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Painting With Shades of Grey

The and the Anti-Hero in Medievalist Fiction

By Hannah Nicole Graham

A Thesis Presented to The Department of Literature, Area Studies, and European Languages The Faculty of Humanities

University of Oslo

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the MA Degree in English Literature

Spring Term 2020

1 Painting With Shades of Grey

The Hero and the Anti-Hero in Medievalist Fantasy Fiction

By Hannah Nicole Graham

© 2020 Hannah Nicole Graham

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

2 Abstract

J.R.R Tolkien’s and George R.R. Martin’s are two landmark works in the genre of medievalist . The main argument of this thesis is that, despite the apparent similarities between the works, they portray and utilize the tradition of the heroic in contrasting ways. This thesis explores the opposing uses of medievalism in each series, and examines the use of ensembles of characters as opposed to a singular protagonist. The thesis draws a direct comparison between the heroic and the anti-heroic by character analyses of one character from each work, from A Song of Ice and Fire and Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings. Finally, this thesis offers an analysis of each author’s writing of war, and uses biographical and epistolary sources to examine the cultural context of the novels and each author’s aims in writing them. Through these approaches, this thesis will show the contrast between Tolkien’s use of the heroic and Martin’s anti-heroic, as well as providing analysis of how they are portrayed and why they are important elements in each of the works.

3 Acknowledgments

Writing this thesis over the course of the last year or so has been both rewarding and, at times, overwhelming. Choosing to analyze two works that I enjoy in a genre that I believe to be an important aspect of contemporary literature has kept the work interesting, but there have been moments of wondering if I could really do this, if it will all come together. I’m so grateful to have had so many people on my team to help me refocus when I needed it.

First, special thanks to my advisor, Stuart McWilliams. At times of doubt for me, you continued to support and believe in my concept. From recommending sources of use to providing invaluable feedback on even the roughest drafts, your help has been greatly appreciated!

Thanks to my friends and fellow students in the English Master’s Society. The sense of community have been greatly appreciated, and being able to discuss ideas and worries with others in the same boat has helped me feel less alone in this process.

I also have to offer heartfelt gratitude to my friends and family who have listened to me talk endlessly about this project and offered suggestions, even if they had not much idea what I was talking about. To my parents, siblings, and friends, thank you for sticking by my side through this journey.

4 Table of Contents

Abstract ...... 3 Acknowledgments ...... 4 Table of Contents ...... 5 Introduction ...... 6 Primary Texts ...... 9 Theoretical Framework ...... 12 Chapter 1: Medievalism and the Heroic Ensemble ...... 16 Medievalism and Chivalry ...... 16 Heroic Ensembles ...... 27 Chapter Two ...... 40 The Hero and the Anti-Hero ...... 40 The Rightful King ...... 51 Courtly Love ...... 56 Chapter Three ...... 70 Tolkien, War, and Escapism ...... 71 Martin, War, and Reflecting Reality ...... 78 Conclusion ...... 84 Bibliography ...... 88

5 Introduction

But it remains an unfailing delight to me to find my own belief justified: that the ‘-story’ is really an adult genre, and one for which a starving audience exists. J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955

In the fall of 1996, with little fanfare from those outside of the world of fantasy , George R.R. Martin’s A was published. Martin had previously found relative success as an author of sci-fi and horror, but marked a more definite shift into epic fantasy and was the first of a proposed trilogy (which later expanded to a series) called A Song of Ice and Fire. While publishers were very excited to get their hands on this new work of Martin’s, its commercial success had a relatively slow start. Jane Johnson of Voyager, the fantasy and imprint of HarperCollins, says, “You have to remember that before the Lord of the Rings movies and the HBO adaptation of Game of Thrones came along, fantasy was widely regarded as geeky and uncool” (Barnett). However, with a change of cover art, and the series’ growing popularity by word-of-mouth, each book saw better opening sales figures than the last. By the publication of the fourth installment in 2005, Martin was a number one bestselling author (Barnett). In 2009, a deal was struck with HBO to adapt the novels into a television series which became wildly popular, after which “book sales went through the roof” (Barnett). As of April 2019, the book series has sold more than 90 million copies worldwide (Barnett), and Martin has colloquially come to be known as the American Tolkien, a phrase which originated with Time’s Lev Grossman. In a review for the most recent book of the series, A Dance with , Grossman says “I believed Martin was our age’s and our country’s answer to the master of epic fantasy” (Grossman). Tolkien himself, however, did not immediately experience the success that his works would have either. When the first installment of The Lord of the Rings was published in July, 1954, it was released to mixed reviews, both in its critical and social reception. Tolkien was

6 already a well-known author, having previously published as well as many short stories, which were mainly geared toward children. The Lord of the Rings was a long awaited continuation of the world he had created for The Hobbit; however, it was not the children’s story that many readers were expecting. The tropes and elements, in this case, fit into a tale that was much longer and darker, clearly intended for adults. Many contemporary critics could not see the use for this kind of story, such as American critic Edmund Wilson, who called it “juvenile trash” (Lindrea). There were others, however, who praised Tolkien’s work and believed it would be read for many years to come. In 1954, Guardian critic Herbert Dingle gave a more positive review: “To have created so enthralling an epic-romance, with its own mythology, with such diversity of scene and character, such imaginative largess in invention and description, and such supernatural meaning underlying the wealth of incident is a most remarkable feat” (Lindrea). Despite such a mixed critical reception, Tolkien’s work saw an increase in sales with the publication of each new installment. The series experienced a fresh wave of popularity in the 1960’s, when it was published in paperback and found readership among the hippy countercultures of American campuses, for whom “visions of Middle-earth became part of a greater whole that involved communes and flower power” (Bishop 19). Across the decades, The Lord of the Rings has remained on best-seller lists and experienced another wave of popularity following Peter Jackson’s movie adaptations in the early 2000’s. As of 2017, over 150 million copies of the novels have been sold world-wide (O’Hehir). In 1999, an Amazon poll judged The Lord of the Rings the “Book of the Millenium,” and the 2003 “Big Read” survey conducted by the BBC found it to be the “Nation’s best-loved book” (O’Hehir; “The Big Read). The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire both stand out as key works in an already popular genre; Tolkien’s saga as a well-established work that helped found the genre, and Martin’s as a modern representation of a type of fantasy that contemporary readers enjoy. The main argument of this thesis is that both of these authors utilize and subvert the traditional concepts of the hero in contrasting ways. I will show how each author’s distinctive use of medievalism, their own experiences with war, and their opposing philosophies of writing lend themselves to the construction of Tolkien’s heroes and Martin’s anti-heroes. In order to clearly

7 show this fundamental difference between the two works, I set out to answer three questions: what are the core similarities between the works, how do they contrast one another, and why is the hero or anti-hero important to each work. This thesis is divided into three chapters, beginning in chapter one with a broader exploration of each work’s use of medievalism and how the heroes or anti-heroes are represented, showing how even these seeming similarities are used in opposing ways. While both works have a medievalist setting, Tolkien’s medievalism is reflective of a romantic view of the Middle Ages, whereas Martin’s world has the violence and feudal oppression more associated with barbaric medievalism. Furthermore, both authors choose not to focus on the traditional singular protagonist or hero, instead presenting an ensemble of characters that carry out the action of the narrative and present the story from various perspectives. I will show how Tolkien’s characters carry out multiple traditions of heroism, with no doubt ever cast on which characters are ‘good’ or ‘evil.’ Tolkien has created a clear division between light and dark in his work, and all of his characters fall neatly into one category or the other, with only a few notable exceptions. Martin’s characters are not so easily designated as ‘hero’ or ‘villain’ and often fall somewhere in between. These characters rarely fit in any traditional expectation of heroism, and when they do, it is often to their demise. Chapter two narrows in focus to a close examination of specific characters and how the narrative structure of each work aids in their portrayal. For purposes of comparison, I chose to analyze two characters who appear immediately similar to one another, but each embody their author’s aims in regards to heroism: Aragorn as a representation of Tolkien’s work and Jaime Lannister for Martin’s. These two characters are both high-born and have great expectations placed on their lives, Aragorn by his bloodline and prophecy, and Jaime by his father and prowess as a knight. Aragorn, of all the characters in The Lord of the Rings, most embodies the epic hero, while Jaime moves from apparent villain to doubtful hero in many interesting ways. The second chapter also examines many of the narrative techniques used in each series, and the influence of these techniques on the reader’s perception of the characters. Martin’s use of shifting, unreliable narrators and dramatic irony ensure that the line between right and wrong is perpetually blurred. Tolkien’s plot is similarly multi-linear, with perspective shifting between

8 few focalized characters, but not in a way that leaves in any doubt the goodness of these characters or their . Finally, chapter three will look at each author’s own experience with war, how it influenced their writing of war, and how that, in turn, influenced their creation of the hero or anti-hero. Both authors experienced war in different ways within their own lifetimes, and those experiences naturally influenced their writing of war, which is a common element of . Differing perspectives of war necessitate different ideals of heroism; Tolkien’s clear dichotomy of good and evil, combined with his defense of escapism in literature, gave him the opportunity to present heroes of the epic and fairy tale mould. Martin’s intention, however, was to reflect the harsher realities of war, as well as the darker corners of humanity. In a story such as Martin’s, the idyllic hero would simply not make sense, and his characters reflect that complication.

Primary Texts

While the full measure of cultural impact is more clear in the case of The Lord of the Rings, given that it’s been nearly seventy years since its publication, both Martin’s and Tolkien’s work have clearly resonated with readers in a remarkable way. But what causes readers to single out these works of fantasy, among what has become a hugely successful genre? This is a question that Blakey Vermeule aims to reason through in her book Why Do We Care About Literary Characters?; Vermeule observes that “[o]f all the works of literary fiction written since the eighteenth century, only a vanishingly small number are still read today” (Vermeule 73). Why, she asks, do some works become canonized? What sets certain authors or novels apart? Vermeule argues that “the answer does not turn, as one might think, on the history of academic practices, since Moretti shows that academic canonicity follows social canonicity rather than the other way around. Instead, it is a question of what makes some works of literature more popular than others” (Vermeule 73). The study that Vermeule refers to is one conducted by Franco Moretti, in which he concludes that “[r]eaders, not professors, make canon: academic decisions are mere

9 echoes of a process that unfolds fundamentally outside the school” (Moretti 209). So, then, what makes certain works more popular than others? Of course, there are a great many possible answers to this question, all of which might be correct in certain cases. However, Vermeule believes it often comes down to the relatability or portability of the characters, beyond the overarching plot or story. She points out, “[t]he tendency to think of literary characters as if they were real people is a habit lodged deep in the human psyche, and no amount of literary-critical sophistication is likely to cure people of it” (Vermeule 176). Readers are drawn to characters that they can love, hate, or relate to in some way. This is often most evident through the protagonist, or hero. In his essay “Frodo and Aragorn: the Concept of the Hero,” Verlyn Flieger observes that “[t]he conventional medieval story, whether epic, romance, fairy tale, or some combination of these, most often focuses on one figure - the hero of the tale” (Flieger 41). In the context of these kinds of stories, a hero is something a bit beyond a simple protagonist. The terms hero and protagonist both derive originally from Greek, but where protagonist was simply the first character on stage in Greek plays and has come to mean “main character”, the term hero is more related to mythological demigods and superhuman feats of strength, courage, or ability (“protagonist” OED). Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is widely accredited as a key establishing work of the fantasy genre. Bearing in mind all of the sub-genres that the term fantasy can encompass, Tolkien can hardly be considered the very first fantasy author. However, his blending of a medievalist setting, fairytale creatures and elements, and an epic-quest plot structure was highly original in novels intended for an adult audience. In the introduction to her book Fantasy and Science- Fiction Medievalisms, Helen Young writes, “J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was a defining work for the fantasy genre, substantially contributing to the creation of an audience as well as a publishing category and what became its conventions” (Young 1). Many authors have attempted to recreate Tolkien’s structure over the decades, and this sub-genre is what has come to be known as epic or high fantasy. Tolkien’s well-loved work centers around a single ring that was designed to wield power over the various creatures of Middle-Earth with the intention that its creator, the , would have dominion over all of its lands and people. Through a long history, fleshed

10 out in other works of Tolkien’s, this ring has fallen into the hands of an unlikely creature, the hobbit Frodo. The action of the novel follows Frodo and his companions, the Fellowship of the Ring, as they attempt to destroy the ring and defeat Sauron once and for all. The quest narrative of the plot is a reflection of Tolkien’s own fascination and expertise of and Norse mythology; he is particularly well documented in his scholarship of the epic poem . The inclusion of fantastic elements, such as wizards, , dwarves, and dragons, however, lend it an air of fairy tale, while the underlying themes of good and evil and chivalry are reminiscent of the romances of the Middle Ages. Verlyn Flieger observes this, as he says “I do not propose to assign The Lord of the Rings to a particular genre, such as fairy tale, epic, or romance. The book quite clearly derives from all three, and to see it as belonging only to one category is to miss the essential elements it shares with the others” (Flieger 40). One element that all three genres have in common, however, is the importance of a hero. Fittingly, given the multiple traditions of heroism is these genres, Tolkien has included not one single hero, but several. As E.L Risden points out, every character on the side of the light share the same heroic necessity: “steadfast courage from heroes and common folk alike in the face of enemies natural or supernatural. Even help from semi-divine representatives of good, such as elves or wizards, doesn’t absolve hobbits or people of their heroic responsibilities” (Risden 193). The character’s in Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire have no such heroic responsibility. Martin’s fantasy saga does not have the same, clear good and evil binary that is present in Tolkien’s work. Instead, A Song of Ice and Fire follows several prominent noble families, through the eyes of members of each family and a few notable outsiders, as they go to war over who belongs on the throne of Westeros. Martin’s work lacks the quest narrative of Tolkien’s, and rather than one overarching plot, each characters has their own goals and varying degrees of success in achieving them. The world that Martin has created is much darker and more violent than Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, and the absence of any true heroes creates a sharp contrast. What few characters show traditionally heroic traits are often quickly killed, and most of his characters fall somewhere between the classification of ‘hero’ or ‘villain’. Martin has spoken about the absence of heroism in his works, saying “[p]eople are complicated, and I want my characters to be complicated too” (Martin, Rolling Stone). A Song of Ice and Fire is touted as “fantasy for

11 people who hate fantasy,” and that is a reputation Martin is proud of (Itzkoff). His version of fantasy takes many of the elements from the genre that Tolkien establishes, but subverts them in unexpected ways. Shiloh Carroll says that Martin “is, of course, not the only ‘’ fantasy author…but he is the most popular, just as Tolkien became the most popular fantasy author of his age” (Carroll, Medievalism, 8). While Martin may not be the only author writing this darker form of fantasy, he has clearly struck a balance in his writing that keeps audiences coming back for more. For the purposes of this project, I will be utilizing the entire series of both The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire. I will be focusing more on specific characterizations and story arcs, so it is important to have a broader view and be able to pull examples both from the beginning and ending of the stories. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was originally intended as one novel, and was broken down for publication. The edition I have has presented it as one long novel, and my citations will reflect that. In the case of Tolkien’s work, some background knowledge of his other works The Hobbit, , and his appendices is necessary, so they will be occasionally referenced as needed. In A Song of Ice and Fire, I am focusing predominantly on Jaime Lannister, who hardly appears in the fifth book , so focus will mainly be on the first four novels.

Theoretical Framework

In order to understand the contrast of hero and anti-hero in The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire, it’s first important to understand the more general similarities between the two works. The most simplistic genre assignation for both works is ‘fantasy;’ however, fantasy is a very broad term that encompasses many sub-genres. In his book On Fantasy, T.E. Apter writes, “fantasy in literature emerges from unconscious beliefs and has as its aim the satisfaction of unconscious desires” (Apter 4). Fantasy as a genre can include anything from magical realism, to fairy tales, to gothic novels and, arguably, science fiction. Some of these sub-genres could also fall under the umbrella of , however, which historically includes “narratives

12 concerned not so much with science or technology as with human actions in response to a new situation created by science or technology” (Oziewicz, 4). One way to narrow the classification of these novels is by their setting; the medievalist worlds that Tolkien and Martin have created places their works firmly in the sub-genre of high fantasy, or epic fantasy. David Matthews’ book Medievalism: A Critical History, along with Maurice Keen’s Chivalry, are instrumental in understanding how medievalism is used in fantasy literature, and what the expectations of a protagonist are in such a setting. The works of Shiloh Carroll provide helpful analysis of how Martin specifically has used medievalism in his work, and what that means for his characters. For more particular examples of medievalism in Tolkien’s work, the writings of Tolkien scholar T.A. Shippey are extremely helpful. Central to the topic of this thesis is the determination of what constitutes a hero or an anti-hero. To this end, Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces cannot be ignored. Campbell asserts that the mythical heroic figure is “perfected, unspecific, universal” - he exists to serve of an example of everything associated with goodness in the face of some form of darkness (Campbell 20). Verlyn Flieger’s previously mentioned essay is also helpful in analyzing the different definitions a hero can fit, and how Tolkien’s work reflects them. As to the anti-hero, M.H. Abrams’ A Glossary of Literary Terms’ definition is: The chief person in a modern novel or play whose character is widely discrepant from that of the traditional protagonist of a serious literary work. Instead of manifesting largeness, dignity, power or heroism, the antihero is petty, ignominious, passive, clownish, or dishonest…The term ‘anti-hero,’ however, is usually applied to writings in the period of disillusion after the second World War. (Abrams 41) In other words, just as the term ‘hero’ has connotations beyond a simple protagonist, an anti-hero serves as a foil to that ideal and somehow subverts the expectations of the heroic. David Simmons also addresses the rise of the anti-hero in the wake of the disillusionment of war in his book The Anti-Hero in the American Novel. In defining the anti-hero, I also found the works of literary theorist Lillian Furst particularly helpful, most notably her essay “The Romantic Hero, or is He an Anti-Hero?” Additionally, I use The Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster to help solidify the image of the hero or anti-hero in concrete terms.

13 In drawing a direct parallel between Tolkien’s heroic and Martin’s anti-heroic, I have chosen Jaime Lannister and Aragorn to serve as counterpoints to one another and represent each author’s work. Each of these two characters have traits of the traditional hero, and they each embody their respective authors approaches to heroism in clear ways. This character analysis involves much close reading, as well as references to the works of Tolkien scholars T.A. Shippey and Verlyn Flieger, and to Martin scholar Shiloh Carroll. In the same chapter I also closely examine the narrative structure used to present each of these characters and how that affects the way the audience perceives and sympathizes with them. To this end, I rely on Vermeule as well as input from literary theorist Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan and his book Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. One prominent recurring feature of medievalist fiction is the inclusion of war. In Chivalry, Keen explains that war in the Middle Ages was a nearly constant part of life, and that the rise of the popularity of the knight errant and chivalry is a result of this “endemic warfare” (Keen 219). Neither Tolkien nor Martin are exceptions to this trend; however, each author also had sharply contrasting personal experience with war, and in the third chapter I will argue that these experiences influenced how each author writes war, as well as the heroes of these wars. In order to understand Tolkien’s experiences with the World Wars, of which he served in the first and had a son in service in the second, I turned mostly to his own letters, collected and published by his son posthumously. Likewise, Martin’s perspective on the Vietnam war has been discussed extensively through many interviews. I chose to use his 2014 interview with Rolling Stone as my main source of his quotes as it is the most extensive and details his thoughts on the war, fantasy, and writing more generally. For this chapter, I also make reference to several articles that address war in these two works. In regards to each author’s philosophy in writing, whether they intended to escape reality or reflect it, their works, letters, and interviews paint quite a clear picture. In recent years, scholarship of fantasy literature has increased, and there are many helpful perspectives to help understand the use of medievalism and characterization in such works. As Tolkien and Martin are both such well-known and relatively modern authors, there also exists a great deal of biographical and epistolary materials that are useful to the understanding of their

14 own perspectives and goals in writing. By synthesizing these materials and combining these approaches to understanding literature, as well as close reading of specific characters and analysis of the narrative structure, the contrasting natures and purposes of the hero and the anti- hero become clear. While the similarities between the two works invite comparison, it is the differences that create room for both The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire as landmark works in medievalist fantasy literature.

