In Season 6 Episode 10, the Northern lords gather to proclaim Jon Snow the King of the North. After Lady Mormont shames the lords and declares her allegiance to Jon Snow, other lords quickly rise to join her. I believe Lord Manderly states that Jon Snow “avenged the Red Wedding.” While the scene is powerful with emotion, it also is a bit absurd too as others on the net have alluded to in memes and videos. I want to examine this statement and the scene a bit.
First, Jon Snow only managed to get revenge for other lords who were slaughtered by the Boltons in name for the Red Wedding. In truth, it is Ramsay who ironically avenges Robb Stark in murdering his own father while Arya is the person who kills off the main conspirators in a few of the Freys. And Tyrion too plays a part when he shoots Tywin with a crossbow as Tywin had made the offer to Roose in giving the Freys and the Boltons the Lannister support. So the truth here is pretty twisted.
The only person who really gets any form of “meaningful” revenge is Sansa Stark against the Boltons, particularly Ramsay who raped her when it comes to crimes against the north. Yes, Ramsay is a Bolton but he truly played no part against the Starks in the Red Wedding itself. But her desire is simply to get back her home for the Stark name. You could say that she could’ve avoided all the trauma if she told Littlefinger to fuck off.
There is Rickon but in reality Bran got him killed by sending him off with Osha. So Sansa and Jon got physical revenge for Rickon’s murder by killing off Ramsay. Others have argued that rather than invading Winterfell, Sansa and Jon could’ve done some covert ops style mission to get their little brother back. Even in the books, Mance Rayder (supposedly) infiltrates Winterfell in attempting to get the fake Arya, Jeene Poole, back. Still, you could say that the way Jon and Sansa handled the situation was neither political nor very bright at the end of the day, although they did manage to get back their home.
When you look at Ramsay’s character, it becomes weirder because in a very roundabout way, he helped the Starks a bit when it came to Theon and Roose even. He’s just kinda there and given things like Sansa or receiving alliances from the Umbers and Karstarks. Obviously, he’s far from the nicest and most innocent person he’s mostly a pawn in all of this who manages to secure his own power because he’s at the right place at the right time.
So when you see the shamed lords suddenly siding with Jon, it’s almost farcical in the scheme of things. Similar to the King’s Moot, the King of the North scene reminded me of South Park where you have all these adults rallied up and screaming, “Rabble rabble rabble!” In short, they don’t really think for themselves and allow emotion/pathos to way in on their decision. While Lady Mormont is able to see Jon for what he is, the others more or less fall in line because they’re essentially idiots and sheep.
But I think from a larger point of view seeing a young, small girl being the voice of reason reinforces the idea of the show talking about the silliness of feudalism. Also, it brings up the notion of how the young and “irregular” (as Samwell Tarly says earlier) life can be and more importantly the need for radical change by the young. The show is about the passing of one generation to the next and you can see how the children of these lords can take after their parents in either a positive manner or falter with the complete elimination of their house.
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