Episode 131: A CLASH OF KINGS, JON VI: "Fire on the Mountain" SHOW NOTES! (Patreon)

Hello 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 thirty-first episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “Fire on the Mountain: An Analysis of ACOK, Jon VI,” in which Jon and his new Ranger buddies go hunting for wildling scouts, only for Jon to get a crush on one. Oh, Jon. Wyd?

This episode is brought to you by our NotASmallCouncil:

• Hand of the King WolfmanZack
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• Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Mark N.
• Lord Travis, Master of Ships and Warden of the Waves, Captain of the war galley NIGHT WOLF, the ship that stalks the Seven Seas, and Wielder of the Valyrian Steel trident SUMMONER, the blade that brings the Deep Ones
• Ser Keith J, Master of Whisperers
• Lord Philip the Merciful, Master of Laws
• Archmaester June, Healer of the Lesser Poxes
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• Lord Micah, the Quilled Lion, Warden of the West, Herald of the Golden Tooth, Master of the Banefort and the Kraken’s Bane
• Lord James: the Jim that was Promised
• The High Bearded Priest
• Lord Jake, Assistant (to the) Hand of the King
• Lady Xena Valyrian
• Ser Jack, Lord of Ser Arthur Dayne and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen's Sad Prophecy Boys Club
• His Grace’s High Inquisitor Frank
• Ser Jasper the Cruel, the King’s Justice
• Laurence, Prince of Dorne
• Kelly, Warden of the East and Mistress of (Old) Bay of Crabs
• Steven the Steadfast, Master of Hounds
• The Blue Winter Rose Knight of Highgarden
• Lady Stephanie
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• Lord Adam T
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• Ser Josh Snow Bastard Bounty Hunter of the North
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• Lord Peter
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• Marshall Harrison—Absent, shipwrecked in the Jade Sea
• Grave-Robb Stark, the Cadaver King and Horror of Harrenhal
• Olaf, proponent of establishing a feudal, pseudodemocratic system of Great Councils, wherein every count votes
• Ser Tim: The Knight Who Was Guided By Voices
• Lord Nick
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• Lord Gene the Splendid, Master of Coin, Warden of Tampa Bay
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• Luke, Lord of Lone Leaf & The Pillar of Autumn
• Squid Pro Quo
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• Hedrigal, Captain of the Airship Arrogance
• Squire Matt S, future Ser Matt S, the one who will bring balance to the Kingdoms
• BWord, Queen Beyond the Wall
• And our newest small counsellor: Lord Kyle!

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!

Question

Ser Darren S, a Sworn Sword, asks:

During my quarantine, I’ve had a few things to think about and one of them that has turned into a rather head scratcher is the question of Longclaw being at the wall. Why would House Mormont, one of two houses in the North by my count, forsake their priceless family heirloom to an old man destined to die childless at the wall?  Furthermore, the family seems to be just fine with Maege just giving away the sword: Alysane Mormont doesn’t even bring up the sword at all during Asha’s chapters.  I find it increasingly unlikely that a house as egalitarian and martial as Mormont would be chill with just giving away a sword such as this, when the sword could be used as part of a bargaining tool to negotiate a good wedding. Is this a case of George needing Jon Snow to have a Valyrian sword or is there something else going on? I hate to place this on the “Bloodraven is plotting this out and Jon is too dumb to figure it out” list, but something doesn’t square up.

So, thank you Darren for the question. If you’d like to ask us questions we’ll answer here on the NotACast pod-cast, you are welcome to become a Sworn Sword or higher level patreon over at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF where you can get show notes, bonus episodes, merch and more!

Absolutely, and we’re pleased to reveal that our next patreon-only episode for all $5/above patrons will be a movie review of the movie Kingdom of Heaven. No, not the shitty version that studios ruined but the director’s cut that is the glory piece atop Ridley Scott’s cinematic crown. And we’ll be joined for that episode by LukeIsAmazing of the People’s History of the Old Republic fame! You can find that episode at the end of the month and find all of our other bonus episode again at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF.

But enough about patreon. When we last checked in with Jon back in the year 1945, he had discovered an innocuous cache of obsidian weapons at the Fist of the First Men and volunteered to go with Qhorin Halfhand into the Frostfangs to track down what Mance Rayder was seeking in the Frostfangs. Does this feel like a different series than the one we’ve been covering in all other POVs in ACOK? Yeah, it does for me too! And I love it. Let’s find out what happens to Jon as he journeys into the Frostfangs in this synopsis of ACOK, Jon VI!

Synopsis

They could see the fire in the night, glimmering against the side of the mountain like a fallen star. It burned redder than the other stars, and did not twinkle, though sometimes it flared up bright and sometimes dwindled down to no more than a distant spark, dull and faint.

Jon thinks the fire is two thousand feet up and a half-mile ahead, and it would see anything coming up there way. Squire Dalbridge thinks it’s wildlings, watching for them. Dalbridge was called Squire Dalbridge, because he squired for a king. The name had stuck even as the king had died. Regardless, he wonders why Mance fears while Ebben, another ranger, thinks Mance would flay them if he knew they lit a fire.

"Fire is life up here," said Qhorin Halfhand, "but it can be death as well." By his command, they'd risked no open flames since entering the mountains. They ate cold salt beef, hard bread, and harder cheese, and slept clothed and huddled beneath a pile of cloaks and furs, grateful for each other's warmth. It made Jon remember cold nights long ago at Winterfell, when he'd shared a bed with his brothers. These men were brothers too, though the bed they shared was stone and earth.

Stonesnake, what a breath of fresh air from all those goddamn Ironborn names from last week, says they’re going to have a horn, and Halfhand says they cannot blow the horn. They need to get up that mountain even if it’ll be a cruel climb at night into the jagged cliffs and dark skies. It would be an even longer fall, Qhorin puts in. He wants two men to do the mission to get up to the fire.

"Me." The ranger they called Stonesnake had already shown that he was the best climber among them. It would have to be him.

"And me," said Jon Snow.

Qhorin looks at Jon, and Jon hears the wind howling around him. He tells Jon that Ghost is staying behind, but once they accomplish the mission, they are to throw a burning brand off the mountain. Stonesnake says it’s go time. So, Stonesnake grabs rope and a bag of iron spikes. Jon gets some rope too. They leave their horses behind, and Jon gives Ghost a pet for being a good boy. He’s coming back for him.

Stonesnake leads, and we learn that he’s fifty, wiry with a gray beard yet he’s strong with great night eyes. Jon knows they need that night vision out here now as they would be climbing the moons lit white and silver by the moon.

So, the rangers move up through the twisting path and black shadows, moving slowly through hard terrain. But where Stonesnake knew by instinct where to put his feet, Jon needed to be more careful. As for the Skirling Pass, it wasn’t just one pass. It was a series of passes through icy peaks where no one lived and the wind howled around the few trees.

Yet even so, Jon Snow was not sorry he had come. There were wonders here as well. He had seen sunlight flashing on icy thin waterfalls as they plunged over the lips of sheer stone cliffs, and a mountain meadow full of autumn wildflowers, blue coldsnaps and bright scarlet frostfires and stands of piper's grass in russet and gold. He had peered down ravines so deep and black they seemed certain to end in some hell, and he had ridden his garron over a wind-eaten bridge of natural stone with nothing but sky to either side. Eagles nested in the heights and came down to hunt the valleys, circling effortlessly on great blue-grey wings that seemed almost part of the sky. Once he had watched a shadowcat stalk a ram, flowing down the mountainside like liquid smoke until it was ready to pounce.

Jon decides that this is not a metaphor. They would be pouncing soon. He’s got Longclaw with him with a dirk and dagger if he had to move in for a closer kill.

The men move up the trail for a while with the mountain obstructing their view of the fire for a time before the fire would reappear. And they inch forward through the winding, dangerous trail too narrow for horses.

One step and then another, Jon told himself. One step and then another, and I will not fall.

Jon hadn’t shaved his peach fuzz, and now it was covered with frost. And then the wind picked up as he clings to the rock, praying not to get blown off the mountain.

One step and then another, he resumed when the gale subsided. One step and then another, and I will not fall.

Now they are so high that Jon doesn’t want to look down. He tries to remember what Stonesnake told him about clinging to the mountain like it was his mother’s nip. Jon jokes saying that he never knew who his mom was, but wasn’t it hilarious that he found her here in the Frostfangs? Yeah. He wasn’t joking now.

