Part III- I named him Ghost- Jon and his many fathers

[northern_amnesia]

Hi! This is Part III and likely final part of an ongoing theory about Jon, Ned and The Others.

In this part, I'm going to talk about Jon, but first, I want to go over a few things that we talked about in the previous part.

· Jon was forced to watch Lyanna die, all the while she was smiling at him and holding his hand tight. Of course, he doesn’t remember that. But he remembers her eyes: “In his dreams, she was beautiful, and highborn, and her eyes were kind.”

· There’s a confusion in what the Horn of Winter is and what it does. The horn is a call from the crypt because Winterfell has fallen.

· When Benjen took his vows, magic happened and he became 3 men at the same time: Benjen, Qhorin, and Mance. That magic was caused by two things: the magical NW vows, and a very old curse.

All but invisible in the woods

Let’s talk about the Starks. There’s an Italian proverb that says: “Every law has its loophole” and this is exactly what happened here. The wildlings know that Bael and the Maiden were siblings, so Craster's wives believed that the Others were Craster's children. They were wrong.

When Ygritte explains to Jon why incest is taboo, she tells him that “women who bed brothers or fathers or clan kin offend the gods and are cursed with weak and sickly children. Even monsters." The condemned were women, not men. The "white walkers" were women.

This is very clear when we see that the Other who attacks Waymar has blue eyes, like Cat, and that Waymar looks like Jon, the WWs, that are something like frozen werewolves, used to kill the 'offspring' of the competition, which is what Cat, metaphorically, did with Jon, send him to the NW so that her children wouldn’t be in danger.

Craster kills the boys to prevent his fate from being the one in Bael's song, because Bael is supposed to share blood with the wildlings. Craster, then, assumes that he is doomed. He’s also wrong. Craster never knew his father, when her mother took him to the Wall, the black brothers kicked her out.

But in Bael's song it’s clear that when they face each other in battle, the father recognizes the son because he knew exactly who he was. How did Bael recognize his son in the middle of a battle? For the direwolf that fought with him. That's another big clue in the song, which says that Bael and the maiden were in WF the whole time. The only thing that was in the crypt all the time, are the Starks and the wolves, the swords rust away.

Craster killed his children for nothing. The long night ended when they isolated the women on the other side of the wall and their 'black brothers' on this side. The Starks are the descendants of those first cursed, but the curse has nothing to do with the wildlings.

The NW and the Starks were hopelessly connected and doomed because of the NK. No man is 'more accused than the kinslayer', except the Starks of WF. The WF Stark killed the 13th LC, and that doomed the Starks forever. That’s what Bael song tells.

In the song, Bael has a child with his own sister because he doesn't know that he is also the Lord's child until it is too late. When Bael is attacking Winterfell and is faced with this young man and his direwolf, he realizes, not only that this is his son, but that the mother is his sister, because of the wolf.

The young Stark's punishment in the song is to see his mother die. Which already happened to Jon. The Starks are buried against a wall, sword in hand and with the wolf at their feet so they remember.

· The statue shows the face, the identity, but most of all, the eyes.

· The wolf is the horn that screams incest

· The sword is there to remember Bael and his son, the kinslayer

In short, Bael's song tells the story of the NK and how the Starks became tied to the NW and the Others.

Now, see the problem?

· Ned was a kinslayer, who stole a corpse, and denied Jon his identity, and as the NK, was meant to be killed by his own blood. And of course, he was, it was Sansa that doomed him.

· If Lyanna had lived, she would have been cursed too.

· There was another Stark, Benjen, but he swore not to mess with WF

· There's no Stark in WF, the one 'watching' Ashara, is not a Stark, and she's not watching, she's asking for help, she's blowing the horn.

It’s a nightmare of curses that explains our magical loophole.

