Game of Thrones: The Philosophy of the Finale

okay we're we're back talking about the end of game of thrones i know this came out like two and a half years ago but stick with me i think i have something interesting to say about it now the end of game of thrones was bad i know it was bad you know it was bad the cast knows what's bad and are you happy with how things ended yes she didn't say yes you didn't say that best season ever and i would also argue that everything past season four was drivel but there is something exceptionally terrible about season eight and something even more egregiously bad about that for now and time has not improved it on re-watch the dialogue still makes frustratingly little sense the characters act completely illogically and some stuff just comes out of nowhere and still i get this sense that there was some sort of higher thematic message in it something that we're missing now i know i know the showrunners are idiots these are guys who made dany symbolically a demon and jesus in the same episode i mean it was this episode by the way and i [ __ ] you not in an interview david benioff once said themes are for 8th grade book reports which is sort of like a composer saying that melodies are for middle school marching bands so if i'm not detecting anything from them perhaps i'm detecting the remnants of some thematic message that was intended by george rr martin and it was communicated to the showrunners i don't know maybe i'm imagining things it's just that well in the episode people talk a hell of a lot about choice and decision making i chose my fate yes you left her no children does it matter what i do that's her decision she doesn't get to choose but you do and you have to choose now they don't get to choose it's not for you to decide but it's not for you to decide this fate is for our king to decide choose one make your choice then the decision about what's best for everyone should be left to everyone can't think of a worse choice if we choose you will you wear the crown choose the devils choose anyone else i choose you you choo-choo choose me so if this episode is about anything it's about choice the ability to decide one path over another what one might call free will and there are three scenes that deal with choice there's one when jon goes to see tyrion and tyrion tries to convince jon to kill danny two when jon goes to see dany and kills her and three the great council scene so let's start with the scene between jon and tyrion now this is a tough scene to watch as the dialogue jumps from one topic to the next rather logically however if you outline what they talk about it starts making a little more sense it's more that the scene is out of order so the dialogue begins with tyrion saying that he's done many bad things in his life and it would be justice for him to die but then he stops and asks jon if there's an afterlife so is there life after death not that i've seen and this is rather important there is no heaven in hell there is no divine justice in fact there's no god at least thematically there's no god let's remember that the old gods the children of the forest and the thread raven were destroyed and the sept of balor was blown up melisandre died and jon snow turned out not to be neo also i think aeron died off screen even if you think arya is somehow jesus it doesn't matter she sails off the end of the earth but really if you're looking for some 8th grade book report symbolism it's the sept blowing up the point being there is no god in the world of game of thrones but if there is no god where does morality come from this is an important question as it's central to why john kills danny how'd you know it'll be good now the answer to where does morality come from without god is of course from people but different people care about different things and have different opinions on what's right what about everyone else all the other people who think they know what's good and so if we look at tyrion's conversation with john the conversation boils down to tyrion and john meandering through human-derived moral philosophy and tyrion throwing [ __ ] at a wall and hoping something sticks he tries all sorts of moral angles to get jon to kill dany the first angle that tyrion tries is to declare dany simply genetically evil our queen's nature is fire and blood but jon rejects this angle as he's targaryen as well you think our house words are stamped on our bodies when we're born and that's who we are then i be fire and blood too so this is notable as there is no god so god is not defining a person's essence and genetics does not define a person's essence either one's essence is based on one's choices and one's actions and we see this with a rather illogical dialogue transition where tyrion compares the essence of dany to his father and sister claiming that based on their choices and the results dany is the worst character of them all pile up all the bodies of all the people they ever killed there still won't be half as many as our beautiful queen slaughtered in a single day and here we have some very important elements of the philosophical belief of existentialism the idea that humans determine their own essence morality and destiny through their free will now john rejects this saying that we have to consider circumstances and tyrion then asks john if he would do the same in the same situation and john doesn't know and then we get this rather important line matter what i do it matters more than anything now we should note that if morality were to come from an external source or a higher authority such as a god or societal laws then no it wouldn't matter what jon's decision would be dany's actions could be ruled good or evil based on that external code it's only with a moral philosophy where external code is irrelevant and personal moral choice rules that jon's opinion is relevant tyrion is definitely pushing existentialism on jon now next tyrion switches philosophical gears and to really make sense of things we need to assume that jon feels it's his duty to follow dany that is john is following deontology morality derived from duty and obligation now i'm not sure if jon's past actions really support this but tyrion certainly thinks jon is a dutiful individual you are the shield that guards the realms of men you've always tried to do the right thing no matter the cost so tyrion then frames dany as a consequentialist or machiavellian essentially one who believes that the ends justify the means according to tyrion dany believes she has a destiny a paradise and state and that she will do anything to get there she believes her destiny is to build a better world for everyone if you believed that you truly believed that wouldn't you kill whoever stood between you and paradise now it should be noted that consequentialism and deontology are diametrically opposed consequentialism is focused on the end and not the method while deontology is focused on the method and not the end killing baby hitler is moral under consequentialism because you're saving millions of lives but it's immoral under deontology because you're killing a baby who hasn't heard anyone yet now unfortunately we get some dialogue crammed in that makes no sense tyrion says that he knows that jon loves dany and then jon says that love is the death of duty i know you love her love is more powerful than reason love is the death of duty it's really a horribly placed line as john loves danny and is being dutiful by following her so how is love killing duty love is strengthening duty the line might work if we were talking about john's love for someone else or for people in general but we're specifically talking about john's love for dany i know you love her i would call it the worst line of the episode but we have the entire great council scene anyway right after saying that duty is bad sometimes duty is the death of love tyrion then tries to use jon's duty to the night's watch to justify killing danny you are the shield that guards the realms of men you've always tried to do the right thing no matter the cost now tyrion is specifically throwing duty at a wall and hoping it sticks but it's worth noting that doing what's right the action regardless of the cost the result is precisely what deontology is now after the discussion of consequentialism versus deontology tyrion very briefly touches on utilitarianism you've tried to protect people who is the greatest threat to the people now but then switches to trying to appeal to john's selfishness claiming that john's life is in peril who is more dangerous than the rightful heir to the iron throne that doesn't work and john reaffirms his allegiance to danny that's her decision she is the queen and so tyrion tries harder to appeal to john's selfishness by invoking sansa and arya and your sisters do you see them bending the knee now this is clearly tyrion trying to use john's love for his sisters to kill his duty and it's really the perfect place for the love is the death of duty conversation but whatever the writers are a bunch of failures anyway the conversation ends with jon claiming that sansa has no choice and tyrion says that jon does even though jon already established that the choice was dany's so overall it's a messy poorly written conversation however we do see quite a few philosophical themes hit upon we have an existentialist beginning with god being dead humans define their own essence and define their own morality then we go into a conversation of consequentialism versus deontology danny believing that the ends justify the means and jon doing what's right despite the cost it's a very messy discussion but the subject matter is there we briefly touch on utilitarianism before going into selfish desire now the john and tyrion conversation doesn't actually reach any conclusion on morality it's a confusing jumble and john leaves clearly confused on what's right and wrong but perhaps that's the point and so jon then confronts danny on morality and we revisit our moral themes now one of the major criticisms of human based morality is that it's subjective with the right reasoning people can really justify any behavior yes under existentialism people define their own essence but it's through their own perception so people tend to frame themselves in a positive light and dany appears to succeed on this front in this scene jon confronts danny about burning king's landing and executing prisoners and dany has justification i tried to make peace with cersei she used their innocence as a weapon against me she thought it would [ __ ] me now to be honest dany's justification for burning king's landing is pretty piss-poor but john appears to accept it and has no good response and then we see the return of consequentialism vs deontology john wants to act merciful now but dany argues that mercy to her enemies now hinders her end goal of a good merciful world down the road you can forgive all of them make them see they made a mistake make them understand we can't hide behind small mercies the world we need won't be built by men loyal to the world we have the world we need is a world of mercy it has to be and it will be john is once again stumped on what moral system would be better and without knowledge of the future it's impossible to judge which way is better in a utilitarian sense we seem to be nowhere on morality until jon's final questions how'd you know it'll be good and as we see danny has no good answer on where morality comes from she just knows because i know what is good and then we get the kicker the thing that kills dany what about everyone else all the other people who think they know what's good they don't get to choose now i will grant as bad as this episode is this line is pretty interesting tyrion tried all sorts of moral angles to justify killing dany and none of them worked on jon and then dany sinks herself you see there are plenty of different human-based systems of morality but nearly all of them agree that the freedom of choice is of utmost importance deontologists would say it's the basis of reason that allows one to judge their dutiful action over desire consequentialists and utilitarians would say that it's the happy end state for people that actions lead to and existentialists would say it's the fundamental aspect of humanity that allows us to shape our destiny even selfish people have other individuals they care about who they would want to give freedom of choice to and this all isn't really surprising if human-based morality is subjective it requires subjectivity it cannot exist without many people having the ability to choose essentially when dany said she would deny the freedom of choice to people she became objectively immoral to all subjective moral systems she was attempting to recreate objective morality which in a sense was just recreating the religion that had been previously destroyed jon may have not been able to choose what moral system was best but he at least knew that choice was an essential part of the process and so jon kills dany and again he does it for not any of the reasons that tyrion gives no jon doesn't kill dany because she's insane or a murderer or merciless or a threat to him and his family no jon kills dany because he feels that human minds need to be free on a side note when moral philosophers talk about freedom it's not a do anything you want libertarian freedom but rather a personal growth with responsibility towards society freedom anyway it's after the death of dany that drogon destroys the iron throne it's a melting down of a symbol of monarchy that any eighth grader can recognize but it's also a destruction of both religion and objective morality that is taking down an institution that relies on divine right for legitimacy and a system that relies on the people not having a choice in the laws and governance of their society which brings us to the dreaded great council scene now i have to say i hate this scene with all of my heart it's my least favorite scene in all of game of thrones it makes less sense than even the white hunt and at least in that situation humans acted somewhat rationally oh but not here for some reason grey worm who holds all of the power in the world and who has been emotionally pushed to the limit after seeing the only two people he cared about killed lets john and tyrion the men who conspired and killed dany live and then seeds all his power to tyrion and a council of jon's best friends it's trash it's absolute unforgivable trash but i have to bring up this scene because tyrion first claims that some outsider has no business determining the fate of westerosi but it's not for you to decide the westerosi should morally choose their own justice this fate is for our king to decide now of course realistically grey worms should have done this to tyrion but you know whatever but it's notable in that tyrion is claiming that justice is subjective if justice came from religion or a universally accepted legal document then it wouldn't matter if greyworm delivered it or not it only matters if we accept that subjective choice is relevant and then tyrion thinks that westerosi should choose their own leader democratically you're the most powerful people in westeros choose one oh it's not popular democracy it's not even jeffersonian democracy but it's at least an aristocratic democracy it's kind of a right step in the direction of moral choice now of course it's rather remarkable that both john and tyrion independently came to the conclusion that choice was the way to go not to mention everyone on the council thinking it was a good idea and sansa remaining as a monarch kind of ruins everything thematically but for the most part it seems that this final episode is about humanity after rejecting objective morality derived from religion and monarchy must choose morality for itself now you may be thinking come on you're imagining all of this this episode was horrible and the showrunners are idiots were they really thinking about moral philosophy and i would say well no probably not but i do have reason to think that george r martin was you see there is one scene and one scene only in this episode that actually is pretty good and it's brienne transcribing jaime's life into the white book i mean if we ignore the drawing ink goof now this scene is a clear bookend to two chapters in a storm of swords jamie 8 and jaime 9 where jaime has an existential crisis after reading his paltry white book entry and decides he needs to do more with his life when he was done more than three quarters of his page still remained to be filled between the gold lion on the crimson shield on top and the blank white shield at the bottom sir gerald hightower had begun his history and sir barest and selmy had continued it but the rest jaime lannister would need to write for himself he could write whatever he chose henceforth whatever he chose now the scene was somewhat adapted in a game of thrones season four episode one someone forgot to write down all your great deeds there's still time is there for a forty-year-old knight with one hand how can you protect me with that i use my left hand now your grace makes for more of a contest the problem is we don't know jimmy's inner monologue and so the scene comes off more as foreshadowing of jimmy's inability to protect his son rather than a crisis for jaime but this is certainly not the case for the novels where jaime and the white book play as the philosophy of existentialism jaime has the freedom of choice to write his own white book entry meaning he has the freedom to define his own life essence and destiny and with the brienne scene we see that jaime succeeded brienne fills pages with jaime's great deeds taking riverrun without the loss of life sacrificing his childhood home outwitting targaryen forces fighting for the living dying for his queen a life of intelligence self-sacrifice bravery caring for others and love it's everything that jaime wanted out of his life and fitting closure to jaime's existential crisis from a storm of swords and so i do think george r martin was thinking about moral philosophy specifically existentialism when writing a song of ice and fire and when he mapped out the plot points of his story it's just that it was later executed by our showrunners nonsensically nonetheless the remnants of the whole choice moral philosophy story does seem apparent in the finale now don't get me wrong this all doesn't improve the finale at all and i'm not even saying the remaining unwritten novels will be good or will even exist i'm just saying that there seems to be a tad more method to this madness anyway that's all i have to say on the matter thanks for watching and we'll see you next time

Channel: Preston Jacobs

Views: 69,196

Keywords: Game of Thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire

Id: 1dv5la4J7ME

Length: 20min 21sec (1221 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 30 2021