More than anything, as with any medeival-ish society specifically, loyalty is set against love. From the very beginning, when Ned Stark takes his boys out to execute a deserter, he leaves them with the lesson: "he who passes the sentence, swings the sword." Ned is known to be a person of wisdom and mercy, but he also executes his responsibilities (literally). His loyalty is never questioned, but it clearly trumps love. He can't do what he might be inclined to do; he has responsibilities. The situation dictates his response.
People are what they do. I think most of us believe this - at least about other people. We might have sentimental feelings now and then or we might know that there's more to someone than just their worst actions, but generally we judge other people by what they do.
Cersei Lannister is set up as the ultimate big baddie in Game of Thrones. This is because her loyalty is to herself alone. She'll lie, cheat, kill, and betray anyone, at any time, for power. The show talks about how her children are her motivation, but only in so much as they are extensions of herself. Cesei's conscience is based on survival and domination. If it helps her, it's right; if it hurts her, it's wrong. This makes her an ultimate villain.
Every other character on the show is grey; they do good and they do bad. One of the major intentions of George R. R. Martin, the author of the books, was to establish a world with some sense of realism. Most fantasy has good guys and bad guys; the sides and stakes are clear. With Game of Thrones you're never sure who to support or for how long. Except Cersei; no one is rooting for her. There's some fleeting attention paid to her affection for her twin brother, Jaime (who is also her lover... yeah, I know, the show goes places), but she never has his best interests in mind, only her own. By this final season, she's even driven him away with her madness and treachery.
Cersei is loyal to no one, so no one is loyal to her. Cersei's actions are despicable as is she; entirely unlovable.
Yet, as we saw on Sunday, Jaime came back. He'd finally escaped and found love with a women (Brienne) he truly respects, one who sees the good in him and genuinely wishes the best for him, someone who is loyal to a fault - essentially the exact opposite of his sister. One of the most heart-wrenching scene in the entire run of the show is Jamie leaving her to return to Cersei. He says, "She is hateful and so am I." It's his rejection of whatever good Brienne sees in him. At the time it feels like weakness, but this week it's revealed as incredible love.
Jaime eventually find Cersei, her city is being sacked and burned by a dragon; any chance she has of power or continued life is gone. He doesn't return to apologize, to justify her actions, or rejoin her team. Jaime returns to Cersei so she doesn't have to die alone. Yes, they're trying to escape and run away to live happily ever after, but no one (not even them) believe that'll ever happen. They came into the world together and they leave the same way.
It's extremely touching. Many fans are upset the show's villain got such a favorable death. Yes, her life was a selfish waste, but she was loved - and that's not nothing.
It's also not loyalty. Jaime had no reason to return, no advantage in this play. No one would even look favorably on him for being loyal in this moment, because Cersei doesn't deserve it. He'd already abandoned her; the family ties were broken. This return was all love. Love for one who is unquestionably unlovable.
That's magic. It's a recognition that there's some part of us worth something regardless of our deeds, attitudes, or intentions. We cannot be utterly irredeemable, because we are human; beneath whatever it is that makes us unique is something that connects us all together, something bigger than ourselves. That core humanity is worthwhile, is valuable, is lovable, even if we are not.
Loving your enemies is the most profound idea in the history of the world. Most everything Jesus said had been said before, but this idea was new. A love grounded entirely outside self-interest and directed entirely towards another - no personal gain. Logically it feels like a love wasted, but it is the only real expression of love.
What's more, Jaime doesn't see Cersei as an enemy, although she is - to him and to everyone else. He might've been her brother, lover, and closest confidante, but she's done nothing to acknowledge his worth or for his benefit. No one else in the entire universe of the show has any reason to mourn her passing and every reason to celebrate. Jaime's in that camp, too, but he doesn't know it. That's because of love.
You see, the trick is not really loving your enemy. That's the goal; that's where it starts. But the love at the core of Christian teaching can't be love of enemy, it is a love that so transforms us that we have no enemies. Even those who act like enemies to us are not enemies in our eyes. Loving our enemies is still passing judgement on them. There's a magnanimity that is, in the end, self-serving.
Some people look at the call to love our enemies and believe they have to be kind to everyone - a sublimation of our natural responses. I don't think that's true. The command to love our enemies is, in my mind, a reminder that everyone, all of us, are worthy. We are called to love our enemies because there are no enemies - even if people sometimes act like it. That doesn't mean we ignore the consequences or somehow aid in people being selfish and evil, we simply refuse to believe (and thus act) as if those actions are all they really are.
Our actions define us, but they are not all of us. I think this reality is the only way to find hope in the midst of suffering. I suspect it's the only way to imagine something beautiful in the midst of the dirty chaos that is Game of Thrones. It's one small example of love in a story about loyalty. I suspect this lesson was not the one the show's creators planned to communicate, but I'm glad it was present, even if they rest of the episode left something to be desired.
Part of the criticism was answered because it's a show set in the fantasy past, in the midst of a darker time and a strong patriarchy. Women are treated poorly because that's been the lot of women in history. That doesn't hold a lot of weight for a show that features zombies and dragons; historical accuracy is somewhat malleable. There's only ever been one woman in the writer's room and it's easy to tell what perspective reigns.
The controversy returned again this week with a short conversation between Sansa Stark, a scion of one of the noble houses, and Sandor Clegane (known as The Hound). As a child, Sansa had been sent to the capital and betrothed to a lunatic sadist would-be king. The Hound was the personal bodyguard of said prince and bailed when it became apparent the guy wasn't worth defending. He offered to take Sansa with him, to bring her home, but his reputation wasn't the greatest at that point and she was very afraid to speak up for herself or act in her own best interest.
One of the arcs of the show has been Sansa's growth and maturity, most of which comes in the midst of terrible sexual and emotional violence.
She spent years being used and abused as pawns of more powerful people. She survived and has become a wise, ruthless, powerful player in her own right. It's a triumph of resiliency - at least as much as can be in a fictional universe.
The conversation in question has Clegane reminding Sansa that he could've saved her from the terrible suffering that has been her life. She reminds him that she's also achieved incredible success in the midst of that suffering and says that without her suffering, she would not be the wise, self-assured person speaking to him.
Obviously, it's problematic to have a woman give credit for her success to the horrors of her life, as if she didn't already have this potential within her that could've been brought out in other (less miserable) ways. This is sound criticism, but I'm not sure that's really what's being implied. I saw her statement as recognizing the importance of adversity. Yes, she could have realized her potential without rape and abuse, but perhaps she could not have realized her potential without suffering and struggle. The coddled, sheltered life meant for her, cushioned by a safe, protected, familiar environment likely would not have given her the tools to navigate an otherwise dangerous and ruthless world.
Our children need to be challenged - to stumble, fall, and fail - allowing them to do so is one of the most difficult parts of parenting. Protection is a natural instinct that's reinforced by cultural pressure to remove obstacles from our children's paths to success. We make fun of parents showing up to job interviews with their twenty-something children or negotiating grades with college professors, but that's just an extension of the social pressure towards supervised play dates and baby wipe warmers.
It's not that any of those things or those instincts is bad on its own merits, but to the extent we keep our children from failing, we're failing them. I'm the father of an almost-seven-year-old only child. She's as spoiled as they come - or at least it feels that way. I'm not talking about dropping them off at boot camp or taking away their bike helmets. It's hard enough to make my daughter (and remember, she's seven) buckle her own seat-belt.
I see how easy it is to quit when things are difficult. From tying her shoes to pouring a glass of milk, simple tasks still take practice - which usually means failure, at first. A lot of things came easy to me in life; those things gave me space to just avoid the things that didn't come easy. I don't know that I learned hard work as well as I could have. I'm pretty sure I could've used a little more perseverance in the face of failure; I suspect most of us could.
