#if he can feel his anger reaching a broiling point. at that moment its best to leave him alone

[agentrouka-blog]

When Jon think about wanting winterfell and it's Lord he felt hunger which he later connect with ghost's hunger. Do you think that passage is implying something?

Hi anon!

I think the passage has many layers when it comes to symbolism and foreshadowing.

ASOS, Jon XII is a fun chapter. Jon’s been through a lot. His trip North of the wall left him traumatized and disillusioned in a way that’s hard to sum up. Anything he had hoped to be proud of in life was obliterated, he suffered serious injury, has been separated from ghost, learned that all his family are dead or missing, fought a viciously cruel battle, feels responsible for the death of his stockholm-syndromy abuser, was stripped of all respect and honor by his superiors, and he got to see a woman die in childbirth. Now Stannis and Mel are squatting at Castle Black, and the threat to the North keeps looming.

Life sucks. 

We’d been introduced to some options that were denied to him in life:

His lord father had once talked about raising new lords and settling them in the abandoned holdfasts as a shield against wildlings. The plan would have required the Watch to yield back a large part of the Gift, but his uncle Benjen believed the Lord Commander could be won around, so long as the new lordlings paid taxes to Castle Black rather than Winterfell. "It is a dream for spring, though," Lord Eddard had said. "Even the promise of land will not lure men north with a winter coming on."

If winter had come and gone more quickly and spring had followed in its turn, I might have been chosen to hold one of these towers in my father's name. Lord Eddard was dead, however, his brother Benjen lost; the shield they dreamt together would never be forged. (ASOS, Jon V)

or

“If the boy shows any skill with sword or lance, he should have a place with your father’s household guard at the least,” Jon said. “It’s not unknown for bastards to be trained as squires and raised to knighthood. But you’d best be sure Gilly can play this game convincingly. From what you’ve told me of Lord Randyll, I doubt he would take kindly to being deceived.” (ASOS, Samwell IV)

One fails because of the seasons, the other was prevented by Catelyn. The Watch has been a soul-destroying nightmare, Ygritte’s offer of taking over a Tower “after” is not even worth a moment’s consideration to him. Every hope he ever had about his life has been disappointed. 

Jon’s just about sixteen and is completely done. Sam notes how much time Jon spends in the training yard, even though he’s injured and off-duty for the title of turncloak. He does not bother voting in the Lord Commander election. A maligned outcast again. Forever. 

The warg, I’ve heard them call me. How can I be a warg without a wolf, I ask you?” His mouth twisted. “I don’t even dream of Ghost anymore. All my dreams are of the crypts, of the stone kings on their thrones. Sometimes I hear Robb’s voice, and my father’s, as if they were at a feast. But there’s a wall between us, and I know that no place has been set for me.” (ASOS, Samwell IV

He is lonely. Even Ghost is gone, his one proof that he belongs to something.

Stannis alienates Jon by talking ill of Robb, but he offers Jon recognition for the things he did right, a rare thing, and then he offers him legitimization. Basically, “You proved your worth and you have the Right blood. All you ever wanted can be yours. For the small price of breaking your oaths for real and of your own volition and forsaking your gods.” Downright mephistophelian.

Jon is torn, can’t sleep, fights. For the first time he has a real choice. He remembers the traumatic incident where his bastardy became a true concept to him.

That morning he called it first. “I’m Lord of Winterfell!” he cried, as he had a hundred times before. Only this time, this time, Robb had answered, “You can’t be Lord of Winterfell, you’re bastard-born. My lady mother says you can’t ever be the Lord of Winterfell.”

I thought I had forgotten that. Jon could taste blood in his mouth, from the blow he’d taken. (ASOS, Jon XII)

And Jon’s response is a near black-out rage against his sparring partner. All his suppressed feelings of grief and anger and longing and loneliness are just broiling inside him.

Why am I so angry? he asked himself, but it was a stupid question. Lord of Winterfell. I could be the Lord of Winterfell. My father’s heir.

Jon soaks in the hot tub and thinks of Winterfell, mulls restoring it versus not belonging and destroying its soul in the process

When Jon closed his eyes he saw the heart tree, with its pale limbs, red leaves, and solemn face. The weirwood was the heart of Winterfell, Lord Eddard always said … but to save the castle Jon would have to tear that heart up by its ancient roots, and feed it to the red woman’s hungry fire god. I have no right, he thought. Winterfell belongs to the old gods

The tree is almost described like a person. A person with Tully coloring, like all his siblings save Arya. Like Sansa. The hot springs in Winterfell have a potential link to his decision to join the Watch, or at the very least to his siblings in general. The castle of Winterfell is juxtaposed with the heart, with the purpose and point of it all. Save a structure by destroying what made it a meaningful place? Betray his family in his heart, the person whose castle is truly is, betray all his values and his gods?

He takes a walk past sites of all his recent experiences and North the Wall over the recent battle field and just sits to think. 

Ygritte wanted me to be a wildling. Stannis wants me to be the Lord of Winterfell. But what do I want? The sun crept down the sky to dip behind the Wall where it curved through the western hills. Jon watched as that towering expanse of ice took on the reds and pinks of sunset. 

There’s an essay I could write about walls, Tyrion, Jon and Sansa (the sun to Arya’s moon) and how they all interact in the books, but let’s say just like this word play, the fact that Jon answers his own question is not an accident:

"Close your beak, crow. Spin yourself around, might be you'd find who you're looking for."

Jon turned.

The singer rose to his feet. (ASOS, Jon I)

The singer rose. Lyanna, his mother, the riddle. But also Sansa, who unwittingly took up her mantle. One unlocks his path to the other and everything that follows in his imagination:

I would need to steal her if I wanted her love, but she might give me children. I might someday hold a son of my own blood in my arms. A son was something Jon Snow had never dared dream of, since he decided to live his life on the Wall. I could name him Robb. Val would want to keep her sister’s son, but we could foster him at Winterfell, and Gilly’s boy as well. Sam would never need to tell his lie. We’d find a place for Gilly too, and Sam could come visit her once a year or so. Mance’s son and Craster’s would grow up brothers, as I once did with Robb.

He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. It was a hunger inside him, sharp as a dragonglass blade. A hunger … he could feel it. It was food he needed, prey, a red deer that stank of fear or a great elk proud and defiant. He needed to kill and fill his belly with fresh meat and hot dark blood. His mouth began to water with the thought.

Jon paints a picture of recreating his own childhood with his wolf pack at Winterfell, only this time there are no outcasts, and he is the Father. He gets to be Ned. The Lord of Winterfell with a lady’s love. And a son, something he had, apparently, dreamed of until he stoppped. 

He has always wanted this thing that he has no right to and it filled him with a guilt strong enough to concern the gods. But he admits it to himself, lets himself truly feel it. The feeling flows through him the same way the rage did earlier. powerful and all encompassing. 

Like a dragonglass blade. There we have some lovely foreshadowing for a) potentiall the origin of the Others, b) Jon’s paternity, and c) his own death when his desire to abandon his vows and head to Winterfell is met with, you know, some blades. Not to mention d) his desire to have these things.

Each of these is answered by his primal hunger response. Which is of course, his connection to Ghost. The wolf he has so woefully said goodbye to, that he missed deeply and bitterly, chooses this moment to reappear. This moment where Jon returns to his own feelings, his true self.

a) the answer to the Others are the direwolves, the Starks, their magical connection to Winterfell and what happened way back when.

b) the answer to Jon’s paternity is a violent embrace of his mother’s side.

c) the answer to his own stabbing will be warging into Ghost and biding his time in there, becoming more wolf than he ever anticipated.

d) the answer to his heart’s desire...

It was a long moment before he understood what was happening. When he did, he bolted to his feet. “Ghost?” He turned toward the wood, and there he came, padding silently out of the green dusk, the breath coming warm and white from his open jaws. “Ghost!” he shouted, and the direwolf broke into a run. He was leaner than he had been, but bigger as well, and the only sound he made was the soft crunch of dead leaves beneath his paws. When he reached Jon he leapt, and they wrestled amidst brown grass and long shadows as the stars came out above them. “Gods, wolf, where have you been?” Jon said when Ghost stopped worrying at his forearm. “I thought you’d died on me, like Robb and Ygritte and all the rest. I’ve had no sense of you, not since I climbed the Wall, not even in dreams.” The direwolf had no answer, but he licked Jon’s face with a tongue like a wet rasp, and his eyes caught the last light and shone like two great red suns.

Red suns. Arya’s wolf has golden coins (haggling for death, faceless men coins, spinning fates), Grey Wind has molten gold (like a crown that kills you). 

Jon’s wolf has red suns. Like the colors that the sun painted on the Wall. The direwolf in heart tree colors, inverted bastard colors of house Stark, Tully colors, Sansa colors. 

Red eyes, Jon realized, but not like Melisandre’s. He had a weirwood’s eyes. Red eyes, red mouth, white fur. Blood and bone, like a heart tree. He belongs to the old gods, this one. And he alone of all the direwolves was white. Six pups they’d found in the late summer snows, him and Robb; five that were grey and black and brown, for the five Starks, and one white, as white as Snow.

