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a song of ice and fire - What is the end of A Dance With Dragons meant to convey about the fate of this character?


I'm trying to discern if I am meant to definitively know what happened in one of the last chapters of the book.


(Spoilers A Dance With Dragons)




In one of the final chapters of the book, Jon Snow is betrayed by his own men, who seem to think his actions are tantamount to treason. He's stabbed at least four times, of which one was in the gut and one was in the back. The whole thing seems meant to evoke the assassination of Julius Caesar, but that's neither here nor there. The question is this: Are we meant to think he's dead (you know, because he was stabbed four times in pretty important places), or are we meant to not know (because we never see his dead body, etc.)?




Answer



We don't know. We have 4 possible outcomes though:



1: Jon is well and truly dead. Doesn't matter that we haven't seen his body. He just got GRRM'd.
2: Jon is barely alive and somehow manages to stay alive.
3: Jon dies and is returned by Melisandre becoming The UnJon.
4: Jon wargs into Ghost just before he truly dies.

Outcome 1 would be just like Martin to kill him off, because events like that happen in ASoIaF.
Outcome 2 seems very unlikely. Even if he survived 5 knife wounds, why wouldn't they finish him off?

Outcome 3 is likely enough, given how invested in Jon Melisandre has become.
Outcome 4 seems the most likely, given the events of the prologue (Varymyr Six Skins warging into one of his animals right before he dies).



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