1“Winter is coming” is indisputably one of the most emblematic quotes from George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (from 1996 onward), a fantasy saga composed of five novels—and two more are planned—taking place in an imaginary world mostly inhabited by humans, but also by all sorts of creatures such as dragons, giants, and other supernatural beings. The plot is divided into three main storylines: a dynastic crisis derived from the Wars of the Roses which affected Britain in the 15 th century, Daenerys Targaryen’s journey to reconquer the Iron Throne on which her family once sat, and the living-dead army of the White Walkers threatening the stability on the continent of Westeros. The saga gained a worldwide fame thanks to its TV adaptation Game of Thrones (2011-2019).
- 1 As defined by the Oxford English Dictionary.
- 2 Diamond, Jared, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive (New York: Viking Penguin, 2015), (...)
- 3 “Ce sera tout l’objet de la collapsologie, que nous définissons donc comme l’exercice transdiscipli (...)
2If the phrase “winter is coming” has fascinated readers and spectators alike, it might be because of the mysteries it conceals, notably because of its multiple layers of meaning: a natural and supernatural one, on the one hand, and a political one, on the other. It can therefore be read as a sylleptic structure, that is “[a] figure by which a word, or a particular form or inflection of a word, is made to refer to two or more other words in the same sentence, while properly applying to or agreeing with only one of them […], or applying to them in different senses (e.g. literal and metaphorical).”1 Both the literal and the figurative meanings as well as the different storylines lead to a global phenomenon: a systemic collapse, that is “a drastic decrease in human population size and/or political/economic/social complexity, over a considerable area, for an extended time.”2 The term of “collapse” has given way to a new field of study whose more general definition has been given by Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens: “This will be the whole purpose of collapsology, that we define as the transdisciplinary study of the collapse of our industrial civilization and of what might come next, based on two cognitive modes, which are reason and intuition, and on scientific works of standing.”3 “Collapsology” focuses on the progressive or sudden crumbling of modern civilizations by basing its analysis on the collapse of ancient societies. Collapsological fiction depicts imaginary collapses happening either in a primary world, that is in our reality, which often tends to correspond to the genre of science fiction, or in a secondary world, that is an invented universe, which is more proper to fantasy literature. Collapsological fiction can thus serve both as a prediction for and as a meditation on the potential reasons for the collapses in our society, perhaps as a way to understand and therefore prevent them from happening for real.
3Martin’s books are identified as fantasy novels—because the supernatural is accepted by many characters and is not to be questioned by the reader—and can be more precisely considered as dark medieval fantasy novels: “medieval” because the action takes place in a medieval-like setting borrowing some characteristics which are typical of the Middle Ages—or which correspond to medieval stereotypes—such as the dynastic monarchies or chivalric codes; and “dark” because it is suffused with an excess of violence, death, blood, and sex, and does not typically offer a happy ending. In the light of a collapsological reading, it can thus be asserted that the different collapses intertwining the multiple layers of meaning accentuate the mystification of the phrase “winter is coming” and participate in the establishment of a gloomy atmosphere, which comes to determine the horror-like genre of the saga. In addition, the progressive construction of the expression emphasizes the looming collapses which threaten Martin’s invented world. The use of the present continuous tense and, supposedly, the diegetic ramblings which lengthen the story, give prominence to the dismal, impending collapse.
4From then on, as the multiple collapses define the genre itself and give the story its rhythm, I will argue that the sylleptic phrase “winter is coming” encapsulates the dynamics of collapse which paradoxically participate in the de-structuring of the universe in which the characters evolve and in the structuring of the novels. I will first shed light on the dynamics of the saga relying on the (super)natural threat, which will then lead me to concentrate on the links between political disintegration and family crumbling. Finally, despite the inevitable apocalypse, it seems that a few characters have the possibility to prevent the ultimate collapse from happening. As I intend to base my analysis on the literary saga, this article relies on the period which precedes the ultimate collapse taking place in the last season of the TV series.
- 4 Martin, George R. R., A Game of Thrones (New York: Bantam Books, 2011), 208.
