Prince of Thorns

“The game” is a metaphor for the competition for power among the powerful magic wielders seeking to gain control over the kingdoms of the story’s postapocalyptic setting. This way of framing political struggle is adopted by Jorg due to the influence of Corion.

For Jorg, “the game” operates on two levels. He uses the metaphor just as Corion and Sageous do in that he thinks of the brothers as his pawns, Makin as his knight, and so forth. However, he goes beyond using “the game” to describe political struggle to using it as a way to describe the stakes of political struggle.

Jorg reasons that the stakes of “the game” are always the same, namely death. This thinking explains part of Jorg’s willingness to push on regardless of the potential cost. To Jorg it makes no difference whether one dies by a high fall, or a sword blow, or even having one’s lifeforce drained by a necromancer. In Jorg’s view, if he is going to pursue a goal that requires he risk his life, then he needs to be ready to risk it at any time. Otherwise, he isn’t really playing to “win.