#You know nothing Jon Snow

[artist-ellen]

Happy Holidays everybody ~ We’re back in ASOIAF redesigns

I finally decided to start sketching House of the Dragon fashion…. Only to realize I hadn’t ever gotten back around to drawing the men of ASoIAF. So here we go! Fingers crossed this challenge can teach me how to draw men… buckle up? There’s a reason I avoided the dudes the first time around… so many legs.

We’re starting all the way back in Winterfell with a young Jon Snow. I’m leaning more into his book description so he’s a little bit of a young beanpole, brown hair, dark grey eyes, long face. A little bit of an Eddard Stark mini me by accident. It’s ‘Summer’ still so he doesn’t have on a ton of outer layers, just the trusty wool layering reminiscent of what his sisters were wearing if you can remember that long ago.

I am the artist! Do not post without permission & credit! Thank you! Come visit me over on: instagram.com/ellenartistic or tiktok: @ellenartistic

[avatarquake]

So, I watched Snow White. And I actually, genuinely enjoyed it. It kept pretty close to the 1937 animated film, but better. I don't get why people didn't like it? Like, if you say 'it's not true to the original', meaning the Disney animated from 88 years ago, have you checked the original story? If not, you're in for a rude awakening, because the animated is not true to the original. (No remake ever is true to the original, not really.)

(My friend showed me a greek review video and the guy made me want to strangle him. Did not finish the damn thing, because hell no. Below are more or less the points he had against it. Don't care to know what else he has to say. This -mostly- remake-hate is getting old and ridiculous.)

In the live action Snow White is actually better off than in the animated, where she was dressed in rags, cleaning with an old rag. (Oh, a change that probably put off some.) If you say 'she wasn't white', I'll ask you why the Fairy Goodmother wasn't an old granny? Or the Genie blue? If you would rather watch the Evil Queen by dropped off a cliff and killed by either the fall or the boulder that follows, a very mundane way to off a villain so grandiose, than her getting sucked by her mirror, well, that's a you problem, rewatch the animated. The thieves. Yeah, because a 14 year old getting married to a random prince that had barely one interaction before she was poisoned is so much better. Cleaning the Dwarves' house, which is used as a way for Snow White to help them essentially kiss and make up was also, apparently, bad because Snow White didn't slave away here as well.

The visuals were amazing. The songs glorius. Why are people so hell bent to hate something that was actually good? It was a beautiful movie. Dopey still remains my favorite dwarf.

Sit back and relax, for once in your lives, and enjoy, instead of nitpicking every little detail that might insult your fragile sensibilities. And in the end, if you thought from the trailer iit was going to be bad -which it wasn't- why the fuck watch it?! Why waste energy and time on something you knew was bad, like the omniscient being you were, and then waste other people's time by whinning about it?!

(This is Wish all over again, isn't it?)

[celestie0]

hey you should def watch house of the dragon and game of thrones 🤞🏻

i have seen game of thrones!! i actually wanted to write a got inspired jjk fic sooooooooo bad n i think i will once i finish kickoff ahhaha. i haven’t see house of the dragon tho 😓 it’s on my list!

[tell-them-the-north-remembers]

Those who get it get it, those who don't don't.

[daisyypeach]

I live in North Carolina and I’ve been walking in the snow mimicking Ygritte from game of thrones. Cuz I live in the North.

Hehe I’m having so much fun with that

[herlondonboy]

Jon Snow they could never make me like you.

[oananovicov]

"Ice , I see,and daggers in the dark. Blood frozen red and hard, and naked steel. It was very cold."

"It is always cold on the Wall."

"You think so?"

"I know so, my lady."

"Then you know nothing, Jon Snow, " she whispered."

