The ice cells are rooms carved from the base of the Wall used by the Night's Watch to store food and on occasion prisoners.[1]
About
Castle Black's ice cells vary in size and close with heavy wooden doors.[2] Meat is kept longer if stored in ice cells.[1]
Recent Events
A Storm of Swords
After arriving to Castle Black, Janos Slynt judges Jon Snow a turncloak and orders Ser Alliser Thorne to put him in an ice cell.[3] Jon spends the next four days in a small ice cell too small for him to stand and too tight for him to strech out on his back.[1]
A Dance with Dragons
When Janos refuses to obey an order from Jon, the newly elected Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, Jon considers putting him in an ice cell for a moment. In the end, Jon beheads Janos with Longclaw.[4]
Three drunken black brothers try to have sex with the wildling women living in Hardin's Tower, but they are fended off by spearwives. Jon punishes his men by putting them in ice cells for a while.[5]
In order to learn more about wights, Jon consigns the corpses of dead wildlings in Castle Black's ice cells, hoping they will rise but be safely imprisoned.[5][6]
Jon arrests Cregan Karstark and his men before they arrive at Castle Black and claim guest right. The captives are thrown into ice cells.[2] The strong Cregan weakens during his ice imprisonment. When rising snows start to block the entry to the cells, the prisoners are moved to the undervault of the Lord Commander's Tower.[7]
Quotes
The stewards had long ago discovered that food and meat kept longer in the icy storerooms carved from the base of the Wall ... but prisoners did not.[1]
—thoughts of Jon Snow
Carved from the base of the Wall and closed with heavy wooden doors, the ice cells ranged from small to smaller. Some were big enough to allow a man to pace, others so small that prisoners were forced to sit; the smallest were too cramped to allow even that.[2]
—thoughts of Jon Snow
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 A Storm of Swords, Chapter 73, Jon X.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 49, Jon X.
- ↑ A Storm of Swords, Chapter 69, Jon IX.
- ↑ A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 7, Jon II.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 35, Jon VII.
- ↑ A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 39, Jon VIII.
- ↑ A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 69, Jon XIII.