Heresy 178

[SacredOrderOfGreenMen]

Just a few quick thoughts from the last thread...

 

Robb with sword drawn across lap - I already posted that this was not a denial of guest right, just a dislike of Tyrion who was received, heard, offered a place to stay, declined said offer and left safely. I believe the posture was foreshadowing that Robb would soon be joining the other Starks in the crypts.

 

Bran's denial of warging - Bran enjoyed/enjoys warging Summer and Hodor. He showed anger towards Jojen and Meera whenever they asked him questions that he didn't want to answer, or be held accountable for things he was supposed to do, but forgot. This is quite different than the assertion that he tried to refuse the connection. I am at work right now and cannot invest the time properly to supply passages and analysis at the moment, but will do so later.

It really was though. Tyrion could speak with Robb, but he certainly was not welcome as a guest until events changed.

 

Bram resisted and hated the suggestion that he was a warg, when it was first presented to him even if he became comfortable with it later on (mostly due to his maiming: "Better [to be] Bran the Beastling.") Those two facts are not at all incompatible:

 

“Did you dream of a wolf?”
He was making Bran angry. “I don’t have to tell you my dreams. I’m the prince. I’m the Stark in Winterfell.”
”Was it Summer?”
 ”You be quiet.”
 ”The night of the harvest feast, you dreamed you were Summer in the godswood, didn’t you?”
 ”Stop it!” Bran shouted. Summer slid toward the weirwood, his white teeth bared.
 Jojen Reed took no mind. “When I touched Summer, I felt you in him. just as you are in him now.”
 ”You couldn’t have. I was in bed. I was sleeping.”
 ”You were in the godswood, all in grey.”
 ”It was only a bad dream … “
 Jojen stood. “I felt you. I felt you fall. Is that what scares you, the falling?”
 ”Do you fall every night, Bran?” Joien asked quietly.
A low rumbling growl rose from Summer’s throat, and there was no play in it. He stalked forward, all teeth and hot eyes. Meera stepped between the wolf and her brother, spear in hand. “Keep him back, Bran.”
 ”Jojen is making him angry.”
“It’s your anger, Bran,” her brother said. “Your fear.”
”It isn’t. I’m not a wolf.”-Bran, ACOK

 

Jojen is confronting Bran about his warg dreams, and Bran is not happy about it. When Jojen uses Summer's instinctive mirroring of Bran's fear and anger as further proof, that only makes it worse, which leads Bran to say, "I am not a wolf."

 

All the business with "Prince of the Green," "Strong and swift and fierce" and "He was the Lord Eddard's son, the Prince of Winterfell, and a warg too," those are all quotes from later chapters, and later books. Bran, as many heroes do, refuses the call of the adventure. The momentary resistance is seen when he takes up lordship of Winterfell, and it is seen when he becomes a greenseer.

 

So literally, on this issue, our positions are not all in disagreement.

[Matthew.]

V6 didn't "acquire" his animals any differently than Haggon,Borroq,Griselda,or Orell

 

 

THEY ALL TOOK THEIR SKINS

Errr... I'm not on board with this at all. We can't even begin to know what the relationship was between Borroq, Orell, or any other non-POV skinchangers and their bonded animals; if anything, the fact that certain skinchangers are compared to their bonded animals (eg, Borroq being boar-like) suggests a more two-way relationship, with the animal leaving its mark on the skinchanger, as opposed to the barely restrained hatred that Varamyr's shadowcat and bear felt toward him.

As Phillip noted, Varamyr's prologue also places emphasis on the fact that his other animals abandoned him when he was 'burned' in Orell's eagle, yet his wolves - "his brothers, his pack" - remained bonded.

I'm sorry, but this seems like it's just outright inventing rules to magic that don't actually exist--that only certain animals can truly bond, that most skinchangers steal their animals, that we can't use the term warg for Varamyr, etc.

[Black Crow]

That's why I'm suggesting that there is a real distinction between wargs and common skinchangers. We've been consistently told how skin-changers take on some of the traits of their hosts. Varamyr as I said may not have been sweet and innocent before he started out, but when he skin-changed a wolf he became bound to it as a warg, bound to the pack, and taking on the vicious predatory instincts of a wolf. He may have taken and enslaved other animals to become his own pack, but in the end he was still one of One-Eye's pack and it was One-Eye who claimed him.

