Jon Snow's Death?

[Tourniquet]

Oh, they totally happened, I'm not denying that! I suppose I can be a little clearer: Until we hear that Jon is dead from someone's POV who has seen the body and knows for certain that it is Jon, I'm not putting him out for the count. If we just hear somebody saying that somebody told them that their aunt from Mole Town heard that Jon Snow is dead, I'll still be skeptical after the Davos is dead/Davos lives thing.

By this line of thinking Ned is still alive. Everyone could be. No one's POV is reliable as GRRM is noted for using the unreliable narrator as a literary device.

[rmholt]

My new theory about Jon:

In the House of the Undying Daenerys saw a man with blue eyes who cast no shadow wielding a red sword. Is this Stannis? Well, I dont know but hs does cast a shadow and his sword isnt really Lightbringer. Jon had a dream in which he was armored in ice and wielded a sword, red IIRC. Perhaps the ice was SPecial Ice, the stuff Others' swords are made of. I think he dies and becomes a watcher on the Wall. He cant really leave the Wall and renounce his vows. His innate skinchanger skills will be brought into play somehow.

I dont think he has to die but he will. He'll come back. I used to think that was cheap but putting him on the wall as sort of a good Other type, perhaps the last hero with the equivalent of Lightbringer, special Ice armor and a magic wolf, and the ability to access the weirwood network through Ghost seems pretty significant.

[Quiet Isle]

My new theory about Jon:

In the House of the Undying Daenerys saw a man with blue eyes who cast no shadow wielding a red sword. Is this Stannis? Well, I dont know but hs does cast a shadow and his sword isnt really Lightbringer. Jon had a dream in which he was armored in ice and wielded a sword, red IIRC. Perhaps the ice was SPecial Ice, the stuff Others' swords are made of. I think he dies and becomes a watcher on the Wall. He cant really leave the Wall and renounce his vows. His innate skinchanger skills will be brought into play somehow.

I dont think he has to die but he will. He'll come back. I used to think that was cheap but putting him on the wall as sort of a good Other type, perhaps the last hero with the equivalent of Lightbringer, special Ice armor and a magic wolf, and the ability to access the weirwood network through Ghost seems pretty significant.

IMHO, the Wall is coming down when Fire and Ice meet. Rhollor and the others. and that's with a great flood, which Bran predicted and Osha misinterpreted as the Ironborn coming to Winterfell. Bran was right. there's going to be a great flood. and No Wall, No Vows.

[Lion of Judah]

I mention a lot of this stuff here: http://asoiaf.wester...tion-mythology/

As far as the overall purpose of the stabbing, apart from Bowen and Co. wanting to kill Jon, it seems as if latent warging abilities are kickstarted or enhanced due to physical or emotional trauma. For Bran, this was when he fell and became paralyzed. For Arya, it was when she was made blind. For Jon, it might be this stabbing — a traumatic event that ends up causing his thus-far mostly untapped abilities to awaken.

I hope this is the case and would that I hope it is his way out of the NW as well.

[rmholt]

IMHO, the Wall is coming down when Fire and Ice meet. Rhollor and the others. and that's with a great flood, which Bran predicted and Osha misinterpreted as the Ironborn coming to Winterfell. Bran was right. there's going to be a great flood. and No Wall, No Vows.

Guess it'll have to built again. SOmeone still needs to lead the war against the Others.

[rmholt]

IMHO, the Wall is coming down when Fire and Ice meet. Rhollor and the others. and that's with a great flood, which Bran predicted and Osha misinterpreted as the Ironborn coming to Winterfell. Bran was right. there's going to be a great flood. and No Wall, No Vows.

About the flood prediction are you talking about Jojen's dream and how it came true when the Ironborn showed up and killed all the people predicted to be drowned? neither Osha nor Bran had anything to do directly with this prediction.

[WakeTheDragon]

While there's lots of death fake outs there's lots of real ones as well and Jon was stabbed at least 3 times. I personally think he's gone. It's consistant with the way the books have gone so far.

