#ShaggyDog

[milaeryn]

Ned: "You will train them yourselves, you will feed them yourselves, and if they die, you will bury them yourselves."

And then probably Ned 20 minutes later:

[naggascradle]

all im saying is twow could have a rickon pov with his dog. and the dead cousin he thinks is his brother possessing another dog. and then his only living brother possessing a dog also. which would be peak reading of course. anyway dogys

[crimsoncold]

STARKS & DIREWOLVES: Rickon and Shaggydog by @crimsoncold

Shaggydog had come slavering out of the darkness like a green-eyed demon. The wolf was near as wild as Rickon; he'd bitten Gage on the arm and torn a chunk of flesh from Mikken's thigh. It had taken Robb himself and Grey Wind to bring him to bay. Farlen had the black wolf chained up in the kennels now, and Rickon cried all the more for being without him.

[midnight1404]

THIS IS RICKON AND SHAGGYDOG

[melrosing]

beasts!!

[littlefeatherr]

Under the Heart Tree by bubug aka Magdalena Korzeniewska

closeups:

Arya, Lady Stoneheart, Nymeria

Sansa, Rickon, Shaggydog, Jon, Ghost

Bran, Summer, Lady, Ned, Robb, Grey Wind

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

What in the "hell" is going on with Rickon Stark?

Consider the moment when Rickon Stark ventured into the Winterfell crypts and spoke with what he believed to be his father:

“Shaggy,” a small voice called. When Bran looked up, his little brother was standing in the mouth of Father’s tomb. With one final snap at Summer’s face, Shaggydog broke off and bounded to Rickon’s side. “You let my father be,” Rickon warned Luwin. “You let him be.” “Rickon,” Bran said softly. “Father’s not here.” “Yes he is. I saw him.” Tears glistened on Rickon’s face. “I saw him last night.” “In your dream …?” Rickon nodded. “You leave him. You leave him be. He’s coming home now, like he promised. He’s coming home.”

Bran VII, AGOT

Prior to this encounter, Bran had revealed that the three-eyed crow had visited his dreams the night before, guiding him to the crypts where he spoke with Ned's ghost. Bran's ability to foresee Ned's impending death isn't unexpected—after all, he is a greenseer.

But what about Rickon? Is he a greenseer too? Well,

“In a sense. Those you call the children of the forest have eyes as golden as the sun, but once in a great while one is born amongst them with eyes as red as blood, or green as the moss on a tree in the heart of the forest. By these signs do the gods mark those they have chosen to receive the gift. The chosen ones are not robust, and their quick years upon the earth are few, for every song must have its balance. But once inside the wood they linger long indeed. A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. Greenseers.”

Bran III, ADWD

Rickon himself hasn't been explicitly marked as one, but ADWD tells us that his direwolf, Shaggydog, has the eyes of a greenseer:

He had a pack as well, once. Five they had been, and a sixth who stood aside. Somewhere down inside him were the sounds the men had given them to tell one from the other, but it was not by their sounds he knew them. He remembered their scents, his brothers and his sisters. They all had smelled alike, had smelled of pack, but each was different too. His angry brother with the hot green eyes was near, the prince felt, though he had not seen him for many hunts. Yet with every sun that set he grew more distant, and he had been the last. The others were far scattered, like leaves blown by the wild wind.

While Shaggydog's green eyes hint at a connection to greenseers, this alone doesn't fully explain what's going on with Rickon. There seems to be something deeper—an affinity with death itself.

More than any other character, Rickon spends a lot of time in the Winterfell crypts. We start hearing about this by Bran's sixth AGoT chapter, when the boys lean that Robb has to go south - a journey from which he will never return. Upon hearing the news, it's quite notable that Rickon instinctively seeks solace among the dead Stark kings. What's even more interesting is this:

“Listen to Maester Luwin’s counsel, and take care of Rickon. Tell him that I’ll be back as soon as the fighting is done.” Rickon had refused to come down. He was up in his chamber, red-eyed and defiant. “No!” he’d screamed when Bran had asked if he didn’t want to say farewell to Robb. “NO farewell!” “I told him,” Bran said. “He says no one ever comes back.”

Bran VI, AGOT.

For whatever reason, Rickon seems to have a rather heightened sense of death. Which brings us back to his direwolf, Shaggydog.

It just doesn't make sense to me. Why does Rickon's direwolf, of all the wolves, have unique coloring alongside Jon’s Ghost? Ghost’s white fur makes sense given Jon's outsider status and central role in the story. But why Shaggydog? Shouldn't Bran, with his greenseer abilities, have the "special" wolf? Instead, it’s Shaggydog, with his jet-black fur and green eyes, who stands out.

Given Rickon’s frequent presence in the Stark crypts, it seems possible that GRRM is suggesting Rickon has a spiritual connection to the dead—perhaps even serving in a role akin to a guardian, considering his apparent communion with the deceased. Several mythological figures come to mind as potential inspirations for this role.

One such figure is Anubis, the well-known Egyptian deity associated with death and the afterlife. 

Anubis is commonly depicted either as a man with the head of a jackal or as a black jackal or dog. He plays a crucial role in the mummification process and guides souls to the afterlife.

He has a less well-known brother, Wepwawet, who is tasked with "opening the way" for the dead on their journey to the afterlife. While Anubis is traditionally shown as black, Wepwawet is often depicted as white or grey. This stark contrast evokes the imagery of the Stark direwolves: Grey Wind, Summer, and Ghost, with their grey or white fur, parallel Wepwawet, whereas Shaggydog, with his distinctive black fur, symbolizes a link to Anubis. This alignment suggests a symbolic connection between Rickon and Anubis, while Jon, Bran, and Robb may correspond to Wepwawet.

