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Warging laws


Vaedys Targaryen

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12 minutes ago, One-eyed Misbehavin said:

Is this fair to say? He has barely begun in training and the stark kids are so young. They literally have their whole lives ahead of them 

Not least because Bran wasn't aware that what he was doing is "abomination" when he first did them.

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1 hour ago, Widowmaker 811 said:

Think of them as a code of ethics.  Something they practice to maintain ethics within those with the abilities.  Bran is slowly sinking into the depths of evil because of what he has been doing.  There are very good reasons for having those codes of ethics.  They serve to keep the wargs from regressing to something vile and primitive.  

Bran isn't sinking into the depths of evil. That is just fan fic. The point of all of the rules that GRRM wrote is to show that the world isn't black and white, good and evil or any other false dichotomy.  If Bran did not skinchange hodor, the whole group would have been found and killed by wildlings, or again at the entrance to the CTOF cave. The same goes for eating human flesh while in an animal. If it wasn't for the dead rangers, Summer would have starved.  doing these things does not make bran evil. It makes him human and desperate to survive. The whole book is about the folly of absolute good and absolute evil in stories. Yet so many fans love to ascribe those traits to characters

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13 hours ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

Bran isn't sinking into the depths of evil. That is just fan fic. The point of all of the rules that GRRM wrote is to show that the world isn't black and white, good and evil or any other false dichotomy.  If Bran did not skinchange hodor, the whole group would have been found and killed by wildlings, or again at the entrance to the CTOF cave. The same goes for eating human flesh while in an animal. If it wasn't for the dead rangers, Summer would have starved.  doing these things does not make bran evil. It makes him human and desperate to survive. The whole book is about the folly of absolute good and absolute evil in stories. Yet so many fans love to ascribe those traits to characters

:agree:

It is so easy to forget the nuance of Bran's choices. Though he is still young and disabled, he is a surprisingly benevolent. Outside Bloodraven's cave, had he not skin-changed Hodor when he did, Jojen and Meera would have certainly died and very likely Hodor and Bran himself, too. He even does it almost at the cost of his own body.

As myself and others have already suggested, I doubt Bloodraven will judge Bran for his actions because must of it was done for a "greater cause", something a man who dedicated his entire life to the "good of the realm" would understand.

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Bran understands that taking Hodor's body is wrong.  He loves Hodor and skinchanges him out of necessity.  Varamyr is a body snatcher with no intention of giving back the body.  The danger and the temptation is that Bran might seek to escape his own broken body when put to the same test as Varamyr.   The question in my mind is whether or not Bran can take Hodor's body, should Hodor die for some reason.   

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Bran used Hodor in a few cases when it was necessary. It was breaking a law or rule he didn't know, or everyone with him dying. It's not necessarily wrong. It's a question of taking the right decision from what you know. And even if you've made the wrong choice, it's not necessarily you're evil. But he also used Hodor for exploring the caves. And it's seems less justified. Knowing Hodor was not comfortable with that. I don't think Bran is becoming evil. But he possesses special powers and he needs to learn to use them with restriction, only when justified.
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7 hours ago, LynnS said:

Bran understands that taking Hodor's body is wrong.  He loves Hodor and skinchanges him out of necessity.  Varamyr is a body snatcher with no intention of giving back the body.  The danger and the temptation is that Bran might seek to escape his own broken body when put to the same test as Varamyr.   The question in my mind is whether or not Bran can take Hodor's body, should Hodor die for some reason.   

The problem is, Bran also uses Hodor for his own selfish reasons and not out of necessity.  Bran is doing unethical things.  That said, Arya is the evil one in the Stark family right now.  Bran is not evil.  He's just emotionally sick.

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56 minutes ago, Noble Lothar Frey said:

The problem is, Bran also uses Hodor for his own selfish reasons and not out of necessity.  Bran is doing unethical things.  That said, Arya is the evil one in the Stark family right now.  Bran is not evil.  He's just emotionally sick.

Bran doesn't have the wisdom to go with the power he's exercising.  He might be curious about his surroundings, his situation and he is being kept 'in the dark' about a good many things, I suspect.  What he learns on his explorations might turn out to be necessary for survival.  I think Hodor has been prepared for Bran's use in some ways.

