And so we reach what is, to me, the crux of the matter: the question of fate and free will. Whether or not free will is an element of the doctrinal teachings of the various religious traditions is not a particularly easy question to answer, but I think we can certainly make educated guesses in that direction. Moreover, as I will establish, testing for the presence or absence of free will in Martin’s uni- verse via textual examples provides a means by which we find ourselves able to judge which metaphysical system most closely cleaves to the perceived facts of the matter.
In the cases of the Faith of the Seven and the worship of R’hllor, I strongly suspect that free will is taken as doctrine by their devotees. With regards to the former, the moral character of religious observance coupled with a collection of seemingly non- interventionist deities seems to strongly suggest that people are responsible for their own decisions, and thus have been granted freedom of will; without freedom of will, it seems difficult to account for the moral signifi- cance of human action. A similar argument serves for the worship of the Red God: given the hearts and minds of men and women partially constitute the metaphysical battleground between R’hllor and his nameless counterpart, we can assume they are moral agents—and indeed, freedom of will in Zoroastrian- ism is defended on similar grounds. I would also argue that followers of the old gods tacitly endorse the concept of freedom of will, even if it cannot be consid- ered an item of faith by virtue of the lack of an organized church and clergy. However, the entrenched libertarian disposition of those in the North and those beyond the Wall seemingly provide a far better endorsement of that position; it is surely evidence of something that the wildlings refer to themselves as the “Free Folk” whilst disdainfully branding southrons as “kneelers.” Given their politics, I find it incredibly hard to believe that the Free Folk would believe themselves shackled to a determined universe.
However, despite what appears to be a commonly- held belief in free will, I believe the position held on the subject of free will by devotees of the Many- Faced God is contrary to these claims. Indeed, if my argument is correct, it almost seems as if free will is fundamentally incompatible with belief in Him of Many Faces. We have already seen that devotees of the Many- Faced God grant credence to the idea of necessary events, presumably as articulations or instan- tiations of the afore- mentioned teleological force that they have chosen to deify—that is to say, as gods. Although this may not result in a complete absence of free will—one imagines, for instance, that what Jaqen H’ghar chose to have for breakfast was a mere accidental or contingent fact, and the breakfast itself a contingent event—but that necessary events are both insurmountable and
unavoidable. Moreover, these fundamental assumptions are an integral part of the rites and rituals of the religion itself: one must not forget that that correct answer to the phrase Valar Morghulis (“all men must die”) is Valar Dohaeris (“all
men must serve” [FfC 23 Arya 2: 316]). Death and service are thus rendered as
relevantly similar concepts (or even overlapping concepts, in the case of the Faceless Men): both are utterly inescapable, and in both cases a person must do their duty.
But what of whether free will exists in Martin’s universe? Given that we appear to have three sets of beliefs that endorse free will and one that denies it, if we can render a metric by which the presence of freedom of will can be detected in Martin’s universe, then we can neatly discard either three or one of those sets of belief in a single act. Although one might be dubious of the possibility of iso- lating such a test case, there is, I believe, one reasonably unambiguous example. Consider the following: when apprenticed to the Three- Eyed Crow and subject to the feeding regimen of the children of the forest (the red ichor from weirwood trees), Bran is granted two visions of the past: one an image of his father, Eddard, praying in front of Winterfell’s heart tree, asking that Jon Snow and Robb grow up “close as brothers”; the other an image of Eddard as an older man, polishing his Valyrian steel greatsword. In awe of what he is seeing, Bran whispers to him- self, at which point Eddard looks up and demands, “Who’s there?” (DwD 35
Bran 3: 457). Bran is understandably shocked, and asks of the Three- Eyed Crow whether he would be able to warn his father of what is to come. The Three- Eyed Crow responds: “You cannot speak to him, try as you might. I know. … The past remains the past. We can learn from it, but we cannot change it” (DwD
35 Bran 3: 458).
There is a subtle point, here. Bran not only has been afforded knowledge of the past, but his whisper causes Eddard to start and enquire: “Who is there?” And yet the past is inviolable—that is, unable to be changed by those in the present—per the expert testimony of the Three- Eyed Crow. This seems like an obvious contradiction, but not one that is intractable. Let us consider: Bran’s precognition or foreknowledge adopts the phenomenal character of lived expe- rience; he does not read the events as if in a book, but rather he experiences them as if he were there, in all their plenary richness. Now, to have this kind of phenomenal or experiential knowledge of events to which you are not present means that your experience carries a heavy epistemic burden: there can be no more doubt as to their veracity than there is to the veracity of any other kind of phenomenal experience. This is what it means when I say that Bran has knowl- edge of those events; otherwise, it would be more accurate to ascribe Bran’s visions to careful extrapolation, an overactive imagination, or perhaps a series of wild hunches. To know what is in the future means that that future must
necessarily occur; to know what has occurred in the past means that you were there, in some important sense. This precognition is experiential, and thus as factive as any other kind of sense data.
Subsequently, we can posit a kind of necessity relation between Bran’s pre- cognitive experience and the facts of the matter, just as we can do so for lived experience. The perception of p necessarily entails a certain state of affairs p; it
is necessarily connected to p in a way that is not contingent upon human under-
standing. Bran’s experience of those events, being naive and pre- theoretic, is such an experience, just as, say, my experience of my office entails that my office have certain properties. For Bran to have experienced Eddard polishing Ice in the weirwood, it entails that Eddard at one point polished Ice in the weirwood; it is necessarily true that it is the case. Now, it is also true that Eddard, at some point in the past, asked after a noise that caused him to start. We know that Eddard necessarily performed this action, per Bran’s experience of the event. We also know that Bran could not have changed the past, as the past is, per the Three- Eyed Crow, inviolable.
Furthermore, this seems to imply that Bran must mutter “Winterfell” to himself in a way that attracts Eddard’s attention; it is in fact obligatory for Bran to do so. For if Eddard’s reaction is necessary and the past is inviolable, it is also necessary for Bran to have performed an action that captures Eddard’s attention; had he not performed an action that attracted Eddard’s attention, Eddard would not have enquired as to who was there. Accordingly, if Eddard’s action in the past is necessary, then so too was Bran’s action in the present. Although Bran
cannot save his father, the implications of this interaction seem to suggest that Bran is caught in a tight causal loop with Eddard at that instance. Given that Bran is required by necessity to perform an action that will materially constitute an inviolable past, it seems plausible to think that Bran’s present, at least at that
time, is equally inviolable; certainly, at least in this instance, human agency does not bear relevantly upon the kind of actions and events that occur. Although Bran cannot save his father, the implications of this interaction seem to suggest that Bran is caught in a tight causal loop with Eddard at that instance; the inter- action seemingly necessary, unavoidable, and scripted by fate.
It follows, then, that if the present is as inviolable as the past, so too is the future; Bran’s capacity for precognition necessarily guarantees that predestina- tion or fate is an integral and constituent aspect of the metaphysical quality of Martin’s universe. Accordingly, I argue that this kind of event—Bran forced to exclaim, Eddard forced to inquire—has the possibility of problematizing free will in Martin’s universe, though it by no means settles the problem. In that case, it is possibly helpful to look at the question of prophecy more broadly, and see to what extent acts of prophecy can co- exist with free will. Martin’s universe, as
is readily apparent, is absolutely filthy with prophecy. Many of the main char- acters—particularly Daenerys, Bran, Jojen Reed, Jon and Melisandre—are con- fronted with prophetic visions at various points throughout the series. Moreover, although many of these prophecies are ambiguous or have yet to come true, there are others that have unambiguously come to pass: Daenerys forseeing the birth of her dragons (GoT 12 Daenerys 2: 83); the Ghost of High Heart pre-
dicting both the slaughter of Renly by Melisandre’s shadow creature and Cate- lyn’s death at the Red Wedding (SoS 23 Arya 4: 249); or Jojen Reed prophesying
the demise of Winterfell at the hands of Theon Greyjoy (CoK 36 Bran 5: 392).
