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Seeing the bigger bigger picture.


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What is the point of A Song of Ice and Fire? I mean, what the books are trying to convey to us? It's a message about how bad wars are? It's a message about climate change? It's a message about greed and corruption and the need to end it? It's a message about magical beings being more worthy than humans?

What is the end goal? Defending the realm? Defending the world? Defending the throne? what's the humans on ASOIAF ultimate goal in their lives? It's all the scheeming and ploting? All the wars? It's trying to make peace and prosper?

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25 minutes ago, Seams said:

It's about wolves and stuff.

Some creepy trees.

People getting stabbed.

Also food.

LOL. Okay but serious now. What is the point of the book? Someone asked me and I couldn't pinpoint what the book is about, and we're 5 books in and I still don't know. That are a lot of things we can point at, but no single one is conclusive.

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I think the point is, as rulers many of them go to wars over personal vendettas and their pride. Rulers also tend to allow corruption for their own benefit, ignoring huge external threats.  As a result it not only makes the rulers into monsters but also the people they rule over suffer as a consequence. The only way to have peace is to put aside your beef and your pride for the better of the realm.

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1 hour ago, Seams said:

It's about wolves and stuff.

Lolz. I usually dislike sarcastic response to heartfelt posts, but this is just hilarious

1 hour ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

LOL. Okay but serious now. What is the point of the book? Someone asked me and I couldn't pinpoint what the book is about, and we're 5 books in and I still don't know. That are a lot of things we can point at, but no single one is conclusive.

An anti war story, sure. But theres lots of underlining themes, loyalty vs greed I think are the big ones.

The thing is even 5 books deep, the ending is still far and mysterious. Like Star Wars for example, Id say its a story of redemption. Though IV and V hardly touched on the issue it was the stand out theme in VI which to me made it the stand out theme in the saga. 

So in conclusion, wait for winds lol

 

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Magic is bad.I'm with the Citadel on this.Let's just throw it out the window and get on with the good stuff like ,erm democracy and science!

What good has magic done for us?

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It is a very good question to ask.

In a Song of Ice and Fire the ice and fire are representative of what drives one's decision making.

Ice represents decision making based upon cold hard calculation, free from emotion. One might say heartless decisions, or to use an in-world term, the heart of winter. An example would be Varys's stated logic at Robert's small council by which he argued for Dany's assassination.

Fire represents decisions made of passion, one may say made by the heart in spite of the brain. The fiery heart. An example would be Jon's decision to send Mance to save 'Arya'. Another would be Dany's decision to embrace the sick.

A song is formed by both passion and order. It is a whole thing made up of multiple individual parts. In making a song of ice and fire GRRM is making an argument that a combination of both forms of decision making is optimal, in moderation and balance with the other. 

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That war is bad and white walkers represent a real issue while humanity fights each other over not important things (you can say climate change). 

But it is written in a way that it is interesting to read and message is of secondary importance. 

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I think it’s hard to reach a conclusion about the books because they haven’t reached their own conclusion. I am afraid though that they may end up like the show since George had said that end will the be the same and so are the major plot points. 

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16 hours ago, Hugorfonics said:

sarcastic response to heartfelt posts

Sorry. Your point is valid. A past experience led me to go into immediate snark mode instead of treating the topic seriously. I can see some others are trying to take it seriously, too, so I will try to follow suit. 

1 hour ago, chrisdaw said:

... a combination of both forms ... is optimal, in moderation and balance with the other. 

I think this is a central point of the series: don't expect things to be black and white. Balance is good.

The Stark sigil is grey, as in "a grey area." But Ned doesn't seem to see shades of grey when it comes to executing Night's Watch deserters. (Jeor Mormont, by contrast, says he can't afford to kill off every man who goes to Molestown and he finds it hard to believe that it was necessary to execute Gared.) Ned also sees things in black and white when it comes to the succession for the throne: a pureborn son of the current king is somehow the only qualified successor.

I believe GRRM establishes very early this imbalance in Ned's attitude by pairing him with the sword Ice. Ned uses this sword to administer the King's Justice. It occurred to me early on that "Ice" is half of "Justice". The name "Justice" would be consistent with the names of other named swords mentioned in the series - Just Maid and Truth are particularly indicative of this kind of theme. Somewhere along the way, House Stark or Ned seems to have lost the "just" part of the sword's name and became entirely focused on "Ice."

The last person known to have used the sword Ice was Ser Ilyn Payne, whose title is The King's Justice. Soon after, we are led to believe that the sword is melted down and combined with Lannister crimson steel. Maybe this introduces balance to the old Ice as Oathkeeper and Widow's Wail are created. Are those the names of "balanced" swords? Brienne seems to be finding out that keeping her oath to Catelyn is not the most just way of solving problems; vengeance is for the insane. We will have to see whether Widow's Wail is used in a more balanced way.

We see black and white in the doors at the House of Black and White, which is an ominous place that rationalizes and teaches the acceptance of pay for murder. I recently noticed that we also see it in the coloring of Moqorro and in Mark Mullendore's monkey. The Dusky Woman hates Moqorro on sight, for reasons that have not yet been explained. The symbolism might be that dusk is the time of day when light turns to dark - a grey area. Dusk does not like black and white because it is irrational to see things in black and white. Mark Mullendore is a symbol for John Snow and possibly Jaime and Tyrion. He loses his monkey as well as part of his arm. Megga Tyrell, one of Margaery's ladies in waiting, wants Margaery to help him get a new monkey. The effort to find another monkey has been suspended while Mark and Margaery are imprisoned as part of Cersei's plot to consolidate power.

There are lots of other black and white places and people - the White Knife, the Black Water, the Black Gate, White Walls, White Tree, House Blackwood. I bet we could analyze these to see how they fit into the idea of "imbalance = bad; balance = reality."

There may be other color combinations involved in this balancing act: Mance feels like a better person after red silk is sewn into his black cloak, for instance. And then there are irrational conflicts such as the Dance of the Dragons and the Blackfyre Rebellions, easily resolved by intermarriage if people would just relax and stop fighting.

Somewhere I read that GRRM was inspired, in part, by the poem Fire and Ice, by Robert Frost, when he was creating ASOIAF. This doesn't entirely go to the idea of balance, but it does use irony to make the point that either extreme will result in an unhappy outcome for all humanity.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44263/fire-and-ice

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5 hours ago, Tygett Lannister said:

That war is bad and white walkers represent a real issue while humanity fights each other over not important things (you can say climate change). 

Yeah, but we have so many subthemes on the book. Like, science x magic. How prophecy really works and other things.

I can't see a clear goal on the books because Martin like to spread the seeds and harvest them later. 

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6 hours ago, chrisdaw said:

It is a very good question to ask.

In a Song of Ice and Fire the ice and fire are representative of what drives one's decision making.

Ice represents decision making based upon cold hard calculation, free from emotion. One might say heartless decisions, or to use an in-world term, the heart of winter. An example would be Varys's stated logic at Robert's small council by which he argued for Dany's assassination.

Fire represents decisions made of passion, one may say made by the heart in spite of the brain. The fiery heart. An example would be Jon's decision to send Mance to save 'Arya'. Another would be Dany's decision to embrace the sick.

A song is formed by both passion and order. It is a whole thing made up of multiple individual parts. In making a song of ice and fire GRRM is making an argument that a combination of both forms of decision making is optimal, in moderation and balance with the other. 

I couldn't have said it better by myself.

I think by the end of it, we will be able to place characters into the ice box (lol pun!!!) ice category, the fire category or into the ice/fire category.

 

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