Recently I have been rereading Game of Thrones and I stumbled upon the line where Ned Stark is telling his son that "whoever sets the punishment should be the one to swing the sword." This lesson has rung true so many times in my life since reading this book and I never realized it. While of course no one is running around swinging swords at people left and right like in the world of Westeros, it does have some real world applications. It is basically translated as taking responsibility for ones actions. It speaks about the person receiving the sentence as well as the person who is passing it. Both are being held accountable. For the one who is receiving the sentence, something wrong has happened and they were the cause of it. They have been tried and now the sentence is before them but the important part is that now they are before the sword. They stood and allowed themselves to be tried and now stand ready to accept the punishment that lies before them even if it means their death. The second portion is the more obvious lesson. It points toward leadership and being held accountable for actions and decisions that are made. My favorite part is that the sentence isn't said whether to be right or wrong but only that the leader stands by it. I think this is important because there is a lot of grey area that leaders move through and making decisions are never clearly right or wrong but doing what you perceive is right and stand true to it is what is important.
Devin
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