no one was sweating harder than the seven kingdoms watching every heir drop like flies while aerion kept getting closer and closer to the line of succession
this passage from jon xiii, adwd is one of the most crucial and carefully constructed passages necessary for understanding jon’s character. his themes, values, motivations, and the people who have cemented themselves in his worldview all come to a head in this moment.
for context, jon has just received ramsay bolton’s letter informing him that his plans to steal “arya stark” had failed. mance and the spearwives have been captured, stannis is supposedly dead, and, most dammingly, “arya stark” has escaped her marriage. ramsay threatens jon and the night’s watch, promising to cut out jon’s heart if he does not return “arya” along with several other people. remember that jon had already associated arya with his heart when melisandre first proposed rescuing her, because this is a connection that informs how he will proceed.
tormund asks jon what he means to do. jon flexes his sword hand and george runs him through the major formative phrases and relationships in his arc before the breaking point. the passage follows a deliberate pattern: an important phrase, warning, lesson is followed by the memory that embodies or challenges it.
the night’s watch takes no part.
words that belong not to him, but the watch’s doctrine, jeor mormont’s warnings, and the institutional framework jon has been trying to operate in and uphold. here he can’t summon l his own resistance; instead it’s the dogma of the institution he recites, attempting to suppress the feelings that threaten to overwhelm him. george marks his first line of defense against collapse with borrowed language, suggesting that his resistance doesn’t rest in a conviction he can fully claim as his own.
the ensuing action is jon opening and closing his fist, the burned hand that acts as an unforgettable reminder of the true battle and struggle he has learned to be paramount. it recalls the wight attack, the ever looming presence of the others, the coming eternal winter. the realm will not care about one little girl when the threat of humanity is at its doorstep, and the watch is desperately unprepared to handle it. yet this reminder does not sway jon. his heart still prevails.
what you propose is nothing less than treason.
this warning echos jon’s first desertion attempt in AGOT, when he sought to join robb’s war against the lannisters and avenge ned. it is immediately followed by jon thinking of robb with snowflakes melting in his hair. the last trace of innocence that belonged to them both.
now there is treason against the watch. treason against his vows, responsibility, and the identity jon has spent months crafting as lord commander. the last time jon felt this pull of family over duty, he stopped himself, chose the watch, and robb died anyway. what then, has that loyalty accomplished? it’s not lost on the reader that robb’s own death came through betrayal. both robb and jon struggle as leaders isolated by responsibility, surrounded by followers who they miscommunicated with, and decrescent loyalties that eventually fracture. here, george reminds us of the real consequences of the choice that jon is about to make. but the heart is all that matters.
kill the boy and let the man be born.
abandon childish attachments. your only family is the watch now. become the man who can face winter.
but what follows is memories of bran and rickon and sansa in moments of domesticity. memories of spring that will never come by again. bran climbing before the fall, rickon’s laughter and joy before family is ripped away from him, sansa with lady before lady’s murder. jon remembers them as they were when they were most fully themselves, lives suspended in a past sacrificed to duty.
maester aemon’s advice was meant to make this burden bearable, to give jon the strength to do what duty demands. but it could not spare him from the grief of losing the family he had already renounced. jon returns to these words as he makes his greatest decisions, trying to let go and grow into the lord commander the realm requires. he cannot help them, he has a new purpose now.
yet the boy never fully dies. the memories remain, still exacting their price. they wounded him, but they didn’t break him because he had already done the work of resolving to be the man his duty demanded. and still, the heart shines through. he cannot let go. but can the man find the courage to forswear what he had committed?
you know nothing jon snow.
ygritte’s words function differently from what came before. they’re not an institutional creed, or accumulated family memory, but as the voice of someone who loved him and died. they challenge his certainty rather than his duty.
and then there’s arya, her hair tangled as a bird’s nest.
ygritte’s words arrive attached to arya’s image in reason. arya, who jon saw so much of in ygritte. the memory of jon’s lost love is linked to the memory of the sister whose imagined suffering immediately overwhelms every principal that has restrained him. he knows nothing about where this feeling is taking him. he knew nothing when he loved ygritte. he knew nothing when he chose duty over her. he knew nothing when she died in his arms.
now he imagines a similar cold fate awaiting arya if he does not act. the responsibility he feels for both of their tragedies intersects with the guilt, fear, and love to collapse into one single image: ramsay bolton, who makes cloaks of the skins of women. ramsay bolton who wants his bride.
at this, jon can no longer hold the line.
the arguments for obligation, the grief of loss and resignation to duty, buckle at the thought of his beloved sister in the clutches of a man who brutalizes women for sport. ramsay’s words, “i want my bride back” hammer through every defense jon has built in his arc.
the night’s watch takes no part. what you propose is nothing less than treason > i want my bride back.
kill the boy and let the man be born > i want my bride back.
you know nothing jon snow > i want my bride back.
arya is the final image in the sequence, the heart that ramsay has swore to cut out, and thus, jon makes his decision, the only decision he believes he could make, and love as the death of his duty to the watch. the heart is all that matters.
in the passage, we explore one of jon’s defining internal conflicts: love versus duty, and the price he is willing to pay when he abandons one for the other. more importantly, we learn of the price jon is not willing to pay.
george guides the reader through the core lessons that have shaped jon snow. the life of loyalty he surrendered to the night’s watch in order to guard the realm. the impending threat of the others and the mythical long night. the need to grow up and make impossible, and even morally dubious choices for the better of the realm and the watch. the life lived beyond the wall and westeros’ political web, confronted with the lived experiences of those once believed to be enemies, a life unconfined by vows and borders.
we see the many voices that taught jon how to bear that burden, and what can exist outside it. he recalls the memories of home and the past that tether him to his humanity, his lost family, his lost love, and the relationships that continue to define him.
each reminder is meant to steady him and pull him towards duty, but instead, each one ultimately leads him to the same place. his heart and home, arya stark. the final memory, and the one he can’t surrender. arya, the person he is unable to let go. in the end, nothing built or promised can outweigh the thought of her in ramsay bolton’s hands, and it is his love for her that drives him to paths once he rejected.
Thinking about it, I’m pretty sure my ancestors would be horrified with me.
Not because I’m lazy or unworthy or anything like that…
…but because one of my distant uncles was among the eight survivors of the Essex, the ship that inspired the ending of Moby Dick and sank after being rammed by a whale, and what do I fuckin do after my bloodline has this Ordeal at Sea?
I get a fuckin degree in Marine Science and go back the fuck out there.
He'd survived aliens, rogue AIs, terrorist organizations, multiverse collapses, even fighting fucking Gods—and a regular ol' bullet to the brain was what was going to kill Tony Stark in the end.
It was a Tuesday, just another day in the week, in a nothing month in a fairly boring year, to be honest. The Earth was churning on nicely, with no major catastrophic events, no major wars, just regular old global warming and overpopulation.
Tony was headed downtown for a lunch meeting he didn't particularly care to attend, not that it was anything new, either. These days, he'd much rather be up in the Tower working away on his latest suit refinements, or distracting Peter while he frantically wrapped up his postdoc.
Alas, one does not say no to an old enemy turned coworker turned friend turned state senator, and if James Buchanan Barnes was trying to be a real boy, tie and all, who was Tony to stand in the way?
Jarvis pinged him, and Tony sighed, leaning back against the leather car seat and opening the channel.
"Whatcha got?"
"Intercepted some troubling messages regarding Mr. Barnes, Sir."
Tony raised one eyebrow. "Do tell."
"Not everyone is pleased with an ex-assassin representing them in the Senate."
"That's old news."
"Yes, however, it seems that it's gone from disgruntled online denizens to real-life gatherings. One of which looks to be in your location today, actually."
"Intriguing. Are they hoping to be the one to off our Winter Soldier? So many have tried."
"And failed. It appears their phones are pinging near the rear entrance to the restaurant, Sir."
"Maybe this lunch won't be as boring as I feared. Give Bucky a heads up, won't you, Jarvis."
