Greywind alive?

[Errant Bard]

No bodies, and they both leapt into the river, ever recovered. I'm not too big on this, but the door was left open with no corpses.

A decapitated head counts as a corpse.

[Heartofwinter]

i think Lady being alive is much, much more probable...and fits Sansa's arc better as they are both kind of out there on their own, looking for their kin...

we know direwolves have an amazing sense of humans intentions, ESPECIALLY Starks, so why was she not scared? or try to escape? she had to know her fate at that point...

Ned took her to the woods, and she "trusted" him...i know a wolf carcass was taken to WF, but that could have been to throw off Cers as easily as it could have been Lady, she was no where close to being full grown and NOBODY would have questioned it, especially without the head...

plus, IMAGINE the scene of Bran watching Ned and Lady thru Weirnet and Ned telling her to get out of there...as he finds a perfectly fresh wolf carcass under the tree...

 

 

This. Maybe I just haven't read the books in a while, but I feel like there was never real confirmation of Lady's death, and since the fates of the Stark's are really supposed to be so intertwined with their direwolves, isn't Lady being alive much more likely than Grey Wind? What was to stop Ned from just letting her go, like Arya did with Nymeria? Either way I think they are both dead and Martin wrote that "four remained" passage just to trick people that analyze everything, but if one lives I find it much much more likely to be Lady.

[Kienn]

This. Maybe I just haven't read the books in a while, but I feel like there was never real confirmation of Lady's death, and since the fates of the Stark's are really supposed to be so intertwined with their direwolves, isn't Lady being alive much more likely than Grey Wind? What was to stop Ned from just letting her go, like Arya did with Nymeria? Either way I think they are both dead and Martin wrote that "four remained" passage just to trick people that analyze everything, but if one lives I find it much much more likely to be Lady.

I guess it depends on whether you think Ned or the Freys are more likely to lie.

and if you're able to make this quote from SoS (before the RW) ambiguous

He could not smell them, nor hear their howls by night, yet he felt their presence at his back . . . all but the sister they had lost. His tail drooped when he remembered her. Four now, not five.

 

[DigUpHerBones]

He could not smell them, nor hear their howls by night, yet he felt their presence at his back . . . all but the sister they had lost. His tail drooped when he remembered her. Four now, not five.

i never took that as an actual tally of life and death. i'm probably wrong, but oh well.

i always saw it as Ghost could not "sense" Lady, and she was "lost"...

just like Sansa was at that point in the story to the rest of the Starks... 

Lady was around humans more than the other 4 combined, more domesticated if you will, and maybe during that time she was "lost" to Ghost as she was basically a domesticated dog at that point in the story...

 

[Bea Noleto]

This.

They cut off his head and sewed it onto Robbs body.  Hundreds of people saw it happen and saw the aftermath.  I have no idea how anyone could possibly believe he is still alive.

That didn't happened in the books, it happened in the show. In the books we are told that Greywind's head was sewn to Robb's body, but that is Frey telling, they could be lying. They certainly have reasons to not let anyone know that Greywind is alive, he is a symbol.

[Clegane'sPup]

If Raynald is alive, perhaps Grey Wind is also alive.

[Clegane'sPup]

This. Maybe I just haven't read the books in a while, but I feel like there was never real confirmation of Lady's death, and since the fates of the Stark's are really supposed to be so intertwined with their direwolves, isn't Lady being alive much more likely than Grey Wind? What was to stop Ned from just letting her go, like Arya did with Nymeria? Either way I think they are both dead and Martin wrote that "four remained" passage just to trick people that analyze everything, but if one lives I find it much much more likely to be Lady.

I have to take into consideration that Eddard did the deed because he did not want anyone to botch the job. Eddard also told his people to take Lady back to WF. The direwolves at WF howled at Lady's return. Lady was buried in the lichyard. At some point in time I have to believe martin's story, else, for lack of a better word, the whole story is BS.

[Beautiful Bloody Sword]

A decapitated head counts as a corpse.

Sorry friend, a severed head counts as a severed head. Corpse literally means body, like in totality, of what remained. And in the text it explicitly says head of wolf, not dire wolf. Lastly, I don't care, nor do I see how it will even be relevant to the plot, but, facts are facts.

[7-KG]

Why can't a character just remain dead?

[Kienn]

19 minutes ago, 7-KG said:

Why can't a character just remain dead?

They can. But if there's no confirmation that they ever actually died, why assume they did?

[LiveFirstDieLater]

13 hours ago, 7-KG said:

Why can't a character just remain dead?

They CAN... But they can also rise again with shining baby blues and bite your dick off... 

[A MEN]

Looks like we are well past the point of confusing the show with the books what a shame!

lets approach this from a different theory pack theory 

Four remained ... and one the white wolf could no longer sense.

