On a side note, I genuinely expect viewing figures to be down and not recover after this lol, some people just won't take such a brutal plot twist. Hell, even though I will certainly keep watching, I have quit watching shows for way way less.
On June 04 2013 02:44 SCST wrote: I think a great deal of people are underestimating the prowess / understanding of many viewers who are criticizing the show. The gut reaction is to think "oh, they're just being mad and emotional because their favorite characters were killed", when it may be something a bit deeper. I've given some thought to the implications of the "Red Wedding" scene and come to realize that Game of Thrones is missing a pretty big, important theme for me. That being: moral righteousness and "the greater good".
Let me explain. . . almost all of the characters in Game of Thrones appear to be morally ambivalent in some way. And those characters who seem attracted to the paradigms of "good" (love, honor, peace, pleasure, kindness) are few and far between. Even with these few "good" individuals being placed in the story, they are not consistent and often make decisions that completely invalidate their supposed world view. That, or they are killed.
But why? On the surface this may seem like an insight into our own civilization - the idea that morality is really grey and that most people are ambivalent and self-serving. That's what I thought initially. And I admit it was an interesting theme. But after watching "The Red Wedding" I have changed my mind. Sure, I can agree that there are elements of humanity that are violent, selfish, power-seeking and morally reprehensible. And I'm fine with these themes being represented in stories. But the issue I have with Game of Thrones is that these elements dominate excessively . I find myself constantly asking: where are the righteous characters that would rather die than become corrupt or a-moral? Where are the people that, as reflected in our own lives, believe in peace, kindness, honor and love? It turns out that there really aren't any in Martin's work. These characters are either grossly under-represented or used for sensationalist fodder by being killed off.
The truth is, many of us in the audience do consider ourselves to be righteous, moral individuals. We want to relate to the characters in the story, not just observe a bunch of savages hacking each other's heads off. How can most of us relate to the morally ambivalent characters or the reprehensible one? If Martin's goal here is to create sensationalist environment with excessive violence, gore and drama then it makes sense that there so few "good guys". But I also feel it's cheap story-telling if this is the case. And if Martin's trying to send a message - that Game of Thrones is a reflection of the human condition and that the story is based somewhat in reality - then I'd argue he's not accurate whatsoever.
I don't think there's anything wrong with coming to this realization about Game of Thrones. It's not as outrageous as people seem to think to be turned off by having some of the few characters we could actually relate to (even slightly) massacred. Whether it was for sensationalism or as an attempt to indict most of humanity as being morally ambivalent and reprehensible (when most of humanity is not), both are valid reasons to turn away from the story.
Nail on the fucking head.
Martin deserves a lot of praise for his writing, his interesting story, his darker themes, his courage to kill off characters, etc. etc. etc. However, when you just constantly knock off every "good guy" in the series, to the point where they are punching bags (Dany being the only "good guy" to play an even remotely important role and not get completely owned), you're over-doing it. Evil and treachery seem to be winning out to the point where it isn't believable and goes against not only what the average viewer wants to see, but what the average viewer actually experiences and can relate to. While the world isn't all sunshine and rainbows and the good guys do die, evil and treachery doesn't constantly prevail; we are not the Dark Elves from the Forgotten Realms or the Dark Eldar from 40k. Even during the Middle Ages, the period that this constant conflict we see in GoT is more indicative of, treachery, deceit, and evil didn't dominate this much. I think this is where some people start to get upset. The only houses that have any real power at this point are the ambiguous-to-evil houses (Bolton, Frey, Lannister, Greyjoy). Any house that could theoretically be painted as "good (Stark, Tyrell, Tully, Arryn) are either pretty much completely dead (Stark, Tully) or marginalized and arguably not even "good" (Tyrell, Arryn). I think the criticism mainly stems from the fact that the "good guys" aren't just losing; they're just being stamped out of existence completely, and this is only halfway through the series.
When the only person that can be painted as a "good guy" is a single ruler fighting a far-off war over slaves on a continent that has absolutely nothing to do with the "Game of Thrones", then people get a little disillusioned.
The only "good guy" death that really left a bitter taste in my mouth due to the unfairness of it was Renly. He never made any major errors (unless you're one of those Stannis maniacs), made good decisions in allying himself with the Tyrells and the North, and had the force to really win the war. But nope, Stannis just fucking has to have a demon vagina monster conveniently appear and assassinate him. Sigh. fucking magic.
Renly tried to take the throne without being the legitimate heir. His reasoning was just that he'd be better at it than Stannis. If he was a legit good guy he would have recognized this, and offered to help Stannis, while setting himself up to be hand of the king or something similar. He got screwed over pretty hard, and probably didn't deserve for it to happen, but I would go as far to say he was a "good guy".
so many people bothered by the "good guys" being murdered, the only thing G. Martin is guilty of is that he made a world that offers intelligent readers an antidote to what they are used to/tired off : the good guys having plot armor and succeeding every time, schooling people to choose the "right" morality that wins.
Even the magic in the show acts as randomness that helps (or kills) some of the power hungry plotters; in real life luck plays a great part whether you like it or not, even if you make the best plan you could still lose to an idiot with weapons of mass destruction or an earthquake or dragons etc
Why the hell would Robb or Eddard Stark win? Yes we can relate more to them because our their morals/line of thinking are closer to our own age, but if you put them into their own world they should be really lucky to survive with their no- compromise-iron-morals attitude and their inability to understand their opponents.
George RR Martin is indeed having fun with people that think in the old school morality cliches and I'm having fun with him as well. In real life shit actually happens and you might think he has overdone it in his books, but seriously, how good would another moralizing yawn fest be? OH GR8 ROBB TOOK REVENGE AND BECAME KING HOW FASCINATING AND UNEXPECTED JUST LIKE REAL LIFE WHERE THE GOOD GUYS WIN AND EVERYTHING HAS A PURPOSE
Oh and when everyone's referring to the show being realistic I think it's obvious that they mean the characters' motivations and passions, contrasting the show to other known fantasy books/movies like Lord of the rings where the morality and motivations are overly simplistic (eg the absence of sexuality)
The point isn't that the "good guys" have to win, but that the hipster attitude of, "Oh, Martin's writing is so realistic to how people actually are and so refreshing!" is arrogant and naive. His storytelling isn't much more realistic than the "good guys" winning out; he is just flipping it around the other way, and the "bad guys" are the ones that are stomping everyone. Plenty of people (myself included) will continue to absolutely love this series and TV show, but the criticisms are perfectly justified. It's personal taste, not correct vs. incorrect. Martin has taken his storytelling a radically different direction from what is fairly common, but that doesn't make it any better; it simply makes it different in tone but still similar in biases.
In fact, there's good grounds for literary criticism of what Martin is doing. If Martin does (or already has, since the next two books have been written) continue to be trigger-happy, then killing off so many of your main characters makes for a very poor experience towards the end of the series; people aren't going to be very invested in a bunch of new characters when all of the original characters have just been killed off.
No. If you look at history, the vast majority of people who seized or held power were exceptionally unsavory people, routinely engaging in assassination, bald-faced lying, deception, and manipulation of others for personal gain.
1) You literally didn't respond to a single thing that was actually in my post.
2) I'm sure your astoundingly in-depth, higher education-level knowledge of historical facts is translated in that one sentence.
On June 04 2013 02:44 SCST wrote: I think a great deal of people are underestimating the prowess / understanding of many viewers who are criticizing the show. The gut reaction is to think "oh, they're just being mad and emotional because their favorite characters were killed", when it may be something a bit deeper. I've given some thought to the implications of the "Red Wedding" scene and come to realize that Game of Thrones is missing a pretty big, important theme for me. That being: moral righteousness and "the greater good".
Let me explain. . . almost all of the characters in Game of Thrones appear to be morally ambivalent in some way. And those characters who seem attracted to the paradigms of "good" (love, honor, peace, pleasure, kindness) are few and far between. Even with these few "good" individuals being placed in the story, they are not consistent and often make decisions that completely invalidate their supposed world view. That, or they are killed.
