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| “ | He could see Bessa's face floating before him. It wasn't the knife I wanted to put in you, he wanted to tell her. I picked you flowers, wild roses and tansy and goldencups, it took me all morning. | „ |
| ~ Chett's thoughts |
Chett is a minor antagonist in the A Song of Ice and Fire novel series. He serves as a minor character in the first two novels and the main protagonist of the prologue chapter in A Storm of Swords.
Appearance
Chett is described as very ugly. He has many boils on his face and a large cyst on his neck.
Personality
Chett is bitter and cruel. He hated that no girls liked him when he was young, and he turned that resentment against the other members of the Night's Watch, particularly Sam. He had no loyalty to the Night's Watch and wanted to betray it in order to escape.
Chett had no respect for women and believed that they owed him sex. Since no woman would sleep with him when he was young, he believed he had the right to rape any woman he wanted. He was also cruel toward dogs, kicking them while angry and neglecting to feed them in order to unleash them against his fellow black brothers.
Biography
Early Life
Chett was born in Hag's Mire, in the Riverlands. He worked with his father, collecting leeches to sell to maesters. Girls didn't like him because of the many boils and the cyst on his face, which caused them to turn away sickened. He thought a girl named Bessa might be willing to sleep with him, as she had slept with every boy in the village, so he collected flowers for her. However, she refused him, insulted him, and mockingly laughed at him, causing him to fly into a rage and stab her repeatedly. He was arrested near Sevenstreams and sent to the Wall by Ser Walder Rivers.
Chett became a steward at Castle Black, serving as one of Maester Aemon's two personal stewards, along with the older Clydas. His job was to take care of Aemon's daily needs. Typical of many of the black brothers of the Watch, officers included, Chett occasionally sneaked to Mole's Town to have sex with whores.
A Game of Thrones
After many years of service for Maester Aemon, Chett's life at the Wall changed when the recruit Jon Snow appealed to Aemon to make Samwell Tarly his steward, after explaining to the old maester that Sam would never be able to pass his recruit training. While Chett argued against Jon by telling him that Ser Alliser Thorne had to succeed in making a man out of Sam or let Sam die in the attempt, Jon told Aemon that Thorne would never succeed when a mighty and seasoned commander and warrior such as Randyll Tarly failed.
Aemon and Lord Commander Jeor Mormont agreed with Jon's request, and Sam became Clydas's new co-worker as Maester Aemon's steward, while Chett was sent to work in the kennels instead. Chett was furious about this change in position, as Aemon was not a particularly demanding man, so he hated both Jon and Sam for causing his transfer, This hatred was made even stronger by the fact that Chett was always a lowborn worker who forcibly served the Watch for years, while the two were just two highborn teenagers who only recently joined as volunteers after being raised in comfortable castles of major noble houses.
After Jon and Sam took their vows, Chett brought a pack of dogs beyond the Wall to investigate the corpses of Othor and Jafer Flowers, two Night's Watch's rangers who were part of Benjen Stark's missing party. No matter how hard Chett tried, the dogs kept refusing to sniff or get too close to the dead rangers. The two corpses later reanimated as wights and attacked Castle Black's garrison.
A Clash of Kings
Chett was taken on the great ranging beyond the Wall, along with a pack of dogs and a host made of 200 men of Castle Black and 100 more men joining from the Shadow Tower. While at Craster's Keep, Jon overheard Chett and Lark the Sisterman planning a mutiny, but he decided not to report it.
A Storm of Swords
While camped at the Fist of the First Men, along with hundreds of black brothers, Chett was planning a mutiny along with thirteen other black brothers, including Clubfoot Karl, Dirk, Ollo Lophand, Small Paul, Softfoot, Sweet Donnel Hill, Lark the Sisterman, Rolley of Sisterton, Maslyn, and Sawwood. They planned to escape before the ranging's commanding officers would possibly decide to give battle against Mance Rayder and his great host of united free folk tribes in the open wilds. For years, Chett had resented the system and the law for taking his life, just for a crime that he viewed as righteous satisfaction and retribution against women.
As no aid from any of the warring five kings south of the Wall would come, the Night's Watch was the only thing standing between the wildlings and the Seven Kingdoms. The morale in the camp at the Fist was low, especially after both Qhorin Halfhand's small party and Ser Jarman Buckwell's party did not return from their respective scouting missions at the Skirling Pass and the Giant's Stair, two roads to reach the great wildling host at the Frostfangs. Only the scouting party of the acting First Ranger Thoren Smallwood, which included Kedge Whiteye and Bannen, returned to the camp from their own scouting mission days after they had departed. Chett and many of his fellow brothers were horrified after Thoren managed to convince Lord Mormont and Ser Mallador Locke to launch a surprise attack against the wildling host instead of retreating back to the Wall. This meant that the black brothers of the great ranging were going to battle against Mance's much larger army, which Chett and many black brothers viewed as insane and suicidal.
The frustrated and ill-tempered Chett occasionally kicked the dogs under his care. Having made all the arrangements with his group, Chett's plan was to kill several members of the Night's Watch and then escape. The primary target was Lord Commander Mormont, to allow command to go to Ser Ottyn Wythers, whom the conspirators expected to withdraw to the Wall instead of chasing the deserters. Blane, a stern officer of the Shadow Tower, was also a target for unknown reasons. Grubbs and Aethan would become targets the night of the planned mutiny, as the two would have the watch shift then. Dywen and Bannen, two of the best rangers, scouts, and hunters of the Watch, were targeted to prevent the deserters from being tracked. Finally, one more target was Samwell Tarly, to prevent any raven carrying messages about the mutiny from reaching the Wall soon.
