#needleheart

this passage from jon xiii, adwd is one of the most crucial and carefully constructed passages necessary for understanding jon’s character. his themes, values, motivations, and the people who have cemented themselves in his worldview all come to a head in this moment.

for context, jon has just received ramsay bolton’s letter informing him that his plans to steal “arya stark” had failed. mance and the spearwives have been captured, stannis is supposedly dead, and, most dammingly, “arya stark” has escaped her marriage. ramsay threatens jon and the night’s watch, promising to cut out jon’s heart if he does not return “arya” along with several other people. remember that jon had already associated arya with his heart when melisandre first proposed rescuing her, because this is a connection that informs how he will proceed.

tormund asks jon what he means to do. jon flexes his sword hand and george runs him through the major formative phrases and relationships in his arc before the breaking point. the passage follows a deliberate pattern: an important phrase, warning, lesson is followed by the memory that embodies or challenges it.

the night’s watch takes no part.

words that belong not to him, but the watch’s doctrine, jeor mormont’s warnings, and the institutional framework jon has been trying to operate in and uphold. here he can’t summon l his own resistance; instead it’s the dogma of the institution he recites, attempting to suppress the feelings that threaten to overwhelm him. george marks his first line of defense against collapse with borrowed language, suggesting that his resistance doesn’t rest in a conviction he can fully claim as his own.

the ensuing action is jon opening and closing his fist, the burned hand that acts as an unforgettable reminder of the true battle and struggle he has learned to be paramount. it recalls the wight attack, the ever looming presence of the others, the coming eternal winter. the realm will not care about one little girl when the threat of humanity is at its doorstep, and the watch is desperately unprepared to handle it. yet this reminder does not sway jon. his heart still prevails.

what you propose is nothing less than treason.

this warning echos jon’s first desertion attempt in AGOT, when he sought to join robb’s war against the lannisters and avenge ned. it is immediately followed by jon thinking of robb with snowflakes melting in his hair. the last trace of innocence that belonged to them both.

now there is treason against the watch. treason against his vows, responsibility, and the identity jon has spent months crafting as lord commander. the last time jon felt this pull of family over duty, he stopped himself, chose the watch, and robb died anyway. what then, has that loyalty accomplished? it’s not lost on the reader that robb’s own death came through betrayal. both robb and jon struggle as leaders isolated by responsibility, surrounded by followers who they miscommunicated with, and decrescent loyalties that eventually fracture. here, george reminds us of the real consequences of the choice that jon is about to make. but the heart is all that matters.

kill the boy and let the man be born.

abandon childish attachments. your only family is the watch now. become the man who can face winter.

but what follows is memories of bran and rickon and sansa in moments of domesticity. memories of spring that will never come by again. bran climbing before the fall, rickon’s laughter and joy before family is ripped away from him, sansa with lady before lady’s murder. jon remembers them as they were when they were most fully themselves, lives suspended in a past sacrificed to duty.

maester aemon’s advice was meant to make this burden bearable, to give jon the strength to do what duty demands. but it could not spare him from the grief of losing the family he had already renounced. jon returns to these words as he makes his greatest decisions, trying to let go and grow into the lord commander the realm requires. he cannot help them, he has a new purpose now.

yet the boy never fully dies. the memories remain, still exacting their price. they wounded him, but they didn’t break him because he had already done the work of resolving to be the man his duty demanded. and still, the heart shines through. he cannot let go. but can the man find the courage to forswear what he had committed?

you know nothing jon snow.

ygritte’s words function differently from what came before. they’re not an institutional creed, or accumulated family memory, but as the voice of someone who loved him and died. they challenge his certainty rather than his duty.

and then there’s arya, her hair tangled as a bird’s nest.

ygritte’s words arrive attached to arya’s image in reason. arya, who jon saw so much of in ygritte. the memory of jon’s lost love is linked to the memory of the sister whose imagined suffering immediately overwhelms every principal that has restrained him. he knows nothing about where this feeling is taking him. he knew nothing when he loved ygritte. he knew nothing when he chose duty over her. he knew nothing when she died in his arms.

now he imagines a similar cold fate awaiting arya if he does not act. the responsibility he feels for both of their tragedies intersects with the guilt, fear, and love to collapse into one single image: ramsay bolton, who makes cloaks of the skins of women. ramsay bolton who wants his bride.

at this, jon can no longer hold the line.

the arguments for obligation, the grief of loss and resignation to duty, buckle at the thought of his beloved sister in the clutches of a man who brutalizes women for sport. ramsay’s words, “i want my bride back” hammer through every defense jon has built in his arc.

