Gothic Nature in Fantasy Fiction: The White Walkers as Dreadful Agents of Nature in Game of Thrones

Abstract

By applying Elizabeth Parker’s seven theses (2020) to Game of Thrones as the keys to identifying Gothicised spaces, I assert that the icy and eerie environment north of the Wall manifests as Gothic Nature insofar as it fulfills all seven ways in which nature can become a Gothic threat: the northern space represents a hostile environment, associated with a postcolonial past, and connected to the human unconscious. The second part focuses on the creation of the White Walkers as Nature’s agents and their portrayal as dreadful entanglements that alter (non)human life. Introducing the notion of transcorporeality, the dualism human/nonhuman is deconstructed –since the White Walkers aren’t naturally born but created out of sacrificed human babies. The White Walkers and their army become one singular monstrous hyperobject that foregrounds how humanity is “at the mercy of larger forces of nature” (Smith and Hughes 2013, 6). The story reflects our responsibility for climate change.  Following Gothic tradition, the dark ecology (Morton 2016) in the saga blurs “the lines between the terror sublime and the uncanny” (Tibbetts 2011, 5), thereby, the agency of Gothicised Nature is foregrounded and the White Walkers are established as mirrors for our anxieties about the future of our planet.