Queercoding villains are a direct result of the Motion Picture Production Codes passed in the 1930s! They were codes dictating what was and was not acceptable to portray in film. Watch the Celluloid Closet. It's a documentary that talks about LGBTQ portrayal throughout film history. It's really good!
So. Each direwolf reflects their Starkling. But I never got how Ghost reflected Jon? Or is he not supposed to...? Maybe I need to read more carefully...
Hey, sorry this sort of got lost amidst the wreckage that is my inbox, and while I’m sure there’s a discussion like this already out there, I’m gonna go ahead and put together the evidence I gathered because both Ghost and Jon are very important to me, and Ghost is my favorite direwolf as well as the one who is downright chockfull of symbolism.
Ghost is a representation of nearly everything that Jon is, and everything that he will be, which all sounds very dramatic and poetic, but I’m very serious about it. Ghost is Jon in direwolf form, starting from his very birth:
Halfway across the bridge, Jon pulled up suddenly.
“What is it, Jon?” their lord father asked.
“Can’t you hear it?”
Bran could hear the wind in the trees, the clatter of their hooves on the ironwood planks, the whimpering of his hungry pup, but Jon was listening to something else.
“There,” Jon said. He swung his horse around and galloped back across the bridge. They watched him dismount where the direwolf lay dead in the snow, watched him kneel. A moment later he was riding back to them, smiling.
“He must have crawled away from the others,” Jon said.
“Or been driven away,” their father said, looking at the sixth pup.
Jon alone hears Ghost’s cries, and goes to rescue this stranded, motherless pup and takes him in (and I could make a stretch here and be like “well, well, well, didn’t Ned do something similar to a certain bastard we know?”). The pup, as it so happens, had been driven away from its siblings, who of course are the three males, two female direwolves who will soon belong to Ned Stark’s trueborn children. Ghost is the outsider from his siblings, much like Jon is.
His fur was white, where the rest of the litter was grey. His eyes were as red as the blood of the ragged man who had died that morning. Bran thought it curious that this pup alone would have opened his eyes while the others were still blind.
“An albino,” Theon Greyjoy said with wry amusement. “This one will die even faster than the others.”
Jon Snow gave his father’s ward a long, chilling look. “I think not, Greyjoy,” he said. “This one belongs to me.”
White while the others were grey, an albino, an outsider in every way– the very personification of how Jon is set apart from his siblings. He is also the first pup to open its eyes and see the world, and Jon being a bastard did mean he learned the cruelties and disappointments of life much earlier than any of his siblings:
That morning he called it first. “I’m Lord of Winterfell!” he cried, as he had a hundred times before. Only this time, this time, Robb had answered, “You can’t be Lord of Winterfell, you’re bastard-born. My lady mother says you can’t ever be the Lord of Winterfell.”
Ghost also grows the quickest amongst all his siblings, and in AGoT Jon comments that “Maester Luwin says bastards grow up faster than other children.”:
They arrived, flushed and breathless, to find Jon seated on the sill, one leg drawn up languidly to his chin. He was watching the action, so absorbed that he seemed unaware of her approach until his white wolf moved to meet them. Nymeria stalked closer on wary feet. Ghost, already larger than his litter mates, smelled her, gave her ear a careful nip, and settled back down.
While we’re on the topic of Ghost’s physical attributes, it is rather important to note that his coloring is extremely symbolic. Pure white fur with blood red eyes reminds us of a heart tree: white bark with red leaves and a red-eyed faced carved into it. Even Jon notices:
Red eyes, Jon realized, but not like Melisandre’s. He had a weirwood’s eyes. Red eyes, red mouth, white fur. Blood and bone, like a heart tree. He belongs to the old gods, this one. And he alone of all the direwolves was white. Six pups they’d found in the late summer snows, him and Robb; five that were grey and black and brown, for the five Starks, and one white, as white as Snow.
Jon very much embodies the Northern values Ned instilled in him, he looks more like a Stark than most of his trueborn siblings, and holds to his belief in the old gods, choosing even to swear his Night’s Watch oaths before a heart tree. The magic in the heart trees and the magic in Ghost cannot be ignored either, but I’ll get to that later.