5In the first novel, A Game of Thrones (1996), when Tyrion goes to the Wall and meets the Lord Commander, the latter warns him: “When I was a boy, it was said that a long summer always meant a long winter to come. This summer has lasted nine years, Tyrion, and a tenth will soon be upon us. Think on that.”4 The reader learns that summer has been lasting for many years and that a long winter is about to replace it, which brings to the fore the specificity of the season cycle in Martin’s universe. Indeed, the looming menace of an endless winter actually questions the cyclic conception of seasons and suggests the possible advent of a purely linear conception of time. The inhabitants’ anxiety thus stems from a very tangible fact: they are afraid they will not have enough crops to survive through the long-lasting winter to come and that they will die of starvation. Apart from an agricultural penury, this global freezing also threatens, as a consequence, to engender important waves of migration: the tribes of outlaws, “the Wildlings,” who have been living beyond the Wall for many years, are progressively coming south.
- 5 Martin, A Game of Thrones, 208.
6Nevertheless, this migration is not just caused by some natural disaster. Indeed, even from the very beginning of the saga, the phrase is imbued with deeper and more metaphorical meaning: “Winter is coming and when the Long Night falls, only the Night’s Watch will stand between the realm and the darkness that sweeps from the north.”5 Interestingly, it is hard to distinguish here the literal from the figurative meaning of the “Long Night” and “the darkness” to come, emphasizing once again the entanglement between a natural change and a supernatural danger. Thus, this global freezing proves to be all the more dangerous as, behind this disquieting natural phenomenon, a supernatural threat is actually concealed. Winter in fact paves the way for the supernatural menace embodied by the living-dead army of the White Walkers.
- 6 Martin, George R. R., A Game of Thrones, 234: “Stone, she told herself. They are only stone, even I (...)
- 7 Martin, A Game of Thrones, 240.
- 8 Martin, A Game of Thrones, 240.
- 9 Martin, A Game of Thrones, 240.
7Yet, the menace that they represent is hardly believed in by most of the characters, making their arrival to the Wall even more threatening. As a matter of fact, the different political actors and actresses of Westeros do not take that danger seriously since many of them do not believe in the supernatural. In fantasy novels, magic is usually an element that the fictional characters acknowledge as being true and part and parcel of their universe. By contrast, in A Song of Ice and Fire, the supernatural is, at best, buried in people’s memories, and it constitutes a mythologized, dream-like past. In other words, magic and legendary creatures are thought to belong to a remote time. For instance, when Daenerys Targaryen is offered three dragon’s eggs at her wedding, she is told the eggs are petrified—so unable to hatch—and is told that the dragons are dead.6 When Bran Stark is lying on his bed, paralyzed because of his fall from the tower, his wet nurse insists on telling him stories to keep his mind occupied. “My favorites were the scary ones,”7 he says. Old Nan then responds: “Oh my sweet summer child, […] what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north.”8 A causal relation seems to spring up from Old Nan’s stories: she draws a parallel between winter and fear, and between winter and storytelling. She indeed narrates these stories referring to the mythologized past as gloomy fairy tales: “Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man.”9
- 10 Martin, A Game of Thrones, 16.
- 11 Martin, A Game of Thrones, 25.
8Because these “winter’s tales” are depicted as naive and childish, the supernatural threat is often discredited, especially by adults. For example, Ned Stark laughs at these stories, whether he addresses his son (“Old Nan has been telling you stories again”)10 or his wife (“You listen to too many of Old Nan’s stories. The Others are as dead as the children of the forest, gone eight thousand years. Maester Luwin will tell you they never lived at all. No living man has ever seen one”).11 Yet, not every adult denies the existence of such supernatural forces: the men of the Night’s Watch, a military order whose role is to protect the continent of Westeros from any threat coming from beyond the Wall, are the first ones to warn the population of the threat to come.
9Their duty is to protect the Seven Kingdoms from any attack or invasion, and they are the first men to be confronted to the supernatural: A Game of Thrones opens on the discovery of the White Walkers’ return by three members of the Night’s Watch. Yet, their role is often questioned or even despised by many other characters, especially by the Southerners who live far from the Wall and do not feel concerned by their activity: the further, the safer. Tyrion Lannister, for example, condescendingly mocks the ancestral tradition of the Watch and questions the real use of such a protection:
- 12 Martin, A Game of Thrones, 124-125.
The Night’s Watch is a midden heap for all the misfits of the realm. […] Sullen peasants, debtors, poachers, rapers, thieves, and bastards like you all wind up on the Wall, watching for grumkins and snarks and all the other monsters your wet nurse warned you about. The good part is there are no grumkins or snarks, so it’s scarcely dangerous work. The bad part is you freeze your balls off, but since you’re not allowed to breed anyway, I don’t suppose that matters.12
- 13 The Wall has often been described as a derivative of Hadrian’s Wall. See for instance Pavlac, Brian (...)
