The Winter King- Jon Snow & The Nights King Theory
The legend I believe Jon echoes is the legend of the Night’s King. Now before I begin I want to make clear what I mean when l say echo. These stories that we are told are somewhat lost to time and likely not fully accurate to what may have happened when said event occurred. I am not saying Jon's story is going to be a one to one match to the Night's King tale, simply that his current story has echoes of the past and can potentially shed light on some misconceptions we have on these stories. Same with Dany and Azor Ahai and Bran with the Last Hero. In the words of Old Nan, “Old stories are like old friends, she used to say. You have to visit them from time to time.” Strap in this is long
“the tale of Night's King. He had been the thirteenth man to lead the Night's Watch, she said; a warrior who knew no fear. "And that was the fault in him," she would add, "for all men must know fear." A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well.
He brought her back to the Nightfort and proclaimed her a queen and himself her king, and with strange sorceries he bound his Sworn Brothers to his will. For thirteen years they had ruled, Night's King and his corpse queen, till finally the Stark of Winterfell and Joramun of the wildlings had joined to free the Watch from bondage. After his fall, when it was found he had been sacrificing to the Others, all records of Night's King had been destroyed, his very name forbidden.”
Now to get into this theory we have to look at Jon. The most important part of Jon’s identity is his identity as a bastard. It shapes his outlook on life, on how he is treated and how he observes others. How does Jon get to this point? What does Jon want the most? What does he deny himself time and time again? Winterfell.
This is something that he has wanted his whole life. “He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. It was a hunger inside him, sharp as a dragonglass blade. A hunger… he could feel it. It was food he needed, prey, a red deer that stank of fear or a great elk proud and defiant. He needed to kill and fill his belly with fresh meat and hot dark blood. His mouth began to water with the thought.”
“Winterfell, he thought. Theon left it burned and broken, but I could restore it. Surely his father would have wanted that, and Robb as well. They would never have wanted the castle left in ruins. You can't be the Lord of Winterfell, you're bastard-born, he heard Robb say again. And the stone kings were growling at him with granite tongues. You do not belong here. This is not your place." The irony in this is that it is his place. Jon has always been a Stark. Titles mean nothing, him being a bastard doesn't change that he was raised in the north, by Ned Stark in Winterfell, He’s a member of the nights watch, an order that was seen as honorable and sacred to northerners. He has a direwolf, the sigil of house Stark. And the most important thing for Jon's character is his mother, Lyanna Stark. It is her blood that matters and what connects him to the North. Just listen to this quote from Arya who is someone who looks and acts like Lyanna. "The Lannisters are proud," Jon observed. "You'd think the royal sigil would be sufficient, but no. He makes his mother's House equal in honor to the king's."
"The woman is important too!" Arya protested.
In the Winds of Winter I believe Jon will be king of Winterfell, but how do we get to that point? Jon at the end of A Dance With Dragons is left dead in the snow. Betrayed by his fellow Nights Watch brothers.
In the prologue of A Dance with Dragons we see that Varamyr sixskins tells us more about the lore of Skinchanging and Wargs. When Jon is in Ghost his mind will meld with Ghost becoming less human and more animal-like, like a predator. To bring back a quote from earlier in its entirety “He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. It was a hunger inside him, sharp as a dragonglass blade. A hunger… he could feel it. It was food he needed, prey, a red deer that stank of fear or a great elk proud and defiant. He needed to kill and fill his belly with fresh meat and hot dark blood. His mouth began to water with the thought.” This definitely evokes the image of a wolf.
Varamyr Sixsins in reference to not being able to take Ghost says this “Mance should have let me take the direwolf. There would be a second life worthy of a king.” A second life worthy of a king. Jon is going to have a chance at a second life when he is resurrected and he's going to be king.
How will Jon be when he returns for his second life? Well I think we have some hints. As I said before with Varamyr's prologue chapter “They say you forget,” Haggon had told him, a few weeks before his own death. “When the man’s flesh dies, his spirit lives on inside the beast, but every day his memory fades, and the beast becomes a little less a warg, a little more a wolf, until nothing of the man is left and only the beast remains.” So the longer he is in Ghost the more he will meld with him and that's a good and bad thing. Because Jon's physical body is dead he cannot go back in to stop this from happening.
