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On Janos Slynt


kissdbyfire

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40 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

The plans were either put on halt while Cersei was in a cell. Or Kevan sent men, excluding Kettleback, to Eastwatch already according to the plan, but we have no confirmation of it, since between Cersei getting arrested (at the end of aFfC) and the epilogue of aDwD we haven't been privy to any small council anymore.

Yeah. When I said we haven’t heard from either I was talking about Grell and Ryger (just to clarify). But irt Kevan, I very much doubt he would have gone forward w/ Cersei’s plan. Any of Cersei’s plans, tbh! :laugh:

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5 minutes ago, divica said:

The problem I see here is that I don t think they attacked jon because stannis is dead. After hearing the pink letter they must know how impossible it is to answer all of ramsay's demands and it is debatable if the whole NW agrees with their decision to stab jon… 

To me the attack stinks of desperation of men that don t want to die and think that as long as jon is in comand they are doomed. I doubt they actually have a plan of action about what to do after killing jon because they know how hard it is to get to stannis people, val without being murdered by the wildlings and that farya isn t there. I bet marsh just wants to sit in CB and let the wildlings, ramsay and stannis people fight between them without involving him.

Oh, I don't think they've even thought Ramsay's demands through. I don't think they even want to prove themselves to Ramsay. They just learned Stannis is dead, and so his army must be in smithereens. They're not thinking of Ramsay here, but the Crown, hoping that the Crown will forgive them and leave them alone.

Since both Alys and Cregan would have presented Stannis' death a certainty, in that sense Bowen had time to confer with men about what they would do in case their worst fears would come true. He even had time to confer with Eastwatch over it, since Cotter Pyke was stuck at Hardhome and left a friend of Alliser and Slynt in charge at Eastwatch. Jon even told Bowen to send the gold and other stuff the wildlings paid as toll to pass throught the wall with a report to Eastwatch, and thus a message to Slynt's friend.

George switched loyalties in the background in Eastwatch. First Selyse lives there with her daughter and her Queen's Men. Selyse and Cotter Pyke apparently often had words with one another in some way. Selyse sort of fled from Eastwatch. Then Cotter Pyke moans and complains but still does what Jon wants, and ultimately he voluntarily gave up his bid for LC in favor of Jon, so he can't really go back on that. So, he leaves for Hardhome, but puts a mate of Slynt in charge. Jon learns of this and is troubled by this. Meanwhile giants and mammoths were sent from CB to Eastwatch, when Stannis let the wildlings who surrendered pass, because those mammoths couldn't pass through the gate and the giants refused to abandon their mammoths. Not sure when these arrived, but certainly after Selyse left, since Wun Wun is the first giant that Shyreen sees. Jon negotiates for the Braavosi ships upon Tycho's arrival with Selyse and Shyreen. So, it's possible that those mammoths and giants arrived at Eastwatch after Cotter Pyke sailed for Hardhome. Can't see Slynt's friend being happy with those. Then there's the bad news of Cotter Pyke being stuck at Hardhome. Slynt's friend must feel pretty secure about his position at Eastwatch.

If Kevan also already sent a ship to Eastwatch with men for the watch with the instruction to have Jon killed, well then the plotting mainly occurs from Eastwatch, putting the fear in Marsh for that potential bad news that Stannis is dead. All he does is wait to learn of Stannis being dead, likely counting on the contingent of Eastwatch to back him. It's nutters, but Bowen Marsh isn't known for being an intelligent man.

There's also symbolic hints for this:

  • "smelly/stinky" business in relation to the wildlings at Mole's town. The wildlings at Hardhome went there by the words of Mother Mole.
  • "smelly/stinky" business with Cregan, throwing his faeces at everyone who comes near
  • "smelly/stinky" business with Selyse's men wanting Val for bride (leading to Patrik trying to steal her)
  • "smelly/stinky" business with the boar who loosens the earth of the graves at the lichyard
  • the wall being likened like a sword from Eastwatch to CB, and the other half from CB to the Shadow Tower being likened to a serpent. This recalls the image of a lance or sword aiming for a serpent/dragon. The two meet at CB.
  • Jon sees his own reflection in the wall just before meeting with Cregan in his cell. Together with the likenness of the wall as a sword and serpent, we therefore have the imagery of Serwyn of the Mirror Shield who killed a dragon by using his mirror shield. The dragon stared into the mirror and didn't see the sword/lance coming. Jon smells the shit, but he's blinded by his task.
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17 minutes ago, divica said:

I can t see a logical reason for them to act they way the did… It only makes sense for me if it is an emotional reaction without much thought… No matter whatever agreement they might have with the lannisters or boltons what plans do they have for their imediate survival?

I don’t think they have any kind of deal w/ the Lannisters and/or the Boltons. I think they just want to prove how loyal they are. As to the rash decision to act then and there, that’s just it, a rash decision brought about by fear. Marsh is definitely not the sharpest tool in the box. And that’s a good thing, since Tormund and the free folk and the crows loyal to Jon will make short work of those spineless eejits. 

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44 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

The plans were either put on halt while Cersei was in a cell. Or Kevan sent men, excluding Kettleback, to Eastwatch already according to the plan, but we have no confirmation of it, since between Cersei getting arrested (at the end of aFfC) and the epilogue of aDwD we haven't been privy to any small council anymore.

If anyone sent anything to the NW, my money is on Qyburn. He was removed from the small council, but he carries out Cersei's request to send Jaime the letter to come and save her, which he sends by raven to riverrun. So at the very least, at that point, he still had access to the ravens.

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Just now, kissdbyfire said:

I don’t think they have any kind of deal w/ the Lannisters and/or the Boltons. I think they just want to prove how loyal they are. As to the rash decision to act then and there, that’s just it, a rash decision brought about by fear. Marsh is definitely not the sharpest tool in the box. And that’s a good thing, since Tormund and the free folk and the crows loyal to Jon will make short work of those spineless eejits. 

Yes, this...

They plotted imo only in a hypothetical way: what if... but hadn't really prepared for everything yet. They learn Stannis is dead; they panic; then Jon also says he's riding to face off Ramsay, and quick-quick the few men Marsh had conferred with "in the case of.." nod at one another and go for it.

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3 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Yes, this...

They plotted imo only in a hypothetical way: what if... but hadn't really prepared for everything yet. They learn Stannis is dead; they panic; then Jon also says he's riding to face off Ramsay, and quick-quick the few men Marsh had conferred with "in the case of.." nod at one another and go for it.

Yeah, pretty much a stupid decision made out of fear. Little do they know, that fear they felt is nothing compared to what they’ll feel when they get their comeuppance. :D

 

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2 minutes ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

If anyone sent anything to the NW, my money is on Qyburn. He was removed from the small council, but he carries out Cersei's request to send Jaime the letter to come and save her, which he sends by raven to riverrun. So at the very least, at that point, he still had access to the ravens.

Possible. All depends on whether he knew who to write. He couldn't send a raven to CB for example. But if Slynt's friend at Eastwatch sent a raven to KL, after Cotter Pyke sailed for Hardhome, then Qyburn could have sent a reply.

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35 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Oh, I don't think they've even thought Ramsay's demands through. I don't think they even want to prove themselves to Ramsay. They just learned Stannis is dead, and so his army must be in smithereens. They're not thinking of Ramsay here, but the Crown, hoping that the Crown will forgive them and leave them alone. 

Since both Alys and Cregan would have presented Stannis' death a certainty, in that sense Bowen had time to confer with men about what they would do in case their worst fears would come true. He even had time to confer with Eastwatch over it, since Cotter Pyke was stuck at Hardhome and left a friend of Alliser and Slynt in charge at Eastwatch. Jon even told Bowen to send the gold and other stuff the wildlings paid as toll to pass throught the wall with a report to Eastwatch, and thus a message to Slynt's friend.

George switched loyalties in the background in Eastwatch.

I like what you are saying about eastwatch. A lot of important things are happening there… I could even see someone trying to take over the NW from there… Kind of pull a tywin move by having someone do the dirty work of killing jon to keep his hands clean and then try to become LC. 

My only problem is that with the men pyke took with him to hardhome how many men remain there? less than 50? They can t handle the wildlings, mammoths and Giants there… The truth is the NW as marsh knows it has ended. There are just too manny wildlings and too few westerosi NW brothers. Even if there was an election between jon supporters and wildlings that joined the watch if they were 200 they would block any election of someone they don t like…

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2 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Actually, no, Jon’s thoughts don’t lead us to the conclusion that executing Slynt is “too harsh”. That is your interpretation, I get it. But different people will interpret Jon’s thoughts differently. Jon is actually not too keen on killing people in general. As we see again and again. With Ygritte, Qhorin, the bloke in the abandoned village near Queenscrown... and even Mancelshirt, who he ends up ordering the crows to kill, but the man was as good as dead, and Jon only gives the order to spare the man the agonising pain of burning to death. And Jon’s reluctance to kill is the reason why he ponders his options. In the end, though, he reaches the conclusion that if Slynt is not executed, he will be a problem further down the road. Not only that, but more importantly, he knows he can’t let that level of disobedience and disrespect stand, or no one will ever again obey any command he gives if they don’t feel like obeying.  

This isn't a question of interpretation. Jon's thoughts make it crystal clear that he wasn't forced by law or custom to insist Slynt be executed for his disobedience - there were other roads he could have taken, but he didn't take them.

You cannot deny this.

And I'm not saying killing Slynt was wrong - I'm saying he killed the wrong man, basically. Or to put in another way - he should have killed Slynt and many others.

2 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

And Slynt is not nobility, ffs. He’s an upjumped commoner who got a lordship in the most venal and despicable way possible, but in no way, shape or form is he nobility. LMAO.

So you are honestly telling me there is something like nobility - that there is actual nobility set apart by birth and blood from lowborn scum? Then you essentially are living in this feudal fantasy world and have taken up their values as your own?

Slynt has been made a lord and as a lord he is entitled to be not hanged as per the rules of the society. Jon's original command shows his contempt for the man, shows that he doesn't care about Slynt's rank. Him deciding to behead Slynt personally doesn't really change that - he does it for himself, not because it is something that's due to the man by his rank.

