Warrior Philosophy in Game of Thrones (9 page)

In this Benjen is speaking of a literal, physical location which Tyrion has never seen, but the reality is that no-one can see the world through your eyes, and we all have wildernesses within our souls which none but us can ever face.  What is easy for me, may be terrifying for you or someone else.  What you do without thinking may be someone else's greatest challenge.  At the end of the day, only you can truly judge whether you have acted with courage or cowardice.  Can you look at yourself in the mirror and admire the person you see there?

While Tyrion is dismissive in his conversation with Benjen, there are other moments I have mentioned where he shows real wisdom, and I would say there are some instances of real courage too.  To live as a dwarf in a culture where dwarf children are often left in the woods to die after birth is no small thing.  Just to hold his head high takes courage.  But he has moments of displaying more active courage too.  One such is when he slaps Joffrey.  The prince is saying he won't go and give his condolences to the Stark's after Bran has  'fallen' from the tower.  Tyrion tells him in no uncertain terms to go and do it and to do so with humility and care.  Arguably Tyrion is just doing this to ensure they keep up appearances, but I have the sense from his manner in this scene that it has more to do with his belief that is the right thing to do.  Joffrey is vengeful and will be more powerful than Tyrion in the not-too-distant future, yet Tyrion repeatedly ignores the danger to himself in this to teach Joffrey important lessons.  This is a situation Tyrion finds himself in at other times: speaking up and standing up for what he believes to be right, even when it is not the wisest thing for him to do.  In fact this habit gets him into very deep trouble more than once.  Standing outside the situations, we, as the audience may not always agree with Tyrion's criteria for what to make a stand for but he shows courage in making his stand.

Someone very different to Tyrion, but similar in this matter of standing for what he believes in, is Ned Stark.  Sometimes as I have mentioned it is at least partly sponsored by a kind of blind adherence to protecting his honour, and it is certainly one of the factors which contributes to his undoing and eventual death.  However, I still consider Ned's stubborn commitment to being true to himself to be an admirable quality and a sure sign of his courageous nature.  In a general way Ned refuses to adopt the tends and behaviours of other lords which he doesn't agree with.  This is often in contrast to southern lords, and most markedly the lords in King's Landing.  Ned knows that his courage is something which only he needs to know.  He doesn't need to prove it to anyone else (unlike his honour which he seems to be constantly defending, a sure sign of insecurity).  Where many, if not most lords and knights fight in tourneys to prove their worth, Ned doesn't feel the need to, as he tells Jaime Lannister:

“I don't fight in tournaments because when I fight a man for real I don't want him to know what I can do.”
[xxx]

This could seem like paranoia, but it is simple, practical wisdom.  In the Japanese martial tradition there is a practice called 'masking your Wa.'  This always sounds a little funny to me – just the way the phrase sounds(!) - but it is a serious matter.  Your 'Wa' is your power.  It is to do with ensuring that your true power is always unknown so that anyone who wishes to challenge you will be 'fighting blind' with no idea what you are capable of or where your strengths and weaknesses lie.  Ned is not interested in admiration or showmanship, he is interested in doing things right, and in doing the right things.  That's a hard line to walk in a world so predicated on appearance and reputation, and takes courage to stick to it.  What I would say Ned is perhaps more guilty of than Tyrion Lannister, is being attached to his own point of view and in being so, he loses perspective.  As Winston Churchill said:

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

As I have touched on before, Ned fails to really 'listen' to his environment and his deafness leads to his downfall.

Ned's bastard son, Jon Snow shows another kind of courage when he says goodbye to is half-brother Bran when Jon is leaving to join the Night's Watch
[xxxi]
.  Bran is in bed in a coma and Lady Catelyn has not left his bedside since the fall happened.  Jon has stayed away knowing that Lady Catelyn resents his presence in her home and his closeness to her children.  I can understand her resentment of Jon as a living, breathing proof of Ned's infidelity, but it is a harsh reality for Jon to have grown up with when he has done nothing wrong.  In this scene Lady Catelyn is overwrought, probably having barely slept for days and afraid for her son's life.  On is determined to say goodbye to Bran though and goes to face Lady Catelyn so he can do so.  Her hostility towards Jo is palpable in the scene, but he gently asserts himself and walks over to speak to Bran, to say goodbye and wish him a swift recovery.  Part of what I admire about Jon in this moment is how contained he is.  There is no doubt that he will have his moment to say goodbye to Bran, but he doesn't do it defiantly or aggressively.  Even after years of coldness from Lady Catelyn Jon is respectful and even gentle in how he takes his space – but he does take his space.  There is a quality which is spoken of in Iaido
[14]
called 'Kigurai.'  If you look this up in a Japanese/English dictionary you will find it means 'Arrogance', but in the context of the martial arts it has another layer of meaning which relates to Jon's demeanour in this scene.  What it can also mean is something like self-possession.  There is no direct English translation I have found but this is the closest I can get.  An example of Kigurai could be that a great master of the martial arts may welcome you and all his guests into his Dojo
[15]
, he may do so with deep grace and utter humility... but it is still
his
Dojo!  It has to do with how he owns the space – not out of territorial-ism or because he has anything to prove, but just because it is his place – a simple reality.  In the scene I have just described between Jon Snow and Lady Catelyn I think Jon exhibits wonderful Kigurai.  He is not looking to prove anything but he will no-longer hide away either.  He is just there because that is where he needs to be.  He does what he needs to do and leaves.  Jon doesn't exhibit this all the time but it is definitely a quality which is in him and grows in him when he goes to join the Night's Watch.  It is part of what makes him a leader amongst his other brothers-in-training.  It takes courage to exhibit Kigurai.  You have to have the courage of your convictions firmly in hand, and you have to be willing to make a stand for what you believe in to have Kigurai.  One way I consider Kigurai is as the quality of someone living courageously all the time.  We tend to think of courage as something that happens in moments, in response to a challenge, so maybe Kigurai is the quality of presence which occurs when someone embodies courage in an extended moment – and at it's best, in every moment.

While courage can so often be a subtle thing and is hard to judge from outside the person acting, there are clear examples of a lack of courage, especially with the framing we have set up here.  Two characters who I'd say consider themselves courageous, but who's actions for me, fall short are Prince Joffrey and Queen Cersei.  Prince Joffrey falls short of warriorship in so many ways and is almost a living, breathing example of how not to live!  He's an extreme character for whom it is hard to have compassion, between his bullying and shaming of people, lying and breaking his word, and ordering murder just to placate his own ego.  Queen Cersei however, while still fairly clearly set up as the 'Wicked Queen' archetype, is a more complex and subtle character, especially with scenes like the one she shares with Lady Catelyn, where she speaks of losing her first child - King Robert's son.  She definitely has moments of pathos and sympathy.  The scene which clearly shows the lack of courage I'm speaking of is where Joffrey is talking about what he would do if he were King an how he would raise a standing army and crush the North.  Queen Cersei begins by asking some wise and well-placed questions in terms of showing Joffrey the flaws in his thinking, going on to say:

“A good King knows when to save his strength.  And when to destroy his enemies.”

To which Joffrey replies:

“So you agree?  The Starks are enemies.”

And Cersei says:

“Everyone who isn't us is an enemy.”
[xxxii]

It is this last phrase which concerns me most.  There is no question that Cersei is in many ways a product of her upbringing and her environment, and while I can find some understanding and compassion for the pain and disappointment she has faced in her life, in teaching her son this kind of mindset and belief she is acting counter to everything I have set out so far as defining courage.  Her own unconscious vindictiveness goes unexamined, her actions are driven almost entirely by fear, she rarely makes a stand for anything but manipulates constantly in the background, and cynicism is her default attitude and the perceived truth she uses to justify her dishonesty and malice.  In this she completely abdicates her responsibility, showing an attitude of 'everyone else is dishonest, the world is broken, I have no choice but to be as dishonest and broken as the rest.'  It is this irresponsibility which shows a lack of courage.  It takes courage to look at a broken world and chose to face it with dignity.  It takes courage to see other people's dishonesty and chose to be honest anyway.  No-one can control your actions, you have always made a choice.  Just the same, you cannot exercise complete control over your environment: you're not a god, you have to work with what fate, and the people's actions around you, hand you.  Cersei not only abdicates this kind of responsibility, but teaches the same paranoid viciousness to her son.  Is it any wonder Joffrey ends up a monster?  This seems to me both terrible and very sad.

This links us back to responsibility, again showing how all of these values and principles are interconnected.  This quote from the Hagakure expresses it elegantly and profoundly:

“No matter what it is, there is nothing that cannot be done.  If one manifests the determination, he can move heaven and earth as he pleases.  But because man is pluckless, he cannot set his mind to it. Moving heaven and earth without putting forth effort is simply a matter of concentration.”
[xxxiii]

Every single person is awesomely powerful in their capacity to influence the world around them.  You are awesomely powerful!  The question for all of us is:  Do I have the strength of character to embrace my awesomeness?!Courage is a choice just like everything else.  You know where the real challenges lie for you and you will know if you have faced them.  There are many factors that can knock us off track or make it hard to listen to the voice of our conscience, but at the end of the day we have to make the hard choice to make a stand for what we believe in and we have to keep making that choice again, and again, and again.  As I spoke about when describing the quality of 'Kigurai', courage is not really about a single decision in the face of overwhelming odds.  That shows the capacity for True Courage, and I don't want to make light of great achievements, but I think True Courage only really shows up in the grind of day-to-day life.  Can you keep your centre and stand for what you believe in, even in the face of the tiny assaults of daily life?  The real threat to our integrity is rarely from one monumental event that could smash us to pieces, it is from the chip-chip-chipping erosion of our willpower by the pressures of the ordinary.  As William Butler Yeats put it:

“Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle?  A man may show as reckless courage in entering into the abyss of himself.”

I don't know that I'd put it quite so strongly – I wouldn't want to underestimate the sacrifice of someone who gives their life for their cause.  However, many if not most of the people reading this book will not be soldiers, or be facing physical threat on a daily basis, but that doesn't mean we cannot show courage, or embody a warrior mindset.  Indeed, as I say, in some ways I think the stamina we need to face just our everyday struggles over and over again can be the greater challenge.  Do you have the courage to 'enter into the abyss of yourself' and face the reality of who you are?  Having done so, do you have the courage to admit to yourself where you are falling short of the man or woman that you dream of being?  And then, do you have the pluck to take a hold of yourself and move heaven and earth to make the best of the life that you have?  To borrow from Carlos Casteneda:

"To be a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other."

At it's heart, the choice to be courageous and turn towards the challenges you face in your life
is
what makes you a warrior or not.  Once again I will say that all of these values I am exploring in chapters of this book are interdependent.  I don't believe you can really have one without the other and as we are exploring them I hope that is becoming clear for you too.  That said, I can see what Samuel Johnson meant when he wrote: