Jon Snow's Ice Visitation
Mar 23, 2016 20:43:23 GMT
Ser Duncan, Maester Flagons, and 2 more like this
Post by Weasel Pie on Mar 23, 2016 20:43:23 GMT
Jon III/ACoK 23: Jon's Snows Ice Visitation
So much more to discuss in this chapter (one of my favorites in the series), but I'll concentrate for now on what I call Jon's Ice Visitation. Wolfmaid7 also refers to this as an Initiation, which makes sense, and it wasn't his first (see posts to follow).
I believe Jon was visited by an Other in the night during his stay at Craster's. GRRM uses all the same language and cues that he uses in other chapters that more blantantly have the presence of an Other. Further, GRRM begins to establish the connections between Guest Right and sacrifice to the Others in the form of the boys, which I believe act as guest gifts to the Host. Craster is particularly obsessed with Guest Right.
I don't think there can be much doubt that GRRM foreshadows Jon's future as being a future of Ice.
Jon III begins with GRRM making it clear that the weather was warm (Jon thinks about the Wall melting in the warm rain) and wet at Craster's Keep in the Haunted Forest. Rain, flooding: GRRM really lays it on. A small girl is naked in the rain, ankle-deep puddles and sucking mud: not a usual day in the far North.
“[...]six days of rain had made the ground treacherous, all soft mud and hidden rocks. When the wind blew, it drove the water right into their eyes. The Wall would be flowing off to the south, the melting ice mingling with warm rain to wash down in sheets and rivers.”
Craster is established as a kinslayer who traffics with “slavers (more on this later) and demons” and who has a cold smell often mentioned in chapters about the Others being near.
"There's a cold smell to that one, there is."
Just keep this one in mind, I'll come back to it in a follow-up post
:
As he rode past a lightning-blasted chestnut tree overgrown with wild white roses, he heard something rustling in the underbrush.
GRRM establishes the possible presence of an Other through Dywen's jibe at Jon, but also parallels Jon with an Other:
"Ah, it's you, Lord Snow." Dywen smiled an oaken smile; his teeth were carved of wood, and fit badly. "Thought me and the boy had us one o' them Others to deal with. Lose your wolf?"
Further GRRM alludes to a reason why the Others might want Craster's sons while talking about why
GRRM gives us a line from Mormont about Ghost eating Craster's children, remember this for later. Strange.
Best leave the wolf outside, he looks hungry enough to eat one of Craster's children
.
More about Ghost being seen as a threat to babies , even unborn ones
"That wolf's looking at you hungry, girl," Lark said. "Might be it fancies that tender bit in your belly."
Craster refers to the Others, suggesting an ongoing relationship and regular visits
I'm a godly man, and the gods keep me safe. If wights come walking, I'll know how to send them back to their graves.
Even Mormont is sensitive to Guest Right
"Tell [Tollet] to bring my axe. A guest gift for our host."
And Craster infers he's known more than one Stark
"Who's this one now?" Craster said before Jon could go. "He has the look of a Stark."
Gilly suggests the lack of sheep, which seem to be in lieu of unavailable male babies, is a recent turn of events, also suggesting regular and recent visits by the Others
Come the white cold, he does, and of late it comes more often. That's why he started giving them sheep, even though he has a taste for mutton. Only now the sheep's gone too.
GRRM establishes the time of day as nearing dusk/twilight, and Jon's expectations for a wet (not freezing) night
The clouds would hide moon and stars and Mormont's Torch, turning the woods black as pitch. Every piss would be an adventure, if not quite of the sort Jon Snow had once envisioned.
Jon chats with Sam. GRRM establishes that night has fallen, and Jon is snug by his fire in his rock/cloak shelter.
By the time the telling was done, it was dark outside ...
He was cold and wet, but not so cold and wet as he'd been a short time before.
Jon sleeps.
After a very wet and unusually warm day, in a chapter designed to give information about the Others, where their visitations to Craster's are clearly established and recent, and where Jon Snow, significantly, has not established Guest Right with his host, GRRM gives us this glorious passage:
He woke to the sight of his own breath misting in the cold morning air. When he moved, his bones ached. Ghost was gone, the fire burnt out. Jon reached to pull aside the cloak he'd hung over the rock, and found it stiff and frozen. He crept beneath it and stood up in a forest turned to crystal.
The pale pink light of dawn sparkled on branch and leaf and stone. Every blade of grass was carved from emerald, every drip of water turned to diamond. Flowers and mushrooms alike wore coats of glass. Even the mud puddles had a bright brown sheen. Through the shimmering greenery, the black tents of his brothers were encased in a fine glaze of ice.
So there is magic beyond the Wall after all. He found himself thinking of his sisters, perhaps because he'd dreamed of them last night. Sansa would call this an enchantment, and tears would fill her eyes at the wonder of it, but Arya would run out laughing and shouting, wanting to touch it all.
When he wakes up, Gilly is near, and the theme of Guest Right is further established
"I'll . . . I'll be your wife, if you like. My father, he's got nineteen now, one less won't hurt him none."
"Black brothers are sworn never to take wives, don't you know that? And we're guests in your father's hall besides."
"Not you," she said. "I watched. You never ate at his board, nor slept by his fire. He never gave you guest-right, so you're not bound to him.
GRRM tells us about Craster's offerings, and that the white cold comes more often lately. IMO Craster is giving guest gifts to his hosts, The Others. Craster is the one with something to lose, there would be no need for The Others to accept Guest Rights for fear of being hurt/killed. They accept the Host Gifts from Craster and in turn not harm him or his wives.
"He gives the boys to the gods. Come the white cold, he does, and of late it comes more often. That's why he started giving them sheep, even though he has a taste for mutton. Only now the sheep's gone too. Next it will be dogs, till . . . " She lowered her eyes and stroked her belly.
"What gods?" Jon was remembering that they'd seen no boys in Craster's Keep, nor men either, save Craster himself.
"The cold gods," she said. "The ones in the night. The white shadows."
"What color are their eyes?" he asked her.
"Blue. As bright as blue stars, and as cold."
Jon sure did love his icy visit in the night.
Jon watched her go, his joy in the morning's brittle beauty gone.
After Gilly leaves, Jon's cloak and a nearby bush are still covered in ice. Jon gets the magical icy piss adventure.
The magic was already faded, icy brightness turning back to common dew in the light of the rising sun. Someone had gotten a fire started; he could smell woodsmoke drifting through the trees, and the smoky scent of bacon. Jon took down his cloak and snapped it against the rock, shattering the thin crust of ice that had formed in the night, then gathered up Longclaw and shrugged an arm through a shoulder strap. A few yards away he made water into a frozen bush, his piss steaming in the cold air and melting the ice wherever it fell.
He walks the camp immediately after. There is no mention of ice by anyone (until Jon mentions it later)
The rain might have stopped, but the compound was still a morass of shallow lakes and slippery mud. Black brothers were folding their tents,
More Guest Right mentions . Jon Snow has neither accepted a Guest Gift from Craster to establish his Guest Rights, nor given him a Host Gift. One point of discussion might be what I mentioned above: Craster is giving Host Gifts to his hosts, The Others.
"Have you eaten? Craster serves plain fare, but filling."
I will not eat Craster's food, he decided suddenly.
The brothers leave camp. Notably, they head north and west, in the direction of the Land of Always Winter. There is ice here again. The Others and their cold winds come from the North. IMO, further proof of Other-lurking, having come then retreated on this trail. An ice anomaly:
They struck off north and west along a crooked game trail. Melting ice dripped down all about them, a slower sort of rain with its own soft music.
TL;DR: Jon Snow was visited by an Other while at Craster's, and it was a positive and magical experience for him. This illustrates his fate to be closely tied with the Others, and as I've argued as possibly the offspring of an Other.
So much more to discuss in this chapter (one of my favorites in the series), but I'll concentrate for now on what I call Jon's Ice Visitation. Wolfmaid7 also refers to this as an Initiation, which makes sense, and it wasn't his first (see posts to follow).
I believe Jon was visited by an Other in the night during his stay at Craster's. GRRM uses all the same language and cues that he uses in other chapters that more blantantly have the presence of an Other. Further, GRRM begins to establish the connections between Guest Right and sacrifice to the Others in the form of the boys, which I believe act as guest gifts to the Host. Craster is particularly obsessed with Guest Right.
I don't think there can be much doubt that GRRM foreshadows Jon's future as being a future of Ice.
Jon III begins with GRRM making it clear that the weather was warm (Jon thinks about the Wall melting in the warm rain) and wet at Craster's Keep in the Haunted Forest. Rain, flooding: GRRM really lays it on. A small girl is naked in the rain, ankle-deep puddles and sucking mud: not a usual day in the far North.
“[...]six days of rain had made the ground treacherous, all soft mud and hidden rocks. When the wind blew, it drove the water right into their eyes. The Wall would be flowing off to the south, the melting ice mingling with warm rain to wash down in sheets and rivers.”
Craster is established as a kinslayer who traffics with “slavers (more on this later) and demons” and who has a cold smell often mentioned in chapters about the Others being near.
"There's a cold smell to that one, there is."
Just keep this one in mind, I'll come back to it in a follow-up post
:
As he rode past a lightning-blasted chestnut tree overgrown with wild white roses, he heard something rustling in the underbrush.
GRRM establishes the possible presence of an Other through Dywen's jibe at Jon, but also parallels Jon with an Other:
"Ah, it's you, Lord Snow." Dywen smiled an oaken smile; his teeth were carved of wood, and fit badly. "Thought me and the boy had us one o' them Others to deal with. Lose your wolf?"
Further GRRM alludes to a reason why the Others might want Craster's sons while talking about why
GRRM gives us a line from Mormont about Ghost eating Craster's children, remember this for later. Strange.
Best leave the wolf outside, he looks hungry enough to eat one of Craster's children
.
More about Ghost being seen as a threat to babies , even unborn ones
"That wolf's looking at you hungry, girl," Lark said. "Might be it fancies that tender bit in your belly."
Craster refers to the Others, suggesting an ongoing relationship and regular visits
I'm a godly man, and the gods keep me safe. If wights come walking, I'll know how to send them back to their graves.
Even Mormont is sensitive to Guest Right
"Tell [Tollet] to bring my axe. A guest gift for our host."
And Craster infers he's known more than one Stark
"Who's this one now?" Craster said before Jon could go. "He has the look of a Stark."
Gilly suggests the lack of sheep, which seem to be in lieu of unavailable male babies, is a recent turn of events, also suggesting regular and recent visits by the Others
Come the white cold, he does, and of late it comes more often. That's why he started giving them sheep, even though he has a taste for mutton. Only now the sheep's gone too.
GRRM establishes the time of day as nearing dusk/twilight, and Jon's expectations for a wet (not freezing) night
The clouds would hide moon and stars and Mormont's Torch, turning the woods black as pitch. Every piss would be an adventure, if not quite of the sort Jon Snow had once envisioned.
Jon chats with Sam. GRRM establishes that night has fallen, and Jon is snug by his fire in his rock/cloak shelter.
By the time the telling was done, it was dark outside ...
He was cold and wet, but not so cold and wet as he'd been a short time before.
Jon sleeps.
After a very wet and unusually warm day, in a chapter designed to give information about the Others, where their visitations to Craster's are clearly established and recent, and where Jon Snow, significantly, has not established Guest Right with his host, GRRM gives us this glorious passage:
He woke to the sight of his own breath misting in the cold morning air. When he moved, his bones ached. Ghost was gone, the fire burnt out. Jon reached to pull aside the cloak he'd hung over the rock, and found it stiff and frozen. He crept beneath it and stood up in a forest turned to crystal.
The pale pink light of dawn sparkled on branch and leaf and stone. Every blade of grass was carved from emerald, every drip of water turned to diamond. Flowers and mushrooms alike wore coats of glass. Even the mud puddles had a bright brown sheen. Through the shimmering greenery, the black tents of his brothers were encased in a fine glaze of ice.
So there is magic beyond the Wall after all. He found himself thinking of his sisters, perhaps because he'd dreamed of them last night. Sansa would call this an enchantment, and tears would fill her eyes at the wonder of it, but Arya would run out laughing and shouting, wanting to touch it all.
When he wakes up, Gilly is near, and the theme of Guest Right is further established
"I'll . . . I'll be your wife, if you like. My father, he's got nineteen now, one less won't hurt him none."
"Black brothers are sworn never to take wives, don't you know that? And we're guests in your father's hall besides."
"Not you," she said. "I watched. You never ate at his board, nor slept by his fire. He never gave you guest-right, so you're not bound to him.
GRRM tells us about Craster's offerings, and that the white cold comes more often lately. IMO Craster is giving guest gifts to his hosts, The Others. Craster is the one with something to lose, there would be no need for The Others to accept Guest Rights for fear of being hurt/killed. They accept the Host Gifts from Craster and in turn not harm him or his wives.
"He gives the boys to the gods. Come the white cold, he does, and of late it comes more often. That's why he started giving them sheep, even though he has a taste for mutton. Only now the sheep's gone too. Next it will be dogs, till . . . " She lowered her eyes and stroked her belly.
"What gods?" Jon was remembering that they'd seen no boys in Craster's Keep, nor men either, save Craster himself.
"The cold gods," she said. "The ones in the night. The white shadows."
"What color are their eyes?" he asked her.
"Blue. As bright as blue stars, and as cold."
Jon sure did love his icy visit in the night.
Jon watched her go, his joy in the morning's brittle beauty gone.
After Gilly leaves, Jon's cloak and a nearby bush are still covered in ice. Jon gets the magical icy piss adventure.
The magic was already faded, icy brightness turning back to common dew in the light of the rising sun. Someone had gotten a fire started; he could smell woodsmoke drifting through the trees, and the smoky scent of bacon. Jon took down his cloak and snapped it against the rock, shattering the thin crust of ice that had formed in the night, then gathered up Longclaw and shrugged an arm through a shoulder strap. A few yards away he made water into a frozen bush, his piss steaming in the cold air and melting the ice wherever it fell.
He walks the camp immediately after. There is no mention of ice by anyone (until Jon mentions it later)
The rain might have stopped, but the compound was still a morass of shallow lakes and slippery mud. Black brothers were folding their tents,
More Guest Right mentions . Jon Snow has neither accepted a Guest Gift from Craster to establish his Guest Rights, nor given him a Host Gift. One point of discussion might be what I mentioned above: Craster is giving Host Gifts to his hosts, The Others.
"Have you eaten? Craster serves plain fare, but filling."
I will not eat Craster's food, he decided suddenly.
The brothers leave camp. Notably, they head north and west, in the direction of the Land of Always Winter. There is ice here again. The Others and their cold winds come from the North. IMO, further proof of Other-lurking, having come then retreated on this trail. An ice anomaly:
They struck off north and west along a crooked game trail. Melting ice dripped down all about them, a slower sort of rain with its own soft music.
TL;DR: Jon Snow was visited by an Other while at Craster's, and it was a positive and magical experience for him. This illustrates his fate to be closely tied with the Others, and as I've argued as possibly the offspring of an Other.
