A Stoic Lesson in Game of Thrones
What an injustice done to Grey Worm reminds us about acceptance
“Don’t seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will—then your life will flow well”
- Epictetus, Enchiridion, 8.
Grey Worm wanted to apologize to Missandei. He had been bathing in a river when he saw Missandei further down the stream washing her clothes, also naked herself. Grey Worm stared. He was smitten. Missandei didn’t know what to make of the incident. She felt confused.
As shown in HBO’s legendary Game of Thrones adaptation, Grey Worm is a member of the Unsullied Army, a legion of enslaved “eunuchs” whose male parts were taken from them as children before being trained as warriors for hire.
Missandei mistakenly believed that male desire was contingent on male parts being…intact. She hadn’t considered that Grey Worm might harbor romantic feelings for her. Nevertheless, Grey Worm sought to apologize for staring at her, as it clashed with his commitments as an Unsullied warrior.
Because Missandei is a good person and empathetic, she tells Grey Worm that she is “sorry” for what happened to him as a child. She wants him to know that what was done to him was wrong.
Grey Worm knows that his castration in slavery was wrong, but he has a different perspective on all of it.
Grey Worm looks at Missandei, with a profound seriousness on his face but a sort of sadness in his eyes. He has not just accepted what happened to him, but he has chosen something akin to gratitude.
“If the masters never cut me, I never am Unsullied. I never stand in the Plaza of Pride when Daenerys Stormborn orders us to kill the masters. I never am chosen to lead the Unsullied. I never meet Missandei from the island of Naath.”
Here’s the thing.
Grey Worm is deeply proud of being an Unsullied warrior. He is filled with pride that he got to see Daenerys liberate his city from slavery. He loves being a military leader. And he is in love with Missandei.
This is complicated, but Grey Worm is grateful for how is story has unfolded.
If he could choose to have his body parts restored to him, of course, he would choose that. But he doesn’t lament it.
Check out the podcast version of this article here
“To be truly educated means this — learning to wish that each thing happens exactly as it does”
- Epictetus, Discourses 1.12.15
I chose these passages by Epictetus specifically because he too endured slavery while in Rome. This famed Stoic philosopher wrote some of the most timeless passages on accepting things as they are and focusing your emotions more on what is within your control.
Epictetus’ master once beat him to a pulp, so much that his leg was shattered and Epictetus’ walked the rest of his life with a limp. Still, he believed that what mattered most was controlling “the empire between his ears” — the mind. Epictetus’ master could take and take and take from him, but his mind was never for sale.
It’s hard to know if Epictetus felt this way every day. Surely he had times of extreme pain and frustration with his condition, but what he wrote is what endures, and what he wrote about was cultivating strength through acceptance and living life with gratitude.
Some things have happened to me that I wish did not happen. But as I’m sure you can relate to, we don’t know what the butterfly effect of removing that event from our story would be.
We are the sum of our experiences.
Both those we chose and those we did not.
A quick message from Stephen
Hello friends! Apologies for the silence this week. I had business in Spain and much to my dismay forgot my laptop at home. It was quite the test for acceptance of the situation. Being abroad without my computer felt like missing a piece of myself or having no security blanket.
Anyway, I’ve returned to finally hit Send on this note of encouragement to you all about Grey Worm, Missandei, and Epictetus.
In case you missed our most recent video or couldn’t watch it all, it’s now up on YouTube for all subscribers.
I think I needed this today. There is so much I wish I could go back and change, if ever possible. It can't and won't be, so I need a reminder to move forward and to be grateful for what has been good. Thanks, dude!