ASOIAF characters and parallels with other fictional characters

[Floki of the Ironborn]

I'll start:

 

Tywin: Denethor (LOTR)

Denethor, like Tywin, is an old man who has a high reputation as a competent and kingly ruler of his land, and is known to listen to councillors only to make his own decision regardless. He is a cold man who despite that was dearly in love with his wife, but she died young. He has two sons; the elder is a brilliant warrior and leader whom he loves, the younger is more intellectual and alike to him, yet is despised. Denethor scorns his younger son and sends him to his death, citing duty to his family and country as reasons for doing so. 

[Sigella]

Samwell and Samwell?

[One-eyed Misbehavin]

14 minutes ago, Sigella said:

Samwell and Samwell?

Yes

[James Steller]

Oberyn Martell= Dean Moriarty (On the Road)

Both men are complete hedonists who have multiple lovers and multiple children by said lovers. Both are callous to the women who bear their children (apart from Ellaria Sand). They wander all over the place for personal and spiritual reasons, obsessing over dead/long gone family members.

 

Ned Stark= Atticus Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird)

Two upstanding men in corrupt societies who seek to bring whatever justice they can to those societies. Both make stands against the authorities of their society and both fail at their goals (Ned to remove Joffrey from power and Atticus to get Tom Robinson acquitted). Both also worry about their roles as fathers to their wild children, both of whom include a young preteen tomboy who served as a significant POV in their respective books.

 

Littlefinger= Gatsby (The Great Gatsby)

Both men came from humble origins, which they both leave behind in their search for wealth and power. They chase after both these things with vigour, using corrupt means to do so yet putting on thin veneers of respectability. And both men are driven by an impossible love for a special woman whom they've known for a long time yet both women end up married to men who are physically superior and belong to very old and respectable families. Littlefinger and Gatsby both make grand gestures to win the affection of their loves away from the brutish Brandon Stark/Tom Buchanan, and both are utterly defeated.

[Mladen]

The Lord of The Rings trilogy:

1. Jon - Aragorn, especially having in mind Aragorn's origin where his father is from Southern kingdom, Gondor and mother from Northern one.

2. Lyanna (Sansa and Arya Stark) - Eowyn of Rohan, a shieldmaiden who wanted glory and ending up as a woman. Lyanna got, in my opinion, more tragic end.

3. Gandalf The White - Lady Stoneheart - GRRM himself compared these two and how different he thought resurrections should be done

Tolstoy's work

1. Sansa Stark - Natasha Rostova/Kitty Shcherbatskaya - the naive girl who falls in love for the wrong guy, also type of the ideal beauty.

2. Tyrion Lannister - Bezukhov/Levin - the character that is in many ways carrying the author's ideals and closest to his POV

I have to say that an essay about Tolstoy/Martin parallels and two above-mentioned characters is slowly being worked on. And one day, it will see the light of day...

These two are the ones that I find the strongest at the moment, or at least they occupy my attention these days, but undoubtedly there is entire line of work from which Martin, as any other author borrowed motives.

[ShadowCat Rivers]

Here's my take on the parallels between Arya's journey and the Odyssey.

[Joy Hill]

Littlefinger = Heathcliff

Both are boys from modest backgrounds who are brought up in a family of high social status, fall in love and become obsessed with the daughter, loose the girl to another, rise high in the world, orchestrate machiavellian plans, exploit the love of a woman they could not care less about, raise that woman's weakling son as well as Catlyn/Catherine's lookalike daughter.

And lady stoneheart might be a twisted parallel to Catherine's ghostly appearances.

[antipattern]

Jon::Luke Skywalker -- Secret parentage hides momentous destiny.

Daeneyrs::Jean Grey/Phoenix -- Reborn in fire, but ultimately too powerful to be allowed to survive and will be killed by some one who loves her in order to save everyone else (Wolverine in X-men, Jon in Winds Of Winter).

Theon::Gollum -- Pathetic and odious, but has some key part to play which will lead to a kind of redemption.

[James Steller]

10 minutes ago, Joy Hill said:

Littlefinger = Heathcliff

Both are boys from modest backgrounds who are brought up in a family of high social status, fall in love and become obsessed with the daughter, loose the girl to another, rise high in the world, orchestrate machiavellian plans, exploit the love of a woman they could not care less about, raise that woman's weakling son as well as Catlyn/Catherine's lookalike daughter.

And lady stoneheart might be a twisted parallel to Catherine's ghostly appearances.

What book is that character from?

[sweetsunray]

3 minutes ago, James Steller said:

What book is that character from?

