You got Jon Snow: what the result means and where it comes from

The quiz named Jon Snow because more of your answers were his than any other character's, or because he tied for the most. This page covers who Jon is across HBO's Game of Thrones, what his answers in the quiz have in common, the two characters whose answers sit closest to his, and how much a match like this can say. It discusses the whole series, ending included.

Who Jon Snow is

Jon grows up at Winterfell as the bastard son of Eddard "Ned" Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, and in the first season he decides to join the Night's Watch (Wikipedia's article on the character). Over eight seasons the show keeps putting in front of him things the boy at Winterfell never had: the Stark name, a lordship, command, a crown and, finally, a claim to the Iron Throne. He turns down the name and the lordship, accepts the crown reluctantly and gives up the claim. The scenes below show how he gets there.

How he changes across the show

The arc runs from a new brother of the Night's Watch who can't bring himself to kill a prisoner to a commander who carries out sentences himself, and then to a man who takes a crown reluctantly and gives up his claim to a bigger one. Each scene links the episode's Wikipedia article.

The new brother (seasons 1 and 2)

At Castle Black, Samwell Tarly arrives as an easy target for Ser Alliser Thorne, and Jon defends him from the other recruits ("Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things", season 1, episode 4). Jon is made steward to the Lord Commander rather than a ranger, and he and Sam take their vows near a heart tree ("You Win or You Die", season 1, episode 7). Wanting to join his brother Robb and avenge Ned, he tries to desert, and Sam, Pyp and Grenn talk him into coming back. The next morning Lord Commander Mormont, who knows what he tried, orders him to join the expedition beyond the Wall anyway ("Fire and Blood", season 1, episode 10).

Beyond the Wall, his ranging party takes a wildling watchpost and kills everyone but Ygritte, whom Jon finds he cannot kill. She escapes, he recaptures her, and the chase cuts him off from the others ("The Old Gods and the New", season 2, episode 6).

The Lord Commander (season 5)

Stannis Baratheon asks Jon to persuade Mance Rayder to bend the knee and have the wildlings fight for him. Mance refuses and is sentenced to burn, and Jon shoots him dead out of mercy before the fire can kill him ("The Wars to Come", season 5, episode 1). In the next episode Stannis offers to legitimize Jon as a Stark and make him Lord of Winterfell in return for his loyalty. Jon plans to decline, but before he can, Sam nominates him for Lord Commander, and he wins when Maester Aemon breaks a tie ("The House of Black and White", season 5, episode 2).

He then turns Stannis down. When Janos Slynt refuses an order and insults him, Jon executes him ("High Sparrow", season 5, episode 3). Cultbox's review describes Jon taking Slynt's head "with a single swing of his sword", and Rolling Stone's recap connected the moment to a rule of Ned's: "The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword."

Jon asks Maester Aemon for advice, and Aemon tells him to "kill the boy" and "let the man be born." Jon frees Tormund and offers to let the wildlings settle south of the Wall in return for an alliance when the White Walkers come. The plan is unpopular with the rest of the Watch, and Jon persists ("Kill the Boy", season 5, episode 5).

Death and the end of the vow (seasons 5 and 6)

At the end of season 5, Olly and Thorne lure Jon outside with a story about a wildling who has seen his uncle Benjen. Thorne, Bowen Marsh, Othell Yarwyck, Olly and others take turns stabbing him, each saying "For the Watch", and leave him to die alone in the snow ("Mother's Mercy", season 5, episode 10). Davos pleads with Melisandre to try to bring him back, she attempts a ritual, and Jon wakes ("Home", season 6, episode 2). He presides over the hanging of Thorne, Olly, Yarwyck and Marsh, then resigns from the Night's Watch, his oath having technically ended with his death ("Oathbreaker", season 6, episode 3).

The reluctant king (seasons 6 and 7)

In the season 6 finale, Jon and Sansa discuss who should lead the Stark forces, and each defers to the other. Then Lyanna Mormont shames the lords who did not come to Jon's aid, and the lords declare a reluctant Jon King in the North ("The Winds of Winter", season 6, episode 10).

At Dragonstone, Daenerys asks him to bend the knee. He refuses, insisting that the White Walkers are the bigger problem ("The Queen's Justice", season 7, episode 3). Back from beyond the Wall, he apologizes to her for Viserion's death and calls her "my Queen" ("Beyond the Wall", season 7, episode 6). At the Dragonpit, Cersei offers her help on the condition that Jon stays neutral between the two queens, and withdraws it when he says he has already sworn himself to Daenerys. Cersei later reveals that she lied and will not join their cause in any case ("The Dragon and the Wolf", season 7, episode 7).

The heir who steps aside (season 8)

Back at Winterfell, the northern lords are unhappy that he swore fealty to a Targaryen, Sansa accuses him of bending the knee out of love, and Sam, sent by Bran, tells him he is Aegon Targaryen ("Winterfell", season 8, episode 1). Jon assures Daenerys he has renounced his claim in her favor but insists that Arya and Sansa must hear the truth. He swears them to secrecy before Bran tells them, and Sansa passes it to Tyrion, who tells Varys ("The Last of the Starks", season 8, episode 4). When Varys urges him to take the throne, Jon refuses to betray Daenerys ("The Bells", season 8, episode 5).

After Daenerys burns King's Landing, Jon fails to talk her down and kills her. Bran sentences him to the Night's Watch for life to appease Grey Worm, and the series ends with Jon back at Castle Black, reunited with Tormund and Ghost, leading the wildlings back to the lands beyond the Wall ("The Iron Throne", season 8, episode 6). He finishes at the Wall, where he first went as a recruit, after being offered a lordship, holding a command and a crown, and giving up a claim to the throne.

What the Jon answers have in common

Every question in the quiz offers one answer for each of the eight characters, and every answer counts the same. Read side by side, Jon's answers share a few habits.

• Other people come first in the reasoning. Asked what keeps you up at night, the Jon answer is "Whether you did enough, whether the people depending on you are safe". His legacy is "What you protected and who you carried", and he protects someone who can give nothing back because "There's no other option you can live with."
• Authority is earned slowly and shown in action. Handed command of strangers, the Jon answer is to "Earn it the hard way, leading from the front and letting results make the case". People follow because "They trust you. Completely. That trust took a long time to earn and you guard it."
• Plain speech and no performance. In a negotiation he is "Direct. You say what you need, what you'll offer and what you won't accept". In a room where everyone is performing he feels "a little out of place", and what people misread about him is that "the quietness is weakness."
• Weight carried quietly. A catastrophic mistake is carried "Quietly and heavily, accepting full responsibility and letting it shape every choice after". Unwelcome advice gets the same treatment: "Listen fully, thank them, and sit with it, even when it's painful". He has survived because "You refused to stop getting back up".
• No to the shortcut. Offered what he wants by an enemy at the price of his principles, he answers "Refuse. The version of you that accepts isn't the version that deserves it." Offered a legend for one moral compromise, he says "Pass. You'd rather be forgotten and know you lived right."

What is missing says as much. No Jon answer looks for the other side's weak points, improvises an angle, bargains for a better deal or waits unseen for the right moment; on this quiz those answers belong to Cersei, Tyrion, Sansa and Arya. None of them mentions ambition, revenge or a joke. When three of his people argue, the Jon answer is to "Hear each one out fully, then make a decision, and tell them why". He listens, but the decision is his alone, and the quiz's own short description of Jon names that as the weak spot: "You tend to decide alone and expect people to follow, and they don't always."

The two characters closest to Jon

This is a reading of the answer wording, not a count of anyone's results. Judged by how often another character's answer says nearly the same thing as Jon's, two stand out: Ned Stark and Jaime Lannister.

