180 replies to this topic

[Ran]

Via Sean T. Collins at Boiled Leather (an excellent venue for his thoughtful look at various aspects of the series, plus some great links to art and other commentary on the web), I came across this post from Curt Purcell concerning an aspect of ADwD that I thought was really quite interesting. Here's a relevant excerpt:

Quote

By contrast, the strongest thematic thread in Dance with Dragons is the struggle for peace: Jon's with the wildlings in the north, and Dany's with the hostile factions that menace her people in Meereen. It's ambitious, even audacious to make these two peace processes the heart of a novel like this, in a series like this, and to try to dramatize them with all the gut-clenching tension of the violence that has characterized the series so far. The challenge Martin seems to be setting himself here is to ennoble peacemaking without sentimentalizing it. He seems to be trying to establish peace as a venue for heroism; the tightrope he must walk is to make it a flawed heroism (or it wouldn't be true to the series, or for that matter to life) without reinforcing the all-but-inevitable cliche that the flaw is naivete or weakness.

Thought that was insightful, and gives me some ideas for something I'm writing. This aspect of the story does seem very central to the novel, and provides a greater sense of thematic unity than my initial readings found (by comparison to AFfC, which -- as Purcell also notes -- was really, really thematic unified). The struggle for peace may not be as flashy as the struggle of war, but to make it heroic seems to have been a challenge GRRM took on with this book.

[Free Northman]

Ran, on 04 August 2011 - 05:49 AM, said:

Via Sean T. Collins at Boiled Leather (an excellent venue for his thoughtful look at various aspects of the series, plus some great links to art and other commentary on the web), I came across this post from Curt Purcell concerning an aspect of ADwD that I thought was really quite interesting. Here's a relevant excerpt:



Thought that was insightful, and gives me some ideas for something I'm writing. This aspect of the story does seem very central to the novel, and provides a greater sense of thematic unity than my initial readings found (by comparison to AFfC, which -- as Purcell also notes -- was really, really thematic unified). The struggle for peace may not be as flashy as the struggle of war, but to make it heroic seems to have been a challenge GRRM took on with this book.

Hope this isn't some hippy pacifism filtering into the series. I maintain the hope that Martin can seperate his real life political views (which many disagree with) from his storytelling (which pretty much everyone finds brilliant).

[Klye Condon]

Ran, on 04 August 2011 - 05:49 AM, said:

Via Sean T. Collins at Boiled Leather (an excellent venue for his thoughtful look at various aspects of the series, plus some great links to art and other commentary on the web), I came across this post from Curt Purcell concerning an aspect of ADwD that I thought was really quite interesting. Here's a relevant excerpt:



Thought that was insightful, and gives me some ideas for something I'm writing. This aspect of the story does seem very central to the novel, and provides a greater sense of thematic unity than my initial readings found (by comparison to AFfC, which -- as Purcell also notes -- was really, really thematic unified). The struggle for peace may not be as flashy as the struggle of war, but to make it heroic seems to have been a challenge GRRM took on with this book.

One of the great underrated scenes in the novel for me is the one where Ellaria Sand give an impassioned tearful speech about the futility of Dorne embarking on a war of vengeance against the lannisters.It is noteworthy that Hotah states that even while crying she is not weak.

I think it is made plain as well that doran is more vengeful than he lets on and the red viper more of had a more nuanced view of vengeance than his daughters imagined.

[Ran]

There's no such thing as divorcing your politics from your writing, and there really never has been such an artificial division in this series.

What in the world is "hippy pacifism" about peace, anyways?

[Klye Condon]

Free Northman, on 04 August 2011 - 05:55 AM, said:

Hope this isn't some hippy pacifism filtering into the series. I maintain the hope that Martin can seperate his real life political views (which many disagree with) from his storytelling (which pretty much everyone finds brilliant).

I don,t think that any writer of such an overtly political series could or will avoid informing it on some level with their world views.

Edited by Klye Condon, 04 August 2011 - 06:36 AM.

[Olenna]

I think his political views are already subtly in evidence. There's the Meereen/Iraq parallel, of course, and we have a cocktail of social justice issues at the Wall, including immigration, gay rights, and a female priest.

He is, indeed, trying to radically redefine the typical fantasy hero(ine), not only as someone who seeks peace but as an administrator/strategist/negotiator type rather than a warrior. This is clearest in the case of Jon, but we also see it with Dany and Jaime and even Asha--all of whom to varying degrees defy expectations of badassery and instead settle for the much less flashy work of hammering out treaties and making common cause with former opponents. The traditional warrior POVs, on the other hand, are often ironic, as we see with Victarion.

