Post by ravenousreader on Aug 15, 2017 19:05:20 GMT
I think folks are taking the idea of "wearing skins" a bit too literally. (Like the Boltons)
To wear another skin is not to merely place one's self in the husk of another person/animal/tree... it is to see through their point of view, feel their feelings, live their lives.
We see this when Bran feels Summer's thrill of the hunt, when Jon feels Ghost's hunger, when Bran tastes the blood offered to Winterfell's heart tree... and, most pertinently to this debate, when V6 begins to "live his second life" within the body of One Eye.
A Game of Thrones - Catelyn II
Sansa would shine in the south, Catelyn thought to herself, and the gods knew that Arya needed refinement. Reluctantly, she let go of them in her heart. But not Bran. Never Bran. "Yes," she said, "but please, Ned, for the love you bear me, let Bran remain here at Winterfell. He is only seven."
"I was eight when my father sent me to foster at the Eyrie," Ned said. "Ser Rodrik tells me there is bad feeling between Robb and Prince Joffrey. That is not healthy. Bran can bridge that distance. He is a sweet boy, quick to laugh, easy to love. Let him grow up with the young princes, let him become their friend as Robert became mine. Our House will be the safer for it."
Sansa would shine in the south, Catelyn thought to herself, and the gods knew that Arya needed refinement. Reluctantly, she let go of them in her heart. But not Bran. Never Bran. "Yes," she said, "but please, Ned, for the love you bear me, let Bran remain here at Winterfell. He is only seven."
"I was eight when my father sent me to foster at the Eyrie," Ned said. "Ser Rodrik tells me there is bad feeling between Robb and Prince Joffrey. That is not healthy. Bran can bridge that distance. He is a sweet boy, quick to laugh, easy to love. Let him grow up with the young princes, let him become their friend as Robert became mine. Our House will be the safer for it."
Rather than get comfortable within his own dead body, or win the battle for Thistle's freshly deceased one, Varamyr is expelled from both. Death expels skinchangers. Skinchangers require the host to be alive for any connection to exist.
And, before we get too carried away with the idea of bodiless skinchangers free to roam upon the wind, note that V6 is only able to exist in a bodiless state for a single heartbeat. "Before their hearts could beat again he had passed on, searching for his own..." V6 is looking for "his own" what? What does V6, a powerful skinchanger with two dying bodies nearby need?
A living heart.
Alive -- but 'a different sort of life':
"strange, beautiful… think, oh… the Sidhe made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous."
Ah, but Hodor suffers from communication difficulties anyway. And no, Hodor does have some control. He did resist Bran's advance, and it took time before he would go away and submit.
Granted, Bran is powerful, and acting horribly, but Hodor did acquiesce to Bran's insistence. Hodor does not have control, just as Summer did not have control when attacking the wildilngs holding Jon hostage, and just as the shadowcat did not have control when it pushed rape victims to Varamyr's den.
But in each of these cases, the host-consciousness has allowed the presence of the skinchanger's consciousness. Whether it was willingly ("Wolves and women wed for life") or unwillingly like Hodor, the shadowcat, and the snowbear... these hosts nonetheless submitted to the yoke and bridle of the skinchanger.
Thistle-alone did not accept the yoke and bridle. If she had carried Varamyr on her back while he was growing up, she might have.
AGOT - Daenerys V
The oldest of the crones, a bent and shriveled stick of a woman with a single black eye, raised her arms on high. "Khalakka dothrae!" she shrieked. The prince is riding! "He is riding!" the other women answered. "Rakh! Rakh! Rakh haj!" they proclaimed. A boy, a boy, a strong boy. Bells rang, a sudden clangor of bronze birds. A deep-throated warhorn sounded its long low note. The old women began to chant. Underneath their painted leather vests, their withered dugs swayed back and forth, shiny with oil and sweat. The eunuchs who served them threw bundles of dried grasses into a great bronze brazier, and clouds of fragrant smoke rose up toward the moon and the stars. The Dothraki believed the stars were horses made of fire, a great herd that galloped across the sky by night. As the smoke ascended, the chanting died away and the ancient crone closed her single eye, the better to peer into the future. The silence that fell was complete. Dany could hear the distant call of night birds, the hiss and crackle of the torches, the gentle lapping of water from the lake. The Dothraki stared at her with eyes of night, waiting. Khal Drogo laid his hand on Dany's arm. She could feel the tension in his fingers. Even a khal as mighty as Drogo could know fear when the dosh khaleen peered into smoke of the future. At her back, her handmaids fluttered anxiously.
Finally the crone opened her eye and lifted her arms. "I have seen his face, and heard the thunder of his hooves," she proclaimed in a thin, wavery voice. "The thunder of his hooves!" the others chorused. "As swift as the wind he rides, and behind him his khalasar covers the earth, men without number, with arakhs shining in their hands like blades of razor grass. Fierce as a storm this prince will be. His enemies will tremble before him, and their wives will weep tears of blood and rend their flesh in grief. The bells in his hair will sing his coming, and the milk men in the stone tents will fear his name." The old woman trembled and looked at Dany almost as if she were afraid. "The prince is riding, and he shall be the stallion who mounts the world." "The stallion who mounts the world!" the onlookers cried in echo, until the night rang to the sound of their voices.
The oldest of the crones, a bent and shriveled stick of a woman with a single black eye, raised her arms on high. "Khalakka dothrae!" she shrieked. The prince is riding! "He is riding!" the other women answered. "Rakh! Rakh! Rakh haj!" they proclaimed. A boy, a boy, a strong boy. Bells rang, a sudden clangor of bronze birds. A deep-throated warhorn sounded its long low note. The old women began to chant. Underneath their painted leather vests, their withered dugs swayed back and forth, shiny with oil and sweat. The eunuchs who served them threw bundles of dried grasses into a great bronze brazier, and clouds of fragrant smoke rose up toward the moon and the stars. The Dothraki believed the stars were horses made of fire, a great herd that galloped across the sky by night. As the smoke ascended, the chanting died away and the ancient crone closed her single eye, the better to peer into the future. The silence that fell was complete. Dany could hear the distant call of night birds, the hiss and crackle of the torches, the gentle lapping of water from the lake. The Dothraki stared at her with eyes of night, waiting. Khal Drogo laid his hand on Dany's arm. She could feel the tension in his fingers. Even a khal as mighty as Drogo could know fear when the dosh khaleen peered into smoke of the future. At her back, her handmaids fluttered anxiously.
Finally the crone opened her eye and lifted her arms. "I have seen his face, and heard the thunder of his hooves," she proclaimed in a thin, wavery voice. "The thunder of his hooves!" the others chorused. "As swift as the wind he rides, and behind him his khalasar covers the earth, men without number, with arakhs shining in their hands like blades of razor grass. Fierce as a storm this prince will be. His enemies will tremble before him, and their wives will weep tears of blood and rend their flesh in grief. The bells in his hair will sing his coming, and the milk men in the stone tents will fear his name." The old woman trembled and looked at Dany almost as if she were afraid. "The prince is riding, and he shall be the stallion who mounts the world." "The stallion who mounts the world!" the onlookers cried in echo, until the night rang to the sound of their voices.
Meanwhile, in a contemporaneous Bran chapter (AGOT - Bran V):
A Game of Thrones - Bran V
A light snow was falling. Bran could feel the flakes on his face, melting as they touched his skin like the gentlest of rains. He sat straight atop his horse, watching as the iron portcullis was winched upward. Try as he might to keep calm, his heart was fluttering in his chest. "Are you ready?" Robb asked. Bran nodded, trying not to let his fear show. He had not been outside Winterfell since his fall, but he was determined to ride out as proud as any knight. "Let's ride, then." Robb put his heels into his big grey-and-white gelding, and the horse walked under the portcullis.
"Go," Bran whispered to his own horse. He touched her neck lightly, and the small chestnut filly started forward. Bran had named her Dancer. She was two years old, and Joseth said she was smarter than any horse had a right to be. They had trained her special, to respond to rein and voice and touch. Up to now, Bran had only ridden her around the yard. At first Joseth or Hodor would lead her, while Bran sat strapped to her back in the oversize saddle the Imp had drawn up for him, but for the past fortnight he had been riding her on his own, trotting her round and round, and growing bolder with every circuit.
