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Nostalgia for Pre-Modern Times in Fiction by Tolkien, Jordan and Martin? Selected Forms and Functions

M a s t e r a r b e i t

zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Master of Arts (MA)

an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz

vorgelegt von David Jonathan Markus WEBER

am Institut für Anglistik Begutachter o.Univ.-Prof. Mag.art. Dr.phil. Werner Wolf

Graz, 2021

Acknowledgments

First of all, I want to thank my supervisor, o.Univ.-Prof. Mag.art. Dr.phil. Werner Wolf, for not only accompanying me through most of my studies but also giving me enough freedom to choose a research topic I am passionate about, while at the same time providing extensive feedback at all times to guide me into the right direction. This gratitude extends from academic discussion to personal exchange on various topics of life in general. Second, my thanks go to all my loved ones, friends, teachers as well as study and working colleagues who have encouraged my studies and changed my view on life, to the ones that have come and left, but especially to the ones that have stayed throughout the years. I particularly want to thank my parents who supported me with every means at their disposal, also in academic discussion on my studies. Further spe- cial thanks go to my study colleague and close friend who proofread this thesis and exchanged academic views with me in our regular thesis talks. Without all of you this thesis would not have been possible; you are dear to my heart and – I am sure – will elicit plenty of nostalgia in the future.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ...... i List of Abbreviations: ...... v Introduction ...... 1 1 Trailblazers of Nostalgia, Fantasy and Function Theory ...... 5

1.1 Nostalgia: A Utopia in Past Time and Space ...... 5

1.1.1 ‘The Good Old Days’ – How to Define a Sentiment for the Past ...... 5 1.1.2 Conditions for Nostalgic Thought and Emotion ...... 6 1.1.3 Nostalgia for Pre-Modernity, the Middle Ages or (Neo)? ...... 7 1.1.4 Dangers of Nostalgia Analysis ...... 9

1.2 Fantasy: A Resisting Narrow Categorisation ...... 10

1.2.1 Can the Impossible Be Defined? ...... 10 1.2.2 From the Portal- to the Liminal Mode of Fantasy ...... 14 1.2.3 The What and When of Fantasy Fiction ...... 15 1.2.4 Locating the Selected Texts within the Fantasy Model ...... 16

1.3 Function Theory and History ...... 18

1.3.1 What Are Possible Effects or Functions of ? ...... 18 1.3.2 Functional Histories – Between Intention, Function Potential, Reception and the Historical Function of Literature ...... 20

2 Overall Text Introduction – Structure and Fantasy Modes ...... 23

2.1 From Wrongness to Healing? The Structure of LR, WT and SIF ...... 23 2.2 Between Portal-Quest, Immersion, Intrusion and the Liminal – Tolkien, Jordan and Martin Challenging the Modes-of-Fantasy Model ...... 25

3 Nostalgia through Intertextuality, the Supernatural and the Implied World View – LR revitalising Pre-Modernity ...... 27

3.1 Intertextual System Reference in Tolkien’s Fantasy Fiction: Selected Elements of Medieval Romance, Song and Poetry ...... 27

3.1.1 Fantasy Fiction as Structural Romance – Episodic Organisation and Interlacement in LR ...... 28 3.1.2 Romance Character Construction in Tolkien’s Text – Primacy of the Nobility, The Fair Unknown and Ideals of Chivalry ...... 30 3.1.3 ‘Resting at the Bonfire’ – Intertextual System Reference to Medieval Song and Poetry in LR ...... 33

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3.2 Veil of Mystery: The Representation of the Supernatural and Magic in Tolkien’s Work ...... 35

3.2.1 Preliminary Remarks on the Supernatural, Magic, the and the Impossible ...... 35 3.2.2 From the Istari over to a Ring of Invisibility – The Supernatural and Magic in LR ...... 37

3.3 ‘Eucatastrophe’: The Implied World View as an Intensification of Nostalgia in LR ...... 41

4 Undercurrents of and Deviations from Nostalgia in WT – Intertextuality, the Supernatural and the Implied World View ...... 47

4.1 Intertextuality in Jordan’s Fantasy Series: Selected Elements of Medieval Romance, Anti-Romance, Song and Poetry ...... 47

4.1.1 Episodic Organisation and Interlacement as Characteristics of Romance Structure in WT ...... 47 4.1.2 Romance and Anti-Romance Character Construction in Jordan’s Fantasy Fiction – Primacy of the Nobility, The Fair Unknown and Ideals of Chivalry ...... 48 4.1.3 Intertextuality as Celebration of Medieval Song and Poetry in WT ...... 50

4.2 The Veil is Lifted: The Representation of the Supernatural and Magic in Jordan’s Series ...... 50

4.2.1 The Transparent in WT ...... 50 4.2.2 Of Walking Trees, Animal People and – Jordan’s Supernatural Characters ...... 53

4.3 Circular Time: WT’s Implied World View as a Reduction of its Nostalgic Implications ...... 55

5 SIF Deconstructing Nostalgia through Intertextuality, the Supernatural and the Implied World View? ...... 60

5.1 Intertextual System Reference in Martin’s Fantasy Novels: Selected Elements of Medieval Romance, Anti-Romance, Song and Poetry ...... 60

5.1.1 Romance Structure – Episodic Organisation and Interlacement in SIF ...... 60 5.1.2 Romance and Anti-Romance Character Construction in SIF – Primacy of the Nobility, The Fair Unknown and Ideals of Chivalry ...... 64 5.1.3 Martin’s Series evoking the Intertextual System of Medieval Songs and Poetry ...... 70

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5.2 The Mysteries of ‘Occult and Blood Magic’: The Representation of the Supernatural and Magic in SIF ...... 73

5.2.1 The High Price of Magic in Martin’s World ...... 73 5.2.2 The Supernatural in Fantasy as the Satisfaction of a Modern Loss and Childhood Dreams ...... 75

5.3 ‘Winter is Coming’: A Final Catastrophe Completing the Deconstruction of Nostalgia in Martin’s Text? ...... 77

Conclusion ...... 83 Bibliography ...... 87

Primary Sources ...... 87 Secondary Sources ...... 88

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List of Abbreviations:

EW The Eye of the World FR The Fellowship of the Ring GT A LR SIF WT

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Introduction

‘Then tell us some other tale of the old days, […] a tale about before the fading time.’ – Sam (Tolkien. The Fellowship of the Rings: 250)

‘Perhaps I also dwell too much on what is gone. And yet, the groves were beautiful.’ – Loial (Jordan. The Eye of the World: 693)

The retro hype is on the rise again: New vintage clothing stores are sprouting out of the ground, antique furniture enjoys immense popularity in interior design, and in 2020 US vinyl record sales surpassed CDs for the first time since the 1980s (cf. Goodwin 2020: online). People are trying to travel back in time – not only through lifestyle products but also through art and entertainment. With the TV series adaption of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (2011-2019) having come, Netflix’s adaption of the The Witcher series (1993-2013) by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski being a huge success and Ama- zon’s series set in the The Lord of the Rings cosmos currently in production, content cre- ators are constantly searching for the next fantasy mass phenomenon that captures audi- ences and readers all around the globe. Today’s strong yearning for fantasy stories set against the backdrop of a pre-modern and in particular medieval world is additionally substantiated by further examples from the literary context, such as new editions from the Tolkien oeuvre advanced by the author’s son Christopher Tolkien – e.g. Beren and Lúthien (2017) – and the critically acclaimed Stormlight Archive series (2010-forthcom- ing). This reminiscing about the past and wishing back of times long gone is often de- scribed with the concept of nostalgia. The notion itself – detached from fantasy, pre- modernity or the Middle Ages – has in turn a long conceptual and functional history. After its coinage in the 17th century within the medical context, it resurfaced again and again over the years until it had its heyday as a prominent in . Today, the concept is being explored by many disciplines – most thoroughly by psychology, so- ciology and cultural studies – and has also made its way into everyday language and pop- ular culture, where it is mostly understood as “a feeling of sadness mixed with pleasure and affection when you think of happy times in the past” (Hornby and Wehmeier 2005: 1036). This feeling is a response to certain dissatisfactions with the present and is often

1 associated with phrases such as ‘the good old days’, ‘a warm childhood’ or ‘the golden age of…’.1 By mainly analysing the three starting novels of the respective fantasy series by the prominent fantasy authors J. R. R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings (1954- 1955) – henceforth LR –, , author of The Wheel of Time (1990-2013) – henceforth WT – and George R. R. Martin, author of A Song of Ice and Fire (1996-forth- coming) – henceforth SIF –, I will tackle the concept from a literary studies perspective and hope to gain insights into the reasons for such a strong fascination with this nostalgic looking backwards into pre-modern and medieval times through literature. Within the scope of this analysis, it is difficult to do justice to one of these book series of epic pro- portions, let alone to the whole of the fantasy genre; thus, I aim for a middle ground. The starting novels of each series will be shown to already reveal most of the tendencies that are expanded on in the later books, while at the same time allowing to draw general con- clusions on the genre as a whole as well as its diachronic developments. Hence, Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Rings (1954) – henceforth FR –, The Eye of the World (1990) – henceforth EW – by Jordan and Martin’s A Game of Thrones (1996) – henceforth GT – will be the main focus of this analysis, despite the fact that I will occasionally refer to later plot developments. The reasons for the text selection are the series’ genre-building importance for the modern fantasy genre and their popularity among readers – e.g. not only was LR voted as the greatest book of the 20th century in three major surveys of public opinion in Great Britain but also Tolkien as the ‘author of the century’ (cf. James 2012: 62). Further factors in the text selection are the cross-fertilisation among the individual series and thus, the countless implicit intertextual references, which almost lend themselves for comparative analysis.2 While LR clearly influenced WT, Martin deliberately distances himself from his predecessors, almost forming a counter discourse to the genre’s beginnings. Thus, with these three series one could almost talk about a chain of influence.

1 For more information on the conceptual and functional history of nostalgia see the following chapter on the theoretical background: “1 Trailblazers of Nostalgia. Fantasy and Function The- ory”. 2 For more information on the impact of LR see: James, Edward (2012). “Tolkien, Lewis and the explosion of genre fantasy”. In: the same and , eds. The Cambridge Compan- ion to . Cambridge: CUP. 62-79. 2

Against this background, the following research questions are posed: How are pre- modern times – especially the Middle Ages – represented in a nostalgic way by Tolkien, Jordan and Martin from 1954 to today? Additionally, in which forms do such nostalgic representations appear and what functions do the individual instances of nostalgia poten- tially fulfil? Apart from that, it is of peripheral interest whether the findings allow to draw general conclusions on potential reasons lying beneath the strong yearning to look back in time as filtered through the texts at hand and fantasy fiction as a whole. In the follow- ing, it will be demonstrated that although there are certain structural tendencies almost all typical fantasy fiction adheres to, the nostalgically tinged representations of pre-moder- nity in the examined texts vary widely. While LR, as one of the starting points of modern fantasy, represents medieval literature and culture in a predominantly positive way, WT combines a vast number of different cultures and historical eras – thereby creating a me- dieval blend with nostalgic undertones. GT, in turn, distances itself from its predecessors by subverting genre rules and creating a fiction of authenticity regarding the pre-modern context. All in all, this indicates a diachronic trend in fantasy fiction from catering for nostalgia to deconstructing it. Although the nostalgia in the representations of the pre-modern and medieval world is only implied up to this point in this thesis, it still remains to be shown, in which explicit and implicit forms possible nostalgic representations appear – relating to the level of story as well as discourse. Furthermore, functions here predominantly refer to the mi- cro- or sub-functions of the individual nostalgic forms; the macro-functions of catering for nostalgia on the level of the texts as a whole will be touched upon en passant. At this point it is important to note that this is by no means an attempt at covering all possible forms and functions of nostalgia for pre-modernity and the Middle Ages in fantasy fiction. The findings established in the primary texts should rather be understood as an open cat- alogue that can be refined and expanded by further research into the set texts and the genre in general – thus, I need to emphasise that the forms and functions discussed in this thesis are selected. In terms of methodology, this examination draws on various approaches from lit- erary studies. An analysis of nostalgic representations in literature is hardly detachable from historical criticism. Therefore, this approach will be used not only to compare the set texts to pre-modern and medieval history but also to contextualise them with respect to their literary predecessors. Here, genre theory comes into play since fantasy fiction

3 clearly alludes to and deconstructs the chanson de geste and romance traditions of the Middle Ages. Due to the fact that this analysis is goal-oriented, and a peripheral research interest is why we are drawn to a nostalgic way of reading and writing, reception aesthet- ics as well as function theory and functional histories are also crucial for the following observations. With regard to structure, a brief theoretical background of nostalgia, fantasy and function theory will be provided at the beginning, before turning to the actual literary analysis of LR, WT and SIF. First of all, the texts will be introduced in general concerning their content, structure and fantasy modes before continuing with the examination of one primary text after another. First, LR will be analysed in terms of its display of nostalgia for pre-modern and medieval times by looking into the text’s intertextuality, more spe- cifically intertextual system reference. By comparing the typical characters and structures of fantasy fiction with its predecessors from chanson de geste and romance literature as well as medieval song and poetry, it will be explored how Tolkien’s work mainly refers to medieval genre principles – the other authors under examination also rethink these conventions. The next step in the analysis of LR is focused on the representation of the supernatural since this yields the nature of magic in the first primary text and the differ- ences to the other works in the later comparison. The underlying hypothesis in this cate- gory of analysis regarding a possible sub-function is that the pre-modern and medieval world appears more mysterious and thus more interesting to explore in the respective novels than our contemporary (post)modern world. The final point of the observation will revolve around the implied world view because this research category reveals whether the implied nostalgia is ultimately evaluated as something positive or negative by Tol- kien’s text. The examination of the other set texts will be conducted in an analogous way, regarding the same research categories; however, not in the mode of individual analysis but direct comparison to the previous work(s). Finally, the findings will be summarised, synthesised and abstracted in a conclusion.

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1 Trailblazers of Nostalgia, Fantasy and Function Theory

1.1 Nostalgia: A Utopia in Past Time and Space

1.1.1 ‘The Good Old Days’ – How to Define a Sentiment for the Past

After these introductory words, a short theoretical background has to be established as foundation for the later analysis, which revolves around the concepts of nostalgia itself, fantasy as a genre term and literary function. The word form belonging to the first of the notions under scrutiny, nostalgia, suggests an origin of the term in ancient Greece. How- ever, nostalgia – a pseudo-Greek compound from the Homeric notos (‘return home’ or ‘homecoming’) and algia (‘longing’ or ‘ache’) – was coined much later in 1688 by Swiss Doctor Johannes Hofer as Byom finds (cf. 2001: xiii, 3). The medical researcher de- scribed symptoms in Swiss students studying away from home and Swiss soldiers fighting abroad as ‘homesickness’ that nowadays would probably be classified as severe cases of anxiety and depression (cf. ibid.), but not only the diagnosis changed over time, also the use of the term. In Romanticism, nostalgia reached its heyday as a prominent trope of a whole movement in philosophy and the arts. According to Byom (cf. ibid.: 10-11), the term was positioned as a direct reaction to the progress and teleological focus that was advocated in Enlightenment. The increased speed of modernisation that brought with it a feeling of various losses due to mechanisation, industrialisation, capitalism, urbanisation, an (over)emphasis on reason, imperialism and an alienation from nature elicited a number of nostalgic positivations. Most of them centred around past natural or ‘original’ states, such as wild landscapes (e.g. the sublime), native populations (i.e. primitivism), the na- tional past (i.e. nationalism), religion, childhood, the imagination, the supernatural as well as emotions, which are all epitomised in the romantic motto ‘I long therefore I am’ (cf. ibid.: 12-13). These cultural changes with their focus on nature were so profound that they still reverberate in current times (e.g. in ecological movements) and through the strong supernatural dimension particularly in fantasy fiction. Today, nostalgia metaphorically refers to a “state of mind” (Shaw and Chase 1989: 1) that is – to express it in my own words – best characterised as ‘a yearning senti- ment oscillating between melancholy and happiness directed towards a past time or place’, either experienced at first hand or not, i.e. collective nostalgia (cf. ibid.). This

5 definition still shares with Hofer’s aforementioned one the implication of a painful dis- placement from a home in time and space. Apart from that, the phenomenon still remains at the centre of much ongoing academic debate. While recent psychological studies as- cribe the functions and even benefits to nostalgia of – among others – improving one’s mood, increasing one’s social connectedness and providing existential meaning (cf. Smith 2015: 186), many researchers from cultural studies and history warn against its tendency of distorting historiography and leading to the creation of (cf. Lowenthal 1989: 30- 31).3

1.1.2 Conditions for Nostalgic Thought and Emotion

Shaw and Chase (cf. 1989: 1-17) shed light on the different dimensions of nostalgia in the introduction to their collection of essays entitled The Imagined Past: History and Nostalgia, which adds further facets to the concept. The researchers isolate certain con- ditions that have to be met in order for nostalgia to be possible in the first place; one of which refers to the modern conception of linear time with a historical dimension and an undetermined future (cf. ibid.: 2-3). Although it seems plausible that cyclical time con- ceptions and redemptive histories run counter to the development of nostalgia due to their ontological understanding of time – in the first history eventually repeats itself, in the second salvation awaits at the endpoint of time –, it is possible to imagine a religious society that shows signs of nostalgia for earlier times within one cycle because of a closer connection to God or a higher standing of religion in general in the past. Nonetheless, the fast pace of modern life, e.g. traceable in scientific and societal progress, certainly accen- tuates the passing of time, transience of life as well as the experience of aging, which explains one of the most often evoked concepts in nostalgic thinking, namely childhood; and brings us to the second requirement for nostalgic thinking and feeling, a somehow deficient present. For nostalgia to gain traction, some aspects of life have to be flawed or at least imperfect; or they have to be perceived as such. Shaw and Chase (cf. ibid.: 3) give the

3 For more information on the psychological functions of nostalgia see: Routledge, Clay. et al. (2011). “The Past Makes the Present Meaningful: Nostalgia as an Existential Resource”. Jour- nal of Personality and Social Psychology. 101: 638–652. and for more information on the dan- gers of nostalgia see: Lowenthal, David (1989): “Nostalgia tells it like it wasn’t”. In: Christopher Shaw and Malcom Chase, eds. The Imagined Past: History and Nostalgia. Manchester et al.: Manchester UP. 18-33. 6

examples of declining great empires – e.g. the British empire after Victorian times – and the fall of certain social classes – e.g. the aristocracy during industrialisation –, but these real or perceived deficiencies can extend to almost any part of life that leads to reminisc- ing about an allegedly better past. Thus, the broader research question aimed at the rea- sons for nostalgia in fantasy fiction is also directly linked to the deficiencies that were or are still present during the time of writing the novels. What the above examples additionally illustrate is that nostalgia may not only op- erate on the individual level of direct experience based on the changing perspectives in different stages of life but also on a more public level (cf. ibid.: 15). This collective nos- talgia might develop due to belonging to a certain social group (e.g. aristocracy) or in relation to the conditio humana. In any case, for this form of nostalgia it is not necessary to have lived the nostalgically charged moment in past time and space at first hand for the nostalgia to be realised. In fact, many people might experience nostalgia for medieval times or find pleasure in reading their nostalgic representations, despite, of course, never having directly experienced these times. Exactly the nature of this kind of nostalgia is the paramount interest of the present analysis. The last and maybe most obvious condition for nostalgia according to the re- searchers is that artefacts or information from the past have to be available in order for them to be the centres of nostalgic thought and emotion (cf. ibid.: 4). If there is no docu- mentation of information from the past or all artefacts from earlier times have been lost, then they cannot be nostalgically transfigured. Nonetheless, this observation takes on a special status in literary studies since the research objects are here not the artefacts from the past themselves but their artistic representations. Hence, the analysis of which arte- facts are selected on the level of story and how these artefacts are depicted on the level of discourse allows to draw conclusions on the nostalgic tendencies that stand behind such representations.

1.1.3 Nostalgia for Pre-Modernity, the Middle Ages or (Neo)Medievalism?

The present thesis does not deal with nostalgia in general but specifically with nostalgia for pre-modern times; however, the functional implications that will be identified might go beyond pure nostalgia for pre-modernity. Nonetheless, in this context pre-modernity, the Middle Ages as well as the concept of (neo)medievalism have to be defined before going on. Although pre-modernity is partly dated as ranging until 1800, it is here

7 understood as the period preceding the early modern period, which started around 1500. Thus, pre-modernity is here positioned as directly opposed to the deficiencies that are inherent in modern and later also postmodern life, to which the nostalgia examined in this present thesis is a reaction. More precisely, the nostalgia analysed is directed towards medieval times, despite the fact that for example industrial and thus modern phenomena are alluded to in the texts at hand. In addition, since LR, WT and SIF are to some extent based on the Middle Ages, they are themselves specimen of medievalism; Carroll gives the following fitting definition for the two terms:

The former [medieval] refers to the period of history usually considered to span from 500 to 1500 CE, and to all the culture, literature and modes of think- ing that characterised that era. The latter [medievalism] is an interpretation of this era and its culture, literature and modes of thinking; these interpretations are inevitably colored by the culture, biases, and purposes of the interpreter. (Carroll 2018: 8)

As can be seen in this definition, although the subject matter of medievalism is the his- torically medieval, it is itself not medieval. An important disclaimer is in this context that the Middle Ages are often viewed as homogenous, not recognising that the era spanned over hundreds of years in various countries with vastly different cultures (cf. ibid.: 14). Nonetheless, the main focus is here on the Central European Middle Ages and all the different associations that come with the concept. Carroll (cf. ibid.: 9) summarises the most important of which as the notion of the ‘Dark or Barbaric Ages’ – for instance advanced by Petrarch – and the Victorian romanticising of the era centred around a supposed time of unity and chivalry. This overlaps with Matthews’ (cf. 2015: 15) con- siderations, who divides the different forms of medievalism into two main branches – i.e. the “gothic” and the “romantic” (ibid.). This differentiation also paves a way to decide, whether a possible nostalgia for medieval times is embraced or rejected by individual cultural representations. A catalogue of further commonly assumed typical features in- cludes a pre-technical, rural, hierarchically organised society that mainly relies on an economy based on agriculture, feudalism, a dominant world view firmly rooted in Chris- tianity and the belief in the supernatural – be it the of the devil or divine miracles. Thus, these associations move in an interplay between foreignness and a re- markable specificity considering the temporal distance to medieval times, thereby having an extraordinary appeal for artistic representations. Having this distinction between medieval and medievalist in mind, fantasy writing mostly deals with another degree of abstraction, namely neomedievalism. According to

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Carroll, neomedievalist texts “use the trappings of the medieval as filtered through a ‘me- dievalist intermediary’” (2018: 9). As mentioned before, WT and SIF would never have been possible without Tolkien’s works. They themselves will inevitably influence the fantasy texts to come, either through imitation or distancing attempts by future authors. Hence, neomedievalism can be described as the medieval seen through a medievalist lens. Although the terminology is still a matter of much ongoing academic debate – for exam- ple, one could ask, if there is a need for a new term with each degree of abstraction or whether intertextuality is not already a concept in literary studies that solves this issue and is always part of writing –, neomedievalism is mostly applied to intentionally unau- thentic or non-scholarly representations of the Middle Ages and is thus a useful tool to discuss the fantasy genre (cf. ibid.). Just as in satire or parody, fantasy might be based on medieval times but goes beyond its historical inspiration by forming its own secondary world model and adding certain aspects – in this case the supernatural as a fixed part of the fictional world.

1.1.4 Dangers of Nostalgia Analysis

Before moving on to the next part of the theoretical basis, two disclaimers have to be made that are crucial for the later analysis. First, Lowenthal (cf. 1989: 29) stresses that not every discussion of the past is necessarily nostalgic: “Nostalgia is apt to be confused with any perspective on the past, and every historical enterprise mistaken as nostalgic” (ibid.). Due to today’s “preoccupation with nostalgia” (ibid.) it is essential to view every potential case of nostalgia anew from a neutral perspective and evaluate, whether the lit- erary representation has nostalgic undertones (i.e. is charged with happy and melancholic emotions for the past), if a typically nostalgic trope is deconstructed or whether it is just an instance of looking back neutrally, such as it is the case in parts of neoclassicism, which are marked by attempts at emulation rather than nostalgia. Second, Stafford (cf. 1989: 44-45) warns against another trap of analysing nostal- gia for pre-modernity. By revealing the mythological tendencies that stand behind some nostalgic representations, one might become complicit in the fortification of a comple- mentary, modern , namely the myth of the autonomous individual. Stafford describes this myth as the following: “the myth of a society of isolated, sovereign individuals, each a self-contained centre of consciousness, desire and purpose, each motivated by self-in- terest, forming relationships with others which are artificial and contractual” (ibid.: 44).

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Just as beings never only exist as part of a collective society, they also do not only as an isolated individual – thus, such overgeneralisations can be dangerous in the aca- demic practice (cf. ibid.: 44-45). In a longer stretch of argumentation Chase and Shaw (cf. 1989: 8) also refer to this problematic double construction of myths:

If we now have Gemeinschaft, there must have been Gesellschaft; if our con- sciousness is fragmented, there must have been a time when it was integrated; if society is now bureaucratised and impersonal, it must have been personal and particular. (ibid.)

Although it is certainly important to draw attention to such overgeneralisations, there is a certain need to take a broader view in order to create models of past time periods and reach an overall understanding of them. For example, of course, modern life is not uni- versally bureaucratic; nonetheless, one could build a good case for the tendency to bu- reaucratise aspects of life more than in pre-modernity. Hence, nostalgia analysis should operate on the fine line between unveiling the tendencies lying beneath nostalgic repre- sentations and not participating oneself in the creation of myths.

1.2 Fantasy: A Genre Resisting Narrow Categorisation

1.2.1 Can the Impossible Be Defined?

Fantasy as a genre term in literary studies has a short and nonetheless troubled history due to its difficult canonisation, periodisation and most importantly its problems in defi- nition. In 1981, Jackson was one of the first researchers to approach the genre academi- cally with her publication Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion, in which the researcher also pointed out these manifold difficulties:

Literary have appeared to be ‘free’ from many of the conventions and restraints of more realistic texts: they have refused to observe unities of time, space and character, doing away with chronology, three-dimensionality and with rigid distinctions between animate and inanimate objects, self and other, life and death. Given this resistance of fantasy to narrow categorization and definition, it might seem self-defeating to attempt to produce a critical study which proposes to ‘schematize’ or ‘theorize’ about fantasy in literature and thereby to militate against escapism or simple pleasure principle. (1981: 1-2)

As can be seen in this excerpt, due to this bursting open of various conventions from realist fiction, it is rather complicated to label fantasy in what it does and does not do while creating the impossible. Thirty-one years later in the first comprehensible Cam- bridge Companion to Fantasy Literature (2012), edited by James and Mendlesohn, this

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problem still has not been solved: “Fantasy literature has proven tremendously difficult to pin down” (2012: 1). The researchers agree with earlier theoreticians in the field that fantasy is about “the construction of the impossible” (ibid.), which is also a way to dis- tinguish fantasy from one of its ‘sibling ’, – in science fiction matters might be improbable but they are rooted in what can be explained through science (cf. ibid.). However, from the – admittedly very general – definition above most of the earlier fantasy theorists narrow down their definition in order to select texts of their liking, while ignoring most of what the general readership and the bookshelves in libraries or bookshops would categorise under the heading of fantasy. Hence, James and Mendlesohn (cf. 2009: 4) gather the four most important theoreticians for re- search in literary studies in another publication, who also inform the present exploration of the genre. Moorcock binds fantasy in Wizardry and Wild Romance (1987) to the lan- guage in which it is written; Attebery defines fantasy in Strategies of Fantasy (1992) similar to prototype semantics as a ‘fuzzy set’ with more and less typical genre represent- atives; in the The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1999) Clute thematises the structure of fan- tasy and combines the movements of WRONGNESS, THINNING, RECOGNITION and HEALING/RETURN4 to his ‘grammar of fantasy’; and lastly, Mendlesohn’s Rhetorics of Fantasy (2008) approaches the genre through the ‘modes’ in which the fantastic can enter the text (cf. 2009: 4). In terms of a narrower but still non-selective and relatively open working defini- tion of the genre, let us first turn to The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (cf. Clute 1999: 337- 338). Clute acknowledges that as opposite to realism a huge number of world literature texts have at one point or another been considered as fantasy. However, not every fantas- tic element already qualifies a text to be part of the genre – for an example see the horror genre. Hence, Clute gives the following definition of fantasy centred around its setting:

A fantasy text is a self-coherent narrative. When set in this world, it tells a story which is impossible in the world as we perceive it; when set in an other- world, that otherworld will be impossible, though stories set there may be pos- sible in its terms. (1999: 338)

4 The encyclopaedia’s typographic style is maintained throughout this thesis in order to visually always refer back to Clute’s model of the “grammar of fantasy” (1999: 338). 11

In a longer explanation of this definition the researcher clarifies that similar to the notion of a cultural text, text is here to be understood as “any format in which a fantasy story can be told” (ibid.) – for example also including comics, graphic novels, cinema or music (cf. ibid.). Video games might here be an important addition to the encyclopaedia article since they are also prominent formats of fantasy narration today (e.g. see the popularisation of The Witcher series through its game adaptations). In addition, an important dimension of distinguishing fantasy texts from other texts containing the fantastic implied in the definition above is their self-coherency. In- deed, almost all of 20th-century anti-mimetic fiction employs some form of the fantastic. However, it would be misleading and hardly tenable to incorporate works of surrealism, modernism and postmodernism – such as Joyce, Kafka or Borges – into the fantasy genre. According to Clute, it is in this case helpful to look at the pragmatic use of the ‘unreal’ or supernatural elements. While such experimental fiction typically incorporates the fantas- tic in order to “dismantle the reader’s sense that a coherent world is being represented” (ibid.) and to deconstruct traditional modes of storytelling – thereby often eliciting a dis- tancing effect within its readers –, genre fantasy attempts the opposite. By inviting the reader to “co-inhabit the tale” (ibid.), prototypical fantasy fiction employs the supernatu- ral in order to facilitate a self-coherent narrative and enhance the aesthetic illusion, which is also an important facet of the fantasy genre emphasised here. Another accomplishment by Clute in fantasy research is to provide the genre with a typical structure that shows similarities to a ’s journey. In “full fantasy” (ibid.: 339) as the quintessential fantasy text the structure begins at WRONGNESS, an underlying feeling that the otherworld as a whole is moving into the wrong direction – often signalled by the first encounter with evil forces. The text then moves on to THINNING, a slow decline of the fictional world until the antagonist(s) (e.g. a ) almost succeed(s) – this is often mirrored in a loss of magic or a negative transformation of nature. Just at the right moment, however, the reaches RECOGNITION and “finally gazes upon the shrivelled heart of the thinned world and sees what to do” (ibid.). In realising their role in the story – often as chosen ones – the bring about HEALING/RE- TURN in a and correct the WRONGNESS from the beginning, often ac- companied by a literal metamorphosis of the characters or the secondary world at large (cf. ibid.). Although tragic fantasy exists, it is uncommon, and the happy end is the default option due to the aforementioned influences from , in which the

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positive ending is normally realised through marriage. In addition, Clute uses this story- driven urge for positive completion as a way to differentiate fantasy from its other ‘related genres’ – supernatural, horror and –, which all tend to terminate their plots before any solution through HEALING can be reached, mostly to shocking effect (cf. ibid.). This genre tendency towards a positive ending is of particular relevance for the later analysis of the implied world view because a sad or happy ending also influences whether the nostalgic representations are implicitly evaluated positively or negatively by the examined texts. On a side note, Attebery (cf. 2012: 82-83) underlines that the fantasy structure might be simple but that the genre highlights and even celebrates its structure by narrative devices, such as prophecy and providence, or by constructing characters as “spheres of action” (ibid.), mainly realising their story function. Thus, readers of fantasy seem to enjoy reading comparable story structures that are executed in different ways. Part of Attebery’s structuralist considerations of the genre is also the researcher’s conceptualisation of fantasy as a ‘fuzzy set’ of texts in Strategies of Fantasy (1992). De- veloping ideas from his earlier book, The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature (1980), Attebery takes a term from mathematics that denotes a set of elements that have a gradual range of belonging/not belonging or a degree of membership instead of a defi- nite yes/no classification of its members and applies it to fantasy. Thus, the genre can also be seen as a group of texts that share to a greater or lesser extent certain genre tropes, such as objects, narrative techniques or structural elements (cf. James and Mendlesohn 2012: 1). James and Mendlesohn describe a possible ‘fuzzy set’ of fantasy fiction in the following way:

At the centre are those stories which share tropes of the completely impossible and towards the edge, in subsets, are those stories which include only a small number of tropes, or which construct those tropes in such a way as to leave doubt in the reader’s mind as to whether what they have read is fantastical or not. (2012: 1)

Comparable to prototype semantics in the definition of literature Attebery’s model of fantasy rids the discussion of prescriptive definition and enables researchers to talk about why a certain text is more or less fantastic than another. For this very open literary genre, in which the individual texts might look incredibly different due to their contrafactual dimension, this is an operable and very useful tool of definition that is also applied here. In addition, what becomes apparent in the quote above is that not only the sheer quantity of influences how prototypical a text is seen to be for the fantasy genre, but

13 also the truth value that is attributed to the specific tropes by the text. This is a clear parallel to Clute’s “self-coherency” (1999: 338) of the narrative, since works that use the supernatural to intensify reader immersion (i.e. ascribe reality status to the contrafactual) are here also labelled as more typical of the genre and as lying closer to the centre of the ‘fuzzy set’ of fantasy.

1.2.2 From the Portal-Quest to the Liminal Mode of Fantasy

After abandoning the quest for a universally valid definition of the genre and adapting Attebery’s fuzzy set and Clute’s grammar of fantasy, the next influential contribution to the academic debate is Mendlesohn’s Rhetorics of Fantasy (2008), which provides in- struments to discuss the genre in its own terms rather than with the terminology of mi- metic fiction that might not be applicable to fantasy’s special qualities (cf. James and Mendlesohn 2012: 2). Mendlesohn’s approach is to divide fantasy fiction into four dis- tinct modes of fantasy that are determined by the manner in which the fantastic enters the text and the rhetorical voices that are used to render the different secondary world models or otherworlds thereby created. The editors of The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature outline the four modes (i.e. the portal-quest, the immersive, the intrusion and the liminal) as the following:

In the portal-quest, the protagonist enters a new world; in the immersive, the protagonist is part of the fantastic world; in the intrusion, the fantastic breaks into the primary world (which might or might not be our own); and in the liminal, magic might or might not be happening. (2012: 2)

Due to the fact that these modes of fantasy take into account the variation in different fantasies – for example, a portal-quest mode of fantasy with an (over)explanatory rhetor- ical voice operates differently from an immersive fantasy mode that takes its world and the supernatural elements in it as a given –, they might also pave the way to subgenres of fantasy. However, as always in the establishment of new terminology it is important to avoid confusion with already existent terms of criticism. Thus, some refinement of the immersive mode of fantasy is suggested here since immersion is always part of reading and the aesthetic illusion. A natural mode of fantasy might be a fitting alternative because the protagonist as well as the supernatural elements are ‘naturalised’ through the fictional world and the narrative devices used in this mode.

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1.2.3 The What and When of Fantasy Fiction

As mentioned earlier, not only a unified definition of fantasy raises problems; also the genre’s status of the canon and its periodisation do. Clute (1999: 338) elevates – among others – the following authors as “the greatest fantasy writers” (ibid.) since they explore the transformative potentials of fantasy by conceiving deep, ambitious otherworlds (ibid.):

George MACDONALD, , L. Frank BAUM, E. NESBIT, , H. P. LOVECRAFT, Kenneth MORRIS, E.R. EDDISON, , J.R.R. TOLKIEN, L. Sprague DE CAMP, , C. S. LEWIS, , , Alan GARNER, Peter S. BEAGLE, Ursula K. LE GUIN, Stephen R. DONALDSON, , Mark HELPRIN […]. (ibid.)

Depending on one’s conceptualisation of the fantasy genre, one might add or remove certain names from the list; however, for the establishment of a genre it is crucial to shape a first attempt at a literary canon that is then refined over time. Considering the list above, one could point out that it lays the focus on male authors with only two female represent- atives and mostly ignores minority perspectives; nonetheless, it provides a good first out- line of fantasy trailblazers. James and Mendlesohn (cf. 2012: xv-xxiv) also construct an approximate ten-page chronology of fantasy. The researchers start their periodisation with Beowulf (around 800 AD), move over Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen (1590) to J. R. R. Tolkien’s LR (1954-1955) and continue with Robert Jordan’s WT series (1990-2013) as well as George R. R. Martin’s SIF series (1996-forthcoming) before ending in 2010 with Nnedi Okora- for’s Who Fears Death – to only touch upon a few texts of this chronology.5 This short overview of the texts at hand already illustrates that the genre boundaries are blurred and that there are also texts included that lie on the fringes of the fuzzy set (e.g. epic heroic poems or ). Apart from that, it is difficult to determine, which text founded the fantasy tradi- tion, be it the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (around 2100 BC) in ancient times, George Macdonald’s (1858) in the modern context or a completely different work (cf. Ashley 1999: 401, cf. Langford 1999: 603). What complicates this issue further, is that

5 For the whole periodisation see: James, Edward and Farah Mendlesohn (2012). “Chronology”. In: the same, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature. Cambridge: CUP. xv-xxiv. 15 before the scientific revolution in Western Europe in the 16th century the dividing lines between myth, , fantasy and even historiography have been fluid – particularly in ancient times –, and it is almost impossible to reach a conclusion on whether certain texts in the past had reality status for authors and readers or if they were perceived as describing the impossible. Nonetheless, in the very early texts in the fantasy periodisation the ‘im- possibility’ criterion did not really apply to myth, and it is quite probable that these works were not positioned as a counter discourse to a dominant realist, mimetic conception of literature and its inherent world view, such as it is the case today (cf. Clute 1999: 338). To recapitulate, this exploration of fantasy fiction adapts Attebery’s fuzzy set as underlying definition of the genre and extends it by Clute’s self-coherency and grammar as well as Mendlesohn’s modes of fantasy. Additionally, the task of creating a universally accepted canonisation and periodisation of the genre is certainly not completed. However, the mentioned attempts at a definition, a selection of the most important representatives and a possible chronology have delivered the most important building blocks in order to form a consistent framework, in which the genre can be analysed academically.

1.2.4 Locating the Selected Texts within the Fantasy Model

Within this framework LR is – as genre-building work for modern, 20th-century fantasy fiction – the most typical or even the quintessential representative of the genre, while WT shows typical characteristics but also often breaks with them and GT even deconstructs various genre tropes, which positions the latter at the peripheral region of the fuzzy set of fantasy. LR not only functioned as a catalyst for “the explosion of the genre” (James 2012: 62) because it contains a great amount of fantasy tropes (e.g. a mentor figure relating the internally consistent rules of the , a map of the otherworld, a quest narrative et al.), but because Tolkien accomplished to “normalize the idea of a secondary world” (ibid.: 65). This narrative technique has become so standard within fantasy fiction that it is not easy to grasp how revolutionary it was for Tolkien to take his ‘fantasyland’ as a given within his works. Fittingly, Clute marks LR as “the end of apology” (1999: 951). After 1955 other fantasy writers were influenced by Tolkien and no longer felt the urge to explain their fantasy stories away by framing them as traveller’s tales, dreams, time travelling narratives, beast or by entering the otherworld through a portal and thereby somehow linking them to our real world. Hence, Tolkien gave fantasy a “domain” (ibid.), established widely what Attebery today sees as typical for the genre – ascribing truth value to the fantastic – and created the prototype of the ‘immersive’ mode of fantasy

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in Mendlesohn’s terminology. In addition, Clute exemplifies his grammar of fantasy on the basis of Tolkien’s trilogy (cf. ibid.: 339); because of all these seminal positions within the genre framework, LR has to be placed at the centre of the fuzzy set of fantasy fiction. While WT seems relatively typical for the genre at first glance – also through the obvious influences from LR –, it shows some degree of variation in its character construc- tion, plot development and the representation of its fantasy world, as Kaveney and Clute (cf. 1999: 524) find:

[A] sense of an intelligent creative enterprise is sustained throughout the se- quence, most notably perhaps in the ingenuity with which standard plot de- vices, backgrounds and characters are subjected to constant sophisticated modification. (ibid.)

For example, with Moiraine Damodred there is almost a parallel mentor character to LR’s Gandalf who explains the world to the main characters and hence to the readers; however, her decisions and motives are constantly questioned throughout the first novel. In addi- tion, in terms of structure, Rand al’Thor – the protagonist of WT – reaches RECOGNI- TION only in the last but two chapters of the first novel (see “Against the Shadow”, EW: 743-752) but is not content with his role as chosen one, struggles and rather wants to return home, which nonetheless is in this case another parallel to Frodo and Sam in LR. Further reasons for the deviations from the prototypical fantasy model are the manifold influences on WT. Jordan draws – upon other inspirations – heavily on Celtic fantasy and King Arthur but also on other European and Asian mythologies as well as Buddhist, Hin- duist, Taoist, Christian and Islamic philosophy (cf. Kaveney and Clute 1999: 524). These various influences go beyond a purely medievalist background and position WT between LR (the centre) and SIF (the rim) of the fuzzy set of fantasy. As mentioned earlier, SIF as the last series under examination deconstructs vari- ous genre tropes and narrative techniques conventional fantasy employs. Due to its close relation to the historical novel – the War of the Roses and Hadrian's Wall appear to be strong historical influences –, creating a fiction of authenticity regarding this neomedi- evalist representation of the Middle Ages, the supernatural mostly operates under the sur- face in a mysterious sphere – for the most part of GT it is even kept outside the main continent of Westeros, either in Essos or beyond the Wall. Due to the fact that most of the characters therefore do not believe in the supernatural, its very existence and possi- bility is questioned, which is rather atypical for the genre and a sign for the liminal mode of fantasy. Nonetheless, the reader is kept in the light concerning the true nature of the

17 fantastic elements – e.g. through the sighting of Wights in the first chapter, “Prologue” (GT: 1-11). Apart from that, it is difficult to approach SIF with Clute’s grammar. Is there an underlying feeling of WRONGNESS because of a threat from some dark, supernatural Other (i.e. the White Walkers) or because of the nature of human beings in this secondary world model? In addition, the omnipresent saying in the series “winter is coming” (GT: passim) seems to be much rather a premonition of a final catastrophe than the typical HEALING/RETURN ending in fantasy. Furthermore, it is difficult to determine who the protagonist of the whole series is that might reach RECOGNITION. Although there are certain indicators and prophecies, the series is really capitalising on the fantasy plot de- vice of separation, i.e. letting individual characters go on different “cook tours” (James 2012: 65) – journeys around the fantasyland (cf. ibid.) –, with nine focaliser characters in GT, who are expanded to 31 towards the end of the series. All these indicators point to- ward the fact that SIF is situated on the fringes of the fuzzy set of fantasy or is at least uncharacteristic for the genre. Nonetheless, given its popularity among readers and its influence on other works, it is quite probable that the series will take on a similar status for 21st-century fantasy such as LR did in the 20th-century context and become itself genre-building. Martin broadened the genre for a more adult audience; readers who were previously discouraged by the romantic and light-hearted associations of the genre might be attracted to SIF because of its violence, sexual dimension and political intrigue. Hence, Martin’s series might open up or at least popularise a new ‘cluster’ within the fuzzy set; suggestions for this subgenre of fantasy include “” (Clute 1999: 249), “” (Taylor 2011: online) inspired by hard science fiction and “ fantasy” (Roberts 2014: 42).

1.3 Function Theory and History

1.3.1 What Are Possible Effects or Functions of Literature?

As touched upon in the introduction, the present thesis aims at establishing possible mi- cro- or sub-functions of the individual nostalgically charged representations of pre-mod- ern times in fantasy fiction as well as scratching on the macro-functions of catering for nostalgia or deconstructing it on the level of the texts as a whole. In spite of the extensive research done in literary studies and the central position of the concept in literary analysis – almost every interpretation ultimately tries to reveal the text-internal or text-external function of element A on element B –, strikingly little has been said on functions of

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literature. There is also no holistic modelling of literary functions, although there have been different approaches to functional analysis in the past. Some reasons for this might be that functions of literature are so diverse and different in their nature as well as hard to trace and pin down. Nonetheless, Fricke provides a rather concise working definition of function within literary studies: “[The] potential effect of a text or text element” (1997: 643; my translation). The researcher continues with distinguishing the notion from the hermeneu- tic and psychological concept of intention and the effect from empirical observation and explains literary function as a term of disposition; its effect is only potential. Thus, a text or individual text element fulfils a certain function when there is an empirically detectable potential or disposition to elicit text relations or reader responses. What can be derived from this description of the concept is that functional analysis is always text-oriented – there have to be indicators for a potential function in the text under examination. To elab- orate on the potential-dimension of literary functions, they are always hypotheses since it is irrelevant for their classification whether they correspond with the author’s intended effect or whether they are realised on the reception side (cf. ibid.). For example, provok- ing horror or laughter within readers is highly individual; hence, the same text or text element may have different functions depending on the specific reader. In addition, Fricke (cf. ibid.) draws the important distinction between internal and external function. The former applies when a text element creates a significant connection within the text, for instance through similarity (e.g. recurrence), opposition (e.g. antithe- sis) or ordered sequencing (e.g. iteration). Another example would be that a symbol within the text can point towards an element of the implied world view. An external func- tion is fulfilled when a whole text or a text element establishes a significant relation to a concept lying outside the text due to its special properties. According to Fricke, examples for an external function of literature include satire, which could be extended to any socio- political commentary on the real world, but also links to other texts, such as intertextuality (e.g. system reference) or parody (cf. ibid.). Due to the fact that this present thesis re- volves around the micro- or sub-functions of nostalgic representations of the Middle Ages and their deconstructions in fantasy fiction, and the macro-functions of catering for nos- talgia and deconstructing it on the level of the full texts are also of peripheral interest, the following analysis will mainly deal with text relations to outside concepts and thus exter- nal functions.

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In terms of concrete historical literary functions, Fricke (cf. ibid.: 645) refers to the Aristotelian catharsis (i.e. cleansing) through experiencing eleos (i.e. fear) and pho- bos (i.e. pity) in the genre of ancient tragedy as well as the Horatian prodesse (i.e. instruct) and delectare (i.e. entertain) as the beginnings of attributing functions to literature. Ac- cording to Fricke, more recent examples include the modern l’art pour l’art or genre terms that already denote their function, e.g. emancipatory literature or horror (cf. ibid.)

1.3.2 Functional Histories – Between Intention, Function Potential, Reception and the Historical Function of Literature

From a historical perspective on the term function in the literary studies context Fricke (cf. ibid.: 644-645) locates its origins in Russian formalism initiated through the promi- nent Novalis reception. Within system theoretical considerations the notion took up a prominent role in structuralism, before being popularised by Jakobson’s functions of lan- guage, which were influenced by Bühler’s organon model (1934) and attributed the con- cept through the poetic function also specifically to literature. In more recent contribu- tions to the discussion of literary function, Fietz (1976) focuses on a more author-centred conception with his “intended function of the text” (ibid.: 27, my translation), while Gum- brecht (1978) emphasises the side of reception aesthetics. As can be seen in the descrip- tion of the internal and external function above, Fricke (1997) combines formalistic and sociological aspects and finally, Zymer (1995) tries to look into physical reactions of readers, such as laughter, with his “pragmatic effect function” (353, my translation) (cf. Fricke 1997: 645-646). Another publication that provides a good overview of the concept of function in literary studies and its history is Sommer’s article (2000) on functional histories, which partly overlaps with Fricke’s lexicon article but is more in-depth.6 The researcher also differentiates between the author-centred function intention, the reader-specific reception and the textual function potential, which he all describes as “functional hypotheses” (Sommer 2000: 326, my translation), and adds the dimension of the “historical function” (ibid., my translation) (cf. ibid.: 322-326). According to Sommer, the analysis of function

6 For a more precise distinction between intention, effect/function potential and reception see: Sommer, Roy (2000). “III. Funktionszuschreibungen als Hypothesen über den Zusammenhang von Intention, Wirkungspotential und Rezeption”. Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch. 41. 326-333. 20

intention only leads a way to the intention of the implied author and neither to the inten- tion of the real author nor to possible functions of the text itself (cf. ibid. 327-328). In addition, the reader-specific reception also does not provide a possible way to draw con- clusions on functions of the text since it is very individual and subjective (cf. ibid.: 327). Hence, Sommer turns to the “function potential” (ibid.: 328, my translation) of the text, which is based on textual evidence obtained through the analysis of narratological devices (cf. ibid.: 328-329). In order to account for the strong role of the individual readers and their expectations that stand at the beginning of the interpretation process, Sommer de- scribes every act of attributing a potential function to a text as being only a “functional hypothesis” (ibid.: 326) since literary functions never have universal validity – they are always categories of observation and never inherent characteristics of the text itself (cf. ibid.: 333). Where Sommer enters new territory compared to Fricke is his “historical func- tion” (ibid.: 331). Through the four main strands of functional history research – literary function research in a narrower sense as well as historical, hermeneutic and discourse analytical reception studies – it is shown how particular functional hypotheses are rein- forced over time, while others are disregarded. Thus, functional analysis though a recep- tion aesthetics lens not only enables researchers to gain insights into the norms and men- talities of current times but also of the past – exactly this is Sommer’s historical function of literature. Nonetheless, it is important to stress that literary reception is never homoge- neous; therefore, it can be problematic to formulate a historical function that should be valid for the whole historical readership (cf. ibid. 331-333). With regards to fantasy fic- tion, it might be promising to speculate from a diachronic point of view whether readers have turned to nostalgic representations of the Middle Ages and the supernatural for the same functional reasons over different time periods or whether those sought functions have changed over time. Having overarching function hypotheses of literature as a whole in mind that com- bine function intention, function potential, historical function and reception, Sommer iso- lates two macro-theses in literary studies. The first of which is Luhmann’s system-theo- retical conception of the “social system literature” (ibid.: 334, my translation) from 1995, which investigates the communicative use of literature (e.g. to reflect on societal change or to entertain). The latter is Iser’s “literary anthropology” (ibid.: 336, my translation) from 1991, which locates an anthropological urge to fictionalise and imagine in the

21 human condition and sees the human as ‘the storytelling animal’ (cf. ibid.: 334-337). Both approaches to a general function of literature illustrate how certain presuppositions also pre-structure literary history, which can also be seen in current rewritings of the literary canon – e.g. from a feminist perspective (ibid.: 337-339). After this brief outline of the necessary theoretical concepts informing an understanding of nostalgia, fantasy and liter- ary function, a short primary text introduction will follow, before moving on to the anal- ysis of nostalgia for pre-modernity in fantasy fiction with respect to intertextuality (i.e. system reference), the representation of the supernatural and the implied world view.

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2 Overall Text Introduction – Structure and Fantasy Modes

2.1 From Wrongness to Healing? The Structure of LR, WT and SIF

LR relates the quest of its protagonist Frodo Baggins and other members of the Fellowship of the Ring to defeat the Dark Lord by destroying the One Ring in Mount Doom; WT follows its protagonist Rand al’Thor and other characters in their fight against the Dark One since one of them is prophesied to be the Reborn who opposes the antagonist in the final, apocalyptic battle of Tarmon Gai’don; and SIF revolves around the dynastic war of several houses to gain control of the Iron Throne, which might be overshadowed in the face of a bigger threat from some supernatural Other. Although the general premise of all these fantasy series can be seen to boil down to one sentence, it is – as always in literature – the ‘how’ that is so intriguing to discover. All of these plot beginnings develop into thousands of pages of epic journeys with countless individual but interconnected storylines, complex characters and secondary world models of incred- ible depth. As touched upon above, Clute (1999: 338-339) illustrates his grammar of fantasy on the basis of LR. The structure of the series begins at WRONGNESS, when the char- acters first encounter evil – i.e. the first sight of the Nazgûl by the Hobbits (see FR: 98- 99) 7 – and realise that the secondary world as a whole has gone askew. This THINNING due to the actions of Sauron, the Dark Lord – a typical fantasy trope –, is intensified the further the Fellowship travels towards Mount Doom but also leads them to continue their quest. For Frodo it is an external quest to destroy the One Ring but also an internal quest for self-discovery (cf. ibid.: 796). In a crucial moment of the text, after several visions of Sauron in the form of a burning eye at “the Seat of Seeing” (FR: 522), Frodo reaches RECOGNITION and leaves the Fellowship in order to realise his role in the narrative. In a final “eucatastrophe” (James: 2012: 64) in Tolkien’s terms – the happy ending –, the

7 Since The Fellowship of the Ring (1954/2007), The Eye of the World (1990/2014) and A Game of Thrones (1996/2011) are the main texts for this literary analysis, I will henceforth refer to (Tolkien. The Fellowship of the Ring: page number), (Jordan. The Eye of the World: page num- ber) and (Martin. A Game of Thrones: page number) with (FR: page number), (EW: page num- ber) and (GT: page number) for the respective novels in the short quotation. 23 typical structure of fantasy is completed through the destruction of the ring, which cor- rects the WRONGNESS from the beginning through HEALING/RETURN (cf. ibid.). WT’s structure works mostly in an analogous way – at least for the first novel: from the first confrontation with evil forces in the raid of Emond’s Field by the Trollocs – WRONGNESS – (see EW: 69-108), over the THINNING through the episodic encoun- ters with various Dark Friends (see EW: passim), up to the MICRO-HEALING after the first fight of Rand al’Thor with the Dark One (see EW: 762-771). The only exception being the late RECONGNITION, which almost occurs simultaneously with the final bat- tle of the first novel (see EW: 743-752). Although WT is expanded into an enormous plurality of settings and characters over the course of the next 13 novels in the series, the overall structure remains the same, steering towards the final HEALING/RETURN after the last battle of the series. This pluralisation of characters, settings and storylines is also the reason for the difficulty of applying the typical fantasy structure to SIF. Although WRONGNESS is clear from the beginning due to the supernatural threat beyond the Wall and THINNING is already concretised in the first part of the series through the depiction of the secondary world model based on a barbaric version of the Middle Ages (e.g. including gory violence, rape or paedophilia), it is difficult to imagine that a holistic HEALING/RETURN of the whole fantasyland can be accomplished, even if the supernatural antagonists are defeated. In addition, it is not an easy task to isolate a protagonist that might have a moment of RECOGNITION. Although there are several main characters with the Starks, Jon Snow or Daenerys Targaryen, to only name a few that are also employed for focalisation, it is problematic to predict who might take such a central position in the structure. The hatch- ing scene of Daenerys’ on the burning pyre at the end of GT (see 805-807) might be such a moment; however, since Martin frequently breaks with reader expectations, it is quite possible that a main character still fails or dies after having reached RECOGNI- TION. Just as in real life, readers can never feel confident with their expectations; any- thing might happen over the course of the series, which may, however, also lead to a distancing effect for readers, who might not want to get too involved anymore due to the constant possibility of losing a beloved character – such as for example in ‘The Red Wed- ding’ (see Martin. A Storm of Swords: 693-705). What complicates the issue further is that the series has not yet been completed at the time of writing this thesis. Nonetheless, it will be highly interesting to find out, whether Martin will ultimately embrace fantasy conventions or totally negate them at the end of SIF.

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2.2 Between Portal-Quest, Immersion, Intrusion and the Liminal – Tolkien, Jordan and Martin Challenging the Modes-of-Fantasy Model

Despite the fact that James (cf. 2012: 64) classifies LR as a portal-quest mode of fantasy since the main characters (i.e. the Hobbits) move from a world into a ‘new’ one and learn about this unfamiliar world mostly through uncontested explanation by a mentor figure (i.e. Gandalf), it is here argued that all of the texts under examination predomi- nantly belong to the immersive mode, although they also show indicators of other modes of fantasy. In all of the observed texts the main characters are very much part of the fan- tasy world; they might wander through different lands with vastly different flora and fauna within their ‘continents’ but they do not travel through a portal or otherwise into a totally different secondary world model. In all of the narratives it is even part of the main motivation of several characters to continue their journey and confront the antagonistic forces since they would – as interwoven parts of the otherworld – also lose their home, if the opposing side won (e.g. compare Frodo Baggins, Rand al’Thor or Jon Snow). This is even more so the case because the impossible elements that are central to the genre are in LR and WT also part of the same fantasyland – Frodo uses the One Ring, e.g. the first time in Bree (see FR: 209-210), and Rand learns to channel the One Power (see EW: 751) – and thus they do not exist isolated from the world or the characters. Only in SIF one could argue that the supernatural comes from the outside with all the supernatural influences acting and invading Westeros either form Essos or from beyond the Wall, which is a typical sign for the intrusion mode of fantasy. Apart from that, the implicit staging of the supernatural and magic in LR and SIF – especially at the beginning of each series – could be interpreted as a sign for the liminal mode of fantasy. Although there are wizards and magi in the texts, the supernatural mostly operates hidden under the surface. Thus, the magical sphere stays somewhat mysterious, and its rules are never revealed completely over the course of the narratives. In addition, Middle-earth and Westeros even seem to lose their magic. In LR the Elves depart towards the west and in GT most characters do not believe in “grumkins or snarks” (214) – an insider joke between Tyrion and Cersei Lannister. This loss of magic is also a big part of the THINNING within these secondary world models. In both works the typical romance magic characteristic for fantasy fiction is transferred into the fictional history, where the

25 supernatural is much more common, e.g. compare the children of the forest, and dragons roam the sky freely. In contrast to that, magic in WT is staged very explicitly and is even the source of the most figurative language in the series, e.g. see the fight between the companions and the Dark One’s henchman at the Eye of the World (EW: 738-742). Con- sidering all the different characteristics, the works under examination are here still pri- marily attributed to the immersive mode of fantasy since the main characters are part of the fantasy world and they interact with the supernatural sphere – in particular towards the end of the series as a whole.

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3 Nostalgia through Intertextuality, the Supernatural and the Implied World View – LR revitalising Pre-Modernity

3.1 Intertextual System Reference in Tolkien’s Fantasy Fiction: Se- lected Elements of Medieval Romance, Song and Poetry

Due to the fact that the intertextuality through system reference to the medieval romance genre is only part of one sub-section of the analysis, only selected elements are regarded, and the concept is not as central to this examination as nostalgia, fantasy or function the- ory, a brief introduction to the genre term will not be incorporated in the theory section, but given here, relating to the selected elements. Buchanan (cf. 2010: 414) locates the literary genre’s beginnings in the early Middle Ages. The term itself originated from the fact that the first romances were written in ‘Romance languages’, meaning in the local vernacular rather than the predominant Latin. While chivalric romances, also known as “courtly tales” (ibid.), mostly deal with marvel-filled adventures and of often typ- ified nobles (see the chivalric knight-errant) for courage, (heterosexual) love, honour, manners and fidelity – both to one’s betrothed and one’s realm –, its chanson de geste counterpart from France concentrates more on masculine heroism in battle (cf. Baldick 1990: 35). Today’s associations with the medieval are heavily influenced by the genre through damsels in distress, dragons or other romance tropes that are, for example, prom- inent in the typical representatives of the Round Table knights of King Arthur. However, romances were not only escapist and shallow as Carroll finds: They “wrestle with issues such as the effects of unrestrained violence on the land and people, licit versus illicit violence, gender roles, the stability of bloodlines, and the structure of society as a whole” (2018: 24-25). The remnants of romance in current times include narratives whose main thematic focus is love and tales. In fact, Buchanan (cf. 2010: 415) indeed names “Tolkien’s ‘Ring Trilogy’” (ibid.) as one example of how the romance genre survives in the fantasy novel (cf. ibid.). Thus, both chanson de geste and romance are important in- tertextual systems for fantasy. Relating romance conventions to SIF, Carroll provides a list of possible connections between the romance and the fantasy genre:

Structural similarities include interlacement, episodic organisation, interpre- tation of events by a narrative voice, and the use of legend as lesson for the present, while plot similarities include the primacy of the nobility, the ‘fair unknown’ motif, the focus on prowess and honor of knights, the tension

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between expectations of honor, law, religion and dynastic stability, and the role of kings in maintaining peace and stability in the realm. (2018: 26)

In the following, the focus will be placed on nostalgia for pre-modernity arising through the of medieval romance conventions with regards to structure and character construction in the selected examples of fantasy fiction.

3.1.1 Fantasy Fiction as Structural Romance – Episodic Organisation and Inter- lacement in LR

While fantasy texts predominantly adhere to the macro-structure of the genre illustrated above, they show remarkable similarities to romance on the lower structural level of the individual chapters. According to Bruckner, “romance puts together multiple stories; these multiple segments echo each other through analogies and the interplay of repetition and variation” (2000: 23), which is also a typical narrative strategy in fantasy fiction. While romance uses this episodic organisation of its chapters mainly to realise its “bipar- tition” (ibid.) or double adventure structure, it results in fantasy writing from the typical of separation that splits the main characters up for them to experience their own adventures in different parts of the fantasyland. The characteristic double adventure structure of romance is illustrated by Haidu with the following model (cf. 1983: 660): A1 + N1 + X + A2 + N2 “A” (ibid.: 661) refers here to an adventure, in which the protagonist approaches his be- loved, “N” (ibid.) is the “nexus” (ibid.), in which the lovers reach harmony and “X” (ibid.) is the crisis that disrupts this harmony (cf. ibid.). Bruckner (2000: 23) puts this model in a still rather generalised way into words:

An initial problem or lack launches the hero on a quest, which is realized in a series of episodes [A1]. The hero’s success is celebrated by marriage with his beloved, discovered and won as a result of his prowess [N1]. But a crisis soon disrupts their happiness [X]. The hero’s reputation cast in doubt, he must once again set out on a series of adventures to redefine his identity [A2]. His success in these further trials sets a new level of extraordinary achievement and cul- minates in the celebration of the hero’s triumph [N2]. (ibid., my additions)

Often, the romance hero reaches his first, superficial goal without addressing his central character flaw; only after proving himself again and correcting this flaw in a lasting man- ner can he reach real harmony. Interestingly, this characteristic structure has still re- mained as part of most romance inspired genres today – e.g. see the typical crisis before the final union of lovers in the modern romantic novel or movie.

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According to Bruckner (cf. ibid.: 24), this narrative macro-structure in romance is organised on a lower structural level in the basic module of the “self-contained episode” (ibid.), which is characterised by its central narrative function (e.g. hospitality, combat et al.), may but does not have to follow causal logic, and is primarily “disjunctive, reitera- tive” (ibid.) rather than organic and strictly chronological. In addition, these individual episodes are interconnected or “interlaced” (ibid.) – such as for example in Le Morte d'Arthur (1485) by Sir Thomas Mallory –, allowing plot extensions into longer, more complex narratives, the handling of individual story lines, the creation of suspense but also analogy and contrast through the juxtaposition of individual narrative elements. Thus, interlacing “expresses both the impetus to segment the narrative into separate units and the equally powerful compulsion to associate and continue romance across such di- visions” (ibid.: 25) – which is also the central principle behind the construction of fantasy texts. The most obvious instance of episodic organisation in fantasy fiction is the sepa- ration of the larger narrative into individual chapters (cf. Rieken 2019: 20). In LR chapters are titled thematically according to the central event in them – e.g. “A Long-expected Party” (FR: 22) – and within these chapters the readers primarily share the perspectives of the Hobbits, who are later separated and experience their own adventures in different parts of the fictional world. This plot device of separation is in LR employed from the end of the first novel onwards when the Fellowship splits up (see FR: 531), with Frodo and Sam moving towards Mordor, while Merry explores Rohan and Pippin gives readers an insight into the realm of Gondor. An additional similarity to romance in fantasy writing – apart from episodic or- ganisation – is that the individual episodes are not strictly linear, but they are to some extent detached from one another, partly even interchangeable and in other cases inter- laced. For instance, it does not really matter for the overall progression of the plot whether Frodo and Sam reach Mordor after the Battle of Helm’s Deep (see Tolkien. The Two Towers: 686-708) or after the Battle of the Pelennor Fields (see Tolkien. The Return of the King: 1098-1113) – especially such combat episodes are partly easily interchangeable. However, it does matter, whether Gandalf returns at the right time with Éomer’s host in the Battle of Helm’s Deep since he has direct influence on its outcome – in this case episodic interlacement is dominant.

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What results from this episodic organisation and interlacement is a remarkable realisation of narrative time. Although there are central, important events that are known across the fictional world and together with the positioning of the individual episodes both of these indicators function as reference points for the overall timeline, it is often difficult to relate the individual chapters to one another. For example, it might be a task not to be underestimated to locate each member of the Fellowship at every moment over the course of LR. While the overall order of events stays the same, the duration might change due to varying subjective perceptions of time by individual characters and most importantly the frequency might change due to repeated narration of one event – this latter aspect will be shown more thoroughly in the later analysis of SIF.

3.1.2 Romance Character Construction in Tolkien’s Text – Primacy of the Nobil- ity, The Fair Unknown and Ideals of Chivalry

As touched upon above, in terms of character construction chivalric romance mostly deals with kings and queens or with characters constituting to the “primacy of the nobility’s viewpoint” (Carroll 2018: 31). Rider (cf. 2000: 115) goes even so far as to draw the pri- mary division between the noble estate and anyone outside this sphere, who is represented as “other” (ibid.) in romance. From a historical function perspective this focus on the aristocracy can be explained by the genre’s main purpose apart from entertainment, namely to educate the nobility – especially knights – on how to act on the battlefield and in relationship with women according to the dominant ideology as well as to support the social order (cf. Carroll 2018: 31). This is in particular the case since chivalric romances were mainly read in court and may also be related to what was most conspicuously for- mulated – the neoclassical aptum, according to which only noble characters were able to experience a serious or tragic fate. This focus on members of the nobility is another parallel to fantasy. All members of the Fellowship in LR are part of ancient aristocratic families with a high standing that are sent to represent their whole people – see the chapter “The Council of Elrond” (FR: 311-353). Even though the central message of LR is ‘even the smallest can accomplish the greatest things’, this does not include class – apart from gardener Sam Gamgee, all of the Hobbits belong to renowned families that come close to the aristocracy of Hobbit culture – e.g. Frodo as Bilbo Baggin’s second cousin belongs to the Brandybock family and his occupation is never mentioned; he does not have to work.