[guag]

Free Northman, on 04 August 2011 - 05:55 AM, said:

Hope this isn't some hippy pacifism filtering into the series. I maintain the hope that Martin can seperate his real life political views (which many disagree with) from his storytelling (which pretty much everyone finds brilliant).

Ummm... I don't like the implication of this - assuming I'm getting it right.

It sounds to me like Martin has an obligation to entertain us with his writing (because we all like to be entertained), but gods forbid he passes a message along the way or makes a point (because opinions differ, so he can't satisfy us all). Is that what you meant or did I completely misunderstand you?

(For my part, while I have no problem whatsoever with simple, painless, or even mindless entertainment, when I sit down and read 900-page books, I expect the author to make a point. I wouldn't bother otherwise.)

[mormont]

It's an interesting thought. It must be borne in mind that what Dany and Jon are doing is still very different: Jon is forging a peace only to bring unity in preparation for a greater war, whereas Dany is more straightforwardly trying to avert war. But in each case, they're striving for unity, so their arcs both parallel Cersei's in AFFC (as depictions of ruling) and counterpoint it (as their aim is unity rather than domination).

On this analysis, the caging of Dany's dragons is perhaps interesting as a metaphor - the tools of war go into storage, as they're incompatible with the aim of peace. Maybe there's even a parallel with Ghost. I'll need to think that one through on a reread.

Tyrion's arc doesn't really fit, though.

[sologdin]

struggle for peace may not be as flashy as the struggle of war

i've been citing this all over the place, but foucault's 1976 lectures are all over this sentence to the extent that he inverts clauswitz and analyzes whether politics is simply the continuation of war by other means.

relevant to that discussion is the notion that "struggle" in the political sense is part of the continuation of war. a "struggle for peace"? yeah, he'd be interested in that rhetoric.


i thought that jon's treaty with the wildlings is the most significant macronarrative development in the entire series so far--the writer has therefore foregrounded a humanitarian objective. we'll see, i guess, how far that continues.

[Howlin' Reed]

Well, not everyone is out for peace yet. Griff, Cersei, Varys, Manderly - many players still have private agendas or scores to settle. Put Jaime down in the peace column, though.

[Ran]

Solo,

I'll have to get a hold of Society Must Be Defended from the university library when I get back home. Don't think I'm familiar with those particular lectures, though the inversion of Clausewitz rings a vague bell (possibly you've mentioned it before on the board?)

[littlebird_]

sologdin, on 04 August 2011 - 06:57 AM, said:

struggle for peace may not be as flashy as the struggle of war

i've been citing this all over the place, but foucault's 1976 lectures are all over this sentence to the extent that he inverts clauswitz and analyzes whether politics is simply the continuation of war by other means.

relevant to that discussion is the notion that "struggle" in the political sense is part of the continuation of war. a "struggle for peace"? yeah, he'd be interested in that rhetoric.

I always assumed that this was an underlying theme in the series perhaps best captured by the game of thrones phrase, the game of thrones is not necessarily about war but it is the struggle for power by any means, sometimes it is played by trying to establish peace, sometimes through war. In that sense war and peace are both different manifestations of a struggle for power and different ways of doing politics.

The peace Jaime is establishing right now is his peace because right now peace in the Riverlands serves Lannister interests. In that sense, establishing peace becomes another medium to establish power, it is not just whoever wins the war that matters but whoever gets to have a say in how peace is achieved. War and peace are two sides of the same coin. Like the understanding that Woodrow Wilson won the war but lost the peace and it was because he didn't/couldn't establish a satisfactory peace treaty that led to continuing conflicts. Peace is no more devoid of political aims and intrigue than war is and that is probably what GRRM might have been trying to convey. You might be great conquerors or military leaders but you also need to learn how to establish peace and despite what its name might suggest establishing peace is not necessarily a peaceful process.

[Free Northman]

Yet he ultimately depicts Daeny's efforts to abolish the slave trade and bring peace to Slaver's Bay as foolish.

And he shows Jon's efforts to save the Wildlings as doomed.

So what's he realy saying? That it is noble to strive for peace, but the consequences are inevitably failure?

Seems to me that the conclusion to be reached by Martin's scenario is that realpolitik will achieve more than idealistic visions of human brotherhood and love.

My view is that we're reading too much into this.

