Why Was Jojen Shown His Own Death?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ต.ค. 2024
- Jojen Reed knows how he will die from the moment we meet him in the a song of ice and fire books. But when you think about it that seems like an odd thing for him to be shown when the 3 eyed crow is willing to lie and manipulate people. Why is he being so honest with Jojen anyway? Is there a reason Jojen was shown his fate?
![[Full Episode] The Restaurant War Thailand ศึกพ่อค้าซ่าแม่ค้าแซ่บ Episode 3 | 6 ต.ค. 67](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/fTfIMFVjt_8/mqdefault.jpg)
I like the idea that in his green dreams it was him or his sister and he chose to sacrifice himself to save Meera
Sacrifice and comment to the old gods and the algorithm
I love that you come out with theory videos on things that other people havnt talked about much. Everyone knows the Jojen paste theory but I hadn’t even thought about why he was there to turn into paste I just kinda took him at his word that it had to happen and moved onto the paste issue. Great video and very thought provoking thank you for your time
I never thought the green dreams were being sent by anyone, CotF or Bloodraven or the weirdwood network.
It's just his own prophesying. And like all prophecies, "it'll bite off your cock". Jojen chooses to believe it, and walks in the footprints laid down by his vision.
the "naive" interpretation is that no one is sending the green dreams. the cynical interpretation is that they were sent to manipulate him
“It's all a story. And you're but one part in it. You know your part"
HOTD laid it out plainly (and perhaps too plainly)- some characters who are given visions like Jojen, Daemon, and Qhorin “is your sword sharp, Jon Snow” Halfhand know their part in the story.
Most of the characters do have “free will”(as much as any fictional character can) thanks to how GRRM writes, but in order to make the story go in the direction it needs to go some characters are given the script, as it were.
Qhorin is a good example of this, why does he pick Jon Snow to range with him towards the Frostfangs? Because the story demands it - if Jon stayed at the Fist he may have died when the Others attacked, he would not have met Bran in a Wolf dream and granted a vision, ect ect
Qhorin even says "Jon has a different part to play." Without Qhorin knowing that Jon had to kill him, would he have chosen Jon to range with him? Most likely not, why take a green steward with you in a dangerous scouting mission?
This is also paralleled in Elden Ring - Corhyn the Prophet who serves the Two Fingers (a literal half hand) has prophetic visions that accurately predict the future and even wears a blindfold because the future is so determined.
While doing Elden Ring theorizing I predicted what would happen to Daemon Targaryen in HOTD, but for Elden Ring’s Radagon - I feel 100% confident that what we see happen with Daemon is a common occurrence throughout both Elden Ring and ASOIAF
I though you were waffling at first but tying it in with elden ring convinced me instantly lol. great analysis
Meta analysis, e.g. "the plot demanded it" is totally pointless imo. We know GRRM will write whatever he needs to write. The question is how it's logically justified in-world.
@@DevinDTV It’s not meta analysis - it’s literally stated both in ASOIAF proper and House of the Dragon, as well as being prevalent in GRRM’s Elden Ring.
Hell, even Game of Thrones has it mentioned in a pisspoor way - “who has a better story than Bran the Broken”
To further your point, you could also look at the story of St. Trina and Miquella as a parallel to Bloodraven and Euron, as bloodraven would know that "godhood is a prison" which is exactly why he'd lie to Bran about his plans for him.
I freaking love your channel and this series. No wonder he cannot finish it, these themes are mega deep and there are so many possibilities. My only problem with this theory is that I think Jojen has been hoodwinked somehow, about the Three Eyed Crow, or whatever and I lean much more strongly towards the theory Bran is evil. What are your thoughts on evil Bran/possessed by Bloodraven?
by blood raven you mean brinden or the hive mind with that title? because the entities are separate and he's probably a victim too. like rhaegar and Egg.
Jojen is not sent dreams from The Three Eyed Crow, they come from the greater composite intelligence in the trees, which has its own agenda that more or less overlaps with that of Bloodraven.
And he is a more or less willing sacrifice, like Nissa Nissa.
