Jump to content

What was the purpose of Jon Snow?


Areisius

Recommended Posts

9 hours ago, John Meta said:

Okay, that just makes things worse doesn't it? Let's just go with; good catch, ante does mean before and leave it at that.

No problems! My own "in a nutshell" for Jon is like this. He's a player in a game of Snakes/Chutes and Ladders. He's doing his best, but somehow gets every snake and slides to the bottom again and again. Then he realizes, in a moment of great insight, that whoever wins the game will be eaten alive by a giant monster! Egads! After that he tries his damndest not to advance, but somehow catches ladder after ladder until he's within a hair's breadth of the end. With sheer luck and a small nudge from him, another player gets by him to the finish and is eaten, whilst he catches one whopper of a snake and goes back to comfortable oblivion at the bottom of the board.

... Because I'm silly like that. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 6/8/2019 at 8:43 AM, Techmaester said:

 

That was after Sansa started shit and was generally being a shitty person to a group who was saving you. At that point I'd have just left and let the savages get turned but I don't feel any moral obligation to anyone - another lesson in Danys fall I suppose. I mean the entire sequence is of events is pretty absurd and could only be explained by Dany being completely love struck. Red keep should have fallen in season 7.    

Jons not a Stark, Sansa was never his sister(even when he thought he was Neds bastard). He's at best a pathetic suckup to a group of people who didn't even give him their last name LOL. Truly a story of failure and Stockholm Syndrome!  

She did not start any shit whatsoever. She asked Dany how to feed her army as she burnt all the food supplies in the Reach and this was a legitimate concern and Dany was left standing like an idiot. She also asked about her plans after she takes over the throne. Dany replied with an arrogant death threat to Sansa. Dany did not have an answer as she is a terrible ruler. She is a conqueror not a ruler. She lacks the administration skills and planning. She does what’s easy. She burns a population into submission, tells the slaves they are free and moves on. We saw horrible she was at ruling Meereen. Sansa saw this in her answers and also saw that she had made Jon fall in love with her and Cersei has taught her how women lure men into traps. That’s why she was aggressive with Dany. Jon does not have an experience with power hungry women. Sansa does. She spotted Dany a mile away. 

And yes unlike Dany, Sansa covered him in Stark symbols knowing he was a bastard. By doing this she embraced him as a member of her family. She risked him getting leverage over her as a true born and allowed it when Jon was named a King in the north. She refused the post when the northern lords offered to make her the queen in the north as Jon was an absentee king. What did Dany do when she knew of Jon’s identity? She asked him to hide it. She asked him to live a lie for her own selfish reasons. Do,you think Dany would have done what Sansa did in that scene? Give up the iron throne for Jon?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Did anyone feel much emotion watching Jon's ending?  For me it was slight disappointment and a shrug of the shoulders.  I was already feeling disillusioned after seeing what happened with Bran and Sansa and feeling nothing more than slight confusion.

You can argue how stories 'should' end all you like.  But one thing that is 100% sure, is that all the best stories invoke strong emotional responses.   Laughter, sadness, dread, excitement, elation etc, etc.  Game of Thrones had always been a roller coaster of emotions, ever since the first episode, but I'll be amazed if people felt much during that second half of the last episode.  The Jon beyond the wall part stirring up the least amount of feeling.

So for me the emotions ranged between 'eh?' and 'm'eh.' ... anyone else?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Kaapstad said:

She did not start any shit whatsoever. She asked Dany how to feed her army as she burnt all the food supplies in the Reach and this was a legitimate concern and Dany was left standing like an idiot. She also asked about her plans after she takes over the throne. Dany replied with an arrogant death threat to Sansa. Dany did not have an answer as she is a terrible ruler. She is a conqueror not a ruler. She lacks the administration skills and planning. She does what’s easy. She burns a population into submission, tells the slaves they are free and moves on. We saw horrible she was at ruling Meereen. Sansa saw this in her answers and also saw that she had made Jon fall in love with her and Cersei has taught her how women lure men into traps. That’s why she was aggressive with Dany. Jon does not have an experience with power hungry women. Sansa does. She spotted Dany a mile away. 

And yes unlike Dany, Sansa covered him in Stark symbols knowing he was a bastard. By doing this she embraced him as a member of her family. She risked him getting leverage over her as a true born and allowed it when Jon was named a King in the north. She refused the post when the northern lords offered to make her the queen in the north as Jon was an absentee king. What did Dany do when she knew of Jon’s identity? She asked him to hide it. She asked him to live a lie for her own selfish reasons. Do,you think Dany would have done what Sansa did in that scene? Give up the iron throne for Jon?

Yup, I like this. Sansa > Daenerys all the way. Sansa has experienced much more abusive men (Joffrey and Ramsay) than Daenerys has ever experienced, yet she never tried to usurp Jon's right or tried to get rid of Arya despite Littlefinger's plot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

47 minutes ago, carlingeight said:

Did anyone feel much emotion watching Jon's ending?  For me it was slight disappointment and a shrug of the shoulders.  I was already feeling disillusioned after seeing what happened with Bran and Sansa and feeling nothing more than slight confusion.

You can argue how stories 'should' end all you like.  But one thing that is 100% sure, is that all the best stories invoke strong emotional responses.   Laughter, sadness, dread, excitement, elation etc, etc.  Game of Thrones had always been a roller coaster of emotions, ever since the first episode, but I'll be amazed if people felt much during that second half of the last episode.  The Jon beyond the wall part stirring up the least amount of feeling.

So for me the emotions ranged between 'eh?' and 'm'eh.' ... anyone else?

yep for me this was one of the biggest dissapointments of S8, i felt apathy. i was not a dany fan, but i ended feeling for her more. Jon, they just castrated and when he apologised to bran i was fuming, i was like stop beating yourself up,

Link to comment
Share on other sites

56 minutes ago, carlingeight said:

Did anyone feel much emotion watching Jon's ending?  For me it was slight disappointment and a shrug of the shoulders.  I was already feeling disillusioned after seeing what happened with Bran and Sansa and feeling nothing more than slight confusion.

You can argue how stories 'should' end all you like.  But one thing that is 100% sure, is that all the best stories invoke strong emotional responses.   Laughter, sadness, dread, excitement, elation etc, etc.  Game of Thrones had always been a roller coaster of emotions, ever since the first episode, but I'll be amazed if people felt much during that second half of the last episode.  The Jon beyond the wall part stirring up the least amount of feeling.

So for me the emotions ranged between 'eh?' and 'm'eh.' ... anyone else?

There was nothing to feel regarding Jon’s end as they didn’t confirm what it was. Did he leave with the wildlings or did he stay with the NW? Symbolism with the glance back at the door suggests he went to live with the wildlings which for me is sad. But the uniform suggests he is with the NW and he asked Arya to visit him at Castle Black which suggests he is just escorting them home. This is an happier ending for me as he can visit Sansa and still be with the wildlings whenever he wants. There will be broken men like Sam sent to the NW and he can try giving them a purpose. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, RYShh said:

Yup, I like this. Sansa > Daenerys all the way. Sansa experienced much more abusive men (Joffrey and Ramsay) than Daenerys ever experienced, yet she never tried to usurp Jon's right or tried to get rid of Arya despite Littlefinger's plot.

‘’Yeah I dunno why they shit on Sansa like she is devil incarnate and  Dany is the goddess. The main issue with Dany was that unlike in Meereen there wasn’t rampant slavery in Westeros and people did not buy her "liberation" argument as there was nothing to liberate. So she was treated as an outsider and was throwing bratty fits left and right.   Back in Quarth, Dany did the equivalent of holding a gun to the Spice King’s head for not giving him ships for her personal ambition of getting the throne. He had nothing to do with her objective and he owed her nothing and she threatened to burn down Quarth for it. People celebrate that she used Drogon to kill that Unsullied sales guy who was making crude remarks about her thinking she didn’t understand his language but she didn’t pay him a single cent, used her dragon to kill him and killed all nobles regardless of whether they were guilty. That’s all Dany is. She only knows how to burn shit up and conquer. Even if she did manage to be queen her attitude would make people hire assassins to kill her. Who wants to bet Jacquen Haquar could do it easily? Her dragon would eventually be killed by 1 scorpion Bolt. She was always running on borrowed time.

She has zero experience about warfare, she isn’t as intelligent as Sansa and she has this my way or the highway attitude about her. What’s telling about Dany is that her entire character revolves around her dragons. Take away her dragons and what unique quality does she possess? Nothing. She would just be like Viserys. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whew the Dany vs. Sansa comparison are on point, @Kaapstad

Cogman joins in:

"Sansa knows that of all the Starks that were ripped from Wintefell, she suffered the most to get it back. She's the driving force for getting it back. Now she's being told, 'It's not yours, and it's not the Starks' anymore. It belongs to Hitler's daughter, the worst person in the world's daughter, the daughter of the person who murdered your grandfather and uncle in the worst way possible. And guess what? Your brother, who you convinced to step up when he wanted to fuck off because of his death experience, bent the knee to her and is telling you that she's your queen.' What part of Sansa's reaction to any of this is irrational?" - Bryan Cogman

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, carlingeight said:

Did anyone feel much emotion watching Jon's ending?  For me it was slight disappointment and a shrug of the shoulders.  I was already feeling disillusioned after seeing what happened with Bran and Sansa and feeling nothing more than slight confusion.

You can argue how stories 'should' end all you like.  But one thing that is 100% sure, is that all the best stories invoke strong emotional responses.   Laughter, sadness, dread, excitement, elation etc, etc.  Game of Thrones had always been a roller coaster of emotions, ever since the first episode, but I'll be amazed if people felt much during that second half of the last episode.  The Jon beyond the wall part stirring up the least amount of feeling.

So for me the emotions ranged between 'eh?' and 'm'eh.' ... anyone else?

Totally.

The whole thing felt flat because nothing was really earned, and the tone no sold the tragedy that had just occurred. 

Sansa and Bran gain the most despite doing the least, and both come off as having questionable motives/actions.

Tyrion was a disaster as Hand for Dany, so why would I feel good about him being Hand for Bran? 

Sam has no business as Grand Maester, and it seems they forgot how the rules for that position work. 

Same with Bronn. And Gendry. 

Arya was an OP super hero who faced no adversity whatsoever for 2+ seasons and was obnoxious about it.

Cersei gets an unearned romantic death, and Jamie kinda forgot about a ton of character motivation.

Jon was useless in the Long Night, he was  a terrible nephew, a worse boy friend, and an awful pet owner. It’s like they went out of their way to make him not a hero to subvert our expectations, but didn’t realize how out-of-character bad it made him look. 

I fully expect the majority of the outcomes to be similar in the books (minus Bronn and Gendry), but every character will have earned it. 

Even the Jon and Dany scene, whether it’s him putting her down, or if it’s her agreeing to sacrifice herself to forge LB, it will still have way more emotion.

IMO those two characters suffered the most from not having internal monologue.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To me the problem was having Arya come in and save the day by herself. Jon's purpose should be (for the most part) bringing Westeros together to fight the real enemy the White Walkers. But D&D stole that from him. Even if you want Arya to kill the NK, have Jon do something in that fight. Or have a person that Jon recruited do something in that fight.

I guess his other point, is that he is the rightful king. Then you should have a scene where he refuses the throne. Or something.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 6/7/2019 at 1:46 PM, John Meta said:

Imagine a story in which a guy begins on a farm living peacefully, then the government shows up and convinces him to go to war because he's such a great leader. The guy reluctantly goes to war, leads troops, unifies forces, fights in battles, watches his men die, kills Hitler, then goes back home where he belongs and retires in a time of peace, thanks to his efforts in the war.

You basically stated Jon's entire purpose when you listed all of the things he did so I'd question how you're basically baffled by your own post. If I ask you, what was Bilbo's purpose in the Hobbit, is it as equally baffling? It's practically the same line of narrative. Bilbo ends up at square one, the Shire. To cite a character returning to the place from which they started as "anticlimactic" is actually somewhat true if we put an "e" there instead of an "i" (anteclimactic) - it's called an "epilogue" and it's after(ante) the climax. The climax of Jon's purpose was to kill Dany and cause the destruction of the Iron Throne.

I listed all of the things Jon has done that were leading him to...nothing. D&D made his character irrelevant in S8. He did all of these heroic things in the previous seasons for it to be all for not in the finale. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, RYShh said:

Yup, I like this. Sansa > Daenerys all the way. Sansa has experienced much more abusive men (Joffrey and Ramsay) than Daenerys has ever experienced, yet she never tried to usurp Jon's right or tried to get rid of Arya despite Littlefinger's plot.

LMAO! Sansa didn't experience anything close to what Dany did. Not in the show and most certainly not in the books. To try and compare her story to Dany's is utterly ridiculous. :laugh:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, King Wyman said:

Totally.

The whole thing felt flat because nothing was really earned, and the tone no sold the tragedy that had just occurred. 

Sansa and Bran gain the most despite doing the least, and both come off as having questionable motives/actions.

Tyrion was a disaster as Hand for Dany, so why would I feel good about him being Hand for Bran? 

Sam has no business as Grand Maester, and it seems they forgot how the rules for that position work. 

Same with Bronn. And Gendry. 

Arya was an OP super hero who faced no adversity whatsoever for 2+ seasons and was obnoxious about it.

Cersei gets an unearned romantic death, and Jamie kinda forgot about a ton of character motivation.

Jon was useless in the Long Night, he was  a terrible nephew, a worse boy friend, and an awful pet owner. It’s like they went out of their way to make him not a hero to subvert our expectations, but didn’t realize how out-of-character bad it made him look. 

I fully expect the majority of the outcomes to be similar in the books (minus Bronn and Gendry), but every character will have earned it. 

Even the Jon and Dany scene, whether it’s him putting her down, or if it’s her agreeing to sacrifice herself to forge LB, it will still have way more emotion.

IMO those two characters suffered the most from not having internal monologue.  

That's a great summary.  It's almost impressive how they managed it.   Sansa and Bran gain the most despite doing the least, Dany and Jon gain the least despite doing the most.  Bronn and Sam are both wholly undeserving.  It's almost like they aimed for apathy with that finale.

The Jon situation still takes the biscuit though.  They did such a good job turning him into a Ned-like character over 7 seasons, and for what. I can only imagine the conversation at HBO HQ..

D1 "Hey, we are really nailing it with the Jon character here"

D2 "Indeed.  The downtrodden bastard who just keeps on fighting for everyone else, no matter how badly he's treated"

D1 "Yeah man, how he achieved so much throughout so much adversity.  And he was the true King all along to boot!"

D2 "Man, are these guys going to be surprised by how pathetic he turns out to be in the finale!"

D1 "Absolutely.  I can't wait to see the looks on their faces when he meekly gets sent beyond the wall with nothing to do.."

Seriously, what reaction were they expecting!?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Areisius said:

LMAO! Sansa didn't experience anything close to what Dany did. Not in the show and most certainly not in the books. To try and compare her story to Dany's is utterly ridiculous. :laugh:

Do you even know what Ramsay did to Sansa? I highly doubt you do. Joffrey consistently beat Sansa by using Meryn Trant, even on the throne room. Even Viserys isn't comparable to that, or Drogo (then somehow she fall in love with Drogo later).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

of course he's a terrible nephew and boyfriend - he KILLED HIS AUNT / GIRLFRIEND BECAUSE SHE WAS A TERRORIST.

his purpose isnt to be a "boyfriend"

he was always going to side with the Starks anyway

his purpose is to be like Ned who protects his family and his people, not to be the big hero 

If his purpose is to protect his family, then shouldn’t he have made some sort of effort to protect his aunt? To save her from herself? 

He had multiple opportunities to comfort/support her before the bells, and he did nothing.

He didn’t even think about trying. There was no internal conflict, no “maybe I should try to talk to her”, no anything.

There were plenty of signs she wasn’t doing well, and he was like “eh not my problem”....Even though he said he loved her, and was defending her to everybody. 

He just passively watched her fall further into misery/madness as if there was some script-like thing saying “we have to get Dany from 0-to-Hitler in 2 episodes, and this is the most efficient way”.

His purpose was obviously never to be a good boyfriend, but he was still a human being with thoughts and feelings of his own, and the show took that away from him so they could sprint to the finish line. 

ps I’m not a Dany fan, (her chapters are a slog), I’m a Jon fan who’s pissed how all-around useless he was. Not just in season 8 either. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, King Wyman said:

If his purpose is to protect his family, then shouldn’t he have made some sort of effort to protect his aunt? To save her from herself? 

He had multiple opportunities to comfort/support her before the bells, and he did nothing.

He didn’t even think about trying. There was no internal conflict, no “maybe I should try to talk to her”, no anything.

There were plenty of signs she wasn’t doing well, and he was like “eh not my problem”....Even though he said he loved her, and was defending her to everybody. 

He just passively watched her fall further into misery/madness as if there was some script-like thing saying “we have to get Dany from 0-to-Hitler in 2 episodes, and this is the most efficient way”.

His purpose was obviously never to be a good boyfriend, but he was still a human being with thoughts and feelings of his own, and the show took that away from him so they could sprint to the finish line. 

ps I’m not a Dany fan, (her chapters are a slog), I’m a Jon fan who’s pissed how all-around useless he was. Not just in season 8 either. 

I agree that they completely removed his POV but I also think that if we did have it, and he spent it trying to appease Dany that would look even worse? Like he already has zero personality. So without his POV, to me it plays this like a hookup gone bad in which he slowly pulls away from her. Benioff said he can't return her affections in 8x5. As for family, he just found out Dany was "family" two seconds ago so he'd always have more attachments to his Stark family. It's also complicated by the fact that he was forced to choose between Stark or Targaryen loyalties. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

of course he's a terrible nephew and boyfriend - he KILLED HIS AUNT / GIRLFRIEND BECAUSE SHE WAS A TERRORIST.

his purpose isnt to be a "boyfriend"

he was always going to side with the Starks anyway

his purpose is to be like Ned who protects his family and his people, not to be the big hero 

They did make him a total dolt though. He certainly wasn't siding with the Starks when she threatened to liberate Winterfell or kill Sansa for spilling the beans on his identity. The astounding fact is that if Tyrion and Arya were not there at Kings Landing, Jon wouldn't have killed Dany despite the devastation he witnessed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, Areisius said:

LMAO! Sansa didn't experience anything close to what Dany did. Not in the show and most certainly not in the books. To try and compare her story to Dany's is utterly ridiculous. :laugh:

1. She saw her own father get beheaded with her own family's swords

2. She was forced to watch her Septa,her father,and the head of her father’s guards's head on a spike and she was slapped by Trant so hard that her lip got cut

3. She was forced to constantly belittle her own family,watch her father and brother get insulted by the others and stay silent. Arya and Dany would have never done this and gotten themselves killed  

4. Cersei mocks her by saying "Even if Joffrey kills Robb, Sansa will do her duty and produce an heir for Joffrey". She cant say anything. She was also forced to marry into a family who had killed her father.

5. She was forced to hear the brutal news that her brother was murdered and then his direwolf's head was mounted on his body and her mother's naked body thrown in the river with zero respect and if that wasn't enough Joffrey enacted a play in which Robb is shown with a direwolf head sewed onto his body and Joffrey knocks it off and he pretends to fuck the direwolf mask. She was also forced to watch her family's sword being forged into 2 new swords, one for Joffrey(the one who killed her father) who said he wishes he could cut off Ned Stark's head again with it

6. She was half stripped,punched and beaten in front of an entire court and would have been stripped completely naked and brutalised had Tyrion not showed up.

7. She was asked uncomfortable questions about her virginity,examined by a brothel keeper which is a personal matter and forced to be sexually assaulted by Baelish, her father's betrayer multiple times by kissing her on the lips and the face. She allowed it as she was weak and frightened and powerless and did not have multiple dragons to burn her enemies at her command

8. She was forced to marry her brother's murderer and she was forced to deal with the trauma of being raped by his murderer in front of Theon who at that moment,to her was responsible for killing Bran and Rickon. Being raped by a member of a family who killed Robb and her mother and being forced to understand that she was being watched being raped  by another betrayer who to her had murdered 2 of her brothers. It’s a miracle she maintained her sanity here and not commit suicide  

9. She was beaten black and blue by Ramsay,flayed, forced to endure his torment and stay locked up in a dark room. She was being treated inhumanly and was crying in the bed alone when Theon arrived and she was forced to ask for his help when at that time she thought he had killed her brothers, just because he was the lesser evil than Ramsay.

Theres more but I can tell you one thing though, take away Dany's dragons and put her in any of Sansa's situations and she wouldn't last a day with her loud mouth. Sansa is also the only character who did not have much of a guardian angel by her side in her suffering. Dany had Jorah. Arya still had Gendry and the Hound and the Brotherhood. Bran had Osha and Hodor and Meera. She is the only character who had to survive in the midst of enemies all on her own besides a few helpful instances from Tyrion and the Hound

The best developed character in the series, dare I say even more than Jon. Robb and her parents would be proud. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

I agree that they completely removed his POV but I also think that if we did have it, and he spent it trying to appease Dany that would look even worse? Like he already has zero personality. So without his POV, to me it plays this like a hookup gone bad in which he slowly pulls away from her. Benioff said he can't return her affections in 8x5. As for family, he just found out Dany was "family" two seconds ago so he'd always have more attachments to his Stark family. It's also complicated by the fact that he was forced to choose between Stark or Targaryen loyalties. 

I’m of the anything is better than nothing belief.

Having two main characters meet a tragic end because they couldn’t have one conversation together is awful storytelling. 

You can turn Dany heel without dragging Jon, Tyrion, Sansa, Bran, Arya and Varys through the mud first. 

Dont get me wrong, show Jon is a vapid plank of wood with awful dialogue, but he comes off looking really bad in this, and I don’t think that was their intention.

He was played by Sansa, screwed over by Bran, abandoned by Arya, and unable to have any type of conversation with Dany. 

He’s an uncaring naieve idiot who chose the family that didn’t choose him back and was punished for it...when he never should have had to choose in the first place. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...