Jon Snow certainly has one of the most interesting journeys on Game of Thrones and a lot happens to this character along the way. But something I find interesting about Jon’s journey is how little he makes the decisions that affect him personally. A lot of the time, he is the only man for the job, or is forced into going along with plans.
Just to go through some of these moments, I’ll heavily summarise. I am working just from memory so apologies for any mistakes here.
Season One: - Put as a personal Steward to Lord Commander Mormont, denied a place as a Ranger. - Lord Commander Mormont chooses to go North of the Wall with the Night’s Watch and Jon, as personal Steward must go.
Season Two: - Is granted temporary place among Rangers. - Gets captured by Wildlings - Forced into killing Qhorin (by Qhorin himself) in order to gain trust among the Wildlings and gather information.
Season Three: - Falls in love with Ygritte. (I don’t think you really get to choose how you fall in love with.) - Still going along with Qhorins plan, is forced to betray Ygritte to return to The Wall and brief the Night’s Watch on what he has learned.
Season Four: - Mistrust and disbelief in Jon’s story that he was following Qhorins plan. - Due to inept and injured leadership during The Battle of the Wall, Jon is chosen as the natural person to lead the Night’s watch with the defence atop the Wall (for a short time) and later on the ground. - Saved from almost certain death by the arrival of Stannis and his army.
Season Five: - Against his will is put in the election for Lord Commander. - Through no choice of his own, Jon is elected as the 998th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. - As Lord Commander, he is now the best and only person that can convince the Wildlings to leave Hardhome and trust in his plan for the future battle against the dead. - Betrayed by his Brothers, Jon is murdered.
Season Six: - Jon is brought back to life against his will (obviously). - Sansa arrives at Castle Black, convincing Jon that he is the only person that can lead an army to take back Winterfell from the Bolton’s because of his lineage and now the eldest living (then believed to be) son of Ned. - Successfully defeating the Bolton’s and retaking Winterfell, through no choice of his own, Jon is named King in the North.
Season Seven: - Now King in the North, he must answer the a summons to Dragonstone. - At Eastwatch, being one of a small few who has killed a White Walker, and having a good knowledge of the land beyond the wall, he feels compelled to go on the mission to capture a wight.
Season Eight: - No longer King in the North, but is still an unofficial leader for the army of the living. - Finally learns his true lineage, something he had no control over. Puts him in a difficult position. - Is now compelled to help Dany with her conquest of Westeros. - Is forced to come between his own men and the common folk of Kings Landing, as his own men are murdering innocents. - Through conversation with Tyrion and a brief conversation with Dany, realising he has no choice, Jon is forced to kill the woman he loves and the woman he named his Queen. - Because of his actions, he sentenced back to The Wall and banished from Westeros.
Which, bring us right back to where Jon wanted to be all along, free of any titles bestowed upon him Ranging North of the Wall. But through all of these events and other peoples choices (some are his own of course) his goes on this journey and because a major part of history in Westeros.
To summarise, this is not a criticism of Jon Snow, I’m a big fan of the character and perhaps controversially where he ended up at the end. He never wanted the throne, he wanted freedom and he finally got it. I just find it interesting how little choice he had in what happened to him in some major parts of the story, and this is the only place to talk about it.
As I said, I was just going off of my memory here, so I may have missed things or made a mistake so apologies. I tried to format it as simply as I could to make it easier to read, so I hope that helped. This was a long as post, so if you read even some of it, then thank you!
Submitted March 29, 2021 at 08:29PM by scottnesbitt96 https://ift.tt/3uiUiMr
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