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A Game of Thrones

erster Band der Fantasysaga Das Lied von Eis und Feuer
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A Game of Thrones is the first of seven planned novels in A Song of Ice and Fire, an epic fantasy series by American author George R. R. Martin. It was first published on 6 August 1996. The novel won the 1997 Locus Award,[1] and was nominated for both the 1998 Nebula Award[2] and the 1997[1] World Fantasy Award. The novella Blood of the Dragon, comprising the Daenerys Targaryen chapters from the novel, won the 1997 Hugo Award for Best Novella.

The novel lends its name to several spin-off items based on the novels, including a trading card game, board game and roleplaying game, and HBO has authorized the filming of a pilot episode based on the novels.[1]

Plot introduction

A Game of Thrones is set in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, a land reminiscent of Medieval Europe. In Westeros the seasons can last for years, sometimes decades, at a time. Nobody knows why.

Fifteen years prior to the novel, a civil war, known alternately as "Robert's Rebellion" and the "War of the Usurper," tore apart the Seven Kingdoms. Prince Rhaegar Targaryen apparently kidnapped Lyanna Stark, arousing the ire of her family and of her betrothed, Lord Robert Baratheon. The Mad King, Aerys II Targaryen, had Lyanna's father and eldest brother executed for threatening the crown prince. Her second brother, Eddard, joined Lord Baratheon and Lord Jon Arryn in declaring war against the Targaryens, securing the allegiances of House Tully and House Arryn through a network of dynastic marriages (Lord Eddard to Catelyn Tully and Lord Jon Arryn to Lysa Tully). The powerful House Tyrell continued to support the King, while both House Lannister and House Martell dragged their feet. The civil war climaxed with the Battle of the Trident, when Robert Baratheon killed Prince Rhaegar in combat. The Lannisters finally agreed to support King Aerys, but betrayed him by sacking the capital, King's Landing. Jaime Lannister of the Kingsguard executed King Aerys and House Lannister swore loyalty to Robert Baratheon. The Tyrells and remaining royalists surrendered and Robert Baratheon was declared King of the Seven Kingdoms. Unfortunately, Lyanna Stark succumbed to illness during the war; Robert Baratheon instead married Cersei Lannister to cement the alliance. Despite Robert's victory, the Mad King's youngest son Viserys and youngest daughter Daenerys escaped to safety across the sea. After the war House Martell chose a path of isolation, since Lannister armsmen killed Prince Doran's sister Elia (Prince Rhaegar's wife) and her young children during the storming of the capital.

Six years later King Robert proved his resolve by defeating a rebellion by Lord Balon Greyjoy of the Iron Islands. Balon's two eldest sons were killed; Eddard Stark received Balon's youngest son, Theon, as a ward.

Plot summary

A Game of Thrones follows three principal storylines as they develop in tandem with one another. The novel begins in the year 298 AL (After Landing) and continues for many months, probably into the early months of 299 AL.

In the Seven Kingdoms

Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell and the North, executes a man of the Night's Watch who betrayed his vows and fled from the Wall. His sons Robb and Bran, his bastard son Jon Snow, and his ward Theon Greyjoy all attend. After the beheading, Robb finds a dead direwolf (the symbol of House Stark), killed by the antlers of a stag (the symbol of House Baratheon). Five direwolf pups are found near the body. Robb and his brothers ask to keep them and Eddard consents, on the condition that the children themselves take care of them, rather than leaving the matter to the servants of House Stark. There are five pups, one for each of Eddard's trueborn children: Robb names his Grey Wind and Bran names his Summer, while Eddard's daughters Sansa and Arya name theirs Lady and Nymeria, respectively. Eddard's youngest, three-year-old Rickon, names his Shaggydog. Jon finds a sixth pup nearby: an albino with white fur and red eyes. Jon claims this one, Ghost, for himself.

King Robert Baratheon arrives at Winterfell with his court and many retainers, including his wife, Queen Cersei of House Lannister, and his children: Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen. The queen's twin brother, Ser Jaime Lannister of the Kingsguard, and their younger brother Tyrion, the Imp (so named for his dwarfism), also accompany the group. Robert asks Eddard to become the new Hand of the King after the death of the previous Hand, Lord Jon Arryn. Eddard and his wife Catelyn receive a letter from Catelyn's sister, Lysa Arryn, that the Lannisters murdered Lord Arryn. After Bran witnesses Jaime and Cersei having sex, Jaime pushes Bran from a high window. Bran breaks both legs and slips into a coma, and the knowledge of what he saw remains unknown to others. Eddard reluctantly agrees to become the new Hand of the King and travels south with his daughters Sansa and Arya, leaving Catelyn, Robb, Bran (still in a coma) and Rickon at home. Jon Snow elects to travel north to the Wall to join the Night's Watch. Tyrion accompanies him, eager to see the fabled construction.

