Tower of Joy, A Study in Symbolic Interpretation – Chapter 0-4

Chapter 0 – Introduction

Also on Substack.

In this essay, I’m going to teach the principles of symbolic interpretation and apply them to the Tower of Joy mystery to find out much of what happened in the fateful battle at the Tower of Joy between Ned Stark’s seven men and the three Kingsguard. Most of the analysis will revolve around the chapter AFFC 20 Brienne IV, where Brienne of Tarth faces off against three villains at a ruined castle called the Whispers on Crackclaw Point.

First, let me say that I am not a professor of English literature or of anything. I’m not even an especially avid reader of books. Nonetheless, I’m an avid reader and student of *these* books. Because of those things I’m certain I must be making some mistakes in my explanations and use of words that I don’t know yet. Nonetheless, while all the ideas presented here may not be strictly correct in whole, I stand by the analysis *on* the whole as a good demonstration of how to work the symbols in the story, to increase your understanding of the story’s deeper meanings on your own, and to produce accurate predictions of the story’s past and future. It would be fair to think of me as an ASOIAF engineer. (Among superfan, analyst, and smalltime youtuber.) Mysteries are what crank my gears. This essay is partly an attempt to formalize my methods by teaching them. It should be pretty entertaining too because it builds on itself.

As I travel along my personal A Song of Ice and Fire journey I carry with me a collection of questions, many of them very old. They’re questions like “Who is Azor Ahai?”, “Who is the Valonqar?”, “What happened at the Tower of Joy?”, and “Who is Jon Snow’s mother?”. There are many more than that.

As anybody likely to be reading this probably knows already, these are some of A Song of Ice and Fire’s capital-M Mysteries. They’re usually issues that were introduced early in the series and remain mysterious late in the series. They’re questions that practically every reader wants to know the answer to, except those who think they already know it. They’re usually questions that are asked by characters in the story, themselves. Even when they’re not, they’re usually questions that were introduced in a way that leaves little doubt that George R. R. Martin (GRRM) intended to spark up a mystery when he wrote the parts of the story that provoked them. They’re questions for which countless words have been written by countless people in online discussions, debates, analyses, theories, blogs, forums, boards, and articles, constituting a discussion history that reaches as far back as almost three decades to the year 1996, when George R. R. Martin published A Game of Thrones (AGOT).

Accompanying these Big capital-M Mysteries is a category of mysteries I call central mysteries. A central mystery is a mystery that is part of a cluster of mysteries that all seem to orbit the same characters, times, and places such as Ned Stark, Robert’s Rebellion, and the Tourney at Harrenhal. Some central mysteries are “What happened between Rhaegar and Lyanna?”, “Who was the Knight of the Laughing Tree?”, and “Why did Ashara Dayne throw herself from the top of her castle?” Not all Big Mysteries are central mysteries, but they are all “top level mysteries” or “top level questions.”

A top level question is the biggest question that you’re trying to answer in any given inquiry. It’s a question that, when you try to answer it, it has the greatest tendency to break down into the greatest number and variety of smaller questions. For instance, the question “Who is Jon Snow’s mother?” breaks down into “Who is Wylla?”, “Who is the fisherman’s daughter?”, “Where was Jon Snow born?”, “How old is Jon Snow?”, “How tall is Jon Snow?”, and many more. Each of these smaller questions is a significant question in its own right, to which much time, research and thought can be devoted before any conclusion likely to inform its parent question — “Who is Jon Snow’s mother?” — can be drawn.

A top level question is also a question that the general audience is actually asking, where “asking” means applying themselves to it. For instance, the general audience is no longer asking “Who is Jon Snow’s mother?” because the general audience believes they know the right answer to that question — Lyanna Stark. Nevertheless, it’s fair to say the general audience continues to apply themselves to that question despite knowing the right answer, because a significant enough portion of the audience continues objecting to that answer and those objections draw responses. For whatever reason, knowing the right answer (R+L=J, to be clear), explaining it many times, pinning it to the top of the boards and repeating it has not stopped the disagreements.

On one hand, everybody will never agree on anything. No matter what it is, there will always be people who ‘don’t get it’ no matter how well it’s explained. There will always be people who just want to be different even if that means ignoring reason. There were bound to be loose ends in GRRM’s ending to the mystery because it’s fiction and with fiction the cracks always get bigger the closer you look at it.

On the other hand, the right answer to the mystery should be expected to make everything make sense in a way that everybody can agree upon. The extent to which GRRM is a good writer is proportionate to the degree of certainty we should have that the right answer to the mystery will cause everybody to agree that it’s the right answer. And since everybody obviously does not agree even after the answer has been explained and elaborated over a long period of time, we should assume R+L=J is the wrong answer.

Whatever side of that dichotomy you find yourself on, that should give you an idea of what I mean when I use the phrases “Big Mystery”, “central mystery”, and “top level mystery/question”.

Chapter 0 – Introduction

Chapter 1 – The Tower of Joy

Chapter 2 – What is Symbolic Interpretation?

Chapter 3 – Did Ned Stark Wield Ice At The Tower of Joy?

Chapter 4 – Establishing Our First Symbols

Chapter 5 – Ser Galladon of Morne

Chapter 6 – The Fight and Fighters

Chapter 7 – He Would Have Killed Me But For Howland Reed

Chapter 8 – Nimble Dick Crabb

Chapter 9 – The Fight and Fighters II

Chapter 10 – The Magic Swords

Chapter 11 – Cold as Ice

Chapter 12 – Shagwell’s Morning Star

Chapter 13 – The Black Bat

Chapter 14 – The She-wolf

Chapter 15 – The Dragon Prince

Chapter 1 – The Tower of Joy

TowerofJoy tumblrcut

There is a pattern of events that can be found repeated in ASOIAF, and whatever it means, it seems to be connected to the core mysteries of the series. I suspect it is the core mystery of the series. These echoes may be a purely literary device, a use of paralleling to bring together shared ideas. It may be something rather more. A ritual that people stumble upon, more or less accidentally, more or less knowingly. Or it may be one of these events created magical ripples in the river of time, making the event replay as echoes before and after. Or perhaps it’s a story desperate to be told, leaking out into the narratives of many characters and shaping their stories to its own. Perhaps it’s a mixture of these. Each time we see these events echoed, some of the details are shared, and some changed. It’s as if the story is struggling to be completed, the ritual never quite being fulfilled. Amidst the personal struggles of the characters we read about is a greater struggle they are fighting unaware, a fate that tugs their puppet strings and makes them dance to the song of ice and fire.

It all seemed so familiar, like a mummer show that he had seen before. Only the mummers had changed. —ADwD, A Ghost in Winterfell

—Excerpt from The Puppets of Ice and Fire by Kingmonkey, Aug. 2015

The Tower of Joy is indisputably a Big Mystery, a central mystery, and a top-level mystery/question all at once. It’s a top-level question because if the answer to the question “What’s the answer to the mystery of the Tower of Joy?” could be summed up in one statement, that statement would necessarily contain the answer to all of the sub-mysteries that the question breaks down into. It’s a central mystery because it happened in or near Robert’s Rebellion and Ned Stark was there. And it’s a Big Mystery because it’s a question the audience is actually asking, is constantly engaged with, is meant by GRRM to be a mystery, and has been awaiting a defintive resolution since AGOT.

So, while Tower of Joy is the name of a real place in the story, it’s also a phrase that refers to a bunch of mysteries that relate to any and everything that happened at, near, or related to the Tower of Joy at the end of Robert’s Rebellion. Among this bunch of mysteries resides every question we might have about or related to the Tower of Joy.

“Why did the characters name it the Tower of Joy?”
“Why did GRRM name it the Tower of Joy?”
“Why did Rhaegar have three men there?”
“Why did Ned bring seven men there?”
“What was the disagreement between the groups?”
“Why didn’t they try more to talk out their disagreement before fighting?”
“Why did Rhaegar rape Lyanna?”
“Did Rhaegar rape Lyanna?”
“Why did Ned destroy the tower?”
“Why did Ned return Arthur’s sword Dawn to House Dayne?”
“Why did Ned bring Howland Reed?”
“What did Howland Reed do at the Tower of Joy?”
“How exactly did the fight play out?”

Well, you get the idea. The phrase “Tower of Joy” means all of these questions and more to the audience. We want to know many or all of the answers to these questions before the story is all said and done. If the story delivers much less than that, it will be disappointing to most readers. In this series of essays, we’re going to find most of the answer to the last question — “How exactly did the fight play out?”.

As Kingmonkey so eloquently described all those years ago, there is indeed a pattern of events repeated in ASOIAF that’s connected to the core mysteries of the series — that is the core mystery of the series, in truth. The echoes are more than a literary device, though they’re that, too. Tower of Joy is a ritual of GRRM. As Kingmonkey suspects, it’s a ritual that GRRM is inviting us to partake in by showing it to us over and over again like a game of Monkey See, Monkey Do. The ritual is symbolic interpretation, and in this series I’m going to formalize my methods for doing symbolic interpretation so that anybody can use them.

