Warrior Philosophy in Game of Thrones (5 page)

I think it is one of the great challenges of our time to keep ourselves face-to-face with the consequences of our choices because that is part of what will help us to make good choices and to take responsibility for the choices we make.  We live in an increasingly remote world where communications happen over vast distances and decisions in one country can affect the entire world.  I think the world of business in particular should take note of the lesson Ned Stark offers here: it is too easy for the signing of one contract by some people in a office to create or axe hundreds of job, to preserve or destroy entire habitats, to make or break economies, in simple terms to nourish or destroy life.  I think if all executives and politicians made themselves come face-to-face with the consequences of their decisions, we might have better decision-makers, and better outcomes for everyone.

As I mentioned near the beginning of this chapter while we are certainly not responsible for everything that happens in our lives, we are responsible
in the face of
everything that happens.  One wonderful example of someone taking responsibility in this way is Ser Barristan Selmy, Lord Commander of the King's Guard.  Ser Barristan is a great example of the true expression of many warrior virtues, but the specific moment I am talking about here is when Ser Huw of the Vale is killed by Ser Gregor 'The Mountain' Clegane in the Hand's tourney.  Ned Stark goes to see Ser Huw's body and finds Barristan there and asks:

“Does Ser Huw have any family in the Capitol?”

To which Barristan replies:

“No, I stood vigil for him myself last night.  He had no-one else.”
[xiv]

It is not Barristan's fault the young man is dead, nor is Ser Huw his responsibility as family, but in the face of this tragedy Barristan chooses to do what he sees as his spiritual duty.  Knowing there is no-one else, Barristan steps in and answers the perennial question of activism:

“If not you then who?”
[11]

It is all too easy to feel helpless when faced with life's challenges.  It is hard to constantly turn to ourselves and challenge the voice that says “There's nothing I can/could do...” But if we don't challenge that voice at every step, if we don't do battle with our own apathy and sense of defeat then by increments we die.  Perhaps not physically – although the depths of psychological despair can be very directly connected to illness, even terminal illness
[12]
– but in our hearts we numb ourselves so as not to have to face the deep knowledge that we have given up on life and forsworn our power to effect change.  This is a hard road to walk, that is why I see it as part of what makes a person a warrior,  but if I want to be able to embrace life fully, if I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror and feel proud of the man I see there then it is a necessary challenge to face. 

Viktor Frankl wrote that in the concentration camps people died two deaths.  There was the physical death which came when they were killed, but way before that there was a spiritual death as they succumbed to the hopelessness and had the internal freedom I mentioned earlier, the ability to respond (response-ability) beaten out of them.  For me, one of the great tragedies of modern life is that while many of us (especially in the so-called 'First-World' countries) have amazing freedoms in so many ways,  I see so many people who seem to have given up on this most essential of freedoms: the freedom to manage and challenge my own response to life's difficulties.  I think that our culture of possession where for so many people self-esteem and self-respect is based on how much stuff you own, is at least partly the cause of this (although it is a little chicken-and-egg).  When 'Having' is more important than 'Being' it's easy to get drawn into a striving for perceived material freedom (to have anything I want to have) rather than focusing on personal freedom (to be anything I want to be).  This same cultural trend is prevalent in much of the world of Westeros as well, where so much can be bought by gold – even, in many cases, a man's honour.  Barristan and Ned Stark are two examples of people for whom that is not the case.  Tyrion exhibits a lot of personal freedom too in this way.  Jon Snow also shows a huge reserve of personal integrity and response-ability.  There are others, but they are rare, and most of them slip up at some point.  As I say, this is a tough path to walk - I fully acknowledge that and I'm not trying to pretend I'm writing this as someone who is perfect and always standing in my full power, holding responsibility as deeply as I'd like.  All I feel I can do is keep working at it to become constantly more aware and constantly more response-able.

Many spiritual philosophies from around the world acknowledge the innate difficulty of leading a good life.  One of Buddha's four noble truths is most commonly translated as “Life is suffering.”  Kung-fu has at it's heart a similar philosophy which resonates for me.  'Kung-Fu' can be translated a number of different ways some of which make fairly obvious sense, such as 'Skilful Movement' but one of the less obvious ones is 'Time and Hard Work.'  It is this second translation which I find most useful.  While learning to be skilful in your movements will take time and hard work, at another layer this translation speaks to me of just what I have been describing about the path of responsibility: a responsible life takes time and is hard work!  That may not seem like a very positive message, but the beauty of it is that if I can accept that life is hard work, that it is often difficult and that suffering is an unavoidable aspect of existence, then ironically, the hard work, the difficulty, the suffering sort of disappears.  It's not that these things are any less true of the circumstances of my life but if I accept the reality of the difficulty I don't struggle with it in the same way any more.  This is the most profound level of responsibility.  It is my struggle against the challenges in life that create my discomfort.  If I take really full ownership of my responses then life is only hard, difficult, or full of suffering because I judge it to be.  Stuff happens.  Life is not a giant persecutor trying to inflict pain, God is not a great big bully in the sky.  Stuff happens.  And my judgement of it as hard or easy; joyful or difficult; pleasure or suffering is my first response.  Stuff happens, I make a judgement about it, I take action upon it.  If I can deeply, deeply accept that some of what life offers me will be challenging then I don't need to judge it in the same way.  I create my own suffering, life just hands me experiences.  Carlos Casteneda, in writing about the path of a warrior shaman, puts it like this:

"Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge
(or path of responsibility)
. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges."