Nymeria has effectively left the pack by starting her own pack is she the one that could no longer be sensed?

 

[Kienn]

3 hours ago, A MEN said:

Looks like we are well past the point of confusing the show with the books what a shame!

lets approach this from a different theory pack theory 

Four remained ... and one the white wolf could no longer sense.

Nymeria has effectively left the pack by starting her own pack is she the one that could no longer be sensed?

 

Adjacent to that line Ghost makes it clear he is able to sense Nymeria, Shaggydog, and Summer. 

 

That makes it clear that the one he can't sense is either Grey Wind or Lady and leads to the inevitable question of why distinguish between the 2 if they're both dead? If their situation is the same the line should read "two the white wolf could no longer sense".

[the trees have eyes]

On ‎20‎/‎01‎/‎2016 at 5:47 PM, Kienn said:

Adjacent to that line Ghost makes it clear he is able to sense Nymeria, Shaggydog, and Summer. 

 

That makes it clear that the one he can't sense is either Grey Wind or Lady and leads to the inevitable question of why distinguish between the 2 if they're both dead? If their situation is the same the line should read "two the white wolf could no longer sense".

"Four remained" is clear enough: six have become four.  And we explicitly know how both Lady and Grey Wind died. Ghost is aware that 3 of his siblings still live but he cannot sense Summer north of the Wall, "and one the white wolf could no longer sense", same way Jon couldn't.

If you interpret that "Once they had been six...Four remained... and one the white wolf could no longer sense." to exclude Summer then you get into all kinds of trouble and start suggesting that Lady might still be alive too (despite the explicit "four remained").

Grey Wind died trying to get to Robb.

 

[Clegane'sPup]

A Dance with Dragons - Jon I

Far off, he could hear his packmates calling to him, like to like. They were hunting too. A wild rain lashed down upon his black brother as he tore at the flesh of an enormous goat [Shaggy] , washing the blood from his side where the goat's long horn had raked him. In another place, his little sister lifted her head to sing  [Nymeria] to the moon, and a hundred small grey cousins broke off their hunt to sing with her. The hills were warmer where they were, and full of food. Many a night his sister's pack gorged on the flesh of sheep and cows and horses, the prey of men, and sometimes even on the flesh of man himself.

"Snow," the moon called down again, cackling. The white wolf padded along the man trail beneath the icy cliff. The taste of blood was on his tongue, and his ears rang to the song of the hundred cousins. Once they had been six, five whimpering blind in the snow beside their dead mother, sucking cool milk from her hard dead nipples whilst he crawled off alone. Four remained … and one the white wolf could no longer sense.

"Snow," the moon insisted.

The white wolf ran from it, racing toward the cave of night where the sun had hidden, his breath frosting in the air. On starless nights the great cliff was as black as stone, a darkness towering high above the wide world, but when the moon came out it shimmered pale and icy as a frozen stream. The wolf's pelt was thick and shaggy, but when the wind blew along the ice no fur could keep the chill out. On the other side the wind was colder still, the wolf sensed. That was where his brother was, the grey brother who smelled of summer.[Summer]

"Snow." An icicle tumbled from a branch. The white wolf turned and bared his teeth. "Snow!" His fur rose bristling, as the woods dissolved around him. "Snow, snow, snow!" He heard the beat of wings. Through the gloom a raven flew.

And Jon wakes up with Mormont's raven landing on his chest. He had been having a wolf dream.

It is my understanding the wolves and their wargs co-mingle their spirit/soul/essence. Packmates. There are all kinds of ways to look at the “Four remained … and one the white wolf could no longer sense” quote.

Shaggy & Rickon, Nymeria & Arya and Summer & Bran have been accounted for. Grey Wind & Lady are dead. Ghost is alive, at least at the end of ADwD.

A Game of Thrones - Bran VI

Bran felt all cold inside. "She [Sansa] lost her wolf," he said, weakly, remembering the day when four of his father's guardsmen had returned from the south with Lady's bones. Summer and Grey Wind and Shaggydog had begun to howl before they crossed the drawbridge, in voices drawn and desolate. Beneath the shadow of the First Keep was an ancient lichyard, its headstones spotted with pale lichen, where the old Kings of Winter had laid their faithful servants. It was there they buried Lady, while her brothers stalked between the graves like restless shadows. She had gone south, and only her bones had returned.

A Clash of Kings - Bran I

Of late, he often dreamed of wolves. They are talking to me, brother to brother, he told himself when the direwolves howled. He could almost understand them . . . not quite, not truly, but almost . . . as if they were singing in a language he had once known and somehow forgotten. The Walders might be scared of them, but the Starks had wolf blood. Old Nan told him so. "Though it is stronger in some than in others," she warned.

Summer's howls were long and sad, full of grief and longing. Shaggydog's were more savage. Their voices echoed through the yards and halls until the castle rang and it seemed as though some great pack of direwolves haunted Winterfell, instead of only two . . . two where there had once been six. Do they miss their brothers and sisters too? Bran wondered. Are they calling to Grey Wind and Ghost, to Nymeria and Lady's Shade? Do they want them to come home and be a pack together?

A Storm of Swords - Bran IV

The dream he'd had . . . the dream Summer had had . . . No, I mustn't think about that dream. He had not even told the Reeds, though Meera at least seemed to sense that something was wrong. If he never talked of it maybe he could forget he ever dreamed it, and then it wouldn't have happened and Robb and Grey Wind would still be . . .

A Dance with Dragons - Jon I

The wolf dreams had been growing stronger, and he found himself remembering them even when awake. Ghost knows that Grey Wind is dead. Robb had died at the Twins, betrayed by men he'd believed his friends, and his wolf had perished with him. Bran and Rickon had been murdered too, beheaded at the behest of Theon Greyjoy, who had once been their lord father's ward … but if dreams did not lie, their direwolves had escaped. At Queenscrown, one had come out of the darkness to save Jon's life. Summer, it had to be. His fur was grey, and Shaggydog is black. He wondered if some part of his dead brothers lived on inside their wolves.

Grey Wind & Lady seem to be confirmed as dead. Two of the five wolves that were given to the trueborn Starks are dead. Leaving three wolves. How many of the trueborn Starks are alive?. Four.

To me it seems that the narrative in the wolf dreams switches back and forth between the wolf and the warg. As with other topics my opinion changes when I receive more information.  "Four remained … and one the white wolf could no longer sense” so I'm gonna say Sansa is the one the white wolf could no longer sense, because Bran said, "She lost her wolf."

 

[Magnar of Skagos]

We saw Grey Wind's head sewn to Robb's body. GRRM can't get much clearer than that. There's no way the Frey's could have found another wolf so big in place of Grey Wind.

[Jak Scaletongue]

52 minutes ago, Hrokkan of Skagos said:

We saw Grey Wind's head sewn to Robb's body. GRRM can't get much clearer than that. There's no way the Frey's could have found another wolf so big in place of Grey Wind.

No, the * TV* showed us - all GRRM has done is had a Frey *tell* us that's what they did.  We don't actually get *shown* anything in the book.  Except that Frey's are liars - we get shown that a few times

And I still don't have an answer* to the mechanics of sewing a direwolf's head to a teenage boy.  I still think (whether Grey Wind is alive or dead) they would have had a better "display" if they used a regular sized wolf's head.  It wouldn't be as top-heavy and less likely to hang down (leading to Robb's body being all hunched over).  Grey Wind does *not* have to be alive in order for a regular wolf's head to be used - but for "display" purposes, I still think they'd be better off sewing a regular size wolf head onto Robb than Grey Wind's huge head.  Robb's centre of gravity would be maintained, allowing for the Frey's to sit him up and display him, basically.  With a huge direwolf head the centre of gravity would shift to far to Robb's shoulder's and you'd get a hunched over body with the direwolf snout hanging down to the corpse's crotch.

 

*I haven't been able to work it out myself, and other more math inclined folks have not answered!  If someone is more math inclined than me (hello, everyone! or nearly) please help me figure this out.  It really is bothering me for some reason!

[Clegane'sPup]

Seems to me it is one of those things that will not be clear. Doesn't matter how a person does the math.

[Bonkers]

so hang on, are we now expecting to see Grey Wind pad up and stand beside Lady Stoneheart?  What if he is not dead?  I still don't see how it will better the story line, sorry. 

[Elynn.Stark]

"Sometimes he could sense them, though, as if they were still with him, only hidden from his sight by a boulder or a stand of trees. He could not smell them, nor hear their howls by night, yet he felt their presence at his back . . . all but the sister they had lost. His tail drooped when he remembered her. -> is this before or after the RW? 

Once they had been six, five whimpering blind in the snow beside their dead mother, sucking cool milk from her hard dead nipples whilst he crawled off alone. Four remained … and one the white wolf could no longer sense."

4 and 1. Is this not simple math? 4 and 1 or... So, I hope everyone likes candy: but you have four sweets remained, and one sweet you could no longer sense. Would that make that the 'and one' sweet isn't there? Or is it just hidden in plain sight, so you look over it? Maybe someone did hocus pocus on the sweet and the sweet wasn't longer visible, but that wouldn't mean IMO that the one sweet isn't there. I'm just going to take it anyways.  

