#rip jon snow 🕊️ you should’ve listened to your own advice

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

Jon watched them leave, and Arya watched Jon. His face had grown as still as the pool at the heart of the godswood. Finally he climbed down off the window. “The show is done,” he said. He bent to scratch Ghost behind the ears. The white wolf rose and rubbed against him. “You had best run back to your room, little sister. Septa Mordane will surely be lurking. The longer you hide, the sterner the penance. You’ll be sewing all through winter. When the spring thaw comes, they will find your body with a needle still locked tight between your frozen fingers.” Arya I, ACoK

Beyond just providing a thematic roadmap for Arya’s character arc, especially re reclaiming her identity, I do think this line has thematic resonance for Jon as well. And it’s best encapsulated in his ADWD arc where he begins to run from a key part of who he is—a warg. Arya goes back to her room to confront what she was avoiding, but Jon doesn’t. He locks Ghost up, right before a crucial moment. And when he needs his wolf the most, he is left defenseless. Jon is right, the penance is stern—for him. It’s almost like the narrative punishes him for trying to run away from his very being, his destiny. “I’m a man, not a wolf”…well he is man no more. And if the result of his actions is death, then he has to become the thing he didn’t want to be if he wants to survive. Not only that, but winter is here—and it has found Jon frozen stiff…

Jon reached for Longclaw, but his fingers had grown stiff and clumsy. Somehow he could not seem to get the sword free of its scabbard. […] Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger’s hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. “Ghost,” he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold … Jon XIII, ADWD