Florian Besson and Justine Breton are medievalists. They have just published A story of fire and blood. The Middle Ages of Game of Thrones at Puf.
FIGAROVOX.- “A story of fire and blood”: does the title of your book relate to the Middle Ages in general, or only that depicted by Game of Thrones?
Florian BESSON.- Justine and I used the Targaryens' motto to headline our book. "The Fire and Blood" , "le Feu et le Sang" in French. By choosing "The Middle Ages of Game of Thrones, a story of fire and blood" , we wanted to immediately indicate to the reader that the Middle Ages presented by George RR Martin and by the HBO series is focused on all violent aspects of this period. The author had made this strategic choice because he published his first book in 1996 which he had started to write in 1994, at a time when the fantastic universe was dominated by what is called "high fantasy". Which is the fantasy inherited from Tolkien. We also find it in The wheel of timeby Robert Jordan. High Fantasy is a very smooth genre, very Manichean: on the one hand the good guys and on the other the bad guys, there could be no doubt between them. When we look at The Lord of the Ring x, we recognize the bad guys that are the orcas with their unsightly physique and the heroes who shine.
Martin writes while wanting to stand out: to sell books, you have to be original and his originality is to break away from high fantasy to reinject violence and realism - a questionable notion in the series -. This is reflected in the death of Eddard Stark at the end of the first volume. Imagine the first volume of The Lord of the Rings ending with the death of Aragorn… It is so cheeky that when Martin sent the manuscript, the editor did not want to accept it. According to him, it was not conceivable to tell a story on 800 pages to kill the hero at the last.
At Martin, the characters are not black or white but in shades of gray.We can say that Game Of Thrones belongs to what is called "grind Fantasy" or "raspy fantasy", there is this desire not only for violence, but we are going to have bloody battles, fights in the mud. The heroic characters die like the others because they make a mistake. Martin's work is uninhibited on suffering, which is not found in high fantasy.
In Game Of Thrones, politics seems to trump magic, is the supernatural a pretext to focus on human behavior?
It is discussed because Martin gradually introduces the supernatural. We still find the codes of fantasy there: dragons, the evil lord coming from the North to conquer the world, magicians who throw fireballs, witches… Finally we find ourselves, especially in the series, to check a number of boxes. On the other hand the author takes a step aside because what interests him is not the fight of a magician against dragons but the whole political intrigue that there is behind.
From the moment Martin takes this step aside from this very Manichean fantaisy, he seeks to reinject - and for once it is its peculiarity - the complexity in the characters. In the Lord of the Rings , Aragorn is an example of virtue from start to finish, he is and remains the hero. While at Martin, the characters are not black or white but in shades of gray. The typical example is Jaime Lannister: he is no longer the same character at the end as the one we discover at the start. Likewise for Arya Stark or Sansa, and to a lesser extent with Jon Snow and Daeneys.
We see it in the picture in the series but even more in the novels: Martin breaks the narrative voice into a multitude of chapters told from different points of view, which gives a very choral story, in which the characters contradict each other. Not having the same memory of events, they do not see things the same way, which makes it possible to break this Manichean vision, the good guys vs the bad guys.
How can we say that it is a political work?
I think it is a political work because it shows us above all people who talk about what they are going to do and what they are going to do to each other. This is politics: the art of speaking, of plotting. When you look closely, scenes of battles are rare. There are some very beautiful ones, whole episodes with the battle of the bastards or even that of Winterfell. But in terms of screen time, what we see most of the time are men and women seated around a table, in a dark, subdued atmosphere. They speak, plot, prevent or prepare for attacks. In the Lord of the Rings saga, the only comparable scene is Elrond's advice. That is to say ten minutes out of ten hours of film. Game Of Thrones is a series of words.
The characters who cling to their honor are those who do not survive.Honor gives way to political pragmatism. There is an idea of honor but it is an outdated concept. The characters who cling to these virtues are those who do not survive. Eddard Stark is the absolutely perfect example of the knight who does not want to lie, who does not want to play the game of conspiracies, of politics. It's Aragorn parachuted into Martin's universe, who ends up having his head cut off. Finally, there is no really flawless character from start to finish. Aside from maybe Bryan, who is the exception that proves the rule. Even Jon Snow who goes to the wall with the will to sacrifice his life for the others ends up stabbing Daenerys at the moment when he says to him "I love you you will always be my queen" , which is not recommended by the code d honor of the knight. The characters who survive are not those who cling to the honor but those who are ready to do the right thing.
What is the place of art in the posterity of heroes for Martin? Music is very present in the work to build the fame of the characters.
