Jon Snow ReRead Project! Part 6! (DwD--Pink Letter!)

[butterbumps!]

Welcome to the end of the Jon Snow reread project! The last chapter we discussed in the previous thread was Jon XI, DwD, which involved 3 meetings with different factions: Tormund, Val and Selyse, then Watchmen and Clansmen atop the Wall.

This isn’t an appreciation thread, but rather, a space to look beyond the broad strokes of Jon’s arc to bring the subtleties of his character into greater relief for discussion. (Similarly, unsubstantiated criticism is strongly discouraged). This isn’t about winning over sides, but impartial analytical discussion.

Please feel free to read along and post your reactions to the chapter or just anything that strikes you as interesting or odd. GRRM's choice of words, a parallel in another chapter or even another POV, references, allusions or foreshadowings - it all adds to the conversation.

For the best possible discussion, we ask the following:

Please DON’T: Analyze future chapters. References to future events are fine but otherwise stick with the current or past chapters.
Please DON’T: Snipe with someone you disagree with – it's boring for everyone else and spoils the thread. State your opinion, give your evidence and agree to differ.

Please DO: Compare and contrast with other POVs. GRRM is fond of creating parallel scenes and role reversals.
Please DO: Show the support in the text for your views.


chapter links!

aGoT
aGoT Jon I (King's banquet at Winterfell)
aGoT Jon II (Jon says goodbyes to his family)
aGoT Jon III (At the Wall, Donal lectures Jon; Jon receives news of Bran)
aGoT Jon IV (Sam arrives; Jon reveals his dream of the crypts)
aGoT Jon V (Jon is told he's promoted; appeals to Aemon on behalf of Sam)
aGoT Jon VI (Sam is promoted; Jon and Sam take their vows; Ghost finds a hand)
aGoT Jon VII (ranging party studies bodies of Othor and Jafer; crypt dream; Jon gets news of Ned's treason; Jon fights Othor the wight)
aGoT Jon VIII (Jon gets Longclaw; news of Robb's march; Aemon's "love is the bane of honor" conversation)
AGOT Jon IX (Jon attempts to skedaddle but is prevented by his friends, Mormont reveals that he is going to lead a mini-army north of the Wall)
AGOT Roundup

aCoK
ACOK Jon I (Preparations for the expedition at the Wall, Mormont has an infodump of Targaryen history for Jon)
ACOK Jon II (Mormont's expedition reaches Whitetree)
ACOK Jon III (The expedition reaches Craster's)
ACOK Jon IV (Expedition reaches the fist of the first men)
ACOK Jon V (Qhorin arrives and leaves with Jon to range further north)
ACOK Jon VI (Jon's first date with Ygritte)
ACOK Jon VII (Jon in the Skirling Pass, his wolf dream, connection to Bran)
ACOK Jon VIII (Qhorin's sacrifice and Jon goes Wildling)
ACOK Roundup

aSoS
ASOS Prologue
ASOS Jon I (Jon meets The Mance)
ASOS Jon II (Jon shaken and stirred, delivered to the Mance at the Fist of First Men
ASOS Sam I (Sam the Slayer)
ASOS Jon III (Jon, wandering in and around Ygritte's cave, invents the Lord's Kiss)
ASOS Jon IV (Jon goes over the Wall, Jarl has a great fall, there no king's men or king's horses to put him together again)
ASOS Sam II (death of Mormont, Sam and Gilly, cutting the onion)
ASOS Jon V (arrival at Queenscrown; Jon escapes the wildlings and heads to Castle Black to warn of the attack)
ASOS Sam III (Sam and Gilly survive a wight attack; Coldhands is introduced)
ASOS Jon VI (Injured, Jon arrives at the Wall; informs of the Magnar's attack; learns Winterfell was sacked)
ASOS Jon VII (Styr's wildlings attack; Ygritte is killed)
ASOS Jon VIII (wildlings attack from the North; Donal dies; another crypt dream (RW clue)
ASOS Jon IX (the Watch repels a wildling advance; Jon is arrested by Slynt for desertion)
ASOS Jon X (Jon is sent to kill Mance; Stannis arrives at the Wall, defeating the wildlings)
ASOS Sam IV (Sam has returned; Stannis plans to burn Mance; Sam is concerned about the LC elections and seeks a solution).
ASOS Jon XI (Stannis offers Jon Winterfell with conditions; Stannis announces his wildling plans)
ASOS Sam V (Stannis meets with the LC contenders; Sam rigs the election)
ASOS Jon XII (Ghost returns; Jon decides to reject Stannis' offer; Jon is made LC)
ASOS Roundup

FFC/ DwD
DwD Jon I (First look at Jon's command; Jon meets with Stannis to discuss the North and reject Stannis' request for Watch castles)
FFC Sam I (overlap with DwD Jon II; Jon and Sam speak of the Others; Jon sends Sam to Oldtown)
DwD Jon II (Jon meets with Gilly, then Sam, then his castle commanders; Edd fetches a block)
DwD Jon III (Mance is burned; news of Tywin's death)
DwD Jon IV (Jon conducts food inventory; Jon creates a Northern strategy for Stannis)
DwD Jon V (Stannis has left, Jon feeds Mole's Town, 63 men are recruited)
DWD Jon VI (Sends out rangers; practice fight with "Rattleshirt;" letter from Ramsay; Mel gives him an offer)
DWD Mel I (Mel's visions; Mance is revealed; Arya mission brainstormed)
DWD Jon VII (Jon leads recruits to take vows in the grove; meets a bunch of wildlings there; Stannis' letter)
DWD Jon VIII (Jon sends out Val; meeting with his council about the wildling situation)
DWD Jon IX (Selyse arrives, Jon gets a loan from the Iron Bank, Alys Karstark shows up).
DWD Jon X (Alys and Sigorn's wedding; horn signals Val's return)
DWD Jon XI (Jon meets with Tormund; Jon and Val meet with Selyse; Jon meets with clans, Watchmen and wildling reps on the Wall)
DWD Jon XII (Red Sword dream; Jon meets Tormund and wildlings pass through; news from Pyke about Hardhome- dead things in the water)
DWD Jon XIII (Hardhome, Pink Letter, Assassination)

DWD RoundUp

[butterbumps!]

[butterbumps!]

Jon XII

He would play the game to its conclusion.

overview

It’s 3 days after Jon XI. The chapter opens in the middle of a disturbing dream involving Jon killing people he loved while clad in “black ice” and holding a burning sword. He shares breakfast with his officers as they go over the preparations once more, finally making his way down to the tunnel to meet Tormund.

Jon and Tormund talk while they oversee the passage of wildlings: hostages first, then the warriors, Frozen Shore dwellers, the non-fighters, and finally, the “rearguard.” As they watch, Tormund gives Jon intel on who’s who, advising him of any rivalries and foreseeable problems. He also reveals that Mance’s horn was a fake. The day begins to get colder, and Jon asks about the Others; Tormund refuses to discuss them on this side of the Wall, and as time passes, it becomes clear the wildlings are growing frightened, and want to get south as soon as possible.

Once back in Donal’s chambers, he gets a troubling letter from Pyke about Hardhome.

observations

• immediately following the dream, Mormont’s raven says Jon’s full name for the first time—“Corn King Snow, Jon Snow”:

“Corn,” the bird said, and, “King,” and, “Snow, Jon Snow, Jon Snow.” That was queer. The bird had never said his full name before, as best Jon could recall.

