Blog Post #14: Hamlet Blog Assignment 2

“Anyone can be killed…” –Arya Stark

In The Game of Thrones (by George R.R. Martin) you either win, or you die. Playing such a deadly game, one must assume that there are no rules, people can be bought, therefor no one can be trusted, and power has been corrupted everywhere. To overthrow the old order, and "win," you must play by their rules, and their rules are that there are no rules: anything goes.

Now, today felt like a day in the life of a GoT character. You wake up dazed and confused and your vision and goals become more muddled and clouded as time goes on. Everything was a puzzle today! My dear school friends came to spy on me, sent by “the good king and queen” (2.2.260) themselves! For what reason are they spying on me? I told my “friends” it was because as of late I had “lost all my mirth” (2.2.270) but that was a lie, said to throw their puppeteers off my trail. I am amazed that this is what it has come to—lying! To friends! Over what, that I haven’t the faintest idea. Everything is so convoluted, so complex, making no sense whatsoever! And now, in my floundering with the actors, I have a ploy to get information out of my uncle, “I’ll have these players play something like the murder of my father before mine uncle: I’ll observe his looks: I’ll tent (probe) him to the quick: if ‘a do blench (flinch), I know my course” (2.2.522-526). I cannot condone an unlawful killing—that being that there was no concrete motive, the ghost I spoke with may have seemed like my father, but “the devil hath power t’ assume a pleasing shape” (2.2.527) and I will not be damned by trickery. I must figure out the killers identity beyond the shadow of a doubt before I do any revenge, “I’ll have grounds more relative (definite) than this” (2.2.532).  This is not cowardice, but I am acting as Tyrion, thinking ahead and using my wits.

·         “Power is a curious thing: who lives, who dies” –Varys

o   “And thy commandment all alone shall live within the book ad volume of my brain, unmix’d with baser matter: yes, by heaven! O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!” (2.2.100-105)

·         “Sometimes I wonder if this is the price for what we’ve done, our sins” –Cersi

o   “Abuses me to damn me” (2.2.531).

·         “**Sansa is battered for the delinquencies of her family, ordered by King Jeoffery**”

o   “To make oppression bitter, or ere this I should have fatted all the regions kites with this slave’s offal: bloody, bawdy villain” (2.2.503-506).

·         “The debt has paid (a Lannister always pays his debts)” –Tyrion

o   “But let me conjure you, by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for, or no?” (2.2.263-266).