[ADwD Spoilers] Jon and Dany character devolution

[History of Westeros]

As evidence that Jon going after the Boltons is not clear as regards to whether or not it's oathbreaking:

1) Jon isn't even sure.

2) there are a lot of smart people who think it is, and a lot who don't.

That makes it clear, to me at least, that it's not clear at all. I'll go so far as to say that if you are certain one way or the other, you might be arrogant.

I do believe the extremely unique circumstances should be taken into account. No LC has ever faced the Others, let alone while possibly facing a powerful house led by a sociopath and his psychopath son.

[Direwolf_Warg]

This debate annoys me because it's not going to change any minds. You either view it as oath breaking or you don't. The mere fact you have to defend based on such crazy assumptions just confirms it's oathbreaking to me*.

Jon is a leader. He is in charge of the lives of men and the entire wall to guard the realm of men. That means he has a hell of a lot more responsability than be he did when he ran off in book 1 or when he was ordered to do something against his instincts in book 2 or even when he was offered Winterfell in book 3.

He had men. He had responsibility. He weighed the world vs. the life of his sister. He chose his sister. And he did it at a time of extreme uncertainty and peril.

He is a hothead but he has always chosen his oath over blood and glory in the end. I just don't buy the change. I view it as GRRM needing Jon to get stabbed and needed a pressure point to let hell loose. He chose this one and I'm not feeling it, especially compared to how beautifully setup other character's downfalls are (Look at Robb's arc. Tragic beauty. Same with Viserys, Renly, Joffery, etc. They all feel into place with organic fitting conclusions). In contrast both Jon and Dany have learned things... only to un-learn then GRRM needed to stall or push a plot point.

A debate is always going to annoy someone if they go into it with the idea that they're irrefutably correct, and all other viewpoints are wrong. I assumed that you wanted to debate in the thread, hence my responses to your posts. I never broached the subject of Jon's oathbreaking, or keeping faith with the spirit of his vows in my arguments, I simply tried to supply information to you about Jon and his situation that I believed from your posts that you missed.

You said it was CLEAR (your emphasis) in an earlier post that Jon betrayed his vows to save his sister. If you're talking about the first incident, I would agree that is possible, if you're talking about the second, and marching south, then I disagree. I explain below in greater detail. I pointed out that he knew Bolton didn't have Arya, which he freely admits in the letter to Jon. You still hold this as your essential premise in this post also. It's clear from the text that he could not have believed that saving Arya could be accomplished by facing Ramsay at that time.

You also claimed Jon was rushing off South, and I debated that point with you also, pointing out that he at least planned to confer with Melisandre to find out where Ramsay was prior to leaving. That is a strong indication that his plan was still fluid, and had not been set. Likely, even HE didn't know what his plan was to accomplish at that point, only that he had an endstate in mind. He was hardly rushing out into the snow to betray his vows as you indicated. The situation wasn't clear cut to even the readers. At any rate, he was betrayed and killed right after he announced his intention, and as I mentioned earlier, his announced intentions make no mention of his timeline, so you can't assume he was "rushing" off to do anything. His preperations for a mission that will never happen will not be resolved, so ultimately we likely won't ever know what his motivation was, or what his plan would have ended up being.

However, if you want to move off of the military soundness angle / winter survival issues we were discussing last, then I do believe Jon broke his oath. I don't believe we know enough about this particular situation that you keep bringing up to know if he's oathbreaking right now or not. The text makes it clear that he himself has no idea if he is or not, but his motivations are not at all clear. However, there is no doubt, and should be for no one, at this point that Jon was walking a fine line of oathbreaking from the very beginning of the book with giving Stannis counsel about the North, and provisioning his men. I believe that he indeed broke his vows when becoming at very best complicit in sending Mance to Winterfell to rescue Arya. Yes, he did not order that mission specifically, Mel did. But by finding out about it, and doing nothing to stop it, he gave his implicit consent, or near enough to make no matter. He at best broke the spirit of his vows. Implied orders are still valid ones.

There's not much you can do to spin that, IMO.

[pera]

No. First, aFfC was written well before the tv show was even considered.

Second, Dance would clearly be the most expensive book of the series that could be adapted to tv (since they dont do big battles anyway). You have the most possible locations and characters, CGI dragons, wolves etc, pyramids, scenes at sea etc.

Third, soap opera? That's a silly comparison. There's hardly any romance or relationship-related drama, which is essentially the centerpiece of all soap operas.

