Welcome back to A Read of Ice and Fire! Please join me as I read and react, for the very first time, to George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire.
Today’s entry is Part 29 of A Dance With Dragons, in which we cover Chapter 49 (“Jon”).
Previous entries are located in the Index. The only spoilers in the post itself will be for the actual chapters covered and for the chapters previous to them. As for the comments, please note that the Powers That Be have provided you a lovely spoiler thread here on Tor.com. Any spoileriffic discussion should go there, where I won’t see it. Non-spoiler comments go below, in the comments to the post itself.
And now, the post!
Chapter 49: Jon
What Happens
Before the Wall, Melisandre performs a traditional R’hllor marriage rite, and Jon takes note of who has failed to show to watch it, prominent among them Bowen Marsh, Othell Yarwyck and Septon Cellador. As he prepares to lead Alys Karstark out to wed Sigorn, the Magnar of Thenn, he asks if she is scared; Alys answers that it is her husband’s lot to be the scared one, and when they go out Jon sees it is true. As the rite continues, Jon thinks of how Cregan Karstark had turned up the day after Alys had, and now resides in the castle’s ice cells.
After the marriage is over, Jon goes to speak to Queen Selyse and offers to have his steward Satin show her to the feast, but Ser Malegorn refuses the offer with barely concealed scorn for Satin’s former status. As Selyse’s party leaves, Melisandre tells Jon that the queen’s fool, Patchface, is dangerous. Jon wonders why she doesn’t have Patchface burned, then, and asks about Stannis. Melisandre answers that all she sees of him is snow. Jon is skeptical of either the Braavosi banker or his raven’s message warning of Karstark’s treachery finding Stannis. He asks if Melisandre would know if Stannis were dead, but Melisandre answers that Stannis is the Lord’s chosen and cannot be dead. She says she only sees snow for Mance as well, and warns him the danger she has seen for him grows “very close.” Jon points out that she was wrong about the girl on the horse, but Melisandre counters that she was right about the girl, just not about who the girl was.
Jon goes to visit Cregan in the very cold dungeon to inform him that his niece is married now, and that Karhold belongs to her, not Arnolf. Cregan calls Jon a lot of names and promises to kill her wildling groom, but Jon points out that Sigorn has two hundred Thenns to help Lady Alys reclaim the castle, and advises Cregan to convince his men there to yield. Cregan refuses. Jon doesn’t dare either kill Cregan himself or release him, so he tells Cregan that Stannis will kill him when he returns unless Cregan decides to take the black, and leaves. At the feast, Jon observes two mountain clan leaders, Old Flint and The Norrey, who are drinking peaceably enough, but Jon is wary of their motives for coming down for the wedding. There is dancing, and Jon is made uneasy by the way some of Selyse’s knights are looking at Satin.
He talks with Alys, and tells her about her husband’s people. They discuss the sad state of Karhold’s harvest, and Alys opines that few of the elderly will survive it, and children will die too. Jon tells her that when her stores begin to dwindle, to send her old men and boys to the Wall rather than let them starve, and she agrees. Jon receives a message from Cotter Pyke that his fleet has finally set sail for Hardhome, which pleases Jon, but he is troubled by the news that Pyke has left Glendon Hewett in command at Eastwatch; Hewett was cronies with both Alliser Thorne and Janos Slynt.
Later, Jon is accosted by Ser Axell Florent, who is continuing his crude campaign to discover the whereabouts of “Princess” Val. When Jon continues to refuse to answer, Florent accuses him of keeping her for himself in hopes of regaining his father’s seat. Disgusted, Jon is about to leave when a horn is heard.
One blast, thought Jon Snow. Rangers returning.
Then it came again. The sound seemed to fill the cellar.
“Two blasts,” said Mully.
Black brothers, northmen, free folk, Thenns, queen’s men, all of them fell quiet, listening. Five heartbeats passed. Ten. Twenty. Then Owen the Oaf tittered, and Jon Snow could breathe again. “Two blasts,” he announced. “Wildlings.” Val.
Tormund Giantsbane had come at last.
Commentary
Well, Ser Axell just keeps on chuggin’ right down Creepybad Lane, don’t he?
Blech. It’s like he Googled “How to Establish Yourself as an Irredeemably Chauvinist Pig in Ten Seconds Flat” and then decided he could go one better.
And seriously, what is his deal? Does he honestly think that if he marries Val he’ll get to be the new wildling king? Is he really that stupid?
He probably is, at that. Lord. As a general rule I wouldn’t wish him on a week-dead monkfish, but all the same it would almost be funny if Jon did “let” him marry Val, since I’m pretty sure “ten seconds flat” is also about as long as it would take before she slit his throat. And then I would point, and laugh, and it would be good.
Speaking of marriages, um, what the hell. Was this whole Alys Karstark/Sigorn Thenn thing mentioned before and I just forgot, or was it as genuinely out of left field as I think it was?
I mean, I get the reasoning behind the move—obviously if she’s married to someone else, she can’t get married to her cousin, and also obviously men who are allowed to marry anyone are in somewhat short supply on the Wall, but couldn’t they have just captured Cregan like they already did and left it at that until Stannis got back?
…Well, though, on reflection, it makes more sense to me than it initially did. It was Jon’s idea in the first place, and I see why he pushed for it, because better northmen/wildling relations are definitely to his benefit, but Alys seems pretty happy with the arrangement as well, which suggests she definitely liked the idea that the Magnar’s men could assist her in taking back Karhold from her traitorous uncle. And if she had waited for Stannis to get back, he may well have decided to marry her to someone much less to her tastes and/or less able to kick out her douchebag relations.
Not to mention, who knows if Stannis is even coming back at all. But if he does, better to beg forgiveness than ask permission and alla that. (I’m guessing having Melisandre marry them even though neither groom nor bride worship R’hllor was a sop to Stannis toward that end.)
She’d better hope Stannis does come back, though. If he dies and Roose Bolton wins the north, well, I’m pretty sure forgiveness ain’t gonna be in the cards. To say the least.
Also, the tradition in this particular rite of jumping across the flames immediately reminded me of the tradition of “jumping the broom,” which used to be a term for marriages conducted under dubious circumstances or of uncertain validity (e.g., the unsanctioned and clandestine marriages of slaves in the antebellum United States). “Of uncertain validity” being, actually, a fairly accurate description of this marriage as well. I don’t know if Martin intended that parallel, but it’s pretty darn clever if he did.
(And of course, only in ASOIAF would a wedding ritual include a tradition that threatens actual bodily harm. But hey, this wedding didn’t have even a little bit of massacring in it, so good job, guys! A++, would risk singeing again!)
“Under the sea the mermen feast on starfish soup, and all the serving men are crabs,” Patchface proclaimed as they went. “I know, I know, oh, oh, oh.”
Melisandre’s face darkened. “That creature is dangerous. Many a time I have glimpsed him in my flames. Sometimes there are skulls about him, and his lips are red with blood.”
*raises eyebrow* Reeeeeally.
Well, okay then. As far as I remember, Patchface has never done anything other than dance around and make up occasionally uncomfortably-relevant-to-the-situation nonsense rhymes, which is pretty much a court fool’s job, so this is also coming out of left field as far as I am concerned. Unless I’m forgetting something. Which I probably am.
But I’m pretty sure I would at least remember if he had, like, eaten someone or something (you know, because of blood on his lips?), so if there were any hints I’m disremembering, at least they were probably fairly subtle ones. I hope.
(Wow, “disremember” is an actual word? I thought it was just a funny malapropism of my grandmother’s. Huh.)
“When the red star bleeds and the darkness gathers, Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt to wake dragons out of stone. Dragonstone is the place of smoke and salt.”
Jon had heard all this before. “Stannis Baratheon was the Lord of Dragonstone, but he was not born there. He was born at Storm’s End, like his brothers.”
So, I’ve basically been assuming all along that Melly is totally wrong about Stannis being Azor Ahai, but I don’t think I’ve really speculated too much about who is Azor if Stannis isn’t (or if I have, I’ve forgotten). And really, the only other person who leaps to mind that it could be is Dany. I can’t remember the specifics of her “rebirth” at the end of AGOT, so I don’t know if the “salt” bit applies, but there sure as hell was “smoke,” and more importantly she “woke dragons out of stone” when she hatched the eggs, which if I recall correctly were thought to be stone.
I’m pretty sure Whatshisguts, the red priest who died on Tyrion’s ship in the storm, thought Dany was The One too, though, so it’s not like I’m having an especially original idea here. But something seems wrong to me about the idea of Dany being Azor—not her gender, either, but just, I dunno. Maybe it just seems too obvious.
So, in conclusion, *shrug*.
Alys Karstark leaned close to Jon. “Snow during a wedding means a cold marriage. My lady mother always said so.”
He glanced at Queen Selyse. There must have been a blizzard the day she and Stannis wed.
*snort*
Oooh, burn, Jon Snow. Ironically.
And that’s where we stop. I’m sorry for the two one-chapter posts in a row, but there was a minor (and now happily resolved, thankfully) family emergency to deal with and I ran out of time. More next week, I promise! Cheers!