But now the track ended, and they come to black granite. They need to climb so as to be above the wildlings. Stonesnake tells Jon that they will work together connecting the rope to each other and taking stakes to the face of the mountain. Jon doesn’t even answer before Stonesnake is clambering up the mountain. Jon studies Stonesnake as he moves up and then attempt to replicate him moving up the mountain after him. But as soon as he catches up with Stonesnake, he moves up and away from Jon. As Jon moves up, he tries tapping on the spike with a hammer, afraid the wildlings could hear him. He keeps holding onto the mountain, practically yelling at himself not to look down.

His foot slips once, and his heart stops. But Jon doesn’t fall. But the cold seeps into his fingers, but he keeps his gloves off, afraid he would fall. He hopes that the skin would grow back from the skin he was ripping against the cold and stone. Maybe he could even keep his fingers by the climb’s end.

Up they went, and up, and up, black shadows creeping across the moonlit wall of rock. Anyone down on the floor of the pass could have seen them easily, but the mountain hid them from the view of the wildlings by their fire. They were close now, though. Jon could sense it. Even so, he did not think of the foes who were waiting for him, all unknowing, but of his brother at Winterfell. Bran used to love to climb. I wish I had a tenth part of his courage.

Huh. I’m definitely not feeling an emotion at Jon wishing he was as brave as Bran.

The sheer face of the wall was broken by fissures in the stone, and Stonesnake reaches a hand down to Jon to pull him up. Once up, Jon copies Stonesnake and gets his gloves back on. And then they crawl towards the fire. They find that the wildlings had built a watchfire in a shallow depression, and Jon and Stonesnake crawl right over the men they had to kill. They see one of the wildling dude with flaming red hair asleep under a mound of furs while another was staring at the fire, complaining about the wind while the third was watching the pass. That guy had the horn Qhorin said they would have.

Three. For a moment Jon was uncertain. There was only supposed to be two. One was asleep, though. And whether there was two or three or twenty, he still must do what he had come to do. Stonesnake touched his arm, pointed at the wildling with the horn. Jon nodded toward the one by the fire. It felt queer, picking a man to kill. Half the days of his life had been spent with sword and shield, training for this moment. Did Robb feel this way before his first battle? he wondered, but there was no time to ponder the question. Stonesnake moved as fast as his namesake, leaping down on the wildlings in a rain of pebbles. Jon slid Longclaw from its sheath and followed.

It all seemed to happen in a heartbeat. Afterward Jon could admire the courage of the wildling who reached first for his horn instead of his blade. He got it to his lips, but before he could sound it Stonesnake knocked the horn aside with a swipe of his shortsword. Jon's man leapt to his feet, thrusting at his face with a burning brand. He could feel the heat of the flames as he flinched back. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the sleeper stirring, and knew he must finish his man quick. When the brand swung again, he bulled into it, swinging the bastard sword with both hands. The Valyrian steel sheared through leather, fur, wool, and flesh, but when the wildling fell he twisted, ripping the sword from Jon's grasp. On the ground the sleeper sat up beneath his furs. Jon slid his dirk free, grabbing the man by the hair and jamming the point of the knife up under his chin as he reached for his-no, her-

His hand froze. "A girl."

Stonesnake says it’s a watcher and to kill her. Jon sees the fear and fire in her eyes while blood runs down from where his dirk pricked her. He thinks about doing it, thinking she’s as old as Jon is. But she seems somehow like Arya. So, he asks her to yield instead.

"I yield ." Her words steamed in the cold air.

"You're our captive, then." He pulled the dirk away from the soft skin of her throat.

"Qhorin said nothing of taking captives," said Stonesnake.

"He never said not to." Jon let go his grip on the girl's hair, and she scuttled backward, away from them.

"She's a spearwife." Stonesnake gestured at the long-hafted axe that lay beside her sleeping furs. "She was reaching for that when you grabbed her. Give her half a chance and she'll bury it between your eyes."

"I won't give her half a chance." Jon kicked the axe well out of the girl's reach. "Do you have a name?"

"Ygritte." Her hand rubbed at her throat and came away bloody. She stared at the wetness.

Ah, so the story of Jon and Ygritte begins with Ygritte as temporary captive of Jon Snow.

Ygritte asks for Jon’s name, and he gives it to her, but she flinches, calling it an evil name. Not an evil name according to Jon. It’s a bastard name. His dad was Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell. Stonesnake teases him that the captives were supposed to be the ones to give up information, but he doubts that she will. Wildlings would bite off their tongues rather than answer questions. Stonesnake then tosses a burning brand off the mountain.

"You ought to burn them you killed," said Ygritte.

"Need a bigger fire for that, and big fires burn bright." Stonesnake turned, his eyes scanning the black distance for any spark of light. "Are there more wildlings close by, is that it?"

"Burn them," the girl repeated stubbornly, "or it might be you'll need them swords again."

Jon remembered dead Othor and his cold black hands. "Maybe we should do as she says."

But Stonesnake already has this figured out. He strips the bodies of the men and tosses them over the side of the mountain with Jon helping on the second body. Ygritte watches but remains silent. She knows her miranda rights. Good on her. Jon realizes that she’s older than he was, but she was short and maybe plump — though that could have been all the fur, leather and wool she was wearing. Jon asks her if she was watching for them. She was and others. Hm. Stonesnake asks what’s beyond the Skirling Pass, and she says the free folks are there. Oh god. Not the poison subreddit!? Oh, she just means the wildlings. Crisis averted. When Stonesnake asks how many, she says hundred and thousands, and Jon thinks she doesn’t know how many. But wait, why are they all up here? Ygritte says nothing. When Jon asks what Mance Rayder wants up in the Frostfangs, Ygritte continues exercising her Miranda Rights. Okay, are you going to march on the Wall? She stares into the flames. How about Benjen Stark? You know about him? Ygritte ignores him, and Stonesnake warns him that she might be spitting out her tongue soon.

Rumbles below the party echo off the rock, announcing the arrival of the shadowcats. Jon draw his sword, but Ygritte says not to worry. They’re coming for the dead, not them. Speaking of the dead, Jon asks if they were family members of Ygritte’s

"No more than you are."

"Me?" He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You said you were the Bastard o' Winterfell."

"I am."

"Who was your mother?"

"Some woman. Most of them are." Someone had said that to him once. He did not remember who.

Aw, Jon. That’s Tyrion who told you that!

Anyways, Ygritte asks if Jon has heard of song o’ the winter rose. He hadn’t. Well, it’s a mixtape made by Bael the Bard who was King-beyond-the-Wall a while back. The wildlings know the song, but you can’t find it on Spotify basic - found only in the south. When Jon objects that Winterfell isn’t in the south, Ygritte corrects him and says everything south of the Wall is south.

He had never thought of it that way. "I suppose it's all in where you're standing."

"Aye," Ygritte agreed. "It always is."

But now that Jon has some hours before Qhorin Halfhand arrives, he wants to hear the tale. So, Ygritte tells the tale, warning Jon that he might not like it.

Once upon a time, Bael the Bard was a raider and King-Beyond-the-Wall.

Stonesnake gave a snort. "A murderer, robber, and raper, is what you mean."

"That's all in where you're standing too," Ygritte said.

And I know this is long, but I find this story just fascinating in totality and not worth summarizing. So, I’m just going to read the entire story. Ahem.

"The Stark in Winterfell wanted Bael's head, but never could take him, and the taste o' failure galled him. One day in his bitterness he called Bael a craven who preyed only on the weak. When word o' that got back, Bael vowed to teach the lord a lesson. So he scaled the Wall, skipped down the kingsroad, and walked into Winterfell one winter's night with harp in hand, naming himself Sygerrik of Skagos. Sygerrik means 'deceiver' in the Old Tongue, that the First Men spoke, and the giants still speak.

"North or south, singers always find a ready welcome, so Bael ate at Lord Stark's own table, and played for the lord in his high seat until half the night was gone. The old songs he played, and new ones he'd made himself, and he played and sang so well that when he was done, the lord offered to let him name his own reward. 'All I ask is a flower,' Bael answered, 'the fairest flower that blooms in the gardens o' Winterfell.'

"Now as it happened the winter roses had only then come into bloom, and no flower is so rare nor precious. So the Stark sent to his glass gardens and commanded that the most beautiful o' the winter roses be plucked for the singer's payment. And so it was done. But when morning come, the singer had vanished . . . and so had Lord Brandon's maiden daughter. Her bed they found empty, but for the pale blue rose that Bael had left on the pillow where her head had lain."

