If Jon Snow ran for Public Office

Jon Snow is dead.  No, really - no pining for the fjords from this Westerosi Blue.

See, we've been told again and again that John Snow is dead - by the show runners and by the actor himself.

Never mind the lack of a hair cut.

Never mind the popping up in all the locations where Game of Thrones is filming.

Certainly, you don't want to pay attention to the fact he's been spotted in a battle scene with his family's foes.

It's one of the worst kept secrets in television history (like, ever!!  Or at least this season), yet the show-runners still try to keep up appearances.  

Why?

Easy enough - it's a path they've already started on - keep the audience out of the know, keep 'em focused on the story that's being told, etc.  It'd be kinda embarrassing to change tune midstream, wouldn't it?

The producers have a particular story they want to tell - one that, before social media, smart phones and the like, they could have stuck to with only the most modest bits of trickery.  When The Fugitive series was filming, the lead actors weren't allowed to dine together at restaurants so as to preserve the tension of their on-screen story. These days, that wouldn't matter - barbecue pictures and vines of them paling around the set would have emerged, ruining the illusion.

Speaking of ruined illusions - how about that #elxn42 campaign?

Never mind that the Liberals are controlling open nominations or the Tories are fumbling their economic fundamentals; it's the Facebook and Twitter gaffes, the bozo eruptions et al that are ruining the carefully-scripted narratives of the campaigns.

No matter how hard the Party comms teams try to stick to their strategies and suffer no deviations, reality and its virtual airing keep getting in the way.

We have the Price of War Rooms telling candidates that even if they never have a fresh unscripted moment ever again, whatever they did at any point in their online lives (which for anyone under the age of 20 is pretty much their whole lives) is available to be used against them.

It's getting harder and harder to keep secrets.  It is therefore getting harder and harder to tell stories without acknowledging the public's ability and clear desire to be part of the story-writing process.

You can think it good, bad, or some mix of each, but the fact remains - Jon Snow would have a helluva time running for office.

If Stephen Harper Were a Game of Thrones Character...

"It's an ethic of 'I am willing to burn the house down so I an down the lot,' explains Mike Casey, a veteran Democratic communications consultant based out of Virginia.  "Stephen Harper is willing to burn the house down to own the lot.  'I will bring a gun to a knife fight.  You can call foul while you're lying bleeding on the floor' - that is the kind of ethic.

Some might say he's Twyin Lannister, but I don't think that fits.  Twyin was more about the brand than Harper has ever been.

No, if I were to peg Harper as one guy from Westeros, it'd be this one.

Trouble at our shores?  Eco-terrorists, niqab, etc?  Harper creates fights and then positions himself as the only one who can keep us safe from conflict.  He divides and conquers with abandon, attempting to create and live by his own rules along the way (everything from cutting off the media to committee disruption manuals."

As his own messes grow, his tactics and pressure become more severe - because that's what it takes to keep winning.  

And the climb, don't you know, is everything.  Regardless of the fall.

How about the other guys?  Who would you peg the other leaders as?

#GameOfStorytelling: The Benjen Flaw (Season 5 finale spoilers)

"PS - Trust no one."

When asked point-blank if Snow is firmly gone - as in, is actor Kit Harington released from his Thrones contract? - showrunner Dan Weiss told EW, "Dead is dead."

Is John Snow dead?  That's pretty certain.  

The intention specifically being placed on Kit Harington is probably something of a red herring, though, as having an actor not return (as a regular cast member) isn't the same thing as being dead.  It's only mostly dead.

Even then, though, we have plenty of cause to think the show runners and even the actor might be lying to us, as well-intentioned as that might be.

Case in point - Benjen Stark.

If you've seen the show (and if you haven't - you were warned), you know what happens to poor Jon Snow; he's tricked into thinking his Uncle Benjen had been seen by one of the Wildlings and, full of hope, rushed into his very own Ides of Winter.

Of course, Benjen wasn't in the show; the mention was a ruse to trick the Lord Commander.  Yet, for some reason, Joseph Mawle - the actor who portrayed Benjen in Season 1 - was listed as appearing in the episode.

Was there a scene filmed that landed on the editing room floor?  It hardly seems likely - he's not in the story.  His name is, as a trick, which is exactly what I think the actor listing was.  

For fans of the show and the book, there was cause to believe the end of Season 5 might bring with it the death of Snow, which had already happened in the books.  That means plenty of audience members could have predicted the same fate would meet Snow during the finale.  

