First Page Of A Song Of Ice And Fire の小説・ストーリー

The importance of the prologue—or the 'first page' as you put it—isn't really about the plot's main events, but about establishing the rules of the world. It’s a quiet, cold scene with Waymar Royce and his Night’s Watch brothers, and the Others show up almost immediately. That tells you everything. The political scheming in King's Landing, the wars for the throne, they’re all happening while this ancient, existential threat is already moving in the frozen north. It frames the entire series. Most epic fantasies save the big supernatural evil for later, but here it's the opening note. It makes you read every 'game of thrones' moment with this underlying dread, knowing it might all be for nothing. I sometimes flip back to it after finishing a later book, and the mood it sets is just perfectly ominous.

Some readers skip prologues, but that would be a huge mistake here. It’s like missing the foundation the house is built on.

I just re-read it the other day, and what struck me this time was the sheer, mundane cold. It’s not a grand, epic opening—it’s three guys riding out beyond a wall on a routine patrol, and it’s so cold their wine freezes. The prologue of 'A Game of Thrones' is almost mundane in its dread. They’re joking about the cold, complaining about command, acting like any group of soldiers anywhere. Then they find the wildlings butchered in a way that feels ritualistic and wrong, and the fear becomes something specific, not just the cold. The writing makes you feel the isolation. By the time the Others appear, silent and elegant in their cruelty, the shift from boredom to horror is absolute. It tells you this series won’t pull punches with weather or logistics, and the supernatural isn’t a glorious spectacle—it’s a quiet, lethal alteration of the rules. It sets a tone where even routine can curdle into nightmare in a paragraph.

Some readers find it slow, but for me, that build-up is everything. You meet Will, Gared, and Waymar Royce, who’s a bit of a prick, and you get a full sense of their dynamics before anything goes wrong. Royce’s pride gets him killed in a duel that’s almost courteous. The Others aren’t mindless; they observe, they almost play with him. That detail—the elegance of the threat—haunts the whole series. The last line, about Will feeling the cold, is a masterstroke of understated horror. It doesn’t promise heroes and magic. It promises that the world itself is unforgiving and that death often comes without witness or meaning.

Man, that's a great pull. Straight to the very first text page, not the prologue? Because that's a trick. The prologue opens with three Night's Watch men—Will, Gared, and Ser Waymar Royce—beyond the Wall. But if you mean Chapter One, the first proper page after 'BRAN,' it's all about the journey to see the deserter's execution. The characters physically present are Bran himself, obviously, his father Eddard Stark, his brother Robb, Jon Snow, and Theon Greyjoy. You also get the direwolf pups in that scene. So your core cast right out the gate: the Starks (minus Sansa and Arya, who come in later at Winterfell), Jon, and Theon. It's wild how much that first family scene establishes the entire northern dynamic, and you don't even realize it yet.

Some people might forget Jon is there because he's so quiet, but he's mentioned riding with Bran and Robb. Theon's already making snide comments, too, which perfectly sets up his whole deal. It's a masterful introduction, no wasted space. Everyone gets a little moment that tells you exactly who they are.