Tyrion diminishes their importance by underlining the fact that many Brothers are criminals or low-born men who had no choice but to join the Watch and despises their mission calling forth imaginary creatures which populate children’s stories in Westeros, such as “grumkins” or “snarks”. Furthermore, Tyrion is not the only one who disbelieves their importance. The other characters’ mockeries or scornful remarks demonstrate that most of them are not ready to acknowledge such a dreadful truth. A general denial thus pervades the beginning of the saga, a denial underscored by the motif of the Wall.13 The colossal construction was built thousands of years before to protect the inhabitants of Westeros against the White Walkers. Everything beyond the Wall is perceived as a remote land belonging to a remote time, somehow turning the ancestral fortification into a legendary and timeless entity which separates Westeros from its mythologized past. The Wall therefore proves to be an allegory of the inhabitants’ blindness or denial, who refuse to give any credit to the different warnings they receive as they naively feel protected by it, as stated by Pablo Servigne:
- 14 “Un peu à la manière d’une digue, la civilisation s’imagine abritée derrière cette immense construc (...)
As if it were an embankment, the civilization imagines they are sheltered behind this huge construction. Humanity spends a lot of energy and materials to build walls, which stand for a while. But walls are always on the brink of collapse. […] The effort of men to protect themselves from nature seems derisory, but also arrogant, presumptuous and demiurgic. To think that we can definitely stop things thanks to a wall is an illusion. Everything is cyclic and fluid in the living world. The wall only slows down that inevitable movement.14
- 15 Harman, Greg, “Your Brain on Climate Change: Why the Threat Produces Apathy, Not Action”, The Guard (...)
- 16 Harman, “Your Brain on Climate Change”.
10Therefore, if the Wall were eventually destroyed in the following books, it would constrain the inhabitants to face the threat and would symbolize the collapse of a reassuring fantasy, as it epitomizes the materialization of a cognitive barrier which comforts the inhabitants in their ignorance: what one cannot see does not exist. Furthermore, because of the slow and long-lasting arrival of winter—highlighted by the progressive aspect of the structure—the (super)natural catastrophe is not worrying enough for the people living in Westeros, a lack of reaction explained by Daniel Gilbert, Professor of Psychology at Harvard: “[…] threats that develop over decades rather than seconds circumvent the brain’s alarm system.”15 In this regard, Gilbert ironically claims: “Many environmentalists say climate change is happening too fast. No, it’s happening too slowly. It’s not happening nearly quickly enough to get our attention.”16
- 17 As defined by the online Oxford English Dictionary.
- 18 Martin, A Game of Thrones, 24.
- 19 Martin, A Game of Thrones, 323.
11If the natural and supernatural threats are neglected by the vast majority of the characters at the beginning of the saga, it is partly due to the fact that their obsession with power leads them to disregard this menace. Because “winter is coming” constitutes their motto, the Starks are unsurprisingly close to this phrase, as though the collapse of their family were unavoidable. Interestingly, the seat and home of the House of Stark is called “Winterfell.” Although the toponomy of the word can refer to “a hill in winter,” a “fell” being understood as “a hill or stretch of high moorland, especially in northern England,”17 “fell” can also be read as the preterite tense of the verb “to fall,” which would highlight that winter already fell in the North, as though the Starks’ doomed fate were sealed from the beginning. Moreover, Ned Stark is the first character to say this phrase in the first book. When he utters the words “winter is coming,”18 he mostly has the Lannisters’ scheme in mind—that is, of killing Robert Baratheon so that Joffrey could succeed him—proving the ambiguity of a phrase that is imbued with political meaning. The dynastic crisis is triggered by the bitterness of past feuds between the different families, lying at the core of the political fragmentation in Westeros. The self-centeredness of the dynastic families accentuates their egotism and craving for power: their hubris constitutes the dynamics of political collapse. When Ned Stark understands that Jon Arryn, the former Hand of the King, has been poisoned because he had discovered that Joffrey was actually not Robert’s son, and that he has therefore no legitimacy to the throne, he thinks: “Wheels within wheels within wheels.”19 Here, he emphasizes the underlying political machinery on which Westeros is built, shedding light on the sly plots and treasons hidden below. This image can be reminiscent of the opening credits of the TV adaptation, in which several gearwheels erect the different places of the Seven Kingdoms, as though it constituted a whole. This also points to the weakness of the realm: as the wheels are all interconnected, if one does not turn, the whole machinery no longer works, and the entire system fails.
- 20 Servigne, Stevens, Comment tout peut s’effondrer.
