WARNING SPOILERS FOR ALL BOOKS AHEAD
Synopsis:
A great feast is thrown for King Robert honoring his visit to Winterfell. Jon Snow gives us some insightful comments (in his opinion) on the character of all the guests and argues with his Uncle Benjen regarding joining the Night's Watch. Reflecting on his drunkenness and bastardy makes him angry so he leaves the hall only to engage with a good old fashioned chat with Tyrion.
What do we learn?:
Culture:
Culturally here we see something that really sets Westeros apart from many other fantasy realms, as well as our own history. That is, that bastards are an unwelcome presence in Westeros, fatherless, nameless, and outcast. Sure Jon Snow doesn't offer the best example, but the fact that his presence 'may offer insult' to the royal family shows a great difference between this culture and ours.
There's another swift reminder about the still stratified nature of the Night's Watch when we see Ned's brother Benjen Stark come in dressed in all black finery and lordly outfitting. Compare that to the poor cloaks and evident poverty of the Watchmen we saw in the prologue and ask yourself whether they could afford to go to a feast dressed like that!
Other than the rather poignant fact about bastards we don't learn very much culturally here, but it's nice to see a feast scene with all the smoke flame and food described. This chapter doesn't have as much 'food porn' as we see in other feast scenes (where often the good food offsets the horrible tribulations of the characters) but you still just feel the merry times and can almost taste the honey chicken!
Political:
Unfortunately we don't get lot's of political detail here. We do get a look at the leading alliance of Houses, Those of Baratheon and Lannister, but not very many important political details are brought up.
Character:
Well as far as character chapters go this is a gold mine! We get introduced to almost every major player in the novel son the Lannister side (we've already met all the Starks) running the gambit from Cersei, Jaime, Tyrion, Joffery, Tommen, and Myrcella and get some insightful character bits from Jon.
This is really the introductory chapter for old Jon Snow and we get to see his character shine here (though his perception skills will somewhat suffer as the series goes on). Jon offers some great insight into the major characters and even gives us some lovely young lads misconceptions of the world.
For instance, he sees through Cersei's false smiles and courtesies, seeing how she doesn't respect Ned and seems unhappy to be there. He then notes how Myrcella has a tiny crush on his older brother while watching with dismay at the height Joffery has and seeing him as the spitting image of his mother (hint, hint). Then he finds himself dismayed at King Robert's appearance, fat, drunk, and half out of his cups he looks nothing like the man Ned has built him up to be in his tales and nothing of what a king ought to look like. Then he see's Jaime and thinks that his proud visage is what a king should look like. Regal, beautiful, and owning his stylish clothes this is what a king should be in his mind!
Then he sees Tyrion and notes how this stunted dwarf is everything that Jaime and Cersei are not. Stunted, misshapen, and hideous he is the opposite of what his beautiful brother and sister are.
Their conversation outside the hall is just beautiful, Tyrion sees the bastard of Winterfell and sympathises with him over their shared nature of being outcast. While Tyrion may be the scion of a Great House he is an outcast for his deformities and faces prejudice for being ugly. This was a very real prejudice in our time as well as people would often conflate beauty with goodness and ugliness with evil. As time will go on we shall see Martin subvert this trope beautifully.
We also get a look at Ned's younger brother Benjen. He's clearly as much a man of honor as Lord Stark is and has clearly joined the Night's Watch out of a sense of duty and honor. He is a man who chooses not to bullshit Jon about the hardships and sacrifices of the Night's Watch. He tells the hard truth and won't let Jon rush into a rash decision. He is also a man who seems to not feel the constrains of falling into regular social norms as he embraces Jon as though he were a true son of House Stark.
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| Credit to Amoka |
Finally we get Jon himself. Jon is young, impetuous, and full of piss and vinegar. He has never been drunk before and decides to take the opportunity to indulge himself. He is wise, that much is evident, but for all that wisdom he is still a child prone to making childish mistakes, especially those of young adults with more courage and sense. All in all he is a young man like any other, maybe a bit wiser due to his circumstances but still a young man.
He is self aware of his station too, and he knows that he will never rise above his station to be more than that, he won't lead great armies or rule a holdfast or marry into great families, he has no right of inheritance and he doesn't even know who his mother is. This makes him very well aware of what he would be doing to a child of his own and he gets quite emotional at the thought of fathering a bastard.
I also think its wonderful he doesn't have to be an unrealistic stoic and he actually cries when Benjen unknowingly besmirches his honor and sensibilities. This here is Martin's signature style of well rounded characters with good goals and motivations, not to mention flaws which run the story!
Historical:
Well I've already mentioned the historical aspects of the story with the comparison to Westeros's bastardy and our own. I think it's worth leaving off on discussing it further until I can do a proper essay on the subject to examine it in more depth.
Otherwise I've really exhausted all the major analysis I can do for this chapter, it is a character building chapter after all!
