Episode 151: A STORM OF SWORDS, Prologue "Apocalypse Now" Show Notes! (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 fifty-first episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “Apocalypse Now: An Analysis of the Prologue to ASOS,” in which some of the Night’s Watch are planning a mutiny...and that’s it. Thanks for listening, folks, thought we’d come back with a quick one!

Emmett opening thoughts

Before we proceed into the episode proper, I just wanted to take the chance to thank all of you for listening in, checking in on me and sharing your support. It’s been sad being away from you all, but I’m so happy to be back. And thank all of you for continuing to listen!

There are a few people I’d like to thank by name, and that’s our incredible, awesome friends who have hot-seated the guest-role alongside of Emmett during these past few months. You all are incredible. So, thank you to:

• Clint, who is definitely not a spy. Love the shadow on a wall talk.
• Luke for his big Bloodraven energy and love for the Kreia of ASOIAF
• Micah, the minor character grandmaster who shared his love for the Redwall books: I haven’t read them, but your love for them convinced me to try them.
• Shiloh and her love for medievalism in fiction and ASOIAF
• Travis talking about sharks and Jaws. Don’t worry. I know it’s not overrated.
• Lo for their discussion of gender and sexuality in ASOIAF.
• Joggi and how dragons fit into the oeuvre of fiction
• Gretchen for her love of horror and how it interrelates with ASOIAF.
• Rohanne and talking about how she could love a character like Melisandre who doesn’t get much love
• Alex on African-American and Queer Criticism of ASOIAF. Still thinking through their analysis of Dorne.
• Michal for coming on to talk about Littlefinger, Judaism and Jewish stereotypes in fiction
• Dr. Kavita Mudan Finn and historical narrators and how they influence story
• Angelina and the love she brought to a movie I have never seen but will now

Thank you all. You are all great friends, and I, sigh, love you all. And if you were holding off on listening, waiting for the chapter-by-chapter episodes to resume, you’re doing yourself a disservice! Get in there and listen! There. Enough emotional theatrics.

This episode is brought to you by our NotASmallCouncil:

• Hand of the King WolfmanZack
• Grandmaester Timbob, troubleshooter of systems and designer of circuit boards
• Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Mark N.
• 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, the Quilled Lion, Warden of the West, Herald of the Golden Tooth, Master of the Banefort and the Kraken’s Bane
• Lord James: the Jim that was Promised
• Lord Jake, Assistant (to the) Hand of the King
• Lady Xena Valyrian
• Ser Jack, Lord of Ser Arthur Dayne and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen's Sad Prophecy Boys Club
• His Grace’s High Inquisitor Frank
• 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 Carlos
• Lord Andrew the Restless, a Priest of the Drowned God
• Ser Sourcedelica
• Sugar Tits Dent the Troglodyte Warrior
• Lord Penchant for Nostalgia
• Queer Alex who has chosen a brand, new title for A Storm of Swords which is: “Queer Alex, Beyonce's Favorite Stan, Herald of Cher, and Bastard of Chromatica, Exalter of Black Lives and Defender of Trans Lives, Rainbow Commander of the Theydes and Gentlethems and the Not A Cast’s Nonbinary Not an Army.”
• Haldivar, The Waiter for TWOW
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• 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, Maker of Drawings and the Michaelangelo of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• 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)
• Ser Josh Snow Bastard Bounty Hunter of the North
• Ser Veyor, Chief of Parties in the Frozen Wastes
• Lord Peter
• The Dead Sheppard Reborn, Preacher of the Poor Fellows
• Marshall Harrison—Absent, shipwrecked in the Jade Sea
• Grave-Robb Stark, the Cadaver King and Horror of Harrenhal
• Olaf, proponent of establishing a feudal, pseudodemocratic system of Great Councils, wherein every count votes
• Ser Tim: The Knight Who Was Guided By Voices
• Lord Nick
• Thucydides, Lord of Plagues
• Ser Jack, Lord of Ser Arthur Dayne and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen’s Sad Prophecy Boys Club
• Lady Anna, The Lovely Castellan
• Pat Yronwood, the bloodroyal and guardian of the Boneway
• Lord Charles Tyrell of Highgarden, Lord Paramount of the Mander, Defender of the Marches, High Marshal of the Reach, Warden of the South, and The Heir of House Tyrell
• Luke, Lord of Lone Leaf & The Pillar of Autumn
• Joe Snow “King of the Metro North and protector of the Tri-State”
• Squire Matt S, future Ser Matt S, the one who will bring balance to the Kingdoms
• Lord Kyle
• Lord Samuel Seaworth
• Ser Max, Lord Commander of the Constitutional Guard
• Lady Ivory Dayne, aspiring noble author in the seven kingdoms, lady of Starfall, wardeness of the south, and patron of freewheeling bisexuals
• Lady Jemisa, She Who Suggests That Coconuts Migrate
• Lord Kristoff of Arendelle, official ice master and deliverer, the valiant pungent reindeer king, keeper of feisty pants, and prince consort to his ginger sweet love Queen Anna (Pronounced Ah-nuh)
• Lord Sir Septon Ruthers
• And our newest members of the Small Council:
  • Ser Grizzly Adams, the King’s Justice, Warden of the Kingswood and Sheriff of the Seven Kingdoms
  • Ser Kell, Contractor in Charge of Continually Extending the Small Council Table

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

Our question this week comes from BryndenBFish. Did I get that name, correct? In which he asks:

Gentlemen, handsome, very intelligent, gentlemen, I’ve been recently listening to all of the guest episodes, and there’s been a question that’s been asked of every guest by the handsome, intelligent PoorQuentyn. He’s asked ‘How did you get into this series?’ I know you’ve, we’ve, all talked about our experiences in first reading the books, but I wanted to ask whether you’d reshare your experiences. Additionally, do you have any specific memories of reading A Storm of Swords for the first time?

So, thank you BryndenBFish for the question, I guess. If you want to ask us questions we’ll answer here on the NotACast pod-cast, you are welcome to become a Sworn Sword or higher-level patron where you can also receive show notes, bonus ASOIAF/pop culture/Fevre Dream episodes, free merch, access to the NotASlack and more! Check us out at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF.

Yes indeed! Please come join our patreon! We’d love to have you. And for all of our $5/month Poor Fellow and above patrons, our next bonus episode will be an in-depth look at the 2008 animated film Waltz with Bashir: a movie about memory, the 1982 invasion of Lebanon by Israel and the Sabra and Shatila massacre. It’s both a personal favorite of both of your hosts and one of the best films about war ever made. Again, this episode will only be available to our Poor Fellow and above patrons. So, come join us at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF.

But enough about patreon. When we last checked in with … A Song of Ice and Fire, a lot of shit had happened. When we last checked in with the men of the Night’s Watch, they had decamped to the Fist of the First Men and were debating what to do about Mance Rayder and the wildlings. Meanwhile, tensions rose among the lower enlisted ranks of the Night’s Watch about the leadership of the NW and being out here north of the Wall. Let’s find out how all of that debate becomes completely moot in this synopsis of the ASOS Prologue!

Synopsis

The day was grey and bitter cold, and the dogs would not take the scent.

The big black bitch had taken one sniff at the bear tracks, backed off, and skulked back to the pack with her tail between her legs. The dogs huddled together miserably on the riverbank as the wind snapped at them. Chett felt it too, biting through his layers of black wool and boiled leather.

What a joyous open to the happiest book in A Song of Ice and Fire. And bless George’s heart for giving us the happiest, most loyal, most moral character in the series to open this book.

Chett thinks it’s way too cold and can feel his boils when he twists his mouth. He wishes he was back at Castle Black attending ravens and making fires for Maester Aemon, but noooooooo. Jon Snow had stolen that role for him and given it to Samwell Tarly.

Chett gently tugs at the leashes for his dogs and politely asks them to hunt. Oh, actually, scratch that. He yanks the leashes and yells at his dogs to hunt. Gee, is animal cruelty a signal from George that a character might be bad? I don’t know. Regardless, these dogs won’t hunt. They whine, and Chett, hero that he is, threatens to eat them. Joining Chett is Lark the sisterman who wears black gloves and complains about how cold it is. He advises Chett to stop fretting about the hounds not hunting. The bear isn’t worth getting cold over. But then another ranger by the name of Small Paul says the Lord Commander wouldn’t be happy if they came back without food. But Lark says fuck the LC. He’s going to die tonight anyways.

Small Paul blinked his black little eyes. Maybe he had forgotten, Chett thought; he was stupid enough to forget most anything. “Why do we have to kill the Old Bear? Why don’t we just go off and let him be?”

“You think he’ll let us be?” said Lark. “He’ll hunt us down. You want to be hunted, you great muttonhead?”

“No,” said Small Paul. “I don’t want that. I don’t.”

“So you’ll kill him?” said Lark.

“Yes.” The huge man stamped the butt of his spear on the frozen riverbank. “I will. He shouldn’t hunt us.”

Lark says they need to kill all of the officers, and Chett is sick and tired of hearing this. They’re only killing the LC, two men on watch, Dywen, Barmen and Samwell Tarly. And they’re going to do it quietly. He says this while his boils heroically flare red with rage. Everyone needs to do their part, especially Paul who needs to know he’s killing Mormont on the third - not second - watch.

Chett knows the time is ripe to do some murder as it would be a new moon, and the wildlings would be on them any day now. He was going to be away when that happened.

Three hundred sworn brothers of the Night’s Watch had ridden north, two hundred from Castle Black and another hundred from the Shadow Tower. It was the biggest ranging in living memory, near a third of the Watch’s strength. They meant to find Ben Stark, Ser Waymar Royce, and the other rangers who’d gone missing, and discover why the wildlings were leaving their villages. Well, they were no closer to Stark and Royce than when they’d left the Wall, but they’d learned where all the wildlings had gone - up into the icy heights of the godsforsaken Frostfangs. They could squat up there till the end of time and it wouldn’t prick Chett’s boils none. But no. They were coming down. Down the Milkwater.

Chett looks up and sees the river icing over a stony bank. He remembers how Thoren Smallwood returned from his scouting to report to Mormont. Kedge, one of the scouts, had told Chett what was up, reporting 20,000-30,000 wildlings up in the foothills. They were slow, but they were still coming with Harma Dogshead in the van with 500 ahorse. That had made everyone feel uneasy. Kedge then told them that the rest of the wildlings moved as a giant civilian camp with all of their livestock, pack animals and supplies for the journey. And they were coming down the Milkway which would put them past the Fist of the First Men. Chett thinks that means it’s time to go, but Mormont had only solidified the defensive network around the hill rather than roll back towards the Wall -- meaning they would all die.

Worse for Chett, Thoren Smallwood wanted to attack the wildlings, thinking he could catch them unawares. If they crushed them in battle, they would scatter them and make them combat ineffective - especially with all those women and children. But the Night’s Watch is GOOD.

Three hundred against thirty thousand. Chett called that rank madness, and what was madder still was that Ser Mallador had been persuaded, and the two of them together were on the point of persuading the Old Bear. “If we wait too long, this chance may be lost, never to come again,” Smallwood was saying to anyone who would listen. Against that, Ser Ottyn Wythers said, “We are the shield that guards the realms of men. You do not throw away your shield for no good purpose,” but to that Thoren Smallwood said, “In a swordfight, a man’s surest defense is the swift stroke that slays his foe, not cringing behind a shield.”

But Smallwood and Wythers were not in command. LC Mormont was, and he was waiting for more scouting reports. Jarman Buckwell and his dudes who went up the Giant’s Stair, Qhorin Halfhand and Jon Snow who went up the Skirling Pass. Chett smiles, thinking that Jon Snow was dead with a wildling spear up his butt. Maybe his wolf is dead too.

Returning back to the present, Chett says there’s no bear here, just an old print. Hm. Yeah. About that. He yanks the dogs back, laughing as he thinks how he hadn’t fed the dogs for three days so he could turn them loose on the horselines after two of his men cut the tethers of the horseline. There’d be so much confusion that no one would notice fourteen brothers of the Night’s Watch missing. Lark wanted twice as many as that, but he was a stupid fucking Sisterman. Too many people would mean the conspiracy would be found out. Fourteen was the right number.

Small Paul was one of his; the strongest man on the Wall, even if he was slower than a dead snail. He’d once broken a wildling’s back with a hug. They had Dirk as well, named for his favorite weapon, and the little grey man the brothers called Softfoot, who’d raped a hundred women in his youth, and liked to boast how none had never seen nor heard him until he shoved it up inside them.

The plan was Chett’s. He was the clever one; he’d been steward to old Maester Aemon for four good years before that bastard Jon Snow had done him out so his job could be handed to his fat pig of a friend. When he killed Sam Tarly tonight, he planned to whisper, “Give my love to Lord Snow,” right in his ear before he sliced Ser Piggy’s throat open to let the blood come bubbling out through all those layers of suet. Chett knew the ravens, so he wouldn’t have no trouble there, no more than he would with Tarly. One touch of the knife and that craven would piss his pants and start blubbering for his life. Let him beg, it won’t do him no good. After he opened his throat, he’d open the cages and shoo the birds away, so no messages reached the Wall. Softfoot and Small Paul would kill the Old Bear, Dirk would do Blane, and Lark and his cousins would silence Bannen and old Dywen, to keep them from sniffing after their trail. They’d been caching food for a fortnight, and Sweet Donnel and Clubfoot Karl would have the horses ready. With Mormont dead, command would pass to Ser Ottyn Wythers, an old done man, and failing. He’ll be running for the Wall before sundown, and he won’t waste no men sending them after us neither.

The dogs yank Chett as he heads back to the Fist of the First Men. Mormont had ordered torches lit and lined along the ringwall at the top of the hill. They cross an icy-cold brook as Lark explains he and his cousins are heading back to the Sisters. Chett quietly thinks that they’re all going to be beheaded as deserters when they get back, because you can check into the Night’s Watch but you could never check out. Ollo Lophand was going to Tyrosh where he could get away with some honest thievin’. I have some doubts about this. Chett was tempted to join Ollo in Tyrosh. But he didn’t know how to do shit. He was brought up the right way by his dad who used to walk into bogs and come out covered in leeches that he sometimes had Chett pick off him. Then again, Chett had smashed one leech one time and had been beaten bloody for that. The maesters bought twelve leeches for one penny.

But Chett wasn’t interested in going home. He was going to Craster’s Keep where he’d be the lord of that keep. His banner? A dozen leeches on a field of pink. And fair warning, the next part of the chapter is a rough part of the chapter. So listeners beware!

But why stop at lord? Maybe he should be a king. Mance Rayder started out a crow. I could be a king same as him, and have me some wives. Craster had nineteen, not even counting the young ones, the daughters he hadn’t gotten around to bedding yet. Half them wives were as old and ugly as Craster, but that didn’t matter. The old ones Chett could put to work cooking and cleaning for him, pulling carrots and slopping pigs, while the young ones warmed his bed and bore his children. Craster wouldn’t object, not once Small Paul gave him a hug.

The only women Chett had ever known were the whores he’d bought in Mole’s Town. When he’d been younger, the village girls took one look at his face, with its boils and its wen, and turned away sickened. The worst was that slattern Bessa. She’d spread her legs for every boy in Hag’s Mire so he’d figured why not him too? He even spent a morning picking wildflowers when he heard she liked them, but she’d just laughed in his face and told him she’d crawl in a bed with his father’s leeches before she’d crawl in one with him. She stopped laughing when he put his knife in her. That was sweet, the look on her face, so he pulled the knife out and put it in her again.

When they caught him down near Sevenstreams, old Lord Walder Frey hadn’t even bothered to come himself to do the judging. He’d sent one of his bastards, that Walder Rivers, and the next thing Chett had known he was walking to the Wall with that foul-smelling black devil Yoren. To pay for his one sweet moment, they took his whole life.

