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A Song of Ice and Fire/Analysis: Difference between revisions
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What I'm trying to get at is this: you can tell who's going to be important to the story by asking two questions: Who's the narrator?, and who are they Ishmaeling for?
This brings us to some of the few exceptions to the rule. On occasion, we'll have characters who are narrators ''and'' Movers & Shakers. One was Ned; obviously, he didn't stay that way for long. Another is Cersei, who comes into the dawn of her regency at the same time she becomes a narrator. The solution ''there'' is that Cersei loses her agency right quick; being a [[Small Name, Big Ego]] will do that to ya. But the last two are by far the most questionable, because either they're going to toss our theory on its head or be upended themselves. There ''are'' two Movers & Shakers, two characters with power, two Strong characters, who are also narrators, and have been ''from the beginning''. One is the Bastard of Winterfell, the 998th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch: Jon Snow. The other is the Stormborn, the Unburnt, Rightful Queen of Westeros, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons: Daenerys Targaryen.
First off: what's the first thing the fandom did? Elect them as Main Characters. There are a lot of people who believe that, if ''A Song of Ice and Fire'' HAS a single central character, it's Daenerys; if it has two, the second is Jon. (If there's a third, it gets muddier; my money's on Tyrion, but it could be Sansa or Bran or Arya or, in light of the events of ''Dance'', the new character, or even Davos.) Second: how does this jive with GRRM's ongoing habit of ''not'' letting us see what's going on in the minds of the Movers and Shakers, so as to keep them inscrutable and interesting? Well, part of it is that we (the readership) are expecting Jon and Dany to learn how to wield their power and authority properly, which is basically the one thing every other Mover & Shaker has ''not'' figured out at this point; Daenerys certainly has that goal in mind, and Jon (who is rocking the boat up north) is taking the long view, and the right view too, though a lot of his associated characters won't admit it. These two Strong characters who are learning (or at least trying) to wield their power [[With Great Responsibility]]. These two Strong characters are trying to do what Ned did--be both Strong ''and'' Good.
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Jaime Lannister can't help but think of the song when he rescues Brienne from a bear pit- and part of the joke is that while she's a maiden, she's hardly fair in appearance.ns While not really connected to the song, there's also probably something in the fact that Arya considered it just when the bear ate Lorch- Lorch had murdered Yoren, who was black and hairy (and reported to Jeor Mormont, the "Old Bear").
Finally, in a humorous gender inversion, [[Boisterous Bruiser|Tommond Giantsbane]] recounts that he [[But You Screw One Goat!|had sex with a she bear]], which (drunk and horny) he mistook for a Wildling Woman.
In part, the song relates to the series tending to subvert [[Beauty Equals Goodness]], but as the examples show, it's a bit more complicated than that.
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