The Tower of Joy ritual is indeed creating ripples in the river of time, making the event replay as echoes before and after. Although these ripples are not strictly magical, careful measurement of them will tell us all about the raindrops from which they originated, and those revelations will feel to us like a storytelling kind of magic. The Tower of Joy is indeed a story desperate to be told, leaking out into the narratives of many characters and shaping their stories to its own. Each time we see the Tower of Joy echoed, some of the details are shared, and some changed. The story is struggling not to be completed (for the Tower of Joy story is already completed) but rather, it’s struggling to be seen by us for the first time. The mystery of the Tower of Joy is the fate that tugs the characters’ puppet strings to and fro, dictating the struggles they face in the way that the theme always must, to the tune of The Song of Ice and Fire.

Chapter 2 – What is Symbolic Interpretation?

Symbolic interpretation is the process of defining symbols and applying them to the story to predict the story.

Why to predict? Why not to understand?

Because as long as it is certain that you are not controlling a thing, the ability to predict the thing’s behavior is the ultimate proof of understanding of it. In this case, the thing is the story.

You mean predict the story’s future?

Yes, but to predict its present and past, too. Since we don’t have access to the story’s future to test our symbols against it, we must test our symbols against past and present parts of the story. This will work just fine because predicting things we didn’t notice or don’t remember is usually identical to predicting the story’s future. The common property between “things we didn’t notice”, “things we don’t remember”, and “things that haven’t happened yet” is “things we don’t know.” Since ASOIAF is long and full of details, most of its contents fall into the category of things we didn’t notice or don’t remember, no matter how many times we’ve read it.

For instance, what did Tyrion Lannister eat for dinner with Jeor Mormont at Castle Black? What animal was lurking in the shadows on the painted door across the street from the Seven Swords inn in Duskendale? You don’t remember, but the answers are crab and boar. If a symbol that you defined from otherwise arbitrary details that you extracted elsewhere in the story were to imply the answer crab or boar in one of those scenes, that would prove a great amount of credibility of your symbol. How much credibility would it prove? An amount proportionate to the amount of alternative viable answers.

Inasmuch as a symbol can imply accurate predictions about the story’s past and present, we can safely assume it can imply accurate predictions about the story’s future. In this way, we’re able to build powerful symbols for growing our understanding of the story, using only the parts of the story that are already available to us.

What Is A Symbol?

A symbol is a representative relationship between two things. To say A is symbolic of B is to say A can represent B and B can represent A. In math, this is simply the property of substitution. If A is equal to B, then wherever there is an A it can be substituted with B, and wherever there is a B it can be substituted with A, without rendering the equation false.

Letters are symbols, they represent sounds you can make with your mouth. Words are symbols, they represent meanings to your mind. Stories are symbols, they represent real people in real life.

As with the usefulness of a variable in math, the usefulness of a symbol in a story is specific to the context in which it was defined. It is not appropriate to apply A=B to question 2 on a math test just because A=B was established in question 1. Question 1 and 2 are different contexts. Likewise, it is not appropriate to apply Meteor=Sword anywhere in the story we please just because it was established in one place. To remind myself of this, I describe symbols with the approximately equals sign (≈) rather than the equals sign. IE. Meteor≈Sword.

Now that we have some fundamentals of symbolic interpretation, let’s put them to work.

Chapter 3 – Did Ned Stark Wield Ice at the Tower of Joy?

blue sword ice ned tumblrcut

Did Ned Stark wield Ice in the battle at the Tower of Joy? This was the question that prompted me to write this series of essays. I wanted to find out the answer for myself, and by the time I found the answer I realized that I had written a comprehensive explanation and demonstration of how I find answers like this. Before then, I couldn’t really describe how I was doing it. I only knew how to do it, that it was logically sound, and that I had done it many times before with great success.

The question about Ice sounds like the whimsical sort of question any fantasy nerd who’s sufficiently obsessed with swords, magic, and fights would think to ask. After all, Ned Stark is a cool guy, Ice is a cool sword, and the Tower of Joy is a hot fight. My shallow fixation on heroes fighting with swords is no less for it, but in truth the thing that prompted my question was that, after reading Kingmonkey’s essay, I detected while re-reading the chapter AFFC 20 Brienne IV that Brienne’s sword Oathkeeper and Ser Galladon’s sword the Just Maid were referring to Ned’s sword Ice. ice sword unsplash greatsword ned

It’s an interesting enough question from a tactical standpoint. Would Ned prefer to use Ice over a regular sword? Valyrian steel over castle-forged steel? Ice is a greatsword, so it would be slower and more cumbersome to use than a regular sword would be. On the other hand, Valyrian steel is unbreakable, and so is Arthur Dayne’s sword Dawn. Would Ned really run the risk of having his sword broken against Dawn by not using Ice?

Also, how would Ned’s companions feel about him neglecting to use Ice? Would they have wanted him to use it, knowing that Arthur Dayne has Dawn? Or would they have considered the bulk of a greatsword — a greatsword that’s used exclusively for beheadings — too much of a disadvantage? Fighting on the same team as Ned, their fates are tightly linked with his.

Then again, Valyrian steel has a lighter weight than all other steel. While it’s true that Ice is big and heavy being a greatsword, maybe Ned could’ve fought with it anyway because it isn’t quite as heavy as a greatsword made of regular steel. Perhaps Ice is about the same weight as a bastard sword, which can be adequately wielded and swung in one strong hand.

As fun as it is to speculate fantasy fight scenarios, the answers are relegated to the category of speculation without the help of symbolic interpretation.

Chapter 4 – Establishing Our First Symbols

Kingmonkey proposes many events that seem like they might be mirroring the Tower of Joy and consequently showing us clues about what all really happened there, why, and how it relates to the other mysteries at the center of ASOIAF such as Jon Snow’s parentage, Ashara Dayne’s suicide, Lyanna’s kidnapping, what Howland Reed did to save Ned’s life, and so on. I refer to this cluster of mysteries as ASOIAF’s central mysteries, because they are all so tightly knitted together narratively, temporally, politically and more. It’s a feature of ASOIAF’s mysteriousness that suggests to me that this great number of wide-reaching mysteries can and will be correlated in the end by a small amount of surprising information.

By the rule of good mystery writing, that information must be seeded throughout the story before it comes to the foreground, in order not to feel cheap and contrived. If the Tower of Joy marks the center of ASOIAF’s core mystery, then mirrors of the Tower of Joy (TOJ) are great places for the author to intimate clues about it with a light touch.

Let’s begin with the Tower of Joy mirror that may be happening at the ruined castle of House Crabb called the Whispers, on Crackclaw Point.

The Whispers fight happens in chapter 20 of AFFC from the point-of-view of Brienne. The group consists of Brienne, her squire Podrick Payne, and their guide Nimble Dick Crabb. Brienne is on a mission to find Catelyn’s daughters Sansa and Arya. There’s tension between Brienne and Dick because Brienne doesn’t trust Dick, and Dick’s behavior and personality are not helping in that regard. Here are some TOJ parallels offered by Kingmonkey.

The Tower of Crabbs

Brienne of Tarth’s journeys through the riverlands on a quest to rescue a Stark maiden has hints of Eddard Stark’s quest to rescue a Stark Maiden. In AFfC ch.20, Brienne has a showdown at a tower long fallen, The Whispers.

At the Whispers Brienne fights Pyg, Shagwell and Timeon. These three can be seen as a twisted low-rent version of the three Kingsguard at the Tower of Joy. Pyg is a rather less majestic beast than the “old bull” Ser Gerold Hightower. Timeon is a Dornishman like Ser Arthur Dayne, but about as far from Dayne’s chivalric nature as you can get. Shagwell is a psychotic Jester always making dark jokes, while just about the only thing we know about Ser Oswell Whent is that he was known for “his black humour”.

As at the Tower of Joy, there’s a parley before the fight, but while the Three Kingsguard made it clear they would not flee across the narrow sea, that’s exactly what the three bloody mummers are trying to do.

Brienne has only two men with her when she meets the three, Podrick and Nimble Dick. However, this is another hidden seven. Ser Creighton Longbough, Ser Illifer the Penniless, Ser Shadrich of the Shady Glen and Ser Hyle Hunt had all been her companions too, but she left them behind.

Brienne set out on her journey with a shield bearing the arms of Lothstan, the same Harrenhal bat that was on Whent’s helm and coat of arms at the Tower of Joy. However by the time she arrives at the tower long fallen, she’s had her sheild repainted with Duncan the Tall’s coat of arms, including a falling star like Dayne’s. She’s directed to find a sheild painter by a tavern called the Seven Swords, named for seven Kingsguards.

As you can see, many details of the situation seem to echo details in the TOJ situation. Too many for all of them to be a coincidence. To summarize them:

Brienne is on a quest to rescue a Stark girl from a building that’s guarded by three people.
Ned is on a quest to rescue a Stark girl from a building that’s guarded by three people.

This mirror can establish many symbols:

Brienne is symbolic of Ned
Sansa or Arya is symbolic of Lyanna
The Whispers is symbolic of the Tower of Joy
Pyg, Shagwell, and Timeon are symbolic of Gerold Hightower, Oswell Whent, and Arthur Dayne

We can’t be sure which symbols are going to be useful for helping us understand the Tower of Joy, but we should list them in order from most to least obvious because that should double as a list for most to least certain.

When applying a symbol we should also keep in mind the principle that unifies the symbol and force ourselves to define it in specific terms. For example, Brienne is symbolic of Ned through the principle ‘Leader of the rescue party of a Stark girl who fights at a building that’s guarded by three people and wins.’

