A Whipping Boy is a lowborn boy companion of a young noble Lord, Prince, or King who receives corporal punishment for the noble boy. Throughout Westeros’s history, many young Princes have had whipping boys, who were used to force them to follow instructions. Because a teacher, who is of a lower class, cannot beat a noble boy, his friend, who is a smallfolk boy, can be turned into a whipping boy and punished; this usually makes the noble boy fall to order as he will not want his friend to suffer for his actions.
After leaving King’s Landing with her son, Robert Arryn, Lysa Arryn gets a whipping boy, who she uses to make her son obey instructions. Meanwhile, in King’s Landing, King Tommen Baratheon watches his friend, Pate, get punished by his mother when he refuses to follow her instructions. When Tommen starts listening to his wife, Queen Margaery Tyrell, his mother forces him to listen to her by threatening to harm Pate.
Whipping Boy Details
Whipping boys are a common practice throughout Westeros and the Free Cities. They are low-born boys who study with high-borns. Once they become friends with boy monarchs, princes, or lords, they are turned into whipping boys, as their pain will force their friends to obey instructions. Whipping girls can also exist to punish high-born girls, but there is no recorded history of any throughout the known world.
History
When King Aegon III Targaryen was twelve, he was assigned a new master-at-arms, Ser Gareth Long. Aegon grew to hate his new teacher and would pay no attention to his lessons. Gareth was known for his brutal teaching methods, like dousing boys’ heads in cold water, shaving their heads, and beating them. However, he could not touch Aegon. Instead, he met the Hand of the King, Lord Unwin Peake, and asked that Aegon’s food taster, cupbearer, and friend, Gaemon Palehair, should become his whipping boy. After that, Aegon started listening to orders as he did not like seeing his friend suffer for him. His resentment also grew towards Gareth.
In 135 AC, Aegon’s sister-in-law, Larra Rogare, was accused of attempting to assassinate him and his Queen using poison. Even though Gaemon died for Aegon, the King and his brother Prince Viserys refused to give Larra up; this resulted in a secret siege of Maegor’s holdfast. During the event, the accuser sent people to try to make the King give Larra up. When they sent Ser Gareth, Aegon shouted at him, asking who he would punish if he did not yield.
Relevance in A Song of Ice and Fire
A Storm of Swords
In the Vale of Arryn, Lysa Arryn keeps a whipping boy for her son as he is too fragile to receive any punishment. When she sees her husband, Lord Petyr Baelish, kissing Sansa Stark, Lysa confronts her and says she will find a girl to take a beating for her if she does not confess. Eventually, Lord Baelish arrives and throws his wife to her death.
A Feast for Crows
Tommen gets his brother, King Joffrey Baratheon’s whipping boy, Pate. His mother, Queen Regent Cersei Lannister, punishes the boy when her son refuses to obey instructions. Each time, she tells him she will let Pate be beaten till he bleeds, and not wanting to let the boy suffer, Tommen will do everything asked of him.
When Tommen tells Cersei about how Margaery Tyrell said he should become more active in ruling the Seven Kingdoms, she remarks that the young Queen should have her tongue pulled out; this makes Tommen furious. He forbids his mother from trying to hurt his wife.
In response, Cersei orders Ser Boros Blount of the kingsguard to take her son to his bedchamber and force him to whip Pate until he bleeds from both cheeks. She also instructs that if her son refuses to follow the instructions she gave, Ser Boros should get Qyburn to cut off Pate’s tongue in his presence.
On learning the cost of insolence, Tommen submits to his mother’s demands, not saying a word of protest.
Whipping Boy: The Evil of Monarchy
Being beaten for someone else’s transgressions is an act that puts Westeros’s power imbalance into perspective. The existence of whipping boys to deter young lords from refusing to obey instructions was inhumane because no one should have to suffer for another person.
No one should be a sacrificial lamb for someone else’s error, but the world of Ice and Fire is anything but fair. It is a world where good people die brutally and where evil lives long enough to change history in its favor. Worst of all, Whipping boys only created a divide that made the rich feel they were superior beings whose lives were more valuable than others.
