Game of Thrones: A literary analysis

Guest Post by Siddhant Menon

Game of Thrones, the epic television (book) saga, definitely filled in the vacuum left behind by masterpieces such as Lord of the Rings for old timers and Harry Potter for the millennials; violence and romance with a dash of supernatural elements, GOT had it all. Along with generic appeals to the masses, however, the Television series Game of Thrones also made use of a TON of truly genius literary devices and archetypes and set them ablaze with new found creativity.

The anti-hero, the misunderstood monster, the beautiful vixen, the power-crazed king, the tragic knight, the damsel in distress. These are just a FEW of the literary archetypes that have been portrayed in the web of colourful characters presented to us in Game of Thrones.

But where GOT differs from traditional portrayals of such archetypes is the transformation of such archetypes into a different archetype altogether by the end of the show; every one of the Stark kids for instance.

And hence the overarching theme of this show has always been ‘character arcs’; the fancy word implying the transformation of characters with respect to their motivations in life, ambitions, and approaches to said ambitions.

Literature dictionary - 1) Character arc: The changes in a characters motivations and behaviours as the plot moves forward.

Now in a show like Game of Thrones, tracking a character’s arc could be quite a challenge given that the plot is not always presented to the viewer chronologically. Thus presenting newer, more exciting character storylines than we can traditionally expect.

In my personal taste in stories, the most interesting character to follow this trajectory is the character whose archetypical transformation is most intriguing. In the show Game of Thrones, such a character to me is Ser Jaime Lannister aka the King Slayer. So let’s use him as an example, however, the point is that this holds true for MOST Characters in Game of Thrones.

The story of Jaime Lannister involves multiple truths that are revealed to the viewer at different points of the story, thus presenting a transformation in OUR eyes as opposed to the transformation in the character himself. The transformation in the character might be an internal transformation, like what could be argued was happening with Jaime during his time in captivity with Brienne.

Now during these scenes, we as viewers are revealed to a lot of truth about Jaime’s personality, but these truths are not new, and hence Jaime himself is not transformed by our knowledge of his past.

However, during these scenes, due perhaps to the vulnerable condition Jaime was at this point of time, he was having internal breakthroughs on who he was as a person, and what his ‘oaths’ meant to him. This transformation reached a climax at the moment when Jaime jumped into the ‘bear den’ with brienne.

With no strength, and no plan in mind, Jaime jumped in to save Brienne. That was a transformational moment. This was the moment to me when Jaime went from ‘family’ to ‘honor’ in his mind, defying everything that his father Tywin had been trying to teach him all his life.'

Thus the first archetypical shift of Ser Jaime Lannister to me was from ‘Prince Charming’ to ‘Noble knight’.

Note: From this point onward I will use the phrase ‘Prince Charming’ to describe a personality archetype that is self-worthy, pompous, spoiled, talented but not worth his talents, type of personality. This is in no reference to any specific story character or movie character from history.

Speaking of internal transformations, it is interesting that when Qyburn is bandaging Jaime's hand, the conversation goes as such... 

“How many men have you killed my lord? …countless?”

-           - Countless has a nice ring to it.

"And how many men have you saved?"

-           - Half a million.. the population of King’s Landing.

Thus revealing a true realization of his own self, his worth; which in turn made him go back to save Brienne. Knowledge of one’s power can be a beautiful…and possibly dangerous thing.

The SECOND archetypical shift in Jaime Lannister, which most of the #GOT die-hard fans hated, was his final decision to leave behind his honor to go back to his family.

However, if we look at this in term of archetypes, at this point of time Jaime is a man of honor. He chose to fight for what was right, against all odds, and transformed from a “Prince Charming’ to a

Knoble Knight’. Then HOW is it possible that in the penultimate episode of the show the character we had started to love, go back from a 'Knight' to 'Prince Charming'.

Well… The truth according to me is that he didn’t go back to his old archetype at all. Instead his transformation carried on in the forward direction. He went from being honorable to the world, to honor towards love.

Love is an individualistic feeling, as opposed to honor which is pluralist...

Love might not always be honorable.  At least you can’t deny that DEFINITELY holds true in Jaime Lannister’s life history; that loving someone does not always equate to doing the honorable thing.

So there was no resolution of the honor vs family (which to him was Cercei, same as love) dichotomy for Jaime.

In the aftermath of the war against the undead therefore, Jaime Lannister went from Ser Jaime, to Love-conquers-all Queensguard Lord Commander Ser Jaime Lannister. In archetypical transformations, the “Noble Knight” had evolved into “the Knight in Shining Armour”.

: ) : ( : |

Obviously, by my interpretation above, I don’t believe Jaime Lannister is making any big comeback in the show’s finale. But if opinions differ, please leave a reply ;)

Video Credits: The song was sung by me, Siddhant and the drawing is by my very talented friend Sanyukta -> Instagram: _Artysan_  -> Follow her account for some spectacular human emotions captured with a paper and some pencils. 

Thanks Sana for letting ramble my thoughts and share my love for this show on your blog :D