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

  Littlefinger’s skill at manipulating others might only be bested by Varys’s. What differentiates Littlefinger from the Spider, though, is motive. Varys acts to preserve the stability of the kingdom. His peers may consider him untrustworthy, and he may very well be, but it is because his allegiance is to crown and country rather than any particular individual. Littlefinger’s allegiance is to Littlefinger.

  It is difficult to understand what it must be like to be without empathy or remorse. Human beings constantly anthropomorphize animals, despite their clearly nonhuman status. We project emotional states like hate, love, or anger on to beings incapable of feeling them in the same way we do. It is hard enough to view our relationships with our pets in an objective manner, so you can imagine how difficult it can be to conceive of, and anticipate, the actions of a human being with the emotional depth and capacity for remorse of a rattlesnake. Most people simply aren’t capable of it. Then again, most people aren’t Tyrion Lannister.

  It should hardly come as any surprise that an astute judge of character like Tyrion has managed to see through Littlefinger’s façade of normalcy. Perhaps the distance granted him as an outsider has given him a sense of perspective not easily attainable by the rest of the characters.

  In A Game of Thrones, Tyrion offers this comment to Cersei: “Why does a bear shit in the woods? [. . .] Because it is his nature. Lying comes as easily as breathing to a man like Littlefinger. You ought to know that, you of all people.” And later in the same book he sums up the Master of Coin with a single, devastating sentence: “Littlefinger has never loved anyone but Littlefinger.”

  Manipulation is another key quality of the psychopath. Littlefinger has no friends, only tools and playthings to be disposed of the moment they no longer suit his purposes. His favorite method of disposal is to be found at the end of a blade. He excels at this. It’s a kind of genius, really: moving and shifting friends and foe alike like chess pieces upon a great board. Eddard thought that he could trust Littlefinger. So did Lysa Arryn and Ser Dontos. Sansa Stark seems to trust Littlefinger, and already she suffers for it.

  Were it not for Littlefinger’s Svengali-esque talent for seduction, Sansa might have already revealed her noble identity to House Royce, and ultimately the true circumstances of her aunt’s death. In the light of such knowledge, Littlefinger’s claim over the Eyrie and Riverlands would be tenuous at best. The lords of the Vale already despise the man, and a charge of murder could be reason enough for a hanging. For now, Sansa maintains her alias as Alayne Stone and Littlefinger remains Lord Protector.

  Obviously, Littlefinger plans to once again expand his dominion. There is the matter of his ward Robert Arryn, but given the history of others who have stood in the way of Littlefinger’s ambitions, the odds of the little Lord Robert reaching the age of majority are slim. Sansa’s odds aren’t much better. With the eldest Stark daughter out of the way, Littlefinger would be free to claim the North.

  As for the superficial charm of the psychopath, nothing could describe Littlefinger better. He may seem pleasant enough—charismatic, even—but it is all a façade. Every bit of affection he shows others is in service to his personal benefit. Yes, he fought a duel for Catelyn’s hand, but marrying her would have greatly improved his social standing. It’s quite reasonable, given his later actions, to look back on even his earliest proclamations of love with a jaundiced eye.

  Aside from the obvious answer of “power,” why does Littlefinger do the things that he does? Psychopaths act because they feel entitled. They feel nothing for other people, and are often highly narcissistic. The Hare Psychopathy Checklist, a diagnostic test used to identify psychopaths, lists both “aggressive narcissism” and “grandiose self worth” as personality factors common among psychopaths. Such a combination is potentially explosive. People, and laws, stand in the way of things that the psychopath thinks he deserves. The decision to eliminate or circumvent these obstacles can be an easy choice, especially if the likelihood that he will be caught is little or nonexistent. A pre-industrial society like Westeros would be an ideal environment for an intelligent psychopath, especially one whose noble status would lend some protection against common law.

