Morality and good in The Game of Thrones

Trade Tripper
Jemy Gatdula

Jemy: It is best that virtue permeates public life, particularly in government, as seemingly private acts can — if done habitually and by a significant number of the population — have an effect in the conduct of government.

Also Jemy: Let’s watch Game of Thrones.

What can I say? The show is amazing!

The obvious point of comparison is between JRR Tolkien and George RR Martin. That is, if Tolkien were on meth. And even then I’d admit to being frivolous and hasty in saying so.

Neither is it Umberto Eco vs. Dan Brown. Laughably far from it.

Because, as with Lord of the Rings, a definite reason for the Game of Thrones’ majesty is its assured story-telling.

GoT sets itself different from Tolkien’s universe, however, in that magic abounds and the stakes are inexorably high in the latter (i.e., the dominance of good or evil, and of mankind’s freedom), GoT’s stakes are comparatively small: a set-piece rigodon of quite unlikeable characters (it’s the supporting cast that gives GoT its positive vibe) all fighting for, as Honest Trailers would describe it: the most uncomfortable chair ever.

Pretty much like rich family politicians here, drooling for that relatively larger sized house we pretend is a Palace.

It’s this treacherous intimacy that allows GoT to make its mark.

�����’s Rome Season 2 was a cautionary tale of how not to make a show: high politics played within a time frame and a logic that does not allow it.

It is with Deadwood and True Detectives Season 1 that HBO got it right. And GoT learned those lessons well.

Because no matter the moral ambiguities and trials that Martin (or HBO) subjected the GoT characters (and the audience) to, the dictates of reason and the duties arising from natural rights are still unavoidable.

Witness the fates (and audience reaction thereof) of Joffrey Barratheon and Ramsay Bolton.

Then there’s Oberyn Martell, fuelled by vengeance and sexual libertinism. Despite undoubted prowess in the fighting arts, it was his arrogance (or complacency brought about by self-indulgence) that finished him.

Certain characters, on the other hand, that started out reprehensible, evolved as if following a linear logic.

Tyrion and Jaime Lannister are examples. The audience roots for them, seeing both exhibiting adherence to duty and sacrificing tremendously (in honorific and even quite physical terms). During the show’s course, they would consistently turn to doing right.

And stoically accepting the consequences (sometimes unjust) of their actions.

Sandor Clegane is like this as well. Couple them with the fates of Ned and Rob Stark, and even the (so far) alive Brienne.

All exemplifying an inescapable fact: that to be honorable and virtuous is hard. And perhaps one’s reward will not come in one’s lifetime.

Yet, virtue and honor must be upheld, otherwise, nothing else would make sense. Contrast that with Theon Greyjoy, Stannis Baratheon, Roose Bolton, and Walder Frey.

By doing acts completely against the established order and natural law (e.g., betraying friends, killing a daughter, wanton cruelty, treacherous murder), the last three met ends that not only snuffed out their lives (in Theon’s case, horribly metaphorically) but were effectively condemned in a way as if they never existed at all.

“Post-moderns love to preach, there is no good and evil,” writes Tyler O’Neil; that “the world is run by people, not God. Those people have vastly different goals and values, all fighting in a merciless, ultimately meaningless, but nonetheless bloody, game of thrones. But as C.S. Lewis cannily observed, even the strength of such an argument poses a problem. If the audience mourns when Ned Stark loses his head, and becomes enraged as the pompous King Joffrey tortures innocents, are we really to believe the universe of this show has no moral values?”

This leads back to the implied question of why we give a damn about the Game of Thrones?

Because not only is Martin a great storyteller, he also captured a great story to tell.

As David French cogently saw, the Game of Thrones occupies “a moral universe of surprising complexity and nuance, one that is true to life in a way that conservatives especially should understand.” Here, “the realities of human nature mean that evil is very, very evil, and good is also touched with the weight of sin. You see the reality of the Paul’s Epistle to the Romans unfold on screen. Time and again, characters don’t do the good they want to do. Instead, they achieve the very evil they sought to avoid.

Despite the evil around and the weight of sin within, we seek still to do good because we must, it is our nature to do so, without regard to outcome.

Take all that within the context of our politics and remember what another great writer said: “For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”

And perhaps we’ll learn that not everything has to be “win or die.”

Jemy Gatdula is a Senior Fellow of the Philippine Council for Foreign Relations and a Philippine Judicial Academy law lecturer for constitutional philosophy and jurisprudence.

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