2 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

This is preposterous. First, the offences are not anywhere near the same. And in the case of Jon’s first offence, Mormont himself explains: Jon left and came back. If he were to execute every man who left at night and came back before duty, he’d end up alone in CB. Attacking Thorne is also nowhere near disobeying a direct order and telling the LC to shove whatever up his arse in front of everyone. And w/ all those men together at CB, I bet there have been more than a few fist fights over the centuries and millennia, and yes, many would have been between men of different ranks. As to Slynt wanting to execute Jon, well, he would have if not for maester Aemon. So it’s not like Slynt didn’t want to do it, he just got cold feet because all his “important friends” - LOL - were too far away to intervene and he basically didn’t want to risk his own neck. And mind you, he gave up on hanging Jon, but found another way to have him killed by sending him on a suicide mission. Only Stannis got in the way.

Mormont is just a tired old man who couldn't maintain discipline at the Watch. He allowed a brothel on NW territory and looked the other way when his men were breaking their vows. Hell, he likely broke them himself at Mole's Town.

Him excusing for his oathbreaking is just disgusting. And it is not overlooking his desertion, it is also his attempt to murder his sworn brother and superior officer, Alliser Thorne. The boy doesn't deserve this largesse - or if he deserves it for some reason then everybody deserves to be cut this much slack. Dareon would have, Slynt would have, Thorne would have, even Marsh and all his cronies do, the scum who murdered Mormont did, etc.

Don't misunderstand me - I don't approve of Jon being punished after he essentially did everything in his power to save Castle Black - that was a noble deed and while he broke his vows with Ygritte he did the right thing in the end, meaning there is more than enough cause to pardon him for all that.

However, cutting this special boy as much slack as they do back in AGoT is totally uncalled for and completely explained by Jon being the pampered bastard of Winterfell who is essentially groomed to be some big guy at the Wall just because his father is the Lord of Winterfell. That's just ugly favoritism - if Samwell, Grenn, Pyp, Dareon or any other recruit at the Wall had pulled a Jon Snow-like stunt they wouldn't have survived it - or they would have at least never gotten even a favored position in the NW.

I mean, one thought and wanted to believe that Jon's desertion was his last test, that now he would see what his true job was and where his loyalty should lie - but he showed in ADwD that he did not understand this.

2 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

First I’ll go back to my first point: Jon is not fond of killing people. Especially if it’s a waste, like in Mance’s case. Even Stannis admits that Mance has knowledge they could use. And Mance is not disobeying Jon and telling him to go fuck himself and all that crap Slynt tried to pull. But there’s more in regards to Mance...   Mance’s fate was in Stannis’s hands, not Jon’s. And much later, when Jon learns of the switcheroo, he still can’t do anything about it. At least not until he speaks w/ Stannis himself. 

That's just nonsense, and you know it. Mance is Jon's man and under his jurisdiction because STANNIS MAKES IT CLEAR REPEATEDLY THAT RATTLESHIRT IS JON'S MAN NOW. Mance as Rattleshirt himself also makes that very clear, repeatedly.

Jon has made it crystal clear to Stannis that he can go fuck himself. He, Jon Snow, leads the NW as he sees fits. And Stannis accepted that. Jon takes possession of Stannis' prisoner Val and does with her what he wants, he marries Sigorn to Alys Karstark without the king's consent, he does what he wants - if he had wanted to kill Mance he could have done so - just as he had Mance killed before while he was burning.

2 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

It’s really simple. Tywin sees an opportunity of having a man he can bribe and boss around as LC of the NW. Mormont is dead, and Slynt is at CB. But Sam’s plotting works and he manages to get Jon elected. But Marsh & co know Tywin, who all the arseholes are sure is gonna come out on top, want Slynt as LC. It’s as easy as basic maths, 2 + 2 = 4, not 375,9.

There is no issue with that that I can see. Nor from the Iron Throne's point of view and especially not from the Watch's point of view. Stannis is a dead horse. He cannot win the war, so the Watch simply should not make common cause with them. They have to keep the true power sweet not just for themselves but to get a chance to get some reinforcements when the Others attack.

The Lannisters and Tyrells together can field about 160,000 men. How many men is Stannis going to bring to the Wall?

And I know that they don't buy the threat ... as of yet. But antagonizing them is not going to help them convince them of what's going on when they are in real trouble.

2 hours ago, divica said:

This entire paragraph is just wrong. First jon wanted to hang janos because that is the way grrm killed people in the NW. You just have to check for interviews of the time grrm read that pov chapter to know that he only changed the killing method because someone in the audience asked if jon wouldn t sentence people to die like ned did and brandish the sword himself.

That actually happened on his blog - but it doesn't change the fact that hanging is a humiliating execution methods in this world, one not reserved for nobility. They have a right to be beheaded to get a cleaner death. And as I pointed out Jon does not change his sentence because he felt he was wronging Slynt there, but because the author/Jon thought a guy presuming to be a Stark would not do such a thing.

And to be fair to Jon perhaps it was him giving Slynt some honor back. We can be pretty sure Jon wouldn't have bloodied his own hands killing completely insignficant person.

2 hours ago, divica said:

Then jon's thoughts are about him deciding what his the best decision to make and being sure that killing janos is the right decision. The whole thought process jon concluding what is the right action to take.

See above. He had other choices but to kill him, meaning the crime we are talking does not necessitate the death penalty - unlike other crimes (like, say, murder or treason or what not).

2 hours ago, divica said:

Slynt and thorne wanted to kill him and put him on trial. They couldn t do more without a lord comander... And mormont didn t kill him because he came back. Jon gave janos several oportunities to follow his orders and he simply refused.

But Jon did desert, didn't he? It doesn't matter if it was for a minute, an hour, or a night. And as he himself admitted he did not come back because he wanted to keep his vow, he came back so that his friends were not punished, too. He is honest enough to say he spits on the vows of the NW - but he still spat on them.

I mean, don't you understand that there wouldn't be any deserters/turncloak in the NW ever if any black brother had the chance to repent and say 'Well, now that you caught me I'd like to put on my black cloak again so that you don't have to kill me?' I mean, you must know the story of Lord Ryswell's son, right? The guy who was handed over to the Watch to be cruelly executed by his own father. There was no room for compromise there, no room for compromise at all.

2 hours ago, divica said:

And you are sugesting that jon should kill marsh and company for not agreeing with him? That sounds like something aerys would do… IT is just insane.

No, I say he should have used spies and agents digging up dirt on them ... to then execute them when he had cause. After all, since they were plotting they certainly would have done/said things as bad as Slynt long before they actually killed Jon Snow, no? He could have even asked Melisandre to keep an eye on the usual suspects with her magics.

And I say he should have sacked them all - Thorne, Marsh, Yarwyck - any officer who was not very firmly on his side. Cutting them off from power would have reduced the danger they could pose.

2 hours ago, divica said:

And jon actually tought he killed mance… Or are you saying that jon should capture someone that is under mel's protection, expose stannis and kill mance? That course of action is also borderline insane. He would be making na enemy out of stannis that can destroy the NW and at the same time actively interfering in the politics of the 7 kingdoms. Wether mance deserved to die for his crimes if jon killed him at that time it would be the worst political decision ever...

Again, you guys really don't care about the text. Mance is Jon's man. Stannis handed him over to Jon. That's made clear repeatedly in the text. It is done while Jon still believed the guy was Rattleshirt but that doesn't change the fact that this guy is Jon's man - Mance even says so himself.

2 hours ago, divica said:

There isn t a single instance when this happens. Her rulling in mereen were all against the slavers.

LOL, no. It has been a while since you read the books, no? But this is not the thread for that discussion.

2 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

What thoughts of his clearly show that he believes executing Janos a harsh punishment?

Again, him considering the other possibility he had - if this was a crime punishable by death then he would have had no other choice at all. There would have been only one punishment possible.

2 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

Also, I disagree that it is a comparatively harsh punishment as I don't see we have much to compare it to. To me, it makes sense that this type of insubordination would most often be punished by death, especially in a military like arrangement.

There was discussion about this topic quite some time, and there are people with actual military experience here who pointed out that you would not be executed for this kind of thing - but even if you were. From that certainly follows that Jon also deserves death for his desertion and, especially, for his attack on Allister Thorne.

There is nothing to disagree here - Jon himself admits in his mind that he didn't have to execute Slynt. He certainly also could do that - I'm not saying he didn't have the right, just that it wasn't his only option and, perhaps, not his smartest move.

I mean, why not use Slynt as a means to feed false information to the Lannisters? Why not use this bumbling fool to uncover all his co-conspirators and then kill all them at once? Why not use him to find out who is the guy who passes around and sends letters to KL if it isn't Aemon (assuming it actually isn't Aemon)?

Instead this kind of harsh punishments shows that Jon Snow is a cruel commander who is not going to cut you any slack should you displease him.

2 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

Not really because we know with Mormont (I can only think of one time - when he tried to desert so I'm speaking about then) that transgression is not typically punished by death. Had he continued on his desertion, yes but he did not. Thinking of deserting or leaving & coming back in the same night are not the same. Mormont says himself if he punished each of these transgressions he would have to punish everyone (or something to that affect) so had Mormont punished him, especially by executing him, it would have been Mormont that was taking it overboard & not being impartial.

So, Jon gets a night as a deserter but Slynt cannot be a little stubborn? You do recall that he said he would take the post after he realized in what trouble he was in, right? While Jon essentially said he did not want to be at the Wall even after his brothers dragged him back?

Jon gets very special treatment in the desertion department, unlike any other sworn brother. Just think of Dareon.

2 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

Janos & Thorne did want to execute Jon. We know he didn't desert & while Janos & Thorne don't know he didn't, they certainly don't know he did & insist upon not believing him even in the face of the truth. Why would it be ok for them to execute Jon for an offence they wrongly believe he committed but not for Jon, as LC, to execute Slynt for an offence he committed in front of everyone?

I never said Jon had no right to execute Slynt. I find it harsh and somewhat stupid (especially since the boy doesn't deliver in strictness department afterwards) but certainly within his rights.

I'm also just calling people on their hypocrisy when they have different standards for Jon than they have for, say, Slynt.

