Sansa's Warging Abilities

[The Mother of The Others]

there's been heavy foreshadowing that she will gain the ability to warg

I was going to go with "What?" But then Northbound was kind enough to make a list of the foreshadowings in reply #23. It sounds like she's the bird, though, and not herself a budding warg of birds. This constant mentioning of birds around her is meant to remind us of how Sansa's innocence has been an albatross (bird) around her neck up through this point in the story. In the end, though, she could very well be sitting on the Arryn's seat with a falcon perched regally next to her as visual confirmation that "Yup, she's a bird alright, our new boss lady of the Vale." Could be.

I haven't heard mention of any animals near the Eyrie save for Mya's mules. Definitely a possibility though.

Okay, let's run with this: If that nosy young troublemaker lass finds out about Sansa's real identity and is riding away on muleback to spill the beans to everyone, that might cause Sansa to have an emotional breakdown as she stares at the mule riding away, and that might trigger Sansa's latent warg powers to awaken, and she might then subconsciously warg the mule to walk right off the edge of a cliff so that her secret identity stays secret...... and in the future, the legend of this event would grow until Sansa's warg nickname becomes........... the Assmaster!

she is destined and foreshadowed to warg birds.

This is when I usually point out that she already is manipulating a couple of birds, they're just the human kind, because she chose the human realm and the courtly path for advancement through political upjumping, not the ways of northern magic.

You mean Sansa can warg Sweet Robin?

Yes. She'll warg a kingdom, I'd wager.

Any reason in particular that she needs to become a warg?

Because people want to both have their cake and eat it too. Which sounds logical, come to think of it. So I don't know why that saying ever became a saying, because it's not a good one. Of course people would want to eat their cake. That's perfectly understandable. What I'm trying to say though is people want Sansa to be a Warg now even though it doesn't make sense because they want her to have it both ways: they want her to succeed politically in the south but also to have the approval of the northern magic. When really what we see in the books is she made a choice to have things one way and not the other. Now there's a huge Sansa Amnesty movement that wants to see her totally absolved of shame and granted full northern legitimacy like her siblings who kept faith with their wolves. That ship has sailed though, and she lacks that northern legitimacy, which is why Robb in all likelihood had her removed from his will. Because she'd become a puppet for the opposition (Lannisters) after throwing in with their cause against her own family, and even after she was no longer cooperating with the Lannisters Robb still had to worry she'd be used by them to gain access to Winterfell itself someday. So Sansa leaned heavily in the non-warging direction. Her spirit made the south its home. She started as a warg like the rest, but didn't use those muscles, and they atrophied. We don't see signs of her pumping herself up in the warg gym either. Perhaps praying at the face tree helps her cause.... perhaps she's slowly earning back the northern magic's good graces? Like I said, though, she already has a rookery full of human birds to keep her busy. And it's Alayne who's on the chessboard now, meaning that Sansa Stark isn't currently DOING anything to earn her way back into the north's good graces. That needs to change, obviously.

there has to be a replacement Master of Whispers, doesn't there?

My money's riding on Arya being the WhisperStark should they ever claim KL outright and dwell there.

[mushroomshirt]

No, and I've never seen GRRM state this. In fact, I thought he stated the opposite.

I got curious and dug around in SSM for the exact reference. Here it is:

http://www.westeros....M/Month/2000/11

November 12, 2000

I will now tell the story of what GRRM said when asked about the Stark children and their ability as wargs. He was asked if the trait of being a warg ran in the Stark family.

"I don't know if I want to get into genetics - this is fantasy, not scifi" He replied. "I don't think this is necessarily a 'Stark' ability, though all the children have it to one extent or another. They also realize it to one extent or another. Arya doesn't realize she has it, she keeps thinking she has these weird dreams, and of course Bran is much further along". Thats all I have in of an exact quote in my notes. I believe he went on to say something about how Bran was seeking the crow and then took the next question.

I am not sure this is anything new. But perhaps he had not said -all- of the children had it before. And perhaps he had not implied so strongly before that it was not genetic people like Ned would probably not have it. However, the later is my interpretation of something he was implying by words and vocal tone. He acutally only said what I recorded above, he did not want to discuss genetics, but the children had it.

[bobbybuilderton]

I don't think it died with Lady...The other children are much more northern at heart than Sansa and I think that's why having the direwolves makes it a natural entry into their warg abilities. Sansa has way more in common with birds than wolves and she's more of southerner, and more Tully, than everyone else. For all the noise made about Arya being odd for not wanting to be a lady, Sansa's actually the black sheep of her family, so to speak. If someone gets her a pet bird I think she could still have dreams the way the others did. Look at this from Varamyr's prologue

“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.”

That is Sansa in a nutshell, at least pre-King's Landing. I wouldn't be surprised if she starts dreaming about flying...She assumes its just her being sick of feeling trapped and that it's symbolic but then it ends up being more than that and there you go.

[aryaandnymeria]

I've been doing a slow re-read of the all the books and just came across a passage in aGoT, (chapter 44, Sansa's POV), that is suggestive of Sansa's potential warging abilities even after Lady's death. While in King's Landing, she is sleeping and wakes up after dreaming about Lady:

It was midday when Septa Mordane knocked upon her door. “Sansa. Your lord father will see you now.”

Sansa sat up. “Lady,” she whispered. For a moment it was as if the direwolf was there in the room, looking at her with those golden eyes, sad and knowing. She had been dreaming, she realized. Lady was with her, and they were running together, and … and … trying to remember was like trying to catch the rain with her fingers. The dream faded, and Lady was dead again.

Sansa feels like Lady is there in the room with her, as if her dream had been able to pull Lady's presence into the world with her. We get glimpses of how Arya and Bran can see through the eyes of their direwolves in dreams during the beginning stages of development of their warging abilities. It seems like Sansa's dream about Lady is what results when a nascent warg tries to reach out to her animal, but the animal is no longer alive.

[Le Cygne]

It seems like Sansa's dream about Lady is what results when a nascent warg tries to reach out to her animal, but the animal is no longer alive.

Good catch! The same thing happens when she wakes up from a dream at the Eyrie:

“I’ll have a song from you,” he rasped, and Sansa woke and found the old blind dog beside her once again. “I wish that you were Lady,” she said.

So maybe she went beyond the first dream, she wants Lady there to warg, but is also starting to make the connection that another animal (in this case, a dog) could serve the same purpose.

[Damon_Tor]

Sansa feels like Lady is there in the room with her, as if her dream had been able to pull Lady's presence into the world with her. We get glimpses of how Arya and Bran can see through the eyes of their direwolves in dreams during the beginning stages of development of their warging abilities. It seems like Sansa's dream about Lady is what results when a nascent warg tries to reach out to her animal, but the animal is no longer alive.

Well when a warg dies a peice of him lives on in his animal, right? When a warg's animal dies, does it leave a piece of itself in the warg as well?

[greensleeves]

Well when a warg dies a peice of him lives on in his animal, right? When a warg's animal dies, does it leave a piece of itself in the warg as well?

That's a good question. I don't know the answer, but there is this:

Varamyr had died nine times before. He had died once from a spear thrust, once with a bear’s teeth in his throat, and once in a wash of blood as he brought forth a stillborn cub. He died his first death when he was only six, as his father’s axe crashed through his skull. Even that had not been so agonizing as the fire in his guts, crackling along his wings, devouring him.

It's understandable that Varamyr would use 'I' for the animals he was actively warging at their time of death (the eagle and that first dog), but it seems strange to think that he was actively warging an animal giving birth (this death probably wasn't instantaneous either). If his animals did become part of him when they die, that would help explain it.