The moment
Ygritte tells it like it is: “You know nothing, Jon Snow.”
The episode
“A Man Without Honor” (season two, episode seven)
There are two types of Game Of Thrones episodes: the ones where the big, memorable events take place—be them dragon births or shocking deaths—and the quieter ones, where the plot moves forward, characters talk to each other, and in the show’s early seasons, world-building and backstory is a focus. So it is with “A Man Without Honor.” Aside from some magical action in Qarth, most of the episode hangs on two characters talking to each other. “Two-person scenes are the bread and butter of TV drama,” Todd VanDerWerff pointed out in his review of the episode. “[A]nd the better the two-person scenes are in a show, the better the show tends to be.”
Jon and Ygritte have the best two-person scenes throughout. Jon has captured Ygritte, a wilding member of the Free Folk population that lives beyond the Wall. Sardonic and biting, Ygritte is a good foil for stoic, duty-driven Jon, and her needling about Westeros’ monarchy prompts interesting insights into the Free Folks’ views on inherited power. “You could be free, too. You don’t need to live your whole life taking commands from old men,” she tells him, before pivoting into sex, saying that Jon’s vow of celibacy is as equally ridiculous as taking orders from the monarchy. She hits on his virginity, leading to the following exchange and one of the show’s most memorable lines:
“I could teach you how to do it.”
“I know how to do it.”
“You know nothing, Jon Snow.”
What we said then
“[T]he Jon and Ygritte scenes were vintage will-they/won’t-they flirtatious stuff,” VanDerWerff noted in his experts review, while David Sims’ newbies review noted how good Jon and Ygritte’s dynamic is: “I’m very much enjoying Ygritte’s presence just for the energy it brings to scenes with the usually dour Jon.” Neither made note of the “You know nothing” line, which—fair enough. Memorable lines only become memorable once time has passed and they’re, you know, remembered.
Elsewhere in the episode
Theon—a pre-Ramsay Theon—has tried to take over Winterfell, but Bran and Rickon Stark have escaped. In this episode he shows the Winterfell inhabitants the burned bodies of two boys who are not the Stark children. In Harrenhal, Arya and Tywin Lannister make another good pairing, and Catelyn Stark holds Jaime Lannister captive while Brienne Of Tarth hangs out. Meanwhile, Daenerys Targaryen is in Qarth amid a whole storyline that feels inconsequential now, just one of the many holding places for her to spend time in until she could reach Westeros and hold some real stakes.
Previously: Melisandre gives birth to a shadow monster
Next: The Battle Of The Blackwater
68 Comments
Can’t read Jon Snow without thinking “Jon SNERRR” because of these scenes
Yu no nuthin, Jon Snuhw
Jon Snow knew one thing
“you know something?” Jon snows eyes light up. a smile purses across his lips
“you know nothing, Jon Snow!” Jon snows eyes fall, everyone laughs. Freeze frame, credits roll.
Daenerys Targaryen is in Qarth amid a whole storyline that feels inconsequential nowI beg your pardon! Who could forget such indelible Essos characters as That One Rich Merchant, Bearded Antagonist #3, and Fancy Scarf?
What about Baldy McPurpleLips? Wasn’t he such a memorable character that definitely was relevant outside outside Season 2?
Settings like this as well as those to come with Daenerys and her entourage on GoT always made me feel like I stumbled on an old Star Trek TNG episode :/
Binging through the whole series, it’s pretty remarkable how much time Daenerys spends sitting around on silly irrelevant side quests. When you’re watching that stuff through the first time, it seems like maybe the Essos plotlines will introduce new characters and situations that will impact everyone back on Westeros. But we can see pretty definitively, now that everyone from Essos is dead or dumped (sorry Daario) except for Grey Worm and Missandei, that none of that mattered except to explain why Daenerys has a big army to invade Westeros.The problem is, she had a big army to invade Westeros in the very first episode. Everything that happened in between the pilot and her finally setting sail at the end of Season 6 was mostly a series of explanations for why she keeps building and then losing and then rebuilding her invasion force.
“The problem is, she had a big army to invade Westeros in the very first episode. “
Yeah, but they pretty explicitly explained why that wasn’t actually yet an option at that point.
Also, no way to, you know… actually get to Westeros
Bingo!
none of that mattered except to explain why Daenerys has a big army to invade WesterosShe learns how to RULE. It’s all about her CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. I’m doing a rewatch, and while the first time you’re focused on plot, the second time around it’s really great to focus in on seeing how all of the characters go from who they were in S1E1 to where they are now. Every lesson that Dany learns in Qarth and Slaver’s Bay leads directly into her decision making on Dragonstone. It’s more than about her building her armies, it’s about her learning to be more than just a conqueror.
I get that, but it’s only relevant if Dany ends up on the Iron Throne at the end of the last episode. In any other scenario, it kind of won’t matter how she learned to rule in Essos.
Except we got to learn a lot about what it takes to make a good queen/king. Nobody survives except Sam and Bronn.