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This brings us to another similarity between romance and fantasy character con- struction, namely the ‘fair unknown’ motif. Due to the fact that identity, one’s place in the feudal society as well as the stability of bloodlines, is a major concern in medieval romance writing, Carroll (cf. 2018: 32-33) argues that problems in legitimising marriage, knighthood or throne succession are often solved through this motif, in which a young man of uncertain parentage, having proven his valour, turns out to be of noble birth – e.g. compare the characters of Percival and Lancelot in Arthurian legend. The fair unknown often possesses certain talents without proper training because of his noble blood – e.g. martial arts –, which adds to the medieval idea that aristocracy is superior to non-nobles by nature due to its closer connection to God in the Great Chain of Being. Another God- given structure is the right line of succession and the purity of bloodlines according to the dominant world view at the time; hence both had to be maintained on the story level, and the fair unknown motif is a common narrative tool in romance to legitimise a potential heir according to this norm (cf. ibid.). In LR the most obvious fair unknown is Strider, who soon turns out to be “[…] Aragorn son of Arathorn […] descended through many fathers from Isildur Elendil’s son of Minas Ithil. He is the Chief of the Dúnedain in the North, and few are left of that folk” (FR: 321). Thus, Aragorn is also the true heir to the throne of Gondor. However, he strug- gles with the burden that comes with this lineage, and he does not know throughout the series whether he will be able meet the expectations that are set for him, especially since are considered the weak people of Middle-earth because Isildur himself was cor- rupted by the Ring. Apart from that, Frodo is referred to by Elrond as “the Ring-bearer. And you [Frodo] are the heir of Bilbo, the Ring-finder” (FR: 292) – thus, he should con- tinue to carry it at least ‘for a while’. Thereby, the idea of heritage is again evoked in this passage. So far, it has been established that romance and fantasy fiction primarily feature characters from the nobility and rely heavily on the fair unknown motif. In addition, the characters in fantasy are also often constructed according to or playing with the typical code of romance chivalry, which are knightly ideals that belong to the three main areas of warrior ethos, knightly piety and courtly manners (cf. Kaeuper 2000: 97). These ideals of chivalry are so central to the romance genre that they are often transferred to typified characters who deal with one such quality of knighthood – e.g. Calidore, the knight of courtesy in Spenser’s The Faerie Queen. Romance chivalry in terms of warrior ethos is

31 particularly featured in chanson de geste texts as Barron (1987: 25) finds, centred around the following ideals: “personal prowess, the loyalty of comrades in arms, mutual trust in the bonds of kinship, reciprocal fidelity within the feudal system, to national solidarity in defence of faith and sovereign” (ibid.). Apart from muscular ability and skill in arms, the code of romance chivalry also includes various personal qualities, such as “nobility of nature, generosity, contempt for fatigue, pain, death, concern for reputation and praise of one’s peers” (ibid.: 28). Additionally, knightly piety manifests itself in Christian morality, protection of the weak, oath-keeping, moderation in battle (e.g. sparing the defeated), humility, benevolence and restraint (cf. ibid.). Through life at court further social ideals are added to the catalogue, such as “good breeding, social and moral refinement, personal elegance, politeness, skill in the social arts of music, dance, chess and conversation” (ibid.), which are mainly required in the romance concept of courtly love. In general, the parallels between the knightly virtues in romance mentioned above and LR are manifold, as Elrond’s Council resembling the Knights of the Round Table already indicates. Farrell (cf. 2002: online) mentions some of them, such as Aragorn set- ting aside his personal desires in order to serve his people due to his strong sense of duty and honour similar to King Arthur; Sam being the epitome of loyalty to his master; Galadriel providing inspiration to the Fellowship such as Guenever does to the knights questing for the Holy Grail and Éowyn echoing Brunhild in her courage and strength, thereby dissolving the cliché that the code of chivalry cannot be attained by women (cf. ibid.). Thomson (cf. 1967: 50) goes even so far as to label the characters in LR as types. However, I do not agree with this stance since the characters are too much individualised in order to be considered allegorical. However, they are certainly informed by the arche- types of medieval literature, such as Aragorn – the prince and king –, which is illustrated by the following passage when the Fellowship encounters The Argonath on the river An- duin:

‘Fear not!’ said a strange voice behind him. Frodo turned and saw Strider, and yet not Strider; for the weatherworn Ranger was no longer there. In the stern sat Aragorn son of Arathorn, proud and erect, guiding the boat with skilful strokes; his hood was cast back, and his dark hair was blowing in the wind, a light was in his eyes: a king returning from exile to his own land. (FR: 512)

Aragorn is a great example to demonstrate how Tolkien constructs his characters accord- ing to ideals of chivalry. The exclamation at the beginning of the excerpt can be inter- preted as Aragorn showing loyalty to his comrades and protecting the weak – the knights were considered the protector class in the Middle Ages. In addition, “proud and erect”

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(ibid.) characterises the former ranger in his personal qualities, evoking among other fea- tures natural nobility, personal elegance, honour and innate grandeur. Apart from that, his “skilful strokes” (ibid.) complete the picture of the chivalric knight in this passage pos- sessing personal prowess and skills in practical tasks related to the martial. The image is further supported by the fair unknown motif. Thus, this excerpt summarises Aragorn as the ideal of chivalry quite pointedly. However, Aragorn also meets the code of chivalry with his social qualities when he helps Bilbo finish his song in the halls of Elrond (see FR: 303) or recites poetry in front of the bonfire (see FR: 250-252). The last piece in the chivalric representation of Aragorn is his relationship to Arwen, Elvish daughter of Elrond, who even gives up her immortality to be with Aragorn. Their whole relationship shows remarkable similarity to the concept of high courtly love, with idealisation of the seemingly unattainable beloved, spiritual undertones and without a sexual dimension. At the end of LR Aragorn even reaches the typical happy ending of the knight errant in chivalric romance, when he weds Arwen in final harmony as King Elessar, now with his beloved at his side (see Tolkien. The Return of the King: 1274).

3.1.3 ‘Resting at the Bonfire’ – Intertextual System Reference to Medieval Song and Poetry in LR

Another way of how fantasy revitalises medieval literature is by combining two of the three ‘main genres’ according to Goethe’s natural forms of ‘poetry’ or literature (cf. Nün- ning 2007: 31-32). In this case smaller medievalist songs and poems are embedded into the longer epic narrative of the fantasy novel. For instance, when Strider and the Hobbits spend the night on Weathertop on their way from Bree to Rivendell, he tells them tales in front of the fire to “keep their minds from fear” (FR: 249) of Dark Riders and darkness, which makes even Sam himself nostalgic: “Then tell us some other tale of the old days, […] a tale about Elves before the fading time. I would dearly like to hear more about Elves; the dark seems to press round so close” (FR: 250). Over the following three pages Strider chants softly “The Tale of Tinúviel” (FR: 250), and thereby Tolkien not only al- ludes to the historical functions of song and lyric in the Middle Ages but also charges the scene with nostalgic emotions; the first stanza is here presented in an exemplary manner:

The leaves were long, the grass was green, The hemlock-umbels tall and fair, And in the glade a light was seen

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Of stars in shadow shimmering. Tinúviel was dancing there To music of a pipe unseen, And light of stars was in her hair, And in her raiment glimmering. (FR: 250)

This short excerpt of the whole lay already illustrates that this medievalist poem not only alludes to medieval lyric in terms of its context but is even itself constructed according to poetry conventions from that time. This can be seen in the typical ‘nature introduction’ of the first stanza, a conventionalised topos in medieval poetry focused on the description of nature, and in the “pipe” (ibid.) in line six, which might be an allusion to pastoral poetry, a popular lyrical genre in the Middle Ages and beyond – for example, it was also rediscovered in neoclassicism –, which revolves around the mostly idealised lives of shepherds. In addition, “The Tale of Tinúviel” structurally mirrors the Great Chain of Being – the hierarchical structure of the universe according to medieval thought –, begin- ning with the growing plants, moving over the thinking and feeling Tinúviel and finally reaching the Godly and celestial bodies of the stars at the end of the first stanza. The fact that elves are considered close to gods walking upon Middle-earth, being immortal and having magical abilities in Tolkien’s might be the reason that the starlight is even mentioned before Tinúviel. Over the next eight stanzas the lay covers all seasons of the year until Beren and Tinúviel (Lúthien) are finally united. Thus, it shows remarkable similarity to medieval poetry which is concerned with the change of seasons, such as for instance the spring reverdie “Sumer is icumen in” (around mid-13th century) that cele- brates the return of spring. Here the author of LR proves his knowledge of and love for medieval poetry by composing his own medievalist song in fantasy according to its pre- decessors on various levels of the text. After the poem, the narrative moves again on a hypodiegetic level, on which Aragorn contextualises the lay and continues to recount the whole history of Middle-earth up to the foundation of Westernesse (see FR: 252-253). Although a long stretch of Mid- dle-earth history as well as the tale of Beren and Lúthien are here narrowed down to almost one page, it is told with such narrative ability that aesthetic allusion and immersion arguably again take place on this lower diegetic level. The text itself even comments on Aragorn’s proficiency as a narrator: “As Strider was speaking they watched his strange eager eyes, dimly lit in the red glow of the wood-fire. His eyes shone, and his voice was rich and deep” (FR: 253-254). In addition, the story of Beren and Lúthien has shown such

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great potential that it meanwhile exists as a stand-alone publication, adapted from (1977) – Beren and Lúthien (2017). This whole text passage not only demonstrates the enormous fictional culture and history background LR builds on after almost forty years of sub-creation regarding Mid- dle-earth by Tolkien (cf. James 2012: 66), but also the historical functions of medieval song and poetry. In the descriptions and utterances of Sam and Aragorn the reader gains an idea of how songs and poetry might have provided comfort and entertainment for the medieval audience in times of both war and peace. Furthermore, Aragorn’s chanting and the historical excursion illustrate how the reception situation of medieval poetry was al- most exclusively linked to oral performance – very close to a song –, and the reception, preservation and transfer of knowledge was also based on the oral tradition of the Middle Ages until the introduction of the Caxton printing press (1485) as well as bible transla- tions as catalysts for the development of national languages and public literacy. Thus, as has been shown by the example of the above given passage, Tolkien represents and fore- grounds the importance and the historical functions of the oral tradition for medieval cul- ture. Together with the selected elements of chivalric romance structure and character construction all the examples analysed contribute to the implicit nostalgic celebration of medieval art and culture in LR, which will be expanded on in the overall comparison.

3.2 Veil of Mystery: The Representation of the Supernatural and Magic in Tolkien’s Work

3.2.1 Preliminary Remarks on the Supernatural, Magic, the Fantastic and the Im- possible

Until now, this analysis would have – for the most part – also been possible for the me- dievalist historical novel; however, neomedievalist fantasy prototypically not only builds on a fictional world based on the Middle Ages but also includes the supernatural as a fixed part of the secondary world model. Thus, this chapter deals with the representation of the supernatural in the selected fantasy fiction and its nostalgic implications. First and foremost, there is the need for some refinement in terms of the terminol- ogy used between the supernatural, magic, the fantastic and the impossible. Although the terms are mostly used synonymously here, there are subtle differences in their meaning. While the supernatural is the common hypernym in this context, incorporating all of the

35 others, magic often implies some form of agency standing behind it (e.g. someone who casts a spell); the fantastic is very much loaded with Todorov’s work (1973) but is in the present thesis predominantly understood in its adjective form, either describing the genre or the supernatural elements within fantasy according to Mendlesohn’s modes of fantasy; and the impossible is linked to James and Mendlesohn (2012), who locate the principal criterion for the genre in “the construction of the impossible” (ibid.: 1) – otherwise last the concept is almost synonymous to the following definition of the supernatural. In his entry on “” (1999: 909) Clute defines the genre very broadly as “any story whose premises contradict the rules of the mundane world” (ibid.). However, in the following the researcher narrows his definition down and conceptualises supernatural fiction close to the intrusion mode of fantasy, in which the natural world as base reality is ‘invaded’ by the supernatural, often taking the form of ghosts, , or other instances of the uncanny and being close to Gothic or (cf. ibid.). Nonetheless, with slight alterations Clute’s broad definition is – modified in my own words – also applicable to the supernatural in fantasy fiction: ‘any story element that contradicts the rules of the primary, real world in terms of empirical, secular or sci- entific knowledge’. On the other hand, Jones (cf. 1999: 615-616) stresses the pragmatic use and inter- nally consistent rules in her definition of magic: “[M]agic, when present, can do almost anything, but obeys certain rules according to its nature” (ibid.). These rules depend on the respective fictional world and can be defined and explained or kept mysterious (cf. ibid.). Hence, in this present thesis, the supernatural is understood as any individual story element that is contrafactual in itself and magic – as part of the supernatural – is closer to a ‘system of rules or tools’ that enables to achieve the impossible with some kind of agency standing behind it. This means that the pure existence of or walking trees (see FR: passim) is rather explained through the supernatural, while Gandalf casting light through his staff (see FR: 403) belongs to the domain of magic. In the following, the representation of the supernatural and the magic system will be analysed in LR and how it might differ from the other set texts in their comparative analysis. Hopefully, this com- parison will yield findings on how these differences influence their respective catering for nostalgia and which sub-functions might be attributed to these nostalgically charged representations. In a longer stretch of argumentation Cox (cf. 2012: 138-140) draws the primary divide between magic that is governed by a different set of physical laws according to the

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secondary world model – i.e. the immersive mode – and magic that disrupts or changes the physical laws that are taken over from the primary, base reality – i.e. the intrusion mode (cf. ibid.). This dichotomy is here understood as also entailing a key difference in representation; in the former, magic would – as fixed part of the physical laws – typically be known to some characters and potentially explained to the readers. In the latter, the system of magic typically stays mysterious, and its rules are never completely defined. This division is of particular relevance for this analysis with the addition of the supernat- ural since neomedievalist fantasy fiction is normally based on a medievalist version of the Middle Ages including some form of the supernatural and magic. However, which form does LR belong to and what does this signify?

3.2.2 From the Istari over Ents to a Ring of Invisibility – The Supernatural and Magic in LR

As has become clear in the theory section and in the overall text introduction, the selected fantasy series pose a challenge to the modes-of-fantasy model since they exhibit signs of different modes. Specifically for LR this means the immersive mode due to the fact that the main characters are part of the same fantasy otherworld and interact with the super- natural sphere and the liminal mode because the supernatural and magic are always cloaked in mystery and never defined in detail. For example, contrafactual characters such as Elves or anthropomorphised nature (e.g. Ents) are a naturalised part of Middle-earth, while it is never revealed why or how Gandalf can wield magic. This can also be observed in the author’s self-definition: In the index of The Re- turn of the King “wizardry” is defined as “magic of a kind popularly ascribed to the Wiz- ards” (Tolkien: 1566) and “” as “anyone credited with strange powers; contemp- tuously” (Tolkien: 1566). Such wizards are in LR mostly referred to as ‘Istari’ and these definitions not only stress the agency standing behind magic but also its mysterious char- acter, which is often met with contempt by the other people of Middle-earth. Moreover, in “On Fairy-Stories” (1939) – Tolkien’s seminal essay laying down the theoretical prin- ciples later realised in LR – the author uses “magic” (15) as a synonym for “fairy” (ibid.) standing at the heart of his fantasy fiction with only one condition attached to it: “[I]f there is any satire present in the tale, one thing must not be made fun of, the magic itself. That must in that story be taken seriously, neither laughed at nor explained away” (ibid.).

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Thus, the serious portrayal and the absence of an explanation of magic, a mystery sur- rounding its nature, are even underlying criteria for Tolkien’s vision of the genre. In terms of concrete examples, due to the various occurrences of animate nature, such as for example the anthropomorphised trees in the form of “Old Man Willow” (FR: 157), the Huorns or the Ents, the whole fictional world seems to overflow with the super- natural and magic; however, these elements fade from Middle-earth over the course of the trilogy, as has already been established. In addition, the supernatural is much more grounded and reduced in comparison to the typical fairy-tale magic in its predecessor, the more child-oriented (1937) – e.g. in LR there are no speaking purses. In gen- eral, there seems to be a natural division between the normal world and the “wraith- world” (LR: 289) or the ‘world of the unseen’ in LR, in which certain beings, such as the Ringwraiths or the Elves, take a distinctly different form, which can be observed in Frodo’s perceptions when wearing the Ring (see FR: 255-256) – the Borrow-wights also seem to have a connection to this realm, see the chapter “Fog on the Barrow-downs” (FR: 176-194). Hence, Tolkien mirrors the mystery attached to the supernatural and magic through this normally invisible and inaccessible wraith-realm on a lower level of the text. Magic in LR can either be the result from characters who have the innate power to cast it (e.g. Gandalf or the Balrog) or from magical artefacts, such as the Palantíri or the Rings of Power. A few examples for the use of magic from many instances in FR include Gandalf reading Frodo’s mind after his injury in Rivendell (see FR: 286), the wizard’s breaking of the Bridge of Khazad-dûm with the flame of Anor (see FR: 430) or Aragorn’s healing abilities by mere touch with the help of the healing plant Athelas (LR: passim). Apart from that, magical artefacts even appear to have a will of their own, as illustrated by the Ring ‘commanding’ Frodo to use it in his first encounter with a Black Rider (see FR: 98) or by Gandalf warning Frodo earlier in the novel, “[t]he Ring was trying to get back to its master” (FR: 73). A further instance of magic is the Doors of Durin towards the realm of Moria, which only show in moonlight or starlight. Additionally, one needs to speak a password for the Doors to open (see FR: 397-402). This particular use of magic with a “spell of command” (FR: 399) or a ‘magic word’ seems to be rather typical for the philologist Tolkien, for whom the fictional language was always primary to his fantasy world. In 1965 Tolkien referred to a couplet by the tenth-century Anglo-Saxon poet Cynewulf as his biggest impetus to devise his mythopoeia: ‘Hail, Earendel, brightest of / Over Middle-earth sent unto men’, which where the “rapturous words from which ultimately

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sprang the whole of my mythology” (Tolkien in Anderson 2002: 4) according to the au- thor himself (cf. Anderson 2002: 4). In the following, Tolkien developed parts of his fic- tional languages of Middle-earth and ‘Eärendil’ became a central figure in the founda- tional myth of the author’s secondary world (cf. James 2012: 67). Hence, it is quite fitting that there are ‘words of magic’ in Tolkien’s magic system that elicit the supernatural and have the power to change the fictional reality. However, there are also various instances of magic in LR where there is no need for a magic word. What have all of these examples of the supernatural and magic in LR above in common? They lack a clear explanation and are not systematic. Although there is a large background in terms of the history and culture of Middle-earth in The Silmarillion (e.g. of the history of the supernatural beings), the main text of LR leaves most of these aspects open for reader speculation – especially in terms of the magic system. There is no such thing as a resource that is used to cast spells and it is never clear what can be done with the help of magic and what not; what are the limits of magic in LR? Thus, this mystery that is attached to the supernatural and magic in Tolkien’s work adds to the impression of a deep secondary world – there is more to Middle-earth than readers can see or absorb and therefore recipients are almost encouraged to fill the blank spaces on their own. A good example is in this case the “flame of ‘Anor’” (FR: 430); the concept is not defined further than “the Secret Fire” (FR: 430) but elicits curiosity in readers as to what its true nature is, and they might search for their own answers to this question. Similarly to the fair unknown motif in LR’s cross references to romance, in a nostalgic reading this mys- tery surrounding the supernatural and magic might be transferred to the earlier temporal stages of pre-modernity, where there supposedly also might have been more to life and the world than what was apparent at first glance and not every wonder was ‘disenchanted’ by science and empirical knowledge. The clearest example mirroring the mystery of the supernatural and magic sphere in LR is certainly the prime feature of the One Ring: to make its wearer invisible. In this context, the invisibility through the Ring equals the opaqueness of the magic system. Fur- thermore, Eaglestone (cf. 2005: 73) goes even beyond that and locates the quintessential evil inherent in modernity in the invisibility of the Ring, which is – as a deficiency of modernity provoking nostalgia as a reaction – also desideratum of this present thesis. Building a larger argument, Eaglestone (cf. ibid.: 74-75) takes up an ethical question from Platonic philosophy relating to another ring of invisibility and the nature of .

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According to this thought experiment, a device of invisibility would enable its wearers to see and act without being seen and rid them of any repercussions from society for acting in an amoral way. Thus, the actions of a ‘master of invisibility’ could answer the question whether ‘evil’ is simply “the absence of good” (ibid.: 73), the dualistic opposite of good struggling with it in the world (i.e. the Manichean view) or just a social construct (cf. ibid.: 73-74). According to Eaglestone (cf. ibid.: 75-76) invisibility epitomises the central evil of modernity since it enables the truest form of “separation” (ibid.: 76). Corresponding with the image of the modern, isolated individual, invisibility allows to completely cut oneself off from society by anonymously seeing and acting without being seen, prevent- ing any sanctions from the rest of society. This extreme form of modern separation is the opposite pole to the supposed integration, community and participation that was personal, particular and collective in character during pre-modernity (cf. ibid.). LR foregrounds this separation by letting the ring wearers converge or at least look into the ‘wraith-realm’, a distinct, separated domain from the normal fictional world. Another problem in modernity that is addressed through invisibility is the lack of transparency regarding the centre of power. While in pre-modernity and even more so in the Middle Ages the centre of power was located at the hierarchical top of the feudal society (e.g. the king or the ruling class), it has in modernity arguably gradually moved to the centre of capital. With the financial resources of the biggest companies in the world surpassing whole countries, it has become increasingly harder to comprehend, whom to hold accountable in order to achieve true societal change. Thus, the modern centre of power appears to have become largely opaque, which is further intensified by the bureau- cratisation of various aspects of life. The text’s implied world view is positioned against both of these ‘modern evils’ by destroying the Ring at the end of the quest and thereby also the possibility to turn invisible and by returning to the communal, pre-modern society of the Shire after the initial parting of the Fellowship (see Tolkien. The Return of the King: 1349) as well as a foreshadowed reunion of the Fellowship in Valinor, the heaven- like realm of Middle-earth (see Tolkien. The Return of the King: 1346).

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3.3 ‘Eucatastrophe’: The Implied World View as an Intensification of Nostalgia in LR

The research category already introduced in the last section will also dominate this final analysis chapter of Tolkien’s fantasy fiction, namely the implied world view of the text. In this last point of analysis, it will be ascertained whether the nostalgic representations are implicitly evaluated as something positive or negative on the level of the world view in LR – the examination of the other set texts will be conducted in an analogous way. However, this is no simple undertaking since according to Wolf (cf. 2008: 166- 167) there does not (yet) exist a holistic and systematic theory of how world views are constructed and conveyed in narratives. What has been established is that, on the one hand, the implied world view emerges from the entirety of a text – everything that is evaluated positively or negatively in the implied norms put forward by the text –, and, on the other hand, virtually all elements of a literary text – on the story as well as discourse level – may have an influence on the world view implied in it. In this context, it might even be relevant what is not said in the text, which blank spaces are opened and where. In addition, implied world views may relate to the most diverse fields, such as for example views of human beings, the meaning of life and the world or different systems of meaning, such as politics, religion, philosophy, aesthetics, psychology or the nature of knowledge per se (cf. ibid.: 165-167). Due to the complexity of the research category and the lack of a generally accepted model of analysis, this examination of a possible nostalgia for pre- modernity and the Middle Ages in fantasy fiction comes from the opposite direction. With the fixed topic of this present thesis, it is here accounted for textual evidence that enables to find out whether only the limited field of nostalgic representations is presented in a positive or negative way as far as the implied world view is concerned. With the cornerstones of fantasy’s typical and LR’s particular world view firmly rooted in the primary distinction of good versus evil – light versus dark –, the good side prevailing over evil at the end of the narrative and the predominantly nostalgically repre- sented neomedievalist world – with its main example of the idyllic Shire space – saved from the dominion of Sauron, it appears to be clear on first glance that LR promotes its nostalgic representations. However, as has been shown already many times in this present master thesis Tolkien’s work proves to be more nuanced than first impressions suggest. In a structural approach to fantasy Attebery (cf. 2012: 87) highlights that, just as in the Taoist model of yin and yang, establishing such binaries as good versus evil is only the 41 first step, one then has to go on and look at how these opposites are bundled together or subdivided. For LR this is revealed by the resurrected Gandalf the White being positioned on the one end of the scale and the completely evil Dark Lord Sauron on the other, but in between there are countless parallel constructs and different variations of the same char- acters as Attebery shows:

Sneaky Gollum is paired with loyal Samwise; both are matched at different times with Frodo; unheroic Frodo is contrasted with the human warrior Boro- mir; Boromir serves as a binary contrast sometimes with his brother Faramir and sometimes with the kingly Aragorn. (ibid.)