But why? On the surface this may seem like an insight into our own civilization - the idea that morality is really grey and that most people are ambivalent and self-serving. That's what I thought initially. And I admit it was an interesting theme. But after watching "The Red Wedding" I have changed my mind. Sure, I can agree that there are elements of humanity that are violent, selfish, power-seeking and morally reprehensible. And I'm fine with these themes being represented in stories. But the issue I have with Game of Thrones is that these elements dominate excessively . I find myself constantly asking: where are the righteous characters that would rather die than become corrupt or a-moral? Where are the people that, as reflected in our own lives, believe in peace, kindness, honor and love? It turns out that there really aren't any in Martin's work. These characters are either grossly under-represented or used for sensationalist fodder by being killed off.
The truth is, many of us in the audience do consider ourselves to be righteous, moral individuals. We want to relate to the characters in the story, not just observe a bunch of savages hacking each other's heads off. How can most of us relate to the morally ambivalent characters or the reprehensible one? If Martin's goal here is to create sensationalist environment with excessive violence, gore and drama then it makes sense that there so few "good guys". But I also feel it's cheap story-telling if this is the case. And if Martin's trying to send a message - that Game of Thrones is a reflection of the human condition and that the story is based somewhat in reality - then I'd argue he's not accurate whatsoever.
I don't think there's anything wrong with coming to this realization about Game of Thrones. It's not as outrageous as people seem to think to be turned off by having some of the few characters we could actually relate to (even slightly) massacred. Whether it was for sensationalism or as an attempt to indict most of humanity as being morally ambivalent and reprehensible (when most of humanity is not), both are valid reasons to turn away from the story.
Nail on the fucking head.
Martin deserves a lot of praise for his writing, his interesting story, his darker themes, his courage to kill off characters, etc. etc. etc. However, when you just constantly knock off every "good guy" in the series, to the point where they are punching bags (Dany being the only "good guy" to play an even remotely important role and not get completely owned), you're over-doing it. Evil and treachery seem to be winning out to the point where it isn't believable and goes against not only what the average viewer wants to see, but what the average viewer actually experiences and can relate to. While the world isn't all sunshine and rainbows and the good guys do die, evil and treachery doesn't constantly prevail; we are not the Dark Elves from the Forgotten Realms or the Dark Eldar from 40k. Even during the Middle Ages, the period that this constant conflict we see in GoT is more indicative of, treachery, deceit, and evil didn't dominate this much. I think this is where some people start to get upset. The only houses that have any real power at this point are the ambiguous-to-evil houses (Bolton, Frey, Lannister, Greyjoy). Any house that could theoretically be painted as "good (Stark, Tyrell, Tully, Arryn) are either pretty much completely dead (Stark, Tully) or marginalized and arguably not even "good" (Tyrell, Arryn). I think the criticism mainly stems from the fact that the "good guys" aren't just losing; they're just being stamped out of existence completely, and this is only halfway through the series.
When the only person that can be painted as a "good guy" is a single ruler fighting a far-off war over slaves on a continent that has absolutely nothing to do with the "Game of Thrones", then people get a little disillusioned.
The only "good guy" death that really left a bitter taste in my mouth due to the unfairness of it was Renly. He never made any major errors (unless you're one of those Stannis maniacs), made good decisions in allying himself with the Tyrells and the North, and had the force to really win the war. But nope, Stannis just fucking has to have a demon vagina monster conveniently appear and assassinate him. Sigh. fucking magic.
Renly tried to take the throne without being the legitimate heir. His reasoning was just that he'd be better at it than Stannis. If he was a legit good guy he would have recognized this, and offered to help Stannis, while setting himself up to be hand of the king or something similar. He got screwed over pretty hard, and probably didn't deserve for it to happen, but I would go as far to say he was a "good guy".
so many people bothered by the "good guys" being murdered, the only thing G. Martin is guilty of is that he made a world that offers intelligent readers an antidote to what they are used to/tired off : the good guys having plot armor and succeeding every time, schooling people to choose the "right" morality that wins.
Even the magic in the show acts as randomness that helps (or kills) some of the power hungry plotters; in real life luck plays a great part whether you like it or not, even if you make the best plan you could still lose to an idiot with weapons of mass destruction or an earthquake or dragons etc
Why the hell would Robb or Eddard Stark win? Yes we can relate more to them because our their morals/line of thinking are closer to our own age, but if you put them into their own world they should be really lucky to survive with their no- compromise-iron-morals attitude and their inability to understand their opponents.
George RR Martin is indeed having fun with people that think in the old school morality cliches and I'm having fun with him as well. In real life shit actually happens and you might think he has overdone it in his books, but seriously, how good would another moralizing yawn fest be? OH GR8 ROBB TOOK REVENGE AND BECAME KING HOW FASCINATING AND UNEXPECTED JUST LIKE REAL LIFE WHERE THE GOOD GUYS WIN AND EVERYTHING HAS A PURPOSE
Oh and when everyone's referring to the show being realistic I think it's obvious that they mean the characters' motivations and passions, contrasting the show to other known fantasy books/movies like Lord of the rings where the morality and motivations are overly simplistic (eg the absence of sexuality)
The point isn't that the "good guys" have to win, but that the hipster attitude of, "Oh, Martin's writing is so realistic to how people actually are and so refreshing!" is arrogant and naive. His storytelling isn't much more realistic than the "good guys" winning out; he is just flipping it around the other way, and the "bad guys" are the ones that are stomping everyone. Plenty of people (myself included) will continue to absolutely love this series and TV show, but the criticisms are perfectly justified. It's personal taste, not correct vs. incorrect. Martin has taken his storytelling a radically different direction from what is fairly common, but that doesn't make it any better; it simply makes it different in tone but still similar in biases.
No it's not. You would be right if the bad guys just happened to win, and the good guys just happened to lose. Robb Stark doesn't lose because he's the good guy. He loses because he makes several bad decisions, some due to his honor but also some due to his youth. Similarly, the Lannister aren't "winning" because they're evil. They have better alliances, a larger force, more money, and so far they've made the more logical decisions.
Robb Stark was outmicroing them in battles but he just got outmacroed really badly. That's why he lost. Not because of his moral standards, but because of his poor display of game of thrones skills.
Hmm. This is a fictional work here. Martin's the one who decides who wins and who loses, correct? It was a conscious choice from Martin to kill off the Starks. Not understanding your counter to his argument.
His argument is that Martin chose to kill the Starks because they're good and he wanted us to get shocked at the idea that good people are being killed. My counter is that it's wrong. - Logically it makes sense that the Stark lose, because they're in a worse situation, and underdogs tend to lose (otherwise we wouldn't call them underdogs). That's the "good guy kills unrelenting armies of orcs / the heroes are in a seemingly desperate situation but somehow pull it off" fantasy trope. - Robb Stark doesn't randomly lose. His failure is a direct result of the mistakes he made (which are major branches of other trope discussions).
On June 04 2013 02:44 SCST wrote: I think a great deal of people are underestimating the prowess / understanding of many viewers who are criticizing the show. The gut reaction is to think "oh, they're just being mad and emotional because their favorite characters were killed", when it may be something a bit deeper. I've given some thought to the implications of the "Red Wedding" scene and come to realize that Game of Thrones is missing a pretty big, important theme for me. That being: moral righteousness and "the greater good".
Let me explain. . . almost all of the characters in Game of Thrones appear to be morally ambivalent in some way. And those characters who seem attracted to the paradigms of "good" (love, honor, peace, pleasure, kindness) are few and far between. Even with these few "good" individuals being placed in the story, they are not consistent and often make decisions that completely invalidate their supposed world view. That, or they are killed.
But why? On the surface this may seem like an insight into our own civilization - the idea that morality is really grey and that most people are ambivalent and self-serving. That's what I thought initially. And I admit it was an interesting theme. But after watching "The Red Wedding" I have changed my mind. Sure, I can agree that there are elements of humanity that are violent, selfish, power-seeking and morally reprehensible. And I'm fine with these themes being represented in stories. But the issue I have with Game of Thrones is that these elements dominate excessively . I find myself constantly asking: where are the righteous characters that would rather die than become corrupt or a-moral? Where are the people that, as reflected in our own lives, believe in peace, kindness, honor and love? It turns out that there really aren't any in Martin's work. These characters are either grossly under-represented or used for sensationalist fodder by being killed off.
