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Episode 176: A STORM OF SWORDS, JON III: "Fear and Desire" SHOW NOTES!
🕑 Added 2022-02-28 15:00:08 +0000 UTCHello and welcome to the Not A Cast … podcast: the one true chapter-by-chapter podcast going through A Song of Ice and Fire one chapter a week. I’m one of your hosts Jeff better known as BryndenBFish.
And I’m your other host Emmett, better known as PoorQuentyn.
Welcome to the one hundred and seventy-sixth episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “Fear and Desire: An Analysis of ASOS, Jon III,” in which Jon Snow explores a complex cave system.
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Spoiler warning: All published books, 5 novels, 3 Dunk and Egg novellas, histories, interviews, TWOW sample chapters, as well as Game of Thrones the TV show. Anything and everything!
When we last checked in with Jon Snow, he had been saved from execution by Ygritte lying about them going to bone town. Let’s explore Plato’s Cave … is that correct? In this synopsis of ASOS, Jon III!
Synopsis
The last night fell black and moonless, but for once the sky was clear. "I am going up the hill to look for Ghost," he told the Thenns at the cave mouth, and they grunted and let him pass.
So many stars, he thought as he trudged up the slope through pines and firs and ash. Maester Luwin had taught him his stars as a boy in Winterfell; he had learned the names of the twelve houses of heaven and the rulers of each; he could find the seven wanderers sacred to the Faith; he was old friends with the Ice Dragon, the Shadowcat, the Moonmaid, and the Sword of the Morning. All those he shared with Ygritte, but not some of the others. We look up at the same stars, and see such different things. The King's Crown was the Cradle, to hear her tell it; the Stallion was the Horned Lord; the red wanderer that septons preached was sacred to their Smith up here was called the Thief. And when the Thief was in the Moonmaid, that was a propitious time for a man to steal a woman, Ygritte insisted. "Like the night you stole me. The Thief was bright that night."
There’s something about the way GRRM describes stars and nighttime that’s magical.
Jon claims he didn’t intend to steal Ygritte. He didn’t even know she was a girl at first. Ygritte retorts that if you didn’t mean to kill someone, and you kill him, does it matter? The damn girl was so stubborn. Only Arya was more stubborn. For that matter, is Arya still his sister? He felt like Theon back at Winterfell: not belonging. And now he was a man of the Night’s Watch and didn’t have a family. But he lost those brothers too.
Jon finds Ghost on top of the hill, but his wolf loved heights, loved hills. He asks Ghost if he has names for the stars. In response, Ghost licks his face where the eagle raked his face with his talons.
The bird marked both of us, he thought. "Ghost," he said quietly, "on the morrow we go over. There's no steps here, no cage-and-crane, no way for me to get you to the other side. We have to part. Do you understand?"
Ghost’s eyes look black, and he nuzzles at Jon’s neck. While the wildlings claimed that Jon was a warg, Jon didn’t know how to do the warging stuff. He dreamed he was in Ghost and saw Mance Rayder’s host, but that was only when he was dreaming. He could communicate with Ghost then, but now he only has words. And his words are sad.
"You cannot come with me," Jon said, cupping the wolf's head in his hands and looking deep into those eyes. "You have to go to Castle Black. Do you understand? Castle Black. Can you find it? The way home? Just follow the ice, east and east, into the sun, and you'll find it. They will know you at Castle Black, and maybe your coming will warn them." He had thought of writing out a warning for Ghost to carry, but he had no ink, no parchment, not even a writing quill, and the risk of discovery was too great. "I will meet you again at Castle Black, but you have to get there by yourself. We must each hunt alone for a time. Alone."
Ghost twists away from Jon, and then bounds off, moving through the brush under the hill. Jon hopes that Ghost is heading back to Castle Black, but he doesn’t know. His fear is that he’s as bad a warg as a NW brother or spy.
Jon looks around and judges that they’re somewhere north of the Wall between the Shadow Tower and Castle Black. They had been moving for days south through woods and deep lakes and flint hill. Hard riding but easier to get to the Wall unseen.
