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Chapter 43: Eddard
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Game of Thrones, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Politics and Power
Climate Change and Collective Action
Gender and Power
Honor and Integrity
Identity
Summary
Analysis
Sansa talks with Jeyne Poole about Ned’s decision not to send Loras Tyrell to track down and kill Gregor Clegane. Sansa thinks that Loras is the quintessential hero, while Gregor is a villain, so it would have been like one of the songs of the heroes of old if Loras struck down Gregor. Arya then comes into the room and asks if they sent someone to kill Jaime Lannister. Sansa clarifies that the men are going to kill Gregor Clegane. Arya responds that Jaime killed Jory and Ned’s other men, while the Hound killed her friend Mycah. They all need to be punished too, Arya says. Sansa says that Mycah attacked Joffrey first, so it’s different. Arya calls Sansa a liar.
Sansa’s discussion of heroes and villains points to how the novel diverges from the themes of many other books in the fantasy genre. In particular, A Game of Thrones is not as interested in the ideas of heroes and villains as it is in how each person can act in good or evil ways depending on the situation they’re placed in. The novel emphasizes this idea by creating complex political situations that characters must react to, which frequently leads characters to compromise their morality.
Themes
Ned enters the room and tells Sansa and Arya that he’s sending both of them back to Winterfell for their own safety. Three of his men have just been killed, and Robert’s response was to go hunting, so Ned doesn’t think his family will be safe in King’s Landing. Sansa protests and says she needs to stay because she’s engaged to Joffrey. Ned says the engagement was an awful mistake, and when Sansa is older, he’ll arrange for a better match. Sansa continues to argue and says that Joffrey is nothing like “that old drunken king,” meaning Robert. Ned tells Sansa and Arya that they’ll travel by ship. Arya asks if Syrio, her sword-fighting instructor, can come, and Ned says he can come if he wants to make the trip.
Robert continues to demonstrate his ineffectiveness as a leader. Instead of facing the conflict between the Lannisters and the Starks head-on, he has fled from his responsibilities to go hunting. Sansa continues to show the shortcomings of an unnuanced understanding of the world that divides people into categories of heroes and villains. In this case, the novel suggests that Sansa’s fixation on those two categories stops her from accurately seeing Joffrey’s faults, as she has already decided that belongs in the category of heroes and is unwilling to examine that assessment.
Themes