2 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

If I'm understanding this passage right you are suggesting Jon's punishment was too harsh & as evidence you give the fact that Slynt & Thorne did not execute him? They tried, they wanted to & the reason they didn't had nothing to do with it being too harsh. Jon spent 5 days in an ice cell for a crime he did not commit at the word of Janos. He is not a just or wise mine so the last thing I would do if I were in a position of power is take my cues from the likes of him. 

Jon himself admits that he broke his vows with Ygritte - and while he was raped by her in the beginning he eventually loved her and liked to sleep with her, did it repeatedly, wanted to be with her - and thus broke his vows. He himself is the first to admit that. He does not hide the feelings he has for Ygritte from anyone.

I think his superiors should take into account that he did everything he could to save CB, but unlike you or many other people I don't think that Jon is entitled to have just and well-meaning judges. They could just as well have thanked him for his services ... and then also executed him for his oath-breaking. Who

2 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

Mance is another discussion entirely but since it seems inevitable that it will recur here I'll give you in a nut shell why I think it doesn't relate. 

First and foremost Jon was not LC when Mance committed his crime. That doesn't make his crime not punishable but to be completely comparable he would have had to desert & be caught under Jon's watch.

I don't think you have any evidence that this is relevant. A deserter is executed by whoever captures him, not just the guy under whose watch he deserted. Ned did not need Mormont's permission to execute Gared.

2 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

The crimes were not the same. Mance's was desertion & Janos's was insubordination. Both apparently punishable by death but again to say Jon is being impartial by killing Janos & not Mance we would have to see how Jon punished other insubordination & other desertions.

Mance's crime is much, much, much worse than mere desertion. He and his cronies killed dozens men of the Watch, Mance's own sworn brothers. Not to mention that they attacked the Wall and the Seven Kingdoms themselves. Mance is not just a deserter, he is a traitor and a murderer.

2 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

Mance's situation was a unique one in which Jon believed him to be dead only to find out he has been kept alive (presumably) by the only person that came to help the NW & whom Jon needs his continued support. Jon wanted Mance dead too. He emerges from the ice cells flexing his burnt hand specifically because he will need his hand limber to kill Mance.

Oh, I'm not saying Jon should kill Mance. I'm just saying that it is hypocritical/not exactly very consistent to spare Mance when you have him in your power and then kill Slynt. That is favoritism. Jon likes Mance, and he thinks he can use Mance, so he allows him to live despite the shit the man pulled (which is much, much, much worse than anything Slynt ever did). He doesn't like Slynt, and he thinks he cannot use the man, so he kills him for a relatively minor offense.

2 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

These things make the two situations relatively incomparable in my eyes but if your stance is that he should have killed Mance then I can't fathom what the issue would be with killing Janos. Maybe because you deem desertion to be a worse crime than insubordination? I wholly disagree. Unpunished insubordination in a military setting is detrimental to the entire army. One desertion is not. 

The Watch is a medieval order of warrior-monks, not some modern military system with a court martial system. We do know desertion is punishable by death, period. We also do that treason and murder are punishable by death. We do also know that insubordination is not necessarily punishable by death, no matter your opinion on the matter.

The NW do not swear they will obey ever command their lord commander give them - but they do swear to live and die at their post and not father any children.

2 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

I'll look for the quotes but didn't one of the Lannisters suggest (Cersei maybe?) That they would like for Janos & CO to take Jon out while at the wall? Sounds like a plot to me. 

They were plotting to align themselves with the Lannisters & while in & of itself it causes no great harm & is no different than aligning with Stannis to rid the realm of the greater good this isn't what the Lannisters wanted, nor were they offering help in return. They wanted their man in control so they essentially had control of the NW. 

There is no indication that the black brothers cannot plot and scheme when electing their lord commander, nor that they cannot ask the various kings and pretenders and factions who they would like to see in charge. I mean, seriously, what do you think went on back before the Conquest? Do you think the Watch didn't try to remain in the good graces of the most powerful king or the king they were most dependent on?

Do you think it is an accident that there were a lot of boy commanders chosen who happened to be close relations of the King in the North? This would have been the result of plotting, too - or very clear threats.

And there is no indication that one cannot ask the king and his council for their input on the election. The black brothers do not exist in a vacuum and they are both dependent on the Iron Throne for their existence as well as subject to its authority.

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1 hour ago, divica said:

I like what you are saying about eastwatch. A lot of important things are happening there… I could even see someone trying to take over the NW from there… Kind of pull a tywin move by having someone do the dirty work of killing jon to keep his hands clean and then try to become LC. 

I'm pretty sure Bowen Marsh won't survive to see the result of what and for whom he did this for for long. Imo wights are being raised the moment Jon's blood is drawn for the first time by Wick. There are people screaming and Jon can only feel the cold. Something's happening that George hints at but doesn't want to reveal yet. But to me the Others are at the other side of the Wall. Both Jon's dream where he defends the Wall and him seeing his reflection in the ice imply to me that Jon and the Wall have magically become one. In fact, the Wall started to do his bidding the moment he arrived at the Wall to climb it with the wildlings. He wished Jarl would fall, and it happened. The word "reflection" or "reflective" is never used in any other wall POV, only in Jon's and only after he returns to the wall with the wildling party after Mormont's death. The wall was his already from then on, before he got back to CB, before Donal Noye said "the wall is yours" before he went down, before he was elected LC. So, when Wick struck at Jon, Wick also struck at the Wall, weakening the wall's magic enough for the Others to erect the dead despite having a wall between them. That's my theory: it's actually already going down in CB, because of the assassination.

And Bowen and Wick and whomever else at CB who was complicit in this won't survive for long.

But that doesn't mean that Eastwatch is solved. And I'm quite sure we'll see and visit Eastwatch in Davos's POV, believing it safe to take Rickon and Shaggydog there, when he manages to convince them to leave Skagos with him. :wacko:

 

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Again, him considering the other possibility he had - if this was a crime punishable by death then he would have had no other choice at all. There would have been only one punishment possible

Why does being a crime punishable by death exclude all other possibilities? Murder irl is a crime punishable by death but it isn't always punishable by death. He considers his other possibilities & gives his reasons for not doing them. Whether you agree with those reasons or not is a different thing but he does consider them. He doesn't come to the death conclusion because he thinks it so harsh in comparison to the others, he came to that conclusion because he felt it the best & only option to avoid further trouble. 

 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

There was discussion about this topic quite some time, and there are people with actual military experience here who pointed out that you would not be executed for this kind of thing - but even if you were. From that certainly follows that Jon also deserves death for his desertion and, especially, for his attack on Allister Thorne

But it doesn't because Jon didn't desert, he attempted to & I don't recall any LC (I could be wrong) punishing anyone for attacking another person by death. This in a place that is certainly rife with fights. 

I'm not saying irl it's punishable by death I'm saying in the NW it's punishable by death. We know this because not one person, Janos's cronies included, ever say Hey you can't kill him because disobeying your LC is not punishable by death. If this were an outrageous punishment for the crime surely someone would have said something against it right? 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

There is nothing to disagree here - Jon himself admits in his mind that he didn't have to execute Slynt. He certainly also could do that - I'm not saying he didn't have the right, just that it wasn't his only option and, perhaps, not his smartest move

But he doesn't. He admits he has other options available to him (ice cell, tying him to a horse) but decides those are not viable options & that he does have to execute him. 

I disagree, I think it was well thought out & was the smartest option available to him, but it is a matter of opinion. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

mean, why not use Slynt as a means to feed false information to the Lannisters? Why not use this bumbling fool to uncover all his co-conspirators and then kill all them at once? Why not use him to find out who is the guy who passes around and sends letters to KL if it isn't Aemon (assuming it actually isn't Aemon)

We don't get Jon's thoughts on why he doesn't do this but I would guess he doesn't use him to feed false info to the Lannisters because 1. That would be concerning himself with & meddling in matters of the realm, something the NW isn't supposed to do. 2. Because he would have to constantly watch his back while Janos was around. 3. Because to the other men this would look like Janos had gone completely unpunished. 

I think he knows most of his cronies, they aren't really hiding. If death was too harsh a punishment for Janos's insubordination, it would be way too harsh of a punishment for bitching about your LC. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Instead this kind of harsh punishments shows that Jon Snow is a cruel commander who is not going to cut you any slack should you displease him

No, it shows Jon is a LC who will not be disobeyed when giving a direct order. Slynt "displeased" him on many occasions before & leading right up to the execution. He wasn't punished for that once. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

So, Jon gets a night as a deserter but Slynt cannot be a little stubborn?

Is this really what happened though? Jon "spent a night as a deserter" & Janos was "a little stubborn"? 

I usually agree or can see the truth & meaning in most of what you say but this is a huge exaggeration. Janos was more than a little stubborn & Jon did not spend his night as a deserter. I'm not sure what Jon's trying to run away has to do with it anyway. Jon attempted to desert, he was unsuccessful, he was not punished for it by his LC, who gave legitimate reasons for not doing so. Nothing to do with Slynt. Jon is under no obligation to spare Slynt because his own LC didn't execute him for something that he didn't execute anyone for - by his own words. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

You do recall that he said he would take the post after he realized in what trouble he was in, right?

No actually this was his response when he realized what trouble he was in. 

 

Quote

 

“No, unhand me. He’s just a boy, a bastard. His father was a traitor. The mark of the beast is on him, that wolf of his … Let go of me! You will rue the day you laid hands on Janos Slynt. I have friends in King’s Landing.
         I warn you —” He was still protesting as they half-marched, half-dragged him up the steps.

“If the boy thinks that he can frighten me, he is mistaken,” they heard Lord Janos said. “He would not dare to hang me. Janos Slynt has friends, important friends, you’ll see …” The wind whipped away the rest of his words

 

 

 

And after Jon decided not to hang him but to behead him: 

 

Quote

“No,” Slynt cried,
         as Emmett half-shoved and half-pulled him across the yard. “Unhand me … you cannot … whenTywin Lannister hears of this, you will all rue—”

It is not until he is asked for his last words that he says he will go. Long after he should have realized what trouble he was in. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

While Jon essentially said he did not want to be at the Wall even after his brothers dragged him back?

