Metatext of Arry the Boy

“Arry’s scared,” Lommy announced, braying laughter.

“I’m not,” she snapped back, “but they were.”

“Smart boy,” said Yoren. (ACOK Arya IV)

Throughout Arya’s travels with Yoren, Yoren makes sure to refer to Arya as “boy” loudly and often. The reason is because Yoren is trying to hide that Arya is a Stark so that he can escort her to Winterfell safely, and since the Night’s Watch does not recruit girls, Arya being a girl would attract suspicion. So Yoren refers to Arya as a boy in order to influence the way people perceive Arya’s appearance and behavior, knowing that people see what they expect to see. Arry the boy arya yoren 400p

Now let’s put ourselves in the point of view of Arya’s other traveling companions like Gendry and Hot Pie. I suppose that I’m Gendry and that I’m being fooled that Arya is a boy. If I want to stop being fooled, what can I do?

I can notice that Yoren is making a concerted effort to refer to Arry as a boy. Then I can be skeptical about that. ‘Why is Yoren referring to Arry as boy so much? He doesn’t refer to the other boys as boy quite so much as he does to Arry.’ Then it might occur to me that Arry is feminine-looking compared to most boys. Then it might occur to me that the reason Yoren is referring to Arry as boy is to hide that Arry is not a boy. And since the only thing that is not a boy is a girl, maybe Arry is really a girl.

Now, let Yoren symbolize the story and storyteller. Let Arry symbolize the story’s mysteries. And let Gendry symbolize us the readers.

If I want to stop being fooled by the story’s mysteries, one thing I can do is pay attention to when the story is consistently leading me to believe something. Then I can become skeptical about it. ‘Why is the story/storyteller leading me to believe this thing so much? He doesn’t lead me to believe other things quite as consistently as he does this thing.’ Then it might occur to me that the thing I believe need not be the case, and there are some alternate interpretations that I can imagine for it. Then it might occur to me that the reason the storyteller is leading me to believe this thing is to hide that an alternate interpretation is really the truth.

Here’s an example. (Spoilers Melisandre’s Girl in Grey)

Melisandre’s Girl in Grey prophecy leads me to believe that it must come true in an entirely literal interpretation. Melisandre searches for a second glimpse at the girl in her vision, suggesting that the girl is in the same place where she saw her before, wearing the same color and riding the same horse. In other words, suggesting that everything she saw can safely be interpreted literally rather than symbolically. Mance Rayder even engages with the prophecy in literal terms, suggesting a literal lake (Long Lake) and offering to go find her as if she may literally be there. When he learns that the lake is to the west of the girl, he takes it to mean that the lake is west of the girl right now at this very moment.

But after traversing the whole Girl in Grey mystery to its conclusion, I can see that the prophecy came from a vision that Melisandre had, and Melisandre’s vision was made of symbolic imagery, and that the lake west of the girl was one among many images that happened during the girl’s travels, but it was not happening at the very moment when Melisandre had the vision or even days removed. Other disparate images also included in the vision: Arya riding a horse named Stranger whose name symbolizes death (a dying horse); Arya running away from an argument with Elmar Frey, the boy who she was arranged to marry (fleeing from this marriage they have made for her.)

Created Aug 1, 2022

When The Sun Rises In The West

Let’s visit Mirri Maz Duur’s prophecy for perhaps the final time.

“When will he be as he was?” Dany demanded.

“When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east,” said Mirri Maz Duur. “When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before.” (AGOT Daenerys IX)

Since Drogo died, it’s hard to imagine how he will ever “return” or “be as he was.” Some speculate he will be reborn as a wight. Some say a fire wight. Some say he never really died, or he was reborn as Drogon when he was cremated. There are as many ideas as there are conceivable interpretations of the words “return” and “be as he was.”

Well, as in a pattern you may notice in your adventures through Ice and Fire’s mysteries, the solution to this prophecy is more grounded than it seemed like it needed to be. Let’s add the two paragraphs before this passage to see what more is going on.

“This is not life, for one who was as Drogo was. His life was laughter, and meat roasting over a firepit, and a horse between his legs. His life was an arakh in his hand and his bells ringing in his hair as he rode to meet an enemy. His life was his bloodriders, and me, and the son I was to give him.”

Mirri Maz Duur made no reply.

“When will he be as he was?” Dany demanded.

This is a classic case of… When you barrage a person with many questions, comments and criticisms, you give her the freedom to answer any one of them she wants, leaving you in the dark about which one she really answered.

Notice that there are two subjects in Dany’s first paragraph: “Drogo” and “the son”.

Mirri was responding to “the son” part rather than the Drogo part.

So the prophecy is about Rhaego, not Drogo.

Rhaego was stolen by the Dothraki at birth while they kept Dany drugged and unconscious. He’s still alive and they still have him.

But probably not for much longer because Dany is on her way. And there is another interpretation of the word “bear” that does not mean childbirth. It means “hold.”

The “womb” is a lake called The Womb of the World.

The “seas” includes the Dothraki sea.

The “mountains” includes the Mother of Mountains.

Created Jul 30, 2022

A Link Between Valonqar and The Prince That Was Promised

Thoughts of Samwell, Maester Aemon, AFFC Samwell IV:

On Braavos, it had seemed possible that Aemon might recover. Xhondo’s talk of dragons had almost seemed to restore the old man to himself. That night he ate every bite Sam put before him. “No one ever looked for a girl,” he said. “It was a prince that was promised, not a princess. Rhaegar, I thought … the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King’s Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it.” Just talking of her seemed to make him stronger. “I must go to her. I must. Would that I was even ten years younger.” (—Maester Aemon, AFFC Samwell IV)

Maester Aemon has an epiphany about The Prince That Was Promised prophecy. He thinks that the gender neutrality of Valyrian language can accommodate an interpretation of the prophecy in which TPTWP is a woman, and therefore Daenerys.

If this interpretation of the prophecy is entirely correct, then George RR Martin has completely robbed his readers of the fun of figuring out the prophecy. And since Martin is a better writer than that, the one thing I can be absolutely positive about is that Maester Aemon’s interpretation is not entirely correct.

That isn’t to say that his epiphany is worthless to us. On the contrary, it may be a critical component in our exploration of the story’s mysteries, whether for TPTWP or any other mystery. But it is to say that one of two things must be true. (1) Daenerys is not TPTWP (2) If Daenerys is TPTWP, this reasoning is not the way it will manifest in the story.

Through the lens of that metatext, in which the author would obviously never tell us the answer to a big mystery (and less-so in this straightforward way) the situation as a whole places gender subversion center stage, sharing its spotlight with That Which Is Obviously Wrong.

So, whatever the resolution to TPTWP prophecy turns out to be, this passage of Maester Aemon is a whispered threat to the audience that our insistence that TPTWP is Daenerys, or any woman, will result, in one way or another, in making us feel foolish indeed. Because of that, I can safely exclude all women from my search for The Prince That Was Promised.

woman sword tptwp smaller

With Maester Aemon’s passage exposing to me a thematic criticism of gender subversion, the implications for the Valonqar prophecy come to the foreground. Valonqar will be a male, too.

Coming at Valonqar from another angle, I can see that, while the word valonqar may or may not be gender neutral, the Valyrian language as a whole cannot possibly lack for gender-specific words that mean brother and sister. The gender distinction is too important in practical everyday life to have never born out in language. So even if valonqar translates to little sibling rather than little brother, there must also be a Valyrian word that means little brother. And since Maggy didn’t use it, and since Cersei’s research revealed valonqar to mean little brother, the story so far has given me every reason to think valonqar means little brother and no reason to think it means little sibling.

