Warrior Philosophy in Game of Thrones (13 page)

I'd say Jaime Lannister's relationship to honour is the most common in the overall story of 'Game of Thrones' although Tywin's perspective is born by a fair few as well.  For Prince Joffery honour is all about people seeing him as a great King to be.  It is driven by vanity, that is why he has to control and shame Sansa Stark so much: she witnessed Joffrey be shamed by Arya and her wolf.  His fragile ego can't stand for this to be the case so Sansa must be shamed continually so that Joffrey can keep his own shame at bay.  The Knight of Flowers, Ser Loras Tyrell, seems a fine example of knighthood indeed but again it is all about his vanity.  He uses a trick with his horse being in heat (wanting to mate) to beat Ser Gregor Clegane in the tourney.  If his sense of honour was as internally driven as Ned Stark then he would never use such a trick – though I grant you he might die as a result of it judging by Gregor's track record.

One of the shadows and dangers of having a strong sense of the honour of your House (or family) is the potential for a sense of entitlement.  Viserys Targaryen embodies this more clearly than anyone else – he is almost a caricature of this trait at times.  When he is selling Daenerys into her marriage with Khal Drogo he says:

“When they write the history of my reign, sweet sister, they will say it began today.”
[lii]

Talk about counting your chickens before they have hatched!  His sense of entitlement rears it's ugly head again and again often at a cost to Daenerys until eventually it proves Viserys' downfall when he threatens Daenerys' life, her child and draws a sword in the sacred city of Vaes Dothrak where no sword should even be carried, let alone drawn.  He is given the crown he feels the world owes him as a bowl of molten gold over the head and dies screaming.

Petyr Baelish – Lord Littlefinger – has a total disregard for any sense of honour.  One of the places this shows up is when he is speaking to Ned Stark who he has agreed to help for the sake of his love of Catelyn (with whom he grew up).  Ned says:

“Lord Baelish, perhaps I was wrong to distrust you.”

To which Petyr replies:

“Distrusting me was the wisest thing you've done since you climbed off your horse.”

Littlefinger places no value on his honour or that of anyone else and is happy to admit it openly.  Part of what I see regarding honour which is shown clearly through the example of the characters is that honour is a lens through which we see the world.  It colours our choices internally and it colours the way we judge the world 'out there'.  Ned values honour highly for it's own sake and is generally very trustworthy so he expects the same of other people.  Littlefinger doesn't care about honour and isn't very trustworthy so he, equally expects the same of others.  They are both likely to be surprised at least some of the time!

What I take from all this and what I offer to you is that your honour is entirely personal to you.  It will of course be very connected with your honour code, whatever form that takes and whether that is a conscious thing you have set down or an unconscious or even unconsidered set of assumptions, beliefs and values.  Your honour is what you make of it.  Peter Hobart puts it beautifully:

“One's honour is worth exactly as much as it's owner decides it is.  For some, it is an inconvenient, unwieldy notion.  Since it serves no concrete purpose, they give it little thought.  For the practitioner of Kishido
[22]
, it is one of the few possessions of any consequence.  Like one's word, its present measure is defined by past performance.  For those descended from an honourable line, it is a sacred inheritance to be safeguarded at all costs.  For every one, it will be a legacy – either good or bad.  It is merely borrowed for a season.”
[liii]

Chapter 8 – Humility

“Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own gifts.  It means freedom from thinking about yourself at all.” 

~William Temple

Humility is often thought of as being in some way small or unnoticeable but that is not the true meaning of humility.  Another misinterpretation is denying or your own abilities – being good at something but pretending you're not.  This is false modesty and has nothing to do with true humility, indeed, in my experience of when I have done this myself and in when I have seen others do it, the person usually has a high opinion of their own abilities but wants others to think them modest.  I know when I was younger I was very prone to this kind of false modesty (and it is generally more typical in the
UK
than, say, the
US
).  If you'd asked me at the time I would have sworn blind that I believed that I was 'OK' at something I was excellent at, but I can say with confidence now that on reflection this concealed a kind of arrogance.  On some level I so strongly believed in my own entitlement to admiration that I would 'play small' knowing that people would complement me anyway – and if they didn't would feel hurt they hadn't noticed!  It's a minor form of craziness but I don't think I will have been alone in this pattern.  It's not entirely comfortable to admit to even now but I've worked on it a fair bit and got better at holding it with more integrity.  Certainly some of what sponsored this behaviour was an insecurity about being seen as arrogant but that was not least of all because deep down I was arrogant!  There is a beautiful example of this from Jaime Lannister in a conversation with Ned Stark.  As we saw in a scene I have previously quoted, Tywin says that Jaime is very concerned with how people perceive him and we see the truth of that here.  Jaime is without question incredibly gifted as a swordsman, but he is arrogant about it too – but doesn't want to be seen as arrogant as well as an oath-breaker.  In this scene Ned has just made a pointed comment about how Jaime's armour doesn't have a scratch on it, to which Jaime replies:

“People have been swinging at me for years but they always seem to miss.”

and Ned says:

“You've chosen your opponents wisely then.”
[liv]

Jaime's comment tries to imply his own great skill while passing it off as other people's errors.  Ned's response is, to my mind, perfect in the way he hands Jaime back both his own skill in the matter and an implication that his skill may not lie where he believes: not in honourable swordsmanship but political conniving.  While Ned shows he lacks political astuteness and cunning in the rest of his time at King's Landing, in this exchange he plays it very well.

