#craster's wives

[wpmorse]

Mormont's head was still in his lap, but his eyes were open and staring and his lips no longer moved. The raven cocked its head and squawked, then looked up at Sam. "Corn?" Samwell  II-PG 459

Jeor Mormont is dead, Craster's surviving wives assign Sam to take Gilly to the Wall, and Mormont's Raven wants corn.

I have mixed feelings about this one. I think the composition of the three wives standing over Sam is sound in principle. But if this was not a half-hour sketch challenge, I would have done several more thumbnails to get it right.

[thebluelemontree]

What do you think happened to the remaining women at Craster’s keep?

Their prospects don't look good. Nine mutineers remained at Craster's Keep after the mutiny. They may be forced to serve them. It's hard to say if the wives would plot a rebellion such as killing the men in their sleep. They outnumbered Craster nineteen to one, but Craster's cult-like psychological control kept his daughter-wives from ever raising a hand against him. I'm not blaming them. They are largely cut off from other people. Craster indoctrinated them to believe he is a godly man and their sacrifices to the cold gods (the Others) are their only source of safety in a hostile world. He has conditioned them to believe this is what freedom looks like and everywhere else lies the barbarity of slavery when clearly it's the opposite. Where else could they go? The NW may have a tenuous alliance with Craster, but his wives would never be welcomed at the Wall or allowed to go south. Why should they not expect to find more of the same depraved animals that terrorized them at the Wall? They also are rejected by other Free Folk for their incestuous breeding, which was nothing they chose of their own free will. They are cursed just for being born one of Craster's children. No clan will take them in. There is also the problem of the Others' escalating presence and they are pretty much out of sons to keep their gods appeased. With Craster dead and the center of their world collapsed, it's hard to say how they will process this new reality. I'm not saying they blissfully drank the kool-aid because none of them seem happy with their lot. It's just that the outside world seems so much crueler and dangerously unpredictable compared to the prison they were accustomed to. I don't see how they have any good options moving forward, and I wouldn't expect them to survive much longer no matter what they did. :(

[wpmorse]

The Lord Commander stood over Craster's corpse, dark with anger. "The gods will curse us," he cried. "There is no crime so foul as for a guest to bring murder into a man's hall. By all the laws of the hearth, we—"

Samwell II-PG 458

Night Watch members mutiny against their host. Furious, Lord Commander Jeor Mormont curses them in an act of defiance that will last for about fifteen seconds longer.

This was another paragraph that there was way too much going on. The fight scene would have been a mess. So I decided to give Mormont his last stand.

Just as well, since I realized in my last drawing of Craster in A Clash of Kings I had drawn him clean-shaven. Reading this chapter was the first time I realized he had a full beard.

[wpmorse]

Sam found a place between Grenn and Orphan Oss, his stomach rumbling. The charred horsemeat dripped with grease as Craster's wives turned the spits above the firepit, and the smell of it set his mouth to watering again, but that reminded him of Bannen. Hungry as he was, Sam knew he would retch if he so much as tried a bite. How could they eat the poor faithful garrons who had carried them so far? When Craster's wives brought onions, he seized one eagerly. One side was black with rot, but he cut that part off with his dagger and ate the good half raw. There was bread as well, but only two loaves. When Ulmer asked for more, the woman only shook her head. That was when the trouble started. Samwell  II-PG 455

Sam sits down for supper. As miserable as it is the last moment of peace he will see for a while.

Other than Sam's suffering there wasn't much to do here. I did this as another establishment shot focusing on one of Craster's wives cooking a horse.

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

How common is the practice of sacrificing infants to Others? Craster gave them sheep too... why don't all or most of the wildlings sacrifice livestock too? Would it keep the Others off? Or is Craster a special case? What happened to the axe Mormont gave craster? What do you think happened to Craster's wives? craster was much closer to the Wall than the other wildlings.. shouldn't that have made his interaction with Others all the more scarce? How long since the Rangers knew about this practice?

How common is the practice of sacrificing infants to Others? Don’t know, but probably very uncommon as the other wildlings shun Craster (and our only wildling POV, Varamyr, made no mention of it whatsoever).

Craster gave them sheep too… why don’t all or most of the wildlings sacrifice livestock too? There were human bones found in the mouth of a weirwood at Whitetree, so there probably is some kind of sacrifice going on, just not to the Others.

Would it keep the Others off? Probably not

Or is Craster a special case? Probably

What happened to the axe Mormont gave Craster? No idea, don’t much care, don’t think it matters

What do you think happened to Craster’s wives? The mutineers eventually left and were killed by Coldhands, so the wives are probably still in the keep. Maybe some decided to or were convinced to join Mance’s wildling refugees, or went off to Hardhome with some of the survivors of the attack on the Wall, or joined Tormund’s other group of survivors, but if so they haven’t identified themselves.

Craster was much closer to the Wall than the other wildlings… shouldn’t that have made his interaction with Others all the more scarce? The show scenes where an Other picks up a sacrificed baby are purely show scenes and not in the books. Other than the wives saying that the Others were coming to take Gilly’s baby, there is no in-book proof that the Others ever take any of Craster’s sons and they don’t just die of exposure and/or wild animals. So we don’t know if Craster had any real encounters with the Others before they “woke up” (or however they came back) before the beginning of AGOT. Also, closeness to the Wall probably doesn’t really matter, it’s just the Wall itself the Others can’t cross.

How long since the Rangers knew about this practice? Too long.

[kittenbalerion]

If only because we got to see one of Craster's Wives killing someone who had raped and abused her/her sisters/her mother/her daughters, and then light Craster's Keep on fire, that story line was worth it.

[boiledleather]

Once again, we close out the episode beyond the Wall, with a sequence as cathartic as last week’s was horrific. Jon Snow and his merry men make short work of the mutineers at Craster’s Keep — and yeah, we all felt a little swell of way-too-invested-in-this-show pride considering how green those dudes were just a couple seasons ago. Though the dramatic visions of Jojen Reed and the telepathic powers of Bran Stark intrude on the imagery and plotting like such things rarely have before, it’s ultimately the fate of Craster’s daughter-wives that’s most moving as the episode draws to a close. Since the Night’s Watch turned a blind eye to Craster’s abuse of his wives for years before a gang of them tried their hand at it themselves (even a valuable hostage like Meera Reed was just one more potential victim to these men), the women refuse Jon Snow’s offer of so-called safety at Castle Black. They burn the keep and the bodies, and they go their own way. “Everywhere in the world, they hurt little girls,” Cersei had said. But not here. Not anymore.

'Game of Thrones' Recap: We Three Queens | Rolling Stone

I reviewed last night’s emotionally sensitive and satisfying episode for Rolling Stone.