Heresy 212 The Wolves

[St Daga]

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

1 hour ago, St Daga said:

It's a matter of interpretation how a person see's this dream passage. It's certainly not clear that it's Jon dreaming of his siblings, it seems more likely to me that it is Ghost's dream that Jon is along for the ride for. And it's possible that GRRM has written this passage in a vague matter that leaves it open to interpretation and there will never be a certain answer on the dreams source. 

If it’s Ghost, he should only be able to sense three other wolves. The passage said, four remained and one he could no longer sense. Many people assume the one not sensed is Lady, or some interpret Summer, but Grey Wind is also dead. Four plus one equals five. Jon, Sansa, Arya, Bran, and Rickon makes five, but Ghost, Nymeria, Shaggy Dog, and Summer only make four. 

 

4 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

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.

Well, there are some possibilities for this. Grey Wind could still be alive; there is some vagueness about that. It's also possible that Ghost can sense Lady's bones in Winterfell, but because she is dead, the bond is different now. Or Grey Wind and Lady are both dead and Summer cannot be sensed because he is over the wall. Also, the concept of 4 remain AND one has been debated for a long time now. Perhaps Ghost is including himself in the 4 remain, and perhaps he is talking about 4 remain of the five that suckled at the dead direwolf mother. Ghost might not be including himself in the four. The author is very vague, as usual. But at this point in the story, Jon thinks that Bran and Rickon are dead, even though he suspects Summer has survived. And he thinks that Arya is most likely dead, as well. So, knowing that, the interpretation that it's Jon's dream doesn't quite fit easily for me. I just don't think it's as clear cut an interpretation as you present. And I doubt we will ever have a concrete answer for this. 

[SirArthur]

Have you ever read Perfume ? I don't know how much GRRM even considers other literature(and I hated it when I had to read it in school) . To make things short, in the end the protagonist couldn't smell himself - literally and figurative. 

It is possible, although far fetched, that Ghost cannot sense himself (any more). 

[Melifeather]

1 hour ago, Matthew. said:

To quote:

Not even the most generous of symbolic readings should lead one to conclude that the former passage refers to anyone other than Ghost, and the passage is to be read as being from Ghost's perspective; of course, where the Stark thoughts end and direwolf thoughts begin is one of the underlying elements of skinchanging - and one of the things Bran is warned against - but the passage is still more Ghost than Jon.

Once they were six, and now only four of the six remain--and one of the remaining four, Ghost can no longer sense. This is most commonly read as the Wall disrupting Ghost's ability to perceive Summer, and I would be inclined to agree with that interpretation: it fits with the Wall being an extraordinarily powerful ward, and we might follow on that speculation by suggesting that Bran-as-Greenseer can bypass the wards in Bran III ADWD either because the weirwood roots run underneath the Wall, or because his passage through the Black Gate was magically significant.

There are six Starks too counting Jon, and their mothers are dead. This dream occurs in the fourth chapter of Dance after the red wedding. Whether you think this is Ghost or Jon they count themselves as part of the group of four. The one they don’t sense is Sansa, because Lady is dead. Ghost/Jon can sense Bran. He says so in the dream. He thinks: 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.

Wolves don’t think in complete sentences.

 

1 hour ago, St Daga said:

 

Well, there are some possibilities for this. Grey Wind could still be alive; there is some vagueness about that. It's also possible that Ghost can sense Lady's bones in Winterfell, but because she is dead, the bond is different now. Or Grey Wind and Lady are both dead and Summer cannot be sensed because he is over the wall. Also, the concept of 4 remain AND one has been debated for a long time now. Perhaps Ghost is including himself in the 4 remain, and perhaps he is talking about 4 remain of the five that suckled at the dead direwolf mother. Ghost might not be including himself in the four. The author is very vague, as usual. But at this point in the story, Jon thinks that Bran and Rickon are dead, even though he suspects Summer has survived. And he thinks that Arya is most likely dead, as well. So, knowing that, the interpretation that it's Jon's dream doesn't quite fit easily for me. I just don't think it's as clear cut an interpretation as you present. And I doubt we will ever have a concrete answer for this. 

Grey Wind is dead by the time Jon dreams of direwolves. To repeat - he can sense Bran, because he says:  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.