There is no question that what life hands people is different.  I cannot even begin to conceive what it was like for Viktor Frankl living through his time in a concentration camp, nor do I ever want to experience such horrors.  I have no idea if I would be able to live this philosophy were I to face such a challenge.  However, Viktor Frankl's dignity in the face of such a terrible life experience gives me hope that we all have the potential to transcend our circumstances and embrace our deepest human freedom: response-ability.  As Aldous Huxley said:

"Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him."

King Robert Baratheon has failed to embrace his responsibility.  I can have compassion for him as a man who lost his love, and has found himself as King of a nation he is ill-equipped to rule.  He was fortunate to have Jon Arryn at his side for so many years, but in another way perhaps that helped him to continue to shirk his true responsibility.  It is Roberts' irresponsibility which has landed the realm of the Seven Kingdoms in so much debt – he refuses to face the realities of their finances.  This kind deliberate blindness is probably not unfamiliar to many of us.  Lots of people today have lots of debt – our increasing debt/credit culture around finance contributed to the financial crash of recent years.  Just like Robert Baratheon we were encouraged to it by the social norms and trusted advisor’s who said “it'll be ok...” but we still have to bear responsibility for it.  With Robert Baratheon, this is one of many ways he constantly seeks to avoid dealing with the realities of his life.  There is a scene, after Ned Stark has been struck down by Jaime Lannister and his men, when Queen Cersei is making accusations of Ned and his wife Lady Catelyn (because Cat has arrested Tyrion Lannister, Cersei's brother), and eventually says to Robert that she should wear the armour and he the gown.  He hits her and she says:

“I shall wear this like a badge of honour”

To which Robert replies:

“Wear it in silence or I'll honour you again.”

When Cersei then leaves Robert clearly regrets his actions and says:

“See what she does to me?  My loving wife...”

This is the crux of it.  For all her taunts, viciousness, manipulation and resentment, for all of the pain that is so much a part of Robert and Cersei's relationship, she didn't make Robert hit her.  He did that.  However skilled a manipulator Cersei may be show does not control Robert, and more than this, his statement for me epitomises Robert's relationship to his life.  In his head he had to go to war because mad King Aerys killed Lyanna Stark - the woman he loved, he had to take the throne because he had the best claim, he had to marry Cersei because Jon Arryn said it was the right thing to do... and now he had to hit Cersei because she drove him to it.  In his mind, none of it is his responsibility.  On the flip-side we have Daenerys Targaryen who was an exile before she was born, has been sold like a prize heifer by her own brother to a brute of a man who doesn't even speak her language and nightly takes her in what is pretty much rape.  Out of this she manages to build a life for herself, to create a loving and in many ways equal relationship with her husband, to become a Queen (Khaleesi) of sorts, and to win the love of her new people.  Daenerys is such a fine example of responsibility in action, it is hard for me not to wonder if perhaps she would make a better ruler for the Seven Kingdoms than the others who are competing for the crown.  I'm not looking to demonize Robert here, I can understand how such a thing could happen in a man so thoroughly bred on violence, filled with frustration and stuck in a marriage so full of pain and bitterness, but it does serve us here as a valuable illustration of how easy it is to relinquish our own power – to disavow our ability to respond.

All of the above said, I make no judgement of you as you face your life and it's unique challenges, and I would encourage you not to judge others, as we can never truly know another person's pain or joy, regardless of their apparent advantage or disadvantage.  Tyrion Lannister offers Jon Snow a very similar lesson when Jon first begins his training having arrived at The Wall.  In Episode 3 we see Jon fighting and beating the other men who have arrived to serve on The Wall with him.  They are all criminals of one stripe or another and he has judged them and so much of the Night's Watch as beneath him.  He is disappointed to find a collection of criminals where he expected to find men of honour, and in every fighting practice session he takes his disappointment and frustration out on those he trains with.  They all resent him.  Tyrion, in one of his moments of wisdom, responsibility and care, tells Jon Snow of the histories of the men he has arrived with.  Many of them, though considered criminals, only came to be that way because life dealt them ill fortune.  Often they have displeased someone in power who has then abused that power in having them convicted.  Once Jon hears this, he is open and humble enough to take responsibility for his circumstances, to change his attitude, and begins to work to make the world around him a better place rather than remaining a victim and imposing his misery on whoever he comes into contact with.  In this Jon makes what I call 'The Warrior's Choice'. 

The Warrior's Choice: