#it’s interesting how jon and sansa realize twisted versions of their fantasies whereas bran experiences something completely different

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

AGoT was absolutely making some big statementsᵀᴹ re deconstructing unrealistic fantasies and how they make tragedies out of children, with Jon, Bran, and Sansa being the main vehicles for this commentary. They are basically three different versions of GRRM’s critique on the genre. All three had built life expectations based on the songs fed to them as children, but had to have those dreams and aspirations (very) violently shattered as they were thrust into a world that didn’t care how it made corpses out of them. They have all been made victims of fantasy’s violence in a tragic process that is believed to be the natural order.

Sansa realizes in time that the songs didn’t paint the full picture. The singers neglected to warn her that not all handsome princes are kind, and not all knights actually understand the contradictions in the vows they swore; some don’t really care to in the first place. She learns that the handsome prince she loves can brutalize her through the very knights who should protect her (an innocent maiden). Though he doesn’t know it yet, it was Bran’s very ideal that almost killed him. He wanted to be Barristan the Bold, a valiant knight of the kingsguard. But it was a member of this “noble” order that tried to murder him (and thus made his hopes and dreams impossible) because he witnessed him betraying the man and institution he swore allegiance to. And Jon, like Bran, wanted to be the valiant hero. He banked on the songs which propagandized the Night’s Watch and their noble exploits. Then he actually joined the watch and came to learn that this “noble” order is an oppressive xenophobic force; and the contradictions presented when the oppressed (a bastard boy with little social status) unwittingly becomes an oppressor (him initially buying into the propaganda that the wildlings shouldn’t be a protected class).

Once all is said and done, all three children are forced to take on roles that couldn’t be farther from what they envisioned. Sansa is a princess hopping from one tower to the other, forced to cater to the whims of abusive men. Bran is a crippled boy who unlocks a magical power that he doesn’t really care for; he wanted to be a knight not a magician for crying out loud! And Jon does become Lord Commander as he wished, but he is utterly depressed and lonely when he’s made to foreswear family ties and drive his friends away once he gains power over them.

But the cool thing is, in the very same way that fantasy is deconstructed through them, it is also reconstructed and given new meaning as they find a place for themselves in the world in spite of their tragedies. Sansa is still a pretty princess in a tower, but she is learning to be her own rescuer and she has managed to retain empathy and kindness in an environment that tried to tell her how futile it would all be. Bran may be crippled and incapable of becoming Brandon the Bold, but he has reinvented what it means to go on the hero’s adventure and he is beginning to build a role as the Prince of the North. And Jon may be a bastard, yet he has somehow become the living embodiment of what it is to be the valiant prince that little children love to dream about.