tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/norse-poetry-32552/articles
Norse poetry – The Conversation
2017-02-21T14:51:51Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/73154
2017-02-21T14:51:51Z
2017-02-21T14:51:51Z
Norse gods make a comeback thanks to Neil Gaiman – here’s why their appeal endures
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157722/original/image-20170221-18624-1wad0fq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The stuff of legend.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/503301562?src=y8WNWSxScCSKzEhqt8anjQ-1-2&size=medium_jpg">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Norse gods are back and ready for a new generation in acclaimed fantasy author Neil Gaiman’s newly published book <a href="http://www.neilgaiman.com/works/Books/Norse+Mythology/">Norse Mythology</a>. Yet the truth is the immortality of the gods was never in doubt. These all too human tales have been retold to different audiences in different ways repeatedly over the years.
But what makes the Norse myths so irresistible to contemporary writers?</p>
<p>Gaiman retells the ancient stories in a modern idiom and previously took up Norse mythic motifs in both his novel American Gods and his children’s book, Odd and the Frost Giants. He is not alone. Over the last 12 or so years, bestselling children’s and young adult authors Joanne Harris and Francesca Simon have written novels with Norse mythic themes. AS Byatt, who incorporated Norse myth into her 1990 novel Possession, also retold tales – interwoven with autobiographical elements – in her 2011 Ragnarok. Even Game of Thrones’ icy world beyond the Wall, with its Three-Eyed Raven and White Walkers, riffs on Odin and the frost-giants. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"832898570382667777"}"></div></p>
<p>Norse myth has rarely been out of fashion since its rediscovery in Scandinavia in the 18th century. After World War II their tenuous association with <a href="http://norse-mythology.org/symbols/swastika-ancient-origins-modern-misuse/">Nazi ideology</a> caused tales of Óðinn (Odin) and Þórr (Thor) to fall out of favour, but in the 1960s the myths were once again retold for children by authors such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/dec/12/winter-reads-myths-norsemen-roger-llancelyn-green">Roger Lancelyn Green</a> and <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1579590.Tales_of_the_Norse_Gods">Barbara Leonie Picard</a>. These children’s versions were often the inspiration for today’s writers to revisit Norse myth. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157325/original/image-20170217-10193-2sew80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157325/original/image-20170217-10193-2sew80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157325/original/image-20170217-10193-2sew80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157325/original/image-20170217-10193-2sew80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157325/original/image-20170217-10193-2sew80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157325/original/image-20170217-10193-2sew80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157325/original/image-20170217-10193-2sew80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">After Ragnarok by Emil Doepler (1905).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>As preserved, Norse mythology is easier to make sense of than, say, the dozens of disparate stories that make up the Greek mythological corpus. We only have two major written sources: the collection of poems written down around 1270 in Iceland known as <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-poetic-edda-9780199675340?cc=gb&lang=en&">The Poetic Edda</a>, and <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Edda-Everyman-Snorri-Sturluson/dp/0460876163">The Prose Edda</a>, composed by the Icelander Snorri Sturluson in the 1230s.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sagamuseum.is/overview/snorri-sturlusson">Snorri</a> was a politician, scholar, poet and a Christian. He set out a systematic account of the Norse gods and the history of the world, from before its creation to the total destruction of the cosmos - known as <em>ragnarök</em> – and, importantly, what happened next. Snorri knew many of the poems in The Poetic Edda along with tales now lost to us. </p>
<p>Gaiman’s retelling closely follows Snorri; consequently his account smooths out some of the uncomfortably jagged elements found in the poetry. The eddic poem Skírnir’s Journey, for example, tells how the god Freyr sent his messenger Skírnir to woo a beautiful giant-girl for him. The girl, Gerðr, unexpectedly refuses to be won over, whether by Freyr’s charms, gifts, or threats. Only when Skírnir launches into an aggressive multi-stanza curse, calling down sterility, misery and a three-headed husband on Gerðr, that she finally relents and agrees to a rendezvous with the god. Snorri – and Gaiman – ignore this alternative version with its strong sense of female resistance to patriarchal assumptions.</p>
<p>Snorri’s Christian worldview made him add a prologue, explaining that the Norse gods were really humans - refugees from Troy. He synthesises the differing accounts of the creation of the world – rising up out of the sea or crafted by the gods from the body of the slaughtered giant Ýmir – and explains how the gods raised temples and halls, forged tools and gaming pieces, created humans and established culture. The gods are described in detail, and the best known stories of Þórr’s exploits and Loki’s double-dealing are retold; though there is much less information about the goddesses. </p>
