2025-08-05 11:01:53 ¶ ● ⬀ ⬈

iamnmbr3:

> After thinking about it a bit I think that for me this was actually the most horrifying episode in the entire series. Despite the lack of blood and gore this is the one that disturbed me the most. The tragic horror of Jon’s complete victimization, dehumanization, and loss of agency is so profoundly and upsettingly felt here.

> The way Martin decided in his domain to ask Jon to kill him so he wouldn’t have to keep existing like this, even though that would leave Jon alone forever, but then in this episode he won’t even entertain the idea of allowing Jon the freedom to make a similar choice. The way Jon is basically begging to die and they are all denying him that choice while talking over his head about what fate they will choose for him, even though he has said he prefers death to some of the options being discussed, all the while speaking dismissively like he is a child who can’t make his own choices and needs others to control his life for his own good.

> Jon already feels responsible for having destroyed one world. He can’t bear the thought of potentially being the instrument of destruction for countless more. But it’s not up to him. His fate isn’t his own. It hasn’t been for a long time.

> And this is where we leave him. Because even if he doesn’t physically die in the end, the person he is now almost certainly will; if he does survive it will be in some unrecognizable and diminished form.

> Jon has been systematically dehumanized throughout his life and he’s spending some of his last time alive and as himself literally begging for death while the people closest to him discuss plans to use him as a tool to bring harm to other worlds, not even feigning interest in what he wants, and silencing his introjections into their conversation. And Jon has been so beaten down that he just accepts it.

> The understated quiet of Jon’s broken acceptance of his place in the world as a tool to be used, whose strings are always going to be pulled by the hands of others, makes it all the more chilling.