Rules, Power, and Application
(Spoilers for GoT)
I was watching Scream last night and one of the jealous bystander characters commented that when it came to the main characters, it seemed like the rules didn't apply to them. This is a criticism I hear often when it comes to successful characters who survive any story. They didn't play by the rules. They didn't do the proper thing. They cheated. They were dishonorable. They chose violence.
Well, yes. Yes, they did. When it comes to successful characters in any story, what we often see are societies established to benefit the few and keep the masses compliant. Whatever we see as the dominant ruling class will be the people who benefit from the rules. We have to remember that rarely are stories set in places where everything is perfect and everyone is treated well. Usually with almost any story, there is this idea that the current system needs to be tweaked, if not completely altered. Charges in the society (and the rules it established) are usually good things.
With Game of Thrones Season Six, one of the major themes is the tension between compliance and noncompliance. Many characters are faced with moments when they have to decide to follow the rules or break them. Some try pretending, others try outright defiance, and other characters discover loopholes within the establishment that allow them to move forward in new directions. Others still look for ways to overthrow the current rules in order to establish their own.
This season's best example of pretending to follow the rules is Margaery Tyrell. Margarey found herself a prisoner of the Faith of the Seven and knew she was not only fighting for her own freedom but that of her brother as well. She knew Loras would break before she did. She'd been trained to handle people better. In order to save them both, she pretended to become a devout follower of the Faith and convinced her husband, King Tommen, to do the same.
Pretending to follow along has always worked for Margaery so far. She was taught to agree with and mold herself to people who had more power than she did because it was the best way for them to let their guard down and trust her. Once she was trusted, she could carve out a level of influence on this person. At first, this seems to be working. She finds out that the High Sparrow is targeting her grandmother and is able to warn her to get out of the city. She doesn't have to do the walk of shame that Cersei endured. She seems to have a small amount of leverage, enough to free her brother after his confession and trial.
Unfortunately, but the finale, we see that Margaery's plan fails. Unlike the other men she'd played before, the High Sparrow was new to power. Where the other men saw her as less than they were, he still viewed her as part of the upper class, someone who could never really be trusted. When the stakes were the highest they could possibly be, she told him the absolute truth about Cersei. Had he listened to her, they would have lived. He didn't and everyone died.
Speaking of the High Sparrow, when it comes to matters of compliance, he's an interesting case. Here is a man who was nowhere near the top of the power structure and yet he was able to find a way to topple it and put his own set of rules in place. Last season, the High Sparrow began to build his cult of followers in the wake of the confusion and fear that had gripped the people since the War of the Five Kings started. Do I believe he was sincere? Nope. Not even for a second. I think he was a great con man who saw a situation he could exploit. He was also very charismatic and knew how to work people.
In fact, he basically played Margaery's game last season. He pretended to comply with Cersei's wishes and be used as her weapon . . . until he had the chance to take her down. After that point, no threat from anyone in power mattered to him. He had the people on his side and the power of their belief. With that, he was able to start rewriting the rules in his favor.
It's easy to hate the High Sparrow, but you have to admire his tactics. Given how late he comes to the Great Game, he's actually one of its better players in that he gained control over Kings Landing in less than a year. He is threatened at every turn by some of the most influential people around. He bests Olenna. He bests Cersei. He isn't afraid of the King's power or Jaime Lannister's threats. Even when faced with the combined military forces of the Lannister and Tyrell armies, he manages to win.
Honestly, the High Sparrow could have stayed in power and led a religious revolution in the whole Seven Kingdoms had he not made one small mistake. Rules and the compliance to rules are like a dance when one is playing this kind of game. Cersei was defeated by him last season, but not out of things completely. According to the rules before her, she had one saving grace. She could ask for a trial by combat and win it.
Now, had the High Sparrow let this trial by combat happen, Cersei would have won. There is no denying that. But really, what would that have meant? All it would have proven was that the gods found favor in her and she couldn't be punished for the crimes she'd been charged with. It didn't mean the High Sparrow was out of power. In fact, had she lost, he would have stood to lose power because one of those charges against her was that Tommen wasn't legitimate and Tommen was the High Sparrow's best ally.
More than likely had Cersei's trial by combat went her way, Tommen still would have sent her out of the city. She probably would have taken Qyburn and the Mountain with her, meaning the High Sparrow had more influence over the Small Council. With Cersei out of the city, Jaime wouldn't have returned either, meaning the major physical threat to the High Sparrow was also gone. He really had nothing to lose by her winning, a lot to gain if she did, and a lot to potentially lose of she lost her trial.
In the end, though, he just couldn't stand the idea of being beaten. He changed the rules to where her trial could only be determined by the Faith. He backed Cersei Lannister into a corner and when backed into a corner, rules do not matter at all to her.
Cersei tried to play by the Faith's rules, but it was getting her nowhere. She tried the usual methods for circumventing those rules. She looked for allies like Kevan and Pycelle. She basically begged Olenna to help her. She tried to work the loopholes allowed to her. Honestly, if you look at her actions over the course of this season, she tried every possible method she could before she opted to kill all her enemies with fire. Nothing worked.
If she wanted to survive, her only remaining option was to destroy everyone at once. People will blame her completely for this, but I really don't. Cersei remained loyal to the people who were loyal to her. Had Kevan sided with her, she would have made sure he wasn't in the Sept. Had Olenna sided with her, I really do believe she would have tried her best to save at least one member of her family. No one aided her. Everyone took this situation as a way to laugh as 'that insufferable bitch Cersei' got what she deserved. And yet, they forgot how deeply dangerous she really could be.
I don't think she meant for Tommen to kill himself, but when he did, I believe her reaction was based on an understanding that in the end, even he wasn't on her side. People will blame her for his death, but of all the people in the equation, Tommen is the one who should have realized what his mother was capable of and what siding with the Faith and betraying her would accomplish.
Cersei is the one who set up the board for the Faith to take power and she is the one who took them down. In the process, she lost her last child and suffered a great deal of humiliation, but she also learned who her true friends were and at the end of the day, managed to still get everything else she wanted. All her enemies were dead and she sits on the throne. Margaery may have tried to work within the system and the High Sparrow may have tried to change it, but Cersei, by understanding when to decide the rules no longer applied, won in the end.
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