Onto Ghost’s personality:
Benjen watched Ghost with amusement as he ate his onion. “A very quiet wolf,” he observed.
“He’s not like the others,” Jon said. “He never makes a sound. That’s why I named him Ghost. That, and because he’s white. The others are all dark, grey or black.”
I can’t help but round back to Ned (because I could probably write a whole other meta on Ned’s influence on Jon) here because of the nickname Meera assigns Ned in her retelling of the Tourney at Harrenhal (Ned is referred to as the “quiet wolf”, Brandon the “wild wolf”, Lyanna the “she-wolf”, and Benjen is the “wolf pup”). The quiet wolf is Ned, Ned lives in Jon, and Ghost is an extension of Jon himself.
Ghost being the quietest of his siblings also has much to do with Jon’s relationship with the world: as a bastard he’s better neither seen nor heard. Jon is the “invisible sibling” amongst the Starklings, the one who few expect much out of except treachery and deceit unless he found a more honorable path apart from his family. The name “Ghost” also leans toward that existence, of straddling two different worlds, never quite fitting into one or the other. A quiet existence, an unsettling one, and one no one quite looks forward to.
Ghost for a good part of AGoT is always at Jon’s heels. He follows him around everywhere as a very inseparable part of him. Once they go beyond the Wall, Ghost begins to wander more and go off on his own adventures, and while that physical connection is severed for days at a time, a magical one remains (again, I’ll get to that later).
Ghost also helps in killing the wight that attacks Jeor Mormont, disabling him right before Jon sets fire to it (an action that earns Jon Longclaw, whose pommel is redesigned in Ghost’s likeness). The wight was Jafer Flowers’s corpse, whose hand Ghost had found and torn off earlier, the very same hand that Alliser takes to Joffrey to warn him of the coming threat beyond the wall. Ghost’s role in these things can’t be ignored, as it’s hinted more and more that a war against the Others is coming, and Jon will most likely be leading the fight against them.
It’s also thanks to Ghost that Jon remained in the Night’s Watch– he alerts the others to Jon’s position when he was running away to join Robb. Jon calls him a traitor for doing so lol but clearly the direwolf knows where Jon belongs; Jon regards the wolf as “wise” and Ghost really, truly is. He’s a wolf who seems to have the intelligence and understanding of a human, as well as possessing rather preternatural abilities.
Magic in ASOIAF is a concept that’s loosely defined, acknowledge by some, practiced by few. It may be genetic, or acquired, or gifted by a god, but it exists. Now, Starks in general have a long and ancient connection with magic, and we have seen two forms of magic in the current generation of Starks: greensight, and skinchanging (specifically warging). Bran possesses both and is aware of his abilities. Jon is a warg who doesn’t really understand that he’s a warg. Jon wargs into Ghost without realizing it, and he experiences rather frequent “wolf dreams”, which is simply warging while he’s asleep. Jon is very untrained in warging, and in fact has no desire to train himself.
Jon and Ghost’s connection is very visceral, and because of Jon’s lack of training, he and Ghost are essentially one. Two scenes that highlight this best, I think, are these:
He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. it was a hunger inside him, sharp as a dragonglass blade. A hunger… he could feel it. It was food he needed, prey, a red deer that stank of fear or a great elk proud and defiant. He needed to kill and fill his belly with fresh meat and hot dark blood. His mouth began to water with the thought.
It was a long moment before he understood what was happening. When he did, he bolted to his feet. “Ghost?” He turned toward the wood, and there he came, padding silently out of the green dusk, the breath coming warm and white from his open jaws. “Ghost!” he shouted, and the direwolf broke into a run.
…
“Come, Ghost,” Jon told the wolf. “With me. You’re hungry, I know. I could feel it.”
Then a sudden gust of cold made his fur stand up, and the air thrilled to the sound of wings. As he lifted his eyes to the ice-white mountain heights above, a shadow plummeted out of the sky. A shrill scream split the air. He glimpsed blue-grey pinions spread wide, shutting out the sun…
“Ghost!” Jon shouted, sitting up. He could still feel the talons, the pain. “Ghost, to me!”
Ebben appeared, grabbed him, shook him. “Quiet! You mean to bring the wildlings down on us? What’s wrong with you, boy?”
“A dream,” said Jon feebly. “I was Ghost, I was on the edge of the mountain looking down on a frozen river, and something attacked me. A bird… an eagle, I think…”
Jon is able to feel Ghost’s hunger; he can feel Ghost’s attack by an eagle. The connection between the two is highly sensory, and since Jon acts more of a passive observer within Ghost, he exerts no control over him, letting the wolf behave naturally. Ghost also has a sense of his siblings, particularly Nymeria, whom he can hear howling as a leader of a wolf pack. He senses the deaths of his siblings, Lady and Grey Wind, as well as the life force of Shaggydog and Summer– something that brings Jon a measure of comfort, since he believes Rickon and Bran to be dead.
This magical connection is incredibly important, and very unique. All three warg Stark siblings, Bran, Arya, and Jon, communicate with their wolves in different ways. Bran uses Summer as his eyes and ears; Arya is reassured of Nymeria’s presence through her wolf dreams, and such dreams honed her skinchanging skills to later allow her to skinchange into cats; meanwhile Jon’s connection with his wolf is emotional, physical, erratic, and repeatedly a lifesaver.
Jon arguably has some of the greatest parallels and connections to his wolf, because as I’ve said before, Ghost and Jon are one in the same. I often joke about how Jon talks to Ghost as if he were a human, carrying on conversations with him and using him as a shoulder to cry on, but considering how intelligent the wolf is, and how strong their connection is, it really comes as no surprise how attached the two are.
And let’s not forget, Ghost knew something was up the night the men of the Night’s Watch murdered Jon.
Mully agreed. “He tried to take a bite o’ me, he did.”
“Ghost?” Jon was shocked. “Unless your lordship has some other white wolf, aye. I never seen him like this, m’lord. All wild-like, I mean.”
He was not wrong, as Jon discovered for himself when he slipped inside the doors. The big white direwolf would not lie still. He paced from one end of the armory to the other, past the cold forge and back again. “Easy, Ghost,” Jon called. “Down. Sit, Ghost. Down.” Yet when he made to touch him, the wolf bristled and bared his teeth. It’s that bloody boar. Even in here, Ghost can smell his stink.
Satin helped them back into their cloaks. As they walked through the armory, Ghost sniffed at them, his tail upraised and bristling. My brothers.
Horse and Rory had replaced Fulk and Mully at the armory door with the change of watch. “With me,” Jon told them, when the time came. Ghost would have followed as well, but as the wolf came padding after them, Jon grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and wrestled him back inside. Borroq might be amongst those gathering at the Shieldhall. The last thing he needed just now was his wolf savaging the skinchanger’s boar.
Yet most telling of all of the connection between man and wolf, I think, is Jon’s last words:
Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger’s hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. “Ghost,” he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end.
Oh, and just as a quick revisit to Ghost’s name: a ghost is a spectral image of something that was once alive, but is now dead, yet continues to live on in the natural world. Who else do we know is dead, and is likely going to return to the natural world? Hmm...
something-resembling-gumption replied to your photoset “i’ve been having trouble motivating myself lately so i made these very...”
THESE WERE YOU?! I've seen them circulating tumblr I didn't even realize!!!!! Damn Shan
lmao yeah i made these while i should have been working on my portfolio bc i wanted to procrastinate but pretend i was working toward productivity. they actually do kind of help tho???
If it makes you feel better I'm in a similar boat. I ~do have friends from hs. But I keep seeing a lot of people getting married and I haven't been kissed yet either :/
i have no friends here, period. i have a few people im buddies with at work and a friend i’ve known for ages who lives in the city. but man, i really light a match and burn every bridge behind me, which means nothing lasts very long :/
something-resembling-gumption said: Stop that’s so cute. Also how do you run out of all vegetables????
i DO NOT KNOW. i was flummoxed when the lady told me “we’re out of veggies” like how can you suddenly be out of all veggies???? it really shook me to the core. she made me a cheese quesadilla instead. like, really bitch? but i choked it back and smiled of course.
