Episode 104: A CLASH OF KINGS, JON IV and V: "The Last Samurai" (Patreon)

Hello and welcome to the Not A Cast … podcast: the one true chapter-by-chapter podcast going through A Song of Ice and Fire one chapter a week. I’m one of your hosts Jeff better known as BryndenBFish. 

And I’m your other host Emmett, better known as PoorQuentyn.          

Welcome to the one hundred and fourth episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “The Last Samurai: An Analysis of ACOK, Jon IV & V,” in which the Night’s Watch arrives at the Fist of the First Men and Jon Snow acquires yet another father figure: Qhorin Halfhand, Supreme Badass.

And thanks to his dog, Jon finds a very ordinary bundle whose contents aren’t important at all and whose origin will in no way inspire a furious screaming match between us that will burn the NotACast down. No sir. None of that. 

This episode is brought to you by our Small Council: 

• Hand of the King WolfmanZack 
• Grand Maester Timbob
• Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Mark N. 
• Lord Travis, Master of Ships and Warden of the Waves
• Ser Keith J, Master of Whisperers
• Lord Philip the Merciful, Master of Laws
• Archmaester June, Healer of the Lesser Poxes
• Ragged Michael, Warden of the North
• Nelson the Hammer, Prince of Dragonstone
• Scarlett the Other Red Woman and Mistress of Whisperers
• Lord Micah: Warden of the West and the Kraken’s Bane
• Lord James: the Jim that was Promised
• The High Bearded Priest
• Lord Jake, Assistant (to the) Hand of the King
• Lady Xena Valyrian
• Hedrigal, Captain of the Air Ship Arrogance
• His Grace’s High Inquisitor Frank
• Ser Jasper the Cruel, the King’s Justice
• Laurence, Prince of Dorne
• Kelly, Warden of the East and Mistress of (Old) Bay of Crabs
• Steven the Steadfast, Master of Hounds
• The Blue Winter Rose Knight of Highgarden
• Lady Stephanie
• Lord Anonymous
• Lord Carlos
• Lord Andrew the Restless, a Priest of the Drowned God
• The King's Cook, Nolly (No-lee) Olly (Oh-lee), Master of Cannoli
• Ser Sourcedelica 
• Prince Matthew of House Targaryen - Proud Soy Boy of Summerhall, Defender of the 5th Book and Swing Dancer with Dragons
• Ser K.W. Dent, Elsie of the Blackwood Guard, and Batman of the Seven Kingdoms
• Lord Penchant for Nostalgia
• Queer Alex, Rainbow Commander of the They-des and Gentle-thems (ladies and gentlemen)
• Lord Clint, Esq., Master of Absolutely, Positively NOT Serving As A Spy for Several Unnamed High Lords and Ladies In Order to Further the Secret Blackfyre-Style Conspiracy to Overthrow The Oppressive Small Council
• Haldivar, The Waiter for TWOW
• A-a-ron Damphair Prophet of the Forsaken and High Priest of Euron Crows Eye
• Lieutenant Glenn Lord of H town
• Vanerys of the House Colgaryen, the First of Her Name, Princess of Dragonstone, Mistress of Art, The Overworked, Queen of the Pencils, the Eraser and the First Draft, Queen of Monochrome, Devotee of the Great GOT, Portraitist of the Realm, Lady Realist of the Seven Kingdoms, Blender of Paints and Maker of Drawings
• Seanwell the Slayer
• Lord Adam T
• Lady Alexandra of Tarth
• Ser Kristoph Logas, Bloody Scorpion of the Red Field, Defender of the Letter of Kin, and the Wolverine of house Qorgyle
• Lady Elizabeth, Mistress of Horse (Faced Lesbians)
• And our two newest members of the small council: 
  • Ser Josh Snow Bastard Bounty Hunter of the North
  • Ser Veyor, Chief of Parties in the Frozen Wastes
• Thank you to all our counselors!

Spoiler warning: All published books, 5 novels, 3 Dunk and Egg novellas, histories, interviews, TWOW sample chapters, as well as Game of Thrones the TV show. Anything and everything!

Question

Guilty Undertaker, a Sworn Sword patron, asks:

On the subject of theories, do you still think that Dany, Jon, and Tyrion will fly beyond the curtain on dragonback for a final showdown with whatever’s there in order to defeat the Others? I’m more skeptical after Season 8.

So, thank you Guilty Undertaker for the question. If you’d like to ask us questions that we’ll answer here on the NotACast podcast, you are welcome to become a Sworn Sword patron at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF where you can also get 25 bonus episodes ASOIAF episodes, 6 Fevre Dream episodes, show notes, access to our exclusive slack and more! 

And if you’re a patron, voting for our next patreon-only episode is in full-swing. So, if you listen or watch this episode before Friday at noon, and you’re a patron, come vote over to patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF to choose our next patreon-only episode!

But enough about patreon for now. Let’s turn our attention to Jon Snow. When we last checked in with Jon, he had a lovely time at Craster’s remote ski lodge, but sadly had to get back to hiking with the boys to go meet up with some friends up in the mountains. Let’s see what happens to Jon in this analysis of ACOK, Jon IV and V!

Synopsis

The Night’s Watch arrives within sight of a hill, and boy is this hill going to be important for the narrative going forward. 

The wildlings called it the Fist of the First Men, rangers said. It did look like a fist, Jon Snow thought, punching up through earth and wood, its bare brown  slopes knuckled with stone. 

Jon’s at the front of the column of rangers with the high officers and with the good LC. But Ghost wasn’t about being tied down. He runs off twice with Jon whistling him back reluctantly. When he ran off the third time, Mormont tells Jon to just y’know let him go, let him go, can’t hold that wolf back anymorrrrrrrre.

Ahem. The Night’s Watch climbs the steep, stony summit with Jon noticing a chest-high wall of rocks. They then circle the hill until they find a wide enough gap to let the horses in. Mormont thinks this is good ground to be on while they wait for Qhorin Halfhand. The LC then climbs down, and Jon takes in the view:

The views atop the hill were bracing, yet it was the ringwall that drew Jon’s eye, the weathered grey stones with their white patches of lichen, their beards of green moss. It was said that the Fist had been a ringfort of the First Men in the Dawn Age. “An old place, and strong,” Thoren Smallwood said.

Bloodraven, ahem, Mormont’s raven starts being a dick and screams “old, old, old!” at Mormont, which Mr. Bloodraven, it should be pointed out that you’re no spring chicken either. Jeor tells the bird to be quiet, but Jon notices that Mormont is looking a bit tired and old. This whole march was taking its toll on the good LC. 

Thoren says that this place is easily defendable, but Jon points out that it’s a long climb to get water from the stream below. Thoren mocks Jon for being weak or some shit. So, Mormont says they’ll hault water up the hill, and Jon shuts up and notices all the black tents going up on the hill. Mormont orders the wall defenses improved and Jon to get to work on the LC’s tent.

