Abstract
In both A Song of Fire and Ice series and its HBO adaptation Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin’s alchemists are depicted as maesters in an ancient guild, in which the alchemical adepts are known as “wisdoms”, and their apprentices help them in their art. The alchemists are known for their skill in making “wildfire”, which is an uncontrollable and highly flammable substance aided by dragon’s fire that King Aerys Targaryen II used to burn down much of King’s Landing. Cersei Lannister, acting as queen regent, commissions the alchemists to produce wildfire in the novels and television series, which reflects alchemical commissions from English kings in the fifteenth century. Yet Martin’s presentation of Cersei commissioning the alchemists is subversive; rather than kings commissioning the alchemists as English history has shown, it is a strong, powerful queen regent at the helm. This chapter argues that in the character of Cersei Lannister, Martin successfully presents a queen figure who has the power to exploit and direct the secrets of alchemy. Moreover, Cersei’s commissioning of the alchemists draws from fifteenth-century English commissions to produce the alchemical elixir vitae, particularly under Henry V and Henry VI. While the alchemists in the English courts pursued alchemy for medicinal and financial purposes, particularly to heal the king and generate revenue for his kingdom, Cersei’s use of alchemy and its parallels in English history reveal the misuse of technology and regal interest in the occult for private vendettas. This chapter reassesses the connection between alchemical commissions, intention, and royalty in Martin’s series and fifteenth-century England. While Martin blends his depiction of the Westeros alchemists with Byzantine alchemy and late medieval Western alchemy, he also draws from fifteenth-century alchemical commissions from kings. Moreover, the chapter examines Martin’s subversive role of the queen regent’s agency in commissioning alchemists in the actions of Cersei Lannister. It is Cersei who “makes the call” rather than the king. Martin’s portrayal balances the masculine and feminine qualities of the queen regent, while suggesting potential danger at the instability and volatility of both wildfire and Cersei herself.
I would like to thank Professor Elizabeth Archibald, Katie Stepek, James Turner, Dr. David Varley, and Robert Pain for their invaluable feedback.
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- 1.
Ronald Pearsall, The Alchemists, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976, 65. For more on these medieval alchemists and Edward III’s views on alchemy, see F. Sherwood Taylor, The Alchemists, Founders of Modern Chemistry, London: W. Heinemann, 1951, 123.
- 2.
See The Statutes of the Realm, ed. A. Luders et al., London, 1816, quoted in D. Geoghegan, “A Licence of Henry VI to Practise Alchemy”, Ambix, 10.1 (1957), 10 n. 1.
- 3.
Geoghegan, “A Licence of Henry VI to Practise Alchemy”, 10.
- 4.
Pearsall, The Alchemists, 65.
- 5.
Pearsall, The Alchemists, 73.
- 6.
Geoghegan, “A Licence of Henry VI to Practise Alchemy”, 10, 13. Geoghegan also comments that the petitioners stressed that they were “most learned in natural sciences”, which I suggest was likely an attempt to present alchemy as a legitimate and natural study.
- 7.
Geoghegan, “A Licence of Henry VI to Practise Alchemy”, 15–16.
- 8.
Thomas Norton, Thomas Norton’s Ordinal of Alchemy, ed. John Reidy, EETS OS 272, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975, V.1559, 50. See also Gilbert Kymer’s entry in Medical Practitioners in Medieval England: A Biographical Register, ed. C. H. Talbot and E. A. Hammond, London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1965, 60–63.
- 9.
Anthony Gross, The Dissolution of the Lancastrian Kingship: Sir John Fortescue and the Crisis of Monarchy in Fifteenth-Century England, Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1996, 6, 19.
- 10.
Taylor, The Alchemists, 126.
- 11.
Game of Thrones, Season 2, Episode 5, Written by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, Directed by David Petrarca, first aired 29 April 2012.
- 12.
Andrew Louth, “The Byzantine Empire in the Seventh Century”, in The New Cambridge Medieval History, ed. Paul Fouracre, 8 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995–2002, vol. 1, 289–316. See also Steven Runciman, “Byzantine Trade and Industry”, in The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, ed. Cynthia Postari, Edward Miller, and M. M. Postan, 8 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966–1989, vol. 2, 132–167. George R. R. Martin acknowledges this influence in Josh Roberts, “Game of Thrones Exclusive! George R. R. Martin Talks Season Two, The Winds of Winter, and Real-World Influences of A Song of Ice and Fire”, SmarterTravel, last accessed 14 October 2017, https://www.smartertravel.com/2012/04/01/game-of-thrones-exclusive-george-r-r-martin-talks-season-two-the-winds-of-winter-and-real-world-influences-for-a-song-of-ice-and-fire, and refers to wildfire as his “magical version of Greek fire”.
- 13.
Louth , “The Byzantine Empire in the Seventh Century”, 301.
- 14.
Hugh W. Salzberg, From Caveman to Chemist: Circumstances and Achievements, Washington, D.C.: American Chemical Society, 1991, 75.
- 15.
Jonathan Shepard, “Approaching Byzantium”, in The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500–1492, ed. Jonathan Shepard, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008,5 n. 7. While the use or creation of Greek fire is not documented in medieval England, it does appear in English historical fiction. See notably C. J. Sansom, Dark Fire, London: Macmillan, 2004, which depicts a plot to steal Greek fire in Renaissance London.
- 16.
Martin, A Clash of Kings, London: Voyager, 2003, 280.
- 17.
Martin, A Clash of Kings, 280–281.
- 18.
Martin, The World of Ice and Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and Game of Thrones, New York: Bantam, 2014, 234.
- 19.
Terri Schwartz, “Game of Thrones: Is this Cersei Lannister’s Master Plan?,” IGN, last accessed 14 October 2017, http://ca.ign.com/articles/2016/06/13/game-of-thrones-is-this-cersei-lannisters-master-plan
- 20.
Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols., New York: Macmillan, 1923–1958, vol. 3, 32.
- 21.
Despite this, however, Thorndike provides evidence that Pope John XXII may have actually patronized alchemy, relating an incident in 1330 where the Pope gave money to a physician Gufre Isnard, Bishop of Cavaillon, for an alembic to make aqua ardens and “a certain secret work”, which Thorndike interprets as an attempt to make gold or an elixir vitae . See Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, vol. 3, 34. Thorndike also mentions that several alchemical treatises were attributed to him.
- 22.
Pearsall, The Alchemists, 61–63.
- 23.
Angela Montford, Health, Sickness, Medicine and the Friars in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004, 209–210.
- 24.
Lyndy Abraham, Marvell and Alchemy, Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1990, 1–10.
- 25.
Cf. Chanel Vargas, “The Parallels between Cersei and the Mad King Are Eerily Spot-On”, Harper Bazaar, last accessed 22 March 2018, https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/film-tv/a10386491/game-of-thrones-season-seven-cersei-mad-queen
- 26.
See Laura Hudson, “Cersei Lannister: A Defense of the Game of Thrones Villain”, Vulture, last accessed 22 March 2018, http://www.vulture.com/2017/07/cersei-lannister-a-defense-game-of-thrones.html
- 27.
Cf. Kavita Mudan Finn’s and Sylwia Borowska-Szerzun’s chapters (Chaps. 2 and 3, respectively) in this collection, which also focus on Cersei in this volume. Shiloh Carroll examines elsewhere Cersei’s attempts to “rule like a man” in Medievalism in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2018, 65.
- 28.
Cersei’s use of wildfire in the sixth season shocks even her most competent enemies. The Queen of Thorns, for example, remarks that Cersei has “done things I was incapable of imagining” (“The Queen’s Justice”).
- 29.
Martin, A Feast for Crows, London: Harper Voyager, 2011, 206.
- 30.
Martin, A Feast for Crows, 207.
- 31.
For more on the role of Tommen as king, see Charles E. Beem’s chapter (Chap. 9) in this volume.
- 32.
Not only are Cersei’s actions dangerous and unprecedented but blowing up the wildfire as she does also runs the risk of blowing up other unexposed caches of wildfire in the city and thus risking the entire city for her cause. Cersei is so driven by her impulses, by her hatred of her enemies and the humiliation that she has faced that she does not consider the consequences. She just wants to see them dead. Her recklessness and impulsive nature contrast her father, who is a more calculating and patient ruler, yet just as cruel if not crueller. Cersei’s lack of judgement and forethought in this regard eventually leads to her downfall. For a reading of how Cersei is an example of how not to play the Game of Thrones, see Finn’s chapter (Chap. 2).
- 33.
Caroline Spector, “Power and Feminism in Westeros”, in Beyond the Wall: Exploring George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, ed. James Lowder, Dallas: BenBella Books, 2012, 133.
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Runstedler, C. (2020). Cersei Lannister, Regal Commissions, and the Alchemists in Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire. In: Rohr, Z., Benz, L. (eds) Queenship and the Women of Westeros. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25041-6_6
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