Sunday, March 18, 2012

Page 78 of 366

"The Help" made me cry... it was the scene when Skeeter forced her mother to tell her what happened to Constantine, their help who basically raised her... my heart bled when Charlotte, Skeeter's mother, ordered her to leave, and she looked back through the door, pleading... and that when her mom tells her Constantine was dead already, Skeeter concluded, "You broke her heart..." 

I thoroughly enjoyed the film... I saw "Iron Lady" and though Meryl Streep gave a brilliant performance, and that a third Oscar was long due... I think Viola Davis gave a better performance...




The Prologue of the novel introduces the out-kingdom Northern wilderness beyond the Wall, an ancient 700-foot-high, 300-mile-long barrier of ice and magic fortifying the Seven Kingdoms, manned by the order of the Night's Watch. In the lawless lands North of the Wall, a small patrol of Rangers from the Night's Watch encounter the Others, an ancient and evil race of beings thought to be long extinct; with all killed except a single survivor (who flees south, becoming the deserter who Ned executes). Jon Snow, the bastard son of Lord Eddard and despised by Catelyn, is inspired by his uncle, Benjen Stark, the First Ranger of the Night's Watch, to "take the black" and go to the Wall. Jon travels North to the Wall with the Queen's brother, Tyrion Lannister, and other members of the Night's Watch. He becomes disillusioned when he discovers that it is little more than a penal colony meant to keep wildlings in check.

At the Wall, Jon unites the recruits against their harsh instructor, and protects cowardly but good-natured Samwell Tarly. Jon hopes that his combat skills will earn him assignment to the Rangers, the military arm of the Night's Watch. Instead he is assigned as steward to the Lord Commander of the Watch, Jeor Mormont, nicknamed "the Old Bear". He arranges for his friend Samwell Tarly to be made steward to elderly Maester Aemon. Meanwhile, Benjen Stark leads a small party of Rangers on patrol beyond the Wall but fails to return. Nearly six months later, the dead bodies of two of the Rangers from Benjen's party are recovered from beyond the Wall, and their corpses re-animate as wights in the night. Undeterred by sword wounds, they kill six men while Jon and his direwolf, Ghost, save Lord Commander Mormont by destroying one of the wights with fire. For saving his life, Mormont presents Jon with the Valyrian-steel bastard sword "Longclaw", an heirloom of the Lord Commander's house. Lord Mormont replaced the existing bear pommel with a pommel in the shape of a white direwolf's head, representing both House Stark and Jon's direwolf.

When word of his father's execution reaches Jon, he attempts to desert the Night's Watch and join his half-brother Robb's war against the Lannisters. His friends among the Brotherhood convince him to return. Mormont convinces Jon that his place is with his new brothers, and that the war for the throne does not compare to the evil that winter is about to bring upon them from the north.


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