Bryan McGrath
Everyone knows that the Game of Thrones world is make-believe. There are no dragons. There are no White Walkers. There is no Night King. What there is, though, is a somewhat accurate representation of the Middle Ages and the power politics that attended them. Central to the Game of Thrones world is the importance of sea power, and there are lessons learned in the Seven Kingdoms that apply equally in our modern (real) world.
The world of Game of Thrones, like any world, begins with geography. Before the First Men, the Age of Heroes, the Andal Invasion, the Age of Valyria, the Seven Kingdoms, and the Age of the Targaryens, there was the island continent of Westeros, and across the Narrow Sea was the continent of Essos. For a contemporary sense of scale, think of a gigantic Great Britain (Westeros) separated from a Europe-like continent (Essos), with the Narrow Sea providing a considerably larger buffer to Westeros than the English Channel. In other words, the sea is a primary feature of the geography of our story.
And since there is no air travel (save for Daenerys Targaryen) and no steam or combustion engines available for transportation, armies move at the speed (and endurance) of the horse or at the whim of the wind. This essay concerns itself with the latter—specifically, the roles that sea power plays in the Seven Kingdoms.
Possessing a fleet is a definitional requirement for great power status and influence in the Seven Kingdoms—and a persistent theme throughout the show’s seven seasons—as it is in the real world. The United States’ founding fathers enumerated “providing and maintaining a Navy” as a power specifically given to Congress. Having a fleet—and the challenge of building and sustaining it—is a constant issue for nations seeking to extend their dominion or to sustain their influence. One of the contestants for the Iron Throne—Daenerys Targaryen—spends six seasons seeking a fleet to transport her army of Unsullied and Second Sons from Essos to Westeros across the Narrow Sea, and it is not until Yara Greyjoy strikes a deal with Daenerys in episode 9 of season 6 that she finally gets one. That Yara’s fleet represents a mere fraction of her native Iron Islands’ maritime power is the result of her (and her brother Theon’s) hasty escape upon Uncle Euron’s election as king a few episodes earlier.
Euron also figures prominently in the Lannister family’s incessant quest for sea power, first by destroying the Lannister fleet during the Greyjoy Rebellion (during the reign of King Robert Baratheon nine years before the show begins), only to later be defeated in battle off Fair Isle by Robert’s brother and Master of Ships, Stannis Baratheon. Stannis’s victory at sea over the Greyjoys paved the way for Robert’s army to invade the Iron Islands and quash the rebellion, an important result of which was the requirement for Balon Greyjoy to “bend the knee” to Robert and surrender his only surviving son, Theon, to the custody of Lord Eddard (Ned) Stark, Warden of the North. Theon’s later perfidy during the War of the Five Kings would bring great anguish to the Starks. King Euron Greyjoy’s later alliance with Cersei Lannister (in the opening episode of season 7) provided her with a massive fleet to enable future operations, to include the transport of the ten-thousand-strong mercenary army, the Golden Company, (and war elephants) from Essos to Westeros after Cersei’s late season 7 deception of Daenerys and Jon Snow.
Another would-be king of Westeros employing sea power is Stannis Baratheon. As earlier described, Stannis was King Robert’s Master of Ships, and upon Robert’s death and the succession crisis that ensues, Stannis mounts his claim to the throne from his holdfast at Dragonstone, employing the majority of the Royal Fleet already under his command. The destruction of most of this fleet at the Battle of the Blackwater causes Stannis to seek the support of the Iron Bank of Braavos, where he eventually gains limited financing to rehire the fleet of sellsail pirate Salladhor Saan, who seems to have somehow survived Blackwater with much of his pirate fleet intact. Saan’s ships ferry Stannis’s depleted army north, where he gains a significant victory over the Free Folk beyond the Wall, although his success proves short-lived.
Cersei Lannister gained access to significant maritime power when Euron Greyjoy presented her with his fleet late in season 7. To that point, the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms had been hobbled by a lack of sea power. When Tyrion Lannister destroyed Stannis’s ships employing the Westerosi version of weapons of mass destruction (wildfire), he destroyed ships that had previously belonged to the crown. The Iron Throne’s sea power problem was further exacerbated in season 5 when the Iron Bank requested that a portion of the crown’s debt be repaid and the Master of Coin Mace Tyrell reported to Cersei that only half of what was requested was available. Recognizing the criticality of recapitalizing the Royal Fleet, Cersei ordered it rebuilt at any cost, including alienating the Iron Bank.
Of the great houses involved in the War of the Five Kings and its aftermath, it appears that only the Starks were without immediate concerns for a fleet. Had Robb Stark survived long enough to march on King’s Landing, however, an alliance with a seafaring power would have been critical, as the city would likely have been able to withstand a landward attack and could resupply itself if not cut off from the sea.
The Seven Kingdoms employed sea power for many of the same ends for which it is used in the world today, five of which bear closer examination.
Noncombatant evacuation operations (NEO). Jon Snow borrows Stannis Baratheon’s fleet—hired from pirate Salladhor Saan—to sail around the east coast of Westeros, past the easternmost Night’s Watch post on the Wall at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, and north to Hardhome. There he was able to save five thousand Free Folk from the Army of the Dead and transport them south to Castle Black and surrounding lands.
War at sea. Although fleets are incredibly important to the political objectives of the contestants in Game of Thrones, in seven seasons we are treated to only one blue-water fleet engagement, season 7’s third episode. Interestingly, the forces engaged were entirely from the Iron Islands: Euron Greyjoy’s larger, more powerful fleet pounced on a portion of Yara Greyjoy’s fleet as it was headed to Dorne to ferry Dornish troops north to invest King’s Landing under Daenerys Targaryen.
Raids and special operations support. Yara Greyjoy’s daring raid on the seat of House Bolton at the Dreadfort in season 4, episode 6, to rescue her brother Theon from the sadistic clutches of Ramsay Snow (bastard son of Lord Roose Bolton) was a classic special operation. Had Theon not been thoroughly broken by Ramsay’s torture, the raid would likely have succeeded. Larger-scale raids were successful in destroying the Lannister fleet at Lannisport during the Greyjoy Rebellion (as Jaime Lannister reminds us in season 7 upon meeting Euron at King’s Landing) and the portion of Yara Greyjoy’s fleet supporting the Unsullied in their attack on Casterly Rock (again, by ships under Euron Greyjoy’s command, although, at the time, he was personally busy destroying the other half of Yara’s fleet). Additionally, coastal raiding seemed to be the entirety of Balon Greyjoy’s plan to create mayhem in the North while Robb Stark’s armies marched south in season 2.
Amphibious assault. Two major amphibious landings are attempted in the first seven seasons of Game of Thrones, although neither of the attacking forces gained the victories they sought. At the Battle of the Blackwater, Stannis Baratheon’s mighty fleet was reduced by Tyrion Lannister’s wildfire stratagem, leaving an insufficient landing force to invest the Red Keep in the face of determined resistance and the arrival of Tywin Lannister at the head of his army. Later, in season 7, the Army of the Unsullied attacked Casterly Rock (seat of House Lannister) and encountered little resistance in the approach, landing, or storming of the castle. All of this was, however, part of Jaime Lannister’s cunning plan, for as the Unsullied ventured ashore, the ships from which they launched were pounced on by a portion of Euron Greyjoy’s fleet.
Transport of armies. Fleets provide armies with essential mobility. Daenerys Targaryen spends much of the first six seasons of Game of Thrones trying to obtain a fleet to move her army across the Narrow Sea. The criticality of this mission was reinforced early in the show, in just the second episode, when Ned Stark reassures Robert Baratheon—who was worrying over the possibility of Viserys Targaryen (and his sister, Daenerys) invading Westeros at the head of a Dothraki army—that the Dothraki have no ships. Six seasons later, Daenerys dispatches a portion of Yara Greyjoy’s fleet south to Dorne solely to transport its army north to participate in a siege of King’s Landing. And in the season 7 finale, Euron Greyjoy feigns terror at the thought of the threat from the Army of the Dead and claims to be withdrawing his fleet to the Iron Islands, when he is sailing across the Narrow Sea to Essos to embark the ten thousand sellswords of the Golden Company to enable Cersei’s double cross of Daenerys and Jon Snow.
