#jon snow

[cloverhasnobrain]

Jon Snow. Just for the Winter is Coming

I could have lived in peace (stayed warm in my bed) but my enemies (job that pays my bills) brought me war (e-mails i have to respond to)

[gameofthronesdaily]

SANSA STARK and JON SNOW GAME OF THRONES 8.01 ― “Winterfell”

[thelaughingtree]

i love ned stark, but there's almost no way in hell that had he survived jon snow would be able to make radical calls like bringing the wildings through the wall.

for one, it's the political vacuum caused by the red wedding that allows jon to make most of these decisions relatively unchallenged by the starks or their bannermen, who have a longstanding hatred against the wildlings. for two, ned stark thematically represents a small 'c' conservative, too-traditional approach to feudal rulership that cannot cope with the changes disaster will bring. he abides by the feudal class system, he misbelieves in magic, and he expects his enemies to abide by a code of honour - all things that will be challenged by the long night. he has been lord of winterfell for 15 years and supped with lords like the umbers many a time, but never once with a wildling - it is hard to believe he'd have any inclination to help them. given his vested interests, and his general disbelief in magic, it's far more likely that ned would be tempted to heed bowen marsh's suggestion of blocking all the gates and waiting for winter to pass.

quite honestly, it's difficult seeing anyone helping the wildlings at all except for jon snow. no one else has that combination of experience living with them + compassion, especially towards those hated for birth status + rank, experience, respect & electoral fraud committing friends to be elected Lord Commander.

[imahotkn1fe]

(Sketch) Baby Sansa, Robb and Jon

[snow-blower]

Modern AU Jon and you binge watching a silly show together.

[tullysansa]

[fandomlife-confessions]

[sarcasticsweetlara]

And it becomes more interesting when we consider Jon's actually trueborn. His siblings Rhaenys and Aegon would have been there for him growing up and helped provide for him

Jon's bastard identity & it's ripples through House Stark

Wanted to make a post about Jon's bastard identity and how it informed his close relationships with his family but halfway through realized it wasn't actually about Jon—it was about Catelyn.

There is generally a split in consideration when we talk about Jon and the starklings (familial love), Jon and Catelyn (mutual disdain), and Catelyn and the starklings (parental/filial love) when in reality, Cat's feelings towards Jon bled into her relationships with her own children. Conversations about mothers in ASOIAF are sort of prickly because, well, we don't have many and Catelyn is the only POV mom we can really name a "good mother" (in my view Cersei's most impressive and meaningful foil is ADWD Daenerys but her and Catelyn share enough space/thoughts of each other that they should also be considered so).

Her relationship with Jon isn't really about Jon personally, it's about what he represents; it's about Catelyn lingering discomfort and alienation in the North

Catelyn had never liked this godswood

-AGOT, Catelyn I

When the wars were over at last, and Catelyn rode to Winterfell, Jon and his wet nurse had already taken up residence. That cut deep.

-AGOT, Catelyn II

It's about her protective love for her children and her legacy

Benjen Stark was a Sworn Brother. Jon would be a son to him, the child he would never have. And in time the boy would take the oath as well. He would father no sons who might someday contest with Catelyn's own grandchildren for Winterfell.

-AGOT, Catelyn II

[Also the implication that Benjen would become Jon's father in replacement for Ned? Loads to unpack.]

It's also about a certain sort of idealism that Catelyn espouses, and yes, even a certain trace of selfishness within that, that her actions being understandable from her own position justifies them. Even when those actions constitute a breach, they deserve nuance, which requires a level of understanding she wasn't able to show Jon Snow.

I have always done my duty, she thought. Perhaps that was why her lord father had always cherished her best of all his children. [...] I gave Brandon my favor to wear, and never comforted Petyr once after he was wounded, nor bid him farewell when Father sent him off. And when Brandon was murdered and Father told me I must wed his brother, I did so gladly, though I never saw Ned's face until our wedding day. I gave my maidenhood to this solemn stranger and sent him off to his war and his king and the woman who bore him his bastard, because I always did my duty.

