I’ve Always Gone Back And Forth About Whether To Picture Martin Stabbing Jon In The Front Or The Back

I’ve always gone back and forth about whether to picture Martin stabbing Jon in the front or the back because there’s such beautiful symbolic potential for both.

Like on the one had you’ve got the image that they’re cradling the knife between them, both holding it during perhaps the closest thing they’ve had to a true act of free will in a long time. Jon can’t press the knife in, but he can ease the blow for Martin. He can tell him it’s okay, that he forgives him even though there’s nothing to forgive. It’s horrible and painful, but it’s also setting them free. The blood would get on both of them as they held each other, and, at first glance, you wouldn’t be able to tell whose it was.

But then on the other hand you’ve got nothing coming between them, not even this, not even now. It’s Jon being killed by the same person in whose arms he’s currently finding comfort—and those two things are not at odds. It’s the potential that, if the knife is long enough, Martin could cut himself as well, but that doesn’t matter because his heart already broke with Jon’s anyway. It’s two people who have always found it so hard to trust taking the ultimate symbol of betrayal and turning it into a symbol of loyalty.

And I don’t know which I love more.