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TWOW and Today's Social Climate


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A few of us were having a fairly thoughtful discussion about how today's social climate might affect TWOW's reception when it is finally released. There was some pretty good dialogue about separating fiction from reality, and how adults should be able to enjoy fiction without it filtering into how we see the real world. Unfortunately, this also resulted in us getting the thread shut down for going too far off-topic. For reference, the conversation started around page 18: https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/156083-do-we-think-george-passed-1500-manuscript-pages/page/18/#comments

I thought I'd make a more topic-specific thread to continue this conversation. Are any of you worried about how TWOW will be received in this day and age? Does anyone else find that some of the fun has been sucked out of the fandom because of it?

 

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I trust George R. R. Martin. Admittedly, some of his scenes, the Dany/Drogo scenes specifically, have not aged well at all, but he can hardly be blamed for that. GRRM is a master at portraying the vastly diverse sea of humanity in his novels as people, first and formost. The kinds of people who are likely to get the most upset have probably never read anything Martin wrote, so I'm not particularly interested in their bad faith input.

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9 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I thought I'd make a more topic-specific thread to continue this conversation. Are any of you worried about how TWOW will be received in this day and age? Does anyone else find that some of the fun has been sucked out of the fandom because of it?

 

There's always going to be some criticism, but I'm fairly certain the hard core of ASOIAF fans won't give two shits what some critic or reviewer thinks. As for me, I simply want to have a few hours of simple reading without a lot of worry.  

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For instance, this is currently a hopping thread on Reddit right now: https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/q9fthc/spoilers_main_why_do_rl_shippers_consider_drogo_a/

I have seen so many debates like these recently, and they're exhausting. None of the character dynamics in this series are healthy by modern standards (like I mentioned in the other thread, even Ned and Cat would be considered toxic now when you factor in how he forbade her from merely asking about Jon's mother for fifteen years). We all wish the kids were older, and even George has admitted that he miscalculated how wide the timeline would stretch when he first started the series, but there's no way to enjoy the series without accepting that age is relative in this universe. 

It will be frustrating to see all the think-pieces about how "problematic" ASOIAF is, but what's worse is the sense of joylessness that has settled over much of the discourse within the fandom (and most fandoms, for that matter). So far, it has been much less prevalent here than on other platforms, however.

 

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You're right about the joylessness.  This is a tale about royal and aristocratic folks, in a quasi-medieval world set at war.  Of course, the world outlook of every one of these characters is going to be very different to that of middle class folks in a prosperous modern liberal democracy.  Martin has created a pastiche of medieval Europe, but even had he depicted it with perfect accuracy (and how could one tell?),  these people would have very different values to our own.

Condemning people for being "entitled", for using violence to settle political disputes, for believing men are superior to women, that the aristocracy is born to rule, just seems plain silly to me, given that in this world, pretty well everyone believes such things. Either it's simply a device to bash characters that the poster doesn't like, instead of just saying "I don't like X", while giving a pass to characters they do like, or else one can only wonder what pleasure they could actually derive from reading this tale. 

One can argue that there are characters who are more enlightened than the norm, or less enlightened, but one has to cut them a good deal of slack for the circumstances of their world being very different to the circumstances of our own (at least, in the West).

What do people believe?  That men are superior to women (even  powerful women can't entirely shake off what they've been brought up to believe.  Even in as relatively enlightened a place as Dorne, Arianne thinks any man she marries will be co-ruler, not just consort);  that one's bloodline guarantees one the right to rule ("there must always be a Stark in Winterfell", does not depend on that Stark being a good person);  that the lives of the Smallfolk are not as important as those of the highborn (some characters like Arya, Dany, Ned, Edmure, Catelyn would disagree, but most would not);  opinions on slavery do vary between and within societies, and crucially, whether one is a slave or a master;  in war, cities that offer resistance will be sacked ,  and the smallfolk of the enemy are fair game for pillage (a humane commander will try to prevent murder and rape, but pillage still causes starvation);  hostage-taking, the use of torture, and employing child soldiers may be crimes under the Geneva Conventions, but are entirely normative in this world; traitors face execution. 

If reading about such things is "problematic" then this is probably not a series that such a reader will derive any enjoyment from.

 

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I'm also not worried. Reviewers and redditors can critique the series as much as they want for being "problematic", but the true fans of the series don't care about that. All we want is a great story, and Martin has proved time and time again that he is capable of delivering that, however long it takes. The ASoIaF fanbase is actually one of the least toxic and hostile I've ever seen for such a huge property. Most of that is probably due to it being very far removed from any semblance of modern politics, and that's a good thing.

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As I said earlier, I don't think GRRM (or anyone) should care too much about trying to avoid "problematic" scenes or plots, because this will not stop the anti-social-media-horde to complain in the least. No matter what will happen in TWoW and ADoS, both sides will complain loudly and jarringly (is this the right word?) - a lot of them without even reading the books.

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People who would get offended at TWOW are the sort of people who actively seek out being offended. There is no end game to any of their grievances, they’re destined to be bitter, spiteful people until they change their thinking.

I’m fairly confident George doesn’t give a hoot about who he offends or that his work conforms to the narrow dim witted beliefs of a few nutjobs. If TWOW gets criticised it will be based on quality of writing in direct comparison with earlier books in the series.

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On 10/17/2021 at 1:39 AM, Nathan Stark said:

I trust George R. R. Martin. Admittedly, some of his scenes, the Dany/Drogo scenes specifically, have not aged well at all, but he can hardly be blamed for that. GRRM is a master at portraying the vastly diverse sea of humanity in his novels as people, first and formost. The kinds of people who are likely to get the most upset have probably never read anything Martin wrote, so I'm not particularly interested in their bad faith input.


