Has "A Song of Ice and Fire" ruined fantasy?

[BloatedGuppy]

eh, opinions.

I enjoy his stories for what they offer. He did a pretty good job finishing WoT. As I said before, its a about depth, the more there is to a story, the happier I'll be. His stories offer more things than stuff done by Sapkowski.

I've certainly read worse, but the man is still a hack. He's got himself a rather notorious reputation on fantasy fiction forums too, hardly a day goes by without a new Brandon Sanderson hate thread.

For my own part I wonder if it's not one of those left brain/right brain divides. It's possible people are dropping trou for his insufferably fussy and repetitive magic systems and not giving a fig that his characters are one dimensional dialogue fonts.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

It might have ruined it for you, but that's a personal thing and not indicative of either the genre or the majority of fantasy readers. GRRM is one author among many and almost undoubtedly the most popular today due entirely to the televisation of his books. His style is also part of a sub-genre of fantasy (I couldn't say precisely which. Personally I don't like the subdivisions but "Military Fantasy" or "Low Fantasy" or "Political Fantasy" might be each partially accurate) and as such, isn't really impactful on the rest of the genre.

Other people may try to imitate him because of his books popularity but personally I couldn't read the books. I think the characters and events depicted are quite vile and not to my taste. I think it works in a TV show and am looking forward to the new series starting next week, but couldn't get beyond 1/3rd the way thru book 1. His characters are not "morally grey" as many often describe them. They're arseholes across the board. Ambiguity and constant backstabbing/betrayal/changing sides is not that interesting truth be told.

The fact is that nothing established in GoT at any point is ever important. Why? Because at any time, anything can happen. Anyone can die, anyone can change sides, anyone's motives could change without warning. There's no point in establishing anything in such a scenario. No culture, person or nation can be expected to act to their type. This means no genuine world building, no real characterisation. Ask a fan of the WoT books to describe the Aeil to you and they can tell you about their value of water and shade, their skill with spears, their customs of Ji'eh'toh and gai'shain, the Wise Ones, the clans and so on. Ask an Eddings fan about Belgarion's world and they can describe the money-oriented Tolnedrans, the horse culture of the Algars or the vile practices of the Grolim.

Westerosi are all just murderous and ambiguous. The only trait they have is unpredictability. I'll grant that he is still able to pull of some shocking moments, but that's about it. Shocking moments based on unpredictability isn't drama, it's just shocks. It's like comparing Doom 3 horror with Silent Hill 2. "Morally grey" is not being nice one moment and evil the next. "Morally grey" is not simply remaining ambiguous about Varys/Baelish whose motivations are never made clear at any time ever; they just exist and plot but with no reason for why. Since magic is so rare in the world (don't know how it is in the books) it also has no real rules or parameters (eg. we don't know what it can or cannot do, who is able to do what and to what extent, etc).

So to come full circle, no, SoIaF has not "ruined" fantasy. It is a good TV show, evidently incredibly popular series and tho it may well spawn copies and derivatives, the rest of fantasy remains unaltered and unphased, stoic as ever. I'd probably put the most influential fantasy authors as Tolkein, Jordan, McAffrey. For the odd readers who, like the OP won't want to read "less ambiguous" stories inthe future, that's a matter of your personal tastes. I know people who'll only read high fantasy, vampire books, urban/contemporary fantasy and so on so your taste is nothing new. It's a personal preference and if book sales are anything to go on, a preference likely to be well catered for for some time to come.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

The fact is that nothing established in GoT at any point is ever important. Why? Because at any time, anything can happen. Anyone can die, anyone can change sides, anyone's motives could change without warning. There's no point in establishing anything in such a scenario. No culture, person or nation can be expected to act to their type. This means no genuine world building, no real characterisation. Ask a fan of the WoT books to describe the Aeil to you and they can tell you about their value of water and shade, their skill with spears, their customs of Ji'eh'toh and gai'shain, the Wise Ones, the clans and so on. Ask an Eddings fan about Belgarion's world and they can describe the money-oriented Tolnedrans, the horse culture of the Algars or the vile practices of the Grolim.

I don't really have an iron in the fire here and it's clear you don't like the novels and thus aren't likely to be receptive to criticism of your position, but this is wildly off base. A very, very small number of Martin's characters are unpredictable, and those are often predictable in their unpredictability. His characterization is actually reasonably strong for the genre, and people act in accordance with their established personality. Be that personality forthright and earnest, glib and avaricious, rigidly hidebound, etc, etc.

