2 questions on your reading process

[SerStinger]

There are two awesome debates going on the board right now, one regarding whom would you support for a monarch and the other about the ethicality of warging/shadowpooping/burning MMD. They are interesting debates and both sides are discussing it intelligently... but I have two questions regarding your reading process, and I was made curious by those posts.

1) Do you actively pick a side and root for it while you read? Or do you think on it later and decide whom you like best? In that thread I did reply with Dany, but I hadn't thought I'm on whose side while I was reading. Basically, I'm rooting for each character I'm reading their POV.

And if, for example, your side loses, would you be sad? Like your team has lost?

2) Do you really really think about the ethicality of things while you read them? Again, I can talk myself to death if warging or shadowpooping are moral or not, but I never care if the characters are moral. I don't want them to be moral, I just want them to be interesting. And one of the most important aspect of that is that they must be interesting killers- pacifists are great in the real world but they have no place in fiction. Now I don't consider incest immoral, but if I did, I wouldn't mind it from characters....

So my second question is this, when you are reading, do you care for ethics, or you are simply interested in the spectacle?

[slayer420]

I am on team stark and if they all die I would be sad. While I read I do root for the Pov I am reading though. If the POV is doing something agaist my team I am not happy with them.

[Every]

1) No. I have vague preferences, but I won't be heart broken if the other side wins so long as they do it in an interesting way.

2) Yes, I really think about the ethics of a character's actions, but no, I don't let that overwhelm everything else they do or all the other parts of their story.

[S N Black]

Yes,I pick a side. My favorite characters tend to be the morally principled, stick in the mud types (Brienne, Jon, Ned, most Starks, Dany etc.) or the good-hearted roguish types (Tyrion, Renly, Arya, etc.) The challenge to reading this way, is GRRM's ability to make his readers love to hate some of the more noble characters, and the down right nasty characters as well. He also seems to love bringing utter doom on the noble characters, while allowing the morally questionalbe and devious characters to succeed. It's very frustrating, at times, although in a good way.

I find the ethics (rather lack thereof) of some characters amusing (Cersei, most of all), but in general I really like to see the 'good guys' win.

[Winter's Knight]

1. I root for characters rather than sides-so I am hoping that both Sansa and Cersei find happiness in the end.

2. Ethically, there are certain things characters do that put me off immediately-Tyrion's misogyny was an immediate deal breaker as was Bran warging Hodor and Jaime abandoning Cersei.

Other things I notice on a reread such as Dany abusing Irri (I can only account for my noticing this asit being a throwaway line and ADwD being really boring) and it puts me off.

[Woman of War]

I definitely do not pick sides like "I want the Starks to win" because they allegedly are the good guys and girls. No, I do not root for Houses, or The North or Lannisters or whatever. I root for individuals, for those who fascinate me. And I certainly do not want the good guys to win, simply because the are the good ones, and to shatter the immoral and sinful since it is not so easy to distinguish one from the other here.

I am interested in compelling storylines, in multilayered characters, those characters who offer the broadest travel in their development. And I am not willing to use a moral judgement for my decision to root for a character, to be on the morally safe side. No, I do not think that protagonists have to earn their survival by fitting into an equation of "goodness" and "evilness" with the goodness factor > 1.

And I do not believe in something like a moral event horizon, after crossing it a character is irredeemably lost and there is o hope of a "happy ending" for him or her. Everyone can earn himself a cookie in the end and even the most honorable may lose their head. Everybody can be the hero in the end and everyone can turn evil.

I want compelling believable storylines.

And yes, I do not need the characters to be moral at the expense of being interesting. But while I am reading I am very much aware of the moral implications of actions and at the same time I am aware that I am judging with the complete information of a detached modern observer. But the POV structure invites me to enter a character's head so I am forced to take his or her approach to a situation into consideration. This tension is a main source of fascination with the story. And I refrain from judging a character as a whole as moral or immoral but I am very well able to judge their actions, not forgetting that I, unlike the character concerned, have access to a modern philosophical background.

