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Heresy 190


Black Crow

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Welcome to Heresy 190, the latest edition of the quirky thread where we take an in-depth look at the story and in particular what GRRM has referred to as the real conflict, not the Game of Thrones, but the apparent threat which lies in  the North, in the magical otherlands beyond the Wall. It’s called Heresy because we were the first to challenge the orthodoxy that the Wall is the last best hope of mankind; to question whether the three-fingered tree-huggers really are kindly elves and question too whether the Starks might have a dark secret in their past.

The strength and the beauty and ultimately the value of Heresy as a critical discussion group is that it reflects diversity and open-ness. This is a thread where ideas can be discussed – and argued – freely, because above all it is about an exchange of ideas and sometimes too a remarkably well informed exchange drawing upon an astonishing broad base of literature ranging through Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and so many others all to the way to the Táin Bó Cúailnge and the Mabinogion.

If new to the thread, don’t be intimidated by the size and scope of Heresy, or by some of the many ideas we’ve discussed here over the years since it began in 2011. This is very much a come as you are thread with no previous experience required. We’re very welcoming and we’re very good at talking in circles and we don’t mind going over old ground again, especially with a fresh pair of eyes, so just ask. You will neither be monstered, patronized nor directed to follow links, but will be engaged directly. Just be patient and observe the local house rules that the debate be conducted by reference to the text, with respect for the ideas of others, and above all with great good humour

We’ve been around for a while now of course and discussed an awful lot of stuff over the last five years. Some of it has been overtaken by events and some of it seemingly confirmed by the mummers’ version, but notwithstanding the occasional crack-pottery on the whole its been pretty good stuff and we’re pleased enough with what we’ve done to have a bit of a celebration. In the run-up to Heresy 100 we ran a series of specially commissioned essays focused on discrete aspects of heresy. Now, in the run-up to the Heresy bicentennial Heresy 191 will open with the first of another  series of in-depth. Some will be re-runs of the essays from the original Centennial project; others will be updated to reflect current thinking and some will be entirely new. Some of you have already very kindly volunteered and I look forward to your re-affirming your interest in contributing – or volunteering if you haven’t already done so.

Beyond that, read on…

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And now for the last time until after the bicentennial, here the slightly spoilerish full text of GRRM's1993  letter to his agent, Ralph Vicinanza. An awful lot has obviously changed since then but some of it still seems relevant so If you don’t want to know, look away now:

October 1993

Dear Ralph,

Here are the first thirteen chapters (170 pages) of the high fantasy novel I promised you, which I'm calling A Game of Thrones. When completed, this will be the first volume in what I see as an epic trilogy with the overall title, A Song of Ice and Fire.

As you know, I don't outline my novels. I find that if I know exactly where a book is going, I lose all interest in writing it. I do, however, have some strong notions as to the overall structure of the story I'm telling, and the eventual fate of many of the principle [sic] characters in the drama.

Roughly speaking, there are three major conflicts set in motion in the chapters enclosed. These will form the major plot threads of the trilogy, intertwining with each other in what should be a complex but exciting (I hope) narrative tapestry. Each of the conflicts presents a major threat to the peace of my imaginary realm, the Seven Kingdoms, and to the lives of the principal characters.

The first threat grows from the enmity between the great houses of Lannister and Stark as it plays out in a cycle of plot, counterplot, ambition, murder, and revenge, with the iron throne of the Seven Kingdoms as the ultimate prize. This will form the backbone of the first volume of the trilogy, A Game of Thrones.

While the lion of Lannister and the direwolf of Stark snarl and scrap, however, a second and greater threat takes shape across the narrow sea, where the Dothraki horselords mass their barbarians hordes for a great invasion of the Seven Kingdoms, led by the fierce and beautiful Daenerys Stormborn, the last of the Targaryen dragonlords. The Dothraki invasion will be the central story of my second volume,A Dance with Dragons.

The greatest danger of all, however, comes from the north, from the icy wastes beyond the Wall, where half-forgotten demons out of legend, the inhuman others, raise cold legions of the undead and the neverborn and prepare to ride down on the winds of winter to extinguish everything that we would call "life." The only thing that stands between the Seven Kingdoms and and endless night is the Wall, and a handful of men in black called the Night's Watch. Their story will be the heart of my third volume, The Winds of Winter. The final battle will also draw together characters and plot threads left from the first two books and resolve all in one huge climax.

The thirteen chapters on hand should give you a notion as to my narrative strategy. All three books will feature a complex mosaic of intercutting points-of-view among various of my large and diverse cast of players. The cast will not always remains the same. Old characters will die, and new ones will be introduced. Some of the fatalities will include sympathetic viewpoint characters. I want the reader to feel that no one is ever completely safe, not even the characters who seem to be the heroes. The suspense always ratchets up a notch when you know that any character can die at any time.

Five central characters will make it through all three volumes, however, growing from children to adults and changing the world and themselves in the process. In a sense, my trilogy is almost a generational saga, telling the life stories of these five characters, three men and two women. The five key players are Tyrion Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen, and three of the children of Winterfell, Arya, Bran, and the bastard Jon Snow. All of them are introduced at some length in the chapters you have to hand.

This is going to be (I hope) quite an epic. Epic in its scale, epic in its action, and epic in its length. I see all three volumes as big books, running about 700 to 800 manuscript pages, so things are just barely getting underway in the thirteen chapters I've sent you.

I have quite a clear notion of how the story is going to unfold in the first volume, A Game of Thrones. Things will get a lot worse for the poor Starks before they get better, I'm afraid. Lord Eddard Stark and his wife Catelyn Tully are both doomed, and will perish at the hands of their enemies. Ned will discover what happened to his friend Jon Arryn, but before he can act on his knowledge, King Robert will have an unfortunate accident, and the throne will pass to his sullen and brutal son Joffrey, still a minor. Joffrey will not be sympathetic and Ned will be accused of treason, but before he is taken he will help his wife and his daughter escape back to Winterfell.

Each of the contending families will learn it has a member of dubious loyalty in its midst. Sansa Stark, wed to Joffrey Baratheon, will bear him a son, the heir to the throne, and when the crunch comes she will choose her husband and child over her parents and siblings, a choice she will later bitterly rue. Tyrion Lannister, meanwhile, befriend both Sansa and her sister Arya, while growing more and more disenchanted with his own family.

Young Bran will come out of his coma, after a strange prophetic dream, only to discover that he will never walk again. He will turn to magic, at first in the hope of restoring his legs, but later for its own sake. When his father Eddard Stark is executed, Bran will see the shape of doom descending on all of them, but nothing he can say will stop his brother Robb from calling the banners in rebellion. All the north will be inflamed by war. Robb will win several splendid victories, and maim Joffrey Baratheon on the battlefield, but in the end he will not be able to stand against Jaime and Tyrion Lannister and their allies. Robb Stark will die in battle, and Tyrion Lannister will besiege and burn Winterfell.

Jon Snow, the bastard, will remain in the far north. He will mature into a ranger of great daring, and ultimately will succeed his uncle as the commander of the Night's Watch. When Winterfell burns, Catelyn Stark will be forced to flee north with her son Bran and her daughter Arya. Hounded by Lannister riders, they will seek refuge at the Wall, but the men of the Night's Watch give up their families when they take the black, and Jon and Benjen will not be able to help, to Jon's anguish. It will lead to a bitter estrangement between Jon and Bran. Arya will be more forgiving... until she realizes, with terror, that she has fallen in love with Jon, who is not only her half-brother but a man of the Night's Watch, sworn to celibacy. Their passion will continue to torment Jon and Arya throughout the trilogy, until the secret of Jon's true parentage is finally revealed in the last book.

