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From Greek Tragic Drama to Fantastic Terror: Tragic Echoes in A Storm of Swords’ Red Wedding

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Game of Thrones - A View from the Humanities Vol. 2

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Abstract

The “Red-Wedding” scene from A Storm of Swords, which displays cruelty and savagery and leads to the deaths of several main characters, can be viewed as a tragic turn of events within the epic narration. However, even from a philological perspective, the scene revives tragic themes and notions. The scene intertwines terror and pity, which are well-known tragic devices. The event itself, the murder of the guests, echoes the transgression of the Greek fundamental law of xenia, a recurrent theme in many Greek tragedies, from Aeschylus’ Oresteia to Euripides’ Hecuba. The aim of this paper is to show how the use and resha** of devices from Greek drama within the narrative form of the epic fantasy allow it to break away from the traditional schemes and contribute to a new and seizing kind of narration relying on “fantastic terror”.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Electre/Oreste by Euripides, directed by Ivo Van Hove.

  2. 2.

    Cappelle (2019: 1).

  3. 3.

    Huyssen (1986); Kristeller (1990). Kristeller dates this separation to the eighteenth century.

  4. 4.

    Rogers and Stevens (2017: 31–32).

  5. 5.

    Rosemary Jackson studies the links between fantasy and classical literature. She notes that Mikhail Bakhtin drew parallels between Menippean Satire and the fantastic (Jackson 2003: 8–10; Bakhtin 1984: 96–97). See also Brady and Mantoan (2018: 95–108).

  6. 6.

    Thrones S5: Ep.9, “The Dance of Dragons”.

  7. 7.

    Evans and Potter (2018: 43–65).

  8. 8.

    Martin (2000). Henceforth SoS.

  9. 9.

    Thrones S3: Ep.9, “The Rains of Castamere”.

  10. 10.

    Conradt (2015).

  11. 11.

    “With scarcely a moment’s respite, they began to play a very different sort of song. No one sang the words, but Catelyn knew ‘The Rains of Castamere’ when she heard it” (SoS 52 Catelyn 7).

  12. 12.

    George R. R. Martin himself explained the historical references used in the chapter: the Scottish “Black Dinner” and the Glencoe Massacre (Hibberd 2013).

  13. 13.

    Many of the themes and elements analysed in this paper through the lens of Greek tragedy could be seen as deriving from Shakespeare. Recent studies have pointed out the major influence of the classical tradition and Greek tragedy on Shakespeare. Thus, the point of this paper is not to analyse Greek tragedy as a direct and acknowledged influence on a twenty-first-century work of fiction, but as a remote echo which continues to pervade a contemporary literary genre. For the influence of classical tradition on Shakespeare, see Bate (2019). For the influence of Greek tragedy on Shakespeare’s tragedies, see Braden (2017). For an analysis of the links between Greek tragedies and Shakespeare through the lens of female characters, see Pollard (2017).

  14. 14.

    SoS 57 Tyrion 6.

  15. 15.

    SoS 8 Jon 1.

  16. 16.

    SoS 52 Catelyn 7.

  17. 17.

    Hibberd (2013).

  18. 18.

    One of the most striking examples of a murder of a host by his guest in theatre is from Shakespeare’s Macbeth: Macbeth invites the King Duncan to his castle and, with his wife’s encouragement, murders him in his sleep.

  19. 19.

    The theme of the violation of philia within Greek tragedy is studied by Belfiore (2000). She shows that the plot in which a philos kills another philos is praised by Aristotle and prevalent in Greek tragedy.

  20. 20.

    The expression is borrowed from Belfiore’s Murder Among Friends, Violation of Philia in Greek Tragedy (2000).

  21. 21.

    For a study of the patterns of guest-friendship in Greek tragedy, see Regenos (1955) and (1956).

  22. 22.

    Hibberd (2013).

  23. 23.

    Aeschylus, Libation Bearers 906–907: τούτῳ θανοῦσα ξυγκάθευδ’, ἐπεὶ φιλεῖς / τὸν ἄνδρα τοῦτον, ὃν δὲ χρῆν φιλεῖν στυγεῖς (transl. Sommerstein 2014: 317).

  24. 24.

    Kerrigan (1996: 3).

  25. 25.

    On the topic of revenge tragedy in Renaissance England, see Bowers (2015); Broude (1975).

  26. 26.

    This is the case of the only extant complete trilogy, Aeschylus’ Oresteia.

  27. 27.

    SoS 52 Catelyn 7.

  28. 28.

    Thyestes seduced Atreus’ wife. To avenge his brother’s betrayal, Atreus slaughters Thyestes’ children and secretly serves them to him at a banquet. Seneca’s tragedy Thyestes is based on a lost tragedy by Euripides.

  29. 29.

    “We thank you for your hospitality, my Lord” (SoS 52 Catelyn 7).

