[ADwD Spoilers] Borroq - x

[udpaco13]

I still find it very intriguing that Ghost feels so strongly against Borroq. It may just be the boar he doesn't like, but we have seen it b4. Wolf hates a person, that person gets their owner killed. Not sure if I buy into this theory, but I do think you are onto something being up with that guy.

[Morrigan]

We can end this thread right now.

Varamyr states that he was the most powerful skinchanger amongst the wildlings. He specifically includes Borroq in his thoughts when making this statement.

And Varamyr couldn't even successfully take over a starving old woman when his life itself was at stake.

There is no way that Borroq could do what is suggested in this theory.

The only reason for Borroq's presence was to have a convenient reason why Ghost was not present during the assassination, so that Jon could later warg into Ghost to survive.

Agreed. That, and Borroq has no motivation for wanting Jon dead that we know of, but the Watch mutiny has a clear motivation.

Bowen Marsh is crying because he doesn't like having to murder his Lord Commander but feels it's for the greater good. The reason the other man raised his hands saying "not me" is to signal that he didn't really want to do this and feels guilty about it.

[Cosca's Goat]

I just can't take this one seriously, implying he could warg multiple people without any real signs just doesn't fit for me. That and I don't understand why Borroq would want Jon dead.

[flinky]

I just can't take this one seriously, implying he could warg multiple people without any real signs just doesn't fit for me. That and I don't understand why Borroq would want Jon dead.

Did you read the entire piece or pick parts like the other posters? It is not that outlandish from what we have seen.

[Lady of Long Lake]

I still find it very intriguing that Ghost feels so strongly against Borroq. It may just be the boar he doesn't like, but we have seen it b4. Wolf hates a person, that person gets their owner killed. Not sure if I buy into this theory, but I do think you are onto something being up with that guy.

Yeah, I agree. Borroq called Jon " Brother" when he passed through the Wall too, as if he wanted a relationship with him. Why would Ghost hate the man so if the man wants to be a friend? It can't be the boar because Ghost has crossed paths with all kinds of beasts and he pointedly ignores them.

Did Borroq only address Jon those 2 times? When he passed through the Wall and at Jon's last hall meeting when Borroq asked Jon if he was going to be hiding at the Wall instead of going to Hardhome? That aggressive question was weird, by the way. It seemed preordained to me. Jon's response was that he was riding south and he read the letter and the hall went wild. It felt so "set up", the way it happened.

[bemused]

Yeah , I agree Borroq's shouted question in the sheildhall seemed like a cue ( or, if you will, straight line ) if anything ever did.

I don't think we know if Jon read the whole letter as written ...we hear no questions about Mance from the wildlings ... I'm still not 100 % sure about the Stannis part,either ... because Jon thinks , he should have gone to Selyse first , " ..she has the right to know her lord is dead.". But Mel had been at the sheildhall as well as some queen's men, and they'd left early. Surely they would be rushing to tell Selyse..Jon's thoughts don't read .. she had the right to know first, or that he owed it to her to inform her before he made it public , or that the news should have come from him... " ..she has the right to know.." - as if it was still not common knowledge. ...His thoughts , as written , are a little ambiguous there.

We know Jon and Tormund talked for 2 hrs... We don't know if they asked anyone else to join them briefly, sent out any messages , or whether anyone else came to Jon with any other news during that time. We know no details of their plan.

I think when Borroq addresses Jon as " brother " at their meeting , it's in recognition of their shared ability. He smiles an ugly smile , but that doesn't necessarily mean it's threatening..he's not a good looking man.

Tormund turns his head and spits when Borroq approaches and says " A skinchanger ." Yet way back when Tormund and Jon met , Tormund said he had nothing against skin changers.( So it's possible the spitting is misleading ... maybe he really needed to spit .)

I definitely don't trust Varamyr's opinion that he was a greater skinchanger than Borroq..He was always jealous, greedy and unprincipled , so I'm sure his opinion of Borroq should be taken with a grain of salt. Varamyr himself sees his bond with his animals as holding them in thrall... Apparently Haggon held Borroq up as what Varamyr should aspire to , as a skinchanger. This probably means he has a true bond with his boar and avoids the taboos Haggon mentioned. If so , he could be a very good teacher for Jon.

[Lummel]

...Tormund turns his head and spits when Borroq approaches and says " A skinchanger ." Yet way back when Tormund and Jon met , Tormund said he had nothing against skin changers.( So it's possible the spitting is misleading ... maybe he really needed to spit .)...

iirc Tormund says that he happens to like wargs which technically seems to be the term for people who skinchange into wolfs and direwolves. So there is not necessarily a contradiction between Tormund liking Jon but disliking Borroq.

[bemused]

iirc Tormund says that he happens to like wargs which technically seems to be the term for people who skinchange into wolfs and direwolves. So there is not necessarily a contradiction between Tormund liking Jon but disliking Borroq.

Yeah, that's true..I'd forgotten that...and I might as well correct myself while we're at it ..;) ..Haggon doesn't single out Borroq as a role model in the Varamyr prologue..but I think Varamyr mentions Borroq sort of in terms of scorn ( jealousy ? ) elsewhere , while speaking to Jon... I'll just have to re-read.

ETA..:D ..Jon does seem to read out the whole letter..which doesn't alter much, except it's worth noting that there's not more of a reaction to the Mance part , specifically. Is there something of a change of allegiance going on ?

[coppertongue]

It wasn't borroq, it was the 3EC. He's powerful enough to control an entire host of animals, and we know he can control dreams very effectively from great distances. We know he's a top of the food chain player, but don't really know how that will unfurl. I think eventually, we'll find killing Jon is just one intervention of many he has partaken to shape the Westerosi future. Bran will probably be his biggest manipulation, hell maybe Bran killed Jon. What I think is clear, no mere skinchanger could pull off the attack, if it happened, it was a greenseer. By the way i agree with the assertion that this will destroy the Night's Watch, they're outnumber 6 to 1 right under their roof. All part of a great plan.