More sophisticated doublings include the queen Galadriel with the hideous spider Shelob or the persuasive Gandalf with the manipulating Wormtongue (cf. ibid.). Further examples may be added to this list, and all these construct parallels not only open a wide spectrum of possible additional meanings but also illustrate the potentially infinite shades of grey between the overall bilateral world view of good versus evil. In order to come to a conclusion as far as the implicit evaluation of the nostalgic representation of pre-modernity in the implied world view is concerned, it is always promising to turn to the narrative’s ultimate outcome, which Tolkien in this case defined himself as “eucatastrophe” (1939: 62), the final unexpected turn of the plot that gives readers “a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompa- nied by) tears, as keen as that given by any form of literary art, and having a peculiar quality” (ibid.: 62-62). Lacking an already existing term, the author understands this happy ending as the opposite to tragedy and as the highest function of the fairy-tale. De- spite its ‘joyous grace’ eucatastrophe does not deny the existence of “dyscatastrophe” (ibid.: 62) or catastrophe in its regular narrative meaning – sorrow and failure at the end of the story – since only the prospect and indeed probability of a dramatic fall gives this form of a happy ending its positive force (cf. ibid.). In the case of LR – Tolkien’s fictionalisation of his theoretical principles – euca- tastrophe occurs most prominently when, against all odds, Gollum falls into the fires of Mount Doom with the Ring despite Frodo being overcome by its power (see Tolkien. The Return of the King: 1238). In addition, smaller sudden positive turns take place at various important points of the plot, such as for example Gandalf’s return despite falling to his certain death, the unlikely win in the battle of Helm’s Deep as well as Frodo and Sam’s rescue from the erupting Orodruin by the Great Eagles; all these instances add to the final biggest eucatastrophe. What is often overlooked when analysing LR’s happy ending, is

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that the text still continues for more than one hundred pages after the destruction of the Ring. After this tour de force during the epic journey of the Fellowship it might feel very rewarding for readers to experience all the different happy endings for the individual characters; however, the parting of the Fellowship might also elicit wistful feelings. This brings us to another facet of LR’s ending as investigated by Malpas (cf. 2005: 85-86), namely the concept of home relating to modernity and as depicted in Tolkien’s text. For most characters, their happy ending includes a return home – in case of the hob- bits this is a return to the communal, pre-modern, domestic and nostalgic space of the Shire – but for Frodo this reassertion of home is not possible. The protagonist of LR is marked by physical wounds – i.e. the scar from the Morgul blade, Shelob’s sting and his missing ring finger – as well as spiritual ones and returns forever changed: “I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me” (Tolkien. The Return of the King: 1346). In relation to Berman (1982), Malpas (cf. 2005: 86-87) takes this and the ever-changing world of Middle-earth that is in constant conflict and migration as textual evidence for LR revealing another central deficiency of moder- nity – an era that takes its central criterion of self-identification from endless transfor- mation and development (cf. ibid.):

To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adven- ture, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world – and at the same time threatens to destroy everything we know, everything we are […]. It pours us into a maelstrom of perpetual disintegration and renewal, of struggle and contradiction, of ambiguity and anguish. To be modern is to be part of a universe in which, as Marx said, ‘all that is solid melts into air.’ (ibid.: 15)

Thus, the modern experience as described here – driven by technological development and capitalism – is directly opposed to the stabilities and certainties of agrarian pre-mo- dernity and thereby also disintegrates the notion of home itself since everything is in flux and nothing fixed (cf. ibid.). In this sense, the concept of home appears to be the missing link between modernity and nostalgia: The at least imagined, metaphorical homelessness in all possible aspects of life due to various processes of modernisation leads to the feeling of a painful displacement from a home in time and space – often taking the form of pre- modernity –, which is also one of the definitions of nostalgia in this present thesis. According to Malpas (cf. 2005: 87) this essentially modern conflict between cap- italist expansion through technological means and the conservation of home as organic community also lies at the centre of LR. Within the primary text, it is fought out between

43 the modern ‘industrialist’ Saruman as well as the autocratic dictator Sauron, who shows remarkable similarities to the arising regimes of fascism and communism in Tolkien’s times, and the Free Peoples on the other side, who defend of the idea of home as organic community. In the Mirror of Galadriel, Sam catches a glimpse of what is at stake should the good side lose as a foreboding of the possible technological and capitalist oppression present in modernity:

But now Sam noticed that the Old Mill had vanished, and a large red-brick building was being put up where it had stood. Lots of folk were busily at work. There was a tall red chimney nearby. Black smoke seemed to cloud the surface of the Mirror. (FR: 472)

Evoking the red-brick factories of the early 20th century, Tolkien replaces in this memo- rable passage the pre-modern means of production with the mechanisation of work in industrialisation and thereby invades the neomedievalist Shire idyll with modernity and all its technological, capitalist and environmentally harmful ‘side effects’. In addition, Treebeard characterises Saruman as having “a mind of metal and wheels” and not caring for “growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment” (Tolkien. The Two Towers: 616), and the Ring is often read as a symbol for absolute economic and political power – “One Ring to rule them all” (FR: 66) –, threatening to dominate the whole fic- tional world in autocratic dominion (cf. Malpas 2005: 87-88). Fortunately, Sam’s vision does not become true at the end of LR; the Ring is destroyed as well as Sauron and Sar- uman defeated – the THINNING and WRONGNESS from the beginning are corrected through HEALING. Nonetheless, this happy ending of the narrative does not halt the change happening in Middle-earth as Malpas (cf. ibid.) points out: The exodus of the Elves continues, the Entwives do not return and the once great lineage of Númenor dwin- dles further. Since this would be a rather bleak outlook for LR’s underlying eucatastrophe, which compensation(s) does Tolkien’s work propose to counter the irresistible change and thereto related loss of home in its criticism of modernity? The solutions for this issue implicitly proposed in LR are twofold and thus illus- trate that a reestablishment of home is an individual undertaking. For Frodo it equals a separation from regular society – even including his closest companion Sam – but not in the sense of the aforementioned modern separation from society; in this case it is rather rendered as a transcendental separation. By travelling from the Grey Havens to Valinor – the heavenlike space in LR –, Frodo manages to enter a spiritual home in his last appear- ance in the series, which is represented in a profoundly positive way:

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Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him as in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he be- held white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise. (Tolkien: The Return of the King: 1348)

Due to the positive depiction, this passage does not really evoke death but rather the entry into eternal life; thus Tolkien ‘suspends’ his protagonist’s death after the end of his ad- ventures with the possibility of the other members of the Fellowship joining him at a later time in a homage to the typical fairy-tale ending: And they all lived happily ever after. However, for Sam the restoration of home is a different one. He is at first devas- tated that he cannot accompany Frodo into the west, but the protagonist shows him an alternative to establish a sense of belonging: “Do not be too sad, Sam. You cannot be always torn in two. You will have to be one and whole, for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be, and to do” (Tolkien. The Return of the King: 1346). At the very end of LR these possibilities turn out to be Sam’s role in the pre-modern, agrarian Shire community, as a historian of the past age in the Red Book and most importantly, his place in his newly founded family:

But Sam turned to Bywater, and so came back up the Hill, as day was ending once more. And he went on, and there was yellow light, and fire within; and the evening meal was ready, and he was expected. And Rose drew him in, and set him on his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap. He drew a deep breath. ‘Well, I’m back,’ he said. (Tolkien The Return of the King: 1349)

Hence, this literal ‘coming home’ and being expected turns out to be an implicit celebra- tion of humility, domesticity and family values on the level of the implied world view in the very last sentence of this epic fantasy series, completing its eucatastrophe. To sum up, this sub-section has shown that the nostalgic representations of pre- modernity and the Middle Ages are indeed evaluated positively on the level of the implied world view since the pre-modern forces succeed over the typically modern ones. None- theless, the shades of grey between good and evil are emphasised through the character construction. In addition, the text positions the abstract ‘spiritual home’ and the more concrete family home as two refuges to hold out against the relentless change pressing in from the outside ‘modern’ world. Both – spirituality and domesticity – are concepts that are under increasing attack in the supposed ‘secular’ and ‘individualistic’ modernity and even more so in contemporary postmodernity. Thus, the celebration of spirituality and family life in the implied world view as the respective nostalgic sub-function ultimately

45 intensifies LR’s macro-function of catering to nostalgia for pre-modern and medieval times regarding the text as a whole.

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4 Undercurrents of and Deviations from Nostalgia in WT – Intertextuality, the Supernatural and the Implied World View

4.1 Intertextuality in Jordan’s Fantasy Series: Selected Elements of Medieval Romance, Anti-Romance, Song and Poetry

4.1.1 Episodic Organisation and Interlacement as Characteristics of Romance Structure in WT

In WT the separation of the larger narrative into individual chapters and the thematic naming of these partly self-contained episodes according to the central event in them works in an analogous way to LR – e.g. “An Empty Road” (EW: 9). In addition, the fic- tional world is also mediated mostly through the impressions of the three main characters – Rand al’Thor, Matrim Cauthon and Perrin Aybara. Another structural parallel to LR is the separation of the companions in WT, which in this case happens after a Trolloc attack (see EW: 314), as well as their reunion at an inn in Caemlyn (EW: 617-618). In the fol- lowing, the main characters visit numerous different destinations over the course of the whole series. Hence, separation is also a prominent plot device in this fantasy series. The second structural romance characteristic of detached, partly interchangeable or interlaced episodes becomes particularly clear in the longer stretches of narrative, when Rand and Mat travel from Whitebridge to Caemlyn separated from the rest of the com- panions and encounter various Darkfriends in an episodic manner in almost every chapter (see EW: 376-611). Whether they are first confronted with the Fade in Whitebridge (see EW: 396-397) or with the Dark One’s henchman Gode in a later chapter (see EW: 462- 482) does not really change the overall narrative – as mentioned before, such combat episodes can partly even be interchanged. On the story level this chase is later explained by the fact that Mat’s dagger from Shadar Logoth attracts all evil (see EW: 623). Inter- lacement occurs for example in the chapter “Rescue” (EW: 559-574) when Perrin and Egwene al'Vere are saved from the imprisonment by the “Children of the Light” (EW: passim) – a fanatic military group that opposes the Darkfriends but also the Aes Sedai, to whom Moiraine belongs – by al'Lan Mandragoran (Lan), Moiraine Damodred and Nynaeve al'Meara; from then on, the characters continue their journey again together.

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4.1.2 Romance and Anti-Romance Character Construction in Jordan’s Fantasy Fiction – Primacy of the Nobility, The Fair Unknown and Ideals of Chivalry

As far as “the primacy of the nobility” (2018: 31) in Carroll’s sense with regard to fantasy fiction is concerned, WT is the only exception among the texts under examination, which features three male and two female peasant main characters or “ugly ducklings/brave little tailors” (1999: 524) in Kaveney’s and Clute’s terminology who acquire additional powers and prowess in the course of their journey. This trope of ordinary people surpassing them- selves and achieving the extraordinary is again characteristic for fantasy (compare to the Hobbits) and their role as chosen ones is to some extent comparable to a nobility status – Perrin even turns out to be the hidden successor to the throne of Saldaea in a later part of the series. Perrin’s true nature of a hidden monarch is also already the first example of the fair unknown motif in WT – as mentioned earlier, the motif reoccurs in fantasy fiction after its origins in romance. Another example from this fantasy series is Lan, who with his role as a Warder (i.e. a kind of bodyguard or protector) to Moiraine, his colour-shifting cloak, stoic nature and almost unmatched sword skills almost seems to be a construct parallel to the ranger Aragorn from LR and is later also revealed to be an awaited throne successor: “He is a king, or should have been, al’Lan Mandragoran, Lord of the Seven Towers, Lord of Lakes, crownless king of the Malkieri” (EW: 699). Hence, Lan is another example of the fair unknown in WT and consequently also plays a crucial role in defeating the Dark One. In addition, Kaveney and Clute (cf. 1999: 524) also stress the numerous romance influences on WT’s character construction, including ideals of chivalry and mainly draw- ing on King Arthur. Lan as WT’s counterpart to Aragorn from LR has just been discussed in connection with the fair unknown motif. However, the character also displays various chivalric qualities in terms of warrior ethos, knightly piety and courtly manners. Apart from their similar appearance of a tall stature, long hair and clad in a camouflage cloak, Aragorn and Lan match in their martial proficiency with the sword. Due to his history as a Malkieri and his current status as a Warder, Lan’s personal code of chivalry is also governed by duty and honour as well as a stoic nature, hence he practices restraint. In addition, Lan fulfils the social ideals of chivalry since he performs poetry at Lord Agelmar Jagad’s fortress (see EW: 693) and an unattainable courtly love relationship between him and Nynaeve is also already hinted at in EW (see 720-721). Thus, Lan shows most of the

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martial, personal and social ideals of romance knighthood, which are also present in Aragorn. The influence from Arthurian legend on WT becomes particularly clear in the pro- tagonist Rand. He is not only the chosen one, such as King Arthur extracting Excalibur from the anvil/stone – depending on the different text versions (cf. Ashley 1999: 58) –, but also obtains a legendary weapon with the heron marked sword (compare Andúril in LR) from his father Tamlin al'Thor that is normally reserved for blademasters (see EW: 111). From that point in the novel onwards, other characters take Rand’s sword as a sign for his prowess in martial arts. Although Rand does not meet the skill attributed to him in EW, he starts to train with Lan and thus, the heron marked sword becomes a symbol for the various chivalric qualities sleeping in the protagonist that will be realised on his jour- ney since he is the Dragon Reborn, reincarnation of the man who first immured the Dark One. Further chivalric ideals present in Rand that are alluded to in the first novel include his primary motivation to protect his friends and in particular his love interest in EW, Egwene al'Vere, for example when he draws the Forsaken’s attention on himself in the final battle of the first part of the series: “‘Not her!’ Rand shouted. ‘The Light burn you, not her!’ He snatched up a rock and threw it, meaning to draw Aginor’s attention” (EW: 742), or the implied courtly love relationship between Rand and Egwene. Nonetheless, according to Kaveney and Clute (cf. 1999: 524) Rand also deviates from the formula of the romance hero. For instance, he does not want to leave his home to go on an adventure and over the course of the whole series he is constantly on the verge of turning insane due to his “channeling” (EW: passim) ability. When the Dark One was first imprisoned, he ‘tainted’ saidin8, the male half of the “One Power” (EW: passim) – the source of magic in WT –, causing every male channeler who touches the “True Source” (EW: passim) in order to perform magic to fall into madness, which also brought an end to all male Aes Sedai. Due to his status as the Dragon Reborn, Rand can withstand the taint but still has madness symptoms, such as hearing voices, having Lews Therin as his earlier incarnation as split personality or fighting with identity loss (cf. Kaveney and Clute 1999: 524). These latter character traits, partly close to mental illness, are rather atypical for a romance hero and the code of chivalry. Although a loss of identity, status

8 The EW’s typographic style is maintained here. 49 and political stability also often causes madness in romance – such as for example in Malory’s Le Morte d'Arthur – as Carroll (cf. 2018: 35) points out, it results in WT pre- dominantly from the merging of the two incarnations and personalities into one character.

4.1.3 Intertextuality as Celebration of Medieval Song and Poetry in WT

Although medievalist song and poetry are not featured that prominently in WT, except for several song titles, short individual verses (see EW: 387, 580) and Lan’s poem (see EW: 693), Rand and Mat spend a considerable time as “gleemen” (EW: passim) travelling from Whitebridge to Caemlyn to pay for their board and lodging (see EW: 376-523). “Glee- men” (EW: passim) are wandering entertainers, travelling from one town to the next in order to perform their art of storytelling, acrobatics (e.g. juggling) or playing music, and the concept contains a fitting metapoetic message: Since these artists bring joy (i.e. glee) to the people, they are called ‘gleemen’. Taught by Thom Merrilin, Rand plays the flute and Mat juggles to get food and a bed for the night in the towns’ inns, which enables the characters to obtain information but also confronts them with numerous Dark Friends in these taverns. Additionally, EW introduces the Tinkers, a nomadic people living in brightly painted wagons, practicing a pacifist philosophy called “The Way of the Leaf” (EW: 368) and a culture centred around song and dance as well as travelling from one place to an- other in order to find their ‘lost song’ that is prophesied to restore their paradise from the Age of Legends (see EW: 360-376). Both of these positively represented concepts from Jordan’s fictional world are clear allusions to the travelling troubadours and theatre com- panies of the Middle Ages. Hence, in combination with the selected elements of chivalric romance structure and character construction, the instances of intertextual system refer- ence to medieval romance, song and poetry analysed above predominantly add to the nostalgic celebration of medieval art and culture in WT.

4.2 The Veil is Lifted: The Representation of the Supernatural and Magic in Jordan’s Series

4.2.1 The Transparent Magic System in WT

In contrast to LR, the magic in WT belongs – as part of the physical laws of the fictional world – to the opposite type according to Cox (cf. 2012: 138-140) with a thoroughly explained and rather narrowly defined system of rules standing behind it. Kaveney and

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Clute (cf. 1999: 524) also locate much of the series’ unique appeal in its well developed and complex magic system that is with its various new categories and roles of magic ‘channelers’ still easily comprehensible for the readers. In terms of an explanation of the magic system it again makes sense to turn to the text’s self-description in its glossary (see EW: 776-803). “Magic” (EW: 495) is only named once in the whole first novel of the series; however, the concept is defined through “the One Power” (EW: 794) – “the power drawn from the True Source” (EW: 794) –, which is “channeled” (EW: passim) – “the act of controlling the flow of the One Power” (EW: 781) – in order to cast magic. The “True Source” (EW: 800) as “the driving force of the universe” (EW: 800) in WT is here the foundational resource that makes magic possible in the first place and is thereby also defined as a fixed physical force in the natural world of the series. The True Source is made up of a male half (saidin) and a female half (saidar), which work with and against each other, and can both only be drawn on by the corresponding sex. As already mentioned above, the male half has been ‘tainted’ by the Dark One causing all male channelers to turn mad, hence only female channelers exist at the beginning of EW (see 800). Although magic is known to the majority of characters in WT since it is also part of the fictional history, only very few can be taught to channel the One Power, and even fewer have the ability inborn. In order to prevent catastrophe due to uncontrolled chan- nelling and madness it is attempted to locate possible channelers and either teach them or ‘gentle’ and subdue them if they are male since their madness is certain. With the ‘taint’ of saidin comes a creeping sickness that eventually kills male as well as female channel- ers, the latter only more slowly (see EW 794-795). Additionally, the One Power is further divided into individual threads, “the Five Powers” (EW: 787), which equal the individual elements of earth, air/wind, fire and water, with the addition of . Depending on the respective channelers, certain threads might be pronounced more or less – interestingly, air and water are typically female powers, while earth and fire are predominantly male. Additionally, certain activities might demand a combination of different threads – e.g. healing requires water and spirit (see EW: 787-788). Last but not least, certain rare mag- ical artefacts, the “angreal” (EW: 778), enable to enhance the amount of the One Power that can normally be handled. As can be seen in this still limited description of the magic system in WT, most of its characteristics are explained and defined rather closely, which is diametrically opposed

51 to Tolkien’s understanding of magic in fantasy fiction. The magic in WT is even so con- ventionalised that there exists a whole culture that is primarily known as wielders of the One Power in the fictional world, the “Aes Sedai” (EW: passim). Although they are also eyed suspiciously, even contemptuously by most other people in the series, almost every ruler has an Aes Sedai as an advisor on the magical sphere and other matters (see EW: 775-776), which makes them much more common than the order of the Istari in LR. Within the Aes Sedai there are sub-societies designated by colours – the “Ajahs” (EW: passim) – who all follow a specific philosophy regarding the use of the One Power. For example, the Red Ajah dedicates itself to finding and ‘gentling’ male Power wielders, while there are even rumours of a Black Ajah following the Dark One (see EW: 777). Hence, magic in WT takes the form of cultural conventionalisation with fixed traditions and rituals attached to it and be it only its role in the fictional history of WT. For instance, the “Age of Legends” (EW: 776) was a time of prolific magic use and “the Breaking of the World” (EW: 780) refers to the terrible consequences of insane magic channelling that reached proportions of natural disasters; this part of the fictional history is in WT also known as the “Time of Madness” (EW: 799). In addition, the Five Powers illustrate the tendency in WT specifically and fantasy fiction in general to relate magic to the domain of nature. Although there is magic in the forms of thought-reading, illusion, , technology (e.g. the Doors of Durin) and other kinds in fantasy, the vast majority of magic revolves around bending the forces or elements of nature to one’s will. This becomes particularly clear in the figurative language of the last battle in the first novel between the companions and the Forsaken, the powerful henchmen of the Dark One, see the chapter “Meetings at the Eye” (EW: 731-742). In this case the anthropomorphised plant or tree creature the Green Man uses magic to fight Balthamel:

[…] but one long stride and massive, leafy arms wrapped themselves around Balthamel’s arms writhed free, his gloved hands grasping the Green Man’s head as though he would wrench it off. Flames shot up where those hands touched, vines withering, leaves falling. The Green Man bellowed as thick, dark smoke poured out between the vines of his body. […] One gloved hand flung wide … and a tiny creeper burst through the black leather. A fungus, such as rings trees in the deep shadows of the forest, ringed his arm, sprang from nowhere to full-grown, swelling to cover the length of it. Balthamel thrashed, and a shoot of stinkweed ripped open his carapace, lichens dug in their roots and split tiny cracks across the leather of his face, nettles broke the eyes of his mask, deathshead mushrooms tore open the mouth. (EW: 740-741)

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The rather gruesome death of Balthamel shows with which vivid nature imagery the chan- nelling of magic is described in WT, which in this case combines a whole isotopy of for- est-related terms – i.e. “leafy arms, vines, leaves, tiny creeper, fungus, stinkweed, lichens roots, nettles, deathshead mushrooms” (EW: 740-741) – until there is only a literal “mound” (EW: 741) left of the antagonist. This literary visualisation of nature-based magic really makes the series stand out from other fantasy fiction.