After Bran's direwolf Summer kills an attempted assassin of Bran, Catelyn realizes that Bran was pushed from the window deliberately by someone who knew that Bran had seen something, and that now the would-be murderers were trying to cover their tracks. The only clue is a dagger left at the scene of the attempted murder. Catelyn travels by sea to King's Landing and is informed by her childhood friend Petyr 'Littlefinger' Baelish that the dagger was his own before he lost it in a bet to Tyrion Lannister. Traveling north again, Catelyn and her retainers encounter Tyrion by chance in an inn (as he returns south from the Wall) and, with the help of mercenaries ostensibly loyal to House Stark, take him captive. They travel to the Eyrie, where Lady Lysa places him on trial. Tyrion outwits Lysa to win his freedom in trial by combat when Bronn, one of the mercenaries that helped capture him, champions Tyrion and kills Lysa's champion.

In the capital at King's Landing, Eddard investigates Jon Arryn's death and learns that Jon and King Robert's brother, Lord Stannis Baratheon, had discovered that King Robert's three children were actually the products of an incestuous liaison between Queen Cersei and her twin brother Jaime. Spurning the advice of Robert's youngest brother Renly to take Cersei into custody, Eddard instead tries mercy by offering Cersei the chance to flee. King Robert dies of a hunting mishap later revealed to be engineered by Cersei, and Cersei's eldest son Joffrey is proclaimed King before Eddard can pass the crown to Stannis, Robert's true heir. When Eddard moves against the Lannisters he is betrayed by Littlefinger. After an extended period of harsh incarceration, Eddard reluctantly agrees to declare a false confession of treason in return for Sansa and Arya's lives and the chance to go into exile on the Wall. Joffrey promises Sansa that he will show mercy, then reverses course and has Eddard brutally executed in public. While Sansa is retained in custody, Arya escapes with the help of Yoren, a recruiting agent for the Night's Watch.

A civil war, later dubbed the War of the Five Kings, erupts. On the pretext of seeking retribution for the capture of his son Tyrion, Lord Tywin Lannister attacks Riverrun, the Tully stronghold. Robb Stark leads an army of northmen into the Riverlands to support Lord Hoster Tully. Jaime Lannister leads the siege, while Lord Tywin holds a large army south of the River Trident to prevent Robb's advance. Robb and Catelyn win House Frey's support by agreeing to a dynastic marriage, among numerous other concessions. Robb detaches his cavalry and crosses the Green Fork while his infantry carries on to the Trident under Lord Roose Bolton, one of Robb's bannermen. Tywin, joined by the liberated Tyrion (who has miraculously won the support of the mountain clans of the Vale), defeats the Stark footmen before learning that Robb has outmaneuvered him. Shortly afterwards Robb's forces surprise and capture Jaime at the Battle of Whispering Wood and destroy the rest of the Lannister army besieging Riverrun. Tywin falls back to Harrenhal and orders Tyrion, whose cunning and intelligence he has come to respect, to go to King's Landing to serve as Hand of the King in Tywin's absence.

Lord Renly Baratheon flees King's Landing to Highgarden, stronghold of House Tyrell, and declares himself King of Westeros, becoming the second of the war's five kings. Robb Stark becomes the third when all Stark and Tully bannermen proclaim him the King in the North and the Riverlands.

On the Wall

Ser Waymar Royce leads two men of the Night's Watch on a ranging mission beyond the Wall. They come across a camp of wildings seemingly frozen to death. Royce does not think the wildings are dead, and insists on investigating the camp, despite Will and Gared's fears. Several creatures confront them, the fabled 'Others' of legend. One of the creatures kills Royce. The second man, Will, investigates Royce's corpse only for it to come to life and strangle him. The third, Gared, is so terrified of what he sees that he flees south to the Wall and then beyond. Eddard Stark, knowing nothing of what led the man to flee, executes him as a deserter in the first chapter of the book.

Jon Snow, seeing little future for himself as the bastard son of Eddard, chooses to join the Night's Watch after his father departs for King's Landing. He travels north with his uncle Benjen Stark, the First Ranger of the Watch. At the Wall Jon finds that the Watch is beset with problems. A new King-beyond-the-Wall, Mance Rayder, has arisen in the northern lands to rally the wildlings to his banner. Rayder, was once a brother of the Watch before fleeing to join the wildlings. Jon also learns that the Watch is grievously under strength, mustering barely a thousand men to cover the three hundred miles of the Wall, and its manpower is now made up of criminals who chose the Wall over execution or imprisonment. Soon after Jon's arrival, Benjen vanishes on a ranging.

The master-at-arms, Alliser Thorne, bullies Jon and the other new recruits. Jon concocts a plan for them to stand up to him. Jon befriends Samwell Tarly, a craven but intelligent boy from the Reach, and Maester Aemon. Jon learns that Aemon is a Targaryen, great uncle to the deposed Mad King Aerys II.

Jon earns the status of full brother of the Night's Watch. To his dismay, instead of being made a ranger, he is assigned t as a steward to Jeor Mormont, the Lord Commander of the Watch. Sam points out that this is not an insult; "the Old Bear" is going to keep Jon close, as fathers keep their heirs nearby, and maintains that Mormont is grooming Jon for command. As Jon and Sam say their vows just beyond the Wall, Ghost returns with evidence that the corpses of two of Benjen Stark's men are nearby. The Watch carry the corpses back to Castle Black, where they come back to life and attack the Commander's Tower, including Mormont. Jon succeeds in destroying the wight with fire. Mormont resolves to lead the Watch beyond the Wall to test Mance Rayder's strength. Although news of his father's death causes Jon to doubt his calling, and he temporarily attempts to desert, his fellow recruits convince him his place is with the Watch. Mormont, as a sign of his confidence in Jon as well as his recognition of Jon as his "heir" to the command of the Watch, gives him the Valyrian-steel bastard sword of his former House Mormont, Longclaw.

In the East

In the Free City of Pentos, Magister Illyrio Mopatis and the exiled Prince Viserys Targaryen conspire to sell Viserys's thirteen-year-old sister Daenerys to Khal Drogo of the Dothraki. Drogo commands a clan of forty thousand mounted warriors whom Viserys plans to use to reclaim his homeland from the usurper Robert Baratheon. Among the wedding gifts are three petrified dragon eggs from Ilyrio. Unexpectedly, Daenerys and Drogo find love as they journey east into the vast grasslands of the Dothraki sea, and Daenerys becomes pregnant with a son, to be named Rhaego after her dead brother. Ser Jorah Mormont, son of the Lord Commander of the Watch and a knight exiled from Westeros for dealing in slaves, joins Viserys's entourage as an advisor of the current state of the Seven Kingdoms.

It soon becomes clear that although Khal Drogo sees his marriage to Daenerys, as advantageous, he has little interest in conquering Westeros, which he sees as distant and decadent. Viserys, who never deigns to understand the ways of the Dothraki, suffers a series of humiliations, most of which he does not even comprehend. Eventually, his anger at about how long he must wait before Drogo will accede to invading Westeros consumes him and, in a drunken rage, insults Drogo. Drogo decides to crown him right there—with molten gold, killing him. Though free of the wrath of her brother, Daenerys becomes more determined than ever to take up her brother's quest to reclaim the Iron Throne. Drogo, however is just as obstinate with her, the moon of his life, as he was with the Beggar King. Drogo is finally turned when a Westerosi assassin, in the pay of minions King Robert, tries to kill Daenerys and their unborn child. A furious Drogo vows to invade Westeros. However, during a warm-up raid on the peaceful Lhazareen, Drogo takes a wound to the chest. The wound festers, killing Drogo. Daenerys loses her unborn son to the machinations of a Lhazareen witch, whom Danaerys burns alive in her late husband's pyre. Daenerys had previously felt the eggs and found them warm to her touch, though no one else could feel the warmth. While the witch is being burned she places the eggs and then herself into the blazing pyre, allowing the eggs and herself to be consumed. Incredibly, she remains unharmed. When the pyre dies down, the eggs hatch, and Daenerys Targaryen, the Stormborn, emerges suckling three infant dragons, the surrogate mother of the first dragons seen in the world for one hundred and sixty years.

Viewpoint characters

All of the novels in the series use a system whereby each chapter concentrates on one character in a third person limited point of view. Correspondingly, each chapter bears the name of the current POV character (ex. "Bran," "Catelyn," "Daenerys") with the story flipping back and forth between the main characters. This technique was previously used in The Gap Cycle by Martin's friend, Stephen R. Donaldson.

The tale of A Game of Thrones is told through the eyes of 8 POV characters and a one-off prologue POV.

Allusions/references to other works

One of Martin's earliest attempts at writing a fantasy story was 'Dark Gods of Kor-Yuban', which was never published. The two heroes of the short story are the exiled 'Prince R'hllor of Raugg' and his boisterous, swaggering companion 'Argilac the Arrogant'. In an abandoned sequel Argilac teams up with Barron, the Bloody Blade of the Dothrak Empire, to slay the winged demons who killed Barron's grandfather Barristan the Bold. Most of these names reoccur in A Game of Thrones: R'hllor is the red god worshiped in the east (although not specifically named until A Clash of Kings); Argilac the Arrogant was the last Storm King thrown down by the Targaryens; the Dothrak Empire became the Dothraki horse-riders of the eastern plains; and Barristan the Bold was recast as Ser Barristan Selmy of the Kingsguard. Martin covers the origin of these characters and names in his essay 'The Heirs of Turtle Castle' in his biggest short-story collection so far, Dreamsongs: A Retrospective.

Editions

In June 2000 Meisha Merlin released a limited edition of the book, fully illustrated by Jeffrey Jones.

Foreign language editions

  • Bulgarian: "Игра на тронове"
  • Catalan: Devir Contenidos (2006): "La mà del rei"
  • Chinese: 重庆出版社(2005): ":权力的游戏".
  • Croatian: "Igra prijestolja"
  • Czech: "Hra o trůny"
  • Dutch: Luitingh-Sijthoff (1997): "Het spel der tronen"
  • Estonian: Two volumes, Varrak (2006): "Troonide mäng"
  • Finnish: "Valtaistuinpeli" (2003)
  • French: Two volumes (hardcover: Pygmalion (1998, 1999); paperback: J'ai Lu (2001)) "Le trône de fer", "Le donjon rouge".
  • German: Single volume, Fantasy Productions (2004): "Eisenthron". Two volumes, Goldmann (1997, 1998): "Die Herren von Winterfell", "Das Erbe von Winterfell"
  • Greek: Two volumes, Anubis (2004): "Παιχνίδι του στέμματος"
  • Hebrew: משחקי הכס
  • Hungarian: Single volume, Alexandra: "Trónok harca"
  • Italian: Two volumes, Mondadori (hardcover: 1999, 2000; paperback: 2001): "Il trono di spade", "Il grande inverno"; as a single volume titled "Il gioco del trono" in the collection Urania Fantasy - Le grandi saghe (July 2007)
  • Japanese: "七王国の玉座"
  • Korean
  • Polish: Zysk (1998): "Gra o tron"
  • Portuguese: Two volumes: Saída de Emergência (2007): "A Guerra dos Tronos", "A Muralha de Gelo". Partial and pirate edition: Entre Letras Editora (2002): "A Muralha" (1st part only)
  • Romanian: : Two volumes: "Urzeala tronurilor" (2007)
  • Russian: Single volume, AST (2001, 2004, 2007): "Игра престолов". Two volumes, AST (1999): "Игра престолов. Книга 1", "Игра престолов. Книга 2".
  • Serbian: "Igra Prestola" (2003)
  • Slovene: "Igra prestolov" (2007)
  • Spanish: Gigamesh (2002): "Juego de tronos"
  • Swedish: Two volumes, Forum: "I vargens tid", "Kampen om järntronen". Single volume, Forum (2005): "Kampen om järntronen"
  • Turkish: Buz ve Ateşin Şarkısı Serisi: "Taht Oyunları" (2005)

Literary significance & criticism

Awards and nominations

References

Vorlage:Reflist

Vorlage:ASOIAF Vorlage:GRRM

  1. ↑ a b 1997 Award Winners & Nominees. In: Worlds Without End. Abgerufen am 25. Juli 2009.
  2. ↑ 1998 Award Winners & Nominees. In: Worlds Without End. Abgerufen am 25. Juli 2009.
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