For wildling raiders, he thought. Like us. Like me.
Beyond that Wall lay the Seven Kingdoms, and everything he had sworn to protect. He had said the words, had pledged his life and honor, and by rights he should be up there standing sentry. He should be raising a horn to his lips to rouse the Night's Watch to arms. He had no horn, though. It would not be hard to steal one from the wildlings, he suspected, but what would that accomplish? Even if he blew it, there was no one to hear. The Wall was a hundred leagues long and the Watch sadly dwindled. All but three of the strongholds had been abandoned; there might not be a brother within forty miles of here, but for Jon. If he was a brother still . . .
Jon thinks he should have killed Mance. Qhorin would have done that. But the day and time had passed. He was now riding with Styr, Mangar of Thenn and Jarl. Jon promises that he’s only biding his time for when he would slip away and make for Castle Black, but the timing never worked out. Too many guards at night, and Jarl watched him suspiciously. Oh, and Ygritte was always nearby.
Two hearts that beat as one. Mance Rayder's mocking words rang bitter in his head. Jon had seldom felt so confused. I have no choice, he'd told himself the first time, when she slipped beneath his sleeping skins. If I refuse her, she will know me for a turncloak. I am playing the part the Halfhand told me to play.
Jon knows that his body play-acted well as they had sex. It was Jon’s first time, but it was not Ygritte’s. Jon keeps reminding himself that he’s playing a part. He was still a man of the Night’s Watch and Ned’s son. He was just doing what needed to be done. The problem is that he likes playing this part too much. Ygritte went to sleep beside him, and though he vowed that it was only going to be a one-time thing, he had sex with her twice more that night and then on the next day too. Jon wonders what he’s become. Is he as weak as his father was when he dishonored himself in his mother’s bed?
But then someone comes up the hill. Turns out it was only a Thenn who informs Jon that Magnar wants to see him. Jon doesn’t really care what the Magnar wants but decides not to argue -- the Thenns didn’t speak much of the common tongue as is. So, he heads down to the mouth of a cave facing out to the north -- meaning the fires they lit wouldn’t be seen by the Wall. It was all well-planned by Mance Rayder. Inside the cave, Jon hears water below and then finds Jarl with the Magnar.
Jarl and Styr the Magnar are both in command, and that didn’t please Styr at all. Jarl was Val’s lover, and Val was sister to Dalla who Mance had made queen. So, Jarl got the position due to his proximity to the king, and that pissed Styr off. But it wasn’t simple adjacent nepotism that got Jarl the job. He was a skilled raider and had gone over the Wall a dozen times even though he was only twenty years old.
Styr immediately asks what Jon knows of the patrols on the Wall. Well, they are on the Wall. There are four of them, and they ride mules as those beasts were more sure footed than horses or other beasts. Styr asks if they always ride on top. Not always. One in four patrols go at the base of the Wall to check for structural weaknesses: cracks, melting ice, tunnels the wildlings made, etc.
The Magnar nodded. "Even in far Thenn we know the tale of Arson Iceaxe and his tunnel ."
Jon knew the tale as well. Arson Iceaxe had been halfway through the Wall when his tunnel was found by rangers from the Nightfort. They did not trouble to disturb him at his digging, only sealed the way behind with ice and stone and snow. Dolorous Edd used to say that if you pressed your ear flat to the Wall, you could still hear Arson chipping away with his axe.
Styr asks how often the patrols go out. It varies. LC Qorgyle had one method, but LC Mormont varied the number of patrols, times of departure and how long they’d be out there. That was an invention of Benjen Stark -- something to unsettle the wildlings.
Jarl asks if Stonedoor or Greyguard are manned. Jon realizes that this means they’re between those two castles. Only three castles were manned when Jon left: Eastwatch, Castle Black and the Shadow Tower, but who knows what’s happened since Jon left. Styr asks how many NW brothers were in those castles.
"Five hundred at Castle Black. Two hundred at Shadow Tower, perhaps three hundred at Eastwatch." Jon added three hundred men to the count. If only it were that easy . . .
