I take "in" to mean he's the King of Westeros. His seat just happens to be in the North.

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War is god

I take it to mean he's king in the north as he's just a king of the northern lands. As a reminder that he is not king of the seven kingdoms and he owes fealty to someone else. As in the lord of the north

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"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "

I'm pretty sure that King in the North just means King of the North. It's the title the Starks had before the Targaryens came over the sea and conquered/united the seven kingdoms. When the Starks bent the knee to Aegon Targaryen, they stopped being Kings and became Wardens of the North instead. Daenerys is pissed with Jon because by taking the title King again instead of Warden, he's gone back on his ancestors pledge of loyalty. King in the North instead of King of the North is just an affectation GRRM uses for some reason.

My read on it was that, because he's calling himself King instead of Warden, he's essentially declaring the Northern kingdom as independent from the 7 Kingdoms. Hence her statement that he was in "open rebellion."

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

This. He's not saying he's king of all Westeros, but he is saying the North is independent and sovereign and he runs the show from the Twins up to the Wall.

Slowguy and Cartesian are how I interpret it.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Yep

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

That's how I read it as well. But I wondered whether in versus if meant anything.

Thanks for all the responses.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

Well that'll teach me to opine on something from books I read years ago and a TV show I don't watch. ;-)

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War is god

To me, 'in' describes a place, not a direction, in GoT while 'Of' tends to describe a duty. "King IN the North" versus "Warden OF the North." It also seems to tell non-Northerners that they're not Northern and are FROM someplace else. Yet, the title 'King IN the North' also tells other Westerosians that he means to be king ONLY in that place. It's kind of non-threatening. 'Of' also does double-duty sometimes, giving a sense of direction to the place, when it comes to 'Warden OF the North'.

Then again, it just may be the way 'The North' remembers. You got me. ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

No fealty. The North says they are independent - they say Cersei is queen of 6 kingdoms (was just 4 last season...)

Anyway, King IN the North is the "historical" title. Bran "The Builder" Stark was the first King in the North - stories say he built Winterfell, the Wall, Hightower, and Storm's End - and lived in the Age of Heroes. The Age of Heroes was the time between the war between the "First Men" and "Children of the Forest" and the invasion of the "Andals". Starks are decedent of the First Men - as is most of the North. We saw the Children with the Three Eyed Raven. Most of the people south of the Neck are descended from Andals. The Neck is where Moat Cailin is - what Theon conquered and where the Boltons captured him.
The war ended 6300-8300 years before S1E1. The Andals invaded between 2300-4300 before S1E1. The Targerians conquered 300 years before S1E1.

I wasn't paying that close attention, but I'm pretty sure that Daneris says to John Snow "Brandon Stark was the last king in the north" before he bent his knee to a Targaryen. Brandon was King of the north, not all of Westeros.

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“Read the transcript.”

Very close.

Snow is introduced as "King in the North." (0:35)

"Jon Snow is KING in the North, your grace. He is not a lord." (0:49)

Danny: "I never did receive a formal education. But I could have sworn I read the last King in the North was Torrhen Stark who bent the knee to my ancestor Aegon Targaryen." (0:59)

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

It's true. The Starks had sworn loyalty to the Targaryens until the Mad King came along and upset the apple cart and so enraged Robert Baratheon that he led a rebellion against the throne (Lyanna Stark -- Jon Snow's mother -- figures into Robert's motivations, of course), with his closest friend Ned Stark's assistance.

Jaime Lannister put paid to the Mad King, though, who was going to incinerate all of King's Landing with Wildfire as the Baratheon/Stark forces were closing in on the city.

As Snow pointed out, it was a Targaryen who killed his blood kin. It echoes of Shakespeare, doesn't it? When Shylock, in the Merchant of Venice, observes: "If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"

Boy, did Robert Baratheon and Ned Stark revenge themselves on the Targaryens, including Dany's brother Rhaegar and the rest of the surviving clan. But like the American colonists found, there are only so many "usurpations" that a subject people can bear before they seek a means of redress. ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

The only thing that matters here is that she is wrong. She's not the last Targaryen.

This is very true.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."