• Jon’s 8 person guard: Ty, Mully, Left Hand Lew, Big Liddle, Rory, Fulk the Flea, Garrett Greenspear, Leathers
• Ulmer holds the Wall while Jon’s below
• Tormund gives his son, Dryn, to Jon as an extra hostage; Jon intends to make him his page (this is very similar to how Dany appointed her hostages)
• A good many warriors swear oaths to Jon as they pass
• Apparently, the Frozen Shore has its own factional divisions: tusks versus antlers; all are to be feared according to Tormund
• Jon finds the name “The Great Walrus” as delightful and ridiculous as I do
• Jon still believes that “dragonsteel” = Valyrian steel, and reflects on its composition: “forged in the fires of old Valyria, forged in dragonflame and set with spells”
• Jon can immediately sense Borroq is a skinchanger; he calls Jon “Brother,” perhaps implying a sense of kinship from their shared ability.
• It’s worth noting that Martin seems to use boar symbolically to denote “regime change;” boar tends to be present during, or directly responsible for, power changes in story
• The final wildling tally is 3,119; 30 hostages each to Shadow Tower and Eastwatch (presumably CB keeps 40); Edd left with 6 carts of spearwives to Long Barrow; Tormund is supposed to leave with his men to Oakenshield in 2 days, and the remainder would be spread among the broken castles.

analysis

I AM the Lord of Winterfell

I suspect many will want to discuss the dream, so I’m posting it in full:

That night he dreamt of wildlings howling from the woods, advancing to the moan of warhorns and the roll of drums. Boom DOOM boom DOOM boom DOOM came the sound, a thousand hearts with a single beat. Some had spears and some had bows and some had axes. Others rode on chariots made of bones, drawn by teams of dogs as big as ponies. Giants lumbered amongst them, forty feet tall, with mauls the size of oak trees.

“Stand fast,” Jon Snow called. “Throw them back.” He stood atop the Wall, alone. “Flame,” he cried, “feed them flame,” but there was no one to pay heed.

They are all gone. They have abandoned me.

Burning shafts hissed upward, trailing tongues of fire. Scarecrow brothers tumbled down, black cloaks ablaze. “Snow,” an eagle cried, as foemen scuttled up the ice like spiders. Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist. As the dead men reached the top of the Wall he sent them down to die again. He slew a greybeard and a beardless boy, a giant, a gaunt man with filed teeth, a girl with thick red hair. Too late he recognized Ygritte. She was gone as quick as she’d appeared.

The world dissolved into a red mist. Jon stabbed and slashed and cut. He hacked down Donal Noye and gutted Deaf Dick Follard. Qhorin Halfhand stumbled to his knees, trying in vain to staunch the flow of blood from his neck. “I am the Lord of Winterfell,” Jon screamed. It was Robb before him now, his hair wet with melting snow. Longclaw took his head off. Then a gnarled hand seized Jon roughly by the shoulder. He whirled …

… and woke with a raven pecking at his chest. “Snow,” the bird cried.

The dream strikes me as a combination of Jon’s fears, regrets, and dark desire, flavored with the AA myth he read a few chapters ago. It seems to materialize Jon’s feeling of isolation from and abandonment by “strawman” brothers, where he’s the only Watchman standing. Armored in black ice and wielding a burning Longclaw, he fights the wildlings despite the fact that they’re coming through as friends in the morning. When he realizes that he killed Ygritte, the dream becomes more sinister, as he begins killing men he loved and respected. After reenacting killing Qhorin, he proclaims his identity as the Lord of Winterfell, which brings Robb’s image before him. He’s then interrupted by the raven after beheading Robb. Ominously, the raven uses his full name, declaring “Corn King Snow, Jon Snow.”

I know this dream comes up often as confirmation that Jon’s AAR. I just want to point out that Jon read the Jade Compendium and has an image of the myth. I don’t believe this confirms anything, as the suggestion of AA has already been planted in his mind when he has this dream. I’d posit that his identifying with the image of AA might be a step in Rhaegar’s direction, in that Rhaegar became convinced he was this legendary hero after having read the same passage.

The Wall will weep

Despite feelings of inadequacy and doubt about being the man who decided to bring the wildlings south, he stands by his conviction, and accepts that this is only the beginning of a very long process:

Once the gate was opened there would be no turning back….. It was too late for such misgivings, though. Every choice had its risks, every choice its consequences. He would play the game to its conclusion.

During breakfast, Bowen and Co. are surprisingly complaisant about the arrangement. They’re almost affable. After all the wildlings have made it through at the end of the chapter, Bowen grows cold and makes his displeasure known. It seems as though Bowen was affable because the thought that the wildlings would give the Watch an excuse to keep them out, and became annoyed later when none was given.

But is Edd voicing subtle, but genuine dissent after breakfast? He tells Jon he’d prefer the rats to the women at Long Barrow, requests that Jon not let the wildlings eat all the chickens, and then invokes the unnatural warmth and the Wall’s weeping as bad omens for the day’s planned events:

“The Wall will weep. And winter almost on us. It’s unnatural, m’lord. A bad sign, you ask me.”

Jon smiled. “And if it were to snow?”

“A worse sign.”

Is this anxiety over the trouble the wildlings will cause, anxiety over the ramifications that will follow on the side of angry Watchmen, just a general sense of foreboding, or is it Edd just being dolorous?

That is a lesson I’d sooner they never learned: the need for power trappings

Both Jon and Tormund are using “trappings of power” in a very self-aware way, and the two men even tease each other about it playfully. Jon chooses a grey stallion to send the wildlings an “impressive” message; this is a gestural trapping. But the guard he chooses is meant to be an effective form of actual protection rather than something ceremonial; he’s not dressing up greenboys and greybeards like he had with Selyse, but selects a tail that can actually help keep him alive if needed.

Leathers has become the poster child for “the wildling success story.” Jon very intentionally presents Leathers as representation of the idea that even a wildling can rise high in the Watch, not unlike the adage about bastards that inspired Jon to join: “to show the free folk that even a man who had fought for Mance in the battle beneath the Wall could find a place of honor in the Night’s Watch.”

Ghost is another power trapping that’s more than just symbolic. As Northern kids grew up with tales of blood-drinking wildlings, wildlings kids were told of cannibalistic Crows. Tormund suggests Jon pal up to him so that the wildlings see Jon’s “nothing to fear,” so to speak. Unwilling to send that message, Jon calls Ghost over to send a different one:

“Come here by me, lad. I want my folk to see you. I got thousands ne’er saw a lord commander, grown men who were told as boys that your rangers would eat them if they didn’t behave. They need to see you plain, a long-faced lad in an old black cloak. They need to learn that the Night’s Watch is naught t’be feared.”

That is a lesson I would sooner they never learned. Jon peeled the glove off his burned hand, put two fingers in his mouth, and whistled. Ghost came racing from the gate. Tormund’s horse shied so hard that the wildling almost lost his saddle. “Naught to be feared?” Jon said. “Ghost, stay.”

Of course, Tormund was only referring to dispelling the “Crows eat babies” tales, but Jon takes the opportunity to reinforce his “fearsomeness.” And he does so with a symbol that’s not associated with the Watch, but with their shared First Men heritage and the Starks in particular.

Winter’s people

Jon seems to have a great deal of respect and affinity for these parents and children who are taking this so stoically. It’s come up elsewhere, but this passage reinforces the idea of crying as something almost “anti-Northern:”

The boys were going to a place that none had ever been before, to serve an order that had been the enemy of their kith and kin for thousands of years, yet Jon saw no tears, heard no wailing mothers. These are winter’s people, he reminded himself. Tears freeze upon your cheeks where they come from. Not a single hostage balked or tried to slink away when his turn came to enter that gloomy tunnel.

Culture clash and resolution

It’s Jon’s turn to admit barbarism from his own people when two girls try to walk through as hostages. Jon manages to identify a potentially dangerous situation, talk it through with Tormund, and find an immediate solution (it’s astounding to compare this exchange to anything that’s transpired between Jon and his officers):

“A hostage is a hostage, seems to me. That big sharp sword o’ yours can snick a girl’s head off as easy as a boy’s. A father loves his daughters too. Well, most fathers.”

It is not their fathers who concern me. “Did Mance ever sing of Brave Danny Flint?”

“Not as I recall. Who was he?”

“A girl who dressed up like a boy to take the black. Her song is sad and pretty. What happened to her wasn’t.” In some versions of the song, her ghost still walked the Nightfort. “I’ll send the girls to Long Barrow.” The only men there were Iron Emmett and Dolorous Edd, both of whom he trusted.

“Nasty birds, you crows.” He spat. “Two more boys, then. You’ll have them.”

Rather than send the women and children through next as Jon had hoped, Tormund sends the warriors as insurance that the gates will stay open. Tormund’s almost apologetic about it, assuring Jon that it’s nothing personal, and it seems the implication is more for his men than him:

“I bought your bloody horse, Jon Snow. Don’t mean that we can’t count his teeth. Now don’t you go thinking me and mine don’t trust you. We trust you just as much as you trust us.” He snorted. “You wanted warriors, didn’t you? Well, there they are. Every one worth six o’ your black crows.”

Jon had to smile. “So long as they save those weapons for our common foe, I am content.”

I’m not sure if I’m missing something, but it seems like Jon and Tormund have an exceptionally easy time communicating with each other and working toward solutions.

How do you fight a mist, crow?

We get a pretty thorough explanation of Others, despite the fact that Tormund refuses to discuss it while they could be around:

“They’re never far, you know. They won’t come out by day, not when that old sun’s shining, but don’t think that means they went away. Shadows never go away. Might be you don’t see them, but they’re always clinging to your heels.”

……

“They never came in force, if that’s your meaning, but they were with us all the same, nibbling at our edges. We lost more outriders than I care to think about, and it was worth your life to fall behind or wander off. Every nightfall we’d ring our camps with fire. They don’t like fire much, and no mistake. When the snows came, though … snow and sleet and freezing rain, it’s bloody hard to find dry wood or get your kindling lit, and the cold … some nights our fires just seemed to shrivel up and die. Nights like that, you always find some dead come the morning. ’Less they find you first. The night that Torwynd … my boy, he …” Tormund turned his face away.

…….

“You know nothing. You killed a dead man, aye, I heard. Mance killed a hundred. A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up … how do you fight a mist, crow? Shadows with teeth … air so cold it hurts to breathe, like a knife inside your chest … you do not know, you cannot know … can your sword cut cold?”

Dance with me, Jon Snow

In Jon X, during the wedding, Alys asks Jon to dance, teasing him by pointing out “[he] danced with [her] anon.” Jon reprises this line while watching the wildlings stream through, as the day grows into that ominous “snow sky” Edd spoke of:

A snowflake danced upon the air. Then another. Dance with me, Jon Snow, he thought. You’ll dance with me anon.

Alys meant “anon” in the past tense (i.e. “another time”), but Jon’s thinking of a different sort of dance in the imminent future i.e. “soon”). He insists on being the last through the Wall, and re-emphasizes that this isn’t an end—“it has only just begun.”

As he makes his way to Donal’s forge, bypassing the feast, he reflects on the changed character of Castle Black:

The castle Jon returned to was far different from the one he’d left that morning. For as long as he had known it, Castle Black had been a place of silence and shadows, where a meagre company of men in black moved like ghosts amongst the ruins of a fortress that had once housed ten times their numbers. All that had changed. Lights now shone through windows where Jon Snow had never seen lights shine before. Strange voices echoed down the yards, and free folk were coming and going along icy paths that had only known the black boots of crows for years. Outside the old Flint Barracks, he came across a dozen men pelting one another with snow. Playing, Jon thought in astonishment, grown men playing like children, throwing snowballs the way Bran and Arya once did, and Robb and me before them.

There’s a strong tone of reforging here, not unlike the sense of rebuilding in Sansa’s Snow Castle chapter, which also includes reminiscing of snowball fights. But it’s not a victory yet, even if the grown men celebrating in snow don’t realize it. Whatever was beginning to be “reforged” today is not yet complete, and needed to be used against a bigger looming enemy.

Night falls and now my war begins

The looming threat Jon’s been anticipating throughout the chapter appears at the end, with Cotter’s letter describing failure at Hardhome and “dead things” on land and water:

At Hardhome, with six ships. Wild seas. Blackbird lost with all hands, two Lyseni ships driven aground on Skane, Talon taking water. Very bad here. Wildlings eating their own dead. Dead things in the woods. Braavosi captains will only take women, children on their ships. Witch women call us slavers. Attempt to take Storm Crow defeated, six crew dead, many wildlings. Eight ravens left. Dead things in the water. Send help by land, seas wracked by storms. From Talon, by hand of Maester Harmune.

Cotter Pyke had made his angry mark below.

[Julia H.]

Great analysis, and very inspiring thoughts.

Jon's Dream

Yes, fears, regrets and dark desire and more... I have had some time to think about the dream today, and this is the result:

Jon is alone atop the Wall. This sense of being abandoned is an appropriate manifestation of his current situation: the opposition and hostility from his officers, the physical distance from his friends, the loneliness of the Lord Commander, the loneliness of the man who has chosen the untrodden path.The scarecrow brothers could represent the fear that even those who seem to be by his side or "behind his back" will remain passive when he needs their support. They may mean deceit and false friends.

At first he seems to fight the enemy, but suddenly the enemy turns out to be Ygritte, then his black brothers and finally Robb. Love, friendship, family. The dead are coming back to fight him, losses he has suffered represented by wights. Jon is killing his own life, his own past as he is getting ready for what he perceives as a fundemantal change both for him and for the realms he is protecting. Notably, he is killing his mentors: Ygritte, who taught him about the traditional life of the free folk and about love, Donal Noye, who taught him the lessons of friendship and Night's Watch community, and Qhorin, who taught him to fight against wildlings. He is also killing a brother who fought by his side at the battle of Castle Black. To do what must be done, Jon must abandon the old lessons – he will make peace with the free folk, but he will also rob them of their traditional life and freedom, as he came to know it with Ygritte. For this, he has paid a personal price by giving up love and friendship.

"I am the Lord of Winterfell."

The cry may express suppressed desire, even a darker side of Jon, which he has never allowed to surface, but there is a different reading that I find possible. Jon is Eddard Stark's son, as he has announced on top of the Wall, and to go through with what follows (with Bran and Rickon dead, as he thinks), he is Eddard Stark's heir, at least in the spiritual sense. He cannot stop halfway – he has sent (so to speak) an army to Winterfell, he is reshaping the North, his decisions have a huge impact and he must take full responsibility. To Jon, being a "lord" means duty and responsibility. He would play the game to its conclusion. Naming himself the Lord of Winterfell could mean exactly that.

Then Robb appears, symbolising the inhibition that Jon must overcome in order to take full responsibility as the last Stark. "Killing Robb" may mean killing his own bastard identity (which is brought back to him in child Robb's words in ASOS), the psychological barrier that could prevent him from being a true lord.

The duality of family versus the NW theme also appears here, and Jon "solves" the problem by choosing neither but the solitary fight.

Armored in black ice: the image foreshadows death, the daggers in the dark and the cold - the last word of the last Jon chapter in this book. However, the dream may also represent the words of the vow: Jon, the watcher is standing atop the Wall with a burning sword (sword, fire and light) in his hand, shouting flame, and he hears the sound of warhorns. No shield is mentioned literally, but the Wall is a kind of shield, and Jon himself, armored in black ice, seems to become at the same time the Night's Watch and the Wall, in other words the shield that guards the realms of men.

[ShadowCat Rivers]

I'll stick to the dream, too...

The dream strikes me as a combination of Jon’s fears, regrets, and dark desire, flavored with the AA myth he read a few chapters ago. It seems to materialize Jon’s feeling of isolation from and abandonment by “strawman” brothers, where he’s the only Watchman standing. Armored in black ice and wielding a burning Longclaw, he fights the wildlings despite the fact that they’re coming through as friends in the morning. When he realizes that he killed Ygritte, the dream becomes more sinister, as he begins killing men he loved and respected. After reenacting killing Qhorin, he proclaims his identity as the Lord of Winterfell, which brings Robb’s image before him. He’s then interrupted by the raven after beheading Robb. Ominously, the raven uses his full name, declaring “Corn King Snow, Jon Snow.”

I know this dream comes up often as confirmation that Jon’s AAR. I just want to point out that Jon read the Jade Compendium and has an image of the myth. I don’t believe this confirms anything, as the suggestion of AA has already been planted in his mind when he has this dream. I’d posit that his identifying with the image of AA might be a step in Rhaegar’s direction, in that Rhaegar became convinced he was this legendary hero after having read the same passage.

But I'll make a small deviation about AA first.

In my view AA, as a mythological legend, "he" is most propably an amalgamating representation of various "historical" heroic figures and the specifics of the legend/prophesy have a symbolic, rather than "historical" value. I believe that, by the end, we will have multiple characters with significantly important contribution in the fight against the Others, enough to deserve the hero title and, in the same time, fulfill the "AA requirements" one way or the other. In other words, I don't believe that there will be one "AA reborn" and I think that the author has already warned us about it via Tyrion:

The hairs on the back of Tyrion’s neck began to prickle. Prince Aegon will find no friend here. The red priest spoke of ancient prophecy, a prophecy that foretold the coming of a hero to deliver the world from darkness. One hero. Not two. Daenerys has dragons, Aegon does not. The dwarf did not need to be a prophet himself to foresee how Benerro and his followers might react to a second Targaryen.

