Imaginary Worlds - Politics of Thrones

Episode Date: April 8, 2015

Game of Thrones is huge in every way. Why does this medieval fantasy with knights and castles speak to our time? Politics. There are a surprising number of international relations experts that see parallels between the the jockeying for power in Westeros and our post-Cold War landscape. I talk with Dan Drezner from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Tim Westmyer from The Rising Powers Initiative about how Daenerys Targaryen wields her trio of dragons like a nuclear triad, and why King Joffrey was like Kim Jong Un. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about science fiction and other fantasy genres. I'm Eric Malinsky. Speaking of fantasy genres, you know, friends who listen to this podcast have sometimes asked me, where's the magic?

I mean, like, literally, like, why aren't you doing stuff about magic and sorcery and wizards? And the thing is, my favorite fantasy worlds usually involve some kind of science fiction, technology, superpowers. You know, a pre-industrial world of knights and castles where you just kind of have to live by your wits and your sword. It just doesn't do it for me. But then this show came along. By the way, I'm going all the way up to the present with this episode. So if you're waiting to binge on Game of Thrones, spoilers ahead. The thing that kind of turns me off about a lot of medieval worlds is that everybody is so earnest. Like, you know, in Lord of the Rings, Sean Bean's character dies

because he's morally compromised in a world of good and evil. But in Game of Thrones, his character Ned Stark dies because he's morally compromised in a world of good and evil. But in Game of Thrones, his character Ned Stark dies because he's too moralistic in a world that's all shades of gray. I wasn't sold on it until they killed Ned. Dan Dresner teaches international relations at the Fletcher School of Diplomacy. It was when they killed Ned that they made it clear people can die in this show.

There are consequences if you act in a certain way, or if you don't take this seriously. If he gets saved somehow, then it indicates there are no consequences from acting stupid. And that really is the unofficial motto of Barack Obama's foreign policy. Don't do stupid stuff. Although some of Obama's critics have actually compared him to Ned Stark. Barack Obama, I think, would have to be a Stark. So let's just say that Vladimir Putin would be someone that would be thoroughly comfortable in the Game of Thrones universe. This I find completely fascinating. There are a huge number of international relations experts that have written about Game of Thrones and the books they're based on, A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin. And they're not just writing

articles in, you know, the Daily Beast. I mean, these articles appear on websites like Foreign Affairs, foreignpolicy.com, the Washington Monthly. Headlines read, Winter is Coming, Can Game of Thrones Change Climate Politics? Or, Why Game of Thrones is the TV Show of Our Time, How Narrative Unpredictability Reflects Economic Uncertainty. Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned the show Why Game of Thrones is the TV show of our time, how narrative unpredictability reflects economic uncertainty. Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned the show during his speech to Congress about Iran. In this deadly Game of Thrones, there's no place for America or for Israel. Dan Dresner uses it in class. If we're professors of international relations, we're almost de facto geeks.

So, you know, we're into this stuff no matter what. But the second thing is, is that your average 18-year-old knows a lot more about popular culture than they do about international relations, we're almost de facto geeks. So, you know, we're into this stuff no matter what. But the second thing is, is that your average 18 year old knows a lot more about popular culture than they do about international relations. The fantasy worlds that I grew up on were heavily influenced by the Cold War. Tron, Star Wars, all the Star Wars knockoffs, Conan the Barbarian. They all have these heroes that go behind a galactic or a magical iron curtain, overthrow the dictator, and bring freedom to the land. Game of Thrones reflects the instability of the post-Cold War world, where the center of power keeps tilting.

And as the big powers try to gain an upper hand, they're also fighting off insurgencies. No one is sure who their friends are or which enemy is a bigger threat. So they make their circle of trusted people really tight. But that doesn't make them feel any more secure. In some ways, the most important thing, and this is a theme that the show has revisited over and over again in various iterations, is what is the nature of power? And Dan Dresner is a policy wonk. But he thinks that our leaders could actually find the answers to these questions in Game of Thrones. Not House of Cards, not Scandal. He says those are just soap operas.

Game of Thrones is much more true to life. Like this is one of his favorite examples. In this scene, Varys, the court advisor, is talking to Tyrion Lannister, a dwarf who has to be clever to survive his backstabbing, super rich and powerful family. Are you fond of riddles? Why? Am I about to hear one? Three great men sit in a room. A king, a priest, and a rich man. Between them stands a common sellsword.

Each great man bids the sellsword kill the other two. Who lives, who dies. Depends on the sellsword. Does it? He has neither crown nor gold nor favor with the gods. He has a sword, the power of life and death. But if it's swordsmen who rule, why do we pretend kings hold all the power?

When Ned Stark lost his head, who was truly responsible? Joffrey, the executioner, or something else? Power resides where men believe it resides. It's a trick, a shadow on the wall. And if you can actually change men's minds, that's actually the most important power of all. That's a really, in some ways, that's a pretty subtle disquisition on the nature of different dimensions of power in world politics, that it's not just about brute force. It's about, you know, it's about getting people to want the same things you want. I got to say, that is maybe one of the best definitions of leadership I've heard,

getting people to want what you want. So who's doing it best on Game of Thrones? Dresner has placed all of his bets on Daenerys Targaryen. She's a survivor of an exiled royal family. She inherits three dragons, which allows her to build an army and take over land pretty quickly. And then every time she takes over a new kingdom, she frees the slaves, punishes the slaveholders, and allows people to air their grievances in court. And this isn't about being nice. She wants her subjects to praise her as queen and tell everyone how great it is to be ruled by her. Remind me, Ser Jorah,

how many children did the great masters nail to mileposts? 163, Khaleesi. Sometimes it is better to answer injustice with mercy. I will answer injustice with mercy. I will answer injustice with justice. Danny is the ultimate neoconservative in that she will use force to try to eliminate what she sees as human rights abuses. Why neoconservative? To me, she seems fairly liberal, even though she's got so much weaponry. Well, first of all, there's not, you know, there but for the grace of God, a liberal becomes a neoconservative. The difference between the two is not that great. Liberals and neoconservatives both believe very strongly in the value of human rights

and democratic institutions, by and large. The difference is, is that liberals tend to be more enthusiastic about the idea of international cooperation and about only using force through multilateral channels. Neoconservatives are extremely distrustful of multilateral institutions because they see them as the weapons of the weak and the authoritarian. And so as a result, prefer the unilateral use of force. And the thing about Dany is that Dany is a big fan of the unilateral use of force. She's perfectly willing to use her dragons and to double-cross, you know, slaveholders and so on and so forth, because

she thinks that's the right thing to do. Timothy Westmeyer is also on Team Danny. He's an analyst at a think tank in Washington called the Rising Powers Initiative. His specialty is nuclear strategy. Now, George R.R. Martin has said that dragons in his books are supposed to be a metaphor for nuclear weapons, which really fascinated Tim Westmeyer. So Tim wrote an article called Deterrence with Dragons for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Deterrence with Dragons was an interesting idea because Daenerys was the only one that actually had them in the stories, at least the ones in the show. So what does she use with them? How does she get the objects that she wants? She kind of uses them in short bursts. And so she deters people psychologically from wanting to deal with her

because they don't know the full extent of what her dragons can do. I mean, dragons can bypass all the land that an army would have to slog through and they can strike from the sky like a missile. So yeah, it's economically, nuclear weapons, dragons, great weapons to have. But if conquering is easy for Daenerys, ruling can be tedious and complicated. At one point, she realizes that one of her dragons has gone rogue.

She doesn't know where it is. A farmer drops the bones of his daughter, burnt to a crisp, at Daenerys' feet. What was her name? Zyla, your grace. How old was she? Three. Three. I mean, the worst thing you can have is another side,

you know, an enemy or a rival that thinks your weapons don't work anymore because then they no longer deter. You need to be able to show that you have the willingness to use them, but also the capacity. And I think that's what's interesting in Game of Thrones is Daenerys, once she loses one of her dragons that flies away and she locks the other two up, it's clear that she doesn't have control over them anymore. And that's when people found the time to strike.

Westmire says the real stabilizing force isn't dragons or any other weapons. It's the Iron Bank. And he says money is also the thing that ties our post-Cold War politics together. I mean, we still can't trust our former foes, but at least they now want the same things that we want, that Lannister gold. I concluded the article by saying that it's clear to me, at least, that Martin has a anti-war theme in the books, even though he's known for having all these big battles. They get to the nitty-gritty of what it means, the consequences for the small folk. It's something that really didn't come up a lot in Lord of the

Rings when these battles are happening, that there are people on both sides. And that's why I'm not really optimistic. And even though the dragons are very popular, I love them too, but I'm not convinced that they're going to end in a happy place. I think Daenerys, if she continues to rely on them, ultimately will have consequences for her and for people around her. Really? Why? There's lots of examples in the stories about people who become too upset with dragons. There was the idea that once dragons disappeared from the world, everyone wanted to have them back, the Targaryens. There was the guy who drank wildfire because he thought he'd be able to become a dragon himself, which is so interesting, too.

In our world, these kind of ideas of dragons and the type of destruction that they can unleash can't come out in our literature and in our kind of nomenclature. A lot of people that were weapon designers talked about experiments that you would do. One in particular that Louise Sculton did in the, I think it was, let's see, 1946. He did an experiment to kind of test the exact critical mass that you need to be able to cause a nuclear explosion. And the experiment, which ultimately killed him due to some radiation leak, it's called tickling the dragon's tail. These concepts are very strong in our literature. I think Martin's picking up on that, his idea of what it means to be a ruling power and what

it means to be a leader. I don't think nuclear weapons fit into that world. And I think either Daenerys is going to have to recognize that or her dragons will have consequences for her in the end. But what about the most dangerous players in this world? How do we protect ourselves from them? I got into a debate once with a friend about which character you should be more afraid of. I got into a debate once with a friend about which character you should be more afraid of. Littlefinger, who is a court advisor who we discover has been manipulating all the major events from behind the scenes. I'd risk everything to get what I want.

And what do you want? Everything. Or Joffrey, the sadistic boy king. Your grace? Fingers or your tongue, if you got to keep one, which would it be? Every man needs hands, Your Grace. Good. Tongue it is. Your Grace, please.

I thought it was Joffrey. But Dan Dresner says, I'm wrong. The obvious answer right now is Littlefinger since Joffrey's dead. But that said, Littlefinger is far and away the more dangerous character. The difference between evil and evil and dangerous uh you know joffrey is evil but he has absolutely no guile or no you know strategic thought whatsoever little figure on the other hand clearly has no norms whatsoever i mean he's willing to double cross anyone and he's actually increasing his power and that's the sort of thing that that is an unanswered question still in Littlefinger,

which is, assume he gets power. How does he rule at that point? Does he rule in a sustainable way, or does he just sort of cater to his every own whim? Yeah, see, that's a funny thing. That's why I find him less dangerous than Joffrey, because to me, Joffrey is, he's the kind of guy like a Kim Jong-un who can just decide on a whim he's angry and he's going to launch a nuke. But I feel like Littlefinger is so concerned with self-preservation

that if he did get all the power, he'd do the right things for the wrong reasons to some extent. He'd have that Machiavellian sense of, if I play my hand too hard, I'm going to lose, I'm going to fall. How do I be a good dictator to some extent? And it'd probably be more humane for the average, you know, peasant, you'll be living better under King Littlefinger than King Joffrey. Yes, you know, at least with Littlefinger, the horses ran on time. That would be the argument there. Oh, God. In case you missed that, he said, at least he made the horses run on time, which is a playoff of Mussolini's supporters who used to say at least he made the trains run on time.

So I'm now in the same ideological camp as Italian fascists. Thanks, Game of Thrones. For the record, Tim Westmeyer also agrees. Littlefinger is more dangerous. But the Joffreys of the world do scare him. At least in the books, he's like 13 years old. And yeah, he's a little bit like Kim Jong-un, who's, you know, 30. He's my age. I wouldn't be responsible for an entire nuclear arsenal. Well, you're only 30? Yeah, just 30. Wow. See, I'm 43. And I grew up, I said the day

after in fifth grade, you know, we would in our elementary school, they would take a day off so that teachers could sit around in a very, you know, psychologically sensitive way, talk to us about nuclear war because it was so in the news and it was something that we're all very scared of. And it's just something that I lived and breathed as a kid. And we're all afraid that in any moment, you know, that would be it. But you, I mean, you didn't grow up with any of that. Well, one of the reasons why I wanted to write an article like this is because I think for my generation, the ideas that we get about nuclear weapons and nuclear war don't come from reality. They don't come from that experience that we feel like it's a lot peaceful. reality. They don't come from that experience that we feel like it's a lot peaceful. And you see a lot of these young men who are in the military, who are in the Air Force, for example, and they're in silos. And they think that there is no threat out there and that their job is not valued. The people that actually have to push the button. So you get a lot of these scandals

that happen when the people will cheat on tests. They will leave the doors open in the silos. They'll go to sleep when they're at their post and there's a degradation in the credibility of our deterrent when that happens so i think a lot of people don't really understand like what it means that it's a lot of hard work even people like me who may not think that nuclear weapons solve everything and and i would actually prefer to have a lot fewer of them but as long as we them, we can't make any sort of a mistake. Like a lot of movies, if you have the bomb, that's it, you win. You're in control. Hopefully no terrorist steals it. You know, a Victorian Greyjoy doesn't come by with a magic horn and tries to steal your dragon.

Like, those debates are real. The idea of securing your arsenal, protecting people from stealing it, making sure that it's survivable so that if you get attacked, you can respond. Those are all these kind of interesting ideas that are real, and it's not just a jokey, you know, plot of a James Bond movie. In a way, our foreign policy today still comes down to one thing. Don't get nuked. And that's my skin in the game. I became a news junkie in the sixth grade, 1983.

It was a scary time for a kid to watch the news. And as an adult, I have produced a number of news pieces about men who worked in missile silos or at strategic air command in the 80s because I like talking to the guys that were making decisions then, the people that helped steer us out of danger when I was feeling helpless as a kid. And now we're the grown-ups in charge, trying to figure out, however we can, how not to fuck it up real talk in your eyes when your man goes snake. It can happen to your family. You all alone. We go big, we go home. Well, that's it for this week's show. Thanks for listening. Special thanks to Dan Drezner and Timothy Westmeyer.

You can like the show on Facebook or leave a comment in iTunes. I tweet at emolinski. The show's website is imaginaryworldspodcast.org.