Jon Snow's Song of Ice and Fire

BIG BIG SPOILER ALERT
If you haven't read a Dance with Dragons & you don't want to know what happens, don't read this blog post!












Jon is dead... wait... what?

How could GRRM do this agai... aaah, wait a minute...

Lets go all Sherlock on this for a minute. When he killed Eddard he chopped off his head, pretty final. When they killed Robb it was conclusive. Tywin too, and Joffrey. Conversely, when he 'killed' Brienne we never saw that final moment of death and lo, she wasn't dead. Same for Bran & Rickon, Tyrion too, Danaerys had one, the jury is still out on Jaime.

Essentially the point is that unless you see that moment of death, a POV character probably isn't dead.

There are a few other reasons why Jon isn't dead...

Prophecy: Jon is suspected to be the prophesied Azor-Ahai reborn.
"There will come a day after a long summer when the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world. In this dread hour a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword. And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who clasps it shall be Azor Ahai come again, and the darkness shall flee before him."
While there are many theories, Jon as the prince that was promised is one of the more compelling. Especially considering the speculation that Jon is the child of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, thus would be descended from Aerys and Rhaella. This is relevant because A woods witch prophesied that their progeny would spawn Azor Ahai reborn.

Additionally, whenever Melisandre consulted the flames for Azor Ahai (whom she believes to be Stannis), she is only given visions of Jon.

He is also a Warg which means that even if his body should perish, his will can pass to an animal, most probably Ghost. This was alluded to in the prologue chapter.

Choice of words: GRRM makes a few word selections that don't make sense without wider context.

Consider the following;
"When the red star bleeds and the darkness gathers, Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt."

We know about the "red star" and "darkness gathers" refer to the blood-red comet and the coming of winter respectively. Smoke and Salt are slightly more cryptic or perhaps would be if GRRM had spaced out the references more but observe the language in the moments around Jon's 'death'.

Upon being stabbed, the wound is described as 'smoking'. He has just been stabbed somewhere with sub-zero temperatures, surely it should say 'steaming'? But it doesn't.

Also, as Bowen Marsh & co are stabbing him and crying "For the Watch!" it is also stated that Marsh is crying.

Smoke and Salt.

This brings us to the pivotal word here, "reborn". Jon must die.

"Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all nights to come."

"It shall not end until my death". This is why Jon must first die before being reborn as Azor-Ahai.

Thoros of Myr showed us that the Red God's servants have the power to bring people back from the dead. Dondarrion made the journey several times, carrying his wounds with him. Jon's stab wounds might be survivable but as an honorable Stark, it makes more sense that he dies to be released from his watch.

Finally, it simply doesn't make sense that GRRM would kill Jon because there is nobody else up on the wall who can continue the story, no other POV character there.

So, Jon isn't dead... hopefully!

Corruption, a thing of the past?

When you talk about corruption, inevitably you start talking about people in positions of authority and influence. Police, politicians, the press, sports personalities, clergy & big business leaders. It is rarely those lower down the chain, why is that?

Is it that we lowly peons of society are incorruptible? Is it that nobody considers us worth their effort to bend our will to match theirs?

The police have been found to be corrupt in their handling of the Hillsborough disaster. What they have done is awful* but to what extent can we say it is beyond understanding? Clearly the situation was handled poorly and ultimately those in charge must have known that their jobs were forfeit. Every man has his price so says the old adage and, it would seem, that their jobs was the price these men were willing to sell their integrity for. It is wrong, it has caused 23 years of hurt but it is understandable. Think about your own life and how different it might look if your job was suddenly taken from you and what you might do to prevent it happening.

There are two things about the cover-up that don't fall under the banner of 'understandable' that I have erected however;
First, the doctoring of people's records to slur their character, to be responsible for a failing at your work place is unfortunate and shows incompetence but what followed was literally and figuratively criminal and this is an important distinction because we cross the line between culpable and crooked.
Secondly, it has emerged that the police were initially advised by law professionals to approach the investigation considering themselves the accused. This seems to have been overturned when government officials including PM Margaret Thatcher (spits on floor) got involved.

This has crossed another line now. as has already been stated, lying to protect oneself and ones job is understandable albeit still immoral. Lying to save face is quite another matter. The Conservative government will never have the respect of the honest working public for as long as they continue to scratch the backs of those in positions of influence while the working public are left with no options in life but to fund their decadence. Cameron's apology was appropriate and well delivered but it is easy to apologise for the past sins of others, what will people in future governments have to apologise for on behalf of Cameron & his cronies I wonder? Admitting someone else's mistakes politically is one of the best things you can do, it garners good will towards you & your party and doesn't lose you anything and no politician will ever admit their own, at least not while they still have a future in politics.

If, in 22 years time we're talking about how a police shooting of an innocent man sparked the London riots and how it was covered up with Cameron's knowledge then Cameron's apology yesterday to the families of the Hillsborough deceased was phony and just another political tool.

*I'm hesitant to say unforgivable where others might as I believe that no crime is unforgivable

Computer games, I love 'em & hate 'em. They are one of the greatest sources of joy & grief for me. Some may call that sad but it's no more-so than someone who can lose themselves in a good book or movie.


Sometimes they can provide some interesting insight though.


Today's blog is all bout greed. Greed is the single most important driving factor in our capitalist society. Greed is exhonerated, we applaud those who have managed to make their millions. We idolise them on TV & in magazines. We rate them on a world's richest league table. We do the same with companies.


This week I was hoping to enjoy a new game by the name of Diablo III. It is made by Blizzard, they of World of Warcraft. You may have seen the TV ads with Chuck Norris & Mr T. This game is unremarkable in almost every way, it's a simple concept and simple gameplay. The graphics aren't ground-breaking and the story is... nothing to write home about.


It has one unusual feature that sets it apart however. Every item in the game is tradeable on an 'auction house'. Things can be bought & sold on this auction house for in-game currency but also for real money.


This has a number of effects on the game but let me first explain with an example. I put an item up on the RMAH (Real Money Auction house) for £10 and someone buys it. I can choose to allow that money to go to my Battle.net Balance or to Paypal (some countries don't have the Paypal option).


Great? I can make money by playing a game right? Well... sorta...


So, someone bought my £10 item. Instantly the lsit fee goes to Blizzard, it's $1 in the US, I'm expecting 75p-ish here so I get £9.25 right? Well, no. Blizzard now takes a 15% cut of the original sale amount. So, £7.75 then.


Here's the really awful catch, That £7.75 goes into my battle.net account which I can never access in the real world. So, my real-world money has become another in-game currency essentially.


I can of course choose to recieve this via Paypal in which case Blizzard's cut goes up to 30% so my £10 sale leaves me with £6.25 and Blizzard have just made £3.75 from some poor soul.


Now I'm not against someone making money, that's what businesses do, I do have to object with this because of the following...


You MUST play on their servers. You may have heard that many people who just paid £30-ish for a new game weren't able to play it because the servers couldn't cope with the amount of players.


This would be understandable in an MMOG (Massively-Multiplayer Online Game) but this is a game that many will play single-player. Even if you're on your own you MUST connect and stay connected to their servers.


The reason for this is that if the game generated the loot that players receive client-side (on the player's computer) then there is a good chance that eventually someone would work out how to create non-legit items. This happened with a great game called Borderlands (but wasn't hindered because it didn't need to keep the reins tightly held)


This would render the RMAH useless because people could simply make their own uber items if they were so-inclined and would also destroy the motivating feature of the game, that is, gathering loot.


So why not simply allow people to play in a single-player environment with characters that can't be transferred over to the multiplayer environment? Simple, because that is potential money lost. It would make these players the digital equivalent of window shoppers. Never mind that they have already shelled out £30 for a game that has no new features on top of Diablo II, released in 2000.


So, the issue we are left with is a game that nobody can play (because the servers can't cope) and a company that thus isn't making money from it's schemes, all because of greed.


A shame really because the little bit I have managed to play thus far is actually a lot of fun. I'm sure the servers will cope eventually once the amount of players drops slightly (or Blizzard actually put some of the crazy amounts of money they make from WoW subscribers into more authentication servers). I'll just be opting out of using the RMAH & enjoying playing this with some mates.


So, greed making everything worse for everyone else...? Where have seen that before?