Jarl was not fooled, however. "He's lying," he told Styr. "Or else including those they lost on the Fist."
"Crow," the Magnar warned, "do not take me for Mance Rayder. If you lie to me, I will have your tongue."
"I'm no crow, and won't be called a liar." Jon flexed the fingers of his sword hand.
The Magnar studies Jon and then says they’ll know their numbers soon enough. He dismisses Jon and says he might ask for him back if he has more questions. So, Jon heads off, thinking that the wildlings would be easier to hate and betray if they were like Styr. His band of wildlings - the Thenns again - were a hard people who lived in the far north. And they viewed Styr as a god, and he commanded absolute obedience from them -- hence why Mance chose him to lead the expedition over the Wall.
Jon walks past those Thenns, wondering where Ygritte got off to. Grigg the Goat tells him that she went to the back of the cave. So, Jon heads in the direction Grigg points, moving through a maze of columns and stalactites. He tries to find his way around, and then he finds a dark hole under wet stone. He kneels and calls for Ygritte. Her voice answers back from the hole. So, Jon crawls his way through the hole until he finds it open to a larger cavern. And there, he sees Ygritte and light from a torch playing orange and green against the green water. Jon asks what she’s doing here, and she sees she heard water and wanted to see how deep the cave went. To a dead end?
"You know nothing, Jon Snow. It went on and on and on. There are hundreds o' caves in these hills, and down deep they all connect. There's even a way under your Wall. Gorne's Way."
"Gorne," said Jon. "Gorne was King-beyond-the-Wall."
"Aye," said Ygritte. "Together with his brother Gendel, three thousand years ago. They led a host o' free folk through the caves, and the Watch was none the wiser. But when they come out, the wolves o' Winterfell fell upon them."
Jon knows this story. Gorne killed the King in the North, but the king’s son took up the cause and killed Gorne. Ygritte states the Night’s Watch came. And the Umbers too, Jon says. All three of them killed Gorne’s brother Gendel.
"You know nothing, Jon Snow. Gendel did not die. He cut his way free, through the crows, and led his people back north with the wolves howling at their heels. Only Gendel did not know the caves as Gorne had, and took a wrong turn." She swept the torch back and forth, so the shadows jumped and moved. "Deeper he went, and deeper, and when he tried t' turn back the ways that seemed familiar ended in stone rather than sky. Soon his torches began t' fail, one by one, till finally there was naught but dark. Gendel's folk were never seen again, but on a still night you can hear their children's children's children sobbing under the hills, still looking for the way back up. Listen? Do you hear them?"
Jon hears nothing but the rain. Wait, wrong podcast. He hears the water and asks if the way was lost. Ygritte says some search for the way, but those people that go too deep find Gendels children, and they’re hungry. They only eat flesh down in the dark. With that, Ygritte bites Jon’s neck.
Jon nuzzles up against her hair and tells Ygritte that she sounds like Old Nan. No way. Ygritte’s not old. She’s older than Jon. Yup. Wiser too. With that, she disrobes to show him how old she is. Jon says they shouldn’t, but Ygritte says they should. She tells Jon to show her his.
"I know I want you," he heard himself say, all his vows and all his honor forgotten. She stood before him naked as her name day, and he was as hard as the rock around them. He had been in her half a hundred times by now, but always beneath the furs, with others all around them. He had never seen how beautiful she was. Her legs were skinny but well muscled, the hair at the juncture of her thighs a brighter red than that on her head. Does that make it even luckier? He pulled her close. "I love the smell of you," he said. "I love your red hair. I love your mouth, and the way you kiss me. I love your smile. I love your teats." He kissed them, one and then the other. "I love your skinny legs, and what's between them." He knelt to kiss her there, lightly on her mound at first, but Ygritte moved her legs apart a little, and he saw the pink inside and kissed that as well, and tasted her. She gave a little gasp. "If you love me all so much, why are you still dressed?" she whispered. "You know nothing, Jon Snow. Noth-oh. Oh. OHHH."
Shy afterwards, Ygritte asks if that’s a thing lords do with their ladies down in the south. Mm-hm. Jon doesn’t think so. He just wanted to kiss her down there. She seemed to like it. Ygritte agrees and asks again if anyone taught him. Nope. Jon’s only been with Ygritte. She teases him about being a maid, and Jon says he was a member of the Night’s Watch. Was.
Jon asks who Ygritte’s first was. A boy who was also kissed by fire. He tried to come back and steal her, but Longspear broke his arm, and the boy never tried again. Jon is relieved that it wasn’t Longspear. He liked Longspear. Ygritte thinks that’s gross as Longspear was from her village, and they’re related. Children born of incest are cursed by the gods. Jon asks about Craster.
She punched him again. "Craster's more your kind than ours. His father was a crow who stole a woman out of Whitetree village, but after he had her he flew back t' his Wall. She went t' Castle Black once t' show the crow his son, but the brothers blew their horns and run her off. Craster's blood is black, and he bears a heavy curse." She ran her fingers lightly across his stomach. "I feared you'd do the same once. Fly back to the Wall. You never knew what t' do after you stole me."
Once again, Jon says he didn’t steal Ygritte. And Ygritte stubbornly says that Jon stole her when he jumped from the mountain and killed Orell. She reminds him of the story of Bael the Bard and how he plucked the rose of Winterfell. Ygritte thought Jon was plucking her. But he wasn’t. He knows nothing. But he might be learning.
Jon sees that the light from the torch is almost out and says they should get out of the cave. Ygritte teases him about being afraid of Gendel’s children. It’s only a little ways up, and she’s not done with Jon. She asks if Jon would perform the lord’s kiss on her again. Maybe she could try it back with him.
The torch finally dies out, but Jon doesn’t care. His guilt returns later. Weaker. Jon wonders why this is so wrong when it feels so right. The cavern was pitch black when they finish with only dim light from the other passage. They try to get dressed, bump into each other and fall into the pool together, and then they start having sex again.
"Jon Snow," she told him, when he'd spent his seed inside her, "don't move now, sweet. I like the feel of you in there, I do. Let's not go back t' Styr and Jarl. Let's go down inside, and join up with Gendel's children. I don't ever want t' leave this cave, Jon Snow. Not ever."
And that is the synopsis of ASOS, Jon III! I hope I didn’t blush too much in doing the synopsis. This is a nice chapter. Nice. What did you think, ser?
Depth
The last couple Jon chapters were huge in terms of scale and scope, and part of me does miss that ambition, as well as characters like Mance and Tormund, who we won’t see again until the book is almost over. But Jon’s story has been scaled down for a reason: to capture his newfound intimacy with Ygritte. It’s a heartfelt chapter, written in shades of red and flashes of heat. It perfectly conveys the feeling of falling in love, the whole world shrinking down to just the two of them, even as both of them know that it can’t last forever. Without George stopping the plot progression dead to focus on character, later events in Jon’s chapters wouldn’t be nearly as emotionally effective.
There’s a real melancholy coming back to this chapter as a re-reader, because we know the ultimate fate of these two doomed lovers. Much as George writes a lot of darkness to make the light feel that much brighter, he makes heartbreak that much sadder by showing two people falling into doomed love with each other. Still, there is beauty and love in the here and now, and I think what Ygritte says later plays so well with this chapter as it stands on its own and what it means for the future: “You’re mine. Mine, as I'm yours. And if we die, we die. All men must die, Jon Snow. But first we'll live.”
- Goodbye to Ghost
- Jon III feels like it has as much in common with the other POV chapters near it as it does with previous Jon chapters
- We’ve got the cave motif from the recent Bran and Davos chapters; same sense of tragic romance as in the Knight of the Laughing Tree story, same fire v. shadow imagery as in the Davos chapter
- And we’ve got the same questions of cultural transmission and translation that are at work in the Dany chapters set in Astapor
- Before Jon can say farewell to Ghost, he has to get past the Thenn guard outside the cave–despite them barely speaking the same language
- As Jon climbs the hill outside, he looks up at the stars, and thinks about home. Home is Winterfell; doesn’t matter that Jon said his Night’s Watch vows, doesn’t matter that he’s wearing the cloak Mance gave him
- Ygritte as stubborn as Arya–is Arya still his family, still his pack? He was always an outsider at Winterfell, but can he break from it entirely?
- Even detached from home twice over, it’s still where he learned everything he knows. Ygritte tells him he knows nothing; it might be easier if that were actually true! As at Castle Black, Jon has so much to unlearn
- He has to understand that his instinctive unconscious reactions don’t represent objective truth, but his perspective on the world
- We look up at the same stars, and see such different things.
- It’s a beautifully written line that sums up so much in so few words. Constellations aren’t real, in the sense that they don’t exist without a distinct perspective putting them together. The stars weren’t put together by any god to form a distinct picture for your pleasure
- It’s a way of sorting information into a pattern relevant to your life, and so the constellations you see say more about you than the stars
- It’s all in where you’re standing, Ygritte says; I often think about how there’s no such thing as a still point in the universe. Just a combination of gravity, relativistic speeds, etc. that convince us we’re standing still
- Reading works the same way, as we talked about with Bran and the Knight of the Laughing Tree story last week. Signs and signifiers that our brains assemble into a pattern, often without us deciding to do so
- Jon and Ygritte have some constellations in common; others, they don’t, and that allows you to map the differences in their cultural upbringing
- Ygritte connects the positions of the stars to the night they met. You stealing me is written in the stars; Jon doesn’t think he stole her at all
- Neither of them is wrong, just like neither of their constellations are wrong. They’re different ways of interpreting the same event; George knows the same is true of us. We’re all reading the same ASOIAF, but we come to such different conclusions; stories reveal you, not the other way around
- I love that so much that I’m afraid of undercutting it by talking about astronomy in ASOIAF.
- So, just a few quick notes about constellations and astronomy in ASOIAF as this is the most dedicated astronomy chapter in ASOIAF, and I love astronomy … I love looking at stars and thinking very big thoughts.
- There are ten named constellations in ASOIAF, but there are likely twelve constellations in total to correspond with the twelve houses of heaven that Jon thinks of.
- One of the cool but abandoned ideas that Elio and Linda had for TWOIAF was to do a star chart as they stated in a reddit AMA from 2015:
- Very early on one of the planned illustrations would have been a maester's star chart, showing the constellations as they exist in the setting, marking out the "twelve houses of heaven" and so on, as the maesters are quite interested in mapping the sky as part of their efforts to determine the change of the seasons and such. It felt like a really neat, if geeky, touch. Alas, it was something that never gelled and was dropped.
- Would have been interesting if the star chart incorporated both the southron naming convention of the stars as well as the wildling one, but since it never happened, we can only speculate.
- But even so, Jon realizes that there might be a wider diversity in how the stars are named. Does the animal kingdom know the stars?
- What about Ghost, Jon wonders? Do the animals have their own names for stars, or is imposing narrative patterns onto nature a human concept?
- On some level, Jon is Ghost and Ghost is Jon; as Jon thinks, the eagle marked both of them, linked by common experience
- But Jon can’t warg into his wolf at will the way Bran can. Jon has to rely on language to communicate with his wolf, and that’s inherently uncertain
- He has no clue whether Ghost understood his command to return to Castle Black or if he’s just chasing prey like any animal in the wild
- They have to part because Ghost has no way of getting over the Wall–Jon is giving up the icon of his Stark self in order to fully play his role as a wildling. Yet he’s sending him to Castle Black, affirming his NW self
- Jon’s many faces overlap, but not completely, just as he shares some constellations with Ygritte, but not all of them. This in-between status is what makes it so painful; Jon feels broken into pieces
- The vivid imagery captures his dynamic: the mist around Ghost as his red eyes drink the moon, Jon imagining the white wolf following the sun to a black castle. Black, white, and red. Black and white represent opposite parts of the whole, linked by red, representing love…and also blood
- The Wall is a shadow blocking out the stars–preventing Jon from seeing the world, let alone interpreting it. The Wall represents the endpoint of these conflicting narratives. It’s the point where you have to choose
- It’s the border between the world Jon knows and the world of the wildlings. “Like us. Like me.” Jon’s no longer sure who he’s working for, where his loyalty lies. Inherent to the Watch: sworn to defend places they can never see again, people they are forbidden to be in contact with
- Can’t even argue with the Thenn summoning him to see Styr. How do we communicate without common words and reference points?
