Woot woot! Weeks after publishing a special episode dedicated to showing Plato's influence on the series, we get confirmation. Arianne II from the pre-released Winds of Winter material includes a direct reference to Plato's cave, confirming beyond a shadow of a doubt that George is intentionally linking his work to those past greats. Of course it is in that line--we knew it was based on tons and tons of textual evidence. But here GRRM makes it as explicit as he possibly can that ASOIAF should be viewed and understand in the context of Plato's Republic and indeed the other great epics we've cited so far. 

George's work exists in a fantasy universe and so cannot make explicit references to Plato. Here he does the next best thing--he describes a descent into a cave, a long and steep and rough descent, a cave lit by fire, where voices echo off walls and we encounter blind, staring eyes and representations of reality in the form of statues. That is all but a verbatim lift from The Republic itself. 

So give this very brief episode a listen in its own right, but above all, please please do lend an ear to the Plato's Cave episode because we now know that George intends for us to understand earlier chapters and incidents in the story to be viewed through that lens. Get in! 

You may ask yourself, how is it that I only just read Arianne II, when it's been available for some time. The reality is that I have been avoiding these chapters like the plague. I don’t want to take on board text that’s outside the five published books. I have not looked at nor do I reference any other text or statements that George makes anywhere but in the books themselves. I just don't believe that's our charge--our goal is to engage with the text we're given and develop our own understanding, not to appeal to George for his understanding! Another reason I haven't looked at this material is that the text in these sample chapters could change, so I don't want to get all worked up about text that isn't official, isn't published. And as I believe and hope I showed in the Cat One/Dany One special episode, the context around these chapters matters a great deal. So I’m never going to read these chapters in isolation and take them at face value. That's because the chapters don’t exist in isolation, they exist in the larger context of the work. But I have been pondering what to do about TWOW when or if it ultimately drops, so I thought I should look at the text and see what we're dealing with. Who knew there was such an important chapter and reference to Plato lurking in these sample chapters?!?!?! I certainly didn't, but am glad I looked. 

Thanks for listening!