Game of Thrones, Guitar, and Identity
3 min read ⭑
In the Game of Thrones episode ‘Walk of Punishment’, Locke cuts off Jaime Lannister’s sword hand as punishment for attempting to bribe him whilst defending Brienne of Tarth. Jaime subsequently laments his new, disfigured state and gradually loses the will to live, mournfully stating ‘I was that hand’. Brienne eventually coaxes him back to life and urges him to carry on.
Perhaps the most painful part of this episode is that it becomes clear Jaime’s identity is largely a singular one, where his self-worth, purpose, and meaning are all derived from one thing: swordsmanship. When I first watched this scene, the phrase ‘I was that hand’ resonated heavily with me, and there was a familiarity with the character’s sense of loss and accompanying identity-based anxieties. The reason being was I too used to have a ‘mono’ identity, or so I felt; a personality heavily orientated around guitar playing. But in 2012, owing to a mild yet persistent overuse injury, my ability to play the instrument altered, and despite ricocheting around various physios, GPs, and surgeons, I could never quite return to my pre-2012 form. Thankfully, save a few complex techniques and pieces from my old repertoire, I remain able to play. Still, during this time I felt adrift and lost at sea.
Mr. Lannister’s situation was, granted, far graver than mine and not exactly analogous, but I nonetheless empathised with this part of The King Slayer’s story. It’s particularly challenging losing something that so clearly defines you, not only because it’s how you see yourself but because it’s also the way the world sees you, and both this subplot and my own experiences act as a reminder that while there is of course nothing wrong with a singular persona, the danger is that you’re in for one almighty existential crisis if that skill or talent is – even temporarily – unexpectedly altered or lost.
For any musician reading this, they’ll know that music grips you in a way that few other things can. It’s all-consuming, especially when that initial musical passion is transformed into a profession, with music and the arts having a unique quality in this respect. For example, without being too presumptuous, I’d imagine that, say, an accountant can generally maintain a healthy distance between their professional work and them as a person - they don’t think of themselves as literally their occupation. But the arts are different. You and music become seamlessly intertwined, where you are your instrument and your instrument is you. Any threat to this identity can cause significant distress, something that’s been documented in the research literature, with musicians asserting that not having ‘musician’ as part of their identity is ‘tantamount to being deleted entirely’. I must confess that while I don’t think this is the healthiest of attitudes, it is a viewpoint I can empathise with.
Regarding my own situation, certain things have helped immensely in adapting and reorientating my thinking. Firstly, at the risk of sounding somewhat new age, it’s important to remember that we are human beings first and foremost before we are anything else, musicians or otherwise. Secondly, and perhaps most helpful for me, was cultivating the habit of regular reading. Reading, both fiction and non-fiction, helps most obviously in broadening one’s knowledge and interests, but critically it was also fundamental in building character and resilience, and it was reading that truly illuminated just how unexceptional my own stresses were, as by immersing yourself in the world of books you are placed in a wider context where you learn about the travails of others, connecting you equally with the people of today and those from previous epochs. The American writer James Baldwin articulated this with typical profundity, noting: ‘You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read’.
This process of habitual reading undoubtedly helped in diversifying my skillset and expanding my horizons, proving invaluable in shaping me into a more well-rounded and multifaceted individual. And I feel like I’m in a stronger place now than I was pre-2012.
Anyhow, before this blog entry inadvertently descends into some kind of pseudo self-help piece, I think I’ll wrap things up there. We’ll end on this: none of us are mono identities, whether we feel as if a particular ‘thing’ defines us or not. We contain multitudes.
