Spoiler Alert! This episode discusses events in S5E03 “High Sparrow” of HBO’s Game of Thrones. If you’re not caught up, we’ll be waiting for you right here once you are.
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Let me try to talk you down from that ledge, as requested. You’re worried about Jon Snow because he’s following in the footsteps of Ned and Rob, who both beheaded a guy, and died later that season. While I understand that that might be the beginning of a pattern, death is so common in Game of Thrones that it could just as easily be a coincidence. Let’s investigate each of these instances individually. First of all, we have Ned. Ned is a very honourable man, and that is why he is seen in the first episode carrying out an execution personally, rather than having someone else do it. Ultimately, it is his honour which gets him killed, because in the Game of Thrones, honour is very often a bad political move. In this case, we can see a connection, however tenuous, between the beheading in the first episode, and Ned’s own beheading. In the second case, we have Rob, who again makes a bad political move by executing a man with too many allies. The beheading that Rob carries out contributes to the general feeling running through the Northern army that Rob is a bad leader. While there are other more important mistakes, such as marrying Talissa, that contributed to his death, we can again draw a connection between the execution and Rob’s subsequent death. However in the case of Jon Snow, it seemed that everything he did in this episode was a carefully calculated political move. In this way, he seems much wiser than his father or brother. When assigning duties, he starts with latrine duty. When assigning Brian to dig the new latrine pit, he quips “seems like a good job for a ginger” which to me read not so much as an insult to Brian, but also a subtle putting down of his decesased lover, Ygritte. He is trying to reassure those who think of him as a wildling lover by saying “Ygritte meant nothing to me, so I’m gonna make a ginger joke now”. Next, he assigns Alliser Thorne, his primary opponent in the election, as First Ranger. This says “I don’t hold a grudge, and I value the strengths of my competitors”. Finally, he assigns Janos Slynt, being an unpopular coward that everyone wants out of the way, to go to Greygaurd. When Slynt refuses, Jon has an opportunity to prove that he not “too soft” – which some people believed after he showed mercy to Mance Rayder. In this case, the swift execution was the only correct political move, as the knight’s watch wants a strong commander, and showing mercy in this situation would have ruined his chances as a successful leader. Throughout this episode, Jon is playing for his audience, which is exactly what one has to do in the Game of Thrones to survive.
Great thoughts! Thanks for commenting! – Matt