This is part 4 in a multi-part series about our favorite direwolves.
The other posts in the series are here:
Part 1: Lady and Sansa, Part 2: Grey Wind and Robb, Part 3: Nymeria and Arya, Part 4: Summer and Bran, Part 5: Shaggydog and Rickon, Part 6: Ghost and Jon
Recall this SSM.
Q: Are all the Stark children wargs/skin changers with their wolves?
GRRM: To a greater or lesser degree, yes, but the amount of control varies widely.
Q: Yes, I know that Lady is dead, but assuming they were all alive and all the children as well, would all the wolves have bonded to the kids as Bran and Summer did?
GRRM: Bran and Summer are somewhat of a special case.
In this essay, we’ll investigate how Bran and Summer are a special case. My hypothesis is that theirs is the strongest bond simply because Bran seems to be the strongest telepath. Bran is the first and only Stark thus far in the story with the power to consciously enter the wolf and control his actions. Arya actively uses a cat’s vision, but has yet to demonstrate full control or to consciously enter Nymeria. She did perhaps exert her will in compelling Nymeria to save Catelyn from the river, but that was a partially subconscious act in a dream. Thus far, Ghost is in charge in all of Jon’s wolf dreams, although Jon does now remember them, and realizes that they are real.
This essay is a line-by-line investigation of every mention of Summer in the text, including the wolf dreams and every thought Bran has inside the wolf. In the first volume, we see how their bond initially develops similar to the other Stark-direwolf connections but how Bran’s powers develop faster due to his coma, the ministrations of other actors in his dreams, and his immobility, which seems to drive him to use his connection to Summer more than his siblings do. We see in the second volume how Bran’s realizes that his wolf dreams are real, and, through the sensory deprivation in the crypts, how he develops the ability to enter his wolf consciously. In the third volume, we see him develop this skill to a point where he can save Jon’s life, but we also see him follow the dark path of using this power over Hodor. In the latest volume, we see how, under Bloodraven’s tutelage, he can use the power to enter ravens and finally to enter the collective consciousness of the weirwood net. The development of these powers is unique to Bran among his siblings.
While many other bloggers are wondering about and investigating foreshadowing of “Bran King”, I’ll be focusing purely on his magical growth and his relationship to Summer, so the “Bran is the future King” theme is not considered here.
We also get some direct wolf thoughts from Summer about the bond to the other direwolves. We learn that he periodically senses his siblings. This does seem to differ from a dream Jon has where Ghost seems to more strongly (certainly more vividly) sense his remaining litter-mates. As an aside, we also learn how neither wolf can sense the other(s) when one of them is on the other side of the wall. We can assume that something about the magic of the wall disrupts their connection.
Finally, several themes from our prior volumes continue here with Summer and his bond to Bran, including:
- Mirroring Bran’s personality and intelligence
- Obedience vs. Independence
- Shadowing / protecting / healthy fear of the wolves
- Related: the wolves’ innate ability to sense threats
- Belonging to the pack / the instinct to hunt
- Being affectionate when they’re together
- Bad things happening when they’re separated
Many of these themes are more visible in Bran and Summer given our access to the wolf dreams in the POV and the strength of their bond. One other theme that is pervasive in Bran, specifically, is his wish to be in a whole body. It shows up in his anger and shame at being called a cripple or pitied. It shows up in his penchant for staying way too long inside Summer’s skin. It shows up in his unfortunate choice to repeatedly invade Hodor’s body. It shows up in his reasoning for going to the three-eyed crow. It will be interesting to see if he finally accepts his own skin to some degree in the coming volumes.
A Game of Thrones – A Pup with no Name and Bran the Broken
In this volume we see how the bond between Bran and Summer forms immediately and strongly, then strengthens with further contact between the two and with Bran’s increasing powers. Summer, indeed, is an integral part of the discussion of Bran’s prophetic dreams in this volume, suggesting that he is somewhat aware of them through the bond.
A Game of Thrones – Bran I
We see that the bond to Summer began forming immediately, the moment Jon hands him to Bran. The mirroring begins in the next moment. He’s dismayed at the idea that the pups would be slaughtered, saying “it’s mine.” At the same time, Summer squirms seemingly feeling Bran’s emotions (my highlighting below in the quotes).
Bran gave the pup a quick nervous stroke, then turned as Jon said, “Here you go.” His half-brother put a second pup into his arms. “There are five of them.” Bran sat down in the snow and hugged the wolf pup to his face. Its fur was soft and warm against his cheek.
[…]
“No matter,” said Hullen. “They be dead soon enough too.”
Bran gave a wordless cry of dismay.
“The sooner the better,” Theon Greyjoy agreed. He drew his sword. “Give the beast here, Bran.”
The little thing squirmed against him, as if it heard and understood. “No!” Bran cried out fiercely. “It’s mine.”
[…]
Bran looked to his lord father for rescue, but got only a frown, a furrowed brow. “Hullen speaks truly, son. Better a swift death than a hard one from cold and starvation.”
“No!” He could feel tears welling in his eyes, and he looked away. He did not want to cry in front of his father.
Now Jon steps in to selflessly advocate for his pack. This shows a lot about Jon and Bran’s relationship. Bran “loved Jon with all his heart” for his selfless act in not including himself in the count for a pup. This is an indication of the empathy that both boys possess. Bran knows what it costs Jon; he can feel how it must hurt to exclude himself. Fortunately, our author rewards Jon later with Ghost. At the end of the passage, see how Summer mirrors Bran’s emotions again, squirming at Bran’s relief that the pups wouldn’t be killed.
“Lord Stark,” Jon said. It was strange to hear him call Father that, so formal. Bran looked at him with desperate hope. “There are five pups,” he told Father. “Three male, two female.”
“What of it, Jon?”
“You have five trueborn children,” Jon said. “Three sons, two daughters. The direwolf is the sigil of your House. Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord.”
Bran saw his father’s face change, saw the other men exchange glances. He loved Jon with all his heart at that moment. Even at seven, Bran understood what his brother had done. The count had come right only because Jon had omitted himself. He had included the girls, included even Rickon, the baby, but not the bastard who bore the surname Snow, the name that custom decreed be given to all those in the north unlucky enough to be born with no name of their own.
Their father understood as well. “You want no pup for yourself, Jon?” he asked softly.
The direwolf graces the banners of House Stark, Jon pointed out. “I am no Stark, Father.”
Their lord father regarded Jon thoughtfully. Robb rushed into the silence he left. “I will nurse him myself, Father,” he promised. “I will soak a towel with warm milk, and give him suck from that.”
Me too!” Bran echoed
The lord weighed his sons long and carefully with his eyes. “Easy to say, and harder to do. I will not have you wasting the servants’ time with this. If you want these pups, you will feed them yourselves. Is that understood?”
Bran nodded eagerly. The pup squirmed in his grasp, licked at his face with a warm tongue.
[…]
It was not until they were mounted and on their way that Bran allowed himself to taste the sweet air of victory. By then, his pup was snuggled inside his leathers, warm against him, safe for the long ride home. Bran was wondering what to name him.
– A Game of Thrones – Bran I
Note the indecision Bran has in naming the pup in both his first and second chapters. I am not sure if this will end up being a character flaw, or was just a device the author used to place significance on the name Summer for some yet to be revealed reason. Either way, we’ll monitor Bran for future indecision.
A Game of Thrones – Bran II
In the next chapter we get a hint of an independent streak in Summer’s lack of interest in chasing sticks. This is an example of personality mirroring because Bran is independent himself, as evidenced by his own disobedience in choosing to climb even after it was forbidden.
But it was no good. He had gone to the stable first, and seen his pony there in its stall, except it wasn’t his pony anymore, he was getting a real horse and leaving the pony behind, and all of a sudden Bran just wanted to sit down and cry. He turned and ran off before Hodor and the other stableboys could see the tears in his eyes. That was the end of his farewells. Instead Bran spent the morning alone in the godswood, trying to teach his wolf to fetch a stick, and failing. The wolfling was smarter than any of the hounds in his father’s kennel and Bran would have sworn he understood every word that was said to him, but he showed very little interest in chasing sticks.
He was still trying to decide on a name. Robb was calling his Grey Wind, because he ran so fast. Sansa had named hers Lady, and Arya named hers after some old witch queen in the songs, and little Rickon called his Shaggydog, which Bran thought was a pretty stupid name for a direwolf. Jon’s wolf, the white one, was Ghost. Bran wished he had thought of that first, even though his wolf wasn’t white. He had tried a hundred names in the last fortnight, but none of them sounded right.
– A Game of Thrones – Bran II
A Game of Thrones – Tyrion I
After Bran’s fall we first hear of Summer from Tyrion. Summer has been howling a lot. We learn here that there must be something about his bond to Summer that is helping to save Bran’s life, specifically in the anecdote that Bran weakened when he could no longer hear the wolf. We also see Cersei’s possible recognition of the magic of the wolves, coupled with her complete antipathy toward the wolf, foreshadowing her unjust death sentence for Lady.
“The gods alone know,” Tyrion told her. “The maester only hopes.” He chewed some more bread. “I would swear that wolf of his is keeping the boy alive. The creature is outside his window day and night, howling. Every time they chase it away, it returns. The maester said they closed the window once, to shut out the noise, and Bran seemed to weaken. When they opened it again, his heart beat stronger.”
The queen shuddered. “There is something unnatural about those animals,” she said. “They are dangerous. I will not have any of them coming south with us.”
– A Game of Thrones – Tyrion I
A Game of Thrones – Catelyn III
During Bran’s coma, Summer becomes a hero in saving both Cat and Bran from the catspaw. First, though, he’s heard in the yard howling with Grey Wind and Shaggy, pack behavior. Summer is worrying for Bran, and the other 2 are howling in solidarity. This seemed to happen a lot as there was also evidence of it in a Tyrion’s chapter. One can guess that Summer wished to be in the room with Bran, that this separation was troubling him greatly. Perhaps he also felt some of the pain Bran might have been in during the coma.
Outside the tower, a wolf began to howl. Catelyn trembled, just for a second.
“Bran’s.” Robb opened the window and let the night air into the stuffy tower room. The howling grew louder. It was a cold and lonely sound, full of melancholy and despair.
“Don’t,” she told him. “Bran needs to stay warm.”
“He needs to hear them sing,” Robb said. Somewhere out in Winterfell, a second wolf began to howl in chorus with the first. Then a third, closer. “Shaggydog and Grey Wind,” Robb said as their voices rose and fell together. “You can tell them apart if you listen close.”
During the catspaw’s fire, Summer is not drawn away. Mayhaps he smelled or heard the catspaw and tracked him to Bran’s room or he was just taking his chance to sneak up to Bran’s room. A fun, tinfoily explanation is that Summer heard what was going on though Bran’s ears and rushed up for the save. Unfortunately, there is zero evidence for this. The result is the same. Bran and Catelyn are saved, and it is undoubtedly Summer’s bond to Bran that enables it. This is also the readers’ first indication of the deadly ferocity of these wolves, a stark example of their protective nature and ample reason for fear for those who would do them harm.
Catelyn saw the shadow slip through the open door behind him. There was a low rumble, less than a snarl, the merest whisper of a threat, but he must have heard something, because he started to turn just as the wolf made its leap. They went down together, half sprawled over Catelyn where she’d fallen. The wolf had him under the jaw. The man’s shriek lasted less than a second before the beast wrenched back its head, taking out half his throat.
His blood felt like warm rain as it sprayed across her face.
The wolf was looking at her. Its jaws were red and wet and its eyes glowed golden in the dark room. It was Bran’s wolf, she realized. Of course it was. “Thank you,” Catelyn whispered, her voice faint and tiny. She lifted her hand, trembling. The wolf padded closer, sniffed at her fingers, then licked at the blood with a wet rough tongue. When it had cleaned all the blood off her hand, it turned away silently and jumped up on Bran’s bed and lay down beside him. Catelyn began to laugh hysterically.
– A Game of Thrones – Catelyn III
In the aftermath of the attack, we see affection and shadowing. Summer did start this section protesting his separation from Bran, so all 5 of our themes are in evidence in just a small section of this chapter.
A Game of Thrones – Bran III
We won’t go into detail about Bran’s dreams during the coma, save to note that the coma seems to have triggered an awakening of Bran’s magical powers. This probably plays a role in the warg bond developing sooner in him than in the other Stark POVs (we can be less sure of what happens for Robb and Rickon). At the end of the dream, at Bran’s awakening, Summer is again at Bran’s side and being affectionate.
And then there was movement beside the bed, and something landed lightly on his legs. He felt nothing. A pair of yellow eyes looked into his own, shining like the sun. The window was open and it was cold in the room, but the warmth that came off the wolf enfolded him like a hot bath. His pup, Bran realized … or was it? He was so big now. He reached out to pet him, his hand trembling like a leaf.
When his brother Robb burst into the room, breathless from his dash up the tower steps, the direwolf was licking Bran’s face. Bran looked up calmly. “His name is Summer,” he said.
– A Game of Thrones – Bran III
So, Bran finally settled on the name Summer, an homage to Old Nan, and possibly foreshadowing by our author about the end of our story.
A Game of Thrones – Bran IV
Speaking of Old Nan, in the next chapter, Bran’s impatience with her, certainly a beloved figure, belies Bran’s growing discontent over his immobility. He wants to be out there with Summer and the pack running and playing, but all he can do is watch from a window. Summer is a bit outcast from the other 2 as well, trailing and observing, mirroring Bran’s separation. Finally. we get Bran’s opinion on Summer’s attentiveness and intelligence, possible mirroring, as well.
Bran watched from his window seat. Wherever the boy went, Grey Wind was there first, loping ahead to cut him off, until Rickon saw him, screamed in delight, and went pelting off in another direction. Shaggydog ran at his heels, spinning and snapping if the other wolves came too close. His fur had darkened until he was all black, and his eyes were green fire. Bran’s Summer came last. He was silver and smoke, with eyes of yellow gold that saw all there was to see. Smaller than Grey Wind, and more wary. Bran thought he was the smartest of the litter. He could hear his brother’s breathless laughter as Rickon dashed across the hard-packed earth on little baby legs.
[…]
“I don’t care whose stories they are,” Bran told her, “I hate them.” He didn’t want stories and he didn’t want Old Nan. He wanted his mother and father. He wanted to go running with Summer loping beside him. He wanted to climb the broken tower and feed corn to the crows. He wanted to ride his pony again with his brothers. He wanted it to be the way it had been before.
Next, we have the attack on Tyrion. The wolves clearly act as a pack in a coordinated fashion. However, there is an oddity in this scene. Summer led the attack, not Grey Wind, even though Robb was the one showing aggressiveness to Tyrion, and Bran was seemingly happy about the saddle plans. If it were mirroring, shouldn’t Grey Wind be the main aggressor? Upon reflection, I believe it was a combination of protection and mirroring, that drove this attack. Under this interpretation, Summer being the leader makes perfect sense. First, Bran was more upset than he admits to himself at Tyrion’s repeatedly calling him a cripple. Second, the Lannisters threw Bran from the tower. Bran’s subconscious knows. Summer was there. Summer knows. Summer smelled Lannister. Tyrion has a Lannister scent. Theon hits it on the head in the second paragraph below.
The door to the yard flew open. Sunlight came streaming across the hall as Rickon burst in, breathless. The direwolves were with him. The boy stopped by the door, wide-eyed, but the wolves came on. Their eyes found Lannister, or perhaps they caught his scent. Summer began to growl first. Grey Wind picked it up. They padded toward the little man, one from the right and one from the left.
“The wolves do not like your smell, Lannister,” Theon Greyjoy commented.
“Perhaps it’s time I took my leave,” Tyrion said. He took a step backward … and Shaggydog came out of the shadows behind him, snarling. Lannister recoiled, and Summer lunged at him from the other side. He reeled away, unsteady on his feet, and Grey Wind snapped at his arm, teeth ripping at his sleeve and tearing loose a scrap of cloth.
“No!” Bran shouted from the high seat as Lannister’s men reached for their steel. “Summer, here. Summer, to me!”
The direwolf heard the voice, glanced at Bran, and again at Lannister. He crept backward, away from the little man, and settled down below Bran’s dangling feet.
Fortunately, the wolves all broke off the attack when called (Summer less obedient than Grey Wind). Under my theory, Summer must have sensed Lannister in the hall with the boys and decided it was danger, given the history. He would have riled up Shaggy and Grey Wind at the door to the hall until Rickon decided to let them in. Robb is already upset so Grey Wind is mirroring him, same for Shaggy because Rickon’s always upset as we learn elsewhere in the story.
As if to reinforce this potential cause of Summer’s actions, Bran has a dream later this chapter about Jaime’s attack on him. In this light Summer was mirroring Bran’s subconscious feelings about Lannisters. In the dream Bran denies seeing what he saw between Cersei and Jaime, but it was no good. He subconsciously knows that he was in danger from the Lannisters. This dream is all about Bran and his realization that his subconscious and his bond to Summer may have caused the attack on Tyrion.
In his dream he was climbing again, pulling himself up an ancient windowless tower, his fingers forcing themselves between blackened stones, his feet scrabbling for purchase. Higher and higher he climbed, through the clouds and into the night sky, and still the tower rose before him. When he paused to look down, his head swam dizzily and he felt his fingers slipping. Bran cried out and clung for dear life. The earth was a thousand miles beneath him and he could not fly. He could not fly. He waited until his heart had stopped pounding, until he could breathe, and he began to climb again. There was no way to go but up. Far above him, outlined against a vast pale moon, he thought he could see the shapes of gargoyles. His arms were sore and aching, but he dared not rest. He forced himself to climb faster. The gargoyles watched him ascend. Their eyes glowed red as hot coals in a brazier. Perhaps once they had been lions, but now they were twisted and grotesque. Bran could hear them whispering to each other in soft stone voices terrible to hear. He must not listen, he told himself, he must not hear, so long as he did not hear them he was safe. But when the gargoyles pulled themselves loose from the stone and padded down the side of the tower to where Bran clung, he knew he was not safe after all. “I didn’t hear,” he wept as they came closer and closer, “I didn’t, I didn’t.”
It’s apparent to me from this dream that Bran has a subconscious mistrust (fear) of the Lannisters, which he shares with Summer through the bond. Together with Summer’s protective instinct and Bran’s anger at repeatedly being called a cripple, this leads to the near-attack on Tyrion.
This denial seems to be a foreshadowing of Bran’s denial that his anger caused Summer to attack Meera and Jojen (in a mirroring fashion) in ACoK. Just as Bran now denies knowledge of the Lannisters throwing him from the window, he later denies that he caused the attack on the Reed’s, when Summer mirrors his mood about Jojen’s accusations.
Later, there are more mentions of Summer in this chapter, all examples of how he is Bran’s constant and affectionate companion.
Summer followed them up the tower steps […]
[…]
“Summer,” he called. The wolf bounded up on the bed. Bran hugged him so hard he could feel the hot breath on his cheek. “I can ride now,” he whispered to his friend. “We can go hunting in the woods soon, wait and see.” After a time he slept.
[…]
Summer snatched table scraps from Bran’s hand, […]
[…]
Robb carried Bran up to bed himself. Grey Wind led the way, and Summer came close behind.
– A Game of Thrones – Bran IV
A Game of Thrones – Bran V
At the next mention of Summer, he’s again shadowing Bran when they all go off riding. When the direwolves go off to hunt alone, we are shown how separation during a hunt is a time of vulnerability for the boys because, for all of the bond, these wolves are wild animals.
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.
[…]
“I don’t want to race.” Bran looked around for the direwolves. Both had vanished into the wood. “Did you hear Summer howling last night?”
“Grey Wind was restless too,” Robb said. His auburn hair had grown shaggy and unkempt, and a reddish stubble covered his jaw, making him look older than his fifteen years. “Sometimes I think they know things … sense things …” Robb sighed. “I never know how much to tell you, Bran. I wish you were older.”
It’s interesting that the boys discuss how the direwolves can sense things, yet they don’t sense the threat of the wildlings. Recall how Bran earlier thought that Summer was the smartest of the pack, but somehow, he doesn’t recognize this relatively close threat. Is this a plot hole, or is GRRM insinuating that the wolves are not as reliable as we might hope?
Also, note how Bran can recognize the howl of his own wolf, mentioned in the prior passage and the one that follows. Robb had noticed the same in Cat’s chapter earlier. Is this simply their recognition of the wolves’ voices or is it another indication of the supernatural connection of their bond?
They were on the far side when they heard the howl, a long rising wail that moved through the trees like a cold wind. Bran raised his head to listen. “Summer,” he said. No sooner had he spoken than a second voice joined the first.
“They’ve made a kill,” Robb said […].
As the attack begins note how Summer is careful, first checking the wind to assess the threat. Later, he is careful not to be injured by Hali. Is this an example of his mirroring Bran’s own carefulness, honed through years of climbing? It may also be partial warging, with Bran using his eyes to see the danger and Summer sensing it through Bran.
Robb whistled. They heard the faint sound of soft feet on wet leaves. The undergrowth parted, low-hanging branches giving up their accumulation of snow, and Grey Wind and Summer emerged from the green. Summer sniffed the air and growled.
“Wolves,” gasped Hali.
[…]
A few feet away, Summer darted in and snapped at Hali. The knife bit at his flank. Summer slid away, snarling, and came rushing in again. This time his jaws closed around her calf. Holding the knife with both hands, the small woman stabbed down, but the direwolf seemed to sense the blade coming. He pulled free for an instant, his mouth full of leather and cloth and bloody flesh. When Hali stumbled and fell, he came at her again, slamming her backward, teeth tearing at her belly.
Take note of the next line “In that moment Bran saw everything.” It’s a very eerie line. I must wonder, in this traumatic experience, is this an indication that he is partially warging Summer? Could he be seeing everything because he’s seeing through 2 sets of eyes?
In that moment Bran saw everything. Summer was savaging Hali, pulling glistening blue snakes from her belly. Her eyes were wide and staring. Bran could not tell whether she was alive or dead. The grey stubbly man and the one with the axe lay unmoving, but Osha was on her knees, crawling toward her fallen spear. Grey Wind padded toward her, dripping wet. “Call him off!” the big man shouted. “Call them both off, or the cripple boy dies now!”
“Grey Wind, Summer, to me,” Robb said.
The direwolves stopped, turned their heads. Grey Wind loped back to Robb. Summer stayed where he was, his eyes on Bran and the man beside him. He growled. His muzzle was wet and red, but his eyes burned.
Osha used the butt end of her spear to lever herself back to her feet. Blood leaked from a wound on the upper arm where Robb had cut her. Bran could see sweat trickling down the big man’s face. Stiv was as scared as he was, he realized. “Starks,” the man muttered, “bloody Starks.” He raised his voice. “Osha, kill the wolves and get his sword.”
When Stiv threatens Bran, Grey Wind immediately obeys Robb’s command to stand down, but Summer is having none of it. He is intent on Bran, and in mirroring Bran, he is more independent than his brother. He never considers taking his burning eyes off Bran. Take note also of Stiv’s words about Starks. My interpretation of this line is that he’s heard tales of Starks being wargs. They were probably just stories to him until now; his comment seems full of regret for coming near Winterfell.
In that passage and the one to follow, we also see the horror of the direwolves’ ferocity and lack of fear of men in how they savage the corpses; that part is truly sickening. The next mention of Summer is where he is feeding on Hali. This is the first time the wolves consider men to be meat in the series. Robb’s men, even Luwin, are horrified.
The guardsmen had a strange, pale look to their faces as they took in the scene of slaughter. They eyed the wolves uncertainly, and when Summer returned to Hali’s corpse to feed, Joseth dropped his knife and scrambled for the bush, heaving. Even Maester Luwin seemed shocked as he stepped from behind a tree, but only for an instant. Then he shook his head and waded across the stream to Bran’s side. “Are you hurt?”
– A Game of Thrones – Bran V
A Game of Thrones – Bran VI
The next chapter is mostly a montage of different times Summer is shadowing and protecting Bran. We also get good indications of how even allies are fearful around the wolves. Later, we see them being affectionate with each other again.
They were the last, he knew. The other lords were already here, with their hosts. Bran yearned to ride out among them, to see the winter houses full to bursting, the jostling crowds in the market square every morning, the streets rutted and torn by wheel and hoof. But Robb had forbidden him to leave the castle. “We have no men to spare to guard you,” his brother had explained.
“I’ll take Summer,” Bran argued.
[…]
As they passed beneath the gatehouse portcullis, Bran put two fingers into his mouth and whistled. Summer came loping across the yard. Suddenly the Karstark lancers were fighting for control, as their horses rolled their eyes and whickered in dismay. One stallion reared, screaming, his rider cursing and hanging on desperately. The scent of the direwolves sent horses into a frenzy of fear if they were not accustomed to it, but they’d quiet soon enough once Summer was gone. “The godswood,” Bran reminded Hodor.
[…]
He tried not to flinch as Hodor ducked through a low door. They walked down a long dim hallway, Summer padding easily beside them. The wolf glanced up from time to time, eyes smoldering like liquid gold. Bran would have liked to touch him, but he was riding too high for his hand to reach.
Later, we see them being affectionate with each other again. Clearly, their bond is deepening. The final line of the passage reminds us of the power Bran has and how it can deepen their bond. He is dreaming with the gods. Note how Bran is comfortable with the old gods; this is possible foreshadowing of his eventual connection to the weirwood net.
Summer lapped at the water and settled down at Bran’s side. He rubbed the wolf under the jaw, and for a moment boy and beast both felt at peace. Bran had always liked the godswood, even before, but of late he found himself drawn to it more and more. Even the heart tree no longer scared him the way it used to. The deep red eyes carved into the pale trunk still watched him, yet somehow he took comfort from that now. The gods were looking over him, he told himself; the old gods, gods of the Starks and the First Men and the children of the forest, his father’s gods. He felt safe in their sight, and the deep silence of the trees helped him think. Bran had been thinking a lot since his fall; thinking, and dreaming, and talking with the gods.
When Lady’s bones were returned all 3 wolves howled in mourning. She was pack; they must have identified her scent.
Bran felt all cold inside. “She lost her wolf,” he said, weakly, remembering the day when four of his father’s guardsmen had returned from the south with Lady’s bones. Summer and Grey Wind and Shaggydog had begun to howl before they crossed the drawbridge, in voices drawn and desolate. Beneath the shadow of the First Keep was an ancient lichyard, its headstones spotted with pale lichen, where the old Kings of Winter had laid their faithful servants. It was there they buried Lady, while her brothers stalked between the graves like restless shadows. She had gone south, and only her bones had returned.
The next exchange is interesting. The wind has been used before to signify the old gods trying to talk. While Bran may be comfortable with the old gods, Summer may not be. Or, it could be that Summer is growling at Osha. Either way, it makes me concerned that the power of the weirwoods may not be benevolent, given how the wolves seem to be better judges of danger than the children. Reminding us of the fear the wolves inspire, Osha is very uneasy (I wonder why, personal experience much?). The exchange ends with Summer obeying, then being affectionate with Bran.
A faint wind sighed through the godswood and the red leaves stirred and whispered. Summer bared his teeth. “You hear them, boy?” a voice asked.
Bran lifted his head. Osha stood across the pool, beneath an ancient oak, her face shadowed by leaves. Even in irons, the Wildling moved quiet as a cat. Summer circled the pool, sniffed at her. The tall woman flinched.
“Summer, to me,” Bran called. The direwolf took one final sniff, spun, and bounded back. Bran wrapped his arms around him. “What are you doing here?” He had not seen Osha since they’d taken her captive in the wolfswood, though he knew she’d been set to working in the kitchens.
– A Game of Thrones – Bran VI
Note that after the interaction with Osha, Maester Luwin started telling Bran that magical creatures (giants and children of the forest in this case) no longer existed. This would be the first of many times where Luwin filled Bran’s head with skepticism about magic only to be proven wrong. It is comforting to Bran, but he ultimately knows that the maester’s ideas don’t pass muster.
A Game of Thrones – Bran VII
The next chapter is mainly about Bran’s dream of Ned being in the crypts; Luwin doesn’t believe the dream to be meaningful and takes Bran there to prove it. Luwin, you know nothing. We see several examples of our themes with Summer and Bran, including shadowing, affection, savagery, and obedience.
“They don’t fight very well,” Bran said dubiously. He scratched Summer idly behind the ears as the direwolf tore at a haunch of meat. Bones crunched between his teeth.
[…]
“Summer, come,” Bran called as she lifted him in wiry-strong arms. The direwolf left his bone and followed as Osha carried Bran across the yard and down the spiral steps to the cold vault under the earth. Maester Luwin went ahead with a torch. Bran did not even mind—too badly—that she carried him in her arms and not on her back. Ser Rodrik had ordered Osha’s chain struck off, since she had served faithfully and well since she had been at Winterfell. She still wore the heavy iron shackles around her ankles—a sign that she was not yet wholly trusted—but they did not hinder her sure strides down the steps.
Notice how, in the next passage, Summer does not want to go into the crypts. I assume this to be related to instinct to fear the dead walking, the wights.
He wished they were here now; the vault might not have seemed so dark and scary. Summer stalked out in the echoing gloom, then stopped, lifted his head, and sniffed the chill dead air. He bared his teeth and crept backward, eyes glowing golden in the light of the maester’s torch. Even Osha, hard as old iron, seemed uncomfortable. “Grim folk, by the look of them,” she said as she eyed the long row of granite Starks on their stone thrones.
[…]
The vault was cavernous, longer than Winterfell itself, and Jon had told him once that there were other levels underneath, vaults even deeper and darker where the older kings were buried. It would not do to lose the light. Summer refused to move from the steps, even when Osha followed with the torch, Bran in her arms.
Summer is skittish about going into the crypts, but at the first sign of danger he leaps to Bran’s protection. Shaggydog turns out to be that danger, and this is the first of several times where Summer needs to keep his black brother in check, now that Grey Wind has left with Robb.
“Summer!” Bran screamed.
And Summer came, shooting from the dimness behind them, a leaping shadow. He slammed into Shaggydog and knocked him back, and the two direwolves rolled over and over in a tangle of grey and black fur, snapping and biting at each other, while Maester Luwin struggled to his knees, his arm torn and bloody. Osha propped Bran up against Lord Rickard’s stone wolf as she hurried to assist the maester. In the light of the guttering torch, shadow wolves twenty feet tall fought on the wall and roof.
“Shaggy,” a small voice called. When Bran looked up, his little brother was standing in the mouth of Father’s tomb. With one final snap at Summer’s face, Shaggydog broke off and bounded to Rickon’s side. “You let my father be,” Rickon warned Luwin. “You let him be.”
[…]
“You can wait with me,” Bran said. “We’ll wait together, you and me and our wolves.” Both of the direwolves were licking wounds now, and would bear close watching.
This rare moment of affection and indulgence of Rickon must mean the world to the boy. Bran’s empathy here shines. They both want to be with their wolves.
In the rookery later, do the wolves seem to sense the boys’ dread as the raven announcing Ned’s death arrives, even as Summer first senses the raven? It’s worth wondering if the direwolves experience some of the boys’ non-wolf dreams. Did they understand the context of the dream to mean that Ned had died before the raven arrived? One might assume their howling was only an indication that they were mirroring the boys’ dread, but there was no prior sign of an arrival of a raven. We might assume that Summer smelled, saw or heard it approaching, although without the context of the news it would bring, why howl? Did Bran subconsciously supply that context telepathically? Did his nascent connection to the weir woods tell Bran it was coming?
Summer began to howl.
Maester Luwin broke off, startled. When Shaggydog bounded to his feet and added his voice to his brother’s, dread clutched at Bran’s heart. “It’s coming,” he whispered, with the certainty of despair. He had known it since last night, he realized, since the crow had led him down into the crypts to say farewell. He had known it, but he had not believed. He had wanted Maester Luwin to be right. The crow, he thought, the three-eyed crow …
The howling stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Summer padded across the tower floor to Shaggydog, and began to lick at a mat of bloody fur on the back of his brother’s neck. From the window came a flutter of wings.
– A Game of Thrones – Bran VII
Maester Luwin was not right; Ned’s dead, baby, Ned’s dead. This final chapter was a real eye-opener about the contrast between a maester’s view and the power that Bran possesses. The dream Rickon and Bran had had about Ned being killed was informed by some supernatural means, telepathy or magic. My personal opinion is that it was not an example of a predictive dream, but merely information from far away, likely via the weirwood net.
It is undetermined whether all these dreams/visions (which many experience in the series, not just Bran) are actively pushed by some motivated actor (as with Bloodraven in Bran’s case) or whether some are passively leaking out of the weirwood net (as may be the case with Rickon).
As a final thought on Bran and Summer’s story in AGoT, their bond is shown to be special in how it seems stronger than his siblings and is also augmented by Bran’s nascent powers and their connection to the weirwoods. Bran’s power is clarified in this final chapter; he is definitely able to receive supernatural messages from dreams beyond his connection to Summer.
A Clash of Kings – Summer and The Winged Wolf – Chained
In this volume, while we continue our themes, we see how close Summer and Bran truly are through the introduction of wolf dreams. Later, Bran gets his first mentor in Jojen, and we get even more information about how Bran’s power fits into this bond. Finally, Bran is isolated in the crypts, and we see a step change in Bran’s ability to truly warg into Summer. By the end of this book we’ll see how the magic indeed is stronger in Bran, which makes their bond develop stronger and faster.
Maester Luwin’s anti magic bias is continued rather heavy-handedly in this volume as well. Coupled with the effect of Old Nan’s stories, Bran fears the obvious magical implications of his dreams. The effect is to limit his receptivity to the message of the 3iCrow, Jojen, and the tree dreams. Jojen calls him the winged wolf, but he is chained to Winterfell by this fear and reticence.
Our direwolf themes continue develop in this volume, as Bran’s powers develop. Protection and Savagery and pack behavior are exhibited by the two remaining wolves for sure, though first directed at the Reeds. Mirroring is especially heightened in this incident, too. Unfortunately, the theme of the Direwolves not being able to protect the boys when separated from them continues in this volume, too, partially resulting in all that is wrought by Theon and then Ramsey.
A Clash of Kings – Bran I
The first Bran chapter in ACoK is the first mention of a wolf dream in the story, although Old Nan tells Bran that he is not the first Stark to experience one. She also echoes the SSM from our introduction.
This chapter is almost non-stop direwolf interaction and wolf dream hints. Bran is stuck in his room a lot and finds interest in the behavior of the wolves, especially howling. This is an example of the call of the pack. He tries to get in the wolves heads, especially about why they’re howling at the comet, and he gets a lot of conflicting feedback from people around Winterfell. One ironic comment is from Roderick Cassel, who asks “who can know the mind of a wolf?” Oh, Ser Roderick, the answer was staring into your face!
He could not walk, nor climb nor hunt nor fight with a wooden sword as once he had, but he could still look. He liked to watch the windows begin to glow all over Winterfell as candles and hearth fires were lit behind the diamond-shaped panes of tower and hall, and he loved to listen to the direwolves sing to the stars.
Of late, he often dreamed of wolves. They are talking to me, brother to brother, he told himself when the direwolves howled. He could almost understand them . . . not quite, not truly, but almost . . . as if they were singing in a language he had once known and somehow forgotten. The Walders might be scared of them, but the Starks had wolf blood. Old Nan told him so. “Though it is stronger in some than in others,” she warned.
Summer’s howls were long and sad, full of grief and longing. Shaggydog’s were more savage. Their voices echoed through the yards and halls until the castle rang and it seemed as though some great pack of direwolves haunted Winterfell, instead of only two . . . two where there had once been six. Do they miss their brothers and sisters too? Bran wondered. Are they calling to Grey Wind and Ghost, to Nymeria and Lady’s Shade? Do they want them to come home and be a pack together?
It’s interesting how each person give a little hint about the nature of the wolf bond. Rodrik, the mind mingling, Farlen their independence, Gage the hunt, and Luwin pack behavior, and Osha, their sense of danger.
“Who can know the mind of a wolf?” Ser Rodrik Cassel said when Bran asked him why they howled. Bran’s lady mother had named him castellan of Winterfell in her absence, and his duties left him little time for idle questions.
“It’s freedom they’re calling for,” declared Farlen, who was kennelmaster and had no more love for the direwolves than his hounds did. “They don’t like being walled up, and who’s to blame them? Wild things belong in the wild, not in a castle.”
“They want to hunt,” agreed Gage the cook as he tossed cubes of suet in a great kettle of stew. “A wolf smells better’n any man. Like as not, they’ve caught the scent o’ prey.”
Maester Luwin did not think so. “Wolves often howl at the moon. These are howling at the comet. See how bright it is, Bran? Perchance they think it is the moon.”
When Bran repeated that to Osha, she laughed aloud. “Your wolves have more wit than your maester,” the wildling woman said. “They know truths the grey man has forgotten.” The way she said it made him shiver, and when he asked what the comet meant, she answered, “Blood and fire, boy, and nothing sweet.
The howling continues, making us all wonder what it’s like in the mind of a wolf. Bran, remembering his wolf dream and determined to find out, starts howling himself. It’s a bit of humor at the beginning of this part of the saga, although it’s clear that this pack behavior is recognized by the wolves and represents a deepening of the bond. Ominously, though, this is the first time that both wolves have been confined away from the boys since Bran awoke. Did nobody tell Ser Roderick of the protection that Summer has provided their Lord? Is his memory so short?
And still the direwolves howled. The guards on the walls muttered curses, hounds in the kennels barked furiously, horses kicked at their stalls, the Walders shivered by their fire, and even Maester Luwin complained of sleepless nights. Only Bran did not mind. Ser Rodrik had confined the wolves to the godswood after Shaggydog bit Little Walder, but the stones of Winterfell played queer tricks with sound, and sometimes it sounded as if they were in the yard right below Bran’s window. Other times he would have sworn they were up on the curtain walls, loping round like sentries. He wished that he could see them.
[…]
Summer had howled the day Bran had fallen, and for long after as he lay broken in his bed; Robb had told him so before he went away to war. Summer had mourned for him, and Shaggydog and Grey Wind had joined in his grief. And the night the bloody raven had brought word of their father’s death, the wolves had known that too. Bran had been in the maester’s turret with Rickon talking of the children of the forest when Summer and Shaggydog had drowned out Luwin with their howls.
Who are they mourning now? Had some enemy slain the King in the North, who used to be his brother Robb? Had his bastard brother Jon Snow fallen from the Wall? Had his mother died, or one of his sisters? Or was this something else, as maester and septon and Old Nan seemed to think?
If I were truly a direwolf, I would understand the song, he thought wistfully. In his wolf dreams, he could race up the sides of mountains, jagged icy mountains taller than any tower, and stand at the summit beneath the full moon with all the world below him, the way it used to be.
“Oooo,” Bran cried tentatively. He cupped his hands around his mouth and lifted his head to the comet. “Ooooooooooooooooooo, ahooooooooooooooo,” he howled. It sounded stupid, high and hollow and quavering, a little boy’s howl, not a wolf’s. Yet Summer gave answer, his deep voice drowning out Bran’s thin one, and Shaggydog made it a chorus. Bran haroooed again. They howled together, last of their pack.
The noise brought a guard to his door, Hayhead with the wen on his nose. He peered in, saw Bran howling out the window, and said, “What’s this, my prince?”
It made Bran feel queer when they called him prince, though he was Robb’s heir, and Robb was King in the North now. He turned his head to howl at the guard. “Oooooooo. Oo-oo-oooooooooooo.”
Hayhead screwed up his face. “Now you stop that there.”
“Ooo-ooo-oooooo. Ooo-ooo-ooooooooooooooooo.”
Certainly, Maester Luwin knows better than confine the wolves away from the boys, but he can’t admit it to himself due to his learned prejudices against magic. That skepticism is in full force as we move forward here.
Bran is dropping hints left and right about wolf dreams and tree dreams. It’s clear that he’s being bombarded with information in these dreams and is trying to make sense of it. He doesn’t even seem to realize that he is “dreaming” inside Summer’s mind. He desperately misses the wolf, given the forced separation. I wonder if this separation fostered a quicker development of the wolf dreams that might have otherwise happened. Thinking back to part 3, the same didn’t happen immediately with Arya And Nymeria, although their connection seemed to be reignited when in closer proximity while still being separated in the Riverlands.
“All men must sleep, Bran. Even princes.”
“When I sleep I turn into a wolf.” Bran turned his face away and looked back out into the night. “Do wolves dream?”
“All creatures dream, I think, yet not as men do.”
“Do dead men dream?” Bran asked, thinking of his father. In the dark crypts below Winterfell, a stonemason was chiseling out his father’s likeness in granite.
“Some say yes, some no,” the maester answered. “The dead themselves are silent on the matter.”
“Do trees dream?“
“Trees? No . . .”
“They do,” Bran said with sudden certainty. “They dream tree dreams. I dream of a tree sometimes. A weirwood, like the one in the godswood. It calls to me. The wolf dreams are better. I smell things, and sometimes I can taste the blood.”
Notice that last line, he can taste the blood. Though Luwin chooses to deny its import, that is probably our first direct hint at sharing senses through the bond in this story, even if my analysis suggests earlier hidden references.
Bran goes on to protest the separation from Summer. He know the wolf’s worth as a protector, and he also needs the affection, one theme that is lacking here and so often in this volume due to the separation.
“Home. It’s their fault you won’t let me have Summer.”
“The Frey boy did not ask to be attacked,” the maester said, “no more than I did.”
“That was Shaggydog.” Rickon’s big black wolf was so wild he even frightened Bran at times. “Summer never bit anyone.”
“Summer ripped out a man’s throat in this very chamber, or have you forgotten? The truth is, those sweet pups you and your brothers found in the snow have grown into dangerous beasts. The Frey boys are wise to be wary of them.”
Luwin, it seems that YOU have forgotten that when Summer tore that man’s throat out it was saving Bran and Catelyn’s life. Bran even argues that Summer would protect him, but Luwin is so sure that everyone else needs protection from the wolves that he is unable to remember! Bran goes on:
“Summer would save me,” Bran insisted stubbornly. “Princes should be allowed to sail the sea and hunt boar in the wolfswood and joust with lances.”
“Bran, child, why do you torment yourself so? One day you may do some of these things, but now you are only a boy of eight.”
“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.”
Luwin raised his voice. “A true prince would welcome—”
“AAHOOOOOOO,” Bran howled, louder. “OOOO-OOOO-OOOO.”
– A Clash of Kings – Bran I
The key takeway here is that spending nights as a direwolf is definitely rubbing off on Bran, sort of a reverse mirroring. It’s cute, but it bears remembering that Bran is impressionable to Summer’s wolfishness.
As an aside, all the howling in that chapter reminds me of the Ozzy Osbourne song “Bark at the Moon”. I’ve made a recording of that song, and I will be re-posting it soon on this channel as a Direwolf cover!
A Clash of Kings – Bran II
The theme of the wolves being protectors is at the forefront in the following chapter, coupled with further discussion of wolf dreams. We also see affection, as the boys do get a chance to play with the wolves in the godswood, though they remain confined at night. Chekhov’s confinement. We also are reminded of the wolves’ savagery, their sense of threats, and pack behavior; so basically all our themes are in evidence in a short passages that follow.
“Let him. I always wanted a wolfskin cloak.”
“Summer would tear your fat head off,” Bran said.
Little Walder banged a mailed fist against his breastplate. “Does your wolf have steel teeth, to bite through plate and mail?”
[…]
“As you will, my prince,” said Ser Rodrik. “You did well.” Bran flushed with pleasure. Being a lord was not so tedious as he had feared, and since Lady Hornwood had been so much briefer than Lord Manderly, he even had a few hours of daylight left to visit with Summer. He liked to spend time with his wolf every day, when Ser Rodrik and the maester allowed it.
No sooner had Hodor entered the godswood than Summer emerged from under an oak, almost as if he had known they were coming. Bran glimpsed a lean black shape watching from the undergrowth as well. “Shaggy,” he called. “Here, Shaggydog. To me.” But Rickon’s wolf vanished as swiftly as he’d appeared.
Note how Summer knew Bran was coming, did he know through the bond, through mirroring? That may be more likely than than the mundane explanation, that he smelled them coming. Next Summer evaluates Osha not to be a threat
And then Osha exploded up out of the pool with a great splash, so sudden that even Summer leapt back, snarling. Hodor jumped away, wailing “Hodor, Hodor” in dismay until Bran patted his shoulder to soothe his fears. “How can you swim in there?” he asked Osha. “Isn’t it cold?”
“As a babe I suckled on icicles, boy. I like the cold.” Osha swam to the rocks and rose dripping. She was naked, her skin bumpy with gooseprickles. Summer crept close and sniffed at her.
[…]
“He’d never dare hurt me. He’s scared of Summer, no matter what he says.”
“Then might be he’s not so stupid as he seems.” Osha was always wary around the direwolves. The day she was taken, Summer and Grey Wind between them had torn three wildlings to bloody pieces. “Or might be he is. And that tastes of trouble too.” She tied up her hair. “You have more of them wolf dreams?”
“No.” He did not like to talk about the dreams.
“A prince should lie better than that.” Osha laughed. “Well, your dreams are your business. Mine’s in the kitchens, and I’d best be getting back before Gage starts to shouting and waving that big wooden spoon of his. By your leave, my prince.”
She should never have talked about the wolf dreams, Bran thought as Hodor carried him up the steps to his bedchamber. He fought against sleep as long as he could, but in the end it took him as it always did. On this night he dreamed of the weirwood. It was looking at him with its deep red eyes, calling to him with its twisted wooden mouth, and from its pale branches the three-eyed crow came flapping, pecking at his face and crying his name in a voice as sharp as swords.
– A Clash of Kings – Bran II
Notice at the end of that passage how Bran is now not happy about having the dreams. Could it be that he still likes the wolf dreams and it’s only the other dreams he’s not happy about? Could it be that he is realizing they are real and he is going into Summer? Could Summer’s mood about being confined be affecting Bran? Could he be worried about being a warg? I think the answer to all these questions is “YES.” That last idea may worry him most, though, save for the Lannister / falling dreams, because wargs don’t have a good reputation in many of the stories Old Nan has told him, especially the scary ones that Bran likes. Perhaps he feels he won’t become a warg if he resists the crow opening his third eye?
This is The Direwolves of Winterfell Episode 4.4, continuing A Clash of Kings, Summer and the Winged Wolf – Chained.
A Clash of Kings – Bran III
When we left Bran and Summer, both were upset at their constant separation, and Bran was also dismayed at his dreams, partially fueled by his reaction to Luwin’s anti magic bias. In this chapter, we are again reminded of the wolves’ confinement, and during Bran’s first meeting with the Reeds we are also reminded of Summer’s ability to keep Shaggydog in check.
Dancer was draped in bardings of snowy white wool emblazoned with the grey direwolf of House Stark, while Bran wore grey breeches and white doublet, his sleeves and collar trimmed with vair. Over his heart was his wolf’s-head brooch of silver and polished jet. He would sooner have had Summer than a silver wolf on his breast, but Ser Rodrik had been unyielding.
[…]
“They won’t bite if I’m there.” Bran was pleased that they wanted to see the wolves. “Summer won’t anyway, and he’ll keep Shaggydog away.” He was curious about these mudmen. He could not recall ever seeing one before. His father had sent letters to the Lord of Greywater over the years, but none of the crannogmen had ever called at Winterfell. He would have liked to talk to them more, but the Great Hall was so noisy that it was hard to hear anyone who wasn’t right beside you.
Finally, we get our first vivid depiction of a wolf dream, through Summer’s eyes when the Reeds visit the Godswood. Note how the author bridges the boy’s thoughts with the wolf’s thoughts using the sense of smell. Masterful. The first wolf thoughts are of pack and the instinct to hunt. Then, when the Reeds enter, he notes that they had no taint of fear, likely a scent-related observation. Note also Jojen’s observation about Summer/Bran’s power.
He went to sleep with his head full of knights in gleaming armor, fighting with swords that shone like starfire, but when the dream came he was in the godswood again. The smells from the kitchen and the Great Hall were so strong that it was almost as if he had never left the feast. He prowled beneath the trees, his brother close behind him. This night was wildly alive, full of the howling of the man-pack at their play. The sounds made him restless. He wanted to run, to hunt, he wanted to—
The rattle of iron made his ears prick up. His brother heard it too. They raced through the undergrowth toward the sound. Bounding across the still water at the foot of the old white one, he caught the scent of a stranger, the man-smell well mixed with leather and earth and iron.
The intruders had pushed a few yards into the wood when he came upon them; a female and a young male, with no taint of fear to them, even when he showed them the white of his teeth. His brother growled low in his throat, yet still they did not run.
“Here they come,” the female said. Meera, some part of him whispered, some wisp of the sleeping boy lost in the wolf dream. “Did you know they would be so big?”
“They will be bigger still before they are grown,” the young male said, watching them with eyes large, green, and unafraid. “The black one is full of fear and rage, but the grey is strong . . . stronger than he knows . . . can you feel him, sister?”
“No,” she said, moving a hand to the hilt of the long brown knife she wore. “Go careful, Jojen.”
“He won’t hurt me. This is not the day I die.” The male walked toward them, unafraid, and reached out for his muzzle, a touch as light as a summer breeze. Yet at the brush of those fingers the wood dissolved and the very ground turned to smoke beneath his feet and swirled away laughing, and then he was spinning and falling, falling, falling . . .
– A Clash of Kings – Bran III
Jojen admits later that he sensed Bran inside Summer. It seems he came almost with the purpose to help Bran come to terms with the truth of his burgeoning magical power, partially indicated by the dreams. Both Reeds, Jojen especially, seem quite aware of the way of wargs and are completely comfortable around the wolves, too comfortable as we find out later.
A Clash of Kings – Bran IV
That comfort continues without concern early in the next chapter as Meera plays with Summer. She even muses how mild-tempered Summer is, when Bran agrees that Summer wouldn’t hurt them. Summer certainly doesn’t consider them a threat, and Bran obviously likes both Jojen and Meera, so he’s mirroring Bran’s good humor, especially in the affection for Meera. It’s quite endearing. Still, summer is undoubtedly acting as a wolf, and the way he hunts her is reminiscent of the way he was very careful during the attack on the wildlings in AGoT. Later Bran and Summer have another touching affectionate moment as well.
Meera moved in a wary circle, her net dangling loose in her left hand, the slender three-pronged frog spear poised in her right. Summer followed her with his golden eyes, turning, his tail held stiff and tall. Watching, watching . . .
“Yai!” the girl shouted, the spear darting out. The wolf slid to the left and leapt before she could draw back the spear. Meera cast her net, the tangles unfolding in the air before her. Summer’s leap carried him into it. He dragged it with him as he slammed into her chest and knocked her over backward. Her spear went spinning away. The damp grass cushioned her fall but the breath went out of her in an “Oof.” The wolf crouched atop her.
Bran hooted. “You lose.”
“She wins,” her brother Jojen said. “Summer’s snared.”
He was right, Bran saw. Thrashing and growling at the net, trying to rip free, Summer was only ensnaring himself worse. Nor could he bite through. “Let him out.”
Laughing, the Reed girl threw her arms around the tangled wolf and rolled them both. Summer gave a piteous whine, his legs kicking against the cords that bound them. Meera knelt, undid a twist, pulled at a corner, tugged deftly here and there, and suddenly the direwolf was bounding free.
“Summer, to me.” Bran spread his arms. “Watch,” he said, an instant before the wolf bowled into him. He clung with all his strength as the wolf dragged him bumping through the grass. They wrestled and rolled and clung to each other, one snarling and yapping, the other laughing. In the end it was Bran sprawled on top, the mud-spattered direwolf under him. “Good wolf,” he panted. Summer licked him across the ear.
Meera shook her head. “Does he never grow angry?”
“Not with me.” Bran grabbed the wolf by his ears and Summer snapped at him fiercely, but it was all in play. “Sometimes he tears my garb but he’s never drawn blood.”
“Your blood, you mean. If he’d gotten past my net . . .”
“He wouldn’t hurt you. He knows I like you.” All of the other lords and knights had departed within a day or two of the harvest feast, but the Reeds had stayed to become Bran’s constant companions. Jojen was so solemn that Old Nan called him “little grandfather,” but Meera reminded Bran of his sister Arya. She wasn’t scared to get dirty, and she could run and fight and throw as good as a boy. She was older than Arya, though; almost sixteen, a woman grown. They were both older than Bran, even though his ninth name day had finally come and gone, but they never treated him like a child.
“I wish you were our wards instead of the Walders.” He began to struggle toward the nearest tree. His dragging and wriggling was unseemly to watch, but when Meera moved to lift him he said, “No, don’t help me.” He rolled clumsily and pushed and squirmed backward, using the strength of his arms, until he was sitting with his back to the trunk of a tall ash. “See, I told you.” Summer lay down with his head in Bran’s lap. “I never knew anyone who fought with a net before,” he told Meera while he scratched the direwolf between the ears. “Did your master-at-arms teach you net-fighting?”
Bran, bruh, don’t get all elitist when you give compliments, down to earth, bruh.
Summer’s affection for Bran and Meera doesn’t appear to extend to Jojen. When he joins the exchange he quickly changes topics to the supernatural, implying that Bran is “the winged wolf” of his dream. The assertion that the wolf is held by “grey stone chains” seems a rather heavy-handed implication that maester Luwin and Winterfell itself are holding Bran back from achieving his magical potential. I do wonder if there is a larger prophecy around this figure of the winged wolf, or if it is first introduced into Westerosi lore by Jojen.
In any case, Summer mirrors Bran, by first acting intrigued by the conversation and then acting defensive when Bran wants to change the subject to things he’s more comfortable with.
Jojen’s eyes were the color of moss, and sometimes when he looked at you he seemed to be seeing something else. Like now. “I dreamed of a winged wolf bound to earth with grey stone chains,” he said. “It was a green dream, so I knew it was true. A crow was trying to peck through the chains, but the stone was too hard and his beak could only chip at them.”
“Did the crow have three eyes?”
Jojen nodded.
Summer raised his head from Bran’s lap, and gazed at the mudman with his dark golden eyes.
“When I was little I almost died of greywater fever. That was when the crow came to me.”
[…]
“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.”
Summer got to his feet. “I don’t need to see so far.” Bran made a nervous smile. “I’m tired of talking about crows. Let’s talk about wolves. Or lizard-lions. Have you ever hunted one, Meera? We don’t have them here.”
At this point, the chapter takes a dangerous turn, when Jojen’s intrusive “dream” questions make Bran more uncomfortable and then angry. Summer continues to mirror Bran’s mood. As the situation escalates, it shows the lie to Bran’s earlier assertion that Summer wouldn’t hurt them. He would if Bran’s mood led there, just as it nearly did with Tyrion before, and then with Stiv after that. Also, we see Summer’s independence again as he does not obey immediately when Bran calls him off. Bran says that he wants Summer to stop threatening the Reeds, but Summer independently follows his mood, not his command. We also see pack behavior as Shaggydog joins Summer in threatening the Reeds. Bran’s assertion that they won’t hurt Hodor is dubious, given how he had only just insisted that Summer wouldn’t hurt Meera either. At the end of it all, Summer lays next to Bran. This could be interpreted as affection or a protectiveness.
There is a lot exposed about the magic of the bond and telepathic communication in general in this passage, so I present it to you fully intact. Pay close attention to how Bran is consciously realizing (possibly for the first time) through Jojen’s dialogue, the truth of how his mind is connected to Summer. His anger comes, and shows itself in Summer, as Jojen forces him to admit this fact, even as Bran is in denial.
“No,” said Bran. “I told you, I don’t want—”
“Did you dream of a wolf?”
He was making Bran angry. “I don’t have to tell you my dreams. I’m the prince. I’m the Stark in Winterfell.”
“Was it Summer?”
“You be quiet.”
“The night of the harvest feast, you dreamed you were Summer in the godswood, didn’t you?”
“Stop it!” Bran shouted. Summer slid toward the weirwood, his white teeth bared.
Jojen Reed took no mind. “When I touched Summer, I felt you in him. Just as you are in him now.”
“You couldn’t have. I was in bed. I was sleeping.”
“You were in the godswood, all in grey.”
“It was only a bad dream . . .”
Jojen stood. “I felt you. I felt you fall. Is that what scares you, the falling?”
The falling, Bran thought, and the golden man, the queen’s brother, he scares me too, but mostly the falling. He did not say it, though. How could he? He had not been able to tell Ser Rodrik or Maester Luwin, and he could not tell the Reeds either. If he didn’t talk about it, maybe he would forget. He had never wanted to remember. It might not even be a true remembering.
“Do you fall every night, Bran?” Jojen asked quietly.
A low rumbling growl rose from Summer’s throat, and there was no play in it. He stalked forward, all teeth and hot eyes. Meera stepped between the wolf and her brother, spear in hand. “Keep him back, Bran.”
“Jojen is making him angry.”
Meera shook out her net.
“It’s your anger, Bran,” her brother said. “Your fear.”
It isn’t. I’m not a wolf.” Yet he’d howled with them in the night, and tasted blood in his wolf dreams.
“Part of you is Summer, and part of Summer is you. You know that, Bran.”
Summer rushed forward, but Meera blocked him, jabbing with the three-pronged spear. The wolf twisted aside, circling, stalking. Meera turned to face him. “Call him back, Bran.”
“Summer!” Bran shouted. “To me, Summer!” He slapped an open palm down on the meat of his thigh. His hand tingled, though his dead leg felt nothing.
The direwolf lunged again, and again Meera’s spear darted out. Summer dodged, circled back. The bushes rustled, and a lean black shape came padding from behind the weirwood, teeth bared. The scent was strong; his brother had smelled his rage. Bran felt hairs rise on the back of his neck. Meera stood beside her brother, with wolves to either side. “Bran, call them off.”
“I can’t!”
“Jojen, up the tree.”
“There’s no need. Today is not the day I die.”
“Do it!” she screamed, and her brother scrambled up the trunk of the weirwood, using the face for his handholds. The direwolves closed. Meera abandoned spear and net, jumped up, and grabbed the branch above her head. Shaggy’s jaws snapped shut beneath her ankle as she swung up and over the limb. Summer sat back on his haunches and howled, while Shaggydog worried the net, shaking it in his teeth.
Only then did Bran remember that they were not alone. He cupped hands around his mouth. “Hodor!” he shouted. “Hodor! Hodor!” He was badly frightened and somehow ashamed. “They won’t hurt Hodor,” he assured his treed friends.
A few moments passed before they heard a tuneless humming. Hodor arrived half-dressed and mud-spattered from his visit to the hot pools, but Bran had never been so glad to see him. “Hodor, help me. Chase off the wolves. Chase them off.”
Hodor went to it gleefully, waving his arms and stamping his huge feet, shouting “Hodor, Hodor,” running first at one wolf and then the other. Shaggydog was the first to flee, slinking back into the foliage with a final snarl. When Summer had enough, he came back to Bran and lay down beside him.
No sooner did Meera touch ground than she snatched up her spear and net again. Jojen never took his eyes off Summer. “We will talk again,” he promised Bran.
It was the wolves, it wasn’t me. He did not understand why they’d gotten so wild. Maybe Maester Luwin was right to lock them in the godswood. “Hodor,” he said, “bring me to Maester Luwin.”
Summer mirrors Bran’s mood throughout that passage; that’s plain, but take careful note of how Bran refers to Shaggydog as “his brother,” and then the hairs on the back of BRAN’S neck rise. This is clearly Bran mirroring Summer, sharing Summers senses. It’s worth considering how much Bran may have been directly feeding Summer’s actions through their bond. Bran never thinks of himself as a wolf, so it’s not full warging, but I think this passage represents their consciousnesses blending to some degree as Bran gets more and more agitated.
Later, Bran is still in denial, but that won’t last long. He is placing his faith in Maester’s Luwin’s increasingly blind assertions that magic doesn’t exist or is gone from the world. Meera sees through the façade.
“No, my prince. Jojen Reed may have had a dream or two that he believes came true, but he does not have the greensight. No living man has that power.”
Bran said as much to Meera Reed when she came to him at dusk as he sat in his window seat watching the lights flicker to life. “I’m sorry for what happened with the wolves. Summer shouldn’t have tried to hurt Jojen, but Jojen shouldn’t have said all that about my dreams. The crow lied when he said I could fly, and your brother lied too.”
“Or perhaps your maester is wrong.”
– A Clash of Kings – Bran IV
Yes Meera, Luwin has been wrong all along, about a great many things.
This chapter bears summarizing. Jojen says that a part of Summer is in Bran and vice versa. This is the first time this concept is explained in the text, but it immediately rings true. He also repeatedly mentions the “winged wolf” and hangs the moniker on Bran. He also confirms that he’s also dreamed of the three-eyed crow (3icrow).
We also find out that Bran does partially remember Jaime Lannister pushing him; this golden man and the associated falling is partly why Bran is afraid of these real dreams. He must be having a recurring nightmare about this. However, I think the fears about being a warg discussed prior are also true because of Bran’s assertion that he’s not a wolf and that the wolves caused the incident, not him. Both assertions smack of denial.
A Clash of Kings – Bran V
He seems terrified of being labelled a warg, which relates back to Old Nan’s stories. This next chapter proves it. Jojen also repeats the mantra of the winged wolf and also hangs the monikers of “Warg” and “beastling” on Bran. He is not diplomatic at all; he seems intent on piercing Bran’s denial. It’s starting to work, but it makes Bran more fearful than ever.
Note also how Jojen describes the bond to Summer, that Bran’s “soul seeks out its other half.” Wow. That is as good a summary of the bond as I could imagine for this analysis. You know how old fiction says that vampires can’t be seen in mirrors because they lack a soul? Well this is another kind of mirroring, where the souls are a pair, irrevocably bonded.
He was scared, even then, but he had sworn to trust them, and a Stark of Winterfell keeps his sworn word. “There’s different kinds,” he said slowly. “There’s the wolf dreams, those aren’t so bad as the others. I run and hunt and kill squirrels. And there’s dreams where the crow comes and tells me to fly. Sometimes the tree is in those dreams too, calling my name. That frightens me. But the worst dreams are when I fall.” He looked down into the yard, feeling miserable. “I never used to fall before. When I climbed. I went everyplace, up on the roofs and along the walls, I used to feed the crows in the Burned Tower. Mother was afraid that I would fall but I knew I never would. Only I did, and now when I sleep, I fall all the time.”
Meera gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Is that all?”
“I guess.”
“Warg,” said Jojen Reed.
Bran looked at him, his eyes wide. “What?”
“Warg. Shapechanger. Beastling. That is what they will call you, if they should ever hear of your wolf dreams.”
The names made him afraid again. “Who will call me?”
“Your own folk. In fear. Some will hate you if they know what you are. Some will even try to kill you.”
Old Nan told scary stories of beastlings and shapechangers sometimes. In the stories they were always evil. “I’m not like that,” Bran said. “I’m not. It’s only dreams.”
“The wolf dreams are no true dreams. You have your eye closed tight whenever you’re awake, but as you drift off it flutters open and your soul seeks out its other half. The power is strong in you.”
“I don’t want it. I want to be a knight.”
“A knight is what you want. A warg is what you are. You can’t change that, Bran, you can’t deny it or push it away. You are the winged wolf, but you will never fly.” Jojen got up and walked to the window. “Unless you open your eye.” He put two fingers together and poked Bran in the forehead, hard.
When he raised his hand to the spot, Bran felt only the smooth unbroken skin. There was no eye, not even a closed one. “How can I open it if it’s not there?”
– A Clash of Kings – Bran V
Seems Jojen has been trying to get him to open his eye all along, just like the 3iCrow. He tells Bran that they’re all going to call him a Warg. Jojen’s not exactly selling it here, but he’s right in his diagnosis of denial, and his later logic works as well, to call on Bran to reach his potential.
That’s it for this episode. Join us next time where we’ll start with the vivid wolf dream as Theon attacks the castle.
This is the direwolves of Winterfell, Episode 4.5, our continuation of Bran and Summer’s story in A Clash of Kings, “Summer and the Winged Wolf – Chained.”
A Clash of Kings – Bran VI
Next chapter, having been foreshadowed by another Jojen dream, the Chekhov’s confinement gun is fired. It starts with a vivid wolf dream. The wolves clearly sense the danger but are powerless to do anything. Their protective instinct is strong and they work as a pack to do all they can. Bran even pitches in the idea that they could climb the sentinel. It’s too bad that Bran’s ability is not yet developed, as he may have been able to wake himself to sound the alarm otherwise. At the end, with Summer having fallen from a tree, Bran can no longer deny the truth of his connection to Summer because he’s concerned for the wolf’s safety.
The sound was the faintest of clinks, a scraping of steel over stone. He lifted his head from his paws, listening, sniffing at the night.
The evening’s rain had woken a hundred sleeping smells and made them ripe and strong again. Grass and thorns, blackberries broken on the ground, mud, worms, rotting leaves, a rat creeping through the bush. He caught the shaggy black scent of his brother’s coat and the sharp coppery tang of blood from the squirrel he’d killed. Other squirrels moved through the branches above, smelling of wet fur and fear, their little claws scratching at the bark. The noise had sounded something like that.
And he heard it again, clink and scrape. It brought him to his feet. His ears pricked and his tail rose. He howled, a long deep shivery cry, a howl to wake the sleepers, but the piles of man-rock were dark and dead. A still wet night, a night to drive men into their holes. The rain had stopped, but the men still hid from the damp, huddled by the fires in their caves of piled stone.
His brother came sliding through the trees, moving almost as quiet as another brother he remembered dimly from long ago, the white one with the eyes of blood. This brother’s eyes were pools of shadow, but the fur on the back of his neck was bristling. He had heard the sounds as well, and known they meant danger.
This time the clink and scrape were followed by a slithering and the soft swift patter of skinfeet on stone. The wind brought the faintest whiff of a man-smell he did not know. Stranger. Danger. Death.
He ran toward the sound, his brother racing beside him. The stone dens rose before them, walls slick and wet. He bared his teeth, but the man-rock took no notice. A gate loomed up, a black iron snake coiled tight about bar and post. When he crashed against it, the gate shuddered and the snake clanked and slithered and held. Through the bars he could look down the long stone burrow that ran between the walls to the stony field beyond, but there was no way through. He could force his muzzle between the bars, but no more. Many a time his brother had tried to crack the black bones of the gate between his teeth, but they would not break. They had tried to dig under, but there were great flat stones beneath, half-covered by earth and blown leaves.
Snarling, he paced back and forth in front of the gate, then threw himself at it once more. It moved a little and slammed him back. Locked, something whispered. Chained. The voice he did not hear, the scent without a smell. The other ways were closed as well. Where doors opened in the walls of man-rock, the wood was thick and strong. There was no way out.
There is, the whisper came, and it seemed as if he could see the shadow of a great tree covered in needles, slanting up out of the black earth to ten times the height of a man. Yet when he looked about, it was not there. The other side of the godswood, the sentinel, hurry, hurry . . .
Through the gloom of night came a muffled shout, cut short.
Swiftly, swiftly, he whirled and bounded back into the trees, wet leaves rustling beneath his paws, branches whipping at him as he rushed past. He could hear his brother following close. They plunged under the heart tree and around the cold pool, through the blackberry bushes, under a tangle of oaks and ash and hawthorn scrub, to the far side of the wood . . . and there it was, the shadow he’d glimpsed without seeing, the slanting tree pointing at the rooftops. Sentinel, came the thought.
He remembered how it was to climb it then. The needles everywhere, scratching at his bare face and falling down the back of his neck, the sticky sap on his hands, the sharp piney smell of it. It was an easy tree for a boy to climb, leaning as it did, crooked, the branches so close together they almost made a ladder, slanting right up to the roof.
Growling, he sniffed around the base of the tree, lifted a leg and marked it with a stream of urine. A low branch brushed his face, and he snapped at it, twisting and pulling until the wood cracked and tore. His mouth was full of needles and the bitter taste of the sap. He shook his head and snarled.
His brother sat back on his haunches and lifted his voice in a ululating howl, his song black with mourning. The way was no way. They were not squirrels, nor the cubs of men, they could not wriggle up the trunks of trees, clinging with soft pink paws and clumsy feet. They were runners, hunters, prowlers.
Off across the night, beyond the stone that hemmed them close, the dogs woke and began to bark. One and then another and then all of them, a great clamor. They smelled it too; the scent of foes and fear.
A desperate fury filled him, hot as hunger. He sprang away from the wall, loped off beneath the trees, the shadows of branch and leaf dappling his grey fur . . . and then he turned and raced back in a rush. His feet flew, kicking up wet leaves and pine needles, and for a little time he was a hunter and an antlered stag was fleeing before him and he could see it, smell it, and he ran full out in pursuit. The smell of fear made his heart thunder and slaver ran from his jaws, and he reached the falling tree in stride and threw himself up the trunk, claws scrabbling at the bark for purchase. Upward he bounded, up, two bounds, three, hardly slowing, until he was among the lower limbs. Branches tangled his feet and whipped at his eyes, grey-green needles scattered as he shouldered through them, snapping. He had to slow. Something snagged at his foot and he wrenched it free, snarling. The trunk narrowed under him, the slope steeper, almost straight up, and wet. The bark tore like skin when he tried to claw at it. He was a third of the way up, halfway, more, the roof was almost within reach . . . and then he put down a foot and felt it slip off the curve of wet wood, and suddenly he was sliding, stumbling. He yowled in fear and fury, falling, falling, and twisted around while the ground rushed up to break him . . .
And then Bran was back abed in his lonely tower room, tangled in his blankets, his breath coming hard. “Summer,” he cried aloud. “Summer.” His shoulder seemed to ache, as if he had fallen on it, but he knew it was only the ghost of what the wolf was feeling. Jojen told it true. I am a beastling. Outside he could hear the faint barking of dogs. The sea has come. It’s flowing over the walls, just as Jojen saw. Bran grabbed the bar overhead and pulled himself up, shouting for help. No one came, and after a moment he remembered that no one would. They had taken the guard off his door. Ser Rodrik had needed every man of fighting age he could lay his hands on, so Winterfell had been left with only a token garrison.
Bad things happen when the Stark children are separated from their wolves. 1121 words of vivid wolf dream lets us know that Summer definitely knew about the Ironborn invasion of Winterfell, and if he hadn’t been confined to the godswood away from Bran, he might have been able to sound the alarm in time. When Bran wakes from the dream he knows it; he knows that Jojen predicted the Ironborn attack too.
The waiting made Bran feel even more helpless than before. He sat in the window seat, staring out at dark towers and walls black as shadow. Once he thought he heard shouting beyond the Guards Hall, and something that might have been the clash of swords, but he did not have Summer’s ears to hear, nor his nose to smell. Awake, I am still broken, but when I sleep, when I’m Summer, I can run and fight and hear and smell.
[…]
One of the ironmen went before them carrying a torch, but the rain had started again and soon drowned it out. As they hurried across the yard they could hear the direwolves howling in the godswood. I hope Summer wasn’t hurt falling from the tree.
– A Clash of Kings – Bran VI
Bran is no longer in denial of being a warg. He’s also quite worried for the safety of his wolf.
A Clash of Kings – Theon IV
The mention of Summer is when Theon can’t hear and subsequently fears the wolves. On their hunt for the wolves and boys, Theon is thoroughly tricked as the humans doubled back and the wolves led them around the wolfswood. The theme of how the wolves inspire fear in Stark enemies continues here as well with Theon.
He stopped. He had grown so used to the howling of the direwolves that he scarcely heard it anymore . . . but some part of him, some hunter’s instinct, heard its absence.
Urzen stood outside his door, a sinewy man with a round shield slung over his back. “The wolves are quiet,” Theon told him. “Go see what they’re doing, and come straight back.” The thought of the direwolves running loose gave him a queasy feeling. He remembered the day in the wolfswood when the wildlings had attacked Bran. Summer and Grey Wind had torn them to pieces.
This next passage also shows the savagery. Theon seems to be describing exactly what happens to his own guards.
I am served by fools. “Try and imagine it was you up here, Urzen. It’s dark and cold. You have been walking sentry for hours, looking forward to the end of your watch. Then you hear a noise and move toward the gate, and suddenly you see eyes at the top of the stair, glowing green and gold in the torchlight. Two shadows come rushing toward you faster than you can believe. You catch a glimpse of teeth, start to level your spear, and they slam into you and open your belly, tearing through leather as if it were cheesecloth.” He gave Urzen a hard shove. “And now you’re down on your back, your guts are spilling out, and one of them has his teeth around your neck.” Theon grabbed the man’s scrawny throat, tightened his fingers, and smiled. “Tell me, at what moment during all of this do you stop to blow your fucking horn?” He shoved Urzen away roughly, sending him stumbling back against a merlon. The man rubbed his throat. I should have had those beasts put down the day we took the castle, he thought angrily. I’d seen them kill, I knew how dangerous they were.
Theon recognizes the mundane aspects to the direwolf bond, protection, shadowing and affection, but he fails to account for the supernatural. I also find it interesting how Gariss recognizes the protective instinct in the 2 wolves. Why were Rodrick and Luwin so blind!?!
He dismounted for a closer look. The kill was still fresh, and plainly the work of wolves. The dogs sniffed round it eagerly, and one of the mastiffs buried his teeth in a haunch until Farlen shouted him off. No part of this animal has been butchered, Theon realized. The wolves ate, but not the men. Even if Osha did not want to risk a fire, she ought to have cut them a few steaks. It made no sense to leave so much good meat to rot. “Farlen, are you certain we’re on the right trail?” he demanded. “Could your dogs be chasing the wrong wolves?”
“My bitch knows the smell of Summer and Shaggy well enough.”
[…]
“There’s been only the one trail, my lord, I swear it,” said Gariss defensively. “And the direwolves would never have parted from them boys. Not for long.”
That’s so, Theon thought. Summer and Shaggydog might have gone off to hunt, but soon or late they would return to Bran and Rickon. “Gariss, Murch, take four dogs and double back, find where we lost them. Aggar, you watch them, I’ll have no trickery. Farlen and I will follow the direwolves. Give a blast on the horn when you pick up the trail. Two blasts if you catch sight of the beasts themselves. Once we find where they went, they’ll lead us back to their masters.”
He took Wex, the Frey boy, and Gynir Rednose to search upstream. He and Wex rode on one side of the brook, Rednose and Walder Frey on the other, each with a pair of hounds. The wolves might have come out on either bank. Theon kept an eye out for tracks, spoor, broken branches, any hint as to where the direwolves might have left the water. He spied the prints of deer, elk, and badger easily enough. Wex surprised a vixen drinking at the stream, and Walder flushed three rabbits from the underbrush and managed to put an arrow in one. They saw the claw marks where a bear had shredded the bark of a tall birch. But of the direwolves there was no sign.
– A Clash of Kings – Theon IV
We know in hindsight that Bran, who has now embraced his power was warging Summer. That is why Theon was wrong in his assumptions about how long boy and wolf could remain separated.
At the end of this chapter the boys are thought to have been killed by Theon, so the story is silent for a while. With the power of hindsight, we know they were hiding in the crypts. Separating again from the wolves was a risk, but taking a page from Bael not many chapters away from when Jon learns of the rose of Winterfell is a nice touch by the author.
________________________
This is the direwolves of Winterfell Episode 4.6, Summer and the Winged Wolf – Chained, our conclusion of Bran and Summer’s story in A Clash of Kings. When we left off, the boys were hidden in the crypts, and thought to be dead, while Bran used warging magic to lead Summer about the wolfswood, eluding Theon’s hunting party.
A Clash of Kings – Catelyn VII
Before we get any more from Bran’s story, Cat mourns the boys, never to learn before her own passing that they had actually survived. She was certain that the boys would be safe under the wolves’ protection. Obviously, she didn’t know Luwin as well as she had thought. Because of her faith in the wolves as protectors, she assumes Theon killed the wolves to make the boys vulnerable. This makes her ill with concern for her girls, who have no wolves (as far as she knows). This is a big reason for her folly with releasing the kingslayer. It’s also ironic, because Theon, himself, laments not killing the wolves.
“Are they?” Catelyn said sharply. “What god would let this happen? Rickon was only a baby. How could he deserve such a death? And Bran . . . when I left the north, he had not opened his eyes since his fall. I had to go before he woke. Now I can never return to him, or hear him laugh again.” She showed Brienne her palms, her fingers. “These scars . . . they sent a man to cut Bran’s throat as he lay sleeping. He would have died then, and me with him, but Bran’s wolf tore out the man’s throat.” That gave her a moment’s pause. “I suppose Theon killed the wolves too. He must have, elsewise . . . I was certain the boys would be safe so long as the direwolves were with them. Like Robb with his Grey Wind. But my daughters have no wolves now.”
– A Clash of Kings – Catelyn VII
A Clash of Kings – Jon VII
We next get a mention of Bran’s wolf from Jon. Somehow, he never got word, before his ranging, of Summer’s name. He is expecting to die while on the ranging with Qhorin, and is wondering how Ghost will mourn him. Note that he is also wondering about the ability of the wolves to sense each other over long distances, and whether they’d also know if he died. We’ll come back to this later.
It will be good to feel warm again, if only for a little while, he told himself while he hacked bare branches from the trunk of a dead tree. Ghost sat on his haunches watching, silent as ever. Will he howl for me when I’m dead, as Bran’s wolf howled when he fell? Jon wondered. Will Shaggydog howl, far off in Winterfell, and Grey Wind and Nymeria, wherever they might be?
– A Clash of Kings – Jon VIII
A Clash of Kings – Bran VII
With Bran’s final chapter in this volume, we get confirmation that Bran and Rickon are alive, but first we see from Summer’s perspective the aftermath of the battle, with Winterfell in flames at the hands of Ramsey. Note how Bran relishes being a wolf, a callback to his wishes early in this volume. When he wakes, he needs to be forced to abandon the wolf’s body, but he does so consciously.
The Reeds are concerned for his nourishment. The wolf was full, though, so Bran can’t feel his own appetite much. Given that the wolf and boy mirror each other’s emotions, it follows that their appetite/hunger or lack thereof would mirror as well. In the cases where both are hungry or both are sated, the emotion would be heightened, but here where Summer has fed, but Bran’s body is still hungry, we see how the boy is a bit confused about having eaten, but still feeling hunger.
Bran has finally embraced his identity as the winged wolf, or Bran the Beastling. The passage that follows is our first indication of Bran actively using his powers in Summer. He seems to have been doing this a lot during this time in the crypts. Also, note that he mentions an event where he was able to use the weirwood net to contact Jon through Ghost (covered more in Jon/Ghost’s story). That would be the first instance where he uses the weirwood net to communicate. This represents a big leap in his abilities, although he is not even sure what happened.
One explanation for Bran’s leap in ability is that he was forced to develop his powers because of the sensory deprivation in the dark of the crypts. The wolf bond called to him in the dark where his two eyes didn’t function, and his third-eye began to open in response. With that opening, his bond to Summer strengthens and so does his ability to use his other telepathic gifts. Think of the telepathic power as a sixth sense. In real life, the deprivation of one of your senses drives you to use your remaining senses more. I see it as no different in this case. Further, Arya has almost the same experience in later volumes as Blind Beth.
The ashes fell like a soft grey snow.
He padded over dry needles and brown leaves, to the edge of the wood where the pines grew thin. Beyond the open fields he could see the great piles of man-rock stark against the swirling flames. The wind blew hot and rich with the smell of blood and burnt meat, so strong he began to slaver.
Yet as one smell drew them onward, others warned them back. He sniffed at the drifting smoke. Men, many men, many horses, and fire, fire, fire. No smell was more dangerous, not even the hard cold smell of iron, the stuff of man-claws and hardskin. The smoke and ash clouded his eyes, and in the sky he saw a great winged snake whose roar was a river of flame. He bared his teeth, but then the snake was gone. Behind the cliffs tall fires were eating up the stars.
All through the night the fires crackled, and once there was a great roar and a crash that made the earth jump under his feet. Dogs barked and whined and horses screamed in terror. Howls shuddered through the night; the howls of the man-pack, wails of fear and wild shouts, laughter and screams. No beast was as noisy as man. He pricked up his ears and listened, and his brother growled at every sound. They prowled under the trees as a piney wind blew ashes and embers through the sky. In time the flames began to dwindle, and then they were gone. The sun rose grey and smoky that morning.
Only then did he leave the trees, stalking slow across the fields. His brother ran with him, drawn to the smell of blood and death. They padded silent through the dens the men had built of wood and grass and mud. Many and more were burned and many and more were collapsed; others stood as they had before. Yet nowhere did they see or scent a living man. Crows blanketed the bodies and leapt into the air screeching when his brother and he came near. The wild dogs slunk away before them.
Beneath the great grey cliffs a horse was dying noisily, struggling to rise on a broken leg and screaming when he fell. His brother circled round him, then tore out his throat while the horse kicked feebly and rolled his eyes. When he approached the carcass his brother snapped at him and laid back his ears, and he cuffed him with a forepaw and bit his leg. They fought amidst the grass and dirt and falling ashes beside the dead horse, until his brother rolled on his back in submission, tail tucked low. One more bite at his upturned throat; then he fed, and let his brother feed, and licked the blood off his black fur.
The dark place was pulling at him by then, the house of whispers where all men were blind. He could feel its cold fingers on him. The stony smell of it was a whisper up the nose. He struggled against the pull. He did not like the darkness. He was wolf. He was hunter and stalker and slayer, and he belonged with his brothers and sisters in the deep woods, running free beneath a starry sky. He sat on his haunches, raised his head, and howled. I will not go, he cried. I am wolf, I will not go. Yet even so the darkness thickened, until it covered his eyes and filled his nose and stopped his ears, so he could not see or smell or hear or run, and the grey cliffs were gone and the dead horse was gone and his brother was gone and all was black and still and black and cold and black and dead and black . . .
“Bran,” a voice was whispering softly. “Bran, come back. Come back now, Bran. Bran . . .”
He closed his third eye and opened the other two, the old two, the blind two. In the dark place all men were blind. But someone was holding him. He could feel arms around him, the warmth of a body snuggled close. He could hear Hodor singing “Hodor, hodor, hodor,” quietly to himself.
“Bran?” It was Meera’s voice. “You were thrashing, making terrible noises. What did you see?”
“Winterfell.” His tongue felt strange and thick in his mouth. One day when I come back I won’t know how to talk anymore. “It was Winterfell. It was all on fire. There were horse smells, and steel, and blood. They killed everyone, Meera.”
[…]
“Three days,” said Jojen. The boy had come up softfoot, or perhaps he had been there all along; in this blind black world, Bran could not have said. “We were afraid for you.”
“I was with Summer,” Bran said.
“Too long. You’ll starve yourself. Meera dribbled a little water down your throat, and we smeared honey on your mouth, but it is not enough.”
“I ate,” said Bran. “We ran down an elk and had to drive off a treecat that tried to steal him. The cat had been tan-and-brown, only half the size of the direwolves, but fierce. He remembered the musky smell of him, and the way he had snarled down at them from the limb of the oak.
“The wolf ate,” Jojen said. “Not you. Take care, Bran. Remember who you are.“
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. Though maybe he had only dreamed that. He could not understand why Jojen was always trying to pull him back now. Bran used the strength of his arms to squirm to a sitting position. “I have to tell Osha what I saw. Is she here? Where did she go?
Note how Bran is upset at how Jojen forces him to delineate himself from Summer. Bran is still not happy about his body, which probably adds to his zeal to spend more time in the able-bodied Summer. This is a theme in Bran’s story going forward.
When the boys are reunited with their wolves, we all feel a bit better about their situation. Still mirroring Bran’s thoughtfulness and intelligence, Summer is very careful and alert for danger as they reunite. Then Summer finds Maester Luwin, we readers have a brief moment of elation only to fall back to reality once we realize he’s definitely dying.
Two lean dark shapes emerged from behind the broken tower, padding slowly through the rubble. Rickon gave a happy shout of “Shaggy!” and the black direwolf came bounding toward him. Summer advanced more slowly, rubbed his head up against Bran’s arm, and licked his face.
“We should go,” said Jojen. “So much death will bring other wolves besides Summer and Shaggydog, and not all on four feet.”
[…]
Summer howled, and darted away.
“The godswood.” Meera Reed ran after the direwolf, her shield and frog spear to hand. The rest of them trailed after, threading their way through smoke and fallen stones. The air was sweeter under the trees. A few pines along the edge of the wood had been scorched, but deeper in the damp soil and green wood had defeated the flames. “There is a power in living wood,” said Jojen Reed, almost as if he knew what Bran was thinking, “a power strong as fire.”
[…]
On the edge of the black pool, beneath the shelter of the heart tree, Maester Luwin lay on his belly in the dirt. A trail of blood twisted back through damp leaves where he had crawled. Summer stood over him, and Bran thought he was dead at first, but when Meera touched his throat, the maester moaned. “Hodor?” Hodor said mournfully. “Hodor?”
– A Clash of Kings – Bran VII
This is where Shaggy and Rickon’s story parts from Bran and Summer’s, based upon Luwin’s direction. Going forward, the pack is truly a bunch of lone wolves (though sometimes running with ordinary wolves), they are completely separated from their litter-mates, although we will see from the wolf dreams that they remember and sometimes sense each other. It is a nice touch that Luwin, the one whose magical skepticism “chained” Bran, seeks out the heart tree upon his death. It seems upon realization of his own mortality, he shed that skepticism and might even have wanted to report a few things to the old gods / weirwood net. His last act, to send the boys away, literally unchains Bran from that skepticism and from Winterfell itself.
Reflecting back on Summer and Bran’s story in ACoK, their bond has increased by leaps and bounds during this volume. The two most important aspect of it seems to be that Bran embraced his identity as a Warg after having resisted it for the early chapters, and how Bran’s powers have increased significantly in the aftermath of that acceptance. The sensory deprivation in the crypts seems to have increased Bran’s telepathic power, which correspondingly increased the strength of their bond as well.
A Storm of Swords – Summer and The Winged Wolf – Unchained
In the third volume, now that Bran is unchained and has accepted his nature as a warg, we see him develop his skills with the help of Jojen. He becomes so adept in Summer’s skin that he is able to save Jon’s life. This shows his progress as a warg while serving to remind us of his empathy and the pack bond to Jon. As a darker turn we also see him use this power over Hodor. The development of these powers is unique to Bran among his siblings.
Still, our other themes continue. Summer continues to show his independence while being fiercely protective of Bran. Toward the end of the volume, Summer is twice separated from Bran resulting is near misses reminding us of the theme of bad things happening when the wolves are separated from the children (parallel to the final reminder for Grey Wind and Robb). This might be a concern going forward. Pack remains important; we get some direct wolf thoughts about the bond to the other direwolves from Summer, that he periodically senses his siblings. This will be contrasted to similar thoughts we get in ADwD from Ghost.
A Storm of Swords – Bran I
We start with a wolf dream. Notice that the language of the first paragraphs seem to be more boy thoughts than wolf thoughts with a mention of specific tree species, while the thoughts become more wolfish as the dream continues. As Summer begins to exert his own thoughts Bran still puts in his own ideas. These deliberate warging adventures are much more a mind meld than when Bran was mostly riding along in Summer with the earlier wolf dreams.
Note also that Summer climbs a hill, just as Ghost did in this same volume. Are they trying to contact each other? Is it easier to to sense or be sensed, from hilltop? Count this one as pack behavior, for sure.
Once Summer begins to think of his sibling wolves though, Bran seems relegated to passenger. I glean much from these thoughts. Summer can remember and feel his siblings, but we don’t get any detail beyond him knowing that Lady is dead and Shaggy is close but getting further and further away as time passes. He knows they are hunting, but we get no detail at all about Nymeria, Ghost and Grey Wind. Recall from my intro to Nymeria’s story that I believe Shaggy and Ghost to be stronger in the magic than the other wolves, so it makes sense that Shaggy would be the easiest to sense (with Ghost beyond the wall, seemingly incommunicado), though this passage isn’t strong proof of that idea, given that he is also in closer physical proximity.
The ridge slanted sharply from the earth, a long fold of stone and soil shaped like a claw. Trees clung to its lower slopes, pines and hawthorn and ash, but higher up the ground was bare, the ridgeline stark against the cloudy sky.
He could feel the high stone calling him. Up he went, loping easy at first, then faster and higher, his strong legs eating up the incline. Birds burst from the branches overhead as he raced by, clawing and flapping their way into the sky. He could hear the wind sighing up amongst the leaves, the squirrels chittering to one another, even the sound a pinecone made as it tumbled to the forest floor. The smells were a song around him, a song that filled the good green world.
Gravel flew from beneath his paws as he gained the last few feet to stand upon the crest. The sun hung above the tall pines huge and red, and below him the trees and hills went on and on as far as he could see or smell. A kite was circling far above, dark against the pink sky.
Prince. The man-sound came into his head suddenly, yet he could feel the rightness of it. Prince of the green, prince of the wolfswood. He was strong and swift and fierce, and all that lived in the good green world went in fear of him.
Far below, at the base of the woods, something moved amongst the trees. A flash of grey, quick-glimpsed and gone again, but it was enough to make his ears prick up. Down there beside a swift green brook, another form slipped by, running. Wolves, he knew. His little cousins, chasing down some prey. Now the prince could see more of them, shadows on fleet grey paws. A pack.
He had a pack as well, once. Five they had been, and a sixth who stood aside. Somewhere down inside him were the sounds the men had given them to tell one from the other, but it was not by their sounds he knew them. He remembered their scents, his brothers and his sisters. They all had smelled alike, had smelled of pack, but each was different too.
His angry brother with the hot green eyes was near, the prince felt, though he had not seen him for many hunts. Yet with every sun that set he grew more distant, and he had been the last. The others were far scattered, like leaves blown by the wild wind.
Sometimes he could sense them, though, as if they were still with him, only hidden from his sight by a boulder or a stand of trees. He could not smell them, nor hear their howls by night, yet he felt their presence at his back . . . all but the sister they had lost. His tail drooped when he remembered her. Four now, not five. Four and one more, the white who has no voice.
These woods belonged to them, the snowy slopes and stony hills, the great green pines and the golden leaf oaks, the rushing streams and blue lakes fringed with fingers of white frost. But his sister had left the wilds, to walk in the halls of man-rock where other hunters ruled, and once within those halls it was hard to find the path back out. The wolf prince remembered.
The final paragraph of that remembrance is awkward. It seems that Summer is remembering Lady (or is it Nymeria?), but I almost get the feeling that Bran is trying to assert his own thoughts at the same time, making the paragraph a bit hard to follow, possibly intentionally incoherent by our author trying to portray the dissimilar thoughts together, like trying to fit together pieces from two different puzzles. I definitely believe that the final line, “The wolf prince remembered,” is a Bran thought.
The next part of this chapter shows Summer in complete control. With his pack is scattered, he instead runs down his cousins’ pack and their prey. The instinct to hunt pulls strongly on our direwolves. Compare this scene to the time Summer and Grey Wind were not around to protect the boys from Stiv during a much earlier hunt; this is a weakness in the direwolves’ roles as protectors.
Once Summer finds the wolves, Bran seems to get in a quick thought about the lack of fear in the opponent, but then Summer seems to take over again in the fight. Note how easily Summer kills the one wolf. The savage act serves to remind how merciless these wolves are in battle.
Deer, and fear, and blood. The scent of prey woke the hunger in him. The prince sniffed the air again, turning, and then he was off, bounding along the ridgetop with jaws half-parted. The far side of the ridge was steeper than the one he’d come up, but he flew surefoot over stones and roots and rotting leaves, down the slope and through the trees, long strides eating up the ground. The scent pulled him onward, ever faster.
The deer was down and dying when he reached her, ringed by eight of his small grey cousins. The heads of the pack had begun to feed, the male first and then his female, taking turns tearing flesh from the red underbelly of their prey. The others waited patiently, all but the tail, who paced in a wary circle a few strides from the rest, his own tail tucked low. He would eat the last of all, whatever his brothers left him.
The prince was downwind, so they did not sense him until he leapt up upon a fallen log six strides from where they fed. The tail saw him first, gave a piteous whine, and slunk away. His pack brothers turned at the sound and bared their teeth, snarling, all but the head male and female.
The direwolf answered the snarls with a low warning growl and showed them his own teeth. He was bigger than his cousins, twice the size of the scrawny tail, half again as large as the two pack heads. He leapt down into their midst, and three of them broke, melting away into the brush. Another came at him, teeth snapping. He met the attack head on, caught the wolf’s leg in his jaws when they met, and flung him aside yelping and limping.
And then there was only the head wolf to face, the great grey male with his bloody muzzle fresh from the prey’s soft belly. There was white on his muzzle as well, to mark him as an old wolf, but when his mouth opened, red slaver ran from his teeth.
He has no fear, the prince thought, no more than me. It would be a good fight. They went for each other.
Long they fought, rolling together over roots and stones and fallen leaves and the scattered entrails of the prey, tearing at each other with tooth and claw, breaking apart, circling each round the other, and bolting in to fight again. The prince was larger, and much the stronger, but his cousin had a pack. The female prowled around them closely, snuffing and snarling, and would interpose herself whenever her mate broke off bloodied. From time to time the other wolves would dart in as well, to snap at a leg or an ear when the prince was turned the other way. One angered him so much that he whirled in a black fury and tore out the attacker’s throat. After that the others kept their distance.
And as the last red light was filtering through green boughs and golden, the old wolf lay down weary in the dirt, and rolled over to expose his throat and belly. It was submission.
[…]
The prince sniffed at him and licked the blood from fur and torn flesh. When the old wolf gave a soft whimper, the direwolf turned away. He was very hungry now, and the prey was his.
At this point Jojen begins to try to wake Bran; Summer and Bran both are annoyed! Jojen says Bran has been in the wolf too long, and he painstakingly talks about how Bran can’t sustain himself solely by eating in the wolf. The feeling of hunger in the boys body, while the wolf is sated must again be a bit confusing for Bran, but I kinda agree that Jojen is being stupid. Depriving Bran of the satisfaction of eating after the hunt seems unnecessarily mean. It would have annoyed me too. One would think Bran, once back in his body would feel hunger and choose to eat naturally. As we discussed at the end of the prior volume, Bran wouldn’t feel his appetite properly as a boy after the wold fed, but suppose Jojen would not know this. I suppose Bran could be losing weight because of this issue.
Illustrating my point, Bran’ after waking can still taste the deer. I believe he is sensing this through the bond. Jon has similar experiences later in the saga.
u/Prof_Cecily a friend of mine from reddit, suggested to me that they asked him about marking trees to mainly because of nourishment, to make it easier for Meera to track down Summer’s kills, teaching Bran not to forget his human needs during the warging experience. I think it is more than this. If Meera is any kind of decent tracker she could find the kills so without Bran giving unnatural signs, and nothing like that is mentioned in the text, too. The group isn’t mentioned as starving until the next chapter, when they leave the wood. That said, they do explicitly say to have Summer bring a rabbit back uneaten, so hunting to feed the entire group may be a part of Jojen’s reasoning, but it is not the whole reason he is pushing Bran to do non-“wolfish” things inside Summer.
My opinion it is also that Jojen is concerned with Bran asserting his own personality over Summer, not to be overwhelmed by the wolf’s personality while warging. The line “once he was a wolf they never seemed important,” coupled with my above observations of the warging experience tells me that Bran’s thoughts are definitely overwhelmed by Summer’s, at least in part. Is he concerned that Bran might lose some of his humanity, get lost in the wolf’s mind, never to return to the boy’s body? Perhaps, though the latter would be extreme.
The sudden sound made him stop and snarl. The wolves regarded him with green and yellow eyes, bright with the last light of day. None of them had heard it. It was a queer wind that blew only in his ears. He buried his jaws in the deer’s belly and tore off a mouthful of flesh.
[…]
No, he thought. No, I won’t. It was a boy’s thought, not a direwolf’s. The woods were darkening all about him, until only the shadows of the trees remained, and the glow of his cousins’ eyes. And through those and behind those eyes, he saw a big man’s grinning face, and a stone vault whose walls were spotted with niter. The rich warm taste of blood faded on his tongue. No, don’t, don’t, I want to eat, I want to, I want . . .
[…]
The woods and wolves were gone. Bran was back again, down in the damp vault of some ancient watchtower that must have been abandoned thousands of years before. It wasn’t much of a tower now. Even the tumbled stones were so overgrown with moss and ivy that you could hardly see them until you were right on top of them. “Tumbledown Tower,” Bran had named the place; it was Meera who found the way down into the vault, however.
“You were gone too long.” Jojen Reed was thirteen, only four years older than Bran. Jojen wasn’t much bigger either, no more than two inches or maybe three, but he had a solemn way of talking that made him seem older and wiser than he really was. At Winterfell, Old Nan had dubbed him “little grandfather.”
Bran frowned at him. “I wanted to eat.”
[…]
“I’m sick of frogs.” Meera was a frogeater from the Neck, so Bran couldn’t really blame her for catching so many frogs, he supposed, but even so . . . “I wanted to eat the deer.” For a moment he remembered the taste of it, the blood and the raw rich meat, and his mouth watered. I won the fight for it. I won.
“Did you mark the trees?“
Bran flushed. Jojen was always telling him to do things when he opened his third eye and put on Summer’s skin. To claw the bark of a tree, to catch a rabbit and bring it back in his jaws uneaten, to push some rocks in a line. Stupid things. “I forgot,” he said.
[…]
It was true. He meant to do the things that Jojen asked, but once he was a wolf they never seemed important. There were always things to see and things to smell, a whole green world to hunt. And he could run! There was nothing better than running, unless it was running after prey. “I was a prince, Jojen,” he told the older boy. “I was the prince of the woods.”
The next exchange continues the idea that Bran needs to exert his own will while warging; he insists that Bran audibly delineate that he and Summer are separate entities. Even so, the bond seems to be extremely strong now, as Bran immediately says “and one” directly after saying they are two individuals.
“And who is Summer?” Jojen prompted.
“My direwolf.” He smiled. “Prince of the green.”
“Bran the boy and Summer the wolf. You are two, then?”
“Two,” he sighed, “and one.” He hated Jojen when he got stupid like this. At Winterfell he wanted me to dream my wolf dreams, and now that I know how he’s always calling me back.
Later, Bran muses that Jojen is a bit clueless about not being able to recognize Summer’s howl. Note that Bran probably hears Summer’s howls internally at this point, as Arya and Jon have similar experiences in this volume. Bran also thinks about how far Summer went, confirming 2 things 1) that Bran definitely is fully conscious and able to remember all of the time while in Summer, and 2) that he could likely lead them to the kill if the need for meat were the sole reason for marking trees / etc.
Before Meera could find a reply to that, they heard the sound; the distant howl of a wolf, drifting through the night. “Summer?” asked Jojen, listening.
“No.” Bran knew the voice of his direwolf.
“Are you certain?” said the little grandfather.
“Certain.” Summer had wandered far afield today, and would not be back till dawn. Maybe Jojen dreams green, but he can’t tell a wolf from a direwolf. He wondered why they all listened to Jojen so much. […]
The exchange concludes with Jojen worrying specifically about Bran remaining forever in Summer. This solidifies for me that these “lessons” from Jojen are mostly about Bran learning to exert his will more than they are about hunting. I also wonder if Shaggydog and Rickon will have a similar issue. It might not go as well for them without someone like Jojen as a mentor.
“Jojen, what did you mean about a teacher?” Bran asked. “You’re my teacher. I know I never marked the tree, but I will the next time. My third eye is open like you wanted . . .”
“So wide open that I fear you may fall through it, and live all the rest of your days as a wolf of the woods.”
“I won’t, I promise.”
“The boy promises. Will the wolf remember? You run with Summer, you hunt with him, kill with him . . . but you bend to his will more than him to yours.”
– A Storm of Swords – Bran I
At this point the group decides to go north to seek the Three-Eyed Crow, partially because of the counsel given here by Jojen and and partially because Bran thinks somehow he can fix his broken body, a forlorn hope, but he will fly…
A Storm of Swords – Bran II
The next chapter starts by mentioning that they are hungry now, having moved into the mountains. It then backtracks and then says that Summer was bringing them prey before they left the wood. This indicates that Bran has been able assert his will to teach Summer to do that, so the lessons must have worked to some extent.
“If we took the kingsroad we wouldn’t be so hungry either,” he started saying then. Down in the hills they’d had no lack of food. Meera was a fine huntress, and even better at taking fish from streams with her three-pronged frog spear. Bran liked to watch her, admiring her quickness, the way she sent the spear lancing down and pulled it back with a silvery trout wriggling on the end of it. And they had Summer hunting for them as well. The direwolf vanished most every night as the sun went down, but he was always back again before dawn, most often with something in his jaws, a squirrel or a hare.
But here in the mountains, the streams were smaller and more icy, and the game scarcer. Meera still hunted and fished when she could, but it was harder, and some nights even Summer found no prey. Often, they went to sleep with empty bellies.
Later, Bran knows that the mountain folk have seen them traversing the land because he saw them looking through Summer’s eyes. This Indicates that he is using Summer’s eyes while not fully warging Summer, similar to how Arya used the cat’s eyes as the blind girl. Summer then finds them the cave, probably while Bran is warging. Following that , we see another affectionate/protective scene with Bran and Summer close, though once Summer feels Bran needs no protection from the Liddle, he feels the call of the hunt. This brings on another wolf dream.
“They know.” Bran had seen them watching; not with his own eyes, but with Summer’s sharper ones, that missed so little. “They won’t bother us so long as we don’t try and make off with their goats or horses.”
Nor did they. Only once did they encounter any of the mountain people, when a sudden burst of freezing rain sent them looking for shelter. Summer found it for them, sniffing out a shallow cave behind the grey-green branches of a towering sentinel tree, but when Hodor ducked beneath the stony overhang, Bran saw the orange glow of fire farther back and realized they were not alone. “Come in and warm yourselves,” a man’s voice called out. “There’s stone enough to keep the rain off all our heads.”
[…]
“The Bastard’s boys, aye. He was dead, but now he’s not. And paying good silver for wolfskins, a man hears, and maybe gold for word of certain other walking dead.” He looked at Bran when he said that, and at Summer stretched out beside him. “As to that Wall,” the man went on, “it’s not a place that I’d be going. The Old Bear took the Watch into the haunted woods, and all that come back was his ravens, with hardly a message between them. Dark wings, dark words, me mother used to say, but when the birds fly silent, seems to me that’s even darker.” He poked at the fire with his stick. “It was different when there was a Stark in Winterfell. But the old wolf’s dead and young one’s gone south to play the game of thrones, and all that’s left us is the ghosts.”
“The wolves will come again,” said Jojen solemnly.
[…]
They spent that night together, for the rain did not let up till well past dark, and only Summer seemed to want to leave the cave. When the fire had burned down to embers, Bran let him go. The direwolf did not feel the damp as people did, and the night was calling him. Moonlight painted the wet woods in shades of silver and turned the grey peaks white. Owls hooted through the dark and flew silently between the pines, while pale goats moved along the mountainsides. Bran closed his eyes and gave himself up to the wolf dream, to the smells and sounds of midnight.
The chapter concludes with Bran attempting and failing to skinchange an eagle. One must wonder if it is Varamyr’s or some other eagle that is being skinchanged. Bran have the raw power to do it by this point, but he fails nonetheless.
Bran lifted his head and saw it, its grey wings spread and still as it floated on the wind. He followed it with his eyes as it circled higher, wondering what it would be like to soar about the world so effortless. Better than climbing, even. He tried to reach the eagle, to leave his stupid crippled body and rise into the sky to join it, the way he joined with Summer. The greenseers could do it. I should be able to do it too. He tried and tried, until the eagle vanished in the golden haze of the afternoon. “It’s gone,” he said, disappointed.
– A Storm of Swords – Bran II
Like I said, Bran will fly, just not quite yet.
A Storm of Swords – Bran III
The next chapter is where Summer/Bran see Jon in the village with the wildlings. It starts with Summer running off to hunt again, but I am beginning to wonder if Summer is also scouting for the party; it would make sense as far as the protective instinct goes. Next, while they hide in Queen’s Crown tower, Bran is worried for Summer when they see first a man, and then a group of wildlings. Complicating matters, a scared Hodor makes a bunch of noise due to the lightning. Hodor’s distress compounds Bran’s fear for Summer. Bran briefly contemplates warging Summer to calm him, but after realizing that Hodor wasn’t going to stop crying out, uses his skin changing power to enter the big man, instead. It scares him, and it should. What Bran does here is one of Haggon’s abominations, and it is clearly wrong. We get back to this in ADwD.
It was the first village they had seen since leaving the foothills. Meera had scouted ahead to make certain there was no one lurking amongst the ruins. Sliding in and amongst oaks and apple trees with her net and spear in hand, she startled three red deer and sent them bounding away through the brush. Summer saw the flash of motion and was after them at once. Bran watched the direwolf lope off, and for a moment wanted nothing so much as to slip his skin and run with him, but Meera was waving for them to come ahead. Reluctantly, he turned away from Summer and urged Hodor on, into the village. Jojen walked with them.
[…]
Bran shaded his eyes as well, and even so he had to squint. He saw nothing at first, till some movement made him turn. At first he thought it might be Summer, but no. A man on a horse. He was too far away to see much else.
[…]
“Summer’s near the village,” Bran objected.
“Summer will be fine,” Meera promised. “It’s only one man on a tired horse.”
[…]
Dusk was settling by the time duck and tale were done, and the rain still fell. Bran wondered how far Summer had roamed and whether he had caught one of the deer.
[…]
I hope Summer isn’t scared too, Bran thought. The dogs in Winterfell’s kennels had always been spooked by thunderstorms, just like Hodor. I should go see, to calm him . . .
[…]
“Bran, what did you do?” Meera whispered.
“Nothing.” Bran shook his head. “I don’t know.” But he did. I reached for him, the way I reach for Summer. He had been Hodor for half a heartbeat. It scared him.
Bran then thinks of Summer again, deluding himself that he won’t be afraid with all the men in the village and the lightning. On the next Flash of lightning the fear in Summer is raw, and he wargs him. After that Summer senses fear among the wildlings and discovers Jon. Summer is careful, as we’ve seen in other situations of danger, going wide around the sentry. but eventually the protective instinct must get the better of him, Ashe attacks,
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. “Most like they’re just some Umbers,” he said. “Or they could be Knotts or Norreys or Flints come down from the mountains, or even brothers from the Night’s Watch. Were they wearing black cloaks, Jojen?”
[…]
Bran could feel Summer’s fear in that bright instant. He closed two eyes and opened a third, and his boy’s skin slipped off him like a cloak as he left the tower behind . . .
[…]
. . . and found himself out in the rain, his belly full of deer, cringing in the brush as the sky broke and boomed above him. The smell of rotten apples and wet leaves almost drowned the scent of man, but it was there. He heard the clink and slither of hardskin, saw men moving under the trees. A man with a stick blundered by, a skin pulled up over his head to make him blind and deaf. The wolf went wide around him, behind a dripping thornbush and beneath the bare branches of an apple tree. He could hear them talking, and there beneath the scents of rain and leaves and horse came the sharp red stench of fear . . .
– A Storm of Swords – Bran III
Eventually the protective instinct must get the better of him, as he attacks saving Jon in the next chapter, a Jon POV. Jon had no idea the direwolf was so near; and had no idea which one it was either, only piecing together that it must have been Summer much later (not in this chapter and still not knowing the name). Jon thinks it is Grey Wind, due to the speed and color, but the description certainly shows that Summer is at least the equal of Robb’s wolf in battle.
A Storm of Swords – Jon V
And death leapt down amongst them.
The lightning flash left Jon night-blind, but he glimpsed the hurtling shadow half a heartbeat before he heard the shriek. The first Thenn died as the old man had, blood gushing from his torn throat. Then the light was gone and the shape was spinning away, snarling, and another man went down in the dark. There were curses, shouts, howls of pain. Jon saw Big Boil stumble backward and knock down three men behind him. Ghost, he thought for one mad instant. Ghost leapt the Wall. Then the lightning turned the night to day, and he saw the wolf standing on Del’s chest, blood running black from his jaws. Grey. He’s grey.
[…]
Long hours later, the rain stopped. Jon found himself alone in a sea of tall black grass. There was a deep throbbing ache in his right thigh. When he looked down, he was surprised to see an arrow jutting out the back of it. When did that happen? He grabbed hold of the shaft and gave it a tug, but the arrowhead was sunk deep in the meat of his leg, and the pain when he pulled on it was excruciating. He tried to think back on the madness at the inn, but all he could remember was the beast, gaunt and grey and terrible. It was too large to be a common wolf. A direwolf, then. It had to be. He had never seen an animal move so fast. Like a grey wind . . . Could Robb have returned to the north?
– A Storm of Swords – Jon V
Jon thinks of this encounter twice more, which we’ll cover later. He’s obviously wrong about Grey Wind being there, as he and Robb were headed to the red wedding at the time. Moving on to Bran’s next chapter, Bran thinks about how he and Summer had a disturbing dream, which obviously was about the red wedding. I imagine that the dream had something to do with Grey wind’s perspective on the Red wedding? Either Bran knows after the dream that Robb and Grey Wind are dead. It is unclear if they are aware of Catelyn’s status, making it more likely that the dream was from Grey Wind, he wouldn’t know of Catelyn’s fate because Robb and their bond died first, so there would be no way for Grey Wind to know her fate.
A Storm of Swords – Bran IV
No, thought Bran, it is the Nightfort, and this is the end of the world. In the mountains, all he could think of was reaching the Wall and finding the three-eyed crow, but now that they were here he was filled with fears. 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 . . .
At the next mention of Summer, they have arrived at the night fort, and Bran is deeply fearful. He is already thinking about the Rat Cook. Then he mentions how Summer is even ill at ease. This is a clear example of Summer mirroring Bran’s emotions.
Bran forced himself to look around. The morning was cold but bright, the sun shining down from a hard blue sky, but he did not like the noises. The wind made a nervous whistling sound as it shivered through the broken towers, the keeps groaned and settled, and he could hear rats scrabbling under the floor of the great hall. The Rat Cook’s children running from their father. The yards were small forests where spindly trees rubbed their bare branches together and dead leaves scuttled like roaches across patches of old snow. There were trees growing where the stables had been, and a twisted white weirwood pushing up through the gaping hole in the roof of the domed kitchen. Even Summer was not at ease here. Bran slipped inside his skin, just for an instant, to get the smell of the place. He did not like that either.
In the next passage we find out that Summer knew Jon got away. The fact that Bran thinks about Jon so much is another indication of Bran’s humanity and his empathy. This is a contrast to the show. Unfortunately, with film you cannot portray a character’s inner thoughts like you can with print. Moving on, we then learn that in saving Jon, Summer was gravely injured. We learn a bit about the bond here. The pain Summer feels is so strong that Bran cannot even maintain or reestablish their connection. He is relegated to praying for Summer’s safety, throwing in a prayer for Jon Snow. Fortunately, Summer returns and they are able to dress his wounds which heal. Bran considers his prayers answered.
The gate the Nightfort guarded had been sealed since the day the black brothers had loaded up their mules and garrons and departed for Deep Lake; its iron portcullis lowered, the chains that raised it carried off, the tunnel packed with stone and rubble all frozen together until they were as impenetrable as the Wall itself. “We should have followed Jon,” Bran said when he saw it. He thought of his bastard brother often, since the night that Summer had watched him ride off through the storm. “We should have found the kingsroad and gone to Castle Black.”
[…]
“But there are wildlings. They killed some man and they wanted to kill Jon too. Jojen, there were a hundred of them.”
“So you said. We are four. You helped your brother, if that was him in truth, but it almost cost you Summer.”
“I know,” said Bran miserably. The direwolf had killed three of them, maybe more, but there had been too many. When they formed a tight ring around the tall earless man, he had tried to slip away through the rain, but one of their arrows had come flashing after him, and the sudden stab of pain had driven Bran out of the wolf’s skin and back into his own. After the storm finally died, they had huddled in the dark without a fire, talking in whispers if they talked at all, listening to Hodor’s heavy breathing and wondering if the wildlings might try and cross the lake in the morning. Bran had reached out for Summer time and time again, but the pain he found drove him back, the way a red-hot kettle makes you pull your hand back even when you mean to grab it. Only Hodor slept that night, muttering “Hodor, hodor,” as he tossed and turned. Bran was terrified that Summer was off dying in the darkness. Please, you old gods, he prayed, you took Winterfell, and my father, and my legs, please don’t take Summer too. And watch over Jon Snow too, and make the wildlings go away.
No weirwoods grew on that stony island in the lake, yet somehow the old gods must have heard. The wildlings took their sweet time about departing the next morning, stripping the bodies of their dead and the old man they’d killed, even pulling a few fish from the lake, and there was a scary moment when three of them found the causeway and started to walk out . . . but the path turned and they didn’t, and two of them nearly drowned before the others pulled them out. The tall bald man yelled at them, his words echoing across the water in some tongue that even Jojen did not know, and a little while later they gathered up their shields and spears and marched off north by east, the same way Jon had gone. Bran wanted to leave too, to look for Summer, but the Reeds said no. “We will stay another night,” said Jojen, “put some leagues between us and the wildlings. You don’t want to meet them again, do you?” Late that afternoon Summer returned from wherever he’d been hiding, dragging his back leg. He ate parts of the bodies in the inn, driving off the crows, then swam out to the island. Meera had drawn the broken arrow from his leg and rubbed the wound with the juice of some plants she found growing around the base of the tower. The direwolf was still limping, but a little less each day, it seemed to Bran. The gods had heard.
The next passages are more examples of shadowing and hunting and mirroring. Bran continues to be afraid of the characters from Old Nan’s stories; and Summer continues to be on guard.
So they went exploring, Jojen Reed leading, Bran in his basket on Hodor’s back, Summer padding by their side. Once the direwolf bolted through a dark door and returned a moment later with a grey rat between his teeth. The Rat Cook, Bran thought, but it was the wrong color, and only as big as a cat. The Rat Cook was white, and almost as huge as a sow . . .
[…]
They spent half the day poking through the castle. Some of the towers had fallen down and others looked unsafe, but they climbed the bell tower (the bells were gone) and the rookery (the birds were gone). Beneath the brewhouse they found a vault of huge oaken casks that boomed hollowly when Hodor knocked on them. They found a library (the shelves and bins had collapsed, the books were gone, and rats were everywhere). They found a dank and dim-lit dungeon with cells enough to hold five hundred captives, but when Bran grabbed hold of one of the rusted bars it broke off in his hand. Only one crumbling wall remained of the great hall, the bathhouse seemed to be sinking into the ground, and a huge thornbush had conquered the practice yard outside the armory where black brothers had once labored with spear and shield and sword. The armory and the forge still stood, however, though cobwebs, rats, and dust had taken the places of blades, bellows, and anvil. Sometimes Summer would hear sounds that Bran seemed deaf to, or bare his teeth at nothing, the fur on the back of his neck bristling . . . but the Rat Cook never put in an appearance, nor the seventy-nine sentinels, nor Mad Axe. Bran was much relieved. Maybe it is only a ruined empty castle.
[…]
She laughed, and sent Hodor out to gather wood. Summer went too. It was almost dark by then, and the direwolf wanted to hunt.
That night Bran hears Sam’s party ascending the stairs from the black gate, but he thinks the worst. Because Summer had been hunting, Bran again uses his power to take control of Hodor, and this time for a significant period of time. He knows it’s wrong; he feels Hodor’s fear and tastes VOMIT. Yet he justifies it as necessary for safety because Summer was far away. As it turns out, Summer wasn’t too far. He shows himself not long after Sam is subdued by Meera. Bran did nothing productive in Hodor’s skin. In my opinion, Bran may be doing this do it just because he so wants to feel an able body. Summer, for his own part, must have sensed Bran’s terror and returned quickly, but he sensed no danger from Sam, obviously. Still, this episode show how strong Bran is getting.
Bran was too frightened to shout. The fire had burned down to a few faint embers and his friends were all asleep. He almost slipped his skin and reached out for his wolf, but Summer might be miles away. He couldn’t leave his friends helpless in the dark to face whatever was coming up out of the well. I told them not to come here, he thought miserably. I told them there were ghosts. I told them that we should go to Castle Black.
[…]
Meera rose to her feet without a word and reclaimed her weapons. With her three-pronged frog spear in her right hand and the folds of her net dangling from her left, she slipped barefoot toward the well. Jojen dozed on, oblivious, while Hodor muttered and thrashed in restless sleep. She kept to the shadows as she moved, stepped around the shaft of moonlight as quiet as a cat. Bran was watching her all the while, and even he could barely see the faint sheen of her spear. I can’t let her fight the thing alone, he thought. Summer was far away, but . . .
. . . he slipped his skin, and reached for Hodor.
It was not like sliding into Summer. That was so easy now that Bran hardly thought about it. This was harder, like trying to pull a left boot on your right foot. It fit all wrong, and the boot was scared too, the boot didn’t know what was happening, the boot was pushing the foot away. He tasted vomit in the back of Hodor’s throat, and that was almost enough to make him flee. Instead he squirmed and shoved, sat up, gathered his legs under him—his huge strong legs—and rose. I’m standing. He took a step. I’m walking. It was such a strange feeling that he almost fell. He could see himself on the cold stone floor, a little broken thing, but he wasn’t broken now. He grabbed Hodor’s longsword. The breathing was as loud as a blacksmith’s bellows.
[…]
“Jon’s here,” Bran said. “Summer saw him. He was with some wildlings, but they killed a man and Jon took his horse and escaped. I bet he went to Castle Black.”
Sam turned big eyes on Meera. “You’re certain it was Jon? You saw him?”
“I’m Meera,” Meera said with a smile. “Summer is . . .”
A shadow detached itself from the broken dome above and leapt down through the moonlight. Even with his injured leg, the wolf landed as light and quiet as a snowfall. The girl Gilly made a frightened sound and clutched her babe so hard against her that it began to cry again.
“He won’t hurt you,” Bran said. “That’s Summer.”
“Jon said you all had wolves.” Sam pulled off a glove. “I know Ghost.” He held out a shaky hand, the fingers white and soft and fat as little sausages. Summer padded closer, sniffed them, and gave the hand a lick.
As they go down the well and through the black gate, Summer is back to the role of protecting / shadowing.
Summer circled the well, sniffing. He paused by the top step and looked back at Bran. He wants to go.
[…]
“I’ll go first, I know the way.” Sam hesitated at the top. “There’s just so many steps,” he sighed, before he started down. Jojen followed, then Summer, then Hodor with Bran riding on his back. Meera took the rear, with her spear and net in hand.
[…]
“Then pass,” the door said. Its lips opened, wide and wider and wider still, until nothing at all remained but a great gaping mouth in a ring of wrinkles. Sam stepped aside and waved Jojen through ahead of him. Summer followed, sniffing as he went, and then it was Bran’s turn. Hodor ducked, but not low enough. The door’s upper lip brushed softly against the top of Bran’s head, and a drop of water fell on him and ran slowly down his nose. It was strangely warm, and salty as a tear.
– A Storm of Swords – Bran IV
Note, that the water coming off the top of the gate is salty, which gives rise to my own tinfoil about the wall being made from sea water, not fresh water ice.
A Storm of Swords – Jon VIII
As this volume comes to a close, we return to Jon, who has finally realized that it was Summer who saved him, not Grey Wind. Sadly, he knows Robb is dead, believes Bran dead, and is worried that Summer died saving him. The bond between the 2 boys is built upon the mutual empathy we saw in the first chapter of AGoT; it continues into the ADwD.
The cell was dark, the bed hard beneath him. His own bed, he remembered, his own bed in his steward’s cell beneath the Old Bear’s chambers. By rights it should have brought him sweeter dreams. Even beneath the furs, he was cold. Ghost had shared his cell before the ranging, warming it against the chill of night. And in the wild, Ygritte had slept beside him. Both gone now. He had burned Ygritte himself, as he knew she would have wanted, and Ghost . . . Where are you? Was he dead as well, was that what his dream had meant, the bloody wolf in the crypts? But the wolf in the dream had been grey, not white. Grey, like Bran’s wolf. Had the Thenns hunted him down and killed him after Queenscrown? If so, Bran was lost to him for good and all.
– A Storm of Swords – Jon VIII
That was the final mention of Summer in ASoS. In this volume, Bran, unchained by his acceptance of his nature as a warg, has grown in his powers. His quick growth and unease when Summer is away turns dark in his use of this power over Hodor. Summer is injured in an attempt to save Jon from a band of wildlings, while Bran is warging him. That embodies his protective nature and sense of danger, Bran’s empathy, their collective independence, and the strength of the bond to the pack, while reminding us that bad things can happen when the direwolves are separated from their Stark children.
A Dance with Dragons – Summer and The Winged Wolf – Aloft
In ADwD, these themes continue with Bran and Summer north of the wall. While they make their way to the cave of the Children of the Forest, Summer, disconnected from his bond to his littermates, seeks out a new pack. Bran continues his skinchainging of Hodor and his warging of Summer. In Summer, he can recognize another warg, Varamyr, inside One Eye. His independence continues in his cave explorations inside Hodor, which he thinks nobody else notices (I think he’s wrong in this). He finally learns to fly, while he is taught to skinchange ravens and to use the power to enter the weirwood net directly; he is aloft! Sadly, it is a bitter pill to swallow that his body cannot be healed.
With only 3 chapters, the implications of Bran’s growth in this volume are not well-understood. We are left to wonder if Summer’s continued separation to hunt will have negative consequences. We wonder the same about his continued skinchanging of Hodor. Given the immense power of the weirwood net, we wonder if Bran’s independence will lead to unaccompanied sojourns into the weirwood net.
A Dance with Dragons – Jon I
The first mention of Summer in ADwD is not in one of those 3 Bran POV chapters’ though, it is in a Jon POV chapter.
In a wolf dream, Ghost thinks of Summer twice, first to mention that he can no longer sense him, the second to reveal that Ghost knows he is on the other side of the wall. Ghost is more self-aware of the effect of the wall than Summer, whose perspective we get more on in the net chapter, from the other side of the wall.
“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.
“Snow,” the moon insisted.
The white wolf ran from it, racing toward the cave of night where the sun had hidden, his breath frosting in the air. On starless nights the great cliff was as black as stone, a darkness towering high above the wide world, but when the moon came out it shimmered pale and icy as a frozen stream. The wolf’s pelt was thick and shaggy, but when the wind blew along the ice no fur could keep the chill out. On the other side the wind was colder still, the wolf sensed. That was where his brother was, the grey brother who smelled of summer.
An interesting thing, at the end of ASoS, Jon calls Summer “Bran’s wolf,” but in this next passage, he knows the name Summer. How did he learn it?
[…] Bran and Rickon had been murdered too, beheaded at the behest of Theon Greyjoy, who had once been their lord father’s ward … but if dreams did not lie, their direwolves had escaped. At Queenscrown, one had come out of the darkness to save Jon’s life. Summer, it had to be. His fur was grey, and Shaggydog is black. He wondered if some part of his dead brothers lived on inside their wolves.
– A Dance with Dragons – Jon I
In any case, the pack bond remains strong.
A Dance with Dragons – Bran I
While the group is again on the move, this chapter is a bit of a return to our direwolf themes. We start with Summer shadowing and protecting and then have a mention from Bran that he spends a lot of time in the wolf’s skin, reinforcing the bond. Later, we get a reminder of the call of the hunt in the reminder that the elk Jojen rides is PREY.
Bran also reminds us that he is in the habit of wearing Hodor’s skin as well, which our author points out is not a good thing. The violation makes the stable boy confused and scared, whimpering, and there is still a hint of the vomit at the back of his throat as mentioned in ASoS. Bran tells himself that it is OK, that Hodor recognizes him and is getting used to it. That may be as it may be, but it doesn’t make it OK,
This is part 4 in a multi-part series about our favorite direwolves. The other posts in the series are here:
Part 1: Lady and Sansa, Part 2: Grey Wind and Robb, Part 3: Nymeria and Arya, Part 4: Summer and Bran, Part 5: Shaggydog and Rickon, Part 6: Ghost and Jon
Recall this SSM.
Q: Are all the Stark children wargs/skin changers with their wolves?
GRRM: To a greater or lesser degree, yes, but the amount of control varies widely.
Q: Yes, I know that Lady is dead, but assuming they were all alive and all the children as well, would all the wolves have bonded to the kids as Bran and Summer did?
GRRM: Bran and Summer are somewhat of a special case.
In this essay, we’ll investigate how Bran and Summer are a special case. My hypothesis is that theirs is the strongest bond simply because Bran seems to be the strongest telepath. Bran is the first and only Stark thus far in the story with the power to consciously enter the wolf and control his actions. Arya actively uses a cat’s vision, but has yet to demonstrate full control or to consciously enter Nymeria. She did perhaps exert her will in compelling Nymeria to save Catelyn from the river, but that was a partially subconscious act in a dream. Thus far, Ghost is in charge in all of Jon’s wolf dreams, although Jon does now remember them, and realizes that they are real.
This essay is a line-by-line investigation of every mention of Summer in the text, including the wolf dreams and every thought Bran has inside the wolf. In the first volume, we see how their bond initially develops similar to the other Stark-direwolf connections but how Bran’s powers develop faster due to his coma, the ministrations of other actors in his dreams, and his immobility, which seems to drive him to use his connection to Summer more than his siblings do. We see in the second volume how Bran’s realizes that his wolf dreams are real, and, through the sensory deprivation in the crypts, how he develops the ability to enter his wolf consciously. In the third volume, we see him develop this skill to a point where he can save Jon’s life, but we also see him follow the dark path of using this power over Hodor. In the latest volume, we see how, under Bloodraven’s tutelage, he can use the power to enter ravens and finally to enter the collective consciousness of the weirwood net. The development of these powers is unique to Bran among his siblings.
While many other bloggers are wondering about and investigating foreshadowing of “Bran King”, I’ll be focusing purely on his magical growth and his relationship to Summer, so the “Bran is the future King” theme is not considered here.
We also get some direct wolf thoughts from Summer about the bond to the other direwolves. We learn that he periodically senses his siblings. This does seem to differ from a dream Jon has where Ghost seems to more strongly (certainly more vividly) sense his remaining litter-mates. As an aside, we also learn how neither wolf can sense the other(s) when one of them is on the other side of the wall. We can assume that something about the magic of the wall disrupts their connection.
Finally, several themes from our prior volumes continue here with Summer and his bond to Bran, including:
- Mirroring Bran’s personality and intelligence
- Obedience vs. Independence
- Shadowing / protecting / healthy fear of the wolves
- Related: the wolves’ innate ability to sense threats
- Belonging to the pack / the instinct to hunt
- Being affectionate when they’re together
- Bad things happening when they’re separated
Many of these themes are more visible in Bran and Summer given our access to the wolf dreams in the POV and the strength of their bond. One other theme that is pervasive in Bran, specifically, is his wish to be in a whole body. It shows up in his anger and shame at being called a cripple or pitied. It shows up in his penchant for staying way too long inside Summer’s skin. It shows up in his unfortunate choice to repeatedly invade Hodor’s body. It shows up in his reasoning for going to the three-eyed crow. It will be interesting to see if he finally accepts his own skin to some degree in the coming volumes.
A Game of Thrones – A Pup with no Name and Bran the Broken
In this volume we see how the bond between Bran and Summer forms immediately and strongly, then strengthens with further contact between the two and with Bran’s increasing powers. Summer, indeed, is an integral part of the discussion of Bran’s prophetic dreams in this volume, suggesting that he is somewhat aware of them through the bond.
A Game of Thrones – Bran I
We see that the bond to Summer began forming immediately, the moment Jon hands him to Bran. The mirroring begins in the next moment. He’s dismayed at the idea that the pups would be slaughtered, saying “it’s mine.” At the same time, Summer squirms seemingly feeling Bran’s emotions (my highlighting below in the quotes).
Bran gave the pup a quick nervous stroke, then turned as Jon said, “Here you go.” His half-brother put a second pup into his arms. “There are five of them.” Bran sat down in the snow and hugged the wolf pup to his face. Its fur was soft and warm against his cheek.
[…]
“No matter,” said Hullen. “They be dead soon enough too.”
Bran gave a wordless cry of dismay.
“The sooner the better,” Theon Greyjoy agreed. He drew his sword. “Give the beast here, Bran.”
The little thing squirmed against him, as if it heard and understood. “No!” Bran cried out fiercely. “It’s mine.”
[…]
Bran looked to his lord father for rescue, but got only a frown, a furrowed brow. “Hullen speaks truly, son. Better a swift death than a hard one from cold and starvation.”
“No!” He could feel tears welling in his eyes, and he looked away. He did not want to cry in front of his father.
Now Jon steps in to selflessly advocate for his pack. This shows a lot about Jon and Bran’s relationship. Bran “loved Jon with all his heart” for his selfless act in not including himself in the count for a pup. This is an indication of the empathy that both boys possess. Bran knows what it costs Jon; he can feel how it must hurt to exclude himself. Fortunately, our author rewards Jon later with Ghost. At the end of the passage, see how Summer mirrors Bran’s emotions again, squirming at Bran’s relief that the pups wouldn’t be killed.
“Lord Stark,” Jon said. It was strange to hear him call Father that, so formal. Bran looked at him with desperate hope. “There are five pups,” he told Father. “Three male, two female.”
“What of it, Jon?”
“You have five trueborn children,” Jon said. “Three sons, two daughters. The direwolf is the sigil of your House. Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord.”
Bran saw his father’s face change, saw the other men exchange glances. He loved Jon with all his heart at that moment. Even at seven, Bran understood what his brother had done. The count had come right only because Jon had omitted himself. He had included the girls, included even Rickon, the baby, but not the bastard who bore the surname Snow, the name that custom decreed be given to all those in the north unlucky enough to be born with no name of their own.
Their father understood as well. “You want no pup for yourself, Jon?” he asked softly.
The direwolf graces the banners of House Stark, Jon pointed out. “I am no Stark, Father.”
Their lord father regarded Jon thoughtfully. Robb rushed into the silence he left. “I will nurse him myself, Father,” he promised. “I will soak a towel with warm milk, and give him suck from that.”
Me too!” Bran echoed
The lord weighed his sons long and carefully with his eyes. “Easy to say, and harder to do. I will not have you wasting the servants’ time with this. If you want these pups, you will feed them yourselves. Is that understood?”
Bran nodded eagerly. The pup squirmed in his grasp, licked at his face with a warm tongue.
[…]
It was not until they were mounted and on their way that Bran allowed himself to taste the sweet air of victory. By then, his pup was snuggled inside his leathers, warm against him, safe for the long ride home. Bran was wondering what to name him.
– A Game of Thrones – Bran I
Note the indecision Bran has in naming the pup in both his first and second chapters. I am not sure if this will end up being a character flaw, or was just a device the author used to place significance on the name Summer for some yet to be revealed reason. Either way, we’ll monitor Bran for future indecision.
A Game of Thrones – Bran II
In the next chapter we get a hint of an independent streak in Summer’s lack of interest in chasing sticks. This is an example of personality mirroring because Bran is independent himself, as evidenced by his own disobedience in choosing to climb even after it was forbidden.
But it was no good. He had gone to the stable first, and seen his pony there in its stall, except it wasn’t his pony anymore, he was getting a real horse and leaving the pony behind, and all of a sudden Bran just wanted to sit down and cry. He turned and ran off before Hodor and the other stableboys could see the tears in his eyes. That was the end of his farewells. Instead Bran spent the morning alone in the godswood, trying to teach his wolf to fetch a stick, and failing. The wolfling was smarter than any of the hounds in his father’s kennel and Bran would have sworn he understood every word that was said to him, but he showed very little interest in chasing sticks.
He was still trying to decide on a name. Robb was calling his Grey Wind, because he ran so fast. Sansa had named hers Lady, and Arya named hers after some old witch queen in the songs, and little Rickon called his Shaggydog, which Bran thought was a pretty stupid name for a direwolf. Jon’s wolf, the white one, was Ghost. Bran wished he had thought of that first, even though his wolf wasn’t white. He had tried a hundred names in the last fortnight, but none of them sounded right.
– A Game of Thrones – Bran II
A Game of Thrones – Tyrion I
After Bran’s fall we first hear of Summer from Tyrion. Summer has been howling a lot. We learn here that there must be something about his bond to Summer that is helping to save Bran’s life, specifically in the anecdote that Bran weakened when he could no longer hear the wolf. We also see Cersei’s possible recognition of the magic of the wolves, coupled with her complete antipathy toward the wolf, foreshadowing her unjust death sentence for Lady.
“The gods alone know,” Tyrion told her. “The maester only hopes.” He chewed some more bread. “I would swear that wolf of his is keeping the boy alive. The creature is outside his window day and night, howling. Every time they chase it away, it returns. The maester said they closed the window once, to shut out the noise, and Bran seemed to weaken. When they opened it again, his heart beat stronger.”
The queen shuddered. “There is something unnatural about those animals,” she said. “They are dangerous. I will not have any of them coming south with us.”
– A Game of Thrones – Tyrion I
A Game of Thrones – Catelyn III
During Bran’s coma, Summer becomes a hero in saving both Cat and Bran from the catspaw. First, though, he’s heard in the yard howling with Grey Wind and Shaggy, pack behavior. Summer is worrying for Bran, and the other 2 are howling in solidarity. This seemed to happen a lot as there was also evidence of it in a Tyrion’s chapter. One can guess that Summer wished to be in the room with Bran, that this separation was troubling him greatly. Perhaps he also felt some of the pain Bran might have been in during the coma.
Outside the tower, a wolf began to howl. Catelyn trembled, just for a second.
“Bran’s.” Robb opened the window and let the night air into the stuffy tower room. The howling grew louder. It was a cold and lonely sound, full of melancholy and despair.
“Don’t,” she told him. “Bran needs to stay warm.”
“He needs to hear them sing,” Robb said. Somewhere out in Winterfell, a second wolf began to howl in chorus with the first. Then a third, closer. “Shaggydog and Grey Wind,” Robb said as their voices rose and fell together. “You can tell them apart if you listen close.”
During the catspaw’s fire, Summer is not drawn away. Mayhaps he smelled or heard the catspaw and tracked him to Bran’s room or he was just taking his chance to sneak up to Bran’s room. A fun, tinfoily explanation is that Summer heard what was going on though Bran’s ears and rushed up for the save. Unfortunately, there is zero evidence for this. The result is the same. Bran and Catelyn are saved, and it is undoubtedly Summer’s bond to Bran that enables it. This is also the readers’ first indication of the deadly ferocity of these wolves, a stark example of their protective nature and ample reason for fear for those who would do them harm.
Catelyn saw the shadow slip through the open door behind him. There was a low rumble, less than a snarl, the merest whisper of a threat, but he must have heard something, because he started to turn just as the wolf made its leap. They went down together, half sprawled over Catelyn where she’d fallen. The wolf had him under the jaw. The man’s shriek lasted less than a second before the beast wrenched back its head, taking out half his throat.
His blood felt like warm rain as it sprayed across her face.
The wolf was looking at her. Its jaws were red and wet and its eyes glowed golden in the dark room. It was Bran’s wolf, she realized. Of course it was. “Thank you,” Catelyn whispered, her voice faint and tiny. She lifted her hand, trembling. The wolf padded closer, sniffed at her fingers, then licked at the blood with a wet rough tongue. When it had cleaned all the blood off her hand, it turned away silently and jumped up on Bran’s bed and lay down beside him. Catelyn began to laugh hysterically.
– A Game of Thrones – Catelyn III
In the aftermath of the attack, we see affection and shadowing. Summer did start this section protesting his separation from Bran, so all 5 of our themes are in evidence in just a small section of this chapter.
A Game of Thrones – Bran III
We won’t go into detail about Bran’s dreams during the coma, save to note that the coma seems to have triggered an awakening of Bran’s magical powers. This probably plays a role in the warg bond developing sooner in him than in the other Stark POVs (we can be less sure of what happens for Robb and Rickon). At the end of the dream, at Bran’s awakening, Summer is again at Bran’s side and being affectionate.
And then there was movement beside the bed, and something landed lightly on his legs. He felt nothing. A pair of yellow eyes looked into his own, shining like the sun. The window was open and it was cold in the room, but the warmth that came off the wolf enfolded him like a hot bath. His pup, Bran realized … or was it? He was so big now. He reached out to pet him, his hand trembling like a leaf.
When his brother Robb burst into the room, breathless from his dash up the tower steps, the direwolf was licking Bran’s face. Bran looked up calmly. “His name is Summer,” he said.
– A Game of Thrones – Bran III
So, Bran finally settled on the name Summer, an homage to Old Nan, and possibly foreshadowing by our author about the end of our story.
A Game of Thrones – Bran IV
Speaking of Old Nan, in the next chapter, Bran’s impatience with her, certainly a beloved figure, belies Bran’s growing discontent over his immobility. He wants to be out there with Summer and the pack running and playing, but all he can do is watch from a window. Summer is a bit outcast from the other 2 as well, trailing and observing, mirroring Bran’s separation. Finally. we get Bran’s opinion on Summer’s attentiveness and intelligence, possible mirroring, as well.
Bran watched from his window seat. Wherever the boy went, Grey Wind was there first, loping ahead to cut him off, until Rickon saw him, screamed in delight, and went pelting off in another direction. Shaggydog ran at his heels, spinning and snapping if the other wolves came too close. His fur had darkened until he was all black, and his eyes were green fire. Bran’s Summer came last. He was silver and smoke, with eyes of yellow gold that saw all there was to see. Smaller than Grey Wind, and more wary. Bran thought he was the smartest of the litter. He could hear his brother’s breathless laughter as Rickon dashed across the hard-packed earth on little baby legs.
[…]
“I don’t care whose stories they are,” Bran told her, “I hate them.” He didn’t want stories and he didn’t want Old Nan. He wanted his mother and father. He wanted to go running with Summer loping beside him. He wanted to climb the broken tower and feed corn to the crows. He wanted to ride his pony again with his brothers. He wanted it to be the way it had been before.
Next, we have the attack on Tyrion. The wolves clearly act as a pack in a coordinated fashion. However, there is an oddity in this scene. Summer led the attack, not Grey Wind, even though Robb was the one showing aggressiveness to Tyrion, and Bran was seemingly happy about the saddle plans. If it were mirroring, shouldn’t Grey Wind be the main aggressor? Upon reflection, I believe it was a combination of protection and mirroring, that drove this attack. Under this interpretation, Summer being the leader makes perfect sense. First, Bran was more upset than he admits to himself at Tyrion’s repeatedly calling him a cripple. Second, the Lannisters threw Bran from the tower. Bran’s subconscious knows. Summer was there. Summer knows. Summer smelled Lannister. Tyrion has a Lannister scent. Theon hits it on the head in the second paragraph below.
The door to the yard flew open. Sunlight came streaming across the hall as Rickon burst in, breathless. The direwolves were with him. The boy stopped by the door, wide-eyed, but the wolves came on. Their eyes found Lannister, or perhaps they caught his scent. Summer began to growl first. Grey Wind picked it up. They padded toward the little man, one from the right and one from the left.
“The wolves do not like your smell, Lannister,” Theon Greyjoy commented.
“Perhaps it’s time I took my leave,” Tyrion said. He took a step backward … and Shaggydog came out of the shadows behind him, snarling. Lannister recoiled, and Summer lunged at him from the other side. He reeled away, unsteady on his feet, and Grey Wind snapped at his arm, teeth ripping at his sleeve and tearing loose a scrap of cloth.
“No!” Bran shouted from the high seat as Lannister’s men reached for their steel. “Summer, here. Summer, to me!”
The direwolf heard the voice, glanced at Bran, and again at Lannister. He crept backward, away from the little man, and settled down below Bran’s dangling feet.
Fortunately, the wolves all broke off the attack when called (Summer less obedient than Grey Wind). Under my theory, Summer must have sensed Lannister in the hall with the boys and decided it was danger, given the history. He would have riled up Shaggy and Grey Wind at the door to the hall until Rickon decided to let them in. Robb is already upset so Grey Wind is mirroring him, same for Shaggy because Rickon’s always upset as we learn elsewhere in the story.
As if to reinforce this potential cause of Summer’s actions, Bran has a dream later this chapter about Jaime’s attack on him. In this light Summer was mirroring Bran’s subconscious feelings about Lannisters. In the dream Bran denies seeing what he saw between Cersei and Jaime, but it was no good. He subconsciously knows that he was in danger from the Lannisters. This dream is all about Bran and his realization that his subconscious and his bond to Summer may have caused the attack on Tyrion.
In his dream he was climbing again, pulling himself up an ancient windowless tower, his fingers forcing themselves between blackened stones, his feet scrabbling for purchase. Higher and higher he climbed, through the clouds and into the night sky, and still the tower rose before him. When he paused to look down, his head swam dizzily and he felt his fingers slipping. Bran cried out and clung for dear life. The earth was a thousand miles beneath him and he could not fly. He could not fly. He waited until his heart had stopped pounding, until he could breathe, and he began to climb again. There was no way to go but up. Far above him, outlined against a vast pale moon, he thought he could see the shapes of gargoyles. His arms were sore and aching, but he dared not rest. He forced himself to climb faster. The gargoyles watched him ascend. Their eyes glowed red as hot coals in a brazier. Perhaps once they had been lions, but now they were twisted and grotesque. Bran could hear them whispering to each other in soft stone voices terrible to hear. He must not listen, he told himself, he must not hear, so long as he did not hear them he was safe. But when the gargoyles pulled themselves loose from the stone and padded down the side of the tower to where Bran clung, he knew he was not safe after all. “I didn’t hear,” he wept as they came closer and closer, “I didn’t, I didn’t.”
It’s apparent to me from this dream that Bran has a subconscious mistrust (fear) of the Lannisters, which he shares with Summer through the bond. Together with Summer’s protective instinct and Bran’s anger at repeatedly being called a cripple, this leads to the near-attack on Tyrion.
This denial seems to be a foreshadowing of Bran’s denial that his anger caused Summer to attack Meera and Jojen (in a mirroring fashion) in ACoK. Just as Bran now denies knowledge of the Lannisters throwing him from the window, he later denies that he caused the attack on the Reed’s, when Summer mirrors his mood about Jojen’s accusations.
Later, there are more mentions of Summer in this chapter, all examples of how he is Bran’s constant and affectionate companion.
Summer followed them up the tower steps […]
[…]
“Summer,” he called. The wolf bounded up on the bed. Bran hugged him so hard he could feel the hot breath on his cheek. “I can ride now,” he whispered to his friend. “We can go hunting in the woods soon, wait and see.” After a time he slept.
[…]
Summer snatched table scraps from Bran’s hand, […]
[…]
Robb carried Bran up to bed himself. Grey Wind led the way, and Summer came close behind.
– A Game of Thrones – Bran IV
A Game of Thrones – Bran V
At the next mention of Summer, he’s again shadowing Bran when they all go off riding. When the direwolves go off to hunt alone, we are shown how separation during a hunt is a time of vulnerability for the boys because, for all of the bond, these wolves are wild animals.
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.
[…]
“I don’t want to race.” Bran looked around for the direwolves. Both had vanished into the wood. “Did you hear Summer howling last night?”
“Grey Wind was restless too,” Robb said. His auburn hair had grown shaggy and unkempt, and a reddish stubble covered his jaw, making him look older than his fifteen years. “Sometimes I think they know things … sense things …” Robb sighed. “I never know how much to tell you, Bran. I wish you were older.”
It’s interesting that the boys discuss how the direwolves can sense things, yet they don’t sense the threat of the wildlings. Recall how Bran earlier thought that Summer was the smartest of the pack, but somehow, he doesn’t recognize this relatively close threat. Is this a plot hole, or is GRRM insinuating that the wolves are not as reliable as we might hope?
Also, note how Bran can recognize the howl of his own wolf, mentioned in the prior passage and the one that follows. Robb had noticed the same in Cat’s chapter earlier. Is this simply their recognition of the wolves’ voices or is it another indication of the supernatural connection of their bond?
They were on the far side when they heard the howl, a long rising wail that moved through the trees like a cold wind. Bran raised his head to listen. “Summer,” he said. No sooner had he spoken than a second voice joined the first.
“They’ve made a kill,” Robb said […].
As the attack begins note how Summer is careful, first checking the wind to assess the threat. Later, he is careful not to be injured by Hali. Is this an example of his mirroring Bran’s own carefulness, honed through years of climbing? It may also be partial warging, with Bran using his eyes to see the danger and Summer sensing it through Bran.
Robb whistled. They heard the faint sound of soft feet on wet leaves. The undergrowth parted, low-hanging branches giving up their accumulation of snow, and Grey Wind and Summer emerged from the green. Summer sniffed the air and growled.
“Wolves,” gasped Hali.
[…]
A few feet away, Summer darted in and snapped at Hali. The knife bit at his flank. Summer slid away, snarling, and came rushing in again. This time his jaws closed around her calf. Holding the knife with both hands, the small woman stabbed down, but the direwolf seemed to sense the blade coming. He pulled free for an instant, his mouth full of leather and cloth and bloody flesh. When Hali stumbled and fell, he came at her again, slamming her backward, teeth tearing at her belly.
Take note of the next line “In that moment Bran saw everything.” It’s a very eerie line. I must wonder, in this traumatic experience, is this an indication that he is partially warging Summer? Could he be seeing everything because he’s seeing through 2 sets of eyes?
In that moment Bran saw everything. Summer was savaging Hali, pulling glistening blue snakes from her belly. Her eyes were wide and staring. Bran could not tell whether she was alive or dead. The grey stubbly man and the one with the axe lay unmoving, but Osha was on her knees, crawling toward her fallen spear. Grey Wind padded toward her, dripping wet. “Call him off!” the big man shouted. “Call them both off, or the cripple boy dies now!”
“Grey Wind, Summer, to me,” Robb said.
The direwolves stopped, turned their heads. Grey Wind loped back to Robb. Summer stayed where he was, his eyes on Bran and the man beside him. He growled. His muzzle was wet and red, but his eyes burned.
Osha used the butt end of her spear to lever herself back to her feet. Blood leaked from a wound on the upper arm where Robb had cut her. Bran could see sweat trickling down the big man’s face. Stiv was as scared as he was, he realized. “Starks,” the man muttered, “bloody Starks.” He raised his voice. “Osha, kill the wolves and get his sword.”
When Stiv threatens Bran, Grey Wind immediately obeys Robb’s command to stand down, but Summer is having none of it. He is intent on Bran, and in mirroring Bran, he is more independent than his brother. He never considers taking his burning eyes off Bran. Take note also of Stiv’s words about Starks. My interpretation of this line is that he’s heard tales of Starks being wargs. They were probably just stories to him until now; his comment seems full of regret for coming near Winterfell.
In that passage and the one to follow, we also see the horror of the direwolves’ ferocity and lack of fear of men in how they savage the corpses; that part is truly sickening. The next mention of Summer is where he is feeding on Hali. This is the first time the wolves consider men to be meat in the series. Robb’s men, even Luwin, are horrified.
The guardsmen had a strange, pale look to their faces as they took in the scene of slaughter. They eyed the wolves uncertainly, and when Summer returned to Hali’s corpse to feed, Joseth dropped his knife and scrambled for the bush, heaving. Even Maester Luwin seemed shocked as he stepped from behind a tree, but only for an instant. Then he shook his head and waded across the stream to Bran’s side. “Are you hurt?”
– A Game of Thrones – Bran V
A Game of Thrones – Bran VI
The next chapter is mostly a montage of different times Summer is shadowing and protecting Bran. We also get good indications of how even allies are fearful around the wolves. Later, we see them being affectionate with each other again.
They were the last, he knew. The other lords were already here, with their hosts. Bran yearned to ride out among them, to see the winter houses full to bursting, the jostling crowds in the market square every morning, the streets rutted and torn by wheel and hoof. But Robb had forbidden him to leave the castle. “We have no men to spare to guard you,” his brother had explained.
“I’ll take Summer,” Bran argued.
[…]
As they passed beneath the gatehouse portcullis, Bran put two fingers into his mouth and whistled. Summer came loping across the yard. Suddenly the Karstark lancers were fighting for control, as their horses rolled their eyes and whickered in dismay. One stallion reared, screaming, his rider cursing and hanging on desperately. The scent of the direwolves sent horses into a frenzy of fear if they were not accustomed to it, but they’d quiet soon enough once Summer was gone. “The godswood,” Bran reminded Hodor.
[…]
He tried not to flinch as Hodor ducked through a low door. They walked down a long dim hallway, Summer padding easily beside them. The wolf glanced up from time to time, eyes smoldering like liquid gold. Bran would have liked to touch him, but he was riding too high for his hand to reach.
Later, we see them being affectionate with each other again. Clearly, their bond is deepening. The final line of the passage reminds us of the power Bran has and how it can deepen their bond. He is dreaming with the gods. Note how Bran is comfortable with the old gods; this is possible foreshadowing of his eventual connection to the weirwood net.
Summer lapped at the water and settled down at Bran’s side. He rubbed the wolf under the jaw, and for a moment boy and beast both felt at peace. Bran had always liked the godswood, even before, but of late he found himself drawn to it more and more. Even the heart tree no longer scared him the way it used to. The deep red eyes carved into the pale trunk still watched him, yet somehow he took comfort from that now. The gods were looking over him, he told himself; the old gods, gods of the Starks and the First Men and the children of the forest, his father’s gods. He felt safe in their sight, and the deep silence of the trees helped him think. Bran had been thinking a lot since his fall; thinking, and dreaming, and talking with the gods.
When Lady’s bones were returned all 3 wolves howled in mourning. She was pack; they must have identified her scent.
Bran felt all cold inside. “She lost her wolf,” he said, weakly, remembering the day when four of his father’s guardsmen had returned from the south with Lady’s bones. Summer and Grey Wind and Shaggydog had begun to howl before they crossed the drawbridge, in voices drawn and desolate. Beneath the shadow of the First Keep was an ancient lichyard, its headstones spotted with pale lichen, where the old Kings of Winter had laid their faithful servants. It was there they buried Lady, while her brothers stalked between the graves like restless shadows. She had gone south, and only her bones had returned.
The next exchange is interesting. The wind has been used before to signify the old gods trying to talk. While Bran may be comfortable with the old gods, Summer may not be. Or, it could be that Summer is growling at Osha. Either way, it makes me concerned that the power of the weirwoods may not be benevolent, given how the wolves seem to be better judges of danger than the children. Reminding us of the fear the wolves inspire, Osha is very uneasy (I wonder why, personal experience much?). The exchange ends with Summer obeying, then being affectionate with Bran.
A faint wind sighed through the godswood and the red leaves stirred and whispered. Summer bared his teeth. “You hear them, boy?” a voice asked.
Bran lifted his head. Osha stood across the pool, beneath an ancient oak, her face shadowed by leaves. Even in irons, the Wildling moved quiet as a cat. Summer circled the pool, sniffed at her. The tall woman flinched.
“Summer, to me,” Bran called. The direwolf took one final sniff, spun, and bounded back. Bran wrapped his arms around him. “What are you doing here?” He had not seen Osha since they’d taken her captive in the wolfswood, though he knew she’d been set to working in the kitchens.
– A Game of Thrones – Bran VI
Note that after the interaction with Osha, Maester Luwin started telling Bran that magical creatures (giants and children of the forest in this case) no longer existed. This would be the first of many times where Luwin filled Bran’s head with skepticism about magic only to be proven wrong. It is comforting to Bran, but he ultimately knows that the maester’s ideas don’t pass muster.
A Game of Thrones – Bran VII
The next chapter is mainly about Bran’s dream of Ned being in the crypts; Luwin doesn’t believe the dream to be meaningful and takes Bran there to prove it. Luwin, you know nothing. We see several examples of our themes with Summer and Bran, including shadowing, affection, savagery, and obedience.
“They don’t fight very well,” Bran said dubiously. He scratched Summer idly behind the ears as the direwolf tore at a haunch of meat. Bones crunched between his teeth.
[…]
“Summer, come,” Bran called as she lifted him in wiry-strong arms. The direwolf left his bone and followed as Osha carried Bran across the yard and down the spiral steps to the cold vault under the earth. Maester Luwin went ahead with a torch. Bran did not even mind—too badly—that she carried him in her arms and not on her back. Ser Rodrik had ordered Osha’s chain struck off, since she had served faithfully and well since she had been at Winterfell. She still wore the heavy iron shackles around her ankles—a sign that she was not yet wholly trusted—but they did not hinder her sure strides down the steps.
Notice how, in the next passage, Summer does not want to go into the crypts. I assume this to be related to instinct to fear the dead walking, the wights.
He wished they were here now; the vault might not have seemed so dark and scary. Summer stalked out in the echoing gloom, then stopped, lifted his head, and sniffed the chill dead air. He bared his teeth and crept backward, eyes glowing golden in the light of the maester’s torch. Even Osha, hard as old iron, seemed uncomfortable. “Grim folk, by the look of them,” she said as she eyed the long row of granite Starks on their stone thrones.
[…]
The vault was cavernous, longer than Winterfell itself, and Jon had told him once that there were other levels underneath, vaults even deeper and darker where the older kings were buried. It would not do to lose the light. Summer refused to move from the steps, even when Osha followed with the torch, Bran in her arms.
Summer is skittish about going into the crypts, but at the first sign of danger he leaps to Bran’s protection. Shaggydog turns out to be that danger, and this is the first of several times where Summer needs to keep his black brother in check, now that Grey Wind has left with Robb.
“Summer!” Bran screamed.
And Summer came, shooting from the dimness behind them, a leaping shadow. He slammed into Shaggydog and knocked him back, and the two direwolves rolled over and over in a tangle of grey and black fur, snapping and biting at each other, while Maester Luwin struggled to his knees, his arm torn and bloody. Osha propped Bran up against Lord Rickard’s stone wolf as she hurried to assist the maester. In the light of the guttering torch, shadow wolves twenty feet tall fought on the wall and roof.
“Shaggy,” a small voice called. When Bran looked up, his little brother was standing in the mouth of Father’s tomb. With one final snap at Summer’s face, Shaggydog broke off and bounded to Rickon’s side. “You let my father be,” Rickon warned Luwin. “You let him be.”
[…]
“You can wait with me,” Bran said. “We’ll wait together, you and me and our wolves.” Both of the direwolves were licking wounds now, and would bear close watching.
This rare moment of affection and indulgence of Rickon must mean the world to the boy. Bran’s empathy here shines. They both want to be with their wolves.
In the rookery later, do the wolves seem to sense the boys’ dread as the raven announcing Ned’s death arrives, even as Summer first senses the raven? It’s worth wondering if the direwolves experience some of the boys’ non-wolf dreams. Did they understand the context of the dream to mean that Ned had died before the raven arrived? One might assume their howling was only an indication that they were mirroring the boys’ dread, but there was no prior sign of an arrival of a raven. We might assume that Summer smelled, saw or heard it approaching, although without the context of the news it would bring, why howl? Did Bran subconsciously supply that context telepathically? Did his nascent connection to the weir woods tell Bran it was coming?
Summer began to howl.
Maester Luwin broke off, startled. When Shaggydog bounded to his feet and added his voice to his brother’s, dread clutched at Bran’s heart. “It’s coming,” he whispered, with the certainty of despair. He had known it since last night, he realized, since the crow had led him down into the crypts to say farewell. He had known it, but he had not believed. He had wanted Maester Luwin to be right. The crow, he thought, the three-eyed crow …
The howling stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Summer padded across the tower floor to Shaggydog, and began to lick at a mat of bloody fur on the back of his brother’s neck. From the window came a flutter of wings.
– A Game of Thrones – Bran VII
Maester Luwin was not right; Ned’s dead, baby, Ned’s dead. This final chapter was a real eye-opener about the contrast between a maester’s view and the power that Bran possesses. The dream Rickon and Bran had had about Ned being killed was informed by some supernatural means, telepathy or magic. My personal opinion is that it was not an example of a predictive dream, but merely information from far away, likely via the weirwood net.
It is undetermined whether all these dreams/visions (which many experience in the series, not just Bran) are actively pushed by some motivated actor (as with Bloodraven in Bran’s case) or whether some are passively leaking out of the weirwood net (as may be the case with Rickon).
As a final thought on Bran and Summer’s story in AGoT, their bond is shown to be special in how it seems stronger than his siblings and is also augmented by Bran’s nascent powers and their connection to the weirwoods. Bran’s power is clarified in this final chapter; he is definitely able to receive supernatural messages from dreams beyond his connection to Summer.
A Clash of Kings – Summer and The Winged Wolf – Chained
In this volume, while we continue our themes, we see how close Summer and Bran truly are through the introduction of wolf dreams. Later, Bran gets his first mentor in Jojen, and we get even more information about how Bran’s power fits into this bond. Finally, Bran is isolated in the crypts, and we see a step change in Bran’s ability to truly warg into Summer. By the end of this book we’ll see how the magic indeed is stronger in Bran, which makes their bond develop stronger and faster.
Maester Luwin’s anti magic bias is continued rather heavy-handedly in this volume as well. Coupled with the effect of Old Nan’s stories, Bran fears the obvious magical implications of his dreams. The effect is to limit his receptivity to the message of the 3iCrow, Jojen, and the tree dreams. Jojen calls him the winged wolf, but he is chained to Winterfell by this fear and reticence.
Our direwolf themes continue develop in this volume, as Bran’s powers develop. Protection and Savagery and pack behavior are exhibited by the two remaining wolves for sure, though first directed at the Reeds. Mirroring is especially heightened in this incident, too. Unfortunately, the theme of the Direwolves not being able to protect the boys when separated from them continues in this volume, too, partially resulting in all that is wrought by Theon and then Ramsey.
A Clash of Kings – Bran I
The first Bran chapter in ACoK is the first mention of a wolf dream in the story, although Old Nan tells Bran that he is not the first Stark to experience one. She also echoes the SSM from our introduction.
This chapter is almost non-stop direwolf interaction and wolf dream hints. Bran is stuck in his room a lot and finds interest in the behavior of the wolves, especially howling. This is an example of the call of the pack. He tries to get in the wolves heads, especially about why they’re howling at the comet, and he gets a lot of conflicting feedback from people around Winterfell. One ironic comment is from Roderick Cassel, who asks “who can know the mind of a wolf?” Oh, Ser Roderick, the answer was staring into your face!
He could not walk, nor climb nor hunt nor fight with a wooden sword as once he had, but he could still look. He liked to watch the windows begin to glow all over Winterfell as candles and hearth fires were lit behind the diamond-shaped panes of tower and hall, and he loved to listen to the direwolves sing to the stars.
Of late, he often dreamed of wolves. They are talking to me, brother to brother, he told himself when the direwolves howled. He could almost understand them . . . not quite, not truly, but almost . . . as if they were singing in a language he had once known and somehow forgotten. The Walders might be scared of them, but the Starks had wolf blood. Old Nan told him so. “Though it is stronger in some than in others,” she warned.
Summer’s howls were long and sad, full of grief and longing. Shaggydog’s were more savage. Their voices echoed through the yards and halls until the castle rang and it seemed as though some great pack of direwolves haunted Winterfell, instead of only two . . . two where there had once been six. Do they miss their brothers and sisters too? Bran wondered. Are they calling to Grey Wind and Ghost, to Nymeria and Lady’s Shade? Do they want them to come home and be a pack together?
It’s interesting how each person give a little hint about the nature of the wolf bond. Rodrik, the mind mingling, Farlen their independence, Gage the hunt, and Luwin pack behavior, and Osha, their sense of danger.
“Who can know the mind of a wolf?” Ser Rodrik Cassel said when Bran asked him why they howled. Bran’s lady mother had named him castellan of Winterfell in her absence, and his duties left him little time for idle questions.
“It’s freedom they’re calling for,” declared Farlen, who was kennelmaster and had no more love for the direwolves than his hounds did. “They don’t like being walled up, and who’s to blame them? Wild things belong in the wild, not in a castle.”
“They want to hunt,” agreed Gage the cook as he tossed cubes of suet in a great kettle of stew. “A wolf smells better’n any man. Like as not, they’ve caught the scent o’ prey.”
Maester Luwin did not think so. “Wolves often howl at the moon. These are howling at the comet. See how bright it is, Bran? Perchance they think it is the moon.”
When Bran repeated that to Osha, she laughed aloud. “Your wolves have more wit than your maester,” the wildling woman said. “They know truths the grey man has forgotten.” The way she said it made him shiver, and when he asked what the comet meant, she answered, “Blood and fire, boy, and nothing sweet.
The howling continues, making us all wonder what it’s like in the mind of a wolf. Bran, remembering his wolf dream and determined to find out, starts howling himself. It’s a bit of humor at the beginning of this part of the saga, although it’s clear that this pack behavior is recognized by the wolves and represents a deepening of the bond. Ominously, though, this is the first time that both wolves have been confined away from the boys since Bran awoke. Did nobody tell Ser Roderick of the protection that Summer has provided their Lord? Is his memory so short?
And still the direwolves howled. The guards on the walls muttered curses, hounds in the kennels barked furiously, horses kicked at their stalls, the Walders shivered by their fire, and even Maester Luwin complained of sleepless nights. Only Bran did not mind. Ser Rodrik had confined the wolves to the godswood after Shaggydog bit Little Walder, but the stones of Winterfell played queer tricks with sound, and sometimes it sounded as if they were in the yard right below Bran’s window. Other times he would have sworn they were up on the curtain walls, loping round like sentries. He wished that he could see them.
[…]
Summer had howled the day Bran had fallen, and for long after as he lay broken in his bed; Robb had told him so before he went away to war. Summer had mourned for him, and Shaggydog and Grey Wind had joined in his grief. And the night the bloody raven had brought word of their father’s death, the wolves had known that too. Bran had been in the maester’s turret with Rickon talking of the children of the forest when Summer and Shaggydog had drowned out Luwin with their howls.
Who are they mourning now? Had some enemy slain the King in the North, who used to be his brother Robb? Had his bastard brother Jon Snow fallen from the Wall? Had his mother died, or one of his sisters? Or was this something else, as maester and septon and Old Nan seemed to think?
If I were truly a direwolf, I would understand the song, he thought wistfully. In his wolf dreams, he could race up the sides of mountains, jagged icy mountains taller than any tower, and stand at the summit beneath the full moon with all the world below him, the way it used to be.
“Oooo,” Bran cried tentatively. He cupped his hands around his mouth and lifted his head to the comet. “Ooooooooooooooooooo, ahooooooooooooooo,” he howled. It sounded stupid, high and hollow and quavering, a little boy’s howl, not a wolf’s. Yet Summer gave answer, his deep voice drowning out Bran’s thin one, and Shaggydog made it a chorus. Bran haroooed again. They howled together, last of their pack.
The noise brought a guard to his door, Hayhead with the wen on his nose. He peered in, saw Bran howling out the window, and said, “What’s this, my prince?”
It made Bran feel queer when they called him prince, though he was Robb’s heir, and Robb was King in the North now. He turned his head to howl at the guard. “Oooooooo. Oo-oo-oooooooooooo.”
Hayhead screwed up his face. “Now you stop that there.”
“Ooo-ooo-oooooo. Ooo-ooo-ooooooooooooooooo.”
Certainly, Maester Luwin knows better than confine the wolves away from the boys, but he can’t admit it to himself due to his learned prejudices against magic. That skepticism is in full force as we move forward here.
Bran is dropping hints left and right about wolf dreams and tree dreams. It’s clear that he’s being bombarded with information in these dreams and is trying to make sense of it. He doesn’t even seem to realize that he is “dreaming” inside Summer’s mind. He desperately misses the wolf, given the forced separation. I wonder if this separation fostered a quicker development of the wolf dreams that might have otherwise happened. Thinking back to part 3, the same didn’t happen immediately with Arya And Nymeria, although their connection seemed to be reignited when in closer proximity while still being separated in the Riverlands.
“All men must sleep, Bran. Even princes.”
“When I sleep I turn into a wolf.” Bran turned his face away and looked back out into the night. “Do wolves dream?”
“All creatures dream, I think, yet not as men do.”
“Do dead men dream?” Bran asked, thinking of his father. In the dark crypts below Winterfell, a stonemason was chiseling out his father’s likeness in granite.
“Some say yes, some no,” the maester answered. “The dead themselves are silent on the matter.”
“Do trees dream?“
“Trees? No . . .”
“They do,” Bran said with sudden certainty. “They dream tree dreams. I dream of a tree sometimes. A weirwood, like the one in the godswood. It calls to me. The wolf dreams are better. I smell things, and sometimes I can taste the blood.”
Notice that last line, he can taste the blood. Though Luwin chooses to deny its import, that is probably our first direct hint at sharing senses through the bond in this story, even if my analysis suggests earlier hidden references.
Bran goes on to protest the separation from Summer. He know the wolf’s worth as a protector, and he also needs the affection, one theme that is lacking here and so often in this volume due to the separation.
“Home. It’s their fault you won’t let me have Summer.”
“The Frey boy did not ask to be attacked,” the maester said, “no more than I did.”
“That was Shaggydog.” Rickon’s big black wolf was so wild he even frightened Bran at times. “Summer never bit anyone.”
“Summer ripped out a man’s throat in this very chamber, or have you forgotten? The truth is, those sweet pups you and your brothers found in the snow have grown into dangerous beasts. The Frey boys are wise to be wary of them.”
Luwin, it seems that YOU have forgotten that when Summer tore that man’s throat out it was saving Bran and Catelyn’s life. Bran even argues that Summer would protect him, but Luwin is so sure that everyone else needs protection from the wolves that he is unable to remember! Bran goes on:
“Summer would save me,” Bran insisted stubbornly. “Princes should be allowed to sail the sea and hunt boar in the wolfswood and joust with lances.”
“Bran, child, why do you torment yourself so? One day you may do some of these things, but now you are only a boy of eight.”
“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.”
Luwin raised his voice. “A true prince would welcome—”
“AAHOOOOOOO,” Bran howled, louder. “OOOO-OOOO-OOOO.”
– A Clash of Kings – Bran I
The key takeway here is that spending nights as a direwolf is definitely rubbing off on Bran, sort of a reverse mirroring. It’s cute, but it bears remembering that Bran is impressionable to Summer’s wolfishness.
As an aside, all the howling in that chapter reminds me of the Ozzy Osbourne song “Bark at the Moon”. I’ve made a recording of that song, and I will be re-posting it soon on this channel as a Direwolf cover!
A Clash of Kings – Bran II
The theme of the wolves being protectors is at the forefront in the following chapter, coupled with further discussion of wolf dreams. We also see affection, as the boys do get a chance to play with the wolves in the godswood, though they remain confined at night. Chekhov’s confinement. We also are reminded of the wolves’ savagery, their sense of threats, and pack behavior; so basically all our themes are in evidence in a short passages that follow.
“Let him. I always wanted a wolfskin cloak.”
“Summer would tear your fat head off,” Bran said.
Little Walder banged a mailed fist against his breastplate. “Does your wolf have steel teeth, to bite through plate and mail?”
[…]
“As you will, my prince,” said Ser Rodrik. “You did well.” Bran flushed with pleasure. Being a lord was not so tedious as he had feared, and since Lady Hornwood had been so much briefer than Lord Manderly, he even had a few hours of daylight left to visit with Summer. He liked to spend time with his wolf every day, when Ser Rodrik and the maester allowed it.
No sooner had Hodor entered the godswood than Summer emerged from under an oak, almost as if he had known they were coming. Bran glimpsed a lean black shape watching from the undergrowth as well. “Shaggy,” he called. “Here, Shaggydog. To me.” But Rickon’s wolf vanished as swiftly as he’d appeared.
Note how Summer knew Bran was coming, did he know through the bond, through mirroring? That may be more likely than than the mundane explanation, that he smelled them coming. Next Summer evaluates Osha not to be a threat
And then Osha exploded up out of the pool with a great splash, so sudden that even Summer leapt back, snarling. Hodor jumped away, wailing “Hodor, Hodor” in dismay until Bran patted his shoulder to soothe his fears. “How can you swim in there?” he asked Osha. “Isn’t it cold?”
“As a babe I suckled on icicles, boy. I like the cold.” Osha swam to the rocks and rose dripping. She was naked, her skin bumpy with gooseprickles. Summer crept close and sniffed at her.
[…]
“He’d never dare hurt me. He’s scared of Summer, no matter what he says.”
“Then might be he’s not so stupid as he seems.” Osha was always wary around the direwolves. The day she was taken, Summer and Grey Wind between them had torn three wildlings to bloody pieces. “Or might be he is. And that tastes of trouble too.” She tied up her hair. “You have more of them wolf dreams?”
“No.” He did not like to talk about the dreams.
“A prince should lie better than that.” Osha laughed. “Well, your dreams are your business. Mine’s in the kitchens, and I’d best be getting back before Gage starts to shouting and waving that big wooden spoon of his. By your leave, my prince.”
She should never have talked about the wolf dreams, Bran thought as Hodor carried him up the steps to his bedchamber. He fought against sleep as long as he could, but in the end it took him as it always did. On this night he dreamed of the weirwood. It was looking at him with its deep red eyes, calling to him with its twisted wooden mouth, and from its pale branches the three-eyed crow came flapping, pecking at his face and crying his name in a voice as sharp as swords.
– A Clash of Kings – Bran II
Notice at the end of that passage how Bran is now not happy about having the dreams. Could it be that he still likes the wolf dreams and it’s only the other dreams he’s not happy about? Could it be that he is realizing they are real and he is going into Summer? Could Summer’s mood about being confined be affecting Bran? Could he be worried about being a warg? I think the answer to all these questions is “YES.” That last idea may worry him most, though, save for the Lannister / falling dreams, because wargs don’t have a good reputation in many of the stories Old Nan has told him, especially the scary ones that Bran likes. Perhaps he feels he won’t become a warg if he resists the crow opening his third eye?
This is The Direwolves of Winterfell Episode 4.4, continuing A Clash of Kings, Summer and the Winged Wolf – Chained.
A Clash of Kings – Bran III
When we left Bran and Summer, both were upset at their constant separation, and Bran was also dismayed at his dreams, partially fueled by his reaction to Luwin’s anti magic bias. In this chapter, we are again reminded of the wolves’ confinement, and during Bran’s first meeting with the Reeds we are also reminded of Summer’s ability to keep Shaggydog in check.
Dancer was draped in bardings of snowy white wool emblazoned with the grey direwolf of House Stark, while Bran wore grey breeches and white doublet, his sleeves and collar trimmed with vair. Over his heart was his wolf’s-head brooch of silver and polished jet. He would sooner have had Summer than a silver wolf on his breast, but Ser Rodrik had been unyielding.
[…]
“They won’t bite if I’m there.” Bran was pleased that they wanted to see the wolves. “Summer won’t anyway, and he’ll keep Shaggydog away.” He was curious about these mudmen. He could not recall ever seeing one before. His father had sent letters to the Lord of Greywater over the years, but none of the crannogmen had ever called at Winterfell. He would have liked to talk to them more, but the Great Hall was so noisy that it was hard to hear anyone who wasn’t right beside you.
Finally, we get our first vivid depiction of a wolf dream, through Summer’s eyes when the Reeds visit the Godswood. Note how the author bridges the boy’s thoughts with the wolf’s thoughts using the sense of smell. Masterful. The first wolf thoughts are of pack and the instinct to hunt. Then, when the Reeds enter, he notes that they had no taint of fear, likely a scent-related observation. Note also Jojen’s observation about Summer/Bran’s power.
He went to sleep with his head full of knights in gleaming armor, fighting with swords that shone like starfire, but when the dream came he was in the godswood again. The smells from the kitchen and the Great Hall were so strong that it was almost as if he had never left the feast. He prowled beneath the trees, his brother close behind him. This night was wildly alive, full of the howling of the man-pack at their play. The sounds made him restless. He wanted to run, to hunt, he wanted to—
The rattle of iron made his ears prick up. His brother heard it too. They raced through the undergrowth toward the sound. Bounding across the still water at the foot of the old white one, he caught the scent of a stranger, the man-smell well mixed with leather and earth and iron.
The intruders had pushed a few yards into the wood when he came upon them; a female and a young male, with no taint of fear to them, even when he showed them the white of his teeth. His brother growled low in his throat, yet still they did not run.
“Here they come,” the female said. Meera, some part of him whispered, some wisp of the sleeping boy lost in the wolf dream. “Did you know they would be so big?”
“They will be bigger still before they are grown,” the young male said, watching them with eyes large, green, and unafraid. “The black one is full of fear and rage, but the grey is strong . . . stronger than he knows . . . can you feel him, sister?”
“No,” she said, moving a hand to the hilt of the long brown knife she wore. “Go careful, Jojen.”
“He won’t hurt me. This is not the day I die.” The male walked toward them, unafraid, and reached out for his muzzle, a touch as light as a summer breeze. Yet at the brush of those fingers the wood dissolved and the very ground turned to smoke beneath his feet and swirled away laughing, and then he was spinning and falling, falling, falling . . .
– A Clash of Kings – Bran III
Jojen admits later that he sensed Bran inside Summer. It seems he came almost with the purpose to help Bran come to terms with the truth of his burgeoning magical power, partially indicated by the dreams. Both Reeds, Jojen especially, seem quite aware of the way of wargs and are completely comfortable around the wolves, too comfortable as we find out later.
A Clash of Kings – Bran IV
That comfort continues without concern early in the next chapter as Meera plays with Summer. She even muses how mild-tempered Summer is, when Bran agrees that Summer wouldn’t hurt them. Summer certainly doesn’t consider them a threat, and Bran obviously likes both Jojen and Meera, so he’s mirroring Bran’s good humor, especially in the affection for Meera. It’s quite endearing. Still, summer is undoubtedly acting as a wolf, and the way he hunts her is reminiscent of the way he was very careful during the attack on the wildlings in AGoT. Later Bran and Summer have another touching affectionate moment as well.
Meera moved in a wary circle, her net dangling loose in her left hand, the slender three-pronged frog spear poised in her right. Summer followed her with his golden eyes, turning, his tail held stiff and tall. Watching, watching . . .
“Yai!” the girl shouted, the spear darting out. The wolf slid to the left and leapt before she could draw back the spear. Meera cast her net, the tangles unfolding in the air before her. Summer’s leap carried him into it. He dragged it with him as he slammed into her chest and knocked her over backward. Her spear went spinning away. The damp grass cushioned her fall but the breath went out of her in an “Oof.” The wolf crouched atop her.
Bran hooted. “You lose.”
“She wins,” her brother Jojen said. “Summer’s snared.”
He was right, Bran saw. Thrashing and growling at the net, trying to rip free, Summer was only ensnaring himself worse. Nor could he bite through. “Let him out.”
Laughing, the Reed girl threw her arms around the tangled wolf and rolled them both. Summer gave a piteous whine, his legs kicking against the cords that bound them. Meera knelt, undid a twist, pulled at a corner, tugged deftly here and there, and suddenly the direwolf was bounding free.
“Summer, to me.” Bran spread his arms. “Watch,” he said, an instant before the wolf bowled into him. He clung with all his strength as the wolf dragged him bumping through the grass. They wrestled and rolled and clung to each other, one snarling and yapping, the other laughing. In the end it was Bran sprawled on top, the mud-spattered direwolf under him. “Good wolf,” he panted. Summer licked him across the ear.
Meera shook her head. “Does he never grow angry?”
“Not with me.” Bran grabbed the wolf by his ears and Summer snapped at him fiercely, but it was all in play. “Sometimes he tears my garb but he’s never drawn blood.”
“Your blood, you mean. If he’d gotten past my net . . .”
“He wouldn’t hurt you. He knows I like you.” All of the other lords and knights had departed within a day or two of the harvest feast, but the Reeds had stayed to become Bran’s constant companions. Jojen was so solemn that Old Nan called him “little grandfather,” but Meera reminded Bran of his sister Arya. She wasn’t scared to get dirty, and she could run and fight and throw as good as a boy. She was older than Arya, though; almost sixteen, a woman grown. They were both older than Bran, even though his ninth name day had finally come and gone, but they never treated him like a child.
“I wish you were our wards instead of the Walders.” He began to struggle toward the nearest tree. His dragging and wriggling was unseemly to watch, but when Meera moved to lift him he said, “No, don’t help me.” He rolled clumsily and pushed and squirmed backward, using the strength of his arms, until he was sitting with his back to the trunk of a tall ash. “See, I told you.” Summer lay down with his head in Bran’s lap. “I never knew anyone who fought with a net before,” he told Meera while he scratched the direwolf between the ears. “Did your master-at-arms teach you net-fighting?”
Bran, bruh, don’t get all elitist when you give compliments, down to earth, bruh.
Summer’s affection for Bran and Meera doesn’t appear to extend to Jojen. When he joins the exchange he quickly changes topics to the supernatural, implying that Bran is “the winged wolf” of his dream. The assertion that the wolf is held by “grey stone chains” seems a rather heavy-handed implication that maester Luwin and Winterfell itself are holding Bran back from achieving his magical potential. I do wonder if there is a larger prophecy around this figure of the winged wolf, or if it is first introduced into Westerosi lore by Jojen.
In any case, Summer mirrors Bran, by first acting intrigued by the conversation and then acting defensive when Bran wants to change the subject to things he’s more comfortable with.
Jojen’s eyes were the color of moss, and sometimes when he looked at you he seemed to be seeing something else. Like now. “I dreamed of a winged wolf bound to earth with grey stone chains,” he said. “It was a green dream, so I knew it was true. A crow was trying to peck through the chains, but the stone was too hard and his beak could only chip at them.”
“Did the crow have three eyes?”
Jojen nodded.
Summer raised his head from Bran’s lap, and gazed at the mudman with his dark golden eyes.
“When I was little I almost died of greywater fever. That was when the crow came to me.”
[…]
“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.”
Summer got to his feet. “I don’t need to see so far.” Bran made a nervous smile. “I’m tired of talking about crows. Let’s talk about wolves. Or lizard-lions. Have you ever hunted one, Meera? We don’t have them here.”
At this point, the chapter takes a dangerous turn, when Jojen’s intrusive “dream” questions make Bran more uncomfortable and then angry. Summer continues to mirror Bran’s mood. As the situation escalates, it shows the lie to Bran’s earlier assertion that Summer wouldn’t hurt them. He would if Bran’s mood led there, just as it nearly did with Tyrion before, and then with Stiv after that. Also, we see Summer’s independence again as he does not obey immediately when Bran calls him off. Bran says that he wants Summer to stop threatening the Reeds, but Summer independently follows his mood, not his command. We also see pack behavior as Shaggydog joins Summer in threatening the Reeds. Bran’s assertion that they won’t hurt Hodor is dubious, given how he had only just insisted that Summer wouldn’t hurt Meera either. At the end of it all, Summer lays next to Bran. This could be interpreted as affection or a protectiveness.
There is a lot exposed about the magic of the bond and telepathic communication in general in this passage, so I present it to you fully intact. Pay close attention to how Bran is consciously realizing (possibly for the first time) through Jojen’s dialogue, the truth of how his mind is connected to Summer. His anger comes, and shows itself in Summer, as Jojen forces him to admit this fact, even as Bran is in denial.
“No,” said Bran. “I told you, I don’t want—”
“Did you dream of a wolf?”
He was making Bran angry. “I don’t have to tell you my dreams. I’m the prince. I’m the Stark in Winterfell.”
“Was it Summer?”
“You be quiet.”
“The night of the harvest feast, you dreamed you were Summer in the godswood, didn’t you?”
“Stop it!” Bran shouted. Summer slid toward the weirwood, his white teeth bared.
Jojen Reed took no mind. “When I touched Summer, I felt you in him. Just as you are in him now.”
“You couldn’t have. I was in bed. I was sleeping.”
“You were in the godswood, all in grey.”
“It was only a bad dream . . .”
Jojen stood. “I felt you. I felt you fall. Is that what scares you, the falling?”
The falling, Bran thought, and the golden man, the queen’s brother, he scares me too, but mostly the falling. He did not say it, though. How could he? He had not been able to tell Ser Rodrik or Maester Luwin, and he could not tell the Reeds either. If he didn’t talk about it, maybe he would forget. He had never wanted to remember. It might not even be a true remembering.
“Do you fall every night, Bran?” Jojen asked quietly.
A low rumbling growl rose from Summer’s throat, and there was no play in it. He stalked forward, all teeth and hot eyes. Meera stepped between the wolf and her brother, spear in hand. “Keep him back, Bran.”
“Jojen is making him angry.”
Meera shook out her net.
“It’s your anger, Bran,” her brother said. “Your fear.”
It isn’t. I’m not a wolf.” Yet he’d howled with them in the night, and tasted blood in his wolf dreams.
“Part of you is Summer, and part of Summer is you. You know that, Bran.”
Summer rushed forward, but Meera blocked him, jabbing with the three-pronged spear. The wolf twisted aside, circling, stalking. Meera turned to face him. “Call him back, Bran.”
“Summer!” Bran shouted. “To me, Summer!” He slapped an open palm down on the meat of his thigh. His hand tingled, though his dead leg felt nothing.
The direwolf lunged again, and again Meera’s spear darted out. Summer dodged, circled back. The bushes rustled, and a lean black shape came padding from behind the weirwood, teeth bared. The scent was strong; his brother had smelled his rage. Bran felt hairs rise on the back of his neck. Meera stood beside her brother, with wolves to either side. “Bran, call them off.”
“I can’t!”
“Jojen, up the tree.”
“There’s no need. Today is not the day I die.”
“Do it!” she screamed, and her brother scrambled up the trunk of the weirwood, using the face for his handholds. The direwolves closed. Meera abandoned spear and net, jumped up, and grabbed the branch above her head. Shaggy’s jaws snapped shut beneath her ankle as she swung up and over the limb. Summer sat back on his haunches and howled, while Shaggydog worried the net, shaking it in his teeth.
Only then did Bran remember that they were not alone. He cupped hands around his mouth. “Hodor!” he shouted. “Hodor! Hodor!” He was badly frightened and somehow ashamed. “They won’t hurt Hodor,” he assured his treed friends.
A few moments passed before they heard a tuneless humming. Hodor arrived half-dressed and mud-spattered from his visit to the hot pools, but Bran had never been so glad to see him. “Hodor, help me. Chase off the wolves. Chase them off.”
Hodor went to it gleefully, waving his arms and stamping his huge feet, shouting “Hodor, Hodor,” running first at one wolf and then the other. Shaggydog was the first to flee, slinking back into the foliage with a final snarl. When Summer had enough, he came back to Bran and lay down beside him.
No sooner did Meera touch ground than she snatched up her spear and net again. Jojen never took his eyes off Summer. “We will talk again,” he promised Bran.
It was the wolves, it wasn’t me. He did not understand why they’d gotten so wild. Maybe Maester Luwin was right to lock them in the godswood. “Hodor,” he said, “bring me to Maester Luwin.”
Summer mirrors Bran’s mood throughout that passage; that’s plain, but take careful note of how Bran refers to Shaggydog as “his brother,” and then the hairs on the back of BRAN’S neck rise. This is clearly Bran mirroring Summer, sharing Summers senses. It’s worth considering how much Bran may have been directly feeding Summer’s actions through their bond. Bran never thinks of himself as a wolf, so it’s not full warging, but I think this passage represents their consciousnesses blending to some degree as Bran gets more and more agitated.
Later, Bran is still in denial, but that won’t last long. He is placing his faith in Maester’s Luwin’s increasingly blind assertions that magic doesn’t exist or is gone from the world. Meera sees through the façade.
“No, my prince. Jojen Reed may have had a dream or two that he believes came true, but he does not have the greensight. No living man has that power.”
Bran said as much to Meera Reed when she came to him at dusk as he sat in his window seat watching the lights flicker to life. “I’m sorry for what happened with the wolves. Summer shouldn’t have tried to hurt Jojen, but Jojen shouldn’t have said all that about my dreams. The crow lied when he said I could fly, and your brother lied too.”
“Or perhaps your maester is wrong.”
– A Clash of Kings – Bran IV
Yes Meera, Luwin has been wrong all along, about a great many things.
This chapter bears summarizing. Jojen says that a part of Summer is in Bran and vice versa. This is the first time this concept is explained in the text, but it immediately rings true. He also repeatedly mentions the “winged wolf” and hangs the moniker on Bran. He also confirms that he’s also dreamed of the three-eyed crow (3icrow).
We also find out that Bran does partially remember Jaime Lannister pushing him; this golden man and the associated falling is partly why Bran is afraid of these real dreams. He must be having a recurring nightmare about this. However, I think the fears about being a warg discussed prior are also true because of Bran’s assertion that he’s not a wolf and that the wolves caused the incident, not him. Both assertions smack of denial.
A Clash of Kings – Bran V
He seems terrified of being labelled a warg, which relates back to Old Nan’s stories. This next chapter proves it. Jojen also repeats the mantra of the winged wolf and also hangs the monikers of “Warg” and “beastling” on Bran. He is not diplomatic at all; he seems intent on piercing Bran’s denial. It’s starting to work, but it makes Bran more fearful than ever.
Note also how Jojen describes the bond to Summer, that Bran’s “soul seeks out its other half.” Wow. That is as good a summary of the bond as I could imagine for this analysis. You know how old fiction says that vampires can’t be seen in mirrors because they lack a soul? Well this is another kind of mirroring, where the souls are a pair, irrevocably bonded.
He was scared, even then, but he had sworn to trust them, and a Stark of Winterfell keeps his sworn word. “There’s different kinds,” he said slowly. “There’s the wolf dreams, those aren’t so bad as the others. I run and hunt and kill squirrels. And there’s dreams where the crow comes and tells me to fly. Sometimes the tree is in those dreams too, calling my name. That frightens me. But the worst dreams are when I fall.” He looked down into the yard, feeling miserable. “I never used to fall before. When I climbed. I went everyplace, up on the roofs and along the walls, I used to feed the crows in the Burned Tower. Mother was afraid that I would fall but I knew I never would. Only I did, and now when I sleep, I fall all the time.”
Meera gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Is that all?”
“I guess.”
“Warg,” said Jojen Reed.
Bran looked at him, his eyes wide. “What?”
“Warg. Shapechanger. Beastling. That is what they will call you, if they should ever hear of your wolf dreams.”
The names made him afraid again. “Who will call me?”
“Your own folk. In fear. Some will hate you if they know what you are. Some will even try to kill you.”
Old Nan told scary stories of beastlings and shapechangers sometimes. In the stories they were always evil. “I’m not like that,” Bran said. “I’m not. It’s only dreams.”
“The wolf dreams are no true dreams. You have your eye closed tight whenever you’re awake, but as you drift off it flutters open and your soul seeks out its other half. The power is strong in you.”
“I don’t want it. I want to be a knight.”
“A knight is what you want. A warg is what you are. You can’t change that, Bran, you can’t deny it or push it away. You are the winged wolf, but you will never fly.” Jojen got up and walked to the window. “Unless you open your eye.” He put two fingers together and poked Bran in the forehead, hard.
When he raised his hand to the spot, Bran felt only the smooth unbroken skin. There was no eye, not even a closed one. “How can I open it if it’s not there?”
– A Clash of Kings – Bran V
Seems Jojen has been trying to get him to open his eye all along, just like the 3iCrow. He tells Bran that they’re all going to call him a Warg. Jojen’s not exactly selling it here, but he’s right in his diagnosis of denial, and his later logic works as well, to call on Bran to reach his potential.
That’s it for this episode. Join us next time where we’ll start with the vivid wolf dream as Theon attacks the castle.
This is the direwolves of Winterfell, Episode 4.5, our continuation of Bran and Summer’s story in A Clash of Kings, “Summer and the Winged Wolf – Chained.”
A Clash of Kings – Bran VI
Next chapter, having been foreshadowed by another Jojen dream, the Chekhov’s confinement gun is fired. It starts with a vivid wolf dream. The wolves clearly sense the danger but are powerless to do anything. Their protective instinct is strong and they work as a pack to do all they can. Bran even pitches in the idea that they could climb the sentinel. It’s too bad that Bran’s ability is not yet developed, as he may have been able to wake himself to sound the alarm otherwise. At the end, with Summer having fallen from a tree, Bran can no longer deny the truth of his connection to Summer because he’s concerned for the wolf’s safety.
The sound was the faintest of clinks, a scraping of steel over stone. He lifted his head from his paws, listening, sniffing at the night.
The evening’s rain had woken a hundred sleeping smells and made them ripe and strong again. Grass and thorns, blackberries broken on the ground, mud, worms, rotting leaves, a rat creeping through the bush. He caught the shaggy black scent of his brother’s coat and the sharp coppery tang of blood from the squirrel he’d killed. Other squirrels moved through the branches above, smelling of wet fur and fear, their little claws scratching at the bark. The noise had sounded something like that.
And he heard it again, clink and scrape. It brought him to his feet. His ears pricked and his tail rose. He howled, a long deep shivery cry, a howl to wake the sleepers, but the piles of man-rock were dark and dead. A still wet night, a night to drive men into their holes. The rain had stopped, but the men still hid from the damp, huddled by the fires in their caves of piled stone.
His brother came sliding through the trees, moving almost as quiet as another brother he remembered dimly from long ago, the white one with the eyes of blood. This brother’s eyes were pools of shadow, but the fur on the back of his neck was bristling. He had heard the sounds as well, and known they meant danger.
This time the clink and scrape were followed by a slithering and the soft swift patter of skinfeet on stone. The wind brought the faintest whiff of a man-smell he did not know. Stranger. Danger. Death.
He ran toward the sound, his brother racing beside him. The stone dens rose before them, walls slick and wet. He bared his teeth, but the man-rock took no notice. A gate loomed up, a black iron snake coiled tight about bar and post. When he crashed against it, the gate shuddered and the snake clanked and slithered and held. Through the bars he could look down the long stone burrow that ran between the walls to the stony field beyond, but there was no way through. He could force his muzzle between the bars, but no more. Many a time his brother had tried to crack the black bones of the gate between his teeth, but they would not break. They had tried to dig under, but there were great flat stones beneath, half-covered by earth and blown leaves.
Snarling, he paced back and forth in front of the gate, then threw himself at it once more. It moved a little and slammed him back. Locked, something whispered. Chained. The voice he did not hear, the scent without a smell. The other ways were closed as well. Where doors opened in the walls of man-rock, the wood was thick and strong. There was no way out.
There is, the whisper came, and it seemed as if he could see the shadow of a great tree covered in needles, slanting up out of the black earth to ten times the height of a man. Yet when he looked about, it was not there. The other side of the godswood, the sentinel, hurry, hurry . . .
Through the gloom of night came a muffled shout, cut short.
Swiftly, swiftly, he whirled and bounded back into the trees, wet leaves rustling beneath his paws, branches whipping at him as he rushed past. He could hear his brother following close. They plunged under the heart tree and around the cold pool, through the blackberry bushes, under a tangle of oaks and ash and hawthorn scrub, to the far side of the wood . . . and there it was, the shadow he’d glimpsed without seeing, the slanting tree pointing at the rooftops. Sentinel, came the thought.
He remembered how it was to climb it then. The needles everywhere, scratching at his bare face and falling down the back of his neck, the sticky sap on his hands, the sharp piney smell of it. It was an easy tree for a boy to climb, leaning as it did, crooked, the branches so close together they almost made a ladder, slanting right up to the roof.
Growling, he sniffed around the base of the tree, lifted a leg and marked it with a stream of urine. A low branch brushed his face, and he snapped at it, twisting and pulling until the wood cracked and tore. His mouth was full of needles and the bitter taste of the sap. He shook his head and snarled.
His brother sat back on his haunches and lifted his voice in a ululating howl, his song black with mourning. The way was no way. They were not squirrels, nor the cubs of men, they could not wriggle up the trunks of trees, clinging with soft pink paws and clumsy feet. They were runners, hunters, prowlers.
Off across the night, beyond the stone that hemmed them close, the dogs woke and began to bark. One and then another and then all of them, a great clamor. They smelled it too; the scent of foes and fear.
A desperate fury filled him, hot as hunger. He sprang away from the wall, loped off beneath the trees, the shadows of branch and leaf dappling his grey fur . . . and then he turned and raced back in a rush. His feet flew, kicking up wet leaves and pine needles, and for a little time he was a hunter and an antlered stag was fleeing before him and he could see it, smell it, and he ran full out in pursuit. The smell of fear made his heart thunder and slaver ran from his jaws, and he reached the falling tree in stride and threw himself up the trunk, claws scrabbling at the bark for purchase. Upward he bounded, up, two bounds, three, hardly slowing, until he was among the lower limbs. Branches tangled his feet and whipped at his eyes, grey-green needles scattered as he shouldered through them, snapping. He had to slow. Something snagged at his foot and he wrenched it free, snarling. The trunk narrowed under him, the slope steeper, almost straight up, and wet. The bark tore like skin when he tried to claw at it. He was a third of the way up, halfway, more, the roof was almost within reach . . . and then he put down a foot and felt it slip off the curve of wet wood, and suddenly he was sliding, stumbling. He yowled in fear and fury, falling, falling, and twisted around while the ground rushed up to break him . . .
And then Bran was back abed in his lonely tower room, tangled in his blankets, his breath coming hard. “Summer,” he cried aloud. “Summer.” His shoulder seemed to ache, as if he had fallen on it, but he knew it was only the ghost of what the wolf was feeling. Jojen told it true. I am a beastling. Outside he could hear the faint barking of dogs. The sea has come. It’s flowing over the walls, just as Jojen saw. Bran grabbed the bar overhead and pulled himself up, shouting for help. No one came, and after a moment he remembered that no one would. They had taken the guard off his door. Ser Rodrik had needed every man of fighting age he could lay his hands on, so Winterfell had been left with only a token garrison.
Bad things happen when the Stark children are separated from their wolves. 1121 words of vivid wolf dream lets us know that Summer definitely knew about the Ironborn invasion of Winterfell, and if he hadn’t been confined to the godswood away from Bran, he might have been able to sound the alarm in time. When Bran wakes from the dream he knows it; he knows that Jojen predicted the Ironborn attack too.
The waiting made Bran feel even more helpless than before. He sat in the window seat, staring out at dark towers and walls black as shadow. Once he thought he heard shouting beyond the Guards Hall, and something that might have been the clash of swords, but he did not have Summer’s ears to hear, nor his nose to smell. Awake, I am still broken, but when I sleep, when I’m Summer, I can run and fight and hear and smell.
[…]
One of the ironmen went before them carrying a torch, but the rain had started again and soon drowned it out. As they hurried across the yard they could hear the direwolves howling in the godswood. I hope Summer wasn’t hurt falling from the tree.
– A Clash of Kings – Bran VI
Bran is no longer in denial of being a warg. He’s also quite worried for the safety of his wolf.
A Clash of Kings – Theon IV
The mention of Summer is when Theon can’t hear and subsequently fears the wolves. On their hunt for the wolves and boys, Theon is thoroughly tricked as the humans doubled back and the wolves led them around the wolfswood. The theme of how the wolves inspire fear in Stark enemies continues here as well with Theon.
He stopped. He had grown so used to the howling of the direwolves that he scarcely heard it anymore . . . but some part of him, some hunter’s instinct, heard its absence.
Urzen stood outside his door, a sinewy man with a round shield slung over his back. “The wolves are quiet,” Theon told him. “Go see what they’re doing, and come straight back.” The thought of the direwolves running loose gave him a queasy feeling. He remembered the day in the wolfswood when the wildlings had attacked Bran. Summer and Grey Wind had torn them to pieces.
This next passage also shows the savagery. Theon seems to be describing exactly what happens to his own guards.
I am served by fools. “Try and imagine it was you up here, Urzen. It’s dark and cold. You have been walking sentry for hours, looking forward to the end of your watch. Then you hear a noise and move toward the gate, and suddenly you see eyes at the top of the stair, glowing green and gold in the torchlight. Two shadows come rushing toward you faster than you can believe. You catch a glimpse of teeth, start to level your spear, and they slam into you and open your belly, tearing through leather as if it were cheesecloth.” He gave Urzen a hard shove. “And now you’re down on your back, your guts are spilling out, and one of them has his teeth around your neck.” Theon grabbed the man’s scrawny throat, tightened his fingers, and smiled. “Tell me, at what moment during all of this do you stop to blow your fucking horn?” He shoved Urzen away roughly, sending him stumbling back against a merlon. The man rubbed his throat. I should have had those beasts put down the day we took the castle, he thought angrily. I’d seen them kill, I knew how dangerous they were.
Theon recognizes the mundane aspects to the direwolf bond, protection, shadowing and affection, but he fails to account for the supernatural. I also find it interesting how Gariss recognizes the protective instinct in the 2 wolves. Why were Rodrick and Luwin so blind!?!
He dismounted for a closer look. The kill was still fresh, and plainly the work of wolves. The dogs sniffed round it eagerly, and one of the mastiffs buried his teeth in a haunch until Farlen shouted him off. No part of this animal has been butchered, Theon realized. The wolves ate, but not the men. Even if Osha did not want to risk a fire, she ought to have cut them a few steaks. It made no sense to leave so much good meat to rot. “Farlen, are you certain we’re on the right trail?” he demanded. “Could your dogs be chasing the wrong wolves?”
“My bitch knows the smell of Summer and Shaggy well enough.”
[…]
“There’s been only the one trail, my lord, I swear it,” said Gariss defensively. “And the direwolves would never have parted from them boys. Not for long.”
That’s so, Theon thought. Summer and Shaggydog might have gone off to hunt, but soon or late they would return to Bran and Rickon. “Gariss, Murch, take four dogs and double back, find where we lost them. Aggar, you watch them, I’ll have no trickery. Farlen and I will follow the direwolves. Give a blast on the horn when you pick up the trail. Two blasts if you catch sight of the beasts themselves. Once we find where they went, they’ll lead us back to their masters.”
He took Wex, the Frey boy, and Gynir Rednose to search upstream. He and Wex rode on one side of the brook, Rednose and Walder Frey on the other, each with a pair of hounds. The wolves might have come out on either bank. Theon kept an eye out for tracks, spoor, broken branches, any hint as to where the direwolves might have left the water. He spied the prints of deer, elk, and badger easily enough. Wex surprised a vixen drinking at the stream, and Walder flushed three rabbits from the underbrush and managed to put an arrow in one. They saw the claw marks where a bear had shredded the bark of a tall birch. But of the direwolves there was no sign.
– A Clash of Kings – Theon IV
We know in hindsight that Bran, who has now embraced his power was warging Summer. That is why Theon was wrong in his assumptions about how long boy and wolf could remain separated.
At the end of this chapter the boys are thought to have been killed by Theon, so the story is silent for a while. With the power of hindsight, we know they were hiding in the crypts. Separating again from the wolves was a risk, but taking a page from Bael not many chapters away from when Jon learns of the rose of Winterfell is a nice touch by the author.
________________________
This is the direwolves of Winterfell Episode 4.6, Summer and the Winged Wolf – Chained, our conclusion of Bran and Summer’s story in A Clash of Kings. When we left off, the boys were hidden in the crypts, and thought to be dead, while Bran used warging magic to lead Summer about the wolfswood, eluding Theon’s hunting party.
A Clash of Kings – Catelyn VII
Before we get any more from Bran’s story, Cat mourns the boys, never to learn before her own passing that they had actually survived. She was certain that the boys would be safe under the wolves’ protection. Obviously, she didn’t know Luwin as well as she had thought. Because of her faith in the wolves as protectors, she assumes Theon killed the wolves to make the boys vulnerable. This makes her ill with concern for her girls, who have no wolves (as far as she knows). This is a big reason for her folly with releasing the kingslayer. It’s also ironic, because Theon, himself, laments not killing the wolves.
“Are they?” Catelyn said sharply. “What god would let this happen? Rickon was only a baby. How could he deserve such a death? And Bran . . . when I left the north, he had not opened his eyes since his fall. I had to go before he woke. Now I can never return to him, or hear him laugh again.” She showed Brienne her palms, her fingers. “These scars . . . they sent a man to cut Bran’s throat as he lay sleeping. He would have died then, and me with him, but Bran’s wolf tore out the man’s throat.” That gave her a moment’s pause. “I suppose Theon killed the wolves too. He must have, elsewise . . . I was certain the boys would be safe so long as the direwolves were with them. Like Robb with his Grey Wind. But my daughters have no wolves now.”
– A Clash of Kings – Catelyn VII
A Clash of Kings – Jon VII
We next get a mention of Bran’s wolf from Jon. Somehow, he never got word, before his ranging, of Summer’s name. He is expecting to die while on the ranging with Qhorin, and is wondering how Ghost will mourn him. Note that he is also wondering about the ability of the wolves to sense each other over long distances, and whether they’d also know if he died. We’ll come back to this later.
It will be good to feel warm again, if only for a little while, he told himself while he hacked bare branches from the trunk of a dead tree. Ghost sat on his haunches watching, silent as ever. Will he howl for me when I’m dead, as Bran’s wolf howled when he fell? Jon wondered. Will Shaggydog howl, far off in Winterfell, and Grey Wind and Nymeria, wherever they might be?
– A Clash of Kings – Jon VIII
A Clash of Kings – Bran VII
With Bran’s final chapter in this volume, we get confirmation that Bran and Rickon are alive, but first we see from Summer’s perspective the aftermath of the battle, with Winterfell in flames at the hands of Ramsey. Note how Bran relishes being a wolf, a callback to his wishes early in this volume. When he wakes, he needs to be forced to abandon the wolf’s body, but he does so consciously.
The Reeds are concerned for his nourishment. The wolf was full, though, so Bran can’t feel his own appetite much. Given that the wolf and boy mirror each other’s emotions, it follows that their appetite/hunger or lack thereof would mirror as well. In the cases where both are hungry or both are sated, the emotion would be heightened, but here where Summer has fed, but Bran’s body is still hungry, we see how the boy is a bit confused about having eaten, but still feeling hunger.
Bran has finally embraced his identity as the winged wolf, or Bran the Beastling. The passage that follows is our first indication of Bran actively using his powers in Summer. He seems to have been doing this a lot during this time in the crypts. Also, note that he mentions an event where he was able to use the weirwood net to contact Jon through Ghost (covered more in Jon/Ghost’s story). That would be the first instance where he uses the weirwood net to communicate. This represents a big leap in his abilities, although he is not even sure what happened.
One explanation for Bran’s leap in ability is that he was forced to develop his powers because of the sensory deprivation in the dark of the crypts. The wolf bond called to him in the dark where his two eyes didn’t function, and his third-eye began to open in response. With that opening, his bond to Summer strengthens and so does his ability to use his other telepathic gifts. Think of the telepathic power as a sixth sense. In real life, the deprivation of one of your senses drives you to use your remaining senses more. I see it as no different in this case. Further, Arya has almost the same experience in later volumes as Blind Beth.
The ashes fell like a soft grey snow.
He padded over dry needles and brown leaves, to the edge of the wood where the pines grew thin. Beyond the open fields he could see the great piles of man-rock stark against the swirling flames. The wind blew hot and rich with the smell of blood and burnt meat, so strong he began to slaver.
Yet as one smell drew them onward, others warned them back. He sniffed at the drifting smoke. Men, many men, many horses, and fire, fire, fire. No smell was more dangerous, not even the hard cold smell of iron, the stuff of man-claws and hardskin. The smoke and ash clouded his eyes, and in the sky he saw a great winged snake whose roar was a river of flame. He bared his teeth, but then the snake was gone. Behind the cliffs tall fires were eating up the stars.
All through the night the fires crackled, and once there was a great roar and a crash that made the earth jump under his feet. Dogs barked and whined and horses screamed in terror. Howls shuddered through the night; the howls of the man-pack, wails of fear and wild shouts, laughter and screams. No beast was as noisy as man. He pricked up his ears and listened, and his brother growled at every sound. They prowled under the trees as a piney wind blew ashes and embers through the sky. In time the flames began to dwindle, and then they were gone. The sun rose grey and smoky that morning.
Only then did he leave the trees, stalking slow across the fields. His brother ran with him, drawn to the smell of blood and death. They padded silent through the dens the men had built of wood and grass and mud. Many and more were burned and many and more were collapsed; others stood as they had before. Yet nowhere did they see or scent a living man. Crows blanketed the bodies and leapt into the air screeching when his brother and he came near. The wild dogs slunk away before them.
Beneath the great grey cliffs a horse was dying noisily, struggling to rise on a broken leg and screaming when he fell. His brother circled round him, then tore out his throat while the horse kicked feebly and rolled his eyes. When he approached the carcass his brother snapped at him and laid back his ears, and he cuffed him with a forepaw and bit his leg. They fought amidst the grass and dirt and falling ashes beside the dead horse, until his brother rolled on his back in submission, tail tucked low. One more bite at his upturned throat; then he fed, and let his brother feed, and licked the blood off his black fur.
The dark place was pulling at him by then, the house of whispers where all men were blind. He could feel its cold fingers on him. The stony smell of it was a whisper up the nose. He struggled against the pull. He did not like the darkness. He was wolf. He was hunter and stalker and slayer, and he belonged with his brothers and sisters in the deep woods, running free beneath a starry sky. He sat on his haunches, raised his head, and howled. I will not go, he cried. I am wolf, I will not go. Yet even so the darkness thickened, until it covered his eyes and filled his nose and stopped his ears, so he could not see or smell or hear or run, and the grey cliffs were gone and the dead horse was gone and his brother was gone and all was black and still and black and cold and black and dead and black . . .
“Bran,” a voice was whispering softly. “Bran, come back. Come back now, Bran. Bran . . .”
He closed his third eye and opened the other two, the old two, the blind two. In the dark place all men were blind. But someone was holding him. He could feel arms around him, the warmth of a body snuggled close. He could hear Hodor singing “Hodor, hodor, hodor,” quietly to himself.
“Bran?” It was Meera’s voice. “You were thrashing, making terrible noises. What did you see?”
“Winterfell.” His tongue felt strange and thick in his mouth. One day when I come back I won’t know how to talk anymore. “It was Winterfell. It was all on fire. There were horse smells, and steel, and blood. They killed everyone, Meera.”
[…]
“Three days,” said Jojen. The boy had come up softfoot, or perhaps he had been there all along; in this blind black world, Bran could not have said. “We were afraid for you.”
“I was with Summer,” Bran said.
“Too long. You’ll starve yourself. Meera dribbled a little water down your throat, and we smeared honey on your mouth, but it is not enough.”
“I ate,” said Bran. “We ran down an elk and had to drive off a treecat that tried to steal him. The cat had been tan-and-brown, only half the size of the direwolves, but fierce. He remembered the musky smell of him, and the way he had snarled down at them from the limb of the oak.
“The wolf ate,” Jojen said. “Not you. Take care, Bran. Remember who you are.“
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. Though maybe he had only dreamed that. He could not understand why Jojen was always trying to pull him back now. Bran used the strength of his arms to squirm to a sitting position. “I have to tell Osha what I saw. Is she here? Where did she go?
Note how Bran is upset at how Jojen forces him to delineate himself from Summer. Bran is still not happy about his body, which probably adds to his zeal to spend more time in the able-bodied Summer. This is a theme in Bran’s story going forward.
When the boys are reunited with their wolves, we all feel a bit better about their situation. Still mirroring Bran’s thoughtfulness and intelligence, Summer is very careful and alert for danger as they reunite. Then Summer finds Maester Luwin, we readers have a brief moment of elation only to fall back to reality once we realize he’s definitely dying.
Two lean dark shapes emerged from behind the broken tower, padding slowly through the rubble. Rickon gave a happy shout of “Shaggy!” and the black direwolf came bounding toward him. Summer advanced more slowly, rubbed his head up against Bran’s arm, and licked his face.
“We should go,” said Jojen. “So much death will bring other wolves besides Summer and Shaggydog, and not all on four feet.”
[…]
Summer howled, and darted away.
“The godswood.” Meera Reed ran after the direwolf, her shield and frog spear to hand. The rest of them trailed after, threading their way through smoke and fallen stones. The air was sweeter under the trees. A few pines along the edge of the wood had been scorched, but deeper in the damp soil and green wood had defeated the flames. “There is a power in living wood,” said Jojen Reed, almost as if he knew what Bran was thinking, “a power strong as fire.”
[…]
On the edge of the black pool, beneath the shelter of the heart tree, Maester Luwin lay on his belly in the dirt. A trail of blood twisted back through damp leaves where he had crawled. Summer stood over him, and Bran thought he was dead at first, but when Meera touched his throat, the maester moaned. “Hodor?” Hodor said mournfully. “Hodor?”
– A Clash of Kings – Bran VII
This is where Shaggy and Rickon’s story parts from Bran and Summer’s, based upon Luwin’s direction. Going forward, the pack is truly a bunch of lone wolves (though sometimes running with ordinary wolves), they are completely separated from their litter-mates, although we will see from the wolf dreams that they remember and sometimes sense each other. It is a nice touch that Luwin, the one whose magical skepticism “chained” Bran, seeks out the heart tree upon his death. It seems upon realization of his own mortality, he shed that skepticism and might even have wanted to report a few things to the old gods / weirwood net. His last act, to send the boys away, literally unchains Bran from that skepticism and from Winterfell itself.
Reflecting back on Summer and Bran’s story in ACoK, their bond has increased by leaps and bounds during this volume. The two most important aspect of it seems to be that Bran embraced his identity as a Warg after having resisted it for the early chapters, and how Bran’s powers have increased significantly in the aftermath of that acceptance. The sensory deprivation in the crypts seems to have increased Bran’s telepathic power, which correspondingly increased the strength of their bond as well.
A Storm of Swords – Summer and The Winged Wolf – Unchained
In the third volume, now that Bran is unchained and has accepted his nature as a warg, we see him develop his skills with the help of Jojen. He becomes so adept in Summer’s skin that he is able to save Jon’s life. This shows his progress as a warg while serving to remind us of his empathy and the pack bond to Jon. As a darker turn we also see him use this power over Hodor. The development of these powers is unique to Bran among his siblings.
Still, our other themes continue. Summer continues to show his independence while being fiercely protective of Bran. Toward the end of the volume, Summer is twice separated from Bran resulting is near misses reminding us of the theme of bad things happening when the wolves are separated from the children (parallel to the final reminder for Grey Wind and Robb). This might be a concern going forward. Pack remains important; we get some direct wolf thoughts about the bond to the other direwolves from Summer, that he periodically senses his siblings. This will be contrasted to similar thoughts we get in ADwD from Ghost.
A Storm of Swords – Bran I
We start with a wolf dream. Notice that the language of the first paragraphs seem to be more boy thoughts than wolf thoughts with a mention of specific tree species, while the thoughts become more wolfish as the dream continues. As Summer begins to exert his own thoughts Bran still puts in his own ideas. These deliberate warging adventures are much more a mind meld than when Bran was mostly riding along in Summer with the earlier wolf dreams.
Note also that Summer climbs a hill, just as Ghost did in this same volume. Are they trying to contact each other? Is it easier to to sense or be sensed, from hilltop? Count this one as pack behavior, for sure.
Once Summer begins to think of his sibling wolves though, Bran seems relegated to passenger. I glean much from these thoughts. Summer can remember and feel his siblings, but we don’t get any detail beyond him knowing that Lady is dead and Shaggy is close but getting further and further away as time passes. He knows they are hunting, but we get no detail at all about Nymeria, Ghost and Grey Wind. Recall from my intro to Nymeria’s story that I believe Shaggy and Ghost to be stronger in the magic than the other wolves, so it makes sense that Shaggy would be the easiest to sense (with Ghost beyond the wall, seemingly incommunicado), though this passage isn’t strong proof of that idea, given that he is also in closer physical proximity.
The ridge slanted sharply from the earth, a long fold of stone and soil shaped like a claw. Trees clung to its lower slopes, pines and hawthorn and ash, but higher up the ground was bare, the ridgeline stark against the cloudy sky.
He could feel the high stone calling him. Up he went, loping easy at first, then faster and higher, his strong legs eating up the incline. Birds burst from the branches overhead as he raced by, clawing and flapping their way into the sky. He could hear the wind sighing up amongst the leaves, the squirrels chittering to one another, even the sound a pinecone made as it tumbled to the forest floor. The smells were a song around him, a song that filled the good green world.
Gravel flew from beneath his paws as he gained the last few feet to stand upon the crest. The sun hung above the tall pines huge and red, and below him the trees and hills went on and on as far as he could see or smell. A kite was circling far above, dark against the pink sky.
Prince. The man-sound came into his head suddenly, yet he could feel the rightness of it. Prince of the green, prince of the wolfswood. He was strong and swift and fierce, and all that lived in the good green world went in fear of him.
Far below, at the base of the woods, something moved amongst the trees. A flash of grey, quick-glimpsed and gone again, but it was enough to make his ears prick up. Down there beside a swift green brook, another form slipped by, running. Wolves, he knew. His little cousins, chasing down some prey. Now the prince could see more of them, shadows on fleet grey paws. A pack.
He had a pack as well, once. Five they had been, and a sixth who stood aside. Somewhere down inside him were the sounds the men had given them to tell one from the other, but it was not by their sounds he knew them. He remembered their scents, his brothers and his sisters. They all had smelled alike, had smelled of pack, but each was different too.
His angry brother with the hot green eyes was near, the prince felt, though he had not seen him for many hunts. Yet with every sun that set he grew more distant, and he had been the last. The others were far scattered, like leaves blown by the wild wind.
Sometimes he could sense them, though, as if they were still with him, only hidden from his sight by a boulder or a stand of trees. He could not smell them, nor hear their howls by night, yet he felt their presence at his back . . . all but the sister they had lost. His tail drooped when he remembered her. Four now, not five. Four and one more, the white who has no voice.
These woods belonged to them, the snowy slopes and stony hills, the great green pines and the golden leaf oaks, the rushing streams and blue lakes fringed with fingers of white frost. But his sister had left the wilds, to walk in the halls of man-rock where other hunters ruled, and once within those halls it was hard to find the path back out. The wolf prince remembered.
The final paragraph of that remembrance is awkward. It seems that Summer is remembering Lady (or is it Nymeria?), but I almost get the feeling that Bran is trying to assert his own thoughts at the same time, making the paragraph a bit hard to follow, possibly intentionally incoherent by our author trying to portray the dissimilar thoughts together, like trying to fit together pieces from two different puzzles. I definitely believe that the final line, “The wolf prince remembered,” is a Bran thought.
The next part of this chapter shows Summer in complete control. With his pack is scattered, he instead runs down his cousins’ pack and their prey. The instinct to hunt pulls strongly on our direwolves. Compare this scene to the time Summer and Grey Wind were not around to protect the boys from Stiv during a much earlier hunt; this is a weakness in the direwolves’ roles as protectors.
Once Summer finds the wolves, Bran seems to get in a quick thought about the lack of fear in the opponent, but then Summer seems to take over again in the fight. Note how easily Summer kills the one wolf. The savage act serves to remind how merciless these wolves are in battle.
Deer, and fear, and blood. The scent of prey woke the hunger in him. The prince sniffed the air again, turning, and then he was off, bounding along the ridgetop with jaws half-parted. The far side of the ridge was steeper than the one he’d come up, but he flew surefoot over stones and roots and rotting leaves, down the slope and through the trees, long strides eating up the ground. The scent pulled him onward, ever faster.
The deer was down and dying when he reached her, ringed by eight of his small grey cousins. The heads of the pack had begun to feed, the male first and then his female, taking turns tearing flesh from the red underbelly of their prey. The others waited patiently, all but the tail, who paced in a wary circle a few strides from the rest, his own tail tucked low. He would eat the last of all, whatever his brothers left him.
The prince was downwind, so they did not sense him until he leapt up upon a fallen log six strides from where they fed. The tail saw him first, gave a piteous whine, and slunk away. His pack brothers turned at the sound and bared their teeth, snarling, all but the head male and female.
The direwolf answered the snarls with a low warning growl and showed them his own teeth. He was bigger than his cousins, twice the size of the scrawny tail, half again as large as the two pack heads. He leapt down into their midst, and three of them broke, melting away into the brush. Another came at him, teeth snapping. He met the attack head on, caught the wolf’s leg in his jaws when they met, and flung him aside yelping and limping.
And then there was only the head wolf to face, the great grey male with his bloody muzzle fresh from the prey’s soft belly. There was white on his muzzle as well, to mark him as an old wolf, but when his mouth opened, red slaver ran from his teeth.
He has no fear, the prince thought, no more than me. It would be a good fight. They went for each other.
Long they fought, rolling together over roots and stones and fallen leaves and the scattered entrails of the prey, tearing at each other with tooth and claw, breaking apart, circling each round the other, and bolting in to fight again. The prince was larger, and much the stronger, but his cousin had a pack. The female prowled around them closely, snuffing and snarling, and would interpose herself whenever her mate broke off bloodied. From time to time the other wolves would dart in as well, to snap at a leg or an ear when the prince was turned the other way. One angered him so much that he whirled in a black fury and tore out the attacker’s throat. After that the others kept their distance.
And as the last red light was filtering through green boughs and golden, the old wolf lay down weary in the dirt, and rolled over to expose his throat and belly. It was submission.
[…]
The prince sniffed at him and licked the blood from fur and torn flesh. When the old wolf gave a soft whimper, the direwolf turned away. He was very hungry now, and the prey was his.
At this point Jojen begins to try to wake Bran; Summer and Bran both are annoyed! Jojen says Bran has been in the wolf too long, and he painstakingly talks about how Bran can’t sustain himself solely by eating in the wolf. The feeling of hunger in the boys body, while the wolf is sated must again be a bit confusing for Bran, but I kinda agree that Jojen is being stupid. Depriving Bran of the satisfaction of eating after the hunt seems unnecessarily mean. It would have annoyed me too. One would think Bran, once back in his body would feel hunger and choose to eat naturally. As we discussed at the end of the prior volume, Bran wouldn’t feel his appetite properly as a boy after the wold fed, but suppose Jojen would not know this. I suppose Bran could be losing weight because of this issue.
Illustrating my point, Bran’ after waking can still taste the deer. I believe he is sensing this through the bond. Jon has similar experiences later in the saga.
u/Prof_Cecily a friend of mine from reddit, suggested to me that they asked him about marking trees to mainly because of nourishment, to make it easier for Meera to track down Summer’s kills, teaching Bran not to forget his human needs during the warging experience. I think it is more than this. If Meera is any kind of decent tracker she could find the kills so without Bran giving unnatural signs, and nothing like that is mentioned in the text, too. The group isn’t mentioned as starving until the next chapter, when they leave the wood. That said, they do explicitly say to have Summer bring a rabbit back uneaten, so hunting to feed the entire group may be a part of Jojen’s reasoning, but it is not the whole reason he is pushing Bran to do non-“wolfish” things inside Summer.
My opinion it is also that Jojen is concerned with Bran asserting his own personality over Summer, not to be overwhelmed by the wolf’s personality while warging. The line “once he was a wolf they never seemed important,” coupled with my above observations of the warging experience tells me that Bran’s thoughts are definitely overwhelmed by Summer’s, at least in part. Is he concerned that Bran might lose some of his humanity, get lost in the wolf’s mind, never to return to the boy’s body? Perhaps, though the latter would be extreme.
The sudden sound made him stop and snarl. The wolves regarded him with green and yellow eyes, bright with the last light of day. None of them had heard it. It was a queer wind that blew only in his ears. He buried his jaws in the deer’s belly and tore off a mouthful of flesh.
[…]
No, he thought. No, I won’t. It was a boy’s thought, not a direwolf’s. The woods were darkening all about him, until only the shadows of the trees remained, and the glow of his cousins’ eyes. And through those and behind those eyes, he saw a big man’s grinning face, and a stone vault whose walls were spotted with niter. The rich warm taste of blood faded on his tongue. No, don’t, don’t, I want to eat, I want to, I want . . .
[…]
The woods and wolves were gone. Bran was back again, down in the damp vault of some ancient watchtower that must have been abandoned thousands of years before. It wasn’t much of a tower now. Even the tumbled stones were so overgrown with moss and ivy that you could hardly see them until you were right on top of them. “Tumbledown Tower,” Bran had named the place; it was Meera who found the way down into the vault, however.
“You were gone too long.” Jojen Reed was thirteen, only four years older than Bran. Jojen wasn’t much bigger either, no more than two inches or maybe three, but he had a solemn way of talking that made him seem older and wiser than he really was. At Winterfell, Old Nan had dubbed him “little grandfather.”
Bran frowned at him. “I wanted to eat.”
[…]
“I’m sick of frogs.” Meera was a frogeater from the Neck, so Bran couldn’t really blame her for catching so many frogs, he supposed, but even so . . . “I wanted to eat the deer.” For a moment he remembered the taste of it, the blood and the raw rich meat, and his mouth watered. I won the fight for it. I won.
“Did you mark the trees?“
Bran flushed. Jojen was always telling him to do things when he opened his third eye and put on Summer’s skin. To claw the bark of a tree, to catch a rabbit and bring it back in his jaws uneaten, to push some rocks in a line. Stupid things. “I forgot,” he said.
[…]
It was true. He meant to do the things that Jojen asked, but once he was a wolf they never seemed important. There were always things to see and things to smell, a whole green world to hunt. And he could run! There was nothing better than running, unless it was running after prey. “I was a prince, Jojen,” he told the older boy. “I was the prince of the woods.”
The next exchange continues the idea that Bran needs to exert his own will while warging; he insists that Bran audibly delineate that he and Summer are separate entities. Even so, the bond seems to be extremely strong now, as Bran immediately says “and one” directly after saying they are two individuals.
“And who is Summer?” Jojen prompted.
“My direwolf.” He smiled. “Prince of the green.”
“Bran the boy and Summer the wolf. You are two, then?”
“Two,” he sighed, “and one.” He hated Jojen when he got stupid like this. At Winterfell he wanted me to dream my wolf dreams, and now that I know how he’s always calling me back.
Later, Bran muses that Jojen is a bit clueless about not being able to recognize Summer’s howl. Note that Bran probably hears Summer’s howls internally at this point, as Arya and Jon have similar experiences in this volume. Bran also thinks about how far Summer went, confirming 2 things 1) that Bran definitely is fully conscious and able to remember all of the time while in Summer, and 2) that he could likely lead them to the kill if the need for meat were the sole reason for marking trees / etc.
Before Meera could find a reply to that, they heard the sound; the distant howl of a wolf, drifting through the night. “Summer?” asked Jojen, listening.
“No.” Bran knew the voice of his direwolf.
“Are you certain?” said the little grandfather.
“Certain.” Summer had wandered far afield today, and would not be back till dawn. Maybe Jojen dreams green, but he can’t tell a wolf from a direwolf. He wondered why they all listened to Jojen so much. […]
The exchange concludes with Jojen worrying specifically about Bran remaining forever in Summer. This solidifies for me that these “lessons” from Jojen are mostly about Bran learning to exert his will more than they are about hunting. I also wonder if Shaggydog and Rickon will have a similar issue. It might not go as well for them without someone like Jojen as a mentor.
“Jojen, what did you mean about a teacher?” Bran asked. “You’re my teacher. I know I never marked the tree, but I will the next time. My third eye is open like you wanted . . .”
“So wide open that I fear you may fall through it, and live all the rest of your days as a wolf of the woods.”
“I won’t, I promise.”
“The boy promises. Will the wolf remember? You run with Summer, you hunt with him, kill with him . . . but you bend to his will more than him to yours.”
– A Storm of Swords – Bran I
At this point the group decides to go north to seek the Three-Eyed Crow, partially because of the counsel given here by Jojen and and partially because Bran thinks somehow he can fix his broken body, a forlorn hope, but he will fly…
A Storm of Swords – Bran II
The next chapter starts by mentioning that they are hungry now, having moved into the mountains. It then backtracks and then says that Summer was bringing them prey before they left the wood. This indicates that Bran has been able assert his will to teach Summer to do that, so the lessons must have worked to some extent.
“If we took the kingsroad we wouldn’t be so hungry either,” he started saying then. Down in the hills they’d had no lack of food. Meera was a fine huntress, and even better at taking fish from streams with her three-pronged frog spear. Bran liked to watch her, admiring her quickness, the way she sent the spear lancing down and pulled it back with a silvery trout wriggling on the end of it. And they had Summer hunting for them as well. The direwolf vanished most every night as the sun went down, but he was always back again before dawn, most often with something in his jaws, a squirrel or a hare.
But here in the mountains, the streams were smaller and more icy, and the game scarcer. Meera still hunted and fished when she could, but it was harder, and some nights even Summer found no prey. Often, they went to sleep with empty bellies.
Later, Bran knows that the mountain folk have seen them traversing the land because he saw them looking through Summer’s eyes. This Indicates that he is using Summer’s eyes while not fully warging Summer, similar to how Arya used the cat’s eyes as the blind girl. Summer then finds them the cave, probably while Bran is warging. Following that , we see another affectionate/protective scene with Bran and Summer close, though once Summer feels Bran needs no protection from the Liddle, he feels the call of the hunt. This brings on another wolf dream.
“They know.” Bran had seen them watching; not with his own eyes, but with Summer’s sharper ones, that missed so little. “They won’t bother us so long as we don’t try and make off with their goats or horses.”
Nor did they. Only once did they encounter any of the mountain people, when a sudden burst of freezing rain sent them looking for shelter. Summer found it for them, sniffing out a shallow cave behind the grey-green branches of a towering sentinel tree, but when Hodor ducked beneath the stony overhang, Bran saw the orange glow of fire farther back and realized they were not alone. “Come in and warm yourselves,” a man’s voice called out. “There’s stone enough to keep the rain off all our heads.”
[…]
“The Bastard’s boys, aye. He was dead, but now he’s not. And paying good silver for wolfskins, a man hears, and maybe gold for word of certain other walking dead.” He looked at Bran when he said that, and at Summer stretched out beside him. “As to that Wall,” the man went on, “it’s not a place that I’d be going. The Old Bear took the Watch into the haunted woods, and all that come back was his ravens, with hardly a message between them. Dark wings, dark words, me mother used to say, but when the birds fly silent, seems to me that’s even darker.” He poked at the fire with his stick. “It was different when there was a Stark in Winterfell. But the old wolf’s dead and young one’s gone south to play the game of thrones, and all that’s left us is the ghosts.”
“The wolves will come again,” said Jojen solemnly.
[…]
They spent that night together, for the rain did not let up till well past dark, and only Summer seemed to want to leave the cave. When the fire had burned down to embers, Bran let him go. The direwolf did not feel the damp as people did, and the night was calling him. Moonlight painted the wet woods in shades of silver and turned the grey peaks white. Owls hooted through the dark and flew silently between the pines, while pale goats moved along the mountainsides. Bran closed his eyes and gave himself up to the wolf dream, to the smells and sounds of midnight.
The chapter concludes with Bran attempting and failing to skinchange an eagle. One must wonder if it is Varamyr’s or some other eagle that is being skinchanged. Bran have the raw power to do it by this point, but he fails nonetheless.
Bran lifted his head and saw it, its grey wings spread and still as it floated on the wind. He followed it with his eyes as it circled higher, wondering what it would be like to soar about the world so effortless. Better than climbing, even. He tried to reach the eagle, to leave his stupid crippled body and rise into the sky to join it, the way he joined with Summer. The greenseers could do it. I should be able to do it too. He tried and tried, until the eagle vanished in the golden haze of the afternoon. “It’s gone,” he said, disappointed.
– A Storm of Swords – Bran II
Like I said, Bran will fly, just not quite yet.
A Storm of Swords – Bran III
The next chapter is where Summer/Bran see Jon in the village with the wildlings. It starts with Summer running off to hunt again, but I am beginning to wonder if Summer is also scouting for the party; it would make sense as far as the protective instinct goes. Next, while they hide in Queen’s Crown tower, Bran is worried for Summer when they see first a man, and then a group of wildlings. Complicating matters, a scared Hodor makes a bunch of noise due to the lightning. Hodor’s distress compounds Bran’s fear for Summer. Bran briefly contemplates warging Summer to calm him, but after realizing that Hodor wasn’t going to stop crying out, uses his skin changing power to enter the big man, instead. It scares him, and it should. What Bran does here is one of Haggon’s abominations, and it is clearly wrong. We get back to this in ADwD.
It was the first village they had seen since leaving the foothills. Meera had scouted ahead to make certain there was no one lurking amongst the ruins. Sliding in and amongst oaks and apple trees with her net and spear in hand, she startled three red deer and sent them bounding away through the brush. Summer saw the flash of motion and was after them at once. Bran watched the direwolf lope off, and for a moment wanted nothing so much as to slip his skin and run with him, but Meera was waving for them to come ahead. Reluctantly, he turned away from Summer and urged Hodor on, into the village. Jojen walked with them.
[…]
Bran shaded his eyes as well, and even so he had to squint. He saw nothing at first, till some movement made him turn. At first he thought it might be Summer, but no. A man on a horse. He was too far away to see much else.
[…]
“Summer’s near the village,” Bran objected.
“Summer will be fine,” Meera promised. “It’s only one man on a tired horse.”
[…]
Dusk was settling by the time duck and tale were done, and the rain still fell. Bran wondered how far Summer had roamed and whether he had caught one of the deer.
[…]
I hope Summer isn’t scared too, Bran thought. The dogs in Winterfell’s kennels had always been spooked by thunderstorms, just like Hodor. I should go see, to calm him . . .
[…]
“Be quiet!” Bran said in a shrill scared voice, reaching up uselessly for Hodor’s leg as he crashed past, reaching, reaching.
Hodor staggered, and closed his mouth. He shook his head slowly from side to side, sank back to the floor, and sat crosslegged. When the thunder boomed, he scarcely seemed to hear it. The four of them sat in the dark tower, scarce daring to breathe.
“Bran, what did you do?” Meera whispered.
“Nothing.” Bran shook his head. “I don’t know.” But he did. I reached for him, the way I reach for Summer. He had been Hodor for half a heartbeat. It scared him.
Bran then thinks of Summer again, deluding himself that he won’t be afraid with all the men in the village and the lightning. On the next Flash of lightning the fear in Summer is raw, and he wargs him. After that Summer senses fear among the wildlings and discovers Jon. Summer is careful, as we’ve seen in other situations of danger, going wide around the sentry. but eventually the protective instinct must get the better of him, Ashe attacks,
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. “Most like they’re just some Umbers,” he said. “Or they could be Knotts or Norreys or Flints come down from the mountains, or even brothers from the Night’s Watch. Were they wearing black cloaks, Jojen?”
[…]
Bran could feel Summer’s fear in that bright instant. He closed two eyes and opened a third, and his boy’s skin slipped off him like a cloak as he left the tower behind . . .
[…]
. . . and found himself out in the rain, his belly full of deer, cringing in the brush as the sky broke and boomed above him. The smell of rotten apples and wet leaves almost drowned the scent of man, but it was there. He heard the clink and slither of hardskin, saw men moving under the trees. A man with a stick blundered by, a skin pulled up over his head to make him blind and deaf. The wolf went wide around him, behind a dripping thornbush and beneath the bare branches of an apple tree. He could hear them talking, and there beneath the scents of rain and leaves and horse came the sharp red stench of fear . . .
– A Storm of Swords – Bran III
Eventually the protective instinct must get the better of him, as he attacks saving Jon in the next chapter, a Jon POV. Jon had no idea the direwolf was so near; and had no idea which one it was either, only piecing together that it must have been Summer much later (not in this chapter and still not knowing the name). Jon thinks it is Grey Wind, due to the speed and color, but the description certainly shows that Summer is at least the equal of Robb’s wolf in battle.
A Storm of Swords – Jon V
And death leapt down amongst them.
The lightning flash left Jon night-blind, but he glimpsed the hurtling shadow half a heartbeat before he heard the shriek. The first Thenn died as the old man had, blood gushing from his torn throat. Then the light was gone and the shape was spinning away, snarling, and another man went down in the dark. There were curses, shouts, howls of pain. Jon saw Big Boil stumble backward and knock down three men behind him. Ghost, he thought for one mad instant. Ghost leapt the Wall. Then the lightning turned the night to day, and he saw the wolf standing on Del’s chest, blood running black from his jaws. Grey. He’s grey.
[…]
Long hours later, the rain stopped. Jon found himself alone in a sea of tall black grass. There was a deep throbbing ache in his right thigh. When he looked down, he was surprised to see an arrow jutting out the back of it. When did that happen? He grabbed hold of the shaft and gave it a tug, but the arrowhead was sunk deep in the meat of his leg, and the pain when he pulled on it was excruciating. He tried to think back on the madness at the inn, but all he could remember was the beast, gaunt and grey and terrible. It was too large to be a common wolf. A direwolf, then. It had to be. He had never seen an animal move so fast. Like a grey wind . . . Could Robb have returned to the north?
– A Storm of Swords – Jon V
Jon thinks of this encounter twice more, which we’ll cover later. He’s obviously wrong about Grey Wind being there, as he and Robb were headed to the red wedding at the time. Jon thinks of the encounter twice more, which we’ll cover later.
A Storm of Swords – Bran IV
Moving on to Bran’s next chapter, Bran thinks about how he and Summer had a disturbing dream, which obviously was about the red wedding. I imagine that the dream had something to do with Grey wind’s perspective on the Red wedding? Either Bran knows after the dream that Robb and Grey Wind are dead. It is unclear if they are aware of Catelyn’s status, making it more likely that the dream was from Grey Wind, he wouldn’t know of Catelyn’s fate because Robb and their bond died first, so there would be no way for Grey Wind to know her fate.
No, thought Bran, it is the Nightfort, and this is the end of the world. In the mountains, all he could think of was reaching the Wall and finding the three-eyed crow, but now that they were here he was filled with fears. 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 . . .
At the next mention of Summer, they have arrived at the night fort, and Bran is deeply fearful. He is already thinking about the Rat Cook. Then he mentions how Summer is even ill at ease. This is a clear example of Summer mirroring Bran’s emotions.
Bran forced himself to look around. The morning was cold but bright, the sun shining down from a hard blue sky, but he did not like the noises. The wind made a nervous whistling sound as it shivered through the broken towers, the keeps groaned and settled, and he could hear rats scrabbling under the floor of the great hall. The Rat Cook’s children running from their father. The yards were small forests where spindly trees rubbed their bare branches together and dead leaves scuttled like roaches across patches of old snow. There were trees growing where the stables had been, and a twisted white weirwood pushing up through the gaping hole in the roof of the domed kitchen. Even Summer was not at ease here. Bran slipped inside his skin, just for an instant, to get the smell of the place. He did not like that either.
In the next passage we find out that Summer knew Jon got away. The fact that Bran thinks about Jon so much is another indication of Bran’s humanity and his empathy. This is a contrast to the show. Unfortunately, with film you cannot portray a character’s inner thoughts like you can with print. Moving on, we then learn that in saving Jon, Summer was gravely injured. We learn a bit about the bond here. The pain Summer feels is so strong that Bran cannot even maintain or reestablish their connection. He is relegated to praying for Summer’s safety, throwing in a prayer for Jon Snow. Fortunately, Summer returns and they are able to dress his wounds which heal. Bran considers his prayers answered.
The gate the Nightfort guarded had been sealed since the day the black brothers had loaded up their mules and garrons and departed for Deep Lake; its iron portcullis lowered, the chains that raised it carried off, the tunnel packed with stone and rubble all frozen together until they were as impenetrable as the Wall itself. “We should have followed Jon,” Bran said when he saw it. He thought of his bastard brother often, since the night that Summer had watched him ride off through the storm. “We should have found the kingsroad and gone to Castle Black.”
[…]
“But there are wildlings. They killed some man and they wanted to kill Jon too. Jojen, there were a hundred of them.”
“So you said. We are four. You helped your brother, if that was him in truth, but it almost cost you Summer.”
“I know,” said Bran miserably. The direwolf had killed three of them, maybe more, but there had been too many. When they formed a tight ring around the tall earless man, he had tried to slip away through the rain, but one of their arrows had come flashing after him, and the sudden stab of pain had driven Bran out of the wolf’s skin and back into his own. After the storm finally died, they had huddled in the dark without a fire, talking in whispers if they talked at all, listening to Hodor’s heavy breathing and wondering if the wildlings might try and cross the lake in the morning. Bran had reached out for Summer time and time again, but the pain he found drove him back, the way a red-hot kettle makes you pull your hand back even when you mean to grab it. Only Hodor slept that night, muttering “Hodor, hodor,” as he tossed and turned. Bran was terrified that Summer was off dying in the darkness. Please, you old gods, he prayed, you took Winterfell, and my father, and my legs, please don’t take Summer too. And watch over Jon Snow too, and make the wildlings go away.
No weirwoods grew on that stony island in the lake, yet somehow the old gods must have heard. The wildlings took their sweet time about departing the next morning, stripping the bodies of their dead and the old man they’d killed, even pulling a few fish from the lake, and there was a scary moment when three of them found the causeway and started to walk out . . . but the path turned and they didn’t, and two of them nearly drowned before the others pulled them out. The tall bald man yelled at them, his words echoing across the water in some tongue that even Jojen did not know, and a little while later they gathered up their shields and spears and marched off north by east, the same way Jon had gone. Bran wanted to leave too, to look for Summer, but the Reeds said no. “We will stay another night,” said Jojen, “put some leagues between us and the wildlings. You don’t want to meet them again, do you?” Late that afternoon Summer returned from wherever he’d been hiding, dragging his back leg. He ate parts of the bodies in the inn, driving off the crows, then swam out to the island. Meera had drawn the broken arrow from his leg and rubbed the wound with the juice of some plants she found growing around the base of the tower. The direwolf was still limping, but a little less each day, it seemed to Bran. The gods had heard.
The next passages are more examples of shadowing and hunting and mirroring. Bran continues to be afraid of the characters from Old Nan’s stories; and Summer continues to be on guard.
So they went exploring, Jojen Reed leading, Bran in his basket on Hodor’s back, Summer padding by their side. Once the direwolf bolted through a dark door and returned a moment later with a grey rat between his teeth. The Rat Cook, Bran thought, but it was the wrong color, and only as big as a cat. The Rat Cook was white, and almost as huge as a sow . . .
[…]
They spent half the day poking through the castle. Some of the towers had fallen down and others looked unsafe, but they climbed the bell tower (the bells were gone) and the rookery (the birds were gone). Beneath the brewhouse they found a vault of huge oaken casks that boomed hollowly when Hodor knocked on them. They found a library (the shelves and bins had collapsed, the books were gone, and rats were everywhere). They found a dank and dim-lit dungeon with cells enough to hold five hundred captives, but when Bran grabbed hold of one of the rusted bars it broke off in his hand. Only one crumbling wall remained of the great hall, the bathhouse seemed to be sinking into the ground, and a huge thornbush had conquered the practice yard outside the armory where black brothers had once labored with spear and shield and sword. The armory and the forge still stood, however, though cobwebs, rats, and dust had taken the places of blades, bellows, and anvil. Sometimes Summer would hear sounds that Bran seemed deaf to, or bare his teeth at nothing, the fur on the back of his neck bristling . . . but the Rat Cook never put in an appearance, nor the seventy-nine sentinels, nor Mad Axe. Bran was much relieved. Maybe it is only a ruined empty castle.
[…]
She laughed, and sent Hodor out to gather wood. Summer went too. It was almost dark by then, and the direwolf wanted to hunt.
That night Bran hears Sam’s party ascending the stairs from the black gate, but he thinks the worst. Because Summer had been hunting, Bran again uses his power to take control of Hodor, and this time for a significant period of time. He knows it’s wrong; he feels Hodor’s fear and tastes VOMIT. Yet he justifies it as necessary for safety because Summer was far away. As it turns out, Summer wasn’t too far. He shows himself not long after Sam is subdued by Meera. Bran did nothing productive in Hodor’s skin. In my opinion, Bran may be doing this do it just because he so wants to feel an able body. Summer, for his own part, must have sensed Bran’s terror and returned quickly, but he sensed no danger from Sam, obviously. Still, this episode show how strong Bran is getting.
Bran was too frightened to shout. The fire had burned down to a few faint embers and his friends were all asleep. He almost slipped his skin and reached out for his wolf, but Summer might be miles away. He couldn’t leave his friends helpless in the dark to face whatever was coming up out of the well. I told them not to come here, he thought miserably. I told them there were ghosts. I told them that we should go to Castle Black.
[…]
Meera rose to her feet without a word and reclaimed her weapons. With her three-pronged frog spear in her right hand and the folds of her net dangling from her left, she slipped barefoot toward the well. Jojen dozed on, oblivious, while Hodor muttered and thrashed in restless sleep. She kept to the shadows as she moved, stepped around the shaft of moonlight as quiet as a cat. Bran was watching her all the while, and even he could barely see the faint sheen of her spear. I can’t let her fight the thing alone, he thought. Summer was far away, but . . .
. . . he slipped his skin, and reached for Hodor.
It was not like sliding into Summer. That was so easy now that Bran hardly thought about it. This was harder, like trying to pull a left boot on your right foot. It fit all wrong, and the boot was scared too, the boot didn’t know what was happening, the boot was pushing the foot away. He tasted vomit in the back of Hodor’s throat, and that was almost enough to make him flee. Instead he squirmed and shoved, sat up, gathered his legs under him—his huge strong legs—and rose. I’m standing. He took a step. I’m walking. It was such a strange feeling that he almost fell. He could see himself on the cold stone floor, a little broken thing, but he wasn’t broken now. He grabbed Hodor’s longsword. The breathing was as loud as a blacksmith’s bellows.
[…]
“Jon’s here,” Bran said. “Summer saw him. He was with some wildlings, but they killed a man and Jon took his horse and escaped. I bet he went to Castle Black.”
Sam turned big eyes on Meera. “You’re certain it was Jon? You saw him?”
“I’m Meera,” Meera said with a smile. “Summer is . . .”
A shadow detached itself from the broken dome above and leapt down through the moonlight. Even with his injured leg, the wolf landed as light and quiet as a snowfall. The girl Gilly made a frightened sound and clutched her babe so hard against her that it began to cry again.
“He won’t hurt you,” Bran said. “That’s Summer.”
“Jon said you all had wolves.” Sam pulled off a glove. “I know Ghost.” He held out a shaky hand, the fingers white and soft and fat as little sausages. Summer padded closer, sniffed them, and gave the hand a lick.
As they go down the well and through the black gate, Summer is back to the role of protecting / shadowing.
Summer circled the well, sniffing. He paused by the top step and looked back at Bran. He wants to go.
[…]
“I’ll go first, I know the way.” Sam hesitated at the top. “There’s just so many steps,” he sighed, before he started down. Jojen followed, then Summer, then Hodor with Bran riding on his back. Meera took the rear, with her spear and net in hand.
[…]
“Then pass,” the door said. Its lips opened, wide and wider and wider still, until nothing at all remained but a great gaping mouth in a ring of wrinkles. Sam stepped aside and waved Jojen through ahead of him. Summer followed, sniffing as he went, and then it was Bran’s turn. Hodor ducked, but not low enough. The door’s upper lip brushed softly against the top of Bran’s head, and a drop of water fell on him and ran slowly down his nose. It was strangely warm, and salty as a tear.
– A Storm of Swords – Bran IV
Note, that the water coming off the top of the gate is salty, which gives rise to my own tinfoil about the wall being made from sea water, not fresh water ice.
A Storm of Swords – Jon VIII
As this volume comes to a close, we return to Jon, who has finally realized that it was Summer who saved him, not Grey Wind. Sadly, he knows Robb is dead, believes Bran dead, and is worried that Summer died saving him. The bond between the 2 boys is built upon the mutual empathy we saw in the first chapter of AGoT; it continues into the ADwD.
The cell was dark, the bed hard beneath him. His own bed, he remembered, his own bed in his steward’s cell beneath the Old Bear’s chambers. By rights it should have brought him sweeter dreams. Even beneath the furs, he was cold. Ghost had shared his cell before the ranging, warming it against the chill of night. And in the wild, Ygritte had slept beside him. Both gone now. He had burned Ygritte himself, as he knew she would have wanted, and Ghost . . . Where are you? Was he dead as well, was that what his dream had meant, the bloody wolf in the crypts? But the wolf in the dream had been grey, not white. Grey, like Bran’s wolf. Had the Thenns hunted him down and killed him after Queenscrown? If so, Bran was lost to him for good and all.
– A Storm of Swords – Jon VIII
That was the final mention of Summer in ASoS. In this volume, Bran, unchained by his acceptance of his nature as a warg, has grown in his powers. His quick growth and unease when Summer is away turns dark in his use of this power over Hodor. Summer is injured in an attempt to save Jon from a band of wildlings, while Bran is warging him. That embodies his protective nature and sense of danger, Bran’s empathy, their collective independence, and the strength of the bond to the pack, while reminding us that bad things can happen when the direwolves are separated from their Stark children.
A Dance with Dragons – Summer and The Winged Wolf – Aloft
This post has been turned into a YouTube series. Part 9 of 10 is here.
In ADwD, these themes continue with Bran and Summer north of the wall. While they make their way to the cave of the Children of the Forest, Summer, disconnected from his bond to his littermates, seeks out a new pack. Bran continues his skinchainging of Hodor and his warging of Summer. In Summer, he can recognize another warg, Varamyr, inside One Eye. His independence continues in his cave explorations inside Hodor, which he thinks nobody else notices (I think he’s wrong in this). He finally learns to fly, while he is taught to skinchange ravens and to use the power to enter the weirwood net directly; he is aloft! Sadly, it is a bitter pill to swallow that his body cannot be healed.
With only 3 chapters, the implications of Bran’s growth in this volume are not well-understood. We are left to wonder if Summer’s continued separation to hunt will have negative consequences. We wonder the same about his continued skinchanging of Hodor. Given the immense power of the weirwood net, we wonder if Bran’s independence will lead to unaccompanied sojourns into the weirwood net.
A Dance with Dragons – Jon I
The first mention of Summer in ADwD is not in one of those 3 Bran POV chapters’ though, it is in a Jon POV chapter.
In a wolf dream, Ghost thinks of Summer twice, first to mention that he can no longer sense him, the second to reveal that Ghost knows he is on the other side of the wall. Ghost is more self-aware of the effect of the wall than Summer, whose perspective we get more on in the net chapter, from the other side of the wall.
“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.
“Snow,” the moon insisted.
The white wolf ran from it, racing toward the cave of night where the sun had hidden, his breath frosting in the air. On starless nights the great cliff was as black as stone, a darkness towering high above the wide world, but when the moon came out it shimmered pale and icy as a frozen stream. The wolf’s pelt was thick and shaggy, but when the wind blew along the ice no fur could keep the chill out. On the other side the wind was colder still, the wolf sensed. That was where his brother was, the grey brother who smelled of summer.
An interesting thing, at the end of ASoS, Jon calls Summer “Bran’s wolf,” but in this next passage, he knows the name Summer. How did he learn it?
[…] Bran and Rickon had been murdered too, beheaded at the behest of Theon Greyjoy, who had once been their lord father’s ward … but if dreams did not lie, their direwolves had escaped. At Queenscrown, one had come out of the darkness to save Jon’s life. Summer, it had to be. His fur was grey, and Shaggydog is black. He wondered if some part of his dead brothers lived on inside their wolves.
– A Dance with Dragons – Jon I
In any case, the pack bond remains strong.
A Dance with Dragons – Bran I
While the group is again on the move, this chapter is a bit of a return to our direwolf themes. We start with Summer shadowing and protecting and then have a mention from Bran that he spends a lot of time in the wolf’s skin, reinforcing the bond. Later, we get a reminder of the call of the hunt in the reminder that the elk Jojen rides is PREY.
Bran also reminds us that he is in the habit of wearing Hodor’s skin as well, which our author points out is not a good thing. The violation makes the stable boy confused and scared, whimpering, and there is still a hint of the vomit at the back of his throat as mentioned in ASoS. Bran tells himself that it is OK, that Hodor recognizes him and is getting used to it. That may be as it may be, but it doesn’t make it OK, and the Bran, you know this, man. The author is making that abundantly clear in this passage:
Summer brought up the rear of their little band. The direwolf’s breath frosted the forest air as he padded after them, still limping on the hind leg that had taken the arrow back at Queenscrown. Bran felt the pain of the old wound whenever he slipped inside the big wolf’s skin. Of late Bran wore Summer’s body more often than his own; the wolf felt the bite of the cold, despite the thickness of his fur, but he could see farther and hear better and smell more than the boy in the basket, bundled up like a babe in swaddling clothes.
Other times, when he was tired of being a wolf, Bran slipped into Hodor’s skin instead. The gentle giant would whimper when he felt him, and thrash his shaggy head from side to side, but not as violently as he had the first time, back at Queenscrown. He knows it’s me, the boy liked to tell himself. He’s used to me by now. Even so, he never felt comfortable inside Hodor’s skin. The big stableboy never understood what was happening, and Bran could taste the fear at the back of his mouth. It was better inside Summer. I am him, and he is me. He feels what I feel.
Sometimes Bran could sense the direwolf sniffing after the elk, wondering if he could bring the great beast down. Summer had grown accustomed to horses at Winterfell, but this was an elk and elk were prey. The direwolf could sense the warm blood coursing beneath the elk’s shaggy hide. Just the smell was enough to make the slaver run from between his jaws, and when it did Bran’s mouth would water at the thought of rich, dark meat.
Changing gear from the elk, Summer clearly is ill at ease with the un-dead ranger. With the “cold” remark we are meant to wonder if the ranger is from the others.
As now. The elk stopped suddenly, and the ranger vaulted lightly from his back to land in knee-deep snow. Summer growled at him, his fur bristling. The direwolf did not like the way that Coldhands smelled. Dead meat, dry blood, a faint whiff of rot. And cold. Cold over all.
Next, we get something completely new. Bran uses Summer directly to track, ultimately to find an abandoned wildling village. This is a first for us in Bran’s story. I do wonder how similar this is to how Grey Wind found the goat track for Robb, although I presume that for Robb it was revealed in a dream and not in a direct warging experience. In this instance the mind meld is quite fascinating. Summer is mostly in control, but Bran gives the objective and steers the wolf to stay on task in a guiding fashion. The bond is quite close, Not the final line. Bran claims to have smelled it himself, in the first person, rather than saying Summer smelled it.
“Summer can find the village,” Bran said suddenly, his words misting in the air. He did not wait to hear what Meera might say, but closed his eyes and let himself flow from his broken body.
As he slipped inside Summer’s skin, the dead woods came to sudden life. Where before there had been silence, now he heard: wind in the trees, Hodor’s breathing, the elk pawing at the ground in search of fodder. Familiar scents filled his nostrils: wet leaves and dead grass, the rotted carcass of a squirrel decaying in the brush, the sour stink of man-sweat, the musky odor of the elk. Food. Meat. The elk sensed his interest. He turned his head toward the direwolf, wary, and lowered his great antlers.
He is not prey, the boy whispered to the beast who shared his skin. Leave him. Run.
Summer ran. Across the lake he raced, his paws kicking up sprays of snow behind him. The trees stood shoulder to shoulder, like men in a battle line, all cloaked in white. Over roots and rocks the direwolf sped, through a drift of old snow, the crust crackling beneath his weight. His paws grew wet and cold. The next hill was covered with pines, and the sharp scent of their needles filled the air. When he reached the top, he turned in a circle, sniffing at the air, then raised his head and howled.
The smells were there. Mansmells.
Ashes, Bran thought, old and faint, but ashes. It was the smell of burnt wood, soot, and charcoal. A dead fire.
He shook the snow off his muzzle. The wind was gusting, so the smells were hard to follow. The wolf turned this way and that, sniffing. All around were heaps of snow and tall trees garbed in white. The wolf let his tongue loll out between his teeth, tasting the frigid air, his breath misting as snowflakes melted on his tongue. When he trotted toward the scent, Hodor lumbered after him at once. The elk took longer to decide, so Bran returned reluctantly to his own body and said, “That way. Follow Summer. I smelled it.”
Later, after they discuss that they are all starving again, having used up the food from the Liddle, Bran prefers dreams inside Summer to eating acorn past.
“Dreams are what we have.”
All we have. The last of the food that they had brought from the south was ten days gone. Since then hunger walked beside them day and night. Even Summer could find no game in these woods. They lived on crushed acorns and raw fish. The woods were full of frozen streams and cold black lakes, and Meera was as good a fisher with her three-pronged frog spear as most men were with hook and line. Some days her lips were blue with cold by the time she waded back to them with her catch wriggling on her tines. It had been three days since Meera caught a fish, however. Bran’s belly felt so hollow it might have been three years.
In the dream (shown in its entirety below) a lot happens. It begins as a typical “Summer” dream, but moves into new territory later. First, once Bran enters the wolf, Summer’s hunger seems to grow stronger. It seems that Bran’s physical hunger is even stronger than the wolf’s (which makes sense, since Summer’s been hunting). That said, Summer, described as “gaunt”, certainly has lost weight. The hunt calls, and then he senses a pack of wolves, which turn out to be Varamyr’s pack from the prologue, the leader of which, One Eye, he is the resident warg.
The pack has killed or found dead men. Summer, mirroring Bran’s carefulness and knowing he’ll need to fight for his meat, surveys the scene and Bran learns that they’d been 5 men of the Night’s Watch. They were the deserters from Craster’s keep, of course, but Bran cannot know that. We’ll return to this later. Either way, Bran is uneasy, even as Summer only cares about the meat. Summer also notices that the head of one man has been torn off and the eyes and half the face are missing. I do wonder if the neck is an indication that the ranger killed this man, not the wolves, and the missing eyes are an indication that the ravens that follow him pecked out the eyes.
Sleep would not come, could not come. Instead there was wind, the biting cold, moonlight on snow, and fire. He was back inside Summer, long leagues away, and the night was rank with the smell of blood. The scent was strong. A kill, not far. The flesh would still be warm. Slaver ran between his teeth as the hunger woke inside him. Not elk. Not deer. Not this.
The direwolf moved toward the meat, a gaunt grey shadow sliding from tree to tree, through pools of moonlight and over mounds of snow. The wind gusted around him, shifting. He lost the scent, found it, then lost it again. As he searched for it once more, a distant sound made his ears prick up.
Wolf, he knew at once. Summer stalked toward the sound, wary now. Soon enough the scent of blood was back, but now there were other smells: piss and dead skins, bird shit, feathers, and wolf, wolf, wolf. A pack. He would need to fight for his meat.
They smelled him too. As he moved out from amongst the darkness of the trees into the bloody glade, they were watching him. The female was chewing on a leather boot that still had half a leg in it, but she let it fall at his approach. The leader of the pack, an old male with a grizzled white muzzle and a blind eye, moved out to meet him, snarling, his teeth bared. Behind him, a younger male showed his fangs as well.
The direwolf’s pale yellow eyes drank in the sights around them. A nest of entrails coiled through a bush, entangled with the branches. Steam rising from an open belly, rich with the smells of blood and meat. A head staring sightlessly up at a horned moon, cheeks ripped and torn down to bloody bone, pits for eyes, neck ending in a ragged stump. A pool of frozen blood, glistening red and black.
Men. The stink of them filled the world. Alive, they had been as many as the fingers on a man’s paw, but now they were none. Dead. Done. Meat. Cloaked and hooded, once, but the wolves had torn their clothing into pieces in their frenzy to get at the flesh. Those who still had faces wore thick beards crusted with ice and frozen snot. The falling snow had begun to bury what remained of them, so pale against the black of ragged cloaks and breeches. Black.
Long leagues away, the boy stirred uneasily.
Black. Night’s Watch. They were Night’s Watch.
The direwolf did not care. They were meat. He was hungry.
Summer then decides which wolf is the leader and challenges him, Bran only realizing One Eye is a warg just before the fight, as their eyes meet. In the fight Summer is likely in control, given the mention that there was no time for thought, although I wonder if pissing on the vanquished warg is Bran’s conscious act, a callback to Jojen’s early lessons in ASoS (**laughs out loud**). With the victory, the pack is his.
The eyes of the three wolves glowed yellow. The direwolf swung his head from side to side, nostrils flaring, then bared his fangs in a snarl. The younger male backed away. The direwolf could smell the fear in him. Tail, he knew. But the one-eyed wolf answered with a growl and moved to block his advance. Head. And he does not fear me though I am twice his size.
Their eyes met.
Warg!
Then the two rushed together, wolf and direwolf, and there was no more time for thought. The world shrank down to tooth and claw, snow flying as they rolled and spun and tore at one another, the other wolves snarling and snapping around them. His jaws closed on matted fur slick with hoarfrost, on a limb thin as a dry stick, but the one-eyed wolf clawed at his belly and tore himself free, rolled, lunged for him. Yellow fangs snapped closed on his throat, but he shook off his old grey cousin as he would a rat, then charged after him, knocked him down. Rolling, ripping, kicking, they fought until the both of them were ragged and fresh blood dappled the snows around them. But finally the old one-eyed wolf lay down and showed his belly. The direwolf snapped at him twice more, sniffed at his butt, then lifted a leg over him.
A few snaps and a warning growl, and the female and the tail submitted too. The pack was his.
Bran / Summer then proceeds to feast upon the dead flesh of the men. Remembering that the vanquished wolf is the warg Varamyr, living his second life, I believe that the author is pointing directly at the prologue in this wolf dream. Recall the 3 abominations from Haggon: Mating while inside the wolf, skinchanging other humans, and eating the flesh of man while inside the beast. Note that Bran has now broken what seems to me are the two more egregious of the set. We can thank the author for saving us from a description of Bran breaking the other abomination rule…
It’s clear that Lord Bloodraven is much more pragmatic and cares little about Haggon’s rules about eating the flesh of men, given that just after this wolf dream he has Bran and his entire party eat the flesh of men. There is no way that Coldhands found a sow. The meat was from the same Night’s watch men eaten by the wolf pack. Recall that Bran is extremely hungry, and mirroring of his hunger accentuated Summer’s own hunger at the beginning of this dream. He needed to eat if he was going to reach the cave alive. The very pragmatic Bloodraven clearly doesn’t worry over much about abomination. I’d assume he worries neither about the other abominations Varamyr mentions.
A final thing to note here is the mention of Summer’s littermates. He can no longer sense them here beyond the wall. Bran seems even to have to remind him of their existence. Contrast that with Ghost, who clearly remembered Summer in the last chapter.
The prey as well. He went from man to man, sniffing, before settling on the biggest, a faceless thing who clutched black iron in one hand. His other hand was missing, severed at the wrist, the stump bound up in leather. Blood flowed thick and sluggish from the slash across his throat. The wolf lapped at it with his tongue, licked the ragged eyeless ruin of his nose and cheeks, then buried his muzzle in his neck and tore it open, gulping down a gobbet of sweet meat. No flesh had ever tasted half as good.
When he was done with that one, he moved to the next, and devoured the choicest bits of that man too. Ravens watched him from the trees, squatting dark-eyed and silent on the branches as snow drifted down around them. The other wolves made do with his leavings; the old male fed first, then the female, then the tail. They were his now. They were pack.
No, the boy whispered, we have another pack. Lady’s dead and maybe Grey Wind too, but somewhere there’s still Shaggydog and Nymeria and Ghost. Remember Ghost?
Falling snow and feasting wolves began to dim. Warmth beat against his face, comforting as a mother’s kisses. Fire, he thought, smoke. His nose twitched to the smell of roasting meat. And then the forest fell away, and he was back in the longhall again, back in his broken body, staring at a fire. Meera Reed was turning a chunk of raw red flesh above the flames, letting it char and spit. “Just in time,” she said. Bran rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand and wriggled backwards against the wall to sit. “You almost slept through supper. The ranger found a sow.”
– A Dance with Dragons – Bran I
Having seen all the wolf dreams that discuss sensing their littermates, I think now is the time to discuss the magical bond that clearly exists between them. Each is telepathically connected to the others. Ghost can sense all the others, and so can Summer. The exception is that when one is beyond the wall, none of the rest can be sensed by him. This likely means that the bond between them relies on a direct telepathic connection, which the magical barrier of the wall somehow blocks.
A Dance with Dragons – Bran II
As they approach the cave, Summer is mirroring Bran’s fur and in a protective mode all at once. He seems also to have to protect their group from the rest of the pack.
But the air was sharp and cold and full of fear. Even Summer was afraid. The fur on his neck was bristling. Shadows stretched against the hillside, black and hungry. All the trees were bowed and twisted by the weight of ice they carried. Some hardly looked like trees at all. Buried from root to crown in frozen snow, they huddled on the hill like giants, monstrous and misshapen creatures hunched against the icy wind. “They are here.”
[…]
“Those wolves are close as well,” Bran warned them. “The ones that have been following us. Summer can smell them whenever we’re downwind.“
[…]
Wordless for once, Hodor slapped the snow off his legs, and plowed upward through the snowdrifts with Bran upon his back. Coldhands stalked beside them, his blade in a black hand. Summer came after. In some places the snow was higher than he was, and the big direwolf had to stop and shake it off after plunging through the thin crust. As they climbed, Bran turned awkwardly in his basket to watch as Meera slid an arm beneath her brother to lift him to his feet. He’s too heavy for her. She’s half-starved, she’s not as strong as she was. She clutched her frog spear in her other hand, jabbing the tines into the snow for a little more support. Meera had just begun to struggle up the hill, half-dragging and half-carrying her little brother, when Hodor passed between two trees, and Bran lost sight of them.
When they’re closer, Summer (we assume) senses the wights and his careful nature comes out as he backs away. In the next paragraph Bran clearly shows that his bond with Summer is strong enough that their senses meld together in full waking (he doesn’t go into a trance state but smells whatever Summer smelled. Recall the first time I feel that this may have happened in the series, at the tail end of the wildling attack on Bran in AGoT when Bran “saw everything”. This passage here is clear proof that a warg is capable to share senses with the beast in that way. Recall also the scene where Varamyr is guarding Jon when Stannis attacked Mance’s army. He is skinchanging the eagle, primarily, but using his five other skins simultaneously while muttering under his breath.
Summer stopped suddenly, at the bottom of a steep stretch of unbroken white snow. The direwolf turned his head, sniffed the air, then snarled. Fur bristling, he began to back away.
“Hodor, stop,” said Bran. “Hodor. Wait.” Something was wrong. Summer smelled it, and so did he. Something bad. Something close. “Hodor, no, go back.”
Then the wights attack at the mouth of the cave at nightfall. Summer in action protecting Bran is amazing again, but his instincts to tear out the throat of the wights seem a bit ineffectual at disabling the wight. Tearing off limbs and eating the face is more effective. It makes me wonder if Bran is influencing Summer’s varying of tactics here.
But suddenly Summer was between them. Bran glimpsed skin tear like cheap cloth, heard the splintering of bone. He saw a hand and wrist rip loose, pale fingers wriggling, the sleeve faded black roughspun. Black, he thought, he’s wearing black, he was one of the Watch. Summer flung the arm aside, twisted, and sank his teeth into the dead man’s neck under the chin. When the big grey wolf wrenched free, he took most of the creature’s throat out in an explosion of pale rotten meat.
[…]
The last light had vanished from amongst the trees by then. Night had fallen. Coldhands was hacking and cutting at the circle of dead men that surrounded him. Summer was tearing at the one that he’d brought down, its face between his teeth. No one was paying any mind to Bran. He crawled a little higher, dragging his useless legs behind him. If I can reach that cave …
In the following paragraph Bran has slipped Hodor’s skin, which probably saved Hodor, but put his own body in considerable danger, with Summer left alone to guard it. Bran wonders why Summer is taking such risks (out of character given the caution we usually see from Summer), but it’s obvious that his protective instinct is driving him to this risky behavior. Without Leaf interceding, Summer and Brand both might have died; Bran is right to worry that he’d be stuck in Hodor. Fortunately, it doesn’t come to that.
Summer was snarling and snapping as he danced around the closest, a great ruin of a man wreathed in swirling flame. He shouldn’t get so close, what is he doing? Then he saw himself, sprawled facedown in the snow. Summer was trying to drive the thing away from him. What will happen if it kills me? the boy wondered. Will I be Hodor for good or all? Will I go back into Summer’s skin? Or will I just be dead?
Somehow Bran returns to his body and a wight that leaf set ablaze is attacking Bran. Note that it is naked. Was this one of Craster’s mutineers? One of the rapists? How long after Sam escaped did the others attack the keep? Back to Bran, he is saved when a tree shakes off snow to cover him. The tree SHOOK; the snow didn’t just fall. I believe this to be Bloodraven acting through the weirwood net. As the episode closes with everyone safe, Summer is back with Bran, shadowing.
Everything turned inside out and upside down, and Bran found himself back inside his own skin, half-buried in the snow. The burning wight loomed over him, etched tall against the trees in their snowy shrouds. It was one of the naked ones, Bran saw, in the instant before the nearest tree shook off the snow that covered it and dropped it all down upon his head.
The next he knew, he was lying on a bed of pine needles beneath a dark stone roof. The cave. I’m in the cave. His mouth still tasted of blood where he’d bitten his tongue, but a fire was burning to his right, the heat washing over his face, and he had never felt anything so good. Summer was there, sniffing round him, and Hodor, soaking wet. Meera cradled Jojen’s head in her lap. And the Arya thing stood over them, clutching her torch.
– A Dance with Dragons – Bran II
A Dance with Dragons – Bran III
Bran’s final chapter in TWoW focuses on his training as a greenseer. Summer is leaving the cave periodically to hunt, mostly without Bran, though Bran does sometimes watch as a raven instead of inside Summer’s skin. In an early lesson, it seems that Bran get bored listening to Bloodraven and he falls right into Summers senses invade his consciousness. At first, he is listening to his teacher, queerly noticing the sounds of leaves and wood, and then he is in Summer, seeing snowflakes fall in the trees. Note the symbolism of “soldier pines” and “sentinels in white”. One might think it just a flourishing description, but it probably foreshadows that the white walkers have the cave under siege (or at least they are staking it out).
There he sat, listening to the hoarse whispers of his teacher. “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.”
The moon was a crescent, thin and sharp as the blade of a knife. Snowflakes drifted down soundlessly to cloak the soldier pines and sentinels in white. The drifts grew so deep that they covered the entrance to the caves, leaving a white wall that Summer had to dig through whenever he went outside to join his pack and hunt. Bran did not oft range with them in those days, but some nights he watched them from above.
Bran mentioned earlier in the chapter about skinchanging a raven instead of using Summer’s skin. Now, we skip back in time to his first lesson on this. The episode inside the raven is a bit of comic relief actually, but there is a lot to learn here about the magic and how GRRM thinks about the magic, consciousness sharing, and especially “second lives.” Skinchanging a bird is more difficult than with Summer, as we would have expected from Varamyr’s chapter, though we presume these ravens are easier than some birds because they are used to being skinchanged. Indeed, we learn at the end of the passage that all have the consciousnesses of long dead singers inside them.
This is huge. The implication that all these birds have dead CotF inside them seems to mean that the consciousness of these singers moves AGAIN whenever the bird dies. That suggests that, with the singers in these birds, it is not a “second life” but a series of second lives. Dare I say infinite lives? This goes beyond what we are told in Varamyr’s chapter. It begs one to wonder, could this also be the case with other beasts? I wonder specifically about Ghost, inside-whom Jon Snow is presumably now spending his own second life. Could this phenomenon inform the mechanism for his expected resurrection?
Slipping into Summer’s skin had become as easy for him as slipping on a pair of breeches once had been, before his back was broken. Changing his own skin for a raven’s night-black feathers had been harder, but not as hard as he had feared, not with these ravens. “A wild stallion will buck and kick when a man tries to mount him, and try to bite the hand that slips the bit between his teeth,” Lord Brynden said, “but a horse that has known one rider will accept another. Young or old, these birds have all been ridden. Choose one now, and fly.”
He chose one bird, and then another, without success, but the third raven looked at him with shrewd black eyes, tilted its head, and gave a quork, and quick as that he was not a boy looking at a raven but a raven looking at a boy. The song of the river suddenly grew louder, the torches burned a little brighter than before, and the air was full of strange smells. When he tried to speak it came out in a scream, and his first flight ended when he crashed into a wall and ended back inside his own broken body. The raven was unhurt. It flew to him and landed on his arm, and Bran stroked its feathers and slipped inside of it again. Before long he was flying around the cavern, weaving through the long stone teeth that hung down from the ceiling, even flapping out over the abyss and swooping down into its cold black depths.
Then he realized he was not alone.
“Someone else was in the raven,” he told Lord Brynden, once he had returned to his own skin. “Some girl. I felt her.”
“A woman, of those who sing the song of earth,” his teacher said. “Long dead, yet a part of her remains, just as a part of you would remain in Summer if your boy’s flesh were to die upon the morrow. A shadow on the soul. She will not harm you.”
“Do all the birds have singers in them?”
All,” Lord Brynden said. “It was the singers who taught the First Men to send messages by raven … but in those days, the birds would speak the words. The trees remember, but men forget, and so now they write the messages on parchment and tie them round the feet of birds who have never shared their skin.”
