Slaying Dragons

Do you feel like you live in a hostile world? Most of us recognize that more peace on the planet would sure be nice and we’d like to contribute to a more peaceful world. We tend to believe we’re on the side of those who know how to make it so. We root for our side because we’re “the good guys.” 

My husband and I have been watching House of the Dragon which just wrapped up Season 2. I find it incredibly relevant to the current state of things in the world with ever-escalating tensions and violence, growing division among the elites while “the small folk” suffer the appalling consequences of the brutal power grabs and the impulsive, even infantile, responses. 

Those directing the opposing forces in the series claim to want peace and even seem sincere in this claim. Of note is that the main conflict is between two mothers, women who were besties in their youth and who come to quickly represent each other’s shadow. Mothers desperately wanting to do right by their children, and even the people of the kingdom, but blinded by their own pain and the honor culture they’re immersed in. 

What is most interesting to me is how the main characters are so clearly driven by their emotions, projecting their inner conflicts out into the world, manipulating the masses to choose a side and join in the violence, all in the name of honor and peace. The stakes continue to rise as the weapons of mass destruction (the dragons) fall into unpredictable hands. 

Both women eventually make valiant, self-sacrificing attempts to quell the violence but it would appear to be too late. The divide has become too wide to cross, egos are on the line, and intimidation didn’t have the intended effect. 

In its essence, I see a story about shadow. Wounded, defended humans who will go to devastating lengths in their misguided attempts to restore their sense of worthiness and to display “strength” to those they believe caused their wounds. It’s so obvious to the viewers that the results are going to be catastrophic, but to those who are in it, they see only their righteous claim. 

Many were disappointed that Season 2 built to a palpable tension–an inevitable fiery bloodbath that didn’t occur in the finale. Fans are being forced to delay the gratification humans seem to experience when stories have violent climaxes. I get it. There is absolutely something so satisfying in seeing “the bad guys” get what’s coming to them. We crave justice, thinking pain needs to be paid for in pain. I felt it myself when one of the show’s commanders rallies his troops with a war cry that ends, “We will fight for our queen!” Goose bumps, along with energy rising through my core and radiating out into my limbs as the choral response of the fictional men, willing to lose their lives for their queen, reached its fever pitch. 

Humans seem to play this out again and again. It’s important to punish the bad guys, isn’t it? How else do they learn? Evil and badness must be stopped. This is one reason I like this show so much. It’s not black and white who are the bad guys. Instead we’re swimming in human complexity and faced with ambiguity about who is actually capable of leading in this fictional world, and from the obvious options, no one really stands out. The story takes us through the characters’ personal journeys, so we get to witness the wounding and, if our hearts are open enough, recognize the pain that drives the destructive behavior. 

Maybe this is all sounding a little less than fictional? Are humans doomed to replay these devastating dramas forever? Is it possible to end the cycles of violence? I suspect that when we take up a righteous cause, it’s not long before we take on the attitude of “the ends justify the means.” Isn’t this, at best, a zero sum game? We think we want to win the war, but doesn’t that ultimately create resentment and martyrs for the other side along with an oppressive enemy to plot against? Does it really address the pain that initiated the war in the first place? Does inflicting pain on those that hurt us really give us peace? 

There is some brilliant dialogue throughout the show, but to speak briefly to these questions, I share this quick, almost throw-away exchange from the series that I think is profound… 

It’s during a scene in the season finale where a gentle queen asks her mother (one of the two aforementioned frenemies,) in an attempt to understand the obvious loathing her subjects have of her, “Why do they hate us?” and the matriarch responds, “They’re unhappy, and unhappy people look for someone to hate.” 

Unhappy people look for someone to hate. 

I think sadness is part of Life and we all must develop our capacity to carry our mounting sadnesses. But I wonder if those who are consumed by sadness are then compelled to find someone to blame for their unhappy condition? Does it maybe become crucial to find someone to hate just to hang on to your sanity?  

I shared a quote in a Substack note recently that essentially said that until we find peace in ourselves, we’ll never have peace with each other. Is it possible this is true? And that somehow, for so long, most of us have got this all backwards? In Jungian philosophy, we’re taught that how we experience the world is a reflection of our own psyche. I’ve shared this quote by Jung before: 

The best political, social, and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the projection of our shadow onto others.

Is it possible the only way to experience peace is to make our inner conflicts conscious so we can work to resolve them and create peace in our own hearts? That it doesn’t really work to force a peaceful world…? 

And maybe in a just world, peace isn’t the goal? The way we dispense justice seems to have little to do with keeping the peace. I’m not sure that our ideas of justice–which seek to punish behavior rather than develop understanding of what drives people to behave in anti-social ways–can coexist with peace. I struggle to imagine that world. 

Not too long ago, I saw a little video by Tara Brach, most well known, I believe, for her work around radical acceptance. She’s not talking about any particular circumstance, but she asks the question, “What if no one is to blame?” 

How differently would you navigate circumstances if you experienced this as a true statement? No one is to blame. 

I suspect that then keeping your sanity would require a completely different approach; I mean, if there was no one to put your hate into? It’s difficult here to not recognize the archetype of the scapegoat. Is it possible to transcend the need for scapegoating? Or is it inherently human to look for something or someone (even if it’s one’s self) to bear the responsibility for our pain and seek to punish them (or one’s self)?

Ugh. Why me? Why does this stuff come into my mind and seem to flow through my hands onto the keyboard? It does bring to mind that post about purpose and torture and what seems to be my calling in all of this. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not interested in blame. But I’m very interested in helping people see that there is a different way to be in relationship with our pain.

Probably what I’m most interested in is inspiring others to get curious about inner peace (which is not the same thing as eliminating pain.) To truly develop an understanding of what inner peace entails and then to discover what needs to be done to create it for yourself. I don’t have any difficulty imagining that world. It still contains the human story with all its suffering. In fact, it exists right here and now, alongside the hostile one so many people are currently experiencing. There are many who’ve let their ‘dark nights of the soul’ transform them, humble them and open their hearts to the humanity in all of us–a recognition that we are all the same. (I suspect this is the purpose of these dark nights.)

As Political Detox Coach,

Chuck Gafvert

says in our recent conversation, “If you’re waiting for the world to change to feel better, you’re going to be waiting a long time.” 

Maybe the dragons that need to be slain are our own.