After putting up the tent, Jon heads down the hill to try to find Ghost, and the direwolf suddenly shows up all silent-like. Jon tries to direct Ghost back up the hill, but the direwolf balks at the ring-wall. Jon tries dragging Ghost through the wall, but he was too strong. He asks what’s wrong with Ghost before letting the direwolf go and “hunt.”

They ought to be safe here. The hill offered commanding views, and the slopes were

precipitous to the north and west and only slightly more gentle to the east. Yet as the dusk deepened and darkness seeped into the hollows between the trees, Jon’s sense of foreboding grew. This is the haunted forest, he told himself. Maybe there are ghosts here, the spirits of the First Men. This was their place, once. 

Jon goes for a look around, feeling safe at the height but scared at the Haunted Forest around the hill. Maybe there’s ghosts in there? Then he snaps back, and says there’s no such things as ghosts. And then, Byronic hero that he is, watches the sun setting while he broods.

Then Jon climbs onto the the highest rocks, and we’re onto a long description of the scenery which is just terrific stuff, but I’ll skip most of it, save for this line, because I love it:

When the wind blew, he could hear the creak and groan of branches older than he was. A thousand leaves fluttered, and for a moment the forest seemed a deep green sea, storm-tossed and heaving, eternal and unknowable. 

Just lovely stuff.

But then Samwell arrives below and calls out to him. How’s Jon doing? Fine, Sam. How are you? Sam is doing really well, actually. Not shit? No shit. Anyways, they’re all going to be sticking here at the Fist of the First Men for a little while until Qhorin arrives. BTW, think any battles were fought here? Definitely. 

Jon tells Sam he should send a raven back to Castle Black, and Sam says he wishes he could be a raven. Jon smiles at that, and then they walk back to the camp as the stars come out overhead before Jon excuses himself to go see Mormont.

Arriving back at Mormont’s tent, Jon gets immediately told to bring some hot wine for the boys, AKA the high command of the Night’s Watch. So, fraternity pledge Jon gets to work heating the wine up in a kettle, making sure not to boil it while he drops some eaves on the high command debating next steps. I’ll bullet-point for brevity’s sake:

• Mallador Locke wants to advance up the the Giant’s Stair or Skirling Pass to take the wildlings unawares
• Ottyn Wythers thinks this is a bad idea
• Mormont doesn’t want to go that way unless he absolutely has to. He wants to stay put at the Fist of the First Men
• Thoren Smallwood wants to go a-rangin’, but Mormont orders him to stay south of the river. Thoren doesn’t like this

Strategy session complete, Jon enters the tent and asks if Mormont wants his dinner. He would, but uh, hey, did Ghost return and bring some fresh meat. Nope. Sorry, meat’s not back on the menu.

Mormont then asks what Jon thinks of his plan. Jon tries to dodge as he’s only here to serve, but Mormont presses him. So, Jon says that he’s not sure why the LC is keeping the rangers close instead of searching for Benjen Stark. Ah, well, you see, if Benjen is alive, he’ll follow the trail the Night’s Watch left for him:

“Yes,” said Jon, “but... what if.”

“...he’s dead?” Mormont asked, not unkindly.

Jon nodded, reluctantly.

“Dead,” the raven said. “Dead. Dead.”

“He may come to us anyway,” the Old Bear said. “As Othor did, and Jafer Flowers. I dread that as much as you, Jon, but we must admit the possibility.” 

Mormont then says he’s not hungry after all and dismisses Jon to get some rest. So, Jon gathers his things up and realizes he’s hungry. He heads over to a fire and finds Dolorous Edd, Grenn and Hake gathered around a fire, listening to Dywen talk about his fear of the woods and how he wouldn’t want to be ranging out in the Haunted Forest tonight. You see, Dywen can smell “the cold” out in the forest. And while the others mock Dywen, saying there’s no smell to “cold”, Jon disagrees:

There is, thought Jon, remembering the night in the Lord Commander’s chambers. It smells like death. Suddenly he was not hungry anymore.

Jon heads out into the night with the cold winds rising. He takes the leftover wine to a fire, re-heats and starts flexing his fingers, and then he hears the howling of wolves. And then Jon sees red eyes staring at him from across the fire. Don’t worry. It’s Ghost, guys. (I know you were worried).

Ghost sniffs around the fire, with a manic energy that leads Jon to believe that Ghost isn’t hungry. And right there, Jon starts to get really worried about the possibility that he’s in a similar situation as he was back in AGOT with Othor creeping up the stairs to Mormont.

Ghost starts off, and Jon gives chase to the direwolf. Jon encounters a man standing by a fire on watch which, sigh, you bitches never read through your copy of the ranger handbook I sent you as a care package, did you? Jon tells the man that he’s going to get water for the LC, and the watcher, literally a man with the rocks for a brain, is like ooookay. Go get that water. 

So, Jon follows Ghost down the hill, catching glimpses of him, losing him, catching sight of him. Chasing, chasing, chasing. (There’s a lot of this Jon chases Ghost that I’m skipping over, again, we’re doing two chapters this week, and we’re not even to the second chapter) until Jon sees Ghost digging in the ground besides a fallen tree. So, he goes to investigate.

The soil was loose, sandy. Jon pulled it out by the fistful. There were no stones, no roots. Whatever was here had been put here recently. Two feet down, his fingers touched cloth. He had been expecting a corpse, fearing a corpse, but this was something else. He pushed against the fabric and felt small, hard shapes beneath, unyielding. There was no smell, no sign of graveworms. Ghost backed off and sat on his haunches, watching.

Jon digs into the earth and retrieves a cloth bundle from the ground. He pulls out his dagger and cuts into it and knives, arrowheads and spearheads fall out. Jon picks up a handful and finds razor-sharp black daggers. Dragonglass. Jon wonders whether Ghost had dug up buried treasure from the First Men, but then Jon notices something else under the dragonglass:

Beneath the dragonglass was an old warhorn, made from an auroch’s horn and banded in bronze. Jon shook the dirt from inside it, and a stream of arrowheads fell out. He let them fall, and pulled up a corner of the cloth the weapons had been wrapped in, rubbing it between his fingers. Good wool, thick, a double weave, damp but not rotted. It could not have been long in the ground. And it was dark. He seized a handful and pulled it close to the torch. Not dark. Black.

Even before Jon stood and shook it out, he knew what he had: the black cloak of a Sworn Brother of the Night’s Watch. 

A few weeks later, a horn is blowing, and Jon is reaching for Longclaw, wondering if another blast of the horn is coming. Jon feels as if the whole hill is holding its breath for that blast, but it never comes. Everyone grins at each other, and Mormont emerges from his tent asking if it was only one blast. Yes sir. One blast. Brothers returning. 