When Ned inadvertently sounded the Horn of Winter again, killing his sister and burying poor Ashara's corpse in the crypt, the only other Stark was Benjen, and he was forced to swear the Night’s Watch oath. But the Wall, or the loophole of curses, had other plans, and magically, 2 ‘brothers’ were born, one for each Stark needed to return things to normal. Because there must always be a Stark in Winterfell. Qhorin replaces Lyanna, she would be the damned one, so Qhorin goes around with his shadows. Mance, on the other side, can do everything that Benjen can't.

Before I talk about Jon, I’d like to confirm everything I said, with the vision that Bran has beyond the Wall.

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The rest of his father's words were drowned out by a sudden clatter of wood on wood. Eddard Stark dissolved, like mist in a morning sun. Now two children danced across the godswood, (…)And Arya never beat me playing swords, the way that girl is beating him. (…) "It's just water. Do you want Old Nan to hear and run tell Father?" She knelt and pulled her brother from the pool, but before she got him out again, the two of them were gone.

 

It's interesting that in the vision Ned dissolves, because that's exactly what happened to the NK, he disappeared from history and no one knows who he was. The children are obviously Lyanna and Benjen playing, the funny thing about that scene is that she says, 'It's just water' because as I said, Lyanna is the one who should have been an 'Other', not Benjen, but it’s Benjen who falls into the 'black waters', the one who goes to the NW and then, as Qhorin, carries the curse. But, in addition, the scene of the two 'playing swords' in secret is very suggestive.

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After that the glimpses came faster and faster, (…) a woman heavy with child emerged naked and dripping from the black pool, knelt before the tree, and begged the old gods for a son who would avenge her. Then there came a brown-haired girl slender as a spear who stood on the tips of her toes to kiss the lips of a young knight as tall as Hodor. A dark-eyed youth, pale and fierce, sliced three branches off the weirwood and shaped them into arrows. (…). And now the lords Bran glimpsed were tall and hard, stern men in fur and chain mail. Some wore faces he remembered from the statues in the crypts, but they were gone before he could put a name to them.

 

The pregnant woman coming out of the water asking for revenge is Ashara who died by jumping into the water. The 'dark eyed youth' is Benjen being 3 different people at the same time. The lords who 'wear' a Stark face, but not their name, we will discover later, although one of them is obviously Jon.

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Then, as he watched, a bearded man forced a captive down onto his knees before the heart tree. A white-haired woman stepped toward them through a drift of dark red leaves, a bronze sickle in her hand.”

 

Of this sacrifice, which is Jon’s, I will speak later.

A dark-eyed youth

Before talking about Jon's death, I want to talk about how he got to that point, to understand how his death and resurrection are going to happen.

This is the story of Mance's defection, which the king himself tells Jon when he meets:

 

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"One day on a ranging we brought down a fine big elk. We were skinning it when the smell of blood drew a shadow-cat out of its lair. I drove it off, but not before it shredded my cloak to ribbons. Do you see? Here, here, and here?" He chuckled. "It shredded my arm and back as well, and I bled worse than the elk. My brothers feared I might die before they got me back to Maester Mullin at the Shadow Tower, so they carried me to a wildling village where we knew an old wisewoman did some healing. She was dead, as it happened, but her daughter saw to me. Cleaned my wounds, sewed me up, and fed me porridge and potions until I was strong enough to ride again. And she sewed up the rents in my cloak as well, with some scarlet silk from Asshai that her grandmother had pulled from the wreck of a cog washed up on the Frozen Shore. It was the greatest treasure she had, and her gift to me." He swept the cloak back over his shoulders. "But at the Shadow Tower, I was given a new wool cloak from stores, black and black, and trimmed with black, to go with my black breeches and black boots, my black doublet and black mail. The new cloak had no frays nor rips nor tears . . . and most of all, no red. The men of the Night's Watch dressed in black, Ser Denys Mallister reminded me sternly, as if I had forgotten. My old cloak was fit for burning now, he said.

"I left the next morning . . . for a place where a kiss was not a crime, and a man could wear any cloak he chose."

 

 

Let's start with the wound, "here, here and here" says Mance. He has 3 wounds, like the fingers that Qhorin lost or the family that Benjen lost. The 'old wise woman' and the daughter are the same person, Lyanna. She clearly was wise, what she told Ned about Robert shows her wisdom, especially considering that she was only 15 years old.

Now comes the incest explanation: “some scarlet silk from Asshai (…) washed up on the Frozen Shore. It was the greatest treasure she had, and her gift to me." The woman's 'greatest treasure' has a curious origin, it is a 'frozen' scarlet silk, something that makes one think of frozen blood and that it is supposed to have arrived of Asshai like everything dark, but also, the curious thing is that, that place is called ‘Asshai by the shadows’, and precisely, Mance and Qhorin were brothers at the shadow tower.

The new cloak they give Mance 'had no frays nor rips nor tears. . . and most of all, no red." That's the story of how he gets to the 3 wounds, the fight with 2 kingsguards, (the fine elk and the shadowcat), Lyanna's 'rips' having Jon and the 'tears' ' of the baby that was born. Benjen was left with nothing, he lost his entire family. Let's also remember the KoLT sigil, which was Benjen’s idea: a white weirwood with a laughing red face.

La new cloak, the black one, it is of course the one that Benjen was forced to use, but he never forgot “the men of the Night's Watch dressed in black, (…), as if I had forgotten. My old cloak was fit for burning now”. The old cloak 'fit for burning' is Qhorin he wore grey and was burned after he died.

Mance adds: "I left the next morning . . . for a place where a kiss was not a crime." Clearly speaking of incest.

In other words, these 3 men play a role in Jon's life that is related to what we saw in the curse and the need to normalize things due to the magical loop that the Starks created. The dragons were born because of the Starks. They brought the magic back.

Jon saw his mother die at the time he was born or shortly after. In Bael's song, the one that tells the curse of the Starks, the mother dies when the boy arrives with his father's head on a spike, and that makes the young man realize what he has just done, kill his father. It is obvious that the young Stark sees and learns to never repeat the mistakes of his parents, and the proof of that is that the Starks continue to exist.

That is the loop that Jon is in, in order to be the Lord of Winterfell, he needs to see, but he knows nothing. Nothing at all. He never knew his mom, he thinks that the man that raised him is his father, when he's actually his uncle and the person that killed his mom. His uncle, a guy he barely knew but seemed pretty cool, is actually his dad. That man comes to the rescue, but after taking him to the worst place in the world, he leaves him all alone*. All over again.*

When Jon swore his vow, he was swearing to watch until the bitter end.

If Jon wants Winterfell, he needs to see*. If he can’t bear to do that, then perhaps he deserves to die, faceless, silent and invisible, like a black bastard.* The funny thing is, that Ned himself opened that magical door for Jon. The day he buried Lyanna in Brandon’s place, sword in hand.

Let’s quickly review everything Jon saw from the moment he arrived on the NW to the moment he got back to the Wall.

The Long Night

Jon's first night as 'brother' was curious. Because that same night something happened that would change his life forever. Othor and Flowers corpses rise in the middle of the night, and nobody knows why. But that episode makes Jon realize where his destiny lies.

This is the moment when the real Bael starts to sing, the wildlings, as it usually happens to songs, only know half the story. This is the point when Jon's dad begins to tell his story, because from the moment Jon steps out of the Wall, he is seeing the world through Benjen’s eyes at age 14. He's seeing what Benjen saw the moment he decided he was going to find Lyanna.

First stop, Craster. What Jon's sees in Craster’s Keep must be the exact same thing that the entire realm, thought of the Targaryens. A detail that must be taken into account is Gilly. I wouldn't rule out that Aegon is indeed who he says he is. Also, let's keep in mind something I said in Part I, that Hightower escaped from KL. I imagine he took Aegon (as Sam took Gilly and the baby), while Derry escaped with Viserys. I believe that “Wylla” was Aegon’s milk mother, not Jon’s, and that Ned knew he had survived.

