Paper: Tragedy and the Fantasy Genre
Modern fantasy has experienced an evolution, aligning itself with its classic counterparts, wherein the greatness and the darkness of the human condition are showcased through excessive tragedy. This paper will focus on and explore certain themes that have been integrated into mainstream modern fantasy in recent years along those lines. One specific author—George R. R. Martin (whose fantasy world was described as “vile” in a New York Times article and who has been hailed as the “American Tolkein” by Time magazine [Smith, E1]) has masterfully employed tragedy and horror as a means of conveying the story.
There has always been an element of fantasy in the human consciousness; collections of fairy tales, nursery rhymes, and epic cycles like Beowulf and Gilgamesh have long been prevalent in every human culture on this planet. We all have an escapist in us, an inner adolescent that loves to fade into the various Middle-Earths that have sprang up over the years. And it has come to pass that these are delightful places to escape to, for the most part—the peaceful and rustic Shire; Camelot, a shining castle upon a shining city; the golden hall of Herot, symbol of all that had been great of men.
And why not? These places are ciphers of bygone greatness, evoking a surprising nostalgia in the reader and touching on our collective consciousness.
And woven through each of these places is a black thread of tragedy and terror. The Shire is pillaged, scoured and burned, and Bilbo Baggins’s much beloved “party tree” is cut down.
A child of incest, Mordred, and the betrayal of loyal companions Guinevere and Lancelot undoes Camelot and breaks the Round Table.
The monster Grendel turns the Golden Hall of Herot into a slaughterhouse.
There is an inherent darkness in these tales, and in many ancient yarns, be they fairy tales or otherwise. Who could forget the story of Hansel and Gretel, imprisoned in cages and fattened up for the slaughter? And the manner of their escape—pushing their witch captor into an oven and baking her alive.
It is my opinion that modern fantasy is finally realizing this aspect of its past, and George R. R. Martin is speeding the process along. It is achieving a depth worthy of the adjective “epic” that can only be achieved through the complete polarization of the story through extreme tragedy, utter ruination, the destruction of the once peaceful and contented lives of the characters.
I am going to reiterate and expand upon the aforementioned examples from The Lord of the Rings, The King Arthur legends, and Beowulf. I am then going to compare these examples to some taken from the first three books in Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire saga, titled A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and A Storm of Swords respectively. My intent is to show the correlation of the theme of tragedy in fantasy carried through in this modern epic as compared to classics.
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
While the questing hobbits were away, their home had been turned from a rural utopia into a gray, developed wasteland. The land had been clear-cut, and its people had been more-or-less enslaved. There were very little trees left, and the hobbits had fallen under the iron fist of Sarumon and his cohort Grima Wormtongue. (Tolkein, 300-328) This is a major paradigm shift for all involved, and is, quite possibly, the greatest tragedy that could have befallen the inhabitants of the Shire, short of death. Their way of life had been destroyed, and their happy freedom had turned to servitude. The hobbits eventually retake their home, but the cost is high, and their way of life is forever changed. There are many tragedies within tragedies in this situation; the innocence of the hobbits of the Shire had been lost; emblematic staples of their culture (the Party Tree) were destroyed.
A Clash of Kings
The strongest parallel to this occurs towards the end of A Clash of Kings, when the ancient holdfast of the Stark family, Winterfell, is besieged and taken through treachery and burned to its stone foundations. (Clash, 917-930) The heartbreak of this act is astounding. Winterfell as a symbol had always been a stalwart thing, unchanging, reassuring, as old as the land itself and as fixed. It had served as a bastion for the Starks for thousands of years, and many dear to the Stark family (The family learned man, “Maester” Luwin, and the castleton, Rodrik Cassel, among many others) died with it. But underneath the human and material toll of this calamity came an even harsher blow to the scattered surviving Starks—a sense of homelessness and despair, exile from a land that once was theirs. A feeling of having no place in the world.