Mormont says that it’s Halfhand, and he wants to see him immediately, and Jon agrees, thinking that the men from the Shadow Tower should have arrived days ago. Jon thinks back to everyone wondering about whether Qhorin would show up and what they should do. Again, bullet-points:

• Ser Ottyn Wythers wanted to retreat to Castle Black
• Ser Mallador Locke wanted to move towards the Shadow Tower to pick up Qhorin’s trail
• Thoren Smallwood wanted to push into the mountains and go against Mance, mounted and as wolves amongst sheep.
• Ottyn thinks this is a dumb plan, and that they would be outnumbered and get destroyed by Mance

Long story short: Everyone disagrees, and no decisions are made. But now that Qhorin was here, things would be better. Now, they could make a decision and come to battle soon. 

Jon heads down to the hill and gives Dolorous Edd something to complain about. He encounters Samwell, and Sam asks if the blast meant that Benjen had returned. Sadly, no.

“It’s only the men from the Shadow Tower.” It was growing harder to cling to the hope of

Benjen Stark’s safe return. The cloak he had found beneath the Fist could well have belonged to his uncle or one of his men, even the Old Bear admitted as much, though why they would have buried it there, wrapped around the cache of dragonglass, no one could say.

He bids Sam ado, and he heads down to the ringwall. He finds men moving the spikes aside to let Qhorin’s man through, and then he sees the riders come through all in leather and armor and fur with heavy beards, and a lot of them were wounded. Not good. Not good at all. But then some good news rides through the opening, and look, I’ve been summarizing a lot of this chapter, but full fuckin’ paragraph here:

Jon knew Qhorin Halfhand the instant he saw him, though they had never met. The big ranger was half a legend in the Watch; a man of slow words and swift action, tall and straight as a spear, long-limbed and solemn. Unlike his men, he was clean-shaven. His hair fell from beneath his helm in a heavy braid touched with hoarfrost, and the blacks he wore were so faded they might have been greys. Only thumb and forefinger remained on the hand that held the reins; the other fingers had been sheared off catching a wildling’s axe that would otherwise have split his skull. It was told that he had thrust his maimed fist into the face of the axeman so the blood spurted into his eyes, and slew him while he was blind. Since that day, the wildlings beyond the Wall had known no foe more implacable. 

My loins are stirring, friends. I cannot help it.

Jon tells Qhorin that Mormont wants to see him, and Qhorin says his boys are hungry. Get ‘em fed. Also, Jon, you look like your dad, Ned. Jon asks if Qhorin knew Ned, and yes, Qhorin did as well as Lord Rickard Stark. Qhorin asks if the rumors about Jon having a direwolf are true, and yes, the true rumors are indeed true. 

They make their way up the hill and find Dolorous Edd making breakfast and Mormont in his camp chair. Mormont asks what took them so long, and Qhorin says that they ran into trouble: Alfyn Crowkiller scouting the Wall. They fought Alfyn, and Alfyn is kill. But they lost four of their own with another dozen wounded. Oh, and they also tortured one of the surviving wildlings and got some valuable intel. But they should talk about it inside Mormont’s tent.

So, Qhorin and Mormont go into the tent and leave Jon to hang out with Dolorous Edd. The steward begins gloomily talking:

Edd stood over the kettle swishing the eggs about with a spoon. “I envy those eggs,” he said. “I could do with a bit of boiling about now. If the kettle were larger, I might jump in. Though I would sooner it were wine than water. There are worse ways to die than warm and drunk. I knew a brother drowned himself in wine once. It was a poor vintage, though, and his corpse did not improve it.”

“You drank the wine?”

“It’s an awful thing to find a brother dead. You’d have need of a drink as well, Lord Snow.” 

Ahahahaha, I love Edd.

Jon starts poking the fire with a stick and wondering over why Qhorin seemed so gloomy. They killed Alfyn Crowkiller. Seems like a victory right? Yeah, it should. Then Jon remembers wandering around the camp the night before and overhearing Lark the Sisterman and Chett bitching about being up here on the Fist of the First Men, and how they would all die and how maybe they’re not going to listen to any orders sending them up the Frostfangs. But then one of Chett’s hounds growled, and Jon beats feet to not be found out, knowing that he wasn’t meant to hear any of that. He’s also not going to tell Mormont about Chett and Lark, because he’s not snitch. Besides, it’s just empty talk, right? Right? WRONG.

BTW, Jon has now armored himself with one of his dragonglass daggers. He slips it out and studies it, thinking that it was buried for a reason. So, Jon had made daggers for Grenn and for the LC. Oh, and Jon had taken that warhorn and given it a little toot, because when you have a potentially magic horn, you just give it a little blow, right guys. LIKE OH MY GOD. THANK CHRIST, YOU DIDN’T BRING THE WALL DOWN, JON. MY GOD.

Sigh … Anyways, breakfast is done, and Edd asks whether he or Jon should bring the breakfast in, and Jon says he wants to do it. So, he enters and overhears Qhorin talking about Rattleshirt, the Weeper and all the wildling chiefs, wargs, mammoths, every wildling.Though Jon doesn’t hear the context, Mormont says that the Wall must be warned, and that the kings should hear the news too. 

Qhorin bites into an egg and states that the best hope lies with the Starks. Mormont agrees and then grabs up a few maps. Jon deciphers that Mormont is attempting to determine where the wildlings will strike, and that’s pretty important as only three of the seventeen castles on the Wall are presently manned. Mormont idealistically puts in that Alliser Thorne will bring back more men for the Wall and man Greyguard and Long Barrow, which … yeah, extremely optimistic thinking on Mormont’s part.

The two men talk about roving patrols, manning other castles. Then they talk about whether they should strike with their cavalry force. And then the discussion turns to how they get through the Wall. They’ll probably go through one of the gates or use ropes to climb over the Wall.

“A breach.”

Mormont’s head came up sharply. “What?”

“They do not plan to climb the Wall nor to burrow beneath it, my lord. They plan to break it.” 

“The Wall is seven hundred feet high, and so thick at the base that it would take a hundred men a year to cut through it with picks and axes.”

“Even so.”

Mormont plucked at his beard, frowning. “How?”

“How else? Sorcery.”

Besides, why else would Mance head up into the Frostfangs. They were looking for something. Some sort of sorcerous implement to take down the Wall. There was no other reason they would go up into the mountains. That’s what their tortured captive said anyways. They were looking for some power. But what?

