#agot prologue

[jozor-johai]

Reread the AGOT Prologue last night, and I was so caught up this time in how the dynamics of that chapter are a microcosm of the class dynamics in Westeros.

Not such a long post, but putting it after the cut for ease.

Waymar Royce, of course, stands in for the Lords, with his wealth and name and undeserved authority, while one-named Gared and Will are the smallfolk.

In this chapter, with a speaking cast of 3, there's already this question of where does power lie? In this scene, the smallfolk outnumber the lords 2-to-1, and neither believe in Waymar, but ultimately each of them defers to the lord's authority (the ratio is much more extreme in Westeros at large, but this works for a 3-person dynamic). Will and Gared also trust each other, and trust each other's expertise, more than either of them think Waymar should be trusted in any capacity—he's not leader by merit (he has much less experience than either of them), he's not leader by popular appeal (they laugh at him in their cups), and he's not leader by age (younger than the both).

And we see already in this small moment the ways in which authority attempts to deal with usurpation—which we will see played out over and over again throughout the entirety of ASOIAF.

Gared challenges Waymar's authority on the basis of experience, which is a justified complaint. Faced with an inarguable position, Waymar responds with unnecessary cruelty: "you ought to dress more warmly, Gared." This is one way for the upper class to keep the smallfolk in line—to flaunt their wealth and advantage, and to push back visciously against challenges. This is the Tywin technique, one which we see done consistently throughout the series.

The significance of this being a mental confrontation cannot be overstated: when confronted with Varys' riddle, Tyrion later observes that the rule "All depends on the man with the sword." Here, Gared is the man with the sword—he's a man-at-arms, and the better swordsman. While "Will doubted it[Royce's sword] had ever been swung in anger," "Will would not have given an iron bob for the lordling's life if Gared pulled it[his own sword] from its scabbard." Gared could fully kill Royce here, if he dared. And so the challenge, for Waymar, is to make sure Gared never dares. Power lies where men believe it lies, so Waymar's job as authority figure is to demoralize Gared, so he does not outright challenge Waymar's authority. (This is the role of public humiliation—another 'Tywin tactic,' but which is also used broadly).

Perhaps Gared would dare to challenge Waymar's authority if he were not alone. When Varys follows Tyrion's thinking that the man holding the sword might have some real power, he questions: why do the men with swords obey kings at all, then? Tyrion posits: "Because these child kings and drunken oafs can call other strong men, with other swords." So perhaps the issue is unity, a majority feeling—one man cannot rebel, lest his own class turn against him, but perhaps many can. We see this as the series goes on in instances like with the Sparrows, who amass enough numbers that they can imprison the queen, or with the sellswords in Meereen, who might turn the tide of battle if they switch sides (to the side that they believe might win).

To gain this advantage, Gared and Will would have to be a united front. In the beginning of this chapter, Will was a neutral figure, he's not willing to actually challenge that authority, he didn't want to be involved in the confrontation, but knew "he known "they would drag him into the quarrel sooner or later." Later, though, after witnessing Gared's demoralization, Will nearly steps in himself—in defense of Gared, out of respect for Gared's experience, and in a moment of class solidarity, Will speaks up to defend Gared, and is cut off:

"If Gared said it was the cold …" Will began.

"Have you drawn any watches this past week, Will?"

Here, Waymar's goal, as ruling class of this interaction, is to prevent class solidarity within the smallfolk. If Waymar responded too rudely, or with too much aggression, this might bind Gared and Will together for certain, and Waymar might be usurped (this is the result of the repeated aggressions of Aerys II, resulting in his death, or the repeated aggressions of Tywin which spawned the aforementioned Sparrows).

So Waymar has to employ a different strategy: (still a bit snidely) Waymar plays the role of 'encouraging mentor,' invoking this idea that he deserves to rule by the merit of being inherently 'wiser' or a keeper of 'knowledge'. He suggests that Will figure out for himself, under Waymar's guidance, that the cold could not possibly have killed the wildlings. Led more gently by Waymar, Will seems to decide for himself that Waymar is correct. In short, Waymar is able to reposition Will to be on his side, not Gared's, by leveraging his initial assumed authority and the existing attitude of elite education, even as that makes Will go against his own first-hand experience.

This is another tactic that we see repeatedly used throughout ASOIAF (and the world)—the ruling class acting as though they are simply elevating the ("innocently wrong") subjugated class to a more aware and knowledgeable position. If we believe the Maester conspiracy, they are the most obvious example of this, but the fact that it is only the lords who have access to Maesters means this is implicitly true without even needing a conspiracy—the ruling class is already gatekeeping knowledge and education from the subjugated class. (As an aside: the Maester conspiracy, ironically, is only concerned with the possibility of an even higher authority secretly gatekeeping knowledge from the nobility—in other words, the fear that the Maesters are treating the Lords the way that the Lords treat the smallfolk).

So let's return to Varys' final proposed answers to his own riddle: "Some say knowledge is power. Some tell us that all power comes from the gods. Others say it derives from law." Waymar has employed the knowledge-as-power against Will, and we're also constantly up against the backdrop of law-as-power: The Night's Watch.

Waymar references "Mormont," someone who Waymar does not want to disappoint, and they all consider the agreed-upon terms of the Night's Watch. Even in this microcosmic scenario, they are part of a system, one where this authority figure is, seemingly, held to his own authority figure, and one where the "rules" of the interaction have been determined long before now. In the end, once Waymar decides, "the order had been given, and honor bound them to obey." They have all agreed to a set of laws, already, which keep them bound to Waymar's authority.

So, ultimately, it is in this moment that despite Gared and Will being fully correct in their fears, despite being more experienced, wiser, older, and in all ways better rangers than Waymar, authority itself held true, and Waymar marched them all on towards his own death.

[baleriontheblackkitten]

A Game of Thrones - Prologue

Aah the iconic prologue - which I adore. Fun fact: I actually read the first chunk of AGOT twice, the first of which several years ago, when I downloaded the free preview from Amazon. Since the free preview is a certain % of the work, and it was the preview of the box set of the entire series, it was actually several chapters!

Much has been said about the symmetry of the very first chapter featuring the "ice" threat from the north and the last featuring the "fire" threat from the east, while the rest of the book features no magic and the characters just go out and about busy with their political squabbles oblivious to what's coming, so I don't have anything to add to that. It's really cool, though.

The cool thing about the prologue is that you can read it from different perspectives, none of them "wrong" but that focus on different angles: the class angle focuses on how the lordling sends them all to their destruction, a microcosm of how the classist system of Westeros is going to lead its population to (near) destruction; the supernatural angle focuses on how the humans are just doomed, a microcosm of how the threat of the Others is, indeed, extremely "other" to human logic. I think they're both simultaneously valid ways to look at the chapter.

“We should start back,” Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them. “The wildlings are dead.” “Do the dead frighten you?” Ser Waymar Royce asked with just the hint of a smile. Gared did not rise to the bait. He was an old man, past fifty, and he had seen the lordlings come and go. “Dead is dead,” he said. “We have no business with the dead.” “Are they dead?” Royce asked softly. “What proof have we?” “Will saw them,” Gared said. “If he says they are dead, that’s proof enough for me.” Will had known they would drag him into the quarrel sooner or later. He wished it had been later rather than sooner. “My mother told me that dead men sing no songs,” he put in. “My wet nurse said the same thing, Will,” Royce replied. “Never believe anything you hear at a woman’s tit. There are things to be learned even from the dead.”

The reader with at least a bit of an inkling of what the series is about immediately notices the irony. The dead are totally something to be frightened about, dead is definitely not dead, and everyone is going to have very much business with the dead. Seeing dead people is really not enough to be sure they won't trouble you again... (I do wonder what it's like to start reading the book not knowing anything about what's going to happen, though. Imagine the shock when dead Waymar Royce stands up!)

The gender angle comes up, too. These men have been taught things from the older women who raised them, but they don't know how to interpret them. To be fair, the women themselves probably don't know what the things they were told from their own elders - mother after mother, wet nurse after wet nurse - exactly mean. But there's a wisdom there that is overlooked.

Dead men sings no songs can be interpreted differently. What Waymar Royce assumes it means, is that the dead don't speak and nothing can be learnt from them, and denies it is true, as the dead give clues to know some things. That is not untrue: there is a perfect logic to Royce's insistence they investigate the situation, his only mistake is to assume the woods are only home to things he knows.

But there's also the fact that the Others (whom I am not sure if we can call them dead men, structly speaking, but they do look like men and are definitely not alive in a human way, so) are unhumanly silent. Many times Will notes that they don't make a sound. They also make him silent: multiple times Will should cry out, warn his officer, but he doesn't, frozen in fear. The Others do speak and laugh, but in no human voice. Their "voices" sound like ice cracking, not anything that would resemble a song.