Fourth, who is Deny? ;)

Indeed, who the heck is Deny, you got me there.

For the meaning of the soap opera, let me quote the Wikipedia: "A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episode work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers such as Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers as sponsors[1] and producers." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_opera). That would kill your third I believe.

Concerning your second, I still don't see any adaptation problems for ADWD, technical issues included.

Let me try to wrestle with your first: my point is that both AFFC and ADWD are full of stalling, the plot is crawling which is perfect for soaps. GRRM is too intelligent to discard this as coincidence, I think he has envisioned TV adaptation sometimes between 2001-2005.

cheers

[Ran]

He would have reduced the scale significantly if he really decided to shift his focus to getting it adapted for television. Indeed, one of the premises of James Poniewozik's review is that AFfC and ADwD present huge structural problems for adaptation to television -- there are things that he does that only really work in literature, and if anything, there's even more of that in these novels than the earlier novels:

I suggested that AFFC and ADWD are two "halves" of one long novel; that's not exactly the case. They're more like one-and-a-third very long novels, or so. ADWD eventually catches up with the end of AFFC, at which point several of its point-of-view characters return, including Arya Stark, apprenticing with the Faceless Men in Braavos; the aforementioned Victarion; and imprisoned Queen Cersei Lannister back in King's Landing. (Remember King's Landing?)

All this suggests a big adaptation challenge, assuming that the HBO series survives to make it to this point in the novels. It would be ludicrous to adapt nearly 2,000 pages of two books as one season, and yet there isn't a natural chronological dividing line in the middle of the narrative for each character's arc. (That is, I can think of several potentially dramatic final scenes and stopping points, but other storylines would just stop, midway.) It will take some creativity on the part of David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to slice this leviathan in half. (I briefly wondered whether it would work to split it into an Essos season and a Westeros season, but I assume fans, HBO executives and casting agents alike would rebel.)

[Lady of Casterly Rock]

As evidence that Jon going after the Boltons is not clear as regards to whether or not it's oathbreaking:

1) Jon isn't even sure.

2) there are a lot of smart people who think it is, and a lot who don't.

That makes it clear, to me at least, that it's not clear at all. I'll go so far as to say that if you are certain one way or the other, you might be arrogant.

I do believe the extremely unique circumstances should be taken into account. No LC has ever faced the Others, let alone while possibly facing a powerful house led by a sociopath and his psychopath son.

In dubio pro reo.

Is isn´t othbreaking...

[C.T. Phipps]

I think Jon and Daeny both did a little devolution.

But that's to be expected.

Rarely do people not fall back into old habits at least once.

[Amae Koromo]

Daenerys was never a strategic genius.

She always made a great deal of mistakes.

[History of Westeros]

For the meaning of the soap opera, let me quote the Wikipedia: "A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episode work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers such as Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers as sponsors[1] and producers." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_opera). That would kill your third I believe.

I was referring to the colloquial definition of a soap opera, not the literal one. Given how generic and unspecific the literal definition is, I did not assume you'd be referring to it in that way. That said I still disagree. The books in question aren't particularly episodic.

Concerning your second, I still don't see any adaptation problems for ADWD, technical issues included.

Technical issues are not in question, it's the budget I'm referring to.

Let me try to wrestle with your first: my point is that both AFFC and ADWD are full of stalling, the plot is crawling which is perfect for soaps. GRRM is too intelligent to discard this as coincidence, I think he has envisioned TV adaptation sometimes between 2001-2005.

cheers

That's reasonable and possible, I admit.

[History of Westeros]

I think Jon and Daeny both did a little devolution.

But that's to be expected.

Rarely do people not fall back into old habits at least once.

Very true, and GRRM aims for realism in human behavior, which I for one appreciate.

[Caligula_K]

and BTW, Jon doesnt leave when his father and brother die, but when Ramsay Bolton in all his craziness writes a letter to him, he decides to leave? doesn't make sense

I thought the same on my first read, but re-reading the chapter it seems clear that it's wanting to save Arya which causes him to break his vows (I don't have the book on me, but look at his thought process right after he reads the letter). Which does make sense, because this kid has watched his whole family die from afar; I understand him finally breaking and just going after his sister. I think GRRM should have made this clearer, though, especially since the reader knows that it's not really Arya.

I have very few problems with Jon's plotline in this book (aside from its slowness at points and the lack of Others), but I do think parts of it are slightly contrived- notably that Jon never mentions the smart reason to save the wildlings to anyone except for once (i.e., that they would turn into wights), and that he suddenly does not allow Ghost near him because of some warg boar.

