Warrior Philosophy in Game of Thrones (14 page)

Cersei (speaking about Robert):

“...You'll try your best to pick up the pieces”

Ned:

“If that's my job then so be it.”

Cersei:

“You're just a soldier aren't you?  You take your orders and you carry on.  I suppose it makes sense, your older brother was trained to lead and you were trained to follow.”

Ned:

“I was also trained to kill my enemies your Grace.”

Cersei:

“As was I.”
[lix]

Sadly, we know where this conflict ends for Ned, but in this moment as I say I can admire him.  He knows that being King Robert's Hand will be tough but he is prepared to face that, and there is no thought of glory, power, or the admiration from others in Ned's acceptance of the task.  He does it because he believes it is the right thing to do.  I might question his wisdom about this decision to some extent but in the terms of the quote from the Hagakure, I cannot question his resolve.  Win or lose, Ned will keep fighting.

I think humility is a vital quality for a warrior to develop because it enables a state whereby you can let go of your own ego enough to be present, open, aware, and constantly learning.  Fortunately the martial environment also serves as a fantastic training ground for humility.  As Daniele Bolelli discusses in his excellent book 'On the Warrior's Path':

“Competing in combat sports teaches that no matter how good you become, there will always be someone better than you, or luckier than you.  No matter how much you prepare, you come to realise that everyone loses.  Everyone dies.  Everyone gets caught in the end.  This is the most important thing that combat sports can teach us.  They take all illusions of invincibility away and teach us how to deal with defeat.  Even if by some miracle, you end up being the most fearless, amazing fighter who ever lived, and no one can ever defeat you, your enemies outside of the ring – old age, sickness, and death – will catch up with you.  Everyone gets caught in the end.  No exceptions made.”
[lx]

This is why humility goes together with being on the warriors path:  it's hard to be arrogant when you really face death, or at least defeat, on a regular basis.  In some ways, even just the learning process in martial arts is one of constant defeat.  I remember training in Tai Chi, and I would just be getting the hang of something, just starting to feel like I'd 'got it' (whatever 'it' was) and as my teacher saw this he'd say “Ah, I think you're ready for the next stage.”  With this next level of learning I'd go back to feeling like a clumsy beginner again.  It was hard to maintain any arrogance in the face of this!  I had a similar experience, and one which perhaps correlates more clearly with the world of Westeros when I used to train in medieval European weapons and take part in re-enactment displays.  I got to a stage where I had a reasonable level of skill and could hold my own in fighting most of the other guys.  I felt good about that.  But as with the Tai Chi, the path wouldn't allow me to keep hold of that for long.  Fighting in front of a crowd of a couple of hundred people is a whole other experience than on the training ground.  My awareness would be much harder to hold in sharp focus on my opponent and when the adrenalin is flowing the world changes.  Even more stark was the difference between fighting one-on-one and fighting in a melee involving multiple opponents.  It's messy, noisy, confusing, and just plain hard to do well.  No matter how good I thought I'd got, the challenge of the martial environment will always knock you off your pedestal eventually.  As Bolelli says, if the other guy is luckier than you, or even just when ageing or illness starts to catch up with you, sooner or later if you lack humility, you will be humbled.  My experience in re-enactment fighting showed me how vulnerable I was, how far from expert I was, and at a basic level how easily I could get myself killed in a real combat.  These may seem like fairly negative things to learn about myself, but I see them as profoundly valuable learning and while it can be tough to find out you're not as good as you thought you were, it's important.  I didn't discover I was bad at fighting with a sword, I just found out more precisely how good I was, and how much I had yet to learn.  I knew much more clearly where I stood on my path after the first time I fought in a melee.

We seem as a culture in the modern Western world to have developed a strong addiction to invulnerability.  We all want to be flawless experts right now.  There seems to be very little value given to the Elder, the old-hand or the veteran.  If we can have a wunderkind, a prodigy, an early high-flyer, or young genius then that's what we want: someone who has never made a mistake, and who, armoured with their own arrogance, we can believe (contrary to all historical evidence) will never make a mistake.  I think humility has a core of vulnerability and rare is the person who is truly humble without having made a mistake.  Jack Cirie – a combat veteran and ex-senior officer in the US Marines, quoted by Richard Strozzi Heckler, said:

“Believing you can be perfect is the fatal imperfection.  Believing you are invulnerable is the ultimate vulnerability.  Being a warrior doesn't mean winning or even succeeding.  It means risking and failing and risking again, as long as you live.”
[lxi]

It both takes and teaches humility to be willing to fail, and any real risk may end in failure.  It only takes misfortune for anything to end in failure so for me, humility is an invaluable capacity in any endeavour.  Again in this quote we see the connection with responsibility too in terms of letting go of success or 'winning' as the vital outcome of your work.  None of this is an excuse for mediocrity, this is not self-sabotage or empty failure.  It is an acknowledgement that the odds are we are all going to face failure of one kind or another in our lives.  If we are to make best use of those moments then we have to be ready to embrace our vulnerability, have the humility to realise when we have failed, to admit it, and then perhaps most important of all, to learn from what has taken place so when we step into taking the next of life's many risks we are better equipped.  In this way, humility is what gives birth to wisdom.  That is why wisdom is mostly the province of older folk.  I have seen in my work with young people – especially high-flyers – that there is a sense of invincibility in the young.  They haven't experienced such deep senses of grief and failure yet, they still think that they might be the one exception to the rule that's bullet-proof.  There is a perfect example of this in the very first scene of the 'Game of Thrones' series when a young lord is leading a Ranging party north of the Wall.  He is accompanied by two experienced Rangers who, once they have seen that the Wildlings they were tracking are dead, say they should all turn back to the Wall.  He ignores them and even mocks them, insisting that they all carry on and examine the Wildling camp further.  This is even against Lord Commander Mormont's commands, and as it turns out, arguably it is the young lord's arrogance that gets him and one of the other men killed by the Others.  Perhaps if they'd turned back when the two Rangers wanted to, they'd all have lived to tell the tale.  He thinks he knows better, and it gets him killed.

Over the years, if nothing else does it, for many of us parenthood will change this sense of invulnerability.  I have never felt so helpless as in some of the times I have shared with my son when he is really distressed and I can't do anything to make it OK for him.  I just have to be with him in his upset, swallow my need to 'fix it' and embrace re-discovering my humility.  My son might see me as all powerful in his little world but I'm in trouble if I buy into that.  There are some things I can't do anything about no matter how much I might want to.  There is a deep and undervalued wisdom to be gained from parenthood itself, but it is a painful learning-ground at times.  I think it takes a warrior to be a great parent.  As I have quoted from Ned Stark before:

“War was easier than daughters.”
[lxii]

His brother Benjen Stark shows both his wisdom and his humility when he says to Tyrion Lannister:

“It's not the wildlings giving me sleepless nights.  You've never been north of the Wall, so don't tell me what's out there.”

He's not saying there are White Walkers or other kinds of monsters but he has seen enough strangeness in the world to have the humility to admit there might be.  He is by no means playing small – he's challenging Tyrion Lannister on his arrogance, but neither is he trying to lord his own expertise over Tyrion either.  Benjen might be one of the most experienced Rangers on the Wall, but he is wise enough to know how much he doesn't know.  Being able to embrace both these things is humility and wisdom both.  As Rick Warren says of humility:

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.”

And as David Brooks describes wisdom:

“Wisdom doesn’t consist of knowing specific facts or possessing knowledge of a field. It consists of knowing how to treat knowledge: being confident but not too confident; adventurous but grounded. It is a willingness to confront counterevidence and to have a feel for the vast spaces beyond what’s known.”
[lxiii]

For a concise but poetic definition of humility I might draw on what David Brooks says to put it like this:

Humility is about being adventurous but grounded, and having a feel for the vast spaces beyond what is known.

Chapter 9 – Mercy

“My father understands mercy when there is room for it.”

- Robb Stark

Mercy itself is not a commonly talked about subject in the modern world.  I think this is because in order to be merciful with someone, you have to have power over them, and certainly in the modern Western world, we don't commonly think like that.  There are many places where one person has power over another, but we like the ideas of democracy and equality more than the true practice of these things so it is more comfortable not to speak of 'power over' directly.  As such, mercy is largely left out of the dialogue too.  For me, mercy is very connected to many other ideas and ideals though, such as: respect, reserve, generosity, benevolence, compassion, and forgiveness.  I offer these as an initial broadening of the dialogue in the hope that it helps you to set this idea in a wider context, and one which feels more relevant to modern life.

There are so many examples of people acting with a lack of mercy that I don't really want to get into it.  The world of Westeros in this time of war, and particularly the world of Lord's and Lady's at court is riddled with selfish, arrogant, dishonest, and abusive behaviour.  Cersei, Joffery, Tywin Lannister, and Ser Gregor Clegane might top the list for vicious, unmerciful monsters in their own unique ways,  (even Jaime and the Hound have softer moments) but there is so much of it, to detail it would be depressing.  So, as I spoke of at the beginning of this book, in this chapter perhaps even more than others I am going to focus on the moments where people shine rather than when they cast shadows.  

Robb Stark, who's quote I have begun the chapter with is one of the clearest examples of how mercy can be wielded wisely, and powerfully.  It is a sad irony that his father, from whom he clearly learned this wisdom, is at least partially undone by his merciful heart.  In fact, several of Ned Stark's children seem to have learned mercy from their father, with varying outcomes.  I will discuss Ned and Robb and some other examples, but let's begin with Robb as he is the shining light in this trait. 

Robb's gift for wise mercy surfaces once Ned and Catelyn have both gone south and Robb is left to be Lord of Winterfell.  When Tyrion Lannister visits on his way back from the Wall, Robb gives him a frosty welcome at first because he distrusts the Lannisters – and for good reason.  However, when Tyrion offers the designs for a saddle which may enable Bran to ride again saying:

I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples, bastards and broken things.”
[lxiv]

Robb softens and offers for Tyrion to stay at Winterfell.  Tyrion's act is a merciful one itself, and Robb responds in kind, wisely to my mind as I am not convinced Tyrion was involved in Bran's 'accident'.  This is hinted at in some of his conversations with Lady Catelyn after she arrests him.

The next time we see Robb's merciful side come out is when the group of wildlings try and kidnap Bran when he is riding in the woods.  Only one of them is left alive (Osha) and he allows her to live and be a servant in Winterfell.  This could seem like a foolish move to welcome an enemy into your home – even in chains – but she turns out to be trustworthy and much of what we see from Robb in his decision-making suggests to me both a deep, thoughtful intelligence, and a high degree of intuition. 

The next two examples of Robb's wise mercy occur once he has called the banners to go to war and I would say that they are both instrumental in his success as a commander.  First is when he is feasting the lords of the North who have come with their men to answer Robbs call as their liege lord.  Jon Umber, know as the Greatjon, and one of the most experienced and fierce warriors amongst the lords gathered is saying that he should lead Robb's vanguard, and that he will not follow the Glover's whom Robb has given that task.  Robb says that if the Greatjon won't do as he's told then he can go home and Robb will come back after the war and hang him as an oath-breaker.  The Greatjon is furious and draws a blade, in response to which, Robb's direwolf leaps across the table and knocks him over, proceeding to bite off two of his fingers!  Robb could have the Greatjon killed on the spot but again his wise mercy emerges and he offers the Greatjon an honourable way out: