Ghost

[tallTale]

Jon having to kill undead ghost will be a sad 

[Euron III Greyjoy]

It kind of felt like the writers being like, "just add in Ghost somewhere to make the fans stop bitching at us."

[Kajjo]

1 hour ago, Nerevanin said:

I highly doubt he'll survive the story.

My old guess still is valid: If Jon survives, so will Ghost and vice versa.

Of course, in general wolves die without their Lords dying, too. But if the Lords die, the wolves alway bit the grass, too.

[L’Age d’or]

2 hours ago, LokisRaider said:

I am worried they added him just to remind the viewer he exists just to use him as an emotional sacrifice next episode.

Entirely possible, this season has got Hollywood written all over it. 

[Squall]

I think they shot everything without Ghost in mind and only in post-production they thought about him. We'll see him a few seconds more in the coming episodes. Perhaps there's Jon shouting "Go Ghost!" which is a soundbite added afterwards. It's jarring he was missing for seasons and now he just pops up out of nowhere.

[Frances Bean Corbray]

Ghost gonna die, folks.

D&D hate the direwolves anyway, and now that Jon is riding dragons and coming around on the whole Aegon VI true lineage thing, Ghost will symbolize Jon leaving his old identity behind (even if he keeps the name Jon Snow)

[Kajjo]

21 minutes ago, Frances Bean Corbray said:

D&D hate the direwolves anyway

How do you know?

And a question. From where is this quote?

"You're angry? Maybe you should just try calming down."

[Tijgy]

The problem is that they use real wolves (and make them bigger) but the wolves are very difficult to work. So not a lot of direwolves.

 

[House Cambodia]

I want to say seeing Ghost was better than not seeing him at all, but that's not how I came away feeling. Ghost - and Nymeria must have honourable death scenes like the main human characters who will die.

[SansaJonRule]

15 hours ago, Corvinus said:

No dragons this episode, so there was enough CGI budget to put half a second of Ghost there.

That was my first thought (after"there's Ghost!") I was just so happy to see his pretty face I didn't care if he was just sitting there. Dogs do a lot of that, after all. And laying around. Or in my dog's case laying on my computer to say stop typing and pet me!

15 hours ago, LokisRaider said:

I am worried they added him just to remind the viewer he exists just to use him as an emotional sacrifice next episode.

No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Think we'll see Nymeria? I swear if they kill off the last 2 dire wolves I'm not watching anymore!

[nymeria_2321]

11 hours ago, Tijgy said:

The problem is that they use real wolves (and make them bigger) but the wolves are very difficult to work. So not a lot of direwolves.

 

I think in season 1 , maybe 2, they used real wolves but since they got to more dire wolf size I believe they've been entirely CGI. 

 

I hate that D&D cast them/him aside like his, he could and should be more important to Jon and the story. Someone was right above, he could have been handy north of the wall last season or even at hard home. My husband was worked for years for visual effects companies and so I do understand that real creatures (unlike mythical ones like dragons) and particularly real creatures with fur are very difficult to make, and even more difficult to make well. But the "too expensive" excuse I think is BS, if they can afford that much CGI for so much dragon time every season than an episode a season or few minutes of screen time with a wolf clearly isn't going to break the bank, particularly not for a show with a budget this size. 

 

They clearly knew people were bitching and I feel like they did it as a fan service, but also a slap in the face. Like many of us were like "don't even care if he's just in the background somewhere, we just want him to be included" so thats exactly what they did. A total afterthought ... though I'm still happy he's there and will clearly riot if he dies next week. 

[LokisRaider]

7 hours ago, SansaJonRule said:

No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Think we'll see Nymeria? I swear if they kill off the last 2 dire wolves I'm not watching anymore!

I personally don't think we are seeing Nymeria again. I think what we got last season was them getting her out of the story.

[Roux]

29 minutes ago, LokisRaider said:

I personally don't think we are seeing Nymeria again. I think what we got last season was them getting her out of the story.

In the books Nymeria becomes the matriarch of a whole pack of giant ruthless really organized wolves (I always understood it as they were wolfie dire hybrids) when we see her in the woods I thought that to be an acknowledgment of that storyline. theoretically They'd be drawn to the magic and blood and noise of the battle so they could be another curveball, only for Arya to ' command' or the other Starks to understand. Command in the sense of all the other wolves, independent but respectful of their own kid. 

[#FreeGhost]

My guess is he's either brought back as a plot device... sacrifices himself in battle to save one or more major characters, or to set up the much anticipated Direwolf Bowl featuring Ghost vs. Undead Summer!

[LokisRaider]

18 minutes ago, Roux said:

In the books Nymeria becomes the matriarch of a whole pack of giant ruthless really organized wolves (I always understood it as they were wolfie dire hybrids) when we see her in the woods I thought that to be an acknowledgment of that storyline. theoretically They'd be drawn to the magic and blood and noise of the battle so they could be another curveball, only for Arya to ' command' or the other Starks to understand. Command in the sense of all the other wolves, independent but respectful of their own kid. 

