Hi, Ive Been Reading Your Dany And Jon Asks And I Am Really Curious Why You Think The Political!jon/ucl

Hi, I’ve been reading your Dany and Jon asks and I am really curious why you think the political!jon/ucl theory goes against the themes of the books? Thanks!

“It was the cold,” Gared said with iron certainty. “I saw men freeze last winter, and the one before, when I was half a boy. Everyone talks about snows forty foot deep, and how the ice wind comes howling out of the north, but the real enemy is the cold.”

- Prologue, AGoT

The prologue’s there to frame the conflict of the entire series, and it’s outright stated that the cold is the enemy. (And at the end of the book, Dany proclaims that the fire is hers. Bookends.) The ultimate antagonist in this series is an inhuman, anti-human force against which all humanity should unite. 

The idea that people should work together to face threats greater than themselves recurs across the series. Whether it’s Ned telling Arya that she and Sansa will need each other, Catelyn imploring the Baratheon brothers to work together, or Jon and Stannis making common cause at the Wall itself, the idea’s there. The White Walkers are a problem bigger than anyone, and people should work together. The idea that at the business end of the series one of the protagonists will callously manipulate another protagonist into helping sort out the final showdown is just bizarre to me. Especially when the other option is one protagonist convincing another protagonist to lend a hand and a few dragons, nothing but good faith between them. Even the show has started to bear in this direction from time to time.

I think this theory is also pretty OOC for even the show versions of Jon and Dany. The show’s got its issues with showing us one thing and telling us another, but that theory pretty well denies that Dany could ever want to save the world because the world’s worth saving, and ignores Jon’s distress over deceiving Ygritte.

Given the options between “offscreen, Jon decided to give up on a good faith alliance with Daenerys and instead seduce her into offering her assistance,” and “the Jon/Dany romance writing did not come off altogether as convincing as intended,” I know which I find more plausible.

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).

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.

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. 

I keep seeing this post by J0nsas, that when Sansa is in the Eyrie and laments that no one will ever marry her for love, the chapter that follows hers is a Jon chapter, as if that is supposed to be foreshadowing.

Well, how about this:

Daenerys I, A Dance with Dragons

Five Aegons had ruled the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. There would have been a sixth, but the Usurper’s dogs had murdered her brother’s son when he was still a babe at the breast. If he had lived, I might have married him.

And wanna know whose chapter follows directly after this one? That’s right, Aegon Targaryen’s…I mean, Jon Snow. Ohh and what is memorable line from the first page of that Jon chapter?

“Snow,” the moon murmured.

Jon I, A Dance with Dragons

And who do we know who is called the moon? Hmm…I wonder…?

Except canonically there's no love between Jon & sansa,not even platonic because they distant siblings practically estranged with really nothing in common.And even in the context of the terrible adaptation that is GoT,Jon is basically forced to fill in the shoes of Ned & Robb as the head because he's the eldest member of the Starks alive after their deaths,hence why the show compares and parallels Jon to Ned,trying to make him into his clone only to fail miserably by making Jon worse.Yet in GoT,Jon's concern and care for sansa (despite dumb & dumber giving sansa Jeyne's trauma for "character development") is not returned and it's one-sided on sansa's side since sansa shows and proves time and time again she never truly loved Jon or cared about him or desired to protect him or even actually try to as she moving in a way that is the exact opposite with all of her other siblings too.Literally everything sansa has say and done in the show and the books has only really been selfish in service of serving her own interests with no regard for her so called family/dear loved ones.Sansa getting so many of the Northmen killed in the battle of the bastards,especially using Rickon to trick,manipulate,gaslight and guilt-trip Jon to fight in it (which is the begining of sansa's pattern of constantly risking his life and the rest of the Starklings until the very end of the finale of the show,even plotting to kill their own little sister Arya who even the actor of bran and the show writers favored towards the actress of sansa revealed and confirmed the suspicion) to only for her to be the reason their own innocent youngest brother Rickon to die without even showing any guilt, remorse,or mourning him at least just to get credit (like the actress confirmed) for "gEtTiNg BaCk ThE nOrTh WhIcH iS tHeIrS" when many if not most fighting in the battle of bastards against Ramsey Bolton died.Not to mention if sansa was truly "tHe SmArTeSt PeRsOn EvEr" (according to Arya being used as dumb & dumber's spokepiece) and really somehow magically knew about what would happen to King's Landing,then why would she consistently practically constantly provoke the major threat who was apparently volatile and a ticking time bomb?Why would she risk getting kill herself,her family,and everyone in the North killed with her unprovoked hostile behavior immediately upon their initial meeting when their only saving grace has finally arrived to Winterfell to save them from the imminent apocalyptic threat of the white walkers drawing closer to her so called people just because it's the "Mad King's daughter"?Why would she risk getting her precious beloved Winterfell that is their home and the rest of the North obliterated to ashes,acting as if their ally deserved to be judged for the sins of her father before what the d&d forced Dany to burn the people living in the city in the capital of Westeros and the castle her own ancestors built she was working towards her whole life to reclaim,hence destroying the Targaryen legacy?Why would oH sO sMaRtEsT oF aLl sansa & bran the all seeing three eyed raven mentored and trained by powerful Targaryen-Blackwood skinchanger Bloodraven not try anything to prevent the loss of innocent lives especially children in King's Landing if they didn't exactly know what would happened but actually anticipated it instead?It all just goes to show even more that sansa literally didn't care about anyone not even her family but ruling over an independent North struggling to survive that none of the Northerners were prepare to take care of not even the starks let alone the most sheltered pampered spoiled useless ungrateful incompetent dumbass of a brat of them from:

•sansa easily breaking an oath before the old gods of her late father's faith to conspire against the so called devil incarnate with her hand to replace the woman with a man,risking her so called beloved brother life and the rest of their family's lives and the Northerners' lives yet again for the umpteenth time

•sansa begging her little brother bran to give the North independence as a kingdom and begged him to became queen in the North even while bran is king of Westeros,proving sansa only cared about herself getting a crown,not who sat on the throne considering sansa believes ruling is a reward and right and leisure she's entitled to and deserves,not a duty and a job with great responsibility it actually (especially according to Dany's chapters and quotes in the books),(because of her ancestors' genocide of the indigenous native people of the North,the Children of the Forest,her ancestors forced their daughters to marry and mate with for their warging and skinchanging abilities practically to steal it while the First Men also warged war against many houses in the north,wiping out some to become the notorious kings of winter as they kicked out the Blackwoods out of their wolfwoods to take for themselves;("Owning" and ruling land you not only blatantly stole (because it was taken not given or surrendered or even won) but imposed your religion and culture via colonization (unlike the Targaryens who adapted the Westerosi faith of the Seven and assimilated into Westerosi culture instead and didn't enforce theirs on others) upon the rest for thousands of years is not the impressive flex stark stans believe it is using for imaginary drags (as if the Targaryens weren't naturally one of the dragonlord dragonrider noble families of Old Valyria despite being a lesser house who ultimately is the only house to survive because Aenys was likely the only one wise enough to listen to his Daenys the. Dreamer and at least prepare to move his family away because of her dream of the empire's doom if if they didn't know at the time it was a prophetic vision) due to her nonexistent suffering stolen from her childhood friend poor Jeyne🤮

But after all,GRRM did say he created sansa because the Starks all got along too well,which isn't realistic in familial relationships and dynamics,so sansa's is literally the bad egg of the family sowing discord among them.NTM sansa is partially to blame for Ned's death btw especially since her stans love to blame Dany,who's still a child only two years older than sansa,for everything and anything under the sun out of her control when Dany has actually shown/proven she actually cares about other people more than herself and at least,Dany actually tries to help people no matter what even at her own cost and risk since she's truly the most selfless,altruistic,benevolent,kind,noble,honorable,etc.Dany's borderline righteous in spite of her understable flaws (which arent even toxic but relatable and compelling) and her faults (which are literally as a result of Dany actually being way too nice and lenient and for giving),which no one could've anticipated coming miles away and prevented anyway.

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.