[sifth]

Well, until someone whose perspective we can trust says so in the books. GRRM already pulled that trick with Davos, so I wouldn't put it past him to do that again. At the moment, Jon's state is extremely vague. He could be dead, he could be in bad shape, or he could be UnJon. *shiver* I really hope he isn't UnJon. There are just so many zombies already.

he's pulled it with Davos twice, Jamie once, Theon once, Cat once, and from the sample chapter of TWOW he's pulled it with Stannis as well.

at this point I'm not very worried about Jon to be honest

[Drogo_BR]

Well, i used to believe jon was dead, until i re-read one of the bran chapters in AGoT. Now i think he is in coma and will be warging into ghost.

Work your magic Brandon of the House Stark: :cool4:

"He saw Winterfell as the eagles see it, the tall towers looking squat and stubby from above, the castle walls just lines in the dirt. He saw Maester Luwin on his balcony, studying the sky through a polished bronze tube and frowning as he made notes in a book. He saw his brother Robb, taller and stronger than he remembered him, practicing swordplay in the yard with real steel in his hand. He saw Hodor, the simple giant from the stables, carrying an anvil to Mikken’s forge, hefting it onto his shoulder as easily as another man might heft a bale of hay. At the heart of the godswood, the great white weirwood brooded over its reflection in the black pool, its leaves rustling in a chill wind. When it felt Bran watching, it lifted its eyes from the still waters and stared back at him knowingly.

He looked east, and saw a galley racing across the waters of the Bite. He saw his mother sitting alone in a cabin, looking at a bloodstained knife on a table in front of her, as the rowers pulled at their oars and Ser Rodrik leaned across a rail, shaking and heaving. A storm was gathering ahead of them, a vast dark roaring lashed by lightning, but somehow they could not see it.

He looked south, and saw the great blue-green rush of the Trident. He saw his father pleading with the king, his face etched with grief. He saw Sansa crying herself to sleep at night, and he saw Arya watching in silence and holding her secrets hard in her heart. There were shadows all around them. One shadow was dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound. Another was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful. Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.

He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the narrow sea, to the Free Cities and the green Dothraki sea and beyond, to Vaes Dothrak under its mountain, to the fabled lands of the Jade Sea, to Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise.

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. And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. 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 on his cheeks."

[pobeb]

Yes, Jon Snow is absolutely 100% dead... for now. He's going to warg into Ghost and be resurrected. Why do I think this? The book's prologue is there to forshadow it.

Concerning Jon’s death:

“When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he

gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold …”

Concerning Varamyr’s death:

“True death came suddenly; he felt a shock of cold, as if he had been plunged into the icy waters of a frozen lake.”

Coincidence or foreshadowing? Seems too similar for it to be anything but another point to support the idea that Jon wargs into Ghost when his human body dies. And consider all the other hints GRRM gives us throughout the book:

-Mel seeing him turn from Jon, to Ghost, to Jon again

-Mel constantly urging Jon to keep Ghost close (I imagine because his gift isn’t as developed… well, that and she knows he’s going to die)

-Haggon’s advice to Varamyr, saying, “You take one, that’s a marriage. The wolf is part of you from

that day on, and you’re part of him. Both of you will change.”

Then we have all of Jon’s supporting thoughts:

-“He wondered if some part of his dead brothers lived on inside their wolves.”

-“Ghost is more alive than I am.”

-“Ghost did not count. Ghost was closer than a friend. Ghost was part of him.”

- “Jon smelled Tom Barleycorn before he saw him. Or was it Ghost who smelled him? Of late, Jon Snow sometimes felt as if he and the direwolf were one, even awake.”

Going back to the prologue, here’s an interesting tidbit for all the “AA = Jon” theorists:

Varamyr:

“Mance should have let me take the direwolf. There would be a second life

worthy of a king. He could have done it, he did not doubt. The gift was strong in Snow, but the youth was untaught, still fighting his nature when he should have gloried in it.”

Still fighting his nature? Hmm, call me crazy, but for me this line resonates with “Kill the boy and let the man be born.”

[WakeTheDragon]

He could be warged into ghost but still the man Jon Snow is dead. Ghost can't make a huge difference in the story. Jon suppressed his gift anyways so he might not even have been able to pull that off.