Again, regardless of what Jon said, he did come back. Janos could have screamed to the high heavens that he wasn't going to listen, if he then got on his horse & listened he wouldn't have been executed. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Jon gets very special treatment in the desertion department, unlike any other sworn brother. Just think of Dareon

Except we know he doesn't! Mormont specifically says what Jon did, all or most of the NW men do & are not punished. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

never said Jon had no right to execute Slynt. I find it harsh and somewhat stupid (especially since the boy doesn't deliver in strictness department afterwards) but certainly within his rights

With who does he not follow through on this strictness with? 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

I'm also just calling people on their hypocrisy when they have different standards for Jon than they have for, say, Slynt.

Jon hasn't done what Slynt has done. If Jon executed Slynt for slipping away one night & returning then Jon would be hypocritical. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Jon himself admits that he broke his vows with Ygritte - and while he was raped by her in the beginning he eventually loved her and liked to sleep with her, did it repeatedly, wanted to be with her - and thus broke his vows. He himself is the first to admit that. He does not hide the feelings he has for Ygritte from anyone

Yes he does & if his superiors wanted to execute him for that they would be well within their rights. I would imagine they didn't because Jon's surviving the wildlings essentially depended on his relationship with Ygritte. But they could have chosen, wrongfully IMO, to disregard that & execute him anyway. I don't really understand why this is an argument to not behead Janos though. 

 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

think his superiors should take into account that he did everything he could to save CB, but unlike you or many other people I don't think that Jon is entitled to have just and well-meaning judges. They could just as well have thanked him for his services ... and then also executed him for his oath-breaking

Well yeah, I think everyone deserves just judges. Why wouldn't they? 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

don't think you have any evidence that this is relevant. A deserter is executed by whoever captures him, not just the guy under whose watch he deserted. Ned did not need Mormont's permission to execute Gared

It's my opinion in regards to comparing the Janos situation to Mance's situation, so no I don't have any evidence nor was I suggesting Jon needed anyone's permission to kill Mance for desertion. I'm saying if we are comparing the two we have to look at the fact that their are differences. One of them being that Jon was not there when Mance deserted. This is relevant when coming to the conclusion (or not) that Jon is being hypocritical for not killing Mance. Mance is a different situation & to make them the same Jon would need to have been LC when Mance committed his crime & when he was being punished for it. Of course to compare something, every single thing does not need to be the same. For instance, if this were not true but there were enough other similarities, it would be comparable in my eyes. I'm just naming some of the things that if they were the same would make the situation comparable. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Mance's crime is much, much, much worse than mere desertion. He and his cronies killed dozens men of the Watch, Mance's own sworn brothers. Not to mention that they attacked the Wall and the Seven Kingdoms themselves. Mance is not just a deserter, he is a traitor and a murderer

Absolutely. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, I'm not saying Jon should kill Mance. I'm just saying that it is hypocritical/not exactly very consistent to spare Mance when you have him in your power and then kill Slynt. That is favoritism. Jon likes Mance, and he thinks he can use Mance, so he allows him to live despite the shit the man pulled (which is much, much, much worse than anything Slynt ever did). He doesn't like Slynt, and he thinks he cannot use the man, so he kills him for a relatively minor offense

I disagree that it is favoritism. He isn't in a position to kill Mance when he finds out Mance is alive. Also, Slynts offence was not relatively minor. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

The Watch is a medieval order of warrior-monks, not some modern military system with a court martial system. We do know desertion is punishable by death, period. We also do that treason and murder are punishable by death. We do also know that insubordination is not necessarily punishable by death, no matter your opinion on the matter

I'm aware that the watch is not a modern military system but the watch & the military are comparable. 

If what Jon did when he attempted to leave is desertion then clearly desertion is not always punished by death. 

We don't really know about insubordination though. This is the only case of blatant insubordination I can remember. We know there are no hard & fast rules about it & we know Jon considers other options. Whether that is because there are some set of rules set forth for that (unlikely) or because past LC have handled it in different ways (maybe but we don't hear about Jon learning of this) or because Jon has come to the conclusion on his own, it's clearly on the table. If there are punishments to be considered for a crime typically the worse said crime, the worse the punishment. For example someone who kills someone by accident they are going to get the lesser punishment of the options available to them while someone who brutally murders someone will get the harsher punishment. Assuming Ice cells, forcibly making said NW brother do as he was commanded & death are all on the table for insubordination, death would be the route to take in the worst cases of insubordination right? How much worse could Janos have been? I can't think of anything he could have done to make his insubordination worse than it was. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

NW do not swear they will obey ever command their lord commander give them - but they do swear to live and die at their post and not father any childre

Sure but they have a LC for a reason. Is it not a given they are to obey? 

They don't swear to never have sex but Jon broke his vows by having sex with Ygritte. They swear to live & die at their post but what Jon did the night he left did not keep him from living & dying at his post, yet that is called breaking his vows also. 

At any rate I didn't say they swear to obey, I said it's detrimental to the watch if they don't.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

There is no indication that the black brothers cannot plot and scheme when electing their lord commander, nor that they cannot ask the various kings and pretenders and factions who they would like to see in charge. I mean, seriously, what do you think went on back before the Conquest? Do you think the Watch didn't try to remain in the good graces of the most powerful king or the king they were most dependent on?

I didn't say any of this. You said there was no plotting against Jon prior to him becoming LC. I was talking about the Lannisters plotting against him in what I originally thought to be before he was LC. It was not, it was during him being LC. But since I hadn't previously claimed there was plotting against him before he was LC, I was a little confused by it 

I would assume asking the King or Queen who they prefer to be in charge would be allowing the King or Queen to meddle in the NW affairs & would thus be frowned upon at the least. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Do you think it is an accident that there were a lot of boy commanders chosen who happened to be close relations of the King in the North? This would have been the result of plotting, too - or very clear threats.

And there is no indication that one cannot ask the king and his council for their input on the election. The black brothers do not exist in a vacuum and they are both dependent on the Iron Throne for their existence as well as subject to its authority

No, I don't think it was accident & while I'm sure trying to get in the good graces of this King or that one has gone on, I also think it goes against some of the basic premises of the NW. 

Either way my point was there was plotting, by the Lannisters, prior to him being LC - in which I was mistaken. 

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2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That actually happened on his blog - but it doesn't change the fact that hanging is a humiliating execution methods in this world, one not reserved for nobility. They have a right to be beheaded to get a cleaner death. And as I pointed out Jon does not change his sentence because he felt he was wronging Slynt there, but because the author/Jon thought a guy presuming to be a Stark would not do such a thing.

And to be fair to Jon perhaps it was him giving Slynt some honor back. We can be pretty sure Jon wouldn't have bloodied his own hands killing completely insignficant person.

Given that Ned bloodied his own hands killings an insignificante persont that deserted the NW what makes you think jon wouldn t?

Again, there is no indication that jon at first wanted to hang janos to humiliate him. It is just as they do things in the NW or how grrm felt about killing a character on the day he first wrote the chapter...

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

See above. He had other choices but to kill him, meaning the crime we are talking does not necessitate the death penalty - unlike other crimes (like, say, murder or treason or what not).

He had other choices that he desmisses because they weren t the right decision. Any person judging the fate of another goes through a process of elimination to decide the punishment. If you really believe jon was too hard on his decision then give a quote about him desmissing another form of punishment based on bad judgement. Otherwise jon is just listing why he has to kill janos...

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But Jon did desert, didn't he? It doesn't matter if it was for a minute, an hour, or a night. And as he himself admitted he did not come back because he wanted to keep his vow, he came back so that his friends were not punished, too. He is honest enough to say he spits on the vows of the NW - but he still spat on them.

I mean, don't you understand that there wouldn't be any deserters/turncloak in the NW ever if any black brother had the chance to repent and say 'Well, now that you caught me I'd like to put on my black cloak again so that you don't have to kill me?' I mean, you must know the story of Lord Ryswell's son, right? The guy who was handed over to the Watch to be cruelly executed by his own father. There was no room for compromise there, no room for compromise at all.

However jon wasn t caught. He decided to return. THAT is an important diference.

And just because jon decided to desert doesn t mean he is a deserter. He has to be gone enough time to be declared by the NW a deserter. 

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

No, I say he should have used spies and agents digging up dirt on them ... to then execute them when he had cause. After all, since they were plotting they certainly would have done/said things as bad as Slynt long before they actually killed Jon Snow, no? He could have even asked Melisandre to keep an eye on the usual suspects with her magics.

And I say he should have sacked them all - Thorne, Marsh, Yarwyck - any officer who was not very firmly on his side. Cutting them off from power would have reduced the danger they could pose.

First, Slynt publicly insulted jon and refused to obey orders. No matter what those people say in private jon or anyone else can t take action unless they also take action. You can t punish someone until they actually try to do a crime.

Then you are forgeting an important thing. Jon did try to push thorne and marsh away from power. He sent thorne scouting and slynt was going to take care of a useless place. In regards to the others jon choose to keep them because they know how to do their job and jon didn t really have conflicts with them before dance. He was open minded and during the first half of dance things actually were ok for him. It is in the second half of the book that jon just can t work with marsh and yarwyck anymore because they are completly against his ideas. However, given that jon's last chapters happen in a very short amount of time and a lot of things are happening I don t think he had the oportunity to really get rid of those 2 by sending them to work on some castle.

I think you mix your knowledge of how things ended to say how jon should have behaved before they happened. The truth is that in the beguining of dance jon doesn t have a lot of motives to disregard marsh and yarwick given their ability to do the job...

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Again, you guys really don't care about the text. Mance is Jon's man. Stannis handed him over to Jon. That's made clear repeatedly in the text. It is done while Jon still believed the guy was Rattleshirt but that doesn't change the fact that this guy is Jon's man - Mance even says so himself.

We don t even know if stannis knows he didn t kill mance… What the text actually shows is that mel and maybe stannis are plotting something and decided to keep mance alive. Jon killing him or unmasking them would be actively taking part in the politics of westeros and create a powerfull enemy.  

