Political lessons from the ‘Game of Thrones’

BY ANTONIO CONTRERAS       MAY 23, 2019

FOR a while, I saw the politics of many diehard Duterte supporters, aka DDS, in the last two episodes of the HBO mega-epic “Game of Thrones.” The similarity is in the desire to obliterate the enemy, and to wipe out every remnant of the opposition.

Daenerys Targaryen rode her dragon and showed no mercy in incinerating an entire capital, with its millions of inhabitants. It was a pyrrhic victory that unfortunately did not discriminate, and thus took with it the lives of innocent collaterals. The mother of dragons burned an entire city and saw it as a necessary act to ensure that the evil that lives there would no longer be able to rule and oppress the people. She had to destroy Kings Landing to save the entire seven kingdoms. The Americans had the same philosophy during the Vietnam War. They had to destroy villages to save them.

If there was anything that ruled Daenerys Targaryen’s fury, it was the desire not to give any mercy even if the bells had already tolled as a sign of surrender. It is seen in the order to kill anyone who served her enemies, and to feel victorious only when every last one of them is beheaded or burned alive.

I see this imagery in the fury of many pro-Duterte netizens who feel that the near-collapse of the political opposition in the recently held midterm elections is not enough reason to stop breathing fire at them. Some insist that the greatly diminished ranks of the Liberal Party and its allies should still be treated as potentially destructive enemies that have to be neutralized. Someone even pointed out that the debacle of the political opposition makes them even more dangerous, as they have nothing more to lose now. This Targaryen-inspired dictum of burning all enemies until every last remnant of the opposition is eliminated appears to be pervasive among many DDS. It is not enough that the LP lost the elections. The war is not yet over because the Magdalo will get at least one seat in the House, and that Senators Drilon, Hontiveros, de Lima and Pangilinan are still very much around.

Burn them all, said the Mad King. And that is exactly what Daenerys, his daughter, did. Those who served her enemies in Westeros and who survived had to be killed.

But civilized and democratic politics is not like this. Democracy is not about reducing the political opposition to impotence, or of totally wiping them out of the landscape. While one could bask in the feeling of invincibility, like Daenerys riding her dragon flying high in the sky, the view from her perch might not necessarily have been pleasant or satisfying, for what she saw below was a wasteland of rubble, ash and ruin.

It was painful to watch Daenerys marvel at the Iron Throne and touch it, but no one was there to cheer her. Her blindly loyal Dothraki riders and Unsullied warriors cheered her on not out of their free will, but because that is how they had been programmed. It was an empty victory, hollow and meaningless. The power to rule can only find its true meaning not in the adulation of a blindly loyal crowd, or in the silence of deadened voices of dissent, but in the struggle to engage opposing voices and win them over not by violence but by the power of reason.

And this is precisely what makes the ending of the “Game of Thrones” a compelling lesson in how to craft political order in the face of chaos and conflict. Tyrion Lannister correctly captured this when he said that what unites people in the face of historical wrongs and division are not armies, gold or flags but stories. He privileged the power of narratives which he embodied in Bran Stark, a crippled boy who was not a fighter but a thinker, and who had the gift of memory. Bran Stark is imaged as one who is not interested in ruling, and is not predisposed to reproduce his power through his children. This is what made him the best ruler.

Bran Stark is habitus and worldview. He is community. He symbolizes the narratives and memories that weave through the history of our nation, and the political community that we have to build to sustain it. These narratives and memories define our worldviews, and are stored in our cultural constructs and social institutions.

Tyrion Lannister spoke of the essence of democratic governance when he proclaimed that rulers should not be born but chosen. This doesn’t mean that there will be no debate and dissent, and that there is no opposition. The core of political order will always be crafted as outcomes of debate and an honest attempt to reach a consensus, if not of compromise. And opposing views, or divergent perspectives, are a healthy part of this narrative. Sansa Stark, in fact, effectively negotiated with her brother to grant the North an independent status.

This is the major lesson that all of us should learn from “Game of Thrones.” War and mayhem, either actual or discursive, manifested in divisiveness and the desire to annihilate the enemy, will not serve our political community well. Brute force, even if done in the name of the people, the way Daenerys Targaryen wielded her power, can only but end in tragedy. In the end, all of those who won the war against the undead, and against the forces of Cersei Lannister, are all those who are now rejoicing at the electoral victories across the Republic that spelled heavy losses for the despised and hated elites.

But it is not the Daenerys Targaryens who favor brute force, and will not rest until every enemy is dead, that end up advancing the interest of the people and taking the throne. It will be the Bran Starks who use reason and moderation.

https://www.manilatimes.net/political-lessons-from-the-game-of-thrones/558522/