The Winter Takes It All| #BreakTheWheel

Daenerys cannot break the Wheel alone. Thankfully, some friends from up north are here to help...

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:warning: SPOILERS FOR SEASONS 1-7 :warning:

(also, this blog is all over the place, but I hope you still enjoy reading it :smiley: )

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Hello Thrones Amino :)

I still want to get two blogs out before season 8 (or at least the finale), so here is part 6 of #BreakTheWheel. The next will be my last one of this series and my final predictions for the ending of Game of Thrones!

In the last part I talked about the concept of the Fortune’s Wheel and how all the characters are stuck in a cycle that raises them up only to throw them down again. In part 4 I talked about the narratives, especially the Iron Throne, that keep the Wheel spinning.

Today I want to return to these narratives that are so deeply entrenched in the society of Westeros and show you how they are starting to crumble and change for the positive.

As I’ve said in past blogs of this series, this breaking down of narratives is a very postmodern phenomenon. That’s why what happens in this show in many ways hits so close to home for so many of us viewers.

So now I get to two questions that, as you will see, are radically different but directly related:

What does it mean to “break the Wheel”?

And who is doing it?

”The rules were wrong”

This season 7 line of Arya towards Sansa (before she got all bitchy and theatrical about child Sansa not doing enough to escape the tight grip of a Kingsguard 🙄) is a call back to one of the very first scenes of the show.

It’s an immediate red flag that Bran sucks so bad at archery while Arya hits the bullseye. And we don’t even get to see if Bran could have had mad skills at sewing embroidery because boys’ and girls’ activities are kept separate.

While that might be a smaller issue, episode 1 of season 1 (as well as the first chapters of the first book) shows us viewers more hints of what kind of story this is going to be. It shows a world governed by rules that are indeed wrong, rules that might give the realm a temporary sense of stability, but suppresses many of the people that act within them.

To really break the wheel is not just to destroy the ones that are most responsible for suffering but to challenge these established ideas and change the hearts and minds of society in doing so.

Here are just a few of these conventions established in the first episode:

Gender roles

One of the biggest aspects of postmodern thought is feminism, which started out as a movement to, among others reasons, get

Most of us in the modern world would agree that men and women, as well as boys and girls, should be treated equally, although there is still a very long way to go in some places.

And when it comes to Westeros... oh boy. To describe it as a patriarchal society would be an understatement. Women are constantly reminded of their place in this world: be a good wife to your husband and a good mother to your child. Other than that...? Not much.

”That’s what intelligent women do. What they’re told.”

- That little shit Joffrey Baratheon

Well, it’s not like he was taught any differently...

Looking at our group of mostly highborn characters, the biggest issue is the one of succession (which I will get to later).

But at a more human level there are traits that are perceived as either more “manly” or “womanly”:

Women are supposed to be loving and comionate, be beautiful, birth children and their man.

Men are supposed to show physical strength and become good fighters and leaders. Far too often in the world of Game of Thrones this strength turns into cruelty.

Now, it may be that there are more characters of each gender that fit those stereotypes than those who don’t. For instance, men are more likely to be biologically physically stronger.

But to put them into ready-made boxes doesn’t seem to make the most of them happy. And it is the gray characters in the story who break this mold that they were born into that are some of the most interesting in the series.

As the realm begins to break, so do traditions

Episode 1 sets up these standards and the power dynamics around them through scenes like Robert interacting with Cersei and Viserys being a complete dick to Daenerys. And Bran, too, seems to act like a typical boy of the time and is categorized as one by King Robert:

“Show me your muscles. You’ll be a soldier!”

Later on in that season, in episode 4 “Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things”, Ned and Arya have that often-quoted dialogue:

“You will marry a high lord and rule his castle. And your sons shall be knights and princes and lords.”

“No. That’s not me.”

As the realm falls into chaos, Arya is of course forced into the position to become a fighter, but it is her feisty nature that keeps her from giving up. And elsewhere across the world, there are more women and girls going beyond there role of wives and daughters.

These women are given the opportunity to prove what they’re capable of, regardless of whether they are successful or not. This is something that the standards of society would not normally allow them to do. It is the absence or death of the men above them that permits them to show off their potential. Cersei indirectly had Robert killed, but he didn’t HAVE to drink the wine while hunting a boar (his false sense of masculinity got in the way), Daenerys half-kills Drogo after he wasn’t responsive anymore and later in season 6 burns all the mysoginist khals, Margaery made the best out of her situation and married into being the Queen to an indecisive boy-king (Tommen) and Yara was given the opportunity to thrive because her brother was a hostage in Winterfell and later effectively became the leader of one half of the Greyjoy forces.

