By the way, since I'm currently reading these novels... I agree with your analysis about the protagonists and the constant subversion of expectation.
But I do find that the antagonists, at least the most reckless ones are not exactly subverted by Martin. Joffrey is your classic Nero/Caligula with very little deviation from his cruelty and stupidity. Cersei is motivated in that she loves her children, but asides from this, she is constantly cruel and mean, same with Tywin. I'd be curious to pick your thoughts on this, and perhaps also on how this could be linked with the white walker question that you are having.
To me, it seems that all POV characters are subverted, but because they are, there still needs to be a clear 'evil' moving the story forward, otherwise everyone would be neither dark or light and the reader would get lost.
I find it interesting, basically, to see that all the efforts have been made to subvert pretty much everything... But that at some level Martin couldn't completely make do with brutally negative antagonists that barely have anything human left to them.
Perhaps it's one of those things that makes the conclusion tricky, because while the arcs are subverted, Tywin still needs to pay the price, Joffrey still needs to pay the price, Cersei still needs to pay the price and perhaps the White Walkers do as well in some way...
I agree with your analysis about Eddard Stark, he is a white knight, but not as much as Jon Snow in my opinion. In fact, Eddard shows distinct elements of tragic flaw pretty early on. He is so stubborn and lacking any form of pragmatism that he almost becomes irritating. As a reader you want to shout at him to stop being so damn blind and monolithic.
Jon Snow, however is a true white knight. He has a noble heart and we pretty much agree with his choices on the whole. He is not really showing (in my opinion) a clear tragic flaw. It would be interesting to see how Martin manages to close his line...
Nov 14, 2023·edited Nov 14, 2023Liked by Mikhail Skoptsov
Another possible deconstruction could simply be for the Westerosi to lose. The White Walkers are a tolkienian high-fantasy menace who can only be defeated by tolkienian high-fantasy heroes, yes? Well, Westeros is fresh out of such heroes so they'll completely fail to recognize, much less unite against the existential threat and get curbstomped by ice zombies. The series ends with everyone dead and the Iron Throne either ignored by the new lords of Westeros and eventually ignominiously destroyed when the advancing glaciers of endless winter demolish the ruins of King's Landing, or claimed by the Night King.
It's insane to me that there are no comments here. It's a great piece, well argued and written.
I myself always thought that the main problem Martin has is the show. I believe - conjecture only! - that he gave Weiss and Benioff all his well-crafted main plot points without specifying how did the characters get there. Then the showrunners wanted to hurry everything up being fed up with the series and screwed the motivations up. Now Martin has to either write something compeltely different or be ready for the fans; disappointment.
Ironically, one of the common criticisms of the last few seasons is that the showrunners forgot about the space and the geography of Westeros, which allowed the characters to seemingly "teleport" from place to place from one episode to the next, whereas in the previous seasons it took half a season to get somewhere different. This can be viewed as a metaphor for the characers arcs as well.
By the way, since I'm currently reading these novels... I agree with your analysis about the protagonists and the constant subversion of expectation.
But I do find that the antagonists, at least the most reckless ones are not exactly subverted by Martin. Joffrey is your classic Nero/Caligula with very little deviation from his cruelty and stupidity. Cersei is motivated in that she loves her children, but asides from this, she is constantly cruel and mean, same with Tywin. I'd be curious to pick your thoughts on this, and perhaps also on how this could be linked with the white walker question that you are having.
To me, it seems that all POV characters are subverted, but because they are, there still needs to be a clear 'evil' moving the story forward, otherwise everyone would be neither dark or light and the reader would get lost.
I find it interesting, basically, to see that all the efforts have been made to subvert pretty much everything... But that at some level Martin couldn't completely make do with brutally negative antagonists that barely have anything human left to them.
Perhaps it's one of those things that makes the conclusion tricky, because while the arcs are subverted, Tywin still needs to pay the price, Joffrey still needs to pay the price, Cersei still needs to pay the price and perhaps the White Walkers do as well in some way...
I agree with your analysis about Eddard Stark, he is a white knight, but not as much as Jon Snow in my opinion. In fact, Eddard shows distinct elements of tragic flaw pretty early on. He is so stubborn and lacking any form of pragmatism that he almost becomes irritating. As a reader you want to shout at him to stop being so damn blind and monolithic.
Jon Snow, however is a true white knight. He has a noble heart and we pretty much agree with his choices on the whole. He is not really showing (in my opinion) a clear tragic flaw. It would be interesting to see how Martin manages to close his line...
Very interesting analysis
Another possible deconstruction could simply be for the Westerosi to lose. The White Walkers are a tolkienian high-fantasy menace who can only be defeated by tolkienian high-fantasy heroes, yes? Well, Westeros is fresh out of such heroes so they'll completely fail to recognize, much less unite against the existential threat and get curbstomped by ice zombies. The series ends with everyone dead and the Iron Throne either ignored by the new lords of Westeros and eventually ignominiously destroyed when the advancing glaciers of endless winter demolish the ruins of King's Landing, or claimed by the Night King.
It's insane to me that there are no comments here. It's a great piece, well argued and written.
I myself always thought that the main problem Martin has is the show. I believe - conjecture only! - that he gave Weiss and Benioff all his well-crafted main plot points without specifying how did the characters get there. Then the showrunners wanted to hurry everything up being fed up with the series and screwed the motivations up. Now Martin has to either write something compeltely different or be ready for the fans; disappointment.
Ironically, one of the common criticisms of the last few seasons is that the showrunners forgot about the space and the geography of Westeros, which allowed the characters to seemingly "teleport" from place to place from one episode to the next, whereas in the previous seasons it took half a season to get somewhere different. This can be viewed as a metaphor for the characers arcs as well.