[JNR]

On 8/17/2018 at 12:27 PM, Brad Stark said:

Jon and Bran seem to have this connection to some extent

Actually, Jon has not even the tiniest clue that Bran is alive.  From ADWD:

Quote

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.

5 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

The passage you’re referring to is Jon dreaming again.

Yes, but it's not Jon's knowledge.  It's Ghost's knowledge, that Jon only obtains because he's skinchanging Ghost in a wolfdream.

This is evident in multiple ways.  First, of course, the language makes it quite clear that it's Ghost's mind doing the thinking:

Quote

In another place, his little sister lifted her head to sing to the moon, and a hundred small grey cousins broke off their hunt to sing with her.

Surely none of us can argue that Jon thinks of Nymeria as his "little sister," can we?  That can only be Ghost thinking that.

Second, the point is that while Ghost can sense the status of his packmates, the Stark kids cannot sense the status of each other.

Clearly, if Jon had any power to sense the status of the Stark kids, he would know that Bran and Rickon are still alive. 

But as the quote I pasted in above conclusively demonstrates, he does not know this as of ADWD.

What Jon knows, via Ghost, is that their wolves are still alive:

Quote

...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.

Why does he know the wolves are alive?  The dreams, he tells us.  But he is quite sure Bran and Rickon are dead.

So, in summary, there is really zero doubt that while the direwolves do share a psychic link with each other, the Stark siblings do not share a psychic link with each other.  This means the direwolves cannot have gotten this power from the Starks.  It is innate to themselves.

(Bran, of course, as a greenseer, has a different way to gain information -- the same power as Bloodraven -- to research things via the weirnet.  He can also, like Bloodraven, communicate with dreaming entities. But that is not about him being a Stark; that's about him being a greenseer, quite a different matter. )

[Matthew.]

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

There are six Starks too counting Jon, and their mothers are dead. This dream occurs in the fourth chapter of Dance after the red wedding. Whether you think this is Ghost or Jon they count themselves as part of the group of four. The one they don’t sense is Sansa, because Lady is dead. Ghost/Jon can sense Bran. He says so in the dream. He thinks: 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.

There were six Starks, and five remain--there were six direwolves, and four remain. Yes, Catelyn has recently died, but to reiterate, not even the most tortured  of symbolic readings could cause one to conclude that "five feeding on their dead mother's nipples while the sixth crawled away" is to be more intuitively applied to the Starks than the direwolves; it is describing the literal contents of Bran I. It's not even a passage that is demanding interpretation, it is straightforwardly repeating what the reader knows.

If one wants to say there's double meaning - on the surface, it's about the direwolves, and allegorically, there's some overlap with the journey of the Starks - then fair enough, but these are still, first and foremost, Ghost's thoughts in relation to his direwolf siblings--JNR pretty thoroughly covered the distinction between the way Ghost thinks of his brother Summer and the way Jon thinks of Bran throughout ADWD. 
 

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

Wolves don’t think in complete sentences.

Not particularly important--Ghost is not the narrator, and Jon-in-Ghost is not the narrator; ASOIAF does not use first person narration.

If one wants to over-analyze the "logic" of how Ghost's thoughts are to be made coherent to the reader, Ghost's wolf thoughts are being contextualized by Jon, and Jon's contextualization is being framed into narration by the 3rd Person storyteller. 

[Melifeather]

2 hours ago, JNR said:

Actually, Jon has not even the tiniest clue that Bran is alive.  From ADWD:

Yes, but it's not Jon's knowledge.  It's Ghost's knowledge, that Jon only obtains because he's skinchanging Ghost in a wolfdream.

This is evident in multiple ways.  First, of course, the language makes it quite clear that it's Ghost's mind doing the thinking:

Surely none of us can argue that Jon thinks of Nymeria as his "little sister," can we?  That can only be Ghost thinking that.

Second, the point is that while Ghost can sense the status of his packmates, the Stark kids cannot sense the status of each other.

Clearly, if Jon had any power to sense the status of the Stark kids, he would know that Bran and Rickon are still alive. 

But as the quote I pasted in above conclusively demonstrates, he does not know this as of ADWD.

What Jon knows, via Ghost, is that their wolves are still alive:

Why does he know the wolves are alive?  The dreams, he tells us.  But he is quite sure Bran and Rickon are dead.

