Isn’t oathbreaking a threat to social order in Westeros? A lot of people seem to think that keeping oaths is only about honor. I’m no expert on feudalism (thank the gods we have you for that!), but that does not sound right to me.

poorquentyn:

Which is, of course, not the same thing as agreeing with Jon Darry when he told Jaime that it was A-OK for them to listen as the queen was raped. As I believe you’ve argued before, young Jaime was right; the oaths they swore as knights should’ve come before those they swore as Kingsguard. 

The problem with smashing this system is you need to have something better or you’re just breaking shit. Looking at you, Renly. 

Yes, especially to the point of about the precedent of oaths. If more Kingsguard had received a bit of legal training from their maesters, Westeros would be a quite different place. 

I’ll get to this more when I get to Beric Dondarrion and the BWB, but the oath of knighthood is potentially quite revolutionary if you think about it in the right way – because the oath says:

racefortheironthrone:

As I’ve said before, a feudal society is a society built of oaths – oaths of fealty going up the chain from knight to lord to king, and oaths of protection going down the chain. And those oaths are not incidental or merely ceremonial – it’s how property and political power are distributed, it’s how armies and taxes are raised. 

Here’s how important oaths used to be: while most people think of medieval justice in the context of trials by ordeal, ordeals were an innovation that sought to improve upon the pre-existing practice of trial by compurgation, where someone accused of something would take an oath (usually on some holy relic) that they hadn’t done it, and if they could find enough people to take an oath saying they believed the accused, they were innocent.

What I would say is that the social order is under threat if oathbreaking isn’t immediately punished by the law of man or gods, if people generally begin to believe that there are no consequences for oathbreaking. Because Westeros doesn’t have any social institutions that could function in the absence of this system, so the Hobbesian war of all against all would be coming along very fast and it would stay for a while. 

“in the name of the Warrior I charge you to be brave.” The sword moved from his right shoulder to his left. “In the name of the Father I charge you to be just.” Back to the right. “In the name of the Mother I charge you to defend the young and innocent.” The left. “In the name of the Maid I charge you to protect all women.”

There’s nothing in there about obedience to your social betters or the rightful place of kings, and a lot in there about upholding justice and protecting the defenseless. Hence Dunk and “a knight who remembered his vows.”