Still slogging through what I've missed of this thread, almost there!
I'd take this as a result. Anything to avoid a resurrection because that would be a total cop out on GRRM's part and I expect better from him. I've always said the simplest outcome is that none of those wounds he took were fatal and he survives. Tyrion has survived much worse injuries and there are stories all the time of people in real life surviving multiple stabbings and even multiple gunshot wounds. There definitely doesn't need to be a resurrection involved in order for Jon to be reborn. I think the Red Priest Resurrection ability was a plot device that's been used already and has served its purpose and should be retired gracefully for the rest of the series.
Just wanted to chime in on the issue of Jon surviving his wounds as a KISS theory.
I'm still a big fan of Needle's theory, but I do understand the critique that it's a bit "involved". I think most of us agree that a reanimated Jon does not work on multiple levels, so that leaves us with only two options
1) Jon is not dead because Jon is not Jon (Needle's theory)....he walked into the attack in a body other than his own.
2) He walked into the attack in his own skin, got gravely injured, but makes it.
I'm not counting Dead Jon because I quite simply refuse to believe it's true.
So with those options....
There is discussion here wondering if his wounds are really all that serious. I think the passage implies that they are serious (the first wound it states that he "felt the hilt", which tells me the knife went in all the way).
So I do think the wounds are quite serious. But I don't think they're unsurvivable. As you noted, Viz, people survive grievous injury all the time....both in GRRM's world and in ours. I have a friend who used to be a bouncer in a bar, and he was attacked by a patron one night who was amped up on meth and stabbed him 17 times. Now he spent quite a lot of time in the hospital and underwent some surgery, and this was in 2002 with the advantages of modern medicine at his disposal....but he *did* survive 17 stab wounds.
To further bolster this idea, Tyrion's very grave injuries certainly left him disfigured and further disabled, but nonetheless alive. Same with Bran's. How long was Bran in that coma? Hard to say because the timelines aren't clear, but it seemed to be a month at least. He certainly didn't take a cat nap (no pun intended).
So one way or another I firmly believe Jon is alive. I also now truly believe that he is AA and that his "death" was necessary (one way or another he has to depart his body and return to it) in order for him to be "reborn".
You can say that he "leaves his body" because he has grievous but survivable wounds, and has one of those classic "out of body / moving towards the light" experiences we hear people talk about when they die on the operating table and then come back.
But we also know that Jon is a warg, a lot of time in both AFFC & ADWD was devoted to explaining how warging works and establishing that Stark kids have a natural gift for it. And it seems pretty clear to me that Jon is no ordinary mortal. He seems to have that extraordinary quality that Dany has, that "little bit more".
So that brings me back to Needle's theory as the most likely explanation that incorporates all the things we "know" to be true about Jon.
As much as I prefer KISS theories.....GRRM is not really a KISS kind of author.
It's been 7 months since I first read Needle's theory...and to me it's still the most plausible, even though the explanation may look outrageously complex on the surface.