It's a really bizarre criticism. I'm guessing you didn't read the books at all and are basing this entirely off the television show, which doesn't exactly do a bang up job establishing motivation, back story or "inner monologues" due to restraints of time, budget, and medium.

 

[Ishal]

eh, opinions.

I enjoy his stories for what they offer. He did a pretty good job finishing WoT. As I said before, its a about depth, the more there is to a story, the happier I'll be. His stories offer more things than stuff done by Sapkowski.

I've certainly read worse, but the man is still a hack. He's got himself a rather notorious reputation on fantasy fiction forums too, hardly a day goes by without a new Brandon Sanderson hate thread.

For my own part I wonder if it's not one of those left brain/right brain divides. It's possible people are dropping trou for his insufferably fussy and repetitive magic systems and not giving a fig that his characters are one dimensional dialogue fonts.

I don't know, there are reasons people have for calling someone a hack. You obviously think Sanderson is one for the way he writes, or fails to write his characters. I don't read his books for the characters. It goes back to what I said about the monomyth. I don't have a love for it in and of itself, but it usually provides a framework for interesting worlds and lore to explore. When playing Mass Effect immediately after I was done talking to Udina and Anderson I left to explore the citadel. I immediately turned left from the room and came across a volus and an elcore. I learned about them through their dialogue and the lore index. My focus was there, not on Shepherd or anything pressing about Sovereign or other stuff.

I think Vonnegut is a hack because none of his stories can hold my attention and I don't find his premises or characters interesting. Coupled with his tendency to sometimes be an insufferable twat. I'm sure he had the technical skills and all sorts of accolades he was worthy of, but all those things couldn't make a reader of his. So... /shrug?

It probably is a left brain/right brain thing. I get called ADD/ADHD for this sort of stuff all the time. Other than it being childish and offensive, it's just not true. A person with those tendencies walks into a room and immediately starts to look around and lose focus. They don't just pay attention to whats in front of them. That's not what I do. I see what's in front of me, and if I find it interesting, fine. If not, then I'm looking elsewhere. If characters and all that stuff doesn't keep my attention, I get bored.

When I read Harry Potter, I immediately lost interest in Harry as the protagonist. Hermione and Ron were a bit more interesting. The houses of Hogwarts huh? They mean what to the students who go there? Voldemort was a Slytherin? Huh... So Harry almost could have been one... okay, that's neat. Snape hates Harry, he was a servant of Voldemort... they are called Deatheaters... See where I'm going with this?

The more there is for me too look for, the happier I'll be.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I don't believe that any author can single-handedly "ruin" a genre. Anyone can take a stab at writing a manuscript and getting published, what makes a good read stand apart from the bad ones is the amount of care in assembling everything properly that's to be seen, as well as how well the author avoids obvious tropes - or at least uses them consciously.

GRRM started out with very strong historical inspirations. The early books have a widely documented "War of the Roses" feel to them, and I've always thought that Eddard Stark's fate reminded me of Jacques de Molay's death, in "Les Rois Maudits". That's a book series that focuses strongly on the aftermath of the Crusades, and on how most of the involved rulers piled their grievances on the Knights Templar, who made for convenient patsies.

Going briefly off-topic here, but a little research shows that the rumors about devil worship or the Templars paying homage to Baphomet or the Goat of Mendes was basically a Medieval attempt at slander. Fact-checking being a tricky business back then, it worked devastatingly well.

What Martin does is pile extremely realistic political setting onto slowly revealed High Fantasy mainstays. For almost two full seasons and two books, dragons are mentioned as cultural items or as curiosities from yesteryear. It takes its sweet time in fleshing out Dany Targaryen into something that does bear some resemblance to what her chosen title represents. The Fantasy elements are slowly and surely added to the political picture, so the reader feels a bit like a frog being placed in a pot of warming water. By the time shit hits the fan and catapults start hurling Fantasy Greek Fire under the command of Tyrion Lannister, the reader's been acclimatized to the idea that there's more to Westeros than swords, shields and political maneuvering.

It's deep and it's complex. It's a lot more "Historically-Flavored Fantasy" than "High Fantasy", so the barrier of entry is higher if you're the type who's just looking for a transcribed D&D campaign. It's not impossible, though. All it takes is extra patience.

