Game of Thrones: The Mad King is the new stage tie-in to George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. The play has just opened at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Stratford theatre in England, and is expected to transfer to London’s West End. Then, potentially, it could travel around the world in the footsteps of the Stranger Things stage show, The First Shadow.
The three-plus-hour play opens some Westerosi backstory that has not been explored before, except on the page. Here’s what we learned from a night at the theatre – but beware of spoilers if you’re planning on going yourself!
Game of Thrones: The Mad King Is Somewhat Canon… But Maybe Not Entirely
The play is set about 15 years before Martin’s first book, A Game of Thrones, begins (the gap between events was widened to 17 years for the TV show) and concerns events mentioned in the books, notably a tournament at the castle of Harrenhal and Robert’s Rebellion, the war that put Robert Baratheon on the throne of the Seven Kingdoms. The play’s author, Duncan Macmillan, took his cues from all of Martin’s texts about those events and then talked to the author to get definitive answers to standing questions about what happened. But he was also given the creative freedom to do what the play demanded – so events may not be exactly as Martin envisaged them. The author has always said that if he changes his mind about a statement he’s made and puts something contradictory in a later book, then that’s the canon for that event. But at least some of what happens here answers mysteries that A Song of Ice and Fire fans have been debating for years.
The Tournament at Harrenhal Was Key to Robert’s Rebellion
We already knew that Lord Whent of Harrenhal called a tournament in the False Spring of 281 AC, but the play appears to confirm that Crown Prince Rhaegar Targaryen (played here by Noah Ritter) was behind the invitation. He hoped to use the event to build a coalition of support to remove his deranged father King Aerys II (Michael Shaeffer) from the throne. Unfortunately, the king follows his son to the tournament and threatens the conspiracy. He also insults the young Robert Baratheon (Callum Woodhouse), while Rhaegar is distracted from his plans by an almost overwhelming sense of kinship with Lyanna Stark (Harmony Rose-Bremner). Those two facts lead to Rhaegar’s “abduction” of Lyanna, and Robert’s furious reaction.
Rhaegar Was Deeply Wronged by History
The main focus of the play is Rhaegar, and he’s not a bad sort – especially for a Targaryen. He looks like a Goth fae prince, all black leather and platinum locks, but he has weighty and, for the most part, worthy issues on his mind. He also draws the line at assassinating his father – a rare moral stance for Westeros. He is instead earnestly trying to remove his father for the good of the Kingdom, and is tormented by the fear that he too could fall prey to the family’s hereditary madness. Are the dreams he’s having of the Prince That Was Promised a true foretelling or an early symptom of irrationality? He’s not sure – and it makes him hesitate at key moments (see also Rhaenyra in this season’s House of the Dragon). But Rhaegar can’t win over Robert, and that will prove fatal to his legacy as well as himself. He was no monster, but it’s the victor who writes the history.
The Prince That Was Promised Prophecy Had a Far Reach
One addition to HBO’s House of the Dragon that wasn’t present in its source material, Fire & Blood, is the idea that the Targaryens are aware of the Song of Ice and Fire prophecy and know that their line will lead to the Prince That Was Promised. As this season’s finale showed, it’s driving some of that generation slightly mad. Nearly a hundred years later, it’s also preying on Rhaegar and Aerys, both of whom are fixated on the prophecy for very different reasons: one because he hopes for change, the other because he’s gone mad. Perhaps more surprisingly, Lyanna also dreams of the song: she concludes that the fire and ice means not only dragons and the winter king, but a union of Targaryen and Stark.
Lyanna Stark Was No Damsel in Distress – and She Cracks the Prophecy’s Code
Lyanna is something of a tomboy when we meet her, and not especially excited by the prospect of a life at court or her betrothal to Robert Baratheon. However, while she doesn’t dislike Robert and sympathises with his grief for the loss of his parents, she’s devastatingly struck by Rhaegar and throws it all away to be with him. Their bond is inexplicable, perhaps to both of them. It’s one of those moments in Westeros lore where two people seem drawn together almost despite themselves, maybe like Jon and Daenerys or perhaps Robb and Jeyne. The implication is that fate itself forces their hand. In any case, it’s Lyanna who makes some kind of sense of the fragments of prophecy and correctly figures out the identity of the Prince That Was Promised: her son.
