Exclusive Excerpt from All Men Must Die: Power and Passion in Game of Thrones

Oxford University medievalist Carolyne Larrington brings us a new book all about power, love and sex in Westeros. Check out an exclusive excerpt:

Game of Thrones is an epic series about leadership, war and change on a global scale. It’s also an intimate series about family, relationships and personal growth. In her new book All Men Must Die:
Power and Passion in Game of Thrones, Oxford University medievalist Carolyne Larrington gets into all of it as she “explores themes of power, blood-kin, lust and sex in order to draw entirely fresh meanings out of the show of the century.”

All Men Must Die, from Bloomsbury Academic, comes out next week, and we have an exclusive excerpt from the very first chapter. In this passage, Larrington looks at how ideas of family that seemed so fixed at the beginning of the series have been upended by the finish:

"The family lies at the heart of the show’s drama, for family relationships shape character, fuel plots, cement loyalties and create rivalries. Game of Thrones’ rich understanding of the complex dynamics of families forms a broad part of its international appeal. Even if other cultures do not necessarily share the USA’s models of the family, nor exalt its importance to the same extent, nevertheless the show’s presuppositions about its centrality are widely understood. The families of the show offer both refuge and imprisonment; while the separated Starks yearn to return to Winterfell and to each other, Tywin’s children struggle to define themselves against his domineering view of their destinies and their place in his grand vision of the House’s future. This is laid out early in the show. And yet, by the end of Game of Thrones, the ideal of family has been thoroughly dismantled: its proponents scattering to pursue different life-goals or adding to the show’s mounting and impressive death-toll.With the death of the Mother of Dragons, her corpse borne away by her remaining child, and the crushing of Cersei and her baby beneath the Red Keep, all models of mothering have collapsed. Apart from Gilly, pregnant with Sam’s baby but kept well off-screen in the final episode, the women of the younger generation will not, it seems, be mothers. In part this is a consequence of the dismantling of romantic love as a key element within the show’s epic ending. No marriages – and indeed the last season’s deliberate turning away from the concepts of lineage and entitlement that have hitherto shaped political and social life in Westeros – means no maternity. Other destinies lie ahead of Arya and Sansa; it seems vanishingly unlikely that Sansa will wed again. Arya has made it very clear to Gendry, the only man to whom she has responded sexually, that she is not the marrying kind. Yara’s sexual orientation – and the undesirable forms of patriarchal masculinity practised by the Ironborn – leaves open the question of succession to the Salt Throne. Brienne too has a new and vital role as Commander of the Kingsguard, one that traditionally has excluded marriage and parenting. The imperative to provide an heir for the kingdom has vanished, given Bran’s assumed impotence and Tyrion’s plan for Westeros to become an elective monarchy. The mothers – both good and bad – are all dead.If maternity has been discredited by the show’s problematic mothers, fatherhood offers no better model for family relations. Westerosi toxic masculinity is perpetuated by fathers like Tywin, Balon, Stannis and Roose. Children do better without a father and gentler men – Davos, Sam – do better with other people’s children than their own. Only the ideal – and idealized – shade of Ned Stark, the good, dead father and father-figure can recuperate paternity in any significant way. Being a father is not important to the figures gathered around the Small Council table in King’s Landing in the final episode. Davos’s son is long dead; Sam’s little family too has vanished, subordinated to his promotion to Grand Maester. The parental generation has failed, and their children aim neither to reproduce their errors – nor indeed to reproduce at all."

And that’s just Chapter 1!

All Men Must Die: Power and Passion in Game of Thrones comes out on January 28. You can preorder your copy here. What’s more, if you use the code AMMD20, you’ll get 20% off the purchase price, plus free delivery from Bloomsbury!

And if you can’t wait, check out her previous book on Game of Thrones, Winter is Coming: The Medieval World of Game of Thrones.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels