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Chapter 69: Tyrion
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
Jon mounts a horse to ride out of Castle Black and join his brother Robb in battle. Sam stands before him, pleading with him not to go. Jon doesn’t listen and runs his horse straight at Sam. Sam jumps out of the way at the last moment. On the road, Jon thinks that he has a few hours before Commander Mormont wakes up to put some distance between himself and Castle Black. Once word gets out that he’s deserted the Night’s Watch, his life will be forfeit, and it will be that way for as long as he lives. He’ll be an outsider for the rest of his days.
After Aemon lectures Jon about how love is the bane of duty, Jon chooses love for the Stark family over his duty to the Night’s Watch, even though he knows that choosing love will lead him down a treacherous path. Once Jon takes that path, he knows he’ll never be able to turn back. The novel has also prepared the reader to understand the gravity of the situation by showing Gared’s execution at the beginning of the novel, a sentence he received for deserting the Night’s Watch.
Themes
Jon has been riding as fast as he can, and his horse has grown tired. He dismounts to give his horse a break. Ghost goes off in the woods, and Jon can’t seem to get him to come back. Just then, Jon hears riders approaching and leads his horse into the woods to hide. As the riders get closer, he hears them talking and realizes it’s his friends from the Night’s Watch. Sam must not have alerted Commander Mormont that he left, Jon thinks. Instead, Sam told his friends that he had gone. Jon’s friends hear a sound in the woods and rush toward it. There are seven of them, and they quickly surround Jon. They tell Jon that he has to go back to Castle Black, and they recite the words of the vow that Jon spoke when he joined the Night’s Watch.
The fact that Jon’s friends come to find him on the road (as opposed to a figure of authority, either from the Night’s Watch or elsewhere) points to Jon’s previous skepticism about the idea that love and duty are inherently opposed. At this point, Jon’s friends, people who he ostensibly loves and who love him, remind Jon of his duty by reciting the words of the Night’s Watch vow to him. By confronting Jon in that way, they show that love and duty can be aligned.
Themes
Jon feels like he has no choice. He’s outnumbered, and he can’t see a way to escape from his friends. He rides with them back to Castle Black. Sam is waiting for them in the stable. In the morning, Jon talks with Commander Mormont. Mormont told him they had been expecting Jon to leave after they heard that Ned was killed. They had people watching him. If his friends hadn’t brought him back, then other, less friendly forces, would have ensured that he came back to face his fate.
Commander Mormont’s statements make it clear how important it was that Jon’s friends found him instead of someone else. This scene also demonstrates how sometimes, love and duty can align to produce a positive outcome: if those intent only on enforcing Jon’s duty had found him, Jon most likely would have been executed.
Themes
Commander Mormont tells Jon he needs an answer about whether Jon will try and run again, especially because Mormont is planning to lead a group of men past the Wall. Mormont says he plans to find Ben Stark, whether he’s dead or alive, and to investigate what Mance Rayder is doing. Jon gets excited when he hears that he’ll be going past the Wall. He asks his father and his siblings to forgive him and tells Mormont that he’s committed to the Night’s Watch and won’t leave again.
Jon decides to stay after he hears that he’ll be part of an expedition beyond the Wall. In Jon’s mind, that expedition could allow him to achieve the same kind of glory and renown that Robb is currently finding leading the Stark army. In other words, Jon decides to stay in the Night’s Watch once he sees how life in the Night’s Watch can give him the kind of recognition that he was deprived of in the Stark family.
Themes
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