University of New Orleans ScholarWorks@UNO University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations Dissertations and Theses Summer 8-10-2016 “On the Cusp of Half-Remembered Prophecies”: Interpreting Prophecy in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire Patrice A. Loar University of New Orleans, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td Part of the Literature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation Loar, Patrice A., "“On the Cusp of Half-Remembered Prophecies”: Interpreting Prophecy in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire" (2016). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 2225. https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/2225 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by ScholarWorks@UNO with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. 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It has been accepted for inclusion in University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UNO. The author is solely responsible for ensuring compliance with copyright. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “On the Cusp of Half-Remembered Prophecies”: Interpreting Prophecy in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of New Orleans in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English by Patrice Loar B.A. University of New Orleans, 2013 August, 2016 Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1 Azor Ahai and the Prince that was Promised .......................................................................3 The Stallion Who Mounts the World .................................................................................11 The House of the Undying .................................................................................................13 Slayer of Lies .....................................................................................................................21 “To Go Forward You Must Go Back” ...............................................................................24 “The Glass Candles Are Burning” .....................................................................................25 Dancing Dragons ...............................................................................................................29 Conclusion .........................................................................................................................31 Works Cited .......................................................................................................................32 Vita .....................................................................................................................................34 ii Abstract The prophecies in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series are unclear and often appear to have multiple possible fulfillments, or none at all. In addition, some of these prophesied events occur before they are introduced, which further contributes to the lack of clarity in interpreting them. My thesis will discuss the methods by which Martin offers readers clues to a prophecy’s fulfillment and argue that Martin’s use of these imprecise prophecies challenges high fantasy tropes about prophecies. George R. R. Martin; A Song of Ice and Fire; Game of Thrones; Daenerys Targaryen; fantasy; prophecy iii 1 INTRODUCTION In a 2011 online interview, George R. R. Martin said that “Lord of The Rings is the mountain that leans over every other fantasy written since and shaped all of modern fantasy – there are things about it, the whole concept of the Dark Lord, and good guys battling bad guys, good versus evil, while brilliantly handled in Tolkien, in the hands of many Tolkien successors, it has become kind of a cartoon.” (Bernstein). While Martin specifically refers to the idea of the epic-scale battle of good versus evil, this idea may also be applied to his approach to prophecy; readers will not find the relatively straightforward prophecies of Tolkien in Martin’s Westeros. Instead of a written prophecy such as “Renewed shall be blade that was broken/The crownless again shall be king” (213) which clearly foretells the reforging of the sword Narsil and return of the king; readers of the A Song of Ice and Fire (Song) series are offered unclear oral prophecies. These prophecies often have multiple possible fulfillments and there is often a lack of clarity as to when a prophecy has been fulfilled. Some prophecies, if the reader follows the interpretation offered in the work itself, seem to be destined to remain unfulfilled. Martin subverts the high fantasy convention of prophecies that are first offered, and then obviously fulfilled by one character by often offering the “answer” or fulfillment of the prophecy before the “question” or the prophecy itself, although it is rarely an obvious fulfillment upon a reader’s first glance at the prophecy. Martin assists the reader in interpreting these prophecies with the inclusion of small hints that certain interpretations are the true solution to the prophecy; however, he also offers false interpretations and hints, and these “red herrings” represent Martin’s challenges of the easily-understood prophecy established in Tolkien. 1 In A Dance with Dragons, Daenerys Targaryen reflects that she “knew how it went with prophecies. They were made of words, and words were wind,” and the prophecies in Song are indeed as evanescent as the wind (326). In the essay “Of Direwolves and Gods,” it is noted that “even the cynical observations [expressed by Martin’s characters] do not reject the premise that prophecy can provide a true glimpse of what is to come; instead they cast doubt on our own ability to wield prophecy in a useful way” (Jones 116). The difficulty in wielding prophecy, however, is due to Martin’s writing of prophecies with multiple potential fulfillments and the combinations of literal and metaphorical interpretations of prophetic elements. Although prophecies in Song always come true, they challenge readers who attempt to wield prophecy in order to gain foreknowledge of the series’ events. Martin does adhere to some conventions, such as the idea that history is cyclical, and events replay themselves throughout time; this may then be applied to the interpretation of his prophecies, as multiple mentions of a concept are always something to look for in this work. He states this idea in book four of the series, A Feast for Crows, by having a relatively minor character comment that “Archmaester Rigney once wrote that history is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What happened before will perforce happen again, he said” (183). Although Martin’s most obvious use of this is the revelation of Westerosi history as the story advances, it is also a useful tool in interpreting the prophecies in Martin’s work, as the revealed history often parallels events that the prophecies foretell. There is a growing list of scholarly studies of this series; however, much of the work on Martin’s novels focuses on topics other than prophecy. The existing scholarship on prophecy in Song focuses on characters other than Daenerys Targaryen, and rarely discusses the techniques Martin uses in prophecies, or how the work teaches readers to interpret them; those works that do 2 discuss prophecy often focus heavily on other characters whose arcs are also heavily influenced by prophecy. By closely examining the prophecies related to Daenerys Targaryen, this thesis will argue that Martin’s use of these imprecise prophecies challenges high fantasy tropes about prophecies and their fulfillment. 2 AZOR AHAI REBORN AND THE PRINCE THAT WAS PROMISED In ancient books of Asshai, it is written that there will come a day after a long summer when the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world. In this dread hour, a warrior shall draw forth from the fire a burning sword. And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the red sword of Heroes (Clash 132) “When the red star bleeds and the darkness gathers, Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt to wake dragons out of stone” (Dance 704). The first prophecy that Daenerys fulfills is that of Azor Ahai Reborn, the reincarnation