Winning the Game of Thrones: The Host of Characters and their Agendas (18 page)

     
In the first book’s prologue, Will says, “My mother told me that dead men sing no songs,” nodding to Martin’s
Songs Dead Men Sing.

     
The Hugo Award winning “A Song for Lya” features characters Robb and Lyanna caught in a tragic love story. The main plot focuses on a religion that sacrifices its members, a bit reminiscent of the red priests.

     
“The Way of Cross and Dragon” short story introduces the Order Militant of the Knights of Jesus Christ (echoed in book four’s Order Militant) and adds that the Biblical Judas was a dragonrider who carried three baby dragons about in a basket.

     
“Bitterblooms” from
Dreamsongs Vol. 1
has the names Erika Stormjones and Northstar (echoing Stormborn and Darkstar), while the heroine is Alynne. (Alayne Stone is a viewpoint character in book four.) Alynne battles the frozen north, inhabited by vampires, in a world that’s “cold and black and dead” like the North and its wights.

     
“Slide Show” is the tale of volcanoes and tidal waves, like the Doom that took Old Valyria. “The world was full of storm and steam and fire,” the narrator says, echoing the prophecies of smoke and salt.
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Their ship is called Starwind, pointing toward Asha’s Black Wind.

     
“Starlady,” one of Martin’s science fiction stories from the 1984 collection
Sandkings
features the character Hairy Hal. This person also appears as a Night’s Watch soldier – perhaps he was exiled for his unsavory behavior.

     
House Swyft of Cornfield displays a blue “bantam rooster” on yellow. Their words are “Awake! Awake!” In fact, Martin’s publisher is Bantam with a rooster logo – swiftness and waking Martin up may feature in the relationship.

     
The Hedge Knight
 comic offers shields for the comic collaborators at the end: Dabell, Miller, Totroll, Crowell. Martin himself, as Ser Raymund Richard, has a shield depicting his previous works
Windhaven, Armageddon Rag, Fevre Dream 
and
Dying of the Light
.

     
A ship captained by Lord Baelor Blacktyde sails the ship Nightflyer, after the novella by that name.

     
In the book two prologue, Maester Cressen tells Melisandre, “Only children fear the dark,” referencing Martin’s story “Only Kids are Afraid of the Dark.”

     
Maris, the heroine of Martin’s
Windhaven, 
is echoed in the book five sellsword Pretty Maris. The book is about a girl who longs to be a flyer but is discriminated against, echoing Daenerys in some ways.

     
Bakkalon, the Pale Child, is a death god that appears in Braavos and in Martin’s short stories “And Seven Times Never Kill Man,” “The Way of Cross and Dragon,” etc.