Episode 41: A GAME OF THRONES, JON V: "Band of Brothers" SHOW NOTES!

 Hello and welcome to the Not A Cast … podcast: the one true chapter-by-chapter podcast going through A Song of Ice and Fire one chapter a week. I’m one of your hosts Jeff better known as BryndenBFish. 

And I’m your other host Emmett, better known as PoorQuentyn. 

Welcome to our forty-first episode of the Not A Cast entitled: “Band of Brothers: An Analysis of AGOT, Jon V,” in which Jon Snow is officially offered a place in the Night’s Watch, but doesn’t feel right about it unless his BFF Samwell Tarly gets to come along as well. This episode is brought to you by our Small Council: Hand of the King WolfmanZack, Grand Maester Timothy W, Jancy O, Lady Commander of the Night’s Watch, Lords Commander of the Kingsguard Mark N and Travis the Investigator, Archmaester June, Healer of the Lesser Poxes, and Ragged Michael, Warden of the North. Thank you ladies and gentlemen! 

Spoiler warning: All published books - 5 novels, 3 Dunk and Egg novellas, histories, interviews, TWOW sample chapters, as well as Game of Thrones the TV show. Anything and everything!

Question

Ser Clint W, a Sworn Sword asks:

A quick question inspired by Fire & Blood: what do you think Princess Deria’s letter to Aegon I said? Alternately, what are your favorite theories? Would love to hear your takes on this giant mystery George leaves us. 

Synopsis

Graduation day for the new recruits for the Night’s Watch is fast approaching. Vitamin C’s “Graduation (Friends Forever)” is playing faintly in the background, and Ser Alliser Thorne is berating the new recruits as hopeless idiots who will die when winter arrives, but he has to graduate them, because of the “No Night’s Watchmen Left Behind” Act of 297 AC. Shit. Am I mixing up this chapter with my own graduation from high school? 

ANYWAYS, Ser Alliser calls out the boys one by one who will graduate but not by their names of course. Ser Alliser is too much a dick for that. He uses the epithets he granted them during their time in his tender care: Toad, Stone Head, Aurochs, Lover, Pimple, Monkey, Ser Loon and the Bastard. Pyp whoops about, but Alliser stares at him. 

“They will call you men of Night’s Watch now, but you are bigger fools than the Mummer’s Monkey here if you believe that. You are boys still, green and stinking of summer, and when the winter comes you will die like flies.”

Lovely stuff. But the boys aren’t about to let Ser Alliser’s cheery mood get in the way of their celebration. They dance about, clapping each other on the back and doing man stuff. All except one: Samwell Tarly. His name wasn’t called. Jon walks over to Sam and offers him a swallow of wine, but Sam demurs. When Jon asks if he’s alright, Samwell lies about being happy for everyone. Besides, Jon will be First Ranger someday, just like Benjen was. Is, Jon corrects Sam. He still refuses to believe that Benjen is dead.

More frolics ensue, but as they taper off, Jon notices that Sam has gone away. But hey, let’s not let Sour Sam get in the way of a good celebration, right, boys! A Lord’s Commander feast is prepared for them, and all the boys – save for Samwell - eat rack of lamb baked in a crust of garlic and herbs, garnished with sprigs of mint and surrounded by mashed yellow turnips swimming in butter, salads of spinach and chickpeas and turnip greens and bowls of iced blueberries and sweet cream. I was waiting to see when we’d get more food porn from George. And our good boy George does not let us down!

Pyp wonders if they’re all going to be kept together, but alas, probably not. They all want different things. Grenn wants to be a ranger. Halder wants to be a builder. And Jon? Jon is definitely going to be a ranger! He’s the best sword, Daereon the Singing Penis, says. And besides, Benjen was First Ranger. 

Benjen Stark is still First Ranger, Jon corrects yet again.

Jon hadn’t given up hope that Benjen was still alive. Same, Jon. Same. But the talk of Benjen and Sam’s non-appearance dampen Jon’s appetite. He pushes away from the table. When Pyp asks what’s wrong. Jon tells Pyp that Sam wasn’t here. That is strange, Pyp says. Sam would never miss a meal. But Jon corrects him immediately (Jon does a lot of “correcting” in this chapter):

He’s frightened. We’re leaving him. Once we say our words, we’ll all have duties to attend to. Some of us may be sent away, to Eastwatch or the Shadow Tower. Sam will remain in training with the likes of Rast and Cuger and these new boys who are coming up the kingsroad. Gods only know what they’ll be like, but you can bet Ser Alliser will send them against him, first chance he gets.