Interestingly, throughout the series, all three of Rickon’s brothers have been portrayed as boys with wolf heads.

Farther on she came upon a feast of corpses. Savagely slaughtered, the feasters lay strewn across overturned chairs and hacked trestle tables, asprawl in pools of congealing blood. Some had lost limbs, even heads. Severed hands clutched bloody cups, wooden spoons, roast fowl, heels of bread. In a throne above them sat a dead man with the head of a wolf. He wore an iron crown and held a leg of lamb in one hand as a king might hold a scepter, and his eyes followed Dany with mute appeal.

Dany IV, ACOK

Stark’s direwolf killed four of our wolfhounds and tore the kennelmaster’s arm off his shoulder, even after we’d filled him full of quarrels …”

“So you sewed his head on Robb Stark’s neck after both o’ them were dead,” said yellow cloak.

Epilogue, ASOS

[...] The wooden man she had glimpsed, though, and the boy with the wolf’s face … 

The flames crackled softly, and in their crackling she heard the whispered name Jon Snow. His long face floated before her, limned in tongues of red and orange, appearing and disappearing again, a shadow half-seen behind a fluttering curtain. Now he was a man, now a wolf, now a man again. But the skulls were here as well, the skulls were all around him.

Melisandre, ADWD

Both Jon and Bran, along with their direwolves, also have a notable connection to the dead, further reinforcing the parallel to Wepwawet.

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.

Jon VII, ACOK

GRRM could be exploring the idea of Rickon as one with a deep connection to the spirits of the dead. This could explain not only his ability to perceive Ned’s presence in AGoT, but also his capacity to engage in extended conversations with him.

Additionally, various myths feature guiding dogs that act as "gatekeepers" to their respective underworlds.

Among these, Cerberus is perhaps the most renowned: the Greek three-headed black dog tasked with keeping the dead in Hades and preventing the living from entering.

ref: https://mythopedia.com/topics/cerberus

Cerberus has a Norse counterpart in Garmr, a black hound who similarly guards the gates of Hel, overseeing the dead and preventing the living from crossing into the underworld.

In Celtic mythology, black dogs like the Cŵn Annwn and the Barghest are often seen as omens of death or as guardians of the underworld. A modern depiction of this idea appears in the Harry Potter series, where the black dog, known as the Grim, is a harbinger of death.

Rickon is not a POV character, so we don't have direct insight into his thoughts or experiences with warging or dreaming. However, the evidence suggests that he is deeply connected to the concept of death and the underworld. In this way, he parallels his warg siblings—Jon, Bran, and Arya—who also have connections to death and the dead in various ways.

Rickon’s frequent presence in the crypts, his communion with spirits, and his direwolf’s distinctive black fur align him with these ancient symbols of death and protection. The many mythological references suggest that Rickon may not merely be a passive observer but could embody a significant role in the spiritual realm of the Stark family, hinting at a deeper narrative purpose that aligns with these ancient archetypes.

Whether GRRM will further explore Rickon’s connection to the dead remains to be seen, but the text and these mythological parallels certainly raise intriguing questions about his role in the magical landscape of the story.

[harvardfineartslib]

Happy International Dog Day! August is also National Dog Month. Woof woof!

Shaggy Dog Kim Tu-ryang, Korean artist, 1696-1763 [artist] 35.0 x 45.0 cm. 1743 HOLLIS number: 8001688179

This image is part of FAL’s Digital Images and Slides Collection (DISC), a collection of images digitized from secondary sources for use in teaching and learning. FAL does not own the original artworks represented in this collection, but you can find more information at HOLLIS Images (link in bio).

[ilovecats100]

The starks and their direwolves mean so much to me😩

[allovesthings]

Me, everytime someone bring up the theory that magic is going to fade away by the end of asoiaf:

Magical beast defense squad in this house.

I refuse to believe all the dragons will be gone and all the direwolves will be dead.Not happening.I don't care.

[pokenk]

I see a lot of modern AU give the stark’s huskies or some wolf dog hybrid species. Forgetting the fact that in a modern au, the Starks should be rich(past high Lord= modern billionaires). And all billionaires and their children are clinically insane because of all their money. Therefore, they should actually have wolves, and if the setting has medium fantasy, they should own dire wolves. and people are really sleeping on how funny this would be, because imagining them bringing their friends back home having never mentioned the fact, they owned wolves and not understanding why their friends are freaking out is hilarious.

[fortunate-hal]

A low rumbling growl rose from Summer's throat, and there was no play in it. He stalked forward, all teeth and hot eyes. Meera stepped between the wolf and her brother, spear in hand.

The Reed siblings and direwolves as depicted in the Finnish special edition of A Clash of Kings illustrated by Petri Hiltunen.

[gotham-at-nightfall]

Songs of Ice

By ViaEstelar

[geules-de-loup]

The fact that there was no space for Jon💀

Anyways a drawing with all the Stark siblings at the end of the series (Arya, QiTN Sansa, King Bran, Rickon)

[eddieheart]

So I had an idea... and I did a thing... pretty much the idea was that instead of getting pet direwolves the Starks (including Jon) were werewolves. Anyway that spiralled into the kids looking like their direwolves and because I can’t draw I photoshopped it. The pics are really bad so sry lol

Some of their aesthetics (?) are based on the show, some on the book and some in other specific fan art. (I gave Sansa a blue bow cus she gave lady one)

The fanart in question ^

And yes I know, Jon looks deranged and Sansa looks like Cersi sorry bro, that’s just how the cookie crumbled

[averageestrogenenjoyer]

rickon stark, when he eventually returns into the story, be like