You know nothing Jon Snow

I can count the number of television series I follow on one hand and have a couple of fingers left over. There are a number of reasons for this, the top one being that I’d rather read a story than watch it. My favourite series of all time is HBO’s Game of Thrones (GOT). I do not remember the circumstances under which I was introduced to GOT, but I believe I came across it when it was in its second season. I binge watched the two seasons, then started a rabid hunt for the next. That is one of the many reasons why I avoid series; that period of suspense and frustration when one season ends and the next has not yet been released.

As luck would have it, a friend (bless his soul) had soft copies of all five novels of A Song of Ice and Fire, the epic fantasy on which GOT was initially based, and sent these to me. Talk about Happyness! I read the books and enjoyed the ensuing seasons, even when they diverted from the script. I am looking forward to the grand finale that comes out this year, even though I did not watch the entire last season 2 years ago.

So, in GOT, there’s this guy called Jon Snow. The script makes him the kind of guy you’re forced to root for: he’s not the son of his father’s official wife so has no hopes of a name, let alone a house and lands of his own; his father is killed very early in the game, he’s not sure who his mother is, his step mother openly loathes him, and he’s forced to make a decision to join the Nights Watch where he has a chance to be known as someone other than “Ned Stark’s Bastard”. Through it all, we see Jon as a noble – albeit naïve – character who looks up to his father, is respectful to his step-mother, loves his half-siblings, is a valiant fighter, plays by the rules and is generally one of the truly “good guys” in a very twisted series.

Jon’s time in The Watch has him cross to the wilderness north of The Wall, where he falls in love with a wildling, Ygritte. Their forbidden affair spans three seasons, but all I remember was the statement she kept telling him, “You know nothing, Jon Snow.” See, Jon came to The Wall and beyond with all this preconceived knowledge based on what he had been taught and what he had experienced. Ygritte, having grown up in a totally different world from his, kept reminding him that what he knew amounted to nothing in her world where he now found himself.

This phrase stuck with me through the seasons and beyond. This is not surprising considering Ygritte used it at least 18 times across the three seasons. But the bigger reason why it imprinted on my mind is because I could relate with how Ygritte was probably feeling whenever she made the statement. Here was this (in her view) pampered, naïve, enemy-turned-lover half-lord trying to tell her how to live a life in a place he knew nothing about.

I know I’ve been at either end of that phrase quite often; either as Ygritte, telling someone “You know nothing Jon Snow” but more often as Jon Snow, facing a situation where I truly feel like I know nothing. At times like this there’s been a temptation to make either of two errors: 1 - to “fake it till I make it”, guessing my way through the situation and hoping I’m guessing right, or 2- to beat myself up over my ignorance, leading to paralysing despair.

However, I discovered a third response to these situations, and that is to turn them into a learning experience. The thing is, everything we “know” is a product of our upbringing and the things we have been exposed to. More often than not this differs to varying extents between people and many times this variation will be so wide that we are tempted to think the other person “knows nothing”, simply because they do not see or do things our way. But they are probably thinking the same of us at that moment.

The realisation that I am not an expert at whatever is suddenly before me should not be a reason for despair or pretence, but rather a bell signalling yet another learning opportunity that if I embrace I will grow.

So I am learning to lean into these “You know nothing, Jon Snow” moments when I encounter a person’s views that do not align with mine or a situation I am unfamiliar with. So long as I remain willing to learn, there’s a high chance these situations will grow fewer and farther apart.