There is nothing in any of the ASOAIF books that was acceptable in 1996 that isn’t acceptable in 2021. It’s aged fine.

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  • 1 month later...
3 hours ago, M.Alhazred said:

Not worried about all the click chasing think pieces at all. What's wrong with the term  " Op-Ed?" not epic and important sounding enough now? Westros is a medieval world all the things that alarm folks now were normal back then.  

Fair enough, but the bigger worry for me is how it affects fan discourse. For instance, I don’t ship Rhaegar and Lyanna—they’re actually two of my least favorite characters. But there are people now who will say that you’re supporting pedophilia if you like their romance (since she was a teenager), which has a tendency to shut down conversation. Like I said before, this forum has been a lot better than Reddit so far, but it’s getting harder to discuss elements of the books without it being derailed by bizarre accusations and grandstanding. 

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2 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Fair enough, but the bigger worry for me is how it affects fan discourse. For instance, I don’t ship Rhaegar and Lyanna—they’re actually two of my least favorite characters. But there are people now who will say that you’re supporting pedophilia if you like their romance (since she was a teenager), which has a tendency to shut down conversation. Like I said before, this forum has been a lot better than Reddit so far, but it’s getting harder to discuss elements of the books without it being derailed by bizarre accusations and grandstanding. 

honestly that's one of my worries too. it's fair to say in our world there is a tendency towards attention grabbing titles in articles , especially when it comes to entertainments. trashing a famous series without concerning the actual context of it would make popular "articles". that is something with no remedy .. not yet anyways and a professional like Martin would understand that and would try not to let it affect him or his work.  but unfortunately,  I can also see it easily happening among the fans , considering the "fan base" have become way too massive. there surely will be many people who would fail to see the actual world of the story and won't be able to distinguish it from modern society and its moral , which makes the books 6 bags of insulting contents in their minds ; why these people would continue reading the series or call themselves fans of the books , I have no idea! 

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17 minutes ago, EggBlue said:

honestly that's one of my worries too. it's fair to say in our world there is a tendency towards attention grabbing titles in articles , especially when it comes to entertainments. trashing a famous series without concerning the actual context of it would make popular "articles". that is something with no remedy .. not yet anyways and a professional like Martin would understand that and would try not to let it affect him or his work.  but unfortunately,  I can also see it easily happening among the fans , considering the "fan base" have become way too massive. there surely will be many people who would fail to see the actual world of the story and won't be able to distinguish it from modern society and its moral , which makes the books 6 bags of insulting contents in their minds ; why these people would continue reading the series or call themselves fans of the books , I have no idea! 

It's not helped by the way (until we get ADOS) some of the fandom treat the tale as if it's a sporting contest that they want their fave to win.  There's nothing wrong with liking or disliking certain characters of course, but some people will fling mud at characters they don't like, while giving a pass to characters they do like, who act similarly.

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2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

It's not helped by the way (until we get ADOS) some of the fandom treat the tale as if it's a sporting contest that they want their fave to win.  There's nothing wrong with liking or disliking certain characters of course, but some people will fling mud at characters they don't like, while giving a pass to characters they do like, who act similarly.

yes, sometimes it feels like people are so keenly supporting a certain ideology or something rather than a character that god forbids you say something wrong about it! I mean everybody should chill ... these are fictional characters , they all can be flawed in some ways in their fictional world and in many more by our modern standards! you don't have to agree with everything your favorite character does or says and at the same time you don't have to trash everything a character you don't like says or does! and if you're biased about something for whatever reason , admit it and be okay with it.. more importantly don't fight others for it!! ... it's ALRIGHT !!! :)

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I also am more worried about fan discourse than the critical reviews. The critics I believe will largely judge Winds on its own merits. It's parts of the fandom who start acting in obnoxious ways on occasion that I am not especially looking forward to. Though as fandoms go, ASOIAF fans are pretty laid back.

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6 hours ago, Nathan Stark said:

I also am more worried about fan discourse than the critical reviews. The critics I believe will largely judge Winds on its own merits. It's parts of the fandom who start acting in obnoxious ways on occasion that I am not especially looking forward to. Though as fandoms go, ASOIAF fans are pretty laid back.

In my experience, it's critics that are the ones that will trash something based on its ideological/political undertones, not the regular fans. 

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18 hours ago, WhatAnArtist! said:

In my experience, it's critics that are the ones that will trash something based on its ideological/political undertones, not the regular fans. 

Some of them, sure. For the most part, the people you are referring to are a subset of very online Twitter users. That's been my experience. I do not think most critics will be trashing Winds if it ever comes out.

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On 11/24/2021 at 10:00 AM, The Bard of Banefort said:

Fair enough, but the bigger worry for me is how it affects fan discourse. For instance, I don’t ship Rhaegar and Lyanna—they’re actually two of my least favorite characters. But there are people now who will say that you’re supporting pedophilia if you like their romance (since she was a teenager), which has a tendency to shut down conversation. Like I said before, this forum has been a lot better than Reddit so far, but it’s getting harder to discuss elements of the books without it being derailed by bizarre accusations and grandstanding. 

You can't argue with this kind of mindset.  Deprive them of oxygen and put them in your ignore bin.  You don't have to respond at all.  Don't give them any space in your head.

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Essentially, it's bully behavior, a strategy designed to put you on your back foot in a defensive position.  They get a thrill, an adrenaline rush out of pushing buttons and getting a reaction.  Reacting only reinforces that kind of attention-seeking.  Use the ignore option to establish a fire-wall against this kind of provocation and preserve your peace of mind.

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