We should also force ourselves to update the principle whenever we apply the symbol, to make sure the principle is intact and to whittle away the parts that don’t survive the application. For example, Pyg, Shagwell and Timeon can be symbolic of Gerold, Oswell and Arthur at a group level, because both groups are ‘Three men who fight a Ned symbol at the building where the Ned symbol came to rescue a Stark girl.’

But the symbols might also work at the individual level. When we look for commonalities between the individuals that seem too specific to be coincidence, we find that Timeon and Arthur have Dornish in common, Shagwell and Oswell have “well” and dark humor in common, and Pyg and Gerold have a farm animal nickname in common — pig and bull. Since these symbols work at the individual level, that gives us a green light to begin trying to assume that things that happened to one of these individuals in the Whispers fight may have also happened to his TOJ counterpart.

That leaves us with a lot of guesswork, like does Pyg’s sword being broken mean that Gerold’s sword was broken? Maybe not, but compared to boundless speculation it’s a smaller search space with a higher chance of success, and the search is actually doable. The space can be exhausted in ten minutes or less. What we’re looking for is a possibility that directly or indirectly answers a question we have about the TOJ. Since Gerold’s sword being broken doesn’t seem to answer one of those questions, that’s good enough reason to discard the possibility and move on to the next one.

The potential TOJ mirror that stands out the most to me in the Whispers scene is about a magic sword. As Brienne and the gang are approaching the Whispers, Brienne and Dick chat about their hometown heroes:

When he was not singing, Nimble Dick would talk, regaling them with tales of Crackclaw Point. Every gloomy valley had its lord, he said, the lot of them united only by their mistrust of outsiders. In their veins the blood of the First Men ran dark and strong. “The Andals tried t’ take Crackclaw, but we bled them in the valleys and drowned them in the bogs. Only what their sons couldn’t win with swords, their pretty daughters won with kisses. They married into the houses they couldn’t conquer, aye.”

The Darklyn kings of Duskendale had tried to impose their rule on Crackclaw Point; the Mootons of Maidenpool had tried as well, and later the haughty Celtigars of Crab Isle. But the Crackclaws knew their bogs and forests as no outsider could, and if hard pressed would vanish into the caverns that honeycombed their hills. When not fighting would-be conquerors, they fought each other. Their blood feuds were as deep and dark as the bogs between their hills. From time to time some champion would bring peace to the Point, but it never lasted longer than his lifetime. Lord Lucifer Hardy, he was a great one, and the Brothers Brune as well. Old Crackbones even more so, but the Crabbs were the mightiest of all. Dick still refused to believe that Brienne had never heard of Ser Clarence Crabb and his exploits.

“Why would I lie?” she asked him. “Every place has its local heroes. Where I come from, the singers sing of Ser Galladon of Morne, the Perfect Knight.”

“Ser Gallawho of What?” He snorted. “Never heard o’ him. Why was he so bloody perfect?”

“Ser Galladon was a champion of such valor that the Maiden herself lost her heart to him. She gave him an enchanted sword as a token of her love. The Just Maid, it was called. No common sword could check her, nor any shield withstand her kiss. Ser Galladon bore the Just Maid proudly, but only thrice did he unsheathe her. He would not use the Maid against a mortal man, for she was so potent as to make any fight unfair.”

Crabb thought that was hilarious. “The Perfect Knight? The Perfect Fool, he sounds like. What’s the point o’ having some magic sword if you don’t bloody well use it?”

“Honor,” she said. “The point is honor.”

That only made him laugh the louder. “Ser Clarence Crabb would have wiped his hairy arse with your Perfect Knight, m’lady. If they’d ever have met, there’d be one more bloody head sitting on the shelf at the Whispers, you ask me. ‘I should have used the magic sword,’ it’d be saying to all the other heads. ‘I should have used the bloody sword.’”

Brienne could not help but smile. “Perhaps,” she allowed, “but Ser Galladon was no fool. Against a foe eight feet tall mounted on an aurochs, he might well have unsheathed the Just Maid. He used her once to slay a dragon, they say.”

Nimble Dick was unimpressed. “Crackbones fought a dragon too, but he didn’t need no magic sword. He just tied its neck in a knot, so every time it breathed fire it roasted its own arse.”

“And what did Crackbones do when Aegon and his sisters came?” Brienne asked him.

“He was dead. M’lady must know that.” Crabb gave her a sideways look. “Aegon sent his sister up to Crackclaw, that Visenya. The lords had heard o’ Harren’s end. Being no fools, they laid their swords at her feet. The queen took them as her own men, and said they’d owe no fealty to Maidenpool, Crab Isle, or Duskendale. Don’t stop them bloody Celtigars from sending men to t’ eastern shore to collect his taxes. If he sends enough, a few come back to him … elsewise, we bow only to our own lords, and the king. The true king, not Robert and his ilk.” He spat. “There was Crabbs and Brunes and Boggses with Prince Rhaegar on the Trident, and in the Kingsguard too. A Hardy, a Cave, a Pyne, and three Crabbs, Clement and Rupert and Clarence the Short. Six foot tall, he was, but short compared to the real Ser Clarence. We’re all good dragon men, up Crackclaw way.” (AFFC 20 Brienne IV)

Brienne’s hero Ser Galladon of Morne seems more honorable than Dick’s hero Clarence Crabb. Brienne says that Galladon would not even use his magic sword against mortals because it would be dishonorable. Brienne’s fixation on honor seems to strengthen her mirroring of Ned, who was also very interested in honor. Too much so, many would say. It’s hard to miss how Ned’s critics are echoed in the voice of Nimble Dick Crabb, here.

This magic sword issue comes up again later in the chapter when, just before Brienne enters the Whispers, she remembers Dick’s ridicule and sends Pod to retrieve Oathkeeper after all, her own magic sword.

During the fight, Pod throws a rock or two that helps Brienne win the fight, perhaps establishing Pod as a symbol of Howland Reed using the principle ‘Little guy who’s underestimated in the fight and who saves the Ned symbol by fighting in a dishonorable way at a key moment.’

The mirror seems like it might suggest that there was some drama about Ned’s magic sword, Ice. Do you think that Ned wasn’t going to use Ice at first? If his normal sword broke against Arthur, Ned’s thoughts may very well have been the same as Dick’s ridicule of Galladon: “I should have used the magic sword! I should have used the bloody sword!”

With symbolic interpretation, the interpreter needs to define the symbols in falsifiable terms as he goes, to make sure he’s not changing the definition to suit his interpretation, but rather suiting his interpretation to a definition.

A symbol’s definition will usually change along the way, because it’s rare to get the words exactly right on the first try. So, there’s an ironing-out process. But as long as a principle/definition can be stated and in falsifiable terms, the process of writing it is itself a sufficient test to establish a symbol. It proves that the two things in the symbol at least had enough in common that those commonalities could be arranged into specific words that have specific meanings. It also shows the people who you’re presenting your interpretation to that you’re committing to standards that are falsifiable, and shows them the exact words whose exact definitions constitute those standards. Words often have more than one meaning, so there’s wiggle room in the interpretation, but at least one of the word’s meanings should match with how you’re interpreting it.

For instance, a skeptic of symbolic interpretation may criticize that the magic swords in the Whispers chapter could just as reasonably refer to Arthur Dayne’s sword as to Ned Stark’s sword. After all, Dawn is at least as much a magic sword as Ice is.

Indeed, Arthur Dayne being the one who should have used his magic sword may be the appropriate mirror with the Whispers fight. If so, then the Whispers≈TOJ symbol would need to be updated to reflect that. Far from invalidating symbolic interpretation, that observation highlights the importance of a tenant of symbolic interpretation that I call “marking the forks in the road.” It is an ordinary part of the ironing-out process when defining a symbol.

Likewise, a skeptic of symbolic interpretation may criticize that there is not really a Stark girl at the Whispers. While that’s true, the symbol I defined does not require there to actually be a Stark girl at the Whispers.

Brienne is on a quest to rescue a Stark girl from a building that’s guarded by three people.
Ned is on a quest to rescue a Stark girl from a building that’s guarded by three people.

That was not an accident on my part. I wrote it that way to account for the fact that, unlike the Tower of Joy, there is no Stark girl actually present at the Whispers. In this definition, the Stark girl comes in through the Ned symbol’s motivation, not by being present. Both Ned and Brienne are there for the purpose of retrieving a Stark girl, regardless whether one is there or not. Similarly, the three men are not necessarily guarding a Stark girl, they are simply present at the building where the Ned symbol arrives, fights them and wins. These commonalities are enough to preserve the Whispers≈TOJ symbol in a powerful way.

The ways that the symbol unexpectedly contradicted my assumptions about how the symbol should work are good indicators about where to look and what possibilities I should consider in the TOJ scene. For example, based on this difference it is worth giving serious consideration to the possibility that Lyanna was not present at the Tower of Joy, after all. Not every difference between the two things in the symbol needs to indicate something we don’t know about one or the other, but most if not everything we don’t know about one situation or the other that there is to be learned from the symbolic relationship will be found in their differences rather than their similarities.

Next: Chapter 5 – Ser Galladon of Morne

Created Jun 21, 2024
Updated Jul 18, 2024 – Adding images
Updated Aug 25, 2024 – images
Updated Nov 28, 2024 – disclaimer

On Mystery and Pay Off

LoudKingCrow

[A big misconception is] that every little tidbit that [GRRM] drops is some great mystery or clue. A lot of it is just generic lore and window dressing to make the world feel bigger. Everything isn’t a mystery to unravel.

applesanddragons

Depends on the mystery, I suppose. I know the “answers” to many. (GRRM 2008)

There’s always the question, you know, when do you reveal something? How long do you draw it out? And the books are full of little puzzles and enigmas and reversals and, you know, how do you place those? You don’t want to give it away too soon but if you stretch it out too long everybody’s going to guess it anyway. So, at what point is that? I kind of like having the puzzles. And you need to keep at least some of the puzzles until the end. (GRRM talks at Google)

Having mysteries that only he knows the answer to is perfectly fine. Because it is fun for the reader to use their imagination.

But a fair chunk of it has to also just be window dressing/setting filler. Everything doesn’t have to have some big pay off and can just be there for the sake of it.

I believe that one factor in the delay on the books is that George has too many mysteries planned that he is now struggling to bring to a satisfying conclusion.

applesanddragons

True, everything doesn’t have to have some big pay off. But also, false. A good story has to have one unifying theme running through it in order for it to be good. GRRM has said so himself with the phrase “Everything serves the almighty theme.” So no matter what piece of the story you pick out, the safest bet is always that whatever role its presence is serving for the story, it absolutely relates to that theme.

A cheap counterpoint is to say something like ‘When Tyrion and The Old Bear are talking at the Wall, they’re eating crabs. How do those crabs serve the one unifying theme of the whole story?’

To simplify the demonstration, let’s assume the one unifying theme of the story is “War is bad” and that we all can agree on that.

Crabs don’t relate to war or its badness in any way. But they are tasty and rare at the Wall. And since Old Bear is sharing them with Tyrion, it supports the scene as a whole by showing that he’s vying for Tyrion’s favor. Why is Jeor vying for Tyrion’s favor? Look at what they’re talking about. Jeor wants Tyrion to entreat the king and council for aid at the Wall. Aid to do what? To defend the realm against the threats beyond the Wall. What’s the biggest threat beyond the Wall? The Others.

That sequence perfectly satisfies as a majority answer to the question “How do those crabs serve the one unifying theme of the story?” The crabs don’t directly relate to the theme of war, but they are playing a supporting role to a scene that relates to the theme of war. Likewise, the scenes support the chapters. The chapters support the books. And the books support the series.

If GRRM had written Tyrion and Jeor eating salt pork instead of crab, the scene would have done a worse job conveying that Jeor wants Tyrion’s favor, and therefore a worse job conveying the seriousness of the threat beyond the Wall, and therefore a worse job conveying the theme about war. Because salt pork is common and crab is rare.

So if supporting roles are invalid proofs that every little thing in the story matters, then so must be entire scenes, chapters, and books. Those are all “pieces of the story that support the rest of the story.” But of course, most of us would not say an entire scene doesn’t matter. Fewer an entire chapter. Fewer an entire book. We know that saying those things would discredit ourselves exponentially more with each step.

This word is totally unnecessary.

Yes.

This scene is totally unnecessary.

Maybe you’re right, but some people liked it.

This chapter is totally unnecessary.

But I liked it…

This book is totally unnecessary.

Wow you’re so edgy… (Idiot) Maybe he was an idiot from the start. Then I was an idiot where I agreed with him.

After the story concludes, so will the question of its theme. Then all the readers will learn its theme who haven’t learned it yet. When the reader is able to re-read the story with a full knowledge of the theme, creative choices as small as a single word and even a punctuation can and will gain more and/or different meaning to the reader. In this example, when he re-reads “crab” he will no longer understand it as “interchangeable-with-anything-food”, he will understand it as “tasty and rare and indicative of the danger beyond the Wall according to Lord Commander Jeor The Old Bear Mormont.”

If that doesn’t count as a “big pay off” for one little word, nothing could.

Created Feb 16, 2024

On “That Dothraki Horde” by Bret Devereaux

Every once in a while in my A Song of Ice and Fire journeys I come across an essay that I feel I must respond to. This time, it was part one of four of an essay about the Dothraki people, posted three years ago by a genuine historian on his blog.

Collections: That Dothraki Horde, Part I: Barbarian Couture by Bret Devereaux, Ph.D. at UNC History, Dec. 2020

The essay is prompted by a quote from the author of ASOIAF, George R. R. Martin, that Martin made in the year 2012. Here’s the quote.

The Dothraki were actually fashioned as an amalgam of a number of steppe and plains cultures… Mongols and Huns, certainly, but also Alans, Sioux, Cheyenne, and various other Amerindian tribes… seasoned with a dash of pure fantasy. (GRRM)

The thesis of the essay is that Martin is a big fat dumb liar. Okay, here were the historian’s own words.

Because – and this is going to surprise literally no one who reads this blog – that claim to historicity is fundamentally empty. The Dothraki are not an amalgam of Steppe and Plains cultures, they are an amalgam of stereotypes about Steppe and Plains cultures. There it is, that is the thesis for the next three to four weeks of the blog! All of the angry hurt-fan-commenters can just go shout angrily into the void of comment moderation right now.

For the rest of us grown-ups, we can start with how the Dothraki dress.

And here’s the line where I decided I would respond.

But we’re given some context to interpret that description in the passage that surrounds it, the event has “barbaric splendor” (AGoT, 82; this is a statement, I should note, delivered by the narrator, not a thought of Daenerys’),

This comment demonstrates that, while it may be true that Bret Devereaux has read ASOIAF entirely, he is not especially familiar with ASOIAF. Because everyone who has pored over the story and its mysteries for a length of time sufficient to earn the moniker of die-hard fan can tell you that, excepting for exactly one moment (and possibly not even that one) [Victarion Greyjoy’s transformation], every single word and sentence in ASOIAF must be understood to be occurring in perception of, or the mind of, the POV character of the chapter in which it appeared.

In other words, ASOIAF does not have a storytelling narrator the way Bret means it. Ever. The “barbaric splendor” line is, in fact, happening in the thoughts of Daenerys herself. Which means that, for the purposes of the story, we must treat it as though Daenerys, rather than George R. R. Martin, formulated it in her thoughts.

With the story written this way, the very structure of the story depends upon the reader either forgetting or not consciously noticing that every unspoken word is happening in the thoughts of the POV character (insofar as it’s fair to call un-articulated thoughts words), and is therefore suspect unreliable narration. Recognizing this characteristic of the story is often revelatory for the reader, because it demands a radical transformation to the way he engages with the story. Suddenly he is questioning every sentence he reads, challenging and testing each line and word for ways that its truth might be compromised by the POV character’s particular perspective, misunderstandings, biases and more. In order to find out what’s really going on, the reader has to seek a second opinion or perspective from a different character’s point-of-view and reconcile the conflicting perspectives to produce a third and more complete canon of the situation. This is how ASOIAF conveys its core ethic and trains its readers to become better at conflict resolution.

Coming to grips with this feature of ASOIAF is considered a rite of passage by its veteran readers, because we all went through the same transformation ourselves. Resisting the tendency to slide back into a passive acceptance of the narrative as though it were a factual, objective and omniscient account of events is an everlasting challenge in both the academia of ASOIAF interpretation and the game of predicting its futures and conclusions.

As one such ASOIAF academic and fan, I can’t let Bret Devereaux off the hook for this one. This misapprehension of ASOIAF is the biggest deal of all big deals in ASOIAF interpretation. Though not particularly uncommon or damning in a casual environment, it’s the most reliable marker of unfamiliarity with the story that exists in ASOIAF discourse. There’s no question in my mind that as I continue reading his essay, I’m going to find him criticizing his misinterpretation of events, where he has taken events at face value unquestioningly while the truth of them is actually quite different when unearthed, rendering his criticism off-point at best, and opposite to the truth at worst.

Another thing I notice is an irony happening between Bret’s not noticing that the story requires its reader to read it critically in order to fully understand it, and his purpose to inoculate people against misinformation by teaching them critical reading skills.

(Of course, more broadly, doing this as a practice exercise is a key part of building up that skill – what we may term ‘critical reading’ – more generally, rendering the alert reader more resistant to this sort of thing, both in its unintended form (as, I suspect, in this case) or in its more dangerous intended form. Put another way, developing critical reading skills is one important way to make one’s self a harder target for misinformation, including historical misinformation.)

It’s a contrast that shows me that the critical component in Bret’s critical reading is aimed more outward than inward, where his preoccupation with historical accuracy is, in the most significant of ways, causing him to miss the point of fiction — that fiction is ultimately an exploration of the self, the reader’s internal world. It has to be, because at the end of the day the people and worlds in fiction do not really exist, no matter how much or how little they were inspired by things in the real world. This remains true regardless of any of the author’s utterances. Had the author said outright that his story is an accurate depiction and account of the real history of steppes and plains people, it would not change the fact that it is not.

When a reader of fiction comes across a part of Dothraki culture that is at odds with the real world history of comparable people, it is more appropriate to ask ‘In what ways is this change from reality doing a better job of conveying the story’s philosophies,’ rather than ‘In what ways is it making the story worse?’ More often than not, a complementary consideration of the change will yield a better understanding of the story’s philosophies than a noncomplementary consideration. A noncomplementary consideration often leads to a complete abandonment of canon in favor of historical record, as Bret does throughout his essay. The underlying recognition is that fiction is meant to convey values, while history is meant to relate what happened. The authors of fiction and history are working from two different purposes, so comparisons of their works leave most audiences with a sense that the comparer is, in some meaningful way, missing the point of the fiction.

On balance, historians such as Bret feel the same way when fiction readers laud historically inaccurate depictions for their historical accuracy, or the historically inaccurate story as a whole. They feel as though the more important lessons reside in real history, and that fiction writers damage those lessons and our accessibility to them when they change things, especially for a purpose as nonessential as entertainment.

Well, try convincing the millions of ravenous ASOIAF and Game of Thrones fans that their beloved piece of entertainment is nonessential, and you might have a war on your hands. The sheer magnitudes of the audience and its passion for the story should indicate to even the stuffiest of historians that something other than historical accuracy is at the heart of peoples’ love of it. Of course, the thing they’ve fallen in love with is the story’s ethic. A critique of the story’s historical inaccuracy as “misinformation” threatens the survival of the ethic by threatening the survival of the story. Because when you call something misinformation you’re calling it harmful. And when you call information harmful you imply that it should be changed or censored.

Bret Devereaux would probably not say that the story should be censored, but his criticisms suggest loud and clear that the story would necessarily be better if it were changed to be more of a one-to-one copy of history. If the Dothraki wore linens and buckskin in place of leather, for example, Bret’s contention appears to be that that would be an all-around improvement to the story. But a good storyteller knows that it’s just as important to omit details from a story as it is to include them, because a story is supposed to show the audience only the information that matters for the purpose of conveying its ethic. Or as George R. R. Martin once put it, “everything serves the almighty theme.” You don’t want to waste the audience’s time with details that don’t matter toward that end, or else you’ll dilute the story’s efficiency to convey its ethic to people like us.

But changing the story to be more historically accurate doesn’t necessarily need to make the story longer. It might make the story shorter, or leave it the same length. So to give Bret’s implicit prescription for ASOIAF a full consideration, let’s set aside concerns about length by assuming Bret would only prescribe changes that do not make the story longer. Even in that case, changes in favor of historical accuracy can make the story worse, because the things Bret describes as harmful stereotypes are actually timeless archetypes.

His inability or neglect to distinguish between stereotypes and archetypes is unsurprising in some ways, because it’s constant with his overall attitude that quasi-racist impulses are the root explanation for a “stereotype’s” existence. And it is surprising in some ways because it is inconstant with his complaints that, when the author gives the Dothraki dull clothing, the author is treating historical steppes and plains people as though they lacked our sophistication and means rather than just our means. (And even our means they lacked less-so than most people think.)

It is not difficult to see how this assumption flatters the person who holds it, nor to identify the impulse to self-flatter as a likely explanation for the assumption’s existence. However, self-flattery explains Bret Devereaux’s treatment of fiction and ASOIAF more than it does yours, mine, or George R.R. Martin’s “treatment” of historical people, as I’ll highlight in a moment.

The “Fremen Mirage” trope that Bret Devearux references, and that is at the heart of his criticisms of ASOIAF, contains most densely the richest ironies between what Bret thinks ASOIAF is like and what ASOIAF is actually like. He summarizes The Fremen Mirage this way:

“The Fremen Mirage is a literary trope, unconnected to historical reality, which presents societies as a contrast between unsophisticated, but morally pure, hyper-masculine and militarily effective ‘strong men’ societies honed by ‘hard times’ (that is, the Fremen of the term) and a sophisticated but effeminate and decadent ‘weak men’ societies weakened by ‘good times,’ frequently with an implicit assertion of the superior worth of the former.”

That Bret could not even describe this trope without using the words strong and weak is noteworthy in relationship to the criticism in its conclusion. Between the two traits strong and weak, which one is superior? Which one would you rather be? And which one do you admire? The answer is the same across the board. So what are the derangements that blind Bret to the obvious fact that being strong is intrinsically and universally better than being weak? What does he think is wrong about asserting that strong men are higher quality than weak men?

Apparent to most people, the reason the author dressed the Dothraki people in leather rather than linen and buckskin is because the author knows that a modern American audience sees history through The Fremen Mirage, and he’s writing his story to convey its ethic specifically to a modern American audience. Had George R. R. Martin lived and written this story hundreds of years ago as a member of Mongolian society, he would have tailored the story to Mongolian attitudes instead, in order to convey its ethic to the Mongolians. Perhaps the Dothraki would have worn loincloths instead of leather vests.

As so often happens in critiques like Bret’s, the acknowledgements that should have been central to the essay were made and haphazardly discarded right at the beginning of it. The purpose of dressing the Dothraki in leather rather than linen and buckskin was obviously to better convey the archetype of ‘strong men during hard times’ to modern people. Likewise, the purpose of dressing the Qartheen in silks and satins was obviously to better convey the archetype of ‘weak men during good times’ to modern people. The specific details such as the materials, their acquisition, the crafting process and ubiquity are all interchangeable with any other details that can convey the same archetype to the same audience, because the essential point of them is that ‘the Dothraki are strong people during hard times.’

So whether you lived in 12th century Mongolia or 21st century America, the archetypes of ‘strong man during hard times’ and ‘weak man during good times’ survive. While it’s certainly true that the abstraction itself is in some ways “unconnected with history” because it never existed at any pin-pointable place and time, it’s also profoundly connected with history because it depicts what everybody in history at all places and times had in common. Every people at every time was able to look back into history and see harder men who lived in harder times, and look at the present and forward into the future and see weaker men who live in better times. This centuries-long progression from strength to weakness is depicted in every culture in ASOIAF, because it’s part of the story’s built-in commentaries on real world civilizations and its audience — commentaries that shed some light on Bret Devereaux’s inexplicable contempt for strength and over-sensitivity to stereotypes.

Bret is trying to preserve the lessons that reside in factual history. If we forget history, those lessons will be lost. That is, unless you can convey the same lessons in a more memorable form, like a colorful story. And that’s what fiction inspired by history is. When you want to preserve a lesson of history so that future generations can better access it, you have two options. You can record every painstaking detail that your little hands can record in one lifetime, or you can distill history down to its gist — its ethic — and you convey the gist. Future people will be much more likely to read and remember it when it’s fun and to the point. In the end, The Fremen Mirage is really The Devereaux Mirage — an insistence that, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, people across vast spans of time can and should be expected to remember, learn and be interested in every detail of history that anybody ever cared to record. What conception of the written tradition could be more flattering to a historian than that one? Compared to A Song of Ice and Fire, The Devereaux Mirage is the bigger fantasy.

Bret Devereaux’s awareness of this shortcoming in his ASOIAF criticisms is demonstrated by his need to move between criticizing the books and criticizing the show in order to keep his criticism alive.

And of course, that is exactly how the show has opted to read Dothraki clothing:

An honest broker would handle the books and the show separately, and with consideration to the differences in format, author and audience. Though he promised to do that very thing at the beginning of his essay, he has done little or none, and comments like this one show me that his true intention with including the show is to play musical chairs with the goalposts.

His awareness of the shortcomings of his criticisms is demonstrated again by his need to move between condemning the depiction of barbarians as morally pure, and condemning the depiction of modern people as morally impure. Which is it, Bret? Are modern authors bad people for implying that modern people are less moral than historical people? Or are they bad people for implying that historical people are less moral than modern people? They can’t be implying both, not as a generalization the way you mean it. That doesn’t make any sense. You need to either distinguish one author from another, one work from another, and stop generalizing, or keep the generalization and decide which of these completely opposite criticisms you want to make.

One of Bret’s criticisms of George R. R. Martin’s Dothraki people is that horsehair leggings are “deeply improbable.”

This is, in terms of material, very clearly not what the ‘vests’ the Dothraki in the show are wearing. Buckskin would also be used to make trousers, as opposed to the “horsehair leggings” of Martin’s wording, which also strike me as deeply improbable. Haircloth – fabric made from horsehair (or camel hair) – is durable, but typically stiff, unsupple and terribly itchy; not something you want in direct contact with your skin (especially not between your rear end and a saddle), unless you just really like skin irritation. It is also a difficult material to get in any kind of significant quantity – and you would need a significant quantity if you intended to make most of your trousers out of it.

To someone who thinks writing a good fiction story is mostly about copying and pasting historical facts into your own book, the deep improbability of horsehair leggings is a big problem. But to someone who thinks writing a good fiction story is mostly about expressing philosophical truths about human life, the deep improbability of horsehair leggings is little or no problem. To the former type of person, the hypothetical leggings are interfering with reality. To the latter type of person, the significance of the leggings does not seem to reside in their material relationship to reality at all. It must reside somewhere else. And it does. So let’s walk through the reasons why the story is better with horsehair leggings rather than linen or buckskin leggings.

The first question is, what is the effect of the leggings being made out of horsehair rather than linen or buckskin? It makes the Dothraki people more dependent on horses. Absent a lot of horses, the Dothraki won’t know how to make pants anymore, and will have to learn a new way or be pantless.

Now the question is, why does the author need the Dothraki to be extremely dependent on horses? Because it adds validity to the Dothraki peoples’ fear of the ocean and their belief that bodies of water that their horses can’t drink are poisoned. Though ocean water is not technically poisoned, drinking it is deadly nevertheless. Additionally, no other place in the world has wild horses as abundantly as the Dothraki sea. So this Dothraki superstition is true enough to protect the Dothraki people from being deprived of pants, among other things, whether by preventing their horses from drinking salt water or preventing the Dothraki from traveling outside the environment they’re adapted for, regardless that the superstition is false in a technical way.

Now the question is, why does the author need to add validity to the Dothraki peoples’ fear of the ocean? Because Daenerys is dismissive of their fear of the ocean.

Savage beasts he did not fear, nor any man who had ever drawn breath, but the sea was a different matter. To the Dothraki, water that a horse could not drink was something foul; the heaving grey-green plains of the ocean filled them with superstitious loathing. Drogo was a bolder man than the other horselords in half a hundred ways, she had found … but not in this. If only she could get him onto a ship … (AGOT Daenerys VI)

She considers it a silly superstition, and insists on compelling the Dothraki people to cross the ocean anyway. How do you think the Dothraki people are likely to fare when removed from the plains and the abundance of horses that their expertise is centered around?

Dothraki were wise where horses were concerned, but could be utter fools about much else. (ADWD Daenerys I)

With this topic recurring across five books, it didn’t take long to see that a complementary consideration of the story’s break from historical reality was more useful in developing my understanding of the story than an uncomplementary one. The horsehair leggings are one ingredient in the recipe of this cautionary tale about being too dismissive of long-standing cultural beliefs that you don’t fully understand yet. If someone were deliberately trying to reduce the clarity of that lesson, changing the horsehair leggings to linen or buckskin would be a good start. Because linen leggings are never made out of horse products, buckskin leggings may or may not be made out of horse products, and horsehair leggings are always made out of horse products. In other words, horsehair leggings remove any possible ambiguity in the interpretation about the Dothraki’s dependence on horses for leggings.

I am not a formal student of literature. I dropped out of college after one semester. But I actually think, in a strange sense, this is useful, because my own initial unfamiliarity with the topic has demonstrated to me just how basic the level of understanding and reading necessary to avoid the failures of Bret’s interpretation are.

In the comment by George R. R. Martin that Bret has set his crosshairs upon, Martin was obviously relying upon a shared understanding that fiction is, by definition, not real. At least, not in the same way we mean real when we say history is real. Martin was describing the Dothraki within the confines of that shared understanding, which is most prominent in his own mind, as the person who conjured every bit of the story, and to whom the cracks in its hypothetical reality look like canyons.

Unfortunately, Martin didn’t account in his “dash of pure fantasy” comment for the reality that there are people like Bret Devereaux out there who will ignore the obvious to complain for the length of an eighth of A Game of Thrones on the basis of an offhanded cooking metaphor. When Bret is missing the point of fiction this severely, I don’t have to wonder from where his frustration originates about the masses of “angry hurt-fan-commenters” who would rather reread an eighth of A Game of Thrones for the eighth time than read his critique of it so that, ostensibly, they may finally mature into the intellectually liberated “grown-ups” that Bret Devereaux and the disciples of materialism everywhere believe themselves to be. The origin of his frustration and criticisms alike is plain old fashioned envy. If you can’t write something great that millions of people want to read, the next best thing is criticizing something great that somebody else made.

I have no doubt that after I’ve read Bret’s essay in its entirety and if I absorb it unquestioningly, two things will happen to me: I will become smarter about the real world history of steppes and plains people, and I will become dumber about whichever philosophies are being seductively conveyed by, and that attracted me to, A Song of Ice and Fire.

If the lives of historical people contain valuable lessons for modern people to learn, surely a better way to honor those heroes and villains of history is to preserve the lessons for as many generations as possible, even though that means that one day so many details will have been lost that all that remains is an “inaccurate and demeaning stereotype.” If a culture as colorful and complex as the Dothraki are a depiction that’s demeaning to historical nomads, how much more complex or historically accurate must a fictional culture be to escape a category so damning? And who made Bret king to dictate how complex or culturally accurate somebody else’s fictional culture has to be? How many fictional cultures has Bret written? To somebody who sees and has taken it upon himself to remedy the ‘dangerous unconscious prejudices’ behind the most popular story of this moment in history, there must hardly exist a history-inspired story that does not look like an existential danger in his eyes. It’s either that, or the rest of us have been terribly misled by our senses that this story is great.

The conflict that is happening between Bret’s and my approach to the story is not new. It’s ancient, as old as recorded history itself. It has never resolved, and it never will, because it never can. Both Bret and I are championing values that absolutely cannot be abandoned when human well-being is the priority. Well-being for human beings is a rare and precious condition that emerges from these two approaches to story being at an irreconcilable equilibrium, each unable to completely dominate the other, such that neither mode of interpretation can carry its humans with it off the cliff of its pathology.

To give Bret’s approach its due credit, stories effect how we imagine history to have really been. The things people believe about the past effect how they perceive the present and envision the future. So the problems of and associated with forgetting the factual version of history in favor of a popular fiction are real, and they happen all the time. Some of the things about history that the best historians consider the hardest of hard facts are fictions that replaced the facts through popular belief. That is the pathology and fate of societies and people such as myself who readily suspend interest in the real world in order to explore value in a hypothetical one. To put it simply, people like me need people like Bret, and people like Bret need people like me, to keep one another’s ideas accountable to the human beings who employ them to solve a problem set that is never entirely literal or entirely philosophical.

So what should we weigh more important? Fact or myth? The answer always depends on what you mostly want to know. What happened? Or why? Each inquiry is indispensable for fully understanding the other, so enjoy both if you can. But don’t fall for the rhetoric that either nonfiction or fiction is a superior mode of study for a superior kind of person. They’re as different and as married as men and women, light and shadow, and ice and fire.

Created Apr 4, 2023
Updated Apr 6, 2023

Chapter Titles in AFFC & ADWD P2

(work in progress. I may fill out more chapters a little bit over time. I probably won’t get back to this any time soon but here it is FWIW and if you like it feel welcome to pick up where I left off. I’m still excited to write it but I have more important ASOIAF things to write that take priority for now.)

Chapter Titles in AFFC & ADWD P1

In part one, I came to the conclusion that the unconventional chapter titles in AFFC and ADWD are written from the point-of-view of the smallfolk, commoners, and othered categories of people in the story. The poor, usually.

Now I want to put that idea to the test, and try to make that category of people more specific.

At a glance, it seems to me that the defining characteristic that unites the category of characters whose voices are in the chapter titles is that the characters are non-POV characters whose perspectives the reader has overlooked, disregarded or discredited in one way or another.

Granted, each individual reader’s list of overlooked non-POV characters will be unique, because the story is big and people are different. So one part of my hypothesis is that, despite those things, the lists of overlooked non-POV characters will be mostly the same for most readers. We all probably ignored the old woman servant in Illyrio’s manse to approximately the same extent, for example. She’s barely mentioned.

The main part of my hypothesis is that the bolded description above will work as the defining characteristic that conceptually unifies the category of people whose voices are in the chapter titles. In precise terms, my hypotheiss is that the voices of the non-conventional chapter titles will always be those of non-POV characters whose perspectives the reader has overlooked, disregarded or discredited, and that those perspectives contain insights into the POV characters’ dilemmas that were missing from our interpretations of the POV characters and their dilemmas.

The following interrogation of the story requires the reader to be honest with himself about how much attention he has given to the non-POV characters in question before having become aware of the story’s indictment of the reader’s neglect of non-POV characters. In my personal experience with the story, I’ve watched my own opinions of many characters and events change dramatically in the few years since I became aware that the story is thematically displeased with my inattention to non-POV characters, so I will have to do some work to stay honest with myself in that regard too.

Now I’ll go through each unconventional chapter title individually to see if the idea holds up, and, if so, how. I’m hoping this process will help me further specify the core unifying characteristic across all the voices in the chapter titles.

There are 12 out of 46 (26%) unconventional chapter titles in AFFC, and there are 23 out of 73 (31.5%) unconventional chapter titles in ADWD. So in total, I’ll examine all 35 unconventional chapter titles. Oh boy. I better get started. In the words of Hot Pie, “Hot Pie!”

AFFC 1 The Prophet (Aeron I)

This one’s easy. The commoners of the Iron Islands believe in the Drowned God. Aeron is a priest of the Drowned God, so they venerate him for his wisdom, they rely on him to perform Drowned God rituals and rites, and they consider him a prophet. So if this chapter title is in the minds of the commoners, it’s no wonder why the commoners think of Aeron as The Prophet rather than Aeron. They think of him as The Prophet in the same way we might think of a religious leader as Pastor, Reverend or Preacher rather than his first name.

If this chapter title is standing in criticism of my tendency to overlook or underestimate the points-of-view of the commoners of the Iron Islands, then the implication seems to be that my interpretations of characters or events related to the commoners on the Iron Islands probably haven’t lent enough seriousness and weight to the reality that the commoners hold Aeron in high regard, that they’re serious about their Drowned God beliefs, or things of a similar sort.

It occurs to me that Theon experienced the same sort of reality check the first time he met Aeron. Theon felt that Aeron was insolent and lacking a certain amount of respect and fear for him, Theon being the son and heir of Lord Balon.

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)

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. ‘Psst, you should probably read some of those books, Princess.’

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)

The men of the Golden Company were outside their tents, dicing, drinking, and swatting away flies. Griff wondered how many of them knew who he was. Few enough. Twelve years is a long time. Even the men who’d ridden with him might not recognize the exile lord Jon Connington of the fiery red beard in the lined, clean-shaved face and dyed blue hair of the sellsword Griff. So far as most of them were concerned, Connington had drunk himself to death in Lys after being driven from the company in disgrace for stealing from the war chest. The shame of the lie still stuck in his craw, but Varys had insisted it was necessary. “We want no songs about the gallant exile,” the eunuch had tittered, in that mincing voice of his. “Those who die heroic deaths are long remembered, thieves and drunks and cravens soon forgotten.”

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)

I began re-reading The Watcher chapter, keeping an eye out for commoner type of characters and their opportunity or lackthereof to witness Areo “watching”, as the chapter title would suggest. Here are the first two paragraphs of The Watcher.

Let us look upon this head,” his prince commanded.

Areo Hotah ran his hand along the smooth shaft of his longaxe, his ash-and-iron wife, all the while watching. He watched the white knight, Ser Balon Swann, and the others who had come with him. He watched the Sand Snakes, each at a different table. He watched the lords and ladies, the serving men, the old blind seneschal, and the young maester Myles, with his silky beard and servile smile. Standing half in light and half in shadow, he saw all of them. Serve. Protect. Obey. That was his task. (ADWD The Watcher)

Did a character in the scene, or category of characters, come to the foreground?

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)

The last that the common people of Westeros (and probably most of the noble people too for that matter) have heard of Jon Connington, he lost the Battle of the Bells about two decades ago and disappeared across the Narrow Sea into exile. In ADWD when Jon lands on the shores of Westeros and the word begins to spread, how are the commoners of Westeros going to think about it?

As I saw in the chapter ADWD 24 The Lost Lord, Jon thinks most of the people who knew him in the Golden Company will have presumed him dead after twelve years gone. Surely the commoners of Westeros will have presumed Jon dead, too, after seventeen or more years gone. It’s no wonder, then, that Jon’s return is perceived by Westerosi commoners as a rebirth. They thought he was dead, but now he’s alive.

And they think of him as The Griffin because, in the minds of the commoners, the noble people belong to a category comparable to that occupied in our own minds by the rich and powerful leaders in our own world. If I meet a celebrity like George R.R. Martin or a political leader, I’m liable to ask for an autograph, a picture and to tell the story of the meeting to my friends for days or years to come. I can imagine that a member of House Connington is looked upon in a similarly mythologized way by the commoners of Westeros, particularly in the stormlands where House Connington’s castle Griffin’s Roost is seated.

ADWD 62 The Sacrifice (Asha III)

ADWD 64 The Ugly Little Girl (Arya II)

ADWD 67 The Kingbreaker (Barristan III)

The Kingbreaker is the chapter that I think most strongly gives away the identity of the voice of the chapter titles. Because the first thing I think when I read this chapter title is:

‘Who the hell could this be? Maybe it’s Jaime Lannister.’

It’s a reasonable thing to think, considering that Jaime Lannister is known as The Kingslayer, and Kingslayer is the closest thing to Kingbreaker that I’ve seen in the story. After I realize the POV character is Barristan, the next thing I think is:

‘How the heck is Barristan a Kingbreaker? Who is the king? Did Barristan kill Tommen?’

After I read the chapter, I’m able to see that the titular king is Hizdhar. But up until now, I haven’t thought of Hizdhar as a king at all. I’ve thought of him as the pampered Meereen noble who Dany unfortunately had to marry. So the title forces me to recognize that, yes, as a matter of fact, Hizdhar is a King. Since Dany is the Queen, and Dany married Hizdhar, then Hizdhar must be the King.

Although “King” is far from the role Hizdhar has occupied in my mind so far, this chapter title forces upon me a recognition that King is precisely the role that Hizdhar occupies in the minds of most of the Meereenese people.

Characters such as Reznak mo Reznak, the Green Grace and Hizdahr himself petitioned for a long time that Daenerys should marry a Meereenese noble.

A very limber man was Hizdahr zo Loraq.

He might be handsome, but for that silly hair. Reznak and the Green Grace had been urging Dany to take a Meereenese noble for her husband, to reconcile the city to her rule. Hizdahr zo Loraq might be worth a careful look. (ADWD Daenerys )

The Meereenese people, former slaves and masters alike all want a leader who shares a heritage and culture with them, so that Meereenese perspectives, attitudes, customs and culture won’t be so harshly ignored in the new system of values and governance that Dany is forcing upon them. For example, the fighting pits are one part of Meereenese culture that Dany wants to abolish.

“Old arguments,” Hizdahr admitted, “new words. Lovely words, and courteous, more apt to move a queen.”

“It is your cause I find wanting, not your courtesies. I have heard your arguments so often I could plead your case myself. Shall I?” Dany leaned forward. “The fighting pits have been a part of Meereen since the city was founded. The combats are profoundly religious in nature, a blood sacrifice to the gods of Ghis. The mortal art of Ghis is not mere butchery but a display of courage, skill, and strength most pleasing to your gods.

“Victorious fighters are pampered and acclaimed, and the slain are honored and remembered. By reopening the pits I would show the people of Meereen that I respect their ways and customs.” (ADWD Daenerys I)

Dany sardonically recites Hizdhar’s own arguments at him, demonstrating the very disrespect and disregard for Meereen’s culture that its people fear.

Though he dealt harshly with rebels and traitors, he was open-handed with former foes who bent the knee. (TWOIAF)

“Yield now,” Aegon began, “and you may remain as Lord of the Iron Islands. Yield now, and your sons will live to rule after you. I have eight thousand men outside your walls.” (TWOIAF)

Having taken a dozen castles and secured the mouth of the Blackwater Rush on both sides of the river, he commanded the lords he had defeated to attend him. There they laid their swords at his feet, and Aegon raised them up and confirmed them in their lands and titles. (TWOIAF)

ADWD 68 The Dragontamer (Quentyn IV)

ADWD 70 The Queen’s Hand (Barristan IV)

Created Aug 9, 2022 – WIP, AFFC 1 40 ADWD 24 38 61 67

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

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.

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

Golden Collars P2 & Bias Disconfirmation

This is a contination of an analysis of the chapter AGOT Daenerys I.

Link to Part 1

Insane

In Part 1, Golden Collars & Confirmation Bias, I found an interpretation of AGOT Daenerys I that runs almost perfectly contrary to my initial interpretation of the chapter. (Read Part 1 before reading Part 2.) Dany being too afraid to see things clearly is quite opposite to Dany being discerning. Let’s quickly review what happened in Part 1.

First, the story shaped my perceptions to make me skeptical. Second, my skepticism prevented me from noticing Dany’s logical mishap. Third, the story drew my attention to my failure to notice that, by allowing my skeptical mind to fill in Dany’s meaning for her.

His collar, she noted, was ordinary bronze.

It shows me that the story isn’t merely telling me what’s happening, it’s controlling the way I perceive it. Now the story is pointing at me, and challenging me to challenge my initial interpretation of Daenerys in the same way. If Dany’s judgement is clouded, and I didn’t notice it, then is my judgement of Dany clouded too?

This is the point of maximum abstraction in the analysis, so it’s the point at which formulating useful questions is the most difficult. I want to keep going with it, using what I’ve found to interrogate the story, but where do I go from here?

As a general rule, the nature of the character’s unreliability will direct me. Dany’s judgement is clouded by her fear about her marriage to Drogo, so the marriage and Dany’s attitude toward it are the topics I should center my next questions around.

Supposing that Dany’s thoughts and feelings about the wedding are backwards, as the metatext seems to hint, and supposing that there are more things hidden in the chapter to support that idea, what might those things be? I want to take up the story’s challenge and make a concerted effort to disconfirm my initial thoughts and feelings about Dany.

As demonstrated by Dany’s logical mishap with the golden collar, it’s always harder to see things that disconfirm my beliefs than it is to see things that confirm it, so I can expect that the investigation going foward will feel inherently distasteful and not worthwhile.

Now I’ll try to come up with a line of inquiry that is deliberately backwards to my Dany bias.

Is Dany being ungrateful for the marriage?

Since I’ve already read the chapter once, I have a general idea of the things in it, so I can formulate some predictions about what I might find.

Something to be grateful for is a gift. I remember that there were some gifts in the chapter. What were they? And how many of them can I remember? I remember a collar and a dress. I can remember 2 gifts. So maybe some things I’ll find when I reread the chapter with a keen eye for gifts and for Dany’s ingratitude for the marriage are:

There are more gifts than I realized before.
The gifts are more valuable than I realized before.

Beginner

Now I have reread the chapter, found all of Dany’s gifts, and the results of the investigation can be compared to those two predictions above.

Deep plum silk gown
Gold as well
Jewels of all sorts
Wisps that Magister Illyrio had sent up
Gilded sandals
Tiara in her hair
Golden bracelets crusted with amethysts
Collar, a heavy golden torc emblazoned with ancient Valyrian glyphs

The predictions were right. There are many more gifts than I remembered, and they’re more valuable than I remembered too. How in the world did I forget a tiara?