The truth is, many of us in the audience do consider ourselves to be righteous, moral individuals. We want to relate to the characters in the story, not just observe a bunch of savages hacking each other's heads off. How can most of us relate to the morally ambivalent characters or the reprehensible one? If Martin's goal here is to create sensationalist environment with excessive violence, gore and drama then it makes sense that there so few "good guys". But I also feel it's cheap story-telling if this is the case. And if Martin's trying to send a message - that Game of Thrones is a reflection of the human condition and that the story is based somewhat in reality - then I'd argue he's not accurate whatsoever.
I don't think there's anything wrong with coming to this realization about Game of Thrones. It's not as outrageous as people seem to think to be turned off by having some of the few characters we could actually relate to (even slightly) massacred. Whether it was for sensationalism or as an attempt to indict most of humanity as being morally ambivalent and reprehensible (when most of humanity is not), both are valid reasons to turn away from the story.
Nail on the fucking head.
Martin deserves a lot of praise for his writing, his interesting story, his darker themes, his courage to kill off characters, etc. etc. etc. However, when you just constantly knock off every "good guy" in the series, to the point where they are punching bags (Dany being the only "good guy" to play an even remotely important role and not get completely owned), you're over-doing it. Evil and treachery seem to be winning out to the point where it isn't believable and goes against not only what the average viewer wants to see, but what the average viewer actually experiences and can relate to. While the world isn't all sunshine and rainbows and the good guys do die, evil and treachery doesn't constantly prevail; we are not the Dark Elves from the Forgotten Realms or the Dark Eldar from 40k. Even during the Middle Ages, the period that this constant conflict we see in GoT is more indicative of, treachery, deceit, and evil didn't dominate this much. I think this is where some people start to get upset. The only houses that have any real power at this point are the ambiguous-to-evil houses (Bolton, Frey, Lannister, Greyjoy). Any house that could theoretically be painted as "good (Stark, Tyrell, Tully, Arryn) are either pretty much completely dead (Stark, Tully) or marginalized and arguably not even "good" (Tyrell, Arryn). I think the criticism mainly stems from the fact that the "good guys" aren't just losing; they're just being stamped out of existence completely, and this is only halfway through the series.
When the only person that can be painted as a "good guy" is a single ruler fighting a far-off war over slaves on a continent that has absolutely nothing to do with the "Game of Thrones", then people get a little disillusioned.
The only "good guy" death that really left a bitter taste in my mouth due to the unfairness of it was Renly. He never made any major errors (unless you're one of those Stannis maniacs), made good decisions in allying himself with the Tyrells and the North, and had the force to really win the war. But nope, Stannis just fucking has to have a demon vagina monster conveniently appear and assassinate him. Sigh. fucking magic.
Renly tried to take the throne without being the legitimate heir. His reasoning was just that he'd be better at it than Stannis. If he was a legit good guy he would have recognized this, and offered to help Stannis, while setting himself up to be hand of the king or something similar. He got screwed over pretty hard, and probably didn't deserve for it to happen, but I would go as far to say he was a "good guy".
so many people bothered by the "good guys" being murdered, the only thing G. Martin is guilty of is that he made a world that offers intelligent readers an antidote to what they are used to/tired off : the good guys having plot armor and succeeding every time, schooling people to choose the "right" morality that wins.
Even the magic in the show acts as randomness that helps (or kills) some of the power hungry plotters; in real life luck plays a great part whether you like it or not, even if you make the best plan you could still lose to an idiot with weapons of mass destruction or an earthquake or dragons etc
Why the hell would Robb or Eddard Stark win? Yes we can relate more to them because our their morals/line of thinking are closer to our own age, but if you put them into their own world they should be really lucky to survive with their no- compromise-iron-morals attitude and their inability to understand their opponents.
George RR Martin is indeed having fun with people that think in the old school morality cliches and I'm having fun with him as well. In real life shit actually happens and you might think he has overdone it in his books, but seriously, how good would another moralizing yawn fest be? OH GR8 ROBB TOOK REVENGE AND BECAME KING HOW FASCINATING AND UNEXPECTED JUST LIKE REAL LIFE WHERE THE GOOD GUYS WIN AND EVERYTHING HAS A PURPOSE
Oh and when everyone's referring to the show being realistic I think it's obvious that they mean the characters' motivations and passions, contrasting the show to other known fantasy books/movies like Lord of the rings where the morality and motivations are overly simplistic (eg the absence of sexuality)
The point isn't that the "good guys" have to win, but that the hipster attitude of, "Oh, Martin's writing is so realistic to how people actually are and so refreshing!" is arrogant and naive. His storytelling isn't much more realistic than the "good guys" winning out; he is just flipping it around the other way, and the "bad guys" are the ones that are stomping everyone. Plenty of people (myself included) will continue to absolutely love this series and TV show, but the criticisms are perfectly justified. It's personal taste, not correct vs. incorrect. Martin has taken his storytelling a radically different direction from what is fairly common, but that doesn't make it any better; it simply makes it different in tone but still similar in biases.
In fact, there's good grounds for literary criticism of what Martin is doing. If Martin does (or already has, since the next two books have been written) continue to be trigger-happy, then killing off so many of your main characters makes for a very poor experience towards the end of the series; people aren't going to be very invested in a bunch of new characters when all of the original characters have just been killed off.
No. If you look at history, the vast majority of people who seized or held power were exceptionally unsavory people, routinely engaging in assassination, bald-faced lying, deception, and manipulation of others for personal gain.
1) You literally didn't respond to a single thing that was actually in my post.
2) I'm sure your astoundingly in-depth, higher education-level knowledge of historical facts is translated in that one sentence.
It would probably have helped if I clarified that I was responding to SCST, not you. I was just too lazy to do all the deleting etc to quote only his post.
On June 04 2013 02:44 SCST wrote: I think a great deal of people are underestimating the prowess / understanding of many viewers who are criticizing the show. The gut reaction is to think "oh, they're just being mad and emotional because their favorite characters were killed", when it may be something a bit deeper. I've given some thought to the implications of the "Red Wedding" scene and come to realize that Game of Thrones is missing a pretty big, important theme for me. That being: moral righteousness and "the greater good".
Let me explain. . . almost all of the characters in Game of Thrones appear to be morally ambivalent in some way. And those characters who seem attracted to the paradigms of "good" (love, honor, peace, pleasure, kindness) are few and far between. Even with these few "good" individuals being placed in the story, they are not consistent and often make decisions that completely invalidate their supposed world view. That, or they are killed.
But why? On the surface this may seem like an insight into our own civilization - the idea that morality is really grey and that most people are ambivalent and self-serving. That's what I thought initially. And I admit it was an interesting theme. But after watching "The Red Wedding" I have changed my mind. Sure, I can agree that there are elements of humanity that are violent, selfish, power-seeking and morally reprehensible. And I'm fine with these themes being represented in stories. But the issue I have with Game of Thrones is that these elements dominate excessively . I find myself constantly asking: where are the righteous characters that would rather die than become corrupt or a-moral? Where are the people that, as reflected in our own lives, believe in peace, kindness, honor and love? It turns out that there really aren't any in Martin's work. These characters are either grossly under-represented or used for sensationalist fodder by being killed off.
The truth is, many of us in the audience do consider ourselves to be righteous, moral individuals. We want to relate to the characters in the story, not just observe a bunch of savages hacking each other's heads off. How can most of us relate to the morally ambivalent characters or the reprehensible one? If Martin's goal here is to create sensationalist environment with excessive violence, gore and drama then it makes sense that there so few "good guys". But I also feel it's cheap story-telling if this is the case. And if Martin's trying to send a message - that Game of Thrones is a reflection of the human condition and that the story is based somewhat in reality - then I'd argue he's not accurate whatsoever.
I don't think there's anything wrong with coming to this realization about Game of Thrones. It's not as outrageous as people seem to think to be turned off by having some of the few characters we could actually relate to (even slightly) massacred. Whether it was for sensationalism or as an attempt to indict most of humanity as being morally ambivalent and reprehensible (when most of humanity is not), both are valid reasons to turn away from the story.
