#i remembered this the other day bc one of the art pieces for my asoiaf 2024 calendar is coldhands

[kazz-brekker]

mostly i find the adaptational deviations that game of thrones made from the source text either bad or rage-inducing or both, but i do find it funny that we have it 100% confirmed from grrm himself that coldhands is not benjen stark and the show was just like "well what if he was anyway?"

[joannalannister]

Hi there! I've been meaning to ask this for awhile now, but I was just wondering what you think Jon's reaction to finding out Daenerys is his aunt will be? I mean, in my mind, it *could* go either way ... he could just not care bc of the whole Targaryens wedding family all the time, but I'm not entirely sure. I've been waiting SO LONG for my ship to sail, and tbh, I really don't care that they're nephew/aunt, but yeah. I just wanted to get your take on it!

In the books, I think that Jon is going to find out about Rhaegar and Lyanna in TWOW, before he meets Daenerys. So I don’t think “Daenerys is my aunt” is the familial relationship he’s immediately going to focus on, although I’m sure he’ll figure that out eventually. I think Jon has to grapple with the fact that Ned isn’t his biological father, along with the fact that his biological father Rhaegar disappeared with his mother Lyanna, who was underage at the time of her disappearance. And then this disappearance ignited a chain of events that caused Jon’s Uncle Brandon’s and his grandfather Rickard’s deaths. Not to mention a war. 

Quotin myself:

idk if I would be so quick to dismiss Jon’s feelings. I think the emotional impact is kind of the whole point of the story. GRRM says he’s writing about “the human heart in conflict with itself”. It’s the emotional struggle that we relate to, more so than wielding a magical sword and slaying ice zombies. It’s R+L=J that is going to play a significant part in Jon Refusing the Hero’s Call. Jon has created a fantasy about Ned and his mother, and the pain of having that fantasy ripped away, of finding out he was Rhaegar’s design, a piece of Rhaegar’s prophecy, is gonna be a really big deal to him. Jon has to work through these feelings, and decide to save the world because he chooses to, and not because it’s something on Rhaegar’s survivalist checklist. Rhaegar was doing things because he thought it was required (”it seems i must be a warrior”), because some dusty prophecy said so. Jon’ll do it because it’s right and it’s what he chooses, and his emotional journey is gonna be the whole point of twow/ados.

See also. Also also: #r plus l equals j

So that’s. A lot of stuff for Jon to work through in TWOW.

And I don’t actually think that Dany is arriving in Westeros until near the end of TWOW, and I think that she’s going to be in the King’s Landing / Dragonstone area. 

Perhaps Jon will meet her there idk, perhaps not. I personally like the idea of Jon going south trying to find the Tower of Joy and spending 40 days and 40 nights wandering the Dornish desert (I would like to learn more about Dorne), but instead GRRM will probably opt for a metaphorical desert of the heart. Regardless of whether it’s a physical desert or a metaphorical one tho, I think the problem remains the same: the rejection of evil. Instead of Satan appearing to Jesus Jon, it’s indifference and despair that Jon must reject. 

To quote Elie Wiesel, 

The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference. Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.

Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.

What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander.

This is what I think ASOIAF is all about - having the courage to speak out and oppose what is wrong in the world. (This is why that theory about Tyrion losing his tongue is so heinous.) We see people speaking out when Tyrion stands up for one little girl, in Jon saving wildlings and letting them through the Wall in spite of the bigotry that will get him killed, in Dany freeing slaves, in Sansa speaking on Dontos’s behalf, and the stuff all the other heroes do. 

And we see a lot of evil happen in ASOIAF when people stand by and look the other way and do nothing - like the Kingsguard. 

(Remember Rhaella. Remember the men of the kingsguard who looked away. Remember Daenerys, who “dare not look away” when people are being raped or mutilated or murdered.)

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Remember the call: “ARE THERE NO TRUE KNIGHTS AMONG YOU?”

“Only silence answered.”

That’s really what I think Jon is going to be dealing with in TWOW - the temptation to sit it out and do nothing as the War of the Five Kings resumes and the Wall falls, and the ice zombies invade. 

The temptation to answer all this with silence. 

(Like, if you asked me to describe how I think TWOW’s going to be like … I think it’s going to be like that moment in a movie when you’re holding your breath in anticipation and horror.)

I have a tendency to resort to Wheel of Time quotes when I run out of ASOIAF quotes, but I honestly think of these two series as sisters in the epic fantasy genre so anyways. In WOT there’s this prophecy related to the salvation of the world, “The grave is no bar to my call.” 

When ADOS asks, “ARE THERE NO TRUE KNIGHTS AMONG YOU?” Zombie!Jon has to choose to answer the call, despite his death, despite everything that happened to him. 

So anyways … The temptation to answer all this with silence … while I think Dany’s story is going to parallel Jon’s throughout TWOW, I think the very earliest they’re going to meet is at the very end of TWOW, and maybe not until ADOS. 

So by the time Jon actually meets Dany, I think he knows full well who she is, and who he is.

Sidenote - I do not think that Rhaegar and Lyanna got married in the books because 

I believe Jon’s story is about coming to terms with who he is, and that includes being a bastard - just not Ned’s bastard. 

I do not think GRRM would undermine and sideline Dany’s claim to the Iron Throne like that, when Dany’s story centers around a choice between her people vs her throne. It would make her final sacrifice at the end that much bigger, if it includes the throne that she must give up.

So when Jon and Dany finally meet … I think it’s all going to be very chaotic and desperate. 

Also. Jon will be an undead fire zombie in the books, so let’s. 

Let’s not forget that. 

Because I think that is going to be Very Important. 