They passed beneath the gatehouse, over the drawbridge, through the outer walls. Summer and Grey Wind came loping beside them, sniffing at the wind. Close behind came Theon Greyjoy, with his longbow and a quiver of broadheads; he had a mind to take a deer, he had told them. He was followed by four guardsmen in mailed shirts and coifs, and Joseth, a stick-thin stableman whom Robb had named master of horse while Hullen was away. Maester Luwin brought up the rear, riding on a donkey. Bran would have liked it better if he and Robb had gone off alone, just the two of them, but Hal Mollen would not hear of it, and Maester Luwin backed him. If Bran fell off his horse or injured himself, the maester was determined to be with him.
Beyond the castle lay the market square, its wooden stalls deserted now. They rode down the muddy streets of the village, past rows of small neat houses of log and undressed stone. Less than one in five were occupied, thin tendrils of woodsmoke curling up from their chimneys. The rest would fill up one by one as it grew colder. When the snow fell and the ice winds howled down out of the north, Old Nan said, farmers left their frozen fields and distant holdfasts, loaded up their wagons, and then the winter town came alive. Bran had never seen it happen, but Maester Luwin said the day was looming closer. The end of the long summer was near at hand. Winter is coming.
A few villagers eyed the direwolves anxiously as the riders went past, and one man dropped the wood he was carrying as he shrank away in fear, but most of the townfolk had grown used to the sight. They bent the knee when they saw the boys, and Robb greeted each of them with a lordly nod. With his legs unable to grip, the swaying motion of the horse made Bran feel unsteady at first, but the huge saddle with its thick horn and high back cradled him comfortingly, and the straps around his chest and thighs would not allow him to fall. After a time the rhythm began to feel almost natural. His anxiety faded, and a tremulous smile crept across his face. Two serving wenches stood beneath the sign of the Smoking Log, the local alehouse. When Theon Greyjoy called out to them, the younger girl turned red and covered her face. Theon spurred his mount to move up beside Robb. "Sweet Kyra," he said with a laugh. "She squirms like a weasel in bed, but say a word to her on the street, and she blushes pink as a maid. Did I ever tell you about the night that she and Bessa - " "Not where my brother can hear, Theon," Robb warned him with a glance at Bran. Bran looked away and pretended not to have heard, but he could feel Greyjoy's eyes on him. No doubt he was smiling. He smiled a lot, as if the world were a secret joke that only he was clever enough to understand. Robb seemed to admire Theon and enjoy his company, but Bran had never warmed to his father's ward. Robb rode closer. "You are doing well, Bran." "I want to go faster," Bran replied. Robb smiled. "As you will." He sent his gelding into a trot. The wolves raced after him. Bran snapped the reins sharply, and Dancer picked up her pace. He heard a shout from Theon Greyjoy, and the hoofbeats of the other horses behind him. Bran's cloak billowed out, rippling in the wind, and the snow seemed to rush at his face. Robb was well ahead, glancing back over his shoulder from time to time to make sure Bran and the others were following. He snapped the reins again. Smooth as silk, Dancer slid into a gallop. The distance closed. By the time he caught Robb on the edge of the wolfswood, two miles beyond the winter town, they had left the others well behind. "I can ride!" Bran shouted, grinning. It felt almost as good as flying.
A light snow was falling. Bran could feel the flakes on his face, melting as they touched his skin like the gentlest of rains. He sat straight atop his horse, watching as the iron portcullis was winched upward. Try as he might to keep calm, his heart was fluttering in his chest. "Are you ready?" Robb asked. Bran nodded, trying not to let his fear show. He had not been outside Winterfell since his fall, but he was determined to ride out as proud as any knight. "Let's ride, then." Robb put his heels into his big grey-and-white gelding, and the horse walked under the portcullis.
