In addition to mistaking opening chapters for prologues, another problem I had with this author and I suspect many other contemporary authors to spell out what is their reluctance with spelling what is happening in the story.
Instead of generally describing that the bodies in the wildling camp have disappeared and Ser Weymar Royce would like them tracked down believing them to be still alive, I was treated to lines of dialogue between Ser Weymar and Will. I believed that I missed out quite a lot of information not only for the reasons that the characters know what they were talking about but due to the fact that it is harder to get information from dialogue rather than a proper paragraph.
I can't help but to feel that the important points that mattered to me like what that drives the plot are told in dialogue. The discovery of dead wildlings, musing about the possibility of how they died, heading for they are encamped and searching for their missing animated corpses among them.
What is not told in dialogue but in third person are long descriptions of the scenery and what people might call immersing the reader into the universe. Here is a very long example where Will discovers that the bodies are missing:
Pg 5 There are no bodies:
Will threaded their way through a thicket, then started up the slope to the low ridge where he had found his vantage point under a sentinel tree. Under the thin crust of snow, the ground was damp and muddy, slick footing, with rocks and hidden roots to trip you up. Will made no sound as he climbed. Behind him, he heard the soft metallic slither of the lordling’s ringmail, the rustle of leaves, and muttered curses as reaching branches grabbed at his longsword and tugged on his splendid sable cloak.
The great sentinel was right there at the top of the ridge, where Will had known it would be, its lowest branches a bare foot off the ground. Will slid in underneath, flat on his belly in the snow and the mud, and looked down on the empty clearing below.
His heart stopped in his chest. For a moment he dared not breathe. Moonlight shone down on the clearing, the ashes of the fire pit, the snow-covered lean-to, the great rock, the little half-frozen stream. Everything was just as it had been a few hours ago. They were gone. All the bodies were gone.
It doesn't immerse this particular reader though. If I can't understand what is going on, it is not possible for me to be indulge in George Martin's
fantasies fantasy world.
Now, let me whine about part about the prologue which I am beginning to develop a huge loathing for. It is the climax of the story and the inconclusive conclusion. Sure enough, it was a combination of the two things I disliked about Martin's prose, the refusal to explain terms exclusive to his world and the reluctance of getting straight to the point:
Down below, the lordling called out suddenly, “Who goes there?” Will heard uncertainty in the challenge. He stopped climbing; he listened; he watched.
The woods gave answer: the rustle of leaves, the icy rush of the stream, a distant hoot of a snow owl.
The Others made no sound.
Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness. Then it was gone. Branches stirred gently in the wind, scratching at one another with wooden fingers. Will opened his mouth to call down a warning, and the words seemed to freeze in his throat. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps it had only been a bird, a reflection on the snow, some trick of the moonlight. What had he seen, after all?
Yes indeed! What did Will see and what on earth did I read?
The Others were thrown out of nowhere like Aemon, like Mormont, like the camps, like the wildlings, like Mallister Freeriders, like the Black Brothers, like the Sworn Brother of the Night Watch, like the Wall and
The Others the others I missed out.
I also missed the descriptions of The Others because it did not explain on the spot what they were after Will first laid eyes on them. Here is the evidence, not crossed but bolded:
The Others made no sound.
Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness. Then it was gone. Branches stirred gently in the wind, scratching at one another with wooden fingers. Will opened his mouth to call down a warning, and the words seemed to freeze in his throat. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps it had only been a bird, a reflection on the snow, some trick of the moonlight. What had he seen, after all?
“Will, where are you?” Ser Waymar called up. “Can you see anything?” He was turning in a slow circle, suddenly wary, his sword in hand. He must have felt them, as Will felt them. There was nothing to see. “Answer me! Why is it so cold?”
It was cold. Shivering, Will clung more tightly to his perch. His face pressed hard against the trunk of the sentinel. He could feel the sweet, sticky sap on his cheek.
A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as new-fallen snow, there black as shadow, everywhere dappled with the deep grey-green of the trees. The patterns ran like moonlight on water with every step it took.
Also, it is not made clear that the wildlings Ser Raymar Royce and Will are looking for turned into ice zombies or The Others, whoever came up with that name.
They emerged silently from the shadows, twins to the first. Three of them... four... five... Ser Waymar may have felt the cold that came with them, but he never saw them, never heard them. Will had to call out. It was his duty. And his death, if he did. He shivered, and hugged the tree, and kept the silence.
Yet again, the ice zombies may not be the wildlings they are looking for, seeing that there are 6 of them, including the one Ser Waymar Royce is confronting. (There were 8 wildlings, 2 of them children) Maybe to keep other readers in suspense and this reader into confusion, Martin does not tell what happened to the bodies or say outright that Will is fibbing about seeing bodies of dead wildlings.
The prologue ends off with Ser Waymar Royce turned into an ice zombie and even that was not made clear in a sentence, "Ser Waymar Royce has been turned into The Others." More descriptions were introduced instead that one can so easily misinterpret:
Royce’s body lay face down in the snow, one arm outflung. The thick sable cloak had been slashed in a dozen places. Lying dead like that, you saw how young he was. A boy.
He found what was left of the sword a few feet away, the end splintered and twisted like a tree struck by lightning. Will knelt, looked around warily, and snatched it up. The broken sword would be his proof. Gared would know what to make of it, and if not him, then surely that old bear Mormont or Maester Aemon.
Would Gared still be waiting with the horses? He had to hurry.
Will rose. Ser Waymar Royce stood over him.
His fine clothes were a tatter, his face a ruin. A shard from his sword transfixed the blind white pupil of his left eye.
The right eye was open. The pupil burned blue. It saw.
The broken sword fell from nerveless fingers. Will closed his eyes to pray. Long, elegant hands brushed his cheek, then tightened around his throat. They were gloved in the finest moleskin and sticky with blood, yet the touch was icy cold.
Putting aside this nitpick of these sentences, "Lying dead like that, you saw how young he (Ser Waymar) was. A boy. He found what was left of the sword a few feet away, the end splintered and twisted like a tree struck by lightning." where it could be misinterpreted that it was the dead Ser Waymar who found the sword, I thought Ser Waymar Royce survived and wanted to kiss Will.
The prologue ended rather inconclusively. We didn't know for sure that Will turned into an ice zombie and the prologue gave up describing what happened to Gared, leaving that for the next chapter.
These are my impressions of the prologue when I first laid my eyes on it. I then read through the first chapter titled "Bran" in order to make sense of the story so far and I ended even more confused than ever for the similar reasons I have stated in the many paragraphs, now more confusing than the prologue itself, above this one.
Most of my knowledge of the Game of Thrones came from very well written summaries that ought to replace the original text.
The book begins as three men of the Night’s Watch, Waymar, Will, and Gared, search for a small group of wildlings, uncivilized people who live north of the giant wall that protects the Seven Kingdoms. Scouting ahead, Will finds the wildlings dead. He returns to Waymar and Gared with the news and tells them the wildlings appear to have frozen to death. The recent weather, however, has not been nearly cold enough to kill a person. Will and Gared sense that something is wrong, and Gared suggests they build a fire. Waymar arrogantly demands that they press on. The three head to the location where Will found the bodies, but they are gone. A group of ghostly white figures, known as the Others, surround Waymar. He duels with one of the figures while Will silently watches from a tree. Waymar is killed, but when Will climbs down, Waymar’s reanimated body rises up and strangles him.
Source: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/a-game-of-thrones/section1.rhtml
So all that said and done, let me summarise my criticism of the prologue of A Game of Thrones.
This prologue really isn't a prologue at all. Prologues are meant for to enlighten not to confuse. Prologues are expository not embellishments or gimmicks. So many terms and so many names were unexplained in the story set in a universe different from ours. I don't even know where for sure the story takes place other than 'a nine day ride from the Wall', which I don't know what it is. It is more of an opening chapter rather than a prologue.
It is also a prologue that is pointless I thought after reading that Gared had been beheaded for leaving Will and Ser Waymar Royce to the ice zombies and learning that most of the story is about Westerosian (the world that is place is set in) political intrigue. Even a possible invasion of Westeros by these ice zombies is trivial to the main plot. Someone told me that they managed to understand the story even without reading that so-called prologue. You may as well begin by reading the first chapter.
Above all, I believe my criticism of the Game of Thrones prologue centres on my dislike of George Martin's style of writing which seems to me to treat explanation and exposition as secondary in story telling. I am of the belief that he thinks that it would be too banal and awkward to say things in a straightforward manner.
It puzzles me why exposition is avoided like the plague in stories that I read these days. Story telling by its nature ought to be expository in nature. Far from ruining the pace of the story, it is really the introduction of a fantasy world which I am unfamiliar with that enthralls me and motivates me to continue. Letting the task of exposition take a backseat leads to stories that confuse me because I don't know what is happening. Let me say it again very annoyingly, if I don't know what is happening why should I care?