Find out more about the deeper meaning of the house symbols on Game of Thrones, starting with the Starks: their grey & white, their motto, “Winter is Coming,” and their animal, the direwolf.
Works Cited & Consulted:
* Martin, George R.R. “A Song of Ice and Fire.” Bantam Books.
* Empower Yourself with Color Psychology
* Color Wheel Pro
* Color Meanings
* Harris, Elena. “Wolf Spirit Animal.” Spirit Animal.
* freeguess. “An Analysis of House Words.” /r/asoiaf on Reddit, 5 Jan. 2013.
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Transcript provided by Youtube:
00:02
If you lose, your father dies. Your sisters die. We die
00:11
As if the plot of Game of Thrones wasn’t already hard enough to follow
00:15
Author George R. R. Martin loaded the story with layers of symbolism
00:18
And it’s often connected to the characters families or houses
00:22
Each house has a sigil, a sign or symbol that indicates the family
00:26
Colors, words by which to live by
00:30
And certain qualities that define them
00:32
Within the story, the importance of sigils underlines that
00:34
in this world with its highly structured society and medieval echoes
00:37
A person’s birth largely decides his or her fate
00:40
Meanwhile on the metaphorical level
00:43
the houses embody certain basic characteristics within human nature
00:46
which might exist in us all, but here they’re separated out and exaggerated in the individual houses.
00:52
We could say for example that the Lannisters embody selfishness
00:56
The Starks, strength and adversity.
00:58
The Targaryen, inner vitality
01:00
and The Baratheon, anger.
01:02
One of the deeper intrigues we feel watching
01:04
the houses battle for dominance is identifying with the families that
01:07
embody our own values and wondering which aspects of human nature may finally prevail
01:16
Beware: spoilers are coming after this point.
01:19
The first family the audience meets is the Starks
01:22
The Lords of Winterfell and arguably
01:24
the family that tugs most of your heartstrings
01:27
The sigil of the gray wolf
01:28
against a white background captures the family’s readiness for the hardship of winter
01:32
The struggle is against both the harsh elements of the north and their enemies in Westeros
01:37
HBO’s representation of the sigil makes the dire wolf look like armor
01:42
representing the Stark family’s willingness to fight
01:44
and their old-fashioned, medieval-feeling code of honor
01:47
Persecuted and beaten down over the course of the story
01:50
The northern Starks represent tough stoicism
01:53
strength of will and the determination to persevere against all adversities
01:59
Their motto “Winter is Coming” is one of the most memorable on the show
02:03
mostly because it’s said an absurd amount of time
02:13
And yes it’s a literal warning that a year’s long summer is
02:16
ending and winter will once again fall upon Westeros
02:19
When winter comes the White Walkers may return
02:21
A terrifying reality the Starks feel they must always be ready for
02:25
And the Starks motto also has metaphorical meanings
02:28
Martin has explained that we must expect dark periods of our lives
02:32
even if things may seem good now
02:34
We should always be prepared for fortunes to turn against us
02:39
On the family level, “Winter is Coming” foreshadows all the hardships the Starks will face
02:43
And the words show the stark families closeness to the elements
02:46
Their name “Stark” comes from the word that means hard and barren like the northern climate
02:52
Given the danger and hostility of their environment
02:55
Northerners have to stick together to brave the winter
02:57
While Southerners can play their political games because of their temperate climate
03:01
The North is not only geographically but also politically and emotionally
03:05
isolated from the games of the South
03:08
They speak plainly and truthfully, which can get them into trouble
03:20
A passage from the book emphasizes that all of the
03:23
houses family mottos “boasted of honor and glory, promised loyalty and
03:27
truth, swore faith and courage. All but the Starks.
03:31
It’s significant that the Starks don’t use their motto to brag about their best qualities
03:35
but to remind themselves and others to look up from our smaller infighting
03:40
and remember that there is an even bigger threat and a bigger fight
03:43
but now winter is truly
03:44
coming in the winter we must protect ourselves look after one another we’ve
03:51
come to a dangerous place we cannot fight a war amongst ourselves
03:56
The Starks’ determination to face the brutal reality of life shows that they’re made of
04:01
different stuff, with a totally different philosophy than the other houses
04:05
They’ve been shaped by a more difficult environment, and this hardship defines them.
04:10
The stark colors are gray and white. Gray is a neutral color, a transition
04:14
between black and white
04:16
It’s stable, calm, quiet, reserved, never the center of attention
04:20
And it represents compromise and control.
04:22
The stark family embodies this color through level-headedness
04:26
While the gloominess of gray illustrates the family’s depressing fate
04:29
White is the color of new beginnings, of purity and innocence.
04:33
Most obviously it’s the color of snow.
04:35
The symbol of the impending winter – and of course white makes us think of Jon Snow
04:41
The Starks embody the duality of the color white.
