Game of Thrones: a defence of politics?

Lord Renly and Littlefinger demonstrate foresight, accurately predicting the events about to unfold. This is partly because they understand the deep drive for power in some, and the drastic measures they will take to obtain it. Ned, on the other hand, demonstrates no foresight whatsoever. He is no fox, has little regard for traps, and does nothing to prepare for the worst. Renly and Littlefinger use their judgement and exercise political agency by being responsive to the contingencies unfolding around them. Littlefinger's first word after learning of Ned's intention to hand power to Stannis is "unless…" He is abruptly cut off by Ned who asserts doggedly, "there is no unless." In his encounters with both men, Ned is visibly frustrated by the very idea of having to grapple with moral ambiguity and consider contingencies and hypotheticals outside of his blinkered and myopic vision of a smooth transition of power to the rightful heir. Ned has barely a political bone in his body, and he ends up paying for that with his life.

At the other end of the spectrum lies Joffrey, your run-of-the-mill tyrant who rules through brute arbitrary force. Joffrey would have done well to have read his Machiavelli. His first act as King is to cut off the head of the Warden of the North, and we soon begin to see the full uncompromising brutality of his reign. Good men are made to fight to the death for entertainment. The economy suffers and people begin to starve. Babies are taken and slaughtered in front of their mothers. Pure tyrannical force, it seems, has won the day.

Very quickly, though, we begin to see the limits of tyranny as a form of rule. Like clockwork, the people of King's Landing begin to rebel. Joffrey is pelted with manure and insulted as he walks through the city streets. Some of his guards are killed. His response echoes the famous last words of the Mad King: "kill them, kill them all!" He is oblivious to the fact that his words reflect the very attitude which caused the problem he finds himself in. Insofar as it tends to produce the familiar conditions of revolt, tyranny is an inherently unstable form of rule, prone to spontaneous combustion.

So what about Daenerys? Up until the end of Season Three, there is not much about her approach to rule that is political. On the contrary, she is an unrepentant ideologue, ruthless and uncompromising in her quest to free slaves and destroy not only their owners but the culture and traditions that sustained slavery. She responds to signs of resistance by holding fast to the truths she knows. You're either a friend of the revolution or you're an enemy.

But along the way, Daenerys has a number of transformative learning experiences which have the effect of tempering her initial ideological zeal. She meets a former slave who wishes to return to his former master, and learns that a former master she crucified fought to have slavery abolished. Slowly, Daenerys' simple friend/enemy dualism begins to break down, and she learns to be more political. She learns to tolerate the cultural traditions of the ancient cities she liberated, and conciliate the interests of those she formerly regarded as enemies. She ends up marrying a former master as a symbolic gesture to the people of Meereen, and then bends to the wishes of the people by reopening the fighting pits.

We are yet to learn the fate of Daenerys and her newly acquired taste for politics. She has been joined by two of the best political minds in all of the Seven Kingdoms – Lord Tyrion and Varys, who are doing their best to keep the peace across the Narrow Sea and to mitigate some of the damage that Daenerys has done in that region. Yet, despite their collective political wisdom, Tyrion and Varys are clearly struggling. The Masters of Yunkai have just laid siege to Meereen. It is therefore worth concluding with a word of caution.

While in Westeros and the real world alike, the fate of characters and their aspirations tends to be commensurate with their capacity to think and act politically, rulers should always be judged with reference to the context they find themselves in. As the saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures. And those measures may not always be political.

The Tyrells are the ultimate career politicians. They demonstrate foresight, prudence, self-restraint, and good judgement. They watch out for traps. They negotiate, compromise, bargain, and build alliances. And they know how to say exactly the right thing at exactly the right time. Yet they lack an X-factor, which becomes increasingly apparent in their inability to respond to the various crises unfolding around them. At least at the time of writing this, they are powerless against the High Sparrow and his band of religious fanatics who have taken control of King's Landing (even though they are right to point out that it was Cersei's lack of good judgement and foresight which put them there in the first place). And one has the sense that their impotence would be even more pronounced in dealing with the looming White Walker threat.

It may turn out that Daenerys' ideological zeal, combined with her three weapons of mass destruction, are precisely what Westeros needs; someone to cut through the Gordian Knot. However – and this is a big however – presuming Daenerys does end up saving the day and vanquishing the White Walkers, she will need to rely on far more than her dragons if she is to keep the peace and remain in power after the war is won.