[ADwD Spoilers] Jon and Dany character devolution

[mcb]

You're not going to mount much of a defense from a castle with no walls. It's specifically stated numerous times throughout the series that the NW was required to build their castles with no defense to an attack from the South, in order to keep them loyal, or in the event that they didn't stay loyal, they'd be easy to defeat.

As I recall, there's a story about a Stark mudstomping the Watch at some point in the books. It's an obscure reference, but one that is made. If you know there's no chance to defend, meeting an enemy in the open field, or on a field of your own choosing becomes the better plan.

Hardly. Out of the two options Ramsay offered, "you come to me or I come to you", the former is decidedly less attractive. True, the Wall offers no protection. Still, unless Ramsay had a cunning plan to take Winterfell with him, Jon would've been better off defending the Wall than going after the Bastard.

When I read the last Jon chapter, I can't get rid of picture of Gob Bluth doing chicken dance, or Biff Tannen taunting "What's wrong, McFly? Chicken?". The amazing thing is, it worked.

Shrugs. He played his "break oaths and race into a blizzard" card and got stabbed for it. Four times. I don't blame the men who did it for a second (although I would if they had done it any earlier).

Well, they obviously had planned it earlier. One spontaneous assassin acting on impulse? Possible. Three or more of them at the same moment? I'll go out on a limb and say it was premeditated. Still don't blame them?

[Volderon]

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.

Yeah but he could have done what he did in ASOS and waited at the wall, he has the numbers, he didn't NEED to go to Winterfell. He was acting the boy. He obviously didn't "kill the boy." Too bad he didn't have Maester Aemon to tell him he's being an idiot.

[Puck6275]

Yeah but he could have done what he did in ASOS and waited at the wall, he has the numbers, he didn't NEED to go to Winterfell. He was acting the boy. He obviously didn't "kill the boy." Too bad he didn't have Maester Aemon to tell him he's being an idiot.

The wisdom of his actions not withstanding, saying they were fueled in the desire to save Arya is just not true.

[Steel_Wind]

The wisdom of his actions not withstanding, saying they were fueled in the desire to save Arya is just not true.

I agree.

Though to the extent that he provoked Ramsay by sending Mance there in the first place -- and now felt duty bound to rescue him and kill Bolton -- the initial trigger was for Arya.

[jxd]

I thought Jon was a terrible LC:

The Night Watch being stretched as thin as it is (less than a thousand are left I believe, and most of them are green or old), and Marsh's advice of sealing the gates is a good one, even Jon thought so, he still sent 9 experience men out to die, knowing full well that a 300 strong force was annihilated easily by the Others.

His idea to survive the winter is to bringing in supplies through Eastwatch, so of course, he then sent his entire fleet on a suicide mission.

[Fantasy Fan]

Jon is _evolving_.

He is moving away from being solely commander of the men of the Night's Watch to being commander of the forces of humanity against the others.

He has taken charge of the Wildings. While he has welcomed them to join the Night's Watch, he is directing the rest, who don't join, to fight against the Others.

The rest of the North is next.

It will all become clearer, when the wall falls.

Oh.. of course, if the story is about who sits on the Iron Throne, and the Others are just a side show up north of the wall, then Jon is abandoning the wall to play the game of thrones.

But if the game of thrones is just a distraction in a struggle for the survival of humanity, then Jon is playing his role as leader in that struggle.

[CatelynFan]

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.

But is this really "regressing" their characters? I'm not certain, but it sounds like you would have preferred it if Jon and Dany had become completely worldly-wise, heroic, badass characters in this book despite their ages and experience. In my opinion, this would have made their arcs intolerably boring.

[Damocles]

But is this really "regressing" their characters? I'm not certain, but it sounds like you would have preferred it if Jon and Dany had become completely worldly-wise, heroic, badass characters in this book despite their ages and experience. In my opinion, this would have made their arcs intolerably boring.

What I'm saying, is that they were considerably more worldly than before. I care little for their heroic badassery. I care more for them repeating the exact same mistakes. And you have to add 5 years to all of GRRM's characters, cause that's basically how he envisioned them.

[Volderon]

But is this really "regressing" their characters? I'm not certain, but it sounds like you would have preferred it if Jon and Dany had become completely worldly-wise, heroic, badass characters in this book despite their ages and experience. In my opinion, this would have made their arcs intolerably boring.

What was intolerably boring was Jon and Dany's arcs in this novel.

[Alaric Storm]

alright, this parallel may have already been mentioned, but im going throw it out there anyway.

Robb Stark: recognizes that his direwolf is something special. recognizes that his direwolf is, in a strange way, a part of him. stretches himself to thin, believes in his friends, etc etc. AND YET, when his direwolf starts to freak out, he underplays it, ignores it, dismisses it. rather than confide in his friends, have them confide in him, and establish a two way street (KARSTARK), he plays his hand close to the vest. he continues to ignore Grey Wind's building unease and believes in the Freys, and so, Robb dies.

