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

  When Dany asks her to save Drogo, for example, Mirri warns that the spell will have a high cost and require a great sacrifice. This is not something to be bargained for with gold or horseflesh, though it will be paid with that, too. Mirri tells us, “Only death may pay for life” (A Game of Thrones). Though the maegi’s bloodmagic has tragic results, it teaches Dany, and us, the most essential rules of magic in the series: it cannot be handled easily and always demands a high price.

  The Red Comet

  A Clash of Kings opens with another strong omen: the terrible red comet blazing across the sky. Unlike the stag and the direwolf, though, this event is much harder to interpret and most characters see what they want in it. King Joffrey sees the comet as a blessing of Lannister crimson; Edmure Tully sees Tully red and a sign of victory; Greatjon Umber sees a symbol of vengeance; Brynden Tully, Aeron Greyjoy, and Osha all see it as a portent of war and bloodshed; and to near-blind Old Nan, who claims she can smell it, the red comet means the coming of dragons. In a sense, what the fire portends to the reader is R’hllor, the Lord of Light, and his priestess, Melisandre.

  Melisandre is one of the most adept magic-wielding characters in A Song of Ice and Fire. Previously, the only red priest of R’hllor we had seen was Thoros, who was more caricature than commanding; although a master of the tournaments with his flaming sword, he was bald, fat, and often drunk. Melisandre, in contrast, is sexy, sophisticated, and introduced in a scene where the stakes are life and death. Stannis Baratheon’s ancient maester, Cressen, is convinced Melisandre is a toxic influence on Stannis, so he tries to poison her. But Melisandre claims to have seen his feeble attempt in her fires and warns him that she knows his plot. When Cressen refuses to turn from his path, both drink from the poisoned wine, but only Cressen is killed. Melisandre’s sorcery keeps her safe.

  In many ways, Melisandre is the embodiment of the lesson Dany learns—that magic comes at a tremendous cost. We are often not privy to how Melisandre is “paying” for her sorceries, but what we do learn indicates the payments are steep.

  Melisandre has convinced Stannis that his path to kingship leads through the fires of R’hllor, that he is the legendary hero Azor Ahai, reborn, destined to wield the fabled sword Lightbringer and unite and protect Westeros from the Great Other. Whether Stannis himself believes that or not—and much evidence suggests that Melisandre is flat-out wrong here, despite her demonstrable power—he listens to her counsel, trusts her implicitly, and, if he is not a full convert to her religion, is willing to feed pretty much anything she suggests into the fire. To recreate Lightbringer, Stannis symbolically sacrifices idols of his old faith, the Seven, in a great bonfire, and then draws the blade out of the burning form of the Mother.

  However, Stannis does not seem to have given up enough to create a new blade: his first weapon is a charred ruin, the second blazes with light but no heat. (It is unclear if he made another attempt, or if Melisandre just put a glamor on the burned blade.) The myths of Azor Ahai say that he ruined two swords in the making. The first he tempered in water after working thirty days and nights at the forge, and it shattered. The second took fifty days and nights, was plunged into the heart of a lion to cool, and still it broke. The third attempt took one hundred days and nights; he summoned his wife and asked her to bare her breast. He tempered it in her heart—the steepest of sacrifices—and her soul combined with the sword to make Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, used to defeat the Others during the Long Night.

  Melisandre is constantly feeding sacrifices to her ever-hungry fires. It is said she burns a man to give Stannis fair winds for his ships. She places leeches on Edric Storm, bastard son of King Robert, and tosses the blood-engorged worms into the flames while reciting the names of Stannis’s foes—Joffrey, Balon, and Robb—to bring them to destruction (and soon enough, all three perish in terrible ways). She asks for more than a taste of Edric’s blood; there is power in royal blood, she says, power enough to wake a stone dragon, and she wants to feed him to the flames. Although Stannis relents, Davos had foreseen the danger and smuggled Edric away beyond their reach. Later, she asks to sacrifice the King-Beyond-the-Wall’s son, as well, though she is similarly thwarted by Jon Snow.

  For many readers, it is not an image of fire but of shadow that represents Melisandre: First, the shadow of Stannis that crept into Renly’s tent and assassinated him—a shadow with the power to slice through his gorget and cut his throat. Second, the shadow Davos witnesses when he rows Melisandre underneath the walls of Storm’s End. Like the Wall, this ancient castle was built with powerful protective wards and her spells cannot cross the barrier. As soon as they pass under the walls, Melisandre is suddenly nine months pregnant and giving birth to a shadow; it crawls forth, as tall as a man, with Stannis’s profile.

  These spells, too, come at a great cost, though the sacrifice again is not Melisandre’s. She draws the power for these shadow spells directly from Stannis, making him look years older and haggard and filling his sleep with nightmares.

  Melisandre is not the only agent of the Lord of Light, and hers is not the only magic we see done in his name. When Thoros gives the fallen Lord Beric Dondarrion the “last kiss,” a standard ritual of fire, it brings Lord Beric back from the dead, surprising them both. Thoros restores Lord Beric’s life six times, but each attempt is harder and causes Lord Beric to lose—to sacrifice—a bit more of his self. After the last incident, he can no longer remember his castle, his betrothed, his favorite foods, and more. Rather than go on and continually diminish, Lord Beric passes the flame of rebirth to Lady Catelyn, restoring her as Lady Stoneheart, but this is no favor. Rather than lessen the stakes, the notion of resurrection is more like a fate worse than death.

  Most recently, A Dance with Dragons has introduced us to Moqorro, the Black Flame, who is fished out of the sea and joins the service of Victarion Greyjoy, claiming Greyjoy has the support of the Lord of Light. Like Thoros and Melisandre, this red priest has power; he heals Victarion’s putrid hand and sacrifices Maester Kerwin to bring the ship good winds. And he can read the Valyrian glyphs on the Dragon Horn.

  This artifact—another magical horn the legends speak of—was discovered by Euron Greyjoy, reportedly in the ruins of Valyria, and when blown it sounds like a thousand screaming souls. Cragorn, Euron’s man, collapsed with blisters on his lips after he blew it. When he died, a short time later, his lungs were charred black as soot. Moqorro tells Victarion that the horn will bind dragons, but any who sound it will die. The horn must be claimed with blood—only death may pay for life, or power, as it were.

  A Game of Magic

  The magic in A Song of Ice and Fire is so effective and so fascinating in the story because it always comes with a cost. But that cost itself—the rules of the game of magic—are difficult for us as readers to decipher. Even knowing what elements can precisely be called “magic” is tricky to ascertain.

  When we were designing the pen-and-paper roleplaying game A Game of Thrones d20, we wrestled with the question of how to define magic. RPGs traditionally codify these kinds of abilities for players and antagonists to use, but we settled on a story-based approach, after talking more about theme and feeling than mechanics. This actually upset some players, who wanted a system that was more rigid, like the one used in Dungeons & Dragons, where every character can do specific, codified spells at a specific level. But that struck me as completely against the spirit of A Song of Ice and Fire. Instead, we decided that any character could learn a spell as long as he or she had a sufficiently high Wisdom, enough ranks in Knowledge of Arcana, and had a background trait that felt right (like Dreams, Blood of the Dragon, or Blood of the First Men). But even those who did not have formal training might create a magical working. As we stated it in the rules: “in rare circumstances, a combination of determination, fate, and luck can allow a character to spontaneously create a magical effect. Such effects are not brought about by casual attempts at magical working. Instead, they require the sort of talent de
rived from temporary madness.”

  I think it safe to say we got at least the spirit right. The latest roleplaying game based on the series—A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, from Green Ronin Publishing—also takes a minimalist approach. In chats I’ve had with the games developers, Chris Pramas and Joseph D. Carriker, it’s clear their focus is more on what magic does, and what it costs, than how it does it.

  That mirrors the way magic works in the novels. Martin has left the rules of magic in A Song of Ice and Fire intentionally ambiguous. In the end, it doesn’t really matter if wargs, red priests, and Targaryens are “dipping” into the same pool to power their enchantments or not, or doing so in the same way, as long as the author knows the rules and keeps them consistent. And keeps the use of magic restrained. “To have an epic fantasy, you need some magic,” Martin also noted in that New York Times interview. “But I believe in judicious use of magic.”

