The Nights Watch rides through the lands beyond the wall. They are miserable after six days of unending cold rain. Jon Snow is miserable. Lord Commander Mormont is miserable. Even Mormont’s raven is miserable.
Raven: Corn……..ucopia of umbrellas. That’s what I wish I had right now. *squawk*
A horn then sounds.
Raven: Corn?
No, no. A horn. Not Corn.
Raven: Oh.
Lord Commander Mormont: Good. That horn can only mean one thing… that Jarmen Buckwell has reached Craster’s Keep and that it is not abandoned. Finally, some sign of civilization. We can stop at Craster’s for some warmth and shelter.
Jon: I dunno. I’ve heard all sorts of stories about this Craster guy. They say he’s a kinslayer. A liar. A raper. A craven. And a slaver. They say he has a bunch of daughters and then marries them when they become teenagers.
Mormont: Yeah, all of those things sound pretty accurate.
Jon: Then why the hell are we pretending like he’s a friend to the Night’s Watch?
Mormont: I dunno. Thoren Smallwood seems to think that Craster is a pretty chill, cool guy.
Jon: Thoren Smallwood is a freaking creep. Of course he’d like Craster. Thoren Smallwood is the guy who you hear that the FBI raided his house and it was full of guns and child pornography. Then instead of the neighbors being like, “Oh we can’t believe it!,” it’s one of those cases where everyone is like, “Yep, that seems like him.”
Mormont: Whatever. We either go to Craster’s Keep to get dry and have some food… or we stay out in the cold rain, catch pneumonia, and then die.
Jon: I guess we can go to Craster’s Keep.
And so they go there. When they arrive, Jon is not impressed. There is a sign outside which says “Craster’s Keep / Branch Davidian Compound.”
Jon: Wow. I wasn’t expecting a giant, stone castle or anything. But this is a shithole. It looks like a couple of shacks with a leaky roofs.
However, on the plus side there are a bunch of naked women running around.
Jon: In THIS weather? That’s crazy! PUT ON SOME CLOTHES. Just who are these naked girls anyway? Craster’s wives? Craster’s daughters?
Ottyn Wythers: Yes.
Jon: Yes to whic—ahh, okay. I see now.
Jon looks around and sees that the great hall to the keep is probably only big enough to accommodate 30-50 of the Night’s Watch. Despite the promise of shelter, a lot of the 200 men will need to stay outside in their tents. And the great hall itself isn’t that “great.” It might as well be a barn itself since it smells like dog shit.
Edd: Ah, there you are, Jon. The Lord Commander says you are to join him and meet with Craster. But your wolf stays outside.
Ghost: *whimper* [Translation: Boooooo!]
Jon enters and joins the Lord Commander, who is asking Craster some questions about his recent interactions with the Watch.
Mormont: So, have you seen Benjen recently?
Craster: Oh… old Benjen Stark? No way, I haven’t seen that dude in like three years. The last time I saw any people from the Watch was when these guys named Waymar Royce, Gared and Will came by to visit. What a bunch of asses. All my wives were staring at Waymar. But he was too proud to sleep under my roof.
Mormont: Did you know that, like, every single village a hundred miles around you is completely abandoned? They’re all running from the Wights. Two of our men rose from the dead at Castle Black and tried to kill us all.
Craster: Hrm. I wouldn’t know anything about that. *shifty eyes*
Jon: Hey! What’s up with those shifty eyes? Are you lying? Do you know more than you’re telling us?
Craster: No! Of course not! *even shiftier eyes*
Mormont: You know, with all these dangerous Wights roaming around, we can escort you back to the wall and to safety.
Craster: Nah, I’m good here. This is my place and I’m free here. I’d rather die free than live as a slave. Every man dies. But not every man truly lives!
Jon: Don’t quote fuckin’ Braveheart around us, man.
Jarmen Buckwell: Yeah. And don’t pretend like you “Free Folk” are actually all that free. You just serve a different king… that “King Beyond the Wall,” Mance Rayder.
Craster: Hahaha, Mance? You think I serve him? Please. One day he sent a messenger to me, telling me I needed to abandon my keep and come groveling to him. I sent that messenger back with his tongue cut out.
Jon: Dude, not cool. He was just a messenger.
Craster: So look, here is the deal. You bitches can all sleep on my floor. But I’m only going to feed 20 if you. The rest can fend for themselves.
Mormont: Oh, all we need is your roof. Nothing else. We have some food and wine that we can share with you in thanks for the shelter.
Craster: WINE? FUCK YEAH! GIMMIE! GIMMIE! GIMMIE! Oh… and there is one other house rule. Anyone who touches one of my wives gets his dick cut off.
Mormont: Well, considering that 70% of the Night’s Watch is made up of rapists, that’s going to be a tough one. But fair enough. One thing we’ll also need from you is some help to navigate the north. Any info you might have about where Mance is, etc.
Craster: Sure, sure. Do you have anyone who can draw maps? I’ll explain some terrain around here and you can draw it all down.
Jon: Samwell Tarley is good with maps.
Mormont: Indeed. Go fetch him, Jon. And also fetch me an axe. I want to give Craster an axe as an additional house warming gift.
And so Jon goes to get Sam. On the way out, he sees that the rest of the Watch have already begun setting up their tents outside. Jon sees Edd and shares with him Lord Jeor’s instructions.
Edd: An AXE? Why the hell is Mormont giving Craster an axe? The most likely thing Craster will do with it is stick it in one of our backs.
Jon: Thoren Smallwood says that Craster is a friend to us.
Edd: Pfft. Up here beyond the wall the only difference between a “friend” and an “enemy” is that your “friends” bury you in a grave after they murder you.
Just then, Jon hears a loud screaming coming from some girl.
Edd: Oh shit, what is that?
Jon: I dunno. But there is a 90% chance it has something to do with the giant horse dog that travels around with me.
Jon runs off to see about the commotion, and sure enough it’s Ghost-related. Ghost has just broken open a cage and begun to eat two rabbits that were inside of it. One of Craster’s daughters/wives is backed into a corner and screaming in fear of the giant direwolf.
Girl: AGH! That thing is going to EAT me!
Jon: No Ghost won’t! Ghost would never eat someone. You know, unless he had been starved and hungry for several days because there is no game to catch around here, combined with being irritated by endless cold rain. Which describes the situation we are in perfectly. So never mind. GHOST! Get over here and don’t eat that lady.
Ghost meekly comes back over to Jon, but refuses to let go of his tasty new rabbit treats.
Girl: Oh thank you, lord, for saving me.
Jon: Are you talking to me and calling me a “lord,” or are you thanking God?
Girl: You.
Jon: Oh, I’m not a lord. Hey, are you Craster’s daughter or wife?
Girl: Yes.
Jon: Yes to whic—ahh, okay. I see now. Gross.
Girl: You know, I was going to breed those rabbits.
Jon: I’m sorry. I’d pay you back but I don’t have any money. Not that minted currency has any value is you live in a little rape cult compound, hundreds of miles away from civilization.
Then Chett arrives on the scene. Because why not?
Chett: YEEE HAWWWWW! Jon Snow, I hate you because you helped Sam take my nice job away runnin’ moonshine for Maester Aemon. But you’re not so tough without that direwolf.
Jon: Whatever. I don’t have time for a damn Chett scene right now. I’m leaving.
Jon (with Ghost) leaves to find Sam, which was what he was ordered to do by Mormont in the first place. But instead of taking Sam back to Craster to draw some maps, they decide to cook up the second of the two rabbits.
Ghost: *woof* [Translation: See how cool I am? I ate the one rabbit myself. But the second rabbit I saved for my best friend, Jon].
All the other rangers of the Night’s Watch are jealous as they see and smell Jon cooking the rabbit. Sure, it’s scrawny and pathetic thing. But it’s better than their rations of Slim Jims and hard tack.
Macho Man: OOOH YEA--
--No. I’m going to stop you right there, Randy Savage. You’re presently down in Kings Landing and so you can’t be here too.
Sam: So, speaking of savages... is this Craster guy a savage like everyone says?
Jon: Yeah sure. Pretty much. Now go draw your damn map.
Sam goes to draw his damn map. Then Jon falls asleep like some sort of narcoleptic spaz.
Jon wakes up the next morning and Ghost is gone. Probably out looking to kill some more stuff.
Voice: Jon! JON!
Jon: Huh? Who dis? New phone.
Voice: Jon, it’s me.
Jon: This sounds like some sort of female voice. I’m not supposed to talk to Craster’s girls. You know, even though I already did last night.
