Is she still my sister? Was she ever?
This passage is interesting when thinking about Jon’s relationship with identity, his family, and Arya. I see this line brought up when people make jokes about Jon wanting to fuck his sister, but I think there is some merit in how Jon’s ambiguous relationship with Arya could evolve in the future. I’m only rambling, so feel free to add on or question my thoughts.
The chapter opens up with musings on the stars which I love. We get references to the Dayne’s, stallions, Ice Dragon, the fandom favorite and Moon Maiden. The Red Wanderer acts as a reference to Dany’s comet, but with the context of stealing in Jon’s arcs I think of Melisandre. Melisandre as a Red Wanderer who shows Jon the girl in grey, the Moon Maid, to gear him up to steal Ramsay’s bride. And of course Jon begins to consider Melisandre’s offer seriously when the moon kisses his shadow, and the Thief offers him the girl in grey.
Now we go back to the original passage. Jon starts by denying any romantic intent in the act of Ygritte. This is a girl he showed mercy to after she reminded him of Arya (a character most associated with Mercy ;) and the paths those will bring) but for Jon this was only an act of honor. Stealing to the wildings, however, is a romantic act that is expected and praised to strengthen the claim and prove one’s worth.. George even uses it as a romantic act in other aspects of the story with Bael the Bars and the Stark maiden, Rhaegar and Lyanna, and even Peter and Sansa, though with them, the act is subverted as a show of falsehood. In ASOIAF, stealing a woman for their love is not always an honorable decision, but it is a tale to swoon over.
Ygritte and the others like Tormund, continuously emphasize that since Jon has stolen her, he has rights to her as his woman, and that they’re a pair, two hearts that beat as one. Indeed the two begin their romantic and sexual relationship in this chapter. With this context, and with how in dance Ramsay explicitly accuses Jon of stealing his bride, an effort Jon did attempt with mance and has plans to further pursue himself, I’m interested in how the sequence follows with Jon questioning his familial role tie to Arya. The denial of a romantic claim leads to the examination of a familial claim.
Jon compares Ygritte’s stubbornness to Arya, her insistence on their claim over each other. Arya and Jon’s claim over each other as family should be undisputed right? But no, Jon immediately goes to question his relationship to Arya, his identity as a Stark. One big theme across ASOS is identity, and many characters undergo an identity crisis. Here Jon’s crisis is explicitly tied to Arya. When he questions whether she’s still his sister, whether despite everything he can still call her that, and whether he was ever his sister, if that role ever applied to her, his identity as a Stark, a Wilding, and a Night’s Watch brother decussate and unravel. If Arya isn’t his sister, who is he? what is he? Jon says that he was never a Stark, only Ned’s bastard with as much a place in the Stark household as Theon, Ned’s hostage ward. An outsider to dangle at the perimeter but never truly belong. But with how closely intimate and familiar he was with Arya, and how welcome she made him feel, can we say this is completely true?
Jon questions his bond with Arya from the past to the future; if the role “little sister” still holds going forward, and if it ever truly applied at all. There is no room for Arya as his sister and Jon’s tie to the Stark family fully dissolves. It’s an interesting progression given how Jon and Arya are such pillars of each other’s identity. Is there any room for Arya to be his little sister? Is there any room for Jon as a Stark, a Wilding, a Brother of the Watch? Not to mention Jon’s character defining crypt nightmares that admonish him for not belonging as a Stark, for being an anomaly the way his mother’s crypt is also an anomaly… so much identity porn.
Jon designates himself as a motherless bastard, an illegitimate thing with no claim to home, but if Arya was his little sister, could he comfortably lay claim to the Starks as family? Funny how in the same book Arya thinks about how with the knowledge of Jon’s mother, he’d have to call her something other than little sister. The readers know that Arya was never his blood sister, but the characters are already mentally growing apart that label.
Arya herself is growing and evolving from that pure little sister role into something greater and more actualized. You could write a whole essay on her identity issues (and the way Jon plays into them) but it’s been discussed to death so I won’t bother. I can say how an older Arya reunited with Jon will challenge his perception of her, and what he’s done in her name. We can see hints of it in his ADWD arc.
By the time Jon gets news of fArya’s marriage to Ramsay, he’s reverted back to referring to Arya as his little sister. Arya who spurs him to action after he’s rejected the offers to claim his dreams of Winterfell. That’s why Melisandre uses Arya when approaching Jon. She knows how important Arya is to him, she knows that Arya will move him the way even his deepest desires won’t. And shes’s right. Jon rejects Stannis, but listens to Melisandre.
The Thief in the Moon Maid is the best time to steal, her eyes were two red stars, the moon has kissed you, a girl in grey on a dying horse, coming here to you. Arya.
When Arya isn’t Jon’s sister, who is he? Jon doesn’t know. But when Arya is Jon’s sister again, we see the man he is. Not just avowed to the Watch, nor just a brother to the Starks, but a man who would steal his sister from her husband. When we ask what is truest to Jon’s self, we see it when he chooses mercy for a girl who reminds him of Arya, and steals her and then again when he breaks his vows to steal a girl who he believes to be Arya.
Doesn’t it seem intentional? When Arya returns to that familial category in Jon’s mind, he prepares to do an act that is textually coded as romantic. When I think of this moment I think of Jon acting in agency for himself by going against his Night’s Watch allegiances and acting in accordance to Wilding customs, and therefore coming closer to reclaiming his identity, his home, and Arya. All for Arya. It’s where we see his most selfish passions shine through after his resigned almost depressive disposition prior to learning of Arya’s marriage. By centering Arya, Jon comes closer to accepting the Stark identity he’s coveted for himself. After resurrection, he’ll act. But of course he’ll realize his magical identity and purpose too.
In the passage we see Jon going to Ghost who he’s noticed to be more fond of heights. Jon wonders what Ghost sees when he looks at the sky, and the She-Wolf is one of Jon’s chosen names. Ghost seeing the She-Wolf in the sky, the Thief in Moon Maid being best for stealing, Ghost being charmed by Melisandre when she offers him the girl in grey…
Ghost doesn’t need to howl or announce himself, he just is what he is. Ghost whose third eye had been opened by Bran atop the Wall. Ghost who drinks in the moonless sky and takes the stars as they are. Ghost who knows himself, his pack, and isn’t bogged down by institutional obligations. Jon as the wolf who understands what the man cannot. And Jon sends Ghost away.
Through Storm, Jon wanders farthest from his Stark identity, and falls further into the culture of the woman he falls in love with, a woman who reminds him of Arya. The culture he calls back to when making a romantically coded decision to steal Arya back from Ramsay. A decision that leads to his death, but when he resurrects he’ll have the tools to fully realize himself and what he wants and needs to be. One with his wolf, one with Winterfell, his family, his legacy, and Arya. It’s so good!
When Arya reunites with him as the fully embodied person she will be, fully equipped with her history and experience and confidence and Jon with the changes of resurrection and his fixation on her, it’ll be interesting to see how that interrogation of the family connection between them comes to a head. So could a resurrected Jon with all the tools and perspectives from the roles he’s played and the cultures he’s embodied trust his instincts and handle the implications of his actions regarding Arya, his focused intensity on her… and could Arya herself be open to that?
I’m not sure, but George has put a lot of thought into this relationship and the ambiguity only grows.
(and Ygritte asking Jon if he’d bed his own sister, something he doesn’t even fully answer is so… Longspear Ryk isn’t Ygritte’s brother… by Jon’s own metric Arya would be open 🤔)
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