As for that, Qhorin proposes that they scout out the wildlings and find out what’s going on with them. But Mormont is loathe to risk more men to die up in the mountains on a dangerous ranging:

“We can only die. Why else do we don these black cloaks, but to die in defense of the realm? I would send fifteen men, in three parties of five. One to probe the Milkwater, one the Skirling Pass, one to climb the Giant’s Stair. Jarman Buckwell, Thoren Smallwood, and myself to command. To learn what waits in those mountains.” 

Mormont relents and sees no other choice. But what if they don’t come back. Well, someone will come down from the Frostfangs. Whether it’s the rangers or Mance Rayder, Mormont’s rangers are well-positioned to intercept Mance Rayder. Besides the Fist is a strong spot to hold out against.

“Not that strong,” said Mormont.

“Belike we shall all die, then. Our dying will buy time for our brothers on the Wall. Time to garrison the empty castles and freeze shut the gates, time to summon lords and kings to their aid, time to hone their axes and repair their catapults. Our lives will be coin well spent.” 

Bloodraven starts screaming the lyrics to the Avett Brothers’ “die, die, die” song, but Mormont ignores the raven and asks Qhorin to choose his men for the ranging.

Qhorin Halfhand turned his head. His eyes met Jon’s, and held them for a long moment. “Very well. I choose Jon Snow.” 

Mormont starts to protest that Dolorous Edd was a better pick, but Qhorin doesn’t want Edd. He wants Jon who follows the Old Gods -- the gods who are strong beyond the Wall. So, Mormont turns to Jon and asks what Jon wants to do:

“To go,” he said at once.

The old man smiled sadly. “I thought it might be.”

Dawn had broken when Jon stepped from the tent beside Qhorin Halfhand. The wind swirled around them, stirring their black cloaks and sending a scatter of red cinders flying from the fire. “We ride at noon,” the ranger told him. “Best find that wolf of yours.” 

And that is ACOK, Jon IV *and* V! Lots of set-up, lots of build-up, and boy am I now ready to get into Jon’s adventures in the mountains. What did you think, Emmett?

Depth

So as we’ve said, Jon’s storyline in ACOK really ramps up in excitement and overall quality once he gets into the Frostfangs with Qhorin Halfhand and his crew. And we’re not quite there yet! Jon IV and V taken together speak to both the weaknesses and strengths of Jon’s chapters in this book. On the one hand, it’s starting to become clear that the Night’s Watch is going to spend this whole book on the trail of interesting things, and that the interesting things themselves won’t show up until the next book. There’s more atmosphere here than plot progression or character development. That said, there’s nothing wrong with lingering in atmosphere if it’s well done, and the atmosphere on the Fist of the First Men is wonderfully spooky. On reread, I realized what a perfect backdrop this is for our introduction to Qhorin Halfhand, because like the Fist, he’s a source of reassuring strength but also kinda scary.

As we know, GRRM is weaving multiple genres into ASOIAF: noir detective, fantasy, action, mafia, horror, but not SciFi. George has been pretty explicit about that! The genre I see in Jon’s ACOK storyline is very much action-adventure with dashes of mystery and fantasy tossed in, and I really appreciate it on re-read after Arya VII and Sansa III. It’s not that I found the last two episodes a slog. Far from it. They are vital in understanding the themes George communicates in the story and how so many characters in ASOIAF fall short. It’s just that they are heavy. My emotions ranged from sad to sickened to outraged. But it was a lot. Getting into these two Jon chapters is a nice reprieve. I skipped over a lot of it in the synopsis, but all that scenery, it’s LOTR-esque. I feel like I’m on a grand adventure with Jon and his friends to … save Benjen Stark? Defeat Mance Rayder? Set up shop at the Fist of the First Men!  