[Ser Pistus]

Daenerys was never a strategic genius.

She always made a great deal of mistakes.

As I remember, she outsmarted everyone to get her Unsullied army, and then again to take Astapor, and then again to take Meereen.

[Damocles]

As I remember, she outsmarted everyone to get her Unsullied army, and then again to take Astapor, and then again to take Meereen.

Indeed. She was built up as having superb instincts. Which is why we got the, "But I am a young girl and unskilled in the ways of war" lines. Except that ADwD proved she really is unskilled. Retardedly so. Tyrion even mentions her forgetting to poison any wells, which you would've thought one of her captains would know to do.

Anyways. I'm not debating details. People will twist things as they can or find any loophole. It might be realistic to depict a character lapsing back in silly ways like we all do in RL, but it doesn't make for good storytelling. Instead, it does in fact, come off as meandery and soap opery.

What gets me is that regardless of the reasoning, GRRM is essentially has made no progress in ten years with Jon and Dany's characters. He has had, in fact, to regress them for the sake of moving the story forward.

[Ran]

Conqueror ≠ ruler.

It's absolutely true that people are twisting things back and forth, though, Damocles. :)

[pera]

I was referring to the colloquial definition of a soap opera, not the literal one. Given how generic and unspecific the literal definition is, I did not assume you'd be referring to it in that way. That said I still disagree. The books in question aren't particularly episodic.

Well, I'm still baffled with the lack of substance in the last two books and the prime motive for it. I'm not going to say that you are wrong on the episodic issue, but something is fishy there - I have a hunch that one can quite easily merge chapters into episodes.

Technical issues are not in question, it's the budget I'm referring to.

I was assuming that the budget is one of parameters for technical solutions. Still, HBO can cut the project after any season if fails to be lucrative, so your point is solid.

[Damocles]

Conqueror ≠ ruler.

It's absolutely true that people are twisting things back and forth, though, Damocles. :)

Absolutely, Ran.

Though, I find it interesting that very few people have claimed to have actually been left satisfied by the Jon or Dany storylines. In fact, it seems that a lot of people, even those who liked how other threads of the story have resolved itself, whatever their scruples (No Winterfell battle, no UnGregor battle, etc) still found much about Jon and Dany to be desired.

I think we're seeing the real effect of the five year gap being nixed, on both storylines. GRRM was unsatisfied enough with it to take ten years to put it out.

[pera]

He would have reduced the scale significantly if he really decided to shift his focus to getting it adapted for television. Indeed, one of the premises of James Poniewozik's review is that AFfC and ADwD present huge structural problems for adaptation to television -- there are things that he does that only really work in literature, and if anything, there's even more of that in these novels than the earlier novels:

Look at the last two installments of ASOIAF - plenty of characters, much more chapters on them that are more or less bereft of any substance, significant decrease in the amount of action, almost halted progress in the main plot. This is too much like TV series for my taste, far too fishy.

I would really love to see the ludicrous merging of AFFC & ADWD into a single season - it could be a possibility to turn AFFC & ADWD into something good for a change.

[Volderon]

Look at the last two installments of ASOIAF - plenty of characters, much more chapters on them that are more or less bereft of any substance, significant decrease in the amount of action, almost halted progress in the main plot. This is too much like TV series for my taste, far too fishy.

I would really love to see the ludicrous merging of AFFC & ADWD into a single season - it could be a possibility to turn AFFC & ADWD into something good for a change.

Remember the good old days when Catelyn was in Winterfell one chapter and King's Landing in another? I miss those days. If this is what he did for A Game of Thrones, Cat wouldn't of been in King's Landing until page 600.

[Steel_Wind]

He had men. He had responsibility. He weighed the world vs. the life of his sister. He chose his sister. And he did it at a time of extreme uncertainty and peril.

It isn't whether it was oathbreaking or whether it wasn't. While he arranged matters so that the Night's Watch itself was not asked to follow him -- he made an accommodation with his vows to the extent possible.

In the end, GRRM shows us that Jon is his Uncle's son. That was also the part of Eddard that made him human. When pushed by Lyanna to swear to his sister to save his own blood, he did so -- at great cost to his honour and his own marriage. The same thing happens to Eddard at the end when he falsely swears to Joff's claim to the throne to save the life of Sansa and NOT be brought her head on a platter.

For blood and love, a Stark will break his vow. Whether Jon broke his vow -- or was going to -- he made the same choice, albeit for a different reason. He would not abandon Mance Rayder to torture at the hands of Bolton and well understood that like it or not -- the NW was in this now. The Pink Letter had made it personal with Jon Snow. Stannis' involvement of the Watch in the affairs of the North had finally come home to roost.

Had Jon chose differently, we would hate him for such a choice, too.

As to the character devolution of Jon. I disagree with many of the comments made here. There is nothing Jon did which was naive or foolish. The problem with Jon is that his command broke down into two components:

1 - Being a military commander; and

2 - Being a political commander.

In all of his political dealings with Stannis and the Wildlings, Jon was an astute Lord Commander who tried to keep the Watch as neutral as he could. He dealt with the Wildlings honourably -- but not naively. He demanded hostages and worked to break up those recruits to the NW (or levies for those who would not swear) so that the danger would be minimized.

He saw the danger at Hardhome not simply as a humanitarian rescue mission, but as a military objective where to do nothing would place thousands of the dead into the Others army. Save them alive, or fight them as dead wights.

He also dealt with his own troops at the Night's Watch as an able military commander. What he did not suspect was that his own troops needed overt political management in the face of the threat from the Others. He viewed his role as Lord Commander of the NW as a military one with respect to the NW, and a political one outside of it. That was not an unreasonable judgment to make. Except that those who had not been beyond the Wall preferred to make light of the threat from the wights and pretend it did not exist.

[That's why GRRM does not have the corpses rise from the dead in their cells, btw. Never mind whether such a thing was possible South of the Wall -- confirmation of the nature of their enemy would have changed the Stewards and Builders' attitudes. And that would not have served GRRM's narrative.]

So no. I don't buy all this devolution of Jon's character or his acting as a naive humanitarian. Jon recruited, saved, wheedled and dealt with all as fairly -- and as keenly -- as he could. He found the money to feed these new people too.

The one thing Jon could not do was keep the Watch neutral. That wasn't his fault. That was a choice which Stannis forced on Jon. Moreover, while neutrality was a tradition of the NW, it was never a part of the Oath. We also know -- and Jon knows -- that the time for that neutrality had come to an end. The only reason that the NW remains neutral and takes no part in the governance of the realm is so that it can endure. So that it will still be around when it is needed. Well, it's survived to the end game. The Others are now here, and so the need for neutrality of the NW is, frankly, no longer required -- and in any event -- no longer possible.

We see the Battle for the Dawn approaching, while Bowen is too busy counting barrels and burying his head in the snow.

The Brothers of the Watch who killed Jon were not rangers. They were not the ones who had been beyond the wall or seen the wights on the Fist of the First Men. Those members of the Watch understand that the world is a different place and that their mission is a different one than it has been in years past. They understand the Others are now the REAL threat.

But the Stewards and Builders weren't on the Fist. They don't get the change in their mission. They don't go North beyond the Wall and so do not understand that the entire nature of the Watch has changed. Jon's error was in not seeing how timid and blind the Stewards and Builders had become, in relation to the Rangers. He's learned and seen how others in the NW have learned it, too. He believes they will see it in time as well.

But in this, he forgets Tyrion's advice that men would rather deny a hard truth then face up to it. If Jon makes a mistake -- that's where he makes it.

Bowen is a fool as are the men who have joined his group of Senators. Every one of them will die. If the Rangers and Wildlings do not put them to the sword -- Mel and Stannis will. Frankly, I'd be inclined to do something worse:

Give them weapons, furs, flint and steel and provisions and then expel them them north of the Wall through the gate, and close it behind them. That was done in the Age of Heroes and has become an oath of derision and contempt in the Seven Kingdoms ever since:

The Others take them.

[Ran]

The good old days, when Theon goes from the Dreadfort to Moat Cailin to Barrowton to Wintefell in successive chapters.

Or the days when Arya stumbled through nondescript places in the Riverlands, hither and yon.

I miss those days, too. :crying:

[Puck6275]

Why does everyone say Jon was going to go to save his sister? Firstly; it wasn't arya, but more importantly; The letter said that Ramsey DID NOT have his wife. The letter amde it clear that the fake Arya was never with him, and he thought she was wth jon. So why then would Jon go to winterfell to save his sister, whom he has just been told is not there. Him planning to go to winterfell had nothing to do with saving Arya, and everything nto do with reacting to a percieved threat.