  One of the great charms of Martin’s epic is that the author avoids the good versus evil dichotomy present in much of fantasy fiction, instead opting to present a more textured, realistic human tableau. Just exactly who the heroes and villains are depends on one’s perspective, and even then neither designation is necessarily static: the despised monster of one book may be the hero of another, or vice versa. Kind men and women can become corrupted, slipping from the moral high ground inch by inch. Sometimes they pick themselves up again, and sometimes they don’t. Conversely, the most callous of characters may learn from their experiences and sometimes in spite of themselves feel pity or even respect for their enemies. Can we really say any of these things for Littlefinger? No, I don’t think that we can. His affections are feigned, as is his sympathy. There is nothing inside of him that can be recognized as compassion. There is no potential for growth because, metaphorically speaking, he is dead inside. Littlefinger hides the nihilistic vacuity of his inner being behind Cleckley’s mask of sanity. He is a monster among men.

  Martin’s saga is often compared to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, but with all due respect to Professor Tolkien and his wonderful work, the psychological complexity just isn’t there. With the exception of Boromir, Aragorn and company are “good” in a way that is rarely encountered outside of fiction. The One Ring corrupts good men. It is clearly a supernatural source of evil in a world where people (and elves, dwarves, and hobbits) are essentially good. Martin doesn’t introduce an external source of evil in his work because it isn’t required. There is corruption and depravity and sin in A Song of Ice and Fire, but it can all be ascribed to human fallibility. Supernatural evil is exceptionally rare, and when it appears, it is almost uniformly alien. There’s nothing seductive about the white walkers and their wights. They don’t communicate by any other means than bloodshed, and offer nothing more than the oblivion of undeath.

  A supernatural conception of evil provides an easy out for readers who might otherwise look at a character’s desperately cruel actions and question whether they themselves may be capable of the same given the right circumstances. Where there’s a darkly seductive magic ring—or, to consider the real world, a horned man holding a pitchfork—luring the righteous off the path of the just, we can continue to cleave to the illusion that evil is something outside of us instead of existing as a potential within us all. Martin’s saga offers no such comfort. Evil in Martin’s books usually wears a very human face, and most often that face is one that is not all that far removed from our own.

  The fact that Littlefinger wears a mask of normalcy makes him even more frightening than the white walkers, wights, or petty sadists of Westeros. The Bloody Mummers advertise their depravity, and Gregor Clegane’s unhinged rage guarantees him a wide berth. Ser Jaime Lannister probably won’t cut you down without some reason, minor though it may be. Littlefinger, with his good upbringing, neat appearance, and friendly smile seems like someone you should be able to trust with your secrets, even your life. To do so is to risk forfeiture of both, but it is likely that you won’t realize the danger until you feel the blade biting deeply into your throat or the hand on your back as you stumble out the high tower window.

  Could Littlefinger ever find some manner of redemption? Unlikely. Iniquity, subterfuge, and violence have defined his character in the saga, and a Littlefinger suddenly gone “good” would not be Littlefinger. Psychopathy is for life, and Martin’s commitment to psychological realism would probably not allow for such an unlikely turnabout.

  A Song of Ice and Fire is not known for its storybook endings, but this is part of what makes the books so entertaining. Good is not always rewarded, nor evil always punished. As a matter of fact, sometimes it seems that evil often escapes punishment. In other words, Westeros is very muc
h a world like our own. Few of us play a game of thrones. Most of us are limited to, at most, a game of cubicles. But there are heroes and villains among us, and some days we can play both roles. We also have our own Littlefingers. Some lurk in dark alleys with axes, while others siphon away our pensions and turn our government against us. Some of them are as close as the apartment next door, or perhaps even the nearest mirror.

  If they wear the mask of sanity as well as Littlefinger, though, we’ll have a hard time recognizing them, until it’s far too late.

