One day in the North, Ned Stark discovers 6 baby dire wolf pups.  He believes this to be a good sign seeing that he has 6 children, what he ignores is that the mother direwolf had been killed by a deer.  The sigil of the king’s house is a stag, and the Stark’s sigil is a dire wolf.  I believe that this is a sign that the king is going to betray the Starks and have them killed.  Later on we are shown two new characters: Tyrion Lannister, the king’s dwarf brother-in-law; and John Snow, Ned Stark’s illegitimate son, who does not share his family name because his “only family is the snow” (Martin.)  Even though Catelyn, Ned’s wife, hates John, almost all the rest of the family loves him and treats him like family.  Regardless, John Snow decides to join the Night’s Watch, an army made up of “criminals, bastards, and outcasts;” where those who join essentially are disowned from their families, must never marry, and must serve for life, as well as giving them clemency for all past crimes, which is why many criminals and outcasts join.