Three Grossly Misunderstood GOT S7 Scenes (By a Small Portion of the Fandom)
1) “Touch my sister and I’ll kill you myself.”
Now, as many of you are aware, a certain part of the fandom likes to interpret this and other angry Jon Snow scenes as - Jon is jealous/gets angry whenever someone mentions Sansa and therefore, he must be in love with her in a non-brotherly way.
But let’s recap what went on during this scene. Prior to Baelish mentioning Sansa, he riles Jon up by bringing up Lady Catelyn (the woman who hated him and treated him horribly growing up) and reminds Jon of how she didn’t like him. This is a painful thing from Jon’s memories as he always wanted to be a trueborn Stark so right off the bat, these two aren’t headed for a peaceful ending to their encounter.
Next, Baelish smugly tells Jon it was really him and not Jon who won back Winterfell in the Battle of the Bastards and that Jon should give him a little gratitude. Gratitude. Gratitude for the guy who sold his sister to the Boltons to be raped and beaten and then showed up LATE to the battle (costing Jon the lives of thousands of men and a friend - Wun Wun), didn’t even do any fighting himself, and he has the audacity to ask for gratitude? Yeah, so now Jon is really really mad.
Lastly, Baelish casually mentions, right as Jon is getting ready to leave the country (as, you know, the North has kinda annexed itself), leaving his little sister, his only surviving family that he knows of alone with his fucking creep, he tells Jon he loves Sansa just as he loved her mother. Now if anyone’s trying to say Jon didn’t know how Baelish loved Cat, please. Baelish fought Jon’s uncle Brandon for Cat’s hand and almost died. Jon knew. And then to say he now is in love with Sansa…this guy who is wayyyyy too old for her…yes of course it pisses Jon off! Baelish basically says “I want to fuck your sister and pretend she’s the woman who abused you as a child.” Any brother who just walks away from that or only gives the man in question a stern verbal warning is a horrible brother. My brother would kick someone’s ass for saying something like that about me and he’s my little brother. Jon has felt responsible for Sansa since she came seeking shelter from Ramsay back in season 6. If anything happened to her while he was gone on his diplomatic mission (Sansa getting raped by Baelish), he would feel responsible. So, just to deter Baelish from poking his petyr where it doesn’t belong, he threatens him in a classical Jon move that actually, a little bit, echoes this scene:
This one is pretty simple. Tyrion is, for all intents and purposes, a friend, to Jon. They’re on good enough terms with each other that they can do a little name calling when they first see each other again. This is a highly different scene from the one Jon has with Baelish. And, of course, Tyrion is trying to reassure Jon that his marriage to Sansa was only for show and Tyrion isn’t the kind of guy who would force himself on a fifteen year old. Jon saying “I didn’t ask” when Tyrion tells him the marriage was unconsummated is an interesting comment here because it tells us two things: 1) Sansa didn’t tell Jon her marriage with Tyrion wasn’t consummated (if she had, he would have said something reassuring to Tyrion like, I know, Sansa told me, thanks for not being a dick). and 2) Jon, liking Tyrion, wasn’t really concerned about whether or not Sansa and Tyrion had sex. If he had been even the least bit concerned, he would have said something like “Good” or even “thank the gods.” But, as Jon is not in love with his sister and doesn’t care about who she’s had sex with in the past, he says “I didn’t ask.” Because, let’s face it, it would be creepy for a brother to want to know who his sister’s sexual partners have been.
3) “What you did for her is the only reason I’m not killing you.”
First, let’s give this scene some context. This scene takes place near the end of 7x04 so Jon has been on Dragonstone, presumably, for a few weeks now. Back at Winterfell both Bran and Arya have come home now however, Jon doesn’t know this yet. When he receives the scroll from Sansa in 7x05, he tells the war council “I thought Arya was dead. I thought Bran was dead.” So as of the above scene with Theon, Jon thinks that his only surviving family in the whole world is Sansa.
Now let’s back up. Back in season 2, Theon was sent by Robb to parlay with his father Balon in order to obtain an alliance with the Iron Islands. However, as we all know, Theon betrays Robb, losing him an ally and gaining the North a foe. Winterfell is lost, Deepwood Motte, etc. The ironborn reek havoc on the North, Bran and Rickon are displaced, eventually leading to Rickon’s death (because he sought shelter and protection with the traitorous Umbers). It doesn’t help the North’s war against the Lannisters either as it places Roose Bolton in the position that eventually allies him with the Lannisters and betraying Robb at the Red Wedding.
So all because of Theon, Jon lost both his brothers for sure and possibly Bran though he doesn’t have complete confirmation of that (he just knows because of Sam that Bran is beyond The Wall where he is likely dead). Theon’s done a lot of stupid shit. He knows this and even fears Jon killing him back in season 2 when he first took Winterfell when Maester Lewin urged him to give up the castle and take the black. “What, so Jon Snow can slit my throat in my sleep?” None of that at the time had anything to do with Sansa, it all had to do with Robb, Rickon, Bran, Winterfell and the welfare fo the North.
Fastforward to Sansa arriving at Castle Black and being reunited with Jon. Though we never get a scene between the two talking about it, we can assume Jon knows what all Ramsay did to her or he at least has a good idea of what he did to her, Sansa telling him before the Battle of the Bastards, “I’m not going back there alive.” She wouldn’t tell him this unless really horrific things had happened to her, which they did. But, Jon also knows that Theon was the one who got her out of there. As evidenced by the scene above, the “what you did for her,” part of that line.
However, Jon’s anger at Theon here has absolutely NOTHING to do with Theon mentioning Sansa. Why on earth would it? Theon saved her. Jon’s not mad at him for saving her. He’s not mad at Theon for mentioning her. He’s mad at Theon for all the shit he did to the Stark family in the past. So, while Jon believes Theon should die for the things he did to Bran, Rickon, and Robb, he doesn’t kill him. 1) - probably because Theon is Dany’s ally and Jon’s on her island being given free reign to take and use her resources so he doesn’t want to screw up their arrangement regarding the dragonglass. And 2) Though Theon fucked the Starks over years ago, he has suffered at the hands of the same man who tortured Sansa and Theon did selflessly work to save Sansa (knowing if Ramsay would have caught them both, he would have done something horrific to Theon) and get her into safe hands - Brienne’s.
In this scene, Jon is not acting a crazy jealous lover, going berserk every time someone says his sister’s name. He’s showing his well justified anger at the man that singlehandedly had part in the murder of his two brothers and the taking of his home. OF COURSE he’s angry seeing Theon. But because Theon saved Jon’s (up to this episode) only living relative, he lets him go free. But that doesn’t mean he’s not gonna take a little of his anger out on Theon. Jon’s got a little of that dragon in him and seeing Theon woke it.
