Villains and heroes in game of thrones.

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

The "are there villains" dance goes like this. Every time.

First, someone asks, if there's such thing as "fat" (evil).

The response is: no, not in this world (these books). 'Cause some interview, which trumps both the real-world observations and the content of the  actual books.

Follow-up: isn't pure lard "fat"? (Isn't Ramsay Bolton evil?)

Response: no, it's not. Because there are physiological reasons for somewhat high fat content in lard (Ramsay does what he does because reasons).

Additional question: le huh? WTF?

And here the "no fat" camp proceeds to redefine the word "fat" itself, which you absolutely of need to do to justify lard somehow being "not fat" (Ramsay not being evil).

As I said, every time. After the first fifty or so iterations of this exact dance, I just started putting the supporters of "no evil" on my ignore list, because that manner of discussion is simply tiresome.

[Universal Sword Donor]

2 hours ago, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

The "are there villains" dance goes like this. Every time.

As I said, every time. After the first fifty or so iterations of this exact dance, I just started putting the supporters of "no evil" on my ignore list, because that manner of discussion is simply tiresome.

I can't explain this much more.

King Robert: "It was not me, my lady," he said in a sulky sullen tone, like a child caught stealing apple cakes from the kitchen. "It was the wine. I drink too much wine."

Gregor: Ser Gregor is overly accustomed to the poppy, I fear. His squire tells me that he is plagued by blinding headaches and oft quaffs the milk of the poppy as lesser men quaff ale.

It's all just a big understanding. Gregor doesn't do all the raping, pillaging, murdering, and killing. It's the milk of the poppy!

[zandru]

3 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

It's all just a big understanding. Gregor doesn't do all the raping, pillaging, murdering, and killing. It's the milk of the poppy!

Well, the milk of the poppy would have Gregor sitting limply in his solar, awestruck by the beauty of the sun on the floating dust particles, not off actively killing, pillaging, and raping. Not to mention the chronic constipation. And Robert Baratheon, basically, was a spoiled child by the time we pick up his story...

[Angel Eyes]

2 hours ago, zandru said:

Well, the milk of the poppy would have Gregor sitting limply in his solar, awestruck by the beauty of the sun on the floating dust particles, not off actively killing, pillaging, and raping. Not to mention the chronic constipation. And Robert Baratheon, basically, was a spoiled child by the time we pick up his story...

But the milk of the poppy doesn't do squat for Gregor.

[falcotron]

15 minutes ago, Angel Eyes said:

But the milk of the poppy doesn't do squat for Gregor.

To quote William S. Burroughs, "The worst thing about chronic pain isn't that it hurts, it's that you can't get off on heroin anymore."

[falcotron]

10 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

I guess this is a problem I've had with the morality of A Song of Ice and Fire. 

 

Are there only villains and no heroes?

First, while characters like Ned and Robb make plenty of mistakes, they never do anything evil; they're flawed heroes in that they're failures, not that in they're bad guys. And then there's characters like Septon Meribald, whose own past misdeeds have driven him to be a saint—but he isn't fighting glorious battles, so he's not portrayed as a hero.

And I think that's the point. "Heroes" aren't necessarily good people, they're glorious people. There's no good reason the two have to overlap, so most of the most glorious people are not the most good, and vice-versa.

GRRM has talked about the Iliad multiple times, about how the story treats people as heroic characters whether they're on the Greek side or the Trojan side, and whether they're doing good things or bad. That's what he's trying to do here, because he thinks modern fantasy has forgotten that idea. And it's not just the Iliad—look at King David in the Bible, or Lancelot in the original Arthur myths. Not every story has to be about Luke Skywalker—and if you disagree, there are hundreds of fantasy novel series that are, so you can read one of them instead of ASoIaF.

[Universal Sword Donor]

13 hours ago, zandru said:

Well, the milk of the poppy would have Gregor sitting limply in his solar, awestruck by the beauty of the sun on the floating dust particles, not off actively killing, pillaging, and raping. Not to mention the chronic constipation. And Robert Baratheon, basically, was a spoiled child by the time we pick up his story...

Well no. It wouldn't. We know exactly what happens to him when he takes too much milk of the poppy, which is basically all of the time.

[A Ghost of Someone]

There are heroes and villains all though this series. Lots of grey characters too but yes, heroes and villains.

[zandru]

19 hours ago, falcotron said:

To quote William S. Burroughs, "The worst thing about chronic pain isn't that it hurts, it's that you can't get off on heroin anymore."

This is great! The "wisdom" of the 1960s... glad that's done with.

8 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

Well no. It wouldn't. We know exactly what happens to him when he takes too much milk of the poppy, which is basically all of the time.

Then poppies don't work the same way in Westeros as they do on Planet Earth. Actually, is there any indication that "we KNOW what happens"? Has there been any narrative at all that discusses Gregor on vs off the MoP? I don't think so.

19 hours ago, falcotron said:

And I think that's the point. "Heroes" aren't necessarily good people, they're glorious people. There's no good reason the two have to overlap, so most of the most glorious people are not the most good, and vice-versa.

Thanks for this much needed clarification. We (and I'm talking about Americans, for the most part - don't mean to denigrate those of you from elsewhere) have gotten so heavily into the "good guy" / "bad guy" trope (with guns!!!) that not only have we lost the gray ("grey") of real life, we have downgraded the very idea of a "hero." To an American, all you need to do to be considered a "hero" is to have enlisted. Done! Or get sick. Then you're not only a "hero", you're a "heroic fighter." When someone actually DOES something exceptional, we have no words anymore.

[Spilledguts]

Whoever takes it upon himself to establish a commonwealth and prescribe laws must presuppose all men naturally bad, and that they will yield to their innate evil passions as often as they can do so with safety. Niccolò Machiavelli

If no one stops Gregor from raping, then the mountain shall rape. 

If the Boltons are not stopped from flaying, then weaklings shall lose fingers, toes and other bit and pieces. 

All men are evil, some more than others. 

In a lot of fantasy tales, there is a villain with followers who actually "know" they are evil. Some Dark Lord type. Do you think Hitler looked in the mirror and saw himself as evil? How many catholic priests raped children, and yet most catholics I know think of priests as the best of people.

 

[Darth Sidious]

On 10/18/2017 at 10:52 AM, manchester_babe said:

do u think villians & heroes exist in this series?

Based on a meta i wrote; The Meta I Wrote

Well, this is a complex story.  There are villains but they come in many types.  There are the traditional villains like Gregor, Robert, Mance, Arya, and Joffrey.  In addition to those, you have people who deliberately made very harmful choices because they followed their own selfish needs instead of doing the right thing, like Jon, Rhaegar, Lyanna, Jon Arryn, Hoster Tully, and Petyr Baelish.  The second type in many cases did more harm than the first type.  Jon has done more damage to the realm because he could not stay out of Ramsay Bolton's business.  He dragged the Nightwatch into his feud over a sister.  Lyanna and Rhaegar destroyed a 300-year dynasty that held the realm together just for the sake of love.  Their love was more harmful than good. 

[Universal Sword Donor]

23 hours ago, zandru said:

Then poppies don't work the same way in Westeros as they do on Planet Earth. Actually, is there any indication that "we KNOW what happens"? Has there been any narrative at all that discusses Gregor on vs off the MoP? I don't think so.

No but we know exactly what he does when he is on it, so it's irrelevant to know what he's like off it. And who cares if the poppies are different? We know exactly what they do in Westeros too.

[Curled Finger]

On 10/19/2017 at 6:30 PM, Angel Eyes said:

But the milk of the poppy doesn't do squat for Gregor.

Because that 2nd head of his like Maelys the Monstrous never fully developed outside his skull.   

[Dofs]

I definitely believe that there are both heroes and villains. Yes, sometimes heroes do some bad things and sometimes villains do something good but among the major characters you still can quite clearly see who is supposed to be on a good side and who on a bad side. Jaime, whom many give as an example of "no heroes, no villains, only POV" not only is only one of the very few examples of such characters, he isn't even a good example of this.