The difference between Tywin Lannister and Joffrey in Game of Thrones, re: Red Wedding

THE POST IS DARK AND FULL OF SPOILERS

One of my favorite scenes in all of Game of Thrones so far is in the Season 3 finale, where it is revealed- unsurprisingly- that Tywin Lannister was the "authority" behind the infamous Red Wedding, and his Mad King grandson Joffrey was aware of it. 

Joffrey probably thought it was his idea, and elements are sick enough to carry his signature. 

If you haven't seen the Red Wedding, it's incredibly disturbing. There's a war sort of akin to a five-sided chess board. Young Robb Stark, who has been playing the war part of the game well, has blundered. He broke his promise to marry a Frey girl in exchange for the tactical advantage of a bridge. Instead he fell in love and married Talisa, a foreigner with the tactical advantage of witty banter and a fine booty. Papa Frey is about as offended by this as anyone possibly could be, evidently, because he feigns forgiveness with the supposed acceptance of wedding one of his girls to Robb's uncle instead. He invites all the non-hidden or hostaged Starks and Tullys to said wedding, and does a little Charlie Manson on them, killing pregnant Talisa with a knife to her pregnant belly, and then almost everyone else, except for Blackfish Tully, who apparently decided to take a leak at exactly the right time. I'm guessing that the uncle didn't really marry a Frey after all, and was also murdered.

So, back to the scene that I love, in which Tyrion is horrified to piece together that while Frey is horrible enough to do this, he's not exactly brave enough to do it without permission, and that his Machiavellian father Tywin must have given the action his blessing. Everyone knows that war is hell, but everyone sort of accepts it in the same way we accept that for some reason our minds have to go unconscious and hallucinate vividly for a few hours every day: it's only normal because it happens so frequently. Take out that element and it's incomprehensible, if not strange. So, we all accept it. War happens, the victor gets to write history and claim moral authority even when everyone knows it's just who was stronger and not necessarily who was right, and then everyone goes about rebuilding a life that incorporates the new reality, because, really, if you don't, you'll go nuts because there's not much you can do about it. 

However, a wedding, as Tyrion points out, does not have the same sort of social implications. There is a social contract that indicates that if someone has a problem with you that might involve a stabbing, that they won't invite you to a wedding. This implies that you are free to get a little tipsy and do the chicken dance, or whatever, and the only thing you have to worry about is where you sit and what you wear. Nobody is ever going to get over the Red Wedding. Tyrion points this out to Tywin, and his reply is "good". It's an illuminating answer. 

Tywin goes further to defend himself morally, by saying that it's morally better to stab a few usurpers at a wedding if it prevents thousands (or whatever number) of deaths on a battle field. This is an interesting point, because at some level, lives are lives, but while one action (war) is viewed as a temporary harsh reality, no matter how horrible, the other, (the wedding) rips apart the fabric of society by violating the social taboo of hospitality. It changes the definition of the culture on a very fundamental level- weddings are not safe places to be and therefore the civilization has a crack in its foundation.  

The scene includes a very interesting display of the slight moral shading between Joffrey and Tywin that essentially shows the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath: Joffrey wants to put on a public display, essentially showing that the Lannisters are complicit in the Red Wedding if not culpable: he wants to serve Robb Stark's head on a plate to Sansa Stark (now Lannister), who is their legally wedded hostage. This is the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath. Everyone at the table is horrified that Joffrey would even have this idea, and they pretend it's a bad joke. Joffrey insists that it's not a joke, and Tywin pretty much orders him to bed with a dose of poison small enough to knock out but not to kill. The choice of sleeping potion in itself is a message to the boy king: I can kill you, kid. Knock it off.

In other words, Joffrey is the Caligula to Tywin's Cesare Borgia. 

Game of Thrones is full of historical gleanings, mashed together in a great stewpot of allegorical history. Even the name Lannister reminds one of the Lancasters from the War of the Roses.  We all know that without Tywin, Joffrey would name his horse a senator and, well, serve a brother's head on a plate to a sister at a party.  Joffrey wants to do it because it's his idea of what power means, and because it's his idea of a good time. 

Tywin knows that kings who do this sort of thing eventually get killed and deposed. This is not Tywin's first time at the mad-king rodeo- you might recall that Tywin was the hand of the Mad King some twentyish (whatever age Dany is supposed to be) years ago. I also get the feeling that it's not the first time Tywin has ordered a crazy king doped up and knocked out so he can get some work done already. 

Tyrion, as usual, speaks for the modern audience, albeit better than most of us could do. When he points out that smart people will figure out that Frey's taboos won't be overlooked by society, Tywin is fine with that. There isn't much difference between Joffrey making a public display and Tywin's implicit approval of the wedding when Frey and conspirator Roose Bolton reap political advantages as a result of their stabbing party, but the difference is significant. 

Joffrey's public display of crazy guarantees that assassination will happen as soon as someone is brave enough, to the relief of all, while Tywin's godfather routine probably guarantees that  if someone wants to take over, they'd better have some dragons or an army of White Walkers. 

Otherwise this show would be called something different. Something decidedly Tywin-centered, I would think.

Speaking of which, I wonder what the cultural significance (if any) is of all these Machiavellian shows out there: Game of Thrones, House of Cards, the Borgias, Da Vinci's Demons (the Medicis, who are main characters of that show being Machiavelli's patrons, and the political atmosphere of the time being the inspiration for The Prince). I recommend watching some of these shows side by side- it's fascinating to see the parallels.

Empty Chair Syndrome

I'm very happy the election is over. I get far too worked up over these things. Every four years I feel like I get sucked into a sucker's bet, because our ridiculous two-party system allows more of the illusion of a choice than a real one. It's a Hobson's choice for almost anyone involved, no matter where on the political spectrum you land.