Jon had never heard this tale before. "Which Brandon was this supposed to be? Brandon the Builder lived in the Age of Heroes, thousands of years before Bael. There was Brandon the Burner and his father Brandon the Shipwright, but-"

"This was Brandon the Daughterless," Ygritte said sharply. "Would you hear the tale, or no?"

He scowled. "Go on."

"Lord Brandon had no other children. At his behest, the black crows flew forth from their castles in the hundreds, but nowhere could they find any sign o' Bael or this maid. For most a year they searched, till the lord lost heart and took to his bed, and it seemed as though the line o' Starks was at its end. But one night as he lay waiting to die, Lord Brandon heard a child's cry. He followed the sound and found his daughter back in her bedchamber, asleep with a babe at her breast."

"Bael had brought her back?"

"No. They had been in Winterfell all the time, hiding with the dead beneath the castle. The maid loved Bael so dearly she bore him a son, the song says . . . though if truth be told, all the maids love Bael in them songs he wrote. Be that as it may, what's certain is that Bael left the child in payment for the rose he'd plucked unasked, and that the boy grew to be the next Lord Stark. So there it is-you have Bael's blood in you, same as me."

"It never happened," Jon said.

She shrugged. "Might be it did, might be it didn't. It is a good song, though. My mother used to sing it to me. She was a woman too, Jon Snow. Like yours." She rubbed her throat where his dirk had cut her. "The song ends when they find the babe, but there is a darker end to the story. Thirty years later, when Bael was King-beyond-the-Wall and led the free folk south, it was young Lord Stark who met him at the Frozen Ford . . . and killed him, for Bael would not harm his own son when they met sword to sword."

"So the son slew the father instead," said Jon.

"Aye," she said, "but the gods hate kinslayers, even when they kill unknowing. When Lord Stark returned from the battle and his mother saw Bael's head upon his spear, she threw herself from a tower in her grief. Her son did not long outlive her. One o' his lords peeled the skin off him and wore him for a cloak."

"Your Bael was a liar," he told her, certain now.

"No," Ygritte said, "but a bard's truth is different than yours or mine. Anyway, you asked for the story, so I told it." She turned away from him, closed her eyes, and seemed to sleep.

I know. That was probably way, way too long. But I love this tale for about a dozen reasons as we’ll get into in the main cast. Anyways, on we go.

Qhorin Halfhand decides to drape his arrival in Ser Arthur Dayne imagery as he arrives at dawn. Jon wakes Ygritte up, and they descend down the mountain to meet them. Ghost runs up to Jon, and Ghost and man play to Ygritte’s shock and fear.

Qhorin says nothing about Ygritte when he shows up. Stonesnake makes a quick report about there being three wildlings, and Ebben responds that they saw the remains of the two the cats left.

"She yielded," Jon felt compelled to say.

Qhorin's face was impassive. "Do you know who I am?"

"Qhorin Halfhand." The girl looked half a child beside him, but she faced him boldly.

"Tell me true. If I fell into the hands of your people and yielded myself, what would it win me?"

"A slower death than elsewise."

Qhorin turns back to Jon and says they can’t feed her or spare men to watch her. Dalbridge says that they need to get up to the wildlings in silence. Ebben draws his dagger and says they need to silence her forever. And Jon, bless him, says that she yielded.

"Then you must do what needs be done," Qhorin Halfhand said. "You are the blood of Winterfell and a man of the Night's Watch." He looked at the others. "Come, brothers. Leave him to it. It will go easier for him if we do not watch." And he led them up the steep twisting trail toward the pale pink glow of the sun where it broke through a mountain cleft, and before very long only Jon and Ghost remained with the wildling girl.

Jon thinks Ygritte would try to make a run for it, but she just stands there. She says that he never killed a woman before, and Jon shakes his head no.

"We die the same as men. But you don't need to do it. Mance would take you, I know he would. There's secret ways. Them crows would never catch us."

"I'm as much a crow as they are," Jon said.

She nodded, resigned. "Will you burn me, after?"

"I can't. The smoke might be seen."

Ygritte says it’s fine. She’ll end up in the belly of a shadowcat as Jon draws Longclaw. He asks if she’s afraid, but she’s not anymore.

"Now the sun's up." She pushed her hair aside to bare her neck, and knelt before him. "Strike hard and true, crow, or I'll come back and haunt you."

Longclaw was not so long or heavy a sword as his father's Ice, but it was Valyrian steel all the same. He touched the edge of the blade to mark where the blow must fall, and Ygritte shivered. "That's cold," she said. "Go on, be quick about it."

He raised Longclaw over his head, both hands tight around the grip. One cut, with all my weight behind it. He could give her a quick clean death, at least. He was his father's son. Wasn't he? Wasn't he?

"Do it," she urged him after a moment. "Bastard. Do it. I can't stay brave forever." When the blow did not fall she turned her head to look at him.

Jon lowered his sword. "Go," he muttered.

Ygritte stared.

"Now," he said, "before my wits return. Go."

She went.

And that is ACOK, Jon VI! You know, as much as I love the politics of King’s Landing, the House of the Undying and all the terrific character work George is doing with Tyrion, Jon is another breath of fresh air that shocks the system and really got my mind back into Jon’s story. What a great chapter! What’d you think, ser?

Depth

Up to this point, lil Jonny Snow hasn’t exactly been one of our favorite POV characters in the story. His chapters have served their structural purpose in his arc, and there’s been some great scenes along the way (zombie attack, Maester Aemon’s monologue, Craster’s Keep), but they haven’t pulled as much out of us as, say, Catelyn’s chapters.

This is where that changes. From this point on into ASOS and ADWD, Jon becomes one of my favorite POV characters. The stakes ramp up dramatically, and Jon is forced to put into action everything he’s learned. The wildlings become increasingly central to Jon’s arc starting with this chapter, and George does some of his best work in the series writing the wildlings, as both individuals and a group of tribes united only by Mance.

But ACOK Jon VI is also a marvelous work of art in its own right, divorced from the larger context of Jon’s story. It’s suspenseful, as George focuses us on Jon’s moment-to-moment decision-making both during the climb and deciding Ygritte’s fate at the end. It’s also beautiful, George bringing some of his most finely crafted imagery to bear on the wonder and terror of the Skirling Pass. And we get a perfect intro for Ygritte, one of George’s most vivid supporting characters. Reading this chapter is like inhaling a deep breath of fresh mountain air in the Frostfangs. It’s just a classic adventure.

You’re right that this is where Jon Snow’s story snaps into focus. The struggles that he experiences are less “I want to be the hero, but I can’t. Woe is me” and more an escalating series of moral quandaries that cap off with Jon declaring that he’ll ride for Ramsay in the Shieldhall. But even though Jon hasn’t been our favorite POV so far in the series, I do want to highlight how GRRM is integrating setup from earlier chapters into this chapter. Specifically, I’m thinking of Elsie Mormont’s lack of moral leadership regarding Craster and his wives leads to the thrilling conclusion of this chapter. Back in Jon III, Jon questions Mormont about why they are keeping this monster alive, and Mormont gets all moral equivocating on the greater good.

Here, we see real growth in Jon springing from his questions of Mormont. The greater good in this scenario might be just to kill Ygritte. That way, the wildlings wouldn’t discover that the Halfhand was seeking for them and what they were after. That way, the wildlings don’t hunt Qhorin’s band through the Frostfangs. But Jon rejects killing a prisoner of war here. He does the right thing at personal cost. That’s character growth for Jon to do the right thing, despite the consequences. Unfortunately for Jon, this won't be the last time he’ll be forced into moral quandary. In fact, the stakes will only ratchet up as his arc progresses.

