Bad Worldbuilding in ASoIaF

[Aldarion]

Let us be clear - George Martin is an excellent writer and he writes highly compelling characters. There are very few authors I have read, be it in literary fiction or otherwise, that can match him in this domain - one good example being Katsura Hoshino, author of D.Gray Man (more on that here).

Realism, however, is not his strong suit. There are many examples of Martin's unrealistic or simply bad worldbuilding, but here I will start with Daenerys, because all the greatest headaches I have with ASoIaF realism come from the areas of Essos that are part of her story.

Daenerys is basically a wish fulfillment character and possibly even a Mary Sue, though that latter point may not apply. Definition: "A Mary Sue is a character archetype in fiction, usually a young woman, who is often portrayed as inexplicably competent across all domains, gifted with unique talents or powers, liked or respected by most other characters, unrealistically free of weaknesses, extremely attractive, innately virtuous, and/or generally lacking meaningful character flaws." ; or "a beautiful, flawless, female who everyone is enamored with. She is fierce, exotic, highly intelligent, innately gifted, can usually speak multiple languages, and frequently outsmarts the men around her."

Daenerys reads like that to me. She is incredibly competent across all domains despite having had no formal education. She does try and surround herself with advisors but most ideas come from her anyway. She does have unique talents or powers, gets a lucky break after a lucky break, and while she does suffer a lot of misfortune early on all of that seems basically designed to push her upwards. She very definitely is fierce, exotic, highly intelligent, innately gifted, can speak multiple languages and frequently outsmarts the men around her. Most importantly and what is actual topic here is the fact that the entire world is designed around her, to allow her to become a ruler.

Realistically, "rags to riches" characters either a) manipulated the system or b) had powerful backers. Daenerys meanwhile does neither: she destroys the system, and does it while starting from a scratch. Yet Daenerys conveniently happens to be given three dragon eggs by Illyrio... which on its own is not a bad thing: characters often do find MacGuffins and similar. But, then she just conveniently hatches said eggs without even knowing how (see below), conveniently ends up in a Slaver's Bay which is conveniently set up just in a way that will allow her to gain power in two major ways.

First, the Unsullied. Slave armies did exist, and armies for sale did exist. But there were never slave armies for sale. Slave soldiers were actually relatively high in the rank of their society, often above many free men as they were slaves of the ruler. They were never abused the way Unsullied were, and often (e.g. Mamluks and Janissaries) ended up de-facto rulers or at least kingmakers of their own sountries.

Second, the slaver societies. Historically, almost no society had 90% of population in slaves. Reason was simple: slaves tended to rebel. Some 10% to at most 20% were slaves in the Roman Empire. In 1790 US proportion of slaves was 18%, and 12% in 1860. Confederate States of America in 1861 had 3,5 million slaves out of population of 9,1 million, for proportion of 39%. The only society that ever had anywhere close to 90% of population as slaves was ancient Sparta - and all free male Spartans were soldiers for the explicit purpose of keeping the slaves in line.

Yet in the Slaver's Bay, some 80% - 90% of population are slaves but the ruling class, even assuming it is the entirety of the free population, has not a single soldier among them. Instead, they rely on slave soldiers. But in reality, slave soldiers will have taken over the rule in the Slaver's Bay long time ago. It will have become Slave's Bay without Daenerys lifting a finger. And there is also the fact that her being in the Slaver's Bay conveniently leaves her out of the whole Westerosi mess until it comes time for her to swoop in with her flying lizards, but that is such a fundamental part of the story I do not see how to change it.

So what could have been done?

Simple. First, make Dothraki into realistic Mongols. Second, make them respect female authority. Then have Drogo die and Daenerys inherit his khalassar. This way, she would have realistic basis of her power instead of just authorial fiat. Once that was done, she could take over other khalasars by pulling Daala which is one of things I actually liked about the abomination. And if she has to resurrect dragons, she should actually discover how to do so from somebody (a Red Priest perhaps? or maybe just a book - she does read, after all) instead of just "getting an idea" and getting absurdly lucky. Let Martin explain what actually happened in canon:

The whole point of the scene in A Game of Thrones where Daenerys hatches the dragons is that she makes the magic up as she goes along; she is someone who really might do anything. I wanted magic to be something barely under control and half instinctive.

