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[ADWD spoilers] Jon Snow's Fate


Ahmrogar

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Many have said it before, and I'll say it again: Jon is Azor Ahai. The foreshadowing in ADWD is a cincher. Here is what I have picked out of the book:

Melisandre: "I pray for a glimpse of Azor Ahai, and R'hllor shows me only Snow."

- It's right there in front of her eyes, though she doesn't see it. Stannis is not AA. Jon is AA.

Jon in a dream in ADWD: Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist.

- A blade that burned red? Lightbringer anyone?

I'm rather more concerned with Jon’s being armored in black ice. Even Lord Deric's sword could be made to burn with real flame when touched with his own resurrected blood. But the only ones I recall having special armor like that is the Others themselves, armor that was proof against penetration by any normal weapon, dragonglass and dragonsteel excepted. (Dance, p. 100). I wonder who Jon is supposed to acquire, let alone bear and wear, such armor? I wonder whether it would also be proof against the infracold blades the Others wield.

That would seem to make Jon’s the Song of Fire and Ice, not Aegon as Rhægar had thought. Well, unless Jon really is Aegon, and Rhægar was talking about him at the time.

Meanwhile, Young Griff could easily be the love‐child of now‐septa Ashara Dayne and— hm, who? Not Rhægar, I think, but still someone whose genetics aren’t strong enough to overpower the blonde genes. I shouldn’t think that would be Brandon Stark, whose genes might well have have done so, but he’s the most likely to have dishonored her. Still, Stark genes aren’t necessarily as strong as Baratheon genes, since Tully genes often overshadow Stark genes, as far as complexion goes. So maybe.

Remember that Young Griff doesn’t quite have Rhægar’s eyes. They’re close, but not the same; they’re closer to Griff’s. Hey, perhaps Jon Connington + Rhægar Targaryen = Young Griff, anybody? Just kidding of course, but this is fantasy after all. Then again I can easily see Rhægar naming his son Jon after his teenage (would‐be?) paramour. I’d certainly consider naming a son after a friend who loved me that well, and whom I loved, too. Rhægar saw his duty to destiny, though, and so unto us a child was born. Or two. Or three. Hard to keep count, eh?

As for who looks like whom, I even get the notion that Aurane Waters looks more like Rhægar than Young Griff does. One of Rhægar’s by‐blows, perhaps, or more likely, of Aerys’s? Or a Dayne’s? Ashara’s, maybe? I don’t think Rhægar’s though, since Ned didn’t think Rhægar was apt to be one to visit brothels and otherwise go whoring around the way Robert did. But with Aerys, anything is not just possible, but almost likely.

We’ll probably never know. But it sure seems like everybody is related to everybody else, and never the way you think it is. People here have mentioned twin theories here now and again, but they haven’t ever mentioned the possibility of twins with differing fathers. This can happen, you know. Even rarer but still possible is the potential for half‐identical twins. This is an even weirder situation.

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On a side note, I am toying with the fancy that Jon's roving spirit will stumble across a sleeping Ice Dragon beneath the Wall. Not for any reason but that Jon (and maybe Bran too) recalled a couple of Old Nan's stories that mentioned Ice Dragons.

Isn’t the Ice Dragon hidden beneath Winterfell, not the Wall? Didn’t one of the two youngest Stark boys have a dream about this, quite some time ago?

In both cases, you’d think that Bran the Builder put it there. If beneath the Wall, it could be a last ditch defence should the Wall fall. If beneath Winterfell, it could be the genius loci, the family ghost and guardian for House Stark.

I can just see a Targ trying to hop on an Ice Dragon: “These are not the dragons you are looking for. Move along now,” intones Obi Raven while passing his hands across their eyes with one of his greenseer mindtricks.

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Here is what i think happened to John Snow.

I think Mel did some glamor on him so that he looked like someone else and someone else to look like him. This means that everyone will think that he is in fact dead while in truth he is not.

This does several things:

-Mel has done this before with Mance.

-It allows Snow to be reborn fulfilling the AA reborn and 'kill the boy and let the man be born' prophecies

-It enables Jon to be relieved of his duties in the NW and allowing him to be one of the Heads of the Dragon.

-Ghost barred his teeth at John when he attempted to touch him indicating something was amiss or john wasn't really john.

-GRRM has stated that Snow chapters get Grey after this. This would explain that too.

