What we learned from the Varamyr POV (SPOILERS)

[The Imp]

I've now re-read the prologue 5 or so times. I beleive there is a wealth of information there that gives us important clue that especially relate to the last Jon chapter

point by point, from the beginning

“Tormund, the Weeper, Sixskins, all them brave raiders. Where are they now?”
She does not know me, Varamyr realized then, and why should she? Without his beasts he did not look like a great man

a fairly minor point, but interesting as it adds a little support to Needle's theory.

Even that had not been so agonizing as the fire in his guts, crackling along his wings, devouring him. When he tried to fly from it, his terror fanned the flames and made them burn hotter. One moment he had been soaring above the Wall, his eagle’s eyes marking the movements of the men below. Then the flames had turned his heart into a blackened cinder and sent his spirit screaming back into his own skin, and for a little while he’d gone mad

This is interesting only because I went back to read the original passages in ASOS and there is no mention of Melisandre being anywhere nearby. I always assumed that it was she that burned the eagle, now i'm not so sure. She may not have that kind of power. If not her though, who was it?

He rode to battle on the back of a snow bear thirteen feet tall, kept three wolves and a shadowcat in thrall

A warg can control more than one animal at a time, although only actually inhabiting one. I see a possible link here with Nymeria's wolf pack, and Arya.

Some he even blessed with children. Runts. Small, puny things, like Lump, and not one with the gift.

The children of a warg are not necessarily born with the ability. Also, a warg can be born of non-warg parents (Varamyr's parents didn't have the gift)

The bear hated him, had raged each time he wore her skin or climbed upon her back.

Some animals never accept being warged into

Dogs were the easiest beasts to bond with; they lived so close to men that they were almost human. Slipping into a dog’s skin was like putting on an old boot, its leather softened by wear. As a boot was shaped to accept a foot, a dog was shaped to accept a collar, even a collar no human eye could see. Wolves were harder. A man might befriend a wolf, even break a wolf, but no man could truly tame a wolf. “Wolves and women wed for life,” Haggon often said. “You take one, that’s a marriage. The wolf is part of you from that day on, and you’re part of him. Both of you will change.”
Other beasts were best left alone, the hunter had declared. Cats were vain and cruel, always ready to turn on you. Elk and deer were prey; wear their skins too long, and even the bravest man became a coward. Bears, boars, badgers, weasels … Haggon did not hold with such. “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.”

just lots of good information there about skinchangers

None of them had been as strong as Varamyr Sixskins, though, not even Haggon, tall and grim with his hands as hard as stone. The hunter died weeping after Varamyr took Greyskin from him, driving him out to claim the beast for his own. No second life for you, old man.

This piece of information might be very important. i'm thinking wargs in dragons and other wargs fighting them for control.

Not Sly. Haggon would have called it abomination, but Varamyr had often slipped inside her skin as she was being mounted by One Eye.

Varamyr apprently had a kinky side. Go figure.

“They say you forget,” Haggon had told him, a few weeks before his own death. “When the man’s flesh dies, his spirit lives on inside the beast, but every day his memory fades, and the beast becomes a little less a warg, a little more a wolf, until nothing of the man is left and only the beast remains.”

this is important for any theory involving Jon warging into Ghost and staying there permanently(if his body died)

Varamyr knew the truth of that. When he claimed the eagle that had been Orell’s, he could feel the other skinchanger raging at his presence. Orell had been slain by the turncloak crow Jon Snow, and his hate for his killer had been so strong that Varamyr found himself hating the beastling boy as well. 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.

Jon might be even stronger than Varamyr. It's unclear how much he has learned since ASOS though. It's not clear how the information about past owners affecting present owners might be important, but it's worth noting.

No, Father, please, he tried to say, but dogs cannot speak the tongues of men, so all that emerged was a piteous whine. The axe crashed into the middle of the old dog’s skull, and inside the hovel the boy let out a scream. That was how they knew.

Re-affirming the the warg is greatly affected by the death of their animal if they are in it.

The white world turned and fell away. For a moment it was as if he were inside the weirwood, gazing out through carved red eyes as a dying man twitched feebly on the ground and a madwoman danced blind and bloody underneath the moon, weeping red tears and ripping at her clothes. Then both were gone and he was rising, melting, his spirit borne on some cold wind. He was in the snow and in the clouds, he was a sparrow, a squirrel, an oak. A horned owl flew silently between his trees, hunting a hare; Varamyr was inside the owl, inside the hare, inside the trees. Deep below the frozen ground, earthworms burrowed blindly in the dark, and he was them as well. I am the wood, and everything that’s in it, he thought, exulting. A hundred ravens took to the air, cawing as they felt him pass. A great elk trumpeted, unsettling the children clinging to his back. A sleeping direwolf raised his head to snarl at empty air. Before their hearts could beat again he had passed on, searching for his own, for One Eye, Sly, and Stalker, for his pack. His wolves would save him, he told himself.
That was his last thought as a man.

Foreshadowing of the later bran chapter. Also, re-affirmation that the warg's life as a man ends when his body dies. The True Death.

in the pits where her eyes had been, a pale blue light was flickering, lending her coarse features an eerie beauty they had never known in life.
She sees me.

Wights/undead/ can see without having eyes.

Did i miss anything, or make any false assumptions?

 

[Needle]

I don't see any false assumptions, will have to reread to sww if more can be added. Pretty good stuff!

I like the possible implications for Arya and Nymeria, since Nymeria is pack leader the other wolves already follow her but if Arya can warg them it gives more control and allows them to split up if needed.

I too always assumed it was Mel that set the eagle aflame, why did I never realize she was no where near? And as you said if not her, who?

If a boar is one of those skins you don't want to wear, what does that say about Boric and what he may get up to? Ghost doesn't like him either.

 

[3EyedCrowsEye]

Varamyr said that warging into a human is an abomination and after hearing that I found it funny how quick and easy Bran wargs into Horor like it is no big deal. But anyways I think maybe Jon will warg into Stannis somehow (maybe with the help of Melisandre) as the true rebirth of Azor Ahai...very doubtful, but maybe something like that

 

[Ursa major]

This is interesting only because I went back to read the original passages in ASOS and there is no mention of Melisandre being anywhere nearby. I always assumed that it was she that burned the eagle, now i'm not so sure. She may not have that kind of power. If not her though, who was it?

It's true that Jon does not mention Mel when Stannis's men overran the Wildings, but she was there.

From the Samwell chapter after the battle:

[Grenn, referring to Stannis, says :]"He brought no woman but the red one."

"The red one?" said Sam uncertainly.

"Melisandre of Asshai," said Grenn. "The king's sorceress. [...] She rode beside him in the battle too...."

 

[hadd]

This piece of information might be very important. i'm thinking wargs in dragons and other wargs fighting them for control.

I think Varamyr's "greatest" warging accomplishment was the bear, yes? If so then think how hard dragons could be to warg...
I'm pretty sure that dragons can't be warged. Being all ancient and majestic as they are.
If a dragon would be a 10 out of 10 then a bear would be like what, 4 out of 10?

I think this warging stuff would just get too out of hand if someone actually started warging the dragons.


And I have the feeling that Jon's warging won't go further than Mormont's crow and Ghost. Just a hunch... I think it's more Bran's destiny to go that way not Jon's.

 

[The Imp]

It's true that Jon does not mention Mel when Stannis's men overran the Wildings, but she was there.

From the Samwell chapter after the battle:

Thank you ursa.

So if Mel can do that to an eagle at great disatnce, what could she do to a human at close range? (rhetorical)

 

[The Imp]

I think Varamyr's "greatest" warging accomplishment was the bear, yes? If so then think how hard dragons could be to warg...
I'm pretty sure that dragons can't be warged. Being all ancient and majestic as they are.
If a dragon would be a 10 out of 10 then a bear would be like what, 4 out of 10?

I think this warging stuff would just get too out of hand if someone actually started warging the dragons.


And I have the feeling that Jon's warging won't go further than Mormont's crow and Ghost. Just a hunch... I think it's more Bran's destiny to go that way not Jon's.

GRRm was asked if dragons can be warged into. His answer was "I guess we'll find out". To me that implies that someone will at least try. Maybe their "greatness' will determine if they will succeed. maybe it will take all of the Stark children to control one