LAUSR

> ‘If you know others and know yourself, you will not be imperilled in a hundred battles; if you do not know others but know yourself, you win one and lose one; if you do not know others and do not know yourself, you will be imperilled in every single battle’ > > ―From ‘The Art of War’ by Sun Tzu (544–496 BC)1 > ‘Storms come and go, the big fish eat the little fish, and I keep on paddling.’ > > ―Varys ‘the Spider’ in the second season ‘ Game of Thrones ’ episode ‘The Night Lands’ that premiered on 8 April 2012. Blood thundering in his ears, Jon Snow raises his broadsword Longclaw in a smooth arc of Valyrian steel that abruptly stops over his head only to then reverse course in a deadly slash downward onto the head of the Other and cleaving it in two. All his senses blazing with clarity, the bastard son of the late Eddard Stark, now himself leader of Castle Black, turns to face his next adversary full of power and purpose and thrumming with the epinephrine rush of combat. Spoiler alert! This paper deals with plot points found in the GRR Martin books in the ‘Song of Ice and Fire’ series and the ‘ Game of Thrones ’ television production seasons 1–6. If you haven’t yet caught up (and why haven’t you?), please proceed at your own risk. You have been warned! That thundering of blood, racing heart rate, sweating and sense of power are the hallmarks of the fight or flight response—the ability our nervous and hormonal systems have to energise us—briefly—for feats of courage, strength and power in the name of self-preservation. Call it the ‘epinephrine rush’, the ‘thrill of the chase’, it is all part of the acute stress response we have when faced with scenarios and situations that demand our complete focus and attention. And there is no shortage of such scenarios in Game of Thrones . Both the response to fighting and the training for learning to …