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In the prologue of A Dance with Dragons , Haggon (a skinchanger) forbids three things to a skinchanger:

  • To eat of human meat.
  • To mate as wolf with wolf.
  • To seize the body of another man (this is the worst abomination).

As we saw in A Storm of Swords,

Bran seizes Hodor, but these rules clearly define that this is the worst abomination.

Are these rules just a code of ethics or does Haggon know what he is talking about because he has been a skinchanger for a long time?

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At this point of time we don't know yet. We don't know why these rules were put in place. They might indeed be just a "code of honor". A red line no skinchanger should cross. Yes, it might be a rule put in place because it has serious magical repercussions. Then again it could be a law that was agreed upon by skinchangers for other reasons (political, social ... etc).

Though the fact that this behavior was explicitly commented on, we may very well see more of it in future books.

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  • These are rules presumably made by wildling skinchangers and clearly apply to skinchangers. But Bran is a greenseer, this changes the rules of his existence considerably, I'd argue that therefore neither of the rules for skinchangers apply to him.
    – Samuel Herzog
    Commented Feb 26, 2013 at 16:19
  • @SamuelHerzog - Well here's the thing, are they rules created by the Skinchanger community to put some sort of moral guidelines, or are they rules that were created to prevent some kind of magical side effect of breaking them?
    – System Down
    Commented Feb 26, 2013 at 17:44
  • in both cases bran is no skinchanger. what would be out of reach bcs of side effects for them may just be perfectly fine for a Greenseer, which seems to be one of the mightiest magical creatures alongside dragons in the world of ASOIAF. If you ever thought about immortality: Moral guidelines nearly have to be completely different from mortals. And Skinchangers are definitly mortal, greenseers have only mortal bodies as far as I can tell from aFfC and aDwD.
    – Samuel Herzog
    Commented Feb 26, 2013 at 18:26
  • but even those bodies life a much longer timespan than humans and skinchangers. their lifespan is to ours like ours to those of flies.
    – Samuel Herzog
    Commented Feb 26, 2013 at 18:27
  • @SamuelHerzog - Good comment on a Greenseer's apparent immortality. But I think at this point we still don't know the extent of a Greenseer's power, and whether the adverse effects (if any) of taking control of a human affects them in any significant way.
    – System Down
    Commented Feb 26, 2013 at 18:56

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