Jon Snow - Romantic or Platonic Relationships
YGRITTE “JON LOVED A MAID WITH FIRE IN HER HAIR”
The first love isn’t always the most significant in one’s life or the one who lasts the longest, but still it’s the one people will always remember. For Jon his first love (and so far his only book!canon) is Ygritte. I won’t pretend that everything about their relationship was sunshine and rainbows and there are some aspects of their relationship that I don’t particularly like. However, I decided to focus on the positive stuff of their love in this meta.
In many fantasy books when the main character finds a love interest she will either be equally important to the plot (which wasn’t the case for JonxYgritte) or if she’s a secondary character only relevant to his own story (Jon x Ygritte fall into that category)she will be a “trophy wife” aka the prettiest girl, the most skillful warrior woman and/or having great inheritance. I’m glad that Martin didn’t follow that route and made Ygritte an ordinary girl by Wilding standards (the only “extraordinary pretty” thing about her by wilding standards are her “kissed by fire” hair, but by westerosi standards her tangled hair isn’t exactly a standard of beauty).
Here is the first description of Ygritte, not exactly the conventional beauty I’d say(and before someone says that Jon prefers wild girls over conventional ones, I know. I just wanted to point out that he doesn’t find her pretty from their first encounter, unlike how he described Val’s undeniable beauty from their first meeting):
Ygritte watched and said nothing. She was older than he’d thought at first, Jon realized; maybe as old as twenty, but short for her age, bandy-legged, with a round face, small hands, and a pug nose. Her shaggy mop of red hair stuck out in all directions. She looked plump as she crouched there, but most of that was layers of fur and wool and leather. Underneath all that she could be as skinny as Arya.
But for me it’s even more sweet that as Jon slowly falls for Ygritte he starts to find aspects of hers (both in terms of appearance and personality) endearing.
At a lord’s court the girl would never have been considered anything but common, he knew. She had a round peasant face, a pug nose, and slightly crooked teeth, and her eyes were too far apart. Jon had noticed all that the first time he’d seen her, when his dirk had been at her throat. Lately, though, he was noticing some other things. When she grinned, the crooked teeth didn’t seem to matter. And maybe her eyes were too far apart, but they were a pretty blue-grey color, and lively as any eyes he knew. Sometimes she sang in a low husky voice that stirred him. And sometimes by the cookfire when she sat hugging her knees with the flames waking echoes in her red hair, and looked at him, just smiling … well, that stirred some things as well.
He starts to love her smile, her lively eyes, her low husky voice and just her overall presence. Jon is in love even if he hadn’t fully realized that at that moment.
Ygritte’s most famous phrase “ You know nothing, Jon Snow” is overused both by the tv!show and the fandom when they want to make fun of Jon. But in context it isn’t that bad. In fact, it’s true that in certain aspects, like the life Beyond the Wall, Jon was really clueless before he lived with them. Nowhere in the text Martin implies that Ygritte is more clever and knowledgable than Jon in every aspect. He had a Lord’s son education and knows plenty of things about Westerosi society while Ygritte knows about the Free Folk and the lore beyond the Wall. Each one of them could learn things from the other but because we are in Jon’s head we often see Ygritte teaching him new stuff about the Free Folk’s way of life and not the other way around.
In my opinion, I find it endearing that Jon even after Ygritte has been long dead he remembers that phrase of hers and repeats it in his head. Not only show humility but it also takes a certain degree of wisdom to admit that you are ignorant about a lot of stuff (which reminds me of my classical studies and a favourite quote by philosopher Socrates “ The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing”)
Finally, I want to highlight Ygritte’s importance in further shaping Jon’s taste in women. From his ADWD chapters we know that Jon likes girls who take action in their hands - and preferably fight,too- instead of those who are waiting to be saved. Ygritte was the first woman he met who was a warrior herself (Arya was also fierce but she was a child the last time he saw her, not a woman yet) and Ygritte was also his first love. So, I do believe she further influenced his preferances in women.
