Ser Waymar met him bravely. “Dance with me then.” He lifted his sword high over his head, defiant. His hands trembled from the weight of it, or perhaps from the cold. Yet in that moment, Will thought, he was a boy no longer, but a man of the Night’s Watch.
AGOT 00 – Prologue (GRRM)
POV character Will
Chapter (AGOT)
1 / 73
Chapter (ASOIAF)
1 / 344
Summary
A group of rangers (Will, Gared, Ser Waymar Royce) are on a ranging beyond the wall. Lord Commander Mormont ordered them to track down a group of wildlings. When Will finds the village full of dead people he returns and urges them to head back (a ride of several days). The young lordling insits on seeing the corpses himself, although the two others – seasoned rangers – have a bad feeling, mainly because he thinks that the wildlings could not have frozen to death as the wall was weeping those last weeks.
A small distance before the village they leave Gared with the horses and Will and Ser Waymar go on. When they arrive at a point from which they can look down on the village, WIll sees that the corpses are gone. Royce is angry and commands Will to climb a tree as a look-out. They are approached by “white shadows” with “flesh as pale milk” and “armor that changed color” and a sword like “a shard of crystal”. Will observes silently how Ser Waymar confronts the Other and they start to fight. More shadows appear and watch the fight. The young knight stands his ground until he is hit and his sword shatters. The watchers approach and Royce is killed by them.
When Will later investigates the corpse and takes the shattered sword, Ser Waymar Royce’s body stands over him, with a burning blue eye (the other was blinded). The chapter ends with Ser Waymar Royce (or whatever the being now is) strangling Will.
Thoughts
- “Everyone talks about snows forty foot deep, and how the ice wind comes howling out of the north, but the real enemy is the cold.”
I always thought that GRRM might not be good with numbers and estimates (the height of the wall is ridicolous. 40 feet deep snow (more than 12 meters) is really deep and another indication of that (that is possible, but in the mountains or at glaciers). I understand that the story has to be “bigger than life” – but these are some big numbers here, that (without magic) are very unrealistic and I struggle to keep my suspension of disbelief up here. - “There’s some enemies a fire will keep away,” Gared said. “Bears and direwolves
and . . . and other things . . . ”
Gared knows and believes the stories about the Others it seems. - He must have felt them, as Will felt them. There was nothing to see. “Answer me! Why is it so cold?”
Do the Ohers bring the cold or the cold the Others? Who knows. - The Others seem to be different beings than the reanimated zombies. But I have the feeling this is common knowledge (although I forgot it). There will be multiple instances like this in the coming time (me re-remembering stuff)…
- A sword like “a shard of crystal”. Here we have indication that the sword is made of something with crystallic structure – in comparison to Dawn.
- Ser Waymar Royce has a quite big name, although not the north, but in the Vale. A pity, that he did not listen to his men. With this name he could have become a high ranking commander. Especially because he shows some sharp thinking here when he points out that it was too warm for the wildlings to freeze to death.
Miscellaneous
One small point here (this category will only be included when needed): I will take the chapter-numbering according to [Westeros] otherwise I would have started with 1. From Westeros I also took the total numbers of 73 (AGOT) respectively 344 chapters (ASOIAF) that include all chapters, prologues, epilogues except the 5 appendices.
My Song of Ice and Fire 