"Go," Bran whispered to his own horse. He touched her neck lightly, and the small chestnut filly started forward. Bran had named her Dancer. She was two years old, and Joseth said she was smarter than any horse had a right to be. They had trained her special, to respond to rein and voice and touch. Up to now, Bran had only ridden her around the yard. At first Joseth or Hodor would lead her, while Bran sat strapped to her back in the oversize saddle the Imp had drawn up for him, but for the past fortnight he had been riding her on his own, trotting her round and round, and growing bolder with every circuit.
They passed beneath the gatehouse, over the drawbridge, through the outer walls. Summer and Grey Wind came loping beside them, sniffing at the wind. Close behind came Theon Greyjoy, with his longbow and a quiver of broadheads; he had a mind to take a deer, he had told them. He was followed by four guardsmen in mailed shirts and coifs, and Joseth, a stick-thin stableman whom Robb had named master of horse while Hullen was away. Maester Luwin brought up the rear, riding on a donkey. Bran would have liked it better if he and Robb had gone off alone, just the two of them, but Hal Mollen would not hear of it, and Maester Luwin backed him. If Bran fell off his horse or injured himself, the maester was determined to be with him.
Beyond the castle lay the market square, its wooden stalls deserted now. They rode down the muddy streets of the village, past rows of small neat houses of log and undressed stone. Less than one in five were occupied, thin tendrils of woodsmoke curling up from their chimneys. The rest would fill up one by one as it grew colder. When the snow fell and the ice winds howled down out of the north, Old Nan said, farmers left their frozen fields and distant holdfasts, loaded up their wagons, and then the winter town came alive. Bran had never seen it happen, but Maester Luwin said the day was looming closer. The end of the long summer was near at hand. Winter is coming.
A few villagers eyed the direwolves anxiously as the riders went past, and one man dropped the wood he was carrying as he shrank away in fear, but most of the townfolk had grown used to the sight. They bent the knee when they saw the boys, and Robb greeted each of them with a lordly nod. With his legs unable to grip, the swaying motion of the horse made Bran feel unsteady at first, but the huge saddle with its thick horn and high back cradled him comfortingly, and the straps around his chest and thighs would not allow him to fall. After a time the rhythm began to feel almost natural. His anxiety faded, and a tremulous smile crept across his face. Two serving wenches stood beneath the sign of the Smoking Log, the local alehouse. When Theon Greyjoy called out to them, the younger girl turned red and covered her face. Theon spurred his mount to move up beside Robb. "Sweet Kyra," he said with a laugh. "She squirms like a weasel in bed, but say a word to her on the street, and she blushes pink as a maid. Did I ever tell you about the night that she and Bessa - " "Not where my brother can hear, Theon," Robb warned him with a glance at Bran. Bran looked away and pretended not to have heard, but he could feel Greyjoy's eyes on him. No doubt he was smiling. He smiled a lot, as if the world were a secret joke that only he was clever enough to understand. Robb seemed to admire Theon and enjoy his company, but Bran had never warmed to his father's ward. Robb rode closer. "You are doing well, Bran." "I want to go faster," Bran replied. Robb smiled. "As you will." He sent his gelding into a trot. The wolves raced after him. Bran snapped the reins sharply, and Dancer picked up her pace. He heard a shout from Theon Greyjoy, and the hoofbeats of the other horses behind him. Bran's cloak billowed out, rippling in the wind, and the snow seemed to rush at his face. Robb was well ahead, glancing back over his shoulder from time to time to make sure Bran and the others were following. He snapped the reins again. Smooth as silk, Dancer slid into a gallop. The distance closed. By the time he caught Robb on the edge of the wolfswood, two miles beyond the winter town, they had left the others well behind. "I can ride!" Bran shouted, grinning. It felt almost as good as flying.
I disagree. Because Hodor is a human, rather than a wolf, he is not predisposed to inhabitation by a Stark of Winterfell. But, unlike most men, he has served this particular Stark in a way that has accustomed him to carrying the lordling in a very literal way.
I see consciousness in asoiaf as GRRM's version of a spirit. This spirit is present in living bodies, and absent in dead bodies. Skinchangers are able to merge with them in very intimate relationships. Most of the time, these relationships are willing (Haggon referred to the warg-bond as a "marriage for life"). But, on the other end of the spectrum, this interaction is horrific mind-rape (Hodor, the shadowcat, the snowbear, Thistle).