[JP Dayne]

yea, it's not like strong magical starks can be brought back from the brink of death

just imagine, how awesome it'll be, when jon have his bran-like dream, with the 3EC telling him he, also, can fly, and then return to reality

the ramifications of it could be a plot accelerator to GRRM, seeing he only has 2 book to go

[Lord Ben]

So it may be that even with the chaos, someone in the busy yard may notice Jon's being attacked, and intervene. It's still very unclear how hurt Jon is from this attack, and whether or not he's died or passed out. You make the point this would be consistent with Martin's writing style for this to be the end of Jon, but I disagree. Martin loves the end of chapter death fakeout. Some examples include:

• Davos' last chapter in ACoK, where he witnesses from closeby the Blackwater being consumed by fire.
  
• Arya being hit in the head with an axe at the Red Wedding.
  
• Ned being attacked by Jaime Lannister in AGoT.
  
• Brienne being "hung" in AFFC.
  
• Asha being beneath "the blow that would finish her" in ADWD at Deepwood Motte.
  

Etc. It could go either way with Jon honestly, but I'd hardly be surprised live or die.

Eddard, Catelyn, and Quentyn are the only major POV characters to actually die. All of which were in a public spectacle and left little doubt as to the result or in the case of Quentyn confirmed directly from another source who was there while he died. In every situation where there is ambiguity the POV character has turned out to survive. When other main characters die like Robert, Tywin, Robb there is no doubt about their fate and they die quite obviously. Robb having the sword plunged through his heart, Tywin shitting as he dies, etc.

[WakeTheDragon]

Eddard, Catelyn, and Quentyn are the only major POV characters to actually die. All of which were in a public spectacle and left little doubt as to the result or in the case of Quentyn confirmed directly from another source who was there while he died. In every situation where there is ambiguity the POV character has turned out to survive. When other main characters die like Robert, Tywin, Robb there is no doubt about their fate and they die quite obviously. Robb having the sword plunged through his heart, Tywin shitting as he dies, etc.

Getting stabbed 3-4 times?! Pretty obvious. People just can't let Jon go.

[kephv]

Getting stabbed 3-4 times?! Pretty obvious. People just can't let Jon go.

Yeah, but GRRM has all kinds of magic in his world. Or knowing Jon's luck, he'll just survive and shake it off like it was nothing.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Getting stabbed 3-4 times?! Pretty obvious. People just can't let Jon go.

The first stab was a flesh wound. He takes one in the midsection and one in the back, and the fourth is up in the air. People have survived worse, bearing in mind that he also would have been wearing thick layers because of the cold.

[Lord Ben]

No more obvious than Brianne being hung or Arya getting hit in the head with an axe by one of the better fighters in Westeros or Davos having his hands and head nailed to the gates of the city.

All we know is that he got stabbed. He's not the first guy in the book to survive a stabbing.

[kephv]

It's not like it matters what anyone thinks, because of one looks back through the SSMs they'll find GRRM saying Jon will at one point find out who his parents are--and he can't do that if he's dead. That or he's seriously changed his mind.

[Lord Ben]

When he has a character die he typically lops their head off in front of a crowd or has another POV witness it (or both). When they lose but live he has his "fade to black" moments where we have to wait a bit to see how they get out of a tough bind.

• Eddard Stark - Stabbed in a fight in KL.
  
• Tyrion Lannister - "goes black" in two battles. Survives both.
  
• Bran Stark - Pushed from a window, corpse hung up on display
  
• Arya Stark - Hit in the head with an axe.
  
• Theon Greyjoy - Goes black in Winterfell, has his "last thing he saw was" moment.
  
• Davos Seaworth - Drowned plus had his head and hands nailed up and was reported as dead then too.
  
• Samwell Tarly - Bumps into some White Walkers.
  
• Brienne Tarth - is hung.
  

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

When he has a character die he typically lops their head off in front of a crowd or has another POV witness it (or both). When they lose but live he has his "fade to black" moments where we have to wait a bit to see how they get out of a tough bind.

• Eddard Stark - Stabbed in a fight in KL.
  
• Tyrion Lannister - "goes black" in two battles. Survives both.
  
• Bran Stark - Pushed from a window, corpse hung up on display
  
• Arya Stark - Hit in the head with an axe.
  
• Theon Greyjoy - Goes black in Winterfell, has his "last thing he saw was" moment.
  
• Davos Seaworth - Drowned plus had his head and hands nailed up and was reported as dead then too.
  
• Samwell Tarly - Bumps into some White Walkers.
  
• Brienne Tarth - is hung.
  

Yeah, if everyone stayed dead when it was hinted they were dead, there'd be no one left.