Every year the gap between the actual choice and the media presentation of the choice gets more and more surreal, particularly since the combatants have abandoned an actual arena for their respective echo chambers. It's rare to see someone having an actual debate, and not slaying their straw men with hyperbolic swords.

It's truly bizarre to hear those on the far right call President Obama a socialist (among other things) when people on the far left are criticizing him for being too much of a corporate shill, citing G.E.'s sweetheart corporate tax break as a big example. Most of the people I know who voted for Obama, myself included, voted with reservations about Guantanamo Bay, about perceived capitulations when it comes to dealing with Congress. When I get emails from Republican relatives that scream out in all caps that Obama is worse than Hitler and Stalin combined, I want to sit down with them, wipe the foam off their mouths, and shock the hell out of them with my opinion.

Obama isn't enough of a socialist for my personal ideals. However, I did vote for him, because he and I are both pragmatist enough for my sense of reality. I know Obama isn't a socialist because I'm more socialist than he is, and I know I'm not a socialist because I know people who are fairly far to my left on the political spectrum. When people say Obama is a socialist, I want to hand them a dictionary. All governments outside of Anarchic systems involve some sort of collective payment for something, even if it's basic defense. Very few people are of the opinion that everyone should be paid exactly the same for all work and that the government should control everything and everyone, which is what I kept reading about in these emails from real people I know and care about who kept calling the President a socialist.

That was the empty chair, not the real guy. The real Obama, though flawed, connected with enough people and did enough of a good job to hold his office. Republicans have been confused and bewildered, and only a hand full of them get why. The ones who are clearly interpreting the problem have been attacked by their own, who want to stay in their echo chambers and complain that America is Over because their choice wasn't elected by the majority.

After the election, I watched the Republican party do their usual circular firing squad routine, read about the Libertarian who has decided to go nuclear and defriend any Obama leaners on Facebook, Romney whine and complain that Obama won the election by giving away free stuff and clueless jerks equate women's reproductive health rights to "baubles".

My husband I have been talking about what we think will happen to the Republican party. The party members who are actually embracing reality have realized that they need to change strategy. Romney lost the election with the same percentage of the white vote that George W. Bush "won" with. My husband thinks that Susana Martinez, the Republican Governor of New Mexico will be in the running. I think that would be a smart choice, but I don't think it's the choice they're going to make.

The reason I think that the Republicans won't be as smart as my husband is that their biggest problem is that they're still fighting with an empty chair, even though a real person won the election.

That's it.

When Clint Eastwood got up and did a kind of funny skit embodying the logical fallacy known as the "Straw Man" argument, where you boil down your opponent's argument to a more easily defeated position, I knew that Obama was going to win. I was very happy to have Nate Silver's 538 blog backing up that intuition, of course, and it's easy to say it now, but I wasn't in despair, and I wasn't surprised.

The Republicans completely forgot about the one thing they always brag about being good at- dealing with harsh realities. You can't be financially solvent spending money you wish you had, and you can't win elections fighting an opponent who doesn't actually exist.

Part of me is comfortable with the idea of Republicans continuing to battle an empty chair, because they will continue to get knocked out by reality, such as it is.

Another part of me would prefer to return to a time when I could be equally annoyed with both candidates, but not really worried about drastically different futures, and awkward family reunions.

A long walk on a foggy bridge

I took this picture last August after walking along the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. It was a long walk, packed with people. It was something I had always wanted to do, and though I went there by myself, I wasn't alone. The bridge was crowded- there were tons of people walking, biking, and of course, driving. It took me longer than I thought it would from looking at pictures (about an hour walking the length there and back). 

 I've had this blog handle for years, following the untimely demise of my (and everyone else's) Journalspace blog back when the website was wiped out. I'm not sure why I chose that name at the time, but today it seems like a very good choice, considering what I want to do with this space now. I want to take a long walk on a foggy bridge of sorts- even if I have to build it myself. I find myself trying to understand what's happening- why bookstores and newspapers are disappearing, and why universities may very well be next. It's important because so many of us, particularly those of us with humanities degrees and just enough tech knowledge to be enthusiastic about our iphones, need to understand how this is all going to shake out before we find ourselves always training for new jobs that may or may not disappear once the next big thing comes out.

I've been doing a lot of reading about this new digital age from odd angles- the big, nebulous debates on copyright, intellectual properties, pricing of files in an age where people can and do very easily copy and share what they have, perhaps not knowing or caring about the bigger questions. 

What's fascinating to me is how wildly opinions differ- how extremely intelligent people can disagree so vehemently about ethics when the difference comes from the very nature of the technology in question. Generally decent people are coming to vastly different conclusions about what constitutes theft. We can have as many opinions as we want, but when an entire generation and everyone following them expects information to be free, it feels like a great tidal wave is coming, like it or not.

Steve Jobs spoke of "the intersection of technology and the humanities", and the technologies of his company and others like it have made that intersection a bustling place, fog or not. 

Entire industries are collapsing and rebuilding digitally alarmingly fast. I used to be a manager and bookseller in a town with one of the highest percentage of bookstores per capita. Two of the bookstores I worked in have disappeared, and one of them was Borders. Among other mistakes, they didn't figure out this intersection of technology and the humanities, and they got swept away. 

There are tons of tech blogs out there- I'm not aspiring to that. I'm not going to get very technical, but I am going to look at technology from the humanities side of the intersection. This blog may very well just be for myself, but I want a place to keep track of my thoughts along the way. You're welcome to come along, if you like.