Death on the first page

[Inevittable]

Has anyone else noticed that the word "dead" appears in every paragraph of the first page of GoT? At least it does in my copy (2003). I wonder if the last page of the last book will do the same?

Something about that first chapter gets me though. I'm stuck trying to form a thought about how what happens to Royce, Gared and Will seems to be repeated throughout the story:

Royce, a young lordling trying to make a name for himself, killed by an Other, but fought bravely (ie, he played the game).

Will, hid and watched a fellow player get killed by the game, and was killed by the same dead player.

Gared, had enough experience of the game to know he was better off out of it, but was killed by other players for not wanting to take part (ie desertion).

Or maybe it just means that a lot of people die in Westeros :dunno:

Just throwing it out there to see if anyone else can make anything of it.

[Julian Rayne]

I don't think Royce fought the Other to make a name for himself. His only other choice was to curl up and be killed.

[Inevittable]

Of course, at that point he had little choice. I meant his raison d'etre of joining the Nights Watch in the first place: "the youngest son of an ancient house with too many heirs".

[Castellan]

Also. Gared was trying to persuade Royce to go back, but he felt it his duty to keep looking, so he did make a choice.

[Lummel]

Has anyone else noticed that the word "dead" appears in every paragraph of the first page of GoT? At least it does in my copy (2003). I wonder if the last page of the last book will do the same?

Something about that first chapter gets me though. I'm stuck trying to form a thought about how what happens to Royce, Gared and Will seems to be repeated throughout the story...

last page of the last book? Well that would depend on if you think the story of ASOIAF will be best represented by a circle or a line.

It hadn't stood out to me, but then the text layout of my 2003 edition doesn't make that first paragraph very distinct. The death paragraph though is followed by the descriptive words: unmanned, tightness, tension, fear, unease. GRRM is establishing the ambience. Within three paragraphs you've got tensions within the group, fear of something beyond the group and the lingering presence of death from the first paragraph.

And then they all die.

In terms of wider significance I suppose you'd have to look at how the prologues comment and relate to the book that follows. This is our introduction to Westeros, but its concerns and subject are marginal to the story we read, which itself is a comment on the value and importance of the game playing for the iron throne I suppose. I'd note also how the distinctly unmagical story of AGOT is bookended by magical/mythical happenings, the fantastical White Walkers and the birth of Dragons. Ice and Fire.

[Inevittable]

In terms of wider significance I suppose you'd have to look at how the prologues comment and relate to the book that follows. This is our introduction to Westeros, but its concerns and subject are marginal to the story we read, which itself is a comment on the value and importance of the game playing for the iron throne I suppose. I'd note also how the distinctly unmagical story of AGOT is bookended by magical/mythical happenings, the fantastical White Walkers and the birth of Dragons. Ice and Fire.

Interesting, I hadn't thought of the ways the prologues tell some sort of story in themselves and knit everything together. I suppose that comes from my always reading the books as one long story, rather than a sequence of distinct volumes.

I also hadn't noticed the 'book end' effect of the magical happenings. It's a shame the series doesn't keep up this theme with the final scenes of each season: The hatching of the dragons, the White Walkers, and then Mhysa.

[Lummel]

The prologues and epilogues when they happen are interesting. They are absolute breaks from the rest of the POVs, can be free standing, generally mark a different perspective, have an element of 'this is the real story' about them. ASOS strikes me as similar to AGOT with quite magical bookends, ice wights and a fire wight at the beginning and the end.

The TV series could have kept that I suppose, but then again I don't know if the experience of watching a season an episode a week is all that similar to reading a book at your own pace. One would maybe need to find a distinct visual language to make something stand out on television as something different - like say the final montage sections in The Wire at the end of seasons - since the viewer presumably doesn't experience the POV as the reader does, so it would all just be story made of the same stuff, while as a reader you realise that prologue and epilogue characters die!

[Julian Rayne]

Also. Gared was trying to persuade Royce to go back, but he felt it his duty to keep looking, so he did make a choice.

I re-read the OP and I now see that I misunderstood what he was saying. Mea culpa.

[Julian Rayne]

Double Post. Not sure how to delete.

[Alternateline]

Interesting, I hadn't thought of the ways the prologues tell some sort of story in themselves and knit everything together. I suppose that comes from my always reading the books as one long story, rather than a sequence of distinct volumes.

I also hadn't noticed the 'book end' effect of the magical happenings. It's a shame the series doesn't keep up this theme with the final scenes of each season: The hatching of the dragons, the White Walkers, and then Mhysa.

The 'book end' effect is something that GRRM is really good at. GoT's main story begins with Ned lopping off a head, and ends (pretty much) with the same thing.