So, in summary, there is really zero doubt that while the direwolves do share a psychic link with each other, the Stark siblings do not share a psychic link with each other.  This means the direwolves cannot have gotten this power from the Starks.  It is innate to themselves.

(Bran, of course, as a greenseer, has a different way to gain information -- the same power as Bloodraven -- to research things via the weirnet.  He can also, like Bloodraven, communicate with dreaming entities. But that is not about him being a Stark; that's about him being a greenseer, quite a different matter. )

I disagree with you all! The dream is Jon’s whether he understands what he’s dreaming or not. He says if dreams do not lie - not Ghost! He doesn’t attribute the knowledge to Ghost, rather the truth of dreams. The connection to their wolves allows Jon to sense his siblings. You’re overlooking two main points. The fact that Jon/Ghost knows there are five of them, even if he cannot sense one of them. He can sense Bran, because he says so. He can sense Rickon and Arya too, so it’s Sansa that he cannot sense, because the connection via Lady is severed.

1 hour ago, Matthew. said:

There were six Starks, and five remain--there were six direwolves, and four remain. Yes, Catelyn has recently died, but to reiterate, not even the most tortured  of symbolic readings could cause one to conclude that "five feeding on their dead mother's nipples while the sixth crawled away" is to be more intuitively applied to the Starks than the direwolves; it is describing the literal contents of Bran I. It's not even a passage that is demanding interpretation, it is straightforwardly repeating what the reader knows.

If one wants to say there's double meaning - on the surface, it's about the direwolves, and allegorically, there's some overlap with the journey of the Starks - then fair enough, but these are still, first and foremost, Ghost's thoughts in relation to his direwolf siblings--JNR pretty thoroughly covered the distinction between the way Ghost thinks of his brother Summer and the way Jon thinks of Bran throughout ADWD. 
 

Not particularly important--Ghost is not the narrator, and Jon-in-Ghost is not the narrator; ASOIAF does not use first person narration.

If one wants to over-analyze the "logic" of how Ghost's thoughts are to be made coherent to the reader, Ghost's wolf thoughts are being contextualized by Jon, and Jon's contextualization is being framed into narration by the 3rd Person storyteller. 

If you’re going to continue to use insulting language towards me, then I will insert my personal opinion that I think your literal interpretation is elementary level at best.

[St Daga]

3 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

Grey Wind is dead by the time Jon dreams of direwolves. To repeat - he can sense Bran, because he says:  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.

Then this seems like even greater indication that the dreams are from Ghost's POV, as Jon thinks that Bran, Rickon and Arya are dead. How can Jon dream that his siblings are alive, but retain none on that knowledge in is waking life? At the most, in could be argued that Jon dreams of his siblings wolves, which could indicate a connection of Jon to the other direwolves, but not Jon to his siblings, at least that is not how I interpret it. It makes the most sense to me that it is Ghost who dreams of the other wolves.

Still, your interpretation is just as valid as any one else's, and could prove to be correct. 

Also, I think it can be argued that Grey Wind might not dead. Honestly, we have no first person account of Grey Wind's death, and we only hear he killed several Frey's and was shot with multiple arrows. But again, that is not a first person account, which we at least have with Cat witnessing what happened to Robb. The odds are that Grey Wind is dead, I agree, but I think there is a small bit of doubt remaining. The most damning reason for me to think that Grey Wind dis die is because Theon see's him in his feast of the dead dream, bleeding from half a hundred wounds. 

ETA: The wording in this dream sequence makes it challenging, for certain!

[Matthew.]

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

If you’re going to continue to use insulting language towards me, then I will insert my personal opinion that I think your literal interpretation is elementary level at best.

I apologize for belaboring the point into the territory of condescension; I'm not doing so with an intent to be insulting, but as a zealous rejection of the very notion your post raises: that passages having a literal, intuitive meaning that follows organically on the reader's understanding of the world would somehow be a flaw--either a flaw of writing, or a flaw of interpretation.

Granted, "this passage says exactly what it appears to say" is a banal, unexciting sentiment to express in the context of a forums' discussion, but on the other hand, I think our relationship with the text - waiting more than a half decade for fresh material, waiting ten years, fifteen years, twenty years for resolution to mysteries, meticulously dissecting de-contextualized chunks of text in asearchoficeandfire - can cause a loss of perspective, and in this instance, I think the perspective of the theoretical first-time reader is the more accurate one--this passage wasn't crafted to be analyzed, but to be immediately absorbed and moved past.

I don't say that as a refusal to engage with the alternatives, but because I'm considering the alternatives, and I don't think they're the best fit.

Put another way, if there are deeper layers to the Ghost wolf dream, I think they are layers with self-contained literary intent (eg, direwolves as allegory for their bondmates, in a way that is outside of Jon's scope of understanding) as opposed to layers with broadly applicable plot intent (eg, the "siblings" are Jon's siblings, whose status he can sense and understand). 

[Melifeather]

There are literal points of evidence that this is Jon’s dream - I’ve supplied one already: when Jon refers to it. He said if dreams prove true. Secondly, the moon continually calls the white wolf “Snow”, not just a few times, but NINE times! Each time the white wolf ignores it until Jon wakes and says, “I heard you.”

A literal interpretation does not explain: 

  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.

He can sense Bran/Summer, so who can he no longer sense?

Stark wargs are part direwolf, so that is how Jon sees himself in his dreams, and how he senses his siblings. He has access to heightened senses like his wolf, but because he doesn’t have a warg mentor to explain these extra senses, he doesn’t realize his siblings are still alive. He does understand he’s the wolf, because he saw Bran as a sapling in his earlier dream and POV chapter. And it is a JON POV after all. Not Ghost’s.

[Brad Stark]

Actually I think it is from the same part:

Quote

The weirwood had his brother's face. Had his brother always had three eyes?

Not always, came a silent shout. Not before the crow.

He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs.

Don't be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this. And the tree reached down and touched him.

 

[Melifeather]

1 minute ago, Brad Stark said:

Actually I think it is from the same part:

 

No, the above happened when he was with the Halfhand.

[St Daga]

2 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

There are literal points of evidence that this is Jon’s dream - I’ve supplied one already: when Jon refers to it. He said if dreams prove true. Secondly, the moon continually calls the white wolf “Snow”, not just a few times, but NINE times! Each time the white wolf ignores it until Jon wakes and says, “I heard you.”

I have always interpreted the repetition of Snow in the dream as the raven trying to wake Jon by saying Snow repeatedly, and the Raven's words are invading the wolf dream that Jon is having, the raven's words disguised with the moon's voice. It is not unlike Ned's tower of joy dream, when we have his name mentioned in the dream sequence thrice, with  Ned hearing it as Lyanna saying Eddard and Lord Eddard, but it reality it is Vayon Poole's words that are invading Ned's dreams with Lyanna's voice.

A more curious thing to me is why that raven is so determined to wake Jon from this dream? We know the raven can say Snow, but why is it doing it at this time? So insistently?

I admit that it does seem like either Jon or Ghost seems to be ignoring the words, but my impression that much like Ned, Jon doesn't wake up very easily. In Game Eddard II, Ned has to be shaken awake "roughly" from his dreams and then stumbles out of his tent, groggy from sleep. After this dream sequence, Jon is so irritated with the raven that he shoves at it and tries to hit it with a pillow and crabbily contemplates roast raven for breakfast.

[Melifeather]

45 minutes ago, St Daga said:

I have always interpreted the repetition of Snow in the dream as the raven trying to wake Jon by saying Snow repeatedly, and the Raven's words are invading the wolf dream that Jon is having, the raven's words disguised with the moon's voice. It is not unlike Ned's tower of joy dream, when we have his name mentioned in the dream sequence thrice, with  Ned hearing it as Lyanna saying Eddard and Lord Eddard, but it reality it is Vayon Poole's words that are invading Ned's dreams with Lyanna's voice.

A more curious thing to me is why that raven is so determined to wake Jon from this dream? We know the raven can say Snow, but why is it doing it at this time? So insistently?

I admit that it does seem like either Jon or Ghost seems to be ignoring the words, but my impression that much like Ned, Jon doesn't wake up very easily. In Game Eddard II, Ned has to be shaken awake "roughly" from his dreams and then stumbles out of his tent, groggy from sleep. After this dream sequence, Jon is so irritated with the raven that he shoves at it and tries to hit it with a pillow and crabbily contemplates roast raven for breakfast.

