Game of Thrones as a reactionary text?

By now you’ve either watched the finale of the latest season of Game of Thrones, or have been blocking people for obsessively muttering strange names and expressing inappropriate levels of excitement over fantasy creatures. If you’re in the first group, here’s an interesting thesis: GOT, intentionally or inadvertently, is a text critical of modernity.

We start off with the rule of the patriarchs- Ned Stark, Tywin Lannister, Stannis Baratheon, Jeor Mormont, Randyll Tarly. It’s not merely the fact that they’re old and stern men that makes them patriarchs, it’s that their characters signify a certain moral solidity in the world. They’re not always likable characters- Tywin is cruel to fan-favorite Tyrion and Randyll banishes Samwell to The Wall because he’s not man enough- but their presence is still reassuring. It’s not just a random feeling, it’s the sense that there’s a certain traditional metaphysics they reinforce by their very presence. This is precisely why the death of Ned Stark was so surprising and traumatic- it wasn’t just the death of a beloved character, it was the sundering of moral certainty itself. Taken from a world where at least some things were certain, we were suddenly tossed into the chaotic unknown. And this was incredibly exciting for the possibilities it opened, but also terrifying for the same reason.

Here’s my probably controversial claim: with the death of each patriarch, the story moves forward, but its texture unravels a little. The world flattens out, and a type of malaise sets in. You still have loud bangs and flashes and over-the-top battles, but a certain seriousness was forever lost. For example, I love Cersei, but while her actions make for a great character study and for many dramatic moments, it is very poor material for an actual narrative about the land. To try to see this, imagine what the story would be like if the White Walkers weren’t a threat. Would the question of who took the Iron Throne be able to sustain your attention for an extended period of time? Critics have pointed out that the show no longer engages in subtlety but relies exclusively on grand sets and plot surprises, but what if this isn’t because of GRRM’s absence but because the raw materials for moral seriousness have been lost for good?

As for the remaining Starks, now that their local enemies are dead, if they didn’t have the White Walker threat, what would they have in common except the past? Sansa and Arya had to talk about missing their father in the last episode, because that was all they have to bind them together. This is different from when they were young, when somewhat rigid gender expectations existed. They could oppose or acquiesce, but there was a horizon of meaning against which they acted, and could mutually recognize each other in this. Even when they disagreed in their orientations towards the world as children, they could locate each other within a shared context. Now however, they have power and freedom, but what are they supposed to do with them? To quote Allan Bloom out of context “What substitute is there for the forms of relatedness that [were] dismantled?” The optimistic answer is “they’ll figure it out” but a more realistic one is “they’ll have to make do”.

It’s tempting to come up with a reactionary reading, especially in the beginning of the show. The king was Robert Baratheon, a philandering drunk. This is exactly the kind of situation where the reactionary comes in and advocates going back to a more stringent and ordered administration to bring about prosperity. But the show’s progress makes clear that a reactionary political program will just not do, by having each patriarch killed off by a member of the next generation. Ned dies at Joffrey’s hands, Tywin at Tyrion’s, Randall at Daenerys’, Stannis at Ramsay’s (effectively), and Mormont at the hands of some young mutinous crows. The old guard died because it could not keep up with the machinations of the new. Some of them are avenged, and that is satisfying, but that’s at best an acknowledgement of the old ways, not a recovery. There is no going back. But what the show can be taken to be saying is: going forward is no simple matter either. All movement is saturated with a kind of loss, and both the movement and the associated loss are unavoidable.