Only one chapter again? We are so close to the “stuff finally happens!” part of this monstertome, and we keep getting stretched out. If there’s only one chapter again next week, I may shake my finger accusingly at the screen.
The Alys-Sigorn marriage was kind of out of left field, but there was a logical reasoning behind it.
1. Sigorn was one of the main Wildling leaders who wasn’t on board with Jon Snow’s “let’s all team up together!” plan.
2. Alys needed some strong backing to keep the evil branch of the Karstarks from taking over their holdings, as all the evil guys are right around that area, while Harry (who she at least speaks of fondly) is being held prisoner somewhere.
3. Jon makes a plan that benefits everyone. He gets more support, Alys gets what she needs to keep the other Karstarks from immediately overrunning their land and removing her from the picture and Sigorn becomes a legit lord (which also can do a lot to help Jon in gaining the allegiance of more Wildlings).
As for Patchface, way, way back (I think in the prologue of Book 2 with Maester Cressen), there was something weird mentioned about why Patchface was the way he was. It’s really shaky in my memory, but I think it might have to do something with him being a normal youth who suffered a near-drowning sort of incident and being an addled fool was how he became upon recovering. It was the sort of vague tidbit that got a bit more acute when reading about the Greyjoy priest-dude and how his “Drowned Men” were created, which makes me wonder if he might have some connection to the Drowned God, which would obviously be of worry to a faithful Red Priest.
I never trusted Patchface. His songs have always been creepy.
Then again, I have a natural dislike/distrust towards clowns, mime artists and crazy jesters…
my current theory is that azor ahai reborn is a team of heroes instead of just one person. i’m thinking we have so many religions seemingly working against the great other, that maybe they each have a chosen one to set against the white walkers. and those people will need to work in tandem.
Dany was born at Dragonstone, as well. The red comet appeared after their dragons awoke, but the prophecy does not necessarily have to be in order, does it?
If we fret too much about smoke and salt in this prophecy, the best candidate for Azor Ahai is a piece of ham, as Renly well knew.
Regarding Alys’ marriage, it seems Jon had the idea off-screen. The idea is also good as Jon was nervous that Sigorn might want to kill him in order to avenge his father, so marrying Sigorn off serves as both a boon (not only the bride, but regency over a castle) and to put some miles between them.
Dany was actually born on Dragonstone – it had been the original base of House Targaryen.
It’s been mentioned Dany was born on Dragonstone, during a fierce storm (hence Daenerys “Stormborn”). She doesn’t wield fiery flaming lightsabers swords though…
If one chapter is hard for us, it must be torture for Leigh. Well, looking forward to next week. Notice that Alys continues the tradition of pretty awesome Northern Young women we’ve met or heard of.
Aww…. Was really hoping we’d get to the next chapter, I’ve been eagerly anticipating it.
Not much to say on this chapter, except that I really miss Dolorous Edd in Jon’s chapters now. This chapter really is only significant for the end. At least Tormund is always fun. But the whole Alys-Thenn wedding seems pretty unimportant in the grand scheme of things.
I’m not sure what to make of Mel’s mistrust of Patchface. If she though he was REALLY a danger, she could easily have him killed by Stannis or Selyse. The fact that she hasn’t seems to indicate that he isn’t as dangerous as she conveys to Jon in this chapter. So I’m not sure why she mentioned it.
Not much more to say, but I will DEFINITEly have LOTS to discuss next week.
Even Melisandre finds Patchface to be unsettling. Fucking clowns, man.
Ok, so Melisandre looks for Stannis (Azor Ahai) and she sees only “Snow”. Now she mentions she sees snow when looking for Mance Rayder. But… is she looking for Mance Rayder, or is she looking for “The King Beyond the Wall” and seeing “Snow”?
I find this whole marriage puzzling. Its clear why its a good thing from Jon’s POV, but why is Alys happy about it? Instead of a cousin she doesn’t like, she gets to marry a stranger from a different culture with unknown customs. And what makes her thing she can trust him to not take over Karhold, murder her, or return the castle to her brother if he shows back up?
Sometime several books ago we got Patchface’s history. He was a very smart court slave who was shipwrecked and was all messed up in the head and body by the time he was rescued. He does say some creepy stuff. Maybe he’s the Drowned God’s agent now.
@1- if there is only one chapter next week, we’ll read it AND LIKE IT. ;)
I cannot blame Leigh for going 1 chapter a week at the moment.
After all it may be another 3 years before the next book comes out.