They sing no songs indeed - songs are the main source of knowledge in this world. Songs are how stories are told and preserved. Songs are community, they are society. The Others are the opposite of that.

There are references to these men having heard stories about what's in the woods (“There’s some enemies a fire will keep away,” Gared said. “Bears and direwolves and … and other things …”) but stories are a double-edged sword: in their age, most people dismiss it as women's tales, and ignore the warnings in them. And that's what dooms all of them, including later Gareth that is not believed.

Royce is right that there are things to be learnt from the dead; the lesson he learns here is his last, though.

He keeps making the correct choices if there were no supernatural enemies waiting for them. He correctly notes that the current temperature - in normal conditions - would not be cold enough to kill people. Fire would give their presence and position away to wildlings. He dismisses the other men's fears, mocks Gareth for being "unmanned".

He would be actually good for the job if not for the Others. One could argue that his attitude is detestable, and it is, but it makes sense for a teenaged lordling; if he had lived, he would have likely grown and learnt to respect the expertise of his common-born brothers. He's been in the Night's Watch for so little time! It's no wonder he acts like the brat he's been raised to be, like Jon will do at the beginning of his time in the Watch.

Additionally, being able to prod his fearful companions and make them act anyway instead of cowering in fear and running away is actually a non negative skill to have in normal conditions for a commander! He's been raised to be a leader, which includes overriding your subjects' hesitations. He also feels the pressure of it - he mentions not wanting to come back from his first mission with zero results.

Ser Waymar Royce does exactly what he is supposed to do. Brattily, but we can forgive him for that as he's a teenager raised to feel and act superior to people lower than him in the social ladder. With sexists remarks, but that does not make him special, he lives in a world imbued with sexism. He dismisses Gareth's fears, but it is not cold enough for them to reasonably expect to have issues with it, the Wall has been weeping …

Royce cannot turn back. It's his first ranging and he has a pile of societal expectations on him he cannot escape. Expectations about "real men", about commanders, about what a highborn man like him should act like. But also expectations about … reality. He has certain assumptions about how the world works, and the Others being real is not part of them.

They are all doomed because the lordling leads them to their death, yes. But the lordling leads them to their death because it's perfectly natural for him to do so given how their world works. They are doomed because the system - the social expectations and the law, later for Gareth - is structured in a way that gives them no alternative.

Blaming the lordling for his dismissal of the other men's fears is meaningless. The lordling's actions make perfect sense in the system. It's the system that fails them, because it has forgotten, or, better, relegated the truth to women's tales. (Remembering is a pivotal thing in the story.)

Another element that is highlighted in this chapter, and the series in general, is sight. Will's task is to watch. Watchers, the Others are called as the rest of them observe the first one and Royce fight. Royce's sword shattering blinds him. But then, The right eye was open. The pupil burned blue. It saw. Will, on the other hand, closes his eyes before being killed.

I am sure that the dead they rise are the Other's additional eyes. They can see everything the dead they rise "see" - just like Bloodraven's magic can use the eyes of the weirdwood trees, of animals, and possibly more (at some point Bloodraven mentions wind if I'm not mistaken), the Others can use the eyes of the dead, and possibly more (the icy wind from the depths of the north, I suppose).

It's poetic that one of Royce's eyes is destroyed by the shattered metal: it gives the Other who killed him three eyes, in a symmetry with the tree-eyed crow.

Speaking of sight, we could say that Royce was blind to the danger he's led them all into, and his blindness is what dooms him, just like his physical blinding is what dooms him to be killed for good. Next chapter is Bran, whose arc all revolves around sight, a supernatural kind of sight.

The next chapter also features the direwolf pup with red eyes being the one in the litter whose eyes are already open, a clear contrast with the blue of the Others and the dead risen by them.

There's also a character who is name-dropped a couple times in the prologue, Maester Aemon, who is physically blind and towards the end of his life deplores about having been "blind" to the truth of the prophecy (at least according to his assumptions at the time). In that case, he believes he's been "blind" to the fact that the one who will defeat the Others will be Daenerys with her fire, which is a reasonable assumption to make. But I wonder if he is right, and the thing to count on is really fire, as everyone expects - or sight. Again, the direwolf with red eyes …

Let's get back to the societal critique. To be fair the critique to the classist society of Westeros writes itself - the most experienced ranger should lead the expedition, not the green boy who is allowed to give orders to and mock other men just because of his high birth. (Additional note: the Night's Watch should "erase" its members' past, including their social status, and make them all "brothers" and yet it does not.) I'll focus on a slightly different angle.