15 Chapter 1: Medievalism and the Heroic Ensemble

Like Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire is epic in scope and highly influential on both fantasy writers and the public perception of medievalism. Shiloh Carroll, Medievalism in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones

In comparing George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the most obvious commonality the two works share is their medievalist settings. In this chapter, I intend to show the contrast in how differently the two authors utilize their medievalist setting, as well as highlight another similarity between the works: the construction and use of ensembles in lieu of a single traditional protagonist. While Tolkien presents a collection of characters that following multiple traditions of heroism, Martin has created an ensemble of characters that represent varying levels of anti-heroism.

Medievalism and Chivalry

The use of a vaguely medieval setting in fantasy literature is a common practice, which most accredit to the influence of Tolkien in establishing the genre. The settings, characters, and stories within in these novels, as with many works in the fantasy genre, are not taken from any specifically defined period of history, but the setting is a more general impression of the Middle Ages, “simply the past” as David Matthews puts it in his book Medievalism: A Critical History (Matthews x). Authors in the fantasy genre, such as Tolkien and Martin, may take inspiration from events or cultures of the past, but they do not usually reflect any specific time or place. When discussing medievalism in literature, it’s important to note that medievalism in general is

16 “the study not of the Middle Ages themselves but of the scholars, artists and writers who… constructed the idea of the Middle Ages that we inherited” (Utz and Shippey 5). A story that is set in the time period that is considered the Middle Ages may take more responsibility to be historically accurate or reflect a particular time and place; a medievalist novel only takes on certain characteristics of the Middle Ages, such as the social structure and the more simplistic forms of technology. So, while the settings may be vaguely , they are not intended to represent actual historical events. Fascination with the Middle Ages has taken many forms over the centuries, and The Lord of the Rings is a continuation of the same interest, providing “a major entry point for medievalism into twentieth-century popular culture” and making “an impact far beyond the fantasy genre that it helped make” (Young 1). Tolkien’s use of medievalism essentially created a new genre, which a great number of authors have imitated or been inspired by to varying levels of success. Many fantasy authors have followed the precedent that Tolkien set; Helen Young points out that “[m]edievalism - specifically Tolkienian medievalism - is widely considered one of the defining features of fantasy as a genre” (Young 4). Martin has admitted that he himself is one of those authors who has been influenced by Tolkien, although his form of medievalism takes on a very different outlook. In comparing The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire, Carroll says that both are “epic in scope and highly influential on both fantasy writers and the public perception of medievalism” (Carroll, Medievalism, 3). This, arguably, is where the similarity between the works’ use of medievalism ends. By the 1840’s, western society already held a contradictory sense of the medieval; “for some the Middle Ages was becoming synonymous with tournament, pageantry and romantic love, for others, with feudal oppression” (Matthews 58). The concept of feudal oppression is particularly key in A Song of Ice and Fire. Notably, every single focalized character is either high-born, or interacts with the powerful families due to social climbing—whether intentional such as in the case of , or circumstantial as with . Carroll points out that this “primacy of the nobility’s viewpoint” is reminiscent of chivalric romances from the Middle Ages, as “the common folk were not a major consideration in the texts, or…for the actual nobility” (Carroll, Medievalism, 31). The entirety of the saga centers around the upper echelons

17 of society, and the common folk are either ignored or killed in large numbers as evidence of one or another army’s strength and brutality. This is in part because the story is heavily influenced by the Wars of the Roses; in fact, Martin said in an interview with Rolling Stone that he “at one point thought of writing a Wars of the Roses novel. But the problem with straight historical fiction is you know what’s going to happen” (Martin, Rolling Stone). The concept of a feud between powerful families, one where the common folk serve only as pawns, is central to the story in A Song of Ice and Fire, which is indicative of its overall portrayal of the negative connotations of medievalism. Matthews defines the barbaric perception of the Middle Ages as “entailing the assumption that anything medieval will involve threat, violence and warped sexuality” (Matthews 15). A Song of Ice and Fire certainly carries out every aspect of this description. The ‘warped sexuality’ Matthews cites is visible throughout the novels in the form of threats and acts of sexual assault against various female characters. Craster’s Keep is one concentrated example; Craster marries his daughters, and sacrifices the male children to the Night King. The women are given no apparent choice in the matter, and when asked, Craster forces one of his wives to answer “This is our place. Craster keeps us safe” (Martin, Clash of Kings, 361). also faces repeated bouts of abuse from her betrothed, , as well as threats of rape. In , for instance, Sansa is beaten and has her clothes torn off on Joffrey’s orders by his knights in front of the court (Martin, Clash of Kings, 488). Perhaps the clearest example of warped sexuality is the subverted form of courtly love displayed between brother and sister, Jaime and Cersei, which will be explored further in chapter two. It’s the violence, in particular, that is hard to miss in Martin’s work. In her essay Men and , Alyssa Rosenberg describes Martin’s world as a brutal one; “[w]hether his characters are being flayed, turned into in dungeons or ice in northern forests, or burned to death by mad kings and visionary priestesses, there’s no question that life in Westeros and across the narrow sea can be nasty, brutal, and short” (Rosenberg 15). Martin does not shy away from the bloodiness of battle, and furthermore portrays characters who are violent and cruel for the sake of cruelty. Joffrey Baratheon and are both particularly prone to enjoying

18 violence. Many of the more descriptive instances of violence that occur outside of battle are caused by Joffrey, particularly in his short-lived reign as king. Speaking of the starving citizens of the city he is meant to be ruling, Joffrey says “[t]hey came to the gate shouting my name and calling for bread like I was some baker, but I taught them better. I shot the loudest one right through the throat” (Martin, Clash of Kings, 487). The sometimes gratuitous-seeming violence that riddles Martin’s work is partly in response to his predecessors in the fantasy genre, whom he felt depicted an inaccurate and sanitized version of the Middle Ages. His desire to write war as it really is—at least from his own perspective and experience—will also be explored further later; regardless of the reasoning behind his writing choices, it is clear that Martin’s work fits neatly in the grotesque or barbaric take on the Middle Ages. Carroll points out that A Song of Ice and Fire “primarily uses ‘Barbaric Age’ medievalism to contrast and undercut the ‘Romantic’ medievalism of other works of fantasy” (Carroll, Medievalism, 15). To make the contrast as clear as possible, Martin must first acknowledge the tenets of a traditional romantic medievalist work — which he does in a myriad of ways, such as the inclusion of some form of chivalry and courtly love, and the creation of a few apparent ‘heroes’. Perhaps the most clear inclusion of romantic medievalism as a whole, however, is in his use of the nostalgia that is inherent in such a view of the past. Within the novel, Martin’s characters often seem to remember various periods of their own history as a simpler or better time. In their essay “The Palace of Love, The Palace of Sorrow”, Linda Antonsson and Elio M. García Jr. say this of Martin’s use of nostalgia: The melancholic mythologizing with which many characters recall [the events of Robert’s rebellion] provide an interesting vantage from which to consider romanticism in the series, as it combines one of the topics Martin generally depicts most viscerally- the violence of war- with the tendency to elide the horrors in favor of poignant remembrances of things lost. (Antonsson and García 3) In this way, Martin is able to demonstrate in his novels the unreliability of human memory, and point out the ridiculousness of romanticizing the past, a practice of which he finds many of those who write romantic medievalist fiction particularly guilty.

19 Tolkien’s use of medievalism takes a decidedly nostalgic view of the past, which can be seen in a number of ways in The Lord of the Rings. Carroll puts it most succinctly when he observes, “Tolkien romanticized the past, especially the Middle Ages, and used the tropes of medieval romance for The Lord of the Rings” (Carroll, Medievalism, 5). Tolkien was never elusive about his desire to create a pre-Christian mythology for the English people, and one of the key ways he did this was in creating entire societies and languages around mythical creatures. Perhaps the most unique and recognizable of Tolkien’s creations was that of the hobbits. Previous to the publication of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien had some success with a novel that was originally meant to stand alone titled simply The Hobbit. In interest of expanding this world, Tolkien made hobbits key players in the more adult-oriented saga of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien opens the first novel with a preface which is aptly titled Concerning Hobbits, in which Tolkien describes hobbits more generally: “Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people…they love peace and quiet and good tilled earth: a well-ordered and well-farmed countryside was their favourite haunt. They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a hand-loom, though they were skillful with tools” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 1). This opening chapter sets the stage that the action of the novel will take place upon, and establishes the hobbits’ society firmly within the expectations of romantic medievalism. These romantic Middle Ages were a time “of simple communitarian living and humanely organized labour, a pastoral time in which cash nexus was unknown” (Matthews 25). In characterizing the hobbits as a people who love nature and good food, and who have little care for the world outside their community, Tolkien effectively establishes a perfect version of a romanticized medieval village. In the above passage, Tolkien also makes particular note of the hobbits’ distrust of technology—a feeling that was shared by many of his contemporary Englishmen at a time when technology was advancing so quickly and old ways of doing things were being pushed aside in favor of new systems. In his essay “Low-Culture Receptions of Tolkien’s High Fantasy”, Chris Bishop writes, “Tolkien’s nostalgic medievalism and his focus on rustic simplicity also paralleled

20 the hippy ethos of rejecting technology and returning to nature” (Bishop 18). He notes that Tolkien’s works saw an increase in popularity in the 60s and 70s, when distrust in new technology was at a peak and people were nostalgic for a time when society was more in touch with nature. Matthews also notes the apparent distrust (or at least dislike) of technology, as he writes, “Tolkien, a man of conservative political opinions, presented a starkly binary struggle in Middle Earth between virtuous craft and threatening industry” (Matthew 32). The idea of returning to nature and to simpler work is one that appealed to the hippies, and to a generation that had witnessed great industrial advancement. The pastoral picture of the hobbit community is not the only way in which Tolkien draws on a romantic view of the medieval, however. At sharp contrast to the abuse of women in Martin’s work, the romantic view of the the Middle Ages “concedes that violence against women exists, [but] also proposes that help is at hand in the form of knights in shining armor and chivalry” (Matthews 15). Accordingly, what few female characters exist in Tolkien’s created world are entirely safe from any form of sexual or violent exploitation. The only near miss occurs when Gandalf sends Wormtongue away from the court of King Théoden, and accuses him, “When all the men were dead, you were to pick your share of the treasure, and take the woman you desire? Too long have you watched her under your eyelids and haunted her steps” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 1578). Wormtongue, to the reader’s knowledge, has never acted on his desire, but the knowledge of it is enough of an accusation. In fact, violence in general is relatively scarce in Tolkien’s saga; there are, of course, battles, but the rigid moral framework of good versus evil in the novels make the violence much less striking than that in a series like A Song of Ice and Fire. The Lord of the Rings has reference to torture or loss of life, but never goes into any detail describing the events, keeping most of the more violent aspects of the narrative at arm’s length. Tolkien’s romantic, good versus evil structure also serves to inform the reader from the beginning that the ending will be happy in one way or another. On the side of ‘the light’, there are rarely any casualties, and only one of the original nine members of the Fellowship loses his life. Boromir’s death is an exception to the rule that all the heroes are safe; but his death is in protection of the others, and serves to redeem him from his weakness in falling for the power of the ring.

21 Almost inseparable from medievalism, and particularly romantic medievalism, is the idea of knights and the chivalric code they were expected to uphold. The word ‘Chivalry’ derives from the French chevalier, which “denotes a man of aristocratic standing and probably of noble ancestry, who is capable, if called upon, of equipping himself with a war horse and the arms of a heavy cavalryman” (Keen 1). This definition is presented by Maurice Keen in his book, Chivalry; however, Keen also observes that the word chivalry is “elusive to definition” because it can take on so many different meanings, depending on the period of time or intention of use (Keen 2). Chivalry may seem like a concept invented more recently by those who wished to romanticize the Middle Ages and who were nostalgic for a simpler time. It was historically, however, an actual code of conduct that was the standard to which those who might fit the term knight were meant to hold themselves. To a modern reader, the word does call to mind certain images; knights in shining armour, particularly those written about in Arthurian Legend, protecting the poor and the vulnerable and embarking on noble . The ideal of chivalry is one that has captured imagination for centuries, and Keen notes that “[t]he most important legacy of chivalry to later times was its conception of honor and the constituents thereof, specifically and especially in their relation to nobility” (Keen 249). This legacy of chivalry is especially relevant to medievalist fantasy literature, and even more so with those who romanticize the period and hone in on the more admirable ideals of the time. While Middle Earth does not feature knights as such, it certainly has numerous characters who fit the expectation of what a knight is meant to be. Typically, romantic or medievalist authors tend to associate good knighthood with a list of classic virtues. These qualities include prowess, loyalty, generosity, purity or cleanness, courtesy, and franchise; that is “the free and frank bearing that is visible testimony to the combination of good birth and virtue” (Keen 2). This list of qualities, in various combinations, could really be used to describe most of the main characters in The Lord of the Rings, excluding the hobbits. Notably, all of the elves are portrayed as a step above their human counterparts, and Legolas’ willingness to join the others on the quest to destroy the ring speaks of his generosity and loyalty. Boromir exhibits all of these qualities, although his loyalty is called into question as the ring tempts him. Even , though perhaps missing the element of franchise, has undeniable prowess with his axe. Taking into consideration

22 the martial connotations of the word, the horsemen of Rohan are also potential examples of knights, especially their prince Éomer. Most obviously, Aragorn fits the definition of a knight in all but title. It’s also pertinent that, as Keen says, chivalry “cannot be divorced from aristocracy, because knights commonly were men of high lineage” (Keen 2). While Aragorn’s lineage and its implications will be discussed in detail later, the fact that he is in line for the throne only solidifies Aragorn as the image of a knight errant. In fact, terminology reminiscent of knighthood is used in reference to Aragorn’s people, such as when the reader learns that Arwen’s two brothers "were out upon ; for they rode often far afield with the Rangers of the North” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 719). The ‘visible testimony’ of Aragorn’s nobility is noted continuously throughout the novels, such as when the Théoden’s guard “stepped back and looked with amazement on Aragorn. ‘It seems that you are come on the wings of song out of the forgotten days,’ he said” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 1568). Even within the confines of the world Tolkien has created, there is a nostalgia for the past, which is so prevalent in romantic medievalism. Carroll, in his essay “Rewriting the Fantasy Archetype,” observes that “the archetype of the ideal knight also stems from Victorian reimagining of medieval chivalric romances” and that this representation of the code of chivalry “calls for complete obedience to the king, Christian imperialism, truthfulness, chastity, and the virtues of courtly love” (Carroll, “Rewriting,” 61). This list is very similar in theme to the one provided previously by Keen. But whereas Keen describes the original ideals of chivalric honor from the historical Middle Ages, Carroll’s definition references the romantic medievalist works that are so heavily influenced by Victorian reimagining of medievalism. As such, Carroll’s definition leans more heavily on the religious aspects of chivalry which were very important to Victorian society. Given Tolkien’s own religious background, it is not surprising that he would reflect this particular take on medievalism. Although certainly magnified by Victorian medievalism, Keen points out that the correlation between chivalry and religion began long before that. While early writings on chivalry have little mention of Christianity or Catholicism, “from the middle of the twelfth century on it very frequently carries ethical or religious overtones” (Keen 2). Perhaps partially in response to the Crusades, the ideals of honor and fealty became inextricably tied with the moral

23 code of Christianity. Keen writes a bit more on the associations between chivalry and Christianity; he says that this was represented by “knights or warriors whose business it is with their swords to uphold justice, protect the weak, and defend the Church” (Keen 3). No explicit form of religion exists in Tolkien’s Middle Earth; however, the driving force for several of the characters is protecting the weak (the hobbits, the innocent peasants, etc.) and upholding justice. Though they may have no church to defend, they are defending all that is good and light against ominous forces of darkness, which is reflective of the same basic principle, at least from a devout Catholic like Tolkien’s perspective. Having noted Martin’s contrasting use of medievalism, it can be expected that he also depicts a differing view of chivalry. Much of Martin’s inspiration for his stories comes from history; particularly in the case of A Song of Ice and Fire, from the Wars of the Roses. He has no desire to play into the romanticized vision of the Middle Ages, as Keen notes that an “ideal of knighthood culled from what appears so often to be essentially a literature of escape is scarcely a promising model for a social historian to make much of” (Keen 3). Unlike Tolkien, Martin does build the existence of knighthood into his world, only changing the traditional ‘sir’ to ‘ser’ in order to highlight the separation of his creation from actual history. His inclusion of knights in his story help to keep the tale recognizably similar to history, but he also uses them as a way to hone in on the problems that have been inherent from the conception of chivalric ideals. Keen tells us that even contemporary accounts throughout the Middle Ages decried the loss of chivalry, claiming it was tainted by those with bad intentions or a lack of honor. “The critics of the late Middle Ages did not take up a new theme, they harped upon an old one, for chivalry had always been aware that it was at war with a distorted image of itself” (Keen 234). In other words, a nostalgia for the ‘better days’ of the past has been prevalent even from before the existence of chivalry. Keen observes that “outside literature, chivalry really was no more than a polite veneer, a thing of forms and words and ceremonies which provided means whereby the well-born could relieve the bloodiness of life by decking their activities with a tinsel gloss borrowed from romance” (Keen 3). This is certainly the view of chivalry that Martin takes. He explores this idea in various ways through a few key characters.

