Once again Pearson Moore provides his thoughts and analysis on some of the themes of this week’s episode.

What Is Dead May Never Die: Game of Thrones 2.02

by Pearson Moore

“People worry so much about their throats that they forget about what’s down low.”

Yoren’s threat to the City Watch Gold Cloak seemed obvious enough. A nick to the femoral artery is as deadly as a slice through the jugular vein, and every bit as difficult to repair. If I were the man in the saddle, though, I would not be thinking about my femoral artery. I would be scared out of my wits, but not because of any threat to femoral or jugular.

Threats came in bundles of three tonight. The jugular threat was obvious. Sometimes the femoral threat could be teased out. But the third threat . . . even giving it a name resists determined efforts. Theon understood the obvious threat: “You won’t stand a chance against the Lannisters on your own!” But Lord Balon Greyjoy understood the threat we cannot name: “Who said anything about the Lannisters?”

Three criminals faced Arya: Rorge, Biter, and Jaqen H’ghar. Biter went for the jugular, Rorge was content to lay low and wait to attack the femoral. But what threat lurks in the heart of a man who has a thirst, a man who does not drink for a day and a night—a quiet man, a pleasant and courteous man?

Three threats came before us tonight: The threat to the neck—the risk to position and power. The threat to the body—the risk to life and wellbeing. And the third threat—the risk that goes beyond any attack on life or limb: The assault on our identity as human beings.

What is dead may never die. Though I lose my body, but yet my soul endures. But if I lose my soul…

The One True God

“Most pirates don’t grow old.”

Salladhor Saan didn’t even flinch at Ser Davos’ words. Do pirates and smugglers—or any of the other varieties of teenage boys who never grew up, for that matter—ever fear Syrio Forel’s One True God? Pirates do not fear death, because the clever ones defy anything standing in the path of gold and glory. Pirates find a way. Gold is not a possibility, it is a promise. Salladhor knows himself to be among those clever teenage boys who will never die. He keeps the promise—and gets the gold.

Salladhor has visited every part of Westeros and Essos, every port in the seven Free Cities, every land that claimed and worshipped an imagined deity they named their One True God. Davos’ son, Matthos Seaworth, in his blind devotion to the Red Priestess spoke of the majesty of the God of Light. Salladhor and Davos saw only the misguided passion of youth in the acolyte’s foolish words. “The one true god is what’s between a woman’s legs, and better yet a queen’s legs.” For Salladhor gold is its own reward, to be enjoyed in the greatest pleasures the world might provide. He will not rape the Queen, for he is clever. He will talk her into his bed, and she will love every minute of it.

If gods are worshipped for power, what wisdom is to be found in pledging allegiance of body and mind to an unseen deity who proves himself impotent at every turn? Ser Davos, too, has seen the world on fast ships with black sails. He has visited every port, heard tell of every One True God claimed by fanatics and followers. Every claim proved itself empty. If bowing to power is the final goal in life, why not bow down to real powers who have proven themselves time and again? Stannis Baratheon has won battles anyone else would have considered lost, and Ser Davos was there to witness the wonder of it. “Man chops off your fingers and you fall in love with him,” Salladhor said, shaking his head. Davos lost his fingers because he was a smuggler, but he gained a knighthood because he was a loyal servant, not ready but passionately eager to bend the knee. “King Stannis is my god,” he told his son.

Most men probably would not trade fingers even for a knighthood. I believe, and actually feel in my bones, that Ser Davos Seaworth is first among those men. He would never trade even the least of his possessions or body parts for the most cherished positions or places of authority. He has no gods. He bends the knee, he sacrifices his fingers, and I believe he would willingly give his life. None of this surrender of self has anything to do with riches and power. He doesn’t worry about his throat. He doesn’t worry about life or limb or threats to the femoral artery. He does indeed worship the One True God, and that god, at least for him, is definitely not Stannis Baratheon.

Brother at Forge, Sister at Council

“When boys and girls live in the same home, awkward situations can arise. Sometimes, I’ve heard, even brothers and sisters develop certain affections.”

The screencap I chose for this section is the only family-friendly moment of Theon’s ride to Pyke. If Littlefinger had witnessed Theon’s insistent, sex-crazed groping of the confident young woman, he might have recited for Theon words similar to those he composed for the Queen in last week’s episode.

Those unfamiliar with the strident forces guiding Game of Thrones may see in this ride only a gratuitous and wanton display of incestuous excess. “You been at sea long or were there just no women where you came from?” It was a wonderful variant of the Mae West line: “Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” Men will be men, and women will acquiesce. Theon groped her breast, then moved to the groin, paralleling the other horseback threat we witnessed this episode. ‘Women worry so much about their breasts,’ Yoren might have said, ‘they forget about what’s down low.’ As if to confirm our assessment of pornographic intent, the young woman responded with wiggles and moans to the movement of Theon’s well-practiced fingers.

But the ride to Pyke was not about incest. I know this because of what happened last season at the forge in Winterfell, and because of the Queen’s words at Small Council in tonight’s episode.

“Let me thank you, ahead of time, for guarding us all from the perils beyond the Wall—wildlings and White Walkers and whatnot,” Jaime said with a broad smirk and feigned solemnity. “I’m grateful, to have good, strong men like you protecting us.” Jaime was not alone in expressing a species of contempt common among Lannisters, as we learned only minutes later in the second episode of Season One.

Tyrion: [Grinning] A bastard boy with nothing to inherit, off to join the Ancient Order of the Night’s Watch, alongside his valiant brothers in arms.
Jon: The Night’s Watch protects the realm from—
Tyrion: Ah, yes, yes, against grumkins and snarks and all the other monsters your wet nurse warned you about.

We heard a nearly verbatim recitation of these lines tonight, but the lips that formed the words belonged to Queen Cersei: “One trip to the Wall and you come back believing in grumkins and snarks. I have every confidence that the brave men of the Night’s Watch will protect us all.”

Count on Cersei, always worrying about position and power, entirely ignorant of what’s down low, oblivious to threats unnamed and unseen.

Jaime’s incestuous bond to Cersei is a threat, and therefore their incest is something to be feared, or welcomed as knowledge to be exploited. Their illicit sexual yearnings have already placed a yellow-haired monster on the Iron Throne, but it is not the “war for Cersei’s cunt,” as Jaime put it last season, that brings significance to their unholy trysts. Game of Thrones is a passionate song not about sexual desire, but about quests for power. It is the brother’s and sister’s unified seeking after supremacy—their illicit lust for power—that poses the greater threat to the realm. Incest is merely the sexual symbol of their true intent, which is world domination.

For this reason we have nothing to fear in Theon’s ride to Pyke. The gropings of men did not excite or satisfy her deepest desires. More importantly, she did not wear a skirt. That is to say, she did not consider her sexual attractiveness as a tool in gaining ascendency over men. She paid the iron price for her position of authority, as her father before her did. Theon was not massaging her vulva, then, but rather he unknowingly was attempting to threaten her femoral artery—something mere fingers are powerless to harm. Incest, in this case, was not a symbol of power, but a physical sign of Theon’s impotence, his infatuation with gold and skirts rather than obedience to the dictates of iron and salt.

“She’s commanded men. She’s killed men. She knows who she is.”

Theon has much to learn about hard places and hard men. He believes power is to be found in dominating those who wear skirts, who acquiesce to phallic insistence. What he has discovered now, for the first time in his life, is that power is not an assertion of the will, but a proclamation of something much deeper.

“No man gives me a crown. I pay the Iron Price. I will take my crown. For that is who I am. That is who we have always been.”

Those unschooled in the law of salt and iron may consider that taking a crown is a fulfillment of desire, an attainment of ultimate objective. But desire and will do not drive the hearts of hard men. “They say hard places breed hard men, and hard men rule the world,” Theon told his lover, his almost salt wife. Yara knows who she is. Lord Balon Greyjoy knows who he is. It is this knowledge, and not any assertion of caprice, that marks this hard man and his hard daughter as rulers of the world. They know themselves. Theon does not know who he is. He cannot rule because he lacks the quality that means more than position or power, more life and wellbeing: He has no identity.

Speak Softly but Carry a Large Sword

We need not fear the angry, red-faced man, shouting and cursing and flailing about, psychologists tell us. Such a man spends his energy quickly in unfocussed rage and aimless fury. Fear not the noisy man who wears his anger on his face. Fear rather the quiet man, the man whose face is drained of all warmth, the pale-faced man with pressed lips and unblinking stare. He saves his anger deep inside. He plans his vengeance, calculates his wrath.

Tonight we heard soft words and a sympathetic tone when Littlefinger consoled Ros in her weeping and misery. We heard soft, kind words of assurance from Varys, words of comfort to assuage Tyrion’s fear. “I am glad your new friend was able to accompany you to the capital…. Unfortunate that your father didn’t want her to come. But rest easy, my lord. I am very good at keeping secrets for my good friends.”

Quiet words can be disarming, even when we sense in them something cold and sinister.

