Game of Thrones (TV Series)

Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things (2011)

Owen Teale: Alliser Thorne

Photos 

Quotes 

• [Thorne walks in on Jon and Sam horsing around in the mess hall] 

  Alliser Thorne : Enjoying yourselves?

  [Jon and Sam quickly get back to work] 

  Alliser Thorne : You look cold, boys.

  Samwell Tarly : It is a bit nippy.

  Alliser Thorne : Bit nippy, yeah. By the fire, indoors... it's still summer. Do you boys even remember the last winter? How long has it been now? What, ten years?

  Jon Snow : I remember.

  Alliser Thorne : Was it uncomfortable at Winterfell? Were there days when you just couldn't get warm, never mind how many fires your servants built?

  Jon Snow : I build my own fires.

  Alliser Thorne : That's admirable. I spent six months out there, beyond the Wall, during the last winter. Supposed to be a two-week mission. We heard a rumor Mance Rayder was planning to attack Eastwatch, so we went out to look for some of his men, capture them, gather some knowledge. The Wildlings who fight for Mance Rayder are hard men... harder than you'll ever be. They know their country better than we do. They knew there was a storm coming in. So they hid in their caves and waited for it to pass... and we got caught in the open. Wind so strong, it yanked hundred-foot trees straight from the ground, roots and all. If you took your gloves off to find your cock to have a piss, you lost a finger to the frost. And all in darkness.

  [pause] 

  Alliser Thorne : You don't know cold. Neither of you do. The horses died first. Didn't have enough to feed them, to keep them warm. Eating the horses was easy... but later, when we started to fall... that wasn't easy.

  [Thorne walks over to Sam, who starts shuddering] 

  Alliser Thorne : We should've had a couple of boys like you along, shouldn't we? Soft, fat boys like you. We'd have lasted a fortnight on you, and still have bones left over for soup. Soon we'll have new recruits, and you lot will be passed along to the Lord Commander for assignment. And they will call you "men of the Night's Watch," but you'd be fools to believe it. You're boys, still. And come the winter, you will die... like flies.

• Alliser Thorne : [to Jon]  You think this funny, do you?

  [Thorne turns to the rest of the recruits] 

  Alliser Thorne : When you're out there beyond the Wall with the sun going down, do you want a man at your back? Or a sniveling boy?