Winning the Game of Thrones: The Host of Characters and their Agendas (23 page)

Meeting the Shadow, Meeting the Goddess

The shadow archetype, described by Jung’s philosophy, is the characteristics of ourselves we most detest or reject, projected onto another person of the same gender, as “the shadow cast by the conscious mind of the individual contains the hidden, repressed, and unfavorable (or nefarious) aspects of the personality.”
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If the son is unlearned, righteous, young, and powerless, he must face the evil tyrant who’s wise and experienced. (Daenerys for instance faces the cruel but wise sorceress Mirri Maz Duur.) The shadow may be the villain, but his realm is the unexplored world of magic, mystery, and dreams waiting below the conscious personality. To Jungian scholars, though the shadow has been buried in the underworld, it has much to offer the questor, positive and negative.

Envy, lust, sensuality, deceit, and all known vices are the negative, “dark” aspect of the unconscious, which can manifest itself in two ways. In the positive sense, it appears as a “spirit of nature,” creatively animating Man, things, and the world...In the negative sense, the unconscious (that same spirit) manifests itself as a spirit of evil, as a drive to destroy.
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Thus Jon and Bran both encounter the shadow force of good – mysterious heart trees, ravens, wolf powers and prophecies, along with the force of evil – the Other and its wights. Their wolves, Ghost and Summer, are also echoes of Jon and Bran’s shadow selves – when one boy longs to lash out, to flee, the wolf often acts on these buried impulses or offers warnings of unseen dangers. Just as both boys are the products of civilization and the world of law, the wolves are guides from the Otherworld, tutors in magic and sensitivity.

Mance Rayder is a shadow for Jon, though not the ultimate enemy he will face before the end. Mance betrayed his oath to the Night’s Watch to become a great leader, as Jon considers doing after his father’s death. He has beautiful wildling women, subjects, and respect, all Jon has ever dreamed of. He even travels through Westeros, visiting Winterfell and the world Jon has denied himself. He’s charming, friendly and flexible with honor as Jon is not. And the life he offers is tempting. At Mance’s side, Jon can have Ygritte, a safe home, and glory. He need only betray his own people.

Jon’s encounter with Ygritte, his first relationship, is a metaphor for encountering the wildness of the wilderness, so far outside the Wall that represents civilization and Jon’s carefully-cultivated boundaries. Ygritte’s favorite line is, “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” as she becomes his teacher, educating him in the code of the wildlings and the world of nature. She guides him into a hidden cave with a pool – the feminine womb of magic and mystery. Caves are places of initiation: one enters a boy and returns a man, literally in the case of the show. This journey helps Jon understand the wildlings in a way other rangers don’t. He thinks to himself later, “
You know nothing, Jon Snow.
He had learned though, and Ygritte had been his teacher” (V:464).

Descent

At the climax of the hero’s tale, he descends into death, surrendering his life and all he is. This represents leaving one stage of life behind and entering another, after giving up all his childish illusions and facing the stark reality of his deepest fears. Scaling the Wall (ironically, an ascent not a descent) in the third book falls into this category as  he nearly falls and literally faces his own mortality. After, he fights in a real battle for the first time and discovers the leadership skills that will take him far.

This descent also appears at the end of
A Dance with Dragons,
though Jon may have another, darker challenge in the future. Jon dreams he’s “armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist” (V:769). In the future, he may be undead, he may be wielding Lightbringer, but certainly, symbolism of ice and fire surround him. He’s the first to kill a wight with fire, he finds the lost dragonglass. He may be the greatest hope against the darkness.

To complete the hero’s journey, he must face the deadly Other and grow into a great leader of men and guide for others. Some heroes make peace with the force of darkness and others eradicate it entirely, but either way, Jon will grow into a leader who understands the Westerosi, Wildings, and Others in a way none has for a thousand years. Maester Aemon’s frequent advice to him, to kill the boy within himself and let the man be born, is a summation of his hero-quest.

Bran, the Last Hero

Joseph Campbell, in his interviews with Bill Moyers, identifies the quests of the protagonist:

There are two types of deeds. One is the physical deed, in which the hero performs a courageous act in battle or saves a life. The other kind is the spiritual deed, in which the hero learns to experience the supernormal range of human spiritual life and then comes back with a message.
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The former is Jon’s quest, the latter is Bran’s. Here are their hero journeys contrasted.

Bran crosses his first threshold when he sees the forbidden in the first episode and Jaime pushes him out the window. Thus, Bran has a short death-and rebirth sequence, lying unconscious for days and then waking a cripple. This is a transformation from childhood into adolescence, like that Sleeping Beauty undergoes. “During puberty, sleep is the refuge in which an adolescent girl can absorb the new sense of herself that she gains from the prick of the spindle, and changes from girl to woman,” explains Gould.
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Likewise, Bran is transforming from a younger son of Winterfell into a greenseer and warg, the prophet and magician who will save the world.

