159 ASOS 16 Jon II: Last of the Night's Watch

Deeds Is Truer Than Words

Jon's last choral chapter saw him tell a big lie to Mance: that Qhorin's ranging party was small and alone. This lie comes out when the massacre at the Fist of the First Men is discovered. Orell's eagle attacks Jon's face, and Jon finds himself tasked to accompany Jarl and the Thenns on a mission over the Wall to prove his loyalty. But the chapter doesn't end there. It ends with Ygritte telling Jon the lie she told to protect him--that they are sleeping together--is only a lie if he doesn't make it true.

"How do I play the turncloak without becoming one?"

Qhorin Halfhand tasked Jon to stay alive as a spy among the wildlings, and return to Castle Black a man of the Night's Watch. While Jon will succeed and remain true to the Watch, he is obviously an unconverted crow, at first. When Mance finds the carnage at the Fist of the First Men, it proves Jon lied to him. Since Jon's intention with the lie was to aid the attack he assumed Mormont would make and in which he would have assisted by killing Mance, it indicates Jon is more spy than crow come over. Jon knows he has to cooperate. Jon must be willing to betray the Night's Watch's secrets and be a turncloak, to obey Qhorin's orders and remain true.

"It was easy to lose your way beyond the Wall. Jon did not know that he could not tell honor from shame anymore, or right from wrong."

The chapter phrases Jon's decision to share Night's Watch intelligence in terms of the sex with Ygritte that presumably takes place that night. Perhaps Jon is meant to experience a loss of virginity in his new willingness to blur lines, as though in betraying the Night's Watch so as to serve the Night's Watch Jon has bit the apple of knowledge of good and evil. Having always viewed sex as a temptation to be shunned, Jon now sees reason to make Ygritte's lie true and sleep with her as cover.

Jon is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Tormund doesn't understand why Jon doesn't just have a fling with Ygritte. There's reference, in the topic of the coming extinction of the giants, to virility as positive and life affirming, as Tormund seems to believe. But the underlying topic is loyalty. Jon will remain faithful to the Night's Watch and betray Ygritte to do so. That's why not to take up with her. Ygritte does want marriage. It's not being able to give that answer that makes Jon change his mind and surrender to Ygritte's advances. Jon's motive is to hold his cover so as to stay true, but doing so plays her false. When the opportunity for escape arrives, Jon will realize he has friends and brothers on both sides of an old feud about to turn bloody.

Tormund Pressures Jon to Stop Refusing Ygritte

As Tormund tells several of his own stories, he mocks Jon as a clean shaven maid. What is Jon's hang up? Readers know it to be that Jon sees his father's only shame as with his mother. As living proof of his father's disgrace, Jon has hated being called "bastard," understanding it to mean a person of low character. Any sex outside wedlock might produce a bastard. Since a bastard is such a terrible thing to be, Jon won't casually bed a wildling.

They have no laws, no honor, not even simple decency. They steal endlessly from each other, breed like beasts, prefer rape to marriage, and fill the world with baseborn children. 208

Jon's daliance with Ygritte will introduce him to feelings Benjen had wanted him to know before vowing to take no wife and hold no lands. It will also change Jon's understanding of the wildling threat. They are more like the common folk of Westeros than monstrous. The wildlings need not be an enemy to the realm, at all.

One-Man Wall

The theme of extinction and the similarity between the number of surviving giants and the number of Night's Watch men who'd camped on the FistStill thinking Mance means to attack Winterfell and other northern castles, Jon knows he might have to to kill him. Mormont should attack soon. Since Mance united the clans, it seems they will disperse at his death, dividing his great spear into its hundred daggers:

Mance had spent years assembling this vast plodding host, talking to this clan mother and that magnar, winning one village with sweet words and another with a song and a third with the edge of his sword, making peace between Harma Dogshead and the Lord o' Bones, between the Hornfoots and the Nightrunners, between the walrus men of the Frozen Shore and the cannibal clanes of the great ice rivers; hammering a hundred different daggers into one great spear, aimed at the heart of the Seven Kingdoms. He had no crown nor sceptor, no robes of silk and velvet, but it was plain to Jon that Mance Rayder was a king in more than name. 209

Mance is all that keeps them together. 211

Of course, Mance knows what Jon doesn't: their purpose isn't to invade Westeros, but to escape the Others. Mance and his many peoples seek asylum in the seven kingdoms, but as a nation, on its own terms. They have pride and would rather break the Wall than be denied through its gates.

"When the dead walk, walls and stakes and swords mean nothing."

References

Tormund asks: "In the south, must a Man, wed every girl he beds?" The preceding chapter showed us Robb wedding Jeyne for having bedded her. Now, Jon faces an opposite conundrum. How to not sleep with a girl who wants him to when all his noble reasons to abstain are looked down on? Tormund even tells Jon he "stole" Ygritte, though how can that be, sincee Jon did not want a wife nor even know Ygritte was female when he attacked?

When Jon killed Orell, his warg's consciousness entered the body of his eagle and he continues to hate Jon for having killed him. "Can a bird hate? Jon had slain the wilding Orell, but some part of the man remained within the eagle."

Page By Page

Tall Tales

202 Giants come riding mammoths. They're not like Old Nan's tales. They're more like bears.

203 Mag the Mighty

204 The Story of Tormund Giantsbabe

205 Tormund is also Husband to Bears

206 Tormund asks Jon why refuse Ygritte?

207 Why refuse Ygritte?

208 Jon says he won't father a bastard.

Jon Thinks He May Have to Kill Mance

209 Intro heroes. The many languages of camp. Mance is a king.

210 Jon recalls Qhorin's instructions and resigns to kill Mance

211 Thinks Mormont will attack and that Jon could deal a fatal blow from within.

212 Ygritte asks what Jon thinks of Giants. Sings "Last of the Giants"

213 Orell's eagle attacks Jon's face. Orell's spirit still inhabits his eagle.

Jon is Discovered to Have Lied and is Tasked to Climb the Wall

214 The Lord o' Bones comes to fetch Jon to Mance.

215 Fist of the First Men. Did Mormont attack the column?

216 Jon admits the state of the Night's Watch: 300 men.

217 Wights scattered them

218 Now all Mance has to do is beat Mormont back to the Wall

219 Mance sends Jon over the Wall. Ghost returns. Jon allows himself to be seduced by Ygritte