To successfully temper Lightbringer Azor Ahai asks Nissa Nissa to bare her breast and know that it is she that he loves best. And she does it! Jojen's example is stronger because he isn't even asked (unless the children of the forest ask him off-page before he can volunteer).
Good point, lots of people theorize that Azor Ahai was actually a bad guy because what good guy murders his wife, but if Nissa Nissa knowingly self-sacrificed it’s an entirely different story. Could see it tying in to Jon and Daenerys’ endgame in some way, I think one of the two will fulfill the Nissa Nissa role of the Azor Ahai prophecy. But it will be a noble self-sacrifice for the good of humanity
@@warpedwhimsical Just because NN may have self-sacrificed doesn't mean AA's request was OK in that case!
All this makes sense! A+ on the symbolism and tropes from myth and story helping contextualize Jojen choosing his fate, especially Jesus in the garden (holy grove, aka garth) wanting to elude his divine fate similar to Jojen's spirits being down before he's turned into a seed. I think GRRM wants to show that in order to get true free will, someone, like Bran, must take the reins for a bit and steer the timeline for a short time to get out of the dark, medieval ages before letting people choose for themselves in a safer and likely magic-free environment. GRRM wants to have his cake and eat it, too, as he asks questions that sometimes poke holes in other stories he pulls from, famously asking what Aragorn's tax policy was like. Bran can pull from all human ken and perhaps have a relative sway on the lives and memories of those closest to him, just like the roots of a great tree would have on the river of time, as Bloodraven puts it. Bran can be the last king, the last monarch, the last greenseer, and the last to have known dragons, the Others, Targs and Starks, aka the last singer and listener to the SoIaF, and maybe help write/right the history of men. GRRM likes his wordplay and Dune (god emperor worm), right? You and LML probably spoke about this, hopefully you've watched The Disputed Lands, too.
I really like your theory about self-sacrifice and free will. In the show, it always seemed to me that when Bran was with the Three-Eyed Raven and the Children of the Forest, they were very careful to make sure Bran CHOSE to follow their path. There’s that one scene where Bran gets really angry, and you can see Leaf almost freezing, like she’s holding her breath until he calms down. To me, that suggests Bran’s consent was essential for him to serve as the host for the Three-Eyed Raven. Without that willing agreement, it could’ve turned into something like Varamyr’s struggle to take over a host that resisted him. However, Bran was tricked into agreeing not the same as Jojen. I am wondering over time the scared little disabled boy will eventually fight his way out.
Now, for a more controversial theory: Jojen = Craster. Craster’s life, as despicable as it was, wasn’t one he chose for himself. He saw his actions as doing “the Lord’s work.” I’ve mentioned before that Craster is almost an “innocent” in the sense that he was bound by a deal his mother made with the Others-to give them male children born of incest. I don’t think Craster had much choice in the beginning, but over time, he accepted it. Didn’t he say something like, “I’ve made my peace with my God”? My theory is that Melisandre misinterpreted the prophecy, believing the phrase was “There is power in king’s blood” when it should have been “There is power in kin’s blood,” referring to the Targaryens’ incestuous practices to strengthen their bond with dragons. And NO!! I do not think that the baby boys were sacrificed , as we saw the Night King also turning the dragon’s eyes blue.
George R.R. Martin constantly encourages readers to look past the surface for the real truth, as shown by Syrio Forel’s name (“See For Real”). It’s tough to see the truth with someone like Craster, because his situation is so abhorrent, but there’s more beneath the surface.
Never thought I'd see a Crastor apologist in the year of our lord 2024. It's a big world out there I guess
@dominic3797 I believe Craster perfectly embodies the core theme of the entire series: CRITICAL THINKING.
That’s why I appreciate this channel so much. It goes beyond surface-level interpretations. Take, for example, his video on Harrenhal. Most people see the story of Harren as one of arrogance and folly, but with a bit of critical thinking, the video suggests Harren might have been much wiser than popular history gives him credit for.
In my opinion, GRRM was exploring the concept of misinformation long before it became a hot topic or the internet amplified it.
From the beginning of time, misinformation has existed, largely because history is written by the victors.
We saw a clear example of this in the show when Cersei hired a traveling theatre to depict Tyrion as her son’s murderer. In today’s world, that would have gone viral instantly, like a trending tweet.
