A Confederacy of Stewards

THE MANNIFESTO: VOLUME TBD

So I’m uh … I’m frankly terrified of publishing the following essay. In a series of essays making big claims, I am about to make some of the boldest and most contentious claims yet.

Where to begin the madness in this essay?

A fair criticism of the Mannifesto is that it paints Stannis and a few others as geniuses capable of little error and grand calculation. The Baratheon war machine as described in the various essays heretofore is well-oiled, precise in its engineering. However, such precision naturally leads to a weakness: throw a well placed wrench into the works and the entire machine can crash to a irreparable halt.

All it takes is a few unpredictable events to undermine the success of Stannis’s campaign.

Stepping further in this direction, most people believe that the unexpected sabotage will come in the form of something unpredictable from Ramsay Bolton. However, I disagree:

Stannis’s campaign may have been indirectly sabotaged by Cersei Lannister.

And just how do I believe Cersei disrupted Stannis’s campaign?

In the general sense:

Stannis planned on leveraging Jon Snow for his campaign. The king planned to secretly attack the Dreadfort. The attack is a false flag, made to look like the work of someone unaffiliated with Stannis. Stannis elects to use Jon as the ‘patsy’ for this false flag attack.

However, Cersei has an oblique involvement in the assassination of Jon Snow.

By eliminating Jon Snow, there is perhaps no pretext for any such attack on the Dreadfort. Such a mission might not occur at all.

Furthermore, Cersei has an oblique involvement in the likely deaths of the wildling chieftains at Castle Black.

Thus Stannis perhaps loses any planned wildling false flag operation in its entirety.

I tremble somewhat as I make these declarations because they feel weighty, ominous, and quite contentious. However I’ve only given a cursory description of these points, and only how they affect Stannis.

How is Cersei involved in the assassination of Jon Snow? The deaths of the wildling chieftains?

Specifically, this essay asserts the following:

Cersei helped foster a mutinous contingent of stewards at Castle Black.

This contingent debilitated Jon courtesy of an adulterated poison, and subsequently assassinated him.

The stewards kill the wildling chieftains by setting fire to the Shieldhall.

The stewards also caved in the tunnel entrance at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea.

As you can probably see, arguing these positions is a monumental task. This is a large essay and I apologize for that, but I lost a few brain cells trying lay things out. You may find the overall proposals weak, but I still believe there are many worthy “kernels” of new knowledge to be found here.

NOTE: It’s will probably help if you know a bit about the Mannifesto. A cursory knowledge of the high-level strategy is probably sufficient: I will provide links to the important essays as they become relevant.

Contents

1. Modus Operandi. How Cersei plants the idea to remove Jon Snow from power.
2. Other Motives. The many other reasons to “deal” with Snow.
3. The Mulled Wine. Drug and alcohol use at Castle Black and the accidental drugging of Jon Snow.
4. A Fragrant Steward. The peculiarities of the Lord Commander’s squire.
5. Poisoned Flagons. A close look at how stewards can debilitate.
6. Altered States. Evidence of Jon’s diminished capacity in his final chapter from A Dance with Dragons.
7. Securing the Coup. Explaining the rest of Marsh’s hostile takeover.

*   *   *

MODUS OPERANDI

---

To begin, I need to explain why Cersei would be involved in Jon’s assassination. Our first clue comes from a meeting of the small council:

Qyburn leaned forward with a smile. “The Night’s Watch defends us all from snarks and grumkins. My lords, I say that we must help the brave black brothers.”

Cersei gave him a sharp look. “What are you saying?”

“This,” Qyburn said. “For years now, the Night’s Watch has begged for men. Lord Stannis has answered their plea. Can King Tommen do less? His Grace should send the Wall a hundred men. To take the black, ostensibly, but in truth . . .”

“. . . to remove Jon Snow from the command,” Cersei finished, delighted. I knew I was right to want him on my council. “That is just what we shall do.” She laughed. If this bastard boy is truly his father’s son, he will not suspect a thing. Perhaps he will even thank me, before the blade slides between his ribs. “It will need to be done carefully, to be sure. Leave the rest to me, my lords.” This was how an enemy should be dealt with: with a dagger, not a declaration. “We have done good work today, my lords. I thank you. Is there aught else?”
^{— CERSEI IV, A FEAST FOR CROWS}

Without a doubt, we see that Cersei has motive and desire to ‘remove Jon Snow’.

What’s notable is that Cersei’s ruminations on Jon Snow are never brought up again: there is no evidence of her discussing Snow elsewhere in the books. And yet Cersei specifically states here that she will deal with Jon herself.

This lack of further consideration strongly suggests that she set things in motion against Jon Snow and subsequently moved on to other concerns.

But precisely how might she have moved to dispose of Jon?

Well we have two major options, one based on her words and one based on her prior behavior:

• Sending in an Assassin. Per the small council discussions, Cersei may have taken Qyburn’s advice as-is and sent someone to the Wall to infiltrate and then remove Jon Snow.
• Leveraging someone already in place. Alternatively, Cersei might attempt to utilize someone already at the Wall to do this dirty work.

Both are possible. Indeed, I will discuss both options. I want to begin with the latter possibility.

*   *   *

A Man in Place

I’d like to point something out:

Cersei already has clear lines of communication with the Wall in a fashion that Jon is unaware of.

As I established in Traitors in Black, Clydas conspired with Janos Slynt to send a letter to Cersei without Jon’s consent or awareness. Even though Janos is dead, Cersei can still write to Clydas directly or appeal to someone close to Clydas. Indeed, Tywin himself communicated with Bowen Marsh on several occasions. Thus Cersei could readily write a letter to either man. Now given Clydas’s complicity in Janos’s letter, he has clear motive to conceal any such secret exchanges. If Clydas received a letter from Cersei addressed to himself or Janos Slynt, it’s obviously unlikely that Clydas would give it to Jon.

Now, at first it may seem ludicrous that Clydas or Marsh would entertain any such letters from Cersei. Shortly after Slynt’s letter we have the the execution of “Mance”, and Marsh’s discussion with Jon:

Marsh hesitated. “Lord Snow, I am not one to bear tales, but there has been talk that you are becoming too … too friendly with Lord Stannis. Some even suggest that you are … a …”

A rebel and a turncloak, aye, and a bastard and a warg as well. Janos Slynt might be gone, but his lies lingered. “I know what they say.” Jon had heard the whispers, had seen men turn away when he crossed the yard. “What would they have me do, take up swords against Stannis and the wildlings both? His Grace has thrice the fighting men we do, and is our guest besides. The laws of hospitality protect him. And we owe him and his a debt.”

“Lord Stannis helped us when we needed help,” Marsh said doggedly, “but he is still a rebel, and his cause is doomed. As doomed as we’ll be if the Iron Throne marks us down as traitors. We must be certain that we do not choose the losing side.”
^{— JON III, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

You can clearly see that Marsh wants to ensure that the Nights Watch does not make enemies of the Iron Throne.

Why is this relevant?

It means that Marsh could be swayed to remove Jon from command, if Marsh felt that Jon was risking the ‘doom’ of the Watch by siding with Stannis beyond reason.

And where precisely do we see explicit evidence that Jon has in fact committed this error, and informed Marsh of it?

When Jon reads the Pink Letter at the Shieldhall in Marsh’s presence. In particular, the first paragraph of the letter:

Your false king is dead, bastard. He and all his host were smashed in seven days of battle. I have his magic sword. Tell his red whore.
^{— JON XIII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

The most basic interpretation of this letter is that Stannis is entirely gone, his campaign kaput: the Lannister/Baratheon forces have sealed their claim to the throne.

Thus when Jon openly declares hostile intentions for the Boltons and recruits his force of wildlings, not only does it appear that he is breaking his oaths to lead a wildling invasion, but he is risking the ‘doom’ of the Watch for seeming to support Stannis: he’s bringing battle to Roose Bolton, the Warden of the North.

Marsh’s concerns regarding Jon are not something that flare into mutiny overnight. There is ample evidence that Marsh’s ire is progressively stoked as we progress through A Dance with Dragons. We first see it at the execution of “Mance” as shown above. However, it continues to grow in later discussions:

Septon Cellador made the sign of the star. Othell Yarwyck grunted. Bowen Marsh said, “Some might call this treason. These are wildlings. Savages, raiders, rapers, more beast than man.”
^{— JON VIII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Marsh flushed a deeper shade of red. “The lord commander must pardon my bluntness, but I have no softer way to say this. What you propose is nothing less than treason. For eight thousand years the men of the Night’s Watch have stood upon the Wall and fought these wildlings. Now you mean to let them pass, to shelter them in our castles, to feed them and clothe them and teach them how to fight. Lord Snow, must I remind you? You swore an oath.”
^{— JON XI, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

It’s important to recognize the change in perspective here. At first we see Marsh suggest that ‘some other people’ might call Jon’s actions treason. However, by the end of the book Marsh has become bolder, brazenly declaring himself a member of that group.

Now keep in mind the earlier observation that Marsh doesn’t want to be on the wrong side of history. A few proposals seem fair at this point:

• Marsh’s concerns regarding Jon’s leadership are exacerbated by Jon’s choices, culminating in the belief that Jon is treasonous.
• However, Marsh lacks the capacity to act on this treason. He lacks the manpower to stage a mutiny:

No. You would close our gates forever and seal them up with stone and ice. Half of Castle Black agreed with the Lord Steward’s views, he knew. The other half heaped scorn on them. “Seal our gates and plant your fat black arses on the Wall, aye, and the free folk’ll come swarming o’er the Bridge o’ Skulls or through some gate you thought you’d sealed five hundred years ago,” the old forester Dywen had declared loudly over supper, two nights past. “We don’t have the men to watch a hundred leagues o’ Wall. Tormund Giantsbutt and the bloody Weeper knows it too. Ever see a duck frozen in a pond, with his feet in the ice? It works the same for crows.” Most rangers echoed Dywen, whilst the stewards and builders inclined toward Bowen Marsh.
^{— JON IV, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

There is some primitive math to be gleaned here: the half of the men who support Jon and Dywen are rangers, the other half a mix of builders and stewards. Thus about half of the men at Castle Black are rangers.

This means that Marsh would need to monitor changes to the distribution of rangers to stewards and builders, particularly focusing on the absence of key figures such as Dywen. Obviously it would also be wise of Marsh to observe for the distribution of Jon’s closest allies, such as Dolorous Edd and Iron Emmett.

And as we see in A Dance with Dragons, all of the necessary changes to this distribution happen. Dywen is missing on an expedition beyond the Wall. Edd and Emmett, Grenn and Pyp, Jon’s closest allies are all dispatched elsewhere along the Wall. Jon’s reliable commander at Eastwatch, Cotter Pyke, is gone with the fleet to Hardhome while the castle is led by Ser Glendon Hewett… a former crony of Janos Slynt.

As you can see, the balance of manpower has been slowly shifting to the builders and stewards.

Here’s what emerges from all of this:

Bowen Marsh has a good motive to remove Jon from power.

By the end of A Dance with Dragons, the balance of power at the Wall has shifted in favor of stewards and builders, men that would likely back Bowen in any mutiny. Thus he has quite potential means.

As I will show later, the reading of the Pink Letter provides the opportunity to overthrow Jon.

How does all of this tie into Cersei?

All Cersei has to do is plant the seed of doubt… that Jon and Stannis are doomed, and that the Watch must be careful to make the right choice. Simply put, she can write a letter in secret to Clydas and/or Marsh with these ideas.

In such a letter (or letters) she can ask for (or better yet imply) the removal or death of Jon Snow as a means to calming a stormy relationship between King’s Landing and the Wall.

Before I discuss the alternative, I’d like to confess that this “Bowen Marsh” option seems the most likely. The most effective way for Cersei to have responded to Janos Slynt’s letter would be to suggest that Jon be removed from power via assassination.

*   *   *

The Wildling Assassin

If we take Qyburn’s suggestion more literally, he is implying that Cersei should send an assassin into the Night’s Watch with the mission to remove Jon from power. To explore this possibility we need to begin by looking at the possibility: Did anyone join the Nights Watch *after* the council meeting in which Cersei decides to assassinate Jon?

You might not like the answer:

Leathers and Jax were older men, well past forty, sons of the haunted forest, with sons and grandsons of their own. They had been two of the sixty-three wildlings who had followed Jon Snow back to the Wall the day he made his appeal, so far the only two to decide they wanted a black cloak.
^{— JON VII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Now we know that Leathers becomes incredibly close to Jon: he assumes the role of master-at-arms, he is the custodian for the giant Wun Wun and is the sole inhabitant of Val’s tower (aside from Val, Monster, Wun Wun, and perhaps the wet nurses).

The idea that Leathers would be Cersei’s agent would seem impossible: Leathers is a wildling and he even speaks the Old Tongue. However, we cannot say that this is all the result of being a highly skilled agent in the North—a stretchy position to say the least.

Furthermore, secondary sources such as detailed timelines and the “Boiled Leather” combined reading order both suggest that the Leathers-as-Assassin possibility as entirely plausible, but hampered by extremely close timing.

In any case, I believe that if Leathers was an agent of Cersei Lannister, he would still eventually involve Marsh and others. This means that at some point, the elements of this essay fuse, regardless of which option you believe. Perhaps even both options are true.

*   *   *

Regardless of the two possibilities, it seems fair to believe that the stewards of the Night’s Watch were heavily involved in any planned mutiny at Castle Black.

I’ve already provided perhaps the strongest motive for such a coup: reconciliation with the Lannister-Baratheon rule in King’s Landing.

However, this is far from the only reason for Bowen Marsh and others to plot against Jon Snow. There are many other compelling motives at play, the various “treasons” of Snow’s command.

^{<table of contents>}

*   *   *

OTHER MOTIVES

---

The previous section clearly establishes two major reasons to depose Jon Snow:

• Cersei’s admitted plot. I’ve already shown that removing Jon would likely be a key component of reconciling any discord between the Nights Watch and King’s Landing, and that if Stannis’s campaign seemed likely to fail someone would act on any opportunity to remove Jon.
• Marsh’s growing concerns for Jon’s treasons and betrayals of the Nights Watch.

The latter concept is rather vague: What are Jon’s various treasons?

In fact there are several ‘treasons’ that Marsh and the other stewards have endured, each of which supplying increasing motive to stage a coup.

*   *   *

Weakening of the Watch

Jon is increasingly shown to be putting the Nights Watch at risk, increasingly vulnerable to wildling insurrection.

• Increasing power of the wildlings at the Wall. Jon is shown to regularly dispatch wildlings to garrison various waycastles along the Wall. In some cases these arrangements erect threats to nearby waycastles held by the Nights Watch.
• Unsafe distribution of manpower. Jon seems to perhaps excessively distribute the men of the Watch. Each waycastle manned by the Watch reduces the strength at each of the three major castles along the Wall.
• Wasteful with his men. Jon has sent many of the best rangers off on missions of seemingly suicidal intent and with negligent benefits. Worse yet, those few that are found were dead and their loss was deeply felt.

One of the stewards that we know is close to Bowen Marsh is Alf of Runnymudd. Alf was distraught when he found out that Garth Greyfeather was one of the decapitated rangers. In the same chapter Marsh argues that it was a grievous error to send out the rangers. Given that Marsh and likely others thought it was a foolish effort to send the rangers out, its entirely reasonable to think that Alf and others could come to blame Jon for the deaths.

• Failure to heed council. Although Jon may have been right, Bowen Marsh did in fact make a compelling case to cave in the tunnels through the Wall. At the very least, you can see from Marsh’s perspective that it is a viable defensive measure, especially with the possibility of wildlings—or worse the Others—besieging the Wall.
• Wasteful of provisions. Marsh frequently points out that the Nights Watch cannot afford to sustain all of the wildling refugees. Jon’s insistence clearly implies that men of the Nights Watch will be forced to starve during the winter. This is yet another clear risk to the Watch’s ability to fulfill its sworn oath to defend the realms.

Nearing the end of A Dance with Dragons, there is an increasing frequency and severity of Jon’s seeming betrayals:

• Sorcery. After the Pink Letter is read aloud at the Shieldhall, it would seem clear that Jon was involved in some sort of sorcery that concealed Mance Rayder’s survival.
• Skinchanging. Although there is no clear evidence, it is perfectly reasonable that Marsh and others would be increasingly concerned that Jon was a warg. Given the prevalent xenophobia regarding wargs at the Wall, this almost certainly couples with Jon’s apparent affections for the wildlings and his affiliation with sorcery, to a detrimental effect.
• Drastically reducing manpower at the Wall. At the Shieldhall, Jon declares that it will be a contingent of rangers from the Watch that will trek to Hardhome. This is just another action that seems to decimate the strength of the Watchmen, making the Wall increasingly vulnerable.

