#chivalric code

And that’s exactly what happened with Aerys’ Kingsguard – they took their oaths to obey and protect the king, even if they morally opposed his actions, to be of paramount importance and to be held above all else. Barristan Selmy’s reflection on his role during Aerys’ reign, though it shows his shame and regret for doing nothing in the face of Aerys’ atrocities, still show his belief that he was honor-bound by his Kingsguard oath to do exactly that.

Barristan Selmy had known many kings. He had been born during the troubled reign of Aegon the Unlikely, beloved by the common folk, had received his knighthood at his hands. Aegon’s son Jaehaerys had bestowed the white cloak on him when he was three-and-twenty, after he slew Maelys the Monstrous during the War of the Ninepenny Kings. In that same cloak he had stood beside the Iron Throne as madness consumed Jaehaerys’s son Aerys. Stood, and saw, and heard, and yet did nothing. But no. That was not fair. He did his duty. Some nights, Ser Barristan wondered if he had not done that duty too well. He had sworn his vows before the eyes of gods and men, he could not in honor go against them … but the keeping of those vows had grown hard in the last years of King Aerys’s reign.

The same sentiment is, more or less, echoed in Gerold Hightower and Jonothor Darry’s response when Jaime, ironically the only person to question the flaw in the system, struggled with the idea that he was just supposed to stand there and watch the king commit crimes without doing anything about it.

“As for Lord Rickard, the steel of his breastplate turned cherry-red before the end, and his gold melted off his spurs and dripped down into the fire. I stood at the foot of the Iron Throne in my white armor and white cloak, filling my head with thoughts of Cersei. After, Gerold Hightower himself took me aside and said to me, ‘You swore a vow to guard the king, not to judge him.’ 

The day he burned his mace-and-dagger Hand, Jaime and Jon Darry had stood at guard outside her bedchamber whilst the king took his pleasure. “You’re hurting me,” they had heard Rhaella cry through the oaken door. “You’re hurting me.” In some queer way, that had been worse than Lord Chelsted’s screaming. “We are sworn to protect her as well,” Jaime had finally been driven to say. “We are,” Darry allowed, “but not from him.”

Hightower’s, Darry’s and Selmy’s stance isn’t surprising when you consider what we’re told of the Kingsguard’s oath.

The first duty of the Kingsguard was to defend the king from harm or threat. The white knights were sworn to obey the king’s commands as well, to keep his secrets, counsel him when counsel was requested and keep silent when it was not, serve his pleasure and defend his name and honor.

Keep silent when counsel is not requested. Serve the king’s pleasure. That’s their duty. That’s what the system is telling them they are honor-bound to uphold and what they are expected to prioritize over their knighthood oath, standard morals, and even their own personal judgement. That is the standard rule of the Kingsguard - obey without question, regardless of what’s asked of you. Tommen’s Kingsguard were utterly baffled when Jaime pointed out that blind obedience to the king isn’t a good thing. Arthur Dayne and Oswell Whent helped Rhaegar spirit away a 15 years old girl and isolate her in Dorne, then probably kept her there regardless of her wishes. They all considered this an integral part of their service.

This entire situation raises a difficult question about conflicting vows (“no matter what you do, you’re forsaking one vow or the other”); what a knight to do when duty and “honor” as accepted by society conflicts with basic ethical and moral code. Note that this is not just the view of the Kingsguard themselves, this is accepted Westerosi view. Ned Stark bore no ill-will towards Barristan Selmy who stood by and let his father and brother be brutally murdered without a trial, he was sad about having to fight Hightower, Dayne and Whent who were his sister’s gaolers. Robert Baratheon refused to have Barristan killed on the Trident because he wouldn’t kill a man for loyalty. He revered him for standing by his king, even though his loyalty meant that he enabled and defended a mass murderer.

But of course accepted Westerosi view means jack shit. Just because the system is corrupt does not mean the Kingsguard (or any knight, since all knights are expected to obey their lieges) are magically absolved of any blame or responsibility for their choices. The system was flawed when Jaime Lannister chose his knightly vows and recognized that blind obedience to a tyrant wasn’t acceptable. The system was flawed when Dunk risked his life going against Prince Aerion to protect Tanselle, and when he stood up to Eustace Osgrey once he discovered his lies. The system was flawed when Baelor Breakspear and Raymun Fossoway took a stand for Dunk, and when Brienne said of Ser Quincy Cox “he could have tried, he could have died”, and then went on to fight a hopeless fight to protect the children at the inn knowing that she would die. The system was flawed when Davos risked Stannis’ anger and retribution by smuggling Edric Storm out of Dragonstone. Knights take their vows willingly, accepting the responsibility and solemn duty to keep those vows and to stand up for those who can’t even if it meant their death; failing to do so in the name of duty to a tyrant is not good enough. That oath of obedience is no excuse. I generally find that accepting the idea that these knights did not have a choice or that there is a way to defend their actions buys into the rhetoric of Meryn Trant who would have us believe that he was completely justified in hitting 12-year-old Sansa, perhaps even that there was “honor” in it, simply because the king ordered it and he was sworn to obey the king. That it’s a thought process that could easily devolve to absolving the likes of Gregor Clegane and Amory Lorch of their crimes just because they were following the orders of their lord to whom they swore an oath of obedience.

But it’s not like we don’t have examples of knights, even in Aery’s Kingsguard, either subverting or outright going against their vows to the king because they applied their own moral judgement and recognized that they shouldn’t obey the king. There’s Jaime Lannister obviously, but also, Arthur Dayne and Oswell Whent - possibly Gerold Hightower as well - owed their allegiance to Rhaegar instead of Aerys, probably because they couldn’t handle Aerys’ madness and the way he was leading the realm to ruin…. but then they showed the same blind obedience to Rhaegar’s orders regarding Lyanna and saw Robert as merely a usurper. Which isn’t really an improvement. They just transferred the object of that obedience from one person to another. But this still shows that they were capable of finding wiggle room within their vows when recognizing that the king shouldn’t be obeyed without exception and that there were cases where disobeying the king was the correct course of action.

Now we can’t paint all the Kingsguard who followed the sentiment of prioritizing the king’s orders above all else, even when the king was evil, with the same brush - if we do, we’d be missing a crucial part of GRRM’s commentary on both the Kingsguard and knighthood. Because not every man who follows that sentiment is a vile monster or a terrible person. While Meryn Trant or Boros Blount are truly vile people who think nothing of abusing a child, or worse, think they were in the right to do so, we have Arys Oakheart who was ashamed of hitting Sansa and who tried to argue but ultimately participated in her abuse anyway, and we have Barristan Selmy who is also ashamed of standing as a silent witness to Aerys’ crimes but tries to rationalize it. It goes a long way in emphasizing that evil does not triumph just because bad people do evil things, it also triumphs when good - or relatively good - men do nothing.

That’s why I can’t talk about Aerys’ Kingsguard as a monolith entity when they obviously had different stances and views of the bounds of their oath. Jaime Lannister questioned the system and ultimately rejected the notion of putting the king’s orders first regardless of the cost when he chose the half-million lives inside King’s Landing over his oath to the king. Arthur Dayne, Oswell Whent and possibly Gerold Hightower took liberties with their oath based on their moral judgement but instead of applying the same morals to Rhaegar, they just transferred their obedience from one person to another and ultimately followed the same sentiment. Barristan Selmy “did his duty” and suppressed his moral questions, as it appears Jonothor Darry did. Lewyn Martell…. Oh, who the hell knows, we have so little information about him (sigh, George), but while it’s safe to say he was Team Rhaegar initially, Elia and her children’s captivity during the Rebellion certainly complicate his position later on.