Jojen warns Bran about this. "Bran the boy and Summer the wolf. You are two, then?" "Two," he sighed, "and one." He hated Jojen when he got stupid like this. At Winterfell he wanted me to dream my wolf dreams, and now that I know how he's always calling me back. "Remember that, Bran. Remember yourself, or the wolf will consume you.” Jon is wedding himself to Ghost the same way Daenerys wed herself to Drogon. “Wolves and women wed for life,” Haggon often said. “You take one, that’s a marriage. The wolf is part of you from that day on, and you’re part of him. Both of you will change.” “The flames writhed before her like the women who had danced at her wedding, whirling and singing and spinning their yellow and orange and crimson veils, fearsome to behold, yet lovely, so lovely, alive with heat. Dany opened her arms to them, her skin flushed and glowing. This is a wedding, too, she thought.”
I don’t believe Jon will be fully consumed by Ghost, but he will be stuck in Ghost long enough for a significant change. Beric Dondarion, Catelyn Stark, Robert Strong, all of these are people who have been resurrected and have changed. In George's own words regarding his back from the dead characters he says “My characters that come back from death are the worse for wear, in some ways they’re not even the same characters anymore.” Why people think Jon is exempt from this massive change makes no sense to me and is just massive cope. “He had a weirwood's eyes. Red eyes, red mouth, white fur. Blood and bone, like a heart tree. He belongs to the old gods, this one. And he alone of all the direwolves was white.”
"The smells are stronger in my wolf dreams, he reflected, and food tastes richer too. Ghost is more alive than I am."
I believe that when Jon comes back he will be similar to a Ulfhednar. Ulfhednar translates to wolf-skinners, they were believed to fight with the wild fury and strength of a wolf. Ulfhednar, were warriors who donned wolf skins and were said to embody the ferocity of wolves in combat, granting them enhanced fighting skills and an animalistic edge. They were known for their extraordinary fighting skills and heightened senses, agility, and reflexes, making them formidable opponents on the battlefield. Their connection to the wolf further amplified their ferocity, allowing them to channel the animal’s relentless hunting instincts and viciousness in combat. We see Jon's ferocity and strength well before his death.
“Outside, Jon looked up at the Wall shining in the sun, the melting ice creeping down its side in a hundred thin fingers. Jon's rage was such that he would have smashed it in an instant, and the world be damned.” (Jon VI, AGOT)
That morning he called it first. "I'm Lord of Winterfell!" he cried, as he had a hundred times before. Only 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. I thought I had forgotten that. Jon could taste blood in his mouth, from the blow he'd taken. In the end Halder and Horse has to pull him away from Iron Emmett, one man on either arm. The ranger sat on the ground dazed, his shield half in splinters, the visor of his helm knocked askew, and his sword six yards away. "Jon, enough," Halder was shouting. "He's down, you disarmed him. Enough!" No. Not enough. Never enough.
That was too much. Jon wrenched free of his friends and retreated to the armory, alone. His ears were still ringing from the blow Emmett had dealt him. He sat on the bench and buried his head in his hands. Why am I so angry? (Jon XII, ASOS)
"My lord is wise." Ser Alliser seized Jon by the arm. Jon yanked away and grabbed the knight by the throat with such ferocity that he lifted him off the floor. He would have throttled him if the Eastwatch men had not pulled him off. Thorne staggered back, rubbing the marks Jon's fingers had left on his neck. "You see for yourselves, brothers. The boy is a wildling." (Jon IX, ASOS
To bring Lyanna back into it and what she brings to Jon.
"You have a wildness in you, child. 'The wolf blood,' my father used to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it, and my brother Brandon more than a touch. It brought them both to an early grave."
A Warrior Who Knows No Fear
Val Corpse Queen
Jon’s corpse queen will be Val. She won’t become an Other or Wight though, she’s simply a stand in for the corpse queen, like I said Jon’s story is not a one to one. The corpse queen is described as having skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Val’s hair is described as honey blonde but in certain lights it’s said to look silver. Val’s eyes are bright blue. This in my opinion has a double meaning, it connects Val to the Corpse queen but also foreshadows Jon's future relationship to Daenerys. “Ghost emerged from between two trees, with Val beside him. They look as though they belong together. Val was clad all in white; white woolen breeches tucked into high boots of bleached white leather, white bearskin cloak pinned at the shoulder with a carved weirwood face, white tunic with bone fastenings. Her breath was white as well … but her eyes were blue, her long braid the color of dark honey, her cheeks flushed red from the cold. It had been a long while since Jon Snow had seen a sight so lovely.” And Jon likes Val which is pretty obvious.
“Lonely and lovely and lethal, Jon Snow reflected, and I might have had her. Her, and Winterfell, and my lord father's name. Instead he had chosen a black cloak and a wall of ice. Instead he had chosen honor. A bastard's sort of honor.”
“A warrior princess, he decided, not some willowy creature who sits up in a tower, brushing her hair and waiting for some knight to rescue her.”
He denies a chance at getting to her because he wants to uphold his vows but what vows are there to uphold if his death releases him from them. I imagine Jon when he comes back will be 100% more selfish and choose what he wants. He won't hold himself back.
The Freefolk way to court a woman is in line with how the Night’s King got his Corpse Queen. “Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her” In marriage, free folk men are expected to be forceful with women, going so far as stealing them from their home or clan. The women, in turn, are expected to put up a fight every step of the way. Jon will become a warrior who knows no fear who will chase, catch, and love Val.
I should also add that Melisandre will be his true Corpse Queen in terms of the magical aspect. Sort of a reverse Corpse Queen with fire.
Now how does Jon become King of the North? Pretty simply in my opinion. A lot of people think Sansa will be Queen but that's a show only invention that has very little evidence in the text. Let’s look at what Jon has going for him.
Is a man.
Is named heir in Robb’s will, which is both validated by co-signers and is in essence as binding as actual dogma. They know no king in the north except whose name is Stark. Jason Mallister, Galbart Glover, Maege Mormont, Greatjon Umber, and Edmure Tully. Every single person who was a witness to this is still alive for a reason.
Has proven himself capable of command, rising to one of the most respected positions (by the northerners) in all the realm, and having done so by age 16, which goes even further to show his competence.
Looks exactly like Ned, the person the northerners have loyalty to.
Will have even more good words put in for him if the Norrey and his boys tell everyone else that Jon advised Stannis to rally the mountain clans to retake the North.
You can take it even further and mention micro details that actual lords and men-at-arms—superstitious people—will give a shit about.
Jon has a Valyrian steel sword, a priceless article of weaponry, given to him by the late great Jeor Mormont, signifying his worthiness.
Jon has battle scars that fortify the medieval masculine ideal.
Jon’s direwolf is literally the color scheme of the northerners’ physical connection to their gods on earth.
And he could very well come back looking like Ghost
There’s nothing that can convince me that the hardened men of the North are gonna choose Southron Sansa over Northern Jon. All you have to do is look at Robb’s reasoning for making Jon heir and not some Vale lordling. "Jon's more a Stark than some lordlings from the Vale who have never so much as set eyes on Winterfell." And Sansa is likely gonna be married to someone from the Vale when she returns.
If we go back into the history of Westeros the Kings of Winter were harsh kings for a harsh time and we’re about to be in a very harsh time. Winter is coming.
"They were the Kings in the North for thousands of years," Maester Luwin said, lifting the torch high so the light shone on the stone faces. Some were hairy and bearded, shaggy men fierce as the wolves that crouched by their feet. Others were shaved clean, their features gaunt and sharp-edged as the iron longswords across their laps. "Hard men for a hard time. Come." He strode briskly down the vault, past the procession of stone pillars and the endless carved figures. A tongue of flame trailed back from the upraised torch as he went. The vault was cavernous, longer than Winterfell itself, and Jon had told him once that there were other levels underneath, vaults even deeper and darker where the older kings were buried.”
