People who hate Jon..

[Chaircat Meow]

No, though that's part of it, he just doesn't hold interest for me because his path may be the most stereotypical out of all the heroes. I've seen him before, in many other books, and the contrivances to make him a hero rather than a dead guy are still the same.

Huh, no he doesn't make a hard or meaningful decision at Queenscrown, he refuses to make one. He just stands there. Then Ygritte kills the man, and Summer saves his ass.

You visibly didn't read to the end of my previous post.

Well I can't help you as regards your first point.

As to the second he does make a hard decision, he basically refuses to kill the fellow, when there were at least some grounds to do so (for the good of the mission and his own preservation etc). I take it the only decision you are prepared to accept is Jon slashing the man's throat? What else can he do but stand there if he won't kill the guy?

See, lots of people say Jon is very contrived as regards his plot etc and then admit everybody else is too, but still think they can make hay out if it, because Jon is more contrived. So I just ignore the qualifiers.

[Chaircat Meow]

It's a manifest mischaracterisation. Nobody is asking for Jon to become evil, all that's discussed is that he is always spared from deciding something, following it through, and shouldering the consequences. Until ADWD (and no I don't mean the last chapter only.)

Because when you decide to not kill a man, or a woman for what it's worth, it's easy, you just have to stand there looking heroic, when you should have to deal with the consequences, and the actual hard choice that goes with it. Namely, at Queenscrown: you refuse to kill a man, fine, but you happen to not decide to fight your girlfriend to save him or yourself, no more than you decide to actually kill him, so you could save the Wall later on. The decision her is to die. BUT there is always a deus ex machina at the ready to save our dull hero.

Said girlfriend obviously dies conveniently before inconveniencing our dull hero. A hero can't kill a woman in cold blood, and it would be bad for a future Lord Commander to protect a wildling who happens to be his girlfriend (and also could be pregnant,) yes?

I have to confess, that the idea that deciding to die, rather than dishonour yourself, or wrong somebody else, is an easy choice, is new to me.

And there's nothing implausible or contrived about Ygritte falling to an arrow during the assault on Castle Black. There are more than two archers opposing the wildlings so the odds are it won't be Jon's arrow that fells her.

[Mulled Wino]

He never had a decision to make between the two.

He had to give an answer to Stannis about whether or not he accepted his offer to be made puppet lord of Winterfell, when his boys came and told him he was now Lord Commander, so then he had neither to choose on Stannis' offer or on the Lord Commandership, it was a fait accompli.

Of course he did, he could have turned down LC.

[brashcandy]

It's a manifest mischaracterisation. Nobody is asking for Jon to become evil, all that's discussed is that he is always spared from deciding something, following it through, and shouldering the consequences. Until ADWD (and no I don't mean the last chapter only.)

Because when you decide to not kill a man, or a woman for what it's worth, it's easy, you just have to stand there looking heroic, when you should have to deal with the consequences, and the actual hard choice that goes with it. Namely, at Queenscrown: you refuse to kill a man, fine, but you happen to not decide to fight your girlfriend to save him or yourself, no more than you decide to actually kill him, so you could save the Wall later on. The decision her is to die. BUT there is always a deus ex machina at the ready to save our dull hero.

Said girlfriend obviously dies conveniently before inconveniencing our dull hero. A hero can't kill a woman in cold blood, and it would be bad for a future Lord Commander to protect a wildling who happens to be his girlfriend (and also could be pregnant,) yes?

Once again, this "deus ex machina" has nothing to do with Jon's characterisation in and of itself. He had already made the choice - the difficult one - not to kill the old man. What happens afterwards doesn't prevent him from facing consequences because he still lives with the internal conflicts. At the end of chapter, we read:

The throb of pain in his thigh muscle made him wince as he put his heels into the old man's horse. I am going home, he told himself. But if that was true, why did he feel so hollow?

Jon used Summer's appearance to make his escape, but again, if Martin isn't willing to have him die at this point: something had to happen, but Jon's complexity and inner struggles are never compromised.

[Lyanna Stark]

Jon used Summer's appearance to make his escape, but again, if Martin isn't willing to have him die at this point: something had to happen, but Jon's complexity and inner struggles are never compromised.

If nothing else, the Dany and Jon ADWD reread thread has shown that both Dany and Jon are probably more complex than people normally give them credit for.

[butterbumps!]

I would like to add another hard choice.

Jon receives a letter from Ramsay, telling him that he's marrying Arya (before "the letter" letter). He is miserable for this chapter, ruminating on the awfulness of this situation for his little sister, how much he loves her, and the fact that it is not his place to get involved in non-Watch related activities like this: "If one of my men told me his sister was in peril, I would tell him that was no concern of his."

So enter Melisandre, who offers to join her power with his, save his sister and solve all of his problems through magic. That's right, Melisandre hangs some tempting fruit before him, basically saying that through magic, specifically their joining together, there is an easy way. He thinks: "She has power. The thought came unbidden, seizing him with iron teeth, but this was not a woman he cared to be indebted to, not even for his little sister."

No thanks, Mel. He says, "Dalla told me something once. She said sorcery was a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it."

Though not as "badass" as "Edd, fetch me a block," this may well be my favorite Jon decision to date. He knows Mel is not a fraud, could well solve many of his problems, but refuses to take the "easy way out."

[Headless Jeyne]

I disagree that John never has to make any hard descisions or gets more plot-gifts then other characters ( tho him becoming LC of the NW seemed pretty far-fetched, yes) But to answer the original poster's question I don't dislike Jon, I just find him to be more boring at times then the other characters. He feels very flat, super-serious and humorless to me. Doesn't seem to have too much life to him. But there are exceptions--it was nice to see him get fired up about Ramsay's letter for instance. And I did love his whole story arc with Ygritte, b/c not only was what happened during that period exciting and interesting, undercover with wildlings, going over the wall, defending the wall, but also Ygritte's so awesome a character and so full of life she made up for Jon's lack of it.

[y ddraig]

On his own, I like Jon well enough. He has some very vicious fans though - which shouldn't be affecting the way I see the character, I know, but...

[Margaery'sKickassGrandma]

I think it's easy to be annoyed by Jon because George Double R makes us party to his thought processes and his decisions. Enabling us to be hip to his choice-making means that we can not only disagree with what he does, but why he does it. To top it all off, we tend to know more than he does about external circumstances- we have the information necessary to have done differently. We are now beginning to learn how a lot of additional characters feel and why they act the way they do, make the choices that they make, but it's largely anecdotal and the puzzle pieces are slower to come together.

Any character can be despised or beloved depending on your own POV- we are as skewed in our perceptions as the characters- thus why the human element of the story is so compelling :-)

(Sorry- brief grammar edit)

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

I never, ever understood the criticism of the so-called "plot gifts" that Jon gets, or why they're more egregious than Dany getting the Unsullied (in my opinion, the single biggest "give me a goddamn break" contrivance in the series, bar none) or Tyrion not dying eleventy billion times before now or Arya getting a magic "Pass Go and Collect $200" coin. Jon got a direwolf pup, only after he was willing to go without one just so the others wouldn't be killed outright. He got a Valyrian sword for saving Mormont, something he can't pass down as an heirloom just by virtue of being in the Watch. And he was elected — through no wish of his own — to the Lord Commander position, something he didn't want and which it turns out (see: ADWD) is hardly a "gift." People are getting their knickers twisted over that, when thousands of die-hard super-eunuchs are changing hands based on fuck all and dwarfs keep talking themselves out of death sentence after death sentence? I call shenanigans.

As someone else said, if you're a main character in this story and you're still alive, you've gotten a plot contrivance here and there. That's just how it is. Some people think Jon's arc is boring — I don't see how, but that's me. Other people are enthralled by arcs that I think are boring. That's just how it is. But when people say things like, "He's never had to make a hard choice," I have to wonder what it is that they're reading, exactly. 'Cause it's not ADWD, where it's hard choice after hard choice — let them in or don't, how to feed everyone, how to diplomatically write to the competing kings, how to placate Stannis, how to deal with Melisandre, how to garrison the Wall, how to keep factions from fighting, and so on and on.

I like Jon a lot and make no bones about it. I like that he's fundamentally decent, I like that he has a spine and a good sense of right and wrong, I like that he has yet to commit wholesale atrocities or torture, I like that he's on the ground and getting hands-on with the Watch when he takes it over, not hiding out in some tower on high. I like that he carries out his own sentences. I like that he tries to be fair and consistent, I like that he knows how to take good advice and I like how he came to leadership based on an election, not because he decided he should do it just because. Basically, I like him for all the things that set him apart from Dany.

ETA: And yeah, from what I've seen, I think a lot of the Jon disdain/indifference comes from plain old contrarianism. "Look how cool and cutting edge I am for thinking Jon Snow's boring." Yawn.

[Jon Flowers]

I never, ever understood the criticism of the so-called "plot gifts" that Jon gets, or why they're more egregious than Dany getting the Unsullied (in my opinion, the single biggest "give me a goddamn break" contrivance in the series, bar none) or Tyrion not dying eleventy billion times before now or Arya getting a magic "Pass Go and Collect $200" coin. Jon got a direwolf pup, only after he was willing to go without one just so the others wouldn't be killed outright. He got a Valyrian sword for saving Mormont, something he can't pass down as an heirloom just by virtue of being in the Watch. And he was elected — through no wish of his own — to the Lord Commander position, something he didn't want and which it turns out (see: ADWD) is hardly a "gift." People are getting their knickers twisted over that, when thousands of die-hard super-eunuchs are changing hands based on fuck all and dwarfs keep talking themselves out of death sentence after death sentence? I call shenanigans.

As someone else said, if you're main character in this story and you're still alive, you've gotten a plot contrivance here and there. That's just how it is. Some people think Jon's arc is boring — I don't see how, but that's me. Other people are enthralled by arcs that I think are boring. That's just how it is. But when people say things like, "He's never had to make a hard choice," I have to wonder what it is that they're reading, exactly. 'Cause it's not ADWD, where it's hard choice after hard choice — let them in or don't, how to feed everyone, how to diplomatically write to the competing kings, how to placate Stannis, how to deal with Melisandre, how to garrison the Wall, how to keep factions from fighting, and so on and on.

I like Jon a lot and make no bones about it. I like that he's fundamentally decent, I like that he has a spine and a good sense of right and wrong, I like that he has yet to commit wholesale atrocities or torture, I like that he's on the ground and getting hands-on with the Watch when he takes it over, not hiding out in some tower on high. I like that he carries out his own sentences. I like that he tries to be fair and consistent, I like that he knows how to take good advice and I like how he came to leadership based on an election, not because he decided he should do it just because. Basically, I like him for all the things that set him apart from Dany.

ETA: And yeah, from what I've seen, I think a lot of the Jon disdain/indifference comes from plain old contrarianism. "Look how cool and cutting edge I am for thinking Jon Snow's boring." Yawn.

Well put. I would only add that he has a healthy dose of self doubt as well. That is to say he doesn't seem to see himself as infallible, or entitled for that matter.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Well put. I would only add that he has a healthy dose of self doubt as well. That is to say he doesn't seem to see himself as infallible, or entitled for that matter.

Yes, this is true.

The Jon passage that sticks with me the most is when he's being held captive on Slynt and Thorne's orders in Storm of Swords, after Ygritte has been killed, and he thinks he's going to die and wishes he'd just stayed in the cave with her. He thinks about Robb and how he'll be remembered as a tragic hero, while Jon will either not be remembered at all or will be remembered as a turncoat. Then he thinks about how he's glad that Ned isn't alive "to see his shame."

... But no, no nuance or complexity there at all.

[Impin'ain'teasy]

I get that since his character is sort of a traditional heroic character in a sort of deconstructionist work, and that rubs some people the wrong way.

That said, he isn't like a lot of traditional heroes in my personal opinion for the sole fact he fails constantly. Outside of saving Mormont, Jon Snow really lacks the big time heroic moments that other fantasy protagonists have. He just seems to be doing the best he can.

Also, I thought that he was pretty awesome in ADWD.

[CoolGirlsMurderFriend]

I don't get the hate for him wanting to get the jump on Ramsay after the letter. A score of wildlings did a ton of damage to castle black, what would an entire army do? Not to mention it keeps the fighting away from the women and children that would remain on the gift.

Speaking of the gift, if he didn't give it to Stannis, Stannis was perfectly happy to take it. Jon showed cunning and intelligence being able to make him compromise on what was essentially an order.

[Scipio Africanus]

What I personally like about the guy is indeed, as Apple Martini points out (in vain to the haters?) that he doesn't feel infallible or entitled. That doesn't mean he doesn't have ambition or doesn't feel feelings of rivalry with Robb (who is destined to get everything, and is perfectly natural), but he realizes his lot and after a bit of doubting (which again is normal) does try to make the best of it.

This is in stark (pun unintended) contrast with Dany who feels she owns the joint and is constantly surprised that just because she has the blood of the dragon that not everyone is bending the knee.

As for plot gifts, you could name the following:

- killing Qhorin and staying alive after his party is captured by Wildlings

- escaping alive when the Wildlings turn on him after he refused to kill an old man (with the help of direwolf Summer)

- after being ordered on a suicide mission to assassinate Ryder by Slynt, Stan shows up with an army

- becoming LC of the NW (thanks to Sam's election rigging and a warged Mormont's raven)

All of the above are indeed "fortunate", but like Apple already said other main POVs like Dany, Arya and Tyrion get massive breaks as well. I mean Ned and Catelyn never got any such breaks compared to the aforementioned three.

As for Jon:

- he was ordered to kill Qhorin by Qhorin himself and to "defect" to the Wildlings, and he knew he was damned if he didn't do it (he would get killed) or he did dot it (become a traitor). Some people think it was an easy decision but I never got the impression that Jon felt the same way

- kind of lucky Bran was nearby, but under normal circumstances his own Direwolf would've been nearby to help him. Weather conditions were poor and I very much doubt the Wildlings were expert soldiers, so that they didn't kill him outright is not that bizare

- very lucky I suppose, but we don't know if Jon would've actually killed Mance or just defect to him, and Stan was making his way to the Wall as per Mel's suggestion, Stan need to show up at some point

- perhaps less lucky as it seems, Jon Snow was of noble birth and the NW was horribly devided, making election rigging for Sam and our feathered friend possible, the NW basically chose a dark horse, this has happened in our history as well (Lincoln was a dark horse for the Republican party, Franklin Pierce was a dark horse chosen into the White House)

Compared to Ned and Catelyn he got a lot of breaks but compared to Dany, Arya and Tyrion they're really not that bad or worst then what the aforementioned three got.

[Lyanna Stark]

ETA: And yeah, from what I've seen, I think a lot of the Jon disdain/indifference comes from plain old contrarianism. "Look how cool and cutting edge I am for thinking Jon Snow's boring." Yawn.

Yep, it always confused me why people dislike Jon Snow since he really is a decent person and tries his best, constantly. I've even seen him tarred and feathered with the "Garu Stu" label which is really confusing. While he arguably had some plot armour in his adventures with the wildlings, Arya's and Tyrion's plot armour is about a hundred times thicker, and Dany had more luck up until ADWD where her shit really hits the fan big time.

Perhaps there is also some random hate for characters that are generally sympathetic? Jon, Brienne, Bran and Sansa are on average nice to people, or at least try to be, but often get labelled "boring" maybe because they're not suffering enough conflicted morals about all their past bad deeds, unlike Tyrion and Jaime?

[Tagganaro]

The idea that Jon has never had to make a tough decision that has had consequences is laughable. There's really no need to even debate that further as it has been covered.

As for plot gifts, that too was covered above- Every single POV character has what could be called plot gifts help them out.

As for why I like Jon, AM covered it perfectly above. He's a fundamentally decent human being who is committed to ideals of honor, chivalry, and genuine sympathy for others while not being too rigid to bend those ideals when the situation calls for it. I like how he reflects on pretty much anything and everything someone tells him even if he doesn't like it, and is even willing to give guys like Janos Slynt and Ser Alliser Thorne second chances even though they don't deserve it at all. Plus, pretty much any scene with Jon/Stannis or Jon/Mance/Tormund/Val is priceless. Oh, and he doesn't take crap from Melisandre and just fall in line with everything she tells him (like Dany annoyingly does with HOTU and Quaithe).

I really don't get how anyone can call his chapters boring, especially beginning with "stealing" Ygritte and the fight with Qhorin. Everything after that is just flat-out riveting imo.

[Swordsaint]

Precisely. IMO, a lot of this criticism stems from people wanting Jon to make immoral, unethical decisions, and when he doesn't it's perceived as somehow Martin making things easier for him. I think we have to appreciate Jon's character for what it is: essentially honest, decent, kind and compassionate, but also someone who isn't afraid of making hard, controversial decisions for the greater good or sometimes just for the good of one person. He also doesn't prize his honour above all else, something which has doomed many a good man.

Well put, I think you just became my favorite character on these forums <3

I love how a Jon hate thread turned into Jon discussion thread. This thread is more about people either loving Jon's pov's, or writing essays about how they could have been better in their own opinions.

[Scipio Africanus]

I really don't get how anyone can call his chapters boring, especially beginning with "stealing" Ygritte and the fight with Qhorin. Everything after that is just flat-out riveting imo.

People should think about it another way. If Jon was a dashing witty hero killing massive scores of enemies all the while betraying no feelings of doubt everyone would've gone "oh an Aragon" or "oh Orlando Bloom" or "oh Errol Flynn".

I quite like Jon not killing hordes of baddies, not banging several chicks (or that one hot chick) at once and not having no feelings of doubt, it makes him more believable.

[Castel]

The whole concept of plot gifts and plot armour seem to take the grittiness of the world too far and seem to believe that it's not a story with certain notes that have to be hit imo. Characters generally receive plot gifts and armour, just because it's more subtle or is the result of other characters' decisions doesn't mean that it isn't just that.