"When I began writing about Game of Thrones, my colleagues' thoughts leapt to the spymaster Lord Varys, or the schemer Littlefinger, who is what we might today call an operations planner. Both are masters of intrigue. But the spy's reports and the schemer's plots are not, by themselves, intelligence.
No, the purpose of intelligence is to inform better decisions. The role of the intelligence officer is to facilitate the decision-maker's understanding, to cohere the incoherent. In Game of Thrones, this function is fulfilled by the order of maesters, those guys who wear the chains around their necks and advise the scheming lords and ladies of Westeros. Their chain symbolizes their service to the realm itself—a refreshingly modern concept—over any individual lord, literally binding them to the idea of service to country over politics.
Take Maester Luwin of Winterfell, most trusted advisor to the ruling Stark family, who watches the usurper Theon Greyjoy murder the remaining Stark children and steal their ancestral home. "I will not claim to bear you any great love," Luwin tells Greyjoy, "but I cannot hate you either. Even if I did, so long as you hold Winterfell, I am bound by oath to give you counsel." Luwin literally raised the children he witnessed Theon kill, yet hewed to his duty to provide sound counsel…."
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