The Perils of a Reluctant King

[Rose of Red Lake]

On 5/14/2019 at 4:41 PM, Eltharion21 said:

Jon did quit being Lord Commander of Night Watch, later he quit role of King in the North, who is to say he wouldn't quit again. He is also rather bad military commander, judge of character and  pet owner though he seems like nice person.

 He would be certainly better than show version of Daenerys.

A bad pet owner! haha this made me chuckle. 

I'm in the pro Jon camp--book Jon though. He can actually bend his morals, and Aemon approved of him doing it. Book Jon is also ambitious and wants to be Lord. I rather like the idea of a reluctant king because he would have a critical distance from the institution, and be wary of how it can be used in the wrong way. I also loved Jon going after Ramsay in the books. He just needed to be stealthier about his plans at the end.

[Eltharion21]

1 hour ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

A bad pet owner! haha this made me chuckle. 

I'm in the pro Jon camp--book Jon though. He can actually bend his morals, and Aemon approved of him doing it. Book Jon is also ambitious and wants to be Lord. I rather like the idea of a reluctant king because he would have a critical distance from the institution, and be wary of how it can be used in the wrong way. I also loved Jon going after Ramsay in the books. He just needed to be stealthier about his plans at the end.

Book Jon certainly has lot of potential. If he survives in body and spirit, maybe he will learn from his mistakes and those around him and use it for betterment of Realms of Men.

I also hope he will retain part of  his Stark identity even if he finds out his true parentage. 

[CrypticWeirwood]

On 5/15/2019 at 10:05 AM, Daemon of the Blacks said:

Jon displayed no great political skill. Jon never liked making compromises, he generally ignores pragmatic advice and acts like a typical Stark.

So Jon has an easy time winning the trust of people.

You said "So", but how does the last part follow from the first?

Also, Ned never had a problem being a good ruler in the North. It was King's Landing where he got himself into trouble.

[Beardy the Wildling]

Jon Snow (show version) has a history of doing a botched job, fighting well regardless of his competence as a leader, taking credit, then giving up on the job. He is absolutely not a good candidate for kingship, but not for the same reasons as Bobby B. While Bobby B is openly uninterested in taking responsibility while being more than happy to indulge in hedonism allowed of a King, Jon, in his famous catchphrase, 'dun wannit' altogether. He's humble and measured, but can't persist for shit:

1: Becomes Lord Commander, proceeds to make numerous controversial reforms and lets wildlings through the wall. Gets stabbed because while he tried to appease Alliser by making him First Ranger, he still betrayed what many considered the Night's Watch's main goal. After stabbing, gets resurrected, then, after happily using his authority as Lord Commander to execute his murderers, suddenly reveals that no, he doesn't have that authority anymore, his watch has ended. Tactically using loopholes to evade responsibility directly following a direct wielding of the power that requires said responsibility is what the kids call a dick move.

2: Rushes into a suicidal battle plan against the Boltons due to a combination of sheer idiocy, misinformation by a questionable Sansa, and plot armour. Thanks to Sansa's trump card, the battle is won, and despite Sansa being the reason they won, the trueborn heir in absence of Bran and Rickon, and not dumb as a pile of bricks, it's all about cocks in the end so Jon is made King in the North. He proceeds to piss away northern independence in moments when he meets a hawt dragon lady, and even though she becomes willing to help without kneeling... Jon kneels anyway, once again apparently completely unwilling to lead.

3: Whenever the prospect of becoming king is brought up to Jon, he makes his opinion clear. 'Ah dun wannit. Ah nevuh av'. At this point Jon has a history of hating leadership and abandoning his post at the slightest provocation, so Varys should perhaps take Jon at his word and not force him to be King, because knowing him, he'd fuck off to Dorne to 'get warm' when it rains in King's Landing or something.

[Beardy the Wildling]

On 5/26/2019 at 8:28 AM, Tyrion1991 said:

It’s a way of saying that you should know your place and not complain about your situation. If you’re a medieval serf and you complain about your condition well that’s just because men are sinful and want power.

It should be noted that the notion of an afterlife with rewards and punishments came not from the Jewish Old Testament, but the New Testament, AKA, a time when messianic claimants were preaching to a bunch of oppressed Jews. What better message of comfort to help them accept their lot in life than 'It's all right, turn the other cheek in this life, because you'll be laughing your head off when your oppressors are burning in hell'.

[It_spelt_Magalhaes]

22 minutes ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

It should be noted that the notion of an afterlife with rewards and punishments came not from the Jewish Old Testament, but the New Testament, AKA, a time when messianic claimants were preaching to a bunch of oppressed Jews. What better message of comfort to help them accept their lot in life than 'It's all right, turn the other cheek in this life, because you'll be laughing your head off when your oppressors are burning in hell'.

And the meek shall inherit the Earth?

[Beardy the Wildling]

1 hour ago, It_spelt_Magalhaes said:

And the meek shall inherit the Earth?

That's in the Old Testament, however, note that in the OT, it's promising... well, the earth. Not an afterlife, just a global takeover, akin to the Quranic global caliphate.

[It_spelt_Magalhaes]

2 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

That's in the Old Testament, however, note that in the OT, it's promising... well, the earth. Not an afterlife, just a global takeover, akin to the Quranic global caliphate.

Ok. Thanks.

[Daemon of the Blacks]

20 hours ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

You said "So", but how does the last part follow from the first?

Also, Ned never had a problem being a good ruler in the North. It was King's Landing where he got himself into trouble.

Oh, I meant the ''so'' more in the sense of ''so what?'' 

As in a 'So my boyfriend's really dumb, so what. at least he's still pretty'' kind of statement. 

[Ser Hedge]

On 6/3/2019 at 11:30 AM, Beardy the Wildling said:

Gets stabbed because while he tried to appease Alliser by making him First Ranger, he still betrayed what many considered the Night's Watch's main goal.

Generally agree with most Show.Jon criticism here, but not so sure getting stabbed was necessarily a failure of leadership and certainly not one of ambition. Naïvety for sure, and hopefully in the books he draws the right lessons from it, but if anything it's a display of vision that you want to see in great leaders. The wildling-haters are petty, merely justifying recent tradition against the original meaning of their oaths and do not see the military value to the true enemy of leaving the wildlings north of the Wall either. Most of the NW are drawn from criminals anyway and it's a more democratic institution than any in Westeros. Having commands issued to implement a far sighted vision thwarted by rehabilitated criminals is not evidence the same person could not be a feudal Lord or indeed a King, where your commands are far more likely to be carried out unquestioned. 

I'm only responding to this very particular point and not taking a view on Show. Jon overall as King, as D&D made a dumpster fire of the character.

[Beardy the Wildling]

1 hour ago, Ser Hedge said:

Generally agree with most Show.Jon criticism here, but not so sure getting stabbed was necessarily a failure of leadership and certainly not one of ambition. Naïvety for sure,

I fully agree. Show-Jon is never really ambitious, it's more that the universe keeps throwing him positions of power, he lets his naivity/idiocy screw himself over, then he hits and quits.

[Ser Hedge]

1 hour ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

I fully agree. Show-Jon is never really ambitious, it's more that the universe keeps throwing him positions of power, he lets his naivity/idiocy screw himself over, then he hits and quits.

Yeah, Dumbell and Dingdong went really waaaaaaaay out of their way (think Columbus-style big out of the way here) to make Jon look naive.

Season 7: Dany let Jon have the obsidian and they seemed to get along quite well in the cave. She seemed to buy the WW story courtesy the cave paintings (ok, if you need to stop to rotfl, that's absolutely fine, but please do get back up, compose yourself and read on when convenient) and at that point Jon had not bent the knee.

If he bent it right after that conversation, that's ......duh..... It's not like Dany marches north at the first opportunity. Yes, we have the Tyrell set back, but she kind of deals with that in the rest of the episode (and the start of the one after) with Tarly flambe and moves on. And when she's back on Dragonstone with Snoop doggy dog Jon still waiting there, the next item on the agenda is the Wight Hunt. You bent your knee, so the Dragon Queen sends you Jorah Mormont to come along on a Wight Hunt, really?

And if he didn't bend the knee then, why do it after Viserion is shot down, now the feud is personal and she has seen the evidence.

And then you have the Dragonpit scene, where Jon decides to announce his allegiance, which was so far a secret, and gets publicly derided by Dany and Tyrion to make sure everybody in the audience is left in no doubt that Jon is naive.