Nail on the fucking head.
Martin deserves a lot of praise for his writing, his interesting story, his darker themes, his courage to kill off characters, etc. etc. etc. However, when you just constantly knock off every "good guy" in the series, to the point where they are punching bags (Dany being the only "good guy" to play an even remotely important role and not get completely owned), you're over-doing it. Evil and treachery seem to be winning out to the point where it isn't believable and goes against not only what the average viewer wants to see, but what the average viewer actually experiences and can relate to. While the world isn't all sunshine and rainbows and the good guys do die, evil and treachery doesn't constantly prevail; we are not the Dark Elves from the Forgotten Realms or the Dark Eldar from 40k. Even during the Middle Ages, the period that this constant conflict we see in GoT is more indicative of, treachery, deceit, and evil didn't dominate this much. I think this is where some people start to get upset. The only houses that have any real power at this point are the ambiguous-to-evil houses (Bolton, Frey, Lannister, Greyjoy). Any house that could theoretically be painted as "good (Stark, Tyrell, Tully, Arryn) are either pretty much completely dead (Stark, Tully) or marginalized and arguably not even "good" (Tyrell, Arryn). I think the criticism mainly stems from the fact that the "good guys" aren't just losing; they're just being stamped out of existence completely, and this is only halfway through the series.
When the only person that can be painted as a "good guy" is a single ruler fighting a far-off war over slaves on a continent that has absolutely nothing to do with the "Game of Thrones", then people get a little disillusioned.
The only "good guy" death that really left a bitter taste in my mouth due to the unfairness of it was Renly. He never made any major errors (unless you're one of those Stannis maniacs), made good decisions in allying himself with the Tyrells and the North, and had the force to really win the war. But nope, Stannis just fucking has to have a demon vagina monster conveniently appear and assassinate him. Sigh. fucking magic.
Renly tried to take the throne without being the legitimate heir. His reasoning was just that he'd be better at it than Stannis. If he was a legit good guy he would have recognized this, and offered to help Stannis, while setting himself up to be hand of the king or something similar. He got screwed over pretty hard, and probably didn't deserve for it to happen, but I would go as far to say he was a "good guy".
so many people bothered by the "good guys" being murdered, the only thing G. Martin is guilty of is that he made a world that offers intelligent readers an antidote to what they are used to/tired off : the good guys having plot armor and succeeding every time, schooling people to choose the "right" morality that wins.
Even the magic in the show acts as randomness that helps (or kills) some of the power hungry plotters; in real life luck plays a great part whether you like it or not, even if you make the best plan you could still lose to an idiot with weapons of mass destruction or an earthquake or dragons etc
Why the hell would Robb or Eddard Stark win? Yes we can relate more to them because our their morals/line of thinking are closer to our own age, but if you put them into their own world they should be really lucky to survive with their no- compromise-iron-morals attitude and their inability to understand their opponents.
George RR Martin is indeed having fun with people that think in the old school morality cliches and I'm having fun with him as well. In real life shit actually happens and you might think he has overdone it in his books, but seriously, how good would another moralizing yawn fest be? OH GR8 ROBB TOOK REVENGE AND BECAME KING HOW FASCINATING AND UNEXPECTED JUST LIKE REAL LIFE WHERE THE GOOD GUYS WIN AND EVERYTHING HAS A PURPOSE
Oh and when everyone's referring to the show being realistic I think it's obvious that they mean the characters' motivations and passions, contrasting the show to other known fantasy books/movies like Lord of the rings where the morality and motivations are overly simplistic (eg the absence of sexuality)
The point isn't that the "good guys" have to win, but that the hipster attitude of, "Oh, Martin's writing is so realistic to how people actually are and so refreshing!" is arrogant and naive. His storytelling isn't much more realistic than the "good guys" winning out; he is just flipping it around the other way, and the "bad guys" are the ones that are stomping everyone. Plenty of people (myself included) will continue to absolutely love this series and TV show, but the criticisms are perfectly justified. It's personal taste, not correct vs. incorrect. Martin has taken his storytelling a radically different direction from what is fairly common, but that doesn't make it any better; it simply makes it different in tone but still similar in biases.
No it's not. You would be right if the bad guys just happened to win, and the good guys just happened to lose. Robb Stark doesn't lose because he's the good guy. He loses because he makes several bad decisions, some due to his honor but also some due to his youth. Similarly, the Lannister aren't "winning" because they're evil. They have better alliances, a larger force, more money, and so far they've made the more logical decisions.
Robb Stark was outmicroing them in battles but he just got outmacroed really badly. That's why he lost. Not because of his moral standards, but because of his poor display of game of thrones skills.
This makes no sense. Martin made up literally everything about the characters. You're arguing semantics that have no real weight on the actual issue.
Some people in here have a very Sansa-esque view of things I see. Well maybe now they are starting to realize knights aren't like the ones in the pretty songs, and the same goes for some lords as well.
Some people in here need to learn to read.
His argument is that Martin chose to kill the Starks because they're good and he wanted us to get shocked at the idea that good people are being killed. My counter is that it's wrong. - Logically it makes sense that the Stark lose, because they're in a worse situation, and underdogs tend to lose (otherwise we wouldn't call them underdogs). That's the "good guy kills unrelenting armies of orcs / the heroes are in a seemingly desperate situation but somehow pull it off" fantasy trope. - Robb Stark doesn't randomly lose. His failure is a direct result of the mistakes he made (which are major branches of other trope discussions).
Yea...No. You're completely off.
That wasn't my argument at all. Why they die is irrelevant to my point. My entire point revolves around the consequences of who is dying in the series.
It would probably have helped if I clarified that I was responding to SCST, not you. I was just too lazy to do all the deleting etc to quote only his post.
On June 04 2013 02:44 SCST wrote: I think a great deal of people are underestimating the prowess / understanding of many viewers who are criticizing the show. The gut reaction is to think "oh, they're just being mad and emotional because their favorite characters were killed", when it may be something a bit deeper. I've given some thought to the implications of the "Red Wedding" scene and come to realize that Game of Thrones is missing a pretty big, important theme for me. That being: moral righteousness and "the greater good".
Let me explain. . . almost all of the characters in Game of Thrones appear to be morally ambivalent in some way. And those characters who seem attracted to the paradigms of "good" (love, honor, peace, pleasure, kindness) are few and far between. Even with these few "good" individuals being placed in the story, they are not consistent and often make decisions that completely invalidate their supposed world view. That, or they are killed.
But why? On the surface this may seem like an insight into our own civilization - the idea that morality is really grey and that most people are ambivalent and self-serving. That's what I thought initially. And I admit it was an interesting theme. But after watching "The Red Wedding" I have changed my mind. Sure, I can agree that there are elements of humanity that are violent, selfish, power-seeking and morally reprehensible. And I'm fine with these themes being represented in stories. But the issue I have with Game of Thrones is that these elements dominate excessively . I find myself constantly asking: where are the righteous characters that would rather die than become corrupt or a-moral? Where are the people that, as reflected in our own lives, believe in peace, kindness, honor and love? It turns out that there really aren't any in Martin's work. These characters are either grossly under-represented or used for sensationalist fodder by being killed off.
The truth is, many of us in the audience do consider ourselves to be righteous, moral individuals. We want to relate to the characters in the story, not just observe a bunch of savages hacking each other's heads off. How can most of us relate to the morally ambivalent characters or the reprehensible one? If Martin's goal here is to create sensationalist environment with excessive violence, gore and drama then it makes sense that there so few "good guys". But I also feel it's cheap story-telling if this is the case. And if Martin's trying to send a message - that Game of Thrones is a reflection of the human condition and that the story is based somewhat in reality - then I'd argue he's not accurate whatsoever.
I don't think there's anything wrong with coming to this realization about Game of Thrones. It's not as outrageous as people seem to think to be turned off by having some of the few characters we could actually relate to (even slightly) massacred. Whether it was for sensationalism or as an attempt to indict most of humanity as being morally ambivalent and reprehensible (when most of humanity is not), both are valid reasons to turn away from the story.
Nail on the fucking head.
Martin deserves a lot of praise for his writing, his interesting story, his darker themes, his courage to kill off characters, etc. etc. etc. However, when you just constantly knock off every "good guy" in the series, to the point where they are punching bags (Dany being the only "good guy" to play an even remotely important role and not get completely owned), you're over-doing it. Evil and treachery seem to be winning out to the point where it isn't believable and goes against not only what the average viewer wants to see, but what the average viewer actually experiences and can relate to. While the world isn't all sunshine and rainbows and the good guys do die, evil and treachery doesn't constantly prevail; we are not the Dark Elves from the Forgotten Realms or the Dark Eldar from 40k. Even during the Middle Ages, the period that this constant conflict we see in GoT is more indicative of, treachery, deceit, and evil didn't dominate this much. I think this is where some people start to get upset. The only houses that have any real power at this point are the ambiguous-to-evil houses (Bolton, Frey, Lannister, Greyjoy). Any house that could theoretically be painted as "good (Stark, Tyrell, Tully, Arryn) are either pretty much completely dead (Stark, Tully) or marginalized and arguably not even "good" (Tyrell, Arryn). I think the criticism mainly stems from the fact that the "good guys" aren't just losing; they're just being stamped out of existence completely, and this is only halfway through the series.
When the only person that can be painted as a "good guy" is a single ruler fighting a far-off war over slaves on a continent that has absolutely nothing to do with the "Game of Thrones", then people get a little disillusioned.
The only "good guy" death that really left a bitter taste in my mouth due to the unfairness of it was Renly. He never made any major errors (unless you're one of those Stannis maniacs), made good decisions in allying himself with the Tyrells and the North, and had the force to really win the war. But nope, Stannis just fucking has to have a demon vagina monster conveniently appear and assassinate him. Sigh. fucking magic.
Renly tried to take the throne without being the legitimate heir. His reasoning was just that he'd be better at it than Stannis. If he was a legit good guy he would have recognized this, and offered to help Stannis, while setting himself up to be hand of the king or something similar. He got screwed over pretty hard, and probably didn't deserve for it to happen, but I would go as far to say he was a "good guy".
so many people bothered by the "good guys" being murdered, the only thing G. Martin is guilty of is that he made a world that offers intelligent readers an antidote to what they are used to/tired off : the good guys having plot armor and succeeding every time, schooling people to choose the "right" morality that wins.
Even the magic in the show acts as randomness that helps (or kills) some of the power hungry plotters; in real life luck plays a great part whether you like it or not, even if you make the best plan you could still lose to an idiot with weapons of mass destruction or an earthquake or dragons etc
Why the hell would Robb or Eddard Stark win? Yes we can relate more to them because our their morals/line of thinking are closer to our own age, but if you put them into their own world they should be really lucky to survive with their no- compromise-iron-morals attitude and their inability to understand their opponents.
George RR Martin is indeed having fun with people that think in the old school morality cliches and I'm having fun with him as well. In real life shit actually happens and you might think he has overdone it in his books, but seriously, how good would another moralizing yawn fest be? OH GR8 ROBB TOOK REVENGE AND BECAME KING HOW FASCINATING AND UNEXPECTED JUST LIKE REAL LIFE WHERE THE GOOD GUYS WIN AND EVERYTHING HAS A PURPOSE
Oh and when everyone's referring to the show being realistic I think it's obvious that they mean the characters' motivations and passions, contrasting the show to other known fantasy books/movies like Lord of the rings where the morality and motivations are overly simplistic (eg the absence of sexuality)
The point isn't that the "good guys" have to win, but that the hipster attitude of, "Oh, Martin's writing is so realistic to how people actually are and so refreshing!" is arrogant and naive. His storytelling isn't much more realistic than the "good guys" winning out; he is just flipping it around the other way, and the "bad guys" are the ones that are stomping everyone. Plenty of people (myself included) will continue to absolutely love this series and TV show, but the criticisms are perfectly justified. It's personal taste, not correct vs. incorrect. Martin has taken his storytelling a radically different direction from what is fairly common, but that doesn't make it any better; it simply makes it different in tone but still similar in biases.
In fact, there's good grounds for literary criticism of what Martin is doing. If Martin does (or already has, since the next two books have been written) continue to be trigger-happy, then killing off so many of your main characters makes for a very poor experience towards the end of the series; people aren't going to be very invested in a bunch of new characters when all of the original characters have just been killed off.
No. If you look at history, the vast majority of people who seized or held power were exceptionally unsavory people, routinely engaging in assassination, bald-faced lying, deception, and manipulation of others for personal gain.
1) You literally didn't respond to a single thing that was actually in my post.
2) I'm sure your astoundingly in-depth, higher education-level knowledge of historical facts is translated in that one sentence.
It would probably have helped if I clarified that I was responding to SCST, not you. I was just too lazy to do all the deleting etc to quote only his post.
Stratos and I are on the same page, and I echo his response to you anyhow.
Probably best to leave it at the idea that there are two groups of people who simply disagree. And as enjoyable as it might be to discuss the motivations of Martin and the implications to the fans, it is after all, just a TV show.
On June 04 2013 08:27 Stratos_speAr wrote: Yea...No.
That wasn't my argument at all. Why they die is irrelevant to my point. My entire point revolves around the consequences of who is dying in the series.
All right, I see what you mean now. On this particular matter I'm afraid to answer you here because of the tempban headline. I'll PM you. It's not a spoiler, but it's theorycrafting, and most forums consider this spoiler/ish, so I'm not taking chances.
Also I love how it took you like four tries to decide how much you want to be agressive with your opening line.
On June 04 2013 02:44 SCST wrote: I think a great deal of people are underestimating the prowess / understanding of many viewers who are criticizing the show. The gut reaction is to think "oh, they're just being mad and emotional because their favorite characters were killed", when it may be something a bit deeper. I've given some thought to the implications of the "Red Wedding" scene and come to realize that Game of Thrones is missing a pretty big, important theme for me. That being: moral righteousness and "the greater good".
Let me explain. . . almost all of the characters in Game of Thrones appear to be morally ambivalent in some way. And those characters who seem attracted to the paradigms of "good" (love, honor, peace, pleasure, kindness) are few and far between. Even with these few "good" individuals being placed in the story, they are not consistent and often make decisions that completely invalidate their supposed world view. That, or they are killed.
But why? On the surface this may seem like an insight into our own civilization - the idea that morality is really grey and that most people are ambivalent and self-serving. That's what I thought initially. And I admit it was an interesting theme. But after watching "The Red Wedding" I have changed my mind. Sure, I can agree that there are elements of humanity that are violent, selfish, power-seeking and morally reprehensible. And I'm fine with these themes being represented in stories. But the issue I have with Game of Thrones is that these elements dominate excessively . I find myself constantly asking: where are the righteous characters that would rather die than become corrupt or a-moral? Where are the people that, as reflected in our own lives, believe in peace, kindness, honor and love? It turns out that there really aren't any in Martin's work. These characters are either grossly under-represented or used for sensationalist fodder by being killed off.
The truth is, many of us in the audience do consider ourselves to be righteous, moral individuals. We want to relate to the characters in the story, not just observe a bunch of savages hacking each other's heads off. How can most of us relate to the morally ambivalent characters or the reprehensible one? If Martin's goal here is to create sensationalist environment with excessive violence, gore and drama then it makes sense that there so few "good guys". But I also feel it's cheap story-telling if this is the case. And if Martin's trying to send a message - that Game of Thrones is a reflection of the human condition and that the story is based somewhat in reality - then I'd argue he's not accurate whatsoever.
I don't think there's anything wrong with coming to this realization about Game of Thrones. It's not as outrageous as people seem to think to be turned off by having some of the few characters we could actually relate to (even slightly) massacred. Whether it was for sensationalism or as an attempt to indict most of humanity as being morally ambivalent and reprehensible (when most of humanity is not), both are valid reasons to turn away from the story.
I completely agree with you. Overall I have found ASOIAF to be cold, nihlistic and has a nasty fetish for Realpolitk.
In this supposedly "realistic" story, the unpleasant things in life seem to have much greater representation than any of the joys of life. It never takes a step back and says " ah, this is what life's for." And this is very important given the vast, PoV world-building, all-encompassing epic tale.
Obviously this is not the only gauge for a fantasy series, but I ask myself, would I like to visit the depicted fantasy world? If I ever woke up in Westeros, I would be all "where is the fucking Wardrobe? get me the fuck out of here." GRRM's Westeros is a nasty Hell, populated by assholes.
"Nasty hell populated by assholes". That describes the world during almost all of human history and even much of the world right now. The thing is you guys are judging the world and it's people by modern first world humanistic standards, but the world of GoT is not like that at all. Human life has very little value, as it did in ancient times in the real world. Just look at what is happening right now in Syria, in some parts of Africa, hell it's even in my own country or in Mexico there is some gnarly shit happening every single day and almost noone not directly related cares at all.
But most people just like to close their eyes and think the world is all flowers and butterflies. GoT portrayal of the human race is realistic; we all are mostly a bunch of selfish assholes with very little regard for anyone except those closest to us. Of course there are exceptions in real life but so there are in the world of GoT. Davos, Dany and Jon are major characters with a very modern sense of justice and humanity and all of them are so far alive and doing relatively well.
This is the world-view (that you may share with George Martin) that I strongly disagree with. We must all acknowledge that there has been violence, anguish, hopelessness, corruption and more throughout human history. However, can you assert that the human condition is accurately represented by what we see in Westeros? Are nearly all humans amoral creatures - ambivalent or reprehensible in regards to morality, as seen in Game of Thrones? That's quite an indictment of humanity. It reminds me of Star Trek: The Encounter at Far Point, when the omnipotent being named "Q" puts humanity on trial. Needless to say, the trial ends with the understanding that humanity as a whole is not savage or amoral - but rather, we are inherently "good" beings. And though flawed, we look to better ourselves and are driven by the hope of a better a future.
I would say that Sam's speech to Frodo at the end of The Two Towers is far more representative of our humanity than the excessive darkness and moral ambivalence that Martin broods in. Tolkien's work was also heavily influenced by his horrible experiences in World War 1. Linking below:
Dude, the show isn't a documentary for crying out loud. Yeah, GRRM for sure exaggerates how evil the average person is in GoT. That makes it entertaining as hell to watch. It's an aesthetic for the story that differs from stories like LotR. What's so wrong with that? No one here is saying that stories where the good guys always win are inherently bad. It's just a different storytelling choice, and GRRM's choice definitely has a lot of merit- the main advantage being that the suspense is real.
Robb's decision to break his oath had real and dire consequences- not consequences that would be bad for a moment, maybe cost one person's life, and then be water under the bridge a few episodes later- but consequences that led to the destruction of everything he'd worked for. Those are consequences that good guys just don't get in LotR.
It may not be entirely realistic, but it feels that way because our fiction has been so historically weighted toward the lovey-dovey, triumph-of-good side of reality. So it feels a lot more real when we have a series that exaggerates the more gritty side of reality.
I don't think you understood the purpose of my post. I was responding to someone stating that Game of Thrones is accurately analogous to our own history and human condition, when (as you yourself mentioned) it is not.
Well, fair enough. I would say it's more an issue of focus than inaccuracy, though. I'd say there are surely plenty of microchosms in our history where there were people who were just as generally evil as the people on GoT. If you're looking for a representative sample of all human action, GoT is probably not accurate, though.
But yeah, I think when people say it's more realistic, they more mean that it includes parts of reality that we don't usually see.
I think the biggest aspect of "realism" in Game of Thrones is the lack of a distinct good/evil binary. Almost everyone in history who has done something "evil" had motivations and circumstances that made it seem like the right thing to do to them at the time. Add in something as ultimately pointless and meaningless as monarchical politics (i.e. no one has the right to rule the Seven Kingdoms, what the hell are you all on about?), and no one is really going to have good, objective moral justification for anything they do. "The good guys" vs. "the bad guys" is not a model you often get in history (I'd say WW2 is probably the closest thing I know of), and GoT is very reflective of that.
Hundred Years War, Caligula, Rape of Nanking, murder of Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan killing his half-brother over a simple argument while hunting, Tang Taizhong killing his brothers over rulership of the family, etc ad infinitum. The number of examples throughout history of people doing just as awful, if not worse things is endless.
SCST is either blatantly ignoring these facts or he is ignorant. Either way, he's completely wrong.
And good things do happen to good people. Brienne of Tarth was saved from the bear. She could have just as easily been torn to pieces just for the sake of showing how cruel life can be. But people don't want to focus on that because they're too butthurt right now. They want to cry and complain that GRRM is unrelentingly dark. He's not. Bran is still alive when he could have simply been killed. Rickon hasn't been hurt. Both of them could have been slaughtered by Theon. Arya's alive despite all odds. Sansa hasn't been raped. Tyrion was perhaps the best husband she could have hoped for. A Lannister, so she won't be politically vulnerable, a good one so she won't be raped, and the older brother of the king so she's relatively insulated from Joffrey's insanity. Add to that the Tyrells have taken an interest in her and want to bring her over to their side, and you have a somewhat stupid but relatively good person who's come out about as good as she possibly could.
Samsung, it is true that those events (which are justifiably horrible) are a poor reflection upon mankind. What you're not taking into consideration is both how frequently these events occurred and who, relative to the whole of humanity, committed them. If we were to directly translate Game of Thrones to our world (reversing the analogy) then we would have a blood-letting of political opponents every week in our societies . . . massacres every day, immorality running rampant on an individual and personal level . Martin's work is a massive exaggeration of the worst of humanity. Use some common sense here when analyzing it and asserting that events like the Rape of Nanking justifies the daily brutality of Westeros from time unto end. There is very little "good" in the world of Game of Thrones, and there is and has been plenty of "good" in our world.
That's where I think everyone disagrees with your views. GoT is NOT 100% negative. You're not recognizing that the vast majority of main characters in GoT are nobility. These are the people in power. They are not a representative cross-section of all of Westeros' population. It is well known that power corrupts. And what we're looking at here are the actions of people struggling for power.
Now look at the people NOT in power in GoT. Gendry? That baker's boy who leaves Arya's group to bake bread at an inn? The maester at Winterfell? The stableboy Arya played with? Syrio? The onion knight? Samwell Tarly? Brienne of Tarth? That wildling girl with Bran? There are plenty of people in GoT who are not terrible people. But you're ignoring them because they don't fit into your view of GoT. You're being horribly biased and you really don't have much of a point here. There is nothing unrealistic about GoT aside from the obvious fantasy elements. People do awful things during war and for the sake of power.
Everything mentioned here is either a small/insulated story happening to characters that will never have the presence, character power, or influence in the fictional world that others have, just inconsequential (to the primary story of the past three seasons, the "Game"), or is simply you trying to construe something bad not happening as being a good thing. Overall, you may be right; Westeros isn't all 40k-levels of grim-dark, but the reason that a lot of viewers may be upset at the show (and are justified in being so, should the grim-ness not be their cup of tea) is that what is portrayed to us is very dark and grim. The everyday good/happiness/peace is all simply inferred.
People just need to figure out that Robb wasn't the main protagonist and that the story isn't even halfway done. GoT is an extremely long epic, and it has the pacing to match it.
All the anger and sadness over the Red Wedding just makes the other Stark characters and their respective plotlines that much more vital. We learned in the same episode that Bran's warg powers are capable of more than anyone in his group had thought them to be. The Starks aren't dead yet, they just got a lot more to fight for.
A LOT of stories involve a child losing his parents, only to avenge them farther down the road. People are just used to quicker plummets in their story arcs, whereas this plummet is 3 years in the making. The plummet is long, but that's what makes it great. This isn't any different than Ned Stark losing his head. It just gives the remaining protagonists more weight. Bran and Jon Snow aren't just side-plots to the King in the North anymore.
I completely agree with you. Overall I have found ASOIAF to be cold, nihlistic and has a nasty fetish for Realpolitk.
In this supposedly "realistic" story, the unpleasant things in life seem to have much greater representation than any of the joys of life. It never takes a step back and says " ah, this is what life's for." And this is very important given the vast, PoV world-building, all-encompassing epic tale.
Obviously this is not the only gauge for a fantasy series, but I ask myself, would I like to visit the depicted fantasy world? If I ever woke up in Westeros, I would be all "where is the fucking Wardrobe? get me the fuck out of here." GRRM's Westeros is a nasty Hell, populated by assholes.
"Nasty hell populated by assholes". That describes the world during almost all of human history and even much of the world right now. The thing is you guys are judging the world and it's people by modern first world humanistic standards, but the world of GoT is not like that at all. Human life has very little value, as it did in ancient times in the real world. Just look at what is happening right now in Syria, in some parts of Africa, hell it's even in my own country or in Mexico there is some gnarly shit happening every single day and almost noone not directly related cares at all.
But most people just like to close their eyes and think the world is all flowers and butterflies. GoT portrayal of the human race is realistic; we all are mostly a bunch of selfish assholes with very little regard for anyone except those closest to us. Of course there are exceptions in real life but so there are in the world of GoT. Davos, Dany and Jon are major characters with a very modern sense of justice and humanity and all of them are so far alive and doing relatively well.
This is the world-view (that you may share with George Martin) that I strongly disagree with. We must all acknowledge that there has been violence, anguish, hopelessness, corruption and more throughout human history. However, can you assert that the human condition is accurately represented by what we see in Westeros? Are nearly all humans amoral creatures - ambivalent or reprehensible in regards to morality, as seen in Game of Thrones? That's quite an indictment of humanity. It reminds me of Star Trek: The Encounter at Far Point, when the omnipotent being named "Q" puts humanity on trial. Needless to say, the trial ends with the understanding that humanity as a whole is not savage or amoral - but rather, we are inherently "good" beings. And though flawed, we look to better ourselves and are driven by the hope of a better a future.
I would say that Sam's speech to Frodo at the end of The Two Towers is far more representative of our humanity than the excessive darkness and moral ambivalence that Martin broods in. Tolkien's work was also heavily influenced by his horrible experiences in World War 1. Linking below:
Dude, the show isn't a documentary for crying out loud. Yeah, GRRM for sure exaggerates how evil the average person is in GoT. That makes it entertaining as hell to watch. It's an aesthetic for the story that differs from stories like LotR. What's so wrong with that? No one here is saying that stories where the good guys always win are inherently bad. It's just a different storytelling choice, and GRRM's choice definitely has a lot of merit- the main advantage being that the suspense is real.
Robb's decision to break his oath had real and dire consequences- not consequences that would be bad for a moment, maybe cost one person's life, and then be water under the bridge a few episodes later- but consequences that led to the destruction of everything he'd worked for. Those are consequences that good guys just don't get in LotR.
It may not be entirely realistic, but it feels that way because our fiction has been so historically weighted toward the lovey-dovey, triumph-of-good side of reality. So it feels a lot more real when we have a series that exaggerates the more gritty side of reality.
I don't think you understood the purpose of my post. I was responding to someone stating that Game of Thrones is accurately analogous to our own history and human condition, when (as you yourself mentioned) it is not.
Well, fair enough. I would say it's more an issue of focus than inaccuracy, though. I'd say there are surely plenty of microchosms in our history where there were people who were just as generally evil as the people on GoT. If you're looking for a representative sample of all human action, GoT is probably not accurate, though.
But yeah, I think when people say it's more realistic, they more mean that it includes parts of reality that we don't usually see.
I think the biggest aspect of "realism" in Game of Thrones is the lack of a distinct good/evil binary. Almost everyone in history who has done something "evil" had motivations and circumstances that made it seem like the right thing to do to them at the time. Add in something as ultimately pointless and meaningless as monarchical politics (i.e. no one has the right to rule the Seven Kingdoms, what the hell are you all on about?), and no one is really going to have good, objective moral justification for anything they do. "The good guys" vs. "the bad guys" is not a model you often get in history (I'd say WW2 is probably the closest thing I know of), and GoT is very reflective of that.
Hundred Years War, Caligula, Rape of Nanking, murder of Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan killing his half-brother over a simple argument while hunting, Tang Taizhong killing his brothers over rulership of the family, etc ad infinitum. The number of examples throughout history of people doing just as awful, if not worse things is endless.
SCST is either blatantly ignoring these facts or he is ignorant. Either way, he's completely wrong.
And good things do happen to good people. Brienne of Tarth was saved from the bear. She could have just as easily been torn to pieces just for the sake of showing how cruel life can be. But people don't want to focus on that because they're too butthurt right now. They want to cry and complain that GRRM is unrelentingly dark. He's not. Bran is still alive when he could have simply been killed. Rickon hasn't been hurt. Both of them could have been slaughtered by Theon. Arya's alive despite all odds. Sansa hasn't been raped. Tyrion was perhaps the best husband she could have hoped for. A Lannister, so she won't be politically vulnerable, a good one so she won't be raped, and the older brother of the king so she's relatively insulated from Joffrey's insanity. Add to that the Tyrells have taken an interest in her and want to bring her over to their side, and you have a somewhat stupid but relatively good person who's come out about as good as she possibly could.
Samsung, it is true that those events (which are justifiably horrible) are a poor reflection upon mankind. What you're not taking into consideration is both how frequently these events occurred and who, relative to the whole of humanity, committed them. If we were to directly translate Game of Thrones to our world (reversing the analogy) then we would have a blood-letting of political opponents every week in our societies . . . massacres every day, immorality running rampant on an individual and personal level . Martin's work is a massive exaggeration of the worst of humanity. Use some common sense here when analyzing it and asserting that events like the Rape of Nanking justifies the daily brutality of Westeros from time unto end. There is very little "good" in the world of Game of Thrones, and there is and has been plenty of "good" in our world.
That's where I think everyone disagrees with your views. GoT is NOT 100% negative. You're not recognizing that the vast majority of main characters in GoT are nobility. These are the people in power. They are not a representative cross-section of all of Westeros' population. It is well known that power corrupts. And what we're looking at here are the actions of people struggling for power.
Now look at the people NOT in power in GoT. Gendry? That baker's boy who leaves Arya's group to bake bread at an inn? The maester at Winterfell? The stableboy Arya played with? Syrio? The onion knight? Samwell Tarly? Brienne of Tarth? That wildling girl with Bran? There are plenty of people in GoT who are not terrible people. But you're ignoring them because they don't fit into your view of GoT. You're being horribly biased and you really don't have much of a point here. There is nothing unrealistic about GoT aside from the obvious fantasy elements. People do awful things during war and for the sake of power.
Everything mentioned here is either a small/insulated story happening to characters that will never have the presence, character power, or influence in the fictional world that others have, just inconsequential (to the primary story of the past three seasons, the "Game"), or is simply you trying to construe something bad not happening as being a good thing. Overall, you may be right; Westeros isn't all 40k-levels of grim-dark, but the reason that a lot of viewers may be upset at the show (and are justified in being so, should the grim-ness not be their cup of tea) is that what is portrayed to us is very dark and grim. The everyday good/happiness/peace is all simply inferred.
But what part of bloody civil war is good/happiness/peace? This isn't a slice of life rom-com here.
just remember that all civilization has their dark periods, maybe this is the beginning of such in westoros, a massacre to be since the first targaryen conquest or andals.
i dont think grrm intentionally tries to "metaphorize" our reality, rather we're the ones making connections to it.
only thing i think he does is show us that good and evil are not black and white.
just be thankful that we live in a much more civilized world now. Things were alot harsher and more akin to GOT back then. The "good" guys have had their day as well, Dany has had the most luck out of all the characters in GOT so far.
It was like getting punched in the face over and over as you were on the ground. The baby Ned Stark, Rob's wolf, Rob's wife, Rob, Stark mother.
I was actually unsettled by this episode for the rest of the night. To have some of my favorite characters die so suddenly was genuinely shocking. And the look on Rob's face as he died was the worst.
Fucking Lannisters really know how to win.
I do wonder what happened to the bride and groom, and Rob's army.
Also we have not heard from Theon in a few episodes since he got his dick cut off, wonder what's going on with him.
On June 04 2013 02:44 SCST wrote: I think a great deal of people are underestimating the prowess / understanding of many viewers who are criticizing the show. The gut reaction is to think "oh, they're just being mad and emotional because their favorite characters were killed", when it may be something a bit deeper. I've given some thought to the implications of the "Red Wedding" scene and come to realize that Game of Thrones is missing a pretty big, important theme for me. That being: moral righteousness and "the greater good".
Let me explain. . . almost all of the characters in Game of Thrones appear to be morally ambivalent in some way. And those characters who seem attracted to the paradigms of "good" (love, honor, peace, pleasure, kindness) are few and far between. Even with these few "good" individuals being placed in the story, they are not consistent and often make decisions that completely invalidate their supposed world view. That, or they are killed.
But why? On the surface this may seem like an insight into our own civilization - the idea that morality is really grey and that most people are ambivalent and self-serving. That's what I thought initially. And I admit it was an interesting theme. But after watching "The Red Wedding" I have changed my mind. Sure, I can agree that there are elements of humanity that are violent, selfish, power-seeking and morally reprehensible. And I'm fine with these themes being represented in stories. But the issue I have with Game of Thrones is that these elements dominate excessively . I find myself constantly asking: where are the righteous characters that would rather die than become corrupt or a-moral? Where are the people that, as reflected in our own lives, believe in peace, kindness, honor and love? It turns out that there really aren't any in Martin's work. These characters are either grossly under-represented or used for sensationalist fodder by being killed off.
The truth is, many of us in the audience do consider ourselves to be righteous, moral individuals. We want to relate to the characters in the story, not just observe a bunch of savages hacking each other's heads off. How can most of us relate to the morally ambivalent characters or the reprehensible one? If Martin's goal here is to create sensationalist environment with excessive violence, gore and drama then it makes sense that there so few "good guys". But I also feel it's cheap story-telling if this is the case. And if Martin's trying to send a message - that Game of Thrones is a reflection of the human condition and that the story is based somewhat in reality - then I'd argue he's not accurate whatsoever.
I don't think there's anything wrong with coming to this realization about Game of Thrones. It's not as outrageous as people seem to think to be turned off by having some of the few characters we could actually relate to (even slightly) massacred. Whether it was for sensationalism or as an attempt to indict most of humanity as being morally ambivalent and reprehensible (when most of humanity is not), both are valid reasons to turn away from the story.
Nail on the fucking head.
Martin deserves a lot of praise for his writing, his interesting story, his darker themes, his courage to kill off characters, etc. etc. etc. However, when you just constantly knock off every "good guy" in the series, to the point where they are punching bags (Dany being the only "good guy" to play an even remotely important role and not get completely owned), you're over-doing it. Evil and treachery seem to be winning out to the point where it isn't believable and goes against not only what the average viewer wants to see, but what the average viewer actually experiences and can relate to. While the world isn't all sunshine and rainbows and the good guys do die, evil and treachery doesn't constantly prevail; we are not the Dark Elves from the Forgotten Realms or the Dark Eldar from 40k. Even during the Middle Ages, the period that this constant conflict we see in GoT is more indicative of, treachery, deceit, and evil didn't dominate this much. I think this is where some people start to get upset. The only houses that have any real power at this point are the ambiguous-to-evil houses (Bolton, Frey, Lannister, Greyjoy). Any house that could theoretically be painted as "good (Stark, Tyrell, Tully, Arryn) are either pretty much completely dead (Stark, Tully) or marginalized and arguably not even "good" (Tyrell, Arryn). I think the criticism mainly stems from the fact that the "good guys" aren't just losing; they're just being stamped out of existence completely, and this is only halfway through the series.
When the only person that can be painted as a "good guy" is a single ruler fighting a far-off war over slaves on a continent that has absolutely nothing to do with the "Game of Thrones", then people get a little disillusioned.
The only "good guy" death that really left a bitter taste in my mouth due to the unfairness of it was Renly. He never made any major errors (unless you're one of those Stannis maniacs), made good decisions in allying himself with the Tyrells and the North, and had the force to really win the war. But nope, Stannis just fucking has to have a demon vagina monster conveniently appear and assassinate him. Sigh. fucking magic.
Renly tried to take the throne without being the legitimate heir. His reasoning was just that he'd be better at it than Stannis. If he was a legit good guy he would have recognized this, and offered to help Stannis, while setting himself up to be hand of the king or something similar. He got screwed over pretty hard, and probably didn't deserve for it to happen, but I would go as far to say he was a "good guy".
so many people bothered by the "good guys" being murdered, the only thing G. Martin is guilty of is that he made a world that offers intelligent readers an antidote to what they are used to/tired off : the good guys having plot armor and succeeding every time, schooling people to choose the "right" morality that wins.
Even the magic in the show acts as randomness that helps (or kills) some of the power hungry plotters; in real life luck plays a great part whether you like it or not, even if you make the best plan you could still lose to an idiot with weapons of mass destruction or an earthquake or dragons etc
Why the hell would Robb or Eddard Stark win? Yes we can relate more to them because our their morals/line of thinking are closer to our own age, but if you put them into their own world they should be really lucky to survive with their no- compromise-iron-morals attitude and their inability to understand their opponents.
George RR Martin is indeed having fun with people that think in the old school morality cliches and I'm having fun with him as well. In real life shit actually happens and you might think he has overdone it in his books, but seriously, how good would another moralizing yawn fest be? OH GR8 ROBB TOOK REVENGE AND BECAME KING HOW FASCINATING AND UNEXPECTED JUST LIKE REAL LIFE WHERE THE GOOD GUYS WIN AND EVERYTHING HAS A PURPOSE
Oh and when everyone's referring to the show being realistic I think it's obvious that they mean the characters' motivations and passions, contrasting the show to other known fantasy books/movies like Lord of the rings where the morality and motivations are overly simplistic (eg the absence of sexuality)
The point isn't that the "good guys" have to win, but that the hipster attitude of, "Oh, Martin's writing is so realistic to how people actually are and so refreshing!" is arrogant and naive. His storytelling isn't much more realistic than the "good guys" winning out; he is just flipping it around the other way, and the "bad guys" are the ones that are stomping everyone. Plenty of people (myself included) will continue to absolutely love this series and TV show, but the criticisms are perfectly justified. It's personal taste, not correct vs. incorrect. Martin has taken his storytelling a radically different direction from what is fairly common, but that doesn't make it any better; it simply makes it different in tone but still similar in biases.
No it's not. You would be right if the bad guys just happened to win, and the good guys just happened to lose. Robb Stark doesn't lose because he's the good guy. He loses because he makes several bad decisions, some due to his honor but also some due to his youth. Similarly, the Lannister aren't "winning" because they're evil. They have better alliances, a larger force, more money, and so far they've made the more logical decisions.
Robb Stark was outmicroing them in battles but he just got outmacroed really badly. That's why he lost. Not because of his moral standards, but because of his poor display of game of thrones skills.
Hmm. This is a fictional work here. Martin's the one who decides who wins and who loses, correct? It was a conscious choice from Martin to kill off the Starks. Not understanding your counter to his argument.
His counter was that the "bad guys" are winning not simply because they're bad, but because they're smarter/have the advatange and are better at the "game of thrones" than any of the good guys who have lost so far. Saying it's more "realistic" that the bad guys are winning, is true, not because they're bad, but because they actually have the advantage. In a traditional plot, the good guys would still be at a disadvantage for the most part, but would have some sort of huge asspull at the end to come up on top. I'm sure most people were expecting something to save Robb or his mother or his wife. That doesn't happen (or at least hasn't) happened here, which is why everyone is saying it's refreshing.
On June 04 2013 08:40 hai2u wrote: just be thankful that we live in a much more civilized world now. Things were alot harsher and more akin to GOT back then.
From reading some of the reactions, it seems like the scene did work like a charm :D If you liked the characters, you're indeed supposed to be quite upset haha.
Whether the broadcast will lose viewers or not I don't know, but they couldn't do anything else with the scenario. That's Martin's story, deal with it.
The only sad part for me was when they killed the direwolf
EPT
