Season 6, Episode 6: In this clip, Daenerys flies in on her dragon and asks her soldiers to be her loyal “blood riders.” This is similar to how nations in the past have overcome the ‘principal-agent problem.’ The principal-agent problem asserts that there is some conflict in priorities between the ‘principal’ and the ‘agent,’ who is supposed to act in the principal’s interest. Because large empires required coordination between the principal and their agents, the principals i.e. the rulers had to come up with some way to ensure the agent would act in the principal’s interest. In feudal Europe, rulers established their legitimacy to their agents via religion (like the Pope crowning the Holy Roman Emperor) or from reputation (stories of the rulers winning battles). In Game of Thrones, Daenerys overcomes the problem with dragons, a tangible threat to any soldier/agent who doesn’t do as she says.
