A scene I think about often is in ASOS Sam I. The chapter is a dark, cold slog through hell, and has one of the few appearances of one of the Others. But Sam kills it. And afterwards, the darkness breaks at last. And Grenn says, "Dawn, Sam. Dawn." That sums up the series for me. https://twitter.com/BryndenBFish/status/1277337338302136320

It's always darkest before the dawn. Amidst the shadows there will always be light, and winter will fade and spring will come again. And in fact, the darkness makes the light seem all the brighter. It is that dream of spring that makes the hard times worth enduring.

Seeing the rising sun has a practical purpose. It lets Sam and Grenn know which way is east, and allows them to find their way back to the rest of the group. But it also is richly symbolic. The darkness has passed, as it always will eventually.

Of course George being George the very next Sam chapter has them plunged into the cold and the darkness once more at Craster's Keep. But in the grand scheme of things, this is a momentary set back in the War for the Dawn, nothing more. Sam and Gilly will keep chasing that sunrise

That little exchange of dialogue when Grenn encourages his friend and tells him that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and points to the light breaking through that long night - it feels like the series in a nutshell.

I can very well a chapter towards the end when the Others are defeated ending that way. With the survivors looking up and realising it might be over, and seeing the dawn come again.

There will be a lot of darkness and a lot of horror and many storms to weather before the end, all literally and figuratively. But warmth and light will return.

George flirts with grimdark but that spark of hope is what stops him falling into it, and is what elevates the series in my opinion. If it was just relentlessly miserable it would be awful and dull. Similarly, if it was all sunshine and roses it would become meaningless.

The joy and hope and light is all the more effective because of the bleak darkness and pain and sorrow, and vice versa. George gives us both, a tricky balancing act. A song of day and night, a song of dark and light.

Good times inevitably will come again. Then it will get worse again. Then better. Then worse. Then better. Then worse. Then even worse. But we keep on fighting for that good, and we make it happen, and that gets us through.