#jon**

Hi, him-e! I appreciate the fact that you make an effort to parse through what the show’s given us in order to make more calculated predictions about what’s coming in the books. I’d like to ask, then—because I don’t recall you ever talking about it—how will r+l=j be handled in the books. It’s a fairly accepted possibility in fandom that finding out about it will wreck Jon. And fair enough, it probably will, considering how much pride he takes from being Ned’s son. But then there’s the rub for me—a lot of people also expect Jon to be angry at Rhaegar and to revolt against his biological father by abandoning the role he was supposed to have in the WftD. That makes sense, it can be existentially terrifying to think that your actions are all a product of a prophecy and that you have no control over them. It’d also fit with the other five main characters, who will likely all be going through their own dark phases. Here’s the part where I think we should take the show into consideration. What effect did r+l=j have on Jon, exactly? Mostly, none—I’d say it served as a catalyst for Dany’s downfall. Nothing was made to challenge Rhaegar’s character or actions, and the last season was the perfect place to do so, considering he’s Dany’s brother and almost every single aspect of Dany started being portrayed negatively. But sure, one could argue that the show isn’t good at handling psychological turmoil and that he’s Jon’s father too, and Jon must remain morally pure. Still, I then think about the books. If GRRM intends to make Jon rebel against Rhaegar and what he stood for as part of the fandom believes, why didn’t he seed anything related to that yet? Anything that makes Rhaegar more challenging and least susceptible to idolization? Some examples of how he could’ve done this: * GRRM could’ve shown Doran or Oberyn still angry at Rhaegar for leaving Elia behind. Instead, they both want to side with Viserys and later Daenerys without any (mentioned) reservations. * GRRM could’ve had Ned thinking about the fucked up power dynamic between Rhaegar and Lyanna (less harshly than Robert, but still negatively), but instead Ned only thinks about how Rhaegar didn’t frequent brothels. * GRRM could’ve had Dany have her view of Rhaegar be challenged the way her view of Aerys is being (slowly) challenged, instead she still thinks of him the same by the end of the fifth book. * GRRM could’ve added a POV who is critical of Rhaegar’s actions, yet he added three in FeastDance who idolize him (JonCon, Cersei, Barristan). And that’s not even mentioning how R/L was painted as straightforwardly romantic in the S7 finale, which may well be what GRRM does—if he doesn’t think Dany was raped by Drogo in the books, maybe he thinks R/L is an unproblematic love story, even if many have pointed out the consent issues. Finally, I don’t see his friend Arthur Dayne having his reputation challenged in any way in-universe for remaining with Rhaegar despite the fact that there is reasonable criticism to hold against him. My question, then, is: isn’t it more likely that Jon’s problem with r+l=j lies with his relationships with Ned and Dany and not with Rhaegar?

Hi, thanks for your submission, and sorry it took me a while to answer! ;))

One reason, as I suspected early on when I saw Hardhome, was the need individualize and narrow down the threat to a classic Protagonist VS Antagonist formula, for dramatic purposes. Instead of facing an impersonal evil, Jon, the champion of the Night’s Watch (and by extension humanity) is directly antagonised by the Night King---the champion of darkness. A bit of a Evil Wizard archetype, a bit of a demigod à la Sauron---the NK is someone who, albeit silent, has a degree of characterization, a personality (we can easily infer he’s smug, he’s ambitious, he’s single-minded, he toys with our heroes in a mocking way, he used to be a human being until the CotF turned him into a magical creature with unlimited powers; he even has flaws that we can conceptualize as human). It’s the bare minimum of characterization but it’s still a characterization, and it’s both a positive and a negative thing. Positive because it gives the audience something to latch on, a Villain With A Face and, to a degree, even a motivation---negative because it undermines the sheer eldritch horror of the Others being quintessentially inhuman in every possible way.

The other reason is probably because d&d needed to give the White Walkers an Achilles’ Heel so that our heroes could defeat them---all of them. I think the Others will have an Achilles’ Heel in the books too (maybe whatever lies beyond the Curtain of Light?), but perhaps either GRRM still didn’t know what it would be when he sat down and talked about the endgame with the showrunners, or GRRM’s version of it is something d&d couldn’t do on the show for budget and/or time limitations, so they had to come up with an alternative or a shorthand for it. Either way, it’s food for speculation.

