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Chapter 52: Jon
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Game of Thrones, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Politics and Power
Climate Change and Collective Action
Gender and Power
Honor and Integrity
Identity
Summary
Analysis
Bran stands with Maester Luwin and watches the Karstarks stream into King’s Landing. They’re the last of the Stark bannermen to arrive—Robb summoned them to help the Tullys defend Riverrun. Robb will march with them. He thinks it would be cowardly to command his men to fight without fighting alongside them. Bran, on the other hand, hasn’t been able to leave the castle after the incident when the wildlings caught him and almost killed him. Bran has noticed a change in Robb. Though he is scarcely 16, he’s recently shown that he’s able to command those much older than himself and shows the capacity to convince them that he is a true leader.
Robb’s idea that it would be cowardly to command men to fight without fighting alongside them recalls Ned’s earlier advice to Bran to demonstrate one’s conviction by carrying out one’s orders oneself (as when Ned asserted his willingness to execute Gared himself). Both Robb and Ned, then, share leadership philosophies that emphasize the importance of integrity and personal responsibility. The fact that Robb takes on the philosophy is also a testament to the kind of role model Ned has been and the legacy of his example.
Themes
Bran asks Hodor to take him to the godswood—recently, that’s the place that Bran likes to go the most. While there, Bran recalls when Robb received the raven with the message from Sansa. Sansa urged Robb and Catelyn to come to King’s Landing and pledge fealty to King Joffrey. If they did so, Sansa would plead with Joffrey to spare Ned. Nowhere in the message did Sansa mention Arya. Robb remarked that he didn’t know what was wrong with Sansa. Bran said that she lost her wolf.
Bran’s statement that Sansa lost her wolf points to the direwolf’s function as a symbol of the Stark family. The direwolf is the Stark family sigil, or a kind of mascot for the family. The fact that Sansa lost her wolf—or, more accurately, that Cersei ordered it to be killed—symbolizes how Sansa lost something vital in herself and began to feel disconnected from her family when her wolf was killed.
Themes
In the godswood, Bran asks the gods to watch over Robb as he goes to war. Osha appears in the godswood. Bran asks what she’s doing there, and she says that they are her gods too. They’re the only gods there are beyond the Wall, she says. Hodor comes to check on Bran— must have heard Bran and Robb speaking. Osha says that Hodor is part giant. Bran says giants don’t exist, but Osha says they do beyond the Wall. She says there are worse things too, like the Others, or white walkers, who have cold hands and blue eyes. She says that Bran should tell Robb that he’s marching the wrong way. He should be going north to fight the white walkers, not south. She also says that the gods cannot look after Robb in the south because all the weirwoods have been cut down there.
Osha’s statement that Robb should be marching north instead of south would most likely seem nonsensical to Robb if he heard it. But the novel has shown that Osha is in fact correct. The Others are gaining numbers and pose a grave threat to humanity. To confront that threat, people will have to overcome their political conflicts to fight the Others. For that to happen, the Starks and Lannisters would have to join forces and march north together to meet the Others head-on and give humanity the best possible chance of defeating a common enemy.
Themes
That night, Robb prepares to depart. Bran talks to Maester Luwin and says he wants to be a knight. Luwin says that Bran is clever. He might make a good Maester himself. Bran says he wants to learn magic, but Luwin says that no man can teach him that. Robb tells Bran that he will be the lord of Winterfell while Robb is gone. After Robb leaves, Bran hears the legion of soldiers cheering for Robb as he rides by. Bran thinks that they will never cheer for him like that.
Bran’s lament that people will never cheer for him like they cheer for Robb situates Bran in a similar category as Jon and Tyrion. After becoming paralyzed, Bran realizes that he, like Jon and Tyrion, no longer fits neatly into pre-established hierarchies. As Tyrion earlier counseled Jon, though, by embracing himself, perhaps Bran will be able to turn what he perceives as a weakness into a source of strength.
Themes
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