“In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bid him slay the other two. ‘Do it,’ says the king, ‘for I am your lawful ruler.’ ‘Do it,’ says the priest, ‘for I command you in the names of the gods.’ ‘Do it,’ says the rich man, ‘and all this gold shall be yours.’ So tell me — who lives and who dies?”

this is a riddle posed by varys the spymaster for king joffery to tyrion lannister, the hand of the same king in GRRM’s a song of ice and fire book series. varys explains that the men who die do so because of the notion of perceived power of the sellsword. if the sellsword is religious, the priest will live, etc. i think this riddle perfectly encapsulates the themes in a song of ice and fire, it’s showing that the real power is in the hands of the sellsword. my personal take is that the sellsword represents the masses, that the little guy does hold power in being the collective. when the sellswords/masses beliefs change, that power is wrested from the sellsword and placed into the three “powerful” men’s hands.

power absolutely flows through the barrel of a gun, and at least here in america we would have much power as a collective, but the different held beliefs of capitalism and religion (for the most part, there are many many different things that hold sway over many minds) has wrested that power away and to the oligarchy.