24 , Sansa Stark, and all come to mind as characters who put great stock in the ideals of chivalry, and are either killed or express disillusionment with the ideals of chivalry. Sansa is particularly enchanted by the songs and stories of true knights and chivalry; throughout her imprisonment in the Red Keep and the horrors that follow, she continues to dream that a knight will come and save her. Eventually, though she realizes that perhaps no one is coming, as she says, "Knights are sworn to defend the weak, protect women, and fight for the right, but none of them did a thing. Only Ser Dontos had tried to help, and he was no longer a knight. No more than the was, nor the Hound … the Hound hated knights … I hate them too. They are no true knights, not one of them” (Martin, Clash of Kings, 490). Brienne is not so easily disabused of her notions of chivalry, perhaps because they never had quite the naïvety of Sansa’s. Brienne seems to recognize that reality is not quite like the songs, and she says “in the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining” (Martin, Clash of Kings, 350). Although Brienne can never become a knight, as she is a woman, she fights as well as one and takes it upon herself to maintain the tenets of chivalry as if she were knighted. She is aware that not all knights behave so gallantly in reality, but she maintains her standards and refuses to behave in any way less than chivalrous, regardless if she is the only one. Ser Jaime, on the other hand, has already been fully disillusioned about honor or chivalry before the events of the first novel begin. Throughout the books, the reader learns more of how Jaime became a knight in the first place, and how his idealistic view of knighthood came crashing down around him. Eventually, Jaime must let go of “the nostalgia of his memories of the golden age, and he questions his own memory of those great knights he served with or fought, wondering whether men were truly better then or whether he only remembers them that way because he was fifteen years old” (Carroll, “Rewriting,” 71). Jaime echoes Keen’s comments that chivalry was nothing but words and ceremonies to make men feel better about the required violence of war when he tells Catelyn in the dungeon, “So many vows…they make you swear and swear. Defend the king. Obey the king. Keep his secrets. Do his bidding. Your life for his. But obey your father. Love your sister. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. Respect the gods. Obey the laws. It’s too much. No matter what you do, you’re forsaking one vow or the

25 other” (Martin, Clash of Kings, 796). He explains that all of the vows and oaths that knights are forced to take eventually overlap and contradict each other so that it’s impossible to keep one without breaking another. This level of self-awareness helps begin to set Jaime up as a round character with more depth than the other badly-behaving knights in the series. Keen observes that knighthood could historically be a way for a man to improve his lot in life; “[f]or those who had no estate to keep up, the same sort of attraction was there too; for them too war could offer an occupation, and booty could open the way to temporary riches, perhaps even to lasting social advancement” (Keen 229). Perhaps there would be nothing inherently wrong with pursuing knighthood to improve one’s life, but it also provides opportunity for many who might take advantage of access to riches or a higher social status for negative or purely selfish reasons. Martin highlights this problem in the code, as well, through his inclusion of many characters such as the Kettleblack brothers, who become Cersei’s spies on the Kingsguard. In fact, nearly every knight encountered in the course of the series either became a knight for ulterior motives, or use their status as a knight to achieve goals that are not representative of the tenets of chivalry. Carroll has this to say about the form of knighthood represented in Martin’s work: Nearly every member of the Kingsguard, the group of knights Sansa has the most interaction with, is at best indifferent and at worst outright brutal. Martin has written his knights as such extreme opposites to the knights of chivalric romance that it is almost it’s own trope; nearly every single knight in A Song of Ice and Fire abuses his power to one extent or another, and only a few, like Jaime, sometimes strive to behave better and act as foils to the other bullies in armor. (Carroll, “Rewriting,” 65) Possible counterpoints to this argument are the knights that wind up in service of . Ser dedicates his life to serving Daenerys, whom he believes to be the rightful queen of Westeros. He is, however, already a disgraced knight from having been caught involved in slave trade. His motives are also questionable at best, as it turns out that he is in love with Danaerys. Ser Barristan Selmy, however, seems to be the one knight from the Kingsguard whose true goal is to find and serve who he believes to be the rightful monarch. As far as the novels have gone currently, no ulterior motive has been revealed for his character, so he is,

26 perhaps, the best example of a knight truly upholding the tenets of chivalry. Selmy says this to the squires he is educating at the Great Pyramid: “It is chivalry which makes a true knight, not a sword … without honor, a knight is no more than a common killer. It is better to die with honor than to live without it” (Martin, Dance with Dragons, 961). One caveat to his honor, however, is that he only makes the decision to find and serve Daenerys after he has been shamed by being asked to step down from the Kingsguard. So even the seemingly best example of a true knight does not fulfill the requirements of chivalry perfectly.

Heroic Ensembles

Aside from the medievalist setting, one of the most striking similarities between Tolkien’s and Martins works is the lack of one, central protagonist. Both works feature a cast of characters that play different roles in the narrative, with varying degrees of importance or centrality to the overarching plot. Interestingly, in this regard, too, the authors use a similar tactic to achieve vastly different results. In keeping with his use of romantic medievalism, as well as his inspiration pulled for epic mythological works and fairy tales, Tolkien employs a myriad of characters that all in one way or another fit traditional archetypes of a heroic figure. The Oxford English Dictionary provides a few definitions of the word hero which will be explored here, but most generally a hero is “a person admired for achievements and noble qualities” (“hero”OED). All of the central characters in The Lord of the Rings, and especially those who make up the Fellowship of the Ring, fit this definition in one way or another. Martin’s collection of characters, conversely, agree more with Lillian Furst when she writes, “on the one hand the modern world seems to have abandoned the possibility of heroic endeavor altogether; and on the other hand, we seem to have lost faith in the validity of the ideal itself” (Furst vi). Similarly to Tolkien, Martin eschewed the tradition of having one central protagonist in favor of providing many viewpoints to a multilinear plot. Martin, however, does not have the firm division between good heroes and evil villains; instead, he presents characters that represent a “sliding scale” of anti-heroism (Furst ix).

27 As previously mentioned, a search for the word ‘hero’ in any dictionary will turn up not one definition, but several. These definitions frequently overlap with the chivalric expectations of a knight. One possible definition of a hero is “a brave or illustrious warrior” — a definition which calls to mind several members of the Fellowship (“hero” OED). Aragorn was, previous to the start of this expedition, a Ranger tasked with patrolling the lands of Middle Earth against any perceived threat; he says “Lonely men are we, Rangers of the wild, hunters—but hunters ever of the servants of the Enemy” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 781). Throughout the course of the novels, Aragorn has many opportunities to prove himself a great warrior with his sword. Additionally, Boromir is sent to the council at from Gondor as a representative; although he is not his father’s only son, he is the oldest and he has made a name for himself among his people as a great leader in battle. Legolas and Gimli have also both been sent as representative of their people in part because of their prowess with their chosen weapons: Legolas’ bow and arrow, and Gimli’s axe. A hero could otherwise be defined as “one who shows great courage” (“hero” Merriam- Webster). While this could be said of any number of characters in the series, it is particularly pertinent to the hobbits. Hobbits are not, by nature, warriors or great adventurers. But, when faced with a difficult task, all four of them represented in the Fellowship that sets out from Rivendell rise to the challenge and overcome their fears to help save their people. While Frodo has come to be accepted as the main protagonist of the novel, Tolkien himself actually intended that to be Sam, even referring to him as “the chief hero” in a letter to Collins Publishing (Tolkien, Letters, 154). To Christopher, Tolkien wrote, “Cert. Sam is the most closely drawn character, the successor to Bilbo of the first book, the genuine hobbit” (Tolkien, Letters, 105). All four hobbits find themselves among the numbers of the Nine determined to begin the quest, despite Elrond’s misgivings that they don’t truly understand the danger they are facing. However, Elrond says “such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 845). The smallness of the hobbits only underscores their heroic bravery in accomplishing a task that bigger men could not carry out.

28 The most detailed definition provided by The Oxford English Dictionary, however, says that a hero is “a man (or occasionally a woman) of superhuman strength, courage, or ability, favored by the gods; esp. one regarded as semi-divine and immortal” (“hero” OED). This definition fits less generally, and is more specific to a few characters. Gandalf, for one, certainly resembles a mythological or legendary figure, and his use of magic, long life, and supernatural wisdom are great abilities beyond the normal man. The origins of wizards are not explained in Tolkien’s cosmology, however, so whether his descent is divine (or if he even has ancestors) is not explained. More to the point, Aragorn fits this definition perfectly from the divine ancestry to the great strength that he shows more and more through the course of the adventure. Not long after his introduction to the story, it is made clear that there is more to Aragorn than a normal man. He, along with the other Rangers (later known as Númenoreans), “were taller and darker than the Men of Bree and were believed to have strange powers of sight and hearing, and to understand the languages of beasts and birds” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 498). As the story progresses, Aragorn’s superior sight and hearing, as well as his innate healing ability, become more pronounced and important in his ascent to the throne of Gondor. In his essay “Frodo and Aragorn: the Concept of the Hero,” Verlyn Flieger echoes this last definition of a hero. He explains that in Epic legends, it is common for the hero to have some supernatural hand in their conception, birth, or lineage—such as Merlin helping Uther impregnate Igraine or Achilles’ status as a demigod. Following in this vein, Tolkien’s appendix “The Annals of Kings and Rulers” explains that Aragorn is descended from the brother of Elrond who was half-elven. Flieger says, “[in] Tolkien’s cosmology Aragorn’s half-elven ancestry supplies him with the immortal or supernatural origin necessary to the hero figure” (Flieger 44). It is important to note that, unlike Achilles or Arthur, Aragorn’s divine ancestry is not a central part of his story. One has to search outside the main text in order to learn about it, and it is not made clear in The Lord of the Rings novels themselves. However, Flieger points out that “[t]he fact that Aragorn’s immortal ancestry is played down - indeed one has to look for it in order to find it - is consonant with Tolkien’s practice throughout the book of providing realistic bases for what in a true medieval narrative would be frankly supernatural, marvelous, or miraculous” (Flieger 44). Tolkien is able to have Aragorn fit this traditional mold of a hero and

29 still maintain his believability by incorporating the divine in his background, but not making it a key element of his story. In his essay, in fact, Flieger takes on the project of directly comparing Frodo and Aragorn with the goal of showing that they both represent different traditional types of heroes: the fairy tale hero and the epic hero. He says “[i]f it is romance or epic the hero will be of great stature, a larger-than-life Beowulf…If it is a fairy tale he may be a common man like ourselves, the unlikely hero who stumbles into heroic adventure and does the best he can” (Flieger 41). He argues that Aragorn is a “traditional epic/romance hero, larger than life, a leader, fighter, lover, healer” (Flieger 41). Aragorn’s role as the leader of the Fellowship is well-established, as is the leadership role he takes in the war that comes in the later books. Aside from his actual position as heir to a throne, he seems to have an inherent authority that those around him submit to. Aragorn represents an ideal that not many can hope to achieve, and he has no discernible weaknesses or flaws. “He is above the common herd…We are not like him, and we know it. We admire him, but we do not identify with him” (Flieger 41). This type of hero is one that seems to have stepped out of an older time. He fits with every expectation of knighthood or chivalry outlined previously, and beyond that he has a high birth and divine lineage that predestine him to go on great adventures and accomplish great feats. Frodo, on the other hand, portrays none of these traits. He is a representation of the common man, who “accepts an intolerable burden not from any sense that he is the proper one to bear it, but simply because no one else volunteers…the heroic figures all hang back, and the common man shoulders the burden” (Flieger 50). The different sort of heroism represented here is apparent in the books in what have become some of the most famous quotes from the stories, such as when Frodo tells Gandalf “I wish it need not have happened in my time” to which Gandalf replies, "so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 203). Sam expresses a similar sentiment in another of the most well-known passages of the novels, his speech to Frodo in : The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and

30 looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually – their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 2145) Sam points out that it is not because of who they are that they find themselves in their current situation; instead, it was merely chance that placed them in this position, and what sets them apart is the choices they make moving forward. Of Frodo, Flieger writes, “[i]n putting their burdens on his shoulders Tolkien has succeeded in synthesizing the medieval and the modern, creating a character who conforms to mythic patterns and yet evokes the identification and empathy with the modern reader has come to expect from fiction” (Flieger 51). Unlike Aragorn, Frodo is a hero that the reader can cheer for while simultaneously identifying with. Through including a hero that is recognizable and relatable to his audience, Tolkien is also able to accomplish his desire of creating a modern epic hero, while giving the reader a lens through which to understand him. These two examples of heroism help to meld the many facets of the story, and serve as a point of comparison. Tolkien has “written a medieval story and given it both kinds of hero, the extraordinary man to give the epic sweep of great events, and the common man who has the immediate, poignant appeal of someone with whom the reader can identify” (Flieger 41). While their purpose is one and the same in the first part of the novel, the delivery of the ring to Mordor for destruction, once the Fellowship is split they each take on quests and adventures of their own. Flieger observes, “Tolkien brings his two heroes together almost, it would seem, in order to have them apart. Having established each clearly, and put them side by side, he then sends them in opposite directions—Aragorn west, expanding the scope and epic action of the story, Frodo east, intensifying our focus on the perilous nature of his quest and its effect on him” (Flieger 55). Aragorn’s journey to find and rescue Merry and Pippin and his gathering warriors to fight in the coming battle both serve to flesh out the world that Tolkien has created, giving further opportunity to explore history and relations between countries and species

31 he’s invented. Frodo’s more personal struggle grants a greater heaviness to the story and emphasizes the evil nature of the enemy. Despite having two characters that fit stereotypical hero roles, however, Tolkien subverts expectation by reversing the ending each character receives. Aragorn has been established as the grand, epic hero, but “Tolkien gives Aragorn the fairy tale ending—the princess and the kingdom” (Flieger 42). Aragorn’s story is the one that ends in the closest to a ‘happily ever after;’ in fact, in the appendices one can find record that Aragorn does live quite a long and relatively peaceful life. Frodo, the apparent fairy tale hero, has a surprisingly darker ending to his story: “To Frodo come defeat and disillusionment—the stark bitter ending typical of the Iliad, Beowulf, and Morte d’Arthur” (Flieger 42). Along his journey, Frodo has suffered injuries both physical and psychological. When Gandalf tell him, “Alas! there are some wounds that cannot be wholly cured,” Frodo replies, “I fear it may be so with mine…There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same. I am wounded with knife, sting, and tooth, and a long burden. Where shall I find rest?” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 2967). He finds himself unable to pick up the pieces of his old life, but instead makes the decision to join the elves in their journey to the Grey Havens. Flieger writes “[t]he fairy-tale hero, inconspicuous and unassuming, has been made to suffer the bitterness and loss of the medieval epic hero” (Flieger 60). There is no wedding or kingdom for Frodo; but in the structure of Tolkien’s story, this ending makes more sense. Frodo is round as a character in a way that Aragorn never is, and his quest takes a darker, more visible toll on him. It lends the story a certain poignancy and reality to see a character changed by their journey in a way they can’t just come back from. As Fleiger puts it, “[t]o take the epic ending and give it to the fairy tale hero is to reveal new values in the old pattern. The sacrifice is all the greater for being made by one so small” (Flieger 61). For all of the various representations of heroism in Tolkien’s work, their heroic characteristics are only emphasized by the clear division between good and evil. There is never a question, either in the reader’s mind or expressed by the characters, whether they are in the right in their quests. In her essay “The Story was Already Written,” Mary R. Bowman notes that while there may be instances of irony in the novel, “there is never satire, nothing that undermines the

32 ‘good’ characters or the goals they are trying to achieve, the fictional world, or the old-fashioned genre of heroic quest romance that the work participates in” (Bowman 282). Even further, what irony there is “supports the text’s values by distancing readers from those characters who do not support those values” (Bowman 282). Nothing in the text lends any sympathy to those characters who are not ‘good;’ the have neither individual personalities nor any visible character development, and villains such as Sauron, Saruman, and Wormtongue have no expressed motivation beyond a desire for power for the sake of power. On the other hand, the heroes never give the reader reason to doubt their cause. In his essay “Beowulf, Tolkien, and Epic Epiphanies,” E.L. Risden writes; “In the ‘Heroic Ages’ of Beowulf and The Lord of the Rings, heroes, whether Nordic warriors or hobbits, always know what to do, what their situation demands of them” (Risden 194). At every turn that Frodo must decide whether to continue his journey to Mordor, it is not a question of whether it is the right thing to do, but of whether he is brave (or heroic) enough to do it. There are only a few exceptions to this clear designation of hero and villain, most notably among the heroes is the characterization of Boromir. Boromir falls victim to the power of the ring and tries to take it from Frodo, an action which accelerates the splintering of the fellowship. Boromir realizes almost as soon as Frodo has escaped him that he has made a mistake, saying, “What have I done?…A madness took me, but it has passed” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 1230). He is ‘redeemed’ in death, as he says as he is dying “I tried to take the ring from Frodo…I am sorry. I have paid.” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 404). This sort of failing and redemption does not bring doubt to the cause of the ‘good’ characters. It is not a true character flaw or mistake of his own that led to Boromir’s fall, but a force outside of himself. His failure is not one that causes his companions, or the reader, to truly question his character; the purpose of his weakness is to show how influential the ring can be, and the power of the darkness they are fighting. Boromir’s death, fighting off orcs in an attempt to save the hobbits, serves to reinforce that he is, in the end, one of the heroes. Other possible examples of characters that aren’t so clearly defined could be and the Steward of Gondor, Lord Denethor. Similarly to Boromir, both of these characters have fallen under the power of the darkness or of the ring itself. While they are not

33 redeemed as Boromir is in their manner of death, both characters do eventually die as a direct result of their apparent weakness. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series also has a plethora of characters that fit the presented definitions of ‘hero’ in one way or another. There are many ‘illustrious warriors’ involved in the action of the story, and also many who ‘show great courage.’ There is even a representation of the figure of “divine descent endowed with great strength or ability” ( “hero” Merriam-Webster) in the form of Daenerys Targaryen—one of the many self-proclaimed rightful heirs to the throne of Westeros—who has blood in her. While her family’s claim of literal dragon blood is never substantiated, it is undeniable that there is something beyond human about her, as she is able to survive fire and hatch dragon eggs, . These types of characters are expected, perhaps even necessary, given the medievalist setting and magical aspects of Martin’s created world. But while various characters in A Song of Ice and Fire may have different heroic aspects, they lack Tolkien’s clear moral framework, and therefore lack the essential goodness associated with traditional heroism. Joseph Campbell says that “the democratic ideal of the self-determining individual, the invention of the power-driven machine, and the development of the scientific method of research, have so transformed human life that the long-inherited, timeless universe of symbols has collapsed” (Campbell 387). The implication here is that the long tradition of heroic figures has faded, or at least taken another form. David Simmons addresses this particular quote in his book The Anti-Hero in the American Novel, saying that Campbell’s “words seem to reverberate with the decline of the heroic figure in postwar American fiction” (Simmons 4). Simmons argues that the Vietnam War had a noticeable effect on the concept of the hero in American fiction, and that anti-heroes became more and more prevalent in fiction in the aftermath. Martin’s own experience with the Vietnam War will be explored further in a later chapter, but Simmons’ point is that contemporary, and perhaps particularly American, readers have become disillusioned by the righteous heroic characters of epic and romantic tradition. In the preface to the Spring 1976 edition of Studies in the Literary Imagination, Lillian R. Furst and James D. Wilson observe that “the individual who embodies the ‘official’ aspirations and platitudes of his culture…seem to the discerning reader more ridiculous than the honest anti-

34 heroes of Sartre, Camus, Salinger, or Heller” (Furst and Wilson vi). Of course, in fantasy literature, the line of what the official aspirations of a culture may be can be trickier to discern. In a work of dystopian fiction, for example, embodying the official aspirations of a culture may be the worst thing a character can do. In a work of medievalist fantasy, however, one can assume that the official aspirations might be those outlined by the expectations of chivalry. In this case, the hero archetype that has become less believable is the one who’s intentions are simply for the common good, with no selfish agenda. Many readers, and authors, no longer seem interested in the view of the world as black and white, good and evil. Martin’s many protagonists do not represent ‘good’ or ‘light’, but instead fall at every degree of the spectrum from hero to villain, with no clear distinction between one and the other. There are characters that most certainly fit in the category of villain, who are never given a voice to be sympathized with in the story or any discernible redeeming qualities. On this end of the scale are characters such as Joffrey Baratheon, Ramsey Bolton, and , commonly referred to as the Mountain. These characters have various explanations given as to why they are the way that they are: Joffrey, for example, was largely ignored by his supposed father, Robert. It is also interesting to note that Joffrey is actually the product of incest—the same reasoning that is blamed for why so many of the Targaryens were mad and cruel. Then there are characters who are made slightly more sympathetic, but not actually enough to be generally seen as anything approaching heroic or even good. , for example, is given a voice in the narration. Her motives and goals are explained, but not in such a way that the reader wants to see her succeed in her mostly selfish aims. On the other end of the spectrum are characters such as Ned Stark. Ned is perhaps the most obviously heroic character. He is noble by birth, and has proven himself in battle previous to the action of the novel. He has a strong moral compass and seems to want to do what is right simply for its’ own sake. He is set up right away to be the apparent hero of the story, which makes it all the more shocking when he is killed in the end of the first novel. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Martin explains “I killed Ned because everybody thinks he's the hero and that, sure, he's going to get into trouble, but then he'll somehow get out of it” (Martin, EW). Martin wanted to establish right away that

35 what he was writing wasn’t a fairy tale, that the heroes aren’t safe. In fact, it’s Ned’s determination to do what’s right and refusal to play the court games that ends up getting him killed. In sharp contrast to Tolkien’s focus on true good and chivalric ideals, Martin presents several protagonists with varying levels of Machiavellian intelligence, which is also unexpected in a story of this type. In her book Why Do We Care About Literary Characters?, Blakey Vermeule asserts that a rule of thumb in fiction is “the more openly Machiavellian you are, the less chance you have of actually turning out to be the hero of the story” (Vermeule 32). She argues that this sort of intelligence is most often used by characters who are, at best, self-serving and, at worst, scheming. Machiavellian intelligence theory “posits that social complexity has put even greater adaptive pressure on cognition than many nonsocial activities have and that intelligence evolved in part to meet the rigorous demands of social interaction” (Vermeule 30). Machiavellianism in literature can often be seen as a sort of manipulation; characters using their ability to read and alter social interactions as a way to achieve their own ends. In the world Martin has created however, with its intensely complex social interactions and many layers of intentionality, it’s the characters that can navigate and even use this sort of manipulation that are most successful. The most obvious examples of Machiavellian intelligence are , , and Varys. All three of these characters have no hope of becoming true heroes for one reason or another. Tyrion is hated by his own father and distrusted by many because of his physical disabilities related to dwarfism. This is an interesting subversion on the fantasy genre, as many tales (including Tolkien’s) feature literal dwarves. There are no mythical dwarves in Westeros or the surrounding areas, instead there is Tyrion who was born with dwarfism and is ridiculed and called “imp” and “twisted little monkey ” (Martin, Clash of Kings, 317). Petyr Baelish, or Littlefinger, is not a great warrior or a prince. He is from a noble family, but one of the lesser nobles with very little land or money. He is in his current position of power due only to using his intelligence for social climbing—an unappealing trait in a hero. Varys has both of these hindrances, physical disadvantage and a birth even lower than Littlefinger’s. He is a eunuch, also not a typical trait for any sort of hero, and he has come from nothing, using only his

36 intelligence and manipulation to make himself indispensable to the court. The circumstances to which these characters are born prevent them from fitting any traditional heroic roles, which makes it all the more admirable that they, instead, use their intelligence to improve their lives and outwit their foes. Machiavellian intelligence, a trait which would ordinarily preclude these characters from heroism, becomes admirable in this context, creating an unexpected anti-hero particularly in the case of Tyrion. As previously explored, knights do play a part in Martin’s world, though they do not behave chivalrously or seem to have any moral code to speak of. Knights of every rank, the Kingsguard being the most elite, have sworn oaths of every kind; however, it is their oath to serve and protect the king that seems to take ultimate precedence over protecting the people or performing good deeds. Lillian Furst points out that the “move away from the earlier concept of heroes was further reinforced by the replacement of the old ethos of duty by the new ethos of feeling with its implicit trust in the instincts and impulses of the heart” (Furst 56). Martin seems to take advantage of this move away from traditional heroism by putting his knights and warriors in positions where their duty comes at odd with their internal sense of morality, such as with Jaime Lannister. Jaime is, I will argue in the next chapter, in some ways a direct counterpoint to Aragorn. He is a character who is “constantly judged for what he did and not for why he did it,” as Linda Antonsson and Elio García argue in their essay “The Palace of Love, The Palace of Sorrow” (Antonsson and García 10). Jaime has, prior to the action of the novels, found himself in a position where he must choose between his duty and his own sense of what’s right; or, taking Furst’s view, he must choose between the traditional role of the hero and the instincts of his heart. In , Jaime explains to Brienne that Aerys had planned to burn then entire city and kill all of its inhabitants rather than allow to take the city. When Jaime’s own father had come to the Red Keep to ask for terms of surrender, Aerys had instructed Jaime to “Bring me his head, if you are no traitor” (Martin, Storm of Swords, 507). Faced between the choice of honoring his vows to the king and killing his own father, thereby allowing the city to burn, Jaime had killed the king and his pyromancers instead. While duty has

37 conventionally been considered a positive motivation for action, Martin uses Jaime to show that it can also be a source of manipulation, or otherwise used to negative ends. Another somewhat less obvious example can be found in the character of the Hound, or . The Hound follows a moral code entirely of his own, and he makes it abundantly clear time and again that he has no interest in becoming a knight. He distrusts knights and knighthood in general, and has a special hatred for his brother, Ser Gregor or the Mountain. When Sansa asks him why he’s called the Hound but won’t let anyone call him a knight, he answers, “I like dogs better than knights... A hound will die for you, but never lie to you. And he'll look you straight in the face” (Martin, Clash of Kings, 288). He recognizes the hypocrisy and evil intentions in most of the knights he has encountered and wants no part of it. He displays a chivalric trait that not many do in this story: honesty. His honesty does not serve to make him anything like a hero, however, as he is simply honest about being self-serving. He also tells Sansa, “There are no true knights, no more than there are gods. If you can't protect yourself, die and get out of the way of those who can. Sharp steel and strong arms rule this world, don't ever believe any different” (Martin, Clash of Kings, 757). He belies his own words, however, when he tries to save Sansa and later helps her sister. It would seem that the Hound does have some underlying morality, beyond care for himself. While Jaime serves as a subverted image of Aragorn’s epic hero, and the knights in general undermine the ideals of a romantic hero, there is no true counterpoint to Frodo’s fairy tale hero in Martin’s work. There is no representation at all of the common man—as previously pointed out, every major character is either born to nobility or has fought to get themselves into a position of power. The best comparison could perhaps be found in the character of . Jon is not a common man by any means, but as a bastard he was born to less opportunity for glory than his brothers. He seems to have inherited, to some extent, his father’s moral compass and desire to do what’s right; this is, however, offset by his bitterness at being born a bastard and desire for recognition. Still, he shows courage and determination to do his best with the position he finds himself in. His journey is as yet unfinished, but given his personal involvement in the war with the Night King and his wights, it’s possible that he will turn out to have the closest thing to a heroic quest presented in the story. One might also look to Davos Seaworth as a

38 representation of the common man who faces extraordinary circumstances. Davos’ motivation for all of his actions is a goal he deeply believes in: that is the true heir to the throne. He, like Ned Stark or Jon Snow, has one of the strongest moral compasses to be found in the novels. However, as his journey continues, it becomes more and more clear to him that the quest he has supported may be one that cannot win or, in any case, shouldn’t. So, in the end, even those who show some traits of chivalry or heroism are either killed or become disillusioned because of it. Rather than a binary of good and evil, Martin creates a complicated landscape of intentions and goals, and gives nuance and flaws to the characters the reader wants most to see succeed.

39 Chapter Two

When I look around at the real world, it’s full of greys. Even the greatest heroes have weaknesses, and even the blackest villains are capable of the greatest acts of compassion and humanity. People are complicated, and I want my characters to be complicated too. George R.R. Martin, 2014

The previous chapter was focused on addressing the more general similarities between The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire. In this chapter I intend to more closely examine compatible examples of the hero and the anti-hero. I have chosen Jaime Lannister and Aragorn to serve, for the purposes of this project, as microcosms of the greater works that they inhabit. The two characters are, at the same time, very similar and very different. Additionally, this chapter will explore how these characters are used to fulfill expectations of medievalist fiction, such as the concept of rightful kingship and the romantic expectations of courtly love. Finally, this chapter will examine each work’s narrative structure and how it affects the presentation of hero and anti-hero

The Hero and the Anti-Hero

In a sense, both Aragorn and Jaime Lannister fit the general ideals of a hero, such as those laid out by Furst, who describes a traditional romantic hero as recognizable “[f]irstly in his attractive appearance, which often makes him something of an homme fatal. Almost invariably he is a gentleman, a member of the leisured class at ease financially” (Furst 55). Interestingly, the first part of this definition fits more immediately with the reader’s introduction to Jaime. In Jaime’s first appearance in the novel, he is described as “tall and golden, with flashing green eyes

40 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 embroidered in gold thread, roaring its defiance” (Martin, Game of Thrones, 51). This appearance occurs in a chapter narrated by Jon Snow, and the reader is let in on his thoughts, “This is what a king should look like”, to further emphasize Jaime’s noble appearance (Martin, Game of Thrones, 51). Aragorn, on the other hand, does not fit the homme fatal depiction a hero at first; Frodo first notices him as a “strange- looking weather-beaten man, sitting in the shadows near the wall,” then as “a shaggy head of dark hair flecked with grey, and in a pale stern face a pair of keen grey eyes” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 153). His noble birth is not immediately known either, as in Bree he is only known as Strider, a Ranger. Both Jaime and Aragorn fit the second half of Furst’s definition of a romantic hero as both are born to nobility: although Jaime may not be next in line to the throne like Aragorn, he was born heir to a great house, and to his father’s fortune and power. Both have been separated from their inheritance, whether by choice or by circumstance. Through a long and complicated history outlined in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, Aragorn’s ancestors have not actually sat on the throne for many hundreds of years. They await certain circumstances that a prophecy has foretold to reclaim their rightful place. The time has apparently come in Aragorn’s time, though he seems unsure at first if he deserves the throne he was born to inherit—not because of anything he has actually done, but because his forefather fell victim to the power of the ring. When his royal heritage is revealed in the Council of Elrond, he says of himself “Little do I resemble the figures of Elendil and Isildur as they stand carven in their majesty in the halls of Denethor. I am but the heir of Isildur, not Isildur himself” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 780). Jaime, on the other hand, has given up his inheritance prior to the events of the first novel for the opportunity to be nearer his sister, with whom he is in love. He knows that if he were to take his place as his father’s heir, he would have to take a suitable wife, and would be forever separated from Cersei (Martin, Storm of Swords, 156). Both characters are proficient fighters, known for their skill in battle, which places them within The Oxford English Dictionary definition of a hero as “an illustrious warrior,” and calls to mind the epic tradition of a hero (“hero” OED). All of these similarities between Jaime and Aragorn are why I have chosen these

41 two characters for direct comparison. While Tolkien’s work is full of characters that fit the ideal of the hero in a myriad of ways and Martin’s work has many examples of anti-heroes, it’s these two characters that seem to make the difference most clear. The pair can also be used to understand how Tolkien’s and Martin’s differing uses of medievalism require different types of hero, and to reflect the two author’s contrasting views on what heroism is. In his book Meditations on the Hero, Walter L. Reed posits that “[t]he Romantic hero is never simply an antisocial being; his conflicts always involve some germ or vestige of social concern, and he may be pictured as an eventual redeemer of society” (Reed 5). Aragorn’s entire story arc and characterization is a reflection of this statement—everything he does is for the good of others, and his eventual return to the throne is a symbol that all is as it should be. As previously mentioned, prior to the events of the novel Aragorn has not had the opportunity to claim his inheritance. Upon his first introduction to the hobbits, however, a poem that Bilbo has written about him is revealed: All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crown less again shall be king (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 559). This poem reads as something of a prophecy, indicating that Aragorn will, in the end, take up his family’s royal heritage and claim the throne. Only a few chapters later, at the Council of Elrond, Aragorn confirms this as he says “now the world is changing once again. A new hour comes. Isildur’s Bane is found. Battle is at hand. The sword shall be reforged. I will come to Minas Tirith,” referencing the line in the poem about the renewing of the blade that was broken (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 782). This decision reflects Reed’s assertion that a hero’s concern is

42 social; Aragorn recognizes that it is for the good of the society that he brings this sword to the fight against evil and takes his place as king. This sets Aragorn’s story on a trajectory that fits with what is perhaps the most famous and recognizable works on the concept of the hero: Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In his book, Campbell defines the hero’s journey as one of “separation-initiation- return” (Campbell 30). This story arc is clearly reflected in Aragorn’s journey, and even reflected in the title of the final book — a title referencing Aragorn’s ascension to his rightful place. The separation part of his journey takes place prior to the events of the first novel; he has been ostracized from the community he is meant to lead. Campbell goes into further detail, as he says “a hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won” (Campbell 30). Aragorn already lives in a world that would not be considered ‘common day’; he is closely familiar with elves, and lives in a world with dragons, dwarves, hobbits, and magic rings. He does, however, leave the life he has been living and go on a journey to win a decisive victory. From the beginning, Aragorn is set on a clear ‘hero’s journey’, and the reader is never given any real cause to doubt his worthiness. Frodo trusts him based on a feeling, saying “You have frightened me several times tonight, but never in the way that servants of the Enemy would, or so I imagine. I think one of his spies would—well, seem fairer and feel fouler, if you understand” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 564). Aragorn undergoes something of a transformation throughout the series, but it is more external than internal; he is never given to show any true doubts about himself or his quest, nor is he questioned by those who follow him. When Galadriel gifts him the Elfstone of the house of Elendil, “those who saw him wondered, for they had not marked before how tall and kingly he stood, and it seemed to them that many years of toil had fallen from his shoulders” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 1157). This is only the first of several times the reader is told that Aragorn’s companions were amazed by Aragorn’s growing confidence and kingly manner. Despite being the clear leader of the fellowship in the first book, Aragorn is not ultimately destined to destroy the ring himself; instead, The Two Towers begins with him

43 attempting to find and protect Merry and Pippin, who have been kidnapped by orcs. While perhaps not the ultimate hero’s quest of the novels, this role of rescuer and protector highlights Tolkien’s use of the romantic view of medievalism. Matthews explains that a romantic view of the Middle Ages does not suggest that it was “not a time of Gothic rudeness…but rather that such rudeness was kept in check by chivalry” (Matthews 25). Aragorn’s primary objective in the first half of the second novel is to keep the ‘rudeness’ of the orcs in check and to perform the role of the rescuer—although in this case, it is not damsels he is rescuing, but hobbits. By maintaining such blameless heroes as Aragorn, Tolkien is able to firmly stay in the bounds of romantic chivalry. Even if any of his characters do fail—as in the case of Boromir— it is only as a result of being overtaken by a force bigger than themselves (the power of the ring), not due to any true flaw or human error. Thus, Tolkien’s world is neatly divided into the barbaric, evil dehumanized beings who want power for the sake of power, and the heroes who keep this evil in check. This romantic, black-and-white take on medievalism and the hero is also reflective of Tolkien’s own view on the purpose of literature, specifically fantasy. In his essay “On Fairy- Stories”, Tolkien defends the concept of escapism as a natural purpose of literature; “It is part of the essential malady of such days - producing the desire to escape, not indeed from life, but from our present time and self-made misery—that we are acutely conscious both of the ugliness of our works, and of their evil” (Tolkien, “Fairy-Stories”, 151). Tolkien indicates that he believes humans are capable, and often guilty, of evil but that fantasy literature can provide an escape from that reality, especially fantasy of the romantic nature. Tolkien also says that “the ‘consolation’ of fairy-tales has another aspect than the imaginative satisfaction of ancient desires. Far more important is the consolation the . Almost I would venture to assert that all complete fairy-stories must have it” (Tolkien, “Fairy-Stories”, 153). And he does, in fact, follow through on this conviction. The Lord of the Rings trilogy ends with evil defeated, the ring destroyed, and the rightful king on the throne. Aragorn’s metamorphosis from weather-beaten Ranger to king is complete: But when Aragorn arose all that beheld him gazed in silence, for it seemed to them that he was revealed to them now for the first time. Tall as the sea-kings of old, he stood above all that were near; ancient of days he seemed and yet in the flower of manhood;

44 and wisdom sat upon his brow, and strength and healing were in his hands, and a light was about him. (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 2904) Tolkien leaves no question about whether all is well in Middle Earth — the king is on the throne, and evil is defeated. In referring to Aragorn as ‘ancient of days’ he is even invoking a Christ-like parallel; in the book of Daniel in the bible, God is referred to as ‘ancient of days’ (New International Version, Dan. 7:9). Tolkien goes on to establish that Aragorn will be a great king, and things will continue to be well in the kingdom after him, saying that during his reign “the City was made more fair than it had ever been, even in the days of its first glory;…and after the ending of the Third Age of the world into the new age it preserved the memory and the glory of the years that were gone” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 2905). This particular passage is one that Martin takes issue with, however. While Tolkien defends escapism in literature, and the need for happy endings, Martin has made it no secret that his writing philosophy is the opposite. In an interview with Rolling Stone in April 2014, Martin seemed to reference the passage from The Return of the King directly when he said: Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the questions: What was Aragorn’s tax policy?…Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill [the orcs]? Even the little baby orcs, in their little cradles? (Martin, Rolling Stone) This statement accentuates the difference between Martin and Tolkien when it comes to their expectations of fiction. In contrast to Tolkien, Martin writes with the intention of showing what he considers the realities of war in the context of medievalist fantasy. Showing the realities of war, and of humanity, are central to Martin’s purpose in writing, and that becomes even more clear through a closer look at his characterizations. Unlike Tolkien’s cast of heroes and ‘good guys’, Martin creates a world where no particular character can be called the ‘hero’; all of his characters are flawed in some way, some more than others. He rebels against the moral ideals of the Romantic hero, as he says “In real life, real-life kings had real-life problems to deal with. Just being a good guy was not the answer…Just having good intentions doesn’t make you a wise

45 king” (Martin, Rolling Stone). Martin, instead, chooses to create characters that cause the reader to second-guess who they should wish to succeed at any given point—characters with real problems, character flaws, and motivations that are questionable or even entirely selfish. The question of who is the rightful king is central to Martin’s story, but it is lacking the clear answer that is present in Tolkien’s work. In the forward to Studies in the Literary Imagination, Lillian R. Furst and James D. Wilson assert that “the anti-heroic mode [has become] the only viable form of moral and social honesty left available” (Furst and Wilson vi). This belief seems central to George R.R. Martin’s philosophy in his writing; in his interview with Rolling Stone, Martin said “Men are still capable of great heroism. But I don’t necessarily think there are heroes. That’s something that’s very much in my books: I believe in great characters. We’re all capable of doing great things, and of doing bad things” (Martin, Rolling Stone). He goes on to discuss former American President Woodrow Wilson, pointing out that this man was both a horrible racist and a great dreamer with aims of ending all war. Using him as an example, Martin says “You can’t make him a hero or a villain. He was both. And we’re all both” (Martin, Rolling Stone). In Lillian Furst’s own essay on the anti-hero, “The Romantic Hero, Or is He and Anti- Hero?” she also raises the point of the lack of realism in the ideal Romantic hero, saying that such a character “takes himself too seriously and too solemnly. His very idealism raises absolute standards and lofty expectations which preclude the spiritual flexibility, the willingness to shift position and even to compromise inherent in an ironical attitude” (Furst 66). Perhaps, for an author like Tolkien, the presence of a character such as this could serve the purpose of creating an ideal for his readers to aspire to, or provide hope that such pure good could exist. But, for an author like Martin, the ideal of the Romantic hero stands in opposition to his goal of creating characters that reflect the complexity of real people. Furst and Wilson provide a helpful explanation of what might define an anti-hero: Because the reduction of hero to anti-hero is along a sliding scale, the modern anti-hero at times exhibits heroic traits: honesty, compassion, love, endurance. But there is also generally bitterness, self-hate, self-centeredness, and spite…Typically the modern anti-

46 hero is lovable, or at least appealing, partly because he is so human, so fallible and therefore does not make us face an ideal that is impossible to achieve. (Furst ix) This analysis could easily be used in reference to any many of the characters in A Song of Ice and Fire; Martin utilizes the entire spectrum of anti-heroism, from characters that exhibit more of the traditionally heroic traits, to those who are decidedly less lovable and appealing. However, Jaime Lannister is perhaps one of the best examples of this in Martin’s work as he seems to slide up and down the scale on his own throughout the course of the novels, and even embodies both extremes to the greatest degree. As previously discussed, Jaime’s first introduction to the reader establishes his appearance as attractive and noble, even kingly. His morality is called in to question in that same introduction however, as it is said that people "called him the Lion of Lannister to his face and whispered ‘Kingslayer' behind his back” (Martin, Game of Thrones, 51). It is not long after this introduction that Jaime’s character confirms he is not one of the ‘good guys’, as seven-year-old stumbles upon him in a compromising position with his sister, and Jaime does not apparently hesitate before pushing said boy out the window with the presumed intention of killing him. Susan Vaught observes that readers “see [Jaime’s] bases elements first: arrogance, dishonesty, disregard for social custom and decency, and a remorseless willingness to go to any lengths to protect what he values” (Vaught 100). The reader is further convinced of Jaime’s characterization as untrustworthy and perhaps even evil by Ned Stark’s dislike of him; Ned is established early in the novel as a good and moral character, and he immediately objects when King Robert tells him that he is thinking of appointing Jaime as his new Hand. When Robert asks Ned why he should distrust him, Ned replies “He swore a vow to protect his king’s life with his own. Then he opened that king’s throat with a sword” (Martin, Game of Thrones, 115). It is clear that, by Ned’s moral code, the vow that Jaime has broken in killing the previous king makes him untrustworthy regardless of the outcome—Robert’s claiming of the throne, a cause Ned had himself been fighting for. Shiloh Carroll observes, “Jaime is set up as a , an oath breaker, and a child killer” (Carroll, “Rewriting,” 68). Jaime continues along this vein for the entirety of the the first two books; a character that is untrustworthy, and unlikeable both to the reader and to the majority of the characters the reader sympathizes with.

