Hey youtubers it’s Charlie, this is going to be my Jon Snow video.
I’m expecting the show to catch up with his story in the books so what I think I’m
gonna do is start with what’s going on right as Season 5 picks up, what we know about him
just based on the trailer and then put him into perspective with the other characters.
I guess you could call this video the progression of Snow.
Which seems like a nice Winter is Coming joke.
Also, the giveaway this week just got upgraded.
I am giving away a copy of the Season 4 Blu Ray.
All you have to do to enter is be a subscriber and leave a comment.
More details at the end of the video.
Careful for spoilers through season 4 on the show.
Starting at the end of Season 4.
The last we see of him is cleaning up the mess of bodies from the Siege of Castle Black.
They burn all the bodies, not because they totally buy into the idea of White Walkers
and the Great Other, but because it’s practical and most of them are probably really superstitious.
Melisandre is there now and she has this really scary charisma, she’s all about preparing
for the war with the great other.
So I don’t think it matters whether or not anyone believes in white walkers.
I think they’ll be more afraid of her and Stannis.
There’s all the wildlings that surrendered.
Now they have to figure out what to do with them.
And based on what we saw in the trailer, there’s a whole other group of Wildlings holed up
in Hardhome up here that they’ll have to deal with.
It seems like the tv show is going to stay pretty close to the big beats of books 4 and
5.
Most of what happens up at the wall is Book 5 anyway.
So if you want to follow that directly in the books.
You need to jump from the end of book 3 to book 5.
Cersei thinks about the Night’s Watch in her Book 4 POV chapters, but the actual story
up there is all book 5.
What do all these things mean for Jon Snow?
Everyone in a position of leadership have different agendas, so all the big problems
get dumped on him to deal with.
The biggest characters he has to contend with are Stannis and Melisande, then inside the
Night’s Watch there’s Alliser Thorne, Janos Slynt,
Amongst the Wildlings there’s Mance Rayder and Tormund Giantsbane both captives, so not
quite as big of a threat.
Rattleshirt is back too but based on this clip in the trailer it’s hard to tell whether
or not he was part of Mance’s captured army or if he’s part of the group up at Hardhome.
This new character, Loboda definitely looks like he’s part of the Hardhome group.
So as much as Stannis and the Night’s Watch defeated Mance Rayder’s army.
The Wildling’s are still a huge issue to be dealt with before everyone can start worrying
about the White Walkers and The Boltons to the south.
I think the show is pushing for some narrative symmetry between Jon and Daenerys.
Two people who are falling into leadership positions without being completely ready for
it.
Daenerys is a more obvious example because she’s sitting on a real throne.
I don’t think it’s a spoiler for endgame or anything like that, just because these
quote unquote fire and ice characters are on similar trajectories doesn’t guarantee
they’ll both live forever.
Part of the fun of Song of Ice and Fire is that anyone can be killed off at any time
for any reason.
But I do think in Season 5, Jon and Daenerys will hit a lot of the same beats.
That’s really as far as it goes right now though.
They both have very different motivations.
When the season starts, the key things to watch will be Jon’s new leadership role
and how that changes his dynamic with Stannis
and the other senior Members of the Night’s Watch.
Jon’s relationship with Melisandre and the creepy plans it seems like she has for him.
And Jon’s relationship with his family.With Winterfell.
I’m curious if in the opening title sequence, Winterfell will still be blackened and burning.
I mean really, it would have stopped burning a long time ago.
The fact it’s still burning every week in the intro is just a reminder of what happened
to it.
It’s not quite as bad off as Harrenhal was after Aegon sent his dragons to destroy it.
But large parts of it were burned.
That’s actually a good place to get into book stuff.
There’s a lot of interesting Winterfell dragon related theories but let’s talk about
some of the Jon Snow changes the show might be making.
Just looking at the trailer, it seems like they gave Jon Cotter Pyke’s story and sent
him to Hardhome to deal with the crazy wildlings.
There’s a whole crazy history of Hardhome that sounds a lot like what happened at Jamestown
in real life.
Jamestown was an early american colony where everyone mysteriously died or disappeared.
They even found evidence of cannibalism.
Hardhome in the books invokes a lot of mystical supernatural aspects in that sense, but the
outcome was the same.
The town was labeled as haunted and wildlings never went there again, until now.
I’ll have to do a separate video for Hardhome when we see it on the show.
It’s a really cool story.
If Jon is able to win over the Wildlings there and bring them back it would win him more
support from Stannis.
As it is, he doesn’t seem like he gives a lot of respect to bastards.
Even if they’re the bastards of Ned Stark.
Supposedly.
That brings up a question I don’t see asked a as much.
For those that have not read the books, before he died, Robb Stark legitimized Jon Snow.
That means he’s a proper heir of Winterfell.
As of Season 3.
They didn’t include this on the show, so I’m going to assume they’re not ever going
to bring it up.
Right now Sansa is the rightful heir.
And if you believe Littlefinger, he’s going to try and get it back for her.
As much as Jon has his shit together up at the wall, it’s the love of his family that
makes him want to break his oath and ride for the Boltons.
The Jeyne Pool stand-in character Myranda is back in season 5.
So I wonder if Ramsay will send Jon a false letter claiming they have Arya.
If you look at this map here, it seems like Stannis is mapping Bolton troop locations.
So they are doing that part of the book, but they might swap a few of the characters.
I think the plot up at the wall will be the closest to the books of any of the running
storylines.
They’ll all have minor changes but just in descending order from Least Changed to
most changed.
I’d say Jon Snow slash North, King’s Landing Cersei stuff, Daenerys in Meereen, Arya in
Braavos and kind of a tie for most-changed between Tyrion and the Dorne stuff.
Those two storylines have massive chunks and major characters missing.
When we get to those episodes I’ll include a list of big changes in my videos.
I try to not plan ahead too much because usually I don’t know how many of you are book readers
and how many just watch the show.
If there are any big changes you guys want to talk about specifically just let me know.
I know cutting out Young Griff is a big deal, but I think a lot of the story they lost will
be given to other characters.
Just like giving Edric Storm’s story to Gendry.
Just to explain the giveaway a little better.
It’s a copy of the season 4 blu ray.
I’ll announce the winner in next week’s video.
All you have to do to enter is be a subscriber and leave a comment.
Super simple.
I’ll probably do the blu ray thing for the next couple of weeks.
And maybe again throughout the season.
I’m still deciding what next week’s games of thrones video will be, so feel free to
leave requests in the comments.
You can also scan my mega playlist if you’re not sure which videos I’ve already done.
Here’s a link for that.
And you can click here to get ready for Walking Dead tonight!
I’ll post the new video after the episode airs.
Thanks for watching, see you guys tonight!
High Fives!