Hi Everybody! In what I hope will be the first of many posts dealing with how different political theories and concepts appear in popular culture, I'll examine how the story and characters of the popular book and TV series Game of Thrones illustrate concepts relating to political theory. Before I begin, I must warn that these posts will assume a knowledge the television series and/or books up to the end of season two. For those of you who haven't reached that point yet, proceed at your own risk, there be spoilers ahead.
For many, our knowledge of Thomas Hobbes and his famous work Leviathan comes down to one or two paragraphs in our high school history textbooks. When describing the Enlightenment, the textbooks would bring up two thinkers, Hobbes and Locke. Locke was the liberal who believed in natural rights, while Hobbes was the thinker who had a dim view on human nature and believed in absolute monarchs. Like many things in those textbooks, this is a greatly simplified view. I'll explain Locke in a future post, but for now let's focus on Hobbes.
To understand Hobbes, one must first understand his views on the state of nature. A common subject of discussion during the Enlightenment, the state of nature was a hypothetical state where mankind dwelt before forming societies. For Hobbes, the state of nature was a place in which life was 'nasty, brutish, and short'. This stemmed from the fact that in the state of nature there was only one natural right given to mankind, and that was every man had the right to do anything he wanted in order to survive. The problem was, one's right to preservation often overlapped with the rights of others. For example, if there was only one apple to eat in the middle of the barren desert and me and my friend both wanted to eat it, we would both be justified in killing the other to gain the apple. Naturally, this is a fairly sorry state to live in, and many condemned Hobbes' views as being overly pessimistic. His response was that one could clearly the state of nature in the native tribes of the new world (he obviously failed to understand the native peoples of North and South America had many thriving societies), the conflicts of the kings of Europe (or the kings of Westeros), or even the fact that people lock their doors at night. To get out of that situation, he argued, people make contracts with others, in which they agree not to murder each other. However, the question then becomes, who will enforce these treaties?
For Hobbes that's where the government comes in. To be clear, Hobbes wasn't necessarily opposed to representative government, he just thought it was waste of effort, and that mankind would need a strong ruler (i.e absolute monarchy) to keep them in line. That's where Stannis comes in.
(Image Credit: Game of Thrones Wiki)
The middle child of the Baratheon line, Stannis believes firmly in law and order above all else. Its for that reason that he chops of the fingers of the smuggler Davos even after he saved Stannis and his garrison at Storm's End from starving. Davos had broken the law and needed to be punished even though without him Stannis and his men would probably have been forced to eat the furniture. It also explains why Stannis continues to claim the Iron Throne as his, even though its clear that nobody really wants him to be king, aside from Davos and the creepy Melisandre lady. The way he sees it, the Iron Throne belongs to him by right of his being the late King Robert's brother and Prince Joffrey being illegitimate. The interesting thing is, he's right. According to the laws of succession, Stannis does have the strongest claim to the throne. He recognizes it, Ned Stark recognized it before he got his head chopped off (I warned you about spoilers), but nobody else likes the idea.
According to Hobbes, when people set up a government they transfer all of their rights to the sovergien and he has total power over them forever. While Hobbes expects the king to rule in a fair manner, he also affords him the ability to do whatever he has to do in order to hold onto power. With that in mind, Stannis, although nobody's favorite, would probably make a fine king. Unlike some of the other rules, he has a strict sense of honor and never really behaves in a brazen or impulsive manner. His actions are carefully weighed and he listens to the council of the wise Davos, all traits that you want in an administrator. The worse thing that he's done was his murder of his brother Renly with that creepy shadow baby of Melisandre's (which left an entire generation of HBO viewers traumatized). While not legal, the action did save his army from fighting a battle in which the odds were stacked against them, so Hobbes probably would have viewed it as an legitimate exercise of his sovereign power. In addition, Stannis is a leader. At the Battle of the Blackwater he personally leads his men in the attack, thereby proving that, while dull and cold, he's no coward. Stannis might not have flair, but he is grounded in reason and logic, which would probably make him a successful king. For that, he serves as an excellent example of Hobbes' political theory. Under Stannis, Westeros would be safe and peaceful. Unfortunately for Hobbes, his theory has one major flaw, and another king of Westeros perfectly illustrates it...
(Photo Credit Game of Thrones Wiki)
The problem with giving a single person absolute power, is that you will, on occasion, end up with a king like Joffrey aka the character in Game of Thrones that everyone, and I mean everyone, hates. I would cite the old saying that power corrupts, but Joffrey was a jerk even before he was crowned, so I'll have to stick with the other classic adage "Joffrey is a jerk." A criticism commonly given to Hobbes' theory is that if mankind is so driven by power and self-interest, why would you give a person complete and absolute power? For Hobbes, it was better to be ruled over by a cruel leader than deal with the state of nature. For myself, I'd rather take my chances beyond the Wall than live under a king who pays an assassin to kill a 10 year old crippled child, orders the death of the entire city because some mud is thrown at him, and flees during the middle of a battle. In fact, the only real check on his power seems to come from the hand of everyone's favorite character, Tyrion. In fairness, Hobbes does say that it is permissible to rebel against a government that is coming to kill you, and seeing how many people Joffrey has promised to kill, I imagine that I'd be fighting him for my life before too long, but its still a pretty crummy situation.
It's interesting that Hobbes' background, he lived through the English Civil War and was later forced into exile, is in many ways similar to the conflict in Westeros. In both cases, you have a long war in which quite a few people claim sovereignty, and many looked fondly upon the earlier years in which things, while not great, were stable and orderly. In the TV series, Robb Stark asks Talisa Maegyr, what she would have him do instead of fighting Joffrey, posing the question of whether it would it be better to lay down his arms so that no one else would die and the kingdom would have peace. While we never hear Talisa's answer, Hobbes probably would have answered yes, given the struggles that he witnessed. A government at its most basic form is designed to provide security and protection, on that most political writers are agreed. However ,with Hobbes' plan of government you have the potential for decent kings like Stannis, who obey the law, but there is nothing you can do about tyrants like Joffrey. It's for that reason, that you don't see many politicians or political scientists quoting Hobbes. No matter how dim one's views of human nature, anything is better than living under Joffrey.
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