samwell tarly is the eldest son of Lord Randyll Tarly and Lady Melessa Florent, who are regarded as one of the best military commanders in the Seven Kingdoms, and he is the heir to the title of Hewan Dijiao Ling. However, no matter what kind of pride Earl Landau had on his son when Sam Will was born, it all vanished as he grew up, became fat, weak and eccentric. As a famous soldier, Landau always hoped that his son would follow in his father's footsteps, so he tried his best to train Sam, who is weak in character, into a brave knight he expected. However, Sam likes music, food, reading and playing with kittens, but despite his clumsy hands and feet, he loves dancing abnormally, which often disappoints his father who doesn't know how to teach students in accordance with their aptitude.
As a child, Sam was sent to Qingting Island to be the attendant of Lord Paxter Redwyne, but he had to be sent back because he was bullied by the twin sons of Count Redving. Since then, many coaches have tried to teach Sam to be tough, but all failed. Sam was scolded and beaten with a stick, tasted a slap in the face and endured hunger. Earl Landau even thought of letting Sam wear his mother's clothes to humiliate the goalie, letting him sleep in a chain mail, and even letting the wizard of Qarth bathe him with buffalo blood, which could not make Sam more courageous. However, this series of failed attempts actually made Sam extremely afraid of his father, getting fatter and fatter, but getting less and less courageous. At the sight of blood, he felt queasy, and even he was scared to cry at the sight of killing chickens. Finally, the disappointment of Count Landau turned into anger and eventually disgust.
After Sam's mother, Mrs. Melissa, gave birth to three sisters for three years in succession, his younger brother Dickon Tarly was born. Dickon grew up strong and lively, with all the martial qualities that his brother lacked, so Count Landau ignored Sam and devoted all his energy to his younger son, who was more pleasing to him. Without the pressure from his father, Sam was able to immerse himself in music and books for a few sweet and comfortable years. However, when he proposed to go to the old town for further study, he was forbidden by his father, because Landao, who valued martial arts over literature, was disgusted with the idea of family members wearing bachelor necklaces.
On the morning of Sam's 15th birthday, his father suddenly woke him up and declared that he was not worthy to inherit the family sword and title, and he had to give up his family identity and join the night watchman to make way for his younger brother Dickon's inheritance. If Sam dares not to do so, "then tomorrow we will go out hunting, and your horse will fall somewhere in the forest, and you will fly out of the saddle and die ... at least I will tell your mother so. ..... You don't have to imagine how simply you will die, or have a way to resist, because I will be happy to chase after you and kill you pig myself. " Faced with his father's death threat, Sam chose to join the service in the Great Wall. Sam arrived in castle black a little later than jon snow, and was immediately bullied, ridiculed and abused by the recruits who trained together and the coach Sir Alisha Thorne. Sir Alisha gave him an insulting nickname "Lady Piggy" and ordered other recruits to beat him constantly by practicing martial arts, even though he had surrendered. Jon sympathized with Sam at first and came forward to compete with other recruits instead of him, but he didn't understand why people like him came to serve in the Great Wall. After a dinner, Jon took the initiative to talk with Sam, and Sam told Jon what had happened to him. Jon, who knew Sam's background, privately used his influence among the recruits to persuade others (by coercion if necessary) to disobey Alisha's orders and stop abusing Sam. Sam realized that Jon was helping himself in the dark, and they became friends.
Sam didn't make any progress in martial arts under the training of Alisha, so he was considered unqualified to be sworn in as a member of the Night's Watch with Jon and others. Jon was worried that once he became a ranger, he could not always protect Sam, fearing that he would be abused again, so he privately persuaded Bachelor aemon targaryen to accept Sam as a personal affairs officer, only responsible for the light work of feeding ravens and sorting out letters. When Jon was removed from the Rangers because of a run on Alisha and sent to be a affairs officer, it was Sam who enlightened him to realize that this was actually an opportunity, because the commander-in-chief jeor mormont said that he wanted to accept him as a squire, in fact, he wanted to train him to be a leader. At the ceremony of formally joining the Night's Watch, although Sam has always believed in the Seven Gods since childhood, he decided to take the oath under the heart tree of old gods with Jon.
When the bodies of the night watchman, Ranger Oser and Jeffrey Fohua, who disappeared outside the Great Wall, were found, Sam was the first person to notice some strange and unusual details of the bodies, which made Commander Mormont sit up and take notice of him. When Jon learned that his father, Duke eddard stark, was killed, he tried to escape from castle black to join his brother robb stark's army. It was Sam who persuaded him and informed other friends to catch up, so that Jon did not betray his oath and faced the punishment of death. Commander-in-Chief Mormont decided to personally lead 3 brothers (one-third of the night watchman's total strength) on an expedition to Saibei, and Sam was assigned to collect map data from the cellar library in castle black, and was in charge of ravens with his colleagues. After the troops left the fortress, they passed through Bai Shu Village and arrived at Caster's fortress to rest. There, Sam met Caster's daughter (wife and concubine) Gilly. Gilly is pregnant and afraid that if she gives birth to a boy, Custer will sacrifice him to the "cold god". Sam didn't know what to do, so he directed Gilly to seek Jon's help, but Jon could do nothing about it.
The troops continued northbound and camped in an ancient abandoned ring fort on the peak of ancestors' fist. When Jon's direwolf Ghost found an old cloak wrapped by a buried night watchman, Jon distributed a bunch of dragon crystal weapons wrapped inside to the commander-in-chief and his companions. Sam got a dagger, a spear point and a dozen arrows, and Jon gave him a silent old horn in the package for safekeeping.
Later, Jon was chosen by Colin to join the reconnaissance team, and after leaving the camp for the mountains, Sam stayed at Qianmin Boxing Peak to co-station. Qite, the officer in charge of military dogs, resented that Sam had replaced himself as the private affairs manager of Maester Eamon, so that he could not stay in castle black, but he had to go to the army to suffer hardships. He conspired with 13 night watchman brothers to mutiny and murder Commander-in-Chief Mormont, and planned to kill Sam himself to vent his anger. But before their plan could be implemented, the night watchman's camp in the ancestors' fist peak was suddenly attacked by a large number of ghosts. Mormont ordered Sam to fly ravens to castle black and Shadow Tower immediately, and Sam asked Zit for help, but Zit, who had scared his pants, turned and ran away, so Sam had to put ravens all by himself. However, not long after, the night watchman with disparity in strength was broken into the camp, and the troops suffered heavy losses in the process of breaking through. Only more than 6 of the 3 brothers escaped.
Sam survived the Battle of the First People's Boxing Peak, but he was separated from the big army and collapsed in the snow. Glen and Paul refused to abandon Sam when they found him, and Paul carried him away. On the way, they were attacked by a strange ghost. Little Paul was killed, but when he fell down, his body hit the weapon of the strange ghost. Sam grabbed the dragon dagger at her waist in panic and stabbed the ghost at random. After being stabbed, the other party instantly turned into a pool of ice water. Sam's feat of killing alien ghosts earned him the nickname "Sam the Slayer", although most people except Gulen called him sarcastically because they didn't believe it.
Sam and Gulen meet with less than 4 survivors at the fort in Caster. Meanwhile, Gilly gave birth to a baby boy, and Sam begged Commander-in-Chief Mormont to help Gilly, but there was nothing he could do. Shortly after that, conflict broke out in Castel's fortress. Some night watchmans think that Caster deliberately wanted to starve them by hiding food. After being refused food, he launched a mutiny to kill Caster. Commander-in-Chief Mormont was fatally wounded while trying to suppress the mutiny. Because there are only a dozen loyalists, less than half of the number of traitors, they can only escape from Castel's fortress in chaos. In horror, Sam sat there holding the commander-in-chief who was seriously injured and dying. Glen, Eddie and others tried to pull him away, but no one could move him, so they had to leave him and escape. Before he died, Mormont told Sam his last wish: He hoped that Jorah Mormont, his son who was afraid of sin and was in exile, would join the night watchman for pardon. Sam, who finally regained consciousness, then rode away with Gilly and her newborn with the help of Caster's wives and concubines.
Sam and Gilly were attacked by little Paul, who turned into a corpse, on their way to escape. Sam stabbed it with a dragon crystal dagger, but it didn't work. In desperation, he grabbed a piece of charcoal and burned it. Then, however, they found themselves surrounded by more ghosts, and the only horse left had been torn and eaten. At this moment, a mysterious black man riding a reindeer and accompanied by a large group of crows appeared to save them. Because this man is dressed in black like a night watchman, but his skin is as pale as a corpse and his hands are as cold as Xuan Bing, Sam and Gilly call him "Coldhands". Cold hands escort Sam and Gilly to the abandoned Long Night Castle, and tell them that they can enter through the black door under the castle, but the black door is protected by magic and only the brothers of the night watchman can pass. Cold hands also told them that they would meet an important person in the Long Night Castle, and they must take that person out of the Great Wall. After entering the Long Night Castle, Sam Will met bran stark, who was looking for the three-eyed crow in the north, and Melanie, Jojen Reed, Ma Tong Addo and direwolf Xia who escorted him all the way to escape. After recognizing Bran as Jon's younger brother, Sam leads them to see Cold Hand. Before breaking up, Bran, Jiujian and Lengshou respectively asked Sam to swear never to tell anyone about Bran's whereabouts, including Jon.
Sam and Gilly were on their way to castle black along a narrow path. They met the reinforcements returning from the Shadow Tower one and a half days later and were taken back to castle black to reunite with his friends. At this time, the battle of castle black was over, the savage army of Mans Reid, the king of the Great Wall, was defeated by stannis baratheon, and Mans's family was captured, and Stannis's troops were stationed in castle black. But with Mormont dead, the night watchman wants to elect a new commander-in-chief. According to the convention, only those who get more than two-thirds of the votes can be elected commander-in-chief, but nine days have passed and no one has been elected, so that Stannis threatened to appoint a commander-in-chief directly if he could not achieve all the results. Within nine days of the election, the newly arrived janos slynt kept poaching supporters of two leading candidates, Carter Parker and Dennis Melist. Sam realized that it would be a disaster for the night watchman if the corrupt and incompetent Slint was elected as commander-in-chief, and it was impossible for Parker and Melissa to unite to avoid Slint's election. Under the inspiration of Maester Eamon, Sam negotiated with Pike and Meliste separately, and lied to them that Stannis was going to appoint each other as Commander-in-Chief. Since both of them can't accept each other's election and don't want to see Slint in the upper position, it is better to support Jon's election as a compromise. Sam's "Dark Downstream Theory" made Jon be elected as the 998th Commander-in-Chief of the Night's Watch by absolute advantage. Shortly after Jon became commander, Sam persuaded him to suppress his dissatisfaction and signed a declaration of neutrality for the Iron Throne. Then, out of fear that melisandre would harm Mans' son and Maester Aemon in order to use the blood of the king, he persuaded Gilly to switch her own son with Mans' son, and ordered Sam to secretly escort Maester Aemon and Gilly to the Xuecheng in the old town for further study and report on the Great Wall. Sam and his party left castle black in the early hours of the morning, and took the "Blackbird" to Bravos in Donghai, accompanied by Jon's newly appointed Raven (the night watchman recruiter) Daley. During the trip, the elderly Maester Eamon got sick in the rain, so they stayed in Bravos and spent all their money on hotels and doctors. The merchant ship Lady Ushanora, which was scheduled to take them to the old town, refused to let the sick Maester Eamon board, and left at the tide without a refund. At the same time, Maester Eamon's health went from bad to worse, and he was often delirious. When he was awake occasionally, Maester Eamon heard rumors about daenerys targaryen and the dragon from Daileen, and concluded that Daenerys might be the "predicted prince" (because dragons have no gender), so he asked Sam to collect information about dragons as much as possible.
Sam hoped that Darien would perform in a local pub and earn enough money by singing to pay for a boat ticket to the old town, but Darien spent most of the money he earned on drinking and having fun. Finally, under the guidance of a self-proclaimed "nobody" girl selling clams (alias trained arya stark), Sam found Darien in a brothel and reprimanded him for breaking the oath. When Darien replied that he was going to abandon the night watchman, the angry Sam beat Darien and was dragged out by the brothel guards and thrown into the canal. Just as he was drowning, a sailor from midsummer islands, Xhondo, jumped into the canal to save him because he heard Sam talking about dragons when passing by. Chong told Sam that he had seen dragons in Qarth, and introduced them to the space on the swan ship "Cinnamon Wind" bound for the old town, at the cost of Sam having to work on the ship and paying their last possessions.
Maester Eamon died during the voyage to the old town. Sam recited a eulogy for him on the boat, but he couldn't be cremated and had to store the maester's body in a barrel. In order to appease mourning Sam, Gilly had sex with him after drinking and became a lover. In memory of Maester Eamon, Gilly decided to name Mans's son Eamon. Sam, who is ambivalent about Gilly, confessed to her: "If I could marry, I would rather have you than any princess or noble girl, but I can't. I am a crow, and I made an oath." He decided to send Gilly to his mother's care in Jiaoling, his hometown, and lied that Mans's child was his illegitimate child.
At the end of the journey, the Laurel Wind was harassed by a long iron boat in the Redwin Strait, but in midsummer, islanders reached the old town safely with strong bows and arrows. After landing in the old town, Sam came to Xuecheng to see the doctor, but he was left waiting at the door because he didn't bribe the assistant who received the visitors. At this moment, the assistant bachelor "Sphinx" Alleras the Sphinx stepped in and introduced him directly to the "magician" Dr. Marvin. Marvin listened to Sam's last words about "Daenerys is the predicted prince", and immediately left Xuecheng for Slave Bay to find Daenerys to become her bachelor. Before he left, Marvin ordered Sam to finish his studies as soon as possible in order to return to the Great Wall, and entrusted Laresa to take care of Sam. Sam was then led to his dormitory by another apprentice, Pate, who claimed to be "named after a swineherd".