Martin is a music lover and music is something close to his heart. He explores it in other novels, and short stories like Une chanson pour Lya or Armageddon Rag in the world of rock, American metal from the 1970s. For that matter, the HBO series did a good job since the composer Ramin Djawadi did a great job: the music in the credits immediately became famous. The author uses music as a series of themes often associated with the fame of families. The typical example is the Rain of Castamere for the Lannisters which we will hear in the background in most of the scenes which involve either Cersei or Tywin and which will play a key role at the time of the Purple Weddings. There is a kind of political use of this music which almost becomes the national anthem of the Lannisters. It is a song that Tywin had himself write to celebrate one of his former victories: it is a staging of himself, his family, his authority through this music.
Martin's justice takes up both the terms of our contemporary justice and at the same time elements from the Middle Ages, such as the judicial duel or the ordeal ...
Martin draws a lot from historical elements, a lot in the Middle Ages which is often the traditional breeding ground for Fantasy, but he also draws from Antiquity and the modern era to mix all these historical elements with talent and acuity. Besides, the series works because this fusion is well done. We have on this side the trial of Tyrion which ends with an ordeal, a form of justice attested in the Middle Ages, really used for several centuries. But before that, the condemned arrives before his judge handcuffed between two police officers. In fact there is always this desire, quite classic in the fantaisy series, to take up elements that the public knows and recognizes because the public must understand what is going on. The use of elements of the contemporary trial which allows the spectator to contextualize. Then you need exotic elements and it's a judicial duel. Thus, he can check the Middle Ages element. It is a kind of back-and-forth that the series constantly makes between familiar contemporary elements and exotic elements.
The main theme of the series remains the question of power: what does power do both to the people over whom it is exercised and to the people who exercise it.Does the series question our contemporary society?
Martin does not teach a lesson and does not say what to think. The series questions a certain number of themes, motifs which are at the heart of our contemporary. We are free to interpret it in the light of our news. For example, season 7 ends with the destruction of the Wall by the Night King. As she leaves the United States, Donald Trump begins to build his wall with Mexico. For once there is a wanted parallel: the President builds walls at the moment when the series destroys them. Then it is up to everyone to draw their interpretation. He did not have the will to thumb his nose at our society, it is more complex than that.
Some of the necessary parallels may be more coincidental. It is difficult when one hears the repeated motto of the Stark " Winter is coming" , not to hear an echo of climate change. Because we are in it right now. However at the time of writing the first novel, in the 1990s, the subject was less worrying than today.
Daenerys who rightly lives her dream of returning home has also built a multi-ethnic army by incorporating Dothrakis, slaves, immaculate people ...There is the question of the place of women and in particular the place of women of power or the place of power that women can exercise. But the common thread of the series remains the question of power: what does power do both to the people over whom it is exercised and to the people who exercise it. It seems like Game of Thrones portrays a very corrupting power: a power that corrupts everyone, including characters who were well-intentioned. We can take the example of Daenerys. She is faithful, kind, heroic in the first seasons when she delivers slaves, she is a mother figure, and a tough guy with her dragons. Then in the last season, she becomes a kind of crazy arsonist, genocidal who ends up murdered because she has become completely out of control. Clearly this series questions power and therefore politics yesterday and today.
Some say that Game Of Thrones is an identity work?
Like all great works, there are plenty of ways to read it, lots of ways to appropriate it. It is true that there is this return to the country side, return to the native land which is very strong at Daenerys. But besides that Daenerys who rightly lives her dream of returning home has also built a multiethnic army by incorporating Dothrakis, slaves, immaculate ... Racial diversity in the series is very present in Daenerys. It is a little easy to make it an icon of passionately identity attachment to the terroir or the native land since when she returns to Westeros, not only does everyone treat her like a foreigner but she comes back with an army completely tinkered with black slaves, and much more racially diverse fighters than the people of Westeros.
Read also: Game of Thrones: at the beginning of politics was fear
The Middle Ages are often depicted as a period when we ate a lot. The meal occupies an important place in medieval political rituals. But unlike the Arthurian chivalry novels, in GOT they almost systematically turn to tragedy?
For once, there is a real inversion of the narrative model of Arthurian novels. In these novels, all the knights are gathered around the round table, they are having a feast and patatras! Something is happening: a character comes to challenge Arthur, someone comes to kidnap the Queen. It is the beginning of the adventure. The second model is that of the banquet which harmoniously concludes the story. At Astérix, each time the comic book ends with a board on which all the characters are eating wild boars while laughing. Martin breaks with the classic models because he chooses banquets that end the stories not as an outcome but to announce the death of a character. At each feast someone passes by, whether it was the Purple Wedding that shocked everyone or the death of Joffrey during his marriage. It's interesting to realize that Martin takes pleasure in reversing the patterns we have in mind. Generally when the characters meet it is to celebrate something. In fact, in Game of Thrones this is the time when most things are happening.