Episode 164: A STORM OF SWORDS, JON II: "Last of the Giants" ft. Stefan Sasse 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 sixty-fourth episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “Last of the Giants: An Analysis of ASOS, Jon II” in which Jon Snow gets some cool facial scars, is accused of treason but is saved from execution by sex.

Say hi to Stefan

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Question

Joe Snow, King of the Metro North, a small council patron, asks:

Joe Snow here and wanted to send a question that you guys can hopefully answer before a Jon chapter. Going off the Thrones show ending which I believe is how ASOIAF will end the Dany/Jon stories. Jon becoming a queen slayer and putting a dagger into the heart of Dany before she sits the iron throne. What POV chapter do you think we’ll get Jon plunging the dagger? We got a run through of Jons mindset when he is sent to assassinate Mance, or will we see this from Dany’s POV or even a third party like Bran warging into Drogon just long enough to keep Jon alive? Which POV do you guys think it’ll be? Love the podcast guys and keep up the excellent work.

If this happens the way it does in the show, only Jon’s POV makes sense. This is essentially what we get in the show as well. We need to see through his eyes why he makes that decision, why he perceives Dany to become a threat. We also vitally need his reactions, and a Dany chapter would necessarily end before that. Also, what would Dany give us here? If this plays out as it does in the show, the scene in which she calls on the Unsullied to conquer the world would be her last POV chapter. No other POV besides these two makes any sense. It’s an incredibly intimate moment, and you need them for it. This isn’t something one watches from a distance.

So, thank you Joe Snow for the question. If you’d like to ask us questions here on the NotACast pod-cast, you are welcome to become a Sworn Sword of higher-level patron over patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF where you can also get show notes, merch, access to the NotASlack, weekly minisodes, shout-outs at the start and end of every episode and bonus episodes like our recently-released episode “Mistakes Were Made” in which Jeff and I had an Oxford-style debate over who was really at fault at the fords: Robb Stark or Edmure Tully!

That was so much fun to do with you, ser! You can find that episode along with forty other patreon-only episodes available for our $5/above patrons over at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF.

But enough about patreon. When we last checked in with Jon Snow, he witnessed the wildling host up close and got into Mance Rayder’s good favor. Let’s find out how the saddest boy is doing north of the Wall in this synopsis of ASOS, Jon II!

Synopsis

“Big enough for you?" Snowflakes speckled Tormund's broad face, melting in his hair and beard.

I don’t think there’s quite a chapter open in ASOIAF like ASOS, Jon II. Usually, it’s poetic, a character moment, something thematic for the POV character. But Jon II opens with a dick joke. George RR Martin: the American Tolkien.

But it’s not actually dicks here, not yet. It’s giants riding gigantic mammoths moving Stormtrooper style through the wilderness. It’s a terrifying sight for Jon and Ghost. Mounted, Jon counts the giants up to fifty and then realizes that there are hundreds.

In Old Nan's stories, giants were outsized men who lived in colossal castles, fought with huge swords, and walked about in boots a boy could hide in. These were something else, more bearlike than human, and as wooly as the mammoths they rode. Seated, it was hard to say how big they truly were. Ten feet tall maybe, or twelve, Jon thought. Maybe fourteen, but no taller. Their sloping chests might have passed for those of men, but their arms hung down too far, and their lower torsos looked half again as wide as their upper. Their legs were shorter than their arms, but very thick, and they wore no boots at all; their feet were broad splayed things, hard and horny and black. Neckless, their huge heavy heads thrust forward from between their shoulder blades, and their faces were squashed and brutal. Rats' eyes no larger than beads were almost lost within folds of horny flesh, but they snuffled constantly, smelling as much as they saw.

Jon realizes that they’re not wearing clothes. It’s hair. And they stank bad. Or maybe that was the mammoths. Jon tries to see if they carry swords, but they’re only carrying giant clubs with them. An older giant rides up, and Tormund yells at him in a language Jon doesn’t understand. The giant laughs and says something back to Tormund. Jon asks whether the giant dude was their king. Nah, the giants don’t have a king. But Jon can kneel to him if he wants. Okay. Well, what were you all talking about?

"Aye. I asked him if that was his father he was forking, they looked so much alike, except his father had a better smell."

"And what did he say to you?"

Tormund Thunderfist cracked a gap-toothed smile. "He asked me if that was my daughter riding there beside me, with her smooth pink cheeks." The wildling shook snow from his arm and turned his horse about. "It may be he never saw a man without a beard before. Come, we start back. Mance grows sore wroth when I'm not found in my accustomed place."

Jon follows Tormund back. While they ride, Jon asks about whether Tormund really killed a giant. He sure did. Absolutely. It was winter, and he needed a place to stay warm, or he’d die in the snow. So, he cut his way into the giant’s belly, crawled in and went to sleep until spring. But when the giant woke up, she thought Tormund was his baby; so, she suckled Tormund for three months. Wild fucking story, Tormund.

Anyways, Jon is curious about some of Tormund’s titles: Horn-Blower, Mead-king of Ruddy Hall, Husband to Bears, Father to Hosts. What about them? What Jon is really asking is whether the wildlings have the Horn of Joramun, but he figures he can get the answer if it looks like it’s just one thing amidst a bunch of things he’s asking after.

Tormund seems a touch annoyed by the curiosity, but then tells the tale of how he got drunk and decided that he wanted to go do a sex with this woman he fancied. You know the one: the woman with a fiery temper. So, he went to her. She put up a fight, and then he carried the woman home. They fought some more, and then Tormund woke up all bruised and bloody with half of his dick bitten off and found a bear pelt on his floor. And the wildlings talked about a bald bear in the woods. Again, another wild story from Tormund.

Anyways, Jon, does the NW castrate you when you arrive at the Wall? Outraged, Jon says no. Absolutely not. Okay then why is Jon refusing Ygritte’s advances? Everyone knows she’s into Jon something fierce.

Too bloody plain, thought Jon, and it seems that half the column has seen it. He studied the falling snow so Tormund might not see him redden. I am a man of the Night's Watch, he reminded himself. So why did he feel like some blushing maid?

Jon was around Ygritte most days and nights. Mance put Jon into Tormund’s band, and every night, Ygritte slept next to Jon and even draped herself over Jon. Jon finds Ygritte warming him and also heating up his nethers. Jon suspects that Ygritte wants more than warmth. Oh really, Jon. What gave that away? Ygritte keeps persisting, saying they should go swim naked in an icy river together, but Jon pretends to hear Tormund calling him away.

The wildlings seemed to think Ygritte a great beauty because of her hair; red hair was rare among the free folk, and those who had it were said to be kissed by fire, which was supposed to be lucky. Lucky it might be, and red it certainly was, but Ygritte's hair was such a tangle that Jon was tempted to ask her if she only brushed it at the changing of the seasons.

At a lord's court the girl would never have been considered anything but common, he knew. She had a round peasant face, a pug nose, and slightly crooked teeth, and her eyes were too far apart. Jon had noticed all that the first time he'd seen her, when his dirk had been at her throat. Lately, though, he was noticing some other things. When she grinned, the crooked teeth didn't seem to matter. And maybe her eyes were too far apart, but they were a pretty blue-grey color, and lively as any eyes he knew. Sometimes she sang in a low husky voice that stirred him. And sometimes by the cookfire when she sat hugging her knees with the flames waking echoes in her red hair, and looked at him, just smiling . . . well, that stirred some things as well.

But he was a man of the Night's Watch, he had taken a vow. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. He had said the words before the weirwood, before his father's gods. He could not unsay them . . . no more than he could admit the reason for his reluctance to Tormund Thunderfist, Father to Bears.

Tormund asks if Jon doesn’t like Ygritte, and Jon’s like, but I’m too young to get married. Married? Dumbass, she’s not asking for marriage. Just sex. Wouldn’t that be dishonorable to have sex outside of marriage? No. But what if they father a child? Awesome. Be nice. But if she doesn’t want to be a mom, she can take some moon tea. But Jon is still stuck on this fathering a bastard thing.

"I will not father a bastard."

Tormund shook his shaggy head. "What fools you kneelers be. Why did you steal the girl if you don't want her?"

"Steal? I never . . . "

"You did," said Tormund. "You slew the two she was with and carried her off, what do you call it?"

"I took her prisoner."

"You made her yield to you."

"Yes, but . . . Tormund, I swear, I've never touched her."

Tormund asks Jon if he’s sure he’s not castrated. But he’s so dead set on not sexing Ygritte, he should find a she-bear or else his dick will grow small and then disappear. Not sure of the medical science behind that statement, but Jon doesn’t have an answer to it. He thinks about how the wildlings are ‘scarcely human’ given all the thievering, breeding, raping and bastards. Not exactly charitable Jon. But then he thinks that he likes Tormund and Longspear and Ygritte. But he pushes the thought of Ygritte from his mind.

There were all sorts of wildlings here. Rattleshirt and the Weeper who both suck. Harma Dogshead who murders dogs and mounts a fresh head on her banner every fortnight. Sty, Magnar of Thenn who was a god to his people. Varamyr Sixskins who rode a snow bear and had a tail of animals with him wherever he went. Jon hadn’t liked the sight of him, and Ghost had liked the animal parade even less.

Jon considers the wildling people more broadly. Frozen Shore men who rode walrus boned chariots pulled by dogs. Ice-river clansmen who were cannibals. Hornfoot men who wore no shoes in the snow. No snarks or grumpkins yet, but who knows if they’ll show up to dinner. Most of these wildlings had probably never seen the Wall and didn’t speak the Common Tongue. But Mance spoke their languages, sang in their languages.

Mance had spent years assembling this vast plodding host, talking to this clan mother and that magnar, winning one village with sweet words and another with a song and a third with the edge of his sword, making peace between Harma Dogshead and the Lord o' Bones, between the Hornfoots and the Nightrunners, between the walrus men of the Frozen Shore and the cannibal clans of the great ice rivers, hammering a hundred different daggers into one great spear, aimed at the heart of the Seven Kingdoms. He had no crown nor scepter, no robes of silk and velvet, but it was plain to Jon that Mance Rayder was a king in more than name.

Jon had joined the wildlings due to the mission Qhorin Halfhand gave to Ride with them, eat with them, fight with them. And watch. But Jon hadn’t found much about the magic weapon the wildlings were looking for. And Mance hadn’t told him anything. Jon barely saw him. And even if he knows that he has to kill him, he knows the killing would be dishonorable and would mean Jon would die too.

Yet 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. If Jon must slay a man he half admired and almost liked to save them from the mercies of Rattleshirt and Harma Dogshead and the earless Magnar of Thenn, that was what he meant to do.

Jon prays he won’t have to do this as the wildling party moves slowly through the wilderness. Jon knows that the Fist of the First Men was ahead where his brothers were. They had probably dispatched scouts forward by now and were tracking the movements of the wildlings. He also knows that LC Mormont can’t run. Or won’t. He had sunk cost fallacy too much.

Jon imagines that one day he’ll see the Night’s Watch riding for the wildlings. While the wildlings had the numbers, Jon knows that if Mormont is able to kill Mance, it’s curtains for the wildlings. Beyond that, the wildlings were undisciplined and vulnerable with the best warriors at the front and back of the massive column with more with Mance in the center. But most of these great warriors were unmounted. If Mormont attacked, Mance would have to chase, and then he might die in the battle, sparing Jon from committing murder and keeping the North free of wildlings for the next hundred years.

Jon flexes his fingers on the sword hilt, ensuring Longclaw was in close range. The snow falls heavy as Jon catches up with Tormund’s band. Ghost leaves while Jon is in transit, but Jon knows the direwolf will be back. Just like Ygritte who sees Jon and asks if he saw the giants.

"Har!" shouted Tormund, before Jon could reply. "The crow's in love! He means to marry one!"

"A giantess?" Longspear Ryk laughed.

"No, a mammoth!" Tormund bellowed. "Har!"

Ygritte approaches Jon, and Jon recalls that she told him she was three years older than him, but she was much shorter than him. He also thinks about her status as a spearwife and how she reminded him of Arya. Anyways, now that Ygritte is here, she’s got something to say. Or should I say siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing. And this time it’s “The Last of the Giants.” I’ll spare you my mellifluous tones, but the song is about how men hunt giants, and that last one sings about how everyone is dead, everything is stolen, and men have hunted and fished their way towards a giant genocide. Okay, fine. I’ll sing the last few lines:

Oooooooh, I am the LAST of the giants,

so learn well the words of my song.

For when I am gone the singing will fade,

and the silence shall last long and long.

There were tears on Ygritte's cheeks when the song ended.

"Why are you weeping?" Jon asked. "It was only a song. There are hundreds of giants, I've just seen them."

"Oh, hundreds," she said furiously. "You know nothing, Jon Snow. You-JON!"

But suddenly, there’s a sound of wings, and there’s a flurry of blue-grey feathers all around Jon’s face as a bird beak and talons bite and scratch into Jon’s face. Jon panics and falls from his horse as the eagle hangs onto Jon’s face.

The next he knew, he was on his face with the taste of mud and blood in his mouth and Ygritte kneeling over him protectively, a bone dagger in her hand. He could still hear wings, though the eagle was not in sight. Half his world was black. "My eye," he said in sudden panic, raising a hand to his face.

"It's only blood, Jon Snow. He missed the eye, just ripped your skin up some."

Jon’s face throbs as Tormund bellows at the Lord O’Bones to leave Jon be. But Rattleshirt tells Tormund he’s here for Jon. Come and get him, Tormund says, but he’ll have to go through Tormund to do that. Rattleshirt tells Tormund to stand aside as Mance wants Jon. Tormund tells Jon he should go, but Ygritte protests that Jon is bleeding. Jon says he’ll come. Ygritte will come too. Jon makes sure he has Longclaw before he departs.

They gallop two miles through swirling snows as night begins to fall. But through the snow, Jon sees a familiar hill ahead: the Fist of the First Men. The eagle screams overhead, and a raven looks down at the riders. Was this Mormont’s work? They come up the south slope, and Jon sees carnage.

It was there at the bottom that Jon saw the dead horse, sprawled at the base of the hill, half buried in the snow. Entrails spilled from the belly of the animal like frozen snakes, and one of its legs was gone. Wolves, was Jon's first thought, but that was wrong. Wolves eat their kill.

More garrons were strewn across the slope, legs twisted grotesquely, blind eyes staring in death. The wildlings crawled over them like flies, stripping them of saddles, bridles, packs, and armor, and hacking them apart with stone axes.

Rattleshirt tells Jon that Mance is at the top of the hill. So, Jon climbs, seeing the pink snow and lots of ravens eating a dead horse. He wonders where and what Sam was now. Probably taking another step and sobbing, of course.

The wildlings were stripping the dead of everything valuable from the men and horses. He finds Mance at one of the remaining tents. Around Mance was Jarl, Harma, Styr and Varmyr. Mance asks what happened to Jon’s face. Orell tried to take out Jon’s eyes according to Ygritte.

"It was him I asked. Has he lost his tongue? Perhaps he should, to spare us further lies."

Styr the Magnar drew a long knife. "The boy might see more clear with one eye, instead of two."

"Would you like to keep your eye, Jon?" asked the King-beyond-the-Wall. "If so, tell me how many they were. And try and speak the truth this time, Bastard of Winterfell."

Jon's throat was dry. "My lord . . . what . . . "

"I am not your lord," said Mance. "And the what is plain enough. Your brothers died. The question is, how many?"

With much difficulty, Jon answers: three hundred of “us.” Oh, us. No, no. Jon didn’t mean to say what he really meant. Them. Mance asks Harma how many dead horses. Between one hundred and two hundred.

"You should never have lied to me, Jon Snow," said Mance.

"I . . . I know that." What could he say?

Mance asks who was in command. He doesn’t think Rykker, Smallwood or Wythers. Who? Jon asks if they found his body.

"The next time you answer me with a question, I will give you to my Lord of Bones," Mance Rayder promised Jon. He stepped closer. "Who led here?"

One more step, thought Jon. Another foot. He moved his hand closer to Longclaw's hilt. If I hold my tongue . . .

"Reach up for that bastard sword and I'll have your bastard head off before it clears the scabbard," said Mance. "I am fast losing patience with you, crow."

"Say it," Ygritte urged. "He's dead, whoever he was."

His frown cracked the blood on his cheek. This is too hard, Jon thought in despair. How do I play the turncloak without becoming one? Qhorin had not told him that. But the second step is always easier than the first. "The Old Bear."

Harma disbelieves Jon and asks who holds Castle Black. Bowen Marsh, Jon says immediately. Mance thinks that’s awesome, because then they will win the war. Jon says Mormont commanded and was lying in wait for ...

" . . . Me?" finished Mance Rayder. "Aye, he was. Had I been fool enough to storm this hill, I might have lost five men for every crow I slew and still counted myself lucky." His mouth grew hard. "But when the dead walk, walls and stakes and swords mean nothing. You cannot fight the dead, Jon Snow. No man knows that half so well as me." He gazed up at the darkening sky and said, "The crows may have helped us more than they know. I'd wondered why we'd suffered no attacks. But there's still a hundred leagues to go, and the cold is rising. Varamyr, send your wolves sniffing after the wights, I won't have them taking us unawares. My Lord of Bones, double all the patrols, and make certain every man has torch and flint. Styr, Jarl, you ride at first light."

Rattleshirt, though, isn’t through with Jon. He wants to kill Jon. But Ygritte stands up for Jon. He was lying for his former NW brothers. Not former, says Styr. Current. Oh yeah, then why did Jon spare Ygritte’s life. And he killed Qhorin Halfhand.

Jon's breath misted the air. If I lie to him, he'll know. He looked Mance Rayder in the eyes, opened and closed his burned hand. "I wear the cloak you gave me, Your Grace."

"A sheepskin cloak!" said Ygritte. "And there's many a night we dance beneath it, too!"

Jarl laughed, and even Harma Dogshead smirked. "Is that the way of it, Jon Snow?" asked Mance Rayder, mildly. "Her and you?"

It was easy to lose your way beyond the Wall. Jon did not know that he could tell honor from shame anymore, or right from wrong. Father forgive me. "Yes," he said.

Mance says great, awesome. Jon is going with Jarl and Styr tomorrow. He’s not keeping two hearts that beat as one apart from each other. And where are they going? Over the Wall, dum-dum. Jon is going to prove his faith by action, not words.