Couple this with the crippling of the Nights Watch fleet and you can see how a reasonable person might see Jon’s leadership as entirely detrimental.

As you can see there are plenty of reasons to get rid of Jon, particularly if you consider things from another person’s perspective. Bowen Marsh’s lack of sympathy toward the wildlings may not be indicative of outright hatred, but of simple acceptance of the hard truth that not everyone can be saved.

*   *   *

Cersei’s Favorite Weapon

These last two sections have thoroughly shown how Marsh—and other stewards—had many viable motives for removing Jon from power, and that by the end of A Dance with Dragons these men were in an ideal position for staging their coup.

To be sure there are concerns that challenge any notion of a Bowen-led coup, but I can answer for them in this essay. The first of these is that Jon himself would have to be subdued, captured and/or slain. This poses several problems:

• Jon is fairly badass in combat and wields the Valyrian sword Longclaw.
• He has a badass direwolf that guards him.

Marsh (or anyone) would need to mitigate these concerns before they could act to capture or kill Jon.

The obvious way to depose Jon would be some form of covert assassination or surprise capture. Killing or arresting Jon in his sleep (or during some other unexpected or incapacitated moment) seems like the first choice for dealing with him.

However, there is an almost insurmountable obstacle to such a simple assassination or arrest:

It is inconceivable that anyone could assassinate/remove Jon while Ghost is at his side.

This not just because Ghost seems to have a special ability to sniff out danger—very much like Grey Wind. Simply put, Ghost is a big ass direwolf that is almost always with Jon and even sleeps in his quarters. Who in their right mind would dare try to kill Jon while his wolf was around?

This of course means that some other method must be used to remove Jon from power.

But how? How could Marsh negate Jon’s combat prowess and the direwolf?

How exactly can Jon be killed when he’s got such great defenses while he sleeps and formidable skills, weapon and pet when awake?

The answer lies in Cersei’s favorite weapon for disposing of men she doesn’t like: poison.

^{<table of contents>}

*   *   *

THE MULLED WINE

---

In the seemingly tangential essay The Mockingbird’s Sweet Poison, I argued that sweetsleep was being used to slowly kill Robert Arryn. A novel observation, but not one with apparent relevance to the Mannifesto or Stannis’s campaign. Oh but it is quite relevant!

How?

Putting it bluntly:

Jon Snow was doped with sweetsleep to render him vulnerable.

This is not necessarily a novel conjecture. In conducting due diligence while writing this essay I found others who suspect this possibility. However, what was lacking is a thorough analysis of the evidence and establishing a solid framework.

Providing that evidence and establishing the framework for this argument demands that I establish some underlying pretext first.

Another Symptom of Sweetsleep

It is well-known that Robert Arryn is a weak and sickly boy. As asserted in the linked essay, I believe that some of his condition can be directly attributed to his (or his mother’s) long-term abuse of sweetsleep. However, I am brought to ponder a certain question:

Which of Robert’s conditions are intrinsic to his own nature, and which have been caused by the sweetsleep?

What we know is that Robert has seizures, and these seem to be inherent to him since the sweetsleep is apparently providing some relief.

However, there is one other element of Robert’s condition that interests me:

“Robert has weak eyes, but he loves to be read to,” Lady Lysa confided.
^{— SANSA VII, A STORM OF SWORDS}

“No. The light hurts my eyes. Come to bed, Alayne…”

…When she turned back, Robert Arryn was propped up against the pillows looking at her. The Lord of the Eyrie and Defender of the Vale. A woolen blanket covered him below the waist. Above it he was naked, a pasty boy with hair as long as any girl’s. Robert had spindly arms and legs, a soft concave chest and little belly, and eyes that were always red and runny.
^{— ALAYNE II, A FEAST FOR CROWS}

Robert’s eyesight seems odd. While it’s quite possible that Robert just simply has poor eyesight, the permanently red and runny eyes seem like an allergic reaction (or even an infection) rather than something genetic. Another possibility is some form of early-onset glaucoma.

But I would like to encapsulate Robert’s eyes and their appearance:

• Red eyes.
• Poor vision.
• Light sensitivity.

Why does this matter? It matters because I believe there is someone else with the same condition as Robert, and that this condition is a side-effect of long-term use of sweetsleep.

*   *   *

The Dim Pink Eyes of Some Nocturnal Creature

Getting to the point, this is my belief:

Clydas is also a habitual user of sweetsleep.

His eyes and related observations are powerfully similar to Robert Arryn:

Clydas returned to the hearth to stir the wine. He’s sixty if he’s a day. An old man. He only seemed young compared with Aemon. Short and round, he had the dim pink eyes of some nocturnal creature.
^{— JON III, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

“Clydas is only a steward, and his eyes are going bad.”
^{— JON II, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Clydas peered at him closely with his dim pink eyes.
^{— JON VI, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Clydas blinked his dim pink eyes.
^{— JON XI, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Clydas entered pink and blinking, the parchment clutched in one soft hand.
^{— JON XII}

So you see Clydas has the poor vision and the red/pink eyes we associated with Robert. It’s interesting that Clydas is compared to a nocturnal creature considering Robert Arryn’s penchant for avoiding light. A probable implication of Jon’s observation is that Clydas is also averse to bright daylight.

There is even curious implicit evidence of Clydas’s aversion to light. If you recount his appearances throughout A Dance with Dragons, he only ever appears after sunset. With one conspicuous exception: when Clydas gave Jon the ‘wedding invitation’ from Ramsay Snow:

“Lord Snow?” a soft voice called.

He turned to find Clydas standing beneath the broken archway, a parchment in hand.
^{— JON VI, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

While perhaps innocuous, the presence of this detail coupled with Clydas’s nocturnal appearances certainly substantiates the idea that he has great sensitivity to light.

I hope you’ve had a good laugh at this, because I’ll readily admit that it looks like I’m nonchalantly finding text to fit my theory. Just because Robert Arryn and Clydas have similar eyes doesn’t necessitate that Clydas is using sweetsleep, or that they even have the same eye problem.

I do however think that the similarity allows me to at least pose the question:

Could Clydas using sweetsleep?

While there is clearly no evidence in sight, we can reasonably infer that Clydas is using some sort of drug: not by observing Clydas, but Jon Snow.

*   *   *

An Unintended Drugging

In JON III – ADWD, Jon arrives at the rookery and visits with Clydas. Jon finds Clydas mulling his own wine. Clydas offers a cup to Jon, and Jon partakes:

When Clydas poured, Jon held the cup with both hands, sniffed the spices, swallowed. The warmth spread through his chest. He drank again, long and deep, to wash the taste of blood from his mouth.

“The queen’s men are saying that the King-Beyond-the-Wall died craven. That he cried for mercy and denied he was a king.”

“He did. Lightbringer was brighter than I’d ever seen it. As bright as the sun.” Jon raised his cup. “To Stannis Baratheon and his magic sword.” The wine was bitter in his mouth.
^{— JON III, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

By making several observations about Jon’s subsequent behavior, I am led to believe that Clydas’s wine was ‘sweetened’ with some drug, most likely sweetsleep:

• I am not a wolf. No wait, I am a wolf. Jon contradicts himself before and after meeting with Clydas:

Before meeting with Clydas

The taste of hot blood filled Jon’s mouth, and he knew that Ghost had killed that night. No, he thought. I am a man, not a wolf. He rubbed his mouth with the back of a gloved hand and spat.
^{— JON III, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

After

Ghost did not count. Ghost was closer than a friend. Ghost was part of him.
^{— JON III, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Quite literally Jon is saying that he is a wolf in part… a direct reversal of his prior statement negating that idea. It is odd that in the span of about a single page Jon changes his perspective.

There is no explicit or contextual pretext for Jon’s reversal: no revelation or instance of character growth happened in that page which would explain such a shift in attitude.

Further, it should be noted that Jon reverts back to his previous “I am not a wolf” sentiment in later chapters: his conversation with Melisandre in JON VI – ADWD in particular.

