You Are Arya Of Winterfell, Daughter Of The North. You Told Me You Could Be Strong. You Have The Wolf

“You are Arya of Winterfell, daughter of the North. You told me you could be strong. You have the wolf blood in you.”

There's this great pack, hundreds of them, mankillers. The one that leads them is a she-wolf, a bitch from the seventh hell.

Princess Arya of House Stark, Lady of Winterfell.

What has always been true is that the Arya/Lyanna parallels work both ways. It’s extremely meaningful to Lyanna to be paralleled with Arya in order to shed light on Lyanna’s inner world, in preparation for the reveal of a long held secret.

How it works is like this: because Arya defends Mycah against Joffrey, we can understand Lyanna’s defense of Howland. Because Arya never once strays from wanting justice for her brutally murdered friend, we can imagine what drove Lyanna to masquerade as the Knight of the Laughing Tree. And because Arya doesn’t think twice about any of this, we can understand Lyanna's convictions.

Because Arya loves exploring and discovering new plants she’s never seen before, because she brings flowers to Ned out of love, we can understand Lyanna being "fond of flowers" as part of a curious and affectionate nature.

Because Arya is never impressed with Joffrey, we can understand Lyanna's immediate assessment of Robert. Because her siblings react to news of Arya's betrothals to unsuitable partners with "Arya won't like that one bit" & "she never will, not Arya" & "[i]f he tries to lay a hand on her, she'll fight him," we can understand the gulf that opened between Lyanna and her family after her betrothal. Because amiable Elmar Frey looked down on Nan the serving girl and Arya resented him for it, we can see Lyanna judging Robert based on how he treats Mya/Mya's mother.

Because Bran thinks Arya "wasn't scared to get dirty, and she could run and fight and throw as good as a boy," because he first assumes Lyanna & Benjen fighting are him & Arya, we can imagine Lyanna & Benjen's relationship.

Because Arya is wolf-blooded and we see that written out, we can understand Lyanna as well.

That isn't to say it isn't meaningful to Arya, having Lyanna scattered through her story. Arya's complex relationship with mentor figures is a post to itself, but in brief: legacies are passed down by people, to people, who then use them as a starting/turning point. Daenerys Targaryen understands the duality of her family's legacy through the fragments of Viserys as her brother, king, and abuser; when he dies, she is the last, and she births dragons. Jon Snow is groomed for command in the Night's Watch just like his uncle and ancestors before him, charged with protecting his homeland in the shadow of an eight thousand year old Stark dynasty. Tyrion is Tywin writ small. The last greenseer waited generations just to haunt Brandon Stark's dreams.

Arya doesn't have that. She has a direwolf, she's a warg, and she has the North in her face. Wolf child, blood child; scattered yet meaningful pieces of a puzzle. By connecting her to Lyanna who came before her, it's a lineage. It's no longer an accident. Arya isn't Lyanna any more than Daenerys is Aegon the Conqueror, or Jon Snow is any of his predecessors, or Tyrion is Tywin, or Bran is Bloodraven, or Edric Dayne is Arthur, or Arianne is Nymeria. These parallels to (pre-series) characters represent a benchmark to be surpassed, whether or not the characters realize it themselves, and in Arya's case is no less.

Intentional parallels like this ask us: what if you were part of something - maybe even the culmination of something - that's been brewing for a very long while now? What if who & what you are is so important, so necessary, that time would fold in on itself for you?

sansa stark + sobriquets ♦ requested by anonymous

‘’Could you bring back a man without a head? Not six times. Just once.’’

ARYA STARK MONTH - Day 22: Soft moments

Okay, so I need to distract myself from Moon Knight for a bit so I’ll pivot over to ASOIAF instead. Specifically thinking about Jon Snow, I wonder if he may become a fully fledged skinchanger in TWOW? 

It’s established in the books that all the Stark children are wargs with their connection to their direwolves, to varying degrees of ability. But being a warg doesn’t necessarily make one able to skinchange into other animals. [For the purpose of this post, I will refer to warging as solely having control over wolves (/and dogs) and skinchanging as having control over any and all kinds of animals; that is how the author describes it so I shall too.]

Of the siblings, Bran is clearly the most powerful: a warg, skinchanger, and greenseer too. His fall leaves him in a coma, which results in Bran experiencing his first meeting with the Three-Eyed Crow. But it’s not until the second book that Bran feels he can truly reach beyond himself, and beyond his direwolf, Summer:

He remembered who he was all too well; Bran the boy, Bran the broken. Better Bran the beastling. Was it any wonder he would sooner dream his Summer dreams, his wolf dreams? Here in the chill damp darkness of the tomb his third eye had finally opened. He could reach Summer whenever he wanted, and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon.

— A Clash of Kings, Bran VII

It’s not the first time Bran has warged into Summer, so clearly something has changed this time. In ASOS and ADWD, we can see Bran further his abilities by skinchanging into different animals and even a human.

Arya is also a very powerful warg like her brother. She can reach out to Nymeria despite considerable time apart and over a large land distance. Though Pre-ADWD, she is only able to connect with her direwolf, not any other animals. It is specifically after she loses her eyesight that Arya starts being able to skinchange into cats. 

