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But WHY Jon Snow. WHY?


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If Jon didn't end up going south to fight alongside Robb in AGOT after Ned has been killed,



and he didn't go south after Robb was murdered,



WHY is he going south when he gets the letter from Ramsay/Mance/Stannis/ItDoesntMatter because it just DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.



We talk on this forum all the time about who the letter may be written by, and we talk about whether Jon is dead/warging Ghost/warging into the ice cells... but I just can't get past why Jon is leaving. Why does he care enough to abandon his post now?Am I missing something?



:bang:


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i think its his excuse to go there because ramsay said he is going to kill his men. Jon has just acquired thousands of wildlings so he'd be able to defeat him. Jon really cares about Arya and his family thats why. He was looking for this excuse all along to avenge Ned and all the other Starks.


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Because of the plot.

It doesn't make sense.

Yeah, I think it's meant to be like the straw that broke the camel's back. They messed with Arya so now he's really pissed.

But it really doesn't make any sense:

First off, the letter doesn't even say Ramsay's got Arya. It says he wants her "back", which means she's not at Winterfell

If Jon was so concerned about Arya marrying that psycho why didn't he march on Winterfell sooner, like when he found out Mel was full of shit and the girl in the horse was not Arya?

And then there's the fact that marching on Winterfell is goddamn stupid anyway.

Let's say wildlings and Night's Watch brothers are not dying by the thousands at Hardhome. Let's say the political situation at the Wall is not volatile enough with wildlings, Queen's Men and crows about to get at each other's throats. Let's say there's not a blizzard raging. Let's say there aren't who knows how many hundreds of leagues from the Wall to Winterfell under said storm. Let's say it's not stupid to attack a castle taylor-made for winter and sieges with inferior numbers.

Even if we assume all that, Jon's excuse is far from solid:

Yeah, Ramsay threatened the Watch. Yeah, Castle Black is vulnerable to the south

Who cares? Ramsay means to march on Castle Black? Let him! He's likely just bluffing, but if he's stupid enough to take his men of uncertain loyalty and march hundreds of leagues in the middle of a storm to attack a provisioned holdfast, let him do it. Assuming he arrives in one piece at Castle Black with whatever meager force he could get, the people at the Wall would make short work of him.

But no, Jon did literally what Ramsay asked. Ramsey said "come and see them [the heads]", and Jon was all, "ok"

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It was more of jons breaking point as he held himself back when ned died and robb was murdered but that was already too much to bare. Now is little sister(supposedly) is going be married to some traitors bastard(jon probably heard about ramsays twisted ways) who has also said that stannis is dead and mance rayder has been flayed two people who jon respects and the continous use of bastard in the letter along with the promised night watch slaughtering is enough to push anyone of the edge. So of course jon wants to kill the arse out of the crazy bastars(dont tell him i said that hell flay me$

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Well, if the letter is not a forgery, Ramsay is menacing the Watch.

Not only the institution and its indipendence. He is menacing the task of defending the realms of the men.

Specifically, Ramsay is menacing the very necessary military capacity of Jon's army, menacing to alienate the Thenns.
You cannot promise lands to a people if they marry a girl, and then tell them that you have to let some other dude kill the girl (gruesomly) and so they will not have the lands. The Thenns would be lost to the defense of the realms of men, and in a way that would alienate lots of other Free people fighters too.
Even Tormund would find it difficult to look at Jon's face and feel respect for him if he did so. Probably the only effect of Jon accepting to give up Alys Karstark to Ramsay would be that the Thenns would kill some (or some tens) of watchmen, and leave the Wall for karhold, on a rampage. The Thenn leaders couldn't do anything else while mantaining the respect of their men: if you were a barbarian warrior, would you follow a leader that gives up his wife and land claims because some kneeler wants to keel to some other kneeler?

Second point: Ramsay is playing a political game too. He is asserting dominance (I am the leader in the north, no other leader can exist if they don't submit to me) that is both aimed at the Watch as an institution and at its Stark-born commander. The objective of the message are the whole of the norhterners, the ones living under Ramsay's rule. It is an internal policy thing, completely ingoring the external affairs Jon is worrying about: the Winter coming.

Jon sacrificed all personal to that: the task of the Watch. He abandoned Robb when he was alive and fighting. He forgot his father's execution. He killed Ygritte. And now Ramsay is putting himself right in the way of the task, the defense of the realms of men.
No way Jon is allowing him to.

Ockham's razor can pass now, and cut away anything else from the equation, including Ramsay's attempt at muddying the waters and pretend Jon is doing anything out of personal interest. Regardless of Bowen Marsh's analisys, which come from a cook frightened by the loss of his monastry's quiet kitchen-kingdom. By the way: Bowen hadn't even listened to the letter's reading, he was outside preparing the manslaughter...

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Let's try to look at the situation: The wildlings, except for those with the Weeper and Mother Mole have crossed the wall. If the Lord Commander is convinced that the White Walkers can't cross the wall, seal the gates! Tough luck for the Weeper and Mother Mole, but they had a choice. Now if Arya escaped from Winterfell, who knows where she is heading? No reason to march for Winterfell. Now, if Ramsay wants to attack the Night Watch, let him come. He doesn't know about the wildlings filling up the ranks, and there is time to build defensed, and or evacuate to Eastwatch, for example. And if you really want to fight Ramsay, why not sack the Dreadfort?

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Well the pink letter does not say that Ramsay is coming to attack the watch so that is not the reason. The letter actually tells Jon to go to Winterfell a couple of times so it is quite clear that Ramsay is not charging up the king's road but waiting for Jon's response to Stannis's defeat.



I think the conversation with Tormund should be thought about as part of the reason. After that Jon seems to think it is a good idea to let Tormund lead the watch to certain doom at Hardhome and for himself to be left going south with a hoard of wildlings many of who probably want him dead. If you think about it this is a actually a pretty good plan to wipe out the watch and set up the wildlings as a military force in the north and as the whole thing is apparently Jon's plan the wildlings can't be accused of just murdering them while Stannis was away. Marsh wasn't right to just stab Jon but it was a bad plan which couldn't be allowed to go ahead.



Another reason is that Jon thinks that all his family is dead and he is not just the last one to left to protect their memory but he is also in a position to do something about it. The planned attack on the Boltons is Jon reverting back to being the boy who wanted to be the young dragon and a hero. In the passage where Jon decides he needs to act on the pink letter he counters the good advise he has been given with images from his childhood. He writes off what he knows to be sensible ways of looking at his problems (the night's watch takes no part, you know nothing) and is left concentrating on how evil Ramsey is. He wants to act impulsively rather than responsibly and is winding himself up so that he can override his common sense with his anger. He decides to go back to the "boy" rather than kill "the boy and let the man be born" (this is similar to how Dany thinks in her last chapter she must go back after spending all that time thinking "if I look back I am lost")



"Jon flexed the fingers of his sword hand. The Night’s Watch takes no part. He closed his fist and opened it again. What you propose is nothing less than treason. He thought of Robb, with snowflakes melting in his hair. Kill the boy and let the man be born. He thought of Bran, clambering up a tower wall, agile as a monkey. Of Rickon’s breathless laughter. Of Sansa, brushing out Lady’s coat and singing to herself. You know nothing, Jon Snow. He thought of Arya, her hair as tangled as a bird’s nest. I made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell … I want my bride back … I want my bride back … I want my bride back … !"


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Whoever wrote that letter wanted Jon dead. The wording was designed to get a strong emotional response and created a sense of urgency- "I want my bride back." Well, one would think they'd better get to her first, right?



No one is immune to blades in the belly in aSoIaF, not even the supposed AA. (kidding)

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iirc, pink letter states that if Jon doesn't give in to all of the author's demands, Ramsey will come to castle Black and cut out and eat Jon's heart. Jon's entire justification for going south alone (unless anyone just happens to want to join him going that way) is to make Ramsey pay for that threat to the LCotNW.



I also think the entire reason for him "breaking his vows" (vows aren't broken until they pass out of the gift imo...) is to give the reader a rush of vindication. finally, someone is going to stand up to the Boltons, Jon is going to be the plucky hero heading south with his newfound army of wildlings to restore good in the world/North. All taken away in one punch to the gut that the reader feels so much more now that it thwarts the only perceived movement against Bolton usurping of Stark dominance in the North... or maybe that was just me...


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Mediterraneo - you are mixing up the brides in the snow, just like Mel did.



Mel saw the "bride escaping her unwanted marriage" and assumed it was Arya (fake Arya), but that wasn't who she saw. She was seeing Alys Karstark, fleeing a marriage for Jon's protection, from the OTHER direction (from Karhold, not from Winterfell).