In the case of marriage, the host-spirit/consciousness need not flee. In the case of rape, it must hide to preserve and protect the ego/identity. (We saw a similar submission and reemergence take place in Theon-Reek-Theon as well, and are now witnessing the submission of Arya to Mercy, and Sansa to Alayne. Yes, I think Bran is as monstrous as LF and Ramsay.)
Alter egos are quite real in asoiaf, imo. Hodor doesn't have the capacity for an alter-ego, and must retreat beneath the weight of Bran's. This retreat might be seen by some as weakness, but, in my opinion, it demonstrates resilience and adaptation (as is often found in victims of abuse).
Handling a corpse involves no such relationship, I agree. But I think that fucked up relationship is necessary for the skinchangers who are taking their hosts without consent. Thistle provides a perfect example of what happens when the host does not acquiesce to the skinchanger's advance.
Granted, a dead body would be far easier to control if such fucked up relationships were not necessary... and this is exactly what we see in the hosts of the slain wights. They are simple creatures – meat puppets incapable of speech, howling, cawing, etc. They demonstrate no independence, tool use seems rare to nonexistent, and even walking is a clumsy, shambling endeavor.
To me, all of this seems to clearly indicate a different means of control; one that values quantity over quality.
And this is where, for me, a very clear Wall defines the difference between these two powers.
Wargs, Skinchangers, and Greenseers share perspectives of the living, and the influences runneth over for both, in both directions. I think Weirwoods regulate the flow, and that flow is life.
Others and white walkers are a deviation from that natural form of life, imo, and the magical connections between them. Instead of being natural forms of life, they are magical forms of life. Instead of bonding with the living, whether by force or by kinship, they raise corpses as thralls.
These seem so fundamentally different to me. Like the difference between a forest full of the songs of nature, versus the implacable silence of a wall of ice.
ASOS - Jon IV
By the sixth hour, Jarl had moved ahead of Grigg the Goat again, and his men were widening the gap. "The Mance's pet must want a sword," the Magnar said, shading his eyes. The sun was high in the sky, and the upper third of the Wall was a crystalline blue from below, reflecting so brilliantly that it hurt the eyes to look on it. Jarl's four and Grigg's were all but lost in the glare, though Errok's team was still in shadow. Instead of moving upward they were edging their way sideways at about five hundred feet, making for a chimney. Jon was watching them inch along when he heard the sound—a sudden crack that seemed to roll along the ice, followed by a shout of alarm. And then the air was full of shards and shrieks and falling men, as a sheet of ice a foot thick and fifty feet square broke off from the Wall and came tumbling, crumbling, rumbling, sweeping all before it. Even down at the foot of the ridge, some chunks came spinning through the trees and rolling down the slope.
By the sixth hour, Jarl had moved ahead of Grigg the Goat again, and his men were widening the gap. "The Mance's pet must want a sword," the Magnar said, shading his eyes. The sun was high in the sky, and the upper third of the Wall was a crystalline blue from below, reflecting so brilliantly that it hurt the eyes to look on it. Jarl's four and Grigg's were all but lost in the glare, though Errok's team was still in shadow. Instead of moving upward they were edging their way sideways at about five hundred feet, making for a chimney. Jon was watching them inch along when he heard the sound—a sudden crack that seemed to roll along the ice, followed by a shout of alarm. And then the air was full of shards and shrieks and falling men, as a sheet of ice a foot thick and fifty feet square broke off from the Wall and came tumbling, crumbling, rumbling, sweeping all before it. Even down at the foot of the ridge, some chunks came spinning through the trees and rolling down the slope.
The Wall like the Others speaks in a language like 'ice cracking on a winter's lake'. Learn the language -- and 'crack' the code.
As for a 'very clear Wall' divides the two powers, I'll just repeat to you what Ned foreshadowed, 'Bran can bridge that distance...'
P.S. To complement these thoughts, I've left you a poem on the poetry thread, one of my favourites. Is it possible using the outermost reaches of the faculty of 'language' to empathize with the inhuman Other? Is it possible to 'have a mind of Winter'..?