Winter isn’t Coming, It’s Here
The book begins, as usual, with an extended Prologue. And by the second paragraph of that Prologue the reader is situated fully within the climate of the narrative. Throughout the story references will continue to be trace back to this opening imagery:
“Winter had come late to Arad Doman, very late, but with a vengeance. From summer heart that lingered unnaturally into fall, to winter’s heart in less than a month. The leaves that had survived the long summer's drought had been frozen before they could change color, and now they glistened like strange, ice-covered emeralds in the morning sun. The horses of the twenty-odd arms- men around him occasionally stamped a hoof in the knee-deep snow. It had been a long ride this far, and they had farther to go whether this day turned out good or ill.”
Thunder and Rain
It is a strange winter filled with thunder and rain. The intensity of the climate conditions is a constantly referenced undertone which endows the story with a certain ominous presence. Thunder is especially prominent because it is of the loud variety and it seems to be of a never-ending variety:
“He was too weary to sit, just as he was too tired to find sleep easily most nights—his bones ached with it—so he went to stand in front of the fireplace. Winds gusting across the chimney top made the flames dance on the split logs and sometimes let a small puff of smoke into the room, and he could hear the rain drumming away at the windows, but the thunder seemed to have moved on. Maybe the storm was ending. Clasping his hands behind his back, he turned away from the fire.”
Winter Darkness
The wintry weather pressed beyond mere climate, however, to penetrate fully into the realm of imagery. Winter is traditionally associated with darkness and death and the narrative creates a sustained reminder of these allusions and symbolic references. Light is usually only able to enter obliquely as if rays of sunshine creeping through the cracks in the shades covering a window:
“Night pressed down on Caemlyn with a hard cold driven deep by sharp winds. Here and there a glow of light spilling from an upper window spoke of people still awake, but most shutters were drawn, and a thin sliver of moon low in the sky only seemed to emphasize the darkness. Even the snow coating rooftops and piled along the fronts of buildings where it had escaped the day's traffic was a shadowy gray.”
The Promise of Spring
Winter is always tolerated in extreme conditions because of the understanding that spring will eventually arise. The book is structured to replicate that sense of expectation without going so far as to move into the rebirth of the new seasonal cycle. It is really only at the very end, in fact, that the promise of spring is fully recognized:
“Rand stared out of the window at the steady rain falling out of a gray sky. Another storm down out of the Spine of the World. The Dragonwall. He thought spring must be coming soon. Spring always came, eventually. Earlier here in Tear than back home, it should be, though there seemed little sign of it. Lightning forked silver-blue across the sky, and long moments passed before the peal of thunder. Distant lightning.”
