A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin

• Born: September 20, 1948
• Birthplace: Bayonne, New Jersey

First Published: 1998

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Fantasy

Time of plot: Approximately three hundred years after Aegon I’s conquest of the Seven Kingdoms

Locale: The fictional continents of Westeros and Essos

Principal Characters

Joffrey Baratheon, the king of Westeros

Cersei Lannister, Joffrey’s mother and the queen regent

Jaime Lannister, Cersei’s twin brother and lover

Tyrion Lannister, Cersei’s younger brother

Stannis Baratheon, the brother of the late King Robert Baratheon

Renly Baratheon, the late King Robert’s youngest brother

Davos Seaworth, an advisor to Stannis Baratheon

Catelyn Stark, Ned Stark’s widow

Robb Stark, Catelyn’s son and the King in the North

Sansa Stark, the Stark’s eldest daughter

Arya Stark, the Stark’s youngest daughter

Bran Stark, the Stark’s second son

Jon Snow, Ned Stark’s illegitimate son

Theon Greyjoy, Ned Stark’s former ward

Daenerys Targaryen, the exiled daughter of the late King Aerys II Targaryen

The Story

In the midst of a civil war in the fictional land of Westeros, various factions compete to capture the Iron Throne in the capital city of King’s Landing. Joffrey Baratheon currently holds the throne, but he is not the late King Robert Baratheon’s true child and therefore has no legitimate claim to it; rather, Joffrey is the child of an incestuous relationship between his mother, Cersei Lannister, and her twin brother, Jaime. Cersei names herself queen regent and schemes to keep Joffrey’s origins a secret in order to keep him in power.

Tyrion Lannister, Cersei’s younger brother, uses his father Tywin’s backing to force Cersei to select him as the Hand of the King, a position that is open following the execution of the former Hand, Ned Stark.

Robb Stark, Ned Stark’s eldest son and the King in the North, sends an envoy to King’s Landing with terms for peace, and Tyrion secretly sends some of his men with the return envoy with the hope of freeing his captured brother, Jaime. The plot is discovered and peace talks stall. Meanwhile, the people of King’s Landing grow restless and hungry as the war cuts off supplies to the city, and there are riots. King Joffrey and other members of his party are attacked while riding in the city.

Arya Stark, Catelyn’s daughter, escaped King’s Landing before the war breaks out. With her boyish features and behavior, she disguises herself as a boy named Arry, and no one realizes she is a Stark as she travels northward with a group of men riding toward the Wall. However, her party is attacked and she is captured by Lannister forces as she tries to return home to Winterfell, and she ends up a servant at the castle Harrenhal. She employs the help of a man whose life she saved, Jaqen H’ghar, and together they free a group of northern men held in the dungeons. The northerners take over the castle, and northern reinforcements come to hold the castle. Arya ends up working as a page for Lord Roose Bolton. She does not like his plans for the castle and escapes.

In the south, Stannis Baratheon, the late King Robert’s older brother and the true heir to the throne, meets up with his younger brother, Renly. Renly now has a considerable army behind him and is making a bid for the throne himself. Unable to reach an agreement and join forces with his brother, Stannis enlists the help of the Red Priestess Melisandre to kill Renly. Lady Catelyn Stark and a female guard named Brienne of Tarth are in Renly’s tent when a shadow attacks and kills him, and the two women are both suspected of his murder. Catelyn and Brienne flee north together.

The news of Renly’s death brings the possibility of Renly’s military forces joining Stannis’s army to march against the Lannisters at King’s Landing, so Cersei and Tyrion send Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish to arrange a marriage between King Joffrey and Renly’s widow, Margaery Tyrell, in an attempt to buy the loyalty of some of the troops and of House Tyrell. Stannis then attacks Storm’s End, and when the well-fortified castle fails to fall, he once again uses Melisandre’s magic. She creates another shadow creature to kill the castellan of Storm’s End, and the men holding the castle surrender.

Finally, Stannis attacks King’s Landing, arriving with forces on land and on sea. His assault on the capital seems successful until Tyrion unleashes barges full of wildfire, a magical substance that can burn on water, and places a chain across the mouth of the river to trap and decimate Stannis’s naval forces. Even so, Stannis appears to be winning the battle as his ground forces approach the castle, until reinforcements sent by House Tyrell arrive and join with Tywin’s forces outside of the capital. The reinforcements help the Lannisters fend off Stannis and win the battle. Tyrion is badly injured in the fight after he is betrayed and attacked by one of his own guards. He is saved however, by his squire, Podrick Payne.

In the north, the castle Winterfell, home of the Stark family, is captured by Theon Greyjoy, Prince of the Iron Islands. Theon had been fostered at Winterfell as Ned Stark’s ward for ten years, and his act is seen as foolish by the Greyjoys and traitorous by the Starks and the residents of Winterfell. Catelyn Stark’s sons Bran and Rickon manage to escape, but Theon convinces everyone that they are dead by burning the bodies of two local boys and presenting them as the corpses of Bran and Rickon. Theon realizes he has too few men to hold the castle, so he sends a man called Reek, a servant of House Bolton, to recruit more. However, Reek is actually the illegitimate son of Roose Bolton, Ramsay Snow, who betrays Theon and takes Winterfell for himself. Ramsay Snow orders Winterfell to be burned to the ground and takes Theon captive.

Farther north, Jon Snow heads north of the great ice wall that separates Westeros from the northern wilds. The party, led by Lord Commander Jeor Mormont of the Night’s Watch, tries to discover what happened to a missing party led by Jon’s uncle, Benjen Stark. Under the orders of Mormont, Jon Snow and the ranger Qhorin Halfhand embark on a reconnaissance mission. What Jon finds is a massive gathering of wildlings prepared to march south. Halfhand tells Jon to pretend to forsake his oaths to the Watch and join the wildlings as a spy. Jon does so but is forced to kill Qhorin to prove his loyalty to the wildlings.

Far to the east, across the Narrow Sea in the land of Essos, Daenerys Targaryen leads a band of nomadic Dothraki people. Her followers have been greatly reduced since the death of her husband, Khal Drogo. Dany decides to follow a red comet in the sky that leads them east across a vast desert, and even more of her people die during this arduous journey. She happens upon the city Qarth, which welcomes her. However, she has no success in recruiting the Qartheen to her side in her bid to reclaim the Iron Throne; in exchange for ships to cross the sea, the merchant Xaro Xhoan Daxos wants one of her newborn dragons, but she refuses this offer. She visits the House of the Undying in Qarth, seeking an omen, and she is shown several disturbing visions before she is attacked by the Undying. She is rescued by one of her dragons, but the people of Qarth have begun to turn on her. There are several attempts on Dany’s life, but two strangers prevent her death. The strangers, Strong Belwas and Arstan Whitebeard, say they were sent by Illyrio Mopatis, a powerful trader, politician, and Targaryen ally, to take Dany and her followers back to Pentos; they bring three ships with them for this purpose. She takes the ships and agrees to go with them.

Bibliography

Frankel, Valerie Estelle. Women in Game of Thrones: Power, Conformity and Resistance. Jefferson: McFarland, 2014. Print.

Jacoby, Henry, and William Irwin, eds. Game of Thrones and Philosophy: Logic Cuts Deeper than Swords. Hoboken: Wiley, 2012. Print.

Martin, George R. R. The Lands of Ice and Fire. New York: Bantam, 2012. Print.

Wood, Brian, and Patricia Meredith. The Art of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. Roseville: Fantasy Flight Games, 2005. Print.