1x01: Foreshadowing & Symbolism (Part 1 - White Walkers)

(I'm going to split up my symbolism essay for the first episode into a few parts so we can better discuss it in detail rather than one long one for the entire episode. The premiere was so full of foreshadowing for the entire story to come that I feel it deserves some special focus.)




~Winter Is Coming~



Episode 1 - Foreshadowing & Symbolism


(Part 1) - The Night's Watch & The White Walkers


The "cold open" (pun intended) of the premiere episode was perfect. As it was in the books, the frozen Wall and sinister "White Walkers" are the first thing we the audience are presented with in the show. Clearly this foreshadows the dangers to come from North of the Wall. Winter took six whole seasons of the show to arrive!





The opening scene ... a literal opening of the gate at the Wall was just beautiful. Three Night's Watch men riding out into the snowy forest. Ser Waymar Royce, Will, and Gared depart from The Wall to investigate reports of wildlings in the Haunted Forest which lies to the north. I loved the beautiful imagery of the wall, the icy tunnel, the slowly rising gate. Will finds a wildling encampment of dead and dismembered wildlings. This is the first we're introduced to the magical mysteries of the story. What are the White Walkers and why are they killing men (wildlings) north of the wall? Why did they move the bodies when Will brings Ser Waymar to the camp? Was it to lure them into a trap? Clearly the White Walker who beheads Gared and throws the head at Will's feet is sending some sort of message - a threat.







The symbolism here seems to also be an ironic parallel: Will later loses his head (execution) for seeing Gared lose his to the White Walker. The "message" is sent south with Will who abandons the watch and flees right into Winterfell lands. The Starks are now involved though they won't really understand the seriousness of that until much later.

And what about that strange pattern in the snow, made up of the body parts of those they had slain? We later learn there are other patterns (dead horses) and the symbolism of this spiral and circular pattern is strong elsewhere later in the series with Daenerys.

This pattern of dead bodies looks a lot like that circle of stones we have seen too. But I'll get to that in a minute.





I think this pattern goes along with others we'll see later in the series and is symbolic of ancient symbols we'll hopefully learn the meaning of with more in depth story explanations about the White Walkers.

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Forwarding to the next part of the Night's Watch & White Walker Symbolism scenes (it also ties into Winterfell) -  we see the Winterfell party arriving to the place they will behead Will, the Night's Watch deserter. This place they go is no random place, but some sort of very ancient and specific place. From the looks of the log and stone where Ned is about to perform the execution, this place has been used for probably thousands of years.





This wasn't something I noticed before until my re-watch and careful pausing to re-examine the scene a bit more. At the time, no one really thought much about these standing stones, but now that we've seen the massive reveal in Season 6 about how the white walkers were created and the circle of stones where that ceremony was performed, I am very curious about these similar ones near Winterfell.

Here's a shot of the whole thing as they're leaving:





Is this very careful foreshadowing of something more? Are these standing stones related to those we see later in the show? Do the Starks have some sort of deeper tie to what's going on? I certainly feel upon re-watch that Will's beheading was very symbolic given the circle of stones where his execution was held and the obvious message the White Walkers were sending with Gared's severed head and the severed remains of the wildlings arranged in that circular pattern.


Spiral/circular patterns will be repeated by the show again, very deliberately. We'll talk in depth more about those later when we get to that point, but here's a sneak peek at what I'm referring to:





It's curious to see that early on, from the very first opening episode of the show, they had these symbols in mind.

What's interesting about the White Walker "corpse decor" is that these patterns aren't seen in the books. When the ranger Will describes the dead wildlings he found, he says nothing about them in any sort of pattern. Likewise I don't recall the Others making a spiral that Jon sees with Mance (coming later in the series). It's possible that they wanted to make the Others just more "mysterious," so had them create patterns with the dead bodies, and there's no connection to the Drogo pyre/slave patterns at all.

Or it could be that there is a deliberate parallel between them, a way of showing that it's all "two sides of the same coin" as in "Fire and Ice" ... "Life and Death" ... you get the idea.





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This concludes Part 1 of my 1x01 Foreshadowing and Symbolism essay. Thanks for reading along and I look forward to your comments and thoughts on this first part of Episode 1x01.

Part 2 will cover the foreshadowing and symbolism of the Starks and Targaryens as we meet them in 1x01!