Next stop, how I rescued your mother.

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“Jon knew Qhorin Halfhand the instant he saw him, though they had never met. The big ranger was half a legend in the Watch…”

 

Jon recognizes the ranger the instant he sees him, which is the exact same thing that happened to Benjen with Arthur Dayne.

I said more than once that Qhorin replaces Lyanna, but like in Ned's dream, Lyanna and Dayne are clear parallels. To understand how Jon was born, we need Ygritte, the wildfire that burned the young Stark. As we know, Jon 'steals' Ygritte, but in order to move on, he must kill Qhorin.

Qhorin's death shows how Arthur Dayne died, as Ned's legend tells, in single combat. Only it was Benjen who killed him and this exchange between Jon and Mance, about Qhorin (Benjen's capabilities), is gold:

 

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"We were four and the Halfhand. Qhorin was worth twenty common men."

The King-beyond-the-Wall smiled at that. "Some thought so. Still . . . a boy from Castle Black with rangers from the Shadow Tower? How did that come to be?"

 

 

A minor detail here, when Qhorin dies, after being burned, one of the wildlings, Rattleshirt gathers his bones to take them as a trophy. This is the moment when Benjen and his friends grab Arthur's sword.

Next stop, King's Landing.

We already saw what happened to Benjen. He managed to successfully get Lyanna out of wherever they had her, but a 'shadow cat' appeared and he was injured. It's basically the same story we saw with Ygritte and Jon while they headed back to the Wall, but with different outcomes. Returning home, i.e. leaving KL, Benjen kills Oswell (Jarl in Jon's version). The siblings make it safely to Winterfell, like Jon to the other side of the Wall. But a 'wolf' (Ned) pulls Benjen and Lyanna apart, just like Summer helped Jon get away from Ygritte. Small detail here, the moment when Jon sends Ghost on his way is the moment that Benjen hands Dayne's sword to his friends to return it to Dorne.

Benjen goes to join the NW, and everything is forgiven. Until 14 years later, a letter from WF arrives.

The Pink Light

Who wrote the pink letter? Definitely Benjen. But the truth is, it doesn’t even matter, what matters is that it is written only for the bastard’s eyes. I'm not going to discuss how Jon got to where he is when he receives the letter, I'd just like to point out that it is clear that his family, especially Arya, was always his weak point. Until the moment he receives the letter announcing “Arya´s” marriage, Jon was behaving like a capable commander, and staying away from Melisandre's clutches. Until Aria. That’s a symptom.

Ok, here's the letter.

 

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Your false king is dead, bastard. He and all his host were smashed in seven days of battle. I have his magic sword. Tell his red whore.

Your false king's friends are dead. Their heads upon the walls of Winterfell. Come see them, bastard. Your false king lied, and so did you. You told the world you burned the King-Beyond-the-Wall. Instead, you sent him to Winterfell to steal my bride from me.

I will have my bride back. If you want Mance Rayder back, come and get him. I have him in a cage for all the north to see, proof of your lies. The cage is cold, but I have made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell.

I want my bride back. I want the false king's queen. I want his daughter and his red witch. I want this wildling princess. I want his little prince, the wildling babe. And I want my Reek. Send them to me, bastard, and I will not trouble you or your black crows. Keep them from me, and I will cut out your bastard's heart and eat it.

Ramsay Bolton,

Trueborn Lord of Winterfell.

 

 

I'll divide the analysis in two parts. In the first part, I'll examine the content, and in 2nd, I am going to try to understand Jon's thought process before his announcement.

a. Your bastard’s heart

Understanding what the letter says took me years. I always suspected there was a hidden code because every paragraph of the letter mentions some element of the NW oath, but the truth eluded me. Until I realized that the key is at the beginning of each sentence. As we know, the first 3 vows of the NW start with “I am”, while the last 3, the opposite ideas of those inicial 3, don’t.

The letter uses the exact same structure, the first 3 paragraphs start with “Your False King”, while the last 3 don’t.

The key to read the letter is using the opposites ideas in the vows: darkness/light, watcher/sleeper, burns/guards.

Let's see how each paragraph looks, removing the mentions of the false King and the bride from the beginning because they only serve to understand how to re- order the paragraphs to match the vows.

1. The darkness and the light

 

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He and all his host were smashed in seven days of battle. / I have his magic sword. /Tell his red whore.

If you want Mance Rayder back, come and get him. / I have him in a cage for all the north to see, proof of your lies. /The cage is cold, but I have made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell.

 

 

When we order the sentences matching the vows (sword in the darkness/light that brings the dawn), we can see that each of those paragraphs include 3 different things that should be read matching the first ones, the second ones, and so on.

He and all his host/ Mance, come and get him. We know that Mance went with 6 spearwives, so clearly Mance was separated from the women. That's what this part says, they were 'smashed in seven'

The ‘magic sword’, / cage, to see, proof. Now we know where Mance is, ("the magic sword”) in the crypt where the swords keep the spirits, and where you can find the proof of who each Stark is.

Red whore/ cold cage, warm cloak skins. The only 'whore' in the crypt is Lyanna, the ‘red whore’ term refers to the point that she is accompanied by two men, as in the Dornishman's wife song.

2. The Watcher and the Horn

In this section, the first sentence talks about the false dead king’s friends

 

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Their heads upon the walls of Winterfell. / Come see them, bastard.

I want the false king's queen. I want his daughter and his red witch. / I want this wildling princess. I want his little prince, the wildling babe.

 

 

This one is simpler, the first sentence points to two kinds of people, the "heads" meaning the royal family, and the second, 'see them' is for the wildlings. But not any wildling, but Tormund, the 'horn'. So, he is asking him to go with the wildlings to Winterfell, 'come see them' and leave Stannis's men 'upon the wall'

 

3. The Fire and the shield that guards

This paragraph is about the way that the 'false king' lied, as Jon.

 

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You told the world you burned the King-Beyond-the-Wall. / Instead, you sent him to Winterfell to steal my bride from me.

And I want my Reek. /Send them to me, bastard, and I will not trouble you or your black crows.

 

 

Jon has no way of knowing who Reek is, except that he speaks of a lie, (just like Jon's) and a burned king. Since he has been talking about the crypt and that the vow that corresponds here is "the fire that burns against the cold", it is clear that 'Reek' is involved in a fire, likely the one that burned Winterfell, that is, Theon, the turncloak. That's the lie that Jon told Mance, the burned king, that he was a turncloak.

Last vow is the 'shield that guards the realms of men', which is none other than Stannis who is the shield, being the rightful king. Unfortunately, he’s dead. This is clear because Mance is supposed to be writing from the crypt, so "send them to me" is to the crypt. But also, he tells him 'I will not trouble you' and Stannis was a great pain in the ass for Jon.

But there is an extra paragraph, one that cannot be matched up with any vow: “Keep them from me, and I will cut out your bastard's heart and eat it.” This paragraph is followed by the signature that clearly reads, "Trueborn Lord of Winterfell", albeit with the wrong name.

The question is, did Jon understand the letter?

 

b. I mean to make him answer for those words

The letter that defines the fate of our bastard arrives at a weird time. That day, Ghost is particularly nervous and while Jon is meeting with Tormund, Clydas arrives with the letter and a lot of strange things happen.

Let's start with Jon's own reaction, and Tormund's.

 

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“Snow?” said Tormund Giantsbane. “You look like your father’s bloody head just rolled out o’that paper.”

Jon Snow did not answer at once. “Mully, help Clydas back to his chambers. The night is dark, and the paths will be slippery with snow. Satin, go with them.” He handed Tormund Giantsbane the letter. “Here, see for yourself.”

 

 

Tormund’s comment “your father's bloody head just rolled out o'that paper” is great, because that's exactly what just happened, that letter was written by Jon's father. Was it Mance or Benjen? Considering Mance is hiding in the crypt, it was clearly Benjen. I imagine that Benjen is the Ghost of Winterfell, it would be highly appropriate.

However, the most striking reaction is Jon’s, and not because he has given the letter to Tormund, the striking thing is what he says to Mully: "The night is dark, and the paths will be slippery with snow" which of course has absolutely nothing to do with the weather, but with what that letter says.

Now let's look at Jon's second reaction.

What was that about Mance? Has him in a cage, does he? How, when hundreds saw your red witch burn the man?”

 

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That was Rattleshirt, Jon almost said. That was sorcery. A glamor, she called it. “Melisandre

… look to the skies, she said.” He set the letter down. “A raven in a storm. She saw this coming.”(...)

“No. There is truth in there.”

“I won’t say you’re wrong. What do you mean to do, crow?”

 

 

Let's start with the first problem here, Melisandre never told him 'look to the skies', only that his questions would be answered. She never talked about a raven either. But clearly, the letter speaks of a 'raven' in trouble, because Mance wears a helm with raven wings, and apparently he’s stuck in the crypt.

But most importantly, here comes the moment when we know who the bearded man from Bran's last vision is: “Tormund scratched under his beard.”

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“Then, as he watched, a bearded man forced a captive down onto his knees before the heart tree. A white-haired woman stepped toward them through a drift of dark red leaves, a bronze sickle in her hand.”

 

Of course, we know that the woman is Melisandre who is approaching between 'a drift of dark red'. Note that the gender of the 'captive' is never identified but we do know that Melisandre has a preference for royal blood.

Let's continue with the still alive Jon and the conclusion he draws from the letter: "There is truth in there." Let's see what he thinks then:

 

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“Jon flexed the fingers of his sword hand. The Night’s Watch takes no part. He closed his fist and opened it again. What you propose is nothing less than treason. He thought of Robb, with snowflakes melting in his hair. Kill the boy and let the man be born. He thought of Bran, clambering up a tower wall, agile as a monkey. Of Rickon’s breathless laughter. Of Sansa, brushing out Lady’s coat and singing to herself. You know nothing, Jon Snow. He thought of Arya, her hair as tangled as a bird’s nest. I made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell …I want my bride back … I want my bride back … I want my bride back …

 

I think Jon understood not only the letter, but what it means, the letter's signature is telling him that he, Jon, is the Trueborn Lord of Winterfell. Now I'm going to try to explain what Jon thinks about:

Let's start with the first, the NW and “treason”. Because that phrase he uses was told to him by Bowen Marsh:

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“Marsh flushed a deeper shade of red. "The lord commander must pardon my bluntness, but I have no softer way to say this. What you propose is nothing less than treason. For eight thousand years the men of the Night's Watch have stood upon the Wall and fought these wildlings. Now you mean to let them pass, to shelter them in our castles, to feed them and clothe them and teach them how to fight. Lord Snow, must I remind you? You swore an oath."

The first red flag is that Jon remembers Marsh, the one who turns red, when the first person that the letter mentions after the 'false dead King' is the "red whore", but also, when Marsh spoke to him of betrayal, he mentioned the men who for 8 thousand years 'have stood upon the Wall' and it is obvious that the “red whore” is also part of a wall that men have stood upon, Winterfell.

Bowen ends his protest by asking Jon to remember what he swore, and precisely, what Jon swore was “ It shall not end until my death”

Now let's see what Jon thinks of his siblings:

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“He thought of Robb, with snowflakes melting in his hair. Kill the boy and let the man be born.”

 

The last time Jon saw his brother, he was like this, with melting snowflakes, after that, they declared him King. That makes him think of what Aemon told him "Kill the boy", I mean, it makes him think of Rhaegar and Lyanna's kidnapping.

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He thought of Bran, clambering up a tower wall, agile as a monkey. Of Rickon’s breathless laughter.

 

This is where the light shines, because Bran climbed walls, like Mance. The king told Jon that he had climbed the Wall many, many times. Of course, the breathless laughter is a throwback to himself when he was a kid as Rickon:

 

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"I remember," said Jon with a startled laugh. A young black brother on the wallwalk, yes . . . "You swore not to tell."

"And kept my vow. That one, at least."

 

 

And then comes the song, the other side of the song:

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Of Sansa, brushing out Lady’s coat and singing to herself. You know nothing, Jon Snow.

 

Now he's thinking about Bael's song, the song that Ygritte sang to him and that he definitely knew nothing.

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He thought of Arya, her hair as tangled as a bird’s nest. I made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell …I want my bride back … I want my bride back … I want my bride back …

 

Jon thinks of Arya, but the 'tangled' is him. Now, the secret of Jon's resurrection is not Melisandre, she'll only get the credit.

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I made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell …I want my bride back …

 

I always thought this meant that Jon believed that if things went wrong, he could always count on Ghost, to live a second life. I was so wrong. It's about what Ygritte told him “women who bed brothers or fathers or clan kin offend the gods and are cursed with weak and sickly children. Even monsters."

This is the moment Jon sees. This is him, like the boy in Bael’s song arriving with his father's head mounted on a spike. Here he realizes that he was born of incest and he doesn't care in the least. The '6 whores' are obviously the 6 wolves, and the white one, Ghost is ‘the bride'.

 

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How, when hundreds saw your red witch burn the man?”

That was Rattleshirt, Jon almost said. That was sorcery. A glamor, she called it.

 

 

Ghost is Jon’s glamor. The rubies in his eyes hide Jon’s true appearance, while Ghost carries the curse, and that's why he is not like the others.

Remember when I said that Qhorin was Benjen’s guilty side:

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“He wanted it Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. It was a hunger inside him, sharp as a dragonglass blade. A hunger . . . he could feel it. It was food he needed, prey, a red deer that stank of fear or a great elk proud and defiant. He needed to kill and fill his belly with fresh meat and hot dark blood. His mouth began to water with the thought.” Jon XII – AGoT

 

The Lannisters are SO fucked…

Jon leaves Ghost locked up because he NEEDS TO DIE.

This is the announcement he makes, above all places, in the Shieldhall after Tormund has blown the horn twice:

 

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“The Night’s Watch takes no part in the wars of the Seven Kingdoms,” Jon reminded them when some semblance of quiet had returned. “It is not for us to oppose the Bastard of Bolton, to avenge Stannis Baratheon, to defend his widow and his daughter. This creature who makes cloaks from the skins of women has sworn to cut my heart out, and I mean to make him answer for those words… but I will not ask my brothers to forswear their vows.

“The Night’s Watch will make for Hardhome. I ride to Winterfell alone, unless …” Jon paused. “… is there any man here who will come stand with me?”

 

 

This is not a war of the Seven Kingdoms, that’s true. But it's not about that, it's about doing what he wanted to do almost since he got to the Wall. Cold and bloody vengeance.

And of course, the moment he makes the announcement, out loud, for all the north to hear, the full weight of the curse falls on him, because no matter who the author of the letter is, the one Jon really wants to kill is Ned: “This creature who makes cloaks from the skins of women has sworn to cut my heart out”

Jon is killed "for the watch" because as Mance told Melisandre: “A man should die the way he's lived. For me that's steel in hand."

Jon dies as he lived, 'for the watch' looking for his mother, and when he found her, when he saw, he no longer needed to be Jon Snow, and the NW did exactly what they had to do, what they are meant to do, kill the monster. He's coming back of course, but like I said, that has nothing to do with Melisandre, but with Ghost. Jon already died right in front of us, and Ghost brought him back:

 

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When he opened his mouth to scream, the wight jammed its black corpse fingers into Jon’s mouth. Gagging, he tried to shove it off, but the dead man was too heavy. Its hand forced itself farther down his throat, icy cold, choking him. Its face was against his own, filling the world. Frost covered its eyes, sparkling blue. Jon raked cold flesh with his nails and kicked at the thing’s legs. He tried to bite, tried to punch, tried to breathe…

And suddenly the corpse’s weight was gone, its fingers ripped from his throat.”