So yeah. And unlike Lord of the Rings, there is no guiding hand of Providence intervening to keep events on track.

Anyway, back to fixing Daenerys. Either before or after resurrecting dragons, she would take her Mongol army to the Slaver's Bay, which at the time will have been torn by conflicts - conflicts fought by professional soldiers and mercenaries, not by slaves. By offering her army as mercenaries in these conflicts, Daenerys would be able to play off slaver cities one against another, conquering losers one by one until her empire grew so large that remaining slaver cities could not stop her any more even in a coalition. Alliance with anti-slavery factions such as Braavos and perhaps some Westerosi mercenaries (hired in part with Braavosi wealth) would serve to further strenghten her position. At the same time have her - perhaps on Ser Barristan's advice - gradually introduce feudalism instead of the old slave system. Feudalism after all is a system that would be familiar to any Westerosi character, and far superior for slaves than slavery is. Alternatively, another form of sharecropping - such as colonate - may be copied from another nearby society. This would still cause a lot of problems in transition, but would not feel pulled out of the arse the way Daenerys progress in actual books does.

Jon Snow is another Mary Sue character, but I simply do not see a way how to fix big beats of his story other than either having him die in the Clash. Also, he does become far more interesting in the Dance of Dragons, which somewhat bails out his character for me.

[Ran]

At some point in history, everything was something that had never happened before.

[James Steller]

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

 

So yeah. And unlike Lord of the Rings, there is no guiding hand of Providence intervening to keep events on track.

 

That was always one of my least favourite parts of LOTR. Aragorn in particular is annoying when he talks and acts like he expected everything to fall into place exactly as it does. There’s very little suspense or worry with his arc. He can just confidently tell Eomer that they’ll meet again, though all the hosts of Mordor stand between them. It’s one thing for a Tolkien character to curse someone in a vague way (“the vengeance of the House of Hador will find you yet!”) but when his characters just randomly become omniscient prophets, it undermines the sense of drama and urgency. Which was his point, I know, he was subverting a classic genre, but I’m just saying.

Edited November 12, 2023 by James Steller

[Alester Florent]

4 hours ago, Ran said:

At some point in history, everything was something that had never happened before.

While this is true, it's also a bit of a cop-out in answer to charges of inadequate world-building. History isn't just a series of unconnected, partially random events some of which result in lasting change and some don't (like evolution, say); everything is to some extent a product of systems and circumstances, be they social, economic, geographical, demographic, biological etc. and not just the systems themselves but the way people understand those systems and react to and anticipate others' actions within them, etc.

Generally, this means that where something like Slaver's Bay hasn't happened historically, there are reasons for that. And while I don't think anyone expects GRRM to bring the plot to a screeching halt to go into detail about precisely why Ghis is able to operate this apparently unworkable system, it would be nice to get the impression that he's at least thought about it, even if the solution he's come up with is ultimately fantastical. In some places, it's clear that he has done this. In others, it's not.

And then there are the things that just straight up can''t work. King's Landing being supplied with food up the Roseroad rather than by water, for instance. (The way that overland preindustrial haulage works, the livestock needed to haul the food would eat most of it before it got there). Or, perhaps most prominently, the Dothraki. The Dothraki aren't just unprecedented. They're fundamentally unworkable as a society. They superficially look like steppe/plains nomads (and GRRM has specifically cited them as an inspiration) but they lack almost all the features that enabled those societies to actually function.

As to Daenerys's being a Mary Sue, this is debatable, but I can certainly see Aldarion's point. And fundamentally this is a problem of narrative rather than of worldbuilding (the worldbuilding problems seem to follow in order to allow Daenerys to work as a character, as he identifies). So again, the "first time for everything" excuse doesn't really fly.

[Jaehaerys Tyrell]

I find the development of languages and cultures in Westeros a bit disappointing, especially when it’s done surprisingly well in the Free Cities. It’s very hard to believe the North would speak the same language as Dorne, especially when they weren’t even united until 200 years ago. How did the North even start speaking Andalish, anyway?

[James Steller]

3 minutes ago, Jaehaerys Tyrell said:

I find the development of languages and cultures in Westeros a bit disappointing, especially when it’s done surprisingly well in the Free Cities. It’s very hard to believe the North would speak the same language as Dorne, especially when they weren’t even united until 200 years ago. How did the North even start speaking Andalish, anyway?

The Manderlys, presumably? Plus the North would have been trading with the southern regions for centuries. Otherwise what’s the benefit of House Frey’s bridge?

[Jaehaerys Tyrell]

1 minute ago, James Steller said:

The Manderlys, presumably? Plus the North would have been trading with the southern regions for centuries. Otherwise what’s the benefit of House Frey’s bridge?

House Manderly’s arrival is as good a point as any, I suppose, but it’d be very strange to have such extraordinary influence. I honestly don’t think House Manderly would have the sway to make the North speak the Common Tongue, nor can I imagine trade being so important. The advanced, interconnected, highly trade-focused free cities have developed different dialects of Valyrian in 400 years but isolated, backwater communities thousands of miles apart are all speaking the same language in Westeros, with less accent variation than an English county?

[Angel Eyes]

The sheer size of King's Landing should be impossible; a city of 500,000 requires a vast bureaucracy to feed it yet the rulers are somewhat hands-off . Unless the entire population is feeding off bowls of brown...

https://acoup.blog/2019/06/12/new-acquisitions-how-it-wasnt-game-of-thrones-and-the-middle-ages-part-iii/

[Ran]

King's Landing in the books hits 500k only at ASoS, filled with refugees and with soldiers from the westerlands and the Reach. I think GRRM's idea is more like 250k-300k, and specifically he said it wasn't as populous as Constantinople.

[Jaenara Belarys]

My itch is that it always seems like fictional societies are stagnant, remaining at the same tech level for thousands of years. It would be nice to get an explanation for that. It could be that magic, while not overly strong, was good enough to satisfy needs that would've been compensated by tech, or something like that.

Other things:

How's no one simply tried exterminating the Ironmen? If they constantly harass shipping and the western coast, it just seems like people would've simply purged the island.

How do YiTish cities not starve to death, if the royal palace is the size of King's Landing?

Why are the cities in Slaver's Bay stuck in the Bronze Age? Wouldn't their proximity by ship to the Free Cities eventually spread Free City influences inside the Bay? 

Why didn't Meereen or someone try to take over the Lamb people for their crops, land area, etc? The Dothraki don't seem to be too hard to beat if you have the right army. 

Why can't King's Landing grow a portion of their food in the Crownlands? Why's the food come up the Roseroad, instead of up the Mander on barges, overland to the Blackwater and then to KL?

[Angel Eyes]

8 minutes ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

My itch is that it always seems like fictional societies are stagnant, remaining at the same tech level for thousands of years. It would be nice to get an explanation for that. It could be that magic, while not overly strong, was good enough to satisfy needs that would've been compensated by tech, or something like that.

Other things:

 

Why can't King's Landing grow a portion of their food in the Crownlands? Why's the food come up the Roseroad, instead of up the Mander on barges, overland to the Blackwater and then to KL?

Maybe the soil in the Crownlands isn't that good?

[Jaenara Belarys]

1 minute ago, Angel Eyes said:

Maybe the soil in the Crownlands isn't that good?

Maybe, but Jaime in AFFC mentions peasants working in fields when he's leaving for Riverrun. And the Wiki says

Along the kingsroad north of the capital, a traveler goes "past woods and orchards and neatly tended fields, through small villages, crowded market towns, and stout holdfasts."^[12]

[SaffronLady]

30 minutes ago, Ran said:

I think GRRM's idea is more like 250k-300k, and specifically he said it wasn't as populous as Constantinople.

That is still very huge for a city that seems stuck in the very end of the middle ages. Not to mention King's Landing's bureaucracy is so ... non-existient it makes the city more likely to drown in shit instead of function.

It is possible for megacities in the millions to exist around the apparent time period (e.g Kaifeng had around 1.5 mil pop in 1102 CE) but KL doesn't look like one that could manage so many population.

