A Game of Thrones

A Game of Thrones, the first volume of the A Song of Ice and Fire series presents a vast and intricate world, with a rich array of fascinating locales and characters, and focuses on how their troubled relationships help deconstruct the concept of honor.

The plot follows Eddard Stark, the lord of the city of Winterfell in the north of Westeros, who receives news of the incoming visit of his close friend and king, Robert Baratheon. Robert is traveling to Winterfell to propose that Eddard assume the position of his adviser as Hand of the King, since the last one, John Aryn, died. Eddard’s wife, Catelyn, however, quickly receives a letter from her sister revealing that Aryn was actually murdered by the Lannister family and warning them to remain far away from politics and the position of Hand of the King.

Although the protagonist of A Game of Thrones is Eddard Stark, each chapter follows a different point of view from the last one, offering the reader various conflicting perspectives. The reader will follow not only Eddard but also his bastard son, Jon Snow, his daughters, Sansa and Arya, the dwarf Tyrion Lannister, the queen-without-kingdom Daenerys Targaryen, besides Eddard’s son, Bran, and wife, Catelyn.

This structure allows for the conjunction of plots that are a lot different from each other in tone. Jon Snow, for example, decides to become a member of the Night’s Watch – an organization that protects the huge ice wall that guards the north of Westerors from the supernatural creatures that supposedly inhabit the forests beyond. His narrative is isolated from the others and is the only one charged with an atmosphere of horror and dread.

Eddard, on the other hand, takes his daughters to the capital in the South, called King’s Landing, and faces a more grounded game of political machinations and suffocating intrigue: “Distrusting me was the wisest thing you’ve done since you climbed down off your horse,“ one of the characters tells Eddard, after showing him how many spies had infiltrated the lord’s garden. Meanwhile, his daughter Sansa offers a utopic and romantic vision of the world, believing that all knights are brave and gallant and that her prince, Joffrey Baratheon, is a charming and lovely boy that will love her and make her happy for the rest of her life. And his other child, Arya, always independent and rebellious, gives the reader a dose of pure adventure as she explores King’s Landing and learns sword-play with her “dance instructor”, Syrio Forel.

Tyrion Lannister, in turn, shows the other side of the coin. The dwarf is a Lannister – the family everyone distrusts and calls treacherous and dangerous – and is fully aware that his relatives are not good-hearted people. However, thanks to his stature, Tyrion understands that he needs to wear an armor of irony and fight with his intelligence to survive the world and his family. His chapters are filled with sarcasm and present a more critical approach to Westeros’ society.

The narrative is able to transit smoothly between all these different perspectives while presenting characters that already appear complex in their first chapters: they are full of internal battles and hidden desires, which are revealed to the reader by the constant juxtaposition of their rationalizations and actions. The only major character that departs from this pattern is Daenerys Targaryen, the daughter of the Mad King deposed by Robert Baratheon. Hers is the only plot that doesn’t take place in Westeros, but across the sea, in the desert, where her brother is trying to find an army to reclaim their throne. More importantly, she is also the only one that Martin doesn’t meticulously detail right from the start, revealing her inner character little by little instead: everything that happens to her, good or bad, hardens her personality and influences her actions. She’s a completely different character at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the novel. This is a curious approach by Martin, especially because her character arc is not an immediate one: her journey to Westeros will be long and last several books, making it difficult to judge her disparate characterization until this series of novels is finished.

Although this diverse narrative structure is one of the book’s highlights, it also represents one of its weaknesses, as some points of view, especially Catelyn’s, are a bit dispensable. Bran’s chapters, for example, don’t add much to the story after some important bits at the beginning, but Catelyn’s, are even worse, breaking the pace of the narrative every single time they appear. Her chapters don’t contain any important event which could not be told by one of the other characters while her input is almost always irrelevant to the unfolding of the story. Every point of view should have a reason to be there and it is hard to find one that justifies Catelyn’s.

One of the novel’s greatest characters, however, is Westeros itself. Minutely created, the continent, divided into seven kingdoms, is a filthy, violent, and merciless place. Its inhabitants rarely hesitate to kill and betray each other. Torture and rape are elements present in every village, castle, and temple. It’ in this setting that Martin decides to discuss one of the most popular elements of tales involving knights: the notion of honor.

As a cultural force, it appears in the narrative of A Game of Thrones in the most varied forms. More visibly, it appears related to the notion of family. Everyone, from Starks to Lannisters, fights to preserve the honor of their houses, and many subject themselves to anything to protect it, sacrificing even other kinds of honor, such as loyalty to the king, the kingdom and its people.

Eddard Stark represents the moral side of honor. The character, upstanding, merciful and honest to the extreme, is the engine that Martin uses to criticize how such values cannot survive in a corrupt and merciless society, even misleading the reader to judge precisely the concept of honor instead of the morals of that society: Eddard appears to be stupid to do certain things instead of Westeros for punishing them.

The Lannisters are the ones who bring the other side of the concept. Tyrion’s brother, Jaime, is criticized often for betraying his last king. He’s supposed to have no honor because he decided to disobey his orders and act on his own accord. However, honor, in this case, should not have a positive connotation: since the king was a tyrant who oppressed, tortured, and murdered his people, following the moral code would mean to reinforce that oppression. The people who criticize Jaime cannot separate morality from honor, probably because people like Eddard embody the two in a positive way so well. Therefore, the Lannisters add ambivalence to the concept: Eddard is good because he is honorable, but Jaime was good precisely because he was a traitor.

That is why it could not be more ironically appropriate that the Night’s Watch, the only institution left to protect the continent from the supernatural dangers of the North, is at the same time sustained by honor and composed of rapists, bastards, murderers, and thieves: morality and honor are being combined and set apart throughout the whole narrative.

In the end, working with the problems surrounding the notion of honor, A Game of Thrones presents a fascinating universe and a gripping set of characters, with a narrative that, while marred by some weak chapters, still forms one of the most complex novels of its genre.

December 04, 2018.

Review originally published in Portuguese on March 04, 2015.