• Sgt. Halfhand and his Brothers in Black
  • Throughout Jon’s story so far, George has been showing us the Night’s Watch in a state of decline. They are low on numbers and resources; the men they do have aren’t being used especially well; the powers that be in King’s Landing are largely indifferent to their needs; the Wall is very difficult to maintain; wildlings and worse are getting bolder beyond the Wall
  • LC Mormont’s Great Ranging, which was supposed to reverse the slow decay of the Watch’s position, is starting to come off more like an attempt to go down in a blaze of glory; we’ll see more of that dynamic in ASOS
  • It’s gotten to the point where a first time reader may well be wondering how the Night’s Watch has held out this long! How do the black crows maintain any imposing presence beyond the Wall with these weaknesses?
  • Just as we saw Barristan trying to keep the dying flame of the white-cloaked Kingsguard alive in book one, so we have the black-cloaked Shadow Tower crew in book two, exemplifying the strength of the Watch
  • Qhorin Halfhand and his men are so different from the likes of Alliser Thorne and Thoren Smallwood that they seem to belong to a different organization entirely, in terms of individual competence, collective action, and their overall perspectives on themselves, the territory, and the enemy
  • Whereas those previous officers embodied arrogance, Jon’s new mentors embody earned confidence--and those are two very different things!
  • Thorne and Smallwood proudly flaunt their ignorance, their refusal to consider how people different from them might contribute to the whole
  • Qhorin & Co. soak in information of all kinds and then act on it with precision, where the bullies blunder and bluster their way into disaster
  • Rather than exalting swordfighting as Thorne did at Castle Black, they each specialize in a different area to act efficiently in the wild
  • Rather than carelessly dismiss the wildlings in a bigoted fashion as Smallwood did, they learn from them on an even playing field
  • That’s not to say these are wholly admirable men; they unflinchingly torture their enemies. Nor is it to say their strategies and tactics prove unimpeachable; they end up cornered and picked off one by one
  • But even in the face of failure, they hold onto their skills and their worldviews. This not only allows them peace of mind in the face of death, it winds up preserving Jon’s life so he can join the wildlings as a spy
  • Rather than centering their egos, these men think of themselves as part of a whole and act accordingly. This reflects Jon’s own maturation process. He is seeing a different way of being a man and member of the Watch
  • Some of their ways he absorbs; others he rejects. Both are crucial into shaping him into a different person from the one who set out from the Wall
  • Qhorin and his band remind me of U.S. Army Special Forces A-Team, otherwise known as the Green Berets.
  • Of course, I mean the hit 80s TV show (do the theme music).
  • In real-life A-Teams are set-up with each member of the team possessing specialized skillsets to win in any battle.
  • And historically, Green Berets were expected to integrate into a local culture and learn from the locals to win, and that’s how Qhorin and his team seem to operate.
  • And that’s what Jon has always wanted: a sense of belonging, of people who embrace him as one of their own.
  • This is what Jon thought that joining the Night’s Watch would be like: a true brotherhood where he would be accepted.
  • Jon’s journey in the Night’s Watch thus far has not been that way. As you were saying: There are plenty of bad rangers like Thoren Smallwoods, plenty of poor leaders in high leadership positions like the shortsighted Bowen Marshes
  • But for the moment, Jon has finally found a band of warriors who fulfill the idealized imagery of the Night’s Watch he grew up hearing from Ned and Benjen and the songs and stories singers brought to Winterfell.
• Welcome to the Frostfangs
  • Our setting has shifted from the Fist of the First Men to the Skirling Pass, a series of passes really through the “harsh, inimical” Frostfang mountains
  • As Jon’s journey beyond the Wall has proceeded northward, every stop has gotten larger and more distant from life as he previously knew it
  • From a village to a single homestead to a fort to wild nature. From flatlands to a hill to a mountain range. We’re not in Kansas anymore
  • The Frostfangs in particular feel alien to Jon. You can see that in part through the lens of the Watch as a border force in enemy territory; Jon is a new recruit crossing the DMZ for the first time to find a new world
  • But it’s also because nobody lives up here under normal circumstances. In that light, the Frostfangs are less like a warzone than Iceland, or the moon
  • This is a land that time forgot, an oasis of undisturbed nature carrying on its cycles away from the tumultuous rises and falls of mankind
  • On one hand, it’s unforgiving. Humans just aren’t meant to stay up here for long. If you don’t starve, you’ll freeze, or fall to your death
  • On the other, as Jon soon learns, these mountains are also incredibly gorgeous, precisely because mankind has not disturbed any of it
  • He sees crystalline light glinting off waterfalls so thin they look like they could cut skin. He stumbles upon a meadow overflowing with colorful flowers. The deep ravines are awe-inspiring as well as treacherous
  • Jon describes seeing a shadowcat flow like liquid hunting a ram, and compares it to himself fighting the wildlings. It’s as though the Watchmen have become integrated into the ballet of nature around them--fitting for a chapter all about concealment and camouflage. We’re part of this world
  • But simply by coming here, the Watchmen have disturbed all this beauty. It’s the observer paradox inherent to art, science, and empathy: your presence inherently transforms whatever it is you’re looking at
  • That’s how they find the wildlings, whose presence is given away by fire, breaking the concealment and camouflage. The wildlings are looking for them, but the Watch is watching back. The wildlings are seen seeing
  • All this focus on observation and analysis primes the reader to enjoy this chapter on a purely visual level. The pop of the fire on the mountain, moonlight dazzling round the rim of every rock, Ygritte’s red hair, the blue flower of the Bael the Bard story...ACOK is all about explosions of color
  • You described the Frostfangs like Iceland, and that’s where Jon and Sam’s story from Seasons 2 and 3 of Game of Thrones was filmed. (Also Season 7’s Beyond the Wall storyline, a masterpiece)
  • This does feel like an alien world. Like being on the surface of the moon, but who among us hasn’t stared up at the moon on a cold night and seen it silvered against the night sky and found beauty in it. And who hasn’t felt lonely too.
  • Still, the fact that the wildlings are up here in the Frostfangs has to give first time readers pause. This is such hostile, remote terrain.
  • What would drive them up into the mountains? What is Mance searching for?
  • Re-readers know that they’re looking for the Horn of Joramun, and they end up opening giants’ tombs as we’ll find out in ASOS.
  • But about that hostile terrain: Because I’ll get on a Spielberg kick here towards the end of the episode, what it looks like GRRM is doing is taking the hostile terrain of the Egyptian desert from the Nazi dig site from Raiders of the Lost Ark and inverting the color scheme and temperature and also taking out the Nazis and the French and replacing them with sympathetic figures.
• The climb
  • But all that character and worldbuilding work is folded deftly into the background, a sedimentary layer under the surface
  • Jon VI is so arresting and memorable because of how it focuses on a concrete goal to be accomplished. It’s so clean--thought into action
  • The opening words don’t waste any time. They introduce the problem:
    • They could see the fire in the night, glimmering against the side of the mountain like a falling star.
  • George then introduces our new characters not through personality-laden monologues, nor by Jon thinking at length about meeting them
  • Instead, he introduces them through the lens of the problem. They efficiently offer perspectives, implications, and finally a solution
  • George is writing the way Qhorin and his boys think: focus so intense that it breaks through realism and becomes its own kind of enchantment
  • This, I can only imagine, is what it feels like when a combat unit is working smoothly in cooperation with one another, as though one cohesive mind
  • Again, to bring back the A-Team concept, Qhorin’s band gives their inputs on what they should do, and the plan is built organically with all of these inputs.
  • They make a team decision with Qhorin having the final input.
  • That’s how A-Teams operate in real-life with everyone giving inputs, and the Team Commander operating in a “first among equals” role.
  • Team guys are always addressing each other by their first names or nicknames. It’s endearing to get outside of the “Sir/Sergeant/Chief”.
  • And wouldn’t you know it, but that’s how these guys operate with Dalbridge only being called Squire Dalbridge as a nickname, and Qhorin later rejecting Jon calling him a lord.
  • But to move away from my own navel-gazing nostalgia and towards the narrative itself, this all has character ramifications for Jon.
  • Guys on the team don’t go by first names because it’s cool to go against the grain of standard military culture. It establishes intimacy, familiarity and community. And the same principle works for Qhorin and his group.
  • Jon’s now part of the team, has a community and a place in it. And these men are familiar with him.
  • Jon’s looking for a home and meaning, and even a small thing like how he’s being addressed by name, and his input is valued.
  • Form meets content. Indulgence means death in the Frostfangs, so the writing cuts away all indulgence. The excitement comes from not only the tension of what’s happening, but the crispness of the writing to match it
  • First, we meet Squire Dalbridge, perfectly sketched out in a handful of words. His nickname is both mockery and tribute. On one hand, it’s a reflection he never rose any higher--making fun of an old man by saying he never improved on his youth. On the other, it’s an acknowledgment of a life outside the Watch, one he can still remember and take pride in
  • It’s a subtle reminder that, in its ideal form, the Watch serves the realm through the synecdoche of a just king. They are all his servants, squires
  • For Squire Dalbridge, there is continuity between the life he used to live and the life he lives now, which is something Jon is trying to achieve
  • Indeed, Dalbridge’s dialogue focuses on one of the more just kings in the series: Mance Rayder. Those eyes up on the mountain are his eyes, truly, serving him as Dalbridge once served a king and now serves the realm
  • Dalbridge draws Jon and the reader’s focus to the important question: why are they there? Who are they watching for? What does Mance fear?
  • Dalbridge does not make his true question explicit, because he doesn’t have to. These men know one another well enough to speak almost telepathically, communicating with spare phrases like icebergs
  • What Dalbridge is implying is that the wildlings might not be keeping watch for crows, but for the white walkers. Ebben counters that Mance would flay the poor bastards if he knew they lit a fire. This draws our attention and Jon’s to the question of why they lit the fire. These experienced military thinkers are always searching out mysterious elements to resolve
  • Dalbridge and Ebben differ on Mance’s involvement. Did he give the order for the fire or didn’t he? Mance is built up in ACOK like Stannis was in AGOT, an offscreen presence given form in our minds through reputation
  • We’ve been following his trail beyond the Wall, struggling to make sense of his movements, and this gamesmanship will extend to the man himself in ASOS and ADWD: he’s a deceptive trickster always wearing a mask
  • Qhorin resolves the dialectic precisely by accepting the mystery. Fire is life up here, but it can be death as well. Mance might’ve ordered this fire to protect against the Others, or it might’ve been an improvisation
  • Fire is both life and death for the wildlings as Qhorin Halfhand says. Tbh, doesn’t this kind of feel like these wildlings got hit by a bus?
  • As we’ll get into, George immediately frames the wildlings as brave through the one guy who goes for his horn rather than his dirk and Ygritte telling stories.
  • The wildlings are immediately human and not other. This is supposed to contrast with what Jon experienced with Craster as he seemed more beast than man.
  • Like you were saying, the wildlings probably expected the Others more than they expected any rangers from the Fist of the First Men.
  • So, they chose the safer route in their minds that the Others and the wights would come for them rather than their traditional enemy: the Night’s Watch.
  • Meanwhile, Qhorin orders no fires lit, because he judges that the wildlings are the greater danger than the Others and their dead servants.
  • Reads to me like the wildlings are a bit ideologically beyond where the Night’s Watch is at -- which makes sense given that they’ve known about the Others and wights before Waymar Royce, Will and Gared run into them.
  • Regardless, this fire now means life for the Watchmen and death for the wildlings, and that is what the team can and must act upon
  • They’ll have a horn...a horn they must not blow. This is their task, and this is the justification for spilling the blood of their fellow man. After all, Mance was looking for the Horn of Winter, a horn they also must not blow
  • Even in the face of the white walkers, the threat alluded to here coming for them all, man’s war against man threatens to devour us one by one
  • It’s a long climb, and also a long fall, as Qhorin says. His dialogue is always reinforcing duality: life within death, ascent within descent
  • They risk everything with the fate of the world on their shoulders, but in the end, all they can do is live as long as they can and then inevitably die. They are devoted to their cause at an almost sacred level, like samurai
  • You can feel Jon struggling to keep up throughout this chapter, trying not only to act and talk like these men but think like them too
  • In book one, the big revelation for Jon was about the weaknesses of the Watch, and how he had to temper his ego to improve upon them
  • Now, Jon suddenly has to deal with Watchmen who are leagues beyond him. This is a different kind of challenge, and the environment matches it
  • The Frostfangs demand that you transform or die. Keep up or be left behind. These men were shaped into this unit by such an environment
  • Can Jon do it? Is he a bad enough dude to rescue Westeros? Yes, he is! Jon repeatedly proves himself up to the job throughout this chapter
  • His opening thoughts in the chapter smoothly slot into the dialogue:
    • Half a mile ahead and two thousand feet up, Jon judged, and perfectly placed to see anything moving in the pass below.
  • He then thinks about how Qhorin had risked no fires like that of the wildlings. As Qhorin will say, they have more discipline
  • Instead, they draw heat from each other, again as a community, almost like a hive mind. Jon compares it to his brothers at Winterfell
  • That’s a revealing comparison. At the end of book one, Jon decided that the Night’s Watch was his family now, his brothers in truth
  • He hasn’t really felt much of that beyond the Wall, though. Not until now. Throughout the chapter, comparisons to his Stark family keep coming up
  • Jon is once more being asked to choose, as he is throughout his story, which community he will belong to in the end. What can he be a part of?
  • He puts himself forward to be part of this one. Qhorin asks for two men. One has to be Stonesnake--his specialized skills for just such a problem
  • Jon steps up to be the other. Qhorin looks at him, and we get a comedy silence beat. Ultimately, Qhorin decides he can trust Jon to get the job done, which will have significant ripple effects going forward
  • Doesn’t this also feel like a spot where another of Jon’s father-figures does the fatherly thing and takes the training wheels off of Jon’s bike -- that bike being Jon entering into adulthood.
  • It’s almost like a test for Jon: can he live up to his promise.
  • Of course, Jon is also a formidable man-grown in his own right, being both trained by Ser Rodrik Cassel and armed with a Valyrian Steel Sword.
  • So, Jon has all the requisite mental and physical tools to get the job done. And now Qhorin is allowing Jon to be tested as a man of the Night’s Watch.
  • But when Qhorin says yes, I couldn’t help but feel an emotion. Jon’s dad was doing that coming of age hero thing with Jon. It’s all Jon ever wanted.
  • That said, that emotion has to be balanced against the fact that Jon is going into his first battle, and this test is just the first test that Qhorin applies to Jon. It’s the easiest test, and it won’t be the last.
  • Qhorin does insist that Jon leave Ghost behind. Ghost’s presence could’ve changed the fight on top of the mountain considerably
  • On a more figurative level, Jon is being forced to leave behind the wolf that connects him to home and family; he’s striking out into new territory. He will once again part from Ghost while back going over the Wall
  • Stonesnake wants to set out immediately. Again, not a single second or word can be wasted. They set off into the night, described beautifully by George as an interplay of blacks and whites, a chiaroscuro effect
  • So soon after HOTU, we’re back to the doors of ebony and ivory, the doors of perception that Ygritte will soon challenge in Jon’s case
  • These are moral extremes slipping around each other, and the forces of ice and fire. The sun’s reflected light v. the shadow of the mountain
  • The light crowns the mountain where the fire sits; the Watchmen move in black shadows, wearing black cloaks. Opposites coming together
  • George keeps that theme going by reminding us about Jon’s mother. The mountain is his mother now, his mentors tell him, like the Mother of Mountains in Daenerys’ story. Jon is being reborn, broken down to his most basic instincts of survival to be remade in a new image
  • All he can do is keep going, and not look down. If I look back, I am lost. Trust your mother, trust your new fathers, you’ll make it through the night
  • Our hearts are in our throats reading this, knowing that a slightest misstep will send Jon tumbling. And yet the release only brings us to bloodshed
  • Part of what I like about this climb is that this is the first real climb that Jon makes, and he does so alongside a ranger.
  • He’s ascending into the unknown and coming into greater contact with an unknown culture. Yes, Jon journeyed through the Haunted Forest to reach Craster, but the woods were familiar to Jon, and Craster is a horrifying outlier to most wildlings.
  • But now Jon is ascending to new heights to meet this new culture.
  • And then come ASOS, Jon, now posing as a wildling, will climb the Wall back into friendly, familiar territory with someone we’re just about to meet.
• Introducing Ygritte
  • Jon and Stonesnake complete their climb and look down on the men they must kill. Remember, Jon’s only ever killed a dead man up to this point
  • This is the first time he kills the living, and it’s not a spontaneous moment of self-defense. It is calculated; each of them pick a victim
  • Now, of course, there is a clear military justification for this. Jon and Stonesnake are not sadists killing for the pleasure of it like Ramsay
  • But it is unquestionably a threshold being crossed; Jon will be a different person on the other side of it, and he feels that change in progress
  • It’s the forces of discipline and independence fighting and feeding off each other throughout the chapter. Night’s Watch discipline got Jon this far. But will it avail him against Ygritte, the avatar of independent individuality?
  • After all, Ygritte’s presence speaks to the limits of Qhorin’s absolute discipline. She’s a third watcher, where Qhorin said there would be two
  • No plan survives contact with the enemy. Qhorin is an accomplished strategist, a wizard with military intelligence, but his prediction that there would be two watchers was just that--a prediction--and it turned out wrong
  • I love that! The character who will lure Jon away from discipline leads to a breakdown of discipline just by being here, before doing anything
  • As always when Jon faces a crisis moment, he thinks about his family, wondering how it felt when Robb killed his first man. We don’t know the answer to that any more than Jon does, because Robb isn’t a POV
  • We saw Robb’s first battle through Catelyn’s eyes, imagery from a distance. Jon has no such detachment; Stonesnake leads him forward
  • Combat itself seems to pass in a heartbeat for Jon; the expectation and the aftermath drag on forever, the event itself is over in an instant. Scale that up and it’s how the veterans of Robert’s Rebellion feel about that war
  • When I first read ASOIAF, I was absolutely sure that GRRM had combat experience under his belt as the battles and individual fights felt real to me.
  • This was  2012, and I was just a year and a half off my first and only deployment, and I felt scenes like this vividly.