-ACOK, Catelyn VI

Is this my punishment for opposing him about Jon Snow? Or for being a woman, and worse, a mother? It took her a moment to realize that they were all watching her. They had known, she realized. Catelyn should not have been surprised. She had won no friends by freeing the Kingslayer, and more than once she had heard the Greatjon say that women had no place on a battlefield.

-ASOS, Catelyn V

Read: Catelyn was rewarded for being dutiful at a formative age, with the love of her father. Catelyn was dutiful to Ned and this pained her re: Jon and that pain festered for fifteen years. Later in this POV, she pries Cleos Frey for information on Sansa. Her next POV, Bran and Rickon are the final straw before she frees Jaime—Catelyn is knowingly spurring her "duty" to follow Robb's commands.

Read: Catelyn should not have been surprised, understanding that her actions caused controversy, and yet she was.

Ok, now onto the starklings.

Catelyn's treatment of Jon informs Robb's understanding of bastards as much as Ned's sense of honor does. This is very much a domino in Robb's (fatal) choice to marry Jeyne Westerling.

That morning he called it first. "I'm Lord of Winterfell!" he cried, as he had a hundred times before. Only this time, this time, Robb had answered, "You can't be Lord of Winterfell, you're bastard-born. My lady mother says you can't ever be the Lord of Winterfell."

-ASOS, Jon XII

Robb knew something was wrong. "My mother …"

"She was … very kind," Jon told him.

Robb looked relieved.

-AGOT, Jon II

And she was with me when the Greatjon brought me the news of . . . of Winterfell. Bran and Rickon." He seemed to have trouble saying his brothers' names. "That night, she. . . she comforted me, Mother."

Catelyn did not need to be told what sort of comfort Jeyne Westerling had offered her son. "And you wed her the next day."

He looked her in the eyes, proud and miserable all at once. "It was the only honorable thing to do. She's gentle and sweet, Mother, she will make me a good wife."

-ASOS, Catelyn II

Contrast that with these Jon lines:

Jon trembled. "I will never father a bastard," he said carefully. "Never!" He spat it out like venom.

-AGOT, Jon I

He had never truly been a Stark, only Lord Eddard's motherless bastard, with no more place at Winterfell than Theon Greyjoy. And even that he'd lost.

-ASOS, Jon III

Jon angsts over how he grew up with Robb and yet they'll lead such different lives; on the flip side, Robb angsts over how he could possibly subject another child to the most painful parts of Jon's life—nameless, at times scorned even within his own home.

I'm not attempting to put blame on Catelyn's shoulders for anything, these are all just pieces of a puzzle that made Robb into who he was, that guided his choices, and that moved the story. What I am saying is that Catelyn's treatment of Jon was not isolated, it was plain and painful to her biological children, and that this caused friction between them all.

"Jon would never harm a son of mine."

"No more than Theon Greyjoy would harm Bran or Rickon?"

Grey Wind leapt up atop King Tristifer's crypt, his teeth bared. Robb's own face was cold. "That is as cruel as it is unfair. Jon is no Theon."

"So you pray. Have you considered your sisters? What of their rights? I agree that the north must not be permitted to pass to the Imp, but what of Arya? By law, she comes after Sansa. . . your own sister, trueborn. . ."

-ASOS, Catelyn V

Which brings me to Sansa.

In a twist for the daughter that values legitimacy more than the rest of her siblings (Sansa, who never called him anything but "my half brother" since she was old enough to understand what bastard meant), Sansa is bastardized two times over. Once when Robb removes her from her from the Stark succession, and twice when she becomes Alayne Stone.

"Natural?" Sansa was aghast. "You mean, a bastard?"

-ASOS, Sansa VI

Alayne wondered what Mya made of Ser Lothor. With his squashed nose, square jaw, and nap of woolly grey hair, Brune could not be called comely, but he was not ugly either. It is a common face but an honest one. Though he had risen to knighthood, Ser Lothor's birth had been very low. [...] Petyr says he's loyal. He trusts him as much as he trusts anyone. Brune would be a good match for a bastard girl like Mya Stone, she thought.

-AFFC, Alayne II

I want to stress that this isn't thought unkindly. Sansa pragmatically believes this, she doesn't dislike either Mya or Lothor Brune, but she is being a certain type of realistic. It would make sense to her that Mya, not a virgin, bastard-born, would take for a partner this seemingly nice guy twice her age. It's a match that makes sense to Sansa.

"It won't be so bad, Sansa," Arya said. "We're going to sail on a galley. It will be an adventure, and then we'll be with Bran and Robb again, and Old Nan and Hodor and the rest." She touched her on the arm.

"Hodor!" Sansa yelled. "You ought to marry Hodor, you're just like him, stupid and hairy and ugly!"

-AGOT, Sansa III

It would have been easier if Arya had been a bastard, like their half brother Jon. She even looked like Jon, with the long face and brown hair of the Starks, and nothing of their lady mother in her face or her coloring. And Jon's mother had been common, or so people whispered. Once, when she was littler, Sansa had even asked Mother if perhaps there hadn't been some mistake. Perhaps the grumkins had stolen her real sister.

-AGOT, Sansa I

This isn't about playing sisters against each other, it's just to show Alayne's thoughts on Mya are a graduation of the same general attitude Sansa's had from childhood. It's the hinge on which Sansa and Arya's relationship becomes so sour, a souring that leaves both girls isolated in the Red Keep, and results in them taking actions that lead them on very different roads. The lone wolf dies but the pack survives.

Arya is the place where Catelyn's relationship with Jon really comes back to bite, though.

They had always been close. Jon had their father's face, as she did. They were the only ones. Robb and Sansa and Bran and even little Rickon all took after the Tullys, with easy smiles and fire in their hair. When Arya had been little, she had been afraid that meant that she was a bastard too. It had been Jon she had gone to in her fear, and Jon who had reassured her.

-AGOT, Arya I

Why is Arya afraid of being a bastard? Jon gets to learn at Maester Luwin's table and train with Ser Rodrik's swords and fish with Bran and Jory just like Robb does. What's there to fear?

The fear comes from one place, and that fear doesn't soon leave her.

"Well," Arya said, "my hair's messy and my nails are dirty and my feet are all hard." Robb wouldn't care about that, probably, but her mother would. Lady Catelyn always wanted her to be like Sansa, to sing and dance and sew and mind her courtesies. Just thinking of it made Arya try to comb her hair with her fingers, but it was all tangles and mats, and all she did was tear some out.

-ASOS, Arya VII

Maybe I should go to the Wall instead of Riverrun. Jon wouldn't care who I killed or whether I brushed my hair. . .

-ASOS, Arya VII

Actually Catelyn wants Arya back so damn bad she freed their God-tier hostage on the vague whiff of hope Arya was still alive but this isn't about what Catelyn really wants, it's about what Arya believes + what those beliefs are founded on. Jon's difference from Catelyn's kids lies most superficially in the way he looks, and Arya looks like him. Arya takes this "exclusion → exclusion based on appearance → I appear that way" fear personally to the point that she thinks she looks like a bastard.

It's because of this fear that she can't fathom that her mother would accept her unconditionally.

To Robb, bastardry symbolizes a stain on a legacy. To Sansa, it's shame. To Arya, it's about acceptance. All three of these are rooted in what they internalized as kids: Jon is a bastard and regardless of his place in Winterfell/their family, that makes him less.

I want to touch on the part of this that is about Jon, for a sec. Bastards are common and attitudes on them vary—although plenty of smallfolk are born of unwed parents, noble bastards represent something more, because nobility claims to espouse higher ideals like fidelity. Mance Rayder is born of a Black Brother & a wildling, yet he calls Jon a bastard (derogatory) fiftyleven times. Some bastards are scorned, some are loved, some are uninterested in their origins. There are bastards who possibly stand to inherit, like Jonos Bracken's, and there are mothers who don't want their husband's bastards in their homes, like Donella Hornwood with Larence Snow.

But in ADWD when Jon is most vulnerable & alone, he starts to calls himself a bastard to harden his resolve.

"I am almost a man grown," Jon protested. "I will turn fifteen on my next name day, and Maester Luwin says bastards grow up faster than other children."

-AGOT, Jon I

Kill the boy, Jon thought. The boy in you, and the one in him. Kill the both of them, you bloody bastard. "You have no father. Only brothers.

-ADWD, Jon II

The Vale of Arryn was famously fertile and had gone untouched during the fighting. Jon wondered how Lady Catelyn's sister would feel about feeding Ned Stark's bastard. As a boy, he often felt as if the lady grudged him every bite.

-ADWD, Jon IV

"Arya." His voice was hoarse. "My half-sister, truly…"

"…for you are bastard born. I had not forgotten. I have seen your sister in my fires, fleeing from this marriage they have made for her. Coming here, to you. A girl in grey on a dying horse, I have seen it plain as day. It has not happened yet, but it will."

-ADWD, Jon VI

"My name is Snow."

"Bastard."

"Guilty. Of that, at least."

-ADWD, Jon X

Not to put too fine a point on it but he's literally called... Lord Snow.

"Don't call me Lord Snow."

-AGOT, Jon III

"BOY! YOU THERE! BOY!" [...] He ignored it.

"Snow," the voice insisted, "Lord Commander."

This time he stopped. "Ser?"

-ADWD, Jon I

What I want to say here is that Jon weaponizes his bastard identity against himself only because it's been weaponized against him and worked. It's self-flagellation. That legacy is deep inside of him and it was never even about him to Catelyn.

But it's a double-edged sword, because Jon's differentiation as a bastard didn't only affect him. Home interprets heaven. When Lady Catelyn crafted a home (so intentionally warm and loving for her children) that was dismissive to Jon, it wasn't only the two of them in that home. It wasn't only Jon who learned that children can be anathema, and it isn't only Jon who carries that weight.

[tarokki06]

Lord Snow

[sweetaprilbutterfly]

Modern AU: Jon Snow and Sansa Stark

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

For a significant period of his life, Rhaegar lived knowing that he was the prophesied prince.

Until one day Prince Rhaegar found something in his scrolls that changed him. No one knows what it might have been, only that the boy suddenly appeared early one morning in the yard as the knights were donning their steel. He walked up to Ser Willem Darry, the master-at-arms, and said, ‘I will require sword and armor. It seems I must be a warrior.’ (Dany I, ASoS)

Most (if not all) of the written lore we have depicts Azor Ahai as being a warrior who wielded a magic sword. So it’s not unreasonable to assume that Rhaegar’s decision to become a warrior came because he read about Azor Ahai and his Lightbringer. And Rhaegar did become a warrior, one primarily characterized with his House’s main colors: black and red.

Many years later, Rhaegar’s last surviving son also reads about Azor Ahai and his Lightbringer — in a book Rhaegar left behind, no less. Now Jon doesn’t dwell too much on it, but a few chapters later he dreams of this:

Burning shafts hissed upward, trailing tongues of fire. Scarecrow brothers tumbled down, black cloaks ablaze. “Snow,” an eagle cried, as foemen scuttled up the ice like spiders. Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist. (Jon XII, ADWD)

This one line holds visual imagery that speaks a thousand words. Jon is a warrior in black armor, as his father once was. The visual contrast of black and red also calls back to the house of dragons; which is a great touch given that Jon’s ADWD arc is marked by Melisandre’s dreams of waking a dragon. Plus Jon has a glowing red sword — THE sword of heroes, Lightbringer.

