“… and announce that they were going hunting.”
The ritual of older men choosing death so that their families may survive the brutal winters is a harrowing story, but why are we only introduced to this tale through Jon and Arya’s chapters? With the understanding that AFFC and ADWD were originally conceived as one book, why would George decide to introduce the same concept twice? The stories share a similar crux of self-sacrifice met with grief but ultimately resignation, however the contexts around the two passages differ. It acts as convergent knowledge between two characters walking similar but different paths, thinking the same thing, and relating them to different customs.
Arya’s version comes as filtered childhood memory from Old Nan. An oral tradition more distant and atmospherical than lived history. Arya is contemplating death and sacrifice, the concept of surrendering one’s identity and leaving the living world behind, a constant theme in her arc. She connects the Northern hunting story with the Faceless Men philosophy, empathizing with the men and women who choose to give their lives at the black pool. It important that we learn this story in the chapter where Arya commences her faceless men training and is about to receive her first assignment as Cat of the Canals. She is learning to meet death, accept it, and work with it. The men go out into the snow and never return, the Braavosi enter the House of Black and White and never return, and Arya herself is trying to be No One, giving her life to the Many Faced God in a symbolic death. While she is positioned to return, to find herself, and to see spring, her story invites comparison to the hunters who, like her, leave home and are lost in the tumult, presumed to never return.
Jon confirms this tale in a recollection shared with Alys Karstark, a character very reminiscent of Arya, about Northern customs and survival through the characters’ family history and the backdrop of the Others and looming threat of winter. He discusses the cultural tradition specific to the Flints of his own heritage, a story every northman knows, and something Alys has heard of in her own family. Here is a specific focus on duty; the duty of the youth to serve, and the old to die. The tone of this passage serves well with Jon’s pragmatic nature and themes of duty and self-sacrifice emphasized throughout ADWD. Jon later asks Alys to send men to the Night’s Watch when she returns to Karhold, older men so that they “will not die alone in the snow, with only memories to warm them.” An interesting sentiment that acquires an additional resonance since three Jon chapters later, he is the character who dies alone in the snow, a character who often returns to memories of Arya, even right before death, and the “memory of her laughter” warming him on the way to the Wall. The old men gather their remaining strength, go into the snow, and disappear. Jon gathers his strength with the Free Folk, goes out to a confrontation, and dies in the snow. But like Arya, Jon is also a character positioned to return, to weather the bleak cruelty of winter, to find himself, and fight to see spring.
Arya’s memory emphasizes the witness, the act of letting go, the ones left behind. “Their daughters would weep and their sons would turn their faces to the fire.” Arya is a character who resonates deeply with the feeling of being abandoned, watching people leave and the fear of them not coming back.
Jon’s recollection focuses on the act itself, the severity of winter and the choice to leave, the responsibility of the situation from the lens of the one who goes. “Some are found spring, more are never seen again.” Jon is a character where we see the not only the brutal conditions of winter and the danger the Others and their eternal winter and the need to defend against them, shown by the pressing news he receives about his rescue mission attempts for the Wildings trapped at Hardhome. Jon, who makes the choice to march on Winterfell for Arya, a choice that positions him for a rebirth.
But why only Jon and Arya? There are numerous Northern perspectives that could flesh out this story. Bran is the character most connected to Old Nan’s stories, and Sansa, Theon, Asha and any Northern voice could mention it as well. One theme many characters share in AFFC and ADWD is the struggle of identity, and Jon and Arya approach this conflict with voluntary sacrifice.
Arya gives up her name, face, and identity in the attempt to be No One. Jon gives up Winterfell, legitimacy, his personal desires in order to be the Lord Commander and dutiful Watchman. What’s interesting is that Jon and Arya hold onto their identities through each other. Arya with Needle, and Jon through her and her memory.
Both are confronted with the question: what are you willing to sacrifice? Both are unable to sacrifice each other as they walk toward a symbolic death and a murky future, as dangerous as the cold and drifting snow.
Arya walks away from the life and name she once knew in order to find safety and purpose in the House of Black and White. She doesn’t know if they’ll truly accept and help her, she doesn’t know if she’ll ever hold her name again, but she does what she needs with the tools the past gave her.
Jon walks into an uncertain future as well. He makes the choice to abandon his post and march south in the boltons to rescue the girl he believes to be his sister. “You know nothing Jon Snow.” He thinks of Arya, he thinks of Ramsey’s bride. He doesn’t know what the future holds, but he believes that Arya is suffering, and therefore knows what must be done.
The old hunters disappear into the snow, Arya disappears into No One, Jon disappears into death and Ghost. “Different roads lead to the same castle.” Their love for each other will help them not only find themselves, but each other once more.
Jon and Arya are the only two POVs to remember the hunters who walk into the snow. Arya remembers the story with the perspective of those left behind; Jon’s perspective highlights the burden of those who choose to leave. The two perspectives encompass both sides of Northern sacrifice, and shared understanding will prove just as important to who they become as it is to the people they hope to protect in their greatest battle with an everlasting winter.
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