[DaveSumm]

1) I think one of the most impressive feats of the series is how GRRM set up the war between the Great Other and R'hllor. We're initially rooting for Bran, then we're introduced to Davos and taught to be suspicious of Mel and her Red God. But then we start realising that Bran might have something to do with these Others who we assumed were bad......and that Mel is diametrically opposed to them.....? Now who the hell are we rooting for? I have no idea. Same goes for the Blackwater battle......I love Tyrion, I love Davos.....I honestly couldn't tell you which outcome I was hoping for there.

2) I do read them with some kind of opinion on how 'good' each character is....but it gets very murky. It's hard to employ a strict 'if it's OK in Westeros it's OK' mindset, because there's obviously plent of terrible things you could away with if that's your outlook. But on the other hand, it's impossible to go the other way and judge everything by today's standards. I can't see how anyone can read the books and think that everyone who ever thought someone under 16 was attractive is a paedophile, and anyone who ever killed someone should be locked up.......that's pretty much everyone. It'd be a very unpleasant read if you didn't have any characters you thought were doing the right thing.

[Jon Wolfwalker]

1. I pick sides as I read yeah.
   
2. Incest isn't immoral? Do you have brothers or sisters? To me that is beyond sick and immoral that's on the border of "rape is cool".
   
3. As for Tyrion his trust toward women was all Jaime's and Tywin's doing. Prior to his initial first encounter with women he seemed to be a good natured kid.
   

[Dr. Pepper]

1.) I tend to read books very quickly and then think on them and flip back through different parts once I'm finished. During that initial gobbling of the text, my mind is sort of on overload so the characters I root for seem to change every few pages. It's usually not until I finish that I really start thinking critically about the text and really start considering the characters I find worthy or not worthy. I would not be upset if any of the characters didn't end up the way I hope or expect them to. I would only be upset if the author provided a conclusion that was not satisfying or logical.

2.) Yes, I definitely think of the ethics within a story. I don't particularly care for magic and such, but I continue to enjoy reading fantasy because most fantasy - at least most good fantasy - offers the reader to explore some of life's really tough and important questions from a relative place of safety. I enjoy reading regular fiction for the story but I find the fantasy genre particularly satisfying because it's like taking an ethics class.

[Gerold_Hightower]

1. Basically there is so many Houses, one for every taste. But I am more interested in characters rather than Houses. So, after the RW I was unsuse if that was going to be interesting at all. However in ADWD it seems that it is getting somewhere.

2. Every character is immoral, in their own ways.

Conclusion: I am interested in the general picture. What will happen after all those so much murdering, scheming, wars to the GRRM world, and the characters who lived to tell the tale.

[Tall Tyrion Lannister!]

I usually root for sides. sometimes it's hard though when you have characters you like on both sides of the fight. like in Blackwater i was rooting for Stannis mostly but didn't want Tyrion to have anything bad to happen to him.

I try not to judge the characters based on real world morals, but sometimes it can get hard.

[SerStinger]

Do you have brothers or sisters? To me that is beyond sick and immoral that's on the border of "rape is cool".

Lets not turn this into a debate and not derail the topic, I'm just going to tell you my opinion. Incest is a consensual act which harms no one and satisfies those who do it. It is another taboo which is irrational, and handed down by superstitious and corrupt religious structure of our societies, which wants everyone to conform to a boring idea of a monogamous heterosexual patriarchal family. You might find it sick, but remember that this is merely an irrational impulse, and that interracial and homosexual relationships were once considered sick as well. And no, I'm an only child.

Lets agree to disagree and move on now. :)

[Caris]

I root for individuals more than teams; teams are too messy in this series.

And yes, I definitely make ethics judgments about characters and their actions. On one hand, yes, they live in a different society with different mores, but on the other, it's different for the purpose of highlighting differences in behavior. The differences didn't just happen that way, they were MADE that way intentionally. At least, that's how it's supposed to work.

Incest is a consensual act which harms no one and satisfies those who do it. It is another taboo which is irrational, and handed down by superstitious and corrupt religious structure of our societies, which wants everyone to conform to a boring idea of a monogamous heterosexual patriarchal family.

