#jonerys foreshadowing

[tatticstudio55]

Jon, Daenerys and ghost villages in ACOK

Jon and Dany’s first chapters in ACOK centers around them searching through a haunted forest and a desert, respectively: Jon, along with other brothers of the Night’s Watch and lord commander Mormont, seeking information about the “raised dead”; Dany looking for food, water and shelter for her people and herself. Both come across deserted villages with striking resemblance to one another:

How long the city had been deserted she could not know, but the white walls, so beautiful from afar, were cracked and crumbling when seen up close. Inside was a maze of narrow crooked alleys. The buildings pressed close, their facades blank, chalky, windowless. Everything was white, as if the people who lived here had known nothing of color. They rode past heaps of sun-washed rubble where houses had fallen in, and elsewhere saw the faded scars of fire. At a place where six alleys came together, Dany passed an empty marble plinth. Dothraki had visited this place before, it would seem. Perhaps even now the missing statue stood among the other stolen gods in Vaes Dothrak. She might have ridden past it a hundred times, never knowing. – Dany, ACOK

**

Whitetree, the village was named on Sam's old maps. Jon did not think it much of a village. Four tumbledown one-room houses of unmortared stone surrounded an empty sheepfold and a well. The houses were roofed with sod, the windows shuttered with ragged pieces of hide. And above them loomed the pale limbs and dark red leaves of a monstrous great weirwood.

[…]

Whitetree was the fourth village they had passed, and it had been the same in all of them. The people were gone, vanished with their scant possessions and whatever animals they may have had. None of the villages showed any signs of having been attacked. They were simply . . . empty. – Jon, ACOK

 Not only that, but both places are believed by some to be haunted; the Night’s Watch brothers finds bones under the giant weirwood tree, and Dany’s people find old bones as well:

 Yet they found bones too, the skulls of the unburied dead, bleached and broken. "Ghosts," Irri muttered. "Terrible ghosts. We must not stay here, Khaleesi, this is their place."

[…]

Dany settled down with her small band of survivors in the place they named Vaes Tolorro, the city of bones. Day followed night followed day. Women harvested fruit from the gardens of the dead. – Dany, ACOK

**

“Those are not sheep bones, though. Nor is that a sheep's skull in the ashes.”

"An old tree." Mormont sat his horse, frowning. "Old," his raven agreed from his shoulder. "Old, old, old."

[…]

"The children of the forest could speak to the dead, it's said. But I can't." He tossed the skull back into the mouth of the tree, where it landed with a puff of fine ash.

[…]

"Bad enough when the dead come walking," he said to Jon as they crossed the village, "now the Old Bear wants them talking as well? No good will come of that, I'll warrant. And who's to say the bones wouldn't lie? Why should death make a man truthful, or even clever? The dead are likely dull fellows, full of tedious complaints - the ground's too cold, my gravestone should be larger, why does he get more worms than I do . . . " – Jon, ACOK

 Jon and Daenerys themselves appears tied to “ghosts”; Daenerys when Jorah compares her to his second wife Lynesse,

 "Tell me the name of your ghost, Jorah. You know all of mine."

His face grew very still. "Her name was Lynesse."

[…]

"What did she look like, your Lady Lynesse?"

Ser Jorah smiled sadly. "Why, she looked a bit like you, Daenerys." He bowed low. "Sleep well, my queen." – Dany, ACOK

 And Jon, with his direwolf Ghost:

 Ghost emerged from the undergrowth so suddenly that the garron shied and reared. – Jon, ACOK

 What I like with these chapters is how they show Jon and Dany seeking something, then somewhat finding it (or something close to it, at the very least), yet something (someone)’s obviously missing from those places. In a way, ghosts come off as “what should be there, but isn’t”. These two chapters could be mere parallels, and nothing more, but… nah 😊 I think Jon is meant to be Dany’s “ghost”, that Dany is Jon’s “ghost” as well, and that they do seek one another, unknowingly; Dany by looking for “water” in the desert;

 There was little forage in the red waste, and less water. It was a sere and desolate land of low hills and barren windswept plains. The rivers they crossed were dry as dead men's bones. Their mounts subsisted on the tough brown devilgrass that grew in clumps at the base of rocks and dead trees. Dany sent outriders ranging ahead of the column, but they found neither wells nor springs, only bitter pools, shallow and stagnant, shrinking in the hot sun. The deeper they rode into the waste, the smaller the pools became, while the distance between them grew. If there were gods in this trackless wilderness of stone and sand and red clay, they were hard dry gods, deaf to prayers for rain. – Dany, ACOK

 A blowing rain lashed at Jon's face as he spurred his horse across the swollen stream. Beside him, Lord Commander Mormont gave the hood of his cloak a tug, muttering curses on the weather. His raven sat on his shoulder, feathers ruffled, as soaked and grumpy as the Old Bear himself. A gust of wind sent wet leaves flapping round them like a flock of dead birds. The haunted forest, Jon thought ruefully. The drowned forest, more like it. – Jon, ACOK

 And Jon by, well, looking for somewhere dry:

 After seven empty villages, they had all come to dread finding Craster's as dead and desolate as the rest, but it seemed they would be spared that. Perhaps the Old Bear will finally get some answers, he thought. Anyway, we'll be out of the rain. – Jon, ACOK

[tomakeitbeautifultolive]

I don’t know if you’ve read the books, but when the Baratheon/Lannisters come to Winterfell, and Jon sees Sansa with Joffrey at the feast, he gets jealous. He calls even Sansa “radiant”. Jon looks at Sansa lovingly in the show too. He’s attracted to her but he feels guilty because he thinks Sansa is his sister. You people seem so certain on Jonerys staying canon but Game of Thrones is known for it’s twists. Sansa is the rightful Queen of the North and Trident. She has as much power as D.

Woot! My first anon anti! Let’s dig in!

Jon thinks of Sansa as radiant? Well…

I mean, look at her! Sansa is radiant!

However, interesting to note that unlike the books, Jon, in the show, was not even allowed in the hall with his family. Why? Because:

“Lady Stark thought it might insult the royal family to seat a bastard in their midst.”

Either way, you don’t have to be in love with someone to think of them as radiant. I’ve almost certainly described my sister and my friends in the same way, in fact.

Was Jon jealous? Maybe. He’d probably was jealous of the general highborn fanfare he’d never get to be a part of. I seem to remember him feeling more-so out of sorts and wishing to escape Winterfell once and for all.

What else does Jon think of? He thinks of Jaime:

“This is what a king should look like.”

(Jaime’s… probably not going to become king.)

When I read the books and watched the series, I didn’t come away with even an inkling that Jon and Sansa had any attraction toward each other. I hadn’t heard of ‘Jonsa’ until joining Tumblr, in fact. And I had the same reaction to it as Hannah Murray:

In the books that I read, the foreshadowing regarding Sansa involved three things - The ‘Unkiss’ regarding Sandor, a possible death at Arya’s hands, and the fact that her eyes are described very similarly to Hugor of the Hill’s wife (which I happen to think might be foreshadowing that she will become Queen - not in the North, though - as King Tyrion Lannister’s wife).

Do I think she is currently as powerful as Daenerys? No. She’s just not. Daenerys has many more men and alliances, titles, accomplishments, and fucking dragons. This is not an insult to Sansa! It’s just true.

Davos is my ultimate favorite character, and I don’t need him to be the most powerful for me to justify that. That being said, Daenerys is the most powerful person on Planetos, whether or not you like her as a person.

Here are my personal aversions to ‘Jonsa’:

Incompatibility. Sansa has always Jon disrespectfully, just like her mother. Jon? Had always gotten along more with Arya, and thinks of her more often, and she, him.

Character assassination. In order for this to work, Jon has to be a liar, cheater, and womanizer, and further, Sansa would have to encourage the mistreatment of another woman for the sake of a man. This isn’t Jon!

Daenerys’ death is required. She would have to die or get hurt. Has the woman not been through enough?

Daenerys’ baby would be subjected to the same unjust treatment Jon was. By invoking Catelyn and comparing Sansa to her mother, this implies that Jon’s baby will grow up in the same hostile environment as he had, being a bastard, being 'lesser than’.

Jon & Sansa are not a good match…Their priorities and ideologies clash.

Meanwhile, Jon and Dany are literally quoting their ideologies back to each other, unknowingly:

“I will not punish a son for his father’s sins” (Jon)

“I ask you not to judge a daughter by the sins of her father” (Daenerys)

And

“Isn’t their survival more important than your pride?” (Jon, to Mance)

“Isn’t their survival more important than your pride?” (Daenerys, to Jon)

(…literally the exact same wording on this second one…)

I’d say we got some alignment on personal philosophy, here. (As someone who has a rather successful marriage, myself, this is of utmost importance.)

I don’t see Sansa and Jon’s stories, in the books, converging quite the way they do on the show. (That’s not to say it won’t, to me it just seems unlikely). There’s a reason that Sansa’s arc, in the show, has been taken from Jeyne Poole. This means that whatever path Sansa goes on, it ultimately does not affect endgame, whereas, her friend Jeyne Poole’s does. Just like the absence of Young Griff (fAegon) likely hints that he is, in fact, the mummer’s dragon, and that he gets defeated.