As for it ruining Fantasy as a whole - of course not. We might be stuck with a decade or two of GRRM copycats or with misguided attempts to turn a High Fantasy series that's popular as of recently into something that looks like HBO's current cash cow, but we'll never run out of uncomplicated save-the-world-and-get-the-girl material.

As there's a time and a place for everything, I have evenings when I want to dig deep into Westeros with one of the books and a good beer (let's pretend it's mead), and others where I'm happy enough digging out my childhood's DragonLance or Forgotten Realms books because I suddenly have a yen for Drizzt Do'Urden's hilariously Emo genesis story.

 

[jademunky]

The story just seemed to drag on forever and there was far too much explaining going on. It seemed that every time characters appeared Martin devoted at least a (long) paragraph or two detailing every bit of clothing they were wearing or how they got their particular title/nickname.

I get the feeling that the reason you hated the series is the same reason I loved it.

 

[jademunky]

As there's a time and a place for everything, I have evenings when I want to dig deep into Westeros with one of the books and a good beer (let's pretend it's mead), and others where I'm happy enough digging out my childhood's DragonLance or Forgotten Realms books because I suddenly have a yen for Drizzt Do'Urden's hilariously Emo genesis story.

Heh, I actually had Drizzt in mind when I started this thread. When I was a kid, I was big into that series. A few weeks ago I was browsing the public library and discovered that the author was still writing books for that character and........ well I could not give a crap about it. I honestly found myself rooting for the bad guy (some tiefling or something) not because I liked the villain but because if he wins, the book is over.

 

[Flunk]

No, no one book or movie or anything else can ruin the rest of them for you. It's up to you alone.

 

[RedDeadFred]

No, no it has not. In fact, of the recent fantasy books I've read, I've enjoyed The Name of the Wind the most. The second book isn't as great but the author's writing style is so consistently enthralling. I love ASoIaF but if the third book of the Kingkiller Chronicle lives up to my loft expectations, it might take Martin's spot as my current favourite fantasy series. The magic in the series is by far the most interesting I've ever read about. It's like a science. It can be dark but there are some moments that genuinely had me laughing out loud.

 

[Amizrael]

I would suggest the "A Trial of Blood and Steel" series by Joel Shepard. It's almost historical fiction given the degree of low fantasy it embraces, and it's a very good look at political and societal behaviors of humans in a world where a "non-human" species exists during a middle ages period.

 

[Mutie]

Even though Wessos isn't supposed to be a metaphor for England, there's a verisimilitude there that sucks you in.

Really!? But it's shaped like England and the whole Stark vs Lannister thing is basically just the war of the roses... :/ And there's Hadrian's wall. And Tribalistic Scots... If it's not supposed to be England then he did a pretty terrible job >.<

OT: I don't put much stock in Fantasy writing and movies, even though it's my favourite genre to work with / play video games based around. I honestly find Martin's writing staid and predictable... I'm doing my best to read the books before watching the show, but they read like Harry Potter; it's very difficult to keep one's attention on the book (past a certain age, I'd warrant). Try reading Gormenghast or Terry Pratchett, that's where the real juice is! And Gormenghast arguably isn't even a Fantasy!

 

[lacktheknack]

Did Lord of the Rings ruin fantasy, by exactly the same token?

I don't get modern fascinations with single works somehow "ruining" whole genres, as if a concept could be ruined. Do we just desperately want relics of our time to leave an impact? o__O

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

For me it's sort of the opposite. World of Warcraft killed/ruined fantasy for me. Game of Thrones may have rekindled it. Still hate WoW. I don't think anything could rekindle my interest in that.

 

[vIRL Nightmare]

Eh, I'm not particularly fond of his work. John Flanagan, Chris Bunch, and Barb and J.C. Hendee are more my cup of tea.

 

[carpathic]

Oh god. I hope not.
GRR Martin is too much talk and not enough action, for my tastes. I really hope he isn't going to start a trend.

This sums up my feelings adequately.

So many words used and nothing happened. A bit like the wheel of time series but that one (after like what 15 books) finally resolved the story at least.

 

[Therumancer]

I'm a big fan of the series and show. Great writing, refreshing to find a writer that actually researches the subject he writes about.

Now here is the problem: ever since i started reading the series, I find myself comparing every other fantasy novel to George R R Martin's work and always find the other novel lacking. Was the genre always this bad? Did my expectations get raised too high? Will I actually have to resort to reading real literature?

Anyhoo, does anyone else feel this way? Is there anyone of comparable quality in this genre? Granted I have never read the Harry Potter books.

