Episode 25 – Kissed By Fire – Analysis

Honor’s Price and Mad Kings: Breaking Oaths in Thrones

By Tyler Davis

“If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?”
– Anton Chigurh, No Country for Old Men

At birth we’re cast into a tumultuous sea. The world is darkly lit, and we enter it without a beacon to follow. In the shifting waters, we seek a firmness on which to stand, raising this ground ourselves from out of cobbled-together ideas and personal precepts. Values calcify like rocky shoals that finally give way to civilized lands, culture constructing before us in a process of shared belief. We expand from these first, cautious footholds in the unknown, and through the long march of history, we conquer ourselves; we become rulemakers. Some rules prove more potent than others, and as with fires on the coast, we collectively fuel them to better find our way in the dark. But in creating these systems of value, we’re using limited tools to handle an unpredictable job. The ruled and rulers alike are no match for the power of the unbidden, and no single vow is solution enough for all the world’s problems. The sea’s depths are fathomless, and a day will come when any oath must be broken.

On the day Jaime Lannister became The Kingslayer, Ned Stark stood before him in the throne room of the Red Keep, the corpse of Mad King Aerys Targaryen sprawled between them. The moment Ned’s eyes met with Jaime’s was both trial and verdict; Jaime was deemed guilty before a defense could be given. And what defense need be made? A knight of the Kingsguard swears a vow for life: to protect the king at all costs, to serve him in all things. Honor is sustained through such vows. But Jaime broke his word. Jaime slew the king. Jaime lacked honor. And so the story went, and so the tale was known until, years later, weak and exhausted in the baths of Harrenhal, The Kingslayer spoke his truth to Brienne of Tarth.

In Westeros, honor is a measure of how well you adhere to external obligations. Your good name is earned through your capacity to dutifully observe what’s expected of you. A vow is a statement of ultimate responsibility and priority: I will elevate my duty to this end above every other end. But vows constitute rigid, brittle responses to a complex world, and Jaime’s choice on the day he slew his king is evidence of this rigidity. Questions naturally emerge over time: is it better to save the lives of thousands of innocents or uphold the terms of a sacred promise? Is it righter to protect your family, or your position? Is love more important than honor? Answers depend upon your perspective, and privileged perspectives are those backed by power, which is something quite distinct from objective rightness.

Honor in particular is a currency backed by the mercurial whims of social importance, and is thus open to the contradictory requirements of competing value systems which ebb and flow across time and distance. These value systems rise and fall in context: if it’s your home that’s likely to burn when the Mad King has his way, someone slaying your ruler may seem most honorable indeed. But when imminent threats are removed and society stabilizes, those old vows reemerge in the public’s attention. Though understood in the abstract as an uncontested, unbroken quality that people either possess or don’t, Thrones reveals how honor is actually a fragmented concept, and one which is frequently at odds with itself.

Ned Stark is positioned by most viewers as the story’s traditional embodiment of honor. But even Ned Stark was willing to sacrifice his name for the betterment of his family when he chose to lie on their behalf, his honor to the Iron Throne and his lifelong friendship to Robert Baratheon publically abandoned in service to his role as husband and father. And he could not be faulted for it: who in this audience truly failed to understand Ned’s attempt at protecting his beloved children over the comparative certainty of a stoic, fruitless death? That his sacrifice came to nothing, and that he lost his head beneath the grinning visage of boy-tyrant Joffrey despite his plea for mercy is further testament to honor’s fraught place in Westeros: it’s either expected of you or taken from you, and yet it often has no bearing on the consequences unfolding before you. Ned was going to die that day regardless of the words he offered the assembled masses of King’s Landing. Joffrey, a malicious boy without honor or compunction, would have his bloodlust sated at any cost.

