What I hate about A Song of Ice and Fire (Spoilers Ahead)

[Bob Aberton]

High Fantasy can't have moral ambiguity? People have mentioned Tolkien as a Good vs. Bad novel with no in between. Show me one character that doesn't have flaws, that isn't some shade of grey? As someone mentioned, nearly all the Fellowship had some sort of moral conflict.

And, if you want higher fantasy than that, look at the classic tale of chivalry and damsels in distress, The Arthurian Legend, or especially Le Morte d'Arthur. Lancelot is a knight in shining armor, an all around hero - but he also repeatedly commits adultery with his best friend (and king's wife). Gawaine is another such knight, but he also killed innocents on occasion, and he tears Arthur's realm apart with his thirst ofr revenge on Lancelot after Lancelot cut down his UNARMED brother while rescuing Guinivere, who was about to be burned at the stake by Arthur, her own (jealous) husband. Arthur was a good man - but he committed incest with his own half-sister.

So you see, not all high fantasy is Black and White.

 

[drothgery]

Re: well...

Martin is THE single best fantasy author working today, IMNSHO. If there were more like him, the sci-fi/fantasy section in the bookstore wouldn't be the laughing stock it is today.

Eryndur

<sweeping generalizations based only on what I've read follow>

Bah.

There's no one who craft prose as well as Guy Kay, though Tad Williams at his best comes close. There's no one who can world-build or spread puzzles through his work like Robert Jordan does in the Wheel of Time. There's no one who can do humor and satire in fantasy as well as Terry Pratchett. And there's no one else like Brust in most of the Vlad books and both Khaarven books, who's just downright fun to read. Glen Cook's Black Company does grim and gritty fantasy that's still fun to read and still has characters I care about.

And I'd pick up something from any of them -- or even a programming book -- before I spent money on a Song of Fire and Ice novel again.

 

[Mallus]

Hi. I'm new here. So...

...people with more knowledge than me have already chimed in on the subject of history. And I'm not sure I'm prepared to deliver a meditation on a specific kind of insular, comfort based moral absolutism that you find in the alignment rules in D&D {and which seems to underlie Son_Of_Thunders taste in book --no offense meant, really}

But I will talk about the striking difference between 'The Song of Ice and Fire' and far too many of the other fantasy series I've read. Its dramatic. Not the false drama of a million bloodthirsty orcs laying seige to Castle Greyshmuck in which the heroes chances of survival are roughly 1 in 1. Or the false conflict between Lords of Light and Darkness that sound like a fusion between New Age Zoroastrianism and a fighting game where one character always loses no matter who plays him...

Martin's books have conflict. Big, small, personal, historical. He lays these out clearly and efficiently --odd word to employ for a unfinished multithousand page epic, but fitting. The stories move. So much of fantasy have conflicts that are as intriguing as watching a ball roll down an incline... Martin arise out of well-crafted characters and a dense, beautiful ur-history.

His themes are family, loyalty, ambition, love --with a canvas like that is it any wonder things get messy. These have been staples of literature since Antigone, through Shakespeare and Tolstoy, etc. By muddying and humanizing these fantasy archytepes he increases the sense of wonder in his world. We get not only dragons, but points of grace like Davos's story of loyalty to grim, flawed Stannis, who elevated and maimed him. Or just about every scene with Tyrion....

Son_Of_Thunder implied that Martin's take on epic fantasy removed the wonder. If that true, there's little wonder in literature, period. Fantasy authors could do worse than looking into 'The Song of Ice And Fire'. As could a lot of DM's...

Peace out

 

[Eryndur]

yeah, but

There's no one who craft prose as well as Guy Kay, though Tad Williams at his best comes close. There's no one who can world-build or spread puzzles through his work like Robert Jordan does in the Wheel of Time. There's no one who can do humor and satire in fantasy as well as Terry Pratchett. And there's no one else like Brust in most of the Vlad books and both Khaarven books, who's just downright fun to read. Glen Cook's Black Company does grim and gritty fantasy that's still fun to read and still has characters I care about.

Well, I would rebut by saying that Martin is a master of all of these techniques: prose, world-building, humor, satire, fun to read, grim and gritty, and characters to care about. That's only my opinion of course, and I think the "grim and gritty" part is the most cited of his attributes, but nonetheless, he's got it all, and that's very rare.

Eryndur

 

[Vhane]

Thank you for the review, I'll now purchase this series, my favorite books currently are The Black Company series and the Horseclans books, I like moral ambiguity, I can relate to it, but not to black and white morality.

