Previous Next

“Winterfell’s not in the south,” Jon objected.

 

“Yes it is. Everything below the Wall’s south to us.”

 

He had never thought of it that way. “I suppose it’s all in where you’re standing.”

 

“Aye,” Ygritte agreed. “It always is.”

This conversation between Jon and Ygritte, which occurs after Jon and Stonesnake capture the wildling woman, refers to the importance of perspective in determining what one considers the truth. Ygritte gets Jon to see that the view of reality a person takes depends on that person’s subjective perspective. The novel itself illustrates this point many times, as characters take radically different views of incidents, developments, and especially other people as a result of their personal biases. Catelyn, for example, sees the Lannisters as essentially evil. So deeply does she feel this that she views Littlefinger’s suggestion that Tyrion plotted Bran’s murder as unquestionably true. Only when she hears Jaime's perspective does she see that her view may have been incomplete and incorrect. The novel demonstrates the importance of perspective by telling its story through point-of-view chapters following different characters. There is no omniscient narrator to tell readers what the real state of affairs is. Instead, the novel shows readers how the world looks from a variety of perspectives, and leaves readers to evaluate those perspectives in order to uncover the truth.

Previous section Important Quotes Explained Page 2 Next section Important Quotes Explained Page 4

Popular pages: A Clash of Kings

Take a Study Break