A Clash of Kings

“Give me a man for every vow I’ve seen broken and the Wall will never lack for defenders.”

In this passage, Jeor raises the idea of broken vows, which recurs throughout the novel in monologues delivered by Jaime and Sandor. Jeor suggests that oathbreaking is a common practice but is only seldom punished by enforced service at the Wall. This drives a criticism of oaths and honor, which the later monologues will elaborate in detail, bringing the nature of integrity into question.

“As they waited in Riverrun’s Great Hall for the prisoner to be brought before them, she saw Robb push back the crown so it rested upon the thick auburn mop of his hair; moments later, he moved it forward again; later he gave it a quarter turn, as if that might make it sit more easily on his brow. It is no easy thing to wear a crown, Catelyn thought, watching, especially for a boy of fifteen years.”

This passage establishes the crown as a recurring symbol of the authority and limitations of the kings who wear them. In this chapter, Catelyn’s perspective frames Robb as someone uncomfortable with the burdens of kingship. He constantly moves the crown back and forth, as if it doesn’t fit him well enough to be comfortable on his head, even though it was ostensibly crafted to fit him.

“‘Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.’

‘So power is a mummer’s trick?’

‘A shadow on the wall,’ Varys murmured, ‘yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.’”

In this passage, Varys establishes the thesis for the novel, which drives The Illusion of Power as a theme. Each of the five kings projects their own display of power, which draws the loyalties of nobility and common folk alike. In the context of this passage, Varys is using his insight to signal his interest in the power that Tyrion could project. This allows them to develop their relationship as allies to one another in the royal court.

“Everything I am, I owe to him […] All this he had of Stannis Baratheon, for the price of a few finger joints. It was just, what he did to me. I had flouted the king’s laws all my life. He has earned my loyalty.”

This passage explains the motivation behind Davos’s loyalty to Stannis. Davos approaches Stannis like a religious figure, repenting for his past life in exchange for the honor of serving him as his knight. This establishes his arc for the novel, which sees that faith shaken by acts that go against Davos’s moral standards.

“The Iron Throne is mine by rights, but how am I to take it? There are four kings in the realm, and three of them have more men and more gold than I do. I have ships…and I have her. The red woman. Half my knights are afraid even to say her name, did you know? If she can do nothing else, a sorceress who can inspire such dread in grown men is not to be despised. A frightened man is a beaten man. And perhaps she can do more.”

While Davos puts his faith in Stannis, Stannis puts his faith in Melisandre, an enigmatic figure who gives him a sense of power. Melisandre functions as an antagonist for Davos, representing the opposite of the approach that Davos has encouraged Stannis to take in pushing his claim. Where Davos urges Stannis to lead with the honor of the noble houses, Stannis chooses to lead with fear, which signals his desperation.

“The Dothraki named the comet shierak qiya, the Bleeding Star. The old men muttered that it omened ill, but Daenerys Targaryen had seen it first on the night she had burned Khal Drogo, the night her dragons had awakened. It is the herald of my coming, she told herself as she gazed up into the night sky with wonder in her heart. The gods have sent it to show me the way.”

This passage drives the red comet as a recurring motif for The Illusion of Power. Where other characters merely interpret the comet as a sign that favors their claim to power, Daenerys actually follows the comet, which becomes the inciting incident for her journey in this novel. This says more, however, about Daenerys’s interpretation of the phenomenon than it does about the comet’s actual nature. Later, the comet leads her to a fallen city, which reveals the illusory nature of the blessing she interpreted.

“My father once told me that a lord never lets sentiment get in the way of ambition.”

Tyrion shares this insight to explain his confidence in the deal with Doran Martell, and this quote also quietly resonates with the stakes of Tyrion’s narrative. Tyrion’s ambitions allow him to gather power in Cersei’s royal court. As he rises in power, however, he becomes more cautious about the discovery of his secret relationship with Shae, which Cersei tries to uncover and use against him, revealing that although he knows his father’s views on sentiment, he finds it hard to adopt them.

“I should have been born a man. I would have no need of any of you then. None of this would have been allowed to happen. How could Jaime let himself be captured by that boy? And Father, I trusted in him, fool that I am, but where is he now that he’s wanted? What is he doing?”

Cersei shares her frustrations with the men around her, which belies a criticism of the gendered standards of the medieval era and the fantasy genre itself. In traditional stories, the wisdom of the lord and the knight is revered by all, including the ladies. Cersei turns that on its head by expressing her frustrations with the limitations enforced upon her because of her gender.

“He looked up and down the benches at all the faces happy and sad, and wondered who would be missing next year and the year after. He might have cried then, but he couldn’t. He was the Stark in Winterfell, his father’s son and his brother’s heir, and almost a man grown.”

The ordinary life Bran experiences as lord of Winterfell is tinged with a poignant mood; he cannot sit as the Stark in Winterfell without thinking about everything and everyone he has lost in the process. This allows his call to adventure with the Reeds to take on an escapist quality, forcing Bran to not only abandon his ordinary life but to set aside the grief that comes with it.

“They are still unblooded, Catelyn thought as she watched Lord Bryce goad Ser Robar into juggling a brace of daggers. It is all a game to them still, a tourney writ large, and all they see is the chance for glory and honor and spoils. They are boys drunk on song and story, and like all boys, they think themselves immortal.

‘War will make them old,’ Catelyn said, ‘as it did us.’”

Catelyn’s perspective frames Renly’s court around their youth and innocence. Renly may have the popular thrust in his claim to the throne, but Catelyn insinuates that this also makes him naïve to the demands that fighting for the throne will have on them. Throughout the novel, Catelyn views the battles between the various would-be kings from an older generation and a mother’s perspective that highlights the immaturity of some of the men’s actions.

“‘Tell me, what right did my brother Robert ever have to the Iron Throne?’ He did not wait for an answer. ‘Oh, there was talk of the blood ties between Baratheon and Targaryen, of weddings a hundred years past, of second sons and elder daughters. No one but the maesters care about any of it. Robert won the throne with his warhammer.’ He swept a hand across the campfires that burned from horizon to horizon. ‘Well, there is my claim, as good as Robert’s ever was.’”

Echoing Stannis’s complaint in the Prologue, Renly elaborates his resentment for the principle of hereditary succession that dictates Stannis’s right to the throne. He cites the late King Robert as an example that such principles aren’t always followed, especially since he claimed the throne through war. This drives a larger critique of the reality of both tradition and honor, which recurs throughout the novel.

“‘My father once told me that some men are not worth having,’ Jon finished. ‘A bannerman who is brutal or unjust dishonors his liege lord as well as himself.’

‘Craster is his own man. He has sworn us no vows. Nor is he subject to our laws. Your heart is noble, Jon, but learn a lesson here. We cannot set the world to rights. That is not our purpose. The Night’s Watch has other wars to fight.’”

This passage triggers Jon’s examination of conscience as he reassesses his relationship with the vows he swore. He challenges Jeor to criticize Craster’s morals, but when Jeor explains that Craster is not enough of a concern for the Night’s Watch to intervene, Jon is forced to wonder what the point of his vow to protect the realm is.

“Back in Winterfell, Arya had prayed with her mother in the sept and with her father in the godswood, but there were no gods on the road to Harrenhal, and her names were the only prayer she cared to remember.”

Arya’s prayer is symbolic of her desire for revenge, which will spur her actions and decisions throughout the novel. This creates a conflict with her desire to return home so that Arya becomes more driven to pray for revenge than for a reunion with her family. This is suggested when Arya cannot bring herself to recall the prayers that remind her of home, leaving her to turn to her anger instead.

“So long as there was magic, anything could happen. Ghosts could walk, trees could talk, and broken boys could grow up to be knights. ‘But there isn’t,’ he said aloud in the darkness of his bed. ‘There’s no magic, and the stories are just stories.’

And he would never walk, nor fly, nor be a knight.”

Bran momentarily gives himself up to the cynicism of the ordinary world. He reasons that his paraplegia is a limitation, preventing him from living a life of adventure. This notion is overturned as he undergoes his character’s journey, in which he comes to realize that his identity as a warg allows him to live that adventure after all.

“Listen to yourselves! If you were sons of mine, I would bang your heads together and lock you in a bedchamber until you remembered that you were brothers.”

In this passage, Catelyn calls Renly and Stannis out for resorting to petty squabbles during their parley. This reframes their conflict as a classic sibling rivalry, in which they taunt each other without settling on a compromise towards an actual solution. This drives Martin’s criticism of monarchic systems and underscores the brothers’ failure to embody the qualities of good leadership while highlighting the essential immaturity of their actions.

“‘I don’t want it. I want to be a knight.’

‘A knight is what you want. A warg is what you are. You can’t change that, Bran, you can’t deny it or push it away. You are the winged wolf, but you will never fly.’”

Bran challenges the world of magic Jojen is inviting him into with his idea that his paraplegia is a limit to his capacity for adventure. Jojen urges him to reconsider what a life of adventure could mean for him as a person with paraplegia. In Jojen’s perspective, Bran’s paraplegia is not a limit, signaling Hope Amid the Ravages of War as a theme.

“The man who kills his own blood is cursed forever in the sight of gods and men.”

Tyrion delivers this passage when Shae encourages him to plot Cersei’s death. Though it appears in his narrative, the passage also resonates with Stannis’s state of mind after causing the death of his brother, Renly. Stannis’s engagement with dark magic is a curse in itself, entangling him with forces that are beyond his understanding, as well as his integrity. This passage effectively foreshadows Stannis’s demeanor in Chapter 42.

“When I asked him what I should do now, he answered that he supposed I should die. To spite him, I resolved to live. I begged, I stole, and I sold what parts of my body still remained to me. Soon I was as good a thief as any in Myr, and when I was older I learned that often the contents of a man’s letters are more valuable than the contents of his purse.”

Varys deepens his characterization by revealing his backstory to Tyrion in a rare moment of vulnerability. This backstory suggests his motivations for ascending the social ladder in King’s Landing—it enables him to overcome the master who wronged him, suggesting that he sympathizes with Tyrion for being the underdog in a court that strongly opposes him. With his statement about the value of “men’s letters,” Varys also offers a valuable bit of advice about subterfuge.

“‘What do you think a knight is for, girl? You think it’s all taking favors from ladies and looking fine in gold plate? Knights are for killing […] High lords with old names, fat rich men dressed in velvet, knights puffed up like bladders with their honors, yes, and women and children too—they’re all meat, and I’m the butcher. Let them have their lands and their gods and their gold. Let them have their sers.’ Sandor Clegane spat at her feet to show what he thought of that. ‘So long as I have this,’ he said, lifting the sword from her throat, ‘there’s no man on earth I need fear.’”

Martin continues developing his criticism of knightly honor and nobility through Sandor’s monologue, in which he declares that knights are nothing more than the henchmen of the rich lords who indulge in the perpetuation of their vanities. Sandor insists on his survival by championing violence, which makes him a valuable tool to someone like Joffrey. His views are particularly shocking to Sansa, who has always believed in the archetypal view of knights and ladies.

“Men fight more fiercely for a king who shares their peril than one who hides behind his mother’s skirts.”

In this passage, Tyrion argues for Joffrey’s deployment on the frontlines of their upcoming battle with Stannis. This quote also sets up the climax of Tyrion’s character arc, in which he decides to lead the soldiers into battle when Stannis’s remaining men storm the gates of the city. He abandons the safety of his status as a member of the royal family to embolden his men into battle.

“So many vows…they make you swear and swear. Defend the king. Obey the king. Keep his secrets. Do his bidding. Your life for his. But obey your father. Love your sister. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. Respect the gods. Obey the laws. It’s too much. No matter what you do, you’re forsaking one vow or the other.”

Once again, Martin develops his criticism of knightly honor by having Jaime directly address the impossibility of keeping one’s vows when they come into direct conflict with each other. Jaime’s backstory deepens his character by showing the complexity of his situation as a servant for the Mad King Aerys, who used his office to abuse his subjects. Jaime is jaded by the notion that a man can live consistently according to a code of honor, explaining his apparent amorality in the previous novel.

“The only way to keep your people loyal is to make certain they fear you more than they do the enemy.”

Cersei reveals her philosophy of leadership in this statement, which Joffrey echoes here, showing how she has influenced him. The reiteration of this philosophy is an implication of how much Joffrey is influenced by Cersei—and how much he fears her. The cycle of abuse that Joffrey inflicts on Sansa is merely an extension of his upbringing by Cersei.

“‘When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives,’ he said.”

Towards the end of her narrative, Arya is emboldened by the words she hears from her father’s voice. After hearing that her home is lost and her family is scattered, Arya has lost her sense of hope. This passage reminds her that she will only die if she resigns herself to the isolation that her situation makes her feel. As a result, Arya resolves to form a pack of her own, driving hope amid the ravages of war as a theme.