By Lanita K. Brooks-Colbert
Our use of visual art, the written and spoken word, music and performance continue to cultivate imagination, build empathy, bridge ideological divides and further our common humanity. This is why we are fascinated by the HBO series, Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon. The battle of the strongest, most powerful, and determined to sacrifice all for the crown of the “Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms” challenges the viewer in seventy-three epi- sodes of Game of Thrones and twenty-six episodes of House of the Dragon to predict the actions and fate of characters while feeding our fascination with death and power.
Life and death are codependent, and from that need, conflict is inevitable. Conflict may result from several causes including the influence of military or economic power, discrimination against people from different cultures, intervention to protect the values of a culture, or imposing the perpetrator’s values on people different than themselves.
When conflict is fueled by a desire for power by an oppressor who uses weapons, entitlement and birth- right, control of land and waterways, destroying culture, and creating new laws to control the masses, the oppressor often wins and the oppressed are forced to accept their domination. The HBO series Games of Thrones is the story of six houses seeking power and acceptance. House of the Dragon, an earlier story foretelling the houses’ continuance in Game of Thrones tells of two factions seeking loyalists for a birthright at any cost.
Game of Thrones is based on the novel, A Song of Ice and Fire written by George R.R. Martin, part of a long tradition of borrowed themes of conflict, both historical and fictional. Many believe the writer, Martin, created the story based on the many years of civil war; the English War of the Roses between the House of Lancaster, symbolized by Roses and the House of York, both houses of Plantagenet royalty through King Edward III, to gain the throne of England. The spark that ignited the civil war lasting thirty-two years of death, corruption, greed and loss of over 100,000 lives was the fight for the inheritance of the English throne through a female descent, Catherine of York, vs a male descent, Prince Edward, son of Margaret of Anjou, Queen Consort of England’s King Edward VI and leader of the House of Lancaster. Elizabeth of York’s marriage to Henry VII combined the houses and ended the War of Roses.
In the Game of Thrones series’ final episode, we learn the fate of the surviving House of Stark (House of York); the ruler of Westeros (England), continues the dynasty, making twenty-first century Queen Elizabeth II the great, great, great granddaughter of Elizabeth of York. Ending Game of Thrones with the assassination of Daenerys Targaryen after the killing of the masses with her dragon while leveling King’s Landing, ousting the House of Lancaster, Queen Cersei makes us witness how actions inspired by conflict’s only outcome is acceptance of the new. The actions of Jon Snow, her lover and killer, ends her reign of terror. Accepting loss of his love for her and banned to the Wall in the HBO series, Jon Snow was guided by his overwhelming sense of duty to the House of Stark and the future of mankind.
The House of the Dragon series is based on another fantasy book by writer George R.T. Martin. A spin-off of Martin’s famed A Song of Ice and Fire novel series, The Princess and the Queen is set about 200 years before the events of A Game of Thrones (1996) and chronicles the “continent-burning warfare” of a Targaryen war of succession that explodes between heir to the throne Crown Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Queen Alicent Hightower. Martin’s The Princess and the Queen tells the history of House of Targaryen, the dynasty that ruled the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros in the backstory of his series A Song of Ice and Fire.
The House of Targaryen, ruler of Seven Kingdoms rules in peace because of the dragons’ and kingdom’s loyalty to the crown. In Martin’s novella and the HBO series, we are shown how the actions of those in power can decide their rightful place in history as champion or oppressor of the people as defined through lineage of the dragon riders. Only Targaryen blood can bond with a dragon and command its power. Here again the power struggle is birthright. Queen Alicent Hightower, the second wife of King Visery Targaryen and daughter of Ser Otto Hightower, Hand of the King, wants her son, Aemon from the late King to rule. Moving to the highpoints of the story, King Visery is dying, and he knows it’s time to gather all houses of the Seven Kingdoms and name Rhaenyra as the Princess of Dragonstone and heir to the Iron Throne. Upon his death, with Queen Alicent by his side, the Queen claimed his death bed wish was for her son, Aegon to rule instead of Rhaenyra. In the book, Rhaenyra knows that only males can sit on the Iron Throne. This mandate is written in the Book of Knowledge. Knowing her fate, she destroys the text.
How should they stand, the loyalists and supporters of Rhaenyra vs those with duty to reigning Queen consort, Alicent Hightower, advisor to her son and the Council, when what is at stake will result in the break of fifty years of peace in Seven Kingdoms under King Visery Targaryen’s rule. Queen Alicent and Rhaenyra agree to unite their families by intermarriage between their sons and daughters, producing a united House of Targaryen. But all plans are quashed when one of Alicent’s sons, in reprisal for the stabbing of his brother’s eye, mounts his dragon to fight with Rhaenyra’s younger son on his dragon, leading to Rhaenyra’s younger son’s death. Now Rhaenyra must war against Queen Alicent to avenge her son’s death, in the manner of Greek tragedy.
Both books give us a lesson as to how history often repeats itself. Humans’ quest to have and yield power, oppress and destroy all where entitlement is the basis for conflict can only manifest in betrayal or lead to death. Compromise is a concept of finding agreement with mutual acceptance often involving variations from the original goal or desires. Compromise with acceptance can be where we often find ourselves when we have no voice or seat at table. And the story continues.