Foreshadowing of the Starklings Connecting Though Skinchanging and Greenseeing
The magical side of the Stark children has been growing steadily since Bran’s very first chapter when they find their direwolves. I believe their magical connections will build toward them being able to see each other at will through their wolves and to even communicate with each other mentally.
In the novels, all of the Stark children are skinchangers. Not only can they enter the minds of their direwolves, but Bran and Arya have extended beyond their specific wolves and skinchanged into other animals – and in Bran’s case, another human being. One aspect of that skinchanging is the ability to connect not just to their wolf but to the other members of their pack. This is how Bran finds out that Robb and Grey Wind are dead and how Jon can see where Nymeria and Shaggy are.
The dream he’d had … the dream Summer had had … No, I mustn’t think about that dream. He had not even told the Reeds, though Meera at least seemed to sense that something was wrong. If he never talked of it maybe he could forget he ever dreamed it, and then it wouldn’t have happened and Robb and Grey Wind would still be … – Bran, ASOS
Far off, he could hear his packmates calling to him, like to like. They were hunting too. A wild rain lashed down upon his black brother as he tore at the flesh of an enormous goat, washing the blood from his side where the goat’s long horn had raked him. In another place, his little sister lifted her head to sing to the moon, and a hundred small grey cousins broke off their hunt to sing with her. The hills were warmer where they were, and full of food. Many a night his sister’s pack gorged on the flesh of sheep and cows and horses, the prey of men, and sometimes even on the flesh of man himself.
“Snow,” the moon called down again, cackling. The white wolf padded along the man trail beneath the icy cliff. The taste of blood was on his tongue, and his ears rang to the song of the hundred cousins. Once they had been six, five whimpering blind in the snow beside their dead mother, sucking cool milk from her hard dead nipples whilst he crawled off alone. Four remained … and one the white wolf could no longer sense. – Jon, ADWD
So while Jon and Bran can sometimes see what the other wolves are doing, they aren’t controlling what they see. Visions of the other wolves seem to be flashing through their perspectives on their own accord, or possibly by the will of the direwolves themselves. Both Summer and Ghost seem to miss their siblings as much as the Starklings do. So far, Arya hasn’t connected to the members of her original pack, possibly because Nymeria is concentrating on the new pack she’s formed.
What’s interesting, and is the whole point of this post, is that the Starklings aren’t limited to seeing what the other members of the original wolf pack are up to, there is one instance where Bran and Jon speak to each other through their minds. Here’s a passage set during ACOK the first time Jon wargs into Ghost.
Jon?
The call came from behind him, softer than a whisper, but strong too. Can a shout be silent? He turned his head, searching for his brother, for a glimpse of a lean grey shape moving beneath the trees, but there was nothing, only …
A weirwood.
It seemed to sprout from solid rock, its pale roots twisting up from a myriad of fissures and hairline cracks. The tree was slender compared to other weirwoods he had seen, no more than a sapling, yet it was growing as he watched, its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky. Wary, he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face. Red eyes looked at him. Fierce eyes they were, yet glad to see him. The weirwood had his brother’s face. Had his brother always had three eyes?
Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow.
He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs.
Don’t be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this. And the tree reached down and touched him.
And suddenly he was back in the mountains, his paws sunk deep in a drift of snow as he stood upon the edge of a great precipice. Before him the Skirling Pass opened up into airy emptiness, and a long vee-shaped valley lay spread beneath him like a quilt, awash in all the colors of an autumn afternoon. – ACOK
A key part of this passage is that even though the scene takes place before Bran reaches Bloodraven and starts seeing visions of the past through the Winterfell heart tree, his mental form takes the shape of a weirwood. We know this isn’t a real tree that he’s looking through because Jon can see the “tree” growing right before his eyes. So the “tree” Jon sees is really an avatar, of sorts, that represents his brother within the mental landscape. Since this encounter seemingly happens purely through Bran’s mind connecting to Jon’s instead of wolf to wolf, this is likely Bran’s first step into greenseeing, rather then skinchanging. As far as “first steps” go, this is a massive leap because it goes far beyond what Bloodraven is teaching Bran in ADWD. The strength of Bran’s power takes him directly into an advanced form of greenseeing that could prove vital in the Battle for the Dawn.
This also proves that there is no reason Bran will have to stay in the caves beyond the Wall or lose his identity in the end. He has already proven that he can use an exceptional form of his powers while at home in Winterfell without any trees attached to him.
It’s also interesting that Jon is able to sense Bran’s physical surroundings. At this point, Bran’s body is below the earth in the crypts of Winterfell among their dead ancestors. In-universe, the details of “the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death.” likely help to misdirect Jon so that the news of his brother’s death will seem to be confirmed. But what the details also show is that the mental connection between them isn’t just fueled through Bran’s greenseer abilities. Jon also has the power to reach back and gain information on his brother’s surroundings. It will be interesting to see how far those powers go once they are being consciously wielded rather than subconsciously coming upon them.
An additional bit of foreshadowing for the Starklings mentally communicating during the big battle is this passage from Arya’s TWOW chapter:
There had been blood in it, though, and a full moon overhead, and a tree that watched her as she ran. – Arya, TWOW
While this is a detail seems pretty small it’s extremely significant. Here we are shown what we assume is Bran watching Arya warging into Nymeria and Arya seeing him in return. During all the passages where Bran and Jon see the members of their direwolf pack, there is no suggestion that the wolves they are watching or the humans those wolves are connected to can see them in return. But even in this brief moment, Arya can see that she is being watched while she runs. This is a significant step forward for her in connecting with her original pack.
The question is, is Bran watching through a tree she happens to be passing by or, as with his mental connection with Jon, is he seeing her free from the constraints of a tree. The “tree” that watches her could be an avatar of Bran manifesting itself where he chooses. This is why I believe this detail from Arya’s Mercy chapter is laying the groundwork for an exchange between Bran and Arya that is similar to the one he and Jon had in ACOK. Arya won’t need Bran’s help in skinchanging like Jon did, but they could take the exchange a step further and actually have a full conversation with each other.
Unlike the Bran of ACOK, the Bran we find in TWOW will be more fully aware of his abilities and eager to use them to communicate with his siblings. Bran’s ability to connect mentally with Jon and Arya and potentially help them connect with each other could be revealed as a game changer for the Battle for the Dawn. They could help each other in coordinating troops, spying on the enemy, and any number of battle tactics. GRRM is slowly building each of their magical journies and establishing the foundation for their abilities to join while doing it in such a way that most readers seem to overlook. It’s going to be interesting to see how his patient plotting pans out.
(Note: I didn’t include the scene where Arya talks to the heart tree in this meta because I’m not sure she’s talking to Bran. The tree is speaking in Ned’s voice. It’s hard to say if this is the old gods taking on her father’s voice to guide her, Bran taking on their father’s voice, or Ned himself speaking to her from the beyond.)
