Game of Thrones: The Seven Deadly Sins and the End of the Show
After rewatching most of the show and many analysis videos I’ve come up with a two-pronged theory, one about how the families of Game of Thrones represent The Seven Deadly Sins and also about the White Walkers and how the show is going to end, but I’ll get to that later.
Part of what makes GoT so entertaining is that there really are no good guys or bad guys in this show. Everybody is oftentimes a flawed selfish asshole in their own way. There are some biblical undertones to the story as well, which isn’t surprising. George R.R. Martin has said he draws a lot of inspiration from Tolkien in fantasy and writing, and Tolkien’s work in LOTR/The Hobbit had many biblical themes and undertones, & A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones is no different. My theory on the TV show stems from this, I believe that each of the major houses in the show represents one of the Seven Deadly Sins, and on a greater scale shows just how corrupt people in this world have become, which plays into the end of the show.
Greed: House Tyrell. The Tyrells are a compelling family, especially because they seem to be the only matriarchal family in Westeros, and the alpha women of this family play the Game of Thrones with great cunning. However, their greatest flaw throughout the show is greed for power, and ultimately it led to their downfall. They showed a complete lack of loyalty to anybody in The War of Five Kings, siding first with Renly Baratheon, later switching sides to secure a partnership with the Lannisters in a military alliance, then through Margaery marrying Joffrey/Tommen before finally siding with Daenerys, partly for revenge but largely because they knew nothing would be gained by staying allied with the Lannisters. They switch sides consistently and manipulate people with ease, and they don’t do it for an ideology, they do it purely for the sake of what they think will put them on the highest spot on the totem pole. Even their banner is embroidered with the color associated with Greed, an all green Sigil surrounding the rose.
Rage: House Baratheon. The Baratheon house motto is the first indication, “Ours is the Fury” that rage is what they represent. Robert Baratheon has the hottest temper of any character in the show, verbally lashing out at those around him or slapping Cersei when she pisses him off. His bastard son Gendry is shown to be hot-headed at times as well. Even their house animal: The Stag, though a majestic animal is known for having a fiery temper when threatened. The background color for the house sigil as well is an orangish/yellow hue, and orange is a color often associated with the deadly sin of rage. Symbolically as well this house encompasses rage in the sense that of all the deadly sins, rage in many ways most encompasses masculinity. Uncoincidentally this house lacks any female members besides the sickly child of Stannis.
Envy: House Targaryen. Envy by definition is “a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else's possessions, qualities, or luck.” Obviously, the longing that’s aroused through the Targaryens is the Iron Throne, which is owned by the Baratheons/Lannisters who overthrew their father. The envy for the crown displayed by the family is shown first through Viserys, who seems to have dedicated his entire existence to trying to retake the throne even though Westeros is glad to see his families rule come to an end after his father. After Viserys is killed, the envy for the throne continues through Daenerys and the great lengths we see her go through to go retake a throne she doesn’t have a claim to anymore. I can guarantee the envy she has for the throne will carry over into the final season and create some fatal conflict when it’s revealed Jon Snow is really a Targaryen, and the rightful heir to the throne over her if the Targaryens take it. For a symbolic connection, I looked at some historical depictions of the seven deadly sins being represented by animals, and one that commonly came up depicting envy is the snake. The only lizard depicting a deadly sin, and the only lizard on the sigil of any house in Westeros.
Gluttony: The Martells. This one may be the biggest stretch for people to believe but I wholeheartedly believe they’re an embodiment of gluttony from what we’ve seen in the show. Their plotline after Oberyn's arc is often criticized as the worst in the show but their demeanor in many ways encompasses gluttony to me. Gluttony is all about overindulgence of some base instinct like eating, fighting or sex. The first scene we’re shown of the Martell family, it’s Oberyn and Ellaria taking their pick from several prostitutes in Littlefinger’s whorehouse, drinking and getting down with some freaky group sex stuff before Oberyn goes and starts a fight with some Lannister soldiers. overindulgence of sex is commonplace with the Martells, they sleep around with anybody who catches their eye, they overindulge in violence whether it be Oberyn talking about taking part in the fighting pits for fun, the Sand Snake girls indulging in violence for revenge, and of course they love to overindulge in terrible one-liners as well.