ADWD- JON I

[thewatcher0nthewall]

Ygritte concept

[mariuspompom]

After the avalanche of bad takes inspired by got and hotd I would just like to say that the point of asoiaf is not "feudal power corrupts" and it is not "no one can save Westeros because feudalism bad". I would like to remind you what the function of feudalism in the story actually is, as stated by GRRM:

The medieval setting has been the traditional background for epic Fantasy, even before Tolkien, and there are good reasons for that tradition. The sword has a romance to it that pistols and cannon lack, a powerful symbolic value that touches us on some primal level. Also, the contrasts so apparent in the Middle Ages are very striking -- the ideal of chivalry existed cheek by jowl with the awful brutality of war, great castles loomed over miserable hovels, serfs and princes rode the same roads, and the colorful pageantry of tournaments rose out of a brown and grey world of dung, dirt, and plague. The dramatic possibilities are so rich. ( Source)

Now his notorious statement about Aragorn's tax policy (as much as I vehemently dislike that statement concerning Tolkien, it is still very insightful for GRRM's work) :

Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles? (Source)

Moral relativism right? Nihilism, pessimism, every symbol is doomed to fail, every effort for a better future is doomed to fail because the feudalist structure is inherently rotten. Should we even try then? What is the point in showing a ruler genuinely try? If every leader is doomed to fall victim to external opposing forces and/or corruption or other moral flaw, what is the point in trying? Let's see another statement by GRRM where he explains what asoiaf is actually about:

"In a very basic level winter is coming for all of us. I think that’s one of the things that art is concerned with: the awareness of our own mortality. “Valar morghulis” – “All men must die”. That shadow lies over our world and will until medical science gives us all immortality… but I don’t think it makes it necessarily a pessimistic world (...) the important thing is that love, compassion and empathy with other human beings is still possible. Laughter is still possible! Even laughter in the face of death… The struggle to make the world a better place… We have things like war, murder and rape… horrible things that still exist, but we don’t have to accept them, we can fight the good fight. The fight to eliminate those things.There is darkness in the world, but I don’t think we necessarily need to give way to despair". (Source)

The combination of these statements speaks for itself to someone who has read GRRM's work: the sword has a romance that pistols lack, the dramatic possibilities of the medieval setting are rich, ruling is hard, we can fight the good fight, we should not give way to despair. From that to "No one can save Westeros" the distance is huge and the endpoint is extremely deceptive and also deeply reactionary. If no one can save Westeros, then there is no point in trying to save Westeros. Characters that try to save Westeros, or Essos, or the Wildlings, or anything bigger than their own ass, are not morally superior to others that just benefit from the current status quo or passively tolerate/enable it, since no one can actually do shit and every effort is doomed to fail. Yet this goes directly against the point of asoiaf that can be summed up in the phrase: "ruling is hard". It is hard alright, but the thing is, someone has to do it. Whether that someone has been chosen by the people, or by the gods, or by destiny, or by circumstances, and regardless of the political system that allowed them to yield that power, the point is that someone has power ad hoc at any given time, and power equals responsibility. What do you do with it? How do you govern? How do you choose between two equally grievous alternatives? Who do you listen to? Who do you trust? How can you learn? What if everything you've been told was a lie? How do you move on from there? What if the promises you made contradict each other? What if you fail? How do you live with the guilt, how do you go on? How do you instigate a structural change? What if you try to do that and people die? What if you try to do that and it kills you? Was it worth it? How do you use the power you have? How do you fight the good fight? What makes a fight good?

"Feudalism bad" and "no one can save Westeros" are not just incredibly uninspired catchphrases, they are something much worse: a very nice way of avoiding to answer the real, hard, uncomfortable questions that are the driving force of asoiaf, and a very neat way to justify those who tolerate, enable or reinforce the status quo. Coincidentally, these questions remain the same in every single political system. They are universal. That's why this is a good, relevant, applicable story, that's why we give a fuck even if the context is foreign to us. So spare us the moralizing bullshit please, and thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[catofoldstones]

Lol

I have a steps tracking app and it has a character called Jon Snowflake and honestly that definitely does mean something, I just don’t know what.

[avatarquake]

People called Asha 'adorkable' based off a scene on the trailer. Have you ever gone to a job interview, I wonder? In me, anxiety manifests as a stomach doing somersaults and tightened muscles. Was dressing a tree and turning a chicken like 10 times its size, 'adorkable'? I call it untrained magic user getting the feel of their magic, accidents will happen, it is natural.

'Wish' wasn't supposed to be a fast-paced with an all-out fight with the bad guy, that we either knew of from the first second, or was a twist villain, someone we didn't expect. It was supposed to be soft and quiet, because it was about finding that wishes and dreams is the most beautiful part of us.