With Craster, you have to ask the essential question: WHY? Why is he doing this-sacrificing his sons to the Others? The key is that he wouldn’t be doing it if his mother hadn’t made that deal in the first place. Most people stop at the shocking nature of the situation and don’t think beyond it. They miss the deeper layers of causality and the generational consequences at play. So without the deal he did NOT agree to he would be no marriages to his daughters.
Of course it goes without saying that this doesn’t condone the outcome.
@@dominic3797 GRRM makes you think-hopefully critically. He doesn’t just hand everything to you in a neatly wrapped package with a bow. The same initial judgment applies to characters like Robert Baratheon. On the surface, he seems like nothing more than a drunken, womanizing fool. But dig a little deeper, and you realize his instincts were often spot on. He was right about Daenerys being a threat, even when others dismissed his concerns. There’s always more beneath the surface with GRRM’s characters, challenging us to look past first impressions.
On the other hand, the opposite is true of Ned Stark. He’s often seen as a noble, kind-hearted, and loyal man, but in reality, he’s a fool whose instincts are wrong from the moment we meet him. He executes the Night’s Watch deserter, even though the man was telling the truth. Ned even wanted to kill the direwolves, his family’s ancient sigil-how foolish was that? Yet because Ned is cloaked in “respectability,” people automatically assume he’s always in the right. I wouldn’t be surprised if we eventually learn that he’s done some dark deeds in the name of tradition. (For instance, his two additions to the crypts of Winterfell hide some sinister secrets. Also, it is telling that his own statue in the crypt is unrecognizable.
Syrio Forel being “see for real” is so dumb, lmao.
That isn’t critical thinking. It is warping sounds so they sound as you want them to to push your bias of how enlightened you are
After all, you are the one “seeing for real.”
@@pyropulseIXXI Just because you obviously lack critical thinking skills there is no reason to be rude… it just confirms your ignorance.
I like this analysis. I also think self sacrifice is definitely going to become an important factor. Certainly Jojen is deliberately sacrificing himself, whatever he thinks about free will. I don't think I had considered this question before.
But it does put me in mind of some other things I've thought about and I do have another thought about Jojen's foreknowledge of his death. I think it could also be accidental. Recall Melisandre's strongest psychic ability.
"If the wildling had meant her harm, she would have seen it in her flames. Danger to her own person was the first thing she had learned to see..."
Imagine for a moment that this not a result of peering into the future, but rather telepathically reading the thoughts of those around her. In common narratives about esp it's often another's thoughts about oneself which are thought to be easiest to pick up. As in the idiom, "my ears are burning," meaning that you subconsciously sense somebody is talking about you. Or the feeling that you can sense when someone is looking at you, and therefor thinking about you, because you turn around and meet their eyes.
Now imagine that Martin has built this into the telepathic powers of the Song. Maybe the least talented telepaths might have a little of this type of power to detect other's thoughts about themselves, and the strongest have a strong ability to do so. And perhaps stronger thoughts, such as about harm or death, are even easier to pick up. In this scenario, a three-eyed crow who is planning to use Jojen in a way that ultimately gets him killed (weather as specific a detail in a larger plan, or because he's lived that future before) might not be able to help but broadcast this to a very telepathically talented Jojen during a necessary encounter.
This is not what my videos are about. Yet.
I’d be depressed if the reality was no freewill. I mean you can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice but
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill. I will choose a path that's clear, I will choose freewill. 😊
Rush on, brother!
Something I dont get is why everyone thinks free will and a known future dannot coexist. The future comes of peoples free choice. Why does being able to see the future make it so it's no longer of people's own choices?
exactly. we know climate change will hurt us but we chose to ignore the issue. it wasn't inevitable when we were first warned.
I think it's connected to his condition. He's sick and maybe even slowly dying already. Maybe in his dreams he saw that he'll die anyway but he can do something good and important.
What would be messed up is if Bran actually caused him to have his condition in the first place
I think that Jojen has his own phys connection to the Old Gods.
I
So fear of death wouldnt stall him on his mission to bring bran north /lor to show him how important he is to unlocking brans abilities
But isn’t Bran still being lied to? Why tell Jojen the truth but not Bran? Wouldn’t lying to Bran defeat the purpose of this being more moral?
