Reading the flames I: Fire vs Flame

[Archmaester_Aemma]

This is going to be an extensive multipart series investigating the colour symbolism surrounding fire and flames in ASOIAF – I will be reading the flames *ba dun tss*. Yes, that's about as far as my punnery goes - sorry.

My approach:

The essays will probably read something like an A-level English Literature essay, because that is the extent of my training in literary criticism, but I think it will be more fun, because it’s ASOIAF. In these essays, I will get very, very involved in the symbolism and patterns tied to Martin’s choice to use specific words or word pairs in relation to one another – colours being of primary importance for this series, but I have some other single-word or phrase patterns that I want to analyse. I think that this type of analysis is fruitful because it is the primary literary technique I got taught about in school and I’ve managed to write a hell of a lot of coherent material by doing so, but I know that not everyone likes to analyse ASOIAF that way. Of course, I am totally cool with that, but this is just fair warning that this is my approach and that if you don’t like that then you probably won’t like my essay(s) and I didn’t want you to feel let down that I’m not actually talking about prophecy or trying to pin down the explicit structure of magic (if such a thing exists).

Similarly, I don’t manage to get far in the way of plot predictions either, for two reasons. Reason One: individual words don’t tend to matter from a plot perspective. They can tell us a lot about particular scene dynamics and who is playing what role and what that means for Character A at that particular moment in time, but it doesn’t hold much predictive power for the series as a whole. Reason Two: the colour symbolism only started making coherent sense after reading the theory proposed by LmL, linked here. As such, most of the predictions that I did find are also present in his theory and he does a far better job of presenting The Big Picture and the larger themes and real-world influences that feed in to that, so on cases where we agree, I will most likely just cite him.

However, as I said, we can learn a lot about the role of people within scenes by playing in to within each scene. We can learn about the importance of the scene itself to the narrative and how exactly that scene works in reference to character arcs and things like that: it may not have predictive power on an overarching narrative level, but sometimes important devils are hidden in those details.

Brief summary of Lucifer means Lightbringer’s theory

LmL's theory suggests that there were once two moons in the sky and that the second moon was struck and destroyed by a comet whilst in eclipse position, causing thousands of meteors to rain down on Planetos/Terros/ASOIAF earth. The debris from this collision and the collisions of the moon meteors with the planet collected in the atmosphere and caused the darkness remembered as the Long Night. These events are reflected in a variety of in-world myths, such as the Qartheen myth of the origin of dragons (the moon wandering too close to the sun is the moon in eclipse position and the moon birthing dragons is a frequently used real-life mythological depiction of meteors) and the myth of Lightbringer's forging, with Azor Ahai (the sun) wielding Lightbringer (the comet) against Nissa Nissa (the second moon) to create a flaming sword (another real-world depiction of meteors and comets). This sequence of events also appears to have played out on earth too, with the Azor Ahai figure sacrificing a Nissa Nissa figure to enter the weirwood trees and become a greenseer. Given that both myself and LmL are looking at Martin’s use of symbolism generally (although granted from different perspectives and with different aims), there are many crossovers and my interpretations are therefore heavily influenced by LmL’s.

This essay:

I will be looking very specifically at Martin's choice to use the words "fire" and "flame" and what this may mean. I believe there is a fundamental difference in the way George R.R. Martin utilises the words “fire” and “flame” in ASOIAF, one that mirrors the traditional duality of a protective or creative force and a treacherous or destructive force, respectively.

TL;DR: “Fire” tends to be used to describe the (pro)creative process and “flame” the destructive. This is echoed within magical processes (such as resurrection), characters points of view and within extended Lightbringer forging metaphors. This is not entirely a one-to-one relationship as descriptors (e.g. “flickering” relates to destructive moon meteors) or context (e.g. fire destroys during Ramsay’s sack of Winterfell but is associated with the re-birth of Bran as a greenseer) can clarify the “fire” or “flame”.

Contents: (will be edited to link to the particular post within the thread so you can follow the essay before going back to read the comments if you want )

Resurrection by fire and flame (below)

Points of View

The burning tree: fire

The burning tree: flame

The grey spaces

Resurrection by fire and by flame

Firstly, let's consider two of the known examples of fire resurrection we have in the series, Beric Dondarrion and Lady Stoneheart. Beric Dondarrion is resurrected with “fire”:

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“I have no magic, child. Only prayers. That first time, his lordship had a hole right through him and blood in his mouth, I knew there was no hope. So when his poor torn chest stopped moving, I gave him the good god’s own kiss to send him on his way. I filled my mouth with fire and breathed the flames inside him, down his throat to lungs and heart and soul. The last kiss it is called, and many a time I saw the old priests bestow it on the Lord’s servants as they died. I had given it a time or two myself, as all priests must. But never before had I felt a dead man shudder as the fire filled him, nor seen his eyes come open. It was not me who raised him, my lady. It was the Lord. R’hllor is not done with him yet. Life is warmth, and warmth is fire, and fire is God’s and God’s alone.” (Arya VII, ASOS)

Notably, the only occurrence of the word “flame” occurs when Thoros performs what he thinks just another death rite i.e. a ritual associated with the affirmation of the destructive force. These “flames” transform into “fire” as Beric Dondarrion’s life is restored to him, reflecting Beric’s transcendence of death having acquired God’s fire. This all comes about from a fiery kiss which causes Beric to shudder awake. The word choice here invokes a lot of sexual imagery and thus procreative imagery, which is to be expected if my interpretation of “fire” is correct. This line of symbolism  is nothing new, thus it is not much of a stretch to see it here as well. Dondarrion, having acquired the fire of the gods via this fiery kiss, goes on to protect the Riverlands as a champion of the smallfolk, as expected if my proposed dichotomy is correct.

In direct contrast, Lady Stoneheart is resurrected by “flames”. As Thoros tells Brienne:

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“The Freys slashed her throat from ear to ear. When we found her by the river she was three days dead. Harwin begged me to give her the kiss of life, but it had been too long. I would not do it, so Lord Beric put his lips to hers instead, and the flame of life passed from him to her. And . . . she rose. May the Lord of Light protect us. She rose.” (Brienne VIII, AFFC)

Given that Lady Stoneheart is essentially an avenging spirit wandering the Riverlands and hijacking the Brotherhood without Banners to wreak her bloodthirsty vengeance on all those connected to the death of her children, I think there’s a strong case to be made for the possibility that she represents destructive forces within the world; unsurprisingly, this aligns with being resurrected by “flames”, not “fire”.

[Archmaester_Aemma]

Points of View

This duality can also reflect the characters situational differences in the use of “fire” or “flame” in depictions of the same image. Consider “King Renly’s shade” arriving at the Battle of Blackwater with his deep green armour and fiery antlers:

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“It was Lord Renly! Lord Renly in his green armor, with the fires shimmering off his golden antlers! Lord Renly with his tall spear in his hand! They say he killed Ser Guyard Morrigen himself in single combat, and a dozen other great knights as well. It was Renly, it was Renly, it was Renly! Oh! the banners, darling Sansa! Oh! to be a knight!” (Sansa VII, ACOK)

Here, Renly the fiery resurrected horned lord is the saviour of the city, a benevolent protector of its residents i.e. Dontos and Sansa in this scene. This is reflected in the golden “fire” of his antlers.

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“King Renly’s shade was seen as well,” the captain said, “slaying right and left as he led the lion lord’s van. It’s said his green armor took a ghostly glow from the wildfire, and his antlers ran with golden flames.” (Davos II, ACOK)

In contrast, to the losing side, Renly’s appearance was catastrophic, and so his antlers were alive with the destructive “flame”. Given that this is exactly the same physical image and that the only difference is the characters’ perception of how the battle turned out for them personally, I think Martin’s choice of language is intentional, especially given how neatly this word choice fits with what I am proposing. Repentant (now Lord) Renly’s antlers of fire come to save King’s Landing from his brother’s attempted usurpation of the throne and protect the city from being sacked; versus King Renly of the flaming antlers, treacherous usurping brother come from the dead to attack the rightful King Stannis from the rear and encourage the defection and rout of Stannis’ men.

[Archmaester_Aemma]

The Burning Tree: Fire

The proposed fire/flame dichotomy is also employed within some of Martin’s metaphors. One that stood out to me as soon as I saw it was this:

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The tree had been dead a long time, but it seemed to live again in the fire, as fiery dancers woke within each stick of wood to whirl and spin in their glowing gowns of yellow, red and orange. (Jon VIII, ACOK)

This fire is built as Jon and Qhorin are attempting to outrun the wildlings back to the Fist of the First Men to let Mormont know about the wildlings. Given that this is a fire, my working hypothesis suggests we should find it being associated with (pro)creativity in a multitude of ways.

Firstly, the fire warms the black brothers “like melting butter”; as Thoros explained, “life is warmth, and warmth is fire”, so a warming fire should be life. A quick look on asearchoficeandfire for all items within the extended publications showed the “warm fire” produced 76 results, of which 51 equated fire and warmth to some degree, whereas “warm flame” produced a mere 15, of which only 3 equated flames and warmth. From this, we can gather that fire and warmth are associated more than flames and warmth; thus, by extension, fire and life are associated more than flames and life.

Similarly, the association between life and fire is furthered when “fire” is placed in antithesis to death. When the fire is dying, Qhorin states “The fire will soon go out, but if the Wall should ever fall, all the fires will go out.”  If the Wall falls, then the Others will march south and the last time that happened “cold and death filled the world” (Bran IV, AGOT): a direct contrast to “life is warmth, and warmth is fire”. In fact, Melisandre makes this connection to Jon in ASOS:

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“The Lord’s fire lives within me, Jon Snow. Feel.” She put her hand on his cheek, and held it there while he felt how warm she was. “That is how life should feel,” she told him. “Only death is cold.” (Jon XI, ASOS)

Note, here how R’hllor’s “fire” is equated to both life and fire, as Thoros too pointed out, and it is placed in antithesis to death and cold.

Furthermore, descriptions of the fire are littered with allusions to procreation and marriage, thus emphasising the life-giving nature of “fire”. For instance, Qhorin Halfhand describes the fire as “as shy as a maid on her wedding night, and near as fair”, despite the fact that “he was not a man you’d expect to speak of maids and wedding nights”: by pointing out how out of character it is for Qhorin to speak like this, GRRM is also ensuring that we notice this turn of phrase, thus suggesting its importance. Jon also wonders “if ever a kiss had felt as good” when warming his hands on the fire, and then sees “fiery dancers … whirl and spin in their glowing gowns of yellow, red and orange”. These same fiery dancers were also hired for the alchemical wedding* in Drogo’s pyre: “The flames writhed before her like the women who had danced at her wedding, whirling and singing and spinning their yellow and orange and crimson veils” (Dany X, AGOT). There is sufficient similarity in the two descriptions – dancers, whirling, spinning, same colours – to invoke the image of weddings during the Jon VIII, ACOK chapter: again, reinforcing this message of procreation, as expected.
*This is the term LmL uses to describe Dany’s transformative experience in Drogo’s pyre.

In the interest of full disclosure, this fire is referred to as “flames” on four occasions. Firstly:

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Qhorin came and stood over him as the first flame rose up flickering from the shavings of bark and pine needles. (p689, UK paperback)

I believe this occurs as part of an extended Lightbringer-forging metaphor. Firstly, these flames are rising up, presumably suggesting to us that they are rising up to challenge the gods. Notably they are doing this as the sun is setting and the moon rising, implying the Long Night. Why specifically the Long Night? Well, “flickering” is a very specific descriptor and this fire has that descriptor attached to it three times in the space of one chapter. So, what else does “flickering” describe?

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Torches flickered along the walls of Dragonstone, and in the camp beyond, he could see hundreds of cookfires burning, as if a field of stars had fallen to the earth. (Prologue, ACOK)

A thousand flickering campfires burned around the castle, as the fires of the Tyrells and Redwynes had sixteen years before. But all the rest was different. (Davos II, ACOK)

Fog rose all around as she walked through the streets of Braavos. She was shivering a little by the time she pushed through the weirwood door into the House of Black and White. Only a few candles burned this evening, flickering like fallen stars. In the darkness all the gods were strangers. (Cat of the Canals, AFFC)

 

These all represent the thousand flickering falling star moon meteors that fell to earth when celestial Lightbringer was forged.

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The Red Viper landed a quick thrust on the Mountain’s belly, to no effect. Gregor cut at him, and missed. The long spear lanced in above his sword. Like a serpent’s tongue it flickered in and out, feinting low and landing high, jabbing at groin, shield, eyes. (Tyrion X, ASOS)

As he raised the sword a finger of pale flame flickered at the point and crept up along the edge, stopping a hand’s breath from the hilt. (Jaime VI, ASOS)

 

We then have the weapon related imagery that matches with the comet/moon meteor Lightbringer imagery: the Red Viper acting as the solar figure wielding a poisoned spear against the Moon Mountain that Rides, and Jaime wielding a flaming sword in the caverns below Casterly Rock.

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Flickering torchlight danced across the walls, making the faces [of the Seven] seem half-alive, twisting them, changing them. (Cat IV, ACOK)

Around their altars, scented candles flickered whilst deep shadows gathered in the transepts and crept silently across the marble floors. (Jaime I, AFFC)

 

The flickering light also transforms inanimate god-like figures and creates shadows that move and creep. All of this imagery relates to the forging of Lightbringer. More importantly, the flickering aspect relates to the destructive aspects of Lightbringer’s forging: the rain of flaming swords/falling stars that blotted out the sun and half-alive, half-dead twisted gods and creeping shadow emanations. As such, the consistency of the imagery surrounding the word “flickering” necessitates the use of the word “flame”, even when the rest of the fire is so consistently associated with procreation.

The next two uses of the term “flame” come in quick succession and, as such, the same explanation can be used for both:

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When they were done [reciting the NW vows], there was no sound but the faint crackle of the flames and a distant sigh of wind. (p691)

The flames were burning low by then, the warmth fading. (p691)

 

The “warmth fades” from the fire and if life is warmth and warmth is fire, then a fire with fading warmth is a dying fire and thus could aptly be described with the term “flames”.

To prevent the fire dying, Jon feeds the flames with some broken branches, which fits the broken sword motif of Lightbringer.

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Jon went to cut more branches, snapping each one in two before tossing it into the flames. (P692)

Jon feeding branches to the “flames” presumably turns them into flaming swords (therefore moon meteor) symbols; again, aligning the “flames” with the destructive aspects of Lightbringer’s forging. It is interesting that these destructive flaming broken sword branches lead us back to the quote that opened this section:

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The tree had been dead a long time, but it seemed to live again in the fire, as fiery dancers woke within each stick of wood to whirl and spin in their glowing gowns of yellow, red and orange. (Jon VIII, ACOK)

The wording here would seem to suggest that the destructive flaming broken sword branches lead to the creation of burning trees (i.e. weirwoods) and the resurrection or waking of the tree and the fire sorcerors inside. Turns out that is pretty much the exact scenario LmL is laying out in his Weirwood Compendium series, so it bodes well for the accuracy of both our interpretations that it is reflected in the minutiae of Martin’s language choices as well.

[Archmaester_Aemma]

The Burning Tree: Flame

This is only one side of the burning tree story.

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Arya saw a tree consumed, the flames creeping across its branches until it stood against the night in robes of living orange. (Arya IV, ACOK)

This is the chapter in which Amory Lorch attacks the Night’s Watch as part of Tywin’s scorched earth policy against the Riverlands (“Tell them I want to see the Riverlands afire from the God’s Eye to the Red Fork”: Tyrion IX, AGOT). As such, and in contrast to the Jon VIII ACOK quote, the “flames” are causing the destruction and death of the tree, and this is consistent with Martin’s choice of words.

Other uses of “flame” within this chapter are mostly associated with “licking”:

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She saw a roof go up, flames licking at the belly of the night with hot orange tongues as the thatch caught.

So, firstly the flames are reaching for the night sky. Then torches fly through the air, and these flying torches are described later as “trailing long tongues of flame”,which should evoke images of flames licking the air. Finally:

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The barn’s on fire, she thought. Flames were licking up its sides from where a torch had fallen on the straw, and she could hear the screaming of the animals trapped within.

That the flames lick has some very sexual connotations, especially when taken in conjunction with the following quotes:

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Edmure cursed softly. “The wind,” he said, pulling a second arrow. “Again.” The brand kissed the oil-soaked rag behind the arrowhead, the flames went licking up, Edmure lifted, pulled, and released.” (Catelyn IV, ASOS)

“Down. Let it kiss you.”

Gilly lowered her hand. An inch. Another. When the flame licked her hand, she snatched her hand back and began to sob. (Jon II, ADWD)

Asha could hold her tongue no longer. “Why not Ser Clayton? Perhaps R’hllor would like one of his own. A faithful man who will sing his praises as the flames lick his cock.” (The Sacrifice, ADWD)

 

Sorry for that last one, but it is one of the most demonstrably sexual images of the lot, and also sounds hella painful, like the sex and swordplay motif. As I have previously stated, sexual or procreative language ought to appear in association with “fire” and not “flame”, so it appears to be in direct contrast to my original proposition. However, a closer look using asearchoficeandfire.com demonstrates that flames lick, not fire: of the 18 hits produced by “fire lick”, only 3 showed fire licking in contrast to 22 of 25 “flame lick” results. When analysing the “flame lick” quotes, they could usually be categorised as follows:

• Direct “Lightbringer and its forging” metaphors = 9
• Burning humans = 8 (10 if you count statues of humans/human-like figures)
• Torches = 6
• Battles/fighting = 6
• Intentional human sacrifice = 5

So, other than “torches”, note how all of these categories are immediately, noticeably destructive. Blood sacrifice and the complete annihilation of Nissa Nissa was required to forge Lightbringer (“…her blood and her soul and her strength and her courage all went into the steel…” Davos I, ACOK); burning humans is a destructive act and so is war. The “torches” category may seem benign, until you realise that torches are often metaphors for the moon meteors, as can be seen in the Arya chapter we are analysing. As such, we can see that symbolism surrounding “licking flames” almost entirely relate to the the destructive act that was a necessary precursor to the creation of Lightbringer i.e. the mutual destruction of sun and moon, or the sex and swordplay sacrifice of Nissa Nissa.

Given the destructive nature of events in this chapter, it was difficult to interpret occurrences of “fire” within this chapter. Most references to “fire” was of firelight reflecting on armour:

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Firelight glittered off metal helms and spattered their mail and plate with orange and yellow highlights. [Ser Amory’s men]

The reflection of burning houses glimmered dully on the armour of his warhorse as the others parted to let him pass. [Ser Amory himself]

Arya looked past him and saw steel shadows running through the holdfast, firelight shining off mail and blades… [Ser Amory’s men]

…but Gendry came back, the fire shining so bright on his polished helm that the horns seemed to glow orange. [Gendry]

 

I believe this is related to the wider concept of fiery clothing as described by LmL in his essay, ‘The Grey King and the Sea Dragon’. He draws attention to the fact that the followers of R’hllor often try to look like fire themselves – think of Melisandre walking around in her scarlet silk and bloodred velvet dress, or Moqorro with his face tattooed with flames. This would then suggest that these men are wearing fiery armour, which would make them the “warriors of fire” or “fire knights”.