Tony adjusted his cuffs as the car pulled to a stop in front of the building and pasted on a smile. It should be fine, just a political meet-and-greet as he gave his official approval to Bucky and then maybe stopped an assassination attempt. He'd be back in the Tower for dinner.
That, as it turned out, was maybe a touch too optimistic.
One hour and a sub-par steak frites later, Tony found himself with a gun to his temple and an arm around his throat.
The restaurant was chaos around them. Diners huddled beneath overturned tables, a woman screaming near the front door, and a half dozen of Bucky's security detail angling to get a clean shot. Broken glass crunched underfoot as the man with his hands on Tony pulled them backwards a little. He stank like cheap cologne.
Two other attackers lay nearby, one with a knife through the throat and the other sprawled across a collapsed table with three gunshots in his chest. Tony wasn't sure why Bucky even bothered hiring his own security if he could work twice as fast.
The former assassin stood about fifteen feet away, his gun trained on the last man in the room. Years of training had smoothed the emotion from his face, but Tony knew him well enough to recognize the tension beneath it, his breathing deliberately slow as he forced himself not to act.
As Cheap Cologne gave the gun another sharp shove against Tony's head, his eyes snagged on Bucky's shirt and the spreading red stain there. He hadn't realized one of the bullets had found its target.
With barely a thought, nanites slipped silently from beneath the cuff of his jacket, flowing across his skin and onto the stranger's before burrowing in and vanishing without a trace. The nanotech raced upward like silver veins along his forearm and neck.
Tony felt the pressure around his throat tighten, fingers spasming before the man's knees buckled and he hit the floor with a dull crack that echoed through the suddenly silent restaurant.
For one shocked moment, nobody moved; then Bucky was there.
He reached Tony almost before the man had finished collapsing, one hand catching Tony's shoulder while the other swept his pistol back toward the dining room. His eyes flicked across the room in rapid assessment before he turned back and pushed Tony backward.
"Move," he ordered.
Tony let Bucky hustle him through the swinging kitchen doors, and they didn't stop moving until they'd reached a narrow concrete hallway near the loading docks.
Bucky turned him around, hands catching Tony's jaw with surprising gentleness as he turned his head first one way, then the other. His fingers searched along Tony's hairline, behind his ears, down the side of his neck before moving to his shoulders, his ribs, checking for injuries that weren't there.
"You hit?"
"No. Bucky—"
"You lose consciousness?"
"No, I'm fine, look—"
"Can you breathe properly?"
"James."
Blue eyes snapped to his, and they both froze in place.
"You're the one bleeding," Tony said softly.
There was the faintest tremor running through Bucky's fingers where they still rested against Tony's neck. He'd seen this man get shot, stabbed, and blown through walls, but he'd never seen him look this shaken.
"Gosh, Barnes," Tony said, voice gone soft without his input, "I didn't know you cared."
That was a lie, and they both knew it.
Tony gently pulled Bucky's shirt from his slacks and undid the buttons to reveal a slowly seeping wound on his side, far enough from anything vital to not be life-threatening. He felt a slow burn of anger at the sight.
"Come back to the Tower, I'll patch you up."
"I don't live there anymore, Tony."
Tony sighed heavily, head coming down to rest on Bucky's shoulder, the comedown of adrenaline turning his mouth copper and heart shaky.
"I know, just come back for now. For me. I don't want you trying to fish out a bullet on your kitchen counter."
"It's a through-and-through."
Tony pulled back, huffing in exasperation, watching Bucky as his eyes flicked down to his mouth and back again. "Can we not argue, just this once?"
"But I like it," Bucky said quietly, a rare smile creasing the corners of his eyes.
Tony shook his head slightly before turning them toward the loading docks and pinging Jarvis to bring the car around.
i don’t want to be angry anymore i’m never going to hate again unless someone says something really stupid or if i see something i don’t like at all or maybe just whenever i feel like it
national "bite your boyfriend to distract him from work" day.
(Tony insists such a holiday doesn't exist.)
Just a quick scribble that I am posting before I can obsess about it being so rough.
so hard not to become the most annoying person on earth if you're a little excitable and just learned a little about a topic literally no one around you has any interest in
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