A Game of Thrones, Chapter 1, Bran
Summary
Bran, along with his father, brothers and small company of men travels to near village to see kings justice done. The deserter from Night’s Watch was captured and put to trial in front of Lord Ned Stark. The punishment for desertion from Night’s Watch is death. The man is beheaded by Ned. On the way back to the Winterfell Robb and Jon find a fresh corpse of a direwolf. The boys also find five direwolf pups which Ned wants to put down, but is persuaded by Jon Snow when he mentions the omen in this finding. Five direwolf pups for five trueborn children of the House of Stark. Ned is convinced and decides that his children will keep the pups. Just as they are leaving for the castle Jon finds a sixth pup, an albino, obviously meant for the bastard child of Ned, Jon Snow.
Quotes
Our way is the old way. The blood of the First Men still flows in the veins of the Starks, and we hold to the belief that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.
“Lord Stark,” Jon said. It was strange to hear him call Father that, so formal. “There are five pups, three male, two female.”
“What of it, Jon?”
“You have five trueborn children,” Jon said. “Three sons, two daughters. The direwolf is the sigil of your House. Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord.”
“You want no pup for yourself Jon?”
“The direwolf graces the banners of House of Stark,” Jon pointed out. “I am no Stark, Father.”
Commentary
There are many chapters I can call favorite in the Song of Ice and Fire series (I’ll keep calling them SoIaF from now on). This one is definitely one of them. Main Point Of View (POV) characters are introduced in this chapter. We meet the Stark brothers, Bran and Robb, their father Ned and his bastard son Jon Snow. Seeing those four characters interact I immediately realised the emotional depth this novel brings. Reading this chapter I felt the majesty of Lord Ned Stark and I was humbled by the character of Jon, who has to live all his life knowing that he is a bastard, that his brothers and sisters have completely different destiny than him. So close, yet so alienated. That’s how you suck the reader in, give him amazing characters to follow right from the beginning!
This chapter is significant for one more reason - the direwolves are introduced along with the assumption that they are meant to belong to the Stark children. At this stage the reader suspects that those are no mere wolves, but the full significance of this finding has yet to be revealed.
Tags: Bran