[Matthew.]

That's why I'm suggesting that there is a real distinction between wargs and common skinchangers. We've been consistently told how skin-changers take on some of the traits of their hosts. Varamyr as I said may not have been sweet and innocent before he started out, but when he skin-changed a wolf he became bound to it as a warg, bound to the pack, and taking on the vicious predatory instincts of a wolf. He may have taken and enslaved other animals to become his own pack, but in the end he was still one of One-Eye's pack and it was One-Eye who claimed him.

I'm pretty sure Haggon also suggests other scenarios where the bonded animal influences the human--those who bond with prey animals become cowardly, and that it's best to avoid other animals - cats, bears, birds, etc. - as well, because Varamyr "won't like what he'll become."

Nonetheless, I'm inclined to view it as a two-way street; just as someone can't dream of being a wolf, doing "wolfy" things every night without it beginning to influence them, I imagine that having a human mind and intellect inside your head also impacts the animals. After all, the relative comfort most of these animals display around humans, including the ones they're not bound to, is mostly against their nature.

I think there's maybe a bit of overinterpretation here going on with words like "took" and "bound." Even warging, although specifically defined as a skinchanger bonded to wolves, is not a word whose usage GRRM treats as overly important--for example, when asked "is it possible to warg into a dragon," GRRM doesn't go all pedantic on the questioner, as it's not important enough to be worth correcting  :dunno:

[wolfmaid7]

I think that the warging and skinchanging argument is unnecessarily polarised and Varamyr's true status misunderstood. 

 

There's no doubting that he never started out as a sweet innocent child, but he was a skinchanger and Haggon taught him the ways of skinchanging.

 

Look again at that SSM and Wolfmaid's emphasis: Skinchanger is a general term, and all wargs are skinchangers. However, a warg is a skinchanger who is bound to a wolf and not some other creature (II: 561, 697. SSM: 1, 2).

 

How much of the mature Varamyr's behaviour is precisely because he is a warg and bound to a wolf? How much of his behaviour is really down not to his being a nasty individual in the first place [and I'm not defending him here] but because because he is a warg - a vicious, predatory pack animal; a wolf. And when his human body dies his spirit is briefly free before being claimed by the pack leader.

 

 

 

Come to that, when Jon dies [?] outside the Shieldhall and goes down murmuring Ghost, is he jumping into the lifeboat [and remember this isn't something he's been practicing] or is he being claimed?

 

:agree:

 

 

Sorry Wolfmaid, but I'm afraid we'll just have to agree to disagree.

 

The first page of the prologue calls Varamyr a warg four times:

 

PROLOGUE

 

The night was rank with the smell of man. The warg stopped beneath a tree and sniffed, his grey-brown fur dappled by shadow. A sigh of piney wind brought the man-scent to him, over fainter smells that spoke of fox and hare, seal and stag, even wolf. Those were man-smells too, the warg knew; the stink of old skins, dead and sour, near drowned beneath the stronger scents of smoke and blood and rot. Only man stripped the skins from other beasts and wore their hides and hair.

 

Wargs have no fear of man, as wolves do. Hate and hunger coiled in his belly, and he gave a low growl, calling to his one-eyed brother, to his small sly sister. As he raced through the trees, his packmates followed hard on his heels. They had caught the scent as well. As he ran, he saw through their eyes too and glimpsed himself ahead. The breath of the pack puffed warm and white from long grey jaws. Ice had frozen between their paws, hard as stone, but the hunt was on now, the prey ahead. Flesh, the warg thought, meat.

 

Feather as i said if you believe he was a Warg and i don't isn't important.Its something we'll disagree with forevermore.The main point is focusing on the fact that the Direwolves and Crows have a differet relationship to other animals when it comes to being worn....They do not accept collars .They share skin.

Hmmm. What about the even more obvious affinity between crows and death? More specifically, crows benefit whenever other beings die. A whole book is named based on this premise - human war and death result in a feast for crows. Combined with the powerful black & white imagery in the cave, it again makes me wonder about the strong parallels between Bran and Arya's story arcs. 

 

I agree with you that the crows most likely moved into the cave when the Singers did. Just like Summer is living in there b/c Bran is there (when he's not out hunting, anyway). 

 

I'm less sure about the sleeping singers having gone into the crows. They are all sitting on ww thrones, IIRC. Those seem to be designed to facilitate the marriage to the trees... If you were going to go into a crow, I don't think this would require a throne. And shouldn't there be more of them, if they represent all singers who have ever died/gone into their animals?

 

Will come back to this

Errr... I'm not on board with this at all. We can't even begin to know what the relationship was between Borroq, Orell, or any other non-POV skinchangers and their bonded animals; if anything, the fact that certain skinchangers are compared to their bonded animals (eg, Borroq being boar-like) suggests a more two-way relationship, with the animal leaving its mark on the skinchanger, as opposed to the barely restrained hatred that Varamyr's shadowcat and bear felt toward him.

As Phillip noted, Varamyr's prologue also places emphasis on the fact that his other animals abandoned him when he was 'burned' in Orell's eagle, yet his wolves - "his brothers, his pack" - remained bonded.

I'm sorry, but this seems like it's just outright inventing rules to magic that don't actually exist--that only certain animals can truly bond, that most skinchangers steal their animals, that we can't use the term warg for Varamyr, etc.

I disagree because we have from Haggon their ideology.At the point in time this conversation between Haggon and V took place given the context V hadn't gotten "any" animals and Haggon was schooling him on what animals are easy,to avoid.What the relationships are like

 

 

"Dogs were the easiest beasts to bond with; they lived so close to men that they were almost human. Slipping into a dog’s skin was like putting on an old boot, its leather softened by wear. As a boot was shaped to accept a foot, a dog was shaped to accept a collar, even a collar no human eye could see. Wolves were harder. A man might befriend a wolf, even break a wolf, but no man could truly tame a wolf. “Wolves and women wed for life,” Haggon often said. “You take one, that’s a marriage. The wolf is part of you from that day on, and you’re part of him. Both of you will change.” 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.”

 

 

The above Haggon educating V about what animals are best to take 

 

 

 

.....But it comes down to one fundamental truth which you Phillip and Feather are missing.No matter how you slice it,its what the text downright says...They acquire their skins by putting collars on them......taking them bending the will of the animals to theirs.So excuse me but its not inventing rules of magic to suit any idea.Whatever bond the skinchanger has after is up to them, their proxy will follow the will of their master and they will have residual traits back and forth.But the point is,they acquire skins.They pick an animal and take them.

 

That doesn't happen and never happened with the Stark kids.They didn't put any collars on the pups they did not bend them to their will.We go back to the cave read BR's words how he defines the relationship.It switches to the fact that the Crows in the cave have "shared" their skins.See what happened when Bran attempted to take skins to fly.......Nothing until he stopped trying to take them.

 

Reread when in Summer he went to scout inthe village. 

 

P.S and i will post this later.After Mel roasted V6 'all' his animals had left he had to restablish to bond with the wolves...reach out to them...which he did. They couldn't find him until he reached for them.

[Black Crow]

I'm pretty sure Haggon also suggests other scenarios where the bonded animal influences the human--those who bond with prey animals become cowardly, and that it's best to avoid other animals - cats, bears, birds, etc. - as well, because Varamyr "won't like what he'll become."

Nonetheless, I'm inclined to view it as a two-way street; just as someone can't dream of being a wolf, doing "wolfy" things every night without it beginning to influence them, I imagine that having a human mind and intellect inside your head also impacts the animals. After all, the relative comfort most of these animals display around humans, including the ones they're not bound to, is mostly against their nature.

I think there's maybe a bit of overinterpretation here going on with words like "took" and "bound." Even warging, although specifically defined as a skinchanger bonded to wolves, is not a word whose usage GRRM treats as overly important--for example, when asked "is it possible to warg into a dragon," GRRM doesn't go all pedantic on the questioner, as it's not important enough to be worth correcting  :dunno:

 

 

 

Yes, Haggon does indeed warn Varamyr as to taking on the traits of the host - just as Jojen does - and while Varamyr in turn may have "changed" his host[s] I'd argue that in that particular bond the Wolf not the Warg may have been the dominant partner; or to borrow a different metaphor from the story Varamyr might have thought he was a powerful player when in reality he may only have been a piece 

[Jak Scaletongue]

I don't really have a horse in this particular race, but I would like to add that while rape and making love are two extremes, they are both still technically 'sexual intercourse.'

Some animals may be forced (rape), some animals may be full partners (making love), but it seems, technically, that they're all skinchanging. The term warg seems exclusive to those that skinchange canines.

After having read everyone's arguments, it seems to me you all are just arguing semantics.

And just because Haggon said it, doesn't mean everyone agrees with him - it seems likely we'll see a variety of different ways to wear skins. We've already have two extremes (Varamyr/Haggon and Starks/Dany). It's highly probable that there is a huge group somewhere in the middle...there's always a middle ground between two extremes. GRRM just hasn't shown us yet.

[Black Crow]

I don't think its quite so much a matter of semantics as who you believe. All in all we're given quite a lot of information, some of which seems contradictory particularly in establishing the significance of the two terms warg and skinchanger. I suspect that there's a deliberate carelessness in the text insofar that the characters themselves don't fully understand what is happening and why and some may themselves be using the terminology loosely or even incorrectly.

 

That SSM is therefore important in clearly defining what's special about a warg, and from that we can see how the link between warg and wolf or direwolf is  different in as much as the wolf characteristics are transferred to the warg to a notable degree and that a true partnership is involved in which the warg may not necessarily be the dominant one.

[wolfmaid7]

I don't really have a horse in this particular race, but I would like to add that while rape and making love are two extremes, they are both still technically 'sexual intercourse.'

Some animals may be forced (rape), some animals may be full partners (making love), but it seems, technically, that they're all skinchanging. The term warg seems exclusive to those that skinchange canines.

After having read everyone's arguments, it seems to me you all are just arguing semantics.

And just because Haggon said it, doesn't mean everyone agrees with him - it seems likely we'll see a variety of different ways to wear skins. We've already have two extremes (Varamyr/Haggon and Starks/Dany). It's highly probable that there is a huge group somewhere in the middle...there's always a middle ground between two extremes. GRRM just hasn't shown us yet.

Clearly there's different ways to wear skins that's the whole point ive been making. There are some who take skins and that's no fault of their own it has to do with animal. If its easy to take them because they are more or less domesticated. Or it can be hard.

But then there's animals like the Direwolves who match the Starks perfectly in number and gender.We then have the case where Ghost was going to get left behind until "he" reached out and called Jon to him.

They've never had their skins taken and in fact (im on work and can't get the quote) But as we see with BR's language and Summer their concept is different they share skin....They weren't acquired.

So again the Warg arguement isn't really important because we know the Direwolves Crows and the Dragons are not regular animals. They are players in this.

[Melifeather]

It really was though. Tyrion could speak with Robb, but he certainly was not welcome as a guest until events changed.

 

Bram resisted and hated the suggestion that he was a warg, when it was first presented to him even if he became comfortable with it later on (mostly due to his maiming: "Better [to be] Bran the Beastling.") Those two facts are not at all incompatible:

 

“Did you dream of a wolf?”
He was making Bran angry. “I don’t have to tell you my dreams. I’m the prince. I’m the Stark in Winterfell.”
”Was it Summer?”
 ”You be quiet.”
 ”The night of the harvest feast, you dreamed you were Summer in the godswood, didn’t you?”
 ”Stop it!” Bran shouted. Summer slid toward the weirwood, his white teeth bared.
 Jojen Reed took no mind. “When I touched Summer, I felt you in him. just as you are in him now.”
 ”You couldn’t have. I was in bed. I was sleeping.”
 ”You were in the godswood, all in grey.”
 ”It was only a bad dream … “
 Jojen stood. “I felt you. I felt you fall. Is that what scares you, the falling?”
 ”Do you fall every night, Bran?” Joien asked quietly.
A low rumbling growl rose from Summer’s throat, and there was no play in it. He stalked forward, all teeth and hot eyes. Meera stepped between the wolf and her brother, spear in hand. “Keep him back, Bran.”
 ”Jojen is making him angry.”
“It’s your anger, Bran,” her brother said. “Your fear.”
”It isn’t. I’m not a wolf.”-Bran, ACOK

 

Jojen is confronting Bran about his warg dreams, and Bran is not happy about it. When Jojen uses Summer's instinctive mirroring of Bran's fear and anger as further proof, that only makes it worse, which leads Bran to say, "I am not a wolf."

 

All the business with "Prince of the Green," "Strong and swift and fierce" and "He was the Lord Eddard's son, the Prince of Winterfell, and a warg too," those are all quotes from later chapters, and later books. Bran, as many heroes do, refuses the call of the adventure. The momentary resistance is seen when he takes up lordship of Winterfell, and it is seen when he becomes a greenseer.

 

So literally, on this issue, our positions are not all in disagreement.

 

In my opinion if you are arguing that Bran was getting angry because he was denying he's a warg and didn't like Jojen confronting him about his wolf dreams, then I think this is the wrong passage to provide as proof, because the reason why Bran is getting angry in this particular passage is because he doesn't want to remember who pushed him out the window.

 

 

That's why I'm suggesting that there is a real distinction between wargs and common skinchangers. We've been consistently told how skin-changers take on some of the traits of their hosts. Varamyr as I said may not have been sweet and innocent before he started out, but when he skin-changed a wolf he became bound to it as a warg, bound to the pack, and taking on the vicious predatory instincts of a wolf. He may have taken and enslaved other animals to become his own pack, but in the end he was still one of One-Eye's pack and it was One-Eye who claimed him.

 

Wargs take on wolf-like qualities also, but the Starks seemed to be able to rein in some of their aggressive thoughts by applying human reasoning, but Robb was known for his wolf-like behavior and certainly Bran and Arya demonstrate those qualities too.

 

I'm pretty sure Haggon also suggests other scenarios where the bonded animal influences the human--those who bond with prey animals become cowardly, and that it's best to avoid other animals - cats, bears, birds, etc. - as well, because Varamyr "won't like what he'll become."

Nonetheless, I'm inclined to view it as a two-way street; just as someone can't dream of being a wolf, doing "wolfy" things every night without it beginning to influence them, I imagine that having a human mind and intellect inside your head also impacts the animals. After all, the relative comfort most of these animals display around humans, including the ones they're not bound to, is mostly against their nature.

I think there's maybe a bit of overinterpretation here going on with words like "took" and "bound." Even warging, although specifically defined as a skinchanger bonded to wolves, is not a word whose usage GRRM treats as overly important--for example, when asked "is it possible to warg into a dragon," GRRM doesn't go all pedantic on the questioner, as it's not important enough to be worth correcting  :dunno:

 

:agree:

 

 

:agree:

 

Feather as i said if you believe he was a Warg and i don't isn't important.Its something we'll disagree with forevermore.The main point is focusing on the fact that the Direwolves and Crows have a differet relationship to other animals when it comes to being worn....They do not accept collars .They share skin.

 

Will come back to this

I disagree because we have from Haggon their ideology.At the point in time this conversation between Haggon and V took place given the context V hadn't gotten "any" animals and Haggon was schooling him on what animals are easy,to avoid.What the relationships are like

 

 

"Dogs were the easiest beasts to bond with; they lived so close to men that they were almost human. Slipping into a dog’s skin was like putting on an old boot, its leather softened by wear. As a boot was shaped to accept a foot, a dog was shaped to accept a collar, even a collar no human eye could see. Wolves were harder. A man might befriend a wolf, even break a wolf, but no man could truly tame a wolf. “Wolves and women wed for life,” Haggon often said. “You take one, that’s a marriage. The wolf is part of you from that day on, and you’re part of him. Both of you will change.” 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.”

 

 

The above Haggon educating V about what animals are best to take 

 

 

 

.....But it comes down to one fundamental truth which you Phillip and Feather are missing.No matter how you slice it,its what the text downright says...They acquire their skins by putting collars on them......taking them bending the will of the animals to theirs.So excuse me but its not inventing rules of magic to suit any idea.Whatever bond the skinchanger has after is up to them, their proxy will follow the will of their master and they will have residual traits back and forth.But the point is,they acquire skins.They pick an animal and take them.

 

That doesn't happen and never happened with the Stark kids.They didn't put any collars on the pups they did not bend them to their will.We go back to the cave read BR's words how he defines the relationship.It switches to the fact that the Crows in the cave have "shared" their skins.See what happened when Bran attempted to take skins to fly.......Nothing until he stopped trying to take them.

 

Reread when in Summer he went to scout inthe village. 

 

P.S and i will post this later.After Mel roasted V6 'all' his animals had left he had to restablish to bond with the wolves...reach out to them...which he did. They couldn't find him until he reached for them.

 

 

I really don't see a difference between took and bond...or whether or not the animal resisted or accepted the wearer. Marriage can be the same way. The nobles made marriage pacts and the wildlings stole their brides, but both are recognized marriages none the less.

 

 

I don't really have a horse in this particular race, but I would like to add that while rape and making love are two extremes, they are both still technically 'sexual intercourse.'

Some animals may be forced (rape), some animals may be full partners (making love), but it seems, technically, that they're all skinchanging. The term warg seems exclusive to those that skinchange canines.

After having read everyone's arguments, it seems to me you all are just arguing semantics.

And just because Haggon said it, doesn't mean everyone agrees with him - it seems likely we'll see a variety of different ways to wear skins. We've already have two extremes (Varamyr/Haggon and Starks/Dany). It's highly probable that there is a huge group somewhere in the middle...there's always a middle ground between two extremes. GRRM just hasn't shown us yet.

 

:agree:

[wolfmaid7]

 
In my opinion if you are arguing that Bran was getting angry because he was denying he's a warg and didn't like Jojen confronting him about his wolf dreams, then I think this is the wrong passage to provide as proof, because the reason why Bran is getting angry in this particular passage is because he doesn't want to remember who pushed him out the window.
 
 
 
Wargs take on wolf-like qualities also, but the Starks seemed to be able to rein in some of their aggressive thoughts by applying human reasoning, but Robb was known for his wolf-like behavior and certainly Bran and Arya demonstrate those qualities too.
 
 
:agree:
 
 
 
I really don't see a difference between took and bond...or whether or not the animal resisted or accepted the wearer. Marriage can be the same way. The nobles made marriage pacts and the wildlings stole their brides, but both are recognized marriages none the less.
 
 
 
:agree:

You dont see a difference between take and bond?First off the comparison should be between "take" and "share"


So your minding your beeswax in the forest and I come grab you put a noose around your neck and force you to do what I want and we bonded?

Compare that to you put out your hand, to me (not grab me) and I decide if I want to go with you.Sooo by your reasoning there's no difference in a village girl getting preggers by her loving husband and it being a gift and v6 getting her preggers and calling it a gift.

It don't matter because at the end of the day its a gift. ..right?

[SacredOrderOfGreenMen]

because the reason why Bran is getting angry in this particular passage is because he doesn't want to remember who pushed him out the window.

There's nothing there to support reading Bran's reaction as having that and only that explanation. He doesn't recall the shadowy face in that moment, or hear "Jaime!" or anything that suggests Jaime Lannister at all. He gets angry before "falling" is brought up, and his denial is phrased is focused on not "being a wolf", not on whether he "fell."

 

Furthermore, Jojen confronting Bran with more evidence that he is a warg causes Bran to get in turn more angry. The rage is focused on that.

 

Anger isn't also an emotion that Bran feels in his faint remembers of Jaime Lannister in ADWD; fear is.

[Black Crow]

I think there's maybe a bit of overinterpretation here going on with words like "took" and "bound." Even warging, although specifically defined as a skinchanger bonded to wolves, is not a word whose usage GRRM treats as overly important--for example, when asked "is it possible to warg into a dragon," GRRM doesn't go all pedantic on the questioner, as it's not important enough to be worth correcting  :dunno:

 

I'm not sure about this one:

 

Skinchanger is a general term, and all wargs are skinchangers. However, a warg is a skinchanger who is bound to a wolf and not some other creature (II: 561, 697. SSM: 1, 2).

 

What GRRM clearly says here is the warg is bound to the wolf, ie; belongs to the wolf rather than the other way around

[wolfmaid7]

 
I'm not sure about this one:
 
Skinchanger is a general term, and all wargs are skinchangers. However, a warg is a skinchanger who is bound to a wolf and not some other creature (II: 561, 697. SSM: 1, 2).
 
What GRRM clearly says here is the warg is bound to the wolf, ie; belongs to the wolf rather than the other way around

Agreed and again I think its important to re-read the cave scene of BR"s talk and Bran's lesson with the Crows. To also take a look at the summer/Bran thoughts.The important take awsy is like the Direwolf and unlike other animals they decide who shares them.

The acquisition of an animal in terms of the skinchangers is going to happen kicking and screaming or easy it don't matter.

A Direwolf, crow, or Dragon wears no noose

[Black Crow]

 

Wargs take on wolf-like qualities also, but the Starks seemed to be able to rein in some of their aggressive thoughts by applying human reasoning, but Robb was known for his wolf-like behavior and certainly Bran and Arya demonstrate those qualities too.

 

I'm not sure that Iron Emmett would agree about the reining in  :devil:

[Matthew.]

I disagree because we have from Haggon their ideology.At the point in time this conversation between Haggon and V took place given the context V hadn't gotten "any" animals and Haggon was schooling him on what animals are easy,to avoid.

 

And, again, I think this is both overinterpreting words such as "take," and erroneously assuming that your personal interpretation of Haggon's philosophy can be applied to every skinchanger. Haggon's own distaste for those who've bonded with animals he considers unsuitable, in itself, suggests that there is no singular skinchanger philosophy; just because they know of each other, and may occasionally convene, this does not mean that each person didn't have their own mentor with their own approach. There's no textual foundation to say, either way, how Borroq, Orell, etc. established their bonds.

 

 

I'm not sure about this one:

 

Skinchanger is a general term, and all wargs are skinchangers. However, a warg is a skinchanger who is bound to a wolf and not some other creature (II: 561, 697. SSM: 1, 2).

 

What GRRM clearly says here is the warg is bound to the wolf, ie; belongs to the wolf rather than the other way around

The second source you cite uses the more loose definition - a skinghanger that communes with wolves - that's found in the text.

I can't agree with this if, for no other reason, than the fact that it doesn't make sense for a word to have one unchanging, absolute definition--that's not consistent with the way language works. The WB defines a warg as thus:

"But all the tales agree that the most common skinchangers were men who controlled wolves—even direwolves—and these had a special name among the wildlings: wargs."

If that's the common usage of the word warg - and the fact that Varamyr thinks of himself as a warg suggests that it is - then that's good enough for me. What would be the plot value of having people within the world use the term warg incorrectly?

Don't misunderstand me--I'm not asking what's the plot value of having, say, Varamyr be more of a pawn in his bond than he realizes, I'm asking what would be the point of people incorrectly using warg as a catch-all term for any skinchanger that's bonded with a wolf, as opposed to it applying only to those skinchangers that are bound unequally to the wills of their wolf?

Edit: Though, just for the record, I don't agree that Varamyr was a "piece." Sure, he may have been influenced by One-Eye's nature, perhaps even more than he realizes, but I don't think that's the same as being manipulated, or losing control. They're a pack. We can see similar thoughts expressed by Ghost-Jon at the beginning of ADWD.

[Black Crow]

I did say that I was going by the SSM rather than the text precisely because of the unreliable narrator business and the likelihood that people might have an uncertain view of things. The Yandel quote is a good example. He claims "the most common skinchangers were men who controlled wolves" yet the sewing circle which Haggon and young Varamyr belonged to had few of none, far less their being the most common. As I said above, I do in fact think that Varamyr was or rather became a warg, and we can see the completely different relationship with the wolves. He was part of the pack, he behaved like a wolf and eventually he was claimed by the pack.

