Robb’s Moments of Disassociation

[Maegor_the_Cool]

For awhile I’ve seen people use moments of Robb seemingly disassociating as proof of his skinchanging. I do think Robb was a skin changer, but unless he was the most powerful of his siblings he wouldn’t be able to do it while awake.

 

I posit, instead, that Robb was suffering from PTSD. Lest we all forget Robb was a 15 year who actively fought in every battle he waged. We also know that Westerosi society is hyper patriarchal and masculine, so talking about his issues with anyone would make him look weak. I think that with losing his family, his sisters, his brothers, his best friend, and seeing such carnage at a young age could definitely cause massive amounts of trauma in ANYONE. But especially in someone so young.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

4 minutes ago, _Rhaegar_Targaryen_ said:

I do think Robb was a skin changer, but unless he was the most powerful of his siblings he wouldn’t be able to do it while awake.

Well, GRRM has said that all of Ned's children are wargs, so it's definitely possible that he was skin changing.

[Floki of the Ironborn]

6 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Well, GRRM has said that all of Ned's children are wargs, so it's definitely possible that he was skin changing.

Do you think that Ned was also a warg without realising? Or any of his siblings for that matter? Otherwise how do we account for all his kids (and Jon) having the ability to warg?

[Ser Arthurs Dawn]

13 minutes ago, Floki of the Ironborn said:

Do you think that Ned was also a warg without realising? Or any of his siblings for that matter? Otherwise how do we account for all his kids (and Jon) having the ability to warg?

This just reminded me of the "Ned warged Ilyn Payne" theory  I like to assume that most, if not all, Starks have the potential. 

[Canon Claude]

6 minutes ago, Ser Arthurs Dawn said:

This just reminded me of the "Ned warged Ilyn Payne" theory  I like to assume that most, if not all, Starks have the potential. 

Makes sense that Ned wouldn't ever tap into that potential, he was more Arryn than Stark.

[Floki of the Ironborn]

7 minutes ago, Ser Arthurs Dawn said:

This just reminded me of the "Ned warged Ilyn Payne" theory  

I laughed when I first heard that theory, but it'd be even more hilarious if it was true. Here's Jaime, unintentionally confiding in the very man whom he still hates for judging him.

[Ser Arthurs Dawn]

9 minutes ago, Floki of the Ironborn said:

I laughed when I first heard that theory, but it'd be even more hilarious if it was true. Here's Jaime, unintentionally confiding in the very man whom he still hates for judging him.

I almost spit out my water!!

Quote

"We will dance again," he promised Ser Ilyn. "On the morrow, and the morrow. Every day we'll dance, till I'm as good with my left hand as ever I was with the right."

Ser Ilyn (Ned) opened his mouth and made a clacking sound. A laugh, Jaime realized.  -Jaime III AFfC

Sounds like Ned to me 

[Alester Florent]

10 hours ago, Floki of the Ironborn said:

Do you think that Ned was also a warg without realising? Or any of his siblings for that matter? Otherwise how do we account for all his kids (and Jon) having the ability to warg?

I believe the prevailing assumption there is that the Stark kids have - so far - shown only an ability to instinctively warg into the direwolf to which they were bonded. Bran has warged into Hodor but after some tutoring from the Reeds and, more remotely, from the Three-Eyed Crow. So, if Ned had that ability, it would probably only have been discovered by warging into "his" direwolf, which was the mother wolf dead before they found the pups.

It is possible that all the Stark children of Ned's generation (who were Starks on both sides) had the ability, hence why both Ned's and (presumably) Lyanna's children display it. But only Lyanna ever discovered and used it. Or perhaps Benjen has too (still beyond the Wall in warg form?) and we just don't know about it yet.

I've also heard it suggested that the ability to warg comes through the female line and it was "activated" in Ned's children by Cat (somehow). Or perhaps that it needs an additional infusion of "magic blood" which came from Rhaegar in Jon's case and from the Lothstons (the long way round) via Cat.

Edited December 13, 2023 by Alester Florent

[Buried Treasure]

2 hours ago, Floki of the Ironborn said:

Do you think that Ned was also a warg without realising? Or any of his siblings for that matter? Otherwise how do we account for all his kids (and Jon) having the ability to warg?