<p>Finally comes a long account of the events leading up to <em>ragnarök</em>, starting with the death of Baldr, and climaxing in the final battle between the gods and the great wolf, Fenrir, the World-Serpent and the frost and fire-giants. Cosmic wolves swallow the sun and moon and the Earth sinks back beneath the sea; fire and steam rage against the dark sky.</p>
<p>In the Prose Edda’s vision the gods behave like great northern lords. They keep the giants – the other of the mythic world – in line through aggression and marriage alliances, gather in council to take important decisions and feast in their splendid halls. Óðinn is obsessed with discovering whether <em>ragnarök</em> can be avoided; Loki bides his time, waiting to reveal his true allegiance to the forces of chaos. The goddesses embody beauty, sexual desire and motherhood; they have access to prophetic wisdom and more agency than Gaiman credits them with. Frigg, as I discuss in my own recent <a href="http://www.thamesandhudson.com/The_Norse_Myths/9780500251966">book on Norse myths</a> on Norse myths and legends, is not simply Baldr’s grieving mother (the role assigned her by Snorri and Gaiman). She competes with her husband as patron of kings and plays a bold trick on her husband so that his own protégé submits him to torture.</p>
<h2>A new old world?</h2>
<p>After <em>ragnarök</em> the second generation of gods, along with Baldr, and his unwitting slayer, his blind brother Höðr, return, dwelling in a gleaming, golden hall. For the world is made anew, with snow-capped mountains and waterfalls where the eagle hunts for fish. In the freshly sprouting grass they find the golden gaming-pieces, the ones they made when the world was first young. In Gaiman’s account these pieces are images of the previous gods, rather like the <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/news_and_press/statements/the_lewis_chessmen.aspx">Lewis chessmen</a>. When Baldr sets them on the gaming-board history begins, we assume, to repeat itself. In The Seeress’s Prophecy though, they are simply tokens, suggesting that this time around the earth’s future can take a different course. </p>
<p>It is this hope of starting afresh with a new clean world in order to write a more optimistic history – along with the distinctive, human characterisation of the Norse gods and the multiplicity of genres that the mythology encompasses – that brings our culture constantly back to the gods and their grandly tragic, absurdly comic, strangely moving tales.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73154/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carolyne Larrington has recently published a book on Norse Myths with Thames and Hudson. This is mentioned in the article.</span></em></p>
Norse mythology is having a moment as a leading author re-tells the tales for a new generation.
Carolyne Larrington, Professor and Tutorial Fellow in English, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/69386
2016-12-21T10:34:19Z
2016-12-21T10:34:19Z
Scandinavian winters of old were less hygge, more Nordic Noir
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148936/original/image-20161206-25753-j0nty2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> RPBaiao / Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This winter <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-danish-concept-of-hygge-and-why-its-their-latest-successful-export-67268">hygge</a> has replaced Nordic Noir as the UK’s favourite Scandi-import. But the festive season in the Nordic world has not always granted an opportunity for cosy mindfulness. Medieval sources offer a decidedly more terrifying vision of Christmas, or <em>jól</em> (yule), its proximity to the winter solstice putting it at the heart of icy nightmares.</p>
<p>In the tenth century, King Hákon the Good (c. 920-961) ordered that the pre-Christian festival of yule should be observed at the same time Christians celebrated Christmas, Icelandic historian Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241) tells us. The word <em>jól</em> was not replaced when it came to designate the Christian feast and related terms are still used in the modern Scandinavian languages. Both festivals involved drinking and feasting – but Old Norse texts also make a firm correlation between yuletide and the supernatural.</p>
<p>Understandably in such a northern climate, Norse mythology associated wintry weather with hostile forces. It was said that a mighty winter lasting three years would lead up to <em>ragnarök</em>, the apocalypse. The giants that constantly threaten the civilisation of the gods are associated with rime and frozen altitudes – one even has an icicle-beard that tinkles as he moves. It’s no surprise in <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/game-of-thrones-6730">Game of Thrones</a> that those living north of the <a href="http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Wall">Wall</a> are referred to as “wildlings” by the citizens of the Seven Kingdoms, or that the truly terrifying <a href="http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/White_Walkers">White Walkers</a> come from the “Lands of Always Winter” in the Far North.</p>
