Winning the Game of Thrones: The Host of Characters and their Agendas (5 page)

Though Petyr seems to be a major player in the Game of Thrones, his interests are selfish and petty – greed, lust, and revenge. As he gains more wealth and power, his fall seems inevitable.

What’s Ned Hiding – Who’s Jon Snow’s Mother?

Three members of the Kingsguard: Ser Arthur Dayne, Ser Oswell Whent, and Lord Commander Gerold Hightower were mysteriously absent from the last battles of Robert’s Rebellion. Ned Stark found them guarding the Tower of Joy in Dorne, where Rhaegar had spirited his sister Lyanna. Ned and his six companions, seeking Lyanna, battled the three knights of the Kingsguard there, and only Ned and his friend Howland Reed survived. Lyanna died in the tower, amid some amount of mystery. Ned Stark delivered Arthur Dayne’s fabled sword to his sister, Ashara Dayne at Castle Starfall, and she killed herself from grief (again, under somewhat unclear circumstances and rumor). Ned rode home with the bastard baby Jon Snow to present to his young wife.

On the show, Ned identifies Jon’s mother as “Wylla” when King Robert asks, but in the books it’s much murkier: Catelyn guesses it’s Lady Ashara, but Edric Dayne, Ashara and Arthur’s young nephew, thinks Ashara’s servant Wylla was the mother or at least the wetnurse (I:92, III:494). When Catelyn asks Ned about Ashara, he reacts badly:

“Never ask me about Jon,” he said, cold as ice. “He is my blood, and that is all you need to know. And now I will learn where you heard that name, my lady.”

She had pledged to obey; she told him; and from that day on, the whispering had stopped, and Ashara Dayne’s name was never heard in Winterfell again. (I:65)

Wylla has told everyone at Starfall the child is hers, while it’s kept a desperate secret at Winterfell, so it’s likely she’s not the mother. Ashara Dayne is dead, so if she’s the mother, it’s unclear why the secret is necessary.

The presence of half the Kingsguard at the Tower of Joy (with only Jaime left in King’s Landing to defend the king and Prince Rhegar’s family) suggests they were protecting someone more important than their king or prince: their prince’s prophesied child. Ned’s constant thoughts about Lyanna’s death also prove significant:

He could still hear her at times. Promise me, she had cried, in a room that smelled of blood and roses. Promise me, Ned. The fever had taken her strength and her voice had been faint as a whisper, but when he gave his word, the fear had gone out of his sister’s eyes. (I:43)

Blood and fever suggest death by childbirth, and the promise that haunts him would have to be caring for her child but telling no one who he is. By this time, Rhaegar was dead, and Robert had allowed the Targaryen children to be butchered as he sneered in contempt.

Jon resembles his father 
and Lyanna.
(In the book, all of Ned and Catelyn’s children resemble the red-headed Tullys except for Arya, who shares Ned and Jon’s brown hair – and in fact fears she’s a bastard because of this. Lyanna was so similar-looking to Arya that Bran confuses them in a vision.)

In the House of the Undying, Daenerys sees blue roses (Lyanna’s favorite, symbolizing the unobtainable like Lyanna herself) blooming from an ice wall, hinting at Lyanna’s child at the Wall (II:515-516). Further, Ned as he describes himself “had lived his lies for fourteen years, yet they still haunted him at night” (I:115). “The deceit made him feel soiled. 
The lies we tell for love
, he thought. 
May the gods forgive me
(I:504). Jon’s mother is a
secret
, but it’s only a
lie
if Jon is not Ned’s son.

An honorable man doesn’t cheat on his pregnant wife, but an honorable man would keep his promise to tell no one the truth about Jon, even if it destroys his family life, making Jon grow up surrounded by Catelyn’s animosity. (In fact, Ned’s inflexible honor often blinds him to the problems caused by his stubbornness).

Lyanna’s death is romanticized heavily in book one, emphasizing her importance (while Ashara by contrast is only given a few sentences in any of the books). Lyanna, lovingly obsessed over by Robert and Ned alike, is thus revealed as key. One pair of critics remarks:

Robert’s vision of Lyanna is bound up with the past, with his recollection of her beauty as he remembers it now. Eddard talks of her death, the details of which are vague but bring immediacy by putting the reader in the realm of the senses: a room smelling of “blood and roses”; the whisper of her voice as she pleaded; the clutch of her fingers; the dead, black hue of rose petals that fell from her fingers. The weight of tragedy and loss marking Eddard and Robert is palpable, bound in this shared sense of loss.
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Even Ned’s brother and father are not described with this degree of love and value.

Of course, as a bastard, Jon is not heir to the Iron Throne any more than he is to Winterfell. With King Robert eager to kill the last of the Targaryens, Ned can be understood for letting Jon find safety and anonymity at the Wall if Rhaegar is his father. However, Jon’s Targaryen magic and destiny may yet come into play. Martin only has revealed that eventually we’ll learn the secret and discover who Jon truly is, and what he’s meant to become.

What Is the Night Watch’s True Mission?

“Make no mistake, good sers and valiant brothers, the war we’ve come to fight is no petty squabble over lands and honors. Ours is a war for life itself, and should we fail the world dies with us,” Melisandre insists.

All of them seemed surprised to hear Maester Aemon murmur, “It is the war for the dawn you speak of, my lady. But where is the prince that was promised?”

“He stands before you,” Melisandre declared, “though you do not have the eyes to see it. Stannis Baratheon is Azor Ahai come again, the warrior of fire.” (III.884)

Certainly, those of the Watch must remember that their mission is not to battle wildlings (who are men like they are) but the wights and White Walkers against whom the Wall was built. Lord Commander Mormont asks Sam:

“If dragonglass daggers are what we need, why do we have only two of them? Every man on the Wall should be armed with one the day he says his words.”

“We never knew…”

“We never knew! But we must have known once. The Night's Watch has forgotten its true purpose, Tarly. You don't build a wall seven hundred feet high to keep savages in skins from stealing women. The Wall was made to guard the realms of men … and not against other men, which is all the wildlings are when you come right down to it. Too many years, Tarly, too many hundreds and thousands of years. We lost sight of the true enemy. And now he's here, but we don't know how to fight him. Is dragonglass made by dragons, as the smallfolk like to say?”

“The m-maesters think not," Sam stammered. "The maesters say it comes from the fires of the earth. They call it obsidian.”

Mormont snorted. “They can call it lemon pie for all I care. If it kills as you claim, I want more of it.” (III:451)

Have the ways of killing the White Walkers merely been lost to time as a thousand years pass? Or has someone helped the forgetting? Mormont notes that the children of the forest, who once brought the Watch a hundred dragonglass daggers each year, were killed by the First Men and then the Andals. Why? Weren’t they on the same side? The children of the forest knew how to fight the Others and win. Likewise, the Maesters have aided the death of magic…they may have aided the forgetting as well. “The world the Citadel is building has no place in it for sorcery or prophecy or glass candles, much less for dragons,” one says (IV.683). Long ago, their dragonglass candles allowed them to watch the world:

The sorcerers of the Freehold could see across mountains, seas, and deserts with one of these glass candles. They could enter a man’s dreams and give him visions, and speak to one another half a world apart, seated before their candles. (IV:682)

The mysterious seer Quaithe tells Daenerys “the glass candles are burning” once more (V:152-153). Will the maesters offer their ancient knowledge and forgotten books to aid in the war? Or will they become a new fanatic faction determined to end the world rather than share it with another kind of belief?

Throughout time, the Night’s Watch oath below has not changed, and within it may be keys to winning the war.

Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night’s Watch, for this night and all the nights to come. (I:522)

The war for the dawn, as Maester Aemon calls it, is coming, and the Watch must fight with light and fire (thus it seems likely the “Warrior of Fire” and wielder of Lightbringer that Melisandre foresees, the legendary hero Azor Ahai reborn, will be one of them.) The phrase “the sword in the darkness” also echoes this. Certainly, Melisandre thinks, “I pray for a glimpse of Azor Ahai, and R’hllor shows me only [Jon] Snow” (V:408), suggesting he will wield “the sword in the darkness,” not Stannis.

 “The horn that wakes the sleepers” is literally true as the men on the wall announce visitors with horn blowing. But the wildlings are questing for the Horn of Winter, the fabled Horn of Joramun, that can awaken “giants from the earth” and even tear down the Wall (II:276). Many believe the small horn Sam discovers in a box of dragonglass weapons on the Fist of the First Men is this horn. But if the rangers left it, it may be that rangers will need to use it – what kind of giants will they call forth for their war?

Why Did Benjen Join the Watch?

As Ned Stark tells Jon, Starks have served on the Wall through all their generations, as a proud duty. Certainly, Ned’s younger brother Benjen wasn’t required to take the Black, but he, like other Northerners, felt the southern lands could use his talents to protect them. Jon too is enthusiastic at the heroism of it all, before a few of Tyrion’s remarks.

Of course, some fans suspect that Benjen felt guilty about what happened to Lyanna, in which he may have played a small part, even aiding her to joust as a mystery knight at the tournament where she was noticed by Prince Rhaegar. (Meera Reed tells this story to Bran – it’s uncertain who the mystery knight in ill-matched armor was, but if it wasn’t her father, it may have been the young and talented lady of Winterfell).

What’s Sansa’s Deal?

Sansa is the character many fans have trouble understanding. Season one, she was charmed by the handsome prince’s choosing her above all others, sweet-talking her, and offering to make her the dazzling queen. But even as she deluded herself, the final episode left her betrayed as Joffrey valued cruelty over sparing her father.

The second episode heightens the contrast between the sisters: Arya names her wolf for the warrior queen Nymeria, Sansa names hers Lady – each wolf is named for who her owner wishes to become. In this episode, Sansa’s flawed judgment becomes clear: Ser Ilyn and the Hound are monstrous because of their scarred faces. Joffrey the prince deserves her loyalty, for she is “his lady, his princess.” This thought process of course results in the death of her wolf, Lady, and with her, Sansa’s romanticized belief that handsome princes are always honorable and just. In the book, Sansa begins “crying herself to sleep at night,” clearly mourning her lost illusions as well as her wolf (I:136-137). In this scene, Cersei and Joffrey literally kill Sansa’s spirit, foreshadowing both killing her father in front of her and inflicting the slow emotional death that follows.

Some critics blame her parents for filling her head with tales of romance, but the loss of her wolf is significant. The wolves represent the children’s’ personal magic and power, the world of strength and otherworld magic they slowly explore as they learn. In one blow, Sansa has lost all this. “If Lady was here, I would not be afraid,” Sansa thinks much later (III:799). While her siblings are masks of civilization over growing wildness and warg magic, Sansa is only mask. As she imitates the queen’s hairstyle in season one and Margaery’s in season three, she demonstrates her obedience to the women who command her life.

In season two, she hates Joffrey and has seen that a flawed, scheming Cersei has no power as queen.
Sophie Turner, her actress, says, “She was very vulnerable and naive, and now she’s independent and has to survive in this world. That’s a lot of pressure for a 13-year-old girl.” Moving forward, “one of the main challenges is the mental and physical torture
 
she’s going to get from the Lannisters and all the people around her.”
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Logically, she might be trying to be a powerful queen someday and doing whatever she must to achieve it…but she’s shown no sign that that’s what she wants. And Cersei’s example shows that Sansa won’t really be a power in the kingdom, even as Joffrey’s wife. She spends the second season acting cold in public and miserable in private. She doesn’t seem to be plotting much of anything. The series has established that most characters are “playing the Game of Thrones” and seeking power. Is Sansa? She’s not manipulating people to achieve her own goals, only acting to save others and convince everyone she’s sweet and helpless.