Whoever wrote the Pink Letter, whether it was Ramsay or Stannis or Mance, they were referring to Ramsay's bride, who he thinks is Arya Stark, but is actually Jeyne Poole.



The strange part is now Jeyne Poole, aka Fake Arya, might actually be on her way to Castle Black now.


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Mediterraneo - you are mixing up the brides in the snow, just like Mel did.

...

You are right Khal Shaggydog, Lady Karstark is not in the text of the pink letter.

But she is in the equation. You cannot keep her and give up the others, Stannis's women, Mance's child and Val, under a direct threath.

And the letter has the meaning it has because of the context in which it comes. And that context stays: it is the coming of Winter, and the need of protecting the realms of men.

I don't want to change anything of my post: it answers the question. Jon goes south with a free people's army because it is needed for protecting the realms of men, and Ramsay is in his way.

There is no need for anything else to explain his behaviour.

Don't you agree?

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If Jon didn't end up going south to fight alongside Robb in AGOT after Ned has been killed,

and he didn't go south after Robb was murdered,

WHY is he going south when he gets the letter from Ramsay/Mance/Stannis/ItDoesntMatter because it just DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.

We talk on this forum all the time about who the letter may be written by, and we talk about whether Jon is dead/warging Ghost/warging into the ice cells... but I just can't get past why Jon is leaving. Why does he care enough to abandon his post now?Am I missing something?

:bang:

The why is an,easy explanation. He has too. The Wall is indefensible from the south. If Jon stays at Castle Black he is risking the entire NW. Ramsay isn't going to come to the Wall with 50 men, he's going to come with his entire force (as far as Jon knows). By staying putJon not only puts the NW in danger, but he can't defend those he has extended guest rights to ( the Queen, her daughter the heir, Mel.

He decides to do the only strategic thing available to him. Take a force and try guerrilla tactics to stop Ramsay. If he gets caught out and killed, Marsh can claim he was breaking his oath.

Sure it's an emotional decision, but it's his only chance to keep the watch from getting annihilated.

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WHY is he going south when he gets the letter from Ramsay/Mance/Stannis/ItDoesntMatter because it just DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.

We talk on this forum all the time about who the letter may be written by, and we talk about whether Jon is dead/warging Ghost/warging into the ice cells... but I just can't get past why Jon is leaving. Why does he care enough to abandon his post now?Am I missing something?

It doesn´t make sense because was just a bad decision. He could not kill the boy in him and forget about Arya.

But I love the part that he is honest with himself and decide to fight, have to save a world where the dearest person for you not exist can´t find in myself to blame him.

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Even if there was no-one close to Jon involved ( which there actually isn't ) it would still be a pretty good decision. Even if he feels emotional about it , the decision is still rational. He's not marching on Winterfell. If he thought Ramsay was at Winterfell , why would he be thinking to ask Mel to find Ramsay for him? It's obvious he didn't believe everything that was in the letter , and thinks Ramsay is on his way. He seems to be planning a variation on the tactics he would have used against Styr if Bowen had left some men and horses at CB when he took off after the Weeper.



I don't know why any reader would believe the mission to Hardhome is doomed on the strength of Mel's say so. She's been wrong many times through misinterpretation , and she lies.( And she wants to be able to drain Jon for shadow babies. )


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He has no choice. He's told that Ramaay will come up there and kill his men, and he can't physically (or morally) give Ramsay what he's asking for

But at the same time, wouldn't it be smarter to let Ramsay and his host bring the attack to the wall, rather than try to lay siege to Winterfell, especially with winter fast approaching? The letter said Stannis is dead, which may or may not be true, but if Stannis and his army lost the battle for Winterfell, why would Jon think him and whatever Wildlings/NW men he'd have with him would do any better?

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But at the same time, wouldn't it be smarter to let Ramsay and his host bring the attack to the wall, rather than try to lay siege to Winterfell, especially with winter fast approaching? The letter said Stannis is dead, which may or may not be true, but if Stannis and his army lost the battle for Winterfell, why would Jon think him and whatever Wildlings/NW men he'd have with him would do any better?

Well, after 5 days of battle (followed by a winter march and we saw what that did to Stannis) against a sizeable army, the logical assumption is actually that Ramsay's army is probably in poor shape

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