144 ASOS 1 Chett Prologue: Dead Men Attack

Motivated By Fear

The chapter is structured around the reveal that Chett's plan to kill Sam disguises his own cowardice. When he pisses himself at the third horn blast, after saying Sam would at the first sign of battle, it's easy to see that Chett's bravado and cruelty were always motivated by fear. Chett recruits bigger and harder men to kill the guards, trackers and Mormont. While it is really unnecessary to kill the ravener, Chett insists it's vital to make himself seem to play a role in the escape. Sam is easy pickings and Chett already wanted to kill him for taking his life by replacing him as Aemon's assistant. Chett even pretends to himself that he'd still be warm at Castle Black if Sam hadn't replaced him, despite the fact that Sam is with them. It makes Chett feel brave to bully Sam, and he can safely hold cowardice in contempt in front of men he knows would otherwise smell it on him.

Though Chett is a coward, his impulse to turn back and make for safety as soon as he hears Mance's thousands are marching straight towards them is reminiscent of Gared's in the prologue to A Game of Thrones. His motive for desertion reminds that it is unconscionable that soldiers lives are thrown away by their commanders and that it happens in our own world, even today.

My mnemonic device "Dead Men Attack" refers to:

1. Chett. Knowing he's dead if they attack Mance's thousands, Chett makes himself feel big by playing leader to a group he has assembled, conspiracy by conspiracy, mastering one man then another. His bullying of and plan to kill Sam are an example of harnessing anger to cope with fear. Chett is a coward who only attacks because he's a dead man, otherwise.

2. Other mutineers are pleased to fantasize about far away homes. After sleeping on the frozen ground with only their cloaks for warmth, having travelled through endless rain only to wait and eat small cold meals in a desolation, a plan to make for some place warm makes their previous obedience seem a kind of living death. It seems like nothing to kill a few men to get one's life back after it's been taken in a way it never was at Castle Black.

3. Mance Rayder's wilding "army," composed largely of families and livestock, feel they must defeat the Night's Watch to breach the Wall to escape the undead. Most would prefer to return to their settlements, except they have gathered for safety in numbers and expect to have to fight in order to settle.

4. The army of the Others who attack the Fist of the First Men in a cliffhanger at the end of the chapter. While their motivations are unknown, their attack's proximity to multiple examples of groups whose attacks are only to survive suggests they may flee some danger.

5. Jeor Mormont's preference to die in battle than return to Castle Black having accomplished so little. Mormont has been swayed to Thoren Smallwood's foolhardy plan because he feels deeply ashamed of how little his ranging has produced in the way of answers. They might have returned from Craster's with as much as they know now, had the plan not been to meet Qhorin's hundred at the Fist of the First Men. Mormont ranged, himself, because he couldn't take the endless waiting for rangers who never returned. But, having waited for Qhorin so long on the Fist, it only made sense to agree to his plan to range further with smaller groups. So, Mormont found himself, yet again, waiting on rangers who would never return. Feeling so defeated, Thoren's idea of giving battle sounded noble and an antidote to grieving despair.

The Value of a Death

The Chett Prologue reverses a theme constructed in A Clash of Kings, where Qhorin Halfhand's philosophy of death showed each man's life as made more valuable by his service to the group. Now, each man's life seems more valuable than his service could ever be.

Referencing the words of an ancient Lord Commander, Qhorin Halfhand said:

"We can only die. Why else do we don these black cloaks

but to die in defense of the realm?" - ACOK 44 Jon V

The idea may seem dark and brutal, but Qhorin's understanding is rich and life valuing. He mentors his men, coaching them to specialize so that each becomes elite in a skill of choice. Qhorin asks for volunteers when it's immaterial--as in ACOK Jon VI, when Jon volunteered to clear the wildling scouts from their fire--so that men develop where they prefer to serve and green boys may try their hands. Then, when it is a matter of life and death, he asks his men to do the impossible, but each in his avenue of excellence. Qhorin asks the expert bowman, to hold the pass, saying "From there, one man could hold a hundred. The right man.' He looked at Squire Dalbridge." It glorifes and magnifies each death that Qhorin's men give their lives in heroic, odds-defying service to their brothers' survival. The idea is best communicated when Qhorin, who would be tortured to death in the wildling camp, leverages his death by having Jon give him the gift of mercy in a battle that will also buy Jon a chance to survive among the wildlings as a spy. Qhorin leveraged his own necessary death to buy life for Jon. That's what he means by saying the purpose of Night's Watch men is to die.

Here, Mormont misunderstands grievously. He agrees to Thoren Smallwood's plan to attack the wildling caravan. When Maslyn, green with fear, says "We'll die" Mormont replies:

"Many of us, the Old Bear said. 'Mayhaps even all of us. But as another Lord Commander said a thousand years ago, that is why they dress us in black."

