CONTENTS
Foreword
A Raven from House Wiley
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part One: “You Win or you Die”
Chapter 1: Maester Hobbes Goes to King’s Landing
You are Selfish and Dangerous
The Realm Needs a King
Hobbes Takes the Maester’s Chain
The Horrors of War
Robert’s Rebellion
Lion and Direwolf, Dragon and Leviathan
Chapter 2: It is a Great Crime to Lie to a King
Lying and Deceiving in Westeros
Lord Stark’s Lies
Is Lying Worse than Deceiving?
Betraying Trust and Shifting Responsibility
The Ruses of War
Bad Consequences and Broken Oaths
Chapter 3: Playing the Game of Thrones
Virtù and Fortuna
The Downfall of Kings
Morality and Dependency
Always Wear a Mask
Those Who Make Their Own Luck
A Final Lesson
Chapter 4: The War in Westeros and Just War Theory
The Justness of Resorting to War
Just Cause
Right Intention
Proper Authority
Last Resort
Probability of Success
Proportionality of Loss versus Gain
Justness in Conducting War
Discrimination between Combatants and Noncombatants
Appropriate Treatment of Prisoners of War
No Reprisals
Respect the Rights of the State’s Own Citizens
A Just War?
Part Two: “The Things I Do For Love”
Chapter 5: Winter Is Coming!
“Is the Honorable Person Happy?”
“Is the Devious Person Happy?”
“I Do Not Know Which of You I Pity Most”
“Life is Not a Song, Sweetling. You May Learn That One Day to Your Sorrow”
“When You Play the Game of Thrones, You Win or You Die. There Is No Middle Ground”
What Game of Thrones Teaches Us about Happiness
Chapter 6: The Death of Lord Stark
“If the Wicked Do Not Fear the King’s Justice Then You Have Put the Wrong Man in Office”
“The Day Will Come When you Need Them to Respect you, Even Fear you a Little”
“Most Men Would Rather Deny a Hard Truth Than Face It”
Threats to the Realm
“The Madness of Mercy”
Chapter 7: Lord Eddard Stark, Queen Cersei Lannister
“You Never Could Lie for Love nor Honor, Ned Stark”
The Madness of Mercy—The Price of Honesty
“When you Play the Game of Thrones, You Win or You Die”: The Rewards of Egoism
“And Pray That He is the Man I Think He is”
“How Are you Any Different from Robert, or Me, or Jaime?”
Chapter 8: It Would Be a Mercy
“Give Me a Good Clean Death”
“You Love Your Children, Do you Not?”
“When Will He Be as He Was?”
“This is Not Life”
Part Three: “Winter is Coming”
Chapter 9: Wargs, Wights, and Wolves That Are Dire
What is It Like to Be a Direwolf?
Wargs and Consciousness
Descartes and Direwolves
Wargs Again
What about the Wights?
Back to the Wights
Chapter 10: Magic, Science, and Metaphysics in A Game of Thrones
Let’s Get Physical
Science in A Game of Thrones
Magic and Causation
Science and Magic in Westeros
Magic and Metaphysics
Chapter 11: “You Know Nothing, Jon Snow”
Not Knowing That You Know Nothing
What Even a Blind Man Can See
Calibrating Confidence in What We (Don’t) Know
Justified True Belief
A Trip to King’s Landing
Back to the Wall
The Horn of Winter
Chapter 12: “Why is the World So Full of Injustice?”
Is the Problem of Evil Really a Problem?
But What is Evil?
Augustine and Catelyn Defend the Faith of the Seven
Problems with the Solutions
David Hume and the Impotence of the Old Gods
Blaming the Gods for Natural Evil
R’hllor and Natural Evil
Gods Don’t Care about Men
Part Four: “The Man Who Passes the Sentence should Swing the Sword”
Chapter 13: Why Should Joffrey Be Moral If He Has Already Won the Game of Thrones?
The World Will Be Exactly As You Want It to Be (“Lord Snow”)
A Man with Great Ambition and No Morals, I Wouldn’t Bet against Him (“Fire and Blood”)
The Truth Will Be What You Make It (“Lord Snow”)
You’ve a Long Way to Travel and In Bad Company (“Fire and Blood”)
Our Way is the Old Way (“Winter is Coming”)
I Must Be One of the Few Men in This City Who Doesn’t Want to Be King (“Fire and Blood”)
Chapter 14: The Moral Luck of Tyrion Lannister
The Virtues and Vices of Tyrion Lannister
It’s Out of the King’s Hand’s Hands
The Many Faces of Moral Luck
Kant to the Rescue?
Moral Luck and the Last Laugh
Chapter 15: Dany’s Encounter with the Wild
To Each His Own?
Moral Relativism
The Diversity of Ethical Codes
Love and Incest
Moral Relativism
The Dothraki Wedding Ceremony
Pillage and Plunder
The Morality of the Seven Kingdoms and Beyond
Chapter 16: “There Are No True Knights”
The Dark Side of Chivalry
Chivalry is Misguided
Sansa and her Songs
The Death of Modern Chivalry: Good Riddance
Women, Not Wards: What Has Humanity Made of the Human Female?
Part Five: “Stick them With the Pointy End”
Chapter 17: Fate, Freedom, and Authenticity in A Game of Thrones
The Freedom to Be or Not to Be
Que Sera, Sera (What Will Be, Will Be)
Fulfilling Fate
Becoming Who You Are
Chapter 18: No One Dances the Water Dance
Virtues and the Good Life
Martial Arts and Virtues
The Water Dance
Zen and the Sword Master from Braavos
Ninjutsu and the Faceless Men
The Faceless Dance of Virtue
Chapter 19: The Things I Do For Love
What is Game Theory?