The dwarf tore a loaf of bread in half. “And you had best be careful what you say of my family, magister. Kinslayer or no, I am a lion still.”

That seemed to amuse the lord of cheese no end. He slapped a meaty thigh and said, “You Westerosi are all the same. You sew some beast upon a scrap of silk, and suddenly you are all lions or dragons or eagles. I can take you to a real lion, my little friend. The prince keeps a pride in his menagerie. Would you like to share a cage with them?” (ADWD Tyrion I)

As if to echo Illyrio’s criticisms of Westerosi people, Aemon’s reasoning matches the tendency of Westerosi people to take their animal heraldry too seriously. Aemon is supposing that the existence of gender neutrality in the words that Valyrians use to refer to dragons means that there must also be gender neutrality in the words that Valyrians use to refer to human beings. But that need not be the case. In consideration of the practical everyday need to distinguish between male and female people, whether in the family, at work or anywhere, the silliness of Aemon’s assumption comes to the foreground. In consideration of the human tendency to neglect to distinguish between the genders of animals when referring to cows (heffer or bull) deer (doe or stag) chickens (hen or rooster) and more, the reasons why the Valyrians didn’t distinguish between male and female dragons were likely the same reasons as our own: Most of us are not animal breeders or hunters.

This concept of theme allows me to make some predictions about the audience’s response to it. One is that some of the audience will criticize that the Valyrian language need not distinguish between genders because the imagination of the author need not be as constrained as my own imagination. I expect also that they’ll point to the genre of the story being fantasy to suggest that realism can be thrown out.

These responses will exemplify the reason for the existence of the story’s thematic criticism of gender subversion. Gender expression and art quality are two casualties of the crusade against gender uniformity.

Afterword Feb 17, 2024

I should confess that I cheated in writing this essay. Normally I try to build my analysis of the story from bottom to top, beginning from the standpoint of a reader who does not know how the mystery concludes and working through the mystery every step of the way to arrive at the mystery’s conclusion. In this one, I began with my knowledge of the conclusion that I got from elsewhere in the story and contrived the analysis from it. The analysis will still stand the test of time, and its predictions explicit and implicit will nevertheless bear out in the story’s present, past and future, but I think it would have been better had I not broken my usual form and jumped the gun. It should be incorporated into a full length comprehensive TPTWP analysis. As always, I hope to find the time to write it some day. Until I do, I will leave this essay up.

Created Jul 12, 2022
Updated Feb 17, 2024 – Afterword

Forest Love and Forest Lass – Chapter 0

This is the beginning of a very long essay that I’m not even half way finished with yet. At this stage I think the essay will end up being more than 10 and less than 30 chapters long.

Foreword

‘Come on, buddy. Millions of people have pored over this story’s mysteries for three decades. What makes you so sure that you figured out how it’s all going to end? Do you really think you’re that smart or special? And how can you be sure you’re not just seeing connections that George R. R. Martin didn’t intend?’ —Nobody and everybody

Yes, I hear you. Any time somebody comes out of the woodworks and says ‘Hey everybody, I’ve been studying by myself and I learned the answers to practically everything your community has been trying to learn since it was founded and I’m here to share that,’ a great amount of skepticism is warranted. But as can be seen all throughout human history, there are people who make discoveries. Sometimes they are recognized and acknowledged and their contribution is celebrated. Sometimes they’re written off and dismissed, only to reemerge later with a more persuasive presentation. Sometimes their work is stolen and the discovery credited to a different person. Sometimes they’re plain old fashioned executed for heresy. I don’t know which fate the ASOIAF community has in store for me. Nonetheless, I can’t imagine how else to get peoples’ attention except to simply say the truth of my situation. I read and re-read ASOIAF for many years, developed my understanding of its subtext, formalized my methods so that anybody can read and use them, and I put them into practice for an obsessive amount of time and attention until, to my surprise as much as anybody’s, I actually found a possible future of the story that can be described in one-to-three sentences that completely correlates practically every standing mystery at the center of the series.

Well, that’s my pitch. Take it or leave it. I’m not especially concerned if people believe me because sense always outlives nonsense. Here’s to hoping I do, too.

‘Why are you posting this here?’

To find an audience. The ASOIAF community has assured me that I can’t possibly have learned the right answers to all the story’s big central mysteries, and that I’m an attention seeking fraud. (While commanding me, funny enough, to surrender whatever knowledge I think I know in order to save myself from those accusations.) That was two years ago in 2022. Since then I’ve been chilling and researching my remaining ASOIAF questions alone and admittedly with less intensity, and checking in every now and then to see the community’s progress on the story’s mysteries.

Why you?

Who else? I mean, do you have a library of ASOIAF notes for every single chapter in the series? Because I do. Have you built your own timeline of the lives of notable maesters, archmaesters and grandmaesters? Because I have. Have you even built your own timeline of the events surrounding Robert’s Rebellion — the war around which practically all of the story’s biggest mysteries orbit? Because I did that, too. My point is that if anybody were going to crack the literary source code of ASOIAF, it was always going to be somebody like me. A hopelessly obsessed literature nerd who had too much free time on his hands in the year when he first read the story and continued plugging away at it for a decade after.

Got any endorsements?

The co-author of The World of Ice and Fire gave high praise to Chapter 8 – Maester Yandel.

Why not finish the essays without an audience?

A few reasons. Reason one, it’s a lot of work. I have already written ten of them. Reason two, those ten essays/chapters bring the reader up to the point where any further explanation will reach a point of no return. Once I give certain information away, my hand is played, the information is out there and the losers of the interpretation game will have a wide window of opportunity to censor or distort it to suit their agendas. Reason three, the losers of the interpretation game are almost everybody playing it, and many of them have big reputations, big followings, and authoritative power over ASOIAF communities that they’ve abused for years or decades to censor and distort speech to suit their agendas. Reason four, every big secret I have given away so far I have watched readers steal it, repackage it as counter-culture wokeism and redistribute it in that form to control the fandom’s perception of the story and keep them on the very same ideological plantation that ASOIAF was written to free them from. Such are the dangers of accelerationism, I guess.

Introduction

Hey, I’m Apples and Dragons. I read and write about A Song of Ice and Fire (ASOIAF) in my spare time. Some of my less unknown essays are “Three Trials of Jon and Daenerys: Justice or Revenge?”, “If I look back I am lost: The Corruption of a Conscience”, and “Dothraki Superstition.”

In Forest Love and Forest Lass, I will present and explain several major mysteries of the story and their solutions.

The identity of the Knight of the Laughing Tree and its significance
What happened at the Tourney at Harrenhal in the Year of the False Spring
The meaning of Meera Reed’s Tourney at Harrenhal story and the purpose of its structure
What happened between Rhaegar and Lyanna and why
The reason Rhaegar crowned Lyanna the queen of love and beauty
The full meaning of Lyanna’s “Promise me Ned” quote in Ned’s memories
The history and nature of the events preceding Robert’s Rebellion
The reason for and significance of the Tower of Joy and Kingsguard in Ned’s dream
Jon Snow’s parentage, its relevance both in-story and as a litmus test for ASOIAF understanding
The meaning and significance of the song The Maiden of the Tree
The reason Ashara Dayne took her own life
The identities and significance of Azor Ahai, Nissa Nissa, and Lightbringer
Many of the author’s cryptic and overdetermined comments

You may be thinking that the audience knows the answers to a lot of these mysteries already, so what’s the point of writing or reading Forest Love and Forest Lass? While it’s true that the audience knows many and much of the answers, I notice that the disagreements persist as heated as ever. So I thought I would try my hand at settling the disagreements once and for all, using little more than plain reasoning and the exact words from the books to write a comprehensive guide to these mysteries and the significance of the story’s answers to them.