 

[Beardy the Wildling]

On 6/5/2019 at 8:42 AM, Ser Hedge said:

 

Season 7: Dany let Jon have the obsidian and they seemed to get along quite well in the cave. She seemed to buy the WW story courtesy the cave paintings (ok, if you need to stop to rotfl, that's absolutely fine, but please do get back up, compose yourself and read on when convenient) and at that point Jon had not bent the knee.

Look, cave paintings are convincing stuff. I believe cave-men hunted cattle from cave drawings, obviously I also believe they fought strange, blue-eyed ice zombies too. Never mind that the paintings look way more modern than the surrounding ones, this shit is 3convincing5me.

Edit: Also, I have to ask, how come everyone knows what a Night King is? Like, Jon just goes around saying 'THE NAHT KING IS COMMIN', but who the fuck labelled him that in-universe? If it's Jon, moments after discovering he was a thing at all, how does everyone else know what he means? Also, and I'll never get over this, how does he know that killing the Night King would kill all the walkers too? His wights, yeah, I can see the case for that, but his walkers? How the fuck would he know?

[Ser Hedge]

24 minutes ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Look, cave paintings are convincing stuff. I believe cave-men hunted cattle from cave drawings, obviously I also believe they fought strange, blue-eyed ice zombies too. Never mind that the paintings like way more modern than the surrounding ones, this shit is 3convincing5me.

Edit: Also, I have to ask, how come everyone knows what a Night King is? Like, Jon just goes around saying 'THE NAHT KING IS COMMIN', but who the fuck labelled him that in-universe? If it's Jon, moments after discovering he was a thing at all, how does everyone else know what he means? Also, and I'Lloyd never get over this, how does he know that killing the Night King would kill all the walkers too? His wights, yeah, I can see the case for that, but his walkers? How the fuck would he know?

Esp after he told Beric who first came up with that theory "Yoohh duhnt uhnderstahand".

Guess R'hllor sent him a vision between S7 and S8. "Duh, sorry you was supposed to have received this when you was dead, but better late than nevah"

[It_spelt_Magalhaes]

56 minutes ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Look, cave paintings are convincing stuff. I believe cave-men hunted cattle from cave drawings, obviously I also believe they fought strange, blue-eyed ice zombies too. Never mind that the paintings like way more modern than the surrounding ones, this shit is 3convincing5me.

Edit: Also, I have to ask, how come everyone knows what a Night King is? Like, Jon just goes around saying 'THE NAHT KING IS COMMIN', but who the fuck labelled him that in-universe? If it's Jon, moments after discovering he was a thing at all, how does everyone else know what he means? Also, and I'll never get over this, how does he know that killing the Night King would kill all the walkers too? His wights, yeah, I can see the case for that, but his walkers? How the fuck would he know?

(Brain ticking...)

Well, we the audence saw Bran's vision. Maybe baby bro sent him the skinny through dreams?

Oh, he's half-Targ! 'Muh dreams come tru.'

[Beardy the Wildling]

45 minutes ago, Ser Hedge said:

Guess R'hllor sent him a vision between S7 and S8. "Duh, sorry you was supposed to have received this when you was dead, but better late than nevah"

Ah, offscreen, where every explanation in Game of Thrones happens.

[Ser Hedge]

5 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Ah, offscreen, where every explanation in Game of Thrones happens.

Yeah unfortunately it's very hard to get a word of explanation in when you are all teleporting across the length or breadth of a continent.

[Beardy the Wildling]

1 minute ago, Ser Hedge said:

Yeah unfortunately it's very hard to get a word of explanation in when you are all teleporting across the length or breadth of a continent.

D&D: Now don't get snarky with me, teleportation is a plausible implausibility.

[Ser Hedge]

17 minutes ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

D&D: Now don't get snarky with me, teleportation is a plausible implausibility.

Snark and LF actually did make a pitstop in the Riverlands before her marriage to Rambo. After that LF was all over the flue network even bringing the KotV with him. Or maybe they use portkeys? 

[It_spelt_Magalhaes]

9 minutes ago, Ser Hedge said:

Snark and LF actually did make a pitstop in the Riverlands before her marriage to Rambo. After that LF was all over the flue network even bringing the KotV with him. Or maybe they use portkeys? 

(Clears throat to channel inner!Snark)

Shut your face. Varys crossed from Essod and back in two episodes.

Or was it one? Hard to keep track.