The Wildlings reaction to Jons stabbing

[R4W13Y]

No he doesn't forget anything "suddenly", he is focused 90% of the time about strengthening the watch because of the Others threat (and he looks rather good at that, negociating key agreements with the IB and wildlings to insure the watch survival in winter). The problem is, in parallel, he slowly lets himself get more and more involved in politics, starting with very small involvments like giving required advices, then doing more and more. His story is the one of a slippery slope, there's no point where he consciously "abandon his priority to play revenge" before the decision is forced on him by the pink letter, which is precisely the only thing happening suddenly. At this stage all he can do is realising how for he got, and it's already the point of no return.

ps : that said the show may be seen as having well adapted the slippery slope aspect : first Jon ignore Olly very short ambiguous nod, then his longer probably unhappy nod, then his repeated minute long clearly not happy nod filmed under 4 angles... until the point of no return.

:agree:

And :lmao: at the bold.

ETA: There's also the parallel to Dany's arc at the same time. They both make small concessions, leading eventually to even bigger concessions that then lead them to their final big decisions (Jon: going after Ramsay personally, Dany: ripping off her Tokar and saving Drogon from the fighting pits) that completely change the trajectory of their stories.

[ivosan]

No reason to react, if the NW doesn't attack them.

Even if the show gives the wildling very good reasons to appreciate Jon, still for them killing a Lord Commander is an internal issue of the Watch. No different to how wildlings tribes might behave when dealing with pressing issues.

Now, If Jon comes back from the dead, there is no place for him in the NW. They made it pretty clear they don't want him there and a resurrection won't change that.

So it is likely that JS (and Melisandre) will join the wildlings south of the wall and either:

a.) focus on how to deal with White Walkers; or

b.) run into Sansa/Theon/Brienne/Pod who will ask him to join the search for Bran and Rickon.

For what they know both should be north of the wall. A suicide mission that only Jon and Tormund could be brave enough to accomplish.

Plot b could be enough to fill season 6.

The Davos/Skagos plot makes no sense without Stannis and Manderley. Besides, Davos will likely die trying to take Melisandre's life.

Ramsey will die trying to get to Sansa

[Facebookless Man]

Well, apparently the show writers ARE right: subtleties are completely lost on their target audience.

Good for them I guess.

[Cas Stark]

Well, apparently the show writers ARE right: subtleties are completely lost on their target audience.

Good for them I guess.

LOL. I was okay with this streamlining in the show and understood that all that complexity would be difficult to portray. But people saying that the book story didn't make sense, I don't get that. It made perfect sense, it showed us a Jon who became overwhelmed with trying to juggle his multiple 'duties' and values and ultimately choosing his sister as his priority. This is much more 'human' and tragic than getting stabbed because your men don't get your vision and some dumbfuck peasant kid you took under your wing betrays you.

[Facebookless Man]

He doesn't even really choose. At that point Ramsay is threatening an attack on the Watch if Jon doesn't give him a bunch of people he doesn't have.

Jon makes the decision to attack first. Strategically it's rather sound. The problem is, Marsh and co. blame him for getting to this point in the first place. Which, well, they have a point.

But hey, STAB THE INDIAN LOVER, HE LOVES INDIANS is so much better. It doesn't require thinking.

[TheLeviathan73]

It doesn't require thinking.

You mean like Jon rushing off to war rather than, you know, checking to see if Stannis is really defeated first? Like that kind of stupidity? The book storyline only makes sense if you selectively omit a number of stupid elements to each decision. Ramsay's threat is total bullshit and could have been easily verified to be so. But you know...complexity!

In the show there is less "complexity", but every bit as much tragedy. Jon is seeing things clearly (because he has a perspective his brothers lack), but it isn't sufficient to quell his ranks. We've seen many magnetic, transformational personalities throughout history suffer through this same kind of misunderstanding.

Not all complexity is good, sometimes it's just plain muddled and unnecessary. There is a bizarre obsession around here with "more stuff = good", whereas many a plot have been sunk by overreaching and unnecessarily muddying the waters. See: LOST. Or True Detective. Sometimes all that extra stuff was window dressing that conned you into thinking it was important and necessary.

