The Novels and TV-Series

The books and TV-series that serve as the focus of this paper are the HBO TV-series Game of Thrones and the books in the series written by George R. R. Martin entitled A Song of Ice and Fire (ASOIF). The series comprises five volumes to date, all first published by Bantam Books. Since I would have to juggle at least three different titles, I have decided to refer to both the books and television series as GOT, since the point of my paper is not to distinguish between these, but to hear the students’ opinion of them. I will therefore use the abbreviation GOT when speaking generally, but will indicate specific book titles or episode numbers when necessary. The respondents in my study mainly focus on the first two seasons of the television series, from 2011 and 2012, which are based on the first two books, A Game of Thrones (1996) and A Clash of Kings (1999), but at the time of the interview, season three had already started and had run for three episodes, thus some aspects of book three, A Storm of Swords (2000), are also discussed. The series is produced by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, and the first episode was aired in 2011. So far, only the first two books and half of the third have been adapted for TV, consisting of 10 episodes, each lasting 50 minutes.

For the benefit of the reader unfamiliar with GOT, a brief introduction to the plot, setting and characters, is necessary. The full plot summaries from the first three novels are accessible to the reader in appendix 2. These are the novels that have been adapted at this stage and that are relevant for my thesis. Moreover, I have decided to only include the plot for the novels, not the TV-series, since the plot of the TV-series sometimes deviates from that of the novels. In this respect, it is worth mentioning that the plot is very complex, in that the perspective switches constantly between several of the major characters in a 3^rd person limited point of view. Note that central details are sometimes excluded in the plot summaries, but will be mentioned when necessary in the discussion. Furthermore, I have included an overview of the major characters and their respective houses in appendix 1. This is a scanned copy from a booklet which was included in the DVD box by HBO containing seasons one and two.

1.4.1. The Setting and Background

In the book series A Song of Ice and Fire, Martin has created a quite realistic fantasy world that in many respects mirrors the feudal structures of Europe in medieval times, also in terms of its violence and barbarism. This is not coincidental: In interviews, Martin has named the War of the Roses and historical fiction in general as sources of inspiration, in addition to J. R.

R. Tolkien’s trilogy, Lord of the Rings:

My inspiration has grown, not only from Tolkien, but also from history and historical fiction. I tried to blend some of the tropes and traditions of fantasy with those of historical fiction, while doing this. If you read about the real Middle Ages, as I do all the time, it was a brutal time for everybody – for men, women and children. Children weren’t sentimentalized, the way they are today. They were frequently made to work, from a very early age. They were taken into battle. Boys became pages and squires (…) You’re not at home, being protected. It was a different age with a different mind-set. I did want to reflect that. (Martin, qtd. in Radish 8)

The main events of the plot are set in the geographical area Westeros, which is best described as seven smaller kingdoms, each represented by a house and a warden, under the rule of one King in the capital King’s Landing. Shaped like a peninsula, this continent is surrounded by water in every direction but north, where a giant garrisoned wall separates Westeros from a land of ice, and the free people called Wildlings. The group of men guarding this wall is called the Night’s Watch. Rumour and history tell of horrible and unnatural creatures behind the Wall; The Others or wights. These are dead people or animals that have been hidden under the ice for centuries, but are reappearing as the temperature falls. Other extraordinary and fantastical creatures in the novels are dragons, which were believed to be extinct, direwolves, which are particularly large wolves, and giants, and mammoths. A further unusual characteristic of this universe is the length of seasons, which may stretch unchanged for years resulting in summers or winters that may last for a decade.

1.4.2. Central Characters

One of the most important families in Westeros is the Baratheons. King Robert gained the throne that rules all of Westeros after a conflict which ended when the previous king, Mad King Aerys Targaryen was assassinated in a coup. Robert is self-indulgent, notoriously

unfaithful and a heavy drinker. He has two younger brothers: Stannis, who is rigidly just and correct to a fault, and Renley, who is charismatic, flamboyant and popular.

The Lannisters are another influential family, not only because of their immense wealth, but also since Robert is married to Cersei Lannister, mother of the three heirs to the throne;

Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella. Cersei’s father, Tywin Lannister, controls his family, which additionally consists of Cersei’s twin Jamie, who is in the King’s Guard, and their younger brother, the satirical and highly intelligent Tyrion. He is the disgrace of the family, and disliked on account of being a dwarf and because his birth caused his mother’s death. Jamie and Cersei are lovers, and although Cersei is disgusted by Tyrion, Jamie loves him.

The Stark family is the moral compass of the first novel, and consists of King Robert’s close friend, Eddard (Ned) Stark, Ned’s wife Catelyn, and their five children, Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran and Rickon, as well as Ned’s bastard son Jon Snow. All six Stark children have a direwolf, to whom they have a special bond and connection. Eddard Stark’s ward, Theon Greyjoy of the Iron Islands is also worth mentioning. At the age of 10 he was sent by King Robert to live with the Starks as an answer to his father’s rebellion against the throne. He has been raised as Eddard’s son. At King’s Landing Varys and Littlefinger/Peter Baelish are important and influential characters, as both are members of the Westerosi government, The Small Council.

The plot sometimes takes us outside Westeros, to the other parts of Martin’s world. Central characters here are the siblings Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen who would have been killed alongside their father, the Mad King, but who escaped and have been exiled ever since.

Viserys is planning to win the throne back, claiming it is his birth right. There are of course other important characters in the series besides those mentioned here, and when necessary they will be dealt with in the relevant context in which they appear.

1.4.3. Tolkien vs. Martin

Given Martin’s fascination with J. R. R. Tolkien, it is relevant to include a few reflections on the similarities and differences between the two. There is magic in both, and both are set in worlds with medieval characteristics, but Tolkien’s world is as a whole more polarised, perhaps because it mirrors his time, right after WWII: Things are to a large extent either black or white, people are generally either good or bad, whereas Martin portrays a world in which close to nothing is black or white. As in real life, the characters we meet have more than one

side to them. The character with whom we sympathise in one episode or chapter may have been the villain earlier. Typical of today’s society in which the Internet has made it possible for everyone’s voice to be heard, the series and the novels in particular, constantly switch perspectives thereby forcing the reader or viewer to reconsider her previous attitudes and assumptions. The antagonist is never just a scoundrel; each character has many facets and thus comes across as more human than the characters of Tolkien’s universe.

This again shows the potential of the books and series in teaching us about life, because life is not the easy “either or” of Tolkien’s universe, it is much more complex than that. This series mirrors the Zeitgeist – post modernism – where most answers are debatable.