The Citadel: Concordance

The Citadel is an archive of information for George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire.

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14.1.2. Wargs and Skinchangers
  • When a warg dreams of his wolf, he shares its body and can be felt by someone with the greensight (II: 321)
  • Even when waking, a warg can be in his wolf (II: 321)
  • When a warg becomes angry or afraid, the wolf can sense it (II: 322)
  • When in a warg dream, a person remembers the actions of his wolf as his own as well (II: 322)
  • Part of a warg is his wolf, and vice versa (II: 322)
  • There is an apparent belief that silver weapons are needed to kill wargs (II: 339)
  • Wargs are also called demons, shapechangers, and beastlings (II: 383)
  • Beastlings and shapechangers are always evil in common stories (II: 383)
  • The third eye might be closed, but in sleep it may sometimes flutter open, as it does to allow a warg to have wolf dreams (II: 383)
  • There is an example of two wargs speaking in dreams to each other, despite being removed by hundreds of leagues. It's possible that this happens only because one of them appears to be even more than a warg (yet both of them have the "three eyes") (II: 560)
  • Skinchanger is a general term, and all wargs are skinchangers. However, a warg is a skinchanger who is bound to a wolf and not some other creature (II: 561, 697. SSM: 1, 2)
  • After a bonders death, a bond-animal is still unnatural and can seek revenge for its loss (II: 697)
  • A warg in the wolf dream can exact some measure of control over what his bond-animal does (II: 700)
  • The sleep during a wolf dream is unnatural, and can last for days as the warg begins to become more and more used to sharing a wolf's thoughts (II: 701)
  • A warg can reach out and actually have double vision; what he sees and what his wolf sees as well (II: 702)
  • Some wargs seem able to sense members of their animal's family by some magical sense, perhaps related to the "third eye" or the unusual nature of the animal and its kindred (III: 101)
  • Wargs must be trained to be able to control their animal and themselves when they are in its skin. It is very easy to give in to it's instincts and impulses (III: 103)
  • A warg cannot live on what his beast consumes (III: 104)
  • A warg can bend a beast to his will, or the beast bend the warg's will to his (III: 107)
  • All greenseers were wargs as well, and the greatest of them could wear the skins of any beast that flies, swims, or crawls (III: 107)
  • A skinchanger can have many beasts to him, and of different sorts. One man is bonded with a huge snow bear, three wolves, a shadowcat, and an eagle once controlled by another skinchanger who was killed (III: 171, 835)
  • Wargs seem to have some inner sense which lets them locate their beasts, at least to some degree (III: 295)
  • Skinchangers may be able to change into the skins of other people, although perhaps only if they are somehow mentally damaged (III: 459, 633)
  • Once an animal has been joined to a man, any skinchanger can slip inside and ride him. The joining works both ways, however, for a dead skinchanger's animal carries a part of him and the new master of the beast will find the dead man's voice whispering to him (III: 835)
  • If a skinchangers beast is killed while he is actively within it, he can go mad (III: 840)
  • Among the ironborn, it's said that there are skinchangers among the Farwynds, able to take the form of sea lions, walruses, and even spotted whales (IV: 271)
Last revised November 16, 2009
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