Previously on A Blog of Thrones, we spent three chapters watching things go entirely to pot in King's Landing.
(Author's note: half of this was written and then shelved about three months ago. See if you can spot the join.)
Aaaaaaaaagh George Why You Do This Thing? You make the plot move, and then you stop it again. Why? Is not cliffhanger. Real cliffhanger comes in next Sansa chapter, or in Eddard chapter after it. This is just Leaving Us Hanging.
Jon is humbled by the realization that he'd have died in the corpses' place if he'd gone out with Uncle Ben
...f*ck I just got that...
Aaaaanananananayway. Does Widdle Johnnykins now know that life is not a game, the Night's Watch is a frickin' army, and there's no place for okay fine I'll stop ragging on Sam.
No, actually, I won't. Maester Aemon sent Sam to look at the corpses. Sam is a coward who can't bear to look at corpses. You're right, Jon! This guy is totally suited to be Maester Aemon's most valuable assistant!
I would stop ragging on him, I really would, except that this entire point of this book is that the whole kingdom goes to pot because a man in a position of power (King Robert Baratheon) promotes his best friend (Lord Eddard Stark) well out of his element/competence, with utterly disastrous consequences. The wrong man in the right place can utterly f*ck over a kingdom. And meanwhile, what is Jon Snow doing? THE EXACT SAME F*CKING THING.
Y'know, this is the problem with having a massive ensemble cast. Nobody can learn anything from anyone else's mistakes.
Okay, so Sam does something mildly useful and plays CSI and tells us that these corpses have been dead a while since blood's not flowing. Oh, and they suddenly have blue eyes. So some of the smarter guys want to burn the corpses, but Mormont insists on bringing them back to the Wall. (Did I just get done saying that this entire series is the result of having witless idiots in positions of power? Methinks I did.)
By the way, I have another question. Ser Jaremy Rykker and Ser Alliser Thorne are both members of the Night's Watch. What happened to the whole "Win no glory" thing?
They get back to the Wall and learn that King Robert has died. (Start the clock, and make an educated guess based on how much longer it takes the news to reach Daenerys how far away she is.) Jon thinks this means Ned Stark will be sent back home, so Jon resolves to ask Ned about his mother. But then he learns that Ned has been arrested.
Now, you, dear reader, and I, we know that Ned Stark is not Jon's father. But Jon doesn't know that. And furthermore Jon's been shut up here at the ass end of the world with a bunch of ragtag misfits on a misguided quest to win honor and glory among a brotherhood that awards neither.
And so I'm tempted to say this is The Moment That Breaks Jon Snow. I'll get into this later.
Mormont talks about how he wishes Tyrion were at Joffrey's side to talk some sense in him. So, Mormont hasn't read the next book yet. Also it's a tiny moment designed to set up something else that I'll get to in just a moment, but what a statement it is that the kingdom would be better off if a drunken lecher were whispering in the king's ear. Yikes.
Anyway, Mormont says it was a bad thing that Lady Stark took Tyrion hostage. Jon reflects that if Eddard dies, Catelyn will share the blame for it. Hey, Jon, I suddenly like you! You understand things!
So Jon wanders around in a bit of a daze. Everyone else knows what has happened, and Jon knows they know, and... George? Anything?
Jon has forged some friendships here, has become part of the Night's Watch, but this section divorces him from them in two distinct ways: first of all, it draws him back into the rest of the world, to which he has ties but they do not. And secondly, he resents the fact that all of his sworn brothers know about what happened in King's Landing before he does.
What happens next is the "action" bit of the chapter, but like all of the fight scenes in Quantum of Solace, it's really not all that important. It's a way of superficially mending that rift between Jon and the Watch, without actually addressing it.
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