Considering that, I have a very hard time predicting what will happen to Sansa at all. I hope whatever it is, it’s good, and that she’s happy, and stays alive.

I think, personally, if Jon is going to hook up with a sister, it’s probably going to be Arya. After all, that was the original plan!:

“Arya will be more forgiving … until she realizes, with terror, that she has fallen in love with Jon, who is not only her half-brother but a man of the Night’s Watch, sworn to celibacy. Their passion will continue to torment Jon and Arya throughout the trilogy, until the secret of Jon’s true parentage is finally revealed in the last book.”

They have much higher compatibility, think of each other much more often, and Jon even thinks of Arya’s body a few times when he ponders what Ygritte’s might look like:

“Her shaggy mop of red hair stuck out in all directions. She looked plump as she crouched there, but most of that was layers of fur and wool and leather. Underneath all that she could be as skinny as Arya.”

Not to mention, the only wolf Nymeria lets mount her is Ghost!

Aaaanyway!

Why “us people” seem “so certain” J + D is endgame:

Need I remind you that the literal last shot we get of either Jon or Daenerys is while they are naked in each other’s arms?

Most intriguingly - Season 8 version of 'Truth’ (Jon and Daenerys’ theme song) has been analyzed to glean what story it tells through the music and which instruments are used - and if you’re truly interested, take a look at this video. There’s no 'Jonerys’ agenda, here. It’s from just your basic Game of Thrones content creator (BecauseGeek)

Here are some excerpts:

“The theme’s first part lets us know that Jon and Dany’s love will succeed in the end. The violins that were used to represent doubts and conflicts before are not the main focus anymore, they’ve been replaced by just the cello, which represents, instead, pure love without any concern for duty or anything like that, only love. And this time, the cello ends on a high note, as opposed to a low note, like it did at the end of season seven when he was representing Tyrion’s worry over Jon and Dany’s relationship.

The lack of violins and the cello ending on a high note seems to be telling us that even if Jon and Dany go through rough times and doubts, their love will succeed in the end.

And right after that is when Ramin begins to introduce a very well known theme, which gives us a hint to what this big event might be about. It’s the Game of Thrones opening theme, which as we know, represents victory and power. This ceremony would, of course, involve all of the survivors of the war being recognized for their efforts, but since it’s mixed in with Jon and Dany’s theme, it seems to also be pointing to this victory being a result of their union.”

Not impressed? We’ll try GRRM, himself:

“The tradition amongst the Targaryens has always been to marry kin to kin. Wedding brother to sister was thought to be ideal. Failing that, a girl might wed an uncle, a cousin, or a nephew; a boy a cousin, aunt, or niece.”—George R.R. Martin, The Sons of the Dragon (2017)

No? How about…

Targaryens were interlopers from another culture, and they had some unique factors that didn’t necessarily fit into the mainstream of the other Westerosi Lords, such as their traditional incest, which was part of keeping the bloodlines pure so that they could better control the dragons, brother marrying sister, and nephews and aunts, and so forth.“—George R.R. Martin, The World of Ice and Fire (2014)

Here’s the video, watch the man himself spell it out for us.

Let’s take a look at the show:

“If I’m to rule Westeros, I’ll need to make alliances. The best way to make alliances is with marriage.” (Daenerys)

“He wasn’t the first to love you, and he won’t be the last.” (Tyrion, about Daario)

“Jon is young and unmarried. Daenerys is young and unmarried. / You think he wants to marry her?” (Littlefinger/Sansa)

“I’ve brought ice and fire together.” (Melisandre)

“I suppose he stares at you longingly because he’s hopeful for a successful military alliance.” (Tyrion, about Jon)

“I think she has a good heart. / I’ve noticed you staring at her good heart.” (Jon/Davos)

“You say you can’t have children…” (Tyrion)“May it serve you well, and your children after you.” (Jorah)“The dragons are my children. They are the only children I will ever have.” (Daenerys)“Your family hasn’t seen its end.” (Jon)“Has it occured to you she might not have been a reliable source of information?” (Jon)

(Really, now…)

But let’s take a look at the books:

A Game of Thrones:

“He is Aegon the Dragonlord come again, and you will be his queen.

“She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.”

A Clash of Kings:

“A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness, mother of dragons, bride of fire.”

“Sometimes she would close her eyes and dream of him, but it was never Jorah Mormont she dreamed of; her lover was always younger and more comely, though his face remained a shifting shadow.”

