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We all know that Game of Thrones is in reality a thinly disguised academic drama.
That the competition to control the Seven Kingdoms is really an allegory for status and power within the halls of academe.
That the Army of the Dead is in reality the threat to cut-off public funding, that dragons are tenure, that Cersei Lannister represents the edtech industry, and that the provost is the King of the North.
And of course, the most important characters in Game of Thrones are not queens, kings, princes or knights - but the maesters. The professors of the Seven Kingdoms. These “knights of the mind” are the true constant of the Game of Thrones, and will outlast whomever ends up occupying the Iron Throne.
This is why the biggest shocker of Season 7 Episode 5 came with Samwell Tarly's decision to prematurely leave his studies at the Citadel.
Samwell, as we know, stands in for all graduate students in the Game of Thrones universe. The trials that he endures to be socialized into the discipline to eventually be admitted into the Order of Maesters will be familiar to anyone who has navigated a PhD program.
As Samwell and Gilly drive away from the Citadel on in old classic Volvo station wagon (or was it a horse drawn wagon, hard to tell), the couple have this exchange:
Gilly: “Are you sure you want to do this? You’ always wanted to be a Maeseter."
Samwell: “I’m tired of reading about the achievements of better men.”
In choosing to leave the Citadel, Samwell joins the ranks of all the ABD graduate students who have been forced to respond to the demands of life over the requirements of completing a terminal degree.
We can all relate to the impossible choice of continuing one’s studies and working under a difficult thesis advisor - in this case Archmaester Ebrose - or of moving ahead and getting on with one’s life. (Which of course sometimes involves joining the fight against White Walkers, armed with some purloined scrolls of focus group data.)
Perhaps Samwell’s committee will allow him to finish the work on his degree remotely, and return to the Oldtown for his defense.
Game of Thrones resonates so strongly on our campuses because we recognize the story of the Seven Kingdoms as our story. The drama of who will eventually sit on the Iron Throne has nothing against the viciousness of academic politics.
As Ramsay Bolton once said about the future of higher education, (or perhaps he was talking about some other topic, I don’t remember), "If you think this has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention”.
