Reviews: Books – Game of Thrones

I finally finished reading George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. I started reading it way back in March, right before we left for Quebec, as I thought it would be great train reading. It was. But it was too long to finish on the trip, and then eventually it seemed like it would be too long to finish ever.

I think this book is probably the longest prologue ever written. It clocks in at 807 pages, plus an additional 25 page appendix. I knew it was the first book in a series when I started reading it, but I didn’t realize that a novel of this size was going to focus almost entirely on setting the story in action. I found that aspect of the book frustrating – so much time invested, and absolutely no satisfaction gained. It’s really not a standalone story, it ends on a cliffhanger, and you either buy the next book or never find out the fate of any of the endless numbers of characters. Although I’m not a huge Tolkien fan, I do think The Hobbit is a fantastic book because it both serves as a prologue for a series and as a standalone story. In fact, and I know this is blasphemy of the highest order, I never got very far into the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I found them boring. But I read The Hobbit three times when I was a kid.

I have to admit, though, that by the last few chapters of A Game of Thrones I was pretty well engrossed in the story and despite all the complaints I am about to spout, I do want to read the rest of the books. Maybe I’ll get around to them one day when I’m retired or stranded on a desert island somewhere.

So, some general commentary: The first thing that annoyed me about this book was the structure of the universe that the author has created. I really don’t know why pretty much every fantasy book, from Tolkien to the billions of entries in the Forgotten Realm series, have to be set in a world that’s basically feudal England with different names and a few magical additions. C’mon, people, you can create any type of universe you want, why must you hew so closely to Medieval Europe? What is so appealing about the subjugation of women? What was so great about feudalism? Why must all the heroes be white people in armor and all the colored people be exotic Others and barbarians? Sheesh! It’s so damn frustrating.

The rest of the review is spoiler free.

I loved the idea of the Seven Kingdoms, especially the North, the Wall, and Winterfell, I just wish everyone telling the story wasn’t so white and so wealthy. I know the plot is all about the bickering between the noble families, but I think the telling of it could have benefited from the perspective of some of the “lesser people” – one of the sellswords or the servants or the squires. While some of these people occasionally appear in the story – the brothers in black, Dany’s slaves, Old Nan, the wildlings – none of them ever have the story told from their perspective; their only influence is how they are perceived (usually wrongly) by one of the lordly types. Perhaps this changes in one of the later books, perhaps one of the chapters will be told from the viewpoint of one of Dany’s servants or one of Mance Rayder’s soldiers. But as for this first book, I was annoyed by the focus on the royalty of the Seven Kingdoms, whose main method of spiting each other seems to be burning the farms of the poor. Blah. I did like the hinting, on the part of Old Nan and Maester Luwin, that the Seven Kingdoms were formed by conquering armies who slaughtered and repressed the natives. Imperialist bastards! Moving on.

Speaking of annoying white people, I also found the description of the lands outside the Seven Kingdoms a bit offensive. It smacked of Orientalism without actually being about the Orient. The Seven Kingdoms are full of white people, ie “civilized people.” The lands outside the Seven Kingdoms are filled with the colored people, who are depicted alternately as barbarians, dark magicians, geishas, slavers, and mysterious heathens of all sorts. No part of the story is told from their perspective, they are only seen through the eyes of Dany, an outsider sold to a barbarian tribe. The peoples of these other countries (which seem to make up a world much larger than the Seven Kingdoms themselves) are described in ways that intentionally summon real world associations. If the Seven Kingdoms are England, then the lands and the peoples outside them are clearly drawn to resemble the tribes of dark, inner Africa, mysterious Chinese merchants, the Gypsy witches of Eastern Europe, soundless Arab nomads, and the rampaging hordes of Mongolia.

The Dothraki, who are depicted in a way that both fetishizes and reviles their warrior culture, are made to be the exact opposite of the men of the Seven Kingdoms. They rape, they pillage, they take slaves, the have sex in public (gasp!). All these things (with the exception of the open air sex) are also done in the Seven Kingdoms. The difference is that in the Seven Kingdoms, these things are considered morally wrong, while the Dothraki barbarians think they are morally right. This distinction is what makes them barbarians. Well, that, and their dark skin.

Which brings me to the subjugation of women. Once again, if you are creating your own universe from your imagination, why must it be exactly like the one that already exists? For once I would like to see a fantasy universe not created by Ursula K. LeGuin in which the heroes are the brown people and the women are equal to men. Why do women always have to be nothing but wives and daughters, prostitutes and slaves? If they ever have some modicum of power in these fantasy worlds, it is by being the reincarnation of Lady Macbeth. Girls who want to be soldiers are tomboys, women who wear armor are looked down upon. Why? Why is it always about the men, men, men? The “good” women are the ones who serve their husbands faithfully and defer to their sons; the “bad” women are the ones who try to serve only themselves.

So those were my major frustrations with A Game of Thrones. The rest of it, despite some florid prose, was pretty good. Even considering how annoyed I was with all the things I just mentioned, I still want to know what happens, which I guess would indicate that the story was deeply compelling, despite its flaws. If the depiction of the Dothraki hadn’t been so Orientalist, I think I would be totally and completely in love with Daenyrus. I think her story was a wonderful counterpoint to the story unfolding in the Seven Kingdoms and I will probably read the next books just to see the worlds collide.