No indication that Ned ever had a bonded animal. If he ever had the latent potential then it atrophied like an unused muscle.

 

Perhaps the skinchangers with the very strongest gifts would express that talent regardless of circumstance, but for the most part there I think there is likely to be some condition that develops this ability. It's the lonely kid that spends all his time with his dog who will develop a special bond with it; Bran likely would not have opened his third eye if not for his coma and paralysis.

 

That the whole generation of Stark kids became wargs is a direct result of the old gods gifting them the diewolves primed to develop that connection. Without that circumstance I don't think they'd have been anymore likely to be wargs that any northerner with First Men blood.

 

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

Well no one is agreeing with you, so I will. I agree, I think Robb could have PTSD. 

Also, probably Arya as well. 

[SeanF]

I think Robb, Catelyn, Arya, Dany, Sansa all had a massive level of trauma/combat stress.

The Starks saw their lives turn to shit, in a matter of weeks.  Dany has about three happy memories to cling to.

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

2 hours ago, SeanF said:

I think Robb, Catelyn, Arya, Dany, Sansa all had a massive level of trauma/combat stress.

The Starks saw their lives turn to shit, in a matter of weeks.  Dany has about three happy memories to cling to.

Don't forget Bran, lol. I'd actually argue Bran could end up the most fucked up. At the age of 7, he was thrown out a window, then his parents died, then he saw everyone he knew mostly murdered, then he is .....doing some weird shit with a tree, etc. Like, although the peasants suffer a lot in these books...honestly the Starks are practically at that level of suffering. they all have...like people all around them murdered. Most of the people they know are murdered, then they are all thrust into some unfamiliar territory. Jon has to fight/try to kill his girlfriend, and in fact does kill a guy he looked up to (Qorin), in addition to Night's Watch guys dying constantly. Catelyn, from her perespective, had literally all her children murdered but Sansa + her husband, plus again tons aond tons of other people she knew/loved. Bran, Sansa, and Arya have all that, + they are children essentially and have any of sort of protection ripped away from them pretty early in the books. I teach 7 year olds, and they are not ready for what Bran is going through, at all, lol. Arya literally experiences so much trauma that I (who am not a pyschologist) think she has become numb to death...and either doesn't value human life like she once did, or at the very least is getting much more callous about it each book. Sansa lived in literally constant fear through much of the 2nd and 3rd books, and I wouldn't call her situation now like...without fear. Her sense of protection/trust in other humans has to be extremely warped at this point. Currently she is being raised by/protected/groomed (yes groomed, this is what grooming is folks who don't understand it) by a probably psychopath who ...treats her and everyone else as pawns. Honestly, I could keep going. It's mess for the Starks. 

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

Don't forget Bran, lol. I'd actually argue Bran could end up the most fucked up. At the age of 7, he was thrown out a window, then his parents died, then he saw everyone he knew mostly murdered, then he is .....doing some weird shit with a tree, etc. Like, although the peasants suffer a lot in these books...honestly the Starks are practically at that level of suffering. they all have...like people all around them murdered. Most of the people they know are murdered, then they are all thrust into some unfamiliar territory. Jon has to fight/try to kill his girlfriend, and in fact does kill a guy he looked up to (Qorin), in addition to Night's Watch guys dying constantly. Catelyn, from her perespective, had literally all her children murdered but Sansa + her husband, plus again tons aond tons of other people she knew/loved. Bran, Sansa, and Arya have all that, + they are children essentially and have any of sort of protection ripped away from them pretty early in the books. I teach 7 year olds, and they are not ready for what Bran is going through, at all, lol. Arya literally experiences so much trauma that I (who am not a pyschologist) think she has become numb to death...and either doesn't value human life like she once did, or at the very least is getting much more callous about it each book. Sansa lived in literally constant fear through much of the 2nd and 3rd books, and I wouldn't call her situation now like...without fear. Her sense of protection/trust in other humans has to be extremely warped at this point. Currently she is being raised by/protected/groomed (yes groomed, this is what grooming is folks who don't understand it) by a probably psychopath who ...treats her and everyone else as pawns. Honestly, I could keep going. It's mess for the Starks. 