Quote

A Feast for Crows - Arya II

"Death is not the worst thing," the kindly man replied. "It is His gift to us, an end to want and pain. On the day that we are born the Many-Faced God sends each of us a dark angel to walk through life beside us. When our sins and our sufferings grow too great to be borne, the angel takes us by the hand to lead us to the nightlands, where the stars burn ever bright. Those who come to drink from the black cup are looking for their angels. If they are afraid, the candles soothe them. When you smell our candles burning, what does it make you think of, my child?

 

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Bran IV

Summer followed them up the tower steps as Hodor carried Bran back to his bed. Old Nan was asleep in her chair. Hodor said "Hodor," gathered up his great-grandmother, and carried her off, snoring softly, while Bran lay thinking. Robb had promised that he could feast with the Night's Watch in the Great Hall. "Summer," he called. The wolf bounded up on the bed. Bran hugged him so hard he could feel the hot breath on his cheek. "I can ride now," he whispered to his friend. "We can go hunting in the woods soon, wait and see." After a time he slept.

In his dream he was climbing again, pulling himself up an ancient windowless tower, his fingers forcing themselves between blackened stones, his feet scrabbling for purchase. Higher and higher he climbed, through the clouds and into the night sky, and still the tower rose before him. When he paused to look down, his head swam dizzily and he felt his fingers slipping. Bran cried out and clung for dear life. The earth was a thousand miles beneath him and he could not fly. He could not fly. He waited until his heart had stopped pounding, until he could breathe, and he began to climb again. There was no way to go but up. Far above him, outlined against a vast pale moon, he thought he could see the shapes of gargoyles. His arms were sore and aching, but he dared not rest. He forced himself to climb faster. The gargoyles watched him ascend. Their eyes glowed red as hot coals in a brazier. Perhaps once they had been lions, but now they were twisted and grotesque. Bran could hear them whispering to each other in soft stone voices terrible to hear. He must not listen, he told himself, he must not hear, so long as he did not hear them he was safe. But when the gargoyles pulled themselves loose from the stone and padded down the side of the tower to where Bran clung, he knew he was not safe after all. "I didn't hear," he wept as they came closer and closer, "I didn't, I didn't."

He woke gasping, lost in darkness, and saw a vast shadow looming over him. "I didn't hear," he whispered, trembling in fear, but then the shadow said "Hodor," and lit the candle by the bedside, and Bran sighed with relief.

 

I'm not sure what laws Bran has broken here:

Quote

 

A Dance with Dragons - Bran II

And suddenly he was not Bran, the broken boy crawling through the snow, suddenly he was Hodor halfway down the hill, with the wight raking at his eyes. Roaring, he came lurching to his feet, throwing the thing violently aside. It went to one knee, began to rise again. Bran ripped Hodor's longsword from his belt. Deep inside he could hear poor Hodor whimpering still, but outside he was seven feet of fury with old iron in his hand. He raised the sword and brought it down upon the dead man, grunting as the blade sheared through wet wool and rusted mail and rotted leather, biting deep into the bones and flesh beneath. "HODOR!" he bellowed, and slashed again. This time he took the wight's head off at the neck, and for half a moment he exulted … until a pair of dead hands came groping blindly for his throat.

Bran backed away, bleeding, and Meera Reed was there, driving her frog spear deep into the wight's back. "Hodor," Bran roared again, waving her uphill. "Hodor, hodor." Jojen was twisting feebly where she'd laid him down. Bran went to him, dropped the longsword, gathered the boy into Hodor's arm, and lurched back to his feet. "HODOR!" he bellowed.

Meera led the way back up the hill, jabbing at the wights when they came near. The things could not be hurt, but they were slow and clumsy. "Hodor," Hodor said with every step. "Hodor, hodor." He wondered what Meera would think if he should suddenly tell her that he loved her.

Up above them, flaming figures were dancing in the snow.

 

The above passage is also interesting because they are all at the end of their resources including Hodor when they reach the cave.  Bran finds himself suddenly transported into Hodor without any conscious effort on his part and he and Hodor are super-charged.  So what happened?  Was he given an assist? 