[Ran]

21 minutes ago, SaffronLady said:

so ... non-existient

It's not described. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I think that's a fundamental error.

Prior to AFfC, you might have supposed the king personally locked up criminals, but there's a whole bureaucracy that gets detailed there. George will never work out the full bureaucracy for KL, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it just means he doesn't care.

It's like... Minas Tirith. Where's the bureaucracy that explains every facet of that place? No one cares, it's easy enough to suppose it can exist.

[Craving Peaches]

As others have said, certain areas in the map are just frozen in a specific time period. Development of languages in Westeros is off. The North would have no reason to speak the Common Tongue without the spread of the Faith. Even in those areas settled by Andals and following the Faith, there should be different dialects that are at least difficult for people not from that region to understand. Scale is too big for some things - Wall, Winterfell, prize winnings in AGoT, timeline of history, even the debt etc. Westeros would work better if it was smaller. The fact that over thousands of years there has been not one reported Slave Revolt in Slaver's Bay is silly. Complete lack of anything beyond very rudimentary justice system in Westeros. Role of Master of Laws is very underdeveloped. Unsullied and Dothraki should realistically be destroyed by Westerosi forces. Religion in Westeros is also very underdeveloped. Thousands of years and there was no Schism in the Faith? No heresies or reforms? 

Development of technology in general really needs a good explanation on why it is stalled/really slow. I don't think just 'magic' on its own is compelling, because magic in ASoIaF is not like in Harry Potter where you can just use it to do everything for you, plus there is the fact you need some element of sacrifice. But the only other theory I've seen on why progress is so slow is the 'Secret Cabal systemically purging the middle classes of Westeros' theory and even that, if true, wouldn't explain why the rest of the world is also stagnant (unless it is a global conspiracy). Not even just technological progress, but societal progress. One would think after the Long Night things might actually improve somewhat for the peasants since there would be a huge labour shortage so they would be able to be paid more (like what happened after the Black Death). Same families being in control for thousands of years...

[Springwatch]

9 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Realism, however, is not his strong suit. There are many examples of Martin's unrealistic or simply bad worldbuilding, but here I will start with Daenerys, because all the greatest headaches I have with ASoIaF realism come from the areas of Essos that are part of her story.

He's not trying for realism; he's very obvious about it. Complaining about missing realism is like complaining the lines don't rhyme - but rhymes and realism were never promised.

George writes on fantasy in glowing terms (see below). Obviously the actual books aren't pure sugar, but still, you've got to take it into account.

Quote

 

ON FANTASY

The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real … for a moment at least … that long magic moment before we wake.

Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true?

We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La.

They can keep their heaven. When I die, I’d sooner go to middle Earth.

 

 

Edited November 12, 2023 by Springwatch
bold

[SaffronLady]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Minas Tirith

Minas Tirith is embroiled in a battle for the soul of the world, against cosmic evil at basically the outset of the story. It is easy to ignore how its bureaucracy is not explored in detail.

It is quite a different matter for a city ... that holds a throne ... and without cosmic evil up and forefront ... in a book called A Game of Thrones.

What we do know of the bureaucracy of the Seven Kingdoms can't even hold a real-life city-state together - as deduced from the great art of extrapolation, more commonly used to reconstruct musculature from tendon marks on skeletons. I am willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of reading the story, doesn't change that it's still hilarious worldbuilding.

[SaffronLady]

My biggest bone to pick with ASOIAF worldbuilding is something minor though:

Why is Essos basically a very big rectangle? Does it even rain enough to support agriculture in the hinterlands of Essos past the Dothraki Sea? If not, why are there settlements in places drier than nomad grazing zones?

[Ran]

1 minute ago, SaffronLady said:

What we do know of the bureaucracy

We literally know a thimble-full about the bureaucracy. Again, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

The fact that this is how it's described is enough to tell us, "Well, a bureaucracy must exist to have made this possible":

Quote

Three hundred years ago, Catelyn knew, those heights had been covered with forest, and only a handful of fisherfolk had lived on the north shore of the Blackwater Rush where that deep, swift river flowed into the sea. Then Aegon the Conqueror had sailed from Dragonstone. It was here that his army had put ashore, and there on the highest hill that he built his first crude redoubt of wood and earth.