Am i bonkers?

The issue I see is that from Jon's POV he uses his internal voice to express his surprise by Ghost's aggression. If the POV is really someone under the guise of Jon it would not be surprising. And the raven is going bonkers as well. That indicates to me that Bran may be at work. Which is interesting since Bran can see the past and present from the trees, but not the future, so how would he know what was about to happen?

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I am in the Jon is not dead camp. I also put more weight in Jon's dreams and Bran's dreams/visions concerning Jon than in Melisandre's visions. Mel states that her visions are not reliable and her interpretaion has proved unreliable. I am not totally discounting hers just discounting what it may at first look like they are telling us.

The Book quotes relating to Jon & Bran's dreams are;

Jon dreams of the direwolves, and realizes that one of the female wolves is dead. Then he hears a voice behind him, a silent shout or whisper, and he looks around, searching for a lean grey shape. He sees a sapling weirwood rapidly growing from the cliff side, and it has Bran's face, except it has three eyes. He wonders if his brother always had three eyes, and the weirwood tells him that it wasn't the case until the crow. John smells wolf, tree and boy, and warm earth, hard stone and death. Bran tells him that he likes it in the dark, and then the weirwood touches Jon to open his eye. Suddenly Jon slips into Ghost and sees things from his perspective.

Jon tells Sam of a recurring dream he has of Winterfell. He dreams he is walking in a long, empty hall in the castle, his voice echoing around him and no one is answering. He is looking for someone, but he isn't sure who, sometimes it is his father, sometimes Robb, or Arya, or even Benjen. But he never finds anyone, the castle is always empty. Even the ravens are gone, and the stables are full of bones. It scares him, and he runs around looking for someone. Then he finds himself in front of the door to the crypts, and he knows he has to go down there, but he doesn't want to. He's afraid of what is waiting for him. Not the old Kings of Winter, but something else. He screams that he is not a Stark, that it isn't his place, but it is no good and he feels he has to go down, so he starts, with no torch to light his way. It gets darker and darker, until he wants to scream, and then he wakes up.

Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him ... North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned his cheeks.

1. Jon meets Bran as a weirwood and slips into Ghost and sees things with 3 eyes.

2. Jon has to go to the Winterfell crypts for something very important. I have wriiten elsewhere that these lower crypts are discussed at least 3 times in the books and it is clear that no Stark has been down there in years and there is a general fear about the lower levels that date back to the First Men. Something is there and Jon will need to go there to find it. It will be very important.

3. Bran sees Jon sleeping on ice as warmth flees him.

These look to me like the future for Jon. Whether Mel revives him at some point or something he finds in the crypts makes him reborn or Bran helps him be reborn. At some point he will be reborn.

In the meantime the Wall has a whole lot of possibilities for hurt.

There will be murder and mayhem when Jon appears to die, reducing the wildings and Watch and Queen's men.

The Hardhome wilding will become wights and attack the wildings south of the wall and the Watch on their less defensible side.

If Ramsey & Co march to the Wall they might run into the wights and add to the wights numbers or,

Ramsey will arrive at the Wall after the great Wight battle there and become more wight fodder.

If Stannis is alive and marchs back to the Wall at some point they will be met by thousands of wights.

With Jon's removal, things will go very badly for the Watch and the wildings at the wall.

I doubt that Jon is able to participate in any of this as he will be on a mission in Ghost to visit Winterfell crypts and then hopefully be reborn as the black ice covered man with the fire sword who will end up fighting against pretty insurmontable odds. Maybe a dragon is in his future, maybe not.

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And in all honesty, GRRM didn't WANT to be believed about killing Jon. That's why he puts so many clues in the novel that Jon's consciousness as a warg will go to Ghost, why he leaves Mel behind at the wall, why the ice cells are shown to us constantly, and why he lets us see inside Mel's head which shows Jon Snow as Azor Ahai.

GRRM isn't stupid. You can kill Ned as a shock -- and it certainly was. If there is any doubt of that, think back to the reaction of those who watched "Baelor" for the first time, not knowing what would happen. With the Red Wedding, it was definitely another throw the book across the room moment. I was entirely pissed when I read Jon's last chapter and I DID shout "NOOOOOO....BASTARD!!" as I was reading it. I was in a rage but would not come to this message board until I was done the last chapters first (and then I flew through them to come read here).

