Winning the Game of Thrones: The Host of Characters and their Agendas by Valerie Frankel Read Free Book Online Page B

haven’t even lost troops yet – to the Crown lands and Lannister territories.
    Further, Tywin’s the source of Robb’s two great betrayals, thanks to his “quills and ravens.” In the books, Robb imprudently weds Jeyne Westerling, whose family are bannermen to the Lannisters. This proves more foolhardy than just angering the Freys – Tywin convinces Jeyne’s parents to remain loyal to him and prevent their daughter from getting pregnant (with a TV wife from the Free Cities, it’s unknown how much of this storyline will play out). He’s also conspiring with a few of Robb’s and Edmure Tully’s bannermen, who eventually commit various treacheries and then declare for the Lannisters. Basically, most of Tywin’s arrangements are quiet, underhanded work, withheld from viewers until they play out shockingly, but he’s not just snoozing behind the Iron Throne. His plans to rein Joffrey in and teach him proper behavior are less clear, but he may feel they can wait until the war ends.
     

    How Does Guest-Right Work?
    In the most ancient times, enemies had to be set apart from friends – allowing someone into your house, past your walls, had to mean that neither guest nor host would kill anyone there. It was similar to the Geneva Convention – everyone agreed on a set of rules, the breaking of which, like using chlorine gas or torture, was considered an inhumane breakdown of civilized life. In medieval times, travelers had to stay in fellow knights’ castles or in inns. One might come down to dinner and find an enemy seated there already. Knowing there would be peace within the walls was vital, and losing that meant one’s life would always be in danger.      
    In classical times, all strangers had the right to hospitality. Without even sharing their names, they were offered food, clothing, and gifts. Greek myth relies on this sacred law, and those who broke hospitality to attack a guest or host were cursed (this concept appears in the Iliad and Odyssey both). Zeus was called Zeus Xenios, guaranteer of hospitality and protector of guests.
    This tradition may seem extreme or outmoded to modern readers, but in ancient times it was incontrovertible for moral people. In the Bible, Lot is prepared to sacrifice his daughters to an angry mob rather than give them his guests, and Abraham makes a point of running down the road to beg every traveler to stop in for a meal. Middle Eastern tradition is clear on this issue, and even the captain of the forty thieves in Arabian Nights refuses to eat salt rather than accept this guest-right and then murder his host.
    Europe of course has strong roots in the classical tradition. Dante’s Divine Comedy names those who break guest-right the second worst kind of traitors, condemned to the lowest level of hell. The Hobbit  references this trope – even irritating dwarves who show up from nowhere must be feasted. The Count of Monte Cristo refuses to eat in his enemy’s house. Macbeth worries about killing his king, a guest in his castle, and certainly everything he does subsequently is cursed. Ivanhoe  and King Arthur , especially Gawain and the Green Knight, use this concept. Basically, in classical, Biblical, and the medieval tradition founded on them, this really meant something. Parts of this tradition, like taking a fight outside the building where one is eating or staying, still remain.
    So what are the consequences for betraying guest-right?
    According to classical sources, as well as comments by Ice and Fire characters, those who do so are cursed forever by the gods. On a more practical level, someone who doesn’t abide by the sacred laws has shown himself an outlaw, not a member of the community. Thus, no one will trust them, and others will feel free to betray hospitality to the oathbreakers. There’s nowhere they’ll be safe, and their most trusted friends may turn on them.
     

    Where Did Daenerys’s Eggs Come From?
    Magister Illyrio introduces