Maybe my favourite book series! Intelligent dialogue dealing with consequences of even minor decisions. The hierarchy is criticised constantly, shown for being trivial, hypocritical and based almost entirely in violence and threats based on strength in numbers (implied and real).
I can’t choose a favourite character or arc, but I really love ADWD for really elaborating on and setting up new goals for stories that had more or else finished their first act.
I also enjoy that while GRRM indulges in ‘pure evil’ characters such as Joffrey, The Mountain, Ramsay and Euron (Read that TWOW preview chapter- it’s Godly!) he still establishes that most people commit horrific acts while being actual complex people in a shit system (Theon, Jamie, Stannis).
Main two characters also should be noted are a staunch abolitionist (Dany) and a man who sacrifices himself for refugees who he successfully migrated (Jon). Considering the ramifications they both faced for their decisions they both managed to be awesome, intelligent and compassionate, despite the consistently horrific implications and threats.
What are your favourite characters, arcs, worldbuilding or quotes? Any real life political figures you’d like to compare to ASOIAF characters?
Is this a bit?
Honestly lol, reading some of these comments has me dissociating. I do like the books within reason but it’s centrist fiction. Gurm was a Biden head in 2019 and when you read into his autobiographical portrayals it shows
centrist fiction. Gurm was a Biden head in 2019
The artist is dead, long live the art! Kipling’s stories for children are beautiful, even though he was a racist/imperialist/militarist. Lots of artists are imperfect people that nevertheless produce good art.
The exception I’d say is a living artist who has abhorrent views and you’d support them by buying their stuff. That’s fair. And if support for Biden makes someone dead to you - boycott away. But GRRM is no Orson Scott Card.
ASOIAF has lots of things to criticize from a socialist perspective. For example, his fantasy world has a lot more Whites and a lot fewer Blacks than our world (there are presumably a lot of Asians, but they live too far away to matter) - though most fantasy universes are even more White. But I don’t think it preaches some evil centrist doctrine at its core. Tolkien’s work has a more conservative philosophy ingrained.
Eh. One of the key messages of the books is that war sucks, all nobles are equally bad for the people except when they’re doing nothing or being literally ineffective (and even then their taxes can be bad), and only by organising and killing the nobles can the people have their voices heard. Not only do the main books say this, it’s also a recurring theme in the history and worldbuilding books. Sucks that the means to do so is a shitty oppressive expy of the Catholic Church, but at least the Sparrows are coming for the “Pope” too.
I loved the show, more than it deserved at the end, but after many attempts to read the books I found myself unable because of the prose. The fact he was a TV writer shows. I’ve heard they get better but like if they aren’t better three books in I just don’t think they’re ever gonna do it for me
I’m a book nerd and I’m trying to avoid show spoilers for the next 8 years, so I’m not going to read any of the comments but you and me can talk.
I love the little bits of flair. The book derives a lot of its character from small things.
Like the point of a scene is two character forming a pact, but it takes place over a dinner table. So he describes the actual menu items “buttered pease, chopped nuts, and slivers of swan poached in a sauce of saffron and peaches”. A saffron and peach sauce. Fucking awesome.
And they won’t talk about ‘storming’ the castle. They’ll talk about ‘investing’ it.
I’m mad that they made a spoiler into a meme. The image macro of dany burning storm’s landing. Why would people do this?
edit: king’s landing, not storms landing
I avoid the show as much as possible but word gets around. I know the finale was a complete abortion for example. The books take such a long time that I’m not even anticipating them anymore. So I have an itch to watch the show just to see how badly it ends up. I watched the first season or two because it came out way later. It was very cool.
That’s the thing about taking so long between books. I kind of forget that I care.
It wasn’t just the finale, narratively the show fell apart at the end of season 4, which equates to the end of ASoS. Even then there were parts of the earlier seasons that went a bit off the rails. I just pretend that the show got cancelled after season 4 because those are still worth seeing and the rest was some fevered nightmare I had.
After the show I don’t know how you can conceivably make that evil Dany arc work. Her lessons in Meereen show that creating a regime change takes time and negotiation (after the conquest of course) and that violence will always affect the masses. I also enjoy GRRM’s message of ‘you are not your family’ despite the world around you believing it so.
there’s analysis long preceding the show that predicted that specific event and laid out Dany’s path there. the core of the theory is that she walks out of Mereen believing it to be a repudiation of conciliation and compromise and embraces fire and blood as her birthright instead. I’m very certain it will be better done in the books (if they’re ever written - I doubt that) but it’s extremely likely that this is what will happen.
i hope the theory that euron greyjoy bring the apocalypse happens, its my favorite theory for the next book, that pus the night lamp theory
Oh yeah, the Eldritch Apocalypse theory is my favorite too. Poor_Quentyn’s piece on it is some excellent and compelling reading. The show committed many heinous crimes against the narrative, and one of the big ones for me was their turning the darkest and most mysterious figure in the series into some ‘zany buffoon’ making finger-in-the-bum jokes. Euron was done fuckin’ dirty.
It really is an impressive feat of deep worldbuilding, and I’ve been into the series since before the show aired, and long before the show shit all over the story. Anyway, there was a discussion not long ago in one of the associated reddit subs that seems particularly relevant here. It’s always nice seeing leftist thinking pop up in somewhat unexpected places:
My main criticism/missed opportunity of this series is that there are so few (practically none) commoner/proletariat class POVs
I completely agree. I think GRRM does a good job of exposing the cruelty and hypocrisy of the elite class in so much as it is possible to do so when seen only from their perspective. But I also can’t help but feel my fists clenching at the missed opportunity to really deeply examine the class conflict that is interwoven throughout the story and integral to most aspects of the plot.
I know that’s not what these stories are “about” per se, and I’m grateful it gets touched on as much as it does, e.g., displaying some of the consequences of the wars of nobility on the smallfolk in Brienne’s chapters. But for the most part, we only get the perspectives from the people at the top without much consideration from them that they aren’t actually superior beings to the masses below.
Then again, it’s a fantasy series with magical bloodlines, and it’s unrealistic I suppose, to expect serious class analysis in such a format, but holy shit I can’t shake the “so close yet so far away” sense of what could be done in that respect.