But now he meant to take it back, and Craster’s women too. That twisted old wildling has the right of it. If you want a woman to wife you take her, and none of this giving her flowers so that maybe she don’t notice your bloody boils. Chett didn’t mean to make that mistake again.

I’m beginning to doubt that Chett is the hero after that flashback.

Chett reassures himself that this is very definitely going to work. Ser Ottyn would head to the Shadow Tower and not stop by Craster’s. And even if Thoren Smallwood wanted to attack, Ottyn was higher ranking. It doesn’t matter anyways. They’re going, and they’re not risking killing Ottyn or Thoren.

“Chett,” said Small Paul as they trudged along a stony game trail through sentinels and soldier pines, “what about the bird?”

“What bloody bird?” The last thing he needed now was some muttonhead going on about a bird. “The Old Bear’s raven,” Small Paul said. “if we kill him, who’s going to feed his bird?”

“Who bloody well cares? Kill the bird too if you like.”

“I don’t want to hurt no bird,” the big man said. “But that’s a talking bird. What if it tells what we did?”

Lark the Sisterman laughed. “Small Paul, thick as a castle wall,” he mocked. “You shut up with that,” said Small Paul dangerously.

Chett reassures Paul that the bird won’t snitch on them especially since Mormont will be dead. Ah, well, in that case can Small Paul hold onto that bird? Chett says yes just to shut Paul up, and Lark puts in that they can eat the bird if needs be to Paul’s disapproval. My doubts continue to heighten about whether Chett or Lark are actually good guys or not. Seems like Martin is maybe hinting at no.

But then they voices as they approach the Fist of the First Men. They come up to the western side of the hill and then walk south to the gentler slope and find Samwell Tarly engaged in archery practice with Grenn and Dolorous Edd. Of course, Chett has choice thoughts about Samwell who he lovingly names “Ser Piggy.” He hates him, because he had an easy job attending Maester Aemon who BTW never hit him. But noooo. Samwell Tarly had to come in and take over just because he could read. Maybe Chett will have Sam read his knife before Chett opens his throat. With that in mind, Chett decides to watch archery practice and sees three of Samwell’s arrows in front of the target before Sam shoots another arrow that goes wide left of the target to Chett’s laughter.

“We’ll never find that one, and I’ll be blamed,” announced Edd Tollett, the dour grey-haired squire everyone called Dolorous Edd. “Nothing ever goes missing that they don’t look at me, ever since that time I lost my horse. As if that could be helped. He was white and it was snowing, what did they expect?”

Grenn tells Sam to hold the bow steady, but Sam complains that the bow is heavy. He shoots another arrow, and it goes ten feet over the target.

“I believe you knocked a leaf off that tree,” said Dolorous Edd. “Fall is falling fast enough, there’s no need to help it.” He sighed. “And we all know what follows fall. Gods, but I am cold. Shoot the last arrow, Samwell, I believe my tongue is freezing to the roof of my mouth.”

Chett thinks Sam is about to cry, but Grenn encourages Sam to try again. This time, Sam gets his final arrow, pulls without squinting and wham, the arrow hits the target. Ecstatic, Sam says that he hit the target. Grenn says that he hit the target in the ribs, and Edd says he might have gotten a lung, if trees had lungs. But good shot all the same. But according to Chett, Sam only hit a tree. He tells Samwell that when Mance comes, it’s going to be different when the wildlings are running at him. Samwell will probably piss himself.

The fat boy was shaking. Dolorous Edd put a hand on his shoulder. “Brother,” he said solemnly, “just because it happened that way for you doesn’t mean Samwell will suffer the same.”

“What are you talking about, Tollett?”

“The axe that split your skull. Is it true that half your wits leaked out on the ground and your dogs ate them?”

Grenn bursts into laughter, and Samwell smiles. Chett kicks a dog, yanks on the leash and starts up the hill, darkly thinking that Samwell won’t laugh tonight. If only he had time to kill Edd too.

Chett climbs the steep hill as the dogs bark and pull at him. He kicks them again and whips the ugly one. Chett reaches Mormont’s big black tent and tells the LC that they only found tracks but no bear. Mormont thinks that’s too bad as they could have used the fresh meat as Bloodraven, er, Mormont’s raven cries out “meat, meat, meat.” No foreshadowing. Chett thinks they could cook the dogs, but he stays silent. He bows to Mormont as he exits the tent, thinking this is the last time he’ll ever have to bow to him.

As he departs, he thinks it’s growing even colder outside. The dogs huddle together in the frozen mud, and Chett wonders if he should go huddle with them. Instead, he decides to keep moving to keep warm. He tours the camp, asking around to see what’s on the minds of the men. What’s on their minds is how cold it is.

The cold winds rise as it grows dark out which coupled with it growing colder means nothing, of course. Chett makes his way over to a guy named Little Giant who says the high officers are talking fiercely in Mormont’s tent. Chett comments that’s just what the highborn do. Talk.

Lark sidled closer. “Cheese-for-wits keeps going on about the bird,” he warned, glancing about to make certain no one was close. “Now he’s asking if we cached any seed for the damn thing.” “It’s a raven,” said Chett. “It eats corpses.”

Lark grinned. “His, might be?”

Or yours. It seemed to Chett that they needed the big man more than they needed Lark. “Stop fretting about Small Paul. You do your part, he’ll do his.”

It was twilight when Chett gets some alone time to hone his sword. No, that’s not a masturbation reference … I think. He doesn’t take his gloves off to sharpen his blade, because it was way too cold, and he didn’t want to lose any skin. The dogs whimper when the sun goes down which, of course, means nothing. He gives the dogs some water and promises they’ll get to feast soon. Speaking of which, Chett smells dinner and heads over to get a bowl of bean and bacon soup. There, he hears Dywen going on about how the woods are too quiet and how there is no wildlife about … which means nothing, of course. Chett thinks all the animals went someplace warm while looking at four of his men at the campfire, wondering if they were still in on the conspiracy. Two of them (Dirk and Sweet Donnel Hill) seemed good, but Sawwood and Maslyn seemed jumpy. He’d have to keep his eyes on them.

“Assemble!” The shout came suddenly, from a dozen throats, and quickly spread to every part of the hilltop camp. “Men of the Night’s Watch! Assemble at the central fire!”

Chett frowns, finishes his soup and joins the group at the hilltop fire. LC Mormont stands there in front of the fire, spits with his saliva freezing before it hits the ground.

“Brothers,” he said, “men of the Night’s Watch.”

“Men!” his raven screamed. “Men! Men!”

“The wildlings are on the march, following the course of the Milkwater down out of the mountains. Thoren believes their van will be upon us ten days hence. Their most seasoned raiders will be with Harma Dogshead in that van. The rest will likely form a rearguard, or ride in close company with Mance Rayder himself. Elsewhere their fighters will be spread thin along the line of march. They have oxen, mules, horses... but few enough. Most will be afoot, and ill-armed and untrained. Such weapons as they carry are more like to be stone and bone than steel. They are burdened with women, children, herds of sheep and goats, and all their worldly goods besides. In short, though they are numerous, they are vulnerable... and they do not know that we are here. Or so we must pray.”

Chett thinks the wildlings know damn well that they’re here, noting that Qhorin and Jarman Buckwell haven’t returned yet. The LC continues.

“Mance Rayder means to break the Wall and bring red war to the Seven Kingdoms. Well, that’s a game two can play. On the morrow we’ll bring the war to him.”

“We ride at dawn with all our strength,” the Old Bear said as a murmur went through the assembly. “We will ride north, and loop around to the west. Harma’s van will be well past the Fist by the time we turn. The foothills of the Frostfangs are full of narrow winding valleys made for ambush. Their line of march will stretch for many miles. We shall fall on them in several places at once, and make them swear we were three thousand, not three hundred.”

“We’ll hit hard and be away before their horsemen can form up to face us,” Thoren Smallwood said. “If they pursue, we’ll lead them a merry chase, then wheel and hit again farther down the column. We’ll burn their wagons, scatter their herds, and slay as many as we can. Mance Rayder himself, if we find him. If they break and return to their hovels, we’ve won. If not, we’ll harry them all the way to the Wall, and see to it that they leave a trail of corpses to mark their progress.”

One Night’s Watchmen says there are thousands of wildlings. Maslyn says they’re going to die. Bloodraven agrees, screaming “die, die, die”. And LC Mormont says many of them will die. Maybe all of them. But that’s why they’re in black.

“For we are the swords in the darkness, the watchers on the walls...”

“The fire that burns against the cold.” Ser Mallador Locke drew his longsword.

“The light that brings the dawn,” others answered, and more swords were pulled from scabbards.

Then all of them were drawing, and it was near three hundred upraised swords and as many voices crying, “The horn that wakes the sleepers! The shield that guards the realms of men!” Chett had no choice but to join his voice to the others. The air was misty with their breath, and firelight glinted off the steel. He was pleased to see Lark and Softfoot and Sweet Donnel Hill joining in, as if they were as big fools as the rest. That was good. No sense to draw attention, when their hour was so close.

The shouting finally dies down, and the wind picks up at the ringwall as the flames swirl, almost like they were cold. Bloodraven, practically screaming at this point, calls out “die” one final time. Chett thinks the bird is clever as everyone gets dismissed.

Heading back to his dogs and furs, Chett mentally goes over if anything can go wrong with this plan. He ends up listening to the wailing wind, thinking it sounds like a child. But otherwise, it was extremely quiet.

He could see Bessa’s face floating before him. It wasn’t the knife I wanted to put in you, he wanted to tell her. I picked you flowers, wild roses and tansy and goldencups, it took me all morning. His heart was thumping like a drum, so loud he feared it might wake the camp. Ice caked his beard all around his mouth. Where did that come from, with Bessa? Whenever he’d thought of her before, it had only been to remember the way she’d looked, dying. What was wrong with him? He could hardly breathe. Had he gone to sleep? He got to his knees, and something wet and cold touched his nose. Chett looked up.

Snow was falling.

Chett cries, feeling tears freezing on his cheeks. He rages that it isn’t fair as the snow ruined everything, allowing everyone to see the tracks he and his co-conspirators would leave. They’d be tracked down and killed, and their horses would stumble and break a leg.

We’re done, he realized. Done before we began. We’re lost. There’d be no lord’s life for the leechman’s son, no keep to call his own, no wives nor crowns. Only a wildling’s sword in his belly, and then an unmarked grave. The snow’s taken it all from me... the bloody snow...

Snow had ruined him once before. Snow and his pet pig.

Chett gets stiffly to his feet, brushing off snowflakes he compares to pale cold bugs. He decides he's still going after Samwell.

Chett gets lost among the tents, but he finally finds the tent where Samwell is staying. He sees the lean-to is covered by snow, and he approaches, dagger in hand. One of Sam’s ravens says “Snow”, and another joins him. All Chett had to do was put his hand over Sam’s mouth to muffle his cries, and then ...

Uuuuuuuhoooooooooo.

He stopped midstep, swallowing his curse as the sound of the horn shuddered through the camp, faint and far, yet unmistakable. Not now Gods be damned, not NOW! The Old Bear had hidden far-eyes in a ring of trees around the Fist, to give warning of any approach. Jarman Buckwell’s back from the Giant’s Stair, Chett figured, or Qhorin Halfhand from the Skirling Pass. A single blast of the horn meant brothers returning. If it was the Halfhand, Jon Snow might be with him, alive.

Samwell Tarly sits up, staring into the snow. The ravens caw, and Chett hears his dogs barking. Half the camp is up. Chett clutches his dagger hard, hoping the sound goes away, but then ...

Uuuuuuuuuuuuhooooooooooooooo.

Sam asks if there were two horn blasts. He gets out of his tent and sees Chett standing there. Did Sam dream of two horn blasts? No. It was two blasts for foes approaching. The wildlings are coming, but Chett’s a big strong man. He doesn’t care about Bloody Harma, Mance Rayder. Thoren had told him the wildlings would be here soon, and ...

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

The sound went on and on and on, until it seemed it would never die. The ravens were flapping and screaming, flying about their cages and banging off the bars, and all about the camp the brothers of the Night’s Watch were rising, donning their armor, buckling on swordbelts, reaching for battleaxes and bows. Samwell Tarly stood shaking, his face the same color as the snow that swirled down all around them. “Three,” he squeaked to Chett, “that was three, I heard three. They never blow three. Not for hundreds and thousands of years. Three means -”

“- Others.” Chett made a sound that was half a laugh and half a sob, and suddenly his smallclothes were wet, and he could feel the piss running down his leg, see steam rising off the front of his breeches.

And that is the synopsis of the ASOS Prologue. This chapter has it all, man. A POV character, letters, words, sentences even. No, I’m kidding. This chapter is great. You can see all of that rising tension finally boil over, and I loved how it kicks A Storm of Swords off with a bang. What did you think, ser?

Depth

The Prologue sets the pattern for ASOS. It’s a Rube Goldberg device, a game of Mousetrap with so many moving parts that snap together with precision. There are “wheels within wheels within wheels.” Everyone has a plan, and they all contradict each other, so only one plan can work (at most). You’ve got our POV Chett’s mutiny bumping up against LC Mormont’s strategy, which is set against Mance’s strategy, and then the Army of the Dead shows up to make it all moot. It’s an exhilarating start to the book, especially with how it ends. You have no choice but to keep reading ASOS after this.

You said it. You can’t help but keep reading ASOIAF after this point. Chett. What to say about Chett? We’ll have plenty of words to throw at Chett as we go through this chapter, but yeah. Chett. What a goof. What I like to think about regarding Chett is how he’s a character that comes onto the page out of nowhere. Sure, the careful reader might remember Chett as appearing on-page in Game and Clash, but absolutely no reader thought he’d be the POV character. So, why did George have this wild and crazy guy be the POV? Probably because he was unexpected. But also because Chett gives us a POV of someone on the outside. Chett is a Night’s Watchmen, exiled to the Wall for the crime of murder. He’s locationally outside of civilization far north of the Wall. And to make matters worse, Chett is outside of the in-group in the Night’s Watch. He’s a total outsider. But he’s not Luke Skywalker, giving the reader a vantage point of a brand new world. Rather, George uses Chett as a new set of eyes looking on a familiar circumstance. And the viewpoint Chett brings is … something. We’ll get into all of that.

• A broad overview of ASOS
  • Meta
    • ASOS was NotABook that GRRM planned to write for ASOIAF. As we’ve covered previously.
    • The original plan was for ASOIAF to be a trilogy: A Game of Thrones, A Dance with Dragons and The Winds of Winter.
    • Of course, what ended up happening has been talked about ad-nauseum at this point. But I wanted to talk a little about why this book remains, despite our best efforts, the most popular book in ASOIAF.
    • In terms of structure, ASOS comprises the final third of GRRM’s original conception of A Game of Thrones.
    • The “rule of three” is something that George likes a lot with his plots, his character arcs and his reveals.
    • It’s also something GRRM does with his plot structure. ASOS is the third act of … the first act.
    • This is a major reason why ASOS is the most popular book of the series: all of the dominoes that GRRM set up in AGOT/ACOK fall here: Red and Purple Weddings, Jon becoming LC of the NW, Dany becoming a queen unto herself, the reveals about who sent Bran’s catspaw and who murdered Jon Arryn etc.
    • This is a plot-resolution-intensive book, and the love for this book flows from that fact.
    • For that matter, George RR Martin, himself, was inspired by all the plot-resolution and wrote it like a maniac. He recently stated that he was writing 150 MS pages/month when he was writing ASOS.
    • Though there was some material cut from ACOK to ASOS (~250 MS pages), ASOS came in at 1521 MS pages in total with the vast majority of it being written between November 1998 and April 2000 (when he finished the book).
    • GRRM has stated that his process has been to write non-sequentially; so, in this case, the final thing he wrote for ASOS was the Red Wedding.
    • In all, ASOS was a triumph of writing. GRRM really loved this book. I do too, of course. It’s not ADWD (see our very first patreon episode on why ADWD > ASOS), but the book provides many moments that remain in the cultural zeitgeist twenty-plus years after it was published.
  • I said most of what I have to say about ASOS already. I compared ACOK to Godfather II; ASOS is like if you took the climax of the first Godfather and played it on repeat. It’s GRRM’s Greek/Shakespearian tragedy: his Oedipus, his Othello, his Things Fall Apart. It’s all about catharsis
• Structural shit
  • Like I said, this chapter is a ruthless machine. It’s less memorable in terms of style than the previous Prologues; I do miss the hellish color palette of Dragonstone, and the wild imagery of Will’s Prologue in book one
  • But Chett’s Prologue is all about the gut punch at the end, and everything else is reverse-engineered to support that
  • So it has to work differently from Will’s Prologue beyond the wall, where the atmosphere clued us in to what was about to happen:
    • Until tonight. Something was different tonight. There was an edge to this darkness that made his hackles rise … All day, Will had felt as though something were watching him, something cold and implacable that loved him not.
  • Chett’s Prologue only works if like him, we have no idea what’s about to happen. George still sprinkles in clues, but on first read, we miss them
  • On reread, the opening image of the bear print the dogs refuse to track is a giveaway. They’re not tracking it because it was left by a goddamn zombie bear who’s about to attack!
  • We already know the undead are up here, and we already know that animals don’t like them. So how does George keep us from realizing?
  • He sets things up with one hand, while the other distracts the audience. Misdirection is his favorite game!
  • George gives us more obvious clues (cold rising, local animals suddenly going silent), but by then, we’re already locked in to the unfolding narrative of Chett’s mutiny; we think that’s what the chapter is about
  • Moreover, Chett himself is focused on escaping Mance, not the white walkers; Jon’s chapters in ACOK were also more focused on the wildlings
  • The mutiny and the wildling attack aren’t just red herrings, though. They pay off in unexpected ways. We will see a NW mutiny...at Craster’s Keep, after Chett is already dead. We will see the wildlings attack the Watch...but it’s those left behind at Castle Black, after most of the men on the Great Ranging are dead
  • So George sets up these threads, then shoves them aside, then brings them back when we’d almost forgotten about them. Brilliant structure!
  • In a weird way, this chapter reminds me of ADWD, Jon XIII: the Jon gets assassinated chapter.
  • There’s a growing sense of dread built into both chapters, and we think that it’s the lack of a fruitful hunt/Queen Selyse’s decree to “Let them die”
  • Then wait, nope, the growing dread is couched in the fact that Ghost is going crazy because of … Borroq’s boar, or all the dogs whimpering in this chapter.
  • Then there’s tense meetings with the conspirators: Chett and his crew. Jon and the NW conspirators.
  • But wait! It’s all interrupted by a wrench in the plan: the Pink Letter and the snow that falls.
  • Then plans are further interrupted by Mormont’s declaration that they ride for Mance Rayder or Jon’s speech that he’s riding for Ramsay at the Shieldhall.
  • All plans are thrown into chaos, and our heroes, (well, I guess Jon’s a hero) have to change their plans.
  • But Jon and Chett resolve to carry out one part of their plan: kill Samwell and kill Ramsay.
  • But oh no. Things are thrown into chaos yet again. Wun-Wun kills Ser Patrek. A horn blows and blows again at the Fist.
  • But nope. That’s not it. For the Watch and the horn blows a third time.
  • GRRM does a great job of ratcheting tension up, distracting us yet playing fair at the same time.
  • The twist that GRRM pulls off in both chapters is one where he’s playing fair with readers -- but you’d have to re-read to see all the clues building up to that twist.
• Chett’s plan and crew
  • Most of this chapter is focused on Chett’s mutiny, the who what where when and why of it
  • Starting with the who: as Chett’s Prologue begins, he’s failing at hunting alongside Small Paul and Lark the Sisterman
  • Paul alerts the reader to the conspiracy by asking why they have to kill LC Mormont. Why can’t they just run off and leave each other be?
  • It’s the difference between desertion and murder. While you’ll get executed for both in Westeros, the distinction still matters in terms of one’s humanity
  • Paul just wants to survive. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone. His kindness towards animals (and helpless people, as we’ll see with Sam) stands in contrast to Lark, a nasty piece of work who’s always trying to make Chett’s plan bigger and bloodier than it already is. He wants to bring more people and also kill more people, including Paul himself
  • So they’re the angel and the devil. Chett thinks of himself as more rational and practical than Lark; he is, but Lark reflects Chett’s own bitter thirst for blood back at him. Paul is a reminder that not everyone chooses violence
  • Lark isn’t the most interesting of villains in ASOIAF: bloodthirsty and not terribly bright, but Small Paul is someone I like a fair bit.
  • He reminds me of Lennie from Of Mice and Men: a gentle giant who probably has some mental disabilities.
  • And like Lennie, Small Paul can use his hands to kill. Chett tells us that Small Paul will “hug” Mormont and Craster to death.
  • As odious of a person as Chett is, I find this really terrible!
  • Chett wants Small Paul to take an act of intimacy, friendship, love and twist it into murder.
  • All the while, Chett manipulates Small Paul into killing Mormont by telling him that Mormont will pursue them.
  • At no point do we get any indication that Small Paul is bought into the conspiracy to flee the Fist of the First Men.
  • The subtext seems to be that Chett and Lark left out the reason why Mormont might pursue them.
  • So why is Paul with them at all? Lark answers his question about killing Mormont, which also conveniently explains things to us
  • They have to kill Mormont or he’ll track them down after they escape, and they have to escape because the wildlings are coming
  • This is a thread dangling from the end of Jon’s chapters, when Ygritte said Mance was marching down the Milkwater on the Wall
  • Unlike the Halfhand, Thoren Smallwood made it back from his scouting mission alive. His men saw the wildlings on the move
  • What they saw is complicated. On one hand, there’s the clear military threat: it’s rare to see a dozen mounted wildlings, and Harma has five hundred! Not only have their numbers swelled under Mance, but they’re starting to fight differently
  • On the other hand, the majority of his followers are non-combatants, and they’ve brought pretty much everything they own with them
  • As Jon said, it’s a whole people come together. This sets up the struggle over integrating the wildlings: are they organized raiders or refugees?
  • It’s telling how the Watch reacts. Chett sees only the military threat, and thinks it’s time to fall back on the Wall. Thoren, meanwhile, sees the civilian presence as a sign of weakness; he wants the Watch to attack
  • Thoren doesn’t hide his contempt for wildlings, calling them a “shambling horde” of “useless mouths” who need to be sent “howling back to their hovels.” No humanity in it, ironic given the inhuman force on its way