Now the city covered the shore as far as Catelyn could see; manses and arbors and granaries, brick storehouses and timbered inns and merchant's stalls, taverns and graveyards and brothels, all piled one on another. She could hear the clamor of the fish market even at this distance. Between the buildings were broad roads lined with trees, wandering crookback streets, and alleys so narrow that two men could not walk abreast. Visenya's hill was crowned by the Great Sept of Baelor with its seven crystal towers. Across the city on the hill of Rhaenys stood the blackened walls of the Dragonpit, its huge dome collapsing into ruin, its bronze doors closed now for a century. The Street of the Sisters ran between them, straight as an arrow. The city walls rose in the distance, high and strong.

A hundred quays lined the waterfront, and the harbor was crowded with ships. Deepwater fishing boats and river runners came and went, ferrymen poled back and forth across the Blackwater Rush, trading galleys unloaded goods from Braavos and Pentos and Lys. Catelyn spied the queen's ornate barge, tied up beside a fat-bellied whaler from the Port of Ibben, its hull black with tar, while upriver a dozen lean golden warships rested in their cribs, sails furled and cruel iron rams lapping at the water.

And above it all, frowning down from Aegon's high hill, was the Red Keep; seven huge drum-towers crowned with iron ramparts, an immense grim barbican, vaulted halls and covered bridges, barracks and dungeons and granaries, massive curtain walls studded with archers' nests, all fashioned of pale red stone. Aegon the Conqueror had commanded it built. His son Maegor the Cruel had seen it completed. Afterward he had taken the heads of every stonemason, woodworker, and builder who had labored on it. Only the blood of the dragon would ever know the secrets of the fortress the Dragonlords had built, he vowed.

But GRRM doesn't care about it, so it doesn't show up. You can very easily read a pop culture history of the reign of, I don't know, Henry V, and never read a  single thing about the bureaucracy that kept London going, and the briefest sketch of the bureaucracy of the royal household. 

[Aldarion]

11 hours ago, Springwatch said:

He's not trying for realism; he's very obvious about it. Complaining about missing realism is like complaining the lines don't rhyme - but rhymes and realism were never promised.

First, yes, he did make claims for realism:

https://ew.com/article/2015/06/03/george-rr-martin-thrones-violence-women/

Quote

“Now there are people who will say to that, ‘Well, he’s not writing history, he’s writing fantasy—he put in dragons, he should have made an egalitarian society.’ Just because you put in dragons doesn’t mean you can put in anything you want. If pigs could fly, then that’s your book. But that doesn’t mean you also want people walking on their hands instead of their feet. If you’re going to do [a fantasy element], it’s best to only do one of them, or a few. I wanted my books to be strongly grounded in history and to show what medieval society was like, and I was also reacting to a lot of fantasy fiction. Most stories depict what I call the ‘Disneyland Middle Ages’—there are princes and princesses and knights in shining armor, but they didn’t want to show what those societies meant and how they functioned.

https://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/6040/

Quote

The Dothraki were actually fashioned as an amalgam of a number of steppe and plains cultures... Mongols and Huns, certainly, but also Alans, Sioux, Cheyenne, and various other Amerindian tribes... seasoned with a dash of pure fantasy. So any resemblance to Arabs or Turks is coincidental. Well, except to the extent that the Turks were also originally horsemen of the steppes, not unlike the Alans, Huns, and the rest.

There do exist many other cultures and civilizations in my world, to be sure. The peoples of Yi Ti have been mentioned, as have the Jogos Nhai. I am not sure to what extent those peoples will ever enter this present story, however... their lands are very far away.

(I also have peoples and tribes that are pure fantasy constructs, like the Qartheen and the brindled men of Sothoryos).