Beowulf:
The Grendel was an ambiguous monster, a thing that crept from the dank marshes while the men of Herot feasted and pursued their merriment. When they passed into a stupor, Grendel came and slaughtered. It did this on many nights, and the men of Herot were hard-pressed to defend themselves against such a ruthless and terrible beast. They were harried to sleeplessness and paranoia, and eventually even the best of them were laid to ruin by the beast. A hall that once rang with goodwill and laughter became a den of blood and misery, a place of the dead. (Lines 120-145)
A Storm of Swords
Analogous to the grim atmosphere found in Beowulf’s Herot is an event in Martin’s world called the Red Wedding, wherein major characters King Robb Stark, his mother Caitlin, and a large number of his host were slaughtered at his uncle Edmure’s wedding feast by a rival family, a horrific act that violated the ancient and holy hospitality accord, which stated that once one took of his host’s salt and wine he was free from harm. This attack came at the Stark family’s height of ease and happiness, and it was merciless and brutal. (Storm 236-256) The only monsters involved in this butchery, however, were human ambition and vengeance. Otherwise the two events are startlingly similar; an occasion for joy and merrymaking is turned into a bloodbath. This best illustrates my opinion of how polarization of the story conveys the greatest depth in epic fantasy; happiness turns swiftly to complete sorrow, making the story that much more profound.
Arthurian Legend
There are many accounts and descriptions of Mordred, the son and nephew to King Arthur. When Arthur discovered that he was, indeed, a child of his incest, he tried to have the child cast away, and failed. A good and just man turned into a child-killer in the shadow of incest—I can think of nothing more poignant.
Most agree upon Mordred’s brutish personality, lecherous tendencies and deceitful ways. He was found to be a conspirator against his own father, and eventually, fought against him in battle, wherein he was killed by Arthur after delivering his father an equally fatal blow. (British, 1)
Incest is usually a tragic twist in any tale, and a very complicating one—as the following example will reveal.
A Game of Thrones
The Stark family had been hosting the then King Robert and his menagerie, and most of the men had gone off for the day to hunt. Bran, the second-youngest Stark boy, was climbing about Winterfell’s towers as he was wont to do, when he came upon a disturbing sight: Queen Cersei and her twin brother Jamie, Lord Captain Commander of the Kingsguard, making love.
Jamie caught Bran staring, who in turn lost his footing upon the tower, slipped, and was saved from the ten story plunge by Jamie. The man was faced with a difficult decision. Allow the young Stark to spread the tale of their incest, or to simply let him drop.
Jamie let him drop. (Game 77-85) Bran did not die, but rather became a cripple, unable to walk, and remained in a coma for some time.
I find these examples to be intriguing. Here we have two knights, both sworn to defend the innocent, who do the exact opposite when confronted with incest of any nature and circumstance. It mutates them into something else entirely, and the results are disastrous and ultimately lead to tragedy. For Arthur, it created an enemy which would eventually undo him. For Jamie, it created a guilt that stayed with him quietly, slowly but gradually eating away at him.
In the end, both men destroyed a child’s life, and one man was undone by his own blood. That in itself is a monstrous act, disproportionate to the men’s personalities. And it was all brought about by incest.
Lancelot and Guinevere’s betrayal
Betrayal is the most heart-rending of tragedies, especially if the ones betraying are close to the character’s heart. It’s common knowledge that Lancelot, Arthur’s greatest knight and friend, eloped with Guinevere, Arthur’s beloved wife and queen. It is a classic betrayal, really, almost bordering on cliché. Because of this paper’s emphasis on tragedy, I believe that this classic (if not overly dwelled upon) aspect of the Arthurian legends should be analyzed.
And with that being said, there isn’t a whole lot to analyze. Arthur is betrayed, and as the legends go, Camelot and the land suffer.
There are many betrayals that occur in Martin’s saga. All aren’t necessarily tragic, but all culminate into a strife that eventually plunges the land into a civil war, which is tragic.