• Introducing the Fist of the First Men
  • Up to this point, we’ve been on the trail of Waymar Royce & Co. from the Prologue to AGOT, but now we’re further north than we’ve ever been before
  • That’s both exciting and frightening for the reader, and Jon shares the same spirit: the wonder of discovery slowly sapped away by a sense of dread
  • I think this really comes through when you compare how the Fist is written relative to Whitetree and Craster’s Keep from the previous Jon chapters
  • On the one hand, our initial impression of the Fist is one of strength. The name alone sounds strong: a giant fist of stone, an ancient fortress. We’ll be safe here!
  • The senior officers of the Night’s Watch are reassured by the defensive position offered by the hill, so much so that you can see all their plans reforming around it
  • LC Mormont immediately declares it “good ground” and says that they will await Qhorin Halfhand and his Shadow Tower men here. Sensible enough so far!
  • But the old guard’s dedication to their conventional wisdom ends up contributing to the mission creep we’ll discuss later on
  • Right away, Thoren Smallwood’s snotty attitude towards Jon is a tip off that the leadership is mismanaging things
  • Jon’s not lazy, you sanctimonious prick! He’s raising a very legitimate concern, the lack of easy access to water
  • Mormont addresses his concerns in a more substantive way, but it’s still a bad sign about the mindset pervasive in Watch leadership, and Jon feels more silenced than actually reassured
  • Because what Jon is getting at is a larger issue than water. It’s whether the Fist as a whole is actually as reliable a defensive position as it seems
  • After all, it’s abandoned, just like Whitetree and the other villages. If it’s so strong a fortress, why isn’t anyone here? Even if Mance doesn’t think it worth holding, why are there no renegades like Craster taking advantage of the defenses?
  • What Jon realizes at at level he can’t quite articulate is this is because these defenses are not, in fact, adequate against what is really waiting for them up here
  • His superiors in the Watch, as we will again discuss later in the episode, insist on seeing their mission purely through the lens of stopping Mance Rayder
  • In that light, the Fist makes some sense as a defensive position. But it makes no sense at all as a defensive position against the Others and the Army of the Dead.
  • That’s what’s waiting for them up here. That’s why Mance didn’t leave anyone behind. That’s what Jon knows the Night’s Watch is still not ready to face
  • And that’s why George writes the Fist of the First Men as he does in these chapters, with such an eerie alien atmosphere, with such palpable dread
  • The Fist just can’t compare to Winterfell, the true fist of the First Men, and as Steven Attewell has argued, Winterfell might’ve been designed partially in reaction to the failure of the Fist’s fortifications to stop the Others’ onslaught
  • But Winterfell is on the other side of the Wall. The Night’s Watch is deep in enemy territory, and only Jon seems to remember who the enemy really is. It reminds me of one of my favorite show-only scenes, in which Sam talks wistfully about the First Men who once held this fort, and Jon replies:
    • “I think they were afraid. I think they came here to get away from something. And I don’t think it worked.”
  • That perfectly sums up how LC Mormont’s Great Ranging is going, and Jon already knows deep down how it’s going to end for the Night’s Watch
  • A lot of the high command seems to be reassuring themselves, assuaging their own doubts about the Fist of the First Men: “This is good ground, Thoren. We could scarce hope for better”/”These heights will be easy to defend, Thoren said.”/”Yes. We could scarce hope for better, Mormont replied.”/”We’re not like to find better ground, Mormont said.”
  • At some level, my sense is that the officers of the Night’s Watch are all attempting to silence their own fears by over-praising the Fist all the while letting the same fears that Jon overhears Chett and Lark voicing go unstated
  • They shouldn’t stay here!
  • That said, while we’re here on the Fist of the First Men waiting to get annihilated, let’s talk a little about the concept of historical ringforts
  • Ringforts were a defensive position and sometimes a defensive settlement, positioned on the top of hills or high ground.
  • Ringforts can be found all over Northern Europe, but they can be found most prominently in Ireland with as many as 50,000 ringforts constructed on the island between the Bronze Age and around 1000 CE.
  • If you’re one of our patrons, you can see a picture of a Ringfort in our show notes
  • 
  • As a defensive structure, a ringfort offered high ground and visibility of surrounding terrain. They also obstructed any maneuver up to the high ground.
  • But there were limitations as the Night’s Watch finds with the Fist of the First Men.
  • For our purposes: most rainfall would runoff the hill side and create streams and bodies of water on lower ground.
  • And this is exactly what Jon is pointing out: it’s fine ground to defend by force of arms, but an enemy advancing up the hill is only one way of defeating the ringfort. Starving them out in a siege is another way -- something we’ll talk about a little later.
  • So, I really like the idea of Winterfell and castles in general constructed as a more-sure defense against the Others, and it fits the historical model of ringforts gradually being replaced by stone castles after 1000 AC.
  • But Jon isn’t the only one who has reservations about the Fist of the First Men. Ghost seems perturbed too, but his reasons seem less related to whether the Fist is truly the good ground Mormont seems to think it is.
  • It seems Ghost’s reservations are rooted in the supernatural.
• What is it, Lassie? Is Timmy stuck in the well?
  • One of the best examples of how George plays up the spooky atmosphere of the Fist in these chapters is how he uses Ghost
  • Jon’s direwolf has always been, well, a ghostly presence, but he’s never as frightening as he is in ACOK Jon IV
  • His red eyes glare balefully out of the night; he’s running around acting spooked like he did the night of the zombie attack at Castle Black
  • Immediately, the spooky atmosphere is ramped up, and the reader isn’t sure whether to be afraid of Ghost or afraid of something he knows about
  • Jon chases after his dog, and we’re prepared for him to come under attack...but instead, Ghost leads him to buried treasure, X marks the spot
  • Here again we see the pattern of Jon’s ACOK chapters, in which his fingertips just brush up in passing against the magical power that rules beyond the Wall
  • A weirwood mouth full of skulls at Whitetree in Jon II; an empty sheepfold at Craster’s Keep in Jon III; dragonglass arrowheads and a horn at the Fist in Jon IV. Signs and symbols of the monsters on the margins, to borrow your phrase
  • While George holds back on the Others until the beginning of ASOS, he is showing us a world permanently shaped by their presence, in which everything from the politics to the artifacts speaks to living on the doorstep of Death’s domain. It’s telling that Jon thinks at first that Ghost is digging up a grave...
  • We’ll talk more about the specific properties of these objects in the foreshadowing and theory sections of this episode, but suffice to stay that they stand in for the age of wonder and terror, in which mortal men rediscover the tools to reach up and grasp the stars, trying and failing to master death
  • These are the twinned elemental forces of ice and fire which stand in for so much in the series...including Jon’s birth parents, Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen
  • And that, ultimately, is what this bundle stands in for. “Frozen fire” wrapped up in a Night’s Watch cloak? Why, that’s a perfect metaphor for our hero Jon Snow!
  • Damn, dude! Just when I was floored by your catch of the hot spring water flowing through the cold stones was a metaphor for Jon back in AGOT, Catelyn II; so, too, am I floored by this catch! Well done!
  • Just to add another layer to your excellent metaphor of frozen fire as representative of Jon’s Stark and Targaryen heritage, I think we can talk about dragonglass as representative of Jon’s Stark/Targ heritage as well as his identity as a regular ol’ Night’s Watchmen as well as someone who has the magic inside of him  
  • As we know, dragon glass is based on real-world obsidian/volcanic glass, but in ASOIAF, it has a magical twist as GRRM talked about in a 2005 interview in which he said:
    • Obsidian is of course volcanic glass; it's formed by immense heat and pressure down in the earth. The dragons themselves are creatures of intense heat. I've given it magical characteristics that of course real obsidian doesn't necessarily have. After all, we live in a world that has no magic. My world does have magic, so it's a little bit different.
  • If dragonglass is a metaphor for Jon, the magical elements that GRRM embedded into the stone is true for Jon too.
  • Jon is wearing the colors of a Night’s Watchmen: black, or shall we say: obsidian. 
  • So, it’s the normal garb of a Night’s Watchmen, but he’s also a little magical too! 
  • He has a mystical, warging connection to his direwolf Ghost, and if Season 8 is any indication (and I totally think it is), Jon will have a magical bond with a dragon as well!
  • And that magical side of Jon, or at least his connection to the old gods, comes into focus when a legend of the Watch finally arrives at the Fist of the First Men.
• Waiting for the Halfhand
  • A couple weeks go by; Qhorin Halfhand and the Shadow Tower men fail to show. The men start to get restive and the officers go through their options
  • All they have to go on is Craster’s intelligence, which puts Mance and his people high up in the Frostfangs; this presents the Watch with several obstacles
  • The most direct route into the mountains would be to follow the Milkwater, but that would expose them to Mance’s scouts, and any plan to fight Mance in the Frostfangs depends heavily on the element of surprise (as we’ll see in ASOS)
  • There are passes through the mountains (the Giant’s Stair and the Skirling Pass) which could allow them to approach unseen, but the terrain and weather are extremely hazardous, more suited for a scouting operation than everyone at once
  • As such, LC Mormont says that he would prefer to wait for Mance and his people to descend from the mountains and then fight them here on the Fist. But...why??
  • He says they couldn’t hope for a better defensive position than the Fist, and that’s true...north of the Wall. But what about, y’know, the Wall itself?
  • Qhorin’s proposal to send in scouts to learn what power Mance seeks in the Frostfangs is a sensible and necessary move, because it’s no good to retreat on the Wall if Mance has something that can bring it crashing down around you
  • But after that work is done? I’m not the military mind on the podcast, but it seems insane to me that you’d choose to give battle at the Fist instead of the Wall
  • The Wall is not only a superior defensive position, it prevents you from being cut off from resources and messages to the south. The Fist can be surrounded!
  • Worse than being surrounded: you brought this up really well in your analysis of Jon’s concerns being dismissed: surrounded and without access to a source of fresh water.
  • That means that if Mance attacked, all he’d have to do is move his siege/picket line past the stream, and bam, Mormont’s men die of thirst in a week or two or surrender.
  • And the high command notes that they can use the Fist of the First Men as a staging base to launch surprise attacks against Mance once he comes out of the Frostfangs.
  • But … like … why are you ringing the hill with torches then? 
  • I don’t want to insult anyone’s intelligence, but in the dark, with only ambient light, that line of torches is going to really stand out to anyone who has, say, the extremely rare gift of eyesight.
  • So, any hope of launching surprise attacks against Mance is severely diminished by Mormont’s lack of light discipline.
  • But the issues with the Fist are deeper than the source of water and how they’re visible from miles around. It goes to the strategic reason for the Great Ranging and why the mission is going FUBAR quick, fast and in a hurry.
