Magnar, P.I.

Ok that is hilarious

No wait I take it back, Master of Whisperers must be Nimble Dick Crabb

Grand Maester Poxy Tym ...actually Old Nan would make a badass Master of Whisperers, getting all the old castle lady gossip from around the realm. Good presentation skills as well!

Fantastic point. All we know for sure is that Wick Whittlestick "barely grazed his skin" trying to slash his throat and Bowen Marsh punch-stabbed him in the gut. The "third dagger took him between the shoulder blades," which is a little unclear but definitely sounds bad. Finally, he "never felt the fourth knife." It does not say what the fourth knife did, it implies that it did something he should have felt, but who knows, somebody could have hit him with the hilt or something. We only have undeniable evidence of one serious wound to Jon's person, with strong evidence of a second and light evidence of a third. None of these wounds, even compounded together, stack up to any of the deaths of Beric Dondarrion, or even of the wounds that Ser Loras supposedly suffered in the assault on Dragonstone, which he survived, at least so far. On top of that I would expect the extreme cold and direct contact with snow to slow Jon's blood loss somewhat, but then again I'm not a physician. This may all sound like I'm reaching, but I think we can agree that we can't trust most deaths without explicit and undeniable evidence. If you don't believe me, just ask Mance, Davos, Bran, Rickon, Jon Connington and both Cleganes. Jon's situation as we know it right now doesn't require resurrection to bring him back into the story. Maybe some Ironborn-style CPR and some intensive maester healing, but not crazy bloodmagic which may or may not even exist in the story.

Ignored the blood feud? Not at all. He acknowledged it, was constantly reminded of it by Marsh and Yarwyck, but what else was he supposed to do, let the cycle of hate continue? Let the Wall fall and with it the realms of men? No, he did the only thing he could to unite them, which is to make them live and work together, to bind them to a common cause. Eventually (probably) the Night's Watch and the Wildlings would reconcile as they got to know each other, serving alongside one another and trusting the others with their lives. After fighting the Others together they would find common ground and even eventually a mutual respect. After a generation or two most would forget the hatred altogether. Having a common enemy can be very uniting, just look at a little geopolitical conflict many people call the World War I and it's sequel, World War II: Fascist Boogaloo. Calling the Karstarks one of the most powerful houses in the North is pretty generous, since their strength was mostly squandered in the Riverlands following Lord Rickard's betrayal and execution. Besides, they're likely split in loyalty to Arnolf, who's present but not the true lord, and Harrion, who's the rightful lord but also a captive of the enemy. This means House Karstark is very vulnerable during this confused transition of power. Marrying Alice to the Thenns deepens that divide and forces Arnolf to return to Karhold to take it back or else abandon the seat he is attempting to usurp and derive power from. Of course Stannis has him now, so it doesn't really matter, but that's more of a 20/20 hindsight thing. Sending Mance Rayder to Winterfell actually wasn't that risky, since he has plausible deniability. Mance, a wildling, was spared, swapped out and released by Stannis and Melisandre, not Jon. Lord Snow even thought he was mercy-killing the man, as all of the witnesses to the Wildling submission ceremony can attest. Only Stannis, Melisandre, Mance, and Jon himself know that he signed off on the Arya rescue mission, so unless one of them publicly announces it, everyone is going to be hearing this through Ramsay, not the most trustworthy of sources. Jon can just deny it. Also the Pink Letter is likely fake and didn't even come from Ramsay, which means that no one else in the North has reason to believe Mance is even still alive, except for all the people Jon read the letter to, which brings us to Jon's only significant mistake. I would agree that leaving to get vengeance on Ramsay was a "grievous error," but since it seems to be the only one Jon makes as Lord Commander, I wonder if either something else was going on, like A) there was a secret element to his plan that wasn't revealed to us, part of what Jon and Tormund talk about for "the best part of two hours" or 2) someone is influencing Jon telepathically or magically to make him kind of go insane. Since he struggles for four books between keeping his vows and doing right by his family, and since certain of Jon's schemes are not made known to us (like taking wards from among the wildling leaders) I tend to lean toward the first option. I do agree that, based on the events in the Shieldhall, the Night's Watch mutineers were pretty justified in assassinating Jon, but that's due mostly to their hatred and ignorance, not Jon's ability as Lord Commander.

Nice!

Victorious by Wolfmother (could be Brienne, maybe even Sansa, and in the music video the protagonist pulls her sword out from under a rock a la Arya) It seems the competition is riding on her tail It seems that they were hoping she, hoping she would fail The town has come to raise our guns to the sun She will prove herself worthy She will be the one She will be victorious And won't get the battle loss Always-a mysterious 'Cause she will be victorious Blue Eyes by Elton John (about the Others in general, or specifically about the Night's King and his Other bride) Blue eyes holding back the tearsHolding back the painBaby's got blue eyesAnd she's aloneAgain Gold Dust Woman by Fleetwood Mac (I see this as someone, maybe Brienne, singing this to Jaime about Cersei) Rock on ancient queen Follow those who pale In your shadow Rulers make bad lovers You better put your kingdom up for sale Up for sale Well did she make you cry Make you break down Shatter your illusions of love And is it over now, do you know how Pickup the pieces and go home. Geronimo by Sheppard (Jon with Ygritte in the cave) And you rushed to me,And it sets us free.So I fall to my knees,At the curtains of the waterfall. Can you feel my love? You Can Call Me Al by Paul Simon (Alliser Thorne) A man walks down the streetHe says why am I short of attentionGot a short little span of attentionAnd wo my nights are so longWhere's my wife and familyWhat if I die hereWho'll be my role-modelNow that my role-model isGone Gone

Oh, I like that. Tyrion uses a champion the first two times, then when that fails he does the deed with his own hand. Perhaps this says something about his character development through the rest of his series, he does murder Nurse himself in Tyrion XI ADWD "Sweet fresh water didn't help Nurse." Poor old Nurse. Yezzan's soldiers had tossed him onto the corpse wagon last night at dusk, another victim of the pale mare. When men are dying every hour, no one looks too hard at one more dead man, especially one as well despised as Nurse. Yezzan's other slaves had refused to go near the overseer once the cramps began, so it was left to Tyrion to keep him warm and bring him drinks. Watered wine and lemonsweet and some nice hot dogtail soup, with slivers of mushroom in the broth. Drink it down, Nursey, that shitwater squirting from your arse needs to be replaced. The last word Nurse ever said was, "No." The last words he ever heard were, "A Lannister always pays his debts." This isn't exactly traditional character development, but we do see he's becoming more independent and is following the Stark way of swinging the blade himself. Earlier in the series he has others do all of his justice/vengeance killings for him, like a true Lannister. He has Bronn kill Symon Silver Tongue, he has goldcloaks kill Allar Deem (or at least he orders these killings) but now he is taking action and finding his own justice/vengeance. I think this begs the question, could Tyrion secretly be a Stark? Boom! Drop the mic...

Dang I didn't realize there was a fantasy football league! You guys should do auction, it's pretty sweet.

Hmmm, it's very, very rough but you might have something here. I don't think you're literally right on where the plot will go, but their relationship could well have parallels to the Night's King/Queen tale that maybe tells us something about the real events behind the legend.

Damn, started putting together an essay with essentially the same point several months ago but forgot about it and lost the chance... but here's the evidence I came up with: Castle Black appears to be under imminent threat of Other attack at the time of the mutiny against Jon. This is the end of the final Jon chapter in ADWD: Then Bowen Marsh stood there before him, tears running down his cheeks. "For the Watch." He punched Jon in the belly. When he pulled his hand away, the dagger stayed where he had buried it. 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 … We know the Others bring the cold, this is well-established, and Jon doesn't even feel the fourth knife, only the cold. Of course, he faceplants into the snow before this, but this seems pretty quick for the cold to be explained by numbing or blood loss. Perhaps it's adrenaline, but if so I doubt he would feel the cold or pain washing over him, or anything for that matter, and might even be fighting back despite his wounds. Further, mutiny seems to be a common theme leading up to appearances by the Others. On the Fist of the First Men, Chett has recruited men into his conspiracy to murder Lord Commander Mormont and is moments from pulling the trigger on it when the horn signals the Others' attack. Further, in the Prologue of GOT right before our very first Other shows up, we see dissension in the ranks of the rangers on patrol. Will could see the tightness around Gared's mouth, the barely suppressed anger in his eyes under the thick black hood of his cloak. Gared had spent forty years in the Night's Watch, man and boy, and he was not accustomed to being made light of. Yet it was more than that. Under the wounded pride, Will could sense something else in the older man. You could taste it; a nervous tension that came perilous close to fear. And later in the chapter... Gared's hood shadowed his face, but Will could see the hard glitter in his eyes as he stared at the knight. For a moment he was afraid the older man would go for his sword. It was a short, ugly thing, its grip discolored by sweat, its edge nicked from hard use, but Will would not have given an iron bob for the lordling's life if Gared pulled it from its scabbard. Finally Gared looked down. "No fire," he muttered, low under his breath. After his companions are killed and turned to wights, Gared escapes but then deserts and makes it across the Wall somehow instead of reporting back to Castle Black. Yes, logically he might be afraid that no one will believe him and he will be branded a murderer, or at least a craven, and will be executed, but we don't really have any reason to think this is the case. Gared has been on the wall 40 years, it's hard to believe that no one would give him the benefit of the doubt and at least go investigate, but fear can make us do crazy things. Still, it seems this "nervous tension that came perilous close to fear" is an effect of the Others, one that doesn't require their immediate presence to instill in the hearts of men. With the arrival of the Others imminent, this gives an unexpected way for Jon to return to the story. This makes the presence of Ghost and Melisandre, two perfectly good and well-established methods for Jon's resurrection, red herrings to distract us from the original mode of reanimation that we saw in the very beginning, in the GOT Prologue: the raising of wights.

I've thought about this a lot too, so let's debate! For argument's sake, I'll take the position that Jon was an able commander who was tragically misunderstood by his own men... Jon is the best recruiter in the history of the Wall, manning it better than it's been for centuries if not millenia by absorbing the wildlings. In fact he not only added thousands to his forces by recruiting them, but eliminated them as enemies by saving them, making them dependent on him for food, confiscating and selling their material wealth, and taking hundreds of their children as hostages. Now that he actually has the manpower, he's having the other castles of the Wall repaired, as previous Lord Commanders allowed them to degrade for centuries to the point of being "scarce more than ruins" according to First Builder Othell Yarwyck (Samwell V ASOS). He secured a loan with the Iron Bank to feed the Watch through what most people think is an upcoming long winter, or the Long Night come again. I know you list this as a mistake, OP, but this actually seems like a pretty good deal on Jon's part. If it is just a long winter and they survive the whole Other drama, then yes they will be massively in debt, but let's not forget they will have settled wildlings on the Gift, creating new sources of taxation for the Watch and hence increased revenue. If they are in for the Long Night, then it's unlikely that the Iron Bank will still be around to collect, or for that matter that the Watch will still exist. In fact the Watch only has a shot of surviving the Long Night, and a presumable war with the Others, because of Jon's actions, so it's likely that any future members of the Watch would consider him a hero. Further, Tycho's alleged death isn't really a motivation for turning on Jon, because either the contract would be lost and hence things would be as if he never made the deal in the first place, or else Tycho sent a copy to his superiors at the Iron Bank and therefore Tycho's fate is inconsequential and the Watch would still receive the loan. To argue your point about Stannis, what other choice did Jon have? The man saved them from being destroyed by Mance's host, so Jon really owed him. Further, Stannis' forces wildly outnumbered the Watch, and were better armed besides. They could have just taken the Wall and all of the Watch's resources if they wanted to, so Jon was smart to bend but not break here. Also, who cares if the Watch thinks Jon was friends with Mance? They would still think he killed him, which would just as logically show that Jon puts the Night's Watch vows and the laws of the land before things like friendship and mercy. Yes his actions are controversial among the black brothers, but their ignorance and lifelong hatred of the Wildlings blind them to the logic of said actions. I would say there's evidence that Jon's a calculating and pragmatic leader, an able negotiator, and a fair emissary to royalty and nobility. He's compassionate and understanding but willing to make tough decisions that will hurt people for the greater good, like swapping Gilly's baby for Dalla's. He values honest counsel and independent thought, which we can see in his two main advisors, Bowen Marsh and Othell Yarwyck, who disagree with him on virtually everything. More important to him is loyalty, and despite literally stabbing Jon in the back (and also front) they claim to do it "For the Watch," which suggests a deeper sort of loyalty, not to the specific man in charge at the moment but to the ancient purpose and values of their order. Instead of "lickpsittles" he chose to surround himself with men he knew would do what they thought best for the Wall. Jon's not perfect, and he makes mistakes. Personally I never wanted him to take his vows in the first place, but it's a little late for that bullcrap now. He probably shouldn't have sent Sam and Aemon away at the same time, leaving only Clydas at Castle Black for maesterly duties. He does seem to go a bit insane once the Pink Letter arrives, though I wonder if there wasn't more to his plan, after all he and Tormund supposedly talk "for the best part of two hours" to change the plan for the Hardhome rescue. The plan we hear about, Tormund going to Hardhome and Jon going to Winterfell to kill Ramsay, doesn't seem like it would take two hours to come up with, so I tend to think something sneaky is going on there. I would also agree that he was thrust into a leadership position he was not entirely ready for, as no 16-year old boy is really ready for that kind of responsibility. However I think he does an admirable job, and a better one than Jeor Mormont. After all, the Old Bear also met his end by the hands of his own men, led hundreds of rangers to their doom on the Great Ranging, and did little to prepare the Wall for the cold winds of winter other than to mentor his successor, a man who would truly work to save the Wall: Lord Snow.

Was just re-reading GoT and found this near the beginning, when Jon is saying goodbye to Arya and bestows Needle unto her. We know that both Arya and John have more of the Stark look about them than the rest of the children, so this similarity would seem to lend credence to the idea that this youth from the vision is a Stark or has Stark blood.

Thank you for the breakdown, and thank you @Clegane'sPup for posting this. This really clarifies a vision that always stood out to me but was hard to piece together. My first instinct was that the identities of the bearded man and white haired woman were important, but it's clear the visions go very far back in time, so I didn't really know where to go with it, having only read ASOIAF and none of the companion pieces. Not yet, that is. This sounds pretty compelling. If you do happen to find the OP on this I'd love to see it. Anyway I agree but I also think it's important to note that if true it also confirms the tale in many respects (the pregnancy, the Stark/Winterfell connection, foreshadowing of the later vengeance) while revealing truth buried by the revisionism of the victors. History as murky and not what it appears at first glance, a hallmark of ASOIAF.

They don't call him Black Ops Walder for nothing. For the Freys, intelligence is easy as pie! Ninepenny King for your thoughts?