Wuthering Heights

[Sigella]

Jon Snow- Cinderella

[Sigella]

Lor Wyman Wanderly / King Robert - Jabba the Hutt

Cersei - Queen of Hearts, Alice i Wonderland

Cersei - Guinevere, Jaime - Lancelot, Robert - King Arthur

Dany - Queen Hatshepsut 

[evita mgfs]

Jon Snow parallels Julius Caesar, whose friend Marcus Brutus [Bowen Marsh] joins, then heads, a conspiracy to stop Caesar’s growing power by assassinating him in the Capital.  Likewise, Lord Commander  Jon Snow is betrayed by his sworn brothers of the Night’s Watch, stabbed in the presence of shocked onlookers.  [A theme in JC is the “mob” mentality – how easily they switch sides and how vulnerable they are to manipulation ].

Shakespeare sets up his characterization of JC by making him arrogant, dismissing all the many, many warnings he receives in advance of his death.  A Soothsayer bids him “Beware the Ides of March,” much like Melisandre  warns  Jon Snow of her fire visions – ‘daggers in the dark’.  A ‘Night Watch’ reports to JC of strange events in Rome – a lioness hath whelped in the middle of the street.  Compare this to Ghost and Mormont’s raven  behaving strangely, seemingly aware of some danger their master is ill-equipped to perceive himself.  [Lots of really weird stuff  happened in Rome ‘supposedly’ the night before JC’s death – I just picked one; for instance, the graves also opened to yield their dead, which parallels ASOIF and the white walkers]

 Caesar meets with several conspirators before the deed just as  JS meets with Bowen Marsh.  It is Brutus’ stab that is the “unkindest cut of all” and prompts “Et tu, Brute.  Then fall Caesar”, after which Caesar collapses at the foot of Pompey’s Statue.  Similarly, Bowen Marsh stabs JS, after which JS drops to his knees, whispers ‘Ghost’, grunts, and falls face first in the snow.

On the other hand, many, many marked differences exist between JC and JS  (For instance, JC is stabbed 33 times, JS only four ‘that we know of’.).  These intimations I noted are fun literary quizzes, and I think Martin likes to mix it up with artistic nods to the classics in his work.

[evita mgfs]

These are references to the names of great authors who created great fictional characters.

Marin and Nomenclature

Will and Gared in the “Prologue” from A GAME of THRONES

Will and Gared may be dispensable, “generic” rangers on a fatal mission whose lives are forfeit because of their inexperienced commander Ser Waymar Royce, but Martin names them with purpose as a way to honor and thank two authors who inspire his prose fiction in A Song of Ice and Fire Series. The appearance of the names Will and Gared in the first “Prologue” of a voluminous series of novels speaks to the degree of gratitude Martin owes his sources.

First, Will is short for “William”, or for “William Shakespeare”, the celebrated English writer whose works still have universal appeal hundreds of years after his death. It is no secret that Martin borrows from “the bard”, and among Shakespeare’s many poetic plays that Martin alludes to in conflicts, plot elements, and language, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar ranks high as the source material Martin prefers, putting his own “spin” on ideas and themes throughout his fantasy novels.

To convey Will’s association with Shakespeare, Martin includes details pertaining to Will’s crime of poaching a deer that parallels similar events Shakespeare biographers debate happened to young Will Shakespeare before his arrival in London.

Martin says of Will’s crime:

“Will had been a hunter before he joined the Night’s Watch. Well, a poacher in truth. Mallister freeriders had caught him red-handed in the Mallisters’ own woods, skinning one of the Mallisters’ own bucks, and it had been a choice of putting on the black or losing a hand” (AGoT).

Likewise, William Shakespeare trespasses on Sir Thomas Lucy’s property to kill a deer. In the article “In Search of Shakespeare: The Poaching Myth 1598”, a PBS.org author writes:

“Though the tale is widely discredited today, three seventeenth-century accounts claim that Shakespeare was once beaten and imprisoned for poaching [a deer]. The alleged crime took place on land belonging to Sir Thomas Lucy - one of Walsingham's and Elizabeth's chief enforcers”. [http://www.pbs.org/shakespeare/events/event83.html]].

Although Will and Will share like crimes, their punishments are quite different. Ranger Will chooses an option that will take him a lifetime to repay, but he prefers becoming a Sworn Brother of the Night’s Watch over losing his hand, which is an early allusion to the stigma associated with disfigurement in Martin’s world of ice and fire.

Second, the name “Gared” has an unusual spelling, one not Americanized with a “J”. However, Martin aspires to create memorable characters, and he alters spellings of familiar names to give them a medieval flare. Analyzing the spelling of “Gared” requires some mental creativity: when readers divide “Gared” into two syllables, GAR / ED, and transpose them, one with the other, the “revised” appellation is EDGAR, the first name of American author and poet Edgar Allan Poe.

Of course, the obvious inspiration Martin takes from Poe is Lord Commander Mormont’s talking raven, a character that owes a debt of gratitude to Poe’s poem “The Raven”. The title bird flies in a window and perches on a bust of Athena, and he punctuates any question the narrator poses by saying hauntingly “Nevermore!” The narrator asks the raven if he will ever see his dead lover Lenore: quothe the raven, “Nevermore!”

Furthermore, Poe’s favorite thematic inclusion in several of his short stories is the death of a beautiful woman. In Martin’s I & F Series, the death of Lyanna Stark haunts Ned and figures in many other character arcs throughout the novels.

[evita mgfs]

The Cats of the Red Keep and TS Eliot’s Book of Practical Cats

“The Red Keep was full of cats: lazy old cats dozing in the sun, cold-eyed mousers twitching their tails, quick little kittens with claws like needles, ladies' cats all combed and trusting, ragged shadows prowling the midden heaps. One by one Arya had chased them down and snatched them up and brought them proudly to Syrio Forel . . .” [AGoT].

·       All the “different” cats represent those feline-natured people, possibly even Lannisters, who dwell in or near the Red Keep.

·       Lazy, dozing cats

·       Mousers

·       Kittens with claws

·       Pampered, combed, trusting domesticated cats

·       Raggedy alley cats

·       With this paragraph including these “cat” types, I think of TS Eliot’s Book of Practical Cats, and the musical Cats!, of course – and we have the categories of Cats! Eliot defines in his poetry:  Rum Tum Tugger, Mungojerie and Rumpleteazer, Old Deuteronomy, Growltiger, Macavity the Mystery Cat, Grizabella the Glamour Cat, Bustipher Jones, Mr. Mistoffelees, and those are the only names I can remember.  But they represent “cat” types immortalized in poetry and music by Eliot and Andrew Lloyd Webber, respectively.

[evita mgfs]

Martin’s ASoIaF and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Wicked: the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Martin’s AsoIaF contains characters, themes, complications, motifs, and more that seemingly correspond to one or more of the versions of the Oz phenomenon, whether that comparison is symbolic, literal, figurative, ironic, or other? This phenomenon includes The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Lyman Frank Baum; The Wizard of Oz by Fred R. Hamlin's Musical Extravaganza, (the movie and stage versions); Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1995) by Gregory Maguire; and Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz with lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Winnie Holzman.

I will make a few general comparisons as well as some specific comparisons:

Many characters in AsoIaF are on a journey, some even trying to get home like Dorothy Gail of Kansas. Bran and Arya specifically are “off to see the wizard”. Bran seeks out the three-eyed crow to learn if he has magic to help him walk again; likewise, Arya seeks out her wizard in Braavos at the House of Black and White wanting to learn the magic to transform her face like Jaqen.

Even though both Arya and Bran seek some kind of magic force, each travels a different yellow brick road with unlikely companions. Their journeys parallel Dorothy’s, with less fantastical and more dangerous and dark aspects, all fearing the lion [with or without his coward on] in the Lannisters, whose sigil is the lion.

Furthermore, Bran meets craven Sam Tarley, the embodiment of the Cowardly Lion, who helps him on his journey. Bran’s Toto is his direwolf Summer, and even though Arya loses her direwolf Nymeria, she is “picked up” by a Hound.

More general similarities follow:

• Bran’s Emerald City is his “greensight”.

• The ravens around RavenBran’s cave are like Elphaba’s agents, the Flying monkeys. Or they can be associated with the Scarecrow’s crows.

• The weirwood trees are ironically like the scowling apple trees that admonish Dorothy and company from picking their fruit.

• The songs of the CoF in the Old Tongue long forgotten are similar to Elphaba’s Grimmerie, the book of magic spells only she can read – a lost language.

• Bran’s Wizard and Arya’s Wizard are not quite what they expect, just as the Wizard of Oz is not what Dorothy and company, and Elphaba expect. They must look into themselves to realize success their individual quests.

• Bran learns to fly in a raven just as Elphaba learns to fly on her broom, using a spell from the Grimmerie, in Wicked.

 

 

[evita mgfs]

The Giver

From The Giver by Lois Lowry, Bran is similar to Jonas and Lord Brynden is similar to “The Giver”:

“Jonas begins training under the present Receiver of Memory, an older man whom Jonas calls The Giver. The Giver lives alone in private rooms that are lined with shelves full of books. Jonas' training involves receiving, from The Giver, all of the emotions and memories of experiences that the people in the community chose to give up to attain Sameness and the illusion of social order” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giver].

