Game of Thrones Meta: The Power of Telling Stories

[shadowkat]

The dragons are gone, the giants are dead, and the children of the forest are forgotten..

There is no magic in the world any more, only stories

- Master Lleuwynn to Brann, Game of Thrones

We live in a world without magic but stories...stories that we often forget the power of.
How they can hold us, take hold of us, captivate, and control us. Bewilder, befuddle,
and alter perception. Stories are who we are. Where we've been and where we are going.
We are in the end nothing but the written and unwritten stories on the fabric of time and
the woven tapestry of existence. Stories are the most powerful magic there is.

Power is a trick of the light, who you perceive that has it, and who casts
the longest shadow. A little man can cast a mighty large shadow.

-Varys, the Spider to Tyrion Lanniser, Game of Thrones

Been thinking about stories. I think sometimes we never really know each other until we learn each other's stories. And stories are the one thing that we have that has existed the longest...since the days of cave paintings, and are the only things that last...Ozymandias look at my mighty works..and yet they are nothing but dust wrapped inside a story told as poem in a book.

Finished reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern recently. It's a Young Adult novel, but quite innovative and different and with decidedly adult themes and concepts.
It's a narrative that wraps around itself. The end is the beginning and back again. And the narrative is about the magic of storytelling, how a story...words can become a circus that engulf the reader, or viewer, obsess the dreamer. So the story takes you over and becomes your world.

"You tell stories?" the man in the grey suite asks.

"Stories, tales, bardic chronicles," Widget says. "Whatever you care to call them. The things we were discussing earlier that are more complicated than they used to be. I take pieces of the past that I see and I combine them into narratives. It's not that important-"

"It is important," the man in the grey suit interrupts. "Someone needs to tell those tales. When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There's magic in that. It's in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict. From the mundane to the profound. You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift. Your sister may be able to see the future, but you yourself can shape it, boy. Do not forget that."

-The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Power of Stories Depicted in Episode 2.3 of Game of Thrones


In Game of Thrones, Bran is all about his dreams, where he wanders the woods and smells blood. In his dreams, he is free. A wolf. Yet not himself. Is this real or dream. He tells his story to the Master, who tells him it is nothing more than story.

Tyrion in King's Landing tells three separate stories to three separate men, to determine who will betray him. Which member of the Hand's council? The story is the same yet different each time. He tells Little-Finger that he wants to marry Princess Myrcella to Lysa's son Robyn, and in return for LittleFinger's help - he'll give him Harrenhall - just do not tell the Queen. He tells Vayrs that he wants to marry her to Theon Greyjoy of the Iron Islands - because he rightly guesses that the Greyjoy's will take the North and Winterfell, betraying Robb - just do not tell Queen. And he tells Master Pycell that he wants to marry her to the King of Dorn. But above all, remember not to tell the Queen. And of course one does tell the story to the Queen, who in turn rails at Tyrion for doing it for plotting to marry her daughter off (echoing her own tragic story)...and Tyrion sends the betrayer, Master Pycell to a cell, deep within King's Landing for his telling of tales out of school - which he rightly guesses he has done to every Hand before him.

Varys tells Tyrion this is well played, then playing the fool, tells Tyrion a story disguised as a riddle, much as he had once upon a time told Ned Stark...a joke, about a king, a priest, and a rich man...with a sellsword. Who has the power? What happens?

"Depends on the sellsword", states Tyrion. "Ah", says Varys, "but the sellsword has no loyalites, just the sword. What type of country are we if we put the power with the man with the sword?" "I find I don't like riddles", states Tyrion. "Power", says Varys, "is in perception, it's a trick, who casts the largest shadow."

Then there's the tale that Sam tells Gilly...to comfort her, after she loses her child.
Something he'd been given as a child. A lullaby of sorts.

Theon's tale of parental betrayal, of a man who gave his only remaining son to the man who killed the others, to his father and sister falls on hardened and pained and possibly death ears. While Jon Snow's tale of parental betrayal, a father giving his son to monsters, is heard but countered with a warning. We have greater stories, powers to pursue, Lord Mormount tells him. This is a lesser villain. A man who sacrifices his sons to crueler Gods than you have known. And if you saw who took the boy, you will most likely see it again. Lord Mormount's tale is a horror tale, one you don't want to hear before you go to sleep.

Finally, there's Jory's bedtime story to Ayra Stark...a tale of brotherly revenge. As a boy he'd seen his brother killed by a bright eyed handsome boy. I no longer remember the brother, he tells her, but I remember the bright blue eyed boy named William who stabbed him in front of me. Each night I'd say his name like a prayer, and then one day he rode back into town and I thrust a pick-ax through William's back . Little Ayra listens, and remembers, sharpening her own needle thin sword.


Be careful of the stories you tell...for they will change your reader. Be careful how you listen...for they change the stories you have yet to write. Mold and twist them, alter and shape them. A romance may now become a nightmare, or a nightmare could twist itself into a dream. Stories have power, no matter the teller. The power is in the listener, how we twist them inside ourselves, how we listen, and what we pull from the fabric of the tale.