When the gods of Fandom are smiling upon us, lovely things happen. In A Song of Ice and Fire, we are hard pressed to find a character whose motives and decency are rarely questioned. It’s not difficult to have great affection for the few we can find, and probably none more so than Jon Snow. The casting of the role must have been a difficult chore, but HBO’s Game of Thrones got it right. Very right.

Rarely has the film/television casting of a role been so convincing as to actually increase the admiration of a much-beloved book character. Kit Harington, a newcomer, gives the character the perfect balance of skill, modesty, and longing. Obviously, the ages of most characters in the television adaptation have been bumped up a bit, but this portrayal of Jon Snow captures his sadness at being shunned by society, and even more hurtfully by his step-mother, in a believable way. Whether he is a teen or a young man, those hurts still penetrate, and in his eyes, you feel his isolation. With the big events that will arise in the series, I can only say, “THANK YOU!” to HBO so many times for the excellent casting job they pulled off, particularly with Ned, Jon, Arya, Jaime, and Tyrion.