Styr doesn’t like that. But Mance is unmoved. Jon will know the Wall better than any of the wildlings. But what if he’s still loyal to the NW? Then cut out his heart. Does Mance have to think of everything? Mance tells Rattleshirt to keep the column moving. If they make it to the Wall before Mormont does, they’ve won.

Mance, Harma and Varmyr depart, and Jon and Ygritte is left with Jarl, Rattleshirt and Styr. Jarl tells Jon to be ready to ride and get his faced fixed up. Rattleshirt tells Ygritte that she better not be lying. Jon draws Longclaw and tells Rattleshirt to get lost. Rattleshirt says he doesn’t have Ghost to help him now. But then Ygritte points out that you are dumb and wrong, Ghost is right over there.

Atop the stones of the ringwall, Ghost hunched with white fur bristling. He made no sound, but his dark red eyes spoke blood. The Lord of Bones moved his hand slowly away from his sword, backed off a step, and left them with a curse.

Ghost moves up to Jon and Ygritte, and they ride away. It was only when they are halfway across the Milkwater that Jon tells Ygritte he never asked her to lie for him.

"I never did," she said. "I left out part, is all."

"You said-"

"-that we fuck beneath your cloak many a night. I never said when we started, though." The smile she gave him was almost shy. "Find another place for Ghost to sleep tonight, Jon Snow. It's like Mance said. Deeds is truer than words."

And that is the synopsis of ASOS, Jon II! This is a long, long chapter, but y’know what? It doesn’t feel like a long, long chapter. What did you think, ser?

Depth

One of the major reasons I love Jon’s chapters in ASOS more than the previous books is the sense of scale. Like I said when we covered Jon I with Micah, that’s just such a big chapter, and so is this one, though it works differently in terms of structure and tone. Jon I was all about building up to Mance Rayder before subverting our expectations of him over and over again. Jon II is about a bunch of different things. It’s about magic and mysticism, but also sex and spying; it takes us deep inside the stories and songs while reminding us that at some level, they’re all bullshit. William Friedkin, who directed The Exorcist and a ton of other great movies, once said that there are three reasons to go to the movies: to laugh, to cry, and to be scared. Jon II delivers on all three.

For me, “stories” is the theme standing out the most. This is the first chapter in which we really get to know the Free Folk, without the direct antagonism that colored the earlier engagements with them (although of course the end of the chapter once again brings that antagonism front and center). But the world building is concentrated on songs and stories, and I think that’s a deliberate choice on Martin’s part. This is an oral people, without a written language, but whereas Westeros tends to assume the Wildlings are lesser because of that, this chapter gives us a crucial insight in the rich intellectual tradition of the Free Folk.

I remember my first few times reading, liking but not loving Jon’s ASOS chapters until he returned to Castle Black. My perspective is changing here with Jon I and now Jon II, and it has to do with character development and themes. If you boil down Jon’s free folk arc to its plot essentials, the story is mostly Jon trying to ingratiate himself with the wildlings as a spy to learn about the Horn of Joramun which he does and then Jon escapes to rejoin the NW. Not a bad plot. It’s fun, for sure. But it’s the character beats which make these chapters work. I love how Jon has these conflicting ideas of the wildlings as animals - something he thinks in this chapter - but then admiring Mance, liking Tormund and falling in love with Ygritte. Trope subversion would have had Jon find out that the wildlings were actually good all along. Trope interrogation - what George does in this chapter - has Jon question previously-held assumptions by humanizing his now-enemies but his future-allies, recognizing that the wildlings contain multitudes. And George kicks that theme off in a big way.