 

[drothgery]

Re: yeah, but

Well, I would rebut by saying that Martin is a master of all of these techniques: prose, world-building, humor, satire, fun to read, grim and gritty, and characters to care about. That's only my opinion of course, and I think the "grim and gritty" part is the most cited of his attributes, but nonetheless, he's got it all, and that's very rare.

Eryndur

See, I can't even put Martin's prose on the level of an average prose-crafter like Jordan, let alone a good one like Kay. It seems to me like he's writing 'a bunch of bad stuff happened to my characters, and I don't care about it'. And way too much bad stuff happens for reading the books to be a guilty pleasure, like reading Rowling (Harry Potter) or Eddings. I love Brust's Vlad Taltos books, except Teckla -- because Vlad was depressed for all of Teckla, so it wasn't fun to read.

 

[leeann_the_lame]

I'd just like to point out to Son_of_Thunder that in Tad Williams' books Simon (arguably the lead character) does commit murder, and in a not very nice way.

Still, on the whole, I'd prefer Williams to Martin, but that's just because I'm sick of people dying. It's the volume that gets to me.

 

[Axiomatic Unicorn]

Re: Re: yeah, but

See, I can't even put Martin's prose on the level of an average prose-crafter like Jordan, let alone a good one like Kay. It seems to me like he's writing 'a bunch of bad stuff happened to my characters, and I don't care about it'

Did you read the same books as me?

The prose is ASOFAI is brilliant. So much that I am really amazed. I have read other Martin Stuff (short stories mostly) and it is good, but this stuff is way above that.

To compare it to the work of Jordan's "next-installment-from-the canned-fiction-machine" stuff is boggleing?

At least, IMNSHO

 

[DwarvenBrew]

I don't mind dark and gritty, but I do tire of cheap shock value. I feel like Goodkind uses it a lot, and it's not particularly effective when someone tries to rape X character in every book, or children are consistently abused, or Y person has her nipple cut off, etc...

I felt that Tad Williams accoplished a dark, gritty feel without having to stoop to shock value in his books. I'm interested to see how Martin stacks up, with Williams or Goodkind. Martin cited Williams as somewhat of an inspiration, so I'm hopeful.

I don't feel the need to bash people that enjoy the more "idealistic" side of fantasy either. People look for different things in their form of escapism, and sometimes what I need when I read a book is to be able to cheer for the good guys and hope the villians get a swift kick in the nuts in the end.

 

[Eryndur]

See, I can't even put Martin's prose on the level of an average prose-crafter like Jordan, let alone a good one like Kay. It seems to me like he's writing 'a bunch of bad stuff happened to my characters, and I don't care about it'. And way too much bad stuff happens for reading the books to be a guilty pleasure, like reading Rowling (Harry Potter) or Eddings. I love Brust's Vlad Taltos books, except Teckla -- because Vlad was depressed for all of Teckla, so it wasn't fun to read.

I don't think Martin comes across as not caring about his characters. Exactly the opposite, to my mind, in fact. He invests so much detail and nuance to each major character, that the reader becomes attached to the person, and then he/she is viciously killed off, sometimes in an off-handed way. The message I take from it is simple: bad things happen to good people. Not only that, but bad things happen to bad people, too. And just for kicks, he also tells us that good things happen to good and bad people. Usually, though, if a bad thing happens to a character, it is because of some flaw in that character.

It removes the deus ex machina of "destiny" and/or "fate" from the picture, which I think is refreshing. It's like real life. Bran gets crippled for life simply because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Compare to Rand al'Thor, who gosh by golly is the friggin' DRAGON, and I'd place my entire life savings on the sure fact that there's NO WAY he's going to die before Tarmon Gaidon.

Removing destiny keeps you on your toes. It keeps you guessing. It means nothing is sacred. Everyone can die. John Lennon: great guy, a living legend, a man who changed the face of popular culture. He's trucking along, living out his life, coming back from a studio session, and he's shot by some loony who took Catcher in the Rye to heart. Dead. No longer exists. Snuffed out. For no good reason. Happens all the time. And because I can relate to this happening all the time, it makes me relate even more to the characters in asoiaf.

And btw, I'm a big fan of WoT and MSaT. In fact, I find myself defending both authors (especially Jordan) from some of the more rabid asoiaf fans. It's a different type of fantasy, and one I do enjoy. But boy, when I picked up aGoT, it was like I stepped outside into a perfect summer's day. It was the epitome of refreshment. It made me realize that there is a whole other way to write fantasy.

Eryndur