  • This Great Ranging was supposed to be first and foremost about gathering information, because sending out individual ranging missions wasn’t cutting it
  • Mormont took so many men in order to prevent them from being taken down as easily as Waymar Royce or Othor and Jafer, not to give battle to Mance Rayder
  • Yet here he is, preparing to give battle to Mance Rayder, even though zombies tried to kill him in his sleep. Thoren Smallwood is right there wearing Jeremy Rykker’s cloak, which he only has because a zombie killed Jaremy Rykker!
  • It’s telling that this supernatural threat doesn’t even get a mention in this council meeting. This is mission creep, the definition of taking your eye off the ball
  • Nor is there even a mention of engaging in diplomacy with Mance in the face of this larger threat. Now, of course, the culture of the Watch is such that the first person to propose such a move will be sticking their neck out, so no one does
  • That’s the problem LC Snow will wrestle with in ADWD: how to transform a culture whose roots go so deep that not even apocalypse can pull them up
  • I think that LC Mormont is preparing to do battle at the Fist instead of falling back on the Wall for the same reason he’s talking about fighting Mance instead of the Others: because he’s a proud old man who (as Tyrion notes) is afraid he’s wasted his life, and so wants to go out in a blaze of glory
  • He can’t do that by sitting at the Wall and waiting even if that’s the more sensible move, and unlike the Others, he knows where Mance is and how to fight him
  • So that’s what he does, just like Stannis decides to fight the Boltons because that’s what he knows. For me, the point of the white walkers is that they should galvanize all of humanity to work together, but humanity isn’t that simple
  • I love getting to read your thoughts days in advance of the rest of the world, because it lets me marinate in them; so, I decided to do some research (i.e. do some word searches in A Search of Ice and Fire), and I think you’re spot-on with the whole Jeor/Stannis comparison.
  • Let’s look at Jeor back in Jon’s final AGOT chapter and why he wants to go ranging:
    • "I will not sit here meekly and wait for the snows and the ice winds. We must know what is happening. This time the Night's Watch will ride in force, against the King-beyond-the-Wall, the Others, and anything else that may be out there.
  • Seems clear-cut: Jeor needs to find out what Mance is up to, ride out against the Others, realizes that smaller ranging parties (like Benjen’s) are vanishing and moves out in force.
  • But here in this chapter, it’s all about Mance Rayder and the wildlings -- all the while never mentioning the Others: who, y’know, are certainly closer up here at the Fist than they were down at the Wall.
  • And that’s the same for our King when he arrives at the Wall:
    • "Demons made of snow and ice and cold," said Stannis Baratheon. "The ancient enemy. The only enemy that matters."
  • The only enemy that matters. Quite correct, King Stannis. But then in ADWD, Stannis has 2nd thoughts:
    • "Lord Snow, attend me. I have lingered here in the hopes that the wildlings would be fool enough to mount another attack upon the Wall. As they will not oblige me, it is time I dealt with my other foes."
  • You know who Stannis didn’t mention in that line above: the only enemy that matters: demons made of snow and ice! 
  • It’s always the wildlings that feature as the main threat in the minds of these military leaders when truly, the wildlings are men “like us” as Qhorin Halfhand puts it later to Jon.
  • I wonder whether there’s an element of utter fear and dread when it comes to the Others for people as brave and gruff as Stannis, that they refuse to engage thinking about them and focus on the enemy who can be defeated, but I’ll save some of those thoughts for ASOS and ADWD!
  • But even though there’s mission creep afoot with Mormont, he hasn’t totally lost focus on finding Benjen Stark -- or rather, of having Benjen Stark find them.
  • Credit where credit is due: LC Mormont is right that Benjen will be able to find them easier than they can find him, and as a mentor, he does a great job of forcing Jon to reach that conclusion rather than just spoon-feeding it to him
  • We’re seeing the payoff to what Sam said in book one about how Mormont was grooming Jon for command by choosing him as his personal squire, because it means Jon’s always around when the decisions are made, soaking everything in
  • Sure, he’s only officially there to hand everyone their wine, but Mormont wants him to learn, and tests him to make sure he is. Jon gets that this is how it works; he offers to take food to Qhorin over Edd because he wants to hear what is said
  • And of course, he’s the one Mormont sends to fetch Qhorin; without that little interaction, Qhorin wouldn’t have ended up picking Jon to scout with him
• Introducing Qhorin Halfhand
  • At last, Jon’s new dad arrives with his hundred men from the Shadow Tower; the hard heart of the Night’s Watch is now gathered on the Fist of the First Men
  • Qhorin is a legend, the most admired ranger in the Watch now that Benjen Stark is MIA. He is pure discipline, both physically and mentally, a born leader of men
  • The detail that stands out to a first-time reader is the story of how he got his nickname, losing three fingers to a wildling’s axe before blinding him with blood
  • This establishes Qhorin’s most prominent character trait: his willingness to sacrifice absolutely anything to further the goals of the Night’s Watch
  • I don’t think it’s an accident that he will go on to sacrifice three men in the Skirling Pass: Dalbridge, Ebben, and himself (with Stonesnake’s fate left ambiguous)
  • It’s fitting that as we go further north into unknown territory than ever before, we meet a ranger who seems to thrive in the unknown, to live there full time
  • Qhorin’s been ranging for so long his black cloak is turning gray, separating him out from his fellow Watchmen. He’s spent so much time up here that he has more in common with the wildlings he fights than with anyone south of the Wall
  • Qhorin’s introduction reminds me of the introduction of Liet Kynes in Dune. He officially works for the Emperor, but in appearance and how he carries himself, he feels more like one of the Fremen. “Kynes had gone native.” 
  • This feeling is reinforced by how George writes Qhorin in Mormont’s tent:
    • Qhorin was seated cross-legged on the floor, his spine as straight as a spear. Candlelight flickered against the hard flat planes of his cheeks as he spoke.
  • This reminds me so strongly of movies and TV shows I watched as a child of 80s/90s pop culture, in which a Native American man would sit around a fire telling tales with the light flickering on his face, a recorder on the soundtrack…
  • Qhorin is being framed as a shamanic figure, a storyteller with a deeper connection to the land and people than his fellow Watchmen
  • All this is important because Jon’s time with Qhorin is all about challenging his perspective on the wildlings and forcing him to immerse himself in their culture
  • On reread, it’s actually kind of a misdirection how George presents Qhorin as the ultimate implacable enemy of the wildlings. In later Jon chapters, he will scorn Thoren Smallwood’s bigotry, and think fondly and sadly of his old friend Mance
  • Mance, too, wears a Watch cloak that looks different from the rest. Mance and Qhorin are both outsiders, caught between the worlds of wildling and Watch
  • The difference is that Mance’s cloak embodies his embrace of color, music, wine, women, life. Qhorin’s cloak embodies his rejection of all of that in favor of duty
  • In other words, they are outsiders on opposite ends of the spectrum; their bond is rooted in their mutual rejection of what lies in between them
  • Qhorin believes that you must understand your enemy before you can defeat them, so it’s fitting that he has more intelligence on Mance than LC Mormont
  • He got that intelligence by defeating Alfyn Crowkiller, immediately establishing his military bona fides; yet Jon notes he looks grave, indicating that this intelligence reveals something no short-term militay victory can overcome
  • Jon is curious, and follows this curiosity into the tent, fitting the the theme of temptation that stands out so strongly in ACOK
  • What Qhorin’s intelligence reveals is that, again as always in ACOK, they are not inhabiting a purely political world, but a world in which politics and magic mix
  • LC Mormont looks at Mance’s gathering purely as a confederation of war chiefs which will attempt to climb over the Wall by normal means, and so in terms of the Watch’s response, thinks only of patrols and manning abandoned castles 
  • Qhorin is here to tell Mormont to stop fighting the last war. This is the age of wonder and terror, and Mance wants to break the Wall, not climb over it
  • That’s a revelation designed to grab the reader’s attention, and we’re primed to spend Jon’s chapters going forward wondering what this “power” might be
  • We shouldn’t pass over, however, the manner by which Qhorin acquired this intelligence: torture. Torture so intense that the wildling captive died from it.
  • Qhorin is Jon’s guide not only to the harsh world of the Frostfangs, but the even harsher world of sacrificing your values as well as your comrades and yourself 
  • That’s another meaning to Qhorin’s gray cloak. He is a morally gray man, a man who does very questionable things in the name of good ends
  • While there is much to admire in him and for Jon to learn from him, there’s the same question as with Arya and Jaqen: do we want our hero to grow up like this?
  • Like Jaqen, Qhorin is a figure of death. He reminds LC Mormont that the Night’s Watch wears black cloaks as built-in funeral shrouds; they are the walking dead, every bit as much as the zombies who serve the white walkers
  • As with Jon wondering if Ghost is digging up a grave in Jon IV, I think it’s no coincidence that George has Edd tell a story about drinking wine flavored by a suicidal brother’s corpse in Jon V. It all fits the theme of death, the sense that the Night’s Watch are all doomed, and the only choice left is how you face it
  • That’s the core of Qhorin’s Bushido-like philosophy: accepting the inevitability of one’s death, and thinking of one’s life as coin to be spent for the greater good
  • Finally, Qhorin’s gray cloak reminds us of the gray banner of House Stark. And just in case it didn’t, Qhorin’s first conversation with Jon is all about House Stark
  • This isn’t incidental. It’s Jon’s connection to the First Men, emphasized by the direwolf at his side, that prompts Qhorin to take Jon with him at chapter’s end
  • As we will see in Jon’s later chapters, Qhorin appears to believe that the Starks are “friends to the Watch” in large part because the Starks are connected to the magic of the First Men and the Children of the Forest
  • He seems to understand that there must always be a Stark in Winterfell to hold the line against not only wildlings, but sorcery; he puts his faith in the Starks more than any southron king, despite not being explicitly a Northman
  • I say “appears to believe” and “seems to understand” because Qhorin is not as direct as Jojen in terms of what he knows about the age of wonder and terror
  • On one hand, Qhorin is kind of Jon’s magical mentor in this book like Jojen/Jaqen/Melisandre/Quaithe in the other ACOK storylines
  • He talks about the wildlings seeking magic, he understands that Jon is a warg, he knows what it means that Orell’s eagle keeps following them
  • He’s far more knowledgeable about and comfortable in this world than, say, LC Mormont. But he doesn’t have any magic himself, and it’s not his primary concern
  • Magic matters to Qhorin in a military context. It is a tool our enemies know well; its presence is a vital piece of intelligence that must be passed on
  • But for all Qhorin talks about sorcery and dreams and the trees having eyes, he still never brings up the Others, making the same mistake as LC Mormont
  • For all that he understands both magic and the wildlings better than the other senior officers, the former still hasn’t changed how he handles the latter

