Thank you 'Show Sam': Nights Watch Vows and Jon

[Muggle]

Members of the Nights Watch and Jon him self always call other members of the Watch, Brothers. Wildlings are the ones who call the NW crows. This is from Jons last POV in Dance. And he refers to the NW as crows. GRRM inserts every word very carefully. GRRM could of easily used brothers here. I dont need to pull of examples showing when NW use brother and when wildling use crow.

But it was large and long enough to seat two hundred, and half again that many if they crowded close. When Jon and Tormund entered, a sound went through the hall, like wasps stirring in a nest. The wildlings outnumbered the

crows by five to one, judging by how little black he saw.

As said above. Jon simply said "F*ck the Police"

[Seneti]

The oath is supposed to be etched in the memory of every Black Brother - which is why it is so concise and clearly worded. If you went about it by trying to forsee every possible situation, it would look less like a vow and more like a Terms and Conditions agreement.

:lol: Thanks for putting that image into my head. Now I'll see this six-foot scroll of NW Terms and Conditions complete with loss-of-limb and privacy clauses in front of my eyes every time I hear the NW oath.

[SerArthurHeath]

There won't be a Wall or a NW soon so all these oaths will be irrelevant.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

For crying out loud people, stop arguing that he's dead and thus out of the Night's Watch. He's not dead unless TWoW says so. He was still breathing on the last page of his last chapter in ADwD. So he's not dead!

[Deadwood]

I have been in so many debates here on this forum about the true extent of the NW vows and whether Jon broke them and the impact that has on his future. I have always said he has never and never will break his vows.

People don't like to hear this because so many R+L=J folks want Jon to become king and find all kinds of loopholes for him to abandon his post. Such as technical, but not actual death. He has already broke them. The vows are just words and so many others.

Thanks Sam for backing me up in 409 that Jon has not broken his vows. Nor will he ever. He is the "Watcher on the Wall".

Indeed. I thought it was pretty good and in seeking to succour Jon, Sam also did a bit of foreshadowing.

I liked Sam in this ep.

[boojam]

I have been in so many debates here on this forum about the true extent of the NW vows and whether Jon broke them and the impact that has on his future. I have always said he has never and never will break his vows.

People don't like to hear this because so many R+L=J folks want Jon to become king and find all kinds of loopholes for him to abandon his post. Such as technical, but not actual death. He has already broke them. The vows are just words and so many others.

Thanks Sam for backing me up in 409 that Jon has not broken his vows. Nor will he ever. He is the "Watcher on the Wall".

As I noted elsewhere Sam makes a correct deduction , stated to Jon, I see no fault in it...I am sure D&D must have been thinking about that for a while.

[sj4iy]

As I noted elsewhere Sam makes a correct deduction , stated to Jon, I see no fault in it...I am sure D&D must have been thinking about that for a while.

I've also mentioned it in a few debates. Maybe the people who wrote it had common sense XD

[Newstar]

I kind of loved Sam playing lawyer. I was reminded of how Jon/Satin fans have paid keen attention to the "I shall take no wife" and "father no children" parts of the vows, LOL.

[The Human Abstract]

I'm always amazed at the concern about whether he did or didn't later in the story. I've always considered putting organizational ethics on the back burner when faced with greater issues of right and wrong to be a sign of excellent character.

That said, I concur that it may foreshadow some later legal wrangling on his part.

[lakin1013]

I'm always amazed at the concern about whether he did or didn't later in the story. I've always considered putting organizational ethics on the back burner when faced with greater issues of right and wrong to be a sign of excellent character.

Hear, Hear!! Parsing the Night's Watch oath in order to find loopholes is not the intention of the oath and I have to believe that we all really know that. However, following an oath blindly when faced with larger constructs of right and wrong is just as wrong. But then the argument arises about the rights of the individual versus the rights of the institution. If each NW man found a loophole in the oath for their particular smaller 'need', the value of the oath and certainly the future of guarding the wall falls into uncertainty (ie would have been there to fight, but I was at my son's softball game, for example). So the reason to violate the oath, any oath, should be significant and ethically pressing.