But it was pretty clear to me that Jon wasn't going to die because of all the clues GRRM had left. Which is good. Jon's my favorite character in the series and if GRRM actually perma-killed Jon in book five with at least two more to go? I might just stop reading and get off this goddamned train. And I'm not simply a fan of these books -- like many here, it's become a hobby.

So that's why GRRM left the clues in the novel so that we wouldn't freak the f out and go forth on the internet and in our local bookstores, warning everybody and their dog to not read the series (when we had before been the ones most likely to recommend it). GRRM has been planning this scene for a while. It wasn't a surprise road stop en route to L.A. from NYC: "Oh. You know, I could just kill Jon Snow here. Wouldn't that be a kick in the balls to readers? Yeah, let's do that."

No. it's not like that at all. I also don't think that Jon will come back as any shade or anything less than a human. He will not be some undead thing. He'll come back for real, the only one who does in the series.

*crosses fingers*

Regarding the clue's GRRM put in for us, I just want to add that it is also important what GRRM didn't add to the Jon/wilding/Wall plot. He didn't add a supporter for Jon's plans. And this is the single biggest reason that I don't think Jon is gone. Who is going to finish what Jon started? If it hadn't been for Jon's architecting a new force up there at the Wall, I'd just think, okay, well, maybe Dolorous Edd will be our new POV at the Wall....but wait! what about all those Wildings Jon let in? Because what would happen at the Wall, if Jon is out of the picture permanently is that the next day, Marsh and the brothers would start kicking out all the Wildings. And that makes no sense. Why spend an entire book of chapters laying out Jon's plans to populate the NW's ruined castles, save the Wildings, finance their obligations and re-man the Wall, only to kill off Jon and with him, all those plans? Plot-wise, that's incredibly stupid. GRRM is not stupid.

Ergo, since GRRM gave us no one to pick up Jon's mantle, as it were, and carry on his rebuilding/saving of the Wildings, Jon cannot be permanently gone. Jon has important work to do yet. Important plot work. Just my humble opinion.

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Jon was the glue that held the wildlings and NW together. He understood their differences and he understood the real enemy was the others, not the wildlings. Now with Jon out of the way and the wildlings knowing that Mance is at Winterfell they will march south to rescue him. GRRM made a point that the horn the Melissandre burned wasn't the horn to bring down the wall. My guess is that the others have it and are waiting for winter before they use it. The nights watch will be smashed and overrun especially now that the wildlings wont be helping. In a Daenary's dream she sees the others/wights? across a river and her dragon melts the lot of them. The river is imho most likely the Trident which is far south of the wall, which means the others will have definitley defeated the NW.

I too believe that Jon is AA given the numerous clues GRRM has given us. I mean who gets stabbed with a knife and then smoke comes out? lol. Jon will return and either still lead the wildings to winterfell or otherwise he will spend an extended time in ghost and return to his body after the wall has been sacked. Once Ramsay is destroyed the North will have lost most of its power and the others and wights will continue south with little resistance. I can't wait for the next book!!

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I have to think that when the others reach the wall, they will be able to scale the wall even easier than the wildling climbers. They walk on top of the snow, they are cold incarnate. Climbing a wall of ice shouldn't be all that hard.

One thing I've been sitting around thinking about that hasn't come up at all: GIANT ICE SPIDERS. We're told several times through the repetition of lore that The Others have giant ice spiders. We've seen Others, but no freakin' giant ice spiders.

Giant ice spiders get them over the wall, lickety-split.

Sam says to John before leaving, about what he's learned in his reading of Others: "Not much, really, sometimes they appear during snow storms and melt away when the skies clear, they hide from the light of the sun and emerge by night, (or else night falls when they appear) some accounts speak of giant ice spiders, the armor of the Others is proof against most ordinary blades and their own swords are so cold they shatter steel...."

So, yeah, giant ice spiders.

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Jon was the glue that held the wildlings and NW together. He understood their differences and he understood the real enemy was the others, not the wildlings. Now with Jon out of the way and the wildlings knowing that Mance is at Winterfell they will march south to rescue him. GRRM made a point that the horn the Melissandre burned wasn't the horn to bring down the wall. My guess is that the others have it and are waiting for winter before they use it. The nights watch will be smashed and overrun especially now that the wildlings wont be helping. In a Daenary's dream she sees the others/wights? across a river and her dragon melts the lot of them. The river is imho most likely the Trident which is far south of the wall, which means the others will have definitley defeated the NW.