There’s an interesting contrast between Jon and Rhaegar here. Rhaegar, defined by his inheritance, was directly primed to be the hero. But he couldn’t be because he died. On the other hand, Jon is defined by his lack of inheritance; being bastard born and all. Yet it’s Jon who actually lives to realize the hero’s ideal. Jon is the one who actually wields Lightbringer; well, he will in due time. Despite his bastardy, Jon is already achieving things Rhaegar never did. Which raises an interesting question: Rhaegar was the heir, but he never sat the throne, nor did he fulfill prophecy. Bastard as he is, Jon is already fulfilling prophecy….so will he do what his father never did and rule as well?

[coleoffduty]

so i finally got a new ipad and decided to redraw this,,,

kill the boy and let the man be born

[lilyslark]

reminder that it’s called a song of ice AND fire (not ice versus fire). like it’s so ironic that it’s always “team jon” or “team dany” when the whole reason that jon and dany are going to meet is to unite the realm against the real enemy, rather than squabbling over their differences.

what if we don’t constantly pit these two kids against each other. what if we appreciate both of their roles in the story. what if we give both of them the love that they deserve. then what.

[thesongoficeandfir3]

ASOIAF lovers as elements (part earth)

The Earth lovers are defined as stable and grounded, in most cases they may often come off as brute, rough around the edges, stern, and scary even but with time you will notice other softer qualities

The core ways an Earth lover would show their love for you is through loyalty, supportiveness, and protectiveness

The Earth lover can further be split into different subgroups where they can fall in all categories, some categories or be more of one than a other

They can be like the mighty oak tree where their love is deeply rooted and no force can ever come between their love for you. They are extremely loyal to you and would never be unfaithful to you. Never even faltering for a second if anything no matter how tempting tried to come between you two

Or they can be like the plant. In order for most plants to grow and bloom into something strong and beautiful they need to be in the best conditions and for your lover your relationship is the plant and they are the gardener. This type of Earth lover is very nurturing, ensuring you are well taken care of in every aspect of your life. Their top priority is your wellbeing and happiness , even spoiling you a bit because they never give you anything but the best. Their loyalty also shows here as well as patience. More than likely your marriage would be due to a political agreement thus you two would start off as strangers. They will be patient and not force or rush your growing relationship and they will be loyal, staying devoted no matter how long it takes for you two to be finally familiar and comfortable with each other

Like the mountain the earth lover is usually has steadfast and stubborn in personality. This may seem negative but it can also be positive. When trouble comes they are unyielding and refuse to buckle under pressure and will be quick to act as a sanctuary and anchor to keep you grounded so you won’t fall. You can always count to lean on them as they are unshaken and ready to take on issues

earthquake are terrifying, dangerous, and violent. The earth lover protection toward you is like an earthquake. Most of the time your earth lover prefers to stay silent and steady but the moment you are hurt, threaten, disrespected even they erupt in a terrifying and violent anger. So terrifying and violent it leaves not only the threat but any one else who’s witness this anger to be afraid. They respond so recklessly and violently immediately because they want no confusion in the slightest with how important you are to them and what will happen if someone tries to come between that

Earth lovers may seem unapproachable like a vast forest, intimidating like a mountain, or unyielding like a boulder, but they are also like a geode and if you take time to explore them getting to truly know them you’ll find beauty within them

Cregan Stark, Jon Snow, Harwin Strong, Young!Tywin, Visenya Targaryen, Erryk Cargyll

[themoonofblueside]

i remember in agot how much jon wanted to go back to winterfell and join robb's cause and help him be with him and i just cant help but think. robb probably wanted that too. in winterfell catelyn was not functional after bran's fall, his dad and sansa were gone, theon was with him but he had no role to make decisions like him. him and jon were the same age, got the exact same education from their father, they were equals in battle and mind. he would help with bran and rickon and he would help rule winterfell. after he leaves winterfell it's even worse because he's all alone, there is no person who would understand how much he grieves and how he feels other than jon. days and nights of thinking about getting him back, writing to him to be with him, wanting to tell him his plans and worries. he loved and trusted jon like he trusted no one, i think.

[maddiethefashionista]

@reginarubie I need help with brainstorming!!

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