- There’s a melancholy infusing this chapter, but it’s felt strongest at the start of the chapter with Jon sending Ghost away.
- It’s prime territory for sadness here as it’s a boy parting with his beloved dog.
- Beyond simply the warging, Ghost is a part of Jon in the same way that pets become part of the family.
- So, it’s sad that Jon has to cut free on a simple basic level of how humans interrelate with animals.
- I think that’s smart writing, because that emotional dynamic primes our brains for what this act represents and what it means thematically. Call it a gateway drug towards deeper critical analysis.
Jon sending Ghost away without knowing whether he’d make it back to Castle Black represents Jon’s own feelings about returning to the Night’s Watch. - Jon I and II showed Jon taking larger steps towards becoming more wildling than brother of the Night’s Watch, and Jon III only furthers that trend.
- By chapter’s end, Jon will feel the guilt but only a lesser sense of it.
- I love this line from the chapter, because it speaks to where Jon is:
- "You have to go to Castle Black. Do you understand? Castle Black. Can you find it? The way home?”
- Can Jon find the way home back to Castle Black? Can he find the way home?
- The longer Jon remains with the wildlings, the farther away Castle Black seems. But even then, his stay with the wildlings is under the microscope by those around him with only one person in this chapter fully accepting Jon as one of their own.
- Crow in disguise
- Amidst all the melancholy stuff about identity confusion and doomed romance, this chapter continues the espionage storyline from previous Jon chapters. Jon’s undercover mission keeps getting more dangerous
- They’re close to the Wall now, staying hidden from sight, and instead of friendly leaders like Mance or Tormund, Jon is left with Styr, the harsh Magnar of Thenn
- Styr even says that Jon shouldn’t mistake him for Mance, implying that Styr thinks Mance is too forgiving of ex-crows like him
- But Styr is mostly annoyed because he has to split command with Jarl. This goes against Styr’s top-down model of leadership, which has more in common with southern lords than the popular image of the “free” folk
- So there are conflicts within a camp as well as between camps, just as Jon has conflicts within his identities as well as among them
- “Tell me about Watch patrols,” Styr orders him, not “tell us” to include Jarl. It’s just like Jon thinking “like me, like us” about the wildlings as a whole
- Constant question of identity linked to authority: we can’t be individuals, because the Wall divides us. Stuck on different sides, we started telling different stories–though ironically, the story of Arson Iceaxe has traveled farther than he ever managed to!
- Speaking of the Wall, Jon has to play the information game like any spy: how much to give up, how much to hold back, how to stay alive
- Jon is getting good at this! Gives up detailed info that isn’t super useful: how the patrols are constructed, what they’re looking for
- Keeps things vague on how often the patrols go out, and outright lies about Watch numbers–but not in a way they can easily check
- Jarl is smart enough to realize that Jon is including those they lost at the Fist: an idealization of the Watch where the Great Ranging didn’t happen
- “I’m no crow” (lie) “and won’t be called a liar.” Negotiation of truth as well as identity. How can you play a role without becoming the mask?
- Styr’s ultimate threat: we’re getting close enough to learn for ourselves. Jon is running out of time, brought to a crisis decision point
- Part of that alienation with Jon and the Thenns is in how they’re framed. The Thenns are other to Jon. They have their own language, and it’s alien to Jon.
- It’s a play on the earlier line about looking up to the stars and seeing different things. We use our unique languages to describe the same thing.
- But also there’s also alienation between Jon and Styr in how Styr plays into a hostile familiarity for Jon.
- Styr’s suspicions remind Jon of how he was treated by those south of the Wall.
- Bastards are considered untrustworthy and treacherous by nature south of the Wall, and Styr embodies that with his suspicions of where Jon’s loyalties truly lie.