You know what's important and necessary? The Others. Something Jon clearly understood until GRRM needed to find a way to kill him and, like so many other things, made it far more convoluted than necessary. And in that convolution created a number of stupid, unnecessary elements.

[Lord Eddard]

:agree: This.

[The Broke Howard Hughes]

In the book Jon sort of becomes a respected leader. The Wildlings follow him willingly. When he decides to go to Winterfell the wildlings enthusiastically volunteer to go with him. He may not be a KBTW but he's surely the leader some choose to follow. He's given them something they've been aiming for for generations and risked his life for them. If he dies and they do nothing but shrug I'll be extremely disappointed.

[Lord Freypie]

You mean like Jon rushing off to war rather than, you know, checking to see if Stannis is really defeated first? Like that kind of stupidity? The book storyline only makes sense if you selectively omit a number of stupid elements to each decision. Ramsay's threat is total bullshit and could have been easily verified to be so. But you know...complexity!

So all that because you believe in some unproven (and very fan-serving) theory about the pink letter ? Ramsay is the son of the warden of the north, his army can destroy the Watch easily, and he had a clear casus belli to do so knowing about Mance, there was no reason to doubt that for Jon, who isn't supposed to have read Twow preview chapter.

[TheLeviathan73]

So all that because you believe in some unproven (and very fan-serving) theory about the pink letter ? Ramsay is the son of the warden of the north, his army can destroy the Watch easily, and he had a clear casus belli to do so knowing about Mance, there was no reason to doubt that for Jon, who isn't supposed to have read Twow preview chapter.

Jon is utterly incapable of determining if Stannis is defeated? Because, you know, if he just did that the rest is irrelevant.

[Lord Freypie]

Jon is utterly incapable of determining if Stannis is defeated? Because, you know, if he just did that the rest is irrelevant.

The important point is not if Stannis is completely defeated or just a little or faking death or whatever, it's that Ramsay army is free to march against the Watch, has a casus belli to justify it, and is going to if he doesn't deliver a long list of persons, some of them he doesn't even have. If Ramsay was sieged by Stannis in Winterfell why would he send this letter, so Stannis can intercept the prisoners he asks for ?

Jon as all reasons to consider that the simple fact the letter was sent prove the situation is bad enough.

And about other scenarios, Jon is just not a westeros.org poster having waited too long for a book, he doesn't make endless theories like "this letter may be written by someone else because this word is used there and this and that" everytime he recieve one. May end having been an error if Martin decided it's the kind of thing that happened, but Jon can hardly be blamed for that.

[TheLeviathan73]

The important point is not if Stannis is completely defeated or just a little or faking death or whatever, it's that Ramsay army is free to march against the Watch, has a casus belli to justify it, and is going to if he doesn't deliver a long list of persons, some of them he doesn't even have. If Ramsay was sieged by Stannis in Winterfell why would he send this letter, so Stannis can intercept the prisoners he asks for ?

Ramsay's threat is hollow if he isn't free to march and, as of our last information, he was not free. Jon could've sent a scout, a raven, or anything else to establish the veracity of the threats. Instead he just went off half-cocked.

Why send it? It could be that he wants a wildling army to march against the north and possibly turn some of Stannis' support. But the simplest explanation is that Ramsay is a fucking psychopath that probably doesn't take well to having things taken from him. So he's blustering. It's not like most of his actions are driven by reason.

Either way, his motivations are irrelevant. Jon's rushing to war and dropping his vows is dumb. If the show did that people would OBLITERATE D+D and rightfully so.

[Lord Freypie]

Either way, his motivations are irrelevant. Jon's rushing to war and dropping his vows is dumb. If the show did that people would OBLITERATE D+D and rightfully so.

You seriously mean the viewers who followed the Starks from the beginning, and are probably praying for their betrayers getting some comeuppance, wouldn't sympathize with Jon if he finally decided to march against the Boltons ?

In the books it was extremely understandable, and imo in the show it would have been even more after all their insistance on Ramsay, Sansa's rape and all. A part of the audience would of course have considered it a bad choice from Jon, but certainly not from D&D.

[TheLeviathan73]

You seriously mean the viewers who followed the Starks from the beginning, and are probably praying for their betrayers getting some comeuppance, wouldn't sympathize with Jon if he finally decided to march against the Boltons ?

In the books it was extremely understandable, and imo in the show it would have been even more after all their insistance on Ramsay, Sansa's rape and all. A part of the audience would of course have considered it a bad choice from Jon, but certainly not from D&D.

"Seriously, Jon just reads a letter from a known psychopath, drops his vows, and goes to war without even so much as a "Hey...you alright over there Stannis buddy" raven? This is the kind of illogical bullshit that D+D are best at. Jon has always been torn about his vows and has already wrestled with his feelings about the Starks before, only to keep his focus on the Others. For him to rush off to war as a reason for the Watch to stab him is stupid."

That's exactly what would come out of the mouths of people and they'd be right. It was stupid. Martin made Jon's choices overly convoluted and, frankly, out of character in order to kill him. You don't need all that when the men stabbing him are a bunch of the biggest scumbags in a continent full of them.

One more thing - if I told you some other choice in the show was a good plot choice because it would "make the readers sympathize with the character " - you'd also rightly jump all over that. Good plotting isn't necessarily about making people feel good (In fact, that's a frequent criticism of the show that has merit!), but about following a reasonable course of action for a character's given how that character has been built up to that point. Martin swerved Jon's character to get to what he wanted and I didn't like it in the books one bit. The show made some mistakes as well, but at least it didn't butcher Jon in the process.

[The Broke Howard Hughes]

Before the Hardhome episode everyone I know who watched the show thought Jon should have left the wall when Stannis offered to legitimize him. Afterwards they realized this would have been a mistake.

Still saying Martin changed Jon's character to ..... is ridiculous. HE knows Jon better than all of us, no matter how many times we've read the books.

[Facebookless Man]

lol raven

That's moronic man. Ravens don't go looking for your buddies in the woods. You can't send a raven anywhere you don't have a raven trained to go. I guess to you that means the books really needed D&D's genius teleporter and telegraph innovations.

[TheLeviathan73]

lol raven

That's moronic man. Ravens don't go looking for your buddies in the woods. You can't send a raven anywhere you don't have a raven trained to go. I guess to you that means the books really needed D&D's genius teleporter and telegraph innovations.

Then send a friggin scout. It's not like Stannis is in Dorne.

Hell, any answer to that question is more reasonable than "Well....guess I gotta believe this psycho, break my vows, marshall an army, and go pretend I can be a general " all within 5 minutes of reading the note.

[Richard Writhen]

Well, the NW had a trigger, Wun Wun killing that knight set them off. I have no idea why that was left out...

[Kadence]

After the pink letter Jon specifically says he will break his vows to deal with Ramsay Snow, in shieldhall speech. Letting wildlings is also a major supporting factor too, but not the main factor itself.

I don't see his Jon deciding to march against Ramsay is treason. Ramsay made a direct threat at the NW. Since Castle Black can't be defended, marching first is the only real strategically sound option.

Jon did provoke Ramsay be sending Mance. That may not have been in the interests of the Watch, but I wouldn't call it treason.

As for neutrality and Stannis, as other have said Jon fell down a slippery slope. At first he had no choice but to aid Stannis - he is outgunned. Later though he does fall in with Stannis' cause. This though can be defended as in the interests of the NW - Stannis is the only King who gives a damn about them. It's in their interests that he sit the Iron Throne.

[Kadence]

Then send a friggin scout. It's not like Stannis is in Dorne.

Hell, any answer to that question is more reasonable than "Well....guess I gotta believe this psycho, break my vows, marshall an army, and go pretend I can be a general " all within 5 minutes of reading the note.

I'm sure scouts etc. would have been sent as they left Castle Black and before open conflict.

Fact is that Jon had every reason to think the letter was real at that exact moment in time. You cannot seriously expect him to be skeptical there. He doesn't realize he's in a GRRM story!