The Night's Watch oath rings of vainglory when applied to a suicide attack, and seems an abuse where, before, it had seemed a dignity. Some men make a show of chanting with heart, knowing they intend to kill to escape in a few hours, and will not be made to join the attack. Ironically, the oath works just as well to embolden them to violate it. Others adopt the feeling as heartily as they can, that they might die with honor, in glory, if sentenced to certain death in battle. The error of commanding three hundred men to throw their lives away killing thousands of women and children is compounded by the perversion of using the Night's Watch oath to command solidarity and silence dissent. But then, it was always used that way.

Ranging is Invading

This idea has been building since 125 ACOK Jon VI. Now, we see what an error it was for Mormont to range in force and its ramifications. The Night's Watch was designed to operate as a shield by manning the Wall. Now, away from the Wall, Thoren Smallwood argues the best defense is a preemptive attack. But ranging often invades more than it acknowledges, as we see when Jon and Stonesnake sneak up on a wildling outpost to kill the scouts there. Jon compares himself to a shadowcat and feels like a predator.

The Bear Hunt

They're All Dead and Only Want to Live

The chapter opens with the dogs refusing to track a bear because too cold and starved. The dogs remind of the Night's Watch men sleeping on the frozen ground under their cloaks. At the same time, the dogs hunting a bear remind of the mutineers hunting Mormont. The comparison hilights the fact that, while the dog's won't hunt the bear, the mutineers will hunt Mormont, suggesting it's because they are angry--as the dogs become when pressed.

This metaphor of the dogs who just want to go some place warm with food seems also to apply to Mance Rayder's "army" of families with livestock. They've been made aggressive by desperation. This raises the question of whether the Others are the same. This one metaphor applies to 1) the Night's Watch Men, 2) the bear, 3) the dogs, and the 4) wildlings in order to suggest it may also apply to 5) The Others.

The mutineers don't see the point of throwing their lives away harrying a wildling caravan any more than the freezing, starving dogs see the point of tracking down a bear. From the wildlings to the mutineers, it seems everyone is already undead.

That this was true for Chett before he even joined the Night's Watch is sad and confusing.

The crime Chett was sent to the Wall for was murdering a girl he'd hoped to bed, but who shamed him when he brought her flowers.

"To pay for his one sweet moment, they took his whole life."

It does seem Chett has small chance of winning a wife. His boils aside, when he wrankles at having spent an entire morning gathering flowers only to be rebuffed, it seems he lacks the understanding of romance to ever appeal to any girl. Chett is by turns sympathetic and revolting. His plan to call himself a king, having killed Craster for his hall and wives, makes Chett seem doomed to flounder in a Theon-like inferiority complex until he gets himself killed.

Yet, when the Others arrive, just before the snow starts to fall, Chett finds himself thinking of Bessa with uncharacteristic sweetness. He recalls his good intentions with sadness and regret. It's clear his life has afforded so little prospect that he would feel like a king to have what the wildlings are trying for, too: roof and family. In such a light, Chett's murderous bitterness and maladjustment seem less to condemn him than to mark a state that was always doomed. When the snowflakes begin to fall and Chett knows it means the escape will fail and that he'll be forced to die in Thoren's stupid wilding raid, his interest in killing Sam to feel better, repugnant as it is, only seems like the obvious behavior of a dead man.

Ironies

Mance's army can't break, as Thoren Smallwood expects, because they're refugees. Having no homes to go running back to, they will fight to the death. Or, really, Mance's van will hunt down their comparatively few attackers until the threat they pose is gone.

Mormont, willing to die of shame for failing to gather useful intel, knew the Others had returned before he ranged in force to discover why rangers were vanishing.

Mormont uses the quote Qhorin lives by to keep each individual man alive as long as possible to throw men's lives away, en masse.

Thoren Smallwood thinks he'd harry the column with guerilla attacks, despite it being wildling home turf. It's obvious he and any who attacked alongside him would be hunted down and killed by the van. His attack plan foreshadows that of the Others, who characteristically make guerilla attacks on weaker targets and smaller groups. The entire wildling people, save Craster, have gathered together for safety in numbers, so Mormont's three hundred make a more attractive target by comparison.

References

Donnel, a spy for the men among the officers, reminds us Jon is now a spy among the wildlings.

Chett's mockery of sigils by designing one for himself that is a dozen leeches on a field of pink reminds of Roose Bolton holding court naked from bed, being leeched, as a way to repulse and insult petitioners. It's a reminder Arya was too afraid of Bolton to reveal herself and that he is skinning wolves, setting up for his part in the Red Wedding.

Chett's hairbrained scheme to take Craster's sets up for the mutiny there and reminds of Mormont's telling Jon that Craster's wives must prefer him alive, since they decide every night not to kill him. This idea will be expanded on later, by Ygritte, who explains that a man can own a knife or a woman.

Melisandre's Lightbringer ceremony is referenced in the chanting of the Night's Watch oath. Davos wondered if he owed it to Stannis to say the words. Now, in the context of prisoners made to swear fealty as an alternative to execution or maiming, vows of fealty seem weak glue.