Think ASOIAF spoiled me

[Shryke]

Oh yeah, I loved that scene. And I really liked the friendship between the northeners, while it lasted. But like I said earlier, it all falls apart. The bonds between them snap and break, and everyone apathetically does nothing. The fact that they are so resigned to that fact is what irks me.

Joe's books are very deterministic that way. They send the message that human relationships are doomed, and besides making for depressing reading, I think that's objectively wrong.

He's not saying that human relationships are doomed though.

Abercrombie's First Law is subversively .... modern. He presents you with the trappings of traditional fantasy (the quest, the wizard, the party, the hidden king,etc, etc) and sets you up for it. And what all that really entails is the idea meaning and purpose. That these people and what they do MATTER in some grand sense. They are on a mission.

And then he tears it all away. He reveals it, as I said, as a modern world, a world without larger meaning or purpose, one where our actions have little impact in the face of forces larger then ourselves. And he doesn't take the cheap road out after this by giving some grand "Well, we still have each other and that's all that matters" after-school-special message. He leaves it messy and ambiguous. He's not gonna wrap it all up with a moral lesson.

And I think that, more then anything, is what you are reacting to. It's not that he says friendship and love and all that are doomed, it's that after tearing everything away, he refuses to molly-coddle the reader by telling them "It's ok, cause love conquers all". Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but he's not settling the issue for you.

[L’Age d’or]

That's one of the reasons Dostoevsky is such a horrid author.

You didnt actually try to use Dostoevsky's style to defend a criticism pointed at an epic fantasy writer!

[fionwe1987]

This has been an interesting thread. Not the utterly stupid (and indefensible) part about how aSoIaF was the only fantasy worth reading, but the discussion about friendships in aSoIaF.

I do think that Martin takes the whole "its lonely at the top" thing a bit too far. Or, to put it another way, he handles it in a very unsubtle way. I don't think it is realistic that almost all the characters with authority in the series end up having no real friends. Even the one real friendship, Ned and Robert, is portrayed in a somewhat negative light.

Don't get me wrong. Many of these people have supporters. Or people they can trust implicitly. Stannis has Davos, for example. But I'd say friendship of the sort where one guy tells the other he's a fool, even though the other is a king, is lacking. Maybe Arianne and her supporters, but they're hardly in focus.And the end result is that these mostly friendless characters are tougher for the reader to connect with, and so many end up caring less for them as people and more as plot points.

True but the fact that friendship seems so damned rare in fantasy books seems very strange. Compare to say Stephen King where a number of his books if not most feature pretty strong friendships.

I don't think friendships are rare in fantasy at all. Maybe in the new "gritty" fantasies, that is so. But on the whole, I think friendships play an important role in fantasies, and are pretty ubiquitous, even in horrbily handled in many instances.

[MinDonner]

Friendships in fantasy are neither rare nor particularly special. I mean come on, even Ted Rockson has friends, tr00 friends that would die for him!, and this in no respect makes it even come close to resembling a good book with realistic human interactions. GRRM's choice to avoid putting much focus on friendships of the main characters, especially given their particular social situations, is entirely valid IMO.

[Cantabile]

Another possible reason for an author avoiding a focus on friendships is that, quite simply, unless it contributes to the plot, or significant characterization, it's just taking up pages. In epic fantasy series there's plenty of room for all those secondary characters, and detailing their relations to each other, but in standalone novels especially, an author might choose to focus only on the characters that are directly developing the novel's plot. And if friendships aren't a part of that plot, well...

[Liadin]

Friendships in fantasy are neither rare nor particularly special. I mean come on, even Ted Rockson has friends, tr00 friends that would die for him!, and this in no respect makes it even come close to resembling a good book with realistic human interactions. GRRM's choice to avoid putting much focus on friendships of the main characters, especially given their particular social situations, is entirely valid IMO.

In general I feel like books that give the main character tr00 friends that would die for him! portray less realistic human interactions than those that don't. But no doubt if I wrote a book, Eurytus would find it unrealistic and depressing.

Anyway, Cantabile also brings up a good point when it comes to quantity of friends. Most fictional characters, regardless of genre or the time period in which the book is set, have fewer friends than most people in real life. That's just straight-up Law of Conservation of Detail. It's considered bad writing to give your protagonist 5 close friends when the plot only requires one.

[Eponine]

In general I feel like books that give the main character tr00 friends that would die for him! portray less realistic human interactions than those that don't. But no doubt if I wrote a book, Eurytus would find it unrealistic and depressing.

Anyway, Cantabile also brings up a good point when it comes to quantity of friends. Most fictional characters, regardless of genre or the time period in which the book is set, have fewer friends than most people in real life. That's just straight-up Law of Conservation of Detail. It's considered bad writing to give your protagonist 5 close friends when the plot only requires one.

On the other hand, fictional characters often have to leave their home and family to do whatever it is they need to do. Even if you have a lot of friends, for how many of them would you put your entire life on hold to help them with a quest?

What does seem unrealistic is how fictional characters are rarely married or have a spouse accompanying them, when in real life, being married to a person is probably the actual main reason that someone would put their own life on hold to go with them.

ETA:

In Westeros, it wouldn't be unrealistic to assume that Ned considered some of the other lords of the North to be his friends. Maybe they hunt and feast together. But each lord has a lot of responsibilities to his own land and household, especially in the North where it seems that external conditions are harder with winter coming earlier and lasting longer there than in the South, so it's not as if they can run out to the pub after work every evening. When Ned comes to King's Landing, even if he considers some of his other lords to be personal friends, he can't exactly ask them to leave their lands to come with him just for some moral support and camaraderie. Even Catelyn needs to stay home for those reasons.

A lot of other people at the top are in similar circumstances - they've gotten away from their own homes and castles, and presumably if they have friends, their friends are of similar station to themselves and their responsibilities to their own lands would trump going on a voyage with a friend. The exception might be Renly, as many of his supporters seem more like personal friends, knights that he's jousted with or knew growing up. Few of his supporters actually owe him loyalty out of duty, IIRC. His KingsGuard appears to be made up of people he knows (ie. his friends) whereas the Iron Throne Kingsguard is bound to their duty rather than their approval of the king.

[polishgenius]

This thread has nailed down something I've been trying to for years... I've never liked aSoIaF quite as much as I've admired it. I've never managed to pinpoint the reason beyond a rather vague 'certain coldness about it' but that lack of friendship perfectly captures it.

It's another example of how aSoIaF is entirely opposite in every to Erikson's Malazan: for all his flaws in character writing elsewhere, the man writes a good bromance. And has no hesitation in doing so.

[L’Age d’or]

Jon has friends among the night's watch and realizing that has always made me smile while reading his chapters. Other than that I havent found anything close to friendship in the book. Its not a flaw in itself since its GRRM's world not ours.

[Xray the Enforcer]

the man writes a good bromance.

Erikson should totally use that as a cover blurb. :lol:

[Liadin]

On the other hand, fictional characters often have to leave their home and family to do whatever it is they need to do. Even if you have a lot of friends, for how many of them would you put your entire life on hold to help them with a quest?

How many of us would do this for any of our friends?

What does seem unrealistic is how fictional characters are rarely married or have a spouse accompanying them, when in real life, being married to a person is probably the actual main reason that someone would put their own life on hold to go with them.

OTOH, maybe the authors are thinking that single people have fewer responsibilities and thus are more likely to run off on quests. I think this is basically the same principle as writing books about young people, because young people can change more and have more to discover about themselves/the world: write books about single people, and then they can find love along the way. Or at the very least, not be tied down by spouses and (worse) kids.

At any rate, I think it's funny how many people in this thread see one particular friendship (be it Robert and Ned, or Jon and his posse, or whatever) as the only friendship in the series. It's interesting how different things are meaningful to different people, and also how quick some of you are to discount every single other relationship in the books.