  • Neither Thoren nor Chett ever stops to ask why the wildlings are fleeing their homes en masse; if they did, they might have been less blindsided by the Army of the Dead. This is the status quo Jon has to improve on as LC
  • Absolutely. It’s incredibly telling that not a single person in the Watch thinks “Maybe we should reach out to see why they’re coming here.”
  • For that matter, no one thinks maybe they should consider peace with the wildlings before going to war with them.
  • This is one of those facets of Night’s Watch culture where the wildlings have been enemies for thousands of years, and they can’t get past their own institutional biases.
  • Of course, there have been Kings-Beyond-the-Wall before Mance Rayder, and I think that institutional and historical knowledge is guiding the ideology of the Night’s Watch leadership.
  • At the same time, this is one of those places where gallantry (if you want to call it that) is outweighing practical sense.
  • The Night’s Watch has three hundred brothers north of the Wall, and the wildling vanguard - that is the forward line of wildling cavalry screening the movement of the wildlings to the Wall - outnumbers them.
  • That’s to say nothing of the rest of the armed men behind the vanguard -- which we know number in the tens of thousands.
  • We’ll talk more about the military situation of it all, but to focus on the political: this would call a wiser party to seek some sort of political compromise, negotiation, peace.
  • The problem is that the Night’s Watch doesn’t know at this point that Mance Rayder isn’t seeking to come south to conquer the Seven Kingdoms -- at least, that’s not the reason why they’re coming south.
  • As re-readers, we know this, but LC Mormont does not. He views these wildlings as an existential threat come to annihilate the Watch and invade the North.
  • Now, I don’t think this whole thing boils down to mere miscommunication. There’s thousands of years of history, there’s the personal experience of these officers.
  • But as you were saying, it’ll take someone living among the wildlings, learning why they’re running south and someone who is willing to understand them as “what are the wildlings if not people too?”
  • In a way, this prologue not only sets up the threat of the Others; it sets up the necessity for Jon to be among the wildlings, eat with them, fight with them to create his arc in ADWD.
  • Thoren is beginning to persuade other officers to attack. Chett believes this to be “rank madness,” and so began planning his mutiny
  • George takes us through the logistics. They’re going to kill not only Mormont but Blane from the Shadow Tower so that command passes to Ottyn Wythers, an “old done man” who wants to fall back on the Wall
  • He probably won’t try to track down the mutineers, and even if he wanted to, they’re going to kill the trackers Bannen and Dwyen to prevent that
  • Chett recruited fourteen men: enough to do what needs to be done, but not so many as to risk giving it away. He starved the dogs to later set them loose among the horses to cover for their escape. They’ve prepared food caches and plan to follow a game trail east
  • Overall, pretty solid plan...if George had allowed them to get away with it! On reread, it’s so appropriate that the chapter starts with Chett failing to track and kill a bear. He’s planning on killing the Old Bear, and fails
  • But in a chapter all about plans that go awry when the Others come, how long would Chett live when the Others came to Craster’s Keep?
  • The show had a version of the mutineers continuing the practice of sacrificing male children to the Others.
  • Is that what Chett would do? Absolutely.
  • Chett wants to be the new Craster: a lord of his own keep of slaves that will birth his children and do all the manual work.
  • And he’ll sacrifice his own children to remain a lord of his own keep.
  • There is a Stannis/Shireen parallel there. A fair number of folks think Stannis will sacrifice Shireen to save the world, one child against a million and such.
  • But I think that’s buying into Stannis’ bullshit a bit too much. As we’ll discuss in Davos’ chapters in ASOS, Stannis’ motivation to sacrifice one to save a million rests upon the foundation and is in service of Stannis atop the Iron Throne.
  • That said, Chett doesn’t have the “save the world” veneer for his thirst for power, and that’s all wrapped up in his backstory.
• Chett’s personal motivations and backstory
  • So much for Chett’s mutiny, but what about Chett? He’s pure alienation. He hates absolutely everyone, himself included, and has never encountered anything worth believing in
  • His POV is like a flashlight shining on a rotting foundation. He’s taken nothing but shit, and was made in its image
  • The dominant tones of Chett’s POV are resentment and rage. My shoulders hunch reading this stuff. It’s incredibly effective: George uses alliteration and repeated words to trap us in Chett’s dull throbbing anger
  • His inner monologue is an endless narrative of all the injustices done to him. He doesn’t really differentiate between them; it’s all one
  • As such, while Chett hates the highborns who sent him to the Wall and gets drunk on words instead of wine, he takes his anger out on those who can’t fight back, starting with his poor dogs. At heart, Chett’s a bully
  • He’s got nothing but contempt for Small Paul thanks to his disability, and harbors prejudices for other cultures, even among his allies--Lark is a “fishbreath” Sisterman, they speak a “wet girly tongue” in Tyrosh
  • Then there’s his lethal hatred of Sam, which George uses as a threat throughout the chapter, this rising dread that Chett will kill Sam
  • Right from the start of the chapter, Chett’s reminding us of the one thing we know him for: being the guy Jon muscled aside to make room for Sam
  • But Chett doesn’t just resent Sam for taking his post as a highborn. Chett loathes Sam in the same way Randyll did: for being fat, weak, not manly
  • Randyll said he would enjoy hunting Sam down and ripping his heart out; Chett imagines slitting Sam’s throat with glee
  • Randyll may believe he needs a more martial heir, and Chett may justify killing Sam because of his faculty with the message birds, but in both cases, they’re motivated by a disgust for difference and a thirst for blood
  • The bitter joke of Chett is that he’s adopted the worldview of the elites he hates so much. The legitimacy of his grievances withers when you learn what he actually wants out of life and what he’s been willing to do to get it
  • As he says, he’s the clever one. He worked out all the logistics, and he keeps peace among the conspirators. There’s another kind of implied joke here in that Chett’s skills could actually make him very useful!
  • What happens after the master plan, though? Lark wants to go home to the Sisters; Chett knows they’ll be executed for deserters south of the Wall
  • That leaves Essos as an option, sailing to Tyrosh with Ollo Lophand, but Chett doesn’t know their language, and anyway, he doesn’t have a trade
  • This is where we learn more about Chett’s life before the Night’s Watch. It’s a view of Westeros from the bottom. Chett’s dad wasn’t just poor--his only source of income was selling leeches to maesters
  • It’s hard to imagine a more blunt symbol than someone putting food on the table only by allowing leeches to suck his blood
  • Chett was taught scarcity and brutality: when he burst a leech once by accident, his father beat him bloody
  • There was no land to work, no skills to attain, no way to cozy up to anyone powerful. It was a bleak existence, fitting the tone of this chapter
  • Chett has had nothing but bad options in his life...yet has still managed to make things worse, always picking the worst option available
  • Throughout the chapter, he keeps thinking of the boils covering his face red with his anger; he tells us it’s always turned women off
  • Chett picked flowers for the most promiscuous girl in town, and when she still rejected him, he killed her. It was sweet, he thinks, just like how he looks forward to killing Sam
  • It was for this crime that Chett was sent to the Wall. It’s a twisted echo of chivalric values: Chett wooed his lady, but then murdered her, and has joined a warrior order not willingly out of devotion, but unwillingly as punishment. So much for the stories and songs, Chett thinks
  • So what’s his model? Where’s he going to go? Craster’s Keep. That’s how Chett thinks it ought to work: one man outside the power structure, ruling with an iron fist over as many women as possible. He’ll take over there
  • Sam, too, thinks of himself as ugly and unloveable. But he sympathizes with the powerless because of it--that’s how he reacted to Craster’s Keep
  • This is what I mean when I say Chett was made in the image of the elites he hates so much. There’s the hilarious bit where Chett is affronted that Lord Walder Frey didn’t come to judge him personally
  • First of all, Walder was probably too old even then to go traveling! But the point is that Chett’s just not important enough to the power structure to merit Walder’s presence, and he knows it, and he hates it
  • But as I said back in ACOK, Walder himself is a lot like Craster, Chett’s role model. So he wants to be like the people he blames for everything
  • That dynamic is unfortunately true to life as well as fiction, in the modern day as well as ye olde medieval times
  • Chett’s been made to lick the boot, and now he wants to wear it. He’s at the bottom of the class structure, so the only power he can possess is in terms of gender: power over women
  • It really is power that turns Chett on, not sex itself. He says he’s slept with sex workers in Mole’s Town, but we never hear any details
  • He thinks it wasn’t the knife he wanted to stick in Bessa, but he certainly seems to have gotten off on it: a deadly penis substitute
  • He longs for power so badly that he thinks of Craster’s Keep as merely a good start. Why not be a king in his own right?
  • If his murder of Bessa was an inversion of romantic songs and stories, Chett’s ambition for a crown parodies all the actual kings and queens
  • This is what the rise to power looks like, stripped of all pretense of justice or romance, reduced to the petty delusions of someone who just loves the idea of control, having never possessed it but for one violent moment
  • There’s something pathetic in Chett. You never sympathize with him, but there’s pity there.
  • Like you said, sex for him is not about the act itself, the intimacy, etc. It’s about power.
  • Chett has seen the world as a power dynamic: the strong control the weak. If he has the power, he can do whatever he wants.
  • You talked about the echo of Walder Frey found in Chett, and I think that’s such a great point.
  • Walder Frey is very old, ugly and yet because he’s the Lord of the Crossing, he creepily and evily has a sixteen year old wife.
  • Remember how Walder described his wife to Catelyn back in AGOT:
    • "Save your sweet words, my lady. Sweet words I get from my wife. Did you see her? Sixteen she is, a little flower, and her honey's only for me. I wager she gives me a son by this time next year. Perhaps I'll make him heir, wouldn't that boil the rest of them?"
  • That’s the type of power that Chett desires: the power to have sex with underage girls despite having boils and being ugly because sex is power to him. He’s learned from the very worst nobles in Westeros.
  • Ultimately, that’s what’s driving him to aim his rage at Craster’s Keep. He wants to rule just like Craster, like Walder Frey with a bevy of women as chattel slaves.
• Among the men
  • When the conspirators return to the Fist, they find some of their brothers practicing archery, among them Samwell Tarly
  • Again we see how Chett’s mind works. He thinks about how he loved working for Aemon because Aemon never beat him
  • That’s a reminder of the world that shaped Chett: in which the best case scenario for him was just not getting hit
  • And yet what he learned was...how to hit! The other Night’s Watchmen are encouraging Sam: Grenn and Dolorous Edd show him how to hold the bow and make him keep going when he complains
  • They’re picking up where Jon left off. It’s especially moving in Grenn’s case because we know that he started off as Jon’s enemy
  • Grenn certainly hasn’t had an easy life, and while Dolorous Edd is highborn, he seems to have seen his share of awful shit
  • Yet here they are cheering Sam on, and here Chett is, going out of his way to mock Sam and tell him he’ll be dead meat when the wildlings arrive
  • The contrast highlights how Chett is choosing to not only rebel against his own circumstances, but make them worse for others. He’s got nothing but contempt for their friendships, because he doesn’t believe in community
  • As Chett moves among the men, he’s subtly checking in on his fellow conspirators. Any sign of guilt or fear, anything that hints at human frailty, Chett sees as a potential weakness, someone he might have to kill
  • The brotherhood of the Night’s Watch is falling apart into the dog-eat-dog logic of Westeros (and reality) as a whole
  • Exactly, and I hate (actually, I don’t) to keep bringing up how Chett serves as a microcosm to the larger political picture of Westeros, but that’s present here.
  • Later in this book, Tywin will callously couch his decision not to send any aid to the Night’s Watch in this manner:
    • ". . . the wildlings will flood the north," his father finished, "and the Starks and Greyjoys will have another enemy to contend with. They no longer wish to be subject to the Iron Throne, it would seem, so by what right do they look to the Iron Throne for aid? King Robb and King Balon both claim the north. Let them defend it, if they can. And if not, this Mance Rayder might even prove a useful ally."
  • Like Chett, Tywin views life through the prism of the weak and strong with no concept of community of the greater whole.
  • And if we use the Thrones Show as a guide to how things will play out in the books - dangerous I know - Chett serves as the potential Cersei-like figure who is only looking to gain advantage over her enemies by not aiding the North when the White Walkers invaded.
  • You’ve been talking so well about how the feudal structure trickles down to the lowest echelons of society, and I think Chett embodies this dynamic so well with his interactions with Samwell.
  • But just as there are many highborn (Tywin, Walder, Randyll) who divide the world into the weak and the strong, there are some with a more morally noble perspective -- even if it’s not quite what I’d call wisdom.
  • LC Mormont tries to stand against the tide. He calls the Night’s Watch together to tell them that he’s agreed to attack the wildlings
  • We’ll talk more about the specifics of his plan later. In the moment, George constructs a dialogue between Mormont and the mutineers
  • The LC puts on a brave face, saying that their advantage over the wildlings is in the element of surprise. In the privacy of his thoughts, Chett shoots back that two scouting parties haven’t returned
  • We don’t know for sure what the wildlings have found out; Chett’s point is pretty sound, and feeds into the fear spreading among the rest
    • “There are thousands … we’ll die.”
  • Mormont, to his credit, doesn’t pretend otherwise. We might all die. That’s why they dress us in black: built-in funeral shrouds
  • He calls upon them all to raise their swords and repeat their words. It’s an ironic moment on multiple levels. We know that some of the brothers are faking it. Even those who are sincere are about to face a battle they never expected. Yet as Chett thinks, maybe the words are enough to convince
  • How do we hold ourselves together in these moments? What do we cling to? As Chett sleeps, going over his master plan again and again, Bessa’s face rises up before his eyes. Part of him whispers to her more tenderly than he ever did in life, thinking of the hope with which he picked flowers
  • The point isn’t that this redeems Chett for all he’s done; the point is that he can only feel this way in his subconscious. When he wakes up, he wondered where that came from, why his heart is pounding like that
  • Usually, he only thinks of how sweet it was to kill her! He buries his more mournful self down deep to avoid facing the horror of what he did to her
  • But Chett’s not going to be able to keep the unquiet dead at bay forever. They are quite literally on their way…
  • There’s a shred of humanity in Chett that we don’t see with Walder and Craster. Or perhaps we can’t see due to them not having POV status.
  • It’s interesting, because George writes so many complex, fascinating, “gray” characters in ASOIAF.
  • Chett is not one such gray, fascinating complex character. He’s focused solely on his grievances.
  • And his grievances are his identity. His plans and actions flow from his grievances and alienation.
  • But even if Chett ain’t the model ASOIAF character, there’s value in his perspective.
  • Some people are not terribly complex in the real world. Sometimes their motivations are fueled by grievance and their aims are simply evil.
  • And what Chett is planning is evil, but fate fucks with the innocent and guilty alike.
  • When Craster sees the faces float up at him, it rings through emotionally for Chett. He feels fucking guilty over his murder, even if he tries to rationalize that Bessa had it coming for laughing at him.
  • Chett’s an evil man, but I’m not sure he’s a psychopath. He feels a deep guilt over the things he’s done.
  • Of course, that he feels guilty doesn’t exonerate him. Moreover, he justifies his murder and sexism right after. So, not great, bob!
• The final curtain (of snow)
  • What everyone remembers about this Prologue is how it ends. Chett is woken up by falling snow. In retrospect, it’s the clearest sign yet that the “cold gods” are on their way. But snow is also a mundane weather condition, which is how it registers to Chett: it’s going to make them easy to track, and make it harder for them to find and ride their game trail
  • For Chett, it’s just more evidence that the deck is stacked against him: no crown for the leechman’s son. The snow took it all...like Jon Snow did!
  • Chett immediately redirects his despair into anger, because anger is what he knows. It’s what makes him feel like he can take control of his life
  • So with his master plan in ruins, Chett is determined to at least kill Sam.

That’s what he cares about most: his revenge power fantasy scenario

• He no longer cares about the consequences--probably execution on the spot. As far as he’s concerned, he’s a dead man walking
• And he’s right, of course, he just doesn’t know why! The horns start blowing, and this is really where the structure shines: with every new piece of information, our understanding of what’s happening changes
• It’s like a master class in the Rule of Three, George showing us exactly how to lead your audience to a satisfying conclusion
• When the horns first blow, we sigh with relief. Chett’s been interrupted before he can kill Sam, and as he tells us, one horn means brothers returning. Chett’s worried that Jon might be back. We know better, but Chett also thinks of Jarman Buckwell, the third scout leader. Maybe it’s him, we think--George has his bases covered
• Then the horns blow again. Our relief fades, replaced by suspense for an upcoming battle. Two blasts means enemies, Chett says; it means wildlings. To him, they’re one and the same
• But there are enemies older and fouler than our fellow man beyond the Wall. The Night’s Watch remembers that on a subconscious level, like the rest of Westeros with their stories of the Long Night
• That’s why Gared wanted a fire in the first Prologue. That’s why some random Watchmen wanted to burn the bodies they found in book one. And that’s why they have a third horn blast ready to go
• I love that right before shit hits the fan, Chett realizes something is off: according to Thoren, the wildlings shouldn’t be on them yet
• Then that horn sounds, and all the built-up tension of the chapter explodes. It’s even more impressive on reread, because you can appreciate the exquisite setup and payoff of it all
• The cold wind like a crying baby, the animals flinching and fleeing, the snow itself--the monster was there in the margins all along, but we didn’t see it any more than Chett anticipated that third horn blast
• Why would he? As Sam says, they haven’t heard it for thousands of years! Only the reader has seen the white walkers at work, back in book one
• We’ve been waiting ever since to see them again. As the game of thrones has unfolded, we’ve known the Others are coming for them all
• It’s the satisfaction of watching George’s plan come together...coupled with the dread of watching everything else come apart
• We’ve gone from relief at the first horn blast to suspense at the second to terror at the third; Chett called Sam a coward, but now he pisses his pants
• It’s so visceral. You feel it physically, you feel that fear. You feel it tingling in the small of your back before scorching up your spine; you hear a scream rise in your ears before being cut off in an instant. This is the kind of moment I read horror for: when the mechanics of tension and release make me feel like I left my body
• It’s so effective in part because of all the misdirection. Not only did that preserve the shock until this moment, but now we have a sense of how everything pales in context with the Army of the Dead
• Chett’s mutiny, Mormont’s strategy, the wildlings on the march--it’s like the bottom just fell out from all of it, and we’re watching it sink into the void
• This is how George makes you feel throughout ASOS. The people change, the places change, but this sickening exhilaration is a constant
• It’s what people love about ASOS, and I can’t wait to experience it all over again with you and everyone listening!
• Amen, brother!
• A lot of folks don’t particularly enjoy Chett’s POV, and I sympathize with those readers.
• Martin does not try to make Chett relatable in the same way that he does with Will and Cressen before him.
• I think that’s part of the point here: bad things are happening to a bad person.
• And yet they are also happening to good people too -- like Samwell Tarly and Jon’s friends.
• That’s the subtle brilliance of this prologue: it's a microcosm of what the Long Night will be to Westeros.
• I’ve heard it said that true justice rains down punishment on the guilty while vengeance rains down punishment on the guilty and innocent alike.
• That’s also what the Long Night does too. The Others don’t care if you’re Chett or Samwell Tarly. They only care if you’re alive. And they will snuff out the lives of the innocent and guilty.
• I’d piss myself too if I knew that was coming for me.
• But I sure am glad to be finally launching into A Storm of Swords with you, ser!

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

Chett is planning betrayal and associated with leeches; feels like foreshadowing for Roose Bolton’s role in the Red Wedding.

Small Paul is described as “thick as a castle wall” by Lark. Additionally, Small Paul is rather large. Given that Dunk is quite tall and self-describes himself as that in the Dunk and Egg novellas, this has led fans to think that Small Paul is a descendant of Ser Duncan the Tall.

The missing scout Jarman Buckwell makes it back to Castle Black; he’s the one who tells everyone that Jon is riding with the wildlings now.

Three horn blasts at the kingsmoot for Euron...hmmm…..

Theory/Discussion

Would Mormont’s strategy have worked? How does it compare to Stannis’ eventual victory over the wildlings?

• No. This would never have worked. Thanks for listening!
• I’m kidding, of course, but this strategy is bonkers bad and dumb.
• But George shrouds it in just enough plausibility that readers might think, “hey, that might actually work.”
• So, basically, the concept of operation is this: attack the wildling column at various points, using the speed of attack to kill the wildlings and drive them into disarray.
• There are several problems with this approach.
• The first problem is that this assumes that the wildling vanguard is all the Night’s Watch would have to worry about.
• But as we find out in a later Jon chapter, that’s not how the wildlings are arrayed:
  • The King-beyond-the-Wall was doing all he could, yet the wildlings remained hopelessly undisciplined, and that made them vulnerable. Here and there within the leagues-long snake that was their line of march were warriors as fierce as any in the Watch, but a good third of them were grouped at either end of the column, in Harma Dogshead's van and the savage rearguard with its giants, aurochs, and fire flingers. Another third rode with Mance himself near the center, guarding the wayns and sledges and dog carts that held the great bulk of the host's provisions and supplies, all that remained of the last summer harvest. The rest, divided into small bands under the likes of Rattleshirt, Jarl, Tormund Giantsbane, and the Weeper, served as outriders, foragers, and whips, galloping up and down the column endlessly to keep it moving in a more or less orderly fashion.
• That means that Mance Rayder had riders outside of the main column to scout for any potential attack as well as riders and warriors within the actual column itself.
• So, it wouldn’t be just Harma’s vanguard at the front. There would be wildlings around the entire column of people.
• And the outriders and foragers would probably find the NW before they attacked or alert the wildlings of any impending attack before the cavalry could get there.
• Jon does note the indiscipline of the wildlings, and a lot of them would end up getting killed by the attacking Night’s Watchmen, but the sheer numbers alone would edge out any surprise attack by mounted Night’s Watchmen.
• Moreover, the wildlings are intimately familiar with the terrain, having lived there. The Watchmen are outlanders in these parts, only occasionally ranging up here.
• The best analogy I can think of is if you’re on a long-distance trip to somewhere you’ve never been. You’re driving through a place, your Waze app isn’t picking up a signal, but you don’t know the town, where the best Wendy’s is, the best routes to get there. But the people there do.
• Meanwhile, the plan has no specifics. They’re going to divide into smaller units and hit the wildlings are various points along their main line.
• Where? How? When?
• Do they have a location picked where they’re going to strike? Kind-of. Mormont wants to hit the wildlings at the foothills of the Frostfangs. But is that a good place to lay an ambush? Maybe! I was always told that the first recon is a map recon. But that’s the first.
  • You actually need to get eyes on the objective prior to launching an attack. But also maybe not! The rangers Mormont sent out haven’t returned yet. So, they’re going with institutional knowledge, rather than what’s truly waiting for them in those foothills.
• How are they going to attack? Are they going to phase into the battle? Are they coming in all at once in separate columns? Damn it, Mormont. Put some fucking details into your OPORDER.
• And when? There’s vague mention that the wildlings are ten days away, but when is everyone supposed to attack. Get specific, Mormont! I hate you. You are a no-go at this station. Major minus, ranger.
• But more importantly than anything else is that the wildlings aren’t driven south to simply invade the North and conquer it.
• Their driving motivation is survival. They have banded together under Mance Rayder to survive the invasion by the Others.
• If the choice is to mass together and fight back with the chance of dying or to disperse and definitely die at the hands of the Others, the choice is not a difficult one.
• But that brings up the question as to why Stannis’ plan of attack was successful when the NW’s plan is shit.
• There are some surface-level similarities between the two plans of attack though.
• Mormont planned to divide his force into smaller elements to attack at various points which is similar to Stannis’ plan to attack in three waves.
• Moreover, Stannis and the LC are way outnumbered by the wildlings.
• But those are surface-level similarities. The differences are quite striking when you get deeper into the text.
• The first thing is that Stannis doesn’t just come shuffling into the battle by himself. He brings Cotter Pyke and rangers who know the woods around the Wall for the attack. In fact, they call the terrain they advance on “ranger’s roads” in a later Samwell chapter.
• And in this scenario, I’d wager that the wildlings are less familiar with the woods and area in and around Castle Black due to the nearby presence of rangers in the woods.
• Meanwhile, Stannis timed his attacks so that the wildlings were engaged in one area before another prong of the attack fell, and then more engaged in two areas before the third prong of the attack fell.
• Finally, and I know this will come as a big shock to many people, but there is this thing called a big, giant fucking Wall that was in front of Mance Rayder which meant that one avenue of retreat/counterattack was unavailable for the wildlings to use.
• In Total War, they would call this the hammer and the anvil with the Wall serving as the hard-stand for Stannis and his army to hammer the wildlings against.
• Anyways, we’re, I’m, both, are going to talk a lot about the Battle of the Wall in about fifteen/sixteen months; so, suffice to say that this conversation is over.
• I conclude with Mormont: day-one recycle from ranger school. Stannis: submit your application for Best Ranger. (Some of you will get this) #Analysis

Conclusion

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