So that loss of sight (Bran being engulfed in the darkness of the crypts and Arya actually loosing her eyesight) is what seems to awaken the latent skinchanging ability. TWOIAF does make mention of something regarding this:

These new Lorathi were worshippers of Boash, the Blind God. Rejecting all other deities, the followers of Boash ate no flesh, drank no wine, and walked barefoot through the world, clad only in hair shirts and hides. Their eunuch priests wore eyeless hoods in honor of their god; only in darkness, they believed, would their third eye open, allowing them to see the “higher truths” of creation that lay concealed behind the world’s illusions. The worshippers of Boash believed that all life was sacred and eternal; that men and women were equal; that lords and peasants, rich and poor, slave and master, man and beast were all alike, all equally worthy, all creatures of god.

— The World of Ice and Fire, The Free Cities: Lorath

Jojen also provides some insight on the opening of the third eye:

“How would I break the chains, Jojen?” Bran asked.

“Open your eye.”

“They are open. Can’t you see?”

“Two are open.” Jojen pointed. “One, two.”

“I only have two.”

“You have three. The crow gave you the third, but you will not open it.” He had a slow soft way of speaking. “With two eyes you see my face. With three you could see my heart. With two you can see that oak tree there. With three you could see the acorn the oak grew from and the stump that it will one day become. With two you see no farther than your walls. With three you would gaze south to the Summer Sea and north beyond the Wall.”

— A Clash of Kings, Bran IV

Additional note by Bloodraven:

“Never fear the darkness, Bran.” The lord’s words were accompanied by a faint rustling of wood and leaf, a slight twisting of his head. “The strongest trees are rooted in the dark places of the earth. Darkness will be your cloak, your shield, your mother’s milk. Darkness will make you strong.”

— A Dance with Dragons, Bran III

The darkness, or shall I say sensory deprivation, is key here. Jojen (greendreams) and Varamyr (skinchanging) are two other characters with such supernatural abilities, and since both of them are described as being sickly in their childhood, it’s possible some kind of sensory deprivation state came about as a result of their childhood sickness.

Regarding the abilities of the other siblings, Rickon was also present in the crypts alongside Bran, but since he is a non-pov, it’s not really possible to say how exactly he is affected. Though I will say this, considering his young age, Rickon does seem to be incorporating large aspects of Shaggydog’s nature the same way Shaggydog is incorporating Rickon’s nature. In terms of describing their personalities, it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Moving on to Sansa, she is an interesting case because Lady died near the start of the story. Sansa still has warging potential but the skinchanging seems rather unlikely since I don’t see a situation in Sansa’s future where some kind of sensory deprivation could take place (who knows, it might happen, it might not).

Robb & Jon are in a similar situation where they both are somewhat aware of the connection they have with their direwolves. But both of them, over the course of their stories, start to deny this part of themselves (eg. locking up their direwolf).

The Varamyr prologue chapter introduces us to skinchanging 101, and one of the things we’re told is that Jon has great potential:

He had known what Snow was the moment he saw that great white direwolf stalking silent at his side. One skinchanger can always sense another. Mance should have let me take the direwolf. There would be a second life worthy of a king. He could have done it, he did not doubt. The gift was strong in Snow, but the youth was untaught, still fighting his nature when he should have gloried in it.

— A Dance with Dragons, Prologue

Varamyr acknowledges Jon’s latent skinchanging ability. Should a situation arise where Jon also experiences sensory deprivation, he could tap into that latent skinchanging ability he has. Though it’s not enough to simply have the ability, you need to be able to acknowledge that part of yourself. Jon does sometimes try to deny it. Robb, from what we saw of him, had a similar tendency; fluctuating between keeping Grey Wind always by his side and trying to limit their connection.

Part of the reason Bran and Arya are such powerful wargs, is that they fully embrace the nature of a human’s connection with their direwolf, and so they’re able to further that into their latent skinchanging ability easier than their siblings:

She took a deep breath, then lifted the broomstick in both hands and brought it down across her knee. It broke with a loud crack, and she threw the pieces aside. I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth.

— A Clash of Kings, Arya X

Yes, Arya thought. Yes, it’s you who ought to run, you and Lord Tywin and the Mountain and Ser Addam and Ser Amory and stupid Ser Lyonel whoever he is, all of you better run or my brother will kill you, he’s a Stark, he’s more wolf than man, and so am I.

— A Clash of Kings, Arya VIII

I won’t be afraid. He was the Prince of Winterfell, Eddard Stark’s son, almost a man grown and a warg too, not some little baby boy like Rickon. Summer would not be afraid.

— A Storm of Swords, Bran III

“I’d sooner be a wolf. Then I could live in the wood and sleep when I wanted, and I could find Arya and Sansa. I’d smell where they were and go save them, and when Robb went to battle I’d fight beside him like Grey Wind. I’d tear out the Kingslayer’s throat with my teeth, rip, and then the war would be over and everyone would come back to Winterfell. If I was a wolf …” He howled. “Ooo-ooo-oooooooooooo.”

— A Clash of Kings, Bran I

Both of them even react in the same appreciative way to hearing about Robb’s warging/connection with wolves. This is something we don’t really see with their siblings.

Jon most likely warged into Ghost upon his “death”. So that will certainly build a closer bond between the two. Depending on Jon’s internal psyche (if he has dreams in the crypts) and what state his body is kept in, he could very well be resurrected with his latent skinchanging ability awakened.

TLDR; I would like to see Jon skinchange Mormont’s raven.