You nailed it. Those challenges and how she learned from them show us, the audience, that she would be a wise, fair, and just ruler, unlike Cersei, Stannis, Renly, etc.
How did Dany learn to rule in Qarth? I can’t think of anything she learned there.
I don’t know if it’s learning to rule per-say, but she really learns to listen to her own voice with respect to strategic decisions. Whether it’s her speech outside the walls, not buying Xotho’s bullshit, or treading into the House of the Undying herself. Starting in the next season is when she really starts shutting down advice from Jorah (and Barriston) and calling them out when they publicly question her.Qarth also offers a greater idea of what goes on in Essos. All the time in the Dothraki Sea and surrounding areas in Season 1 created the idea a much more primitive society throughout the continent, ignoring the great cities (outside of the few moments we spend in Pentos in Episode 1)
The speech outside the walls is relatively early (she hasn’t even entered Qarth yet!), so has she really learned anything she didn’t already know by the end of season 1?
In terms of something she’s been taught. No, but there’s certainly some self-actualization that goes on outside that gate.
She explicitly tells Jorah once they get to Mereen, when Jorah is urging her to take her new ships and sail to Westeros, that “you cautioned me before about being rash.” From Qarth, she learns a lot about thinking before she acts, and questioning people’s motivations before she trusts them.
Westeros is a big place, but characters interact regularly and manage to unexpectedly cross paths now and again. Until Tyrion shows up, Daenerys is effectively in a different, parallel series that occasionally interrupts the show you’re watching. (This was my experience with the books as well, where seeing the “DAENERYS” chapter heading typically meant I’d be cut off from the storylines that were drawing together for another 20 pages.)
There’s the thought that her playing in Essos taught her how to and how not to rule
It wasn’t her army. Daenarys had to establish her bonafides as a ruler before she ever would have had any claim to the Iron Throne.
To be fair, Qarth is much more important in the books because of the visions Dany sees in the House of the Undying. The show gave us a very condensed version, but the shit we see has a ton of foreshadowing for the likely endgame, similar to the visions that Bran has.Also, in Qarth Dany learns a lot about not rushing into things or trusting people too quickly.
I’m convinced Dany is going to die in the upcoming season, and if she doesn’t meet up with Khal Drogo and their son to enter the Night Lands together, just like she saw in the House of the Undying, I’m going to be really disappointed.
Said this already in a different comment, but no one survives except Sam and Bronn.
Ugh. Bronn was dead to me as soon as he pointed the scorpion at Drogon. No, I take that back; it was when he abandoned Tyrion.
Fat Spice Guy was a very fun character, admittedly.
Really the big payoff is the house of the undying, which the show cut a lot of pretty obvious foreshadowing that is in the books, but that’s about all there is to qarth there too
I was so pumped for the House of the Undying and then they completely excised all of the really trippy stuff. Very anticlimactic.
If they had stuck the landing at the HotU it would have been a lot more impactful. As it is Pyatt Pree (I think that’s Purple Lips) seems very stupid to underestimate Daenerys and her dragons. All she has to do it stretch her arms out and they set him on fire, and that’s it. I would have liked if her fire was shown to have magical properties unknown to him, and jumped from each different version of him in the room to the next.There also probably needed to be an editor authorized to strike out the delivery of “Where are my dragons?” It’s very funny, and led to Clarke’s wonderful Glamour self-parody vid. But she might as well have announced “Cliffhangerzzzz!”In her conversations with the Spice Merchant we get the show’s first attempts at showing her as entitled, delusional, “bad side of the coin” Targaryen.
and what about that really hot chick with a headpiece/mask made of tile? She warned someone about something.
The dead boys’ burned bodies was another in a series of shock images with this show that I cannot unsee.
Luwin’s scream too. He seems to study them afterwards, I wonder if (ick) he could see the muscles on the boys’ legs and realized it couldn’t be Bran’s
Muscles wouldn’t make any difference – Bran has only been crippled for a few months (maybe a year), so it’s not like there would be significant atrophy.
That’s actually a minor plot point in the book. When Bran and co emerge from hiding after Winterfell is sacked, they come upon a dying Luwin in the godswood, and he mentions that he knew the mutilated boys were not Bran and Rickon because of the legs.
True, I gotta reread the books if a winds of winter release is imminent
Sadly, it’s about as imminent as it’s ever been.
I think we will get it someday, but never the final one a dream of spring
lol
Technically the Night’s Watch Oath only says that they can’t take a wife. It doesn’t say anything about them remaining celibate. I think this is why members of the Night’s Watch soliciting sex workers is at worst tolerated.
It’s an oath of celibacy. In a society where premarital sex isn’t considered moral and in many senses is technically illegal, vowing to take no wife is understood as such. That’s why everyone refers to it as an oath of celibacy.That many of the Watch use prostitutes is tolerated because the institution is hypocritical and doesn’t live up to its stated principles.
Doesn’t hurt that the town where they get their supplies has an establishment catering to this need.
Thanks, Sam. (Sam literally says the same thing to Jon while they’re standing atop the wall in S4E9)
They’re also forbidden from fathering children, if I recall correctly.
Jon and Ygritte have the best two-person scenes throughout.No argument here. What makes their scenes even more amazing, are the fact that when actors get together in real life (as they would end up) usually have next-to-no chemistry on set, much less in their scenes together. They. Did.
The scenes with Jon Snow and Ygritte were so effective, and they were so charming a couple, that I was surprised to find they even tolerated each other in real life, let alone would get married.Just thinking of the chemistry between George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez in Out of Sight. Great movie, great banter, and .. apparently they couldn’t stand each other.
I have no ill will for either, but I could totally see what bugs both of them about each other
I could write a mini dissertation on this, lol, but I’m running into a meeting. But yeah, basically it’s the ‘saving it for set’ scenario. If you got nothing, you can act it on set, and if you do have it off-set, you don’t realize you’re not showing it when you’re acting on set. So yeah, I too was shocked when I found out they were inseparable off set, much less went on to get engaged, because dang, they sizzled in their scenes.And as much as this u-kno-nada made it to this article, I think that “if you rip my dress I’ll whap you” scene/exchange was better.
I started watching GoT after I found out they were a real-life couple (late comer, I know), so when it got to the love scenes in the cave I kind of had a moment like “Uh, should I be watching this? I’ll give you two a minute alone…” Their chemistry was so genuine I felt like I was intruding on an actual couple having sex rather some actors playing a sex scene.
Also, you can see that Jon definitely grows as a character from Ygritte constantly calling him on his bullshit and challenging his beliefs on power and the “wildlings”. It’s an effective romance that not only serves the story but also causes some character growth.
I think you see the impact that Jon has on her, and how his adherence to loyalty and responsibility forces her to double down on her own responsibility to the Wildling cause. We know she would likely be happier acting on all the freedom she espouses on Jon and running off to some cave substitute and living out her life with him, but when he puts his own loyalty down, she’s forced to act.It also serves to allow us to accept Tormund throwing his allegiance behind Jon after Stannis burns Mance because he knows the love one of the people he respected most felt for him.Great romantic plot!
Makes his lack of chemistry with Daenerys all the more glaring. But then the latter is at her most interesting when speaking in a constructed language (Jon Snow is rarely interesting on his own at all).
Even when that boat was rocking, I thought, wait, you two know each other exists? Like other than “I need your dragon-glass” and “I need your knee”. That was honestly the coldest boning in cinema history.
Ygritte is the exact kind of woman a guy wants, whether or not he’ll ever admit it, because she challenges him and makes him feel like he is really accomplishing something through the efforts to win her over. She doesn’t make it easy, but is honest about how it won’t be easy.Yea, you bet your ass I want a Wildling bride!
The Jon/Ygritte scenes in Season 2 are very charming, and make the most of Harington and Leslie’s real-life chemistry (which seems at least to be getting a much happier ending than the show’s version). However, the writers scrapped some of Jon’s richest character material to make those scenes happen, and made him look much dumber and less effectual as a consequence.
In both book and show, the amount of times Ygritte says “YKN, JS” beggars belief. The first few times it’s cute. The second, you think, well, she thinks it’s cute. And then you forget about the (tough warrior) character and realize you’re being pavloved, and it’s a mild Poochie-esque catchphrase. (I think Poochie had a catchphrase.)Rose Leslie makes it work, she’s great. I love how she says it during little and big deaths. But reduce catchphrase occurrence by half, then rastafy, is what I say.
You know nothing, Feltimus Peltus.
Wow, Ygritte’s totally in my face!
It’s worse in the books, almost like a tic of hers
“I could teach you how to do it.” “I know how to do it.” “You know nothing, Jon Snow.”Podric, on the other hand…
Much as “Podrick The Sex God” was a cute little wrinkle, I have no idea why the showrunners thought that was worthy of all the screen time it got.
Can’t remember EVERY time, but as for Bronn bringing it up at the Siege of Riverrun, well, I think it’s fairly safe to say that if Westerosi soldiers are anything like real life ones, then yes, it would have ended up as a recurring joke.
One of my favourite throwaway lines from the series is during the Joke Contest in the temple of Mereen. When Missandei purportes that Grey Worm doesn’t know what a joke is, he looks at her (somehow rolling his eyes without physically doing so) and says “I’m a solider all my life, you think I never heard a joke”It’s a fun way of showing that despite their discipline and stoic performance, the unsullied are still typical soldiers behind closed doors (if the brothel scenes hadn’t already given that away)
There’s this hilarious interview with Kit Harrington where he basically said “I never know what to say to people on the street when they quote that at me, because even I still don’t know what that means. It’s equally baffling to Jon as it is to me.”
The funny thing is that “You know nothing” is pretty applicable to a lot of people on the show.
“I know how to do it.”