I am on book two of the Game of Thrones series. The second book is called “A clash of kings.” A character named Varys poses a riddle. "In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rch man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. 'Do it,' says the king, 'for I am your lawful ruler.' 'Do it,' says the priest, 'for I command you in the names of the gods.' 'Do it,' says the rich man, 'and all this gold shall be yours.' So tell me- who lives and who dies?" The main character points out that the sellsword would obviously kill the Priest and the King. But Varys asked, ‘why would he listen to any of them?’
As I read through this book about Kings wasting lives in their little political power play, I always wonder exactly what Varys wondered. Why would armies, listen to singular persons, who don’t have any experience, just because they come from a rich family? In the riddle, the sellseword has the power, not any of the three men. He could command them, and make them bow if he just realized the fact that they feared him.
I feel the same way about countries with a forced dictatorship. Why do the dictators have the power? Can’t the soldiers see that without them the dictator has nothing? If everyone walked out of the country, if everyone began protesting that the dictator would just be another person. Loyalty in certain cases, can be a very very dangerous thing indeed.
But then again, I feel like in Clash of Kings a sudden breakdown of the hierarchy would mean total chaos. Because the sellswords would take to bullying the average person, and they would be helpless. The problem is the people have no say. It’s either the one’s with swords, or the one’s with gold. And in the worse case scenarios the one’s with both. The political system in Clash of Kings is cringe worthy, but even more cringe worthy is the fact that countries in the real world still run in that way.
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