How "A Game of Thrones" Killed Fantasy

in #life8 years ago (edited)

When I was in middle and high school, I loved fantasy novels. I tore through R. A. Salvatore's Dark Elf Trilogy, jumped around a little in the Dragonlance series and various more obscure novels, tried out Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, and completely lost myself in Terry Goodkind's dramatic Sword of Truth series. In fact, it was right after rereading The Crystal Shard by Salvatore that I first read A Game of Thrones.


I actually found it pretty boring. The tail end of the book was the only part where anything intense happened to characters that I cared about. It just seemed like a long semi-mystery novel with a lot of political intrigue. There were almost no magic, no alternate races, no hero's coming of age, no epic quests. How was this a fantasy novel?

Author GRRM has read a good deal of historical fiction in his time, and even cites the actual Wars of the Roses as inspiration, so it makes sense that the first novel in his A Song of Ice and Fire series bears a lot more resemblance to that genre -- at least in the beginning -- than to much of fantasy.
Fantasy fans will also know there are two main divisions in fantasy. "High fantasy," what I had been accustomed to, tends to be filled with swords and sorcery. Despite existing in a completely fabricated world, with its gritty realism and relatively little magic, GRRM's series has often been called "low fantasy."

As a chaser for the vivid fantasy of The Crystal Shard, it just seemed grey to me.

The Crystal Shard vs A Game of Thrones

It was over a year before I gave A Game of Thrones another shot. I'm not sure what drew me back to it; maybe it was not being in the mood for bubblegum fantasy after reading Kate Chopin's Victorian novel The Awakening. Or maybe it was that Bran's fateful fall never really left my mind. Whatever it was, anyway, I reread A Game of Thrones.

Everything changed.

The exact elements that had repelled me before -- slow, deliberate pacing; a lack of melodrama; political intrigue; subtle character development; excessive descriptions of feasts and scenery; dozens of characters; etc. -- caught me, and hard. I immediately picked up A Clash of Kings, the next book in the series, and found it twice as enthralling. I was quick to follow with A Storm of Swords, carrying it everywhere my parents drove me and grudgingly putting it down at dinner.

At that time, the fourth book hadn't yet come out, so finishing A Storm of Swords was the dead end for me. Any fan of the books or show knows this feeling. "The first book came out in '96," my brother cackled, pleased that I had joined him in the waiting game that GRRM loves to play with his fans.

In vain, I tried to return to the books that had been my old fantasy friends. I didn't even know what to make of them. How outlandish, how melodramatic, what simplistic writing! I went to the bookstore and library, trying to find another series that had similar writing quality and depth. It didn't exist.

I went to the fiction section instead. I read dark or grand novels like The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Once and Future King, and Lolita. I found some of GRRM's more obscure releases like Fevre Dream; I tried his Wild Cards series but couldn't get into it. Many A Song of Ice and Fire fans were placated by Patrick Rothfuss's 2007 fantasy novel The Name of the Wind, but I just found it too melodramatic. Looking in despair at the brightly-colored books on the fantasy shelves, I realized that GRRM had killed fantasy for me.

Nowadays, I enjoy children's fantasy like Five Children and It; but I don't consider myself a fantasy fan anymore. Currently I'm reading Oliver Twist, likely to be followed by Doctor Zhivago and other fiction novels. I won't say whether it's all a good or bad thing, whether fantasy in general is any more prone to good or bad quality than modern adult's fiction. And I don't mean to say that just because something's excellent, less complex others of its kind are worthless. Quite simply, A Song of Ice and Fire made me see fantasy and writing in a new light, and I can never turn that light back off.

GRRM has performed many character killings over the years, but this unintentional murder of fantasy is the one that will stay with me forever.

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Sad to see your love of fantasy fade away, there are plenty of authors still producing some really great series today. Joe Abercrombie if you prefer something grittier, Brandon Sanderson if you want to get in on another epic fantasy series.

Thanks. I have heard that about Joe Abercrombie. I kind of just lost my taste for the genre. I'm not opposed or anything, I just tend to focus on fiction now, and there are so many books to read! I might try Abercrombie and Sanderson next time I am in the bookstore.

For Abercrombie I would start with the first law trilogy. Sanderson has a ton of work out there, my personal choice would be to start with the mistborn trilogy but his epic series is the stormlight archive though it only has 2 of a planned 10 books currently out.

I'm seriously seconding Abercrombie, its everything you like about game of thrones in a higher setting, more magic, more epiq set pieces. Seriously if you only act on one recommendation, go with his book the Blade Itself. I stayed up all night to finish it, and I'd argue in some ways its better than a Song of Ice and Fire.

Insightful. When I was young I loved anything by Margaret Weis and/or Tracey Hickman, especially their Dragonlance trilogies. Their place in my heart was diminished after I read Game of Thrones.

Ironically, after reading Dance of Dragons, I was done with GRRM.

I thought other people might have experienced the same thing with ASoIaF! =O

I was very disappointed by "A Feast for Crows," but I thought "A Dance with Dragons" was such an improvement on it that I expect the next book (if it ever comes out) to be pretty good. I'm not hyper-passionate like I was. I mean, if nothing else, I'd have to go insane if I sat around with bated breath waiting on another book for 5 years.

I like both styles. For me I thought Game of Thrones appealed because it turned the recipe most people were used to on its head. People were excited it was new and fresh and nothing was sacred.

In fact the only book I'd seen a main character abruptly die was A Canticle for Leibowitz and that pissed me off so much!!! I read many chapters and then the character is dead. That's it... the story begins many decades or so later and seemingly has not much of anything to do with the character I'd read about for many pages.

A friend that told me I should read it would "Laugh a lot" as I'd recount this. I think he got sick pleasure out of having his friends read the book just for this reaction.

Game of Thrones kind of took that and just used it over and over again but at least there are still relevant characters alive that were present during the death of a main character.

The sex and adult nature is also not usually as graphic in Fantasy novels outside of something like Conan or something of that nature.

I don't consider it the BEST Fantasy writing ever, by far. I do consider it a very unique perspective and approach and I think that is largely how it earns it's place in greatness.

I don't see GoT as fantasy really. I think the fantasy elements are expressions of legend. They pack all the history and lore of the medieval world into a single generation and allow the myths to be real. For instance, the White walkers I suspect are Vikings. Mysterious raiders from the north that seemed larger than life when they ingested Amanita Muscaria mushrooms to go berserk in battle. To be larger than life is not a far stretch from being able to effect that which is beyond life. Ergo they are necromancers. But dragonglass (obsideon) and velarion steel (demascus steel) can still kill em. The white walkers also are believed to really expand when the great winter comes which is just like the little ice age of Europe which also affected vikings is so far as when it subsided, they went and colonized Iceland, Greenland and Vinland. Wild fire is just exaggerated Greek fire, The dragons have a lot in common with cannon technology Not to mention that even to this day there are sightings of what could be guessed to be dinosaur survivors that knights of old must have enjoyed hunting into extinction so might as well combine them up into something cool. There are giant humanoid skeletons found in America so the giants are not out of place. the wildlings are visigoths, kings langing is Rome. ect ect. Thinking about it like this keeps it from ruining other actual fantasy setting for me like The Silmarillion or His Dark Materials. Also it's the format. The short duration high production value episodes are way easier to schedule around compared to a LOTR night. PS. picture this: Artemis Fowl as an anime... yes please.

Well, then try my fantasy story. It's pretty much groundbreaking, as far as I can tell :-)

Don't really know much about the books but I love the HBO series , The best thing on television at the moment hands down .