House Rules
Eros’s Aim
The Nature of the Game
The Dwarf’s Gamble: Non-Zero-Sum Games and Repeated Play
Through the Eyes of Love
Chapter 20: Stop the Madness!
The Archaeologist and the Mad Fool
Pointing a Finger at the Crazies
Meet the Mayor of Crazytown
We Had to Murder the Mad Murderer!
Technologies of the Self
Am I Sane? I Think I Am. . . . I Think I Am. . . . I Think I Am. . . .
Everything is Dangerous
Contributors
Index
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FOREWORD
Elio M. Garcia and Linda Antonsson
“The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.”
“Love is the bane of honor, the death of duty.”
“When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.”
With phrases like these, George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones reveals not only a powerful sense of drama, a rich setting, and complex characters, but an understanding that at the heart of his story—of any great story—lies conflict. Martin often cites William Faulkner’s statement that the only story worth telling is that of “the human heart in conflict with itself,” and that conflict appears again and again throughout the Song of Ice and Fire series in a way that seemed unprecedented in the epic fantasy genre back in 1996 when the first novel was published. Whether the conflict entailed one lonely, misshapen dwarf’s efforts to survive in a society that looks down on him, a friend’s struggle to keep an irresponsible king on his throne, or a mother’s choice between her family and her duty, Martin presented the moral complexity of people and societies that breathed reality. Though inspired by the likes of J. R. R. Tolkien—father of the epic fantasy—Martin took a different path, and opened the door for a wave of new writers who explore characters and settings with an eye toward the darker side of human nature and society.
When it was announced that George R. R. Martin’s series of fantasy novels, A Song of Ice and Fire, would be adapted by HBO in Game of Thrones, it caused a great deal of excitement and speculation among fans who had been following the saga for a decade. Casting, budgets, shooting locations, special effects—these subjects and more were up for discussion. Yet at the heart of all of these questions was a single, overriding concern for most fans: How much fidelity would the show maintain to Martin’s novel, not only in terms of plot and characters, but in tone and themes? The first season came and went, and now we know that the producers largely stayed faithful on all levels, weaving together a drama that combined elements of the heroic epic with a moral scale that covered the range from the saintly to the monstrous.
Readers often cite the moral complexity of the novels as being a key part of their enjoyment, alluding to characters painted in “shades of gray.” Previous works of epic fantasy tended to operate with a straightforward moral compass where the antagonist was some variety of evil “Dark Lord” and the protagonists were defined by their opposition to this evil character based on their obvious moral goodness. In contrast, Martin’s series has been written with no dark lord to speak of, instead focusing the narrative on the dynastic conflicts that rend the Seven Kingdoms apart beneath the shadow of a looming catastrophe. That catastrophe may be created by nefarious creatures and it may be the ultimate end point of the narrative, but Martin’s choice to keep his eyes on the very human characters, with their very human flaws, was done well enough to win him legions of fans who appreciated the so-called “gritty realism” of the narrative.
Some of the post-Martin fantasists seem to pursue “grittiness” for the sake of grittiness—an
d that certainly is one approach among many. But it’s hard to find in some of these works the human core of the story. In contrast, Martin keeps a sharp focus on his characters, and though they suffer greatly at times, it tastes all the sweeter when they triumph. When they struggle, we struggle with them: Eddard Stark’s struggle with questions of honor and honesty, Jon Snow’s struggle to choose between vows and love, Tyrion Lannister’s effort to win his father’s approval because he has so little else. The inner conflict is absolutely integral to the weight of the story, to making A Song of Ice and Fire—and now Game of Thrones—such popular works. These and other questions—of ethics, political philosophy, and more—are the fulcrum on which the entire story turns. Despite the fact that many of the problems presented in the novel and on the screen are couched in the quasi-medieval context of lords and castles and personal honor, there’s a relevance to the way the characters wrestle with choices that do not seem so dissimilar to choices that we are faced with on a daily basis.
George R. R. Martin’s writing is ripe for introspection and consideration, not merely as examples of masterfully told popular literature, but as a genuine exploration of human nature in uncertain times. To provide some avenues for illumination, Game of Thrones and Philosophy presents essays on topics that run the gamut of philosophical topics, from ethics to metaphysics to political philosophy. Eric Silverman interrogates Plato’s views on virute and happiness, seen through the lense of Ned Stark’s and Cersei Lannister’s very different life strategies. Henry Jacoby explores the topic of consciousness in a series where magically created wights and supernatural direwolves exist. Richard Littman imagines Hobbes as a maester, looking on Westeros and considering the question of who should rule. These essays are just a few examples, of course; as Martin might write, there are “many and more” to engage with.
And all this, thanks to the sudden image Martin received one day back in 1991, while trying to write a science fiction novel: a huge wolf, found dead amidst summer snow. From such small beginnings, something great came, something worth reading, worth enjoying, worth examining.
A RAVEN FROM HOUSE WILEY
Editor’s Note on Spoilers
Many of the philosophical quandaries of this series cannot be discussed without looking at events across the five books of the Song of Ice and Fire series that have been published at the time of this writing. However, we understand that some readers are fans of the HBO series and don’t want to be spoiled for events beyond the first season. Therefore, with that in mind, you may wish to delay reading chapters 3, 11, 12, 14, 18, and 20 until you’ve read further into the series; the rest are safe and relatively spoiler-free.