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Did Jon "steal" Val?


Ragnorak

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The Others are most certainly evil. They're actively performing genocide on all living things and turning them into meatshields with order to make more meatshields for them. Hardhome and the Wight attack on Jon/Jeor is evidence for this.

Their motives and moral compass however are probably alien, that much is true.

They are not. The others are a force of nature. You can't call earthquakes who destroys and kills without thought evil.

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They are not. The others are a force of nature. You can't call earthquakes who destroys and kills without thought evil.

The Others are sentient beings and not forces of nature but probably an "expression" of magic is the way I understand them.

Humans will consider their actions evil, but they themselves might have an alien moral compass. At any rate nobody knows what they really want.

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The Others are sentient beings and not forces of nature but probably an "expression" of magic is the way I understand them.

Humans will consider their actions evil, but they themselves might have an alien moral compass. At any rate nobody knows what they really want.

Well, George did de facto say there is more to the Others than the Dark Lord thing, but we have to keep reading to find out. I think it's safe to say that there is more to their motivation than RAWR WE WILL KILL ALL HUMANS FOR THE SAKE OF IT RAWR RAWR.

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The Others and CoF lived together, First men moved in and fought CoF, while the Others stayed out or were sleeping? The first prologe stated that they could sence/feel the hate. Perhaps the Others were betrayed in a way and its more about personal revenge and tryingto regain thier land

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How old is Val? My impression was mid twenties.

Can't have our hero marrying a woman 10 years older than him. That would just be sad. She'll soon be old, and he'll still be young.

:rolleyes:

She's penultimate love interest, probably. She'll soon die anyway.

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Yeah I definitely though Jon was 17, probably almost 18 seeing as he was closing in on 15 at the start of AGOT and Ygritte was I think close to 3 years his elder and Val is I believe maybe a couple years older than Ygritte which is totally fine. So at the end of ADWS Jon is probably close to 18 if not there already and Val is maybe 23. Anyway that's what I can remember from Clash and Storm regarding Ygritte and then Val.

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Yeah, I was definitely under the impression that Jon was at least 17 in ADWD and Dany 16. He turned 15 quite early in GoT and I'm sure he was pushing 16 by the time they left Castle Black to look for Benjen. Now it had to be at least a year to 18 months since the end of GoT and the end of ADWD.

As for this theory, I love it! It's quite likely that Val considers herself stolen. She may just be waiting for him to claim what's his. LOL

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Jon and Val are endgame, it is known. They are each others type (Val seems to go for tall, dark and handsome; Jon is basically imprinted on that special brand of wildling woman fierceness), Val flirts quite a bit ('Lord Crow' and gelding threats are a clear example of negging; the wildlings seem to favor the aggressive approach to courtship); Jon gets all emotional about seeing her getting on famously with Ghost. It would also be really good for Wildling/Westerosi relations, which is probably why Tormund is encouraging it.

I'm not sure if the question Jon could be considered as technically having 'stolen' her will be all that relevant. After very likely battling hordes of ice demons and zombies together, I can't really see Val insisting on formalities. Survival of the zombie apokalypse should put things in perspective. That applies to a lot o other obstacles others have mentionned:

'Val is too proud to marry a kneeler' - If her fellow wildlings are not too proud to follow Jon into battle, Val would hardly be too proud to marry him, would she? Jon seems to enjoy honory wildling status by now, which is why he would be so uniquely suited tp promote the integration of Wildlings into Westerosi Society. For quite a while now he has been the only thing standing between the wildlings and Other-driven-genocide, one might think that some of them would know how to appreciate that.

'Jon won't break his vow' - Lots of people speculate that the events of the last book basically constitute a get-out-of-jail-free card in that respect, but I can see why people argue that Jon wouldn't discard his duties on a technicality. Then again, the whole 'being betrayed by your sworn brothers' thing might have changed his stance towards that particular comittment. Suddenly, getting off on a technicality might not look all that morally reprehensible in comparison. But even if Jon retains his loyality to the Watch, assuming that he will indeed play an integral role in the battle for Dawn, people might feel that he has done his share and should be released from his vows - there might be quite a bit of public support for pushing the 'released on a technicality' angle.

