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 (16 page)

By the end of
A Storm of Swords
, it is clear that Jaime’s actions are no longer focused on himself and his personal gain. This transition completes itself in
A Feast for Crows
, when he finds the strength to leave his scheming sister Cersei to her fate after she runs afoul of a sect of religious zealots. He spends most of this tale and
A Dance with Dragons
bringing battles to an end around Westeros, creating unity—the ultimate act of good in a society about to face dangers that only cooperation can defeat. We see him accept the humbling of the loss of his sword hand and begin to work to reform himself as a competent, though no longer brilliant, fighter. He is no longer the Kingslayer
or
the Lion of Lannister. He is Jaime and, as yet, nothing more.

Davos Seaworth, Sansa Stark, and Jaime Lannister appear to be on a similar trajectory. Whether their journeys will lead them to eventual salvation or utter destruction because of flaws and sins they cannot or will not overcome remains to be seen; however, it is clear that in Westeros, characters can find their way to good if they are willing to pay the brutal price.

Unlike the almost allegorical worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien and his contemporaries, which are imbued with unambiguous representations of good and evil, Westeros defines these concepts with more subtlety and realism, grounded in the fact that Winter is coming, and with it a host of horrors, making the very survival of society dependent upon inhabitants cooperating and acting for the benefit of the whole instead of pursuing more selfish or individualistic aims. As such, what is “good” in Westeros supports unity, and what is “bad” sows discord and disrupts chances for survival. Honesty, humility, honor, and other characteristics that allow people to work closely together without divisive conflict have value in this society.

Sorting through the issues of morality in A Song of Ice and Fire is not simplistic, especially since readers view the Seven Kingdoms through the flawed perceptions of its inhabitants, most of whom are too young to remember an actual Winter, and further filter these perceptions through our own biases. This does not mean that the world is amoral, or that characters do not engage in fundamental struggles to make right and moral choices. Through the destruction of some characters and the redemption of others, we see a cosmology at work in Martin’s world that is anything but relativistic or nihilistic.

       
SUSAN VAUGHT
lives with her family and her many pets (including a very bossy parrot) on a small poultry farm in western Kentucky. She works as Director of Psychological Services at a state psychiatric hospital and spends her evenings and weekends furiously scribbling and typing life into novels, short stories, and poems. She has written a number of fantasies for young adults, including the award-winning and historical
Stormwitch
and the epic Oathbreaker books:
Assassin’s Apprentice
and
A Prince Among Killers
, co-authored with her son JB Redmond. She has also written
Trigger, Big Fat Manifesto, Exposed
, and
Going Underground
, all contemporary novels drawing from her experiences and her work as a neuropsychologist. Her upcoming contemporary release from Bloomsbury USA,
Freaks Like Us
, will hit the shelves in September 2012.

ANDREW ZIMMERMAN JONES

EVIDENCE FROM NEUROLOGY SUGGESTS
that our brains are wired to believe things even without any evidence. The dominant explanation is that it’s a better survival mechanism to believe a sound or a flicker of motion has meaning than to ignore it. In a world where a hungry lion (and not the Lannister type) might be lying in wait behind any given bush, this hardwired tendency to assume significance offers a slight advantage in seeing the next sunrise.

Unfortunately, this same wiring kicks in even when there isn’t a lion, a Lannister, or even a sound to trigger it. Our brains naturally assume that perceived patterns have meaning, even if there’s no proof that they do. This inherent search for meaning is the psychological and neurological basis for much human superstition.

I’ve always been pleased to find that meaning made manifest within fantasy literature. Through fantasy, I escape to worlds that conform to these intuitions about how things should be. These imaginary worlds often contain greater meaning, expressed by strong, tangible forces of good and evil. Wishes can come true. Magic works. Gods even manifest their wonders in the world for all to see. The first chapters of
A Game of Thrones
promise an escape to just such a realm.

It turns out, though, that the people of the Seven Kingdoms really don’t inhabit this sort of fantasy world at all. Much like us, they have no regular or direct interactive access to their deities. Theirs is a world of neither the mythical philandering, lightning-hurling Zeus nor the power-granting deities of any staple
Dungeons & Dragons
setting. Magic exists in Westeros, but it is rare and mostly ephemeral, a distant memory of the past. With a handful of flamboyant exceptions, the gods don’t imbue their priests and followers with supernatural powers. Westeros is filled with religions and exotic gods, but believers have to take a lot on faith—a faith that is often unrewarding. The good and the bad may worship the same set of gods. Regardless of the deities worshipped, the certainty is this: tragedy will ultimately befall you, and the gods rarely hold it at bay, even for the noblest of souls.

In fact, the religions portrayed in A Song of Ice and Fire are reflections of the religions in our own world. They require a leap of faith, because the effects of belief are so intangible. The religions of Westeros claim to dictate absolute, perfect truths through imprecise, flawed institutions and beings—just like the religions we encounter every day.

The capricious nature of the putative Westerosi gods can be seen very early in the series, in the scene that likely hooked most readers. Or, at least, the scene that hooked me.

The prologue of
A Game of Thrones
was okay. Rangers out scouting frozen northern lands are accosted by curious creatures, presumably undead in some fashion. Spooky stuff. Interesting enough to keep you reading, for sure, but hardly gripping enough to make it different from any of hundreds of other fantasy series.

Then came the direwolves.

In the first chapter where we meet the Stark family, a direwolf is found dead, sparking the soon-to-be-ill-fated Jory to proclaim, “It is a sign.” Jon Snow is more explicit, though, when he says to his father, “You have five trueborn children [. . .]. Three sons, two daughters. The direwolf is the sigil of your House. Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord.”

The hint of destiny lingers over the scene. Powerful forces seem to link the young Stark children together with these direwolves. At this point in the book, with so little knowledge of the setting, the fantasy reader is inclined to believe that this connection has otherworldly significance and that belief is made all the stronger when Jon then discovers an albino pup, declaring, “This one belongs to me.” The direwolves not only match Ned Stark’s trueborn children, but there is also an outsider for the bastard son. Our minds are wired to look for meanings in patterns, and this pattern just begs to be more than mere coincidence.

Catelyn sees something much more dire in this event than the arrival of pets: “[A] direwolf dead in the snow, a broken antler in its throat. Dread coiled within her like a snake, but she forced herself to smile at this man she loved, this man who put no faith in signs.” This does prove to be ominous, a sign of grim things to come, as attested by the ultimate fate of Ned Stark at the command of Joffrey (a broken antler if ever there were one).

But what of the direwolf pups themselves? As a reader, I placed a lot of weight on the greater significance of the direwolves and on Jon’s proclamation that the “children were meant to have these pups.” I anticipated the direwolves playing a crucial role in the events yet to unfold. After all, surely such a curious origin meant they were intended for great things.

In that respect, I’ve found the direwolves to be a great disappointment.

Bran’s direwolf, Summer, proves his worth early on, when he rescues Lady Catelyn and protects Bran from an assassination attempt. Certainly Ghost is a useful companion to Jon Snow as he takes the black. And Robb Stark’s rise as King in the North is predicated, in no small part, on his legendary status as “the young wolf,” fighting alongside Grey Wind.

Even by the conclusion of the first book, though, the direwolves have become, at best, background elements of the Stark children, rather than significant components of the story itself. Two are lost—one killed and one chased off—even before the Starks reach King’s Landing. And now, five books into the series, the promise of the direwolves seems even more distant. Grey Wind’s fate matched that of Robb, the two murdered under a flag of truce then grafted together in a twisted mockery of their living connection. Arya has been separated from Nymeria for years, yet maintains hints of a vague psychic link. The connections of Bran and Jon to their wolves is substantially different, and stronger, but have yet to really impact the larger storyline. Ghost vanishes for nearly half of
A Storm of Swords
and Jon seems barely fazed by it, even as he’s coming to terms with being a warg. Aside from Bran’s, the wolves are largely expendable.

And that, ultimately, is the curious thing about the direwolves. They are presented as this promise, a representation of some sort of divine prophecy and intervention. The discovery scene early in
A Game of Thrones
seems to suggest that the wolves are intended for the children, presumably as protection. When Summer defends Bran and Catelyn, divine powers seem to be intervening to protect the young Stark family, but the protection has been inconsistent in the story since.

The gods of Westeros are as disappointing as the direwolves. Whether present, absent, or outright dead, the deities never quite live up to the expectations of those who believe in them. In fact, it’s really a wonder that they have any followers at all.

The situation is muddled because Westeros is home to so very many gods. Let’s take a quick inventory: