Game of Thrones and Philosophy (8 page)

Aristotle’s view of happiness could explain why both Eddard and Cersei are unhappy. Eddard possesses remarkable virtue, but lacks the external goods needed for happiness. A life that ends in misfortune, treachery, shame, and suffering is far from happy. Cersei has the opposite problem. She has all the external goods required for happiness, but lacks the internal stability and character needed for true long-term happiness. She lacks the central and most important component of happiness: virtue.

“When You Play the Game of Thrones, You Win or You Die. There Is No Middle Ground”
15

There is a final puzzle about happiness in Westeros. Despite the significant number of people who are willing to risk their very lives seeking control of the kingdom, this choice seems foolish or imprudent. Obviously, the power, status, and material advantages gained by having influence in such a kingdom can be useful tools in the pursuit of happiness. Yet—as any reader of the series can see—few of the characters seem genuinely happy, even those who have power. Furthermore, if Cersei is correct that in playing the game of thrones one may only win or die, it seems imprudent for anyone to get involved in the political intrigues of the monarchy. Playing the game of thrones involves risking a total loss of happiness for a potential reward of only limited gain.

One way of analyzing the prudence of major decisions involves comparing the risks of failure, the rewards of success, and the odds of success. A choice is prudent when it offers a positive expected outcome. Consider gambling on a coin toss. There is a 50 percent chance of correctly guessing which side of the coin will come up. If you risked a dollar for a 50 percent chance of winning a mere additional ten cents, that choice would be imprudent, since the risk is disproportionate to the reward. If one were to risk a dollar for a 50 percent chance of winning an additional dollar, it might be acceptable either to take the bet or to refrain from the wager, since the risk and reward are identical with an equal chance of either outcome. Neither choice is obviously prudent or imprudent. If one were to risk a dollar for a 50 percent chance of winning one hundred dollars, it would be wise to take the bet, since the potential reward far outweighs the risk. It would even be prudent to place the wager if there was only a 10 percent chance of winning a hundred dollars from a one-dollar bet since the reward is so disproportionate to the risk.

The most famous philosophical argument based on such prudential concerns is Pascal’s Wager. A mathematician, scientist, philosopher, and devoted Christian, Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) argued that embracing faith in God offers a potential reward of infinite happiness for a negligible risk. He compares choosing belief in God to making a wise bet on a coin toss with a very favorable payoff structure. He argues, “Let us weigh up the gain and the loss by calling heads that God exists. Let us assess the two cases: if you win, you win everything; if you lose you lose nothing. Wager that he exists then, without hesitation!”
16
Pascal allows that the claims of faith may not be certain. He argues, however, that the potential rewards from success if faith in God turns out to be correct are the infinitely desirable gain of eternal happiness, while there is only a trivial negative consequence if one has faith incorrectly. Therefore, the potential rewards of success are radically disproportionate to the risk of failure. Even if there were only a relatively small chance of faith being correct, it seems to be prudent to believe, since the infinite potential gains from faith are vastly disproportionate to any negative consequences if one is wrong.

Playing the game of thrones has the opposite payoff structure, however. By playing the game of thrones, one risks the extraordinary negative consequences of the total and complete loss of happiness through torture, public humiliation, and death, for the possible reward of only a limited increase in happiness. Even if one was likely to win at the game of thrones, it would still be foolish to play. Just as it is imprudent to merge onto a busy highway if there is even a 1 percent chance of causing a fatal accident, the potential negative consequences from failure in the game of thrones are so extreme that it is wisest not to get involved. Catelyn Stark seems aware of this risk early in the story as she begs Eddard not to go to King’s Landing as King Robert’s Hand. Whatever gain or honor there might be in serving as the King’s Hand, the risks were simply too great.

Furthermore, the potential reward from winning the game of thrones might not be as desirable as it seems. Robert Baratheon demonstrates that becoming a king can actually undermine your happiness. We can see this truth as he confides to Eddard, “I swear to you, I was never so alive as when I was winning this throne or so dead as now that I’ve won it.”
17
His victorious ascent to the kingship undermined his health by giving gluttony a free hand. It undermined his relationships by surrounding him with insincere opportunistic admirers and treacherous plotters. Winning the throne ultimately results in death as his own wife arranges his fatal “hunting accident.” In playing the game of thrones, one risks the possibility of total loss for the possibility of limited gain, but even winning the game of thrones can have an unhappy result. Imagine a coin toss where the stakes are heads you die in failure, tails you wither in victory. What rational person would play such a game? If it is true that in the game of thrones one can only win or die, only a fool would play it.