Even despite ambiguities or claims to the effect that prophecy is “like a treach- erous woman” and will “bite your prick off every time” (FfC 46 Samwell 5: 682–
683), prophecy in Martin’s universe is actually extremely reliable as a source of information; even though prophecies may be misunderstood or may go unheeded (Melisandre is particularly guilty of this), never to my knowledge has a prophecy in A Song of Ice and Fire been unequivocally incorrect. Rather, the
outcome seems almost guaranteed by the act of prophesying itself; all that is left is to await with bated breath the doubtless gory manner in which the prophecy comes into effect.
As we await the fulfillment of these prophecies, we are struck with the lack of ontological privilege afforded to human beings in Martin’s universe—despite our conceits that we are in possession of free will and that our actions bear rel- evantly upon the universe, our actions—as in the case of Bran and Eddard above—are just as subject to the inexorabilities of fate and circumstance as falling leaves or thrown rocks. We are not distinct from the universe by virtue of the fact that we are free; rather, our freedom is an illusion to which we subscribe, and that only serves to mask our ontological identity with rain and castles and dirt. Despite our desires to the contrary, our actions are just as guaranteed and unremarkable as any other kind of causal relation; in being guaranteed in some sense, our actions are no longer accidental, no longer contingent. Instead, the
power of prophecy reveals that we are instead slaves to necessity regardless of the
size or banality of what we do: instead, all actions are revealed to be invariant features of the temporal and causal topography of Martin’s universe.
Given the available evidence, then, this reasoning leads to the conclusion that, despite any intuitions we may hold to the contrary, it is the belief of the Many- Faced God that most closely cleaves to the metaphysics of Martin’s uni- verse. Given the if- then conditional posed at the beginning of this section—if
free will exists, then x—it seems obvious that it is the worshippers of the Many-
Faced God that have the most accurate articulation of the facts inherent to the world of A Song of Ice and Fire. Although it may still be possible to speak sensi -
that Him of Many Faces—or at least, something relevantly like him, at least in the sense of there being a coextensive teleological force—functions as the uni- fying principle in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire. Indeed, this kind of grand
teleological principle or entity seems like a necessary property of Martin’s uni- verse, for without it prophecy would merely be sound and fury, signifying noth- ing. Valar Dohaeris.
Notes
1. The full name of which was “The Poor Fellow- Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon” (Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici).
2. At least, insofar as these organizations are depicted in the public imagination. The his- torical realities, however, were rather more complex, and exceed the purview of this work.
3. Of course, the Seven do not map seamlessly upon any world religion; one could just as easily argue that the Faith shares certain common properties with the public aspects of Greco- Roman religious observance. Nonetheless, it seems appropriate to defer to Martin’s obvious intentions in this regard.
4. Arya’s story arc proves perhaps the most sustained example of this trope.
5. It might seem anachronistic to reference Kant, given the broadly Renaissance tenor of Martin’s universe. Although the concept of sublimity has antecedents in both the Christian and Greek traditions (the earliest arguably being the work of Pseudo- Longinus in On the Sublime, dating from the first century ce), it is nonetheless Kant’s work on individuating in
the face of vastness that seems to resonate most closely with Martin’s description of the Stranger.
6. Although it might seem glib to ignore the possibility that Melisandre is incorrect, par- ticularly given what appears to be her clearly mistaken view that Stannis is the Azor Ahai (CoK 11 Davos 1: 113–14; SoS 26 Davos 3: 289)—consider Maester Aemon’s observation that
Stannis’ sword cannot truly be Lightbringer as it does not exude heat (SoS 79 Samwell 5:
886)—it seems that although the contents of Melisandre’s visions are truly prophetic, it is her exegesis of these visions that are actually problematic. It is not so much that her visions are unreliable or incorrect, but more that she herself doesn’t understand them.
7. For more information see Heidel on Anaximander: 212–213; 233–234.
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