No, Donald Trump Isn't Joffrey. He's Walder Frey

Game of Thrones naturally lends itself to political allegory. It’s a show that takes the normally boring world of politics and spices it up with dragons and incest and war and brutality. Last year, the hotness was to talk about how Cersei and The Sparrow’s power struggle was like, totally about Hillary and Bernie . Recently, George R.R. Martin told Esquire that Donald Trump like, totally is King Joffrey.

On the surface it makes sense. People loathed Joffrey, who was petulant and spoiled and vicious. But, like many things relating to his creation, GRRM isn’t the final authority on the subject. GoT exists as a thing on the internet, and as part of the internet, I feel compelled to object to GRRM’s assessment. He’s wrong. Donald Trump is not King Joffrey.

Donald Trump is Walder Frey.

Even casual fans of the HBO series know Walder Frey. His greatest moment was orchestrating The Red Wedding, an unprecedented betrayal even by Westerosi standards and one of the most shocking moments in television history. And it spawned one of my all-time favorite reaction GIFs

To defy something as sacrosanct as a wedding, including Catelyn Stark’s double-dog-oath of insisting on an offer of bread and salt for Guest Right , by killing Robb Stark in plain sight completely upended the norm. The ripple effect of this new order, of a world where the conventional way of doing things, the usual rules, all no longer applied bore huge consequences season after season. So the most significant thing Walder Frey did was to violate the status quo in ways no one thought possible and he received no punishment but, instead, was rewarded with even more political power.

Sound familiar?

The similarities don’t end there. Consider that Walder Frey is rather obsessive about his two eldest sons, Lothar and Black Walder, who are generally regarded as useless buffoons. And the entire source of Walder Frey’s wealth and power is from prime real estate. He controls The Twins, two stone castles guarding a bridge he didn’t build, but inherited, that allowed him to charge exorbitant toll fees to common folks just trying to pass from north to south.

Beyond the biographical parallels are the personality traits. It’s here, I think, we see the most of Trump in Walder Frey. Here’s two choice quotes, unattributed.

“You see that? Fifteen, she is. A little flower, and the honey's all mine."

“Yeah, she’s really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father…”

The Game of Thrones wiki describes Frey/Trump perfectly. Give it a read, and ask yourself honestly which President of the United States it reminds you of the most:

Walder Frey is shown to be an arrogant, domineering, sarcastic, lecherous, and tyrannical man who possesses no shame. He openly admits how little he thinks of the oaths he swears to other houses due to his strategic position, which he uses to extort hefty tolls in exchange for his allegiance, and shows a willingness to switch sides if he thinks it will benefit him more.

Sure, King Joffrey was an unlikable twat. But he was young and handsome and groomed from the time of his birth to be a leader. He was born into politics, a status quo. Walder Frey is an outsider looking in, constantly with a chip on his shoulder and forever looking out for his own interests no matter the costs. And I can’t be sure, but I think his dying words when Arya slit his throat at the end of Game of Thrones season 6 were “But her emails!”