Beyond the Wall: Exploring George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, From A Game of Thrones to A Dance with Drago

by James Lowder

  That said, we are also given conflicting information about technological and sociological matters: the appendix to A Game of Thrones tells us that the Andals brought the concept of chivalry to Westeros, but in A Feast for Crows, Samwell Tarly suggests that the institution of knighthood is a more recent one and highlights the fact that some stories speak of knights living a thousand years before they could have existed. This is, of course, a nod to the legend of King Arthur, where knights in the medieval tradition are depicted as living and fighting a clear half-millennia before such fighting men came into being.

  A wild card in this matter is the existence of magic. The degree to which magic was practiced in Westeros before the Doom of Valyria is unclear, but certainly at one time magic was used for formidable tasks, such as the raising of the Wall and the building of Storm’s End. The notion that magic retards technological development, if not preventing it altogether, is a common conceit in epic fantasy. Magic in Westeros, even when used, was not as prevalent as in other fantasy stories, and its use may have helped slow, but not prevent, technological advancement. This conflict between magic and science is given a clearer definition in A Feast for Crows, when we are told that the maesters of the Citadel believe that magic should be made obsolete and stamped out wherever it is encountered for the benefit of science.

  The backstory to A Song of Ice and Fire thus lacks definition up until the arrival of Aegon the Conqueror in Westeros, a mere three centuries before the start of the series. At this point history suddenly snaps into focus, and we get hard dates for the reigns of the Targaryen kings and major events that happen during their reign. Before that, history is less hard fact and more shifting legend.

  History on a Personal Scale

  This unreliability of history extends onto a more personal scale as well. Characters are defined by their experiences and what has happened to them in the past, as well as by their families and their family histories. These histories themselves often suffer from uncertainty as much as the larger-scale timeline. Jon Snow, a major protagonist of the series—if not the major protagonist—is a character uncertain of his own identity; he doesn’t know anything at all about his real mother, not even her name. Cruelly, he is not privy to information that the reader and even other characters possess. Catelyn Stark never told him about the rumors that his mother might be Ashara Dayne of Starfall, and Arya has not been able to tell him that his mother might be the Dayne servant, Wylla, as revealed to her by Edric Dayne in A Storm of Swords. This latter point is crucial, as Wylla was identified by Eddard Stark as Jon’s mother to his best friend, Robert Baratheon.

  This mystery is at the heart of the series, gaining more power as readers learn that Eddard Stark might not even be Jon’s father in the first place. In this instance we are given conflicting information from multiple sources about the matter. Jon may be the son of Eddard and Ashara, or Eddard and Wylla, or Eddard and an unknown fisherman’s daughter from the Vale of Arryn. Or he may not be Eddard’s son at all but a child of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, claimed by Eddard to protect him from Robert Baratheon’s fury. Of course, if he were the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna, he would be illegitimate . . . unless his parents had secretly married. Since Targaryens could take multiple wives and all of their offspring would have a claim as heirs, this could theoretically give Jon a claim to the throne, although one that would be very hard to prove.

  Going back further, even the story of Rhaegar and Lyanna’s relationship is clouded by mystery. Robert Baratheon believes that Rhaegar abducted and raped Lyanna. Eddard is less sure. Later, in A Storm of Swords, Howland Reed’s children seem to tell Bran that the relationship between the two began more romantically, with Lyanna weeping at Rhaegar’s musical skills. We also know from A Dance with Dragons that Elia Martell, Rhaegar’s wife, could not bear any more children, whilst A Clash of Kings tells us that Rhaegar believed his children would play an important role in preventing the return of the Others. We can infer that Rhaeger was already looking to find another wife to bear him a third child to complete the prophecy. Martin gives us most of the pieces, but it is up to the reader to put it all together, at least until the moment the truth is revealed in later volumes—if it ever is.

  Wheels turn within wheels, and the information we are offered within the books is fragmentary, requiring the reader to stand back and combine the scattered facts and perspectives into a larger picture. Popular history, as spread by King Robert, tells us Lyanna was abducted and raped. Other versions of the story tell us she and Rhaegar may have been lovers, or that Rhaegar may have used her to fulfill a line in a prophecy. Even seemingly clear-cut information is not entirely trustworthy: Brandon Stark, Eddard’s elder brother murdered by the Mad King, is described as a fiery but brave warrior, devoted to his betrothed, Catelyn Tully. Yet we learn in A Dance with Dragons that he had little to no interest in Catelyn, while another source, Ser Barristan Selmy, hints that he was a violent man. Brandon may have even sexually assaulted Ashara Dayne, getting her with child, which would explain a great deal about Ashara’s pregnancy and her behavior toward the end of her life. Even what appear to be straightforward elements of backstory turn out to be more complex, more shrouded in doubt, than they first appear.