Jaqen H’ghar was a model of quiet decorum. “A man does not choose his companions. These two, they have no courtesy. A man must ask forgiveness.”

Arya stared into his eyes, beginning to lose track of the task in front of her. How could a quiet and thoughtful man, a man kind in word and gentle in bearing, pose any threat to anyone, least of all a young girl?

Soft words may not always indicate a kind or gentle heart. Arya knows this, dreams this, feels it deep inside. The kind and gentle man of her dreams is not effeminate. He is muscular, strong, capable in every way. But he uses those bulging muscles to carry her, to bring her not only courtesy and devotion, but satisfactions of which girls can only imagine. He directs his strength not toward his own will, but toward the fulfillment of her deepest yearnings.

I do not speak here of the type of desire demonstrated by Theon and his fingers toward his sister. Throughout this essay I have been deferring to desires or states of being or awarenesses of self that go beyond the superficialities of sexuality. These deeper yearnings are not easily enumerated or categorised. They resist casual description.

“Speak softly but carry a big stick,” Theodore Roosevelt was wont to say. He rarely spoke softly, though; the Bull Moose Party that he created was the perfect encapsulation of his virile and indomitable spirit.

Colonel Roosevelt, the take-no-prisoners leader of the Rough Riders, was also President Roosevelt, diplomatic world statesman, who won the Nobel Peace Prize early in his second term. If we find soft and gentle words perplexing, we need not blame Clint Eastwood’s cigar-chomping hero in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, or his menacing vigilante-hero in the Dirty Harry films. We can look instead to the real-life example of the only president awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his unbridled bravery on the field of battle.

Few historians would say that Theodore Roosevelt’s “soft words” indicated evil intent, but fewer still would say he did not pose one of the greatest threats to independent sovereignty ever felt by leaders of small independent nations.

Under Roosevelt, the United States acquired several Caribbean nations and former colonies of Spain, including Cuba, Panama, the Philippines, and many other countries. To this day, though, historians debate his status. Was he an intentional imperialist, or did his insistence on world peace earn him accidental dominion over so many island nations?

Probably consensus will never be reached regarding Teddy Roosevelt’s intentions. But we can find agreement on aspects of his character that have direct bearing on the events we witnessed in tonight’s episode.

The angry, red-faced man does not warrant fear because his energies are diffuse, his power attenuated by unfocussed actions and disorganised, emotion-ridden thoughts. On the other hand, the soft-spoken man—the man so sure of himself that he need not make great displays or demands for attention—is focussed, organised, and prepared. Roosevelt’s quiet virility is attractive because it is the outward sign of inner ability. We are fascinated because a quiet, even temper is sure indication of one who will achieve his dreams.

It is this focus, the demonstration of sure intent, that drives our curiosity, fear, and attraction. Arya cannot help but feel affinity for Jaqen H’ghar. In a world full of brutes bent on capturing or killing her, he shows kindness. Surrounded by people like Hot Pie who make noisy displays of bravado, Jaqen brings quiet dignity and mysterious reserve. He’s not like the others. She needs to know more, she must know more.

A soft voice and gentle touch break down the strongest barriers. When Littlefinger knelt beside Ros he spoke softly, wiped away her tears, consoled her with gentle words. “Sometimes,” the kindly lord said, “those with the most power have the least grace.”

He is showing kindness—a degree of kindness we would never expect of a master toward a work horse or a beast of burden. For as it turns out, that is all Ros is to Lord Baelish—an investment, an animal he uses to increase his own personal wealth. That he would allow her an entire evening to mourn the violent death of a child is more than we could expect of a stable master or driver of herds. He carries no stick, wields no sword, but threatens more than mere violence. She was his investment, and if she would not give him a return for that investment, he would find other ways to recoup his loss. There were men, he knew, who would pay dearly “to transform this lovely, sad girl—to use her in ways that would never occur to most men.” Littlefingers soft words contained no mere threat. We will examine the nature of this menace later in the essay.

The Sisterhood of the Disguised

Arya long ago joined the ranks of the Sisterhood of the Damned. When her father told her she would one day become lady to a lord, she told him, “No, that’s not me.” Her dream was to preside over a holdfast as lord and master; nothing less would satisfy her. If Jon Snow and Gendry Waters were bastards by birth, Arya Stark was a bastard by gender. No one in Westeros would find honour or dignity in her dreams, and no one would allow her to aspire to any life that could not be forced into the constraints of skirts, house work, and the nursing of children.

In the battle between Arya and Gendry, then, we see mirror images competing with each other, sizing each other up, finding common identities in fearful exile and thin disguise. Arya and her brother bastard, Gendry, hide from the Gold Cloaks. If they truly are mirror images of each other, as I believe they are, they are both wearing disguises. Both of them pretend to be commoners when they know they are anything but common.

At the very least, Gendry by now knows that he carries within himself something rare, a trait that merits the close attention of not less than two Hands of the King, and now the entire City Guard of King’s Landing. Only one person in Westeros could command the Gold Cloaks to journey so far from the city they were sworn to protect; not even the Commander of the City Guard could issue such an order. Gendry knows, then, that King Joffrey himself seeks Gendry.

We know Gendry’s identity. We know Ned Stark’s assessment of him as a true son of Robert Baratheon means Gendry is at least as capable and astute as his own father was. It seems to me unlikely that he would not have come to understand the reason for such sustained and intense interest in him by the most powerful figures in the Seven Kingdoms. If Arya knows her identity, it seems to me her mirror image, Gendry, must likewise be aware of the fullness of his ancestry, and the awful ramifications of his status as perhaps the only living bastard of the last true king of Westeros.

The question that comes to mind, then, is this: Will Arya figure out Gendry’s identity, or will he further advance the mirror imagery by telling her himself?

A question no less worthy of our contemplation, and far more relevant to the essay, also presents itself. If Gendry is perceived as the jugular threat, paradoxically the only legitimate connection to the former ruler, then surely his mirror image, Arya, is the unperceived femoral threat, the most significant risk posed to the enduring life and wellbeing of the ruling Lannisters. I have said, though, that threats this evening came in groups of three. If so, who among those in the Night’s Watch camp constitutes the third and most substantial threat?

Five Khalasars

There are five kings: Joffrey Baratheon, Robb Stark, Stannis Baratheon, Renly Baratheon, and now Balon Greyjoy. But there are greater threats to the Iron Throne. True power does not reside in titles and claims, but in fire, blood, gold, and iron. The most fearsome leaders in Westeros are not the self-proclaimed kings, but those who rule by force of character, strength of will, and depth of purpose. These are the leaders underestimated as weak, who draw strength from their identity as exemplars among the Sisterhood of the Damned, for these most powerful and fearsome leaders are not battle-hardened men, but warrior women, hardened in flame.

The Iron Khalasar
Yara Greyjoy

She will command the most powerful ship in the Greyjoy fleet, the vessel reserved for the eldest son and heir to Pyke. She has commanded men in battle. She has killed men who thought to stand in her way. She has paid the Iron Price, and she orders her life according to wind and wave, salt and iron. While the men of the Dragon Khalasar fear water, the men of Yara’s Khalasar will follow her across the deepest ocean and, at her command, make any sacrifice to ensure that she seize victory from those of lesser skill and inferior destiny.
Her enemies have much to overcome. While they cloak themselves in the armour of will and desire, Commander Yara wears the battledress of self-assured identity, the sure knowledge of herself as true heir to the Iron Islands and the one best equipped to free Westeros from the petty scheming of greedy houses.

The Dragon Khalasar
Daenerys Targaryen

“They don’t like the idea of a woman leading a khalasar.”
“They will like it far less when I am done with them.”

She assumed the mantle of leadership in a world that recognises only men as legitimate figures of authority. Worse, she claimed authority on the basis of blood, not strength. No khal has ever assumed leadership without fighting other claimants in a battle to the death. No khalasar has ever recognised a leader who did not rule according to the ancient precepts of raw physical strength. She is pitting herself against a centuries-old, entrenched culture; if she fails, she will surely die. Every khal on the continent is committed to opposing her, killing her, and stealing her dragons. Everyone else on the continent is more likely to laugh than to provide assistance or dedicate resources to her foolish enterprise.

Yet there is good reason to believe she may succeed. She bases her claim to leadership on blood. I wrote about the importance of blood last season in my essay on Daenerys:

“I am the blood of the dragon.”

We heard her give passionate voice to these seven words in the ninth episode of Season One. We believe we saw the full manifestation of her statement in the final scene of the season, when Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, unharmed by fire and smoke, rose from the ashes of Khal Drogo’s funeral pyre. She had the strong constitution of a dragon, able to withstand any trial by oven heat or open flame. If we believe this, we are incorrect in our assessment. Daenerys did not say, as her brother often proclaimed, “I am the dragon.” Daughter of dragons, mother of dragons, yes. But herself a dragon? Much more is contained in her proclamation than anything as simple as physical or spiritual connection with beings of fire. In fact, her words point to something much grander in scope, something to be sensed not through the visual appreciation of her ascension from the ashes, nor even through experience of the heat and smoke that surrounded her winged progeny…

Ser Jorah Mormont’s words, “Blood of my blood,” spoken as he knelt before his new fire-born queen, were the final words uttered in the first season of Game of Thrones. The words provided the strongest possible ending to the first set of episodes because they expressed a thought central to every event of significance in the series. From a narrow consideration of Dothraki culture alone, we would be justified in drawing from Ser Jorah’s statement the fact that he is merely uttering the bloodrider’s oath. He has formally accepted Daenerys as his overlord and khal, and has pledged his life to her using the bloodrider formula. But in the greater context of Daenerys’ behaviour in the hours during Khal Drogo’s impending death, and her actions after his demise, the words carry more profound significance.

Blood is not a mere physical or biological material for George Martin. Nor is it symbolic of something else. It is, rather, a perfection, an essence in itself, that points to itself and provides the origin for ideas of lesser value or entities of lesser ability. We know this from long acquaintance with Martin’s peculiar way of talking about blood. “You are a Stark. You might not have my name, but you have my blood.”….
It is blood that defines a person’s true identity. Perhaps Lord Greyjoy would disown his son, label him a Stark, and have nothing further to do with him. Even if House Stark admitted Theon into the house with full honours and full rights of inheritance, he could never be a Stark because he had no Stark blood. Blood determines identity, destiny, and any course a person might wish to pursue. It is the final arbiter of human value. The name “Stark” has lesser value than the blood-reality of being a Stark. Ned Stark can say, “You are a Stark. You might not have my name, but you have my blood” because the name is of no consequence. It is the inner reality, the blood-reality, of being a Stark, of being Stark blood, that determines who Jon truly is.
Thus, “blood of my blood” means much more than an oath to protect a khal, even to death. It means “Your essence is my essence. The reality you are at the highest level, at the level of blood-reality, is the reality that determines who I am. I define myself, at the very essence of who I am, in terms of who you are at the highest level of your being.” This is the true meaning of the bloodrider’s oath. In the context of the final scene of the season, though, the oath is subsidiary to the bold reality of Daenerys’ new-found identity as Blood of the Dragon.

(Read the full essay in Game of Thrones Season One Essays)

We think of Dothraki society as being based entirely on strength. Blood, in particular, was rejected as a basis for leadership. “The Dothraki do not respect blood” as those in Westeros did, according to Ser Jorah. But recall that one type of magic—blood magic—was recognised as being superior to normal magic, and therefore superior to physical strength. Blood magic was not allowed, due in part at least to the fact that it was capable of rendering physical strength irrelevant. Regardless of the Dothraki determination that blood-based activity was forbidden, it was recognised as having powerful effect. When Daenerys claimed to be the blood of the dragon, then, she was claiming something the Dothraki would have recognised as bearing greater significance than mere dragon identity or relation to dragons, and more important than even the raw physical strength that determined all relationships in their society.

More importantly, by claiming to be the blood of the dragon, in the George Martin world-scheme she was claiming to be the essence of the dragon. While the GRRM hierarchy of values places identity at a higher level than will or spirit, a true claim to contain the essence of a virtue is more significant than a mere recognition of virtuous identity.

Notice, too, that the Martin virtues are different than ours. We may consider honour a primary virtue, for instance, but for Martin this perfection of the spirit merely gets in the way of a truly efficacious character’s work. While Eddard Stark was in some ways held up as an exemplar of many virtuous qualities, he did not even recognise his true identity, and he was largely oblivious to the world around him. These are unforgivable sins in the land of Westeros, and in GRRM’s ideal world. Ned was blind to others, ignorant of his own identity, and unaware of even the existence of any essences or perfections save his own determination to do what was right. Such depth of ignorance has only one possible outcome in the game of thrones, and Ned discovered the awful reality of that outcome last season.

If the Dragon Khalasar has any real competition, it is likely to come from a leader likewise claiming ownership of an essential quality.

The Red Khalasar
Melisandre

Melisandre is the most mysterious figure so far in Game of Thrones. But we already have a basis for evaluating any powers of persuasion or dedication to purpose she might demonstrate in the future. Consider, as an example, Melisandre’s expressed commitment to prayer:

Melisandre: These toys [soldiers] are as nothing to the Lord of Light.
Stannis: Tell your lord to burn them, then.
Melisandre: I tell him nothing. I pray for his commands and I obey.

Those of us living in Western societies are familiar with this mode of religious thought. Many Christians recite the Lord’s Prayer (the Our Father) on a daily basis:

Our Father,
Who art in Heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy Kingdom com, Thy will be done,
On Earth as it is in Heaven.

We are used to the idea that my will—my plans, objectives, desires—may not be compatible with those of a higher power, and in the end my plans may be frustrated by the greater Plan of that higher power. Thy will, not my will, be done.

Of course, we have strong personal motivation in many cases to take any steps we feel may benefit our objectives. Perhaps this higher power’s demands might be met in some other way. Perhaps if we demonstrate sufficient faith or willingness to incorporate the higher power’s precepts into our daily routines we might be granted the fulfillment of our schemes. In fact, if we so recognise the sovereignty of this higher power and dedicate all of our labours toward the greater glory of the deity, would not our final objectives be subsumed into the greater Plan? If we dedicate every action to increasing the influence of the deity, how could we possibly be denied the outcome we desire, since that outcome has the primary result of magnifying the obedience of conquered peoples to the higher power?

“You must give all of yourself.”

If Stannis gives his entire being over to the Lord of Light, how could this omnipotent deity refuse Stannis’ entreaties?

I see two obstacles to believing Melisandre represents a threat to the throne as potent as that posed by the Dragon Khalasar.

First, she has admitted her comparative impotence relative to her Lord of Light. “I tell him nothing. I pray for his commands and I obey.” Imagine Bran Stark saying “I obey the direwolf.” He cannot form any such words because he is the direwolf. He taps into the primal power of the world. He does not send supplications. He does not plead, cajole, beg, or propose covenants and oaths. He simply is. In much the same way, Daenerys Targaryen is the Blood of the Dragon. It is not a claim anyone can dismiss or attack—it is demonstrably true, and it is an irrevocable statement of identity. The Red Priestess cannot say “I am the Lord of Light.” She freely admits her subordination to that higher power.

Though Bran Stark and Daenerys Targaryen are not gods, they are nevertheless fully integrated into some kind of higher power. Normal people do not see with the three eyes of a raven, or run on four legs through the godswood. Normal people do not command the respect of dragons or walk freely about in a conflagration.

Those who have read the novels and those who read between the lines of the television episodes will raise the valid point that we do not know who Melisandre is. Like Bran and Daenerys, she could represent some higher power or ability we have not yet witnessed. I agree with this way of thinking, and we need to be open to adjusting our first impressions on the basis of future events. However, there is yet a second basis for questioning Melisandre’s power.

Melisandre claims to obey the will of the Lord of Light, yet she believes her actions and those of Stannis might so influence this deity that he will grant the desires they express in prayerful petition. I find at least two reasons to question this line of reasoning. The lesser of these reasons can be found in the most traditional interpretation of Judeo-Christian philosophy.

If Melisandre’s Lord of Light has any real power, and if this deity behaves in a manner consistent with divine omnipotence and singular purpose, it does not seem to me likely that any amount of prayerful supplication could persuade this higher power to include a temporal quest for political power in any grand Plan.

Consider as an example the words of the Sermon on the Plain as recorded by the Gospel writer, Luke:

“Blessed are you who are poor,
For the kingdom of God is yours.
Blessed are you who are now hungry,
For you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who are now weeping,
For you will laugh.
….
But woe to you who are rich
For you have received your consolation.
But woe to you who are filled now,
For you will be hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
For you will grieve and weep.
(Luke 6:20-25)

And again in the Canticle of Mary (often called the Magnificat), recorded in the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
….
He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones,
But lifted up the lowly.
The hungry he has filled with good things,
The rich he has sent away empty.
(Luke 1:46, 52-53)

Those of us who belong to religious traditions asserting that the Christian God grants exclusive privilege (“special grace”) to those who adhere to that tradition will often apply attenuating interpretation to these words from Luke. The Creator would never frown on legitimately acquired wealth, we tell ourselves, and especially not any wealth that is acquired after professing belief. All we need to do, these interpretations typically say, is to become “poor in spirit”, as the Gospel of Matthew says, for instance (the Sermon on the Mount; Matthew 5:3). In fact, many such religious traditions teach a theology of “name it and claim it”, essentially proclaiming that as long as you believe, and your quest for financial wealth is aimed at closer communion with the Creator, your desire for earthly wealth will be rewarded. The Lord hears the cry of the rich.

There is a much simpler way of interpreting Luke’s record. Many Christians are familiar with the hymn titled “The Cry of the Poor”:

The Lord hears the cry of the poor.
Blessed be the Lord.

I will bless the Lord at all times,
with praise ever in my mouth.
Let my soul glory in the Lord,
who will hear the cry of the poor.

Not only the poor in spirit, but the physically, financially poor, are favoured of God. This is the most traditional interpretation of these passages from Luke. Certainly those who interpret Luke’s Gospel using different assumptions are free to do so, but for the purposes of our analysis of Melisandre’s assertion of the Lord of Light’s omnipotence, I believe the traditional interpretation provides more useful insight.

Now, this extrapolation to a tentative conclusion regarding the likely efficacy of Melisandre in the quest for the Iron Throne means little or nothing if it is not backed by GRRM’s thesis. I think there is strong reason to believe that Martin would agree with the sentiment contained in the two Gospel passages, and that something close to this idea composes the premise of Game of Thrones. I provided a full analysis of the thesis of GoT in Game of Thrones Season One Essays. I believe we received additional support for the exalted nature of “the poor” in Martin’s GoT worldview during the events of this episode, as I will attempt to prove later in this essay.

The Lion Khalasar
Cersei Lannister

We have met the leaders of four of the five khalasars. The fifth khaleesi will become obvious in a short matter of weeks.

Cersei Lannister remains the most powerful woman in the Seven Kingdoms, but her position is more tenuous than any of the three other woman warriors we witnessed this week. She is threatened not only by forces from outside the walls of the Red Keep, but from powers within her own family. We will examine her difficult balancing act in the next section.

Room 101

What does each character most fear?

Stannis Baratheon is a man of principle. He has taken an oath to remain true to his frail and barren wife, and nothing—not even a fabulously gorgeous naked woman—can convince him to dishonour his life partner. But fear transcends all morality and principle, as George Orwell illustrated in “Room 101” (in his novel, 1984). Stannis is consumed by the fear that he will not take the Iron Throne. He is not afraid of death, not afraid of any gods. He is afraid of his younger brother Renly, but only in the sense that his younger brother’s much larger army will prevent Stannis from attaining his final objective. When Melisandre told him he could take the Red Keep not just for himself, but for Baratheons in perpetuity by providing him with a male heir, Stannis heard in her promise a way to avoid the pain and fear that had plagued him for months.

We might normally ascribe his desire to couple with Melisandre to raw lust for power, but I don’t see in Stannis the weaknesses to yield to simple temptations. Remember his line-by-line editing of his message to the ruling houses. It was important to point out the truth of Jaime’s incest with Cersei, and since Jaime was commonly called Kingslayer that appellation rightfully belonged in the proclamation, but he was also a knight, so he had to be accorded the dignity of his rank by referring to him as Ser Jaime. Everything must be just so for Stannis Baratheon, and this applies in a special way to leadership of the Seven Kingdoms. The Iron Throne does not belong to the most powerful, it belongs to the rightful king. Joffrey’s tyranny is a result of the Lannisters’ perversion of the line of succession. Stannis knows Westeros will return to normalcy only when he assumes the power that properly flows to him as rightful heir.

Cersei’s greatest fear, on the other hand, is loss of power. She has worked so hard to install her son as king because as Queen Regent she becomes de facto ruler of the Seven Kingdoms. In the first episode of Season Two we learned that her position as Regent may be less assured than anyone could have predicted. She faces not only the determined efforts of princes and pretenders from outside King’s Landing, but also the predilections and petulance of her bull-headed teenage son. When Joffrey slapped Cersei last week she lost her status as mother, but more important to her, she had to fear revocation of her status as Regent. Now that she finds herself in Room 101—where she faces the greatest fears a power-obsessed woman can experience—she is in a far less stable position than any of the women seeking political dominance over Westeros.

Fear is not a function of privilege or position. Tonight we saw far deeper fear in the eyes of a woman who could never aspire to any property or title. When Lord Baelish brought Ros into Room 101 she found her greatest fear realised not in Littlefinger’s threat to her livelihood, but in his assault on her identity as a woman. He might simply have challenged her ability to earn money. He is a high-ranking member of royal court, after all, and he could have prevented her from ever again earning money as a prostitute anywhere in Westeros. But that would not have been a Room 101 threat. Rather, he invoked the greatest fear she could have imagined: disfigurement. Make money for me, Littlefinger said, or I will allow a customer to so hideously disfigure you that you will never show your hideous and grotesque face in public ever again.

Much greater threats were leveled tonight. In fact, no fewer than three characters were dragged kicking and screaming into Room 101 to face not only their greatest fear, but the most formidable threat to George Martin’s entire world-structure. The future of Westeros depends on the response these three characters give to the danger before them.

Craster’s Baby

How does a man surrounded by immediate threats to his person and his family exist in such a hostile environment without the benefit of physical protection?

Mance Rayder is gathering an army. Bands of wildlings are attacking anyone they might trade for food or gold—even a lord’s crippled son. How is Craster able to maintain a harem with no fear of attack? White Walkers roam the northlands, yet Craster loses no sleep over his close proximity to these blue-eyed demons. Whence his self assurance and peace of mind?

The theme of striking a deal with the Devil is as old as literature. We know now why Craster need not fear the terrors of the night. The portrait he keeps hidden in the attic does not allow him eternal youth, but it does guarantee him perpetual freedom from wildling attack, and it grants him sexual carte blanche with any woman of his choosing—even with his own daughters. The portrait he stores in secret, in a place not even his daughters can find, is the fine painting in which he bows down to the blue-eyed dark wraiths called White Walkers.

Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse paid a steep price for his sudden acting success and a stable future of modest affluence. Selling one’s own soul to the Devil is never enough in these types of arrangements. The deal Guy struck, behind Rosemary’s back, was a life of leisure in exchange for the child Rosemary would carry. Guy and his relatives were even willing to allow that single child to become the Devil’s own son.

Craster, too, was obliged to give more than his own life as pledge to the blue-eyed demons. In this case, a single baby would not suffice. To enjoy a life of sustained sexual pleasure free of the slightest imposition from his wildling neighbours, Craster had to agree to give all of his male children, to be used in any way the White Walkers deemed useful. The laws of statistics indicate that with 19 daughters, Craster has probably given somewhere around 20 male children to his demon protectors.

“He marries his daughters, and they give him more daughters, and on and on it goes.”
“That’s foul.”
“That’s beyond foul.”

Perhaps Craster is an unusually depraved individual. Perhaps he escaped north because no one in the Seven Kingdoms would abide his perversions. Perhaps in order to feed his unusual lusts he readily acquiesced to even a demon’s demands.

But I offer another thought for your consideration: Could it be that Craster is no different from any of us? Could it be that he does not even enjoy making babies by his own daughters? What if the choice Craster was offered was not death or wanton sexual pleasure, but his death and the death of every human being north of the Wall or a life devoted to creating babies for the blue-eyed demons? Would any of us have chosen genocide over a life sentence of depravity and cruelty?

Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things

Cripples, bastards, and broken things lie at the heart of Game of Thrones. The disabled, disinherited, and despised of the world are the backbone of GRRM’s Song of Ice and Fire. So important are the grotesques in Martin’s worldview that I believe he has constructed not only a story but an entire philosophy around the idea that those on the periphery of society are vested with the greatest potential to change a culture for the better. I devoted a considerable portion of my first book on Game of Thrones to a consideration of the thesis.

I believe the person sitting the Iron Throne at the end of Book Seven (tentatively titled A Dream of Spring) will be chosen from among the Sisterhood of the Damned. At the very least, she will uphold the Martin Law, which appears to state that the contribution of cripples, bastards, and broken things to societies of women and men must be celebrated, and that the disable and despised of society should not be pushed to the periphery, but should be fully integrated. Everyone’s contributions to our cultural heritage, but especially those brought forth by members of the Sisterhood of the Damned, should be honoured and savoured.

One person tonight was dragged twice into Room 101. Tyrion Lannister endured the hellish thought that the dead rise to fight again, and no one in King’s Landing cared. “I have every confidence that the brave men of the Night’s Watch will protect us all,” Cersei said, as if dismissing the unfounded concerns of a child worked up into a fright over the thought of a lurking bogeyman. But even more troubling to his tormented soul, he believed he had accomplished some small correction of his siblings’ evil designs by exiling Janos Slynt to the Wall. Those who would practice infanticide for fun and profit had no place in society—not in the eyes of one dedicated to seeing the humanity even in the crippled children of his enemies. Tyrion’s sorrow over suffering is not feigned, as he has demonstrated on countless occasions.

But the price he paid to convey an immoral man to a place of penance and punishment was the installation of a mercenary as the City Guard’s new commander.

Tyrion: If I told you to murder… an infant girl, say, still at her mother’s breast… would you do it, without question?
Bronn: Without question? No. I’d ask, ‘how much?’.

Perhaps Tyrion is unwittingly contributing to human suffering. Perhaps, despite his best efforts, he will inevitably cause death, disease, and disability. Perhaps even those with the purest of intentions are doomed to perpetuate the cycle of madness and death that surrounds the throne.

The biggest question of Season Two—and perhaps the most important question of the entire series—may be contained in these words: Is it possible for Westeros to put anyone on the Iron Throne who will recognise the humanity of everyone, including children, including cripples, bastards, and broken things?

• Published on 04/11/2012 at 11:25 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/20/2016 at 6:29 PM CDT