While Game of Thrones begs to be rewatched despite its controversial ending, the more you watch the series, the more stupid Jon Snow, played by Kit Harington, appears. Over the course of 8 seasons of Game of Thrones, Jon Snow was the closest thing we had to a main character. However, he was also the poster boy for people who failed their way to the top.
Time and again, the man who, based on his abilities, would have deserved a reclusive post on some secluded corner of the Wall, found himself in circumstances where he had a significant impact on the future of Westeros. Jon Snow is the Forrest Gump of Game of Thrones, only worse at ping pong and less articulate.
Jon Snow’s dumbest Game of Thrones moments
A Game of Thrones rewatch is fun even two years after the series finale, but the more you watch the series, the further the Stark kid’s IQ drops. To prove it, check out the following 5 Game of Thrones moments in which Jon Snow behaved incredibly stupidly.
Jon is a seemingly naive underdog in a cage full of tigers. This is something he learned from his foster father Ned Stark, whose dog-baby-like trustfulness cost him his head in King’s Landing. However, even Ned managed to take the most important secret of his life to the grave: Jon’s true origins. By doing so, he would have thrown half the kingdom into chaos, or at least threatened the boy’s life!
This boy, on the other hand, grows up to be a mindless blabbermouth who loses all perspective as soon as a secret is whispered to him (if he ever possessed perspective). After Jon learns that he is a Targaryen, he tells Daenerys, since she is his aunt. And lover. And … let’s not dwell on it. With that info, he sows doubt in the paranoid Dany, which helps make her distrust the North and burn King’s Landing to the ground. Way to go, Jon!
Oh, and he continues to tell it until the last fish maid in Braavos knows it – and Varys, who subsequently instigates a coup against Dany. Once again: Well done, Jon!
Many Game of Thrones fans greatly overrate Jon Snow, even though his dubious planning skills became evident early on. After all, exactly 91% of his storylines consist of him plunging headlong into a doomed mission, most often alone, preferably behind the Wall.
And so it is with his plan in Season 4. The Wildlings are threatening, so Jon opts for a Lee Harvey Oswald memorial mission to assassinate Wildling leader Mance Rayder (Ciarán Hinds). What is his logic? With no leader, the tribes will disintegrate. What he doesn’t consider:
- That by doing so, he ignites the revenge of an entire people.
- That after an assassination, one must also have a plan for succession. (Source: the history of the Central Intelligence Agency)
- How the hell he’s going to kill the head of the Wildlings among thousands of Wildlings.
Luckily, Jon (once again) doesn’t have to face the fallout of his decisions. Indeed, just as he is about to fail magnificently, Stannis Baratheon drops by with his army.
In season 7 of Game of Thrones, Jon sets out once again to carry out a suicidal plan behind the Wall. On this occasion, he wants to fetch a proof of the existence of the White Walkers to the south. A proof that is supposed to convince Cersei – the least trustworthy woman in all of Westeros. With a barrel of red wine he would certainly have had more success.
The fact that Cersei doesn’t really care about the demise of humanity as long as she can watch the horror from a throne is something Jon and Daenerys SHOULD have known beforehand. They also should have known that this is a suicide mission. Therefore, this decision by Jon (and the writers) still sucks years later: neither human nor dragon lives are worth sacrificing for this stupid plan.
Yet the funniest thing about one of the stupidest Game of Thrones moments ever is the level of self-parody the series achieves. The screenplay twists for Jon’s survival have to be seen to be believed. At first, Daenerys flies in. Then Benjen Stark, a character whose fate we’ve been puzzling over for 8 seasons, shows up. And this only to pull Jon out of his self-inflicted mess.
Jon has a sweet, loyal, deadly Direwolf named Ghost and he treats him like an overachieving dog owner who dumps his husky at a highway rest stop after the Corona Lockdown. Jon Snow is not only stupid, he’s heartless.
Jon Snow is a terrible commander. He prefers to run heroically to his doom than to stop for a second to find a solution. Yet even when he has time to plan, he ends up with something like The Long Night, in which he commands the most vulnerable inhabitants of Winterfell into the tomb, despite having seen with his own eyes how the Night King can resurrect them.
However, the pinnacle of his strategic intelligence is found in the Battle of the Bastards from season 6 of Game of Thrones. It can be concluded like this:
- Sansa tells Jon to rally more support in the fight against Ramsay. He ignores her.
- Sansa advises Jon on how to deal with Ramsay, whom she knows all too well. He ignores her.
- Jon’s outnumbered army rushes into battle against Ramsay. Sansa saves him from embarrassing defeat.
So it is obvious that: Sansa’s IQ > Ramsay’s IQ > Jon’s IQ.
Do you remember any other stupid Jon Snow moments from the Game of Thrones? Let us know in the comments section below.
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