Even though Tyrion's thinking here is limited to Aegon and Targaryens, the thing is that IMO, this passage casts doubt on the Red Priests' -and by extention, on the AA legend's- requirement for the one and only savior. In that sense, the dream indeed does not confirm anything.

I also agree that the AA references of the dream are a result of the imagery that the Jade Compendium has planted in Jon's head. Nothing in the dream is out of the blue. The dream does inform us about Jon's fears, regrets and dark desires mixed up with past intense experiences (the fights at the Wall, killing the White Walker and so on). However, I think that this does not exclude a "prophetic" / foreshadowing aspect. I believe that mixed up with all the above, there are scattered images of his battles yet to come.

I've always connected this dream to Daenerys' Trident dream:

That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper’s rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened.

This dream is also a mix of the stories she's been told about the battle of the Trident and of the stress/exitement before the fight that was awaiting her. In contrast to Jon's, this one has a more upbeat aura but this is due to the circumstances, I think. The "prophetic" element is stronger here as well, as Daenerys has never seen anything that looks like a White Walker before. However, both dreams are instigated by the stress caused by an imminent turning point event, yet end up to foretell the dreamers' important battle.

Back to Jon, a nice collection of his dreams is in this post.

The sense of abandonment is a standard in his dreams, the constant element of his recurring Crypts nightmare. { ETA: But in this specific instance there is also the loneliness of the leader, I think. }

Qualms and a sense of guilt is an other:

In the dream, the corpse he fought had blue eyes, black hands, and his father’s face, but he dared not tell Mormont that.

“You know nothing, Jon Snow,” she whispered, her skin dissolving in the hot water, the flesh beneath sloughing off her bones until only skull and skeleton remained, and the pool bubbled thick and red.

Gilly was in it, weeping, pleading with him to leave her babes alone, but he ripped the children from her arms and hacked their heads off, then swapped the heads around and told her to sew them back in place.

Last night he had dreamed of Sam drowning, of Ygritte dying with his arrow in her (it had not been his arrow, but in his dreams it always was), of Gilly weeping tears of blood.

Here, Jon dreams of men who died in the battles against the Wildlings and, being connected to both sides, regret and qualm is inevitable. The random innocent wildling in the "greybeard" and the "beardless boy" along with Noye, Ygritte who he loved and Deaf Dick Follard who was killed by Ygritte (whe he failed to target her, iirc), Qhorin killed by his own hand even if Qhorin himself commanded him... leading to Robb and his secret guilty wish. Everyone Jon feels (rationaly or irrationaly) that he's somehow responsible for their fate shows up in this dream.

Jon has made a decision that will change -for better or for worse- the way of being that the Watch, the whole North and even the North beyond the Wall have always known and the outcome will be his responsibility -his alone, as he seems to feel. The dream reflects his dread on the possibility that he has made the wrong decision.

[Ragnorak]

Very nice work, Butterbumps.

One of the nice things about Martin's use of dreams is that in addition to the deeply woven literary symbolism and significance, they also work perfectly well on the more mundane level of dream symbolism for his characters. In the Dany reread I've found it very helpful to take a step back from the overarching symbolism and look at her dreams from the more mundane subconscious communication aspect.

Jon's dream starts off as a Wildling attack with many of the same elements of the battle with Mance. Jon is in charge and at the top of the Wall as he was in that battle, the eagle is there as well as the Wildling show meant to distract him from the gate. He's trying to use fire like he did in that battle too, but the fire is being used against him instead. The first hint of a wight transformation is the climbing of the Wall like spiders and the Wildling enemy completes its transformation into wights with the line "As the dead men reached the top of the Wall he sent them down to die again."

This seems to be his fears playing out. Jon is trying to get both the Free Folk and the Watchmen to draw a distinct line about who the true enemy is and his dream is rather deliberately blurring that very line. Jon's trying to turn the Wildling "enemies" into allies and he's having fire, the weapon against the Others, used against him by his transmogrifying enemy host. On one level is Jon's doubts that he can pull this off-- the Wildlings are still the enemy and his brothers have abandoned him. The Wildlings are not attacking from his side of the Wall so this doesn't seem to be about trust and Tormund. It may be about failing at Hardhome or failing to win the Weeper's forces or just failing to save too many who will die on the wrong side and rise again aside from the bigger picture of failing to make his vision of the future a reality.

The personal killings strike me as about the sacrifices that have been made along the way and the responsibilities Jon feels for both the role he played in events as well as his fear that he's failing in making their sacrifices meaningful if he fails. One of the most telling things is that it seems he subconsciously trusts Tormund more than his brothers sine the attack is not from behind but his brothers have abandoned him. Of all the things that plague him, Tormund's word is not among them.

The last bit about Robb seems to be an old guilt. Jon never allowed himself to want Winterfell once he connected the dots of who had to die before it would ever be his. Jon is acknowledging, even if only at a subconscious level, that he has become the de facto Lord of Winterfell in that he is now Ned's heir. Alys treated him like Ned's heir, he dealt with her uncle in the capacity of Ned's heir and he tried to call Jon kinslayer despite tossing the bastard insult out there too. He acted like Ned's heir, even claimed to be so, with Flint and Norrey.

He is not my father. The thought leapt unbidden to Jon’s mind. Lord Eddard Stark is my father. I will not forget him, no matter how many swords they give me. Yet he could scarcely tell Lord Mormont that it was another man’s sword he dreamt of…

Jon is killing Robb with Longclaw, not Ice. Lots of ways to look at that.

Robb's appearance also demonstrates how powerfully family still grips Jon's subconscious.

Following up on Julia H's post that made me wish we tracked the more subtle Ned references after Jon's surrogate father figures were all gone:

Madness. Jon Snow ran his burned hand through his hair and wondered once again what he was doing. Once the gate was opened there would be no turning back. It should have been the Old Bear to treat with Tormund. It should have been Jaremy Rykker or Qhorin Halfhand or Denys Mallister or some other seasoned man. It should have been my uncle. It was too late for such misgivings, though. Every choice had its risks, every choice its consequences. He would play the game to its conclusion.

Gods, Catelyn, Sansa is only eleven,” Ned said. “And Joffrey… Joffrey is…”
She finished for him. “…crown prince, and heir to the Iron Throne. And I was only twelve when my father promised me to your brother Brandon.”
That brought a bitter twist to Ned’s mouth. “Brandon. Yes. Brandon would know what to do. He always did. It was all meant for Brandon. You, Winterfell, everything. He was born to be a King’s Hand and a father to queens. I never asked for this cup to pass to me.”
“Perhaps not,” Catelyn said, “but Brandon is dead, and the cup has passed, and you must drink from it, like it or not.”

There's a fairly direct parallel to be drawn between Ned's feelings of having Winterfell pass to him at the cost of Brandon's life, of stealing his dead brother's bride, and Jon's feelings about having Robb's cup pass to him. More importantly I think is the insight into how plagued with doubt Ned was and how he too looked to a father-like figure that he saw as solid and secure in his knowing the right path. Fairly shortly after expressing such doubt Ned decides that Robb and Rickon will stay, Sansa, Arya, and Bran will go South with him and Jon will go to the Wall. Even after Bran's fall it is too late for Ned to have misgivings and he too plays the game to its conclusion. There's also a few examples here of Jon personally attending things as seemed to be Ned's custom and being the last one to pass through the gate which strikes me as a very Ned-like action too.

Words of oak and iron.

Nothing specific here but the phrasings jumped out at me.

“Gave you my word on it, didn’t I? The word of Tormund Giantsbane. Strong as iron, ’tis.” He turned and spat.

He clutched the singer’s arm with a maimed hand. “You swore you would not let me fall into his hands again. I have your word on that.” He needed to hear it again.
“Abel’s word,” said Squirrel. “Strong as oak.” Abel himself only shrugged. “No matter what, my prince.”

[Lummel]

In line with the other parallels the dream reminds me of Tyrion's dream of riding with Bittersteel and fighting against Jaime.

These dreams (Jon's, Daenerys' and Tyrion's) all feature conflict and have a sense of the epic. I'd go along with the line that all of them are also primed by discussions, readings and recent events and reflect the dreamers state of mind.

Of course they all actually do face challenges and difficulties, just not the sort that can generally be resolved with a sword stroke or a dragon's breath.

[Mithras]

The wealth of the wildlings (which includes queer “treasures”) looks like the items in a pagan worship, i.e. offerings to a fertility god (Jon Snow) who will be sacrificed in the next chapter. GRRM wrote “Corn King Jon Snow” to emphasize this point.

Dany and Jon chapters are corresponding to each other in ADwD. The dream of Jon in which the wights are climbing up the Wall is in parallel with the ants climbing up the wall and biting Dany all over in the Dothraki Sea.

The next morning she woke stiff and sore and aching, with ants crawling on her arms and legs and face. When she realized what they were, she kicked aside the stalks of dry brown grass that had served as her bed and blanket and struggled to her feet. She had bites all over her, little red bumps, itchy and inflamed. Where did all the ants come from? Dany brushed them from her arms and legs and belly. She ran a hand across her stubbly scalp where her hair had burned away, and felt more ants on her head, and one crawling down the back of her neck. She knocked them off and crushed them under her bare feet. There were so many …

It turned out that their anthill was on the other side of her wall. She wondered how the ants had managed to climb over it and find her. To them these tumbledown stones must loom as huge as the Wall of Westeros. The biggest wall in all the world, her brother Viserys used to say, as proud as if he’d built it himself.

It is interesting how Dany slept sick through the night and the ants from the other side of the Wall bit her whereas Jon was fighting the wights climbing the Wall with a fiery sword. Dany was sick from eating green berries.

“Common boys fight with wooden swords, too, only theirs are sticks and broken branches. Egg, these men may seem fools to you. They won’t know the proper names for bits of armor, or the arms of the great Houses, or which king it was who abolished the lord’s right to the first night . . . but treat them with respect all the same. You are a squire born of noble blood, but you are still a boy. Most of them will be men grown. A man has his pride, no matter how lowborn he may be. You would seem just as lost and stupid in their villages. And if you doubt that, go hoe a row and shear a sheep, and tell me the names of all the weeds and wildflowers in Wat’s Wood.”

The boy considered for a moment. “I could teach them the arms of the great Houses, and how Queen Alysanne convinced King Jaehaerys to abolish the first night. And they could teach me which weeds are best for making poisons, and whether those green berries are safe to eat.”

“They could,” Dunk agreed, “but before you get to King Jaehaerys, you’d best help us teach them how to use a spear. And don’t go eating anything that Maester won’t.”

Viserys told her tales of knights so poor that they had to sleep beneath the ancient hedges that grew along the byways of the Seven Kingdoms. Dany would have given much and more for a nice thick hedge. Preferably one without an anthill.

Dany needs a nice thick hedge which reminds me of a nice hedge knight who was thick as a castle wall. Dunk’s lessons to Egg were really important. It is a pity Dany did not have such training.

Dany suffers from terrible stomach ache in the last chapter which is full of foreshadowing to her death. The peach in Vaes Tolorro hints that Dany will die at the Wall and the reason will probably be childbirth.

[The Sleeper]

I see that there are three focal points in this chapter and they set up a bit of fluctuation in the mood. The first is the dream which among other things reveals Jon's apprehension and tension for what is to come and understandably so. The second is the wildlings crossing the rubicon so to speak. There is a much more rounded and objective view of the wildlings than we get even from when Jon rode among them. All in all, they are much demystified as a clan and tribal based society. The freefolk proper seem like a transient version of the houses that exist south of the Wall, revolving around certain individuals, while the tribes that are mention (the people from the Frozen Shore, the Hornfoots) maintain a more distinct cultural identity. Overall, they give me the impression of second-class citizens, people that in modern equivalent terms would be found leaving in slums, people largely excluded from society. In this instance their separation is geographical as well as social, but the sense of exclusion is similar in how their greatest treasures appear to have been scavenged from south of the Wall one way or another. This does not stop them from pursuing their lives and developing their own identities however. The end note of their migration is one of hope as they put the Wall between them and the Others while their presence revitalizes Castle Black and negates the feel of abandonment it has always given off. This note is undercut however by the ever present menace o the Others nibbling at their heels, an enemy so terrifying that Tormund demonstrates an almost superstitious reluctance to even discuss. The chapter ends with Pyke's letter which paints a bleak and desperate picture and leaves Jon thinking of being in a state of war, setting the mood of the chapter as ominous.

The chapter marks the end of a preparatory stage. Jon has dug in, chosen his allies, gathered what resources, he could and for better or for worse has set his course. Comparing this to a battle, he has chosen his ground, deployed his troops, set his objectives and now waits for the enemy. There would be a sense of relief in that the time of second guessing is done. This also mean that the fight is about to begin and indeed the enemy has struck the first blow and it is for Jon to answer.

Honest Enemies and False Friends.

In many ways I see the exchange between Tormund and Jon as round two of their negotiations in their previous chapter. Each side takes steps to cover their own ass. Nobody is evasive about it and is understandable and acceptable from both sides. Both Tormund and Jon understand eachother's position and obligations and there is trust and good faith between them in their willingness to work towards a common goal. Despite the fact that they representatives of two sides that have some conflicting issues to work through this never becomes personal and they continue to be amiable, despite each one doing what they can to safeguard their sides interests.

I can't help but contrast this with Marsh & Co and the constant suspicion, the grudging acknowledgements and how every conversation ends in failure to communicate and Jon having to pull rank. Certainly a relationship that is not conducive to productive collaboration.

Dolorous Edd (We've missed you)

i suppose one could see the concerns of the average Watchman in his remarks, both his worries about the future as well as their awkwardness in dealing with the new situation. I can't help but feel though that he is having the time of his life and a POV of a day at Long Barrow would be an absolute joy to read.

The dream

Regarding the psychological implications, I have little to add. One thing that struck me is that Jon sees himself as the last man standing, which has several implications. One is that he sees himself as the only one who sees the real danger and that he sees this as his personal responsibility, rather than a job he has to do, which reflects his sense of isolation. It also hints at the enormity of the task at hand and feelings of inadequacy on Jon's behalf of undertaking it on his own. I see a bit of survivor's guilt in him fighting his own dead, but also a hint of reproach for them dying and leaving him alone to shoulder all his burdens.

As for non-psychological implications, I think there are quite a few. Prophetic dreams have been firmly established in this series and particularly for Targaryens. Jon himself has had a few. Still Martin can't leave it unambiguous, as he has not revealed what most of us believe to be the case. While Jon has read the Jade Compendium and is aware of the tales of the last hero he has never envisioned himself in that role, though one can see how he could subconsciously do so in his current circumstances, I have to point out that the sword is not named as Longclaw, Martin has taken care to give him a burnt sword hand to go with a burning sword and the image of an armor of black ice is quite new. It also fits nicely with Aemon's quote that fire consumes and ice preserves. I also have the feeling that by the gnarled hand that grabs him snapping him out of the dream coinciding with the Raven waking him up that a distant relation and predecessor of his was present in the dream.

[Julia H.]

I enjoy reading of the parallels between dreams.

There's a fairly direct parallel to be drawn between Ned's feelings of having Winterfell pass to him at the cost of Brandon's life, of stealing his dead brother's bride, and Jon's feelings about having Robb's cup pass to him. More importantly I think is the insight into how plagued with doubt Ned was and how he too looked to a father-like figure that he saw as solid and secure in his knowing the right path. Fairly shortly after expressing such doubt Ned decides that Robb and Rickon will stay, Sansa, Arya, and Bran will go South with him and Jon will go to the Wall. Even after Bran's fall it is too late for Ned to have misgivings and he too plays the game to its conclusion. There's also a few examples here of Jon personally attending things as seemed to be Ned's custom and being the last one to pass through the gate which strikes me as a very Ned-like action too.

The similarity in physical appearance between Ned and Jon underlines further, more important similarities. No wonder that Catelyn was unnerved by it.

