I was introduced to Game of Thrones somewhere last year, after listening to friends glorifying the show, I either had to watch the show or go mad. Today I would describe succumbing to that particular piece of peer pressure one of the best decisions I ever made.
That is because the show has so much going for it, weaving a complex web around people from varying backgrounds, to the point that I sometimes find it incredulous that one man can really be responsible for such a vast world. The man in question being the author of the Game of Thrones source material, the book series A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R Martin.
Lord Eddard Stark was Lord of Winterfell for a long time until his untimely demise, but in the timeline that the show took place he lasted little more than a year before meeting his end. Technically he died by decapitation, after being betrayed during a power coup.
I say technically because though his head was cut off, Ned really died because he lived by a code, a code of honour so ingrained he failed to see the rest of the world had no interest in living by such a code. His mistake was believing others would see the world as he does, and in doing that he lost ‘The Game of Thrones’ horribly, not because he was incompetent but because it was a game his very constitution prevented him from being nothing more than an amateur at.
As the saying goes ‘when you play the Game of Thrones you win or you die, there is no middle ground’
The lesson to be taken from Ned’s death is not that honour is bad, but that at times one must shelve some characteristic and adapt in order to survive. After all when as a football player you find yourself in a boxing ring, your shin guard is not going to be much help and you better get some gloves and a mouth guard or you’re toast.
