On Karma

One of the most interesting things about Game of Thrones is how it explores guilt, karma and the consequences of our actions. Catelyn Stark, Arya’s mother, carries a deep sense of guilt because she struggled to love Jon Snow when he was a little boy, simply because he was Ned Stark’s son born outside their marriage. She wonders whether the misfortunes that followed her family were somehow a consequence of that inability to love an innocent child. It makes you think about karma in a rather unsettling way. Sometimes we don’t realise how our smallest acts of rejection, cruelty or indifference can leave imprints on another person’s life. Perhaps karma isn’t always some grand cosmic punishment waiting to happen; perhaps it is the accumulation of the energy we put into the world, the people we hurt, the kindness we withhold and the consequences of choices we make. And sometimes, the hardest punishment isn’t what the universe sends our way, but having to live with the knowledge of what we could have done differently.