I would say that death … or zombification … or whatever word you would like to use for the experience of being murdered and resurrected … is going to be a much bigger issue for Jon and Dany’s relationship than simple incest.

I think throughout GRRM’s body of work – not just ASOIAF, but everything – there’s this theme about … about … the boundaries of love, but more importantly, the breakdown of those boundaries that stop us from loving each other. It’s A Song for Lya. It’s the spider loving a human woman in Tower of Ashes. It’s Vincent in Beauty and the Beast. 

It’s GRRM saying that love is boundless. 

So with Jon and Dany … I’m hesitant to speak here because GRRM has so much left to write … I think that Jon has to realize, with Dany’s help, that death doesn’t stop you from loving. 

Think about what Jon’s been through. 

He was murdered. Betrayed by his own men. 

Murdered because he wouldn’t leave the wildlings to die on the other side of the Wall. Because he let them in, in his love and his compassion for humanity. Murdered because he loved a wildling girl. Murdered because he loved his sister, and he wanted to go save the girl he thought was Arya. 

Like, you can get into all the political reasons behind Jon’s assassination, but in the end? I think it was about love. Bigots like Bowen Marsh lack that kind of love. 

And Jon died for it. 

I think Bran’s AGOT vision is a metaphor for Jon in TWOW: “Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him.”

Warmth is love. 

Remember, “The real enemy is the cold.” The cold is slavery, abuse, murder, cruelty. The cold is all the ways that people hurt each other. The cold is indifference, despair. The cold is the absence of hope. The cold is death, dehumanization. 

So in TWOW, I think Jon’s going to have a lot of problems letting people in. 

I think Undead Jon rejects love. I don’t think he’ll remember what it is, and that’s what will make him initially reject his savior role. That’s why he’ll initially be indifferent to humanity’s fate. Zombie!Jon just can’t find it in him to care anymore imo. 

You can’t step up and save humanity if you don’t love humanity. 

I think Dany has to warm Jon up, so to speak. 

Because humanity is fire (life) and the Others and their army of the Undead are ice, and the song of ice and fire is the war between humanity and the Others. With Jon zombified and, worse, indifferent … refusing the call … he’s an (unwitting) agent of the Others, and Dany has to save him. I mean, Dany has to save everyone, but she has to save Jon first. She has to make him remember what it means to be human.** 

Like, Mel is going to bring Jon back pretty quickly imo, but … what is life worth, “when all the rest is gone?” Being back isn’t enough. Dany’s going to make Jon live again, as she never could for Drogo. (That’s gonna be a nice bookend, @GRRM, if we ever get to read it.) 

Like, ASOIAF is about second chances. Samwell failed to release the ravens on time in ACOK, but you can bet he’s gonna release them on time when it really counts. Dany couldn’t make her Sun and Stars live again in his undead state … but you can bet your ass she’s gonna make Jon Snow live again.

I don’t know exactly how that’s going to happen, but I really, really, really don’t think Jon and Dany bang until they’re beyond the curtain of light, in the Other World Faerie Realm Lovecraftian Parallel Universe of Nightmare and Death. 

If Westeros has a version of Adam and Eve, two people alone and in love at the birth of the world … well, I imagine Jon and Dany as the inverse, two people alone “at the end of all things”. 

Imagine Belle’s magic mirror, Galadriel’s basin of water, Saruman’s palantir … the Sony JumboTron … whatever far-seeing device the Others can use to demoralize Our Heroes … imagine Jon and Dany watching all the dead and dying as Winterfell’s outer curtainwall falls. Imagine them watching when … I don’t know … someone in a critical defensive position betrays them. Imagine Grey Worm dying. Imagine idk horrible things. Disheartening things. Imagine Our Heroes losing heart. (The human heart in conflict with itself!) 

(I think the Others are smart and I think they understand psychological warfare. Look how they play with people.)

Jon: “I am glad you are here with me, Dany. Here at the end of all things.”

Not a happy conversation, maybe, but a human one. Both of us needed someone, and we reached out. […I] made love to her as fiercely as I could. Then, the darkness softened, we held each other and [pushed] away the night.

–Dreamsongs

Did it matter to Adam, that Eve was born of his rib? That’s why this issue with incest is so irrelevant to me when it comes to Jon and Dany - I think the circumstances are going to be so weird, so wild, they’ll make that fish-fucking movie look normal. 

Jon is a zombie. They’re going to be in a Lovecraftian Universe. It’s the end of the world. Dany and Jon being related is not going to matter. 

In this Other World, this alien Lovecraftian dimension, I think Jon and Dany are the only two humans in this whole Other universe (with the possible exception of Tyrion, but Tyrion’s really a wildcard, more morally ambiguous than either Jon or Dany imo and therefore much more difficult to predict). 

And so Jon and Dany reach out to each other – they have sex – as a celebration of their humanity, an act of defiance against an alien species that wants to destroy humanity. 

And this act revitalizes them, gives them their second wind … and they can go do … whatever it is they need to do … to defeat the Others. 

Love, life, salvation … there’s so much bigger stuff at stake here than “She’s my aunt”.

So no, I don’t think it will matter to Jon.

I have more Jon/Dany thoughts here, if you like: #jdmeta

-

**When Aemon gives Jon that “Kill the boy” speech, I think the mistake Jon makes is that he thinks he must kill his humanity. He pushes his friends away, he becomes isolated, he heartlessly steals Gilly’s baby. It’s cold and cruel … almost Tywin-esque. And I joke about Tywin being a golden cyborg, but that’s what toxic masculinity is … it’s a denial of humanity. I think Dany will have to help Jon remember what it’s like to be human.