  There is no doubt that magic is integral to the spirit of A Song of Ice and Fire. I think we wouldn’t enjoy the story half so much without the dragons. As Martin wrote in “On Fantasy,” “We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang.”

  With scores of chapters and hundreds of pages still to go in the series, it is clear that the rising forces of magic will shape the future of Westeros. The trick for the author and characters both is to manipulate the magic without letting it consume them. For the denizens of Westeros, the threat inherent in magic’s use is a gruesome death or, like Catelyn Stark, a fate worse than death. For its creator, the threat is more profound—having his stark and original setting become just another predictable abode of lightning-hurling wizards and city-scorching flying lizards.

  Perhaps the words of the Horned Lord, a former King-Beyond-the-Wall, from A Storm of Swords say it best: “[S]orcery is a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it.”

  JESSE SCOBLE is, in no particular order, a writer, game designer, and story editor. He has won awards, written a Western horror script, and contributed to more than thirty RPG books and related anthologies. He was Creative Director on the RPG A Game of Thrones d20, and also helped out on the more recent A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying. He worked on NCsoft’s City of Heroes, Ganz’s Webkinzand Tail Towns, multiple Ubisoft projects, and the Marvel Heroic RPG from Margaret Weis Productions. A Canadian by blood, he relocated to Austin in the scorching year of 2011, to work as Senior Content Designer (read: writer) on Wizard101 for Kingslsle. He has two small children, A (3.3) and AD (0.3), who are already being indoctrinated into the wonders of fantasy and games. He makes a mean mojito.

  MATT STAGGS

  PETYR BAELISH AND THE MASK OF SANITY

  THE WORLD OF A Song of Ice and Fire is an unbelievably cruel place: Heroes fall to the blade with no regard for the nobility of their character or the righteousness of their cause. Villains live on with seemingly little comeuppance for their wickedness. Life is hard, and the gods, old or new, are deaf to the cries of nobles and smallfolk alike. In such a world only those who can harden themselves to the suffering of those around them stand a chance of winning the game of thrones.

  The bonds of family, faith, and fealty can prevent most people from ever achieving the state of callousness needed to claim victory, but Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish isn’t a normal person: he is a psychopath, and this makes him an unsettlingly skilled player in the game. Littlefinger has no emotional chinks in his armor, mostly because he doesn’t have any real emotions—at least in the way that normal people understand them. Without any of the emotional vulnerabilities of a relatively healthy human being, Littlefinger is insulated against the pitfalls that await others who fight for power in Westeros. All of those who seek to best him share one fatal mistake: they assume that Littlefinger operates by the same rules that they do. They soon learn otherwise. Could he win the game of thrones? Quite possibly, and if so, his cruelty could rival that of Aerys II.

  Most people are familiar with the word “psychopath.” Popular entertainment and news reporters alike love to describe murderers as “psychopathic,” thinking that it simply means they’re “crazy,” or that the crimes they’ve committed are especially gruesome. People use the word “psycho” when they’re talking about unpredictable or bizarre behavior, using it as a one-size-fits-all synonym for “crazy.” An excellent, and amusing, example of this kind of confusion can be seen in the 1981 comedy Stripes. New recruit Francis Soyer attempts to intimidate the other soldiers in his unit by telling them that people call him “Psycho,” and proceeds to threaten to kill them if they touch him or his stuff. The erratic, jittery Soyer is a weirdo, to be sure, but is he a psychopath? Not likely.

  Psychopathy is a personality disorder, a kind of psychiatric illness that is firmly enmeshed in a person’s identity. Personality disorders are usually diagnosed through a careful examination of a subject’s history and, normally, a battery of psychological tests. Psychiatrists and other mental health practitioners look for specific patterns of behavior upon which to base their diagnoses. The reality of psychopathy is far removed from the grab bag of erratic and disorganized behavior the public has ascribed to the word. It isn’t marked by the kind of over-the-top, twitchy excitability and aggressiveness demonstrated by the character in Stripes. It’s actually much more subtle and disturbing.