• Meeting the giants (and mammoths)
  • This chapter starts off with one of the most fantasy things imaginable: the introduction of giants riding mammoths. What could be more metal?
  • George doesn’t hold back on the otherworldly glory of this: a different species riding out of the imagination and into reality. Mammoths are real, of course, but they died off so long ago that they feel fantastical
  • It’s a confrontation with the Other--not white walkers, but the conceptual Other, that which is outside your understanding of society and self
  • It’s the kind of wonder and terror Jon expected to find beyond the Wall. He was disappointed in ACOK to find only empty villages and Craster’s Keep. It was so mundane, little different from life south of the Wall
  • It’s also working as an indication, much like the Valyrian armor that Euron is wearing in “The Forsaken”. The whole story up to this point has us trained to assume that all the stories are bullshit. “Grumpkins and Snarks” is a proverbial phrase repeated so often that you are accustomed to just dismissing all phantastical details you hear about life in different parts of Planetos. Unless of course you see them with your own eyes. From the Prologue, we know that the Others exist, for real, and since the last Dany chapter of AGOT we also know that dragons exist. But both are clearly framed as the exceptions to the rule.
  • Now, you suddenly see mammoths and giants riding them. Granted, they look different than they were described in the stories, but they’re THERE, as are wargs and skinchangers. Imagine my Han Solo voice: “It’s true. All of it.”
  • And so, when the mammoths show up, they do not only awe Jon. They awe us as readers, putting us on notice that all the stories might be more than just that. Didn’t Old Nan tell Bran about Ice Spiders, climbing up the Wall? Fandom has been on alert for Ice Spiders, but they are because of the mammoths and giants here.
  • The unknown is exciting, but once you confront it, it’s not unknown anymore. Stories are how we keep the unknown suspended, allowing us to dip back into that excitement in the context of imagination
  • At the same time, though, stories exist to make things familiar--they take the unknown and make it something you can comprehend
  • In Old Nan’s stories giants were so big you could hide in their boots. Not true, it turns out--they’re 10-12 feet high, 14 at most
  • Old Nan exaggerated their heights, but she also described them like humans--just very large humans! Turns out, that’s not true either
  • Which is, by the way, a common thing we do. We assume us as the standard and then extrapolate from there. You can see it in Science Fiction, where aliens are usually very humanlike (if sentient) or like bugs and mammals (if not). It’s also a common mistake in our own history, when we look to ancient human lifestyles, either in old civilizations or even prehistoric times. Just have a look at a renaissance painting of Roman history; the people are looking like the contemporaries of the painter! And neither the wardrobe of “Game of Thrones” nor of many other fantasy and medieval stories has much to do with what people actually looked, but more with our own aesthetic sensibilities. And the same is true about behavior, etc. Stories inform our whole outlook, and Jon is essentially a time traveller, confronted in real time with the silliness of his assumptions.
  • As Jon thinks, the giants look like bears as much as humans, all covered in hair. They don’t wear boots at all, let alone boots big enough to hide in
  • Like IRL mammoths, the giants are products of evolution, not magic--they’ve developed feet with thick hides, they smell more than see
  • They’re also part of the political context of Jon’s chapters, in which he as a Stark and a Night’s Watchman is trying to pass himself off as a wildling
  • In Old Nan’s stories, the giants had swords ten feet long. In reality, they use tree trunks as clubs, because as Jon said in ACOK:
    • Wildlings did not mine or smelt, and there were few smiths and fewer forges north of the Wall.
  • But you can’t include that in the stories, because then kids might start to wonder why there are so few forges north of the Wall, why valuable resources stay south of the Wall, whose interests are served by that, etc.
  • In other words, bedtime stories function as propaganda. GRRM is uneasy about the power of narrative even as he wields it so effectively
  • Jon’s perspective on the stories he was told is inextricable from his understanding of how power works, or how it ought to work
  • He sees the most impressive-looking giant and assumes he must be their king, just as he assumed the wildling king would have to look impressive
  • Jon has to unlearn those instincts--as Tormund says, his kneeler’s knees are just itching for someone to kneel to, because that’s how he makes sense of the world and of himself. Gotta serve someone, or who am I?
  • I wouldn’t necessarily say he wants to serve. In his case, his knees bend to the Lord Commander and the Watch. Kneeling is at the same time more restricted and more broad than that: it’s a gesture of respect, an acknowledgement of elevated status. It only comes with power through the actual feudal power relations.
  • That, however, makes it even more pernicious in the eyes of wildlings and giants. Giving and receiving orders isn’t the problem; they have leaders, after all, and even a king.
  • What they can’t abhor is the idea of their leaders being exhalted. That’s why they mock the notion of kneeling, that’s why they almost ritually show the limits of their leaders. It’s a behavior that’s known from tribal societies all around earth and especially the past: you ritually dethrone, mock and demote your betters, so no lasting superiority can be achieved. The same here: Mag the Mighty commands respect, yes, but it’s for his deeds, not his status, that it is granted. The same is true of Mance Rayder.
  • Not to romanticize that too much, of course. We see the negative side of this with the Dothraki, for example, and the violent ripple effects that can come from it.
  • Across the cultural gap embodied and enforced by the Wall, he’s as much a stranger to the giants as they are to him. Mag the Mighty asks Tormund if Jon is his daughter, what with those smooth pink cheeks!
  • He’s never seen a man without a beard, because up here, who would shave off your natural protection against the cold?
  • Gender roles work differently in this world, because gender roles are not immutable; they are performances
  • Then again, some things don’t change: Tormund and Mag are shit-talking each other like friends do everywhere, just in a different language
  • And for all that Tormund pokes fun at Jon for being a kneeler, he also says that Mance gets pissed off when Tormund isn’t in his “accustomed place”
  • Jon is engaged in the same process we are as readers: measuring the gap between expectations and reality
  • This, by the way, echoes the sentiment of his very first chapter in AGOT, where Jon remarked that as a bastard, he had to be especially astute in reading these differences, feeling them out and using them to his advantage (or at least avoid disadvantage). He’s uniquely qualified for this kind of situation.
  • So even as the giants and mammoths fulfill Jon’s fantasies, they also remind him that his favorite stories were incomplete by design
  • Part of what makes the start of this chapter so compelling is how it undercuts Jon’s biases.
  • It’s continuing the theme from ASOS, Jon I where Jon begins to see the wildlings not as the monsters from stories but as flesh and blood human beings.
  • The stories Jon grew up with were little more than fairytales or even folktales.
  • Old Nan’s story of giants being large enough for a boy to live in is a likely callback to The Little Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe: a silly poem with potential origins to Shakespearean England.
  • The hearers of the poem knew that the poem was nonsense, but Jon bought into Old Nan’s tale without questioning.
  • The giants have a culture, they have intelligence, they communicate, they laugh.
  • They aren’t legendary monsters, much as the wildlings aren’t monsters either.
  • One wonders whether all of GRRM’s statements about unicorns in TWOW will do something similar in dispelling the myths surrounding the Skagosi.
  • Back in Storm, Jon is confronted with the truth of the giants who ride mammoths, much as he continues his confrontation with the wildlings and who they really are.
  • To continue dispelling Jon’s notions about the wildlings, we open the chapter to the most sympathetic wildlings possible: Tormund Giantbabe, er, bane.
• Talking with Tormund
  • Tormund undercuts the epic feeling of the giants riding mammoths (big enough for you?) because “undercutting epic feelings” is what he does
  • He’s a character with one foot in the stories and one foot in reality. He’s fully aware of the contradiction, and delights in it
  • When we met him, he insisted on Mance listing all his titles. You might think that makes him pompous and arrogant, but the opposite is true
  • Tormund brings the stories down to earth, rooting the legendary and the fantastical in the ordinary functions of the body: eating, drinking, sleeping, fucking, the things people have in common north and south of the Wall
  • Tormund also makes very clear that he’s at best to be taken half seriously. His larger-than-life persona hides the deep seriousness underneath that will come out in ADWD, but the tall-talking (that he even includes in his list of titles, as if to mock everyone around him) serves to bridge the divide between being legendary and being accessible. It allows an outsized, almost exhalted position within the wildlings while giving them licence to constantly mock and belittle him. It’s one way to straddle that line in their society. Never would they accept a leader who truly thinks and acts like Tormund, the Legend, but the guy with his “one foot in each camp”-approach they can get behind. You can always wriggle out uncomfortable conversations by saying “it’s just a joke”, while enjoying all the fruits of following a legendary leader. In that way, he works the same way as the alt-right, which is of course where the comparison ends. But it’s a clever leading strategy.
  • Jon starts with Tormund’s first title: Giantsbane. Is it true that Tormund killed one of the giants he was just so friendly with? Nope!
  • The true story, or so Tormund says, is that he was caught in a storm, cut open a sleeping giant’s belly, spent the winter in there, and then suckled at her breasts for three months when the giant thought he was her baby
  • This is...pretty clearly bullshit. I know giants are a different species, but I feel confident in saying you can’t just cut open their belly while they hibernate and have them wake up months later with no issues!
  • It’s a deliberately silly story. Tormund earlier made fun of Jon and Mag the Mighty; now he makes fun of himself. I was a boy, and stupid as all boys are, he says; his story makes him into a literal infant
  • But Giantsbane is a better nickname than Giantsbabe, and as Tormund says, that’s the only honest truth. Stories are what we make of them
  • Tormund’s tall tales work the same way as Old Nan’s stories. They have a kernel of truth, the bard’s truth; the rest is make-believe
  • Stories can bridge the gaps between us. By telling this ridiculous version of the story, Tormund is demonstrating that he trusts Jon: I don’t need to act like a badass in front of you, I’ll let my guard down and be vulnerable
  • This makes him more likable than someone who actually killed a giant, like Godric Giantslayer, who hunts down a giant fleeing from battle
  • So despite the story still being transparently false, it creates something real: a bond of affection. And that’s how ASOIAF works, too!
  • Exactly. And to drive the point home, I don’t get the impression that Jon is the first one to hear this “true version” of how he got the nickname. I would wager some bronze arm rings that everyone in his band heard it three times over at least. But once again, it serves to allow him - and crucially, also his band - to brandish a title like “Giantsbane” and strike fear into the hearts of rival raider groups, in whenever someone calls them out, they can laugh and refer to the origin story. Stupid you, falling for a joke! Same with Jon here. Either the Night’s Watch fears the Giantsbane, or they’re so stupid they didn’t even get such a basic joke. Win-win for the raiders.
  • The other larger thematic note about Tormund’s ridiculous story is how it shows him as a good guy.
  • By and large, the villains of ASOIAF hate laughter and despise being the butt of jokes.
  • The more noble characters tend towards not taking themselves as seriously and allowing themselves a laugh at their expense.
  • Tormund is there to not take himself seriously, to demonstrate the jolly nature of being silly.
  • At the same time, this works well with Jon’s story from AGOT and how Jon initially hated being called “Lord Snow” by Alliser Thorne.
  • Tyrion counseled Jon to make the name part of his armor, to wear the mocking name that Alliser bestowed on him proudly and join in on the laughter.
  • That caused Jon to accrue friends with his NW recruits where he was earlier isolated and alone.
  • Perhaps Tormund went through a similar character evolution where he was called “Giantsbane” by fellow wildlings as a mocking epithet.
  • But he took on the name and made it part of his identity, making it part of a larger than life persona.
  • Interestingly, Tormund himself could be inspired by norse myths surrounding the character of Thor Thunderfist (another of Tormund’s many names!)
  • In Norse legend, Thor came upon the giant Skrymir while traveling the forest.
  • In a wild series of events, Thor is wakened by the sleeping giant’s snoring, fights the giant who laughs at him, realizes it’s Loki which enrages Thor who tries to murder Loki as the giant before the giant and castle the giant is staying at disappear.
  • Again, I am not anywhere near the norse mythology expert on this podcast. Suffice to say: GRRM seemingly borrowed some inspiration from Norse mythology in crafting this ridiculous story about Tormund based on a ridiculous Norse story.
  • Stories can also, however, reinforce the gaps between us. There’s that propaganda effect I mentioned earlier, and stories can also be weaponized in a military context
  • Jon asks about Tormund’s other titles, trying to complete the mission that brought him here: find out what power the wildlings have awoken
  • If Tormund is the “Horn-Blower,” maybe he’s gonna blow the Horn of Winter. Maybe he already has, and that’s where the title comes from!
  • But Jon is clever enough not to ask about that title specifically, because that would give him away. He’s learning how to be a spy
  • Like Sansa learning to flatter Joffrey, Jon is using flattery to keep Tormund talking. I love that Tormund is smart enough to be suspicious (“Are all crows so curious?”) but still can’t resist launching into another story
  • That’s his character in a nutshell. Despite his comment in Jon’s last chapter that Mance has more cunning, Tormund is a very crafty guy
  • Despite his goofy, rambly persona, nothing escapes Tormund’s notice. He doesn’t just happen to pick “Husband to Bears” as the next title to explain through story; he picks it because he wants to talk to Jon about sex
  • Also Tormund in a nutshell. Uses all his political craftmanship to inquire about Jon’s sex life, gaining an almost pubescent joy from making him squirm. You just have to love a character like that.
  • Like the previous one, this story is set in the middle of a fierce snowstorm. You get the sense most wildling stories do, in the same way that in Dorne, they probably tell a lot of stories about survival in the desert, and in the Iron Islands, they probably tell a lot of stories about survival at sea
  • Everywhere you go, what makes stories dramatic is the threat specific to your environment, that your local audience will know and understand
  • And if you’re telling your story, you want to present yourself as someone who has mastered their environment
  • As with his giant Tauntaun mommy, though, Tormund’s story doesn’t quite work that way. It’s about abduction, what the wildlings call “stealing” a woman, but the specifics deliberately deflate any sense of tension
  • Tormund was just sitting around getting drunk and horny, and he doesn’t pretend it was anything other than that. He braved the potentially lethal snowstorm for nothing more than that, because it’s his highest cause
  • The details of what followed, viewed objectively, are a horror story: rape followed by castration. But in Tormund’s hands, it becomes a comedy
  • Part of that is, as with the giantess, the bullshit at the heart of it. Possessing animals with psychic powers is one thing; physically transforming from human to animal overnight, does not seem to be part of this universe, not to mention bearing live young
  • So this is a fable: a purposefully unreal story that exists to illustrate a point. The point for Tormund, buried beneath the brag about how big his dick will forever remain, is that this is the story of Jon and Ygritte
  • Jon stole Ygritte, according to the wildlings, and I think they’ve got a point. Jon held a knife to her throat, forced her to submit, made her his prisoner, then spared her. That’s true love, as far as Tormund is concerned!
  • I think this is an excellent point: Tormund uses his own story to both interrogate Jon and also learn sad-boy something about wildling culture.
  • The interrogation aspect of Tormund telling this story is similar to what Mance Rayder did to Jon from ASOS.
  • Tormund is testing Jon’s reaction, seeing how Jon would react to the idea of stealing Ygritte.
  • If he reacts negatively, then he looks more like a fake turncloak. If he reacts positively, he could look even more like a fake turncloak!
  • What Jon does is react with surprise, because he’s a neophyte to wildling culture and doesn’t fully understand what was happening.
  • And that was a genuine reaction by Jon, which allows Tormund to educate Jon about wildling culture.
  • Part of the complexity of the espionage story that Jon is in, is that he has to play the part of someone who has just come over, who isn’t all that familiar with wildling culture.
  • And Jon plays the role quite well -- mostly because he has no real knowledge of wildling culture beyond Old Nan’s stories, his interactions with Craster and, of course, his brief conversation with Ygritte from ACOK, Jon VI.
  • Jon may protest this wasn’t his intention, but he spared Ygritte’s life because she was female, and reminded him of his own family
  • So while Jon wasn’t raised among Free Folk and doesn’t think about sex or romance that way, he engaged in a courtship ritual without realizing it
  • Then there’s the exquisite irony of Jon’s own origins. Robert says Rhaegar raped Lyanna; no one else puts it that way, what happened is murky, yet there are also chivalric overtones to it. It’s abduction or romance, depending on who you talk to, and the same applies here
  • That’s a throughline through the whole story. The lines are blurred, especially in the songs. Is it love? Is it rape? Is it something in between? These people have other concepts, and while Ygritte bought the whole thing hook, line and sinker, she’s also suffering from survivor’s bias. She’s very strong and protected by friends and had good luck in the warbands she was riding. Not all wildling women will be so lucky, and in fact, we see the much less romantic side of this in the abductions by proxy that Varamyr used to perform in the prologue of ADWD.
  • It’s a reality neither of the wildlings likes to own up to, much like the consequences of their raidings.They much prefer their songs, like the knights provide theirs. We have yet to meet a wildling version of Sandor Clegane to tear it all down, but I think at this point in the story, Martin is a confident enough writer to trust the audience in his skills. And rightly so.
  • We shouldn’t look for 1:1 moral instruction from fiction, after all--any more than Jon should take Tormund’s stories literally!
  • I think it’s more rewarding to treat stories as an opportunity to examine our own perspective. Why am I like this? Why do I think and react this way?
  • Tormund uses his story about the She-Bear to interrogate Jon. They must have already castrated you at the Wall; otherwise, you’d be off with your bear Ygritte! From one perspective, the vows of the Watch (and the Kingsguard, the maesters, etc) demonstrate strength. They don’t cut your dick off because that would rob you of the choice to make a self-sacrifice:
    • "The silent sisters never speak," said Podrick. "I heard they don't have any tongues."

Septon Meribald smiled. "Mothers have been cowing their daughters with that tale since I was your age. There was no truth to it then and there is none now. A vow of silence is an act of contrition, a sacrifice by which we prove our devotion to the Seven Above. For a mute to take a vow of silence would be akin to a legless man giving up the dance."

• But from another perspective, these vows are a cruel farce:
  • "Poor things … Men were not made to live thus. Their days are a torment of temptation, any fool must see, and no doubt most succumb to their baser selves.”
• Now that’s a slaver saying that, of course! Yet as with Jorah Mormont talking about how the smallfolk are never left alone in the game of thrones, there’s a kernel of truth here despite the hypocrisy of the man saying it
• Maybe it’s pointless to deprive yourself of simple pleasures, especially when gross inequalities persist regardless
• Jaime has also been challenging the validity of those vows, saying that the white cloak soiled him, not the other way around. What about the black?
• If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule? Tormund, like Mance, is at war with more than the institution of the Night’s Watch--he is at war with what he sees as absurd limits on freedom
• It’s a good question to interrogate. However, in some of these cases, we know the pragmatic reasons perfectly well. Kingsguard and Night’s Watch alike are a guarantee that their members are removed from the feudal system. Where the kingsguard is meant to serve the royal person alone, without being bound to old allegiances, the Watch is supposed to be concentrated on their task alone and not to tinker with the GOT.
• However, this presents three major problems. One, it doesn’t work. Preventing legal offspring is nice and good where it comes to inheritance, but this could be achieved simply by forbidding marriage (so all children are bastards) and shows how badly the primogeniture system functions anyway. This will become relevant for Jon when he gets tempted with Winterfell and then later when Dany swings around.
• Two, this only applies to the nobility. Why does a sad sack like Chett has to stay chaste? It’s not like any children he fathers would endanger succession lines.
• That leaves us with three: these vows also serve as identity politics. You are chaste because you aspire to a higher ideal, you want to be more than (or have to be, rather). It’s this part of the vows, methinks, that is the most troubling aspect and the one Tormund and many other wildlings zero in instantly. It’s at odds with Tormunds whole MO. How can you consciously try to model yourself as someone better than everyone else?
• And then, you don’t even get anything from it! Tormund does not only hate the ideas behind these vows, he’s flabbergasted why anyone would take them since not only are they destroying the proper way social relations ought to work, but YOU DON’T EVEN BENEFIT. To him, that’s just rank madness.
• Of course, the people who actually take these vows seriously - like Jon, like Arthur Dayne, like even Arys Oakheart and, yes, Jaime Lannister once - they present dilemmas, yes, but also guiding stars.
• I guess I just spent many words saying “it’s complicated”.
• Ygritte is clearly into Jon; as he thinks, she hasn’t been subtle. She followed him from Rattleshirt’s band to Tormund’s, emphasizing that this is how Free Folk work: they go where they want, with whoever they want
• Every night when they make camp, Ygritte sleeps next to him, and once she nestled up close in the night. As Jon thinks, he slept that close with Qhorin and the boys up in the Frostfangs, but this is different: one kind of intimacy replacing another. He can’t have both; he always has to choose
• Who is my pack? Jon is still learning how to be a wildling, or act like one, which amounts to the same thing at least to a certain extent
• Jon longs to bathe in hot water, like the kind that pumped like blood through the walls of Winterfell. But the cold water isn’t so bad, Ygritte says...as long as you have someone to warm you up afterward!
• The river’s only part ice, like Jon himself. Ice and fire, detachment and passion, preservation and consumption, opposites brought together
• He has to unlearn his old way of thinking, and so this is where Ygritte first says “you know nothing,” the mantra of their relationship
• It’s an insult, but in a tough-love kind of way, forcing Jon to learn. After all, the first step toward wisdom is admitting how little you know
• “You know nothing, Jon Snow” isn’t only a very quotable line, though. It stays with Jon for a long time after Ygritte’s death. The Greek philosopher Plato coined the phrase “I know that I know nothing”, and this is essentially the lesson Jon learns here. Of course, he isn’t much of a philosopher, so it’s the pragmatic core of it that he inhales.
• There are many things I don’t know. What I don’t know threatens me. Therefore, I have to learn. Donald Rumsfeld would approve.
• Jon already had to acknowledge that when he left Winterfell for the Watch; the same applies to leaving the Watch for the wildlings
• He tells himself that Ygritte wouldn’t be seen as a great beauty down south in the great courts of Westeros--she’d be seen as a common peasant, with crooked teeth and eyes that are too far apart
• It’s clear that Jon is taking refuge in class snobbery because he’s unsettled by how little any of these cultural norms actually matter once you’re outside the context in which they are regularly enforced
• Jon can’t deny his physical attraction to Ygritte, which is exactly Tormund’s point. The Watch might’ve told you not to use your dick, but you still have it! It’s responding to her smile, her singing voice, her sleeping arms around you, and it just doesn’t care that she’d be thought of as ugly back home
• Like with Brienne, this is something I feel gets lost in a lot of pictures and of course the GOT series. Amok’s “original” picture of Ygritte captured a lot of her homeliness, but the usual trope of our heroes being beautiful people is too strong to resist.
• It’s only logical that Jon loses that train of thought once he gives in to temptation, and so, we as readers forget about Ygritte’s features as well. It’s her character that stays with us, the person Jon fell in love with, not an ideal of aesthetics.
• Jon remembers that in the stories and songs, a faithful knight and his chaste lady love would keep a sword between them for honor’s sake
• It’s a perfect encapsulation of how chivalric values are backed up by physical force--or rather by the threat of force. A shadow on a wall that requires you to believe in it. What if Jon doesn’t believe in it any more?
• He uses Ghost instead of a sword--Ghost, the emblem of his Stark self, the direwolf on the banners. But he’s so far from home now
• Of note: Ghost didn’t prevent Ygritte from sleeping next to Jon with her arms draped over his chest.
• If Ghost is the embodiment of Jon’s wolfish desires, we’re seeing that Ghost doesn’t disapprove of Jon coupling with Ygritte.
• Jon makes the point that the wildlings mate with whoever they wish, thinking that it’s animalistic.
• But the idea that wildling mating patterns is animalism, so-to-speak, is a holdover from the way Jon was brought up in Westerosi sexuality.
• Sex outside of marriage, the fathering of bastards, the taking of multiple partners is seen as sinful by most Westerosi outside of Dorne.
• But in a pack, it’s different, and for a lot of human history it’s different too.
• Jon descends from the Targaryens - famously polygamous in the case of Aegon the Conqueror or amorous in the case of Aegon IV.
• Beyond that, there’s the theory that Rhaegar himself was polygamous, having married Elia of Dorne and possibly having married Lyanna as well.
• (The show’s version would have had the marriage between Rhaegar and Elia annulled FWIW)
• So, Jon pulls away from the wildling custom even as his near and far ancestors participated in a somewhat-similar practice.
• The personal is political; his potential sexual relationship with Ygritte is all caught up in his mission as a spy for the Night’s Watch
• Resisting her looks suspicious, like he’s sticking to the vows he repudiated. As with Mance in the tent, he has to come up with a lie that Tormund will believe. And as when he told Mance that he resented being treated poorly as a bastard, there’s truth to Jon’s performance here
• He falls back on the abstractions of honor, like the sword between the knight and the maiden, but Tormund pokes holes in Jon’s fictions as easily as he does his own. Jon says they aren’t married; Tormund points out that they don’t wed everyone they bed in the south. Isn’t Jon proof of that?
• If this sounds familiar, it’s because Robb was struggling with the exact same dilemma in Catelyn II last week! As with Tyrion and Jaime in ASOS, the Stark boys are facing similar dilemmas in their own ways
• While Robb married Jeyne to avoid putting his child in Jon’s place as a bastard, Jon avoids Ygritte for the same reason
• There’s an element of self-loathing in the subtext, which is heartbreaking if you think about it: Jon doesn’t want a child to be like him
• Tormund is offering him a way out of that self-loathing: you’re bastard-born and there’s nothing wrong with it, your child would be strong and beautiful, and anyway, if Ygritte doesn’t want the kid she’ll just drink moon tea
• It’s the temptation of liberation, from routines, worldviews, institutions that tell you who you are, in favor of individualism, for both Jon and Ygritte
• Of course, neither Tormund nor anyone else in the chapter or, indeed, the saga so far goes much into it, but as with all things wildling ideology, there’s a darker undercurrent to this. Sure, the wildlings don’t shun bastard-born children as much as the south does. But still, families matter. Supporting figures matter. Ygritte is a spear-wife, changing war bands as she likes. She doesn’t strike me as someone who has a large net of relatives to fall back on, so if Jon would get her pregnant, she’s basically be a single mom in a warzone. Tormund’s “just go for it lad” is expression of male privilege in some way, and goes to show that even beyond the Wall, patriarchy has its roots.
• Jon’s thoughts, Ygritte’s song
  • When Jon gets some time to himself to think, we see how conflicted he is. His expectations about the wildlings are both challenged and confirmed; accordingly, he feels like both a friend and a stranger
  • He likes Tormund, because how can you not? He likes Ygritte as well, as much as he tries to deny it to himself. As Qhorin Halfhand said:
  • So it’s difficult for Jon to conceive of them as his enemy, the people he was sworn to fight. Maybe they aren’t the ones he swore to fight:
    • “The Wall was made to guard the realms of men...and not against other men, which is all the wildlings are when you come right down to it. Too many years … too many hundreds and thousands of years. We lost sight of the true enemy.”
  • This is why I proposed to come back for this chapter, specifically. The last time you had me on, we talked about the Faustian situation that Ygritte’s capture and subsequent offer set up. To recap: if there are laws to the wildlings, then you can treat with them, even make binding contracts.
  • Back in ACOK, this was pure theory, based on a single encounter. One chapter later, the Halfhand confirmed it was true. But getting told something, even from sources differing as wildly as Ygritte and Qhorin, is one thing. Seeing, EXPERIENCING it, that’s quite something else.
  • And so, aside from all the stories we get, this chapter is the fulcrum in Jon’s character arc, because it’s here he gets to know the wildlings as a people, here where he realizes that they ARE people. And we as readers do, too.
  • Without this realization you cannot have Jon’s plot in ADWD. This is where the seeds ripen that were planted in Jon VII, ACOK. They will be harvested in Jon XI (!), ADWD.
  • We’re going to be reminded about “the true enemy” later in the chapter. Then there’s Mance, the king keeping it all together
  • We learn more about his legend here. Mance went personally to all the many groups that make up the wildling host, winning some with his sword and some with his songs, speaking the Old Tongue as well as the Common, making peace between enemy clans, making his people one
