The Story of the World Is Not a Story We Control

[womzilla]

Last week, I finished reading A Game of Thrones, despite my loose practice over the last couple of decades of not starting fantasy series until they are complete. I enjoyed it immensely, and because I had watched the television work based on it, it was weirdly like rereading a novel I'd never read--of course, noticing things that I hadn't noticed "the first time" because, in many cases, they weren't *there* the first time. It's amazing how much of the narrative of novel is there on screen, and how much of the emotional impact. (There are brilliant bits in the adaptation that aren't in the novel--I discussed earlier how well one particular sequence unfolded in the adaptation, and the corresponding scene in the novel is staged completely differently and, frankly, not as satisfyingly.)

Anyway, I'm going to make a non-spoilery observation about the course of the narratives of the first novel.

The novel is told in third-person personal in many relatively short chapters, each from the point of view of one of eight characters--six of the Starks (Eddard, Sansa, Arya, Brandon, Catelyn Tully Stark, and Jon Snow), Tyrion Lannister, and Daenerys Targaryan. Of these eight narratives, at least five--Bran, Ned, Jon, Daenerys, and most explicitly Sansa--revolve around how the world fails to conform itself to the narrative expectations that the characters have about how the world should work: Bran around heroism, Sansa around royal romance, Jon around the nobility of the Night's Watch, Ned around personal honor, and Daenerys over prophetic inevitability (twice!). All of the happiest or most triumphant moments of the novel--and there are such--come when the characters manage to adjust their expectations to meet the circumstances, and the worse come when they stick to the narrative model beyond the point where it breaks.

Further, the pending, horrific, return of old stories, safely banished beyond the Wall and to the distant past, appears to be the driving force of the entire story.

(When I was discussing this last night with some gamer friends who have all read at least the first novel, one pointed out that Tyrion's alienation from the world also comes from a pivotal moment when his desire for a story of romantic love was brutally shattered. And as I write this, I note that one of the best small bits in the adaptation that is not from the novel is Bronn's comment when he wins his duel, and fits this model precisely; but saying more would be a spoiler.)

I don't think this was quite a deliberate approach in Martin's story, because it's very hard to see how either Arya or Cat's story arcs could be described usefully in those terms. The question I have, then, is: Does this seem like a reasonable observation that is actually grounded in the work, or is it just my pattern-seeking brain imposing a similarity that is not actually meaningful? That is, is my observation so vague that the workings of Kinbote's Law allow me to slap it willy-nilly on anything remotely similar, or does it actually enhance one's understanding of the novel?

Feel free to make comments like "Oh, yes, that pattern becomes more explicit in the later novels", but please please please try not to spoil the later novels for me. I really enjoy narrative surprises and I prefer to preserve them. If you feel you must make spoilery comments about the first novel, as a courtesy please mark them as such. Note that "this character survives into the later novels" might not be a massive spoiler for other works, but it certainly is for A Song of Ice and Fire!

Finally, I just wanted to mention that I read this entirely on my Palm Pre smartphone, using the freeware pReader application. Based on wordcounts, I estimate that the novel took 2500 screens. This is only the fourth novel I've read on my phone, and I think it was about as long as the other 3 taken together.

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Potentially minor spoilers for first book only:

I think the tension the world has between narrative expectations characters have and the realities they encounter is something Martin is doing deliberately and rather well. I would argue that in Cat's case she's already made the adjustments to having her marriage not fit the expectations she had as a girl, and not all of them are particularly sensible; also, depending on Jon's actual parentage (I hold that the evidence for a very convincing theory other than what is generally believed is solidly established early in the first book and makes sense of the apparent gaping inconsistency that is otherwise required in Ned's character, though if I am right Martin is on the edge of cheating with Ned's POV) whereas Arya wanting to be a warrior-queen has something of the same scale of crashing into reality during the journey south.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

Minor spoilers for Arya: Ned in fact bends the story of the world around Arya's narrative hopes, and it's one of the few things in the first novel that works out at all well--at least, better than the most likely alternative had he not done so.