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<h2>Yuletide ghosts</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-the-icelandic-saga-63112">the Icelandic sagas</a>, hauntings are particularly rife at Christmas, with <em>draugar</em>, the corporeal ghosts of the deceased, returning to wreak havoc in their former households.</p>
<p>In the saga of Grettir Ásmundarson, for example, the fearsome shepherd Glámr engages in a mutually fatal Christmas Eve battle with an “evil creature” beleaguering the farm. But Glámr returns posthumously to damage property and terrorise the population by night. The hauntings lessen as the days grow longer, but next Christmas Eve the cycle begins again. In the third year, the pattern is broken by the eponymous hero Grettir, who – after an almighty tussle – is able to defeat the revenant by cutting off its head and placing it beside its buttocks (though not before being cursed so that Grettir is forever afraid of the dark).</p>
<p>And in The Saga of the People of Eyri (<em>Eyrbyggja saga</em>), a household is beset just before yule by a supernatural seal popping up through the fireplace – a far less welcome visitor than Santa coming down the chimney. Every attempt to club the seal only makes it rise further, until a boy whacks it with a sledgehammer “and the seal went down as if he were driving in a nail”. The ghostly return of six drowned men is at first celebrated, but the revenants outstay their welcome and are eventually dispatched through a combination of religious rites and legal proceedings.</p>
<p>In latitudes where midwinter offers at best four or five hours of daylight, it is natural that beliefs imbued with a fear of the dark should transpire. <a href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/seasons-in-the-literatures-of-the-medieval-north-hb.html">It has been suggested</a> that the association of revenants with winter may have been heightened because solidly frozen ground or heavy snowdrifts could hamper normal burial procedures, leading to a consequent fear that the dead could more easily rise.</p>
<h2>Freaky feasts</h2>
<p>Even kings can’t avoid their Christmas parties being ruined by supernatural happenings. In Snorri’s <em>Heimskringla</em>, his chronicle of the kings of Norway, all the food for King Hálfdan’s (c. 810-860) yule banquet is spirited away. King Harald Fine-Hair (c. 850-932), on the other hand, drinks a love-potion disguised as Christmas mead, driving him so mad with desire he neglects his kingly duties until the object of his new affections dies and is cremated.</p>
<p>Aristocratic Christmases are also documented by the <em>skalds</em>, medieval Scandinavia’s court poets. Here we find all the elements now associated with a merry Christmas – eating, drinking and gift-giving – but given a typically dark and martial twist. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149548/original/image-20161211-31396-10yzrc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149548/original/image-20161211-31396-10yzrc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149548/original/image-20161211-31396-10yzrc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149548/original/image-20161211-31396-10yzrc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149548/original/image-20161211-31396-10yzrc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149548/original/image-20161211-31396-10yzrc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149548/original/image-20161211-31396-10yzrc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Odin with his ravens Huginn and Muninn. From manuscript SÁM 66.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>When the poet Grani <a href="http://skaldic.abdn.ac.uk/db.php?id=2752&if=default&table=verses&val=edition">praises Harald Hardrada</a> (1015-1066) for “prepar[ing] a yule-feast for the retinue of Huginn”, the implications are darker than they seem: Huginn is one of Odin’s pet ravens – and a feast for carrion birds consists of dead bodies. Grani is in fact lauding Harald’s success in battle. For the <em>skalds</em>, Christmas was just another occasion to boast of their patron’s brutal brand of bravery.</p>
<p>The medieval period didn’t have a monopoly on creepy Christmases. Iceland’s <a href="https://www.academia.edu/2993258/Gr%C3%B8leks_and_Skeklers_Medieval_Disguise_Traditions_in_the_North_Atlantic">Grýla</a> may be a giantess known to Norse myth, but her tendency to devour naughty children at Christmastime – and her pet cat who gobbles up those without new clothes – are recorded hundreds of years later. Modern-day figures have become more good-natured, though: Grýla’s sons, known as the “Yule Lads”, are now more likely to be found distributing Christmas gifts than scaring the population into good behaviour. </p>
<p>“<a href="http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Winter_is_Coming_(motto)">Winter is coming</a>” still resounds with menace in modern storytelling, but we can all sleep snug in our beds knowing we probably won’t have to contend with a supernatural seal while hanging the stockings this Christmas.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69386/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hannah Burrows receives funding from the Arts and Humanties Research Council. </span></em></p>
When it’s dark all the time you never know who might want to come to the Christmas party.
