Varamyr Sixskins

Varamyr Sixskins, once the most feared skinchanger among the free folk, dies alone in a freezing hut north of the Wall, his body broken by a knife wound and his spirit consumed by the agony of his eagle's fiery death. His final act—an attempt to steal the body of the spearwife Thistle—fails catastrophically, and his consciousness dissolves into the wild, leaving him to begin a second life as a wolf, stripped of his humanity.

Identity and Background

Born Lump, a sickly child no one expected to live, Varamyr was given to the hunter Haggon at the age of six after his father discovered the boy's skinchanging gift when he slipped into the skin of a dog his father was about to kill. Haggon taught him the ways of the warg and the secrets of the skinchanger, but Varamyr's gift was stronger than his master's. He eventually killed Haggon, devouring his heart, and took his beasts—a snow bear, a shadowcat, and three wolves named One Eye, Stalker, and Sly. As Varamyr Sixskins, he became a lord of sorts, living in a hall of moss and mud, with a dozen villages paying him homage. He rode to battle on a snow bear thirteen feet tall and sat at the right hand of Mance Rayder, the King-Beyond-the-Wall.

Life and Plot Trajectory

Varamyr's power unraveled during the battle beneath the Wall. His eagle, sent to scout, was consumed by fire—Melisandre's magic, he believed—and the agony of that death drove him mad. He lost control of his beasts: his shadowcat fled into the woods, and his snow bear turned on those around her, killing four men before falling to a spear. Only his wolves, One Eye, Stalker, and Sly, remained loyal. Wounded and fleeing, Varamyr was reduced to a starving fugitive, stripped of his cloaks, his gold arm rings, and his dignity. He was knifed by a boy for a squirrel-skin cloak and left to die in a one-room hut of mud and straw, attended only by the spearwife Thistle, who eventually abandoned him.

Key Actions and Objectives

Varamyr's overriding objective in his final hours was survival. He attempted to seize Thistle's body as a vessel for his second life, a practice Haggon had called the worst abomination of all. "I will be Thistle the spearwife, and Varamyr Sixskins will be dead," he thought, hoping to live out his days in her skin. He summoned all his remaining strength, leapt out of his own flesh, and forced himself inside her. But Thistle fought him with a ferocity he had never encountered, even from his wildest beasts. "His shadowcat used to fight him wildly, and the snow bear had gone half-mad for a time, snapping at trees and rocks and empty air, but this was worse." Her body staggered and fell, her hands clawed at his eyes, and she bit off her own tongue, drowning him in blood and madness.

Relationships and Conflict

Varamyr's relationship with Haggon defined his moral landscape. Haggon had taught him three abominations: to eat human flesh, to mate as wolf with wolf, and to seize the body of another man. Varamyr violated all three. He ate Haggon's heart after killing him, he often slipped into Sly's skin while she was being mounted by One Eye, and his final act was an attempt to steal Thistle's body. Yet Haggon's voice haunted him even in death, whispering "Abomination" at every turn. His relationship with Mance Rayder was one of uneasy alliance; Varamyr had once considered slipping inside his bear and tearing Mance to pieces. His bond with his wolves was the closest thing to love he knew—"My brothers. My pack"—but even that was a relationship of domination, not equality.

Change and Ending

Varamyr's true death came suddenly, a shock of cold as if he had been plunged into icy water. His spirit fled his failed body and rushed over moonlit snows with his packmates close behind. He became One Eye, the oldest and fiercest of his wolves, and led the pack to a crest where they paused. Below, the empty village was no longer empty. Blue-eyed shadows walked amongst the mounds of snow—wights, dead things that moved but did not live. The thing that had been Thistle stood among them, her eyes replaced by a pale blue light, her fingers tipped with icicles of frozen blood. "She sees me," Varamyr realized, and in that moment his last thought as a man was gone.

Narrative Role and Evaluation

Varamyr's prologue serves as a thematic overture for A Dance with Dragons, introducing the core tensions of identity, the cost of power, and the blurring line between human and beast that will haunt Jon Snow, Bran Stark, and Theon Greyjoy throughout the book. His story is a cautionary tale about the abominations of skinchanging—eating human flesh, mating as a wolf, and seizing another's body—all of which he commits. His failure to claim Thistle's body mirrors Jon Snow's struggle to maintain his humanity against the pull of Ghost, and his dissolution into the wolf pack foreshadows the fate that awaits those who surrender too completely to their animal nature. The wights that greet him at the end, with Thistle transformed into a blue-eyed horror, underscore the novel's central threat: the Others and their army of the dead, against which even the most powerful skinchanger is powerless.