Violence & vengeance (Patreon)

Been thinking about violence in GOT.

In Game of Thrones Season 4, Daenerys crucifies 163 Meereenese noblemen, because they crucified 163 slaves. In Daenerys' next episode, Hizdahr zo Loraq argues that her crucifixions were unjust, because his (crucified) father was against the crucifixion of slaves. Later, Daenerys decides to kill all the Wise Masters in Yunkai, but Jorah convinces her not to – he says "It's tempting to see your enemies as evil, all of them, but there's good and evil on both sides in every war ever fought".

In Season 7, Arya kills a room full of Freys, to avenge the Red Wedding. She leaves the room with a triumphant smile, and the story never explicitly questions the justice of her massacre. But surely, like Daenerys' slavers, not all of these Freys were complicit in the Red Wedding? The real architects of the Red Wedding – Tywin, Roose, Walder, Lothar, Black Walder – were already dead. After the Frey killing, Arya befriends Ed Sheeran's Lannister mates, and goes north to her family in Winterfell instead of south to kill Cersei. So maybe that represents Arya rethinking her violent agenda? But as yet, there's been no real follow-up on the Frey massacre, and I suspect there'll never be – it's just meant to be a fist-pump badass moment for Arya the assassin.

Game of Thrones has always had mass killings – Robb's battles killed thousands of Lannister soldiers, Tyrion burned lots of Baratheon soldiers on the Blackwater, Jon killed wildlings and Boltons in his wars. And I don't think these guys get a free pass from the context of war. But after these battles, we saw the consequences of the violence – Robb was anything but triumphant after the Whispering Wood, and Talisa showed us the grisly aftermath of the Green Fork. Davos explored his grief for Matthos, killed by Tyrion's wildfire. Jon lost his love Ygritte in his defence of Castle Black. Violence had a cost.

But in the later seasons... Where are the consequences for Arya murdering a room full of Freys? For the Hound killing those Brotherhood boys? For Daenerys burning those khals? And cripes, I still think that Sansa feeding Ramsay to dogs just brings her down to his level. A lot of these arcs are about disempowered heroes rising up to dispense righteous justice on their enemies, and I can get behind that. But these killings shouldn't be joyous, or excessive, or indiscriminate. The heroes should follow the example of Ned Stark – "If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die".

A Song of Ice and Fire is an exploration of the tragedy of violence, not a celebration of it. Hopefully Season 8 will remember that.

What do you think about the violence in Thrones?