We again learn from a warging episode that the the cave is truly under siege, though no “others” are visible. It also seems that Summer is staying away a lot with the pack. This is concerning, given our ongoing theme of bad things happening when the wolves are separated from their Stark protectees. to compound that, he is also losing weight.
The moon was fat and full. Summer prowled through the silent woods, a long grey shadow that grew more gaunt with every hunt, for living game could not be found. The ward upon the cave mouth still held; the dead men could not enter. The snows had buried most of them again, but they were still there, hidden, frozen, waiting. Other dead things came to join them, things that had once been men and women, even children. Dead ravens sat on bare brown branches, wings crusted with ice. A snow bear crashed through the brush, huge and skeletal, half its head sloughed away to reveal the skull beneath. Summer and his pack fell upon it and tore it into pieces. Afterward they gorged, though the meat was rotted and half-frozen, and moved even as they ate it.
Later we learn that the CotF are feeding Bran’s group rat meat and Meera is catching fish, but Summer must be eschewing this nourishment for some reason. I wonder in being north of the wall and separated from his true pack is making Summer even more independent, more wild. Either way, he is hunting dead things quite a bit. Note that Bran again is eating the flesh of dead men in the wolf’s skin, and he is also using Hodor as well.
On one such occurrence, he finds a cavern filled with singer seemingly clinging to life as they are absorbed by the tree roots. Are these also greenseers? We are not given their eye colors, so this is a real mystery. If they are, though, this could affect the generally accepted explanation of a lot of supernatural events in our story. Could these singers be informing the actions of the “old gods” biasing the more natural “treeish” thoughts of the weirwood net?
The moon was a crescent, thin and sharp as the blade of a knife. Summer dug up a severed arm, black and covered with hoarfrost, its fingers opening and closing as it pulled itself across the frozen snow. There was still enough meat on it to fill his empty belly, and after that was done he cracked the arm bones for the marrow. Only then did the arm remember it was dead.
Bran ate with Summer and his pack, as a wolf. As a raven he flew with the murder, circling the hill at sunset, watching for foes, feeling the icy touch of the air. As Hodor he explored the caves. He found chambers full of bones, shafts that plunged deep into the earth, a place where the skeletons of gigantic bats hung upside down from the ceiling. He even crossed the slender stone bridge that arched over the abyss and discovered more passages and chambers on the far side. One was full of singers, enthroned like Brynden in nests of weirwood roots that wove under and through and around their bodies. Most of them looked dead to him, but as he crossed in front of them their eyes would open and follow the light of his torch, and one of them opened and closed a wrinkled mouth as if he were trying to speak. “Hodor,” Bran said to him, and he felt the real Hodor stir down in his pit.
As this volume comes to a close, we are reminded of the affection Bran has with Summer, and also that he has affection for Meera, too. We see that this is probably shared, in how she pets Summer. Recalling their first affectionate moment from ACoK. This sweet moment is couched in the ominous story of Jojen, who has withdrawn. Given that he has stopped uttering his refrain that “this is not the day I die,” I surmise that that day is fast approaching. Meera is certainly concerned. After they discuss it, Bran wished to console Meera but can’t physically reach her. Next something weird happens. As Bran wishes to embrace her and considers entering Hodor to accomplish it, she freaks out and flees. I do believe that Bran’s consciousness reached out to Meera directly, causing her reaction.
The moon was a black hole in the sky. Outside the cave the world went on. Outside the cave the sun rose and set, the moon turned, the cold winds howled. Under the hill, Jojen Reed grew ever more sullen and solitary, to his sister’s distress. She would often sit with Bran beside their little fire, talking of everything and nothing, petting Summer where he slept between them, whilst her brother wandered the caverns by himself. Jojen had even taken to climbing up to the cave’s mouth when the day was bright. He would stand there for hours, looking out over the forest, wrapped in furs yet shivering all the same.
[…]
“He’s being brave,” said Bran. The only time a man can be brave is when he is afraid, his father had told him once, long ago, on the day they found the direwolf pups in the summer snows. He still remembered.
“He’s being stupid,” Meera said. “I’d hoped that when we found your three-eyed crow … now I wonder why we ever came.”
For me, Bran thought. “His greendreams,” he said.
“His greendreams.” Meera’s voice was bitter.
Meera began to cry.
Bran hated being crippled then. “Don’t cry,” he said. He wanted to put his arms around her, hold her tight the way his mother used to hold him back at Winterfell when he’d hurt himself. She was right there, only a few feet from him, but so far out of reach it might have been a hundred leagues. To touch her he would need to pull himself along the ground with his hands, dragging his legs behind him. The floor was rough and uneven, and it would be slow going, full of scrapes and bumps. I could put on Hodor’s skin, he thought. Hodor could hold her and pat her on the back. The thought made Bran feel strange, but he was still thinking it when Meera bolted from the fire, back out into the darkness of the tunnels. He heard her steps recede until there was nothing but the voices of the singers.
The final mention of Summer is when Bran is taught to enter the weirwood net. This is the ultimate achievement of him becoming a greenseer, instead of just a boy with potential. The journey he’s gone through to come to this point has prepared him for it. It started with green dreams, then wolf dreams, then warging, then skinchanging Hodor, then skinchanging ravens, and now skinchanging into the weirwood net directly. This volume closes as the boy unlocks an overwhelming body of living knowledge of the present, the past, and even the future. I personally don’t think that fate prophecies are set in stone. The future is not set, but that the prophecies that arise out of the tree net are only a prediction based upon present knowledge. However, the breadth of knowledge inside these trees is so vast that they probably can “see” the future quite accurately. Call it a very educated guess. Either way, Bran is on the cusp of unlocking the knowledge of all this history and all these predictions.
The mechanism is explained to be very similar to warging Summer. Yet, Bran may be only the second to do it in the past 100 years. I am extremely interested to see where his story goes in the next volume!
“Close your eyes,” said the three-eyed crow. “Slip your skin, as you do when you join with Summer. But this time, go into the roots instead. Follow them up through the earth, to the trees upon the hill, and tell me what you see.”
Bran closed his eyes and slipped free of his skin. Into the roots, he thought. Into the weirwood. Become the tree. For an instant he could see the cavern in its black mantle, could hear the river rushing by below.
– A Dance with Dragons – Bran III
In conclusion, I hold to my hypothesis, that Bran and Summer are “somewhat of a special case” chiefly because of Bran’s own powers and how quickly they develop. Their bond is more deeply developed than any of their siblings, just as Bran’s ability to use his power to communicate with and “operate” other beasts and beings develops more rapidly than that of his siblings. That this is happening so quickly to such a young boy does make me worry about this ability to hold on to his humanity. On that note, his skinchanging of Hodor is quite concerning.
That said, his empathy for Meera, Jon, and others tells me that he can make it through this with his sanity intact. He is also fiercely independent. This trait, mixed with stubbornness and mental strength, is a fantasy trope where heroes can deflect attempt at brainwashing and mind control. In this, his bond to Summer is also steadying, and driving (a hunger), at the same time. These traits will serve him well amidst the winds of winter!
Speaking of young boys and magic, my thoughts turn to Rickon. I also wonder about his ability to hold onto his humanity and sanity given his bond to Shaggy, who seems to be a very strong and willful wolf. We’ll tackle their story in part 5.
Shout-out and attribution as always goes to those who’ve gone before me with some of the theories that I am probably subconsciously utilizing / mentioning / building upon here, including:
u/LoveMeSexyJesus who posted https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/3gjex7/the_relationship_between_the_stark_children_and/
u/RockyRockington who posted https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/aivijc/spoilers_extended_a_theory_about_ghost_and/
u/PrestonJacobs and all his videos related to this topic
u/Prof_Cecily for insights about early Bran chapters in ASoS
LML for help understanding Symbolism (even though I barely use the skill in this essay).
I have a lot of original thought here but I am certainly synthesizing a lot of their ideas, as well.
Also, Thanks GRRM!
TL;DR Whatddya want, it’s 33,000 words? I can’t summarize this for you in a paragraph. Get to it or don’t. It’s worth it; I promise.
This is part 4 in a multi-part series about our favorite direwolves. The other posts in the series are here:
Part 1: Lady and Sansa, Part 2: Grey Wind and Robb, Part 3: Nymeria and Arya, Part 4: Summer and Bran, Part 5: Shaggydog and Rickon, Part 6: Ghost and Jon
Recall this SSM.
Q: Are all the Stark children wargs/skin changers with their wolves?
GRRM: To a greater or lesser degree, yes, but the amount of control varies widely.
Q: Yes, I know that Lady is dead, but assuming they were all alive and all the children as well, would all the wolves have bonded to the kids as Bran and Summer did?
GRRM: Bran and Summer are somewhat of a special case.
In this essay, we’ll investigate how Bran and Summer are a special case. My hypothesis is that theirs is the strongest bond simply because Bran seems to be the strongest telepath. Bran is the first and only Stark thus far in the story with the power to consciously enter the wolf and control his actions. Arya actively uses a cat’s vision, but has yet to demonstrate full control or to consciously enter Nymeria. She did perhaps exert her will in compelling Nymeria to save Catelyn from the river, but that was a partially subconscious act in a dream. Thus far, Ghost is in charge in all of Jon’s wolf dreams, although Jon does now remember them, and realizes that they are real.
This essay is a line-by-line investigation of every mention of Summer in the text, including the wolf dreams and every thought Bran has inside the wolf. In the first volume, we see how their bond initially develops similar to the other Stark-direwolf connections but how Bran’s powers develop faster due to his coma, the ministrations of other actors in his dreams, and his immobility, which seems to drive him to use his connection to Summer more than his siblings do. We see in the second volume how Bran’s realizes that his wolf dreams are real, and, through the sensory deprivation in the crypts, how he develops the ability to enter his wolf consciously. In the third volume, we see him develop this skill to a point where he can save Jon’s life, but we also see him follow the dark path of using this power over Hodor. In the latest volume, we see how, under Bloodraven’s tutelage, he can use the power to enter ravens and finally to enter the collective consciousness of the weirwood net. The development of these powers is unique to Bran among his siblings.
While many other bloggers are wondering about and investigating foreshadowing of “Bran King”, I’ll be focusing purely on his magical growth and his relationship to Summer, so the “Bran is the future King” theme is not considered here.
We also get some direct wolf thoughts from Summer about the bond to the other direwolves. We learn that he periodically senses his siblings. This does seem to differ from a dream Jon has where Ghost seems to more strongly (certainly more vividly) sense his remaining litter-mates. As an aside, we also learn how neither wolf can sense the other(s) when one of them is on the other side of the wall. We can assume that something about the magic of the wall disrupts their connection.
Finally, several themes from our prior volumes continue here with Summer and his bond to Bran, including:
- Mirroring Bran’s personality and intelligence
- Obedience vs. Independence
- Shadowing / protecting / healthy fear of the wolves
- Related: the wolves’ innate ability to sense threats
- Belonging to the pack / the instinct to hunt
- Being affectionate when they’re together
- Bad things happening when they’re separated
Many of these themes are more visible in Bran and Summer given our access to the wolf dreams in the POV and the strength of their bond. One other theme that is pervasive in Bran, specifically, is his wish to be in a whole body. It shows up in his anger and shame at being called a cripple or pitied. It shows up in his penchant for staying way too long inside Summer’s skin. It shows up in his unfortunate choice to repeatedly invade Hodor’s body. It shows up in his reasoning for going to the three-eyed crow. It will be interesting to see if he finally accepts his own skin to some degree in the coming volumes.
A Game of Thrones – A Pup with no Name and Bran the Broken
In this volume we see how the bond between Bran and Summer forms immediately and strongly, then strengthens with further contact between the two and with Bran’s increasing powers. Summer, indeed, is an integral part of the discussion of Bran’s prophetic dreams in this volume, suggesting that he is somewhat aware of them through the bond.
A Game of Thrones – Bran I
We see that the bond to Summer began forming immediately, the moment Jon hands him to Bran. The mirroring begins in the next moment. He’s dismayed at the idea that the pups would be slaughtered, saying “it’s mine.” At the same time, Summer squirms seemingly feeling Bran’s emotions (my highlighting below in the quotes).
Bran gave the pup a quick nervous stroke, then turned as Jon said, “Here you go.” His half-brother put a second pup into his arms. “There are five of them.” Bran sat down in the snow and hugged the wolf pup to his face. Its fur was soft and warm against his cheek.
[…]
“No matter,” said Hullen. “They be dead soon enough too.”
Bran gave a wordless cry of dismay.
“The sooner the better,” Theon Greyjoy agreed. He drew his sword. “Give the beast here, Bran.”
The little thing squirmed against him, as if it heard and understood. “No!” Bran cried out fiercely. “It’s mine.”
[…]
Bran looked to his lord father for rescue, but got only a frown, a furrowed brow. “Hullen speaks truly, son. Better a swift death than a hard one from cold and starvation.”
“No!” He could feel tears welling in his eyes, and he looked away. He did not want to cry in front of his father.
Now Jon steps in to selflessly advocate for his pack. This shows a lot about Jon and Bran’s relationship. Bran “loved Jon with all his heart” for his selfless act in not including himself in the count for a pup. This is an indication of the empathy that both boys possess. Bran knows what it costs Jon; he can feel how it must hurt to exclude himself. Fortunately, our author rewards Jon later with Ghost. At the end of the passage, see how Summer mirrors Bran’s emotions again, squirming at Bran’s relief that the pups wouldn’t be killed.
“Lord Stark,” Jon said. It was strange to hear him call Father that, so formal. Bran looked at him with desperate hope. “There are five pups,” he told Father. “Three male, two female.”
“What of it, Jon?”
“You have five trueborn children,” Jon said. “Three sons, two daughters. The direwolf is the sigil of your House. Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord.”
Bran saw his father’s face change, saw the other men exchange glances. He loved Jon with all his heart at that moment. Even at seven, Bran understood what his brother had done. The count had come right only because Jon had omitted himself. He had included the girls, included even Rickon, the baby, but not the bastard who bore the surname Snow, the name that custom decreed be given to all those in the north unlucky enough to be born with no name of their own.
Their father understood as well. “You want no pup for yourself, Jon?” he asked softly.
The direwolf graces the banners of House Stark, Jon pointed out. “I am no Stark, Father.”
Their lord father regarded Jon thoughtfully. Robb rushed into the silence he left. “I will nurse him myself, Father,” he promised. “I will soak a towel with warm milk, and give him suck from that.”
Me too!” Bran echoed
The lord weighed his sons long and carefully with his eyes. “Easy to say, and harder to do. I will not have you wasting the servants’ time with this. If you want these pups, you will feed them yourselves. Is that understood?”
Bran nodded eagerly. The pup squirmed in his grasp, licked at his face with a warm tongue.
[…]
It was not until they were mounted and on their way that Bran allowed himself to taste the sweet air of victory. By then, his pup was snuggled inside his leathers, warm against him, safe for the long ride home. Bran was wondering what to name him.
– A Game of Thrones – Bran I
Note the indecision Bran has in naming the pup in both his first and second chapters. I am not sure if this will end up being a character flaw, or was just a device the author used to place significance on the name Summer for some yet to be revealed reason. Either way, we’ll monitor Bran for future indecision.
A Game of Thrones – Bran II
In the next chapter we get a hint of an independent streak in Summer’s lack of interest in chasing sticks. This is an example of personality mirroring because Bran is independent himself, as evidenced by his own disobedience in choosing to climb even after it was forbidden.
But it was no good. He had gone to the stable first, and seen his pony there in its stall, except it wasn’t his pony anymore, he was getting a real horse and leaving the pony behind, and all of a sudden Bran just wanted to sit down and cry. He turned and ran off before Hodor and the other stableboys could see the tears in his eyes. That was the end of his farewells. Instead Bran spent the morning alone in the godswood, trying to teach his wolf to fetch a stick, and failing. The wolfling was smarter than any of the hounds in his father’s kennel and Bran would have sworn he understood every word that was said to him, but he showed very little interest in chasing sticks.
He was still trying to decide on a name. Robb was calling his Grey Wind, because he ran so fast. Sansa had named hers Lady, and Arya named hers after some old witch queen in the songs, and little Rickon called his Shaggydog, which Bran thought was a pretty stupid name for a direwolf. Jon’s wolf, the white one, was Ghost. Bran wished he had thought of that first, even though his wolf wasn’t white. He had tried a hundred names in the last fortnight, but none of them sounded right.
– A Game of Thrones – Bran II
A Game of Thrones – Tyrion I
After Bran’s fall we first hear of Summer from Tyrion. Summer has been howling a lot. We learn here that there must be something about his bond to Summer that is helping to save Bran’s life, specifically in the anecdote that Bran weakened when he could no longer hear the wolf. We also see Cersei’s possible recognition of the magic of the wolves, coupled with her complete antipathy toward the wolf, foreshadowing her unjust death sentence for Lady.
“The gods alone know,” Tyrion told her. “The maester only hopes.” He chewed some more bread. “I would swear that wolf of his is keeping the boy alive. The creature is outside his window day and night, howling. Every time they chase it away, it returns. The maester said they closed the window once, to shut out the noise, and Bran seemed to weaken. When they opened it again, his heart beat stronger.”
The queen shuddered. “There is something unnatural about those animals,” she said. “They are dangerous. I will not have any of them coming south with us.”
– A Game of Thrones – Tyrion I
A Game of Thrones – Catelyn III
During Bran’s coma, Summer becomes a hero in saving both Cat and Bran from the catspaw. First, though, he’s heard in the yard howling with Grey Wind and Shaggy, pack behavior. Summer is worrying for Bran, and the other 2 are howling in solidarity. This seemed to happen a lot as there was also evidence of it in a Tyrion’s chapter. One can guess that Summer wished to be in the room with Bran, that this separation was troubling him greatly. Perhaps he also felt some of the pain Bran might have been in during the coma.
Outside the tower, a wolf began to howl. Catelyn trembled, just for a second.
“Bran’s.” Robb opened the window and let the night air into the stuffy tower room. The howling grew louder. It was a cold and lonely sound, full of melancholy and despair.
“Don’t,” she told him. “Bran needs to stay warm.”
“He needs to hear them sing,” Robb said. Somewhere out in Winterfell, a second wolf began to howl in chorus with the first. Then a third, closer. “Shaggydog and Grey Wind,” Robb said as their voices rose and fell together. “You can tell them apart if you listen close.”
During the catspaw’s fire, Summer is not drawn away. Mayhaps he smelled or heard the catspaw and tracked him to Bran’s room or he was just taking his chance to sneak up to Bran’s room. A fun, tinfoily explanation is that Summer heard what was going on though Bran’s ears and rushed up for the save. Unfortunately, there is zero evidence for this. The result is the same. Bran and Catelyn are saved, and it is undoubtedly Summer’s bond to Bran that enables it. This is also the readers’ first indication of the deadly ferocity of these wolves, a stark example of their protective nature and ample reason for fear for those who would do them harm.
Catelyn saw the shadow slip through the open door behind him. There was a low rumble, less than a snarl, the merest whisper of a threat, but he must have heard something, because he started to turn just as the wolf made its leap. They went down together, half sprawled over Catelyn where she’d fallen. The wolf had him under the jaw. The man’s shriek lasted less than a second before the beast wrenched back its head, taking out half his throat.
His blood felt like warm rain as it sprayed across her face.
The wolf was looking at her. Its jaws were red and wet and its eyes glowed golden in the dark room. It was Bran’s wolf, she realized. Of course it was. “Thank you,” Catelyn whispered, her voice faint and tiny. She lifted her hand, trembling. The wolf padded closer, sniffed at her fingers, then licked at the blood with a wet rough tongue. When it had cleaned all the blood off her hand, it turned away silently and jumped up on Bran’s bed and lay down beside him. Catelyn began to laugh hysterically.
– A Game of Thrones – Catelyn III
In the aftermath of the attack, we see affection and shadowing. Summer did start this section protesting his separation from Bran, so all 5 of our themes are in evidence in just a small section of this chapter.
A Game of Thrones – Bran III
We won’t go into detail about Bran’s dreams during the coma, save to note that the coma seems to have triggered an awakening of Bran’s magical powers. This probably plays a role in the warg bond developing sooner in him than in the other Stark POVs (we can be less sure of what happens for Robb and Rickon). At the end of the dream, at Bran’s awakening, Summer is again at Bran’s side and being affectionate.
And then there was movement beside the bed, and something landed lightly on his legs. He felt nothing. A pair of yellow eyes looked into his own, shining like the sun. The window was open and it was cold in the room, but the warmth that came off the wolf enfolded him like a hot bath. His pup, Bran realized … or was it? He was so big now. He reached out to pet him, his hand trembling like a leaf.
When his brother Robb burst into the room, breathless from his dash up the tower steps, the direwolf was licking Bran’s face. Bran looked up calmly. “His name is Summer,” he said.
– A Game of Thrones – Bran III
So, Bran finally settled on the name Summer, an homage to Old Nan, and possibly foreshadowing by our author about the end of our story.
A Game of Thrones – Bran IV
Speaking of Old Nan, in the next chapter, Bran’s impatience with her, certainly a beloved figure, belies Bran’s growing discontent over his immobility. He wants to be out there with Summer and the pack running and playing, but all he can do is watch from a window. Summer is a bit outcast from the other 2 as well, trailing and observing, mirroring Bran’s separation. Finally. we get Bran’s opinion on Summer’s attentiveness and intelligence, possible mirroring, as well.
Bran watched from his window seat. Wherever the boy went, Grey Wind was there first, loping ahead to cut him off, until Rickon saw him, screamed in delight, and went pelting off in another direction. Shaggydog ran at his heels, spinning and snapping if the other wolves came too close. His fur had darkened until he was all black, and his eyes were green fire. Bran’s Summer came last. He was silver and smoke, with eyes of yellow gold that saw all there was to see. Smaller than Grey Wind, and more wary. Bran thought he was the smartest of the litter. He could hear his brother’s breathless laughter as Rickon dashed across the hard-packed earth on little baby legs.
[…]
“I don’t care whose stories they are,” Bran told her, “I hate them.” He didn’t want stories and he didn’t want Old Nan. He wanted his mother and father. He wanted to go running with Summer loping beside him. He wanted to climb the broken tower and feed corn to the crows. He wanted to ride his pony again with his brothers. He wanted it to be the way it had been before.
Next, we have the attack on Tyrion. The wolves clearly act as a pack in a coordinated fashion. However, there is an oddity in this scene. Summer led the attack, not Grey Wind, even though Robb was the one showing aggressiveness to Tyrion, and Bran was seemingly happy about the saddle plans. If it were mirroring, shouldn’t Grey Wind be the main aggressor? Upon reflection, I believe it was a combination of protection and mirroring, that drove this attack. Under this interpretation, Summer being the leader makes perfect sense. First, Bran was more upset than he admits to himself at Tyrion’s repeatedly calling him a cripple. Second, the Lannisters threw Bran from the tower. Bran’s subconscious knows. Summer was there. Summer knows. Summer smelled Lannister. Tyrion has a Lannister scent. Theon hits it on the head in the second paragraph below.
The door to the yard flew open. Sunlight came streaming across the hall as Rickon burst in, breathless. The direwolves were with him. The boy stopped by the door, wide-eyed, but the wolves came on. Their eyes found Lannister, or perhaps they caught his scent. Summer began to growl first. Grey Wind picked it up. They padded toward the little man, one from the right and one from the left.
“The wolves do not like your smell, Lannister,” Theon Greyjoy commented.
“Perhaps it’s time I took my leave,” Tyrion said. He took a step backward … and Shaggydog came out of the shadows behind him, snarling. Lannister recoiled, and Summer lunged at him from the other side. He reeled away, unsteady on his feet, and Grey Wind snapped at his arm, teeth ripping at his sleeve and tearing loose a scrap of cloth.
“No!” Bran shouted from the high seat as Lannister’s men reached for their steel. “Summer, here. Summer, to me!”
The direwolf heard the voice, glanced at Bran, and again at Lannister. He crept backward, away from the little man, and settled down below Bran’s dangling feet.
Fortunately, the wolves all broke off the attack when called (Summer less obedient than Grey Wind). Under my theory, Summer must have sensed Lannister in the hall with the boys and decided it was danger, given the history. He would have riled up Shaggy and Grey Wind at the door to the hall until Rickon decided to let them in. Robb is already upset so Grey Wind is mirroring him, same for Shaggy because Rickon’s always upset as we learn elsewhere in the story.
As if to reinforce this potential cause of Summer’s actions, Bran has a dream later this chapter about Jaime’s attack on him. In this light Summer was mirroring Bran’s subconscious feelings about Lannisters. In the dream Bran denies seeing what he saw between Cersei and Jaime, but it was no good. He subconsciously knows that he was in danger from the Lannisters. This dream is all about Bran and his realization that his subconscious and his bond to Summer may have caused the attack on Tyrion.
In his dream he was climbing again, pulling himself up an ancient windowless tower, his fingers forcing themselves between blackened stones, his feet scrabbling for purchase. Higher and higher he climbed, through the clouds and into the night sky, and still the tower rose before him. When he paused to look down, his head swam dizzily and he felt his fingers slipping. Bran cried out and clung for dear life. The earth was a thousand miles beneath him and he could not fly. He could not fly. He waited until his heart had stopped pounding, until he could breathe, and he began to climb again. There was no way to go but up. Far above him, outlined against a vast pale moon, he thought he could see the shapes of gargoyles. His arms were sore and aching, but he dared not rest. He forced himself to climb faster. The gargoyles watched him ascend. Their eyes glowed red as hot coals in a brazier. Perhaps once they had been lions, but now they were twisted and grotesque. Bran could hear them whispering to each other in soft stone voices terrible to hear. He must not listen, he told himself, he must not hear, so long as he did not hear them he was safe. But when the gargoyles pulled themselves loose from the stone and padded down the side of the tower to where Bran clung, he knew he was not safe after all. “I didn’t hear,” he wept as they came closer and closer, “I didn’t, I didn’t.”
It’s apparent to me from this dream that Bran has a subconscious mistrust (fear) of the Lannisters, which he shares with Summer through the bond. Together with Summer’s protective instinct and Bran’s anger at repeatedly being called a cripple, this leads to the near-attack on Tyrion.
This denial seems to be a foreshadowing of Bran’s denial that his anger caused Summer to attack Meera and Jojen (in a mirroring fashion) in ACoK. Just as Bran now denies knowledge of the Lannisters throwing him from the window, he later denies that he caused the attack on the Reed’s, when Summer mirrors his mood about Jojen’s accusations.
Later, there are more mentions of Summer in this chapter, all examples of how he is Bran’s constant and affectionate companion.
Summer followed them up the tower steps […]
[…]
“Summer,” he called. The wolf bounded up on the bed. Bran hugged him so hard he could feel the hot breath on his cheek. “I can ride now,” he whispered to his friend. “We can go hunting in the woods soon, wait and see.” After a time he slept.
[…]
Summer snatched table scraps from Bran’s hand, […]
[…]
Robb carried Bran up to bed himself. Grey Wind led the way, and Summer came close behind.
– A Game of Thrones – Bran IV
A Game of Thrones – Bran V
At the next mention of Summer, he’s again shadowing Bran when they all go off riding. When the direwolves go off to hunt alone, we are shown how separation during a hunt is a time of vulnerability for the boys because, for all of the bond, these wolves are wild animals.
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.
[…]
“I don’t want to race.” Bran looked around for the direwolves. Both had vanished into the wood. “Did you hear Summer howling last night?”
“Grey Wind was restless too,” Robb said. His auburn hair had grown shaggy and unkempt, and a reddish stubble covered his jaw, making him look older than his fifteen years. “Sometimes I think they know things … sense things …” Robb sighed. “I never know how much to tell you, Bran. I wish you were older.”
It’s interesting that the boys discuss how the direwolves can sense things, yet they don’t sense the threat of the wildlings. Recall how Bran earlier thought that Summer was the smartest of the pack, but somehow, he doesn’t recognize this relatively close threat. Is this a plot hole, or is GRRM insinuating that the wolves are not as reliable as we might hope?
Also, note how Bran can recognize the howl of his own wolf, mentioned in the prior passage and the one that follows. Robb had noticed the same in Cat’s chapter earlier. Is this simply their recognition of the wolves’ voices or is it another indication of the supernatural connection of their bond?
They were on the far side when they heard the howl, a long rising wail that moved through the trees like a cold wind. Bran raised his head to listen. “Summer,” he said. No sooner had he spoken than a second voice joined the first.
“They’ve made a kill,” Robb said […].
As the attack begins note how Summer is careful, first checking the wind to assess the threat. Later, he is careful not to be injured by Hali. Is this an example of his mirroring Bran’s own carefulness, honed through years of climbing? It may also be partial warging, with Bran using his eyes to see the danger and Summer sensing it through Bran.
Robb whistled. They heard the faint sound of soft feet on wet leaves. The undergrowth parted, low-hanging branches giving up their accumulation of snow, and Grey Wind and Summer emerged from the green. Summer sniffed the air and growled.
“Wolves,” gasped Hali.
[…]
A few feet away, Summer darted in and snapped at Hali. The knife bit at his flank. Summer slid away, snarling, and came rushing in again. This time his jaws closed around her calf. Holding the knife with both hands, the small woman stabbed down, but the direwolf seemed to sense the blade coming. He pulled free for an instant, his mouth full of leather and cloth and bloody flesh. When Hali stumbled and fell, he came at her again, slamming her backward, teeth tearing at her belly.
Take note of the next line “In that moment Bran saw everything.” It’s a very eerie line. I must wonder, in this traumatic experience, is this an indication that he is partially warging Summer? Could he be seeing everything because he’s seeing through 2 sets of eyes?
In that moment Bran saw everything. Summer was savaging Hali, pulling glistening blue snakes from her belly. Her eyes were wide and staring. Bran could not tell whether she was alive or dead. The grey stubbly man and the one with the axe lay unmoving, but Osha was on her knees, crawling toward her fallen spear. Grey Wind padded toward her, dripping wet. “Call him off!” the big man shouted. “Call them both off, or the cripple boy dies now!”
“Grey Wind, Summer, to me,” Robb said.
The direwolves stopped, turned their heads. Grey Wind loped back to Robb. Summer stayed where he was, his eyes on Bran and the man beside him. He growled. His muzzle was wet and red, but his eyes burned.
Osha used the butt end of her spear to lever herself back to her feet. Blood leaked from a wound on the upper arm where Robb had cut her. Bran could see sweat trickling down the big man’s face. Stiv was as scared as he was, he realized. “Starks,” the man muttered, “bloody Starks.” He raised his voice. “Osha, kill the wolves and get his sword.”
When Stiv threatens Bran, Grey Wind immediately obeys Robb’s command to stand down, but Summer is having none of it. He is intent on Bran, and in mirroring Bran, he is more independent than his brother. He never considers taking his burning eyes off Bran. Take note also of Stiv’s words about Starks. My interpretation of this line is that he’s heard tales of Starks being wargs. They were probably just stories to him until now; his comment seems full of regret for coming near Winterfell.
In that passage and the one to follow, we also see the horror of the direwolves’ ferocity and lack of fear of men in how they savage the corpses; that part is truly sickening. The next mention of Summer is where he is feeding on Hali. This is the first time the wolves consider men to be meat in the series. Robb’s men, even Luwin, are horrified.
The guardsmen had a strange, pale look to their faces as they took in the scene of slaughter. They eyed the wolves uncertainly, and when Summer returned to Hali’s corpse to feed, Joseth dropped his knife and scrambled for the bush, heaving. Even Maester Luwin seemed shocked as he stepped from behind a tree, but only for an instant. Then he shook his head and waded across the stream to Bran’s side. “Are you hurt?”
– A Game of Thrones – Bran V
A Game of Thrones – Bran VI
The next chapter is mostly a montage of different times Summer is shadowing and protecting Bran. We also get good indications of how even allies are fearful around the wolves. Later, we see them being affectionate with each other again.
They were the last, he knew. The other lords were already here, with their hosts. Bran yearned to ride out among them, to see the winter houses full to bursting, the jostling crowds in the market square every morning, the streets rutted and torn by wheel and hoof. But Robb had forbidden him to leave the castle. “We have no men to spare to guard you,” his brother had explained.
“I’ll take Summer,” Bran argued.
[…]
As they passed beneath the gatehouse portcullis, Bran put two fingers into his mouth and whistled. Summer came loping across the yard. Suddenly the Karstark lancers were fighting for control, as their horses rolled their eyes and whickered in dismay. One stallion reared, screaming, his rider cursing and hanging on desperately. The scent of the direwolves sent horses into a frenzy of fear if they were not accustomed to it, but they’d quiet soon enough once Summer was gone. “The godswood,” Bran reminded Hodor.
[…]
He tried not to flinch as Hodor ducked through a low door. They walked down a long dim hallway, Summer padding easily beside them. The wolf glanced up from time to time, eyes smoldering like liquid gold. Bran would have liked to touch him, but he was riding too high for his hand to reach.
Later, we see them being affectionate with each other again. Clearly, their bond is deepening. The final line of the passage reminds us of the power Bran has and how it can deepen their bond. He is dreaming with the gods. Note how Bran is comfortable with the old gods; this is possible foreshadowing of his eventual connection to the weirwood net.
Summer lapped at the water and settled down at Bran’s side. He rubbed the wolf under the jaw, and for a moment boy and beast both felt at peace. Bran had always liked the godswood, even before, but of late he found himself drawn to it more and more. Even the heart tree no longer scared him the way it used to. The deep red eyes carved into the pale trunk still watched him, yet somehow he took comfort from that now. The gods were looking over him, he told himself; the old gods, gods of the Starks and the First Men and the children of the forest, his father’s gods. He felt safe in their sight, and the deep silence of the trees helped him think. Bran had been thinking a lot since his fall; thinking, and dreaming, and talking with the gods.
When Lady’s bones were returned all 3 wolves howled in mourning. She was pack; they must have identified her scent.
Bran felt all cold inside. “She lost her wolf,” he said, weakly, remembering the day when four of his father’s guardsmen had returned from the south with Lady’s bones. Summer and Grey Wind and Shaggydog had begun to howl before they crossed the drawbridge, in voices drawn and desolate. Beneath the shadow of the First Keep was an ancient lichyard, its headstones spotted with pale lichen, where the old Kings of Winter had laid their faithful servants. It was there they buried Lady, while her brothers stalked between the graves like restless shadows. She had gone south, and only her bones had returned.
The next exchange is interesting. The wind has been used before to signify the old gods trying to talk. While Bran may be comfortable with the old gods, Summer may not be. Or, it could be that Summer is growling at Osha. Either way, it makes me concerned that the power of the weirwoods may not be benevolent, given how the wolves seem to be better judges of danger than the children. Reminding us of the fear the wolves inspire, Osha is very uneasy (I wonder why, personal experience much?). The exchange ends with Summer obeying, then being affectionate with Bran.
A faint wind sighed through the godswood and the red leaves stirred and whispered. Summer bared his teeth. “You hear them, boy?” a voice asked.
Bran lifted his head. Osha stood across the pool, beneath an ancient oak, her face shadowed by leaves. Even in irons, the Wildling moved quiet as a cat. Summer circled the pool, sniffed at her. The tall woman flinched.
“Summer, to me,” Bran called. The direwolf took one final sniff, spun, and bounded back. Bran wrapped his arms around him. “What are you doing here?” He had not seen Osha since they’d taken her captive in the wolfswood, though he knew she’d been set to working in the kitchens.
– A Game of Thrones – Bran VI
Note that after the interaction with Osha, Maester Luwin started telling Bran that magical creatures (giants and children of the forest in this case) no longer existed. This would be the first of many times where Luwin filled Bran’s head with skepticism about magic only to be proven wrong. It is comforting to Bran, but he ultimately knows that the maester’s ideas don’t pass muster.
A Game of Thrones – Bran VII
The next chapter is mainly about Bran’s dream of Ned being in the crypts; Luwin doesn’t believe the dream to be meaningful and takes Bran there to prove it. Luwin, you know nothing. We see several examples of our themes with Summer and Bran, including shadowing, affection, savagery, and obedience.
“They don’t fight very well,” Bran said dubiously. He scratched Summer idly behind the ears as the direwolf tore at a haunch of meat. Bones crunched between his teeth.
[…]
“Summer, come,” Bran called as she lifted him in wiry-strong arms. The direwolf left his bone and followed as Osha carried Bran across the yard and down the spiral steps to the cold vault under the earth. Maester Luwin went ahead with a torch. Bran did not even mind—too badly—that she carried him in her arms and not on her back. Ser Rodrik had ordered Osha’s chain struck off, since she had served faithfully and well since she had been at Winterfell. She still wore the heavy iron shackles around her ankles—a sign that she was not yet wholly trusted—but they did not hinder her sure strides down the steps.
Notice how, in the next passage, Summer does not want to go into the crypts. I assume this to be related to instinct to fear the dead walking, the wights.
He wished they were here now; the vault might not have seemed so dark and scary. Summer stalked out in the echoing gloom, then stopped, lifted his head, and sniffed the chill dead air. He bared his teeth and crept backward, eyes glowing golden in the light of the maester’s torch. Even Osha, hard as old iron, seemed uncomfortable. “Grim folk, by the look of them,” she said as she eyed the long row of granite Starks on their stone thrones.
[…]
The vault was cavernous, longer than Winterfell itself, and Jon had told him once that there were other levels underneath, vaults even deeper and darker where the older kings were buried. It would not do to lose the light. Summer refused to move from the steps, even when Osha followed with the torch, Bran in her arms.
Summer is skittish about going into the crypts, but at the first sign of danger he leaps to Bran’s protection. Shaggydog turns out to be that danger, and this is the first of several times where Summer needs to keep his black brother in check, now that Grey Wind has left with Robb.
“Summer!” Bran screamed.
And Summer came, shooting from the dimness behind them, a leaping shadow. He slammed into Shaggydog and knocked him back, and the two direwolves rolled over and over in a tangle of grey and black fur, snapping and biting at each other, while Maester Luwin struggled to his knees, his arm torn and bloody. Osha propped Bran up against Lord Rickard’s stone wolf as she hurried to assist the maester. In the light of the guttering torch, shadow wolves twenty feet tall fought on the wall and roof.
“Shaggy,” a small voice called. When Bran looked up, his little brother was standing in the mouth of Father’s tomb. With one final snap at Summer’s face, Shaggydog broke off and bounded to Rickon’s side. “You let my father be,” Rickon warned Luwin. “You let him be.”
[…]
“You can wait with me,” Bran said. “We’ll wait together, you and me and our wolves.” Both of the direwolves were licking wounds now, and would bear close watching.
This rare moment of affection and indulgence of Rickon must mean the world to the boy. Bran’s empathy here shines. They both want to be with their wolves.
In the rookery later, do the wolves seem to sense the boys’ dread as the raven announcing Ned’s death arrives, even as Summer first senses the raven? It’s worth wondering if the direwolves experience some of the boys’ non-wolf dreams. Did they understand the context of the dream to mean that Ned had died before the raven arrived? One might assume their howling was only an indication that they were mirroring the boys’ dread, but there was no prior sign of an arrival of a raven. We might assume that Summer smelled, saw or heard it approaching, although without the context of the news it would bring, why howl? Did Bran subconsciously supply that context telepathically? Did his nascent connection to the weir woods tell Bran it was coming?
Summer began to howl.
Maester Luwin broke off, startled. When Shaggydog bounded to his feet and added his voice to his brother’s, dread clutched at Bran’s heart. “It’s coming,” he whispered, with the certainty of despair. He had known it since last night, he realized, since the crow had led him down into the crypts to say farewell. He had known it, but he had not believed. He had wanted Maester Luwin to be right. The crow, he thought, the three-eyed crow …
The howling stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Summer padded across the tower floor to Shaggydog, and began to lick at a mat of bloody fur on the back of his brother’s neck. From the window came a flutter of wings.
– A Game of Thrones – Bran VII
Maester Luwin was not right; Ned’s dead, baby, Ned’s dead. This final chapter was a real eye-opener about the contrast between a maester’s view and the power that Bran possesses. The dream Rickon and Bran had had about Ned being killed was informed by some supernatural means, telepathy or magic. My personal opinion is that it was not an example of a predictive dream, but merely information from far away, likely via the weirwood net.
It is undetermined whether all these dreams/visions (which many experience in the series, not just Bran) are actively pushed by some motivated actor (as with Bloodraven in Bran’s case) or whether some are passively leaking out of the weirwood net (as may be the case with Rickon).
As a final thought on Bran and Summer’s story in AGoT, their bond is shown to be special in how it seems stronger than his siblings and is also augmented by Bran’s nascent powers and their connection to the weirwoods. Bran’s power is clarified in this final chapter; he is definitely able to receive supernatural messages from dreams beyond his connection to Summer.
A Clash of Kings – Summer and The Winged Wolf – Chained
In this volume, while we continue our themes, we see how close Summer and Bran truly are through the introduction of wolf dreams. Later, Bran gets his first mentor in Jojen, and we get even more information about how Bran’s power fits into this bond. Finally, Bran is isolated in the crypts, and we see a step change in Bran’s ability to truly warg into Summer. By the end of this book we’ll see how the magic indeed is stronger in Bran, which makes their bond develop stronger and faster.
Maester Luwin’s anti magic bias is continued rather heavy-handedly in this volume as well. Coupled with the effect of Old Nan’s stories, Bran fears the obvious magical implications of his dreams. The effect is to limit his receptivity to the message of the 3iCrow, Jojen, and the tree dreams. Jojen calls him the winged wolf, but he is chained to Winterfell by this fear and reticence.
Our direwolf themes continue develop in this volume, as Bran’s powers develop. Protection and Savagery and pack behavior are exhibited by the two remaining wolves for sure, though first directed at the Reeds. Mirroring is especially heightened in this incident, too. Unfortunately, the theme of the Direwolves not being able to protect the boys when separated from them continues in this volume, too, partially resulting in all that is wrought by Theon and then Ramsey.
A Clash of Kings – Bran I
The first Bran chapter in ACoK is the first mention of a wolf dream in the story, although Old Nan tells Bran that he is not the first Stark to experience one. She also echoes the SSM from our introduction.
This chapter is almost non-stop direwolf interaction and wolf dream hints. Bran is stuck in his room a lot and finds interest in the behavior of the wolves, especially howling. This is an example of the call of the pack. He tries to get in the wolves heads, especially about why they’re howling at the comet, and he gets a lot of conflicting feedback from people around Winterfell. One ironic comment is from Roderick Cassel, who asks “who can know the mind of a wolf?” Oh, Ser Roderick, the answer was staring into your face!
He could not walk, nor climb nor hunt nor fight with a wooden sword as once he had, but he could still look. He liked to watch the windows begin to glow all over Winterfell as candles and hearth fires were lit behind the diamond-shaped panes of tower and hall, and he loved to listen to the direwolves sing to the stars.
Of late, he often dreamed of wolves. They are talking to me, brother to brother, he told himself when the direwolves howled. He could almost understand them . . . not quite, not truly, but almost . . . as if they were singing in a language he had once known and somehow forgotten. The Walders might be scared of them, but the Starks had wolf blood. Old Nan told him so. “Though it is stronger in some than in others,” she warned.
Summer’s howls were long and sad, full of grief and longing. Shaggydog’s were more savage. Their voices echoed through the yards and halls until the castle rang and it seemed as though some great pack of direwolves haunted Winterfell, instead of only two . . . two where there had once been six. Do they miss their brothers and sisters too? Bran wondered. Are they calling to Grey Wind and Ghost, to Nymeria and Lady’s Shade? Do they want them to come home and be a pack together?
It’s interesting how each person give a little hint about the nature of the wolf bond. Rodrik, the mind mingling, Farlen their independence, Gage the hunt, and Luwin pack behavior, and Osha, their sense of danger.
“Who can know the mind of a wolf?” Ser Rodrik Cassel said when Bran asked him why they howled. Bran’s lady mother had named him castellan of Winterfell in her absence, and his duties left him little time for idle questions.
“It’s freedom they’re calling for,” declared Farlen, who was kennelmaster and had no more love for the direwolves than his hounds did. “They don’t like being walled up, and who’s to blame them? Wild things belong in the wild, not in a castle.”
“They want to hunt,” agreed Gage the cook as he tossed cubes of suet in a great kettle of stew. “A wolf smells better’n any man. Like as not, they’ve caught the scent o’ prey.”
Maester Luwin did not think so. “Wolves often howl at the moon. These are howling at the comet. See how bright it is, Bran? Perchance they think it is the moon.”
When Bran repeated that to Osha, she laughed aloud. “Your wolves have more wit than your maester,” the wildling woman said. “They know truths the grey man has forgotten.” The way she said it made him shiver, and when he asked what the comet meant, she answered, “Blood and fire, boy, and nothing sweet.
The howling continues, making us all wonder what it’s like in the mind of a wolf. Bran, remembering his wolf dream and determined to find out, starts howling himself. It’s a bit of humor at the beginning of this part of the saga, although it’s clear that this pack behavior is recognized by the wolves and represents a deepening of the bond. Ominously, though, this is the first time that both wolves have been confined away from the boys since Bran awoke. Did nobody tell Ser Roderick of the protection that Summer has provided their Lord? Is his memory so short?
And still the direwolves howled. The guards on the walls muttered curses, hounds in the kennels barked furiously, horses kicked at their stalls, the Walders shivered by their fire, and even Maester Luwin complained of sleepless nights. Only Bran did not mind. Ser Rodrik had confined the wolves to the godswood after Shaggydog bit Little Walder, but the stones of Winterfell played queer tricks with sound, and sometimes it sounded as if they were in the yard right below Bran’s window. Other times he would have sworn they were up on the curtain walls, loping round like sentries. He wished that he could see them.
[…]
Summer had howled the day Bran had fallen, and for long after as he lay broken in his bed; Robb had told him so before he went away to war. Summer had mourned for him, and Shaggydog and Grey Wind had joined in his grief. And the night the bloody raven had brought word of their father’s death, the wolves had known that too. Bran had been in the maester’s turret with Rickon talking of the children of the forest when Summer and Shaggydog had drowned out Luwin with their howls.
Who are they mourning now? Had some enemy slain the King in the North, who used to be his brother Robb? Had his bastard brother Jon Snow fallen from the Wall? Had his mother died, or one of his sisters? Or was this something else, as maester and septon and Old Nan seemed to think?
If I were truly a direwolf, I would understand the song, he thought wistfully. In his wolf dreams, he could race up the sides of mountains, jagged icy mountains taller than any tower, and stand at the summit beneath the full moon with all the world below him, the way it used to be.
“Oooo,” Bran cried tentatively. He cupped his hands around his mouth and lifted his head to the comet. “Ooooooooooooooooooo, ahooooooooooooooo,” he howled. It sounded stupid, high and hollow and quavering, a little boy’s howl, not a wolf’s. Yet Summer gave answer, his deep voice drowning out Bran’s thin one, and Shaggydog made it a chorus. Bran haroooed again. They howled together, last of their pack.
The noise brought a guard to his door, Hayhead with the wen on his nose. He peered in, saw Bran howling out the window, and said, “What’s this, my prince?”
It made Bran feel queer when they called him prince, though he was Robb’s heir, and Robb was King in the North now. He turned his head to howl at the guard. “Oooooooo. Oo-oo-oooooooooooo.”
Hayhead screwed up his face. “Now you stop that there.”
“Ooo-ooo-oooooo. Ooo-ooo-ooooooooooooooooo.”
Certainly, Maester Luwin knows better than confine the wolves away from the boys, but he can’t admit it to himself due to his learned prejudices against magic. That skepticism is in full force as we move forward here.
Bran is dropping hints left and right about wolf dreams and tree dreams. It’s clear that he’s being bombarded with information in these dreams and is trying to make sense of it. He doesn’t even seem to realize that he is “dreaming” inside Summer’s mind. He desperately misses the wolf, given the forced separation. I wonder if this separation fostered a quicker development of the wolf dreams that might have otherwise happened. Thinking back to part 3, the same didn’t happen immediately with Arya And Nymeria, although their connection seemed to be reignited when in closer proximity while still being separated in the Riverlands.
“All men must sleep, Bran. Even princes.”
“When I sleep I turn into a wolf.” Bran turned his face away and looked back out into the night. “Do wolves dream?”
“All creatures dream, I think, yet not as men do.”
“Do dead men dream?” Bran asked, thinking of his father. In the dark crypts below Winterfell, a stonemason was chiseling out his father’s likeness in granite.
“Some say yes, some no,” the maester answered. “The dead themselves are silent on the matter.”
“Do trees dream?“
“Trees? No . . .”
“They do,” Bran said with sudden certainty. “They dream tree dreams. I dream of a tree sometimes. A weirwood, like the one in the godswood. It calls to me. The wolf dreams are better. I smell things, and sometimes I can taste the blood.”
Notice that last line, he can taste the blood. Though Luwin chooses to deny its import, that is probably our first direct hint at sharing senses through the bond in this story, even if my analysis suggests earlier hidden references.
Bran goes on to protest the separation from Summer. He know the wolf’s worth as a protector, and he also needs the affection, one theme that is lacking here and so often in this volume due to the separation.
“Home. It’s their fault you won’t let me have Summer.”
“The Frey boy did not ask to be attacked,” the maester said, “no more than I did.”
“That was Shaggydog.” Rickon’s big black wolf was so wild he even frightened Bran at times. “Summer never bit anyone.”
“Summer ripped out a man’s throat in this very chamber, or have you forgotten? The truth is, those sweet pups you and your brothers found in the snow have grown into dangerous beasts. The Frey boys are wise to be wary of them.”
Luwin, it seems that YOU have forgotten that when Summer tore that man’s throat out it was saving Bran and Catelyn’s life. Bran even argues that Summer would protect him, but Luwin is so sure that everyone else needs protection from the wolves that he is unable to remember! Bran goes on:
“Summer would save me,” Bran insisted stubbornly. “Princes should be allowed to sail the sea and hunt boar in the wolfswood and joust with lances.”
“Bran, child, why do you torment yourself so? One day you may do some of these things, but now you are only a boy of eight.”
“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.”
Luwin raised his voice. “A true prince would welcome—”
“AAHOOOOOOO,” Bran howled, louder. “OOOO-OOOO-OOOO.”
– A Clash of Kings – Bran I
The key takeway here is that spending nights as a direwolf is definitely rubbing off on Bran, sort of a reverse mirroring. It’s cute, but it bears remembering that Bran is impressionable to Summer’s wolfishness.
As an aside, all the howling in that chapter reminds me of the Ozzy Osbourne song “Bark at the Moon”. I’ve made a recording of that song, and I will be re-posting it soon on this channel as a Direwolf cover!
A Clash of Kings – Bran II
The theme of the wolves being protectors is at the forefront in the following chapter, coupled with further discussion of wolf dreams. We also see affection, as the boys do get a chance to play with the wolves in the godswood, though they remain confined at night. Chekhov’s confinement. We also are reminded of the wolves’ savagery, their sense of threats, and pack behavior; so basically all our themes are in evidence in a short passages that follow.
“Let him. I always wanted a wolfskin cloak.”
“Summer would tear your fat head off,” Bran said.
Little Walder banged a mailed fist against his breastplate. “Does your wolf have steel teeth, to bite through plate and mail?”
[…]
“As you will, my prince,” said Ser Rodrik. “You did well.” Bran flushed with pleasure. Being a lord was not so tedious as he had feared, and since Lady Hornwood had been so much briefer than Lord Manderly, he even had a few hours of daylight left to visit with Summer. He liked to spend time with his wolf every day, when Ser Rodrik and the maester allowed it.
No sooner had Hodor entered the godswood than Summer emerged from under an oak, almost as if he had known they were coming. Bran glimpsed a lean black shape watching from the undergrowth as well. “Shaggy,” he called. “Here, Shaggydog. To me.” But Rickon’s wolf vanished as swiftly as he’d appeared.
Note how Summer knew Bran was coming, did he know through the bond, through mirroring? That may be more likely than than the mundane explanation, that he smelled them coming. Next Summer evaluates Osha not to be a threat
And then Osha exploded up out of the pool with a great splash, so sudden that even Summer leapt back, snarling. Hodor jumped away, wailing “Hodor, Hodor” in dismay until Bran patted his shoulder to soothe his fears. “How can you swim in there?” he asked Osha. “Isn’t it cold?”
“As a babe I suckled on icicles, boy. I like the cold.” Osha swam to the rocks and rose dripping. She was naked, her skin bumpy with gooseprickles. Summer crept close and sniffed at her.
[…]
“He’d never dare hurt me. He’s scared of Summer, no matter what he says.”
“Then might be he’s not so stupid as he seems.” Osha was always wary around the direwolves. The day she was taken, Summer and Grey Wind between them had torn three wildlings to bloody pieces. “Or might be he is. And that tastes of trouble too.” She tied up her hair. “You have more of them wolf dreams?”
“No.” He did not like to talk about the dreams.
“A prince should lie better than that.” Osha laughed. “Well, your dreams are your business. Mine’s in the kitchens, and I’d best be getting back before Gage starts to shouting and waving that big wooden spoon of his. By your leave, my prince.”
She should never have talked about the wolf dreams, Bran thought as Hodor carried him up the steps to his bedchamber. He fought against sleep as long as he could, but in the end it took him as it always did. On this night he dreamed of the weirwood. It was looking at him with its deep red eyes, calling to him with its twisted wooden mouth, and from its pale branches the three-eyed crow came flapping, pecking at his face and crying his name in a voice as sharp as swords.