What you are sugesting is just bad. Jon didn t have the power at the time to determine mance's fate.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

LOL, no. It has been a while since you read the books, no? But this is not the thread for that discussion.

Actually yes. I had several discussion here about that topic. Danny never rulled in favor of the slavers nor was she open minded about their plights.

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1 hour ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

Why does being a crime punishable by death exclude all other possibilities? Murder irl is a crime punishable by death but it isn't always punishable by death. He considers his other possibilities & gives his reasons for not doing them. Whether you agree with those reasons or not is a different thing but he does consider them. He doesn't come to the death conclusion because he thinks it so harsh in comparison to the others, he came to that conclusion because he felt it the best & only option to avoid further trouble. 

Vic's POV also explains why he had to beat his wife to death with his bare hands - doesn't mean I have to find his reasoning convincing, no? Hell, Chett also explains to us why he had to kill that girl - but I don't find that convincing, either.

Jon knew he had other options, meaning he was not forced to take the road he took. And just because he chose the path he chose doesn't magically make that the right choice.

1 hour ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

But it doesn't because Jon didn't desert, he attempted to & I don't recall any LC (I could be wrong) punishing anyone for attacking another person by death. This in a place that is certainly rife with fights. 

Thorne was Jon's superior officer and what he did was actually attempted murder. There certainly were extenuating circumstances there, but I say saving your judge from some zombies shouldn't get you completely off the hook when you just tried to kill someone.

If you maintain the thing is some sort of military environment then the attack on Thorne is much worse than Slynt's insubordination.

1 hour ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

I'm not saying irl it's punishable by death I'm saying in the NW it's punishable by death. We know this because not one person, Janos's cronies included, ever say Hey you can't kill him because disobeying your LC is not punishable by death. If this were an outrageous punishment for the crime surely someone would have said something against it right? 

Sure, my point just is that we know it is universally accepted what awaits you when you break your NW vows, right? With insubordination there is clearly more leeway.

1 hour ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

But he doesn't. He admits he has other options available to him (ice cell, tying him to a horse) but decides those are not viable options & that he does have to execute him.

He doesn't have to, he wants to. He is making the call.

The reason why this is a pretty bad call is the overall situation. Slynt was Jon's main rival in the choosing. He has a considerable power base in the NW. He should try to get him on board, not push him further away. I'm aware that this wouldn't have been easy but I'm also pretty clear that Slynt's execution is certainly part of the reason Jon was assassinated himself - the people opposing learned that, in the end, it was either he or them.

1 hour ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

We don't get Jon's thoughts on why he doesn't do this but I would guess he doesn't use him to feed false info to the Lannisters because 1. That would be concerning himself with & meddling in matters of the realm, something the NW isn't supposed to do. 2. Because he would have to constantly watch his back while Janos was around. 3. Because to the other men this would look like Janos had gone completely unpunished. 

I'd rather think he didn't think far enough. I mean, Jon does a lot of stupid things early in ADwD. Allowing Mance-Rattleshirt to goad him into a fight and then being beaten up by him publicly in this manner clearly tarnished his public image.

1 hour ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

I think he knows most of his cronies, they aren't really hiding. If death was too harsh a punishment for Janos's insubordination, it would be way too harsh of a punishment for bitching about your LC. 

Oh, I meant actual treason - talk like, 'we kill the bastard if does such and and such' or 'the plan for the assassination of the bastard goes done this way...' Mance, while there, mentioned he overheard Marsh and some people talking, indicating they were not amused that they were being spied at. This is the first hint that something is amiss - assuming Jon didn't catch Mel's vision in the very first chapter...

1 hour ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

No, it shows Jon is a LC who will not be disobeyed when giving a direct order. Slynt "displeased" him on many occasions before & leading right up to the execution. He wasn't punished for that once. 

Jon wasn't LC that long before he executed Slynt, was he?

1 hour ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

Is this really what happened though? Jon "spent a night as a deserter" & Janos was "a little stubborn"? 

I usually agree or can see the truth & meaning in most of what you say but this is a huge exaggeration. Janos was more than a little stubborn & Jon did not spend his night as a deserter. I'm not sure what Jon's trying to run away has to do with it anyway. Jon attempted to desert, he was unsuccessful, he was not punished for it by his LC, who gave legitimate reasons for not doing so. Nothing to do with Slynt. Jon is under no obligation to spare Slynt because his own LC didn't execute him for something that he didn't execute anyone for - by his own words. 

No actually this was his response when he realized what trouble he was in. 

I agree that the things have nothing to do with each other - it is more that I really don't like the special status Jon gets in the NW which greatly separates him from his brothers there. That's less bad with the other characters because they are clearly in a less egalitarian environment.

I don't think there is something as 'attempted desertion'. You desert the moment you do it - the moment you leave your army, order, troupe, whatever it is you desert.

And Mormont knew what he was doing, had known it from the start. He was making an exception for him, apparently based on the ridiculous rule that black brothers could go whoring to Mole's Town without suffering any consequences (that only works if you can go and come back without being denounced as a deserter). But Jon didn't go to Mole's Town, he ran away, and everybody knew it.

Also, you must keep in mind the whole vows and oaths setting. This is a medieval scenario. If I swear a vow in this setting then, depending on what exactly I swear, the first person to know that I'm an oathbreaker is myself. I don't need other people to prove to me that I broke my vows - I know that myself. And so it is with Jon. He knows he is a deserter, just as he knows he loved Ygritte and broke his vows with her.

1 hour ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

And after Jon decided not to hang him but to behead him: 

 

It is not until he is asked for his last words that he says he will go. Long after he should have realized what trouble he was in. 

Yeah, in the end he understands. And it is again Jon who decides to kill him then, nobody forces him to do what he does. Sure, perhaps he would look not that impressive had he decided to spare his life then, but we will never know, no?

I suggested he could have given the man a severe beating or lashing (some cracked bones included), a week or more in an ice cell, etc. That surely would have cowed a man like Slynt. But he did not.

1 hour ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

Except we know he doesn't! Mormont specifically says what Jon did, all or most of the NW men do & are not punished. 

Most men go whoring - Jon didn't go whoring, no? He ran away.

1 hour ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

With who does he not follow through on this strictness with? 

Jon hasn't done what Slynt has done. If Jon executed Slynt for slipping away one night & returning then Jon would be hypocritical. 

Jon also attacked his superior officer and tried to murder him. That is worse than what Slynt did. And Slynt had just as much 'reason' for his defiance of Jon than Jon had for trying to murder Thorne. Slynt feared Jon because he played a crucial part in the execution of Jon's father, rightfully expecting Jon is not happy about that. Vice versa, Jon hated Thorne for mocking his late father (who he, Thorne, also had reason to hate, considering that, as a Targaryen man, Thorne has any reason to condemn the Starks as traitors and rebels).

1 hour ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

Yes he does & if his superiors wanted to execute him for that they would be well within their rights. I would imagine they didn't because Jon's surviving the wildlings essentially depended on his relationship with Ygritte. But they could have chosen, wrongfully IMO, to disregard that & execute him anyway. I don't really understand why this is an argument to not behead Janos though. 

It has more to do with a double standard applied to Jon. If you don't do that, I'm okay with that ;-).

1 hour ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

Well yeah, I think everyone deserves just judges. Why wouldn't they? 

But they don't get them in Westeros, that much is clear.

1 hour ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

I disagree that it is favoritism. He isn't in a position to kill Mance when he finds out Mance is alive. Also, Slynts offence was not relatively minor. 

It is minor compared to what Mance did.

Also, do you know what Jon should have done when he found out what Stannis and Mel did with Mance? He should have dragged Mance out there for all the Watch to see, denouncing Stannis Baratheon as the hypocrite he is - justice and law my ass. And then he should have taken his head.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps he should have used Mance to bind the wildlings to him, bring them south of the Wall to have a much larger and more impressive army when the Pink Letter arrived. I don't know - but just letting this slide is pretty nonsensical thing to do.

1 hour ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

If what Jon did when he attempted to leave is desertion then clearly desertion is not always punished by death. 

Or this is a sign of favoritism and Jon gets the pampered treatment any son of a Stark of Winterfell got at the Wall for thousands of years...

I mean, you certainly are aware that an officer actually treating Jon Snow harshly could get into considerable trouble with the Lords of Winterfell, right?

Robb wouldn't have to swear a bloody oath of vengeance to punish the Watch for the death of his half-brother - he could just decide to no longer send any food the Watch.

1 hour ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

Sure but they have a LC for a reason. Is it not a given they are to obey? 

Sure, but fucking and desertion are things that are more important in the hierarchy of things you do not do that not obeying an order. I mean, obviously Slynt didn't think Jon would execute him when he defied him, right? Which also indicates that neither he nor his cronies thought that was a likely possibility... Slynt is new at the Watch, but if it was common knowledge that you might hang if you disobeyed a direct order then word would have passed around...

1 hour ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

They don't swear to never have sex but Jon broke his vows by having sex with Ygritte. They swear to live & die at their post but what Jon did the night he left did not keep him from living & dying at his post, yet that is called breaking his vows also.

They swear to never father any children, which is, as long as we talk vaginal sex, the same thing as them not having any sex. The thing is seen as a vow of chastity - as is the KG vow which is modeled on the NW vow in this regard.

49 minutes ago, divica said:

Given that Ned bloodied his own hands killings an insignificante persont that deserted the NW what makes you think jon wouldn t?

He was a guy who was caught on his lands. And unlike Jon Eddard Stark is actually the Lord of Winterfell. The NW are not the Starks.

49 minutes ago, divica said:

Again, there is no indication that jon at first wanted to hang janos to humiliate him. It is just as they do things in the NW or how grrm felt about killing a character on the day he first wrote the chapter...

George knows what hanging means in his own world. He has characters explain it to us - like Gyldayn when he tells us that Maegor hanged all of Janos Arryn's co-conspirators during the Vale uprising - even the most highborn among them only got the noose.

49 minutes ago, divica said:

He had other choices that he desmisses because they weren t the right decision. Any person judging the fate of another goes through a process of elimination to decide the punishment. If you really believe jon was too hard on his decision then give a quote about him desmissing another form of punishment based on bad judgement. Otherwise jon is just listing why he has to kill janos...

See above. That kind of talk really frightens me because it reveals you actually take a personal opinion of a character as 'the literal truth'. Think of other POV justifications of their actions. You thinking Jon is a good guy or things must be good because he did them or they cannot be bad because he did them are not, in fact, necessarily accurate.

49 minutes ago, divica said:

However jon wasn t caught. He decided to return. THAT is an important diference.

Only on the surface if you think a criminal getting away with a crime is not guilty. The fact that they gave Jon to time to change his mind doesn't mean he is less guilty - or that his guilt just disappears when he changes his mind.

49 minutes ago, divica said:

First, Slynt publicly insulted jon and refused to obey orders. No matter what those people say in private jon or anyone else can t take action unless they also take action. You can t punish someone until they actually try to do a crime.

I was talking about actual conspiracy to commit treason/murder - see above.

49 minutes ago, divica said:

Then you are forgeting an important thing. Jon did try to push thorne and marsh away from power. He sent thorne scouting and slynt was going to take care of a useless place. In regards to the others jon choose to keep them because they know how to do their job and jon didn t really have conflicts with them before dance. He was open minded and during the first half of dance things actually were ok for him. It is in the second half of the book that jon just can t work with marsh and yarwyck anymore because they are completly against his ideas. However, given that jon's last chapters happen in a very short amount of time and a lot of things are happening I don t think he had the oportunity to really get rid of those 2 by sending them to work on some castle.

I think a new guy in charge of an institutions like the Watch should either be certain of the loyalty of his officers or bring in new ones - not just to protect himself from treason but also to establish a leadership that can work effectively.

And, as I said above, Jon did a major blunder when he allowed Rattleshirt-Mance to beat him up in the practice yard.

49 minutes ago, divica said:

I think you mix your knowledge of how things ended to say how jon should have behaved before they happened. The truth is that in the beguining of dance jon doesn t have a lot of motives to disregard marsh and yarwick given their ability to do the job...

He has a sorceress telling him people he doesn't suspect will kill him. If you were Jon, who would you suspect under those circumstances...?

Jon is exactly the same moron as Robb in ASoS.

49 minutes ago, divica said:

We don t even know if stannis knows he didn t kill mance… What the text actually shows is that mel and maybe stannis are plotting something and decided to keep mance alive. Jon killing him or unmasking them would be actively taking part in the politics of westeros and create a powerfull enemy.  

We do have reason to assume that Stannis knows that Mance is Rattleshirt - Mance himself even implies that Stannis knows.

And Jon is stupid enough to allow Mance team up with some wildling women of his and go down in the North for all the world to see. It is not the same as publicly announcing Mance Rayder is still alive, but it comes close to that - after all Ramsay figured it out, didn't he? And he is not going to keep quiet about it.

49 minutes ago, divica said:

What you are sugesting is just bad. Jon didn t have the power at the time to determine mance's fate.

Jon had all the power. He could have killed Mance. He could have imprisoned him ... and he sent him down south. It was his call. Jon does all kinds of things without caring about Stannis (sending Val beyond the Wall, marrying people, planning expeditions beyond the Wall, inviting wildlings south of the Wall, etc.).

And he, Jon Snow, never hides behind Stannis in this Mance issue. He never says he couldn't have killed Mance. Instead, he says he could and should have done it ... but did not, because he wanted Mance to bring him back his sister. He is not afraid of Stannis.

49 minutes ago, divica said:

Actually yes. I had several discussion here about that topic. Danny never rulled in favor of the slavers nor was she open minded about their plights.

LOL, right.

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15 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

POV also explains why he had to beat his wife to death with his bare hands - doesn't mean I have to find his reasoning convincing, no? Hell, Chett also explains to us why he had to kill that girl - but I don't find that convincing, either

Certainly not but I don't liken Jon's reasons to Chett's or Vic's. I agree with his reasoning. You don't, which is fine, we will just agree to disagree here. 

16 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Jon knew he had other options, meaning he was not forced to take the road he took. And just because he chose the path he chose doesn't magically make that the right choice

I'm not saying he was forced to take the road he took or that it is magically right. I'm saying I agree with his thought process & the conclusion he came to, that execution was the only viable option. 

18 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Thorne was Jon's superior officer and what he did was actually attempted murder. There certainly were extenuating circumstances there, but I say saving your judge from some zombies shouldn't get you completely off the hook when you just tried to kill someone

I mean, that's your take on it. I'm not in disagreement that Jon could have been punished for it. I was glad he wasn't because I think Thorne got less than he deserved, but Mormont could have decided to punish him for it. I think the decision not to had less to do with Jon being a son of WF & more to do with Mormont knowing Jon's character but either way. 

21 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

you maintain the thing is some sort of military environment then the attack on Thorne is much worse than Slynt's insubordination

Is it not? I don't have alot of experience with the military but from what I do know, they are comparable. Certainly not exact but similar in some ways. 

I could get under the argument that not punishing Jon for his attack on Thorne was bad for the NW but I disagree him attacking him is worse than the insubordination. If insubordination is allowed there is a potential break down of structure. Imagine if this happened (this being insubordination not necessarily Janos's insubordination) during a battle against the wildlings or worse the Others. It could cost lots of lives. 

25 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Sure, my point just is that we know it is universally accepted what awaits you when you break your NW vows, right? With insubordination there is clearly more leeway

Agreed. 

26 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

He doesn't have to, he wants to. He is making the call

He isn't forced to if that's what you mean. He certainly makes the call. But he doesn't want to. It's not like he set out that day to find a way to behead Janos. He weighs his options & decided that this is the only viable option he has. Clearly you disagree that this was the only viable option but Jon thinks it is. 

28 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

rather think he didn't think far enough. I mean, Jon does a lot of stupid things early in ADwD. Allowing Mance-Rattleshirt to goad him into a fight and then being beaten up by him publicly in this manner clearly tarnished his public image

To be fair though one stupid thing does not mean there are more or that every call or decision he makes is stupid. I've done plenty of stupid things & plenty of smart things. I guess what I'm saying is I agree goading Mance was stupid & I disagree beheading Janos was stupid. 

30 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, I meant actual treason - talk like, 'we kill the bastard if does such and and such' or 'the plan for the assassination of the bastard goes done this way...' Mance, while there, mentioned he overheard Marsh and some people talking, indicating they were not amused that they were being spied at. This is the first hint that something is amiss - assuming Jon didn't catch Mel's vision in the very first chapter

Sure, this would have been great for Jon if he could have caught the mutineers prior to them stabbing him to death. I don't know that he could have accomplished this with Janos though. 

32 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Jon wasn't LC that long before he executed Slynt, was he?

No but in that short amount of time Janos managed to slip a crap ton of bastards, boys, & marked with the devil's in there, among other things, that I'm positive more than displeased Jon. 

34 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

has more to do with a double standard applied to Jon. If you don't do that, I'm okay with that ;-).

I'll do my best, it's hard for me to objective here :)

36 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

agree that the things have nothing to do with each other - it is more that I really don't like the special status Jon gets in the NW which greatly separates him from his brothers there. That's less bad with the other characters because they are clearly in a less egalitarian environment

I guess I don't read it as special treatment because all in all Mormont is pretty easy on all of them. He's gruff sure but we don't see him punishing the other brothers either. He allows his "staff" or whatever you want to call them, to be assholes too. Thorne sucks at teaching them & seems like he could careless if they get better or not. His main goal seems to be to humiliate them. So, I've always read it as Mormont being a possibly-too-tolerable LC rather than playing favoritism to Jon. 

39 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

But they don't get them in Westeros, that much is clear

No they don't always. Occasionally they do. I don't want them all to have unjust judges though because the majority do. I would much rather they all have just judges & think they all deserve one. 

40 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Also, do you know what Jon should have done when he found out what Stannis and Mel did with Mance? He should have dragged Mance out there for all the Watch to see, denouncing Stannis Baratheon as the hypocrite he is - justice and law my ass. And then he should have taken his head

Yeah for sure. An ideal situation would be this happening. I'm not disagreeing Mance deserved to die, I'm just saying Jon not killing him does not make him wrong for killing Janos. As much as Mance deserved it & it would have been great to see I understand that Jon was in a bit of a hard place where Mance was concerned. He needed Stannis & while that doesn't make it right to not kill Mance, it does mean there were extenuating circumstances that led Jon to decide not to. I disagree wholeheartedly that Jon beheaded Janos & not Mance because he liked Mance more or was more sympathetic toward him. 

45 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

this is a sign of favoritism and Jon gets the pampered treatment any son of a Stark of Winterfell got at the Wall for thousands of years

Sure it could be. It's not my take on it but I've been wrong before. 

46 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

mean, you certainly are aware that an officer actually treating Jon Snow harshly could get into considerable trouble with the Lords of Winterfell, right?

No I'm not actually. Honestly I'm not being sarcastic, it seriously has never crossed my mind that the NW could suffer repercussions for treating Jon harshly. Thorne certainly doesn't seem to worry about it. Not that he has tortured Jon or anything but he definitely was a jerk & treated him too harshly at times. 

48 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Sure, but fucking and desertion are things that are more important in the hierarchy of things you do not do that not obeying an order

Idk but it would seem to me that fucking isn't actually a big concern considering the attendance at Mole's town. 

50 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

mean, obviously Slynt didn't think Jon would execute him when he defied him, right? Which also indicates that neither he nor his cronies thought that was a likely possibility... Slynt is new at the Watch, but if it was common knowledge that you might hang if you disobeyed a direct order then word would have passed around

Yeah Slynt thought he wouldn't execute him but I don't think gave much thought to if he could. Only that he wouldn't because he didn't have the balls. 

I don't know if it's a common punishment I'm just saying it couldn't have been that far fetched or someone would have said something. 

53 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

They swear to never father any children, which is, as long as we talk vaginal sex, the same thing as them not having any sex. The thing is seen as a vow of chastity - as is the KG vow which is modeled on the NW vow in this regard

But it doesn't seem to be because the brothers going to Mole's town is well-known & not punished. 

