Game of Thrones and Philosophy (7 page)

Appropriate Treatment of Prisoners of War

According to just war theory, hostages and prisoners of war must be treated in a humane way. It is not permissible to torture them physically or mentally (even to extract vital information), to use them as human shields, or to deny them basic human rights. This is one of the most contentious of the just war conditions, as theoretically it applies to any of the enemy’s personnel, irrespective of their rank or knowledge. When Robb’s troops capture Jaime Lannister at the Battle of Whispering Wood, he is imprisoned in Riverrun, where he is treated in a humane fashion (“Fire and Blood”). The earlier capture of Tyrion Lannister and his incarceration in the Eyrie by Catelyn Stark and her sister Lysa Arren cannot be considered in light of the justness of the war that follows, as it predated the actual announcement of war. Sansa is effectively a prisoner of Joffrey, but she fares much worse than Jaime, and is subjected to continual beatings at the whim of the king. One can also garner an indication of how well prisoners fare in the dungeons of King’s Landing by considering the treatment of Ned Stark while he is awaiting trial for treason.

No Reprisals

“Two wrongs don’t make a right.” So reprisals are not permissible. That is, one may not violate the principles of just war to punish an enemy for having previously violated those same principles. Reprisals do not serve to restore equilibrium, and they do not ensure that future engagements in the war will conform to the principles of justness. Rather, history has shown that such reprisals often escalate the level of violence and lead to indiscriminate carnage. The idea of the just war is to ensure that the greatest good is served and that the aggression used to achieve the just cause is tempered and appropriate. Rather than debasing the state by emulating the activities of the enemy, a just state should take the higher moral ground so that if they are victorious, they will know that they won in the best possible fashion. Thus, it is better for Robb to ensure that his men do not rape and pillage than to allow them to do so as a reprisal for the activities of some of the followers of Joffrey. A marked difference in the degree of the nobility of the two opposing sides is evident throughout the conflict. The Northerners are prepared to fight for their just cause, but they refuse to employ strategies that would call the honor of their houses into question. In contrast, many of the followers of Joffrey are motivated by self-promotion, greed, and fear, and are prepared to do whatever it takes to be victorious.

Respect the Rights of the State’s Own Citizens

While engaging in a war, the state may be tempted to temporarily suspend the human rights of its own citizens in order to facilitate the war effort. This is contrary to just war theory, which holds that the rights of the individual must be upheld to the greatest degree possible, given the situation in which the state finds itself. The individual is still entitled to legal due process as established by the state in a time of peace. Such high ideals have not always been upheld in times of conflict, and civil liberties have been compromised under the banner of increasing national security.

Joffrey egregiously violates this principle, imposing punishments on a whim—often just to entertain himself. He has knights duel to the death, heads and hands cut off, all with no real concern for the justness of his actions. The authority of the state under his reign is cruel and capricious, and Joffrey is likened by the inhabitants of the Red Keep to the Mad King Aerys II.

A Just War?

So the question that we are ultimately left to answer is whether either side in the war between Robb Stark and Joffrey Baratheon conforms to the principles of just war theory. Joffrey, along with his representatives and his soldiers, is clearly guilty of many injustices in conducting their war effort—against both the enemy and their own people. Robb, by contrast, is a legitimate authority and conducts warfare in noble fashion—treating prisoners humanely, not engaging in excessive violence, showing consideration for civilians and for his own people. His intention, however, is suspect. Robb and his bannermen profess a just cause, freedom in the North—a Northern king for a Northern kingdom free from tyranny. But is this the ultimate reason that Robb goes to war? Indeed, would the idea of a war for a free North be something he would’ve seriously considered had his honorable father not been executed? One must wonder whether the greater motivating influence involves avenging his father and punishing those responsible for his death.

We want Robb to be victorious, we think of him as generally justified in his undertakings, and we desire an end to the corrupt, capricious, and spoiled Joffrey. We believe Robb would be a far better ruler and establish and govern a more equitable state that is dedicated to higher ideals. However, having a noble spirit and a concern for one’s kinsmen and one’s people does not necessarily mean that one is waging a just war—even if the reasons for going to war are very persuasive. The requirements of a just war are difficult to satisfy in totality, and unfortunately, Robb appears lacking in one area—his right intention is not pure enough; or perhaps we should say that his dominant intention was not the right one. Although he is devoted to commendable ideals, his prevailing motivation is vengeance for his father, especially in his earlier military engagements. Therefore, we must ultimately conclude that although we might support his war, we cannot truly call it just.