• Lighting the Candles. After meeting with Clydas, Jon returns to his own quarters and notably struggles to light his candles:

The armory was dark and silent. Jon nodded to the guards before making his way past the silent racks of spears to his rooms. He hung his sword belt from a peg beside the door and his cloak from another. When he peeled off his gloves, his hands were stiff and cold. It took him a long while to get the candles lit. Ghost curled up on his rug and went to sleep, but Jon could not rest yet.
^{— JON III, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

This is seemingly innocuous, but consider it a small detail that adds to an emerging picture, this difficulty with his hands will resurface later.

• Writing the Letters. Once back in his chambers after drinking with Clydas, Jon writes some letters:

He wrote two letters, the first to Ser Denys, the second to Cotter Pyke. Both of them had been hounding him for more men. Halder and Toad he dispatched west to the Shadow Tower, Grenn and Pyp to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. The ink would not flow properly, and all his words seemed curt and crude and clumsy, yet he persisted.
^{— JON III, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Jon seems to have difficulty writing here, in handwriting or in expressing his ideas, perhaps both.

In any case, it seems entirely reasonable to find some small association with Jon’s difficulty lighting the candles.

The simplest explanation would be that Jon is simply cold and that his difficulty writing is just a manifestation of that. True, however there is no mention of the weather being extraordinarily cold, so it seems odd that Jon would find writing to be more challenging than any other day.

• The Walls Closing In. Jon curiously characterizes the room as pressing in on him:

When he finally put the quill down, the room was dim and chilly, and he could feel its walls closing in.
^{— JON III, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Could just be artistic license from Jon’s point-of-view? Thematically, the most likely subtext here is that Jon feels pressured by his relationship with Stannis and his obligations to be neutral. However the word choice itself bestows a sinister animus, conjuring up a sense of distorted perceptions and dimensions.

It is also interesting that Jon observes that the room is dim, a loss of light. Obviously this is perhaps justified by dwindling candlelight or falling darkness. Likewise the mention of the room being chilly may also have quite rudimentary explanations. However Jon’s observation is interesting in light of our current hypothesis.

• An Interesting Disclosure. It’s odd that Jon also happens to disclose his concerns that Stannis’s magic sword may be entirely false.

In telling Clydas, Jon has unwittingly informed a possible betrayer of a likely falsehood regarding Stannis’s campaign, an extremely useful bit of knowledge. Keep in mind my previous points that Marsh would be keen to know of anything suggesting that Stannis was indeed ‘doomed’.

These are novel observations and I think connecting them to Clydas and possibly sweetsleep is exciting. That said, no one will seriously believe this without further evidence and reasoning.

With the initial hypothesis that Jon was accidentally doped with sweetsleep, it helps to refresh ourselves on the substance itself. The waif at the House of Black and White is an acknowledged master of poisons. She has the following to say about sweetsleep:

“Sweetsleep is the gentlest of poisons,” the waif told her, as she was grinding some with a mortar and pestle. “A few grains will slow a pounding heart and stop a hand from shaking, and make a man feel calm and strong. A pinch will grant a night of deep and dreamless sleep. Three pinches will produce that sleep that does not end. The taste is very sweet, so it is best used in cakes and pies and honeyed wines. Here, you can smell the sweetness.”
^{— CAT OF THE CANALS, A FEAST FOR CROWS}

So a few grains will soothe a pounding heart, still a shaking hand, and make a man calm and strong. As noted in other essays it sounds like an anti-convulsant, a bit of a depressor of heart function. So in theory it would calm nerves but also render a person more likely to feel cold and more sluggish. It also seems to suggest that a person would become more courageous.

You can readily see why an aging man might enjoy the benefits conferred by small doses of sweetsleep, many of the things it treats are common in old age: heart disease, tremors, physical weakness.

But what about that bit about dreamless sleep?

This ties into one of the other possible reasons I believe Clydas might make sweetsleep in the first place —beyond being habituated or addicted himself.

*   *   *

Slaying Dragon Dreams

Dragon dreams are a phenomenon known to affect many Targaryens… giving them intense visions of dragons and restoring them to power.

With that in mind, let ask you to don your ‘mundane’ hat and ponder the following:

Isn’t it convenient that Aemon’s dragon dreams begin after he leaves Castle Black?

As readers encounter Aemon’s dreams in A Feast for Crows, we are generally compelled to conclude a simple reason for this:

• That there was ‘magic’ at the Wall that “preserved” Aemon and the dreams are simply a manifestation of his departure from that environment and his beginning deterioration.
• The journey itself somehow provoked Aemon’s decline, and the dreams are again just a side effect of this process.

It’s all too easy to simply conclude that ‘something’ happened and that the dreams came from nowhere, or that senility simply happened to coincide with Aemon’s departure from the Wall.

• However, if Aemon had been drinking low, adulterated doses of sweetsleep, this might explain why he didn’t have these prophetic dreams prior to leaving Castle Black.
• Also consider that if sweetsleep is responsible for the irrevocable damage to eyes, this might explain Aemon’s blindness.

I am reluctant to overtly declare a belief in this hypothesis, but it nonetheless provides an interesting insight into possible reasons for Aemon’s blindness and later his dragon dreams in A Feast for Crows.

I do however believe that hypothesis itself lends credence to the plausibility of sweetsleep’s use at Castle Black, particularly at the rookery and by Clydas or even Aemon himself.

 *   *  *

Anyways, this has all been a bunch of fun and wild theorycraft thus far. You might be entertaining my ideas, you might not.

There are a number of other examples of Jon being perhaps drugged, but I must withhold their discussion until later in this essay.

Nonetheless, I think I’ve established a rather interesting, plausible connection between Robert Arryn and Clydas, suggesting that both of them may suffer from a similar condition, one brought on by sweetsleep.

I acknowledge that these observations are predicated on the correctness of arguments made in earlier essays: that Robert Arryn is indeed a long-time user of sweetsleep and that Clydas is a likely betrayer.

As I’ve already admitted a number of times, a lot of the content thus far seems very speculative and wandering some distance from what can be drawn from the text. I’ve essentially created a number of loose ends that seem to go nowhere. I beg your further interest because soon I will begin weaving these threads together into a quilt that makes tremendous sense, the seemingly specious tangents synergizing to create a compelling theory—at least I hope so.

To begin this adventure I want to discuss a possible revelation: the applicability of Quaithe’s prophecies.

^{<table of contents>}

*   *   *

A FRAGRANT STEWARD

---

The argument I’m about to propose is rather self-evident after reading a few choice excerpts:

It seemed to him that the prophecy that drove the red priests had room for just one hero. A second Targaryen would only serve to confuse them.
^{— TYRION VIII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

“No. Hear me, Daenerys Targaryen. The glass candles are burning. Soon comes the pale mare, and after her the others. Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun’s son and the mummer’s dragon. Trust none of them. Remember the Undying. Beware the perfumed seneschal.”
^{— DAENERYS II, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

“Tell me, was Selaesori Qhoran a triarch or a turtle?”

The red priest chuckled. “Neither. Qhoran is … not a ruler, but one who serves and counsels such, and helps conduct his business. You of Westeros might say steward or magister.”

King’s Hand? That amused him. “And selaesori?”

Moqorro touched his nose. “Imbued with a pleasant aroma. Fragrant, would you say? Flowery?”

“So Selaesori Qhoran means Stinky Steward, more or less?”

“Fragrant Steward, rather.”
^{— TYRION VIII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

He [Iron Emmett] and Jon and Bowen Marsh had weighed each man in turn and assigned him to an order: Leathers, Jax, and Emrick to the rangers, Horse to the builders, Arron and Satin to the stewards. The time had come for them to take their vows.
^{— JON VII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Ghost nuzzled up against his shoulder, and Jon draped an arm around him. He could smell Horse’s unwashed breeches, the sweet scent Satin combed into his beard, the rank sharp smell of fear, the giant’s overpowering musk.
^{— JON VII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

A review of common dictionary synonyms for seneschal provides the following: steward, waiter, and attendant among many others.

The inclusion of Tyrion’s discussion regarding the name of the ship is relevant because it provides clear examples of descriptions synonymous with a perfumed seneschal, as described in Quaithe’s prophecy.

The hypothesis that emerges here is quite clear:

Satin is the perfumed seneschal.*

Thus, he is in some way involved in the threat against Jon Snow.

Of course this hypothesis is dependent on the idea that Jon Snow is somehow affiliated with existing prophecies and/or has Targaryen ancestry. If you have any familiarity with the most famous theory in the ASOIAF community, this should hardly be a surprising presumption.

Now I admit that while a prophecy is initially compelling, it’s a rather superficial way of arguing who the perfumed seneschal actually is. We need more data, stuff that more readily accounts for Satin being more than he seems.

Is there other evidence that might suggest Satin as a ‘person of interest’?

My Lord

In one of the very first conversations between Jon and Satin, we have a subtle-but-incriminating clue:

“I hope I never see the Frostfangs then. I knew a girl in Oldtown who liked to ice her wine. That’s the best place for ice, I think. In wine.” Satin glanced south, frowned. “You think the scarecrow sentinels scared them off, my lord?”
^{— JON VII, A STORM OF SWORDS}

Not only does Satin call Jon “my lord”, but he says the phrase with the diction you would expect from a person of noble birth. This is made explicit in A Dance with Dragons:

He [Theon] did not understand. “My lord? I said—”

“—my lord, when you should have said m’lord. Your tongue betrays your birth with every word you say. If you want to sound a proper peasant, say it as if you had mud in your mouth, or were too stupid to realize it was two words, not just one.”

“If it please my—m’lord.”

“Better.”
^{— REEK III, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

It is quite interesting that Satin uses this diction, strongly suggesting either a noble upbringing or that he lived close to or with nobility and was expected to adopt their custom. The latter seems much more likely.

It’s also notable that Satin utters the phrase without just cause: Jon is no noble when Satin utters the phrase. It suggests that Satin uses the honorific in an almost subconscious fashion, as though he’s so accustomed to it that he says it without thinking.

In any case, we have to wonder in which noble court Satin lived, either as a child or a guest.

*   *   *

Literacy

We also know that Satin can read and write:

“What he [Satin] was in Oldtown is none of our concern. He’s quick to learn and very clever. The other recruits started out despising him, but he won them over and made friends of them all. He’s fearless in a fight and can even read and write after a fashion. He should be capable of fetching me my meals and saddling my horse, don’t you think?”
^{— JON VIII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Again, we must wonder where Satin acquired this rare talent among the non-noble population. Jon’s statement clearly implies that Satin was already literate when he joined the Watch.

*   *   *

Dancing

Satin also seems to have a talent for graceful—perhaps formal—dancing ability:

Satin was all grace, dancing with three serving girls in turn but never presuming to approach a highborn lady.
^{— JON X, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Again we see a talent unlikely to have been cultivated just in the brothels of Oldtown.

*   *   *

Lack of Diligence

Satin seems to be less than capable of keeping Jon’s chambers adequately warmed:

Jon’s rooms behind the armory were quiet enough, if not especially warm. His fire had gone out some time ago; Satin was not as diligent in feeding it as Dolorous Edd had been.
^{— JON IX, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

An implication of this passage is that Satin does not stop by or linger in Jon’s chambers as often as Edd did. One can only assume that if Satin was in Jon’s chambers he would have his own personal incentives to keep the chambers warm.

With this in mind, we are forced to wonder: what might Satin be doing with his time if he’s not attending to his duties in Jon’s quarters?

*   *   *

Gulltown not Oldtown

Another major consideration is that Satin did not in fact come from Oldtown:

Outside the armory, Ser Endrew Tarth was working with some raw recruits. They’d come in last night with Conwy, one of the wandering crows who roamed the Seven Kingdoms collecting men for the Wall. This new crop consisted of a greybeard leaning on a staff, two blond boys with the look of brothers, a foppish youth in soiled satin, a raggy man with a clubfoot, and some grinning loon who must have fancied himself a warrior. Ser Endrew was showing him the error of that presumption. He was a gentler master-at-arms than Ser Alliser Thorne had been, but his lessons would still raise bruises. Sam winced at every blow, but Jon Snow watched the swordplay closely…

…“They smell of summer,” Jon said as Ser Endrew bullrushed his foe and knocked him sprawling. “Where did Conwy find them?”

“A lord’s dungeon near Gulltown,” the smith replied. “A brigand, a barber, a beggar, two orphans, and a boy whore. With such do we defend the realms of men.”
^{— JON I, A CLASH OF KINGS}

You have to wonder:

What was a young, male whore from Oldtown doing in Gulltown?

It’s a considerable distance, it seems unlikely that Satin would have traversed that distance without cause.

*   *   *

The Theory Emerges

Collectively we infer a picture of a young man who has a great deal of secrets. Just what is going on with Satin?

I believe there is a compelling answer that explains the various oddities shown above:

Satin is one of Lyn Corbray’s former love and/or sex interests.

We know that Corbray lives in the Vale and is notably interested in boys—a pederast:

Ser Lyn was a different sort of folly; lean and handsome, heir to an ancient but impoverished house, but vain, reckless, hot-tempered … and, it was whispered, notoriously uninterested in the intimate charms of women.
^{— CATELYN VII, A GAME OF THRONES}

Littlefinger laughed aloud. “With gold and boys and promises, of course. Ser Lyn is a man of simple tastes, my sweetling. All he likes is gold and boys and killing.”
^{— ALAYNE I, A FEAST FOR CROWS}

If Lyn Corbray is mostly interested in young boys, then it makes sense that he would ‘dispose’ of them as they aged. We know that Satin begins to grow a beard as ASOIAF progresses… so it seems clear that Satin is clearly no longer a boy. Sending the boys to the Wall would be a handy way of eliminating the chance of rumors and scandals spreading.

If Lyn doted on Satin and used him as an object of a pederast’s love then this goes a tremendous way to explaining the various oddities of Satin’s behavior.

Although this theory cannot be proven, I believe it to be the most probable explanation given the evidence available to us.

Why the heck does this matter?

I’ve shown that Satin clearly has great aptitude for concealment of his background, but also that he is prone to serving his own interests when he should be instead fulfilling his duties as the Lord Commander’s steward.

His ability to pull the wool over Jon’s eyes is relevant because I assert that Satin is the one who drugs Jon at the end of A Dance with Dragons.

^{<table of contents>}

*   *   *

POISONED FLAGONS

---

Let us recall a few points made earlier:

• Clydas mulls his own wine instead of drinking the mulled wine available in the mess hall.
• He likely adds an amount of sweetsleep to the wine.
• Clydas discovered that Jon could be innocuously drugged with his wine.

Simple findings, hopefully not overly contentious.

NOTE: If you think I’ve derailed the tinfoil train and am gleefully riding into the abyss, I hope you can suspend your disbelief or at least enjoy the scenery. You might find that later observations weave elegantly with the seeming madness of the previous sections.

With the above points in mind, where does Satin fit in as a potential threat to Jon?

In particular, I assert the following:

Any time Satin serves Jon mulled wine from a flagon, sweetsleep may be present in the wine.

I find this compelling because as we near the end of A Dance with Dragons, Jon increasingly holds meetings in his chambers, sending Satin to retrieve mulled wine. If Satin was a collaborator in any scheme against Jon Snow, Satin could quite easily retrieve his flagons of mulled wine from Clydas and not from Three-Finger Hobb in the mess hall.

There are two notable meetings where such flagons might have been present:

• Jon’s negotiations with Tycho Nestoris.
• Jon’s final council with Bowen Marsh and Othell Yarwyck.

I will address each meeting and the possible presence of sweetsleep in turn.

*   *   *

The Negotiation with Tycho

There are a few interesting passages and events that surround the negotiation with Tycho that possibly suggest the use of sweetsleep.

It took the better part of an hour before the impossible became possible, and another hour before they could agree on terms. The flagon of mulled wine that Satin delivered helped them settle the more nettlesome points. By the time Jon Snow signed the parchment the Braavosi drew up, both of them were half-drunk and quite unhappy. Jon thought that a good sign.
^{— JON IX, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Tycho Nestoris had left behind a copy of their agreement. Jon read it over thrice. That was simple, he reflected. Simpler than I dared hope. Simpler than it should have been.
^{— JON IX, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Jon sat back, yawned, stretched. On the morrow he would draft orders for Cotter Pyke…

Jon closed his eyes. Just for a moment …

… and woke, stiff as a board, with the Old Bear’s raven muttering, “Snow, Snow,” and Mully shaking him. “M’lord, you’re wanted. Beg pardon, m’lord. A girl’s been found.”

“A girl?” Jon sat, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with the back of his hands.
^{— JON IX, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Admittedly the evidence here is on the thin side. However, it is noteworthy that Jon quickly fell into a dreamless sleep, only to wake later feeling rigid, with his eyes blurry with sleep.

Furthermore, the seeming confusion and concern regarding the contract with Tycho suggests that Jon’s faculties were notably impaired, beyond what he expected from the mulled wine.

All of this could simply be dismissed as the products of being tired and/or drinking too much. However, I believe the next example has much more compelling evidence.

*   *   *

The Final Council

In the final council with Bowen and Othell, Satin also serves up a flagon of mulled wine. Notice the behavior of the men at the meeting:

Jon shooed him off, had Satin start a fire, then sent him out after Bowen Marsh and Othell Yarwyck. “Bring a flagon of mulled wine as well.”

“Three cups, m’lord?”

“Six. Mully and the Flea look in need of something warm. So will you.”
^{— JON XIII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

It was the same again with Hardhome. Satin poured whilst Jon told them of his audience with the queen. Marsh listened attentively, ignoring the mulled wine, whilst Yarwyck drank one cup and then another. But no sooner had Jon finished than the Lord Steward said, “Her Grace is wise. Let them die.”
^{— JON XIII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

It is notable that Marsh ignores the mulled wine. Could it be that he knew it was drugged?

There is another key insight to be made:

Why is Ghost so angry? What is he smelling or detecting?

Observe:

“Unless your lordship has some other white wolf, aye. I never seen him like this, m’lord. All wild-like, I mean.”

He was not wrong, as Jon discovered for himself when he slipped inside the doors. The big white direwolf would not lie still. He paced from one end of the armory to the other, past the cold forge and back again. “Easy, Ghost,” Jon called. “Down. Sit, Ghost. Down.” Yet when he made to touch him, the wolf bristled and bared his teeth. It’s that bloody boar. Even in here, Ghost can smell his stink.
^{— JON XIII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

And later, when Ghost is accosting Bowen Marsh and Othell Yarwyck from Jon’s quarters:

Satin helped them back into their cloaks. As they walked through the armory, Ghost sniffed at them, his tail upraised and bristling. My brothers. The Night’s Watch needed leaders with the wisdom of Maester Aemon, the learning of Samwell Tarly, the courage of Qhorin Halfhand, the stubborn strength of the Old Bear, the compassion of Donal Noye. What it had instead was them.
^{— JON XIII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

As observed earlier in this essay, Ghost can also smell Satin’s perfumed fragrance. Notice that when Ghost follows Marsh and Yarwyck to the door, Satin is also present.

It seems entirely plausible that Ghost could actually be smelling Satin.

So what? If Marsh doesn’t drink the wine, or that Ghost was smelling Satin… how does any of this prove that Jon was drugged?

It doesn’t. I’m only trying to establish the possibility that something queer is happening at this meeting.

The evidence of this final drugging arrives in the next section of this essay. Some of the evidence is quite provocative.

^{<table of contents>}

*   *   *

ALTERED STATES

---

To recap everything thus far:

• I believe I’ve opened the door on a distinct possibility: one that suggests a conspiracy of steward who acted to remove Jon from power.
• In particular I believe that in Jon’s last chapter in A Dance with Dragons, Satin delivered debilitating sweetsleep to Jon via a flagon of mulled wine
• Marsh and others plot to take advantage of Jon’s anticipated debilitation and remove him from power.

But of course, I have yet to address a major concern:

Where is the evidence of this drugging?

It’s nice that I’ve established a worthwhile reason for such a poisoning, but I haven’t knocked any socks off with compelling evidence.

Let’s get to that. Forgive me but I’m going to save the best for last.

*   *   *

Stiff and Clumsy

Right before Jon’s assassination, he appears to struggle with drawing his blade:

Jon reached for Longclaw, but his fingers had grown stiff and clumsy. Somehow he could not seem to get the sword free of its scabbard.
^{— JON XIII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

I’m sorry but I simply must break style and ask you something, reader-to-reader:

Haven’t you ever felt that this was a particularly lame way for a central protagonist to die?

‘Lameness’ is of course a pathetic premise from which to argue conspiracy. What I would argue instead is that this sudden inability to use his weapon is derived from external source, it is not some random happening.

Particularly because Jon had exercised his hand in the very same chapter, shortly after reading the Pink Letter:

Jon flexed the fingers of his sword hand. The Night’s Watch takes no part. He closed his fist and opened it again.
^{— JON XIII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Jon exercises his hand frequently in order to ensure he can use it. This is an oft-repeated device in the story, so much so that it seems like Jon’s characteristic ‘tic’. With that in mind, why does his hand suddenly fail him… when Jon’s nigh-obsessive practice would suggest it should not?

With this conundrum in mind, I’d like to briefly return to some passages I brought up earlier in this essay, where I hypothesized that Jon was first exposed to sweetsleep by accident:

The armory was dark and silent. Jon nodded to the guards before making his way past the silent racks of spears to his rooms. He hung his sword belt from a peg beside the door and his cloak from another. When he peeled off his gloves, his hands were stiff and cold. It took him a long while to get the candles lit. Ghost curled up on his rug and went to sleep, but Jon could not rest yet.
^{— JON III, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

He wrote two letters, the first to Ser Denys, the second to Cotter Pyke. Both of them had been hounding him for more men. Halder and Toad he dispatched west to the Shadow Tower, Grenn and Pyp to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. The ink would not flow properly, and all his words seemed curt and crude and clumsy, yet he persisted.
^{— JON III, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Why is this noteworthy?

Because it’s the only other time that we see Jon having difficulty using his hands.

Once again this leads me to the questions:

Why did Jon struggle with his hands in these two situations?

Is there a commonality in events leading up to these excerpts?

And the only viable common answer I know of is the mulled wine in the hours prior.

*   *   *

Brave and Strong

As noted previously, the waif from the House of Black and White indicated that sweetsleep would make a man ‘brave and strong’. The application here is significant.

Although its hard to pinpoint an exact excerpt, it is widely acknowledged that the tone at the end of Jon’s last chapter seems to strikingly diverge from Jon’s typical narrative… particularly with regards to his thoughts and words. The tone, and seemingly irrationality is markedly different from Jon’s normal caution.

It’s almost as if Jon starts to behave like a different character entirely.

Here are some examples of Jon’s uncharacteristic behavior in his last chapter:

“The Night’s Watch takes no part in the wars of the Seven Kingdoms,” Jon reminded them when some semblance of quiet had returned. “It is not for us to oppose the Bastard of Bolton, to avenge Stannis Baratheon, to defend his widow and his daughter. This creature who makes cloaks from the skins of women has sworn to cut my heart out, and I mean to make him answer for those words…”
^{— JON XIII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

I have my swords, thought Jon Snow, and we are coming for you, Bastard…

…If this is oathbreaking, the crime is mine and mine alone.
^{— JON XIII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

The latter excerpt is especially noteworthy considering Jon’s adamant stance on oathbreaking throughout A Dance with Dragons:

“Mance said our words, Gilly. Then he turned his cloak, wed Dalla, and crowned himself King-Beyond-the-Wall. His life is in the king’s hands now.”
^{— JON II, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Jon had a certain grudging admiration for the late King-Beyond-the-Wall, but the man was an oathbreaker and a turncloak.
^{— JON VII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

It would certainly seem like Jon is drunk on something, whether it is rage, revenge or drugs seems unclear. At the very least, his behavior would seem consistent with the waif’s description: Jon’s unhesitating bravado is something you might expect from a low dose of sweetsleep.

This bizarre behavior becomes especially prominent in the last paragraphs before Jon is stabbed. His perceptions seem muddled, confused. It’s as if Jon has difficult perceiving his surroundings. He shouts for Leathers to calm Wun Wun, but there’s no evidence that Leathers is even present. Men are screaming but we have no indication of why. Marsh and his assassins seem to manifest from nowhere.

This lack of situational awareness is what leads me to my biggest piece of evidence… a warhorn.

*   *   *

Rory’s Warhorn

Right before Jon is stabbed, he quickly realizes that he needs to quell the fighting with a horn:

Couldn’t they see the giant had been cut? Jon had to put an end to this or more men would die. They had no idea of Wun Wun’s strength. A horn, I need a horn. He saw the glint of steel, turned toward it. “No blades!” he screamed. “Wick, put that knife …”
^{— JON XIII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Now here’s where it gets interesting. Rory the ranger is one of the guards that follows Jon to the tower where Jon is eventually stabbed:

Horse and Rory fell in beside Jon as he left the Shieldhall…

Val, was Jon’s first thought. But that was no woman’s scream. That is a man in mortal agony. He broke into a run. Horse and Rory raced after him. “Is it wights?” asked Rory. Jon wondered. Could his corpses have escaped their chains?

The screaming had stopped by the time they came to Hardin’s Tower, but Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun was still roaring.
^{— JON XIII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

You may be wondering: why is Rory important here?

Because Rory has a warhorn that Jon specifically used for almost the exact same purpose, to quell a riot.

This happens when Jon and his company travels to Mole’s Town in an effort to recruit wildings:

Angry voices rose, in the Old Tongue and the Common. More shoving broke out at another wagon. “It’s not enough,” an old man snarled. “You bloody crows are starving us to death.” The woman who’d been knocked down was scrabbling on her knees after her food. Jon saw the flash of naked steel a few yards away. His own bowmen nocked arrows to their strings.

He turned in his saddle. “Rory. Quiet them.”

Rory lifted his great horn to his lips and blew.

AA​AA​ho​oo​oo​oo​oo​oo​oo​oo​oo​oo​oo​oo​oo​oo​oo​oo​oo​oo​oo​oo​oo​oo.

The tumult and the shoving died. Heads turned.
^{— JON V, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

So point in fact… Jon did have a warhorn with him when he was presumably assassinated. One that was demonstrably capable of quelling infighting. Notice just how similar both situations are as well: the infighting and chaos, a glint or flash of naked steel, Jon’s desire to pacify the crowd with a horn.

So why didn’t Jon order Rory to blow his warhorn?

That’s a damn good question. Of course it’s easy to think that Jon simply forgot or was preoccupied. Its easy to try and insist that Jon was functioning normally, lucid and sober, when he was assassinated.

However, that means you have to presume two pretty insulting facts:

Jon was just simply cold and inept when he tried to draw Longclaw, and…

Jon simply forgot that Rory had an impressive warhorn, or was too distracted to give even a simple order.

As you can see, presuming a simplistic explanation for Jon’s death requires that you conclude that he was clumsy, forgetful, incapable.

This simplistic interpretation actually goes a long way towards proving my point, particularly because Jon has never been shown to be clumsy or forgetful.

I may be wrong here: Jon’s failure to use Rory’s horn could have a simple explanation. That said I want to take a moment and just highlight something:

GRRM specifically gave us details that Jon had Rory blow his great warhorn and pacify a mob, and then later put Jon and Rory in an almost identical scenario.

The similarity of these two scenes strongly suggests a deliberate effort on Martin’s behalf: establishing a comparative relationship of some sort between the two, in particular the effectiveness of the horn when used.

Although gauging authorial intent is in most cases fallacious, I do believe these parallels are of deliberate significance.

*   *   *

What you’re left with is a solid amount of evidence that seems to strikingly conflict with the known nature of Jon Snow. To make my assertion perfectly clear:

Jon is not himself when he is assassinated, he has been drugged.

He was drugged with sweetsleep that was in the flagon of mulled wine served by Satin.

The sweetsleep debilitated Jon such that he could be killed or otherwise subdued.

There are a few lingering issues that probably need to be addressed:

Why bother with sweetsleep as a poison… why not make the Tears of Lys or the strangler?

Since Aemon is gone, it is unlikely that Clydas knows how to make these more exotic poisons. It seems much more likely that he knows the draughts necessary to treat common ailments at the Wall: milk of the poppy, dreamwine, and sweetsleep.

Why not just give Jon one massive dose that would put him into a ‘permanent’ sleep?

Well first of all, that might be a bit too obvious of a poisoning. Furthermore it would require drinking a poisoned wine that would ‘kill’ anyone else, thus it would be suspicious to give him a wine shared with no one else. Another problem is that Clydas may not know the right dosage for such an effect. Recall that Cersei is a fan of poisoning attempts that are not readily identified as such.

In essence, the sweetsleep allows for Jon to be debilitated such that he can be killed or subdued, provided he is separated from Ghost.

^{<table of contents>}

*   *   *

SECURING THE COUP

---

Readers have long wondered: why would Marsh be stupid enough to attack Jon Snow when Jon has hundreds of wildlings attached to his cause?

It is indeed a conundrum: it seems suicidal for Bowen to stage his coup right when there are a great many wildlings lurking around Castle Black.

However there are several brilliant reasons and likely methods to his coup, some of which were even implied by Jon himself.

The Wildling Chieftains

First off, Marsh would have an immediate problem after assassinating Jon Snow:

What to do about all those wildling chieftains who just roared their approval, hoping to march south with Jon?

I do believe that there is one perfectly good plan that Marsh may have had. This explanation is not backed by evidence, only by its exclusive appropriateness to his needs.

Bowen Marsh will trap the wildlings in the Shieldhall and set fire to the building.

As I said, I cannot prove this. However, it takes little imagination to see why this is perfect.

Per A Dance with Dragons, the Shieldhall comfortably seats two hundred, three hundred if they crowd. Thus Jon’s meeting concentrates a vast number of wildlings in a single enclosure. It also concentrates the entirety of the wildling leadership. Jon has created a “single point of failure”.

The Shieldhall is entirely unnecessary to the Night’s Watch. Jon only used the building because he wanted to seat hundreds of wildlings. From Marsh’s perspective however, the buildling could be entirely razed to the ground and it wouldn’t affect other Nights Watch operations.

The wildlings decide to linger in the Shieldhall after Jon’s speech:

Then Tormund was pounding him on the back, all gap-toothed grin from ear to ear. “Well spoken, crow. Now bring out the mead! Make them yours and get them drunk, that’s how it’s done. We’ll make a wildling o’ you yet, boy. Har!”

“I will send for ale,” Jon said, distracted.
^{— JON XIII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

This means that the wildlings will continue to remain in their singularly risk location.

The description of the Shieldhall lends itself to being a fire hazard:

As a dining hall, it left much to be desired—it was dark, dirty, drafty, and hard to heat in winter, its cellars infested with rats, its massive wooden rafters worm-eaten and festooned with cobwebs.
^{— JON XIII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

I’m not sure if you know this but cobwebs are a definite fire hazard and the wooden beams coupled with the ‘drafty’ airflow suggest a place where a fire could rage quite handily.

*   *   *

The Burning in Tirgoviste

Believe it or not, I’m not just pulling this idea completely out of my ass. There is an anecdotal historical basis for eliminating undesirables in this fashion:

Vlad Dracula was very concerned that all his subjects work and contribute to the common welfare. He once notice that the poor, vagrants, beggars and cripples had become very numerous in his land. Consequently, he issued an invitation to all the poor and sick in Wallachia to come to Tirgoviste for a great feast, claiming that no one should go hungry in his land. As the poor and crippled arrived in the city they were ushered into a great hall where a fabulous feast was prepared for them. The guests ate and drank late into the night. Vlad himself then made an appearance and asked them, “What else do you desire? Do you want to be without cares, lacking nothing in this world?” When they responded positively Vlad ordered the hall boarded up and set on fire. None escaped the flames. Vlad explained his action to the boyars by claiming that he did this “in order that they represent no further burden to other men, and that no one will be poor in my realm.”
^{— VLAD TEPES, THE HISTORICAL DRACULA}

Although apocryphal in its historical legitimacy, this is a certainly compelling way to eliminate “problem people” with minimal fuss.

From Marsh’s perspective, the net benefit of such a terrifying act is tremendous:

He eliminates all of the wildling chieftains in one fell swoop, and hundreds of their men.

It’s undeniably the lowest cost, most effective means of stopping the forthcoming wildling invasion that Jon has declared.

Furthermore, Marsh will still have the wildling hostages at Eastwatch and the Shadow Tower… a means to quell further dissent from the remaining wildlings.

*   *   *

But Why Let Them In?

