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Game of Thrones and the Limitations of Narratives

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by Thomas Colley

11 June 2019

WARNING: This article contains spoilers.

Dubrovnik, the Croatian city that features as the fictional King’s Landing, the capital of Games of Thrones’ Seven Kingdoms.

Like millions of others, I have been contemplating the end of Game of Thrones. Being unable to stay awake until 2am UK time to watch episodes live, I have relied on pre-recording them to watch on subsequent days. It is remarkably difficult not to come across a ‘spoiler’ in between. Article headlines designed to be cryptic reveal more than the author intended. As a narrative researcher, more striking is the sheer quantity of commentary on the plotline of the series and what it should or should not be. This commentary reveals much about the significance of narrative in human communication, but also its limits when used as a political instrument.

Fiction draws inspiration from everyday life. In turn, international politics researchers are increasingly drawing lessons from fiction. Security studies scholars emphasise the value of studying Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The Star Wars and Star Trek franchises are promoted as useful teaching tools for students of international relations. Suggesting that lessons can be learnt from Game of Thrones is not novel. The mountain of commentary across media outlets, blogs and social media reveals aphorisms: ‘power corrupts’, ‘war is hell’, ‘imposing liberty through force ends poorly’.

I generally assume that my narrative research does not interest the broader public. It is therefore surprising to observe that millions of people appear obsessed with whether the plot construction of an entertainment product meets their expectations. Some may see this as reflecting an entitled society when citizens demand to be told a certain story in a certain way. Can’t entertainers just tell whatever stories they like? Or since viewers are customers, maybe they have the right to be told certain stories? Leaving this aside, and looking closer, the contention over the plot of Game of Thrones, and the fate of its characters, reveals much about how humans interact in the ‘narrative age’ in which we supposedly live.

Politicians and militaries continue to emphasise the importance of communicating ‘strategic narratives’ –storylines that explain one’s actions to relevant audiences. Elites construct, audiences receive and hopefully internalise a story if it reflects their existing beliefs. We are told that narratives are the key to contemporary war, that they have unique persuasive power, that they can be ‘weaponised’ to win ‘battles of the narratives’ and ‘wars of ideas’, or that they are the key factor in human evolution. Technical construction of the right collection of words is supposedly the key to persuasion, be it convincing citizens to accept regime change or to rebel against it.

That audiences contest narratives is recognised, but receives far less research attention. Little research examines how ordinary citizens contest the strategic narratives they encounter. What is striking about the Game of Thrones commentary is the strength of feeling with which people challenge the narrative in an entertainment product. Over a million people petitioning for a series to be rewritten is astonishing. It is also remarkable how sensitive people are to narrative incoherence – when the plot of a story doesn’t quite hang together. Most complaints seem to centre on this not being convincing, largely because it happened too fast. Observers counter by saying that signs could have been spotted throughout the eight series – notably the Targaryan Queen’s willingness to execute opponents by burning them to death with her dragons. However, a counterclaim can be made that some may be committing the teleological fallacy by reading those past events as an inevitable path towards the present. It is doubtful that hundreds of people would have named their babies ‘Khaleesi’ or ‘Daenerys’ were this the case.[2] People rarely name their children after those they perceive as tyrants.

Wherever one stands – or if one just does not care and is happy to be entertained – this shows how intuitive and strong everyday citizens’ understanding of narratives is. This is a point rarely acknowledged when narratives are discussed as political instruments. Citizens have been fed on stories from birth – this is why some claim narratives to be the most natural form of communication. They are highly sensitive to narratives that don’t seem to fit together. They bring with them expectations of how stories usually (or should) play out – and these are intuitive, and hard to counter. The familiar plotline many Afghan citizens have when confronting a foreign occupier trying to impose a system of government on them is of resistance and the outsider’s eventual defeat.