[Matthew.]

And, while I have quotes handy, why not:

Changing his own skin for a raven's night-black feathers had been harder, but not as hard as he had feared, not with these ravens. "A wild stallion will buck and kick when a man tries to mount him, and try to bite the hand that slips the bit between his teeth," Lord Brynden said, "but a horse that has known one rider will accept another. Young or old, these birds have all been ridden. Choose one now, and fly."

Is what BR is saying here all that different from the way Haggon spoke of skinchanging? He's still talking about an initial taming process for those who've never been skinchanged, and further suggests that a raven that has been skinchanged before can be more easily skinchanged again, a notion that does not entirely align with the idea of crows and ravens always choose their partner, rather than the other way around.

IMHO, just because a skinchanger might initiate contact - and even be initially rebuffed, as Bran is with some ravens - that doesn't mean that every single bond required a breaking of wills. Who's to say, for example, that Borroq didn't already feel an affinity for boars, perhaps open contact, and eventually earn the right to be "allowed in," much the way Bran is doing as he learns with the ravens?

[Matthew.]

I did say that I was going by the SSM rather than the text precisely because of the unreliable narrator business and the likelihood that people might have an uncertain view of things. 

I'll reiterate: toward what end? What's the plot value of our narrators being unreliable as to the correct definition of warg?

Lets run with that idea:

A wildling calls a man who has bonded with (but is not subservient to) a wolf a warg, but this usage is semantically incorrect.

What's the plot value in him using the word warg incorrectly here, what's the value in misleading the reader about the definition of warg? 

[wolfmaid7]

And, again, I think this is both overinterpreting words such as "take," and erroneously assuming that your personal interpretation of Haggon's philosophy can be applied to every skinchanger. Haggon's own distaste for those who've bonded with animals he considers unsuitable, in itself, suggests that there is no singular skinchanger philosophy; just because they know of each other, and may occasionally convene, this does not mean that each person didn't have their own mentor with their own approach. There's no textual foundation to say, either way, how Borroq, Orell, etc. established their bonds.
 
The second source you cite uses the more loose definition - a skinghanger that communes with wolves - that's found in the text.

I can't agree with this if, for no other reason, than the fact that it doesn't make sense for a word to have one unchanging, absolute definition--that's not consistent with the way language works. The WB defines a warg as thus:

"But all the tales agree that the most common skinchangers were men who controlled wolveseven direwolvesand these had a special name among the wildlings: wargs."

If that's the common usage of the word warg - and the fact that Varamyr thinks of himself as a warg suggests that it is - then that's good enough for me. What would be the plot value of having people within the world use the term warg incorrectly?

Don't misunderstand me--I'm not asking what's the plot value of having, say, Varamyr be more of a pawn in his bond than he realizes, I'm asking what would be the point of people incorrectly using warg as a catch-all term for any skinchanger that's bonded with a wolf, as opposed to it applying only to those skinchangers that are bound unequally to the wills of their wolf?

Edit: Though, just for the record, I don't agree that Varamyr was a "piece." Sure, he may have been influenced by One-Eye's nature, perhaps even more than he realizes, but I don't think that's the same as being manipulated, or losing control. They're a pack. We can see similar thoughts expressed by Ghost-Jon at the beginning of ADWD.

My interpretation of Haggon's philosophy? ??? Dude its what he's saying. He is the one telling v6 what animals are best to take and why.But whether you like it or not its what the philosophy Haggon preached.It's what v6 lived by hence his statement about he could take any animal he wants.

There's no overinterpretation of "take" vs "share" Its what separates a person like v6 from someone like Jon.

Now what the other Skinchangers vary on is in the kinds of skins to take. V6 himself tells us that not all skinchangers believe this.And certainly not all of them use their proxies the same way.But that doesn't change one underlying fact.....Which isnt a philisophy its how they can do it.THEY ALL TAKE, BEND THE WILL OF THE CREATURES THEY HAVE.That's how they acquire skins in the first.How they treat, use them is another matter .Simple as that.