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[Melisandre] “The old maester looked at Stannis and saw only a man. You see a king. You are both wrong. He is the Lord’s chosen, the warrior of fire. I have seen him leading the fight against the dark, I have seen it in the flames.” (Davos III, ASOS)

He [Ser Jorah] pointed at the steps, where a line of men in ornate armor and orange cloaks stood before the temple’s doors, clasping spears with points like writhing flames. “The Fiery Hand. The Lord of Light’s sacred soldiers, defenders of the temple.”

Fire knights. “And how many fingers does this hand have, pray?”

“One thousand. Never more, and never less. A new flame is kindled for every one that gutters out.” (Tyrion VII, ADWD)

 

So the “warriors of fire” in the Arya chapter can be equated to Azor Ahai Reborn, via Mel naming Stannis a “warrior of fire” and via Tyrion calling the Fiery Hand “fire knights”, the Fiery Hand in turn representing the thousand moon meteors that fell from heaven. And Arya’s “warriors of fire” are the same guys loosing “flame-licking torches” (read: the same guys destroying the moon to release moon-meteors) to robe trees in flame like fire sorcerers. Sounds eerily reminiscent of Jon, with his flaming sword branches, resurrecting dancing fire sorcerers inside trees – you know, the scene we were talking about for the entirety of the last section. Now, given that these guys have AAR symbolism, armouring them in “fire” as part of a rebirth cycle would be apt.

Another unexpected use of “fire” comes in the description of the barn being on fire, despite the fact that the barn and the animals within are being destroyed. I had a couple of potential justifications for this. Firstly, the fire means that the Night’s Watch recruits are able to escape from Ser Amory’s men using the tunnel in the barn; in essence, the fire is protecting them from death by Ser Amory Lorch et al.

Secondly, and more importantly for a symbolic analysis, this may be a continuation of the parallels between this chapter and Drogo’s pyre in Dany X, AGOT. Consider the following:

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For a moment she thought the town was full of lanternbugs. Then she realised they were men with torches… (Arya IV, ACOK)
…glowing cinders rising on the smoke … like so many newborn fireflies. (Daenerys X, AGOT)

The fire beat at her back with hot red wings… (Arya IV, ACOK)
The heat beat at the air with great red wings… (Daenerys X, AGOT)

The roof was gone up too, and things were falling down, pieces of flaming wood and bits of straw and hay. (Arya IV, ACOK)
The platform of wood and brush and grass began to collapse in on itself. Bits of burning wood slid down at her… (Daenerys X, AGOT)

A) …she heard the sound, like the roar of some great beast… (Arya IV, ACOK)
She saw a roof go up, flames licking at the belly of the night. (Arya IV, ACOK)
C) … more torches were flying, trailing long tongues of flame… (Arya IV, ACOK)
The pyre roared in the deepening dusk like some great beast (A), … and sending up long tongues of flame (C) to lick at the belly of the night (B). (Dany X, AGOT)

 

As I hope this collection demonstrates, there are a lot of similarities in Martin’s use of language and imagery between the two chapters: this is consistent with the prevalent “flame licking” imagery in Arya IV,  ACOK, cueing us in to the LB symbolism in this chapter. So, why would George use “fire” to describe the burning barn? Consider the following parallel:

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She heard a crack (1), the sound of shattering stone. … And then there came a second crack (2), loud and sharp as thunder… The third crack (3)was as loud and sharp as the breaking of the world. (Dany X, AGOT)

Here, we are witnessing the birth of Dany’s dragons. And in Arya’s chapter, this:

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She threw the axe into the wagon. Rorge caught it and lifted it over his head, rivers of sooty sweat pouring down his noseless face. Arya was running, coughing. She heard the steel crash through the old wood (1), and again (2), and again (3). An instant later came a crack as loud as thunder, and the bottom of the wagon came ripping loose in an explosion of splinters. (Arya IV, ACOK)

In both chapters, we have three loud sounds associated with cracks and thunder (the cracks are even italicised), and with that three monsters are born into the world (“Mother of Dragons, Daenerys thought. Mother of monsters.” Dany II, ADWD; “If they slept, they might open their eyes to find Vargo Hoat standing over them with Shagwell the Fool and Faithful Urswyck and Rorge and Biter and Septon Utt and all his other monsters.” Arya I, ASOS). Given the consistency of the parallels between Arya IV, ACOK, and Dany X, AGOT, we have to acknowledge that Rorge, Biter, and Jaqen are thus equated with Dany’s dragons in some way. There’s even some Azor Ahai Reborn symbolism in there, Rorge and Biter linking them to hellhound meteors with their dog-fighting history and the acquisition of the Hound’s helm (and they also have a weird adoptive father-son relationship) and Jaqen, who ends up aligned to the old gods and in the service of the death goddess (Arya prays to the old gods for help at Harrenhal and then Jaqen appears). As such, attached to the three in the barn is the connotation of (re-)birth and procreation; thus, the association with “fire” is apt.

[Archmaester_Aemma]

The Grey Spaces

This is a nice segue to highlight that, whilst “fire” may be associated more with protection and procreation, the result of this may not necessarily be good. “Fire is always hungry” (Leaf to Bran; Bran II, ADWD) and “it consumes, and when it is done there is nothing left” (Beric to Thoros; Arya VIII, ASOS). Fire births Daenerys’ dragons that are “death and devastation, a flaming sword above the world” (Dany III, ADWD), and Rorge and Biter led the horrific raid of Saltpans which was “the work of some fell beast in human skin” (Jaime IV, AFFC). And who knows what on earth Jaqen/Pate is up to at the Citadel, but it probably isn’t ‘good’.

Consider how it is “fire” that destroyed Winterfell during Ramsay Snow’s sack:

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“Winterfell.” His tongue felt strange and thick in his mouth. One day when I come back I won’t know how to talk anymore. “It was Winterfell. It was all on fire. There were horse smells, and steel, and blood. They killed everyone, Meera.” (Bran VII, ACOK)

It took the rest of the morning to make a slow circuit of the castle. The great granite walls remained, blackened here and there by fire but otherwise untouched. But within, all was death and destruction. The doors of the Great Hall were charred and smoldering, and inside the rafters had given way and the whole roof had crashed down onto the floor. The green and yellow panes of the glass gardens were all in shards, the trees and fruits and flowers torn up or left exposed to die. Of the stables, made of wood and thatch, nothing remained but ashes, embers, and dead horses. Bran thought of his Dancer, and wanted to weep. There was a shallow steaming lake beneath the Library Tower, and hot water gushing from a crack in its side. The bridge between the Bell Tower and the rookery had collapsed into the yard below, and Maester Luwin’s turret was gone. They saw a dull red glow shining up through the narrow cellar windows beneath the Great Keep, and a second fire still burning in one of the storehouses. (Bran VII, ACOK)

 

Here, “fire” has completely destroyed everything within the castle that will be useful for continuing to live. So, why is it associated with “fire”? Because Bran is born! Specifically Bran, one of the most powerful greenseers ever to exist, is born.

Consider that Maester Luwin equates Winterfell to a stone tree (Bran II, AGOT), so Winterfell on fire is like a stone tree on fire: weirwoods are trees with leaves like “bits of flame”, so they are burning trees that turn in to stone: so Winterfell on fire is akin to a weirwood tree. As Winterfell is set on fire, Bran is hiding in the crypts and it is here he learns to consciously skinchange Summer: in symbolic terms, Bran is in the realm of the dead, underneath a weirwood tree, and this facilitates the opening of his third eye. (The crypts are also associated with birth as it is here that Bael the Bard concealed the daughter of Lord Stark until she bore Bael’s child.) Then Hodor opens the door to the crypts, “making enough noise to wake a dragon” in the process (thus equating Bran’s emergence from the realm of the dead to the birth of Dany’s dragons), and the destruction of Winterfell is surveyed.