When Pyp tries to reassure Jon that they did everything they could, Jon retorts that it wasn’t enough. He departs the hall and heads outside, a restlessness falling over him. He mounts his horse and rides from Castle Black with no real destination in mind. He only wanted to ride. Ghost follows after. As he rides, he thinks about all the destinations the kingsroad, built by Jaehaerys I, listen to our patreon episode on him, could take him. Winterfell, Riverrun, Casterly Rock, the Isle of Faces, Casterly Rock, Braavos, even the ruins of Old Valyria. These are all places that Jon will never see or never see again. Right.

Jon thinks about his vows and how if he swears them, he’ll stay at the Wall until he was as old as Maester Aemon. But he hasn’t sworn yet, and because he’s not a criminal, he can stay or go as freely as he wants to without any penalty from the law. He could go back to Winterfell. But what would await him in Winterfell? Lady Catelyn would be there (lol), and she wouldn’t welcome him back. Even Lyanna, his mother, I mean his totally unknown mom who is of no consequence didn’t have a place for him. She was a sex worker or adulteress or fool. His “father” Ned had been so ashamed that he never spoke of her. 

Jon looks back at the fires burning at Castle Black and turns his horse around and heads home. Very cool moment! As Jon enters the stableyard and sees the Lord Commander and Maester Aemon’s chambers, he thinks about Samwell and knows what he has to do.

He dismounts and stables his horse and mounts the stairs towards Aemon’s chambers below the rookery. Jon knew that Aemon had two stewards to assist the Maester in his duties: Clydas and Chett. And they were renowned as the ugliest men in the Night’s Watch with the joke going that they’d given the two uggs to blind Aemon. 

Jon knows on the door, and Chett answers. When Jon tells him that he needs to speak with Aemon, Chett tells him to go away and come back in the morning. He tries to shut the door on Jon, but Jon sticks his boot in and keeps the door open. He needs to speak with Aemon now. Chett protests that Aemon isn’t used to late night visitors. Don’t you know how old he is? 

Yeah, bro. Jon knows that Aemon is old enough to treat visitors with more courtesy than Chett does. Jon doesn’t want to disturb his rest, but he really needs to talk with him, and he’ll stand out here all goddamn night if Chett doesn’t let him in. Finally, finally, Chett relents, letting Jon in and ordering the bastard to start a fire so that Aemon doesn’t catch cold while he goes to fetch him.

Aemon arrives in his bed-clothes and his maester’s chain still encircled around his neck. Maesters didn’t even remove their chains when they slept. He takes a seat by the fire, and Jon apologizes for waking the man.

You did not wake me. I find I need less sleep as I grow older, and I am grown very old. I often spend half the night with ghosts, remembering times fifty years past as if they were yesterday.

He asks why Jon’s here, and Jon gets blunt. To ask that Samwell Tarly be taken from training and accepted as a brother of the Night’s Watch. Chett brushes Jon’s statement off as no business of Aemon, and the old maester more gently tells Jon that this is the domain of Ser Alliser Thorne, not him.

But Jon won’t accept defeat. The Lord Commander listens to you, and the wounded and the sick are in your charge. Well, is Sam wounded or sick? Not yet, but he will be unless Aemon intervenes. Jon then proceeds to give a plot summary of AGOT, Jon IV, ending with his warning that Sam stands no chance without his friends. Hell, even Arya could kick his ass. 

Chett very helpfully puts in that Sam is fat and a coward. Aemon says, Yeah. Okay Maybe. But what would you do Chett? Why, Chett would leave him be to train until he’s ready, no matter how many years it’ll take. He’ll either live or die. That’s stupid, Jon says correctly. He then changes tact and goes for storytime.

I remember once I asked Maester Luwin why he wore a chain around his throat. He told me that a maester’s collar is made of chain to remind him that he is sworn to serve. A chain needs all sorts of metals, and a land needs all sorts of people. The Night’s Watch needs all sorts too. Why else have rangers and stewards and builders? Lord Randyll couldn’t make Sam a warrior, and Ser Alliser won’t either. You can’t hammer tin into iron, no matter how hward you beat it, but that doesn’t mean tin is useless. Why shouldn’t Sam be a steward?

Chett scowls and accuses Jon of thinking that steward’s work is coward’s work. He then lists off the different things stewards do: hunt, farm, tend horses, milk cows, gather firewood, cook meals, make clothes, logistics. Aemon pipes in to ask whether Sam can do any of these tasks. Nah, Sam really can’t. But he can do one thing better than anyone. He could help you. He can do sums, and he knows how to read and write. And Aemon, isn’t Chett illiterate and Clydas going blind? Sam read every book in Randyll Tarly’s library. He’d be good in the rookery too, tending to the ravens. Animals love Sam!

Don’t just train the boy to death. Make use of him. 

Aemon closes his eyes, thinking. And then compliments Luwin on teaching Jon well. Jon’s a bright a boy and a good swordsman. When Jon asks if this means … Aemon cuts him off. 

It means I shall think on what you have said. 

Aemon orders Chett to escort Jon to the door. He’s ready for night-night.

And that is AGOT, Jon V: a chapter which … I don’t know how to put this. It’s not an action chapter, but it’s important character work for Jon to be the guy who goes “above and beyond” as he makes his paces towards becoming the hero archetype. What did you think, Emmett?

Depth

As with the most recent Bran and Daenerys chapters, there’s a palpable sense that the focus in the middle third of AGOT is on King’s Landing and the Vale, and accordingly that chapters elsewhere are more checking in than anything else. Having said that, Jon V is still a critical step for his arc and effectively ramps up the stakes from his previous chapters. We’ve gone from Jon being nudged out of naivete by Tyrion to him being forced to reckon with his privilege by Donal Noye to him acting on his values by protecting Sam. But now, rather than play the lone wolf or the rebellious ringleader, he has to work within institutions to keep Sam safe.

• Alliser the asshole
  • Right from the opening words of the chapter, Ser Alliser is doing everything he can to undercut any pride or satisfaction the recruits might feel
    • He proclaims them unworthy
    • He disparages the new recruits as well
    • He disavows any choice in the matter
    • He keeps to their insulting nicknames, even now after any utility is gone
    • He offers no encouragement, predicting instead that they’ll die like flies
  • Once more, Alliser Thorne is not a pragmatist who is preparing these boys for hard realities--he’s a prick sabotaging the NW out of resentment that he’s there
    • Compare what real drill instructor does
      • GRRM too influenced by his Full Metal Jackets and The Boys of Company C?
  • This all works to remind us that he’s indeed a genuine threat to Sam’s life when Jon and the others graduate, establishing the consequences if Jon fails here
    • Good change in GoT: Instead of Rast dying at the Fist of the First Men, he survives and becomes the man who stabs Jeor Mormont during the mutiny at Craster’s Keep.
      • Emphasizes that Jon is right: that Sam is in real danger from characters like Rast and Cuger.
• The taste of your victories
  • This is seemingly everything Jon wants: ascension to the Night’s Watch and an escape from Ser Alliser’s tender mercies
  • Yet he’s not happy about it, because Sam is not among the eight named
  • As those who were named celebrate, poor Sam stands alone by a “bare dead tree,” and even he has never been so much of a Charlie Brown in his life
  • Sam is so clearly screwed and knows it that GRRM breaks his usual structure and confirms that Sam is lying about being OK despite him not being the POV
  • Despite Ser Alliser’s attempts to isolate Sam, Jon has bonded with Sam--a brotherly bond that is the heart of the Night’s Watch, despite neither of them having taken the black yet and Sam not being offered the opportunity
  • Donal Noye’s “taste of your victories” line comes back here, as Jon’s triumph turns to ashes in his mouth--it is a hero’s journey beat without meaning to him
  • I mean the tasting part literally, as there’s a motif of food and drink linked to Jon’s disappointment in this chapter
    • First, there’s the congratulatory skin of wine--remember from Jon I that booze is linked to him being on the verge of adulthood
    • But Sam doesn’t drink, and by the time Jon extricates himself, Sam is gone
    • Later on, Hobb provides a delicious meal of lamb and blueberries and etc, but Jon can hardly taste it because he’s so worried about Sam and so ashamed that “all we could [do] wasn’t enough” 
  • How can he be happy about joining a band of brothers when he’s leaving a man behind? (Kill the boy, and let the Lord Commander be born…)
  • Just to emphasize that Sam is now Jon’s brother, GRRM repeatedly links Jon’s concern for Sam to his longing for his family
    • Jon compares Sam’s fear of being abandoned by his friends to his own feelings of abandonment regarding his siblings
    • Everyone keeps bringing up Benjen and how he’s probably dead, which spurs Jon to make sure he doesn’t lose Sam too
• Should I stay or should I go
  • There’s an atmospheric lil interlude here where Jon goes riding and considers taking off down the kingsroad, leaving the Watch behind before he says his oath
  • Unlike in Jon III, he no longer hates life at Castle Black nor the people he shares it with, but he still feels the call of adventure and exploration
  • The bones of Jon’s arc are so solid, because this provides a bridge from that earlier disillusionment to his temptation to leave after Ned’s downfall and death
  • Also worth noting which exotic lands Jon is longing for--the red mountains of Dorne (aka his birthplace), the Isle of Faces (aka where Rhaegar and Lyanna may well have wed), the smoking ruins of Old Valyria (aka where his ancestors on his father’s side come from). So many homes to run to…
  • ...yet ultimately he stays, reaffirming Sam as his truest brother now
• Meeting with the maester
  • Now we arrive at the heart of Jon V: our hero’s conversation with Maester Aemon
  • As with Jon’s temptation to leave, this is an important beat for the old maester
  • He was given a nice intro in Tyrion III, but not much else to go on, and we need to establish him in order for the reveal in Jon VIII (he’s a secret Targ!) to land
  • When Aemon comes in, he notes that he spends his nights with ghosts, as we will see not only in that Jon chapter but also via Sam in AFFC: “Egg, is that you?” 
  • Jon appeals to the maester on two grounds: institutional authority…
    • “The Lord Commander listens to you,” Jon told him.
  • ...and mercy.
    • “And the wounded and the sick of the Night’s Watch are in your charge.”
      
      “And is your friend Samwell wounded or sick?”
      
      “He will be,” Jon promised, “unless you help.”
  • These are intertwined, of course: Aemon’s institutional duty commands him to provide mercy, and Jon argues the overall mission of the NW does as well
  • Chett basically argues Ser Alliser’s point, allowing Jon to finally respond to it 
  • My favorite part of the chapter is Jon’s argument, rooted in what he learned from Maester Luwin at Winterfell (and thus the home and family he was longing for)
    • “I remember once I asked Maester Luwin why he wore a chain around his throat."
      
      Maester Aemon touched his own collar lightly, his bony, wrinkled finger stroking the heavy metal links. "Go on."
      
      "He told me that a maester's collar is made of chain to remind him that he is sworn to serve," Jon said, remembering. "I asked why each link was a different metal. A silver chain would look much finer with his grey robes, I said. Maester Luwin laughed. A maester forges his chain with study, he told me. The different metals are each a different kind of learning, gold for the study of money and accounts, silver for healing, iron for warcraft. And he said there were other meanings as well. The collar is supposed to remind a maester of the realm he serves, isn't that so? Lords are gold and knights steel, but two links can't make a chain. You also need silver and iron and lead, tin and copper and bronze and all the rest, and those are farmers and smiths and merchants and the like. A chain needs all sorts of metals, and a land needs all sorts of people.”
  • This merits a breakdown, because there’s a lot at work here
  • First of all, Jon is asserting that there’s more to the Night’s Watch than being a fancy ranger (though he’ll briefly backslide on this question in his next chapter)
  • Secondly, this shows how Jon has internalized Donal Noye’s lesson--you need everyone, not just lords and knights, to make a society, and everyone matters
  • It’s not only a worthy expression of leadership, but a vital sentiment in the face of the Long Night; again, Jon will expand on this as Lord Commander
  • It’s also a tribute to the moral and practical worth of a good education
  • Finally, it links (heh) maesters’ vows to the Night’s Watch oaths, saying both serve the realm and reflect the same values; Jon knows his audience!
  • And while Aemon says he’ll have to think it over, he’s not only impressed with Jon’s intelligence, he confirms him as a worthy member of the Night’s Watch:
    • “Chett, show our young brother to the door.” 
      • When Aemon quietly calls Jon “brother”,it’s a huge fuck yeah moment for me on re-read, because we know that Aemon is going to back Jon’s play here and subtly stand up to Thorne’s cruelty. 

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

We get one of those classic ironic nudges in the direction of R+L=J in this chapter:

Even his own mother had not had a place for him. The thought of her made him sad. He wondered who she had been, what she had looked like, why his father had left her. Because she was a whore or an adulteress, fool. Something dark and dishonorable, or else why was Lord Eddard too ashamed to speak of her? 

Looks like Maester Aemon’s not the only black brother spending his nights with ghosts!

Theory/Discussion

For all that we love Jon’s compassion and loyalty in this chapter, there’s a victim in all this: Chett, who loses a comfortable gig with (as he says in ASOS) the one authority figure who never beat him. As we asked with Littlefinger in our last episode, how legitimate exactly is his grievance against Lord Snow and his buddy Sam?

• Chett isn’t wrong in his argument about how Jon is viewing the stewards: as a safe dummy job to dump Sam. Look at how Jon reacts to being named a steward himself!
• Indeed, Aemon agrees with him, which is what backs Jon into a corner
• Jon’s proposal entirely rests on Sam being literate, which Chett is not
• But this isn’t Chett’s fault, as he comes from the bottom rung even among peasants (his father didn’t have any rights to farmland nor a trade, so he grubbed for leeches)
• So how is this different from Jon using his training to beat up other recruits earlier? It’s intellectual instead of physical, but this is still nobles conspiring to use their advantages
• Of course, we learn later that Chett means to set himself up like Craster...yikes...
• In his thoughts about women and Sam in the prologue to ASOS, we can see that same gendered oppression across class lines that came up in Jon IV
• Again it’s a sign of different kinds of power that Jon will have to negotiate
• So is Chett among the kinds of people that can defend the realm together in Jon’s metaphor, or is he too much of a broken man? (spoilers for ASOS: it’s the latter)

Conclusion

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