Well technically Bran story is still unfolding so it likely be cleared up
Bran isn't the one dying. So, strictly speaking, his consent is not necessary for Jojen's sacrifice.
Sure, maybe WE think it's immoral to make him unwittingly eat his best friend, but our real world sensibilities are mostly irrelevant here.
This is how I think about free will and some other great influence sending you visions.
They send you a vision. You interrupt what you will from it. You can choose to ignore it, you can take some of it, or you might take all of it. The choice is ultimate up to the person receiving the vision.
It's like the willing sacrifice means more than if you do it out of fear or unwillingness. If the same thing has to happen to make a 3 eyed raven, then those greenseers would have to be willing to give themselves for the greater good.
A video about how death doesn't pay for life. The example being Berric Dondarrian.
I can't make grammatical sense of the thumbnail
This is a really good theory!
if you can see all futures, you would know exactly how Jojen would react to any word you can say, and in this case you would know that telling him, but not Bran, that he will die will bring him exactly where you want him. of course, as far as we know so far, you can only see the one future and not different possible futures, but that does not mean that powerful greensewers could not see different outcomes. I believe part of Bran's story is that HE is powerful enough to change stuff, but other green seers never were.
maybe (and that is reaching) the bittersweet ending is that bran will change the past and nothing we read in the books will ever happen and no character we know will ever be born. ^^
Why do you assume Jojen was TOLD his fate? He is a Greenseer, he couldn't he just see it without having to be told? It would still require the same self-sacrifice.
I think him having greendreams about his death IS him belong told. The word told doesn’t have to explicitly be with words in this case.
He is not a Greenseer, as he cannot skinchange animals nor trees
@@plasmiusphantom You're thinking of a warg, wargs can skin change, green seers see visions
@@britknee5872”Warg” specifically means canine or wolf skinchanging.
@@britknee5872 Jojen has green dreams. He's not a warg or a greenseer. He makes a great deal about that. From what I've gathered, greenseers are skin-changers that can warg into trees.
On a plot level I think Meera is needed for whatever happens next and she probably wouldn't if Jojen was killed suddenly, assuming Jojenpaste is correct, which it probably is.
Jojen being named jojen, tied to the jesus-esqur Bran AND foteseeing his oen death has to be jesus parellel.
My last piece of evidence comes from Jojos Bizarre Adventure Part 7 where its reveal that Jesus Christ was the first Joestar (Joshua Joestar). Jojen, with his jo name, is clearly a secret Joestar and thus related to Jesus christ. Now all we need to is to see a red star birthmark on his shoulder.
It also serves to show the alien mindset of bloodraven after over a century of inhuman levels of knowledge. Of course, in his mind, death would be a preferable alternative to godhood, but he has a duty, as do Jojen and Bran, however he has to get them there. That being said i agree with your idea of self sacrifice as Jojen's motivation for going forward with his death march.
I agree with the idea that it has to be willing self-sacrifice, but that doesn't mean that he was told about it by others.
He's a seer so he knows about his death because he saw it for himself.
That actually gives his sacrifice even more meaning. If he's the only one who knows about it then there's no chance of other people influencing him. Whereas being told by big powerful magic guy can feel like it's an order.
An analogy:
An officer walks up to a soldier and says "I need you to volunteer for a suicide mission." Is that truly a free will choice? Or is it coercion by someone in a position of power?
Compare that to the soldier seeing what needs to be done, knowing he'll die doing it, and does it without anyone else even knowing he was making that choice.
He’s paste 👀
I think it can be put really simply without too much background info. Jojen is dead either way, but his death can buy those who will remain a chance at survival. He can either die to help stop the Others, or die at their hands along with everyone else.
Awesome.
I don’t think he was “shown”. I just think because of his abilities he had access to it. And I don’t think that everyone is being manipulated I just think it’s the way of green dreams.
The end will not be "this is the rightfull king and once he sits the throne everything will fine" but rather " it does not matter how good are the king and the lords because feodalism is messed up and the people of Westeros must find an other way".
