Game of Thrones: Season 2, Episode 1

Title: Game of Thrones: Season 2, Episode 1
Tags: Positions, Three-Dimensional Power, False Consciousness, Latent Conflict
Authors: N. Wolosker, K. Alem, Z. Piskacova
Date: March 23, 2015

Summary:
This episode of Game of Thrones, entitled "The North Remembers," begins with the seven kingdoms at war, mostly as a result of the decapitation of Ned Stark, lord of Winterfell, by King Joffrey. Ned Stark's daughters Arya and Sansa became pawns in the war after his death, resulting in Arya's fleeing and disappearing from King's Landing. Upon realizing the gravity that follows her disappearance, Cersei, the queen mother, asks Lord Petyr Baelish to locate Arya. Baelish, a self-made man with all the right connections and great amount of influence and power, agrees, but their exchange reflects the tensions of the times, and Cersei insults him. As retribution, Lord Baelish, who manages to know all secrets, suggests to Cersei that he knows of her affair with her brother and the possibility of Joffrey's parentage not being that which everyone believes. As a result, Cersei makes an overt display of power that cements both their positions in the power hierarchy.

Analysis:

Mills’ concept of “positions” is prominent in this excerpt. According to Mills, a powerful position refers to the possession of wealth, prestige, and connections, which make one powerful regardless of one’s competence (Mills, 2000, p. 369). Here, despite Baelish’s awareness of Cersei’s compromising incestuous relationship and his claim that “knowledge is power”, Cersei demonstrates that her position as queen makes her more powerful because she is able to mobilize the guards to obey her every whims, reflected in her control of Baelish’s life. As Mills asserts, “Power is not of a man… to have power requires access to major institutions…” (2000, p.11). With her position, Cersei monopolizes wealth, prestige, and power, closing elite rank to ambitious people like Baelish (Mills, 2000, p. 12). The Lannister family’s position is powerful as the incest repeatedly fails to become common knowledge. However, this excerpt fails to acknowledge the potential of the self-made man. Although Baelish is portrayed as inferior to Cersei due to their different “titles”, Baelish’s knowledge do grant him great power eventually. The elite circle is not really closed because as positions can stay fixed, the people occupying those positions can change since position on its own is not enough to secure power. Cersei has an upper hand now because of her position and her strong and smart character while Baelish currently possesses only qualities without position. Established upper-class position vs. newcomers often meet in tension as the newcomer (Baelish) seeks the prestige of the former while the established upper-class (Cersei) views the newcomer as “lacking the cultured life befitting the [upper] ranks” (Mills, 2000, p. 34.).

Another concept that this particular scene demonstrates is the consequence of a poor performance of what Steven Lukes calls three-dimensional power, which “allows for consideration of the many ways in which potential issues are kept out of politics,” (Lukes, 2005, p. 28). Baelish’s remark of Cersei’s improper relationship questions the legitimacy of her power as a queen mother and indicates the Lannister’s partial failure in creating a false consciousness. If the Lannister’s policy was successful, no one would have been aware of the latent conflict at hand. As Lukes explains, latent conflict “consists in a contradiction between the interests of those exercising power and the real interests of those they exclude.” (2005, p. 28). While Cersei’s main interest is to stay in the power, the non-decision makers’ interest lies in having a legitimate ruler. Yet unlike Baelish, the majority of the population is affected by the Lannister’s indoctrination and therefore are not aware of their real interest. Consequently, the Westeros peasants do not question the ruler’s legitimacy. In order to keep this partial sense of ignorance, Cersei resorts to a demonstration of behavioural power to suppress any potential for vocalization. In doing so, she secures the compliance of the people through shaping their beliefs.

Tyrant, Season 1, Episode 4 (14:04-16:17)

Tags: capacity, culture, decision making, positions, power elite 
Author: Jasmine Brown 
Date: April 26th, 2015

Watch Here

          In this excerpt from the show Tyrant, the viewer is presented first and foremost with a quite literal demonstration of what C. Wright Mills identifies as the three central domains of power in society: the military, corporate and political elite. In this scene, the President of Abbudin (a fictional Middle Eastern country), Jamal Al-Fayeed, is consulting his counsel of advisors, among who are his uncle and leader of the military, Tariq, and his brother Bassam, a doctor recently returned from the United States. Thus there is a member of the political elite (the president), the military elite (head of the military), and the corporate elite (a doctor) all participating in the same conversation through which one can observe how their interaction leads to decision-making.
          Due to his position as the president, Jamal possesses the most power in terms of the final say in decision-making and the ability to exercise his decisions; however his decisions are not made in isolation. Jamal most highly values the advice and opinion of his brother Bassam and therefor his decisions are for the most part Bassam’s decisions. So although Jamal may have the greatest capacity for power (as Lukes says), Bassam’s position as the brother wields the most influence. If we recall the definition of power as the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others, it becomes slightly more difficult to trace the seat of power even from a very observable and one-dimensional perspective. Perhaps Bassam is the most powerful elite member in the room; however this can only be observed through a two- or three-dimensional analysis.
          Furthermore, the theories of Mills and Lukes have been largely influenced by the social structure of the United States as this was their primary area of study. It is interesting then to apply their thought to Tyrant, which is set in a very different cultural context. Here we witness family itself as an elite position within Middle Eastern cultures. Nepotism is an intrinsic aspect of this culture, with members of the same elite family commonly belonging to each of the three power elite domains. This also reflects Mills' idea that, for the elite, it is relatively easy to move between elite circles. In the United States, the military leader with his years of experience would likely have a stronger influence over the president’s decision than would the president’s brother. In the excerpt, however, we observed that this was not the case. Although the military leader is also a family member, the position of brother is more highly valued. In this example we can see that these theories cannot necessarily be applied universally; certain positions in one cultural context may possess more power than they would in another.