A Storm of Swords ÔÇö Jon IV
The Wall by its wrong side: Jon and Ygritte climb seven hundred feet of ice with the Thenns, and the Wall weeps and cracks and tries to shrug them off.
The chapter retold
Jon Snow climbs the Wall itself from its wrong side, roped in with Ygritte and a party of Thenns under Styr, seven hundred feet of ancient ice that seems, as they ascend, to actively resent the intrusion ÔÇö cracking, weeping meltwater in a season it should not, dropping chunks that come close enough to end several climbers before the top is ever reached. It is one of the book's most physically vivid set pieces, cold and vertiginous, and Jon spends every foot of it aware that the climb is a rehearsal for something much larger: an invasion he is technically helping to stage against the only home he has ever chosen for himself.
The Wall's ancient magic ÔÇö older than the Watch, older than most of the realm's memory ÔÇö gets its most visceral demonstration here, not through lore but through the structure's own uncanny resistance to being scaled. Jon reaches the top compromised in every direction: complicit in an act of war against his own order, and no closer to deciding what he will do about it once he is standing on solid ice again.
This movement: The Bear, the Wall, the Bath
- In Harrenhal's bathhouse Jaime tells Brienne the truth of the Mad King and faints in her arms; later he turns back for her and jumps into a bear pit.
- Jon climbs the Wall with the free folk and breaks from them at Queenscrown, arrows in his leg.
- Dany takes Yunkai by night; the Second Sons change sides for a captain named Daario.
- Sam kills his second impossible thing rumor-wise; the Watch's remnants choose a fat man's courage at Craster's.