Indeed, the plotline of Game of Thrones Season 8 will appear to many as a crude analogy of recent Western conflicts in reverse. Daenerys Targaryen arrives in the Western continent (Westeros) with an army from the eastern continent (Essos) of ‘Unsullied’ former slaves and Mongol-esque ‘Dothraki’ hordes. These are visibly and culturally distinct from the local Westerosi population. They resemble white Westerners, whose militaries would not look out of place in medieval Europe. Daenarys is a foreign invader but she has benign intentions of freeing populations from tyranny. However, the population appears hostile to her and her visibly and culturally alien forces. Locals have also been primed by domestic propaganda to fear the foreign invaders. This is grounded in centuries of oral tradition, whereby children have been taught to fear the invading hordes from the East. Daenerys, apparently unable to win over the population and frustrated by numerous setbacks, incinerates thousands of them instead. This transformation, and the speed at which her ‘character arc’ changes, is a major source of complaints about the series.

Personally, I can scarcely recall a clearer illustration that narration is a negotiation between narrator and audience. Moreover, that before one even begins to construct political communication, it is imperative to identify first the narrative understandings and expectations of target audiences. Too often this is forgotten.

What makes the response to Game of Thrones different from how political narratives are interpreted is the level of emotional investment in the audience. Like many others watching Game of Thrones, I have experienced physiological responses when viewing it. I have felt excitement when the side I support wins a battle when defeat looked more likely. I have felt anxiety, disappointment and frustration when, as is common in the series, one’s favourite characters are wiped out, almost provocatively. No doubt much of the outcry about Daenarys Targaryen’s fall from grace is that so many have become extremely attached to her. The idea that narratives persuade through achieving emotional identification with their characters – typically heroes – is a key aspect of why political actors think they are uniquely persuasive. The power of narrative to move people emotionally can be experienced when one finds oneself experiencing contradictory impulses to find out what happens in advance – hence the sheer volume of predictions and spoilers online – but also not wanting not have the surprise ruined.

The emotive response to how characters are treated in Game of Thrones illustrates the power of narrative to engage and persuade. Unfortunately, this level of emotional engagement in a character’s development – for many Game of Thrones characters from childhood to adulthood – is not accessible to today’s politicians. Political communicators today extol the power of narrative, but communication in the digital age takes the form of soundbites, catchphrases, tweets, slogans, that at best allude to a broader narrative rather than immersing the audience in it. This fragmented, piecemeal approach does not come close to the emotional engagement needed to make narratives as compelling as many think they are today. Even when narrated coherently, it will typically be by a politician whose credibility as a speaker is limited before they open their mouth. Certainly strategic narratives can engage people emotionally – calls to ‘Make Westeros Great Again’ perhaps – but the sustained emotional immersion that leads people to chain watch half a series at a time is largely inaccessible to contemporary politicians. Audiences have fleeting attention spans between different platforms and products, and many of whom veer towards disengagement, indifference and distrust rather than emotional investment.

Commentary about Game of Thrones reflects the pre-existing understandings and expectations audiences bring to the story – myself included. Personally I have scarcely been so engrossed in a cultural product, whatever its flaws and fantasies. Maybe the plot has unfolded too fast, or certain narrative arcs are more or less credible. Though surely it is important to suspend disbelief in a world of dragons, where the apparent winners in the ‘Game of Thrones’ have done so partly due to the coincidental development of superpowers including reincarnation, the ability to see the future, and the ability to impersonate anyone at will. Tying off political drama is difficult, however fantastic, because politics never ends. What matters more, reflecting on my limited experience as a narrative researcher, is that Game of Thrones shows what is theoretically possible with compelling storytelling, but how inaccessible this is in contemporary politics.

Dr Thomas Colley is a Teaching Fellow in War Studies, King’s College London.

[1] See for instance Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. London: Harvill Secker, 2014; Patrikarakos, David. War in 140 Characters: How Social Media Is Reshaping Conflict in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Basic Books, 2017; Simpson, Emile. War from the Ground up: Twenty-First Century Combat as Politics. London: Hurst, 2012.

[2] ‘Game of Thrones: Parents who named their children Khaleesi respond to Daenerys becoming the Mad Queen’, https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/game-of-thrones-khaleesi-daenerys-children-name-season-8-mad-queen-a8913046.html, accessed 24 May 2019.

An Uncivilised Clash of Civilisations

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by Thomas Colley

Menschenfresserin (by Leonhard Kern, 1650)
Menschenfresserin
Leonhard Kern, 1650

The BBC’s account of an incident of cannibalism in the Central African Republic conflict has shocked many in recent days. In this case, a Muslim victim of a Christian mob was cannibalised by Ouandja ‘Mad Dog’ Magloire in an act of revenge for the murder of three of his family members. At a time when the president of the CAR has just resigned, and the country stands at a crossroads, this post briefly examines the impact of this most gruesome act and its international media coverage.

Cannibalism represents one of the ultimate taboos of human behaviour. Humans are perfectly willing to feed their livestock reformulated feed made of the same animal, and then eat that animal, but the idea of consciously consuming a member of your own species is unthinkable to most. Few behaviours are considered more deviant.

Yet the motives for cannibalism are often misunderstood. In a number of cultures, cannibalism has been an important ritual practice, thought to confer powers upon the consumer, from intelligence and insight to invulnerability. Although it is not difficult to understand that such rational choice explanations for cannibalism are unacceptable to the overwhelming majority. Yet as obviously disturbing as cannibalism is, it is still a politicised concept. Colonial powers used accusations of cannibalism to indicate the primitive nature of people they wished to subjugate or ‘civilise’. Charles Taylor in Liberia and Jean-Bedel Bokassa in the CAR are but two leaders accused (though not found guilty) of participating and sanctioning cannibalism in recent decades.

The identification of a Muslim victim of a Christian mob killing represents a frame rarely seen in Western media coverage. Indeed one could speculate how different the coverage would be had it been the other way round. As the BBC notes, diplomats in the CAR blame some of the West’s media for fomenting conflict by presenting a ‘clash of civilisations’ between Muslims and Christians. It is understandable to see why, though the blame may be misplaced. The BBC cannibalism article talks of a crowd of Christians singing that they are going to kill Muslims. It is unlikely that those on the ground had their identities hardened from the outside by Western media coverage. At the same time, presenting a Muslim-Christian clash is arguably the best way to raise the profile of a conflict in a state that most in the West could barely name, let alone recognise on a map.

This brings us to the problems posed by media coverage of a brutal act of cannibalism at a time when the CAR needs more assistance than ever. On the one hand, ‘Mad Dog’ and the mob that helped him to stab the victim in the eye, beat him to death with rocks, set him on fire and hack off his legs, have given much needed publicity to the CAR when it desperately needs it. The problem is that such gruesome coverage risks distancing people from the conflict, relegating the CAR to yet another stereotypical example of African instability. Rather than a conflict between rational actors with legitimate political, social and economic grievances, the conflict is reduced to an ‘uncivilised clash of civilisations’, with Muslim pitted against Christian, but this time fought by people somehow less civilised, as evidenced by their willingness to cannibalise each other. The misplaced idea that parts of Africa continue to represent Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and continue to participate in barbaric, uncivilised practices, will only be reinforced by such coverage.

The BBC article ends stating that the fact that the cannibal was cheered as a hero by some is not a good sign for the future of the CAR, effectively asking rhetorically what chance a state has got if its people are quite literally willing to eat each other? However, this misses the point. By focusing on the actions of one cannibal, and by implying that this behaviour is the sort of thing that happens in the CAR, it is easier for the wider world to distance itself from and dehumanise the conflict. If conflict in CAR involves behaviours beyond the realm of human understanding, then presumably there is little external powers could do to solve it.

The danger in presenting such an argument is to risk reinforcing it. That is not the intent here. With the resignation of President Djotodia only a few days ago, there is tentative optimism that steps to resolve the conflict in the CAR could follow. Others fear continuing sectarian violence. Certainly a cessation in hostilities would allow for much needed aid to reach the hundreds of thousands that need it (20% are reported to have already fled their homes), the millions of CAR citizens unjustly forgotten for so much of the conflict and the coverage thereof. At this febrile point in the life of the CAR, with the world watching and hopefully willing to help, it needs images of people that desperately need and deserve help. In this sense, reports of one act of cannibalism could not have come at a worse time.

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Thomas is a PhD student at King’s College London studying the use of strategic narratives in the War on Terror. Having lived and worked in Uganda for two years, he also has a keen interest in East African politics and conflict.

‘O Hush the Noise Ye Men of Strife’

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by Thomas Colley

As the centenary of the start of the First World War approaches (2014), thoughts will likely turn this holiday season to the uplifting Christmas football match that supposedly occurred during a truce between Germany and the Allies on the Western front. Such a heart-warming episode provided a symbolic reminder that humanity could stand morally above the awful conflict in which Western civilisation was embroiled. That sworn enemies agreed a truce and celebrated a mutual religious festival together is one of the most emotive mythologies of war at Christmas.

Perhaps surprisingly, honouring the religious festivals of others is not as commonplace as one might think. For centuries, the Jews across the Christian world experienced persecution at Easter. Half a century before the First World War, the American Civil War saw continued fighting over Christmas, with the festival used for a major propaganda battle. At this time of joy, happiness and perhaps a little sober reflection for those who are less fortunate it may not readily occur to us that, for some, religious festivals are not sacrosanct. Instead, they are a strategic opportunity to press their agenda, be it ideological indoctrination, the incitement of fear or military victory.

Wars are fought on a physical and a symbolic level. On a physical level, religious festivals provide a strategic military opportunity to take advantage of the distraction of one’s opponent with a surprise attack. That may sound controversial. But if moral considerations are removed from the equation in line with strategic theory, the use of a religious festival to attack opponents at their moment of greatest distraction is a rational decision. The Yom Kippur War was one such example, when an Arab coalition used the holiest Jewish day of the year to launch an attack against Israel in 1973. The Tet Offensive of 1968 was another notable example, when the North Vietnamese Army and Vietcong used New Year celebrations to launch surprise attacks against the US and their allies during the Vietnam War. Militarily, whilst both offensives eventually faltered, they achieved strategic surprise, and both attackers made significant early gains that had previously eluded them. In Vietnam of course, the Tet offensive was seen as the pivotal catalyst for US public opinion to turn against the war, a spectacular success for North Vietnam in the long term.

However, it is on the symbolic level that using religious festivals for strategic gain is most significant. Of all strategies concerning the use of force to achieve political objectives, terrorism relies most on the effects of symbolism. US embassies in Yemen and elsewhere in the Arab world were closed this year due to the threat of Islamist terrorist attacks on Eid. Some commentators in the US excoriated the terrorists being so immoral as to choose their own holy day to launch attacks. Yet clearly such an attack could have great symbolic impact, potentially galvanising the support of those sympathetic to the terrorist cause. Though one speculates whether other Muslims would feel the same way about the use of their day of celebration for such ends. An Eid attack might minimise Muslim casualties as more people may be at home with their families. On the symbolic level though it might backfire, alienating more Muslims than it would attract.

As well as military and terrorist acts, Christmas has also been instrumentalised for the projection of soft power. In 2011, North Korea was fuming at South Korea’s construction of several giant Christmas trees along the border with the demilitarised zone. A Christmas tree could symbolise welcoming, celebration, family, an invitation. Yet to the North it could be seen as a cultural threat; a Christmas tree could also symbolise plenty, feasting, religious freedom (let alone a consistent power supply), all things that are rarely experienced by the people of North Korea. Indeed the North Korean government was so upset as to threaten to shoot the trees down, such were their symbolic power. Actually this could perversely be seen as cause for optimism. If North Korean elites feel that threatened by the propaganda effect of a Christmas tree, then North Korea’s cultural borders must be more open than one might think.

This sense of optimism is important at Christmas. Much of the world is not free from strife. Peace on Earth remains an ideal rather than a reality. But let us hope that, regardless of faith, this holiday season brings as many people together as possible in togetherness rather than suffering. We should not have to look back a hundred years for poignant examples of when enemies come together, even briefly, in peace and goodwill. As the popular Christmas Carol ‘It Came Upon a Midnight Clear’ proclaims: ‘O hush the noise ye men of strife and hear the angels sing.’

The lost art of propaganda

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By Thomas Colley
(@ThomasColley)
Soldier Silhouetted in Afghanistan
Much has been made of the recently revealed MOD report on how to ‘sell’ war to the British public.

Critics have lambasted the MOD for attempting to manipulate the public to support war, evoking memories of Iraq in 2003. Anger was particularly generated by the suggestion that the profile of repatriation ceremonies should be reduced in order to reduce the casualty aversion of the British public. Unfortunately, by focusing on this, the media have missed the point of an astute report on how Britain should conduct future wars. Nonetheless, the report’s release under the Freedom of Information Act reveals a number of insights on how British strategic communication could be improved, and the continuing importance of its bedfellow, propaganda.

Much has been made in the literature on political communication of the difference between propaganda and strategic communications. The definitions of these terms are as most experts admit almost identical, being based essentially on the variety of methods used to influence people to think and/or act in a desired way for political purposes. Yet many experts insist that they are distinctly different. Strategic communications is supposedly based on transparency, openness and truth, and is favoured model for political communication in the information age. Propaganda on the other hand is seen by many experts as nefarious, based on selectivity, manipulation and deceit, a relic of the time of Goebbels and inapt for the modern media environment. However, as the controversy surrounding the MOD report demonstrates, the principles of propaganda should not be forgotten.

Firstly, presenting to the public an article explaining how war is to be sold to them would make Goebbels turn in his grave. As any good propagandist or strategic communicator knows, as soon as a message is revealed as propagandistic, it will be immediately rejected. People tend not to welcome evidence that their thoughts and behaviour are being influenced by their political overseers. Strategic communicators may preach openness and transparency, but surely the information operations of the MOD would be better served by never letting such an article see the light of day? Either that or employ propaganda’s old ally, censorship, and remove content sure to provoke public outrage. This could have prevented a sensible report explaining how future war should be conducted being framed as a scandalous attempt to prevent the public from honouring their dead in order to maintain support for war.

Critics may argue that it is wrong on principle to advocate government secrecy, propaganda and censorship. Others may claim that since it is highly likely that information will be revealed in an age where it is so freely available, being ‘first with the truth’ is preferable to secrecy. However, the point is that if the government is to conduct a communication campaign, openly telling the public how you intend to influence or manipulate them is neither sensible nor strategic.

As it is, whilst the report is insightful regarding public antipathy towards war, the profile of repatriation ceremonies is a peripheral point at best. Casualty aversion in liberal democratic states is not primarily determined by the sight of the dead. Liberal democracies have had no problem accepting mass casualties when the cause has been seen as sufficiently important, be it the defeat of fascism, communism or the explicit threat of terrorism. Casualty aversion originates before a conflict even begins, based on whether the reasons for military action are sufficiently strong. Minimising casualties during a conflict will sustain public opinion, but that is nothing new. By far the greatest problem the MOD faces is convincing people that military action is worthwhile in the first place.

The almost sole focus on reducing casualty aversion also represents incomplete analysis of the public reluctance to go to war. Mercenaries, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Special Forces are intelligent ways to depersonalise future warfare, reducing the body count and thereby mollifying public opinion. However, casualty aversion is not the sole source of public opposition to war. Having studied the online commentary on both the Libya intervention and the debates surrounding intervention in Syria, much of the British public’s concern is actually economic. In Libya, public opinion was more concerned that the government should solve the domestic economic crisis rather than expending funds on ‘yet another war’.

So where should Britain’s strategic communication go from here? As the MOD suggests, a ‘clear and constant information campaign’ is needed to persuade a cynical public to support future wars. The primary focus should be in constructing a convincing strategic narrative to explain why Britain’s forces should be employed, whether in Syria or wherever the next conflict will be. This strategic narrative should explain the political and economic reasons for intervention in ways that relate to the lives of the British public. However, the government needs to be prepared to adopt the principles of propaganda in order to preserve the efficacy of these operations. One thing is certain; telling people how you intend to sell war to them is not a good start.