The wealth of the wildlings (which includes queer “treasures”) looks like the items in a pagan worship, i.e. offerings to a fertility god (Jon Snow) who will be sacrificed in the next chapter. GRRM wrote “Corn King Jon Snow” to emphasize this point.

"Corn," the bird said, and, "King," and "Snow, Jon Snow, Jon Snow." That was queer. The bird had never said his full name before, as best Jon could recall.

I was going to ask you all what we could make of these lines. Jon's full name said by the raven must be important as GRRM specifically makes Jon (and the reader) notice it. All I could come up with is that perhaps someone is trying very hard to call Jon's attention to something. Or perhaps we can suspect Bran behind the raven. It would be natural for him to say Jon's first name as well rather than just "Snow".

I really like the idea of the bird emphasizing Jon's role as the fertility god with the offerings and the sacrifice.

Another, much less impressive :) connection could be between the offerings and Melisandre's words to Jon:

"What does His Grace want of me?" Jon asked her as they entered the cage.

"All you have to give, Jon Snow. He is a king."

So who is a king now?

To put the entrance of the wildlings into yet another cultural context, look at this quote:

"You know nothing, Jon Snow. ... You're the ones who steal. You took the whole world, and built the Wall t' keep the free folk out.

...

The gods made the earth for all men t' share. Only when the kings come with their crowns and steel swords, they claimed it was all theirs."

Looking at the scene from this angle, it may be viewed as the free folk finally entering a promised land, a land that they see as theirs by ancient right. (So what will that make Mance?)

"Jon Snow" can also be contrasted with the Lord of Winterfell title. His "Snow" name / identity may still be significant enough for him to remember it.

And that brings me to this:

A snowflake danced upon the air. Then another. Dance with me, Jon Snow, he thought. You'll dance with me anon.

I'm absolutely intrigued by these lines. Jon is rephrasing Alys Karstark's words, but why are these words so important?

The chapter is dominated by snow and ice even more than the place and the season make it necessary. Robb's hair wet with melting snow. Jon armoured in black ice. The Wall weeping. Snowflakes dancing upon the air. Dance with me, Jon Snow.

Dancing with snowflakes?

I'm still reading the earlier re-read threads, and I remember you were discussing the Wall being essentially a feminine phenomenon. The weeping and dancing personification of ice and snow have clearly feminine connotations. The weeping Wall reminds me of a mother, while the dancing snowflakes evoke the image of a girl. The Wall and the armour suggest the idea of protection. ("Promise me, Ned...") It all seems to be a reference to Jon Snow's mother. In this context, the ubiquitous snow suggests that Jon's personality and actions are dominated by his mother's side, his Stark heritage.

The words also recall the title of the current book: A Dance with Dragons. Several characters "are dancing" with dragons in this volume: the Martells, the Greyjoys, Connington and his company, the politicians in Meereen and in other places, even Stannis in his own way. Not Jon though. But Jon is the dragon. Does the quote mean that the "dragon dancers" will all dance with Jon "anon"?

Dancing, of course, is a frequent synonym for fighting. While snow and ice are shown as feminine, and in this chapter they are connected with images of acceptance, reconciliation, protection and life, the "dance with dragons" is all about fighting, fire and death, competition for power and for a woman – a very masculine business. In his dream, Jon is using fire, his biological father's element – but as Ragnorak has noticed, this weapon is also being used against him.

Fire in this chapter is a weapon to attack your enemies with, a means of destruction, while ice is for protection and preservation. Jon is much more of a protector than an attacker, and his task is to guard and preserve rather than destroy. Fire is not all a negative element though. It also burns against the cold, and it destroys wights, the enemies of the realms of men. Consciously or subconsciously, Jon knows he needs fire as well as ice, but in his dream, he cannot use it effectively - he knows nothing of his fire / dragon parentage yet. He has completely identified himself with the Starks, but he also needs access to his Targaryen identity.

[Mithras]

A snowflake danced upon the air. Then another. Dance with me, Jon Snow, he thought. You'll dance with me anon.

I'm absolutely intrigued by these lines. Jon is rephrasing Alys Karstark's words, but why are these words so important?

I somehow find that sentence winking to this paragraph.

Ser Waymar met him bravely. “Dance with me then.” He lifted his sword high over his head, defiant. His hands trembled from the weight of it, or perhaps from the cold. Yet in that moment, Will thought, he was a boy no longer, but a man of the Night’s Watch.

Was it a supernatural message to Jon from the Others?

[butterbumps!]

These are all really great comments. I especially like the way everyone's delaminating the dream.

The words also recall the title of the current book: A Dance with Dragons. Several characters "are dancing" with dragons in this volume: the Martells, the Greyjoys, Connington and his company, the politicians in Meereen and in other places, even Stannis in his own way. Not Jon though. But Jon is the dragon. Does the quote mean that the "dragon dancers" will all dance with Jon "anon"?

I might be wrong about this, but I took A Dance with Dragons as a reference to how the 3 "Targs" are moving front and center. I mean, Jon's a Snow and I think Aegon's a Blackfyre, but I read the title as a subtle "dragon has 3 heads" reference, in that, we see 3 different "branches" of the Targ tree (a red, a black and a white dragon) moving into center stage, and war (a dance) looming over all.

[bemused]

The psychological breakdown of the dream has been pretty well covered already , but as The Sleeper suggests, I think we see signs of Bloodraven's influence , and I'd suggest Bran's as well. (We don't know what directions Bran's lessons are taking at the moment, but we see in the Theon/Reek chapters (including TWoW) that Bran seems to be surpassing the limitations Bloodraven told him to expect in trying to communicate. )

Julia H referred to Jon's armour of black ice representing both the NW and the wall itself ..and harking back to what power/magic is in Stark blood, they may be trying to show Jon that he is a living personification of the inextricable links between Starks, the NW and the Wall. Even further... that not just Starks, but the Stark Lord of Winterfell must play a key role in the battle to come, and that role happens to coincide with ( and confirm ) Jon's childhood longings.... "I am the Lord of Winterfell" ( GRRM's stress)

Mormont's raven continues to try to hammer it home in the waking state by repeating "King" but using "Jon Snow" for the first time. (in which I detect Bran )..and of course the lord of WF was a King - probably when the wall was raised , or soon thereafter.

** Aside .. Julia , I meant to respond to an earlier point you made before our new incarnation , but couldn't get to it in time.. the point being that the Starks, for generations - probably centuries , have forgotten that there is a magical component to their blood . The only Starks who could possibly be aware of it now, are Bran ( after coming into contact with BR/Cotf )...and Benjen , if he's come into contact with them. ( I think there are signs that he has , but I know I'm pretty much a voice in the wilderness .) Probably, none of the Starks have even been wargs for 200 yrs. or more since direwolves haven't been seen south of the wall for 200 yrs, and it seems likely that they need to bond with the animal as a pup for the ability to be awakened. It may be that direwolves bond not especially with Stark blood , but exclusively. We've yet to see or hear of a direwolf bonded warg north of the wall. ( I believe Varamyr was quite wrong in thinking that he could have taken Ghost from Jon.)

[Ragnorak]

...

Honest Enemies and False Friends.

In many ways I see the exchange between Tormund and Jon as round two of their negotiations in their previous chapter. Each side takes steps to cover their own ass. Nobody is evasive about it and is understandable and acceptable from both sides. Both Tormund and Jon understand eachother's position and obligations and there is trust and good faith between them in their willingness to work towards a common goal. Despite the fact that they representatives of two sides that have some conflicting issues to work through this never becomes personal and they continue to be amiable, despite each one doing what they can to safeguard their sides interests.

I can't help but contrast this with Marsh & Co and the constant suspicion, the grudging acknowledgements and how every conversation ends in failure to communicate and Jon having to pull rank. Certainly a relationship that is not conducive to productive collaboration.

Dolorous Edd (We've missed you)

i suppose one could see the concerns of the average Watchman in his remarks, both his worries about the future as well as their awkwardness in dealing with the new situation. I can't help but feel though that he is having the time of his life and a POV of a day at Long Barrow would be an absolute joy to read.

The dream

Regarding the psychological implications, I have little to add. One thing that struck me is that Jon sees himself as the last man standing, which has several implications. One is that he sees himself as the only one who sees the real danger and that he sees this as his personal responsibility, rather than a job he has to do, which reflects his sense of isolation. It also hints at the enormity of the task at hand and feelings of inadequacy on Jon's behalf of undertaking it on his own. I see a bit of survivor's guilt in him fighting his own dead, but also a hint of reproach for them dying and leaving him alone to shoulder all his burdens.

As for non-psychological implications, I think there are quite a few. Prophetic dreams have been firmly established in this series and particularly for Targaryens. Jon himself has had a few. Still Martin can't leave it unambiguous, as he has not revealed what most of us believe to be the case. While Jon has read the Jade Compendium and is aware of the tales of the last hero he has never envisioned himself in that role, though one can see how he could subconsciously do so in his current circumstances, I have to point out that the sword is not named as Longclaw, Martin has taken care to give him a burnt sword hand to go with a burning sword and the image of an armor of black ice is quite new. It also fits nicely with Aemon's quote that fire consumes and ice preserves. I also have the feeling that by the gnarled hand that grabs him snapping him out of the dream coinciding with the Raven waking him up that a distant relation and predecessor of his was present in the dream.

I agree with your Marsh and Co. assessment, but I can't help but notice the subtle Bowen-was-right counting reference. Last chapter Marsh estimated the Wildlings to be 3k and not 4k by their fires and 3.119 pass through the gate. I think Martin is going for a certain sympathetic factor or "redeemable" aspect with Marsh. He does have him put the senile knight in charge as well as having him fight the Wildlings on level ground despite his speech about his uncle and the high ground so the idiocy factor is plainly established. Martin seems to want to deliberately mitigate this to a degree or somehow qualify it. Martin gives us enough anti-Marsh material to make him look worse than Axell Florent but deliberately avoids portraying him in that same intentionally negative light.

One could read Edd as being critical here, but I tend to agree with you that Edd is being Edd. Preferring rats to spearwives may sound harsh until you a.) realize this is Dolorous Edd talking here, and b.) realize that Edd is one of only two men in a fort filled with women. He may have taken vows and may be trustworthy in keeping them, but the spearwives did no such thing. Edd isn't that bad looking of a guy and spearwives aren't known for subtlety or chastity. Poor guy is like some poor girl in a miniskirt forever walking by a construction site at lunchtime.

Nice twist on ice preserves in that image. I think Martin is deliberately teasing the sword from the Jade Compendium with the flaming sword especially with the big deal Aemon made of it in Sam's POV when he asked Stannis to show it. The black ice armor seems also to be a deliberate reference to Dany's dream. I suspect Martin is aware that many will not have figured out Jon's parentage and this serves as a big tease for some future Jon and Dany dynamic-- for those who have the armor is much more of a Rhaegar nod since Dany saw herself as Rhaegar in that dream.

Dany is the obvious AA character. Aside from the hatching dragons from stone, Jon's musing on Stannis not being born on Dragonstone (while we know very well who was) we also have the Ghost of Highheart's prophecy that led to Aerys and Rhaella being married. AA (well, precisely TPTWP) would be born from the line of Aerys and Rhaella. If Jon's parentage is a mystery to a reader that leaves Dany and only Dany, since all Aerys' hypothetical secret Targ bastards are not born of Aerys and Rhaella, up until Aegon is sprung on us. For those readers who've missed all the subtle clues for a Jon as a possible AA candidate, this dream is the sledgehammer and a big mysterious tease to provoke a deeper look at Jon-- or a big red herring to evoke lots of semi-misguided Jon/Dany speculation.

The sword only becomes Longclaw right before Jon wakes up-- "It was Robb before him now, his hair wet with melting snow. Longclaw took his head off."

The psychological breakdown of the dream has been pretty well covered already , but as The Sleeper suggests, I think we see signs of Bloodraven's influence , and I'd suggest Bran's as well. (We don't know what directions Bran's lessons are taking at the moment, but we see in the Theon/Reek chapters (including TWoW) that Bran seems to be surpassing the limitations Bloodraven told him to expect in trying to communicate. )

The gnarled hand can easily conjure up tree-like images and I think Bloodraven in his dream is a fairly sound conclusion. Bloodraven in his dreams has come up before with the raven waking Jon with words that seep into the dream. The raven using his full name is new though and Bloodraven has likely been warging that raven for years. I suspect Bloodraven could make the raven recite Shakespearean soliloquies, but Bran is just learning. Bran struggling to speak to Jon through the raven seems reasonable speculation given the new use of Jon's full name.

Dance with me, Jon Snow

In Jon X, during the wedding, Alys asks Jon to dance, teasing him by pointing out “[he] danced with [her] anon.” Jon reprises this line while watching the wildlings stream through, as the day grows into that ominous “snow sky” Edd spoke of:

A snowflake danced upon the air. Then another. Dance with me, Jon Snow, he thought. You’ll dance with me anon.

Alys meant “anon” in the past tense (i.e. “another time”), but Jon’s thinking of a different sort of dance in the imminent future i.e. “soon”). He insists on being the last through the Wall, and re-emphasizes that this isn’t an end—“it has only just begun.”

As he makes his way to Donal’s forge, bypassing the feast, he reflects on the changed character of Castle Black:

The castle Jon returned to was far different from the one he’d left that morning. For as long as he had known it, Castle Black had been a place of silence and shadows, where a meagre company of men in black moved like ghosts amongst the ruins of a fortress that had once housed ten times their numbers. All that had changed. Lights now shone through windows where Jon Snow had never seen lights shine before. Strange voices echoed down the yards, and free folk were coming and going along icy paths that had only known the black boots of crows for years. Outside the old Flint Barracks, he came across a dozen men pelting one another with snow. Playing, Jon thought in astonishment, grown men playing like children, throwing snowballs the way Bran and Arya once did, and Robb and me before them.

There’s a strong tone of reforging here, not unlike the sense of rebuilding in Sansa’s Snow Castle chapter, which also includes reminiscing of snowball fights. But it’s not a victory yet, even if the grown men celebrating in snow don’t realize it. Whatever was beginning to be “reforged” today is not yet complete, and needed to be used against a bigger looming enemy.

I think Sansa's Snow Castle is an excellent parallel to draw. The Eryie during Sansa's stay is much like Castle Black in its loneliness and near abandonment in its undermanned state. The influx of Wildlings is the parallel of Sansa heading down the mountain to the Gates of the Moon that brings a return to a more normal aspect of human interaction. Winterfell is defined by the Stark children largely through the human interaction. We see this with Osha as she becomes a part of Winterfell and influences it and its resident family as they also influence her. Old Nan, Mikken-- the people and the human relationships make the place far more so than we see with say Tyrion's recollections and wanting to show Sansa the physical locations in Casterly Rock. Needle came from Mikken's forge while Tyrion's Vale clans were armed with "Lannister gold" and not the work of a human being intertwined with Tyrion's childhood memories. So with both Sansa and Jon we have a lonely place that is transformed into a more Winterfell-like home even though the internal and external transformations happen on different timelines and the loneliness is far more imposed on Sansa and chosen by Jon.

I do think that "reforging" is an accurate word, though I think there's something else too. The Watch is a very imbalanced place by nature. There are no women, no families, no children. It is an overly masculine place and unlike other all male and celibate orders like the Kingsguard or maesters or septons, those people deal with normal family life every day. The Watch doesn't even get to see women or children more often than not. Cat's phrase "hearts and tables" comes to mind in terms of the facets of life previously absent from Castle Black and its Lord's concerns. Life has come to the dying Wall in the form of procreating people who bring hope for a future human population that is absent in this all male father no children order. For the first time in centuries the population of Castle Black is no longer dying out. That odd anomalous wedding is now something we ought to expect to be somewhat routine. Jon's very unbalanced duties as Lord Commander have just been balanced by every day human life that a typical lord takes for granted. I think there's a certain imbalance that runs through all the Stark children's arcs and this event has the ancillary effect of starting to address an imbalance within Jon's.

Part of that imbalance is centered around love. Ned admits to Cat that it was all meant for Brandon. He had someone to lean on, to vent to or break down in front of in private. Jon has no such person in his life but the need for it is clear in his constant thoughts of Ygritte where a memory of a dead girl fills the role Cat did for Ned. The flirtations with Alys and Val also help make this point and in both cases he worked with these women to achieve political goals not unlike Cat seems to have done with Ned. I read the dance with me anon line in this general context. It would be unlordly for a Ned to join in a snowball fight but he could watch it out his window and share the moment with his wife. Jon's quarters are dark, cold and empty.