  MATT STAGGS is a former mental health worker and journalist now employed as a book publicist, author, and podcaster. Matt is a regular contributor of reviews, interviews, and feature articles at Suvudu, publisher Random House’s official science fiction and fantasy website. He is also the host of the DisinfoCast, the official podcast of the Disinformation Company. In his increasingly limited spare time, Matt enjoys drawing, playing tabletop roleplaying games, arguing about movies, and researching topics in psychology, culture, religion, folklore, and Forteana. He lives in central Mississippi with his wife, two cats, dog, and bearded dragon, Smaug. Should you wish to do so, you can find Matt on Twitter at @mattstaggs, Facebook at facebook.com/mattstaggs, and at his shamefully neglected website mattstaggs.com.

  BRENT HARTINGER

  A DIFFERENT KIND OF OTHER

  The Role of Freaks and Outcasts in A Song of Ice and Fire

  WHO DOESN’T LOVE AN underdog?

  As humans, most of us seem to be instinctively drawn to outsiders, to the excluded. At least on some level, most of us sympathize with those who are denied even the opportunity to prove their full worth. We recognize that’s just not fair.

  Writers know that audiences love underdog stories. From Rocky to Rudy, Star Wars to Seabiscuit, people never seem to tire of them. Besides, if the antagonist isn’t stronger than the protagonist, at least at first, there is no story.

  But there are outsiders and then there are outsiders. The sprawling cast of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series includes a surprisingly large number of major characters who are considered social rejects, if not outright freaks, by the people around them: gender-nonconformists like Arya, Brienne, and Varys; at least two disabled characters, Bran and Donal; the overweight Samwell; Jon, a bastard; a number of gay men, including Renly and Loras.

  And, of course, the series includes a dwarf, Tyrion: not the beard-wearing, underground-dwelling race of German mythology (and many other works of fantasy), but an actual genetic dwarf.

  Indeed, of the series’ fourteen major point-of-view characters to date—Tyrion, Arya, Jon, Daenerys, Bran, Samwell, Brienne, Catelyn, Jaime, Cersei, Eddard, Davos, Theon, and Sansa—at least the first seven violate major gender or social norms. Until just the last few decades, individuals such as these have typically been treated as objects of scorn, ridicule, or pity—not just in most literature, but in the Western civilization that this literature has reflected. When these outsiders haven’t been stereotyped, they’ve been ignored.

  It’s hard to say which is the deeper cut.

  Women, meanwhile, have often been prescribed equally narrow roles in both life and literature: almost always defined by their relationship to a man. Like most women in history, Ice and Fire’s females might be considered outsiders by mere virtue of their gender. Even as a future queen, Sansa, for example, is completely powerless over her destiny.

  A Song of Ice and Fire is set in a quasi-medieval setting where prejudices about these and other minorities couldn’t be much more brutal or bigoted. But the sensibility of the series is decidedly modern. Outsiders are not stereotyped or ignored. On the contrary, these characters are brought front and center, their perspectives presented as no less important than those of the more traditional ones.

  In fact, maybe they’re more important. In the series, the experience of being a freak or a misfit seems to make a person more sensitive to the plight of others, and more heroic—or at least as “heroic” as one can be in the brutal, complicated lands of Westeros and Essos. Meanwhile, other characters start out as “insiders,” but end up as outsiders. The transition often changes their perspectives for the better.

  Together, ice and fire make steam, and in George R.R. Martin’s masterwork, it’s mostly the freaks and outcasts who get burned. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have something very important to say about it.

  It’s not like the fantasy genre hasn’t long had its share of outsiders.

  In fact, you could argue that the whole genre is built on a very specific kind of “outsider”: the dispossessed king or exiled prince determined to reclaim his throne. From Odysseus and Rama to modern-day characters like Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, and Tarzan, they may start the story as outsiders, but they have greatness in their blood, and their rightful “throne” is just waiting for them to rise up and seize it.

  Other famous fantasy outsiders may not be of actual royal blood, but they’re called to greatness anyway, compelled to complete some important quest to which they and they alone are uniquely suited. Only Frodo has the pureness of heart to handle the One Ring without succumbing to its darker temptations. And while the Pevensie children may seem at first glance to be unlikely heroes, they’re literally summoned by Aslan for greatness nonetheless—and they’re fulfilling ancient prophecies to boot.

