[ SECRET POST #2676 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2676 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 019 secrets from Secret Submission Post #382.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[diet_poison]

I'm curious now because so many people seem to either love or hate GoT as a representation of fantasy. What is your reasoning, OP? What is the reasoning of people here who think it is either an awesome or really shitty example of fantasy?

[sarillia]

I like it (the books anyway, I never got into the show) but I feel like a lot of the fans are ashamed of liking a fantasy story. They're always going on about how gritty and realistic it is and responding to criticisms with "well that's how things were back then!" I always feel like they need a reminder that this takes place in a magical world where seasons last for years.

Personally I don't think it's a particularly good or bad example of fantasy. It's got some good political intrigue, it's got dragons, there are complicated characters that you can root for or not. It's entertaining and it's got some things you can think about if you're inclined to deep interpretations. I don't really need it to be anything more than that.

[(Anonymous)]

"responding to criticisms with "well that's how things were back then!" I always feel like they need a reminder that this takes place in a magical world where seasons last for years."

(Anon from comment below yours) It does get old as a rhetoric, I know. ;) I'd just like to point out though that a *lot* of GRRM's research for the books was on the War of the Roses, and the attitudes in the books really do reflect the attitudes of that time. Regardless of the fantasy elements. :)

[sarillia]

I'd get less tired of the rhetoric if people actually researched the time period instead of relying on "common knowledge" which is very often wrong or very simplified. The thing that gets to me most is when people act like social rights are a straight line of progress where the further back you go, the worse off women and other groups were, when it's much more complicated than that.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

Well my degree was History and my dissertation subject was set in the War of the Roses. Does that qualify me enough for you, or do I need to start pulling out historical resources?

Sorry to sound snarky, but yes - yes people do rely on common knowledge. However not everyone does.

[sarillia]

Oh I never doubted that some people actually know what they're talking about. And I wouldn't even count myself among them. Sorry for generalizing and not making that clear.

[(Anonymous)]

Nah, I'm sorry. I'm in a shitty mood and didn't mean to take it out on you.

It was pretty clear that you meant generally and not in every case.

[sarillia]

I hate those moods. Hope you feel better soon.

[ceebeegee]

Really good point. People are complicated; human progress is not always linear.

[(Anonymous)]

Not OP. I hate to bring the whole books/TV show thing into it but - The books could possibly be high fantasy? The TV show is pretty trashy IMO. Enjoyable, but trashy.

The books are a realistic portrayl of a country's descent into civil war and the huge toll and far reaching effects of that war. The sex and violence is very much representative of the attitudes of the time that GRRM used as a base - the English War of the Roses. The fantasy elements are the icing on the cake and weaved in pretty well.

The TV show by its very nature cannot portray all of the details that make the books so worthwhile. And when you boil the storyline down you lose a lot of the more indepth stuff, and end up with a handful of awesome characters and a lot of sex, nudity and violence. Plus its HBO, so you also get extra sex, violence and rape thrown in on top.

[(Anonymous)]

The show is definitely trashy, but it's also definitely high fantasy. It's arguably more so than the books, since so many of the characters are being migrated closer to standard good/evil roles to account for the inability of the show to get the close-third POV of the books.

High fantasy is a genre placement, not an indicator of the quality of the work. There is a metric tonne of shitty high fantasy out there (and shitty urban fantasy, shitty low fantasy, shitty dark fantasy, etc.).

[shahrizai]

I love GoT, not because it's an awesome example of fantasy, but because it's the most popular fantasy that isn't about a teenaged boy or girl on their coming-of-age story where they poke people with swords and then become noble knights. I mean, that's Jon Snow's journey, but there's a bajillion other subplots and I can tune him out. How many stories do you find about girls like Sansa, who can kick ass with manipulation, not a sword?

When someone says they're new to epic fantasy and want book recs, it's the same ol' Tolkien, David Eddings, Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson, etc. GoT is epic fantasy with complex politics, royalty, blood and gore and sex and it doesn't pull any punches.

[(Anonymous)]

I hate Game of Thrones but I don't see it as representational of the genre.

[diet_poison]

Sorry, I worded my question badly. What I meant was there are people who think GoT is an excellent representation of fantasy and people who think it's a terrible one. I guess you'd be the latter :P