Are there any mentions of any skinchanger/greenseer during the Targaryens' long reigning history in the books? Like before Brynden Rivers's time? Because if not, I feel like GRRM missed the opportunity to write something that could have changed a LOT of things. Imagine skinchangers during Aegon's conquest... I'm sure many people have already thought about it, but as I'm rewatching GOT and understanding better a lot of stuff than I had when I was younger, I can't help but feel a bit disappointed that that kind of magic has been kind of swept under the rug until Bran Stark. Any thoughts on that matter?
As far as I know, there isn’t really a clear named skinchanger or greenseer during Targaryen rule before Brynden Rivers.
There are a few possibilities in my mind, however.
First, they existed, but they weren’t important enough to be noticed by the histories. Which makes sense, because maesters writing royal history are not exactly going to stop every three pages to say, “also some random northern bastard could see through a badger.” Tragic loss for badger scholarship, but here we are. 🤣
Second, GRRM doesn’t write this world in a perfectly linear, pre-planned way. He adds things as he goes. That’s not an insult, it’s just very obvious when you read across the books and supplemental material. Some parts feel deeply seeded, some parts feel like he expanded the mythology later because the world got bigger than his original skeleton.
Third, and this is the big one, that kind of magic would break a lot of the story if used too openly in Targaryen history. Skinchangers during Aegon’s Conquest would be insane. Imagine someone spying through birds, wolves, rats, horses, whatever, while Aegon is trying to conquer the kingdoms. It would change the entire political and military logic of the era.
Same with greenseers. If you had people seeing through weirwoods and possibly catching glimpses of future events during major Targaryen crises, suddenly half the bad decisions become harder to justify unless everyone involved is either stupid, ignoring magic, or GRRM has to explain why the magic conveniently doesn’t work when the plot needs disaster.
I get why you feel disappointed, because it does feel like that magic is swept into the corner until Bran’s storyline needs it. But I also think it had to be limited, because if greenseers and skinchangers were active players in every major era, the entire political history of Westeros becomes nonsense. 🫣