A Game of Thrones ÔÇö Jon VIII
For a burned hand and a saved life, Mormont gives Jon the Valyrian blade Longclaw ÔÇö while word of his father's fall gnaws at him.
The chapter retold
In gratitude for the burned hand Jon earned saving his life from the wight, and for the life itself, Lord Commander Mormont gives Jon an extraordinary gift: Longclaw, a Valyrian steel bastard sword that has been his own family's greatest heirloom for generations, reforged and regifted rather than sold off when the Mormonts fell on hard times. It's a staggering honor for a steward not yet even fully trusted with a ranger's duties ÔÇö and Jon receives it while still gnawed at by half-formed news filtering north that something has gone badly wrong for his father in King's Landing.
The gift cements, in the most tangible way the book has offered yet, that Mormont sees something in Jon worth investing the Watch's dwindling resources and his own family's legacy in ÔÇö a vote of confidence that arrives at almost the exact moment Jon's actual family, far to the south, is coming apart. The juxtaposition is the book's quiet cruelty: Jon gains a sword and a mentor's trust in the same chapter that the news from home starts curdling into dread he can't yet act on from this far north.
This movement: The Green Fork and the Whispering Wood
- Tywin's van tramples Tyrion's hill tribes on the Green Fork ÔÇö a battle Robb never meant to win.
- The real blow lands in the Whispering Wood: Jaime Lannister taken, his host shattered under Riverrun's walls.
- Ned trades a false confession for his daughters' safety; Joffrey trades Ned's head for eternity's contempt.
- Khal Drogo takes a wound in Lhazar; Mirri Maz Duur's blood magic costs Dany her son and her sun-and-stars.