That hardly suits the purposes of the story tellers; they want us to feel the emotional impact of each moment, to be constantly surprised.  They have even gone out of their way to trick us into investing more into characters like Robb Stark (and his family) than the books do before killing them in brutal fashion.

No, D&D wanted everyone to feel a sense of shock when Jon meets his end.  By timing the mention of Benjen right at the end of the episode (when there was no time left for multiple plot points) and even listing and leaking Mawle's appearance, they got us yet again - even when some of us knew Snow's fall had to be coming (winter having arrived, after all).

And now we're being told Snow is gone, baby, gone.  Especially as portrayed by Kit - don't expect to see him in Westeros again!

Once beheaded, twice shy as they say in Westeros, though.  We know not to take what we're told to expect at face value, do we?  It's the Stark truth, as it were.

Deus ex Nix: Snow Falls in Winter

"In a book, you can present that kind of ambiguity," Weiss said.  "In a show, everybody sees it for what it is.  It's that rule: "If I don't see the body then they're not really dead."

Time will tell what the real story is, but for the moment, I'm firmly in the "Jon Snow ain't dead dead" camp.

Yes, Kit Harrington has come out to say "my character is dead, I'm moving on to other things" and yes the producers have said "dead is dead."  Should Snow return, looking very much like Kit Harrington, it would hardly be the first time entertainment-makers have lied to us so as to preserve or enhance the impact of a story.

People have really invested in Game of Thrones - I mean, really invested, really cared about their favourite characters - in a way that simply doesn't happen if peril isn't part of the picture.  

Remember that time Superman died?  Remember that time he came back to life?  Remember that time Wolverine died?  He's kinda back already, too. These are characters we love, but we never really worried about them dying - therefore, there's no real sense of loss or potential loss, no peril.  We're comfortable that they will always come back.  

We can like these characters without really needing to invest in them, because they're not going anywhere.

Most TV - most fiction - is like this.  You never really worry about James Bond dying, because - well, James Bond doesn't die.  You never worry about the hero in a Disney movie dying, because that's not the vibe they're going for.  Parents don't want their kids actually being afraid that their heroes might die - if the world was truly that cruel, what would be the point of investing in anything else, in trusting anyone?

Game of Thrones isn't a kid's show.  It runs against the grain of most adult-focused fiction, too; there's no clear-cut good guys to root for and no one - no matter how insignificant, powerful or fan-fav they are - is safe.

Hate the way GoT pulls at your emotions and wilfully devastates you again and again - those are the qualities that keep us coming back for more.

In this way, GoT is much more like real life; there are no cut-and-dry heroes, and as often as not, those who we choose to idolize have nasty dark sides that aren't all that well hid.  In Westeros, those who seem to be truly good aren't long for the world.

Yet we love our heroes, don't we?  We will pro-actively ignore the things we dislike about an individual and focus narrowly on what we perceive as their positives, because we want there to be heroes.   Until they get caught, that is, because then it's undeniably clear that they broke the pact we imposed on them to be perfect.

In real life, we'd almost prefer our heroes to stubbornly die, never wavering from their values (and sometimes because of them, like Ned Stark for instance).  The irony is that, when we recognize that they will never waver - that we can, truly have faith in them - it's too late.  They're gone.

Which probably has something to do with the popularity of resurrection myths throughout human history.  Like a child who throws away a beloved toy in a moment of anger but then desperately wants it back, we want to know our heroes, our social anchors, will always be there.

It's the absence of this safety blanket and the real peril that faces everyone on GoT that makes it so compelling.  We can't always count on our heroes being there, or to not become villains.  We can't assume that justice awaits those who deserve it, nor that good, ultimately, will prevail.

Game of Thrones has bled snow over the conventions we expect of fiction, but has remained faithful to its own internal rules.  It's a harsh world where justice is absent, hope is false and if you think there's a happy ending, it's pretty clear you haven't been paying attention.

The night is dark, and full of terror.  Sometimes, you don't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy?

D&D are, first and foremost, storytellers.  They want to retain their audience, clearly, which isn't necessarily the same thing as pleasing them; they also recognize the need to hold true to their internal logic, for the moment they don't, expectations change and the magic is gone.

What is it Weiss said?

"In a show, everybody sees it for what it is.  It's that rule: 'If I don't see the body then they're not really dead.'"  If they're not really dead, then the peril was never real, and our need to invest - to really have faith in those heroes - was never real, either.

If, however, Jon Snow is really dead, then what hope is there for Westeros?

All good stories must have an ending, however, and as much as we like to fear the apocalypse, stories that end with Ragnarok aren't particularly satisfying.  After we've invested so much of ourselves in a story, in characters, we long for a payoff.  And in the finest tradition of storytelling, the less likely a payoff seems, the more satisfying it is when our devotion is rewarded.

D&D are, unquestionably, great story tellers. 

They haven't given us what we wanted, but by doing so, they have teased us into caring more, investing more and spending more time with the characters and woes of Westeros.  

I love looking at the Twitter feed around #GameOfThrones, especially on show-night.  Despite the supposedly polarized, self-centred nature of our society, people from all over the world come together for a community of experience, sharing their shock, hope, fears and satisfactions in unison. The sellers try to cash in; the Twitter thread is filled with tie-ins, hooks and related content.  

Were it not for the community of GoT, though, there would be no one to sell to.

Of course, the makers of Game of Thrones aren't trying to win in a four-year election cycle, or are they focused strictly on low-hanging fruit and quick wins.  Unlike The Death of Superman, they aren't cheating us with mortal peril, quickly resolved - they're in it for the long haul and clearly have a lot of faith in the story they're trying to tell - and the lessons they're sharing with us.  It's not about them - they, too, are servants to something greater.

Which is why it's so damned important, I think, that they not give us a wink about the fate of Lord Snow just as winter is beginning to fall.  If we don't really and truly believe he's gone, we can convince ourselves that there's a Deus ex Machina in the wings, that the peril isn't real.  There's always been a safety net - someone else has always kept a candle alight in the dark for us.

Only when all hope of deliverance is removed, when we are fully and truly left in darkness is our faith truly tested.

Do we believe it's all been for naught - a parade of selfish deeds and inhuman horrors ultimately consumed by winter, signifying nothing?  Or, even when all light is gone, do we believe the story has been building towards something - that even darkness will pass, that Spring will always follow winter?  

That, when we need them most, our heroes will rise again?

I have no doubt that Jon Snow is dead, like OMG dead - he's dead.  

Which doesn't mean we've seen the last of him.  Some heroes, after all, are more than flesh and blood.

And the difference between a story and a legend is that, with the former, death is often just the beginning.

The Rape of Sansa

General SPOILER ALERT for all things GoT!

“After the episode ended, I was gutted. I felt sick to my stomach. And then I was angry,” wrote Jill Pantozzi, the online publication’s editor in chief. “Not only will there be those who hand-wave the scene simply on the basis of artistic integrity, there will be those who still don’t consider it rape.”

The fantasy saga, which follows the rise and fall of families in the fictional Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, is one of the most-watched shows on television. But some viewers are so upset with Sunday’s episode they say they’ll never watch again.

No, it was rape all right. It was rape, and we were meant to interpret it as rape.

Just as was the “fuck them ‘til they’re dead” scene from Craster’s House, although I don’t recall as much outrage when that happened. Of course, Craster’s daughters aren’t Sansa Stark any more than Canada’s missing and murdered aboriginal women are Jane Creba.

Game of Thrones has never shied away from brutality — rape, child abuse and murder, dismemberment, on and on it goes. It’s part of the show’s appeal (in the way horror films and car accidents appeal), which the showrunners no doubt capitalize on.

At the same time, there has never been any question about what kind of story they’re trying to tell or the nature of the world it’s grounded in. Westeros is an unjust, harsh, violent place where no one is safe and the weak are especially vulnerable.

Ros was always at risk in a way Cersei never was. Robert’s bastards andCraster’s daughters never had any filter between them and the brutality of the world. Remember Mycah? There was never going to be a trial, or justice, for him.

Of course, this doesn’t mean the rich and powerful are invulnerable. Yes, they’re at the mercy of court intrigue and plots from other houses, but those are all upper-class threats to worry about. They need never worry about ending up as Ros did, a trophy bolted to a wall.

People were sad about what happened to Ros, they were horrified at the baby slaughter and the Red Wedding, but they’ve gotten mad over the rape of Sansa. Mad to the point of walking away from a show that’s already been filled with rape and violent abuse of power from the very first episode.

To choose now to walk away — when it’s the nobleman’s daughter who is abused rather than a whore, a peasant or the child of incest — is an interesting statement, to say the least.

Except we know to expect horrible things to happen even to nobles in Westeros. In fact, that’s a motif that runs through the show. Jamie Lannister always had his family name, his gold and his highly-trained skill to defend him, until he ran into Locke. Brienne was lucky that Jamie saved her from rape, as Sansa was lucky the Hound saved her the first time. If they’d been on their own, their noble stock wouldn’t have mattered.

One of the very first characters to die on the show — Ser Waymar Royce — was a nobleman. The big hero of Season I, Ned Stark, lost his head when it was a bad play for all concerned. He has not been avenged; the death of the people who wronged him, where it’s come, has come for completely unrelated reasons.

I don’t feel any worse about the rape of Sansa than I do about any of the other atrocities that have happened on the show. Yes, she’s a major character, but even the lesser characters have been relatively well-developed and are no less deserving of our empathy.

Which is why I think there’s a lesson in this we should absorb and think about in the context of our own world.

Stephen Harper: The Winter Soldier

The latest Nanos Research polls show a Canadian electorate in a winter of discontent.

It's really hard not to fall into Game of Thrones references these days - they just apply so well to the current political landscape.  We have devious leaders playing selfish, destructive games; we have a society that is beyond frustrated with the failing system in place today and, of course, there's a lingering anger/fear of something bad on the horizon.

But there's something else at play here; something no less uncomfortable, something the same leaders who consider themselves Machiavellian manipulators par excellence are missing - largely because it's almost against their nature to do so.

Our society has been outgrowing the ability of our current systems - educational, healthcare, political, jurisdictional - for a while now.  Without big threats on the horizon, our leaders and their supporters have been focused on consolidating power and bending wills rather than crafting solutions and bringing people together.  Canada has been safe - that's why it's been so resistant to the adaptations other nations have embraced.

Winter has been coming for some time, yet we have sapped ourselves of the will to evolve with the times.  We are woefully unprepared systematically and culturally for what's to come.  

Which is where Stephen Harper comes in.

Harper has been escalating power consolidation, starving government agencies, starving not-for-profits and undermining the very fabric of our democracy.   He plays the divide-and-conquer game; he punishes critical thought from anyone who doesn't reside within his inner circle or otherwise think the way he does.  

Harper has also been shutting himself off from the real world, meaning he's lost touch with the pulse of the nation.  

When you think you're an empire-builder, after all, the reality of the plebes doesn't matter.  You tell them what to think; their job is to fall in line.

History tells us how well that approach works.  There certainly are enough examples to turn to.  They also provide precedents for Harper himself.

While he thinks of himself as a successful politician, a man above, Harper is actually nothing more than a functionary.  If it wasn't him in the role he now plays, it would have been someone else.  In fact, there are many out there right now who are playing the same part.

Our Prime Minister may think he is irrevocably shrinking government and remolding Canada into a permanently conservative country; he's wrong.  Harper is simply serving as political brushfire, clearing out old growth to allow for the emergence of more evolved, more progressive structures and ideas.

In this sense, Harper is the perfect non-leader for our times, a soldier clearing the decks for what's to come next.

After all, winter is invariably followed by spring.

Game Of Memes

 

So, fair warning - if you watch Game of Thrones and aren't up to speed, don't click these links.

But if you have, enjoy!


Grandpa reads a fairy tale to his sick grandson.



"He's taking it well - remember when they canceled Firefly?"

Of course, it's no wonder why humour works so well, particularly when applied to things so horrendous. 

That's the whole point.

 

Winter Is Coming

I couldn't resist.  Not with lines like this:

 

I saw this phenomenon and reported on it in the run up to the first Gulf War 22 years ago, just before the Afghanistan mission after 9/11, and in the nervous months before Iraq in 2003.

 

Most seem to be held, as now, in the fall. And war often followed soon enough.

Almost cyclical, isn't it?

CFN - You Can’t Take the Risk Out of War

War isn’t a game, video or otherwise. When a person gets shot, stabbed or blown up, it’s not “hearts” they risk losing – it’s their limbs, lives and ongoing quality of life. Winning is no tonic against injury, either; soldiers who come home still bear the physical and psychological scars of combat. If the war happens on a soldier’s home turf, there’s every risk that they won’t have a physical home to return to, either. I will never forget walking around a bombed-out downtown Sarajevo still littered in rubble and “beware of landmines” signs in 2001, six years after the Bosnian War was supposed to be over. The spoils may go to the victor, but when the spoils are in ruins, what has really been won? 

 

This is why military strategists from Sun-tzu on keep developing new ways to mitigate personnel and infrastructure risks at the same time as increasing chances of meaningful victory. The evolution of warfare has seen the development of increasingly complex offensive and defensive technology and tactics, but it has also included the nurturing of warrior codes of conduct like bushido, chivalry or the Geneva conventions. At its core, diplomacy is really a military strategy designed to mitigate the risk of destructive combat and avoid losses on both sides.

 

Of course, we wouldn’t fight in the first place if there weren’t rewards to be had. Land and resources are of definitive value to expanding populations, which is why so many wars are fought over them. A balance of power might encourage a military code of conduct, but when the balance shifts, we can always find wiggle room. Hawaiian Chief Kamehameha seized on the arrival of European weapons and tactics as an opportunity to tip the balance in his favour and conquer all the Hawaiian islands; Spanish conquistadors might have honestly thought they were doing God’s work in bringing Christianity to native heathens, but this noble quest didn’t stop them from slaughtering innocents and stealing their land and gold.

It's Like History, Only In Reverse

When carrying a concealed weapon for self-defense is understood not as a failure of civil society, to be mourned, but as an act of citizenship, to be vaunted, there is little civilian life left.

It's an interesting way of looking at it that we haven't really considered.  Every home a castle, every person a lord, everyone armed - for protection.  People have a right to safety, after all; we gotta be able to keep the threats at bay.

What about when guns run out of bullets, though?  For security, you should be able to have a back-up weapon on hand.  Swords work well.  That, plus expand your territory to keep the bad guys out.  Maybe hire a few security guards to keep the peace.  Oh, and export potential bad guys.  If they put up a fight, you just have to make sure you've got the better weapon.

It's like history, only in reverse.

No wonder Game of Thrones is so popular these days.

Politics: Game of Power

                                "You don't fight with honour."

                                "No.  He did."

There's been another shooting in Toronto. 

I used to live a ten-minute walk from that park.  My son and I have played there many times.  I know some of the families that would have heard the gun fire and I have a very good idea of what living in fear does to one's ability to focus on anything other than survival.  In a climate of fear, there are only two escapes; to hunker down and stay as isolated as possible from potential threats or become the feared and take what you want by force.  Anxiety and aggression; that's how survival of the fittest really works.  That's what's happening with these shootings.

We really shouldn't need to explain this to Rob Ford.  By all indications, he exists in a near-constant state of cortisol-fueled reactiveness himself.  He doesn't like to be managed, says his former Hand who also used deceit to eliminate a potential threat to Ford's ascendancy to the throne.  Now holding the chains of office, Ford feels harassed by media and wants to retreat to the safety of his castle and even increase his holdings if necessary to feel secure there.  Along the same theme, he bans access to reporters and outlets he doesn't like, or whole retinues if people he doesn't like are in the party.  Beat that, reporters.  Meanwhile, Ford himself is hyper-aggressive; chasing jouranlists down halls, giving the finger to drivers, snipping at TTC drivers.  Argue all you want about his justification; he's got a track-record of escalating problems. 

There's the rub - he keeps suggesting people should just go along with him and things will work out, but people don't go along with him, creating mounting problems.  Council won't fall in line?  Ford focuses on how to get rid of them next election instead of working with them now.  He's Mayor, after all, he should be able to do what he wants.  Gang violence in the streets of Toronto?  Get rid of them, too.  "...I want them out of the city. Go somewhere else, I don’t want them living in the city anymore.”  His solutions is to get rid of problems or pass them on to others - not solve them. 

Run 'em out of the city.  How do you do that, exactly?  How do you get people with guns out of the woodwork?  By toughening sentences?  All that does is make criminals work that much harder to avoid getting caught.  See, they don't want their rights trampled, either.  They want to do what they want; consequences are for those without control.  People who kill other people are really the pinnacle of survival of the fittest - they remove the competition, proving just how tough they are.  They're the boss - they get to do what they want, so long as they reinforce their power.  The only way to tackle that approach head-on is through escalation.