Well, fans of any genera eventually find a writer or two they really resonate with and wind up comparing everything else to. Honestly I've never been a huge "George R.R. Martin" fan, and actually felt his best work has been acting as an editor and coordinator for other writers like he largely did for the "Wild Cards" shared world anthology. His "Song Of Ice And Fire" series happens to focus on areas of the fantasy genera (politics and maneuvering) a lot of people find fascinating, but others are less excited about. Overall it struck a chord with a lot of people though, became a best seller, and lead to a TV series, largely because I feel it's something that's fantasy, but keeps the fantastic so relatively limited (for the most part) that people who aren't fantasy fans can more readily relate to it. Not to mention that it works especially well for a TV series, where the budget for FX and such are always going to be an issue, so the more they can do with pure drama/acting the better, even with an initial high cost for production things like costumes, and sets can always be recycled and repurposed. Having a large ensemble cast of people who largely just sit around talking to each other on, and on, and on, for all intents and purposes with something else occasionally happening makes this perfect for TV (not that there is anything wrong with it).

Now, speaking for myself I feel certain series like Jim Butcher's "Codex Alera" series (his other work besides Dresden) tend to cut a better line between action and the political, though the budget for that one, especially towards the end, would be beyond what even HBO would likely want to put into a series to do it right. They tried to do the work of Terry Goodkind already (Legend Of The Seeker) and really they changes they had to make to that for television kind of ruined the entire thing.

That said this is a decent series, while not a personal favorite, it's a good choice, and you certainly aren't going to be alone.

If *I* had to pick my personal favorite writer it would be Roger Zelazny who has sadly passed on, and his "Amber" series (the second series of which was never finished) perhaps my favorite series. Some of his other stories like "A Night In The Lonesome October", "Dilvish The Damned", and others rank among my favorites. Indeed I've gone so far as to say everyone should read "A Night In The Lonesome October" at least once.... it's quite different.

I also consider myself a bit if a Piers Anthony fan, though I think he kind of peaked with his "Adept" stories (in my opinion). While I haven't checked in on them in a very long time, I grew up reading "Xanth" which pretty much defined "fantasy comedy/satire" to me especially as it advanced and became less serious with time. I think he started to lose it about the time he began working on things like the "mode" series (though I'm rambling now).

 

[SidheKnight]

Harry Potter.

Read it.

It's that good.

(Except the first two books are kind of bad, but the remaining five are top notch).

 

[Therumancer]

Did Lord of the Rings ruin fantasy, by exactly the same token?

I don't get modern fascinations with single works somehow "ruining" whole genres, as if a concept could be ruined. Do we just desperately want relics of our time to leave an impact? o__O

Well, the basic idea is that when something truly bad winds up becoming popular to the point where it starts impacting everything created from that point on which strive to be "more like it" and you start seeing things that were done previously "relaunched" or "rebooted" or "re envisioned" using those new standards and that style, something that is bad yet popular enough to be profitable can negatively impact and ruin an entire genera.

Typically it's an issue when something that has a niche interest is picked up by the mainstream, and then producers behind bringing it to the mainstream wind up gradually changing it even further to broaden it's appeal to more and more of the mainstream in order to make money, until it's the original fans that made something popular enough to be picked up who wind up being on the fringe of the community due to things being changed so much, and perhaps even missing the entire point of the work.

I'm not articulating this too well, but I guess a good example of this would be the movie "I, Robot" which thankfully didn't succeed beyond the point you saw. It took the name and a few basic concepts from a classic work of science fiction, but then ignored everything else, including the central point. A series of stories about humans and robots co-existing, working together, and even falling in love, turning into a "by the numbers" story of a "mechanical revolt" based deeply on modern technophobia was outright insulting to the original material... and even worse give people the impression that this is what those stories were about, when it was quite the opposite. Indeed while things go kind of wrong (for reasons I won't go into, but honestly have little to do with the robots) when Asimov ties "Robot" and "Foundation" together in the end, one of the things you find out is that despite everything the robots were protecting and guiding humanity in secret all this time... let's just say a truly beautiful concept was pretty much dragged through the mud by that movie and the neo-luddites that thought it was a good idea.

On a lot of levels it could be argued something like "Game Of Thrones" could ruin fantasy for a lot of people, it is after all one particular style of fantasy that works because it stands out among others. If they tried to turn everything into pessimistic low/dark fantasy, including things that were designed to be high fantasy it would be bad. Never mind if it got big enough where someone decided "hey, let's reboot Conan, but make it more like Game Of Thrones" so instead of Conan freebooting around and being Conan, you instead have him sitting in a room with a quill and an inkpot trying to outmaneuver his political rivals. Indeed that would be ironic because half the point of Conan is that his world had a lot of similar elements to "Game Of Thrones" but Conan was big on "trodding their jeweled thrones beneath his sandaled feet" or however it was stated. In short he'd walk into a kingdom where stuff like this was going on, fight for one side or the other (or perhaps all sides at different times), with whatever side he's on generally tending to win becaue he's bloody Conan (mighty, inspirational, a tactical leader beyond anything realistic...). Eventually he'd just get sick of all the simpering nobles and their plots and politics, and decide to take The Dragon Throne for himself after killing anyone who got in his way... and you know, this is Conan, "realistic" fighting ability isn't his thing, in Conan stories they weren't big on choreography or explaining how he did things it's just "with a final mighty blow, Jaimie Lannister's head flew off his shoulders to land atop the virtual mountain of dead bodies in the throne room, all comers defeated Conan declared himself king of Westros".... and you know he can do that because this is Conan and that's the style. You try and change that and say turn Conan into a politician you kind of miss the point, even as an old man/king in the stories half the point was Conan was still pretty much a butt-kicker at heart and solved most problems with a combination of cunning and ultra-violence.


Ahh well I'm rambling, though I think that kind of made sense when I wrote it. All I know is that now I want to actually see a crossover that ends with a scene of Conan sitting on The Dragon Throne, Stanza and Daenys in slave collars chained to the arms clutching his legs as they stare up at him in a combination of unbridled lust and gut-wrenching terror, as Arya Stark brings him mead in a mug crafted from Joffrey's skull.

Of course that would represent the same kind of affront, defeating the entire purpose of "Game Of Thrones". If say you know, Conan re-launched and became this popular it could also ruin fantasy if it started seeing everything changed to be more like it. The above scene would be darkly amusing though, as would a series "Conan The Librarian: Political Scribe" I'd imagine.

 

[Loonyyy]

Martin is good, maybe even great at what he does. But his stories aren't perfect. They aren't even close to eclipsing the rest of the fantasy genre. Wheel of Time, King Killer Chronicles, and anything written by Brandon Sanderson is worth checking out. Sanderson is the pinnacle for creating magic systems and rules within a fantasy setting. It doesn't get much better than him.

Woof. Sanderson is a hack.

OT: It'd be pretty hard to "ruin" a genre. Whether or not ASOIAF is a benchmark series for you will depend on your preference for heroic or "realistic" fantasy and whether or not you enjoy Martin's style and peculiarities. It could certainly be argued that Martin popularized "realistic" fantasy for the North American audience and has been extremely influential to newer authors like Abercrombie and Lynch.

And for that I thank him. I like ASOIAF well enough, but I think in the end I prefer Abercrombie. I started with the Heroes before moving onto the The First Law series. Martin's books always take me a while to get into. Once I'm in, I'm in (Apart from A Dance with Dragons), but I think I like Abercrombie's sarcastic subversion of fantasy tropes a little better. He gets a bit mean occasionally, but it's almost always entertaining. And his stories are just engrossing. While I appreciate Martin's influence on the "realistic" fantasy, he still enjoys fantasy mainstays like the never ending digressions into discussions of food, or my least favourite, throwaway stories on unimportant characters. YMMV on the Quentyn Martell, but his sections were largely pointless to me, similarly, I couldn't get psyched for the intro with Varymyr. And urgh, Danyrous's chapters in ADwD can die in a fire. I don't need to hear more waxing poetic about how hot the freakish Daario is, nor the honestly disturbing references to certain bodily functions Martin employs. George R.R. Martin, you're a dirty, dirty man.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

And for that I thank him. I like ASOIAF well enough, but I think in the end I prefer Abercrombie. I started with the Heroes before moving onto the The First Law series. Martin's books always take me a while to get into. Once I'm in, I'm in (Apart from A Dance with Dragons), but I think I like Abercrombie's sarcastic subversion of fantasy tropes a little better. He gets a bit mean occasionally, but it's almost always entertaining. And his stories are just engrossing.

Joe might be my favorite author at the moment. He's not as technically proficient as Martin (although he is improving, and he paces better), but his tales are wildly enjoyable. And for such a prolific young author he certainly is turning out quality.