Aside from ruling, there are two characters that show uncharacteristic traits for their gender:

Arya transforms into a badass assassin, while Brienne does her best to become the best knight she can be (without being an actual knight) which earns her groans from the judgy bastards around her.

By writing these storylines, GRRM as well as D&D show, very credibly in my opinion, how women can be just as smart, strong and good at leadership but, naturally, just as cruel too.

The reason this works so well are the often impulsive choices that the kings in this war have made which lead to the women being in this position under very convincing circumstances, even if the society in which they live or rule is still patriarchal to its core.

Dorne - A haven of LGBTQ 🏳‍ :rainbow:

A far more straightforward approach can be seen in Dorne, the last region to the Seven Kingdoms on their own accord.

They have kept some sense of independence in how to structure their own ruling class: women have as much as a right to inheritance as men and bastards are not vilified as they are, to one extent or another, in the rest of Westeros. And while there vengeful nature has lead to several unnecessary deaths, they are some of the most free-spirited and progressive people in the known world. The closed quarters of one of Littlefinger’s brothels reveals both Oberyn and Ellaria to be bisexuals.

But once they step out of the establishment of one of the most postmodern thinkers in Westeros, their sexual orientation will be something that is unacceptable to public opinion. We saw what happened to Loras Tyrell when he was imprisoned by religious fanatics. Their view was definitely shared by Cersei and Tywin as well. But as I explained in part 2 of this series, religions, especially the Faith of the Seven, have become less and less important.

A possibility for change

”But sometimes before we can usher in the new, the old must be put to rest.”

- Qyburn

This made me realize something:

All the assholes are dead!

I mean, we lost some good people along the way, but as far as people go that would be elitist and entitled enough to care about someone‘s gender, sexual orientation or bastard birth: that would be people like Joffrey, Tywin, the High Sparrow, Randyll Tarly or Robert Baratheon (and who knows what Ned would have thought). And the only people like that I can think of right now are Cersei, Euron and a few grumpy Northern lords and ladies as well as, perhaps, the Dothraki.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that most of the remaining characters have lost so much themselves that they could either sympathize with someone who is different than them or at the very least don’t care. After all, many of them just made a bastard their king. I would argue that Jon having Ned‘s blood is just a justification for them. He just won a battle against a crazy tyrant. Why WOULDN‘T they choose him to lead them?

As I said in a previous blog, Game of Thrones isn’t strictly “medieval”, which means the attitude of the people doesn’t have to be either. Major changes in regard to the equality of all people can happen and I think we have seen them happen in the last few seasons.

A society that does not stigmatize the circumstances of a person’s birth or demonize harmless actions that don’t hurt anyone seems very possible. So why hasn’t it happened?

What is holding Westeros back?

Well, a few reasons.

Now that the dead are coming, most of the remaining characters are woke in more ways than one, but it wasn’t long ago that most of the “villains” of the story were still alive.

Just because they are not around anymore doesn’t mean that the attitude of society towards women, bastards and other suppressed groups has changed as quickly. These beliefs take a lot of time to change. This will require some leaders further up the social ladder, but ultimately those changes will need to come from the bottom up. For that to happen, these people will need to be set free.

And there is only one way to free the common people and give them the opportunity to build a better, a more just and a more equal society:

Break the Wheel.

Who will break the Wheel?

What do you think, Jon?

You have a point!

All jokes aside though, Daenerys will have her part in breaking the Wheel, but the deciding force will be someone else.

And here’s why:

Daenerys has done A LOT to help the weak and downtrodden. She went to cities like Astapor and Meereen, burned her way to an Unsullied army which she offered their freedom and freed slaves of their shackles.

She has shown time and again that she has comion for other people and is angered by injustice. And she is not afraid to stand up to macho men who are trying to intimidate her.

She has clearly become a role model for a ton of people, as seen with the “Mhysa” moment at the end of season 3. But much of her influence is due to her persona of the “mother of dragons”. The threat of her dragons have in many instances allowed her to be the badass she is without getting into too much danger in the face of her enemies.

However, she has shown herself in many ways to be very uncompromising in her approach. Daario describes her as “a conqueror” in season 6 and it seems like he is right. Daenerys has broken many things in Essos: the chains of slaves, the power of the masters or the Dothraki patriarchy in Vaes Dothrak. But her attempts at ruling didn’t work so well with that approach. And so, when she left for Westeros, she also left the cities she had conquered before vulnerable to the same old groups as before.

All this reminds us of her “break the wheel” moment with Tyrion. Her assessment of the situation is completely correct: all the major houses of Westeros are part of a wheel that is out of control and crushing everyone. Somehow she thinks that she can fix the situation by coming in and crushing the existing structure. She simply seems to think that these houses are doing a bad job at ruling their people and shouldn’t be in a ruling position just because they were born into it. But season 7 showed that Dany very much believes in birthright when it comes to her own claim:

”I am the last Targaryen, Jon Snow”

”I was born to rule the Seven Kingdoms. And I will.”