Still, having it so that sacrifices are always repayed is foolish. You never get value from what you lose, but from the work you've actually done.
Self-sacrifice is a glorified way out.
I do like your overall theory that the systems of magic, power, and authority in the North, while stable and traditional, are ultimately built on a corrupt foundation that needs to be dismantled. But I’m pretty uncomfortable with the idea that “asking” a child to sacrifice himself (in the form of sending him dreams that it’s going to happen) is somehow a more fair foundation for a new world system. I mean, aren’t you basically terrorizing him? There can’t be a new world unless we literally eat you Jojen. Be a good boy, Jojen. Westeros is full of terrible lives and probably Jojen isn’t being asked to exchange a long, comfortable, and fulfilling life for a short one that ends as a porridge, but it still does not sit right with me. Azor Ahai didn’t sacrifice himself. He asked politely, and if his wife said no presumably the world ended.
Honestly I think the real world is full of people sacrificing themselves a little at a time in roles that serve the greater good but aren’t given care and resources in exchange. And instead of trying to make these roles more healthy and bearable and non-sacrificial over time, we just say how nice it is that people willingly make the sacrifices while, you know, cutting the hospital staff even further and taking away teachers’ prep periods. All I’m trying to say is that I don’t really think there’s much of a new system or a rebirth in asking for self-sacrifice from people who either can’t realistically say no or whom you’re just going to exploit in some potentially really creepy or violent way. Like, I think you can ask someone to sacrifice themselves and they can say yes, and what you did was still just another form of violence and trampling on the small folk
Its strange how everything else is wild and caotic but green dreams are absolute, just like what the flames show melisandre are "always right"
I think they are wild and chaotic like fire is and the green dreams are slower and easier to interpret like ice
Bloodraven is part of the weirwood net. The weirwood net is a hive mind. He uses it for his purposes. Part of, not King of. What makes you think everything that is done by the weirwood net is done by Bloodraven? Jojen found out what would happen to him through the ability of the system to see the future.
When you look at Jojen’s free will in your video, think about Dr. Strange looking at the millions of possible futures choosing the one that works out in the end.
He's a crannog man they're different
free will yes but not free from influence
Take this paste, it is my body
Hmmm New Way for the World.... from Sacrifice of children (Jojen, Bran) with some level of willingness OR
God murdering shade of the evening swilling greedy Pirate Emperor who sacrifices others...
something that just got to me, where are nightswatch men burried after death? north or south of the wall?
💚💚
Cool
So did Qhorin Halfhand's self-sacrifice give Jon another life?
Metaphorically and symbolically, yes. The Wildlings and the Others are constantly paralleled to one another, so Jon "dying" as a Nights Watchmen and being "reborn" as a Wildling is pretty significant foreshadowing.
gnome toast
Sing the gnome song with me!
i think that bloodraven is just some machiavellian puppeteer who told jojen, a sickly boy, that he has to get Bran to bloodraven and will be given an extension on his life “as he understands it” if he escorts Bran to him. I don’t know if he knows exactly how he’s going to die, or if he’s going be completely dead, just that he can’t see anything past a certain point & the only reason he hasn’t died as a sickly child is because he’s helping bran.
Jojens death in the show is so lame
Sacrifice.
Bran = Odin?
The New Odin? Or the New Tree?
Another sacr.
Hey Mike. Me with another minor theory. The Pact story said that the Children were given the 'deep woods' while mankind got pretty much everything else. Of course a lot of people have noticed there's a glaring contradicton here, with the castle of Deepwood Motte, a first man, northerner castle literally named for being in the deep woods. What gives? Most people conclude the first men went back on the deal. I don't think that's the case. I think the castle is deliberately named that to lead us to another conclusion, which I think is that 'deep woods' means something else. It means the subterranean weirwood groves, root systems, and forest networks that we know are underneath all of Westeros- the 'hollow hills', the wells, the CONSTANT references to underground rivers. This is where the real magic of the weirwood net is, as the above ground trees are just antennae that connect to the big interconnected ball of roots under the surface. They wanted this to make sure men would never go down here, they can deal with weirwoods being cut down, but if men ever go underground and start chopping up or burning the roots, the brains of the weirdwood net, then they have a real problem. 'Deep woods' doesn't mean dense inner forests, it means literally the woods deep underground that exist next to the deep rivers.