True humility doesn't try to hide anything, it is just realistic and honest.  In this way it is very linked to self knowledge.  In order to be truly humble you have to know exactly how good you are, and how much you have yet to learn.  That's humility.  It's not about pretending to be small or unskilled, or without value, it is about knowing exactly where you stand, owning that place, and regardless of how good you are or not, still being open to learning.  I have come across rank beginners in numerous fields who still manage to take an arrogant stance and close themselves to learning.  Equally I have come across world-class professionals who are still willing to listen to total beginners and derive real learning from those conversations.  In my judgement, that's humility.

Some years ago I read an interesting interview with a Christian Minister who was talking about meekness
[lv]
in the context of Christ saying “The meek shall inherit the Earth.”  Again, a lot of people interpret this as meaning that people who waft about pretending that they're 'really not very important' are actually going to end up being the most important people (another example of repressed arrogance and entitlement if ever I saw one...).  What this Minister was saying, was that the original meaning of the word 'meek' was totally different than this.  He said that 'meek' originally was like a really well trained stallion: incredibly powerful, but that power being contained, controlled, channelled and harnessed to a purpose.  Reading that I could see how the meek would inherit the Earth!  Indeed, who else would?  This feels very like the misunderstanding around humility.  I see a humble person as someone who is absolutely aware of their own power, but who wields it wisely and is just as aware of their own vulnerability too.  As Charles Haddon Spurgeon said:

“Humility is to make a right estimate of one's self.”

It is about being the best of yourself with self-awareness but without self-consciousness.  This is a subtle distinction which became much clearer to me at
Drama
School
.  I thought I was being self-aware as I was on stage but from the feedback I was getting it became clear that I was actually self-conscious in a way that was not helpful.  It was like I was constantly observing myself and this kept me from being really present and responsive to what I was involved in.  Self-awareness is something else entirely.  It is a kind of expanded awareness which allows you to interact with your environment more consciously without taking you out of contact with the moment that is happening.  It's a tough shift to make especially if, as was the case for me, the bit of you that is observing what you're doing is also criticising it.  What I'm describing here is often talked about as the difference between 'doing' and 'being'.  There is an old saying that:

“A weak person pretends to be strong, a strong person just is.”

Part of what's intended here is not “...a strong person just is strong” but that “...a strong person just is.” They “just are.”  Again, it is about 'being' something rather than 'doing' something.  If you 'are' it, you don't have to 'do' it.  Syrio makes a similar point when he is first teaching Arya Stark:

“Boy, Girl.  You are a sword.  That is all.”
[lvi]

Syrio is emphasising just 'being' rather than becoming overly self-conscious about how you see yourself too.  There is a state of internal congruence which comes with this kind of 'being' state, a foundation of integrity and authenticity.  It was this authenticity which was missing when I was first studying at
Drama
School
and which I had to work towards, and it is this authenticity which to me is a very clear sign of humility.  For me, when someone is truly humble, they are authentic.  They are at peace with who they are and they live and breathe it comfortably in every moment.  Obviously everyone has tough moments or slips up, but that's OK too when you really find humility – after all, you've got nothing to prove.  As G.K. Chesterton said:

“It is always the secure who are humble.”

Jon snow who has always had so much to prove as a bastard is in some ways freed of his self-consciousness when he gets to the Wall and this helps him to grow into the kind of man people will follow and enables him to become a leader amongst the new recruits he trains with.  As His Uncle Benjen tells him when he reaches the Wall:

“Here a man gets what he earns, when he earns it.”
[lvii]

No matter how much poorer his birth was than the true-born heirs he grew up with, Jon was born to a noble father and doesn't even realise he is 'putting on airs and graces'.  Benjen brings him up short and living the reality of becoming a man of the Night's Watch makes Jon grow up fast.  The moment Jon gets assigned to being a Steward instead of the Ranger he has always dreamed of being is another defining moment for him, when Sam helps him see the value of his new role serving Lord Commander Mormont, but none-the-less it is another layer of Jon's pride stripped away.  I'd say he is a better man for it, and in that moment takes another step towards true humility.There is a quote from the Hagakure which has a similar resonance to what Syrio says to Arya and speaks to me of a state of 'being' which is very connected to humility:

“Among other things, the Way of the Samurai requires that he realise that something may occur at any moment to test the depth of his resolution, and day and night he must sort out his thoughts and prepare a line of action.  Depending on the circumstances, he may win or lose.  But avoiding dishonour is quite a separate consideration from winning or losing.... The veteran Samurai thinks not of victory or defeat but merely fights insanely to the death.”
[lviii]

In this the Samurai is totally in service to their mission, totally present in every moment because they have no room in their thoughts for winning or losing.  They set aside any concerns or anxiety about the outcome and dedicate themselves completely to the task.  There is no self-consciousness here, what others think of you is unimportant – there is no thought of self at all – it is all about whole-hearted dedication.  There is a fierce kind of authenticity which blossoms naturally from this quality of commitment, there is a necessity to be incredibly aware so that whatever happens the Samurai can face it.  For me this quote links humility with responsibility and honour.  The samurai in this example is not trying to be something, he's just being (humility) there is no space in his mindset for anything else.  He strives for success but is not attached to it because he knows that he cannot control the circumstances and may win or lose (responsibility), he can only marshal his resolve and prepare a line of action.  He commits himself completely knowing that honour is not about winning or losing but acquitting yourself with courage, integrity, and dedication.  In this vision of honour, it is purely about your commitment to that which you serve – your higher purpose.  There is a moment when Cersei sees something akin to this in Ned Stark and while she is scornful about what she sees, I admire it: