You Don’t Want Jon Snow at Your Dinner

Jon Snow’s on Seth Meyers doing a dinner party bit, trying to seem normal about it, but you can see it underneath—all that dread about what’s coming, the winter, the dark things in the north. He can’t just sit there and enjoy wine like a regular person.

I’ve always had this fantasy about Game of Thrones going a different way—Daenerys and Tyrion teaming up, taking over Westeros together, drinking and laughing at the whole thing with that kind of beautiful cruelty, toying with whoever gets in their path. Blood, fire, the usual. But Jon doesn’t get to think like that. He’s carrying something he can’t put down, and it follows him everywhere, even to late-night TV.

The thing that got me about that clip is realizing Jon Snow would actually be the worst person to invite to your dinner. Not because he’s a bad guy—he’s not—but because he’d carry that darkness into the room with him. He’d sit there thinking about death and duty while everyone else is just trying to eat and talk shit. You’d feel it radiating off him.

Some people make good dinner guests. They know how to leave their problems at the door, to just be present. Jon’s not that guy. His presence is a kind of honesty you don’t really want when you’re trying to relax.