04:44
It seems pure and innocent and naive
04:46
Yet it can also be cold and isolated.
04:49
On the sigil, the colors are reflected as a gray direwolf on a white field
04:53
The Starks themselves are symbolized by the direwolf
04:56
Like wolves they’re ferocious, persevering with loyalty and integrity
05:00
and they do best in a pack
05:01
Over the seasons they struggle to survive when separated
05:05
and like the direwolves become almost extinct
05:08
In the first episode Ned Stark and his children
05:10
find a litter of dire wolf pups and the children each take one
05:14
Each pups characteristics and name reflects its owner
05:16
And the pups’ fate symbolizes what will come of each human Stark
05:20
Almost as if the direwolf is the soul of a Stark child externalized
05:29
Meanwhile the stag antler in the dead body of the parent wolf foreshadows Ned Stark’s death
05:34
which will be brought on by his accepting the Hand of the King position for Robert Baratheon
05:38
A house represented by the stag
05:41
Sansa named her direwolf Lady
05:42
As Sansa wished to be a lady and marry Joffrey
05:46
In the books Lady is described as the prettiest,
05:49
the most gentle and trusting of the pups
06:02
Arya names her direwolf Nymeria after the warrior princess
06:04
who led her people across the Narrow Sea and settled in Dorne
06:08
The name captures Arya’s strong, wild, warrior spirit
06:12
After Nymeria attacks Joffrey to protect Arya
06:15
The girl sends her direwolf into the wild to escape being put down
06:19
In the books Nymeria forms a wolf pack that runs free
06:22
Just as Arya flees to live on the run and grow stronger in exile
06:26
The wolf being lost also symbolizes that Arya is uncertain of her path
06:30
Meanwhile Joffrey demands that Lady be put down for Nymeria’s crime
06:34
Lady’s death represents Sansa’s loss of innocence
06:37
After the brutality she experiences living with the nobility in King’s Landing
06:41
her gentle and trusting nature is gone
06:47
Robb and Grey Wind are inseparable
06:49
Grey Wind fights alongside Rob on the battlefield
07:12
At the red wedding, the Freys separate Robb and Grey Wind
07:15
out of fear that they’ll fight back together
07:17
They’re both decapitated and the wolf’s head is sewn on Rob’s body
07:21
Bran has yet to named his direwolf when he goes into a coma
07:24
after Jaime Lannister pushes him from a tower
07:26
The lack of the name suggests his wolf is an even more connected extension of himself
07:31
Since he is a warg he can also enter his wolf and control it like his own body
07:36
After waking from his coma Bran names his direwolf Summer
07:39
Bran himself is referred to as “the sweet summer child” by Nan
08:00
On a deeper prophetic level, summer child Bran may turn out to be the force
08:04
that will defeat winter and bring the return of summer once again
08:08
In Season Six, Summer sacrifices himself to save Bran, Meera and Hodor from the Whites
08:13
who are the markers of winter
08:15
Summer’s death signals that winter has now arrived
08:18
Rickon’s direwolf shaggydog is aptly named because unlike his siblings
08:22
Rickon never receives a proper education or lessons or grooming
08:26
He was supposed to become a bannerman for his brother
08:32
But it was instead brought up by a wildling, Osha
08:36
The youngest Stark, Rickon comes of age knowing only this brutal time of fighting
08:40
with the Baratheons and Lannisters
08:42
And his alter-ego of the wild fighting wolf reflects an unhinged, untamed spirit
08:47
Osha and Rickon seek refuge with the Umbers who betray them and kill shaggy-dog
08:52
Likewise the Umbers are allied with Ramsay Bolton
08:55
who later kills Rickon at the Battle of the Bastards
08:57
At first the family sees only five direwolves
09:00
one for each legitimate child of Ned Stark
09:02
But soon after, Jon Snow adopts an albino direwolf
09:10
Just as Snow starts life at a disadvantage
09:13
apart from his legitimate siblings
09:15
Jon decides to call him Ghost
09:19
Of course, the name makes us think of that piece of a person that carries on after someone dies
09:23
And in Season 6, after Jon dies and is resurrected
09:27
Ghost is the first one to see him come back to life
09:29
Some speculate that Ghost’s presence is a key part of John’s resurrection
09:33
Like he’s named Snow, the wolf is pure white and Jon is called the White Wolf
09:42
Now that Jon is the King in the North
09:44
The Stark banner will be reversed, as is customary when a bastard takes off his house banner
09:49
The direwolf will become white, and the field gray
09:52
Since Jon’s wolf was the only white one and the rest were grey
09:56
The switch signals that though Jon may become the leader, “King in the North”
09:59
He’s still not fully a Stark
10:03
Especially now with his proven Targaryen blood
10:05
He remains apart from his Stark siblings
10:09
The white wolf to the others’ grey.
10:30
you
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This post was previously published on Youtube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video