NOTES

1
. George R. R. Martin,
A Clash of Kings
(New York: Bantam Dell, 2005), pp. 110–111.

2
. Ibid., p. 118.

PART TWO

“THE THINGS I DO FOR LOVE”

Chapter 5

WINTER IS COMING!: THE BLEAK QUEST FOR HAPPINESS IN WESTEROS

Eric J. Silverman

A Game of Thrones
raises an important philosophical question: Is a life of virtue and justice the way to achieve happiness, or does a willingness to reject traditional moral rules result in happiness? Plato (424–348 BCE) advocates the view that the life of virtue and justice is the happy life, claiming, “surely anyone who lives well [justly] is blessed and happy and anyone who doesn’t is the opposite. . . . Therefore, a just person is happy, and an unjust one wretched.”
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This view identifying the virtuous life of justice as the happy life, and the vicious life of injustice as an unhappy life, underlies many of the epic stories in our culture, such as those written by J. R. R. Tolkien, Victor Hugo, J. K. Rowling, and C. S. Lewis. As we’ll see, George R. R. Martin’s epic presents things differently.

“Is the Honorable Person Happy?”

“You wear your honor like a suit of armor, Stark. You think it keeps you safe, but all it does is weigh you down and make it hard for you to move.”

—
Littlefinger
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A Game of Thrones
initially seems like it will illustrate this traditional view connecting virtue and happiness. As in many epic stories, we are presented with a classic hero who is the epitome of virtue. Eddard Stark is fiercely loyal to his family, friends, and kingdom. He has a history of courage in battle. He has a deep sense of duty, which causes him to abandon his personal safety and comfort for the sake of the good of the kingdom and his friends, as he accepts the unenviable role of acting as the King’s Hand. As Maester Aemon suggests, he appears to be an extraordinarily virtuous man; “Lord Eddard is one man in ten thousand.”
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However, while the traditional view leads us to believe he will ultimately overcome all barriers and live happily ever after, he is instead betrayed, slandered, and executed while trying to resolve the political intrigues at King’s Landing. In what appears to be a repudiation of the Platonic view, virtue and justice do not bring happiness for Eddard.

Yet, perhaps, “living happily ever after” was not the kind of happiness Plato was referring to when he claimed that the just person is happy. Plato was well aware that virtuous people do not always live happily ever after in this earthly material world. An obvious example of how earthly happiness is independent of virtue would have been evident in the life of his mentor Socrates (469–399 BCE), who was unjustly condemned to death. So when Plato claims that the just man is happy, he cannot mean that the virtuous person is guaranteed a successful life in terms of material earthly happiness.

Instead, Plato argues for a sharp division between the material world and the immaterial world and claims that the real self and real happiness are immaterial. Accordingly, in the
Apology
, after Socrates is unjustly condemned to death he insists, “a good man cannot be harmed either in life or in death, and that his affairs are not neglected by the gods.”
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Therefore, when Plato claims that the just man is happy, it is clear that he does not mean that the just person is guaranteed to flourish in the material sense. He knows that tragedy in the physical world is common, and that virtuous men can be stricken by bad luck, disease, or treachery.

Plato claims that real happiness has to do with the immaterial self, not the material body. The virtuous person’s immaterial soul functions ideally. Plato identifies three distinct parts of the soul: appetite, spirit, and intellect. “Appetite” consists of our desires for pleasure, bodily satisfaction, and other material wants. “Spirit” refers to our emotions and especially to our desire to be honored in the eyes of others. “Intellect” refers to the best part of the self, the rational capacities that desire wisdom and knowledge over physical desires or social fulfillment.