 

 

When Othor, a much bigger 'man' than Jon, puts his hand down his throat and Jon feels that his face is 'filling the world' is the moment Jon dies for the first time.

Jon tries to bite and kick and breathe…and he can't.He's dead. And 'suddenly' he's back. Suddenly is when Ghost is by his side. We saw that in Waymar's death, the corpse rises when Will, the one who prayed to the old gods, approaches him to lift his sword. As we know, Ghost belongs to the old gods, he is the one who brings back Jon every time he dies.

 

For me that's steel in hand

Now I'll talk about something that was left pending in Part II. How Mance plans to make Jon a 'trueborn' Lord. Because, although it’s beautiful that Jon knows where he comes from, how his parents fell in love, and that his father never forgot him, it’s a story that just won’t work south of the Wall.

I said that Mance is going to use all of Ned's lies against him: Lyanna's death, Jon's paternity and the 3 kingsguards deaths. For that, he is going to use Bael’s song, the crypt with a twist. That song as we know, includes: Lord Brandon, the Maiden, the baby.

The crypt, as we know, is a particularly cold place, and the cold has a very specific effect on dead people, as we know from common sense and because Gared told us so:

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I've had the cold in me too, lordling." Gared pulled back his hood, (..) I got off light. We found my brother frozen at his watch, with a smile on his face."

 

Ned found Ashara's body when the war, which was fought during winter, was ending, so her body is probably frozen, and therefore preserved. What Mance told to Melisandre, in part, is about that: I've sung my songs, fought my battles, drunk summer wine, tasted the Dornishman's wife.

So far, we have two ingredients, the baby (Jon), and the maiden. We need Lord Brandon. And the twist.

Roose was able to pull off the brown-eyed Arya trick without anyone saying a word, because no one ever paid any attention to Arya. But Brandon is another story, they all know he had gray eyes, like all Starks, and Mance has brown eyes. I mean, Mance can't pretend to be Brandon Stark unless he gets a pair of grey eyes, and that's exactly what he's going to do. How?

Like Qhorin said:

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"How else? Sorcery." Qhorin bit the egg in half.

 

The sorcery Mance needs is here: the Dornishman's wife.

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The Horned Lord once said that sorcery is a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it."

 

Dalla told Jon that 'sorcery is a sword'. The sword is Jon, because Lyanna died holding his hand as she looked into his eyes, and in doing so, as in Lightbringer's legend, a part of her went to Jon.

 

 

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“A horn, I need a horn. (…) Jon reached for Longclaw, but his fingers had grown stiff and clumsy. Somehow, he could not seem to get the sword free of its scabbard.

Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger’s hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. “Ghost,” he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end.

When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold …

 

 

When Jon falls to his knees, two men are dying, him and Mance, the one with the 3 wounds. Jon says “Ghost”, that is the moment when, in the crypt, Ashara is waking up, but what wakes her is Lyanna's spirit, now free, that's why the crypt is not so cold when Theon goes there with Lady Dustin. Jon falls, like Waymar, face-first into the snow and like Waymar, when he gets up, his eyes are going to be different.

When Jon is killed, the "extra grey" from his eyes will magically go to Mance's eyes so that he gets Brandon's grey eyes back and 'the sword' is complete.

Jon is 'haunted' since he was born, since he saw his mother die, when Lyanna's curse passed on to Jon. How did Mance know that witchcraft was going to work? How could he know that once Jon saw, that once he knew exactly who he was, the sorcery was going to work? Because Jon was born ‘for the watch’ and now his watch ended.