@ghostinwinterfell YES so alliser very much represents The Old Guard the same way bowen does - out of touch, not even teaching the next generation anything useful, entitled, afraid of change and what he doesn't understand, strict adherence to the old system. he was a stubborn holdout for the targaryens, long past when most people had switched sides during the rebellion.
so my thought here is that like - these two paragons of stubborn clinging to The Old Ways ultimately come to a head because alliser does not approve of the mutiny and cannot see why bowen ever thought he would approve of it. bowen will say it's for the watch, and alliser will not buy it at all. bowen is essentially bucking the status quo by mutinying & imo this would be even worse than anything jon was trying to do. so he just executes bowen for disloyalty, then moves on to hold a new vote for the lord commander, helping settle down the tensions at castle black....only for jon's body to walk off out of nowhere (or however its gonna happen).
I think it's delicious in terms of bowen's ending because he's doing this for men like alliser but the men like alliser don't appreciate it, they would have preferred nothing than this. and bowen makes it a point to not eat of jon's food - he's a traitor but not a godsdamned traitor. these things are important to bowen, and i think the idea that alliser doesn't agree with him would really shake him just before his death. contrast, i think it's a more interesting place to take alliser - he isn't a good master at arms, he's not a good brother, but he's in the right place at the right time & manages to rise to the ocassion insofar as defusing the mutiny & making sure jon's faction doesn't get slaughtered wholesale. he's not a great man, he's not even a good one, or even a mediocre one...but he has his limits on bad behavior, and his own moral code!