FTR, I have given up on seeing this series finished. I am aware of Neil Gaiman’s message on ‘GRRM is not your b**ch’ but enough is enough. Let him stop his side projects, buckle up and write.
No side stories, no guides. Just an ending to this. This is Wheel of Time all over again for me, except worse.
@15 – I hope you are wrong. GRRM has said he wants it out before the next season of GOT on HBO.
@12 bookworm1398 Cregan has plotted the assassination of Alys’s brother and has buried two wives. Alys knows her life will be one long rape until she births a child, and then she will be killed.
Better the unknown quantity than the known villain, her cousin – especially if that unknown quantity has the backing of Lord Eddard’s only living son. The attendance of the two northern lords, Old Flint and The Norrey, may imply support from the North as well.
Cregan sounds like a real jewel. One wonders how Cregan and Richard Karstark and others could have produced someone like Alys who seems moral. I don’t know much about Harrion but he must not be too bad but Alys sticks out like a flower in a pile of horse manure.
Axell Florent continues his despicable attitudes (as we recall, he councilled Stannis to loot Claw Island and put the old men, women, and babies to the sword because all their men died on the Blackwater with Stannis or bent the knee later. Yay, Davos to the rescue!)
Did anyone think the first couple of chapters implied that Jon was marrying Alys rather than escorting her? I agree that Alys joins the Mormont girls and Wylla Manderly in the Spunky Northern Girls Club. It felt like Alys’s entire story arc came out of left field – appearing on a horse, looking like Arya, marrying the Magnar. But as random as it is, I find her appearance to be a welcome respite from the Ick Factor of Axell, Cregan, Selyse, the Queen’s Men, starvation, R’hllor and burning people.
And Leave. Satin. Alone.
@16: So do I.
@7 – “she doesn’t wield fiery flaming swords though”
she doesn’t? How would one describe controlling dragons metaphorically?
@19 I wouldn’t exactly say she’s controlling them at this point. And when you have dragons, who needs metaphors? Calling a dragon a “sword” doesn’t make the dragon seem any more bad ass than it already is, in my opinion.
I mean if you’re looking for metaphorical flaming swords, are there any male characters known to have a venereal disease at this point?
@12 The Magnar has no claim to authority south of the Wall, but Alys does. The marriage gives her an army, and him entry into one of the most powerful families in the North. But if he kills her, he gains the enmity of the most powerful families in the North.
So he is a safer husband to have than most of her options.
@3, 10, 13:
So, do you think Patchface is going to become the next John Wayne Gacy (or better said the John Wayne Gacy of Westeros)? Do you figure that instead of targetting young men and boys, his victims will be girls and young women instead?
@22: Shagwell was the John Wayne Gacy of Westeros. Patchface is just generally creepy, and probably an even better servant of the Drowned God than Aeron Greyjoy.
@12: In addition to what Avlonnic wrote, IIRC Sigorn is a young guy, perhaps not bad looking, while her cousin/uncle/whatever is a skeezy old guy. Which of those would a 17-year-old woman probably prefer?
Was it my imagination or was Alys majorly flirting with Jon? Those two got chummy pretty fast.
Didn’t Master Aemon conclude that Dany was “the one, born amidst salt and smoke”?
@@@@@24. joev
Nope, I think Alys was flirting with Jon, that might just be her personality, frankly I was jealous of a book character (Sigorn), for a while after reading this chapter.
Also, Jon very likely told Alys about Sigorn before she agreed, and of course Jon would have spoken very authoritatively to Sigorn before hand as well about marrying into a South of the Wall noble house. The Thenns are the most southern way friendly group of wildlings anyway as they have many of the same customs, that’s probably why she got to marry Sigorn instead of one of Tormund’s although, Tormund was not yet at the Wall.
Patchface is one of the creepier tangents in the ASOIAF universe. He was aboard a ship that capsized in a storm and was the only survivor. Apparently he had a near-drowning experience and when he was revived he started in on these weird little rhymes about “under the sea.” A logical person might assume brain damage or perhaps PTSD-related psychotic break, but this IS ASOIAF, so… My crackpot theory is that Patchface actually saw something down there. I think he may have actually experienced, via more natural means, the thing Damphair is trying to emulate with his “baptisms” of drowning and reviving people. As far as I can tell, Patchface is the only evidence that the Drowned God is actually real, just as all the other gods in the ASOIAF universe seem to be.