– A Clash of Kings – Bran II
Notice at the end of that passage how Bran is now not happy about having the dreams. Could it be that he still likes the wolf dreams and it’s only the other dreams he’s not happy about? Could it be that he is realizing they are real and he is going into Summer? Could Summer’s mood about being confined be affecting Bran? Could he be worried about being a warg? I think the answer to all these questions is “YES.” That last idea may worry him most, though, save for the Lannister / falling dreams, because wargs don’t have a good reputation in many of the stories Old Nan has told him, especially the scary ones that Bran likes. Perhaps he feels he won’t become a warg if he resists the crow opening his third eye?
This is The Direwolves of Winterfell Episode 4.4, continuing A Clash of Kings, Summer and the Winged Wolf – Chained.
A Clash of Kings – Bran III
When we left Bran and Summer, both were upset at their constant separation, and Bran was also dismayed at his dreams, partially fueled by his reaction to Luwin’s anti magic bias. In this chapter, we are again reminded of the wolves’ confinement, and during Bran’s first meeting with the Reeds we are also reminded of Summer’s ability to keep Shaggydog in check.
Dancer was draped in bardings of snowy white wool emblazoned with the grey direwolf of House Stark, while Bran wore grey breeches and white doublet, his sleeves and collar trimmed with vair. Over his heart was his wolf’s-head brooch of silver and polished jet. He would sooner have had Summer than a silver wolf on his breast, but Ser Rodrik had been unyielding.
[…]
“They won’t bite if I’m there.” Bran was pleased that they wanted to see the wolves. “Summer won’t anyway, and he’ll keep Shaggydog away.” He was curious about these mudmen. He could not recall ever seeing one before. His father had sent letters to the Lord of Greywater over the years, but none of the crannogmen had ever called at Winterfell. He would have liked to talk to them more, but the Great Hall was so noisy that it was hard to hear anyone who wasn’t right beside you.
Finally, we get our first vivid depiction of a wolf dream, through Summer’s eyes when the Reeds visit the Godswood. Note how the author bridges the boy’s thoughts with the wolf’s thoughts using the sense of smell. Masterful. The first wolf thoughts are of pack and the instinct to hunt. Then, when the Reeds enter, he notes that they had no taint of fear, likely a scent-related observation. Note also Jojen’s observation about Summer/Bran’s power.
He went to sleep with his head full of knights in gleaming armor, fighting with swords that shone like starfire, but when the dream came he was in the godswood again. The smells from the kitchen and the Great Hall were so strong that it was almost as if he had never left the feast. He prowled beneath the trees, his brother close behind him. This night was wildly alive, full of the howling of the man-pack at their play. The sounds made him restless. He wanted to run, to hunt, he wanted to—
The rattle of iron made his ears prick up. His brother heard it too. They raced through the undergrowth toward the sound. Bounding across the still water at the foot of the old white one, he caught the scent of a stranger, the man-smell well mixed with leather and earth and iron.
The intruders had pushed a few yards into the wood when he came upon them; a female and a young male, with no taint of fear to them, even when he showed them the white of his teeth. His brother growled low in his throat, yet still they did not run.
“Here they come,” the female said. Meera, some part of him whispered, some wisp of the sleeping boy lost in the wolf dream. “Did you know they would be so big?”
“They will be bigger still before they are grown,” the young male said, watching them with eyes large, green, and unafraid. “The black one is full of fear and rage, but the grey is strong . . . stronger than he knows . . . can you feel him, sister?”
“No,” she said, moving a hand to the hilt of the long brown knife she wore. “Go careful, Jojen.”
“He won’t hurt me. This is not the day I die.” The male walked toward them, unafraid, and reached out for his muzzle, a touch as light as a summer breeze. Yet at the brush of those fingers the wood dissolved and the very ground turned to smoke beneath his feet and swirled away laughing, and then he was spinning and falling, falling, falling . . .
– A Clash of Kings – Bran III
Jojen admits later that he sensed Bran inside Summer. It seems he came almost with the purpose to help Bran come to terms with the truth of his burgeoning magical power, partially indicated by the dreams. Both Reeds, Jojen especially, seem quite aware of the way of wargs and are completely comfortable around the wolves, too comfortable as we find out later.
A Clash of Kings – Bran IV
That comfort continues without concern early in the next chapter as Meera plays with Summer. She even muses how mild-tempered Summer is, when Bran agrees that Summer wouldn’t hurt them. Summer certainly doesn’t consider them a threat, and Bran obviously likes both Jojen and Meera, so he’s mirroring Bran’s good humor, especially in the affection for Meera. It’s quite endearing. Still, summer is undoubtedly acting as a wolf, and the way he hunts her is reminiscent of the way he was very careful during the attack on the wildlings in AGoT. Later Bran and Summer have another touching affectionate moment as well.
Meera moved in a wary circle, her net dangling loose in her left hand, the slender three-pronged frog spear poised in her right. Summer followed her with his golden eyes, turning, his tail held stiff and tall. Watching, watching . . .
“Yai!” the girl shouted, the spear darting out. The wolf slid to the left and leapt before she could draw back the spear. Meera cast her net, the tangles unfolding in the air before her. Summer’s leap carried him into it. He dragged it with him as he slammed into her chest and knocked her over backward. Her spear went spinning away. The damp grass cushioned her fall but the breath went out of her in an “Oof.” The wolf crouched atop her.
Bran hooted. “You lose.”
“She wins,” her brother Jojen said. “Summer’s snared.”
He was right, Bran saw. Thrashing and growling at the net, trying to rip free, Summer was only ensnaring himself worse. Nor could he bite through. “Let him out.”
Laughing, the Reed girl threw her arms around the tangled wolf and rolled them both. Summer gave a piteous whine, his legs kicking against the cords that bound them. Meera knelt, undid a twist, pulled at a corner, tugged deftly here and there, and suddenly the direwolf was bounding free.
“Summer, to me.” Bran spread his arms. “Watch,” he said, an instant before the wolf bowled into him. He clung with all his strength as the wolf dragged him bumping through the grass. They wrestled and rolled and clung to each other, one snarling and yapping, the other laughing. In the end it was Bran sprawled on top, the mud-spattered direwolf under him. “Good wolf,” he panted. Summer licked him across the ear.
Meera shook her head. “Does he never grow angry?”
“Not with me.” Bran grabbed the wolf by his ears and Summer snapped at him fiercely, but it was all in play. “Sometimes he tears my garb but he’s never drawn blood.”
“Your blood, you mean. If he’d gotten past my net . . .”
“He wouldn’t hurt you. He knows I like you.” All of the other lords and knights had departed within a day or two of the harvest feast, but the Reeds had stayed to become Bran’s constant companions. Jojen was so solemn that Old Nan called him “little grandfather,” but Meera reminded Bran of his sister Arya. She wasn’t scared to get dirty, and she could run and fight and throw as good as a boy. She was older than Arya, though; almost sixteen, a woman grown. They were both older than Bran, even though his ninth name day had finally come and gone, but they never treated him like a child.
“I wish you were our wards instead of the Walders.” He began to struggle toward the nearest tree. His dragging and wriggling was unseemly to watch, but when Meera moved to lift him he said, “No, don’t help me.” He rolled clumsily and pushed and squirmed backward, using the strength of his arms, until he was sitting with his back to the trunk of a tall ash. “See, I told you.” Summer lay down with his head in Bran’s lap. “I never knew anyone who fought with a net before,” he told Meera while he scratched the direwolf between the ears. “Did your master-at-arms teach you net-fighting?”
Bran, bruh, don’t get all elitist when you give compliments, down to earth, bruh.
Summer’s affection for Bran and Meera doesn’t appear to extend to Jojen. When he joins the exchange he quickly changes topics to the supernatural, implying that Bran is “the winged wolf” of his dream. The assertion that the wolf is held by “grey stone chains” seems a rather heavy-handed implication that maester Luwin and Winterfell itself are holding Bran back from achieving his magical potential. I do wonder if there is a larger prophecy around this figure of the winged wolf, or if it is first introduced into Westerosi lore by Jojen.
In any case, Summer mirrors Bran, by first acting intrigued by the conversation and then acting defensive when Bran wants to change the subject to things he’s more comfortable with.
Jojen’s eyes were the color of moss, and sometimes when he looked at you he seemed to be seeing something else. Like now. “I dreamed of a winged wolf bound to earth with grey stone chains,” he said. “It was a green dream, so I knew it was true. A crow was trying to peck through the chains, but the stone was too hard and his beak could only chip at them.”
“Did the crow have three eyes?”
Jojen nodded.
Summer raised his head from Bran’s lap, and gazed at the mudman with his dark golden eyes.
“When I was little I almost died of greywater fever. That was when the crow came to me.”
[…]
“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.”
Summer got to his feet. “I don’t need to see so far.” Bran made a nervous smile. “I’m tired of talking about crows. Let’s talk about wolves. Or lizard-lions. Have you ever hunted one, Meera? We don’t have them here.”
At this point, the chapter takes a dangerous turn, when Jojen’s intrusive “dream” questions make Bran more uncomfortable and then angry. Summer continues to mirror Bran’s mood. As the situation escalates, it shows the lie to Bran’s earlier assertion that Summer wouldn’t hurt them. He would if Bran’s mood led there, just as it nearly did with Tyrion before, and then with Stiv after that. Also, we see Summer’s independence again as he does not obey immediately when Bran calls him off. Bran says that he wants Summer to stop threatening the Reeds, but Summer independently follows his mood, not his command. We also see pack behavior as Shaggydog joins Summer in threatening the Reeds. Bran’s assertion that they won’t hurt Hodor is dubious, given how he had only just insisted that Summer wouldn’t hurt Meera either. At the end of it all, Summer lays next to Bran. This could be interpreted as affection or a protectiveness.
There is a lot exposed about the magic of the bond and telepathic communication in general in this passage, so I present it to you fully intact. Pay close attention to how Bran is consciously realizing (possibly for the first time) through Jojen’s dialogue, the truth of how his mind is connected to Summer. His anger comes, and shows itself in Summer, as Jojen forces him to admit this fact, even as Bran is in denial.
“No,” said Bran. “I told you, I don’t want—”
“Did you dream of a wolf?”
He was making Bran angry. “I don’t have to tell you my dreams. I’m the prince. I’m the Stark in Winterfell.”
“Was it Summer?”
“You be quiet.”
“The night of the harvest feast, you dreamed you were Summer in the godswood, didn’t you?”
“Stop it!” Bran shouted. Summer slid toward the weirwood, his white teeth bared.
Jojen Reed took no mind. “When I touched Summer, I felt you in him. Just as you are in him now.”
“You couldn’t have. I was in bed. I was sleeping.”
“You were in the godswood, all in grey.”
“It was only a bad dream . . .”
Jojen stood. “I felt you. I felt you fall. Is that what scares you, the falling?”
The falling, Bran thought, and the golden man, the queen’s brother, he scares me too, but mostly the falling. He did not say it, though. How could he? He had not been able to tell Ser Rodrik or Maester Luwin, and he could not tell the Reeds either. If he didn’t talk about it, maybe he would forget. He had never wanted to remember. It might not even be a true remembering.
“Do you fall every night, Bran?” Jojen asked quietly.
A low rumbling growl rose from Summer’s throat, and there was no play in it. He stalked forward, all teeth and hot eyes. Meera stepped between the wolf and her brother, spear in hand. “Keep him back, Bran.”
“Jojen is making him angry.”
Meera shook out her net.
“It’s your anger, Bran,” her brother said. “Your fear.”
It isn’t. I’m not a wolf.” Yet he’d howled with them in the night, and tasted blood in his wolf dreams.
“Part of you is Summer, and part of Summer is you. You know that, Bran.”
Summer rushed forward, but Meera blocked him, jabbing with the three-pronged spear. The wolf twisted aside, circling, stalking. Meera turned to face him. “Call him back, Bran.”
“Summer!” Bran shouted. “To me, Summer!” He slapped an open palm down on the meat of his thigh. His hand tingled, though his dead leg felt nothing.
The direwolf lunged again, and again Meera’s spear darted out. Summer dodged, circled back. The bushes rustled, and a lean black shape came padding from behind the weirwood, teeth bared. The scent was strong; his brother had smelled his rage. Bran felt hairs rise on the back of his neck. Meera stood beside her brother, with wolves to either side. “Bran, call them off.”
“I can’t!”
“Jojen, up the tree.”
“There’s no need. Today is not the day I die.”
“Do it!” she screamed, and her brother scrambled up the trunk of the weirwood, using the face for his handholds. The direwolves closed. Meera abandoned spear and net, jumped up, and grabbed the branch above her head. Shaggy’s jaws snapped shut beneath her ankle as she swung up and over the limb. Summer sat back on his haunches and howled, while Shaggydog worried the net, shaking it in his teeth.
Only then did Bran remember that they were not alone. He cupped hands around his mouth. “Hodor!” he shouted. “Hodor! Hodor!” He was badly frightened and somehow ashamed. “They won’t hurt Hodor,” he assured his treed friends.
A few moments passed before they heard a tuneless humming. Hodor arrived half-dressed and mud-spattered from his visit to the hot pools, but Bran had never been so glad to see him. “Hodor, help me. Chase off the wolves. Chase them off.”
Hodor went to it gleefully, waving his arms and stamping his huge feet, shouting “Hodor, Hodor,” running first at one wolf and then the other. Shaggydog was the first to flee, slinking back into the foliage with a final snarl. When Summer had enough, he came back to Bran and lay down beside him.
No sooner did Meera touch ground than she snatched up her spear and net again. Jojen never took his eyes off Summer. “We will talk again,” he promised Bran.
It was the wolves, it wasn’t me. He did not understand why they’d gotten so wild. Maybe Maester Luwin was right to lock them in the godswood. “Hodor,” he said, “bring me to Maester Luwin.”
Summer mirrors Bran’s mood throughout that passage; that’s plain, but take careful note of how Bran refers to Shaggydog as “his brother,” and then the hairs on the back of BRAN’S neck rise. This is clearly Bran mirroring Summer, sharing Summers senses. It’s worth considering how much Bran may have been directly feeding Summer’s actions through their bond. Bran never thinks of himself as a wolf, so it’s not full warging, but I think this passage represents their consciousnesses blending to some degree as Bran gets more and more agitated.
Later, Bran is still in denial, but that won’t last long. He is placing his faith in Maester’s Luwin’s increasingly blind assertions that magic doesn’t exist or is gone from the world. Meera sees through the façade.
“No, my prince. Jojen Reed may have had a dream or two that he believes came true, but he does not have the greensight. No living man has that power.”
Bran said as much to Meera Reed when she came to him at dusk as he sat in his window seat watching the lights flicker to life. “I’m sorry for what happened with the wolves. Summer shouldn’t have tried to hurt Jojen, but Jojen shouldn’t have said all that about my dreams. The crow lied when he said I could fly, and your brother lied too.”
“Or perhaps your maester is wrong.”
– A Clash of Kings – Bran IV
Yes Meera, Luwin has been wrong all along, about a great many things.
This chapter bears summarizing. Jojen says that a part of Summer is in Bran and vice versa. This is the first time this concept is explained in the text, but it immediately rings true. He also repeatedly mentions the “winged wolf” and hangs the moniker on Bran. He also confirms that he’s also dreamed of the three-eyed crow (3icrow).
We also find out that Bran does partially remember Jaime Lannister pushing him; this golden man and the associated falling is partly why Bran is afraid of these real dreams. He must be having a recurring nightmare about this. However, I think the fears about being a warg discussed prior are also true because of Bran’s assertion that he’s not a wolf and that the wolves caused the incident, not him. Both assertions smack of denial.
A Clash of Kings – Bran V
He seems terrified of being labelled a warg, which relates back to Old Nan’s stories. This next chapter proves it. Jojen also repeats the mantra of the winged wolf and also hangs the monikers of “Warg” and “beastling” on Bran. He is not diplomatic at all; he seems intent on piercing Bran’s denial. It’s starting to work, but it makes Bran more fearful than ever.
Note also how Jojen describes the bond to Summer, that Bran’s “soul seeks out its other half.” Wow. That is as good a summary of the bond as I could imagine for this analysis. You know how old fiction says that vampires can’t be seen in mirrors because they lack a soul? Well this is another kind of mirroring, where the souls are a pair, irrevocably bonded.
He was scared, even then, but he had sworn to trust them, and a Stark of Winterfell keeps his sworn word. “There’s different kinds,” he said slowly. “There’s the wolf dreams, those aren’t so bad as the others. I run and hunt and kill squirrels. And there’s dreams where the crow comes and tells me to fly. Sometimes the tree is in those dreams too, calling my name. That frightens me. But the worst dreams are when I fall.” He looked down into the yard, feeling miserable. “I never used to fall before. When I climbed. I went everyplace, up on the roofs and along the walls, I used to feed the crows in the Burned Tower. Mother was afraid that I would fall but I knew I never would. Only I did, and now when I sleep, I fall all the time.”
Meera gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Is that all?”
“I guess.”
“Warg,” said Jojen Reed.
Bran looked at him, his eyes wide. “What?”
“Warg. Shapechanger. Beastling. That is what they will call you, if they should ever hear of your wolf dreams.”
The names made him afraid again. “Who will call me?”
“Your own folk. In fear. Some will hate you if they know what you are. Some will even try to kill you.”
Old Nan told scary stories of beastlings and shapechangers sometimes. In the stories they were always evil. “I’m not like that,” Bran said. “I’m not. It’s only dreams.”
“The wolf dreams are no true dreams. You have your eye closed tight whenever you’re awake, but as you drift off it flutters open and your soul seeks out its other half. The power is strong in you.”
“I don’t want it. I want to be a knight.”
“A knight is what you want. A warg is what you are. You can’t change that, Bran, you can’t deny it or push it away. You are the winged wolf, but you will never fly.” Jojen got up and walked to the window. “Unless you open your eye.” He put two fingers together and poked Bran in the forehead, hard.
When he raised his hand to the spot, Bran felt only the smooth unbroken skin. There was no eye, not even a closed one. “How can I open it if it’s not there?”
– A Clash of Kings – Bran V
Seems Jojen has been trying to get him to open his eye all along, just like the 3iCrow. He tells Bran that they’re all going to call him a Warg. Jojen’s not exactly selling it here, but he’s right in his diagnosis of denial, and his later logic works as well, to call on Bran to reach his potential.
That’s it for this episode. Join us next time where we’ll start with the vivid wolf dream as Theon attacks the castle.
This is the direwolves of Winterfell, Episode 4.5, our continuation of Bran and Summer’s story in A Clash of Kings, “Summer and the Winged Wolf – Chained.”
A Clash of Kings – Bran VI
Next chapter, having been foreshadowed by another Jojen dream, the Chekhov’s confinement gun is fired. It starts with a vivid wolf dream. The wolves clearly sense the danger but are powerless to do anything. Their protective instinct is strong and they work as a pack to do all they can. Bran even pitches in the idea that they could climb the sentinel. It’s too bad that Bran’s ability is not yet developed, as he may have been able to wake himself to sound the alarm otherwise. At the end, with Summer having fallen from a tree, Bran can no longer deny the truth of his connection to Summer because he’s concerned for the wolf’s safety.
The sound was the faintest of clinks, a scraping of steel over stone. He lifted his head from his paws, listening, sniffing at the night.
The evening’s rain had woken a hundred sleeping smells and made them ripe and strong again. Grass and thorns, blackberries broken on the ground, mud, worms, rotting leaves, a rat creeping through the bush. He caught the shaggy black scent of his brother’s coat and the sharp coppery tang of blood from the squirrel he’d killed. Other squirrels moved through the branches above, smelling of wet fur and fear, their little claws scratching at the bark. The noise had sounded something like that.
And he heard it again, clink and scrape. It brought him to his feet. His ears pricked and his tail rose. He howled, a long deep shivery cry, a howl to wake the sleepers, but the piles of man-rock were dark and dead. A still wet night, a night to drive men into their holes. The rain had stopped, but the men still hid from the damp, huddled by the fires in their caves of piled stone.
His brother came sliding through the trees, moving almost as quiet as another brother he remembered dimly from long ago, the white one with the eyes of blood. This brother’s eyes were pools of shadow, but the fur on the back of his neck was bristling. He had heard the sounds as well, and known they meant danger.
This time the clink and scrape were followed by a slithering and the soft swift patter of skinfeet on stone. The wind brought the faintest whiff of a man-smell he did not know. Stranger. Danger. Death.
He ran toward the sound, his brother racing beside him. The stone dens rose before them, walls slick and wet. He bared his teeth, but the man-rock took no notice. A gate loomed up, a black iron snake coiled tight about bar and post. When he crashed against it, the gate shuddered and the snake clanked and slithered and held. Through the bars he could look down the long stone burrow that ran between the walls to the stony field beyond, but there was no way through. He could force his muzzle between the bars, but no more. Many a time his brother had tried to crack the black bones of the gate between his teeth, but they would not break. They had tried to dig under, but there were great flat stones beneath, half-covered by earth and blown leaves.
Snarling, he paced back and forth in front of the gate, then threw himself at it once more. It moved a little and slammed him back. Locked, something whispered. Chained. The voice he did not hear, the scent without a smell. The other ways were closed as well. Where doors opened in the walls of man-rock, the wood was thick and strong. There was no way out.
There is, the whisper came, and it seemed as if he could see the shadow of a great tree covered in needles, slanting up out of the black earth to ten times the height of a man. Yet when he looked about, it was not there. The other side of the godswood, the sentinel, hurry, hurry . . .
Through the gloom of night came a muffled shout, cut short.
Swiftly, swiftly, he whirled and bounded back into the trees, wet leaves rustling beneath his paws, branches whipping at him as he rushed past. He could hear his brother following close. They plunged under the heart tree and around the cold pool, through the blackberry bushes, under a tangle of oaks and ash and hawthorn scrub, to the far side of the wood . . . and there it was, the shadow he’d glimpsed without seeing, the slanting tree pointing at the rooftops. Sentinel, came the thought.
He remembered how it was to climb it then. The needles everywhere, scratching at his bare face and falling down the back of his neck, the sticky sap on his hands, the sharp piney smell of it. It was an easy tree for a boy to climb, leaning as it did, crooked, the branches so close together they almost made a ladder, slanting right up to the roof.
Growling, he sniffed around the base of the tree, lifted a leg and marked it with a stream of urine. A low branch brushed his face, and he snapped at it, twisting and pulling until the wood cracked and tore. His mouth was full of needles and the bitter taste of the sap. He shook his head and snarled.
His brother sat back on his haunches and lifted his voice in a ululating howl, his song black with mourning. The way was no way. They were not squirrels, nor the cubs of men, they could not wriggle up the trunks of trees, clinging with soft pink paws and clumsy feet. They were runners, hunters, prowlers.
Off across the night, beyond the stone that hemmed them close, the dogs woke and began to bark. One and then another and then all of them, a great clamor. They smelled it too; the scent of foes and fear.
A desperate fury filled him, hot as hunger. He sprang away from the wall, loped off beneath the trees, the shadows of branch and leaf dappling his grey fur . . . and then he turned and raced back in a rush. His feet flew, kicking up wet leaves and pine needles, and for a little time he was a hunter and an antlered stag was fleeing before him and he could see it, smell it, and he ran full out in pursuit. The smell of fear made his heart thunder and slaver ran from his jaws, and he reached the falling tree in stride and threw himself up the trunk, claws scrabbling at the bark for purchase. Upward he bounded, up, two bounds, three, hardly slowing, until he was among the lower limbs. Branches tangled his feet and whipped at his eyes, grey-green needles scattered as he shouldered through them, snapping. He had to slow. Something snagged at his foot and he wrenched it free, snarling. The trunk narrowed under him, the slope steeper, almost straight up, and wet. The bark tore like skin when he tried to claw at it. He was a third of the way up, halfway, more, the roof was almost within reach . . . and then he put down a foot and felt it slip off the curve of wet wood, and suddenly he was sliding, stumbling. He yowled in fear and fury, falling, falling, and twisted around while the ground rushed up to break him . . .
And then Bran was back abed in his lonely tower room, tangled in his blankets, his breath coming hard. “Summer,” he cried aloud. “Summer.” His shoulder seemed to ache, as if he had fallen on it, but he knew it was only the ghost of what the wolf was feeling. Jojen told it true. I am a beastling. Outside he could hear the faint barking of dogs. The sea has come. It’s flowing over the walls, just as Jojen saw. Bran grabbed the bar overhead and pulled himself up, shouting for help. No one came, and after a moment he remembered that no one would. They had taken the guard off his door. Ser Rodrik had needed every man of fighting age he could lay his hands on, so Winterfell had been left with only a token garrison.
Bad things happen when the Stark children are separated from their wolves. 1121 words of vivid wolf dream lets us know that Summer definitely knew about the Ironborn invasion of Winterfell, and if he hadn’t been confined to the godswood away from Bran, he might have been able to sound the alarm in time. When Bran wakes from the dream he knows it; he knows that Jojen predicted the Ironborn attack too.
The waiting made Bran feel even more helpless than before. He sat in the window seat, staring out at dark towers and walls black as shadow. Once he thought he heard shouting beyond the Guards Hall, and something that might have been the clash of swords, but he did not have Summer’s ears to hear, nor his nose to smell. Awake, I am still broken, but when I sleep, when I’m Summer, I can run and fight and hear and smell.
[…]
One of the ironmen went before them carrying a torch, but the rain had started again and soon drowned it out. As they hurried across the yard they could hear the direwolves howling in the godswood. I hope Summer wasn’t hurt falling from the tree.
– A Clash of Kings – Bran VI
Bran is no longer in denial of being a warg. He’s also quite worried for the safety of his wolf.
A Clash of Kings – Theon IV
The mention of Summer is when Theon can’t hear and subsequently fears the wolves. On their hunt for the wolves and boys, Theon is thoroughly tricked as the humans doubled back and the wolves led them around the wolfswood. The theme of how the wolves inspire fear in Stark enemies continues here as well with Theon.
He stopped. He had grown so used to the howling of the direwolves that he scarcely heard it anymore . . . but some part of him, some hunter’s instinct, heard its absence.
Urzen stood outside his door, a sinewy man with a round shield slung over his back. “The wolves are quiet,” Theon told him. “Go see what they’re doing, and come straight back.” The thought of the direwolves running loose gave him a queasy feeling. He remembered the day in the wolfswood when the wildlings had attacked Bran. Summer and Grey Wind had torn them to pieces.
This next passage also shows the savagery. Theon seems to be describing exactly what happens to his own guards.
I am served by fools. “Try and imagine it was you up here, Urzen. It’s dark and cold. You have been walking sentry for hours, looking forward to the end of your watch. Then you hear a noise and move toward the gate, and suddenly you see eyes at the top of the stair, glowing green and gold in the torchlight. Two shadows come rushing toward you faster than you can believe. You catch a glimpse of teeth, start to level your spear, and they slam into you and open your belly, tearing through leather as if it were cheesecloth.” He gave Urzen a hard shove. “And now you’re down on your back, your guts are spilling out, and one of them has his teeth around your neck.” Theon grabbed the man’s scrawny throat, tightened his fingers, and smiled. “Tell me, at what moment during all of this do you stop to blow your fucking horn?” He shoved Urzen away roughly, sending him stumbling back against a merlon. The man rubbed his throat. I should have had those beasts put down the day we took the castle, he thought angrily. I’d seen them kill, I knew how dangerous they were.
Theon recognizes the mundane aspects to the direwolf bond, protection, shadowing and affection, but he fails to account for the supernatural. I also find it interesting how Gariss recognizes the protective instinct in the 2 wolves. Why were Rodrick and Luwin so blind!?!
He dismounted for a closer look. The kill was still fresh, and plainly the work of wolves. The dogs sniffed round it eagerly, and one of the mastiffs buried his teeth in a haunch until Farlen shouted him off. No part of this animal has been butchered, Theon realized. The wolves ate, but not the men. Even if Osha did not want to risk a fire, she ought to have cut them a few steaks. It made no sense to leave so much good meat to rot. “Farlen, are you certain we’re on the right trail?” he demanded. “Could your dogs be chasing the wrong wolves?”
“My bitch knows the smell of Summer and Shaggy well enough.”
[…]
“There’s been only the one trail, my lord, I swear it,” said Gariss defensively. “And the direwolves would never have parted from them boys. Not for long.”
That’s so, Theon thought. Summer and Shaggydog might have gone off to hunt, but soon or late they would return to Bran and Rickon. “Gariss, Murch, take four dogs and double back, find where we lost them. Aggar, you watch them, I’ll have no trickery. Farlen and I will follow the direwolves. Give a blast on the horn when you pick up the trail. Two blasts if you catch sight of the beasts themselves. Once we find where they went, they’ll lead us back to their masters.”
He took Wex, the Frey boy, and Gynir Rednose to search upstream. He and Wex rode on one side of the brook, Rednose and Walder Frey on the other, each with a pair of hounds. The wolves might have come out on either bank. Theon kept an eye out for tracks, spoor, broken branches, any hint as to where the direwolves might have left the water. He spied the prints of deer, elk, and badger easily enough. Wex surprised a vixen drinking at the stream, and Walder flushed three rabbits from the underbrush and managed to put an arrow in one. They saw the claw marks where a bear had shredded the bark of a tall birch. But of the direwolves there was no sign.
– A Clash of Kings – Theon IV
We know in hindsight that Bran, who has now embraced his power was warging Summer. That is why Theon was wrong in his assumptions about how long boy and wolf could remain separated.
At the end of this chapter the boys are thought to have been killed by Theon, so the story is silent for a while. With the power of hindsight, we know they were hiding in the crypts. Separating again from the wolves was a risk, but taking a page from Bael not many chapters away from when Jon learns of the rose of Winterfell is a nice touch by the author.
________________________
This is the direwolves of Winterfell Episode 4.6, Summer and the Winged Wolf – Chained, our conclusion of Bran and Summer’s story in A Clash of Kings. When we left off, the boys were hidden in the crypts, and thought to be dead, while Bran used warging magic to lead Summer about the wolfswood, eluding Theon’s hunting party.
A Clash of Kings – Catelyn VII
Before we get any more from Bran’s story, Cat mourns the boys, never to learn before her own passing that they had actually survived. She was certain that the boys would be safe under the wolves’ protection. Obviously, she didn’t know Luwin as well as she had thought. Because of her faith in the wolves as protectors, she assumes Theon killed the wolves to make the boys vulnerable. This makes her ill with concern for her girls, who have no wolves (as far as she knows). This is a big reason for her folly with releasing the kingslayer. It’s also ironic, because Theon, himself, laments not killing the wolves.
“Are they?” Catelyn said sharply. “What god would let this happen? Rickon was only a baby. How could he deserve such a death? And Bran . . . when I left the north, he had not opened his eyes since his fall. I had to go before he woke. Now I can never return to him, or hear him laugh again.” She showed Brienne her palms, her fingers. “These scars . . . they sent a man to cut Bran’s throat as he lay sleeping. He would have died then, and me with him, but Bran’s wolf tore out the man’s throat.” That gave her a moment’s pause. “I suppose Theon killed the wolves too. He must have, elsewise . . . I was certain the boys would be safe so long as the direwolves were with them. Like Robb with his Grey Wind. But my daughters have no wolves now.”
– A Clash of Kings – Catelyn VII
A Clash of Kings – Jon VII
We next get a mention of Bran’s wolf from Jon. Somehow, he never got word, before his ranging, of Summer’s name. He is expecting to die while on the ranging with Qhorin, and is wondering how Ghost will mourn him. Note that he is also wondering about the ability of the wolves to sense each other over long distances, and whether they’d also know if he died. We’ll come back to this later.
It will be good to feel warm again, if only for a little while, he told himself while he hacked bare branches from the trunk of a dead tree. Ghost sat on his haunches watching, silent as ever. Will he howl for me when I’m dead, as Bran’s wolf howled when he fell? Jon wondered. Will Shaggydog howl, far off in Winterfell, and Grey Wind and Nymeria, wherever they might be?
– A Clash of Kings – Jon VIII
A Clash of Kings – Bran VII
With Bran’s final chapter in this volume, we get confirmation that Bran and Rickon are alive, but first we see from Summer’s perspective the aftermath of the battle, with Winterfell in flames at the hands of Ramsey. Note how Bran relishes being a wolf, a callback to his wishes early in this volume. When he wakes, he needs to be forced to abandon the wolf’s body, but he does so consciously.
The Reeds are concerned for his nourishment. The wolf was full, though, so Bran can’t feel his own appetite much. Given that the wolf and boy mirror each other’s emotions, it follows that their appetite/hunger or lack thereof would mirror as well. In the cases where both are hungry or both are sated, the emotion would be heightened, but here where Summer has fed, but Bran’s body is still hungry, we see how the boy is a bit confused about having eaten, but still feeling hunger.
Bran has finally embraced his identity as the winged wolf, or Bran the Beastling. The passage that follows is our first indication of Bran actively using his powers in Summer. He seems to have been doing this a lot during this time in the crypts. Also, note that he mentions an event where he was able to use the weirwood net to contact Jon through Ghost (covered more in Jon/Ghost’s story). That would be the first instance where he uses the weirwood net to communicate. This represents a big leap in his abilities, although he is not even sure what happened.
One explanation for Bran’s leap in ability is that he was forced to develop his powers because of the sensory deprivation in the dark of the crypts. The wolf bond called to him in the dark where his two eyes didn’t function, and his third-eye began to open in response. With that opening, his bond to Summer strengthens and so does his ability to use his other telepathic gifts. Think of the telepathic power as a sixth sense. In real life, the deprivation of one of your senses drives you to use your remaining senses more. I see it as no different in this case. Further, Arya has almost the same experience in later volumes as Blind Beth.
The ashes fell like a soft grey snow.
He padded over dry needles and brown leaves, to the edge of the wood where the pines grew thin. Beyond the open fields he could see the great piles of man-rock stark against the swirling flames. The wind blew hot and rich with the smell of blood and burnt meat, so strong he began to slaver.
Yet as one smell drew them onward, others warned them back. He sniffed at the drifting smoke. Men, many men, many horses, and fire, fire, fire. No smell was more dangerous, not even the hard cold smell of iron, the stuff of man-claws and hardskin. The smoke and ash clouded his eyes, and in the sky he saw a great winged snake whose roar was a river of flame. He bared his teeth, but then the snake was gone. Behind the cliffs tall fires were eating up the stars.
All through the night the fires crackled, and once there was a great roar and a crash that made the earth jump under his feet. Dogs barked and whined and horses screamed in terror. Howls shuddered through the night; the howls of the man-pack, wails of fear and wild shouts, laughter and screams. No beast was as noisy as man. He pricked up his ears and listened, and his brother growled at every sound. They prowled under the trees as a piney wind blew ashes and embers through the sky. In time the flames began to dwindle, and then they were gone. The sun rose grey and smoky that morning.
Only then did he leave the trees, stalking slow across the fields. His brother ran with him, drawn to the smell of blood and death. They padded silent through the dens the men had built of wood and grass and mud. Many and more were burned and many and more were collapsed; others stood as they had before. Yet nowhere did they see or scent a living man. Crows blanketed the bodies and leapt into the air screeching when his brother and he came near. The wild dogs slunk away before them.
Beneath the great grey cliffs a horse was dying noisily, struggling to rise on a broken leg and screaming when he fell. His brother circled round him, then tore out his throat while the horse kicked feebly and rolled his eyes. When he approached the carcass his brother snapped at him and laid back his ears, and he cuffed him with a forepaw and bit his leg. They fought amidst the grass and dirt and falling ashes beside the dead horse, until his brother rolled on his back in submission, tail tucked low. One more bite at his upturned throat; then he fed, and let his brother feed, and licked the blood off his black fur.
The dark place was pulling at him by then, the house of whispers where all men were blind. He could feel its cold fingers on him. The stony smell of it was a whisper up the nose. He struggled against the pull. He did not like the darkness. He was wolf. He was hunter and stalker and slayer, and he belonged with his brothers and sisters in the deep woods, running free beneath a starry sky. He sat on his haunches, raised his head, and howled. I will not go, he cried. I am wolf, I will not go. Yet even so the darkness thickened, until it covered his eyes and filled his nose and stopped his ears, so he could not see or smell or hear or run, and the grey cliffs were gone and the dead horse was gone and his brother was gone and all was black and still and black and cold and black and dead and black . . .
“Bran,” a voice was whispering softly. “Bran, come back. Come back now, Bran. Bran . . .”
He closed his third eye and opened the other two, the old two, the blind two. In the dark place all men were blind. But someone was holding him. He could feel arms around him, the warmth of a body snuggled close. He could hear Hodor singing “Hodor, hodor, hodor,” quietly to himself.
“Bran?” It was Meera’s voice. “You were thrashing, making terrible noises. What did you see?”
“Winterfell.” His tongue felt strange and thick in his mouth. One day when I come back I won’t know how to talk anymore. “It was Winterfell. It was all on fire. There were horse smells, and steel, and blood. They killed everyone, Meera.”
[…]
“Three days,” said Jojen. The boy had come up softfoot, or perhaps he had been there all along; in this blind black world, Bran could not have said. “We were afraid for you.”
“I was with Summer,” Bran said.
“Too long. You’ll starve yourself. Meera dribbled a little water down your throat, and we smeared honey on your mouth, but it is not enough.”
“I ate,” said Bran. “We ran down an elk and had to drive off a treecat that tried to steal him. The cat had been tan-and-brown, only half the size of the direwolves, but fierce. He remembered the musky smell of him, and the way he had snarled down at them from the limb of the oak.
“The wolf ate,” Jojen said. “Not you. Take care, Bran. Remember who you are.“
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. Though maybe he had only dreamed that. He could not understand why Jojen was always trying to pull him back now. Bran used the strength of his arms to squirm to a sitting position. “I have to tell Osha what I saw. Is she here? Where did she go?
Note how Bran is upset at how Jojen forces him to delineate himself from Summer. Bran is still not happy about his body, which probably adds to his zeal to spend more time in the able-bodied Summer. This is a theme in Bran’s story going forward.
When the boys are reunited with their wolves, we all feel a bit better about their situation. Still mirroring Bran’s thoughtfulness and intelligence, Summer is very careful and alert for danger as they reunite. Then Summer finds Maester Luwin, we readers have a brief moment of elation only to fall back to reality once we realize he’s definitely dying.
Two lean dark shapes emerged from behind the broken tower, padding slowly through the rubble. Rickon gave a happy shout of “Shaggy!” and the black direwolf came bounding toward him. Summer advanced more slowly, rubbed his head up against Bran’s arm, and licked his face.
“We should go,” said Jojen. “So much death will bring other wolves besides Summer and Shaggydog, and not all on four feet.”
[…]
Summer howled, and darted away.
“The godswood.” Meera Reed ran after the direwolf, her shield and frog spear to hand. The rest of them trailed after, threading their way through smoke and fallen stones. The air was sweeter under the trees. A few pines along the edge of the wood had been scorched, but deeper in the damp soil and green wood had defeated the flames. “There is a power in living wood,” said Jojen Reed, almost as if he knew what Bran was thinking, “a power strong as fire.”
[…]
On the edge of the black pool, beneath the shelter of the heart tree, Maester Luwin lay on his belly in the dirt. A trail of blood twisted back through damp leaves where he had crawled. Summer stood over him, and Bran thought he was dead at first, but when Meera touched his throat, the maester moaned. “Hodor?” Hodor said mournfully. “Hodor?”
– A Clash of Kings – Bran VII
This is where Shaggy and Rickon’s story parts from Bran and Summer’s, based upon Luwin’s direction. Going forward, the pack is truly a bunch of lone wolves (though sometimes running with ordinary wolves), they are completely separated from their litter-mates, although we will see from the wolf dreams that they remember and sometimes sense each other. It is a nice touch that Luwin, the one whose magical skepticism “chained” Bran, seeks out the heart tree upon his death. It seems upon realization of his own mortality, he shed that skepticism and might even have wanted to report a few things to the old gods / weirwood net. His last act, to send the boys away, literally unchains Bran from that skepticism and from Winterfell itself.
Reflecting back on Summer and Bran’s story in ACoK, their bond has increased by leaps and bounds during this volume. The two most important aspect of it seems to be that Bran embraced his identity as a Warg after having resisted it for the early chapters, and how Bran’s powers have increased significantly in the aftermath of that acceptance. The sensory deprivation in the crypts seems to have increased Bran’s telepathic power, which correspondingly increased the strength of their bond as well.
A Storm of Swords – Summer and The Winged Wolf – Unchained
In the third volume, now that Bran is unchained and has accepted his nature as a warg, we see him develop his skills with the help of Jojen. He becomes so adept in Summer’s skin that he is able to save Jon’s life. This shows his progress as a warg while serving to remind us of his empathy and the pack bond to Jon. As a darker turn we also see him use this power over Hodor. The development of these powers is unique to Bran among his siblings.
Still, our other themes continue. Summer continues to show his independence while being fiercely protective of Bran. Toward the end of the volume, Summer is twice separated from Bran resulting is near misses reminding us of the theme of bad things happening when the wolves are separated from the children (parallel to the final reminder for Grey Wind and Robb). This might be a concern going forward. Pack remains important; we get some direct wolf thoughts about the bond to the other direwolves from Summer, that he periodically senses his siblings. This will be contrasted to similar thoughts we get in ADwD from Ghost.
A Storm of Swords – Bran I
We start with a wolf dream. Notice that the language of the first paragraphs seem to be more boy thoughts than wolf thoughts with a mention of specific tree species, while the thoughts become more wolfish as the dream continues. As Summer begins to exert his own thoughts Bran still puts in his own ideas. These deliberate warging adventures are much more a mind meld than when Bran was mostly riding along in Summer with the earlier wolf dreams.
Note also that Summer climbs a hill, just as Ghost did in this same volume. Are they trying to contact each other? Is it easier to to sense or be sensed, from hilltop? Count this one as pack behavior, for sure.
Once Summer begins to think of his sibling wolves though, Bran seems relegated to passenger. I glean much from these thoughts. Summer can remember and feel his siblings, but we don’t get any detail beyond him knowing that Lady is dead and Shaggy is close but getting further and further away as time passes. He knows they are hunting, but we get no detail at all about Nymeria, Ghost and Grey Wind. Recall from my intro to Nymeria’s story that I believe Shaggy and Ghost to be stronger in the magic than the other wolves, so it makes sense that Shaggy would be the easiest to sense (with Ghost beyond the wall, seemingly incommunicado), though this passage isn’t strong proof of that idea, given that he is also in closer physical proximity.
The ridge slanted sharply from the earth, a long fold of stone and soil shaped like a claw. Trees clung to its lower slopes, pines and hawthorn and ash, but higher up the ground was bare, the ridgeline stark against the cloudy sky.
He could feel the high stone calling him. Up he went, loping easy at first, then faster and higher, his strong legs eating up the incline. Birds burst from the branches overhead as he raced by, clawing and flapping their way into the sky. He could hear the wind sighing up amongst the leaves, the squirrels chittering to one another, even the sound a pinecone made as it tumbled to the forest floor. The smells were a song around him, a song that filled the good green world.
Gravel flew from beneath his paws as he gained the last few feet to stand upon the crest. The sun hung above the tall pines huge and red, and below him the trees and hills went on and on as far as he could see or smell. A kite was circling far above, dark against the pink sky.
Prince. The man-sound came into his head suddenly, yet he could feel the rightness of it. Prince of the green, prince of the wolfswood. He was strong and swift and fierce, and all that lived in the good green world went in fear of him.
Far below, at the base of the woods, something moved amongst the trees. A flash of grey, quick-glimpsed and gone again, but it was enough to make his ears prick up. Down there beside a swift green brook, another form slipped by, running. Wolves, he knew. His little cousins, chasing down some prey. Now the prince could see more of them, shadows on fleet grey paws. A pack.
He had a pack as well, once. Five they had been, and a sixth who stood aside. Somewhere down inside him were the sounds the men had given them to tell one from the other, but it was not by their sounds he knew them. He remembered their scents, his brothers and his sisters. They all had smelled alike, had smelled of pack, but each was different too.
His angry brother with the hot green eyes was near, the prince felt, though he had not seen him for many hunts. Yet with every sun that set he grew more distant, and he had been the last. The others were far scattered, like leaves blown by the wild wind.
Sometimes he could sense them, though, as if they were still with him, only hidden from his sight by a boulder or a stand of trees. He could not smell them, nor hear their howls by night, yet he felt their presence at his back . . . all but the sister they had lost. His tail drooped when he remembered her. Four now, not five. Four and one more, the white who has no voice.
These woods belonged to them, the snowy slopes and stony hills, the great green pines and the golden leaf oaks, the rushing streams and blue lakes fringed with fingers of white frost. But his sister had left the wilds, to walk in the halls of man-rock where other hunters ruled, and once within those halls it was hard to find the path back out. The wolf prince remembered.
The final paragraph of that remembrance is awkward. It seems that Summer is remembering Lady (or is it Nymeria?), but I almost get the feeling that Bran is trying to assert his own thoughts at the same time, making the paragraph a bit hard to follow, possibly intentionally incoherent by our author trying to portray the dissimilar thoughts together, like trying to fit together pieces from two different puzzles. I definitely believe that the final line, “The wolf prince remembered,” is a Bran thought.
The next part of this chapter shows Summer in complete control. With his pack is scattered, he instead runs down his cousins’ pack and their prey. The instinct to hunt pulls strongly on our direwolves. Compare this scene to the time Summer and Grey Wind were not around to protect the boys from Stiv during a much earlier hunt; this is a weakness in the direwolves’ roles as protectors.
Once Summer finds the wolves, Bran seems to get in a quick thought about the lack of fear in the opponent, but then Summer seems to take over again in the fight. Note how easily Summer kills the one wolf. The savage act serves to remind how merciless these wolves are in battle.
Deer, and fear, and blood. The scent of prey woke the hunger in him. The prince sniffed the air again, turning, and then he was off, bounding along the ridgetop with jaws half-parted. The far side of the ridge was steeper than the one he’d come up, but he flew surefoot over stones and roots and rotting leaves, down the slope and through the trees, long strides eating up the ground. The scent pulled him onward, ever faster.
The deer was down and dying when he reached her, ringed by eight of his small grey cousins. The heads of the pack had begun to feed, the male first and then his female, taking turns tearing flesh from the red underbelly of their prey. The others waited patiently, all but the tail, who paced in a wary circle a few strides from the rest, his own tail tucked low. He would eat the last of all, whatever his brothers left him.
The prince was downwind, so they did not sense him until he leapt up upon a fallen log six strides from where they fed. The tail saw him first, gave a piteous whine, and slunk away. His pack brothers turned at the sound and bared their teeth, snarling, all but the head male and female.
The direwolf answered the snarls with a low warning growl and showed them his own teeth. He was bigger than his cousins, twice the size of the scrawny tail, half again as large as the two pack heads. He leapt down into their midst, and three of them broke, melting away into the brush. Another came at him, teeth snapping. He met the attack head on, caught the wolf’s leg in his jaws when they met, and flung him aside yelping and limping.
And then there was only the head wolf to face, the great grey male with his bloody muzzle fresh from the prey’s soft belly. There was white on his muzzle as well, to mark him as an old wolf, but when his mouth opened, red slaver ran from his teeth.
He has no fear, the prince thought, no more than me. It would be a good fight. They went for each other.
Long they fought, rolling together over roots and stones and fallen leaves and the scattered entrails of the prey, tearing at each other with tooth and claw, breaking apart, circling each round the other, and bolting in to fight again. The prince was larger, and much the stronger, but his cousin had a pack. The female prowled around them closely, snuffing and snarling, and would interpose herself whenever her mate broke off bloodied. From time to time the other wolves would dart in as well, to snap at a leg or an ear when the prince was turned the other way. One angered him so much that he whirled in a black fury and tore out the attacker’s throat. After that the others kept their distance.
And as the last red light was filtering through green boughs and golden, the old wolf lay down weary in the dirt, and rolled over to expose his throat and belly. It was submission.
[…]
The prince sniffed at him and licked the blood from fur and torn flesh. When the old wolf gave a soft whimper, the direwolf turned away. He was very hungry now, and the prey was his.
At this point Jojen begins to try to wake Bran; Summer and Bran both are annoyed! Jojen says Bran has been in the wolf too long, and he painstakingly talks about how Bran can’t sustain himself solely by eating in the wolf. The feeling of hunger in the boys body, while the wolf is sated must again be a bit confusing for Bran, but I kinda agree that Jojen is being stupid. Depriving Bran of the satisfaction of eating after the hunt seems unnecessarily mean. It would have annoyed me too. One would think Bran, once back in his body would feel hunger and choose to eat naturally. As we discussed at the end of the prior volume, Bran wouldn’t feel his appetite properly as a boy after the wold fed, but suppose Jojen would not know this. I suppose Bran could be losing weight because of this issue.
Illustrating my point, Bran’ after waking can still taste the deer. I believe he is sensing this through the bond. Jon has similar experiences later in the saga.
u/Prof_Cecily a friend of mine from reddit, suggested to me that they asked him about marking trees to mainly because of nourishment, to make it easier for Meera to track down Summer’s kills, teaching Bran not to forget his human needs during the warging experience. I think it is more than this. If Meera is any kind of decent tracker she could find the kills so without Bran giving unnatural signs, and nothing like that is mentioned in the text, too. The group isn’t mentioned as starving until the next chapter, when they leave the wood. That said, they do explicitly say to have Summer bring a rabbit back uneaten, so hunting to feed the entire group may be a part of Jojen’s reasoning, but it is not the whole reason he is pushing Bran to do non-“wolfish” things inside Summer.
My opinion it is also that Jojen is concerned with Bran asserting his own personality over Summer, not to be overwhelmed by the wolf’s personality while warging. The line “once he was a wolf they never seemed important,” coupled with my above observations of the warging experience tells me that Bran’s thoughts are definitely overwhelmed by Summer’s, at least in part. Is he concerned that Bran might lose some of his humanity, get lost in the wolf’s mind, never to return to the boy’s body? Perhaps, though the latter would be extreme.
The sudden sound made him stop and snarl. The wolves regarded him with green and yellow eyes, bright with the last light of day. None of them had heard it. It was a queer wind that blew only in his ears. He buried his jaws in the deer’s belly and tore off a mouthful of flesh.
[…]
No, he thought. No, I won’t. It was a boy’s thought, not a direwolf’s. The woods were darkening all about him, until only the shadows of the trees remained, and the glow of his cousins’ eyes. And through those and behind those eyes, he saw a big man’s grinning face, and a stone vault whose walls were spotted with niter. The rich warm taste of blood faded on his tongue. No, don’t, don’t, I want to eat, I want to, I want . . .
[…]
The woods and wolves were gone. Bran was back again, down in the damp vault of some ancient watchtower that must have been abandoned thousands of years before. It wasn’t much of a tower now. Even the tumbled stones were so overgrown with moss and ivy that you could hardly see them until you were right on top of them. “Tumbledown Tower,” Bran had named the place; it was Meera who found the way down into the vault, however.
“You were gone too long.” Jojen Reed was thirteen, only four years older than Bran. Jojen wasn’t much bigger either, no more than two inches or maybe three, but he had a solemn way of talking that made him seem older and wiser than he really was. At Winterfell, Old Nan had dubbed him “little grandfather.”
Bran frowned at him. “I wanted to eat.”
[…]
“I’m sick of frogs.” Meera was a frogeater from the Neck, so Bran couldn’t really blame her for catching so many frogs, he supposed, but even so . . . “I wanted to eat the deer.” For a moment he remembered the taste of it, the blood and the raw rich meat, and his mouth watered. I won the fight for it. I won.
“Did you mark the trees?“
Bran flushed. Jojen was always telling him to do things when he opened his third eye and put on Summer’s skin. To claw the bark of a tree, to catch a rabbit and bring it back in his jaws uneaten, to push some rocks in a line. Stupid things. “I forgot,” he said.
[…]
It was true. He meant to do the things that Jojen asked, but once he was a wolf they never seemed important. There were always things to see and things to smell, a whole green world to hunt. And he could run! There was nothing better than running, unless it was running after prey. “I was a prince, Jojen,” he told the older boy. “I was the prince of the woods.”
The next exchange continues the idea that Bran needs to exert his own will while warging; he insists that Bran audibly delineate that he and Summer are separate entities. Even so, the bond seems to be extremely strong now, as Bran immediately says “and one” directly after saying they are two individuals.
“And who is Summer?” Jojen prompted.
“My direwolf.” He smiled. “Prince of the green.”
“Bran the boy and Summer the wolf. You are two, then?”
“Two,” he sighed, “and one.” He hated Jojen when he got stupid like this. At Winterfell he wanted me to dream my wolf dreams, and now that I know how he’s always calling me back.
Later, Bran muses that Jojen is a bit clueless about not being able to recognize Summer’s howl. Note that Bran probably hears Summer’s howls internally at this point, as Arya and Jon have similar experiences in this volume. Bran also thinks about how far Summer went, confirming 2 things 1) that Bran definitely is fully conscious and able to remember all of the time while in Summer, and 2) that he could likely lead them to the kill if the need for meat were the sole reason for marking trees / etc.
Before Meera could find a reply to that, they heard the sound; the distant howl of a wolf, drifting through the night. “Summer?” asked Jojen, listening.
“No.” Bran knew the voice of his direwolf.
“Are you certain?” said the little grandfather.
“Certain.” Summer had wandered far afield today, and would not be back till dawn. Maybe Jojen dreams green, but he can’t tell a wolf from a direwolf. He wondered why they all listened to Jojen so much. […]
The exchange concludes with Jojen worrying specifically about Bran remaining forever in Summer. This solidifies for me that these “lessons” from Jojen are mostly about Bran learning to exert his will more than they are about hunting. I also wonder if Shaggydog and Rickon will have a similar issue. It might not go as well for them without someone like Jojen as a mentor.
“Jojen, what did you mean about a teacher?” Bran asked. “You’re my teacher. I know I never marked the tree, but I will the next time. My third eye is open like you wanted . . .”
“So wide open that I fear you may fall through it, and live all the rest of your days as a wolf of the woods.”
“I won’t, I promise.”
