52 pages • 1 hour read
Prince of Thorns
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Chapters 1-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
The novel begins with Jorg Ancrath surveying the settlement of Mabberton, which he and his so-called Brothers have just plundered and burned. When Rike, one of the most dangerous Brothers, complains about the lack of loot, Jorg placates him by reminding him that they have farmers’ daughters to rape. At the chapter’s end, the reader discovers that Jorg is only 13 and that he possesses great ambition, intending to be king by the time he is 15.
Chapter 2 Summary
Jorg and his bandits depart Mabberton after setting fire to it. Brother Gemt reproves Jorg for firing the village since “the Baron’s men will see that smoke from ten miles” (6). Jorg fantasizes about stabbing Gemt in the neck.
Jorg gathers the men around him and asks if they know where the group is headed. They are going to Wennith, on the Horse Coast, and Jorg tells them that they will need to take a road called the Lichway to get there in time for the good plunder. Jorg argues that, since the Baron will know their location and their destination, the Baron will also know they are taking the Lichway and will not follow. Jorg then stabs Gemt in the neck
Chapter 3 Summary
On the Lichway, a straight causeway with marshes on either side, the brothers find a gibbet, or gallows, with two men still alive in its cages. One of the men begins hurling abuse at the brothers, and Jorg recognizes him as Father Gomst, his father’s priest. Brother Makin is revealed as Captain Makin Bortha.
The men are stunned to hear that Jorg is a Prince. A powerful gale blows while they stand agape. Magical lights appear in the marsh, and Gomst tells Jorg to run. Jorg stands fast.
Chapter 4 Summary
Reanimated corpses rise from the bog and attack the group on the Lichway. Most of the brothers flee, with some of them falling into the bog and drowning. Jorg stands alone as the lead corpse charges him. Jorg spreads his arms to welcome the challenge. The corpse draws closer and flows into Jorg.
There is a digression in which Jorg describes “the game” and how he is going to win it: “You can only win the game when you understand that it is a game. Let a man play chess, and tell him that every pawn is his friend […] Watch him lose them all” (20). Jorg also recounts the night his mother and brother were killed by Renar’s men and how was been forced to witness it while caught in a hook-briar.
When the spirit looks into that part of Jorg’s mind that is “empty time where [his] memory won’t go” (20), it flees.
Chapter 5 Summary
The narrative jumps back four years. Jorg is hanging on the hook-briars while his father’s men search the scene. He is ready to die until he hears that the assassins were Count Renar’s men and manages to get their attention.
Jorg is brought back, and his wounds are painfully treated. Jorg’s wounds become infected, and he fights a fever for nine weeks. During the course of his fever, Jorg begins shouting terrible things, setting fires, and killing people, so that some people decide he is possessed. Jorg nearly succumbs several times, but his thirst for vengeance against Renar keeps him from giving in.
Chapters 1-5 Analysis
The opening chapters of Prince of Thorns firmly set the tone for the novel’s universe. This is a brutal, violent world. The protagonist, Prince Jorg Ancrath, is immediately established as a murderer, rapist, and robber but hardly the most violent or cruel of the brothers. Jorg’s goal is very clear: He intends to reunite warring kingdoms into a single empire and will do anything to accomplish it.
It is also hinted that Jorg’s sadistic aggression has a supernatural component. His violence only emerges following the failed attempt on his life. Despite surviving the attempt, he is literally and figuratively scarred for life both by the trauma of the experience and by the terrible damage done to him by the hook-briar. His old wounds periodically release poison back into his blood, and he becomes even more dangerous in those times.
That there is something besides even the hook-briar that is affecting Jorg is indicated by the description of his recovery. The priest sent to tend to him eventually decides that he is possessed, an abomination before God. Father Gomst says similar things when he encounters Jorg again on the Lichway. Finally, the flight of the ghost on the Lichway following its examination of a part of Jorg’s mind that the Prince cannot access strongly hints at some even deeper hidden cause of Jorg’s behavior.
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