I agree.  Jon also has to cope with the fact that he was betraying his girlfriend, all along.

[Hippocras]

19 hours ago, Floki of the Ironborn said:

Do you think that Ned was also a warg without realising? Or any of his siblings for that matter? Otherwise how do we account for all his kids (and Jon) having the ability to warg?

In terms of heredity, the ability may very well have come back into the family in large part because of Catelyn. Yes, I know. That does not explain Jon, but I will get to that.

Catelyn's bloodline, and its full significance, remains to be revealed. We do not have much of a Tully family tree but we do know she has female line Blackwood in her (as do the Starks). It is also fairly likely that she descends from one of Aegon V's sisters. It is entirely possible that as a recessive trait it needs to be passed from both sides, and also needs the right conditions to be expressed.

Jon is a different case, clearly. He is very likely not Ned's son, but Lyanna's. In his case he got bonding ability in general from his father (dragon bonding is not so different from the warg bond) as well as wolf bonding ability from his mother.

[Willam Stark]

2 hours ago, Hippocras said:

We do not have much of a Tully family tree but we do know she has female line Blackwood in her (as do the Starks).

Where does it come from?

[Northern Sword]

9 hours ago, SeanF said:

I think Robb, Catelyn, Arya, Dany, Sansa all had a massive level of trauma/combat stress.

The Starks saw their lives turn to shit, in a matter of weeks.  Dany has about three happy memories to cling to.

I think this would hold true for the majority of characters in asoiaf. 

[Hippocras]

12 minutes ago, Willam Stark said:

Where does it come from?

Well, hard to say without a tree, but her mother was a Whent, her father was the Lord Paramount of the Riverlands and the Blackwoods are one of the most powerful Riverlands Houses. Riverlands Houses married each other rather frequently, as in all parts of the Kingdoms and even if SOMEHOW no Blackwood Lady ever married a Tully (extremely unlikely) she would have married some other Riverlands House that did marry a Tully. In short I think the geography makes it quite inevitable, even if we don't have a tree with a name.

To believe otherwise would be to believe that somehow the Blackwoods are the only family that never made local alliances.

Edited December 13, 2023 by Hippocras

[Willam Stark]

3 minutes ago, Hippocras said:

Well, hard to say without a tree, but her mother was a Whent

The Whents served the Lothson and the last one, Mad Danelle, was likely a skinchanger herself. If we have to look for skinchanger blood, I think we should start with this link. Both houses are likely closely related and if it's the case, which I think it's true, then it would explain even better why King Maekar decided to give Harrenhal to the Whents after lady Danelle's downfall. Of course we can imagine that a lord Lothson married a lady Blackwood along the way or even a lord Whent after they took Harrenhal, these assumptions are not mutually exclusive.

I think that skinchanging is a recessive trait which must be passed on by both parents and the skinchanger must bond to a specific animal. If they don't find their animal or the animal dies before they could ever bond, then the skinchanger won't awaken their ability, just like Sansa.

[Hippocras]

35 minutes ago, Willam Stark said:

The Whents served the Lothson and the last one, Mad Danelle, was likely a skinchanger herself. If we have to look for skinchanger blood, I think we should start with this link. Both houses are likely closely related and if it's the case, which I think it's true, then it would explain even better why King Maekar decided to give Harrenhal to the Whents after lady Danelle's downfall. Of course we can imagine that a lord Lothson married a lady Blackwood along the way or even a lord Whent after they took Harrenhal, these assumptions are not mutually exclusive.

I think that skinchanging is a recessive trait which must be passed on by both parents and the skinchanger must bond to a specific animal. If they don't find their animal or the animal dies before they could ever bond, then the skinchanger won't awaken their ability, just like Sansa.

Sansa is still bonding. The dog at the Fingers was ni random detail. She may not have slipped skins yet but enough time with a dog and she would.

[Willam Stark]

19 hours ago, Hippocras said:

Sansa is still bonding. The dog at the Fingers was ni random detail. She may not have slipped skins yet but enough time with a dog and she would.

Could you provide the quote please?