In the interest of sharing ASOIAF’s secrets responsibly, I ask you to read Forest Love and Forest Lass as you would a beloved book (like ASOIAF!) — with optimistic faith in the destination and with a mind to savor the journey. (For it is a lengthy journey, though no longer than it must be for a story such as this.) When you’re finished, you will understand ASOIAF better than you ever have before, you will be better equipped to interrogate the story with your own questions, and you will quite literally never see ASOIAF the same way again. Cozy up in your favorite solar and light your glass candle for an A Song of Ice and Fire mind twist three decades in the making. For your enjoyment and consideration, and with the humble heart of a messenger, I present Forest Love and Forest Lass.

Next: Chapter 1 – The Maiden of the Tree

Chapter 0 – Introduction

Chapter 1 – The Maiden of the Tree

Chapter 2 – The Tourney at Harrenhal

Chapter 3 – The Knight of the Laughing Tree, a Rose in a Wasteland

Chapter 4 – Jon Snow’s Parentage

Chapter 5 – Booming Voices and Jousting Horses

Chapter 6 – The Crannogman’s Bullshit

Chapter 7 – POV: Crannogman

Chapter 8 – Maester Yandel

Chapter 9 – Eddard Stark

Chapter 10 – Rhaegar Targaryen

Chapter 11 –

Chapter 12 –

Chapter 13 –

Chapter 14 –

Chapter 15 –

Chapter 16 –

Chapter 17 –

Chapter 18 –

Chapter 19 –

Chapter 20 –

Update History

Created Apr 3, 2022 – Ch 0-3 teaser, reddit format
Updated Apr 13, 2022 – Ch 0-3 update
Updated Apr 18, 2022 – Added Jaime
Updated Apr 23, 2022 – Some formatting
Updated May 3, 2022 – Ch 4
Updated May 19, 2022 – Ch 4 formatting, Ch 5, Ch 6
Updated May 23, 2022 – Ch 7
Updated May 24, 2022 – Ch 8
Updated Jul 17, 2022 – Ch 9 Work in Progress
Updated Aug 2, 2022 – Ch 9
Updated Aug 29, 2022 – Divided into individual chapter pages
Updated Apr 2, 2024 – Added Foreword

Jon’s Dreams

On this page I will analyze all of Jon’s dreams eventually (aka probably never finish). I’ll put what I’ve done so far anyway.

Winterfell Crypt

Jon Snow laughed with him [Sam]. Afterward they sat on the frozen ground, huddled in their cloaks with Ghost between them. Jon told the story of how he and Robb had found the pups newborn in the late summer snows. It seemed a thousand years ago now. Before long he found himself talking of Winterfell.

“Sometimes I dream about it,” he said. “I’m walking down this long empty hall. My voice echoes all around, but no one answers, so I walk faster, opening doors, shouting names. I don’t even know who I’m looking for. Most nights it’s my father, but sometimes it’s Robb instead, or my little sister Arya, or my uncle.” The thought of Benjen Stark saddened him; his uncle was still missing. The Old Bear had sent out rangers in search of him. Ser Jaremy Rykker had led two sweeps, and Quorin Halfhand had gone forth from the Shadow Tower, but they’d found nothing aside from a few blazes in the trees that his uncle had left to mark his way. In the stony highlands to the northwest, the marks stopped abruptly and all trace of Ben Stark vanished.

“Do you ever find anyone in your dream?” Sam asked.

Jon shook his head. “No one. The castle is always empty.” He had never told anyone of the dream, and he did not understand why he was telling Sam now, yet somehow it felt good to talk of it. “Even the ravens are gone from the rookery, and the stables are full of bones. That always scares me. I start to run then, throwing open doors, climbing the tower three steps at a time, screaming for someone, for anyone. And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It’s black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don’t want to. I’m afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it’s not them I’m afraid of. I scream that I’m not a Stark, that this isn’t my place, but it’s no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream.” He stopped, frowning, embarrassed. “That’s when I always wake.” His skin cold and clammy, shivering in the darkness of his cell. Ghost would leap up beside him, his warmth as comforting as daybreak. He would go back to sleep with his face pressed into the direwolf s shaggy white fur. “Do you dream of Horn Hill?” Jon asked. (AGOT Jon IV)

I don’t think there’s anything hidden in the crypts, other than the dragon that Vermax spawned down there and flew out when Winterfell burned. I think there being some object hidden in the crypt that Jon needs to find is too literal of an interpretation of the dream. It would be kind of silly, because dreams don’t really work that way. They don’t give me clairvoyance about things I don’t know. Rather, a dream gives me premonitions about things I subconsciously know. And I think that may be what this dream is for Jon.

To Jon, the Winterfell crypt represents Stark heritage. In the dream he shouts that he is not a Stark, but he feels a sense that he has no choice but to continue forward anyway. However, at this part of the story Jon has enough information to know that that’s not really true. He knows that he is a Stark by blood, because he thinks Ned is his biological father. If R+L=J, Jon is wrong that Ned is his biological father, but he’s right that he has Stark blood. Alternatively if Jon has any Stark parent in any parentage theory formulation then he’s still right that he ha Stark blood. So part of the subconscious knowledge in Jon that is manifesting as this recurring dream is probably his awareness of that lie. He’s only “not a Stark” by the laws of society. He’s absolutely a Stark by the laws of nature, so to speak.

The beginning of the dream is clear about what is motivating Jon and the dream. It’s fear. Jon is afraid of losing his family. As a bastard, he will have grown up with the knowledge that he will become more unwelcome at Winterfell with age. His presence there will become more inappropriate over time as he becomes a man and therefore a greater threat to the stability of his family. So he knows he has to lose his family, and he knows he’s almost a man grown, so he knows he has to lose his family soon. He probably doesn’t feel ready for it because nobody can truly be ready for that.

Those seem to be the two big things in the dream. There’s a fear of losing his family and a subconscious knowledge that a scary secret resides in his heritage. That knowledge may have likely come from Ned not telling Jon the identity of his mother, if not from Jon sensing a darkness come over Ned whenever the subject came up.

I think the gist of the dream, then, is a relationship between those two things: Jon senses that he will have to face and overcome a scary secret in his heritage in order to not lose his family.

Created Mar 4, 2022 – Winterfell Crypt old kings of winter

Tyrion Shows Us How To Prove Unreliable Narration

Once upon a sunny evening, I was sitting on my porch and having an enthusiastic discussion with a fellow enthusiast of A Song of Ice and Fire. He was telling me his theory about the story with unmistakable passion. I inquired about a particular part of the theory.

“How do you know this character is lying?” I asked with my book in hand, eager to read the passage where, undoubtedly, some other character or circumstance contradicts the first character. “I want to see how this is unreliable narration.”

“Of course there is evidence of unreliable narration!” my companion replied. “It is ASOIAF! All narration is unreliable in ASOIAF! The first character’s comment is the only evidence in the story that what he’s saying is true, and we know he’s on the side of the bad guys and cannot be trusted.”

Just then, I threw my copy of A Game of Thrones into the air! The fellow’s eyes went wide with astonishment. The book tumbled in the breeze and landed on the deck with a loud CLOP, its pages spread open in surrender to the sunset sky. I took to one knee and read aloud a random sentence from the page upon which the book had opened:

“The man yanked free his longsword.” I narrated dramatically. (I would later learn that this sentence is from Arya’s fourth chapter.)

“Why in the bloody hell did you do that?” the man demanded with amused confusion.

“Why, I wanted to read some more unreliable narration.” I explained. “This sentence from Arya Stark’s POV is the only evidence in the story that the Lannister guardsman yanked free his longsword. He must have drawn his longsword at a normal pace, or perhaps slowly.”

For similar reasons that all men are presumed innocent until proven guilty, all narration is presumed reliable until proven unreliable. But what does a proof of unreliable narration look like? I came up with a three part test.

A proof of unreliable narration requires three things.

Narration
Narration that contradicts the narration in 1
You must have an explanation for why one narration is more credible than the other.

A fourth and final test is how well the narration matches with the story as a whole, its themes, style, and self-evident character.

In ADWD, Tyrion has just joined the traveling party of Griff.

“No doubt. Well, Hugor Hill, answer me this. How did Serwyn of the Mirror Shield slay the dragon Urrax?”

“He approached behind his shield. Urrax saw only his own reflection until Serwyn had plunged his spear through his eye.”

Haldon was unimpressed. “Even Duck knows that tale. Can you tell me the name of the knight who tried the same ploy with Vhagar during the Dance of the dragons?”

Tyrion grinned. “Ser Byron Swann. He was roasted for his trouble … only the dragon was Syrax, not Vhagar.”

“I fear that you’re mistaken. In The Dance of the Dragons, A True Telling, Maester Munkun writes—”

“—that it was Vhagar. Grand Maester Munkun errs. Ser Byron’s squire saw his master die, and wrote his daughter of the manner of it. His account says it was Syrax, Rhaenyra’s she-dragon, which makes more sense than Munken’s version. Swann was the son of a marcher lord, and Storm’s End was for Aegon. Vhagar was ridden by Prince Aemond, Aegon’s brother. Why should Swann want to slay her?”

Haldon pursed his lips. “Try not to tumble off the horse. If you do, best waddle back to Pentos. Our shy maid will not wait for man nor dwarf.” (ADWD Tyrion III)

Haldon Halfmaester doesn’t like Tyrion. Since Haldon is from Westeros himself and an educated man, being a Maester, he recognizes Tyrion’s name Hugor Hill to be a lie immediately. Haldon improvises a little pop quiz about Westerosi mythology, apparently in an attempt to expose the falseness of Tyrion’s name.

Tyrion answers the first question correctly, thwarting Haldon’s reveal, which causes Haldon to challenge him again with a harder question.

“Can you tell me the name of the knight who tried the same ploy with Vhagar during the Dance of the dragons?”

Tyrion answers with the name Ser Byron Swann, which Haldon apparently agrees with, because Haldon doesn’t object to the Byron part of Tyrion’s answer. Then Tyrion corrects Haldon on the identity of the dragon that roasted Byron.

Haldon corrects Tyrion back, citing the book The Dance of the Dragons, A True Telling by Maester Munkun.

Tyrion rejects Haldon’s counter-correction, citing the writings of Ser Byron Swann’s squire. The squire was eye-witness to the event in question, and he wrote a letter to his daughter in which he named Syrax, rather than Vhagar, as the dragon that killed Byron.

This little duel of knowledge between Tyrion and Haldon is the story’s way of showing the reader how the reader should handle suspect unreliable narration.

First, there is some narration: Ser Byron Swann was killed by Vhagar in The Dance of the dragons.

Second, there is some narration contradictory to the other narration: Ser Byron Swann was killed by Syrax in The Dance of the dragons.

Third, Tyrion and the reader are left to deliberate the truth of the situation. The first thing we can do is weigh the credibility of the sources. Who is a more credible source regarding the identity of the dragon that killed Ser Byron Swann? Maester Munkun or Ser Byron’s squire?

Maester Munkun’s account is a third-hand account, while the squire’s account is a first-hand eye-witness account. So based on that, the squire is the more credible source.

It’s possible that some unusual circumstance could cast the squire in a more- or less-credible light. For example, perhaps somewhere in the story canon there exists a comment that Ser Byron’s squire was an infamous liar, that the squire never had a daughter, or that he didn’t know how to write at all. Likewise, it’s possible that some unusual circumstance could cast Maester Munkun in a more- or less-credible light. Perhaps somewhere in the story canon there exists a comment that Maester Munkun had a bad memory when it came to the names of dragons.

However, I have no grounds to assert that an unusual circumstance like that exists until and unless one has been found in the story. So the squire wins the battle of credibility by a large margin by having an in-person perspective on the event.

The next test for unreliable narration is to check how well each competing narration fits with the story canon as a whole.

Haldon pursed his lips. “Try not to tumble off the horse. If you do, best waddle back to Pentos. Our shy maid will not wait for man nor dwarf.”

Haldon responds to Tyrion’s counter-counter-correction with body language and a reply that both suggest that he’s not happy about losing their contentious little duel of knowledge. It suggests that Haldon knows that Tyrion is correct about Storm’s End and by extension Ser Byron Swann siding with Aegon in the war. This is apparently knowledge common and certain enough that Haldon can’t refute it, despite wanting to best Tyrion very badly.

And when I think about it, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense if Storm’s End siding with Aegon was not common knowledge among everybody who has studied The Dance of the dragons even a little bit. Storm’s End is one of only a dozen or so major castles in Westeros, and The Dance of the dragons was one of the most significant wars in Westerosi history.

Since the squire’s account that Syrax killed Byron matches with the overarching “story” of The Dance of the dragons, and since Maester Munkun’s account that Vhagar killed Byron contradicts it, it suddenly becomes incredibly obvious which account is the truth.

Byron was fighting on the side of Aegon, and Vhagar was Aemond’s dragon, and Aemond was Aegon’s brother, and Aemond sided with Aegon, so it doesn’t make sense to suppose that Vhagar was the dragon Byron confronted. Coming at it from the other angle, Byron was fighting against Rhaenyra, and Syrax was Rhaenyra’s dragon, so it makes sense to suppose that Syrax was the dragon Byron confronted.

byron vhagar syrax

In this way, unreliable narration rewards the reader (symbolized by Tyrion in this scene) for challenging its narrative (symbolized by Haldon’s narrative) by thinking critically about character motivations, loyalties, behaviors, and taking the time to allow easy-to-gloss-over details like the names of dragons and their riders to unfold and breathe in his imagination, experiencing the world vicariously and more like the characters experience it, and thereby allowing him to remember and notice things better.

For a spice of irony, the author even had Maester Munkun name his book “A True Telling”, as if naming a falsehood true can make it so. The irony paints Maester Munkun as incompetent, arrogant, perhaps desperate for acclaim, or perhaps nefarious. And it paints Haldon and readers who defended the unreliable narration as inattentive or gullible.

To the extent that I’m made by the story to appear gullible, the story’s critique of me is tongue-in-cheek, because, after all, the presupposition that the reader can trust the story to tell him the truth about its narrative is implicit in the story’s very existence, because it’s implicit in the very act of telling a story. ‘Why would a storyteller tell a story at all if he were going to falsify the narrative?’

Well, as if it wasn’t clear enough already, A Song of Ice and Fire is unusual fare among stories. This one is teaching us how to think.

Sansa remembering a kiss from Sandor that never happened is a great example of something we’re justified to call unreliable narration because one narration is more credible than the other.

(1) Narration:

Sansa in ASOS remembers being kissed by Sandor in ACOK.

Sansa wondered what Megga would think about kissing the Hound, as she had. He’d come to her the night of the battle stinking of wine and blood. He kissed me and threatened to kill me, and made me sing him a song.

(2) Narration that contradicts the narration in 1:

The whole scene in question can be re-read in ACOK so the reader can check for himself if the kiss really happened or not.

Some people might object that this is not contradictory narration because the contradiction resides in the absence of narration. However it’s a superficial objection, because the author could have written the story with the kiss present in ACOK. So the scene as a whole constitutes narration that contradicts the narration in 1. The contradiction being an absence of some narration rather than the presence of some narration is a meaningless distinction unless we ignore the self-evident nature of the story as something whose noteworthy omissions are given as much consideration by the author as its inclusions.

