An Examination of Revenge and Vengeance in A Song of Ice and Fire

[The Frosted King]

Revenge works best when those who wronged you get their comeuppance. If they don't, it's a knife in the belly to see them thrive.

If Robb bent the knee to the Lannisters, only for the letters from Stannis to reach the north...

What then?

Father dead, sister an abused hostage and half of the priceless family heirloom on the waist of the bastard false king who sits the throne, and the other half on the waist of his sister-screwing father, who threw your little brother from a tower to conceal his crimes.

That right there is hard/impossible to swallow, especially since your family deserved none of what happened.

Revenge is the only satisfactory answer.

[KOM]

Great OP.

1) One example that hasn't been mentioned yet is Manderly / Frey Pie / The North Remembers. So far that seems to be an example that turned out pretty well for the avenging party. He seemed pretty happy at that meal. Also, possibility for retribution is lowered bc the accused weren't aware what they were being punished for or even that they were being punished (compare to Oberyn / Gregor).

2) Analysis of Tyrion's post-revenge unhappiness needs to account for the fact that post-revenge he was coming to grips with how he would never be a full member of his family or a fully-embraced member of society. The miscarriage of justice at his trial was at a societal level. So his problems in ADWD weren't just about his revenge, but still very much about the events that led up to it.

--

Peace in Westeros is kept 1) by marriage uniting families, 2) by hostages (wards).

The hostage system is built on the idea that the punishment will fall upon an 'innocent' party; retribution for the sins of the father will be visited upon the son. (Not trying to bring it to the morality aspect of it, just that the consequences are necessarily visited upon those guilty by association and that this is built into the bedrock of their social system.) And even this has problems for the wards who grow up under this arrangement, e.g. Theon.

[Lummel]

Or, alternatively, you just need to make sure you wipe everyone out Reynes of Castamere style, so there is no one left to take their own vengeance.

Don't know. In the context of the game of Thrones that means changing things to a zero-sum game. You either win or you die. You either get to be House Lannister or the Reynes or the Targaryens. Certainly Tywin had his revenge but it pushes everybody into escalation. And it is not easy to ensure that nobody is left to take vengeance as Kevan learnt.

[Lykos]

KOM, regarding Manderly´s happiness I have to say we´ll have to wait how that plays out, since he´s still in the process of executing his retribution. He also sent some sublime messages to the public, though you´re right that was just for his and our sense of justice, but it´s only short time enjoyment, for him because his conciousness or the gods will punish him, for us readers because we turn to real life eventually. Manderly is also a party in a war that isabout more than revenge, it is about power. (My crackpot is, that Bolton´s Ramsay scheme is about assuming a power that can only be entrusted to the most reliable men like Ser Galladon or the Starks or Dunkan the Tall (have you read "the Sworn Sword").)

<snip> The results lean toward validating the second theory that revenge can succeed only when an offender understands why the act of vengeance has occurred, because the group with a message of understanding were more satisfied and at peace than those who only delivered an indignant message. In fact, the only time punishers felt more satisfaction than participants who took no revenge was when they delivered the message with the explanation, that is: unacknowledged revenge felt no better than none at all. Successful revenge is therefore about more than retaliation, it is about delivering a message to the offender so he recognises his wrongdoing. If the message is not delivered, it cannot reestablish justice in the eyes of the punisher.

You´re arguement about Tyrion being unhappy for other reasons than his "revenge" is of course partly true. Tyrion is also after more revenge against his sister, but having killed his father is causing him a lot of trouble. Please go to the reread to find out more.

Yes, people in Westeros try to keep peace the way you showed in your example, and it´s true that the idea of fear of retribution hurting your own kin is the basis of both. This is a ) - not working so well, is it? ^_^ and b ) - if a party refrains from retributing the otherparty is left with a "moral debt" that can help to further understanding - for example when a ward that lived with you for most of his life is send back to his family the next generation might see you in a better light - of course when we look at Theon this works only partly. Only when he is stripped from his pride and ambition, he realises how much of a Stark he has become.

