One thing that has become more important to the story suddenly is Dragonglass. Thus far, we only have learned that it plays a role in destroying and creating White Walkers. We saw in Season 6 the birth of the White Walkers through Bran Stark’s vision where he saw the Children of the Forest drive a shard into a man’s chest. In addition, I believe Benjen Stark’s half-dead state is related to this situation.

Given these facts, one hypothesis that I’ve been brewing over lately is how Qyburn managed to provide life to the Mountain after Oberyn Martell poisoned him. It’s assumed that the Mountain is or was dead at Oberyn’s hands but not completely confirmed. If not then he was very close to dead and Qyburn had done some off limit experiment to keep the Mountain in this animated stasis.

When the Mountain removed his helmet in approaching Septa Unella at the end of Season 6 Episode 10, we had a very dark look at his decayed, bluish face. The color is reminiscent of Benjen minus the fact that there is apparently no sign of communication ability nor individual thought process. The only thing we know is that according to Qyburn, Ser Gregor had “sworn an oath to fight the evil of the realm.”

That said, he does seem to obey commands from certain individuals such as Qyburn and Cersei while responding to people’s actions like when Jamie talked about him in the previous season. It’s not apparent if Qyburn had done something malicious such as removing Ser Gregor’s tongue since Ser Illyn Payne is not on the show anymore. But this lack of verbal communication in this state is odd considering that someone like Benjen has some level of coherence.

With Samwell Tarly making his discovery of Dragonglass in the citadel, it’s possible that the Maesters themselves with their ancient knowledge know how to manipulate its properties, which seems to include being able to cure Grayscale (which is what Samwell will do for Ser Jorah Mormont).

Given this notion and that Qyburn was at one time a Maester, it’s highly likely that he understands how to employ Dragonglass for its life saving properties. Is the Mountain then powered essentially by a battery of Dragonglass? My guess is that we’ll see this come out sometime in Season 8.

Because Leaf and the other Children of the Forest had been destroyed in the battle with the White Walkers (assuming they were the last of their kind), the knowledge of how the White Walkers can be destroyed, created or turned away at this point in time only can be understood by Bran and the Maesters. That means that both Samwell Tarly and Qyburn might be the key along with Bran in dealing with the White Walkers in a certain manner.

With this in mind, I have two ideas of how the Mountain and Qyburn will play a part in season 8. First is that the White Walkers might’ve sensed how humans are playing with “fire” in using Dragonglass for misaligned purposes. The Mountain might symbolize man’s attempt to control life itself against nature’s will and that their desire to aim south is to prevent man from uprooting the balance. We know that their purpose originally was to fight against man for the Children of the Forest, in which they eventually turned against the creators (from what we can guess). So this mad individual of Qyburn might use his skills on behalf of the queen Cersei to create an army of undead down the road and the White Walkers are marching South to stop him.

My problem with that theory is that it elevates the purpose of the Mountain and Qyburn too high up. They really are minor characters but serve a purpose in the plot. The other thing that is similar though is that the Hound might eventually be forced to fight his brother and he defeats the Mountain. In the process of slaying the Mountain, everyone learns that Qyburn has the secret of how the White Walkers can be formed with Samwell Tarly being a key person in deciphering Qyburn’s experiments. This latter theory feels more plausible. It adds more purpose to the Mountain, Qyburn and the Hound especially.

I suppose this begs the larger question of how Dragonglass plays an even larger role in the story. I can’t really see it being similar to the story of Dragonlance where an armorer like Gendry ends up forging tons of mystical weapons so that we can some epic battle scene. That’s not how Game of Thrones plays out. But I do think that the secret of life and death are definitely intertwined with Dragonglass at this point.

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First, the important thing to note is that Samwell Tarly along with Gilly and Little Sam are supposedly safely out of harms reach in being sent to Old Town to become a Maester at the Citadel. We do not have a clear indication of the time frame between his departure and Jon Snow’s stabbing to give him enough distance, but I’m going to assume that the Sam’s story will parallel the book’s viewpoint chapters where he travels to Old Town.

However, because Sam was one of the true loyal friends of Jon Snow, there’s no one possibly left to support Jon Snow’s cause at Castle Black outside of Eddison Tollet who saw the slaughter at Hardhome along with Jon Snow. With Melisandre retreating to the Wall and the tradition of burning bodies as a necessity to avoid future fates of people becoming part of the White Walker army, it’s likely that at the very least, Melisandre may attempt to provide a proper funeral pyre for Jon Snow.

