by John C. Adams
in Issue 104, September 2020
This is the most recent installment in the long-running and hugely popular ‘A Game of Thrones’ series, also known as ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’.
For anyone who isn’t familiar with the books and their accompanying TV adaptation, the idea of jumping in partway through a complex narrative may feel a little daunting, given that the previous books run to many thousands of pages and millions of words. However, each book provides ways into the overarching storyline, and the family trees set out at the back and maps at the front of the book are both helpful ways to maintain an understanding of who’s who and where the action is taking place. This series also sits very comfortably within the swords and sorcery genre, meaning that a new reader who loves fantasy will find plenty that’s familiar and satisfying within its fictional universe, and suspension of disbelief feels very natural once you get a few pages in.
The action is located in three main places. The first is the capital of Westeros, King’s Landing. This is also the capital of the Seven Kingdoms as a whole, which are ruled over by a single monarch who sits on the iron throne. To the north of Westeros there is a giant wall of ice designed to keep out the Wildlings (amid additional reports of the waking dead in the frozen far north), and this is where the second strand of action takes place, as the men of the Night’s Watch guard the wall and defend it from attack from the north. Thirdly, another plot strand takes place in the hotter, drier climes of The Lands of the Summer Sea, including Meereen, which is dominated by a giant pyramid where the rulers of the city live. It is in Meereen that the most powerful potential challenger to the current occupant of the iron throne holds court.
Each location features several point-of-view characters, including rulers and those who seek to challenge their authority. Everyone is involved in the great game, jostling for power and plotting and scheming endlessly to secure their own advantage at the expense of foes and challengers.
The worlds portrayed vary immensely, but in the western locations, there is a distinctly European medieval feel. A system of oaths of love and fealty provides some stability in terms of loyalty via a command structure that can hold firm against the corrosive effects of personal ambition. However, trust is in perpetually short supply and chaos is always threatening to erupt. Individual houses have bannermen to levy in times of war. Each house has a long history of loyalty, via pledges often made centuries ago that have proven durable and effective, providing a hierarchy of power at the local level, too. Some houses are far more powerful than others, mostly due to the size of their landholdings, the wealth they have amassed in other forms such as gold and other plunder, and, of course, their proximity to the king on the iron throne via blood or marriage. A similar pecking order operates among the various pretenders to the iron throne, which is coveted by a growing number of lords in open rebellion against the crown.
In a fictional universe with so many lands, cities, and houses, and with so much layering of backstory in Westeros in particular, there is some danger of the personal becoming lost amid the broad march of history. However, Martin is very deft at keeping the action grounded at a personal level. Firstly, many of the point-of-view characters are from one central family, the Starks. Jon Snow, Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch up at the Wall, is the bastard son of the late head of House Stark. His half-sister Arya is one of the main characters across the Narrow Sea in Braavos, completing her training as an assassin for the Many-Faced God in the hope of returning to Westeros to murder everyone who betrayed their family. Back at the Starks’ ancestral seat of Winterfell, currently occupied by House Bolton, a servant girl Jeyne is masquerading as Arya and is accompanied by Theon, who grew up at Winterfell alongside the Stark children and therefore feels like an extra sibling.
Another family unit exists in the form of Daenerys Targaryen and her nephew Aegon. The former has captured Meereen and freed its slaves, and she is pausing there to stabilise the situation and raise an army before sailing to Westeros to stake her claim to the iron throne. Aegon, who was long believed to be dead, has also raised an army and he lands in Westeros to begin his own campaign for the throne. It was previously held by their common ancestor King Aerys, who was commonly known as the mad king. Other royal houses, such as the Martells of Dorne, are related to the Targaryens via historical marriages. Over the centuries the web of blood and marriage ties has become very complex indeed. Others who lack blood ties to the Targaryens, but who nevertheless recognise Daenerys’s leadership qualities, are also hastening to her side to offer their services in battle or to build alliances as suitors for her hand.
In such a grueling environment it can feel difficult to envisage happy endings for the main characters. Life is nasty, brutish, and often short, with plenty of bloodshed through open combat or by stealth. Many who seek to play the great game, like Quentyn Martell, Prince of Dorne, prove unworthy of the throne despite their impeccable royal lineage. Others, like Jon Snow, a mere bastard son sent to the Wall because he could not inherit his father’s castle, prove themselves time and again to be worthy of trust and leadership. At this point in the series, it is still possible to imagine sympathetic characters winning through eventually, but the difficulties each face means that there is never a lack of narrative tension in this volume even over hundreds of pages.
The resilience of the main characters is the most enjoyable part of the story, together with the satisfyingly detailed backstories showing how characters nurse long histories of enmity or loyalty to each other. I love this series, and there is so much here that I find something new in it every time I re-read any of the books.
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Enjoy!
©September 2020, John C. Adams
John C. Adams is a Contributing Editor with Albedo One Magazine and a Reviewer with the British Fantasy Society and Schlock! Magazine. Their fantasy novel Dagmar of the Northlands is out on Kindle and Smashwords. They have published short fiction in many small press anthologies and magazines, including The Horror Zine and previously in Swords & Sorcery.