This also ties back to Jon thinking that he doesn’t belong in the crypts of Winterfell. He especially does belong now more than ever.
“He rose and dressed in darkness, as Mormont’s raven muttered across the room. “Corn,” the bird said, and, “King,” and, “Snow, Jon Snow, Jon Snow.” That was queer. The bird had never said his full name before, as best Jon could recall.”
So how does this go down? What is the last thing on Jon’s mind before he’s killed? Arya. Now we know Arya isn’t at Winterfell, but doesn’t.
“Your false king is dead, bastard. He and all his host were smashed in seven days of battle. I have his magic sword. Tell his red whore. Your false king's friends are dead. Their heads upon the walls of Winterfell. Come see them, bastard. Your false king lied, and so did you. You told the world you burned the King-Beyond-the-Wall. Instead you sent him to Winterfell to steal my bride from me. I will have my bride back. If you want Mance Rayder back, come and get him. I have him in a cage for all the north to see, proof of your lies. The cage is cold, but I have made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell. I want my bride back. I want the false king's queen. I want his daughter and his red witch. I want this wildling princess. I want his little prince, the wildling babe. And I want my Reek. Send them to me, bastard, and I will not trouble you or your black crows. Keep them from me, and I will cut out your bastard's heart and eat it. Ramsay Bolton,Trueborn Lord of Winterfell.”
Oh Ramsay, you are so cooked. Now there's some debate as to who wrote the pink letter. Was it really Ramsay? Or was it Mance Rayder? I think it's Mance. But I also think it doesn't really matter. The point is that it's supposed to make Jon want to go to Winterfell and it does. Jon announces in the Shieldhall he will march to Winterfell, many free folk volunteer to accompany him. After leaving the hall, he hears a scream and sees that Ser Patrek is dead and then, Jon is stabbed in the mutiny at Castle Black.
Let’s keep in mind that Jon is not alone. The freefolk are nearby and will likely find him immediately. I think they’ll put Jon in the ice cells as a way to preserve his body. The popular theory is that Shireen will be sacrificed to wake the stone dragon that is Jon, but I think that's stupid. 1. Because why would Stannis burn Shireen for Jon of all people? He’s not gonna be there and it completely undercuts Stannis’s arc for his sacrifice of Shireen, his daughter, to be about Jon. 2. This theory makes Melisandre Azor Ahai which no one seems to acknowledge for some reason. Azor Ahai will be reborn to wake dragons out of stone. If Jon is the dragon awoken from stone by Melisandre that makes Melisandre Azor Ahai.
Now I have two speculations on how Jon will be revived. Either Melisandre sacrifices Gilly's baby since that's a child Jon actually has a connection to. He’s the reason Monster is there because he threatened Gilly to leave him and the baby swap would come full circle. Or Bran can do some magic stuff or a third option is that the Others play a role in his resurrection. I’m most in line with the first one but I’m not opposed to Bran or the Others magical shenanigans.
I imagine Stannis will win the battle of ice. That battle will be fought while Jon is in his wolf warging session. Will it be a couple days? A week, a couple weeks. I don’t know, I'm leaning towards 3 days since George likes patterns and loves the number 3.
When Jon is resurrected he will be out for blood with one thing on his mind. Winterfell and Arya. I believe he’ll catch Val and get the free folk to go with him to Winterfell.
Jon will fight Ramsay like the Ulfhednar and his new found ferociousness will be the end of Ramsay. Instead of Ramsay eating Jon’s heart it’ll be Jon eating Ramsays heart. "They're dogs and he's a wolf," said Jon. "They know he's not their kind."
But how does this make him the Night’s King? What connects him to the Others?
The Others are described as shadows
“The cold gods. The ones in the night. The white shadows.”