I too believe that Jon is AA given the numerous clues GRRM has given us. I mean who gets stabbed with a knife and then smoke comes out? lol. Jon will return and either still lead the wildings to winterfell or otherwise he will spend an extended time in ghost and return to his body after the wall has been sacked. Once Ramsay is destroyed the North will have lost most of its power and the others and wights will continue south with little resistance. I can't wait for the next book!!

Some consensus that the horn Jon found and gave to Sam is the real horn to take down the wall. Sam took it with him to the Citadel. Sam is going to freak when he learns that Jon was stabbed by fellow NW and is dead (or not).

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And one additional crackpot to throw in my theories: Bran the builder built the wall, yes? And he built Winterfell, yes? Who's to say they aren't connected through the maze of underground tunnels now occupied by the Children of the Forrest. Who's to further say Benjen didn't make his way down into those tunnels and find his way through them into the crypts at Winterfell?

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And one additional crackpot to throw in my theories: Bran the builder built the wall, yes? And he built Winterfell, yes? Who's to say they aren't connected through the maze of underground tunnels now occupied by the Children of the Forrest. Who's to further say Benjen didn't make his way down into those tunnels and find his way through them into the crypts at Winterfell?

Ooooh...I like this idea..sends shivers down my back. I hope we find out more about these lower crypts in AWOW!

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Actually rereading aGoT, when one of the Night's Watch is stabbed his wound steams. I found it pretty interesting considering this discussion

Sometimes the simple explanation is best. Blood is a lot warmer than ice so stands to reason that when warm blood interacts with ice there could be steam. Could be this simple, or not.

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And one additional crackpot to throw in my theories: Bran the builder built the wall, yes? And he built Winterfell, yes? Who's to say they aren't connected through the maze of underground tunnels

I've wondered this too!

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I also put more weight in Jon's dreams and Bran's dreams/visions concerning Jon than in Melisandre's visions. Mel states that her visions are not reliable and her interpretation has proved unreliable.

Her visions, or rather, her interpretations may be unreliable -- indeed, they tend to be so, although she is at times correct. That said, the fires are always right. And that's where it gets interesting because this time GRRM gave us something he never us gave us before . . . he let us see what she sees in the flames and let us interpret in place of having only her interpretation to go on.

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And one additional crackpot to throw in my theories: Bran the builder built the wall, yes? And he built Winterfell, yes? Who's to say they aren't connected through the maze of underground tunnels now occupied by the Children of the Forrest. Who's to further say Benjen didn't make his way down into those tunnels and find his way through them into the crypts at Winterfell?

You know, that isn't that crackpot at all when you think about it. Remember those deeper crypts that Theon was talking about? That nobody goes down there because the ceiling is caved in and so forth. What if there is a passage way down there?

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I agree with a lot of what the "there is more Jon in the series" people have said, but my main reason is that structurally, it feels much more like a typical GRRM cliffhanger chapter than a "This character is DEAD!" chapter. The Tyrion "drowning" on the riverboat chapter ends much the same way, or the Brienne hanging chapter. When the last line is the shocker, it's usually not over.

By contrast, the Red Wedding and Ned Stark beheading chapters go on for a ways after the death of that character, to really show that it's over for them.

I also feel that the "Jon stabbed!" cliffhanger makes up for a lack of big change events in the story, and that if it didn't happen, people would be complaining that the book seemed light on important events, even with Dany finally on the back of an effing dragon by the end.

I definitely feel that Jon will be back, and most likely in human form, with a lot more to do before the war is over.

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Sometimes the simple explanation is best. Blood is a lot warmer than ice so stands to reason that when warm blood interacts with ice there could be steam. Could be this simple, or not.

Yeah, but isn't it interesting that everybody's wounds release steam, and Jon's smoke? :shocked:

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I have many theories on how Jon will survive or come back from the dead... but only one thing makes me sure of it. GRRM has stated that there will be no new POV charecters after ADWD. If Jon is in fact dead, and with Sam on the other end of Westoros... he has no choice but add a new POV charecter to have a "good guy" POV at the Wall if Jon is "dead" dead.. Mellie is there sure, but I do not see here being the main POV chacrter in the next book to show what is going on, and she is too dark of a charecter. I could be wrong though, I just do not see it though.

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