Theology and Game of Thrones

Matthew Brake

doi:10.5771/9781978707634

Summary

This book explores many of the theological and religious themes present in the Game of Thrones HBO television series and George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels. Written for academics yet accessible for the layperson, the chapters explore themes of power, religion, and sacred institutions in Westeros; Christian ecclesiology in the Night’s Watch and the religion of the Iron Islands; Augustinian notions of evil in the Night King and anthropology in the Seven; Orientalism, Hinduism, and the many worldviews in the World of Ice and Fire, and the series more controversial and disturbing themes of rape and death. Theology and Game of Thrones will appeal to theology and religious studies scholars and fans alike as it explores these elements in Martin’s complex fantasy epic.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2022
ISBN-Print: 978-1-9787-0762-7
ISBN-Online: 978-1-9787-0763-4
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 332
Product type: Edited Book

1. Contents No access
2. 1. Note No access
3. Acknowledgments No access
1. Why Game of Thrones? No access
2. The MAESTERS of this Volume No access
3. Notes No access
4. Bibliography No access
1. 1. Introduction No access
  2. Patterning in Game of Thrones No access
  3. Patterning in the Hebrew Bible No access
  4. The Shame of Thrones No access
  5. Conclusion No access
  6. Notes No access
  7. Works Cited No access
2. 1. Exceptional Outsiders No access
  2. The Sacred in Westeros: From Animism to Externalization No access
  3. Charismatic Leadership No access
  4. Dance, Destruction, and Decline No access
  5. Greatness and Madness No access
  6. The Dangerous Conflation of Charismatic with Moral Authority No access
  7. Notes No access
  8. Bibliography No access
3. 1. Historical and Universal Hospitium No access
  2. Theology and Hospitium No access
  3. Vicious Violators of Hospitium at the Red Wedding No access
  4. Gruesome Results and Godly Revenge No access
  5. Conclusion No access
  6. Notes No access
  7. Bibliography No access
1. 1. The Drowned God No access
  2. What is Dead May Never Die No access
  3. Baptism as Commitment to the Drowned God No access
  4. Baptism as Union with Christ’s Death No access
  5. Conclusion No access
  6. Notes No access
  7. Bibliography No access
2. 1. Ragamuffins on the Wall No access
  2. You Said the Words: A Community Bound by Promises No access
  3. Snow Knows Nothing (or Does He?) No access
  4. Refusing to Take Sides No access
  5. The Night’s Watch as the Family of God No access
  6. Notes No access
  7. Bibliography No access
1. 1. Evil and Enchantment in the Realm of the Seven Kingdoms No access
  2. Augustine the Manichaean and Augustine the Christian No access
  3. Augustine’s Critiques of Manichaeism No access
  4. The Privative View in Modern Thought: Footnotes to Augustine No access
  5. Objections to the Privative View No access
  6. Death, Evil, and Privation in Game of Thrones No access
  7. Conclusions No access
  8. Notes No access
  9. Works Cited No access
2. 1. The Seven: Ersatz Trinity? No access
  2. Trinity: A Basic Primer No access
  3. The Seven Contrasted with the Three No access
  4. Augustine’s Psychological Analogy and the Imago Dei No access
  5. Human Self as Imago Septem? No access
  6. Conclusion No access
  7. Notes No access
  8. Bibliography No access
1. 1. Hinduism in Game of Thrones: An Overview No access
  2. A Strange Question? No access
  3. Religion in the World of Ice and Fire: The Inner Consistency of Reality No access
  4. Martin’s Model: The “Real” Medieval European World and its Imagined “Exotic Other” No access
  5. Hinduism and India in Reality and in Medieval Fantasy No access
  6. A Quick Overview of Hindu Philosophy16 No access
  7. Traditional Indian Society: Facts and Stereotypes No access
  8. The Exoticized Orient of Essos No access
  9. One God in Many: Vedanta in the Faith of the Seven No access
  10. Some Stark Connections No access
  11. Conclusion No access
  12. Notes No access
  13. Bibliography No access
2. 1. Introduction: A Song of Ice and Fire in Orientalist Fantasy No access
  2. The Old Gods and the New? The Secularization of “the Game of Thrones” after Robert’s Rebellion No access
  3. The Limits of the Red Priestess’s Shadow: Melisandre of Asshai No access
  4. Texts and Houses of the Shadow: Quaithe on Daenerys Targaryen’s “Postsecular Oriental” Identity No access
  5. Valar Morghulis, Valar Dohaeris: Arya Stark Must Become No One No access
  6. Conclusion: The Emptiness of Postsecular Orientalism No access
  7. Notes No access
  8. Bibliography No access
3. 1. Worldviews and Ways of Life in the Game of Thrones No access
  2. Notes No access
  3. Works Cited No access
1. 1. Notes No access
  2. Bibliography No access
2. 1. Imaginaries of Death: When Game of Thrones Meets Existential Theology No access
  2. Game of Thrones and Late-Modern Imagination No access
  3. Notes No access
  4. Bibliography No access
3. 1. Lay Psychoanalysis No access
  2. The Theological Real: Eruptions in Religious Practice No access
  3. The Word No access
  4. Game of Thrones and the Use of Biblical Symbols, Themes, and Motifs No access
  5. A Revelation of the Gaze in Mystery Time No access
  6. Conclusion No access
  7. Notes No access
  8. Bibliography No access
Index No access Pages 317 - 326
About the Editor No access Pages 327 - 328
About the Contributors No access Pages 329 - 332