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 (12 page)

MYKE COLE

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in A Song of Ice and Fire

IT’S HARD TO ZERO
in on what makes A Song of Ice and Fire so incredibly compelling. It’s one of the most celebrated and famous works in modern fantasy, on par with Tolkien, Jordan, or Sanderson. If there’s one specific area I like to hone in on, it’s Martin’s facility with character. Martin routinely steps into the mindsets of a wide range of characters who are nothing like him. We see through the eyes of Cersei, a haughty woman; Tyrion, a crippled dwarf; Bran, a broken little boy; Petyr Baelish, a politically connected schemer. The list goes on: eunuchs, mothers, blacksmiths, bastards, even animals and monsters. Each one fully realized. Each one authentic.

And each one suffering from intense trauma. Martin’s not very nice to his characters. Westeros is a rough place to grow up. Every single major character in the saga is horribly traumatized at some point, and that trauma is exacerbated as their stories evolve. It’s in that trauma, and how his characters react to it, that I see Martin at his best.

I’ve been to war three times and responded to two major domestic disasters. I’ve seen what serious mental and emotional trauma does to people firsthand. I never expected that experience to apply to a work of fantasy. But by the time I finished
A Dance with Dragons
, I realized with a start that Martin had captured the range of reactions associated with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). More surprising, Martin was portraying PTSD accurately, as it
really
happens, rather than the common misconceptions of the condition. Martin’s realization of traumatized characters dazzled me with its authenticity. He got an essential and often missed aspect of PTSD exactly right: sometimes traumatic experiences profoundly damage a character, but sometimes they enfranchise and strengthen the sufferer. These polar opposite, yet fully authentic PTSD reactions, are exhibited in A Song of Ice and Fire through two major characters: Arya Stark, enfranchised as a result of trauma, and Theon Greyjoy, destroyed by it.

Now, I should add a caveat here. I’m not a trained mental health professional. I’m a guy with some experiences as to how PTSD manifests. Experts might bridle at my interpretations, but the study and definition of PTSD is a new frontier in mental health. The phenomenon changes as the nature of battle and the warrior-lifestyle changes, and the speed of that change is faster than ever before. As of just a couple of months ago, military suicide rates were at an all-time high in the United States. In moving to help those who suffer from PTSD, we are building the plane as it flies.

To understand how this discussion applies to the characters, one has to understand what PTSD is and how it functions. It’s currently dealt with as an almost physical pathology. You’re examined, you’re diagnosed, you’re prescribed a course of treatment. You take home leave or bed rest. You respond to your meds or your course of therapy, and you go back to work, right as rain, as if you’d gotten over a patch of strep throat. Though a hat is tipped to the chronic nature of the condition, the emphasis remains on it as pathology.

But PTSD is far more insidious and enduring. To understand how it impacts victims, we are best guided by the color code created by Jeff Cooper, a US Marine and firearms instructor. His color system, originally intended to develop a “combat mindset” that would enable people to survive sudden, lethal confrontation, was first laid out in his book
Principles of Personal Defense
(1989) and later adapted in the seminal work by Ed Lovette and Dave Spaulding,
Defensive Living
(2000), which I, like many folks bound for Iraq and Afghanistan, read as part of my pre-deployment training.

The Cooper Color Code posits that most individuals, at least in relatively safe, peaceful societies as in the US and Europe, live in “Condition White.” They are blissfully unaware of danger. When a sudden exposure to trauma occurs, most people in Condition White will shift immediately into “Condition Black,” a defenseless posture of frozen panic or denial. People in Condition Black will often behave in self-destructive fashion, surrendering to attackers who clearly have no intention to take prisoners, retreating into disbelief (“this can’t be happening to me”), or simply going catatonic.

Cooper argued that Condition Black could best be avoided by training those in combat situations to live always in “Condition Yellow,” a relaxed but vigilant state where an individual maintains constant situational awareness. In Iraq, we called it “having your head on a swivel.” An individual in Condition Yellow is constantly thinking,
I may have to fight at any moment
, and is prepared to do so.

Here’s where PTSD is particularly nasty. It isn’t really a “disorder” as modern medical experts understand it. It’s a shift in perspective. Being forced into Condition Black
and
being trained to live in Condition Yellow are both highly traumatizing.
Both
shift your worldview, often permanently. Both become hard-coded into personality, changing the individual in ways they never expected. Sometimes, amazingly enough, for the better.

But still, traumatizing. It’s easy for people to understand the Condition Black shift—an individual forever frightened of the world, seeing the veil ripped away and the horror of mortality revealed in all its stark reality. Such individuals manifest aspects of Condition Black throughout their peacetime lives. They are frozen, frightened, numb. They can be catatonic, either naturally or through the anesthetizing use of drugs and alcohol. The self-destructive behaviors of Condition Black can also manifest in coping mechanisms after the trauma has passed. Sufferers may lash out at friends and family, engage in addictive behavior, sink in a mire of self-pity. Cooper discusses Condition Black in terms of its immediate impact in a combat situation, but it has enduring effects as a part of PTSD and how those who have experienced trauma deal with the aftermath throughout their lives.