[The Dragon has three heads]

The real oath is the one the door speaks, and I believe what Glenn and co said in 409, would like to get a sound bite of it and double check.

[The Dragon has three heads]

Sadly no, they used regular oath.

[Lady Woodland]

When it comes down to brass tacks THA & lakin have the right of it. Oath or no did the founding fathers of America sit back & say "oh ok your the boss" when they got sick & tired of being told what to do by good old England. No they took a stand for the greater good, how is this any different in the scheme of things.

Yes it was rebellion, treason, but the intent was not selfish or ignoble it had a higher purpose & those who believed were willing to die for it, likewise this will not go down easily but perhaps that's one of the comparison's GRRM is using or to quote my Spock. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"

I rest my case :fencing:

[ground_control]

Clearly, Jon never broke his vows. There were accusations, there was a trial, and Jon was found "Not Guilty".

Well, maybe not that formal -- in both the books and the show, Maester Aemon supports Jon's actions. The show had a Review Board of questionable authority and decisiveness and hasn't dealt with the Jon-as-LC issue yet, and in the books, the men of the NW elect Jon as LC, which presumably they would not have done if they believed Jon had broken his vows.

As far as technicalities go, Sam's s04ep09 "legalese" was not as clever as some people think it was. It's well established (both book and show) that having sexual relations with women isn't itself a violation of the Oath (Moles Town brothel). But Sam isn't looking for a legal justification for getting laid, he's looking for a way to characterize having a [presumably] monogamous relationship with widow that has a son from her deceased husband that would allow him to keep the woman and her son close with him (sharing his quarters even, maybe) in the "safety" of Castle Black as something *other than* "taking a wife and fathering a child". What he's looking for is the term "friends for benefits".

And I do mean "friends *for* benefits" , not "friends *with* benefits". In the real world, the equivalent situation would be a woman from a "poor" country marrying a man from a "rich" to get his citizenship/nationality/residency, presumably so that she and her son could stay in the "rich" country. I'm not saying this rudely -- it's clear Sam and Gilly do have genuine feelings for each other -- but in both the books and the show, Sam is partially motivated by a platonic desire to see Gilly and Sam Jr. get a good life. In the books, Sam explicitly thinks about lying to his father about the nature of his relationship with Gilly (and the paternity of her child) so that his family would take in Gilly and Sam Jr.

Likewise, while Jon's enemies claim that he broke his vows by sleeping with Ygritte, it wasn't just because he had sex [with a woman], it was because he was literally sleeping with the enemy. Jon claims that he was ordered to pretend to desert and do whatever was needed, and that the wildlings required him to sleep with a hot red-head in order to prove his loyalty. Alliser and Thorne being tools aside, it's actually quite reasonable for them to probe into his behavior while undercover in order to make sure he didn't get converted (assuming he was under orders when he 'joined" them in the first place). Also, while it's not impossible that a Brother would take to a specific whore, at least for a while, both the Brothers and the whores know that there is no chance for it to go any further than that. No, he can't quit his job and move to Moles Town, no she can't move in with him (Sam dislikes this), and no, they can't run away and elope.

Jon and Ygritte, on the other hand, are pretending to be a couple (whether or not the Wildlings consider them "married" is irrelevant, they are clearly seen as an "exclusive item"). Well, Jon's pretending and Ygritte's pretending to pretend, and Jon's pretending to pretend she's pretending, but deep down he knows she really likes him, and he really does like her. And unlike a hypothetical Brother getting overly attached to a specific whore, Jon does have a viable option -- stay with Ygritte and be loyal to Mance.

Jon's problem is that he thinks being tempted to break his vows is itself a sign of weakness. But as Maester Aemon would likely say, it's easy to keep to your vows when they aren't being tested. Or as Ned might have said, only when you are tempted can you be loyal.