Elden Ring is a hollow earth, and I thin George and Miyazaki both love conspiracy fiction and have used it in other way. Elden Ring has banished societies that live underground in 'rivers' named Siofra and Ainsel RIVER WELLS. Siofra is heavily forested, the trees are even white! it's an incredibly cool environment and it jumped out at me when I watched a video about the Pact and realized the Children were probably living like the ancestral follower shamans in Siofra, practicing their ancient, pre-colonization lifestyles in 'deep' subterranean forested river landscapes.
Beautiful and interesting and now, for me, true. But also sad because this is not going to be explored in the story. I would love after the two books that we will never read for G.R.R.Martin to make another one(xd) about the key moments and major players of the bigger game, who influenced the world and its future. And how this sacrifices and self-sacrifices were little by little creating the status quo, and how it will be changed the same way it came to be.
How good sir, the jesus connection highlighting him not wanting to but being willing to go being more than the actual sacrifice
Counterpoint: its's a book, and therefore deterministic. Books are made from trees, the trees are where the story is inked, and so they know where the characters are going :P
There is obviously no free will in ASOIAF. Hodor and Cersei's golden shroud prophecies are very clearly fixed
Fate being a force that exists doesn’t necessarily mean free will cannot exist. They could be mutually present, such as a universe where free will is the usual case UNLESS fate needs to take over in order to keep the timeline/the law of cause and effect consistent or to shape prophecies into reality.
Prophecy in ASOIAF doesn’t even necessarily need to come true. Daenerys has a vision in the house of the undying of an adult Rhaego sacking a city, which cannot happen. Although maybe that one could still come true symbolically if Rhaego is part of some mindmeld with one of Dany’s dragons
Two cases make no no one can not chose anything
I thought it was clear that Cersei has exit ramps which she is not taking.
I don't think you understand the concept of free will. Characters' "choices" being not what the author expected does not in any way contradict determinism. Determinism takes this fully into account. The determinants in determinism include any factors such as visions and experiences and personality. Free will is really not a concept that matters here. We know for sure the viewpoint characters have the sense of free will, just as we do. But this is not proof of actual free will.
I think Michael is talking about Fatalism here, not Determinism more generally. Why try to influence someones actions if things are fated to happen in a certain way? Why send someone visions if you aren't trying to influence their actions? I don't think we'll be seeing something more granular than a refutation of fate in the books.
@@venus2677 Okay that makes much more sense.
I mean... I think Jojen is willing to die for his gods. He's a religious fanatic. We can see this in religious nut jobs on reality.
I kind of wish we had someone else in the story with "green dreams", I feel like Jojen is the only one? Jojen, I don't think, is an actual greenseer and definitely not a warg. We get several dragon dreamers, it would be nice to to have some more evidence as to how both might be working.
Rickon Stark was more powerful than Bran, he knew his father had died.
Some psychologists say that confronting problems (in small enough pieces to handle) is more mentally rewarding than waiting for the problems to become so bad that you have no other choice but fix them. This is probably due to human evolution, as humans are both predator and prey animals. Hunting is more fun than being hunted. Jesus is a good example in the bible, and so is Abraham. He is commanded by god to leave the comfort of his parents home, in pursuit of his life, before its too late and the world doesn't allow it anymore. C.G. Jung pioneered the idea of the archetype, and dragon is a strong archetype across time and place. In the west dragons are seen as a symbol of destruction, but eastern dragons are considered lucky. Maybe they are lucky because if can you see them, you can plan ahead. But dragons steal gold, and going out to kill them while they are sleeping is easier than once they are flying above your town. Which is the same as Abraham leaving his parents. Another pop culture reference is harry potter 2: chamber of secrets... harry and the gang go into the basilisk's lair to fight it rather than wait for it to come out and kill again, classic christian archetype. Harry is a jesus symbol too in the last book.
Best wishes Michael, good channel, worth the subscription
stretching the video so much by repeating words over and over. yuck.
One of the worst Characters in the show, next to Bran....👎
❤
🤍
makes sense