Get in loser, Janos Slynt is losing his head.
He almost burned the parchment then and there. Instead he took a sip of ale, the dregs of the half cup that remained from his solitary supper the night before.
The lead-up to this is going to be worse than the Red Wedding.
When Gilly entered, she went at once to her knees. Jon came around the table and drew her to her feet. "You don't need to take a knee for me. That's just for kings."
ha HA, get it? Jon's going to be exiled.
Is it Mance? Val begged the king to spare him. She said she'd let some kneeler marry her and never slit his throat if only Mance could live.
George puts a lot of thought and consideration into naming his characters, because he wants the names to perfectly embody the spirit of the character.
That's why Val has the most boring insipid name in the story.
"Refuse, and the boy will burn. Not on the morrow, nor the day after … but soon, whenever Melisandre needs to wake a dragon or raise a wind or work some other spell requiring king's blood. Mance will be ash and bone by then, so she will claim his son for the fire, and Stannis will not deny her. If you do not take the boy away, she will burn him."
We already know Mance is a dead man, but that's pretty much confirming it, yeah?
Only one royal left to burn.
"A mother can't leave her son, or else she's cursed forever. Not a son. We saved him, Sam and me. Please. Please, m'lord. We saved him from the cold."
Included the italics on son. Strange.
Of course Craster's wives/daughters did leave all their sons (no judgment), so I'm not sure what's being implied here.
Craster's blood is black, and he bears a heavy curse. - Jon III, ASOS
"Men say that freezing to death is almost peaceful. Fire, though … do you see the candle, Gilly?"
She looked at the flame. "Yes."
"Touch it. Put your hand over the flame."
Her big brown eyes grew bigger still. She did not move.
"Do it." Kill the boy. "Now."
If you chant this three times in front of a mirror Bowen Marsh appears.
Gilly lowered her hand. An inch. Another. When the flame licked her flesh, she snatched her hand back and began to sob.
"Fire is a cruel way to die. Dalla died to give this child life, but you have nourished him, cherished him. You saved your own boy from the ice. Now save hers from the fire."
It's Gilly's Song of Ice and Fire!
Here's a guy that's definitely going to be down to fuck a woman who burns populated cities to the ground.
"Your son has no king's blood. Melisandre gains nothing by giving him to the fire. Stannis wants the free folk to fight for him, he will not burn an innocent without good cause. Your boy will be safe. I will find a wet nurse for him and he'll be raised here at Castle Black under my protection. He'll learn to hunt and ride, to fight with sword and axe and bow. I'll even see that he is taught to read and write." Sam would like that. "And when he is old enough, he will learn the truth of who he is. He'll be free to seek you out if that is what he wants."
Unless she's buried under Winterfell.
I'm guilty of forgetting this is not meant to be a short-term separation. Brutal.
Samwell Tarly turned up a few moments later, clutching a stack of books.
We've already been shown this conversation in Samwell's first AFFC chapter, so I won't cover it all again.
The raven did its best to peck through his palm. Sam yowled, the bird flapped off, corn scattered. "Did that wretch break the skin?" Jon asked.
Sam gingerly removed his glove. "He did. I'm bleeding."
"We all shed our blood for the Watch. Wear thicker gloves."
There isn't a single POV I'm looking forward to.
"At Winterfell, Tommen fought my brother Bran with wooden swords," Jon said, remembering. "He wore so much padding he looked like a stuffed goose. Bran knocked him to the ground." He went to the window and threw the shutters open. The air outside was cold and bracing, though the sky was a dull grey. "Yet Bran's dead, and pudgy pink-faced Tommen is sitting on the Iron Throne, with a crown nestled amongst his golden curls."
Bran and Tommen sat on a wall,
Bran and Tommen had a great fall;
All the King's horses
And all the King's men,
Could only put Bran back together again.
Sorry, nothing new to add. I'm only including so I don't forget to put this reversal under King Bran's foreshadowing.
"Yet Bran's dead, and pudgy pink-faced Tommen is sitting on the Iron Throne, with a crown nestled amongst his golden curls."
That got an odd look from Sam, and for a moment he looked as if he wanted to say something.
Bran's not dead, Sam wanted to say. He's gone beyond the Wall with Coldhands. The words caught in his throat. I swore I would not tell. - Samwell I, AFFC
"Stannis says it's not enough. The more you give a king, the more he wants. We are walking on a bridge of ice with an abyss on either side. Pleasing one king is difficult enough. Pleasing two is hardly possible."
Many other jonsas have already identified that's exactly what Sansa faces in her final AFFC chapter.
The oldest histories we have were written after the Andals came to Westeros. The First Men only left us runes on rocks, so everything we think we know about the Age of Heroes and the Dawn Age and the Long Night comes from accounts set down by septons thousands of years later. There are archmaesters at the Citadel who question all of it.
Nice reminder to question everything we're about to be told.
I'll also use this opportunity to remind everyone it's Arianne Martell and Daemon Sand who will explore caves in TWOW, not Jon and Daenerys.
"I found mention of dragonglass. The children of the forest used to give the Night's Watch a hundred obsidian daggers every year, during the Age of Heroes.
If you're wondering where the children of the forest found obsidian, the answer is likely Skagos.
Though rarely seen off their island, the stoneborn once were accustomed to crossing the Bay of Seals to trade or, more oft, raid—until King Brandon Stark, Ninth of His Name, broke their power once and for all, destroyed their ships, and forbade them the sea. For most of recorded history, they have remained an isolated, backward, savage folk, as like to murder those who land upon their isle as to trade with them. When they do consent to trade, the Skagosi offer pelts, obsidian blades and arrowheads, and "unicorn horns" for goods they desire. - TWoIaF
Davos is headed there now.
That leaves Dragonstone. Who is going to Dragonstone?
"The armor of the Others is proof against most ordinary blades, if the tales can be believed, and their own swords are so cold they shatter steel. Fire will dismay them, though, and they are vulnerable to obsidian. I found one account of the Long Night that spoke of the last hero slaying Others with a blade of dragonsteel. Supposedly they could not stand against it."
"Dragonsteel?" The term was new to Jon. "Valyrian steel?"
"That was my first thought as well."
Question everything you're being told.
We've covered this before, but I'll say it again: the Long Night preceded the creation of Valyrian Steel by thousands of years. Sorry, Game of Thrones.
They're wrong, and if Samwell took a second to think about it, he'd realize that.
"My lord, my f-f-f-father, Lord Randyll, he, he, he, he, he … the life of a maester is a life of servitude. No son of House Tarly will ever wear a chain. The men of Horn Hill do not bow and scrape to petty lords. Jon, I cannot disobey my father."
Kill the boy, Jon thought. The boy in you, and the one in him. Kill the both of them, you bloody bastard.
Get yourself killed, leave Samwell out of this!
He knew what he would face today, and found himself tossing restlessly as he brooded on Maester Aemon's final words. "Allow me to give my lord one last piece of counsel," the old man had said, "the same counsel that I once gave my brother when we parted for the last time. He was three-and-thirty when the Great Council chose him to mount the Iron Throne. A man grown with sons of his own, yet in some ways still a boy. Egg had an innocence to him, a sweetness we all loved. Kill the boy within you, I told him the day I took ship for the Wall. It takes a man to rule. An Aegon, not an Egg. Kill the boy and let the man be born." The old man felt Jon's face. "You are half the age that Egg was, and your own burden is a crueler one, I fear. You will have little joy of your command, but I think you have the strength in you to do the things that must be done. Kill the boy, Jon Snow. Winter is almost upon us. Kill the boy and let the man be born."
See, it's only fair Jon gets to send Aemon on a cruise to the netherworld. You get me killed, I get you killed.
We make our own canon, so I've decided it's Aemon's fault Egg went full Targ at Summerhall.
Kedge Whiteye had the Wall when Jon made his ascent. Kedge had seen forty-odd namedays, thirty of them on the Wall. His left eye was blind, his right eye mean. In the wild, alone with axe and garron, he was as good a ranger as any in the Watch, but he had never gotten on well with the other men.
Ser Richard Horpe and Ser Justin Massey were both queen's men, and high in the king's councils. A pair of common freeriders would have served if all that Stannis had in mind was scouting, Jon Snow reflected, but knights are better suited to act as messengers or envoys.
Sorry, this reminded me of something I didn't connect in previous chapters. Small detour.
Barristan Selmy believes the Unsullied are not meant to be detectives ->
"Soldiers, not warriors, if it please Your Grace. They were made for the battlefield, to stand shoulder to shoulder behind their shields with their spears thrust out before them. Their training teaches them to obey, fearlessly, perfectly, without thought or hesitation … not to unravel secrets or ask questions." - Daenerys I, ADWD
Illyrio and Tyrion throw that same shade Barristan Selmy's way ->
"Let us hope this dream was not prophetic. You are a clever imp, just as Varys said, and Daenerys will have need of clever men about her. Ser Barristan is a valiant knight and true; but none, I think, has ever called him cunning."
"Knights know only one way to solve a problem. They couch their lances and charge. - Tyrion II, ADWD
Keep that in mind when this knight becomes the Queen's Hand, and tries to solve a locust mystery.
Ghost slept at the foot of the bed that night, and for once Jon did not dream he was a wolf. Even so, he slept fitfully, tossing for hours before sliding down into a nightmare. Gilly was in it, weeping, pleading with him to leave her babes alone, but he ripped the children from her arms and hacked their heads off, then swapped the heads around and told her to sew them back in place.
I wasn't sure if Jon knew all the details of what happened to Robb. I think I got my answer.
Jon expected hot mulled wine, and was surprised to find that it was soup, a thin broth that smelled of leeks and carrots but seemed to have no leeks or carrots in it. The smells are stronger in my wolf dreams, he reflected, and food tastes richer too. Ghost is more alive than I am.
Thanks, I got it. You can stop now, George.
Jon felt something wet and cold upon his face. When he raised his eyes, he saw that it was snowing. A bad omen.
"So do you, Sam. Have a swift, safe voyage, and take care of her and Aemon and the child." The cold trickles on his face reminded Jon of the day he'd bid farewell to Robb at Winterfell, never knowing that it was for the last time. "And pull your hood up. The snowflakes are melting in your hair."
Not always. What about drifting snowflakes?
That's not foreshadowing, Samwell will be fine.
"I've sent to Oldtown for more maesters. You'll have two ravens for when your need is urgent. When it's not, send riders. Until we have more maesters and more birds, I mean to establish a line of beacon towers along the top of the Wall."
That's a good idea. Will anything come of it?
If the climbers reached the top of the Wall undetected, however, everything changed. Given time, they could carve out a toehold for themselves up there, throwing up ramparts of their own and dropping ropes and ladders for thousands more to clamber over after them. That was how Raymun Redbeard had done it, Raymun who had been King-Beyond-the-Wall in the days of his grandfather's grandfather. Jack Musgood had been the lord commander in those days. Jolly Jack, he was called before Redbeard came down upon the north; Sleepy Jack, forever after. Raymun's host had met a bloody end on the shores of Long Lake, caught between Lord Willam of Winterfell and the Drunken Giant, Harmond Umber. Redbeard had been slain by Artos the Implacable, Lord Willam's younger brother. The Watch arrived too late to fight the wildlings, but in time to bury them, the task that Artos Stark assigned them in his wroth as he grieved above the headless corpse of his fallen brother.
Jon did not intend to be remembered as Sleepy Jon Snow.
Worldbuilding or cleverly hidden foreshadowing? I'm too tired to figure it out.
If anyone is getting flanked, I have to believe it's Ramsay's army during the Battle for Winterfell.
When Kegs and Dolorous Edd arrived with Slynt, Jon thanked them and bid Lord Janos sit.
That he did, albeit with poor grace, crossing his arms, scowling, and ignoring the naked steel in his lord commander's hands. Jon slid the oilcloth down his bastard sword, watching the play of morning light across the ripples, thinking how easily the blade would slide through skin and fat and sinew to part Slynt's ugly head from his body. All of a man's crimes were wiped away when he took the black, and all of his allegiances as well, yet he found it hard to think of Janos Slynt as a brother. There is blood between us. This man helped slay my father and did his best to have me killed as well.
