A Song of Ice and Fire - A Chapter a day discussion

I'll catch up later!

1. Jon and the others see a fire burning way up high in the mountains. Wildlings are keeping watch in the Skirling Pass, but one of Qhorin’s men says if Mance knew they’d lit a fire he’d flay their hides. Qhorin says fire is life up here, but it can also mean death. They themselves do not light any fires for anything. Sounds miserable. When they cuddle together for warmth at night it reminds Jon of the times he’d sleep with his brothers in Winterfell. Sweet. :)

2. Qhorin wants to make sure they do not blow their horn, so they have to advance on them without being seen. The mountains here are very steep so only two men should climb it at a time. They choose their two best climbers: the Stonesnake and Jon Snow. Ghost will stay below; his white fur will be easy to spot at night.

3. They left their mail behind as they climb at night. Too heavy, like to make noise.

4. It’s crazy how good Stonesnake is at climbing and being able to see at night! The Frostfang Mountains are indeed inhospitable. Much of the pass never gets to see the sun, either! But though it’s treacherous climbing, Jon also thinks it’s beautiful.

5. I like that Stonesnake told Jon the mountain is his mother, “Cling to her, press your face up against her teats, and she won’t drop you.” :) I also like how Jon joked, saying he always wondered who his mother was but never thought to find her in the Frostfangs. Cute.

6. When they climb up vertically I’m surprised they would take their gloves off for this. I wonder why? At some point they need to make holes into the stone. Jon worries the wildlings will hear the hammering, but Stonesnake knows what he’s doing. Oh I see, the gloves would slip, so they deal with the burning frost on their skin as they climb. Sounds like a great way to get frostbite. At one point a fingernail breaks and Jon leaves bloody marks wherever he climbs, hoping in the end he still has all ten fingers. Gah, that sounds horrifying!

7. I really like how Jon thinks of Bran at a time like this, how Bran used to love to climb. Jon wishes he had a tenth part of his courage. I think it’s more to do with being young and thinking you’re invincible, though. :)

8. They finally reach the top and crawl on their bellies until they can look down into the depression of where the wildlings are camped. There are actually three, not two, but one’s asleep. I just realized, this will be Jon’s first man kill, and he is nervous. He feels weird picking the man by the fire as the one he’s going to kill and wonders if this was how Robb felt before going into battle.

9. Stonesnake is fast and makes quick dispatch of the one with the horn but Jon bumbles with his man, waking the sleeper. He kills the man by the fire and takes a dirk to the sleeper’s neck but before he can slit his throat he realizes last second the sleeper’s a girl and halts. Stonesnake tells him to finish her. Jon can’t, though; something about this girl reminds him of Arya, though they don’t look at all alike. He asks if she yields, glad she says yes, and says she’s his captive now.
:) He’s real glad he doesn’t have to kill her.

10. Stonesnake argues with him, saying Qhorin didn’t say to take any captives, but Jon says he also never said not to. :) Stonesnake points out she’s a spearwife, a female fighter. Give her the chance and she’d not hesitate to kill him, but Jon says he wouldn’t give her the chance.

11. We find out her name is Ygritte, an important character for Jon as we read on. I really like how she asks his name and he gives it freely and Stonesnake says the captive’s supposed to answer questions, not the other way around. :) I forgot Ygritte originally says Jon has an evil name. He corrects her, saying it’s a bastard name, and he’s a son of Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell, like he wants her to get to know him.

12. Ygritte tells them they should burn the bodies they killed. Stonesnake says they’d need a bigger fire than the one they have and besides, they’re ordered not to light any fires. Jon understands what she means, though, remembering dead Othor, and suggests they do as she says. Instead, Stonesnake strips them of their things and flings their bodies over the cliff. Urg...

13. They ask how many wildlings are on the other side of the mountain range and she says hundreds and thousands, indicating she doesn’t know the exact amount. But when they ask why they’re here and if she knows anything about Benjen Stark she goes silent, of course.

14. Jon hears shadowcats but Ygritte says they’ve only come for the dead. He hears them eating down below and feels uneasy. Hmm... He asks if they were her relatives but she says no more than he is. This confuses him. She asks who his mother is and Jon says some woman, most of them are. This makes her smile but he forgot who told him that. I do! Tyrion Lannister! She asks if she ever sung him the song of the winter rose *SPOILER FOR A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE* (view spoiler)[Very interesting, because Lyanna loved winter roses! (hide spoiler)] but he never knew his mother and never heard of that song. They have some time to wait for Qhorin and the others to join them so he tells her to tell him the story. She tells about Bael the Bard, a king-beyond-the-Wall, sounds much like Mance Rayder, actually, used to be a raider. Bael stole a Stark lord’s daughter, his only child, and left behind a winter rose on her empty bed. Jon had never heard of this tale. Turns out his daughter was hiding under the crypts with Bael, and she came back up months later with a baby boy. So the Starks have Bael’s blood in them, same as her. Jon doesn’t believe it. The tale turns dark as the young Stark kills Bael later on, because Bael refused to harm his son. The mother killed herself when she saw Bael’s head and their son died soon after, his skin flayed by one of his lords, probably the Boltons. I wonder why Ygritte even bothered telling him this tale. It seems significant, but I can’t put a finger on why.

15. I like that Jon never thought of Winterfell as being part of the south. To Ygritte, everything below the Wall is the south. It all depends on where you’re standing.

16. Qhorin and the others finally arrive with the dawn. There was another path up the mountain that’s horse-friendly and they took that route, but the Watchers would have seen them if Jon and Stonesnake tried that way, so that’s why they took the route they did.

17. Ghost greets Jon by closing his jaws around his wrist and playing tug-o-war. Ygritte’s face is priceless.

18. Qhorin doesn’t seem surprised to see Ygritte with them. Jon feels the need to explain she yielded. Qhorin asks if she knows who he is. Yes she does. He asks if he yielded to her people would they have let him live and she basically says no. Qhorin turns to Jon and says they don’t have enough food with them to feed her, nor enough men to watch her so she won’t escape, indicating they need to kill her.

19. Poor Jon doesn’t want to have to kill her. Qhorin leaves it to him to do it but tells the others to leave them be so Jon doesn’t have to be pressured with an audience. I’m surprised Ygritte doesn’t try to run away. She calls it: he never killed a woman before. I like that she says they die the same as men. She tells him Mance would spare him, she knows he would. Just them two, they could go back. But Jon is resolved. He’s a man of the Night’s Watch. She accepts her fate and gets in the position, but he hesitates. I love how he reminds himself he is Lord Eddard Stark’s son...isn’t he? When she looks up he tells her to go before his wits return, and she runs off. :) In my opinion, it’s not because he’s a coward; it’s because of his morals. I don’t think Ned would have killed her, either.

20. Can I just say that I love this introduction to Ygritte much better than what they had in the show? She isn’t quite so annoying in the books, not as big of a flirt, not so gabby, so mocking. At least, not that I remember.

About your point 14, I missed about the song of the winter rose! Really interesting. I also don't really know why she told Jon that story.

About your point 20, I hated Ygritte on the show, she's really different from her character in the books in my opinion. I like book Ygritte way better.

1-Jon saw the watchers in the Skirling Pass, because of their fire. One of the group said Mance would kill them if he knew they lit a fire. Qhorin said fire meant life and death up there, but he didn’t let them lit one since they entered the mountain. They were too few to stand a chance.

2-Stonesnake was the best climber they had, and he would go up with Jon. I like Stonesnake. They could not let the watcher to blow his horn. Qhorin said Jon could go, but Ghost should stay because white was an easy color to see at night. I really liked how Jon appreciated how beautiful the place was, even though it was hard as well.

3-Jon seemed really concern about the wildlings having weapons. He had too, but he wasn’t wearing mail. Also, it seemed like a really, really hard climb to do. Jon was moving step by step, and it looked like it was nothing to Stonesnake. He was the best at it after all. He told Jon he should see the mountain as his mother, and Jon made a joke about it, how he never knew who his mother was, and I was kinda surprised. He didn’t seem the joking type after all, but I liked it.

4-Stonesnake tied a rope around Jon, and it was a pretty good idea I think. They should be above the wildlings. Jon kept telling himself not to look down. He almost fall once, and his burned hand ache. And he hurt his thumnail. It was not going good for him though. He wished he had all his fingers by the end. He didn’t think of the wildlings, but of Bran, and how he loved to climb. He wished he had a tenth of his courage. This part of the chapter made me think Jon was kinda scared, at that point at leats, of highs. But then I thought of the Wall, so I wasn’t that sure he feared them all the time.

5-They reached the wildlings and saw three men, not two like Qhorin thought would be. One was sleeping, and had red hair, one was eating and one watching, and had the horn. Jon felt queer when he picked the man he was about to kill. It must feel queer.

6-They killed both a man, and the man with the horn reached it before he went for his blade. He was brave. The sleeping man turned out to be a girl, who was going for her spear to kill Jon. She yielded, so she was their captive now. Stonesnake said they should kill her, she was a wildling and would have killed Jon if she had the chance. Jon could see fear and fire in her eyes. Interesting she reminded him of Arya, although they didn’t look alike.

7-So, this girl’s name is Ygritte, and said they should burn the dead men. They didn’t, the fire would be too big. They flung them instead, so the shadowcats would eat them. Jon told her his name, and she said it was an evil name. He said he was Ned’s bastard, and Stonesnake she was supposed to talk, not him, lol. She was a spearwife, older than Jon, maybe twenty. I always had problems with her character, I liked her at times, and hated her at some points. I’ll see how I feel this time. But so far I like her.

8-They asked her questions, and she pretty much didn’t answer. Qhorin said most would rather eat their tongues than talk. Jon could tell she didn’t know how many men Mance had. She did say they were there to watch them, and others. I wonder if she meant other men of the Watch or something else.

9-She told Jon the story of Bael, how he ended up in Winterfell and how he was later killed by his son. Ygritte said she and Jon had his blood, but he said it never happened. He never believed the story. Interesting she said the gods hate kinslayers. It seems it’s a common believe.

10-Qhorin arrived, and said Jon to kill her, they had no food for her and couldn’t set a guard for her. I loved she answered with the truth when Qhorin asked what would happen to him if he yielded, and she said his death would be slower. I also liked Qhorin told his men to leave Jon, so it would be easier for him to kill her.

11-I have to say, her attitude amazed me. She seemed so calm at first, so brave. Ygritte told him Mance would accept him, I am guessing she said so to stay alive, but Jon said he was a crow. At one point she told Jon to do it quickly, she couldn’t stay brave forever. She asked to be burned as well, but Jon said no. Ygritte said it wasn’t so bad to end up in the belly of a shadowcat. Jon couldn’t kill her, and told her to go before his wits return. I liked he didn’t kill her.

I'm glad it's not just me, about Ygritte. I think they wanted to overplay her character quite a bit in the show. Milk her for all she's got. In the book series, though, her character isn't nearly as snarky, or important, really. All she was good for was getting Jon in with the wildlings so he could learn about them, and so he can learn what it means to know a woman, and what the men in the Night's Watch are giving up. That's all. They weren't really in love with each other. At best, it was a crush.

Yeah I think the same. I have to watch seasons 4 and 5, but I watched some episodes with her, and I don't really like her. And I also never thought they were in love, they liked each other, that's all. But I like her in the book a lot more than in the series.