Operation Stumpy Re-Read
ADWD: Jon VI (Chapter 28)
When he heard the order, Ser Alliser's mouth twisted into a semblance of a smile, but his eyes remained as cold and hard as flint. "So the bastard boy sends me out to die."
[...]
"Dywen will be with you, and another seasoned ranger."
Dywen stays loyal to the Watch during the mutiny at Craster's Keep.
Alliser might be going, but we're losing another good man.
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"You would like me to refuse. Then you could hack off my head, same as you did for Slynt. I'll not give you that pleasure, bastard. You'd best pray that it's a wildling blade that kills me, though. The ones the Others kill don't stay dead ⌠and they remember. I'm coming back, Lord Snow."
We won't learn the fate of Alliser in this book. Could be foreshadowing.
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Not for the first time, or the last, Jon Snow found himself wondering what had become of Benjen Stark. Perhaps the rangers will come upon some sign of them, he told himself, never truly believing it.
It's hard for me to believe we'll never see Benjen again. Dead or alive.
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Jon watched the riders go from atop the Wallâthree parties, each of three men, each carrying a pair of ravens. From on high their garrons looked no larger than ants, and Jon could not tell one ranger from another.Â
Jon and his ant brothers!
She had bites all over her, little red bumps, itchy and inflamed. Where did all the ants come from? Dany brushed them from her arms and legs and belly. She ran a hand across her stubbly scalp where her hair had burned away, and felt more ants on her head, and one crawling down the back of her neck. She knocked them off and crushed them under her bare feet. There were so many ⌠- Daenerys X, ADWD
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"I had a frightening dream last night, m'lord," Dolorous Edd confessed. "You were my steward, fetching my food and cleaning up my leavings. I was lord commander, with never a moment's peace."
Please let him be prophetic. Lord Commander Dolorous Edd, how hilarious would that be?
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When Iron Emmett spied him, he raised a hand and combat ceased. "Lord Commander. How may we serve you?"
"With your three best."
[...]
"Which one do you want first?" asked Arron.
"All three of you. At once."
"Three on one?" Jace was incredulous. "That wouldn't be fair."Â
"Garlan often trains against three men, or even four. In battle it is seldom one against one, he says, so he likes to be prepared."
"He must be very brave." - Sansa I, ASOS
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By that time Jace had found his feet, so Jon put him down again. "I hate it when dead men get up. You'll feel the same the day you meet a wight." Stepping back, he lowered his sword.
Do you?
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Rattleshirt was leaning against a wall. A coarse stubble covered his sunken cheeks, and thin brown hair was blowing across his little yellow eyes.
"You flatter yourself," Jon said.
"Aye, but I'd flatten you."
"Stannis burned the wrong man."
"No." The wildling grinned at him through a mouth of brown and broken teeth. "He burned the man he had to burn, for all the world to see. We all do what we have to do, Snow. Even kings."
ha HA, get it?? Mance is also a king doing what he has to do.
for all the world to see.
Some people believe this is more evidence that Mance wrote the Pink Letter.
If you want Mance Rayder back, come and get him. I have him in a cage for all the north to see, proof of your lies. - Jon XIII, ADWD
"for all the world to see" / "for all the north to see" is used several times throughout the series.
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Once clad in mail and plate, the Lord of Bones seemed to stand a little straighter. He seemed taller too, his shoulders thicker and more powerful than Jon would have thought. It's the armor, not the man, he told himself.Â
Clues!
Mance is hardly an imposing figure.
The King-beyond-the-Wall looked nothing like a king, nor even much a wildling. He was of middling height, slender, sharp-faced, with shrewd brown eyes and long brown hair that had gone mostly to grey. - Jon I, ASOS
But he's bigger than Rattleshirt.
Rattleshirt took off his yellowed helm as he waited for the song to end. Beneath his bone-and-leather armor he was a small man, and the face under the giant's skull was ordinary, with a knobby chin, thin mustache, and sallow, pinched cheeks. - Jon I, ASOS
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The wildling waved away the shield Horse offered him. Instead he asked for a two-handed sword.
Picking a two-handed sword feels important, but I don't know why.
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Rattleshirt took a step backwards and met the charge with a two-handed slash. If Jon had not interposed his shield, it might have staved his breastplate in and broken half his ribs.Â
That's the closest Jon will ever come to being Rhaegar's son.
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By rights the two-handed greatsword should have been a deal more cumbersome than Jon's longsword, but the wildling wielded it with blinding speed.
Iron Emmett's fledglings cheered their lord commander at the start, but the relentless speed of Rattleshirt's attack soon beat them down to silence. He cannot keep this up for long, Jon told himself as he stopped another blow. The impact made him grunt. Even dulled, the greatsword cracked his pinewood shield and bent the iron rim. He will tire soon. He must.Â
[...]
He has no shield, Jon reminded himself, and that monster sword's too cumbersome for parries. I should be landing two blows for every one of his.
Somehow he wasn't, though, and the blows he did land were having no effect.Â
Mance never tires, and I'm not sure what to make of it.
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It would have been a different fight if Jon had been armed with Longclaw, but âŚ
Dot, dot, dot.
Not going to lie, it feels like this sparring is happening so Jon is familiar with his fighting style in the future.
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Both men lost their swords as they rolled on the hard ground. The wildling drove a knee between Jon's legs. Jon lashed out with a mailed fist. Somehow Rattleshirt ended up on top, with Jon's head in his hands. He smashed it against the ground, then wrenched his visor open. "If I had me a dagger, you'd be less an eye by now," he snarled, before Horse and Iron Emmett dragged him off the lord commander's chest.
Careful, you wouldn't want to lose an eye, Jonnel.
Mance is dialing up the hate to play his role, but a lot of it feels real.
Edit: @vibiul reminded me of something. This is the second time Mance has threatened to take Jonâs eye.
"Would you like to keep your eye, Jon?" asked the King-beyond-the-Wall. - Jon II, ASOS
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Jon struggled to one knee. His head was ringing, and his mouth was full of blood. He spat it out and said, "Well fought."
"You flatter yourself, crow. I never broke a sweat."
"Next time you will," said Jon.Â
Everything about this feels foreshadow-y.
Here you are the guest, and safe from harm at my hands . . . this night, at least. - Jon I, ASOS
I can't make sense of this. When would they fight again? Is there any way Mance would join Ramsay?
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There is always someone quicker and stronger, Ser Rodrik had once told Jon and Robb. He's the man you want to face in the yard before you need to face his like upon a battlefield.
His like or him?
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Ramsay Bolton, Lord of the Hornwood, it read, in a huge, spiky hand. The brown ink came away in flakes when Jon brushed it with his thumb. Beneath Bolton's signature, Lord Dustin, Lady Cerwyn, and four Ryswells had appended their own marks and seals. A cruder hand had drawn the giant of House Umber. "Might we know what it says, my lord?" asked Iron Emmett.
[...]
"Moat Cailin is taken. The flayed corpses of the ironmen have been nailed to posts along the kingsroad. Roose Bolton summons all leal lords to Barrowton, to affirm their loyalty to the Iron Throne and celebrate his son's wedding to âŚ" His heart seemed to stop for a moment. No, that is not possible. She died in King's Landing, with Father.
[...]
"He's to marry Arya Stark. My little sister." Jon could almost see her in that moment, long-faced and gawky, all knobby knees and sharp elbows, with her dirty face and tangled hair. They would wash the one and comb the other, he did not doubt, but he could not imagine Arya in a wedding gown, nor Ramsay Bolton's bed. No matter how afraid she is, she will not show it. If he tries to lay a hand on her, she'll fight him.
Jon learning about Arya and Ramsay is as heartbreaking as Catelyn learning about Sansa and Tyrion.
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By now she'd be eleven, Jon thought. Still a child. "I have no sister. Only brothers. Only you." Lady Catelyn would have rejoiced to hear those words, he knew. That did not make them easier to say. His fingers closed around the parchment. Would that they could crush Ramsay Bolton's throat as easily.
Unreliable narrator Jon Snow.
That's ridiculous.
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Dark dreams, he thought, and guilt. His thoughts kept returning to Arya. There is no way I can help her. I put all kin aside when I said my words. If one of my men told me his sister was in peril, I would tell him that was no concern of his. Once a man had said the words his blood was black. Black as a bastard's heart.Â
But your heart is not black.
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Suddenly he could not suffer it a moment longer.
He found Ghost outside his door, gnawing on the bone of an ox to get at the marrow. "When did you get back?" The direwolf got to his feet, abandoning the bone to come padding after Jon.
Ghost always appears whenever Jon's struggling with his identity.
And for the record, that struggle never has anything to do with him wanting to be a wildling.
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The sky was full of stars, and the wind was gusting along the Wall. Even the moon looked cold; there were goosebumps all across its face. Then the first gust caught him, slicing through his layers of wool and leather to set his teeth to chattering.
I hate George.
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In the shadow of the Wall, the direwolf brushed up against his fingers. For half a heartbeat the night came alive with a thousand smells, and Jon Snow heard the crackle of the crust breaking on a patch of old snow.
That is mighty powerful warging.
Fight it.
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Someone was behind him, he realized suddenly. Someone who smelled warm as a summer day.
Didn't remind you of summer in a previous book.
She even smells red. The scent reminded him of Mikken's forge, of the way iron smelled when red-hot; the scent was smoke and blood. - Jon XI, ASOS
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When he turned he saw Ygritte.
She stood beneath the scorched stones of the Lord Commander's Tower, cloaked in darkness and in memory. The light of the moon was in her hair, her red hair kissed by fire. When he saw that, Jon's heart leapt into his mouth. "Ygritte," he said.
"Lord Snow." The voice was Melisandre's.
Probably glamor.
"Then you know nothing, Jon Snow," she whispered. - Jon I, ADWD
Somehow Melisandre knows about Ygritte.
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Surprise made him recoil from her. "Lady Melisandre." He took a step backwards.Â
Revealing.
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"I mistook you for someone else." At night all robes are grey. Yet suddenly hers were red. He did not understand how he could have taken her for Ygritte. She was taller, thinner, older, though the moonlight washed years from her face.Â
Grey to red, eh?
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"The heart is all that matters. Do not despair, Lord Snow. Despair is a weapon of the enemy, whose name may not be spoken. Your sister is not lost to you."
"I have no sister." The words were knives. What do you know of my heart, priestess? What do you know of my sister?
Imagine thinking there's romantic undertones here when he was just contemplating what a child she is. Gross.
The words were knives.
Stop! It's only funny when it's Daenerys!
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"My half-sister, truly âŚ"
"⌠for you are bastard born. I had not forgotten. I have seen your sister in my fires, fleeing from this marriage they have made for her. Coming here, to you. A girl in grey on a dying horse, I have seen it plain as day. It has not happened yet, but it will."
We're not getting into this today, but I wanted to mention Melisandre saying she saw it plain as day made me laugh out loud.
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She gazed at Ghost. "May I touch your ⌠wolf?"
The thought made Jon uneasy. "Best not."
"He will not harm me. You call him Ghost, yes?"
"Yes, but âŚ"
"Ghost." Melisandre made the word a song.
The direwolf padded toward her. Wary, he stalked about her in a circle, sniffing. When she held out her hand he smelled that too, then shoved his nose against her fingers.
Jon let out a white breath. "He is not always so âŚ"
"⌠warm? Warmth calls to warmth, Jon Snow."
Magic, not warmth.
And that's probably not the word she said.
Melisandre touched the ruby at her neck and spoke a word.
The sound echoed queerly from the corners of the room and twisted like a worm inside their ears. The wildling heard one word, the crow another. Neither was the word that left her lips. The ruby on the wildling's wrist darkened, and the wisps of light and shadow around him writhed and faded. - Melisandre I, ADWD
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Her eyes were two red stars, shining in the dark. At her throat, her ruby gleamed, a third eye glowing brighter than the others. Jon had seen Ghost's eyes blazing red the same way, when they caught the light just right.Â
Weird Bloodraven imagery.
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"Ghost," he called. "To me."
The direwolf looked at him as if he were a stranger.
Jon frowned in disbelief. "That's ⌠queer."
Lady would never.
Not sure how I feel about Melisandre being able to break the bond between the Starks and their direwolves with sorcery, but whatever.
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"You think so?" She knelt and scratched Ghost behind his ear. "Your Wall is a queer place, but there is power here, if you will use it. Power in you, and in this beast. You resist it, and that is your mistake. Embrace it. Use it."
I am not a wolf, he thought.
Melisandre telling him to embrace (abuse) warging is how you know he shouldn't.
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"And how would I do that?"
"I can show you." Melisandre draped one slender arm over Ghost, and the direwolf licked her face. "The Lord of Light in his wisdom made us male and female, two parts of a greater whole. In our joining there is power. Power to make life. Power to make light. Power to cast shadows."
"Shadows." The world seemed darker when he said it.
Because it is dark.
Jon doesn't even realize what she's proposing. Naturally Game of Thrones didn't like the subtlety, so they had to turn this into a scene where we see Carice van Houten's tits.
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"Every man who walks the earth casts a shadow on the world. Some are thin and weak, others long and dark. You should look behind you, Lord Snow. The moon has kissed you and etched your shadow upon the ice twenty feet tall."
"You are fighting shadows when you should be fighting the men who cast them," Daario went on. - Daenerys IV, ADWD
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Jon could feel her warmth. 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. "Dalla told me something once. Val's sister, Mance Rayder's wife. She said that sorcery was a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it."
Good instincts.
Gorghan of Old Ghis once wrote that a prophecy is like a treacherous woman. She takes your member in her mouth, and you moan with the pleasure of it and think, how sweet, how fine, how good this is . . . and then her teeth snap shut and your moans turn to screams. - Samwell V, ADWD
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"A wise woman." Melisandre rose, her red robes stirring in the wind. "A sword without a hilt is still a sword, though, and a sword is a fine thing to have when foes are all about.Â
Except you can't grasp it without cutting yourself, genius.
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Hear me now, Jon Snow.Â
Now I know Quaithe is bad news.
Hear me, Daenerys Targaryen. The glass candles are burning. - Daenerys II, ADWD
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Nine crows flew into the white wood to find your foes for you. Three of them are dead. They have not died yet, but their death is out there waiting for them, and they ride to meet it. You sent them forth to be your eyes in the darkness, but they will be eyeless when they return to you. I have seen their pale dead faces in my flames. Empty sockets, weeping blood." She pushed her red hair back, and her red eyes shone. "You do not believe me. You will. The cost of that belief will be three lives. A small price to pay for wisdom, some might say ⌠but not one you had to pay. Remember that when you behold the blind and ravaged faces of your dead. And come that day, take my hand." The mist rose from her pale flesh, and for a moment it seemed as if pale, sorcerous flames were playing about her fingers. "Take my hand," she said again, "and let me save your sister."
Every time she speaks, this is all I can think about:
Final thoughts:
I can't tell you how much I enjoyed Jon getting his ass handed to him while sparring.
I will never get over the show turning him into Arthur Dayne on steroids.
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