47 In the A Storm of Swords, the third installment of the series, Martin does something unexpected however; he begins to give Jaime his own chapters. Martin uses a different focalizer for each chapter of his novels for many purposes, which will be explored later in this chapter. In the entirety of the first two novels, the reader is only exposed to Jaime through the perspectives of other characters. Beginning in the third novel, however, the reader begins to witness events through the perspective of Jaime himself. Through his chapters, the reader begins to understand Jaime’s motivations and see him as a sympathetic character. He protects Brienne from being raped by lying about her family being rich in sapphires, but seems to cling to his negative reputation as a defense mechanism, saying, “A good thing for you I’m such a liar. An honorable man would have told the truth about the Sapphire Isle” (Martin, Storm of Swords, 418). The reader is also finally given a full account of Jaime’s side of the story as to why he killed King Aerys. Jaime reveals to Brienne that King Aerys had planted wildfire all over the city, intending to kill everyone and burn the city down before he allowed it to be taken. When she asks why no- one knows about this, he replies “Do you think the noble Lord of Winterfell wanted to hear my feeble explanations? Such an honorable man. He only had to look at me to judge me guilty” (Martin, Storm of Swords, 508). Ned Stark was one of the first sympathetic characters in the series, and one of the only characters that could be considered truly ‘good’—and his honor is what had eventually gotten him killed. Through Jaime, the reader begins to understand the problems inherent in Stark’s staunch moral code, and that it leaves little room for understanding or forgiveness. When asked about his intentions for Jaime’s character, Martin replied, “One of the things I wanted to explore with Jaime, and with so many of the characters, is the whole issue of redemption” (Martin, Rolling Stone). And so, with the first two novels, Martin establishes Jaime as a character truly in need of redemption. From the third book, however, Jaime takes his place as one of the unlikely protagonists; a character designed for audiences to sympathize with, but also question why they do so. Although the motivation of his past crimes becomes more clear with the introduction of his point of view, and his own type of honor is established, Martin keeps the reader on their toes with Jaime’s love for his sister. Vaught writes, “[t]hough shocking to some reader sensibilities, incest itself likely

48 does not constitute grievous sin in the cosmology of Westeros” (Vaught 101). Within the confines of the world within the novels, this concept of incest is more questionable than outright wrong — it is repeatedly pointed out that the Targaryens routinely married brother to sister in order to keep bloodlines pure. Vaught notes this when she says “[h]is incest violates ultimate prohibitions in our world, but in Westeros it does not carry quite the same stigma due to the historical practices of royal families such as the Targaryens” (Vaught 107). While true that there is historical precedent within the novels, there is still evidence that not everyone in Westeros is as comfortable with the idea of incest. Stannis Baratheon, for instance, denounces his alleged nephews claims to the throne, calling them “abominations born of incest” (Martin, Clash of Kings, 476). Regardless of the reactions of the characters within the novel, to a contemporary reader, this incestuous love affair further complicates Jaime’s character. In modern society, any hint at incest is taboo, and generally considered morally wrong and even disgusting. Throughout the series, Jaime becomes easier to empathize with and root for — perhaps redeemed, as Martin had intended — however, this incest taints the character and effectively removes the possibility of him being considered a true hero by any modern standards. Further muddying the waters, Jaime shows a certain honor within this relationship that most would find dishonorable; as he tells , “I’ve never lain with any woman but Cersei. In my own way I have been truer than your Ned ever was” (Martin, Clash of Kings, 799). This dubious form of honor betrays him, however, as he finds out that Cersei has not been as true to him. “I thought that I was the Warrior and Cersei was the Maid, but all this time she was the Stranger, hiding her true face from my gaze” (Martin, Feast for Crows, 654). The realization that Cersei has not been as loyal to him, combined with the loss of his sword hand to Vargo Hoat, causes Jaime to truly question the decisions he has made. He realizes “that boy I was…when did he die, I wonder? When I donned the white cloak? When I opened Aerys’s throat? That boy had wanted to be Ser Arthur Dayne, but someplace along the way he had become the Smiling Knight instead” (Martin, Storm of Swords, 916). This very self-awareness is key to Furst’s idea of what constitutes a sympathetic anti-hero; “[o]ften admittedly his self-mockery has the bitterest flavor; nonetheless its very presence denotes an ability to stand back from his own problems and, to some extent at least, to rise above them by seeing them from a point outside

49 himself” (Furst 63). Jaime repeatedly references his own apparent lack of honor throughout the novels; through the eyes of other characters this often appears as arrogance and lack of contrition, but from his own perspective it can be understood as self-mockery. He exhibits this self-awareness again in A Feast for Crows, the fourth book of the series, in conversation with Ser Loras Tyrell. Loras tells Jaime that “Most deserve to be forgotten. The heroes will always be remembered. The best” (Martin, Feast for Crows, 337). In reply, Jaime tells him “’the best and the worst.’ So one of us is like to live in song. ‘And a few who were a bit of both’” (Martin, Feast for Crows, 337). The decline of Jaime’s appearance serves as an external reminder of the transformation the reader understands is occurring internally. The loss of his ‘kingly’ demeanor begins with his imprisonment by the Starks at Riverrun. When Catelyn goes to confront him after the alleged death of her sons, she observes that “a shaggy beard covered his face, once so like the queen’s… [h]is unwashed hair fell to his shoulders in ropes and tangles, the clothes were rotting on his body, his face was pale and wasted…and even so, the power and the beauty of the man were still apparent” (Martin, Clash of Kings, 790). The most obvious external transformation, however, is the loss of his sword hand. When Jaime protects Brienne’s virtue — a move that is surprising, given how his character has previously been portrayed—Vargo Hoat retaliates by ordering his men to cut off Jaime’s prized hand. Jaime’s skill in battle has been key thus far in the novel in how he is perceived, and in how he sees himself; the loss of that ability marks a significant turning point for his character. Antonsson and García observe, “[n]ow crippled, calling into question both his identity as a warrior par excellence and his self-worth, Jaime is led by his decline to reevaluate himself in light of the ideals he once held, the ideals of the youth who wanted to be Ser Arthur Dayne, and ended up instead as the outlaw, the Smiling Knight” (Antonsson and García 10). Antonsson and García are calling attention, once again, to Jaime’s own disillusionment; the example set by the heroes that he admired as a child proved to be impossible for Jaime to attain, given the positions he found himself in as an adult. Jaime’s apparent lack of shame for what he has done is shown in a different perspective by the increased understanding of his motivations and what he witnessed under Aerys’ rule. The advice he gives his supposed nephew—whom the reader knows is his son—Tommen reveals

50 how deeply Jaime was affected by what he saw and how he had to learn to deal with it. He tells Tommen that the “world is full of horrors…You can fight them, or laugh at them, or look without seeing…go away inside” (Martin, Feast for Crows, 181). This was apparently Jaime’s technique for dealing with the horrors he encountered, until he couldn’t anymore when he became aware of Aerys’ intention of destroying the whole city. He had saved the city, but doing so had broken a vow and sacrificed his reputation. Jaime is not content, however, to accept his fate as a man without honor; in the end of A Feast for Crows he gives the Valyrian steel sword his father had made for him to Brienne, telling her to go after Sansa, calling her his “last chance for honor” (Martin, Feast for Crows, 1009). The last the reader sees of Jaime in A Dance with Dragons, the most recent publication at time of writing, he has ignored Cersei’s pleas for help from the religious sect that is holding her, seemingly distancing himself from her. He is presumably going with Brienne of Tarth to rescue Sansa. It is, of course, impossible to know at this point how his story will end. Perhaps he will find some true redemption; or perhaps he will continue to serve Martin’s purpose of demonstrating that no man is truly hero or villain. As A Song of Ice and Fire is currently incomplete, and Jaime’s storyline along with it, it is impossible to know how far Martin will carry the redemption story arc. That is irrelevant to the purposes of this project, however; there is more than enough in the books so far to disqualify Jaime from being considered the traditional definition of a hero. He is a prime example Martin’s belief, as he says, that men “are still capable of great heroism. But I don’t necessarily think there are heroes” (Martin, Rolling Stone). He intentionally writes a story that has no hero, in sharp contrast to Tolkien’s work that has many of them.

The Rightful King

In Medievalism: A Critical History, Matthews points out that “a true knight is a knight of the right blood” (Matthews 33). This statement is particularly fitting for a character like Jamie, who’s rise in the ranks of knighthood is directly related to his family. Like Jaime, Aragorn’s

51 heritage is very important to the part he plays in the novels, and is key to the believability of his role as a hero. As Matthews observes of Tolkien, and of his friend and fellow author C.S. Lewis, “in their novels it is above all the return of kings that guarantees order” (Matthews 29). This reference to the title of the third novel in the series calls attention to how important Aragorn’s role is to the denouement of the saga, and it undoubtedly applies more generally to the reality that he created. In the appendix concerning the kings of Gondor, Tolkien writes “Aragorn indeed lived to be two hundred and ten years old…in Aragorn Elessar the dignity of the kings of old was renewed” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 1020). The events of the novels all come together to prove beyond a doubt that Aragorn is the rightful king of Gondor; from the involvement of ‘’ in the action to the reforging of the sword of Elendil, even the stewards of Gondor have no doubt of the legitimacy of his claim. As James Lowder points out in the introduction to his book Beyond the Wall, in Tolkien’s novels “the rightful king is the one who ends up on the throne because the world is, in the end, rational and moral” (Lowder xvi). While this remark certainly is reflective of the world Tolkien created in his writing, it might seem to make quite an assumption of his personal views on the real world. There is, however, some indication that the ideals presented in his stories were ones that translated into his personal life. In 1943, he wrote to his son Christopher that “the medievals were only too right in taking nolo episcopari as the best reason a man could give to others for making him a bishop” (Tolkien, Letters, 64). Nolo episcopari is latin for ‘I do not wish to be made a bishop.’ In this letter, Tolkien is expressing the belief that all the clamoring for power that politicians do just proves how unworthy they are of the job. By this standard, Aragorn’s hesitation in taking his place on the throne just lends him all the more credibility. Tolkien also seemed to be in support of the monarchy more generally, as he also wrote to his son, “If people were in the habit of referring to ‘King George’s council, Winston and his gang,’ it would go a long way to clearing thought and reducing the frightful landslide into Theyocracy” (Tolkien, Letters, 63). Tolkien seemed to dislike the increasingly impersonal nature of the government, something that he felt could be counteracted by having more constant and recognizable people in power. Matthews comments on this with some derision, saying that in Tolkien’s world “the Middle Ages of

52 romance seems to have retreated to a world of stereotyped gender roles, fear of technology, and dreams of powerful monarchies” (Matthews 29). In terms of Aragorn’s succession, however, things are not quite as clear as they first appear. As outlined in Tolkien’s appendices, Aragorn’s ancestors have not actually sat on the throne for many centuries before he is born. There is a long, complicated history of civil war among Aragorn’s people that led to his ancestors becoming chieftains among the ostracized Númenoreans, now known as Rangers. It is interesting, however, that Gondor never selected a new king; instead it has been ruled by stewards for centuries, apparently awaiting the fulfillment of prophecy and return of the heir of Elendil. When Boromir asks his father “How many hundreds of years needs it to make a steward a king, if the king returns not?” Denethor replies “Few years, maybe in other places of less royalty…In Gondor ten thousand years would not suffice” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 2020). Denethor’s observation conveys just how highly Aragorn’s lineage is esteemed, that his country will wait thousands of years for his line to reclaim the throne. In his 1571 Reports, Edmund Plowden wrote, “King is a name of Continuance, which shall always endure as the Head and Governor of the People (as the Law presumes) as long as the People continue…and in this Name the King never dies” (Kantorowicz 23). Of this philosophy concerning monarchy, Aragorn is an extreme representation. Not only have his people been waiting for the descendants of Elendil to reclaim the throne, despite the generations since they have ruled, people of his family line also have a much longer lifespan than the average human. Still, it is not as simple as Aragorn announcing his claim to the throne; he must prove himself to be worthy of his inheritance to the people. He does this through demonstrating his almost supernatural skill in both battle and in healing. Flieger writes that Aragorn “is in truth the traditional disguised hero, the rightful king, in medieval romance terms ‘the fair unknown’ who steps from the shadows into the limelight when his moment comes” (Flieger 43). Aragorn’s talent with healing becomes especially important when considering medieval philosophies of kingship. In his book The King’s Two Bodies, Ernst Kantorowicz explains that the belief in the Middle Ages was that the king existed simultaneously on two planes, “a body natural and a body

53 politic” (Kantorowicz 7). The body politic often refers to the law, but it also has implications of a connection between the King and his land and people. Flieger alludes to this belief system when he says, “[t]he concept of the king as healer derives from the early Celtic principle of sacral kingship, whereby the health and fertility of the land are dependent on the coming of the rightful king” (Flieger 50). Referencing Aragorn’s expertise with herb-lore that helps Frodo survive his wound from the Nazgul blade, Flieger says “[i]t has been plain from the beginning of the story that Aragorn is a healer” (Flieger 50). However, it is not until The Return of the King, when he has saved Éowyn, Faramir, and Merry from the brink of death with an unknown herb that another prophecy is fulfilled, “The hands of the king are the hands of a healer, and so shall the rightful king be known” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 2592). Flieger asserts that it is at this point that readers “recognize that Aragorn as healer and as king is what he has always been” (Flieger 50). It is not only Aragorn’s birthright that makes him the rightful king, but his almost supernatural healing abilities, his care and connection to the people and land, and the fulfillment of several prophecies that confirm Aragorn as the king the country had been waiting for his return. Also central to these prophecies, as well as to Aragorn’s role as an epic hero, is the sword that has been reforged. Aragorn has carried the shards of the sword of Elendil, and upon learning that a has found the one ring, he knows the time is right for him to reforge the blade. He names the sword Andúril, which means ‘Flame of the West’ (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 866). Flieger notes the significance of Aragorn’s sword, asserting that the hero and his weapon “are inextricably linked, for the association of sword and hero is more than a medieval convention; it is a necessity in a literature which exalts heroism and deeds of arms” (Flieger 41). Flieger draws attention to the Council of Elrond, when Aragorn throws his sword on the table, declaring “Here is the Sword that was Broken!” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 776). This action leads to the revelation of Aragorn’s identity, most notably to Boromir, who is the son of the steward of Gondor. Flieger points out that “with the casting of the sword upon the table Aragorn publicly puts off Strider, assuming his rightful identity and all it implies” (Flieger 48). The sword is instrumental in proving that Aragorn is the rightful king and that he is ready to step into his rightful role.

54 The philosophy of sacral kingship is one that Martin tries actively to avoid in his writing. Referring back to the quote from his Rolling Stone interview, Martin says “Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper” (Martin, Rolling Stone). Martin points to Aragorn as a specific example: “Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the questions: What was Aragorn’s tax policy?…Did Aragorn pursue a policy of genocide and kill [the orcs]?” (Martin, Rolling Stone). In A Song of Ice and Fire, Martin addresses the question of rightful kingship head on both through the story itself and through conversations and private thoughts of narrating characters. One notable example is a conversation between Catelyn Stark and Brienne of Tarth. While Brienne shows a deep faith in the idea of a true knight in the beginning, she does not seem to believe in the existence of a rightful king based on heritage. Catelyn confides in Brienne that she was taught “that the gods make kings, not the swords of men” (Martin, Clash of Kings, 561). In response, Brienne points out that even Robert was never heir to the throne by rights, but gained his power through war and eventually the betrayal of Jaime; “The gods don’t care about men, no more than kings care about peasants” (Martin, Clash of Kings, 561). Martin’s take on monarchy seems to be the less romanticized and more realistic one. While this does not discredit Tolkien in any way, it does fit more cleanly with Martin’s intention of reflecting reality, rather than escaping it. He does acknowledge medieval philosophies of kingship through other methods, however. As previously noted, Jamie’s status as an oath-breaker is particularly harsh due to the fact that the vow he broke was his duty to protect the king above all. Keen points out that in the late medieval period, chivalry began to have a “sharper emphasis on the definition of true service of a lawful ruler, defined as one who embodies in his authority the common weal of a people or city” (Keen 234). The general view of monarchy as sacred is reflected in many characters horror at Jaime’s particular transgression. Unlike Aragorn, Jaime does not have a particular sword or weapon that is noted, yet another detail that sets him apart from a traditional hero. His reputation as a knight, however, still relies heavily on his skill with a sword. While it is the restoration of Aragorn’s blade that marks the beginning of his journey to reclaim the throne, Jaime has no particular sword to lose as a symbol of his decline. Instead, Jaime loses the hand that wields his

55 sword, ensuring that he will never again fight with the skill he has previously based his identity on. Meanwhile, in an instance of dramatic irony, has a sword of Valyrian steel forged from the melted down great sword of Ned Stark, the originally supposed hero of the story. He has the intention of giving this sword to Jaime when he returns, and has it forged in the color of the House of Lannister as an indication of Jaime’s role as heir to the house (despite Jaime’s insistence that he has given up that role when he took the vows of the Kingsguard). When Jaime does return, he finds he is not deserving of a sword like that, as he can’t fight like he used to and likely never will again despite his best efforts with his left hand. He tells Brienne, “There was a time that I would have given my right hand to wield a sword like that. Now it appears I have, so the blade is wasted on me. Take it” (Martin, Storm of Swords, 1008). Jaime names the sword , and sends it with Brienne to keep both of their vows to find and protect Sansa Stark. So the sword that is most associated with Jaime is not one that he ever personally wields; instead he sends it to be his redemption in the hands of Brienne.