So if Bowen Marsh planned to stage a coup, why would he wait until after the wildlings had been allowed through the Wall?

There is actually a pretty obvious reason when you think about it. We know that Bowen’s principal concerns in A Dance with Dragons is provisions: the Night’s Watch and the wildlings are going to starve.

Obviously burning the chieftains would alleviate that burden, but you would think that Marsh could have simply conducted his little coup prior to admitting wildlings into the realm.

So again, why wait?

It’s because the wildlings have assets that can be traded for provisions:

Bowen Marsh sighed. “If they do not slay us with their swords, they will do so with their mouths. Pray, how does the lord commander propose to feed Tormund and his thousands?”

Jon had anticipated that question. “Through Eastwatch. We will bring in food by ship, as much as might be required. From the riverlands and the stormlands and the Vale of Arryn, from Dorne and the Reach, across the narrow sea from the Free Cities.”

“And this food will be paid for … how if I may ask?”

With gold, from the Iron Bank of Braavos, Jon might have replied. Instead he said, “I have agreed that the free folk may keep their furs and pelts. They will need those for warmth when winter comes. All other wealth they must surrender. Gold and silver, amber, gemstones, carvings, anything of value. We will ship it all across the narrow sea to be sold in the Free Cities.”

“All the wealth o’ the wildlings,” said The Norrey. “That should buy you a bushel o’ barleycorn. Two bushels, might be.”
^{— JON XI, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Bowen may or may not have known about the loan from the Iron Bank: Satin was presumably present during the negotiations. In any case, the wildling wealth is a valuable commodity that could help the Night’s Watch survive the winter… especially if the wildlings could be “dealt with” as well.

Thus Bowen has incentive to allow the wildlings through, if only for whatever wealth they have.

*   *   *

The Gate at Eastwatch

We know that there are hundreds of mammoths and giants headed to Eastwatch because it is the only place with a gate large enough to accommodate their passage:

“Boys first, aye. Mammoths go the long way round. You make sure Eastwatch expects them. I’ll make sure there’s no fighting, nor rushing at your bloody gate. Nice and orderly we’ll be, ducklings in a row. And me the mother duck. Har!” Tormund led Jon from his tent.
^{— JON XI, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Presuming that Marsh was ready to stage his coup, there is an interesting detail:

Calm seas today. Eleven ships set sail for Hardhome on the morning tide. Three Braavosi, four Lyseni, four of ours. Two of the Lyseni barely seaworthy. We may drown more wildlings than we save. Your command. Twenty ravens aboard, and Maester Harmune. Will send reports. I command from Talon, Tattersalt second on Blackbird, Ser Glendon holds Eastwatch.

“Dark wings, dark words?” asked Alys Karstark.

“No, my lady. This news was long awaited.” Though the last part troubles me. Glendon Hewett was a seasoned man and a strong one, a sensible choice to command in Cotter Pyke’s absence. But he was also as much a friend as Alliser Thorne could boast, and a crony of sorts with Janos Slynt, however briefly. Jon could still recall how Hewett had dragged him from his bed, and the feel of his boot slamming into his ribs. Not the man I would have chosen.
^{— JON X, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Now I’ve already shown Clydas capable of sending messages with Jon’s approval. The very moment that Cotter Pyke departs, Marsh could begin sending messages to Hewett.

Now this might not happen immediately, but it seems painfully obvious: once Marsh decides to stage his coup, he needs to act quickly to prevent more wildlings from coming through the Wall. The most logical suggestion for Marsh to contact Glendon Hewett and cave in the Eastwatch tunnel.

It’s interesting to note that in some ways Jon actually substantiates Marsh’s plan to collapse the tunnels:

“Donal Noye died to hold the gate. A gallant act, yes … but if the gate had been sealed, our brave armorer might still be with us. Whether we face a hundred foes or a hundred thousand, so long as we’re atop the Wall and they’re below, they cannot do us harm.”

He’s not wrong. Mance Rayder’s host had broken against the Wall like a wave upon a stony shore, though the defenders were no more than a handful of old men, green boys, and cripples. Yet what Bowen was suggesting went against all of Jon’s instincts. “If we seal the gates, we cannot send out rangers,” he pointed out. “We will be as good as blind.”

“Lord Mormont’s last ranging cost the Watch a quarter of its men, my lord. We need to conserve what strength remains us. Every death diminishes us, and we are stretched so thin … Take the high ground and win the battle, my uncle used to say. No ground is higher than the Wall, Lord Commander.”
^{— JON III, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

And later, when Bowen Marsh learns of the number of Others that could be coming:

“Cotter Pyke’s galleys sail past Hardhome from time to time. He tells me there is no shelter there but the caves. The screaming caves, his men call them. Mother Mole and those who followed her will perish there, of cold and starvation. Hundreds of them. Thousands.”

“Thousands of enemies. Thousands of wildlings.”

Thousands of people, Jon thought. Men, women, children. Anger rose inside him, but when he spoke his voice was quiet and cold. “Are you so blind, or is it that you do not wish to see? What do you think will happen when all these enemies are dead?”

Above the door the raven muttered, “Dead, dead, dead.”

“Let me tell you what will happen,” Jon said. “The dead will rise again, in their hundreds and their thousands. They will rise as wights, with black hands and pale blue eyes, and they will come for us.” He pushed himself to his feet, the fingers of his sword hand opening and closing. “You have my leave to go.”

Septon Cellador rose grey-faced and sweating, Othell Yarwyck stiffly, Bowen Marsh tight-lipped and pale.
^{— JON VIII, A DANCE WITH DRAGONS}

Combining Marsh’s earlier plans with the data suggesting the size of the wildling—or Others—army implies that Marsh would have every desire to collapse the tunnels.

Collapsing the tunnel at Eastwatch keeps two-hundred giants and eighty mammoths out of the Seven Kingdoms, as well as more wildlings. This further slows the declining provisions on the Wall.

*   *   *

So you can see, in one fell swoop, Bowen and his stewards would enact a powerful move that dramatically changes things at the Wall:

• Jon Snow is dead or otherwise out of commission, Marsh becomes the acting Lord Commander.
• Marsh is much more conservative, will take fewer risks with his men, ergo fewer unnecessary deaths.
• A majority of the wildling chieftains are dead as well as many of them fighting men.
• Wildling hostages are still held by the Watch at the Shadow Tower and Eastwatch.
• The tunnels are collapsed, preventing more wildlings from coming in, and presumably the Others as well.
• This reconciles the Night’s Watch with King’s Landing.
• The Night’s Watch benefits from having the wildling treasures which can be bartered for winter provisions.
• Marsh will have Stannis’s forces hostage: Selyse, Shireen, Melisandre.

You can see how this pretty much decimates a major portion of Stannis’s campaign.

Or does it?

There are some elements here that give us a whisper of something possibility happening:

• There is no mention of the Thenns. We know that Sigorn of Thenn has two hundred Thenns with him. Remember what I said in Honor has its Costs: Sigorn swore allegiance not to Stannis but perhaps to Val. Remember that Stannis originally planned to give Sigorn land and castles, (and as long as Harrion Karstark lives, Sigorn will not inherit Karhold).
• According to the same essay, I strongly believe that Val escaped some time prior to Jon’s assassination.
• Tormund had thirty men missing from his band that returned to Castle Black. There are curious happenings at the Wall that suggest Val and Tormund may have been collaborating on the escape plan. Remember that he had a dozen or so men who were extremely dangerous, “his best men”.

NOTE: I wrote the details surrounding the missing men in an older essay, but it is no longer online. I will repost it after some cleanup.

• I would also point out that the last time Jon rides a horse—during the wildling surrender—Jon rides a different horse from his usual grey palfrey. He rides a magnificent stallion. He even comments that it’s not the kind of horse he’d want for a ranging.

Why does this interest me?

Because it means that his grey palfrey—the one extremely well-suited to long riding—was left behind for an entire day in the stables. I strongly suspect that when Val escapes, she takes Jon’s normal riding horse.

The point I’m driving at is this:

There is a compelling story behind Jon’s assassination, one that could be extremely debilitating to the Stannis campaign.

However, there is a possible inkling that the speculated wildling mission survives the coup, no one aware that a moderately sized wildling force might be descending on the Dreadfort as part of Stannis’s strategy.

^{<table of contents>}

^{<the mannifesto>}

*   *   *