With the Iron Anniversary of HBO’s Game of Thrones wrapping up, I finally cracked open the tomes of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, the novel series the show is based on, for the first time, just a few months after finishing the show for the first time. Many viewers of the series felt shorted by the show’s ending, often thinking the final two seasons ruined what came before. These conversations, while there may be truths to them, often miss how it all did fit together. Much like canonical criticism in biblical studies, it doesn’t matter if you don’t think it goes together: it just does because that’s how it was made. Through a canonical, holistic approach, themes like masculinity re-emerge, themes that helped hold it all together.
Eddard Stark, or Ned, the Lord of Winterfell and the new Hand of the King to Robert Baratheon, embodies a self-conscious masculinity that helps identify how masculinity holds the show together. When we meet Ned, he’s giving a lesson in executioning to his children, the future heirs of Winterfell. The man he’s beheading deserted Castle Black after taking an oath that bound him there, the father explains. “The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword,” he notes as he swings Ice, his Valerian steel sword. This maxim is probably Ned’s most famous quote in the series, and it returns both before and after his death at the conclusion of book one (and season one). The quotability of the maxim, combined with the visual power of the scene, partly clouds the more basic kernel behind the introduction: a lesson in masculinity from a father to his boys. As the first chapter in the saga, this scene sets the stage for themes related to masculinity to run throughout.
Ned’s considered a model of honor by other characters, as the court eunuch and Master of Whisperers, Varys, notes several times. Matt Zoller Seitz, an insightful film critic, provides an apt analysis of Ned that also details his more typical and perhaps conservative approach to masculinity: “Ned Stark’s death was inevitable because Ned was a great soldier, and great soldiers don’t often make great rulers; they’re too attached to duty and tradition, too unwilling to jettison received wisdom and think the unthinkable.”
One character trait especially stands out to me in 2021: the honest burden of another’s guilt. Ned, like in Christian substitutionary atonement soteriology, bears the sins of others and honorably receives the condemnation due to them, or at least not earned for himself. At the end of the first book, Ned, knowing the truth about King Robert’s false heirs to the throne, serves the realm honestly when the king dies, alternatively promoting the honest heir, Stannis Baratheon, Robert’s oldest remaining brother. He’s then tried for treason by the boy-king Joffrey Lannister, who is illegitimate and the product of incest. He admits to opposing the new king, and in a gesture of mercy Joffrey and his queen mother Cersei agree to allow him to live if he kneels and proclaims Joffrey king of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, something Ned only agrees to in order to save his daughters and prevent war. He’s killed shouldering the sins of Cersei and her brother Jamie Lannister because he knows the truth: Joffrey is a false king.
In season seven of the show, which outpaced the novels, the truth about Jon Snow’s mother, Ned’s bastard, is finally revealed after being teased for six seasons. His mother is Ned’s sister, Lyanna—but unlike the Lannisters, Jon’s not a product of incest: his father was Rhaegar Targaryen, the heir of King Aerys II who was murdered by usurper Robert. Jon, in other words, has the best claim to the throne. To hide this truth that surely would have seen Jon killed, Ned proclaimed Jon a bastard, thereby making his wife and all others presume he’s an unfaithful husband. Like Christ in 2 Corinthians 5:21, Ned “became sin” incarnate despite moral innocence.
The way Ned carries his masculinity protrudes in comparison to other men. Typically, those who least resemble classical patriarchal manhood (however it’s defined) tend to fare better than the more typically patriarchal men. For example, Ned—played by the muscular and brooding Sean Bean in the television series, who also played Boromir in Lord of the Rings—dies in the first book/season. Other “manly men,” like Robb Stark and Stannis, often reach their conclusions before a given book or season reaches its conclusions.
Men who in some way or another break the typical blueprint for masculinity fare better. Varys, a eunuch, lasts almost the entire eight seasons. Bran Stark, a paralyzed child nicknamed Bran the Broken, and Tyrion Lannister, a dwarf, conclude the final season of the show as the King and the Hand. Samwell Tarly, a fat man who bravely admits himself a coward and can barely hold a sword straight, becomes a renowned maester and finds a seat on the king’s small council, even writing the history that the show itself is supposed to presenting (as a sort of stand-in for Martin himself).
The biggest exception, of course, is Jon, who is good with a sword, refuses to break his oath to Castle Black despite dangers posed to his family, and befriends Samwell, who’s bullied by the rest at the castle. He also kills the murderous Daenerys Targaryen after she burns down Kings Landing and takes the Iron Throne from the Lannisters. For the most part, he’s a typical “manly man.” While Jon doesn’t quite kill the Night King or become the ruler like many viewers thought he deserved, he does survive the eight seasons with his honor intact. The final shots of the show even center on Jon, played by Kit Harington.
So, at least to me, masculinity seems to be near the center of A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones. And given its importance, it’s no surprise to see such a variety of masculinities. Recognizing the general pattern of traditional masculine types ending with worse fates than non-traditional types, it could be argued Martin appears to be condemning traditional, patriarchal sorts of masculinities, like Ned’s model.
But this just can’t be. Ned and Jon’s masculinities enable the other types to prosper in the world of Westeros. Ned’s unflinching honor sows seeds of doubt about the Lannisters, and his assumption of the sins of others saves Jon’s life. Jon, in turn, saves the kingdoms from Daenerys and her dragons, as well as from the Others/White Walkers, the zombie-like creatures that threaten the fictional world from the north. Their manhood is presumed for the existence of the other varieties. Tyrion’s livelihood, just to illustrate, is constantly dependent on the muscle of others, such as Bronn, a low-born sellsword. The best example, though, is Jon’s relationship with Sam, the coward who joins him at Castle Black to be Brothers of the Night Watch. Jon saves his life, probably a few times depending on how one counts it. And Sam ends up writing Game of Thrones. Thus, the history presented in the show depends on Sam, who depends on Jon. The non-traditional masculinity is dependent on the traditional.
I write this not to advocate for any particular model of masculinity—though I do think having a variety of types is a good thing—but rather because I love A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones, and ever since the perceived disappointment of the final two seasons of the show, almost all discourse and criticism has been on how the entirety of the series doesn’t fit together, and thus how the final seasons ruined it. But many themes and symbols don’t just pervade Game of Thrones’s runtime, but playfully hold it together. Masculinity is just one of these themes that are too often shorted by the discourse related to the finale.
Joshua Polanski (’20) is a freelance film and culture writer who writes regularly for the Boston Hassle and has contributed to the Bay Area Reporter, In Review Online, and Off Screen amongst other places. His interests include the technical elements of filmmaking and exhibition, slow and digital cinemas, cinematic sexuality, as well as Eastern and Northern European, East Asian, and Middle Eastern film.
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Just because people don’t necessarily like how a show ended or how they don’t think it’s a good ending, doesn’t make the show entirely bad. Personally, while I thought the writing may have been a bit weak (but is there perfect writing anywhere, honestly?), I thought the ending made sense, the way it did. And the themes and good moments and memories did tie it all together nicely.
It’s fine if you don’t like it, but that doesn’t totally negate the whole of the show.