“The boy promises. Will the wolf remember? You run with Summer, you hunt with him, kill with him . . . but you bend to his will more than him to yours.”
– A Storm of Swords – Bran I
At this point the group decides to go north to seek the Three-Eyed Crow, partially because of the counsel given here by Jojen and and partially because Bran thinks somehow he can fix his broken body, a forlorn hope, but he will fly…
A Storm of Swords – Bran II
The next chapter starts by mentioning that they are hungry now, having moved into the mountains. It then backtracks and then says that Summer was bringing them prey before they left the wood. This indicates that Bran has been able assert his will to teach Summer to do that, so the lessons must have worked to some extent.
“If we took the kingsroad we wouldn’t be so hungry either,” he started saying then. Down in the hills they’d had no lack of food. Meera was a fine huntress, and even better at taking fish from streams with her three-pronged frog spear. Bran liked to watch her, admiring her quickness, the way she sent the spear lancing down and pulled it back with a silvery trout wriggling on the end of it. And they had Summer hunting for them as well. The direwolf vanished most every night as the sun went down, but he was always back again before dawn, most often with something in his jaws, a squirrel or a hare.
But here in the mountains, the streams were smaller and more icy, and the game scarcer. Meera still hunted and fished when she could, but it was harder, and some nights even Summer found no prey. Often, they went to sleep with empty bellies.
Later, Bran knows that the mountain folk have seen them traversing the land because he saw them looking through Summer’s eyes. This Indicates that he is using Summer’s eyes while not fully warging Summer, similar to how Arya used the cat’s eyes as the blind girl. Summer then finds them the cave, probably while Bran is warging. Following that , we see another affectionate/protective scene with Bran and Summer close, though once Summer feels Bran needs no protection from the Liddle, he feels the call of the hunt. This brings on another wolf dream.
“They know.” Bran had seen them watching; not with his own eyes, but with Summer’s sharper ones, that missed so little. “They won’t bother us so long as we don’t try and make off with their goats or horses.”
Nor did they. Only once did they encounter any of the mountain people, when a sudden burst of freezing rain sent them looking for shelter. Summer found it for them, sniffing out a shallow cave behind the grey-green branches of a towering sentinel tree, but when Hodor ducked beneath the stony overhang, Bran saw the orange glow of fire farther back and realized they were not alone. “Come in and warm yourselves,” a man’s voice called out. “There’s stone enough to keep the rain off all our heads.”
[…]
“The Bastard’s boys, aye. He was dead, but now he’s not. And paying good silver for wolfskins, a man hears, and maybe gold for word of certain other walking dead.” He looked at Bran when he said that, and at Summer stretched out beside him. “As to that Wall,” the man went on, “it’s not a place that I’d be going. The Old Bear took the Watch into the haunted woods, and all that come back was his ravens, with hardly a message between them. Dark wings, dark words, me mother used to say, but when the birds fly silent, seems to me that’s even darker.” He poked at the fire with his stick. “It was different when there was a Stark in Winterfell. But the old wolf’s dead and young one’s gone south to play the game of thrones, and all that’s left us is the ghosts.”
“The wolves will come again,” said Jojen solemnly.
[…]
They spent that night together, for the rain did not let up till well past dark, and only Summer seemed to want to leave the cave. When the fire had burned down to embers, Bran let him go. The direwolf did not feel the damp as people did, and the night was calling him. Moonlight painted the wet woods in shades of silver and turned the grey peaks white. Owls hooted through the dark and flew silently between the pines, while pale goats moved along the mountainsides. Bran closed his eyes and gave himself up to the wolf dream, to the smells and sounds of midnight.
The chapter concludes with Bran attempting and failing to skinchange an eagle. One must wonder if it is Varamyr’s or some other eagle that is being skinchanged. Bran have the raw power to do it by this point, but he fails nonetheless.
Bran lifted his head and saw it, its grey wings spread and still as it floated on the wind. He followed it with his eyes as it circled higher, wondering what it would be like to soar about the world so effortless. Better than climbing, even. He tried to reach the eagle, to leave his stupid crippled body and rise into the sky to join it, the way he joined with Summer. The greenseers could do it. I should be able to do it too. He tried and tried, until the eagle vanished in the golden haze of the afternoon. “It’s gone,” he said, disappointed.
– A Storm of Swords – Bran II
Like I said, Bran will fly, just not quite yet.
Hello, and welcome to the Brad’s Truth, I am your host, the Green Bard. This is the Direwolves of Winterfell, Episode 4.8 Summer and the Winged Wolf – Unchained. Last time we covered Bran and his fellowships trek north from Winterfell through the wolfswood into the mountains and their meet-up with someone Bran believes to be from the Liddle clan. This time we’ll complete Bran and Summer’s story in ASoS.
A Storm of Swords – Bran III
The next chapter is where Summer/Bran see Jon in the village with the wildlings. It starts with Summer running off to hunt again, but I am beginning to wonder if Summer is also scouting for the party; it would make sense as far as the protective instinct goes. Next, while they hide in Queen’s Crown tower, Bran is worried for Summer when they see first a man, and then a group of wildlings. Complicating matters, a scared Hodor makes a bunch of noise due to the lightning. Hodor’s distress compounds Bran’s fear for Summer. Bran briefly contemplates warging Summer to calm him, but after realizing that Hodor wasn’t going to stop crying out, uses his skin changing power to enter the big man, instead. It scares him, and it should. What Bran does here is one of Haggon’s abominations, and it is clearly wrong. We get back to this in ADwD.
It was the first village they had seen since leaving the foothills. Meera had scouted ahead to make certain there was no one lurking amongst the ruins. Sliding in and amongst oaks and apple trees with her net and spear in hand, she startled three red deer and sent them bounding away through the brush. Summer saw the flash of motion and was after them at once. Bran watched the direwolf lope off, and for a moment wanted nothing so much as to slip his skin and run with him, but Meera was waving for them to come ahead. Reluctantly, he turned away from Summer and urged Hodor on, into the village. Jojen walked with them.
[…]
Bran shaded his eyes as well, and even so he had to squint. He saw nothing at first, till some movement made him turn. At first he thought it might be Summer, but no. A man on a horse. He was too far away to see much else.
[…]
“Summer’s near the village,” Bran objected.
“Summer will be fine,” Meera promised. “It’s only one man on a tired horse.”
[…]
Dusk was settling by the time duck and tale were done, and the rain still fell. Bran wondered how far Summer had roamed and whether he had caught one of the deer.
[…]
I hope Summer isn’t scared too, Bran thought. The dogs in Winterfell’s kennels had always been spooked by thunderstorms, just like Hodor. I should go see, to calm him . . .
[…]
“Bran, what did you do?” Meera whispered.
“Nothing.” Bran shook his head. “I don’t know.” But he did. I reached for him, the way I reach for Summer. He had been Hodor for half a heartbeat. It scared him.
To reach, is a verb we saw before, with the eagle last episode. It seems to be the verb GRRM has chosen to show when one of our wargs intentionally starts to warg their wolf. It is cleverly mixed with the traditional act of reaching out, with one’s arm here with Bran, showing that he didn’t fully intend to enter Hodor, but Bran’s power is exceptional.
With Hodor calmed, Bran again thinks of Summer, deluding himself that he won’t be afraid with all the men in the village and the lightning. On the next flash of lightning the fear in Summer is raw, and he wargs him. This fear in Summer is likely a reflection of Bran’s own fear, and also a heightening of Summer’s protective instinct for the entire group. Summer’s fear doesn’t seem to be centered around the thunder, though, but the men. As he scouts the situation, Summer is careful, a call back to his behavior in the much earlier wildling attack with Stiv’s band, going wide around the sentry. After that Summer senses fear amongst the wildlings.
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. “Most like they’re just some Umbers,” he said. “Or they could be Knotts or Norreys or Flints come down from the mountains, or even brothers from the Night’s Watch. Were they wearing black cloaks, Jojen?”
[…]
Bran could feel Summer’s fear in that bright instant. He closed two eyes and opened a third, and his boy’s skin slipped off him like a cloak as he left the tower behind . . .
[…]
. . . and found himself out in the rain, his belly full of deer, cringing in the brush as the sky broke and boomed above him. The smell of rotten apples and wet leaves almost drowned the scent of man, but it was there. He heard the clink and slither of hardskin, saw men moving under the trees. A man with a stick blundered by, a skin pulled up over his head to make him blind and deaf. The wolf went wide around him, behind a dripping thornbush and beneath the bare branches of an apple tree. He could hear them talking, and there beneath the scents of rain and leaves and horse came the sharp red stench of fear . . .
– A Storm of Swords – Bran III
The chapter cuts off before Summer discovers Jon, but I assume that the protective instinct now extends to Jon, who is pack.
A Storm of Swords – Jon V
Eventually the protective instinct must get the better of Summer, as he attacks in savage fashion, saving Jon, or at least giving him the opportunity for escape that he’d been watching for. Jon had no idea which direwolf it was, only piecing together that it must have been Summer much later. Initially, he thinks it is Grey Wind, due to the speed and color, but the description certainly shows that Summer is at least the equal of Robb’s wolf as far as lethality in battle.
And death leapt down amongst them.
The lightning flash left Jon night-blind, but he glimpsed the hurtling shadow half a heartbeat before he heard the shriek. The first Thenn died as the old man had, blood gushing from his torn throat. Then the light was gone and the shape was spinning away, snarling, and another man went down in the dark. There were curses, shouts, howls of pain. Jon saw Big Boil stumble backward and knock down three men behind him. Ghost, he thought for one mad instant. Ghost leapt the Wall. Then the lightning turned the night to day, and he saw the wolf standing on Del’s chest, blood running black from his jaws. Grey. He’s grey.
[…]
Long hours later, the rain stopped. Jon found himself alone in a sea of tall black grass. There was a deep throbbing ache in his right thigh. When he looked down, he was surprised to see an arrow jutting out the back of it. When did that happen? He grabbed hold of the shaft and gave it a tug, but the arrowhead was sunk deep in the meat of his leg, and the pain when he pulled on it was excruciating. He tried to think back on the madness at the inn, but all he could remember was the beast, gaunt and grey and terrible. It was too large to be a common wolf. A direwolf, then. It had to be. He had never seen an animal move so fast. Like a grey wind . . . Could Robb have returned to the north?
– A Storm of Swords – Jon V
He’s obviously wrong about Grey Wind being there, as he and Robb were headed to the red wedding at the time. Jon thinks of this encounter twice more, which we’ll cover later.
A Storm of Swords – Bran IV
Moving on, Bran thinks about how he and Summer had a disturbing dream, which obviously was about the red wedding. I imagine that the dream had something to do with Grey wind’s perspective on the Red wedding? Either way, Bran knows after the dream that Robb and Grey Wind are dead. It is unclear if they are aware of Catelyn’s status, making it more likely that the dream was from Grey Wind, he wouldn’t know of Catelyn’s fate because Robb and their bond died first, so there would be no way for Grey Wind to witness her fate.
No, thought Bran, it is the Nightfort, and this is the end of the world. In the mountains, all he could think of was reaching the Wall and finding the three-eyed crow, but now that they were here he was filled with fears. 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 . . .
At the next mention of Summer, they have arrived at the night fort, and Bran is still deeply fearful. He is already thinking about the Rat Cook and old Nan’s other scary stories. Then he mentions how Summer is even ill at ease. This is a clear example of Summer mirroring Bran’s emotions.
Bran forced himself to look around. The morning was cold but bright, the sun shining down from a hard blue sky, but he did not like the noises. The wind made a nervous whistling sound as it shivered through the broken towers, the keeps groaned and settled, and he could hear rats scrabbling under the floor of the great hall. The Rat Cook’s children running from their father. The yards were small forests where spindly trees rubbed their bare branches together and dead leaves scuttled like roaches across patches of old snow. There were trees growing where the stables had been, and a twisted white weirwood pushing up through the gaping hole in the roof of the domed kitchen. Even Summer was not at ease here. Bran slipped inside his skin, just for an instant, to get the smell of the place. He did not like that either.
In the next passage we find out that Summer knew Jon got away. The fact that Bran thinks about Jon so much is another indication of Bran’s humanity and his empathy. We then learn that in saving Jon, Summer was gravely injured. We learn a bit about the bond here. The pain Summer feels is so strong that Bran cannot even maintain or reestablish their connection. He is relegated to praying for Summer’s safety, throwing in a prayer for Jon Snow. Fortunately, Summer returns and they are able to dress his wounds which heal. Bran considers his prayers answered.
The gate the Nightfort guarded had been sealed since the day the black brothers had loaded up their mules and garrons and departed for Deep Lake; its iron portcullis lowered, the chains that raised it carried off, the tunnel packed with stone and rubble all frozen together until they were as impenetrable as the Wall itself. “We should have followed Jon,” Bran said when he saw it. He thought of his bastard brother often, since the night that Summer had watched him ride off through the storm. “We should have found the kingsroad and gone to Castle Black.”
[…]
“But there are wildlings. They killed some man and they wanted to kill Jon too. Jojen, there were a hundred of them.”
“So you said. We are four. You helped your brother, if that was him in truth, but it almost cost you Summer.”
“I know,” said Bran miserably. The direwolf had killed three of them, maybe more, but there had been too many. When they formed a tight ring around the tall earless man, he had tried to slip away through the rain, but one of their arrows had come flashing after him, and the sudden stab of pain had driven Bran out of the wolf’s skin and back into his own. After the storm finally died, they had huddled in the dark without a fire, talking in whispers if they talked at all, listening to Hodor’s heavy breathing and wondering if the wildlings might try and cross the lake in the morning. Bran had reached out for Summer time and time again, but the pain he found drove him back, the way a red-hot kettle makes you pull your hand back even when you mean to grab it. Only Hodor slept that night, muttering “Hodor, hodor,” as he tossed and turned. Bran was terrified that Summer was off dying in the darkness. Please, you old gods, he prayed, you took Winterfell, and my father, and my legs, please don’t take Summer too. And watch over Jon Snow too, and make the wildlings go away.
No weirwoods grew on that stony island in the lake, yet somehow the old gods must have heard. The wildlings took their sweet time about departing the next morning, stripping the bodies of their dead and the old man they’d killed, even pulling a few fish from the lake, and there was a scary moment when three of them found the causeway and started to walk out . . . but the path turned and they didn’t, and two of them nearly drowned before the others pulled them out. The tall bald man yelled at them, his words echoing across the water in some tongue that even Jojen did not know, and a little while later they gathered up their shields and spears and marched off north by east, the same way Jon had gone. Bran wanted to leave too, to look for Summer, but the Reeds said no. “We will stay another night,” said Jojen, “put some leagues between us and the wildlings. You don’t want to meet them again, do you?” Late that afternoon Summer returned from wherever he’d been hiding, dragging his back leg. He ate parts of the bodies in the inn, driving off the crows, then swam out to the island. Meera had drawn the broken arrow from his leg and rubbed the wound with the juice of some plants she found growing around the base of the tower. The direwolf was still limping, but a little less each day, it seemed to Bran. The gods had heard.
The next passages are more examples of our themes, including Summer’s sense of danger, shadowing / protecting, hunting, and mirroring. Bran continues to be afraid of the characters from Old Nan’s stories; and Summer continues to be on guard.
So they went exploring, Jojen Reed leading, Bran in his basket on Hodor’s back, Summer padding by their side. Once the direwolf bolted through a dark door and returned a moment later with a grey rat between his teeth. The Rat Cook, Bran thought, but it was the wrong color, and only as big as a cat. The Rat Cook was white, and almost as huge as a sow . . .
[…]
[…] Sometimes Summer would hear sounds that Bran seemed deaf to, or bare his teeth at nothing, the fur on the back of his neck bristling . . . but the Rat Cook never put in an appearance, nor the seventy-nine sentinels, nor Mad Axe. Bran was much relieved. Maybe it is only a ruined empty castle.
[…]
She laughed, and sent Hodor out to gather wood. Summer went too. It was almost dark by then, and the direwolf wanted to hunt.
That night Bran hears Sam’s party ascending the stairs from the black gate, but he thinks the worst. With Summer out hunting, Bran assumes he’s too far away to help, so he again uses his power to take control of Hodor, time for a significant period of time. He knows it’s wrong; he feels Hodor’s fear and tastes VOMIT. Yet he justifies it as necessary for safety because Summer was far away. As it turns out, Summer wasn’t too far. He shows himself not long after Sam is subdued by Meera. Bran did nothing productive in Hodor’s skin. Bran may have been drawn to Hodor’s skin partially because he so wants to feel an able body. Summer, for his own part, must have sensed Bran’s terror and returned quickly, but he sensed no danger from Sam, obviously. Still, this episode show how strong Bran is getting.
Bran was too frightened to shout. The fire had burned down to a few faint embers and his friends were all asleep. He almost slipped his skin and reached out for his wolf, but Summer might be miles away. He couldn’t leave his friends helpless in the dark to face whatever was coming up out of the well. I told them not to come here, he thought miserably. I told them there were ghosts. I told them that we should go to Castle Black.
[…]
[…] She kept to the shadows as she moved, stepped around the shaft of moonlight as quiet as a cat. Bran was watching her all the while, and even he could barely see the faint sheen of her spear. I can’t let her fight the thing alone, he thought. Summer was far away, but . . .
. . . he slipped his skin, and reached for Hodor.
It was not like sliding into Summer. That was so easy now that Bran hardly thought about it. This was harder, like trying to pull a left boot on your right foot. It fit all wrong, and the boot was scared too, the boot didn’t know what was happening, the boot was pushing the foot away. He tasted vomit in the back of Hodor’s throat, and that was almost enough to make him flee. Instead he squirmed and shoved, sat up, gathered his legs under him—his huge strong legs—and rose. I’m standing. He took a step. I’m walking. It was such a strange feeling that he almost fell. He could see himself on the cold stone floor, a little broken thing, but he wasn’t broken now. He grabbed Hodor’s longsword. The breathing was as loud as a blacksmith’s bellows.
[…]
“Jon’s here,” Bran said. “Summer saw him. He was with some wildlings, but they killed a man and Jon took his horse and escaped. I bet he went to Castle Black.”
Sam turned big eyes on Meera. “You’re certain it was Jon? You saw him?”
“I’m Meera,” Meera said with a smile. “Summer is . . .”
A shadow detached itself from the broken dome above and leapt down through the moonlight. Even with his injured leg, the wolf landed as light and quiet as a snowfall. The girl Gilly made a frightened sound and clutched her babe so hard against her that it began to cry again.
“He won’t hurt you,” Bran said. “That’s Summer.”
“Jon said you all had wolves.” Sam pulled off a glove. “I know Ghost.” He held out a shaky hand, the fingers white and soft and fat as little sausages. Summer padded closer, sniffed them, and gave the hand a lick.
As they go down the well and through the black gate, Summer is back to the role of protecting / shadowing.
Summer circled the well, sniffing. He paused by the top step and looked back at Bran. He wants to go.
[…]
“I’ll go first, I know the way.” Sam hesitated at the top. “There’s just so many steps,” he sighed, before he started down. Jojen followed, then Summer, then Hodor with Bran riding on his back. Meera took the rear, with her spear and net in hand.
[…]
“Then pass,” the door said. Its lips opened, wide and wider and wider still, until nothing at all remained but a great gaping mouth in a ring of wrinkles. Sam stepped aside and waved Jojen through ahead of him. Summer followed, sniffing as he went, and then it was Bran’s turn. Hodor ducked, but not low enough. The door’s upper lip brushed softly against the top of Bran’s head, and a drop of water fell on him and ran slowly down his nose. It was strangely warm, and salty as a tear.
– A Storm of Swords – Bran IV
Note that the water coming off the top of the gate is salty; this gives rise to my own tinfoil about the wall being made from sea water, not fresh water ice.
A Storm of Swords – Jon VIII
As this volume comes to a close, we return to Jon, who has finally realized that it was Summer who saved him, not Grey Wind. Sadly, he knows Robb is dead, believes Bran dead, and is worried that Summer died saving him. The bond between the 2 boys is built upon the mutual empathy we saw in the first chapter of AGoT; it continues into the ADwD.
[…] Ghost . . . Where are you? Was he dead as well, was that what his dream had meant, the bloody wolf in the crypts? But the wolf in the dream had been grey, not white. Grey, like Bran’s wolf. Had the Thenns hunted him down and killed him after Queenscrown? If so, Bran was lost to him for good and all.
– A Storm of Swords – Jon VIII
That was the final mention of Summer (though not by name) in ASoS. In this volume, Bran, unchained by his acceptance of his nature as a warg, has grown in his powers. His quick growth and unease when Summer is away turns dark in his use of this power over Hodor. Summer is injured in an attempt to save Jon from a band of wildlings, while Bran is warging him. That embodies his protective nature and sense of danger, Bran’s empathy, their collective independence, and the strength of the bond to the pack remain central to Bran and Summer’s story, while we are reminded that bad things can happen when the direwolves are separated from their Stark children.
A Dance with Dragons – Summer and The Winged Wolf – Aloft
In ADwD, our themes continue with Bran and Summer north of the wall. While they make their way to the cave of the Children of the Forest, Summer, disconnected from his bond to his littermates, seeks out a new pack. Bran continues his skinchainging of Hodor and his warging of Summer. In Summer, he can recognize another warg, Varamyr, inside One Eye. His independence continues in his cave explorations inside Hodor, which he thinks nobody else notices (I think he’s wrong in this). He finally learns to fly, while he is taught to skinchange ravens and to use the power to enter the weirwood net directly; he is aloft! Sadly, it is a bitter pill to swallow that his body cannot be healed.
With only 3 chapters, the implications of Bran’s growth in this volume are not well-understood. We are left to wonder if Summer’s continued separation to hunt will have negative consequences. We wonder the same about his continued skinchanging of Hodor. Given the immense power of the weirwood net, we wonder if Bran’s independence will lead to unaccompanied sojourns into the weirwood net.
A Dance with Dragons – Jon I
Before we hear from Bran, Ghost thinks of Summer. The theme of Pack is front and center in this chapter, as is the sharing of senses from wolf to wolf.
In a wolf dream, Summer comes up twice, first because Ghost can no longer sense him, the second to reveal that Ghost knows he is on the other side of the wall. Ghost is more self-aware of the effect of the wall than Summer, whose perspective we get in the net chapter, from the other side of the wall.
“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.
“Snow,” the moon insisted.
The white wolf ran from it, racing toward the cave of night where the sun had hidden, his breath frosting in the air. On starless nights the great cliff was as black as stone, a darkness towering high above the wide world, but when the moon came out it shimmered pale and icy as a frozen stream. The wolf’s pelt was thick and shaggy, but when the wind blew along the ice no fur could keep the chill out. On the other side the wind was colder still, the wolf sensed. That was where his brother was, the grey brother who smelled of summer.
An interesting thing, at the end of ASoS, Jon calls Summer “Bran’s wolf,” but in this next passage, he knows the name Summer. How did he learn it, from Sam? Sam wasn’t supposed to mention that encounter at all … or Di our author just slip and forget that Jon doesn’t know the name?
[…] Bran and Rickon had been murdered too, beheaded at the behest of Theon Greyjoy, who had once been their lord father’s ward … but if dreams did not lie, their direwolves had escaped. At Queenscrown, one had come out of the darkness to save Jon’s life. Summer, it had to be. His fur was grey, and Shaggydog is black. He wondered if some part of his dead brothers lived on inside their wolves.
– A Dance with Dragons – Jon I
In any case, the pack bond remains strong.
A Dance with Dragons – Bran I
While the group is again on the move, this chapter is a bit of a return to our direwolf themes. We start with Summer shadowing and protecting and then have a mention from Bran that he spends a lot of time in the wolf’s skin, reinforcing the bond. Later, we get a reminder of the call of the hunt in the reminder that the elk Jojen rides is PREY, coupled with another instance of sharing senses, with Bran smelling the elk with Summer’s nose.
Bran also reminds us that he is in the habit of wearing Hodor’s skin as well. Our author makes it perfectly clear that this is not a good thing. The violation makes the stable boy confused and scared, whimpering, and there is still a hint of the vomit at the back of his throat just like in ASoS. Bran tells himself that it is OK, that Hodor recognizes him and is getting used to it. That may be as it may be, but it doesn’t make it OK, Bran, and you know this. The author is making that abundantly clear in this passage:
Summer brought up the rear of their little band. The direwolf’s breath frosted the forest air as he padded after them, still limping on the hind leg that had taken the arrow back at Queenscrown. Bran felt the pain of the old wound whenever he slipped inside the big wolf’s skin. Of late Bran wore Summer’s body more often than his own; the wolf felt the bite of the cold, despite the thickness of his fur, but he could see farther and hear better and smell more than the boy in the basket, bundled up like a babe in swaddling clothes.
Other times, when he was tired of being a wolf, Bran slipped into Hodor’s skin instead. The gentle giant would whimper when he felt him, and thrash his shaggy head from side to side, but not as violently as he had the first time, back at Queenscrown. He knows it’s me, the boy liked to tell himself. He’s used to me by now. Even so, he never felt comfortable inside Hodor’s skin. The big stableboy never understood what was happening, and Bran could taste the fear at the back of his mouth. It was better inside Summer. I am him, and he is me. He feels what I feel.
Sometimes Bran could sense the direwolf sniffing after the elk, wondering if he could bring the great beast down. Summer had grown accustomed to horses at Winterfell, but this was an elk and elk were prey. The direwolf could sense the warm blood coursing beneath the elk’s shaggy hide. Just the smell was enough to make the slaver run from between his jaws, and when it did Bran’s mouth would water at the thought of rich, dark meat.
Changing gears from the elk, Summer clearly is ill at ease with the un-dead ranger, reminding us of our theme of the wolves’ sense of danger.
[…] The elk stopped suddenly, and the ranger vaulted lightly from his back to land in knee-deep snow. Summer growled at him, his fur bristling. The direwolf did not like the way that Coldhands smelled. Dead meat, dry blood, a faint whiff of rot. And cold. Cold over all.
With the “cold” remark we are meant to wonder if the ranger is from the others.
Next, we get something completely new. Bran uses Summer directly to track, ultimately to find an abandoned wildling village. This is a first for us in Bran’s story. I do wonder how similar this is to how Grey Wind found the goat track for Robb. I had always assumed that for Robb it was revealed in a dream and not in a direct warging experience, but we just can’t be certain of anything with their bond.
In this instance the mind mingling is quite fascinating. Summer is mostly in control, but Bran gives the objective and steers the wolf to stay on task in a guiding fashion. The bond is quite close. Note the final line. Bran claims to have smelled it himself, in the first person, rather than saying Summer smelled it.
“Summer can find the village,” Bran said suddenly, his words misting in the air. He did not wait to hear what Meera might say, but closed his eyes and let himself flow from his broken body.
As he slipped inside Summer’s skin, the dead woods came to sudden life. Where before there had been silence, now he heard: wind in the trees, Hodor’s breathing, the elk pawing at the ground in search of fodder. Familiar scents filled his nostrils: wet leaves and dead grass, the rotted carcass of a squirrel decaying in the brush, the sour stink of man-sweat, the musky odor of the elk. Food. Meat. The elk sensed his interest. He turned his head toward the direwolf, wary, and lowered his great antlers.
He is not prey, the boy whispered to the beast who shared his skin. Leave him. Run.
Summer ran. Across the lake he raced, his paws kicking up sprays of snow behind him. The trees stood shoulder to shoulder, like men in a battle line, all cloaked in white. Over roots and rocks the direwolf sped, through a drift of old snow, the crust crackling beneath his weight. His paws grew wet and cold. The next hill was covered with pines, and the sharp scent of their needles filled the air. When he reached the top, he turned in a circle, sniffing at the air, then raised his head and howled.
The smells were there. Mansmells.
Ashes, Bran thought, old and faint, but ashes. It was the smell of burnt wood, soot, and charcoal. A dead fire.
He shook the snow off his muzzle. The wind was gusting, so the smells were hard to follow. The wolf turned this way and that, sniffing. All around were heaps of snow and tall trees garbed in white. The wolf let his tongue loll out between his teeth, tasting the frigid air, his breath misting as snowflakes melted on his tongue. When he trotted toward the scent, Hodor lumbered after him at once. The elk took longer to decide, so Bran returned reluctantly to his own body and said, “That way. Follow Summer. I smelled it.”
Wait, is Hodor starting to take off like that an indication that while inside Summer, Bran is also broadcasting his thoughts to Hodor? I just noticed this, and I wish I knew a definitive answer!
Later, after they discuss that they are all starving again, having used up the food from the Liddle, Bran prefers dreams inside Summer to eating acorn past. I imagine Summer and Bran to feel the hunger doubly, due to mirroring, so this drives Summer to want to hunt all the more.
“Dreams are what we have.”
All we have. The last of the food that they had brought from the south was ten days gone. Since then hunger walked beside them day and night. Even Summer could find no game in these woods. They lived on crushed acorns and raw fish. The woods were full of frozen streams and cold black lakes, and Meera was as good a fisher with her three-pronged frog spear as most men were with hook and line. Some days her lips were blue with cold by the time she waded back to them with her catch wriggling on her tines. It had been three days since Meera caught a fish, however. Bran’s belly felt so hollow it might have been three years.
In the dream (shown in its entirety below) a lot happens. It begins as a typical “Summer” dream, but moves into new territory later. First, once Bran enters the wolf, Summer’s hunger seems to grow stronger. It seems that Bran’s physical hunger is either stronger than the wolf’s or it is multiplied by mirroring. That said, Summer, described as “gaunt”, certainly has lost weight. The hunt calls, and then he senses a pack of wolves, which turn out to be Varamyr’s pack from the prologue. This unscrupulous warg is resident in the pack leader, One Eye
The pack has killed or found dead men. Summer, mirroring Bran’s carefulness and knowing he’ll need to fight for his meat, surveys the scene and Bran learns that they’d been 5 men of the Night’s Watch. They were the deserters from Craster’s keep, of course, but Bran cannot know that. We’ll return to this later. Either way, Bran is uneasy, even as Summer only cares about the meat. Summer also notices that the head of one man has been torn off and the eyes and half the face are missing. I do wonder if the neck is an indication that the ranger killed this man, not the wolves, and the missing eyes are an indication that the ravens that follow him pecked out the eyes.
Sleep would not come, could not come. Instead there was wind, the biting cold, moonlight on snow, and fire. He was back inside Summer, long leagues away, and the night was rank with the smell of blood. The scent was strong. A kill, not far. The flesh would still be warm. Slaver ran between his teeth as the hunger woke inside him. Not elk. Not deer. Not this.
The direwolf moved toward the meat, a gaunt grey shadow sliding from tree to tree, through pools of moonlight and over mounds of snow. The wind gusted around him, shifting. He lost the scent, found it, then lost it again. As he searched for it once more, a distant sound made his ears prick up.
Wolf, he knew at once. Summer stalked toward the sound, wary now. Soon enough the scent of blood was back, but now there were other smells: piss and dead skins, bird shit, feathers, and wolf, wolf, wolf. A pack. He would need to fight for his meat.
They smelled him too. As he moved out from amongst the darkness of the trees into the bloody glade, they were watching him. The female was chewing on a leather boot that still had half a leg in it, but she let it fall at his approach. The leader of the pack, an old male with a grizzled white muzzle and a blind eye, moved out to meet him, snarling, his teeth bared. Behind him, a younger male showed his fangs as well.
The direwolf’s pale yellow eyes drank in the sights around them. A nest of entrails coiled through a bush, entangled with the branches. Steam rising from an open belly, rich with the smells of blood and meat. A head staring sightlessly up at a horned moon, cheeks ripped and torn down to bloody bone, pits for eyes, neck ending in a ragged stump. A pool of frozen blood, glistening red and black.
Men. The stink of them filled the world. Alive, they had been as many as the fingers on a man’s paw, but now they were none. Dead. Done. Meat. Cloaked and hooded, once, but the wolves had torn their clothing into pieces in their frenzy to get at the flesh. Those who still had faces wore thick beards crusted with ice and frozen snot. The falling snow had begun to bury what remained of them, so pale against the black of ragged cloaks and breeches. Black.
Long leagues away, the boy stirred uneasily.
Black. Night’s Watch. They were Night’s Watch.
The direwolf did not care. They were meat. He was hungry.
Summer then focuses on the leader and challenges him, Bran only realizing One Eye is a warg just before the fight, as their eyes meet. In the fight Summer is likely in control, given the mention that there was no time for thought, although I wonder if pissing on the vanquished warg is Bran’s conscious act, a callback to Jojen’s early lessons in ASoS (**laughs out loud**). With the victory, the pack is his.
The eyes of the three wolves glowed yellow. The direwolf swung his head from side to side, nostrils flaring, then bared his fangs in a snarl. The younger male backed away. The direwolf could smell the fear in him. Tail, he knew. But the one-eyed wolf answered with a growl and moved to block his advance. Head. And he does not fear me though I am twice his size.
Their eyes met.
Warg!
Then the two rushed together, wolf and direwolf, and there was no more time for thought. The world shrank down to tooth and claw, snow flying as they rolled and spun and tore at one another, the other wolves snarling and snapping around them. His jaws closed on matted fur slick with hoarfrost, on a limb thin as a dry stick, but the one-eyed wolf clawed at his belly and tore himself free, rolled, lunged for him. Yellow fangs snapped closed on his throat, but he shook off his old grey cousin as he would a rat, then charged after him, knocked him down. Rolling, ripping, kicking, they fought until the both of them were ragged and fresh blood dappled the snows around them. But finally the old one-eyed wolf lay down and showed his belly. The direwolf snapped at him twice more, sniffed at his butt, then lifted a leg over him.
A few snaps and a warning growl, and the female and the tail submitted too. The pack was his.
Bran / Summer then proceed to feast upon the dead flesh of the men. Remembering that the vanquished wolf is the warg Varamyr, living his second life, I believe that the author is pointing directly at the prologue in this wolf dream. Recall the 3 abominations from Haggon: Mating while inside the wolf, skinchanging other humans, and eating the flesh of man while inside the beast. Note that Bran has now broken what seems to me are the two more egregious of the set. We can thank the author for saving us from a description of Bran breaking the other abomination rule…
It’s clear that Coldhands and probably Lord Bloodraven, who he serves, are much more pragmatic and cares little about Haggon’s rules about eating the flesh of men, given that just after this wolf dream he has Bran and his entire party eat the flesh of men. There is no way that Coldhands found a sow. The meat was from the same Night’s watch men eaten by the wolf pack. Recall that Bran is extremely hungry, and mirroring of his hunger accentuated Summer’s own hunger at the beginning of this dream. He needed to eat if he was going to reach the cave alive. The very pragmatic Bloodraven clearly doesn’t worry over much about abomination. I’d assume he worries neither about the other abominations Varamyr mentions.
A final thing to note here is the mention of Summer’s littermates. He can no longer sense them here beyond the wall. Bran seems even to have to remind him of their existence. Contrast that with Ghost, who clearly remembered Summer in the last chapter.
The prey as well. He went from man to man, sniffing, before settling on the biggest, a faceless thing who clutched black iron in one hand. His other hand was missing, severed at the wrist, the stump bound up in leather. Blood flowed thick and sluggish from the slash across his throat. The wolf lapped at it with his tongue, licked the ragged eyeless ruin of his nose and cheeks, then buried his muzzle in his neck and tore it open, gulping down a gobbet of sweet meat. No flesh had ever tasted half as good.
When he was done with that one, he moved to the next, and devoured the choicest bits of that man too. Ravens watched him from the trees, squatting dark-eyed and silent on the branches as snow drifted down around them. The other wolves made do with his leavings; the old male fed first, then the female, then the tail. They were his now. They were pack.
No, the boy whispered, we have another pack. Lady’s dead and maybe Grey Wind too, but somewhere there’s still Shaggydog and Nymeria and Ghost. Remember Ghost?
Falling snow and feasting wolves began to dim. Warmth beat against his face, comforting as a mother’s kisses. Fire, he thought, smoke. His nose twitched to the smell of roasting meat. And then the forest fell away, and he was back in the longhall again, back in his broken body, staring at a fire. Meera Reed was turning a chunk of raw red flesh above the flames, letting it char and spit. “Just in time,” she said. Bran rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand and wriggled backwards against the wall to sit. “You almost slept through supper. The ranger found a sow.”
– A Dance with Dragons – Bran I
Having seen all the wolf dreams that discuss sensing their littermates, I think now is the time to discuss the magical bond that clearly exists between the wolves. Each is telepathically connected to the others. Ghost can sense all the others, and so can Summer. The exception is that when one is beyond the wall, none of the rest can be sensed by him, save how Ghost faintly seems to know the conditions of cold beyond the wall. This likely means that the bond between them relies on a direct telepathic connection, which the magical barrier of the wall somehow blocks. The exception for Ghost will be discussed in Jon and ghost’s story.
A Dance with Dragons – Bran II
As they approach the cave, Summer is protective and mirroring Bran’s fear all at once. He seems also to have to protect their group from the rest of the pack. I do wonder if Varamyr is plotting a betrayal or revenge on summer? Or is his personality fading away inside the wolf? Hopefully the latter, we’ll see.
But the air was sharp and cold and full of fear. Even Summer was afraid. The fur on his neck was bristling. Shadows stretched against the hillside, black and hungry. All the trees were bowed and twisted by the weight of ice they carried. Some hardly looked like trees at all. Buried from root to crown in frozen snow, they huddled on the hill like giants, monstrous and misshapen creatures hunched against the icy wind. “They are here.”
[…]
“Those wolves are close as well,” Bran warned them. “The ones that have been following us. Summer can smell them whenever we’re downwind.“
[…]
Wordless for once, Hodor slapped the snow off his legs, and plowed upward through the snowdrifts with Bran upon his back. Coldhands stalked beside them, his blade in a black hand. Summer came after. In some places the snow was higher than he was, and the big direwolf had to stop and shake it off after plunging through the thin crust. As they climbed, Bran turned awkwardly in his basket to watch as Meera slid an arm beneath her brother to lift him to his feet. He’s too heavy for her. She’s half-starved, she’s not as strong as she was. She clutched her frog spear in her other hand, jabbing the tines into the snow for a little more support. Meera had just begun to struggle up the hill, half-dragging and half-carrying her little brother, when Hodor passed between two trees, and Bran lost sight of them.
When they’re closer, Summer (we assume) senses the wights and his careful nature comes out as he backs away. In the next paragraph Bran clearly shows that his bond with Summer is strong enough that their senses meld together in full waking (he doesn’t go into a trance state but smells whatever Summer smelled. Recall the first time I feel that this may have happened in the series, at the tail end of the wildling attack on Bran in AGoT when Bran “saw everything”. This passage here is clear proof that a warg is capable to share senses with the beast in that way. Recall also the scene where Varamyr is guarding Jon when Stannis attacked Mance’s army. He is skinchanging the eagle, primarily, but using his five other skins simultaneously while muttering under his breath.
Summer stopped suddenly, at the bottom of a steep stretch of unbroken white snow. The direwolf turned his head, sniffed the air, then snarled. Fur bristling, he began to back away.
“Hodor, stop,” said Bran. “Hodor. Wait.” Something was wrong. Summer smelled it, and so did he. Something bad. Something close. “Hodor, no, go back.”
Then the wights attack at the mouth of the cave at nightfall. Summer in action protecting Bran is amazing again, but his instincts to tear out the throat of the wights seem a bit ineffectual at disabling the wight. Tearing off limbs and eating the face is more effective. It makes me wonder if Bran is influencing Summer’s varying tactics here.
But suddenly Summer was between them. Bran glimpsed skin tear like cheap cloth, heard the splintering of bone. He saw a hand and wrist rip loose, pale fingers wriggling, the sleeve faded black roughspun. Black, he thought, he’s wearing black, he was one of the Watch. Summer flung the arm aside, twisted, and sank his teeth into the dead man’s neck under the chin. When the big grey wolf wrenched free, he took most of the creature’s throat out in an explosion of pale rotten meat.
[…]
The last light had vanished from amongst the trees by then. Night had fallen. Coldhands was hacking and cutting at the circle of dead men that surrounded him. Summer was tearing at the one that he’d brought down, its face between his teeth. No one was paying any mind to Bran. He crawled a little higher, dragging his useless legs behind him. If I can reach that cave …
In the following passage Bran has slipped Hodor’s skin, which probably saved Hodor, but put his own body in considerable danger, with Summer left alone to guard it. Bran wonders why Summer is taking such risks (out of character given the caution we usually see from Summer), but it’s obvious that his protective instinct is driving him to this risky behavior. Without Leaf interceding, Summer and Brand both might have died; Bran is right to worry that he’d be stuck in Hodor. Fortunately, it doesn’t come to that.
Summer was snarling and snapping as he danced around the closest, a great ruin of a man wreathed in swirling flame. He shouldn’t get so close, what is he doing? Then he saw himself, sprawled facedown in the snow. Summer was trying to drive the thing away from him. What will happen if it kills me? the boy wondered. Will I be Hodor for good or all? Will I go back into Summer’s skin? Or will I just be dead?
Somehow Bran returns to his body and a wight that leaf set ablaze is attacking Bran. Note that it is naked. Was this one of Craster’s mutineers? One of the rapists? How long after Sam escaped did the others attack the keep? Back to Bran, he is saved when a tree shakes off snow to cover him. The tree SHOOK; the snow didn’t just fall. I believe this to be Bloodraven acting through the weirwood net. As the episode closes with everyone safe, Summer is back with Bran, shadowing.
Everything turned inside out and upside down, and Bran found himself back inside his own skin, half-buried in the snow. The burning wight loomed over him, etched tall against the trees in their snowy shrouds. It was one of the naked ones, Bran saw, in the instant before the nearest tree shook off the snow that covered it and dropped it all down upon his head.
The next he knew, he was lying on a bed of pine needles beneath a dark stone roof. The cave. I’m in the cave. His mouth still tasted of blood where he’d bitten his tongue, but a fire was burning to his right, the heat washing over his face, and he had never felt anything so good. Summer was there, sniffing round him, and Hodor, soaking wet. Meera cradled Jojen’s head in her lap. And the Arya thing stood over them, clutching her torch.
– A Dance with Dragons – Bran II
A Dance with Dragons – Bran III
Bran’s final chapter focuses on his training as a greenseer. Summer is leaving the cave periodically to hunt, mostly without Bran, though Bran does sometimes watch as a raven instead of inside Summer’s skin. In an early lesson, it seems that Bran get bored listening to Bloodraven and he falls right into Summers consciousness, the wolf’s senses overpowering the boy’s. At first, he is listening to his teacher, queerly noticing the sounds of leaves and wood, and then he is in Summer, seeing snowflakes fall in the trees. Note the symbolism of “soldier pines” and “sentinels in white”. One might think it just a flourishing description, but it probably foreshadows that the white walkers have the cave under siege.
There he sat, listening to the hoarse whispers of his teacher. “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.”
The moon was a crescent, thin and sharp as the blade of a knife. Snowflakes drifted down soundlessly to cloak the soldier pines and sentinels in white. The drifts grew so deep that they covered the entrance to the caves, leaving a white wall that Summer had to dig through whenever he went outside to join his pack and hunt. Bran did not oft range with them in those days, but some nights he watched them from above.
Bran mentioned earlier in the chapter about skinchanging a raven instead of using Summer’s skin. Now, we skip back in time to his first lesson on this. The scene is a bit of comic relief actually, but there is a lot to learn here about the magic and how GRRM thinks about the magic, consciousness sharing, and especially “second lives.” Skinchanging a bird is more difficult than with Summer, as we would have expected from Varamyr’s chapter, though we presume these ravens are easier than some birds because they are used to being skinchanged. Indeed, we learn at the end of the passage that all have the consciousnesses of long dead singers inside them.
This is huge. The implication that all these birds have dead CotF inside them seems to mean that the consciousness of these singers moves AGAIN whenever the bird dies. That suggests that, with the singers in these birds, it is not a “second life” but a series of second lives. Dare I say infinite lives? This goes beyond what we are told in Varamyr’s chapter. It begs one to wonder, could this also be the case with other beasts? I wonder specifically about Ghost, inside-whom Jon Snow is presumably now spending his own second life. Could this phenomenon inform the mechanism for his expected resurrection?
Slipping into Summer’s skin had become as easy for him as slipping on a pair of breeches once had been, before his back was broken. Changing his own skin for a raven’s night-black feathers had been harder, but not as hard as he had feared, not with these ravens. “A wild stallion will buck and kick when a man tries to mount him, and try to bite the hand that slips the bit between his teeth,” Lord Brynden said, “but a horse that has known one rider will accept another. Young or old, these birds have all been ridden. Choose one now, and fly.”
He chose one bird, and then another, without success, but the third raven looked at him with shrewd black eyes, tilted its head, and gave a quork, and quick as that he was not a boy looking at a raven but a raven looking at a boy. The song of the river suddenly grew louder, the torches burned a little brighter than before, and the air was full of strange smells. When he tried to speak it came out in a scream, and his first flight ended when he crashed into a wall and ended back inside his own broken body. The raven was unhurt. It flew to him and landed on his arm, and Bran stroked its feathers and slipped inside of it again. Before long he was flying around the cavern, weaving through the long stone teeth that hung down from the ceiling, even flapping out over the abyss and swooping down into its cold black depths.
Then he realized he was not alone.
“Someone else was in the raven,” he told Lord Brynden, once he had returned to his own skin. “Some girl. I felt her.”
“A woman, of those who sing the song of earth,” his teacher said. “Long dead, yet a part of her remains, just as a part of you would remain in Summer if your boy’s flesh were to die upon the morrow. A shadow on the soul. She will not harm you.”
“Do all the birds have singers in them?”
All,” Lord Brynden said. “It was the singers who taught the First Men to send messages by raven … but in those days, the birds would speak the words. The trees remember, but men forget, and so now they write the messages on parchment and tie them round the feet of birds who have never shared their skin.”
We again learn from a warging episode that the the cave is truly under siege, though no “others” are visible. It also seems that Summer is staying away a lot with the pack. This is concerning, given our ongoing theme of bad things happening when the wolves are separated from their Stark protectees. to compound that, Summer is also losing weight.
The moon was fat and full. Summer prowled through the silent woods, a long grey shadow that grew more gaunt with every hunt, for living game could not be found. The ward upon the cave mouth still held; the dead men could not enter. The snows had buried most of them again, but they were still there, hidden, frozen, waiting. Other dead things came to join them, things that had once been men and women, even children. Dead ravens sat on bare brown branches, wings crusted with ice. A snow bear crashed through the brush, huge and skeletal, half its head sloughed away to reveal the skull beneath. Summer and his pack fell upon it and tore it into pieces. Afterward they gorged, though the meat was rotted and half-frozen, and moved even as they ate it.
Later we learn that the CotF are feeding Bran’s group rat meat and Meera is catching fish, but Summer must be eschewing this nourishment for some reason. I wonder if being north of the wall and separated from his true pack is making Summer even more independent, more wild. Either way, he is hunting dead things quite a bit. Note that Bran again is eating the flesh of dead men in the wolf’s skin, and he is also using Hodor as well.
On one such occurrence, he finds a cavern filled with singer seemingly clinging to life as they are absorbed by the tree roots. Are these also greenseers? We are not given their eye colors, so this is a real mystery. If they are, though, this could affect the generally accepted explanation of a lot of supernatural events in our story. Could these singers be informing the actions of the “old gods” biasing the more natural “treeish” thoughts of the weirwood net?
The moon was a crescent, thin and sharp as the blade of a knife. Summer dug up a severed arm, black and covered with hoarfrost, its fingers opening and closing as it pulled itself across the frozen snow. There was still enough meat on it to fill his empty belly, and after that was done he cracked the arm bones for the marrow. Only then did the arm remember it was dead.
Bran ate with Summer and his pack, as a wolf. As a raven he flew with the murder, circling the hill at sunset, watching for foes, feeling the icy touch of the air. As Hodor he explored the caves. He found chambers full of bones, shafts that plunged deep into the earth, a place where the skeletons of gigantic bats hung upside down from the ceiling. He even crossed the slender stone bridge that arched over the abyss and discovered more passages and chambers on the far side. One was full of singers, enthroned like Brynden in nests of weirwood roots that wove under and through and around their bodies. Most of them looked dead to him, but as he crossed in front of them their eyes would open and follow the light of his torch, and one of them opened and closed a wrinkled mouth as if he were trying to speak. “Hodor,” Bran said to him, and he felt the real Hodor stir down in his pit.
As this volume comes to a close, we are reminded of the affection Bran has with Summer, and also that he has affection for Meera, too. We see that this is probably shared, in how she pets Summer. Recalling their first affectionate moment from ACoK, this sweet moment is couched in the ominous story of Jojen, who has withdrawn. Given that he has stopped uttering his refrain that “this is not the day I die,” I surmise that that day is fast approaching. Meera is certainly concerned. After they discuss it, Bran wished to console Meera but can’t physically reach her. Next something weird happens. As Bran wishes to embrace her and considers entering Hodor to accomplish it, she freaks out and flees. I do believe that Bran’s consciousness reached out to Meera directly, causing her reaction.
The moon was a black hole in the sky. Outside the cave the world went on. Outside the cave the sun rose and set, the moon turned, the cold winds howled. Under the hill, Jojen Reed grew ever more sullen and solitary, to his sister’s distress. She would often sit with Bran beside their little fire, talking of everything and nothing, petting Summer where he slept between them, whilst her brother wandered the caverns by himself. Jojen had even taken to climbing up to the cave’s mouth when the day was bright. He would stand there for hours, looking out over the forest, wrapped in furs yet shivering all the same.
[…]
“He’s being brave,” said Bran. The only time a man can be brave is when he is afraid, his father had told him once, long ago, on the day they found the direwolf pups in the summer snows. He still remembered.
“He’s being stupid,” Meera said. “I’d hoped that when we found your three-eyed crow … now I wonder why we ever came.”
For me, Bran thought. “His greendreams,” he said.
“His greendreams.” Meera’s voice was bitter.
Meera began to cry.
Bran hated being crippled then. “Don’t cry,” he said. He wanted to put his arms around her, hold her tight the way his mother used to hold him back at Winterfell when he’d hurt himself. She was right there, only a few feet from him, but so far out of reach it might have been a hundred leagues. To touch her he would need to pull himself along the ground with his hands, dragging his legs behind him. The floor was rough and uneven, and it would be slow going, full of scrapes and bumps. I could put on Hodor’s skin, he thought. Hodor could hold her and pat her on the back. The thought made Bran feel strange, but he was still thinking it when Meera bolted from the fire, back out into the darkness of the tunnels. He heard her steps recede until there was nothing but the voices of the singers.
The final mention of Summer is when Bran is taught to enter the weirwood net. This is the ultimate achievement of him becoming a greenseer, instead of just a boy with potential. The journey he’s gone through to come to this point has prepared him for it. It started with green dreams, then wolf dreams, then warging, then skinchanging Hodor, then skinchanging ravens, and now skinchanging into the weirwood net directly. This volume closes as the boy unlocks an overwhelming body of living knowledge of the present, the past, and even the future. I personally don’t think that fate prophecies are set in stone. The future is not set, but the prophecies that arise out of the tree net are only a prediction based upon present knowledge. However, the breadth of knowledge inside these trees is so vast that they probably can “see” the future quite accurately. Call it a very educated guess. Either way, Bran is on the cusp of unlocking the knowledge of all this history and all these predictions.
The mechanism is explained to be very similar to warging Summer. Yet, Bran may be only the second to do it in the past 100 years. I am extremely interested to see where his story goes in the next volume!
“Close your eyes,” said the three-eyed crow. “Slip your skin, as you do when you join with Summer. But this time, go into the roots instead. Follow them up through the earth, to the trees upon the hill, and tell me what you see.”
Bran closed his eyes and slipped free of his skin. Into the roots, he thought. Into the weirwood. Become the tree. For an instant he could see the cavern in its black mantle, could hear the river rushing by below.
– A Dance with Dragons – Bran III
Now, after 10 episodes of terrific depth in the magical bond, themes upon themes, let’s remember the original question we asked ourselves. Why is Bran and Summers bond “somewhat of a special case” (in the words of GRRM? I hold to my hypothesis, that Bran and Summer are “somewhat of a special case” chiefly because of Bran’s own powers and how quickly they develop. Their bond is more deeply developed than any of their siblings, just as Bran’s ability to use his power to communicate with and “operate” other beasts and beings develops more rapidly than that of his siblings. That this is happening so quickly to such a young boy does make me worry about this ability to hold on to his humanity. On that note, his skinchanging of Hodor is quite concerning.
That said, his empathy for Meera, Jon, and others tells me that he can make it through this with his sanity intact. He is also fiercely independent. This trait, mixed with stubbornness and mental strength, is a fantasy trope where heroes can deflect attempt at brainwashing and mind control. In this, his bond to Summer is also steadying, and driving (a hunger), at the same time. These traits will serve him well amidst the winds of winter!
Speaking of young boys and magic, my thoughts turn to Rickon. I also wonder about his ability to hold onto his humanity and sanity given his bond to Shaggy, who seems to be a very strong and willful wolf. We’ll tackle their story in part 5.
Shout-out and attribution as always goes to those who’ve gone before me with some of the theories that I am probably subconsciously utilizing / mentioning / building upon here, including:
u/LoveMeSexyJesus who posted https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/3gjex7/the_relationship_between_the_stark_children_and/
u/RockyRockington who posted https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/aivijc/spoilers_extended_a_theory_about_ghost_and/
u/PrestonJacobs and all his videos related to this topic
u/Prof_Cecily for insights about early Bran chapters in ASoS
LML for help understanding Symbolism (even though I barely use the skill in this essay).
I have a lot of original thought here but I am certainly synthesizing a lot of their ideas, as well.
Also, Thanks GRRM!
TL;DR Whatddya want, it’s 33,000 words? I can’t summarize this for you in a paragraph. Get to it or don’t. It’s worth it; I promise.
The Green Bard 