In an ideal world, seats of power are constrained by the responsibilities of office–the checks and balances of the ruler’s duty to the ruled. Westeros is no ideal world. What George R.R. Martin — and by extension David Benioff and D.B. Weiss — achieved in the decision to behead Ned Stark was the destruction of the equilibrium we anticipated from the narrative. In one fell strike, authorial moral preference was executed. We learned that there were no favored characters, no circles of protection conferred by the possession of nobility or justness or loyalty or love. There was to be no certainty that wrongs would be righted, innocents protected, destruction halted before all is lost. Bronn taught us this lesson on a smaller stage earlier in the season when he cast Ser Vardis Egan from the Eryie’s heights. Yes, the knight fought valiantly. Yes, the knight fought nobly. Yes, the knight fought bravely. And the knight died.

Barristan Selmy tells Jorah that a “man of honor keeps his vows, even if he’s serving a drunk or a lunatic,” and we cannot forget that Barristan Selmy’s vows were only ever interrupted when he was dismissed from his position as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard in an unprecedented directive from Joffrey Baratheon, a king Selmy was willing to dutifully serve despite his moral reservations about the boy’s heartlessness. But how consistently can vows be honored, even for a man of great esteem and honor like Selmy? Would Barristan have been willing to let King’s Landing burn had he been in Jaime’s position many years prior, and if so, why would an honorable man allow the weightless words of a vow take precedence over the lives of the innocent? If a vow can be understood as a systematized attempt at bringing order into an uncontrollable, hostile, and dangerous world, valuing honor can be seen as a way to encourage conformity with the vow. The more we praise the honorable, the more we reinforce dutifulness. And yet it is easy to see how the wrong vows upheld at the wrong times can accomplish exactly what they aim not to: by making the world less controllable, more hostile, and deadlier.

Taken thematically, “Kissed by Fire” is one of the clearest episodes of the third season. Thrones often has to eschew focus on a unifying throughline in order to cover massive tracts of narrative ground each week, but occasionally its disparate character explorations are bound together by a shared thematic trajectory. Here, questions of responsibility and leadership are assessed through the prism of honor, oaths, and rules. One after another, Thrones characters find themselves conflicted in their attempts at reconciling what’s expected of them by duty with what they know to be right.

I’m of the opinion that, in Jaime’s shoes, neither Ned Stark nor Barristan Selmy would have acted differently. I believe these characters possess moral perspectives that, while more ineffable than traditional patterns of honor, would prevail over honor if put to so dramatic a test. And I think that this truth is signalled elsewhere–in Ned’s final decision in the name of his family, for instance, or Selmy’s expression that what he wants most before death is to serve a just and benevolent ruler, such that he might rest easier in his service.

These are personal values being expressed, whereas honor requires the adoption of an external code. In a psychologically sensible way, Thrones indicates that in times of great importance, some men will abandon codes in favor of truth. Consider the Unsullied, and Grey Worm in particular: even a brainwashed, tortured, ex-slave soldier who spent the majority of his life having duty worked into him (like strength is worked into folded steel) has a thoughtful appreciation for his freedom, as is expressed when he tells Dany that his slave name is a lucky thing if only for the fact that it was his when he was freed. There is a place in each man that will forever remain unreached by the position he holds in the world–a place which exists before and outside the assimilation of duty, and which remains unmoved by questions of honor.

Robb Stark confronts this truth directly when Rickard Karstark betrays him. We’re reminded of other momentous beheadings: Ned Stark’s execution of the Night’s Watch deserter, Ned’s own execution, and Theon’s execution of Ser Rodrick Cassel. In each case, the justness of the ‘honorable’ execution was in some way diminished: the deserter was fleeing in legitimate terror of a threat no one would believe, Ned was an innocent man fighting for the truth, and Ser Rodrick lost his life for the trifling preservation of Theon’s pride in the eyes of his men. If Ned saw what that young deserter saw, would he have carried out the beheading? Perhaps not. But honor dictated that he carry out his duty, so he did. Do the ends justify the means?

