Hour of Ghosts

The Hour of Ghosts is the darkest period of the night, the blackest part of the night when all the world is asleep. In the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, it is a time traditionally associated with death, conspiracy, and the supernatural, a liminal moment when the veil between the living and the dead is thought to be thinnest and when secret plots are most often set in motion.

Definition and Temporal Position

The Hour of Ghosts is one of the named hours that divide the night in the Seven Kingdoms, a system of timekeeping that relies on the position of the stars and the moon rather than mechanical clocks. It follows the Hour of the Eel and precedes the dawn. The name itself evokes the realm of the dead, suggesting a time when spirits are abroad and when mortal affairs are best conducted in secrecy. The hour is explicitly referenced in the narrative as the moment when Barristan Selmy and Skahaz mo Kandaq plan their coup against King Hizdahr zo Loraq in Meereen. Selmy recalls that Tywin Lannister had once given him until "the hour of the wolf" to bring King Aerys out of Duskendale, and he now chooses the same hour for his own clandestine action, noting that it is "the blackest part of night, when all the world's asleep."

Association with Conspiracy and Violence

The Hour of Ghosts is repeatedly linked to acts of betrayal, assassination, and the overthrow of rulers. In Meereen, Barristan Selmy and Skahaz mo Kandaq agree to strike against King Hizdahr during this hour, with Selmy telling the Shavepate, "The hour of the wolf. The blackest part of night, when all the world's asleep." The choice is deliberate: the darkness and the lateness of the hour provide cover for the conspirators, and the name itself seems to foreshadow the death that will follow. The coup does indeed unfold during this period, with Selmy confronting Hizdahr in his bedchamber, killing the pit fighter Khrazz, and taking the king prisoner. The Hour of Ghosts thus becomes the temporal setting for the collapse of Hizdahr's reign and the resumption of open conflict in Meereen.

Connection to Death and the Supernatural

Beyond its use as a time for conspiracy, the Hour of Ghosts carries a supernatural resonance. The name implies that this is the hour when the dead are most active, when ghosts walk and the boundary between the living world and the afterlife grows thin. This association is reinforced by the events that occur during or near this hour elsewhere in the narrative. In the Prologue, the warg Varamyr Sixskins dies and attempts to transfer his consciousness into the spearwife Thistle, only to fail and find himself briefly merged with the weirwood tree, experiencing a dissolution of self that he describes as being "in the snow and in the clouds, I am a sparrow, a squirrel, an oak." His true death comes suddenly, and he finds himself "rushing over moonlit snows with his packmates close behind him." The Hour of Ghosts is the time when such transitions between life and death, between the human and the natural world, seem most possible.

Narrative Significance

The Hour of Ghosts functions as a structural marker in the narrative, signaling moments of crisis and irreversible change. It is the hour chosen for the most dangerous and consequential actions, when characters must act in secret or face destruction. The recurrence of this hour across different storylines—from the coup in Meereen to the death of Varamyr—creates a thematic link between seemingly unrelated events, suggesting that the deepest darkness of the night is the time when the fate of kingdoms is decided and when the dead and the living are most closely intertwined.