The psychology of Game Of Thrones

A humble essay on why we’re mad about a maddening series.

Game Of Thrones makes no sense

Disclaimer: I am a massive Game Of Thrones fan. I also happen to love psychology. Mix those two up and you get a contradiction: psychologically speaking, Game Of Thrones doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense, especially from an outsider view. So why do we love it so much?

From the non-fan perspective, loving a series that’s so “wrong” on so many levels might sound odd. Why do we obsess over something that gives us nothing but shock and pain? Yes, some of my favourite characters have already died brutally. For non-fans or people who have never watched it, Game Of Thrones makes no sense. So is it the twisted equivalent of a soap opera where we live other people’s dramas to avoid dealing with our own?

I think the answer goes a bit deeper than just “you’re crazy” or “get a life”.

Game Of Thrones makes no sense (the “rational” remix)

From a rational point of view, Game Of Thrones doesn’t make a lot of sense. Complicated plot, endless characters, more loose ends than the eyes can see and the mind interpret signal lack of focus and depth and overall confusion. Who wants to feel confused when watching a series, right?

Plus, as everyone who’s ever used Facebook, Twitter or pretty much any social network on a Monday knows, people die there. A lot. Including our favourite characters. The more the merrier. In lots of brutal ways.

Indeed, it’s a pretty shitty series to watch if you look at it from the outside, with a more objective and rational point of view. The thing is, humans aren’t inherently rational nor objective. To be more precise, we’re not rational beings who happen to be emotional. It’s the other way around.

That tells us something important about ourselves.

The psychology behind all this madness

I’m in no way an expert in psychology but rather an amateur explorer of its fine lines. But I thought I’d put together a few heads at reddit to think about some of the underlying psychological principles behind why Game Of Thrones tackles so many people’s hearts and minds in such a brutal way.

Here’s what we found.

Introducing dopamine

Ever heard of it? It’s a hormone that plays a huge role in how we seek pleasure. Here’s what one of the guys at /r/gameofthrones had to say about it when it comes to Game Of Thrones:

Every bit of novelty or shock releases dopamine, preparing you for reward. Or at least that’s one theory. GoT is (…) full of novelty and escalating shock after shock.

Dopamine is what makes lots of people like shocking news, even though everyone “knows” they’re trash. Or why we constantly put massively over-produced-with-no-plot apocalypse movies in the box office lead. It’s even one of the top reasons for our phone addiction these days.

We don’t mind being shocked because shock removes us from auto-pilot, and we’re biologically wired to pay attention to that and get a rewarding dopamine kick once we do (a need which only tends to escalate over time, as so often happens with no less than a drug addict).

Pattern recognition is one of the features of what it means to be human; pattern breaking one of its most powerful triggers to spark our emotions.

10 new characters which you didn’t know were going to be important? Dopamine kick right there. One of them is really cool and you want him to beat the other guy up? Bam, another one. Wait, but now he’s actually going to die at the hands of the bad guy even though you thought he was going to be super important? Bam. Bam. Bam. Dopamine galore, now gimme more!

I guess it’s weird to realize how not-in-control we often are when it comes to what our brains seek. But biology is more powerful than George R. R. Martin when it comes to deciding our fates.

Speaking of which: ok, so dopamine is our biological puppet master when it comes to making us feel rewarded. But a lot of Game Of Thrones fans don’t even know what dopamine is, let alone what it does. So how come we still end up liking George R. R. Martin so much if he’s the main responsible for all the pain we feel while watching the latest and greatest of Westeros?

Maybe we all just have stockholm syndrome

This one you’ve probably heard of before: the odd feelings of empathy and sympathy someone gets towards a captor. Make no mistake: by making so many people so ghoulishly addicted to Game Of Thrones, George R. R. Martin turned us all into captives.

And while so many people (including Game Of Thrones fans) don’t hesitate to insult the guy when he once again decides the most unjust fate would suit the story best, everyone frets that he’ll never actually be able to finish writing the series. Show me a fan who hates George R. R. Martin’s wicked vision for Game Of Thrones, I’ll show you someone who just wants the guy to live long enough and finish the goddamn story.

In classic stockholm syndrome, the captive often perceives acts of abuse to be acts of kindness. So what from the outside might look as the request of a masochist (“yes, keep killing my favourite characters”), from the inside is actually a seek for closure (“would you be so kind to let me know how the story ends?”). A self-serving kind of empathy, but empathy nonetheless.

Which leads to a disturbing question.

Are we all actually mad?

The definition of madness is doing the same thing and expecting different results. I guess it applies to what’s happening here: we keep watching Game Of Thrones hoping that new heroes will come after brutally murdered ones to finally bring justice into the world. And that those heroes won’t die, because happy endings you know?

And we never get it, because there is a clear pattern here. Now, last week the internet went mad over an imaginary open letter justifying George R. R. Martin’s [spoiler alert] criteria to killing important characters, but still it doesn’t hide the fact that important characters, for once, actually can die when you least expect. Ultimately, it’s not about them. It’s about how life is: shit happens to good people too.

So are we mad by enjoying a series that so brutally teaches us that fact?

No, not really.

We’re not mad, we’re just human

We believe rationality to be what guides us by default — but science tells a different story. Of course, we’re incredibly rational within certain circumstances, such as when we have an outside view. We get a broader perspective and we see things more objectively.

Once we’re in, however, things change. We might still have a share of rationality but it’s our more subconscious brain that really sets the tone for perception. Daniel Kahneman calls this System 1 (instinct), when we believe we’re mainly governed by System 2 (logic). Dan Ariely rightfully uses the expression “predictably irrational” to describe what we are.

As Game Of Thrones fans we’re not mad, just irrational on a very natural human level. Ultimately, this it not even about a epic fantasy series or a writer who yes, often grinds the gears of so many people with his unjust God-like decisions. It’s about going beyond the obvious remark that us Game Of Thrones fans can often get quite hysterical, and trying to understand why we do that in the first place.