Games And Luck

Scott Meslow writing on The Atlantic blog has a theory about Game Of Thrones--it's all about luck, especially bad luck.  I don't deny coincidence and chance play a part in the show, but it's often how the characters react to what the world has thrown them that decides their fate.

Here are some examples from Meslow:

Like any great story, you can trace back the twists of fate in Game of Thrones and imagine how things could have played out differently: if King Robert hadn't died from his hunting wounds, if Khal Drogo's wound hadn't been infected, if someone had stopped Ned's execution in time.

I'm not sure if Meslow has always been paying attention.  Robert's death wasn't just bad luck.  Because the character of Ned Stark was to be honorable, and the character of Cersei was to use whatever means she could to protect her children, when Ned told her that he knew who was the real father of Joffrey, Robert's fate was sealed.  Ned was giving Cersei a chance to leave town, but she saw to it that Robert would get drunk and his being gored by a boar was no coincidence.

The fate of Khal Drogo was also determined by his character and others'.  He fell for a foreign women, which was not exactly the Dothraki way, and he paid for it.  He didn't intend to take his horses across the sea, but once Robert tried to assassinate his wife Daenerys, he went crazy and vowed to capture Westeros.  This caused a lot of trouble for him, including the fight that wounded him.  It also meant he raided a village for material needed to help in his new conquest.  And then when a woman of this village was requested by Daenerys to save Drogo, she actually did what she could to harm him. (Daenerys had her burnt to death--was that bad luck, or the result of decisions she made?)

As for Ned's execution, yes, bad luck played a part.  Any king not as sadistic and stupid as Joffrey would have let him live if for no other reason than his execution would start a war.  But it was Ned's character--his honesty--that got him in trouble to begin with, as noted above.  Maybe he could get away with that decency stuff in Winterfell, but not as a Hand in King's Landing.  Even when Renly and Littlefinger offered him ways out, since he considered their paths dishonorable, he did not take them. As warm a family man as he was, he was just as unyielding in his sense of what's right as Stannis Baratheon.  Ned died due to his character, just as surely as the Hand before him, Jon Arryn did.