#coldhandsluke

Beginning two years before A Game of Thrones, Jon Snow is spurred in a different direction. This brings on new adversities for him, as well as the chance for a better fate for the Starks.

"I think this might take the title of best aSoIaF longfic. And it is glorious, plotty, clever, surprising - a wholly statisfying read. Proof that au stands for gold." - Sear

" *Spoiler*!!!!!!ALHGOAEIHGOHasdkgab!! Yay!" - luna_plath

author: ColdHandsLuke

wordcount: 321,832

I think that any ASoIaF/GoT fanfic that has Jon Snow doing anything besides going to the Wall is greatness. And this one is fucking epic.

In this fic, Jon Snow meets Lydrea Hornwood about two or three years before Robert comes to Winterfell, and is so taken with her that he makes the decision to become a knight in order to win the approval of a marriage to her. If the story stopped there, this fic would not be nearly so epic. Thankfully, canon re-converges long enough to do some damage to Jon's happily ever after, and then the fic gets really interesting.

I stopped reading this fic somewhere around chapter 54, and I can't remember why. Usually, when I stop reading it's because the fic was too intense and I needed time and distance to come back to it. However, the chapter I stopped on didn't have a big cliffhanger, so I don't know what was going through my head right then.  Thankfully, I decided to revisit this story after finally finishing “Faith”.

In any case, even though this story is not a Jon/Sansa, I love how this story allows Jon and Sansa to be siblings. They respect each other, they support each other, and they trust each other's decisions, but you still get Jon struggling not to be the overprotective big brother. You also get Sansa happy to have an older brother to back her up, but still being annoyed when he can't stop those big brother tendencies. I feel like any fic that allows Jon and Sansa to have a sibling bond with each other has the potential to be a good fic.

What I like about “A Better Fate” is that Jon gets to travel and see what is essentially most of the known world. I like the idea of Jon going to places other than the Wall, because, in the books, it seemed like Jon didn't fully understand what he was getting into when he chose the Night's Watch. In my heart, I feel like Eddard Stark wouldn't have wanted that for Jon, but he didn't seem to have any other options set up for Jon. R + L = J or not, Eddard should have had some other options in the works for Jon.

I think my favorite part in this story is the reveal. The forums like to talk about people possibly being agents of the Great Other, but I've only ever seen Dolorous Edditor and ColdHandsLuke actually incorporate it into a fic. Like this idea that some wights can go around interacting with living people like nothing is wrong is just insane. How do people not catch on? And it's always funny to me when the agent is revealed because, in one fic, it's the person you wouldn't even think of, and, in the other fic, it's someone so obvious that you immediately dismiss them. It's so crazy! 

D&D need to hire some of these fanfic writers to help write the scripts for the show. It has literally become bad fanfiction.