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It never occurred to me that Bran isn't willing himself into Hodor, but it has struck me once or twice that Bran doesn't have full control of his power.   Guidance or assistance is a new take on this.  The Wildlings have obviously never lost the magic so many of the 1st Men in the north possessed.   Warging and skin changing appear to be at least accepted in their culture if not common place.   None of this is new, it's only reawakening south of the Wall.   There hasn't been a new greenseer in chief for 50 years or so.   I would think that a new grand greenseer would throw a lot of things out of balance, including the new greenseer himself, on both sides of the Wall.  Whether the skinchanger code of ethics is applicable to Bran or not depends largely on his ability to comprehend the rules and control his own power.     Bran is a little boy who has undergone horrors and heartbreak.  There have been some fine reinterpretations of the ethics here and it's clear that Bran understands a wrongness about his possession of Hodor.   Still, he is just a little boy and his transgressions can surely be forgiven.  Hodor is a grown man with limited mental capacity.   2 halves of the whole methinks.   There is a reason both of these broken characters are together.   

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On 10/6/2017 at 6:59 AM, Vaedys Targaryen said:

I'm not sure if this has been asked before, but here goes:

 

The wargs/skinchangers have three "laws" that they mustn't break:

Don't warg into something and mate with another animal.

Don't eat human flesh when warging.

Don't warg into another human being.

 

Aside from the warging into another human, what's so bad about the other two?

Why can't a warg eat a human when he is inside an animal, if he is hungry for example? What if he really needs this animal and the human is dead anyway? Does that mean that wargs who have their second life in, say, a wolf, can never ever eat a human, even if the warg is starving and found the human dead? Varamyr Sixskins has eaten humans at least once and it doesn't seem to have changed him, so why the fuss?

And why can't a warg mate with another animal while he is warging? Is it like with Harry Potter, where if two werewolves mate while in their werewolf form, they will produce very smart wolves that may have human intelligence? Will the possible offspring of the coupling have near human intelligence or maybe a (partial) human soul? That also brings forth the question, if this is indeed the case, does the intelligence differ if the warg is inside the sire or inside the dam?

 

And what happens if/when a warg gets caught? What's going to happen to him? The Free Folk don't have any real laws, so what are they going to do if a warg breaks these "laws"?

Cause that's how you end up with weird magical creatures like Direwolves and Dragons that are genetically bonded to families.

As far as why not eat human flesh, um, well thats a pretty old sin even in our world but might do with Blood in our story giving power, like in the case of Fire Magic and Tree Magic.

The CoTF create some horrible weapon to come kill you? Haha just my guesses :)

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22 hours ago, Faera said:

:agree:

It is so easy to forget the nuance of Bran's choices. Though he is still young and disabled, he is a surprisingly benevolent. Outside Bloodraven's cave, had he not skin-changed Hodor when he did, Jojen and Meera would have certainly died and very likely Hodor and Bran himself, too. He even does it almost at the cost of his own body.

As myself and others have already suggested, I doubt Bloodraven will judge Bran for his actions because must of it was done for a "greater cause", something a man who dedicated his entire life to the "good of the realm" would understand.

Guess you never heard about the "best of intentions" huh? Even Jojen keeps checking on Bran in regards to Bran losing him self. The idea that these rules are in place as a protection to man isn't really that absurd given who ever in the Age of Heroes probably broke every one of those rules. Like say, Nights King and Bloodstone Emperor who possibly controlled people via these methods. Probably created dragons and Direwolves by breaking these rules too So no problem with Bran just experimenting and doing what he wants? Not likely. Not to say Bran is evil or will become evil, but these acts are evil, and if he doesn't learn this, he will go down the wrong path with out having realized it.

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4 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Doesn't Bran taste bile in the back of Hodor's mouth? What's up with that?

Sorry I couldn't help you out more but this to me would suggest that this is a sign of disgust in regards to the act itself by using literal bile which is a way of expressing something totally gross. This would be interesting if true.

Also I believe all Jon Bran Arya "taste" (but not quite) blood when their respective dire wolves eat flesh. However I also believe Jojen would be correct that anything the stark kids eat as their wolves could nourish their physical selves at all. 

And then there's a passage where it's not directly clear but seems like Jon Involuntarily was able to "use" ghost's abilities (hearing I believe) when someone is approaching. It's something like "he heard the men approaching or was that ghost?" 

Ill try together a quote bc I am ashamed of that Jon quote 

 

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6 hours ago, Curled Finger said:

It never occurred to me that Bran isn't willing himself into Hodor, but it has struck me once or twice that Bran doesn't have full control of his power.   Guidance or assistance is a new take on this.  The Wildlings have obviously never lost the magic so many of the 1st Men in the north possessed.   Warging and skin changing appear to be at least accepted in their culture if not common place.   None of this is new, it's only reawakening south of the Wall.   There hasn't been a new greenseer in chief for 50 years or so.   I would think that a new grand greenseer would throw a lot of things out of balance, including the new greenseer himself, on both sides of the Wall.  Whether the skinchanger code of ethics is applicable to Bran or not depends largely on his ability to comprehend the rules and control his own power.     Bran is a little boy who has undergone horrors and heartbreak.  There have been some fine reinterpretations of the ethics here and it's clear that Bran understands a wrongness about his possession of Hodor.   Still, he is just a little boy and his transgressions can surely be forgiven.  Hodor is a grown man with limited mental capacity.   2 halves of the whole methinks.   There is a reason both of these broken characters are together.   

There is a question of the warg bond and whether or not it's the direwolf that initiates it.  Indeed Bran has to open his third eye and consciously control his wolf dreams.  The direwolves act as protectors and I wonder if Hodor and Bran are developing the same kind of bond.  I'd start to wonder about Old Nan's great grandson and his 3rd eye potential.   I wonder if it was Hodor who called on Bran in their hour of need. :D

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16 minutes ago, One-eyed Misbehavin said:

Sorry I couldn't help you out more but this to me would suggest that this is a sign of disgust in regards to the act itself by using literal bile which is a way of expressing something totally gross. This would be interesting if true.

Also I believe all Jon Bran Arya "taste" (but not quite) blood when their respective dire wolves eat flesh. However I also believe Jojen would be correct that anything the stark kids eat as their wolves could nourish their physical selves at all. 

And then there's a passage where it's not directly clear but seems like Jon Involuntarily was able to "use" ghost's abilities (hearing I believe) when someone is approaching. It's something like "he heard the men approaching or was that ghost?

Ill try together a quote bc I am ashamed of that Jon quote 

 

I think this is the lightning struck chestnut tree passage of which you speak? This is on the point and getting closer to what happened with supercharged Bran/Hodor.  Hodor and Bran are very tuned into each other. 

Upthread I mention Bran's nightmare.  He wakes to find Hodor waiting by his bedside with a candle.  Then there Hodor's refusal to go into the crypts after Bran and Rickon dream of Ned's ghost.  

Bran on the other hand can understand Hodor even though he speaks only one word. 

So I think this is very different from Varamyr.  If Bran tried to skinchange anyone else but Hodor; they would react in the same manner as Thistle.  

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40 minutes ago, AlaskanSandman said:

Guess you never heard about the "best of intentions" huh? Even Jojen keeps checking on Bran in regards to Bran losing him self. The idea that these rules are in place as a protection to man isn't really that absurd given who ever in the Age of Heroes probably broke every one of those rules. Like say, Nights King and Bloodstone Emperor who possibly controlled people via these methods. Probably created dragons and Direwolves by breaking these rules too So no problem with Bran just experimenting and doing what he wants? Not likely. Not to say Bran is evil or will become evil, but these acts are evil, and if he doesn't learn this, he will go down the wrong path with out having realized it.

Oh, I agree. The set-up of Bran's chapters seem to indicate he's going down a darker path with his "I promise I'll give it back, Hodor!" reasoning so he can get about the cave - so much so that I think it'll be "miss" and something will happen to make him truly realise the consequences of his actions. I do foresee his actions having dire consequences that he will have to live with and he will never forget. The hints are already there: Hodor, like the elk who "carried them so far", might die so Bran can live and we all know about Jojen Paste theory. Heck, I'm fully onboard with the "almost-change" theory where Bran might have nearly slipped inside Meera while she was crying. 

Ultimately, it depends a little on Bloodraven's POV and whether he is deceiving Bran or has a more benevolent agenda. Whether he will help Bran see the consequences of his actions, or it will be BR's own darker moral compass that makes Bran realise he wants no part of that.

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9 minutes ago, Faera said:

Oh, I agree. The set-up of Bran's chapters seem to indicate he's going down a darker path with his "I promise I'll give it back, Hodor!" reasoning so he can get about the cave - so much so that I think it'll be "miss" and something will happen to make him truly realise the consequences of his actions. I do foresee his actions having dire consequences that he will have to live with and he will never forget. The hints are already there: Hodor, like the elk who "carried them so far", might die so Bran can live and we all know about Jojen Paste theory. Heck, I'm fully onboard with the "almost-change" theory where Bran might have nearly slipped inside Meera while she was crying. 

Ultimately, it depends a little on Bloodraven's POV and whether he is deceiving Bran or has a more benevolent agenda. Whether he will help Bran see the consequences of his actions, or it will be BR's own darker moral compass that makes Bran realise he wants no part of that.

Agreed :)

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11 hours ago, LynnS said:

The above passage is also interesting because they are all at the end of their resources including Hodor when they reach the cave.  Bran finds himself suddenly transported into Hodor without any conscious effort on his part and he and Hodor are super-charged.  So what happened?  Was he given an assist? 

I think it might be a case of Bran's powers being stronger than he realises. A part of me has always wondered whether it is his ability to slip into human bodies that makes him such an appealing to BR. It is a useful skill.

Plus, I think the more Bran slips into a skin, the easier it gets over time. It took him a while to learn how to slip into Summer easily and even longer to maintain some modicum of consciousness while in there. With Hodor, we see the same struggle. First time he does it, he's there for only a few seconds. Second time, Hodor kicks him out again in a panic. Then, as they advance towards BR's cave and Bran slips into him now and again.

A lot of it must have something to do with how well Hodor himself takes the change. He still doesn't like it, likely due to how weird it must feel to have another person's thoughts/voice inside your head and seeing your own body do things that you cannot control. Plus, there is the fact that Hodor is not a violent person, is not particularly brave and is relatively simple in his wants - all things Bran is not. So, there must be a mental conflict going on in there as well as the stress of being skin-changed at all.

The Bran/Hodor skin-change is fascinating because while Bran feels Summer's primal instincts as an animal, he feels Hodor's fear and sadness. Is there a special bond between the two of them because Hodor is, literally, Bran's legs/horse/elk or is such a bond of two human minds in one body something that could be cultivated in others.

 

5 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Doesn't Bran taste bile in the back of Hodor's mouth? What's up with that?

The fact that Hodor felt sick or the fact that Bran could feel it? If the former, I imagine the act of skin-changing upon the host is very unpleasant, if just because of how Thistle reacted when Varamyr tried to snatch her body. If the latter, the changing of skins in the books indicates that the two consciousness are still inhabiting the same body and it becomes a fight for control. So, the skin-changer can feel everything their partner is feeling.

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28 minutes ago, Faera said:

The Bran/Hodor skin-change is fascinating because while Bran feels Summer's primal instincts as an animal, he feels Hodor's fear and sadness. Is there a special bond between the two of them because Hodor is, literally, Bran's legs/horse/elk or is such a bond of two human minds in one body something that could be cultivated in others.

I think it's possible that Hodor has been prepared for Bran in advance.  I wonder if Hodor has been 'lighting struck' and this is why Hodor feels such terror during the thunderstorm at Queenscrown.  It's curious that Hodor hums to himself all the time.  I'm reminded of the sound of electricity running through a live wire.  Hodor's mind alteration makes it easier for Bran to send his consciousness into Hodor and I think there is some purpose here beyond Bran learning how to skinchange a human. 

Bran will become one of the old gods and I'm reminded of Sam pleading with the gods to help him.  I wonder if Tree-Bran's powers will extend to answering prayers in a tangible manner.

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