Right now, Kit Harrington has admitted that he will not be in next season so that may allude to his physical body being missing. Although we see Jon Snow bleeding to death, there’s no guarantee that his physical form will be found either. Instead, there’s more speculation that Ghost’s presence will save him and that he’ll use the dire wolf to continue for the meantime.

Another major implication is that because he is dead, he no longer is bound to the Night’s Watch vows. I know that seems like an obvious thing but should he be resurrected somehow, the reality is that he does not have to obey the mutinous remaining brothers. Just as Stannis has hinted earlier this season, Jon Snow in practice is cleared from his duty as a sworn brother to become a true Stark and hence reclaim the North along with Winterfell.

Similarly, the Night’s Watch can now be considered damned because of what they’ve done. Although many brothers declared Jon Snow a traitor, they nonetheless killed a brother and more importantly the Lord Commander. That makes them all traitors to their sacred vows and to the Realm.

Of course, without Jon Snow to mediate between the Northerners and the Wildlings, whatever truce existed between both factions practically went out the window. However, the Wildlings are now safely on the other side of the Wall and outnumber the Night’s Watch. So even if the Night’s Watch detest them, they will be very hard pressed to be able to handle them at this stage. And with Stannis’ army gone, the Night’s Watch virtually has no allies anymore.

No doubt both Ser Davos, Melisandre and Tormund will heavily frown upon the Night’s Watch. Tormund will keep his respect for Jon Snow’s actions and will probably figure out a way to seek revenge, if not allying with the now patronless Ser Davos. It would be an odd combo to say the least but Ser Davos seems to have more sense than most people and would provide good counsel to the Wildlings if given the chance.

The reality is that without Jon Snow being there to keep everyone in check and remind people of the White Walkers, the Night’s Watch are practically goners the moment the Wall falls. No doubt at some point that will happen but because of their inherent prejudice against the Wildlings, they will not have any support for their cause.

Also, because the Wildlings are on the other side, there’s no doubt that they will seek refuge and possibly cause chaos for the other northerners. Perhaps, they might ally with Sansa Stark since she is kin to Jon Snow. We have yet to see Sansa’s true allies in the North and the only ones named in the show have been the Umbers, which Rickon was sent to with Osha.

With Jon Snow eliminated though, the Night’s Watch’s only potential allies are the Boltons. However, it’s likely that when the White Walkers hit, the Boltons (because they aren’t exactly the most worldly people around) will probably laugh off the threat until they succumb to it (unless my theory where Ramsay discovers the horn inside Winterfell’s crypts that can take down the Wall comes true).

From an IRL point of view, the sad thing sounds like we won’t be seeing Kit Harrington, possibly ever again in the series. He stated in a recent interview that he won’t be in the next season and that his death is the last time we would see him. Although Jon Snow’s character arc might be far from over, Kit’s role in the Game of Thrones seems finished for now.

I suppose that might mean that Dan and David have a certain figure to be cast in the future if, indeed, Jon Snow is resurrected as Azor Ahai. And it doesn’t look like that character will show up at all next season. Rumors/theories persist that Jon Snow’s true identity/parentage will be revealed towards the end of the series. How that comes about is anyone’s guess.

Next season though looks like we’ll mostly see chaos utterly erupt throughout the realm. There’s a lot of points of conflict where nothing but death and major battles leave hundreds of thousands of bodies ready for the incoming White Walker fleet. With Jon Snow silenced, there won’t be anyone with a strong enough voice to inform the rest of the realm from reacting in time.

What about Ghost though? I suppose we’ll see bits and pieces of him as we did this season. He’ll make cameo appearances and show hints that he DOES know something. However, I doubt Dan and David will give this version of Ghost a voice much like how Bran as Summer lacks a human voice while worging. Perhaps, without being cooped up in Castle Black, Jon Snow as Ghost will be free to roam around a bit, perhaps joining up with the rest of the pack like Arya’s dire wolf Nymeria. If not finding Nymeria, perhaps Ghost might try to locate the missing Rickon or Bran or even Uncle Benjen.

The post Game of Thrones: Speculations on Jon Snow’s Fate appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.