- 21 “[…] pour dissimuler l’égoïsme crasse d’une telle fuite hors du monde commun, il fallait absolument (...)
12The elite’s obsession with internal and external turmoil—i.e. with the political, economic and social crises that keep striking the world of the saga—acts as the ultimate cognitive barrier blinding them from the (super)natural danger to come. This blindness or inaction is highly reminiscent of our contemporary reality. The concept of “denial” has been theorized by many critics who have focused their work on environmental and political issues, such as collapsologists Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens,20 or as anthropologist and sociologist Bruno Latour: “[…] to conceal the coarse selfishness of such a runaway from the common world, the threat behind this frantic evasion needed to be completely rejected—that’s the denial of climate change.”21 From a collapsologic perspective, A Song of Ice and Fire can thus be read as a metaphor for climate change and a (distorted) mirror to our ecological reality. When asked about his thoughts concerning these issues, the author replied:
- 22 Sims, Jamie, “George R. R. Martin Answers Times Staffers’ Burning Questions”, The New York Times, 1 (...)
It’s kind of ironic because I started writing “Game of Thrones” all the way back in 1991, long before anybody was talking about climate change. But there is—in a very broad sense—there’s a certain parallel there. And the people in Westeros are fighting their individual battles over power and status and wealth. And those are so distracting them that they’re ignoring the threat of “winter is coming,” which has the potential to destroy all of them and to destroy their world. And there is a great parallel there to, I think, what I see this planet doing here, where we’re fighting our own battles. We’re fighting over issues, important issues […] But none of them are important if, like, we’re dead and our cities are under the ocean. So really, climate change should be the number one priority for any politician who is capable of looking past the next election. But unfortunately, there are only a handful of those. […]22
13Martin eventually asserts that just a few leaders dare give pride of place to environmental issues over political ones, just like the leaders in the saga who put personal or family interests over collective ones. The Lannisters pitilessly seize power and are prepared to every sacrifice to keep it and to protect their family. Their actions do not only rely on a mere endocentrism, but also on the desire to conceal the carnal relationship between the twins, Cersei and Jaime. Interestingly, the revelation of their secret would not only impact their family’s reputation, but also their legitimacy to the throne, since Joffrey is not Robert Baratheon’s son, but Jaime’s. In that regard, the political and familial interests are closely intertwined since the unveiling of the endogamy within their clan would lead to the collapse of their dynasty.
- 23 Martin, George R. R., A Clash of Kings (New York: Bantam Books, 2011), 51.
14In addition, although the Starks might be presented as a “good” or noble family in the saga, they still go to war with the Lannisters once Ned is beheaded to take revenge and to separate the North from the rest of the realm, the Northerners declaring Rob Stark as King in the North. Moreover, following Robert’s death, Stannis Baratheon also claims his legitimacy to the Iron Throne, knowing that Joffrey is actually not his dead brother’s son, and therefore, should not be the rightful heir. From then on, Tyrion Lannister ironizes about these several claims for power: “All sorts of people are calling themselves kings these days.”23 He puts forward here the illegitimacy of the multiple claims to the throne, implicitly his own nephew’s as well, and underlines how preposterous the situation is. He questions the authenticity of power and deconstructs its sacred symbolism by emphasizing the absence of unicity in this quest for the throne: if anyone can declare themselves king, what is power worth? Thus, the libido dominandi of the dynasties’ members participates in the collapse of the established order.
15Despite the egotism—or endocentrism—mostly responsible for the collapse to come, some characters seem predestined to confront the menace. As in most fantasy novels, the confrontation against the main evil threat—embodied here by the White Walkers—seems to be inevitable. In A Song of Ice and Fire, the wait for the expected battle, encapsulated in the motto “winter is coming,” constitutes the dynamics of collapse structuring the saga. Among the numerous characters, two protagonists particularly stand out to face the menace: Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow. Indeed, Daenerys is given pride of place in the very title of the literary saga. The dichotomy between “ice” and “fire” highlights two major forces, the White Walkers and Daenerys’s dragons, thus revealing that the saga is structured by an important opposition between two natural elements, incarnated by two supernatural powers: the threat of an “icy” collapse which might be avoided thanks to the promise of a “burning” opponent. In that light, “winter is coming” appears as a prophetic prediction announcing the dirge-like “song” of war, narrating the fight between two (super)natural enemies capable of engendering a global collapse. However, in the five novels already published, Daenerys’s personal quest only revolves around her own survival, her conquest for the Iron Throne and her hubris, coupled with her ignorance, which blinds her to the real evil threat. Therefore, even a powerful protagonist who could face the threat remains obsessed with her personal interests: individualism thus seems to favor the progress of a dynamic of collapse.
- 24 Martin, George R. R., A Dance with Dragons (New York: Bantam Books, 2011), 104.
- 25 “[…] l’écologie est une manière de prendre du recul afin d’envisager toutes les interactions, non s (...)
16On the contrary, as he was born a bastard, Jon Snow has neither personal nor political aspiration. Although he is accepted by his father, Ned Stark, and by his brothers and sisters, he is rejected by his adoptive mother, Catelyn Stark. In the first chapters of A Game of Thrones, he suffers from a lack of identity and therefore, rather than living a solitary life, he chooses to become a Brother of the Night’s Watch and to devote his life serving to the community. Yet, he discovers there the White Walkers’ existence and decides to go beyond the Wall to find out more about them. He therefore intends to meet with the Wildlings, to learn more about the danger beyond the Wall and to eventually offer them protection. He is invested with a quest in which he actually puts common interests over personal ones. He embodies multiple personalities: he acts as a soldier protecting the Seven Kingdoms, as an ecological activist warning and fighting against the (super)natural threat, and as a democratic leader fighting for the sake of equality and liberty; and, as a Brother of the Night’s Watch, he brings fraternity to the fore. Yet, at the end of A Dance with Dragons, the last novel of the saga published by Martin, Snow becomes the leader of the Watch when he is named Lord Commander. Contrary to many leaders in the saga, he is actually chosen to become a leader and has not imposed his authority over the other members: “They chose me to be their lord commander. The Wall is mine, and the Watch as well.”24 However, when Snow decides to welcome the immigrants coming from beyond the Wall, he is stabbed by his Brothers of the Watch, turning him into a sacrificial figure: he dies for his ecological values, unshared by the other members who prefer murder over disturbing truths. In that light, he can be perceived as an allegory of the ecological figure who, contrary to the other characters obsessed by their political ambitions and personal interests, has had his “epiphany.”25 In addition, although the name “Snow” is commonly used to call bastards in the North, it also turns out to be a powerful natural symbol, which may stand for Jon’s purity, a quality which makes him a stereotypical hero, but which can also refer to his frozen emotions that enable him to go beyond his own personal desires. He is consequently associated with winter and has definitely a role to play to prevent the apocalypse from happening. It thus seems that the dynamics of collapse participate in the construction of his identity.
- 26 Shakespeare, William, The Winter’s Tale, 2.1.26-7. Bourus, Terri, Gabriel Egan, John Jowett, Gary T (...)
- 27 “Les initiatives de transition ont remarquablement bien compris que la bataille (et l’effort à fair (...)
- 28 “Travailler l’imaginaire, c’est cela : se trouver des récits qui permettent de ne pas entrer en dis (...)
17In A Song of Ice and Fire then, “winter is coming” appears as a sylleptic phrase which participates in the construction of the preapocalyptic world. The syllepsis mingles the literal and metaphorical meanings since the natural catastrophe, the supernatural threat and the political instabilities are eventually all connected to one another in the novels. These dynamics of collapse somehow structure the fantasy saga since the tentacular intertwined stories all lead to a final confrontation and even define the characters’ identity. A Song of Ice and Fire may not only be read as a mere “sad tale […] of sprites and goblins”26 but as one which mimics our reality. I suggest, therefore, that Martin is not solely the storyteller of a winter’s tale, but the author of a collapsological fiction which could also be defined as a “transition tale:”27 “That is how you shape imagination: by finding some tales which prevent us from entering into a cognitive dissonance and denial. ‘Let’s decolonize imagination,’ as stated by economist Serge Latouche. Writing, storytelling, imagining, making one feel something… there will be a lot of work for artists in the years to come.”28 Today, it is difficult to state clearly how the writer has planned to stage this final collapse since his literary saga is not over yet, but the novels surely set up a dystopian universe. “Winter is coming” somehow encapsulates Martin’s prophetic voice, offering a geopolitical comment on our contemporary society. The numerous and sometimes unexpected alliances between the rival families of Martin’s books are made impossible because of men’s and women’s individualistic hubris, and this lack of cooperation engenders the inevitable movement towards a global failure in Westeros. Yet, new alliances might ultimately emerge as some narratives are about to mingle, notably when Daenerys cross the ocean. This could bring some hope towards the extreme crisis, and thus raises the question of a possible resilience of this imaginary society.
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