Abandoned by the Night's Watch, Catelyn and her children will find their only hope of safety lies even further north, beyond the Wall, where they fall into the hands of Mance Rayder, the King-beyond-the-Wall, and get a dreadful glimpse of the inhuman others as they attack the wildling encampment. Bran's magic, Arya's sword Needle, and the savagery of their direwolves will help them survive, but their mother Catelyn will die at the hands of the others.

Over across the narrow sea, Daenerys Targaryen will discover that her new husband, the Dothraki Khal Drogo, has little interest in invading the Seven Kingdoms, much to her brother's frustration. When Viserys presses his claims past the point of tact or wisdom, Khal Drogo will finally grow annoyed and kill him out of hand, eliminating the Targaryen pretender and leaving Daenerys as the last of her line. Daenerys will bide her time, but she will not forget. When the moment is right, she will kill her husband to avenge her brother, and then flee with a trusted friend into the wilderness beyond Vaes Dothrak. There, hunted by Dothraki bloodriders [?] of her life, she stumbles on a cache of dragon's eggs [?] of a young dragon will give Daenerys the power to bend the Dothraki to her will. Then she begins to plan for her invasion of the Seven Kingdoms.

Tyrion Lannister will continue to travel, to plot, and to play the game of thrones, finally removing his nephew Joffrey in disgust at the boy king's brutality. Jaime Lannister will follow Joffrey on the throne of the Seven Kingdoms, by the simple expedient of killing everyone ahead of him in the line of succession and blaming his brother Tyrion for the murders. Exiled, Tyrion will change sides, making common cause with surviving Starks to bring his brother down, and falling helplessly in love with Arya Stark while he's at it. His passion is, alas, unreciprocated, but no less intense for that, and it will lead to a deadly rivalry between Tyrion and Snow.

[7 Lines Redacted]

But that's the second book...

I hope you'll find some editors who are as excited about all of this as I am. Feel free to share this letter with anyone who wants to know how the story will go.

All best,

George R.R. Martin

What’s in that redacted passage we don’t know but here’s what appears to be the equally spoilerish original synopsis/publisher’s blurb for Winds of Winter; not the forthcoming one, alas, but one apparently dating back to when it was still to be the third volume of the trilogy and following directly on in content and style from the first synopsis set out above:

Continuing the most imaginative and ambitious epic fantasy since The Lord of the Rings Winter has come at last and no man can say whether it will ever go again. The Wall is broken, the cold dead legions are coming south, and the people of the Seven Kingdoms turn to their queen to protect them. But Daenerys Targaryen is learning what Robert Baratheon learned before her; that it is one thing to win a throne and quite another to sit on one. Before she can hope to defeat the Others, Dany knows she must unite the broken realm behind her. Wolf and lion must hunt together, maester and greenseer work as one, all the blood feuds must be put aside, the bitter rivals and sworn enemies join hands. The Winds of Winter tells the story of Dany’s fight to save her new-won kingdom, of two desperate journeys beyond the known world in to the very hearts of ice and fire, and of the final climactic battle at Winterfell, with life itself in the balance.

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Dare I bring up the connection between wargs/skinchangers and their hosts again? There's a small bone of contention. I assert that there are three types of connections for the Starks and their direwolves:

1) They can sense them when in close physical proximity.

2) They enter them unconsciously while asleep. Their third eye flutters open and they passively slip into their wolves.

3) They know how to open their third eye and can reach out anytime and slip into their direwolf. So far Bran is the only one that has learned to do this.

 

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I don't have a problem with that, but I do think allowance has to be made for the direwolves themselves. I don't remotely see it as a case of any of the children of Winterfell warging say mastiffs. The direwolves were sent to them, one direwolf for each of the children and it was they who initiated the warg bond, and when its done while unconscious we have to allow for the possibility that the wolf has opened the door and the wolf who is warging the child rather than the other way around - hence John's beserk rages which have nothing to do with "waking the dragon" and everything to do with him being warged by Ghost.

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1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

3) They know how to open their third eye and can reach out anytime and slip into their direwolf. So far Bran is the only one that has learned to do this.

