Intertwining Fantasy Epics

I took a break from A Song of Ice and Fire to read the new edition of Neil Gaiman's American Gods (my review of which is so far incredibly disjointed and will probably stay that way). This turned out to be a good thing, as it actually gave me a bit more insight into ASOIAF.

I had reached the point in American Gods with the god in Las Vegas. The one that everyone always forgets and I can never figure out. Armed with my internet connection, I decided to figure it out once and for all. My search led me to a complete listing of the gods that appear in American Gods, which seemed like a reasonable place to find my answer. Scrolling though, I came across Bran, the Fisher King, and little alarm bells started ringing in my head.

Bran was a king in Irish mythology who got co-opted as the guardian of the grail in the Arthurian legends. He usually appears injured and unable to walk or move around by himself. He is usually called the Fisher King (because all he can do anymore is fish) and sometimes the Wounded King. The kingdom suffers along with his injuries, experiencing war and famine.

This discovery sent me down a rabbit hole of research. I remember learning about the Fisher King in my Arthurian literature class in college. It's one of the legends we spent the most time on. We watched the original movie about Perceval (which you need to be stoned to properly appreciate), read Bernard Malamud's The Natural to look for the parallels and watched that movie adaptation as well. We even watched The Fisher King, which seemed like the biggest stretch of the legend. I think we read (or were supposed to read) Chretian de Troye's Perceval, and I still have the anthology that it's a part of.

The Fisher King got renamed for more recent adaptations, which is why I never picked up on this connection before. He is Pelles in Perceval and Roy Hobbs (the hobbled king) in The Natural. But he is always wounded, always ruling in some way over a barren land, always waiting to be saved through the grail quest.

George RR Martin must have been aware of these parallels. It's one of the more insidious myths if you start looking for it, and any serious fantasy author is sure to go looking. Bran's name and injuries were no accident. Now when I pick the books back up, I'll be paying closer attention to hints about a grail quest of some sort.

I'm also going to have to re-read some of the Arthur legends. I have a decent collection of them, thanks to that class I took, and I didn't read nearly as many as I should have. Then, of course, I'll need to re-read A Song of Ice and Fire with an eye open for King Arthur. I'm sure he's in there in a thousand little ways and I just haven't picked up on it yet.

I never did figure out who the Las Vegas god is. Damn, Neil Gaiman's good.