*** Editor’s Note *** This is a 6-part recap of Telltale’s Game of Thrones series. It will be followed by an entire series review.
One of the major themes in the Game of Thrones series is the relationship characters have to the decisions they make. Some struggle against a seemingly predetermined fate while others attempt to find meaning in a world that often appears bent on meaninglessness. In Telltale Games’ episodic adventure, this Game of Thrones truth is as dominant as ever; you can try to choose your path but it’s already laid out before you.
After some opening campfire banter at the beginning of the first episode, the camera pans back to reveal that the ostensibly minor scene between decidedly minor characters from a house you’ve never heard of before (House Forrester, currently loyal to House Stark) actually takes place on the doorstep of one of the most pivotal (or at least most outcry-inducing) events in the series: the Red Wedding. The locale — The Twins — is even subtitled as such, the game fully understanding the knowledge the player already has about the scene. Gared, the lowly squire you control for the first part of the episode, might not know what’s about to happen but you certainly do. And there’s definitely nothing you can do about it.
The context of a choose-your-own-adventure is particularly poignant as the Starks are slaughtered in the background. Gared does have real decisions to make, and they do matter — but he’s still helpless to fight back against the Freys and the Boltons. As the player you know this even more certainly than he does — it’s already happened for us. Your best hope is that perhaps he can escape and make something for himself, but ultimately Gared is unable to control his destiny. After fleeing the battle that decimates the Starks he finds his home sacked and his father dying at the hands of soldiers from House Whitehill, under the command of the Boltons. Gared manages to drive them off, kills one and has the choice to kill another. Either way the Boltons are furious and use the event as an excuse to start a conflict with House Forrester.
When Gared returns to Ironrath, the Forrester fortress, he is sent away to The Wall to join the Night’s Watch. They say it’s for his own protection, but his path is already set, decisions made without his say. Gared continues to be shuffled around by men more powerful than him. The whole exchange — from the service of Lord Gregor and the potential for promotion (but a promotion not to be discussed), to the secret message to be conveyed to Duncan Tuttle, to the unceremonious exile to The Wall — smacks of powerful schemes beyond the comprehension of the humble (were it not for our narratively-bestowed investment in his destiny) Gared. He is expected to do what he is told, to serve in the plans of others.
Duty is a constant companion in Game of Thrones. With the death of his father and eldest brother, the line of succession of House Forrester falls to Ethan, the still teenaged and not-so-militarily-disposed third child of the family. Whether he wants to or not Ethan is forced to decide the fate of his house, and his own fate is just as inexorably chained to the expectations thrust upon him. Everyone constantly talks about how Ethan isn’t ready or isn’t suited to the task. They say he’s not a warrior, they talk about fighting as if it’s something he can’t do and will never be able to do (“a lord should know how to fight”). They compare him to his father and older brother. As the player, you try to find agency in the choices you make for him. By selecting his actions you start to shape a future distinct from the one he isn’t ready for.
By giving you control over the characters, particularly in the case of Ethan, the game acknowledges the role that small choices can have. There is a sense, at every moment, that the things you say or do can start to build toward something new for Ethan, that he is starting to decide what sort of ruler he will be, and what sort of future his people will have. Pivotal decisions like these can determine someone’s entire life.
Meanwhile, at King’s Landing, a daughter of House Forrester named Mira is serving as handmaiden to Lady Margaery who, as we know, is soon to be wed to King Joffrey (who, as we know, has something not so pleasant in store for him). This too is a storyline of which we already know part of the outcome. But of course the game is focused on Mira — she feels out of place in the city, but sees the opportunity before her to break from her old life. She can engage in the schemes of Lady Margaery and attempt to ride the political currents to better her position, or attempt to stay true to who she is and weather the repeated assaults on her sensibilities. Either way, she must accept the fact that her own choices are only a small part of what will happen to her.
Mira may be resigned to her fate — to be forever enmeshed in the schemes of royalty — but she meets a perplexing character who is anything but what his duty would suggest. Tom, the coal boy who brashly reveals overheard secrets to Mira, at first seems just as futilely rebellious as all the other characters: grabbing at any opportunity to lift himself from the mundane life he is destined to live. But as the episode progresses he begins to be less and less what he appears to be. Something about him is out of place, and Mira is unsettled. He knows too much. Perhaps he is an agent of fate itself.
Fate is often fickle, particularly in Game of Thrones. But like the characters in the story, we as players of the game take some solace in the notion that our decisions have an impact. At the very least because Telltale tells us so in the first loading screen. But more than that, choice is the way we make sense of our lives. Things happen, we think, because we made a choice at some point. Maybe things also happened for other reasons, but at least choice provides the illusion of free will.
When Ramsay kills Ethan it feels at first like one of those moments where you messed up and the game is about to go back to the last checkpoint and get you to try again (like it did about a dozen times in the opening scene at The Twins before I managed to punch some guy or other at the right millisecond), to make some other choice. But no, this is just Game of Thrones. The fact that you control the character and spend so much time trying to determine the correct course of action and make sure everything ends up the way you want it to makes it all the more world-shattering. You think your decisions matter, and you try to do the best you can. But all men must die.
If every character’s destiny is already written, then they must still prove themselves against it. Through the trials of this first episode, and presumably each subsequent one, they all test their mettle and find that they are either worthy or unworthy. The choices they make determine the sort of people they are, and in Game of Thrones that means something even if chance cuts their future short. It means that they struggled against destiny and predetermination, were tempered, not broken by the process, and emerged surer of their place in the world, surer of their purpose. Even if they do not survive, their choices do. And they are better for having made them. Made stronger through action.
My choices:
- Gared stayed with Bowen
- Mira swore loyalty to King Joffrey
- Erik was sent to the Wall
- Ser Royland became Sentinel
- Ramsay was met in the great hall
Tune in next week as we continue our play through!