You are discounting Arya in this one. She too can enter a cat at will. Her gifts are as advanced as Bran's, the only difference is that Arya is doing all this without guidance. She is not yet aware she can reach for Nymeria while she is awake.  And Arya is not a greenseer that we know of.

 

8 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

The direwolves were sent to them, one direwolf for each of the children and it was they who initiated the warg bond, and when its done while unconscious we have to allow for the possibility that the wolf has opened the door and the wolf who is warging the child rather than the other way around - hence John's beserk rages which have nothing to do with "waking the dragon" and everything to do with him being warged by Ghost.

:agree:  The direwolves are not given enough credit in all this. Ghost in particular is discounted as having any ability beyond what the other wolves have. But as you say we've got that time with Iron Emmet getting beat up while Jon is not conscious of doing it. I think it's also important to remember that this happens after the WeirBran dream where Ghost gets his forehead touched. Who knows what that touch from a weirwood did to Ghost and his abilities.

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28 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

I don't have a problem with that, but I do think allowance has to be made for the direwolves themselves. I don't remotely see it as a case of any of the children of Winterfell warging say mastiffs. The direwolves were sent to them, one direwolf for each of the children and it was they who initiated the warg bond, and when its done while unconscious we have to allow for the possibility that the wolf has opened the door and the wolf who is warging the child rather than the other way around - hence John's beserk rages which have nothing to do with "waking the dragon" and everything to do with him being warged by Ghost.

And one direwolf for each WW that attacked Waymar Royce

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18 minutes ago, Tucu said:

And one direwolf for each WW that attacked Waymar Royce

Oh yes, that one has been noticed before; along with the theory that it was Gared who convoyed the she-wolf to Winterfell in exchange for his life and Gared who slew the direwolf in exactly the right place using a dagger fashioned from an antler - not unlike Val's bone dagger..

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40 minutes ago, Yield. said:

 

But as you say we've got that time with Iron Emmet getting beat up while Jon is not conscious of doing it. I think it's also important to remember that this happens after the WeirBran dream where Ghost gets his forehead touched. Who knows what that touch from a weirwood did to Ghost and his abilities.

There may also be another example in Jon's attacking Ser Alaster, although that was much earlier.

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6 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Oh yes, that one has been noticed before; along with the theory that it was Gared who convoyed the she-wolf to Winterfell in exchange for his life and Gared who slew the direwolf in exactly the right place using a dagger fashioned from an antler - not unlike Val's bone dagger..

And we would have the Little Pig slaying the Big Bad Wolf (well his avatar).

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1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

I don't have a problem with that, but I do think allowance has to be made for the direwolves themselves. I don't remotely see it as a case of any of the children of Winterfell warging say mastiffs. The direwolves were sent to them, one direwolf for each of the children and it was they who initiated the warg bond, and when its done while unconscious we have to allow for the possibility that the wolf has opened the door and the wolf who is warging the child rather than the other way around - hence John's beserk rages which have nothing to do with "waking the dragon" and everything to do with him being warged by Ghost.

What I wanted to discuss was Jon's sense of Ghost and why he didn't sense him sometimes. I would think that it would be really annoying to constantly sense what a direwolf is thinking and doing, so I don't think they always know what they're up to unless they're in close proximity and have a conscious thought that brings them to mind. No special effort by the direwolf required.

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Followng the discussion with interest and rereading Bran chapters.  Why does Jojen tell Bran that he can only open his third eye with his heart? What does that mean?  He then asks Bran if he is afraid.  Is Bran afraid of the knowledge contained in the third eye.  The terrible knowldege. his own death; the same as Jojen.  Seems to me that not everyone should have access to that knowledge.

"Can a man be brave when he is afraid? ... That's the only time a man can be brave." .... "I'm not afraid anymore..." 

In previous chapters, Bran has the recurring nightmare of the crow pecking out his eyes and at his forehead puliing out bloody bits of bone and gore; he experiences pain and falling and screaming.  The golden man:  the things I do for love. This is why Luwin gives him sleeping draughts and the why the whole castle can hear him screaming. 

So the only thing the crow accomplished in the coma dream was to establish a connection with Bran.  Is this what wierBran did to Jon?

Is the third eye opened in stages?  Does Jon now have to open the third eye with his heart?  Is there a next stage?

 

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5 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Jon is a son of Winterfell and Lord Eddard was too old.

Is there an age requirement?  Maybe the Stark children weren't all born wargs, and getting a Wolf gave them the gift.  Maybe Ned is too old to become a Warg.  Or maybe they were all born wargs, and Ned was not.

Jon isn't (at least most readers believe) the son of a Stark Lord.  He has Stark blood, but so do a lot of other characters who didn't get wolves.  So either the sender believes Jon is Ned's son, or he had another reason.

This reminds me of how the Children gave the Night Watch 100 obsidian daggers a year.  Didn’t the Night's Watch find a bag of Obsidian daggers recently?

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5 hours ago, Black Crow said:

There may also be another example in Jon's attacking Ser Alaster, although that was much earlier.

I'm not too sure that one counts because Jon was provoked. Everyone, including Mormont, saw that conflict coming. With Iron Emmett Jon's actions were unprovoked and he blanks out. As opposed to Jon's being quite present and full of resentment for Alaster and the things he was saying. Mind you they were both very emotional moments for Jon so I would image that Ghost must have felt there was danger or a threat to Jon through their link in both cases.

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22 minutes ago, Yield. said:

I'm not too sure that one counts because Jon was provoked. Everyone, including Mormont, saw that conflict coming. With Iron Emmett Jon's actions were unprovoked and he blanks out. As opposed to Jon's being quite present and full of resentment for Alaster and the things he was saying. Mind you they were both very emotional moments for Jon so I would image that Ghost must have felt there was danger or a threat to Jon through their link in both cases.

Sorry to quote this but I'm not able to quote your other post since the thread is locked. 

Interesting point about the wolves being able to sense each other, but not the humans involved. And you're right, that does take place even when on opposite sides of the wall. We don't see it going as far as communicating messages from one another. Which makes me wonder, could the wolves do it if they tried and this is an ability that the humans do not have, or is it that a stronger connection like the warg bond is required?

I wanted to read through Varamyr's prologue, or at least a portion of it before I responded. This is the section I think you were referring to...

Quote

Whenever he desired a woman he sent his shadowcat to stalk her, and whatever girl he’d cast his eye upon would follow meekly to his bed. Some came weeping, aye, but still they came. Varamyr gave them his seed, took a hank of their hair to remember them by, and sent them back. From time to time, some village hero would come with spear in hand to slay the beastling and save a sister or a lover or a daughter. Those he killed, but he never harmed the women. Some he even blessed with children. Runts. Small, puny things, like Lump, and not one with the gift.

Of course this portion is ambiguous as always. Is he entering them to force them to come? Is he somehow holding them in thrall, and if so how? Or are they simply doing what they think he wants out of fear? Take your pick.  

Though I didn't get all of the way back through the chapter there are a couple of points that I found interesting. First, the beginning of the chapter appears to be from the POV of one of the wolves themselves, and not Varamyr per se. The wolves itself appears to refer to itself and others like him as themselves being wargs. 

The second thing is all of the emphasis placed on the three "abominations." I understand that these might not be the best of things to do, but what is it about them that makes these actions taboo over any other. It seems that there are other things just as bad, if not worse that a warg could do. Why specifically prohibit these three? 

As for the skinchanging recognizing each other, only the old gods know how it works, but I have noticed that any time Jon seems to run into a skinchanger he doesn't know he experiences an unexplained bout of anger. Seems like the same thing happens to Ghost as it is often mentioned at that time that his hair is standing on end.