He has the ancient magic, as shown by the extraordinary perception of Summer: “When Summer defends Bran and Catelyn, divine powers seem to be intervening to protect the young Stark family.”
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The wolf’s name suggests the magic of fire, needed to fight the Other and his frozen world, just as the wolf’s presence awakens Bran’s visions. In the realm of the unconscious, Bran has a powerful dream of what is to come, and thus his mentor tells him his destiny:

He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the narrow sea, to the Free Cities and the green Dothraki sea and beyond, to Vaes Dothrak under its mountain, to the fabled lands of the Jade Sea, to Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise.

Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him ... North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned his cheeks.

Now you know, the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder, now you know why you must live.

“Why?” Bran said, not understanding, falling, falling.

Because winter is coming. (I:136-137)

Bran accepts his destiny but nonetheless remains in the castle, acting as the Stark of Winterfell while Robb is on campaign.

A second Call arrives in the form of Theon, who captures Winterfell. Bran escapes with Osha and the Reeds, forced to go out into the world. This is a sort of death-descent as well, as he hides in the crypts and leaves everyone to think him dead. As he travels, Jojen advises him of his destiny. Bran resolves to find the three-eyed crow who’s been calling to him rather than seeking safety with Jon on the Wall.

He remains strangely insistent that no one know he’s alive – twice he passes near Jon and refuses to alert him. It’s clear that his mission is more important than taking his role as a Stark of Winterfell, more desperate than his need to see Jon. Further, the hero’s journey, a quest of growth into adulthood, cannot be taken with a babysitter. “There are times in life where we must be unreachable, times when we must insist that those around us, especially those nearest and dearest, remain at a distance if anything significant is to develop inside us,” explains Gould.
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Thus Bran maintains his secrecy.

North beyond the Wall, Bran finds the three-eyed crow and trains with him. Bran learns to fly within the minds of crows and watch the past, present, and future through the eyes of heart trees. He encounters the mysterious children of the wood. During his training, he learns to reach out to Jon and Theon, to be the eyes that see across the world. Many heroes like Luke Skywalker become part of the magic and never truly return to their old lives. Even if Bran never leaves his hidden cave, he will play a part in the war to come.

In the book, Old Nan entertains Bran with a story about the White Walkers: Thousands of years ago, in a winter night that lasted a generation, the Others came, and they hated “iron and fire and the touch of the sun” (I:240). The last hero of the First Men set out to find the children of the forest, whose ancient magics could restore mankind’s lost wisdom. He left with his sword, a dog, his horse and twelve companions. When only he was left, the Others attacked…and then the tale is interrupted.

When Bran and Rickon bid goodbye to Maester Luwin in the Godswood, there are six of them – exactly half of twelve, just as half of Bran is left to be a hero. This list includes Bran, Rickon, Hodor, Osha, Jojen, and Meera (in the book, these last two escaped with the Starks).

If one adds the guides, travelers and helpers the children find on the way North, one can make the count up to exactly twelve, though most are temporary. Bran has no horse, but he has a wolf of course. As he travels steadily north, his story mirrors the Last Hero’s. The classic hero’s journey always involves descending into the darkest place completely alone. Thus Bran will lose all his friends eventually and confront the Other, as he does in his book one dream.

There’s an intriguing Celtic poem that echoes much of Bran’s destiny. In Celtic myth, “Bran” means raven. Many heroes, including several Brans, journeyed into the land of the elves and fairies, under the burial mounds. Old Nan’s children of the forest, whom she describes as “the first people, small as children, dark and beautiful” live underground (I.736-37). The poem describes the elves’ search for a great hero:

53. He will be in the shape of every beast,

Both on the azure sea and on land,

He will be a dragon before hosts at the onset,

He will be a wolf of every great forest.

…

58. He will be – his time will be short

Fifty years in this world:

A dragonstone from the sea will kill him

In the fight at Senlabor.

59. He will ask a drink from Loch Ló,

While he looks at the stream of blood,

The white host will take him under a wheel of clouds

To the gathering where there is no sorrow.
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The curious reference to a “dragonstone” (ultimately revealed to be a slingstone) and shapechanging suggests a connection between tales. Will Bran Stark bond with a dragon and soar into the skies? Will he vanish into the realm of the children and weirwoods? Or die young, sacrificing himself to save the world?

The Heroine’s Journey

Though scholars often place heroine tales on Joseph Campbell’s famous hero’s journey chart point by point, the girl has always had a notably different journey than the boy. She quests to rescue her loved ones, not destroy the tyrant as Harry Potter or Luke Skywalker does. The heroine’s friends augment her natural feminine insight with masculine rationality and order, while her lover is a shapeshifting monster of the magical world – a frog prince, beast-husband, or two-faced vampire. The epic heroine wields a magic charm or prophetic mirror, not a sword. And she destroys murderers and their undead servants as the champion of life. As she struggles against the patriarchy – the distant or unloving father – she grows into someone who creates her own destiny.

Eventually, she descends into the underworld there to die and be reborn greater than before. Awaiting her is the force of destruction itself, in this case, the evil Other bringing unending winter to the world. The heroine not only defeats this force, she grows from the lesson and rejoins the world as young mother, queen, and eternal goddess.