  • Combat is fast, and it’s instinctive. We used to call it “muscle memory” defined as practicing a task until it becomes more reflex than active action. In other words, train like you fight.
  • Jon acts with instinct in this fight, dodging from the burning brand, charging into Orell, knocking him over and then finishing him with the sword.
  • But then the sword spins away after he uses it, and Jon immediately reaches for his dirk to take on the last wildling man.
  • This is Jon’s training under a master-at-arms coming into focus. Rodrik Cassel would be so proud of Jon.
  • Jon says that afterward, he could admire the courage of the wildling who went for his horn instead of his blade. This really stands out on reread
  • First of all, it’s George giving away the ending of the battle. We know there’s an “afterward,” we know Jon wins, so the focus shifts from the suspense of combat to Jon’s perspective on the wildlings
  • Secondly, this makes for an interesting contrast with Theon IV, in which Theon said that a man about to die wouldn’t possibly sound the alarm
  • Theon was discounting the possibility of heroic selflessness, an individual giving themselves up for the sake of their community. Of course Theon dismissed that--his Old Way Ironborn never seem to behave that way
  • But this unnamed wildling did. He went for the horn to warn his people, rather than the sword to defend himself. It didn’t work, but it’s admirable
  • I was thinking about how the ironborn puff their chests about how shitty their lives and lots were, and boy did that give them an identity - a bad one.
  • Qhorin and his party and the wildling watchmen are out in the middle of nowhere, eating bad food, not sleeping much and in danger, and they are living and dying for each other.
  • That’s in contrast to the ironborn where that material lack has created an island of assholes who loot the bodies of dying comrades, who value their individual safety over helping their comrades.
  • Thirdly, Jon is not only admiring the enemy, but admiring them for something that defies stereotypes. Qhorin will tell Jon that the wildlings are all in it for themselves. But this hornblower suggests otherwise
  • This is crucial for Jon’s empathy for the wildlings, a huge part of his story...but all of that’s in the future. In the present, they’re at war
  • He cuts down Orell, guaranteeing himself an enemy that will persist beyond the grave, the opposite of Jon’s growing empathy
  • Jon turns to the third wildling, and the rush of battle comes to a shrieking halt. His hand freezes along with his brain. The third wildling is a woman
  • But as Stonesnake says, she’s also a wildling. A watcher. This is a profound culture clash at work. From Jon’s perspective, women are noncombatants to be extended mercy; killing her would be an atrocity
  • That, however, is a cultural logic that does not apply to Ygritte. If it did, she wouldn’t be here in the first place! She’s a soldier like the rest
  • Jon’s merciful instinct, while speaking to his kind heart, can be seen as ignorant or even condescending. Why should she be treated differently?
  • I’m not saying Jon should slit Ygritte’s throat to stay woke, to be clear. I’m saying Jon is entering foreign territory, figuratively as well as literally
  • In this foreign territory, Ygritte’s gender does not prevent her from taking part in war, as Stonesnake points out. She’s a spearwife; she was reaching for an axe when Jon attacked, and would’ve killed him with it
  • The wildlings do not think about women the way the people of Winterfell do. Jon must incorporate that into his evolving mindset as he matures
  • In The Hedge Knight, we hear part of the knight’s oath that every knight is supposed to take when Raymun Fossoway is knighted just before Dunk’s Trial by Seven:
    • In the name of the Warrior I charge you to be brave. In the name of the Father I charge you to be just. In the name of the Mother I charge you to defend the young and innocent. In the name of the Maid I charge you to protect all women.
  • Even though Winterfell does not have as strong of a knightly tradition as the South, the cultural mores exist, distinguishing women as non-combatants in war.
  • And yet, the dynamics irreversibly change because of Jon’s hesitation. Even if he was able to overcome it, Ygritte is no longer an active combatant in battle. She is a prisoner at his mercy. Killing her now simply cannot feel like killing Orell. It feels more like execution, like murder
  • So once Jon has instinctively decided to spare her, he feels the conscious need to continue sparing her, because the circumstances have changed
  • A different cultural logic now takes hold. Ygritte is no longer a noncombatant to be spared, but an enemy soldier held captive
  • As Stonesnake points out, Qhorin never told them to take captives. Jon countered that Qhorin never said not to. This is a weak argument; Qhorin didn’t think he had to give what would’ve seemed like an obvious order
  • Really, Jon is just buying time. Ygritte is a helpless woman, then an enemy soldier--any status that can spare Jon the task of killing her
  • Again, it’s a pointed contrast to Theon IV. Both Jon and Theon are transparently jumping between justifications for what they’re doing
  • But Theon was doing so in order to validate his own violence, whereas Jon is doing so in order to validate an act of mercy, rejecting violence
  • Because Jon admires Qhorin & Co, he feels the need to dress up what he’s done in military logic. I will interrogate my captive, gain intelligence
  • This goes hilariously wrong. Ygritte gives him nothing useful about Mance, nor his numbers, nor his movements, nor his motivations in being up here
  • Why should she give him anything? He just revealed his soft heart by sparing her, so she can reasonably assume he won’t torture her
  • Jon’s looking for a reason to keep her alive, but Stonesnake (experienced in the war against the wildlings) knows better. She’d bite off her tongue first, spiting herself rather than give the hated crows anything to work with
  • Jon, on the other hand, tells Ygritte his name and where he’s from. As Stonesnake points out with a chuckle, he appears to have this backwards
  • You’re the interrogator, buddy! They’re the ones who are supposed to give you information! But Jon is an open wound, a bleeding heart. Bless him
  • Once again, it comes back to his family. Jon asks Ygritte about Benjen, but she gives him nothing. The fiery defiance in her eyes initally puts him in mind of Arya, the person he loves most in all the world
  • It’s such a strong association that at first, he thinks Ygritte is considerably younger than she is. When he’s calmed down, he sees she’s older than him. But he still thinks she might be as skinny as Arya under the furs
  • Jon is attracted to Ygritte without realizing it at first; thinking about her body under the furs, right after pricking her throat (wink wink)
  • He’s gone from nostalgia for the innocence of childhood to the stirring of adult feelings for the woman who will be his first sexual partner
  • Both of these associations together make killing Ygritte anathema to Jon, at a level he can’t explain, nor probably even fully understand
  • She is no longer the other...and the only information she does give them is a reminder that both their peoples live in the valley of the shadow of death
  • Burn those you killed, or the true Others will come for us both. That’s the seed of empathy across the borders of the war. It’s on that foundation that Jon will start to think of the wildlings as part of his new family, just as much as his brothers in black. They are all part of the great family of humanity
  • That family dynamic is such a strong theme of this chapter. Jon starts the chapter off with his new brothers in black even as he thinks about what Robb was thinking before his first battle, wishing he was as brave as Bran and thinking that Ygritte reminds him of Arya.
  • Something subtle that George does here is put Jon in the mindstate to spare Ygritte by Jon first thinking of Robb and Bran: his two redheaded half-brothers.
  • This coming on the heels of how Gilly reminded Jon of Arya, Robb and Sansa from Jon III.
  • And then when Jon has his first brushes with Ygritte as a person, she reminds him of Arya both physically in how skinny she probably is under the furs but also her ferocity and spark of life reminds Jon of Arya.
  • Jon’s story has been to emerge from the sheltered cocoon of Winterfell, to evolve his perspective on family, friends and enemies and what is human.
  • That George weaves Jon’s character development through his own family is just great storytelling by George.
  • But GRRM isn’t done painting the story to Jon that there’s more that unites us than divides us, and, like we’re discovering in our Fevre Dream patreon episodes, he does this brilliantly through a story within a story.
• Bael the Bard
  • It is on the basis of kinship, literal and otherwise, that Ygritte reaches out to Jon, via the legend of Bael the Bard, King Beyond the Wall
  • Even in a chapter full of great scenes, this is the outstanding highlight. As you said on Twitter, there are so many layers at work in this story that it’s difficult to take account of them all, even for us on the Notacast
  • It is comparable to the Knight of the Laughing Tree story that Meera tells Bran in ASOS. The parallels run deep. Meera’s story directly explores the tragic [R]omantic backstory of Robert’s Rebellion and R+L=J that Ygritte’s story explores indirectly, through archetype and metaphorical imagery
  • Both stories are overflowing with lush visuals dazzling the mind’s eye with color and movement, the promise of fantasy brought to life…
  • ...but both stories undercut their own romanticism by hinting at deeper, uglier realities that leave everything blurred by uncertainty and time
  • Both stories embody the paradoxical nature of art: it captures reality by pushing beyond it, conveying emotional truth through distortion and artifice
  • Both stories challenge our male Stark POV to question their own preferences in storytelling and critically examine what they’ve been told before; the implications for the reader are along the same lines
  • And both stories are eye of the beholder, stories spun to fit the ideologies of the people telling them.
  • In the KOTLT, Bran constantly interrupts Meera Reed’s telling of the story while Jon grows indignant at points with Ygritte’s story.
  • Meanwhile, Stonesnake is there to offer a third perspective to the story. This dialogue between Stonesnake and Ygritte that sets up the story is clutch
    • “Well, long before he was king over the free folk, Bael was a great raider."
      
      Stonesnake gave a snort. "A murderer, robber, and raper, is what you mean."
      
      "That's all in where you're standing too," Ygritte said.
  • Stonesnake is a brave, strong guy, but his ability to understand is clouded by his perspective as a sworn enemy of the wildlings.
  • To Stonesnake, Bael the Bard represented everything he detested in the wildlings, that he dedicated his life to fighting against.
  • And because this story has more than a seasoning of R+L=J seasoning to it: in other words, to Robert Baratheon, Rhaegar Targaryen was a murderer who stole Lyanna Stark and raped her.
  • What’s fascinating is that Ygritte doesn’t counter with “Nu-uh. He was a goddamn hero.” Instead, she says that yeah, maybe. We come to these stories bringing our own biases into them. But hear the story all the same.
  • This is another way that George humanizes the wildlings through Ygritte. He’s showing us that Ygritte is not so narrow-minded as to dismiss the reasons why others wouldn’t value Bael the way she esteems him.
  • In other words, Ygritte’s empathy for different perspectives leads us to empathize with Ygritte who acts as our stand-in for the wildlings. And George will only continue this good work when we meet Mance and Tormund in the next book.
  • In order to accomplish all of these goals, both of these stories wind up functioning as dense narrative wells, gravity pulling everything else in
  • KOLT is a story about Lyanna, and Rhaegar, and the politics of Aerys’ realm, and the spectacle of court life, and the dynamics of the earlier Stark generation, and a Hero’s Journey for Howland Reed, and on and on
  • The Bael the Bard story is, in Ygritte’s telling, a story about how the Starks of Winterfell are distant kin to the Free Folk. But it’s also another story about Rhaegar and Lyanna. Rhaegar, too, was a royal bard who made off with the daughter of Winterfell, leaving behind only a son who will one day rule the castle, if Jon indeed is crowned as King in the North in TWOW
  • It’s also a story about Mance Rayder, the current King Beyond the Wall. He, too, is a bard-king who strolled into Winterfell in disguise, not once but twice. It is the second time, in ADWD, that he tries to make off with a daughter of House Stark--or a girl disguised as one, anyway: Jeyne Poole
  • The wheel of time keeps turning. The events of the past and future echo, with the individual components changed around each time. You are part of a pattern without realizing it, carrying on with no beginning nor ending
  • Death functions as the hard limit, a straight line cutting across the wheel. Art functions as our attempt to achieve some form of immortality
  • For all Bael’s romanticism, his story is a tragedy. His son kills him without knowing it, because the political boundaries that divide Jon and Ygritte in the present day held fast in the past. Something these cultures have in common, however, is a hatred of kinslaying, and Bael’s son suffered for it
  • He was overthrown by a rebel lord who skinned him for a cloak. Here we have yet another layer to the story: foreshadowing of the Bolton betrayal
  • They haven’t rose up against the Starks in a long time, but the memory of when they did is preserved in art, an archetype in a distorted mirror
  • Jon is receiving a warning of Robb’s fate from a most unlikely source, but neither of them know it for what it is, just as Dany couldn’t interpret the warning of the Red Wedding she saw in the House of the Undying
  • We might like to think of culture as transmitting itself in nice little boxes from generation to generation, but this is how it actually works: fragments in a whirlwind, like assembling a dinosaur from bits and pieces of fossils
  • We’re also seeing the reverberations across the spiritual ether from the HoTU with the blue winter rose imagery showing up in Bael’s story as it showed up in Dany’s vision.
  • And here Jon resembles Dany in not understanding that he is the blue winter rose of the story; he is the child of the daughter of Winterfell stolen away.
  • It makes perfect sense why Jon wouldn’t see himself in the story. He conditions himself several times to think to himself that he never knew his mother, but his father sure was Ned Stark.
  • Jon and Ygritte are clearly on the opposite sides of a line. But what is that line, exactly? Like the Skirling Pass, it’s made up of a thousand tiny lines
  • Amidst all that confusion, there are slippage points that allow you to make contact, things you somehow have in common, if only in a story
  • The content of the story itself speaks to the possibilities and pitfalls of crossing the borders that now lie btw Jon and Ygritte; so does the form
  • Ygritte has to explain the in-joke of Bael’s pseudonym to Jon, who doesn’t speak the old tongue. Similarly, Mance’s pseudonym Abel is a reference to Bael, which Theon doesn’t understand. All these footnotes that wither in the perspective of another. Language is both the bridge and the boundary
  • Jon intervenes with his own cultural history, also tied to names and language. Which Brandon was this, whose daughter Bael kidnapped?
  • Jon asks this because, like Bran down in the crypts in book one, he knows all the names. He knows the histories, the stories, the official canon
  • But Ygritte isn’t taking part in the official canon. Rather, she’s exploring its underside: the preterite/proletarian arts of folk stories and unofficial history
  • This was Brandon the Daughterless, she says. Which is to say: this is the Brandon who serves the purpose of the story, which is to be daughterless
  • Which Brandon it was, if indeed it was a Brandon, is beside the point. Ygritte is not trying to tell a story that fits into Jon’s understanding, but challenges it, opening up his self-image to include her and her stories
  • And even though Jon might be familiar with the Starks from the crypts that he was exposed to, we should always remember that there were deeper layers within the Winterfell crypts that contained the Starks from ancient times.
  • Beyond that, the Boltons allegedly skinned this Stark; so, his body may have never been laid to rest within the crypt of Winterfell.
    • (I would think that when the Red Kings finally bent the knee to the Starks that the Starks were able to get the remains of their dead men out of the Dreadfort, provided that they were
  • Beyond that, Brandon Stark the Daughterless gets into something else when it comes to history: how the official histories sometimes don’t relate the shortcomings and failures of the royal line.
  • We covered this in our patreon Fevre Dream podcast when we unpacked Chapter 13.
  • There, we talked about the Assyrian King Sennacherib and the Lachish Relief which Sennacherib had done up recounting his conquest of Judah.
  • The story on that relief ends with Sennacherib shutting the Judean King Hezekiah up like a bird in a cage at Jerusalem without quite finishing the story — namely that the Assyrian attempt to take Jerusalem was likely a failure.
  • The Starks may not want to remember a Brandon Stark who kinslayed and then was subsequently killed by a Bolton King.
  • History when used as heritage is a weapon to wield. And the propaganda aspect of it can ensure that the Stark legacy lives on by not remembering Brandon the Daughterless.
  • (Please note that I am not subscribing to the “history is written by the victors”, because that is piss-poor historiography.)
  • Speaking of Bran, this is yet another parallel to Theon IV last week: Bran hides out in the crypts in that chapter as Bael does in Ygritte’s story
  • Once more, George is challenging the reader along similar lines: to notice parallels, archetypes cropping up, and to understand their purpose
  • What matters is not only the story, but how it’s being told, by whom, and why. Ygritte says that whether or not it’s true, she remembers it because her mother used to sing it to her. She was some woman, like Jon’s
  • The point is less the literal kinship within the story and more the symbolic kinship that the story itself creates. The bard’s truth, not the historical truth
  • What Ygritte is trying to get across to Jon, as they both say, is that it’s all in where you’re standing. They’re all southerners to Ygritte, which confounds Jon because he’s used to thinking of himself as northern
  • That identity permeates his entire life. Remember LC Mormont and his peculiarities about wine, dismissing lemon as some southron heresy?
  • But to Ygritte, they’re all lumped in together as southerners, just as Jon lumps together many different cultures as wildlings, just as the Dothraki call Jorah an Andal even though he’s not one. It’s all about perspective
  • This isn’t moral relativism in the easily caricatured sense of all acts being equal and everything coming out a wash. It’s more that the bard’s truth, far from being a pale imitation, is usually the only one we can access
  • Crossing this bridge doesn’t resolve the divides between Jon and Ygritte. Those divides still break them apart and ultimately claim her life
  • But within the space of a song, a story, the bard’s truth can hold and bring them together, allowing Jon to see himself through another’s eyes
  • In wildling culture as well as real-world preliterate cultures, the stories and songs told around a campfire were often the only forms of preserving historical memory.
  • Even our famous Greek philosophers like Socrates famously thought writing down the stories told diminished the impact and effect of the stories as it would hinder people’s willingness to remember.
  • Now, these stories and oral traditions were not the happening truth to borrow again from Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried.
  • They were the story truth: not a blow-by-blow account, but an emotional resonance that can be as true or truer than the verifiable fact from the quill of a maester.
  • And what makes the story of Bael the Bard a true account for Jon is that he is starting to see beyond his own limiting perspective as brought on by the constraints of written history.
  • Moreover, as you were saying, Bael the Bard humanizes the wildlings to Jon. They’re no longer the other. They’re people, and they tie into the story of Winterfell as much as the Starks do.
  • Come Storm and especially Dance, Jon will see beyond his southron perspective and embrace a universalist perspective on the wildlings. They weren’t savages or fairytale monsters by nature of being a part of the free folk.
  • They were people. They were good. They were bad. They were Mance Rayder, Ygritte and Tormund Giantsbane. They were also Craster, the Weeper and Varamyr Sixskins.
  • Are we so different? That’s what the Bael the Bard story forces Jon to consider, and we can thank Ygritte as this starts the path forward for Jon to gain perspective, growth and to truly be the hero the realm needs.
• Mercy, mercy, mercy
  • Dawn breaks; the black night that both hid the Watchmen and made their climb treacherous is replaced by light, in which we must face ourselves and each other. Jon must accept the consequences of his actions
  • He climbed up and away from his black-cloaked mentor and his white wolf, the symbols of duty and family, into uncharted territory
  • But the dawn brings Qhorin and Ghost with it. Jon roughhouses with Ghost; this is an intimacy he’s achieved across multiple borders
  • Ygritte is freaked out! Why’s that? After all, she’s presumably more familiar with direwolves than southron folks. What throws her off is the love
  • As Qhorin and his men will realize in Jon’s next chapter, the bond between Jon and Ghost can’t be explained purely as a Boy and His Dog
  • This demonstrates that Jon has already, without knowing it, taken a step into the literal and figurative wild Ygritte was telling him about
  • She said they were kin, more alike than he knew; it turns out Jon already had more of the wild in him than Ygritte knew! The borders keep blurring
  • Again, we see how effectively and efficiently these Watchmen communicate. All Stonesnake has to say to Qhorin is “there were three”
  • And all Ebben has to say is that they passed the crow-food remains of the first two. That implies what he wants done with Ygritte without saying it
  • All Jon can say is that she yielded. Which is true, but what he doesn’t say is that he hesitated to kill her first, dragging the word “yield” out of her
  • In response, Qhorin speaks to not only the material realities at hand, but how they inform the chapter’s themes of origins and identity
  • Do you know who I am? The question of the chapter! Does Jon know who he is? Well, relative to who? To Ygritte, to these Watchmen, to the Starks?
  • Qhorin engages Ygritte in dialogue, give and take, to more precisely fix the borders between them that Jon seems to have confused
  • He makes her say his name back to him, affirming not only his identity but his reputation: who he is in the eye of the beholder, the stories about him
  • Qhorin puts himself in her position, the keystone act of empathy across borders. Yet he is doing so ultimately to reinforce those borders to Jon
  • If I was in your shoes, a captive of the wildlings, what would you do to me? And with a soldier’s respect for a fellow soldier, Ygritte tells him the truth
  • We’d torture you to death. Ebben, as we have already heard, is the torturer of the gang. This is how both sides have descended in a slow-burn conflict that is considerably older than the War of Five Kings
  • Jon’s mercy is logistically inadequate, as the older men gently explain to him. They can’t feed her, they can’t guard her, and all it takes is her crying out at the wrong moment to give them away and get them all killed
  • Qhorin’s invocation of the larger war, though, also makes Jon’s mercy feel so small in comparison. What can man do against such reckless hate?
  • Jon can only repeat himself. She yielded...to me. Her life is my responsibility, and I could not bring myself to take it
  • The responsibility remains his, as Qhorin says, and none of them can take it away from him as he desperately wants them to do. That’s the last gasp of childhood: the belief that your parents can wave away consequences
  • Our hero must now put his origins and identity into action, as Qhorin says. You are the blood of Winterfell and a man of the Night’s Watch. The choice is yours. Live with it. They ride into the sun and leave him alone with her
  • Contrast w/ what happens in ASOS and the old man at Queenscrown.
  • Ygritte, characteristically blunt, gets to the heart of it: you never killed a woman before? In truth, before last night, he’d never killed anyone--just as he never slept with anyone before her. He climbs a lot of steps with her
  • Ygritte tells her that we all die the same, something else we have in common. Speaking of which, why don’t we just run off to Mance?
  • Mance is a temptation figure for Jon in multiple respects, showing him a fluid self-image that can negotiate all these bewildering boundaries
  • Here, joining Mance means that Jon wouldn’t have to kill Ygritte, wouldn’t have to make this call and so own his identity. But he resists this temptation, precisely on the terms of identity. I’m a crow like them
  • Jon asks her if she’s afraid. Again, the empathy he cannot deny, cannot regiment like the rest of the men. Ygritte said she was, but then the sun rose. What’s more human than that? Even death is easier to face when the sun is shining. The world will keep turning without me; that’s OK
  • And in the face of that strength, that grace, Jon summons up his father. Longclaw is not Ice, as he thinks, but it’s what he has. His father would give her a clean death. Wouldn’t he? I’m his son. Aren’t I? Who am I?
  • Jon Snow has crossed the threshold into the unknown, and found out that it’s uncannily similar to everything he left behind--just reordered, remixed
  • He said he never expected to find his mother in the Frostfangs. But of course he did. He carries her with him wherever he goes
  • Arya and Robb and all the rest will always haunt the faces of others, like the memories in candlelight Catelyn glimpsed on the gods
  • You can’t take back empathy any more than you can take back the hesitation to kill. Her essential humanity, the bard’s truth kinship of which she spoke, has inflamed the conflict in his human heart. Art has enlightened him, made him see, and he cannot unsee his family in her
  • So he lets her go, an act of mercy that stands in defiant contrast to Theon’s choice at the end of his chapter last week. He chose fear, hating his own incomplete nature so much he purged his own humanity
  • Jon steps outside the constricting logic of family, duty, honor to confront another individual like him: a suffering soul from a fallen world, in need
  • Theon cut the bonds between himself and the world, climbing out on a branch of the Tree of Life and sawing it off behind him. Jon intertwines his narrative branch with Ygritte’s, a blue rose born of both worlds
  • He chose love. He chose humanity. He chose mercy. It doesn’t save her in the long run from the divide between them, but as she says in ASOS, everyone dies. First, they will live, and only because he spared her here
  • Saving Private Ryan and Jon sparing Ygritte.
  • Release date of Saving Private Ryan: July 24, 1998
  • Release date of A Clash of Kings: November 16, 1998
  • 
    

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

Jon thinks that Squire Dalbridge squired for a king once, and that’s why he retains the nickname of Squire Dalbridge. The king who Dalbridge squired for was semi-canonically confirmed to be Jaehaerys II in the A World of Ice and Fire app that came out in 2014.

Mance will recreate the Bael the Bard story (or try to, anyway) at Winterfell in ADWD with Jeyne Poole playing the role of the Stark daughter. George loves his threes, so we get the legend of Bael, the backstory of Rhaegar, and the “present day” of Mance.

GRRM takes the mantra that Jon keeps repeating to himself: One step and then another, Jon told himself. One step and then another, and I will not fall and recycles it for Samwell Tarly in his first ASOS Chapter. Sobbing, Sam took another step.

The way Ygritte is written in this scene, with “fear and fire” in her eyes, makes it seem like a preview for Jon making the opposite decision RE mercy when it comes to Dany.

Theory/Discussion

So we’ve talked about the Bael the Bard myth as a parallel to R+L=J, but what about this chapter itself as a parallel to R+L=J, a coded story about Jon’s origins?

Conclusion

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