The Game of Thrones season 7 episode 4 callback that could indicate Jon Snow WILL bend the knee to Daenerys Targaryen

Always level-headed, Jon might take his own advice

King Jon's reluctance to bend the knee to Daenerys Targaryen is understandable given her tempestuous, pyromaniac ways, but the issue of whether it would be for the greater good has been lurking under the surface.

Daenerys addressed it head-on in Game of Thrones season 7 episode 4, 'The Spoils of War', asking Jon in the Dragonglass cave after promising him soldiers for the White Walker war: "Isn't their survival more important than your pride?", the scene switching before we hear a response (if indeed there was one).

You maybe have missed the reference, but Jon put this exact rhetorical question, word for word, to Mance Rayder back in season 5 vis-à-vis bending the knee to Stannis Baratheon:

"...A life's work uniting [the freefolk]. You didn't do it for power, you didn't do it for glory; you brought them together to save them because none of them would survive the winter, not if they're north of the Wall. Isn't their survival more important than your pride?"

Sure, Stannis and Daenerys are very different rulers, but you could argue Jon is being hypocritical by not taking his own advice.

He continued to an unswayed Mance: "And what happens to your people? You preserve your dignity and die standing and they'll sing songs about you. You'd rather burn than kneel - a great hero...until Winter comes and the White Walkers come for us all and there's no-one left to sing."

Did Daenerys' unwitting reminder of his own words trigger something in Jon?

One possibility, of course, is that it did, but it won't have an effect. Mance concluded that scene by saying: "You're a good lad, truly you are, but if you can't understand why I won't enlist my people in a foreigner's war, there's no point explaining."

Has Jon come to understand in the past season and a half?

Game of Thrones continues on HBO, Sky Atlantic and NOWTV on Sunday nights.

(via Reddit/Refinery29)

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