Hannah Burrows, Lecturer in Scandinavian Studies, University of Aberdeen
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/67245
2016-10-25T19:12:29Z
2016-10-25T19:12:29Z
Wrapping up the fantasy - how will Game of Thrones end?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142849/original/image-20161024-26504-qpx4ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A comic ending - in the sense of Shakespeare's comedies - would see Jon Snow marry Daenerys and live happily ever after.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">©2016 Home Box Office, Inc.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The hugely popular TV show Game of Thrones has two seasons to go; already the showrunners, David Benioff and Daniel Weiss, are speeding towards the endgame. But providing a satisfactory conclusion to a show that has multiple, interweaving storylines and which incorporates both realist and high fantasy elements is no easy task.</p>
<p>George R. R. Martin, author of the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/43790-a-song-of-ice-and-fire">A Song of Ice and Fire</a> series on which the show is based, is also obliged to invent endings for narratives within an even more complex storyworld. Can Benioff and Weiss – and Martin – wrap things up in a way that will satisfy the fan communities <em>and</em> make narrative sense?</p>
<p>One of the pleasures of both show and books is the multiple genres that they encompass. Detective story, horror, sci-fi have all been invoked: who killed Jon Arryn, and why, was a pressing question in the first and fourth seasons.</p>
<p>Horror tropes are activated when the zombie wight army and the White Walkers loom into view; meanwhile discredited Maester, <a href="http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Qyburn">Qyburn</a>, is reinventing himself as Victor Frankenstein in his laboratory down in the Black Cells. The genres of epic, comedy, myth and tragedy offer different possibilities for closure to the stories of the Targaryens, Starks and Lannisters – and the rest of the Known World. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142851/original/image-20161024-26467-123o9ll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142851/original/image-20161024-26467-123o9ll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142851/original/image-20161024-26467-123o9ll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142851/original/image-20161024-26467-123o9ll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142851/original/image-20161024-26467-123o9ll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142851/original/image-20161024-26467-123o9ll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142851/original/image-20161024-26467-123o9ll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Daenerys, played by Emilia Clarke: will she win the Iron Throne?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">©2016 Home Box Office, Inc.</span></span>
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<p>A comic ending - in the sense of Shakespeare’s comedies - is attractive. In this scenario, Daenerys wins the Iron Throne, marries Jon Snow, has lots of children to perpetuate the Targaryen dynasty, and everyone in King’s Landing lives happily ever after.</p>
<p>One of J.R.R. Tolkien’s plots within <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33.The_Lord_of_the_Rings?from_search=true">The Lord of the Rings</a> came to just such a conclusion; Aragorn became king and ruled wisely and well for a hundred years. Martin has <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/george-r-r-martin-the-rolling-stone-interview-20140423">expressly criticised the conventional nature </a>) of Tolkien’s comic ending though, and this solution would leave a number of questions unanswered, even if the Starks become Wardens of the North once more and <a href="http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Tyrion_Lannister">Tyrion</a> is Hand of the Queen. </p>
<p>Epic, meanwhile, is a public and political genre, concerned with the rise and fall of empires. An epic scenario would expand on the comic version by offering global solutions to the narratives. In this scenario, I’d expect more focus on the Essos plots, closing down the saga of Slavers’s Bay with the restoration of the slave-trade. The city of Volantis, the regional super-power, would intervene to restore the status quo. Peace would be restored throughout the Seven Kingdoms, thanks to Daenerys and Jon’s combined wisdom and firepower. These turbulent few decades in Westeros and Essos history would come to a satisfying end. </p>
<p>Comic or epic endings don’t solve the North’s most pressing problem however: Winter is coming, but a winter unlike any in living memory. How can the Westerosi combat or call off the implacable <a href="http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/White_Walkers">White Walkers</a>? </p>
<h2>A heroic ending?</h2>
<p>Now that Benioff and Weiss’s vision has gone beyond the plot material in Martin’s published works, they are free to opt for a heroic-mythic ending. The fan community would certainly like to see a titanic battle between the forces of fire, embodied by the dragons, and the petrifying antithetical figures of the White Walkers/Others, along with their Army of the Dead.</p>
<p>A heroic ending would mesh with the prophecy that the legendary warrior, Azor Ahai, will be reborn in order to overcome the existential threat to the Known World. Jon and Dany (representing Azor Ahai as male and female principles) could sally forth on dragon - back to battle against the blue-eyed ice-demons. </p>
<p>But if they are to save the Seven Kingdoms, their triumph will surely come at a cost. Fans have speculated that, by virtue of his Stark ancestry, Jon could become the new Night’s King, the White Walkers’ leader, and negotiate a peace on their behalf with the southern humans. That would put paid to his chances of sitting on the Iron Throne, but his sacrifice might be worth it.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142852/original/image-20161024-26489-u4zyzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142852/original/image-20161024-26489-u4zyzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142852/original/image-20161024-26489-u4zyzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142852/original/image-20161024-26489-u4zyzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142852/original/image-20161024-26489-u4zyzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142852/original/image-20161024-26489-u4zyzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142852/original/image-20161024-26489-u4zyzm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Could Jon Snow become the White Walkers’ leader?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">©2016 Home Box Office, Inc.</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>An almighty annihilation</h2>
<p>Finally, there’s the tragic possibility. As those relentless assassins, the Faceless Men frequently remind us: <em>Valar Morghulis</em> “All Men Must Die”. Martin’s title, A Song of Ice and Fire may allude to Robert Frost’s short poem “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44263">Fire and Ice</a> in which Frost explicitly figures the world’s end either in fiery conflagration or as a new Ice Age. </p>
<p>Apocalypse may be on the cards, a <em>ragna rök</em> like that described in the Old Norse poem <a href="http://blog.oup.com/2016/04/game-of-thrones-ragnarok/">Völuspá</a> (The Seeress’s Prophecy), composed around 1000 CE. In this terrifying vision, flame leaps up and consumes the heavens and the earth sinks into the sea from which it once arose. Humans, gods and giants perish and the great World-Tree shudders.</p>
<p>This eschatology wouldn’t fit with Martin’s hints about a "bitter-sweet” ending, however. The destruction of the Known World would be bitter indeed for fans, and there would be no consoling sweetness to temper the shock. </p>
<p>Benioff and Weiss could be tempted to blow their CGI budget on an almighty annihilation of everyone and everything; the show that staged the Red Wedding and the destruction of the Great Sept might not shrink from such a bold conclusion. In the final verses of Völuspá, a new world arises from the ocean, the eagle hunts fish on the mountainside and a fresh generation of gods and humans appear. So there can be hope on the other side of apocalypse.</p>
<p>Still, Benioff and Weiss have about 14 hours of screen-time in which to finish up and they may not be able to close down every single storyline in a satisfactory way. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142850/original/image-20161024-26486-7yie4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142850/original/image-20161024-26486-7yie4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142850/original/image-20161024-26486-7yie4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142850/original/image-20161024-26486-7yie4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142850/original/image-20161024-26486-7yie4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142850/original/image-20161024-26486-7yie4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142850/original/image-20161024-26486-7yie4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George R.R. Martin, author of A Song of Fire and Ice: likely to go for a heroic-mythic ending.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">©2016 Home Box Office, Inc.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Martin has two more books at least, and although the critic John Mullan has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/14/whatever-next-pleasures-plot-dickens-line-of-duty">recently suggested</a> that the author has literally lost the plot, Martin has more leeway to dream up multiple endings for his different narrative arcs, just as Tolkien did. Reflection on how medieval and modern genres work would help him in that challenge.</p>
<h2>An educated guess</h2>
<p>My guess is that the show will take the comic option, contenting itself with a marriage between Jon and Daenerys and finding some quick fix for the White Walker problem. The dragons will surely help.</p>
<p>Martin will go for a heroic-mythic ending, fulfilling the messianic prophecies in circulation about Azor Ahai and the even more mysterious Prince That Was Promised. Jon will sacrifice himself, unafraid to die once again, and Daenerys and her human children will rule wisely and well for generations to come. We’ll just have to wait and see.</p>
<p><em>Carolyne Larrington will talk about watching and writing about HBO’s Game of Thrones as a medieval scholar at the <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/professor_carolyn_larrington.shtml">University of Sydney on October 26</a> and the <a href="http://alumni.online.unimelb.edu.au/s/1182/match/wide.aspx?sid=1182&gid=1&pgid=9872&cid=14218&ecid=14218&crid=0&calpgid=722&calcid=1383">University of Melbourne on November 7</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67245/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carolyne Larrington does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
‘Winter is Coming’ and ‘All Men Must Die’ are Game of Thrones’ watchwords. But do they offer clues to an ending for the show – and the books?
Carolyne Larrington, Professor and Tutorial Fellow in English, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.