Jon Snow: has the warg dreams and knows Ghost is somehow a part of him. knows Ghost is special in it's own ways. he sends his friends away, sends his enemies away, and refuses to take Melisandre's warning to heart. and when Ghost starts to freak out, Jon dismisses it and blames a damn boar. doesnt explain to his underlings why he has to save the wildlings at Hardhome (4k corpses is alot of corpses), why he has to embrace to wildlings (needs to man the Wall), why he has to march south (pre-emptive strike). instead, he goes all gung-ho with the wildlings and ignores his fellow watchmen. and so, Jon now is presumed dead.

does anyone else see this as repetative tool Grrim uses to build up drama or am i nuts?

Edit: (i apologize for typos) u can defend a castle with no walls, its called preperation, and for those who dont play RTS video games, heres what you need. u need to establish fail safes (what will happen when an enemy takes one of your strong points), death traps (marking off an area as a kill zone), cross fires (multiple vantage points of ranged fire), choke points (a paticular location where few can hold off many), skirmishers (first line of defense uses guerilla tactics), and the most basic tactic of playing to your strengths (which Jon had scattered along the Wall). Jon could have done it, yet he insisted on marching south against Ramsay because he owed Mance a debt of honor (too much of Eddard in him). sorry for the double talk.

[Blue Steel]

I thought Jon was a terrible LC:

The Night Watch being stretched as thin as it is (less than a thousand are left I believe, and most of them are green or old), and Marsh's advice of sealing the gates is a good one, even Jon thought so, he still sent 9 experience men out to die, knowing full well that a 300 strong force was annihilated easily by the Others.

His idea to survive the winter is to bringing in supplies through Eastwatch, so of course, he then sent his entire fleet on a suicide mission.

You must be reading a different book.

Not only is Jon a great LC, he's probably the best ruler in the series that's still alive.

Opening the Wall to the Wildings was both a practical and moral choice for Jon who defined the realms of men to include Wildings. The Wall wasn't built to keep out Wildings, it was built to keep out the Others. Morally, that's a lot of men, women and children who would be left to fend for themselves. Practically, he had to bring those Wildings south of the wall because the NW was undermanned and he needed to garrison more forts. Also the Wildings who would be trapped north of the wall would just become wights and augment the forces of the Others anyway. Also those Wildings would eventually try to breach the Wall again because they wouldn't have any other choice and that would only weaken the Wall's defenses.

And once he opened the Wall to the wildings, Jon also integrated the wildings into Westeros society through marriage alliances.

Jon's leadership was too progressive and forward thinking for the sensibilities of the old fashioned brothers such as Bowen Marsh who represent the old Night's Watch that was slowly dying. Most of the Watch's castles were allowed to fall into ruin. Jon saved the Nights Watch, but unfortunately, he was killed for it.

[Steel_Wind]

I thought Jon was a terrible LC:

The Night Watch being stretched as thin as it is (less than a thousand are left I believe, and most of them are green or old), and Marsh's advice of sealing the gates is a good one, even Jon thought so, he still sent 9 experience men out to die, knowing full well that a 300 strong force was annihilated easily by the Others.

His idea to survive the winter is to bringing in supplies through Eastwatch, so of course, he then sent his entire fleet on a suicide mission.

Over 30,000 wildlings marched on the Wall. He has now added a shade under 5,000 to the forces of the NW. If he seals the gates, he will be blind and unable to send out mounted Rangers. He will be unable to gather more wildlings south of the Wall.

He makes the correct choice. The cowards who think the Wildlings are the foe want to seal it; the Rangers don't.

Sending the ships to Hardhome was not a suicide mission. It was a deft stroke. Marching the Watch north of the Wall to save Cotter Pyke? That might have been stupid -- but he never got the chance to do it. The Pink Letter arrives to thwart that.

(Which is why I wonder if Mel wasn't the one to send it...)

Jon is the most able LC the Night's Watch has ever had. You're wrong. Sealing the gates now would be folly.

The Others aren't coming through the gates anyway. There is only one reason you build a Wall 700 feet tall. It's because the prophetic visions which motivated the Builders in the first place showed them that a 600 foot tall Wall was too low.

The Others plan to wait for the snows of the Long Night to fall 100 feet deep and drift up all along the Wall at multiple points under the ceaseless north wind that never, ever stops.

When the snow drifts get tall enough to make a ramp over the top at multiple points along the lower parts of the Wall -- then the Others will be coming over the top of it. There is no other conceivable reason to build the Wall that tall.

The Gates are a sideshow.

[pera]

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.

I agree, totally. Stalling is the central feature of all treads in AFFC & ADWD.

[jack88]

If Jon really was only concerned about the god damn boar he should have locked that up instead of his incredibly loyal direwolf, who so far has saved his life SEVERAL times. Or sent the boar and his skinchanger to one of the other castles. Its ridiculous that Jon is worried about Ghost eating a pig.

