The Origins of the Stark Warging Powers (Spoilers Extended)
The Stark lineage possibly goes back 8,000 years:
Song and story tell us that the Starks of Winterfell have ruled large portions of the lands beyond the Neck for eight thousand years, styling themselves the Kings of Winter (the more ancient usage) and (in more recent centuries) the Kings in the North. Their rule was not an uncontested one. Many were the wars in which the Starks expanded their rule or were forced to win back lands that rebels had carved away. The Kings of Winter were hard men in hard times. -TWOIAF, The North: The Kings of Winter
In this post I would like to explore the skinchanger kings defeated by House Stark who could have possibly given them their warging powers.
From this quote we see its pretty unlikely for 6 children in the same family to end up with warging powers:
"Only one man in a thousand is born a skinchanger," Lord Brynden said one day, after Bran had learned to fly, "and only one skinchanger in a thousand can be a greenseer." -ADWD, Bran III
But it seems that these ancient kings of Winter were able to gain warg powers by defeating/killing different wargs and marrying their daughters. Thus similar to the valyrian dragonbond, the Starks were able to fill their blood with the magic of numerous different wargs.
#List of Skinchanger Kings Defeated by the Starks
The Warg King
Chronicles found in the archives of the Night's Watch at the Nightfort (before it was abandoned) speak of the war for Sea Dragon Point, wherein the Starks brought down the Warg King and his inhuman allies, the children of the forest. When the Warg King's last redoubt fell, his sons were put to the sword, along with his beasts and greenseers, whilst his daughters were taken as prizes by their conquerors. -TWOIAF, The North: The Kings of Winter
While we don't know anything about this warg king, it should be noted that some of the early first men must have allied with the children of the forest in order to learn to tame these beasts.
Gavin Greywolf
Ancient ballads, amongst the oldest to be found in the archives of the Citadel of Oldtown, tell of how one King of Winter drove the giants from the North, whilst another felled the skinchanger Gaven Greywolf and his kin in "the savage War of the Wolves," but we have only the word of singers that such kings and such battles ever existed. -TWOIAF, The North: The Kings of Winter
Another warg king (or possibly the same one) defeated by the king of Winter.
I recently posted about the possibility of the War of the Wolves II if you are interested.
The Marsh King
It seems the Marsh Kings were possibly wargs, at least had greensight or were possibly greenseers:
Long ago, the histories claim, the crannogmen were ruled by the Marsh Kings. Singers tell of them riding on lizard lions and using great frog spears like lances, but that is clearly fancy. Were these Marsh Kings even truly kings, as we understand it? Archmaester Eyron writes that the crannogmen saw their kings as the first among equals, who were often thought to be touched by the old gods—a fact that was said to show itself in eyes of strange hues, or even in speaking with animals as the children are said to have done. -TWOIAF: THe North: The Crannogmen of the Nick
and:
Whatever the truth, the last man to be called Marsh King was killed by King Rickard Stark (sometimes called the Laughing Wolf in the North, for his good nature), who took the man's daughter to wife, whereupon the crannogmen bent their knees and accepted the dominion of Winterfell. In the centuries since, the crannogmen have become stout allies of the Starks, under the leadership of the Reeds of Greywater Watch. -TWOIAF, The North: The Crannogmen of the Neck
and:
He looked at the passing faces and the tales came back to him. The maester had told him the stories, and Old Nan had made them come alive. "That one is Jon Stark. When the sea raiders landed in the east, he drove them out and built the castle at White Harbor. His son was Rickard Stark, not my father's father but another Rickard, he took the Neck away from the Marsh King and married his daughter. -AGOT, Bran VII
The Marsh Kings not only married into House Stark, but the crannogmen also bent the knee meaning that the blood of the marsh kings flows in the Reeds (how Jojen has greensight).
I don't know if we will get to see Howland Reed riding on a lizard lion, but the origin of the magics of the crannogs makes a little more sense. Even if you don't believe that they intermarried with the children:
Last (and some might say the least) of the peoples of the North are the swamp-dwellers of the Neck, known as crannogmen for the floating islands on which they raise their halls and hovels. A small, sly people (some say they are small in stature because they intermarried with the children of the forest, but more likely it results from inadequate nourishment, for grains do not flourish amidst the fens and swamps and salt marshes of the Neck, and the crannogmen subsist largely upon a diet of fish, frogs, and lizards), they are quite secretive, preferring to keep to themselves.
The origins of their magic still seems a little clearer.
The King of the Giants/The Barrow Kings
Maybe not skinchangers, but definitely worth adding:
More historical proof exists for the war between the Kings of Winter and the Barrow Kings to their south, who styled themselves the Kings of the First Men and claimed supremacy over all First Men everywhere, even the Starks themselves. Runic records suggest that their struggle, dubbed the Thousand Years War by the singers, was actually a series of wars that lasted closer to two hundred years than a thousand, ending when the last Barrow King bent his knee to the King of Winter, and gave him the hand of his daughter in marriage. -TWOIAF, The North: The Kings of Winter
I know that at several points in the book series it is stated that giants have no kings (dont @ me):
As he climbed a wide flight of wooden steps to the hall, Reek's legs began to shake. He had to stop to steady them, staring up at the grassy slopes of the Great Barrow. Some claimed it was the grave of the First King, who had led the First Men to Westeros. Others argued that it must be some King of the Giants who was buried there, to account for its size. A few had even been known to say it was no barrow, just a hill, but if so it was a lonely hill, for most of the barrowlands were flat and windswept. -ADWD, Reek III
and:
Of the giants in the Dawn Age, little and less can be said, for no one has gathered their tales, their legends, their histories. Men of the Watch say the wildlings have tales of the giants living uneasily alongside the children, ranging where they would and taking what they wanted. All the accounts claim that they were huge and powerful creatures, but simple. Reliable accounts from the rangers of the Night's Watch, who were the last men to see the giants while they still lived, state that they were covered in a thick fur rather than simply being very large men as the nursery tales hold. There is considerable evidence of burials among the giants, as recorded in Maester Kennet's Passages of the Dead—a study of the barrow fields and graves and tombs of the North in his time of service at Winterfell, during the long reign of Cregan Stark. From bones that have been found in the North and sent to the Citadel, some maesters estimate that the largest of the giants could reach fourteen feet, though others say twelve feet is nearer the truth. The tales of long-dead rangers written down by maesters of the Watch all agree that the giants did not make homes or garments, and knew of no better tools or weapons than branches pulled from trees. -TWOIAF, Ancient History: The Dawn Age
and:
Ancient ballads, amongst the oldest to be found in the archives of the Citadel of Oldtown, tell of how one King of Winter drove the giants from the North, -TWOIAF, The North: The Kings of Winter
So while its not even guaranteed that the barrow kings and the king of the giants* are the same, it should be noted that both are defeated by the Starks.
Also if you are interested the Hammer of the Waters/Horn of Winter are extremely similar.
House Blackwood
Amongst the houses reduced from royals to vassals we can count the Flints of Breakstone Hill, the Slates of Blackpool, the Umbers of Last Hearth, the Lockes of Oldcastle, the Glovers of Deepwood Motte, the Fishers of the Stony Shore, the Ryders of the Rills...and mayhaps even the Blackwoods of Raventree, whose own family traditions insist they once ruled most of the wolfswood before being driven from their lands by the Kings of Winter (certain runic records support this claim, if Maester Barneby's translations can be trusted). -TWOIAF, The North: The Kings of Winter
I recently posted a pretty lame theory about Bloodraven possibly holding a grudge against House Stark for this perceived issue. I really doubt that is the case but it should be noted that the Blackwoods are another northern house that not only seem to be skinchangers (ravens) they also marry back into House Stark at least twice (Black Aly and Melantha).
The Night's King
The Night's King was also defeated by the Starks as well:
He brought her back to the Nightfort and proclaimed her a queen and himself her king, and with strange sorceries he bound his Sworn Brothers to his will. For thirteen years they had ruled, Night's King and his corpse queen, till finally the Stark of Winterfell and Joramun of the wildlings had joined to free the Watch from bondage. After his fall, when it was found he had been sacrificing to the Others, all records of Night's King had been destroyed, his very name forbidden.
It should also be at least noted that Night's King ruled at the Nightfort where we get our only info about the Warg King. There are great parallels throughout the series to the Night's King ranging from Stannis to Bloodraven to Daemon Targaryen to Craster's actions. -ASOS, Bran IV
Other Kings
I posted recently about Extinct Houses of Ice and Fire Part I and Part II
Those defeated included:
House Greenwood, House Towers, House Amber, and House Frost met similar ends, together with a score of lesser houses and petty kings whose very names are lost to history. Yet the bitterest foes of Winterfell were undoubtedly the Red Kings of the Dreadfort, those grim lords of House Bolton whose domains of old stretched from the Last River to the White Knife, and as far south as the Sheepshead Hills. -TWOIAF, The North: The Kings of Winter
It should also be noted that these kings would ally sometimes:
After the defeat of the Boltons, the last of their Northern rivals, the greatest threats to the dominion of House Stark came by sea. The northern boundary of the Stark domains was protected by the Wall and the men of the Night's Watch, whilst to the south, the only way through the swamps of the Neck passed below the ruined towers and sinking walls of the great fortress called Moat Cailin.Even when the Marsh Kings held the Moat, their crannogmen stood staunch against any invaders from the south, allying with the Barrow Kings, Red Kings, and Kings of Winter as need be to turn back any southron lord who sought to attack the North. And once King Rickard Stark added the Neck to his domain, Moat Cailin proved even more imposing—a bulwark against the powers of the south. Few sought to push past it, and the histories say that none ever succeeded. -TWOIAF, The North: The Kings of Winter
It seems that the Starks accumulated their warging blood through constantly defeating and intermarrying with first men who had originally allied with the children of the forest or somehow learned their power.
It should be noted that outside of the North/Beyond the Wall (and houses originally from their such as the Blackwoods) there are no known examples of warging. There are rumors about it (House Farwynd, House Crane) and alleged sorcery (House Lothston).
TLDR: The Starks achieved their warging powers by defeating different skinchanging kings and marrying their daughters.
Posted Sep 27, 2020, 9:05 PM UTC · edited