Girl: It’s me. The same girl from last night. The one with the rabbits.
Jon: Oh right. HEY are you wearing Sam’s cloak? I can tell it’s Sam’s because the cloak is waaaaay too big for you. It’s huge. You could take that cloak, put it up the mast of a ship, and have a functional sailboat. It’s that big.
Girl: Yes. This is Sam’s cloak and yes he is very obese.
Jon: Am I going to keep calling you “Girl” and “Voice” or is your character actually going to get a name?
Gilly: You can call me "Gilly."
Jon: Cool. Now go away because I’m not supposed to talk to you.
Gilly: Don’t worry, Craster won’t know. He drank all that wine Mormont gave him last night, and now he’s passed out drunk. He’ll be like that all day.
Jon: This seems like the perfect opportunity to just murder him while he’s passed out and be done with him.
Gilly: Yes. That would probably be a good idea. But despite the logic of that suggestion, that won’t happen.
Jon: So what do you want?
Gilly: Take me with you! I want to escape here and leave with you all. Craster wouldn’t even notice if I was gone since he has 19 wives.
Jon: First of all… NO. Second… he would totally notice. 19 is not too high of a number to keep track of. Let’s say I lived in a place that allowed bigamy and had 19 wives. Specifically, let’s say I was married to Scarlett Johansson, Sofía Vergara, Penélope Cruz, Eva Mendes, Jessica Alba, Beyoncé, Eva Longoria, America Ferrera, Salma Hayek, Jennifer Lawrence, Shakira, Mila Kunis, Hayden Panettiere, Selena Gomez, Rosario Dawson, Alexis Bledel, Zoe Saldana, JLo, and Gina Rodriguez. Then let’s say that Shakira ran away and left me. Do you think I’d FORGET that I was married to Shakira? No way. At max, maybe I wouldn’t realize she was gone for a day or two if I was super busy having sex with all my other hot wives. But after that? You can rest assured I’d be like, “Hey! Where the hell is Shakira?!”
Gilly: Wow. You must really have a Latina thing.
Jon: What?
Gilly: Fourteen out of the nineteen women you mentioned were Latina. That’s about 74%.
Jon: No way. Surely you’re overestimating.
Gilly: Nope. *counting on fingers* Sofía Vergara, Penélope Cruz, Eva Mendes, Jessica Alba, Eva Longoria, America Ferrera, Salma Hayek, Shakira, Selena Gomez, Rosario Dawson, Alexis Bledel, Zoe Saldana, JLo, and Gina Rodriguez. That’s fourteen.
Jon: No way. Alexis Bledel is Latina? The little annoying White girl from Gilmore Girls? I don't believe that for a minute.
Gilly: Her father is from Argentina.
Jon: And Rosario Dawson? I thought she was Black.
Gilly: Puerto Rican and Afro-Cuban.
Jon: Well shit, I guess I have a "Latina thing." The bottom line is, the Night’s Watch will have nothing to do with helping you escape Craster. That’s not our business.
Gilly: But… but… but Sam said you’d help! He said that the Night’s Watch helps the innocent and the weak. I’m innocent and weak! Help me.
Jon: Nah.
Gilly: Can’t you see I’m pregnant with child?
Jon: Yeah, I sort of noticed a bump there but I didn’t want to be a dick and say anything in case you were just fat.
Gilly: One of the other women, Nella, said that the baby is going to be a boy. Do you see any boys around here?
Jon: Hrm. You know what… I’m just noticing that now. All girls except for Craster. Crazy, right? I guess that guy only shoots out XX chromosomes, if you know what I mean.
Gilly: Oh no, he has boys all the time. Do you want to know what he does with them?
Jon: Sure, I’m intrigued. Please tell me. But first, let me start sipping this scalding hot coffee.
Jon starts drinking a Dunkin Donuts large black coffee. Don't ask where it came from, that's not important to the story.
Gilly: He sacrifices them to the Others. He gives them as gifts to the White Walkers!
Jon does a spit take and shoots all his hot coffee everywhere.
Jon: DA FUQ?
Gilly: Yeah. Really.
Jon: No way. You’ve seen the Others? And Craster just GIVES babies to them?
Gilly: Yes. He leaves them in the woods and The Others take them.