Courtly Love

The concept of ‘courtly love’ is also a common element in medievalist romance, particularly in regards to the characters of the Rightful King or a True Knight. In The Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature and Legend, Alan Lupack says that medieval romances “depict a world of superlatives: of the most beautiful ladies, the bravest knights, the fiercest opponents,” and goes on to include in the list of superlatives “the truest love” (Lupack 83). Lupack gleans his definition of courtly love from what is generally accepted as the most authoritative text on the subject: The Art of Courtly Love, a treatise on love written in the twelfth century, originally in French. The author, Andreas Capellanus, writes about what constitutes as love, asserting that love is “subject to a series of rules,” such as only being possible between members of the opposite sex and causing those afflicted to lose the desire to eat or drink (Lupack 84). These ‘rules’ of love are often enacted in romances of the period, and some have carried over to later

56 interpretations of medievalist romance. Perhaps most useful to this project is Tolkien’s own thoughts on the subject, which he wrote about in a letter to his son Michael in 1941: There is in our Western culture the romantic chivalric tradition still strong…It idealizes ‘love’ - and as far as it goes can be very good since it takes in far more than physical pleasure, and enjoins if not purity, at least fidelity, and so self-denial, ‘service,’ courtesy, honor, and courage. Its weakness is, of course that it began as an artificial courtly game, a way of enjoying love for it’s own sake without reference (and indeed contrary to) matrimony…It still tends to make the Lady a kind of guiding star or divinity…the woman he loves - the object or reason of noble conduct. (Tolkien, Letters, 49) Tolkien addresses some key elements of traditional courtly love, such as its emphasis on fidelity and honor, while also recognizing what he viewed as flaws in the tradition. One might expect, given the other aspects of their narratives and writing philosophies, that Tolkien would more clearly utilize the ideal of courtly love in his story while Martin would likely ignore it. Interestingly, however, this does not turn out to be the case. Tolkien and Martin both take consideration of chivalric romance in their creation of lady love interests for their characters: Aragorn and Arwen, and Jaime and Cersei. Tolkien has been firmly established in the romantic tradition of medievalism. There are, however, some who question whether this romanticized medievalism extended to the female characters, and more specifically to the relationship between Aragorn and Arwen. In his essay “Riders, Chivalry, and Knighthood in Tolkien,” Thomas Honegger argues that “the only pair that fits the courtly love pattern is that of Gimli and Galadriel, with the venerating the Elven Queen as his courtly lady” (Honegger 8). Despite the apparent animosity between Elves and Dwarves, Gimli is quite taken with Galadriel. When the Fellowship leaves Lothlorien, Galadriel gives them many gifts. When asked what he would have, Gimli replies, “Nothing, unless it might be - unless it is permitted to ask, nay to name a single strand of your hair, which surpasses the gold of the earth as the stars surpass the gems of the mine” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 1160). Throughout the remainder of the novels, Gimli continually speaks of Galadriel as the most beautiful sight in the world, and will not let anyone else speak ill of her. This poetic language and fixation certainly recalls the honor and devotion associated with courtly love.

57 In comparison, there is almost no observable romantic interaction between Aragorn and Arwen in the course of the novels. Honegger says, “[a]lthough we have an epic fairy-tale happy ending in the form of Arwen and Aragorn’s wedding, the ‘romance’ part of their relationship has been banished to the Appendices” (Honneger 7). What he is referring to is a section in Appendix A which Tolkien entitled “Here Follows a Part of the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen.” Within the confines of this story, Aragorn and Arwen fit the expectations of courtly love quite nicely. There is much emphasis placed on her beauty and status, echoing the superlatives mentioned by Lupack. When Aragorn first meets Arwen, “he felt that this high lineage, in which his heart had rejoiced was now of little worth, and as nothing compared to her dignity and loveliness” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 3179). Despite Aragorn’s nobility and the possibility that he will become a king, Arwen is still established as being his superior. When he tells his mother that he loves Arwen, she says “your aim is high, even for the descendant of many kings. For this lady is the noblest and fairest that now walks the earth” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 3180). The story of Aragorn and Arwen also fits well with an aspect of courtly love that Tolkien had admired, its focus on purity. In his book The Road to Middle-Earth, T.A. Shippey notes that a common critique is that there is “not enough awareness of sexuality” in Tolkien’s characters; however, in regards to the relationship between Aragorn and Arwen, this is in line with the aspects of courtly love that Tolkien wanted to emulate (Shippey 103). But while Tolkien allows for the chivalric tradition of courtly love in the Appendix, the lack of romance in the main narrative leans more toward the Epic tradition. Returning to Honneger’s take on the matter, he says that the “typical female protagonist of the epic-heroic tradition stays in the background and even if there exists a love-relationship between the lady and the central hero, it has little influence on the motivation of the hero’s deeds and does not take a prominent place in the overall narrative” (Honneger 6). Tolkien very much disapproved of the idea of the lady as ‘a guiding star’ or a central motivation to the hero’s cause. As a result, Arwen functions less in the narrative as a lady that the hero is trying to win, but as the “bride who is the reward of the quest,” according to George H. Thomson in his essay “The Lord of the Rings:The Novel as Traditional Romance” (Thomson 47). This reward is necessary, however, in keeping with Tolkien’s firm belief in the fairy-tale happy ending. Flieger observes, “[t]he love story, too,

58 is the perfect vehicle for the fairy-tale happy ending, almost Elizabethan in its rounding off of the story with celebrations and marriages, of which Aragorn’s and Arwen’s is the chief” (Flieger 50). Although the love story of Aragorn and Arwen is never central to the overall story, their marriage in the end is necessary to solidify Aragorn’s happy ending. Interestingly, in comparison to Aragorn and Arwen, Jaime and Cersei have the more observable example of courtly love. Unlike Tolkien, Martin chooses to emphasize some of the more traditional values of chivalric romance in order to do what he does so well in most aspects of the novels: subvert expectations. Like Aragorn and Arwen, there is an imbalance of power between Jaime and Cersei, with the lady being the person of higher status. While the couple are literally twins, and so had been born on exactly equal footing, Cersei has since become queen. Beyond that, she has convinced Jaime to give up his inheritance and take a lower status than that he was born with out of love for her. In The Art of Courtly Love, Capellanus “presents true love as something existing outside marriage;” Jaime and Cersei cannot get married, not because they are siblings, but because Cersei is already married to the king (Capellanus 43). Even after the king dies, Cersei will not marry her brother out of fear that the people will find out her children are illegitimate. Among the rules Capellanus has laid out for courtly love, there is the notion that “[a] true lover considers nothing good except what he thinks will please his beloved” (Capellanus 43). Jaime is a good example of this as well; throughout his imprisonment and subsequent escape and journey back to King’s Landing, the reader is reminded time and again that Jaime’s goal is to get back to his sister-love. In fact, the very first sentence of Jaime’s first narrating chapter reads “[a]n east wind blew through his tangled hair, as soft and fragrant as Cersei’s fingers” (Martin, Storm of Swords, 18). He shows little regard for who wins the war or who sits on the Iron Throne, only for the survival of himself and Cersei; he also encapsulates the fidelity expected from courtly love, as understood in the previously mentioned quote when he tells Catelyn that he has never been with another woman. Capellanus goes on to assert that “[w]hen made public love rarely endures” (Capellanus 43). This is also observable in the romance of Cersei and Jaime; when the rumor begins to spread that the children are Jaime’s rather than Robert’s, Cersei’s love begins to wane. While Jaime and Cersei seem to fit more in the tropes of courtly love than

59 Aragorn and Arwen, they serve as a subverted view of the chivalric tradition. Their relationship as siblings adds a layer of complication and taboo not expected in medievalist romance, and the awareness that Martin creates of their sexuality undermines the purity and honor that are normally inherent in such a romance. While Jaime’s loyalty and fidelity to Cersei are established, “the discord fostered by Jaime’s dishonesty and violence in protection of his incestuous relationship constitute serious transgressions” (Vaught 101). Furthermore, their affair causes the illegitimacy of the heirs to the throne, thereby throwing into question the notion of the ‘rightful king’ that is so prevalent in medievalist traditions. Jaime’s love of Cersei has, throughout his life, often put him in positions of having to choose between his duty and his love for her. Lupack points out, “the very act of winning a woman’s love sometimes puts the knight at odds with the political and social or even religious demands of chivalry; or the very act of honor can sometimes put him at odds with the woman for whom he is winning it” (Lupack 85). Jaime has given up his inheritance for the love of Cersei; he has also thrown into question the legitimacy of Robert’s heirs, which helps the flames of the war, particularly for the likes of Stannis who uses this as proof of his right as heir. In his book The Meaning of Courtly Love, F.X. Newman says that “courtly love is a doctrine of paradoxes, a love at once illicit and morally elevating, passionate and disciplined, humiliating and exalting, human and transcendent” (Newman vii). By this definition, it is Jaime and Cersei’s romance that, again, more obviously exemplifies courtly love. Their love is illicit both because she is married and because—particularly important to a modern reader—they are siblings. The fact that Jaime is entirely devoted to Cersei, and that everything he does is for her, makes it in a sense ‘morally elevating.’ It is clearly passionate, but the act of keeping it secret even from their family so long shows a level of discipline. The human and transcendent, however, brings to mind more Aragorn and Arwen; Arwen literally transcends humanity because she is an immortal being. Both Martin and Tolkien utilize and subvert the ideals of courtly love in ways that are surprising of each author, but in ways that help further each of their goals. By not allowing Arwen to be a ‘guiding star’ for Aragorn, Tolkien is able to keep his hero more in the epic tradition, and proves Aragorn to be good for the sake of goodness rather than for a woman. And by placing Jaime in a recognizable courtly

60 romance, Martin raises sympathy and relatability for his character, further redeeming him in the eyes of the reader.

Narrative techniques

The history of literature is filled with many varying representations of heroes and anti- heroes. Scholars have repeatedly tried to puzzle out exactly why certain characters take hold on the public imagination while others don’t. Returning to Blakey Vermeule’s book Why Do We Care About Literary Characters?, Vermeule comes to the conclusion that a large part of why certain characters resonate more than others is influenced by how we relate to them. She observes, “[w]e humans spend a great deal, perhaps even most, of our energy seeking to explain ourselves and other people” (Vermeule 11). She believes that readers use literary characters much in the same way they use other people in their daily lives; as a way of comparing themselves and finding their own place in the world. As Vermeule succinctly puts it in the conclusion of her book, “literary characters are tools to think with” (Vermeule 245). They provide an outlet for the reader to understand and expand their own social intelligence, and to attempt to understand the motivations of others. T.E. Apter observes that a recurring theme in fantasy is “doubts about our own identity, about that of others, and about the way in which our relations with others affect our identity” (Apter 24). Fictional characters, such as heroes and anti-heroes, provide a framework in which the reader can attempt to understand themselves through understanding the characters. One key way that this is accomplished is through a concept that Vermeule terms ‘mind-reading,’ something that most people attempt to do in their everyday lives and even more so in literature. She says “[o]ur mind-reading capacity is a highly-evolved and complex cognitive system for understanding the beliefs, intentions, and desires of other people” (Vermeule 11). In other words, mind-reading is the attempt to understand the motivations that lead other people, or characters, to action. Vermeule further observes that “[i]nnovations in narrative technique are driven by the

61 need to ratchet up pressure on our mind-reading capacities—and as a result, writers develop extremely effective techniques for stimulating them” (Vermeule 98). In order to allow his audience to understand the inner workings of his characters, Martin uses a technique called free indirect discourse, which Vermeule defines as “a technique for presenting a character’s inner thoughts from a third-person point of view” (Vermeule 80). This technique gives Martin the option of presenting the story in third-person, while still revealing the internal motivations of his characters. What makes Martin’s narrative style more unique, however, is the division of the narration, assigning each chapter to a different character in order to show many aspects of the story simultaneously. Instead of having an outside perspective of events, readers “see the action in Westeros exclusively through the fragmented, contradictory perspectives of its inhabitants” (Vaught 9). These contradictory perspectives have the effect of causing the reader to doubt the reliability of any one narrator, while also dividing loyalties within the events depicted. One example of this is the famous Battle of Blackwater, which takes place in the second novel, A Clash of Kings. Throughout this battle, the narration switches back and forth between the two sides of the battle, following Tyrion Lannister and Davos Seaworth, both of whom have been set up as sympathetic characters. The result, as intended by Martin, is a building tension and a feeling that whichever way the battle goes, for the reader it is lost. Vermeule observes that “[f]ictions rich in mind-reading stage a drama of differential access to social information (and all the attendant worry) not just for the readers of these novels but also for the characters inside of them” (Vermeule 103). In other words, having access to the internal narrative of characters on opposing sides of the battle create instances of dramatic irony. Martin is able, both in the Battle of Blackwater and throughout the novels, to parcel out social information—which the reader is already privy to—among characters at his own pace. By using multiple narrators to present opposing sides of the story simultaneously, Martin creates what Shiloh Carroll has dubbed a “structure of interlacement” (Carroll, Medievalism, 28). Each character’s story, while at times seeming disconnected from the others, actually has a profound effect on the over-arching plot and in establishing the culture and expectations of the world Martin is creating. As Carroll points out, “similar to interlacement, episodic organization

62 structures the narrative in individual episodes that share similar motifs but build on each other toward completion of the plot” (Carroll, Medievalism, 28). As a result, Martin’s novels do not have simply one protagonist with their own motivations and goals, but a cast of characters whose thoughts and drives are revealed to the readers. In his book Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics, Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan points out that “[t]he minute there is more than one character, events may become simultaneous and the story is often multilinear rather than unilinear” (Rimmon-Kenan 17). This, however, is not something unique to Martin’s work. Tolkien, similarly, interlaces elements of his texts as well, following multiple character arcs that all work toward the same denouement and create instances of dramatic irony. However, returning to a quote by Mary R. Bowman, “[w]hile there is irony in the work, there is…nothing that undermines the ‘good’ characters or the goals they are trying to achieve” (Bowman 282). Tolkien wanted to create a very specific kind of story, but had to bear in mind the modern audience and their reception of it. The choices he made in narrative techniques helped him find a way to accomplish this task. While The Lord of the Rings does shift between a few different focalizers to allow for a multilinear plot, there are marked differences between his approach and Martin’s. Tolkien does not use chapters to shift narrators; as Mary Bowman points out “for the most part, any given bit of the story is narrated with a third-person limited perspective…one character at a time almost always a hobbit” (Bowman 283). The narrative is communicated from the perspectives of the hobbits, following different parts of the story as the hobbits are separated. Matthews says of the saga that it “was one which aimed at an epic, medievalist grandeur, yet could only achieve it by recounting the deeds of satirically small people” (Matthews 138). As Matthews hints, Tolkien chose the hobbits as focalizers for a very particular reason. In Tolkien: A Biography, says “Hobbits are just rustic English people, made small in size because it reflects the generally small reach of their imagination—not the small reach their courage or latent power” (Carpenter 176). The very invention of hobbits was for the purpose of creating a window into this world he envisioned; hobbits represented the average English-man, with their preference for comfort, good food, and good living. In 1955, Tolkien wrote, “I myself saw the value of Hobbits, in putting earth under the feet of ‘romance,’ and in providing subjects for ‘ennoblement’

63 and heroes more praiseworthy than the professionals” (Tolkien, Letters, 215). Creating the hobbits to stand in as mediators gave Tolkien the opportunity to write some awe and disbelief into the story, and allowed him to keep his heroes heroic. Shippey addresses this use of hobbits, saying: But there is one very evident obstacle to recreating the ancient world of heroic legend for modern readers, and that lies in the nature of heroes. These are not acceptable anymore, and tend very strongly to be treated with irony…Tolkien did not want to be ironic about heroes, and yet he could not eliminate modern reactions. (Shippey 55) Allowing the hobbits represent and voice modern opinions was a neat way for Tolkien to acknowledge and sidestep the ironic take on heroes that was becoming more and more prevalent, and keep characters such as Aragorn heroic in the epic sense of the word. As Flieger observes, Frodo’s ordinariness causes the reader to be drawn in to the narrative “so that he lives it with Frodo as he never could with Aragorn” (Flieger 42). Like his traditional heroes, Tolkien’s writing style itself in the saga calls to mind earlier times. Thomson calls Tolkien’s writing in The Lord of the Rings “eloquent and elevated prose style with pervasive and graceful archaism in its sentence structure” (Thomson 44). Though told from the perspective of the hobbits, the reader is only very rarely privy to any of the character’s inner thoughts or motivations. T.A. Shippey notes that the narrator’s voice is “very prominent” in Tolkien’s previous work The Hobbit, “as it is not in The Lord of the Rings” (Shippey 56). Tolkien’s choice to keep some distance from the narrative was intentional, as was his choice to further distance himself by creating a sort of meta-narrative by alluding to the actual text as being written by the hobbits themselves. This also grants him a little freedom in any inconsistencies between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Bowman summarizes this by saying, “He claims, in essence, that the story was already written, and he is merely transmitting it” (Bowman 274). This account of the destruction of the ring is implied to already have existed, along with many of the appendices and The Silmarillion. This implied author adds a layer of separation from Tolkien himself, which can, in turn, reinforce the suspension of disbelief in regards to the world he has created.

64 The narrative techniques that Tolkien used in writing his novels were chosen for specific reasons. In a letter to a reader in 1956, Tolkien says that the task he had set himself with Middle- Earth was “to restore to the English an epic tradition and present them with a mythology of their own” (Tolkien, Letters, 231). Tolkien was a long-time scholar and fan of Norse mythology, and took specific in interest in epic poems such as Beowulf. While one could argue that King Arthur is considered English mythology, Tolkien knew that these legends were actually Celtic in origin; he also took issue with them being so rooted in Christianity (although he was a believer himself) (Tolkien, Letters, 144). He wanted to invent a pre-Christian mythology that would encapsulate values that were particularly English. This goal of Tolkien’s informed his way of writing and is evident in the way he presents these characters and creatures. With this in mind, it’s important to note that Tolkien wanted to leave much room for the reader’s imagination. In his essay “Vague or Vivid? Descriptions in The Lord of the Rings,” Nils Ivar Agøy asserts that “Tolkien’s descriptions are rarely very detailed…we are told that a main character like Aragorn is long-legged and weather-beaten, but not if he has a beard or buttons on his clothes” (Agøy 49). Tolkien’s descriptions of the landscapes are often quite clear — obviously meant to call to mind various English landscapes — but many of the main characters are never even given a definite hair or eye color. While the decisions Tolkien made in his writing certainly succeed in making the saga reminiscent of it’s epic and mythological influences, it can also make it much more difficult for the reader to connect with the characters.Writing in an epic romantic style largely reduces the characters to simple types, making them much less complex and harder to sympathize with or mind-read. Thomson notes this, saying that due to the relative simplicity of the characters, “the complexity of human nature must be projected into the external world. The disruptive forces of darkness and inner conflict must be represented by persons and objects outside the heroic characters” (Thomson 51). Taking this view, perhaps the black and white, good and evil binary presented in the novels is representative of the internal struggle of human nature, rather than reflective of the actual world as a whole. Regardless, as Shippey observes, the result is an aspect of the novel that has been criticized: “The characters, it is often alleged, are flat… good and evil

65 are presented as absolutes, without a proper sense of inner conflict within individuals” (Shippey 103). Returning focus to Aragorn as an example, many fans of the movie adaptations might remember Aragorn as having a clear character arc from a self-doubting man on the run from his birthright to reluctant but wise king. In the novels however, Aragorn’s internal transformation is much less pronounced. While he does, as discussed, express some self-doubt (perhaps, more accurately, humility) in the first book, it is quickly made clear that he will take the place that is meant for him. The reader is never granted access to his thoughts or feelings, and all transformation is external as he prepares to take his throne. To this end, the hobbits perception of Aragorn is described more times than any other character—sixteen times, by Agøy’s count—in a story established to be lacking in description of characters. Agøy asserts that “Aragorn changes and becomes more and more kingly…and Tolkien wants to make absolutely sure that the reader observes it” (Agøy 57). Given Tolkien’s established goal of creating a tale of mythological proportions, it was important to establish characters whose goodness and status as heroes could not be questioned. Thomson says of Tolkien’s writing that “it was essential for him to subordinate character to action and setting. He recognized that the psychologically convincing character was at the heart of modern realism. To escape realism, his first aim must be to avoid this kind of character” (Thomson 54). While it was necessary to Tolkien’s aims to establish Aragorn as a character that was not psychologically relatable, he also needed to create a character whom the audience could mind-read and relate to. In the face of a hero such as Aragorn, Furst notes that “the anti-hero becomes, by implication, a reproach to us, as our past literature preserves a record of heroes who have in fact faced and achieved that ideal” (Furst ix). Flieger, however, argues that this is not applicable for a character like Aragorn; returning to a quote from his essay, Flieger says “we are not like [Aragorn], and we know it” (Flieger 41). Aragorn is not accessible, and not a character to be mind-read. Readers need another character to moralize with, which is why Tolkien uses the hobbits as focalizers, particularly Frodo, who is “a little man both literally and figuratively, and we recognize ourselves in him” (Flieger 41). Tolkien made no secret of his

66 support of literature as escapism; his intention of escaping realism in his fiction is very clear in his goals and style of writing. Like Tolkien, Martin is fully aware that a psychologically complex character is necessary for realism in a story. Unlike Tolkien, however, this falls squarely in with his aims for writing. Martin’s writing is deeply inspired by actual events in English history. Martin himself says that “History is written in blood, a gold mine—the kings, the princes, the generals and the whores, and all the betrayals and wars and confidences” (Martin, Rolling Stone). Martin is fascinated by the reality of war, and he reflects that in his writing. Of his own writing, he says “There are some people who read and want to believe in a world where the good guys win and the bad guys lose, and at the end they live happily ever after. That’s not the kind of fiction that I write” (Martin, Rolling Stone). For Martin to accomplish the goal of exposing the complexity of war and of human nature, it is important that he present as many psychologically convincing characters as possible. His decision to divide the narration into “short chapters, focused tightly on the various viewpoint characters make the books immediately accessible in ways everything about them seems to proclaim unlikely” (Lowder xv). It also provided Martin the opportunity to demonstrate that there are no heroes who are safe, such as when Ned Stark dies in the first book, and that a character initially established as unsympathetic might simply need to be understood, as shown by Jaime’s redemption narrative. Lowder observes that this “game of confounded expectations is central to the success of A Song of Ice and Fire” (Lowder xv). While Martin’s novels can not be said to be lacking in action, it’s the characterization that proves more important in setting and confounding the expectations of ‘hero’ and ‘villain’. Rimmon-Kenan says that “characters may be subordinated to action when action is the centre of attention, but action can become subordinate to character as soon as the reader’s interest shifts to the latter” (Rimmon-Kenan 36). This is most clearly displayed in Jaime’s character arc. As previously discussed, Martin’s plan with Jaime has always been an experiment in redemption; how far can he take a character like Jaime and still bring him back into the reader’s sympathies? Martin’s narrative structure plays an important role in this experiment. As has also been pointed out, Jaime is not a focalizer for the first two novels. The reader’s only perception of Jaime is through the eyes of other characters, seeing his actions and understanding his history through the

67 preconceptions of these narrators. Martin takes advantage of what Vermeule calls ‘mind-reading’ in Jaime’s case, knowing that once the reader has a deeper understanding of Jaime’s internal conflict, they would begin to sympathize with him in spite of past wrongs. As Antonsson and García eloquently put it, “The sins of the past might be forgiven, or at least reevaluated, when placed in the fuller context of the character’s inner workings” (Antonsson and García, 9). By making the reader privy to Jaime’s thoughts and perspective, he places his past indiscretions in a new light and establishes Jaime as a character that can be sympathized with. As Tyrion says, “[p]erhaps that is the secret. It is not what we do so much as why we do it” (Martin, Clash of Kings, 450). In light of Martin’s sliding scale of anti-heroes, it is relevant to mention that he never gives narration to those who can truly be considered villains. This includes human characters with no discernible redeeming qualities such as Joffrey Baratheon or Ramsay Bolton, but even more importantly, the Night King. The Night King and his wights are the most clear parallel to Tolkien’s Sauron and orcs, in that they both pose as an inhuman threat with no perceivable goal beyond power. Unlike Sauron, however, the Night King is not apparently the main enemy to most of the characters, he plays very little role in the main plot, and it’s unclear as yet what threat he will pose in the end. He is a faceless threat beyond the wall, who somehow has the power to raise the dead into an army. However, his characterization (or lack thereof) taps into a common theme in much of literature, and particularly fantasy literature: the dehumanization of the enemy. In the Yale Review, Richard Rorty commented that people are born with an “innate dualism” which distinguishes between persons and things. But this boundary is somewhat malleable” Richard Rorty, Yale Review (Vermeule 25). In other words, it’s human nature to see ourselves and our loved ones as somewhat more human than those outside of our orbit. Or, as Vermeule puts it, “[i]n our own minds, we are round characters; but we flatten everyone else around us” (Vermeule 25). This goes doubly when considering literary villains, particularly in the fantasy genre. As is the case with Sauron and the Night King, there is no insight into their goals or motivations; they are simply a terrifying ‘other’ that wants to destroy whatever the hero (or anti-hero) is attempting to accomplish. T.E. Apter writes, “[i]t is a fact of human perception and response that

68 we cannot see people all the time as mere obstacles to our desires; and yet it is also a fact of human nature that we are apt to forget, or to neglect, those aspects of others which are not directly related to our desires” (Apter 23). In the case of a fantasy villain, they legitimately have no purpose except as obstacles to the hero. By creating an enemy that is not human, both Martin and Tolkien give a literal representation to Rorty’s words, “[w]e do not view our enemies as people.”(Vermeule 25).

69 Chapter Three

It is part of the essential malady of such days - producing the desire to escape, not indeed from life, but from our present time and self-made misery - that we are acutely conscious both of the ugliness of our works, and of their evil. J.R.R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories”

Throughout previous chapters, multiple references have been made to Tolkien’s and Martin’s differing philosophies when it comes to writing. Fantasy literature in general is “often accused of being escapist, of providing a preferable world in which readers can immerse themselves in order to avoid the realities of life” (Carroll, “Rewriting," 59). This statement is certainly one that rings true when considering Tolkien’s works, and the criticism they have received. Carroll’s use of the word ‘accused’ alludes to the fact that escapism is often viewed as a negative trait of fantasy literature. Tolkien, however, defended escapism in his personal letters, essays, and lectures, believing “the ‘real’ world is so terrible and hard to live in…that there is nothing wrong with wanting to ignore it for a time and go somewhere more pleasant” (Carroll, Medievalism, 5). Tolkien felt that there was value in the ability to get away from the harsher realities of life, and in using imagination as a way to change perspective and find hope in darker times. Perhaps this is no wonder, as Tolkien himself lived through both of the World Wars, serving in the first and having a son who served in the second. Martin, on the other hand, has been open about his intention to produce a very different kind of literature; one that reflects, rather than escapes, the darker corners of reality. Carroll observes that Martin “examines contemporary concerns or anxieties while placing them in a far distant past, allowing the reader to consider them at a distance” (Carroll, Medievalism, 7). Martin uses his fantastic setting to magnify the worst tendencies that he sees in human nature and in society. In contrast to Tolkien’s experience with war, Martin avoided the draft for the Vietnam war on the grounds of conscientious objection. Each of these authors had personal experience with war, which in some way affected their individual views of war and, in turn, how they write

70 it. These experiences and writing decisions also shed light on the general philosophy each author has taken in their approach to writing their stories—whether to reflect reality or escape it, which is reflected in their use of medievalism, as well as on each of their construction of the protagonists, be they heroes or anti-heroes. In this chapter, I intend to take a closer look at each author’s experience with war, and how it may have influenced their writing of war.

Tolkien, War, and Escapism

There are a great many reasons that a medievalist setting is so popular among fantasy writers; among those reasons is the prevalence of war in the era that make their own creation of war more fitting. In Chivalry, Keen writes of the late Middle Ages that “endemic warfare marked the culture of the period profoundly” (Keen 219). In fact, he believes that in the context of the Middle Ages, “war itself has to be studied as a cultural phenomenon” (Keen 219). As evidence of this, Keen cites the common recurrence of battle scenes in manuscript illuminations, the great collections of surviving medieval armor, and even the castles, citadels, and town walls that bear clear testimony of the embattled conditions of the period. Writing a story set vaguely in a time so marked by war creates, in turn, the need for great warriors and glorifies them, as seen previously in the exploration of Aragorn and Jaime Lannister. Keen writes, “it can be no wonder that the warrior should have stood out as a figure of peculiar significance in secular society, or that society should have sought to do justice to its conception of his dignity through elaborate rituals” (Keen 219). Tolkien had a particularly personal experience of war. In 1915, he joined the Lancashire Fusiliers, later being invalided out in 1918 (Salu and Farrell 13). His connection to the Second World War was less direct, but still personal as his son Christopher was serving with the Royal Air Force. It is through Tolkien’s letters to Christopher that we have the clearest expressions of his feelings on war. It’s obvious that his serving in World War I and living through World War II took their toll on him; in 1944, Tolkien writes “[t]he utter stupid waste of war, not only material

71 but moral and spiritual, is so staggering to those who have to endure it” (Tolkien, Letters, 75). In another letter that same year, he tells Christopher that writing helped him in his own war experience and encourages his son to do the same. He writes, “I sense amongst all your pains… the desire to express your feeling about good, evil, fair, foul in some way: to rationalize, and prevent it just festering” (Tolkien, Letters, 78). This description of writing as therapeutic gives an indication that Tolkien’s own writing served the same purpose of helping him cope with his own experiences. In a foreword to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien remarks that his story is “neither allegorical nor topical,” and that “[t]he real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 55). Tolkien’s claim that his war is not a reflection of the real wars is, of course, true. However, his own experiences certainly affected him as a man, and that naturally comes through in his writing. In an article titled “The Complexity of Tolkien’s Attitude Towards the Second World War,” Franco Manni and Simone Bonechi observe that Tolkien’s denial is essentially that “the book is not a one-to-one ,” and that Tolkien also allows that “a writer cannot remain unaffected by his personal experiences” (Manni and Bonechi 33). Manni and Bonechi also note that Tolkien’s work has scarcely been analyzed in terms of war and his own experiences with it, “beyond the more immediate struggle of Light and Darkness” (Manni and Bonechi 2005). While Tolkien’s war of the Ring is certainly not a one-to-one allegory with either of the World Wars, there can be little doubt that his own experiences shaped the way he approached and wrote his mythical war. Despite Tolkien’s more direct connection to World War I, it was throughout World War II that he wrote the bulk of the The Lord of the Rings, and it is to this war that some scholars have drawn connections. In his essay “Nazis in the Shire,” Jerome Donnelly also acknowledges Tolkien’s denial of allegory or topical themes, saying that his stipulations do not preclude “a satire on the conditions prevalent in the fallen shire” (Donnelly 90). His essay focuses primarily on one chapter of The Return of the King, “The Scouring of the Shire.” The events of this chapter see the hobbits finally returning to the Shire, only to find it occupied by men who don't know or care that Sauron has been defeated. Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin lead the rest of the shire in chasing out these men, and their leader, who turns out to be Saruman aided by

72 Wormtongue. Donnelly’s essay draws direct parallels between “The Scouring of the Shire” and the threat of Nazi occupation in World War II England. Occupation by the Nazis was a very real threat and common concern during the years that Tolkien was writing The Lord of the Rings, and played a prevalent role in many works of literature and films of the time. Donnelly points out that, in Tolkien’s work, the men occupying the shire “use terrorism and local hobbit-collaborators to stifle any indigenous opposition” (Donnelly 83). These tactics were familiar in Nazi-occupied Europe, and “show that they are based on a common concern and a British perception of the Nazis” (Donnelly 83). While Tolkien is well within his rights to argue that his war is not an allegory of either World War, moments like ‘The Scouring of the Shire’ create a window into the contemporary fears of his time, and likely a threat he personally endured. Naturally, many of Tolkien’s letters from the time comment on the war and his feelings on it. Despite any claims to the contrary, Tolkien often compared his own writing to the circumstances of the real world. In a letter to Christopher in 1944, Tolkien wrote, “humans being what they are, quite inevitable, and the only cure…is not to have wars…For we are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring. And we shall (it seems) succeed. But the penalty is, as you well know, to breed new Saurons” (Tolkien, Letters, 78). In this letter, Tolkien himself seems to be directly comparing the Nazis with Sauron, although he recognizes that there will never be just one enemy who can be tidily defeated. Another letter to Christopher that same year reveals Tolkien’s anger at an article in the paper that proposed that the Germans should be wiped out as they didn’t know good from evil. Tolkien argues against this theoretical genocide, saying “You can’t fight the Enemy with his own Ring without turning into an enemy; but unfortunately Gandalf’s wisdom seems long ago to have passed with him into the True West” (Tolkien, Letters, 94). Again, Tolkien makes reference to his own work in relation to the war, suggesting that if the allies stoop to the level of the Nazis, it will make them more of the same. In a real war, however, there are often no good choices. Perhaps it’s in response to this that Tolkien chose to simplify the war in his own story, drawing a clear line between right and wrong. The previous quote by Manni and Bonechi references the ‘immediate struggle’ of light and darkness, a concept which is key in examining how Tolkien writes war. For Tolkien, it was

73 important to provide what Shippey calls a “very firm moral framework” where “elves are good, bad, dwarves, eagles, dragons, men, and Beorn all in different ways in between” (Shippey 57). The ‘in between’ that Shippey refers to, however, doesn’t place them on a scale as with Martin’s anti-heroes; rather, it appears to mean that they have varying levels of weakness when it comes to resisting the temptations of evil. Men, for example, are neither pure and good like the elves, nor inherently bad like the goblins. They are able to make choices that determine which side of the dichotomy they fall on, but ultimately they will most likely fit into one category or the other. Tolkien’s own words in a letter to Naomi Mitchison in 1954 provide the best summary: The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any object save mere power, and so on; but both sides in some degree, conservative or destructive, want a measure of control. (Tolkien, Letters, 178) In other words, the war is still one that both sides want to win, not simply a matter of attack and defense. The side of evil wants power simply for the purpose of destruction, and the side of the heroes wants to protect their land and people. Despite his negative experience and view of war, Tolkien recognized it as a sometimes necessary evil. In a letter to Christopher in 1944, Tolkien expressed that the creation of the character Faramir was a surprise to him, but gave him the opportunity to convey “some very sound reflections no doubt on martial glory and true glory” (Tolkien, Letters, 79). Frodo does not immediately trust Faramir, as his brother attempted to take the ring from him. Faramir, however, is very different from his brother and has no interest in the power of the ring. The reflections on martial glory that Tolkien references come when Faramir says, “War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only what they defend” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 2026). Faramir understands that it is essential to go to war in order to prevent the darkness from gaining control of the land, just as Tolkien understood that it was necessary to protect his own home country. But Faramir’s words underscore that war is necessary in spite of violence, not for love of it. Faramir continues, “we now love war and valor

74 as things good in themselves, both a sport and an end; and though we still hold that a warrior should have more skills and knowledge than only the craft of weapons and slaying, we esteem a warrior, nonetheless, above men of other crafts. Such is the need of our days” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 2048). Although Faramir allows that a man is expected to know more than how to kill another man in battle, he finds that in a time of war that skill becomes the most necessary and glorified. While Martin has expressed a certain admiration for Tolkien’s work, the two authors differ greatly on their view of escapist literature. Carroll observes that “[Martin’s] view that disappointment is a reaction to reality’s failure to meet the standards of escapist fiction is in sharp contrast to Tolkien’s belief that escapism is a reaction to the world as an intrinsically hard and disappointing place” (Carroll, Medievalism, 5). T.E. Apter’s writing is generally more aligned with Martin’s philosophy; however, he does allow that fantasy “offers escape from reality, but the purpose and effect of the escape ranges from wish-fulfillment, excitement or sheer entertainment, to release from habitual assumptions, thus providing a vantage point from which new possibilities can be realized” (Apter 6). In other words, while escapism in literature can be simply for entertainment purposes, it can also provide a new perspective or challenge preconceived notions. Tolkien makes his stance on the matter abundantly clear in one of his more well-known essays, “On Fairy-Stories”. He says “I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which ‘Escape’ is now so often used” (Tolkien, “Fairy-Stories”, 148). Tolkien believed that there was value in using literature as a method of temporarily escaping a bad situation, and most particularly fairy tales. Tolkien’s essay is not directly a defense of his decisions in writing The Lord of the Rings, but a defense of the more general perception of fairy tales, by which he was heavily influenced. He also terms this genre ‘Faerie’, saying “Faerie itself may perhaps most nearly be translated by Magic—but it is magic of a peculiar mood and power, at the furthest pole from the vulgar devices of the laborious, scientific ” (Tolkien, “Fairy-Stories” 114). With these words, he seems to display the romantic disdain for modern industry that is key in his use of medievalism. Tolkien’s decision to use a medievalist setting allowed for his creation of fantastic

75 creatures and for him to simplify the concepts of good and evil into two opposing sides of a war. Carroll observes that “Tolkien looked backward for a simpler time, one before the two great wars of his lifetime, before the Industrial Revolution, a time when humankind was more connected to the land” (Carroll, Medievalism, 6). In the wake of the World Wars, there was a great nostalgia for so-called simpler times. Tolkien recreated this simpler time through his loose utilization of what society in the Middle Ages might have been like, and humanoid creations that fit within his firm structure of good and evil. Shippey points out that “The archaism of the settings, in short, goes along with an escapism of intention, a deliberate turning away from real life and from present-day experience” (Shippey 103) Tolkien’s philosophy of escapism suggests that fantasy should allow for creation unburdened by the nuances and complications of reality. Shippey observes that “a good deal of ‘On Fairy-Stories’ is a plea for the power of literary art; this is dignified with the form ‘Sub- Creation,’ and to it [is] ascribed…the very existence of ‘fantasy’ as an art-form” (Shippey 39). Tolkien found that one of the great powers of writing literature was that it was not confined to the laws or expectations of reality. Instead, it was an opportunity to move beyond the bounds of reality, to tell stories that do not necessarily reflect true circumstances or events. Shippey also says of Tolkien’s essay, “freedom to invent outweighs loyalty to mere happenstance, the accidents of history; and good readers should know how to filter general applicability from a particular story” (Shippey 212). Tolkien seems to view his defense of escapism also as a defense of creativity; taking his cue from the epic poems he studied, he felt that the reader should have the responsibility of recognizing what elements of a work of fiction can be applied to life, and what should be understood as . A key component of this, as seen through Tolkien’s work, is the ability to escape a realistic view of good and evil and put it in symbolic terms. E.L. Risden writes “[t]he fantastic world allows for the connection between created and quotidian worlds, between the places that allow for a realistic shared burden of evil and a magical distancing from the finger-pointing of politics” (Risden 195). Sub-creation allowed Tolkien the freedom to escape contemporary politics, which were still reeling from the effects of World Wars I and II. Having been personally affected by both of these wars, Tolkien had seen enough of politics and war, and the complications thereof.

76 Perhaps due to his Catholic faith, his experience in the wars, or a combination of the two, Tolkien was a firm believer in the concept of evil. Shippey says “[s]hadows are the absence of light and so don’t exist in themselves, but they are still visible and palpable just as if they did. That is exactly Tolkien’s view of evil” (Shippey 112). As previously pointed out, even in the world Tolkien created, men are neither good nor evil but have the power to choose. As Aragorn says, “Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house” (Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, 1331). However, rather than the nuanced situations a man might encounter in real life, Tolkien’s provides his characters with choices that are starkly black and white. He felt that, while his writing might not provide a reflection of real life or war, it still held some truth and a different perspective on a struggle that is ordinarily internal. Writing again to Christopher, Tolkien said, “I think the orcs as real a creation as anything in ‘realistic’ fiction…only in real life they are on both sides, of course. For ‘romance’ has grown out of ‘allegory’, and its wars are still derived from the ‘inner war’ of allegory in which good is on one side and various modes of badness on the other” (Tolkien, Letters, 82). The orcs, for Tolkien, were a concentrated representation of the evil he felt actually exists in the world. Although Tolkien’s work is certainly one of escapist fiction—a classification the author himself acknowledged with pride—he still manages to tackle difficult concepts and bring a certain reality to the world he has created. While Tolkien is adamant that his work is not an allegory, there are certain aspects that could be termed allegorical, like his use of good and evil as a symbolic perspective on the good and evil he saw in the world, particularly in light of the wars. Shippey defends Tolkien’s mode of escapist literature, saying “If it is the function of works of literature to enlarge their readers’ sympathies and help them understand what their own experience may not have taught them, then Tolkien’s fictions qualify on all counts” (Shippey 211). Perhaps this is one of the many reasons Tolkien’s work has been one of the defining works of fantasy literature. He provides the escapism he feels is sorely needed in a disappointing world while creating a universe that provides a fresh perspective of reality.

77 Martin, War, and Reflecting Reality

Like Tolkien, Martin’s life has been influenced by war, although less directly. Martin was only a child when the Vietnam war began, and it continued throughout his formative years. Once in college, Martin avoided the draft on the grounds of ‘conscientious objection’, though not because he was pacifist—he was opposed to this particular war. Comparing Vietnam to World War II, Martin says “I would have fought against the Nazis…but the Vietcong were not the Nazis and I don’t think America had any business in Vietnam” (Martin, Rolling Stone). Growing up against the backdrop of Vietnam War-era America had a profound impact on Martin’s view of his country and war more generally. Speaking of his teenage years, he says “I accepted that America was the good guys, we had to be there. When I got into college, the more I learned about our involvement in Vietnam, the more it seemed wrong to me” (Martin, Rolling Stone). But it is not only his own life and perspective that Martin feels was changed by the Vietnam War. In the previously mentioned book The Anti-Hero in the American Novel, David Simmons explores the prevalence of the anti-hero in American novels post-Vietnam, believing that American audiences were disillusioned with heroic idealism in the wake of this war. This is a sentiment that Martin agrees with: I don’t think America has ever quite recovered from Vietnam. The divisions in our society still linger to this day. For my generation it was a deeply disillusioning experience, and it had a definite effect on me. The idealistic kid who graduated high school, a big believer in truth, justice, and the American way, all these great values of superheroes of his youth, was certainly less idealistic by the time I got out of college. (Martin, Rolling Stone) While Martin believes that war is sometimes necessary, as in the case of the Second World War, his experience with the Vietnam war led him to abandon his previously simplistic view of right and wrong. This disillusionment with the the idea of being simply in the right or in the wrong in the context of war combined with Martin’s love of the realities of history to come into play in his

78 writing of war. Previous to the publication of A Song of Ice and Fire, Martin was already an established author, though mainly in horror in science-fiction. Martin was a history minor in college and was deeply inspired by various wars and events in history, so his focus on war in the series was only to be expected (Martin, Rolling Stone). Martin’s aim, though, was not to write the type of light verus dark war that has become typical in fantasy since Tolkien. Martin observes, “[w]ar is so central to fantasy…and yet it’s these bloodless wars where the heroes are killing unending orcs, and the heroes are not being killed” (Martin, Rolling Stone). Martin did not want to write this kind of war, with a faceless enemy and a guarantee that the reader’s favorite will come out all right; “I think that if you’re going to write about war and violence then show the cost— show how ugly it is, show both sides of it. There’s also the other side…the glory of war” (Martin, Rolling Stone). The glory that Martin refers to is a tradition that has been around since the Middle Ages in which the story is loosely set, and is similarly reflected in Faramir’s speech in The Lord of the Rings. In Chivalry, Keen refers to a manuscript from the 14th century entitled Livre de Chevalerie, written by a French knight named Geoffrey de Charny. De Charny presents a hierarchy of who deserves honor based on the guiding principle that “he who achieves more is the more worthy” (Keen 13). De Charny explains that a knight or warrior distinguishing himself in joust would deserve praise, but doing so in the tourney deserves higher praise; “these, in turn, must give way before those who have won honor in war, for war is graver and more honorable” (Keen 13). This general code of honor is one that often carries over into medievalist fiction, and Martin’s novels are no exception. Jon Snow, for example, does not ride for King’s Landing in hopes of becoming a knight, as was common for second born sons and bastards; instead he chooses to commit his life to guarding the Wall, in hopes of doing something to actually defend his country. He believes there is more honor in that, although he also becomes disillusioned by the sort of men he finds at the Wall. Returning to the cost of war, however, Martin has often expressed how unimpressed he is by the lack of weight given to killing and death by those who write fantasy, as well as by those who don’t understand war. He believes “[t]aking human life should always be a very serious thing. There’s something very close up about the Middle Ages. You’re taking a sharp piece of

79 steel and hacking at someone’s head” (Martin, Rolling Stone). Martin finds that writing in a medievalist setting allows for a more personal level of warfare, and a more visceral understanding of what war is. He believes that society today is insulated from the horrors of war, that it has become something theoretical and distant. He observes that in modern warfare “[w]e’re setting up mechanisms where we can kill human beings with drones and missiles” (Martin, Rolling Stone). He finds that the death toll of modern war has lost much of its meaning, since it’s just a button to be pushed in a remote room rather than one on one combat with a weapon, where the opponents are forced to acknowledge the other person as a human being. Reflecting back on the Vietnam war, Martin wanted his writing to capture the lack of simplicity found in most wars. He did not want to shy away from the hard questions; “when you’re at war, do you do whatever it takes to win, or do you actually maintain your own moral standard and ideals?” (Martin, Rolling Stone). In escapist fiction such as Tolkien’s, the decisions the heroes face have clear answers that are either right or wrong; often, it’s by the very act of maintaining their ideals that the hero comes out victorious. But Martin believes that in real war, things are almost never quite that simple. He says “[g]oing back to Vietnam, for me the cognitive dissonance came in when I realized that Ho Chi Minh actually wasn’t Sauron” (Martin, Rolling Stone). He came to the realization that wars are often the result of motivations or factors that aren’t simply ‘right’ or ‘wrong,’ and he wanted his literature to reflect that. Presenting his characters with situations that have no good answers is important to the construction of his narrative, and his war. T.E. Apter asserts that fantasy “must be understood not as an escape from reality, but as an investigation of it” (Apter 2). This take on fantasy echoes Martin’s own opinions. While Martin expresses great admiration and respect for Tolkien and his works, he also demonstrates a great disdain for those he terms ‘Tolkien imitators’; those who, since Tolkien, have written a similar sort of escapist, literature with a similarly romantic medievalist setting. In an interview with John Hodgman, Martin says of reading these authors’ works that their preferred setting of the Middle Ages “was a sort of Disneyland Middle Ages, where they had castles and princesses and all that. The trappings of a class system, but they didn’t seem to

80 understand what a class system actually meant” (Martin, Young America). Having minored in history at university, Martin is distinctly unimpressed by other fantasy authors’ apparent lack of understanding of how the feudal system actually worked. Martin’s focus on several key noble families, and their various aims and intentions, allows him to paint what he intends as a more realistic picture of life in the Middle Ages. However, even just this splitting of focus between conflicting families precludes his story from following a Tolkienian dichotomy of good and evil. Carroll observes that “Martin purposefully challenges typical fantasy politics, avoiding binaries of right and wrong, the idea of absolute power, and the portrayal of women as secondary players in a patriarchal society” (Carroll, Medievalism, 7). While the women in Martin’s work experience an undue amount of violence and often have limited power, they are certainly, at least, more present than in many other works of fantasy, Tolkien’s included. The war within Martin’s story has a noticeable effect on particular characters, which provides an opportunity for Martin to express his feelings on escapism through the story. Returning to a previously mentioned coping mechanism of Jaime’s, in A Storm of Swords, Jaime advises Brienne to “go away inside,” while the chapter narration lets the reader know that this is “what he’d done, when the Starks had died before him, Lord Rickard cooking in his armor while his son Brandon strangled himself trying to save him” (Martin, Storm of Swords, 417). In a previously noted quotation, he references this same coping mechanism when he gives the same advice again, this time to his son. “The world is full of horrors, Tommen. You can fight them, or laugh at them, or go away inside” to which Tommen responds, “I used to go away inside sometimes…when Joffy…” before being interrupted by his mother, leaving Joffrey’s horrors to the reader’s imagination (Martin, Feast for Crows, 181). This concept of ‘going away inside’ shows that the horrors these characters face are not easily forgotten; they leave a lasting mark and require that the characters find a way to cope. Carroll’s impression of this phenomenon takes it a step further, however. He says, in regards to Jaime ‘going away inside,’ that “Martin seems to imply in the text that those raised on idealistic tales and escapist fiction may lack the mental fortitude to face reality, especially when that reality is especially brutal” (Carroll, “Rewriting”, 70). Characters in Martin’s novels are exposed to a harsh and violent reality, and they have to find a way to adapt to the brutal world they live in rather than escape it.

81 Martin also eliminates the possibility of romanticizing the past by creating instances where characters are forced to question their own nostalgia. Jaime, when taking over the role of Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, remembers the knights he had grown up idolizing. He thinks “[t]he world was simpler in those days…and men as well as swords were made of finer steel. Or was it only that he had been fifteen?” (Martin, Storm of Swords, 916). Jaime has been forced to question his own identity, morality, and sense of honor; now he begins to question whether those knights he had so admired were truly as perfect as they had seemed when he was younger. Carroll observes “Martin’s work seems to claim that even if the grand tales took place within living memory, that memory may be skewed by romantic ideology or youth” (Carroll, “Rewriting”, 71). Martin recognizes that, even in real life, it’s human nature to view the past as simpler or better somehow. He forces the characters, and thereby the readers, to confront the fact that this is most likely not the case. Carroll observes, “[f]rom the perspective of an adult who has suffered, broken oaths, and otherwise grown past the starry-eyed view of knighthood, the heroism and chivalry of the golden-age knights seem naïve and idealistic” (Carroll, “Rewriting”, 71). In a world as brutal as Westeros, there is no place for such idealism. Although the full story of A Song of Ice and Fire is not yet complete, it already appears that Martin is also bucking the high fantasy tradition of the happy ending. Martin has promised a “bittersweet ending” to his story, one that is more realistic than fairy tale (Martin, Rolling Stone). Carroll puts it succinctly when he says “[u]nlike Tolkien, Martin’s series does not involve a battle between good and absolute evil and does not (yet) offer much hope for a neat, fulfilling ending” (Carroll, Medievalism, 3). There are some, however, who believe that this is simply a result of the time in which Martin is writing. When reviewing A Dance with Dragons for Time magazine, Lev Grossman finds Martin’s work to be “an epic for a more profane, more jaded, more ambivalent age than the one Tolkien lived in” (Grossman). He elaborates that “Tolkien is too simplistic…for contemporary audiences and Martin provides the kind of high fantasy these audiences want” (Grossman). The implication here is that contemporary readers do not respond as well to a comparatively simplistic, hero and villain story arc. The world has, arguably, become more jaded and ambivalent in the years succeeding World War II, and even more so in the wake

82 of the Vietnam War. Perhaps, in that case, the contemporary reader would prefer to see reality reflected and magnified, rather than escaped.

83 Conclusion

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. George R.R. Martin, “On Fantasy”

In an editorial for The Telegraph, Mark Chadbourn writes “[t]he more rational the world gets, the more we demand the irrational in our fiction” (Chadbourn). He proposes that this demand for irrationality in the face of a rational world is part of the reason for the wild popularity of the fantasy genre, which is currently seeing a boom as never before. Chadbourn says that sales of fantasy literature “continue to rise year on year and it is now the biggest genre in publishing,” further observing that the demand for fantasy has dwarfed previous top selling genres of science-fiction and romance (Chadbourn). While readers may think of fantasy as swords, sorcerers, and elves, Chadbourn points out that “the genre really is as broad as the imagination” (Chadbourn). This thesis has focused on two prominent works from this popular genre. J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is one of the top five most-read books in the world (Polland), and is widely credited as establishing many of the accepted conventions of the fantasy genre. George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, though yet unfinished, has established itself as a “global cultural phenomenon,” selling over 90 million copies worldwide and spawning a hugely successful HBO series (Barnett). The aim of this thesis has been to show that these two works utilize and subvert the traditional concept of the hero in contrasting ways. The goal was to explore this by answering three questions: what are the core similarities between the works, how do they contrast one another, and why is the hero or anti-hero important to each work. The first chapter was mainly concerned with the core similarities between the two series. Both are works of high fantasy, and accordingly make use of medievalist settings. Tolkien’s use of medievalism is reflective of a romantic view of the Middle Ages, with its emphasis on chivalry, nostalgia for simpler times, and belief in rightful kingship. Martin’s world, on the other

84 hand, has sharper focus on the violence and feudal oppression more associated with barbaric medievalism. Both authors also eschew the traditional singular protagonist or hero, instead presenting an ensemble of characters that fulfill the action of the narrative and present the story from various perspectives. All of Tolkien’s main characters could be considered heroes, each portraying a different definition or tradition of heroism. The division between good and evil in Tolkien’s work is very clear, and rarely do any characters edge near that line; those who do, such as Boromir, are shown to be tempted or overpowered by a darkness beyond themselves and, in the end, are either redeemed in death or die as a result of their fall. Martin’s characters, on the other hand, are not so easily designated as ‘good’ or ‘evil;’ instead, they exist more on what Furst terms a “sliding-scale” of anti-heroism, each having character flaws or selfish goals that preclude them from any traditional definition of heroism. The second chapter brought light to, more specifically, how Tolkien’s hero and Martin’s anti-hero contrast one another. I chose to analyze and compare Aragorn as an example of the hero in The Lord of the Rings and Jaime Lannister as the anti-hero in A Song of Ice and Fire. These two characters appear immediately similar in some ways, both high-born with lofty expectations of what they will do with their lives. Aragorn, of all the characters in the novels, most embodies the epic hero, while Jaime slides up and down the scale of anti-hero in the most obvious way. This chapter also took a closer look at the narrative techniques used in each series, and how these techniques influence how the reader perceives the characters. Martin uses an ever- shifting perspective and narrative voice to ensure that the line between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in his story is continually blurred through unreliable narrators and dramatic irony. The introduction of Jaime as a narrator in the third novel drastically changes the reader’s understanding of Jaime as a character; as his motivations and perspective become known, all his previously damning actions are cast under a new light. Tolkien’s plot is also multi-linear, with the third-person narration sticking mainly to the hobbits, whom Tolkien uses as points of entry into the epic world he has created. In the third chapter, I set out to answer the question: why is the construction of the hero or anti-hero important to each work? Each author made their choice deliberately, and it seemed to come down to each author’s goals in writing, and particularly their aims in writing war. Both

85 authors were disillusioned by war in their own experiences, Tolkien through more personal experience, and Martin through a more distant observation of modern culture’s perception of war. War, being so central to fantasy, is a key part of both of their works, and the decisions they make in writing it are a direct result of their own experiences. Tolkien’s support of escapism in literature is well-documented in his essay “On Fairy-Stories,” and his desire to escape from the harsh realities of war are clear through the simplistic binary of good and evil he uses in his war and characterizations. Martin, on the other hand, set out with the goal of creating complicated characters and reflecting the true violence of war. While the two novels are of similar genre and utilize many of the same fantasy elements, their use of heroic and anti-heroic tropes stands at sharp contrast and highlights the deeper aims of each author. Helen Young observes that “Tolkienian medievalists are the product not merely of the man himself but also of the culture that received and reinterpreted his work” (Young 2). Tolkien’s creativity in blending elements of epic, romance, and fairy tale resonated with readers, and has inspired many authors in the decades since the publication of the The Lord of the Rings. The inspiration drawn from epic poetry required an epic hero, however, although “[l]arger-than- life heroes are rare in twentieth-century literature; they do not fit comfortably in an age which seems preoccupied with the ordinary” (Flieger 41). Tolkien’s use of hobbits as a stand-in for the ordinary man allowed him to create the every-man of fairy tale heroism while including his epic hero in Aragorn. Martin is one of those authors who were inspired by Tolkien, but one that has found outstanding success in adapting the fantastic themes for a contemporary audience, reflecting the disillusionment brought on by the Second World War and exacerbated by the Vietnam War. As Young points out, “[a]ll reimagining of the Middle Ages are influenced by the cultural contexts in which they are produced and by earlier eras’ versions” (Young 3). Literature does not exist in a vacuum, and what stories find success among readers can be reflective of the culture that makes them successful. Considering The Lord of the Rings as the landmark work of fantasy for the second half of the 20th century, and A Song of Ice and Fire as a contemporary example of what fantasy is most successful, the evolution from hero to anti-hero seems clear. However, the extreme success of other such fantasy works as J.K. Rowling’s series, which features characters both

86 heroic and anti-heroic, and the dystopian Hunger Games trilogy, which features protagonists whose heroism rests on their ability to stand against the apparent cultural aspirations of their time, seem to indicate that readers are not finished with heroism in one form or another. The continued popularity and success of Tolkien’s work, as well as his fellow fantasy author C.S. Lewis’ also demonstrate the staying power of such heroic figures. Perhaps Lev Grossman is correct that modern audiences want Martin’s “more profane, more jaded, more ambivalent” sort of fantasy (Grossman). But it also seems that readers are drawn to these heroic characters that stand as a symbol of true goodness, as well as the anti-heroic characters that reflect a more realistic version of humanity. In a letter, Tolkien once wrote, “[a]fter all, I believe that legends and are largely made of 'truth', and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear” (Tolkien, Letters, 147). While not hiding his intention of providing a literature of escapism, Tolkien believed there was a deeper truth to be found in literature of fantasy and myth. As explored in the third chapter, Tolkien believed in the existence of evil in the world, as well as the existence of good. The good and evil found in his novels, as well as in many legends and myths, were symbolic to him of the good and evil that exists in every person. Martin reflects a similar sentiment of truth in fiction in his short essay “On Fantasy”: “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” (Martin, “On Fantasy”). Whether through hero or anti-hero, both Tolkien and Martin wished to convey some truth, and to capture some of the magic that exists in fantasy.

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