Like others said, in the books everyone hated his decision, but as long as he acted as the Lord Commander they went with it. It was when he decided to go south they finally turned on him. And to be fair, by the Night's Watch standards they were in the right in that situation. In the show less so since everything Jon did was to help them do their duty and protect the realm from the White Walkers.

Now that Jon is gone what will happen at the Wall? The wildlings aren't going to be happy about what happened to him and the Night's Watch doesn't have a chance in fight with them when they're south in such a numbers. And what about Davos and Mel? They lost their cause and there is nothing left for them to do.

What I'm surprised a little is that Dany met Dothraki. If, as the producers said, the ending will be the same as in the books, even if the road will be different, we can assume that some things just need to be included to achieve the same resolution. Which means that while they can cut out the Young Griff, Dany returning to where she began is important.

The same goes for the Battle of Ice if it will turn out that in the books Stannis won. Its result may not be very important in setting up the final events.

 

Do they not understand that it is their only chance in the face of certain death?

---------- Post automerged at 06:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:08 AM ----------

I know what happened in the books and yes, in the books the mutiny made a whole lot of sense.

But none of that happened in the show. I'm asking about the show. What were the murderers thinking they would accomplish by killing Jon? It certainly wasn't to stop him from breaking the vows, so what?

 

Hate is a powerful emotion that clouds logic. And they did let the wildlings in. Maybe they figured out that they may need them, but they don't need Jon and decided to at least have this small revenge. Though if the Night's Watch was presented as more fractured in their support for Jon, the side that agreed with him would have all reasons they need to execute his killers the moment they discover what happened since Jon wasn't breaking his vows in the show.

 

If they realize the necessity of the wildlings, why the fuck would they still kill Jon? 'You're right, and I know you're right, but fuck you anyway'

 

Pretty much this. I mean, it's not like people don't behave like that everyday.

Though in fiction we like when people have better reasons because otherwise it's hard to recognize when this behavior was because the authors wanted to say something about how people can hate each other or because they just were lazy and couldn't bother with presenting a better justification.

 

Rather doubt they would really kill Jon (Thorne, for example) out of petty spite. And if they did, it certainly wouldn't have been 'for the Watch'.

 

There's being spiteful dicks and then there's being omnicidally spiteful dicks. Trying to point out that people are spiteful is meaningless since most people aren't spiteful when the stakes are so high and when they don't profit and, even if one or two are spiteful, there has to be another reason for that to override the sanity of everyone else.

You had it right the first time. They cut out the motivating factor that would kick the whole thing off.

Take Alliser; he's a dick, but not a stupid dick. Jon has basically done nothing wrong.

It's kinda telling that we don't see the reactions of the Night's Watch to the story of Hardhome at all. Sure, time. But also the difficulty of trying to construct a suitable basis for everyone losing their shit at Jon, and not at what's beyond the Wall.

This is just another dangling thread. Except it's more a weak justification than a plot hole.

 

Solid episode, but nothing amazing. It's a good finish for the rather umderwhelming fifth season.

I must say, Arya was awesome. Shame her storyline just got interesting at the end. Meryn Trant's death was brutal as fuck.

Stannis can die for all I care, but I hope he kills Brienne instead. I just can't find it in myself to give a fuck about her camping out in the forest.

Cersei's scene was brutal in a different way. I kind of even pitied her for like a second. I must say though, I like that High Sparrow fellow even less. I can understand Cerse's motivations, but religion is already confusing without armed fanatics.

Jon, no surprises there.

Dany... Girl, I like you, but they really fucked you over this season.

Tyrion, likewise. I hope you get to flex your governing muscles next season.

Overall, my apetite for more GoT has lessened after this season. Grim better get to writing faster so D&D have some great material to work with next. It'll have to be great if they want the show to bounce back to season 3 awesomeness.

 

I know that women in general seem to have gotten the shaft this season, but I for one am excited about the Dothraki-Dany situation. I didn't read the books so I don't know whether the arc will be good or not, but what I'm currently imagining is Dany, who has some experiences with the Dothraki, somehow making that army of horsemen her own.

One day she'll have to try and conquer Westeros (that's basically her sole motivation) and if she were to add a Dothraki army to her Unsullied then she'd be one step closer to the Iron Throne. It's just guess work, of course, but I like that idea better than her being as passive as she's been in Meereen for the last seasons.

I also hope that Stannis didn't die, even though it seems unlikely. If he died and the whole 'Lord of Light' thing turns out to be a scam - which wouldn't surprise me too much, to be honest - then his whole arc would be absolutely pointless.

 

That kit Harrington interview better be him trolling. If not, that basically means that even if Jon Snow comes back in the books, it isn't important to the story. Which is fine, but it would have been nice to find out by reading the damn book instead of through an interview.

 

If Jon Snow isn't important to the book's story even if resurrected in Winds of Winter, then what was the point of Jon throughout ASOIAF so far? Why all of the hints of R+L=J, AA/PWP, and all that? If GRRM pulls a bait-and-switch like that, I think I would have preferred if he had just stopped writing the series at Dance and left us to try to figure out how the series would have ended.

 

"Wait, you mean that if I burn my innocent little daughter alive in front of an already disillusioned band of soldiers, it might irreparably hurt morale? That's impossible. Wait, where are you all going?"

lol

 

What I found somewhat darkly hilarious is that it was largely the sellswords that ended up deserting. As in, they decided that even money wasn't a big enough incentive to keep working for a guy that burns his only child to death.

That said, that entire segment was kind of cartoonishly done - as if, "Hey, let's figure out how to screw over Stannis in as short a time as possible!" First, he loses over half of his men. Then, he finds out his wife committed suicide. Then, he finds out that the red priestess partly responsible for points one and two fled the camp. And finally, he finds out that the Bolton force vastly outnumbers his own and is taking the field. And finally, after he's lost the battle and everything, Brienne of Tarth is conveniently there to deliver some self-righteous speech about Renly and to execute him.

 

It was my impression, given the sellswords left with all the horses, and given that the Boltons suddenly had a huge number of horses, that we were supposed to conclude that the sellswords switched sides.

 

A decoy for Bran if I had to guess That is if he is truly dead.

 

Eh wouldn`t that be in character with what G.R.R.M wishes to achieve with the series? It would be strange if the "exiled prince" truly was the prophesied saviour of humanity since it are those tropes that he set out to avoid/de-construct.

 

I never understood ASOIAF as deconstructing or avoiding tropes. I always read A Song of Ice and Fire as just that - a song. In other words, I do think Martin is trying to construct a high fantasy story, but seen through the lens of the time in which it occurred, where later re-tellings would romanticize the distasteful parts. What ASOIAF has done, at least insofar as I have read it, is to properly contextualize various fantasy tropes. (Keep in mind that GRRM already has the "Fake Ultimate Hero" bit probably down with Stannis anyway, insofar as Stannis' status as Azor Ahai has been espoused by Melisandre.)

As it stands, Jon being well and truly dead would leave his his five book long character arc unresolved and his presence in ASOIAF ultimately pointless. It just wouldn't make sense within the way the story has been built up for Jon's presence to just fizzle out like that. Maybe GRRM is trying to avoid certain fantasy tropes, but I doubt he's trying to avoid core narrative tropes of what constitutes a good work of fiction.

In effect, I take there to be at least three sorts of stories running through the series: the first is this is epic conflict of the ages coming up, with the Others and the Long Night, the return of Azor Ahai, and all that. The characters that have only really interacted directly on that level have been Jon Snow, Bran Stark, Melisandre to some extent, and so forth. (Potentially Daenerys later on) That's the "main story" of ASOIAF.

Running below that story is the political intrigue surrounding the Iron Throne, with the War of Five Kings, Daenerys' struggle to accrue power and stability and return to Westeros, and so forth. So, we read of the Tyrell's political manuevers, the Manderlys in their plans against the Boltons, the endless Lannister intrigues, and so forth. While this comprises a bulk of the plot, I suspect it only serves ultimately as a background to the aforementioned "main story."

Finally, there are of course the various personal stories as seen in the POV chapters: Reek's re-discovery of his identity as Theon; Arya's struggle to become No-One; Jaime's personal struggles with himself and Cersei; and so forth. It's ultimately brought to light in relation to the second or first tier of the story, but it's there for characterization (and at times, plot) purposes.

However, without the "main story" keeping things together, ASOIAF just becomes some sort of odd fake historical fiction - a reporting of the interregnum following the death of Robert Baratheon, as witnessed through various characters. It would be fine if that had indeed been GRRM's purposes for the story, but that's not how he's presented things with the various prophecies, bits of magic, presence of dragons and the Walkers, the coming of the Long Night, etc, etc.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if Jon doesn't play an important role in the story post-Dance (say, by being permanently dead), the main story of ASOIAF itself threatens to lose its coherence and relevance.

(Unless GRRM is pulling the ultimate fuck-you to his readers and it turns out that Jon Snow was indeed Azor Ahai, but with him gone and unable to come back, the White Walkers overrun Westeros and everyone dies and becomes wights. Then I guess Jon becomes important again for all of the wrong reasons)

 

In a way, but there is avoiding tropes and there is frustrating your readers. If he hints that Jon is important and then leaves us with anticlimactic resolution, he will only make people angry. Nobody likes to discover that they were wasting their time when they were trying to figure out a secrets that didn't matter. Lost is a perfect example of that and GRRM admitted he wants to avoid their mistakes. If he hints Jon and his parentage is important then it's important, but the twist may be in that he's not the Hero, but the Villain or something like that.

On the other hand, the show did avoid a lot of hints that there is more to Jon than it appears. I would even say that just going by what was presented on the screen, there is nothing obvious that suggests he has any unfinished arc and needs to return. What if they decided that him not returning will be a difference between the show and the books? It's not impossible considering all other changes they did.

 

Interesting.

Wait, what? How does that tie with literally anything of what you previously said?

 

Regarding Kit's interview and Jon's death, someone I know mentioned that Jon might warg into another person, so the actor will simply change. Thinking about it from a plot perspective though, that happening really seems pointless.

But it would be a pretty good bait and switch. No idea how feasible that is for show Jon, I haven't really watched the last few seasons.