To that response some people may respond that the non-kiss in ACOK was not an omission because ASOS hadn’t been written yet. But it’s yet another meaningless distinction, because unreliable narration need not happen in chronological order, and because the relationship between the text in ACOK and the text in ASOS would be the same whether they were written decades apart, or at the same time, or even in reverse order.

(3) The narration in 2 must be more credible than the narration in 1, or vice versa.

The credibility is two-fold in this case. (A) Sansa in ACOK doesn’t perceive Sandor kissing her, so Sansa’s absence of perception of a kiss in the very scene in question is more credible than Sansa’s memory of the scene. (B) The reader’s observation of Sansa in ACOK is also more credible than Sansa’s memory, because the scene happens in real time and in front of us.

The main point I wanted to demonstrate was that it’s only reasonable to call something unreliable narration when we’re able to match it with contradictory narration and simultaneously able to make a compelling case for why one narration is more credible than the other.

People can and will disagree regarding credibility, especially for the more resilent mysteries in the story, so what the story is drawing attention to is that truth claims inescapably rest upon credibility arguments, and that people will choose to believe whichever side they personally consider more credible.

To re-use the Tyrion example, some readers will choose to believe Haldon’s and Maester Munkun’s narration no matter how strong the evidence against that narration is or how effectively you present it. Maester Munkun’s maesterly credentials will be more compelling evidence of credibility to some people (hopefully a smaller portion of people) than the squire’s eye-witness account.

That dispute will only be completely resolvable after the whole story is published, because one side of the argument will have a cool and meaningful explanation for the existence of the squire and the author’s decision to include him, while the other side of the argument, having run out of unpublished books upon which to defer the narrative meanings and purposes of the squire, will have been reduced to the rather boring explanation that the squire’s existence and the author’s decision to include him have no particularly meaningful purpose or reason, or that meaninglessness is the theme of the story.

Chapter Titles in AFFC & ADWD

In AFFC and ADWD, George R.R. Martin gets creative with many of the chapter titles.

For example, Aeron Greyjoy’s first chapter is not entitled “Aeron” like we have come to expect from the series. Aeron’s first chapter is “The Prophet.” Similarly, Areo Hotah’s first chapter is “The Captain of Guards” rather than “Areo.” Some of Sansa’s chapters are “Alayne,” some of Theon’s chapters are “Reek,” and Arianne’s second chapter in AFFC entitled “The Princess In The Tower” takes the prize for the longest chapter title in the series so far, with a character count of twenty-five!

When Martin was asked about these new colorful chapter titles, he responded that he has a method to his madness.

I asked whether he would comment on his choice to call these chapters “Ser Barristan” instead of continuing with the titles from ADWD, and he replied that he has “a method to his madness” for promoting characters with descriptors to named characters but that he didn’t want to say more. (SSM Feb 17, 2013)

To my ears, it sounds like a challenge! I love a good mystery, and I want to figure it out before he finishes writing.

So today I was thinking hard about it. I do my best thinking by writing out my thoughts and organizing them. And I’m happy to announce that I think I figured out what Martin is doing with the unconventional chapter titles!

In fact, I’m so confident that I’m correct that it would feel wrong to tell it right away. So instead I’m going to do what I normally do with discoveries I’m confident about and try to recreate the investigative journey that led me to my conclusion, so that anybody reading this can experience the fun of the journey, too.

First, I went to various message boards and read what everybody else was saying about it. Impressive right? Why should I do the work if somebody else has done it already?

Joking aside, I find that reading what everybody else is saying (or has said) is a great way to start any investigation into the story. It gives me a relatively quick and thorough map of the major branches of ideas that are available to explore. It also gives me a sense of which idea branches are likely to have already been explored to no avail, and inversely (and perhaps more to the point) a sense of which idea branches have not.

Here are some of the things other readers have said about the descriptive chapter titles. (Paraphrased)

“It’s annoying.”
“It’s confusing.”
“I like it.”
“Martin got bored and wanted to spice things up a little.”
“Martin had to do it because Jon Connington would’ve broken the convention because a Jon POV already exists.”
“The titles reflect identity change in the POV.”
“Martin does it to obscure the POV’s identity so that it’s a surprise in the chapter.”
“Martin does it to obscure more significant identity changes in the future.”
“The titles are remnants of a Greyjoy prologue that went too long then was scrapped and salvaged.”
“The titles are allusions and homages to other works of literature.”
“The titles are in-story future song titles about the POV characters.”
“The titles reflect the fact that the whole story is being seen through the eyes of Bran or Bloodraven.”

There are a lot of interesting ideas there, and some of them do a good job of explaining some of the chapter titles. For example, here’s a reported comment by Martin verifying the Identity Change idea.

“Likewise, he mentioned that the titles of the chapters in AFfC were a nod to how the characters think of themselves – most especially Sansa.” (SSM Feb 2006)

And here’s a reported comment by Martin describing his work on AFFC that seems to verify the Greyjoy Prologue idea.

Someone asked about the titles of sample chapters that have been posted online in relation to POVs. The person asking the question used the examples [NOTE: Redacted spoiler POV name] and “The Prophet” (Prophetess? — I missed this chapter). From what I understand, the prologue has grown so much that instead of just one chapter, there are several; instead of being titled with a character name, they have titles such as “The Soiled Knight”, etc. It sounds like there are a lot of different viewpoint characters in the prologue. Arianne was specifically mentioned as such a viewpoint. (SSM May 2005)

The problem is that none of these ideas do a good job of explaining all of the chapter titles. So if what Martin is doing with the chapter titles is as premeditated as his more recent “method to my madness” comment suggests, then I won’t settle for an explanation of the chapter titles that does less than a fantastic job of explaining every single one of them.

So I made a list of all the unconventional chapter titles. Here’s the list.

AFFC 1 The Prophet (Aeron I)
AFFC 2 The Captain of Guards (Areo I)
AFFC 11 The Kraken’s Daughter (Asha I)
AFFC 13 The Soiled Knight (Arys I)
AFFC 18 The Iron Captain (Victarion I)
AFFC 19 The Drowned Man (Aeron II)
AFFC 21 The Queenmaker (Arianne I)
AFFC 23 Alayne I (Sansa I)
AFFC 29 The Reaver (Victarion II)
AFFC 34 Cat Of The Canals (Arya III)
AFFC 40 The Princess In The Tower (Arianne II)
AFFC 41 Alayne II (Sansa II)

ADWD 6 The Merchant’s Man (Quentyn I)
ADWD 12 Reek I (Theon I)
ADWD 20 Reek II (Theon II)
ADWD 24 The Lost Lord (Jon Connington I)
ADWD 25 The Windblown (Quentyn II)
ADWD 26 The Wayward Bride (Asha I)
ADWD 32 Reek III (Theon III)
ADWD 37 The Prince of Winterfell (Theon IV)
ADWD 38 The Watcher (Areo I)
ADWD 41 The Turncloak (Theon V)
ADWD 42 The King’s Prize (Asha II)
ADWD 45 The Blind Girl (Arya I)
ADWD 46 A Ghost In Winterfell (Theon VI)
ADWD 55 The Queensguard (Barristan I)
ADWD 56 The Iron Suitor (Victarion I)
ADWD 59 The Discarded Knight (Barristan II)
ADWD 60 The Spurned Suitor (Quentyn III)
ADWD 61 The Griffon Reborn (Jon Connington II)
ADWD 62 The Sacrifice (Asha III)
ADWD 64 The Ugly Little Girl (Arya II)
ADWD 67 The Kingbreaker (Barristan III)
ADWD 68 The Dragontamer (Quentyn IV)
ADWD 70 The Queen’s Hand (Barristan IV)

It can be argued that all of Bran’s chapters break the convention, because Bran’s full first name is Brandon. But I think Bran is obviously an exception because everybody in the story calls him Bran almost every time.

Now that I have the full list, I can see where some of the ideas came from.

Other Works of Literature – The Princess in the Tower seems like a chapter title that might be an homage to other works of literature. A princess or maiden trapped in a tower is a common trope that comes up in classic stories like Rapunzel. It comes up four or five times in ASOIAF.

Identity Change – Reek, Alayne and The Blind Girl are a few chapter titles that reflect identity change in the POV character.

Spice Things Up – The idea that Martin simply wanted to spice up the chapter titles could explain all of the chapter titles on the list. But the spice explanation doesn’t do a good job of explaining why Martin was secretive or deliberate about his reasons for breaking the chapter title convention.

Seeing Through The Eyes – The ‘Seeing Through The Eyes of Bran or Bloodraven’ idea seems too extreme to be true. I don’t suppose it would hold up to scrutiny for long if I were to put it to the test. And if that’s really what is going on, it’s hard to imagine how it could be done in a way that isn’t so absurdly cheap and corny that it ruins the story. And I think Martin is a better writer than that, so the quality of the story discredits this possibility, in my opinion.

However, there’s something about the ‘Seeing Through The Eyes’ idea that really strikes a chord with me, and I think with A Song of Ice and Fire, too. The whole series from beginning-to-end (barring one or two odd exceptions) is written in a POV style! A big challenge with interpreting this story is remembering that simple fact. Every bit of information presented in the story is presented in the way the POV character perceives it, with all his biases, attitudes, prejudices and misunderstandings intact.

The important word in the previous sentence is “every.”

It evokes the question: What if these new dramatic chapter titles, like all the other text in the story, are filtered through the lens of a character’s POV? If that were the case, it would match with the story’s strict adherence to a POV style in a way that is completely surprising yet completely unsurprising in retrospect, considering that all of the other text in the story is filtered through somebody’s POV. In other words, it would be awesome.

That leads me to the ‘Identity Change’ idea. I think the idea that the titles reflect identity change in the POV character is the strongest idea so far. It only explains a handful of the titles, but it explains them in such a symbolic and meaningful way that the symbolism and the meaningfulness seem to validate the idea better than all the others.

Then I combine the ‘Identity Change’ idea and the “Seeing Through the Eyes’ idea, and the next thing I wonder is… What if all of these chapter titles are being delivered to us through one consistent POV, but it is not the same POV character of the chapter?

Then who else could it be?

So I return to the chapter list to read through it carefully while I consider this question: From which character’s POV does every single chapter title make sense?

There is only one answer that works for all of them. Now is the time to stop reading if you want to think about it for yourself. I’ll give you two hints.

The first hint is that it isn’t one character. It’s a category of characters.

Can you get the answer now?

The second hint is this conversation between Jon Snow and Benjen Stark:

“Daeron Targaryen was only fourteen when he conquered Dorne,” Jon said. The Young Dragon was one of his heroes.

“A conquest that lasted a summer,” his uncle pointed out. “Your Boy King lost ten thousand men taking the place, and another fifty trying to hold it. Someone should have told him that war isn’t a game.” He took another sip of wine. “Also,” he said, wiping his mouth, “Daeron Targaryen was only eighteen when he died. Or have you forgotten that part?”

“I forget nothing,” Jon boasted. (AGOT Jon I)

Can you work out the answer now?

The answer is…

…

The smallfolk.
The commoners.
The nobodies.
Each and every one of the sixty-thousand unnamed people who died in The Young Dragon’s failed conquest of Dorne.

Every unconventional chapter title is from the POV of the regular everyday people of the story.

Arianne is “The Princess In The Tower” because, in the minds of the smallfolk, Arianne is relevant in their lives as a figure of House Martell, rather than as a person with whom they might interact on a first-name basis. She’s a daughter of the ruling family who lives a life of luxury so unattainable to them that any three of the books in her tower prison are probably worth more coin than everything a typical smallfolk family owns combined.

Arya is “Cat Of The Canals” because the commoners of Braavos don’t know Cat’s true identity.

Jon Connington is “The Lost Lord” because, in the minds of the smallfolk, one Lord is hardly different from another. To the smallfolk, all Lords belong in the category of ‘rich and powerful people you simply must obey.’ Jon Connington is a “Lost” Lord to the smallfolk because it’s common knowledge that he disappeared from the public eye after he was sent into exile.

Asha is “The King’s Prize” because it describes the most important things that the smallfolk, soldiers, black brothers and other ordinary people need to know about the situation. ‘Don’t get caught referring to anyone but Stannis as the King or you could lose your tongue. And keep your hands off the Greyjoy girl because she’s important to the King for some reason.’

Sansa is “Alayne” because the smallfolk and ordinary people don’t know that she’s really Sansa, and any of the ones who do know wouldn’t dare expose Littlefinger’s secret by referring to her as Sansa, for fear of the repercussions.

Theon is “Reek” because the smallfolk around the Dreadfort wouldn’t risk Ramsay’s anger by not referring to Theon using the humiliating name Ramsay gave him.

Barristan is “The Kingbreaker” because, to the smallfolk of Meereen, Hidzahr was their King. And it’s no secret that they preferred their King to their Queen. The title seems oddly judgemental of Barristan’s decision to seize Hizdahr, and the reason it seems odd is because the title isn’t from Barristan’s point-of-view. It’s from the Meereen commoner’s point-of-view.

With this interpretation, I predict that, as the story continues, the pseudonyms and descriptors in the chapter titles will increasingly rub against the grain of the reader’s moral judgements of characters and events. In doing so, the story draws attention to a widening fault line between the reader’s judgement and the smallfolk’s reality.

Even at the beginning of the story’s ending, in ADWD, I notice readers struggling with the fault line that exists between their judgement and the chapter titles. In BryndenBFish’s essays on the chapter titles, for example, the mismatch between his judgement of Daenerys and Qyentyn’s chapter title “The Spurned Suitor” is brought to the foreground in the way that any appreciation for the points-of-view of Quentyn and the smallfolk, how they’re likely to receive the news of Dany’s behavior in the meeting, is ignored and invalidated.

Besides, Dany spurned him, didn’t she?

Well, no! Dany rejected Quentyn, yes. (For absolutely defensive and correct reasons I might add). But spurn him? Reject with disdain or contempt? Absolutely not! She laughed at the frog joke, but she didn’t reject him disdainfully or contemptuously. She let him down as easy as she could, even offering alliance with Dorne when she came to Westeros. (The Methods of Madness: POV Pseudonyms, Part 1: The Prince of Dorne)

The smallfolk are the non-POV characters who nevertheless inhabit every chapter, most often existing in the background as nameless and numbered footmen, handmaids or oarsmen who serve the POV nobility, and who usually just want to get on with their lives and get back to their families in one piece after the Starks, Lannisters, Baratheons and Targaryens are finished with them.

I think this chapter title trend is one of A Song of Ice and Fire’s ways of indicting the reader’s bias toward the ruling, noble, powerful, affluent and elite classes of characters. As the fault line widens between the reader’s judgement and the smallfolk’s reality, the story demonstrates its thematic alliance with the smallfolk and its thematic opposition to the reader by continuing to permit the voice of the smallfolk to leak out through the chapter titles in the form of descriptions of characters and events that contradict the reader’s interpretations of those same characters and events.

In light of the story’s shocking conclusions, the reader may wonder how his expectations could have been so wrong. We may curse the story and the author for ruining the ending, but no curse will change the words in the books. All the words in the books right down to the chapter titles themselves will point to the identity of the story’s most important and neglected POV, with titles like “The Kingbreaker” and perhaps “The Mad Queen” broadcasting the collective and unheard voices of the servant, baseborn, powerless, poor, common and othered classes of people who are among the countless souls the reader neglected to take into his calculations due to his quiet adoption of the attitude that the points-of-view of non-POV characters don’t really matter.

Chapter titles tell the reader that he is entering a different POV, and which one. And all stories surrender up their themes when they surrender up their conclusions. So I think the escalating change in the chapter title convention, as the story approaches its ending, is a clue to the reader that the change will continue to escalate, and that therefore the change is tightly related to the story’s major theme. I think the smallfolk’s gradual appearance in chapter titles in the second half of the story is the story’s way of cluing the reader in to the idea that he is entering a different POV again, where “entering” refers to his revelation that he is guilty of ignoring the perspectives and suffering of the most powerless people in the story, and “POV” refers to his own new and hard-won perspective on A Song of Ice and Fire.

Chapter Titles in AFFC & ADWD P2

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Created Sep 27, 2021

Brienne

Brienne’s strength is comparable to the Hound’s strength, according to Jaime Lannister. Considering the freakish size of the Hound and the biological differences between men and women, Brienne’s strength in the story would not be achievable by even the strongest women in the world. So it seems like Brienne’s absurd strength is an instance of GRRM cranking the fantasy dial up to eleven. But I think it’s great that he did.

“A protagonist and his story can only be as intellectually fascinating and emotionally compelling as the forces of antagonism make them.” — Robert McKee

A major force of antagonism at play in Brienne’s story is about the role of women in society. With most women in the story, the antagonism is not very strong because most women are not like Brienne. They are mostly suited for and comfortable in most of the usual womanly roles. But with Brienne, we have a woman who is so wildly suited for many of the most important usual male roles that the forces of antagonism at play are very strong, making the issue very interesting.

Created Sep 22, 2021

The Faith of the Seven

The Faith of the Seven doesn’t have magic powers because when you’re a writer who is exploring philosophy by pitting competing philosophies against each other in your story, the winning philosophy is the only one that doesn’t need help. Magic is a crutch to empower the losing philosophies so that when the story is finished it will be difficult for the murder-happy R’hllorites and Faceless Man correlates in the audience to criticize that the winning philosophy defeated strawmen.

Martin is critical of his Catholic upbringing in interviews. A large portion of the audience props up those criticisms because they match with their own views regarding religion and Catholicism. In a word, those views are anti-theist. “Men see what they expect to see, Alayne.”

What much of the audience may not notice until late in the story is that the Faith, whose values more resemble Catholicism than any other religion in the story, is Martin’s philosophical champion rather than his philosophical opponent, and his critical comments toward Catholocism in interviews are (A) Martin giving credit to the resilience of opponent philosophies, (B) misleading an audience who he criticizes regularly for trying to circumvent the purpose of Story by asking him to give ‘the answers’ to the dilemmas posed in his story.

A perhaps more significant revelation that I think the audience will encounter regarding the story’s religions is that, in light of the rise in popularity of anti-theism, it is the Old Gods religion, rather than the Faith of the Seven, that more profoundly mirrors Catholicism in the story.

By cutting down the heart trees, men destroyed their own access to the power to build magic castles, and thereby doomed themselves to centuries of fighting over the few magic castles that remain.

Created Sep 22, 2021

AGOT 13 Tyrion II

I recorded an audio reading of this chapter with my own voice just to try it. Here’s that.

They had left Winterfell on the same day as the king, amidst all the commotion of the royal departure, riding out to the sound of men shouting and horses snorting, to the rattle of wagons and the groaning of the queen’s huge wheelhouse, as a light snow flurried about them.

George R.R. Martin is a master speedpainter with words. It never ceases to amaze me how fast he can immerse me in this world.

I’m noticing a trend with this story in which many of the chapters are structured like an optical illusion. My first impression of a chapter will be one thing, and it tends to be a resilient impression that’s difficult for me to challenge. But after I’ve challenged it seriously, my new impression is opposite or nearly opposite to the first one, yet even more resilient.

The first impression that Tyrion and Jon’s conversation leaves me with is one of disillusionment. Jon is being disillusioned by Tyrion about the venerable Night’s Watch, the fabled monsters beyond the Wall, and ultimately about his lot in life as a bastard. But the Others in the prologue give the lie to Tyrion’s assertion that the monsters beyond the Wall are not real. So do the direwolves, which are monsters in their own right.

It suggests that, while Jon may have been harboring illusions that his noble uncle Benjen is representative of most of the men in the Night’s Watch, Tyrion is harboring illusions of his own.

Tyrion’s illusions are not simply pertaining to the threats beyond the Wall, but also to the very attitudes and impulses in Tyrion that compelled him to inflate the truth beyond the limits of his knowledge. Tyrion has no first-hand knowledge of what lies beyond the Wall, because he has never been beyond the Wall, so he has less credibility on the matter than characters like Benjen and the deserter, who have both traveled beyond the Wall and attested to the existence of the Others.

So in my new interpretation, I’m left with the faint impression that maybe it’s Tyrion, rather than Jon, who is more profoundly illusioned about the world.

Jon’s illusions will last only as long as it takes him to learn that the shabby and foul-mouthed thieves, rapists and murderers who populate the Night’s Watch are also capable of great feats of loyalty, bravery, valor and honor, recontextualizing even the worst lives that mankind has to offer as redeemable, and recontextualizing the Night’s Watch as the catalyst for that redemption, and therefore as a truly noble calling after all.

The illusion that causes Tyrion, on the other hand, to believe that it’s appropriate to propel other people toward cynicism and nihilism at the earliest opportunity, seems like the kind of illusion that will be more difficult to dispel than Jon’s illusions are. I think that impulse is rooted in a deep-seeded desire in Tyrion to prove to himself, through Jon’s false enlightenment and perhaps his development and life, that life is meaningless, thereby alleviating himself of his own responsibility to embody the hero. Because if life is fundamentally meaningless, then it’s meaningless no matter what you do. And then there’s no reason in particular to do anything other than to seek cheap self-gratification, which is exactly what Tyrion does with his life.

I think one way of thinking about what it means to embody the hero is that it involves a recognition that life is arbitrary, followed by a conscious decision to do everything in one’s power to impart meaning to life anyway.

Suddenly, absurdly, Tyrion felt guilty. He took a step forward, intending to give the boy a reassuring pat on the shoulder or mutter some word of apology.

Tyrion’s guilt being sudden and absurd evokes the question of its explanation. I think Tyrion’s guilt comes from a perhaps subconscious recognition that there’s something about his message to Jon that misses the mark, and that therefore Tyrion isn’t fulfilling the second part of that description of being a hero.

Benjen Stark seemed to share his brother’s distaste for Lannisters,

I wonder if this is partly a situation where the little brother has adopted the views of his big brother. It’s possible that Ned’s distaste for Lannisters is partly misguided. Jaime later reveals that Aerys intended to burn King’s Landing, and that detail certainly stands in judgement of Ned’s distaste for Jaime. There are other reasons Ned dislikes House Lannister, but the kingslaying is one of them.

Then, since Benjen is the youngest brother, it seems likely that he would have looked up to Ned the way little brothers do. That usually includes adopting the older brother’s views and attitudes, often unchallenged and unexamined. Not that Benjen had any better access to Jaime’s side of the story than Ned did.