Sloth: House Frey. Walder Frey without question is one of the most unlikable S.O.B.s in the series, but the arc of this house shows the underlying deadly sin this house encompasses, through their sheer incompetence and laziness, the premier signs of sloth. From the getgo they’re shown as an all-around uninspired and uninteresting house, relying on their lucky location at the twins for their power. The house as a whole is lazy and it shows in their conduct when doing anything at all on screen. Jaime verbally berates their lazy military conduct in season six episode seven. The obvious laziness of this house is part of the reason why it’s so easy to hate them (besides Walder being an old creepy pervert). Going back to the symbolism aspect, blue is considered the color of the Deadly Sin Sloth and at the base of the Frey Sigil blue water is shown, same as how at the base of their depiction in the show it is their lazy demeanor that makes them so despised, and represent sloth in such a manner.
Pride: House Stark. It’s hard to throw any hate at the Stark family. They are after all the most beloved family in the show and the protagonist family, but if there was any deadly sin they would encompass it’s pride more than anything, primarily through two traits. The first is their incredible stubbornness. It’s widely known they’re a stubborn family, “our way is the old way” Ned’s stubbornness kept him in a dungeon for weeks, Jon’s refuses to bend the knee to Daenerys at first and is called out for his pigheaded nature several times by other characters, their stubbornness is a pinnacle part of their conduct. Along with stubbornness, another trait commonly associated with Pride is disobedience, a trait seen through the Stark children. Whether it’s Robb’s disobedience to promises he made to Walder Frey, Arya’s disobedience after pledging herself to the faceless men, it’s these two staples for me that convince me they’re representative of pride. To add icing on the cake their house sigil is mostly grey, a color commonly associated with pride (but the internet is particularly split between that and purple as the color of pride).
Lust: House Lannister. At first glance this one may seem obvious through Tyrion and his man-whore tendencies, known for his many brothel visits early in the series. Their banner is embroidered in red as well, one of the colors commonly associated with lust (or blue depending on the part of the internet you ask). Looking at the personality traits of the members of the Lannister family, they encapsulate lust in many ways, with their incredibly selfish and inconsiderate behavior towards anybody outside of the family, two traits strongly associated with lust the deadly sin. Of course what lust is most associated with is extreme sexual desire, and this is demonstrated through the twincest relationship between Cersei and Jaime. We know incest is a fairly common thing in the Game of Thrones universe, but same as real life, it comes with bad side effects in the children the more closely related you are. Madness especially is a common side effect in children of incest in the show (The mad king had incest genes) and oh boy is Joffrey one rotten little shit, likely as a result of his parents being near genetic clones of each other. Both Jaime and Cersei know what they’re doing and the dangers that come with it but they encompass lust, and as such their lust controls their arc and almost every bad thing that’s happened to them in the show.
The seven deadly sins are covered but where does this all play into the end of the show? Well, this is where The White Walkers come in. The most powerful families in the world all encompass the deadliest sins imaginable according to many forms of classic literature. Analyzing more Biblical symbolism I think the White Walkers could best be described as the flood in the story of Noah’s ark. If you’re not familiar with it, the story in the Bible book of Genesis goes that God saw that human beings were far too corrupt and beyond saving, so he sent a flood to wipe out everything on earth (except of course for Noah, his family and the animals they brought with them on their big ass boat). Perhaps the White Walkers are building up their army now because they have a mission from higher powers to wipe out mankind.
This is where fellow fans go sour on me and say I’m too cynical, but I believe that the White Walkers aren’t the overarching bad guys, they’re a force sent by the old gods in Westeros who see that people have become too corrupt and they need to start anew. Even GoT Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss describe The Night King, saying that he’s not really a force for good or evil, “He’s just a force of destruction” much like the biblical flood. This show is known more than any other for subverting expectations and what a subversion it would be if the beings we believed to be the bad guys through the show up to this point were actually sent on a mission by the old gods who don’t like what men have become?
TL;DR: The families represent the seven deadly sins in Westeros and the White Walkers represent a destructive force from the gods like the flood in Noah’s Ark because people in this world have become too corrupt.
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