4.2.2 Of Walking Trees, Animal People and Giants – Jordan’s Supernatural Char- acters

Apart from that, the animate representation of supernatural nature in fantasy fiction, often in the form of anthropomorphised plants or trees (e.g. Treebeard in LR and the Green Man in WT) foregrounds the living state of nature in the primary, real world, which is in glob- alised modernity – be it plants or even animals – way too often exploited and rather viewed as a product. The agency ascribed to these anthropomorphised characters lets them even fight back themselves. Furthermore, the conceptualisation of magic in WT that is directly linked to the Five Powers and thereby to the different elements of nature almost depicts the natural sphere as an extension of the channelers’ bodies, which is even visu- alised as a “cord” (EW: 744) or “rope” (EW: 744) – close to an umbilical cord – that connects the channelers with the source of the One Power in the final battle. Hence, this representation evokes a unity between the cultural and the natural sphere that is close to the communion between human beings and nature proclaimed in Romanticism. This is further emphasised through the character Perrin, who becomes a ‘wolfbrother’ and thereby not only develops a telepathic relationship to a pack of wolves but also partly undergoes a metamorphosis by gaining heightened sight and hearing as well as the dis- tinctive golden eyes of the animals – see the chapter “Wolfbrother” (EW: 333-347). Thus, Perrin is likened to the wolfs and the natural sphere, and both culture and nature merge into one character. This union of human beings and nature evoked in the supernatural might be – through a nostalgic sub-function – abstracted to life in general during pre-modernity and the Middle Ages, where there was seemingly also a closer relationship to nature. Due to an economy primarily based on agriculture and a dependence on the annual harvest as well as domesticated animals, people were automatically closer to nature. This close re- lationship was then gradually alienated through processes of industrialisation and

53 urbanisation, which was already criticised in Romanticism, and reached its peak in the anonymous megacities of modernity. Fantasy fiction follows this train of thought and lays bare this possible deficiency of modernity by nostalgically positivising its opposite. Regarding further supernatural characters there are various in WT from Trollocs, over Fades to Nyms; however, the Ogier Loial has particular relevance in terms of nos- talgia analysis in WT since he is almost constructed as a personification of nostalgia for the past. The giantlike Ogier reach a great height of around ten feet (i.e. three meters), talk much slower than humans and have a lifespan that is three to four times as long as that of humans. Due to their long life expectancy Ogiers are extremely fond of knowledge concerning the past and document much information in their books and stories that has been long lost in human historiography (see EW: 794). In addition, Ogiers typically live in areas called the steddings9 and after a displacement from their homes in the fictional past they even developed what is called ‘the Longing’: “[A]n Ogier who is too long out of the stedding sickens and dies” (EW: 794), which is surprisingly close to the original diagnosis of the ‘sickness nostalgia’ by the Swiss Doctor Hofer (cf. Byom 2001: xiii, 3). The specific Ogier character Loial travels the fantasyland in order to visit the rem- nants of the lost Ogier civilisations scattered around the whole fictional world, in partic- ular the Groves – large, towering trees the Ogiers tended to in the fictional past (compare the Ents as tree shepherds in LR) –, and he later joins the main characters as another companion. Loial also remembers the nostalgic representations in his own culture: “Ah, the books spoke of groves to make Elders weep and laugh at the same time, groves to remain green in memory forever” (EW: 545). However, he is way too often disillusioned by the fictional reality: “It has all changed, Rand. I fear very much that I will find the same everywhere I go. All the groves gone, all the memories gone, all the dreams dead” (EW: 547). Hence, similarly to Treebeard in LR Loial is in WT constructed close to a personification of nostalgia and constitutes another nostalgic mise en abyme on the level of supernatural characters. The central difference between an explanation/definition and a mystery surrounding the supernatural and magic with regard to a possible nostalgic sub- function will be again taken up in the final comparison of the selected texts after the analysis of the same research category in SIF.

9 EW’s typographic style is maintained here. 54

4.3 Circular Time: WT’s Implied World View as a Reduction of its Nos- talgic Implications

Similarly to LR the hitherto conducted analysis of WT can also add to either a celebration or criticism of a nostalgia inherent in the representations of pre-modernity and the Middle Ages on the level of the implied world view. So far, the findings have been mixed with the research categories of intertextuality and the supernatural revealing affirmations of and deviations from the typical nostalgia-inducing characteristics (e.g. the characterisa- tion of WT’s protagonist), however, mostly leaning towards a positivation of pre-modern and medieval times. As far as the examination regarding the evaluation of the nostalgic representations of pre-modernity and the Middle Ages on the level of the implied world view in WT as well as the comparative analysis with the other fantasy fiction are concerned, two aspects are particularly striking, namely the implications in WT’s ending and the series’ circular time conception. Also following the principle of complexity reduction, which will be ex- panded on in the overall comparison of the texts, WT follows the characteristic world view in fantasy and focuses on the central fight of good versus evil. In this case, it is caried out between the abstract ‘Creator’ (Light) and the concrete Dark One (Darkness) or Shai’tan (see Arab. Shaitan for “devil” or “”), who was imprisoned by the Cre- ator in the moment of creation in the foundational myth of the fictional world (see EW: 783). Thus, WT shows great similarity to Christianity, in which Lucifer or Satan was ex- pelled from heaven and bound to hell. However, this fight between good and evil takes an unexpected turn in the final battle of the series when Rand and Shai’tan show each other visions of alternative worlds with the help of magic without the opposing side in it – see the chapter “The Last Battle” (Jordan and Sanderson. A Memory of Light: 677-898). Without good the world appears ‘blighted’ and miserable but without evil the world only appears to be a flourishing utopia on the surface. Under closer examination Rand realises that this alternative fictional world is also broken and to some extent hollow. When Rand confronts the Dark One with his finding, the quintessential Evil with capital letters in the world of WT discloses to the protagonist in a remarkable dialogue that just as removing the good from the world, removing evil would also deprive the people and the world of a crucial part of life (see ibid.: 831). This prompts Rand to not kill Shai’tan when he has the chance, to not rid the world of evil, but only imprison it again (see ibid.: 988-990).

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This happy end of the good side prevailing over evil but not destroying it, only keeping it under control, stands in stark contrast to LR, where Sauron and the Ring are eliminated from the fictional world. Hence, WT seems to present a world view that is more adequate to the modern and even postmodern historical context, where it has be- come increasingly hard to clearly distinguish between good and evil according to regular moral and ethical standards. Although Tolkien’s work reflects on this issue through its shaded characters, foregrounding the spectrum between light and darkness, Jordan goes even further in breaking up the surface simplicity of good versus evil. Proving its influ- ences from philosophies of metaphysical balance and dualism according to Kaveney and Clute (cf. 1999: 524) – often present in many religious philosophies, e.g. Manichean or Islamic philosophy –, WT stresses the importance of free will when Rand says to the Aiel woman in the epilogue: “I see the answer now. […] To choose is our fate. If you have no choice, then you aren’t a man at all. You’re a puppet…” (Jordan and Sanderson. A Memory of Light: 991). Only by choosing to act good in the face or temptation of evil one can realise the positive side of this dualistic world view. Through the absence of its op- posite in the same semantic system, the original concept would lose its meaning: “[T]he Dark One was not the enemy. It never had been” (ibid.: 989). While this appears to be a more sober, less romantic and overall a reflected ap- proach to the struggle of good versus evil according to today’s (post)modern norms, it is also certainly less nostalgic. WT’s implied world view unmasks the typically nostalgic idea that a return to an earlier temporal stage with a simplified world view that was at least more clearly divided into good and evil according to traditional sense-making insti- tutions (e.g. the church or family) would be a comfort in light of the ‘labyrinth’ that mo- dernity often tends to be. Furthermore, an absolute victory of good over evil in WT would not lead to a HEALING of the world but only to more THINNING and WRONGNESS, which again points to the underlying complexity of the world – one of the at least imag- ined problems in modernity. Another facet of LR’s and WT’s ending is the different depiction of the concept of home. While most characters return to some form of home – although its form might have changed over the course of the series –, Rand chooses not to return to the Two Rivers, despite the fact that it was one of his primary motivations to save his homeland from the Dark One. Instead, Rand rides towards “lands unexplored” (ibid.: 1009). Thereby, the narrative echoes typical adventure topoi and the western topos of the ‘cowboy riding off into the sunset’: “[H]e wanted to go someplace away from it all for good” (ibid.).

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Although this representation includes the humility aspect already known from LR because Rand romanticises sleeping in a barn for cutting firewood instead of having to fight or rule, the presented rejection of coming home is intensified even more by Rand having switched his physical body with Moridin, thereby also losing his channelling abilities and being incognito for the rest of his life (see ibid.: 1006-1008). Thus, the depiction of home at the end of WT is entirely different to LR. While in the latter a spiritual and a family home are presented as compensations for the relentless outside change, the former is strongly reminiscent of the abovementioned modern disintegration of home through con- stant change and migration, here even reaching into the protagonist’s own identity. In addition, this notion of a fresh start fits the following dimension of the text’s implied world view and its central metaphor: ‘The Wheel of Time’ always continues to turn. Although the notion of circular time is known in Hinduism and Buddhism, it might be difficult to grasp for Western readers in general and how it is executed in the specific case of WT. Hence, EW’s glossary provides a comprehensible explanation of the ‘Wheel of Time’ as the series’ eponymous metaphor:

Time is a wheel with seven spokes, each spoke an Age. As the wheel turns, the Ages come and go, each leaving memories that fade into legend, then to myth, and are forgotten by the time that Age comes again. The Pattern of an Age is slightly different each time an Age comes, and each time it is subject to greater change, but each time it is the same Age. Not a repeat of exactly what went before, when that Age last came, but close enough in its general outline that it might seem the same at a glance. (EW: 802)

This definition entails several remarkable characteristics of the Wheel of Time. First, the notion of ‘history repeating itself’ runs counter to the importance of free will that is stressed in the end of the whole series. Why should individual choices make any differ- ence if all ages come again after one cycle? Here, the small changes that happen at each coming of a new age leave room for the realisation of free will, which is explained through the Pattern of an Age: “The Wheel of Time weaves the threads of human lives into the Pattern of an Age, which forms the substance of reality for that Age” (EW: 795). Thus, individual characters still need to act according to their free will in order to make the circle come to pass, combining choice and fate to one whole. Second, the concept of the Wheel of Time as described above adds to the dualistic world view of the text since it eternalises the necessary struggle of good versus evil. Third, the name-giving metaphor of the series points to several implications with respect to nostalgia analysis. From the theoretical standpoint of this present thesis,

57 cyclical time conceptions at least weaken any possible forms of nostalgia since history eventually repeats itself anyways – why then should there occur any positivation of the past through nostalgic emotions (cf. Shaw and Chase 1989: 2-3)? Nonetheless, the pas- sage above clearly displays tendencies of nostalgia: “As the wheel turns, the Ages come and go, each leaving memories that fade into legend, then to myth, and are forgotten by the time that Age comes again” (EW: 802). Although these memories, legends and myths are forgotten over time, they still lead to nostalgically charged time periods, such as the Age of Legends – “a time when Aes Sedai performed wonders we now can only dream of” (EW: 776). Carroll describes this form of nostalgia as “medievalizing patterns of thought” (cf. 2018: 31) since just as the historical inhabitants of the Middle Ages, the people in Jordan’s fantasy fiction also create a nostalgic past for self-explanation, and this is possible despite the cyclical time conception in the series. This enables to draw the conclusion for WT that nostalgia can occur in circular time, if only the individual cycle is long enough. This elaborate metaphor of a ‘spinning wheel’ of time, weaving together human lives to the patterns to the individual ages that reoccur in a circular manner, is so central to WT that it is also referred to in the very ending of the series:

The wind blew southward, through knotted forests, over shimmering plains and toward lands unexplored. This wind, it was not the ending. There are no endings, and never will be endings, to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was an ending. (Jordan and Sanderson. A Memory of Light: 1009)

Apart from coming full circle by returning to the text’s central concept and its title, this ending also includes a fitting metafictional message, since this it is in fact not Robert Jordan’s ending but only an ending in the sense that it was reconstructed by on the basis of Jordan’s notes, who finished the series after the original au- thor’s death. To summarise this sub-chapter, depending on one’s viewpoint, WT might paint a more ‘realistic’ or less utopian picture of the struggle between good and evil in its dual- istic world view compared to LR; in any case, it certainly reduces and to some extent even unmasks the nostalgic idea of returning to a ‘simpler’ pre-modern time in terms of norms and values. In the depiction of home WT also points towards a more modern world view; while LR positivises spirituality and domesticity as rather pre-modern values, Jordan’s fantasy fiction disintegrates the concept of home by letting its protagonist explore new lands and even transforming his very identity at the very end of the text. The metaphorical

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use of the Wheel of Time itself, on the one hand, reduces nostalgia due to its circular time conception while, on the other hand, there are clear signs of nostalgic thinking on the story level of the text. All in all, the nostalgic implications in WT are reduced on the level of the implied world view, which runs counter to the forms and functions of nostalgia established in the earlier sub-sections. What remains to be discovered – maybe through possible future research – is whether these counter tendencies are considered more ade- quate and fitting for the contemporary context or whether they found their way implicitly into the text because this typically modern world view has become dominant in current times.

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5 SIF Deconstructing Nostalgia through Intertextuality, the Supernatural and the Implied World View?

5.1 Intertextual System Reference in Martin’s Fantasy Novels: Se- lected Elements of Medieval Romance, Anti-Romance, Song and Poetry

5.1.1 Romance Structure – Episodic Organisation and Interlacement in SIF

In contrast to LR and WT, Martin also divides his longer narrative into individual chapters; however, names them not thematically but after the most important character in each of them – e.g. “Bran” (GT: 13) – and at the same time marks a change of perspective with the chapter titles. Due to the fact that the author mostly uses figural narration with a cen- tral, eponymous focaliser through whom the fictional world is perceived in each chapter, the readers get only a limited, partly even an unreliable perspective of events. Nonethe- less, through the pluralisation of focaliser characters arises a remarkable multi-perspec- tivity that leads to a more holistic picture of the narrative world. This sharing of the per- spectives of the main characters by the readers is a similarity to the other texts under examination. Apart from that, the fantasy plot device of separation is employed in SIF from the beginning onward since Daenerys Targaryan is located outside the Westeros proper (see GT: 28) and most of the Stark family travel towards different directions from the starting point of Winterfell. From this comparative analysis can be inferred that sep- aration is a prominent plot device in all of the fantasy works that adds to the episodic organisation of the individual chapters. In SIF the detachable, interchangeable or interlaced status of individual episodes becomes particularly apparent since the narrative jumps between a multitude of focaliser characters and settings. Synchronising all of these to a complete chronology would be an almost impossible task. Additionally, the episodes are often interlaced on the story level. This is for example the case when Catelyn Stark takes Tyrion Lannister hostage (see GT: 292). However, such interlacement can also extend to different categories of analysis – mainly due to analogy and contrast – as Carroll finds: “Martin uses interlacement to great effect, contrasting characters’ approaches to leadership, knowledge of past events, and beliefs about current events, leaving it to the reader to connect the various threads […]” (2018: 26). As a concrete example Rieken (cf. 2019: 20) names prominent themes, such

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as violence, gender roles or identity that are realised differently across episode divides depending on the individual point-of-view character. For instance, in Jon Snow’s and Jaime Lannister’s chapters the theme of violence is mainly evoked through fighting, war and blood shed, while Sansa Stark is mainly the victim of domestic, sexual and psycho- logical violence. Thus, interlacement in SIF allows for the realisation of various themes in different ways. (cf. ibid.: 20-21). As already touched upon in the romance structure analysis of LR above, from ep- isodic organisation and interlacement in fantasy fiction results a remarkable realisation of narrative time. SIF is a special case here due to the change of frequency; one event is frequently narrated repeatedly. That is, Martin often depicts one event from several per- spectives in order to provide the reader with a more comprehensive view. The typical example that is often referenced in this context, in this case by Carroll (cf. 2018: 27-28), is the Battle of Blackwater at the end of A Clash of Kings, the second novel in the series, in which Stannis Baratheon’s attack on King’s Landing is rendered over six chapters from three different perspectives (see Martin: 811-869). While Davos Seaworth’s chapters de- pict the attacking side, Tyrion’s episodes show the defence and Sansa’s chapters give an insight into the situation of enclosed women and children holding out until they learn of the outcome of battle. The beginning of the sequence is Sansa preparing to barricade her- self inside the Red Keep with the other women and children and saying goodbye to Jof- frey and Tyrion, who ready the defence of the capital. From this point onwards, Sansa has no direct knowledge of the fighting – only through second-hand information and speculation is she aware of outside developments. However, by the use of discrepant awareness the readers are on the battlefield with Davos and Tyrion; the first of which is outwitted when Stannis’ forces are trapped in the bay and destroyed with wildfire, while the latter gains ground with a sortie from the Mud Gate. When Tyrion is knocked uncon- scious during the fight, the readers are back with Sansa, who overhears reports that are brought to Cersei until the victory bells finally ring and Dontos tells the rumour of Renly Baratheon’s ghost driving away the besiegers (cf. Carroll 2018: 27-28.). Thereby, Martin manages to capture the brutal reality of medieval warfare through Davos, whose ship explodes while he is swept out to sea and his sons die in the flames, via Tyrion’s perspective of the gory fighting on the shore but also through Sansa, who takes the position of powerless women and children who do not know if they are spared in case of victory or captured, maybe even raped and killed in defeat (cf. ibid.). This is

61 done by an exceptional composition of different perspectives that entails discrepancy of awareness due to the different levels of knowledge between characters and readers, dra- matic irony – the readers know about the wildfire before the battle, Davos does not –, and a great extent of suspense because of various cliffhangers. Although it is not demonstrable that well due to less action focus and time jumps over whole days, there is also a consid- erable amount of temporal overlap in the beginning of GT (see 39-98), when most of the main characters are gathered in Winterfell and the exposition is carried out over various interlaced episodes. Further narrative functions of episodic organisation and interlace- ment in fantasy – apart from creating discrepancy of awareness, dramatic irony and sus- pense – are obviously dividing the larger narrative into digestible chapters and giving the readers the possibility to re-enter the story with different characters at different locations since even the single novels are almost impossible to complete in one sitting. In addition, the romance functions of plot extension, the development of parallel story lines as well as various forms of analogy and contrast apply. In terms of the macro-structure, it was mentioned earlier that SIF does not really fit into the grammar of fantasy due to its pluralisation of characters and unpredictable narrative. However, one could apply the double adventure structure of romance to SIF when looking into the two central houses of the series. Blaszkiewicz (cf. 2014: 27-29) argues that the contrasting and interlaced stories of House Stark and House Lannister form the primary narrative of the series, with the destruction of House Stark constituting the first overarching storyline and the destruction of House Lannister the second – both mirroring each other in a similar fashion (cf. ibid.). Although this is all speculation up to this point because the series has not been completed at the time of this writing, Blaszkiewicz’ reading seems even more plausible, when considering romance’s double adventure structure as an intertextual influence – compare “A1 + N1 + X + A2 + N2” (Haidu 1983: 660). Analysed according to the typical model, half of the Starks’ travel to King’s Landing and their acting in this hostile space would be the first series of adventures (A1), which are seemingly completed successfully by uncovering the conspiracy surrounding the incestuous Lannister relationship and the thereby corrupted line of succession (N1). Readers would now expect Eddard (Ned) Stark as the head of the family to succeed since he acts according to the highest ethical, moral and honour standards; however, here GT becomes an anti-romance and breaks with reader expectations. Due to the fact that Ned is naive and does not adapt to the scheming context of King’s Landing, he does not even get a chance to change this central character flaw

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but is executed: “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die” (GT: 629), as Cersei Lannister puts it in a crucial quote for the whole series (X). This central crisis of the Stark family arguably extends to the ‘Red Wedding’ (see Martin. A Storm of Swords: 693-705), where Catelyn Stark and Robb Stark are murdered because they did not honour a promise to a banner lord and did not see the treachery coming. In the following, the remaining Stark children need to hone their skills, adapt and act adequately to the fictional world and the game of thrones in order to take revenge on the Lannisters and defeat the antagonistic forces (A2), which might lead to final harmony (N2) at the end of SIF. Thus, it seems quite probable that Martin takes the typical romance double adventure macro- structure and applies it to the two central houses in an enlarged manner, only by intensi- fying the consequences characters have to bear for their flaws. Due to the chapter “The Scouring of the Shire” (Tolkien. The Return of the King: 1306-1335) this analysis also applies to LR since the Hobbits have to prove themselves and save their home from the remnants of Saruman’s forces without any outside help, such as the Fellowship. The con- clusion that can be derived from SIF and the selected chapter from LR is that the second adventure lets the main characters realise their self-reliance as romance heroes in order to reach final harmony. This comparison of the sub-sections concerning romance structure in fantasy fic- tion has shown that fantasy not only revitalises the romance structure in a general sense of the hero’s journey on a quest narrative but also in the episodic organisation and inter- lacement of the individual chapters. This episodic organisation and interlacement can be- come apparent on the plot level but through the juxtaposition of narrative elements also in other literary categories of analysis, such as themes or narrative perspectives. Against the backdrop of the romance double adventure structure, one could even partly read fan- tasy as being constructed according to this macro-structure, with the Hobbits achieving self-sufficiency at the end of LR as well as the destruction of House Stark making up the first major strand of narrative and the family’s revenge on the Lannisters the second in SIF. Thus, the neomedievalist fantasy authors under examination not only deal with sim- ilar affairs as their medieval predecessors but also mirror romance structurally – the fan- tasy genre’s form mimes its meaning. Apart from exemplifying the artful composition of fantasy and the authors’ knowledge of literary history, this intertextual system reference in terms of structure might also elicit nostalgia for pre-modernity. Due to the fact that most readers have at one

63 point or another encountered cultural texts with typically medieval topics and structures – and be it only childhood fairy tales –, they might feel unconsciously set back to pre- modern times or their earlier encounters (i.e. childhood) through literary works of fantasy. In addition, the superficially, seemingly straightforward goal of such quest nar- ratives (e.g. defeating Sauron, the Dark One or the White Walkers) might be an instance of complexity reduction and thus, a comfort in today’s increasingly complex and opaque (post)modern world, in which most of the traditional institutions of establishing meaning have lost their standing.10 Which antagonists could be overcome for the HEALING of the real world? With the big questions of life still remaining a mystery and additional ones constantly arising through the contemporary context, it might be consoling to experience a narrative with a clear purpose and partly typified structure. Nonetheless, this apparently clear goal is countered by an impressive complexity in its realisation due to various char- acters, plotlines and deep secondary worlds in order to make the reading experience aes- thetically pleasing and rewarding. A possible conclusion drawn from such representations might be that readers are cued to long for a return to the ‘simple’ life in medieval times with fixed systems of meaning and responsibilities due to belonging to a certain estate in a rural society with a possibly closer relationship to nature. On a second thought, how- ever, most readers would probably not exchange their modern comforts to also experience all the downsides of life in the Middle Ages (e.g. virtually no social mobility). This com- fort through complexity reduction is a possible sub-function of the structurally induced nostalgia for medieval times in fantasy fiction. The following chapter deals with romance and anti-romance elements in character construction.

5.1.2 Romance and Anti-Romance Character Construction in SIF – Primacy of the Nobility, The Fair Unknown and Ideals of Chivalry

In SIF virtually every character, at least who turns into a focaliser of continuous point-of- view status at some point of the narrative, belongs to some kind of aristocracy and there- fore the nobility’s viewpoint is here also dominant. Narratively this can be explained by the fact that in the Westerosi world only aristocratic characters are in the position to make

10 The increasing complexity as well as ‘abstractness’ in the modern human consciousness and experience – especially in relation between the individual and society – as counterpart to a reduced complexity in earlier societies have also been observed in Die neue Unübersichtlich- keit (1985) by Habermas and Zapf’s Das Drama in der abstrakten Gesellschaft (2015), in the latter mainly relating to the New English Drama (cf. 15). 64

world-relevant decisions and compete for the Iron Throne. Nonetheless, the situation of the peasantry is depicted marginally – e.g. when Arya travels towards the Wall during the War of the Five Kings and encounters different casualties of war (see Martin. A Clash of Kings: 81-92) –, which would typically not be the case in romance (cf. Carroll 2018: 31- 32). In terms of the fair unknown in SIF, Carroll (cf. ibid.: 33-34) argues that one of the central mysteries revolves around this motif in the form of Jon Snow’s true parentage. From the beginning onwards, readers and most characters alike believe that he is the bas- tard son of Ned Stark, with no real standing in the court of Winterfell or society as a whole, which is however questioned by Robert Baratheon due to Ned’s unwavering hon- our: “She must have been a rare wench if she could make Lord Eddard Stark forget his honour, even for an hour” (GT: 110). Such and other indicators led to the fan theory that Jon is actually the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, thus of royal blood; how- ever, he would also in this case remain an illegitimate child since his aristocratic parents were not married.11 Over the course of the series, he manages to rise in rank – partly through talent but mainly by acquiring martial and leadership abilities due to hard work and character development – until he finally becomes Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. Beginning as a semi-noble young man, feeling partly entitled due to his back- ground, Jon is disillusioned by the realities of the Night’s Watch but finally becomes a real leader, before still being betrayed by his own men at the end of A Dance with Dragons (cf. Martin: 1000). Thus, readers eagerly await to find out, whether Jon will be successful at the end of SIF due to or despite of his true origins, or not at all – in Martin’s fantasy all of these possibilities are just as probable. Here, the realisation of the fair unknown motif might answer the question whether one’s bloodline or one’s character is valued more according to the implied world view of the series (cf. Carroll 2018: 33-34). This instance of the fair unknown motif is mirrored and thereby foregrounded in the hypodiegetic story of the Knight of the Laughing Tree (cf. ibid.: 32, cf. Rieken 2019: 33-34), which further underscores its relevance for SIF as a whole.