the night’s watch takes no part. what you propose is nothing less than treason > i want my bride back.

kill the boy and let the man be born > i want my bride back.

you know nothing jon snow > i want my bride back.

arya is the final image in the sequence, the heart that ramsay has swore to cut out, and thus, jon makes his decision, the only decision he believes he could make, and love as the death of his duty to the watch. the heart is all that matters.

in the passage, we explore one of jon’s defining internal conflicts: love versus duty, and the price he is willing to pay when he abandons one for the other. more importantly, we learn of the price jon is not willing to pay.

george guides the reader through the core lessons that have shaped jon snow. the life of loyalty he surrendered to the night’s watch in order to guard the realm. the impending threat of the others and the mythical long night. the need to grow up and make impossible, and even morally dubious choices for the better of the realm and the watch. the life lived beyond the wall and westeros’ political web, confronted with the lived experiences of those once believed to be enemies, a life unconfined by vows and borders.

we see the many voices that taught jon how to bear that burden, and what can exist outside it. he recalls the memories of home and the past that tether him to his humanity, his lost family, his lost love, and the relationships that continue to define him.

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.

He wanted to believe it would be Arya. He wanted to see her face again, to smile at her and muss her hair, to tell her she was safe. — A Dance with Dragons - Jon IX

This passage is interesting when thinking about Jon’s relationship with identity, his family, and Arya. I see this line brought up when people make jokes about Jon wanting to fuck his sister, but I think there is some merit in how Jon’s ambiguous relationship with Arya could evolve in the future. I’m only rambling, so feel free to add on or question my thoughts.

The chapter opens up with musings on the stars which I love. We get references to the Dayne’s, stallions, Ice Dragon, the fandom favorite and Moon Maiden. The Red Wanderer acts as a reference to Dany’s comet, but with the context of stealing in Jon’s arcs I think of Melisandre. Melisandre as a Red Wanderer who shows Jon the girl in grey, the Moon Maid, to gear him up to steal Ramsay’s bride. And of course Jon begins to consider Melisandre’s offer seriously when the moon kisses his shadow, and the Thief offers him the girl in grey.

Now we go back to the original passage. Jon starts by denying any romantic intent in the act of Ygritte. This is a girl he showed mercy to after she reminded him of Arya (a character most associated with Mercy ;) and the paths those will bring) but for Jon this was only an act of honor. Stealing to the wildings, however, is a romantic act that is expected and praised to strengthen the claim and prove one’s worth.. George even uses it as a romantic act in other aspects of the story with Bael the Bars and the Stark maiden, Rhaegar and Lyanna, and even Peter and Sansa, though with them, the act is subverted as a show of falsehood. In ASOIAF, stealing a woman for their love is not always an honorable decision, but it is a tale to swoon over.

Ygritte and the others like Tormund, continuously emphasize that since Jon has stolen her, he has rights to her as his woman, and that they’re a pair, two hearts that beat as one. Indeed the two begin their romantic and sexual relationship in this chapter. With this context, and with how in dance Ramsay explicitly accuses Jon of stealing his bride, an effort Jon did attempt with mance and has plans to further pursue himself, I’m interested in how the sequence follows with Jon questioning his familial role tie to Arya. The denial of a romantic claim leads to the examination of a familial claim.

Jon compares Ygritte’s stubbornness to Arya, her insistence on their claim over each other. Arya and Jon’s claim over each other as family should be undisputed right? But no, Jon immediately goes to question his relationship to Arya, his identity as a Stark. One big theme across ASOS is identity, and many characters undergo an identity crisis. Here Jon’s crisis is explicitly tied to Arya. When he questions whether she’s still his sister, whether despite everything he can still call her that, and whether he was ever his sister, if that role ever applied to her, his identity as a Stark, a Wilding, and a Night’s Watch brother decussate and unravel. If Arya isn’t his sister, who is he? what is he? Jon says that he was never a Stark, only Ned’s bastard with as much a place in the Stark household as Theon, Ned’s hostage ward. An outsider to dangle at the perimeter but never truly belong. But with how closely intimate and familiar he was with Arya, and how welcome she made him feel, can we say this is completely true?

