Welcome back! This week, I thought I would talk about what I thought was the defining characteristic of A Song of Ice and Fire,” which happened to also be one of my favorite parts of the series – moral ambiguity.
Defined as “a lack of certainty about whether something is right or wrong,” many characters display this trait throughout the books. And, while some characters may trend towards morally wrong behavior and some may trend towards morally right, you can generally find some redeeming characteristic within every character, making each character multi dimensionaled, and thus more interesting.
This ambiguity differs from some other famous fantasy novels. For example, The Lord of the Rings, written by J. R. R. Tolkien, could be considered to be the standard of fantasy novels. The books describe the story of a variety of beings coming together to go on a quest, destroy a ring, and defeat evil. Throughout it, there isn’t much moral ambiguity (you could probably find specific instances where there is some, but it doesn’t dominate the story) because there is a clearly defined line between the good guys and the bad guys, and the main plot driver is for the good guys to defeat the bad guys. Meanwhile, moral ambiguity is much more prevalent in A Song of Ice and Fire because the main plot driver is political drama. As a result, the lines between right and wrong aren’t clearly defined, because each character has a different version of what’s right and wrong, and each different version isn’t necessarily incorrect.
Moral Ambiguity and a Lesson in History
Throughout the books, it’s hard to tell which character is right in their actions. Many characters do questionable things that could be justified based on potential outcomes. However, while in real time we see characters behave imperfectly (which is to be expected of humans), the reader is also reminded of stories of heroes who seemed to do no wrong, and villains who were pure evil. We’re told of noble and shameful knights, just and tyrannical kings, and clever and treasonous politicians. Strangely, while the characters that we see in real time struggle to determine what’s wrong or right, we’re told of historical figures who had no trouble acting nobly or who could only do wrong. I hope that this sounds familiar.
“History is written by the victors.” Whether we’re talking about a fantasy world or talking about real life, this lesson holds up incredibly well. As time moves on, morality becomes more and more black and white. People look at an event or a person and say that they were right or wrong, and either praise them for being right or villainize them for being wrong. No benefit of a doubt is given for the other factors that may have influenced something – there is no correction for moral ambiguity. Obviously hindsight is 20-20 and anybody can claim that they would’ve made the right decision in a past situation, but this mindset drastically underestimates how human everyone is. It’s impossible for any of us to escape making morally ambiguous decisions because right and wrong is so hard to define, despite the lessons that history tries to teach us.
Hi Matt, I like that you used other fantasy books to compare to A Song of Ice and Fire in this post. It showed that these books are a lot more complicated than what we’d consider a classic fantasy book; fantasy books tend to have a hero and a villain, with an obvious goal for the hero to accomplish. That being said, a lot of fantasy books are kids books, and A Song of Ice and Fire are definitely not for kids! Once again, this was a vey interesting post!
Hi Matt,
I like how you made the comparison between ‘A Song of Fire and Ice’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’, these examples allowed for me to easily understanding what you were getting at in terms of moral ambiguity. It seems as though this moral ambiguity adds a whole extra layer of complexity to the plot as it forces the reader to think more deeply of whether the character is actually good or evil. Sounds so interesting, thank you for this!
Hi Matt! The topic of moral ambiguity can get incredibly complicated and as you said it is difficult to make moral decisions in real time. It is much easier to look back and be able to see what was the just decision. As it pertains to “A Song of Fire and Ice” I like that the characters are displaying the same struggles as everyday people are in evaluating the moral aspects of different situations. As you mentioned, there are still figures within the novel that are seen as morally just and morally wrong based on history, which is also true in real life. Right and wrong are such broad concepts that are more than just good and bad, so it is good that the series treats it as such. While it is fun to read and watch works about good versus evil, it is far more interesting to understand the struggle people go through in making decisions that have far larger impacts. It is not black and white, there are a lot of gray areas in between. Interesting post as usual!