I apologize if this theory has already been floated, but I have recently reread the series and picked up a lot of things that I missed the first time through. I've also come to some interesting theories of what I think will be in store in the future books. The first one I'd like to discuss is "Is Jon Snow dead?"My first assumption is that Jon is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. Making him Fire and Ice, part wolf, part dragon.My second assumption, or assertion, is that he is a warg. I think we know that for certain, although his skill at it is not refined, it seems to improve as the stories progress.At the start of DOTD, the epilogue is the story of what fate befalls Varamyr Sixskins. When I first read it, I thought "Who cares about what happened to that guy?" But, on rereading, it gives us much info on what it is to be a warg. Particularly, what happens to your "soul" as a warg when your human body dies. When a warg dies his final death, his "soul" jumps to a nearby life form and takes over that body. It happened with the wildling that Jon killed on the pass when he met Ygritte. That guy became the eagle that attacked Jon. It happend to Varamyr, who jumps to the body of one of his wolves.Ice dragons. What do we know about ice dragons? Little and less. But, throughout the stories, ice dragons are mentioned a few times, especially later on. There's a constellation of stars known as the Ice Dragon. And there are a few times that Jon mentions ice dragons in descriptions of things, usually the cold. I recall he was walking through the tunnel of the wall and he described it as being as cold as walking down the gullet of an ice dragon. And another time he described the wind and being as cold as the breath of an ice dragon from Old Nan's stories. So, I assume that there must have been ice dragons in the world at one time, and they were cold natured with cold breath.The Wall. What do we know of the Wall? Again, not a lot, particularly on HOW it was built. We know Bran the Builder built it, but how in the heck would you build a 600 ft tall wall that stretches for miles??? Perhaps if you had a flying beast whose breath could freeze things it could be done..... We do know that the Wall is powerful. It has spells and such built into it. Coldhands can't pass the wall. Melisandre tells Jon that the wall has power, and she seems to have her finger on the pulse of the magic realm.
Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger's hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. "Ghost", he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold...
That's the last we hear about Jon. Very interesting paragraph. "...the wound was smoking..." Where have we seen wounds smoking? Dany's dragons."He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold..." Could that be because his "soul" has already made the jump? If so, where did it land? Ghost would be the most logical choice, but why would Ghost feel cold? When we last saw Ghost he was locked up in Jon's quarters to keep him from fighting with the warg's boar. So what would feel cold?My theory is that Jon's warg "soul" jumped and his Targaryen blood sensed an ice dragon that is frozen inside the wall and lead the "soul" there. That's why Jon feels cold.
The pacing was much, much better in this episode, compared to season 2. Less rushing through the story, less silly lines. Solid acting all around. Daenerys' eyebrows are crazy distracting. No idea why they couldn't just bleach those bad boys. Mance looks nothing like I pictured him, but dude's a solid actor, so whatever. Seeing Barristan again was awesome, and that was a great intro to the Unsullied. Loved the Tywin/Tyrion scene. The lack of Strong Belwas is a bummer. A friend of mine raised the harrowing possibility of having them merge Belwas and Daario into one character. 
Eyelive. I'm amazed at how well I remember the characters and general storylines though.
