A Clash of Kings

Arya Stark is another of the novel’s protagonists. She is the second daughter of Eddard and Catelyn Stark. The previous novel characterized Arya as being tomboyish within the gendered standards of Westeros. This novel finds Arya separated from her family as she makes the treacherous journey from King’s Landing to Westeros disguised as a boy. Her trip is waylaid by her capture and imprisonment at Harrenhal, where Tywin Lannister is massing his forces.

Arya’s character arc in this novel encompasses part of the coming-of-age journey that she undertakes over the whole of the series. During her time at Harrenhal, Arya finds herself torn between her desire to return home and her desire to seek revenge against those who have wronged her and her family. Her relationship with the prisoner Jaqen H’ghar enables her to indulge in the latter because he offers her three deaths in return for saving his and the other prisoners’ lives. Jaqen’s favor exposes the impulsiveness of Arya’s character as she gives him the names of people who anger her in the moment without really considering the opportunity that has been offered to her. In Chapter 38, Arya belatedly realizes she could have used Jaqen’s favor to kill Tywin and Ser Gregor, shifting the tide of the war in favor of her brother Robb while also giving her a better chance of escaping Harrenhal. Instead, she uses her first two favors to kill low-ranking people at Harrenhal—a soldier named Chiswyck and the understeward, Weese, both men who have threatened her personally and caused harm to others.

However, realizing her folly, Arya uses the third name to leverage Jaqen into liberating the Stark prisoners at Harrenhal, illustrating her growing maturity as well as her understanding of strategy and negotiation. This helps to secure the castle for Roose Bolton, one of Robb’s bannermen. When Arya learns that Winterfell has fallen to Theon, she reassesses her priorities, feeling as though she has lost sight of her initial goal. An encounter with her late father’s voice in the godswood encourages her to carry on, forming a pack to escape the castle with Gendry and Hot Pie.

Theon Greyjoy is a tragic hero who struggles between his allegiance to his family, the Greyjoys, and the family that raised him, the Starks. In his backstory, Theon was taken by the Starks as a hostage in the wake of the Greyjoy Rebellion. His presence at Winterfell would ensure that his father, Balon, would maintain the peace with King Robert Baratheon since Theon was Balon’s last remaining male heir. When this novel begins, Theon is a loyal soldier in Robb Stark’s army. While technically Theon was a hostage, he was considered Eddard’s ward at Winterfell and was raised among the Stark children as an equal. He sees Robb as a “brother,” considering their similarity in age and the shared experiences they had growing up. This offends Balon upon Theon’s return to their home in Pyke, considering that the Starks and the Baratheons killed Theon’s biological brothers during the Greyjoy Rebellion.

Theon’s tragic flaw is his need for validation. He proposes the alliance between Robb and Balon because he feels that his loyalty to Robb will be rewarded with a lordship. Balon mocks that Theon thinks more like a Stark than a Greyjoy, which clashes with Theon’s identity as his heir. He cannot reconcile the idea that his father sees him as a traitor to his own house, especially as Balon clearly prefers Theon’s younger sister, Asha, to him. Asha antagonizes Theon by undermining his status and humiliating him in front of the other Greyjoys. This is exacerbated when Balon gives Asha the authority to conquer the castle of Deepwood Motte while Theon is assigned to conduct small raids on fishing villages.

Because of the need to prove himself to his biological family, Theon engages in a desperate attempt to gain their approval—he uses his knowledge of Winterfell to stage a covert takeover. He employs fear and threats to keep the Starks in line, though his authority is seriously undermined when several of his hostages, most importantly Bran and Rickon Stark, sneak out of captivity while he is asleep. Theon’s need for validation causes him to make increasingly poor decisions from this point on, including his claim to have killed the Stark boys and his refusal to withdraw from the castle with his sister’s help. Theon’s hubris ultimately causes his defeat at the hands of Ramsay Snow, who successfully manipulates Theon into letting him escape from imprisonment at Winterfell.

Bran Stark is a secondary protagonist in the novel. His actions do not seriously impact the overarching narrative of the War of the Five Kings, though he does experience his own character arc. Bran is the second son of Eddard and Catelyn Stark. As the eldest male member of the family residing in Winterfell when the novel begins, he sits in the lord’s seat and assumes all the roles and responsibilities of a lord. This, along with his doubts about his abilities as a person with paraplegia, clashes against Bran’s personal desire to seek adventure and become a knight.

In this novel, Bran’s character arc follows that of the archetypal hero’s journey. His ordinary world is represented by his time as Lord of Winterfell, which he spends entertaining guests like the Frey boys and the other nobility who come for the harvest feast. When the Reeds arrive, they call him to adventure by revealing that he is a warg, a being who can enter the mind of his direwolf, Summer, in his dreams. Bran refuses the call by consulting his advisor, Maester Luwin, who explains that magic is impossible in the ordinary world. Bran initially accepts Luwin’s counsel but comes to understand this isn’t the case. Martin relies on dramatic irony to underscore this, allowing the reader’s knowledge of Daenerys’ dragons to prove that Luwin’s counsel is wrong, supporting Bran’s rejection of it.

Over the course of the novel, Bran shifts from being dejected about his responsibilities at Winterfell and his perspective that his paraplegia limits him to understanding that he can still have the freedom he dreams of. Jojen Reed becomes a mentor to Bran, teaching him about the magical world that his warg abilities open up for him. Although Theon threatens Bran with the capture of Winterfell, Bran is saved by his allies, Osha and Hodor. By the end of the novel, Bran has accepted his new reality and is ready for adventure, understanding that he cannot stay in the ruins of Winterfell after it has been razed. With his home destroyed, Bran must proceed with his journey.

Daenerys Targaryen is a secondary protagonist in the novel. Her narrative arc occurs separately from the main action of the War of the Five Kings but has long-term repercussions on its outcome as she works towards massing an army to support her reclamation campaign of Westeros. In the first novel, Daenerys grows from a timid girl to a fierce leader, and this strength is illustrated in this novel as she encounters multiple setbacks but continues on.

As the last remaining Targaryen, Daenerys believes it is her destiny to reclaim the throne in Westeros, a belief that seems to be supported by the birth of her three dragons at the end of the previous novel. The dragons signal a paradigm shift in the overall story, bringing the novel into high fantasy territory as it incorporates the presence of magical creatures into its plot. As the only character with dragons, Daenerys has tremendous potential to conquer any city she pleases. This draws the attention of Xaro Xhoan Daxos and Pyat Pree, who serve as the antagonists for Daenerys’s storyline in this novel. Daenerys’s encounters with these characters cause her to realize the true value of her dragons, which is why she refuses to give them up for anything less than a full fleet toward the end of the novel.

Although she is strong and brave, Daenerys also gathers valuable allies around her, including members of her khalasar, her protector, Ser Jorah Mormont, who is romantically interested in her, and Quaithe, one of her Qartheen benefactors who promises her wisdom if she leaves the city of Asshai. At the end of the novel, she gains two new allies in the form of Strong Belwas and his squire, Ser Arstan Whitebeard, illustrating a leadership capacity that opens the possibility that her bid to reclaim the throne will succeed.