Bears

"A bear there was, a bear, a bear! All black and brown and covered in hair!"

- Lyrics from the popular song The Bear and the Maiden Fair

'Bears are large predators found throughout the forests and mountains of Westeros and Essos. Distantly related to canines, they have stocky bodies, short tails, powerful jaws and sharp claws.

Bear Island is a heavily forested isle off the northwest coast of the North in Westeros. The heraldry of the island's rulers, House Mormont, consists of a black bear in a woods of green trees.

Bears are frequently captured and put in animal menageries, and bear-baiting is common blood-sport throughout much of the known world. Bears are often seen in the fighting pits of Essos, and in Westeros as well the seedier elements of society also use bear pits as a form of entertainment, throwing other animals or even people into an enclosed space to fight a captive bear.

Season 1
While at Castle Black, Tyrion Lannister is amiably drinking and chatting with the recruiter Yoren, and asks him what was the strangest thing he ever ate. Yoren replies that he once at a bear's testicles, which makes Tyrion laugh and think he is joking. Yoren insists that he is telling the truth, and that he also ate the bear's brains, guts, lungs, and heart, all fried in its own fat. As Yoren explains, when you are snowbound a hundred miles north of the Wall and your last meal was a week ago, you don't leave anything for the wolves. As for the taste, Yoren remarks that the bear's balls were "a bit chewy".

Season 3
After taking Brienne of Tarth prisoner at Harrenhal, Locke and his men intend to kill her. Jaime Lannister is incredulous that Locke and his Bolton soldiers would do this, given that Brienne's father offered them a very generous ransom of 300 Gold Dragons. Qyburn explains that Locke and most of his men might die in the war or the coming winter, so they are simply more considered with the immediate, petty amusement of torturing Brienne to death.

When Jaime returns to Harrenhal, he finds that Locke and his men have thrown Brienne into a bear pit. They have formed a cheering crowd around the pit, and are mockingly singing The Bear and the Maiden Fair while taunting the bear to attack Brienne. The bear has already left a deep gash along Brienne's collarbone with its claws, and she is barely holding it at bay armed only with a wooden sword. Eventually the bear manages to knock the wooden sword out of her hands, and shove her to the ground.

Jaime confronts Locke, who affirms that he cares more about torturing Brienne than any amount of gold Jaime could offer him, making Jaime powerless. Instead, Jaime jumps into the bear-pit and saves Brienne's life, despite having lost his right hand. While the pair were struggling to climb out of the pit, Locke's soldier Steelshanks scared off the bear by shooting it in the back with a crossbow bolt, mildly wounding it.

After they were out of the bear pit, Locke tried to reassert control of the situation, but Jaime had correctly assessed that he was too valuable of a hostage for Locke to threaten. Steelshanks pointed out that Lord Roose Bolton had commanded him to bring Jaime to King's Landing, and if Jaime died trying to save Brienne, Roose would have him killed for his failure. They then depart for King's Landing.

Season 4
When Tormund's wildling raiding force is waiting around their campfires for the signal to begin the Battle of Castle Black, he passes the time by telling tall tales. In one of these, he claims that he once had sex with a female bear named Sheila, and she really knew what she was doing. Ygritte angrily responds that everyone knows he's just making that up, and he knows it, and that it isn't that funny.

In the books
In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, bears are common in wilderness regions of Westeros and Essos. A very large species of bear lives in the lands beyond the Wall, known as "snow bears", which are apparently similar to real-life polar bears. Adapted to the cold climate of the far north, snow bears have white pelts and can grow to massive size, with one described as thirteen feet tall. Snow bears are not exactly the same as "polar bears", however, because real-life polar bears usually have a maximum size of only five feet tall (still the largest living species of bear). The difference between snow bears and common bears is similar to the difference between direwolves and common wolves. A large female snow bear is among the animals that the wildling skinchanger (Warg) Varamyr Sixskins controls, and he rides it into battle as a mount. Greatjon Umber's uncle Mors "Crowfood" Umber wears a cloak made of a snow bear's pelt, with the head section serving as a hood. As with other animals such as horses, the White Walkers can reanimate dead snow bears into wights. During the Battle of the Fist of the First Men, Jeor Mormont was able to rally his men to defend their position for a time using flaming arrows against the hordes of wights, but their position was then broken by a huge and terrifying snow bear wight. When the wight-bear came upon the Watch's commanders, Thoren Smallwood valiantly rushed ahead to attack it - despite Smallwood's normally arrogant and self-serving personality. Nonetheless, with a single swipe of its arm the wight-bear tore Smallwood's head clean off from his shoulders.

Brienne and Jaime's fight in the bear pit at Harrenhal proceeds somewhat differently. Steelshanks and a dozen or so of his men fill the bear with crossbow bolts until it dies. As a result Brienne and Jaime do not need to dramatically climb out of the pit, because the bear is dead. In the TV version Steelshanks only shoots the bear with one crossbow bolt to scare it off, apparently only dealing it a minor wound. It is possible that this was changed so as to avoid the impression of cruelty to animals, and also that it would have been more difficult to depict the live actor-bear being peppered with multiple arrows.

Brienne is also not armed with only a wooden sword, but with a tourney blade - which are unsharpened because they are not meant for actual combat. Jaime only realizes this after he sees Brienne stab the bear without causing any injury. As it would also have been difficult for TV viewers to realize that she was given a blunt tourney sword, the TV series made this more explicit by giving her a wooden sword.