“The white walkers of the wood, the cold shadows, the monsters of the tales that made him squeak and tremble as a boy, riding their giant ice-spiders, hungry for blood …”
“They're never far, you know. They won't come out by day, not when that old sun's shining, but don't think that means they went away. Shadows never go away.”
“The Other slid forward on silent feet”
“Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness”
“A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up … how do you fight a mist, crow? Shadows with teeth”
But the description of a shadow comes up for Jon and Ghost as well.
“Ghost ran with them, a white shadow at Jon’s side.”
“Jon did not fear for the direwolf so much as for any wildlings he might encounter. A white wolf in a white wood, silent as a shadow.”
“The flames crackled softly, and in their crackling she heard the whispered name Jon Snow. His long face floated before her, limned in tongues of red and orange, appearing and disappearing again, a shadow half-seen behind a fluttering curtain. Now he was a man, now a wolf, now a man again.”
“He was who he was; Jon Snow, bastard and oathbreaker, motherless, friendless, and damned. For the rest of his life—however long that might be—he would be condemned to be an outsider, the silent man standing in the shadows who dares not speak his true name.”
Here’s Melisandre talking about the Great Other
“Against him stands the Great Other whose name may not be spoken,”
“The one whose name may not be spoken”
“Speak not that name, ser.”
“Well, death is a bottomless pit of sorts, he reflected, and when this day’s work is done my name will be shadowed forever.” Very similar to the Night’s Kings name being erased “After his fall, when it was found he had been sacrificing to the Others, all records of Night's King had been destroyed, his very name forbidden.”
Another thing I want to bring up is this quote that's always brought up “Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist. As the dead men reached the top of the Wall he sent them down to die again.” Everyone seems to focus on the blade burning in his hand, but no one talks about him being armored in black ice. The only people that have ever been described to be armored in ice are the Others.
But what am I saying? Is Jon the true villain of A Song of Ice and Fire? No, and the reason for that is because the Others are not what we think they are. They are misunderstood and have been misaligned. George says that he’s not interested in a simple battle between good vs evil, but when he gets asked about the Others he says “you’ll have to keep reading.” According to George, the Others "are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the Sidhe made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous." They are not dead, they are just another race. I don’t believe that they are an “Other” , that's just the name that was given to them. Of course they were called “Others” by the First Men and the Andals.
They're described as Sidhe. So what is Sidhe? “These sídhe are referred to in English as 'fairy mounds', 'elf mounds'” In folk belief and practice, the aos sí are often appeased with offerings and care is taken to avoid angering or insulting them. Often, they are not named directly, but rather spoken of as "The Good Neighbours", "The Fair Folk", or simply "The Folk". The most common names for them, aos sí, aes sídhe, daoine sídhe mean, literally, "people of the mounds" . Which is similar to the Children of the Forests true name being Those Who Sing The Song of the Earth. The aos sí are generally described as stunningly beautiful, though they can also be terrible and hideous. Which goes back to George calling them beautiful and elegant but also inhuman and dangerous.
Aos sí are seen as fierce guardians of their abodes—whether a fairy hill, a fairy ring, a special tree or a particular loch or wood. It is believed that infringing on these spaces will cause the aos sí to retaliate in an effort to remove the people or objects that invaded their homes. Many of these tales contribute to the changeling myth in west European folklore, with the aos sí kidnapping trespassers or replacing their children with changelings as a punishment for transgressing. The most important thing to remember about these entities is that even if they don’t appear scary at first, or even seem enticing, they are terrible, fearsome creatures who are angry at the world of men who forced them into their fairy mounds when they used to roam Ireland freely.
Here is a poem about them.
“The Hosts of Faery,”
Riders of the Sidhe, by John Duncan, 1911
The Hosts of Faery
translated by Kuno Meyer
"White shields they carry in their hands,
With emblems of pale silver;
With glittering blue swords,
With mighty stout horns.
In well-devised battle array,
Ahead of their fair chieftain
They march amid blue spears,
Pale-visaged, curly-headed bands.
They scatter the battalions of the foe,
They ravage every land they attack,
Splendidly they march to combat,
A swift, distinguished, avenging host!
