Saturday, September 28, 2013

Game of Thrones: A Postmodern Analysis

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(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.
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