  The journey of the traditional fantasy hero is all spelled out in Joseph Campbell’s landmark exploration of myths, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949): first, a “call to greatness,” then a consultation with a mentor, a Merlin or a Gandalf, who explains the quest ahead. Typically, all these fantasy “outsiders” also end up with a ragtag but stalwart band of other pseudo-misfits to help them achieve their destiny.

  Let’s not forget all the useful magic items these heroes are also granted: rings of power or swords of destiny. Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné is but a frail, albino prince—at least until the magic sword Stormbringer transforms him into a mighty warrior (albeit at a heavy cost). And no matter which legend you believe as to how King Arthur comes to possess the sword Excalibur—whether he pulls it from a stone or receives it from the Lady of the Lake—both versions unequivocally declare him to be the choice of the gods to rule England.

  But just how much are these characters really outsiders? Sure, these boys and men of privilege have usually lost some of their standing in the world, and they learn valuable lessons by trying to get it back. That said, they’re still almost always boys and men of privilege.

  This paradigm made sense in its time. After all, most of these tropes date from a pre-Enlightenment era when attitudes about minorities and outsiders were so entrenched that it was difficult to even conceive of a hero as anyone other than a boy or man of privilege. It was just obvious that big problems could only be solved by just such a person. And let’s face it: it was men of privilege who were invariably financing and disseminating these stories, too.

  Still, if the protagonists in these tales are outsiders at all, it’s usually only due to circumstances, not as a result of anything innate about them. Meanwhile, the perspectives of true outcasts, those who were considered freaks and outcasts by their actual nature, were ignored. Ironically, they were excluded even from the story of the outcast.

  Basically, few authors bothered to ask a very obvious question: if the hero has a thousand faces, why are almost all of those faces male? And straight? And of average height? And of average weight? And why do they always follow the accepted gender norms?

  Times have changed. George R.R. Martin isn’t the first contemporary author to ask questions about exactly who should be front and center in the story, not by a long shot. A significant portion of late-twentieth-century fiction is devoted to exploring the perspective of the outsider by nature, the “other.” Yet even today, popular entertainment focuses overwhelmingly on the slender, the heterosexual, the average-heighted, the conventionally-abled, and the traditionally gendered. This is even truer in the fantasy genre, which has only
very recently started seriously exploring stories beyond the one about the exiled prince or the Chosen One seeking to claim his legacy.

  Despite their “outsider” sensibility, or maybe because of it, the books in the Song of Ice and Fire series have found mainstream success in a way that few such fantasy projects have before.

  Take Bran Stark. He’s young, confident, and adventurous: a classic fantasy hero. But his bravado leads to disaster when he impetuously climbs a forgotten tower and peeks in on Jaime Lannister having incestuous sex with his sister Cersei, the queen. Determined to keep their relationship a secret, Jaime throws Bran from the window, intending to kill him, but actually only permanently disabling him.

  In most fantasy epics, this would be the end of his storyline. After all, Narnia is not wheelchair accessible (neither, for that matter, is Westeros). For Martin, though, this is literally just the beginning of Bran’s story: he is thrown off that ledge in only his second point-of-view chapter.

  Then there’s Samwell Tarly, who isn’t called by the gods or destiny to do anything. He has no mentor stopping by to detail a task ahead and no artifacts of great power are bestowed upon him. On the contrary, in the world of Westeros, Sam is specifically excluded from “greatness” because of his body type: he’s fat. He is, in fact, the eldest son in the Tarly family, but his father declares him unfit for leadership because of his lack of physical prowess and offers him a deal: renounce his inheritance and “take the black” as a member of the Night’s Watch, thereby allowing his younger brother to become the family heir, or soon suffer an unfortunate “hunting accident.”