Perhaps he had learned a lesson. The Lannisters never declined, graciously or otherwise. The Lannisters took what was offered.

These are a few peculiar little lines, aren’t they? It’s hard to be sure what prompted them in Tyrion. Perhaps it shows his awareness of the way House Lannister interprets and acts in the world. From an authorial point of view, it seems like these lines stake out the Lannister philosophy. I think it’s useful to examine the competition of characters and their Houses as a landscape of competing philosophies about life and how to behave in it. So the Lannister philosophy includes taking every advantage life offers you, as opposed to foregoing some advantages that could be taken.

It’s a philosophy that is already shown to be different than the Stark philosophy, even at this early stage in the story. For example, Ned Stark was hesitant to allow the kids to keep the direwolf pups, and he considered it carefully and listened to the opinions of people around him before making a decision.

The “learned a lesson” part could mean a few different things. On the surface, it seems like Tyrion is proud of at least this part of his Lannisterness, which would suggest that he agrees with the Lannister philosophy of opportunism.

But in consideration of the fact that Tyrion hates his family, maybe the tone of this line is disdainful of the Lannister philosophy, rather than proud, which would suggest that Tyrion doesn’t agree with the Lannister philosophy of opportunism.

So there’s a question of which tone is mostly at work, here, the prideful one or the disdainful one? And the answer may be demonstrated in Tyrion’s advising of Jon, as well as the guilt he feels after. Because Tyrion’s advising of Jon was an instance of Tyrion acting out the Lannister philosophy of opportunism by seizing the opportunity to proliferate his nihilism by attaching it to some useful lessons like a Trojan horse. I think he agrees with the Lannister philosophy consciously, but his guilt reveals a subconscious disagreement with it.

As black as onyx, polished smooth, so the bone seemed to shimmer in the light of his torch. They liked the fire, he sensed. He’d thrust the torch into the mouth of one of the larger skulls and made the shadows leap and dance on the wall behind him. The teeth were long, curving knives of black diamond. The flame of the torch was nothing to them; they had bathed in the heat of far greater fires. When he had moved away, Tyrion could have sworn that the beast’s empty eye sockets had watched him go.

As with Viserys and Ned’s personifications of the dragon skulls, Tyrion’s personification has unique implications, too. There’s a strong sense of wonder, awe, and perhaps even longing in Tyrion regarding the skulls. Ned was discomforted by the gaze of the skulls, but Tyrion almost seems to like it. Tyrion’s earlier comment makes it clear why dragons appeal to him.

“Oh, yes. Even a stunted, twisted, ugly little boy can look down over the world when he’s seated on a dragon’s back.”

To Tyrion, a dragon’s back is a place from which to look down over the world, an ultimate way to correct for an inequality that he inherited at birth: His dwarfism. Not one man among the near four thousand men who burned on the Field of Fire would have been any less dead if the riders of Vhagar, Meraxes and Balerion had been dwarves.

It was the only time that Vhaghar, Meraxes, and Balerion were all unleashed at once. The singers called it the Field of Fire.

Near four thousand men had burned that day, among them King Mern of the Reach. King Loren had escaped, and lived long enough to surrender, pledge his fealty to the Targaryens, and beget a son, for which Tyrion was duly grateful.

In other words, if it weren’t for the subjugation of Tyrion’s ancestor King Loren, Aegon’s Conquest would have deprived Tyrion of his very existence. It’s a detail of Tyrion’s heritage that places his obsession with dragons in an ironic and self-destructive light. It suggests that he’s currently on a path that will ultimately end with him stuck at a crossroads, with subjugation on one hand and death on the other.

References to Aegon’s Conquest throughout the story are accompanied by an air of reverence, both for Aegon himself and for his measured domination of the continent of Westeros.

For a few moments, the chroniclers wrote, the conquest was at an end . . . but only for those few moments, before Aegon Targaryen and his sisters joined the battle.

Aegon’s Conquest is presented by the chroniclers in the form of a narrative that paints Aegon as an underdog who won against the odds. However, an alternative picture of Aegon’s Conquest is hinted in the juxtaposition between Tyrion’s romanticized idea of dragons as symbols of his personal liberation, and the inescapably brutal reality of flesh-and-blood human beings having feebly burned to death in dragonflame by the thousands.

If that picture of Aegon’s Conquest happens to be a more truthful characterization of history than the perhaps romanticized version that the characters and readers are led to believe, then Tyrion’s apparent role in the story as a misunderstood good guy is hinted, here, to be incomplete, with the nature of his ending perhaps hinged upon the question of whether or not he will manage to dispel the illusions that blind him to the terrible alternative picture that the symbols of his personal liberation represent. The feeling I’m left with is that Tyrion’s apparent desire for personal liberation is really disguising a desire for existential revenge.

all that remained of the last two hatchlings born on Dragonstone. They were the last of the Targaryen dragons, perhaps the last dragons anywhere, and they had not lived very long.

Viserys and Dany foreshadowing?

Jon Snow’s albino direwolf pricked up his ears at the nightly howling, but never raised his own voice in reply. There was something very unsettling about that animal, Tyrion thought.

Another reminder that Ghost is a mute.

Ghost’s muteness stands in curious contradiction to the way in which Jon discovered Ghost. Jon discovered Ghost by hearing a noise which was presumably made by Ghost. But none of the other characters seemed to hear the noise. It’s the first and major hint that the direwolves have a psychic connection with the Starks.

What these reminders are saying to the reader is “Hey, there’s a mystery you missed.” Because when I read the direwolf chapter for the first time, I didn’t know that Ghost was a mute. And even after I know it, the noise and Jon hearing it seem easily explainable in mundane terms. Jon simply heard a faint noise that the other characters didn’t. It’s the kind of thing that happens in life once in a while, so it isn’t that strange.

But as the story goes on, the evidence of a psychic connection between direwolves and Starks gradually piles up. The greatest piece of evidence is that Ghost is a mute. If Ghost never ever makes a sound, then what did Jon hear in the first non-prologue chapter of the series? There are dozens of mildly strange situations throughout the story just like that first situation between Jon and Ghost. To name another that I saw in the reread so far, Nymeria acts out Arya’s subconscious desire to stay with Jon when she follows Jon and then turns around realizing that Arya is not following him.

Based on any individual strange event, it would be difficult to make a wholly convincing case that the direwolves have a psychic connection with the Starks. But as the little oddities pile up, the pile becomes so large that the intentions of the story and the author are revealed.

The biggest problem that deniers of the direwolf-Stark psychic connection will encounter in this discussion is that, while they may be able to explain each event individually using a variety of materialistic, non-magic, non-extraordinary reasons, they will corner themselves by shrinking the possible explanations for the pattern that exists across all the events, as well as the pattern that exists across an enormous portion of readers like me, down to one possible explanation.

The pattern that exists across all the events is that, in every event, there is structural and intentional ambiguity written into the event regarding the explanation for how the direwolf knows what it appears to know. IE. If the author didn’t want any ambiguity in the event, he could have written it a different way. He could have written it so that Bran and the other characters heard the noise, too.

The pattern that exists across the readers is that a large portion of the audience interprets the direwolves to clearly have some kind of psychic connection with the Starks. I would estimate no less than half of the audience is in agreement about that.

The singular explanation that the denier is forced to use at that point is that the pattern does not really exist in the story itself. It only exists in your head and the heads of half of the audience. He discredits his interpretation of the story by proving that his interpretation cannot account for the author’s repeated behavior of creating ambiguity around the issue, and cannot account for the match between half or more of the audience’s interpretations without calling them all crazy.

Created Sep 8, 2021
Updated Sep 22, 2021 – Added Ghost
Updated Sep 24, 2021 – Added Benjen, Lannister