You Know Nothing, Jon Snow

About

“You Know Nothing, Jon Snow” is a memorable quote attributed to the Wildling character Ygritte from George R. R. Martin’s epic fantasy novel series A Song of Ice and Fire. Due to its repeated appearance throughout A Storm of Swords and the HBO TV series Game of Thrones, the quote has been regarded by some fans as obnoxious and celebrated by others in the form of fan art illustrations and image macros.

Origin

The quote was originally said by Ygritte in Chapter 15 of A Storm of Swords (page 213, U.S. paperback edition). In the chapter, Ygritte says the line to Jon Snow in anger. This happens because Jon asks why she was crying because of a song about “the last of the giants” when he had just seen hundreds of them.

There were tears on Ygritte’s cheeks when the song ended. “Why are you weeping?” Jon asked. “It was only a song. There are hundreds of giants, I’ve just seen them.” “Oh, hundreds,” she said furiously. "You know nothing, Jon Snow…

In Game of Thrones, Ygritte (played by Rose Leslie) delivers the line once in “A Man Without Honor” (Season 2, Episode 7) that aired in May 2012 and it is expected to make additional appearances throughout Season 3 in accordance with the novel series.

Spread

Similar to Eddard “Ned” Stark’s “Winter is Coming”, the quote soon evolved into a popular catchphrase among the fans of A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones. On May 23rd, 2010, the Facebook fan page^[7] titled “You Know Nothing, Jon Snow” was launched. In addition, the quote has inspired a notable collection of fanart illustrations on Deviantart^[2] and Tumblr,^[6] as well as some image macros on Quickmeme.^[3]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References