A Dance With Dragons

One of the last pieces of advice Maester Aemon Targaryen gives Jon Stark before leaving is that Jon must “[k]ill the boy” (118) within himself. Martin uses killing the boy as a motif to develop the theme of the Perils of Power and the Cost of Duty. Jon has to leave off being worried about whether others like him or approve of him to become an effective lord commander. As a Snow growing up in a household with a stepmother who disliked him, he is particularly vulnerable to disapproval from others. The price of power is learning to take hard decisions like executing Jonos Slynt for refusing an order. Killing the boy can also mean giving up one’s desires for the sake of power. Arya has to become “[n]o-one” (985)—she leaves behind her name, family, gendered norms, and nation to become an apprentice to the Faceless Men. Becoming no-one is a rite of passage that speeds her on her way to coming of age. Other characters also kill the boy by coming to understand that the safety they assumed existed since childhood is a sham and that now they are responsible for making themselves and their worlds. When Young Griff/Aegon tells Griff that he means to lead the expedition against Storm’s End, he is supplanting his mentor in an effort to fulfill his sense of destiny and to gain power he believes is his due as a Targaryen, for example. Killing the boy is a much desired first step toward the agency of adulthood, while becoming no-one is a strategy for transforming into someone else. Both represent moments where the character faces a point of no return for their character arc.

Dragons, direwolves, cats, and crows are all symbols of history and power in A Dance with Dragons. Dragons are symbols of the Targaryens’ heritage as dragonlords of Old Valyria, and in Daenerys’s case, the dragons are more specifically a symbol for her power in Meereen. Because of her dragons, the nobles around Slaver’s Bay fear her. Daenerys’s dragons also serve as symbols of the side of her history she fears—the destructive mental health conditions and violence of the later Westerosi Targaryens. Drogon, who ranges freely and kills a little girl, epitomizes this fear, while the two dragons she has shackled in the dungeons of the Great Pyramid symbolize her desire to leave the burden of that history behind.

Direwolves are the symbol of House Stark, one of the oldest families in Westeros. Nymeria, Summer, and Ghost connect Arya, Bran, and Jon, respectively, to their Stark roots and the old gods of the North. Because of their uncanny connections to the direwolves, Starks are able to use the senses and bodies of their direwolves to have knowledge not available to most humans, making them stronger and more resilient than the people who challenge them. Jon is the least comfortable with accepting his mundane power as a lord commander and the magical power of his affinity with Ghost, which weakens him when he faces mutiny. When Arya embraces her connection with a stray cat in Braavos and Bran relies on connections with animals of all sorts beyond the Wall, these wandering Starks are able to adapt to face the challenges they face. Martin relies on magical beasts to build the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, but he also relies on them for characterization.