Upon a reread of A Dance with Dragons I realized there are some interesting parallels between Barristan Selmy and Jon Connington and that their concurrent viewpoints are illuminating to certain aspects of both characters and their arcs. From what GRRM has revealed about his writing process, we know that the Selmy viewpoint was not added until late into writing A Dance with Dragons, so it seems unlikely that our author planned from the beginning to draw a comparison between the two characters. Nonetheless, there are certain undeniable key similarities we can attempt to elucidate upon: they are both knights in exile serving (as far as they know), the last true Targaryen scion (of course they both serve different people), and both their goals appear to be to die as their mental ideal of a true knight serving the progeny of the previous ruler they served and failed. They also both respect or even idolize Rhaegar Targaryen to some extent.

However, there is an ironic juxtaposition going on here, and I believe GRRM is making an intentional statement about how the flow of history is often influenced and determined by nearly random details of individual success and failure. The key similarity between the two men is also their key difference, which is that they are both haunted by a past memory; the distinction lies always in the details and in the way those memories affect them.

Jon Connington is haunted by a memory of failure and Barristan Selmy is similarly obsessed by a memory where he actually succeeded in his mission. Jon Connington failed to kill Robert Baratheon at the Battle of the Bells in a town where the smallfolk were loyal to the rebel. Therefore, the decidedly-still-living Robert Baratheon was later able to slay Rhaegar—Jon Connington’s closest friend (and most probably his gay crush)—at the battle of the Trident. Barristan Selmy, on the other hand, succeeded in rescuing Aerys Targaryen at the defiance of Duskendale, by infiltrating the town and rescuing the Mad King. Thereafter the Mad King grew increasingly paranoid about conspiracies against him, slew Brandon and Rickard Stark, brought Varys over from the narrow sea and set off a chain of events that led to Robert Baratheon’s rebellion where the aforementioned Battle of the Bells actually came to pass. Both characters, then, engaged in an act of servitude, one crucially failed, another crucially succeeded, and both wind up being dissatisfied with the ultimate outcome of their actions. Barristan himself seems to acknowledge that Prince Rhaegar might’ve been a superior choice of ruler to how history actually turned out with the dragon prince’s father Aerys at the helm (and Connington may have been actually in love with Rhaegar.)

GRRM often shows us how these sorts of small details can lead to a sort of domino chain of events, and in fact the entire narrative of A Song of Ice and Fire is riddled with these type of seemingly chance events that lead to monumental consequences. And the dominoes have not yet all fallen, as both of these past experiences will affect how these characters react to the circumstances around them going forward. As I stated at the outset, both of these characters are exiled knights, which means not only are they both considered to effectively be pieces (as opposed to players or people in position of power) in the game of thrones, but they are also effectively discarded pieces. All other political affiliation aside then, if they ever want to return to Westeros, it would make perfect sense for them to support the restoration of the Targaryen dynasty. From what we’ve seen of Barristan, he’s probably the closest to an ideal knight in the entire series, so he probably does not asses it in terms of self-interest so much as a desire to serve the rightful ruler. However, both their current exiled situations are the direct results of them failing to properly assess a political situation and failing to properly play “the game”, and instead serving their ideal of knighthood. Jon Connington ruminates about how the truly masterful Machiavellian schemer Tywin Lannister would’ve handled the battle of the bells and concludes he would’ve burned down the entire town, probably succeeding in his aims of ending Robert’s rebellion.[1] Meanwhile Barristan realizes that if Aerys had died at Duskendale, Rhaegar might have become king and Selmy might yet be in the kings guard, not to mention a great amount of harm might’ve been undone. Both characters must continue to live with these past regrets as they continue to age. [2]

Both their regrets about their past actions may ultimately drive them to actions in the future which undermine their original knightly ideals and force them into becoming players in that deadliest of conflicts, known as the game of thrones. Focusing on Barristan for a moment, when he is first dismissed from his post in the kingsguard in A Game of Thrones he promulgates to Joffrey’s court the exclamation “I am a knight…I shall die a knight!”

Indeed, Barristan desires nothing more than to serve, and he actively appears to despise those who go above their station, providing us with this monologue in A Dance with Dragons about the knights in the past who wore the snowy cloaks of the kingsguard: “Some had been heroes, some weaklings, knaves, or cravens. Most were only men-quicker and stronger than most, more skilled with sword and shield, but still prey to pride, ambition, lust, love, anger, jealousy, greed for gold, hunger for power, and all the other failings that afflicted lesser mortals. The best of them overcame their flaws, did their duty, and died with their swords in their hands. The worst … The worst were those who played the game of thrones.”[3]

Yet where our narrative now leaves off, at the end of A Dance with Dragons, Barristan has already been tricked or at least coaxed into doing precisely what he despises: he is playing the game of thrones in Meereen at the behest of the slippery Skahaz mo Kandaq, the Shavepate.

He has aided with a coup and arrested the likely innocent Hizdar zo Loraq[4], in order to install himself as the ruler of the city. The TV series has sadly already precluded this by killing off Barristan (and Hizdar too for good measure!), but if I had to guess, I suspect in the novels Barristan will not die a knight, but rather he will die playing the game he so disdained, the game he refused to play in the first place which wound him up as an exile in a foreign land he does not understand. At least the TV-series did him the favor of killing him off as knight then, as opposed to pawn in Skahaz’s brazen schemes, even if it makes the narrative weaker (a sacrifice that must often be made for the television medium, I suppose). What does this all this say about Jon Connington? We know less about the man than we know about Barristan, except that he desires to install the boy, “Young Griff”, who he believes to be the son of his beloved friend Rhaegar on the iron throne before the grayscale claims his own life. Likely, he too has learned a lesson from his own past mistakes, and will now attempt compensate with excessive ruthlessness. I do not intend to project too much, but I wouldn’t be surprised if his newfound ruthlessness is the hamartia that leads to JonCon’s eventual demise. He certainly doesn’t seem to be messing around in the chapter where he takes Griffin’s Roost, yet all of the subjects there are entirely complicit. I will be curious to see how he responds in the future when the going inevitably becomes tougher.

[1] Notice that Cersei Lannister states to Ned Stark her maxim that “when you play the game of thrones you win or you die.” Jon Connington and the entire Golden Company are exiled players, so clearly this was not always the case. Tywin Lannister’s contribution to the game of thrones, with all his unbridled ruthlessness, was upping the stakes of the game, from exile to death.

[2] Ageism and the inevitability of impending mortality being a theme that pervades both their arcs as well. Jon Connington because of his grey scale, and Barristan constantly thinking about how he’s not as young as he used to be.

[3] A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 55, The Queensguard

[4] Reading superficially might incline one to believe Hizdar is guilty, however there is plenty of evidence he isn’t which I will not delve into here. And even if he is, it isn’t as though Barry himself has a significantly better claim to ruler ship of Meereen.