1 AGOT Will Prologue: Dead Men

When Gared urges them to call the wildlings dead and start back, their commander, young Waymar Royce, is contemptuous. He would see for himself. The question of whether the wildlings Will has seen unmoving are dead or not seems straightforward until Waymar is killed and rises, undead.

The Value of Empirical Evidence

Waymar does not believe the wildlings froze to death because the Wall was weeping all week.

Proofs will be required to convince any who have not encountered the Others that they are as Will sees.

Unfortunately, Waymar's splintered sword was not recovered.

Fear: Help or Hindrance?

“There's something wrong here,” Gared muttered.

The young knight gave him a disdainful smile. “Is there?”

“Can't you feel it?” Gared asked. “Listen to the darkness.”

Will could feel it. Four years in the Night's Watch, and he'd never been so afraid. What was it?

“Wind. Trees rustling. A wolf. Which sound is it that unmans you so, Gared?”

Gared, the man of experience, is not afraid to be called craven but of things that might actually kill him.

Waymar, an aspiring hero, views fear as a minor obstacle that only trips up lesser men. He feels contempt for Will crawling on his belly to avoid detection. But many classic scouting skills are designed to keep men alive against the unknown.

Will recalls the fear he felt on his first ranging and contrasts it with the fear he feels now.

Stories told to scare children introduce the idea of inter-generational knowledge via oral tradition. Such stories serve a variety of purposes and will be shown in various lights throughout the series.

This quandary about fear introduces instinct as generally beneficial

Gared would light a fire, something we later learn repulses white walkers as fire can hurt, even kill them. That he says “There's some enemies a fire will keep away,” suggests Gared has some knowledge of what they're up against, even if it's second hand.

Even Waymar's apparently more scientific approach is ultimately less applicable against the Others--who represent the unknown—than Gared's primitive reliance on instinct. It brings to mind a famous quote from Bertrand Russell: “Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales.” The implication is that there is no superior way than to operate by one's immediate judgement, the judgements of men of instinct being superior to those made by men who prefer reason.

Society: High vs Low

Reason will come to be depicted, in later chapters, as preferred by and associated with southron society while instinct is preferred in the north. Southron rigid hierarchies seem unworkable when confronted with a new threat.

How could the mindset that put Waymar in charge fathom his ranging report?

Waymar's Transformation

The chapter is set up around a transformation in our view of Waymar Royce

Initially, his arrogant superiority evokes a desire to see him proved wrong. But when he is clearly surrounded and going to die, Waymar's brave performance commands respect. His death seems sad and untimely.

“I am not going back to Castle Black a failure on my first ranging.”

Waymar is Incompetent

He brought the wrong kind of horse

He doesn't know Will has stopped because they're close and will go the rest of the way on foot

He draws his longsword where it will only hang him up in the trees

His movements are loud

He stands heroic, like a moron, next to the experienced scout who is on his belly, then commands the scout to get up.

What We Know About The Others

The other who kills Waymar takes him on in single combat. This suggests a culture not dissimilar from the rest of Westeros.

They are advanced: possessing superior weapons, and camoflaging armor.

They are associated with Nature, especially the cold. Though it's likely only another layer of camoflage, even their voices sound like “the cracking of ice on a winter lake.”

They somehow use what Tormund will later describe as “a cold mist” to kill. It seems such a mist is what killed the wildling raiders the Night's Watch was tasked to track. Presumably, they were raised later and that is why they have “moved camp.”

Ironies

Waymar is exhibiting a cowards courage: overcompensating for feeling fear associated with his first ranging. Similarly, Waymar's pretentions make him seem ridiculous to experienced men. From his destrier to his requirement to command, things Waymar thinks makes him look superior actually reveal him as phony.

The rangers tracking a group of wildlings were being hunted all day. The Others waited until nightfall to attack. Even if they had started back, as Gared urged, it's likely they would have been surrounded and killed.

Though Waymar looks down on stories told to scare children, he's very much under the cultural influence of stories told to aggrandize war. His battlecry “For Robert!” seems laughable, though it is a cry that has been heard many times in our own world history.

Dead Men Attack refers to

1. The wildling raiding party Will finds dead.

2. The Night's Watch ranging party who are being hunted by the Others.

3. Those raised as undead, like Waymar.

4. All mankind under the threat posed by the Others.

Constructions

Setup for those who try to warn to seem crazed. The proof--Waymar's frozen shattered sword—is not recovered. How could the mindset that put him in charge ever fathom the ranging report?

Themes

Rather Fight Brother

Waymar's arrogance makes him the enemy over the probably dead wildlings they're tracking.