  • I would argue this is the single most impressive political accomplishment in the series. Sure, the return of the white walkers had the wildlings ready to run, but as Mance tells Jon later in the book, five other men were competing for the title of King-Beyond-the-Wall, and none of them had the disadvantage of having served in the Night’s Watch
  • Mance bested them all, and he did it without dragons or shadowbinders, without crowns and scepters, without relying on a famous last name
  • None of the signifiers of power that apply in the world Jon came from. Now he realizes that there’s more to leadership than that; as he thinks, Mance is a king in more than name. There’s authentic substance to him
  • I’d absolutely agree that it’s the greatest accomplishment of the series, but it’s left so much in the dark that it’s hard to assess it. I find that a bit frustrating, to be honest, since the moment itself is presented as straight up fact, stripped of all the vestiges of story that permeated so much of the chapter before.
  • However, in its vagueness, the titanic feat somehow is more shrouded in mystery and legend than the story of Tormund’s member. How did Mance actually do it? How much time did it take? Given the scattered nature of the wildlings, he simply can’t have bested everyone. Just think of Varamyr: he terrorized a single small village. He was bested by Mance (although it’s unclear how). How many of these small tyrants must there have been?
  • At some point Mance must have relied on proxies. And we even know he did so! Craster tells us that a rider came to him whose tongue he nailed to the wall (he claims). But how did everything else work?
  • The Doylist interpretation is that Martin doesn’t write this story for structural reasons and simply hand-waves it, and that’s fair enough. Time and distance have never been strong concerns of his anyway, and we know he can thumb the scales pretty hard if he wants a certain outcome.
  • The Watsonian interpretation is that the wildlings for reasons of reputation do not want to divulge too much in how they got bested by Mance. They’re perfectly happy to foster their own legends, like Tormund, and present their following Mance as their own decision, revocable at any time...which in fact it is.
  • Again, in so many words, it’s complicated.
  • There’s certainly an aspect of hand-waving present with Mance Rayder winning the wildlings over, but I think it works well in the narrative to keep it ambiguous.
  • We will in the gaps with our imagination, of what Mance Rayder did to win everything together, how he hammered all of these disparate peoples together into one community.
  • Historically-speaking, the leadership of most large-scale migrations - and remember I talked about how the wildlings resemble the Gothic migrations into the Roman Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries CE last time - were likewise shrouded in mystery.
  • Alaric I appeared as a war band leader of Goths and Gothic allies who invaded Thrace after service as a Roman soldier or Roman auxiliary.
  • As a Roman foederati (or allied soldier), Alaric mutinied after being one of the few Gothic foederati to survive the Battle of Frigidus.
  • Thereafter, he developed a reputation as a fearsome warrior and leader among the Goths in the Balkans and Greece and developed a large following.
  • But our historical sources do not go into details on how Alaric grew to such a stature -- just that he did.
  • That parallels Mance’s rise as a Night’s Watchmen first - the best of them - prior to becoming the King Beyond the Wall.
  • Though we don’t know the details of how Mance really drove everyone together, we don’t have to.
  • It makes more sense if the construction of a united wildling people is shrouded in ambiguity -- especially since few of the wildlings are literate.
  • Jon wears the sheepskin cloak Mance gave him...but he keeps the black cloak of the Night’s Watch folded up beneath his saddle, as if a reminder
  • But it’s not his loyalty to the Watch that’s eating away at Jon inside. It’s his loyalty to Winterfell: the home and family he left behind
  • The existence of an apocalyptic threat doesn’t just erase human conflicts, and Mance’s impressive leadership makes him a threat in those conflicts
  • As Jon thinks, Mance has hammered together a hundred daggers into a spear aimed at the heart of the Seven Kingdoms
  • As Jeff was saying, George wisely avoids framing every wildling as a misunderstood hero; the point is that they’re people like other people, with heroes, villains, and those in between, just like those south of the Wall
  • On one hand, that’s what makes the divisions between them absurd. On the other hand, that means there are members of Mance’s coalition that pose danger to the people Jon grew up with: Harma, Varamyr, the Weeper
  • If the wildlings were all like that as Jon had been led to believe, it would make his task easier. But killing an obvious supervillain like Varamyr wouldn’t actually remove the danger; what keeps the host together is Mance. For all the work he’s done uniting his people, they are still a hundred camps more than one, and most of them are noncombatants
  • Mance is all they have in common. If he died, it would all come apart, as when Renly died in book two and when Drogo fell in book one
  • Which is, by the way, a common trope. Chop off the head of the snake, and the rest will fall. Literally so oftentimes, was in Avengers or Lord of the Rings. In this case, it happens to be true, but oftentimes, it’s not. The tired trope of “they’re going to assassinate the president!” is one iteration of that. Luckily, Martin also shows us scenarios in which killing the head of the snake doesn’t do anything. The Kingsmoot is one; Stannis’ leaches another.
  • So Jon feels obligated to kill a man he “half admired and almost liked,” a great turn of phrase that captures Jon’s mindset right now
  • As with Ygritte, Jon is unwilling to admit even to himself how much he respects Mance Rayder, for the same reason Jaime doesn’t name his horses anymore: it makes it harder when they die
  • Dehumanization is a product of individual assholes like Thoren Smallwood, but it’s also part of insidious systemic programming
  • The Watchmen are discouraged from seeing the wildlings as their fellow man because that would make it harder to hunt and kill them
  • Of course, that runs both ways. Most wildings dehumanize the Watch just as much, even Ygritte.
  • But just as Jon felt angry and ashamed about leaving Gilly behind, he’s heartsick at the prospect of killing Mance (also how he’ll feel about Dany?)
  • It’s the human heart in conflict with itself, so Jon hopes that the Watch will spare him that painful choice by attacking, killing Mance, breaking the host
  • This, funny enough, mirrors Jaime Lannister’s approach in ASOS and AFFC. “Please, let someone else do the bad deed, so I’ll be spared.” Unfortunately, while it makes it a bit easier for sure, it does not actually absolve you from the responsibility. Jon is a spy in the wildling camp, and he will betray their trust, whether he actually kills Mance or no. That’s the thing with those vows and loyalties. No clean way out.
  • And then what would happen? Just as Tormund used a parable to explain how he saw Jon and Ygritte’s relationship, Ygritte uses a song to express her feelings about the war that her people have lost over and over again
  • That song is “Last of the Giants,” and I think it expresses George’s feelings as well. It’s a melancholy story of loss and grief, which is basically George’s favorite thing--after all, he named a book Dying of the Light
  • He got that phrase from Dylan Thomas; his novel Fevre Dream (which we’re covering for patrons) draws heavily from Byron
  • George loves these romantic poems for their expression of how hopeless the world can seem, how alone we are in our struggle to find meaning
  • “Last of the Giants'' is his contribution to those poems, smuggled into a folkloric song. It’s one of the most Tolkienesque moments in ASOIAF, not only because Tolkien included a ton of songs, but because “Last of the Giants'' is about the sorrow of dwindling into obsolescence and then extinction, which is also what so much of LOTR is about
  • You can easily imagine the Elves of Rivendell or Lothlorien singing about how they used to be many but now are few, and how the singing will fade into silence once they are gone
  • But while the emotions are similar, the social context behind the song is different. The Elves weren’t directly threatened by humans so much as increasingly outnumbered by them, especially as they began departing Middle-Earth for the West in greater and greater numbers
  • The giants have been penned up behind the Wall and actively hunted; they have no convenient utopia over the waves to escape to
  • So while Tolkien’s Elves in part embody a classical heritage being replaced by the industrial forces of modernity, the giants represent the state of nature that the wildlings believe has been perverted by power
  • But the giants in this song also stand in for the wildlings themselves, who also feel left behind by how Westeros has changed around them
  • You can see how Ygritte’s words are echoed in the song, in which the giants grieve for the valleys cut in two by the Wall, and the fish who were overfished into extinction
  • So this song is also about indigenous peoples facing destruction. “Last of the Giants” could be Last of the Mohicans: the final glimpse of a dying world being crushed into oblivion
  • Jon doesn’t get the metaphor because he doesn’t understand the context; he comes from the “stone halls” in the song
  • Why are you crying, he asks Ygritte? It’s only a song, there are still hundreds of them! He’s taking the song too literally, failing to reach for the emotion behind the words; same mistake that some readers make
  • What Jon doesn’t get is that there used to be way more than hundreds of giants; there used to be thousands, maybe even millions
  • At the beginning of the chapter, the giants seemed like an awe-inspiring spectacle, proof of the strength of the old world. That’s Jon’s perspective
  • From the perspective of the wildlings, and probably the giants themselves, the present is only a sad bitter fragment of the past
  • Westeros was their home. Now it isn’t. The survivors mourn not only the dead, but a world that had a place for them, remembered only in song
  • Per Jesmyn Ward’s Men We Reaped, which I read recently:
    • “We tried to outpace the thing that chased us, that said: You are nothing. We tried to ignore it, but sometimes we caught ourselves repeating what history said, mumbling along, brainwashed: I am nothing … There is a great darkness bearing down on our lives, and no one acknowledges it … We honor anniversaries of deaths by cleaning graves and sitting next to them before fires, sharing food with those who will not eat again. We raise children and tell them other things about who they can be and what they are worth: to us, everything. We love each other fiercely, while we live and after we die … grief doesn't fade. Grief scabs over like scars and pulls into new, painful configurations as it knits. It hurts in new ways. We are never free from grief. We are never free from the feeling that we have failed. We are never free from self-loathing. We are never free from the feeling that something is wrong with us, not with the world that made this mess.”
  • That’s why Ygritte is crying: the sense that the end is coming, no matter what they do, no matter how much they love the living and honor the dead. The dead march behind them now, their loved ones transformed into enemies, ready to pin them against the Wall and silence all songs
  • For most of my adult life, I’ve been fascinated by the recent extinction or near-extinction of megafauna. I know. It’s weird.
  • One near-extinction event was how the bison population of North America was nearly hunted to extinction.
  • In times past, the population of the American Bison population was 30-40 million prior to the mass hunting in the 19th century and the onset of Bison-specific diseases
  • By the 1880s, the bison population was under five hundred in North America.
  • Thanks to conservation efforts, the bison population surged and is currently living.
  • But the song “The Last of the Giants” reminds me of one of my favorite pieces of American art: “The last of the Buffalo” by Albert Bierstadt which our patrons can see in the show notes:
    
    
  • It’s a sad painting of the last buffalo being hunted in the American west on the high plain. It’s something.
  • Of course, the Last of the Buffalo wasn’t telling the full story as, again, the bison population almost-miraculously survived and still lives - albeit in a near-threatened conservation status.
  • “The Last of the Giants” reminds us of the sad, melancholy state of being hunted to extinction, of losing land and sustenance.
  • What I think is interesting in Ygritte’s anger at Jon is that this was not merely the fault of those southerners, people who lived south of the Wall.
  • Recall that Old Nan’s stories had Jon believing that the giants were enormous men, and Jon didn’t hear otherwise growing up in Winterfell.
  • Bran told Osha that Maester Luwin told him that the giants were all dead.
  • Of course, there is mention of the NW rangers fighting “wildlings and giants and terrible snow bears” in AGOT, Jon V -- which reads as some of the heroic mythos the NW rangers believe about themselves rather than a straight-up “yup, giant-slaying. Just another day on the job” statement.
  • So, my read is that the atrocities and the near-extinction of the giants in the past thousands of years came primarily through the wildlings.
  • Ygritte and the wildlings might be the underdogs and outcasts on the Westerosi continent, but that status doesn’t prevent the wildling humans from hunting the giants down and taking their stuff.
  • I wonder whether Ygritte’s tears are ones of self-reflection, guilt and shame over what the wildlings have done to the giants.
  • And now the giants are coming with their former enemies, driven together by a far worse enemy than each other.
  • There’s a case to be made for this to be the example: former enemies coming together over a common foe.
  • In fact, I would argue that the wildling/giant alliance works as foreshadowing for the alliance between the northmen and the wildlings when the Wall comes down in TWOW.
• Interrogation on the Fist
  • The chapter so far has been about Jon’s assimilation into a new world, but it builds to a confrontation between that world and his old one
  • The timing is perfect: right after Jon reveals his ignorance of life on this side of the Wall, that life literally attacks him in the form of Orell’s eagle
  • The dwindling of the giants is invisible to Jon; here is the violence between worlds made tangible, a scar that will mark Jon with these experiences even after he returns to the Night’s Watch. He’s a new person, a new face
  • The bird hates Jon because he killed Orell as part of the war between wildlings and Watch. Tormund defends Jon, telling Rattleshirt to call off the hellcrow, but he says Jon is still the crow here, a spy in their midst
    • Half his world was black.
  • Mance is the authority that distinguishes friend from foe, having himself walked in both worlds. Tormund says Jon has to go if it’s Mance who wants him; Jon hopes the wound he took from Orell’s eagle will serve as evidence to Mance that Rattleshirt is the instigator, not him
  • But there’s not one individual instigator; all of this is a series of escalations, and not only among the living
  • The Prologue to ASOS ended with the cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers, as the Others closed in on the Watch camp atop the Fist of the First Men
  • That has cast a pall over the political proceedings ever since; as with the white walkers in the prologue to book one, we know the game of thrones unknowingly takes place under a growing shadow. Winter is coming!
  • That lends a dramatic irony to Jon’s identity struggle in this chapter. While he hopes Mormont will attack to free him from his spy mission, the reader knows that a far worse enemy descended on the Watch; now we see the aftermath. Mance is waiting for Jon atop the Fist
  • On the way up, Jon sees evidence of the supernatural attack: a dead horse with his guts ripped out. It can’t have been wolves like those Arya encountered down in the Riverlands, because those eat their kill
  • This was something outside the food chain, outside the state of nature that Tormund and Ygritte prize so highly. This was something more profoundly Other to Jon’s experience than giants riding mammoths could ever be
  • I had a question for you two gentlemen in terms of story structure. Do you think it works that we see the aftermath of the Fist before Sam’s chapter showing us directly what happened, or does George ruin the suspense?
  • 100% effective. Narratively-speaking, we know we’re not at the climactic battle where the Others are defeated.
  • Subconsciously, we know that the Others are going to win here even if we get to Samwell’s story and see glimmers of hope in Sam’s memories of the battle.
  • So, the outcome of the ASOS Prologue is never in doubt. What this scene does better than most scenes is communicate the dread of what occurred at the Fist. What actually happened that led to this carnage.
  • Beyond that, it’s chilling to see the aftermath of the Others. Killing for killing sake via the horses and the dog Jon sees is viscerally disturbing.
  • George wants us to feel the horror before he pulls back the curtain.
  • And so, ultimately, from a narrative perspective, this is part two of the threefold reveal structure that GRRM is so fond of. Samwell I is our third reveal, and BOY, what a reveal that will be.
  • I can only second that. The Prologue, even if at that point you didn’t decipher the rule that Prologue characters die, communicates very clearly that something bad is going to happen. Drawing out the reveal that Sam survived, that anyone survived, is incredibly effective.
  • As Jeff describes, this scene is only giving us glimpses. For Jon and us readers, this should be a detective story, in which we decipher what happened. However, that doesn’t work out: Mance already knows, and his detective plot is paramount here. He gives Jon (and, by extension, us) very little chance to decipher much. We’re just left with an incredibly bad feeling, which puts us into Jon’s headspace.
  • Like Jon, we have to adapt on the spot. We can’t ask ourselves who died, can’t have too close a look, because Mance poses the much more pressing question: are you a spy? One misstep here, and Jon is dead. The dead have to wait.
  • I think it works for a few reasons. One, George still keeps us in suspense about who survived: Harma says they found less than 200 bodies out of the ~300 that were present. Jon singles out Sam in his thoughts, wondering if he’s a zombie now, priming the reader for his chapters
  • Two, that Sam chapter flashes back to the Fist, and so there is still “present tense” drama occurring (including Sam killing a white walker!)
  • Three, George’s focus in this chapter is not the slaughter itself--he doesn’t describe it at length. We see a couple dead horses and hear about “pink snow,” enough to make us shudder and imagine more than he writes
  • As Mance says, what happened is obvious: the Watchmen died. The focus in this scene is instead on what this means for Jon’s spy mission, following up on his complicated relationships with Tormund and Ygritte
  • After all, Jon’s cover story to Mance was that he came north of the Wall with Qhorin Halfhand for seasoning. He never mentioned the force of Watchmen on the Fist, so Mormont would have a chance to attack
  • But it was the Watch who was ambushed, leaving behind evidence that Jon was lying, calling his loyalties into question
  • Jon doesn’t know how to navigate this situation honestly--how can he be true to Watch, wildlings, and himself simultaneously?
  • It’s an intimate moment in the heart of the apocalypse. Mance reminds Jon that this inner conflict has always been with him, calling him the Bastard of Winterfell, and saying “your brothers died,” which is also the news Jon will get about Winterfell when he returns to Castle Black
  • He has no time to mourn, not for them, not for Ygritte: he has a battle to fight, and soon men to lead. Same dynamic here: Jon has no more space to process the hideous fate inflicted on his comrades than he does to deal with his scarred face. He immediately has to put on a face for Mance
  • “You must not balk,” Qhorin told him, but this doesn’t stop Jon from feeling craven. It feels like he’s doing his duty and betraying it at the same time
    • How do I play the turncloak without becoming one?
  • When he tries to hold back some information, Mance threatens to give him to Rattleshirt, the Lord of Bones, an emblem of death like the fresh dog’s head on top of Harma’s spear
  • Give Jon this: he is intensely brave in this scene, holding out for as long as he did.
  • But here’s the thing: what’s the goddamn point of holding out?
  • Sure, Jon might be worried that Mance Rayder will make an attempt on the Wall knowing that Bowen Marsh is in charge.
  • But really, the only thing that happens is that Mance tells Rattleshirt to keep everyone moving … which is what they were doing all along.
  • Jon was willing to give his life for those who are already dead, to die here having not completed his mission.
  • I understand this, of course. Jon feels like he’s betraying his oaths, that he’s truly becoming a turncloak by giving up intelligence to Mance Rayder.
  • But really, Jon, you should be doing more studies of your spycraft 101 book I sent you in the mail.
  • Giving up the name of the commander at the Fist, telling Mance that Bowen is in charge of the Wall: these are small pieces of essentially useless information.
  • Beyond that, since LC Mormont’s survivors are small, they have a better chance of reaching the Wall before Mance … which is what a few of the survivors do: get to the Wall well-ahead of Mance Rayder.
  • Ah, sure, but Jon is all about existential struggles and existential victories. He’s a Stark. It doesn’t matter how EFFECTIVE his betrayal of his vows is, what matters is the betrayal. Jon still tries to walk a fine line: as little betrayal as possible.
  • That makes little sense, as you say, but that’s where his head is. Jon never wanted to become a spy, never to break his vows, and he tries to keep as much of his integrity as possible, even if no one will ever know, even if it doesn’t matter shit, because in the end, HE knows.
  • It’s also why he will later confess to having slept with Ygritte, despite no one being able to prove it. Why he will confess to everything and never weigh what could hurt him and which parts he might be able to keep a secret.
  • Ygritte saves him, again and again: she helped him when the eagle attacked, she accompanies him to the Fist, she defends him for lying, and finally, she lies to Mance about having sex with Jon
  • These actions put her in danger, as she well knows. If Jon proves faithless, she could suffer for having stuck up for him
  • It’s a demonstration of a personal loyalty developing across--and despite--the gaps between them; it already led her away from Rattleshirt
  • Ygritte specifically tells Mance that Jon fucks her beneath the cloak Mance gave him. It’s a potent symbol that ties Jon’s new life to sex and romance, which appeals especially to Mance, who left the Watch because of romantic ideals captured in the cloak he chooses to wear
  • Who is he to separate two hearts that beat as one? Mance wants to live life like a character in the songs, though he balances that passion with pragmatism, telling Styr to take Jon over the Wall, make use of his knowledge, and if he proves to still be a crow, kill him on the spot
  • Here, the chapter comes full circle where stories are concerned. It started with story and song, and it basically ends that way, although in wildly varying spirit.
  • Jon has to give up his brothers to stay alive, and make a tangible commitment to his new life: “deeds are truer than words”
  • The end of the chapter is powerfully ambiguous. On one hand, it’s written romantically--Ghost leaps up to defend Ygritte, and she flirts with him, bashful for once, vulnerable and intimate
  • On the other hand, Jon basically has no choice except to sleep with Ygritte now, and there’s something disturbing about that dynamic
  • Their entire relationship is founded on dishonesty. It can’t last; they can send Ghost away for now, but he’ll always come back, a silent reminder that Jon Snow is the Bastard of Winterfell, not a wildling born
  • As Jon thinks, up here beyond the Wall, you lose sense of who you are.  That’s part of what makes it so tempting, though--we wouldn’t have so many doomed romances if we didn’t like being doomed on some level
  • It’s a masterful end to the chapter, and I agree, it is both deeply romantic and unsettling all at once!
  • One more step, one more dishonorable act, one more treason, just one more.
  • Jon already feels like a traitor, like he dishonored his brothers, that he betrayed them.
  • He killed Qhorin Halfhand (through Ghost), he turned in his black cloak for the sheepskin cloak, he informed Mance information (however useless) on who was in charge of the Night’s Watch.
  • And now he sacrifices his virginity to keep his mission alive.
  • You were talking so well earlier about how Jon has this self-loathing for himself as a bastard and how his desire not to sleep with Ygritte is rooted in that as much as in keeping to his vows.
  • So, George cranks the tension up on Jon to “11”, forcing him to engage in a self-loathing action that should send him into a tailspin of despair.
  • … except that it doesn’t.
  • ASOS, Jon III has one of the most romantic scenes in all of ASOIAF: Jon and Ygritte’s scene in the cave.
  • And Jon finds that despite his feeling that he’s betraying his oaths, he loves Ygritte … in that doomed, star-crossed lovers kind-of way.
  • “If we die, we die. All men must die, Jon Snow. But first we'll live."

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

Mance is right that Bowen Marsh is an incompetent commander--he falls for Mance’s feints, leaving Castle Black with a handful of ragged defenders under Donal Noye.

Jumping into icy water without clothes becomes the central part of Jon and Ygritte in the cave

You mentioned earlier how the dishonorable killing might foreshadow events with Dany at the end of ASOIAF, but there is a far more near dishonorable murder attempt in Jon’s future as Jon will consider murdering Mance Rayder under a truce banner at the behest of Janos, Alliser and their cronies in ASOS, Jon X and is only saved by the arrival of Stannis Baratheon’s army at the Wall.

Mag is not the last of the giants, but he dies in the assault of the wall, and their number is even more diminished, likely beyond repair

Theory/Discussion

So what do we think of the theory that Tormund’s She-Bear is Maege Mormont, and that he fathered her kids?

I think it’s a nice idea, but it doesn’t really work. The wildlings don’t use the allegory of Westerosi heraldry (they would seem to be more accustomed Illyrio’s disdain for that), and Daisy looks nothing like Tormund.

Comparison between what Tormund says and how Maege is described:

“a fine strong woman with the biggest pair of teats you ever saw. She had a temper on her that one, but oh, she could we warm too”

“Maege is a hoary old snark, stubborn, short-tempered, and willful”

Theory that Maege raised most of the daughters (Dacey, Alysanne, Lyra, Jorelle and Lyanna) , Tormund the sons, plus Munda. Lady Gwyn raised a point on Worg that explains the long gaps between all of Maege’s daughters: there were five sons and a daughter that fill in the gaps.

Lyanna Mormont as the giantsbane from Season Eight: killing the giant in her final act: subtle wink by the showrunner to readers that Lyanna is Tormund’s daughter?

Conclusion

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