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Jon was rightfully "terminated" by the Watch


Barbrey Dustin

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4 minutes ago, Noneofyourbusiness said:

Jon's allowing that to happen technically violates his duty to execute Mance for desertion. But Mance is more useful alive.

This is part of the point to the larger picture of the entire story. People are valuable and rumors are crap. Jon was pinned in a corner by the ONLY person in the realm that showed up to the wall to help. 

And this also plays in to Melisandre's larger arc where she messes things up for many people. This incident at the wall has an effect on more than one storyline. 

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4 hours ago, Darkstream said:

Oh good. Then you should have no issue with Jon taking actions that conflict with these detrimental and prohibitive laws and customs, in order to ensure the prosperity survival of mankind.

Kings can change laws. Lord Commanders of the Night's Watch cannot. They have to do their duty as the people of the Seven Kingdoms interpret them, not as they would like to interpret them. Else they could also wear crowns, win glory, and father children.

4 hours ago, Darkstream said:

Another poster twisting the vows into a literal interpretation in order to support their bias damnation of Jon. :rolleyes:

Why do you like him so much? He failed to convince the men around him that his plans had any merit. And he failed to live up to the standards he demanded them to stick to. What is the difference between the Weeper and Ramsay? There is none. Yet Jon presumes he can break his vow to fight Ramsay while Marsh and the others have to suffer this ridiculous idea of this boy commander who has never lived through a proper winter at the Wall that you can make a deal with scum like that. And that they just forget that this scum tried to kill them all. While he himself apparently cannot forget his sister and sends another oath breaker to save her.

The Night's Watch ideal is actually a high ideal. An ideal I actually like. It is the ideal of a man on holy mission that is more important than anything else. Something Jon tried to live up and failed. The problem isn't the ideal, the problem is the man, Jon Snow. He sucked at being the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. 

He did not fail because he was making a mistake or because he did something he could not influence. He simply made a wrong choice based on favoritism and personal feelings.

3 hours ago, HallowedMarcus said:

   The Realm care about the facts that are known? King Baratheon made Ned Stark write a will. A known fact. Selmy acknowledged it as Robert's Will. A find strange people speaking about Ned's treason like you and others did.

   It was Cersei who committed treason by destroying her husband’s will and putting a non-Baratheon on the Iron Throne. 

That is all true. Cersei was also committing treason. But she was not the only one. Eddard Stark forged his king's last will in an attempt to make himself the Lord Regent and Protector of a king he believed did not exist (Joffrey Baratheon). A king he intended to unmake and possibly hand over to the mercy of his uncle Stannis. That is treason, too. Ned betrayed Robert when he refused to tell him the truth about his children. And without Robert knowing Ned never knew whether King Robert wanted Stannis to succeed him or not Renly or perhaps even one of his bastards (or, who knows, perhaps still one of Cersei's children).

Those were the king's decisions, nobody else's.

4 hours ago, Darkstream said:

Vows are just words, are they not? Jon would have to be a complete moron, and a traitor to all of mankind - quite like the men who attempted to assassinate him - in order to stay true to these vows that he swore. In effect, bending the rules of this vow, was the only way to actually stay true to the oath that he swore. One can technically argue that Jon was a traitorous oath breaker, but in fact, he was the only man of the Nights Watch attempting to live up to the true purpose of the vows he swore. What's the point of staying true to an oath, if doing so results in the exact opposite of what that oath is suppose to accomplish?

It is quite clear that Jon's reinterpretation of 'the realms of men' does not, in fact, refer to the wildlings. The wildlings apparently deliberately chose to live in the no man's land beyond the Wall that was obviously territory left to the Others after the Long Night. The Wall was built to keep the Others out of the realms of men - the hundred petty kingdoms which later developed into the Seven Kingdoms. The men from those realms of men maintained and protected the Wall for thousands of years while the wildlings hunted and killed its defenders, making no attempt whatsoever to help the black brothers in their sacred mission.

They are at best ingrates and at worst confirmed enemies of the Watch.

2 hours ago, Darkstream said:

Only, you don't want to acknowledge that Jon had accounted for the lack of resources facing the Watch, and had made arrangements to rectify the situation. Thanks to Jon's foresight and negotiations, the Watch would have been better equipped and fed than it had been in a long time.

Good intentions are worth nothing. If I'm in charge of protecting a group of people in as rough a world as Westeros then I certainly can take in a lot of other people if I have the resources to feed them. But taking them in when you have only plans how to feed them in the future is completely irresponsible. What is when those plans fail? Then I have risked to kill or literally killed quite a few of my own people as well as given false hope to the people I took in.

We could discuss the idea of Jon allowing the wildlings to cross the Wall to do what they please thereafter in light of the fact that this would not put all that much of a strain on the provisions of the Watch. But that would be treason, too.

2 hours ago, Darkstream said:

The only viable point I can see from your argument is that fewer men would have died at the hands of a greater number of wights, while defending the wall, but at least they would have died with a full belly.

Jon's duty is to protect the Wall. His suicide mission would have weakened the Wall. It was a stupid idea. The very idea of Jon commanding the ranging himself was ridiculous. What did he think would Marsh and the others do in his absence? And who did he think would protect the Wall from the Others in his absence? Perhaps the Others already have all the wights they need for their attack and they just intend to draw even more black brothers away from the Wall? What if the Others attacked the Wall while Jon was at Hardhome?

Jon has no idea who the Others are or what they want. He does not know their plans and can thus not really make good attempts to guess what their plans might be.

2 hours ago, Makk said:

I never said they could, that is why you need the support of the North and probably the entire continent, which is why the Boltons need to be removed.

The Boltons are in as much need of removing than the Weeper is. If Jon can forgive that thug he can also give Ramsay and Roose a hug. There is no difference between those men.

But we could technically certainly discuss the question whether Roose or Ramsay could deserve to be quietly assassinated. They certainly could deserve that.

What is stupid is this whole campaign thing. Stannis actually conducting a war against Roose and Ramsay. And then Jon deciding to do the same thing, leading the wildlings against Winterfell. That is complete and utter madness. Men are going to die in those battles. Provisions will be destroyed, lost, and wasted in those campaigns. The result will be a weaker and not a stronger North. Just take those 2,000 Frey men. Most likely not a single one of them is going to return to the Twins, and many might have had a hand in the Red Wedding. But they only did what their lord commanded them and they could all man the Wall, too, if they knew that this was necessary. But thanks to Stannis' and Jon's actions nobody is ever going to try to tell them.

2 hours ago, Makk said:

But the Wildlings are extremely important. The first thing you need to hold any sort of fortification is enough men to man it. Any man, woman, or child no matter how little previous training they have had can watch from the wall and raise the alarm if needed. The Nightwatch previously didn't have that and had closed all but three of the castles. Bit by bit Jon was taking steps to rectify centuries of neglect.

I daresay that the idea that some people can make out the Others or wights in the middle of night from atop of 700 feet high wall is pretty much unlikely. Jon and his people saw Mance and his army because of their fires. The Others and wights won't make any fires. And when they come winter will have come, too. The real winter, the winter we hear about in Gared's stories and the other tales how things go at Castle Black in winter.

The idea that anybody could go out and look for wights or Others from the Wall in such conditions seem pretty far-fetched to me. It is most likely going to be so cold that your eyeballs freeze if you try to take a look. Assuming the Others are not going to come in the middle of a great snowstorm which would make it literally impossible to try to see anything going on down beyond the Wall.

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On 13.6.2017 at 4:26 AM, The Fattest Leech said:

Jon did not send Mance and the spearwives. Melisandre did, most likely with Stannis' knowing, and Jon could not interfere with the quarrels of southron politics because that is not the job of the LC of the NW. Also, Melisandre sent Mance to Long Lake... not Winterfell. Mance went to Winterfell on his own mission.

That is factually wrong and you know it since you read the books. Stannis makes it very clear to Jon from the start that he gave Rattleshirt-Mance to Jon. He is his man. That is repeatedly said. Mance is Jon's responsibility. As such Stannis has nothing to do with Mance's mission to Winterfell (how could he, he was long gone when Mel had her vision of the girl) and it is both made clear in Mel's chapter in the conversation she and Mance have before they inform Jon about their plans that Jon decides where Mance goes and where he doesn't go.

And it is also made explicit by the text that Melisandre and Mance asked for Jon's permission and got them. Else Mance wouldn't have gone.

Mance did the deed, Melisandre suggested, and Jon authorized it. He can't wiggle out of that. And if he actually existed he would never do something like that. He would never hide behind Melisandre's skirts or Mance's broad shoulders.

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2 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

That is factually wrong and you know it since you read the books. Stannis makes it very clear to Jon from the start that he gave Rattleshirt-Mance to Jon. He is his man. That is repeatedly said. Mance is Jon's responsibility. As such Stannis has nothing to do with Mance's mission to Winterfell (how could he, he was long gone when Mel had her vision of the girl) and it is both made clear in Mel's chapter in the conversation she and Mance have before they inform Jon about their plans that Jon decides where Mance goes and where he doesn't go.

And it is also made explicit by the text that Melisandre and Mance asked for Jon's permission and got them. Else Mance wouldn't have gone.

Mance did the deed, Melisandre suggested, and Jon authorized it. He can't wiggle out of that. And if he actually existed he would never do something like that. He would never hide behind Melisandre's skirts or Mance's broad shoulders.

Proof?

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On 2017-6-16 at 4:11 PM, Lord Varys said:

The lords just look for a pretext to disband it. Nobody really likes or respects the NW and their silly mission anymore. 

Oh? And yet you keep arguing that Jon's most prudent coarse of action is to not do what he thinks is in the best interest of the realms of men, but to sit on his arse and send message after message to the deaf ears of these same Lords - just so that when the extinction of mankind is upon them, with his dying breath he can say, well, at least I didn't break any oaths, nor did I do anything unlawful. :thumbsup:

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The Old Bear made one attempt to inform the King on the Iron Throne but that was clearly not enough. If something like that fails the proper next step is to make another attempt not to bury your head in the sand.

This is bs, besides, you think it's OK for him to bury his head in the sand to the threat of the Others, yet instead of accepting that he will receive no support from the Lords of Westeros, you expect him to continue :bang: in the hopes that they will finally listen - when it's too late.

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3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I daresay that the idea that some people can make out the Others or wights in the middle of night from atop of 700 feet high wall is pretty much unlikely. Jon and his people saw Mance and his army because of their fires. The Others and wights won't make any fires.

The light from a fire atop the wall would reach 200 meters to some extent, at least enough to see movements of a large number of creatures. They could quite easily hang lanterns over the wall as well. If Wights start bashing at a gate it would help if someone was close enough to hear, and if they are climbing the wall it would help if someone was there to knock them off. At any rate, eventually they have to get closer and the sooner you know about it the better. It would also help to have enough people at the wall so the trees can actually be cut back further.

Your insistence on arguing that having numbers along the wall is pointless is baffling. We don't know much about the Others, but the people who first built the wall did and they almost certainly built it for this specific purpose. If it is manned it will be of value against them.

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2 hours ago, Darkstream said:

Oh? And yet you keep arguing that Jon's most prudent coarse of action is to not do what he thinks is in the best interest of the realms of men, but to sit on his arse and send message after message to the deaf ears of these same Lords - just so that when the extinction of mankind is upon them, with his dying breath he can say, well, at least I didn't break any oaths, nor did I do anything unlawful. :thumbsup:

This is bs, besides, you think it's OK for him to bury his head in the sand to the threat of the Others, yet instead of accepting that he will receive no support from the Lords of Westeros, you expect him to continue :bang: in the hopes that they will finally listen - when it's too late.

His idea of attacking the most powerfull northern house was not because he thought it would help mankind, but because he received a letter from Ramsay(or someone passing as Ramsey) saying that he wanted his wife back. Instead of writing another letter explaining the situation or sending someone to explain it to him, he decide to attack them effectively dooming the Watch if Stannis lose.

 

That's only because he didn't showed any evidence of it. If someone say that a army of zombies is going to attack but provide no evidence, would you believe in that? The Watch should've tried to capture a wight and use it to prove their point. But they didn't.

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1 hour ago, The Hoare said:

His idea of attacking the most powerfull northern house was not because he thought it would help mankind, but because he received a letter from Ramsay(or someone passing as Ramsey) saying that he wanted his wife back. Instead of writing another letter explaining the situation or sending someone to explain it to him, he decide to attack them effectively dooming the Watch if Stannis lose.

 

That's only because he didn't showed any evidence of it. If someone say that a army of zombies is going to attack but provide no evidence, would you believe in that? The Watch should've tried to capture a wight and use it to prove their point. But they didn't.

Actualy they did send the hand of a wight to kings landing as a proof. Alliser thorne carried it.no body believed.

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4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That is factually wrong and you know it since you read the books. Stannis makes it very clear to Jon from the start that he gave Rattleshirt-Mance to Jon. He is his man. That is repeatedly said. Mance is Jon's responsibility. As such Stannis has nothing to do with Mance's mission to Winterfell (how could he, he was long gone when Mel had her vision of the girl) and it is both made clear in Mel's chapter in the conversation she and Mance have before they inform Jon about their plans that Jon decides where Mance goes and where he doesn't go.

And it is also made explicit by the text that Melisandre and Mance asked for Jon's permission and got them. Else Mance wouldn't have gone.

Mance did the deed, Melisandre suggested, and Jon authorized it. He can't wiggle out of that. And if he actually existed he would never do something like that. He would never hide behind Melisandre's skirts or Mance's broad shoulders.

Where in the books stanis maks clear or even implies that rattle shirt is now under jons command? And also where in the books jon sends mance to Winterfell? Because as i remember he sent him to long lake to rescue a girl not to Winterfell. 

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2 hours ago, the snow dragon said:

Where in the books stanis maks clear or even implies that rattle shirt is now under jons command? And also where in the books jon sends mance to Winterfell? Because as i remember he sent him to long lake to rescue a girl not to Winterfell. 

I think previous posts from various fans on this forum already addressed your second question.  Jon ordered Mance to get Arya.  Mance asked for wildling women to accompany him on this mission.  Jon sent Dolorous Edd Tollett to get these women and bring them back to the wall.  Mance doesn't need to play tricks and have spear women with him if all he needed to do was to meet Arya on the road and take her back to Castle Black.  Mance knew he will probably need to enter Winterfell under disguise and Jon knew it too.  That was why he pretended to be the bard, Abel.  We both know Jon had no intentions of sending Arya back to the Boltons no matter where they rescue her so it doesn't really matter in the end if they find her on the road or inside Winterfell.  Well, actually, it does matter when dealing with the question of guest rights.  The way it happened, Arya taken from Winterfell and Bolton workers murdered (including a fat litte boy named Little Walder), Mance and the man who sent him on his mission (Jon) are both guilty of guest rights violations.  The debacle that resulted from this very illegal mission is the fault of Jon.

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Hm, for those undecided, do try Adam Feldman's Meereenese Blot essays. He made a series for Jon, but also for Dany, Tyrion, and Arianne.

GRRM gave them quite a glowing praise:

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Then he went on to add that sometimes there's an essay or even a series of essays that "really gets it right". He specifically cited the difficulty he had with the Meereenese sections of ADwD, trying to figure out the POV, and he called it the "Meereenese Knot." He admitted being annoyed when some turned it into "the Meerenese Blot", but someone made a series of essays with that title. "I read those when someone pointed them out to me, and I was really pleased with them, because at least one guy got it. He got it completely, he knew exactly what I was trying to do there, and evidently I did it well enough for people who were paying attention."

source

Oh, and he's certainly not speaking only of the Dany ones, because the Jon ones followed them in a quick succession in 2013, and this interview apparently comes from 2015. I bet that Martin read all the analysis of his characters available, and I do doubt he would be so generous with his praise if the author of the blog got Dany right, but other characters wrong.

