Mance as "Lord of Bones kicking Jon's butt"

[Jeff Claburn]

I am restarting a closed thread from six years ago:

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Do you think Mance did this just to test Jon's ability? To piss him off as "lord of bones" or possibly make him second guess his abilities? A combo?

I think Mance does this specifically to show Jon that a two-handed sword beats a sword and shield in hand-to-hand combat and that, while skilled, Jon is not yet a great swordsmen. In other words, the whole point of the fight is to motivate Jon to switch to two-handed sword fighting and prepare Jon to one day wield the ancestral Dayne family sword Dawn during the Long Night.

Yes, this rests on the Mance Rayder = Arthur Dayne hypothesis that I believe was created by the Order of the Green Hand, and which I have more recently written about on my Quora Q&A Space "A Theory of Ice and Fire." I have also created and proposed the theory that Arthur Dayne / Mance Rayder is really Jon Snow's grandfather.

This theory goes that Martin is having fun with us giving him the name Arthur because he clearly was the Lancelot figure at the royal court. What does Lancelot do that is his great secret? He sleeps with the queen. In this case Queen Rhaella whom all the sources say was never too fond of her brother Aerys and was basically forced to marry him. The sources also say she had fallen hard for another dashing young knight, Ser Bonifer Hasty, but was forced to break up with him to marry Aerys, leading Bonifer to go into seclusion and found the Holy Hundred who currently occupy Harrenhal. To me it seems the perfect ground for a romance between Princess Rhaella and the youngest, newest, and most dashing member of the kingsguard, Ser Arthur Dayne. Arthur Dayne's exact age is never given, nor any facts or clues as to when exactly he joined the kingsguard. So we don't have proof he was a member of the kingsguard at this time but nothing in the canon rules it out either. Arthur Dayne is often considered to have been closer in age to Prince Rhaegar since he is described as Rhaegar's closest confident and oldest friend. But we are also told that Rhaegar as a child made no friendships with other children but preferred to read books and spend his time with adults. If the age is right, the one adult who seems to have spent the most time with Rhaegar growing up, apart from possibly his mother, was Arthur Dayne. He was like a father to Rhaegar. But what if he was his actual father too?

We do know that Rhaegar came to Arthur Dayne one day to teach him to be a great swordsman based on a prophecy. That does suggest a general age difference between them, although keep in mind that the generations can be short in Martin's medieval world because Arthur Dayne could have been on the kingsguard at age 17 and fathered Rhaegar at that time, so that when Rhaegar was say 15 Arthur would have been 32. But presumably that prophecy is still in play and it applies to Jon in fact rather than Rhaegar, as we are told Rhaegar himself came to believe later in his short life.

So Rhaegar believed that Jon to be the Prince Who Was Promised would have to become a great swordsmen. Ned and Ser Rodrik made sure that Jon grew up as an excellent swordsman, and we are told he was better than Robb. But in no way is Jon a great swordsman yet, and he is fighting one-handed style with a sword rather than two-handed style with his bastard sword Longclaw or a true great-sword like Dawn or the one that Mance as the Lord of Bones uses to crush Jon.

The purpose of this scene and the reason it's in the story is that this marks the moment when Jon decides that being an excellent one-handed swordsman isn't enough for him. The Lord of Bones tried to have Jon killed three times in the story and he is Jon's principal living antagonist. Jon concludes at the end of the fight that he wouldn't have lost like this if he was wielding Long Claw two-handed. So thereafter Jon is presumably going to train in the yard as a two-handed swordsman.

And for all his limitations glamoured as the Lord of Bones and unable to reveal his identity to Jon, Mance Rayder has managed to turn Jon into a future master of the greatsword who can one day wield Dawn in battle after the Long Night falls. What a great teacher and, just maybe, grandpa.

Edited December 15, 2023 by Jeff Claburn

[Mad King Bolton]

On 12/14/2023 at 8:10 AM, Jeff Claburn said:

I think Mance does this specifically to show Jon that a two-handed sword beats a sword and shield in hand-to-hand combat and that, while skilled, Jon is not yet a great swordsmen.

I'm sorry to discount the fun part of your theory, or just to focus on this part.  I just think that any weapon or weapon combination can be defeated by anything depending on who is wielding it or the circumstances of the fight.

Jon has seen the Lord of Bones and was confident he would beat him in a fight (and he very well might have if it was really him).  Jon never saw Mance fight (or just wasn't ready for Rattle Shirt to fight like Mance), and so the lesson was to "not be overconfident", or "to always be properly prepared".  A fighter who is familiar with a foe may switch tactics or styles to confuse them, or fight differently with a different weapon, etc.  

Jon is/was a good fighter but has been defeated at times by more experienced fighters.  but to say that Jon needs to part with a Valyrian steel bastard sword and learn to fight with a 2 handed special greatsword I think goes too far and has too many variables.  Jon would have to abandon his sword and start from the beginning learning to use not only a great sword with different tactics, but then to be ready to put in his hands, a specific greatsword that has different properties than a normal one.  Likely much lighter and powerful which affects balance and expected resistances. (I'm no expert, just sayin').  I just don't think it's plausible though the idea is fun.