Game of Thoughts

[Originally published at foodforthought.blog.lemonde.fr on March 19, 2018]

Where a fun and friendly afternoon pastime suddenly makes way for unanticipated reflections.

There are little moments, here and there, where unplanned, innocuous activities turn out to provide an insightful lesson on the workings of the world; it is among life’s joys to uncover and appreciate them. They come by themselves, require no extra effort, and we are all the wiser for them.

One such moment was given to me recently, when friends had a group over for a board game afternoon and we were introduced to the “Game of Thrones” game.

For die-hard fans, who have already read the books, watched the TV show, and spent an unreasonable number of hours browsing related webpages and fan videos, the board game should bring nothing new. It did.

You see, what the board game lacks in new revelations and content, it makes up for in practicality. Avid consumers of the written or spoken word learn nothing new, but, for once, experience firsthand what it means, as it is often referred to in the source material, to “play the game of thrones”.

The first part of the game is spent getting acquainted with the rules, which, like characters in the story, are plentiful and not always easy to remember — and, as a Greyjoy, I keep a sour memory of failing to capture Winterfell on a technicality. The scenario and goals are relatively straightforward: players are major families of the Game of Thrones universe and vie for conquests, using their armies and resources.

As the rules sink in, however, one gets more involved in the strategy of the game. The way to expand your number of military men. The usefulness of strong supply lines. The centrality of castles and fortresses. The advantages stemming from holding the Iron Throne or Valyrian steel.

And as people fidget and start standing around the map-shaped board, one gets more attuned to the game’s rhythm. The pendulum of attack and retreat. The side-tracked and detoured approaches. The importance of making open alliances with this or that other family. And that of breaking them when necessary.

In most games, colluding with another player is implicitly forbidden and sure to trigger the ire of everyone not in on the con. Players play for themselves and by themselves. Game of Thrones is certainly not the only one of its kind but it is no regular game either. Probably encouraged by the original content, players actively interact with each other, come up with arrangements more or less openly — some whispering, some boasting — , and walk back on their promises with little more than a second, self-interested thought.

With the game limited to, at most, ten rounds, the need for betrayals and self-service becomes particularly heightened in the last moments. Last opportunity for a conquest. Last chance for an additional castle. Last opening for glory.

And, then, there we were. The game had ended and time was standing still for an instant. All of us, standing around the map, commanders-in-chief of our respective militaries, having fought, battled, and bled for five and a half hours. Still friends, but a little shaken by the experience.

What exactly had happened? Time had passed and night had come, but what had we accomplished? What was all of this for? Yes, one of us had won — and it certainly wasn’t me — but only by default. Out of the myriad castles to conquer and subject, he had one, maybe two more than the next-in-line. And as we looked at the map, in a lull of silence, it became clear that, five and a half hours later, our borders almost hadn’t moved. We had charged forward and back, and overall ended up where we had begun. Countless deaths — because that’s what it all meant — for a gainless draw.

That’s when images from the TV show started coming back to mind and fleshed out our game: large military camps and consuming sieges, the suffocating Battle of the Bastards, Harrenhal burnt to the ground, countrysides raided and peasants murdered, alliances, betrayals, beheadings and red weddings. Overlooking our map, moving our pawns, this was what we had done.

But more than that. Worse than that. This is what we had really done. In real life. Our countries, now openly proud of their few decades of peace, had just before spent centuries doing just the same. War, conquests, victories, defeats, campaigns. Shrouded in the glorified mantle of military prowess and manly bravery, centuries of war for what? For another castle here, and a bit of land there. For a line on a map and one’s territory a little bit bigger. How many lives lost? How many destinies crushed? How much hatred created?

The game had been gripping and captivating, a fun afternoon overall; but, behind it, lay bare the lives and purpose of so many before us. Endless cycles of destruction and violence, vengeance and retaliation. All for the sake of a useless competition. An excruciatingly futile rivalry. All because we had been taught — as, in the game, we had been told — that expanding and conquering was the goal. For centuries, we instructed ourselves to wage war, for the family, for the kingdom, for the ultimate prize; and wage it we did.

And after all that time and pain and loss, nothing. No side won, and the descendants of those who fought so adamantly and for so long, now live together, in peace and freedom. Some wars were fought to protect an idea or a liberty; most of them were not. And these wars did not contribute to our present peace and freedom. Those we got simply after ending the wars. Wars that should never have been fought. Wars that ruined generations and generations because we were too blind to see that we could simply live together and that, with cooperation and an eye on the horizon, we could be much better off. That fighting was not inevitable. That brotherhood had been an option, and a better one, all along.

The evening ended on a nice note, with the promise to play board games again and get-some-lunch-during-the-week-why-not-let’s-do-Thursday. But as I rode home under the heavy rains of Castamere, I silently hoped we had learnt that lesson. Not just us around that table, but all of us, grandsons and granddaughters of people who fought to the death, citizens of countries who still today struggle to see and plan their common future. I truly hope that we have learned this lesson. That we and others yet to come will remember it. That the eternal sacrifice of our forefathers has at least planted a solid seed of peace and fraternity.

So that what is dead may never die.

Image credits: HBO, Game of Thrones s06e09 — The Battle of the Bastards; Hulton Getty/Corbis, from historyhit.com — Battle of Verdun. Fought between February and December 1916, the Battle of Verdun led to over 700,000 casualties for no tangible gain.

Originally published at foodforthought.blog.lemonde.fr on March 19, 2018.