20 AGOT Jon III: Here For Life
- Jan 15, 2023
- 2 min read
Updated: Jan 22
Hurt and angry he's been sent to live among criminals, Jon keeps to himself and is hard on the other boys in practice. Donal Noye tells Jon he's a bully and that he is no better than any man of the Watch.
Lord Snow
Though Jon had begged Benjen to take him with, the tables were turned when Ned accepted the Handship and Catelyn forbade Jon from remaining at Winterfell. Instead of leaving them all behind, Jon got kicked out. Now, Jon feels he's being called a criminal for having been born. Instead of meeting proud lordlings, like Waymar Royce, and hating that they look down on him, Jon becomes an arrogant lordling, looking down on those less fortunate out of a kind of unfortunate conditioning.
Initially, Jon does not see the other recruits as his brothers. Jon feels deeply insulted that Ned allowed him to choose to join a penal colony. He'd thought it was a noble calling. Lumped together with thieves and rapists, a bastard, Jon loathes his company, knowing he is better than them and did nothing to deserve the punishment they do. Is it that he comes to see Grenn and the others are as innocent as himself that changes Jon's tune? Or was it what Donal Noye said about him being a bully that shocked Jon out of his rut? Jon apologizes to Grenn, offers to train him, and welcomes his fellows as brothers.
Mnemonic Titles
2020: Half Brother: Jon is so lonely at the Wall he even misses Sansa "who never called him anything but 'my half brother' since she was old enough to understand what bastard meant." 179 When Ser Alliser Thorne summons Jon to the Lord Commander, Tyrion pries out that it's because a raven has come from Winterfell with news of Jon's brother, Bran. "He corrected himself. His half brother." 187 Jon's black brothers do not yet seem like half brothers, but by the time he's undercover among the wildings at Queenscrown and preparing to desert for Castle Black, various wildlings feel like half brothers, too.
2022: Here For Life: Jon opens the chapter feeling like a prisoner and ends it feeling like a brother in arms.