He had his answer then.

Not the red gods, not fire. The old gods. the heart tree, the wolves. He may be a Snow, but the old gods gave him Ghost. His own wolf. His white wolf. His place was made by their will. 

There is honor in that choice. No matter what anyone else says, Jon knows who he is and he has that power: to reject betraying his heart. 

How does this choice led by Ghost fit the layers?

a) The answer to the Others: don’t steal, don’t trick. Be honest. Accept what was painful. Not the Wall matters, the answer is in the heart tree.

b) The Dragon father does not Need to guide his decisions. He can let that go. He is a Snow.

c) Being in Ghost will lead him back to himself. Not fire, not Melisandre. The old gods.

d) Well... What does Jon want? What IS his answer?

Jon is filled with sudden energy. He strides back, rejects Val in his mind, stalks dramatically into the dining hall and is suddenly voted Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. We close on this:

So Jon Snow took the wineskin from his hand and had a swallow. But only one. The Wall was his, the night was dark, and he had a king to face.

Jon’s answer? We never hear it in this chapter. 

We hear it in ADWD, Jon I:

"By right Winterfell should go to my sister Sansa." 

And ADWD, Jon IV:

Jon said, "Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa." 

The chapter is followed by? Sansa. Rebuilding Winterfell out of snow. 

When Jon lets go of pretense, honestly asks himself what he wants, shame or not, his wolf takes over and helps him find the answer and the path. The answer is not in taking the Castle and creating a mimicry of what it was, it is in honoring what it truly was and truly means. The heart over the structure. 

And in giving supremacy to the heart, to the red-white heart, he unknowingly paves the way for his own place: Winterfell built of Snow. He doesn’t have to steal the castle, he will be invited to belong.

That’s my own humble interpretation, anyway.

[c-hristy]

Separation - Part 1 《Charlastor AU》

《Continuation of 'His Silence'》

    His fingers creased the edge of the letter as he reread it for the twentieth time. There was a slight quake to his fingers as he set the paper down, only to reach and grab for it again. His eyes moved across and read the words that decorated the parchment before he dropped it once more, eyes empty.

    Lucifer murmured something to himself before standing, leaving the letter on the table. He had some things that he had to prepare. A few quick missives sent out and his stomach broiling with the uncertainty of the near future caused his hands to shake more. 

    When his guest arrived, he did his best to hide the quaking. He wasn’t able to do much; there was a slight tremble to his voice as he explained what would be occurring in the next few hours.

Alastor's eyes twitched as he bored holes into the smaller demon. His ears flicked softly as he seemed to take in the information that had been given to him, "It sounds like it's already been lost."

"I do what I have to do for order." Lucifer's voice was slow; tired, "You caused a major wreck up in Heaven."

"You say that as if it's my fault."

"Mama!" He screamed, struggling violently against the hold that was gripping his elbows, "Mama!"

"I've told you what needs to be done." 

Alastor felt his fingers grip his microphone tighter, an unsettled feeling boiling under his skin as Lucifer spoke to him, "Go. Or worse things will happen to them."

She wasn't able to get words out. Cloth bunched in her mouth and her hair whipped against her eyes, blinding her momentarily. In the few seconds that the locks of red covered her vision, she was pulled and thrown violently in every direction except backwards.

Alastor's shoulders straightened and his gaze turned toward the window that was behind Lucifer's desk. It seemed as though the city was at peace in that moment; things seemed to be moving in the way they usually did. He had to fight to keep his grin carefully stretched across his face, "What would happen to me, them, if I don't go?"

Lucifer's fingers tapped on the desk, the edge of his pinky touching the letter that was the source of it all, "Do I need to explain to you? You know what would happen."

"They wouldn't let it happen." Alastor's voice had an edge of poison, "You think them weak?"

"No." Lucifer shook his head, "Quite the opposite."

Her insides crumbled and she collapsed, letting it happen. The anger raged and turned in her stomach but nothing could fight the overwhelming sense of desperation. She couldn’t cry; she couldn’t move. All she felt was the grips and violent shoves and the tightening of hands in her hair and wrists.

“You’re going to what? Rip your daughter’s children away, for what? An example?” Alastor huffed and recomposed himself, straightening his spine and his fingers gripping the microphone tighter, claws cutting into his palm, “If you must make an example of my family, use me.”

“It can’t be just you. I’ve been given specific instructions. It’s all of you.” Lucifer shook his head just enough that it was visible, “There’s nothing that you can do.”

“Pardon my French, please, but this is connerie.” Alastor’s mouth twisted around the curse.

“You did this.” Lucifer snarled, a white hot rage blistering his eyes, “I did not do this. You did this. Surely, you must have realized there would be consequences to what you did? You slaughtered an entire sector of Heaven to return to Hell.”

“Yes! And?”

“It caused them to look at us. If a demon so badly wanted to return to Hell from literal Heaven, what good is the punishment down here?” Lucifer, in a moment of his composure slipping, pounded his hand on the desk, “You ruined it all! You caused them to look toward us and now I have to do what I have to keep Hell orderly.”

Alastor felt his throat tightening.

“They’re already separated.” Lucifer turned to the window behind his desk, “They’re already torn apart. I kept you here so that you wouldn’t have to witness it.”

“And you let Charlie see?”

“Charlie is with Lillith. She won’t know until I go down to tell her.” Lucifer’s voice softened, his eyes half lidded, ‘You have to go. I’ve told you where. It’s not that far; you aren’t to leave.”

    Alastor was quiet for a few moments, his throat tightening, “What about them?”

    Lucifer sighed, rubbing his temple, “I can’t tell you where they’ll be going. You need to leave.”

    The door opened and Alastor turned to the two demons that walked in. He felt his shoulder slump, “What if I defy you?”

    “You know what will happen, Alastor. I suggest you do what you know is best.” Lucifer stood, eyes flickering toward the letter once more, “Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be.”

-

    Charlie fell through the door; ripped off its hinges. The tears had already been fueled by the conversation from earlier and she prayed that it was not true. The moment she realized that there were claw marks on the wood and trails of dried blood throughout her and Alastor’s estate caused a rage to consume her.

    “No, no, no,” Repeated whispers bubbled out from her throat and she fell to the ground near the stairs, gripping the carpet that was lain on the floorboards, “Not them.”

    Whispers of hope trickled through her mind and in a moment, she thought that maybe one of them would be left. They were all so strong - how could anything have taken them? Charlie raced through the house and ripped open each and every door, tearing apart rooms and calling out for her children.

    Once she reached the hallway with their bedrooms, splatters of blood and the claw marks increased in frequency. Her throat tightened when she opened Margret’s bedroom door. Instead of the normally very orderly room, there were shreds of carpet and Maggie’s comforter strewn around. The snowglobes that rested on shelves were scattered across the floor, the glitter that had been embedded into them was now stuck to the floor and some voice in the back of Charlie’s mind whispered that Alastor wouldn’t be happy about the glitter. 

    The wardrobe was flung open and it seemed as if Margret had been hiding in there; clothes were violently thrown away from the back corner and she could see streaks of blood coming from the inside. A sob etched in her throat as she left the room to go to Bea’s room right next door.

    It was worse in there; more of Bea’s things were thrown around. Charlie could tell that her middle daughter fell into her Wendigo form based on the heavy claw marks on the walls and the shredding of the mattress. Her vision went black for a moment and she collapsed to the ground, the panic and anger balling in her throat and causing her eyes to go red.

    As her horns lengthened, Charlie stood up and made her way to Franklin’s room. If Margret and Bea had been taken - she had no hope for Franklin. His room was immaculate and she wondered if the reason for such damage in Bea’s room was due to the both of them being in her room at the same time that the snatchers came.

    Charlie fell onto Franklin’s bed and pulled his pillow to her chest, burying her face into it as she sobbed. Lucifer had told her that she would see them again; though it wouldn’t be for a while. He’d warned her, advised her against looking for them because if she did - well, she didn’t want to know the details on what would happen to her children if she went looking for them.

    She couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that they had been snatched away from her. Alastor was gone, too; apparently, he had gone quietly and was in a place far enough away that she wouldn’t be able to find him any time soon. 

    She had just gotten used to having him back; their family had been healed and whole for months. The ambient static that she had grown used to and loved to feel around her was gone again; even Franklin’s small amount of white noise was gone and she had /never/ been without it. Her arms curled tighter around the pillow, letting a scream break from her lips as she sobbed heavily.

    It would remain like this for months. The months would bleed into years and Charlie wasn’t able to focus on much of anything. The Hotel slowed down to the point where she had previously been redeeming a demon every few weeks and now she was barely scraping by one a year. Her heart just wasn’t in it - the fact that she was so disinterested showed in her work. She just couldn’t force herself to want to redeem anyone from their punishments when she was so tightly locked in her own.