 

Sound familiar?

[evita mgfs]

Similarities between Tyrion Lannister from George R. R. Martin’s A Clash of Kings and King Odysseus from Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey

Tyrion Lannister, Martin’s epic dwarf, and King Odysseus, Homer’s epic hero from the Iliad and Odyssey, are sometimes underestimated by others due to their stature, and, at times, their demeanor.  For example, in the Iliad, Antenor makes a telling observation about comrade-in-arms Odysseus who sits at table with one of the Atrides, King Menelaos of Sparta, son of Atreus and brother of King Agamemnon. Antenor says, “Odysseus was the more lordly [than Menelaus]” (3.)  Thus, when Odysseus sits among other kings and heroes, Antenor infers that the Ithakan King has features that are pleasing to the eye. Likewise, Tyrion says in his first POV in ACoK that he sits “a chair better than a horse” (55).    That is, when Tyrion is ensconced in a chair, he is every bit as lordly as any other, for a chair becomes a great leveler for kings and princes who are vertically challenged, like both Tyrion and Odysseus.

In the case of Homer’s ‘sacker of cities’, who lacks the stereotypical physical attributes normally associated with a war hero and a king [i.e. by direct comparison to red-haired Menelaus, sort of a literary foil to Odysseus], Odysseus is the antithesis of such.  With the reputation that precedes him, perhaps hosts whom he visits expect a man of greater size, with muscles and a handsome face.  Helen and Antenor seemingly defend Odysseus’ appearance by emphasizing that he is oft underestimated on his looks alone:    “resourceful Odysseus . . . would just stand and stare down, / eyes fixed on the ground beneath him . . . /Yes, you would call him a sullen man and a fool likewise.  / But when he let the great voice go from his chest, and the words came out . . . then no other mortal / man beside could stand up against Odysseus.  Then we / wondered less beholding Odysseus’ outward appearance” (Book III.).

However, Helen and Antenor warn that when Odysseus speaks, people are apt to overlook his downcast eyes and sullen demeanor.

 Likewise, many underestimate Tyrion due to his physical aspect.  But like the Ithacan King, Tyrion’s intellect, his resourcefulness, his skilled deceptions, his artifice, his ability to manipulate others, his insight into human nature, and his habit of speaking “winning words” are on a par with the Argive who will conceive the brilliant treachery of the Trojan Horse [inspired by his biggest fan, Athene], who will lead the Achaeans into victorious battle over the ‘partying’ Trojans by infiltrating enemy lines, and who will see the downfall of King Priam’s kingdom in smoke and fire.  [Homer’s great hero even dashes baby Astyanax’ head against the walls of Troy and tosses him over – bringing to mind what happened to Aegon, or the replacement babe.  Somehow I think Odysseus and Tyrion would have made sure they had the ‘right’ babe before tossing, yes?)

[evita mgfs]

 

The Cyclops Versus the Mountain that Rides, Ser Gregor Clegane

Note Homer’s description of the Cyclops in the Odyssey:

 

“Here was a giant’s lair who never mixed with others.

A grim loner, dead set on his own lawless ways.

Here was a piece of work, by god, a monster .

Built like no mortal who ever supped on bread,

No, like a shaggy peak, I’d say – a man-mountain

Rearing head and shoulders over the world” (Fagels 9.208-214).

From  Eddard’s POV,  the description of the Mountain that Rides:

“. . . but the knight they called the Mountain that Rides would have towered over Hodor.  He was well over seven feet tall, closer to eight with massive shoulders and arms thick as the trunks of small trees.  His destrier seemed a pony between his armored legs, and the lance he carried looked as small as a broom handle” (AGoT 313).

Homer compares the Cyclops to “a shaggy peak” and “a man-mountain” which corresponds to Martin’s epithet for Ser Gregor Clegane: “the Mountain that Rides” (AGoT 313).  In addition, the Cyclops is so tall, he rears his “head and shoulders over the world”.  Martin’s knight towers “over Hodor”, which places him at “over seven feet tall, closer to eight with his massive shoulders and arms”.

[ShadowCat Rivers]

2 minutes ago, evita mgfs said:

The Cyclops Versus the Mountain that Rides, Ser Gregor Clegane

<snip>

Interesting - I've also paralleled the march to Harrenhal in Arya's journey, under the "care" of the Mountain and his men, [where she explicitely makes the sheep comparaison, and hides among the smallfolk as one of the nobodies, a "no one"] to the Odyssey's Cyclopes 'stop'.