(I wrote this piece primarily as a final paper for my literature class. But because I love Game of Thrones and postmodernism too much, I decided to share my analysis here. Beware! Reading this will definitely spoil everything for you--but I doubt you'd be here in the first place if you have not already watched or read Game of Thrones.)
A Quick Summary
Game of Thrones revolves around the story of
feuding families’ quest for power. It begins with King Robert of House
Baratheon, lord of the Seven Kingdoms, asking his former war companion, Lord of
Winterfell Ned Stark to leave the north to help him run the state of affairs as
the new Hand of the King. The conflict begins when Ned Stark discovers that the
son of Robert and Cersei of House Lannister, Joffrey Baratheon, was not
legitimate but rather a product of incest between Cersei and her brother, Jaime
Lannister. When Robert died, as a result of Cersei’s plot, Ned and Cersei
fought for the control of the Seven Kingdoms. In the end, Joffrey becomes the
new King, a very evil one at that, and Ned ends up beheaded for treason.
Ned’s
death destabilised Westeros and opened up political opportunities to lay claims
on the Iron Throne. One of them is Stannis Baratheon, the brother of the late
King Robert, who led a strong attack on King’s Landing to claim what he
believes is rightfully his. However, Tyrion Lannister, a midget who is
considered a disgrace to his house, outwits him and successfully fends off the
siege. But even after saving everyone, Cersei still tried to have him killed,
leaving him with a permanent scar on his face. Only Varys, the castrated and
wise Eunuch, seems to believe in Tyrion, to the extent of considering him as
the only worthy King, more by his merits and not by his last name, of the Seven
Kingdoms. However in the end, Tywin, Tyrions’ father, strips him of all his
powers and claims responsibility for the victory.
Robb
Stark, the son of the deceased Ned, is also one who has claims to the throne.
His sisters, Sansa and Arya, were held captive at King’s Landing; however, the
feisty young Arya was able to escape. After successful developments in his
quest to take power, Robb commits a series of mistakes. As the young wolf was
only a few steps closer to his goal, his mistakes come back to assassinate him
in his uncle’s wedding.
In
the remote areas of Westeros, the last of house Targaryen, Daenerys marries
Khal Drogo of the Dothraki for an army to forward her claims to the throne.
However, Drogo dies from a sickness and causes a divide within the the
Dothraki. She further strengthened her army with the unsullied, but men were
not her only weapons. True to her house, Daenerys is the mother of dragons and
has at her disposal the last three dragons in all of Westeros.
On the other
side of the wall, Jon Snow, the illegitimate son of Ned Stark, pledges to the
Nights’ Watch to protect Westeros from wildlings and the mystical monsters that
are the white walkers. By some unlucky twist of fate, he gets captured by the
wildlings, the free folk who do not acknowledge the authority of any King. He
falls in love with one of them but eventually deserts the group to return to
the watch. By that time, the white
walkers are marching towards the wall, posing as the more pressing threat to the
Seven Kingdoms.
What is postmodernism?
Postmodernism
rejects all standards, conventions and universalised truths of reality as not
only pretentious but dangerously misleading. It is sceptical of logical
assumptions digging through the surface of the world as if to reveal underlying
realities and inner essences that it claims to not even exist primarily. It
holds that objective reality as it exists can never be captured just as even
the consciousness and cognition of man cannot be captured by the only existing
mediator he possesses that is language. By dismissing the assumption that the
world is reducible and objective truth can be realised, postmodernism
celebrates the superficiality of existence and opens the notions of reality to
the vast plurality of interpretations of distinct worldviews.
Formally,
postmodernism is best conceptualised in three parts—ontology, epistemology and
methodology. By doing so, one begins to understand that it is not a critique
for its own sake. In actuality, postmodernism arrests to expose and challenge
what were previously assumed to be unproblematic and uncontentious in our
notions of reality and the manner in which we structure and understand our
world.
