Game of Thrones: Ser Brienne of Tarth and a Feminine Reinterpretation of Classical Heroes
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
/ 39 Game of Thrones: Ser Brienne of Tarth and a Feminine Reinterpretation of Classical Heroes ROSA MARÍA STOOPS Abstract ne of the most remarkable aspects of the highly popular television phenomenon OGame of Thrones, adapted from the saga A Song of Ice and Fire, by G.R.R. Martin, is the development of one of the most important feminine characters, Brienne of Tarth, and the feminist implications of this authorial decision. At the conclusion of the televised series, Brienne of Tarth is the only woman in the fictional realm of Westeros officially initiated into the profession of arms who attains the title of Ser, a designation that in the context of the story relates to knights, paladins, heroes, protectors, and defenders of their people. Brienne’s knighting and initiation acknowledge her fighting skills, courage, personal ethics, and most importantly, her demonstrated aspirations for the defense and protection of the people of Westeros. Despite the long list of characters and their heroic deeds in battle, at the conclusion of the televised series Brienne of Tarth is the only character in the story who possesses the attributes and follows to completion the arc of development that configure the archetype of the hero, identified by important mythographers such as Joseph Campbell, Carol Pearson, Mircea Eliade, C.G. Jung, Gilbert Durand, and others. Keywords: G.R.R. Martin, myth, audiovisual production, feminism, hero/heroine. 1. Introduction One of the most remarkable achievements in audiovisual productions in the last decade has been the success of the televised series Game of Thrones, based on the original A Song of Ice and Fire, a series of epic fantasy novels by American novelist and screenwriter George R. R. Martin. The first volume of the series, titled A Game of Thrones, was published in 1996. Initially envisioned as a trilogy, five out of a planned seven volumes have been published to date. The fifth and most recent volume A Dance with Dragons was published in 2011. The sixth novel, The Winds of Winter, will be published in 2020. The televised series premiered on HBO in the United States on April 17, 2011, and concluded on May 19, 2019, with 73 episodes broadcast over eight seasons. The ability of the series to captivate the imagination of audiences throughout the world is evidenced by the number of countries transmitting the television show and its high ratings worldwide.1 The immediate fascination of the show on viewers also resulted in an overwhelming number of online forums,2 where thousands of participants comment and share theories about each season and individual episodes, demonstrates that audiovisual productions with mythical, heroic, and epic content appeal to the subconscious of readers and spectators, independently of their level of knowledge regarding the functions of myths and literature. Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics Vol. 43, No. 4, Winter 2020 [39-50] © 2020 Vishvanatha Kaviraja Institute, India 40 / JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND AESTHETICS Given the fascination of most civilizations with heroes, masculine figures who represent the human struggle and the struggle to acquire power, wisdom, recognition, grandeur, and honor, the development of a heroine who has an important role in the action of a story from beginning to end has wide-ranging implications for contemporary societies. The objective of this study is to identify Brienne of Tarth as the true hero/ine of the televised series Game of Thrones, through an analysis of her evolution as a character, which is comparable to the journey of classical heroes, their attributes, and her importance as a new archetype for the collective imagination of 21st century audiences. To this effect, I will trace the heroic journey of Brienne of Tarth aided by studies on myth such as Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949); Mircea Eliade’ s The Myth of the Eternal Return: or Cosmos and History (1954) and Symbols and Images (1961); C.G. Jung’s The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (1969); Carol S. Pearson’s The Hero Within (1998); Gilbert Durand’s theories of myth criticism and myth analysis in The Anthropological Structures of the Imaginary (1992),3 as well as other resources related to the content of myth in audiovisual productions in the age of globalization. 2. The Archetype of the Hero, Myth, and its Function Fascination with the stories of heroes is common to all civilizations and historical periods. In her Introduction to Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces (2004), Pinkola Estés comments on the universal fascination of human beings with myths and stories of the past: One of the most remarkable developments that crisscross the world, no matter how urbanized a people may become, no matter how far they are living from family, or how many generations away they are born from a tight-knit heritage group—people everywhere nonetheless will form and reform “talking story” groups. There appears to be a strong drive in the psyche to be nourished and taught, but so to nourish and teach the psyches of as many others as possible, with the best and deepest stories that can be found. (xxxv) From those narratives and myths of the ancient past, the collective unconscious in all cultures identifies specific elements that in turn create archetypes. For C.G. Jung, archetypes are the most important elements of the collective unconscious, full of universal images and meaning repeated through time in the tales, stories, and myths pertaining to all social groups (4-5). For Pearson, “Archetypes—the fundamental structures of the psyche, can help us decode our own inner workings, as well as the inner lives of other people, groups, and social systems, so that we can rise to the challenge of contemporary life” (x). On the importance of archetypes for societies, Eliade indicates that “The meaning and function of what we have called ‘archetypes and repetition’ disclosed themselves to us only after we had perceived these societies’ […] hostility toward every attempt at autonomous history, that is, at history not regulated by archetypes” (ix). Campbell’s theory of the monomyth proposes the idea that inspirations, revelations, and actions in heroic narratives are found universally in all human beings and cultures. Furthermore, this primordial understanding can propel humans into more evolution: “It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in counteraction to those constant human fantasies that tend to tie it back” (10). Feminine Reinterpretation of Classical Heroes / 41 Historically, audiences are familiar with the configuration of male heroic characters, but in the 21st century, it is clear that the traditional patterns of cultural consumption have changed. Audiences are more open at this time to give the heroic archetype a feminine face and accept new stories and far-reaching myths, capable of resonating with both genders at that deeply personal and fundamentally human level that will propel contemporary civilizations into the future. Since the early days of cinematography and television, spectators have shown a fondness for stories containing mythical and ritual elements that trace the journey of heroic characters and the symbolism contained in those stories. Numerous recreations of Hercules, Jason, Perseus, Theseus, Achilles, Hector, and Odysseus; their Nordic counterparts Beowulf and Ragnar Lodbrok; the Assyrian Gilgamesh; and the Biblical Samson and David confirm that myths of the past and archetypes of heroes survive through time and space to reflect and reminisce the history of their individual societies. Even though the representation of heroes is in constant evolution, the symbolism of the archetype and its development is not negotiable, the main elements persist through the ages in new narratives. As a result, The Song of Ice and Fire by G.R.R. Martin and the televised series Games of Thrones follow the familiar pattern concerning the quest of the hero, central to the mythological systems of numerous cultures, but in the end, it is a woman who will go through all the stages of that quest. Although Greek mythology gives voice to a few women, myths and stories of heroines are scarce. In literature and myth, participation of women in valiant deeds and a positive impact on their societies is mostly limited to episodes within longer narratives. Generally, authors do not bestow feminine characters with deep moral, spiritual or psychological configurations or evolution. In the Timaeus, Plato refers briefly to the warrior goddess Athena as a “lover both of war and of wisdom,” and in his Critias, Socrates refers to warrior women who used to make war alongside their male counterparts in times past: [M]ilitary pursuits were then common to men and women, the men of those days in accordance with the custom of the time set up a figure and image of the goddess in full armour, to be a testimony that all animals which associate together, male as well as female, may, if they please, practise in common the virtue which belongs to them without distinction of sex. In other European narratives, Brunhilde in The Ring of the Nibelung, Clorinda in Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberatta, and the wives of the Berserkers in the Song of Harbardsljod of the Poetic Edda, are recognized for their courage and commitment to arms and wisdom; they may be recognized as models of inspiration for Brienne of Tarth, but their participation is still episodic. Inclusion of women in audiovisual productions comprise a substantial number of superheroines, such as Wonder Woman and X-Women Jean Grey, Storm, Rogue, etc. However, it is somewhat problematic for audiences to relate to the superiority of characters with powers that transcend the human. Furthermore, many of the popular superheroines lack a deep psychological configuration for audiences to relate to their actions or the background that propels them to a quest.