Atrocities in the Series

[The Sleeper]

You know, I don't actually think we really disagree.

Let's just say we have different POVs

This is part of why I feel so strongly about maintaining a consistent litmus, at least as it pertains to discussion of these things in a book forum. Both sympathetic and unsympathetic characters are guilty of essentially similar crimes at various points. It seems a bit dishonest to negate the fact that a sympathetic character commits a crime simply because they had "good reason" to. A crime is a crime.

Is it really possible? A crime being a crime may not mean much in the end. Broken men are a nice example. They can be as dangerous as anyone else in the series. The Saltpans was raided in part by broken men. Yet when you know this is men who are hungry, desperate and scared out of their minds, can you hold them to the same standard as Rorge? Many may be far gone, but others would revert if returned to normal circumstances.

To say that a character is a sum of their parts doesn't mean to literally add and subtract the good and bad to come up with some value. I'm suggesting multiple layers of analysis, not some meaningless formula.

For example, there is the modern reader's response and understanding to actions that are crimes in the series. Jaime's pushing Bran doesn't negate the good and heroic acts he's commit and vice versa. Dany's torturing the Winseller's daughters doesn't negate her abolition campaign. There is bad and good in all of them.

But this isn't enough. There's the characters' motivations, context, degree of information they have, past history, attitude toward crimes that absolutely must be factored in. These are separate from a question of morality, though. These are the factors that make us find characters sympathetic or not, or a crime forgivable.

A character is a sum of all of these things. Impure motivation for one action shouldn't negate good intention elsewhere. That's what I mean by a "sum." It's a qualitative whole I mean, not some quantitative output.

My problem is that it has a tendency to devolve rather rapidly in to an effort to assign blame or judgement. Not that there is anything wrong with that per se, but it can get in the way and draw focus form the qualitative process you describe.

The point, though, is that Martin is writing this story for us. The characters do, by and large, subscribe to our same morals. For example, one issue that always comes up is the Tyrion rape scene. Critics say that to call this rape is to falsely apply modern standards to it. YET, Tyrion does, in fact, from his own POV, look at this as a rape. He is full of shame, says it was a terrible mistake, and understands it largely in the same way we would understand an analogue of sex with a slave in our own time.

The characters' actions, by and large, seem to have less to do with the supposed acceptance of the norms of their fantasy world outside of style, and a lot more to do with how people would personally respond to extremely difficult and morally compromising situations. The Westeros and Essos we see is in the midst of a chaotic war; the characters are faced with choices they've not had to previously confront-- there isn't exactly a "norm" from which most of their actions derive.

What's really fascinating, to me, is that when you accept that these characters do, in fact, have a similar moral alignment to us, to really look at how they respond to these catalysts. It's part of what makes it so engaging-- knowing that the characters have so much in common with our own sense of rightness, generally, would we do what they do? The shared sense of moral values (broadly, about many things) is part of what makes us struggle with these characters-- there are many crimes the characters have committed that I know are wrong, yet I also know I'd likely commit them myself if placed in their shoes (Frey Pies might be among those I'd be willing to do). It makes me uncomfortable, and I think that this conflict is precisely what Martin is hoping to achieve. That conflict doesn't really arise, though, without retaining our personal ideas of morality on at least one register.

He is writing the story for us and hopefully, for him, for future generations of paying customers. And I hope that he still writes it for himself mosty of all.

In the end, not retaining our own personal ideas about morality is impossible. Yes, I agree that the whole idea is putting us in the character's shoes and discover how well they fit. I'd still maintain that they are to a lesser or greater degree different shoes, which does not pertain only across the character-reader divide but across the characters themselves.

[Light a wight tonight]

I would say the Northern commanders are actually generally worse. Manderly feeding human flesh to his enemies, the Boltons, the Karstarks murdering children and from what we hear of the Umbars they are not much worse than the Boltons. Ned and Robb are not the North.

You're going from very specific incidents to generalized statements here.

Manderly didn't make a practice of feeding human flesh to his enemies; he did it once, and for specific purposes; to avenge himself on the Freys for killing his son at the RW and for the insults the Freys gave him as guests in his own home.

One Karstark killed children, one time. This is not what Karstarks did generally. Though they were a rough bunch responsible for atrocities in the Riverlands.

[nirolo]

He is writing the story for us and hopefully, for him, for future generations of paying customers. And I hope that he still writes it for himself mosty of all.

Of course he does:

GRRM:

Trying to please everyone is a horrible mistake; I don’t say you should annoy your readers but art isn’t a democracy and should never be a democracy. It’s my story and those people who get annoyed should go out and write their own stories; the stories they wanna read.

[mrunderhill]

You're going from very specific incidents to generalized statements here.

Manderly didn't make a practice of feeding human flesh to his enemies; he did it once, and for specific purposes; to avenge himself on the Freys for killing his son at the RW and for the insults the Freys gave him as guests in his own home.

One Karstark killed children, one time. This is not what Karstarks did generally. Though they were a rough bunch responsible for atrocities in the Riverlands.

Yes, but we have the Boltons and the Umbars too. The Boltons like to flay men alive and the Umbars illegally practice Primae Noctis. This does not bode well for rape and murder when they sack cities.

[Jon's Queen Consort]

For me atrocities are:

to attact a city and torture 160+ people for their culture.

to massacre of the adult males over 12

to torture children in front of their father

to torture people to learn who was their enemies

to use mass destruction weapons against people who haven't got that choice (that's also bullying)

to practise genocide

[Frey Pentos]

For me atrocities are:

to attact a city and torture 160+ people for their culture.

Do you mean the crucified slavers? They were killed as a punishment for crucifying 163 children, not for their culture. Using Dragons is bullying...that's priceless!

[SeanF]

I said in the O/P that Dany has committed atrocities, but she remains a sympathetic character. Innocents certainly died at Astapor and Mereen, but the victims also included people who were guilty of the vilest crimes against humanity. And, many thousands of slaves were freed. As against that, Astapor became hell on earth.

Torturing the wine sellers' daughters out of spite was a disgraceful act. Torturing suspected Sons of the Harpy was more par for the course, in the series, and let's face it, something that liberal, democratic, Western governments would probably do today. At least she eventually brought it to an end.

For me atrocities are:

to attact a city and torture 160+ people for their culture.

to massacre of the adult males over 12

to torture children in front of their father

to torture people to learn who was their enemies

to use mass destruction weapons against people who haven't got that choice (that's also bullying)

to practise genocide

[Jon's Queen Consort]

I said in the O/P that Dany has committed atrocities, but she remains a sympathetic character.

But still that is my opinion. I don't care when villains do atrocities but I do care when "good" people and sympathetic characters do atrocities.

[Stannis ftw]

I am late in answering this thread but I made a mental note to do so awhile back so here goes....

When I read fiction I dont "hold court" in my head. I am not passing judgement, giving passes or withholding them, binding or loosing. I am simply listening to a story and everything it involves.

I never remember raving about atrocities committed by Saruman or try to list down good and bad committed by Hank Chinaski. I never held court to "Neil" from movie Heat, or tried to find shades of greyness from Clay Davis in The Wire, or "handed a pass" to Omar of the same series. Thinking about it, I never remember anybody else do things like that (aloud) either. Maybe this is specific occupation of ASOIAF fandom, I cannot say for sure since my "reach" is very limited.

All these characters, and most characters in ASOIAF, are good instruments in telling stories with, among other things, moral significance.

However this board is something different and I cant hold the same observational attitude for real world discourse. When I started to follow this forum I was genuinely surprised and totally disgusted about, for example, number of people writing long rational defence treaties of Tywin wrt his actions in the riverlands and elsewhere. Although I know that...

a) internet boards like this encourage fringe opinions and many enjoy taking a fringe stand, either sincerely, or trying to carve a niche for themselves as self styled "intellectuals", or for fun (a.k.a. trolling)

b ) many people get horny about cruelty, violence and "naked power",

c) many people genuinely believe in fascist societal thinking,

d) many people are really confused in their ethical thinking and think they are intellectually advanced if they postulate "no absolute morals" without any real perspective,

e) most people are really ignorant of middle ages and apply this and d) to ridiculous conclusions, and the most dimwitted are often the loudest and proudest postulers of absolute rubbish,

... even still, having said all that, I never saw the day coming when basically I am reading not one, but several apologies of, say, Charles Taylor and his policies, methods and actions of warfare and terror in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Because you could change 100% everything of the arguments of Tywin apologists for him.

So, basically, atrocities in the series do not pose any problem of attitude to me. Tywin is a great character, one of the better ones coming from GRRMs machine. People's attitudes of atrocities pose a problem for me, and I will never have any respect for some people in this forum.

[Pinkie Baelish]

The biggest atrocities in the series are undoubtedly most of the Essos chapters from ADWD.

[Littlefingers In The Air]

I think fan reaction to sympathetic characters committing atrocities gives more insight into the psyche of human beings than reaction to truly evil characters like Ramsey does. When given the option and given a chance to delve into rationale of the perpetrator, people will let bias and fanaticism cloud their judgment, instead of taking a character as a whole. It's the same in real life when we say criminals who commit crimes that we don't find wrong to not really be criminals. Morality is abstract.

[Lady Tippy Wolfsbane]

It's easy to forget how fortunate we are in most Western countries, not to have engaged in a major war for 60 years. If we did, I'm pretty sure that plenty of us would carry out acts which, here and now, we'd condemn. Curtis Le May once remarked that if the Allies had lost WWII, he'd be top of the list to be tried for war crimes.

I agree.

I will be the first to admit that I'm a spoiled entitled American, but I also realize the price of my "apple-pie" existence. I think it's easy for many readers to morally condemn characters and easily dismiss "justifications" for certain atrocities by totally disregarding context, because they don't face the harsh realities of the world very often. Personally, i don't believe we are suppose to automatically condemn a character for the "bad" actions. I love this series, because of how GRRM shows that horrible acts are not always black and white, so we shouldn't view them as black and white.

War in Westeros is not as different as many of us would like to believe when compared to war in our own world. Growing up in a military family has made it a lot easier for me to identify with those that make tough decisions and commit atrocities that they themselves are highly uncomfortable with, but they understand that it's currently the way things work. In a few hundred years, people will probably look at many of our highly acceptable actions as barbaric atrocities. In America, I believe our methods of childbirth over the past hundred years will be high on the list.