Ontology is the
philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality. As such, it
can be best simplified by the question “what is out there to know about?”
Postmodernism maintains an ontology of difference (Hay, 2002). Reality is not a
general experience; but almost infinitely diverse according to different subject
positions. Moreover, one’s consciousness and cognition is constructed by the
specific discourses of cultural contexts. By introducing spatio-temporal
factors, postmodernism holds that no experience, down to its minute details, is
ever the same; thus, it must be understood in its own terms.
Epistemology is
the philosophical study of the nature and scope of knowledge. Similarly, it can
be summarised by the question “what can we, or at least hope to, know about
it?” The postmodernist ontology of difference necessarily leads to an
epistemology of scepticism (Hay, 2002). As the world and reality is viewed from
a plurality of perspectives and subject-positions, it accords that every view
must hold equal value. Consequently, postmodernism develops scepticism on all
epistemological traditions. Knowledge is premised on the understanding of the
world; and in a world of difference, knowledge is relative to the different
worldviews of different subject-positions. For postmodernists, it is not
knowledge per se but knowledge from where.
Postmodernism
espouses a methodology, best captured by the question “how can we go about
knowing it?”, of deconstruction (Hay, 2002). By respecting differences in
subject-positions and questioning the certainty of knowledge, postmodernists wilfully
refuse to substantively make knowledge-claims all together. It does not attempt
to construct knowledge to facilitate understanding of the world and reality,
but rather deconstruct already established conventions and universalised
truths.
In literature
and the arts, postmodernism seeks to replace rigidity and uniformity and its
consequent dullness with a more playful dissonance. It dislikes conventional
and traditional styles of narrative coherence, arguing for texts to become more
plural. It disrupts the modernist obsession with control and precision through
binary hierarchies, embracing chance and contingency. It rejects the monopoly
of voice of the author, where texts are to be interpreted and even appreciated
based on the author’s original message.
Postmodernism brings works of art to life by opening it to the audience
for engagement. In this way, the “cult of the artist” (Hay, 2002) is replaced
by the “death of the author” (Barthes, 1977). Art and literature is removed
from authorship and art galleries and takes it to the streets. Art is not a
finished product; it is a continuously recreated and reconceptualised by the
author-audience relationship that is no longer characterised by a hierarchical
divide. Postmodernism democratises what once was dictated by artists and allows
the full participation of the audience in the creation and interpretation of
what has become their art.
Game of Thrones as Postmodern
Game
of Thrones may be situated in a medieval context, where lords rule and dragons
exist, but it is one of this generation’s few postmodern works of art that has
dominated mainstream literature and television. By virtue of the relationship
between the author, his work, and the audience and its compelling
deconstruction of conventions about power, Game of Thrones disrupts and
reconceptualises all notions of what great art in a postmodern world is.
Game
of Thrones revolves around the story of feuding families’ quest for power. Each
noble house has a distinct sigil and motto that represents and to a certain
extent, even creates their identity and character. For example, the Stark
family symbol is the gray direwolf on white and the motto “winter is coming”
symbolises the honour, loyalty and moral compass of the house. On the other
hand, the Lannister symbol of a golden lion on a red field and the
motto “a Lannister always pays his debts” represents the power, wealth and
cunningness of the family. The other noble houses of the Baratheons and
Targaryens also have their respective sigils and mottos. Considering the
complexity of these ties, Game of Thrones celebrates the plurality, diversity
and dissonance that bring together multiple voices to explore the plot which
the characters themselves direct. It allows the different worldviews of each
house to problematise the quest for power in ways that are multivalent and in
some ways conflicting, refusing the uniformity of and rigidity of a single
standard and convention. Not to mention that under each house, there exist
different personas that do not necessarily conform to what their family
symbolises, which just creates more subject-positions in which the story can be
problematised.
