Game of Thrones – The Old Way
Today I drew one of the plot-relevant parts of the books. Where we are introduced to three of our point of view characters, Bran, Jon, and Ned. We also are introduced to Theon, and for what it’s worth, Jory Cassel. We are also introduced to the code of the starks, which includes the Old Way, which in this case means Ned personally executing the Nights Watch deserter.
Gathering the data for this picture came as a surprise. I must have only scanned this part when I first read it and only remembered the scene in the show. In the show it’s far out in the open, showing the expanse of the North. It’s easy to keep thinking it’s the wilderness because a page later they find the dire wolves. I even heard one fan theory saying that the Old Way is a continuation of human sacrifice because the execution block is an old Weirwood stump.
Instead, it all takes place inside a holdfast. Essentially a village with a big wall. No Weirwood insight. It’s a town square and it’s almost as civilized as the North gets.
I put the actual execution in the background. Not as a way to censor myself, but because all of this is in Bran’s point of view, this is not a story about the brutality of this setting… Well, It is, but it’s how a seven-year-old boy has to accept it as normal and be brave watching it.
His father took off the man’s head with a single sure stroke. Blood sprayed out across the snow as red as summer wine. One of the horses reared and to be restrained to keep from bolting. Bran could not take his eyes off the blood. The snows around the stump dark it eagerly reddening as he watched.
Game of Thrones – Chapter 1