To my knowledge there are completely valid genetic and evolutionary reasons that incest is a bad idea, which are the basis of the taboo, more so than religious heterosexual monogamous hegemony. You're right about the rest, though.

Edited for clarity, spelling.

[SerStinger]

To my knowledge there are completely valid genetic and evolutionary reasons that incest is a bad idea, which are the basis of the taboo, more so than religious heterosexual monogamous hegemony. You're right about the rest, though.

Most of them are inaccurate- the genetic effects for example only frequently happen in fourth or fifth generations. But even if they were true, they would make having children out of incest a bad move, not the sexual act itself.

And just to clarify- my question would stand even if the series took place in contemporary times.

[Jon Wolfwalker]

Lets not turn this into a debate and not derail the topic, I'm just going to tell you my opinion. Incest is a consensual act which harms no one and satisfies those who do it. It is another taboo which is irrational, and handed down by superstitious and corrupt religious structure of our societies, which wants everyone to conform to a boring idea of a monogamous heterosexual patriarchal family. You might find it sick, but remember that this is merely an irrational impulse, and that interracial and homosexual relationships were once considered sick as well. And no, I'm an only child.

Lets agree to disagree and move on now. :)

Sorry, I can not "agree to disagree" with you on this. Not all incest is consensual. That's an assupmtion made by you! AND OMFG, you pretty much state that if it weren't for religion(which I don't believe in) that screwing your brother or sister is fine????? That is your FAMILY! Your an only child, so would you consider having sex with you mother and father the norm? If so, I can't even begin to express my sympathy.

[SerStinger]

Sorry, I can not "agree to disagree" with you on this. Not all incest is consensual. That's an assupmtion made by you! AND OMFG, you pretty much state that if it weren't for religion(which I don't believe in) that screwing your brother or sister is fine????? That is your FAMILY! Your an only child, so would you consider having sex with you mother and father the norm? If so, I can't even begin to express my sympathy.

Well then it's not incest, it's rape. By the same logic we must consider all sex immoral because some of it is not consensual. And a wife would be FAMILY as well, people don't seem to mind screwing that family member. I would never consider having sex with my parents, just as I would never consider having sex with a man, but that doesn't mean I disrespect those who do.

[SerStinger]

You know, I really made a mistake by mentioning incest in my original topic, I regret it now. I want to discuss ASOIAF, not incest.

[Leviathan I]

Stannis 100%

and no, I don't try to bring my 21st century ethics and perception of morality into the books because they do not belong there.

[Rinso]

1) Do you actively pick a side and root for it while you read? Or do you think on it later and decide whom you like best? In that thread I did reply with Dany, but I hadn't thought I'm on whose side while I was reading. Basically, I'm rooting for each character I'm reading their POV.

And if, for example, your side loses, would you be sad? Like your team has lost?

I'm trying to just go with mu gut without overthinking it. I definately decide whom I like and whom I dislike while I'm reading. Sometimes I think on it later, but by that time my opinions are already formed.

2) Do you really really think about the ethicality of things while you read them? Again, I can talk myself to death if warging or shadowpooping are moral or not, but I never care if the characters are moral. I don't want them to be moral, I just want them to be interesting. And one of the most important aspect of that is that they must be interesting killers- pacifists are great in the real world but they have no place in fiction. Now I don't consider incest immoral, but if I did, I wouldn't mind it from characters....

So my second question is this, when you are reading, do you care for ethics, or you are simply interested in the spectacle?

I don't care for general ethics when I read. For example, if I did care about ethics in general, I would have been abhorred to read about the whole civil war during ACOK and ASOS, but I was much more interested in the spectacle (as in who's going to come on top, who's going to screw up who etc.).

On the other hand, if something grabs my attention and spins my moral compass, I would react accordingly and I will be interested. But again, I would be more interested by the character or plot dynamics that the situation might bring rather than the ethics themselves.

[Jon Wolfwalker]

Stannis 100%

and no, I don't try to bring my 21st century ethics and perception of morality into the books because they do not belong there.

You should. The series was written for this generation. I don't think GRRM sat down and said, " I want to write something for the dead society and the future, screw this time I now live in."