In my opinion, GW is still alive. As what it would bring to the story? Well, it's already clear as what it brings to it, by Manderly's words:' Roose Bolton has Lord Eddard’s daughter. To thwart him White Harbor must have Ned’s son …and the direwolf. The wolf will prove the boy is who we say he is, should the Dreadfort attempt to deny him.” DoD, Davos IV -> The fact is that in the show, the only reason why Ramsey knew Rickon was Rickon Stark, was because of Shaggydog. And to say why GW should be alive then... well, one of the other theories is that Jeyne Westerling is pregnant. It's not proven of course, but as we watch the show, and read the books... we can make links right? So in the show Blackfish dies staying in his castle, his anchesteral home. He isn't given up his home for Jaime, nor if Jaime tries to hang Edmure. Edmure is dead anyways. In the show, Robb Stark, prégnant Talisha, Catelyn, Greywind die.... I know the show can make changes to the story/books, but they made Robbs wife pregnant, and then stabbed the baby to dead in her belly. But in the books, Jeyne stays at Riverrun. In the books Blackfish... I'm not sure of he stayed or escaped the RW, but anyways, in the books he was in Riverrun, when Jaime came over to ask for surrender. So where as Blackfish in the show stayed and died, in the books he escaped.... and some say he took Jeyne with him. 

So we are talking about the same Blackfish, who is raised and born out of the Family Tully. That guy, who wouldn't leave his house, even for Edmure's hanging, decides to walk out in the books and dissapear into the night? Well, he isn't with Catelyn/LST. He is nowhere to be seen.. and for what? What made him escape/leave? IMO the thing that made him leave, was a message. A message that Raynald Westerling and Greywind escaped the RW. Because Greywind is everything they need to bring back the Northern Army. Greywind is the secret weapon, the sigil any Northmen would look too. Put any baby ( if Jeyne is already pregnant, so the better, if she isn't, I'm sure they will find any lad to make sure she is pregs) on Greywinds back, call it Robb Starks child and everyone will believe it.

How I see it, Raynald and Greywind jumped into the river. Raynald who is a very good lad, decided to honor Robb Stark, and took GW with him. He doesn't even need to know that Robb is already dead, he could just decide to take GW with him so GW would survive. Maybe they stranded somewhere. I'm not sure how far Howland Reed is of that river, but if any Northern soldier/man/woman found Greywind, and Raynald was still able to speak... where would they bring him too... -> Howland Reed, because Howland Reed got the will of Robb, no? So take Greywind and Raynald to Howland Reed. Howland Reed gets the will of Robb, gets to hear the story, sees Greywind. What is the first thing you do, when you have a big direwolf on your frontstep, where everyone would be looking for? Make sure you don't let anyone know you have the direwolf. So the fact that his pack can't scent him anymore... maybe Howland Reed found some hocus pocus ( you get what I'm saying right, with the 'and one' sweet?) to hide GW in the swamp. 

Next thing Howland sends a message to the Blackfish... maybe even to Raynalds family. Maybe Mommy Westerling is playing a game, especially if she learns her son is still alive, after he was almost butchered by the Freys. There happened something at Riverrun, and Riverrun is hiding something. So IMO Blackfish and Jeyne both escaped. Maybe Jeyne is pregnant, maybe not, but she will get very soon then. But if the Blackfish would be able to get to Greywind, and Robbs 'baby' will be next to GW... They can take their revenge on the Lannisters, and they are secretly starting another war, in the swamps of Howland Reeds home. Because the fact that Howland Reed is still nowhere to be found, so are the ones who brought Robb Starks will to HR. The fact that Blackfish is gone, so is maybe Jeyne... and the fact that no one knows for sure if GW and Raynald are dead. It's easy, put a lad on Greywind, and go and tell everyone that Robb Starks child seeks revenge for the RW. 

And if we talk about the history where ASOIAF is based upon... the war of roses. If I'm correct, than I think Jon Snow is playing the male part of Elisabeth of York. She is the elder sister of the two missing princes in the Tower. Past forward, when Henry Tudor VII was king, there were two lads coming up, claiming to be the rightfull Heir of the Throne. In the show, it's clear that Brandon Stark will not be the heir of Winterfell, but if Robb Stark has a child, and Rickon Stark is still alive out there... that would make two rightfull heirs to the seat of Winterfell, that would make one rightfull heir to the title of KitN ( as Robb was king before Jon). A black direwolf will not to be cast aside, a Grey Direwolf will not be cast aside either. That's why the direwolves are so important in the books. The Direwolf is the sigil of house stark. Have a direwolf, be a Stark. It's just the same as people claiming that you're a Targaryen when you can ride a dragon ( not that I truly believe that one, but right. If you think only a Targ can ride a dragon, then only a Stark can own a direwolf as well) 

Greywind alive, would bring a rightfull Heir of Robb Stark to the story. Greywind alive means more than just having a nice pet running around. LST isn't near as important as an alive GW would be. 

But as this is all a vision of Bran Stark during his comateuse state, I'm sure Greywind is still alive