Game of Thrones keeps tugging at our heartstrings with random Ghost sightings

Update (April 29): In the Battle of Winterfell, from Game of Thrones season 8 episode 3 “The Long Night,” Ghost the direwolf joined the fight against the army of the dead.

Jon Snow’s pet canine shows up at Jorah Mormont’s side at the head of the Dothraki cavalry, and the fierce Northern beast charges into battle alongside them, sprinting toward the wights hidden in the darkness outside Winterfell. While the vast majority of the swordsmen don’t make it back from the fight, a few of them retreat toward the castle along with Jorah ... but Ghost is nowhere to be found.

As ever — see our original story about Ghost’s uncommented-upon cameo in season 8 episode 2, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” below — Game of Thrones’ writers just want to leave all the Ghost fans hanging.

Thankfully, it appears that Ghost lives!

HBO

That’s a shot from HBO’s teaser for season 8 episode 4. Notice anything about the crowd gathered in front of Winterfell?

HBO via Polygon

Well, we’ll be damned. Perhaps there will be time in episode 4 for a teary reunion between Jon Snow and his beloved but repeatedly forgotten direwolf, both of whom appear to have survived the Battle of Winterfell (relatively) unscathed.

Original story: Ghost, Jon Snow’s loyal direwolf, hasn’t been seen on Game of Thrones since the show’s sixth season. We last saw this very good boy keeping watch over Jon Snow’s corpse as everyone waited to see how long it would take for him to be brought back from death, and the fans have been waiting patiently for Ghost’s return ever since.

And tonight’s episode of the show gave those fans what they wanted. Kind of.

Ghost was certainly there, but no one else seemed to think it was a very big deal. In fact, no one even acknowledged that Ghost was right there, waiting for someone to say hello, or pet him, or something.

The reaction on Twitter has been a mixture of joy ...

and outrage.

But overall everyone seems a bit confused about how such a big thing could be treated in such a blasé manner by the show’s writers and editors.

I mean, it’s not ideal, but at least our beautiful boy is back.