Game of Thrones and Philosophy

by Jacoby, Henry, Irwin, William

  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.”5 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.”6 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.”

  —Tyrion7

  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.8

  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”9

  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.10

  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.11

  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”12

  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.”13 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.”14

  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 potenti
al 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 Thrones1

  “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 Machiavelli2

  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.