11 In contrast to that, the HBO series Game of Thrones establishes in season seven that Rhaegar had his marriage to Elia Martell annulled and married Lyanna in secret before Jon was born, which gives him the strongest claim to the Iron Throne according to Westerosi law; however, the novels have not (yet) revealed such a formal relationship (cf. Carroll 2018: 33). 65

In addition, romance and anti-romance character construction in the form of chiv- alry is a prominent theme that affects a multitude of characters in SIF. For example, Car- roll (2018: 26) observes that many characters look back into the fictional past for great acts of chivalry (e.g. the Great Tourney at Harrenhall, the Kingswood Brotherhood or the Age of Heroes) and project these into the fictional present as lessons for the future. This looking back at earlier times in a medieval pattern of thought – explaining one’s own existence through the past (cf. Carroll: 2018: 30) – is a clear mise en abyme of nostalgia on a lower level of the text. Examples for this tendency include Sansa, who creates a persona from her romances centred around courtly manners in order to survive King’s Landing; Jaime, who searches for orientation in his memories of Ser Arthur Dayne and in the White Book – a history of all the great deeds of members of the Kingsguard –; and Daenerys, who uses her brother Rhaegar and her father Aerys as examples of good and bad regency (cf. ibid.: 30). In terms of direct character construction, Brienne of Tarth constantly tries to live up to the ideals of chivalry, and Jaime is depicted as the quintessential knight in shining armour in his first appearance in GT:

There came Ser Jaime Lannister with hair as bright as beaten gold […]. Ser Jaime Lannister was twin to Queen Cersei; tall and golden, with flashing green eyes and a smile that cut like a knife. He wore crimson silk, high black boots, a black satin cloak. On the breast of his tunic, the lion of his House was em- broidered in gold thread, roaring in defiance. They called him the Lion of Lan- nister to his face and whispered ‘Kingslayer’ behind his back. (39, 51)

This description already indicates with which ambivalence Jaime is represented in SIF – in this case from the perspectives of Ned and Jon. From the outside, Jaime appears to be a noble knight, but his actions reveal his villainous nature in the earlier volumes, culmi- nating in him throwing the seven-year-old Bran out of a tower window, when he discovers Jaime’s love affair with his sister, marked by the famous quote: “The things I do for love” (GT: 85). This contradiction between Jaime’s outside and inside is one of the many con- trasts Martin evokes in his writing. However, during the larger narrative of the series Jaime distances himself from the antagonistic Lannister position due to his chivalric val- ues, develops an antihero character arch and even becomes a centre of empathy for the reader when he takes on the role of a point-of-view character (cf. Rieken 2019: 38). Additionally, in SIF’s possible double adventure structure it has become apparent that Ned Stark is the quintessential hero of a typical chivalric romance. He has an hon- ourable and honest general disposition and tries to better the fictional world through his

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influence when he goes south to become the Hand of the King. At first reading the seem- ing protagonist of the series is even introduced by giving a lesson on how to pass judg- ment on one’s people as a lord:

[…] the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not de- serve to die. (GT: 16)

However, in this case SIF becomes an anti-romance. Due to the fact that it is not always an adequate reaction to act uncompromisingly according to the highest ethical, moral and honour standards in the fictional world of Westeros – especially not in King’s Landing – and Ned also expects others to adhere to the chivalric code of honour – e.g. when he confronts Cersei before telling Robert of her betrayal (see GT: 485-488) –, he is punished for his lack of cunning and poor political strategy by being beheaded as a traitor. This might be foreshadowed by the winter and darkness associations of Ned’s character instead of the light and summer qualities typically ascribed to romance protagonists as well as his farther also dying after a summoning to the south (see GT: 63), however, Ned’s exe- cution still comes as a shock to readers accustomed to traditional story conventions (cf. Carroll 2018: 38-40). Hence, Carroll (cf. ibid.: 40-41) argues that Ned’s character arch shows what hap- pens when romance ideals meet the ‘real world’ or at least Martin’s neomedievalist fiction of authenticity regarding the Middle Ages. Another interesting reading by Carroll is that Ned fails because he does not hold to his own standards of honour. After all, the head of the Stark family is willing to confess to a treason he did not commit and accept an illegit- imate heir to the throne in order to save himself and his family (cf. ibid.). In addition, depending on Jon’s true parentage Ned was either unfaithful to Catelyn or lied to his king in terms of Jon’s claim to the throne, which illustrates the problem of conflicting oaths. Should Ned serve his king or protect the weak in form of an innocent baby who would have been pursued and probably killed because of its right to the throne? By keeping one oath, the honourable lord would automatically forsake the other. In any case, both deci- sions cast a questionable light on Eddard Starks chivalric integrity. According to this in- terpretation, it would need an ethically, morally and honourably integer hero, without any such flaws and close to a personification of chivalry, to truly unite the kingdoms of Westeros under one banner; such a hero still has to come to the fore in the SIF. Although this reading is certainly plausible to some extent and might turn out to be true at the end

67 of the series, the first reading of chivalric ideals being deconstructed when thought through and confronted with ‘reality’ is more probable. This interpretation is further sup- ported on many levels, such as the brutal disillusionment of Jaime’s and in particular Sansa’s conception of romance chivalry as well as Tyrion realising most of the ethical, moral and honourable qualities of the chivalric code but appearance-wise being the op- posite of the romance hero, even echoing the trope from medieval romance.12 At the end of this chapter, it has become clear that medieval romance and neome- dievalist fantasy deal with the same matter, namely the troubles and deeds of the noble estate. Only WT features main characters from the peasantry, who however turn out to be chosen ones and thereby reach a comparable status to aristocracy. The implication from a nostalgia-for-pre-modernity standpoint would here be that through the primacy of the nobility’s viewpoint fantasy evokes the grand spectacle of times long gone, in which no- ble kings and queens determined the fate of the whole medieval world. Hence, the epic proportions of great characters experiencing great, action-oriented adventures – also the main topic of the medieval epic – might be more fascinating to explore in fiction for fantasy readers than the trivial, often internalised struggles of a modern everyman. The prominent fair unknown motif in romance and fantasy goes into a similar direction. By reading about characters who are revealed to be of noble birth and destined for great adventures, readers might feel set back into times where there was supposedly more to life than the mundane, repetitious tasks of modern, everyday life. Today many people are obsessed with their ancestors or try to find out how many percent of their DNA can be traced back to which country. These trends illustrate the modern urge to reveal something that is hidden in one’s identity, to be somehow special and hope that life has more in store for one than what is apparent on first sight (e.g. epic adventures), which might be a by-product of the focus on the individual in modern society. Precisely this nostalgic wish that there is something more to life is satisfied through the fair unknown motif in fantasy fiction. With regards to character construction fantasy deals strongly with ideals of chiv- alry, only in very different ways. While LR caters for nostalgia with various typically chivalric heroes, WT modifies the formula with main characters that are not content with

12 For a more detailed analysis of these further anti-romance elements in SIF see: Carrolll, Shiloh (2018). “’Life is not a song: Anti-Romance’”. In: the same. Medievalism in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer. 41-52. 68

their role as chosen ones, bordering on unreliability, and SIF deconstructs the code of chivalry through the character of Ned Stark and other disillusionments. Evoking chivalric qualities in the character construction might elicit nostalgia for the Middle Ages since it conjures up an image of a time, when real values in of terms ethics, morality and honour still had a weight attached to them and counted for something. Today – from a cynical standpoint – most of the institutions preaching such values or the ideals themselves turn out to be shallow and hypocritical under closer examination or only a moral pretence for a different motivation, and idealistic thinking is way too often brushed aside as naiveté. Thus, fantasy can discuss such qualities of chivalry without this modern ‘taint’ attached to them as also James finds in summarising Tolkien’s plea for the genre:

[…] the poet could express real truths about courage and loyalty, and duty, as well as express those truths in a gloriously complex and beautiful poetic form. Fantasy, for Tolkien, was a way of getting closer to the important things of life than the realistic novel ever could. (James 2012: 69)

Interestingly, Martin himself takes almost a direct counter position to this stance in an interview with MacLaurin:

Of course, the way it often worked out is the people the peasants often needed the most protection from were their own protectors. I think there is a powerful story in that. The ideals of knighthood embody some of the finest ideals the human race has ever come up with. The reality was somewhat less than that, and often horribly so. (2000: online)

What can be extracted from this quote is rather close to the interpretation above that the code of chivalry – for example, due to ‘robber barons’ and marauding knights – does not hold against a ‘reality check’. Hence, Martin refers to the categories from his medieval and medievalist predecessors in terms of chivalry; however, mostly to deconstruct them and thereby also the nostalgia attached to them. This narrative technique has been referred to by previous researchers of the subject as “disenchantment” (Carroll 2018, Rieken 2019: passim). Nonetheless, most of the predominantly positively represented characters (e.g. the Starks, Daenerys or Jon) still adhere to – even if only implicitly – to chivalric principles in terms of moral and ethical action, which is also the main reason readers are empathetic towards them and identify with these characters. Therefore, a nihilistic interpretation to- wards a rejection of all values and ideals seems highly unlikely. Instead, the series seems – depending of course on its ultimate outcome – rather to plead against blindly following any set of ideals without reflection and for a refined, informed and updated code of

69 chivalry according to the temporal and situational context. So far, Jon seems to be a prom- ising example of such an adequate set of chivalric ideals for the fictional world and thus, the text and its function might once again prove to be more nuanced than the initial author intention standing behind it.

5.1.3 Martin’s Series evoking the Intertextual System of Medieval Songs and Po- etry

Westeros.org (cf. 2020: online) – one of the biggest online databases of information on the world of SIF – lists 68 individual, in particular song-related entries (ibid.), which shows the importance of the musical dimension for the series. One prominent example from the text is “The Rains of Castamere” (Martin. A Storm of Swords: 538), which eter- nalises the destruction of House Reyne of Castamere by Tywin Lannister in the Reyne- Tarbeck revolt and is also used as a signal for the members of House Frey and House Bolton to turn on House Stark and House Tully and slaughter them in the ‘Red Wedding’ (see Martin. A Storm of Swords: 701-702). The central word play of the song is that the “rains” (Martin. A Storm of Swords: 538) fall over the empty halls of the “Reynes” (ibid.), who have been eradicated to the last man with “not a soul to hear” (ibid.). In addition, the lyrics heavily bear on the two house sigils: the red ‘coated’ lion of House Reyne con- trasting the golden lion of Lannister. Thus, “The Rains of Castamere” serves as a narrative tool to characterise house Lannister in terms of its power and dominance over other noble families in Westeros, relating to the house’s unofficial motto “a Lannister always pays his debts” (GT: passim), which applies both in a positive and negative way. However, within the first part of Martin’s series none of these 68 songs are men- tioned, let alone performed – except for “The Seasons of my Love” (GT: 457), which reminds Tyrion of his first love (cf. GT: 457). Therefore, let us turn to the title of the whole series, which also refers to a song. A Song of Ice and Fire assumedly relates to the prophecy at the centre of the narrative and another fair unknown motif. In the House of the Undying, Daenerys has visions and sees a man talking to a woman nursing a baby – presumably Rheagar Targaryen and Elia Martell: “Aegon, what better name for a king? […] He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire” (Martin. A Clash of Kings: 701). When the man turns around, it is not clear whether he speaks to the woman or directly to Daenerys herself: “There must be one more, […] the dragon has three heads” (ibid.), the man continues and begins to play on a silver harp (see ibid.). Although neither the contents of the song of ice and fire nor the identity of the prince that

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was promised – often also referred to as Azor Ahai – are known to the readers, this scene naturally has sparked various speculations among fans. As this mythical chosen one is said to be instrumental in ending the Long Night and defeating the Others (see Martin. A Clash of Kings: 154), it is suspected that Daenerys might fulfil this prophecy because she would be the third potential prince or princess that was promised after Rheagar and Aegon did not turn out to be the fair unknown, hence the ‘third head of the dragon’. In addition, Jon might be the prince that was promised since he may be the descendent from the Tar- garyens (i.e. fire) and Starks (i.e. ice) apart from him being already a major figure in the fight against the White Walkers. In addition, the title of A Song of Ice and Fire already points towards the various contrasts that arise on different levels of the text throughout the series and the indefinite article might signify that the work does not revolve around the journey of one central character but rather different possible protagonists, of whom only one or a few will realise their potential at the end of the story, depending on the supposedly realistic context of the narrative world. Another semantic dimension that is accentuated through this title is a possible tragic ending of the series due to comparable titles of SIF’s medieval predeces- sors, the most prominent being of course The Song of the Nibelungs (around 1200 AD). The parallel between Kriemhild’s revenge at a feast and the ‘Red Wedding’ is a further potential foreshadowing of a final catastrophe at the end of Martin’s epic fantasy series; however, as has become apparent up to this point, the author regularly breaks with reader expectations. After this analysis of medievalist song and poetry in fantasy the question arises, how this narrative tendency evokes nostalgic thought and emotion directed towards pre- modern times and the Middle Ages. First and foremost, the allusions to the traveling trou- badours and theatre companies as well as to the performance reception situation and the oral tradition of the Middle Ages all add to the metapoetic celebration of medieval art and culture in fantasy works. Moreover, the embedded medievalist poetry is partly even writ- ten according to poetry conventions from the Middle Ages on the discourse level. This minimalistic, almost purist art conception in terms of media tools at one’s disposal – of course not regarding artistic or aesthetic quality – stands in stark contrast to today’s stim- ulus overload initiated through the new media, such as the internet or social media, which has arguably also led to a decline in concentration capacity. Today, many readers and writers of fantasy might yearn back for a time in which not every piece of art and

71 entertainment was available through a flat rate, which can also result in frustration due to oversupply, and rather the few works of art available could be relished with full concen- tration over a longer period of time. Such a different art and entertainment concept might equal a deeper, more rewarding experience due to, for example, several readings or reg- ular exchange among peers. Thus, medieval art and culture can lead a way to an alterna- tive to the currently often proclaimed ‘commodification of art’; however, also to a mostly elitist access to works of art. The second source of nostalgic thinking and feeling in this context is linked to the setting in which such medievalist songs and poems typically occur in the fantasy novel. In front of a crackling bonfire, a comfortable fireplace in Elven halls or a jolly tavern within the fictional world readers might feel reminded of a more wholesome and collec- tive art experience, in which one piece of art is enjoyed and shared among many recipi- ents. In contrast to that, today the contact with art is – because of universal availability – mostly tailored to one’s individual preferences and filtered through personalised reading, watch or playlists. Cultural mass phenomena that work across all sociocultural levels and are known across the whole society (i.e. blockbusters or the antiquated German Gas- senfeger) have become increasingly rare and are mostly limited to one’s own household or a joint concert visit or cinema screening. This kind of fragmented experience adds to the picture of the modern, isolated individual and thus, such a collective culture experi- ence is something dearly missed in current times that through mutual exchange and in communal reception situations again produces culture itself. The setting of medievalist songs and poetry in fantasy fiction further fuels nostal- gia since readers may feel themselves transported back into their own time of childhood, where they were read stories to – specifically bedtime stories and fairy tales. These oral communicative reception situations form another parallel to the art conception in the Mid- dle Ages and the “Tale of Tinúviel” even echoes the typical ending – ‘and they all lived happily ever after’: “And long ago they passed away / In the forest singing sor- rowless” (FR: 252). Hence, these songs and poems evoke the safe space and time of child- hood with considerably less worries than in adult life, which might also result in a feeling of comfort. However, Martin also relativises this pattern of thought through his character Petyr Baelish talking to Sansa: “Life is not a song, sweetling. You may learn that one day to your sorrow” (GT: 473).

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5.2 The Mysteries of ‘Occult and Blood Magic’: The Representation of the Supernatural and Magic in SIF

5.2.1 The High Price of Magic in Martin’s World

Within this sub-section the focus will be on the representation of the supernatural and magic in SIF and in the later overall comparison specifically on the relevance of a mystery or an explanation of the supernatural and magic as far as nostalgia is concerned. In terms of the former aspect, it is not really surprising that SIF is here similarly to LR attributed to the type of magic representation according to Cox (cf. 2012: 138-140) that disrupts the physical laws taken over from the primary world, is not systematic and includes an over- arching mystery standing behind it (i.e. close to the intrusion mode). This is the case due to the strong influences from the historical novel and the virtual absence of the supernat- ural sphere through most of the series – in particular during the first novel. Although the narrative of GT is explicitly framed by supernatural episodes with the first attack of the Wights – see the chapter “Prologue” (1-11) – and the hatching of Deanerys’ dragons – see the chapter “Deanerys” (798-807) –, within this frame there are remarkably few in- stances of magic and most characters do not believe in anything supernatural and there- fore also ignore the Night’s Watch’s warnings against the threat from the Others beyond the Wall. Since the fear from the supernatural turns out to be well-founded this typically Central European, Western and secular world view is proven wrong, science in SIF is not right and therefore to some extent criticised. Despite the lack of ubiquitous supernatural elements in the series, Martin puts forward a passionate declaration for the supernatural in his essay “On Fantasy” (2021):

Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of , the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true? (online)

Thus, in Martin’s view fantastic elements add a certain unique ‘flavour’ to an otherwise ‘realistic’ narrative. Scoble (cf. 2012: 125) agrees with this standpoint and argues that the sparing use of these supernatural elements in small glimpses makes them even more ef- fective in creating an exotic, mysterious and dangerous world of SIF. 73

As mentioned above, at the beginning of SIF the typical romance magic has been transferred into the fictional history of the dragon-riding Targaryen dynasty and only re- mains in the form of rituals, superstitions, artefacts and stories – e.g. the orphaned dire- wolf puppies are taken as a good omen for house Stark (see GT: 19) or the supernatural is displaced outside the Westeros proper, either to Essos or beyond the Wall, but still lingers under the surface. As Scoble (cf. 2012: 129-131) points out, the wildlings in the north speak freely of giants, , greenseers and the old gods, while in Essos there are the warlocks of Qarth; the spellsingers, aeromancers, shadowbinders and bloodmages of Asshai as well as the maegi Mirri Maz Duur, with all these supernatural elements culmi- nating in the hatching scene as a remarkable ending of magic for the first novel (cf. ibid.):

As Daenerys rose to her feet, her black hissed, pale smoke venting from its mouth and nostrils. The other two pulled away from her breast and added their voices to the call, translucent wings unfolding and stirring the air, and for the first time in hundreds of years, the night came alive with the music of dragons. (GT: 807)

According to Scoble (cf. 2012: 133), apart from an aura of mystery surrounding Martin’s representation of the supernatural and magic, Mirri Maz Duur is a great example of an- other facet of their depiction: Both concepts are powerful, dangerous, and similarly to blood or occult magic they always come at a high price. When Deanerys’ husband Khal Drogo falls to a fever due to a festering wound, she asks Mirri to help him with healing magic, but the maegi warns Daenerys: “Only death may pay for life” (GT: 710). They nonetheless go on with the procedure and the maegi manages to save Drogo with her bloodmagic. However, he is only kept at death’s door in a comatose state and Daenerys loses her child through a monstrous stillbirth which appears to have been “dead for years” (GT: 756) – the implication is here clearly that the child is the ‘life that had to be paid’. Feeling betrayed, Daenerys takes revenge and ties Mirri to Drogo’s funeral pyre, the fire sacrifice seems again sufficient to awaken the dragons – nonetheless, a system of sacrifi- cial magic is never explicitly defined (cf. Scoble 2012: 132). In addition, Scoble (cf. 2012: 135) lists further prices paid for magic: Melisandre burns – upon other sacrifices – idols of the Seven or the kingly blood of the bastard Edric Storm to rid Stannis Baratheon of his competitors for the throne, such as Renly Baratheon, Joffrey Baratheon or Robb Stark with dark magic, or the wildling Craster sacrifices his male offspring to pacify the Others – maybe they are even themselves turned into White Walkers (cf. ibid.: 130). Due to the fact that it is difficult for the readers to decipher which magic effect comes at what cost, Martin’s blood and occult magic not only adds to the

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mysterious character of the representation of magic but also to the author’s gothic neome- dievalism in the sense of Matthews (cf. 2015: 15). Nonetheless, Martin realised that the judicious use of explicit supernatural elements and magic, such as dragons roaming the sky, makes his narrative much more intriguing: “We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang” (2021: online). To put it with the words of the Horned Lord, an early King-Beyond-the-Wall, sorcery in SIF is “a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it” (Martin. A Storm of Swords: 1019).

5.2.2 The Supernatural in Fantasy as the Satisfaction of a Modern Loss and Child- hood Dreams

After this comparative analysis of the supernatural in the selected works of fantasy fiction, the secondary worlds turn out to be surprisingly close to our real, primary world. Cox (cf. 2012: 129) observes that just as in reality magic is in most fantasy fiction fading from the world and only lives on in tales or superstitions, the only difference being that it still slumbers under the surface. With even the long-held belief in immaterial souls being threatened by the advance of physical science, there seems to be little space for the su- pernatural and magic in today’s secular world. However, part of the appeal of the fantasy genre is that it provides a domain with ample room for the return of the supernatural and magic:

[T]here might be room left in the world for a sense of wonder, for things that escape the net of explanation in terms of the physical sciences. There is room in our world for the wonders of science. But is there room for the wonders of magic[?] (ibid.)

Thus, this at least imagined loss in (post)modernity is filled through fantasy and might be due to a nostalgic sub-function also transferred to pre-modernity and the Middle Ages, which are the foundations of neomedievalist fantasy and where there was presumably also a greater room for the supernatural. This was certainly the case due to the dominant world view of Christianity, in which the history of salvation equalled regular historiog- raphy, the self-explanation of human beings was firmly rooted in the supernatural, and

75 magic had through divine miracle and the black magic of the devil to a certain degree reality status.13 Apart from that, it has been shown that the mysterious or clear-cut representation of the supernatural and magic due to an explanation and definition or lack thereof is the central comparison criterion that binds all of the texts under examination together. Hence, it is in this present thesis also reasoned that this distinction entails a key difference for the nostalgic sub-function. Building on the argument above that the depiction of the super- natural and magic in neomedievalist fantasy might elicit nostalgia for pre-modern and medieval times, it is here argued that a mysterious representation of the supernatural and magic is significantly more effective in doing so. While – similarly to the fair unknown motif – readers of LR and SIF might experience a feeling that there is more to the world than what is apparent on the surface and might try to fill the blank spaces of the supernat- ural and magic on their own, readers of WT are again presented with a fictional world that is deciphered, and in this case, it does not matter whether this happens because of science or a transparent magic system. Although the revelation of the mystery through consistent rules might be satisfying on its own – close to detective fiction –, the sustained sense of wonder and the thereby elicited nostalgia is certainly higher in the former. Hence, the representations of the supernatural and magic in LR and SIF are here considered to be more nostalgia-inducing than their counterpart in WT. In his essay Martin (cf. 2021: online) introduces another important aspect for nos- talgia analysis regarding the representation of the supernatural and magic in fantasy fic- tion:

The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real … for a moment at least … that long magic moment before we wake. […] Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true? […] There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La. (ibid.)

13 As a historical account of the positivation of the supernatural, Horace Walpole goes into a similar direction in his “Preface” (see 3-12) to (1764) – arguably one of the first Gothic novels in the English language: “Belief in every kind of prodigy [miracles, visions, necromancy, dreams, and other preternatural events] was so established in those dark [medieval] ages, that an author would not be faithful to the manners of the times who should omit all mention of them” (4). Walpole then continues to positively portray the supernatural as a perfectly viable means of entertainment (cf. 4), which should prove to be genre-building. 76

In this passionate plea for fantasy the author stresses the strong immersion possible in the genre, describing it as the realisation of archaic childhood dreams in literature that are otherwise typically disappointed in adulthood. Going beyond pure nostalgia for the Mid- dle Ages or pre-modernity, close to the nostalgia for bedtime stories, this form of nostal- gia is simultaneously directed backwards and forewords by addressing the childhood dreams of the past and fulfilling them in the domain of fantasy fiction. Martin’s quote even includes some pre-modern dimension since hunting in the forests of the night and feasting in the open wilderness – experiencing adventures – are activities typically asso- ciated with a nostalgic depiction of medieval times. This nostalgic realisation of childhood dreams is of particular relevance for fan- tasy fiction since it may go beyond what is possible in reality and include the impossible; and it is close to what Tolkien understood as “one of the main functions of fairy-stories” (1939: 55): escape. Escape, not in the sense of the flight of the deserter (i.e. fleeing from a miserable reality), but rather close to a mental escape of a prisoner – why should some- one imprisoned not choose to think about other topics than jailors and prison bars (cf. ibid.: 55-56)? These mental escapes include “the imaginative satisfaction of ancient de- sires” (ibid.: 62), such as visiting the deep ocean, flying free as a bird – e.g. the flight on dragons in SIF –, talking to animals – e.g. Perrin as wolfbrother in WT – or the Great Escape with capital letters: the escape from death – e.g. Gandalf returning from the dead in LR (cf. ibid.: 60-61). As has become clear in this sub-section, almost all of these ancient desires of the human condition are satisfied in the texts at hand and thus, constitute the nostalgic fulfilment of childhood dreams.

5.3 ‘Winter is Coming’: A Final Catastrophe Completing the Decon- struction of Nostalgia in Martin’s Text?

In the introduction of this present master thesis the three works under examination have been described as a ‘chain of influence’ and this again proves to be true for the evaluation of the nostalgic representations of pre-modernity and the Middle Ages on the level of the implied world view. Up to this point of the analysis, the findings in SIF mostly indicate a deconstruction of many fantasy characteristics and nostalgia for pre-modern times, how- ever, also implicit undertones of nostalgia. What is certainly problematic for this part of the analysis is that SIF is not yet completed at the time of this writing and the ultimate outcome of a narrative includes crucial information on what is evaluated positively or 77 negatively by the text (e.g. which characters succeed and fail at the end of the story). Nonetheless, the series already provides more than enough indicators of a certain possible world view implied in it and according to Carroll (cf. 2018: 3) the text so far does not suggest much hope for a happy, fulfilling ending, although Martin already alluded to it as being “bittersweet” (Collins 2015: online), an adjective that could also be applied to LR’s and WT’s ending. In the research category of the implied world view LR builds on at least the surface division of good versus evil, WT reflects on this as good and evil being necessary parts of life in its dualistic world view, and SIF appears to dissolve these very categories or repo- sition them according to its fictional world. Vaught refers to this narrative strategy as “moral ambiguity” (2012: 89) since Martin’s characters can hardly be divided into ‘good’ or ‘bad’ due to their complexity, often combining heroic and villainous qualities, tragic flaws, overwhelming emotions and intricate backgrounds. An extreme counterexample would here be the Others who could be classified as absolute evil, although their motiva- tion has not yet been disclosed in the series – as a kind of ‘natural force’ they could also fall into a neutral disposition. In addition, the world of SIF often seems to punish morally and ethically good behaviour and reward its opposite, and there is no central omniscient narrator who evaluates the actions of the characters. Thus, Vaught asks whether Martin’s text calls for a re-evaluation of the traditional categories of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ (cf. ibid.: 90-91). Vaught’s (cf. ibid.: 91-92) approach to this question is again structural by looking at the totality of the world of SIF and summarising everything under the header of what is considered ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in the text’s implied norms. Although this might be very individual according to each character, the bottom line of the quintessential evil that threatens all life in the Seven Kingdoms and beyond is the coming of the inevitable, in- terminable winter with all its terrible, deadly and even supernatural consequences, the Long Night that is epitomised in the Starks’ motto ‘Winter is Coming’. Consequently, all characters and actions that try to prevent or at least weaken this impending catastrophe of the narrative can be considered ‘good’. This is exemplified by Vaught (cf. ibid.) through the ‘evil’ characters of Robb, Catelyn and Joffrey who all put selfishness, dishonest acts, personal revenge, sadistic cruelty or political intrigue before the common good of the realm and the ‘good’ characters of Davos, Sansa and Jaime who set their personal needs aside for the public interest over the course of the whole work.

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On the one hand, this means in the specific case of Robb among other faults for- saking his oath to marry Walder Frey’s daughter in an important political alliance for the selfish love of Jeyne Westerling, thereby tarnishing his honour (cf. ibid.: 93.). In addition, Catelyn blindly follows her emotions in revenge for the attempt on Bran’s life and later Eddard’s execution and thereby neglects the Starks’ role as Wardens of the North (cf. ibid.: 95). Last but not least, Joffrey is probably the most obvious ‘evil’ character in this list since he is a selfish narcissist who prefers sadistic torture and abuse over being a good and just king to his subjects (cf. ibid.: 96). All of these ‘evil’ characters according to this new classification are severely punished by dying a gruesome death before the end of the third novel in the series, which illustrates a twisted sense of poetic justice. In SIF not immoral characters are punished as it is often the case in regular poetic justice but rather characters with a central, decisive character flaw and it seems as if the more severe the flaw is according to the implied norms, the worse the punishment tends to be (e.g. the death of Ned Stark). On the other hand, some ‘good’ characters get the chance to redeem their flaws and advance the greater good. For example, Davos comes from the lowest estate and therefore always has the well-being of all people in mind while rising in rank until he becomes an important mediator between the different parties in Westeros (cf. ibid.: 98). Additionally, Sansa changes from a naive and selfish young girl to a self-reliant woman learned in political intrigue who shows great potential for a queen that uses her foresight to protect her people (cf. ibid.: 100). Vaught’s (cf. ibid.: 104) list of ‘good’ characters is completed through the aforementioned redemption arch of Jaime who starts off as one of the central villains, only to turn into the ideal of chivalry, protecting the weak and placing the well-being of the community above personal gain. All of the examples above illustrate that in order for a character to be considered ‘good’ in SIF, their redemption – just as the supernatural – often includes a brutal price: Davos loses the first joint of all the fingers on his left hand, Sansa suffers years of physical and psychological abuse, and Jaime’s sword hand is cut off (cf. ibid.: 105). What could be held against Vaught’s re-evaluation of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ according to the texts implied norms and values is that while most characters know of the coming of winter, they do not know of the White Walkers and their army of the dead; thus, it could be problematic to judge characters on something that partly lies outside their knowledge horizon.

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Nonetheless, Vaught’s moral ambiguity as well as SIF’s round characters and shifted poetic justice coincides with Martin’s following comment on his implied world view:

The struggle between good and evil is certainly a legitimate topic; but that struggle is not waged against dark lords with evil minions. It’s waged within the individual human heart. All of us have good and evil in us; the question is, what choices will we make when we're confronted with difficult and danger- ous situations? That’s the approach [to fantasy] that I wanted to take. (Shindler 2005: online)

This self-description not only fits this observation of the author’s character construction but also shows the psychologisation of SIF’s struggle of good versus evil as different parts of the human soul and is surprisingly close to Jordan’s dualistic world view that emphasises the importance of individual choice. In terms of the evaluation of the representations that indicate nostalgia for pre- modern and medieval times on the level of the implied world view, this examination of SIF permits to draw a similar conclusion as for WT. By partly dissolving the categories themselves, letting heroes commit atrocities and villains great acts of compassion, Martin goes even further than representing good and evil as necessary parts of life: SIF fore- grounds the various greys in the world and thereby disenchants the nostalgic idea of a return to a ‘simpler’ pre-modern time in terms of norms and values. In combination with the barbaric and gothic neomedievalist world in Martin’s series this points to an implied world view that is often governed by chaos and pure chance, where everything can happen and conventionalised storytelling only partly applies, and which is strikingly reminiscent of the complexity and arbitrariness in modernity. Although ‘Long Night’ and winter im- ply the coming of morning and spring, it is difficult to imagine a holistic HEALING of the fictional world in SIF even if the supernatural threat is overcome. However, this analysis also allows an interpretation regarding the implicit posi- tivation of a fundamentally medieval and thereby nostalgic value, namely good and just regency in the sense of ‘ruling wisely’ that is also the responsibility of Aragorn in LR (see Tolkien. The Return of the King: 1272). After the power vacuum following Robert’s death the feudal structure is in danger of collapsing and the terrible civil war of the Five Kings covers the whole country and its people in chaos and violence (cf. Carroll 2018: 37). According to Vaught’s model of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in SIF re-establishing peace through good and just rule that takes the well-being of all its subjects as paramount concern in- stead of individual desires and in the following rallies the community of Westeros against

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the White Walkers – sowing unity instead of discord (cf. 2012: 105) –, would come clos- est to a possible pole of the good side. This is also what Varys answers Eddard when he asks him whom he truly serves: “I serve the realm, and the realm needs peace” (GT: 636). Thus, Varys – if speaking the truth – could be considered a profoundly positive character. This nostalgic positivation of a good and just king as medieval ideal is even intensified further by the almost exclusively aristocratic characters, since through hereditary succes- sion an unjust or ‘evil’ king cannot be held accountable by the tool of democratic election – only through violent revolution – and thus, this responsibility of ‘ruling wisely’ has to be realised by means of intrinsic motivation. The representation of home in SIF as the connecting piece between nostalgia and modernity goes into a similar direction. Although the different homes vary widely de- pending on the individual characters and most point-of-view characters are displaced from their origin and in constant migration, which would point to a modern dissolution of home, saving their – maybe also metaphorical – place of nativity is the primary moti- vation of various characters (e.g. the Stark children). In addition, it is quite probable that the majority of characters in Martin’s series will join forces in order to save their bigger, communal home of Westeros from the Others and thereby echo the chivalric ideal of national solidarity in defence of land and sovereign, again constituting nostalgia for the medieval. What can be taken away from this comparison of the implied world view in fan- tasy fiction in relation to nostalgia for pre-modernity and the Middle Ages? In terms of the struggle between good and evil LR again practices complexity reduction – as has al- ready become apparent in the structural analysis – and celebrates nostalgia for medieval times since the pre-modern side wins over the modern one. WT reduces its nostalgic im- plications through its dualistic world view, in which good and evil are necessary parts of the world, and because of its circular time, in which nostalgic thinking is nonetheless possible. SIF is in turn an extreme example since it is hardly possible to divide its world into good and evil according to regular standards of morals and ethics. This is only pos- sible in a re-evaluation of the categories according to its implied values, which again reveals an implied positivation of a nostalgically medieval ideal (i.e. good regency). In any case, the latter two works negate the nostalgic notion of a ‘simpler’ world view in pre-modernity. With regard to the concept of home, LR depicts the pre-modern domesti- city and spirituality positively as two compensations for modern change, WT strongly

81 alludes to the modern dissolution of home and SIF shows potential for both, the nostalgic restoration and the modern disintegration of home. Although Martin seems to consciously try to unmask and distance himself from any nostalgic emotions and thinking directed towards pre-modernity and the Middle Ages, the author nonetheless implicitly evokes nostalgia, as has been shown in parts of this analysis (e.g. intertextual system references to medieval romance, song and poetry, the supernatural as nostalgic mystery and the medieval ideal of a just king). Nonetheless, these are only nostalgic sub-functions of the text and the functional disillusionment of nostalgia certainly dominates SIF on the macro-level – in particular due to its barbarically and gothically neomedievalist fictional world. However, if Martin’s text only reveals nostalgia criticism as one of its macro- functions, what other possible macro-functions hold potential for future research? What seems promising is a certain sense of ‘sensationalism’ and ‘voyeurism’ due to SIF’s focus on violence, sexuality and action that is reminiscent of pulp fiction from the early 20th century (cf. Clute 1999: 792) – the ‘sex and crime’ variety of fantasy fiction. This is by no means stated in a derogative manner. Martin recontextualises these narrative devices in order to aestheticize the sub-genre of grimdark fantasy, including reduced magic, ex- cessive violence, in-depth character development and a fiction of authenticity regarding its neomedievalist world (cf. Young 2016: 63), and thereby reaches literary quality and revolutionises reading habits. As Carroll puts it, SIF is “fantasy for people who hate fan- tasy” (2018: 181) and thereby opens an entirely new readership for the genre.

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Conclusion

Whenever there is a new trend within a genre, there often appears to be a certain antago- nism created between supporters of the respective representatives. While LR is often de- scribed as too simplistic, atavistic and overly romantic in comparison with SIF, the latter is often attacked for being too provocative and only successful because of its shock value when compared to its predecessors (cf. Carroll 2018: 3-6). However, these mutual attacks speak more of the critics’ contemporary cultural background than of the texts themselves and the positions of the authors also do not give warrant to such an antagonism. For in- stance, Martin always described Tolkien as one of his biggest influences and dear to his heart: “They can keep their heaven. When I die, I’d sooner go to middle Earth” (Martin 2021: online). Thus, this present master thesis also pleads for a descriptive approach to the analysis of LR, WT and SIF instead of prescriptive evaluation since the latter is mostly outdated, and the individual works form a chain of influence in which they also retrospec- tively inform each other. Due to the temporal distance to pre-modernity, it is almost impossible to deter- mine if the texts are ‘accurate’ or ‘authentic’ in their representation of the Middle Ages as Carroll finds (cf. 2018: 182) – and it is strongly debatable if this is even the point in purposefully inaccurate neomedievalism. What can however be observed is that Tolkien, Jordan and Martin all create very different visions of fantasy fiction that is based on his- torical pre-modernity. Whether the analysed texts glorify or demonise medieval times or otherwise ‘other’ the era in their representations might reveal certain mentalities of this historical period; but more importantly, these findings shed light on the contemporary beliefs, (imagined) deficits and norms that led to these depictions (cf. ibid. 186). Since LR, WT and SIF are deeply rooted in contemporary pop culture, they will continue to shape the picture of fantasy fiction, the Middle Ages and nostalgia for decades and maybe even centuries to come. Hence, it was investigated in this master thesis whether nostalgia for pre-modernity is evident in the examined fantasy fiction, which selected forms these possible nostalgic representations take and which functions they potentially fulfil. First, within the research category of intertextual system reference this analysis of the sub-categories of romance micro-structure (i.e. episodic organisation and interlace- ment) and character construction (i.e. primacy of the nobility, the fair unknown and chiv- alric ideals) as well as the connections to medieval song and poetry yielded the following nostalgic forms: Episodic organisation and interlacement proved to be present in all three 83 series under examination. In the specific case of LR primacy of the nobility, the fair un- known and ideals of chivalry were mainly demonstrated in the example of Aragorn, while in WT they have been shown to be only partly apparent by the examples of the peasant main characters and the protagonist Rand bordering on insanity. In SIF romance character construction is even deconstructed through Sansa, Jaime and Eddard. In addition, the cross-references to medieval song and poetry were analysed in LR through the example of “The Tale of Tinúviel”, in WT through the gleemen and Tinkers, and in SIF through “The Rains of Castamere” and the series’ own title, all adding to the implicit celebration of medieval art and culture in fantasy fiction. This allows to attribute the following nostalgic micro-functions to these forms: Fantasy’s medieval form miming its neomedievalist contents induces structural nostalgia, not only directed at its medieval predecessors but also to childhood stories with similar structures. Additionally, the predominant focus on aristocracy and the fair unknown motif nostalgically positivises that there might have been more to pre-modern life than mundane everyday routine, and chivalric values are positivised as real moral ideals that might have been lost in modernity. Only Martin sharply criticises this chivalric code and thereby also deconstructs the nostalgia attached to it. In contrast to that, the implicit celebration of medieval art and culture can be observed in all works and might lead to a nostalgic image of the art conception in pre-modern times and its (oral) collective reception situation. Second, the category of the representation of the supernatural revealed in Tol- kien’s text the form of an underlying nostalgic mystery in the anthropomorphised nature, Gandalf’s magic and the invisibility of the Ring. This is contrasted through the transparent magic system in Jordan’s fantasy fiction that evokes a unity of the cultural and natural sphere due to its elemental magic and presents the supernatural Ogier Loyal close to a personification of nostalgia. In Martin’s work the supernatural is in turn clouded in mys- tery, very dangerous and mostly includes a certain price to be paid as in occult or blood magic. In a nostalgic sub-function pre-modernity might also appear to be more mysteri- ous and interesting to explore than contemporary (post)modernity due to the fact that not everything was explained away through science; there was more space for the supernatu- ral. Furthermore, it has been established that the mysterious representation of the super- natural in LR and SIF is significantly more effective in creating this nostalgic effect than the clear-cut representation in WT; and going beyond pure nostalgia for the Middle Ages,

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the depiction of the supernatural in fantasy fiction might constitute the imaginary satis- faction of ancient desires and childhood dreams in a nostalgic manner. Third, the analysis of the implied world view in Tolkien’s series uncovered the nostalgic forms of the primary separation of the fictional world in good and evil, the pos- itive evaluation of the nostalgic representations on the level of the implied world view due to the victory of the implicitly pre-modern forces over the modern ones as well as the spiritual and domestic home as compensations for modern change. In Jordan’s text the struggle of good versus evil is resolved through its dualistic world view – both aspects are here necessary parts of life –, the representation of home might remind readers of the modern disintegration of the concept and the series’ circular time conception further weakens nostalgia for pre-modernity. Even if the nostalgia is not evaluated negatively on the level of the implied world view in WT, it is certainly reduced. For Martin’s fantasy fiction, this research category revealed the dissolution of the very categories of good and evil due to the series’ moral ambiguity, round characters and twisted poetic justice. In the depiction of home, SIF shows the possibility of both, the nostalgic reestablishment and the modern fragmentation of the concept at the end of the series. In terms of a potential nostalgic sub-function of this form, while LR practices complexity reduction in its neomedievalist representation of pre-modernity, WT unmasks this nostalgic idea of a ‘simpler’ medieval time in terms of norms and values, and SIF even foregrounds the supposed problematic complexity in modernity as well as the Mid- dle Ages. Thus, LR evaluates its nostalgic representation positively, WT shows mixed indicators and SIF predominantly evaluates its nostalgic representations in a negative way on the level of the implied world view. After this comprehensive overview of the findings of this literary observation, the first two research questions from the beginning of this thesis concerning the nostalgic representations of pre-modernity as well as their forms and micro-functions have been answered. However, with regard to the macro-function of catering to nostalgia for the Middle Ages on the level of the text as a whole, LR certainly fulfils this function, WT shows evidence for and against nostalgia, and SIF tends to the deconstruction of nostalgia for pre-modernity on the macro-level. This finding verifies the diachronic trend – at least for the examined works of fantasy fiction – from a celebration to a deconstruction of nostalgia for medieval times. Nonetheless, Martin’s series also indicates implicit coun- tertendencies (e.g. the chivalric ideals present in SIF’s positive main characters or the

85 medieval ideal of perfect regency). Thus, a nihilistic interpretation towards the rejection of all values seems highly unlikely; a certain ‘cosmology’ is undoubtedly at work in Westeros, as also Vaught finds (cf. 2012: 106). In addition, by mostly rejecting the nos- talgia for medieval times and foregrounding the similarities instead of the differences between pre-modernity and our time, Martin bridges the gap between the foreign Middle Ages and contemporary (post)modernity (cf. Carroll 2018: 8). However, with all of these findings it is important to bear in mind that they are somewhat restricted since this thesis is mainly focused on the starting novels of the respective fantasy series. A deep analysis of all the novels in these multi-volume works might yield different findings and is there- fore desired for future research. Nonetheless, throughout this analysis it has been demonstrated that various as- pects of pre-modernity are positivised as a reaction to real or at least imagined deficits in contemporary (post)modernity in the texts at hand; these will now be abstracted and syn- thesised before coming to a close of this thesis. Carroll (cf. 2018: 5-8) lists some of them: The modern environmental damage due to destructive technologies and capitalism is bal- anced through a closer connection to nature in agrarian pre-modernity; medieval simplic- ity, self-awareness and pre-sexuality counters modern complexity, alienation, and sexu- alisation, as well as pre-modern order and predictability is set against modern chaos and arbitrariness (cf. ibid.). Moreover, the medieval collective society with an integrated, per- sonal and particular experience is positivised in comparison to the modern isolated indi- vidual with a fragmented, impersonal and anonymous experience (cf. Chase and Shaw 1989: 8). In addition, globalisation is problematised in relation to regionalism. Further- more, the reduced, collective and often oral art conception is romanticised against the backdrop of modern mass culture, and the wonders of the supernatural and religion face the disenchantment in modern science and secularism. Finally, a positive light is shed on pre-modern transparency when confronted with its modern counterpart of opaqueness. While this list can probably be substantiated by many more important pairings and many of them partly constitute the creation of myths, fantasy fiction proved in this thesis its important control function in pointing out many of the deficits that are created under the header of continuous societal progress. At the same time, the genre’s utopian function of creating alternative secondary world models where these problems do not exist has been demonstrated – only in the case of fantasy fiction, it is a utopia in past time and space.

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