The thing is that ultimately Royce's nobility does not matter. The fancy warm clothes his family's wealth provided for him do not protect him from the supernatural cold the Others bring; his beautiful jeweled sword shatters.

On one level we could read this as a commentary (and foredshadowing) that it's not nobility or wealth that can protect you from this enemy, but something else. But this also tells us something about Waymar Royce and the Night's Watch.

I don't remember if the Royces have Valyrian steel weapons, but even if they did, they would not give them to the youngest cadet son they sent to the Wall to get rid of him. Waymar is "higher" than Gareth and Will socially because of his status as highborn, but he is also a social "reject" sent to the Night's Watch.

The Night's Watch is where Westeros sends the men it doesn't want: Will was a poacher that dared steal from nobility (a popular trope in feudal societies, no need to elaborate on it); Gareth is said to have joined the Watch as a kid, so he was probably a street urchin caught stealing, or a kid his family sent to the Wall to have less mouths to feed.

Ser Waymar is a high born, but “the youngest son of an ancient house with too many heirs”. Maybe that's even why he's such a brat: he knows that he's supposed to be more "precious" socially than Gareth and Will, but ultimately he's on the same level as them, some unwanted guy sent to the ends of the world so nobody has to see him anymore. Maybe he acts like a bitch to his inferiors because that's the only way he has to feel superior to them, because he knows he means no more than them at the end of the day. A bit Theon-like, the boy who acts like an asshole to cover his trauma of being a glorified hostage.

One more note on Royce: the narrative highlights his innocence. Will thinks that his sword has never been swung in anger, which on a surface level indicates that he is no real warror that has never really been in a proper fight. But it also indicates that he's an innocent young man. Once he's dead, it sinks in Will how young he is. He's the first of the many boys dead too soon. He "becomes a man", in the logic of their society's view of manhood (which is not necessarily a laudable thing), in the very circumstance of his death. He faces his opponent bravely: in that moment, Will thought, he was a boy no longer, but a man of the Night’s Watch. He foreshadows Robb, the boy king, brave and dead, forever fifteen. He foreshadows Jon, also grey-eyed, also a brother of the Night's Watch, also dead by stabbing, albeit in very different circumstances.

Will also foreshadows Jon at the end, killed by his fellow brother of the Night's Watch (although in Will's case it was not Royce's choice, of course), and the last thing he feels is the cold.

Other details:

The warhorse was the wrong mount for ranging - foreshadowing for the realm engaging in war when it should be focusing on the threat from the north.

“Dance with me then.” - "dancing" is a word that is usually used in relation to dragons; here it's used in relation to the Others, establishing a connection between the two, fire and ice.

Ser Waymar Royce found his fury. “For Robert!” he shouted - doesn't it break your heart, how this boy dies in the name of a king that does not care for him, out of metaphor for a system that does not care for him. Westerosi society sent him to die beyond the Wall.

Also, Robert is just as unfit to lead Westeros as inexperienced teenager Waymar Royce is unfit to lead the ranging - the system does not care about putting the right person in the position of leading others. It's all about the violence inherent in the classist social stratification (and the even more factual violence of how Robert became the king).

Will rose. Ser Waymar Royce stood over him - this is just a kickass line.

The chapter closes with Will praying before getting killed, and then we transition to Bran's chapter, almost like he's the destination and/or answer to that prayer.

What are your thoughts about this chapter??

[translannisters]

In case any other sickos around here are into this sort of thing. @kristevanstark and I are making an ASOIAF reread podcast and the first episode is out! In which we send Ned Stark to eeby deeby (affectionate), manage to restrain ourselves and only talk about Homestuck something like three times, and experience thematically-appropriate recording challenges in the form of snow-related audio blips

[inwinterhell]

Waymar Royce really died so he could be a “what not to do” for Jon Snow, didn’t he? They even look alike too.

[grey-joys]

Prologue storyboard

[aqoiaf]

“All day, Will had felt as though something were watching him, something cold and implacable that loved him not.”

[thewatcher0nthewall]

"Dance with me then"

[tradsaltwife]

anyway shoutout to grrm for opening asoiaf with a short horror story that feels so eerie and leaves you with so many questions that you cant help but turn the page and keep on reading

[carcrash-white]

AGoT Prologue: Establishes genre conventions. Hangs the Sword of Damaclese. Foreshadows Jon Snow's arc.

ACoK Prologue: Shows the Cold King through the eyes of a man who loves him. Introduces fire magic and Melisandre. Established Davos as the book's tragic hero. Foreshadows Catelyns arc.

ASoS Prologue: I need to kill Samwell Tarly. I neeeeeed to kill him. Oh fuck the others are here.

AFFC Prologue: Establishes the Maester's are up to something... Establishes Oldtown. Yea so this is what Syrio has been up to. If you thought the last book was dark get ready for this one....

ADwD Prologue: So you want to Warg an animal?

[whyshouldisparehisfeelings]

i forgot to mention: such a sexy way to die.

[daensa]

why am i seeing ptwp jon snow posts in the year of our lord 2023

[kuorena]

Will losing the asoiaf prologue poll when dance with me then // and the night came alive with the music of dragons is objectively the greatest song of ice and fire parallel we have

[ripplesinthesand]

started listening to this podcast episode about the anakin v. obi-wan fight and was like wow this is actually good they really seem to get the appeal of revenge of the sith and why this fight rules and then they dropped the "how do you teach someone to swim?" passage like forty minutes in and i was like. oh. they GET it get it. anyways this was amazing 10/10 absolutely required listening for rots enjoyers.

[ladystoneboobs]

so, one aspect of catelyn which i think is underrated (certainly the biggest adaptation loss which nobody talks about) is her, let's say superstitiousness, or better yet, let's call it genre-savviness, being one of the few adult characters open to magic and the supernatural in this fantasy world. we first meet her in the godswood, home of gods which are not truly hers, yet she is still very aware of their power. when she and ned talk of the deserter he killed, he hopes he won't have to go with the nw to deal with mance rayder, but she has even more fear of that idea bc there are worse things beyond the wall than just wildlings. ned scoffs and says she's been listening to old nan too much, but she's right. we already know from the prologue that she's right! and here she is, understanding the genre of their world better than her husband, who was actually born and spent his earliest years in this northern land of deep magic, listening to old nan's stories. same with the direwolves, where she was uncomfortable with them at first, but later believed in them as guardians from the old gods even after robb had lost his own faith. and once again, we know she's right even if she doesn't know the evidence to back up her instincts, bc summer and shaggydog did not fail bran and rickon and robb was almost certainly a warg like his brothers. (perhaps making it more fitting that she's the one brought back as a fantasy vengeance monster, not ned and robb, the most unbelieving dead starks.) and in her 2nd agot chapter, everyone focuses on her ambition in wanting ned to agree to the hand job (pun intended) and sansa's betrothal, and while she does recognize the value of their daughter being a future queen more than ned does, that's only her stated argument bc she thinks it's rational enough for ned to listen to. (if ambitious matchmaking were as important to her as to her father she never would have made those frey betrothals fandom loves to blame her for.) in her own head there's a deeper urge driving her. she keeps thinking of the dead direwolf with antlers in its throat, an omen which filled her with dread from the first she heard of it, before robert's arrival, and thinking of it again is what makes her desperate to convince ned not to refuse robert. she had to make him see. and really, she's not wrong, as jon snow would say. the dead direwolf was an omen of ned and robert getting each other killed. it's just one of those misread portents, with no way of knowing the danger to ned was in his loyalty to robert, not conflict with him. BUT the next time she's dealing with baratheons, she knows exactly what she's talking about. it's catelyn, not brienne, who sees the shadow slaying renly, and explains that it was stannis who did that through some dark magic. with no way of knowing how it was achieved and no prior expectation that such a thing were ever possible, she realizes with no hestitation that stannis was guilty and that his red witch was capable of pulling this off somehow. really, the only instinct of the supernatural she's wholly wrong about is her insistence that varys gathered his knowledge through some dark enchantment. however, though that might offend varys, given his own personal experience with a sorcerer, i'd say it's a reasonable assumption without knowing the dude had children moving through walls everywhere like oversized rodents. and imo it just shows she had a healthy respect and awe for varys's power which most other characters lack.

oh, oh, and let's not forget that she also believed in the curse of harrenhal, from her own childhood and the stories old nan told her kids. "and every house that held Harrenhal since had come to misfortune. Strong it might be, but it was a dark place, and cursed. 'I would not have Robb fight a battle in the shadow of that keep,' Catelyn admitted." sure, that wasn't enough to save robb, but he did not die from the curse of harrenhal. that doom was meant for his enemies from tywin lannister to roose bolton.

[aqoiaf]

“My mother told me that dead men sing no songs.”

[thewatcher0nthewall]

Waymar Royce