The results of this first inquiry are evidence of the predictive power of this backwards interpretation of Dany. The degree to which the interpretation is useful for predicting things in the story that I didn’t notice before is the degree to which it becomes reasonable to say it is correct. So far it’s off to a great start, but I’m not convinced yet that there’s anything particularly correct about it. I need more proof of its predictive power.

Intermediate

Is Dany being ungrateful for the marriage?

Now I return to my backwards interpretation to try to formulate another useful line of inquiry that might disconfirm my Dany bias.

Something to be grateful for is help. I remember that Dany received some help in this chapter from slaves. What kind of help can I remember Dany receiving? And how many different slaves helped her that I can remember? I remember the chattering girl who put the golden collar on her neck, and another woman was with her too. I remember 2 slaves who helped Dany. So maybe some things I’ll find when I reread the chapter with a keen eye for slaves helping Dany and for Dany’s ingratitude for the marriage are:

There are more slaves than I realized before.
More of the slaves help Dany than I realized before.

Now I have scoured the chapter again, found all the slaves, and here are the results.

19 slaves in total
2 servants: old woman and chattering girl
2 slaves carrying lanterns ahead of the palanquin
12 slaves carrying the palanquin
1 Unsullied with bronze Dothraki skin
1 slave offered a hand to help Daenerys out
1 eunuch singer

It looks like both predictions were right again. There are far more slaves than I realized, and all but one of them are doing something for Dany.

They filled her bath with hot water from the kitchen, scented it with fragrant oils, undressed her, helped her into the tub, washed and combed her hair, scrubbed her back and feet, helped her out of the tub, toweled her dry, brushed her hair, perfumed her, dressed her in silk and jewelry, carried lanterns, carried her palanquin, helped her out of the palanquin, and announced her arrival.

As an added bonus, I even found a moment when the chattering slave girl directly tells Dany that she’s lucky.

The girl scrubbed her back and her feet and told her how lucky she was.

In Part 1 I supposed that the girl was entirely lying to Dany at the behest of Illyrio, in order to warm Dany up to the marriage. So maybe what this reveals is that the girl was only partially lying, and that this line is an authentic part of her comments that also happens to serve her and Illyrio’s purposes.

The results of this second inquiry are more evidence of the predictive power of this backwards interpretation of Dany. So far, it’s proving to be less backwards than it first seemed.

Expert

Is Dany being ungrateful for the marriage?

I return to my backwards interpretation once again to try to formulate another useful line of inquiry that might disconfirm my Dany bias. If Dany is really being ungrateful for the marriage, maybe something I might expect to be able to find in the chapter is that Viserys, who arranged the marriage and compels Dany to cooperate with it, is kind of right about some things.

I scan the chapter one last time, this time with greater familiarity and a keener sympathy for Viserys’s point of view.

“Be grateful it is only Drogo. In time you may even learn to like him. Now dry your eyes. Illyrio is bringing him over, and he will not see you crying.”

This backwards interpretation of Dany is proving to be quite good at predicting things in the story that I didn’t notice were there.

Hey! If you made it to the end, thanks for reading and for any thoughts you want to share. I was trying to give a small but comprehensive demonstration in one chapter of what seems to me to be the most elusive way that the story can and is meant to be engaged with. Maybe somebody will find these essays useful. Thanks again and valar morghulis!

Acclaim

“This is wonderful. I get so tired of hearing how the Dothraki are just racist tropes or stereotypes or that these storylines are just throwaway chapters to shuttle Danny around as if she (and they) were merely passive character carve-outs when they were one of my favorite part of the books.”

“I think you’ve really struck on something here regarding Danys gifts and our biased interpretations towards them / her position in this chapter.”

Golden Collars & Confirmation Bias

This is a short analysis of AGOT 3 Daenerys I. I divided it by difficulty level because I’m a bloody weirdo or something. I’m not answering any questions. Enjoy!

Beginner

The girl scrubbed her back and her feet and told her how lucky she was. “Drogo is so rich that even his slaves wear golden collars. A hundred thousand men ride in his khalasar, and his palace in Vaes Dothrak has two hundred rooms and doors of solid silver.” There was more like that, so much more, what a handsome man the khal was (…)

This is the first time the golden collars come up. The servant girl is trying to reassure Dany that her marriage to Drogo will be splendid, by giving Dany an example of Drogo’s absurd wealth. But I want to draw attention to the ways the rest of the chapter guides (and misguides) the reader.

At this point in the chapter, Dany has made the observation that Illyrio’s servants are not really servants, but slaves.

There was no slavery in the free city of Pentos. Nonetheless, they were slaves.

The reason they’re called servants is because Pentos has a rule that no slavery is allowed in the city. So referring to them as servants allows the likes of Illyrio and Drogo to evade the rule, and it shows me that the term “free city of Pentos” is at least a little dishonest. For the reader, this creates a sense of mistrust, and it puts me in a skeptical frame of mind like Daenerys.

Intermediate

Early in the chapter, Dany’s thoughts revealed her mistrust of Magister Illyrio and his intentions.

“What does he want from us?” (…) Dany was thirteen, old enough to know that such gifts seldom come without their price, here in the free city of Pentos.

Since the servant girl belongs to Illyrio, we might be skeptical that the girl’s praise of Khal Drogo is entirely genuine or truthful. Upon consideration, it seems likely that the girl has been instructed by Illyrio to give praise to Drogo in Dany’s hearing, in order to help Illyrio and Viserys gain Dany’s cooperation with the marriage. For the reader, it creates more mistrust and further sharpens my skeptical eye.

Further along in the chapter, Dany receives her own collar, and it’s gold just like the servant girl said it would be.

Last of all came the collar, a heavy golden torc emblazoned with ancient Valyrian glyphs. (…) *A princess*, she thought, but she remembered what the girl had said, how Khal Drogo was so rich even his slaves wore golden collars. She felt a sudden chill, and gooseflesh pimpled her bare arms.

That should lend credibility to the servant girl’s point, because her point was that Dany’s marriage to Drogo will be great. So Dany’s golden collar evidences the truth of that. But since Dany and the reader occupy a skeptical frame of mind, the effect is quite the opposite. Dany interprets her golden collar as an indication that she’ll be treated in her marriage like a slave, and that therefore the marriage will be as terrible as she fears.

Expert

The palanquin slowed and stopped. The curtains were thrown back, and a slave offered a hand to help Daenerys out. His collar, she noted, was ordinary bronze.

Pages later, Dany steps out of the palanquin and notices that the collar on Khal Drogo’s slave is bronze rather than gold. Using Dany’s own reasoning, this should *disconfirm* Dany’s fear that her marriage to Drogo will be terrible, because her golden collar doesn’t match the collars of the slaves after all.

There are two ways to interpret this line.

His collar, she noted, was ordinary bronze.

What do you think is of note to Dany? Is she thinking that her fears are disconfirmed because the collars don’t match, or is she thinking that her fears are confirmed because the girl was lying to her?

The interpretation the reader will tend to come away with is that this further confirms Dany’s fear. But notice that Dany’s thoughts don’t explicitly reveal the answer one way or another. The only role Dany played in the interpretation was to take note of the bronze collar. The result is that the story reveals to the reader that he placed the confirmed fear interpretation into the story himself, and that his perception of this line was expertly controlled by the author and shaped by the skepticism in Dany’s interpretations all along. It’s phenomenal. This is the kind of stuff ASOIAF does that blows my hair back.

When I look back on the whole sequence, I can see that Dany’s skeptical frame of mind has made it impossible for her to see an interpretation of the collars that disconfirms her fear. It shows me that Dany’s fear about the marriage, though understandable, is preventing her from thinking clearly.

Then I notice that Dany’s fear misled me too, because I was on board with her interpretations every step of the way. In its third chapter, ASOIAF shows me that it’s a kind of story that is happy to leave me behind whenever I don’t stop to think.

Insane

The part in bold is a new interpretation of the story that was unlocked by the investigation, and that I have never seen before. Metatextually, it raises one big question: What is the author’s purpose in hiding this part of the interpretation? Why wouldn’t he want me to notice on my first read-through that Dany’s fear about the wedding is making her irrational?

Feeling confident, I went to the re-read audience to ask them to describe Dany in this chapter using only one word. Their answers:

Brave
Abused
Dutiful
Observant/Questioning
Discerning
Discerning seconded

The chapter is written in such a way that the reader is left with a strong impression that Daenerys is discerning. This has been my interpretation as well for the few years that I’ve been engrossed in this story. But here I’ve discovered a new interpretation that runs completely contrary to the first one. Dany being too afraid to see things clearly is quite opposite to Dany being discerning.

It’s a small discovery without much consequence, but it stands so firmly in text, subtext and metatext that the juxtaposition between the two conflicting interpretations brings *all* of the initial one into question.

This kind of contrast is one I’ve seen referred to as a metatextual signpost, so I’ll borrow the term too. It’s as if the story has sprouted giant cartoon hands and is pointing to itself, alarms blaring, in a desperate attempt to get my attention, to get me to pry this inquiry wide open, because it may be a point of entry into something bigger.

Part 2: Golden Collars & Bias Disconfirmation