The raven is trying to wake Jon, and the moon is calling to the “white wolf”. They are one and the same.

[Matthew.]

3 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

There are literal points of evidence that this is Jon’s dream - I’ve supplied one already: when Jon refers to it. He said if dreams prove true. Secondly, the moon continually calls the white wolf “Snow”, not just a few times, but NINE times! Each time the white wolf ignores it until Jon wakes and says, “I heard you.”

...

And it is a JON POV after all. Not Ghost’s.

I don't disagree that it's Jon's dream--however, the context is a wolf dream, so these are Ghost's thoughts, Ghost's experiences, which Jon is having vicariously as a psychic passenger in Ghost's body. If the dream were an isolated incident it would be one thing, but we have Bran and Arya's wolf dreams as a frame of reference, and this follows in that mold, in addition to all of the evidence that points toward these being Ghost's thoughts.

Besides Ghost's thoughts of the dead mother aligning better with Bran I, I feel that the "little sister" portion doesn't quite land as metaphor, given the chosen structure. "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;" read straightforwardly as related to Nymeria, that "even" is ominous--translated into metaphor, the "even" is out of place, it loses its meaning. 

Again, how strong of a disagreement this is depends on whether or not we're talking about double meaning - with some room for ambiguity - or presenting it as an either/or; "these passages are about Ghost, but they're also about Jon" vs. "These passages aren't about Ghost, they're about Jon." The latter interpretation is not one I would agree with.

Not just for all of the reasons already covered, but also because of the broader topic JNR introduced regarding the direwolves. Personally, I think they do indeed have a magic of their own, a special connection to one another that belongs to them (and isn't just an extension of the Stark gift), as well as a supernatural sense of when their bondmates are in danger--the latter not necessarily as a mystery that demands explanation, but as a literary device to ramp up tension for the reader; when the direwolves are upset, it should be setting off alarm bells for the Starks, and the reader.

[Melifeather]

1 hour ago, Matthew. said:

I don't disagree that it's Jon's dream--however, the context is a wolf dream, so these are Ghost's thoughts, Ghost's experiences, which Jon is having vicariously as a psychic passenger in Ghost's body. If the dream were an isolated incident it would be one thing, but we have Bran and Arya's wolf dreams as a frame of reference, and this follows in that mold, in addition to all of the evidence that points toward these being Ghost's thoughts.

Besides Ghost's thoughts of the dead mother aligning better with Bran I, I feel that the "little sister" portion doesn't quite land as metaphor, given the chosen structure. "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;" read straightforwardly as related to Nymeria, that "even" is ominous--translated into metaphor, the "even" is out of place, it loses its meaning. 

Again, how strong of a disagreement this is depends on whether or not we're talking about double meaning - with some room for ambiguity - or presenting it as an either/or; "these passages are about Ghost, but they're also about Jon" vs. "These passages aren't about Ghost, they're about Jon." The latter interpretation is not one I would agree with.

Not just for all of the reasons already covered, but also because of the broader topic JNR introduced regarding the direwolves. Personally, I think they do indeed have a magic of their own, a special connection to one another that belongs to them (and isn't just an extension of the Stark gift), as well as a supernatural sense of when their bondmates are in danger--the latter not necessarily as a mystery that demands explanation, but as a literary device to ramp up tension for the reader; when the direwolves are upset, it should be setting off alarm bells for the Starks, and the reader.

How would a litter mate have a “little sister”? The pups are all the same age, whereas Jon is older than Arya. And how is it not ominous that the Faceless Men might be eating human flesh? I actually think the reference to eating human flesh has a double meaning or metaphor here.

Ghost can hear the moon calling down to him? And is Ghost running away from the moon to the cave of night where the sun is hidden? 

Not all wolf dreams are passive skinchanging. We know this, because we already read about Jon’s first wolf dream while he was with Qhorin, and in his dream he was the white wolf that circled around Bran’s sapling form and sniffed him. Surely you do not think Ghost was the one that saw Bran’s sapling instantly sprout from stone?