'Val would not be accepted as Lady of Winterfell/Queen in King's Landing' - Well, Selyse is planning already to make Val a Lady, and the Magnar of Thenn was good enough for Alys Karstark. So Wildling/Westerosi marriage alliances are already a bit of a thing right now, albeit not quite on the social level most of us seem to want Jon to reach by the end of the series. The Lady of Winterfell/Queen on the Iron Throne is admittedly still a different story, but again.... let's see after the zombie apoklypse.

More importantly however, I don't really see Jon ending up as Lord of Winterfell/King in the North/King on the Iron Throne anyway. Not, if Rickon and Brandon survive to the end. (I also have some substantial reasons to think that Jon Targaryan, King on the Iron Throne won't happen, but going into them would be too much of a derail now).

No, I think Jon will be released from his vows. He will be a loyal bannerman of his surviving brother(s) and important figure in Wildling politics and resettle the Gift. (Maybe he gets it from Dany for his service in defending the realm, would be one of a nicer cases of history repeating itself in this story). Surely, Val can become the Lady of Queenscrown. There's a chapter in Storm of Swords, when Jon comes across the place while with the wildlings, and thinks how nice it would be to resettle the area. Or was that Bran? Anyway, that's when I thought that, _if_ there is a happy ending for Jon, that's gonna be it.

G.R.R.M is allegedly shooting for a bittersweet ending - I think Val is one of the elements he has inserted to sweeten the bitterness. I do hope she gets to do stuff other than be a reward for Jon (saving him from Melisandre would be nice, preferably without magic, although I'd hope for something more dignified than a 'catfight').

I forsee less sweetness for Dany - consider the second love interest G.R.R.M gave her .... unlike most people here, I don't fault her for falling for Daario temporarily (and I trust that Nina Gold's casting magic will make that aspect so much more relateable on the show), but clearly, that pairing has no future at all. Dany's vision of ending up among the crones of the Dosh Khaleen will very likely come true, calling it now.

The sweet thing will be that Jon will get love and Dany will get glory, but the bittersweet thing will be that neither gets both.

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  • 7 months later...

Agreed and well said. I do however wonder if the Northern Lords would ever accept Val as their lady. The Northmen/wildling relationship is very interesting to me. They do have some things in common- particularly Old Gods, holding guest right sacred, and I'd argue a tradition of relatively strong, independent "wildling" type women (for example Lyanna Stark, the Mormont women, Arya, probably eventually Sansa as well, Alys Karstark has a little bit of that too).

I also wonder about the point of including the little digression with Alys Karstark and Sigorn of Thenn. Will they ever be accepted? I happen to think that marriage signals the incoming Northern societal change where the wildlings will be accepted back into Westerosi culture due to the greater threat of the Others and the need for more people to replace all the dead ones from the wars and such. So I do wonder if Val would ever be accepted, say if Jon somehow becomes King in the North and proclaims her his Queen...Is it possible you think?

I think one thing to remember about Val is she's extremely well spoken for a wildling, she sounds like she was raised in a castle. Which probably means shes Also well educated by Westerosi standards as well. Which can't be a coincidence. I think sounding like she's 'one of them' would go a long way toward helping her be accepted.

Ragnorak, this is one of my absolute favorite theories out there, and I can see it being true. They really do compliment one another, she is one of the few people that makes Jon laugh, she's clearly resourceful and intelligent. I agree with Tagg that Jon's not going to be concerned with politics when choosing a wife, but I would also say that if Jon is the one that leads the fight for humanity to restore balance and win the upcoming war, then he should have a small reward of not having to choose a political bride, but one of his own choosing. If he just has to marry Margaery or Arianne or even Dany at the end then nothing has changed, it's just Robert marrying g Cersei at the end of RR. A war of the nature we assume is coming should make a political marriage unnecessary for Jon, assuming he survives, which I don't.

Plus, if Val becomes Queen Consort of the Kingdoms of Westeros everyone will be kneeling to her! Har!

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