No wonder though their strength be great:
Sons of queens and kings are one and all;
On their heads are
Beautiful golden-yellow manes.
With smooth comely bodies,
With bright blue-starred eyes,
With pure crystal teeth,
With thin red lips.
Good they are at man-slaying,
Melodious in the ale-house,
Masterly at making songs,
Skilled at playing fidchell."
The aos sí are often connected to certain times of year and hours; as the Gaelic Otherworld is believed to come closer to the mortal world at the times of dusk and dawn, the aos sí correspondingly become easier to encounter.
There is an imbalance in the world regarding the seasons. We know that the seasons in Westeros are odd and unpredictable. Some summers last 10 years while winters last 4 years. And George has said the reason for this is magical, not scientific. The Others are trying to rectify this. Now this doesn’t mean the Others are wholly good. They're still fickle fairy/elf creatures, but I believe that Jon is our gateway to truly knowing the Others. What made me believe this and write this whole theory is a specific line in a Jon chapter. “I do not know how you observe guest right on your mountain, ser. In the north we hold it sacred. Wun Wun is a guest here.” Ser Patrek smiled. “Tell me, Lord Commander, should the Others turn up, do you plan to offer hospitality to them as well?” and that got me thinking, what if Jon does offer them hospitality? Jon is the only one who actually wants to understand the Others. It also made me curious about guest rights and its origins. Guest right is an ancient and sacred custom in Westeros, going back thousands of years to the First Men. When invoked, neither the guest nor the host can harm the other for the length of the guest's stay. For either to do so would be to break a sacred covenant that is believed to invoke the wrath of the gods, both old and new.
The concept of the Law of Hospitality is actually quite old, going all the way back to Ancient Greece. Hospitium was the concept of hospitality concerning the divine right of the guest and a divine duty of the host. When a stranger arrived at a place he would be offered shelter, food, and entertainment. No questions concerning his name, his purpose, or even of his family were to be made until the laws of hospitality had been fulfilled. The idea was that if either the host or the guest were to break the laws of hospitality and turn on the other as enemies, they would be punished by the wrath of the gods. Many folktales mention Fae who become irritated or even angry if humans break these laws, as well as talking about cruel Faerie Folk who do everything in their power to circumvent the rules without actually breaking them. I think that the concept of guest right was something the first men learned from the Others.
Another thing that bothers me is the construction of the Wall. It’s said all the races came together to build it. Giants, humans, children of the forest, but how did they make this massive wall of ice? At first you can chalk it up to the magic of the children. They used magic to destroy the arm of Dorne. But so far in the story we haven't seen them use ice magic. George says this about the Others. “The Others can do things with ice that we can't imagine and make substances of it." I don't think it's farfetched to assume that they helped in the wall's construction. Now why would they help with their own land being cut off? That's something we’ll have to learn. Or it could be that their magic was used against them.
The last thing I will bring up is Jon’s connection to the Holly King and Bran's connection to the Oak King. In folklore The Oak King and The Holly King are brothers, The Oak King is the ruler of the summer, of light, fertility, and growth. The Holly King is the ruler of winter, darkness, and death. These brothers meet for battle twice a cycle, to fight for the Crown of the Year, and both times the one is dethroned as the other succeeds. When The Oak King takes the crown early in the year, the days are long, the crops grow tall, and new life is brought into the world; when The Holly King ascends towards the year’s end, long days are replaced by long nights, crops do not grow, and many living things perish in the cold. The dethroning of each King is inevitable, just as the seasons are. This ties back to the connection of magic and the seasons in A Song of Ice and Fire “The aos sí are often connected to certain times of year and hours; as the Gaelic Otherworld is believed to come closer to the mortal world at the times of dusk and dawn, the aos sí correspondingly become easier to encounter.”
Though his associations are death, darkness and cold, The Holly King should not be thought of as a villain, for he is needed just as much as his brother. Life could not bloom without death, and some creatures need the dark and cold to thrive. So what if this story about the Night’s King that we are told isn’t the full truth? History is told by the winners.
