Season One Round Up - Post Season Analysis

You forgot slant

Yes--I tend to agree.

Given what we're shown at the start of the first episode, we've seen what Jon hasn't--what's coming. And what it can do. Jon hasn't seen this. But he still chooses the ideal of his oath. And, unlike Dany, he listens to his "advisers" re: what to do. A non-throne-playing kind of power. But. . . still a power, no?


Agreed re: Dany. Though I still feel like the show runners are drawing a circle (sorry) around the two moments of the Walkers and the dragon hatching.

We see the Walker circle. Then see the threat they are.

Then see the fire circle. And why she does it (anger, fear, revenge, claiming her throne and khalassar). So--is this why the Walkers do as they do? And is the show therefore paralleling the Walkers with the dragons? Or the Walkers with Dany??



Robb with Robert--which doesn't bode well.

Cersei and Sansa as mirrors set up pretty well. Cat and Lysa as opposites.

Any others?

This is where word choice can be tricky. Yes, Jon was a bastard--but both book and show go OUT of their way to humble Jon and mentioning just how "lucky" and "priviledged" a background Jon comes from compared to his new brothers. Sure he might have been born on the wrong side of the sheets--but he was taught how to fight by a master at arms, he fights to prove just how much he is better than anyone, he expects that someone of his fighting skills deserves to be in the rangers--heck going out on a ranging not long after he's arrived, he argues that none of his brothers can possibly know what it feels to be tempted to leave upon hearing news of his father--only to be humbled by Maester Aemon.

Jon arrives clearly at the top of the heap of new recruits--a volunteer--with an ego that earns him his nickname of "Lord Snow", with a desire to prove that he is "the very best". That that ego is fueled by the chip on his shoulder--I won't disagree, but he's made aware of just how lucky and privileged his life has been up until now, and how his having a choice to come is a luxury that most of the others DIDN'T have. He is humbled by the Night's Watch throughout the course of this season until he can think of his brothers as more important than his kin. He is promised rewards later, true, but he still has to be "checked" and "put in his place" on more than one occasion this season until at long last he can fill the role as a servant of the realm before being the bastard son of Eddard Stark when the temptation calls him--and when he does accept his role as a servant to the realm, he is rewarded with a taste of what he wanted: by being part of the Great Ranging. Jon's entire story is learning to put personal ego aside--a voluntary form of disempowerment--and learning that he'll first need to serve if he expects to one day be served.

Alternatively Dany arrives a battered girl who can barely speak up for herself--and even then is told that what she wants doesn't matter, that she'll be "sold" in marriage whether she likes it or not. Slowly she goes from being raped unflatteringly to finding power in her role as Khaleesi and mother to the future "Stallion who'll mount the World". She goes from thinking of her wishes to be likely ignored or dismissed out of hand to a commanding presence and declaring her own Khalasar.

And it's really there, in the journey of the ego that you see what I'm getting at. Dany has hers built up and empowered, while Jon has his put into check and disempowered.