'Wish' is the root, with the movies before it and after it, as the trunk and branches. It is the starting point of Disney's version of 'The Pixar Theory'.

[death-of-cats]

Jon V AGOT

the way that Jon's gonna see all those places....from dragonback......

[sherlokiness]

Jonsa as the last card

Not to sound delusional but I think jonsa is GRRM's trump card in the books. We were never meant to have them in the show. The author has got to have an ace up his sleeves, right? What convinces me of this is the changed dialogue between Arya and Ned during the 1st season. The book goes "You will marry a King..." to which Arya replies "No, that's Sansa" while the show's version was "You will marry a lord..." to which Arya says "No, that's not me."

Some say this was just a leftover hint from the og outline bc why would Ned say Arya will marry a King? There can only be one and Joffrey is already betrothed to Sansa. Well ofc I'd beg to differ. It'll be abandoned foreshadowing if one disregards Arya's response. Did you know that Abraham Daniel who adapted GRRM's graphic novel wanted to change what he deemed to be a throwaway line but GRRM refused bc it was a clue to suggest the endgame in ADoS?

There was one scene I had to rework because there's a particular line of dialog -- and you wouldn't know it to look at -- that's important in the last scene of "A Dream of Spring."

I have a meta about this but the link has been lost to time. 💀 So it's part of a dialog, inconspicuous, and should be before ACoK since only AGoT adaptation has been confirmed by that time.

The show had to rewrite it to make sense bc even so many readers found it perplexing but the comics had it exactly right.Look, it even has Arya winking perhaps as a nod to the audience.

"Not all," said Jaime. "Lord Eddard's daughters live. One has just been wed. The other …" Brienne, where are you? Have you found her? "… if the gods are good, she'll forget she was a Stark. She'll wed some burly blacksmith or fat-faced innkeep, fill his house with children, and never need to fear that some knight might come along to smash their heads against a wall."

I believe this is a nod by the author to make us think of the "No, that's Sansa" line bc here it's Arya who knows Gendry and Hotpie. If we take Jamie's line to be the opposite, can we infer that Sansa will never forget she's a Stark? Moreover,she will not marry a nobody and always need to fear her children will end up like Aegon- Rhaegar's heir.

If Arya's line comes true then the last scene will be of Sansa and Jon with their children. My ideal would be Sansa singing a lullaby to her baby with Jon by her side. It's a callback to the end of the first book's "music of dragons" where music refers to cries of newly hatched dragons. It also makes us think of Jon's memory of Sansa before his death.

I'm not saying the baby's lullaby is the song of ice and fire but...🫣🫣🫣 Baby+Song+Couple of a Stark and Targ

[jon-sedai]

It's interesting how the themes of love and duty are presented in the histories of two characters who couldn't be more different from one another: the last hero and the Night's King. When presented with the choice of doing your duty or loving, the answer seems obvious—do our duty to the end, for it seems like the right thing to do. Maybe you'll even be rewarded for it. But then the last hero and the Night's King present a grey area. The Night's King followed his desire and the result was a tarnished reputation and his name being blotted out of history for all eternity. He was punished for it. So you'd think that the last hero, having done the opposite and followed his duty to the end, would fare better. But his name has been blotted out of history as well! He picked the "right" thing, but his reward is uncertain; almost nonexistent. No matter what you do, you lose—well, you lose if your name means something to you. The resulting dichotomy then is fascinating—the Night's King actually feels human where the last hero does not. He loved and he lost, but as old Maester Aemon said, the gods fashioned man to love, and love is sometimes the bane of honor (Ned Stark could tell you as much). Old Nan can speculate on who the Night's King was, but she doesn't even bother to try and name the last hero. Almost like he did his duty and was forgotten as was expected; as he should have been. And that's a sad state of affairs. Dehumanization vs a tarnished reputation.....I don't really know if the choice is all that clear tbh :/

[thaliajoy-blog]

Yay, finally finished this Jon as the Fool of the tarot game...let's see if i can keep it up this time ! (next one would be Bran !)

closeup !

Inspiration for Jon's position ! "Stańczyk (court jester) during a ball at the court of Queen Bona in the face of the loss of Smolensk" by Jan Matejko