Last week’s first dip into Funko’s new Legacy Collection was a rather mixed bag. We got a figure that featured a great sculpt, solid paintwork and accessories, but had some serious problems with stuck joints and a breaking part. In the end I was still glad to have picked up The Hound and today we’re going to see if Jon Snow fares any better. As mentioned last time, Clegane and Snow are the only two figures I picked up so far and whether I go any further with this line will depend on these two.

The figure comes in a window box that is, deco aside, lifted almost directly from Hasbro’s Star Wars Black 6-inch line. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that as the box shows the figure off nicely and is totally collector friendly. Jon Snow comes packaged beside his sword and the box art features the House of Stark’s sigil, The Dire Wolf! The sigil is printed again on the side panel of the box. Beware upon opening this figure, it is going to stink worse than a White Walker, which I presume smell pretty bad. This is some industrial grade plastic stink.

The back of the box has a photo of the character from the TV series and a list of other figures available in this wave. I’ll confess that Jon Snow’s story has not been my favorite aspect of A Song of Fire and Ice. I like the character well enough and it’s interesting to see his story arc, but I much preferred the characters and intrigue going on south of The Wall. Most of the time when the books or TV series switches to Snow’s story in the North I found myself growing restless and longing for a return to the political intrigue, backstabbing, and far more colorful sets and characters. Nonetheless, Jon Snow was on sale for a couple of bucks off and the figure looked nice, so I tossed him in my basket when I bought The Hound.

First off, I’ve got to give major props for the sculpting here. Jon comes smartly clad in his Night Watch outfit, which is reproduced here brilliantly. Granted, this outfit doesn’t offer as many areas to shine as Clegane’s armor, but Gentle Giant did a wonderful job with what they had to work with. The straps that criss-cross Jon’s chest are sculpted separately from his buck, as is the detailed belt. The soft plastic cloak features nice texture work in not only the fur collar but the cloak itself too. It also hangs comfortably off the figure without curtailing the articulation too badly. While there isn’t a lot of opportunity for paintwork here, Funko did what they could. The tiny silver buckles are all painted neatly and there’s some nice white dry brushing to indicate snow.

The portrait here is quite good. I think they got the hair perfectly and the likeness is pretty close to the actor in the series. He wears that stern and joyless expression that he has on his mug most of the time. The paintwork on the head holds up pretty well at casual inspection. When I get in really close and scrutinize it then I could pick some fault in the beard, but when he’s posed on the shelf I think the paint here is overall rock solid.

Ok, so let’s sing a song of articulation and quality control. On second thought, let’s just talk about it. The arms feature ball joints in the shoulders, swivels and hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the wrists. The legs have ball joints in the hips, swivels in the thighs, double-hinges in the knees, and hinges and rockers in the ankles. There is a ball joint in the torso and again in the neck. This figure has far less QC issues than The Hound did. I still had to be really gentle when getting him off the tray and several of his joints were stuck and need some friendly persuasion. No boiling water was required and eventually almost everything became unstock. The only thing left are the swivels in the thighs, and I just don’t want to mess with them for fear of twisting them off.

In terms of extras, Jon seems rather light on the accessories, especially when compared to the two swords and helmet that came with The Hound. Nonetheless, you do get his sword, Longclaw, which is pretty nicely done for this scale. The blade is etched and the sword fits comfortably into the detailed scabbard on Jon’s belt. I haven’t had any issues with the scabbard pulling off, like I did with The Hound, but it doesn’t look like it would take much for it to happen. Jon can hold the sword in either hand, but I did have to razor the connection between thumb and fingers on his right hand to get it in there.

So, after checking out The Hound, I was still totally on the fence over whether to keep pursuing this line. I was hoping that Snow would push me over one way or the other, so that I could either abandon this line or just get the rest of them. Ultimately, my experience with Snow gave me a slight nudge and convinced me to try just a couple more. Snow is not as exciting a figure as Clegane, but he is a totally solid effort with a really good likeness. The quality still feels a little precarious in a few areas and it would be nice if I had access to those thigh swivels, but overall I’m still quite happy with the purchase. I think I’ll buy Tyrion and Ned Stark next.