Martin is driven by the plot requirements, and Jon's attempts to bring in the Wildlings are not only obviously the right thing to do, but also necessary. Leaving people at the mercy of the others is hardly something any readers will support - especially after Jon's time with the Wildlings made us more familiar with them.

We ALL want the Wildlings to be saved.

As for the Meereneese knot: Most people don't identify with the people of Essos at all, and couldn't care less about whether the slaves are freed or not. They just want Daenerys to catch a wake up and get her arse to Westeros.

[sologdin]

abolish the slave trade and bring peace to Slaver's Bay as foolish.

does it? i see her efforts to end the slave trade as controverted, rather than foolish. (is she trying to bring peace? not sure.)


shows Jon's efforts to save the Wildlings as doomed.

hardhome, sure. but the rest? not so sure.


Most people don't identify with the people of Essos at all, and couldn't care less about whether the slaves are freed or not.

an ambitious judgment. do we have any mass indication from the readership that they prefer continued eastern slavery? (i happen to identify more with the slaves than the losar aristocrats in the west, fr'instance.)

Edited by sologdin, 04 August 2011 - 08:48 AM.

[Free Northman]

sologdin, on 04 August 2011 - 08:47 AM, said:

abolish the slave trade and bring peace to Slaver's Bay as foolish.

does it? i see her efforts to end the slave trade as controverted, rather than foolish. (is she trying to bring peace? not sure.)


shows Jon's efforts to save the Wildlings as doomed.

hardhome, sure. but the rest? not so sure.


Most people don't identify with the people of Essos at all, and couldn't care less about whether the slaves are freed or not.

an ambitious judgment. do we have any mass indication from the readership that they prefer continued eastern slavery? (i happen to identify more with the slaves than the losar aristocrats in the west, fr'instance.)

The impression I got is that the majority of readers wanted Martin to spend less time fleshing out the East, and to move the plot along to where Daenerys arrives in Westeros. Certainly that seems to be the greatest criticism of Dance, judging by comments in this forum.

Anyway, maybe I'm wrong. My feeling is just that people read fantasy for escapism, not moral instruction. They would prefer a bloody battle where Big Bucket Wull's hardy northern hillsmen slaughter ten thousand Lannister levies, rather than a last minute peace agreement that averts the battle altogether.

Edited by Free Northman, 04 August 2011 - 09:07 AM.

[Ran]

It's not depicted as foolish. At all. It's a failed project, but it was, in fact, working up to the unexpected disappearance of Dany:

Quote

Hizdahr’s peace—"

"—is a sham. Not at first, no. The Yunkai’i were afraid of our queen, of her Unsullied, of her dragons. This land has known dragons before. Yurkhaz zo Yunzak had read his histories, he knew. Hizdahr as well. Why not a peace?"

Jon's efforts to save the wildlings are doomed? He just saved 4,000 of them. I don't expect the couple hundred Night's Watch guys at Castle Black are going to kick Tormund and co. north of the Wall, so as far as that goes, Jon succeeded. Yes, those at Hardhome and those with the Weeper are in danger, but... hey, better some than none at all.

Peace is fragile, and it's difficult. Establishing and maintaining peace is harder than going to war, in a lot of ways.

[Lummel]

littlebird_, on 04 August 2011 - 07:13 AM, said:

I always assumed that this was an underlying theme in the series perhaps best captured by the game of thrones phrase, the game of thrones is not necessarily about war but it is the struggle for power by any means, sometimes it is played by trying to establish peace, sometimes through war. In that sense war and peace are both different manifestations of a struggle for power and different ways of doing politics.

...Peace is no more devoid of political aims and intrigue than war is and that is probably what GRRM might have been trying to convey. You might be great conquerors or military leaders but you also need to learn how to establish peace and despite what its name might suggest establishing peace is not necessarily a peaceful process.

Nicely put.

As Cersei says when you play the game of thrones you either win or you die. War is just an extreme manifestation of that, the settlements imposed by Jaime or the positions and privileges grubbed for by the Tyrells after the Blackwater or Cersei before King Bob's death however are as much a part of that. I'd go further and say that victory in battle is a minor stage in the struggle for power and if you can't capitalise on it and build it into a successful peace then you fail (ie Robb Stark).

The struggle for power in peace time through marriage (hinted at by Lady Dustin on the Maesters, Lord Rickard's Southern marriage policy and Barristan on Harrenhall) or through control of office or culture (as in Meereen) is no less fiercely fought.

[Lummel]

mormont, on 04 August 2011 - 06:53 AM, said:

It's an interesting thought. It must be borne in mind that what Dany and Jon are doing is still very different: Jon is forging a peace only to bring unity in preparation for a greater war, whereas Dany is more straightforwardly trying to avert war. But in each case, they're striving for unity, so their arcs both parallel Cersei's in AFFC (as depictions of ruling) and counterpoint it (as their aim is unity rather than domination).

On this analysis, the caging of Dany's dragons is perhaps interesting as a metaphor - the tools of war go into storage, as they're incompatible with the aim of peace. Maybe there's even a parallel with Ghost. I'll need to think that one through on a reread.

Tyrion's arc doesn't really fit, though.

Although I thought that Dany planned to learn how to rule in meereen in preparation for ruling Westeros - which would require war at least on some scale.

I like your thinking on the dragons - we've seen that before in Westeros with the dragonpit, with that time the Maesters trying to remove the Dragon from the Cyvasse board.

[Free Northman]

Ran, on 04 August 2011 - 09:06 AM, said:

It's not depicted as foolish. At all. It's a failed project, but it was, in fact, working up to the unexpected disappearance of Dany:



Jon's efforts to save the wildlings are doomed? He just saved 4,000 of them. I don't expect the couple hundred Night's Watch guys at Castle Black are going to kick Tormund and co. north of the Wall, so as far as that goes, Jon succeeded. Yes, those at Hardhome and those with the Weeper are in danger, but... hey, better some than none at all.

Peace is fragile, and it's difficult. Establishing and maintaining peace is harder than going to war, in a lot of ways.

Look, I'm very happy he saved the Wildlings. I was heartbroken reading about them eating their own dead in desperation at Hardhome. It brought back disturbing images of the Road - a movie I found very shocking and depressing. But this is because we care about the Wildlings. Tormund, and Wun Wun and Val makes us identify with them. We WANT them saved.

But the same sympathy doesn't seem to exist for the strange people in Meereen and Yunkai. Maybe it is Western prejudice, but I stopped trying to keep track of Hizdar and Reznak and Hizmar eventually, until they all blurred into one and I now just see them as "some more of those strange Essos people".

At least I'm honest in saying it. I'm sure a lot of other people feel the same way, without doing some honest introspection as to the origin of their feelings.

Daeny's endless plotting to save them weakened the story, in my view, and slowed the plot considerably. Because ultimately we don't CARE about them.

In the end, Daeny burning them all to crisp on the back of her three dragons, thus freeing her up to move on to Westeros would have satisfied a heck of a lot of people more than her attempts to save them from themselves.

[Tarthking]

mormont, on 04 August 2011 - 06:53 AM, said:

It's an interesting thought. It must be borne in mind that what Dany and Jon are doing is still very different: Jon is forging a peace only to bring unity in preparation for a greater war, whereas Dany is more straightforwardly trying to avert war. But in each case, they're striving for unity, so their arcs both parallel Cersei's in AFFC (as depictions of ruling) and counterpoint it (as their aim is unity rather than domination).

On this analysis, the caging of Dany's dragons is perhaps interesting as a metaphor - the tools of war go into storage, as they're incompatible with the aim of peace. Maybe there's even a parallel with Ghost. I'll need to think that one through on a reread.

Tyrion's arc doesn't really fit, though.

To add to the difference between Dany and Jon, look at the people they are trying to forge a peace with/for. Dany is acting as an abolitionist by trying to free the slaves and integrate them into an oligarchy. In contrast, Jon is trying to integrate the group with probably the most real freedom and most democratic institutions in the series with feudal Westeros. Yet they are both doing very similar things, with very similar effects - they run straight into a backlash from the dominant institutions that feel threatened by the changes. Its fascinating to read, and in my mind much more powerful than your typical hero saves the world ass-kicking fantasy.

As for Tyrion's arc, he's either the reverse of Dany and Jon, or following their same paths, but earlier in the journey. Both Jon and Dany started out in institutions with very restricted freedoms - Dany as Khaaleesi, in which was supposed to have a very specific role (that she didn't follow), and Jon in the Night's Watch, where he was supposed to follow a similar prescribed role, that he also didn't follow. While they were in those roles, you could argue that both were metaphorically "slaves", although the metaphor probably works much better for Dany than Jon. They have both risen beyond those roles. Tyrion, on the other hand, started out very well off, even rose to become Hand of the King, and fell to become literally a slave. Like Dany and Jon, he doesn't follow the role of slave, and escapes from it.