I’ve already talked in favor of Arya, and not Jon, being the one who killed the NK. While I’ve seen people warm up to the fact that this totally makes sense for Arya’s arc, many still resist the idea for what it supposedly does to Jon’s arc. What about the Azor Ahai prophecy? What is the significance of his arc now? What was the point of building up this one-on-one antagonism between him and the NK if Jon didn’t actually defeat him? Well, imo the idea behind this decision wasn’t shock value for shock value’s sake, but rather an attempt---I won’t argue if successful or not---to subvert the Chosen One trope, almost Tolkien-style, in the sense that the chosen one gets so, so close to complete his mission yet ultimately, tragically, fails. But the... small metallic object... is still delivered in the right place to destroy the Evil Overlord and his entire army, and the person who does is an unexpected one, in an unexpected way. So the bittersweetness of this anticlimax, the way it feels both right and wrong, is probably intentional---because the Chosen One(s) both won and failed. Jon and Dany will likely be remembered as the heroes, the Azor Ahai’s, the great commanders, the princes that were promised, but they know deep in their hearts that, had it been for them, humanity would have been destroyed.

speaking of Tolkien, and looking at it from another angle, the last moments of the battle did remind me a bit of RotK in the way Bran (and according to some interpretations of the scene, Jon too) kept *the eye of Sauron* distracted so Arya/Frodo could get close enough without being noticed. Not only them---the entire battle can be seen as a giant distraction game to blindside the NK and take him off guard.

I think they have both good chances to be part of Martin’s outline. I’m less certain of Arya’s ending, because I don’t think the books have laid an adequate foundation yet for her eventually leaving Winterfell again to explore the world. Re: Jon’s endgame, I have mixed feelings. It’s a bit too circular to suit me (and I hate circular storytelling), but I also think it absolutely fits George’s definition of “bittersweet” ending, as well as his deconstruction of heroic tropes and chosen one narratives. The fact that it “seems weirdly mundane for a boy that died and came back” is exactly why I feel it works. Jon already had a climatic, sacrificial death, if you think about it. And if I’m being honest I’ve always felt that the three heads of the dragon riding into the sunset the curtain of light in a suicidal mission to destroy the heart of winter, and never coming back but being forever remembered as the saviors of humanity, was a bit too standard high fantasy to really fit George’s narrative. That’s not what I would call bittersweet---it’s highkey epic. 

With this finale, on the other hand, you have the entire parabola of a hero: a secret prince who is raised as a bastard, joins the Night’s Watch, goes undercover as a Wildling, becomes lord commander, dies and resurrects; goes from war hero to king, from king to savior of humanity, from savior of humanity... to queenslayer and kinslayer, imprisoned and plagued by guilt, and eventually sentenced to go back to where he started---with the Free Folk, the people he initially was meant to defend the realm from, and now has to defend from the realm (because the realm corrupts, look what it did to him), and finally guide home.On the surface it’s a regression but it’s also him going back to where he actually had been at his happiest (even if at that time he was weighed down by too many oaths and unresolved business to notice), where he met his first love and what it meant to be free. Ironically, it’s the ending that fits most my own headcanon that Jon, Dany and Tyrion would all survive the WftD only to retire to a quiet place where they could heal, while the world would go on without them and slowly forget them, even. I wasn’t entirely sure of what they would need to heal from, when this idea formed in my mind. But the show provided an answer.

Can’t make an in depth analysis because I lack the mental energy / motivation for that, but yes, I believe that’s where his arc is going in the books too. He’ll have a role in the WftD, be one of the many heroes who will defend humanity against the Others, have a shot at happiness with Brienne, but ultimately he’ll feel compelled to go back to Cersei when shit goes down in King’s Landing because it’s ~his sister, his responsibility and he can’t shrug it off.

The main difference I think will be be that Jaime ~kills~ Cersei in a similar fashion to how Jon killed Dany in the show, perhaps in a hail mary to save the city again (consciously or not replicating the scenario that turned him into the Kingslayer when he was seventeen, only now there’s his sister in Aerys’ place, and a dragon queen in Tywin’s, threatening to unleash her fury on everyone if the city gates won’t open), or maybe to spare Cersei a much more horrifying death by dragonfire or worse, if she manages to piss Dany off the way she did in the show. Either way, there’s plenty of foreshadowing in the books that Jaime will be Cersei’s valonqar but the whole thing won’t play as Cersei imagines, not even remotely. I used to believe Jaime being the valonqar and Jaime playing a role in the war for the dawn couldn’t be both simultaneously true, but that was based on the assumption that the war for the dawn *needs* to be chronologically the final part of the story, which I no longer believe.

I’m also fairly certain that D&D took the valonqar part of the J/C arc and repurposed it for Jon/Dany, for reasons I can’t fully comprehend right now. Part of it is probably the fact that they have a soft spot for J/C---see how they consistently shied away from the most toxic aspects of their relationship---so they probably wanted to end this dynamic on a sweet/tragic note rather than a disturbing, alienating one. Perhaps BOTH Jaime and Jon are going to kill their respective lovers in the books (it wouldn’t be the first time their arcs parallel each other, you know), which would be fifty shades of yikesy, but I wouldn’t put it past GRRM, especially considering how guilt over Ygritte’s death is a recurring theme in Jon’s narrative and how Dany being backstabbed by someone who swore to be on her side to thwart her *dangerous* political vision echoes eerily the Ides of Marsh. Or, perhaps Dany dies in some other way that D&D couldn’t or wouldn’t adapt verbatim for whatever reason, so they chose to go for the (relatively) “simple” option of having her stabbed by Jon; or, GRRM didn’t give enough details about her death so they had to fill the blanks by rearranging book material conveniently.

Tbh I thought Jonerys would end up ruling together before aDwD, but then Jon died and I think, giving a happy ending to a guy who dies is just not going to work. Like Beric and LSH he’ll pay for his life and will be a different person when he returns. Dany, however, is alive, but she will lose something dear as well - maybe her ‘children’, or it’ll be Jon himself. In fight against the Others many characters will die, otherwise it won’t make sense, but I think Dany has a better chance than Jon.

Putting these two asks together because they’re on the same topic. 

I don’t know? I think magic in asoiaf isn’t a zero-sum game, and I would refrain to make predictions on either Jon’s or Dany’s odds of survival based only on their status as people who should logically be dead if magic didn’t exist. (anon #2, though Jon literally died and was resurrected, Dany too is living on borrowed time, in a way: she walked in a funeral pyre to perform a magical ritual based on an “only death can pay for life” logic, and walked out of it alive, nearly entirely unscathed and with three dragon hatchlings. But by logic she should have died there. And… what if she did? In a metaphorical way, or even in a spiritual way of sorts? So it makes sense to link this experience to Jon’s resurrection, because it was a rebirth in magic too and, as in Jon’s case, it makes room for speculation on whether she will survive or not once her business on this earth is done, so to speak.)

I guess in a very concrete sense, particularly in Jon’s case, we should figure out whether he is being kept alive by magic (R’hllor’s fire magic, specifically), therefore magic is continually necessary to keep his body functioning (in which case then yes, it would make sense that once—if—magic leaves Westeros, then Jon loses his spark of life), or if the magic required for his resurrection was a one-off deal, which would mean that his new life is permanent even if magic fades and he will only die of natural causes. (I lean towards the latter, mostly because I see no evidence of the contrary, but I’m open for discussion.)

Whether it is likely or even inescapable on a thematic, meta level that Dany and Jon die after the WftD because they’ve been living on borrowed time is another issue, and the fandom consensus seems to be that yes, they’re going to die but it will probably be a willing sacrifice on their part, rather than fading away for supernatural reasons or being killed in battle (or murdered).

Again, as far as I’m concerned I’m not sure. Like I said, it’s not a zero-sum game, and the fact that something makes sense on a trope/storytelling level isn’t in itself a guarantee it will happen in asoiaf, because we have no way to predict whether GRRM will play a certain trope straight or deconstruct it or even subvert it entirely. But in a very broad sense, yes, I suspect that regardless their chances of survival Martin won’t give these characters an all-around happily ever after anyway. Personally I think he’ll opt for an endgame that counterbalances their chosen one status. Chosen ones in fantasy either get a glorious HEA or die heroically—there’s usually no in-between, and it’s extra-ordinary in either case. But maybe they’re getting normalcy instead? Probably not the pleasant normalcy of a married life, but the tedious, mundane routine of running a kingdom and supervising rebuilt. OR they’ll be together, but they’ll lose their status of leaders. OR they’ll be so irrevocably changed by this experience that they’ll have no choice but retire somewhere quiet and safe where they can heal. 

Don’t get me wrong, I think Hardhome is one of the best episodes of the show, it is impeccably written and accomplishes two very important things in a serialized visual medium that needs to keep a large, mostly casual audience engaged: it gives the Real Bad Guys an opportunity to shine and prove how dangerous and capable of inflicting lethal damage they are (how often have you heard show watchers complain that “there weren’t enough white walkers in this season”?), and it personalizes the conflict into a Jon VS Night’s King hero/villain dynamic, which is 200% more compelling than having Jon fight against a horde of nameless, faceless ice demons with no semblance of individuality or personal agenda.

But plot wise, for all it is this huge epic battle between humanity and the White Walkers, nothing that happens in Hardhome is strictly necessary for Jon’s storyline or has a real permanence.