Plato claims the virtuous person’s soul functions ideally in that it is ruled by its best parts: reason rules, spirit is trained to reinforce the wise judgments of reason, and appetite submits to reason and spirit. To see the advantages of Plato’s view, reflect upon the question “How does one identify the ideal diet that would enable the longest, healthiest life?” A person driven by appetite would simply indulge himself, would tend to overeat, and would choose a diet based on tastiness rather than healthiness. A person controlled by spirit would choose a diet based upon emotion. In contrast, a person driven by intellect would carefully formulate a diet based on the actual needs of health rather than appetite or emotion.

Plato believes that all of well-being works according to the same principles. The just person ruled by reason lives a happy life in search of wisdom and in virtuous service to the community. Therefore, no one can harm a person with a virtuous soul, because the only real harm one can experience is to become a vicious, unjust person. Ultimately, Plato points toward the possibility of both an afterlife and divine intervention whereby the just may flourish in this life and perhaps even after this life.

A rough illustration of these principles can be seen in the life of Bran Stark. Although, his young body is broken when Jaime Lannister pushes him from the heights of Winterfell, Bran flourishes. His body would never recover from his injuries, “He could not walk, nor climb nor hunt nor fight with a wooden sword as he once had.”
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Yet he experiences a different kind of flourishing as he develops his psychic abilities as a skinchanger, who can enter the body of other animals, and a greenseer, who can see all that the ancient weirwood trees have ever seen. As Bran’s tutor Brynden promises, “You will never walk again . . . but you will fly.”
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In a similar way, when Plato claims that the just man is happy, he does not mean that he is guaranteed to flourish in the conventional physical sense, but in some more important immaterial sense. Happiness is not simply pleasure.

“Is the Devious Person Happy?”

“How would you like to die?”

—
Shagga

“In my own bed, with a belly full of wine . . . at the age of eighty.”

—
Tyrion
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Of course, not everyone accepts Plato’s view of happiness. Many people think happiness has more to do with physical pleasure and associated goods, like health, long life, and wealth, than virtue. This hedonistic view of happiness, which views happiness as constituted solely by pleasure, is the philosophical assumption behind Tyrion Lannister’s desire for a life full of pleasure followed by a comfortable death in old age. In any case, the wise person is not quick to accept happy clichés no matter how attractive they seem.

Accordingly, in
The Republic
, Socrates and his discussion partners examine the possibility that the unjust person might be happier than the just person. They acknowledge that it
seems
as if the truly clever unjust person can appear virtuous through deception while exploiting every unjust opportunity, thereby gaining the benefits of both justice and injustice. As they describe the successful unjust man:

He rules his city because of his reputation for justice; he marries into any family he wishes; he gives his children in marriage to anyone he wishes; he has contracts and partnerships with anyone he wants; and besides benefiting himself in all these ways, he profits because he has no scruples about doing injustice. In any contest, public or private, he’s the winner and outdoes his enemies. . . . He takes better care of the gods, therefore, (and indeed, of the human beings he’s fond of) than a just person does. Hence it’s likely that the gods, in turn, will take better care of him than of a just person.
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This strategy for pursuing happiness is embodied in the constant machinations of Cersei Lannister. While trying to maintain a virtuous reputation, she pursues her goals through whatever means necessary. She is willing to lie, seduce, manipulate, and even murder her own husband in her quest for power, pleasure, and happiness. And by many external measures of happiness, she is successful. She has risen to power as the queen. She secures a powerful place in the kingdom for her children. She lives a life of luxury. She carries on affairs with virtually whomever she wishes.

Yet her strategy is ultimately unreliable, as the external challenges to her happiness are obvious. Her vicious actions require constant deception, while discovery and the accompanying consequences seem inevitable. Success in today’s machinations may grant pleasure for the day, but tomorrow will require even more difficult manipulation to maintain today’s accomplishments. If she succeeds in killing Jon Arryn, she may need to silence Bran Stark tomorrow. If she silences Bran Stark tomorrow, she may need to kill Eddard Stark the next day. If she kills Eddard Stark, she may need to face Rob Stark’s armies afterward, and so on. This constant cycle of lies, manipulation, and violence results in an uncertain fate for her happiness. Whatever goods she obtains through vice today may be lost tomorrow.

