The books are dark and full of foreshadowing

[jons spearwife]

They waited, quiet, while Eddard Stark said a silent farewell to the home he loved. When he turned away from the window at last, his voice was tired and full of melancholy, and moisture glittered faintly in the corners of his eyes. “My father went south once, to answer the summons of a king. He never came home again.” “A different time,” Maester Luwin said. “A different king.”