Jon: I call bullshit. If you've seen these Others, what color are their eyes? But before you answer, let me have another sip of this delicious, piping hot Dunkins. Because I didn’t get to drink my first sip.
Gilly: Blue. Their eyes are all bright and glowing blue.
Jon: *spit take again*
Gilly: Take me back to the Wall! Please! I don’t want my baby to die!
Jon: Look babe, we’re not even going to the Wall. We’re going the opposite direction. I mean, I’ll talk to Lord Commander Mormont about this. But I think you are S.O.L.
Jon walks away and goes have breakfast with a bunch of the bros. One of the bros, Dywen, is claiming he had sex with a bunch of Craster’s girls last night. But everyone knows that is B.S. and he was just jerking off in a bush or something. After his quick bite, Jon continues on to the Lord Commander.
He enters Craster’s Keep and is greeted by Mormont and his raven.
Raven: Corn?
Jon: No asshole, I don’t have any damn corn. Do you think I go around carrying corn in my pockets all the time? Who does that? Only an absolute dipshit.
Mormont: Ah, Jon. There you are. Let me talk to you in a second… right after I pull this corn out of my pockets and give it to this raven.
Raven: CORN! CORN! CORN!
Mormont: Now where were we? Oh right. I meant to ask you if it was still raining out there.
Jon: I mean you could have figured that out by looking out of a window yourself, but no… the rain stopped.
Mormont: Good, good. Then tell everyone to saddle up! We’re leaving within the hour.
On the way to go tell the men to saddle up, Jon finds Sam… hanging out with damn Gilly just like he’s NOT supposed to be doing.
Jon: Damnit Sam, you fat piece of shit. What exactly were to trying to pull with that Gilly shit?
Gilly: Uh, I think I’ll be leaving.
She leaves.
Sam: I… uhh… ermm… I mean… I…
Jon punches Sam in the dick and walks away. That doesn’t really happen, but it essentially serves the same narrative point of what did happen. The point being that Sam is fucking stupid, didn’t think this through, and has no fucking plan for how a thing like that would work.
Soon, everyone saddles their horses and leaves. I mean obviously not Craster and his women. But everyone else. Jon decides to be all subtle about what Gilly told him though.
Jon: Lord Commander. Don’t you think it’s strange that Craster has no boys?
Mormont: Duh. Craster sacrifices his boys to the White Walkers by leaving them in the woods.
Jon: WHAT THE HELL? YOU ALREADY KNEW THIS?
Mormont: Sure. I thought everybody knew. That's why The Others leave him alone and don't kill him.
Jon: And you had us all stay in his house and pretended like he was some sort of cool, normal guy that the Night’s Watch could trust?
Mormont: Kid, you’re too young to understand how the damn world works. You gotta learn to become a moral relativist like me. Is Craster an inherently good person? No, of course not. He murders his sons and rapes his daughters. But we need him. Do you know how many Ranger lives Craster has saved over the years by providing food and shelter to us beyond the Wall when we’re ranging?
Jon: Uhh… I’m going to guess twenty three.
Mormont: It was a rhetorical question. I don’t actually know the exact number. The point is Craster is his own man. He’s sworn no loyalty to any liege lord and he’s not bound by the laws of any land.
Jon: Oh, so he’s a libertarian?
Mormont: Pretty much. Now let me drop some more plot exposition before this Chapter is done. While you were away, Craster told us that Mance Rayder was gathering all the Free People by the Frostfangs.
Jon: Oh crap! You mean that cruel, inhospitable wilderness land of stone and ice?
Mormont: Well, that vague description can pretty much describe anywhere here, but yes. You have the gist of it. My point is that Mance seems to be gathering all the Free People to assemble an army. That army’s ultimate goal is to attack the Wall and invade the realm.
Jon: Well that will never happen. Wildlings have tried for centuries to invade. They’ve never succeeded.
Mormont: True. But that was then when people gave a shit about the Wall and the Kings of Westeros used to actually send men here to defend it. Now we’re a pitiful shadow of what we used to be. And not only is the Night’s Watch a shadow of its former self… what happens if the Wildlings get past the Wall? Who will fend them off in the North? Not the Starks, as your brother Robb is off to the south, fighting the Lannisters.
Jon: Hrm, good point. And interesting that you mention that the North is completely undefended now, because I have an odd feeling that the next Chapter will be a Theon Chapter.
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