Ned Stark: the same refusals, a different center

Ned matches Jon on the big refusals. Both turn down the enemy's offer and both pass on the legend, and only the reason differs: Jon refuses for the sake of who he would become, Ned because "Some things are not for sale". Both protect the vulnerable without conditions, and both deal plainly in a negotiation. The notes under the offer and legend questions on the quiz page make the same point.

The difference is what each one is guarding. Ned's answers center on the truth and his own word. He shows love "By telling them the truth, always, even the hard parts", wants a child to learn "That your word is the foundation of everything", and expects to be remembered for "The record you kept clean when everyone else compromised". Jon's answers center on the people he is responsible for. It shows in the smaller choices too. Told he has no idea how the real world works, Ned corrects the speaker "respectfully but plainly", and Jon lets it pass. Ned owns a mistake "Openly and without excuse", and Jon carries it quietly. In a room full of performers, Ned's answer is to be "entirely yourself" and Jon's is to feel out of place. Faced with a quarrel, Ned asks each person what they need, and Jon hears them out and then decides.

The show sometimes plays Jon as the son Ned raised. In the first episode Ned beheads a deserter himself ("Winter Is Coming", season 1, episode 1), and in season 5 Jon does the same to Slynt. Ned tells Cersei to leave the capital with her children before he tells Robert the truth about them ("You Win or You Die", season 1, episode 7). At the Dragonpit, Jon tells Cersei he is already sworn to Daenerys when a promise of neutrality was the condition of her help, and Salon's critic called him "honest, to a massive fault". If your count came out close between these two, the answers that separate them most plainly are the ones about speaking up and about carrying things alone.

Jaime Lannister: deeds over words, with a past attached

Jaime's overlap with Jon is less obvious and runs through action and cost. Both would rather prove themselves than talk. Jon lets "results make the case", and Jaime would "Do something undeniable", because "One act can rewrite a reputation faster than a speech". People follow Jaime because "You've earned it through actions, not words, often when it cost you something", which is close to Jon's slowly earned trust. Both take unwelcome advice to heart, both protect someone who can give nothing back, and both lean toward passing on the legend.

The split is about time and temptation. Jaime's answers look back at a reputation he is trying to outgrow: people mistake "the reputation" for the person, his song is "The knight who was made of more than his worst moment", and what keeps him awake is "Whether you are, at bottom, the person everyone assumed you were". Jon's answers look at the people depending on him now. Jaime's also admit temptation, considering the enemy's offer "seriously" and being honest about "how tempted you are" before passing on the legend, where Jon's refuse at once. And Jaime has survived because "You changed, really changed", while Jon's answer is that he "refused to stop getting back up". One is about becoming someone else, the other about staying on his feet.

What a Jon result can and can't tell you

The result is a count of which character's answers you picked most often. It says nothing about how you act when a choice is real, and the character sketches are this site's reading of a TV show, not a personality measure. The count shown with your result is worth a look. A narrow lead over the character in second place means your answers sat between Jon and that character; a wide one means your answers kept coming back to Jon. Ties are named rather than broken, and the "How this quiz works" section of the Game of Thrones character quiz page shows how often purely random answers would end in a tie.

Answering like Jon mostly means choosing the answer that takes responsibility and skips the angle. On a quiz, that costs nothing. The show is harder on it. Jon pushes ahead with a plan the Watch dislikes, the brothers he commands stab him "For the Watch" before the season is out, and killing Daenerys earns him a life sentence at the Wall. The article Jon, Daenerys, Tyrion and Cersei: Four Leadership Styles and Where Each One Breaks follows that thread through the seasons.

If the result doesn't sound like you

Look at the character in second place first, since a close count means a few different answers could have changed the result. The notes under each question on the quiz page say what each answer stands for, which makes it easy to see where your picks went to Jon. If you chose some of them because they sounded right rather than because they describe what you actually do, take the quiz again and answer for what you do. The short and full versions don't always agree, and the quiz page shows how often they would agree on random answers.