Thinking About This Illustration By Marc Fishman From The Cover Of Thelimited-edition ReleaseofA Dance

Thinking about this illustration by Marc Fishman from the cover of the limited-edition release of A Dance with Dragons, featuring Jon with Daenerys watching over him in the sky and I will never get tired of this particular imagery associated with them:

“A trader from Qarth once told me that dragons came from the moon,” blond Doreah said as she warmed a towel over the fire.

[…]

Silvery-wet hair tumbled across her eyes as Dany turned her head, curious. “The moon?”

“He told me the moon was an egg, Khaleesi,” the Lysene girl said. “Once there were two moons in the sky, but one wandered too close to the sun and cracked from the heat. A thousand thousand dragons poured forth, and drank the fire of the sun. That is why dragons breathe flame. One day the other moon will kiss the sun too, and then it will crack and the dragons will return.” — Daenerys III, AGOT.

*

She dreamed. All her cares fell away from her, and all her pains as well, and she seemed to float upward into the sky. She was flying once again, spinning, laughing, dancing, as the stars wheeled around her and whispered secrets in her ear. — Daenerys X, ADWD.

*

I loved a maid as fair as summer with sunlight in her hair.

I loved a maid as red as autumn with sunset in her hair.

I loved a maid as white as winter with moonglow in her hair.

Guys! Guys, she is the MOON!

The white wolf raced through a black wood, beneath a pale cliff as tall as the sky. The moon ran with him, slipping through a tangle of bare branches overhead, across the starry sky.

“Snow,” the moon murmured.

[…]

“Snow,” the moon called down again, cackling. — Jon I, ADWD.

*

You should look behind you, Lord Snow. The moon has kissed you and etched your shadow upon the ice twenty feet tall. — Jon VI, ADWD.

And he is the WOLF! He is the white wolf and she is the moon in the sky and the moon is WATCHING over him, CALLING for him, KISSING him!

Say whatever you want about GRRM but don’t ever say he is not a romantic at heart and a sucker for beautiful symbolism.

Jon Snow’s type of women

In my previous meta I wrote about the misconception that Jon has a thing for redheads. I briefly mentioned that Jon has indeed a type which hasn’t anything to do with hair. I didn’t further explained because I meant to write another meta  about Jon’s preferences. So here we are!

When a boy is young his mother represents the whole female gender to him. It’s through her that he learns about womanhood and she is the one who shapes his first views on women. This wasn’t the case for Jon Snow because as we all know that his mother, Lyanna, died while giving birth to him. In his childhood he interacted with only a few women (the only women he recalls from his days at Winterfell are his two sisters, his step-mother and the old Nan) and only one who was actually close to him, his little sister Arya.

Usually, on close sibling relationships of different sex it’s the younger ones that are affected by the older ones on the subject on how they view the different sex (ex: Bran likes girls that resemble his older sister, Arya). However, in Jon’s case he’s definitely influenced by Arya. This is hardly a surprise because as I noted before, she’s the only female close to him so it makes sense to be his ideal of womanhood.

The evidence of this lay on  the fact that he compares Ygritte,his first love, to Arya. First, in terms of physical appearance:

[..] She looked plump as she crouched there, but most of that was layers of fur and wool and leather. Underneath all that she could be as skinny as Arya.

And later on in terms of personality’s traits:

“If you kill a man, and never mean t’, he’s just as dead,” Ygritte said stubbornly. Jon had never met anyone so stubborn, except maybe for his little sister Arya. 

Even aside from the direct comparisons within the text, one can also draw a lot of  parallels between the two girls’ characters.

Ygritte and Arya are not gender confirming girls. Both show interest in fighting, are feisty, stubborn and loud. They aren’t the typical Westeros girls (well, in Ygritte’s case she’s not a Westerosi). However, they do possess traits that can be found on other Northern and Wilding girls,too.

In a way, it makes poetic sense for Jon’s female ideal to be his sister because Arya resembles Lyanna a lot. Ned Stark, the person who knew both of them very well, demonstrates that:

“You remind me of [Lyanna] sometimes. You even look like her.”

“Lyanna was beautiful,” Arya said, startled. Everybody said so.”-

It’s like Jon’s ideal woman isn’t only his little sister but also his mother, despite the fact that he never got to know her.

The next woman Jon Snow shows an interest at, is Val. Another Wilding, another fighter, another fierce and brave woman.

Lonely and lovely and lethal, Jon Snow reflected, and I might have had her

They are all convinced she is a princess. Val looked the part and rode as if she had been born on horseback. A warrior princess, he decided, not some willowy creature who sits up in a tower, brushing her hair and waiting for some knight to rescue her

Val’s characteristics could easily apply to Ygritte and Arya, so it strengthens the case that Jon indeed has a certain type.

Since I wrote about what Jon likes in women I think it’s time to address what he doesn’t like. Earlier on, I wrote that Arya is the only female that was close to him to Winterfell. That’s true but there is another woman who has also influenced Jon’s perspective on women. That is his step mother, lady Catelyn Stark.

Lady Stark and Jon Snow didn’t have a good relationship. Some fans say she was merely cold to him, others that she was emotional abusive. No matter where you stand on this matter, it was unavoidable that she would have a major effect on him as she was the most prominent female figure on Winterfell and also the one he had a dysfunctional relationship with.

The way she has influenced him is that he came to dislike everything she stood for. Or to be more correct, everything he thought that she stood for. That’s why Jon doesn’t like the women who adhere the traditional femininity. Sometimes his words towards those women can be even harsh and uncalled for. Here are two examples of what I’m describing:

[…] A warrior princess, he decided, not some willowy creature who sits up in a tower, brushing her hair and waiting for some knight to rescue her

And yes, I will take your women too. I have no need of blushing maidens looking to be protected, but I will take as many spearwives as will come.

This meta would be incomplete if I didn’t include Daenerys, his current love interest on the tv series. While Daenerys has more traditional feminine traits than Ygritte or Arya, she still can be described as a free spirited, proud and more importantly brave woman. She’s even a warrior in her own way. She doesn’t wield a sword, but she participates in battles through flying on Drogon.

[…] I know she is proud. How not? What else was left her but pride? I know she is strong. How not? The Dothraki despise weakness. If Daenerys had been weak, she would have perished with Viserys. I know she is fierce. Astapor, Yunkai, and Meereen are proof enough of that. She has crossed the grasslands and the red waste, survived assassins and conspiracies and fell sorceries, grieved for a brother and a husband and a son, trod the cities of the slavers to dust beneath her dainty sandaled feet. […]

She’s a woman who could impress Jon Snow and I think that’s intentional by the author. After all, those two have many hints that they will meet and probably end up together in the books (because in the tv series Jonerys is already canon).

I made a post about Jon Snow being a Corn King figure here. So, this post references that one heavily. 

The Corn King is a term for a male fertility god/sacred king who dies or is sacrificed for the good of his people to bring fertility or spring back into the land. The Corn King is born at Yule, matures through the year, and dies at harvest, only to be reborn the next year. At Beltane, the Corn King weds an Earth Goddess (an aspect of the Earth Mother). The consummation of their wedding restores fertility to the land.

The king was the incarnation of a dying and reviving god, a solar deity who underwent a mystic marriage to a goddess of the Earth. He died at the harvest and was reincarnated in the spring. Frazer claims that this legend of rebirth is central to almost all of the world’s mythologies. FROM WIKI

I just wanted to make a ship-specific post as we know that Jon and Dany have both been set up as our savior figures to stop the Long Night, restore balance, and bring Spring back again. And, their convergence has been stated has being the point of the series. Does Dany fit the figure of an Earth Goddess, an Earth Mother? The Mother part is easy as Dany is connected to motherhood from the first book and first season onwards. Mhysa means “mother.” She’s the Mother of Dragons.  

Frazer, in The Golden Bough, uses Diana, the Roman moon and nature goddess (who has also been called Light Bringer interestingly) and her symbolic marriage to the priest-king Nemi “the two figuring as King and Queen of the Wood in a solemn marriage which was intended to make the earth gay with the blossoms of spring and the fruits of autumn.” Egyptian kings married their sisters and they impersonated Osiris and Isis in the rites of spring. 

In Barbara L Talcroft’s The Death of the Corn King which is built on Frazer’s The Golden Bough, she says:

Irish texts speak of the banais rigi or “the wedding of the kingship” which probably meant that the queen, who also impersonated the earth goddess,  chose a mate from among her war band and later to become the king-sacrifice. Mac Cana relates the story from Irish literature of King Eochaidh whose kingship was not recognized because his goddess-wife, Edain, had been taken away from him. Mac Cana concludes, “In the context of Irish tradition, the meaning of this is clear. Eochaidh had become king, but his kingship could be validated only by his union with the goddess of sovereignty, in this case, Edain. This union of king and goddess was at one time ritually enacted at the Feast of Tara.”

So, this part is interesting because it’s the Goddess of Sovereignty that gives the king legitimacy. Without her, his kingship is not validated. 

The ceremony so essential to the legitimacy of the king took place at his inauguration and had two parts- some form of drink offered by the goddess-bride to the king and the sexual union

Have I just talked myself into accepting Bran’s legitimacy VO while Jon/Dany are having sex? Heh.

The intricate relationship between king and Goddess, at least in the Celtic tradition, was undoubtedly caused by the conflicting emphases of the patriarchal sun religion represented by the king, and of the matriarchal earth and moon religion represented by the Goddess.

Moon symbology has figured in Daenerys’ story. ‘Moon of my life’ which Drogo called her is only one such example. The dragon creation myth is another. There are a lot of moon references in Dany’s chapters. But, there are even more moon references in Jon’s chapters. The Azor Ahai myth and R’hollorism is filled with sun, moon, and star references too. R’hllor specifically is connected to sun and stars.

“He told me the moon was an egg, Khaleesi, the Lysene girl said. Once there were two moons in the sky, but one wandered too close to the sun and cracked from the heat. A thousand thousand dragons poured forth, and drank the fire of the sun. That is why dragons breathe flame. One day the other moon will kiss the sun too, and then it will crack and the dragons will return.”

Melisandre says to Jon in ADWD  "You should look behind you, Lord Snow. The moon has kissed you and etched your shadow upon the ice twenty feet tall.“

R’hllor,” sang Melisandre, her arms upraised against the falling snow, “you are the light in our eyes, the fire in our hearts, the heat in our loins. Yours is the sun that warms our days, yours the stars that guard us in the dark of night.”

I was researching the Corn King mythology and I found the references to the Earth/Moon (often used interchangeably) Goddess and the role she plays in the Corn King story. It’s not just his death and rebirth that brings fertility to the land, but it’s the consummation of their marriage. I’m not taking this literally for Jon and Dany, but rather, that their partnership will be what helps saves the world and brings Spring again. 

Daenerys and Jon, their parallels, and their journeys as leaders and rulers

(I’m reposting this in an attempt to make it appear in the tags)

There are many metas detailing the parallels between Jon and Dany. But I don’t think I’ve seen many that focus on their actions as leaders and rulers. And often, I read things like “Jon and Dany complement each other because Dany is a conqueror and Jon is an administrator/ruler”, or things like “Jon is a rebuilder and Dany is a destroyer”, and I feel like these are not good assessments of Jon and Dany. So I wanted to write my own Jon/Dany parallel meta, showing both their general parallels, and how similar I think these two are as rulers, and where I think they differ.

In this meta, I won’t talk about the foreshadowing for Jon and Dany’s romantic relationship, only about their parallels. Even then, this is still a very long meta, but I think it’s worth it, because Jon and Dany have tons of parallels (to me, it’s almost as if they were the same character having the same story in different locations), and I think their parallels are fascinating.

These are the topics of this meta:

General Parallels

Jon and Dany becoming leaders

Jon and Dany as rulers

Jon and Dany are both conquerors

Compromises and Identity Crisis

Conclusion

Keep reading

— Daenerys I, AGOT.

— Jon I, AGOT.

i love this parallel in Dany and Jon's first chapters. GRRM is so good at introducing his characters and their main personality traits and he wastes no time establishing how observant these two are: Dany can see Illyrio's mocking smile at his brothers words; at Winterfell, Jon can see Joffrey's look of arrogance and disdain. both of them can see the truth lurking behind the facade whereas in comparison their more oblivious siblings - Viserys and Sansa - cannot.

What's up with the BATB thing in Jonerys? XD Do you really think that they will have that kind of vibes in the books?

Its GRRM we are talking about , he lives for this theme!  He is probably the next big fan of this trope after Guillermo Del Toro LOL. Jaime and Brienne? BaTB reverse in aesthetic, Jaime and Cersei? a fluid Beauty and the Beast dynamic. Sansa and Sandor? Literally BaTB by Jean Cocteau played straight. 

So Jonerys would not be any different either considering he has been foreshadowing their meeting since day one. There is a fluid dynamic of “monster” and other going in with both Jon and Dany in the sense that Dany has been called monster, other and witch by her enemies and even at her lowest Dany calls herself “mother of monsters” . But Dany is not those things. She is a mother, one of the most beautiful women known to world, her nature is of a maiden who takes the role of fertility goddess and growth ( planting trees, crops, building irrigation canal in desert , finding a wasteland with peach tree, lemon and moon symbolism everywhere, she rose from ashes and charnal ground to give birth to new life of dragons , symbol of life and fire and freedom which is also a reference to Hindu Goddess Parvati giving birth Ganesha from her own flesh in the abode of charnal ground of her husband Shiv  ) so she is Beauty and have the nature of Beauty archetype.

from Encyclopedia Britannica [1] Shiva and his family at the burning ground. Parvati, Shiva’s wife, holds Skanda

Jon is also called a bastard, an “Other” to Westerosi society who by nature are born traitor and lusty and dishonorable , he has been Othered his entire life. He is also or was in TWOW the Lord Commander of Night’s Watch where there is no growth and no children and hardly any fertility associated plant life. Its stagnation, almost a stand in for underworld. Jon is the “father” of this institution and when he gets resurrected , he would be literally the master of both life and death ( a Hero’s journey stage by Campbell) who , like an otherworldly being can light metal on fire with his blood like Beric Dondorrian , doesn’t need to eat or sleep , his mentality wouldn’t be of a human but would be more feral, like an animal like his direwolf Ghost ( unlike the show, Ghost is a part of him and he would be involeved 50% in keeping Jon alive again since he will house his soul like another warg did with  his warg animal Varamyr) 

So even before they meet their BaTB dynamic is pretty much established from the get go. There is something of, i cannot yet pinpoint how yet because they have not yet met but i feel there would a reference to Frankestein monster with them considering Jon is also given life against the cycle of nature like Creature and Dany also lived when she shouldn’t have when she became the unburned , unlike the lady-creature Victor made for his to be Creature’s companion but destroyed because he couldn’t propagate “abomination” ( a reference to incest but mostly for modern audience) 

There is BaTB vibe for Jonerys even before they met and its basically a sign to look out for all the romantic pairs of this series , since GRRM experiments with it plenty with all of them ( there is an exploration of its various facets and limits with Sansa and Dany especially with their varios “Other” suitors and husbands and betroths like Littlefinger, Willas, Tyrion, Daario, Hizdar, Victorian, Jon, Drogo, Xaro and so on) .