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death reached for him, screaming.

@aegonfort / aegonfort.tumblr.com

Bran spread his arms and flew // rdr2 blog: amarston
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the-key-five

bran stark appreciation month 2022 →  day 5: bravest moments

There is no shame in that. A lord must protect his smallfolk. Cruel places breed cruel peoples, Bran, remember that as you deal with these ironmen. Your lord father did what he could to gentle Theon, but I fear it was too little and too late.” *** A good lord protects his people, he reminded himself. “I’ve yielded Winterfell to Theon.”    
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goodqueenaly

I noticed, during my reread of ASOIAF, that Jon often recollects things Ned told him - many of which are on dealing with bannermen & other duties of a Lord. Seeing as he seemed to have no plans for Jon's future, why would he educate him like an heir?

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While Ned doesn’t seem to have set a formal, publicly known plan for Jon’s future by the time Jon was 14, I don’t think that means Ned had no vision for Jon, nor that his education was out of line for what Ned might have imagined for him. I mean, look at some of the advice Jon recalls Ned giving him:

“Go on, Jon. Say what you would say.”
“My father once told me that some men are not worth having,” Jon finished. “A bannerman who is brutal or unjust dishonors his liege lord as well as himself”
If his brothers were to catch them in such disarray, many of them would pay for that freedom with their life’s blood. They had numbers, but the Night’s Watch had discipline, and in battle discipline beats numbers nine times of every ten, his father had once told him.
All the same, Jon found himself hoping that Styr’s fears proved well founded. If the gods are good, a patrol will chance by and put an end to this. “No wall can keep you safe,” his father had told him once, as they walked the walls of Winterfall. “A wall is only as strong as the men who defend it.”
He has a lord’s voice, Jon thought. His father had always said that in battle a captain’s lungs were as important as his sword arm. “It does not matter how brave or brilliant a man is, if his commands cannot be heard,” Lord Eddard told his sons, so Robb and he used to climb the towers of Winterfell to shout at each other across the yard. 
Jon hopped down onto the ice, thanked the men on the winch, and nodded to the spearmen standing sentry. Both wore woolen hoods pulled down over their heads, so nothing could be seen of their faces but their eyes, but he knew Ty by the tangled rope of greasy black hair falling down his back and Owen by the sausage stuffed into the scabbard at his hip. He might have known them anyway, just by the way they stood. A good lord must know his men, his father had once told him and Robb, back at Winterfell.

That’s all good advice for the Lord of Winterfell, certainly … but it’s also good advice for the right-hand man of the Lord of Winterfell, his trusted lieutenant in battle and his advisor at home. That’s what I think Ned might have imagined would happen with Jon - namely, that when Robb became Lord of Winterfell, Jon would become his chief advisor and captain, should he go to war (and especially on that last point - the majority of the advice Jon received from Ned seems to be related to war and defense). A Kevan to his Tywin, but with an actual moral center for both. A Brandon Snow to his Torrhen Stark - another bastard Stark acting as a representative of his lordly brother. A redo, perhaps, of what should have been with Ned and his brother Brandon - the one brother who would become lord, as intended, and the close-in-age other brother serving as his advisor, loyal lieutenant, and generally trusted supporter. Note that in at least two of those advice situations, Robb and Jon are being educated together by Ned - almost like Ned wanted the two of them to learn the same lessons together, so that they’d make a super effective team when the former became Lord of Winterfell.

Plus, there is a key distinction made between Robb and Jon in terms of their political education:

[“]He wanted his heir at his side, don’t you see? To watch and listen and learn from all he did. I’ll wager that’s why Lord Mormont requested you, Jon. What else could it be? He wants to groom you for command!”
Jon was taken aback. It was true, Lord Eddard had often made Robb part of his councils back at Winterfell.

Jon isn’t recalling that Ned made him and Robb part of his, Ned’s, councils back at Winterfell - he’s recalling that Ned made Robb, just Robb, part of his councils. Robb is the one who was, to borrow Sam’s turn of phrase, being groomed for command, to play the part of Lord of Winterfell. Jon’s role, I think in Ned’s mind, would be a secondary, supporting one: he would still benefit from the thorough education of Winterfell’s children (since Ned would never want to separate him out as less than equal than his biological children), but his destiny would be more along the lines of what Ned laid out for Bran way back at the beginning of AGOT - to be Robb’s loyal bannerman, helping him enforce his role as master of the North.

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goodqueenaly

Do you think willas tyrell will be exactly like how he is spoken about? As this lovely, we’ll-read and respectful man. Or will he have a Tyrion edge to him like how Tyrion is portrayed but his pov shows differently. How do you think his personality and archetype will be? 

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I would certainly like to think that Willas Tyrell will be an overall positive character in the story. Every time Willas has come up in the story, he is the subject of admiration, approval, and/or affection: he is the big brother of Margaery’s memory who “used to read to [her] when [she] was a little girl, and draw [her] pictures of the stars”; he is the familial protector of Garlan’s childhood, who dubbed him “Garlan the Gallant” to protect him from crueler, body-shaming monikers; he is the “mild and courtly young man, fond of reading books and looking at the stars” whom Tywin identifies as his preferred new husband for Cersei (and note that Tywin says that “all reports” verify this description of Willas). While it might be easy to dismiss the consistent praise of Willas as merely the product of pro-Tyrell bias, I find it difficult to agree entirely with such an assessment. Oberyn Martell, certainly, had no incentive to praise Willas to Tyrion, even if he, Oberyn, wanted to deflect Tyrion’s barbed observation that the prince of Dorne had “trampled” the heir to Highgarden; likewise, Tywin hardly spared his (private) contempt of Robert Baratheon, for example, even though he actively sought to marry Cersei to Robert in the aftermath of Robert’s Rebellion.  

Indeed, I do not think it at all coincidental that these descriptions remind me most strongly of Samwell Tarly. Just as Randyll Tarly had set out to forcibly mold Sam into (his conception of) the perfect warrior, so Mace Tyrell had forced Willas into a tournament when he, Willas, was “still a green squire” (according to Mace’s WOIAF app entry) and when he “had no business riding in such company” because Mace “wanted another Leo Longthorn”. In turn, just as Randyll’s years of physical and psychological abuse toward Sam caused Sam deep and lasting trauma (so much so that he still fears Randyll’s brutal disapproval toward a career as a maester, despite owing no further obligation to Randyll now that he is a brother of the Night’s Watch), so Mace’s decision to urge Willas into Westerosi (peacetime) martial glory resulted in permanent physical disability inflicted on his son (and, relatedly, the consistent identification of Willas as a “cripple”, a shameful state in the eyes of largely ableist Westeros). However, where Randyll vigorously and horribly attempted to crush Sam’s non-martial interests, Willas seems to have been allowed, maybe even encouraged to pursue the same. Where Randyll treated with contempt Sam’s gentle bonding with his siblings - singing a lullaby to help baby Dickon sleep and sharing a bed in childhood with his sisters - Willas clearly showed himself the caring older brother to Margaery and Garlan; where Sam was chained by the neck for three days in a dungeon for merely suggesting that he become a maester, Willas has seemingly eagerly pursued his interest in books and learning. Importantly, where Randyll refused to show further interest in training Sam as his heir once he had Dickon, Mace has never done the same with Willas: Garlan and (especially) Loras may be the sort of talented young knights celebrated in Westerosi culture, but Mace has nevertheless deputized Willas as his representative in Highgarden (even praising Willas as such when he rejects Cersei’s suggestion that he, Mace, “is needed in the Reach”). Willas, perhaps, offers something of a glimpse into what Sam might have become, had Randyll Tarly not been such a violently hateful misogynist and male chauvinist - that is, an intelligent and capable heir without performing the expected (read: battlefield) roles of Westerosi male aristocrats.  

That similarity in character I think will result in a meeting of the minds, so to speak, in TWOW. When (and not if, I believe) Euron Greyjoy attempts to take over Oldtown as its apocalyptic god-king, I think Sam will make his way out of the city and toward Highgarden (as the political heart of the Reach and the closest major seat of protection, especially to a Reach-raised aristocrat like Sam). This is where good-natured, empathetic Willas Tyrell may work far better for the story than a more cynical or caustic take on the character: where Sam has been throughout his life mocked and derided for his lack of martial interest and his bookishness, Willas is exactly the sort of person to empathize with Sam and be keenly interested in what he has to say (especially given that Willas himself had warned Leyton Hightower of the ironborn’s coming). It is Willas who may appreciate Sam’s diligent study into ancient texts, especially into the supernatural, and so Willas who may be willing to listen to whatever advice Sam can provide, or even help himself with such research (in whatever archives Highgarden may have) in the quest to defeat Euron. (Incidentally, if Alleras-who-is-really-Sarella makes it out of Oldtown with Sam - and I certainly want to think she does - then Willas’ amiable relationship with her late father and demonstrated interest in learning may appeal to not only Oberyn’s proud daughter, but the one who had “wanted to know everything there was to know” on her dad’s field trip to the ruin of Shandystone.) 

So this is all a very longwinded way of saying that yes, I think Willas will be a Pretty Cool Dude when he gets introduced (so far as anyone in Westeros can be, anyway, and certainly anyone in a feudal aristocratic system). I don’t think it makes a lot of sense for GRRM to build him up consistently as such a positive figure and then say “actually just kidding, he’s a big old jerk” (though we’ll leave Jaehaerys I out of this discussion …). Rather, I think it works much better for the story if Sam finds one much like himself, but with the political power he never had - a true ally, kind, empathetic, and willing to listen to what he has to say when few others have. I firmly place Willas on the side of the good (along with Sam and, so I hope, Sarella) in the fight against the evil that is Euron and his attempted apocalyptic takeover.

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goodqueenaly

I don't know if this question has been asled before, but once LF is brought to justice will Bronze Yohn Royce take the 14-yo Sansa on as his ward as well as Sweetrobin? After Sansa's marriage is annulled, do you think Lord Royce will arrange her marriage to a suitable Vale nobleman? Can a guardian arrange marriages for his wards? If so, who could be the prospective bridegrooms? Maybe Sansa might consider Lord Royce advice as this would tie the Vale to her & helping her return home. In any case, if this were to happen do you think the Lord Declarants have a say too? Will Sansa be allowed to have a say too? Thank you ❤️

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Generally speaking, it seems at least possible for the foster parent of a ward to decide on a ward's marriage. After all, despite Harry Hardyng being an adult now, it is Anya Waynwood who negotiates with Littlefinger over Harry's marriage, since Harry is her ward.

However, I don't believe that Yohn Royce will take on Sansa as a ward. (Robert Arryn, I think, is so definitively and speedily doomed that for me it's not even worth considering him as Yohn's ward.) For one, I don't see any reason why Sansa's marriage to Harry Hardyng, as planned by Littlefinger, is not going to go through: Sansa (in her "Alayne Stone" guise) has certainly proved capable of Littlefinger's directive to "[c]harm him [i.e. Harry]. Entrance him. Bewitch him", while Littlefinger's own predictions about the reaction of the chivalry of the Vale to his geopolitical ambitions with Sansa appear reasonable to me. Nor do I see this marriage as being put aside or annulled between the point of it happening (presumably in the Vale) and Sansa's return to Winterfell, with this Vale army behind her; indeed, I think her status as "Lady Hardyng/Lady Arryn" will play into the factional Stark succession quarrel as she and her siblings reunite, fulfilling her own mother's debate with Robb about his successor. On top of all of this, moreover, I think it is Winterfell, not the Vale, where Littlefinger is brought to justice by Sansa (with the support of her fellow Starks): Winterfell is where Sansa feels strong and at home - no less so than when she will have her brothers and sister with her again, the Starks as a united pack once more - and it is in reuniting at Winterfell that I think Sansa will meet her old friend Jeyne Poole - successfully returned with Arya, and with lots to tell Sansa about Littlefinger's crimes against both her and the Starks. (And all of this is without point out that Sansa is almost an adult by Westerosi standards, long past the age when fostering would usually start.)

Which is not to say that Bronze Yohn won't be important and an ally to Sansa - and, probably, the rest of the Starks - once Littlefinger is brought down. If Sansa replays her mother's role in condemning Littlefinger by calling on the loyalty of the vassals of Winterfell and the Eyrie, then I could well believe she will look to Bronze Yohn as Jon Arryn's loyal bannerman to drive home the point that Littlefinger himself conspired to murder the late Lord Arryn. Both physically formidable and apparently upstanding - certainly offended by the breach of conduct of his (ostensible) aristocratic ally Lyn Corbray and aware of the grievous social crime of the Red Wedding - Yohn Royce is exactly the sort of person who could be a useful leader in the apocalyptic war just about to begin. Moreover, with two sons having sacrificed themselves in noble causes - Waymar acting as a man of the Night's Watch in dueling with the Other, and Robar agreeing to hold off the other members of Renly's Rainbow Guard to allow Brienne and Catelyn to escape after being convinced that Brienne was innocent of Renly's murder - Yohn Royce has a narrative history of family honor that could well make him prepared to not only believe in the coming of the Others but ready to fight them for the sake of humanity.

(I have no strong feelings about how Sansa's marriage to Harry goes or what her ultimate marital fate is. However, I would like to think that Sansa has much more to do in the story to come than decide whom to marry - or have it decided for her.)

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goodqueenaly

Do you think Eddard Stark was in Starfall when Ashara Dayne committed suicide? If so, how do you think was the general "atmosphere" between Ned and the Daynes, given all that happened (the feeling between the two at Harrenal, the thing with Brandon [?], the stillborn child, the war, the death of Arthur)? It seems that the relationship was quite good, in spite of everything (Wylla, the secret of Jon parentage kept...).

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This is a very good question, and one which I think is at least for now unanswerable. There is still a considerable amount of mystery - to some extent intentionally so, of course - surrounding the relationship between Daynes and Starks immediately before and during Robert's Rebellion, and that level of mystery naturally obfuscates the details of the timeline around and immediately after the final fight at the tower of joy. We know that Ned buried Arthur, as well as the other Kingsguard and his own slain companions, using the stones of the tower; we know he took Dawn back to Starfall to return Dawn to Ashara (who was specifically alive at that point), we know that Ned obviously left and that Ashara obviously died ... but that's it.

I think the answer, to the extent we will ever get one, probably depends on how Ashara felt about the situation, especially after Ned returned with Dawn. What did Ashara know at that point, what did Ned tell her, and how might any of that knowledge have impacted her feelings - did she know by then, for example, that Brandon Stark had been murdered, or that Rhaegar had been killed in battle, or that Elia and her children had been murdered, or that the Targaryens had definitively lost the war, and which if any of these informed her emotional state (and how)? How did she react to the outcome of the fight at the tower of joy, to the news of her brother's death, to the revelation of baby Jon? To what extent if any did Ashara and Ned had a romantic attraction/relationship, and if there were one, to what extent did Ned's return with Dawn post-tower of joy affect Ashara's feelings? Was Ned coming to Starfall - to give back the sword, to bring her news of her brother's death, to inform her of whatever else he might have told her about - the last tragedy in a likely very painful last few years for Ashara, or was it only Ned's departure from Starfall - permanently leaving Ashara's life to become Lord of Winterfell, Catelyn's husband, and (though he might not have known it yet) Robb's father - that added a final layer of grief to Ashara's life?

In sum, to understand Ashara's death we have to understand Ashara and her mindset at that moment. Accordingly, so long as Ashara is left an enigma, her death will be so as well.

All of these questions aside (and left open for the moment), I think you are right to note the generally not-antagonistic treatment Ned (and baby Jon) appear to have received from the Daynes. Ned is not a villainous figure in the eyes of young Lord Edric, but a character from a romantic past, engaged in doomed and unfulfilled love with the family's own lost daughter Ashara. Likewise, whatever anyone at Starfall knew about the tower of joy - I would bet Wylla the wet nurse knew quite a lot, though I'm less certain how much the information was distributed and to whom - they've certainly kept pretty mum so far as we know, with Wylla's cover story apparently convincing Edric. I think the Daynes at the very least might have recognized Ned's honor and tact - giving Arthur the same burial he gave his own companions, returning the sword instead of Unwin Peake-like keeping it as a prize of war - and perhaps sympathized with the shared tragedy of the situation. Both Ned and Ashara had lost a brother in the course of this war; both Ned and the Daynes had found nothing but grief at the tower of joy. Where Ashara had lost her stillborn daughter (perhaps fathered by one of the Stark brothers), Ned had been unable to save his sister; now there was only the child not of Ned's body but Lyanna's, the orphaned boy Ned had determined to raised as his own. Having shared Ned's losses and losses like his, the Daynes were, perhaps, more willing to not hate Ned afterward and to some extent help with baby Jon.

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turtle-paced

If there were little-to-no resources for Daenerys to use to replace the economic system based on slavery, why didn't she sell labour instead? Or what other ways could she have replaced the system?

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Dany had refused to compensate any of the Great Masters for the value of their slaves, but the Meereenese kept devising other ways to squeeze coin from her. The noble Grazdan had once owned a slave woman who was a very fine weaver, it seemed; the fruits of her loom were greatly valued, not only in Meereen, but in New Ghis and Astapor and Qarth. When this woman had grown old, Grazdan had purchased half a dozen young girls and commanded the crone to instruct them in the secrets of her craft. The old woman was dead now. The young ones, freed, had opened a shop by the harbor wall to sell their weavings. Grazdan zo Galare asked that he be granted a portion of their earnings. "They owe their skill to me," he insisted. "I plucked them from the auction bloc and gave them to the loom."
Dany listened quietly, her face still. When he was done, she said, "What was the name of the old weaver?"
"The slave?" Grazdan shifted his weight, frowning. "She was … Elza, it might have been. Or Ella. It was six years ago she died. I have owned so many slaves, Your Grace."
"Let us say Elza. Here is our ruling. From the girls, you shall have nothing. It was Elza who taught them weaving, not you. From you, the girls shall have a new loom, the finest coin can buy. That is for forgetting the name of the old woman."
- Daenerys I, ADWD

But more proactively. As in, I don't think Dany should have waited for Grazdan here to come to her and start asking for cash before she redistributed his money to the slaves who, you know, made the stuff he was selling for profit. Why don't all Grazdan's former slaves have a new set of tools for their trade, or their guild fees paid, or a pension? As well as stealing their freedom, Grazdan stole their labour - some back wages would appear to be owed. What? You mean it's going to drain Grazdan's coffers dry? Sucks to be him, I guess. Probably not as much as it sucked to be Grazdan's slave.

Just like Dany shouldn't leave an enemy army behind her when she's waging a war, when she's trying to restructure an economy she shouldn't be leaving enemies with cash in their pockets. Or the means of production. In ADWD, the fight against the slavers just moved to another front.

Still not an instant fix. The region's in for a lot of economic pain. There would still be losers in the new economy. Doesn't mean Dany should've shrugged her shoulders and left slavery as is though.

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mummer

there is a way for a first time reader to critpath asoiaf and do an Oops Just Sam run. and this is it. all appearances of the best character in modern fiction. maximizing context (eg. the two prologues and jon’s early chapters) while minimizing necessary reading. i do not recommend this. but it can be done. however there are issues. issues being

-getting to bran iv and wondering who all of these bizarre and aggressive children are

-completely missing jon’s wildling plotline, mance, and the entire battle at the wall

-reaching the end of asos and just going.... who the FUCK is STANNIS BARATHEON

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the dragon good-bad asoiaf fandom split while of course often annoying is also so interesting from a like ecological symbolism pov because in a end 20th century/21 century story you’d think the endangered mythical predatory species believed to be extinct but magically brought back to life in a climate changing world cannot in fact be about dragons=nukes=bad & bringing them back to life was an evil action. however! i think it is very interesting that fandom is actually so divided on that.

