The Will To Power In Westeros

"You really think a crown gives you power?"
--Tywin Lannister, Game of Thrones (season three, episode ten)


I saw only tonight that today is seven years to the day that Game of Thrones first aired.  Because this time of significance will soon pass, I wanted to write about something in honor of the show's seven year anniversary: power, which (politically) is the strength of a leader.  In Game of Thrones, a world is portrayed where many figures will do practically anything, irrespective of the violence or selfishness involved, in order to establish or preserve their own authority and societal dominance.  The nature of power, the ways that it can be obtained, and the ways it can be maintained are explored from the first season onward, the characters revealing their conflicting worldviews as the series unfolds.  Whether or not this was specifically intended, the many ideologies and perspectives clearly affirm the basic components of postmodernism [1].

Game of Thrones expertly depicts what human behavior can easily reduce down to in the absence of verifiable divine revelation and moral concerns, with many simply doing what is right in their own eyes or setting moral questions aside almost entirely.  There are certainly characters who live for more than personal power, like Ned and Robb Stark, but they are relatively few and far between, and their enemies often destroy them as wolves might devour sheep.  A plethora of characters each have their own respective philosophy of power, with one holding that knowledge is power (Littlefinger), another insisting through a display of force that power is power (Cersei), another scoffing at the idea that a crown actually gives its wearer power (Tywin), and so on.

Indeed, as Nietzsche might expect, many characters are willing to risk their safety and lives for the sakes of their wills to power.  Desire for power is one of the main drives of a large number of characters.  However, the truth is that people are individual beings and that there is not necessarily any single primary motivation that all people share--not a desire for power, not a desire for spirituality, not a desire for sociality, not a desire for knowledge.  There are still some, as Littlefinger puts it, who cling to illusions like the gods and love instead of climbing the ladder of chaos that will reward the one who climbs it with control [2].  Many characters, whether they consciously subscribe to Littlefinger's Nietzschean worldview or not, do attempt to manipulate chaos around them into a tool that can grant them an advantage over others.  But some do not.  Power, even in Westeros, is not coveted by all.

In a political climate like that of Westeros (and the nearby continent of Essos), it is not merely formal political structures that are used to demonstrate power.  Sex, like other activities, becomes an expression of power in nonconsensual acts where one will is forced on another, with characters like Ramsay Snow particularly using it for this purpose.  When power is held up as the chief end of human existence, it is not surprising when anything that can be wielded in the name of power is used as a weapon in the hands of tyrannical egoists.

Power might even be the objective of the most enigmatic faction on the show.  As far as I recall, in the seven current seasons little to nothing is revealed about the motivations of the White Walkers.  Despite the magnitude of the threat that they pose, and despite how their masses of wights come nearer to King's Landing with each season of the show, there has not been any significant elaboration on their background.  Yes, a flashback shows that the race called the Children of the Forest created them somehow.  Yes, viewers hear about a terrible winter years ago accompanied by a White Walker invasion.  Yet we have heard nothing about why they want to kill humans.

Perhaps the show will unveil some grand reason why the Night King and his White Walker lieutenants seek to extinguish human life on Westeros, adding more corpses to their army of undead--but perhaps the Walkers are simply the show's ultimate expression of the will to power that already underlays so many political schemes in Westeros.  The Night King might ultimately desire to simply kill the living because he can, or because he wants to become the lord of Westeros.  He might just be nothing more than someone who lusts after control over a legion of reanimated dead who serve him without question, unsatisfied until all of Westeros' inhabitants have joined his army.  He might rather rule over the corpses of others than have no power at all.

Power divorced from rationality and righteousness is wielded according to the arbitrary whims of the person who holds it--and Game of Thrones is unflinchingly honest in showing just how irrational and amoral rulers who administer power with selfishness can be.  When people live according to what is right in their own eyes and pursue power above all else, then the grievous suffering of others is often not far behind.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/02/winter-is-coming-realism-of-westeros.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/chaos-is-ladder.html