Several betrayals to note: The sacking of Winterfell, which I’ve already mentioned, was brought about by an approaching army which was thought to be allied to Winterfell and the Starks. The host got inside of Winterfell’s defenses through deceit. (Clash, 917-930) Also previously mentioned was the Red Wedding, where King Robb’s retinue and army was feasted under a flag of fellowship and marriage and then slaughtered while at their merriment. (Storm 236-256) Lastly is Eddard “Ned” Stark’s betrayal at the hands of the Small Council, the deceased King Robert’s closest advisors. Ned had discovered the truth about Queen Cersei’s children and their father, Jamie, her brother. He confronted the small council with this information, but they had been bought by Cersei, and instead arrested him on a trumped up charge of treason, and he was later beheaded. (Game, 523-529) This later event began the tumultuous succession of kings in the land, and ultimately split up the Stark children and set them on their series of misadventures and personal tragedies.
In summation, tragedy ties together a story like a fine black thread, testing the moral fiber of the characters and making them more complex while adding depth to the story. Traditional fantasy literature such as Beowulf, Arthurian legend, and the like regularly use tragedy as a kind of sauce, an ingredient that adds to the story so as to polarize it, giving it a taste of tragedy and horror and loss after happy times so as to emphasis the enormity of that loss, the extent of the damage done. The art has been practiced succinctly by George R. R. Martin, and by doing so he has brought modern fantasy literature in sync with the formula of the classics.
Beowulf (Trans). Raffel, Burton. New York: Signet, 1963.
Ford, David. “Sir Mordred: Arthurian Literary Character.” Early British Kingdoms. Nash Ford Publishing. 11/25/06. http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/bios/mordred.html
Martin, George R. R. A Clash of Kings. New York: Bantam, 1996.
—. A Game of Thrones. New York: Bantam, 1999.
—. A Storm of Swords. New York: Bantam, 2000.
Smith, Dinitia. “A Fantasy Realm Too Vile for Hobbits.” New York Times. 12 December 2005. E1.
Tolkein, J. R. R. Lord of the Rings. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.
Urgh.
Dark waves and wind, and the sour bite of bile on my tongue. Such is the passage west, across the sea which keeps her dead, Aeohras. There aren’t always such storms, though; sometimes the scowling clouds part and sunshine warms my face, like a memory of springtime in the deep of winter. Always, though, clouds reclaim the sun, and my brief respite from the ill-tempered sea comes to a rocking end.
My name is Michael uth’Braughle, and I am an exile.
For as far back as I can remember words have been the rock in my boot. They are my love and my bane, and, they often are my doorways.
I once contrived a rhyme that mocked the Lady Gentra, who at the time taught elocution and high-speech to the lordly-get of the castle. I’ve since forgotten how that ditty went, but know that it involved poetic license and a description of her hairy upper-lip and stubbornly thick eyebrow.
She intercepted that particular scrap of parchment as it circulated among my fellows, growing suspicious of their guarded looks and the muffled snorts of laughter. Red-faced and scowling (and that fierce brow amplified her terrifying look the way a looking glass turns sunlight into fire), Lady Gentra dragged me before Lord Allard’s steward, Mathis, a whey-faced little man with thinning straw hair and a tired air about him. He took one look at me—the only son of his lord’s staunchest bannerman, David uth’Braughle, who was almost a brother in truth—sighed, and led us into the Hall. It was a long walk to Marcos Allard, seated upon his massive chair of silver-veined black stone.
I was made to confess the reciting of my “bawdy verse,” and to beg forgiveness of the Lord of Blackmont, for surely such an affront upon his wife’s sister was an affront upon the lord himself.
He cut an imposing figure seated high upon his chair, gold-flecked hazel eyes staring down upon me.
“A poet, have we?” He said, his deep voice carrying on air heavy with incense and beeswax. He was of the North; their brogues are so fierce that it has often been said they split their firewood by singing to it. Many a man had been undone by that voice, which rang clear and brusque all at once, the inflection of a barbarian king at his court. I imagine my knees knocked together quite loudly, being but a sprat at the time. It must have shown on my face.
Very briefly, a smile lifted his features, threatening his lordly demeanor. He covered it by clearing his throat, but it relieved me to see, and I did not fear him when he composed himself. “You will apologize to Lady Gentra. She is doing her best to teach you some manners, little Braughle. Although,” he spared her a glance, and I heard her swallow with a click. “It doesn’t appear to be working.”
“Michael is a stubborn boy,” she said, bulling over my apology, trembling haughteur in her voice. “He hardly attends his lessons as the other children do. He neglects his studies to go traipsing through the woods. The woods!” Gentra said, as if I’d been caught making love to a sheep, as the tailor’s ‘prentice had the previous spring.
“He is his father’s boy, I’ll grant him that,” Lord Allard said. I knew, in my offhanded youngster’s way, that he and my father were said to be closer than brothers. I came to find out later just how far that claim reached. Each had saved the other’s life in the dozen or so battles and skirmishes they’d won together. When I was old enough to sit at their table, I found that they jested about it often and loudly, usually when they were deep in their cups.
“So,” he said, looking at me, “you’re a poet and a ranger, eh?” His face grew thoughtful. “Thank you for bringing this matter to me, Gentra; were David here he’d have wanted you to do the very thing. Leave us now, please. I’d like a word with young Michael.”
I looked up at Lady Gentra. Frustration at my light chastisement warred in her with indignity for being dismissed before me. Her eyes narrowed when she saw me staring. Bowing stiffly, she strode back across the length of the rectangular Hall, sweeping aside her skirts as she left through the opened door.
“Alas that darling wife isn’t an only child,” Allard muttered, rubbing his black-whiskered jaw. He looked at me then; really looked at me. The affection in his eyes was unmistakable, and I knew then as I hadn’t before how much he loved my father. “I was never much for studies, myself,” he said, smiling. “But you shouldn’t mock Gentra’s…unfortunate appearance. Thank Broc that my Deidre inherited the looks and wits; elsewise I might’ve married that.”
I laughed, and the Lord of Blackmont laughed with me. Were I any other whelp—even one of the scions of King Hartwaen— I’m sure he would’ve sent me to scrub the stables for mocking his sister-by-marriage. He was a lord who suffered no slight on his family and extended-family’s honor, and as I grew older I saw this policy of zero-tolerance enacted almost on a weekly basis.
But I was my father’s son, and my father had been away in the South for the better part of a year, representing Blackmont Castle and Lord Marcos Allard at Court.
The next day I was given a wooden sword with a lead core, and fitted with a thickly-padded gambeson which bore a black boar’s head upon a field of white, which was the sigil of my house. My studies were to be pruned, I learned. Gone, to my joy, were the tedious lectures on arithmetic and accounting and elocution. I fought to keep calligraphy and literature, which was taught by a young scribe with a rich Southron accent, who read the Jarl mon Khulian and Entrik mon Ceadhril uth-Ceadh in such a way that made them spring to life before me, with all their tales of graendals, dark queens, and warrior-men.
Lord Allard presented me the sword himself, walking the practice yard as a man might stroll through a garden to admire flowers. Most of the boys were older than me, and carried themselves as those born to the sword are wont to do, but it didn’t bother me. Lord Allard of Blackmont himself had placed the sword in my hands, and most of the lads, hailing from more common stock, saw this. Many vied for my friendship because of it, and went out of their way to instruct me on the proper stance, the proper way to strike, the proper everything.
Allard looked on, amusement twinkling in his hazel eyes.
Eventually Blackmont’s master-of-arms appeared in the yard, dust rising from his heavy step. He was a burly man with an even stronger brogue than Allard’s, biting off some words and drawling out others, hae ye no wits about yer head, and so on. He roared at the little crowd that had formed around me, and the boys scattered to their normal places and began sparring with an assortment of blunt weapons.
Eamon Tain was a war-hero by all accounts, and it was an honor to be trained under him. He tolerated nothing short of perfection in his boys; an awkwardly-held sword resulted in a bruised or broken hand, an unsatisfactory stance led to an undignified sprawl on the ground with scraped insteps besides.
At times we thought him cruel. But, when it came down to a scrap, the men he’d trained walked away. Those taught the sword by a softer hand often never walked again.
Luckily for me, I took to the sword as I’d taken to the quill: with ease. That’s not to say I was a natural; far from it. I can say, though, that that surly man never saw the need to break my hand, or to expose my faulty stance with a trip to the dirt.
“This’n a bit young for the yard, Lord Allard?” He asked, eyeing me up and down. I must’ve looked quite the sight, swallowed up in that gambeson.
“David Braughle’s lad? He’ll keep up. I’ve a mind to groom him for the rangers, when he comes of age.”
And with that, my training began.
Those earlier days were the best of them. The spring of my thirteenth year, my father returned at the head of a hundred men, the black boar of Braughle caught high in the Northern air. We waited for him in the courtyard, Allard and his lady Katheryn, sour Gentra and the rest of the household, and myself, arrayed as a squire in my finest leathers and belt-synched white tunic.
It occurs to me now that I’ve left out quite an important person in this story; my mother. And lest it be said that I am some high-lord’s whoreson, got upon a woman of common stock, my mother died when I was little older than a babe at her breast. I don’t remember her, not the ghost of her scent or the color of her eyes. It has never grieved me, for what point is there to grieve when there are no memories over which to weep?
I suppose my father was all the more proud of me because of it. The column came to rest in the courtyard, with a veritable flood of squires and stable boys to attend to the horses and men-at-arms. My father dismounted, looking tired and dusty from the fortnight’s ride from the capital.
He saw me, then, in my squire’s doublet and the sword sheathed at my hip. My father’s eyes widened, and the sunniest grin I have ever seen threatened to split his face in two. He charged over, his weariness forgotten, and crushed me to his chest in an embrace.
“Where have you put my son, Marcos?” He laughed, breathless. “For surely this man is Ceadhril come again!”
I didn’t need to see Marcos Allard to know that he matched my father’s grin, inch for inch.
That night we dined—feasted, more like!—on a score of roasted suckling piglets which were stuffed with lamb, roasted onion and cabbage, garlic potatoes and collard greens. My cup was filled with strong cider, and before the night was through I was as rip-roaring drunk as the best of them.
I was the youngest at the table, and felt only a little out of place among my father’s personal guard and Marcos Allard’s finest. It was no matter, though; a conversation was struck between myself and a trio of young riders sitting around me, and they went out of their way to make made me feel welcome at the table.
The ladies had long since excused themselves, and taking my cue from Marcos, stood and called for silence. If you haven’t already noticed, Marcos Allard had an explosive sense of humor. A dozen and more pairs of eyes were on me, the firelight dancing and feverish in all of them, and I knew then the hectic goodwill of intoxication.
Breathing deep, I began to recite the poem I’d written three years past, the ode to Lady Gentra’s facial hair. I did a good job of it, I must say; my lessons with the Southron scribe had truly proved their worth.
The table erupted in hysterics. Father’s clean-shaven face was nigh purple, and the Lord of Blackmont’s head was on the table with the remains of his dinner, shoulders heaving with great sobs of laughter. The trio of young men—Galdrid, Jacob and Paul, I later learned—fell over each other, clutching their stomachs. I was proud of myself, to be sure—I had moved men to strong emotion with my words. A poet couldn’t ask for more.
I had just taken my seat, immensely pleased with myself, when a voice cut through the rabble.
“Would you use that sword you wear to cut onions, young Braughle?”
The table quieted some, with occasional sniffles of laughter still leaking from a man or three. A man seated near the end had spoken up—a Northerner by the look and sound of him. His grey hair was done up in thick braids, as was his salt-and-pepper beard.
Father laughed one final time, wiping his eyes. He clapped me on the shoulder, inclining his head to the gray-haired man.
“There sits Arghil uth’Schemacle—he is my bard. You’d do well to ignore that old bear, my boy,” he said loudly, to more laughter. “Got his paw caught in a honeytrap, as bards are wont to do, and has never been the same since.”
Lord Allard supplemented: “A woman’s honeytrap, mind!”
The man named Arghil laughed along with them, but his eyes grew serious once the laughter died down.
“Would you, lad?”
“Would I what?” I asked, growing irritated. I glanced to Father, but he seemed to be onto a different subject entirely with Marcos, and they laughed and were lost to the world.
“Would you use that sword at your side to cut onions?” He was looking intently at me, candle-shadows playing across his craggy face.
I decided to humor him, being pleasantly drunk.
“If this onion attacked me, or slighted my family’s good name, then yes, I’d cut the bastard in two.” I sat back, thinking myself cleverer than Shemal the coyote-king. The jape wasn’t lost on the graying bard, for his eyes betrayed amusement even while his mouth remained an unsmiling line. He quaffed his cider, and that was the last I heard from him that night.
The following morning father and I broke our fasts in the dining hall, bleary-eyed and groggy. My stomach felt then like the Aeohras Ocean feels now, roiling about and unsettled. I decided on a mug of hot water and lemon. Father added a dash of clear spirits from his flask.
“Helps with the illness,” he said, smiling. He smiled often, being back from the Southron court, among those he loved. It was often said that he despaired to the point of falling on his sword when my mother died; the thought of his son being orphaned is what stopped him, if I am to believe the tales.
Just your run-of-the-mill self-involved bullshit post, just to get it out of the way.
(Written 10 / 16 / 06)
Morning, what a lovely time to write. The sunlight is mellow, the air is cool, and there’s a soft sea-breeze rustling the drying leaves of the trees. Had some thirsty dreams in which I drank a lot of water, woke up to find a rat in my toilet bowl. I suspect foul play.
Car didn’t start just now, so I’m giving the stupid thing time to gather its thoughts and try again, so I don’t miss bloody ethics class. There’s a slender gray cat that frequents our yard, who sat there staring at me as my car refused to start. She’s fine-boned and a lovely shade of gray, with darker stripes and emerald-olive eyes. Tricksy, too; I crouched down in the gravel and held out my hand, and she came forward, rubbed her head against it as felines are wont to do, and sashayed away two steps, lay down, rubbed her back on the gravel, righted herself, and looked right at me. When I moved, she moved, doing that same little flip and wiggle onto her back before eyeing me again, and each time I got up to move to her she moved just out of hand-reach. Playful little bugger.
My stomach’s upset from those blighted jalapeno pretzels. Never again—those things are a menace.
7:45 PM. Stopped work on the story. I did too much too fast, and it was too damned grandiose for its own good. Collapsed under its own weight right off the bat. I’m keeping the theme for other works, but until then, it’s shelved.
Shit, I’m almost nervous about writing in the modern, real world again. I may have forgotten how. Need to get up my reading again…get rid of my TV if necessary.
It seems that I’m destined for a bad luck—either because of poor decision-making on my part or circumstances apparently designed by a vengeful god to seriously fuck with me. (Side bar thought: I’m a terribly selfish person. Mike from Jacksonville U was right.) I’ve always wanted the girls I couldn’t have, either because of circumstance, or because they didn’t want me back. That isn’t to say that I haven’t had women; the wrong ones, though, have found a way into my life and have stayed, like a venereal disease picked up in Bangkok.
Delilah, forty years young, completely fucked in skull. Breanna, calling me drunk and telling me about her fucking fiancé, her house in Missouri and her recent DUI.
I’m getting dangerously close to despair over my stupidity and my own stubborn desires. I’ve passed by all the right girls for my own romantic ideal ones, and have been alone for my efforts. My own fault.
One woman called me a closet-romantic. I wanted to tell her to go fuck herself, and maybe I should’ve.