Jon is synonymous with shadows: “He was a shadow among shadows”

A Storm of Swords:

“I might someday hold a son of my own blood in my arms” (Jon)And later, in ADWD: “I will never have a little girl” (Daenerys)

“Even with Ygritte sleeping beside him, he felt alone.”“Her captain slept beside her, yet she was alone.”

A Dance with Dragons:

“He might as well wish for another thousand men, and maybe a dragon or three.”

Jon wants dragons, and what does Dany want?“I would gladly take as many olives as you cared to sell me. Olive oil as well ”

Guess who has olives? And olive oil? Jon!:“Clay jars packed with olives in oil and sealed with wax.”

     (All credit goes to @winelover1989 for spotting this gem!)

“Five Aegons had ruled the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. There would have been a sixth, but the Usurper’s dogs had murdered her brother’s son when he was still a babe at the breast. If he had lived, I might have married him.”

“The light of the half-moon turned Val’s honey-blond hair a pale silver…the air tastes sweet."  (Daenerys? Described as having ”silver-pale“ hair.)

Further, Jon seems to look upon Val with admiration:

"A warrrior princess, he decided, not some willowy creature who sits up in a tower, brushing her hair and waiting for some knight to rescue her.”

Kinda sounds like Jon has a certain type, I’d say. And it’s not a girl in a tower dreaming about knights and princes… Hmm.

And Jon’s death?

“Jon fell to his knees…He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold.”

And Daenerys:

“Off in the distance, a wolf howled. The sound made her feel sad and lonely.”

Here’s a fun one I’ll leave you with, from Daenerys:

“I know what quality a king needs most…Cheeks like iron. All I do is sit.”

This was subtle foreshadowing that Jon Snow has the best ass in all seven Kingdoms, and Daenerys is bound to get her paws on it.

     (All credit goes to @violet-eyes-silver-hair for finding this gem!)

LASTLY!…

Game of Thrones is known for it’s twists? Girl(boy?), who you tellin’? Oh right, me, only the co-regeant of the N+A=D/'Dayne Heiress’ theory! Night King apologist. Supporter of King Tyrion Lannister! I love twists! I just happen to like the ones that have foreshadowing, clues, or make narrative sense to me.

I wish there were a way to properly convey how much I pore through all the possible details I can - and yet, all I see is Jonerys. If you’re a Sansa fan (like me!), I strongly suggest the ’SanSan/Unkiss’ theory!

In the end - It doesn’t matter how much evidence I do or don’t come up with, because that’s never been what asks like this are about.

Jonerys fans aren’t easily riled, I’m afraid.

[tatticstudio55]

Ygritte, Daenerys, Melisandre

Some thoughts on Jon’s last ASOS chapters

 “The king would speak with you, Jon Snow.”

Jon thrust the practice sword into the earth. “Might I be allowed to change? I am in no fit state to stand before a king.”

“We shall await you atop the Wall,” said Melisandre. We, Jon heard, not he. It’s as they say. This is his true queen, not the one he left at Eastwatch.- Jon, ASOS

The “false” queen/true queen distinction becomes interesting with Jon Snow in the picture: if Selyse is a false queen, could Stannis be a false king?

We know that Stannis is, at the very least, a false Azor Ahai; a role/title Melisandre (as well as many readers) will later attribute to Jon. Also, depending on how you view the legitimacy of Robert’s claim (@mysnowdragons made a good case for the Targaryen still being the legitimates royals, see here ), Stannis could also be a false king; in which case the true one could only be Jon, aka Aegon Targaryen.

For a complicit reader, the Jon/Melisandre “pairing” becomes a foil to Stannis and Selyse: Melisandre is the true queen, Jon is the true king.

This Jon POV chapter, and the one following, shows Jon’s ambivalent identity. It might also foreshadow an eventual Jon/Daenerys sexual/romantic union.

Melisandre and Jon’s Targaryen side

He shut the door and pulled the bell cord. The winch began to turn. They rose. The day was bright and the Wall was weeping, long fingers of water trickling down its face and glinting in the sun. In the close confines of the iron cage, he was acutely aware of the red woman’s presence. She even smells red. The scent reminded him of Mikken’s forge, of the way iron smelled when red-hot; the scent was smoke and blood. Kissed by fire, he thought, remembering Ygritte. The wind got in amongst Melisandre’s long red robes and sent them flapping against Jon’s legs as he stood beside her. - Jon, ASOS

The author uses a very Targaryen-centric vocabulary to describe Melisandre through Jon’s eyes: the red, the heat, the smoke, the fire. It’s also worth mentioning the similarities between this passage and the one below, from AGOT, when Daenerys walks into the pyre:

Another step, and Dany could feel the heat of the sand on the soles of her feet, even through her sandals. Sweat ran down her thighs and between her breasts and in rivulets over her cheeks, where tears had once run. Ser Jorah was shouting behind her, but he did not matter anymore, only the fire mattered. The flames were so beautiful, the loveliest things she had ever seen, each one a sorcerer robed in yellow and orange and scarlet, swirling long smoky cloaks. - Dany, AGOT

As Daenerys embraces the fire and her Targaryen heritage, Jon is initiated to it, albeit unknowingly, this time: his own “pyre” stands next to him in a setting that, once again, closely mirror Drogo’s incineration:

the Wall was weeping, long fingers of water trickling down its face and glinting in the sun. – Jon, ASOS

Sweat ran down her thighs and between her breasts and in rivulets over her cheeks, where tears had once run. – Dany, AGOT

And also:

The wind got in amongst Melisandre’s long red robes and sent them flapping against Jon’s legs as he stood beside her. – Jon, ASOS

The flames were so beautiful, the loveliest things she had ever seen, each one a sorcerer robed in yellow and orange and scarlet, swirling long smoky cloaks. – Dany, AGOT

(Their dead lovers also play passive roles in these scenes: the Melisandre/Ygritte comparison, and D’s fire being Drogo’s funeral pyre.)

Jon is then brought to Stannis, who offers to name him Stark, throwing Jon’s other identity half into the equation: his Stark side. Both sides have their appeal: there’s an underlying sexual energy between Jon and Melisandre in the cage. Being offered Winterfell and named Stark is a very tempting prospect for Jon.  

What does it mean?

Sometime, it’s difficult to distinguish Jonerys foreshadowing from RLJ foreshadowing. A “sandwiched” Jon (between Stannis and Melisandre) might pass as RLJ foreshadowing first and foremost (the Targaryen half and the Stark half), but on the other side, the bizarre dynamic between Jon and Melisandre tend to suggest something more personal:

           -Twice, Jon is reminded of Ygritte when being close to Melisandre (the other instance happening in ADWD, when Melisandre’s glamour – or maybe it’s just because of the dark – somehow fools Jon into briefly mistaking her for Ygritte):

Jon Snow heard the crackle of the crust breaking on a patch of old snow. Someone was behind him, he realized suddenly. Someone who smelled warm as a summer day.

When he turned he saw Ygritte.

She stood beneath the Lord Commander's Tower, cloaked in darkness and in memory. The light of the moon was in her hair, her red hair kissed by fire. When he saw that, Jon's heart leapt into his mouth. "Ygritte," he said.

"Lord Snow." The voice was Melisandre's

Surprise made him recoil from her. "Lady Melisandre." He took a step backwards. "I mistook you for someone else." At night all robes are grey. Yet suddenly hers were red. He did not understand how he could have taken her for Ygritte. – Jon, ADWD

           -Even in the books, there’s definitely something sexual between Jon and Melisandre:

She put her hand on his cheek, and held it there while he felt how warm she was. – Jon, ASOS

In ADWD, it’s also revealed that Melisandre can approach Ghost/that Ghost apparently likes Melisandre, to Jon’s astonishment:

(I just took a screenshot of the passage cuz I’m too lazy to re-type it…)

-It could foreshadow a reconciliation of ice and fire (nod to you @argentvive)

-The Stannis/Melisandre pairing could foreshadow a Jon/Daenerys eventual pairing

-Daenerys is the unspoken presence of the Ygritte-Melisandre-Daenerys Trio: Melisandre’s textual depictions contain several allusions that either refers to “fire and blood”, or to Daenerys herself (see examples above); while also physically referring to Ygritte. Then, when Jon finds the real Ygritte dying at the feet of the Lord Commander’s tower, it’s said that

The ice crystals had settled over her face, and in the moonlight it looked as though she wore a glittering silver mask. – Jon, ASOS

It’s interesting that Martin chose the word “mask” (of silver glittering in the moonlight, no less) to describes Jon’s last memory of Ygritte’s face. Back to Melisandre glamoring herself to look like Ygritte (thus putting on a “mask”). There’s something poetic about Ygritte’s death (“He found Ygritte sprawled across a patch of old snow” = a fire dying out in a puddle of snow), but beyond that, could it be that – and this is gonna sound tinfoil – death glamored Ygritte into a shadowy, Daenerys-like, figure?

(I don’t mean literally, of course. But this could be a foreshadowing)