Exactly. If Mel knows that an ocean-based religion exists in Westeros, she would have good reason to feel threatened by someone who speaks so enticingly of the undersea world. (I dare you to not imagine him singing “Under the Sea” from The Little Mermaid). Fire worship comes easily amid ice and darkness, but elsewhere Patchface might be a far more effective missionary. I seek to emulate him in my marine-biology-education work, though I personally identify more with Aeron’s gloomy longing.
She still might have actually seen him in her fires, though, complete with skulls and blood. Skulls represent death, don’tcha know, and death is frequently in his (and every other) vicinity.
@11: I chuckled at that line, too. “I see only snow”…you mean Jon Snow? Sneaky, Mel.
We’ve now seen weddings in the traditions of R’hllor, the Old Gods (Ramsay/”Arya”), and the Faith (the other Westeros ones), not to mention the Dothraki and Meereen. Can we see a Drowned God officiated wedding, please?
@Fiddler
Let him stop his side projects, buckle up and write.
He has
@5, re; the red comet: it was actually noticed before the dragons hatched, while Drogo’s funeral pyre was being put up. And Maester Luwin mentioned it earlier in the book. It just grows bigger afterwards.
13, 23, 26, 27: I feel the same way about Patchface, and considering Melisandre’s distrust of him, this makes me wonder whether R’hllor is not the storm god, and the drown god is not the Other. After all, if darkness is not the opposite of light, water is the opposite of fire.
@30: I’ve always liked to imagine that the Drowned God, and possibly the Storm God as well, function as not-quite-angel-or-demon entities to R’hllor and the Great Other, like Ungoliant to Eru Illuvatar and Melkor, or the Leviathans in Supernatural (which, to be honest, I haven’t seen many episodes of).
Let’s jump back to A Clash of Kings for a moment:
“The boy washed up on the third day. Maester Cressen had come with the rest, to help put names to the dead. When they found the fool he was naked, his skin white and wrinkled and powdered with wet sand. Cressen had thought him another corpse, but when Jommy grabbed his ankles to drag him off to the wagon, the boy coughed water and sat up. To his dying day, Jommy had sworn that Patchface’s flesh was clammy and cold. No one ever explained those two days the fool had been lost at sea. The fisherfolk liked to say a mermaid had taught him to breathe water in return for his seed.”
The ‘clammy and cold’ bit is probably the most indicative to me of some sort of resurrection. Red God, Drowned God — both are invested in death and reanimation.
Then there’s the bit about him impregnating a mermaid?
There’s definitely something more to this fool. And I, like Mel, find it terribly unsettling.
GRRM owes us nothing. But likewise, we owe him nothing. Whenever WoW is released, I will not be purchasing the book. I will put my name on the waitlist at my local library, read it and then return it.
@33 hey, that way, by the time you get to the top of the wait list and read it, he might be finished with Book 7! : )
@32 ed_mcn
“The boy washed up on the third day…”
Does that phrasing seem reminiscent of a popular resurrection myth in OUR world to anyone else?
Dying, going to some kind of underworld to complete a task of some kind, then returning ethereal and mysterious on the third day. Sounds like a cut and dry (pun intended) messiah story to me.
@32: Sex with merlings in exchange for underwater breathing abilities? I’d take that deal.
does the spoiler link work? it seems old. june 4th?
@@@@@37. andophil: yes, but you have to click on the “More Comments” button to load the newer ones.
I had the same issue :)
@33 Tenesmus
Actually, he does owe something. He has a contract to deliver a book to his publisher, presumably with some delivery time, size, and content requirements.
@33:I don’t know about you, but most people don’t buy books because they feel they “owe” the author something. (Maybe some people do that if the author is their struggling writer friend, I don’t know. But that would be an exception.) People buy books because they want to own those books. I read the first five books from the library, then I later bought the five book set from Amazon, because I want to own the book and re-read them as many times as I like, whenever I like.
@35 — Good catch! And on the third day he rose, spitting salt water and rhyming couplets.
I just typed “Patchface is” into Google and the suggested search results blew my mind like 5 times.
@35: Ironically (or not) for Patchface, the “third day” is recorded in Genesis as being the day that dry land first appeared.
@41 and 42: ooooh, I am liking this train of thought!
As far as the cold and clammy feeling when they dragged Patchface away…could it because he had been floating in water for a couple of days? I know when I go swimming I feel pretty cold and clammy and that’s after an hour or two.
@35 Jesus rising on the 3rd day is in turn an echo of Jonah’s miraculous return after 3 days lost at sea.
Meanwhile, let’s not forget there is more than one prominent drowned man in Stannis’s service.
I adore Alys Karstark. Girl has taken control of her life and she has no doubts about making it turn out the way she wants it to. No wonder Signor was nervous.