The same is true for those living in Condition Yellow. It, too, is a coping mechanism that endures long past the initial trauma. I cannot walk down a street without wondering who is behind me, who is around each corner I pass. I can’t sit comfortably in a restaurant or café unless I am facing the entrance, my back to a wall. My hands automatically fly to my “workspace”—in front of my face where I can see my pistol slide to work the action—whenever I hear a car backfire. I check locks and alarms obsessively. A homeless man grasped my elbow from behind once to get my attention. I almost flattened him. Some would say these effects are minor. I assure you they’re not. Constant heightened vigilance is absolutely exhausting, physically and mentally. Over the years, it digs grooves in you.

With such a shift in perspective, a personal holocaust usually ensues, as the PTSD sufferer’s pre-trauma worldview is revealed to be false. Illusions of security, which often form the bedrock of people’s daily lives, are ripped away. Most of us are able to work and play without thinking about what threats loom all around us, about how quickly and cheaply our lives can be snuffed out. With the realization of the immediacy of threats, the basis on which we construct our lives is razed.

And what is razed must be reassembled.

Here is where PTSD can enfranchise as well as cripple. A host of factors play into how the PTSD sufferer constructs a new life. Many permanently shift into Condition Black, rebuilding on a foundation of horror and withering fear. Others, and I’d argue fewer, move into Condition Yellow, scarred, but equipped to face future traumatic events. PTSD sufferers often slide on a scale between the two extremes of Conditions Yellow and Black, sometimes oscillating between them day by day. But for the purposes of illustrating their manifestation in Martin’s epic, extremes are helpful.

“Needle was Winterfell’s grey walls, and the laughter of its people.”

—A F
EAST FOR
C
ROWS
    

While Condition Yellow is still a traumatized state, it is an enfranchised one. Those who react to trauma by moving into Condition Yellow engage what some would consider positive coping mechanisms, such as hypervigilance, coldhearted decision-making, rapid reactions to dangerous situations, extra attention to personal safety, commitment to training and lifestyle decisions that ensure readiness for future traumatic events.

I don’t want to understate that these are coping mechanisms. A person in permanent Condition Yellow is traumatized and suffering from PTSD. It’s not usually a happy place to be, but in terms of external perception, it is one that is more likely to ensure the “success” of the sufferer in terms of their long-term survival.

Arya Stark, like so many in war, is yanked from relative security while still a child. Raised as the scion of a noble house, one of the most privileged positions a person can enjoy in the brutal world of Westeros, she witnesses her first horrible murder at the tender age of nine. It is the slaughter of the peasant boy Mycah, whom she defended against Prince Joffrey’s torments. The death goes hand in hand with the loss of one of the family’s precious direwolves and Arya’s separation from her own wolf, Nymeria. Perhaps most significantly, it is casual, unjust violence perpetrated by an enemy with power but little conscience. Mycah and Lady are killed almost as an afterthought, with nearly no effort being made to do what is just in the presence of the overwhelming power of the Iron Throne.

That is precisely the sort of veil-rending experience that can bring about the shift in worldview so common in those who suffer from PTSD. A little girl, raised with illusions of justice and safety, must suddenly confront the reality of her world. Those in power, often with a thoughtless flick of the wrist, can destroy those things we hold most dear. It isn’t long before trauma builds on trauma, as Arya witnesses the destruction of her family and the brutal execution of her father. Yoren may cover her eyes, but she knows what is happening.

But Arya is the daughter of Ned Stark, raised by men-of-war who have been in Condition Yellow since the Battle of the Trident and almost certainly much earlier. When Arya resists the role of court lady that her sister Sansa so readily accepts, the men of her family respond with surprising adaptability. They bring her, reluctantly and as gently as they can, into their warrior world.

The gifting of Needle and her training by the Braavosi fencer Syrio Forel are perhaps the most symbolic of Arya’s entry into Condition Yellow. While the wages of war are not yet fully upon her, she is being slowly hardened to a dangerous world. The physical instruments of combat are real, tangible coping devices. Arya will later come to rely on her internal strength, but initially, the sword and the training to use it represent the budding seeds of her new outlook on life. Arya best displays her commitment to Condition Yellow and her departure from the traditional female role in her world in the scene where Jon Snow reminds her that the best swords all have names. “Sansa can keep her sewing needles,” Arya replies, in her television incarnation. “I have a Needle of my own” (“The Kingsroad”).

The razing of worldview and reconstruction of perspective happen quite literally for Arya. She reacts to her trauma by abandoning her identity and reinventing herself from the roots up no less than ten times, assuming identities ranging from her wolf Nymeria, into whose skin she can slip, to Arry, an orphan boy and street urchin, to Beth, the blind beggar who ultimately carries out her first assassination for the Faceless Men. In this case, the measure is also practical, as she is the heir of a noble house, easily recognized and relentlessly hunted.