Welcome back! This week, I thought it would be interesting to discuss the war and violence contained within A Song of Ice and Fire. No doubt if you’ve heard of Game of Thrones, or actually watched the series, you would know that there is a lot of violence contained within the story. While at times it can be excessive or grotesque, it also serves a valuable purpose in making the books and show what they are.
The Purpose of Violence
Simply put, the use of violence in the series help add a sense of reality to it. So while there may be dragons and sorcery, there’s also very human elements that mirror real life. The unfortunate reality of the brutal descriptions of violence is that if you read them and think that they’re outlandish or unrealistic, then you’re pretty naive. All of what Martin depicts in his books are unapologetically human acts committed by human characters.
But why? After all, this is a fantasy world. So why can’t we just be transported to a world where humans are a little less violent (or at least the violence isn’t as grotesque)? Because while this is a fantasy series, Martin very much aims to make commentary about the real world by designing this world to match the human world as much as possible. Furthermore, the realism of the world doesn’t allow critics to ignore the commentary. If the violence was perpetrated by orcs or ogres, then sure, you could say that these creatures are inherently not human, so we shouldn’t expect them to behave in a human manner. However, reading the acts committed on humans by humans makes us stop and consider what happened and realize the sheer brutality that humans are capable of. We can’t brush that fact off because this is a fantasy series, because we can just look at history to show that the humans portrayed in A Song of Ice and Fire are the same as us.
I feel like this post and the last post (on moral ambiguity) help reveal another theme in this series – what does it mean to be human? Essentially, what Martin does is he designs a simulation that allows us to observe humans in real time in order to try to answer that question. We see characters’ motivations, decisions, and rationalizations as they happen, and we’re supposed to make our own observations in order to answer what it means to be human. Of course, this simulation-esque experience can happen in many different kinds of books. Martin does it so well, though, because of his commitment to mirroring reality in every aspect. So not every main character is given a free pass to survival, every event isn’t necessarily convenient/ fortuitous for every character, and each character is forced to adapt accordingly.
While violence isn’t an inherent part of being human (as we seemed to have evolved to a point where violence isn’t necessarily an every day thing), I think being human involves a certain capability to inflict pain on other humans, whether it’s physically or emotionally. While, thankfully, every human doesn’t exercise this capability, it certainly exists if we watch the news or make simple observations in our every day life (sorry to end on such a depressing note).
Hi Matt! These last two posts have indeed tapped into more realistic and human like concepts, moral ambiguity and war and violence. Without getting too deep into philosophy, there are many different ways that humans are viewed. Some say that humans are inherently good, others say they are inherently bad. I think the truth is somewhere in between. We are capable of great good, but unfortunately throughout history we have seen that we are also capable of acts of pure evil. I like that you mentioned in the post that the book purposely uses humans committing acts of violence in order to avoid any excuses regarding violence perpetrated by inherently evil creatures. Overall, I think the series wants its readers to think deeply about these issues and understand how ridiculous human conflict can look from an outside perspective. Another insightful post, keep up the good work!
Hi Matt, I think it’s very interesting- and very true- that you describe the violence in these stories as necessary to show realistic humans. In fact, based on your posts, it seems like a lot of the pieces Martin includes in these books are meant to make them more realistic, including the food, religion, and moral ambiguity. It’s interesting that we consider these books to be dark and, as you said, grotesque, when history shows that the characters and their actions aren’t so far off from us.
Hi Matt,
I found this post to be very interesting and insightful. What really does make us human? That is quite a large question indeed. It seems as though, despite the series having a large fantasy world, that the. majority of the themes are based on humane aspects such as you mentioned the mundane topics such as food and religion. This violence really challenges us to put everything into perspective of what we consider to be humane or not and what we consider to be extremely grotesque. Thank you again for another look into these novels.