Previously on the Useless Cripple Show, we were inconclusive about at what age a boy becomes a man. Let's turn to a 14-year-old motherless bastard at the frozen edge of the world and see if he has anything to say on the subject.
Jon has become a better instructor than Ser Alliser, but that's like saying a two-year-old can walk better than Bran Stark. A new recruit named Samwise GamGee Arr Arr Emm Tarly shows up. He is incredibly fat. Pyp can tell he's from Highgarden because Pyp can tell where you're from just by listening to you talk - a skill that will never be brought up again. Alliser sets his lackeys against him, with Jon defending him, but when it becomes a three-on-one fight Jon's friends step in to help. Man, I really hope Jon turns out to be the secret heir to the throne or something; this guy actually understands how to get people to help you without being a colossal dick about it.
Next Jon turns his amazing social skills to get Sam to tell him (and us) his life story, which basically amounts to: "my daddy couldn't change the laws of primogeniture, so he told me that if I didn't join the Night's Watch (and foreswear my inheritance) he'd kill me."
Not for the last time I find myself wondering why Tywin never did this with Tyrion. Guy deserves a lot more credit than he gets. (Hell, let's be honest here. Between Randyll Tarly and Balon Greyjoy - to say nothing of Walder Frey - Tywin should be winning Father of the Year awards left and right.)
After that, Jon tells the other recruits not to pick on Sam even if Alliser makes them. Rast laughs at this, but that night Jon sics a direwolf on him and that's the end of that.
Jon Snow, everyone, using his pet to get what he wants two whole books before Daenerys gets the opportunity to do the same.
Sam figures out that Jon helped him, somehow, and says he's never had a friend before. Jon says they're brothers, and pretends to acknowledge that his old life at Winterfell is completely behind him.
Good luck with that.
The world was full of cravens who pretended to be heroes; it took a queer sort of courage to admit to cowardice as Samwell Tarly had.
-pg. 264, US Paperback
Back in King's Landing, Ned is pissed because Robert is wasting a bunch of money on a tournament, and what's worse is that he's insisting on calling it "the Hand's tourney." Also, the massive number of knights and camp followers (both what you'd think that term means and what it actually means) showing up for the tourney means that the crime rate has skyrocketed. Which means we get to meet Janos Slynt, the guy in charge of the City Watch. I don't care what his qualifications are, when I rule the world, I'm not putting a guy named after a two-faced Roman god in charge of my security.
Robert's next-oldest brother Stannis has gone to Dragonstone, an island in the bay, and doesn't look like he'll be returning anytime soon. Apparently Stannis is a sour curmudgeon who would have outlawed whoring if he could. He survived a siege during the rebellion by eating rats and boots. He also was seen visiting a blacksmith with Jon Arryn while the latter was commissioning a new suit of armor. So Ned goes to see the armorer, and we find out that a chap named Lord Beric is in town for the tourney. I'm sure that will never come up again.
There's a bastard named Gendry working as an apprentice at the armorer's. His mother had golden hair and his father, Ned is quick to realize, was King Robert. Gendry has blue eyes (like Robert) and black hair (like Robert). Jon Arryn was reading a book on genealogy before he died, and his last words were "the seed is strong."
Ned, of course, is far too thick to realize the significance of any of this.
"Is there any other service I might perform?"
"I suppose you'd best begin visiting whorehouses."
-pg. 281, US paperback
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