  To this end, the message of A Song of Ice and Fire may be that nothing is certain, not the world’s history and not the history of any individual within it. Everything is in the eye of the beholder, and the acts of one character may be heinous crimes to some but heroism to others. Tyrion Lannister tries to save King’s Landing from assault by destroying Stannis Baratheon’s fleet on the Blackwater. He partially succeeds—and is condemned by the people of King’s Landing as a criminal and monster. The reader has a greater perspective from which to judge the characters’ actions in the novels, but we are dependent on what the characters know about each other and about more ancient history. And if even contemporary events cannot be fully understood, what hope is there for the events thousands of years removed?

  In A Dance with Dragons, we are offered a glimmer of hope, through the agency of the Last Greenseer: “[Y]ou will [. . .] see what the trees have seen,” he tells Bran Stark, “be it yesterday or last year or a thousand ages past.” This potentially opens up a window on the past through which Bran—and the reader—can gain a privileged vantage on events that had only been available through unreliable tales. We already have seen that the First Men used to engage in blood-sacrifices to the old gods, a truth that is not revealed in the other histories and stories. We have also seen through the heart tree that Lyanna Stark was a skilled swordswoman, capable of besting her younger brother—the future First Ranger of the Night’s Watch and a very capable soldier—in mock combat. This fuels speculation that Lyanna herself was the mysterious Knight of the Laughing Tree who avenged Howland Reed’s humiliation in A Storm of Swords, and gives another reason for why she and Rhaegar may have met and developed a connection. The addition of even a small scene, which may at first appear only to offer flavoring, can deepen our understanding of the backstory and fuel speculation.

  Uncertainty as Engagement

  The Song of Ice and Fire novels and the Game of Thrones TV series have benefited from the internet. Fans gather at blogs and online forums to debate the questions raised by each new release, whether it’s Jon Snow’s parentage, the reasons for the unpredictable seasons, or the motivations of the Others. Discussions of this sort—though sometimes very . . . lively—increase the readers’ engagement with the story, allowing them the opportunity for active rather than passive participation. It helps create and maintain a loyal and enthusiastic fanbase and gives those fans something to talk about during the waits between novels.

  As the story of A Song of Ice and Fire draws to a close, many of the questions raised within its pages will be answered. Martin himself has told us we will learn the reason the seasons are out of joint and the truth behind Jon Snow’s parentage. After almost two decades of discussion, it’s inevitable some fans will have guessed those answ
ers already, but for those who have, it’s a tribute to the skill with which the author assembled those mysteries and seeded clues to their resolutions in the story.

  It’s unlikely that all the mysteries will be solved, however. Larger questions about the nature of magic and religion in the world will surely remain, and rightfully so. Westeros itself is a place built upon unreliable time and fractured history, so for the series to end with mysteries still shrouding the landscape would only be fitting.

  ADAM WHITEHEAD is a British blogger resident in Britain’s oldest town and ancient Roman capital, Colchester. He is the founder of the Wertzone blog and the Game of Thrones wiki. He has also served as a moderator on the Westeros.org website since 2005. He was nominated for the inaugural SFX SF Blogger of the Year Award in 2011, for his work on the Wertzone.

  GARY WESTFAHL

  BACK TO THE EGG

  The Prequels to A Song of Ice and Fire

  AS ANYONE WHO EXAMINES the results can attest, a multi-volume fantasy epic requires an enormous amount of writing, and one might imagine that authors in the midst of such projects would focus their undivided attention on completing their tasks. Instead, they are often diverted into writing prequels, stories taking place before the original works begin, which may add to the depth and complexity of authors’ creations but do nothing to advance the series toward the conclusion that readers are eagerly anticipating.

  To be sure, the phenomenon is not limited to fantasy: in the field of science fiction, Isaac Asimov wrote his last two Foundation novels about Hari Seldon, the psychohistorian whose life predated the original trilogy, and the protagonist of Robert A. Heinlein’s final Future History novel was the mother of the series’ central character, Lazarus Long. But fantasy writers seem especially prone to looking backward into their epics’ prehistory: among other examples, before and after finishing The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955), J.R.R. Tolkien famously kept working on a never-completed chronicle of the events in Middle-earth that occurred long before his trilogy, assembled after his death by Christopher Tolkien as The Silmarillion (1977) and other works; David and Leigh Eddings wrote two prequels to their series that started with Pawn of Prophecy (1982); Terry Brooks has written several prequels to his original trilogy that began with The Sword of Shannara (1977); Robert Jordan interrupted his Wheel of Time series to produce a prequel novella, “New Spring” (1998), later expanded into a novel (2004), and intended to write other prequels before his death. And today, while writing his series A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin has paused three times to produce novellas featuring the characters of Dunk and Egg, who lived a hundred years before the epic began, and has announced plans to write a fourth novella, assemble the existing prequels as a novel, and write additional stories about the pair. Yet readers of the series, who waited five years for its fourth installment and six years for its fifth, might well prefer that Martin focus exclusively on completing the epic’s final two novels, instead of working on side projects.