[Lyanna Stark]

KOM, regarding Manderly´s happiness I have to say we´ll have to wait how that plays out, since he´s still in the process of executing his retribution. He also sent some sublime messages to the public, though you´re right that was just for his and our sense of justice, but it´s only short time enjoyment, for him because his conciousness or the gods will punish him, for us readers because we turn to real life eventually. Manderly is also a party in a war that isabout more than revenge, it is about power. (My crackpot is, that Bolton´s Ramsay scheme is about assuming a power that can only be entrusted to the most reliable men like Ser Galladon or the Starks or Dunkan the Tall (have you read "the Sworn Sword").)

Manderly is interesting in other ways as well, since his revenge is not of the Rains of Castamere type, where the long arm of Tywin crushes things. Instead, Manderly played everything carefully, waited for his family to be safe as they could be, and then he used *himself*. He's not using the Long arm of Lord Manderly, he's right there, in the thick of it, eating the Frey pies, mocking the Freys, putting himself in danger.

In that regard, I think he's more like the people who sacrifice to the Faceless Men for a death. Manderly is willing to sacrifice himself, should he need to. "Only death can pay for life" and Lord Manderly does not seem to think that is a too high price to pay. In light of this, his flavour of "revenge" is different. He's not after complete destruction, and he's willing to pay the ultimate price himself, should he need to. This is very unlike Tywin's methods, where he was always safe somewhere else, and his "monsters" got to do the dirty work.

[Mladen]

Vengeance is mine and I will repay

Wow, I have somehow missed this thread. Milady, as always, I bow to your excellency in analyzing. OPs, DR Pepper, Lummel, Ragnorak, brash, Kitty, I have read so many beautifully written pieces about vengeance. So, please allow me to add my humble opinion.

Vengeance, like love, is all consuming. We rarely have a chance of feeling something so powerful. Vengeance isn`t just destructive force, and I can`t agree that it means that vengeance is neccesseraly bad. After we are wronged, after we suffer excruciating emotional and phyical pain, after we are totally broken, vengeance is one thing that puts us together. It works like glue to a broken porcelan vase. But, unfortunately, just like vase, we are never same.

Hamlet, Otthelo, Achilles, all of them had brought vengeance to an existential level. Like Hamlet says `to be, or not to be`, vengeance has tendency to quickly become our raison d`etre. We start being obsessed with the notion of revenging to all those who wronged us. And in ASOAIf, we have more than many examples of people who turned their desire for revenge into an obsession. Arya, UnCat, Martells and Wyman Manderly are best examples. Whose heart hasn`t trembled when Wyman said `North remembers`, or who of us didn`t understand Oberyn`s play with the Mountain. Who can blame UnCat for all that she`s doing? In some way, their pain, their love and obsession has become our own, for vengeance is so transferable and relatable feeling. For we do understand them.

Many see vengeance in killing. Oberyn, Arya and UnCat certainly had that POV. But, I am more interested in those who wants to unleash their wrath on some other level. Look at Doran. Quiet, steady, and yet he is boiling inside. He has not forgoten or forgiven for a second. Slowly he moved the chess figures so he could take Lannisters what they hold the dearest. Oberyn`s barbaric approach was in taking mere life, but Doran is type of guy who won`t satisfy with mere killings. Oh no, he has something bigger in plans.

The pinnacle of vengeance certainly is the moment when you have won your opponent and you look him in the eyes knowing why you did it. But, the moment afterwards is a bit problematic. We are all different, and I believe that, for some, vengeance can bring peace, but for the most of us, the pain, the very real pain begins from the moment our revenge is completed. Our purpose, that overwhelming emotion is gone, and we are nothing but a shell. An empty shell. Vengeance doesn`t take you, the fulfillment of vengeance takes you. And the saddest part is when we finally got our revenge, is the moment when we start mourning our lost.

I hope this has its place among such keen essays... It`s not much, but for today, it`s all I can think of...Since this is very interesting subject, we`ll be seeing...

[Lykos]

Lyanna, good point about Manderly. I agree he´s willing to "dig the second grave for himself" as the chinese proverb in the OP mentioned.

Mladen, very good point about Doran.