Fleets are expensive but worth it if you wish to be a great power. Both Daenerys Targaryen and Cersei Lannister must buy, build, and maintain fleets to enable their political and military objectives. Stannis Baratheon’s seizure of the Royal Fleet at the beginning of the War of the Five Kings divested the Iron Throne of a powerful tool for military and diplomatic operations, and Cersei hazards the finances of the Seven Kingdoms to recapitalize it. Euron Greyjoy’s offer of an alliance (and marriage) appear to have solved her sea power problem for the moment, just as his niece Yara’s alliance with Daenerys solved hers. As stated earlier, House Stark entered the War of the Five Kings with somewhat limited political and military objectives, including the rescue of Sansa and Arya Stark from King’s Landing and the destruction of House Lannister. Although limited, these objectives were unlikely to be gained without alliance with a maritime power. Fleets take a long time to build and are expensive to maintain. This argues for either ironclad alliances with maritime powers, peacetime investment in naval power, or both.
Sea power alone is not enough. House Greyjoy was, without question, a tremendous sea power. The Greyjoy fleet raided up and down the west coast of Westeros while Robb Stark moved south, and Euron Greyjoy had for years been sailing the fourteen seas, raiding and pillaging before he returned to the Iron Islands to kill his brother Balon and engineer election to his throne. Additionally, Euron’s fame had already been won nine years before the Game of Thrones events began, from his daring raid at Lannisport, where the Lannister fleet was burned at the waterline. But the Iron Islands had little or no economic diversity, and they were unable to field armies or enter alliances with land powers that gave them the ability to project power, let alone defend their own islands. To be blunt, Euron Greyjoy’s cry of “Build me a thousand ships, and I will give you this world” simply does not hold up.1 The two main powers left standing at the end of season 7 (not counting the Army of the Dead, whose naval power is unknown)—Cersei Lannister and her allies, on one side, and Daenerys Targaryen and her allies, on the other—relied on both powerful sea and land forces (with Daenerys also possessing air power). There is wisdom in maintaining a strong, joint force.
Air power changes everything. When the combined slaver fleet attacks the city of Meereen and appears to have Daenerys Targaryen’s reign on the ropes, it is ultimately unchallenged air dominance—in the guise of three large dragons—that wins the day. The destruction of the slaver fleet provides evidence that it is risky for ships to operate within range of land-based air power without area or self-defense antiair weapons. But air power, too, has its limits, as when Yara Greyjoy’s fleet is destroyed by her uncle Euron, causing Daenerys Targaryen to contemplate mounting her dragons in search of Euron. She is ultimately dissuaded by her war council, as they were not in possession of sufficient intelligence necessary to target his fleet.2
Defense against weapons of mass destruction is required. Tyrion Lannister’s employment of wildfire at the Battle of the Blackwater is a clear use of weapons of mass destruction against a fleet unprepared to combat it. Stannis Baratheon should have invested in better prelanding information about King’s Landing—through what we today call intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Perhaps then he would have learned of the Lannister plan to reactivate the Iron Throne’s weapons of mass destruction program, originally begun under the Mad King, Aerys II. Lacking sufficient protection against wildfire, Baratheon would have been advised to land his force elsewhere and then march on King’s Landing.
There is little in the Game of Thrones series to minimize the impact of sea power and much that reinforces it. No power without a fleet is of consequence, and the most powerful forces are buttressed by significant fleets. Great armies are made mobile, daring raids are attempted, fleet engagements are undertaken, and crafty deceptions are accomplished—all with sea power. No element of military power is as important to the objectives of the major combatants as is sea power, for as awe-inspiring as Daenerys Targaryen’s dragons are, her army was useless while it was in Essos. Cersei Lannister’s victories are also underwritten by sea power—the sea power of Euron Greyjoy.
It remains to be seen what role sea power will play in the eighth and final season. The Golden Company ferried by Euron Greyjoy will arrive to supplement Cersei Lannister’s forces. But at that point, the three major armies (the dead, Daenerys’s, and Cersei’s) will all occupy the same land mass (Westeros), and we will likely see grinding land warfare, supplemented by considerable air power from both the dead and Daenerys’s forces. But Daenerys—whose rise from bargaining chip in her brother’s pursuit of the Iron Throne to powerful contender in her own right we have witnessed over seven seasons—has seen her fleet destroyed. She must win without help from the sea or recourse to it for escape. Once again, she will want for a fleet.