Chett planned on killing Samwell personally. As part of the plan, he would set all the dogs free in order to scare the horses and buy time for his group to escape far away toward the south within the Haunted Forest. For that, he did not feed the dogs for a few days, so they would be extra fierce. The deserters would then flee with the fourteen remaining horses and the food they had previously hoarded. Chett planned on returning to Craster's Keep, having Small Paul kill its master, Craster, and raping his daughters/wives. He planned for the old and homely ones to be put to work, cooking and cleaning for him, while the young ones would be his sex slaves and bear his children.
The very night before the scheduled attack against Mance's army at dawn, Chett discussed his plan with Ollo and Small Paul while hunting for prey in the northern parts of the Haunted Forest. As an animal lover, Paul promised violence against anyone who would try to harm Mormont's raven while killing the Lord Commander and planned to take the animal for his own pet. While returning to the camp at the Fist of the First Men, Chett was cruelly amused by the dogs' eager behavior to head back to camp, as they were hopeful to finally get a meal. He was planning to set them free that very night, so they might turn against their own masters for food.
However, it suddenly started to snow just a few hours before the scheduled mutiny, resulting in a raging Chett aborting the plan, as the deserters would be too easy to track in fresh snow. He furiously and desperately accepted the fact that he was going to die at the hands of wildlings at dawn. However, he decided to kill Sam out of spite. After finding Sam sleeping in the camp, he stood over him, planning on killing him with a dagger, only to be suddenly interrupted by the horn being blown three times, alerting the whole camp that the the Others were sighted and attacking. For thousands of years, the horn of the Night's Watch had not been blown three times, and the unexpected signal caused the black brothers to freeze in terror. Chett's bladder was emptied the moment he realized what the third blow meant.
The Others sent an army of wights to attack the Night's Watch, leading to the Fight at the Fist. Most of the wights were undead wildlings, but the host also included dead animals, most notably a huge snow bear, which massacred a large portion of the ranging host. The trusting Samwell asked Chett for help in sending off ravens south of the Wall to tell the world of the return of the Others. Chett, however, ran away in terror, only to be killed during the battle. During the Fight at the Fist, Maslyn, one of Chett's fellow conspirators, was killed by a human wight while pleading for mercy. It is unknown if the conspirator Sawwood survived the battle, as he would not be mentioned again. Either during the battle or in its aftermath, the conspirators Lark and Softfoot would die beyond the Wall as well.
Legacy and Rising as a Wight
After Chett died during the Fight at the Fist, the majority of the great ranging's host ended up getting massacred by the army of the dead, forcing a small remainder of the Night's Watch's host to retreat, unable to fight Mance's army. Led by the surviving Jeor Mormont, the black brothers retreated back to Craster's Keep, although Jarman Buckwell's small party remained on the northern mountains to scout (and would later return to the Wall alive prior to the wildling invasion). Small Paul, another one of Chett's conspirators, was ambushed and killed by an Other during the slow retreat. Paul fell behind the ranging host as he decided to help Grenn carry Sam, who was traumatized and suffering from cold and tiredness. Paul was slain while fighting against the white walker, as he furiously attacked the ice demon for killing a horse. Paul was part of Chett's conspiracy because he had no wish to die and wished to go back to living a free life in the south, but overall he was genuinely gentle and friendly, while also being a deadly simpleton who did not know his own strength.
Bannen, one of Chett's target kills in his failed plan of mutiny, died at Craster's Keep from a wound received in the Fight at the Fist, and his body was burned by his fellow black brothers at a campfire in the night.
Although Chett died, many of his surviving conspirators were responsible for the mutiny at Craster's Keep and the murders of Jeor Mormont and Craster. As such, Chett is indirectly responsible for the events that unfolded there. The mutiny was caused by a heated verbal fight, which started with Clubfoot Karl provoking Craster. Dirk killed Craster, and Ollo Lophand killed Mormont. This led to a fight between the Night's Watch's loyalists and the mutineers. Some of Craster's wives fought against the mutineers as well. Mutineers that were part of Chett's desertion plan were Dirk, Karl, Ollo, and Rolley of Sisterton. Other mutineers who took the side of the old group were Alan of Rosby, Orphan Oss, Muttering Bill, Grubbs (who was previously a target for killing of Chett's group), Garth of Greenaway, and Mawney, but it is unknown if any of them were also among the fourteen conspirators of Chett's group.
One conspirator of Chett's group instead had a change of heart during the mutiny at Craster's keep: Sweet Donnel Hill, an alleged bastard of House Lannister. Despite his previous involvement in Chett's conspiracy, Donnel fought with the Night's Watch against the deserters at Craster's Keep and would later be one of the confirmed 13 survivors of the mutiny to safely return to Castle Black. Two other previous targets of Chett, Samwell Tarly and Dywen, would also make it back to the Wall.
Many days after the mutiny at Craster's Keep, Sam was traveling back to the Wall on his own, along with one of Craster's wife-daughters, Gilly, and an infant son of Gilly and Craster. One night, while camped within the Haunted Forest, Sam and Gilly were attacked by a group of wights at an abandoned wildling village. Among the wights, Sam recognized Chett, Small Paul, Softfoot, and Lark the Sisterman. He also identified the wight of a black brother named Ryles and a mutilated wight that seemed to be the black brother Hake, who was a cook during the great ranging and was lost at the Fist of the First Men.
The wight of Chett and the rest of his group tried to kill Sam, Gilly, and perhaps the latter's infant son, although Gilly believed they wanted to claim the boy and deliver him to the Others. The undead Small Paul was killed with burning wood by Sam, while Chett and the others kept chasing after him and Gilly. The wights were attacked by a flock of ravens sent by the sapient wight and black brother Coldhands, which allowed Sam and Gilly to be saved and run away with him.
Gallery
External Link
- Chett on the A Wiki of Ice and Fire.