- But the problem for Jon is that it’s not simply the Thenns who are here with Jon.
- If all the wildlings were like Styr, it would be easier to betray them.
- Jon grew fond of certain wildlings like Mance Rayder or Tormund Giantsbane.
- Here in this chapter, Jon mentions that he was growing fond of Longspear Ryk.
- And it’s interesting to come back to this chapter with ADWD in mind as the Thenns become Jon’s closest ally prior to Tormund’s arrival at the Wall at the end of ADWD.
- Sigorn may look like his dad, speak only a broken form of the common tongue; yet, Jon eventually trusts him with marrying Alys Karstark
- Ultimately, the diversity of the wildlings is a nice touch by George, because he could have gone the noble savage route or that all of these wildlings are barbarians bent on savaging innocents south of the Wall.
- George doesn’t take that route. Instead, he shows the diversity of the wildlings: the good and the bad, the gray.
- But then because George is a romantic, he doesn’t end this chapter with ambiguity and gray.
- Instead, it's a dim torchlight shining light on what unites humanity: love. Or sex.
- Jon’s first love
- The main focus of this chapter is the developing sexual and romantic relationship between Jon and Ygritte, which has been coming for a while (so to speak). It’s probably the best sexual/romantic material in the series
- Why is that? Why is this so emotionally resonant? It’s the tenderness, the sense of discovery, the lack of shame, and the overwhelming fragility
- It’s a fusion of personal and political concerns, showing how they can’t be separated for long; Jon is still a spy and she is still a soldier, and as Jon thinks, the false pretense puts her in constant danger of reprisals
- But Jon and Ygritte are also just two people who found each other and fell in love: a whole other person to get wrapped up in
- They delight in each other’s body, and delight in each other’s delight. All the little details of being hungry for one another, all the body parts
- Body v. brain divide, body responding while the brain remembers the vows, the weirwoods, the gods watching like they would at Winterfell
- Jon thinks the cave is as big as Winterfell’s Great Hall. He can’t get away from the memory of home–the person he used to be, and that person can’t stay with Ygritte for long because Ygritte is at war with that person
- Spiritual torment over the demands of the flesh, betraying the divine, all that is good in you, your promises, because it feels good to do so
- What are we put on this earth for? To glory in the gods or each other? Kojja Mo tells Sam they’re one and the same; not so for Jon
- None of it matters but her, that’s our great glory and our great tragedy
- I am playing a part–or was I before? What does it mean to play a role or to genuinely be something? Is it right to make her trust me?
- All that buildup and self-torment, and then they fuck through the night! That’s how weak the vows seem relative to love
- “Dangerously sweet,” the tenderness that can turn violent
- “Rutting dogs,” state of nature–no shame, everything in public like the khalasar
- Constant comparison to Ned, the irony–Ned was keeping his promises! But it may well have been how Rhaegar felt–hence the fire imagery
- Sex imagery: Mance had planned his thrust well, Jon making his way around the cave
- Beautiful little pocket world cut off from all the concerns that would drive them apart, an oasis like Tyrion and Tysha’s cottage by the sea
- Fire and water: elemental, blurring colors, a place where we can be broken down and remade as two hearts beating as one
- Stories about past conflict drives them into present-day disagreement; the story of Gendel and Gorne is a star they look at and see different things. Again, tenderness can turn violent, evocation of cannibalism
- Everything stripped away so they can really look at each other: vulnerability and intimacy are frightening but exciting
- And yet even while Jon is naked in front of Ygritte, he separates his words and actions with who he is.
- "I know I want you," he heard himself say, all his vows and all his honor forgotten.
- He heard himself say. Jon’s attempting to compartmentalize his competing desires and priorities.
- Jon knows that what he’s doing is wrong. He is betraying his vows. So, he almost goes away inside, letting his body and tongue play a part while he keeps his vows in his mind.
- George then reuses how Jon compartmentalizes by disembodying his actions and words again vs what his real mission is:
- "I was a man of the Night's Watch." Was, he heard himself say. What was he now? He did not want to look at that.
- The easy route would be that Jon is playing the role of the honeypot in an espionage story.
- But Jon isn’t a sociopath. He feels things about Ygritte. He feels things about whether he’s betraying his Night’s Watch vows.
- So, the harder route is for Jon to be in serious conflict with himself. He’s just sixteen years old, and he’s in love for the first time.
- Jon is also infused with principles of duty.
- In this, Jon feels like he’s acting like his purported dad Ned in being a man of solemn duty and being true to Catelyn.
- Yet as Jon constantly reminds himself about Ned: he did father a bastard.
- But as Ned didn’t truly forsake his vows to Catelyn, Jon tries to convince himself that he’s not forsaking his vows to the Night’s Watch.
- Unfortunately or fortunately for Jon, his ability to separate his actions from his true purpose comes into more and more conflict as he becomes more and more intimate with Ygritte.
- Jon invents cunnilingus! For once, it’s Ygritte exploring new territory, despite her being older and on her home turf
- That’s the essence of love: forging into new territory, teaching each other, mutual discovery
- Chapter about language–so naturally, they’re using their tongues
- “The lord’s kiss” brings up class; mention of Craster brings up incest and division between wildlings and Watch
- Question of stealing, cultural divide, but also post-coital honesty when you talk about past relationships and what you were thinking while flirting
- The torch burns out; now they can no longer see each other or anything. It’s the Long Night; what can you do in response but fuck
- Jon asks the gods why they did this to us–if it’s wrong, why does it feel so right? But it’s not the gods who will force them apart, they share gods
- It’s the war between wildlings and Watch that makes this impossible. It’s a dream they’re sharing; sooner or later, they’ll have to wake up.
- It reminds me of being drunk. It’s amazing. It’s fun. You’re living in your wild state without inhibitions.
- Tyrion described being drunk in Tysha’s presence when he remembered his cottage by the sea as you were talking about earlier.
- It’s hard not to see Jon in that with Ygritte. He feels in love for the first time, accepted for who he is, with no cares given to his bastardy, to the role he’s supposed to occupy.
- I wonder if that’s why Jon finds Ygritte so appealing: sure, he’s attracted to her physically, but it’s in how she just accepts him for who he is, who she thinks he is.
- But there’s always the morning after. The hangover. And Ygritte has somewhat fallen in love with a lie.
- Jon will eventually bridge the gap between wildling and southerner in ADWD, and he’ll eventually play the wildlings true.
- But he’s going to betray them. He may claim his heart is with Ygritte, and that she is his. But his true heart lies in Winterfell, to the people of the north.
- As he thought back in Jon II:
- He could not let the wildlings breach the Wall, to threaten Winterfell and the north, the barrowlands and the Rills, White Harbor and the Stony Shore, even the Neck. For eight thousand years the men of House Stark had lived and died to protect their people against such ravagers and reavers . . . and bastard-born or no, the same blood ran in his veins. Bran and Rickon are still at Winterfell besides. Maester Luwin, Ser Rodrik, Old Nan, Farlen the kennelmaster, Mikken at his forge and Gage by his ovens . . . everyone I ever knew, everyone I ever loved.
- Jon is going to leave Ygritte and the passion they shared behind, sacrificing it all for his true love: the North, Winterfell.
- But, as I said before, Jon isn’t a sociopath. He’s not able to simply move on emotionally from Ygritte.
- It feels like the rest of Jon’s arc is a big-ass hangover. He’s going to be broken up about Ygritte until the end of his arc in ASOS, and he’s still thinking about Ygritte towards the end of ADWD.
- That’s the real melancholy at chapter’s end: Jon will save the North from the wildlings but at expense of his heart.
- Maester Aemon said it best back in AGOT, Jon VIII:
- What is honor compared to a woman's love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms … or the memory of a brother's smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.
Foreshadowing/Groundwork
The wildlings will go over the Wall in Jon’s next chapter.
Ghost will return to Castle Black to find Jon near the very end of the book.
Theory/Discussion
Is the tale of Gendel and Gorne legit?
Conclusion
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