Rickard Karstark, an actual traitor to Robb’s cause, is put to death. Every law of Westeros justifies Robb’s decision to swiftly exact this penalty. But the consequences are immediate, and Robb loses half of his military strength in a single stroke. This is, from all sides, the most honorable execution the series has seen thus far, and yet it feels grim. Note how the scene is scored by the same piece that intensified Theon’s execution of Ser Rodrick–a dark, despondent piece if ever there was one. But surely we’re to understand that Robb’s honor was preserved by his decision, as much as Theon’s was diminished by his? If so, the scoring of this scene emphasizes the hollowness of pursuing honor beyond reason: honor is nothing more than corpses in mud. Just as Karstark could show his adversaries no mercy, Robb was unable to heed the counsel of his family by showing Karstark mercy. As a result, his entire military effort is compromised. It does not matter that Robb acted as his father might’ve–it does not matter that he swung the sword himself. The justice is thin: violence at the end of violence at the end of violence, and all of it a loss.

Stannis Baratheon, another would-be king, wages a more internal battle in the halls of Dragonstone where we meet his wife Selyse and daughter Shireen for the first time. These scenes dramatically expand the Stannis we’ve come to know, offering insight into hidden depths of guilt he’s ill-equipped to handle. The showrunners have made a smart decision in introducing these characters later than in the books: as with the Reeds, doing so provided season two with a manageably smaller cast, and in this case the delay also served to heighten the sense of neglect we attribute to the Baratheon family. Shireen and Selyse have been functionally out of sight and out of mind for Stannis and audience alike. In both scenes, we see a Stannis fundamentally out of sorts, guilty for the gulf he has created and yet unable to overleap it. Doggedly pursuing his path to kingship with the encouragement of his Red Priestess, his wife’s support only exacerbates his self-condemnation. This is the price of his attempt at justice and honor; his quest to become a leader threatens to erode the same personal integrity he believes he’ll need should he ever take the Iron Throne and rule justly.

More than any other character, Arya has been an attentive pupil in lessons about honor’s dysfunction. By now she is now all too aware that those who most deserve punishment are often best at escaping it, and those who are most honorable are likeliest to suffer. The Brotherhood Without Banners are ostensibly a force operating outside the context of rule, presenting an alternative to the game being played throughout the Seven Kingdoms. Gendry explains that while they have a leader, their leader is chosen. But this democratized brotherhood has an obligation to a higher power that Gendry neglects to describe: R’hllor, Lord of Light. In surviving his trial by combat, the Hound is able to walk free. This is unacceptable to Arya; she knows the Hound’s crimes with certainty, and this ineffective distribution of justice undermines any faith she might have in the brotherhood. This R’hllor seems to be just one more source of iniquity in a bankrupt world–just one more broken leader unable to right the scales, hopelessly driven by arbitrariness or caprice instead of reason.

Thrones does an excellent job of charting how present realities stem from past events by allowing characters to openly remember moments which defined their lives. Few such events are more momentous than the slaying of the Mad King, and this is why–once again–the episode hinges on a scene featuring Jaime Lannister. This is really shaping up to be Jaime’s season, and while that should come as no surprise to most book readers, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is inhabiting the role admirably.

Some will remember the brief moment in season one where Jaime attempted to make the slightest connection with Ned Stark after recounting the death of Ned’s brother and father. “When I watched the mad king die, I remembered him laughing as your father burned,” Jaime said. Killing him “felt like justice.” When he utters the words “felt like,” Jaime is being absolutely sincere. He isn’t someone who positions himself as a vehicle of justice–he never has. And yet he imagines quite truthfully that the punishment he exacted must be not that unlike the justice historically served by men like Eddard. It’s as if he is saying “I believe I acted as you would have.”

It’s clear before and after this exchange that Jaime is a man apart, never placing much stock in the customs and traditions of Westeros despite rising to great prominence as a member of the Kingsguard, and never seeking power outright. Lacking strong values save for his respect of the men who’ve earned his admiration and the purity of his love, Jaime is a wayward man. He is capable of great cruelty on behalf of the few things he cares about, not because he relishes cruelty, but rather because he is protective beyond reason of what he has. The unenlarged, personal quality of his motivations is one of Jaime’s most intriguing characteristics, even if he is willing to do vile things for love. He isn’t on some quest for revenge. He does not seek titles or glory. He is not particularly religious. But he embraces the man he truly is, and he’s perceptive of the motivations of others. Slaying the Mad King was not an act worthy of condemnation; Jaime knows exactly what he should and shouldn’t be condemned for, and why. No, slaying the Mad King was the only right decision–an act of heroism. Justice.

It is a great contradiction that the people of Westeros can hate Jaime so completely for his actions while also remaining aware of the Mad King’s tyranny. Perhaps it is because they suffered less during the Mad King’s reign than during the war which led to his ousting, or the wars which followed. But Jaime’s heroic act was an existential choice in the face of a terrible meaninglessness. The stakes of what transpired in the throne room forced the young lion’s hand; if Jaime could not make a noble choice in that moment, he would truly be an irredeemable figure. And so The Kingslayer was born, or more correctly, chosen. Just as he suffered when he protected Brienne, so too has Jaime suffered for his protection of King’s Landing. These were not choices made for honor’s sake.

Westeros is in a state of great unrest. Not only do separate factions war for the Iron Throne, but the Iron Throne itself has diminished in the eyes of the Westerosi, its legitimacy eroded by countless years of abused loyalties. In the confluence of perspectives vying for control, everyone claims honor for themselves. When we first embarked on this journey together, we were lost. Eddard Stark was our mooring–his unyielding honor was our promise of salvation. When readers and viewers lost Ned, it was more than the dramatic killing of a beloved character–it was also the deeply unsettling lesson that this game is unsafe, and that the world may be indifferent to notions of justice, blindly yawning over the chaotic struggles of men. This was not just the loss of a protective figure, but the loss of a set of assumptions about the world.

Jaime’s lesson to us is that even Ned was deeply flawed, and unable or unwilling to permit the harsh truth of necessity. The Mad King had to die, and he had to die in that moment, and he had to die by that hand. He didn’t need to die because Jaime relished death, or because good conquers evil. He had to die because that was the only way to value the lives of the innocent. Though it gives us ground to stand on in this tragic sea, honor is a pale sacrifice compared to the far graver losses incurred when we privilege it over the irrecoverable. There’s a nihilism to Jaime’s observation–a sense that the world’s inhospitable nature is impossible to overcome, and that even if the night is dark and full of terrors, the values of men are deeply distracted from what might save them. This doesn’t stop him from acting.

I think a part of Ned always knew this, too. He knew it when he saw the vengeful malice in Robert’s eyes long ago, and wondered what kind of king he had made. He knew it when he saw memories of war in the image of Arya’s dancing lessons. He knew it as he knelt, ready to die, uncertain as to what would befall everything he loved. “By what right does the wolf judge the lion?,” Jaime asks. In this moment, he successfully draws a parallel between the two men, albeit one that Ned kept at arm’s length in the name of honor.

Honor is not an evil. In their upholding of cherished vows, knights attempt to sublimate the baser truths of human existence into the embodiment of principles. These principles seem somehow made real–given flesh. Others look upon these men and are empowered by what they represent. But Thrones exposes the corruption in this system from two sides, first by revealing the weakness of so many men, and second by revealing the weakness of principles. No one truth can account for every situation, and no man, however great, can remain great in service to an inflexible rule. Even the purest men should be willing to bend if rightness calls for it, and they should be able to know when that time comes.

As Jorah and Barristan ride in Dany’s caravan through the lands of Essos, they ponder the question of worthy rule. Will either of them see true nobility and greatness restored to the Iron Throne? They believe so–in Daenerys. But if she is to be the answer Westeros has been waiting for, she will not achieve her goal through the rigid adherence to a vow. She will need to break oaths. Most importantly, she will need to carry Westeros beyond its outdated conceptions of honor by forging new oaths for a new time. If you follow a rule with all your heart, and that rule brings you to the death and destruction of everything you’ve held dear–snuffed out and sent to darkness at the end of your days–of what use was the rule? Inasmuch as it is a story about love and betrayal, conquest and nostalgia, this is a story about how we source our principles. Thrones is populated with modern characters coping with archaic value systems, and the person who finally sits on the Iron Throne will need to be a paradigm shifter–someone capable of forsaking honor in favor of rightness. Winning the game means rewriting its rules.

• Published on 05/03/2013 at 9:59 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 12:02 PM CDT