Warrior Philosophy in Game of Thrones by Francis Briers Read Free Book Online Page A

considered criminals, only came to be that way because life dealt them ill fortune.  Often they have displeased someone in power who has then abused that power in having them convicted.  Once Jon hears this, he is open and humble enough to take responsibility for his circumstances, to change his attitude, and begins to work to make the world around him a better place rather than remaining a victim and imposing his misery on whoever he comes into contact with.  In this Jon makes what I call 'The Warrior's Choice'. 
     
    The Warrior's Choice:

     

     
     
     
     

     
     
     
    All too often in life we polarise our choices.  We think it all has to be either black or white, right or wrong, good or bad.  This happens unconsciously in so much that we do, and it happens in power dynamics as well.   Many people who feel victimized – by a person or just by life's circumstances, consciously or unconsciously – will think that the way out is to become a persecutor.  Few people would recognise it in those terms consciously, but what might be easier to recognise is a mindset that says “If you don't want to be the prey, become a predator.”
    Sadly, if you choose to be a predator, others have to be prey, that's the way it works and whether you mean to or not, while you're trying to free yourself from fear, you become the object of others people's fear.  That is what happened to Jon Snow in this example.  He felt the victim of fate and, that life had played a cruel trick on him, and in taking our his frustrations on his fellow trainees he became a predator.  With a sword in his hand on the practise ground he could beat people up and feel powerful.  It was a salve for his wounds.  I would say that Ser Alister Thorne's bullying of the young men he was supposed to be training is something very similar – a wounded man trying to erase his wounds by making those around him suffer.  As the Persian poet Rumi put it:
     
    “People of the world don’t look at themselves, and so they blame one another.”
     
    What Tyrion helped Jon to do was look at himself, and see that he was fighting the wrong enemy.  These other men were to be his sworn brothers, and Jon's circumstances were not their fault.  Moreover, he was only making his circumstances worse by making enemies of the very men who must one day watch his back.  Jon's life was only going to consist of time served on The Wall and dog-hard work (a bitter dose of Kung-Fu).  As long as he was caught up in resenting this, he was incapable of doing anything to improve the situation.  Once Tyrion helped him get a hold of himself and start taking responsibility in the face of the cards that life had dealt him, Jon was able to start working to help those around him and make his own little patch of the world a slightly better place.  He could,
     
    “Shine one corner of the world” [xv]
     
    As the Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki put it.  This is the Warrior's Choice: to refuse to be either victim or persecutor, predator or prey.  I believe there is always a kind of magical third option in any situation.  Life is rarely only black or white, and Tyrion helped Jon to see that and act responsibly.
    The final aspect of responsibility I want to explore is how we can end up punishing ourselves out of a misguided sense of responsibility.  What we are really doing is blaming ourselves and as I discussed at the beginning of the chapter, true responsibility has nothing to do with blame.  The irony is that in this kind of self-blame we actually limit our capacity for true responsibility because our pain will cloud our judgement and probably inhibit our awareness.  The example of this from 'Game of Thrones' is when Arya Stark is speaking to her father Lord Eddard Stark (Ned) and says that it is her fault that Mycah (the butchers boy) is dead.  This is off the back of Mycah having been killed by Sandor 'The Hound' Clegane because Prince Joffrey has accused Mycah and Arya of attacking him