in all those clothes to descend to the Gates of the Moon in the final chapter of aFfC. And Lothor Brune is coming down as well, initially warning her too of the fact that Myranda came up. LFis the one who pretends to be Sansa's father, but he doesn't really act or even wish to be her father. But we have a bear Lothor who's acting protectively of Sansa but without sexual connotations, and Sansa twice as a bear-cub. So, I think that Lothor as a bear and Sansa as a bear-cub is George's hint that Lothor is the actual fatherly protector of Sansa at least in the Vale arc.

[sweetsunray]

quick cut-in:

 

i am an ESL instructor and textbook writer/editor. i have a BA in linguistics (specializing in indo-european historical linguistics) from the university of texas at austin.

 

bears are a powerful cultural entity in many prehistoric peoples, including the proto-indo-europeans (hereinafter abbreviated PIE). due to the large number of speakers of IE languages (like, half the world's population) and the historically well-attested numerous daughter branches, we can deduce an appreciable amount of the actual folklore surrounding bears in PIE culture.

 

namely, we can surmise that PIE speakers believed in 'name-magic', the belief that a thing's actual (cultic) name gives some sort of power over it, or causes it to physically manifest where it was only an idea before.

 

to wit: the PIE word for bear was *h₂ŕ̥tḱos - probably a form of the verb 'to destroy' (cf. Av 'rasah', Eng 'raze') - and this is reflected in the spanish oso, latin ursus and greek arktos (whence english 'arctic', originally connoting 'northerly, forested, the land of bears'). however certain clades within the IE family tree seem to have been in regular geographical contact with bear populations, and so this form was lost and euphamisms used in it stead. in slavic languages we get forms like medved 'honey eater' (cf. eng 'mead'). in germanic languages we tend to have forms like bear, bruin, baerrin, bjorn; all of which point to a moniker approximating 'the brown one'. ultimately this comes from PIE *b^her- 'to be bright, to glow healthily, to be brown'.

 

the purported etymology that 'beorn' (obviously a form of 'the brown one') is related to 'warrior' does not convince and is not widely held among indo-europeanists. in fact, i am an indo-europeanist and this is the first time i've ever run into that suggested connection. 'war' and 'warrior' ultimately come from PIE *wer(s)- 'to mix up, to confuse, to confront' (cf. eng 'worst', lat 'versus').

 

as you pointed out the berserker was a 'bear shirt' but this, more than likely, has to do with his blood-frenzy leading to some sort of trancendence beyond human social norms and/or control, rather than some etymological relationship between 'bear' and 'warrior'.

 

otherwise, i enjoyed many of the connections and character elucidations from the text you have highlighted here. well done.

I have incorporated some of the linguistic PIE explanations into the reworded introduction on my blog. That's where I'm reinstalling the complete essays. You are right that 'beorn' is actually one of the variations that tie back to the PIE word *ber-, aka "the brown one". But that meaning must have become conflated with the berserker. In 'berserker' we recognize the PIE word *ber and the Norse 'serk' which means something like a shirt... In other words, "berserker" means the brown one's shirt, or bear shirt. Odin himself could take the form of a bear, or at the very  least, a bear was the spiritual communicator between Odin and the world of people. Since the berserkers were warriors, somehow the warrior concept became conflated with the bear concept, probably leading to the later flawed meaning of 'beorn' = warrior. So, linguistically you're correct, but conceptually it comes down to 'beorn' -> 'berserker' -> a warrior.

[Le Cygne]

I'm not going to debate this, I don't agree with most of what you said. My point was merely to comment on Lothor Brune's role in Sansa's story. His role in her story is, as I said, to show how much she's thinking about Sandor. That's all. You can tell that by the way she keeps thinking of the two briefly in parallel. In her latest chapter, there's a similarly worded parallel where she runs into him the same way she ran into Sandor, and he sounds just like Sandor.

(Also, he does this repeatedly with other characters. Lothor stands in when she thinks Sandor is there to rescue her. Sweetrobin stands in when she pretends to kiss Sandor. A hound dog stands in when she dreams of Sandor. Those are just a few examples. In other words, he's using the other characters to underscore the importance of Sandor. He uses this technique often, throughout the story. Again, I just noticed the thread, and commented, I don't wish to debate, I don't see the song or the story as you do.)

(Also, there's a Dunk and Sandor parallel here, referencing another song with relevance in Sansa and Sandor's story, in addition to The Bear and the Maiden Fair (there are several). There are also many Lady and Sandor parallels. The songs and animal references are meant to be suggestive, but it's the actual story he's telling that's the important thing.)

[Meemaw]

I'm not going to debate this, I don't agree with most of what you said. My point was merely to comment on Lothor Brune's role in Sansa's story. His role in her story is, as I said, to show how much she's thinking about Sandor. That's all. You can tell that by the way she keeps thinking of the two briefly in parallel. In her latest chapter, there's a similarly worded parallel where she runs into him the same way she ran into Sandor, and he sounds just like Sandor.

(Also, he does this repeatedly with other characters. Lothor stands in when she thinks Sandor is there to rescue her. Sweetrobin stands in when she pretends to kiss Sandor. A hound dog stands in when she dreams of Sandor. Those are just a few examples. He uses this technique often, throughout the story. Again, I just noticed the thread, and commented, I don't wish to debate, I don't see the song or the story as you do.)

If you was my child I would send you to your room for passive aggressive verbal attack. Why comment at all if you are not here for a debate? Isn't that why people comment on forums? Debate and to question? It seems you are trying to shut down OP ideas.

[sweetsunray]

I'm not going to debate this, I don't agree with most of what you said. My point was merely to comment on Lothor Brune's role in Sansa's story. His role in her story is, as I said, to show how much she's thinking about Sandor. That's all. You can tell that by the way she keeps thinking of the two briefly in parallel. In her latest chapter, there's a similarly worded parallel where she runs into him the same way she ran into Sandor, and he sounds just like Sandor.

(Also, he does this repeatedly with other characters. Lothor stands in when she thinks Sandor is there to rescue her. Sweetrobin stands in when she pretends to kiss Sandor. A hound dog stands in when she dreams of Sandor. Those are just a few examples. In other words, he's using the other characters to underscore the importance of Sandor. He uses this technique often, throughout the story. )

Well, I don't negate your ideas at all how he's a parallel stand-in reminder to Sandor for Sansa. But I see no reason at all to say it's exclusively that, especially when George is given Lothor his own background story which is nothing like Sandor's.

And this thread is not just about the song or Sansa at all. Nor is the song even about Sansa and Brienne alone. The hunting stanzas of the song I propose, are paralleled exactly in the chapter where Arya, Gendry and Hot Pie are caught by Tom, Lem and Anguy. It's about Mormonts, Tormund, what they are doing in Jon's story, Gendry being a hidden bear, bear revengen, etc... And whether you wish to debate or not, I as OP at the very least have the right to argue about your comments. It's up to you whether you take something out of it or not. If you don't, fine. If you do, even better.

As for disagreeing with most I said: how the heck can you disagree with PIE linguistics, with Brune's origins and bear ties, with the Persephone, Ishtar and Idunn myth, when I'm just reiterating what George, Greeks, Norse and middle eastern cultures have said and written. You might disagree with my conclusions out of this, but to say you disagree with most what I said, seems hardly credible.

[Le Cygne]

Of course. My point was, as I said, I disagreed with most of your arguments in response to my comment, so I wasn't going to debate the arguments individually.

[sweetsunray]

Thanks for responding, nevertheless. My thoughts on bears in Sansa's arc were so far rather inconclusive, other than the song in relation to the invention of the unkiss a chapter later and Lothor's personal possible story with Mya. It is far more clearer in Arya's arc with Gendry as hidden bear, the Mormont totemic bear ancestry to keep House Mormont from being usurped through marriage when the male heirs fail at making heirs, and Jon has the Goldilocks theme with three bachelor bears (small Tyrion, old bear, middle bear Tormund)... And this thread in part is meant to discuss what the other bear references might be about, such as in Sansa's arc, and your contribution is of value in that regard.

[asimetrikal]

I have incorporated some of the linguistic PIE explanations into the reworded introduction on my blog. That's where I'm reinstalling the complete essays. You are right that 'beorn' is actually one of the variations that tie back to the PIE word *ber-, aka "the brown one". But that meaning must have become conflated with the berserker. In 'berserker' we recognize the PIE word *ber and the Norse 'serk' which means something like a shirt... In other words, "berserker" means the brown one's shirt, or bear shirt. Odin himself could take the form of a bear, or at the very  least, a bear was the spiritual communicator between Odin and the world of people. Since the berserkers were warriors, somehow the warrior concept became conflated with the bear concept, probably leading to the later flawed meaning of 'beorn' = warrior. So, linguistically you're correct, but conceptually it comes down to 'beorn' -> 'berserker' -> a warrior.

Great reconstruction, good sir.

There's some fantastic literature out there concerning the PIE societal equating of a class of young, unmarried men fulfilling a culturally mandated period of a few years of horse-raiding and taking captives with roving packs of wolves. There is further speculation that particularly violent or unwieldy members of this class of society were seen as conduits of the divine bear, and that wearing the skin of either animal was something only these men would do as it was next to giving up your humanity and membership in the community. Donning the skin in 'peace time' would have been absolutely taboo and punished severely, akin to the ancient Roman proscription against swords or armored tunics beyond the Rubicon.

[argona]

Thank you so much for sharing this brilliant analysis, sweetsunray!