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In George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels, memory is unreliable because readers encounter events through individual characters, not an all-knowing narrator. Martin has said he deliberately lets different viewpoints produce accounts that do not quite match. But a discrepancy is not automatically a clue: he also acknowledges that some inconsistencies are genuine mistakes.
Are the characters in Game of Thrones unreliable narrators?
Yes, at times—but “unreliable” does not necessarily mean that a character is lying. A character may have incomplete information, interpret an event through personal feelings, or remember it imperfectly. The reader receives that character’s perspective rather than a guaranteed, neutral account of everything that happened.
Martin described the method at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2014: “I do use the device of an unreliable narrator, particularly when dealing with memory. I present these scenes sometimes from multiple different viewpoints and the versions don’t quite jibe and then you have to figure out what really happened.” He also said that viewpoint characters are the reader’s “eyes and ears” in a chapter: events are filtered through their perspective, and the thoughts of characters who do not hold the viewpoint are not directly available. Read Martin’s 2014 Edinburgh interview.
How does memory affect the story?
The technique works as a sequence: a chapter follows one character; that character notices and interprets events selectively; another character may later describe or remember the same past differently; the reader compares what each account says. That comparison can support a conclusion, but it can also leave some details uncertain.
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- Access: What did the character witness directly, and what did they learn from someone else?
- Interest and emotion: What might the character emphasize, overlook, suppress, or misunderstand?
- Cross-checks: Does another viewpoint, a later event, or an independently described passage support or challenge the account?
- Certainty: Separate what the text establishes from what a reader infers—and from what remains unresolved.
A limited perspective is not the same thing as a false statement. A character can give an honest account that is incomplete or colored by their understanding. A difference between memories alone does not prove that either character is deliberately deceiving the reader.
Why do different characters remember events differently?
Characters can experience the same event from different positions and attach different meanings to it. One may focus on a threat while another remembers a personal slight; someone absent may know the event only through a later account. Their versions can therefore diverge without either being a simple, deliberate lie.
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- The ultimate collector's item for fans of the epic fantasy series that inspired HBO's Game of Thrones --a boxed set featuring gorgeous leather-cloth-bound editions of the first five novels! An immersive entertainment experience unlike any other, A Song of Ice and Fire has earned George R. R. Martin--dubbed "the American Tolkien" by Time magazine--international acclaim and millions of loyal readers.
- Now the monumental saga gets the royal treatment it deserves, with each book wrapped in bound leather-cloth covers and packaged together in an elegant display case. This one-of-a-kind boxed set includes: A GAME OF THRONES A CLASH OF KINGS A STORM OF SWORDS A FEAST FOR CROWS A DANCE WITH DRAGONS "One of the best series in the history of fantasy."-- Los Angeles Times Winter is coming.
- st of the fiefdoms that owe allegiance to King Robert Baratheon in far-off King's Landing. There Eddard Stark of Winterfell rules in Robert's name. There his family dwells in peace and comfort: his proud wife, Catelyn; his sons Robb, Brandon, and Rickon; his daughters Sansa and Arya; and his bastard son, Jon Snow.
- Far to the north, behind the towering Wall, lie savage Wildings and worse--unnatural things relegated to myth during the centuries-long summer, but proving all too real and all too deadly in the turning of the season. Yet a more immediate threat lurks to the south, where Jon Arryn, the Hand of the King, has died under mysterious circumstances.
- Now Robert is riding north to Winterfell, bringing his queen, the lovely but cold Cersei, his son, the cruel, vainglorious Prince Joffrey, and the queen's brothers Jaime and Tyrion of the powerful and wealthy House Lannister--the first a swordsman without equal, the second a dwarf whose stunted stature belies a brilliant mind. All are heading for Winterfell and a fateful encounter that will change the course of kingdoms.
To assess a disputed recollection, compare what each character actually claims with what the narrative independently shows. If the text does not settle the difference, keep it open rather than turning uncertainty into a definitive explanation. Martin’s comments establish that he uses conflicting viewpoints deliberately in some cases; they do not establish the intended meaning of every disputed passage.
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The novels can place a scene inside a viewpoint character’s thoughts, while a filmed scene presents what viewers see and hear externally. That difference changes what the audience can know about a character’s interpretation or recollection. The books and television adaptation should therefore be treated as distinct tellings, not collapsed into one automatically authoritative version. Martin’s public comments about the Jaime and Cersei scene illustrate how framing can affect interpretation, but that adaptation example is not evidence about memory in particular.
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Is every inconsistency intentional?
No. Martin has acknowledged both deliberate discrepancies and genuine continuity mistakes. A mismatch may invite interpretation, but it may also be an error; the fact that an inconsistency exists does not, by itself, show which explanation applies. Attribute claims about Martin’s intentions to his comments, and use the relevant novel passages to assess any specific memory or theory.
Fire & Blood offers another kind of mediated account: its fictional historian, Archmaester Gyldayn, draws on sources. That chronicle structure is useful context for how history can be filtered in Martin’s world, but it is not the same narrative method as the viewpoint chapters of the main novels. Martin discussed the chronicle and its sources in a 2018 interview.
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Where can readers explore memory in Martin’s work?
For a focused scholarly introduction, Bloomsbury Academic’s Memory and Medievalism in George RR Martin and Game of Thrones: The Keeper of All Our Memories, edited by Carolyne Larrington and Anna Czarnowus, examines connections between history and fantasy in the novels and HBO series. Published on 11 August 2022, the collection includes a section titled “Memory” and a chapter on medieval dream tradition in the novels (ISBN 9781350269606). It is a route to further study, not proof of what any particular character remembers. See the publisher’s book details.
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