She clearly wants to use uncompromising force to “take back” the Iron Throne, the one thing that has brought so much misery to the people of Westeros. Which shows one thing: she does not really want to break the Wheel, but to replace it. Or break it and then use the parts to build one on her own, whichever way you look at it.

(At this point in the blog I would like you to direct your attention to my finest meme work, if I do say so myself, of my early Amino days :D)

“Breaking the wheel”, as I’ve tried to establish in the first part of this blog, means to smash the existing power dynamics of Westeros and giving the people an opportunity to decide on their own what kind of society they want to be and to choose their own leaders in doing so.

Daenerys imposing herself on the realm as a central and unchosen ruler goes completely against that. And even if she became the best ruler Westeros had had in centuries, the fact that she has dragons and uses them for executions would make her look like a tyrant in the eyes of many people. It is important to that peace means more than just the absence of war.

So her end goal (at least at the moment) is pretty clear. But if she is not breaking the wheel, who is?

The Dead - champions of the common man

It might have become obvious by now, from the title and background of this blog that I think that it will be the dead who will be mostly responsible for completely breaking the power structure of Westeros by destroying everything and everyone in their path.

And not only that, I think the Night King is coming for the Iron Throne specifically, not to sit on it but to make a powerful statement through its destruction.

But why?

What are their motives?

Personally, I had always liked the idea of the White Walker army as an analogy to climate change, an inhuman and amoral threat that requires all people to band together before it’s too late. But while they do bring a drastic change of weather wherever they go, they seem to be much more than that, especially in the show. To seek out the Throne specifically would require an understanding of the bigger picture that the Night King clearly has. He is not mindless but he has an Intelligence that got him his own dragon last season.

So what does he actually want?

To that question I can only speculate. Since the Night King is a show creation, I will look at the Children of the Forest the way they are portrayed in the show as well (sorry Fred). Season 6 episode 5 “The Door” tells us that they were the original creators of the Night King as a defense against First Men killing them and cutting down their sacred trees. Since the children couldn’t control their own creation, they eventually banded together with the First Men to beat them back. The Andal invasion a few thousand years later decimated the COTF even further, but the Old Gods remained a strong part of the Northern culture of the First Men. Then the White Walkers didn’t come back for a long time. But suddenly there were direwolves south of the wall, dragons returned after centuries and a bright red comet appeared in the sky.

Magic became strong again in a world that had lacked it for centuries.

The simplest explanation I have for what could happen next is this: two powerful kinds of magic are moving towards each other to find a balance, but to eventually clash in cataclysmic fashion, killing magic altogether. Side effects may include: the decimation of almost everyone, living and dead.

I can see Ice and Fire clashing in three kinds of ways:

1. At the battle of Winterfell, with the use of fire like burning swords etc., dragonglass and magic by fire priests and priestesses against the White Walkers and wights;

2. Cersei’s last stand at King’s Landing?

As the dead are drawing closer, she might use wildfire again, this time to blow up the whole city, including the Red Keep, the Iron Throne and herself.

3. A Dance of Dragons

I believe that dragons are neither a force of good nor evil in this war, but once the war is done they would be a threat to peace everywhere. I think it is pretty straightforward that the Night King is the third head of the dragon next to (and against) Daenerys and Jon. I see every single dragon dying before this war is done and possibly all their riders too.

It will be absolutely bombastic when Ice and Fire meet in full force. And it will be an extremely humbling experience for the survivors of the war, not least because of all of our favorite characters who might die so someone else could live.

There are two reasons why I think life will ultimately (and just barely) prevail:

1. A more symbolic argument: Fire melts ice more effectively than ice freezes fire (right?). The result is naturally water. And what better substance to symbolize a new beginning for human life?

2. As dire as the situation might be, I get a strong sense of hope from characters in this story.

Throughout this series of blogs I have looked at how these characters are victims of a society that doesn’t know how to properly communicate so everyone could lead a better life.

Strip away all the magic and grand political schemes and we get a look into developments that we can relate to. Some of these character arcs are too good to be over already. In the end, I think a chosen few (along with, hopefully, a whole lot of common people) will have a chance to build a better, more equal and more comionate society as I described it in the first part of this blog.

Night gathers and now their watch begins.

Who will live? Who will die?

Those predictions will be my next and final blog of this series (within the next week)

I hope everyone doesn’t die in the first episode... :eyes:

Thanks for tolerating my rambling, that was very chaotic towards the end... please let me know if you have any thoughts :) I’m super hyped for episode 1 and I’m sure you are too :)