Jon questions his bond with Arya from the past to the future; if the role “little sister” still holds going forward, and if it ever truly applied at all. There is no room for Arya as his sister and Jon’s tie to the Stark family fully dissolves. It’s an interesting progression given how Jon and Arya are such pillars of each other’s identity. Is there any room for Arya to be his little sister? Is there any room for Jon as a Stark, a Wilding, a Brother of the Watch? Not to mention Jon’s character defining crypt nightmares that admonish him for not belonging as a Stark, for being an anomaly the way his mother’s crypt is also an anomaly… so much identity porn.

Jon designates himself as a motherless bastard, an illegitimate thing with no claim to home, but if Arya was his little sister, could he comfortably lay claim to the Starks as family? Funny how in the same book Arya thinks about how with the knowledge of Jon’s mother, he’d have to call her something other than little sister. The readers know that Arya was never his blood sister, but the characters are already mentally growing apart that label.

Arya herself is growing and evolving from that pure little sister role into something greater and more actualized. You could write a whole essay on her identity issues (and the way Jon plays into them) but it’s been discussed to death so I won’t bother. I can say how an older Arya reunited with Jon will challenge his perception of her, and what he’s done in her name. We can see hints of it in his ADWD arc.

By the time Jon gets news of fArya’s marriage to Ramsay, he’s reverted back to referring to Arya as his little sister. Arya who spurs him to action after he’s rejected the offers to claim his dreams of Winterfell. That’s why Melisandre uses Arya when approaching Jon. She knows how important Arya is to him, she knows that Arya will move him the way even his deepest desires won’t. And shes’s right. Jon rejects Stannis, but listens to Melisandre.

The Thief in the Moon Maid is the best time to steal, her eyes were two red stars, the moon has kissed you, a girl in grey on a dying horse, coming here to you. Arya.

When Arya isn’t Jon’s sister, who is he? Jon doesn’t know. But when Arya is Jon’s sister again, we see the man he is. Not just avowed to the Watch, nor just a brother to the Starks, but a man who would steal his sister from her husband. When we ask what is truest to Jon’s self, we see it when he chooses mercy for a girl who reminds him of Arya, and steals her and then again when he breaks his vows to steal a girl who he believes to be Arya.

Doesn’t it seem intentional? When Arya returns to that familial category in Jon’s mind, he prepares to do an act that is textually coded as romantic. When I think of this moment I think of Jon acting in agency for himself by going against his Night’s Watch allegiances and acting in accordance to Wilding customs, and therefore coming closer to reclaiming his identity, his home, and Arya. All for Arya. It’s where we see his most selfish passions shine through after his resigned almost depressive disposition prior to learning of Arya’s marriage. By centering Arya, Jon comes closer to accepting the Stark identity he’s coveted for himself. After resurrection, he’ll act. But of course he’ll realize his magical identity and purpose too.

In the passage we see Jon going to Ghost who he’s noticed to be more fond of heights. Jon wonders what Ghost sees when he looks at the sky, and the She-Wolf is one of Jon’s chosen names. Ghost seeing the She-Wolf in the sky, the Thief in Moon Maid being best for stealing, Ghost being charmed by Melisandre when she offers him the girl in grey…

Ghost doesn’t need to howl or announce himself, he just is what he is. Ghost whose third eye had been opened by Bran atop the Wall. Ghost who drinks in the moonless sky and takes the stars as they are. Ghost who knows himself, his pack, and isn’t bogged down by institutional obligations. Jon as the wolf who understands what the man cannot. And Jon sends Ghost away.

Through Storm, Jon wanders farthest from his Stark identity, and falls further into the culture of the woman he falls in love with, a woman who reminds him of Arya. The culture he calls back to when making a romantically coded decision to steal Arya back from Ramsay. A decision that leads to his death, but when he resurrects he’ll have the tools to fully realize himself and what he wants and needs to be. One with his wolf, one with Winterfell, his family, his legacy, and Arya. It’s so good!

When Arya reunites with him as the fully embodied person she will be, fully equipped with her history and experience and confidence and Jon with the changes of resurrection and his fixation on her, it’ll be interesting to see how that interrogation of the family connection between them comes to a head. So could a resurrected Jon with all the tools and perspectives from the roles he’s played and the cultures he’s embodied trust his instincts and handle the implications of his actions regarding Arya, his focused intensity on her… and could Arya herself be open to that?

I’m not sure, but George has put a lot of thought into this relationship and the ambiguity only grows.

Arya cocked her head to one side. "Can I be a king's councillor and build castles and become the High Septon?"

"You," Ned said, kissing her lightly on the brow, "will marry a king and rule his castle, and your sons will be knights and princes and lords and, yes, perhaps even a High Septon."

happy age gap may