ASOIAF's overall theme: The Protection of Children. Starting with Sandor's arc, and his threefold death, I will show it to you

[pudgiebudgie]

24 minutes ago, Kajjo said:

Again, this is not really wrong, but from my perspective so over-interpreted, made to sound so much deeper than it is. 

...

I am not even sure whether I would really call it "love" or maybe just infatuation.

Gendry does not understand Arya mainly because they grew up in different worlds and because Aryas arc is so much deeper, more cruel, complex.

His decision to become a knight and then accept the lordship seems pretty clearly motivated by his desire to be with Arya, even if it was an immature love.

But when you love someone, you try to understand them and meet their needs. I don't think Gendry is just too stupid to figure Arya out. He sees her violence, her hatred of girlish things. I mean, he meets her as a "boy". He knows she's not a typical girl!

Why would he be so blind to what the woman he loves wants? Well, what if the deepest wish of his own heart is to have the things she's trying to reject? Doesn't that seem it would create a psychological blockade?

[Kajjo]

15 minutes ago, pudgiebudgie said:

Why would he be so blind to what the woman he loves wants?

Because it is what happens in reality all the time? Falling in love, but not knowing each other well enough? 

Infatuation is much too easily called love anyway, all the time. Calling "being in love" a few days after the first sex is simply stupid, "having a crush" would be more fitting. Love is something that develops over time, not in a few days and a sex event. 

Gendry simply doesn't understand Arya's nature. She is not a girl to be a "Lady of ...". Season 1, "That's not me!" -- the core essence of her nature and character.

(By the way, he is not knighted, just legitimized to Lord Baratheon of Storm's End.)

[pudgiebudgie]

1 hour ago, Kajjo said:

Because it is what happens in reality all the time? Falling in love, but not knowing each other well enough? 

Yes, but what is the narrative purpose? GRRM spends so ridiculously long over-working his stories. Gendry's inclusion, his interaction with Arya, and their outcome, was not some whim he decided on and D&D agreed to keep in for no reason.

Quote

Gendry simply doesn't understand Arya's nature. She is not a girl to be a "Lady of ...". Season 1, "That's not me!" -- the core essence of her nature and character.

Yes, that's what I said in Arya's entry, not sure if you have read it. Arya feared being repressed by society. Gendry's offer threatened to make that her fate again, after she spent so long escaping it.

[CrypticWeirwood]

15 hours ago, Kajjo said:

However, one other core topic is greed for power and what it leads to. The "Game of Thrones" topic is pivotal and not just a side-note. This is about the Game of Thrones, a game "you either win or die".

One lesson is how the hunger for power, whether achieving it or retaining it, drives people to commit terrible atrocities. It's the "wanting" that fuels this.  Varys told us that someone who doesn't want power is safer than someone who does.

Tied to this but not the same thing is the notion that absolute power tends towards evil slavery of another sort by taking away individual freedom of choice.  What were Dany's very last words, the ones that doomed her?

“They don't get to choose.”

[Kajjo]

13 minutes ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

One lesson is how the hunger for power, whether achieving it or retaining it, drives people to commit terrible atrocities. It's the "wanting" that fuels this.  Varys told us that someone who doesn't want power is safer than someone who does.

Agreed. Well phrased, thank you.

14 minutes ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

 Tied to this but not the same thing is the notion that absolute power tends towards evil slavery of another sort by taking away individual freedom of choice.  What were Dany's very last words, the ones that doomed her?

So what were her last words?

[weirwoodface]

"They don't get to choose"

[House Cambodia]

Absolutely phenomenal analysis pudgiebudgie. This is what I live for! I love to read intelligently thought-out theories whether or not I'm completely on board with them, and ASOIAF lends itself to that more than any other modern literary classic. Whilst it's disappointing that D&D as 'showrunners' and not 'show writers' cannot maintain GRRM's quality, I'm really glad that you do acknowledge the reasonable job they do do. We live in such a dumbed-down age that 90% of the viewers of a pop TV show just can't appreciate the nuances of a story that goes beyond cliched tropes, that posters like you are so deeply buried under the dross that it takes me a week to find you!

Now it would be a disappointment if, after all your fine work, I could offer nothing more than a 'hooray!' or 'boo'!, so I do have something to add for your consideration. Where you write about the child survivors having to protect themselves in a hostile environment I'm completely on board with that. When you're talking about parents protecting their children, I think you're missing a trick. The fault isn't yours or the show runners - it ultimately comes down to the inherent sexism in the writer George RR Martin.

Consider this - you rightly identify that the FATHERS made errors. I'm thinking of Ned, Robert, Tywin and Jamie (have I missed anyone else significant? Your analysis of Sandor also fits here). However, they all made parental mistakes whilst staying rational and dignified. The MOTHERS on the other hand - Cat, Cercei, Daenerys (with her dragons) (not sure Lysa really counts as she's consistently wishy-washy) turn irrational and hysterical when their children are threatened. I think it's notable that the female characters who don't get over-emotional, like Brienne are motherless. GRRM undermines so many stereotypes, but here I think he lets himself down a little bit.

[big john]

Very interesting analysis.

On 5/15/2019 at 6:50 AM, pudgiebudgie said:

The Threefold Death

His death is a threefold death. There's two types of this death. One is a person who "dies" in three ways at one moment (say, stabbing, hanging, drowning). Another is a person who has three separate death moments, which is the kind he has.

Here is some discussion of this topic from Encyclopedia Of Indo-European Culture (https://archive.org/stream/EncyclopediaOfIndoEuropeanCulture/Encyclopedia_of_Indo-European_Culture_djvu.txt). I have clipped out some bits and added my own emphasis.

Obviously Sandor's story is not following these rules fully, but he *does* make a cowardly flight from battle. He also kills a child, which is the major sin (and I believe major theme) in ASOIAF. I haven't given it enough thought to see if he has a third obvious sin. But the parallels here are clear.

A warrior commits sins and must atone for them in a threefold death.

 

 

I just wanted to add about the three sins, Sandor committed the third serious sin of violating guest right by attacking the farmer and stealing his money.  It doesn't seem as heinous as murdering children, but guest right is the oldest and most sacred tradition in Westeros.

 

So Sandor's sins:

1. Murdering a child -  the worst sin you can commit against another person

2 Cowardice in battle - one of the greatest sins of a warrior

3. Violation of guest right - the worst sin against a society's customs and traditions.