[HarryCrackpotter]

First, I'd like to ask your patience since English is not my native language and I am posting from my phone, what don't help much. I first read this topic months ago, along with the Redit the OP mentionned. As many here I thought it was an interesting theory, but very unlikely.

I still feel that way, but recently I came across a piece of text that changed that a little bit. I wa doing a re-read of Bran's chapters, and decided to includ the ADWD prologue, since Bran's chapters deals so much with Warging.

The following grabbed my attention:

Not all skinchangers felt the same, however. Once, when Lump was ten, Haggon had taken him to a gathering of such. The wargs were the most numerous in that company, the wolf-brothers, but the boy had found the others stranger and more fascinating. Borroq looked so much like his boar that all he lacked was tusks, Orell had his eagle, Briar her shadowcat (the moment he saw them, Lump wanted a shadowcat of his own), the goat woman Grisella …

That seemed odd, because I always imagined Varamyr as a older guy. From what we read, Borroq was a man grow when he was still 10. Let's assume Borroq was 18-20 yo at that time.

I re-read the chapters that Varamyr appears, trying to figure out his age. The closer I found was in ASOS 73 (Jon)

The skinchanger was grey-faced, round-shouldered, and bald, a mouse of a man with a wolfling’s eyes.

That sounds to me like the description of a older man, in his late30s-early40s probally. That would give Borroq 50 years old approximately at the time of the events in ADWD, what contradicts Jon's descriptions when they first met at the Wall:

Amongst the riders came one man afoot, with some big beast trotting at his heels. A boar, Jon saw. A monstrous boar. Twice the size of Ghost, the creature was covered with coarse black hair, with tusks as long as a man’s arm. Jon had never seen a boar so huge or ugly. The man beside him was no beauty either; hulking, black-browed, he had a flat nose, heavy jowls dark with stubble, small black close-set eyes.

Borroq seens not to be affected by the time as Varamyr. While one is bald and old looking, the other isn't even grey haired. Could Borroq been changing skins in order to extend his life? If so, the guy is very experienced in people-warging and could be able to do what was first proposed.

This could be just an error in writting, but we are talking about GRRM here, and the guy loves to deal with irony.

After the passage that Varamyr tells about the Wargmoot, he thinks that he is the most powerfull of then, and fails to Warg in the spearwife, what Borroq could be doing the whole time. Oh, the irony!

[Ser Endrew Tarth]

We can end this thread right now.

Varamyr states that he was the most powerful skinchanger amongst the wildlings. He specifically includes Borroq in his thoughts when making this statement.

And Varamyr couldn't even successfully take over a starving old woman when his life itself was at stake.

There is no way that Borroq could do what is suggested in this theory.

The only reason for Borroq's presence was to have a convenient reason why Ghost was not present during the assassination, so that Jon could later warg into Ghost to survive.

:agree: This theory has been thrown out here on the forum before as mentioned up-thread. The OP's counter-argument to this is "Well Borroq could be the strongest warg, and he could have mastered ppl warging"

Not a very strong case, as we could start alot of crackpot theories with that line of thinking.

HarryCrackPotter tries to add some textual evidence to the theory which is helpful thx, but as you mentioned GRRM has overlooked some description issues before (ie conflicting text on eye color mentioned in the forum).

I'm not totally discounting your theory OP, I mean anything is possible in a fantasy novel... But if this theory was correct it would be the least foreshadowed major event. It would also take a bit of explaining so that we, the audience, would understand just what happened. We would have to be made aware that this whole time Borroq was a super secret super skinchanger, why its easy for him to warg 4 full grown men and a giant, when varymyr couldn't handle one woman. We would have to be told why mel conspired with this dude and when, and how. Doesn't sound much like GRRM...

And please don't compare Hodor-warging to any other ppl-warging; it is apples to oranges. If you haven't noticed Hodor is a little... different :drunk: lol.

[Lorbury]

First post.

I could be wrong, but i believe in the prologue it was said that a warg immediately recognizes another warg. If this is the case, then Jon would have most likely noticed if people were being warged

[Longspear Ryk]

Also to add to my post earlier... Ghost could be reactin that way due to jon's uneasinesss of beingable to sense the connection between him and borroq...

That moment they share before they go throught the wall.....

"Their comig brother"

[Longclaw the Dark]

It was mentioned that Jon's wounds smoked at one point. I do not remember this happening, so can anybody quote it for me?

[therustman]

Did you read the entire piece or pick parts like the other posters? It is not that outlandish from what we have seen.

I have read the post, it is well thought out, has an element of plausability with it's conclusions. However, that doesn't stop it being wrong.

The reason for this has been mentioned above several times, better than I could explain, it is not that his reasoning does not make sense it is that other factors disprove them or are a better explanation of events, making much more sense.

[Titus Andronicus]

I don't buy it. Northman pretty much summed up why this is wrong. The OP is just plain wrong on quite a few counts. For one, Ghost wasn't freaking out the night Jon was "assassinated" because of the Boar's scent, nor because he could sense Borroq had warged into the brothers guarding Jons room. He's freaking out because he knows Jon is in mortal danger.

Personally, I believe that if Borroq has any other part to play in the story, it will be him coming to Jon's aid.

[Titus Andronicus]

It was mentioned that Jon's wounds smoked at one point. I do not remember this happening, so can anybody quote it for me?

"Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger's hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking."

While the "smoking" wound COULD have something to do with Mel, I think it's more the cold that is causing the "smoking wound".