I think the new life at Castle Black really accentuates the holes Jon has in his own current life. How much Val and Alys and the wedding along with life returning to Castle Black weighs on Jon here is something worth pondering.

[The Sleeper]

Nice twist on ice preserves in that image. I think Martin is deliberately teasing the sword from the Jade Compendium with the flaming sword especially with the big deal Aemon made of it in Sam's POV when he asked Stannis to show it. The black ice armor seems also to be a deliberate reference to Dany's dream. I suspect Martin is aware that many will not have figured out Jon's parentage and this serves as a big tease for some future Jon and Dany dynamic-- for those who have the armor is much more of a Rhaegar nod since Dany saw herself as Rhaegar in that dream.

Dany is the obvious AA character. Aside from the hatching dragons from stone, Jon's musing on Stannis not being born on Dragonstone (while we know very well who was) we also have the Ghost of Highheart's prophecy that led to Aerys and Rhaella being married. AA (well, precisely TPTWP) would be born from the line of Aerys and Rhaella. If Jon's parentage is a mystery to a reader that leaves Dany and only Dany, since all Aerys' hypothetical secret Targ bastards are not born of Aerys and Rhaella, up until Aegon is sprung on us. For those readers who've missed all the subtle clues for a Jon as a possible AA candidate, this dream is the sledgehammer and a big mysterious tease to provoke a deeper look at Jon-- or a big red herring to evoke lots of semi-misguided Jon/Dany speculation.

The sword only becomes Longclaw right before Jon wakes up-- "It was Robb before him now, his hair wet with melting snow. Longclaw took his head off."

Missed the part about Longclaw. Still stand by my point though. On account of it being fiery. I should clarify that I don't consider either to be a red herring. Dany is the obvious one fitting the prophecies to a t and actually being acknowledged as one. In Jon's case also the foreshadowing (which has existed since Game and Clash, the burnt hand and the burning sword) is starting to lose all subtlety. I am reasonably convinced they both are AA, the Prince that was promised etc. I think that there's three of them (the dragon has three heads) and we are looking for the third.

[Fire Eater]

Nice job, bumps!

"Snow," an eagle cried

I have gone over the eagle before and its symbolism with authority, rulership and the kings of the gods

Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist.

The colors of House Targaryen. The burning red sword connection to AA is obvious to everyone here.

Then a gnarled hand seized Jon roughly [in his dream] . . . woke with a raven pecking at his chest

As has been been pointed out in the "Learning to Lead" thread, Gnarled is a word often used to describe trees, especially in ASOIAF and Bloodraven is basically part tree right now. BR has been trying to contact Jon for a while, I think.

The stars are going out, Jon thought. When next they reappeared, the would be shining down on a world forever changed.

The stars were coming out above, and the silk lanterns below, just as Krazny's translator had promised.

The pink snow drifts were going white again, the color leaching out of them as the world darkened.The evening sky had turned the faded grey of an old cloak that had been washed too many times, and the first shy stars were coming out

the time they reached Volantis, the sky was purple to the west and black to the east, and the stars were coming out. The same stars as in Westeros,Tyrion reflected

The phrase "stars were coming out" were used by Dany before she sacked Astapor, Tyrion described Volantis (where Dany may likely lead a slave rebellion). It was also used when pink (color of House Bolton) leaked out of snow, turning white with the grey evening (white and grey the colors of House Stark), possibly foreshadowing the Starks regaining dominion over the North from the Boltons. "Stars were coming out" could signify change, or violent regime change. In this POV, the stars are going out, and when they come out again, it will be a world forever changed. I think it could refer to change with Jon "dead," and coming out again may be that Jon will come back. That is just a guess.

A light powdering of snow covered the boar's humped black back.

The regime change overthrowing Jon Snow as LC of the NW.

[Mithras]

Then a gnarled hand seized Jon roughly [in his dream] . . . woke with a raven pecking at his chest

As has been been pointed out in the "Learning to Lead" thread, Gnarled is a word often used to describe trees, especially in ASOIAF and Bloodraven is basically part tree right now. BR has been trying to contact Jon for a while, I think.

Gnarled is also used to describe old people such as Dywen. I think GRRM is clearly pointing Bloodraven's presence in the dream and in the raven here.

[bemused]

Fire Eater ... I like what you have to say about the stars coming out and going out, but for me this...

A light powdering of snow covered the boar's humped black back.

...fits better as a regime change that Jon will effect ( not him being overthrown ) or if you like .. Jon is being borne on the back of regime change.. or riding a huge regime change ( one yet to come ).. you get the idea.

So , here.. The stars are going out, Jon thought. When next they reappeared, they would be shining down upon a world forever changed. ... Jon is thinking of the change that he knows will occur as a result of Tormund's people coming through.

But Borroq's boar is.. some big beast trotting at (Borroq's) heels. A boar, Jon saw. A monstrous boar. Twice the size of Ghost, the creature was covered with coarse black hair, with tusks as long as a man’s arm. Jon had never seen a boar so huge or ugly. ( the change will be monumental , and not achieved in a neat or pretty way)

Jon is unaware of the symbolism we've decoded , and in any case , is focused on the tension between Ghost and the boar. I think it's easy to be misled by that - for him and for us. ( this will come up again in the next chapter)

The skinchanger stopped ten yards away. His monster pawed at the mud, snuffling. A light powdering of snow covered the boar’s humped black back. He gave a snort and lowered his head, and for half a heartbeat Jon thought he was about to charge. To either side of him, his men lowered their spears.

“Brother,” Borroq said....

The boar doesn't charge , and Borroq addresses Jon as "Brother", obviously recognising Jon as a skinchanger ,as Jon recognised him. I often think that , far from the threat of a charge, the boar lowering his head could be seen as the same sort of recognition that many of the wildling leaders paid to Jon when they swore to his terms ( or, in some cases, to Jon personally). ... Once the threat of a charge is removed ,it resembles a bow.

The many connotations of snow come into play here , too... Earlier when Jon ( and Ghost) took the men to the weirwood grove to swear their oaths... The direwolf shook the snow from his back and trotted to Jon’s side. .. Ghost is shaking off the negative, south-of-the-wall connotations of Jon's surname. They have little to no meaning north of the wall.The old gods don't recognise them . Instead ,"they" recognise Jon's Stark blood fully.

In this case of snow on the back, the boar makes no attempt to shake snow , or "Snow" off. He's carrying the wildling acceptance of "Snow" through to the southern side.

[Lummel]

On Bran attempting to contact Jon through Mormont's Raven, I find it a bit strange that he'd do so indirectly when we saw in ACOK that he was perfectly happy to speak to Jon directly through a dream. :dunno:

If it is Bloodraven who is present in Jon's dream what is he trying to do? Is he trying to show Jon something or to wake him up?

[Mithras]

I tend to take shaking snow off in certain cases directly related to one of the basic foreshadowing for Jon’s heritage.

“Kings are a rare sight in the north.”

Robert snorted. “More likely they were hiding under the snow. Snow, Ned!”

When the snow is shaken off, a king must emerge.

The giant’s pace was a ponderous one, despite the length and girth of those legs, and he was forever stopping to knock snow off low-hanging limbs with his maul.

I previously noted how Wun Wun was shaking off the snow from the trees.

The Hornfoot man could not sit a saddle and had to be tied over the back of a garron like a sack of grain;

and one of the Hornfoot folk, his bare feet so badly frostbitten that Jon knew at a glance he would never walk again.

The Hornfoot man was tied over the back of a garron like a sack. Jon understood from his maimed feet that he would never walk again. That is exactly what Bloodraven told to Bran and added but he would fly.

Coming to the snow over the back of Borroq’s boar, I think Jon might be smuggled out of the ice cell and tied over the back of the boar. Borroq surely knows the ways of the skinchanger and the second life. He can feel that Jon is in Ghost but his body did not die yet. Val will not want Mel to mess with Jon’s body.

I think Val will use Wun Wun and Borroq to take Jon out and she might probably know a magic to heal him. Or at least take him to the weirwood at Whitetree where Bran and Bloodraven will interfere.