Daenerys and Jon Snow Were Conceived on the Same Night
The fragments of prophecy that the Targaryens have say that the Prince That Was Promised will be conceived under a red star. Rhaegar thinks that it might refer to him, based on family legend, until his father in a rare moment of rationality disabuses him of the notion: the stories of a star at his conception were just royal propaganda. But when a red star really does shine, Lyanna calls Rhaegar to bed while – across the Seven Kingdoms – Aerys summons his wife Rhaella (Mariah Gale). But she was badly burned in a fire when Rhaegar was born and lives in near-constant pain, and is unhappy with the prospect of a conjugal visit. Rhaella swears that she will bear “not a princely son but a vengeful daughter” as a result. So wishes do sometimes come true… Cue Jon Snow and Daenerys.
Lyanna Was Also the Mysterious Knight of the Laughing Tree
A small mystery of Westeros lore has been the identity of the mysterious Knight of the Laughing Tree (so-called for the weirwood drawn on his shield) who fought at Harrenhal. The Knight was said to be shorter than average and had a “booming” voice; he rode only long enough to unseat three knights whose squires had bullied Howland Reed the night before. Popular guesses to his identity included members of the Kingsguard, Ned or Benjen Stark, or Howland himself. However, the play makes it clear that it was Lyanna Stark who rode for her friend’s honour, without Ned or her eldest brother Brandon’s knowledge.
Robert Baratheon Is Far More Tragic Than We Realised
Robert Baratheon was always a likeable guy despite a slight tendency to despotism (perhaps understandable in a king of Westeros) and self-pity. But here he’s brought into sharper focus. This Robert lost his parents two years before on their way to a royal christening when their boat foundered within sight of the shore at Storm’s End. Robert, we’re told, tried to swim after them in the tempest, still holding his war hammer, almost demented with grief. When he arrives at Harrenhal he’s anaesthetizing his pain with alcohol, lots of it. Lyanna breaks through his grief and he becomes fixated on the idea that he could form a new family with her, grasping her as a lifeline.
That’s why he becomes so determined to get her back when Rhaegar “abducts” her. This Robert is an absolute beast, genuinely terrifying in the fight but warm and personable with his troops. He has moments of ruthlessness – he is a king of Westeros, after all – and isn’t too upset that Elia Martell and her children have been killed, but he’s recognisably the kind of man who would inspire loyalty and prove able to hold a throne. The final scenes, which see him married to a conniving Cersei (Daisy Franks) and led by a vicious Tywin Lannister (Marcello Walton), have a sort of tragedy to them. He could have been a much greater king than he was, but some men would rather start a war in Westeros than go to therapy.
The Dornish Came Close to Swinging the Whole Thing
If Rhaegar could have kept his wife Elia Martell (Elizabeth Ayodele) and her insanely good political instincts on his side, he might have won this whole thing. Elia and her girlfriend Ashara Dayne (Tanisha Spring) have half the court under their thumbs through kinship, ambition or relationships. In addition to her BFF/bae situation with Elia, Ashara also has Ser Barristan Selmy (Daniel Hawksford) and Brandon Stark (Luke Brady) obsessed with her, and forms a sort of alliance with the younger, more uptight Ned Stark (Michael Abubakar). If just a few breaks had gone their way, and if Rhaegar had worked with his wife to bring Lyanna in as some kind of sister-wife, this whole mess might have worked out.
Are you planning on checking out Game of Thrones: The Mad King? Have you already booked your flight? Let’s discuss in the comments!
Images: Johan Persson, rsc.org.uk
