She believes her destiny is to build a better world for everyone. Everywhere she goes, evil men die and we cheer her for it, and she grows more powerful and more sure she is good and right. The Dothraki khals she burned alive? They would have done worse to her. When she crucified hundreds of Meereenese nobles, who could argue? They were evil men. “When she murdered the slavers of Astapor, I’m sure no one but the slavers complained,” Tyrion tells Jon, the two of them speaking in the once and future Hand of the King’s makeshift prison cell. It’s a move stemming from Jon’s simmering doubts about Dany, which fully boiled over after “The Bells,” vocalized in conversation with Tyrion (Peter Dinklage). Snow boasts the only kill of the series finale, assassinating Dany in the bitter cold throne room, mere feet away from the powerful seat she coveted so long. Tackling that last question first: wielding a shield meant wielding a dagger. If Jon wasn’t going to be the man who saved the world, then what was the whole point of his death and resurrection? Jon, meanwhile, spent those wars facing down the very notion of mortality: birthed from a mosh pit of corpses in “Battle of the Bastards,” and pinned down by an undead dragon in “The Long Night.” At the time, both of those fights felt like futile and frustrating uses of Jon Snow, Game of Thrones‘ closest thing to the traditional fantasy hero archetype, what with his powerful sword and his secret claim to the Iron Throne - a claim that directly challenged the love of his life, Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke). Jon’s sisters Sansa and Arya (Maisie Williams) won the battles against Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon) and the Night King (Vladimir Furdik), through hard-earned alliances and assassination skills, respectively. He survived them both, sure, but on both occasions, he deviated from the carefully laid plans and nearly died as a result.

In the end, Jon wasn’t much use in either of those specific conflicts.

Prisoner of ice and snow series