What Game of Thrones Teaches Us about Happiness

One reason readers find George R. R. Martin’s novels so engaging is that they provide interesting and deep characters while avoiding clichés about happiness. The characters are complex individuals driven by plausible motivations and desires. Neither the virtuous nor the vicious are guaranteed to flourish in his unstable world, and short-term victories do not ensure long-term happiness. The characters of A Song of Ice and Fire are much like us in that they are all imperfect people trying to flourish in the unpredictable world around them. They all have desires, and they all face challenges. Throughout the books we can see the truth of Aristotle’s observation that all men desire happiness, though not all men achieve it.

NOTES

1
. Plato,
Republic
, trans. G. M. A. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1992), 354a.

2
. George R. R. Martin,
A Game of Thrones
(New York: Bantam Dell, 2005), pp. 513–514.

3
. Ibid., p. 662.

4
. Plato,
Apology
, appearing in
Plato: Five Dialogues
, 2nd ed., trans. G. M. A. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002), 41 c–d.

5
. George R. R. Martin,
A Clash of Kings
(New York: Bantam Dell, 2005), p. 70.

6
. George R. R. Martin,
A Dance with Dragons
(New York: Bantam Books, 2011), p. 448.

7
. Martin,
A Game of Thrones
, p. 460.

8
. Plato,
Republic
, 362 b–c.

9
. Martin,
A Game of Thrones
, p. 487.

10
. Martin,
A Dance with Dragons
, p. 281.

11
. Plato,
Republic
, 571c–d.

12
. Martin,
A Game of Thrones
, p. 473.

13
. Aristotle,
Nicomachean Ethics
, trans. Martin Ostwald (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999), 1096a.

14
. Aristotle,
Nicomachean Ethics
, 1153b.

15
. Martin,
A Game of Thrones
, p. 488.

16
. Blaise Pascal,
Pensées and Other Writings
, trans. Honor Levi (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2008), p. 154. Of course, as with most arguments, there are potential objections to Pascal’s Wager. For example, some might object that Pascal couldn’t know the truth of the potential outcomes without knowing the truth of the view he is advocating. For a thorough treatment of Pascal’s Wager and related arguments, see Jeff Jordan,
Pascal’s Wager: Pragmatic Arguments and Belief in God
(New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2006).

17
. Martin,
A Game of Thrones
, pp. 309–310.

Chapter 6

THE DEATH OF LORD STARK: THE PERILS OF IDEALISM

David Hahn

“You are an honest and honorable man, Lord Eddard. Ofttimes I forget that. I have met so few of them in my life. . . . When I see what honesty and honor have won you, I understand why.”

—
Varys, A Game of Thrones
1

“For a man who wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil.”

—
Niccolò Machiavelli
2

When Varys confronts Lord Stark in the dungeons of King’s Landing, Ned’s fate is sealed. But how did Ned get to this point when he did everything so right? He investigated the murder of the previous Hand with diligence, and he acted with honor in his roles as Hand and Lord of Winterfell. As we’ll see, the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and the Italian philosopher and politician Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) would likely say that it is not
despite
Ned’s honor that he ended up in the dungeons but
because
of it.

“If the Wicked Do Not Fear the King’s Justice Then You Have Put the Wrong Man in Office”
3

The metaphor is rather obvious: the king of the Seven Kingdoms sits upon a throne made of the melted swords of the kings of the realms brought to heel under Aegon the Conqueror. The throne represents both the danger of the position and the monopoly over force that the king possesses. His is the ultimate authority in the kingdom, and the sole possessor of the ability to make war. That power defines the sovereign; and while there are other duties, such as “counting coppers,” it is the authority over force that is of prime importance. Philosophically, the reason for this is found in the nature of a state and how it comes to be.

If we were to make Thomas Hobbes a character in A Song of Ice and Fire, he would undoubtedly be a maester.
4
A scholar by trade, he was the tutor to Charles II of England. Like Robert Baratheon, he saw a kingdom ripped apart by civil war, as Charles I waged war against the Parliamentarians led by Oliver Cromwell. This civil war shaped Hobbes’s political thought as he witnessed what happens when the rule of law is suspended.

Hobbes believed that all men seek after their own desires. Not that we are all chasing wine and women like King Robert, but the point is rather that, for example, Arya does not get taught the Water Dance unless her instructor gets paid. Likewise Ned isn’t taking the promotion to Hand of the King unless he sees something in it for him. The “Dance Master” needs his payment before he will teach; that much is obvious. Ned’s case, however, is a little more complicated. While he desires to stay in Winterfell, his sense of honor and duty compel him to do otherwise. It is the fulfillment of honor and duty that Ned receives as his bonus for accepting the position as Hand of the King and relocating to a place where he clearly does not want to be. Hobbes believed that
every
action has an underlying selfish motivation. Even actions that seem altruistic—feeding the peasantry, for instance—are driven by selfish motivations. It may be the sense of satisfaction one gets from helping the less fortunate, or assuaging the guilt of watching them suffer on the King’s Road.