[KOM]

Lykos So many agrees to your post. And thanks for the links (Dany Flint & Galladon in particular).

Manderly -

Need to wait and see how it plays out: yup. And the war/power plot is revenge on a different scale than the pies. Maybe Manderly would consider it just the first course of a multi-course meal. // and yeah, the point about "message delivery" .. either Wyman takes a different approach... or maybe he'd wait until after the war, securing of the North, to fully explain to Boltons/Freys what his revenge the full details of his revenge.

Tyrion -

He got revenge on Tywin. He seeks revenge on Cersei. And his spite/contempt led him to burn bridges with Jaime.

Prior to the end of ASOS tho, he didn't really seek revenge on his family. He wanted to be loved/accepted by them. He thought eventually his awesome job as Hand would gain respect from his father. He was wary of Cersei but had some affection for both C + J even though they were incestuous and jeopardizing kingdoms. His relationship with Jaime was fairly healthy. So his "revenge arc" is much shorter, really only starting after Purple Wedding, and accelerated after the Jaime/Tywin admissions w.r.t. Tysha. This is much different than the comparison case with the Hound, where he basically wanted revenge ever since he was 7 (approx) or later (15ish?) when his father died. That's a lifelong grudge. But I guess IMO it's not so much that he killed his father that's troubling him as the realization that he never could have had a decent father/son relationship with Tywin. (Imo Tyrion also hams up the revenge seeking monster angle when it can suit him in ADWD... he has that capacity, but he also shows streaks of decentness.)

(Maybe Cersei thing started earlier... but maybe it was just a vague threat? .. I'm forgetting details of Tyrion/Cersei fallout now...)

I guess my point is that Tyrion is a compliated and problematic case for investigating the revenge angle.

Theon -

I guess I would say that even if Theon isn't killed as a hostage, he pays a price. He gets stuck in a middle land similar to immigrants. He's no longer considered a Greyjoy by Greyjoys, and the Starks wouldn't quite consider him a full Stark either (see, e.g. Jon). And Theon knows that, in the end, Ned would have killed him if Theon's father acted up. Those don't make happy childhood memories.

Hostage system actually seems to work fairly well at minimizing state-level wars :) 300 some years of mostly peace sounds good.

[SeanF]

Don't know. In the context of the game of Thrones that means changing things to a zero-sum game. You either win or you die. You either get to be House Lannister or the Reynes or the Targaryens. Certainly Tywin had his revenge but it pushes everybody into escalation. And it is not easy to ensure that nobody is left to take vengeance as Kevan learnt.

Yes. One reason why civil conflict towards the end of the Roman Republic became so murderous was because surrender ceased to be an option.

[Ragnorak]

Manderly is interesting in other ways as well, since his revenge is not of the Rains of Castamere type, where the long arm of Tywin crushes things. Instead, Manderly played everything carefully, waited for his family to be safe as they could be, and then he used *himself*. He's not using the Long arm of Lord Manderly, he's right there, in the thick of it, eating the Frey pies, mocking the Freys, putting himself in danger.

In that regard, I think he's more like the people who sacrifice to the Faceless Men for a death. Manderly is willing to sacrifice himself, should he need to. "Only death can pay for life" and Lord Manderly does not seem to think that is a too high price to pay. In light of this, his flavour of "revenge" is different. He's not after complete destruction, and he's willing to pay the ultimate price himself, should he need to. This is very unlike Tywin's methods, where he was always safe somewhere else, and his "monsters" got to do the dirty work.

Excellent points. Manderly particularly stands out in contrast to Doran in terms of their sons. Doran risked his son in his gamble for revenge while Manderly frees his son and risks himself to keep his son safe. One is risking the the future of his family and the other is attempting to preserve it. Unlike Doran, Manderly actually has the chance to make a difference. His granddaughter was to be married to one of those Frey Pies so he's saving her from that fate. The Stark children aren't truly dead so he isn't just avenging them like Elia. "Arya" is actively suffering part of Elia's fate on a daily basis and Manderly can stop that. While a huge part of his motivation is revenge for the dead his fight is focused on the fates of the living. For Manderly it is largely about what can still be preserved rather than being only about what was lost.

Taking a second look at Cat's gamble with Jaime it was really about changing the game back to the old rules. It doesn't have to be "you win or you die." Balon's fate under Robert for crowning himself proves that. I don't think it is entirely a coincidence that Cat's actions are tied to Karstark's. He was unwilling to mourn his dead sons and embrace the son and daughter he had left-- unwilling to accept that his refusal to insist on one of his sons remaining home is partly his own fault. Rickard's thirst for revenge for his two dead sons almost killed his other two living children. Jon Snow's fairly non-vengeful acts that save Alys make an interesting contrast to consider.

[Artemis]

This is an interesting theme, Dr. Pepper, Winter’s Knight and ab aeterno. Milady would like to contribute some thoughts on the neuropsychology of revenge and vengeance she hopes might add some food for thought so the debate continues:

From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, vengeance is learnt and has always depended on societal factors for support and validity, from before the time of the famous biblical principle a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth to this day; revenge, on the other hand is biologically ingrained in the mind. It’s not learnt, it’s an instinct we are born with, and we all possess it in varying degrees of intensity depending on personality and education.

<snip>

That was a wonderful read. Thank you, Milady of York! This is also a really interesting topic to discuss.

I'm fascinated by Dorne's role in ASOIAF, especially due to the late entry of their POVs (from AFfC onwards). Outside of Doran, who is an immensely compelling character, we have the Sand Snakes. As much as I love these girls, there's no doubt as to warmongering efforts. When I first read the series, I noticed the hypocrisy between these two following passages and it had just made me chuckle. Upon further re-reads, it now makes me a bit uneasy. Below is Tyene Sand speaking to Doran in AFfC followed by another Dornish POV in ADwD which marks the Sand Snake's reactions whereupon Doran Martell reveals to them Cersei's original intentions of calling Trystane to court.

“Obara would make Oldtown our father’s funeral pyre, but I am not so greedy. Four lives will suffice for me. Lord Tywin’s golden twins, as payment for Elia’s children. The old lion, for Elia herself. And last of all the little king, for my father.”

“The boy has never wronged us.”

“The boy is a bastard born of treason, incest, and adultery, if Lord Stannis can be believed… Only royal blood can wash out my father’s murder.” [AFfC, AREO I]

Areo Hotah would not have believed it possible to shock the Sand Snakes. He would have been wrong.

“Seven save us,” whispered Tyene. “Trystane? Why?”

“The woman must be mad,” Obara said. “He’s just a boy.”

“This is monstrous,” said Lady Nym. [ADWD AREO I]

Shows how blind revenge can be, that's for sure.

[Mithras]

Very good posts. I love googling out such threads when I have something to post.

Bran vs. Arya

“Where are the rest of you?” Bran asked Leaf, once.

“Gone down into the earth,” she answered. “Into the stones, into the trees. Before the First Men came all this land that you call Westeros was home to us, yet even in those days we were few. The gods gave us long lives but not great numbers, lest we overrun the world as deer will overrun a wood where there are no wolves to hunt them. That was in the dawn of days, when our sun was rising. Now it sinks, and this is our long dwindling. The giants are almost gone as well, they who were our bane and our brothers. The great lions of the western hills have been slain, the unicorns are all but gone, the mammoths down to a few hundred. The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well. In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us.”

She seemed sad when she said it, and that made Bran sad as well. It was only later that he thought, Men would not be sad. Men would be wroth. Men would hate and swear a bloody vengeance. The singers sing sad songs, where men would fight and kill.

Geoge taught Bran that vengeance was wrong at a very early age, before he acquired immense power. I think that is very important and we see that Bran embraced “CotF way” when he forgave Theon.

The night was windless, the snow drifting straight down out of a cold black sky, yet the leaves of the heart tree were rustling his name. “Theon,” they seemed to whisper, “Theon.”

The old gods, he thought. They know me. They know my name. I was Theon of House Greyjoy. I was a ward of Eddard Stark, a friend and brother to his children. “Please.” He fell to his knees. “A sword, that’s all I ask. Let me die as Theon, not as Reek.” Tears trickled down his cheeks, impossibly warm. “I was ironborn. A son… a son of Pyke, of the islands.”

A leaf drifted down from above, brushed his brow, and landed in the pool. It floated on the water, red, five-fingered, like a bloody hand. “… Bran,” the tree murmured.

They know. The gods know. They saw what I did. And for one strange moment it seemed as if it were Bran’s face carved into the pale trunk of the weirwood, staring down at him with eyes red and wise and sad.

We also see that Bran-tree is chasing Nymeria in Arya's wolf dreams. No doubt, he is trying to “bring her back” (both literally and figuratively).

Dany

Lol, this is a thread about the self-destructing aspect of revenge and did you think that as a famous “Dany-hater” I will let her pass?

It is important to remember that when Dany’s reign practically started, one of the first things she did was to swear bloody vengeance to Jhaqo and Mago for what they did to Eroeh. Another thing she did was to burn MMD alive. Apparently, her so-praised empathy was not enough for MMD. She was quite right when she said that life was empty when everything else was destroyed. However, MMD's revenge ironically backfired on her by eventually fulfilling the very thing she tried to stop (The Stallion coming to life).

When the “Beggar Queen” phase in ACoK was over, Dany acquired immense power (an army) and true to her ideology at the beginning of her reign, she made a bloody massacre at Astapor. In Meereen, we saw that happening again.

“You have no lack of enemies, Your Grace. You can see their pyramids from your terrace. Zhak, Hazkar, Ghazeen, Merreq, Loraq, all the old slaving families. Pahl. Pahl, most of all. A house of women now. Bitter old women with a taste for blood. Women do not forget. Women do not forgive.”

No, Dany thought, and the Usurper’s dogs will learn that, when I return to Westeros.

Dany never showed any hesitation when applying horrific punishments to those who hurt the people she empathized. After she decided to stay in Meereen, we saw that how much she struggled at forgiving/forgetting. At the end of ADwD, she practically returned back to square one. Woe to Essos. Woe to Westeros.

[jon stark I]

I think somethings are overrated such as how bad revenge can get or how vengeance is a double-edged sword that cuts both sides.I think these terms are founded because of the failed attempts on revenge or vengeance.Revenge is a pure feeling that fuels someone with purpose and gives someone a clear vision of what he/she wants.Once you managed to gain focus to your objectve and control your feelings, then you can't be beaten.The reason people tell "He who seeks vengeance must dig two graves: one for his enemy and one for himself" is because those who seek it are usually want revenge because they are hurt really bad and if not trained really good they will lose themselves and make mistakes in the end.The perfect revenge is the one you plan step by step, like in Monte Cristo sometimes it takes years to find your opening move but all good things are worth the wait.If you rush without a plan and rely on brute strength you might end up like Wolverine(he accidently killed his own children in Red right hand saga).The actual meaining of revenge is control.You have to control your feelings all the time one slip and it might be it for you.

There is also a downside of revenge, if you get the revenge you want you can't leave any witness or anyone to get back at you for your rightful claim and doing that may make you the bad guy in the end.But in the end what matters really is how you feel after you get you revenge and how it benefits you and those they hurt.There is no taboo for you once you start planing your revenge, nothing is too brutal or too dishonest or too cowardly.Revenge is an extiction game and everything is fair as long as you have the stomach to live with it.

In Ice and Fire we usually see loss of control a lot.Freys loses it and without thinking ahead they go ahead with RW, in short term they gain a lot of things but in long term every northern house, every river lord holds a grudge against them same goes for the smallfolk or holly folk too.Tywin is an expert in taking revenge he takes on one opponent at a time and finishes it completely like he did to Reynes.Manderly too seems like an expert, he plans three steps ahead of Freys and finds a loop to not make gods angry and finishes of with complete grace, of course he makes other freys suspicious but for all they know manderly treated Freys like kings in his home.And Doran and LF these guys are the real Monte Kristo(in planing department) of this story, they waited nearly two decade to get what they wanted.