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Stone and shattered gargoyles lay strewn across the yard. They fell just where I did, Bran thought when he saw them. Some of the gargoyles had broken into so many pieces it made him wonder how he was alive at all. Nearby some crows were pecking at a body crushed beneath the tumbled stone, but he lay facedown and Bran could not say who he was. (Bran VII, ACOK)

LmL goes in to some detail analysing these gargoyles in both his Tyrion Targaryen essay and his A Burning Brandon essay, but I will point out some of the symbolism here for those who haven’t read it (although I have no idea how you’re keeping up with this essay without that knowledge base). 1) These are the gargoyles that Bran straddled to overhear Jaime and Cersei going at it in the First Keep, so he could be viewed as riding them. 2) These gargoyles subsequently gain moon meteor symbolism by falling in a nightmare that Bran has (Bran IV, AGOT) and in the quote above, so Bran has ridden the moon meteors. 3) The crows pecking at the corpse invokes the imagery of the little boy who climbed to high and had his eyes pecked out by crows – Bran fulfils this symbolic myth perfectly (Old Nan ftw!). 4) Bran wonders how he is alive at all, implying he has transcended death , which is fitting given that he has just emerged from some crypts after everyone (including the reader) thinks he’s dead.

In essence, what we are seeing is the creation of a greenseer which, according to LmL, likely requires the death and rebirth/resurrection of the greenseer. In the case of Winterfell’s destruction by “fire”, the entire scene is devoted to Bran’s rebirth as a powerful greenseer to be, and as such the procreative overtones lent to this scene by “fire” are necessary. However, consider the cost – Winterfell is an empty shell (holla, dragon eggs), with death and devastation all around, leaving nothing but an “ember in the ashes”.

Along the same vein, the destructiveness of “flames” is not necessarily a bad thing. Obsidian is called “frozen flame“ and destroys the Others, as in it completely annihilates them.

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And then he was stumbling forward, falling more than running, really, closing his eyes and shoving the dagger blindly out before him with both hands. He heard a crack, like the sound ice makes when it breaks beneath a man’s foot, and then a screech so shrill and sharp that he went staggering backward with his hands over his muffled ears, and fell hard on his arse.

When he opened his eyes the Other’s armor was running down its legs in rivulets as pale blue blood hissed and steamed around the black dragonglass dagger in its throat. It reached down with two bone-white hands to pull out the knife, but where its fingers touched the obsidian they smoked.

Sam rolled onto his side, eyes wide as the Other shrank and puddled, dissolving away. In twenty heartbeats its flesh was gone, swirling away in a fine white mist. Beneath were bones like milkglass, pale and shiny, and they were melting too. Finally only the dragonglass dagger remained, wreathed in steam as if it were alive and sweating. Grenn bent to scoop it up and flung it down again at once. “Mother, that’s cold.” (Sam I, ASOS)

 

Here, you can see the destructive force of “flame” working to full effect: the Other just melts away into the ether/absorbed into the dragonglass, as if it never existed. Throughout Sam I, ASOS, “flame” is made use of to destroy the Others and the wights, as Mormont’s repeated shouting of “Give them flame!” suggests. However, it would be difficult to argue that it is a mistake to use the destructive force of “flame” to destroy the legions of the undead and their masters.

Conclusion

So, hopefully I have provided enough evidence to demonstrate that “fire” and “flame” are used to represent different concepts by Martin. That is, “fire” tends to be associated with protection or procreation, and “flame” with destruction. As small asides, I demonstrated that adjectives can qualify a “fire” or “flame” noun choice: for instance, “flickering” is an adjective almost exclusively used to describe or represent moon meteor metaphors and the influence these have on creating or transforming god-like beings and that “flames licking” tends to be associated with the mutual destruction of the sun and moon to create the moon-meteors.

If all that hasn’t been enough to convince you, then tough luck – it’s taken me a year to get my act together enough to complete this, so I’m not hunting around for anything more. In subsequent parts, I will analyse the colours of fire and what, if anything, this all actually means for the series.