As Hobbes sees it, this selfish motivation actually brings about both the state and the institution of justice. Hobbes asks us to imagine the “state of nature,” a state without any rule of law or any government whatsoever. The danger to each individual in this state is obvious: people lack security and are at odds with one another. If I want the food the farmer harvests, I can just take it. Of course, he will want to keep it as well, which puts us at war, or as Hobbes explains, “if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in their way to their End, endeavour to destroy, or subdue one another.”
5

This war endures as long as the state of nature exists. People will fight one another for more than just food, though. They will fight to gain more valuable things. For example, Viserys Targaryen hopes to gain the Dothraki hordes in order to take the Iron Throne. People will also fight for reasons of defense, to protect what they already have. Just consider the acts of building the great Wall and then keeping constant vigil with the Night’s Watch. Lastly, people will fight for reputation. A person (or family) with a solid reputation of being ruthless to enemies can usually forgo having to fight for other reasons. As Tywin Lannister explains to Jaime Lannister regarding the consequences of the kidnapping of Tyrion, “Every day that he remains a prisoner the less our name commands respect. . . . if another house can seize one of our own and hold him with impunity we are no longer a house to be feared” (“You Win or You Die”).

In a constant state of war, society cannot develop, and progress grinds to a halt: “there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth,” which reduces men’s life to one that is “solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.”
6
Because of this pathetic and miserable life, the people are willing to lay down their swords and submit to a single authority. They will generate a thing that will “keep them in awe, and tye them by feare of punishment of their Covenants, and observation of these Lawes of Nature set down.”
7

Hobbesian fear and logic led to the unification of the Seven Kingdoms. True, it was not a mutual disdain for war, but rather the threat of annihilation from the dragons of Aegon that motivated the people of Westeros. Still, the ultimate desire to end the war created (literally in this case) the throne of the king. Six of the kingdoms (the North being a special case) laid down their arms and created a leviathan in the person of the king. “Leviathan” is Hobbes’s word for the sovereign power, named after a mythical sea monster of great power. The idea is that it is better to submit to the power of the king, the leviathan, than to be subject to the state of nature, a state in which we have a war of all against all.

The king’s ability to physically exercise his authority is important because only through that authority can the state’s security be guaranteed. The laws established are meaningless unless there is some force to back them. And this illustrates the first of Lord Stark’s mistakes. When he confronted Queen Cersei with his knowledge of Joffrey’s incestuous origin, he had no power to back up the accusations. It seems that he assumed that Cersei’s allegiance to the Kingdom would be enough. This assumption was well founded as long as Robert lived; Cersei wasn’t willing to cross him because of the force of Robert. But once it was apparent that Robert was going to die, there was no reason to believe that her allegiance would continue.

Her words of allegiance were supposed to be sufficient. Words, however, derive their strength not “from their own nature (for nothing is more easily broken than a man’s word) but from feare of some evill consequence upon the rupture.”
8
Cersei demonstrates this and highlights Ned’s naiveté when she rips up the will, asking, “Is this meant to be your shield, Lord Stark?” (“You Win or You Die”). Ned’s mistake was that he believed he could enforce the King’s Justice (or the Regent’s Justice, as it were) with words, and that Cersei would surrender to the exile that she calls a “bitter cup to drink from” without the express threat of violence.
9
Of course Ned thought he had the city guard on his side—but we can’t blame him for how that turned out.

“The Day Will Come When You Need Them to Respect You, Even Fear You a Little”
10

If we were to place Niccolò Machiavelli into A Song of Ice and Fire, he would probably be serving as a member of the king’s advisory council. During his life, Machiavelli, unlike most political philosophers, actually served in politics. He held the position of secretary to the Ten of Florence, which in modern times would be something analogous to the U.S. secretary of state. Machiavelli also served as ambassador to both the king of France and the pope, and formed the Republic of Florence’s first militia. Unlike Hobbes, Machiavelli limited his conclusions to what he observed. There are no thought experiments about the state of nature or anything else in Machiavelli. Like Tyrion Lannister, Machiavelli derived his knowledge from books and firsthand experience.

History has unfairly made Machiavelli’s name into an eponym for a cynical view of politics in which the pursuit of power justifies whatever means are used to achieve that power. The unfair portrayal is based on certain conclusions in Machiavelli’s famous book
The Prince
in which he remarks that fear is better than love for a ruler.
11
Machiavelli is not saying that fear is more desirable than love, but rather that it is easier to maintain, and, once lost, it is easier to reestablish. Love, on the other hand, is both more difficult to maintain and almost impossible to force. Therefore, a ruler ought not to worry so much about whether his subjects love him. Rather, he should inspire fear that he will punish them if they break the rules.

Power is not to be sought for its own sake. Rather, power is to be sought for the sake of the state. Indeed, the security of the state is the highest goal for a Machiavellian. While this is often missed, Machiavelli’s writing across four major works shows an approach that balances the will of the rulers with the will of the people. In fact, it is only in
The Prince
that he writes in favor of monarchy, while he gives more attention to a republic-style rule in the much longer
Discourses
.
12
In either case, while the security of the Seven Kingdoms can rest upon Machiavelli’s ideas, our problem regarding Lord Stark is that he acts, in several instances, specifically as Machiavelli advises not to do.

“Most Men Would Rather Deny a Hard Truth Than Face It”
13

As Robert’s Hand, Lord Stark is charged with running the state’s day-to-day affairs. While Robert is off chasing wine and women, Ned has to settle disputes, count coppers, and manage affairs. While the king will have the final say, Ned’s decisions are in fact the king’s decisions. This presents the major difficulty with Ned Stark: he makes these decisions not as the king, but as Ned Stark, and Ned Stark is an idealist.
Idealism
, briefly, is adherence to a system of ideas or principles that make up the law and serve as a guide to forming a system of justice. Idealism can be based on a philosophy or a religion, but in either case there is a set of core rules that will not be broken. Idealism has its place in politics, as it can direct the formation of laws or give a government a sense of purpose. In the real world, though, political ideals must oftentimes be transgressed out of necessity, especially in cases where the security of the state and its citizens would be put in peril.

For example, nearly all political entities have the law that no person shall kill another or compel another person to do so. It’s a rule that is necessary for any society if it wishes to exist. Now, if there’s an uprising in one of the realms of a kingdom and the king sends in a troop of knights to quell it, technically he has broken the rule. He has ordered the deaths of those rebelling, but practically speaking, it is necessary, for the security of the state, to break the rule. The hard truth is that sometimes the Hand must get dirty in order to maintain the security of the Seven Kingdoms. Ned, though, is usually unwilling to do this.

Just think of what happens when the news arrives that Daenerys Targaryen has wed the most powerful of the Dothraki Khals, Drogo, and that (even worse) she is pregnant. The situation is dire, as the Targaryens, descended from Aegon the Conqueror, are the true heirs to the throne. If Daenerys were to have a son, the Dothraki hordes could sweep through the Seven Kingdoms and take the Iron Throne. Thus the council recommends Daenerys’s assassination.

Ned balks at the advice. It is unimaginable to him that King Robert would consider having a teenage girl killed. Moreover, he reasons that the Dothraki fear the ocean, because their horses cannot drink from it. So they will never cross the “the black water.” Robert and the council, not willing to rely on this reasoning, have already decided that Daenerys must die. Varys explains to Lord Stark, “I understand your qualms, Lord Eddard, truly I do. It gave me no joy to bring this news to council. It is a terrible thing we contemplate, a
vile
thing. Yet we who presume to rule must do vile things for the good of the realm however much it pains us.”
14

Machiavelli would tell Ned that “a blunder ought never to be perpetrated to avoid war, because it is not to be avoided, but is only deferred to your disadvantage.”
15
Ned’s second objection, the one of practicality, can’t be relied upon. It requires that the Dothraki never change their customs, or that their desire for glory will never overcome their fear of the sea. Although the king could command a strengthening of naval defenses and begin an earnest preparation for a possible war, this would severely tax an already bankrupt kingdom. The king and his council are being practical. If war can be avoided with one action, no matter how vile, that action ought to be undertaken. The burden of war on the kingdom, the cost of life, and the security of the state all point to the necessity of assassinating the Dothraki queen.

Concerning Ned’s ethical objection, Machiavelli would remark that “it is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity.”
16
Ned isn’t stupid; he just doesn’t see the necessity of the action. The threat is years down the line, but a strong kingdom does not make decisions with the king’s head on the chopping block. A weak government, on the other hand, is one in which “all choices they make, they are forced to make: and if they should happen to do the right thing, it is force, not their own good sense that makes them do it.”
17