“I Do Not Know Which of You I Pity Most”
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An even more serious obstacle to Cersei’s happiness makes her an object of pity to honorable people like Eddard. While external challenges to her happiness may ultimately be overcome, her own vicious character acts as an inescapable internal obstacle to happiness. Regardless of whatever goods her schemes enable her to obtain, she constantly wants more. She is never satisfied with the goods she possesses, thereby making herself unhappy. Why couldn’t she live happily as the queen or be satisfied with a discreet affair or two? Why did she have to kill her husband and deny him any legitimate heirs? Wouldn’t she have had almost as much power, luxury, and happiness, without risking life, limb, and constant turmoil if she chose to be content? Her own appetite and greed for more than she possesses guarantee an unhappy existence.

Furthermore, Cersei’s personality is marked by paranoia, instability, impatience, and imprudence. Her paranoia is evident as she warns her son, “Everyone who is not us, is an enemy” (“You Win or You Die”). Paranoia is a natural outgrowth of her own devious personality. She can never trust anyone because others may be just as manipulative. Her unstable desires undermine her relationships as well as her own happiness. Tyrion suggests that her vicious personality makes the entire kingdom vulnerable. As he explains,

Westeros is torn and bleeding, and I do not doubt that even now my sweet sister is binding up the wounds . . . with salt. Cersei is as gentle as King Maegor, as selfless as Aegon the Unworthy, as wise as Mad Aerys. She never forgets a slight, real or imagined. She takes caution for cowardice and dissent for defiance. And she is greedy. Greedy for power, for honor, for love.
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Cersei is the epitome of what Plato warns us against: a vicious, inharmonious, unstable soul. She is ruled by her appetites rather than reason. Since she is imbalanced within herself, she is the sort of person whose psyche makes her incapable of happiness regardless of her circumstances. Furthermore, she imagines insults, undermines her relationships, and is driven by insatiable greed. Plato claims that the vicious tyrant’s most serious problem is that his psyche is dominated by its worst parts. He claims that the tyrant’s soul is ruled by

the beastly and savage part. . . . You know that there is nothing it won’t dare to do . . . free of all control by shame or reason. It doesn’t shrink from trying to have sex with a mother, as it supposes, or with anyone else at all, whether man, god, or beast. It will commit any foul murder, and there is no food it refuses to eat. In a word, it omits no act of folly or shamelessness.
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Cersei fits Plato’s description of the tyrant perfectly. She is driven by unrestrained lusts, commits incest with her brother Jaime Lannister, plots the murder of her husband, and frames her brother Tyrion for the murder of her son. Like Plato’s tyrant, Cersei’s continual greed ensures that her desires can never be satisfied. She is incapable of achieving happiness, since no set of external circumstances can ever satisfy her monstrous and unstable internal desires. Whatever advantages her life possesses, she is pitiable and deeply unhappy.

“Life Is Not a Song, Sweetling. You May Learn That One Day to Your Sorrow”
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While Plato gets much correct about the nature of happiness, many contemporary readers will be unsatisfied with his account. After all, Eddard certainly doesn’t seem happy. His story ends with a coerced confession, public humiliation as a traitor, and an unjust execution in front of his daughters. And though Cersei is clearly unstable and unhappy, it still seems that pleasure, success, and status must have some important connection with happiness. Plato’s account doesn’t seem compatible with either of these observations.

One way to modify Plato’s views in a more plausible direction was developed by his pupil Aristotle (384–322 BCE). Plato claims virtue is sufficient for happiness in itself and that nothing else can influence happiness. Aristotle’s theory of happiness is more nuanced and complex. One common interpretation of his view is that virtue is necessary for happiness, but it is not sufficient by itself to guarantee a happy life. Virtue may be the central component of happiness, but it cannot ensure complete happiness on its own because someone might possess virtue while “undergoing the greatest suffering and misfortune. Nobody would call the life of such a man happy.”
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In other words, virtue is one important component of the happy life, but there are others as well, such as physical health, pleasure, friends, material resources, and so on. Virtue may be the most important component of happiness, but even so, Aristotle warns that “those who assert that a man is happy even on the rack and even when great misfortunes befall him, provided that he is good, are talking nonsense, whether they know it or not.”
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