I am really looking forward to the books bringing in the wolf army to fight in the last battle with Nymeria at the head. Arya keeps having her warg wolf dreams, so I expect her and Nymeria to have a more important reunion.

But back to the show. We hear all the time how the show doesn't have the budget for dragons and Ghost, which leads me to believe they used last seasons scene with Arya and Nymeria as a way to just tie off that story line. I hope I am wrong, but they haven't brought Nymeria up since that scene, and that was one of the first times they acknowledged her since the first season.

[Dee76]

I think Ghost appeared in relation to Jenny's song. The direwolves names weren't plucked out of thin air

[One-Eyed Raven]

I get the show and the books mixed up sometimes, but in general I think it's criminal what they've done to the direwolves in the show.

Yes, the wolves are reflections and/or extensions of the Stark children, and maybe that's not sexy enough to justify the requisite CGI expenditure through the full series. Dragons are cool, dragons test better in the focus group or whatever, fine.

But for me, this is about balance among the major players in the end, and about honoring the essentials of the source material. (The show made Littlefinger, Varys, Tyrion, and a bunch of other characters progressively more stupid over time. That sucks, but it's not what I mean by essentials.)

I see these 'essentials' resolving in a big game of rock/paper/scissors. Starks/Targaryens/Others. A Song of Ice and Fire.

Looking specifically at Jon - or I suppose it's book!Jon in this context - I think he's likely The Prince That Was Promised. That's a big effing deal in book!world. He's both Stark and Targaryen. He commands both a direwolf and (one would think) a dragon. That's what sets him apart from both Starks and Targaryens, ultimately. He's a chimera, in a sense, which (I think) connects him to book!Tyrion.

Show!Jon is a dolt, first and foremost. But he's rightly tied to The North and now Dany and her dragons. Does this mean he no longer needs Ghost? Because dragons are cooler than direwolves?

I think that misses the whole point. Jon is Ghost and Ghost is Jon, just as Bran is Summer, Arya Nymeria and so on. The wargy Stark children aren't *just* wargs, I think. They represent a rebirth of something greater, pointing way back to times when Children of the Forest, Giants, and weirwoods ruled the continent. Contemporary wargs and other skinchangers north of The Wall are reflections of that time, certainly, but maybe they're degenerate in the way the Targaryen dragons were toward their end before Dany.

And that, I'd argue, is the real point. These are supposed to be the times when all these ancient prophecies come to fruition. Characters in both the books and the show interpret the prophecies incorrectly all the time, of course, but that doesn't mean we aren't gearing up for a battle with world-shaping consequences in Westeros, Essos, and beyond. (Cersei plays the game of thrones exclusively, and that's fine. But she's wrong in that you die, win or lose, and it doesn't matter much either way.)

It's weird, unfortunate, and I think misguided to discard the direwolves along the way. They're shorthand for what signals the Starks as especially important in this struggle, just as dragons reflect and represent the Targaryens. It's so obvious I feel dumb typing this, but it can't be a coincidence that direwolves, dragons, and The Others all reappeared in this universe in the same generation. Rock, paper, scissors: you need all three or it's not ASOIF, and I think that's (or at least should have been) a minimal requirement for the show from the outset.

 

[JRRStark]

Ghost is like Jon's shadow but he was with the nights watch, as he wasn't at the BotB's. He needs to be there just to remind everyone Jon is more Stark than Targ. Maybe he'll rip out Danys Throat in the End.  

[Lord Lyman]

On ‎4‎/‎23‎/‎2019 at 1:22 AM, nymeria_2321 said:

I think in season 1 , maybe 2, they used real wolves but since they got to more dire wolf size I believe they've been entirely CGI. 

Season 1 were actual dogs. I believe Sophia Turner adopted hers. Season 2 and the future were real wolves that were filmed separately in California, I believe. They were later scaled up and inserted into the scenes with the characters. There may have been a couple of cases of full on CGI, but for the most part, I believe those are real wolves.

[Roux]

I think Jon and Arya and Bran are going to be the only children who physically survive. Nymeria is alive and ghost is alive. Meera told us and I believe her that bran is dead/ he's no longer Bran. When summer dies, it's the symbolic Bran death - all Stark is gone from him. I guess it's easier to say Sansa dies but I think if ghost should fall in the battle then I'll believe that Jon will die. I have yet to believe that he'll die because he's kind of the point of this whole show.

 

I also think that they have seriously back seated Ghost. Put in just a big Shepherd or husky and that would have satisfied us, even though we know he's supposed to be bigger but tell us its too expensive and we get it! having him as a character is better than not having him at all we do have some imagination. I've always thought the wolves were major symbolism. At first I thought that lady died first because sansa is the first one to dismiss the Stark way of life but now I think she's just going to die. I think having a direwolf by her side in King's landing would have reminded her to be humble and kind and not get whisked away by the fanciness like she did.

Shaggy dog was always kind of rogue (in the books he was a bad dog. Literally the only one he'll listen to was a four year old, way too much dog for the boy he was violent and aggressive and they made him chain him up a lot.) and nobody ever knew what happened to Rickon once he went to the umbers. (Clearly no one taught him to zigzag when running from a predator)