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3 hours ago, Lady Dyanna said:

Interesting point about the wolves being able to sense each other, but not the humans involved

I was just reading Arya's chapter when Ned is beheaded. The way she describes Sansa's screams comes off as she not exactly "hearing" them with her ears vs. something else. Here are the quotes:

Quote

The crowd roared, and Arya felt the statue of Baelor rock as they surged against it. The High Septon clutched at the king’s cape, and Varys came rushing over waving his arms, and even the queen was saying something to him, but Joffrey shook his head. Lords and knights moved aside as he stepped through, tall and fleshless, a skeleton in iron mail, the King’s Justice. Dimly, as if from far off, Arya heard her sister scream. Sansa had fallen to her knees, sobbing hysterically. Ser Ilyn Payne climbed the steps of the pulpit.
Arya wriggled between Baelor’s feet and threw herself into the crowd, drawing Needle. She landed on a man in a butcher’s apron, knocking him to the ground. Immediately someone slammed into her back and she almost went down herself. Bodies closed in around her, stumbling and pushing, trampling on the poor butcher. Arya slashed at them with Needle.
High atop the pulpit, Ser Ilyn Payne gestured and the knight in black-and-gold gave a command. The gold cloaks flung Lord Eddard to the marble, with his head and chest out over the edge.
“Here, you!” an angry voice shouted at Arya, but she bowled past, shoving people aside, squirming between them, slamming into anyone in her way. A hand fumbled at her leg and she hacked at it, kicked at shins. A woman stumbled and Arya ran up her back, cutting to both sides, but it was no good, no good, there were too many people, no sooner did she make a hole than it closed again. Someone buffeted her aside. She could still hear Sansa screaming.”(aGoT, Arya V)

She starts the whole description by saying thet everyone around her are shouting when Joff asks for her father's head, but then goes on to describe Sansa's screaming in the middle of all that (even when she is slashing at people around her to get to Ned).

I thought maybe she is connecting to Sansa the way they connect to their wolves, and that is why she can hear her.

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6 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

Is there an age requirement?  Maybe the Stark children weren't all born wargs, and getting a Wolf gave them the gift.  Maybe Ned is too old to become a Warg.  Or maybe they were all born wargs, and Ned was not.

Jon isn't (at least most readers believe) the son of a Stark Lord.  He has Stark blood, but so do a lot of other characters who didn't get wolves.  So either the sender believes Jon is Ned's son, or he had another reason.

This reminds me of how the Children gave the Night Watch 100 obsidian daggers a year.  Didn’t the Night's Watch find a bag of Obsidian daggers recently?

I wonder if this has something to do with certain prophecies; the arrival of the red comet etc.  Leaf tells Bran that they have been waiting for him for 200 years; so speicifically it's Bran's generation that is being called to play their part and have been provided with the direwolves.  Even though the direwolf is a sigil of Ned's house; he has to be reminded by Jon.  The direwolves are a dwindling race and haven't been seen by the Starks for a long time.  

There are also references to the wolf blood and the strength of the wolf blood in the Stark bloodline.  For example:  when Jojen and Meera arrive at Winterfell; they go to the godswood to see the wolves for themselves.  Jojen can sense Bran inside Summer as Bran is currently asleep having a wolf dream.  Jojen says that Shaggy Dog is full of rage and fear; but Summer (meaning Bran) is much stronger and will become stronger still.  There are also references to Lyanna as having more of the wolf in her than her siblings.  We don't know about Sansa because she lost Lady or Rickon for that matter although Shaggy Dog seems to have a bond with him and protects him; we haven't seen any of his dreams except for the dream of Ned returning to the Winterfell crypts.  Also shared by Bran.  So I'm not sure if this is a wolf dream. Rob's direwolf protect him but also no indication that there is a warg bond.  Arya is told by she is strong in the wolf blood from Arya X aCoK (Tucu found this one):

In the godswood she found her broomstick sword where she had left it, and carried it to the heart tree. There she knelt. Red leaves rustled. Red eyes peered inside her. The eyes of the gods. "Tell me what to do, you gods," she prayed.

