Plato's Symposium: Erotic Love

When eros, commonly referred to as erotic love, is introduced into a person’s life, he or she, in some ways, loses control of their mind and behavior, becoming mad. Eros, by subverting common reason and morals, pushes humans into acting in altered ways in order to obtain or keep the affections of the desired person or object. This madness is prevalent in pop culture and television, as seen in Game of Thrones, and in the relationship between Cersei and Jaime.

Eros is a type of love that stems from looking at another through divinity and placing him or her on a metaphysical pedestal of perfection. This pedestal forces away any perceived flaws, making the loved figure a perfect being in the eyes of the lover. Because all people have their flaws,

In Bonner’s paper, which analyses Plato’s Symposium, the lover’s eros is neither sexual nor reciprocated, but instead fully one-sided and asexual. After falling in love with Socrates, Apollodorus, a fanatic and follower of Socrates, occasionally stops living by and telling of Socrates’ teachings in order to express his awe of Socrates as a philosopher and human. This shows that Apollodorus has raised Socrates on such a tall pedestal that not even his teachings and ideal truths of the world can match how Apollodorus views him. Apollodorus is never explicitly or subtly acknowledged by Socrates, according to Bonner’s paper, and the two of them certainly do not have sexual relations, but still Apollodorus holds an erotic love for Socrates (Bonner,

Their illicit relationship goes on for nearly two decades without any problems, but, while the royal family is visiting the Stark family, Bran Stark, a young boy of ten, catches the two having sex in an old tower. Whilst attempting escape, Bran is caught by Jaime and calmly pushed out of the tower’s window nearly to his death with the words, “the things I do for love.” Cersei and Jaime later hire an assassin to finish Bran off to stop him from telling anyone of their