54 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Most men go whoring - Jon didn't go whoring, no? He ran away

Right he didn't go whoring so he broke less of his vows than the men who do who aren't punished. He ran away but he came back. 

58 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

don't think there is something as 'attempted desertion'. You desert the moment you do it - the moment you leave your army, order, troupe, whatever it is you desert

I agree to an extent as 'attempted desertion' seems like an oxymoron but I lack a better term. I disagree that what Jon did was the same as what say - Mance did when he deserted. Not all the stuff he did after deserting but the act of deserting. What Jon did was different than that because he changed his mind & came back - I understand it was only to keep his fellow brothers out of trouble but he did it just the same. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Mormont knew what he was doing, had known it from the start. He was making an exception for him, apparently based on the ridiculous rule that black brothers could go whoring to Mole's Town without suffering any consequences (that only works if you can go and come back without being denounced as a deserter). But Jon didn't go to Mole's Town, he ran away, and everybody knew it

Sure it's not the same act. I think Mormonts thought process is that because Jon came back he has done nothing different than the brothers who slip away to Mole's town - minus the whoring. Jon spills his true motives but he didn't have to. He could have just said he was going to Mole's town or what have you & no one could dispute it without Jon having told them his intentions & thoughts. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Yeah, in the end he understands. And it is again Jon who decides to kill him then, nobody forces him to do what he does. Sure, perhaps he would look not that impressive had he decided to spare his life then, but we will never know, no?

Yes, in the end. Not when he realizes death is on the table though. He knew full well when Jon said to hang him that his life was in danger if not before then & insisted on keeping up his insubordination. Because he thought he was too important & that Jon didn't have the guts to do it. Not because he didn't understand the trouble he was in. 

I think it's more than just not looking impressive though. If Janos goes unpunished, specifically if he walks away with his life after Jon has given the command to hang him & Janos still will not cooperate it is setting a precedent for how the new LC will be treated, what he will accept, & that he will say things & not follow through with them for no reason other than he isn't tough enough to do what it takes. I think this would have shattered any hope of Jon being a successful LC (not that it turned out so great for him anyway) I think the bad would have just started sooner. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

suggested he could have given the man a severe beating or lashing (some cracked bones included), a week or more in an ice cell, etc. That surely would have cowed a man like Slynt. But he did not

Sure that may have worked but I think in the end this just leads back to the same issue as with the Ice cells - Janos would have healed up & caused more trouble than before. Maybe not, maybe it would have cowed him. If I were in Jon's position I probably would have given it a try at least but whether or not you agree with it Jon felt this wouldn't work. 

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Jon's reasoning for choosing execution over other punishments is a joke:

—and confine him to an ice cell, he might have said. A day or ten cramped up inside the ice would leave him shivering and feverish and begging for release, Jon did not doubt. And the moment he is out, he and Thorne will begin to plot again.

How would he and Thorne begin to plot again? Sending him to Greyguard was mostly to get him away from Ser Alliser. Slynt wouldn't be let out from the cell until he agreed to go to Greyguard, which puts an end to easy plotting, at least. Worth considering, also, is that if commanding Greyguard wasn't going to help put an end to their plotting, Jon trying to send him there in the first place was foolish.

—and tie him to his horse, he might have said. If Slynt did not wish to go to Greyguard as its commander, he could go as its cook. It will only be a matter of time until he deserts, then. And how many others will he take with him?

Is it truly only a matter of time until he deserts? I wouldn't say it's inevitable, but regardless, if he chooses to desert later, he can be punished for it later. Stopping people from deserting is all well and good, but killing someone now because you might have to kill them for desertion later is absurd.

The idea that he'd make others desert is also ridiculous. The punishment for desertion is death, and you're feared and hated wherever you go. Nobody is going to choose that because Janos Slynt was forced to become a cook. Nonsensical.

 

At the end of the day, Jon executed Janos because he wanted to. He executed him in spite of other options, not because there was a lack of them.

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47 minutes ago, cyberdirectorfreedom said:

Jon's reasoning for choosing execution over other punishments is a joke:

—and confine him to an ice cell, he might have said. A day or ten cramped up inside the ice would leave him shivering and feverish and begging for release, Jon did not doubt. And the moment he is out, he and Thorne will begin to plot again.

How would he and Thorne begin to plot again? Sending him to Greyguard was mostly to get him away from Ser Alliser. Slynt wouldn't be let out from the cell until he agreed to go to Greyguard, which puts an end to easy plotting, at least. Worth considering, also, is that if commanding Greyguard wasn't going to help put an end to their plotting, Jon trying to send him there in the first place was foolish.

—and tie him to his horse, he might have said. If Slynt did not wish to go to Greyguard as its commander, he could go as its cook. It will only be a matter of time until he deserts, then. And how many others will he take with him?

Is it truly only a matter of time until he deserts? I wouldn't say it's inevitable, but regardless, if he chooses to desert later, he can be punished for it later. Stopping people from deserting is all well and good, but killing someone now because you might have to kill them for desertion later is absurd.

The idea that he'd make others desert is also ridiculous. The punishment for desertion is death, and you're feared and hated wherever you go. Nobody is going to choose that because Janos Slynt was forced to become a cook. Nonsensical.

 

At the end of the day, Jon executed Janos because he wanted to. He executed him in spite of other options, not because there was a lack of them.

Those aren't "reasons for executing" but "reasons for not putting him in an ice cell" or "reasons for sending him to Greyguard as a low rank"

It's simple relational dynamics that shows Jon is correct in his assessment that none of the other options would make Slynt see the light.

You may have heard of Timothy Leary, known for his experiments in the 60s with the effects of LSD. He also modeled an interrational theory on how people cooperate or not cooperate with one another. By the millenium his model was also adapted to kindergarten and elementary relational circles with several types of animals to illustrate certain behaviors typical for an individual's response towards a leader.

Two axis are of importance to describe behavior: there's the vertical "dominance-subordinate" axis and the horizontal "we-against" axis. There are certain laws that predict behaviour.

  1. When someone shows dominant behavior (dominant also means taking initiative, being the first speaker at a meeting), it will automatically provoke a subordinate response (if only for a second and perhaps not always outwardly seen). It means that no matter how confident, strong or powerful you feel, when someone towers over you and shouts in your face, your instinctual response is one where you will feel small. You might flinch or cower for a moment. This auto response is not necessarily permanent, but it will be there. 
  2. It also works in reverse. When someone acts and behaves subordinate to someone else, will not take initiative, ask for help, then it will automatically lead to dominant behaviour in the other individual.
  3. We-behaviour naturally enhances we-behaviour in someone else. If someone asks for help, then chances are very high help will be given. If someone offers help, chances are it will be accepted in some respect.
  4. Against-behaviour provokes against-behaviour in someone else. It causes feelings of resentment, anger, and aggression, no matter how well hidden.

A normal person is never in a certain position on this circle all the time. With healthy relationships people's position compared to the axis varies and thus relations are dynamic.

The theory is most helpful for people in a leading position to influence people in a natural way to take more initiative, to come with their own ideas and thus get a more harmonious cooperation without the leader having to micromanage everything. It is also very helpful in dealing with certain anti-behaviour. If someone is positioned on the anti-behaviour half of the circle, then the leader must mirror their level of dominance on the we-side.

One of the easiest and most recognizable anti-positions in a group setting is a the rival. Whenever there's a meeting, the rival will always disagree and propose something of their own. Someone can end up acting like a rival for various reasons, some more benign than the other. The trick is to rather than debate with them every time or dismiss all their ideas (no matter how stupid they might be), you give them responsibility and an opportunity to be the "boss" and "implement" their idea. Chances are that the rival will step over from the anti-half to the we-half, and after a set task where they had the responsibility they will gladly hand it over to you again, and become a "helping hand".  I've had "rivals" when tourleading adventure trips in Latin America who became some of my most staunchest supporters and reliable hands after handing them my first-aid kit, map and let them go guide the walk they proposed in rivalry of my proposal (for the nth time).

This is what Jon does when he offers Slynt command over Greyguard. He is offering him command, respecting his experience over a castle and contingent of the watch. For someone who was very hostile to him, tried to kill him, that is a magnanimous gesture, no matter how much Greyguard is a ruin. Much of the Wall is a ruin and needs building, even CB. If Slynt doesn't see the value in rebuilding Greyguard, then NW were right in voting for Jon as LC, because Slynt certainly wouldn't be building up the NW.

The trick with a rival does not always work. While most people are dynamical, some are not. A pathology or extreme selfishness for example will make it impossible for them to step over to the we-half. The outright refusal, several times, by Slynt to accept the cooperative self-command position at Greyguard is a clear indication that Slynt is such a person. He doesn't care about the NW. He doesn't care about the realm. He's a self-entitled, sadistic corrupt prick.

Instead of coming to the we-side of the relationship, something else happens. He becomes an aggressor (insults and threats): an aggressor is less dominant than the rival, but more anti. So, he shifted further away instead of closer, but pretends less to be a leader himself by referencing having friends in KL and Tywin, whom he supposes the LC to cower to. There are tricks to try and persuade an aggressor to come over to the we-side. In a democratic non-military like organisation, a leader can display less dominance and offer help the aggressor may need. The NW may democratically elect their LC, the order itself and its leadership is not a democratic one, and leadership is not fluid or dynamic, but stratified like a military order. Nevertheless, Jon offers "help" by allowing Slynt time to calm down and mull over the proposal. If once again, this does not change the relationship for the better, there's only one option left in a democratic non-military order: you force the aggressor into a submissive position. It won't win over the aggressor, but it will make them less loud. People who show anti-behaviour from a submissive role, will either become passive aggressive, or they will become a hidden landmine that will blow up in your face. 

Putting Slyn in the ice cell will result into making him a passive aggressor, undermining Jon out of Jon's hearing, with the occasional snipe. Appointing him to Greyguard as a cook will turn him into an even more submissive role, but not less anti. He would end up being landmine.

Jon foresees this correctly. And since we're not talking here about a situation of a journey for three weeks and then you'll never have to see one another ever again, but a lifelong situation of a large group of men where Jon cannot afford to lose time on the loss of morale, and because Slynt has proven himself unsalvegeable, Jon's assessment that Slynt is a lost cause is correct. The sole thing he can do now is remove Slynt from the equation and salvage as much as he can with the other men, including Allisser.

Thorne too behaved like a rival. He however has found purpose in the NW beyond his self interest. In that moment of Slynt's arrest, Thorne realizes what the impact would be on the NW if he were to act against Jon. Even if he were to act against Jon and win the confrontation, it would have a demoralizing impact on the rest of the remaining NW, and not just at CB. He may not care one jot about Jon, or the recruits, but he cares for the organisation. That's why not only he doesn't protest Jon's decision, but also accepts the task he's been given, even if he mistrusts Jon's motivation.

IMO Thorne is a wildcard. It is entirely possible that his experience north of the Wall and the opportunity to help the NW may have worked on Thorne into becoming a backer of Jon. It is entirely possible that when he reappears on page, he will help execute every one of the mutineers. It is also entirely possible that he remained resentful, and only was cowed into behaving subordinate, while ending up as a landmine. He might be hiding near CB, or in CB and come out of hiding and say ta-da it was all me. George wrote Allisser's decision upon parting from him in a such a way, both remain a viable option.

 

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8 hours ago, cyberdirectorfreedom said:

Jon's reasoning for choosing execution over other punishments is a joke:

—and confine him to an ice cell, he might have said. A day or ten cramped up inside the ice would leave him shivering and feverish and begging for release, Jon did not doubt. And the moment he is out, he and Thorne will begin to plot again.

How would he and Thorne begin to plot again? Sending him to Greyguard was mostly to get him away from Ser Alliser. Slynt wouldn't be let out from the cell until he agreed to go to Greyguard, which puts an end to easy plotting, at least. Worth considering, also, is that if commanding Greyguard wasn't going to help put an end to their plotting, Jon trying to send him there in the first place was foolish.

—and tie him to his horse, he might have said. If Slynt did not wish to go to Greyguard as its commander, he could go as its cook. It will only be a matter of time until he deserts, then. And how many others will he take with him?

Is it truly only a matter of time until he deserts? I wouldn't say it's inevitable, but regardless, if he chooses to desert later, he can be punished for it later. Stopping people from deserting is all well and good, but killing someone now because you might have to kill them for desertion later is absurd.

The idea that he'd make others desert is also ridiculous. The punishment for desertion is death, and you're feared and hated wherever you go. Nobody is going to choose that because Janos Slynt was forced to become a cook. Nonsensical.

 

At the end of the day, Jon executed Janos because he wanted to. He executed him in spite of other options, not because there was a lack of them.

Let's suspend whether you think they are good reasons or not for just a moment & look at the text. Because at the end of the day whether or not they are good reasons are just a matter of a opinion. My opinion, your opinion, Jon's opinion. 

So, for a moment lets agree that his reasons were good ones, or that they were bad ones if you prefer. If Jon executed Janos just because he wanted to what is the point in thinking of the other options? Clearly, he thinks his reasons for discarding those options are good ones but even if you don't agree it still doesn't mean Jon executed Janos for any reasons other than the ones he stated. 

If Jon had executed Janos merely because he wanted to wouldn't his thoughts betray that, at least a little? Wouldn't the author provide us some clues as to this being the case? The only explanation for these things not being present are that this isn't the case & that Jon executes Janos because he believes it to be his only viable option. I tend to agree with him but to each their own. 

Janos most certainly would have come out of the ice cell plotting & scheming worse than ever & while I agree sending him to Greyguard was never going to stop him from plotting it was going to remove him from Alliser Thorne & Jon was hopeful that by giving Janos command of another castle that he would begin to understand that Jon was not out to get him & wanted to co-exist with him & therefore put an end to the plotting. 

If Jon sending him there in the first place was foolish what do you think he should have done with him? 

Also he isn't killing someone now because he might have to kill them for desertion later. He is killing someone now as a punishment for insubordination. He comes to the conclusion that forcing him to go to Greyguard as a cook is not a good option because he will probably desert later. 

He also isn't saying people will desert because Janos became a cook. He is saying if Janos was forced to Greyguard as a cook, Janos would desert, & take many men with him. This is a very real threat. Janos had the ear of quite a few brothers, many of whom would have listened to him. 

Again, though the bottom line is, while you may disagree with Jon's reasons for choosing death over one of the other punishments that does not mean that Jon's reasons weren't good or that he did it because he wanted to etc. It only means that you disagree with Jon & apparently the author. 

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16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

This isn't a question of interpretation. Jon's thoughts make it crystal clear that he wasn't forced by law or custom to insist Slynt be executed for his disobedience - there were other roads he could have taken, but he didn't take them.

Whether Jon made the right decision or not is very much a matter of interpretation. I happen to think he absolutely made the right decision, and he didn’t reach the decision rashly or lightly; that’s why Martin shows us Jon’s thought process. 

As to it being too harsh or too severe, I wholeheartedly disagree, for reasons I’ve stated several times already, as have many others. 

The issue here is that you seem to be implying that Jon wasn’t obliged to execute Slynt. And I agree, he wasn’t. But it’s within the LC’s purview to decide how to punish the men under his command. 

That’s how it works, in universe and even in real life today. For instance, even in a country that has the death penalty, and even for a crime that could be punishable by death, a defendant might not be given the death penalty for a variety of reasons. So, you have crimes, and punishments for these crimes, but nowhere - not Westeros, not the rw - will any legal/justice/enforcement system or institution always give the same punishment for the same crime. It will depend on juries, judges, deals, whathaveyou; and in universe it will fall to the person in charge: the King, some Lord, the LC, etc. 

 

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

And I'm not saying killing Slynt was wrong - I'm saying he killed the wrong man, basically. Or to put in another way - he should have killed Slynt and many others.

Huh? What have these other men done to deserve execution? Do you even realise how contradictory this statement is? I mean, look at some of the replies here... “Jon was too harsh”, or “Jon acted out of a thirst for revenge”, or any number of idiotic arguments. Just imagine what these readers would be saying had Jon decided to execute all the men he knew weren’t trustworthy or loyal. 

15 minutes ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

If Jon had executed Janos merely because he wanted to wouldn't his thoughts betray that, at least a little? Wouldn't the author provide us some clues as to this being the case? The only explanation for these things not being present are that this isn't the case & that Jon executes Janos because he believes it to be his only viable option. I tend to agree with him but to each their own. 

Yup. We have Jon’s thoughts here and in regards to Ramsay and the PL. And yet, his thoughts are always dismissed or ignored. It’s like, “I don’t like what the author did, so I’ll just pretend the character is lying to himself”. :lol:

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4 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Yup. We have Jon’s thoughts here and in regards to Ramsay and the PL. And yet, his thoughts are always dismissed or ignored. It’s like, “I don’t like what the author did, so I’ll just pretend the character is lying to himself”

Right, which maybe an argument IF the author had given us one single clue to point to the fact that Jon was deluding himself but he doesn't. 

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50 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Whether Jon made the right decision or not is very much a matter of interpretation. I happen to think he absolutely made the right decision, and he didn’t reach the decision rashly or lightly; that’s why Martin shows us Jon’s thought process. 

We don't get Jon's thought process in full. We only get enough to know that he had other options. In fact, we are presented his thoughts in such a manner that we don't know what he plans to do - sort of like we don't know what he is going to do about the Pink Letter until he does, or how he is attending a wedding and we only realize some paragraphs later who is marrying whom.

We don't know why Jon wants to kill Slynt. He never gives us any internal motivation or explanation for this aside from the fact that he disobeyed an order and his admission that he could have punished him less harshly.

50 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

The issue here is that you seem to be implying that Jon wasn’t obliged to execute Slynt. And I agree, he wasn’t. But it’s within the LC’s purview to decide how to punish the men under his command. 

That’s how it works, in universe and even in real life today. For instance, even in a country that has the death penalty, and even for a crime that could be punishable by death, a defendant might not be given the death penalty for a variety of reasons. So, you have crimes, and punishments for these crimes, but nowhere - not Westeros, not the rw - will any legal/justice/enforcement system or institution always give the same punishment for the same crime. It will depend on juries, judges, deals, whathaveyou; and in universe it will fall to the person in charge: the King, some Lord, the LC, etc. 

Jon's own thoughts tell us there are a number of ways to deal with disobedience and he chose the harshest possible punishment. It is not unheard of, apparently, but it is both cruel and extreme given the circumstances and the person involved (Jon's main rival in the race for the position of lord commander).

Things are not just magically great or right just because Jon Snow does them. Killing Slynt makes him look bad because he was his main rival. It shows to Slynt's supporters and Jon's own opposition that he doesn't intend to be their lord commander - or a just lord commander for all. It shows that he is playing favorites.

Which I find fine - if he had had the brains to actually give himself a proper power base rather than essentially repeating Ned's and Robb's mistakes both - eroding his own base by sending trusted friends and followers away and completely ignoring the danger he was in when he had more than enough evidence and hints to keep and eye on those people. I mean, they were all in his castle. He didn't even need to go to another man's castle to be killed like Robb.

50 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Huh? What have these other men done to deserve execution? Do you even realise how contradictory this statement is? I mean, look at some of the replies here... “Jon was too harsh”, or “Jon acted out of a thirst for revenge”, or any number of idiotic arguments. Just imagine what these readers would be saying had Jon decided to execute all the men he knew weren’t trustworthy or loyal.

One can make the case that Jon was too harsh in the Slynt case. Slynt was never a big problem. He was a bumbling fool. Marsh is the one who arranged Jon's murder. He was the real danger, not Slynt, not even Thorne, apparently.

And it cannot be denied that we don't know to what degree Jon's personal issues with Slynt as well as his knowledge what the man did back at KL influenced his sentence there. It is ridiculous to assume this didn't influence his decision-making process, especially since it is quite clear that Jon very much hates the Lannisters and their machinations and openly admits as much to his friends. It is also quite clear that those are his reason to help Stannis, to send Mance to fetch his sister, etc.

I mean, we can all agree that Jon wouldn't have taken Aemon's or Sam's head had they flat-out refused to go to Oldtown, right? Not even Dareon's if he had insisted he would remain at Eastwatch.

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