To
add more layers of complexity to Game of Thrones, the author refuses to commit
to any single house or character. He breaks all conventions of the binary
divide between protagonist and antagonist when he decides to kill off the
appearing protagonists Ned and Robb of house Stark early, and paints a more
humane picture of the seeming antagonists of Tyrion, Jaime and Tywin of house
Lannister. He allows the different characters to tell the story from their
position, dedicating episodes to their different narratives. Through his
uncommitment to a single house or character, the author refuses to allow his
persona to become the metta-narrative and dominate the piece. Instead, he
successfully disentangles himself from his work and allows the plurality of his
characters to take over. By breaking all
conventions of binary opposites and hierarchies, he prohibits rigidity and
uniformity and compels his work to disintegrate into a playful anarchy of
families and personas.
The
“death of the author” (Barthes, 1977) and the rise of his work as its own
consequently democratised Game of Thrones to the full engagement of the
audience. The multi-perspective nature of the piece does not constrain the
audience to the task of figuring out what the author’s purpose and underlying
truths is; it allows the audience to take the piece as it is, and freely view
it from the plethora of perspectives that it offers. By being anti-form, Game
of Thrones is able to engage the audience in a more compelling and immersive
manner. The audience need not be constrained to the take the moral high-ground
of the Starks, they are free to see the piece through the Lannister lens of
cunningness or even in the reflective eyes of Varys. Such is only possible
because rather than taking a single perspective or an omniscient narrator, the
piece is rooted in the many characters it constitutes. Game of Thrones does not
conventionally impose on the reader a specific position, ideology or moral; it
celebrates openness where the audience decides for themselves how they want to
interpret the story.
The open, anti-form, and plural nature of Game
of Thrones is bound to encourage the deconstruction of conventions, standards
and universalised truths. It does not, however, simply encourages and leaves it
audience to such task; Game of Thrones takes it a step forward and deliberately
exposes uncontested assumptions and knowledge claims that exist and continue to
mislead notions. The piece certainly presents many opportunities and cases for
deconstruction, but none more captivating than its discourses on power.
In one episode,
when King Joffrey throws his command around only to realise that his title does
not add up to Tywin’s role as patriarch of the Lannister house, Tywin breaks
conventions about power and challenges a reconceptualization with the question
“Do you really think a crown gives you power?” Tywin has always espoused the philosophy
of putting family first and indeed, it has made the Lannisters a very powerful
force in Westeros; whereas many who allow their families to disintegrate have
suffered terrible fates. In contrast, there are also self-made men like
Littlefinger and Varys who may not be born into major noble families, but
through ambition and sheer determination have mobilised into the higher ups of
power. Both forward the case that power is not merely physical prowess, wealth
or family names; nobles may rule, but their networks and manipulative skills
direct the structures and events of the Seven Kingdoms. In another case,
Tyrion, Jon and Arya all transcend their biological limitations of being a
midget, an illegitmate son and a young girl respectively to become powerful in
their own right. Finally, in one of the most compelling and profound statements
in Game of Thrones, Varys delivers the most postmodern understanding of power
in a riddle—“If it is swordsmen who
rule, why do we pretend kings have all the power? Power resides where men
believe it resides.”
The epitome of a
great postmodern work of art lies in the loose, interpretivist and
participatory tripartite relationship between the author, the work and the
audience. The author must divorce himself from his work and allow it to breathe
a life of its own. By doing so, the audience is immersed into the piece,
without regard for the author’s voice and motives and in complete harmony with
the anarchy of pluralism that exists and breathes existence into the piece. It
must not merely rely on the audience to spot opportunities for deconstruction.
A great postmodern work of art arrests the audience and compels them to
re-examine and deconstruct deeply held beliefs and ideas by exposing them in
the very core of its story. By embracing a pluralist structure, fostering an
engaging author-work-audience relationship, and deconstructing conventions of
power, Game of Thrones is indeed a postmodern masterpiece.
Works Cited
Hay, Colin. “The Challenge of
Postmodernism.” Political Analysis: A
Critical Introduction. Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan, 2002. 216-251. Print.
