162 ASOS 19 Samwell I: Encouragement

Pursued by wights as he runs from the Fist of the First Men, Sam finally is too weak to go on and falls in the snow, prepared to die. Grenn and Small Paul won't leave him. When wights attack again, Sam kills a wight with the dragonglass dagger Jon gave him, discovering wights can be killed. What makes the difference between life and death? Friendship.

Can't Go On

"But if he stopped he died" The cold is slowing Sam down and freezing him. "even my wits are freezing now" 239"Mother have mercy" Sam extends his prayer to include the old gods. Remembers the attack on the Fist of the First Men: Maslyn screaming for mercy. Sam trips and falls and doesn't have the strength to get up. He thinks he can die knowing he did his duty. He sent the ravens. We see the moment when Chett realizes the Others are upon them and see that he runs. Sam remembers sending a raven. Then Sam remembers the attack, the thought that he'd rather die among friends and seeking out Grenn and Dolorous Ed. Now he lays in the snow. A man curses him or being in the way. Earlier, one had growled at him to get up. He's not wounded, just the greatest craven in the Seven Kingdoms. He imagines his family, his brother Dickon, thinking a coward's not worth weeping over. Sam remembers Mormont send fire arrows, how he'd written the various likely outcomes on messages in advance. Fire doesn't do enough. Grenn shakes Sam to get up. A passing man advises Grenn to leave Sam for dead. Small Paul offers to carry Sam. He asks to have one of Sam's ravens. But Sam already freed all the ravens when he'd heard the Watch called to horse.

"Only as he watched the last raven flap up into the snowstorm did he realize that he had forgotten to send any of the messages he'd written."

Then the dead, mostly wildlings, begin to shamble by. Sam runs, finds a horse, rides with Mormont. But a man yanks Sam out of the saddle. Now, Small Paul carries him as far as he can. They see an undead horse. An Other attacks Grenn, cutting off his torch head.

Do it now. Stop crying and fight, you baby. Fight, craven. It was his father he heard, it was Alliser Thorne, it was his brother Dickon and the boy Rast. Craven, craven, craven. He giggled hysterically, wondering if they would make a wight of him, a huge fat white wight always tripping over its own dead feet. Do it, Sam. Was that Jon, now? Jon was dead. You can do it, you can, just do it. And then he was stumbling forward, falling more than running, really, closing his eyes and shoving the dagger blindly out before him with both hands. He heard a crack, like the sound ice makes when it breaks beneath a man's foot, and then a screech so shrill and sharp that he went staggering backward with his hands over his muffled ears, and fell hard on his arse.

When he opened his eyes the Other's armor was running down its legs in rivulets as pale blue blood hissed and steamed around the black dragonglass dagger in its throat.

It's clear Sam's father's judgments are holding him back where Jon's encouragement literally emboldens Sam. After Sam kills the Other, he'd give the dragonglass dagger to Grenn, as he's not craven. But Grenn protests that Sam just killed an Other with the dagger and should keep it. Dawn is breaking to the east. Grenn thinks they can meet up with Mormont. Sam determines to try, promising "I'll try hard."

The chapter is structured around Sam's fall and change. Sam gives up half way through the chapter that ends with him resolving to try hard. After Small Paul carries him, Sam musters the courage to kill an Other. He remembers Jon's faith in him and defends them, learning that dragonglass is deadly to Others. Encouragement by friends and is contrasted with chastizement by others, who would have left Sam to die or told him to toughen up, as his father told him. Though still craven, Sam now stands armed against the army of the undead.