Bran called the white wolf “Jon”, and Jon recognized Bran, but wondered if his brother always had three eyes? This question about the three eyes and the psychic communication is proof that this is Jon and Bran talking to each other, and not Ghost and Bran. Jon and Bran can sense each other. Bran understands he talked to Jon, but Jon isn’t quite aware that the exchange was real.

What is really striking is that Jon wondered if his brother always had three eyes. That is in itself a subconscious understanding that third eyes do exist and that his brother has one. And Bran knows that Jon has one too and helps him open his, because up until that moment Jon’s wolf dream was about himself in wolf form, but after Bran touches his forehead and his third eye opens he finally sees through Ghost’s eyes and looks down at the wildling camp.

[Tucu]

Changing theme for a bit, I found this Old Nan's tale linking pale mist to spirits returning to their graves

Quote

Renly's battles were already coming apart as the rumors spread from mouth to mouth. The nightfires had burned low, and as the east began to lighten the immense mass of Storm's End emerged like a dream of stone while wisps of pale mist raced across the field, flying from the sun on wings of wind. Morning ghosts, she had heard Old Nan call them once, spirits returning to their graves. And Renly one of them now, gone like his brother Robert, like her own dear Ned.

This imagery reminds me of three passages. One from Ygrette and the graves they opened:

Quote

 "I'm crying because we never found the Horn of Winter. We opened half a hundred graves and let all those shades loose in the world, and never found the Horn of Joramun to bring this cold thing down!"

Another from Tormund about fighting the white mist:

Quote

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?"

And this one from Cat about Moat Cailin:

Quote

She gave her uncle a grim smile. "And when night falls, there are said to be ghosts, cold vengeful spirits of the north who hunger for southron blood."

 

[Black Crow]

Mmmm we've talked about this one before; white walkers helping defend Moat Caillin

[Brad Stark]

10 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

How would a litter mate have a “little sister”? The pups are all the same age, whereas Jon is older than Arya. And how is it not ominous that the Faceless Men might be eating human flesh? I actually think the reference to eating human flesh has a double meaning or metaphor here.

Ghost can hear the moon calling down to him? And is Ghost running away from the moon to the cave of night where the sun is hidden? 

Not all wolf dreams are passive skinchanging. We know this, because we already read about Jon’s first wolf dream while he was with Qhorin, and in his dream he was the white wolf that circled around Bran’s sapling form and sniffed him. Surely you do not think Ghost was the one that saw Bran’s sapling instantly sprout from stone?

Bran called the white wolf “Jon”, and Jon recognized Bran, but wondered if his brother always had three eyes? This question about the three eyes and the psychic communication is proof that this is Jon and Bran talking to each other, and not Ghost and Bran. Jon and Bran can sense each other. Bran understands he talked to Jon, but Jon isn’t quite aware that the exchange was real.

What is really striking is that Jon wondered if his brother always had three eyes. That is in itself a subconscious understanding that third eyes do exist and that his brother has one. And Bran knows that Jon has one too and helps him open his, because up until that moment Jon’s wolf dream was about himself in wolf form, but after Bran touches his forehead and his third eye opens he finally sees through Ghost’s eyes and looks down at the wildling camp.

I've known twins who refer to their sibling as older or younger (Jamie and Cersei do I believe), but little could just mean smaller.

I think all the wolves and Starks have some connection.  The Stark to his/her wolf is strongest, the wolf-wolf is next, and the Stark-Stark is weakest.  I doubt we see GRRM exactly spell out the details.

[JNR]

18 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

He can sense Bran, because he says so. He can sense Rickon and Arya too, so it’s Sansa that he cannot sense, because the connection via Lady is severed.

OK, let's go about this another way.

What is it, from Jon's thoughts from the most recent ASOIAF novel, that tells you Jon can sense Bran and Rickon are still alive? 

Quote

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.

"Murdered," "beheaded," and "dead" all seem to me to establish that Jon thinks they are dead.

Can you cite any different passage in ADWD in which Jon demonstrates, contradicting the above, that he knows Bran and Rickon are still alive?

[Tucu]

2 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Mmmm we've talked about this one before; white walkers helping defend Moat Caillin

I have not noticed that tale before and I like how it joins to the ghost story chain:

Ghost~white shadow~white walker~pale mist~ghosts