On Game of Thrones, we’re now used to watching Bran Stark possess almost any creature he pleases, from his direwolf Summer to the gentle giant Hodor. This ability is known and warging, and the people who can do it wargs.
On the show, Bran seems to be the only Stark with this talent, but in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels, it’s heavily implied that most of the Stark siblings can warg, even if they don’t realize it. Martin goes into some detail on these points. In ASOIAF, a “skinchanger” is anyone with the ability to enter the mind of an animal they’re close to and control its actions. The term “warg” is used specifically to refer to a skinchanger who bonds this way with a wolf or a dog. Martin even hints that the telepathic connection between a skinchanger and an animal can result in personality changes for either party. But much like how the character of Lady Stoneheart was cut from the show, these fine distinctions were excised for TV, as was the idea of Starks other than Bran being wargs.
But in the novels, examples abound. Jon frequently has dreams where he sees through the eyes of his direwolf Ghost, smelling what Ghost smells and tasting what he tastes. Arya has similar dreams about her direwolf Nymeria, but she goes even further. As on the show, she is blinded while in Braavos. But in A Dance with Dragons, she wargs into a cat and uses knowledge gained through its eyes to impress the Faceless Men, who then return her sight.
Because they aren’t point-of-view characters, we don’t know if Robb or Rickon have wolf dreams, but Martin still highlights the emotional connection between man and beast. For example, in A Game of Thrones, Robb’s direwolf Grey Wind instinctively knows to attack the Greatjon Umber when he challenges Robb at a council meeting. That act convinces the Greatjon that Robb is a leader worth following. As for Rickon, both he and his direwolf Shaggydog are described as “wild.” Even if we don’t get the specifics, there is a connection between these Stark siblings and their direwolves, so much so that Catelyn Stark, who at first is wary of the animals, comes around and feels safer when Grey Wind is at Robb’s side.
In both the books and the show, Sansa’s direwolf Lady dies early in the story, so we don’t get much time to explore their connection. Still, there are several instances where Sansa, despondent over her ongoing ordeal in King’s Landing, reassures herself that things would be better if only she had Lady by her side. More than any of the other Stark children, Sansa is without friends for a long stretch of her journey, with nothing to rely on but the wit and wisdom she gains at court. The death of her direwolf, and of their potential mystical link, underscores this theme.
So Martin laid out all of this out in his books. Why, then, were the Starks latent warging abilities cut from the show? While there hasn’t been an official statement from the showrunners, the simplest possible explanation is cost. In season 6, well after the show had become a hit, the producers had to cut Ghost from the Battle of the Bastards, explaining that there wasn’t enough money to feature both Jon’s direwolf and Wun Wun the giant. In the end, Wun Wun won. Budget was also a factor in the dragon-heavy season 7, where Ghost didn’t show up at all. It simply may have been prohibitively expensive to show the likes of Jon and Arya having regular wolf dreams, particularly early in the show’s run. Alternatively, there may not have been room for this subplot on TV, where the writers have less space to explore every corner of the world than does George R.R. Martin.
And that’s a shame, because it means viewers missed out on some potentially great moments. While Arya and Nymeria did eventually reunite on the show, the moment could have been stronger were we more familiar with their relationship. I also think that exploring Jon’s potential as a warg could have leveled the playing field between him and Daenerys a bit, so far as mystical connections to animals go, although dragons will admittedly always be stronger and cooler than wolves. Leaning into Jon’s warging abilities could have set up the possibility of him warging into a dragon, something many fans think Bran may do.
Ultimately, I think Game of Thrones could have benefitted from this material, but for whatever reason, it’s missing. Interestingly, it’s far from the only magical element dropped for the show. In addition to the Stark family warging, the producers also lost Mance Rayder’s mystical disguise, Quaithe’s unexplained appearances and the weirder sections of Tyrion’s journey to Meereen, among other things. Perhaps they considered the Stark siblings’ warging abilities one fantasy indulgence too many, or perhaps they wanted to isolate the magical elements in Daenerys’s story. We may never know, but we look forward to seeing where Martin takes the Starks and their skinchanging abilities next.
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