For a long moment there was no sound but the wind and the water and the creak of leaf and limb. And then, far far off, beyond the godswood and the haunted towers and the immense stone walls of Harrenhal, from somewhere out in the world, came the long lonely howl of a wolf. Gooseprickles rose on Arya's skin, and for an instant she felt dizzy. Then, so faintly, it seemed as if she heard her father's voice. "When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives," he said.

"But there is no pack," she whispered to the weirwood. Bran and Rickon were dead, the Lannisters had Sansa, Jon had gone to the Wall. "I'm not even me now, I'm Nan."

"You are Arya of Winterfell, daughter of the north. You told me you could be strong. You have the wolf blood in you."

"The wolf blood." Arya remembered now. "I'll be as strong as Robb. I said I would." She took a deep breath, then lifted the broomstick in both hands and brought it down across her knee. It broke with a loud crack, and she threw the pieces aside. I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth.

That night she lay in her narrow bed upon the scratchy straw, listening to the voices of the living and the dead whisper and argue as she waited for the moon to rise. They were the only voices she trusted anymore. She could hear the sound of her own breath, and the wolves as well, a great pack of them now. They are closer than the one I heard in the godswood, she thought. They are calling to me.

I think there has also been discussion about bonding between wolf and human has to start when the host is young.  So it could be that Ned has the wolf blood as well, since this is a genetic trait of the Starks, but there were no direwolves around when he was young and no need for them at the time.   Although he does seem to understand that killing Lady was a mistake and wonders what he has done.

     

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5 hours ago, Lady Dyanna said:

As for the skinchanging recognizing each other, only the old gods know how it works, but I have noticed that any time Jon seems to run into a skinchanger he doesn't know he experiences an unexplained bout of anger. Seems like the same thing happens to Ghost as it is often mentioned at that time that his hair is standing on end.

The unexplained bouts of anger! Something like this  happens in the crypts of Winterfell with Bran and Rickon when Ned is executed. They both dream of Ned in the Crypts.  Bran tells Luwin that Hodor refuses to take Bran into the crypts; so he tells  Luwin and Osha and they investigate.  Summer will not enter the crypts either and stays by the door.  Bran also feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up,  Then Shaggy Dog attacks Luwin and Bran calls Summer to stop the attack with both direwolves fighting each other.  It's once of the instances where SSM says that Hodor isn't afraid of the crypts except at certain times; but not before or after.  So I wonder if Ned's spirit once freed from his body; returned to the Winterfell heart tree and spoke with Bran in his dream.  Then was bounced from the tree to Shaggy Dog given Rickon's insistence that his father is home and he is not longer afraid and likes it in the dark.  It seems that Hodor can sense something as well as Bran and Summer.

The direwolves themselves identify with each other as brothers and sisters; so if Ned was bounced to Shaggy Dog; then I think it's probable that Summer and Bran could sense 'someone' who is not part of the pack invading Shaggy Dog.  This may be why skingchangers or their familiars put up defensive barriers when they meet because of the possibility that they can lose their familiar to a more powerful skinchanger.  Varamyr is the example.  Skinchangers and wargs share a soul with their familiar and a part remains after the body's death.  Bran's experience skinchanging a crow and the presence of another resentful spirit comes to mind.

That Hodor isn't afraid to go into the crypts afterward could mean that Ned was bounced out of Shaggy Dog by Summer or that his spirit has become more wolf than man and no longer a threat to Hodor.  It may also explain why Rickon keeps insisting that his father is home in spite of the knowledge that Ned has been executed.

It's also interesting that Arya hears her father's voice when the tree speaks to her in the quote upthread.  The idea that Ned was called home to the heart tree and his memory stored seems like a possibility.

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1 hour ago, LynnS said:

The idea that Ned was called home to the heart tree and his memory stored seems like a possibility.

We're told the spirit remains in the bones until cracked open...unless you are a warg/skiinchanger. Warg/skinchanger's spirits leave the body upon death, but to enter a host there would have to be a previous connection. Ned could have been carried by the cold wind, but Varamyr's description about "melting"...well, the distance seems too far. At the end of Dance were Ned's bones home yet?

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