In general, though, while I do draw inspiration from history, I try to avoid direct one-for-one transplants, whether of individuals or of entire cultures. Just as it not correct to say that Robert was Henry VIII or Edward IV, it would not be correct to say that the Dothraki are Mongols.

https://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/1432/

Quote

Martin does a lot of research on any story that has a historical or quasi-historical setting. For the series, he immersed himself in the Middle Ages, reading everything he could about such things as castles, tourneys, knighthood, food, medicine, clothing, and customs. He also read histories of things like the Hundred Years War, the Wars of the Roses, the Crusades, and so on. In his opinion, the more you can take in of a period, the more your work will have a sense of truthfulness.

https://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/1176

Quote

Do you find that people are not so much interested in the realism of the series, and want a "happy ending?"

Some people, sure. But thankfully there are also many thousands who prefer a more complex, adult, and realistic flavor of fantasy. What can I say? Tastes vary. Some people like to eat at McDonald's.

Second, most people reading his works also believe Westeros is realistic. Therefore, such discussions would be necessary even if Martin did not make claims to realism. But he did, and he failed to deliver.

11 hours ago, Ran said:

But GRRM doesn't care about it, so it doesn't show up.

Which is rather ironic, considering:

https://www.tolkiensociety.org/2014/04/grrm-asks-what-was-aragorns-tax-policy/

Quote

Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles?

I know he wasn't talking about literal tax policy here, but nevertheless he was asking about a question that Tolkien did answer where Martin himself failed to.

And him confronting Tolkien on realism is ironic considering Tolkien's worldbuilding is far more realistic than Martin's. Which in itself is ironic seeing how Tolkien set out to write a mythology whereas Martin's books are more of an imagined history.

As I said, main problem I have is the fact that many people assume that Westeros, or perhaps even Planetos itself, is somehow realistic. And while such assumption may not be entirely Martin's fault, he certainly did make statements that helped fuel it.

20 hours ago, Ran said:

At some point in history, everything was something that had never happened before.

Doesn't change the fact that it was badly done.

13 hours ago, Ran said:

It's not described. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I think that's a fundamental error.

Prior to AFfC, you might have supposed the king personally locked up criminals, but there's a whole bureaucracy that gets detailed there. George will never work out the full bureaucracy for KL, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it just means he doesn't care.

It's like... Minas Tirith. Where's the bureaucracy that explains every facet of that place? No one cares, it's easy enough to suppose it can exist.

But here is the thing: Minas Tirith and Gondor in general are presented in such a way that it is easy to believe that such a bureaucracy does exist, even if it is never described. We know that Denethor has his council and we see arrangements for the Guard and similar. We see that the Captains of the provinces are ultimately under authority of the White Tower. This and similar details, the way characters act, make it rather clear that we are in fact dealing with a state with rather extensive, one may say Byzantine, bureaucratic apparatus. And once that becomes clear, everything else about Gondor falls into place.

ASoIaF? Not so much. Here actually lack of detail works in Tolkien's favour, because Martin does show some bureaucracy and what he shows has some rather negative implications for the state of the overall bureaucracy. It is far easier to believe that Gondor has functioning government than it is for the Seven Kingdoms. Tolkien makes an art of leaving out details; Martin's detailed descriptions merely serve to trip him up.

More to the point, Lord of the Rings is a story about confronting a fallen angel in a covert operation. A Song of Ice and Fire is (so far) a story about a civil war in a continent-spanning empire. Yes, you may say that the Others are the real threat - but that doesn't change the fact that while they may be the endgame villain, story so far has not been about them. Sauron has been main threat of Lord of the Rings even from before the events of the story: his presence and impact are obvious from the outset, even before the story actually kicks off with Bilbo's party. There are rumors, fear, events that while not exactly major still were caused directly by Sauron and reach as far as Shire (for example, the easy-to-miss first mention of Ents in the Fellowship of the Ring). And all of that long before any actual agents of Sauron appear.

Sauron shapes the story from the very beginning. In A Song of Ice and Fire, however, there are only scant few who know about the Others, and impact of the Others is only truly felt at the Wall and beyond it. And even then, most of the people at the Wall do not actually believe in their existence.

Therefore, expectations are automatically different. Because for now at least, ASoIaF is a story about politics. And that means that we ought to know a fair bit about how politics of the Seven Kingdoms actually work.