Which is exactly what Stephen Harper is doing.  With what I'm sure he feels are the best intentions, he is reducing opposition to his reign and increasing punishment for those who don't fall in line.  He's also a fan of firewalls; building moats around his castle to keep the barbarians at bay.  Barbarians within the realm need to be removed, either directly or indirectly.  It's all in the name of free market capitalism, he'll tell us with a nod to his economic background.  Regulation, special interest groups, unions are all impeding prosperity.  Without rules, the law of supply and demand takes over.  Am I picking unfairly on Tories?  Well, how 'bout this - it was the other guys who introduced the concept of the War Room. 

Politics isn't about supply and demand.  It certainly predates a money-based economy.  Politics is about the obtaining, retaining and the hereditary passing on of power.  Politics is selfish, tribal and focused on doing whatever it takes to win -  be it treachery, manipulation or the surest way to force compliance, violence.  In a battle of strength, it's he who has the most destructive weapons and the largest army that survives; but you need money to buy these things. How do you get them?  People consumed by power don't bargain or negotiate for what they want; they take it by force.  They oppress challenges to their power through force.  To things not directly connected to their power, they say "so what?"  Which is what Toronto's gangs, or drug cartels in Mexico, or any extremist group tries to do.  Sadly, it's what our frame-the-message, define-the-ballot-question political agents (Parties, sectors, everyone) tries to do, too.

The narrower our wedge of focus becomes, the more we miss the external factors that create threats.  Issues like poverty or civil rights are "minority group" issues; if they're not going to support you anyway, and their causes are in opposition to the causes of your voter base, ignore them or use them as wedge issues to foster more support on your side of the scale.  Sustainable economies and productivity; those come second to the rights of the brotherhood.  What are the populations that fall through the cracks through this approach?  The poor, the disenfranchised, those who are more likely to take up arms, join gangs and get what they want at the margins of civil society, where regulations aren't enforced.  Pirates, brigands, gangs all gestate in this social gap, eventually creating problems for those at the other end of the spectrum.  What happens to those in the middle?  Fear is only sustainable for so long, before it turns to anger.  Angry people have this habit of taking to the streets.

What happens when civil society comes into conflict with feudal politics?  Take a gander at Syria for an example.  While we will see an increase in violence across the Western World and the need for more militant intervention in the face of unacceptable violence, we aren't going to have a civil war, nor repeat World War II.  I don't say that out of whimsical hopefulness, but out of an understanding of history.  War might make a profit for some, but not when it's being fought in your backyard.  In terms of stable profits, you need stable society, which means compromise solutions.  Those with capital will tire of the hits instability inflicts on their wealth and will use their resources to reign in the politics. 

Private sector interests facing loss want regulation, they want stability, they desire order.  Nobody is imposing this on them; it was people of means that gestated our current system of governance in the first place.  People of means will also proactively support stability and market generation; charity, education, micro-credit, whatever are all means of enhancing the labour pool and expanding markets.  With stories like Davos and Goldman-Sachs we see a proactive-approach to emerging threats that the private sector is hoping to proactively resolve, before it's too late.  They talk about this lots, but what action do we see taken?  

  

Action might be directed from the top, but it always comes from the bottom.  The foot soldiers of any movement are the rank and file of society.  How do you motivate every-day folk to risk their lives?  It helps if their lives are already miserable and they have little to lose, but the best motivation comes from believing in something that is bigger than the individual; the tribe, honour, a better world.  Here's a vision that would help convince a guy like me to take up the sword:

Peace, order, good government - and opportunity.  Not for me; I'm part of the first generation in a while that's being told to expect a lower quality-of-life than my parents.  If the world is contracting around us due to the narrow vision of some, it'll take a generation to broaden our horizons.  As I contribute to a better world, it's for my son and, by association, all the children that will be adults around him.  I would rather none of them in this increasingly-integrated world grow up in poverty, surrounded by gunfire and without hope, because I know what sort of behaviour that experience fosters in the long run.  History provides lots of examples.  I'm even willing to give up a bit, personally, to foster that world.

Power is about control - drawing resources to oneself and gaining the ability to do whatever one wants.  The only way to acheive power is through manipulation, be it verbal or by force.

The opposite of power is not powerlessness.  It's sacrifice; the willingness to put collective interests ahead of individual interests.  Sacrifice is not something that can be forced from without; it has to motivated from within.  Honour isn't something that must be shed for accomplishment; it's something that must be obtained to maintain it.  By empowering others, everyone gains something.  It's this thing called society.  We can live together, or we can die alone.