So, for what it's worth, here's his tate on the Mance mission. I tend to agree with him; Jon is an immensely sympathetic character, but he made his own bed.

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11 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Proof?

I actually quoted that somewhere above, but if you want I'm repeating myself here:

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“As you wish. I have a gift for you, Lord Snow.” The king waved a hand at Rattleshirt. “Him.”
Lady Melisandre smiled. “You did say you wanted men, Lord Snow. I believe our Lord of Bones still qualifies.”
Jon was aghast. “Your Grace, this man cannot be trusted. If I keep him here, someone will slit his throat for him. If I send him ranging, he’ll just go back over to the wildlings.”
“Not me. I’m done with those bloody fools.” Rattleshirt tapped the ruby on his wrist. “Ask your red witch, bastard.”
Melisandre spoke softly in a strange tongue. The ruby at her throat throbbed slowly, and Jon saw that the smaller stone on Rattleshirt’s wrist was brightening and darkening as well. “So long as he wears the gem he is bound to me, blood and soul,” the red priestess said. “This man will serve you faithfully. The flames do not lie, Lord Snow.”
Perhaps not, Jon thought, but you do.
“I’ll range for you, bastard,” Rattleshirt declared. “I’ll give you sage counsel or sing you pretty songs, as you prefer. I’ll even fight for you. Just don’t ask me to wear your cloak.”
You are not worthy of one, Jon thought, but he held his tongue. No good would come of squabbling before the king.

Stannis, Melisandre, and Mance himself make it very clear that Mance is now Jon Snow's man. Mance even makes a solemn promise to Jon that he will serve him and do everything he asks of him, and we can both agree that Mance is trustworthy enough to keep such promises (as long as they don't involve him wearing only black, as he points out here).

The whole thing is reinforced later on in another conversation with Stannis:

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“Your Grace, I know where you might find more men. Give me the wildlings, and I will gladly tell you where and how.”
“I gave you Rattleshirt. Be content with him.”
“I want them all.”

In the subsequent discussion Stannis hands over all the wildlings he has captured to Jon in exchange for the information about the clansmen. That means the spearwives that accompany Mance later were Jon's responsibility, too.

And then there is Mance's own conversation with Melisandre in her own chapter:

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“The girl,” she said. “A girl in grey on a dying horse. Jon Snow’s sister.” Who else could it be? She was racing to him for protection, that much Melisandre had seen clearly. “I have seen her in my flames, but only once. We must win the lord commander’s trust, and the only way to do that is to save her.”
“Me save her, you mean? The Lord o’ Bones?” He laughed. “No one ever trusted Rattleshirt but fools. Snow’s not that. If his sister needs saving, he’ll send his crows. I would.”
“He is not you. He made his vows and means to live by them. The Night’s Watch takes no part. But you are not Night’s Watch. You can do what he cannot.”
“If your stiff-necked lord commander will allow it. Did your fires show you where to find this girl?”

Mance makes it clear that he can and will only act on Jon's command, and that Jon would never allow him to go. Jon himself confirms that in the same chapter:

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The wildling turned to Melisandre. “I will need horses. Half a dozen good ones. And this is nothing I can do alone. Some of the spearwives penned up at Mole’s Town should serve. Women would be best for this. The girl’s more like to trust them, and they will help me carry off a certain ploy I have in mind.”
“What is he talking about?” Lord Snow asked her. “Your sister.” Melisandre put her hand on his arm. “You cannot help her, but he can.”
Snow wrenched his arm away. “I think not. You do not know this creature. Rattleshirt could wash his hands a hundred times a day and he’d still have blood beneath his nails. He’d be more like to rape and murder Arya than to save her. No. If this was what you have seen in your fires, my lady, you must have ashes in your eyes. If he tries to leave Castle Black without my leave, I’ll take his head off myself.

And while Mance is talking to Melisandre when he he first suggests his idea involving the spearwives we know that it was Jon who authorized that mission, too:

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A grey girl on a dying horse, fleeing from her marriage. On the strength of those words he had loosed Mance Rayder and six spearwives on the north. “Young ones, and pretty,” Mance had said. The unburnt king supplied some names, and Dolorous Edd had done the rest, smuggling them from Mole’s Town. It seemed like madness now. He might have done better to strike down Mance the moment he revealed himself. Jon had a certain grudging admiration for the late King-Beyond-the-Wall, but the man was an oathbreaker and a turncloak. He had even less trust in Melisandre. Yet somehow here he was, pinning his hopes on them. All to save my sister. But the men of the Night’s Watch have no sisters.

If you take that as confirmation that Jon Snow didn't authorize Mance's mission and was not directly involved in the recruiting of the spearwives you go against George himself. Jon is very aware that he is doing something here that he should not do. And there is no hint whatsoever that he gave Mance and the women instructions what they are not allowed to do. Like killing people in Winterfell, or trying to abduct 'Arya' or break her out of Winterfell. If he had done that he could just as well have not allowed them to go. If he wants his sister back - which he very well does - he has to risk something. And that he does. He later realizes that this was a mistake. A madness. But it is done, and now he has to suffer the consequences. If it had worked and Mance and the women had gotten 'Arya' out of there without being detected or identified there wouldn't have been as much harm as there is now. And hell, Jon might still be alive and well if he had not allowed the Pink Letter to provoke him as it did. He is only fucked if Stannis was actually defeated. If the letter is full of lies and Stannis is defeating the Boltons everything is fine. He would get off the hook.

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9 hours ago, Darkstream said:

Oh? And yet you keep arguing that Jon's most prudent coarse of action is to not do what he thinks is in the best interest of the realms of men, but to sit on his arse and send message after message to the deaf ears of these same Lords - just so that when the extinction of mankind is upon them, with his dying breath he can say, well, at least I didn't break any oaths, nor did I do anything unlawful. :thumbsup:

Trying to accomplish something with insufficient means or support is not going to work. You can try to bake a cake without sufficient ingredients but I'd not recommend it. If Jon does not look for outside help he is doomed. He does, on a very small and insignificant level. The places where he could look for more support are the Seven Kingdoms. And he does literally nothing to convince them of the threat they all find themselves in. That could even be seen as treason by negligence. As the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch it is duty to inform the people who clothe, feed, and support his order with their valuable resources about the danger they are in. 

And, no, not everybody in Westeros is going to disbelieve his story. Marwyn and Alleras did believe it. Others might. Tyrion and Alliser Thorne don't represent all of Westeros. However, if you making no attempt to convince anyone you basically deserve to die. 

The whole thing is ridiculous. Aemon was asking many lords for help against Mance, especially the Northmen. Yet no help came. Now that they have defeated Mance with Stannis' help those same Northmen (Umbers, Karstarks) can send men to Stannis and Roose yet they could not spare any men to help the NW to hold the Wall against the wildlings? That is ridiculous.

9 hours ago, Darkstream said:

This is bs, besides, you think it's OK for him to bury his head in the sand to the threat of the Others, yet instead of accepting that he will receive no support from the Lords of Westeros, you expect him to continue :bang: in the hopes that they will finally listen - when it's too late.

If gets no support from the lords of Westeros he is doomed. Period. Mance knew he could not win against the Others. If he couldn't, Jon can't, either, especially not with a few hundred watchmen and a few thousands wildlings who have already shown their intention not to fight the Others directly by fleeing from them. They hope the Wall will protect them.

7 hours ago, Makk said:

The light from a fire atop the wall would reach 200 meters to some extent, at least enough to see movements of a large number of creatures. They could quite easily hang lanterns over the wall as well. If Wights start bashing at a gate it would help if someone was close enough to hear, and if they are climbing the wall it would help if someone was there to knock them off. At any rate, eventually they have to get closer and the sooner you know about it the better. It would also help to have enough people at the wall so the trees can actually be cut back further.

Lanterns and fires won't help. They do not focus light into one direction. Just try to see something in the distance when walking around with a lantern or torch in the night. You will blind yourself. You can see your immediate surroundings but not things and people 50 or 100 meters in the distance.

7 hours ago, Makk said:

Your insistence on arguing that having numbers along the wall is pointless is baffling. We don't know much about the Others, but the people who first built the wall did and they almost certainly built it for this specific purpose. If it is manned it will be of value against them.

If the wights actually can climb and thus cross the Wall numbers on the Wall will be of paramount importance, that's true. But if they can't, for some reason, then numbers are irrelevant.

But for that kind of deadly (and most likely suicidal) work you really need determined men. Are the wildlings such men? Men and women who decided to flee rather than stand their ground and fight for their homes? We'll have to wait and see.

5 hours ago, the snow dragon said:

Where in the books stanis maks clear or even implies that rattle shirt is now under jons command? And also where in the books jon sends mance to Winterfell? Because as i remember he sent him to long lake to rescue a girl not to Winterfell. 

See above. You people don't seem to be reading the books all that well. This is not something that is easily overlooked.

2 hours ago, lojzelote said:

Hm, for those undecided, do try Adam Feldman's Meereenese Blot essays. He made a series for Jon, but also for Dany, Tyrion, and Arianne.

GRRM gave them quite a glowing praise:

source

Oh, and he's certainly not speaking only of the Dany ones, because the Jon ones followed them in a quick succession in 2013, and this interview apparently comes from 2015. I bet that Martin read all the analysis of his characters available, and I do doubt he would be so generous with his praise if the author of the blog got Dany right, but other characters wrong.

So, for what it's worth, here's his tate on the Mance mission. I tend to agree with him; Jon is an immensely sympathetic character, but he made his own bed.

We should not over-stress this. The way I'd see this is that George says his intention for the Meereen story was grasped by those essays. That doesn't mean all the details are correct or that this also extends to the Jon thing. But it is quite clear that George's intention in the story is that Dany's near assassination and Jon's assassination was an immediate consequence of their actions and mistakes in ADwD. They could have prevented it if they had made other choices. Dany was too soft and Jon was, well, to egoistic and mad, in the end.

Had he ignored the Pink Letter he wouldn't have been killed. Had he replaced the old officers with his own men instead of sending them away he wouldn't have been killed. Had he continued to eat with his men to listen to their worries and win their trust and loyalty he would have been informed of plots against him. He makes exactly the same kind of mistakes as Ned does when he sends his own trusted men away again and again and again.

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On 20/06/2017 at 0:33 AM, Makk said:

Before the Wildlings joined them the nightswatch was finished. They may (or not) have been able to stop the wildlings if Mormont didn't lose his troops north of the wall, but there was no way they would have even discovered, let alone be able to stop, the true threat. Through Jon accepting the Wildlings, he now actually has a somewhat sizeable and sustainable force.

Just so. And let's not forget that the wildlings are, at this point, the purest First Men blood there is. You know, exactly like it was during the Long Night. ;)

 

On 20/06/2017 at 0:33 AM, Makk said:

Even if Stannis did take the Black, it wouldn't really help. His men follow the King, not many of them would hang around if he wasn't. He does believe and if he can become king he could actually make a difference.

:agree:

 

On 20/06/2017 at 0:33 AM, Makk said:

The Boltons will never hold the north and they will not assist the wall. Ramsay sat home at the Dreadfort when the wall was under attack despite receiving summons. The North hates them as well. They have been written to be extreme villains, trying to put your faith in them is bizarre.

Indeed. 

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16 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Just so. And let's not forget that the wildlings are, at this point, the purest First Men blood there is. You know, exactly like it was during the Long Night. ;)

Who cares about the purity of First Men blood? Do you think this is some sort of racist series where one people is revealed to be better than another because it has purer blood than another? That is not very likely.

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12 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Who cares about the purity of First Men blood? Do you think this is some sort of racist series where one people is revealed to be better than another because it has purer blood than another? That is not very likely.

Are you serious? Are you really saying that certain bloodlines aren't special? 

 

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10 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Are you serious? Are you really saying that certain bloodlines aren't special? 

Certain individual bloodlines, sure. But not the collective bloodlines of an entire people or race. And purity of blood is also very much irrelevant. Daenerys is much less a pure-blooded Valyrian than Aegon the Conqueror and his sisters were. Yet that has had no bad effect on the magical abilities of her blood. She could do what she did despite the fact that she has Blackwood, Dayne, Martell, and Arryn ancestors.

Purity of blood helps with the dragonriding thing but that has nothing to do with the First Men or an entire people or race. Even if there are special bloodlines among the First Men - which is unclear - those are not in any way pure-blooded. They marry outside the family or clan, especially among the wildlings.

Any interpretation that tries to make sense of the story by giving collective traits to entire peoples or races on the basis of their collective purity of blood is not only implicitly but also explicitly racist. And there is no textual basis to support such a reading since nobody ever talks about the special blood of First Men, Andals, Rhoynar, etc.

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2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I actually quoted that somewhere above, but if you want I'm repeating myself here:

Stannis, Melisandre, and Mance himself make it very clear that Mance is now Jon Snow's man. Mance even makes a solemn promise to Jon that he will serve him and do everything he asks of him, and we can both agree that Mance is trustworthy enough to keep such promises (as long as they don't involve him wearing only black, as he points out here).

The whole thing is reinforced later on in another conversation with Stannis:

In the subsequent discussion Stannis hands over all the wildlings he has captured to Jon in exchange for the information about the clansmen. That means the spearwives that accompany Mance later were Jon's responsibility, too.

And then there is Mance's own conversation with Melisandre in her own chapter:

Mance makes it clear that he can and will only act on Jon's command, and that Jon would never allow him to go. Jon himself confirms that in the same chapter:

And while Mance is talking to Melisandre when he he first suggests his idea involving the spearwives we know that it was Jon who authorized that mission, too:

If you take that as confirmation that Jon Snow didn't authorize Mance's mission and was not directly involved in the recruiting of the spearwives you go against George himself. Jon is very aware that he is doing something here that he should not do. And there is no hint whatsoever that he gave Mance and the women instructions what they are not allowed to do. Like killing people in Winterfell, or trying to abduct 'Arya' or break her out of Winterfell. If he had done that he could just as well have not allowed them to go. If he wants his sister back - which he very well does - he has to risk something. And that he does. He later realizes that this was a mistake. A madness. But it is done, and now he has to suffer the consequences. If it had worked and Mance and the women had gotten 'Arya' out of there without being detected or identified there wouldn't have been as much harm as there is now. And hell, Jon might still be alive and well if he had not allowed the Pink Letter to provoke him as it did. He is only fucked if Stannis was actually defeated. If the letter is full of lies and Stannis is defeating the Boltons everything is fine. He would get off the hook.

YOU USEDBOOK QUOTES?!?!?! My feet got cold so I guess this answers the reason why... hell froze over. 

But nowhere does Jon send Mance to Winterfell. Mance is supposed to be going to Long Lake, per what Mel told Jon before would be the location of fArya. 

You can invent words in the story that Jon never not told them to go to Winterfell, but  that doesn't make it true. 

As it is now in this chapter, and in Jon's next chapter, Mance was supposed to go to Long Lake. 

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12 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Purity of blood helps with the dragonriding thing but that has nothing to do with the First Men or an entire people or race. Even if there are special bloodlines among the First Men - which is unclear - those are not in any way pure-blooded. They marry outside the family or clan, especially among the wildlings.

The wildlings are First Men. As Jojen says, this land is one. That is kind of the point to a large portion of the story. 

And yes, it's pretty clear that someone other than Targ Valyrians have special bloodlines. 

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