Jon Snow is quite a heroic character in a fantasy series where there's a remarkable dearth of them.
. He's smart, he's quick, he strong, he's a good swordsman with a magical Valyrian steel sword. He's a good and mostly accurate judge of character and he has a compassionate heart and a sense of honor that guides his action. He intuitively understands and relates to outsiders like his sister Arya and he's got a magical direwolf that he can possess when the going gets tough. He's everything a reader could want in a probable Azor Ahai.
Jon Snow exhibits quite a few flaws, though they can be difficult to catch for the reader who sees things almost exclusively through his eyes or Sam's. Some of them he learns to deal with, while others ultimately bring him down.
Oddly some of the flaws are, parodoxically, his greatest strenghts. His heroic traits and sensitivity, his greatest qualities are ultimately the flaws that bring him down and leave him bleeding his life away in the snow.
Jon is moody
Jon is moody and tends to let his emotions get the better of him.
Let's take as exhibit A his escape from the Royal Feast at Winterfell, tears in his eyes. Yes, he was 14 and drunk. Who among us hasn't done similar in our drunken youths? But this quality does stay with him to a certain extent.
Witness the brutal beatings he deals out to his brothers under Ser Alliser's care and his high-handed, uppity manner when he first comes to Caste Black. His entitled sense of injury, his deep feeling that he's better than everyone else.
Sure, Jon gets over this in a quick spurt of emotional growth and by doing so displays some remarkable leadership skills, which is noted and puts him on the track to Lord Commander.
But he remains moody and, as the stress that his family goes though intensifies, he tends to act on it destructively:
- he attacks his senior officer Ser Alliser with a knife;
- he breaks his vows, attempting to flee south to join his brother Robb.
Again, he does mature over the course of the series, but after the death of Ygritte and his election to Lord Commander of the watch, I think his moodiness actually increases again. He regresses into the more immature state he entered Castle Black in.
Jon's isolation and the torturned martyr thing
Jon isolates himself from his men, even from his close friends. He even refuses to eat with the other members of the Watch, taking his dinner in his office with only his pet raven and his direwolf as companions. His friends notice this, of course. It's almost as if he's reverted to the uppity Lordling that he entered Castle Black as.
He does this, remembering Eddard Stark's teachings:
[Grenn] hesitated. "My lord, will you sup with us? Owen, shove over and make room for Jon. Jon wanted nothing more. No, he had to tell himself, those days are gone....They had chosen him to rule. The Wall was his, and their lives were his as well. A lord may love the men that he commands, he could hear his lord father saying, but he cannot be a friend to them. One day he may need to sit in judgment on them , or send them forth to die. "Another day," the lord commander{Jon} lied.
--A Dance with Dragons
This seems fair enough on the surface. Except it's an extreme, melodramatic and, yes, teenagery interpretation of his father's words. Because Ned did not hold himself aloof from his men. ON the contrary he cultivates a warm relationship with them. He regularly eats with them and jokes with them.
[Arya's] father used to say that a lord neded to eat with his men, if he hoped to keep them. "Know the men who follow you," she heaard him tell Robb once, "and let them know you. Don't ask your men to die for a stranger." At Winterfell,, he always had an extra seat set at his own table, and every day a different man would be asked to join him. One night it would be Vayon Poole , and the talk would be coppers and bread stores and servants. The next time it would be Mikken....Another day it mighit be Hullen with his endless horse talk...or Septon Chayle, or Jory, or Ser Rodrik, or even Old Nan with her stories. Arya had loved nothing better than to sit at her father's table and listen to them talk....
--A Game of Thrones
Now it's possible that Ned Stark told Jon and Robb(and Arya) two different things. But I think it's much much more likely that Jon, falling prey to his latent moodiness(a trait he shares with his assumed biological father, Rhaegar Targaryen) and general gloom has simply chosen a path of tortured martyred isolation and cherry picked the many things his father had to say on the subject of leadership.
And it is really melodramatic:
When he finally put the quill down, the room was dim and chily, and he could fele its walls closing in. Perched above the window, the Old Bear's raven peered down at him with shrewd black eyes. My last friend, Jon thought ruefully....Jon rose and climbed the steps to the narrow bed that had once been Donal Noyes. This is my lot, he realized as he undressed, from now until the end of my days.
--A Dance with Dragons
I mean, it's so....goth.(Bolded for extra blackness.) He even wears black all the time and hangs out with a talking raven, just like Edgar Allen Poe.
And lest it be forgotten, the Old Bear never did this.
The Old Bear ate with his men, laughed with his men, told stories with his men. They still knifed him in the back. Well, it's all the easier to knife someone when that person really doesn't talk to you except to give you orders and behaves towards you as if you're a stupid bigoted fool. With this style of uncommunicative leadership, you could arguethat Jon Snow, despite his obvious strengths of character is ultimately more of a Stannis than a Ned Stark, at least in the eyes of his subordinates.
Communication problems
Remember, Ned Stark didn't need to play a political game with the men from his household. He may have held himself arm's length to a certain exent but he dined with them, he joked with him, he hung out with him and he led them. And they loved and respected him. T
Jon Snow wants to lead the same way as the (foster) father he idealizes; but he neglects to take the steps that Ned Stark consciously took to ensure his men's loyaty. This is a flaw. And then, lacking this personal touch , he also refuses to play politics with them, either. They don't love him; and he does nothing really to gain their respect or to persuade them.
And really, that's it, isn't it. He's a visionary; he has leadership skills in spades(black, black spades) but he lacks the maturity, life experience and knowledge of his senior officers to communicate and persuade them in the face of their adversity: which he dismisses altogether.
This is not to say Jon is wrong. When he categorizes the likes of Bowen Marsh as short-sighted, stupid or bigoted, he is justified.
But he never really considers their point of view; he never realizes that, if the majority, or even a powerful minority of the Night's WAtch opposes his decisions, that is in and of itself a problem that he needs to deal with.
Which is weird.
Because Jon Snow knows exactly how he's seen in the eyes of many. He may have won the election, but he did not get every single vote and some of his men are bitterly opposed to his leadership. He is not unaware of this problem. He's actually a good judge of character and very intelligent.
But he refuses to deal with it. It's his way or the highway. This is a flaw.
When you think about the considerable opposition his absolutely radical ideas bring about (and he does think about it, he knows it's going to happen), you'd think that his intelligence would prod him into taking steps. Especially after he's gotten a warning from a magical fire-witch who sees the future in the flames!
How is it he doesn't see that his decisions and his men's discomfort of them might lead to...what it led to? Because he's a 16 year old. And, maybe, just maybe, it fits into his subconscious self-image as a hero-martyr.
Which leads me to his next flaw.
Hero Complex.
Tyrion famously categorizes Daenerys Targaryen as a 'helper', seeing her compassionate urge to help the downtrodden as the key to her heart, the way to manipulate her.
Jon is actually similar.
He seems unable to to help himself from helping people in need. Of course this is a heroic trait.
But it's also something that probably undermines his authority and reputation with his men, espeicially when it's served with a stubborn refusal to communicate the reasons behind his actions. And it bites him in the end. Now some of this is kept hidden from them. But some of it is done in the sight of everyone.
- Fearing that Melisandre will sacrifice Mance Rayder's infant son for his precious King's Blood, he switches the baby with Craster's infant son and sends the former to Oldtown, to keep him safe.
- He rescues Alys Karstark from a forced marriage with her uncle(who have gone over to the Boltons. To ensure her safety, he marries her to the Magnar of Thenn, effectively playing the role of King in the North with this role.
- He sends Mance Rayder and his spearwives on a covert mission to rescue his sister Arya(actually the imposter Jeyne Poole) from a horrible marriage to the son and heir of the Warden of the North. This is a horrific risk that he takes with the Night's Watch, considering the inability of Castle Black to defend against an army from the south and Ramsay Bolton's psychopathic, violent tendencies..
- In a decision that makes me think that the greatness of his Targaryen nature is passing over into madness, he decides to send the Night's Watch on another Great Ranging to save the beleaguered and probably doomed Wildlings and Eastwatchmen at Hardhome.
The Night's Watch Takes No Part: but Jon definitely does--and that isn't wise
Repeatedly, we're told that the "Night's WAtch takes no part' a guiding maxim that has kept the Night's Watch from meddling in WEsterosi politics for thousands of years. There have been Lord Commanders in the past who have broken this maxim, some even going so far as invading the North with an army of Wildlings.
Jon Snow, aware of this maxim, struggles to tread the line between keeping and breaking his oaths. On the one hand, he hates the Lannisters and Boltons and quite openly(to Sam) declares that he wants to see them go down and suffer. He struggles to even write a letter to the Lannister-held Iron Throne.
"Why would [Lord Tywin] help us now? He never did before."[says Jon to Sam]"Well, he will not want ti said that Stannis rode to the defense of the realm whilst King Tommen was playing with his toys. That would bring scorn down upon House Lannister."It's death and destruction I want to bring down upon House Lannister, not scorn."
I mean, sure, it's understandable. And he does send the letter in the end(though of course, as he predicted, it does no good.)
But this doesn't stop here. AS time goes by he warms to the idea of Stannis as king more and more and advises him with his prodigious knowledge of the North. He advises him not to attack the Dreadfort, and strike for Deepwood Motte instead. Furthermore he tells him exactly how to do it and where he can turn to in the north for men and exactly the approach that he needs to take to win the Northerners over to his cause.
Adding to the aforementioned rescue of Alys Karstark and meddling in Northern politics. During which time he imprisons Cregan Karstark in an ice cell, holding him for Stannis to judge. (And then literally forgets about him!)
Finally, he decides to lead an army of Wildlings against the Lord of Winterfell. It's often argued that this is a defensive measure, since Ramsay has threatened to destroy Castle Black. This is true, but he's only done so because Jon has meddled directly in his life and Northern politics by trying to abduct his bride from him. Not to mention supported Stannis in the first place, which is all too apparent to his men when he reads out the Pink Letter to them.
Note, I'm not saying that any of these actions aren't justifiable. Or good. Or heroic. Or the right thing to do. They are. But they are not necessarily wise, given his precarious position and the depleted, extremely weak position of the Night's Watch..
And in fact, by supporting Stannis in the first place, he's risked the wrath of the Warden of the North and the Iron Throne.
He's well-suited for the role of Azor Ahai. But he makes quite a few mistakes as Lord Commander.
When coupled with his inability or unwillingness to communicate his ideas and reasons with his men and especially his high-handed treatment of them(as they see it) and his disdain and dismissal of their ideas(wrong as they are) it's ultimately no wonder he was fragged.
Jon Snow becoming Azor Ahai.
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