  In 1941, psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley wrote a book called The Mask of Sanity, a groundbreaking study that hypothesized that psychopaths possess no capacity to experience real emotions. They wear a psychological “mask” to hide their abnormality. Cleckley’s book included a list of sixteen characteristics that he thought were typical of a psychopath. His fellow psychiatrists built upon this list, using parts of it to form the criteria for antisocial personality disorder, as psychopathy is known in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a kind of bible for the profession.

  There’s no universally accepted criteria for identifying psychopathy, but four basic qualities are common to just about every definition: a history of engaging in criminal behavior, little to no empathy for victims, the inability to form strong emotional attachments, and a lack of sincere remorse for one’s actions. Theses are the indicators we’ll be looking for as we analyze Littlefinger.

  Psychopaths have a history of committing acts that would be considered criminal or at least immoral by the standards of their society. Littlefinger has committed, or arranged, several murders, as the most expedient means to accruing power and wealth. All these murders are carried out in cold blood.

  Littlefinger’s first documented murder conspiracy sparks the War of the Five Kings, although it is not often credited as such a monumental accomplishment. Lysa Arryn poisons her husband Jon at Littlefinger’s behest. Had this not occurred, Eddard Stark would have never traveled to King’s Landing to become the King’s Hand to Robert Baratheon. In turn, he would not have been imprisoned and executed, and the Young Wolf, Robb Stark, would not have raised his banners against King’s Landing.

  Littlefinger’s next victim is Eddard Stark. He manipulates Stark from the moment of his arrival in King’s Landing, feigning friendship until the Lord of Winterfell takes him into his confidence. Once this occurs, Littlefinger betrays Eddard’s trust, leading to his capture and execution for treason. With Eddard out of the way, Littlefinger marries the conveniently widowed Lysa. The half-mad woman is ecstatic to wed her childhood love, though he murders her not long after.

  At Littlefinger’s behest, Dontos Hollard, the former knight and later jester in the court of King Joffrey, helps Sansa Stark escape from her forced marriage to Tyrion Lannister. After successfully accompanying Sansa to the ship that will take her from King’s Landing, Littlefinger murders him. Dontos could have lived on in exile, but a blade and burial at sea are more reliable methods of ensuring he will never reveal how Sansa escaped King’s Landing and with whom she left.

  Littlefinger is a murderer, but A Song of Ice and Fire is full of violent men and women.
What makes Littlefinger’s murders so different from those committed by the other characters? Motive. Littlefinger cares only for himself, and murders entirely for his own benefit. Other characters in A Song of Ice and Fire commit murder, but they are usually motivated to do so by emotions like love, shame, or anger, in response to a potential threat, or in service to an ideological cause that they perceive to be greater than themselves. That cause isn’t always noble or sensible, but motives beyond personal gain—or at least concurrent with it—are often what trigger the bloodshed. Queen Cersei may be a schemer and murderer, but she’s also a mother who will do anything and everything she must in order to protect her children. Her brother Jaime flings Bran Stark from a window, but it is to protect their illicit love affair. Their youngest brother, Tyrion, arguably one of the most ethical characters in the saga, arranges the murder of the musician Symon Silver Tongue in response to his ill-considered attempt at blackmail. Even Lord Walder Frey orchestrates the events of the infamous Red Wedding partially in response to a perceived insult to his house.

  Littlefinger isn’t motivated by emotion. He claims to love Catelyn Stark, but his actions betray the facile declarations of his affection. Where is Littlefinger in her time of greatest need? Seducing her daughter and murdering her sister, in short order.

  Lack of remorse or empathy are also hallmarks of the psychopath. Littlefinger offers cold comfort to Sansa Stark following the death of her father, telling her that he was a “piece” and not a “player” in the game. Respect for the feelings of others does not factor into his strategies. If anything, it is only considered a vulnerability to be exploited. He says as much in the same conversation with Sansa, as she poses as his daughter Alayne: “Everyone wants something, Alayne. And when you know what a man wants you know who he is, and how to move him” (A Storm of Swords).