I'm far too biased to take part in any discussion over whether Jon went too far with Janos Slynt, but I will say it's not ideal he wants to kill him.
I'm okay with it, for the record.
"Lord Janos," Jon said, "I will give you one last chance. Put down that spoon and get to the stables. I have had your horse saddled and bridled. It is a long, hard road to Greyguard."
"Then you had best be on your way, boy." Slynt laughed, dribbling porridge down his chest. "Greyguard's a good place for the likes of you, I'm thinking. Well away from decent godly folk. The mark of the beast is on you, bastard."
I love the theory that Jon's first chapter back will be called The Beast or something similar.
"As you will." Jon nodded to Iron Emmett. "Please take Lord Janos to the Wall—"
"—and hang him," Jon finished.
Janos Slynt's face went as white as milk. The spoon slipped from his fingers. Edd and Emmett crossed the room, their footsteps ringing on the stone floor. Bowen Marsh's mouth opened and closed though no words came out. Ser Alliser Thorne reached for his sword hilt. Go on, Jon thought. Longclaw was slung across his back. Show your steel. Give me cause to do the same.
"I will not hang him," said Jon. "Bring him here."
"Oh, Seven save us," he heard Bowen Marsh cry out.
Something tells me Bowen Marsh wasn't happy with Jon's decision.
This is wrong, Jon thought. "Stop."
Emmett turned back, frowning. "My lord?"
"I will not hang him," said Jon. "Bring him here."
"Oh, Seven save us," he heard Bowen Marsh cry out.
The smile that Lord Janos Slynt smiled then had all the sweetness of rancid butter. Until Jon said, "Edd, fetch me a block," and unsheathed Longclaw.
This is foreshadowed in two different books, and the theme of noose vs. sword is constantly revisited in many different POVs.
Frog-faced Lord Slynt sat at the end of the council table wearing a black velvet doublet and a shiny cloth-of-gold cape, nodding with approval every time the king pronounced a sentence. Sansa stared hard at his ugly face, remembering how he had thrown down her father for Ser Ilyn to behead, wishing she could hurt him, wishing that some hero would throw him down and cut off his head. - Sansa VI, AGOT
A small gold spear tipped with red enamel pinned his cloak at the shoulder. "Your father died by the sword, but he was highborn, a King's Hand. For you, a noose will serve. Ser Alliser, take this turncloak to an ice cell." - Jon IX, ASOS
So I don't buy for a second that George changed it because of a bunch of fans.
And here's a comment on Reddit that supports that. (Thank you to @nimbledick for locating it for me!)
"Move to avoid the cut, and you will still die, but your dying will be uglier. Stretch out your neck, my lord." The pale morning sunlight ran up and down his blade as Jon clasped the hilt of the bastard sword with both hands and raised it high. "If you have any last words, now is the time to speak them," he said, expecting one last curse.
Janos Slynt twisted his neck around to stare up at him. "Please, my lord. Mercy. I'll … I'll go, I will, I …"
No, thought Jon. You closed that door. Longclaw descended.
"Can I have his boots?" asked Owen the Oaf, as Janos Slynt's head went rolling across the muddy ground. "They're almost new, those boots. Lined with fur."
Jon glanced back at Stannis. For an instant their eyes met. Then the king nodded and went back inside his tower.
Sweet Owen, never take a dead man's boots.
Speaking of the Night's Watch and their boots, I doubt this is a coincidence:
This time she did not hesitate. "Dareon is dead. The black singer who was sleeping at the Happy Port. He was really a deserter from the Night's Watch. Someone slit his throat and pushed him into a canal, but they kept his boots."
"Good boots are hard to find." - Cat of the Canals, AFFC
Also, I hate that nod between Jon and Stannis, because I'm sure many saw it.
One by one our little Starklings are avenging Ned Stark's death. Petyr, are you next?