-

    It was so dark. She felt the tears, previously dried against her reddened cheeks, start up again. There was no concept of time; she had no idea how long she’d been there. All she knew was that in one corner of her small room lay a cot, and in the other corner lay a door that had a slot that food was pushed through at random times throughout the day. She’d thought that perhaps it would come in orderly times and she’d attempted to keep count of the seconds, but there were times that only a few thousand seconds passed before another plate was passed through and then there were times when tens of thousands of seconds passed before then.

    Margret was so hungry.

    Her stomach growled savagely. There had been hundreds of feedings by this point; she couldn’t keep count. Her Wendigo was starving and she just needed meat. Whoever was keeping her captive had been kind enough thus far to only feed her non-meat dishes but -

    She was starving.

    When the slot opened for the millionth time, she was waiting. Her face was against the slit and she felt her throat constrict as she spoke for the first time in what she felt like forever.

    “Please, I’m so hungry, please.” Maggie whispered as the tray was shoved through the slot, the food not even looking remotely interesting. 

    The demon who had fed her gave a noncommittal grunt and closed the slot again, walking away. She felt her stomach growl angrily and the Wendigo started to crawl under her skin; it knew there were demons nearby and she could hear their hearts beating and their muscles moving.

    Margret was 

    so

    hungry.

- 

    Beatrice growled and crossed her arms, staring out the window. Though she had a very open looking bedroom with bright, sunny windows and a decent view of the countryside of Hell, she felt anxious. It had been years since she’d been home; she’d kept track of the days on the endless amounts of paper that appeared in her bedroom each morning. There were journals and paper tied together with twine. There wasn’t so much to do while here; she idly wondered what her siblings were doing in the rooms that they had. 

    Beatrice knew they weren’t in the same area. In the times that she had transformed into her Wendigo and had attempted to break down the windows or walls (they were unreasonably strong), she’d been unable to hear or smell them nearby. There was a large amount of demons that were in the same house as her, none that she had recognized from the life before, though she had learned a few of their names and had even been able to talk to a few of them.

    Her heart ached as she looked out the window at the sun setting, reaching for a pen. She wrote so often that her hand seemed permanently stained with ink. Writing was something she didn’t even realize she liked to do before this; though she honestly could’ve lived her entire life knowing she didn’t like to write if it meant being with her family.

    She wondered what her mother was doing. Bea did her best to keep Alastor from her mind; the thought of being away from him for so long hurt her more than being away from her siblings or mother. She wondered, just for a second, if Alastor was being kept away from Charlie.

    After a long while of careful consideration, Bea knew that the moment she either escaped or was let go of this prison, she was going to hug her father for hours. There was also a pressing issue of Vox.

    Though she was kept isolated, there had been letters delivered to her. Secretly, pushed through the food slot with her dinner. Hidden under the plate and the envelope was the same grey color as the tray. She hadn’t been able to really wrap her head around the fact that one of the demons that had given her dinner was hiding letters and giving them to her; she wondered why, even in captivity, she was being treated so well.

    The letters were only ever from Vox and in the past hundred years since she had been kept away, there had only been about five. She lived for them; the only contact she had with the outside world was him. She’d never been able to send a letter back, but the spiky cursive that he used to write was familiar and warm to her.

    This punishment, though, was sometimes too much.

-

    Franklin blinked wearily as he shifted back into his regular form. He nearly constantly lived in his Wendigo form at this point; he was constantly bombarded with demons that were fighting him. Trapped in an arena for as long as he could remember, the only times he was relieved from the constant battle was when the cage surrounded him and he was able to lay down and get a few hours of sleep on the ground.

    He was always fighting. There was a trough of water on the other side of the arena that he was able to occasionally gulp a few sips down before another round of demons would come out and attack him. He was constantly fed; the bodies of demons and their hearts were the only things that actually kept him fueled enough to continue on each day.

    The dirt stained his skin and Franklin itched for a shower. He was so tired from this and he knew that once he fell asleep, he’d only be able to sleep for a few hours before the cage rose and he would be forced back into fighting.

    It didn’t take him long to fall asleep and the creaking from the cage opening was the reason for him to wake up the next morning. Frankie sighed and rubbed his eyes, sitting up and staring around at the arena that surrounded him. There were so many seats; they were perpetually empty.

    Except today.

    There, directly in front of him, sat the image of his grandfather. Franklin scrambled up and growled, baring his teeth at Lucifer. The two stared at each other for a few moments and Lucifer then stood, dropping his staff and unbuttoning his jacket.

    His voice drifted toward Franklin in the wind and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

    “Survive me, and you will free your entire family.”