What Fevre Dream tells us about A Song of Ice and Fire

What Fevre Dream tells us about A Song of Ice and Fire

By Alexander Imhof 

 

My last post here was about Sinners, a story about Vampires in the American South. After writing that post, I wanted to revisit a favorite novel of mine that has many similarities: Fevre Dream (1982) by George R.R. Martin. I hold a rather unpopular opinion that this might by George R.R. Martin's best work, though I absolutely adore A Song of Ice and Fire and would never have discovered Fevre Dream had it not been for the popularity of the epic fantasy series. When my brother visited Martin's bookstore in Santa Fe, he walked away with two signed books: A Game of Thrones and Fevre Dream, and gave me the choice of which one I would keep as a late birthday present. Suffice to say, it is that signed copy of Fevre Dream I just finished. 

Fevre Dream has often been described as "Bram Stoker meets Mark Twain" mainly following a portly steamboat captain Abner Marsh and his Vampire business partner Joshua York adventuring in the Antebellum Mississippi in a quest to reconcile Vampires and Humans. The novel is work of historical fiction, gothic horror, and political commentary on race relations rolled into one. On the surface, Fevre Dream seems very different from ASOIAF. ASOIAF is set in a wholly fictitious universe, has elements of horror - but not very much vampire horror, and is far more concerned with gender and religion than race or class. Upon my reread, however, I believe Fevre Dream's narrative can tell us a lot about the modern series. Importantly as well, Fevre Dream is the longest project Martin has actually finished, and might tell us about how ASOIAF might end, or might have been planned to end. There will be a lot of spoilers in this post, so be warned before proceeding.

Fevre Dream is named after the titular steamboat, the Fevre Dream, captained by the two protagonists, Abner Marsh and Joshua York. They meet in Saint Louis, Missouri in the summer of 1857, where York offers Marsh the money to build the Steamer of his dreams. All Marsh needs to do is obey York's infrequent commands, and not question anything he might deem peculiar about York. The shadow of the slavery and the looming American Civil War hangs over the novel, as Abner grows from an ambivalent bystander to abolitionist. The vast majority of the novel occurs in the deep south, and many of the arguments used for and against vampiric relations with humans are metaphors for slavery and the race relations within the United States. "Let the cattle create--life, beauty, what you will. And we shall take their creations, use them, destroy them if we choose. That is the way of it. We are the masters. Masters do not labor." Damon Julian says to Joshua York at their fateful dinner aboard the Fevre Dream. Some of the Vampires, like the antagonist Damon Julian, mirror the self assured perspective of the Antebellum slavemasters. Marsh develops into a staunch ant-slavery advocate by the latter half of the book after his experiences being disregarded and preyed upon by Damon Julian's coven. "Only I been thinkin’, and it seems to me maybe they was right after all. You can’t just go . . . usin’ another kind of people, like they wasn’t people at all. Know what I mean? Got to end, sooner or later. Better if it ends peaceful, but it’s got to end even if it has to be with fire and blood, you see? Maybe that’s what them abolitionists been sayin’ all along. You try to be reasonable, that’s only right, but if it don’t work, you got to be ready. Some things is just wrong. They got to be ended.”Abner Marsh says to the Fevre Dream's cook, Toby Lanyard. 

This is the earliest time I can find that Martin used the phrase "Fire and Blood" which would become the words of House Targaryen, and the title of his history book about their house. Just as it is said about Aegon's Conquest and the endgame for his descendant Daenerys, unifying the seven kingdoms "with fire and blood" is used to reference the American Civil War. We must also talk about the appearance of Joshua York, Marsh's partner and believer in Human/Vampire cooperation. He is described as tall and pale, with blonde-white hair, and cool grey eyes. It is easy to see Joshua York is physically reminiscent of Rhaegar, Daenerys, and other valyrians. The issue of slavery is critical in the Daenerys story of ASOIAF, though the system of slavery is very different than in real world history. In both cases, though, we have a protagonist from a traditionally "master" people - valyrians/vampires that has changed their mind about the ethics of racial superiority. While only one chapter of Fevre Dream is narrated by Joshua York, he shares several details of life reminiscent of Dany: both grew up as orphans, hunted for their class of person, and were traumatized by the loss of their first love. 

In the end of the novel, we cannot really say if Joshua York was successful in his quest. He commits to killing Damon Julian after witnessing the blood of the civil war in hopes of protecting his wife and uborn child (Rhaegar parallel) but it is unknown if the cooperation between humans and the night people continued after Abner Marsh's death in the epilogue. Despite the ending being ambiguous, I do think there are few things from this conclusion we should keep in and when discussing the end of ASOIAF and in particular the fate of Daenerys. Firstly, despite ASOIAF's antiwar message, Martin permits war and killing as a necessary evil in Fevre Dream. Second, not everyone on either side of the Vampire/Human debate sides with Joshua York; it is only his authority as leader of the coven that keeps some of the Vampires in line when he takes that role. And lastly, Martin believes in a "Temptation" by the powerful to be a master, and that it is noble to resist such a temptation. 

What does this tell us about ASOIAF? If we are using Game of Thrones as a baseline, I believe it tells us quite a lot. To the first point, Martin believes that fire and blood can sometimes be cleansing: Daenerys ends the series as a mad queen burning King's Landing. I suspect this will still happen, although the conclusion of Fevre Dream might spell this epilogue was necessary for a better Westeros. Just as the fires of war cleansed America of slavery in the Civil War, I think the epilogue will imply that the destruction of King's Landing and the war of dragons led to the end of feudalism and serfdom. We can debate if this is Daenerys' intention - but I think "fire" at the end is meant to be a creative destruction. Second, I think the way Daenerys is remembered will be different from the way the smallfolk or other POV characters remember her. Just as Joshua York is only considered a savior to some, the more feudal minded nobles and ravaged smallfolk may not see the "breaking of the wheel" as good. I think this put the Game of Thrones showrunners in an odd place, unnable to show multiples points of view as easily in TV format as Martin might be able to in he books. Lastly, we should talk about the temptation of being a "master". This conflict is one of ASOIAF's most important since the story of almost every POV character has them begin as a disadvantaged outsider and rise to become Queen/Lord Commander/Time-Travelling-God. Joshua York mirrors another character besides Daenerys very well - Jon Snow. It may be the case that in their final confrontation Jon Snow is the Joshua York to Daenerys's Damon Julian. In either case, I believe the final struggle of House Targaryen will mirror the struggle of the two most powerful vampires. 

There's a lot in Fevre Dream I did not cover - for instance, Abner Marsh having a connection to Bowen Marsh, why the Mississipi is a parallel to the Rhoyne and Volantis to New Orleans. There is something to be said about the Vampires fleeing Revolutionary Europe as the Valyrians fled the doom. Most of all, if i were to revisit, I would talk about the Others and how it would be odd for Martin to consider them either mindless drones of the night king, or to purposefully leave out their side of the story despite being named after the anthropological "Other". In many ways, I think this last piece is what has caused such a delay - Fevre Dream ends rather quickly because we understand the Vampires and their desires, but we haven't been given very much information on the others: who they are, their culture. Martin hates to half ass his writing, and I think is dissatisfied more with the story he set up in A Game of Thrones than the story he has been painstakingly trying to bend to in A Dance with Dragons.