#wildling

When it comes to relationships, he and Val are opposites at the time of their first meeting. Jon has never been in a relationship before while Val is seeing Jarl, and it’s made clear by Mance that Jarl isn’t her first boyfriend. Mance’s use of the term “pet” also suggests that she has had a number lovers and admirers before Jarl. She has no shortage of male attention in no small part to being a very beautiful young woman. While with Jon, it is Ygritte who takes the lead with him. 

Basically, Jon is the virgin and Val is the chad. She also benefits from being the sister of the wife of the King-beyond-the-Wall, raising her status high in wildling society. In HS comedy film terms, Jon’s basically the shy, new kid with Val being the pretty, popular girl.

However, it also brings to mind how Jon’s parents met. At the tourney of Harrenhal where King Aerys was present along with the harp-playing Rhaegar, Jon’s parents met Lyanna donned the guise of a mystery knight to defend a crannogman. Bardic King-beyond-the-Wall Mance Rayder hosts the gathering of many peoples, and Jon meets Val under the guise of a deserter to defend the realm. 

It was warm within. A small fire burned beneath the smoke holes, and a brazier smouldered near the pile of furs where Dalla lay, pale and sweating. Her sister was holding her hand. Val, Jon remembered. "I was sorry when Jarl fell," he told her.

Val looked at him with pale grey eyes. "He always climbed too fast." She was as fair as he'd remembered, slender, full-breasted, graceful even at rest, with high sharp cheekbones and a thick braid of honey-colored hair that fell to her waist.

-ASOS, Jon X

Both of them start the third book in relationships with other people with Val seeing Jarl and Jon having a short-lived relationship with Ygritte, but by the time they meet again, they’re both newly single as those relationships ended at the Wall with Jarl falling to do his death climbing the Wall and Ygritte killed at the Battle of Castle Black by an arrow.   

It’s also here that we see Jon interact with Val for the first time. Having lost Ygritte and just learned of his brothers’ deaths as well as LC Mormont’s and his best friend Sam for all he knew, he expresses sympathy for Val’s loss. She acknowledges him briefly, but focuses on her sister who is going into labor soon. Jon himself is focused on the suicide mission given to him by Thorne and Slynt.

"Gods," Val whispered, "gods, why are they doing this?"

"Go inside the tent and stay with Dalla. It's not safe out here." It wouldn't be a great deal safer inside, but she didn't need to hear that.

"I need to find the midwife," Val said.

"You're the midwife. I'll stay here until Mance comes back."  

-ASOS, Jon X

As Stannis’s forces arrive to rout Mance’s forces, Dalla goes into labor and Val finds Mance is not to be found as he is leading a doomed fight. Jon tells her to go inside and he guards the tent during the battle and assists Val with the birth. I think that act alone might have earned her respect. Jon could have run off in that shitstorm, he could have gone off into the fight with his side clearly winning, but he chose to stay with them and assist the two women in a birth in the middle of a battle. He was also there to give Val support when Dalla passed from the birth.

"Like the night you stole me. The Thief was bright that night." "I never meant to steal you," he said. "I never knew you were a girl until my knife was at your throat." "If you kill a man, and never mean t', he's just as dead," Ygritte said stubbornly.

-ASOS, Jon III

“I have not forgotten that it was you who brought us this magic horn, and captured Mance Rayder's wife and son."

"Dalla died." Jon was saddened by that still. "Val is her sister. She and the babe did not require much capturing, Your Grace.

-ASOS, Jon XI

Lonely and lovely and lethal, Jon Snow reflected, and I might have had her. Her, and Winterfell, and my lord father's name. Instead he had chosen a black cloak and a wall of ice. Instead he had chosen honor. A bastard's sort of honor.

-ADWD, Jon III

Jon is offered by Stannis to take Val as a wife, and while he doesn’t oppose the idea, making it a temptation like Winterfell, he ultimately refuses. Jon admits that he could have thought of sharing a life with her even in ADWD, and a part of him does want to be with her, but that is a decision long past. 

He tells himself he’s not the one to steal her, yet as Stannis pointed out, it was Jon who captured her. With his previous lover, Jon admitted that he didn’t intend to steal Ygritte, but in wildling/free folk culture that still counts. Likewise, Jon didn’t intend to steal Val, yet he had still captured her and that means he did steal her. He had captured her when he had intended to protect her and Dalla inside the tent.

Leave it to Jon to get married twice, and not realize it. 

Val stood beside him, tall and fair. They had crowned her with a simple circlet of dark bronze, yet she looked more regal in bronze than Stannis did in gold. Her eyes were grey and fearless, unflinching. Beneath an ermine cloak, she wore white and gold. Her honey-blond hair had been done up in a thick braid that hung over her right shoulder to her waist. The chill in the air had put color in her cheeks.

. . .

The outside air seemed even colder than before. Across the castle, he could see candlelight shining from the windows of the King's Tower. Val stood on the tower roof, gazing up at the Wall. Stannis kept her closely penned in rooms above his own, but he did allow her to walk the battlements for exercise. She looks lonely, Jon thought. Lonely, and lovely. Ygritte had been pretty in her own way, with her red hair kissed by fire, but it was her smile that made her face come alive. Val did not need to smile; she would have turned men's heads in any court in the wide world.

All the same, the wildling princess was not beloved of her gaolers. She scorned them all as "kneelers," and had thrice attempted to escape. When one man-at-arms grew careless in her presence she had snatched his dagger from its sheath and stabbed him in the neck. Another inch to the left and he might have died.

-ADWD, Jon III

Whenever we see Jon look at her, he acknowledges how attractive she is. His comparison of Val to Stannis brings to mind of how he thought Jaime Lannister “tall and golden, with flashing green eyes and a smile that cut like a knife,” looking more like a king than the actual king, Robert. Here he thinks Val looks more regal than the Baratheon king Stannis, and not just in her physical appearance. He knows she is not royalty, but he sees her as fitting the physical image of a princess from song. 

However, he acknowledges that she is not some damsel-in-distress from song, but actively tries to escape her imprisonment to the point of taking up arms against her guards. Yet, that fact doesn’t bother him any more than it did Ygritte. (Ok, he has a type.) Take into account that his closest relationship with a woman prior to the Wall was with the independent Arya who had martial aspirations and Jon had a sword made for her. Jon doesn’t find lethality to be a turn off for a partner, and if anything, he finds it appealing. 

Lyanna herself was no damsel either as she was a skilled horsewomen who liked to play at swords with her brother Benjen, and even unhorsed three knights at a tourney. Rhaegar was drawn to that as much as Jon was. Val and Lyanna also share a willful independence as Lyanna did not allow herself to be pushed into the match her father made for her. She chose to run off with Rhaegar rather than marry Robert. Rhaegar himself seemed to respect her enough not to rat her out to his father and the public about being the Knight of the Laughing Tree. 

"captive or no, if you think you can just give Val to me, I fear you have a deal to learn about wildling women.”

-ADWD, Jon XI

Jon tells Stannis that he could not marry Val to Wyman Manderly. She will not let herself be forced into marriage against her will, and be as likely to kill her husband if she does not like him. The first words out of his mouth when Selyse says that Val will be betrothed to Ser Partek are “Has Val been told, Your Grace?”

Queen Selyse pursed her lips. "Lord Snow, as Lady Val is a stranger to our ways, please send her to me, that I might instruct her in the duties of a noble lady toward her lord husband." That will go splendidly, I know. Jon wondered if the queen would be so eager to see Val married to one of her own knights if she knew Val's feelings about Princess Shireen. "As you wish," he said, "though if I might speak freely—"

-ADWD, Jon XIII

He even tries to speak up in Val’s defense when Selyse tells him not just that Val will be betrothed to Ser Patrek without her consent, but that she will be instructed in her “duties” towards her lord husband. Without saying it out loud, Selyse intends to turn Val into an obedient wife, and cuts Jon off when he tries to stick up for Val. Selyse does not care at all for Val’s feelings, which by extension speaks to her attitudes towards the free folk in general. She does not care at all for them, but expects obedience from them and treats them like pieces to be moved. 

Jon is respecting Val’s personal choices and agency in this, embodying a golden rule in relationships with his attitude: love respects free will. Val is not even officially a friend, yet Jon seems to be the only one at Stannis’s court who seems to treat her like a person, and care about her feelings. He also knows her well enough to know that she won’t be forced into a marriage. 

Val helps Jon where she can too. She goes off beyond the Wall to bring Tormund to treat with Jon, an act that proves to be crucial. They have a little moment together before she rides off.  

"He may not heed your words, but he will hear them." Val kissed him lightly on the cheek. "You have my thanks, Lord Snow. For the half-blind horse, the salt cod, the free air. For hope."

Their breath mingled, a white mist in the air. Jon Snow drew back and said, "The only thanks I want is—"

"—Tormund Giantsbane. Aye." Val pulled up the hood of her bearskin. The brown pelt was well salted with grey. "Before I go, one question. Did you kill Jarl, my lord?"

"The Wall killed Jarl."

"So I'd heard. But I had to be sure."

-ADWD, Jon VIII

The Magnar all but ripped the maiden's cloak from Alys's shoulders, but when he fastened her bride's cloak about her he was almost tender. As he leaned down to kiss her cheek, their breath mingled. The flames roared once again. 

-ADWD, JON X

This is the first time we see them interact in A Dance with Dragons, and now their dynamic is reversed from when they first met: Jon is Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and Val is the prisoner as she is about to go off alone on a mission for the Night’s Watch. 

It is a tender scene, with the mists of their breath making it literally steamy. They’re both facing each other with their faces lingering very close for a moment where their breath even mingles, and it clearly is an intimate moment to the point it resembles the scene from Sigorn and Alys’s wedding. Note, it was a wedding between a Northerner of Stark blood and a wildling, joining together two peoples. 

Of course, Jon knowingly pulls back, and goes back to being brooding, business-first Lord Snow, because he sensed what might have happened if he didn’t. There is clearly a connection between the two, and she just kissed him, and had he not pulled back, the next kiss wouldn’t have been on the cheek.

The fact that Jon lets her go beyond the Wall is significant. Riding off alone beyond the Wall is risky in and of itself, and if Val didn’t return before Stannis does, Jon would find himself in serious trouble. He literally puts his neck on the line for her, demonstrating that he trusts her, and is willing to defend his decision to his men in the same chapter.

Before she leaves, she asks him one last question, and it was completely unrelated with her quest or the babe. Val asks Jon if he killed her late lover. Why would she need to be sure? It could be if she’s interested, she wants to make sure that her interest didn’t off her last boyfriend, as that would have been a deal breaker.   

"Did you follow me as well?" Jon reached to shoo the bird away but ended up stroking its feathers. The raven cocked its eye at him. "Snow," it muttered, bobbing its head knowingly. Then Ghost emerged from between two trees, with Val beside him. They look as though they belong together. Val was clad all in white; white woolen breeches tucked into high boots of bleached white leather, white bearskin cloak pinned at the shoulder with a carved weirwood face, white tunic with bone fastenings. Her breath was white as well … but her eyes were blue, her long braid the color of dark honey, her cheeks flushed red from the cold. It had been a long while since Jon Snow had seen a sight so lovely.

-ADWD, Jon XI

Their images contrast each other. Jon is dark-haired, dressed in black, wielding a black Valyrian sword and with a black raven while Val is fair-haired, dressed in white, wielding a white bone dagger and with the white direwolf. Black and white, north of the Wall and south. The connection to the weirwoods with the carved weirwood face also brings to mind the device on the shield of the Knight of the Laughing Tree with white being one of Lyanna’s house colors and Rhaegar himself undoubtedly wore his black armor at Harrenhal.

Jon also has to give his obligatory acknowledgement of how hot she is. Even though Jon says that he swore a vow, and he made his choice long ago, he can’t stop telling himself how hot she is. The word he most often uses to describe her is “lovely.” After bringing back Tormund, he acknowledges her ability thinking “She may not be a princess, but she would make a worthy wife for any lord.” Jon can’t deny his attraction for her, and sees her value in more than just her physical beauty. 

Ghost also seems to take to her which is another sign. Ghost is effectively bonded to Jon to the point that Jon can known when he has just killed with the taste of blood in his mouth. The bond goes the other way as well, and Ghost can undoubtedly feel Jon’s feelings towards Val. They also emerge from between two trees as if down the aisle with Val dressed in white like a bride. 

He turned to Val. "My lady. With me, if you please."

"The crow commands, the captive must obey." Her tone was playful.

-ADWD, Jon XI

This is noticeable as Jon noted since the beginning of the chapter that Val resents her imprisonment at Castle Black. She nearly killed a guard in her attempt to escape. Jon would rather that she were not a prisoner, but he still is keeping her captive under Stannis’s orders. Yet, she seems not to mind the fact that he is technically her gaoler. Along with being raised among the free folk, Val is very independent and disdains orders given to her, but she says “the captive must obey.” If that’s not flirting, I don’t know what is. In other words, Jon’s attraction to Val is mutual. She clearly likes the young Lord Commander even as he doesn’t seem to make any moves on her.

She is also willing to kneel not just for her people, but to make Jon’s life easier when visiting Selyse. Kneeling is a big deal for her, and the fact that she was willing to make that compromise does say something. However, she deigns to kneel again after Selyse pisses her off, not that the reader could blame her. 

They made their way toward the King's Tower, along fresh-shoveled pathways between mounds of dirty snow. "I have heard it said that your queen has a great dark beard."

Jon knew he should not smile, but he did. "Only a mustache. Very wispy. You can count the hairs."

"How disappointing."

. . .

When presented to Val, the knight sank to one knee to kiss her glove. "You are even lovelier than I was told, princess," he declared. "The queen has told me much and more of your beauty."

"How odd, when she has never seen me." Val patted Ser Patrek on the head. "Up with you now, ser kneeler. Up, up." She sounded as if she were talking to a dog.

It was all that Jon could do not to laugh.

-ADWD, Jon XI

Ser Patrek makes a pass at Val, and even goes so far as to kiss her hand and kneel which I doubt he does with every woman he meets, even highborn women. Val is visibly unimpressed by his grandiose act of chivalry, especially since she is used to male attention and comes from a society that frowns upon kneeling. She even calls him “Ser Kneeler,” and in a mocking way as opposed to affectionate. From her point-of-view, he is dropping his dignity with his knee in that gesture. 

Val somehow manages to get the introverted, sullen Jon to not just smile but almost laugh. The ability to make someone laugh can be a sign of compatibility. The only other women we’ve ever seen do that with Jon was Ygritte as well as arguably Arya. The fact that she manages to make him smile suggests a kind of connection between the two as Jon trusts her enough to let his guard down and feel comfortable around her.

"That come from Hardin's Tower, m'lord," Horse reported. He might have said more, but the scream cut him off. Val, was Jon's first thought.

-ADWD, Jon XIII

Jon heard a scream at Hardin’s Tower, and the first person he thinks of is Val. He is clearly concerned for her even if he doesn’t state it outright. 

What happens next recreates the fight at Jon’s birth with Lyanna at the tower of joy as Kingsguard battle Ned’s entourage who have come to retrieve her for Robert. There is an ostensible infant son of a royal blood as well. Ser Patrek’s sigil of a red star goes along with Arthur Dayne’s sigil of a falling star. 

And then Jon is struck down in cold blood. They can pick up where they left off after he wakes up in Winds. 

As to where their relationship will go in Winds, take into account that Jon has fewer friends at Castle Black. When he inevitably learns the truth of R+L=J, he will undoubtedly be dealing with a lot on top of everything else. He will be wrestling with this new and devastating piece of information. He cannot confide in Sam since he is in Oldtown. Maester Aemon and Benjen are the only other people I can think of that he would confide in but he sent Aemon away and Benjen went AWOL. He sent his other friends away as well to various castles along the Wall. Val is the only one left at his side since he is required to keep her close at hand at Castle Black. 

I think he would confide in Val this secret as he would feel the need to tell someone. There also already seems to be a level of trust between them, and he knows she would not rat him out, especially since she knows Melisandre is looking for kingsblood to wake a dragon. She would not want to put Jon’s life at risk, and keep that one close to the vest. 

Val has already proven to be of great help to him in the past, and I think she would continue to help Jon as he becomes de facto King-beyond-the-Wall as he tries to help her people. . 

I could imagine that Jon would even be a little mad at Ned for doing what he did, but I think Val would point out that he did the same with Mance’s child. She would be there to provide him emotional support during a tough time. Their relationship would likely deepen from there. Jon and Val may be a classic “will they or won’t they?” There is clear attraction and trust, but there are obstacles standing in the way of their relationship like Rhaegar and Lyanna’s.

Rhaegar already had sworn vows just as Jon did with the former married to Elia and Jon married to the Wall. Lyanna was betrothed to someone else, and I think that will be Val’s case as well. With Ser Patrek dead, Stannis or Selyse will try to find another match for her. As to who that will be is anyone’s guess, but my best guess would be in Jon’s words “that oaf Axell Florent.” I wouldn’t put it past Ser Axell to make another attempt at Val’s hand as he has already shown interest in her at least twice, and her hand is free again. 

"Do you blame me, my lord? Such a prize is not easily won. A nubile girl, I hear, and not hard to look upon. Good hips, good breasts, well made for whelping children."

-ADWD, Jon X

He is also the worst possible match for her, being essentially the anti-Jon Snow as far as a match for Val goes. He is notably physically unattractive, but Brienne isn’t conventionally attractive either and she has a deep inner beauty that stands out. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case here as he is a vain opportunist willing to sacrifice his own kin to the flames with his brother Alester and the boy Edric. Something tells me he would be of the same mind with Shireen too when the time comes. Taking the torch away from Alester to leave him in the dark also shows him to be needlessly cruel. He was also willing to put the people of Claw Isle to the sword in hopes of convincing Stannis to name him Hand.  

In contrast to Jon’s “I know nothing,” Axell claims that he can see into the flames as if he were a chosen prophet, and that what he saw means he should be Stannis’s Hand, exposing a massive ego with a grandiose sense of entitlement. To top it all off, in spite of styling himself as the “Queen’s Hand” and being one of the Queen’s Men, he is still a noted misogynist. 

Before Axell even meets Val, he starts objectifying her with his gross comments describing her body and adds “well-made for whelping children.” He’s basically describing what he wants in a partner: a trophy wife who will be his brood mare. What’s made worse is when Jon all but tells him to back off, Axell boasts that he could have her presented naked.

"Some say you have her tucked away for your own pleasure. It makes no matter to me, so long as she is not with child. I'll get my own sons on her. If you've broken her to saddle, well … we are both men of the world, are we not?" Jon had heard enough. "Ser Axell, if you are truly the Queen's Hand, I pity Her Grace." Florent's face grew flushed with anger. "So it is true. You mean to keep her for yourself, I see it now. The bastard wants his father's seat."

-ADWD, Jon X

I don’t think he was joking either. Axell states that Jon had “broken her to saddle,” or in horse taming terms, broke her so that any guy could mount her. Axell implies that Jon turned Val into his concubine, subjected her to repeated sexual violence, and rather than find disgust at the idea, Axell basically says “we’re both guys, right?” That’s a bigger red flag than the Lannister banner. Axell is basically projecting onto Jon, and expresses anger when he thinks Jon intends “to keep her for yourself” as that’s what Axell intends to do. As for his father’s seat, I would not put it past for Axell to bear some resentment towards Alester for being born before he was. 

Jon showed considerable restraint in that moment given Axell was pretty much asking for it. Axell sees Val largely as a sex object and prize rather than a person, and for all his comments on the “savage customs” of the free folk in taking a bride by force, he is not opposed to the idea of sexually forcing Val.

Val patted the long bone knife on her hip. "Lord Crow is welcome to steal into my bed any night he dares. Once he's been gelded, keeping those vows will come much easier for him."

-ADWD, Jon XI

If he tries, he may learn the hard way (no pun intended) of the risks that come with that custom. Val still has that knife and she keeps it sharp. 

Seriously, fuck him. While he wants to mold Val into a submissive trophy wife, Jon respects Val for being Val. Rather than turned off by her independence and "insolence", he's turned on by it.

As much as Rhaegar and Lyanna were kept apart, they found a way though it helped to result in the fall of Targaryen dynasty. Should the Wall fall, I think Jon’s vows could likely fall with it given the Wall is as essential to the Night’s Watch’s existence as the Temple was to the Sadducees and Pharisees. Of course, that is just pure speculation. 

Where there relationship will go, or will they end up together is another question.