The only logical reason I can see for locking him up like that is the fact that if Ghost had been with Jon when he got stabbed, Ghost might have gotten killed too, and if the Jon resurrection theories are right then I'm sure Ghost will have some part to play in that.

If you think about it logically though, without the omniscience of having read the books, locking Ghost up makes no sense whatsoever.

[pera]

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.

I wasn't aware that Jon is Lyanna's child. Could you please elaborate?

[El Pinko Grande]

It really felt to me like Jon and Dany's chapters suffered from GRRM's decision not to go with a five year downtime. I think he needed to create drama out of what was mostly a static situation in both of their cases. It seemed like Dany was supposed to sit in Mereen and try to rule, while Jon was supposed to work on integrating the Wildlings onto the Gift while Stannis and the Boltons fought out a slow-motion winter campaign.

As for Dany's questionable behavior in the book, I think it is largely due to her being deprived of her dragons. I think her locking her dragons away is sort of the short-term equivalent of Sansa losing Lady- the fierce, decisive part of herself gets locked away with Viserion and Rhaegal. I suspect we'll see the old Dany in the next book, now that she has her children back.

[Jon Connington's Return]

You must be reading a different book.

Not only is Jon a great LC, he's probably the best ruler in the series that's still alive.

Opening the Wall to the Wildings was both a practical and moral choice for Jon who defined the realms of men to include Wildings. The Wall wasn't built to keep out Wildings, it was built to keep out the Others. Morally, that's a lot of men, women and children who would be left to fend for themselves. Practically, he had to bring those Wildings south of the wall because the NW was undermanned and he needed to garrison more forts. Also the Wildings who would be trapped north of the wall would just become wights and augment the forces of the Others anyway. Also those Wildings would eventually try to breach the Wall again because they wouldn't have any other choice and that would only weaken the Wall's defenses.

And once he opened the Wall to the wildings, Jon also integrated the wildings into Westeros society through marriage alliances.

Jon's leadership was too progressive and forward thinking for the sensibilities of the old fashioned brothers such as Bowen Marsh who represent the old Night's Watch that was slowly dying. Most of the Watch's castles were allowed to fall into ruin. Jon saved the Nights Watch, but unfortunately, he was killed for it.

But a good leader is able to convince his underlings that what he is doing is the best course of action. A good leader does not expect anyone to blindly obey, especially when their lives are on the line.

I don't think he ever talked to Bowen Marsh or Yarwyck and explained why the wildlings were safe to allow to cross, that they are denying the Others corpses, how the wildlings can help, etc. etc. Not until it was too late though. He just issued orders and expected them to be carried out. There wasn't any real dialogue, and he should have at least attempted to establish one with his senior commanders.

[Total Depravity]

Basically, they had to stupid themselves out of the five year gap...Out of the Night's Watch, and out of Mereen, respectively.

This. It is known. Go back and read the first three books. They aren't even the same characters. It is was incredibly disappointing. I don't mind where they ended up plot wise, I just wish they had remained the same characters along the way.

[Red Dirt]

Also, where Dany is concerned, GRRM made the rare mistake of giving us one /more/ chapter than we would have liked. Dany riding away on a dragon was probably the most /gentle/ cliffhanger he could've given us. Whereas the final final cliffhanger was more like what you'd expect from an opening chapter and not nearly so compelling.

I am in agreement. As readers we knew that Dany was alive and that being carried away was simply the very beginning of learning to ride the dragon, but would have been a fine cliff hanger since we had no idea where she went. The last chapter is the beginning of the next step and easily could have waited.

[Direwolf_Warg]

Hardly. Out of the two options Ramsay offered, "you come to me or I come to you", the former is decidedly less attractive. True, the Wall offers no protection. Still, unless Ramsay had a cunning plan to take Winterfell with him, Jon would've been better off defending the Wall than going after the Bastard.

When I read the last Jon chapter, I can't get rid of picture of Gob Bluth doing chicken dance, or Biff Tannen taunting "What's wrong, McFly? Chicken?". The amazing thing is, it worked.

We disagree. You can't defend the castle effectively from an attack from the South. You have all the women and children of the wildlings camped out at Mole's Town. You don't fight a battle with no rally points, or avenues of retreat unless you mean to fight to the last man. Jon knows the North as well as any man. He could chose a piece of ground much better suited for a fight without much problem, I'd think. People are making so much of the snow, but the Northmen were laughing at it. The Southerners with Stannis were the ones that were affected.

I don't disagree that Jon being spurred to action from the contents of the letter he even admits is likely only partially true was strange. In fact, it seems to make very little sense from any angle. I'm not disputing that. What I'm saying is that fighting a battle with no avenue of retreat that puts women and children at risk at an indefensible castle isn't an optimal plan when you have alternatives.