this is especially interesting considering grrm’s age, because there is a conceptual time-line between anti-nuclear activism and environmental activism (one predating the other) & popular fictional anti-nuclear anxieties and environmental anxieties. depending on which lens you use, the dragons are this or that. though, personally, dragons as endangered but dangerous species resonates more with me than dragons as nukes.

the rebirth of the dragons is of course dramatic, it involved madness, murder, sacrifice, grief… this is not a sweet conservation story. and the “nuke” comparison was started by grrm himself inre: the military use of the dragons. but the dragons are living creatures, you cannot dismantle them. if you thought dragons were so bad, you’d have to kill them – the last survivors of their species, etc; even imprisoning them was morally complicated, since they obviously suffer from it. so it’s a story about the monster as potential weapon, but also as companion, as worthy of existence in itself; and of course, they are not a mere extension of dany.

grrm said in one interview that dany “controls” the dragons (& he’s interested in exploring the temptations that bring) but of course, she doesn’t (yet?), and that’s the point, and that’s her struggle. (not how and if to use the dragons, but how and if to control them.) that’s why she imprisons them under the pyramid. the dragons do what they want to do. they obey if they want to. they do have an emotional/psychological/spiritual connection, but even at the very end of adwd, dany couldn’t even control the direction drogon would take her towards. another classic fantasy tale, though, the child hero and their magical beast & how to “control” it… or not. (usually the solution is the third way, i.e. you do not CONTROL the dragon; also since attempts to literally mind-control them are cast as evil. we might yet see how that will play out.)

i don’t know if it’s intentional (probably not) or my pattern-making (probably yes), but i can’t help but notice how closely tied the dragons are to traumatised female sexuality & female hunger, in dany’s story, which i find super interesting, inre: these themes of control/controllability of power & also looking towards/(not) looking back. (“If I look back I am lost” & “I am the blood of the dragon” as both dany’s trauma-coping anxiety-reducing focus-seeking catch-phrases)

you’ll notice that every dragon dream or new dragon development is directly preceded or tied to (sexual) assault onto dany’s body. the dragons seem to magically absorb that. you, for instance, have dany, crying and wanting to die because of what she suffers at the hands of drogo, then she has a dragon dream, and suddenly, “magically”, she feels able to endure & shape her experience. i found this actually a bit jarring the first time i read, and tbh i still do! but now, i wonder, what this is supposed to be about… (i mean she even gave them the names of the men who sexually abused her as well as her dead brother & his complicated legacy….)

the way the dragons parallel her horrible coming-of-age story and emerging sexuality, the questions they raise: do you try to repress it? (it: dragon, power, sexuality, trauma), do you try to use it? embrace it? do you control it? CAN you chain and bury it? what happens if you let it roam free? if you let the dragon carry you away, where will it carry you to? 🤯🤯🤯

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amuelia
Robert had been jesting with Jon and old Lord Hunter as the prince circled the field after unhorsing Ser Barristan in the final tilt to claim the champion’s crown. Ned remembered the moment when all the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar Targaryen urged his horse past his own wife, the Dornish princess Elia Martell, to lay the queen of beauty’s laurel in Lyanna’s lap. He could see it still: a crown of winter roses, blue as frost.    
- Eddard XV, aGoT

Upper row: Horton Redfort, Jon Arryn, Robert Baratheon, Eon Hunter

Middle row: Brandon Stark, Lyanna Stark, Benjen Stark, Ned Stark

Lower row: Jon Connington, Arthur Dayne, Ashara Dayne, Elia Martell

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Jon Snow Month: Favourite Chapter (1/3)

I’m going to cheat here and not just pick one favourite Jon chapter but three. So, this post is about the first of them (in order of appearance).

A STORM OF SWORDS JON XII (aka the one he finally becomes Lord Commander)

The chapter opens up with the practice fight between Iron Emmett and Jon. The latter finds it difficult to concetrate on the fight as Stannis’ offer (letting Jon become the Lord of Winterfell) stays in his mind. 

This is went Jon’s pov give us a very significant flashback on his childhood:

[…] They were not little boys when they fought, but knights and mighty heroes. “I’m Prince Aemon the Dragonknight,” Jon would call out, and Robb would shout back, “Well, I’m Florian the Fool.” Or Robb would say, “I’m the Young Dragon,” and Jon would reply, “I’m Ser Ryam Redwyne.”
That morning he called it first. “I’m Lord of Winterfell!” he cried, as he had a hundred times before. Only this time, this time, Robb had answered, “You can’t be Lord of Winterfell, you’re bastard-born. My lady mother says you can’t ever be the Lord of Winterfell.”

Something we need to remember about Jon is that he always wanted Winterfell, he wanted to be given Ice after he would have accomplished some heroic deed and be his father’s heir. Make no mistake, he never wanted something bad to happen to any of his siblings - who all came before him in line of succession- but that didn’t mean he wanted it any less. And on this chapter he is finally given the opportunity to grasp his dream and become Lord of Winterfell like his father and role model was once.

I love that Martin doesn’t shy away from showing Jon’s greatest desire but he also he shows us Jon’s fear of not being worthy of Winterfell in the face of the person who always made him feel unwelcomed there:

[…]. Why am I so angry? he asked himself, but it was a stupid question. Lord of Winterfell. I could be the Lord of Winterfell. My father’s heir.
It was not Lord Eddard’s face he saw floating before him, though; it was Lady Catelyn’s. With her deep blue eyes and hard cold mouth, she looked a bit like Stannis. Iron, he thought, but brittle. She was looking at him the way she used to look at him at Winterfell, whenever he had bested Robb at swords or sums or most anything. Who are you? that look had always seemed to say. This is not your place. Why are you here?

Later on he actually admit that Winterfell is his deepest desire:

He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me.[…]

While he still thinks whether he should accept Stannis’ offer or not, Ghost appears . This is a very important moment because Jon and Ghost were separated for most of ASOS. Being reunited with the other half of his soul, his direwolf, he finally has his answer:

Red eyes, Jon realized, but not like Melisandre’s. He had a weirwood’s eyes. Red eyes, red mouth, white fur. Blood and bone, like a heart tree. He belongs to the old gods, this one. And he alone of all the direwolves was white. Six pups they’d found in the late summer snows, him and Robb; five that were grey and black and brown, for the five Starks, and one white, as white as Snow.
He had his answer then.

And his answer is that he won’t accept becoming Lord of Winterfell. Stannis’ offer came with huge strings attached, had Jon accept it he would have to burn the heart tree and abandon the Old Gods his family believed for centuries in order to accept Stannis’ Red God and new customs. Jon doesn’t want to turn his back to the Old Gods, the ones he  also sworn his oath as a black brother,  and therefore declines to become something he always wanted since he can’t have it on his own terms. Besides, he has sworn to the Old Gods that he will guard the Wall until his death.

The last part of the chapter focuses on the new Lord Commander election and Jon finds out he’s one of the candidates. 

Here Martin gives us another beautiful and symbolic scene when the late Lord Commander’s raven appears and shouts Jon’s name. It’s like Jeor Mormont is passing the torch of commanding to Jon via his pet:

With a raucous scream and a clap of wings, a huge raven burst out of the kettle. It flapped upward, seeking the rafters perhaps, or a window to make its escape, but there were no rafters in the vault, nor windows either. The raven was trapped. Cawing loudly, it circled the hall, once, twice, three times. And Jon heard Samwell Tarly shout, “I know that bird! That’s Lord Mormont’s raven!”
The raven landed on the table nearest Jon. “Snow,” it cawed. It was an old bird, dirty and bedraggled. “Snow,” it said again, “Snow, snow, snow.” It walked to the end of the table, spread its wings again, and flew to Jon’s shoulder.

The chapter which started with Jon thinking about Stannis’ offer and ultimately declined becoming Lord of Winterfell ended up with his becoming Lord Commander of the Night Watch. 

A much more significant post even if most lords who “play the game” would probably disagree. After all, the real war isn’t the music chairs the lordings play but the war against the Others. And with his new position Jon is able to help the realm and people more than he would have as Stannis Baratheon´s pawn Lord of Winterfell.

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