  30. 30.

    Gill et al. (1998: 140).

  31. 31.

    Gill et al. (1998: 140).

  32. 32.

    “Probabil’mente in nessun’altra narrazione contemporanea assistiamo a un numero tanto impressionante di morti tra i personaggi primari e comprimari […] La differenza è evidente: mentre in The Lord of the Rings possiamo fare un certo affidamento sul fatto che – con probabilità altissime – Frodo, Aragorn, Arwen e Gandalf arriveranno più o meno interi all’ epilogo, in Game of Thrones, ogni nuova puntata può riservarci la morte o il disastro del nostro personaggio favorito” (my translation) (Sturli 2017: 5–6).

  33. 33.

    “Assistiamo a una sorta di destabilizzazione dei ruoli e delle funzioni dei protagonisti, sia al livello della loro certezza di durata, sia rispetto al fallimento della possibilità di categorizzarli una volta per tutte mediante contrapposizioni binarie quali protagonista/antagonista, eroe/oppositore, buono/cattivo” (Sturli 2017: 7).

  34. 34.

    “Ni tout à fait coupable, ni tout à fait innocente”.

  35. 35.

    “Dans la perspective tragique, l’homme et l’action humaine se profilent, non comme des réalités humaines que l’on pourrait définir ou décrire, mais comme des problèmes. Ils se présentent comme des énigmes dont le double sens ne peut jamais être fixé ni épuisé”. (Vernant and Vidal-Naquet 1990: 38).

  36. 36.

    For instance, Deianeira in Sophocles’ Women of Trachis, Ajax and Antigone (in each of the eponymous plays by Sophocles) die at the end of the first half of the play. The second part of the play unravels the different consequences tied to their death (Kirkwood 1994: 42–54).

  37. 37.

    Aristotle, Poetics 1452 a–b.

  38. 38.

    Sophocles, Women of Trachis 707–711 (transl. Lloyd-Jones 1994: 196–197).

  39. 39.

    Poetics 1452a 32–33 (transl. Heath 1996: 18–19).

  40. 40.

    SoS 52 Catelyn 7.

  41. 41.

    SoS 52 Catelyn 7.

  42. 42.

    SoS 52 Catelyn 7.

  43. 43.

    Rehm (1992: 61).

  44. 44.

    Goldhill (1986: 87).

  45. 45.

    As Rehm enhances, “the convention of the messenger scene does not entail the mistaken notion that all violence in Greek tragedy takes place off-stage” (1992: 62). The notion of “bienséance”, which forbids any onstage violence is associated with the aesthetics of French Classicism.

  46. 46.

    Rehm (1992: 61).

  47. 47.

    SoS 52 Catelyn 7.

  48. 48.

    Euripides, Hecuba 383–388 (transl. Arrowsmith 2013a: 132).

  49. 49.

    See Dué (2006) and Loraux (1999).

  50. 50.

    Foley (2001: 32).

  51. 51.

    Foley (2001: 287).

  52. 52.

    SoS 52 Catelyn 7.

  53. 53.

    Euripides, Heracles 490–496 (transl. Arrowsmith 2013b: 62).

  54. 54.

    Mossman (1999: 218–219).

  55. 55.

    Euripides, Hecuba 805–812 (transl. Arrowsmith 2013a: 167).

  56. 56.

    See Pollard (2012, 2017).

  57. 57.

    Shakespeare, Richard III, IV, 4, 99–109.

  58. 58.

    SoS 52 Catelyn 7.

  59. 59.

    Griffith and Most (2013: 121).

  60. 60.

    SoS 52 Catelyn 7.

  61. 61.

    Dugdale (2015: 100).

  62. 62.

    Rabinowitz (1993: 102).

  63. 63.

    Rabinowitz (1993: 103).

  64. 64.

    Segal (1993: 158). SoS 52 Catelyn 7.

  65. 65.

    SoS 52 Catelyn 7.

  66. 66.

    Euripides, Hecuba 755–757 (transl. Arrowsmith 2013a: 147).

  67. 67.

    Weiner (2017: 14).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France

    Alexia Dedieu

  2. Università degli Studi di Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Alexia Dedieu

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Historia Antigua, Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain

    Alfonso Álvarez-Ossorio

  2. Departamento de Historia Antigua, Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain

    Fernando Lozano

  3. Departamento de Filología y Traducción, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla, Spain

    Rosario Moreno Soldevila

  4. Departamento de Geografía, Historia y Filosofía, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla, Spain

    Cristina Rosillo-López

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Dedieu, A. (2023). From Greek Tragic Drama to Fantastic Terror: Tragic Echoes in A Storm of Swords’ Red Wedding. In: Álvarez-Ossorio, A., Lozano, F., Moreno Soldevila, R., Rosillo-López, C. (eds) Game of Thrones - A View from the Humanities Vol. 2. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15493-5_10

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