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

Obviously, the major groundwork being done here is for the zombie attack on the Fist of the First Men, which will kick off ASOS. You can find foreshadowing for that apocalyptic disaster all over these chapters. The senior officers consider the Fist an ideal fortress, but Jon senses its weaknesses; Jon thinks about how anything could be creeping toward them out of the haunted forest; the one horn blast for Qhorin that becomes three for Others...I think George already knew that this zombie attack was going to be one of the crown jewels of the series, and so he goes all in on setting the mood for it in these chapters before we leave for the Frostfangs.

We’ll learn much more about the “power” the wildlings sought in the Frostfangs come ASOS. It’s the Horn of Joramun, aka the Horn of Winter, which can supposedly bring down the Wall. Mance claims to have found it, and Melisandre burns his horn, but Tormund later claims it was a fake and the true horn is still out there. Hmm, oh well. Guess it’ll just be a mystery forever…

IT’S THAT LIL HORN, OF COURSE! But while that hasn’t paid off yet, the dragonglass pays off in the next book, as Sam uses it to kill an Other in the most cathartic moment in ASOIAF.

Qhorin Halfhand states that every king in the realm should hear news about the wildlings gathered, and this is what happens in ASOS as Aemon sends letters to every king in the War of the Five Kings. But only one king responds: the king who cares. DING. You didn’t think we could work yet another Stannis mention into this episode, did you? Oh ye of little faith.

#MutinyWatch! Jon witnesses Chett and co. conspiring about getting off the Fist of the First Men and heading south and calling the expedition “the Old Bear’s Folly” which then feeds into what happens with Chett and later mutiny at Craster’s Keep.

Mormont and Qhorin talk about manning the abandoned castles of Greyguard and Long Barrow with recruits Alliser Thorne brings back from King’s Landing in order to hold the Wall against the wildlings. Ironically, in ADWD, LC Jon Snow will have these castles manned and rebuilt by mixed wildlings and Night’s Watchmen.

Theory/Discussion

*Rocky theme plays*

Who left that bundle, gentlemen? 

• The case for Benjen
  • He comes up multiple times in these chapters
  • If it’s not him, he’s contributed basically nothing to the story so far. This might be the case! It just feels off to me
  • Ditching the cloak increases his chances of surviving in wildling territory; remember what Jon said in book one about how a man wearing black would be viewed with cold suspicion in every village south of the Wall? Same to the north!
  • As Mormont says, Benjen would know the Watch would make for the Fist; it’s a sensible place to leave a dead drop
  • Benjen’s First Ranger, a competent devoted Watchman, and if the fate of Othor and Jafer Flowers is any indication, he came up against the white walkers
  • In those circumstances, I think he’d devote himself to stopping them and stopping Mance: hence the horn and the dragonglass 
  • Coldhands, meanwhile, still has his cloak. (That’s not to say he couldn’t have taken it off a corpse, of course.) 
  • The magical angle with Ghost, I think, is the best evidence that it was actually Bloodraven via Coldhands
  • Then again, if Benjen did run afoul of the white walkers, he might now be directly swept up in Bloodraven’s side of things
  • I mean...this is why a lot of people were convinced Coldhands is Benjen, and if that were the case, it would resolve this dilemma neatly
  • But George says otherwise, so we’re left to wonder
• The case for Coldhands
  • The case for Coldhands might seem like tinfoil at first, but I’m going to argue (extremely successfully) that Coldhands, not Benjen was the one who placed the cache of dragonglass and the Horn at the Fist of the First Men.
  • First, let’s talk about the motive: Coldhands is a servant of Bloodraven’s or perhaps even a wight entirely controlled by Bloodraven. 
  • When we encounter the TEC in ADWD, he seems quite focused on the threat of the apocalypse posed by the Others. 
  • So, you are welcome to go way back a few years, but I wrote an essay series (Which I’ll link in the show notes for our patrons) called “The Race to Get the Horn South” in which I argued that Bloodraven was trying to get the Horn of Joramun south of the Wall to prevent the Others from getting hold of the Horn to bring the Wall down.
  • My theory is that Bloodraven sent Coldhands with the Horn and dragonglass to the Fist of the First Men in hopes that the Night’s Watch might eventually get south of the Wall and get the horn to safety.
  • So, that’s the bare-bones background and reasoning of why Coldhands would be involved at all. Let’s talk about the evidence for Coldhands.
  • Ghost is acting strangely familiar in these two Jon chapters
    • As soon as the Night’s Watch reaches the Fist of the First Men, Ghost starts acting oddly
      • We runs away three times from Jon at the start of Jon IV
      • When they arrive at the ringfort itself, Ghost balked again. He padded forward warily to sniff at the gap in the stones, and then retreated, as if he did not like what he’d smelled.
      • Then he takes Jon on a long chase through the hill until he comes onto the buried treasure. No, not Mole’s Town.
    • So, Ghost doesn’t like what he smells in and around the Fist of the First Men and acts weird. Where have we seen this before?
      • Back in AGOT, Jon VII: When he woke, his legs were stiff and cramped and the candle had long since burned out. Ghost stood on his hind legs, scrabbling at the door. Jon was startled to see how tall he'd grown. "Ghost, what is it?" he called softly. The direwolf turned his head and looked down at him, baring his fangs in a silent snarl. Has he gone mad? Jon wondered. 
      • And what was it that was driving Ghost mad back in AGOT, Jon VII? Smelling an undead Othor!
    • Jon sums things up after Ghost returns to the Fist of the First Men: The direwolf circled the fire, sniffing Jon, sniffing the wind, never still. It did not seem as if he were after meat right now. When the dead came walking, Ghost knew He woke me, warned me. 
  • Let’s stay on this whole smelling business, shall we?
    • Back when Jon and Sam went to the grove of weirwoods in AGOT, Dywen and his magical nose appears:
    • "Best we be starting back, m'lord," he said to Bowen Marsh. "Dark's falling, and there's something in the smell o' the night that I mislike."
    • Shortly thereafter, Ghost turns up with Jafer Flowers’ hand, and then they find the bodies of Othor and Jafer.
    • And then here in ACOK, Jon IV, we get Dywen’s magic nose coming into play again:
      • “What is it you smell, Dywen?” asked Grenn.
        
        The forester sucked on his spoon a moment. He had taken out his teeth. His face was leathery and wrinkled, his hands gnarled as old roots. “Seems to me like it smells ... well ... cold. “
        
        “Your head’s as wooden as your teeth,” Hake told him. “There’s no smell to cold.” 
    • And then Jon adds in the clarifying thought:
      • There is, thought Jon, remembering the night in the Lord Commander’s chambers. It smells like death.
  • So, knowing that Ghost and Dywen can both smell wights, that Ghost acts up when the undead are about, let’s turn to Coldhands and do a quick refresher on a few important points about Coldhands and note how 
    • He’s a former man of the Night’s Watch, presently undead.
    • He died “a long time ago” according to the CoTF
    • He’s in service to the Three-Eyed Crow
    • He has the smell of cold, blood and death on him
    • Bran’s direwolf Summer does not like the smell of cold, blood and death on Coldhands 
  • In my mind, a lot of those factors line up with finding the cache concealed within a Night’s Watch cloak, to Ghost going nuts around the Fist, to Dywen and Ghost probably smelling an undead person near the Fist of the First Men.
  • I think my largest objection to Benjen planting the cache is if it was Benjen, why would he just come up onto the Fist of the First Men and deliver the goods?
  • This is something that Jon thinks about directly in Jon V:
    • The cloak he had found beneath the Fist could well have belonged to his uncle or one of his men, even the Old Bear admitted as much, though why they would have buried it there, wrapped around the cache of dragonglass, no one could say.
  • To me, it makes sense that Coldhands couldn’t present himself to the Night’s Watch given that they’d probably try to light him on fire on the spot (It’s the whole undead thing) and why the cache was buried near the Fist rather than delivered directly to Mormont.
  • And that brings me to an inelegant yet potential solution: that GRRM, in his ever-gardening style, had it in mind that Benjen was Coldhands while writing ACOK and ASOS, but then decided that he had left himself some wiggle room by not positively identifying Coldhands, and somewhere between ASOS and ADWD, GRRM decided that he had a better idea for what Benjen was up to or had a more interesting idea on the identity of Coldhands.

Conclusion

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• Join us next week as we return to Winterfell for Bran V, in which Jojen digs deeper into prophecy and the heavy price Bran’s going to have to pay along the way to destiny.
• And we meet Reek, servant to the Bastard of Bolton, who’s been built up as a major villain but has now suddenly seemingly been killed offscreen. Nothing suspicious there!