Originally published: . Volume 10, No. 6. Source pages: 2.
by Times publisher, J. Nelson Despite the popularity of Game of Thrones, I stopped watching the HBO program on a regular basis––throwing my hands up in disgust for the first time in season one when the evil queen and her devil spawn beheaded Ned Stark, the main character.
This shock and awe turned out to be the usual fare for Thrones but I never quite got used to it, vowing again and again through the eight seasons to swear off. Approach would eventually win over the avoidance because Archimedes found it perfectly palatable and the growing viewership and pop culture teased my "FOMO" (fear of missing out, as it is termed). I did in fact enjoy the elements of "enchantment" (see front page story and John Rosegrant’s comments) and was willing to put up with a few eyes being gouged out and throats being slit to be able to see what happened with the Knight King, White Walkers and especially the dragons.
The series had all the elements of primate social competition, from game theory and evolutionary psychology. Good guys and bad guys and naïve guys. All the evolved traits of selfishness, cooperation, altruism, and spite. We had every element of primate power games with shifting coalitions, deceit, and betrayal. In Thrones the power competition is direct and overt– –well, it is right in the title, after all. So, might makes right, and whose side the character is on defines their moral choices. There is not a great deal of self-deception, in fact, nary a drop.
Contrast this with the real life games that real people play. While game theory describes the benefits to the participants in any game, based on choices available, it takes another layer of theory about self deception, especially that from Robert Trivers, to explain the nuances of human interactions. It's the direct motivations plus the self-deception that creates a complicated, complex character.
Self-deception is better addressed in the classic heuristics outlined by psychiatrist Eric Berne and his followers in Transactional Analysis and his book "Games People Play," concepts introduced to many of us by Sue Jensen.
These games are also competitive games with social and psychological payoffs, but compared to characters in Thrones, much less conscious of their dark side. The form is always the game triangle with the positions of Persecutor, Victim, and Rescuer pattern.
A specific game is considered pathological when it's unconscious, rigid and overly aggressive or destructive, all of which makes it more likely that those in the game are immersed in self-deception. Payoffs of unconscious aggressiveness are engaged, and the moral hypocrites are on the loose.
Berne and his colleagues defined and titled these exchanges with interesting and sometimes hilarious titles such as "Courtroom" where a person playing persecutor gets caught up in right-wrong and loses perspective. There is one called "Uproar" where players escalate the conflict to fever pitch, and one named "Isn’t it Awful" where the rescuer and victim join emotionally to blend the superiority of helping and the dependency of victimhood.
On the national scene we are seeing some real games being played, the most likely is the ever popular, "Now I've Got You, You S.O.B."
We could also compare the environment of King's Landing to modern day Washington DC.
I'm just thankful nobody has a dragon.
[Julie Nelson is a licensed psychologist, journalist, and organizational consultant, and publisher of the Times. She also holds other various positions in the community. However, her opinions here are those of her own, and do not represent any group or association. She and the Times receive no compensation other than paid advertising. Email her at drj@drjulienelson.com, ––she welcomes feedback.]
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