  Of course, it is hard to enter the minds of writers to determine precisely why they might write prequels. We know that Jordan and Martin were prodded to write their first prequels by Robert Silverberg, who solicited original novellas set in famous authors’ fantasy worlds for his anthology Legends: Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy (1998), and that Martin’s second prequel was written for Silverberg’s successor volume, Legends II: New Short Novels by the Masters of Modern Fantasy (2004). Both writers could have fulfilled Silverberg’s assignment with stories occurring in the present or future of their worlds but chose instead to venture into the past. They also continued working on prequels after Silverberg was out of the picture, suggesting sincere interest in the task. Indeed, the enigmatic first part of the dedication to Legends II—“For George R.R. Martin who baited the trap”—suggests that he in some fashion inspired Silverberg to edit the second anthology, perhaps to provide a venue for another Dunk and Egg story. It is also true that fantasy writers necessarily spend a great deal of time developing the prehistory of their imagined settings, and some aspect of the chore might naturally inspire a story idea deemed worth pursuing—in Martin’s case, the early life of one king, Aegon V, in his Targaryen dynasty. Finally, dedicated fans often crave more information about their favorite fantasy worlds, so writers may respond by publishing prequels as a way to satisfy readers’ curiosity about an imagined realm’s background and history.

  All of these factors might have been involved in the creation of the Dunk and Egg stories, but Martin’s prequels may also demonstrate that there is something about the nature of high fantasy itself that inspires authors to keep returning to their epics’ pasts instead of advancing into their futures: the main story begins to feel confining, and its past offers the possibility of freedom. Ironically, however, these prequels also suggest that such authorial efforts to temporarily escape from their own epics may ultimately prove futile.

  To understand what might lead fantasy authors to write prequels, one can begin by noting that fantasy epics are usually driven by a strong sense of destiny: as a practical matter, the creators of imaginary worlds, more so than other writers, must engage in extensive planning before they begin writing, so the events they describe may project an aura of predetermination; and perhaps as a reflection of this, their characters often feel impelled to do certain things because of prophecies or prophetic signs. In the first chapter of A Game of Thrones, for example, Lord Eddard Stark agrees to spare a litter of direwolf pups when his bastard son, Jon Snow, points out that they correspond in their number and genders to his own children: “Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord.” In this way, Martin immediately establishes that in his world, as in other fantasy worlds, people regard predictions and omens as important matters; further, as the epic unfolds, we learn that certain members of the Targaryen family tend to have prophetic dreams. More broadly, as in other fantasies, the major characters in the series are compelled to maintain certain loyalties, or take certain actions, solely because of the families that they were born into, or else face accusations of treason or betrayal, as various families compete for power in Westeros and beyond.

  If characters feel bound to move in particular directions due to portents or family history, they may regret the loss of personal freedom but can also relish the positive outcomes that may be foretold, or that may emerge from their family connections. Yet in a still broader sense, A Song of Ice and Fire, like many fantasy series, may seem haunted by a general prediction of eventual doom. This is an argument put forth most elaborately in Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (1957), an oft-cited literary study that, in the words of the online Canadian Encyclopedia, “has had a powerful international influence on modern critical theory.”

  In its most influential section, covering his “Theory of Myths,” Frye envisions all literature as falling within what he describes as four “mythoi or generic plots,” corresponding to the four seasons. In this scheme, as shown in the diagram, comedy is the mythos of spring, which moves linearly from the dark world of experience to the bright world of innocence; romance (including fantasy) is the mythos of summer, which moves cyclically within the world of innocence; tragedy is the mythos of autumn, which moves linearly from innocence to experience; and irony and satire are the mythos of winter, which moves cyclically within the world of experience. Each mythos is further subdivided into six phases, which may shift into corresponding phases in the adjacent mythos, so that extended narratives can move cyclically through two or more mythoi. Further, while the third phase of romance, representing the quest myth that is the ancient counterpart of modern fantasy, may move on to the later phases of romance, wherein a desired outcome is successfully defended, it may also shift into the third phase of tragedy, in which heroes achieve a certain sort of triumph while also reaching a tragic end in worlds that may then descend further into the dark terrain of experience. In Frye’s vision, then, the happy endings of fantasies may only be preludes to tragedies to fol
low, tempered solely by the hope that, after a long time, the cycle may continue turning and the narrative will pass through irony and satire to achieve the heartening rebirth of comedy. By this argument, then, all fantasies implicitly lead to tragedies.

  One hardly needs to mention that such intimations are central to the somber conclusion of The Lord of the Rings, as characters foresee the end of their magical realm and the ascendancy of the human race in the manner of the third phase of tragedy. In Martin’s epic, an ominous future for his fictional world is conveyed in a literal fashion by means of seasonal imagery that Frye would understand, as the land of Westeros is entering a long, cold winter of unknown duration, and the unchallenged reign of the humans is about to be disturbed by the reappearance of the feared, frigid Others from the North. Martin has also crafted a world in which the iconic animals of fantasy, dragons, are already extinct, although the surprising births of three dragons under the control of Daenerys Targaryen provide a modicum of hope that the species may be revived. Perhaps Martin envisions a conclusion in which, all family conflicts resolved, an admirable global civilization of knights and magic is permanently forged; but considering that his saga is modeled so explicitly on Earth’s medieval past, one might also anticipate that this fantasy world will eventually come to the end, to be succeeded, as in Tolkien, by a fallen world not unlike our own.