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  ===The Wall and beyond===
  Stannis Baratheon, a claimant to the Iron Throne of Westeros, occupies the Wall at the realm's northern border, having helped to repel an invasion of wildlings from the northern wilderness.  Stannis apparently executes Mance Rayder, the leader of the wildlings, for refusing to submit to him, and marches south with his army to seek support in his bid for the throne.
  Jon Snow, the newly elected Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, the order that defends the Wall, brokers a truce with the wildlings, allowing them through the Wall in exchange for their assistance in defending the Wall against the hostile otherworldly creatures known as the Others. This creates unrest among the Night's Watch, who have considered the wildlings their enemies for centuries.
  Stannis's advisor, the sorceress Melisandre, warns Jon that a Northern girl is in trouble, who Jon assumes is his half-sister, Arya Stark. Mance is revealed to be alive thanks to Melisandre's magical trickery, and he is sent to the Starks' ancestral castle Winterfell, now occupied by the enemy Boltons, to rescue Arya. However, the girl in Melisandre's visions turns out to be Alys Karstark, a young noblewoman fleeing to the Wall to escape her treacherous uncle. To protect Alys and aid the wildlings' integration into Westerosi society, Jon arranges for Alys to marry Sigorn of Thenn, a wildling leader.
  Jon receives a taunting letter from Ramsay Bolton, who claims to have crushed Stannis's army at Winterfell. Ramsay demands that Jon hand over to him Stannis' wife and daughter or be killed, and also insists that Jon deliver Arya and his foster-brother Theon Greyjoy, neither of whom Jon has seen in years. Jon instead decides that he will seek out and kill Ramsay himself, asking for volunteers from the Watch to accompany him. For this perceived betrayal of the Watch's principle of neutrality, Jon is betrayed and stabbed by several of his own men.
  Meanwhile, Jon's crippled half-brother Bran Stark, traveling north of the Wall, is led to the last surviving Children of the Forest, the non-human natives of Westeros. They introduce Bran and his companions to the "last greenseer", an ancient man intertwined with the roots of a weirwood tree. He helps Bran learn clairvoyant "greensight", enabling Bran to witness the past and present through the eyes of the weirwood trees that grow throughout the North.