Because life is hard. Well, life for many of us could be pretty easy. I'm an educated straight white male; the stars have aligned to make coasting through life awfully easy for me and people like me. I guess I should say making a worthwhile life is hard. It's difficult to accomplish things that really matter, no matter how gifted you are. Maybe I'm dead wrong and the writers of Game of Thrones really do believe that everything happens for a reason. Rather than justifying abuse, I hope they're simply trying to point out the value of adversity in general. We could all use the reminder from time to time.
When we think about the "love like family" line (as a way Christians should treat each other, by the way), we tend to go towards one idealistic extreme - a sort of utopia, where stress and anger and dissent are absent, replaced with nothing but warm fuzzies and lots of affection. That's not how real families function, though, is it - people who have actual family relationships understand that things aren't always easy or rosy or particularly fun. We commit to them precisely because there's something about family that means something to us. Even when you don't have any real relationship with your relatives, we tend to form families anyway - people we treat the same way, people we're committed to despite whatever roadblocks or disagreements might arise. While those are powerful and meaningful, they're not perfect either.
As I was thinking about this analogy of "loving like family," I'm wondering if the idealistic extreme that comes to mind oughtn't (that's a real word, I promise) be more like Game of Thrones. I'll admit some bias here - my wife decided to start watching the show very recently, so I've seen something like 40 episodes is three weeks - it's on my mind a bit." The show is full of regal families, reminiscent of the nobility of European past - people whose family name means something - something valuable that they're trying to protect.
Now, I'm not suggesting that we should be callously marrying off children to fulfill social or economic purposes, and, obviously, secretly plotting to kill each other whilst publicly displaying loyalty and honor seems a far cry from anything remotely Christian, I wonder if the concept of family that underlies the dysfunction isn't a more apt analogy for what Paul's trying to convey.
There is a duty present that overwrites any personal emotion; a communal consideration that outweighs individual preference. This is important. I don't want you to hate your fellow Christians - far from it - but I think Paul's calling us to respond to them with the same kind of Christ-like selfless love, even if you do.
We're certainly not going to feel ecstatic love for one another all the time - real relationships exist within the entire gamut of emotions - and we obviously disagree about all sorts of things. Love like family should trump all of that, though. In Game of Thrones, everything is a means to an end (the characters for whom it's not almost always find themselves unceremoniously dead) and if you've read just about anything I've written, you know I don't look kindly on that way of viewing the world. This is why it's an extreme - it's one thing to sublimate your own happiness for the greater good; it's quite another to force those whom you purport to love to do the same (often against their will).
Our preferred extreme isn't any better, though. Envisioning a world in which everyone loves each other so much there's never any conflict denies people their humanity in the same way. It respects no individuality or choice - it's also only imaginable in a world where our preferences are everyone else's. We've essentially composed our ideal in our image and just image everyone else in total agreement. That's as arrogant and selfish as anything done on TV.
As with most things we'd prefer to be black and white, we have to find our way in the murky middle. Obviously either extreme is problematic, neither one is "right" or desirable or something to aim for - one of them, however, is others focused. If we see family as the move towards kumbaya serenity, any disruption is going to feel personal - we're all supposed to be happy; why am I not happy? If we see it as duty, as an obligation we have to others above and beyond our own happiness, disruptions become externally focused - why is she not happy; how can I make his life better?
I suppose the gospel answer to all of this is that we find whatever "fulfillment" we need by not seeking it. We are satisfied by forgetting satisfaction. The real ideal is, in fact, an oxymoron. There's no guarantee we will be rewarded for loving others above ourselves, but there's some beauty in the logic of everyone doing it; it just seems like that would create the kind of family that both reflects reality AND our desires.
We all fall short of that, of course, but in doing so, let's remember that "loving like family" is most certainly not about our happiness -
and let's try real hard not to chop off anybody's head.
